ascivious orgies. At cock-crow, all disappeared; the
sabbath was over." (_"The Story of the Inquisition"--Freethought Press
Association._)

This conception of a witch continued from the twelfth century to the
time witch-burning ceased. With this idea of a witch being constantly
instilled into the minds of their listeners, the clergy set loose
fervidly religious mobs to scourge the countries of innocent women. With
the entire world divided into the "Hosts of Heaven" and the "Hosts of
Satan," with witches abounding in the air, in the water, and in the
food, and with their immortal souls at stake, the frenzied population
found evidences of witchcraft in all manner of happenings.

"Pope after pope set the seal of his infallibility upon the bloody
persecutions. At length came Innocent VIII who, on the 7th of December,
1484, sent forth his bull Summis Desiderantis. Of all documents ever
issued from Rome, imperial and papal, this, doubtless, first and last,
caused the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever
more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command,
'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' Pope Innocent exhorted the
clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and
especially, those who by evil practice destroy vineyards, gardens,
meadows, and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts
of scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the Book of Job;
and to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the
Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for
their use, the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum." (_White: "Warfare of
Science."_)

Another important and much discussed department was the connection
between evil spirits and animals. That the Devil could assume the form
of any animal he pleased, seems to have been generally admitted, and it
presented no difficulty to those who remembered that the first
appearance of that personage on earth was as a serpent, and that on one
occasion a legion of devils had entered into a herd of swine. Saint
Jerome also assures us that in the desert St. Anthony had met a centaur
and a faun, a little man with horns growing from his forehead, who were
possibly devils, and at all events, at a later period, the "Lives of the
Saints" represent evil spirits in the form of animals as not infrequent.
Lycanthropy, however, or the transformation of witches into wolves,
p