But the main
source from which we derived this superstition, is the East, and
traditions and facts incorporated in our religion. There were only
wanted the ferment of thought of the fifteenth century, the vigour,
energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days, and the papal
denunciation of witchcraft by the famous Bull of Innocent the VIII. in
1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time for three
centuries, the flames, at which more than 100,000 victims perished, cast
a lurid light over Europe.

One ceases to wonder at this ugly stain in the page of history, when one
considers all things fairly.

The Enemy of mankind, bodily, with horns, hoofs, and tail, was believed
to lurk round every corner, bent upon your spiritual, if not bodily
harm. The witch and the sorcerer were not possessed by him against their
will, but went out of their way to solicit his alliance, and to offer to
forward his views for their own advantage, or to gratify their
malignity. The cruel punishments for a crime so monstrous were mild,
compared with the practice of our own penal code fifty or sixty years
ago against second-class offences. And for the startling bigotry of the
judges, which appears the most discreditable part of the matter, why,
how could they alone be free from the prejudices of their age? Yet they
did strange things.

At Lindheim, Horst reports, on one occasion six women were implicated in
a charge of having disinterred the body of a child to make a
witch-broth. As they happened to be innocent of the deed, they underwent
the most cruel tortures before they would confess it. At length they saw
their cheapest bargain was to admit the crime, and be simply burned
alive and have it over. So they did so. But the husband of one of them
procured an official examination of the grave; when the child's body was
found in its coffin safe and sound. What said the Inquisitor? "This is
indeed a proper piece of devil's work; no, no, I am not to be taken in
by such a gross and obvious imposture. Luckily the women have already
confessed the crime, and burned they must and shall be in honour of the
Holy Trinity, which has commanded the extirpation of sorcerers and
witches." The six women were burned alive accordingly.

It was hard upon them, because they were innocent. But the regular
witches, as times went, hardly deserved any better fate--considering, I
mean, their honest and straight-forward intentions of doing that which
th