and persecution. Deeper and deeper into the hearts of men sank the belief that she was allied with demons, and that not only witches and wizards, but their most terrible Master might be seen by guilty mortals under the disguise of a cat. The unhesitating acceptance of a personal Devil, as an important factor in life, made our ancestors exceedingly alert to defeat his designs. No broad-minded doubts softened their fear and detestation; and Saint Dominic was not the only powerful preacher who figured Satan as a black cat, that he might thrill his startled hearers into a trembling abhorrence of sin. One result of this darkening of Pussy's character is that she can seldom be found in church architecture or decoration, where more innocent animals have frisked and gambolled for centuries. Indeed there are antiquarians who maliciously assert that her rare appearance—distorted out of grace and beauty—in some dim corner of a very old cathedral, is due, not to any softening of a universal prejudice, but to that sombre Manichean heresy which constantly found expression in symbolizing triumphant evil. They profess to believe that mediæval stone-masons, tainted with this unholy creed, yet discreet enough to conceal their errors from the Church's chastening hand, indicated the nature of their views by carving, on pulpit and on pillar, ravenous monsters,—lions, leopards,
