until canon or Church law had become quite engrafted upon the
civil law, did the full persecutions for witchcraft arise. A witch was
held to be a woman who had deliberately sold her soul to the Evil One,
who delighted in injuring others, and who chose the Sabbath day for
the enactment of her impious rites, and who was especially connected
with black animals; the black cat being held as her familiar in many
countries.

In looking at the history of witchcraft, we see three striking points
for consideration:

_First._ That women were chiefly accused, a wizard being seldom
mentioned.

_Second._ That man, believing in woman's inherent wickedness, and
understanding neither the mental nor the physical peculiarities of her
being, ascribed all her idiosyncrasies to witchcraft.

_Third._ That the clergy inculcated the idea that woman was in league
with the devil, and that strong intellect, remarkable beauty, or
unusual sickness, were in themselves a proof of that league.

Catholic and Protestant countries alike agreed in holding woman as the
chief accessory of the devil. Luther said, "I would have no compassion
for a witch; I would burn them all." As late as 1768, John Wesley
declared the giving up of witchcraft to be in effect giving up the
Bible. James I., on his accession to the throne, ordered the learned
work of Reginald Scot against witchcraft, to be burned in compliance
with the act of Parliament of 1603, which ratified a belief in
witchcraft over the three kingdoms. Under Henry VIII., from whose
reign the Protestant Reformation in England dates, an act of
Parliament made witchcraft felony; this act was again confirmed under
Elizabeth. To doubt witchcraft was as heretical under Protestantism as
under Catholicism.

Even the widely extolled Pilgrim Fathers brought this belief with them
when they stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. With the "Ducking-Stool"
and the "Scarlet Letter" of shame for woman, while her companion in
sin went free, they also brought with them a belief in witches.
Richard Baxter, the "greatest of the Puritans," condemned those who
disbelieved in witchcraft as "wicked Sadducees," his work against it
adding intensity to the persecution. Cotton Mather was active in
fomenting a belief in this doctrine.

So convinced were those in power of the tendency of woman to diabolism
that the learned Sir Matthew Hale condemned two women without even
summing up the evidence. Old women, for no other reason than tha