at
advances in knowledge and civilisation have not left this ancient
superstition without supporters.

In subscribing to the belief in witchcraft, the Christian Church thus
fell into line with earlier forms of religious belief. The peculiar
feature it represents is that it came into existence when the belief in
witchcraft was losing its hold on the more cultured classes. Had it not
allied itself with this tendency, no such thing as the witch mania of
the medieval period could have existed. In sober truth, it brought about
a veritable renaissance of the cruder theories of demonism, while its
intolerance of opposition succeeded in stifling the voice of criticism
for centuries. The primitive theory which holds that man is surrounded
by hosts of spiritual agencies, mostly of a malevolent nature, was
revived and fully endorsed by all Christian teachers. In the commonest,
as well as in the rarest events of life, this supernatural activity was
manifest. In both the Old and New Testament the belief in demoniacal
agency was endorsed. Moreover, the fact that Christianity was not a
creed seeking to live as one of many others, but a religion struggling
for complete mastery, gave further impetus to the belief. An easy
explanation for the miracles and marvels that occurred in connection
with non-Christian beliefs was that they were the work of demons. The
Christian felt himself to be fighting not so much human antagonists as
so many embodiments of satanic power. And after the establishment of
Christianity it is probable that much that went on under cover of witch
assemblies, a more detailed knowledge than we possess would prove to be
really the clandestine exercise of prescribed forms of faith. The old
saying, "The sin of witchcraft is as the sin of rebellion," has more in
it than meets the eye. There is little real difference between the magic
that appears as piety and the magic that is denounced as sorcery, except
that one is permitted and the other is not. And it is almost a law of
religious development that the gods of one religion become the demons of
its successor.

But while witchcraft has existed in all ages, it existed in a much
milder form than that which we find in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. First of all, there is the fact to which attention has
already been directed, namely, the concentration of the public mind upon
various forms of supernaturalism. Every aspect of life was more or less
under the direct in