The following extracts-from the laws, will show the peculiar spirit of Sam's Puritan fathers:

"Blasphemy, which is the cursing of God by atheism or the like, to be punished with death.

Idolatry to be punished with death.

Witchcraft, which is fellowship by covenant with a familiar spirit, to be punished with death.

Consulters with witches not to be tolerated, but either to be cut off by death or banishment.

Heresy, which is the maintenance of some wicked errors, overthrowing the foundation of the Christian religion; which obstinacy, if it be joined with endeavor to seduce others thereunto, to be punished with death; because such a heretic, no less than an idolater, seeketh to thrust the souls of men from the Lord their God.

To worship God in a molten or graven image, to be punished with death.

Such members of the church as do willfully reject to walk, after due admonition and conviction, in the Church's establishment, and their Christian admonitions and censures, shall be cut off by banishment.

Whoever shall revile the religion and worship of God, and the government of the church, as it is now established, to be cut off by banishment.-Cor. v, 5.

Willful perjury, whether before the judgment-seat, or in private conference, to be punished with death.

Profaning the Lord's day, in a careless and scornful neglect, or contempt thereof, to be punished with death.

Reviling the magistrates in highest rank among us, to wit: the governors and council, to be punished with death.1 Kings ii, 8, 9 and 46.

Rebellious children, whether they continue in riot or drunkenness, after due correction from their parents, or whether they curse or smite their parents, to be put to death.-Ex. xxi, 15, 17; Lev. xx, 9.

Adultery, which is the defiling of the marriage bed, to be punished with death. Defiling a woman espoused, is a kind of adultery, and punishable by death of both parties, but if a woman be forced, then by the death of the man only.-Lev. xx, 10; Deut. xxii, 22-27.

Incest, which is the defiling of any near of akin, within

the degrees prohibited in Leviticus, to be punished with death. Whoredom of a maiden in her father's house, kept secret till after her marriage with another, to be punished with death.-Deut. xxii, 20, 21.

Man stealing to be punished with death.-Ex. xxi, 16. False-witness-bearing to be punished with death."

Concerning the Rights of Inheritance, the following, among others, were the laws:

"That no free burgess, or free inhabitant of any town, shall sell land allotted to him in the town (unless the free burgesses of the town give consent unto such sale, or refuse to give due price, answerable to what others offer, without fraud,) but to some one or other of the free burgesses or free inhabitants of the same town.

That if such lands be sold by any others, the sale shall be made with reservation of such rent-charge, to be paid to the town stock or treasury of the town, as either the former occupiers of the land were wont to pay toward all the public charges thereof, whether in church or town; or at least after the rate of three shillings per acre, or some such like proportion, more or less, as shall be thought fit.

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For the supporting of the worship of God in church fellowship, it was ordered: That wheresoever the lands of any man's inheritance shall fall, yet no man shall set his dwelling-house above the distance of half a mile, or a mile at the farthest, from the meeting of the congregation, where the church doth usually assemble for the worship of God.'

If a man have more sons than one, then a double proportion to be assigned and bequeathed to the eldest son, according to the law of nature; unless his own demerit deprive him of the dignity of his birth.

Under the head of Trespasses, the following is found: 'If a man's ox, or other beast, gore or bite, and kill a man or woman, whether child or riper age, the beast shall be killed, and no benefit of the dead beast reserved to the owner. But if the ox, or beast were wont to push or bite in time past, and the owner hath been told of it, and hath not kept him in, then both the ox, or beast, shall be forfeited, and the owner also put to death, or fined to pay what the judges and persons damnified, shall lay upon him.'

LESS HEINOUS CRIMES.

Forcing a maid (or rape), was not to be punished with death by God's law, but with fine or penalty to the father of the maid-by marriage of the maid defiled, if she and her father consent; or with corporeal punishment of stripes for his wrong, as a slander.

Fornication to be punished with the marriage of the maid, giving her a sufficient dowry; or with stripes, though fewer from the equity of the former case.

In time of war, men betrothed and not married, or newly married, or such as have newly built or planted, and not received the fruits of their labor, and such as are faint-hearted men not to be pressed or forced against their wills, to go forth to wars.-Deut. xx, 5-8, and xxiv, 5. All wickedness to be removed out of the camp, by severe discipline.-Deut. xxiii, 9, 14. And in war, men of a corrupt and false religion are not to be accepted, much less sought for.-2 Chron. xxv, 7, 8. Women, especially such as have lain by man-little children and cattle, are to be spared and reserved from spoil.-Deut. xx, 14. Some minister to be sent forth to go with the army, for their instruction and encouragement.'Deut. xx, 2, 3, 4.

Every town was to have judges within themselves, who were empowered, once in each month, or in three months at the farthest, to hear and determine civil as well as criminal causes, which were not capital; reserving liberty of appeal to the court of governor and assistants.-Deut. xvi, 18. defect of a law in any case, the decision was to be by the word of God.

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In

An abstract of the laws was published in London, by William Aspinwall, in 1641. Wherein,' says he, as in a mirror, may be seen the wisdom and perfection of Christ's kingdom, accommodable to any state or form of government in the world, that it is not antichristian and tyrannical.' In an address to the reader, he says: Concerning which model, I dare not pronounce that it is without imperfection in every particular; yet, this I dare be bold to say, that it far sur passeth all the municipal laws and statutes of any of the Gentile nations and corporations under the code of Heaven.""

CHAPTER VII.

Commencement of the Witch-burning Comedy-Exemplary Mr. Philip Smith, and the Valdemar Case.

The

It must be confessed, after Sam's first "Body of Rights," that we can not well be surprised at any reasonable amount of fantastic bigotry originating about these times. famous code of "Blue Laws," of which this bill was the foundation, seems so much a matter of course, as to have no room for comment-while even the "Witch burning" of 1692, appears only a consequential ebullition of the same grim juvenility; as for the "Slave-trade," to which Sam is now accused of being somewhat opposed, how else could it have originated in a New World, but in this same spirit of youthful indiscretion? As for selling the miserable remnants of the gallant tribes, whom his wholesale massacre nearly extirpated into foreign bondage, it was, confessedly practical by Sam for two hundred years, and justified by "the sternest morality!"†

But as the hanging of the Quakers was the coolest, so the hanging of the witches was the most ludicrous feat of the young Sam. The stories which the chronicles of that period tell of his facetious freaks under the influence of this new pietistic whim, are truly refreshing and worthy of our recurrence.

It may be supposed that, having been signally defeated in all his attempts at retaliation against the French and Indians in "King William's war," which broke out in 1690, and finding little consolation in the easy capture of the insignificant fortress of "Port Royal," for the tremendous rebuff of his boastful expedition against Quebec, Sam grew sulky in his misfortune, and, like other pious souls at such times, began to see sights and dream dreams.

Bancroft, p. 173, 4.

† Idem, p. 163.

It seems, that as early as 1645, he had been spiritually exercised upon the grave subject of "prestigious agency," and that divers and sundry bedridden dames, and dim old specimens of the "burning and shining lights of Israel" had been put to death for the above awfully named crime, for Hudibras' ingenious reason, that they were men and women who could be better spared to the State.

But Sam surely outdid himself in Hadley, Connecticut, in 1684. One of his pet saints, Cotton Mather, tells this story-Magnalia, vol. 2, book 6—and it will be read with not the less interest, since all the modern children of Sam will recognize in it the original and perfect skeleton of the celebrated "Valdemar case" of Edgar A. Poe exhumed.

It is given in the exact language of Cotton, which must be the excuse for any indelicacies of phraseology peculiar to the rugged earnestness of the writer and his times:

"Mr. Philip Smith, aged about fifty years, a son of eminently virtuous parents, a deacon of a church in Hadley, a member of the General Court, a justice in the country court, a selectman for the affairs of the town, a lieutenant of the troop, and which crowns all, a man for devotion, sanctity, gravity, and all that was honest exceeding exemplary, such a man was, in the year 1684, murdered with a hideous witchcraft, that filled all those parts of New England with astonishment. He was, by his office, concerned about relieving the indigence of a wretched woman in the town, who being dissatisfied at some of his just cares about her, expressed herself unto him in such a manner, that he declared himself, thenceforward, apprehensive of receiving mischief at her hands.

"About the beginning of January, he began to be very valetudinarious, laboring under pains that seemed ischiatic. The by-standers could now see in him one ripening apace for another world, and filled with grace and joy to a high degree. He showed such weanedness from, and weariness of the world, that he knew not (he said), whether he might pray for his continuance here; and such assurance he had of the Divine love unto him, that in raptures he would cry out, Lord, stay thy hand, it is enough, it is more than thy frail servant can bear. But in the midst of these things he still uttered a hard suspicion that the ill-woman who had threatened him,