(February 12, 1663–February 13, 1728), was an American colonial clergyman and educator. He graduated from Harvard, 1678, and joined his father, Increase Mather, in the pastorate of the Second Church in Boston, 1680. The House of Representatives had attempted to appoint him President of Harvard, 1703. He helped found Yale University, and in 1721, became President of the Connecticut College. He authored 450 books, and was the first person born in America to be elected to the Royal Society of London. Cotton Mather was regarded as the most brilliant man of New England in his time. Among his many accomplishments was the introduction of the smallpox inoculation during an epidemic in 1721.
In 1702, Cotton Mather published Magnalia Christi Americana (The Great Achievement of Christ in America), which is the most detailed history written of the first 50 years of New England. In it, he stated:
I write the wonders of the Christian religion, flying from the depravations of Europe, to the American strand: and, assisted by the Holy Author of that religion, I do, with all conscience of truth, required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the wonderful displays of His infinite power, wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness, wherewith his Divine Providence hath irradiated an Indian wilderness.383
The sum of the matter is that from the beginning of the Reformation in the English nation, there had always been a generation of godly men, desirous to pursue the reformation of religion, according to the Word of God. … [though resisted by individuals with] power … in their hands … not only to stop the progress of the desired reformation but also, with innumerable vexation, to persecute those that heartily wish well unto it. … [The Puritans were] driven to seek a place for the exercise of the Protestant religion, according to the light of conscience, in the deserts of America.384
In observing the rising trend in the Colonies, Cotton Mather wrote:
Religion begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother.385
Benjamin Franklin, as a young man, visited the Rev. Cotton Mather, who proffered this advice as Franklin approached a low-hanging beam in Mather’s parsonage:
You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard bumps.386