At the beginning of the play, Reverend Hale comes to Salem with a very high opinion of himself and his education. He believes that he knows the way to root out Satan and banish him from the village, that he can identify witches beyond the shadow of a doubt and compel them to return to the Lord. However, over the course of the play, his confidence begins to wane -- especially once Elizabeth Proctor and Rebecca Nurse are accused and convicted -- until he eventually quits the court at the end of Act Three.
He returns, in Act Four, a changed man. He says, "I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up." He now counsels the convicted to lie to the court and confess to witchcraft in order to save their own lives because "life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however, glorious, may justify the taking of it." He sees life as being more important than truth now, and he recognizes the the corruption of the court that he once sought to uphold and justify.
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