In his “Memoirs,” Sir Nathaniel Wraxall has the following relating to this occurrence:—
“Dining at Pitt Place, about four years after the death of Lord Lyttelton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the bed-chamber, where the casement window, at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and at his stepmother’s, the Dowager Lady Lyttelton’s in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, who being a woman of very lively imagination, lent an implicit faith to all the supernatural facts which were supposed to have accompanied or produced Lord Lyttelton’s end. I have frequently seen a painting which she herself executed in 1780, especially to commemorate the event: it hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing-room. There the dove appears at the window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttelton his dissolution. Every part of the picture was faithfully designed after the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all the circumstances.”
[10]Copied from a paper in the autograph of Lord Westcote, entitled “Remarkable Circumstances attending the Death of Thomas, Lord Lyttelton,” which the present Lord Lyttelton most courteously entrusted to the Editor of this volume, together with several other original documents relating to the same, as follows:—1. Extract from Mr. Plumer Ward’s “Illustrations of Human Life,” vol. i. p. 165. 2. Written account given by Sir Digby Neave, bart., to Lord Lyttelton in 1860. 3. MS. containing Mr. George Fortescue’s testimony, signed S. L. 4. The following declaration:—“Chiswick, May 6th, 1867. Miles Peter Andrews told me the story of Lord Lyttelton’s appearance to him, driving with me at Wingerworth, many years ago.—Anna Hunloke.”
[11]Lord Lyttelton’s valet made the following statement:—“That Lord Lyttelton made his usual preparations for bed; that he kept every now and then looking for his watch; that when he got into bed, he ordered his curtains to be closed at the foot. It was now within a minute or two of twelve by his watch; he asked to look at mine, and seemed pleased to find it nearly keep time with his own. His lordship then put them both to his ear, to satisfy himself if they went. When it was more than a quarter after twelve by our watches, he said, ‘This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.’ When it was near the real hour of twelve, he said, ‘Come, I’ll wait no longer; get me my medicine, I’ll take it, and try to sleep.’ I just stepped into the dressing-room to prepare the physic, and had mixed it, when I thought I heard my lord breathing very hard. I ran to him, and found him in the agonies of death.”—“Gentleman’s Magazine,” vol. lxxxv. part i. p. 598,A.D.1815.
[12]In Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson” (vol. iv. p. 313) the Doctor is recorded to have said, “It is the most extraordinary occurrence in my days. I heard it from Lord Westcote, his uncle. I am so glad to have evidence of the spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it.”
[13]“James Weld, Esq., seventh son of Thomas Weld, Esq., of Lulworth Castle, was born April 30, 1785, married July 15, 1812, the Hon. Juliana Anne, daughter of Robert Edward, tenth Lord Petre, and has had issue, 1. Henry, 2. Francis, a priest, 3.Philip, died 1846; 1. Anna Maria, 2. Katharine, 3. Agnes, a nun, 4. Charlotte.”—See Burke’s “Landed Gentry,” vol. ii. art. “Weld of Lulworth Castle.”
[14]The Right Rev. Monsignor Patterson, the present President of S. Edmund’s college (A.D.1872), kindly informs me that there is a memorial brass in front of the sanctuary of the chapel of that society, on which is figured a floriated cross, rising out of waves, with a label appended to it,—“Lord save me.”
[15]S. Stanislaus Kostka was born on Oct. 28, 1550, his parents being John and Margaret Kostka, Polish nobles of wealth and repute. Miraculous signs foreshadowed his birth; and the holiness and purity of his early years betokened in a marked manner the favour of God towards this child. In his fourteenth year he went to Vienna to finish his studies at the Jesuit college. Here, his saintliness was so manifested forth by his conduct, that the Fathers said, “We have in our seminary an angel under the form of Stanislaus.” Many miraculous favours are said to have been bestowed upon him by the hands of saints and angels, too numerous and lengthy to be recorded. He commenced his noviciate in the Jesuit college at Rome; where, after a short but edifying sojourn, he joyfully departed this life, aged 18 years, on the morning of August 15, 1568.
[16]Mr. de Lisle, of Garendon Park, Leicestershire, in communicating to me the above narrative, writes as follows:—“I send you my account of the apparition of Philip Weld, according to my promise. I received it back this morning (July 17, 1872) from the Benedictine Convent at Athenstone, in Warwickshire, where my daughter Gwendoline is a nun, and where one of the Miss Welds, a cousin of Philip, is also a nun. She approves the accuracy of my account, and has added a paper with a few notes, which I inclose along with my own article, and from which you can correct mine so far as needed. I add here my affirmation that the above recorded narrative is a true and faithful account of what the Very Rev. Dr. Cox, then President of S. Edmund’s College, related to me and to Mrs. de Lisle in February, 1847.” The Editor is also greatly indebted to the Very Rev. Alfred Weld, S.J., for his courteous Letters upon the subject of the above narrative, as likewise to the Rev. E. J. Purbrick, S.J.
[17]“Letters on Animal Magnetism,” by Dr. W. Gregory, pp. 448-489. London, 1851.
[18]“The Apparition or Spectral Appearance of my friend’s father to him in the West Indies—the old gentleman having died in England, and the fact of two officers having seen it simultaneously, shows that it could not have been the result of their imagination, but that it was an objective appearance; in fact, the dead man’s immortal spirit, indicating to one once bound by Nature’s ties to the living witness of it, that the separation of soul and body had taken place. It is firmly believed by the family, who, however, all shrink from making their names public. So, my dear doctor, you must be content with this.”—E. M. C., Cambridge, July 15, 1873.
[19]“The narrative of the spectral appearance of a lady at Torquay, forwarded to Dr. F. G. Lee at his special request, is copied from, and compared with that in, the family Bible of H. A. T. Baillie-Hamilton by the undersigned,
“C. Margaret Balfour,Mary Baillie-Hamilton.Witness, J. R. Grant.
“Princes Street, Edinburgh,October 7, 1871.”
[20]“The above is a correct and truthful statement.
“Witness my hand and seal.John Gill Godwin.
“76, Warwick Street,South Belgravia, Nov. 6, 1874.”
[21]Special enquiry, made since the above was penned, shows conclusively that this appearance was seen exactly seven years after the date of death.—Editor.
[22]The Editor is in no degree concerned with Paganism or Pagan superstitions, nor has he gathered præ-Christian examples. Yet such will have been numerous to the ordinary student of classical history. The Haunted House of Damon, mentioned by Plutarch, will be familiar to many.
[23]The following is the original of a most beautiful verse in Bishop Ken’s well-known “Evening Hymn,” either mutilated in the worst of taste in most hymn-books, or else altogether eliminated and suppressed:—
“You, my best guardian, while I sleepClose to my bed your vigils keep;Your love angelical instil,Stop all the avenues of ill.”
[24]“What do we know of the World of Spirits? Little or nothing, beyond what Faith and Revelation afford. Still we know that they surround us; that they hover over us; that they accompany us whithersoever we go; and that even in the innermost tabernacle of the soul they penetrate and have their being. Good spirits and bad are around us; good spirits to aid us, to waft our lame and imperfect prayers to heaven, and to protect us in the hour of temptation or peril. ‘He shall give His angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ Bad angels, too, are around us and against us, percolating through every avenue of the soul, inflaming the imagination, warping the judgment, tainting the will, and too often, alas! perverting it to perdition. Bad angels are around us, even within the protecting sanctuary of God’s Church, when summoned, permitted there by the subdued and corrupted will of man. Bad angels are around us in every walk and rank and condition and event of life: we see them not, but they hover over us and around us, and they penetrate within the mysterious precincts of the soul, by many a foul and unholy thought, by many an evil suggestion to sin. And they triumph, and they gibber in their unholy glee whenever they tempt and prevail. They triumph, and they laugh the insulting laugh whenever they steep to the lips in sin an unhappy mortal, and fasten upon him the mocking thought and determination of a deathbed repentance. That is their battle ground, the battle ground of victory. The standard of deceit is then triumphant: the captive is delivered bound into their hands to do with as they list, to be tormented according to the refinement of their infernal pleasure. ‘He shall be delivered unto the tormentors.’”—Rev. Edward Price.
[25]This belief prevails extensively in Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland.
[26]The souls of the dead, or spirits of some sort, are constantly heard and not unfrequently seen in mines. A Shropshire miner informed the Editor that, of his own knowledge, he had heard supernatural sounds of moanings and mutterings underground, and had seemed tofeelthe passing spirits as they swept by. On one occasion, after the violent and sudden death of a comrade, the noises were unusually loud; while the horses employed underground would stand trembling and covered with perspiration whenever the spirits were heard.
[27]“The Life of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., by Robert Southey, Esq.,” vol. ii. p. 370. London: 1858.
[28]In many places on the continent, especially in France and Spain, it was the custom to pray for departed souls, suffering (as their needful purification was incompleted)in any particular locality. Dr. Neale gives an example of this, occurring in a prayer which he saw printed and hung up in a church at Braganza in Spain, which ran thus:—“We pray, likewise, for the souls which are suffering in any place by the particular chastisement of God.” And the following is translated from a French Prayer-Book of the last century:—“Have mercy, O Lord God, good and pitiful, on the souls of those who are being chastised for their transgressions in the flesh, in those places where Thou willest them to suffer;” an evident reference in both cases to troubled spirits which haunt definite spots.
[29]When the tone of thought in Shakspeare’s day is compared with that in our own, the contrast between the accurate and explicit religious statements regarding the Supernatural, with the shallow and cynical scepticism of modern writers, can hardly be put down to the credit of the Modern. At all events those who claim to range themselves on the side of the Ancient and the True may be permitted to do so. Nothing could more forcibly set forth the current belief of the sixteenth century than the following well-known utterance of the Ghost in “Hamlet”:—
“I am thy Father’s spirit;Doom’d for a certain time to walk the night,And for the day confined to fast in fires,Till the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purged away. But that I am forbidTo tell the secrets of my prison-house,I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Thy knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on end,Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:But this eternal blazon must not beTo ears of flesh and blood.”“Hamlet,” pp. 22-23. Oxford: 1873.
[30]The Editor is indebted to the late Revs. W. Hastings Kelke and H. Roundell of Buckingham, for the above curious example. It was intended to have been published some years ago in “The Records of Bucks.”
[31]For an accurate account by the late Rev. W. Hastings Kelke of this curious and interesting old mansion, the property of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, see “The Records of Bucks,” vol. i. pp. 255-267. Aylesbury, 1858.
[32]“Memoirs of Sir John Reresby,” p. 238.
[33]The Rev. Joseph Jefferson, M.A., Vicar of North Stainley, near Ripon, who sent me the above—unaltered, and printed just as it was written—on the 2nd of June, 1873.
[34]“Notes and Queries,” vol. x. second series, Sept. 8, 1860, pp. 192-193, and Sept. 22, 1860, p. 236.
[35]Barby is a parish in the Hundred of Fawsley, in the county of Northampton, a little more than five miles from Daventry. It contains between six and seven hundred inhabitants.
[36]“Your account, as about to be printed, istrue and exact, as to all the facts of the haunted house at ——, which came within my own personal knowledge. Don’t mention names, or we shall perhaps be damaging the property, and lay ourselves open to an action at law. I may add that the late Bishop of Chester [Dr. Graham] is said to have furnished a mutual friend, the late Master of Trinity, with similar accounts, which had taken place before I knew the place, verifying to an A B C the old and, no doubt, perfectly true tradition. It is strange enough I know,but it is true.—Yours, &c., H. S. B., November, 1874.”
[37]The wife of the clergyman above alluded to, wrote to the Editor as follows:—“Having read the account which you contemplate publishing, I can testify of my own personal knowledge that it isneither understated nor exaggerated, but is in all its details strictly true and accurate.—June, 1874.”
[38]Miss S. F. Caulfeild, author of “Avenele,” “Desmond,” &c.
[39]It seems that other places are reported to be haunted by appearances of Birds. A correspondent informs the Editor that this is the case with an old House in Dorsetshire, not far from Poole, where a wingless bird is sometimes seen. The same is said of a mansion in Essex, as another correspondent declares. In one room in an old house in Dean Street, Soho, likewise, several persons have seen a large raven, three times the size of an ordinary raven, perched on the tester of the old-fashioned bed. The inmates of the house, in 1854, whose family had had the lease for eighty years, are said to have been so accustomed to seeing it (though they knew it to be spectral) that they were undisturbed by its frequent appearance. Dr. Neale’s story as follows (not unlike the examples already given), is very singular. Regarding it he wrote:—“It comes to me with a weight of evidence, which, strange as is the tale, I cannot disbelieve. Three friends, not very much distinguished by piety, had been dining together at the residence of one of them in Norfolk. After dinner they went out and strolled through the churchyard. ‘Well,’ said a clergyman, one of the three, ‘I wonder, after all, if there is any future state or not?’ They agreed that whichever died first should appear to the others and inform them. ‘In what shape shall it be?’ asked one of the friends. At that moment a flight of crows arose from a neighbouring field. ‘A crow is as good a shape as any other,’ said the clergyman; ‘if I should be the first to die, I will appear in that.’ Hediddie first; and some time after his death, the other two had been dining together, and were walking in the garden afterwards. A crow settled on the head of one of them, stuck there pertinaciously, and could only be torn off by main force. And when this gentleman’s carriage came to take him home, the crow perched on it, and accompanied him back.”
[40]“Strange Things Amongst Us.” By Henry Spicer. 2nd ed., pp. 100-102. London: Chapman & Hall, 1864.
[41]The following is taken from a small volume which has been gratuitously circulated very widely amongst the clergy and laity. It bears a Christian title, but is altogether anti-Christian from end to end:—
“The unwise, idolatrous, early Christian priests, in their admiration of Christ, exalted him in their imagination to be God Himself, forgetting the Creator God, and exalting in their foolish imagination his Blessed Mother as the Mother of God—folly that has been widely perpetuated down to these days. Oh, foolish churches, how great has been your folly, how widely you have departed from the truth; therefore how little you have been able to cope with the wicked heart of man!
“In like manner as the Israelites, from the crucifixion down to these days, have erred in disbelieving the Messiah-ship of Christ, so the spurious churches have, during many ages, exalted Christ in their imagination to be God. The Israelites and the spurious churches being equal in their great error—the one refusing to acknowledge him as the long-promised Messiah, the other exalting him in their imagination as being the Messiah, the Holy Ghost, and God the Creator also; the Israelites refusing to give any glory to Christ, the spurious churches madly rushing, in their ancient antagonism towards the Jews, to the opposite extreme, by robbing, in their imagination, God the Creator of His Glory, and giving all glory to the Messiah, to the great grief of the Messiah.
“Now clearly understand, oh ye nations of the whole world! it was not God who was born out of the Virgin Mary, and who was crucified, but the before holy angel Christ—understand this, and the Holy Scriptures will be plain to your comprehension—Christians have erred greatly during so many generations, in like manner as the followers of Mahomet and of Buddah have erred—errors that were carelessly accepted by powerful rulers, evil and ignorant, and forced upon the priests and the people, generation after generation. The time is at hand, even knocking at the door, when your understanding shall be made clear, and neither the professing followers of Christ, nor of Buddah, nor of Mahomet, nor the unwise of other sects, will continue in their many errors.”—“Christ is Coming,” pp. 135-6.
“Yet to-day, if one dare question the value of Christianity, what a howl is raised from one end of Christendom to the other! We say so advisedly, for it is the howl of fear.... Though Christianity to-day declines and is losing power and vigour, yet in its day it hath done great and glorious good in the work of human redemption. It was an advance upon the religions which preceded it.”—“What of the Dead? An Address by Mr. J. J. Morse, in the Trance State,” p. 5. London: J. Burns. 1873.
[42]2 St. Peter iii. 3, 4.
[43]“A Scientific View of Modern Spiritualism: a Paper read by Mr. T. Grant to the Maidstone and Mid-Kent Natural History and Philosophical Society on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 1872.” London: J. Burns.
[44]A remarkable example of this has been courteously given to me by Mr. Thomas Bosworth, of 198, High Holborn, as follows:—“Some seven or eight years ago there appeared in one of the newspapers a story to the following effect:—A commercial firm at Bolton, in Lancashire, had found that a considerable sum of money which had been sent to their bank by a confidential clerk, had not been placed to their credit. The clerk remembered the fact of taking the money, though not the particulars, but at the bank nothing was known of it. The clerk, feeling that he was liable to suspicion in the matter, and anxious to elucidate it, sought the help of spirit medium. The medium promised to do her best. Having heard the story, she presently passed into a kind of trance. Shortly after she said, ‘I see you on your way to the bank—I see you go into the bank—I see you go to such and such part of the bank—I see you hand some papers to a clerk—I see him put them in such and such a place under some other papers—and I see them there now.’ The clerk went to the bank, directed the cashier where to look for the money, and it was found; the cashier afterwards remembering that in the hurry of business he had there deposited it. A relation of mine saw this story in a newspaper at the time, and wrote to the firm in question, the name of which was given, asking whether the facts were as stated. He was told in reply that they were. That gentleman who was applied to, having corrected one or two unimportant details in the above narration, wrote on November 9, 1874:—‘Your account is a correct one. I have the answer of the firm to my enquiry at home now.’”
[45]The term “willer” and “necromancer” are used as identical by Easterns as well as by the aborigines of New Zealand.
[46]There have been published “Rules to be Observed for the Spirit Circle,” “framed under the Direction and Impression of Spirits,” by Emma Hardinge, from which the following points are gathered. Firstly, there is a definition, and it is stated that “the Spirit Circle is the assembling together of a given number of persons for the purpose of seeking communion with the spirits who have passed away from Earth into the higher world of souls.” A leading direction enjoins the inquiring votaries to “Avoid stronglight, which by producing excessive motion in the atmosphere, disturbs the manifestations. A very subdued light is the most favourable for any manifestations of a magnetic character, especially for spiritual magnetism.” “Strongly positive persons of any kind” and “the dogmatical” should not be admitted. Furthermore, these “Rules” contain the following:—
“Spirit control is often deficient, and at first almost always imperfect.By often yielding to it, your organism becomes more flexible and the spirit more experienced; and practice in control is absolutely necessary for spirits as well as mortals.If dark and evil-disposed spirits manifest to you, never drive them away, but always strive to elevate them and treat them as you would mortals under similar circumstances. Do not always attribute falsehoods to ‘lying spirits,’ or deceiving mediums. Many mistakes occur in the communion of which you cannot always be aware.Strive for Truth, but rebuke Error gently, and do not always attribute it to design, but rather to mistake, in so difficult and experimental a stage of the communion as mortals at present enjoy with spirits.”
[47]The kind of communication made to those who first consult the spirits, is just of that nature calculated to allure the superficial, the frivolous, the uninformed, triflers, and seekers after novelties; and to lead them on to a more frequent intercourse and a deeper kind of communion.
[48]Dr. J. G. Davey, M.D., of Northwoods, Bristol, writes as follows:—“I have satisfied myself not only of the mere abstract truth of Spiritualism, but of its great and marvellous power for good, both on moral and religious grounds. The direct and positive communications vouchsafed to me from very many near and dear relatives and friends, said to be dead, have been of the most pleasing yet startling character.”—Report on Spiritualism, p. 232. London: Longmans, 1871.
[49]This person, whose name was most accurately given, had died five days previously. He was a servant on the estate, and had belonged to the sect of the Anabaptists.
[50]“Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena called Spiritualism, during the years 1870-73.” By William Crookes, F.R.S.
[51]“The reader who has not been in the habit of attendingséancesshould be informed that the peculiar phraseology of some of the questions is rendered necessary by the fact that if you ask the spirits, ‘Where didyoudie?’ or ‘Where wereyouburied?’ they will sometimes tell you that it was nottheywho died and were buried, but merely the external shell or material covering of the real man.”—Note by the Editor of the “Spiritual Magazine.”
[52]“There is scarcely a city or a considerable town in Continental Europe, at the present moment, where Spiritualists are not reckoned by hundreds if not by thousands; where regularly established communities do not habitually meet for spiritual purposes: and they reckon among them individuals of every class and avocation.”—“Scepticism and Spiritualism.” In a letter to the “Spiritual Magazine,” dated May 4th, 1867, Judge Edmunds, of America, estimated the number of Spiritualists in the United States at ten millions. “In London, ten years ago,” writes Mr. R. Dale Owen, “there was but a single Spiritual paper; to-day there are five.”—“The Debatable Land,” p. 175. London: Trübner, 1871.
[53]The Rev. John Edwards, jun., M.A., Vicar of Prestbury, near Cheltenham.
[54]“We do not, either by faith or works,earnHeaven, nor are we sentenced, on any Day of Wrath, to Hell. In the next world we simply gravitate to the position for which, by life on earth, we have fitted ourselves; and we occupy that positionbecausewe are fitted for it.”—“The Debatable Land,” by R. Dale Owen, p. 125. London, 1871.
[55]Howitt’s “What Spiritualism has Taught,” p. 8.
[56]Howitt’s “What Spiritualism has Taught,” p. 10.
[57]“Spiritualism is avowedly opposed to the Christian Religion. ‘The Creed of the spirits’ is published in the shape of a little tract, one of those called ‘Seed Corn,’ which active agents love to distribute gratuitously wherever readers can be found, and these are its clauses: ‘I believe in God’—‘I believe in the immortality of the human soul’—‘I believe in right and wrong’—‘I believe in the communion of spirits as ministering angels.’ Nothing more. Those well-intending persons, therefore—and we believe that among Protestants there are many—who go toséancesout of curiosity, and who are sometimes heard to say that if Spiritualism be true it must therefore be right, should be warned that they are lending countenance to persons in whose writings the doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ are emphatically denied—the Holy Ghost scoffed at in words too blasphemous for repetition, our Blessed Lady insulted, and the whole fabric of Religion attacked and undermined; and whether this is done by spirits who actually manifest themselves for the purpose of leading people astray, or by impostors who work upon the credulity of their audience, the thing can have but one origin, and that is the same as that of any other work by which the Arch-enemy seeks to close the heart of man against the True Faith. It is time therefore to use other weapons than that of ridicule against the baneful and, we fear, widely increasing delusion.”—“Tablet,” September 6, 1873.
[58]Collect for the Feast of S. Michael and All Angels, “Book of Common Prayer.”
[59]“The soul has a kind of body of a quality of its own.”—Tertull. cont. Marc. lib. v. cap. xv.
[60]This account is current, with slender and unimportant variations, at Oxford; or at all eventswascurrent in my days there (A.D.1850-1854), and on what could not be regarded as other than good authority. One version is already in print—that given by Mr. William Maskell, at pp. 108-112 of his curious and interesting book, “Odds and Ends,” London, 1872. He seems to imply that it was the late Archdeacon of Cleveland, the Ven. Edward Churton, who saw the spectral apparitions in Brasenose Lane; but the Archdeacon belonged to Christ Church, and, as his son, the Rev. W. R. Churton, of Cambridge, informs me, was not resident at Oxford at the time of the occurrence. More probably it was the Archdeacon’s brother, the Rev. T. T. Churton, sometime Fellow of Brasenose.
[61]As to the universality of the belief in Witchcraft, the reader may consult Herder’s “Philosophy of History,” bk. viii. ch. 2. And as regards the convictions of some of the leading minds of Europe in times past on the subject, Mr. Leckey in his “History of Rationalism” (vol. i. p. 66), makes the following candid admission: “It is, I think, impossible to deny that the books in defence of the belief are not only far more numerous than the later works against it, but that they also represent far more learning, dialectic skill, and even general ability. For many centuries the ablest men were not merely unwilling to repudiate the superstition; they often pressed forward earnestly and with the most intense conviction to defend it. Indeed, during the period when Witchcraft was most prevalent there were few writers of real eminence who did not, on some occasion, take especial pains to throw the weight of their authority into the scale. Thomas Aquinas was probably the ablest writer of the thirteenth century, and he assures us that diseases and tempests are often the direct acts of the devil; that the devil can transport men at his pleasure through the air; and that he can transform them into any shape. Gerson, the Chancellor of the University of Paris, and, as many think, the author of ‘The Imitation,’ is justly regarded as one of the master intellects of his age; and he, too, wrote in defence of the belief. Bodin was unquestionably the most original political philosopher who had arisen since Machiavelli, and he devoted all his learning and acuteness to crushing the rising scepticism ‘on the subject of witches.’”
[62]1 S. Peter v. 8.
[63]Acts xvi. 16-18.
[64]Apologia, cap. v. De Civit. Dei, lib. xv. cap. xxiii.
[65]1 Cor. xi. 10.
[66]Ibid. xi. 15.
[67]Luther, following the current tradition of his day, believed that the Devil could beget children on the bodies of women; and declared that he himself had personally come across, and was well acquainted with, one of the Devil’s offspring. So too did Erasmus believe the fact of such generation. It is a tradition in the Catholic Church, that the last and great Antichrist—the final Antichrist—may be born of such an alliance. Of course Mahomet wasagreat Antichrist; for though he borrowed certain Christian features and adopted many Jewish notions and Rabbinical traditions in his system, yet he plainly and undoubtedly fulfilled the prophetic statement of S. John the Divine—“He is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son.” (1 S. John ii. 22.) Mahomet’s great and leading heresy is expressed in the following dogmatic assertion of the Koran: “God neither begetteth nor is begotten.” Now no system has more pertinaciously, successfully, and for so long a time opposed Christianity than Mahometanism—not even Arianism. But modern “Liberalism,” so called, as still developing amongst ancient Christian nations, promises even to outstrip the system of Mahomet, and to be as blighting and baneful in its results.
[68]“An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians.” By E. W. Lane. 5th edition. London: 1860.
[69]See the whole of this chapter, which is full of information and interest. It gives a record of several other similar examples.
[70]In No. 117 of the “Quarterly Review,” there is a criticism on Mr. Lane’s account of these necromancers; but the facts recorded by him are neither satisfactorily accounted for nor successfully explained away.
[71]My brother-in-law, Captain Ostrehan, of the Bombay Staff Corps, Sir Alfred Slade, Bart., and the Rev. Dr. Dunbar, chaplain to Bishop Claughton, have furnished me with remarkable examples of the power of Oriental necromancers.
[72]Nevins’ “China and the Chinese,” p. 167. New York, 1868.
[73]“Theory of Pneumatology,” by J. H. Jung-Stilling, pp. 136-137. London: Longmans, 1834.
[74]Dr. Sexton in his “Defence of Modern Spiritualism” (London: J. Burns), a tractate written with ability and frankness, remarks that “it is too late in the day to sneer at this matter with a sort of self-complacency, which seems to say, ‘You are a poor deluded creature: behold my superior wisdom; I don’t believe in such nonsense.’ Here are the facts, and we demand in the true spirit of Science to know what is to be done with them. If you have any theory by which they can be explained, let us hear it, in order that we may judge of its merits; if you have not, we are all the more justified in clinging to our own.” And, again, referring to the inquiries of a certain Dr. Hare in America, he writes:—“The question with Dr. Hare was—Did the phenomena occur, and, if so, were they produced by the direct action of those persons in whose presence they took place? The nonsensical notions mooted by unscientific opponents, and which are still urged with as much gravity as though they had been made the subject of mathematical demonstration, that electricity, magnetism, odic, or psychic forces are the agents by which the manifestations are produced, he knew well enough could not bear a moment’s investigation. Electricity cannot move tables, nor in fact act at all without cumbrous apparatus. Magnetism cannot give intelligent responses to questions, and odic force and its twin brother psychic are probably as imaginary as the philosopher’s stone; and even if their existence could be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, they could not in the slightest degree help us to the solution of the great problem of the cause of the phenomena designated Spiritual.”
[75]A thoughtful writer, and one who is evidently far-seeing and awake to the danger, recently made the following pertinent remarks in theChurch Review:—
“The presence of Superstition is always the sign of a wandering from the true path; theexcessof Superstition almost invariably the precursor of great intellectual and religious changes, if not absolute convulsions. Before the great crash of Paganism the necromancers and practisers of curious arts were carrying on an unusually brisk trade among the Romans. We all know how prevalent was the belief in witches, wizards, and astrology at the time immediately preceding the (so-called) Reformation. Before the French Revolution the sect founded by Cagliostro and Lorenza Feliciani, which professed a knowledge of the ancient arts of the Egyptians, found great numbers of followers. And have we not a sign of a national mental crisis in our own day in the prevalence of ‘Spiritualism,’ which is the form which necromancy at present takes? There may be many people who are utterly unaware how large a number of their fellow-countrymen, and especially of their countrywomen, believe in Spiritualism, and attendséances. Those who do so are not usually very fond of parading their belief, because they have a lurking suspicion that they may get laughed at; but this very reserve makes the bond between the votaries of Spiritualism so much the stronger. It is no exaggeration to say that the practice of dealing with familiar spirits is on the increase in Great Britain at the present moment.” (A.D.1873.)
[76]“On the Invisible World,” by Joseph Hall, D.D., &c., book i. sec. 8. Father Christopher Davenport, better known as “Sancta Clara,” in one of his most remarkable treatises, “Paralipomena Philosophica de Mundo Peripatetico,” chap. iv. p. 68 (A.D.1652), confirms the account in the text of the above-named Bishop of Exeter, giving all the details of this particular miraculous cure. It seems that both the Well and Chapel of S. Madron were constantly visited by the faithful during the first part of the seventeenth century, especially in the month of May and on the feast of Corpus Christi.
[77]“History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” by W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. Fourth edition in two volumes. London, 1870.
[78]Dr. Newman will, of course, be excepted; for his remarkable Dissertation prefixed to the translation of Fleury’s “History” is known to many, more especially in its new form,—a volume already referred to at length in chap. ii. pp. 35-36. It is certainly quite unjust to include the Tractarian school amongst those who are referred to by Mr. Lecky in the following passage:—“At present nearly all educated men receive an account of a miracle taking place in their own day, with an absolute and even derisive incredulity which dispenses with all examination of the evidence.”—Vol. i. p. 1. Though many are reticent, and many more shrink from publicity and rude criticism, it is known that the direct influence of the Miraculous and Supernatural is by no means unknown in the Church of England.
[79]Job xxv. 5.
[80]See a most remarkable Letter from the pen of my friend the Rev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow, on “The Claims of Science and Faith,” standing as an Appendix to this Chapter, in which the office of the angels is referred to.
[81]Mr. Mill, who is now dead, wrote that “this World was a bungled business in which no clear-sighted man [meaning himself apparently, and modestly] could see any signs either of wisdom or of God.” Mr. Matthew Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, has written that “the existence of God is an unverifiable hypothesis.” A third writer maintains that the “great duty” of the philosophers “should be to eliminate the idea of God from the minds of men,” a sentiment not unlike that of Mr. Congreve, already quoted on p. 19 of vol. i.; while a popular publication, circulated by thousands amongst the lower classes, declares that the mission of its Editors is “to teach men to live without the fear of God; to die without the fear of the Devil; and to attain salvation without the Blood of the Lamb.”