The Necessity of Atheism

and by the decrees of a long series of bishops.

The infection was everywhere--Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy,
England, Scotland, and even America was scourged. It has been estimated
that one hundred thousand perished in Germany from the middle of the
fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century.

Pope Gregory IX wrote a great mass of nonsense to the bishop and other
chiefs urging stringent methods against the Stedingers, Frieslanders,
inhabiting the country between Weser and Zeider Zee. He wrote, "The
Devil appears to them (the Stedingers) in different shapes, sometimes as
a goose or duck, and at other times in the figure of a pale, black-eyed
youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with
eternal hatred against the Holy Church of Christ. This Devil presides at
their sabbath when they all kiss him and dance around him. He then
envelops them in total darkness, and they all, male and female, give
themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery."

The infallible pope of Rome!

The result was that the Stedingers, men, women, and children, were
slain, the cottages and woods burned, the cattle stolen and the land
laid waste. The pope's letter is a fair example of the theological
literature of the time; the slaughter of the Stedingers an average
illustration of the evangelistic methods of the Church.

Millions of men, women, and children were tortured, strangled, drowned,
or burned on "evidence" that today would be accepted nowhere unless by a
court and jury composed of the inmates of a lunatic asylum, if even by
them. It is unnecessary to say that the more severe the persecution, the
more widespread did witchcraft become. Every person tortured accused
others and whole communities went mad with grief and fear and
superstition. No amount of human evidence establishing the actual
whereabouts of the accused at the time they were asserted by the witness
on the rack to have been at the sabbath would avail. The husbands were
told that they had seen or held only the devil-created semblance of
their wives. The originals were with Satan under the oak. The
confessions of tens of thousands of witches are to be found in Europe's
judicial records of the period of the Inquisition.

"The Protestant Reformers zealously seconded the exertions of Rome to
extirpate witchcraft; they felt that they must prove that they were as
orthodox as the Catholics, and were as loyal to the Bible. No one urged
their fundamental ideas more than did Luther, Calvin, Beza, the Swedish
Lutherans, Casaubon, Wesley, Richard Baxter, the Mathers,--all stood
loyally by Rome." (_Lecky._)

At Lisbon, a horse whose master had taught him many tricks, was tried in
1601 and found guilty of being possessed by the Devil, for which he was
burned.

The witchcraft mania proper in England began in the sixteenth century
and reached its climax in the early part of the seventeenth century. Sir
Matthew Hale, the great jurist, sanctioned the delusions and passed
sentences of death by burning.

Queen Elizabeth made witchcraft a capital offense in England; and King
James I wrote a book on the subject, and lent his personal aid and royal
support to the persecutions.

Joan of Arc, the noblest of all the victims of this belief, perished by
English hands, though on French soil, and under the sentence of a French
bishop.

In Scotland, during the sixteenth century, as well as the seventeenth,
were seen the most horrible examples of what domination of superstitious
minds by ecclesiastics could do.

"Nothing was natural, all was supernatural. The entire course of affairs
was governed, not by their antecedents, but by a series of miracles.
Going still further, they claimed the power (the clergy) not only of
foretelling the future state, but also of controlling it; and they did
not scruple to affirm that, by their censures, they could open and shut
the Kingdom of Heaven. As if this were not enough, they also gave out
that a word of theirs could hasten the moment of death, and by cutting
off the sinner in his prime, could bring him at once before the
Judgment Seat of God.

"The Scotch clergy preached that, 'Hell was created before man came into
the world. The Almighty,' they did not scruple to say, 'having spent his
previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so
that, when the human race appeared, it might be ready for their
reception.'

"Of all the means of intimidation employed by the Scotch clergy none was
more efficacious than the doctrines they propounded respecting evil
spirits and future punishment. On these subjects, they constantly
uttered the most appalling threats. The language which they used was
calculated to madden men with fear and to drive them to the depths of
despair.

"It was generally believed that the world was overrun by evil spirits
who went not only up and down the earth, but also lived in the air, and
whose business it was to tempt and hurt mankind. Their number was
infinite, and they were to be found at all places and in all seasons.

"At their head was Satan himself, whose delight it was to appear in
person ensnaring or terrifying every one he met. With this object, he
assumed various forms. One day he would visit the earth as a black dog,
on another day as a raven, on still another day he would be heard in the