the people had in his character and learning.  Attempts were made to diminish that confidence, and bring him into odium, by levelling against him every form of abuse.  A medal was struck, and extensively circulated, representing the Devil, clothed like a minister or priest, riding on an ass.  The device was so arranged as to excite ridicule and abhorrence, in the vulgar mind, against Bekker.  But it was found impossible to turn the popular feeling, which had set in his favor; and his persecutors and defamers were completely baffled.  He was followed, soon after, by the learned Thomasius, whose writings against demonology produced a decided effect upon the convictions of the age.

While Bekker, and the other writers of his class, endeavored to overthrow the superstitious practices and fancies then prevalent respecting demonology and communications with spiritual beings, they so far acceded to the popular theology as to maintain the doctrine of the personality of the Devil.  They believed in the existence of the arch-fiend, but denied his agency in human affairs.  They held that he was kept confined “to bottomless perdition, there to dwell—­

    “In adamantine chains and penal fire.”

Sir Robert Filmer, in 1680, published “An Advertisement to the jurymen of England, touching Witches,” in which he criticised and condemned many of the opinions and methods then countenanced on the subject.

But Bekker, Thomasius, and Filmer appeared too late to operate upon the prevalent opinions of Europe or America prior to the witchcraft delusion of 1692.  The productions of the other writers, in the same direction, to whom I have referred, probably had a very limited circulation, and made at the time but little impression.  Error is seldom overthrown by mere reasoning.  It yields only to the logic of events.  No power of learning or wit could have rooted the witchcraft superstitions out of the minds of men.  Nothing short of a demonstration of their deformities, follies, and horrors, such as here was held up to the view of the world, could have given their death-blow.  This was the final cause of Salem Witchcraft, and makes it one of the great landmarks in the world’s history.

A full and just view of the position and obligations of the persons who took part in the transactions at Salem requires a previous knowledge of the principles and the state of the law, as it was then in force and understood by the courts, and all concerned in judicial proceedings.  Although the ancients did not regard pretended intercourse between magicians and enchanters and spiritual beings as necessarily or always criminal, we find that they enacted laws against the abuse of the power supposed to result from the connection.  The old Roman code of the Twelve Tables contained the following prohibition:  “That they should not bewitch the fruits of the earth, nor use any charms, to draw their neighbor’s corn into their own fields.”  There were several special edicts on the subject during the existence of the Roman State.  In the early Christian councils, sorcery was frequently made the object of denunciation.  At Laodicea, for instance, in the year 364, it was voted to excommunicate any clergymen who were magicians, enchanters, astrologers, or mathematicians!  The Bull of Pope Innocent VIII., near the close of the fifteenth century, has already been mentioned.