I'm in bed in a cabin with Al Gore (former American Vice President). Why, I'm not exactly sure. I do kiss him a lot, when then we venture outside. The ground is a bit snowy but it is not cold. We walk toward a fair. We stop at a small building and walk inside and there we witness a church meeting from the late 1600's. A young man, who had been sent away for repentence in a colony, has returned free from Satan. The minister, wearing the typical attire for the time period--as is the young man--takes a needle and pokes a hole in the young man's cheek just below the right eye. The young man does not flinch. Then the minister takes a cotton swab and sticks it in the hole so that the tip of the cotton swab resembles a tear drop, showing how sorry the young man is for his transgressions. end

this dream was inspired in part from a TV show I saw about the Salem witch trials that took place in 1692. They mentioned a witness to this time who wrote journals describing the happenings. His name was Cotton Mathers.

Cotton Mather was more than just a witness.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...m/SAL_BMAT.HTM

From the article link:
On August 19, Mather was in Salem to witness the execution of ex-minister George Burroughs for witchcraft. When, on Gallows Hill, Burroughs was able to recite the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something that witches were thought incapable of doing) and some in the crowd called for the execution to be stopped, Mather intervened, reminding those gathered that Burroughs had been duly convicted by a jury. Mather was given the official records of the Salem trials for use in preparation of a book that the judges hoped would favorably describe their role in the affair. The book, "Wonders of the Invisible World," provides facinating insights both into the trials and Mather's own mind.

When confessed witches began recanting their testimony, Mather may have begun to have doubts about at least some of the proceedings. He revised his own position on the use of spectral evidence and tried to minimize his own large role in its consideration in the Salem trials. Later in life, Mather turned away from the supernatural and may well have come to question whether it played the role it life he first suspected. --DL

Unfortunetly, Mather's reconsideration of the trials came a bit too late for George Burroughs.