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But he hadn't the heart to correct her. He watched a moment; then he pretended to be looking for the book he had pretended he wanted to find, then he sat down and pretended to write a letter whilst Flossie went on dusting, skilfully, delicately. She even managed to get through ten volumes of his own Bekker's Plato without damage to the beautiful but perishing Russia leather.

Henry More was no Puritan; and his letter to Glanvil, prefixed to the third edition of the "Sadducismus Triumphatus," was written in 1678, only fourteen years before the trials at Salem. Bekker's "Bezauberte Welt" was published in 1693; and in the Preface he speaks of the difficulty of overcoming "the prejudices in which not only ordinary men, but the learned also, are obstinate."

Nevertheless Beaumont never thought of questioning the reality of witchcraft phenomena, and his chief aim in writing was to answer The World Bewitched, the great work of a Dutch theologian, Balthazar Bekker, "who laughs at all these things of this Nature as done by Humane contrivance." Bekker's bold book was indeed gaining wide notice; but this reply to it was entirely commonplace.

It is clear that the object of the book, which is of no great length, was to give boys correct Latin words for the material objects of their daily life: something like Bekker's Gallus and Charicles on a small scale. In carrying out this idea Bartholomew of Cologne has provided us with a sketch of the world that he knew. Erasmus was not fitted for the monastic life.

When Bekker was deposed from his office, his adversaries caused a medal to be struck representing the devil clad in a priestly robe, riding on an ass, and carrying a trophy in his right hand; which was intended to signify that Bekker had been overcome in his attempt to disprove demoniacal possession, and that the devil had conquered in the assembly of divines who pronounced sentence on Bekker's book.

Thirdly, that lawful favor and Christian compassion be rather used towards these poor souls than rigor and extremity. Other books followed on the same side, of which Bekker's, published about a century later, was the most important. It is well reasoned, learned, and tedious to a masterly degree.