gement of children.

The Duke of Brunswick and the Elector of Menz were struck with the
great cruelty exercised in the torture of suspected persons, and
convinced at the same time that no righteous judge would consider a
confession extorted by pain, and contradictory in itself, as sufficient
evidence to justify the execution of any accused person. It is related
of the Duke of Brunswick that he invited two learned Jesuits to his
house, who were known to entertain strong opinions upon the subject of
witchcraft, with a view of showing them the cruelty and absurdity of
such practises. A woman lay in the dungeon of the city accused of
witchcraft, and the Duke, having given previous instructions to the
officiating torturers, went with the two Jesuits to hear her
confession. By a series of artful leading questions, the poor creature,
in the extremity of her anguish, was induced to confess that she had
often attended the sabbath of the fiends upon the Brocken--that she had
seen two Jesuits there, who had made themselves notorious, even among
witches, for their abominations--that she had seen them assume the form
of goats, wolves, and other animals; and that many noted witches had
borne them five, six, and seven children at a birth, who had heads like
toads and legs like spiders. Being asked if the Jesuits were far from
her, she replied that they were in the room beside her. The Duke of
Brunswick led his astounded friends away, and explained the stratagem.
This was convincing proof to both of them that thousands of persons had
suffered unjustly; they knew their own innocence, and shuddered to
think what their fate might have been, if an enemy, instead of a
friend, had put such a confession into the mouth of a criminal. One of
these Jesuits was Frederick Spee, the author of the "Cautio
Criminalis," published in 1631. This work, exposing the horrors of the
witch trials, had a most salutary effect in Germany: Schonbrunn,
Archbishop and Elector of Menz, abolished the torture entirely within
his dominions, and his example was imitated by the Duke of Brunswick
and other potentates. The number of supposed witches immediately
diminished, and the violence of the mania began to subside. The Elector
of Brandenburg issued a rescript, in 1654, with respect to the case of
Anna of Ellerbrock, a supposed witch, forbidding the use of torture,
and stigmatizing the swimming of witches as an unjust, cruel, and
deceitful test.

This was the beginn