Dear Cotton Mather:

On this day, you are graduating from Harvard at age 15. I am writing you from the year 2026. You have been dead 298 years. Still, I thought it vital to bring you some wisdom from the future. As you say, history is the story of events with praise or blame, and I am here to present your legacy, one for which you should feel both pride and shame.

Your father is not in attendance today. That may leave an ache that even prayer can’t heal. You will always work to be as good as him. But unlike him, you will never be president of Harvard. You may feel sad. Some will say you overcompensate, overachieve. At the time of your graduation, the average life span is 36. You never want to waste time. By the time you’re 22, you will be full pastor of North Church.

Have you considered taking time for yourself? It’s good to have options. Don’t rush into getting married and having 15 children. Do not expect each child to seem wholly cut out of your cloth. Do not expect all of them to be obedient. But even if they rebel, chances are they only want your approval. You know what that is like. I know you are looking out for their eternal souls above all, but every night you tuck them in and say “Ah, children, be afraid of going prayerless to bed, lest the Devil be your bedfellow.” Perhaps some nights, you might say “The Lord loves you, and I love you” as you leave them to their sleep.

You will meet impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in this world. They may assume the form of women. They may even pray. When you meet them, take this as an opportunity to challenge your own ideas.

Remember that if the devil can take the shape of an innocent woman, he can take the shape of you.

Know who you are. Build a brand and stay on message. If your brand is that you are but a servant of God, let humility be part of it. Own up to your mistakes, like espousing the validity of spectral evidence. You must renounce those claims altogether if we are to believe you have changed. Embrace your new position as one of reason. Make the apology tour a memorable providence.

Leave an objectively positive legacy. Many people will hate you for your encouragement of the witch trials and the cruel ways in which you further defamed the victims after their deaths. But people will be pretty okay with your work to hybridize corn. Your writings on how you planted different colors of corn so that they beautifully tinged one another are beyond reproach. Live so that when people disparage you, they will also add you were good for bioengineering.

And, Mr. Mather, know that some — not all — of the backlash you faced in your time was because you were ahead of that time. You inoculated your children against smallpox by injecting them with a bit of the virus. People were shocked. Maybe they thought you a witch. Your children survived. It will please you to know that since your passing, vaccination is a common practice worldwide. It may shock you to know that there’s still controversy between those who vaccinate and those who refuse to.

Mr. Mather, I know you believe your best work to be in the 450 books and pamphlets you wrote, but are all of them your best work? As a minister, you know a lot about the importance of self-restraint. Can you limit yourself to 200 publications?

If you want to be your best, share your best, and know your worst may outlive you. In 1637, Puritans set fire to a Pequot village, and you gave thanks that “on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell.” I advise you to steer clear of such statements. In the future, we will discuss genocides and massacres, and those who burned an Indian village will be seen as no better than those who burned a church.

Mr. Mather, you are a young visionary, and you know your values. You will accomplish a lot in your life, as you encapsulate the uncomfortable time when Puritan values and burgeoning science clashed, when it wasn’t clear if dreaming was the same as witnessing, when the greatest gift to give your children was fear. Perhaps the greatest thing you will do is die in 1728 as the world moves on without you.

All my best,
Erin Lyndal Martin

Erin Lyndal Martin is a writer and artist based in Pittsburgh. Her work has also appeared in sites including Monkeybicycle, Wigleaf, and The Rumpus. Her site is at http://www.erinlyndalmartin.com.