ving laid
an egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,--this
everybody knew. The rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was
burned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having
killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,--but the
pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As
late as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a
devil.

They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go
through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within
a certain number of days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened
with pains and penalties.

But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us not pride
ourselves too much on the progress of our age. We must not forget that
some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. Only a
little while ago, the governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting
and prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the
grasshoppers, or send them into some other state.

About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement
with regard to the existence of witchcraft that Pope Innocent VIII
issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching
out and punishing all guilty of this crime. Forms for the trial were
regularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "Malleus
Maleficorum" (Hammer of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See.
Popes Alexander, Leo, and Adrian, issued like bulls. For two hundred
and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of
witchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children.
Protestants were as active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred
witches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one
thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como. At least one
hundred thousand victims suffered in Germany alone: the last execution
(in Wurtzburg ) taking place as late as 1749. Witches were burned in
Switzerland as late as 1780.

In England the same frightful scenes were enacted. Statutes were passed
from Henry VI to James I, defining the crime and its punishment. The
last act passed by the British parliament was when Lord Bacon was a
member of the House of Commons; and this act was not repealed until
1736.

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England,
says: "To deny the possibil