baptism, he says, 'Do you more to the openly profane--yea, to all
wizards and witches in the land?'[203] In quoting Isaiah 13, he,
taught by the Puritan version, puts the key in the margin--'Wild
beasts of the desert shall be there and their houses shall be full
of doleful creatures. And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs [that
is, the hobgoblins, or devils] shall dance there.'[204] He gave no
credence to the appearance of departed spirits, except in the hour
of death; and then, while between time and eternity, he thought
that in some rare cases spiritual sight was given to see objects
otherwise invisible.[205]

He fully believed in the power of Satan to suggest evil thoughts
to the pious Christian, and to terrify and punish the wicked, even
in this life; but never hints, through all his works, at any power
of Satan to communicate to man any ability to injure his fellows.
What a contrast is there between the Pilgrim of Loretto, with
its witch and devil story, mentioned in the introduction to the
Pilgrim's Progress, and Bunyan's great allegorical work! Conjurors
and fortune-tellers, or witches and wizards, were vagabonds deserving
for their fraudulent pretensions,[206] punishment by a few months'
imprisonment to hard labour, but not a frightful death. In all these
things this great man was vastly in advance of his age. He had
studied nature from personal observation and the book of revelation.
In proportion as the laws of nature are understood, the crafty
pretensions of conjurors and witches become exposed to contempt.
Bunyan never believed that the great and unchangeable principles
which the Creator has ordained to govern nature could be disturbed
by the freaks of poor old crazy women, for purposes trifling and
insignificant. No, such a man could never have circulated a report
that a woman was turned into a bay mare, and her chemise into a