A LECTURE ON WITCHCRAFT. ON Tuesday evening, November 23rd, the Rev. W. Brock, D.D., lectured at Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle upon "the Witchcraft of the Seventeenth Century." Mr. Charles Gilpin, M.P., presided. About five hundred persons were present. Mr. Charlesworth began the proceedings with prayer, after which Mr. CHARLES GILPIN, M.P., said that he knew nothing about witchcraft, so would leave that subject to the lecturer. The proceeds of the lecture were to go to the support of the Stockwell Orphan Home, founded by Mr. Spurgeon, This Home now contains 110 boys, by Christmas the number will probably be 150, and before long 250 are expected to be within its walls. It is a good institution, and he hoped soon to see a similar one established for girls. Although he knew nothing about witchcraft, he would, before sitting down, nar rate a supernatural adventure which once befell George Fox. George Fox was once travelling, leather breeches and all through a rural district, and stopped at a country inn where he wanted to rest for the night, but was told that all the beds were taken, and that there was no room for travelling preachers. After some parley with the landlady, she told him that he might have the “haunted room” if he liked, as nobody else would sleep in it. “Give me a dry bed,” said the sturdy Quaker, “and I’ll take my chance of everything else." When in bed he soon went to sleep, but was awakcned by a deep-toned voice saying to him, “Thou art of the devil." Friend George looked round, but could see nothing, and he replied, “Thou art a liar, for I feel that within me at this moment which tells me that I am out of the power of the devil.” Next day an ostler confessed that in order to get a good bed himself, he had been in the habit of haunting the room given to George Fox. Mr. W. BROCK, D.D., a Baptist minister, said that he be lieved in evil spirits, because the Scriptures state that there are such beings, not as a figure of speech, but as a statement of fact. The Bible also says expressly that there are such persons as wizards and witches, most of whom seem to have been individuals who pretended to possess supernatural powers. Whether they really possessed such powers or not, he could not say; in the case of the witch of Endor, it may be that God permitted the spirit to appear while the necromancer was at work. The witchcraft of the seventeenth century in England was a very different thing, and its history is little else than a narrative of cruelty and fraud. King James I, wrote a book on the subject, recommending that witches should be seized at once, and put to death. The suspected persons were believed to have sold their souls to the devil, in return for which he gave them the power to sink ships, raise storms, and to cause men and animals to fall sick; the witches were mostly old women. One of the bishops declared before the monarch that he had seen people rotting away because of the mutterings of one particular witch. Statesmen, judges, and learned men were in that age firm believers in witchcraft, and a race of witchfinders quickly sprung up. The chief witchfinder was an impudent scoundrel of the name of Matthew Hopkins, who called himself “ Witchfinder General,” and undertook to pick out witches anywhere for a moderate fee. He travelled in state with a large retinue of servants he was paid for every witch he found, and sometimes he would contract to do a whole town for a certain sum. (Laughter.) He was officially employed by the British Parliament (Laughter.) When he reached a town, his plan of action was to ask if any persons were suspected. The reply of course being “yes," he then ordered the suspected persons to be brought before him, and he told them that about their persons he had no doubt that he should find warts or moles, or some other symptoms of their being witches. When these signs of guilt were discovered about an old woman, further proof was sought ; she was made to sit tied to a stool in the middle of a room, for twenty-four hours at least, without food, during which time it was supposed that her imps would come to see lier, and be detected by Hopkins. Hopkins not only said that he saw them, but he had the impudence to make rough drawings of them, and to write their names beneath. If he did not see imps, she was made to run up and down the roon till she was ready to die with fatigue, Hopkins all the time uttering adjurations such as, “ Oh, my darling Firebrand, shall find it out at last.” Then came the water trial, the mob with Hopkins at their head carrying the victim, who was tied round the middle with a rope, and thrown into the river. If she was guilty she floated, and if innocent she sank. King James wrote learnedly on the efficacy of this test. He said that by making a league with the devil she had rejected the water of her baptism, so that when she is thrown into the river, the water, if she be guilty, in its turn rejects her Hopkins could always get a verdict of guilty when he wanted. There were several other witchfinders, and one in the North of England effected the conviction of 250 witches, at £3 each The lecturer then narrated many horrible examples of persons, principally women, who, on the worst of evidence, lost their lives for witchcraft. Most of them were hanged, but a fey were burnt. Jane Brooks and others were hanged at Hun tingdon on a charge of making a wax figure of young Throgmorton, sticking it full of pins, and melting it before a fire ; the consequence was that “young Throgmorton ” pined away till the necromancers were hanged, and the proceeds of the sale of their property handed over to the parson at Hun tingdon, on condition that he should preach a sermon against witchcraft once a year for ever. The lecturer also narrated analogous cases, which were tried at Castle Carey, Lowestoft, and Taunton. He stated that within the limit of a very few years 3,192 persons were put to death for witchcraft in England.