Mather

a distinguished family of New England divines.

RICHARD MATHER (1596-1669) was a native of Lancashire, England, a district noted for Lollardism. He was a schoolmaster near Liverpool and was educated at Oxford for the Church of England. He was installed as pastor in the village where he had taught. In 1633 he was silenced for failure to observe the ceremonies required by the ritual. He emigrated to Boston in 1635 and next year became pastor of the Dorchester Church, a position he held till his death. He assisted in the compilation of the Bay Psalm Book, and of a book of discipline known as the Cambridge Platform. His Journal was issued by the Dorchester Historical Society in 1850.

INCREASE MATHER (1639-1723) was the son of Richard. He was born at Dorchester. He was graduated at Harvard in 1656 and was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, where he again received a degree in 1658. During the remaining days of the Commonwealth he preached in Devonshire and Guernsey. On the restoration of the Stuarts he preferred to return to America rather than conform to the rules of the Church of England. On his arrival he was invited to the pastorate of the North Church, Boston, a position he held for over sixty years. He was a laborious writer. He committed his sermons to memory. He served as acting president of Harvard for many years and would have been made president, but for the reluctance of his church to release him. He received the first degree of D. D. granted by Harvard. He was sent to England in 1688 to ask William and Mary or a new charter in lieu of the former charter revoked by Charles II. The court of Massachusetts appointed a day of Thanksgiving for his safe return and the success of his mission. Although his income was small, he devoted one-tenth, the Scriptural tithe, to religious and charitable purposes. He spent sixteen hours a day in his study. A list of his writings includes nearly a hundred titles. He believed in witchcraft, but was not in sympathy with the persecution of reputed witches.

COTTON MATHER (1663-1728), the son of the preceding, was named for his two grandfathers, John Cotton and Richard Mather. He was graduated from Harvard at the age of fifteen, the course then offering less science, mathematics, and history than an ordinary high school of the present day. He became his father's associate and successor. He was a man of prodigious learning. He wrote many works, branching out into French, Spanish, and Algonquin. A list of his writings, now forgotten, includes 382 titles. He carried on a correspondence with the learned men of Great Britain. He was made a D. D. by the University of Glasgow. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the first American to receive the honor. He was ambitious to become the president of Harvard, but the honor did not come to him. In some respects he was a progressive man, and yet he was superstitious. He ran the risk of mob violence in the advocacy of inoculation for smallpox--the first experiment of the kind in Boston, and yet he was in the forefront of the trials for witchcraft and acquiesced in the execution of a score of reputed witches. Subsequently, however, he appears to have been ashamed of his part in the matter. He was much irritated by a weaver who called attention in print to his credulity. Mather called the weaver a "coal from hell" and prosecuted him for slander, but thought it wise not to bring the suit to trial.

When Franklin revisited Boston, he called on Cotton Mather, not only as the leading clergyman of Boston, but the American best known abroad. He related the following incident illustrative of the Mathers' custom of touching on some religious or moral truth on every occasion.

He received me in his library; and, on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly toward him, when he said hastily: "Stoop! stoop!" I did not understand until I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed an occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me: "You are young, and have the world before you; stoop as you go through, and you will escape many hard thumps." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortune brought upon people by carrying their heads too high.

See Witchcraft