The next section of the sermon ("To the Reader") seems to gather and grasp for sources to support Lawson's qualifications, including quoting of a letter from Lawson's own father, which was solicited by "Ministers of Boston." But soon this section also dips toward a debasing confessional: "And wherein I have at any time, given just offence, to the meanest of those that fear the Lord, I do heartily beg their "pity" and "prayers"..." This section was removed when the sermon was reprinted a decade later in London. Unlike the zealous Cotton Mather and his powerful father Increase Mather, Deodat Lawson does not appear to have published works on witchcraft (if anything else) prior to this pamphlet published under his name ("collected by") in 1692. One historian of the "Bibliography of Witchcraft" considered the introduction to have most likely been written by Cotton Mather, and it is noticeable that the printer, Benjamin Harris, also produced the two lengthy books on witchcraft by the Mathers that summer and fall-- a very large commission for a colonial printer. Lawson's brief narrative covers March 19-April 5,1692. Oddly, none of the numerous court records and depositions covering the same period list the presence of Lawson in Salem Village. A deposition by Ann Putnam Sr lists a number of the same dates including the sabbath day, March 20, without mentioning Lawson or whoever it was that preached the sermon that day. On March 23, Lawson (or Lawson's narrator) says he paid a visit Ann Putnam Sr. to witness her afflictions, but Ann Putnam Sr. doesn't mention the presence of this out-of-town guest in describing her afflictions on that day, and the very next day, during an examination, the court asked not for Lawson but instead for the Rev. Samuel Parris to read his notes of a visit to Ann Putnam Sr. Thus, it seems that some portions of what was "collected by" Lawson would best be understood as the accounts of others, including Parris. Samuel Parris was tasked by the court with recording by hand the examination of Rebecca Nurse on March 24th and he omitted any testimony from those speaking in her defense. On the reverse side of this record Parris did sheepishly admit "great noises" by the afflicted and "many speakers" prevented him from capturing everything. Perhaps for the same reason Lawson's published account of this exam also contains no mention of any testimony in defense of Nurse, and Lawson's narrator likewise proffers an excuse: "I had not leisure to attend the whole time of examination."