HKB
were really bewitched; and, secondly, whether the witchcraft was sufficiently brought home to the prisoners at the bar." The Jury found them guilty, and they were hanged as before stated.
Here we have a shocking account of the credulity of the human mind. The whole English nation were laboring under a mental delusion. Here it was not to be said, "O, ye of little faith!" but, "O, ye religious madmen! your faith has changed your nature from kindness and pity, to perform acts of cruelty which the savage cannibal would shudder to put into practice." I would here remind the reader, that Judge Hale was considered a just and humane Judge. What a dreadful state a nation must be in, when such laws as have been referred to, were in full force, and the jurisprudence of England was, as it were, under the influence of a Being the supposed enemy of man! And it may in truth be said, that an unknown and invisible world governed one that was known and visible.
Now, in the case of those two poor women, who were really murdered, the question arises, who were their murderers? Was it Judge Hale, or the Jury? It was neither. It was the Bible---a book which records the existence of a Devil, the sworn enemy of God and men. Reader! can you withhold pity from two poor creatures in such circumstances, and can you still praise to the skies a Book that has made the best and wisest of men cruel brutes,--who, at the same time, were happy to have a chance to make war against the Devil, by destroying two helpless beings whose only crime, in all probability, was poverty and ignorance? Every humane unbeliever must exclaim, "O God! O Nature! what havoc have ignorance and superstition made among your works!"
Nothing could be better calculated to give importance to the credibility of the activity and influence of the Devil's employing and entering into a league with wicked and ill-disposed persons, after Christianity became established, than the Scripture account of the Devil's tempting Jesus, and endeavoring to make a contract with him to obey and submit to his proposals. But as the Devil was non-suited by the Saviour of mankind, it might be expected that after Jesus had left this world, the Devil would endeavor to enlist into his service many of those who had embraced the religion of that Saviour whom he had tried to seduce.
In the course of time, in the middle or dark ages, when' men's imaginations were active, and reason was nearly banished from among Christians, it became a matter of faith and certainty, that persons in different towns and villages had really entered into a contract, for a certain number of years, with the Devil himself; and to carry out and complete this supposed covenant with the enemy of God and man, a motion was started of the Devil's Sabbath, on which, a place being appointed, wicked men and women could meet and contract with Old Lucifer himself; and books were printed to show the nature of the contract After this strange opinion became fully credited, and witchcraft was made a crime punishable by law, those persons who were accused of witchcraft were tortured, in order to compel them to own that they had attended the Sabbath of the Devil.