So also in superstition the Protestants were not a whit behind the Catholics. In presence of the Protestant king, James I., of England, it was declared that Agnes Sampson with two hundred other witches had sailed in sieves from Leith to North Betwick church to hold a banquet with the devil. It was also said that the witches had baptized and then drowned a black cat, which caused a terrible storm in which the ship that carried the king narrowly escaped being wrecked. King James and the high church dignitaries who formed his privy council, believed the accusation and condemned the poor woman to the flames. The leaders of German Protestantism were Luther and Melancthon, yet even they were victims of the grossest superstition. They believed that in the Tiber, not far distant from the pope's palace, a monster had been found having the body of a man, the head of an ass and the claws of a bird of prey. After much speculation and searching of their Bibles, they concluded it was a manifestation of God's anger against Rome, and they wrote a pamphlet about it. (_See Buckle's Hist. of Civilization._) It is a quite common error to suppose these persecutions to have emanated from the papal power exclusively. When we read of Copernicus escaping {33} persecution only by death, of Bruno, burned alive as a monster of impiety, of Galileo imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of misbelievers we are apt to look upon these things as the effect of Romish intolerance. But we should not forget that Kepler who stands pre-eminently conspicuous, who lead science on to greater victories than either Copernicus or Galileo, who thought and spake as one inspired--even he was hunted alike by Protestant and Catholic. Nor was this feeling of intolerance confined to any particular age. On the contrary we behold its continuance even to our own times. In Protestant England so late as 1772, the celebrated Dr. Priestly was not permitted to accompany the famous expedition for scientific discovery under Captain Cook, because he did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by the Church of England. On the 10th of May, 1859, was buried Alexander Von Humboldt. His labors were among the greatest glories of this century, and his funeral one of the most imposing of modern times. Among those who did themselves the honor of following his remains to their last resting-place was the present emperor of Germany. But no minister of any sect was present except the officiating clergyman and a few others who were considered as not in good standing in their respective churches. By these instances and many others it might be shown how has been wrought into the very fibre of modern society that pernicious idea that there is a necessary antagonism between science and religion.