Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/16

Rh graphs which treat of every phase of the question from all points of view, but also by correspondence and discussion with ardent devotees of the cult, and, not least, owing to the admissions and warnings of those who have abandoned these dangerous practices, revelations made in such circumstances, however, as altogether to preclude even a hint as to their definite import and scope.

The History of Witchcraft is full of interest to the theologian, the psychologist, the historian, and cannot be ignored. But it presents a very dark and terrible aspect, the details of which in the few English studies that claim serious attention have almost universally been unrecorded, and, indeed, deliberately burked and shunned. Such treatment is unworthy and unscholarly to a degree, reprehensible and dishonest.

The work of Professor Notestein, for example, is gravely vitiated, owing to the fact that he has completely ignored the immodesty of the witch-cult and thus extenuated its evil. He is, indeed, so uncritical, I would even venture to say so unscholarly, as naïvely to remark (p. 300): “No one who has not read for himself can have any notion of the vile character of the charges and confessions embodied in the witch pamphlets. It is an aspect of the question which has not been discussed in these pages.” Such a confession is amazing. One cannot write in dainty phrase of Satanists and the Sabbat. However loathly the disease the doctor must not hesitate to diagnose and to probe. This ostrich-like policy is moral cowardice. None of the Fathers and great writers of the Church were thus culpably prudish. When S. Epiphanius has to discuss the Gnostics, he describes in detail their abominations, and pertinently remarks: “Why should I shrink from speaking of the things you do not fear to do? By speaking thus, I hope to fill you with horror of the turpitudes you commit.” And S. Clement of Alexandria says: “I am not ashamed to name the parts of the body wherein the fœtus is formed and nourished; and why, indeed, should I be, since God was not ashamed to create them?”

A few authors have painted the mediæval witch in pretty colours on satin. She has become a somewhat eccentric but kindly old lady, shrewd and perspicacious, with a knowledge of herbs and simples, ready to advise and to aid her