But he did not dare publish it under his own name, nor did
he even dare publish it in a Catholic town; he gave it to the
world anonymously, and, in order to prevent any tracing of the
work to him through the confessional, he secretly caused it to
be published in the Protestant town of Rinteln.
Nor was this all. Nothing shows so thoroughly the hold that this
belief in magic had obtained as the conduct of Spee's powerful
friend and contemporary, John Philip von Schonborn, later the
Elector and Prince Archbishop of Mayence.
As a youth, Schonborn had loved and admired Spee, and had
especially noted his persistent melancholy and his hair whitened
even in his young manhood. On Schonborn's pressing him for the
cause, Spee at last confessed that his sadness, whitened hair,
and premature old age were due to his recollections of the
scores of men and women and children whom he had been obliged to
see tortured and sent to the scaffold and stake for magic and
witchcraft, when he as their father confessor positively knew
them to be innocent.
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