Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/68

 *en disturbing the exercises of prayer-meetings and the services of the sanctuary.

On one Sabbath-day, when Mr. Lawson was to preach, before he had time to commence, one of the girls, Abigail Williams, the niece of Mr. Parris, rudely called out to him, "Come, stand up, and name your text;" and when he had given it, she insolently replied, "That is a long text." And during the sermon, another of them impudently called out, "Come, there is enough of that." And again, as the no doubt disconcerted speaker referred to the point of doctrine he had been endeavoring to expound, the same insolent voice called out to him, "I did not know you had any doctrine; if you did, I have forgotten it." While yet another became so riotous and noisy that the persons near her in the "seatings," as they were termed, had to hold her down to prevent the services being wholly broken up.

As the girls were regarded with mingled pity and consternation, as being the helpless victims of some terrible and supernatural power, they were not punished or reprimanded; and as they were some of them