The first fact that is brought forward, took place at Bury, St. Edmonds, in the County of Suffolk, (England,) in the year 1664. Amy Duny and Rose Callender, two poor women, who were ignorant, and of the coarsest materials, had, for eight years previous, the reputation of being witches. So horrid were they considered, that the fishermen would not sell them fish, and the boys in the streets were taught to fly from them with horror. The principal charges against them were, that the children of two families had been many times seized with fits in which they exclaimed that they saw Amy Duny and Rose Callender coming to torment them. They vomited, and in their vomit were often found pins, and once or twice a two-penny nail. One or two of the children died. To support these allegations, a wagoner appeared, whose wagon had been twice overturned in one morning in consequence of the curses of one of these witches. Sir Matthew Hale presided at the trial, assisted by Sir Thomas Brown, two of the most able and learned Judges then in England. Those two poor women were by the jury found guilty, and hanged on the seventeenth day of March, 1664, one week after their trial. Sir Matthew Hale refused to sum up the evidence, but left it to the jury, to whom he said, “That the Scriptures left no doubt that there was such a thing as witchcraft; and instructed them that all they had to do, was, first, to consider whether the children were really bewitched; and, secondly, whether the witchcraft was sufficiently brought home to the prisoners at the bar.” The Jury found them guilty, and they were hanged as before stated. Here we have a shocking account of the credulity of the human mind. The whole English nation were laboring under a mental delusion. Here it was not to be said, “_O, ye of little faith!_” but, “_O, ye religious madmen! your faith has changed your nature from kindness and pity, to perform acts of cruelty which the savage cannibal would shudder to put into practice._” I would here remind the reader, that Judge Hale was considered a just and humane Judge. What a dreadful state a nation must be in, when such laws as have been referred to, were in full force, and the jurisprudence of England was, as it were, under the influence of a Being the supposed enemy of man! And it may in truth be said, that an unknown and invisible world governed one that was known and visible.