EVIL SPIRITS. 369 



Book of Common Prayer, directed his clergy to seek OTit witches 

 and sorcerers; and although in the reigns of Henry VIII and 

 Elizabeth there were a few executions, it was not until the time 

 of James I that really severe measures were taken ; for James I 

 had been reared in Scotland under Puritan influences, and the 

 Puritans were always especially severe upon witchcraft. The 

 king, in fact, had written a pamphlet on the subject; had pre- 

 sided at the excessively cruel torture of a person who had, it 

 was alleged, caused a storm at sea ; and was particularly fond of 

 boasting that Satan considered him, the king, as by far the ablest 

 opponent he (Satan) had as yet encountered in this world. And 

 thus in this reign — the era of Bacon and Coke and Shakespeare — 

 England became, like the Continent, the theater of persecution. 

 But all this was as nothing compared to that carried on in the 

 time of the Commonwealth, when the Puritans held sway. Crom- 

 well himself was not inclined to be cruel ; but the whole teaching 

 of Puritanism tended toward the belief in witchcraft and the per- 

 secution of witches. It forbade amusements, and had thus a tend- 

 ency to make the people somber and gloomy. It was intensely 

 earnest: the finger of God and the finger of Satan were seen 

 everywhere. Moreover, it developed especially a taste for the 

 reading of the Old Testament, which abounds with references to 

 supernatural events, and the characteristic of which is severity 

 toward those who are not the Lord's people. And the Puritans 

 were the Lord's people, to whom had gone forth the command " to 

 bind the kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron." 

 So, notwithstanding all their many good qualities, the Puritans 

 did not err on the side of leniency toward the unfortunate 

 witches. Indeed, in the county of Suffolk alone sixty persons 

 were hanged in a single year. But the Puritan regime came to an 

 end, the Cavaliers returned; and these, being of a more light- 

 hearted although less earnest mind, and also being full of dislike 

 for everything that savored of Puritanism, allowed the laws 

 against witchcraft in great part to remain unenforced. Further, 

 the people were becoming more intelligent and humane, and the 

 Royal Society for the study of science had just been established, 

 and French philosophy became the fashion ; and gradually Eng- 

 land forgot her witchcraft and her persecution. The last execu- 

 tions were in 1712, in which same year the judge on the bench at 

 another trial charged the jury against the belief in witchcraft. 



Scotland, however, was not so fortunate. As a writer has said : 

 " The misery of man, the anger of the Almighty, the fearful 

 power and the continual presence of Satan, the agonies of hell — 

 these were the constant subjects of the preaching. All the most 

 ghastly forms of human suffering were accumulated as faint 

 images of the eternal doom of the immense majority of mankind. 



VOL. XLIII. 25 



