The methods put in practice for the discovery of witches were various and singular. One was, to weigh the suspected woman against the church bible, which, if she was guilty, would preponderate. Another was to require her to repeat the Lord's prayer; in attempting this, a witch will always hesitate and blunder. If a witch should weep, she could not shed more than three tears, and that out of the left eye. This deficiency of tears was considered as a very substantial proof of guilt. Excrescences on the body, from which the imps receive their nourishment, were deemed infallible signs of a witch. She was bound crosswise, the right thumb tied to the left toe, and the left thumb to the right toe; in this condition she was cast into the water, if guilty she could not sink, for having in her compact with the devil renounced the water of baptism, the water in return refuses to receive her. If she was found able to swim in that condition, she was taken out and burnt or hung; but it is probable the bystanders were allowed to save them from drowning or few could escape. The trial by the stool was resorted to as another expedient; the suspected woman was placed in the middle of the room on a stool cross-legged; if she refused, she was bound with cords, and in this uneasy posture she was kept without meat or sleep, for twentyfour hours, during which it was supposed that her imps would return to her for nourishment. A small hole was left in the door for the imps to enter, and persons were directed to be constantly sweeping the floor, and to keep a strict watch for spiders, flies, or other insects, and if they could not kill them, they certainly were the witch's imps. Suspected witches were sometimes put to cruel torture to force confession, and were afterwards executed. From such kinds of proof, together with the most absurd and foolish evidence of old women and children, thousands of innocent persons were condemned for witchcraft, and burnt at the stake. Bishop Jewel, in a sermon preached before Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, tells her, 'It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers, within these last four years, are marvellously increased within your Grace's realm. Your subjects pine away even unto death; their color fadeth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft; I pray God they never practise farther than upon the subject.' John Bell, minister of the gospel at Glaidsmuir, says, 'Providentially two tests appeared to discover the crime. If the witch cries out, "Lord have mercy upon me!" when apprehended, and the inability of shedding tears; because, as a witch could only shed three tears, and those with her left eye, her stock was quickly exhausted; and that was the more striking, as King James I. shrewdly observes, "since other women in general are like the crocodile, ready to weep upon every slight occasion."'