Use "trial by ordeal" in a sentence

1. So the belief that God would intervene in their trial by ordeal, Leeson writes, “created a separating equilibrium in which only innocent defendants were willing to undergo ordeals

2. Our best explanation is that either (1) the priests believed these defendants really were guilty; or (2) the priests had to at least keep up appearances that a trial by ordeal really worked, or else the threat would lose its power to sort the innocent from the guilty—and so these folks were sacrificed