These were dreadful times for humanity. Thousands and tens of thousands of victims suffered every kind of torture that savage, ingenuity could devise; and what made it the more to be deplored, the ignorant creatures who inflicted the torments were honest in their abhorrence of those unfortunate persons, who suffered for what was, in those dark ages, considered the worst of crimes. In what horror, then, were persons held who could be so wicked as to have dealings with the devil? The case of James is here recorded, to show the reader that the belief in witchcraft was not confined to the ignorant: and unlettered portion of society; but that England, and Scotland, and, it may be said, every Christian nation with its government, and the army also, were all laboring under this delusion. And the truth of its existence was then, and is now, supported by the New Testament, and fully confirmed by the Devil’s temptation of Jesus, the Christian’s _Son of God_; for the desire manifested by the Devil to entice Jesus to enter into his service, did, in those dark ages, strengthen persons in the conclusion that the Devil, although he failed to seduce the Redeemer, would continue to enlist, if possible, great numbers into his service. The firm belief of his attempts on the _Son of God_ would dispose persons to credit the fact that people of abandoned characters would hire themselves to the Devil. In the days of Oliver Cromwell, a story is recorded by Echard, the historian, as shockingly illustrative of the credulity of the age in which he lived. It takes its date from the morning of the third of September, 1651, when Cromwell gained the battle of Worcester against Charles the Second. It is on the authority of Colonel Lindsey, who was senior captain in Cromwell’s own regiment. The story recorded is, “That on the morning of the battle, Cromwell took with him Colonel Lindsey to the side of a wood, not far from the army, and bade him alight and follow him into the wood, and to take particular notice of what he saw and heard. And having secured their horses, and walked some little way into the wood, Lindsey began to turn pale, and to be seized with horror from some unknown cause. Cromwell asked him how he felt himself? He answered, that he was in such a trembling that he never felt the like in all the conflicts and battles he had ever been engaged in. ‘How, now,’ said Cromwell, ‘what! troubled with the vapors? Come forward, man.’ They had not gone far, before Lindsey stood still, and said it was impossible for him to go one step further. Upon which, Cromwell called him a faint hearted fool, and bade him stand there and observe, or witness. And then the General, advancing to some distance from him, met a grave elderly man with a roll of parchment in his hand, who delivered it to Cromwell, and he eagerly perused it Lindsey, a little recovered from his fear, heard several loud words between them, particularly Cromwell said, ‘this is but for seven