VI. Scarcely anything more obviously marked out the Puritans as objects for the notice of the world than the manner in which they regarded the Lord's Day. They could not agree with Anglicans even as to its appellation; the word _Sabbath_, commonly used by the former class, being much disliked by the latter. The Puritans claimed sanctity for all the hours of the day from morning until night; their neighbours accounted the hours spent in Divine service alone as holy.[409] The one party founded the whole observance entirely upon words of Scripture, the other mainly upon ecclesiastical tradition. The difference as to the mode of keeping the first day of the week was still more striking. High Churchmen approved of rural amusements after the celebration of public worship, and vindicated the "Book of Sports" as a wise regulation; an extravagance of opinion which drove their fellow-countrymen to an opposite extreme. Whether it were right even to take a walk on the Sunday became with them a serious question; and Baxter, whose health required that he should do so, remarks that he did it privately, lest he should lead other people into sin.[410] The lower orders would sometimes burst through the trammels of law, and would riotously attempt the revival of ancient sports; and it happened once, that upon Easter Sunday, a number of noisy apprentices met in Finsbury Fields to play at their favourite games, and, when the train bands had been sent to disperse them, the young men said that, since all other holydays had been abolished by law, no time of recreation remained but the Sabbath. [Sidenote: _Belief in Witchcraft._] VII. Superstitious beliefs deeply tinged the religious and social life of the seventeenth century. There is in human nature an ineradicable conviction of the presence throughout the universe of invisible and mysterious influences; and this conviction, in certain wild imaginary forms, is found in a number of instances to be a pitiable substitute for religion, and, in a still greater number, to be its unworthy companion, and the corrupter of its purity. One of the worst superstitions of this kind is that belief in witchcraft which, after being widely and fondly cherished in mediæval Christendom, was brought over into Protestant churches at the period of the Reformation.[411] An Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth--the Book on Dæmonology by King James--other works on the subject by less conspicuous authors[412]--articles of visitation issued by Bishops[413]--and even the writings of Lord Bacon and John Selden, bear witness to the existence of this delusion on an extensive scale in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Indeed, it hung at that time like a black cloud over all Europe, terrifying people of all countries, of all ranks, of all degrees of culture, and of all varieties of religious opinion. [Sidenote: _Belief in Witchcraft._]