But how far the prayers of the clergy were sincere we may be permitted to doubt, seeing that witchcraft, being an excellent medium through which to impress the ignorant with a vivid conception of the supernatural, was also a considerable source of priestly revenue. The manufacturing of incantations and spells was profitable, because every priest had, for a sum of money, the power of reversing them; and it was profitable for them that poisons should be distilled, because, for a sum of money, the priest could furnish an antidote to any poison which a poor old woman could concoct, more especially since, in all probability, she concocted it under his indirect instigation. So notorious did the fact of parsons making profit of witchcraft, and of setting afoot prosecutions for witchcraft that they might derive profit, become that, in 1603, it was enacted by canon that they should not for the future, interfere in such matters as conjuring or expelling the devil without having, in each instance, direct permission from their bishop. The bull of Pope Innocent, which I have already referred to, was, in 1523, reinforced by Adrian VI., and boldly and straightforwardly made to include, not only sorcerers, but heretics.
But, as I have before remarked, persecutions for sorcery were not by any means confined to the Catholics. Perhaps even more cruel and fanatical witch-burners were to be found in the Calvinists and in the English Puritans. My subject is vastly too large to be dealt with in one brief lecture. My object is to stimulate the attention of my hearers to further study of a topic the terrible significance of which is too little understood. I purpose, in hurrying to a close, to give the case of one Calvinistic wizard and one Puritan witch; one intellectual and heroic Scotchman and one simple, but splendidly heroic, English girl. The Scotchman was Dr. John Fian, schoolmaster of Saltpans, near Edinburgh. There were twenty counts against him, of which the most important was raising a storm at sea to wreck that awkward pedant, James I., when on his voyage to Denmark to visit his future queen. Fian was further accused of having rifled the graves of the dead, out of whom he cut certain parts to make hell-broth, and to be used as malevolent charms. Once he raised up two candles on
