EVIL SPIRITS. 363 



Christian Church ; so at the time of which I am now speaking — 

 i. e., the sixth century after Christ — the Church adopted, under 

 somewhat changed aspects, many of the beliefs and customs of 

 paganism. The mantle of the ancient faith fell upon the shoul- 

 ders of the new Church. 



In the sixth century the dark ages began, and lasted, roughly 

 speaking, until the beginning of the twelfth century. And dark 

 indeed they were. The old light of classic learning and letters 

 had died away ; the new light had not yet dawned. The world 

 was sunk in ignorance and superstition. Evil spirits and sorcery 

 held unquestioned sway. As a writer says : " There had never 

 been a time when the minds of men were more completely mold- 

 ed by supernatural conceptions, or when the sense of Satanic 

 power and presence was more profound and universal. Many 

 thousands of cases of possession, exorcism, miracles, and appa- 

 ritions of the evil one were recorded which were accepted with- 

 out the faintest doubt. There was scarcely a great saint who 

 had not on some occasion encountered a visible manifestation of 

 an evil spirit. Sometimes the devil appeared as a grotesque and 

 hideous animal ; sometimes as a black man ; sometimes as a beauti- 

 ful woman ; sometimes as a priest haranguing in the pulpit ; some- 

 times as an angel of light; sometimes actually in the form of 

 Christ. But the sign of the cross or a few drops of holy water, or 

 the name of Mary, could put him to an ignominious flight. The 

 Gospel of St. John around the neck, a rosary, a relic of Christ or 

 of a saint, any one of the thousand talismans distributed to the 

 faithful, sufficed to baffle the utmost efforts of diabolical rnalice." 



In the twelfth century, however, a new idea appeared, that of 

 the witch proper. Up to this time the idea of a formal compact 

 with the evil one had not taken definite form ; but in the twelfth 

 century the conception of a witch, as we now conceive it — that is 

 to say, of a woman who had entered into a deliberate compact with 

 Satan, and who was endowed with the power of working miracles 

 whenever she pleased, and who was transported through the air to 

 pay her homage to the evil one — this idea first appeared. The panic 

 created by this belief advanced at first slowly, but after a time 

 with fearfully accelerated rapidity. Thousands of victims were 

 sometimes burned alive in a few years, and every country of Eu- 

 rope was stricken with the wildest panic. But this very twelfth 

 century has been called the turning point of the European intel- 

 lect. It began to awaken from its sleep of centuries; foreign 

 lands were visited by travelers ; Arabian learning began to per- 

 meate Europe ; and gradually the people became just a little skep- 

 tical. Men learned to doubt, but there was as yet no science, as 

 we understand that word ; there was no independent inquiry ; 

 men began to doubt — but to doubt was still a crime. The Church 



