Robert Pike said such
testimony ought not to hang a cat, the widow being little more than a
fool; and as for the fellow Gladding, he was no doubt in his cups, for
he had often seen him in such a plight that he could not have told Goody
Morse from the Queen of Sheba.
June 8.
The Morse woman having been found guilty by the Court of Assistants,
she was brought out to the North Meeting, to hear the Thursday Lecture,
yesterday, before having her sentence. The house was filled with
people, they being curious to see the witch. The Marshal and the
constables brought her in, and set her in, front of the pulpit; the old
creature looking round her wildly, as if wanting her wits, and then
covering her face with her dark wrinkled hands; a dismal sight! The
minister took his text in Romans xiii. 3, 4, especially the last clause
of the 4th verse, relating to rulers: For he beareth not the sword in
vain, &c. He dwelt upon the power of the ruler as a Minister of God,
and as a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil; and showeth
that the punishment of witches and such as covenant with the Devil is
one of the duties expressly enjoined upon rulers by the Word of God,
inasmuch as a witch was not to be suffered to live.
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