It seems that she was frequently the subject of sickness, and her bodily powers much weakened.  The probability is, that the long-continued strain kept upon her muscular and nervous organization, during the witchcraft scenes, had destroyed her constitution.  Such uninterrupted and vehement exercise, to their utmost tension, of the imaginative, intellectual, and physical powers, in crowded and heated rooms, before the public gaze, and under the feverish and consuming influence of bewildering and all but delirious excitement, could hardly fail to sap the foundations of health in so young a child.  The tradition is, that she had a slow and fluctuating decline.  The language of her will intimates, that, at intervals, there were apparent checks to her disease, and rallies of strength,—­“oftentimes sick and weak in body.”  She inherited from her mother a sensitive and fragile constitution; but her father, although brought to the grave, probably by the terrible responsibilities and trials in which he had been involved, at a comparatively early age, belonged to a long-lived race and neighborhood.  The opposite elements of her composition struggled in a protracted contest,—­on the one side, a nature morbidly subject to nervous excitability sinking under the exhaustion of an overworked, overburdened, and shattered system; on the other, tenacity of life.  The conflict continued with alternating success for years; but the latter gave way at last.  Her story, in all its aspects, is worthy of the study of the psychologist.  Her confession, profession, and death point the moral.

The Rev. Joseph Green died Nov. 26, 1715.  The following tribute to his memory is inscribed on the records of the church.  It is in the handwriting, and style of thought and language, of Deacon Edward Putnam.

“Then was the choicest flower and greenest olive-tree in the garden of our God here cut down in its prime and flourishing estate at the age of forty years and two days, who had been a faithful ambassador from God to us eighteen years.  Then did that bright star set, and never more to appear here among us; then did our sun go down; and now what darkness is come upon us!  Put away and pardon our iniquities, O Lord! which have been the cause of thy sore displeasure, and return to us again in mercy, and provide yet again for this thy flock a pastor after thy own heart, as thou hath promised to thy people in thy word; on which promise we have hope, for we are called by thy name; and, oh, leave us not!”

The Rev. Peter Clark was ordained June 5, 1717.  The termination of the connection between the Salem Village church and the witchcraft delusion, and all similar kinds of absurdity and wickedness, is marked by the following record, which fully and for ever redeems its character.  If Samuel Parris had been as wise and brave as Peter Clark, he would, in the same decisive manner, have nipped the thing in the bud.

     "Salem Village Church Records.