The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut Part 16

Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon at Enfield in 1741, on "Sinners in the hands of an Angry G.o.d," was inspired to say to the impenitent: "The G.o.d that holds you over the pit of h.e.l.l, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath toward you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are 10,000 times so abominable in His eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.... Instead of one how many is it likely will remember this discourse in h.e.l.l! And it would be a wonder if some that are now present should not be in h.e.l.l in a very short time--before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house, in health and quiet, and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning." One hundred and sixty-three years later, Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Carter, a G.o.dly minister of the same faith, "a heretic who is no heretic," stood before the presbytery of Na.s.sau, was invited to remain in the Presbyterian communion, and yet said this of the doctrine of Edwards, as written in the _Westminster Confession_: "In G.o.d's name and Christ's name it is not true. There is no such G.o.d as the G.o.d of the confession. There is no such world as the world of the confession. There is no such eternity as the eternity of the confession.... This world so full of flowers and sunshine and the laughter of children is not a cursed lost world, and the 'endless torment' of the confession is not G.o.d's, nor Christ's, nor the Bible's idea of future punishment."

What should const.i.tute the true faith of a Christian, and set him apart from his fellowmen in duties and observances, was one of the crucial questions in the everyday life of the early New England colonists, and the hanging and discipline of witches was one of its necessary incidents.

It was the same spirit of intolerance and of religious animosity that was written in the treatment of the Quakers and Baptists at Boston; in the experience of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson; and of "The Rogerenes" in Connecticut, for "profanation of the Sabbath," told in a chapter of forgotten history.

In the sunlight of the later revelation, is not the present judgment of the men and women of those far off times, "when the wheel of prayer was in perpetual motion," when fear and superst.i.tion and the wrath of an angry G.o.d ruled the strongest minds, truly interpreted in the solemn afterthoughts which the poet ascribes to the magistrate and minister at the grave of Giles Corey?

HATHORNE

"This is the Potter's Field. Behold the fate Of those who deal in witchcrafts, and when questioned, Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence, And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.

MATHER

"Those who lie buried in the Potter's Field Will rise again as surely as ourselves That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs; And this poor man whom we have made a victim, Hereafter will be counted as a martyr."

_The New England Tragedies._

HISTORICAL NOTE

ROGER LUDLOW

The Connecticut historians to a very recent date, in ignorance of the facts, and despite his notable services of twenty-four years to the colonies, left Ludlow to die in obscurity in Virginia or elsewhere, and some of the traditions, based on no record or other evidence, have been recently repeated. It is therefore proper to state here in few words who Ludlow was, what he did both in Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut, and after his "return into England" in 1654.

Ludlow came of an ancient English family, which gave to history in his own time and generation such ill.u.s.trious kinsmen as Sir Henry Ludlow, a member of the Long Parliament and one of the Puritan leaders, and Sir Edmund Ludlow, member of Parliament, Lieutenant-General under Cromwell, member of the court at King Charles' trial, and whom Macaulay named "the most ill.u.s.trious saviour of a mighty race of men, the judges of a king, the founders of a republic."

In May, 1630, Ludlow came to Ma.s.sachusetts, as one of the a.s.sistants under the charter of "The Governor and company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in New England."

His services in the Bay Colony from 1630-35 ranged from the duties of a magistrate in the Great Charter Court to those of the high office of Deputy Governor. The quality of that service is written in a bare statement of his various offices--surveyor, negotiator of the Pequot treaty, colonel ex officio, auditor of Governor Winthrop's accounts, superintendent of fortifications, military commissioner, member of the General Court, Deputy Governor when Thomas Dudley was Governor; and he was always one of the foremost men in civil, political, and social affairs, to the day of his departure to "the valley of the long river,"--a day of good fortune for Connecticut.

When Ma.s.sachusetts established church membership as the condition of suffrage,--and radical differences of opinion on other matters arose,--it marked the culmination of a set purpose of some of her ablest men to remove from her jurisdiction, among whom Hooker, Ludlow, and Haynes were the most notable. The General Court created a commission to govern Connecticut for a year, and made Ludlow its chief. He came to the new land of promise with the Dorchester men, and settled in Windsor in 1635-36.

What he did in the nineteen years of his residence at Windsor and Fairfield is epitomized in a brief summary of the duties and honors to which he was called by his fellowmen:

Chief of the Ma.s.sachusetts commission and the first Governor, de facto; organizer and chief magistrate of the first court; writer of the earliest laws; president of the court which declared war against the Pequots; framer of the Fundamental Orders--the Const.i.tution of 1639--which embodied the great principles of government by the people propounded and elucidated by the ill.u.s.trious Thomas Hooker, in his letter to Governor Winthrop, and in his famous sermon; compiler, at the request of the General Court, of the _Body of Lawes_, the _Code of 1650_; commissioner on important state matters; commissioner for the United Colonies; founder and defender of Fairfield; patriot, jurist, statesman.

Ludlow left Connecticut in 1654, not to die in obscurity as the earlier writers imagined, but to serve abroad for several years in positions of honor and distinction.

Cromwell invited him to return, as he did many of the leading Puritans in New England, and appointed him a commissioner for the administration of justice in Dublin; also to serve with the chief justice of the upper bench and other distinguished lawyers, to determine all the claims to the forfeited Irish lands, and at last as a Master in Chancery.

Ten years Ludlow served in these important stations; and at his death, probably in 1664, he was buried in St. Michael's churchyard in Dublin, with his wife--a sister of Governor John Endicott--and other members of his family.[K]

[Footnote K: _Roger Ludlow--The Colonial Lawmaker_--TAYLOR.]