It says much for the common sense of the English nation that it should, at such a period, have produced so enlightened a writer on the subject as was Reginald Scot. As against his contemporary, Holland, who, writing in 1590, urges that since witches were in the Bible, "shall Satan be less cruel now?", Scot, in "The Discoverie of Witchcraft," scoffs at "Sprenger's fables and Bodin's bables"--a conceit that must have afforded him infinite satisfaction. "I denie not," he argues, "that there are witches or images, but I detest the idolatrous opinions conceived of them." And again: "I am well assured that if all the old women in the world were witches, and all the priests conjurers, we should not have a drop of rain the more or the less for them." The suggestion of priests as conjurers is, of course, a hit at "Papish practices," and another description of witches as "Papists" betrays his religious attitude. It must be said that the Anglican Church was inclined towards tolerance--the severe witch-persecutions in these islands, which I detail elsewhere, being chiefly due to that Puritan spirit which dwelt with more satisfaction on the sins than the virtues of mankind. For just as it has been said that the only antagonist more redoubtable on the battle-field than a swearing Irishman is a praying Scotsman, so the Puritan was a deadlier persecutor of witches than the most zealous Inquisitor. This with good reason, if we remember that the Catholic offered the chance of Heaven to anyone who was not an obstinate heretic; while the Puritan was of much the same opinion as the old Scotswoman, who, having with her brother seceded from the local kirk, and being asked by the minister whether she seriously believed that no one but her brother and herself would be saved, replied that she had grave doubts about her brother.