About 250 years ago, the reality of witchcraft was very generally admitted throughout Europe. The belief in the active agency of the Spirit of Evil in human affairs, had existed among Christians from the earliest period, and the legends of saints, their trials and temptations, in which the devil plays so important a part, served to extend and confirm these popular notions. At last, the direct agency of diabolical powers, and its open manifestation, was assumed, and,[Pg 269] at the period of which we speak, was held to be a point of Christian faith. The pious Baxter considered the disbelief of witchcraft as equivalent to infidelity; the just and sagacious Sir Matthew Hale admitted its reality, and pronounced sentence against those who were convicted of it; and, alas! the pedantic king, James I. of England, wrote a book entitled, "D?monologia, or a Discourse on Witchcraft."

The purpose of this work was to prove the reality of witchcraft, its prevalence among mankind, its great enormity, and the means of its detection and punishment. Its effect was to extend the belief in witchcraft, and, of course, to multiply the apparent instances of its existence. The insane fancies of diseased minds, unusual phenomena of nature, and the artful machinery of designing malignity, ambition, or hypocrisy, were all laid at Satan\'s door. Of the horrors that followed, history furnishes a melancholy account. It is supposed that 30,000 persons were executed in England, from the year 1500 to 1722. The same dreadful delusion prevailed in other parts of Europe, and extended in due time to this country, and about the year 1692, twenty persons were executed in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.

During the period in which this fearful mania was prevalent in England, Matthew Hopkins, denominated Witch-Finder General, acte............