Your Grace," he said, "to understand
that witches and sorcerers, within these last few years, are
marvellously increased within Your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects
pine away even to the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth,
their senses are bereft. I pray God they never practise further than
upon the subject." And he added, "These eyes have seen most evident and
manifest marks of their wickedness." A measure was passed through
Parliament the same year, making enchantments and witchcraft felony. The
first year of James I. saw the passing of the 'Witch Act,' under which
subsequent executions took place, and which remained in force until
nearly the middle of the eighteenth century.

With scarce an exception, the leaders of Protestantism encouraged the
belief in witches and urged their extermination as a religious and civil
duty. With Luther, in spite of the sturdy common sense he manifested in
some directions, belief in the activity of Satan amounted to an
obsession. He saw Satan everywhere in everything. The devil appeared to
him while writing, disturbed his rest by the rattling of pans, and
prevented his pursuing his studies by hammering on his skull. When a
storm arose, Luther declared, "'Tis the devil who has done this; the
winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits." Suicides, he said, were
often those strangled by the devil. Moreover, "The devil can so
completely assume the human form when he wants to deceive us, that we
may very well lie with what seems to be a woman of real flesh and blood,
and yet all the while 'tis only the devil in the shape of a woman." The
devil could also become the father of children. Luther says that he knew
of one such case, and added, "I would have that child thrown into the
Moldau at the risk of being held its murderer."[192]

In America, Protestantism manifested the same influence. Of course, the
settlers took the superstition of witchcraft with them, but it underwent
no diminution in a new land. Increase Mather and his celebrated son,
Cotton Mather, were the principal agents in stirring up the belief to
frenzy point, and a commission was appointed to rout out witches and
suppress their practices. There was soon a plentiful supply of victims.
One woman was charged with "giving a look towards the great
meeting-house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered the house and
tore down part of it." It seems that a bit of the wooden wainscotting
had fallen down. In the ca