ere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the
victim of the brutal usage had survived a few hours. My own heart and
conscience at the time fully sympathised with his" ("The Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua," p. 9, ed. 1862). It was under these circumstances that
God taught that a thief, who possessed nothing of his own, should "be
sold for his theft" (Ex. xxii. 3). It was under these circumstances that
God taught: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ibid 18). To this
cruel and wicked command myriads of unfortunate human beings have been
sacrificed; in the course of the Middle Ages hundreds of thousands
perished; in France and Germany "many districts and large towns burned
two, three, and four hundred witches every year, in some the annual
executions destroyed nearly one per cent. of the whole population....
The Reformation, which swept away so many superstitions, left this, the
most odious of all, in full activity. The Churchmen of England, the
Lutherans of Germany, the Calvinists of Geneva, Scotland, and New
England rivalled the most bigoted Roman Catholics in their severities.
Indeed, the Calvinists, though the most opposite of all to the Church of
Rome, were in this respect perhaps the most implicit imitators of her
delusions" ("The Bible; What it is," by C. Bradlaugh, p. 262). "During
the seventeenth century, 40,000 persons are said to have been put to
death for witchcraft in England alone. In Scotland the number was
probably, in proportion to the population, much greater; for it is
certain that even in the last forty years of the sixteenth century the
executions were not fewer than 17,000" (Ibid, p. 263). The Puritans in
New England signalised themselves by their merciless severity towards
wizards and witches. France was the first country to stem the tide of
cruelty. In 1680 Louis XIV. "issued a proclamation prohibiting all
future prosecutions for witchcraft; and directing that even those who
might profess the art should only be punished as impostors." In England
"the last execution was at Huntingdon, in 1716;" in Scotland, at
Darnock, in 1722. The last person burned as a witch was Maria Sanger, at
Wurzburg, in Bavaria, 1749 (Ibid, p. 265). Such fruit has borne the
command of God from Sinai. It was under these circumstances that God
taught that any who sacrificed to any God but himself should be "utterly
destroyed" (Ex. xxii. 20). The practical effect of this we shall
presently see, in conju