"Every sinful act seems to me a yielding to the evil one, and such yielding becoming common, he may at least be able to enter into the soul, and take absolute possession of it.

Oh, it is very fearful!" and she shuddered.
"But I find one opinion almost universal in Salem," continued Raymond, "and that is one which I think has no ground to sustain it in the scriptures, and is very mischievous.

It is that the devil cannot act directly upon human beings to afflict and torment them; but that he is forced to have recourse to the agency of other human beings, who have become his worshipers and agents.

Thus in the cases of these children and young girls, instead of admitting that the devil and his imps are directly afflicting them, they begin to look around for witches and wizards as the sources of the trouble." "Yes," responded Joseph Putnam earnestly, "that false and unscriptural doctrine is the source of all the trouble.

That little Ann Putnam, Abigail Williams and the others are bewitched, may perhaps be true--a number of godly ministers say so, and they ought to know.