My heart beats with great pain, my breath echoes with shrills of regret. I am a broken minister, I am crushed, my soul burdened with remorse and guilt. Nineteen souls were plucked from this world, nineteen souls prematurely sent to the judgment seat of Christ. Nineteen whose hearts I pillaged, searching for witchery and demons when it was the truth I did not see! I turned a blind eye to the truth and instead all I have seen were the lies and hysteria of Salem! God forgive me, god forgive my soul, I believed them! Countless souls whose writ I signed to death, believing I was working the hand of god! But it was of Satan, it was his work I heartily endured! Even the bible speaks of Satan appearing as an angel of light… How I have been deceived, oh how I fell from my perch, god forgive me!
Witchcraft, witchcraft they spoke! Salem believed it, Parris, Danforth; the townsfolk believed them! I came not to Salem with an iron rod, but to find the truth, the truth! That is all I ever wanted! I was gulled by the townsfolk of Salem; I gave into their empty proofs and became like sheep, cowardly and fearful. I was called to expose the spirits of demons, but I only discovered the devils of ministers and girls. I meant to crush Satan utterly if he had shown his face! Arrogance had clouded my heart, the devil has many faces!
I should never have believed Abigail’s forked tongue, for it was disguised as silver, blinding the court with her glistening lies and falsehood. Her acts of treachery, vengeance… oh Abigail... where did you turn wrong? Only god knows how you have hardened you heart so callously.
That bird, that bird you screamed in the court, shielding your face whilst running for cover! Your screams, your screams! The voices, the voices, you repeated Mary’s words! How you had the court fooled so easily! That devilish tongue of yours, the lies it spilled brought Parris and Danforth to your knees, eagerly waiting for every tittle and speech to fall from your demonic tongue. ‘Mary please don’t hurt me’, you screamed, ‘Look out! She’s coming down!’ you yelled. Your sporting may have fooled the court and brought Mary to falsehood, but Proctor saw through your lies! If only we had listened to the hard truth than a bittersweet lie! A liar, a liar, god damns all liars! Your bespoken lies caused the signing of writ to nineteen innocent deaths… seventy two who could have been lost! These hanged souls now lay restless, floundering… adamant to the testimony of truth, oh martyrs they are. If they could hear my cries I would tear till blood, alas it cannot be.
Don’t they say, a fool’s tongue is long enough to cut his own throat… then slit should be Danforth and Hathorne’s! Their injustice will surely become known! To save their faces, to mark the accused free would blacken their names with hypocrisy. How girls could conjure such a wild fear to envelop men of learning, to envelop the court, to demean their positions. How blinded, how fearful these judges of justice were!
No, no! The blame doesn’t only lay with them. I… I have guilt of my own conscience, my remorse, and pains for my actions. Naught was brought to the defence of the innocent! Naught was done to expose these ungodly lies! I sat idly and let Abigail speak with her silver tongue. I fell for their sporting and sniveling, their cries of witch, witch! Such shame should be hung across my soul! Nineteen… must I have been so callous… seventy two death warrants signed by… by my hand… my words, my voice, I did naught to save them!
I returned to Salem to coerce the innocent to confess, to save them from being hanged, they sought to truth, dying as martyrs to truth. Did I not say god damns all liars? Then damned I shall be! John Proctors refusal to confess, he was a true man, refusing to falter for lies. His sins he did confess, but of witches he was not!
These books I hold in my keeping; weighted with great authority… yet they did not save Salem from the lies of girls, from tainted hearts and broken ministers, injustice I cry! What demons could cause this than the evil of mankind whose sins we fail to repent. My actions were not of god, they were of the devil! I played into his hands, a fool to think I had committed to the good works of god… oh an angel of light Satan did appear to be! I am a broken minister, what good am I for I cannot tell good from evil, the devil from god?!
These books… all the invisible world, caught, defined and calculated. In these the devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. The devil it may reveal, but the sinful nature of man it did not! We were the true demons, our desires, our jealousy, wrath, greed, envy, our vengeance and hate brought naught to our souls but death! These books do not reveal truth!
Theocracy poisoned Salem… blaming demons for our sinful works. Where does our responsibility lie? Hidden behind false ministers and bittersweet words… a strong poison it is. I played into Satan’s hands; my actions caused me to be played like a fiddle, too late to realise. God help me… god help me.
The bible, my bible, where is my bible? The gospels words are all I need. Hard truths and the good promises of god. These books of weighted authority, their knowledge of demonic foes brought naught to my soul, only qualms to my heart. Much iniquity I hold over my soul! Only god I can turn to now, only god can I seek forgiveness, only god I can turn to… only god I can turn to…
