Robert Calef, though probably not in advance of many others in detecting and dissenting mentally from the public errors of faith and practice in relation to witchcraft, was first to manifest nerve enough to speak out boldly his own thoughts and those of many others. Backed and aided probably by strong and learned men, he became to Christendom’s witchcraft, as Martin Luther had been to its Roman creeds and practices, a bold, outspoken protestant. Each of them dared to brave strong currents of popular beliefs and practices, even when the course was encompassed with dangers. Each probably was moved and sustained by firm conviction that truth, right, and justice were on his side; each had nerve enough to stand firm and resolute in his self-chosen post of danger and philanthropy; and each was, to great extent, successful. Luther challenged the pope and his devotees to justify portions of their creed and practices, and Calef did the same to Cotton Mather, as a leading annunciator and expounder of the witchcraft creed. Luther and Calef each conceded that much in the creed of those whom he contested was founded on Scripture, and so far was impregnable; but they saw that many unauthorized and baneful appendages had been put upon true scriptural faith and instructions, and each labored to sever the true and good from the false and bad with which the currents of opinions and events had long been investing them. Neither of them, however, discerned all the errors and pernicious practices which have since become visible. Luther, though he saw, or at least heard, and scolded, and threw his ink-horn at Catholicism’s devil, did not discard, but retained, in his Protestant creed, both him and witchcraft as they then existed in the Catholic belief. Calef conceded the positive existence of Mather’s great personal witchcraft devil of supernal origin, vast power, and ever-burning malignity, but found him commissioned only by God—never by human witches, as it was then generally believed he was and must be, when he manifested his power through or upon man.

We are much in doubt as to whether Calef was properly author of a large part of what he published relating to witchcraft. The articles he put forth from time to time seem to us very varied in style and in merits as to their scholarly and rhetorical airs. It is said, in vol. i. p. 288, Mass. Hist. Soc. Records, that “Calef was furnished with materials for his work by Mr. Brattle of Cambridge, and his brother of Boston, and other gentlemen who were opposed to the Salem proceedings.” He may have had—and we conjecture that he had—much help in putting his materials into the form in which they came before the public. We are able to learn very little concerning the man himself. It is usual to style him a Boston merchant, but Mather alludes to him as that “weaver,” &c.

Whatever may have been his culture, occupation, character, or social position, he assumed the responsibility of what is imputed to him—and we very willingly leave uncontested both his claims to have been author of all that he subscribed to, and to be called a Boston merchant.

Calef went into his work in deep earnest, and perhaps from a strong sense of duty to God and man; he perceived that departure from teachings and requirements of the Scriptures, and adoption of opinions, processes of examination, and kinds of evidence which the Scriptures did not prescribe, had occasioned the chief woes of witchcraft, and therefore devoted much time to the work of producing great and needed change in public opinion. He continued for some time to write clearly and forcibly to Mather; but, failing there to get his fundamental questions squarely and satisfactorily met, after months of trial, addressed a letter “to the ministers, whether English, French, or Dutch,” upon this subject; this general application, however, failed to bring a response. Next he tried the Rev. Samuel Willard individually, then “all the ministers in and near Boston;” afterward Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth singly; but his success in eliciting replies was so meager, that we apparently may apply to those from whom he sought information the following words which he used in reference to some who had defined rules by which to detect witchcraft,—viz., “Perhaps the force of a prevailing opinion, together with an education thereto suited, might overshadow their judgments.” His dates show that his calls for either refutation or assent to his positions were continued for two or three years, and that he was not simply or mainly an opponent of Mather, but an earnest seeker for light. In 1700, his collected correspondence, together with much other matter from Mather’s pen and other sources, was published in London, and entitled “More wonders of the Invisible World,” Mather having previously published “Wonders of the Invisible World.”

This clear-sighted, earnest, untiring spirit soon gained the public ear extensively, began to enlighten the public mind, and turn it into new channels of thought and inquiry. Though not a polished, he was an intelligible, logical, and forceful writer in the main, and did much toward accomplishing the reformation to which he devoted his energies.

Calef was a moral hero, and bravely did noble work in bringing flood tides of murderous fanaticism, error, and delusion to an ebb, and in barring channels against their return. His appropriate stand in history’s niches may be at the head of Witchcraft Reformers—not repudiators, but Reformers.