Assuming the record of testimony given in court to be correct--and why should we not?--the manifestations through and around Margaret Jones clearly indicated the outworking there of some abilities which the bodies and ordinary mental powers of embodied human beings do not possess. What then? Some unseen power must have helped her. What unseen power? Yes, _what_ unseen power? Experience as then interpreted--religious creeds as then understood--science and philosophy as they then existed--all conspired to give one and the same answer, viz., _The Devil_. That conclusion from the witnessed facts was then inevitable. The devil helped her. What next? The devil could help no one who had not previously entered into a covenant with him, and he surely helped this woman. Therefore she had made a covenant with him, and in making that she became a _witch_. The law of God which binds Christians says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Thus our forefathers saw and reasoned. Steps from facts to the conclusion were few, short, and plain. Feeble intellects _could_ take them, and strong ones _must_ do so, or reject their life-long creeds. Then a crucial hour was upon them. To distrust and disregard their credal faith or stifle their humanity, one or the other, was the hard alternative presented to strong, good men. Their cherished creed or Margaret Jones, one or the other, must be sacrificed. Which? Clear heads and life-long affections grasped the creed firmly, and resolved to save it. They let Logic draw her rigid conclusions, and put them forth as rules for individual and public action. Sympathy went down before dominant faith, and man stifled every rebellious emotion. God's call and law, Christian men then felt, were paramount to sympathy. In submission to what they deemed Heaven's will and call they said, "Down, humaneness--down! Up, God-derived Faith--up, in your majesty and might! Heart must follow whither you lead." Their awful and cramping _Creed devil-ward_ was the chief fountain of bewildering and brutalizing force that dragged intelligent and kind men on to redden our soil with innocent blood, and that too "in all good conscience."