The influence of crypto-paganism on the whites can be seen in our history. The New England settlers made comparatively short work of the native tribes, who were in their eyes Chanaanites not to be spared. But though they slaughtered the men, women were saved, and not always from motives that will stand too close a scrutiny. Indian women became slaves in the houses of the New England colonists. If there was any outward conformity to Christian usage, most of them remained at heart as heathen as ever. The Indians of almost every known tribe avowedly worshipped the Spirit of Evil. North and South missionaries found the natives acknowledge and justify this practice. As a rule they admitted a Spirit of Good, but, as they argued, being inherently good, he could do only good to them, and need not be propitiated; whereas the Spirit of Evil continually sought to injure men, and must necessarily be propitiated to ward off the intended scourge. This adoration of the Evil One, and the attempt to propitiate him, win his favor, and do his will, the Indian slaves bore with them in their bondage. What New England witchcraft really was—diabolic, delusion, or imposture—has never been settled. No sound Catholic divine versed in mystic theology has ever, to our knowledge, marshalled and sifted the facts, and the evidence cited to support them, in order to come to any reasonable theory in the matter. New England of the seventeenth century firmly believed it diabolical; New England of the nineteenth century as dogmatically decides that it was delusion or imposture; but, unfortunately, neither seventeenth-century nor nineteenth-century New Englandism can be deemed a very safe guide, and each is condemned by the other and admits its liability to err, although both had the same energy for forcing their opinions for the time being on all mankind.