ajority of those executed for sorcery were women. At all times
witches have been more numerous than wizards, owing to their assumed
closer connection with the world of supernatural beings. It was said,
"For one sorcerer, ten thousand sorceresses," and Christian writers were
ready to explain why. Woman had a greater affinity with the devil from
the outset. It was through woman that Satan had seduced Adam, and it
was only to be expected that he would employ the same instrument on
subsequent occasions. _The Witch Hammer_ has a special chapter devoted
to the consideration of why women are more given to sorcery than men,
and quotes freely from the Fathers to prove that this follows from her
nature. James I. in his _Demonologia_ follows Sprenger in accounting for
the number of witches. "The reason is easy. For as that sex is frailer
than man is, so it is easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of the
devil, as was over-well proved to be true by the serpent's deceiving of
Eve at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with the sex
sensine." To be old, or ugly, or unpopular, to have any peculiar
deformity or mark, was to invite persecution, and, in an overwhelming
majority of instances, conviction followed accusation.

It is a significant comment upon the popular belief that Protestantism,
as a form of religious belief, was the product of an enlightened
rational life, that it was only with the advance of Protestantism that
the belief in witchcraft assumed an epidemic form. This may be partly
due to the greater direct dependence upon the Bible, in which satanic
influence--particularly in the New Testament--plays so large a part. In
the Roman Church, exorcism remained a regular part of the functions of
the priest; the Church was filled with accounts of satanic conflicts,
but diabolic intercourse seems to have been mainly limited to saintly
characters and priests. Protestantism which, theoretically, made every
man his own priest, raised the belief in satanic agency to an obsession.
And wherever Protestantism established itself there was an immediate
and marked increase in the number of cases of witchcraft. In England, if
we omit a doubtful law of the tenth century, there existed no regular
law against witchcraft until 1541. It remained a purely ecclesiastical
offence. Seventeen years later, the year of Elizabeth's accession,
Bishop Jewell, preaching before the Queen, drew attention to the
increase of sorcery. "It may please