MATHER, COTTON. - American Protestant writer, b. in Boston on 12 Feb. 1664, d. there on 13 Feb. 1728. He studied at Harvard College, of which he later hoped to be appointed president, but in vain, since he held uncompromising views, while liberal tendencies increasingly prevailed at Harvard.
His knowledge extended to the field of the natural sciences; he was a member of the Royal society, although he shared some of the superstitions of his time and actively fought witches. He is a typical representative of American literature of the colonial period, which is for the most part celebratory and edifying in character. His most important works are: The wonders of the invisible world (1693), Essays to do good (1710), a work that strongly influenced the formation of Franklin, and Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), which is the ecclesiastical history of New England, written in an inspired tone and in the firm conviction that America’s great age was that of its beginnings, when New England was steeped in religious spirit and governed by the clergy, and Providence “had illumined an Indian wilderness.”