THE TEXT
Below are selected sections from The Angel of Bethesda by Cotton Mather
The Sentiments of Piety to be raised in and from this grievous Disease, are what I am first and most of all to be now concerned for.
And now, O mankind in general, wilt thou not from the View and Sense to this new evil devised against thee, humble thyself under the might Hand of God?
Glorious GOD, such a sharp, and indeed such a new rebuke of thine upon us, correcting us for our Iniquity, and consuming our Beauty as a Moth, (yea, as a Lion,) why, why must it come upon us? Righteous art thou, O Lord; yett lett us reason with the e of thy Judgements! The Answer which heaven thunders down upon us, is: Ah, sinful Generation, a People laden with Iniquity, a Seed of Evildoers, Children that are Corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord: And why are ye stricken more, even with Strokes that were unknown to the more early Ages? Tis because ye revolt more and more!
Being visited with the Small-Pox, there are many Exercises of Piety, which there will be a Call unto. Among which there will be non more pertinent than that of the deepest Self-Abhorrence, and Self-Abasement, from a sense of the original Sin which will oblige us to cry out, Unclean! Unclean! and confess, Lord I am a filthy creature!
My Friend, what a loathsome Creature art thou! Loathsome even to thy self as well as to all that are about thee. They sin has rendered thee so unto the Glorious God, who is of purer Eyes than to behold Evil, and cannot look upon Iniquity. It sho uld render thee so unto thyself; loathing thyself in thy own Sight, for thy Iniquities, and for thy Abominations.
There is a Poison within thee, the Poison of an evil Heart which departs from the Living God. But Temptation as by a Contagion, the Poison makes horrible Eruptions. All the nasty Pustules which now fill they Skin, are but little Emblems of the Er rors which thy Life has been filled withal. Make thy Lamentation, Lord, from the Sole of the Foot, even to the Head, there is no Soundness in me’ Nothing but putrifying Sores.
In the wearisome Nights that are appointed for thee, thy Complaint is, my Skin is broken and become loathsome. Thy Bed comforts thee not; thy Couch does not ease thy Complaint; perhaps thou art scared with Visions, and Things of a frigh tful Aspect appear before thy closed Eyes. Now lett Repentance have its perfect Work. And lett thy condition lead thee to a repenting Sense of Sin which has provoked and procured this Calamity for thee, and is lively resembled in it. Poenitently say, <Lord my Wounds do stink and are corrupt, because of my foolishness!
Lett this Apprehension of thy loathsome Sin, drive thee to the Blood of thy Saviour, for the Pardon of it; that thou mayst be cleansed from all Sin. At the same Time, importunately sollicit for the Spirit of thy Saviour, to expell the Malignit y of Sin that is lodged in thee, and send up thy Groans unto Him, for His purifying Influences.
But thus having sought first what is most of all to be sought for, and serv’d the Kingdome of God and His Righteousness, from the Calamity that is come upon us, we may the more hopefully proceed unto the Work of encountering and conquering the Adve rsary.
Appendix
There has been a wonderful Practice lately used in several Parts of the World, which indeed is not yett become common ion our Nation.
I was first instructed in it, by a Guramantee-servant of my own, long before I knew that any Europeans or Asiaticks had the least Acquaintance of it, and some Years before I was enriched with the Communications of the learned Foreigners, whose Acco unts I found agreeing with what I received of my Servant, when he showed me the Scar of the Wound made for the Operation; and said, that no Person ever died of the Small-Pox, in their Country that had the Courage to use it.
I have since mett with a considerable Number of these Africans, who all agree in one Story; that in their Country grandy-many dy of the Small-Pox; but now they learn this Way: People take Juice of Small-Pox, and Cutty-Skin, and putt in a Drop; then by’nd by a little sicky, sicky; then very few little Things like Small-Pox; and no body dy of it; and no body have Small-Pox any more. Thus in Africa, where the poor Creatures dy of the Small-Pox like rotten Sheep, a Merciful God has taught them an infa llible Praeservative. Tis a common Practice, and is attended with a constant Success.
The Practice of procuring the Small-Pox, by a Sort of Inoculation, has been introduced among the Constantinopolitans, but the Circassians and Georgians, and other Asiaticks; for about fourty Years.
At the first, People were cautious and afraid. But the happy Success on thousands of Persons for eight years now past, has putt it out of all Suspicion. The Operation has been performed on Persons of all Ages, both Sexes, differing Temperaments, and even in the worst Constitution of the Air; and none that have used it ever died of the Small-Pox; tho’ at the same Time, it were so malignant, that at least half the People died, that were affected with it in the common Way.
I am now able, as an Eywitness, (and more than so) to give a more full Account of the Practice, which until now I could only propose as a Matter at a greater Distance.
About the Month of May, 1721, the Small-Pox being admitted into the City of Boston, I proposed unto the Physicians of the Town, the unfailing Method of preventing Death, and many other grievous Miseries, from a tremendous Distemper, by receiving an d managing the Small-Pox, in the Way of Inoculation. One of the Physicians had the Courage to begin the Practice upon his own Children and Servants; and another expressed his Good Will unto it. But the Rest of the Practitioners treated the Proposal with an Incivility and an Inhumanity not well to be accounted for. Fresh Occasion I saw for the Complaint of a great Physician, "Heus, quanto Dolore auger, dum video Naturae ministrum, hostem ejus devenisse." The vilest Arts were used, and with such an Efficacy, that not only the Physician, but also the Patients under the Small—Pox inoculated were in Hazard of their very Lives from an infuriated People. But I myself had thrown into my House in the dead of the Night, a fired Granado, charge d with combustible Matter, and in such a Manner, that upon its going off, it must probably have killed them that were near it, and would have certainly fired the Chamber and speedily have laid the House in Ashes. But the merciful Providence of God our Sa viour so ordered it, that the Granado passing thro’ the Window, had by the Iron in the Middle of Casement such a Turn given to it, that in falling on the Floor, the fired Wild-fire in the Fuse, was violently shaken out some Distance from the Shell, and bu rnt out upon the Floor, without firing off the Granado.
The Transplantation has been given to a Woman in Childbed, eight or nine Days after their Delivery and they have gott rather earlier out of their Childbed, and in better Circumstances than ever in their Lives. Those that have had ugly Ulcers long running upon them, have had them healed on and by the Transplantation. Some very feeble, crazy, consumptive People, have upon the Transplantation grown hearty, and gott rid of their former Maladies.
Two or three have died under or soon after the Inoculation, from a Complication of other mortal Distempers. [An Indian Servant getting a violent Cold, fell into a pleuretic Fever, that killed her. Another Person that had long been under a crazy Melancholy and Consumption, utterly refused all Sustenance and starved herself to Death.]4
But of all the Hundreds that have been under a regular Management, we know not of one but what rejoices in their having undergone the Operation.
4
The section in Brackets is crossed out in the original.