From: <halloweenqueen@cheshire.net> >? Was it being terrified of witches or was it intolerance and hating witches just a bit more than hating others not of your religious persuasion llike Quakers, Catholics etc. I see the same intolerance today in the name of many different fundamentalist groups. Tolerance is a concept that the Puritans would not have understood, any more than modern fundamentalist groups do. The Puritans considered Quakers, Catholics, unbaptized Indians, and witches to be agents of the devil. If you didn't wipe out these agents, they would overwhelm the world and run things. Also, if you didn't extirminate them, then you would anger God and God wouldn't protect you from evil forces. Mary Beth Norton suggests (persuasively, IMHO) that the Puritans thought the reasons they couldn't beat the Indians was because they were allied with the devil. So they had to eliminate all agents of the devil. So, yes, it was intolerance and hate, but it was also terror. Francine Nicholson _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus