Mather and Byrd

Cotton Mather was a prodigy of his time, going to Harvard at the age of eleven an graduating with a degree by eighteen.  In due time, he succeeded his father as the minister of the Second Church in Boston.  All, but two of his children died before he did and so did all three of his wives.

Mather's writings remind me of a very "Bible thumping" service.  There were very arrogant, but at the same time very passionate and descriptive.  In his writing, The Wonders of the Invisible World, he refers to the Bible many times:

"...Remember whence we are fallen, and repent, and do the first works."
"...That He should have the utmost parts of earth for his possession."
"...The Serpent cast out of his Mouth a Flood for the carrying of it away."

Mather's was also an avid witch hunter in Salem.  He was present when Bridget Bishop was put on trial accused of witchcraft.  To me, a lot that was written about this trial could have easily been explained, such as the child having fits, which could have just been seizures.  Many of the accusations were based on if the towns people got along with Mrs. Bishop or not.

"...being angry that she was thus hindered from fingering the money, quarreled with Bly.  Soon after which, the sow was taken with strange fits, jumping, leaping, and knocking her head against the fence; she seemed blind and deaf and would neither eat nor be sucked..."

"...convicted of gross Lying in the court, several times, while she was making her plea; but besides this, a jury of woman found a preternatural teat upon her body; but upon a second search, within three or four hours, there was no such thing to be seen."

William Byrd was born in 1674 at James River.  He went to England to receive his education and at twenty-two he returned to Virginia.  When his father died, he became a receiver-general of revenues.  From there moved up and became a member of the Senate.

Unlike Mather's in your face "do this in God's name or the Devil will get you" way of writing, Byrd was more into insulting people, calling them wretches and infidels.  He made it seem people in North Carolina were uneducated and simple, doing nothing more than raising pigs and cows.

"Both cattle and hogs ramble into the neighboring marshes and swamps, where they maintain themselves the whole winter long, and are not fetched home till the spring.  Thus these indolent wretches, during one half of the year, lose the advantage of the milk of their cattle, as well as their dung, and many of the poor creatures perish in the mire, into the bargain, by this ill management."

He also thought if the English would have interracial marriages with the Indians, just for the fact there would then be more people to work (mainly thinking about his own land) and to make them more Caucasian like.

"..converting these poor infidels, and reclaiming them from barbarity, and that is, charitably to intermarry with them, according to the modern policy of the most Christian king in Canada and Louisiana.  Had the English done this at the first settlement of the colony, the infidelity of the Indians had been worn out at this day, with their dark complexions, and the country had swarmed with people more than it does with insects."

To me Mather's way of talking to people through his work would be more successful than that of Byrd, because he was more forceful and angry.