Page:The Examination and Confession of certain Witches at Chelmsford in the County of Essex.djvu/10

4 thouands of lives are acrificed to the heer ignorance of a century, to the elfih malice of a certain party, hitory leeps its pen in its own heart's blood, and mourns over the gloomy time in which uch deeds could happen, and over the men that lived in it.

Such a ad period extends nearly over three centuries, from the fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth. We peak of the time during which the witchcraft trials exited, from their formal etablihment by an immoral pope, Innocent VIII, up to their disappearance from the tribunals. Thee centuries preent the darket ide of the hitory of the world; and it is a gratifying tak to purue the track which was tealthily followed by this prietcraft, in order to regain the ruling power which the Reformation had wreted from their hands. The ecret tribunals (Vehmgerichte) and witchcraft trials were invented in