These devils, it was thought, took visible form, of which the
favorite was that of a black cat. Witches were thought to be able
to pass through keyholes and to exercise charms which would
destroy their victims. While Phips and Frontenac were struggling
for the mastery of Canada, a fever of excitement ran through New
England about these perils of witchcraft. When, in 1692, Phips
became Governor of Massachusetts, he named a special court to try
accused persons. The court considered hundreds of cases and
condemned and hanged nineteen persons for wholly imaginary
crimes. Whatever the faults of the rule of the priests at Quebec,
they never equaled this in brutality or surpassed it in blind
superstition. In New England we find bitter religious
persecution. In Canada there was none: the door was completely
closed to Protestants and the family within were all of one mind.
There was no one to persecute.
The old contrast between French and English ideals still endures.
At Quebec there was an early zeal for education. In 1638, the
year in which Harvard College was organized, a college and a
school for training the French youth and the natives were founded
at Quebec.
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