Cotton Mather passed his last years in groaning over the decline of the faith and the ingratitude of a people for whom he had done so much.

Very significant is one of his complaints, since it shows the evolution of a more scientific mode of thought abroad as well as at home: he laments in his diary that English publishers gladly printed Calef's book, but would no longer publish his own, and he declares this "an attack upon the glory of the Lord." About forty years after the New England epidemic of "possession" occurred another typical series of phenomena in France.

In 1727 there died at the French capital a simple and kindly ecclesiastic, the Archdeacon Paris.

He had lived a pious, Christian life, and was endeared to multitudes by his charity; unfortunately, he had espoused the doctrine of Jansen on grace and free will, and, though he remained in the Gallican Church, he and those who thought like him were opposed by the Jesuits, and finally condemned by a papal bull.
His remains having been buried in the cemetery of St.Medard, the Jansenists flocked to say their prayers at his grave, and soon miracles began to be wrought there.

Ere long they were multiplied.