ed to a full religious experience unless he had literally seen
him, talked to him, and fought with him.

"The clergy were constantly preaching about him, and preparing their
audiences for an interview with their great enemy. The consequence was
that the people became almost crazed with fear. Whenever the preacher
mentioned Satan, the consternation was so great that the church
resounded with sighs and groans. They believed that the Devil was always
and literally at hand; that he was haunting them, speaking to them, and
tempting them. The clergy boasted that it was their special mission to
thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord. In their eyes the Deity
was not a Beneficent Being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They
declared that all mankind, a very small portion only excepting, were
doomed to eternal misery.

"The Scotch clergy taught their hearers that the Almighty was
sanguinary, and so prone to anger that he raged even against walls and
houses, and senseless creatures, wreaking his fury more than ever, and
scattering desolation on every side.

"The people, credulous and ignorant, listened and believed.

"For in Scotland as elsewhere, directly the clergy succeeded in
occupying a more than ordinary amount of public attention, they availed
themselves of that circumstance to propagate those ascetic doctrines
which, while they strike at the root of human happiness, benefit no one
except the class which advocates them; that class, indeed, can hardly
fail to reap the advantages from a policy which by increasing the
apprehensions to which the ignorance and timidity of men make them
liable, does also increase their eagerness to fly for support to their
spiritual advisers; and the greater their apprehension, the greater the
eagerness." (_Buckle: "The History of Civilization in England."_)

James I of England had become imbued with the idea of witchcraft while
in Scotland, and he believed that his stormy passage on his return from
Denmark was due to witches. This storm was the origin of one of the most
horrible of the many horrible Scotch trials on record. One Dr. Fian was
suspected of having aroused the wind and a confession was wrung from him
by torture which, however, he almost immediately retracted. Every form
of torture was in vain employed to vanquish his obduracy; the bones of
his legs were broken into small pieces in the boot. All the torments
that Scottish law knew of were successively applied. At last, th