m with certain pains and penalties which they
proceeded to recount.

But let us be careful how we laugh about those 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 the Lord could not be induced to kill the
grasshoppers--or send them into some other State.

About the close of the fifteenth century was the excitement in regard
to witchcraft, and Pope Innocent the Eighth issued a bull directing the
inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of
this crime. Forms for the crime were regularly issued. For two
hundred and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible
crime of witchcraft by burning, hanging and torturing men, women and
little children.

Protestants were as active as Catholics; and in Geneva five hundred
witches were burned at the stake in three months, and one thousand were
executed in one year in the diocese of Couro; at least one hundred
thousand victims suffered in Germany, the last execution being in
Galesburgh, and taking place in 1794, and the last in Switzerland,
1780. In England statutes were passed from Henry VI to James I,
defining the crime and punishment, and the last act passed in the
British Parliament was when Lord Bacon was a member of the house.

In 1716 Mrs. Hicks and daughter, nine years of age, were hung for
selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm at sea by pulling
off their stockings and making a lather of soap. In England it has
been estimated that at least 30,000 were hung or burned. The last
victim executed in Scotland was 1722. She was an innocent old woman
who had so little idea of her condition, that she rejoiced at the sight
of the fire destined to consume her to ashes. She had a daughter, lame
in her hands, a circumstance accounted for from the fact that the witch
had been used to transfer her daughter into a pony and get her shod by
the devil! Intelligent ancestors!

In 1692 nineteen persons were executed in Salem, Massachusetts, for the
crime of witchcraft. It was thought in those days that men and women
made contracts with the devil, and those contracts were confirmed at a
meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil presided; these
contracts in some cases were for a few years, others for life. General