Special Mention | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1882

Special Mention.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”—Matt. 16:3.

—A lady missionary in Alaska writes that the practice of torturing persons to death for the crime of witchcraft prevails there. She says that many persons have been sentenced to death by native tribunals on account of the general belief in this heathen superstition. Nor is this extraordinary belief confined to Alaska, if we may credit a statement found in a recent exchange. In portions of Maryland and Delaware, the existence of witches is firmly believed in by many of the people. They believe that the witch takes a man out of bed at night, rides him through briars, woods, and streams, for twenty miles or more, and then returns him to his bed, where he wakes in the morning to find himself very tired, and his hands and feet scratched and bleeding. Of course, the local authorities do not try to punish witches; but a man and his family recently lodged in the trees during a cold night, “because the witches were after them.” This in 1882.