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REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
REMARKABLE DELUSIONS; 
 
 OH, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OP POPULAR 
 ERRORS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 
 
 NO. 146 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 LONDON: 
 RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
 
-£? 
 
 
 K 
 
 Note. — The American Sunday-school Union have made an 
 arrangement with the London Religious Tract Society, to pub- 
 lish, concurrently with them, such of their valuable works as 
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 on our catalogue, and will constitute a valuable addition to our 
 stock of books for family and general reading. 
 
 As they will be, substantially, reprints of the London edition, 
 the credit of their general character will belong to our English 
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 tion of them, under our joint imprint, involves us in no respon- 
 sibility beyond that of a judicious selection. We cheerfully 
 avail ourselves of this arrangement for giving wider influence 
 and value to the labours of a sister institution so catholic in 
 its character and so efficient in its operations as the London 
 Religious Tract Society. 
 
 4®* The present volume is issued under the above arrange- 
 ment. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. PAGE 
 
 Belief and credulity— General prevalence of error— Delu- 
 sions originate in the fall — Are fostered by ignorance — 
 Incomplete knowledge— Prejudice— Morbid sensibility 
 —Interested priestcraft— Hypocrisy— Covetousness . 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DELUSIONS GENERALLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF PREVALENT 
 POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Superstitions of ancient nations— Of Rabbins— Of Anglo- 
 Saxons— Of aboriginal descendants— Of sailors— Sir T. 
 Browne — Miscellaneous superstitions— St. Paul's-day — 
 St. Swithin's — Bees in mourning— Charms in numbers 
 — The hand of glory— Influence of moon — Carriage 
 ring— Spots on finger nails— Other portents— Fern seed 
 —Deadly nightshade— Mandrake— Glastonbury thorn— 
 —Candlemas-day in the Highlands 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DELUSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPERFECT DISCOVERY. 
 
 Marvels of early ages — Geography — Rabbins — Herodotus 
 — Strabo — Mela — Arabians — Monks of dark ages— Ibn 
 Bathuta— Influence of Crusades— El-Dorado— Natural 
 philosophy — Roger Bacon's brazen head, etc.— Magic 
 lantern— Galileo — Invention of printing . . . .31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DELUSIONS INVOLVING HEALTH AND LIFE. 
 
 Ancient remedies and prescriptions — Death of king John 
 — Diseases presided over by saints— Charms — Aurum 
 potabile— Bezoars— Dead man's touch— Touching for 
 king's evil — Gold bullet — Harvey — Jenner — Animal 
 magnetism .43 
 
 1* v 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. page 
 
 DELUSICTNSaNVOLVlNG SUPERNATURAL VISITATIONS. 
 
 Old English legends — Vampyres — Ordeals — Ghosts — 
 Dreams— Somnambulism— Practical reflections . . 60 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DELUSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 Witchcraft forbidden by the law of God— Origin of the 
 ancient magical practices — Familiar arts used to promote 
 them — The being supposed to preside over witchcraft- 
 Legendary tales — Other absurdities — Laws directed 
 against witchcraft — Joan of Arc — Burning of witches — 
 The witches of Warboys— Lady Glammis— Forel— John 
 Knox — Gellie Duncan and others — " Discoverie of 
 Witchcraft"— James i.— Matthew Hopkins— Witches' 
 bridle— Alice Kyteler— Influence of the imagination . 9$ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DELUSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE BELIEF IN ASTROLOGY. 
 
 Origin of the art — Antiquity — Its practice forbidden in the 
 early ages of Christianity— Alonzo of Castile— Astrologi- 
 cal predictions— Failures— Charles xi.— Charles i. and 
 II. of England — Dr. Simon Forman — David Ramsay 
 and John Scott— Lilly— Kepler— Francis Moore . .112 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DELUSIONS PROMPTED BY MORBID ACQUISITIVENESS. 
 
 Conditions under which wealth may be enjoyed— Alchemy 
 — Bubbles : the Mississippi and South Sea schemes — the 
 Tulip mania — the Bank panic— Railway speculations . 120 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DELUSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH RELIGION. 
 
 Heathen oracles— Stones of Druids— Romish legends— St. 
 Gregory — Empress Helena — St. Diony sius — Relics — 
 Blood of St. Januarius— Other legends — Coat of Treves 
 — Crusades— Mohammed— Seva— Rosenfeld— Enthusi- 
 asts at Munster — French prophets— Miracles at tomb of 
 abbe* Paris— Joanna Southcott, etc.— Mormonites . 152 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Conclusion 189 
 
REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Belief and credulity— General prevalence of error— Delusions 
 originate in the fall— Are fostered by ignorance— Incomplete 
 knowledge — Prejudice — Morbid sensibility — Interested 
 priestcraft— Hypocrisy — Covetousness. 
 
 There is no moral attainment which has not 
 its negative as well as its positive side. Man 
 has not a nobler prerogative than that which 
 is embodied in the words — to believe. This is 
 at once his privilege and his power. It enlarges 
 his sphere of contemplation, prompts him to 
 the highest action, binds each individual to his 
 kind, soothes him with the most lasting enjoy- 
 ments, and constitutes at once the food and 
 medicine of the soul. But faith is a good only 
 when reason has demanded and secured adequate 
 grounds for its exercise. When these are 
 present, belief ennobles and invigorates man ; 
 when they exe wanting, it proves a disgrace 
 and a curse. The ruin of our first parents was, 
 
 7 
 
8 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 that, forsaking their confidence in God, they 
 cherished faith in the promises of the evil spirit. 
 They were thus seduced to destruction. The 
 instrument which, when tuned according to the 
 rules of truth and rectitude, uttered the sweetest 
 melodies, became, when these were wanting, a 
 fractured thing, from which nothing could pro- 
 ceed but a chaos of wild sounds, full of discord. 
 Credulity was man's first sin — a sin which, 
 since that moment, has been continually re- 
 peated. 
 
 Error has thus become an element inseparable 
 from the existence of human nature. As, in 
 his first fall, man had been allured by the lying 
 promise, " Ye shall be as gods" — so he has 
 since that period been ever deceived by some 
 ambitious hope, as brilliant and as false as that 
 which constituted his earliest temptation. Some 
 of the errors into which our fellow-creatures 
 have been led w r ill be recorded in the following 
 pages. But those which we can here enumerate 
 are only specimens, and many of them specimens 
 of delusion in its mildest form. The greater 
 developments of credulity are not within our 
 present scope. But all sin is credulity of the 
 false ; all virtue springs from belief of the true, 
 
 Eegarding the subject, however, as we now 
 do, in its secondary manifestations alone, it is 
 both vast and distressing. The idolatry which 
 clings to a material representation of the 
 Divinity ; the intolerance which demands homage 
 to the past, and refuses to acknowledge all 
 advance of intelligence ; the mad hopes by 
 
ARE FOSTERED BY IGNORANCE. 9 
 
 which mankind have been disgraced, and the 
 wars by which they have been desolated ; the 
 fruitless projects of the ignorant and designing; 
 the intemperance which has proved the bane of 
 one crowd, and the licentiousness w T hich has 
 proved the ruin of another ; the idle amusements 
 of the frivolous, and the dark passions of the 
 malignant; the desire for the undue prolonga- 
 tion of human life ; the baseless dreams of the 
 covetous, and the desire of the dissatisfied to 
 pry into the secret and unknown; — these, and 
 a thousand kindred errors, all have their origin 
 in a single principle, the proneness of man to 
 be flattered by his wishes, and to believe in the 
 immediate and the sensible, rather than in the 
 remote, however real. 
 
 Many circumstances, superadded to the ten- 
 dencies derived from the fall, co-operate in 
 fostering such manifold delusions. 
 
 It is almost superfluous to remark, how this 
 propensity to be deceived is increased by igno- 
 rance; for as knowledge is the apprehension 
 of truth, whilst credulity is the apprehension 
 only of the semblance of truth, knowledge and 
 credulity must be ever opposites. We cannot, 
 therefore, wonder that the least civilized ages of 
 society have ever been most prolific in certain 
 errors. They have swarmed in the dark hot- 
 beds of vicious ignorance. Whilst external 
 knowledge will not correct errors of the first 
 magnitude, and the only remedy for them is 
 the knowledge which is of heavenly origin, 
 lesser mistakes like these lie within the reach 
 
10 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 of more ordinary applications, and decrease in 
 proportion to the intellectual advance of society 
 around them. The revival of letters, and what 
 was still more potent, the reformation of re igion, 
 sent a hundred dire forms of infatuation shriek- 
 ing to their hiding-places. 
 
 " So, when the sun in bed, 
 Curtain'd with cloudy red, 
 
 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 
 The flocking shadows pale 
 Troop to th' infernal jail, ™L>. 
 
 Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave, 
 
 ^^KSS&^ngtMrmoon-tovedm^. 
 Milton's Ode on the Nativity. 
 
 " When I recall to mind," says the author of 
 these lines, in one of his imperial prose pro- 
 ductions, " after so many dark ages wherein 
 the huge overshadowing train ot error had 
 almost swept all the stars out of the fi™amen 
 of the church, how the bright and blissful 
 Reformation (by Divine power) struck through 
 the black and settled night of ignorance and 
 antichristian tyranny, methinks a sovereign 
 and reviving joy must needs rush into the 
 bosom of him that reads or hears." 
 
 Montaigne has well observed, that "as there 
 is an abecedarian ignorance which precedes 
 knowledge, so there is a doctoral ignorance 
 which succeeds it— an ignorance which know- 
 ledge begets at the same time that she despatches 
 and destroys the first." The progress of human 
 society amply justifies the truth of this very 
 profound observation. Indeed, of all the de- 
 fusions to which mankind has been liable, none 
 
INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE. 11 
 
 have been more remarkable than those which 
 have followed in the wake of a commencing 
 period of human enlightenment. To this class 
 may be referred such superstitions as astrology, 
 alchemy, and the El-Dorado. To this also we 
 must refer the various absurdities of the school- 
 men. The common mind of that day was, 
 indeed, grossly dark ; but the scholars were in 
 comparative light. Yet, absurd and trifling in 
 the highest degree were the studies to which 
 even the best of them were addicted. Speci- 
 mens of such delusions may be observed in the 
 following pages. In this connexion lord Bacon 
 appropriately observes, that, " like as many 
 substances in nature which are solid do putrify 
 and corrupt into worms, so it is the property of 
 good and sound knowledge to putrify and dis- 
 solve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, 
 and, as I may term them, vermiculate questions, 
 which have indeed a kind of quickness and life 
 of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness 
 . of quality." * 
 
 Nor is it unnatural that the progress in 
 knowledge gained by the more advanced should 
 be greatly disbelieved and abundantly miscon- 
 strued by the vulgar mind. Spirit, as well as 
 matter, has its inertia, or love of rest, and 
 tends, like every heavy body, to retain its 
 original position ; whilst whatever would disturb 
 that condition is readily resolved into the 
 miraculous, and therefore unlawful. We are 
 not surprised if the first invention of printing 
 * "Advance of Learning." 
 
1 2 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 appeared to our forefathers a piece of monstrous 
 magic, or if that of gunpowder appeared, just 
 in the sense in which the imputation was not 
 true, attributable to infernal agency. Men 
 resist the progress of knowledge, not only 
 because it sometimes opposes their own pe- 
 cuniary and other interests, but because they 
 have a disinclination to admit society to be in 
 advance of themselves. 
 
 It will be easily apparent, moreover, how 
 many of the prodigious wonders admitted by 
 human credulity have arisen out of that morbid 
 curiosity and false sensibility which is one of 
 the most degraded forms of our fallen nature, 
 especially when, as developed in ill-regulated 
 minds, it puts on the form of a passion of 
 incredible strength. Of this disease our journals 
 furnish continual evidence. To-day it is the 
 inclination to pry into the details of some tale 
 of domestic sorrow, and to-morrow it is an 
 insatiable appetite after the details of some 
 ghastly murder, in each case demanding par- 
 ticulars with an eagerness which respects no 
 bounds, and with a voracity which no amount 
 of circumstantials can satisfy. For the moment, 
 and in repudiation of every principle and of 
 every fact, the notorious criminals of the day 
 become deified, and the very attention excited 
 by their enormous crimes, drives the weak or 
 the wicked to become their imitators. 
 
 Nor can we wonder how, during past ages, 
 and at the suggestion of an interested priest- 
 hood, from whose devices and intrigues many 
 
HYPOCRISY AND COVETOUSNESS. 13 
 
 of these delusions sprang, tales of super- 
 natural dealings assumed a form absolutely 
 horrific. The advance of da} r light has dispersed 
 such forms into air ; though let it be carefully 
 observed, spectral terrors are fainter in the 
 light of modern Protestantism than in that of 
 any other religious system. 
 
 It is painful to add to these instances those 
 in which absolute hypocrisy has had a com- 
 manding share. But it is impossible to exempt 
 some cases related in the following pages from 
 that dark and dread charge. Every strong will 
 has a power greater than that of magic itself 
 over the ignorant and inexperienced. And if 
 it happen that the deceiver shall, under the 
 awful names of God and religion, hold out lures 
 which appeal to the passions or foster the 
 caprices of the multitude, especially if his 
 system be a strongly imaginative one, (an essen- 
 tial ingredient in most similar cases,) his success 
 will be probably in proportion to the venerable- 
 ness of the names he invokes. The very crav- 
 ing after spiritual food becomes thus a vehicle 
 for every unwholesome and baneful poison. 
 
 There is, however, no form of error which 
 has more decidedly outlived the appliances of 
 knowledge than those which are associated with 
 an inordinate desire of gain. The limits within 
 which the good things of this world should be 
 acquired and possessed, are distinctly marked 
 out by the great Proprietor himself. Let men 
 overstep these bounds, and the result is unutter- 
 able confusion and distraction. It is true that 
 2 
 
14 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 the greatest sinners often themselves escape the 
 snares their own hands have laid — for the 
 judgments of God bear always more or less 
 reference to a life to come ; but such over- 
 strained expectations ever end in an extensive, 
 and sometimes in a fatal reaction. When man 
 will erect for himself "a tower, the top whereof 
 shall reach unto heaven," it will often follow 
 that he will lie, in, the issue, crushed beneath 
 the weight of his ill-founded superstructure. 
 
 But we will detain the reader no longer upon 
 the threshold. Many of the following narra- 
 tives will speak for themselves. Our object 
 has been far higher, than merely to occupy an 
 idle hour by disinterring from oblivion fallacies 
 and delusions long since exploded. From the 
 nature of the subject, matters, apparently trivial 
 in character, must sometimes be recorded ; but 
 they will be viewed by the reflecting mind as 
 landmarks, by which our onward progress may 
 be marked ; and will serve, we trust, under 
 God's blessing, to animate the reader to greater 
 exertion, in diffusing the knowledge of that 
 true light before which the shadows of error 
 are dispersed and flee away. 
 
SUPERSTITIONS OF ANCIENT NATIONS. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DELUSIONS GENERALLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF PREVALENT 
 POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Superstitions of ancient nations — Of Rabbins — Of Anglo- 
 Saxons— Of aboriginal descendants — Of sailors— Sir T. 
 Browne — Miscellaneous superstitions— St. Paul's-day— St. 
 Swithin's— Bees in mourning— Charms in numbers — The 
 hand of glory— Influence of moon — Marriage ring— Spots 
 on finger-nails — Other portents — Fern seed — Deadly night- 
 shade—Mandrake — Glastonbury thorn— Candlemas- day in 
 the Highlands. 
 
 The maxim that M ignorance is the mother of 
 devotion," however in accordance with the 
 principles and practice of the church of Rome, 
 is one which will be unhesitatingly rejected by 
 the true Christian. Pure scriptural religion, he 
 knows, invites instead of shunning the light. 
 " That the soul be without knowledge is not 
 good," is a rule which he applies, not only to 
 the life to come, but to that which now is. 
 Never, perhaps, at any former period of our coun- 
 try's history, were such laudable efforts made 
 as at the present day, to extend the benefits 
 of education to all classes of the community. 
 Amidst much which these have failed to do, 
 they have also accomplished much at which we 
 rejoice. It is only, however, when we take a 
 
16 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 backward glance at society, that we see the full 
 contrast between the results of knowledge and 
 ignorance, and can recognise aright the obliga- 
 tions we owe to the former. The facts recorded 
 in the present chapter will tend, we hope, 
 practically to impress this truth upon our 
 readers. 
 
 The pagan religion of the Greeks and 
 Romans was replete with omens. Days, lucky 
 or unlucky ; imaginary prognostics, afforded by 
 the entrails of sacrificed victims ; the act of 
 sneezing at certain periods of the day, or in 
 certain directions from the body ; the salutary 
 virtues of spittle in averting evil influences ; the 
 flight of birds ; the rolling of thunder ; the 
 ravings of maniacs ; — these, and many similar 
 occurrences, interpreted by priests who did not 
 fail to employ them for their own purposes, 
 occur perpetually in the pages of ancient 
 authors. They thus transmitted a legacy of 
 credulity to a posterity sufficiently eager to turn 
 it to account. Many of these superstitions 
 were derived from Jewish sources, especially 
 from the Rabbins, a remarkably fantastical and 
 imaginative tribe. The Druidical religion of 
 ancient Britain and the contiguous parts of the 
 continent was not less credulous. All readers 
 of ancient British history are familiar with the 
 name of the misletoe, (viscum album,) a parasi- 
 tical plant, which took root within the bark 
 of the oak, though now very rarely found 
 on that tree, and bears flowers and fruit. 
 It is believed to have derived its sanctity, not 
 
SUPERSTITIONS OF ANGLO-SAXONS. 17 
 
 only from the peculiar position in which it 
 was found, namely, on the wood of the tree 
 then commonly selected for their worship, but 
 also from the circumstance that its leaves and 
 berries grow in clusters of three, deemed by the 
 Druids a mystical number. At the close of 
 the year, the priests went in solemn procession 
 to gather this plant, and peculiar ceremonies 
 attended its removal from the oak. It was 
 required to be cut with a golden knife by a 
 priest habited in pure white, and it might 
 be gathered only when the moon was six days 
 old, whilst the detached branch was received 
 with peculiar solemnity into a napkin held 
 beneath the tree. Subsequently, it was identi- 
 fied by many with the forbidden tree of Eden, 
 and was supposed to be a specific for peculiar 
 disorders. The shamrock, or trefoil, was re- 
 garded by the Irish Druids as possessed of a 
 similar sanctity. 
 
 The Saxon conquerors of these islands 
 brought over with them, as elements of their 
 ferocious religion, many similar superstitions. 
 The descendants of the more ancient inhabit- 
 ants of these islands, namely, the dwellers in 
 the Highlands, in Wales, in Cornwall, and in 
 the Isle of Man, still preserve similar delusions 
 in their fullest force. Many of these notions 
 were retained, scarcely modified, by the Anglo- 
 Saxons when Christianized, (to use that word 
 in a very popular sense,) and the imperfect 
 knowledge of religion possessed by our fore- 
 fathers is shown in nothing more strongly than 
 2* 
 
18 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 in the laws enacted to repress the spells and 
 incantations prevalent in those days of im- 
 perfect enlightenment. So far, indeed, was 
 Popery from obliterating these prepossessions 
 in favour of the miraculous, that it even 
 adopted into its own ritual many of the most 
 gloomy notions of pre-existent heathenism. 
 Errors of every form and degree abounded. 
 The falling of the salt ; the bleeding of the 
 nose ; the crossing of one's path by a jay, a 
 squirrel, or a hare ; the •killing of animals de- 
 signed for food, at any other season than that 
 of the full moon ; the putting of the foot into 
 the wrong shoe ; stammering in the beginning 
 of a speech ; washing hands in the water used 
 by another ; the breaking of a mirror ; the 
 croaking of ravens or of crows ; the appearance 
 of magpies, especially if there were a pair ; the 
 ticking of the scarabseus, called the death-watch ; 
 the withering of the bay-tree ; — were in those 
 days omens of peculiarly sinister import. In 
 days a little later, the notion which men had 
 of education was that it was something akin to 
 a Divine inspiration, and it was a practice with 
 many parents, and those probably of the better 
 sort, to interrogate their sleeping children on 
 St. George's-day as to whether they would 
 study their book or not. If the half-sleeping 
 child uttered something affirmative, he was 
 devoted, when the parents could afford it, to 
 some learned profession ; if the reply was un- 
 favourable, a handicraft occupation was selected. 
 To beat a child with an alder stick was ominous, 
 
SUPERSTITIONS OF SAILORS. 19 
 
 as it was the infallible way of stopping his 
 growth. Prejudices of this order are indeed 
 scarcely extinct. Who of our ancestors won- 
 dered at the misfortunes of Charles I., when he 
 remembered the tottering of the crown on his 
 head on the day of his coronation, or his rent 
 flag on the White Tower of London ? * or could 
 any one be surprised at Cromwell's death who 
 was told that, just at that time, a great whale 
 had come up to Greenwich ? The misfortunes 
 of James n. were intimately connected, in the 
 opinion of many, with the rending of the 
 cloth of gold on the day of his inauguration ; 
 and that no good could come from the number 
 two was incontestably proved by the misfor- 
 tunes of William n., Henry il, Richard il, 
 Charles n., and James n. 
 
 The minds of sailors — men peculiarly re- 
 moved from the ordinary advantages of educa- 
 tion — are still extremely full of such supersti- 
 tions. They prefer to set sail on Sunday — as 
 if that voyage must prove fortunate which 
 begins by the violation of God's authority ; if 
 wind be wanting, whistling is the approved 
 mode of praying for it, and they will seriously 
 check an unwary passenger if he shall happen 
 to whistle when the wind is high ; they regard 
 the presence of children on board ship as 
 peculiarly favourable to the success of their 
 voyage ; and the hornedness of the moon is an 
 
 * Or Nottingham ; Clarendon describes the setting up of 
 the king's standard on the castle hill in that town as accom- 
 panied by a similar portent. 
 
20 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 infallible sign of the approaching weather. 
 How many vessels, even now, have a horse-shoe 
 nailed to some part of the rudder, as a token of 
 good luck! 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, in his book entitled 
 " Enquiries into Common and Vulgar Errors," 
 (1 686,) presents a curious picture of the credu- 
 lity which anciently swayed the minds of the 
 people. He appears to have taken for his 
 model the somewhat similar work of Palse- 
 phatus, a Greek classical author, who, in his 
 day, endeavoured to disprove or to account for 
 some of the incredible things which, at a still 
 older period, possessed men's minds. A glance 
 at Browne's pages is extremely interesting, 
 That crystal is nothing but congealed ice ; that 
 a diamond is made'soft or broken by the blood 
 of a goat ; that an elephant has no joints ; that 
 a kingfisher, hung. up by the bill, shows the 
 direction of the wind ; that men weigh heavier 
 when dead than alive ; that the sun dances on 
 Easter-day, etc., etc. — these were then marvels. 
 And that a grave physician should seriously, in 
 the seventeenth century, let himself down before 
 such errors, to treat many of them with respect, 
 and worthy of an elaborate refutation, is to us, 
 in the nineteenth century, the greatest marvel 
 of all ! 
 
 Among miscellaneous charms, much believed 
 in by our forefathers, the following may be 
 cited. Purslain, laid in the bed, was a remedy 
 against visions. A nail from a coffin, placed 
 on the threshold of a chamber, drove away 
 
ST. paul's-day. 21 
 
 phantoms. A handful of asraart placed under 
 a saddle caused the horse to carry his rider 
 easily. Docks boiled with meat made the 
 toughest viand tender. Moonwort trodden on 
 by a horse loosened his shoes from his feet. 
 Rue was a preventive of witchcraft. A bay- 
 leaf was a preservative against thunder. Such 
 specimens might be indefinitely extended. 
 
 The 25 th of January, St. Paul's-day, was 
 regarded by our forefathers as a crisis of great 
 importance, because it was believed that the 
 weather of the whole year might be predicted 
 from the meteorology of that day. " If the sun 
 shine, it betokens a good year ; if it rain or 
 snow, an indifferent one ; if misty, it predicts 
 great dearth ; if it thunder, great winds, and 
 death of people that year." This prognostic 
 was afterwards reduced to rhyme : — 
 
 * If St. Paul's-day be fair and clear 
 It does betide a happy year ; 
 But if it chance to snow or rain, 
 Then will be dear all kinds of grain. 
 If clouds or mists do dark the sky, 
 Great store of birds and beasts shall die ; 
 And if the winds do fly aloft, 
 Then wars shall vex the kingdom oft." 
 
 Modern opinions have ignored the portents 
 of St. Paul's-day; but those of St. Swithin 
 (July 15) still survive. The legend which 
 pertains to this day is curious. Swithin was 
 a Danish bishop of Winchester, who, at his 
 death, expressed his desire to be buried in 
 the churchyard instead of the chancel of his 
 minster. The monks of Winchester, however, 
 
22 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 zealous for the glories of so bright a saint, and 
 desirous of securing for his remains a better 
 place of sepulture, determined that his body 
 should be removed into the choir of the cathe- 
 dral. But on the day fixed (July 15) for its 
 removal, and during the forty days succeeding, 
 it rained so violently as to impress them with 
 the conviction that what they intended was a 
 forbidden act, and they contented themselves 
 with erecting a chapel over his grave. Poor 
 Bobin's Almanac (1697) has the following dog- 
 grel, in which, however, a moral may be found : — 
 
 " In this month is St. Swithin's-day, 
 On which, if that it rains, they say, 
 Full forty days after it will, 
 Or more or less, some rain distil. 
 This Swithin was a saint, I trow, 
 And Winchester's bishop also ; 
 Who in his time did many a feat, 
 As Popish legends do repeat. 
 A woman having broke her eggs, 
 By stumbling at another's legs, 
 For which she made a woful cry, 
 St. Swithin chanced for to come by, 
 Who made them all as sound, or more, 
 Than ever that they were before ; 
 But whether this were so or no, 
 *Tis more than you or I do know. 
 Better it is to rise betime, 
 And to make hay while sun doth shine, 
 Than to believe in tales or lies 
 Which idle monks and friars devise."* 
 
 Most of our readers will remember sufficient 
 instances of failure to prove that this prognostic 
 of St. Swithin Vday is by no means infallible ; 
 and it is a somewhat remarkable circumstance 
 that though, in 1752, the new style was adopted 
 in place of the old, (to cause the nominal to 
 * Brande's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 340, 341. 
 
BEES IN MOURNING. 23 
 
 agree with astronomical time,) and though 
 eleven days were thereby sunk in the calendar, 
 it made no difference to St. Swithin's credit. 
 The superstition appears to have no other foun- 
 dation than this, that at certain parts of the 
 year the weather, whatever it may be, extends 
 over somewhat long periods, and that at the 
 time of St. Svvithin it is more than usually 
 uniform. A similar notion seems to have for- 
 merly prevailed relative to St. Vitus's-day, 
 (June 15.) Candlemas-day also (Feb. 2) once 
 enjoyed the same prerogative. 
 
 In some parts of England, a singular super- 
 stition formerly prevailed, that when any one 
 of a family died, the members of the household 
 must inform the bees, if there were any, of the 
 event, or else that some calamity would after- 
 wards befall those poor insects themselves. This 
 opinion is still current in some neighbourhoods, 
 and is marked by hanging, in such a case, black 
 crape upon the hive, or suspending the mourn- 
 ing somewhere in its vicinity. It is related im 
 a London newspaper, that at a funeral of a rich 
 old farmer, which took place in Devon, the 
 following circumstance occurred : " Just as the 
 corpse was placed in the hearse, and the horse- 
 men to a large number were drawn up in order 
 for the procession of the funeral, a person 
 called out, * Turn the bees ; ' when a servant, 
 who had no knowledge of such a custom, 
 instead of turning the hives about, lifted 
 them up, and then laid them down on their 
 sides. The bees, thus hastily invaded, instantly 
 
24 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 attacked and fastened on the horses and their 
 riders. It was in vain they galloped off; the 
 bees as precipitately followed, and left their 
 stings as marks of their indignation. A general 
 confusion took place, attended with loss of hats, 
 wigs, etc., and the corpse during the conflict 
 was left unattended, nor was it till after a con- 
 siderable time that the funeral attendants could 
 be rallied, in order to proceed to the interment 
 of their deceased friend."* A 
 
 It was deemed essential by our ancestors, 
 that certain remedies should be applied three, 
 seven, or nine times. The importance of these 
 numbers is also shown in other connexions. A 
 royal salute with cannon is to this day com- 
 posed of three times seven, or twenty-one guns. 
 A superstition was prevalent, that a company 
 of thirteen was unlucky, and that one of the 
 number was certain to die within the year. The 
 fact might be so, as the probabilities of life are 
 in something approaching to that proportion. 
 The seventh son of a seventh son (an occur- 
 rence, the infrequency of which would . neces- 
 sarily place it beyond the opportunity of frequent 
 observation) was supposed to be born a genius, 
 and some even averred that he had the power 
 of healing scrofulous disorders, like former 
 monarchs, by his touch. At all events, it was 
 deemed essential that he must be brought up 
 to the study of medicine. These notions were 
 doubtless derived from the frequent use of the 
 perfect number seven among the Jews. 
 
 * Brande, vol. ii. p. 301. 
 
INFLUENCE OF MOON. 25 
 
 "The hand of glory," as it was called, though 
 a phrase almost unintelligible to modern ears, 
 was regarded by our forefathers as endowed 
 with strangely mystic virtues, and was fre- 
 quently employed by thieves and housebreakers 
 in their depredations, since it was supposed to 
 confer the power of entering houses without 
 obstruction from any who might encounter it. 
 The hand of a malefactor exposed on the high- 
 way was to be obtained. The effect of this, 
 when duly prepared, was, that it took away (so 
 it was believed) all power of motion from the 
 person before whom it was held. 
 
 The singular influences ascribed by our 
 forefathers to the moon, are evidently remnants 
 of the more ancient pagan worship of that 
 luminary. Pigs were to be killed and sheep 
 shorn at the period of its fulness, and wood was 
 to be cut at the same fortunate conjuncture. 
 Peas and beans were to be sown, according ta 
 Tusser's husbandry, in the moon's wane-.. 
 Among the caricatures to be found in an antique 
 book, a superstitious man is thus satirized i 
 "He will not commit his seed to the earth when 
 the soil, but when the moon requires it ; he 
 will have his hair cut when the moon is either 
 in Leo, that his locks may stare like the lion's 
 shag ; or in Aries, that they may curl like a 
 ram's horn. Whatever he would have to grow, 
 he sets about when she is in her increase ; but 
 for what he would have made less, he chooses 
 her wane." 
 
 Sir T. Browne, to whose book against vulgar 
 3 
 
26 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 errors we have already referred, allows the 
 legitimacy of vaticinations from spots on the 
 finger nails. Burton, in his Anatomy, says 
 that a black spot is a bad omen. It is certainly 
 a sign either of previous injury or advancing 
 disease. 
 
 A common superstition is still current, that 
 in marriage the ring is put upon the fourth 
 finger of the left hand because an artery goes 
 from that finger to the heart. This is a perfect 
 delusion, though once seriously believed by very 
 grave persons. The popish superstitions once 
 connected with the wedding-ring are well known 
 to have led^ the early Puritans to desire that its 
 use might be abolished. 
 
 Spirits were supposed to be detected by the 
 blue burning of candles; whilst a knot of tallow 
 near the flame was called a winding-sheet, and 
 regarded as a presage of approaching death to 
 one of the family. The howling of dogs (per- 
 haps derived from some afflicted animal being 
 found grieving over the dead body of his 
 master) was regarded as a similar prognostic. 
 If crickets forsook a house they had been long 
 accustomed to inhabit, it boded deep calamity. 
 To kill a spider, and not to kill a snake, were 
 deemed equally disastrous. A very ancient 
 superstition was, that the dead body of a mur- 
 dered man would gush out blood if the mur- 
 derer approached it. It is not very easy to 
 conjecture from what this evidently false super- 
 stition arose. Its original invention was de- 
 signed, perhaps, to terrify the guilty man into 
 
FERN-SEED. 27 
 
 confession. It is accounted for, however, in 
 another way, by a well-known work, called 
 " The Athenian Oracle." " Blood is congealed 
 in the body for two or three days, and then 
 becomes liquid again, in its tendency to cor- 
 ruption. The air being heated by many persons 
 coming about the body is the same thing as 
 motion to it ; it is observed that dead bodies 
 will bleed in a concourse of people, when mur- 
 derers are absent as well as present." 
 
 It is well known to all who have the slightest 
 acquaintance with the elements of botany, that 
 there is a certain class of vegetables which 
 derive the name of " Cryptogamia" from the 
 seeds being produced in a manner which is not 
 readily apparent. The fern, for instance, bears 
 its seeds on the underside of its leaf, where 
 they are beautifully arranged, and may at the 
 proper season be distinctly observed. It was 
 once supposed that the seed of the fern was 
 actually invisible, and that those who possessed 
 it (though according to this supposition they 
 c^ould by no means become certified of its pre- 
 sence) were, by its means, gifted with the 
 faculty of invisibility. But in order that this 
 virtue might be imparted, it was necessary to 
 gather it on midsummer eve. 
 
 The deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) 
 was supposed to derive its poisonous qualities 
 from its growing, as it often did, among the 
 dark deposits of death and corruption. These 
 invested it with an imaginary horror, and 
 great magical virtues were attributed to it. 
 
23 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 But the mandrake (Atropa mandragora) was 
 associated with even more deadly and porten- 
 tous attributes. It was imagined to grow under 
 the gallows, and to be nourished by the distil- 
 lations of executed malefactors, and it was 
 believed that when it was eradicated it uttered 
 a great shriek, a? '* ^^sessing sensibility. ■ To 
 guard against th ~ '-itial effects of gather- 
 
 ing it, some authors recommended that the 
 plants should be tied to a dog, who, being driven 
 away, would pull up the plant with him. We 
 can scarcely wonder at the feelings with which, 
 in the dark ages, this plant was regarded, when 
 we are aware of its botanical peculiarities. Its 
 root, severed in some directions, bears a consi- 
 derable affinity to the human form. Its smell 
 is extremely foetid, and its properties venomous 
 to a high degree. It is, however, a native only 
 of the south of Europe. But its peculiarities 
 became identified in England with the root of 
 the briony, which was, by a juggle, often cut 
 so as to imitate its form. 
 
 The Glastonbury thorn was also, in the olden 
 time, an object of great notoriety. It was 
 reported to blossom only on Christmas day, and 
 some said that it budded in the morning, 
 flowered at noon, and decayed on the night of 
 the 25th of December. Its virtues were 
 ascribed to Joseph of Arimathaea, said to be 
 the founder of the first Christian church in 
 England, (which a foolish tradition placed at 
 Glastonbury,) and was believed to have sprung 
 from the staff which he stuck into the ground 
 
GLASTONBURY THORN. 29 
 
 whilst laying the foundation. When the style 
 was altered, this thorn was believed to have so 
 far protested against the innovation on the 
 calendar, as to blossom on the 5th of January 
 instead of the 25th of December — its corre- 
 sponding, though not nominal anniversary. 
 The miraculous character of this tree survived 
 the Reformation, and king James I. and queen 
 Anne are said to have visited it, and to have 
 taken away cuttings from the spot. The only 
 foundation for the legend is, that at Glaston- 
 bury and its vicinity grow certain thorns, 
 which, like the Helleborus niger, or Christmas 
 rose, blossom at a very early period of the 
 year. 
 
 Such superstitions as those we have narrated 
 above are not as yet, as we have remarked, 
 altogether obsolete. We believe that even yet, 
 in London, a shop exists in which certain beads 
 are sold, made from the root of the white 
 briony, and once supposed to possess a singular 
 virtue when hung around the necks of children 
 cutting their teeth. But such delusions are 
 fast disappearing before the increasing light of 
 intelligence; and though persons are still to 
 be found who transmit to ignorant men and 
 simple women the traces of such old-fashioned 
 superstitions, they are destined soon to share 
 the fate of the broomstick of the witch, and the 
 terrors of St. George and the dragon. It is the 
 happiness of Britain to possess, above many 
 nations, an enlightened community. It will be 
 a happier day still, when her population shall 
 3* 
 
30 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 learn that charms, omens, and prodigies are 
 not the most deadly forms of superstition ; that 
 its worst form is exhibited when men set up, as 
 they are ever prone to do, the outward and 
 sensible as protections, instead of the inward 
 and spiritual ; and when they believe that any 
 man is safe without the guardianship of an 
 almighty Providence, or happy without a con- 
 sciousness of being reconciled to God through 
 faith in his Son, and doing the things which 
 please him. And then will be the period of 
 Britain's glory, when her sons shall be taught 
 to seek, in a firm reliance on truth and a living 
 practice of vital piety, the only education which 
 can effectually disperse the darkness of error, 
 ennoble the mind, and prepare man for a life 
 which never dies. 
 
MARVELS OF EARLY AGES. 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DELUSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPERFECT DISCOVERY. 
 
 Marvels of early a^es— Geography— Rabbins— Herodotus— 
 Strabo— Mela— Arabians— Monks of dark ages— Ibn Bathuta 
 —Influence of Crusades— El-Dorado— Natural philosophy- 
 Roger Bacon's brazen head, etc.— Magic lantern— Galileo 
 —Invention of printing. 
 
 The infancy of society is always conspicuously 
 distinguished by a love for the marvellous. 
 Wonder is but the voracious appetite of a 
 starving mind, and, like other resistless cravings, 
 will submit to be fed with unwholesome food 
 rather than not to be fed at all. In estimating 
 the figments and hallucinations of past ages, we 
 must remember that the sympathies of mind 
 are rarely retrospective. It is more easy to 
 conceive of increased knowledge in the future 
 than of defective knowledge in the past. How- 
 ever reluctant we may be to admit of the pro- 
 gress which shall render our present attainments 
 childish and obsolete, it is still more difficult to 
 make due allowance for the errors of those who 
 fell far below the point which, with a natural 
 self-flattery, we suppose ourselves to have 
 reached. But the history of mankind is the 
 narrative of growth attained by very slow and 
 
32 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 often very irregular advances. There have 
 been certain periods when (to use a well- 
 known metaphor) the day has broken upon 
 the mountain tops of more intelligent minds, 
 whilst the valleys below have been shrouded in 
 darkness ; and there have been other periods 
 when, to use Milton's fine image, " the over- 
 shadowing train of error has swept the lights 
 out of the firmament" again. The Aristotelian 
 philosophy was, in the days of Alexander the 
 Great, like the invention of stage-coaches, an 
 immense improvement on the clumsy wagons 
 which preceded them ; the same philosophy, in 
 the fifteenth century, was like the preference of 
 such stage-coaches to the greater facilities of a 
 modern railway. But few truths, if any, are intui- 
 tively apprehended. The mind gropes its way 
 in darkness long before it understands the true 
 value of light. The march of intellect is, to a 
 considerable degree, the march of error : — 
 
 " We think our fathers wrong;, so wise we grow ; — 
 Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so." 
 
 The progress of geographical discovery will 
 illustrate these observations. It is our happi- 
 ness to live at a time when this department of 
 knowledge has been largely and successfully 
 prosecuted. The travellers of England will 
 yield the palm to no other country for patient 
 and persevering enterprise. They have pene- 
 trated almost all lands, toiled through the burn- 
 ing deserts of the Sahara, and shivered under 
 the ice-bound regions of the northern pole. 
 Nor have their efforts been purely of a useless 
 
THE RABBINS. 33 
 
 character. They have enlarged our sphere of 
 knowledge, multiplied our social comforts, and 
 opened new paths for commerce. In other 
 instances, they have accomplished still higher 
 results by proving the pioneers for the mis- 
 sionary, and paving the way for the introduc- 
 tion to benighted countries of the glorious 
 gospel. It will now be our office to point out 
 to our readers the path of error through which 
 this, and other departments of science, have had 
 to struggle. 
 
 When the ancients stepped out of the circle 
 of their positive knowledge, they involved 
 themselves in a maze of the most palpable 
 errors. The fables of the Cimmerians, who 
 dwelt at the ends of the ocean clouded in 
 perpetual night ; the story of iEolus and his 
 bag of winds ; the island of Circe, peopled by 
 enchanters — were delusions which, propagated 
 by the idle and believed by the credulous, 
 would very naturally take root in barren and 
 uncultivated soils. The notions of the later 
 Jews respecting the productions of the earth 
 may be learned from many passages of the 
 Talmud. Enormous birds, capable of seizing 
 elephants and flying away with them, were 
 supposed to abound in certain remote districts. 
 One of these birds is represented in Eabbinical 
 story as standing up to the lower joint of the 
 leg in water, and thus to have been seen by 
 certain mariners. Imagining that the water 
 could not have been very deep, from the small 
 portion of the bird's body immersed in the 
 
34 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 water, these mariners were about to bathe in 
 the spot, when a supernatural voice addressed 
 them, " Step not in there ; for seven years ago, 
 a carpenter dropped his axe in that water, and 
 it has not yet reached the bottom."* 
 
 Among other wonders were those related by 
 Herodotus, to whom we are indebted for so 
 much veritable ancient history. He speaks of 
 ants like v foxes, who, burrowing in the golden 
 sands of India, first turned up its treasures to 
 the view. Plutarch speaks also of little snakes, 
 which crept into men's bodies — only an ex- 
 aggeration of the tortures still inflicted in the 
 marshy lands of Africa by the guinea- worm. 
 
 The ancient geographer, Strabo, represented 
 Britain as a land not worth the conquest, and 
 Ireland as a region of eternal snows, peopled 
 by cannibals. Even so late as the time of 
 Claudius, Mela, a Roman geographer, supposed 
 that all the southern parts of the world were in* 
 accessible, because of the extreme heat of the 
 sun and the intervention of the torrid zone. 
 He placed in Africa the region of the Antipodes 
 of Antichthones, where he supposed the Nile to 
 rise, and to flow under the ocean till it reached 
 the upper hemisphere. Travellers of that day 
 spoke of trees which bore flowers like water- 
 pots ; whilst the most energetic efforts were 
 made to discover the site of the ancient 
 Paradise, the western nations assigning its 
 position eastward, and the eastern nations 
 westward — both agreeing in believing that it 
 * Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. 
 
THE ARABIANS. 35 
 
 was equally distant from themselves. Had 
 half the amount of spiritual exertion been 
 directed to the real paradise, it would not have 
 so constantly eluded their search. 
 
 When, after the destruction of the Roman 
 empire by the Goths and Vandals, Arabia 
 became the most learned nation of its day, and 
 took under its protection the discarded literature 
 of Europe, the geographical notion of the period 
 was, that the earth, like an egg, lay floating 
 in an ocean of unmirigable gloom. India was 
 then spoken of as abounding in gold and silver 
 islands. Mention was made of a fourth 
 continent, not discoverable because of the 
 power of the sun. Ethiopia was represented as 
 remarkable as the land of Prester John, whose 
 territory was divided into islands by the rivers 
 running from Paradise. The palace of this 
 redoubtable king, men were told, was built of 
 precious stones, and lighted by carbuncles. 
 At the same time, Gog and Magog were 
 exhaustless topics of interest. A traveller was 
 sent out by one of the caliphs, with strict 
 injunctions not to return till he had seen Gog's 
 dwelling. Under such a stimulus, can we 
 wonder that he speedily discovered it? He 
 found it — so he said — built of iron, cemented 
 with brass, and its gates were fifty cubits high. 
 In subsequent maps, this castle was made to 
 tower at the extremity of Asia. 
 
 It would scarcely be imagined, except by 
 those who have witnessed the avidity with 
 which minds of a vulgar order seek for 
 
36 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 prodigies, how eagerly the monks of the dark 
 ages, secluded and uninformed as many of them 
 were, sought for similar inventions, with which 
 to beguile the tedium of their weary hours. 
 The most absurd fables passed under the name 
 of " the wonders of the world." It is upon 
 record that, in those days, eight hides of land 
 were given for a book filled with such tales of 
 geographical marvels. Stories of red hens 
 found near the Eed Sea, which consumed any 
 one who touched them ; of human beings eight 
 feet broad, who wore their heads on their 
 breasts ; of women with boars' tusks and camels' 
 feet ; and of other beings, with mouths like the 
 sails of a windmill. Ibn Bathuta asserted that 
 he had seen Adam's footstep left on the top of a 
 mountain in Serendib ; also that he had beheld 
 rubies as large as hens' eggs ; and, more 
 wonderful than all, that, in some far distant 
 part,^ leeches sprang from trees upon unwary 
 travellers, so that the natives were compelled 
 to carry lemons, that by squeezing their juice 
 on them, they might be detached from their 
 hold. Tales like these — 
 
 " Such as take lodgings in a head 
 That's to be let unfurnish'd "— 
 
 were the delight of the ignorant during the dark 
 ages, and were not entirely abjured even by 
 
 * Oysters on trees are less fabulous. We are told of certain 
 districts liable to inundations which co\er the lower boughs 
 of trees to which oysters become attached. When the water 
 subsides, these poor victims of delusion are hung in air. The 
 leeches of Ceylon, so poisonous in their bite, may in part 
 have been the foundation of the superstition mentioned in the 
 text. 
 
EL-DOBADO. 37 
 
 the better informed. The Crusades, by bringing 
 men into real acquaintance with distant lands, 
 gave the first shock to the lethargy of monkish 
 superstition, and contributed much to the 
 improvement of geographical science. The 
 application of the magnetic principle to the 
 formation of the mariner's compass, and the 
 discovery of America by Columbus, rapidly 
 reduced the remaining ignorance. But all 
 marvels had not yet grown obsolete. One of 
 the great difficulties which Columbus had to 
 overcome in the prosecution of his maritime 
 discoveries, was the notion entertained by 
 Spanish divines as to the shape of the sea. He 
 was gravely assured, that his vessels would, if 
 they proceeded in a certain direction, sail down 
 a declivity, which they would not be able again 
 to ascend. 
 
 What wonders were not related of the 
 El-Dorado, or the Golden Country, in the 
 sixteenth century! This region, supposed to lie 
 somewhere between the Orinoco and Amazon 
 rivers, was regarded as prolific in gold and 
 jewels, which were as plentiful as the pebbles* 
 on our roads. It was true that the treasures 
 themselves eluded the search of travellers, but 
 they were always imagined to be a little in 
 advance of the regions then penetrated. Sti- 
 mulated by these tales of the exuberant riches 
 of El-Dorado, or using them as a pretext for 
 covering over his own purposes, sir Walter 
 Raleigh proposed the conquest of Guiana, and 
 the discovery of this country, in which the 
 4 
 
38 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 temples were roofed over with gold, and where 
 the natives, whilst celebrating their feasts, were 
 accustomed, it was said, to roll their bodies, pre- 
 viously rubbed with a precious balsam, in gold 
 dust. The expedition failed, of course, in its 
 immediate object, but it led to some geographi- 
 cal discoveries of much importance. Even so 
 late as the publication of sir T. More's 
 " Utopia," that book was taken for a genuine 
 history, and some readers thought it highly 
 important that missionaries should be sent to 
 teach so intelligent a nation the truths of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The discoveries made in natural philosophy 
 by Roger Bacon, who died in the year 1292, 
 were greatly in advance of his age. As an 
 astrologer and alchemist, for to both these 
 sciences he was addicted, he might appropri- 
 ately find a place in a later chapter ; but his 
 reputed invention of gunpowder, (though the 
 inhabitants of €hina and of India lay a claim 
 to it,) his conception of the telescope, (though 
 other hands perfected the machine.) and his 
 treatises on optics and experimental philosophy, 
 justly entitle him to be regarded as the greatest 
 philosopher of his age. Such studies were 
 regarded as extremely inconsistent, however, 
 with the duties of a Cordelier friar, and popular 
 indignation accused him of extensive dealings 
 with the devil. 
 
 The following is (as nearly as we can trans- 
 late it) the mysterious sentence in which 
 Bacon's knowledge of gunpowder is supposed to 
 
ROGER BACON. 39 
 
 lie concealed. It occurs in his " Epistle on the 
 secret operations of art and nature, and on the 
 nullity of magic " : — 
 
 " But yet of saltpetre luru. vopo. vir. can. 
 UTRiET. of sulphur ; and so you may make 
 thunder and lightning if you know the trick." 
 
 This information greatly resembles the vague 
 directions which distinguished alchemy in 
 general. But if we suppose the hieroglyphical 
 words to denote charcoal, and the " trick " the 
 granulation of the mass, we shall certainly 
 arrive at gunpowder. In Bacon's Opus Majus 
 we have the following passage, supposed to be 
 designed to describe this disastrous and death- 
 dealing invention : — 
 
 " Some things disturb the ear so much that 
 if they were made to happen suddenly by night 
 and with sufficient skill, no city or army could 
 bear them. No noise of thunder could compare 
 with them. Some things strike terror on the 
 sight, so that the flashes of the clouds are 
 beyond comparison less disturbing. And an 
 instance we take from a childish amusement 
 which exists in many parts of the world, to 
 wit, that with an instrument as large as the 
 human thumb, by the violence of the salt called 
 saltpetre, so horrible a noise is made by the 
 rupture of so slight a thing as a bit of parch- 
 ment, that it is thought to exceed loud thunder, 
 and the flash is stronger than the brightest light- 
 ning." * This certainly has some appearance of 
 being an anticipation of the effects of gunpowder. 
 * " British Worthies/' vol. i. p. 41. 
 
40 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Eoger Bacon was reported also to have 
 formed, by the assistance of friar Bungay, a 
 brazen head, which is not improbable. That 
 some attempt may have been made to produce, 
 by automatic agency, a few articulate sounds, 
 is also very credible ; nor is it unlikely that 
 Bacon's servant, terrified at such a machine, 
 may have broken the head in pieces. Many of 
 the feats ascribed to Eoger Bacon are traceable, 
 we may observe, to the use of the magic lan- 
 tern, which is stated to have been one of his 
 inventions. 
 
 The prejudiced delusions with which the 
 advances of science have, in many ages, been 
 called to contend, are in no case more strikingly 
 illustrated than by the history of Galileo, who 
 lived in the sixteenth century. His discoveries 
 w r ere of the highest philosophical importance, 
 and led him to the conclusion that the Ptolemaic 
 system of astronomy, though upheld by Aris- 
 totle, the fathers, and misconceived quotations 
 from the Bible, was inadequate to account for 
 the phenomena of the universe. He was the 
 first who constructed a perfect telescope ; he 
 determined the nature of the moon's surface, 
 discovered Jupiter's satellites, and imperfectly 
 perceived the ring by which Saturn is sur- 
 rounded. But his disclosures awakened the 
 enmity of the Jesuits, and he was summoned 
 before the Inquisition, who declared his pro- 
 positions to be erroneous and dangerous. He 
 was compelled, therefore, to sign a recantation, 
 of which the following is a portion :■ — 
 
INVENTION OF PRINTING. 41 
 
 " With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, 
 I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and 
 heresies, and I swear that I will never, in 
 future, say or repeat anything, verbally or in 
 writing, which may give rise to a similar sus- 
 picion against me." 
 
 As Galileo rose from his knees, however, 
 after this abjuration of his doctrine concerning 
 the motion of the earth, etc., he muttered to a 
 friend who stood near him, " It does move, 
 though, notwithstanding!" A more heroic 
 maintenance of truth would have better become 
 so distinguished a philosopher. 
 
 The invention of printing offended, in a 
 similar way, the prejudices of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. Fust was the assistant of Guttenberg, 
 the first projector of the art of printing with 
 movable types. Like many other inventors, 
 Guttenburg left the harvest of his invention to 
 be reaped by subsequent hands. It is said that, 
 in consequence of Fust's employment of this art 
 in combination with coloured ink, the vulgar 
 concluded that he had signed a compact with 
 the evil spirit in blood. The delusion took a 
 strong hold on the popular imagination, and is 
 frequently reproduced even at this day. Other 
 accounts, however, state, that Fust and Faust, 
 to whom a somewhat similar notoriety is 
 attached, were distinct personages, and that the 
 enormities ascribed to the latter originated in 
 his having greatly outstripped his age in pur- 
 suit of the physical sciences. 
 
 Whatever be the degree of truth actually 
 4* 
 
42 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 involved in some of these stories, it is evident 
 that he who is, at any period of the world, 
 greatly in advance of his age, is liable to no 
 small amount of misconception and misrepre- 
 sentation. Perhaps, however, such men as 
 those we have enumerated, rendered themselves 
 liable to the imputations circulated against 
 them, by veiling their real knowledge under 
 semblances which they must have known to be 
 fallacious. If so, the fact may supply a lesson 
 of some force to those who^ having been 
 intrusted with truths of value, seek, by a 
 paltry conformity with the maxims of the 
 ignorant or the vicious, to render them palat- 
 able to others. Let the Christian especially 
 beware how he tricks his heaven-born prin- 
 ciples in the meretricious guise which is " of 
 the earth, earthy." Whilst no cringing to the 
 world can render spiritual religion acceptable to 
 those who know not its value, such an accom- 
 modation will infallibly awaken suspicion, 
 and land its professors in deserved contempt- 
 Only one defence will avail the Christian : 
 " the armour of righteousness on the right 
 hand and on the left." 
 
ANCIENT REMEDIES AND PRESCRIPTIONS. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DELUSIONS INVOLVING HEALTH AND LIFE. 
 
 Ancient remedies and prescriptions—Death of king John— 
 Diseases presided over by saints— Charms — Aurum potabile 
 — Bezoars— Dead man's touch— Touching for king's evil — 
 Gold bullet— Harvey— Jenner— Animal magnetism. 
 
 Among the choicest temporal blessings which 
 God bestows upon man must be reckoned good 
 health. While the laws by which it ought to 
 be preserved are now more generally studied 
 and understood than perhaps at any former 
 period, the remedies and processes by which 
 it may be recovered when lost have also been 
 proportionately multiplied. It is no exaggera- 
 tion to assert, that the humblest peasant in our 
 country has now afforded to him, through the 
 means of our noble public institutions, an 
 amount of medical care, skill, and tenderness, 
 which, a few centuries ago, a monarch could 
 not have purchased with all the wealth of 
 his kingdom. Medical science, however, has 
 been a plant of slow growth. As in the 
 present chapter we review the mass of errors 
 and delusions through which the healing art 
 has had to make its advances, we call upon 
 
44 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 our reader to lift his heart in thankfulness to 
 God, for the abounding mercies which distin- 
 guish the period in which his lot has been cast. 
 
 At the time of the Trojan war, the adminis- 
 tration of remedies was principally in the hands 
 of the priests, who believed that their prayers 
 accomplished more than their prescriptions. 
 The remedies of the Orientals and the Romans 
 consisted mainly in charms ; the Greeks alone 
 surpassed their contemporaries in science. 
 Cato proposed that, in cases of fracture, the 
 limb whilst bound up should have the fol- 
 lowing charm daily sung over it : " Haat, hanat, 
 ista ) pista, jflsta y dominabo damnastra et luxala" 
 The Druids appear to have accompanied their 
 medical appliances by religious ceremonials, 
 which it was imagined gave them their chief 
 virtue. The manner in which the medicinal 
 herb was plucked, whether by the right hand 
 or the left ; the metal of the instrument by 
 which it was cut off from its stalk ; the time of 
 the day at which it was procured ; and even the 
 dress of the person collecting the simples, was 
 carefully prescribed ; and the alleged absence 
 of some parts of the given formula often saved 
 the credit of the operator. 
 
 Some of the ancient monkish legends describe 
 king John of England as poisoned by the ad- 
 ministration of a venomous reptile in his drink. 
 " Then went the monk into a garden, and found 
 a toad therein, and took her up, and put her in 
 a cup, and filled it with good ale, and pricked 
 her in every place in the cup till the venom 
 
DISEASES PRESIDED OVER BY SAINTS. 45 
 
 came out in every place, and brought it before 
 the king, and kneeled, and said, * Sir, wassail ; 
 for never in your life drank ye of such a cup.' 
 1 Begin, monk,' quoth the king. On which the 
 monk drank of the potion, and retiring from 
 the king's presence, died immediately." The 
 king himself only survived him two days. So 
 runs the legend, which, however untrue to fact, 
 sufficiently describes the supers titioDS of the 
 period. Similarly, one of the stories of the 
 Scottish borders represents a young man as 
 poisoned by partaking of a dish of stewed 
 adders, which he mistook for eels. We need 
 scarcely say that the toad is not venomous, and 
 that the poison of the adder is confined to its 
 fangs. 
 
 About the fifteenth century, Jewish medical 
 practitioners were much employed in Europe. 
 One of these, John of Gadesden, the court 
 physician of England, ordered the king's son, 
 then sick of the smallpox, to be rolled up in 
 scarlet cloth, and his room to be hung with the 
 same material, as an infallible remedy. 
 
 The various diseases of the human body 
 were, after the introduction of Christianity into 
 England, supposed to lie at the mercy of cor- 
 responding saints. St. Anthony presided over 
 inflammations ; St. Appolonia and Lucius over 
 the toothache ; St. Osillia and St. Clara over 
 sore ey es ; St. Ruffin over madness ; St. Valen- 
 tine over epilepsy ; St. Wolfgang over lame- 
 ness, etc. 
 
 Roger Bacon's notions of medicine were full 
 
46 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 of the errors of his age. He tells us of a 
 Parisian sage who cut a serpent nearly in 
 pieces, and then watched wdiat it would do. 
 Observing that it dragged its body to a plant, 
 the leaves of which immediately made it whole, 
 he regarded the circumstance as an* infallible 
 indication of the medicinal virtues of the indi- 
 cated plant. The story is, however, only a 
 reflection of a similar one in the pages of ancient 
 mythology. The same author asserts that the 
 flesh of dragons, ripened by severe hunting, 
 possesses the greatest virtue in prolonging life. 
 
 The middle or dark ages abounded with a 
 countless variety of charms, supposed to 
 possess efficacy in the removal of various 
 diseases. As a cure for the ague, the word 
 ABRACADABARA was believed to 
 possess great mystical virtues. It was thus 
 written : — 
 
 ABRACADABARA 
 
 BRACADABAR 
 
 RACADABA 
 
 ACAD AB 
 
 CAD A 
 
 AD 
 
 It was worn round the neck as an amulet. 
 
 The following was a recipe for a wart : — 
 " Take a piece of twine ; tie it in as many knots 
 as you have warts ; touch each wart with a 
 knot, and then throw the twine behind your 
 back into some place where it may soon decay — 
 a pond or hole in the earth ; but tell no one 
 what you have done. When the twine is 
 
CHARMS. 47 
 
 decayed, your warts will disappear without any 
 pain or trouble." 
 
 " Against the biting of a scorpion" this was 
 the remedy : — -" Say to an ass secretly, and as 
 it were whispering in his ear : ' I am bitten 
 with a scorpion.'" * 
 
 The leaves of an alder tree on which the sun 
 never shone were prescribed for erysipelas, and 
 a cross made of the alder and sallow for epi- 
 lepsy. To cure consumption, certain inhabitants 
 of Scotland tied a rag to the finger and toe nails 
 of the sick person, and then, having waved it 
 thrice round his head, buried it privately. This 
 appears to be a relic of Druidism. Kicketty 
 children were drawn through a split tree, which 
 was afterwards bound up so that its several 
 parts might grow together, and the recovery of 
 the diseased child was believed to correspond 
 with the restoration of the tree. A cure for 
 hooping-cough was found in mounting the 
 patient on a black ass, led nine times round an 
 oak tree, or sometimes in giving the hair of the 
 child, rolled up in butter, to a dog. It was 
 believed in some parts of Berkshire that a ring 
 made out of communion money was a sovereign 
 remedy against convulsions. 
 
 Sometimes these charms assumed a religious 
 form, which, if not invented by priests, were 
 not at least forbidden by them. 
 
 All this is deplorable, and exhibits an amount 
 of ignorance and infatuation of which the 
 present enlightened age would be ashamed, 
 * Scott's "Discovery of Witchcraft," p. 176. 
 
48 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Some of these charms approach so near to the 
 blasphemous, as to forbid their insertion in our 
 pages. If the reader will turn to the last chap- 
 ter, to which such instances more appropriate^ 
 belong, he will ascertain enough of the darkness 
 of our forefathers respecting religion, to render 
 the most absurd practices employed in its name 
 by no means incredible. 
 
 Writers in medicine about two hundred 
 years ago, made frequent mention of certain 
 potations of gold prescribed for various dis- 
 orders. Little doubt can exist that the aurum 
 potabile* was meant to throw the precious 
 metal, not so much into the throat of the patient 
 as into the pocket of the physician. At the 
 same period, great virtues were ascribed to 
 bezoars, that is, certain hard substances found 
 in the interiors of land animals. These stones 
 were supposed to expel poisons, and were sold 
 at enormous prices. One variety of this medi- 
 cine was formed from the heart and liver of 
 vipers. But at that period, the more disgusting 
 the medicine the greater were its reputed 
 virtues. The reader who has perused the 
 thrilling narrative of the deathbed of king 
 Charles il, may remember the nauseous and 
 revolting character of the remedies adopted for 
 the relief of the royal patient. There was a 
 celebrated prescription, called " treacle of mum- 
 my," which was compounded, as its name 
 imports, of the dust of ancient Egyptian bodies, 
 
 * Lord Bacon, in his Sylva Sylvarum, approves this pre- 
 scription. 
 
TOUCHING FOR KING'S EVIL. 49 
 
 considered to be sovereign when taken fasting 
 against all danger of poison. 
 
 The well-known custom of touching for the 
 king's evil, as scrofulous complaints were once 
 termed, originated in the practice of Edward the 
 Confessor, though the manner in which it was 
 treated by that monarch was somewhat different 
 from that which afterwards became the custom. 
 It appears that Edward employed sundry 
 manipulations, and did not exclusively rely 
 upon the efficacy of the royal touch. Referring 
 to a subsequent period, Aubrey says : " The 
 curing of the king's evil by the touch of the 
 king does much puzzle our philosophers, for 
 whether our kings were of the house of York 
 or Lancaster, it did the cure for the most part." 
 The following description of the religious" cere- 
 monial, as employed by Charles n., is given by 
 Evelyn: u His majesty began to touch for the 
 evil, according to custom, thus — His majesty 
 sitting under his state in the Banqueting House, 
 the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or 
 led up to the throne, where, they kneeling, the 
 king strokes their faces or cheeks with both his 
 hands at once, at which instant a chaplain in 
 his formalities says, & He put his hands upon 
 them and healed them.' This is said to ever}" 
 one in particular. When they have all been 
 touched, they come up again in the same order, 
 and the other chaplain kneeling, and having 
 angels of gold strung on white ribands on his 
 hand, deliver them one by one to his majesty, 
 who puts them about the necks of the touched 
 5 
 
50 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 as they pass, whilst the first chaplain repeats, 
 1 That is the true light who came into the 
 world,' " etc. Dr. Johnson, it will be recollected, 
 was thus touched by queen Anne. 
 
 It is related that an old man, a witness in a 
 cause before a court of justice, having declared 
 that he had been touched by queen Anne for 
 scrofula, was asked by the judge whether he 
 were really cured. He smilingly replied, that 
 he did not think he ever had the complaint, 
 but that his parents were poor, " and had no 
 objection to the bit of gold." It will be readily 
 believed that such an occurrence was by no 
 means a solitary one. 
 
 " Squire Morley, of Essex," says the rev. G. 
 Asby, " used to say a prayer, which he hoped 
 would do no harm when he hung a bit of 
 vervain-root from a scrofulous person's neck. 
 My aunt Freeman had a very high opinion of 
 a baked toad in a silk bag, hung round the 
 neck. For live toads thus used, see Pennant's 
 British Zoology."* 
 
 The devout and holy Richard Baxter, whose 
 life and labours remain as a precious memorial 
 of the highest style of piety, had some points of 
 superstitious weakness. He relates in his Auto- 
 biography, a nostrum prescribed for one of his 
 many ailments, which gives a curious notion of 
 the state of medical knowledge in his day — 
 unless, indeed, it were merely a piece of char- 
 latanism. The account is thus given in Calamy's 
 abridgment of his Autobiography : " Having 
 * Brande, vol. iii. p. 301—303. 
 
HARVEY. 51 
 
 read in Dr. Gerhard the admirable effects of 
 the swallowing of a gold bullet upon his own 
 father in a case much like his, he got a gold 
 bullet, between twenty and thirty shillings' 
 weight." But the good man found that the 
 bullet, instead of producing the cure he had 
 anticipated, was itself a sore and prolonged 
 disorder. 
 
 Till the end of the sixteenth century, so 
 firmly was the authority of the ancients esta- 
 blished among members of most learned profes- 
 sions, that the authority of Aristotle, through 
 the medium of Arabic translations, was quoted 
 as decisive of medical questions. When, how- 
 ever, men devoted themselves to the study of 
 anatonrv, the errors of their previous conclusions 
 became distinctly obvious. None signalized 
 himself more remarkably in this department 
 than William Harvey. Previously to his day, 
 a suspicion had been entertained that the blood 
 contained in the human body was not entirely 
 stagnant. But it was reserved for Harvey to 
 place before the world the whole theory of its 
 circulation ; to demonstrate how it was purified 
 by passing through the lungs; to distinguish 
 between the office of the arteries as the channels 
 from the heart, and the veins as the channels to 
 it ; and to explain the action of the ventricle, or 
 forcing pump, and of the auricle, or sucking 
 pump, of the central organ. This discovery 
 was published in 1628. So unprepared was 
 the public mind at that time for such an 
 announcement, that Harvey received much 
 
52 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 personal abuse, and lost much of his medical 
 practice. 
 
 One of the most deadly diseases which, until 
 recently, desolated the community was the 
 smallpox. Upwards of 200,000 persons an- 
 nually fell victims to its ravages. The useful 
 introduction of inoculation (or the communica- 
 tion of the disease itself in a mild form) by 
 lady Mary Wortley Montague, learned by her 
 in Turkey, was the signal for a tremendous 
 opposition, both medical and theological. The 
 practice was censured as wicked and diabolical, 
 diminishing " the salutary terror which prevails 
 respecting the uncertain approach of the dis- 
 ease ;" it was anathematized from the pulpit and 
 denounced from the press. When, at a later 
 period, Dr. Jenner introduced his system of vacci- 
 nation, (having discovered that milk-maids, who 
 catch a certain disease common among cows, 
 escaped the dread infection of the smallpox,) 
 one of his opponents asked, " What might 
 be the consequence of introducing a bestial 
 humour into the human frame after a long 
 lapse of years?" The pertinent rejoinder was, 
 " What may be the consequence, after a long 
 lapse of years, of introducing into the human 
 frame cows' milk, beef-steaks, or mutton- 
 chops ?" The sanitary benefits of the inven- 
 tion, however, speedily reconciled the world to 
 what was at first regarded as a disgusting 
 innovation. 
 
 The extraordinary qualities possessed by the 
 magnet, though not absolutely unknown, were 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 53 
 
 not brought into the use of commerce till the 
 sixteenth century. Before that period, however, 
 magnetism was applied in medical cases. 
 Paracelsus and others ascribed to it peculiar 
 virtues. When it had attained notoriety as a 
 means of navigation, it also rose into repute as 
 a cure. At the end of the seventeenth century, 
 pains in the teeth and ears were treated by the 
 use of magnetic toothpicks. In cases of rheu- 
 matic pains, also, patients were supposed to 
 obtain great relief by being rubbed in the 
 proper direction with magnets prepared for 
 that purpose. Unquestionably the magnet has 
 great value in relieving the eye, if troubled 
 by the presence of particles of iron and 
 steel. But this has no connexion with its 
 medical, but only with its mechanical powers. 
 Paracelsus, however, extolled its virtues in 
 cases in which it might be supposed to exert 
 no influence whatever. Was a man severely 
 w r ounded ? he proposed to anoint by a certain 
 unguent, not the wound itself, but the weapon 
 which had caused the wound. This was a 
 happy escape for the patient, for whom nothing 
 was to be done but to wash the cut with cold 
 water and cover it with a linen rag, taking 
 care to keep it clean, and daily to remove all 
 offensive matter. If the recipe for the anointing 
 salve were written out according to a modern 
 medical formulary, some of its ingredients 
 would surpass the powers even of Apothecaries' 
 Hall. Moss, growing on the head of a thief 
 left hanging, powder of real mummy, human 
 5* 
 
54 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 blood, etc., were its principal ingredients. The 
 disorder itself was mainly let alone. 
 
 This sympathetic mode of cure was sub- 
 sequently practised with great success, if we 
 may believe himself, by sir Kenelm Digby, 
 secretary to Charles I. We have recently 
 perused " A late discours made in solemne 
 assembly of nobles and learned men at Mont- 
 pellier, in France, by sir Kenelm Digby, knt.," 
 etc., (1658.) This " exquisite philosophical 
 discourse," as the preface to its translation calls 
 it, " relates the cure of a very sore hurt, which 
 was perfected by the power of sympathy," in the 
 presence of king James, his son, and the duke 
 of Buckingham. Mr. Howell, who had at- 
 tempted to part two men when fighting a duel, 
 got his hand severely wounded. " I asked 
 him," says sir Kenelm, " for anything that had 
 the blood upon it. So he presently sent for his 
 garter, wherewith his hand was first bound, and 
 as I called for a basin of water as if I would 
 wash my hands, I took a handful of powder of 
 white vitriol, which I had in my study, and pre- 
 sently dissolved it ; as soon as the bloody 
 garter was brought me, I put it within the 
 basin, observing in the interim what Mr. 
 Howell did, who stood talking with a gentleman 
 in the corner of my chamber, not regarding at 
 all what I was doing ; but he started suddenly 
 as if he had found some great alteration in him- 
 self. I asked him what he ailed. 1 1 know 
 not,' said he, ' what ails me, but I find that I 
 feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 55 
 
 kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, 
 did spread over my hand, which hath taken 
 away the inflammation that tormented me 
 before. " To demonstrate still more the nature 
 of this sympathy, sir Kenelm relates that, after 
 dinner, and in Mr. Howell's absence, he took 
 the garter, and held it before the fire. In a 
 short time, Mr. Howell's servant came to say 
 that his master was in a great fever. The con- 
 nexion hinted at in the last paragraph may be 
 well regarded as somewhat apocryphal. But 
 whatever might be the merit of the powder of 
 sympathy, the treatment of the wound by sir 
 Kenelm, who, contrary to the practice of those 
 days, ordered the patient to keep it clean, and 
 to throw away all plaisters, were well adapted 
 to effect a cure. Some notion of the " philoso- 
 phy" of sir Kenelm may be derived from the 
 fact, that this knight recommends the washing 
 of the hands in a basin shone into by the moon 
 without water, saying, that " the moonshine 
 would have humidity enough to cleanse the 
 hands because of the star from which it is 
 derived." He declares that this is also an 
 infallible way to remove warts. 
 
 Lord Bacon refers to the sympathetic powder, 
 in his Natural History, with approbation. The 
 secret of composing similar powders, had it 
 been known to the public, would probably have 
 caused many more diseases than cures. It is a 
 singular phenomenon connected with the evi- 
 dence of testimony, that remedies praised by a 
 thousand mouths in one age as infallible, should 
 
56 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 be ascertained in the next to possess no virtue 
 whatever. All charlatanism, however, exhibits 
 a succession of similar changes, and has cycles 
 of recurrence too. 
 
 In process of time there arose a new method 
 of applying this magnetizing influence. Mr. 
 Valentine Greatraks, once a soldier of the Com- 
 monwealth, professed to effect astonishing cures 
 by stroking with his hands the parts affected. 
 Headache, palsy, rheumatism, epilepsy, con- 
 vulsions, were said to yield to this remedial 
 treatment. In 1766, this mode of cure was 
 taken up by Mesmer, who was half an astro- 
 loger and wholly a quack. He gave similar 
 applications the name of a science, and called it 
 animal magnetism, to distinguish it from mineral 
 magnetism, in which it originated. 
 
 The mode in which Mesmer operated in 
 Paris was extraordinary. He placed in the 
 centre of a room a vessel, about four feet in 
 diameter and one in depth, containing a num- 
 ber of bottles filled with magnetized water. 
 From the cover of this vessel proceeded various 
 rods of iron, each of which was held by a 
 patient, who made one in a circle placed around 
 the baquetj whilst every patient was united to 
 the neighbouring one by a chain of connexion. 
 Certain " magnetizers " then went round, and 
 directed to the patients various passes, till the 
 expected hysterical symptoms began to appear. 
 All this was done in perfect silence. Mesmer 
 himself then appeared, dressed in robes of 
 flowing silk, arid holding in his hand a long 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 57 
 
 wand. He professed to regulate the crises of 
 his patients, and when he found them in a con- 
 vulsed state, he made passes upon or towards 
 them. At his pleasure, calmness succeeded to 
 the energy of intense action, and the patients 
 described themselves as feeling streams of cool- 
 ing vapour at his touch. 
 
 Mesmer now became the talk of the salons of 
 Paris. Wealth seemed within his grasp, and 
 he was offered by the king (Louis xvi.) a large 
 sum to make known his discovery. He had, 
 however, no desire to submit his empiricism to 
 investigation, and removed precipitately to Spa. 
 He left behind him a partner, M. D'Eslon, who 
 afforded to the Royal Commissioners all the 
 explanations he could give, and an inquiry was 
 forthwith instituted into the alleged phenomena. 
 It was conducted by scientific men of the 
 highest reputation. Their conclusion was, that 
 animal magnetism had no proofs to sustain it 
 except the effects apparently produced on the 
 human frame — that these effects could be pro- 
 duced without passes at all — and that whatever 
 manipulations were employed depended for 
 their success on the patient's real though uncon- 
 scious knowledge. The conclusion was, that 
 the whole process was purely imaginative. 
 
 The revival of animal magnetism in our own 
 day, is a subject of too modern a character for 
 us appropriately to handle. The history of this 
 art, we may only observe, illustrates very strik- 
 ingly one great fact — the power of will possessed 
 by the resolute and determined over the weak 
 
58 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 and diseased sensibilities of an inferior physical 
 nature. This, properly resolved, is no matter 
 of surprise, and is in entire accordance with the 
 ordinary laws of man's being, which prescribes 
 that some shall be stronger and some weaker. 
 But there is a moral exemplification of this 
 power of will, which is not only pitiable, but 
 awful, and which is the most guilty infraction 
 of the laws which God has prescribed for man's 
 character and conduct. Fearful are the exhi- 
 bitions afforded, when some human being, 
 strong to do evil, controls and tyrannizes over 
 his fellow-man, seducing by his own example, 
 and using the victim as the tool for his own 
 base and degrading purposes. And terrible is 
 the case of him who, permitting himself to be 
 led away by a mightier than himself, abandons 
 the principles which would have saved him, 
 forgets the God who is almighty to deliver, and 
 yields himself or herself a prey to the deluder. 
 Eeader, whoever you may be, young man or 
 young woman, beware ! Dare to resist, how- 
 ever difficult, the power which would enthral 
 you ! To say " no " in the hour of strong 
 temptation is the noblest exercise of Christian 
 virtue. But God alone, by his Holy Spirit, can 
 give you grace to pronounce that sometimes 
 omnipotent word. That Spirit is freely offered 
 to all who ask it aright. The promise has gone 
 forth, " Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, 
 and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be 
 opened unto you ; for every one that asketh 
 receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 59 
 
 him that knocketh it shall be opened If 
 
 ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
 unto your children, how much more shall your 
 Father which is in heaven give good things to 
 them that ask them," Matt. viii. 7, 8, 11. 
 
60 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DELUSIONS INVOLVING SUPERNATURAL VISITATIONS. 
 
 Old English legends— Vam pyres — Ordeals — Ghosts — Dreams 
 —Somnambulism— Practical Reflections. 
 
 There is no part of man's organization more 
 distinctly marked than his longings after the 
 unseen. To commune with the invisible, and 
 to expatiate in the eternal, are original instincts 
 of man's nature — noble when taking the direc- 
 tion which God himself indicates ; but paltry 
 and puerile when employed for purposes dif- 
 ferent from those which he has prescribed. 
 All who are not abandoned to entire thoughtless- 
 ness, are conscious of periods when deep solici- 
 tude about things invisible fills the soul. It is 
 felt at such seasons that man is more than a 
 material thing, and that the grave cannot be 
 the limitation of his existence. Hence the 
 anxiety of the soul to know what awaits it 
 beyond the tomb. The word of God, while 
 refusing to gratify idle curiosity, has met the 
 cravings of man's nature by revealing to him 
 the momentous truths of his eternal existence 
 in a world to come ; the misery or bliss that 
 
bonaparte's " star of destiny." 61 
 
 must characterize that existence, as he dies at 
 enmity against God or in state of reconciliation 
 with him ; his lost and ruined condition by 
 nature ; the need of his being born again by 
 the Holy Spirit ; and the necessity of faith 
 in the atonement and justifying righteousness 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the sole ground of 
 a sinner's acceptance before God. The carnal 
 heart, however, while refusing faith to God's 
 testimony on these points, is too often distin- 
 guished by childish credulity with respect to 
 facts respecting the unseen world, which are 
 only man's erroneous invention. In the follow- 
 ing chapter some of these will be enumerated 
 by us. While carefully desirous of avoiding 
 all appearance of dogmatism, we feel it in the 
 outset our duty to call upon our reader to test 
 all narratives of popular superstitions by the 
 severest and strictest laws of evidence. A spirit 
 of credulity, however it may be fostered by the 
 Romish church, is the very opposite of the 
 spirit of true faith. It is curious, indeed, to 
 observe how those who forsake the latter are 
 generally prone to indulge the former. Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte believed on the presiding star 
 of his destiny ; and many of the literary circle 
 that surrounded the " philosophical" king, 
 Frederick the Great, while they derided the 
 truths of revelation, could yet perpetrate such 
 follies as those which are recorded in the follow- 
 ing extract. " Lanethrie, an avowed atheist, 
 used to make the sign of the cross if it thun- 
 dered. D'Argens would shudder if there were 
 6 
 
62 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 thirteen seated round the table. Others were 
 the dupes of fortune-tellers, and full half of 
 the court believed that a woman, all in white, 
 appeared in one of the apartments of the castle, 
 holding in her hands a large broom, with 
 which she swept the room when any of the 
 royal family were about to die. Several per- 
 sons of distinction, occupying high places under 
 government, were duped by a person who pre- 
 tended to have the power of intercourse with 
 evil spirits so as to discover hidden treasure. 
 They even went the length of offering sacrifices 
 to the devil, and procured at a great cost, as an 
 acceptable offering, a goat which had not a 
 single hair that was not black. Such are the 
 inconsistencies of infidelity, and such are the 
 aberrations into which men are seduced, when, 
 for the delusions of their imaginations, they 
 forsake the word of the living God." 
 
 In proportion as w T e recede towards the 
 infancy of society, especially where Divine 
 revelation has not poured its light upon the 
 mind, we find the passion for the unseen un- 
 governable and dangerous, and early history is 
 crowded thick with portents, many of which 
 may have originally possessed some concealed 
 foundation, though, as they meet our eye, they 
 are absolutely mythological and untrue. We 
 will not, however, venture on the subject ante- 
 rior to the date of modern history. The reader 
 of the Old English Chronicles will be familiar 
 with numerous exemplifications of this credu- 
 lous taste. The history (as it is called) of 
 
VAMPYRES. 63 
 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth, abounds with incidents 
 of this fabulous character. 
 
 Among the superstitions which paganism 
 transmitted to nominal Christians, was one of 
 which scarcely any traces are now extant, 
 though in its day it exerted a horrifying influ- 
 ence. It was known under the name of Vam- 
 pyrism. A vampyre was represented as a dead 
 man, quickened by magical processes into 
 supernatural life, which was sustained by prey- 
 ing upon the bodies of the dead. The Greek 
 Christians appear to have been specially 
 addicted to this delusion, and in various coun- 
 tries of Europe, as in Bohemia and Hungary, 
 such superstitions were prevalent even during 
 the last century. To such an extent did 
 credulity on this subject prevail, that not only 
 were vampyres imagined in every district, but 
 assemblies of soldiers and ecclesiastics gravely 
 met to deliberate how the enormity could be 
 stayed. One mode of discovering a vampyre 
 was to pace a jet-black horse up and down the 
 churchyard between the graves. If the animal 
 turned restive, and refused to proceed, it was 
 concluded that a vampyre existed somewhere in 
 the vicinity. 
 
 The process of ascertaining the innocence or 
 guilt of an accused person by the trial of ordeal 
 is of great antiquity. The followers of Zoroas- 
 ter, the Hindoos, and the Tartars, alike prac- 
 tised it. It has been already shown, in one of 
 the volumes of the Monthly Series, how^ the 
 human body may be rendered capable of resisting 
 
64 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 the effects of intense heat.* Such preparations 
 were well known to the ancients, and to those who 
 lived in the dark ages. Accused persons often 
 handled red-hot iron without sustaining injury. 
 Harold, king of Norway, in order to prove his 
 title to the crown, walked over metal in this 
 state unscathed. Popon, to convince the Danes 
 of the truth of Christianity, (a wretched proof 
 of so important a theorem,) put his naked arm 
 into a gauntlet heated to a white heat, and 
 drew it forth entirely sound. At Dydmo- 
 theque, in France, a wife, suspected by her 
 husband, lifted a bar of red-hot iron, which she 
 carried three times round a chair. She then 
 dropped the iron on the chair, which was 
 instantly in a blaze. The husband was satis- 
 lied ; but the wife declared to the bishop that 
 she was, nevertheless, guilty. In such instances 
 there can be no doubt of a familiarity with cer- 
 tain secrets known only to the initiated. 
 
 Under the Anglo-Saxon government of these 
 islands, the imperfection of knowledge in the use 
 of circumstantial evidence rendered such trials 
 of frequent occurrence. The principal ordeals 
 were two — by water and by fire. If the trial 
 was by the former, a caldron of water was 
 made to boil in some part of a churcn, varying 
 in depth according to the presumed guilt of the 
 accused person. A heavy weight was then 
 placed within the caldron, to be drawn out by 
 the prisoner with his arm bare. The arm was 
 afterwards covered over and sealed up by the 
 * Magic, Pretended Miracles, etc. 
 
ORDEALS. 65 
 
 priest until the third day. If, at the expiration 
 of that time, the limb was healed, the accused 
 person was deemed innocent ; if otherwise, he 
 was punished as unquestionably guilty. The 
 corresponding ordeal was similar. A red-hot 
 piece of iron being produced, was to be lifted 
 by the hands of the accused, who was required 
 to take three prescribed steps whilst holding it. 
 The hand was then bound up and sealed as 
 before. It is evident that such cases afforded 
 much opportunity for connivance and collusion, 
 and that the interested or party prejudices of 
 the judges would materially modify the results. 
 
 Many other ordeals are mentioned by various 
 authors. At St. Sane, in Bretagne, was an iron 
 collar, which, bound round the neck, left (it was 
 said) the innocent uninjured, but strangled the 
 guilty. The action of the collar was regulated, 
 in all probability, by the opinion the operator 
 might have of the merits of the case before 
 him. 
 
 Credulity has, however, found no more ex- 
 tensive field for the exercise of its powers, than 
 that which is associated with the idea of forms 
 from another world. What terrors have not 
 been excited, what idle and worthless volumes 
 have not been written, on this engrossing 
 theme ? The subject is too prolific to receive 
 in these pages more than a very epitomized 
 notice. It is unnecessary to analyse the 
 accounts given of such appearances in the 
 pages of Holy Scripture. We have no reason to 
 expect, in the ordinary government of the world 
 6* 
 
66 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 by the providence of God, those manifestations 
 which, in his wisdom, he deemed necessary 
 under a dispensation attended by miracles. 
 That such appearances have been, is no proof 
 that such things now are, any more than the 
 fact that miraculous operations once took place 
 is an argument for believing in their now daily 
 recurrence. Such appearances in modern times 
 will, it is evident, depend for their frequency 
 very greatly on the degree of popular credulity 
 which may be prevalent. In certain states of 
 mind, the unexplained passes readily into the 
 supernatural or even into the terrific. 
 
 It would be clearly impossible to undertake 
 the elucidation of every occurrence which seems 
 to favour the belief of this superstition. Yet 
 the explanation of a few cases may afford a 
 light by which to estimate the force of others 
 yet involved in mystery. 
 
 That some of these alleged cases are the 
 simple effect of error or misapprehension is 
 what will be denied by no judicious inquirer. 
 A friend of the writer told him the following 
 incident : — 
 
 He had been kept out by some business far 
 beyond his usual hour, and was returning home- 
 in very early morning, at a time when objects 
 were indistinctly seen, and when the mind, it 
 may be added, overstrained by undue exertion, 
 is in a condition very favourable for the re- 
 ception of ideas of the supernatural. His path 
 lay by a churchyard. Just as he reached it, 
 he saw, though indistinctly, a white figure 
 
GHOSTS. 67 
 
 slowly moving to and fro close to its precincts. 
 If, alarmed by terror, he had fled from the 
 spot, his tale might have added a new item to 
 the catalogue of spectral appearances. But he 
 went on, and as he drew nearer, he ascertained 
 that the supposed apparition was only the 
 inhabitant of a cottage hard by the church, 
 who, unable to sleep, and half-undressed, was 
 taking an airing, certainly at a very unseason- 
 able, and, as it would have proved to most, at 
 a very uncomfortable hour in the morning. 
 
 The following is the narration of a Newcastle 
 sea-captain : " His cook," he said, " chanced 
 to die upon his passage homeward. This 
 honest fellow, having had one of his legs a little 
 shorter than the other, used to walk in that 
 way which our vulgar idiom calls with an 
 up and a down. A few nights after his body 
 had been committed to the deep, our captain 
 was alarmed by his mate with an account that 
 the cook was walking before the ship, and that 
 all hands were on deck to see him. The 
 captain, angry at being disturbed in his sleep, 
 ordered them to let him alone, and try which, 
 the ship or he, should get first to Newcastle. 
 But turning out on further importunity, he 
 confessed that he had like to have caught the 
 contagion ; for, on seeing something move in a 
 way so similar to that which the cook was 
 wont to do, and withal having a cap on so like 
 that which he was used to wear, he verily 
 thought that there was more in the report than 
 he was at first willing to believe. A general 
 
68 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 panic diffused itself ; lie ordered the ship to be 
 steered round towards the object, but not a 
 man would move the helm. Compelled to do 
 this himself, he found, on a nearer approach, 
 that the ridiculous cause of all their terror was 
 part of a main-top, the remains of some wreck 
 floating before them." * 
 
 There is something to be learned from the 
 following conversation between Dr. Fowler, a 
 former bishop of Gloucester, a great believer in 
 the supernatural, and Mr. Justice Powell, who 
 had less credulity. The latter one day told the 
 former that we had now ocular demonstration 
 to convince him of the existence of ghosts. 
 The bishop congratulated him on his discovery 
 of the truth, and the justice told how, as he 
 lay in bed one night, he heard something come 
 up stairs and stalk towards his room. " I 
 drew," said he " my curtain, and saw a faint 
 glimmering of light enter my chamber." " Of 
 a blue colour, no doubt," said the bishop. " Of 
 a pale blue," answers the justice ; " the light 
 was followed by a tall, meagre, and stern . per- 
 sonage, who seemed about seventy, in a long, 
 dangling gown, bound round with a leathern 
 girdle, his face wrinkled, and of a dark sable 
 hue." " And did you not speak to it?" inter- 
 rupted the bishop. " My lord, I did speak to 
 it." " And what answer, Mr. Justice ?" " My 
 lord, the answer was, that he was the watchman 
 of the night, and came to give me notice that 
 he had found the street door open, and that 
 * Hibbert. 
 
GHOSTS. 69 
 
 unless I rose and shut it, I might chance to be 
 robbed before break of day." 
 
 After the marriage of Mr. Matthews, a come- 
 dian, he took lodgings in York, in a room 
 which had been formerly occupied by Sterne, 
 but which was reported to be haunted, though 
 the ghost was only to be heard in the best bed- 
 room. When night came, and just as the 
 Minster clock struck twelve, the sleepers were 
 awaked by three blows, as they believed, upon 
 their heads. Nothing, however, appeared which 
 might afford a clue to the explanation ; but 
 every night, precisely at the same witching 
 hour, the same knocks were repeated. The 
 pair became uneasy, but the cheapness of the 
 lodgings still tempted them to remain. At 
 length the noises suddenly ceased, and were 
 never renewed. It may be easily supposed 
 that the silence was almost as awful as the 
 sounds. Some weeks after this, as Matthews 
 and his wife were sitting in a room in company 
 with a widow, the conversation turned on 
 the Stonegate ghost. As a Mrs. Long, who 
 was present, heard it, she said, " Why, that was 
 my dear Billy Long!" In the issue, it ap- 
 peared that her husband, a bed-ridden man, 
 lodging in the adjoining house to Matthews, 
 was much annoyed through fear of thieves, 
 especially dreading that they should come from 
 behind his bed. As he was remarkable for his 
 love of punctuality, he had been accustomed, 
 just as the Minster clock struck twelve, to deal 
 three heavy blows upon the arras which hung 
 
70 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 behind his pillow. His death was followed, of 
 course, by a cessation of the sounds. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, in his " Letters on Demo- 
 nology and Witchcraft," relates the following 
 occurrence, which we imagine refers to himself 
 and to the supposed apparition of his deceased 
 friend, lord Byron : — 
 
 " Not long after the death of a certain illus- 
 trious poet, who had filled, when living, a great 
 station in the eye of the public, a literary friend, 
 to whom the deceased had been well known, 
 was engaged, during the darkening twilight of 
 an autumn evening, in perusing one of the 
 publications which professed to detail the habits 
 and opinions of the distinguished individual 
 who was now no more. ... A visitor was sitting 
 in the apartment who was engaged in reading. 
 Their sitting-room opened into an entrance hall, 
 rather fantastically fitted up with articles of 
 armour, wild animals, and the like. It was 
 when laying down his book and passing into 
 the hall, through which the moon was begin- 
 ning to shine, that the individual of whom 1 
 speak saw, right before him, and in a standing 
 posture, the exact representation of his de- 
 parted friend, whose recollection had been so 
 strongly brought to his imagination. He 
 stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the 
 wonderful accuracy with which fancy had im- 
 pressed on his bodily eye the peculiarities of 
 dress and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensi- 
 ble, however, of the delusion, he felt no senti- 
 ment save that of wonder at the extraordinary 
 
GHOSTS. 71 
 
 accuracy of the resemblance, and stepped on- 
 wards towards the figure, which resolved itself 
 as he approached into the various materials of 
 which it was composed. These were merely a 
 screen, occupied by great coats, shawls, plaids, 
 and such other articles as are usually found in 
 a country entrance hall. The spectator re- 
 turned to the spot from which he had seen the 
 illusion, and endeavoured with all his power to 
 recall the image which had been so singularly 
 vivid. But this was beyond his capacity ; and 
 the person who had witnessed the apparition, 
 or, more properly, whose excited state had been 
 the means of raising it, had only to return, and 
 tell the young friend he had left under what 
 a striking hallucination he had for a moment 
 laboured." 
 
 The narration which follows presents a strik- 
 ing case in illustration of our subject: — 
 
 A club of persons in the town of Plymouth 
 was accustomed to meet during the summer 
 months in a secluded summer-house, accessible 
 to many of the members by a pass-key. On 
 occasion of one of its meetings, the president for 
 the evening was taken dangerously ill, and, as 
 a mark of respect, the chair designed for him 
 was left unoccupied. His absence naturally led 
 to a conversation on the talents and character 
 of the absentee. Whilst the members were 
 thus speaking, the figure of the president entered 
 the room. It was ghastly pale, and clothed in 
 white. Gliding to the vacant chair, it lifted the 
 empty glass before him, bowed to the company, 
 
72 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 and put it to his lips — then, in dead silence, 
 disappeared as it had entered. The effect on 
 the club was horrifying. After remaining for 
 some time together conversing on this appalling 
 incident, two of the number went to the house 
 of the president, and found him dead. 
 
 Long after the news of the supernatural 
 visitation had been circulated and obtained an 
 awful credence, it was discovered that the de- 
 ceased man, immediately before his death, and 
 whilst the nurse appointed to watch by his 
 bed-side was asleep, had, in a fit of delirium, 
 actually gone to the summer-house, and had 
 only returned to his own bed to die. If that 
 explanation had been wanting, the whole scene, 
 witnessed as it was by many spectators at once, 
 might have passed for one of the best attested 
 ghost stories on record. 
 
 The phenomenon of the spectre of theBrocken, 
 a range of mountains in Hanover, may be already 
 familiar to many of our readers. As, however, 
 it is illustrative of certain delusions on the 
 subject of spectral appearances, a slight reference 
 to it may be allowed. M. Hane visited it for 
 the thirty-first time at a period when the emi- 
 nence was surrounded by " transparent vapours 
 not yet condensed into clouds." He observed 
 at a great distance a gigantic human figure. 
 The wind blowing briskly, he raised his hand 
 to protect his hat. The figure did the same. 
 He moved his body, and threw himself into 
 various gestures. So did the figure. He called 
 the landlord of an adjacent inn; there were 
 
GHOSTS. 73 
 
 now two figures instead of one. These figures 
 afterwards increased to three, and " every move- 
 ment they made was imitated by the three 
 figures, but the effect varied in its intensity, 
 being sometimes weak and faint, and at other 
 times strong and well-defined." The clouds 
 were but a kind of imperfect mirror, in which 
 the spectators saw their own reflection. 
 
 Dr. Clarke, the traveller, relates, that being 
 in the vicinity of Constantinople, he was 
 looking -out of his cabin window, having an 
 officer by his side, when he witnessed a horrible 
 apparition. There floated before him a corpse, 
 sewed up in a hammock, in almost an upright 
 position, half out of the water, and borne along 
 by the current of the ocean. " Nothing," he 
 says, "could be more horrible; its head and 
 shoulders were visible, turning first to one side, 
 then to the other, with a solemn and awful 
 movement, as if impressed with some dreadful 
 secret of the deep, which from its watery grave 
 it came upwards to reveal." The cause is 
 evident. The process of decomposition had 
 rendered the body light enough to counter- 
 balance the weights with which, at the time of 
 its burial, it had been sunk, and this explained 
 its erect posture. 
 
 The stories of the Cock-lane and Stockwell 
 ghosts, which during a considerable period kept 
 London in an uproar, and were at length clearly 
 traced to tricks and confederacy, are too long 
 to be here detailed. 
 
 That many supposed supernatural appearances 
 
74 BEMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 in past ages have originated in the devices of 
 the clever and designing, and were circulated 
 for the purposes of increasing wealth or influence, 
 is plainly apparent. Some monks availed them- 
 selves thus of the superstitions of one of the 
 kings of France, St. Louis. The king had 
 expressed a wish to have a community of the 
 monks of St. Bruno settled near Paris. These 
 monks fixed a longing eye upon the ancient 
 palace of Vauvert, which appeared exactly to 
 accord with their notions of a desirable residence. 
 Vauvert immediately became haunted; sounds 
 issued from it at night; and dancing lights, 
 clanking chains, dreadful howlings, and other 
 frightful phenomena, alarmed its neighbours. 
 These were succeeded by a spectral form in 
 green, with a beard of white, which was nightly 
 seen in one of the palace windows. The monks 
 told the tale to the king, and declared that if 
 they were allowed to occupy the palace, the 
 spectres should soon be exterminated. The 
 king conveyed to them the property, the ghosts 
 disappeared, the noises were heard no more, 
 and the monks of St. Bruno enjoyed the advan- 
 tages of a quiet residence. 
 
 The writer was not long since at Linlithgow, 
 a celebrated palace of the former kings, or 
 rather queens, of Scotland, through whose 
 deserted and fire-blasted walls the wind now 
 sweeps unchecked. Its neighbouring church is 
 the scene of a very famous ghost story. Pitscottie 
 thus relates it: " The king (James iv.) came to 
 Lithgow, where he happened to be for the time 
 
GHOSTS. 70 
 
 at the council, very sad and dolorous, making 
 his devotion to God, to send him good chance 
 and fortune in his voyage." (He was just about 
 to leave for the battle of Flodden- field, in which 
 he was slain.) " In the meanwhile there came 
 a man, clad in a blue gown, in at the kirk door, 
 and belted about him a roll of linen cloth, a 
 pair of buskins upon his feet to the great of 
 his legs, with all other hose and cloth conform 
 thereto; but he had nothing on his head but 
 long yellow hair behind and on his cheeks, but 
 his forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to 
 be a man of two-and-flfty years, with a great 
 pikestaff in his hand, and came first forward 
 among the lords, crying and speiring (asking) 
 for the king, saying he desired to speak with 
 him. While, at the last, he came where the 
 king was sitting in the desk at his prayers ; but 
 when he saw the king, he made him little 
 reverence or salutation, but leaned down gruffly 
 on the desk before him, and said to him in this 
 manner, as after follows : ' Sir king, my mother 
 hath sent me to you, desiring you not to pass 
 at this time where you are purposed, for if 
 thou doest, thou wilt not farewell in thy journey, 
 nor none that passeth with thee.' " The ap- 
 parition then, after a few more remonstrances, 
 disappeared. But some of the accounts describe 
 it as disappearing towards the queen's apart- 
 ments. Little doubt can be entertained that 
 the whole was a trick devised by her Scottish 
 majesty, who provided a person to put on the 
 garb of St. John, (the adopted son of the virgin 
 
76 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Mary,) that he might warn the king against 
 what was likely to be an unfortunate, and 
 perhaps disastrous expedition. 
 
 The following circumstance will still further 
 illustrate the present subject. During the early 
 part of the last century, some inhabitants of 
 Dorking entertained the notion that a ghost 
 walked at a certain place in their neighbour- 
 hood, and that a recently deceased lady was to 
 be seen hovering about her late dwelling with 
 a clattering noise, and in the night walking 
 through the fields with a candle, which the 
 highest winds did not extinguish. The report 
 greatly alarmed the surrounding inhabitants. 
 In the end, it proved to be only the trick of 
 some idle, but wicked boys, belonging to a 
 boarding-school hard by. 
 
 The incident is related by Defoe, 'in his 
 " History of Apparitions " If, as is not impro- 
 bable from his manner of relating the story, he 
 w T as himself concerned in this wicked trick, it 
 might prepare the way for a much more repre- 
 hensible appeal to superstitious minds perpe- 
 trated by him in his later years. The publisher 
 of " Drelincourt on Death" complained that his 
 book would not sell. Defoe undertook to ad- 
 minister what would cure the evil. He there- 
 fore wrote as a preface the pretended apparition 
 of Mrs. Yeal. The work then sold by thousands. 
 
 We cannot sufficiently reprehend the tricks, 
 which, under the name of practical jokes, 
 possess so great a charm for some evil-disposed 
 persons. However ignorant those are on 
 
GHOSTS. 77 
 
 whom such pranks are played, their sensibilities 
 ought to be regarded with pity ; and very 
 serious, and sometimes fatal consequences have 
 often attended similar perpetrations. 
 
 Certain physical disorders of the stomach and 
 organs of digestion are well known by medical 
 men to be attended by vivid imagery, as distinct 
 as if the objects of delusion had themselves 
 passed before the eyes of the spectator. Such 
 impressions, often heightened for the time by 
 the effects of anodynes emplo} r ed for their relief, 
 have been frequently mistaken for something 
 supernatural. Sir David Brewster, in his 
 " Letters on Natural Magic," relates several of 
 these phenomena, as illustrated by the experi- 
 ence of a lady whom he calls " Mrs. A." : — 
 
 She once came into her drawing-room, when 
 she saw clearly the image of her husband — 
 then absent from the house — standing with his 
 back to the fire, looking at her seriously and 
 fixedly. After a little time, during which the 
 vision retained its first attitude, she called out, 
 "Why don't you speak?" The figure moved 
 towards the window, and disappeared. 
 
 On another occasion, her husband being 
 present, she was annoyed by the appearance of 
 a black cat, and could with difficulty be per- 
 suaded that it was only an illusion, although 
 the room was searched without finding such an 
 animal, and a dog, who would have been roused 
 by such a visitant, was reposing quietly on the 
 hearthrug. An apparition, dressed in a shroud, 
 figures of deceased friends — a carriage driving 
 7* 
 
78 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 up to the door — the appearance of a large dog — 
 were also among the spectral visions by which 
 she was successively assailed. Both the lady 
 and her husband were perfectly aware of the 
 unreality of her impressions. 
 
 " A highly intelligent friend," says Dr. Aber- 
 crombie, " whom I attended several years ago 
 in a mild but protracted fever, without delirium, 
 had frequent interviews with a spectral visitor, 
 who presented the appearance of an old and 
 grey-headed man, of a most benignant aspect. 
 His visits were always conducted exactly in 
 the same manner ; he entered the room by a 
 door which was on the left-hand side of the bed, 
 and seated himself on a chair on the right-hand 
 side ; he then fixed his eyes upon the patient 
 with an expression of intense interest and pity, 
 but never spoke ; continued distinctly visible 
 for some seconds, and then seemed to vanish 
 into air. These visits were repeated daily for 
 several days, but sometimes he missed a day ; 
 and the appearance continued for several weeks. 
 The same gentleman, on another occasion, when 
 in perfect health, sitting in his parlour in the 
 evening, saw distinctly, in the corner of the 
 room, a female figure in a kneeling posture, 
 who continued visible for several seconds."* 
 
 Laplace relates, that a relation of Bossuet, 
 though he had no other symptoms of sickness, 
 saw the figures of men, birds, and boats con- 
 
 i_/ 7 7 
 
 tinually moving and disappearing before him, 
 
 though perfectly aware that such appearances 
 
 * Abercrombie on "The Intellectual Powers." 
 
GHOSTS. 79 
 
 were merely delusions. General Thiebault, 
 also, in the state of depletion consequent on 
 an inflammatory attack, distinguished various 
 fantastic objects, which danced before his eyes, 
 and even amused himself by describing them to 
 the friends who surrounded his couch. 
 
 Many similar instances might be cited, of 
 visions preceding attacks of apoplexy and of 
 epilepsy, and others precursive of the access of 
 insanity. 
 
 We need scarcely add, that the effects of a 
 continued course of dissipation are well known 
 to concentrate themselves into the terrible form 
 of delirium fremens — an awful lesson to those 
 who, forgetful of the laws of God and man, are 
 wasting their constitutional powers in such 
 ruinous excesses. 
 
 " A young gentleman, who has recently left 
 Oxford, told me that he was one evening at a 
 supper party in college, when they were joined 
 by a common friend, on his return home from 
 hunting. They expected him, but were struck 
 with bis appearance. He was pale and agitated. 
 On questioning him, they learned the cause. 
 During the latter part of his ride home he had 
 been accompanied by a horseman, who kept 
 exact pace with him, the rider and horse being 
 close fac- similes of himself and the steed he 
 rode, even to the copy of a new-fangled bit, 
 which he used that day for the first time. He 
 had, in fact, seen his i double/ or ' fetch/ and 
 it had shaken his nerves considerably. His 
 friends advised him to consult the college tutor, 
 
80 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 who failed not to give him some good advice, 
 and hoped the warning would not be thrown 
 away. My informant, who thought the whole 
 matter very serious, and w r as inclined to believe 
 the unearthly visit to have been no idle one, 
 added, that it had made the ghost-seer, for a 
 time at least, a wiser and better man."* 
 
 The effect of opium, whether taken as a 
 medicine or in compliance with a baneful habit, 
 is not dissimilar. " Sometime ago," says Dr. 
 Abercrombie, u I attended a gentleman affected 
 with a painful local disorder, requiring the use 
 of opiates, but which often failed in producing 
 sleep. In one watchful night, there passed 
 before him a long and regular exhibition of 
 characters and transactions connected with cer- 
 tain occurrences which had been the subject of 
 much conversation in Edinburgh some time 
 before. The characters succeeded each other 
 with all the regularity and vividness of a 
 theatrical exhibition ; he heard their conversa- 
 tion and long speeches that were occasionally 
 made, some of which were in rhyme ; and he 
 distinctly remembered, and repeated next day, 
 long passages from these poetical effusions. He 
 was quite awake, and quite sensible that the 
 whole was a phantasm ; and he remarked that 
 when he opened his eyes the vision vanished, 
 but instantly re-appeared whenever he closed 
 them."t 
 
 In professor Gregory's abstract of Baron von 
 
 * Mayo's Popular Superstitions, p. 51. 
 
 t Abercrombie's " Intellectual Powers," p. 283, 
 
GHOSTS. 81 
 
 Reichenbach's researches in magnetism, an 
 account is given of some persons, whose ex- 
 treme sensitiveness enabled them to detect 
 appearances entirely unperceived by others 
 above a grave. He mentions the case of a 
 young clergyman, named Billing, who had dis- 
 covered a dead body by a certain luminous 
 appearance above the spot. The peculiar form 
 he gave to it was probably, however, only the 
 effect of his own imagination. Billing said, that 
 whenever he went near a grave-yard he always 
 observed many similar appearances. Though 
 the fact is not familiar to most persons, no 
 doubt can exist that a corpse is, as the professor 
 describes it, " a field for abundant chemical 
 changes, decomposition, fermentation, putrefac- 
 tion, gasification, and general play of affinities ;" 
 nor is there any improbability in the belief, 
 that extremely sensitive constitutions may be 
 able to discern a lambent flame accompanying 
 this action, though altogether undiscoverable by 
 the ordinary observer. To put the matter to 
 the proof, professor Gregory induced a young 
 lady, who possessed this sensitiveness in a high 
 degree, to accompany him to a churchyard. 
 This lady saw on one of the graves an ap- 
 pearance of phosphoric light — a kind of " deli- 
 cate breathing flame" marking its whole 
 length ; and its repetition, in a weakened form, 
 on an adjacent grave. Being subsequently 
 carried to a burying-place in Vienna, where 
 interments were daily taking place, she saw the 
 same luminous appearances in all directions, 
 
82 EEMARKABLE DELUSIONS, 
 
 observing that they were specially vivid where 
 there were recent graves. 
 
 Perhaps, however, of all the narrations 
 regarding apparitions, there are none so strik- 
 ing as those which owe their existence to the 
 power of conscience. How that extraordinary 
 mental or moral power can excite the mind 
 into the most vigorous action, can quicken 
 sensibility, can invigorate memory, can rouse 
 the imaginative faculties of the guilty, we need 
 scarcely tell. The sinner carries thus within 
 himself a phantasmagoric instrument of fearful 
 and portentous power. Would that criminals 
 could read the lesson which this fact teaches, 
 sometimes in lines of blood or of fire — " Be 
 sure your sin will find you out !" 
 
 It is astonishing how the slightest circum- 
 stance may, by this apparatus of mental torture, 
 become associated with the impressions which 
 lie uppermost within. One incident, related by 
 a late writer, will sufficiently illustrate this 
 division of our treatise : — 
 
 " It was about the eventful year 1800," says 
 the narrator, " when the emperor Paul laid his 
 ill-judged embargo on British trade, that my 
 friend, on a journey to London, found himself 
 in company in the mail-coach with a seafaring 
 man, of middle age and respectable appearance, 
 who announced himself as a master of a vessel 
 in the Baltic trade, and sufferer by the em- 
 bargo. In the course of the desultory conver- 
 sation which takes place on such occasions, the 
 seaman observed, in compliance with a common 
 
GHOSTS. 83 
 
 superstition, 1 1 wish we may have good luck 
 on our voyage — there is a magpie.' i And why 
 should that be unlucky?' said my friend. 'I 
 cannot tell you that,' replied the sailor ; ' but all 
 the world agrees that one magpie bodes ill-luck, 
 two are not so bad, but three are the worst 
 of all. I never saw three magpies but twice, 
 and once I had near lost my vessel, and the 
 second I fell from my horse and was hurt.' This 
 conversation led my friend to observe, that he 
 supposed he believed also in ghosts, since he 
 credited such auguries ; ' And if I do,' said the 
 sailor, * I may have my own reasons for doing 
 so ;' and he spoke this in a deep and serious 
 manner, implying that he felt deeply what he 
 was saying. On being further urged, he con- 
 fessed that, if he could believe his own eyes, 
 there was one ghost at least which he had seen 
 repeatedly. He then told his story as I now 
 relate it : — 
 
 " Our mariner had in his youth gone mate 
 of a slave vessel from Liverpool, of which town 
 he seemed to be a native. The captain of the 
 vessel was a man of a variable temper, some- 
 times kind and courteous to his men, but sub- 
 ject to fits of humour, dislike, and passion, 
 during which he was very violent, tyrannical, 
 and cruel. He took a particular dislike to one 
 sailor on board, an elderly man. He seldom 
 spoke to this person without threats and abuse, 
 which the o ] d man, with the license which 
 sailors take in merchant vessels, was very 
 apt to return. On one occasion, the latter 
 
84 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 appeared slow in getting out on the yard to hand 
 a sail. The captain, according to custom, abused 
 the seaman as leaving his duty to other people. 
 The man made a saucy answer, almost amount- 
 ing to mutiny, on which, in a towering passion, 
 the captain ran down to his cabin, and returned 
 with a blunderbuss loaded with slugs, with 
 which he took a deliberate aim at the supposed 
 mutineer^ fired, and mortally wounded him. 
 The man was handed down from the yard and 
 stretched on the deck, evidently dying. He 
 fixed his eyes on the captain, and said, * Sir, 
 you have done for me, but / will never leave 
 you: 
 
 " The captain pledged his crew to silence. 
 But after a time, the mate found them impressed 
 with the idea, not unnatural in their situation, 
 that the ghost of the dead man appeared among 
 them when they had a spell of duty, especially if 
 a sail was to be handed, on which occasion the 
 spectre was sure to be out upon the yard before 
 any of the crew. The narrator had seen this 
 apparition himself repeatedly — he believed the 
 captain also saw it, but he took no notice of it 
 for some time, and the crew, terrified at the 
 violent temper of the man, dared not call his 
 attention to it. Thus, they held on their course 
 homeward with great fear and anxiety. 
 
 . " At length the captain invited the mate to 
 go down into the cabin with him. In this 
 interview he assumed a very grave and serious 
 aspect. ' I need not tell you, Jack,' he said, 
 ' what sort of hand we have got on board with 
 
GHOSTS. 85 
 
 us ; he told me he would never leave me, and 
 he has kept his word. You only see him now 
 and then, but he is always by my side, and 
 never out of my sight. At this very moment 
 I see him. I am determined to bear it no 
 longer, and I have resolved to leave you.' 
 
 " The mate replied, that his leaving the 
 vessel while out of sight of any land was 
 impossible. He advised that, if the captain 
 apprehended any bad consequences from what 
 had happened, he should run for the west of 
 France or Ireland, and there go ashore, and 
 leave him, the mate, to carry the vessel 
 into Liverpool. The captain only shook his 
 head gloomily, and reiterated his determination 
 to leave the ship. At this moment, the mate 
 was called to the deck for some purpose or 
 other, and the instant he got up the companion 
 ladder he heard a splash in the water, and 
 looking over the ship's side, saw that the 
 captain had thrown himself into the sea from the 
 quarter gallery, and was running astern at the 
 rate of six knots an hour. When just about to 
 sink, he seemed to make a last exertion, sprang 
 half out of the water, and clasped his hands 
 towards the mate, calling, ' Ah ! he is with me 
 now!' and then sank to be seen no more." 
 Supposing the conversation to have been accu- 
 rately reported, it is easy to imagine how the 
 superstition so common among sailors should 
 have given rise to their belief in the re-appear- 
 ance of their deceased comrade. As regards 
 the principal actor in the story, his remorse 
 
86 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 for the crime he had perpetrated, and what we 
 have before alluded to as the phantasmagoric 
 power of conscience, are sufficient to account 
 for the results which followed, without calling 
 the supernatural into operation. An awful illus- 
 tration does it present of a poet's lines : — 
 
 " Guilt still appals, and conscience, ne'er asleep, 
 Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud but deep ; 
 While the vexed mind, its own tormentor, plies 
 A scorpion scourge unseen by human eyes." 
 
 Similar instances to the above, magnified as 
 they would naturally be by the unthinking 
 and credulous, have often laid the foundations 
 of what have been regarded as incontrovertible 
 ghost stories. The impression made by such 
 narrations on minds of a certain order is 
 extremely enervating and deeply injurious. 
 Without entering upon the question as to the 
 possibility of such supernatural manifestations, 
 (a question which in this work we prefer to 
 waive,) we must regard the moral effects by 
 which similar alleged appearances are attended 
 as by no means such as to constitute an argu- 
 ment for the probability of their frequent 
 occurrence, for the most credulous are certainly 
 not those on whom apprehensions in regard to 
 spiritual being exert the most salutary practical 
 influence. The objects supposed to be accom- 
 plished by similar visitations are usually so 
 trivial and even contemptible, as by no means 
 to harmonize with the wisdom which ever 
 attends on Divine interpositions. When, too, it 
 is remembered in how many minds there 
 
DREAMS. 87 
 
 exists a strong predisposition to believe without 
 adequate evidence, and on how many more a 
 diseased imagination exerts an influence posi- 
 tively disastrous, sufficient reasons exist why 
 we should be unusually slow in receiving such 
 wonders. They demand an amount of proof 
 which only the strongest evidence can afford. 
 
 It is not wonderful if, among the various 
 delusions which have taken possession of the 
 human mind, superstitions connected with 
 dreams should have prevailed extensively. As 
 dreaming was one of the modes by which 
 Divine and prophetical communications were 
 made in ancient days from God to his creatures, 
 we can scarcely wonder that a supernatural 
 character in dreams should be supposed to 
 have survived the period in which they were 
 manifestly employed for the above purposes. 
 There is something, also, so distinctive in the 
 sensations themselves — such a mixture of the 
 novel with the familiar — and so vivid and 
 apparently real are the pictures on which the 
 eye of the mind rests, as to render the pheno- 
 mena of dreaming altogether peculiar. The 
 subject has accordingly been regarded with 
 awful interest ; and though dreams are in 
 ordinary cases nothing more than new com- 
 binations of previously existing ideas, and 
 therefore reflections of the past rather than 
 intimations of the future, they have been in 
 almost all ages identified with Divine influence. 
 Yet dreams which leave behind them the 
 strongest impressions, indicate only some dis- 
 
OO REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 turbance of the physical system, and are rather 
 proofs of the need of medical treatment than 
 prophecies of events to come. 
 
 Dreams are not, as they may be supposed 
 to be, absolutely uncontrollable. Dr. Beattie 
 relates one of his dreams, in which he supposed 
 himself to be in a situation of the utmost 
 danger on the parapet of a high bridge. He 
 possessed, however, sufficient consciousness to 
 be aware that this position was not altogether 
 real, and to disabuse himself of the delusion, 
 he resolved to precipitate himself from the emi- 
 nence, in order to destroy the uncomfortable 
 sensations of which he was conscious. Dr. Eeid, 
 also, who, during a certain period of his life, 
 was, whilst asleep, oppressed by successions of 
 painful imagery, took a decided course to divest 
 himself of the recurrent terrors. Before he 
 slept, he endeavoured to impress upon his 
 mind the conviction that his dangers would be 
 altogether imaginary, and when the moment of 
 illusion came, he attempted to bring on the 
 crisis which he seemed instinctively to dread. 
 He thus gradually dispossessed himself of the 
 phantasms, and regained ease and tranquillity. 
 
 That dreams have sometimes remarkably 
 corresponded with subsequent facts, it would be 
 useless, and more than useless, to deny. Yet it 
 does not thence follow that such dreams have 
 been supernatural. Such is the nature of the 
 association of ideas in the human mind, that a 
 forgotten event will sometimes only be recalled 
 by some circumstance which stood in very near 
 
DREAMS. 89 
 
 relation to it, not till then will the event itself 
 occur to the memory. Dr. Abercrombie 
 relates, that on one occasion he met a lady 
 whom he was aware of having seen before, 
 though he could not recall her name nor the 
 circumstances of their previous interview. 
 When visiting a certain spot, however, w T ith 
 which the memory of that lady had been con- 
 joined, the whole truth flashed upon him. Such 
 occurrences are not unusual, and when applied 
 to dreams, may explain a certain class of phe- 
 nomena which would be otherwise inex- 
 plicable. 
 
 " A gentleman of the law in Edinburgh had 
 mislaid an important paper connected with the 
 conveyance of a property which was to be settled 
 on a particular day. Most anxious search had 
 been made for it for many days, but the evening 
 of the day previous to that on which the parties 
 were to meet for the final settlement had arrived 
 without the paper being discovered. The son 
 of the gentleman then went to bed under much 
 anxiety and disappointment, and dreamed that 
 at the time when the missing paper was deli- 
 vered to his father, his table was covered with 
 papers connected with the affairs of a particular 
 client. He woke under the impression ; went 
 immediately to a box appropriated to the 
 papers of that client, and there found the 
 paper they had been in search of, which had 
 been tied up by mistake in a parcel to which it 
 was in no way related." 
 
 Here was a forgotten circumstance recalled, 
 
90 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 in all probability, by the kindred association 
 which revived the remembrance in sleep ; 
 though owing to that association never having 
 been excited in a waking state, the result 
 seemed to be the effect of a supernatural 
 enlightenment. 
 
 The phenomena of somnambulism are refer- 
 able to those of dreams, a more intense, state of 
 excitement being only superadded. The acts 
 of talking in sleep, of walking about as if 
 perfectly awake, and of performing other 
 actions in a manner precisely similar to ordi- 
 nary ones, are familiar to every reader. But 
 the subject is altogether so wide and difficult, 
 that we can only give to it in these pages 
 a transient reference. 
 
 The absurd oracles by which dreams are 
 professedly interpreted would be scarcely wor- 
 thy of a moment's notice, were it not that they 
 frequently delude the unwary and unstable. 
 The following are specimens : — To dream you 
 see a stack of corn burned signifies famine and 
 mortality. — To dream of little rain and drops of 
 water is good for ploughmen. — To take flies 
 signifies wrong and injury, etc., etc. But these 
 are by no means the worst specimens ; and to 
 quote more would be a task equally insuffer- 
 able to the writer, and uninteresting (we hope) 
 to the reader. We would fain believe that the 
 taste for the little books which feed such 
 frivolous and often depraved fancies is fast 
 passing away. 
 
 Should any of our readers entertain the 
 
DREAMS. 91 
 
 opinion, that on the subject which we have been 
 discussing " it is necessary to caution against 
 undue scepticism as well as against undue 
 credulity," — instead of engaging in unprofitable 
 controversy, we would rather draw attention to 
 the practical lessons which are deducible from 
 the topic under examination. The grounds on 
 which the Christian will withhold his belief as 
 to the suspension of the laws of nature in cases 
 similar to those adduced above, Will entirely 
 differ from those adopted by the unbeliever. 
 While the latter ignorantly dreams that these 
 laws cannot be suspended, the other will 
 remember that the same Being who ordained 
 them can at any time, when his wisdom sees 
 fit, temporarily interrupt their action. He will 
 reasonably expect, however, that the occasions 
 when the laws of nature shall be so suspended 
 will be such as to demand miraculous interpo- 
 sition, and not minister merely, to credulity. 
 God, it is true, might send a messenger from 
 the dead to warn a sinner of his guilt; but while 
 Moses and the prophets remain, we have no 
 Scriptural grounds to expect such a course. He 
 might still, as of old, in visions of the night 
 open to his creatures the good pleasure of his 
 will, but the path of duty is to look for such 
 revelation in the pages of his word. In conclu- 
 sion, be it remembered, One has appeared from 
 the invisible world conversant with all its 
 solemn mysteries. To his revelations, consist- 
 ing as they do of pure essential truth, it is no 
 less our duty than our wisdom to listen. The 
 
92 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 necessity of repentance from dead works — the 
 proclamation of remission of sins through faith 
 in his blood — were the tidings which he pro- 
 claimed. Abandoning vain unhallowed prying 
 into things unseen, may the reader cordially 
 embrace the true light thus graciously afforded 
 him, to guide his path from time to eternity ! 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DELUSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE BELIEF IN 
 WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 Witchcraft forbidden by the law of God — Origin of the ancient 
 magical practices— Familiar arts used to promote them — 
 The being supposed to preside over witchcraft — Legendary- 
 tales — Other absurdities — Laws directed against witchcraft 
 —Joan of Arc— Burning of witches — The witches of War- 
 boys— Lady Glammis— Forel — John Knox— Gellie Duncan 
 and others — " Discoverie of Witchcraft" — James i. — 
 Matthew Hopkins — Witches' bridle — Alice Kyteler — 
 Influence of the imagination. 
 
 The narratives relating to witchcraft furnish 
 a singular chapter in the history of human 
 credulity. The instinctive tendencies of the 
 mind towards religion are shown in nothing 
 more than in the fact, that errors of a religious 
 type are the most deeply rooted of all which 
 possess the mind of man. The spirit which the 
 gospel breathes is emphatically a "spirit of 
 love." It was in the love of God to fallen men 
 that the scheme of redemption originated. Love 
 was the chief feature of the Saviour's cha- 
 racter while on earth, and love is the temper 
 that should distinguish his followers. Among 
 nominal professors in all ages, however, a car- 
 nal spirit, clothing itself under the disguise 
 of zeal for the honour of God, has often pre- 
 
94 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 vailed, manifesting itself in evil and bitter 
 fruits. Even real Christians have too often, 
 from un watch fulness, been betrayed into the 
 same spirit, and have exchanged the meekness 
 and gentleness of their Divine Pattern for the 
 gratification of unlovely and unholy tempers. 
 To causes such as these, acting in combination 
 with the ignorance peculiar to the times, and 
 erroneous* interpretations of the word of God, 
 must, we fear, be largely attributed many of 
 the dark passages which stain the annals of this 
 and other European countries in connexion 
 with the subject of witchcraft. 
 
 That laws were enacted against witchcraft 
 by the book of God is most clear ; but their 
 enactment would have been equally important 
 and necessary whether witchcraft were a fallacy 
 or a reality. In the former case, it would, 
 by its assumption of power belonging to the 
 Divinity alone — by its professed alliance with 
 influences not those of the Holy One — by its 
 association with crimes which disgrace and de- 
 grade — and by its establishment over mind of 
 an empire always base and disastrous, have 
 constituted a crime sufficient to give rise to 
 the command from God, " Thou shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live." The visible association 
 of witchcraft with all that is criminal in human 
 history is, apart from verbal criticism, a suffi- 
 cient explanation of the solemn injunction ; 
 while it is enough that God saw fit to give 
 this command to the Jews. The professed 
 witch was sometimes a pander to evil, often 
 a poisoner, always a criminal. She was 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 95 
 
 resorted to by the basest of society — the dark 
 and desperate in character and habits. No form 
 of polity, perhaps, could, in that age, with im- 
 punity tolerate such beings, and least of all 
 that economy which provided for the external 
 purity of the chosen nation with such jealous 
 care. Nor can there be any doubt that many 
 of the appearances related by the consulters of 
 witches were occasioned by the intoxicating 
 and often poisonous potions or perfumes which 
 they administered. 
 
 But whether the command quoted above be 
 addressed to the Gentile equally with the Jew, 
 or whether the cases of supposed witchcraft 
 were those which possessed proof enough to 
 bring them under the letter of the Divine 
 command, are questions which materially aifect 
 the whole subject. There is abundant evidence 
 that the allegation of a compact with the evil 
 one. by which the minds of men were so ex- 
 tensively influenced a hundred years ago, were 
 destitute of that proof which would entitle them 
 to respect and regard. 
 
 Nothing can be more clear than that a large 
 proportion of the ancient magical practices 
 arose from the possession of physical secrets, 
 known only to the initiated. The repeated 
 stories respecting books, and their use in magi- 
 cal incantations, confirm this conclusion. These 
 books, though couched in mvsterious and hiero- 
 glyphic characters, contained, in fact, experi- 
 ments in natural philosophy ; their contents 
 being, probably, not very dissimilar from those 
 
96 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 now perused by the first students of natural 
 phenomena. A name for magical power being 
 once gained, the greatest pains were taken to 
 keep up the reputation. Sinan Raschid-Eddin, 
 chief of the Ishmaelites of Syria, apparently 
 performed the miracle of making a decapitated 
 head speak. How was it managed? The 
 explanation is very simple. A large hole was 
 dug in the ground, into which the body of a 
 pupil was thrust, and the head appearing above 
 ground, was surrounded by a dish of bronze, 
 having the appearance of a basin of blood. 
 When the poor victim had, as by previous 
 agreement, delivered the message he was in- 
 structed to convey, he was killed to preserve 
 the secret. 
 
 In these pretended magicai appearances, 
 many arts, perfectly familiar in our day, were 
 used with great secresy. Ventriloquism was, 
 doubtless, extensively employed. Automata 
 were not infrequent ; jugglery very common ; 
 burning mirrors and telegraphs seem to have 
 been also familiar. Optics, including the 
 magic lantern and camera obscura, interposed 
 their illusions ; whilst the then ascertained 
 discoveries of chemistry, hydrostatics, and 
 acoustics, conspired to delude the ignorant 
 spectator. Nor must it be forgotten that drugs, 
 odours, and unguents, were often freely used in 
 preparing the inquirer for the wonders to be 
 revealed to him. 
 
 It would be impossible, within a brief com- 
 pass, to convey to the reader a due notion of 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 97 
 
 the various ranks and degrees of demons once 
 supposed to exert a mysterious influence. The 
 being who was supposed to preside over witch- 
 craft was no fallen archangel, " great, though 
 ruined," full of the pride by which he fell, but a 
 strange compound of wickedness and vulgarity — 
 a trickster — a cheat — an idle vagrant — a low 
 buffoon — totally unlike that powerful, though 
 malignant being, represented in the Scripture 
 as " the prince of the power of the air — the 
 spirit that now r worketh in the children of dis- 
 obedience." In conceiving of such a being as 
 that represented by the believers in witchcraft, 
 the spiritual character of sin is entirely lost, 
 the nature of the human soul infinitely de- 
 graded, and all those solemn warnings neutral- 
 ized by which Scripture has cautioned us to 
 watch against the devices of Satan, as a being 
 full of malignity and subtlety. Some of the 
 legendary tales of St. Anthony, or those of 
 Nostradamus, (who, having made himself over 
 to the devil's influence, in case of his being 
 buried in or out of the church, escaped the 
 alternative by giving directions that he should 
 be interred in a church wall,) are degrading 
 to the religion, the sacred name of which 
 sheltered such profanations. It is a trite 
 remark, that a despised enemy is seldom a 
 dreaded one ; and these ludicrous distortions 
 of the nature and character of the great enemy 
 of souls must, doubtless, be ranked as among 
 devices of his own fostering, by which he, who 
 was a deceiver from the beginning, seeks to 
 9 
 
98 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 delude his victims into forgetfulness of their 
 danger. 
 
 Other absurdities followed in the wake of 
 this leading- one. The air swarmed with 
 demons, whose antic tricks, though the relation 
 of them provokes modern disdain, were sources 
 of real terror to our forefathers. Spain boasted 
 of a school of witchcraft, where the malignant 
 arts, interdicted by the church, were eagerly 
 pursued. It is inconceivable what a succession 
 of laws were directed against this imaginary 
 crime. The Anglo-Saxon decretals of Edward 
 and Guthrum declare — u If witches or diviners, 
 perjurers or morth- workers, or foul, defiled, or 
 notorious adulteresses, be found anywhere 
 within the land, let them be driven from the 
 country and the people cleansed, or let them 
 totally perish within the country unless they 
 desist." Accusations of witchcraft were the 
 most serious charges preferred against the 
 "Knights Templars at the suppression of their 
 order, and fifty- nine of these knights w r ere for 
 this crime roasted in Paris before a slow fire. 
 Till the fourteenth century, however, the 
 punishment of witchcraft belonged rather to 
 the secular than to the ecclesiastical power. It 
 was afterwards dealt out, by special accusation, 
 against heretics. In 1406, Henry iv. gave 
 directions to the bishop of Norwich to discover 
 and destroy sorcerers. During the same 
 century, charges of witchcraft were extensively 
 brought by political parties against their ad- 
 versaries. We see this in the cases of the 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 99 
 
 duchess of Gloucester, (temp. Hen. vr..) the 
 duchess of Bedford, (temp. Hen. iv.,) and lord 
 Hastings and Jane Shore, (temp. Richard 
 
 mo 
 
 The heroism of Joan of Arc has been often 
 related, and is well known. Prompted by heads 
 more cunning than her own, she yielded herself 
 to the influence of a fallacious enthusiasm, 
 which, at the time of the invasion of France by 
 England, was rapidly imparted to others, and 
 roused the nagging spirits of a depressed nation, 
 though it ended in Joan's miserable death. 
 When captured by the English, she was accused 
 of having attended nightly meetings of demons 
 near Domprine. It was stated that she con- 
 stantly carried about her person the magical 
 plant called mandrake. She was declared to 
 possess a miraculous sword, to employ charmed 
 banners, and to have seduced the king of 
 France and the duke of Bourbon by means of 
 evil spirits. To these accusations the innocent, 
 but deluded young woman fell a victim, and 
 was burned for sorcery. 
 
 In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the 
 burning of witches greatly increased, and it was 
 convenient for the Roman Catholics to charge 
 the Waldenses with the crime. During the next 
 century, also, many suffered under this accusa- 
 tion. In 1515, five hundred persons were 
 burned in Geneva under the name of witches, 
 but really for the crime of heresy. In 1524, a 
 thousand persons suffered for the same offence 
 in Como ; and one inquisitor alone boasted that 
 
100 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 in the course of fifteen years he had destroyed 
 nine hundred. 
 
 The glories of the Reformation in England 
 were considerably diminished by the severe 
 laws passed and executed by Protestants against 
 this imaginary offence. A law of Elizabeth, 
 in 1562, declared witchcraft to be a capital 
 crime. Thirty-two years after this enactment 
 occurred the case of the witches of Warboys, 
 Hunts. Its particulars were the following : — 
 
 Two families lived in Warboys, those of sir 
 Samuel Cromwell and of Mr. Throgmorton. 
 One of the daughters of the former, who had 
 already a great deal of credulity on the sub- 
 ject, and who was liable to fits, declared that 
 when passing the cottage of mother Samuel, 
 (an old and forbidding-looking woman,) she 
 fixed her eyes intently upon her. She imme- 
 diately imagined herself bewitched, and her 
 terror not only became contagious through all 
 her family, but communicated itself to the 
 neighbouring one of the Cromwells. The re- 
 puted witch was seized and tormented, and, 
 under the provocation of her sufferings, she 
 uttered an imprecation against her persecutors. 
 Lady Cromwell happened to die about this 
 period, and the event was considered an un- 
 doubted consequence of mother Samuel's male- 
 diction, especially when it was remembered 
 that the deceased lady had often dreamed of a 
 black cat. She was now assailed by universal 
 suspicion, until she began to believe (an event 
 not in those days uncommon) that she herself 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 101 
 
 was really guilty of the crimes with which she 
 was charged. Being in Mr. Throgmorton's 
 house at a time when his daughter was in fits, 
 the old woman repeated an exorcism dictated 
 to her. She and her family were brought to trial 
 for the bewitching of the young ladies, and for 
 causing the death of lady Cromwell. When 
 put to the torture, the mother repeated her 
 acknowledgments of witchcraft ; her children, 
 however, strenuously denied the charge ; but 
 they were all condemned to be burned, and were 
 executed April 7th, 1593. 
 
 The peruser of the criminal trials of the Scot- 
 tish judicature will ascertain that charges of 
 witchcraft occupy a considerable space in these 
 annals. Janet, lady Glammis, was celebrated 
 for her personal beauty and her virtues. By 
 the death of lord Glammis she was left a widow 
 with one son. Her hand was subsequently 
 sought by William Lyon, a relation of her first 
 husband. This man, when he saw the object of 
 his attention married to Archibald Campbell, 
 began to regard her with deadly hatred, and 
 accused her of the treason of endeavouring to take 
 away u king James v. his life by witchcraft." 
 For this crime she was burned, amidst the 
 general sympathy of the people. At the same 
 period, dean Thomas Forel, vicar of Dolour, was 
 similarly accused ; his crime being that he had 
 taught his parishioners the paternoster, the 
 creed, and the ten commandments in English, 
 " contraire to all oure acts that they suld knawe 
 what they say." The accused produced a copy 
 
102 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 of the English Scriptures as his authority, 
 which act was regarded as the strongest aggra- 
 vation of his guilt. He was burned at the 
 Castle Hill of Edinburgh,* 
 
 The like accusation was brought against the 
 celebrated Scottish reformer, John Knox. The 
 charge, however, seems not to have been 
 prosecuted. 
 
 James r. of England took, whilst in Scotland, 
 great interest in the trial of witches. He often 
 attended the criminal proceedings, and himself 
 wrote a well-known book on the subject. One 
 of the trials at w r hich he w r as present was that 
 of Gellie Duncan, Dr. Fian,and others, in 1591. 
 Gellie Duncan being put to the torture, confessed 
 that she had sold her soul to the devil, and 
 that on the occasion of the marriage of the king 
 to the princess of Denmark, she had by sorcery 
 raised the storm which endangered the life of 
 the royal pair. The tortures undergone by 
 Dr. Fian, who was tried at the same time for a 
 similar offence, w r ere excruciating. Though he 
 was a man of infamous character, he resolutely 
 denied this imputation. The application of the 
 boot caused him to swoon. Then, with returning 
 consciousness, he signed a paper, declaring 
 himself an accomplice with Gellie Duncan. He 
 afterwards escaped from his prison, but w r as re- 
 captured. When brought again before the 
 court of justiciary, the king himself ordered his 
 torture, which was of the most cruel description. 
 That some of these persons actually meditated 
 * Pitcairn's Scottish Criminal Trials. 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 103 
 
 the king's death is not improbable. When the 
 jury delivered in their verdict they acquitted 
 one of the prisoners. But the king, extremely 
 displeased, compelled them to retract that part 
 of their finding. Twenty-nine were sentenced, 
 first to be hanged and then burned. But one 
 of the number, Euphemia Macalgan, who was 
 proved guilty of poisoning, and who had been, 
 moreover, a partisan of the notorious earl of 
 Both well, was bound to a stake, and burned 
 " quick to the death." 
 
 In Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft," 
 (1584) we find the following observations, which 
 considerably elucidate some of the occurrences 
 relating to this subject: " The sort of such as 
 are said to be witches, are women which be 
 commonly old, lame, blear-eyed, pale, fowle, 
 and full of wrinkles — poore, sullen, supersti- 
 tious.'' The same author gives an account of 
 M the order of examination of witches by the 
 inquisitors." This we must curtail. Suspected 
 women must not be allowed to go home after 
 their apprehension. Great persuasions must be 
 used to induce others to accuse them. Im- 
 munities must be largely promised to witches 
 who confess and accuse others. The children 
 of witches must be attached, and if they be 
 craftily handled will confess against their own 
 mothers. Witches must be examined as sud- 
 denly as possible, and the inquisitor must begin 
 with smaller matters first, so as to throw them 
 off their guard. The examiner must look 
 stedfastly into their eyes. They must be 
 
104 REMAKKABL2 DELUSIONS. 
 
 examined of all accusations, presumptions, and 
 faults, at one instant. A witch must not be 
 imprisoned alone. To secure confession, the 
 judge must put on a pitiful countenance, saying 
 that it was not she, but the devil in her. If 
 the accused be hardened against common tor- 
 tures, an exquisitely cruel one is to be adopted. 
 At the time of the examination, a number of 
 instruments, grieves, manacles, and apparatus 
 of torture must be exhibited before her eyes. 
 If the prisoner will not confess, the inquisitor 
 must declare that she has been accused by 
 others, and then perhaps she will confess out of 
 revenge. Presumptions and conjectures are 
 sufficient proofs. A perjured person is a good 
 and lawful witness. If a woman's child die, no 
 matter how, witchcraft is to be presumed unless 
 the contrary be proved. If the parents of a 
 suspected person be witches, it is a strong 
 presumption that the children are so too. It 
 is a vehement suspicion if the witch cannot 
 weep at the time of her examination ; and yet, 
 Bodin saith, that a witch may shed three drops 
 out of her right eye. It is more than suspicion 
 — it is evident proof — if a man or beast die 
 suddenly where a person accused of being a 
 witch hath been seen lately. Little children 
 may be exposed to the torture, etc. It 
 will not greatly surprise the reader, if, amidst 
 this apparatus of all kinds of torture, bodily and 
 mental, it has been calculated that, during a 
 period of thirty -nine years, in the six- 
 teenth century, the average number of annual 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 105 
 
 executions for this crime, in Scotland alone, 
 amounted to two hundred. 
 
 Nor can it be regarded as marvellous, if, thus 
 treated, infirm or semi-insane persons often 
 made " confessions" of the imputed crimes. " I 
 went once," says sir George Mackenzie, " when 
 I was justice depute, to examine some women 
 that had confessed judicially, and one of them 
 who was a sickly creature told me, under 
 secresie, that she had not confessed because she 
 was guilty, but, being a poor creature who 
 wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a 
 witch, she knew she would starve ; for no person 
 hereafter would give her food and lodging, and 
 that all men would beat her and set dogs at her, 
 and that therefore she desired to be out of the 
 world." It is related by one who was himself 
 a believer in witchcraft, that another forlorn 
 creature, when about to be led to the stake, 
 declared, " I am as free of witchcraft as any 
 child; but being delated by a malicious wo- 
 man, and put in prison under the name of a 
 witch, disowned by my husband and friends, 
 and seeing no ground of hope of ever coming 
 out again, I made up that confession to de- 
 stroy my own life, being weary of it, and 
 choosing rather to die than live." Many 
 similar instances are upon record. Delrio states, 
 that a gentleman in Westphalia was tortured 
 twenty times, in order to make him confess 
 that he was a wolf. He persisted in refusing, 
 till an intoxicating draught was administered, 
 when he acknowledged that the charge was 
 
106 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 true. Delrio quotes this as an instance of " the 
 clemency of the criminal judges /" Another witch 
 confessed herself to be guilty of imputed crimes 
 after four hours 7 torture; and, in another case, 
 a little child, nine years of age, was subjected 
 to a similar process in order that she might ac- 
 cuse her mother. Is it wonderful that, predis- 
 posed as these poor creatures were to believe 
 in the reality of spiritual possessions, they 
 should, in such extremities, acknowledge the 
 crimes suggested to them by their judges ? 
 It would be unfair, however, not to state that 
 there are instances of confession in which no 
 tortures were actually applied. But then, were 
 not such tortures apprehended ? 
 
 The zeal of James i. against witches accom- 
 panied him on his accession to the throne of 
 England. His first parliament passed an enact- 
 ment, that where witchcraft was proved, the 
 punishment for the first offence should be 
 imprisonment and the pillory, and for the 
 second, death. An enormous number of victims 
 (said to amount to five hundred annually) was 
 sacrificed during the prevalence of this infatua- 
 tion. The contagion was carried by those who 
 were expatriated by their religious opinions 
 into New England, in which land great num- 
 bers perished— a disgrace to those who had 
 sacrificed home through their desire for greater 
 freedom. 
 
 No man was ever so notorious in accusing 
 others of this crime as Matthew Hopkins, a 
 native of the town of Manningtree, Essex. He 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 107 
 
 was entitled " witch-finder general," and was 
 certainly " by merit raised to that bad emi- 
 nence." Was there in any quarter an old, poor, 
 ill-favoured, and unprotected woman, disliked 
 by any of her neighbours — Hopkins was the 
 foremost in bringing her into suspicion as a 
 witch. If, on the body of this person, there 
 were, as is usual with aged persons, wens, or 
 callous parts, his sharp instruments were always 
 at hand to probe them; and if the blind-folded 
 victim, agonized by the terror which often 
 destroys sensitiveness, or confused into insensi- 
 bility, could not name the precise spot which 
 had been operated upon, so much the worse for 
 the accused. It was Hopkins who tied the 
 victim, hands and feet together cross-wise, for 
 the trial by the water into which she was 
 thrown. If she swam, she was unquestionably 
 guilty; if she sank,* she was sometimes saved; 
 but if lost, she left to her friends the conviction 
 of her innocence. Hopkins was constantly 
 crusading about upon this errand, till at length 
 he, who had stimulated the people's phrenzy, 
 became in turn (as not unfrequently happens) 
 its victim. His own tests were tried upon 
 himself, and he suffered for the crime of which 
 he had so extensively accused others. 
 
 The death of this man had probably some 
 influence in abating this epidemical infection ; 
 yet how slowly this cruel prejudice declined 
 
 * The doctrine of this practice was, that as the witch had 
 shaken off the water of baptism, that element refused to 
 receive the criminal into its bosom. 
 
108 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 may be learned from the fact, that even in the 
 last century, especially in Scotland, there were 
 many persons accused on similar charges. 
 
 In the parish church of Forfar there still is, 
 or was until lately, an instrument called the 
 witches' bridle. Chambers thus describes it : 
 " A small circle of iron, sufficient to inclose the 
 head, is divided into four sections, which are 
 connected by hinges ; a short chain hangs from 
 behind. In the front, but pointing inwards, 
 is a prong, like to the rowel of an old-fashioned 
 spur, which entered the mouth, and, by depress- 
 ing the tongue, acted as a kind of gag. The use 
 of the thing was exactly what the name por- 
 tends. By it, as with a bridle, the unfortunate 
 old women, formerly burned at Forfar for the 
 imaginary crime of witchcraft, were led out of 
 town to the place of execution. Its further and 
 more important purposes were to bind the 
 culprit to the stake, and to prevent her cries 
 during the dreadful process of death. When 
 all was over, the bridle used to be found among 
 the ashes of the victim."* A similar instru- 
 ment is exhibited in the Museum of Antiquaries 
 in Edinburgh. 
 
 One of the most detailed trials extant on the 
 subject of sorcery may be seen in a volume 
 published by the Camden Society, entitled, 
 " Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler for 
 Sorcery," in 1324. This, and the trial of the 
 two Despensers, who were accused of an attempt 
 
 * Chambers's "Traditions of Scotland." 
 
WITCHCRAFT. 109 
 
 to bewitch James I., are perhaps the most 
 remarkable in history. It was with great diffi- 
 culty that the offenders were brought to trial, 
 since the Irish lord chancellor (the offence was 
 committed in that country) was a relative of one 
 of the parties. Lady Alice escaped to England. 
 After having been six times flogged, one of 
 the culprits acknowledged the crimes charged 
 against her lady, and avowed herself an accom- 
 plice. She was the first person burned in 
 Ireland as a witch. 
 
 It would be gratifying to be able to state 
 that these delusions of witchcraft were mainly 
 the offspring of the darker ages ; at least to 
 defend Protestantism against their enormities. 
 But truth forbids. The period of enlightenment 
 after ages of ignorance, has, as we have already 
 observed, usually abounded in similar errors. 
 But this is only an extenuation, not an apology. 
 No papist can on this subject throw the first 
 stone, seeing that the Eomanist is nearly, if 
 not entirely, involved in the same error. But 
 if it shall be expected that Protestantism should 
 have shown, in this respect as well as others, 
 its own superiority, we can only say — too true ! 
 Yet we may plead, and plead triumphantly, 
 that the reformed religion has nobly redeemed its 
 first errors, and that wherever there is a country 
 in which men have outlived such deadly super- 
 stitions, and in which some real approach is made 
 to " the perfect law of liberty," that country is 
 assuredly Protestant ! Let us not be under- 
 stood as claiming for the professors of that reli- 
 10 
 
110 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 gion a freedom at all times from mistakes. We 
 only assert on their behalf that their mistakes 
 possess in the Scriptures, which they delight to 
 circulate, a correcting power. 
 
 Before we leave the subject of supernatural 
 agency, we must make one passing remark, 
 in addition to those contained in our previous 
 chapter. Nothing can be more unfair and 
 unphilosophical than the manner in which the 
 whole question is often treated. Even if the 
 narrations which obtain credence were much 
 better attested than they are — were there no 
 room for suspicion that the imagination is largely 
 concerned in them — and were we entirely satis- 
 fied that more patient attention would have added 
 nothing to the alleged facts themselves, one 
 thing is to be remembered — what is unexplained 
 is not necessarily supernatural. To assert other- 
 wise would be to deny the whole history of 
 science and philosophy. 
 
 It is also very important to observe, how 
 fatal an influence is exerted upon the human 
 character, and upon none more than on the 
 female part of it, by the undue cultivation of 
 the imagination. The progress of the mental 
 history of some beings is analogous to that of 
 the drunkard. Excess creates demand, and 
 demand increases excitement, till all is undone. 
 The imaginative process begins with amiable 
 sensibility, which must be fed by gossip, 
 novels, and narrations of wonder ; it degene- 
 rates into a greedy aching after tales of murder 
 or suicide, and ends in a compound of tears, 
 
WITCHCRAFT. Ill 
 
 hysterics, convulsions, and credulity. Out of 
 such specimens have often come the devotees, 
 who have transformed Christ's invigorating and 
 holy religion into the system which consists in 
 kneeling before a crucifix, macerating the 
 body by fasts and vigils, and gazing upon a 
 skull. 
 
 But let it not be forgotten that there are 
 other possessions, not consisting in the influ- 
 ence of imagination, but too real, and deadly 
 as they are real. The conceived lust leading 
 to the first presumptuous sin ; the search for 
 new guilt to hide the presence of the original 
 crime ; the habitual yielding to transgression, 
 at first timidly and secretly, but at length 
 openly and flagrantly ; the throwing off of 
 shame ; the rejection of God ; the seduction of 
 others ; — these are the successive links of a 
 chain bound too securely round the hearts and 
 consciences of a thousand victims, and possibly 
 binding some even of those who may have 
 looked into these pages. If, reader, this be 
 thy case, hasten to the footstool of mercy, that 
 thus thou mayest obtain strength to throw off 
 the degrading influences that enslave thee. No 
 voice but that before which evil spirits of old 
 fled away can disenchant thee. Cast thyself 
 as a humble penitent at His feet, and in earnest 
 fervent prayer implore that Divine aid which 
 can make thee more than conqueror over all 
 the powers of darkness. 
 
112 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DELUSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE BELIEF IN 
 ASTROLOGY. 
 
 Origin of the art — Antiquity — Its practice forbidden in the 
 early ages of Christianity— Alonzo of Castile— Astrological 
 predictions — Failures— Charles xi. — Charles i. and u. of 
 England— Dr. Simon Forman— David Ramsay and John 
 Scott— Lilly— Kepler— Francis Moore. 
 
 The scope and objects of a work like this 
 preclude us from entering upon the subject 01 
 fairy superstitions, though once extremely pre- 
 valent, especially in Scotland, and still exerting 
 a wonderful influence over the minds of the 
 ignorant peasantry of the south of Ireland. 
 Nor can we devote any space to many arts of 
 divination practised among various nations at 
 different periods, especially among the mys- 
 terious descendants of the gipsy tribe, and 
 still believed in by the ignorant and credulous. 
 But among the self-called sciences pretending 
 to a knowledge of futurity, one subject may 
 merit a more detailed notice. 
 
 Astrology was the art which professed to 
 discover the course of human fortunes from the 
 appearance of the stars. As it took its rise 
 
ASTROLOGY. 113 
 
 from astronomy, whilst astronomy was in its 
 imperfect state, it might have been legitimately 
 classed with some of the contents of a former 
 chapter ; but as it soon outran all scientific 
 bounds, till it became a mass of delusion and 
 artifice, and was afterwards lost, as a practice, 
 in the oblivion it merited, it will not be incor- 
 rectly placed among the subjects of the present 
 division. So ancient is this art that history 
 does not record its first applications. It was 
 from a remote antiquity practised in the east, 
 where it still holds an undisputed sway. The 
 Chaldaeans, the Chinese, the Hindoos, are all 
 under the influence of its fascination. It was 
 known to the Egyptians, and is referred to in 
 the sacred writings under the general de- 
 scriptions of magic and sorcery. The Rab- 
 binical Jews were much devoted to it. From 
 the time of the adoption of Egypt into the 
 Koman empire it was greedily cultivated by 
 the Romans. Greece alone stands, among 
 ancient nations, an exception to its use. None, 
 however, have observed it with more assiduity 
 than the Mohammedan nations. 
 
 The early ages of Christianity regarded 
 astrology as a forbidden science. In those dark 
 volumes which, bearing the name of " the 
 fathers/' stand on the lower shelves of the 
 learned and the curious, may be found not a 
 few passages describing the processes and de- 
 nouncing the practice of this dark art. Ter- 
 tullian protests against it. Basil declaims upon 
 it with his usual eloauence. These men did 
 10* 
 
114 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 not see that the future discoveries of astro- 
 nomical science would take root in its delusions ; 
 they only saw that it professed an unwarrant- 
 able interference with the secrets of the Most 
 High. Nor were their objections illegitimate. 
 Men have been prone in all ages to wrest the 
 attributes of God to an evil purpose, and to use 
 them for their own interested and servile ends. 
 
 By none, in a later period, was the study of 
 astrology more assiduously cultivated than by 
 Alonzo of Castile. He summoned an assembly 
 of the wisest astrologers of his day, who spent 
 five years in deliberation on the processes and 
 results of their science. It was during the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, however, that 
 the practice of astrology in Britain arrived at its 
 greatest eminence. Some of the astrological 
 prescriptions which have come down to us 
 from that time savour strongly of the ridiculous. 
 Charles xi. (of Bartholomew notoriety) consulted 
 an astrologer. He was told that he would live 
 as many days as he could turn on his heels in 
 an hour. The hint was sufficient. Every 
 morning, for an hour, the monarch performed 
 the part of a spindle — the courtiers revolving 
 on their axes in compliment to his majesty. 
 
 Astrology was much trusted by Charles I. 
 and Charles n. of England ; and the former, 
 when in captivity, consulted an astrologer as to 
 the period most favourable for his intended 
 escape from it. If the science of the adept were 
 worth anything, the king must have greatly 
 misread the advice he received. 
 
ASTROLOGY. 115 
 
 In the reign of James i., Dr. Simon Forman 
 was a celebrated practitioner of this science. 
 He appears to have exhibited a singular mix- 
 ture of knavery and folly, the latter ingredient 
 being perhaps predominant. He relates that, 
 as he was lying in bed one morning, the 
 question occurred to him — Whether he should 
 ever become a lord ? He had recourse to his 
 horoscope thereon, and ascertained that he 
 should attain that honour in the couse of two 
 years. But there must have been some griev- 
 ous mistake in his calculations ; for he tells us, 
 with marvellous simplicity, " before the two 
 years were expired, the doctors put me in 
 Newgate, and nothing came." This was almost 
 enough to have disgusted him with his science, 
 but his credulity survived it. Again his horo- 
 scope promised him that he should be a great 
 lord within a year. But during that year he 
 " had no preferment at all." His predictions 
 on behalf of his neighbours were equally 
 fallible. A knight, being about to leave Eng- 
 land for Turkey, inquired of the astrologer 
 whether his expedition would be successful. 
 The doctor, having consulted the stars, assured 
 him it would. But the dream seems to have 
 been one meant to be taken by contraries ; for 
 the consulter " was taken prisoner in Turkey, 
 and lost all." Again, Forman read the stars, 
 and believed that he should discover the philo- 
 sopher's stone. But the same stars turned their 
 backs upon him again ; for he complains that 
 all came to nothing. These things are related 
 
116 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 by his pupil and successor Lilly, a practitioner 
 of no small eminence in his day, who says, 
 moreover, that Forman predicted of another 
 pupil, Dr. Napper of Linford, that he would 
 turn out a dunce, instead of which he became 
 a celebrated astrologer and physician — " a con- 
 summation which," says a Quarterly Reviewer, 
 " might, perhaps, approach to an accomplish- 
 ment of the prophecy." 
 
 Nor were the above the only instances in 
 which the astrological predictions of that day 
 proved untrue. Lilly relates that David Ram- 
 say, his majesty's clockmaker, having learned 
 from the stars, or otherwise, that there was a 
 quantity of treasure lying hid in the cloister of 
 Westminster Abbey, entered into partnership 
 with John Scott and himself, to profit by its 
 exhumation. They met accordingly on a win- 
 ter's night, David Ramsay bringing a sack to 
 receive the substance. They dug to the depth 
 of six feet, when they met with a coffin, and 
 because it seemed light they did not open it, 
 u which," says Lilly, " Ave afterwards much 
 repented." But in the midst of their labours 
 there arose a wind so high and fierce, that 
 they feared that the end of the abbey would fall 
 upon them. John Scott, we are told, grew pale 
 and nervous, but Lilly managed to dismiss the 
 evil influences ; yet the money-diggers returned 
 as empty as they came. On another occasion, 
 a noted astrologer predicted that there would be 
 a great wind ; but as no such phenomenon 
 occurred, it was afterwards discovered that the 
 
ASTROLOGY, 117 
 
 horoscope might be referring to state revo- 
 lutions, abundance of -which happened about 
 that period. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all failures, astrology retained 
 its hold. A poet of the century thus satirizes 
 them, having perhaps Lilly himself promi- 
 nently in view — 
 
 " To whom all people far and near 
 On deep importances repair, 
 When brass or pewter hap to stray, 
 And linen slinks out of the way ; 
 When cattle feel indisposition, 
 And need th' opinion of physician ; 
 When murrain reigns in hogs and sheep, 
 And chickens languish of the pip." 
 
 Lilly boasts that some great men among the 
 Independents and Presbyterians patronized his 
 art. It is certain, however, by his own com- 
 plaints, that some of the greatest eminence did 
 not ; for he tells us that Dr. Owen, Mr. Gataker, 
 and Mr. Nye, denounced his pretensions as 
 foolish and impious. He took his revenge 
 by vehemently denouncing Gataker. Lilly's 
 knavery was strongly supported. He relates 
 that, when in Scotland, he saw a soldier stand- 
 ing in front of the army encouraging the men 
 to expect victory, because Lilly in his book 
 had prognosticated it. 
 
 Among other pretensions, Lilly professed to 
 give the true interpretation of the prophecies ot 
 Merlin, and many pages of his memoirs are 
 addressed to the elucidation of these " dark 
 sayings." But his greatest fame was derived 
 from a work published in 1651, entitled 
 
118 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 " Monarchy, or No Monarchy." In this book he 
 had given a hieroglyphic, which, like others of 
 that class, might be resolved literally or em- 
 blematically, as the event might be. He says, " I 
 had framed a hieroglyphic representing a great 
 sickness and mortality, wherein you may see the 
 representation of people in their winding-sheets, 
 persons digging graves and sepulchres, coffins," 
 etc., and On the other side, " a city all on flames 
 of fire." " These pictures," he says, referring 
 to them afterwards, " represented the plague of 
 London followed by an exorbitant fire." When 
 the great conflagration, which destroyed the 
 city, had taken place, he was summoned before 
 the Commons, probably with the view of ascer- 
 taining whether, at the time of the prediction, 
 he was cognizant of any incendiary intentions. 
 The House, however, found in him only the 
 vagueness or dissimulation of a practised adept ; 
 and after ascertaining that Lilly had made no 
 pretensions to acquaintance with the time of the 
 fire, dismissed the astrologer. That marginal 
 room for subsequent interpretation was de- 
 manded by Lilly, as by the Francis Moore of 
 our own days, is evident from his works. 
 
 Kepler, to whose astronomical labours sci- 
 ence owes much, practised astrology in his day, 
 though with considerable disgust at the occu- 
 pation, He confesses that his services in this 
 department were only " worthless conjectures ;" 
 but exclaims, in apology for his occupation, 
 " Ye over wise philosophers, ye censure this 
 daughter of astronomy beyond her deserts. 
 
FRANCIS MOORE. 119 
 
 Know ye not she must support her mother by 
 her charms ? The scanty reward of an astro- 
 nomer would not provide him with bread, if 
 men did not entertain hopes of reading the 
 future in the heavens." 
 
 Astrology is now pretty nearly extinct, for 
 we have witnessed in our own day the death 
 of probably the last of his race, in the renowned 
 person of the yclept Francis Moore. We need 
 hardly say that its pretensions were founded no 
 less in folly than impiety. God in his wisdom 
 and kindness has shrouded the future from our 
 eyes, and to lift the veil that hides it would 
 diminish, instead of adding to our happiness. 
 Enough for us to know that the path of duty 
 is the path of safety ; that the footsteps of a 
 good man are ordered by the Lord ; that " god- 
 liness with contentment is great gain," " having 
 promise of the life that now is, and of that 
 which is to come ;" and " that all things w r ork 
 together for good to them that love God, to 
 them who are the called according to his 
 purpose." 
 
120 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DELUSIONS PROMPTED BY MORBID ACQUISITIVENESS. 
 
 Conditions under which wealth may be enjoyed— Alchemy- 
 Bubbles : the Mississippi and South Sea schemes — the 
 Tulip mania — the Bank panic — Railway speculations. 
 
 No subject demands, in mercantile times like 
 our own, a more calm and careful consideration 
 than the morality of wealth. To acquire 
 riches does not indeed fall within the province 
 of every man ; but all men are bound to 
 observe with care the ethical and religious 
 principles which are concerned in the pos- 
 sibilities of obtaining it. All rightly acquired 
 riches must be comprehended by the following 
 regulations. They must be equitably gained — 
 possessed by no man's designed injury — tem- 
 perately enjoyed — held as a trust for others — 
 increased without exposing the possessor to 
 large hazards — regarded as uncertain posses- 
 sions — watched against as a means of self-ela- 
 tion—and consecrated wholly to God. When 
 the apostle said, " Having food and raiment, 
 let us be therewith content," he enounced the 
 principle that man's real wants go into a very 
 small compass, and that therefore correspond- 
 
ALCHEMY. 121 
 
 ingly small should be the limits of man's great 
 desires for the life which is. And when our 
 Lord, in his inimitable pattern of prayer, con- 
 fined the supplications for temporal blessings 
 to the clause, " Give us this day our daily 
 bread," he reduced the wishes of Christian men 
 to a very moderate standard of computation 
 indeed. In uttering the sentiment, " He that 
 maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent," 
 Solomon enounced a principle of the highest 
 value to every community and to every 
 Christian in it. The industry and economy 
 necessary to secure the daily bread are the 
 blessings and safeguards of society ; the perils 
 involved in the sudden acquisition of wealth 
 agitate and convulse it, and are not to be con- 
 templated without a shudder. Lord Bacon 
 well describes riches as " the baggage of 
 virtue"* — it had been well had he not too 
 fatally exemplified the truth of his own axiom — 
 and adds, "As the baggage is to an army, so 
 are riches to virtue ; they are necessary but 
 cumbersome, and the care of it often loseth or 
 disturbeth the victory." And in another cha- 
 racteristic passage he thus speaks, " Wisdom 
 for a man's self only is, in many branches 
 thereof, a most depraved thing. It may be 
 compared to the wisdom of rats, that will be 
 sure to leave a house a little before it falls ; to 
 the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts the badger 
 out of the house that he dug for himself, not 
 for him ; to the wisdom of the crocodile, that 
 
 * Moral Essays. 
 11 
 
122 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 sheds tears when he would devour. But this is 
 particularly to be observed, that those sort of 
 men who are lovers of themselves without a 
 rival are many times unfortunate. And whereas 
 they have all their life sacrificed to themselves, 
 in the end they sacrifice to the inconstancy of 
 fortune, whose wings they thought they had 
 dipt by that notable self- wisdom of theirs."* 
 
 Of this truth innumerable instances, ancient 
 and modern, might be cited. Of some of them 
 the following pages will furnish a brief history. 
 
 The study of alchemy, though of very early 
 date in Europe, appears, as indeed we might 
 have conjectured from the very form of the 
 word, to have first attained eminence among 
 the Arabians, probably at the time when they 
 became teachers of medicine to Europe. It 
 bore a considerable analogy to astrology, and 
 the two studies were frequently associated. 
 There is a considerable resemblance between 
 many of the characters used in alchemy and 
 those of the ancient hieroglyphics ; sufficient, 
 indeed, to prove their origin from the same 
 people and at nearly the same period. The 
 objects of alchemy were the discovery of the 
 universal medicine which was to cure all 
 diseases, and the preparation of the philoso- 
 pher's stone, which was to turn all metals into 
 gold. Hermes Trismegistus and Geber were 
 among the first among modern practitioners in 
 this alleged art, from the latter of whom, and in 
 allusion to the language of his science, the word 
 * Bacon's Moral Essays. 
 
ALCHEMY. 123 
 
 gibberish is supposed to be derived. In this 
 department Albertus Magnus was also a sage. 
 He was the instructor of the celebrated Thomas 
 Aquinas, who, in 1244, put himself under his 
 tuition. It was believed that Albertus con- 
 structed a brazen statue, (which i3 not impro- 
 bable,) that he found means to give it speech, 
 (which, considering that automata were under- 
 stood in that day, is by no means impossible,) 
 and that he endowed this head with life, (here our 
 belief is ended,) giving it the place and assigning 
 to it the duties of adomestic servant ; it performed 
 many offices well, but, like some other servants, 
 its chatter was intolerable. This disease defied 
 all means of cure, till one day Aquinas, who 
 was then engaged in the solution of a difficult 
 mathematical problem, and was greatly dis- 
 turbed by it, lifted a heavy hammer which was 
 within reach, and, in an access of rage, dashed 
 the head in pieces. A Greek author relates a 
 somewhat similar rage in the experience of 
 a magician of antiquity who had transformed 
 the bar of his door into a water-drawing ser- 
 vant, and, because it did not perform its duty 
 sufficiently fast, broke it in pieces ; when, as a 
 sequel, each piece discharging a separate office, 
 drowned the poor devotee entirely. No part of 
 Albertus's head, however, survived his opera- 
 tion ; but Aquinas' petulance, and the mischief 
 it had done, exposed him to the sharp rebuke of 
 his master Albertus. The temper was certainly 
 unworthy of a philosopher, and sir Isaac New- 
 ton proved himself a much greater man, when 
 
124 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 his only rebuke to a dog, who had accidentally 
 set fire to his mathematical papers, was, " Ah ! 
 Diamond, Diamond, thou hast destroyed the 
 labours of thirty years." 
 
 The most incredible marvels are related of 
 this Albertus. He is said to have once exhi- 
 bited his power before William, count of Hol- 
 land and king of the Komans, by altering the 
 seasons, changing winter into summer and 
 summer into winter, to the astonishment of the 
 beholders. Had the miracle been performed in 
 our day, one might have conceived of trans- 
 parent blinds, painted in part with sympathetic 
 inks, which when cold might become invisible, 
 and when warm might put on the tints of 
 foliage. But no alternative excepting the sup- 
 position of magic seems to have occurred to the 
 spectators present. He was appointed bishop 
 of Ratisbon, though he soon relinquished that 
 office because his ecclesiastical duties clashed 
 with the demands made upon his time by his 
 alchemical studies. But at that period those 
 who filled the thrones or stalls of cathedrals 
 and priories were often addicted to alchemical 
 pursuits, and many painted windows and 
 gothic portals of our own isle still remain, to 
 testify by their emblems the frequency of this 
 conjunction. Though nothing can reconcile us 
 moderns to the incongruity, it must be remem- 
 bered that out of the pursuits of alchemy have 
 unquestionably arisen some of the most impor- 
 tant discoveries of chemical science. Men, in 
 search of the philosopher's stone, often com- 
 
ALCHEMY. 125 
 
 pounded substances which had never been com- 
 bined before ; and thus the crucible and the 
 alembic, though they did not furnish the direct 
 results so sanguinely anticipated, led to the arts 
 ■which civilize, and to the discoveries which 
 bless mankind. 
 
 Raymond Lulli, a Spanish ecclesiastic, boasted 
 of having been so successful in alchemical 
 transmutations, as to have converted no less 
 than fifty thousand pounds of quicksilver, lead, 
 and pewter, into gold.* His experiments are 
 reported to have been made in the Tower of 
 London, and it is said that a considerable 
 number of rose nobles were coined from their 
 success. Roger Bacon also devoted much time 
 and attention to studies of this description. His 
 reputation for them certainly gained for him an 
 unenviable name, so that he narrowly escaped 
 being burned to death as a magician. 
 
 The most incredible stories are related of 
 Nicholas Flamel and his search after the philo- 
 sopher's stone. He once bought an old book 
 by accident at a small price, which he sup- 
 posed to contain secrets of the highest alche- 
 mical importance. The study of this book, its 
 Latin text, and its enigmatical pictures, occu- 
 pied the remainder of his life. In search of its 
 true interpretation he wandered assiduously 
 
 * Some of these transmutations were mere tricks, and con- 
 sisted in inserting a hollow cone, wholly or partially filled with 
 gold and stopped with wax, into melted lead or other metal, 
 which of course dissolved the wax, and liberated the impri- 
 soned contents into the crucible. In some cases mere imita- 
 tive metals were employed. 
 
 11* 
 
126 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 through various countries, everywhere seeking 
 light on this mysterious but most precious 
 volume. At length, by patient perseverance, he 
 mastered its secrets, aided by which, and by the 
 help of his alembics, mercury became silver, 
 and even gold. He found, moreover, we are 
 told, the means of defending himself for a 
 quarter of a century from death. Such is the 
 tradition. Certain it is that Flamel practised 
 alchemy ; it is equally certain that he employed 
 large sums of money towards the end of his life 
 in founding and endowing religious institutions. 
 The rest may be regarded as the poetical 
 adornment of a credulous age. We can more 
 readily believe the report that, being wealthy, 
 he lent out, to the needy and impoverished 
 young nobles of France, sums of money at 
 enormous interest, and that thus he greatly 
 increased his wealth. 
 
 George Kipley, canon of Bridlington, (York,) 
 was in his youth a laborious alchemist, but 
 before his death his delusion on this subject 
 entirely left him, and he desired that those who 
 met with his books would immediately burn 
 them, for that he was fullv convinced of the 
 falsehood and inutility of such studies. It may 
 be readily imagined that such pursuits as these 
 became often associated with crime and infamy. 
 Of this we have an example in the case of 
 Gilles de Laval, a marechal of France (nat. 
 1420.) He inherited the most profuse riches, 
 of which he made an extravagant use ; but 
 sinister rumours arose as to the manner in 
 
ALCHEMY. 127 
 
 which lie employed them. His extravagance 
 soon exhausted his treasures. To replenish 
 them he became associated with Prelati, an 
 alchemist of Padua, in the search after the 
 philosopher's stone. At length the scandal 
 which surrounded Laval led to his apprehen- 
 sion for sorcery, murder, and other crimes. 
 Gilles confessed himself guilty, and with Prelati 
 was sentenced to be burned alive. His rank, 
 however, caused him to be first strangled. 
 Prelati underwent the full sentence, and his 
 ashes were thrown to the winds. 
 
 In an ancient poem, a story is told quaintly 
 rebuking the folly of the votaries of alchemy. 
 Some youths, so runs the legend, having applied 
 to an oracular source for information as to how 
 they should find the philosopher's stone, received 
 the reply in three words — Labour, labour, la- 
 bour. Assuming that this was intended to recom- 
 mend diligent application to alchemical studies, 
 they pursued them till their wealth and hopes 
 were alike well nigh exhausted. The true meaning 
 of the oracle at last occurred to one of them. 
 " We have been deceived, my friends," he said ; 
 " honest labour was what was meant. Leaving 
 this vain pursuit, let us each adopt a lawful 
 calling." They did so, and found in diligent 
 application to business the real secret of wealth. 
 
 The ancient college of Manchester formerly 
 had for its warder a celebrated alchemist, who 
 flourished in the reign of Elizabeth — Dr. Dee. 
 He was an astrologer as well as alchemist ; the 
 queen sent the earl of Leicester to consult him 
 
128 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 on the most auspicious day for her coronation. 
 She subsequently visited him at Mortlake, and 
 caused him to be attended during an illness by 
 her own physician. He subsequently published 
 his discourses on matters connected with his 
 art, and these may yet be inspected by the 
 curious in the British Museum. He claimed, 
 moreover, to be in possession of the elixir vitce; 
 yet, after passing through a variety of adven- 
 tures, he w r as a suitor to the queen for pecuniary 
 relief. He even pawned his books for food. 
 He died in poverty at Mortlake, 1608. Such 
 are the frequent results of fanaticism and im- 
 posture. 
 
 A variety of the alchemists is to be traced 
 in a sect called the Rosicrucians. They derived 
 their origin from Paracelsus, who, in 1527, was 
 professor of alchemy at Basle. This man pos- 
 sessed a character for irreligion and immorality. 
 " He was a glutton and a drunkard, and in 
 falsehood, vanity, and arrogance, was un- 
 equalled. He pretended to possess the philoso- 
 pher's stone, and asserted that he had dis- 
 covered the elixir of life."* The sect who 
 followed him derived their name, however, from 
 Christian Rosencrantz, who lived in the four- 
 teenth century. Their pretensions were enor- 
 mous. They claimed to possess the secrets of 
 human happiness and of the regeneration of 
 society. They declared that the treasures of the 
 earth were at their disposal, whilst they could 
 render themselves invisible at pleasure. But 
 
 * Thomson's Salverte. 
 
ALCHEMY. 129 
 
 their influence was chiefly confined to Germany. 
 Two of their most distinguished followers were 
 Jacob Boehmen and Eobert Fludd. No. 574 
 of the Spectator gives an account of the Eosi- 
 crucians. " I was once engaged in discourse 
 with a Eosicrucian about the great secret. l Its 
 presence,' he said, ' naturally changes every 
 place into a kind of heaven.' After he had 
 gone on for some time in this unintelligible 
 cant, I found that he jumbled natural and 
 moral ideas together into the same discourse, 
 and that his great secret was nothing else than 
 content" Would men only look for the moral 
 instead of the physical advantages of life, they 
 would find the way much shorter to the real 
 blessings of which they are in search. It is a 
 pitiful thing that creatures should seek in ex- 
 ternal preparations that which only Divine 
 principles can secure. But religion demands 
 self-renunciation, and man's effort in every age 
 has been to secure certain of religion's advan- 
 tages without yielding submission to its spiritual 
 requirements. 
 
 One of the greatest quacks among alchemists 
 appeared in France, at the court of Louis xv., 
 under the name of St. Germain. He fostered 
 the impression that he had lived for some hun- 
 dreds of years, and spoke of deceased monarchs, 
 long passed away, as if he had been their con- 
 temporary. He displayed, apparently, immense 
 riches, and none knew whence they were 
 derived. 
 
 The adventures of the so-called count 
 
130 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Cagliostro, who lived at a later period, and 
 became involved in the celebrated affair of the 
 diamond necklace of Marie Antoinette, were 
 not less remarkable, and exhibited a similar 
 instance of fraudulent jugglery. 
 
 All tyros in chemistry will be familiar with 
 an apparatus for impregnating liquids with 
 certain gases, called, after the name of the dis- 
 coverer, '" Woulfe's apparatus." This man was 
 an alchemist — almost the last of his race. He 
 lived in Barnard's Inn, amidst a chaos of cruci- 
 bles, alembics, and other furniture of the same 
 kind. So entire was the confusion, that it was 
 said a person once laid down his hat in Woulfe's 
 room, and could never find it again. It was only 
 by a secret signal that his intimate friends could 
 obtain access to his apartments. The want of 
 the due performance of charitable acts was, he 
 supposed, the cause why, after long toil, he had 
 never succeeded in discovering the elixir of life. 
 He died of a cold and inflammation of the 
 lungs, caught by journeying to Edinburgh and 
 back, in 1805 — such a journey being his pre- 
 scription for every illness. 
 
 So late as 1828, a gentleman named Keller- 
 man was residing at Lilly, Herts, who in seclu- 
 sion addicted himself to this obsolete study, and 
 barricaded his house against all strangers. He 
 pretended to the discovery of all the wonders 
 for which alchemists have vainly longed, and 
 said that he could make gold at pleasure. 
 His crucibles were attended by eight servants, 
 in relays of two, for every six hours. He was 
 
ALCHEMY. 131 
 
 a miserable man, who thought all the world his 
 enemies, and was probably insane. " In Lon- 
 don," it has been remarked, u even at the 
 present day, it is not impossible that the 
 science of alchemy has still some secret votary 
 feeding the furnace, and watching with bleared 
 eyes over the crucible. One race of alchemists 
 is at all events very plentiful. Their numbers 
 exhibit no signs of diminution, and repeated 
 disappointments do not appear to dissipate their 
 day-dreams. The man, for instance, who 
 makes haste to be rich by wild speculations, or 
 who expects to succeed in his lawful calling 
 without diligence, prudence, and industry, may 
 fairly be termed an alchemist. All men, too, 
 in a wider sense, who are setting their affections 
 on riches instead of the living God, deserve the 
 same appellation. They are seeking happiness 
 where it is not to be found, and placing their 
 affections in what may take eagle's wings and 
 fly away. The true arcanum of wealth is to 
 be found only in the words of the wisest of men, 
 " The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, 
 and he addeth no sorrow with it." 
 
 A Roman satirist, in allusion to the phrenzy 
 for riches which prevailed in his day, speaks of 
 the " hallowed thirst for gold," and describes 
 the popular longing as summed up in the fol- 
 lowing apophthegm, "Get money, honestly if 
 you can ; but by any means get money !" * One 
 of the mon?rchs of these realms, a savage perse- 
 cutor of the Jews in his day, justified his exac- 
 * Horace, Ep. I 
 
132 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 tions by a similar saying : " There is a necessity 
 for me to have money ; gotten from what place 
 soever, and by what means soever, and from 
 whom soever." When such a maxim was 
 avowed, we cease to wonder at any consequent 
 tyranny. Happily, the well-constructed laws 
 of modern times interpose to protect the help- 
 less against similar oppression. We have out- 
 lived the maxim that 
 
 " they should get who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 The steel-clad baron and the feudal lord no 
 longer hold the purses of their vassals ; nor do 
 the raids of the Scottish freebooter, or the 
 desolations of the robber of the Ehine, terrify 
 their helpless neighbours. But the desire for 
 riches has by no means abated ; though, with 
 the prevalence of law and liberty, other means 
 of acquiring them have arisen — means which, 
 though often unpunishable by law, are, in the 
 sight of Him who trieth men's hearts, scarcely 
 less offensive and abominable. When violence 
 could no longer command sudden wealth, men 
 have had recourse to those false representations, 
 too easy for the impostor, and too enthusiasti- 
 cally believed by the credulous. 
 
 The first " bubble," to use a now familiar 
 w T ord, of which we have any distinct account, 
 occurred in the reign of Charles n. It arose 
 out of an attempt to support the national credit, 
 greatly damaged by the king's licentiousness 
 and extravagance. A general bank was then 
 
BUBBLES. 133 
 
 first proposed. During the agitation of this 
 question, schemes of all kinds flitted before 
 the public eye — and in 1694 reached a crisis 
 which precisely anticipated many subsequent 
 occurrences. Mining operations in one quarter, 
 and large fisheries in another ; inventions pro- 
 mising great wealth to their proprietors, fol- 
 lowed by the now familiar devices of swelling 
 up the price of shares to an exorbitant amount, 
 till the original projector had amassed consider- 
 able sums, when the luckless dupes were left to 
 help themselves as they best could — were a part 
 of the now familiar machinery for exciting the 
 hopes of the covetous, and inflicting the 
 severest injury on public credit. As, however, 
 good in some shape generally accompanies a 
 mass of evil, two of these many projects proved 
 of incalculable service — the New Kiver Com- 
 pany, for supplying the metropolis with water, 
 and the corporation of the Bank of England. 
 The former was the conception of sir H. Myd- 
 delton ; the latter of William Paterson, a native 
 of Dumfries. 
 
 The disastrous excitement attendant upon 
 these speculations were, however, speedily to be 
 eclipsed by a monster delusion, which has so 
 often been told, that, but for its importance to 
 the current of our narrative, we should hesitate 
 at its renewed infliction on our readers— the 
 Mississippi scheme. 
 
 A man of talent and enthusiasm, without 
 principle, especially if his wants be many and 
 his extravagances great, is always dangerous 
 
134 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 in any society. Such a man was William Law, 
 who, having devoted much of his time to 
 questions of finance, and having impoverished 
 himself by a career of dissipation, sought to 
 recover by public projects the fortune he had 
 lost. His schemes at length led him to Paris, 
 then in a crisis of its history. That country, 
 by a court magnificent beyond parallel, and a 
 despotic monarch, had been reduced to witness 
 an empty exchequer. The regent of the day 
 was the duke of Orleans — a man most dissipated 
 and worthless, utterly negligent of affairs of 
 state, and careless of everything except his 
 personal pleasures. Under his regime the 
 clock of the state had almost run down alto- 
 gether. In this crisis of disorder, Law found 
 himself at the regent's ear, and, by holding out 
 large promises, obtained his consent to establish 
 a bank upon a grand scale, out of the amazing 
 success of which grew up the famous Mississippi 
 scheme. His project was nominally to form a 
 company, possessing an exclusive trade with 
 the countries adjacent to the Mississippi river. 
 But the powers it sought were enormous. It 
 claimed to have control over the mint and the 
 public treasury, and to have power to multiply 
 the issue of bank-notes to any amount deemed 
 desirable. Its first success was electric. It 
 irresistibly appealed to a novelty-loving nation ; 
 and Law, from a needy adventurer, rose at 
 once into a demi-god. The visitor to Paris 
 may be aware of a narrow street, called Rue de 
 Quincampoix ; it was here that Law resided at 
 
BUBBLES. 135 
 
 the time of the projection of his scheme, and the 
 influence of the project on his vicinity was asto- 
 nishing. Crowds of persons, prince and peasant, 
 senators, physicians, ladies of rank, stock- 
 jobbers, tradesmen — all crowded and jostled 
 together, waited, regardless of weather, to obtain 
 a preference for shares. Of these there were 
 fifty thousand, whilst the applicants were three 
 hundred thousand ! The regent profited by the 
 opportunity. He increased the number of shares 
 to a large amount, and paid off the national 
 debt with the proceeds. The excitement in- 
 creased. To obtain access to the house of the 
 adventurer, one lady caused her carriage to be 
 upset, that thereby she might excite his pity; 
 whilst, to diminish the crowd, another cried 
 " fire." The ante-chambers of the regent were 
 forsaken for those of the adventurer. The 
 spectacle of the poor suddenly become rich was 
 everywhere witnessed. A smile from Law was 
 a priceless favour. Trade was stimulated; ex- 
 travagance and profusion were the order of the 
 day ; land sunk in value — every proprietor 
 desired cash ; and the aid of the police was 
 required to prevent suffocation. Between No- 
 vember, 1719, and the April of the next year, 
 the price of stock rose till it reached 2,050 
 per cent. The moral state of society during 
 this inflammatory fever was deplorable, and 
 every good man regarded it with terror. M. 
 de Tocqueville says, " There was no folly or 
 vice in which the high society did not take 
 the lead; the degradation of mens minds was 
 
136 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 equal to the corruption of their manners." A 
 nobleman of the highest rank robbed a Jew of 
 100,000 crowns, and murdered him. When 
 his trial approached, the judges had to pass 
 through a long procession of the noblest and 
 proudest families, all intreating a mitigation of 
 his sentence; and when the criminal was con- 
 demned to be broken on the wheel, the most 
 active exertions continued, though fruitlessly, 
 to obtain the commutation of the sentence. In 
 one week Law paid for estates upwards of three 
 millions of livres. 
 
 But, however brilliant the horizon, it proved 
 itself all clouds and vapour. The day of 
 awakening came. Kumours, vague and un- 
 defined arose — none knew how; and increased 
 with portentous rapidity. Suspicion is even 
 more contagious than enthusiasm, or, rather, 
 the frenzy of fear is even more powerful than 
 that of hope. Men began to think of securing 
 themselves. The prince of Conti sent such a 
 quantity of paper to the bank to be cashed as 
 to require wagons to remove the gold. The 
 country was drained of its specie. An order 
 was issued which diminished the value of the 
 notes by one-half. Men, struggling for the 
 payment of their notes, were killed in the crowd. 
 An indescribable panic ensued, during which 
 guards were numerously posted in the streets 
 to disperse the angry multitude. The horrors 
 of another Bartholomew day were threatened. 
 The bank stopped payment of the precious 
 metals. Law was nearly torn in pieces by the 
 
BUBBLES. 137 
 
 mob, and was compelled to seek refuge in the 
 apartments of the regent. At length the ad- 
 venturer fled, and died in poverty, whilst France 
 was reduced to unspeakable distress, and the 
 sad effects of this mania survived in the increase 
 of the national debt by one-half. Truly was 
 the Divine prediction fulfilled, " They that 
 will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, 
 and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
 drown men in destruction and perdition." 
 
 The next remarkable delusion was that known 
 by the name of the English " South Sea Scheme" 
 — another striking instance of the extent to which 
 common sense may be over-ridden by the all-en- 
 grossing passion for wealth. Like the Mississippi 
 scheme, it was an attempt to lessen the national 
 debt by concentrating many funds into one, and 
 was promoted by greedy adventurers in order 
 to advance their personal interests. The South 
 Sea Company made a proposition " to unite the 
 whole of the debts of the state, amounting to 
 thirty-one millions, at five per cent, until 1727, 
 and after that period at four per cent., for which 
 they were to pay three millions and a half." 
 The bank of England bid against them, and 
 offered five millions for the same advantages. 
 But the South Sea Company, resolving not to be 
 outdone, increased their offer to seven and a 
 half millions. This proposal again led to a fur- 
 ther offer on the part of the bank," to give £1,700 
 bank stock for every £100 irredeemable long an- 
 nuities." But, unhappily, the South Sea Com- 
 pany obtained the preference. In consequence, 
 12* 
 
138 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 their stock rose to enormous prices. Country gen- 
 tlemen and city ladies, noblemen and ministers 
 of state, clergymen and tradesmen, farmers' ser- 
 vants — in short, all classes — crowded to Change- 
 alley in order to obtain a share in the stock. 
 
 As is usual in similar crises, the most extra- 
 vagant proposals followed in the wake of this 
 great speculation. A few of these simultaneous 
 projects may be noted :— A scheme for supply- 
 ing London w T ith cattle and hay, another for 
 making pasteboards, another for trading in hair, 
 another for furnishing funerals, another for a 
 flying machine, another for making oil from 
 poppies, etc. Such were the devices which filled 
 the mouths of the gaping multitude. But even 
 these were not the grossest absurdities. One pro- 
 ject promised the discovery of perpetual motion. 
 A second pledged itself to effect a revolution in 
 the art of war; whilst a third proposed to raise 
 two millions and a half on an undertaking of 
 great advantage to be made known hereafter! 
 Will it be credited that the projector realized 
 £2,000 ? Of course, he was heard of no more. 
 
 Some benefits, however, were reaped at this 
 crisis. The London and Royal Exchange 
 Assurance Companies were formed at this 
 juncture. The South Sea Company, how- 
 ever, jealous of such rivals, commenced actions 
 at law against some of their competitors. A 
 breath will sometimes precipitate an avalanche, 
 and this step w T as the company's own undoing. 
 A decline commenced, and in a short time 
 South Sea stock, which, at the commencement 
 
BUBBLES. 139 
 
 of the actions, liad been 850 per cent, fell to 
 175. To bolster themselves up, the company 
 promised that the Christmas dividend should 
 be 60 per cent. ; but the pledge came too late. 
 The descent had begun, and it soon became 
 headlong. Public credit fell. The name of a 
 director became ignominious. It was declared 
 in parliament that " the directors should be 
 tied in a sack and thrown into the Thames." 
 Mr. Craggs, secretary of state, was vehemently 
 accused of being a party in the infamous fraud. 
 He replied by offering to fight a duel with his 
 accuser — no very conclusive proof of his inno- 
 cence ! A select committee was appointed to in- 
 quire into the affair. A mob collected about the 
 House of Commons, and was with difficulty dis- 
 persed. The treasurer of the South Sea Com- 
 pany sought safety in flight ; and when the 
 transactions themselves underwent examina- 
 tion, his absence was found to be not unreason- 
 able. All that bribery, the creation of fictitious 
 stock, and the resort to the most unfair advan- 
 tages could do, had been done on behalf of the 
 company; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 found guilty of being an advantaged party in 
 such disgraceful transactions, was expelled the 
 House, and committed to the Tower, whilst his 
 property underwent confiscation, for the benefit 
 of the defrauded sufferers. 
 
 In the following anecdotes, related by Mr. 
 Francis, the reader will recognise lineaments 
 which unhappily have, within the last few 
 years, become too familiar : — 
 
140 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 " Samuel Chandler, the eminent non-con- 
 formist divine, risked his whole fortune in the 
 bubble, lost it, and was obliged to serve in a 
 bookseller's shop for two or three years, while 
 he continued to discharge his ministerial duty," 
 
 " The elder Scraggs gave Gay £1,000 stock, 
 and as the poet had been a previous purchaser, 
 his gain at one time amounted to £20,000. 
 He consulted Dr. Arbuthnot, who strongly 
 advised him to sell out. The bard doubted, 
 hesitated, and lost all. The doctor, who gave 
 such shrewd advice, was too irresolute to act 
 on his wholesome opinion, and lost £2,000 ; 
 but, with an enviable philosophy, comforted 
 himself by saying that it would be only two 
 thousand more pair of stairs to ascend." 
 
 " One tradesman, who had invested his 
 entire resources in the stock, came to town to 
 dispose of it when it reached 1000. On his 
 arrival it had fallen to 900, and as he had 
 decided to sell at 1,000 he determined to wait. 
 The stock continued to decline, the trades- 
 man continued to hold, and became a ruined 
 man." 
 
 " The wags of the day were not idle. A 
 pretended office was opened in Change-alley, 
 to receive subscriptions for raising one million. 
 The people flocked in, paid five shillings for 
 every thousand they subscribed, fully believing 
 that they would make their fortunes. After a 
 large sum had been subscribed, an advertise- 
 ment was published, that the people might have 
 their money without any deduction, as it was 
 
BUBBLES. 141 
 
 only a trial to see how many foolish persons 
 might be caught in one day." 
 
 The following anecdote is honourable to the 
 unknown party concerned : — 
 
 " In 1720, soon after the bursting of the 
 South Sea bubble, a gentleman called late in 
 the evening at the banking-house of Messrs. 
 Hankey and Co. He was in a coach, but 
 refused to get out, and desired that one of the 
 partners of the house would come to him. 
 Having ascertained that it was really one of the 
 principals and not a clerk who appeared, he 
 put into his hands a parcel carefully sealed up, 
 and desired that it might be laid on one side 
 till he should call again. A few days passed 
 away — a few weeks — a few months — but the 
 stranger never returned. At the end of the 
 second or third year, the partners agreed to 
 open this mysterious parcel in the presence of 
 each other. They found it to contain £30,000, 
 with a letter, stating that it was obtained by the 
 South Sea speculation, and directing that it 
 should be vested in the hands of three trustees, 
 whose names w T ere mentioned, and the interest 
 appropriated to the relief of the poor, which was 
 accordingly done."* 
 
 The essential evil of gambling consists, not so 
 much in an appeal to chance, (which word, 
 truly interpreted, means a contingent and un- 
 certain probability,) as in the hazarding of a 
 valuable means of promoting good (for such is 
 money) upon doubtful ventures. The violent 
 * Hone's Every-day Book, vol. i. p. 170. 
 
142 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 transferences which large speculations involve 
 not only convulse society, but endanger its 
 stability. Where there are great gains, there 
 are also, somewhere, correspondingly great 
 losses. Those losses involve, probably, the 
 happiness of some — the means of support for 
 others ; the child's education, the widow's 
 sustenance, the orphan's prop. The failure of 
 any great speculation always tends to such 
 results. If, on the other hand, the speculator 
 gains, he is suddenly lifted from his position, is 
 placed on a platform he is unfitted to occupy — ■ 
 Is swayed by passions to which his wealth gives 
 new power — sees his family preyed upon by 
 vanity, ambition, and the desire of what they 
 never dreamed of before — becomes himself, 
 possibly, in the end an object of contempt to 
 his own children — is regarded by the public 
 with more servility than respect — and, in all 
 probability, carries with him to his grave a secret 
 consciousness that all is not well. But what 
 shall we say, what can we say, if the man who 
 lives amidst such great speculations be a religious 
 man? Only this, that it is easier to keep a 
 naked light alive in a tempestuous and squally 
 night — easier to make a tree grow upon a soil 
 perpetually shaken by men tunnelling below — 
 u easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
 needle," than to preserve a simple, humble, 
 contrite, holy, thankful, consecrated heart, when 
 the intellect is continually intent upon large 
 ventures, or is dreading the possibility of large 
 losses. 
 
THE TULIP MANIA. 143 
 
 Whatever may be the particular means 
 employed to increase wealth with undue 
 rapidity, the dangers and results are much the 
 same. It is true that " dice " indicate a certain 
 class of speculations productive of no good and 
 much evil ; but let us not suppose that where 
 dice are not, the gambling mania cannot be. 
 Almost all know the story of an old gambler, 
 who, having been induced to resolve that he 
 would never touch these dangerous cubes again, 
 was found soon after betting with a neighbour 
 as to who should draw the longest straw out of 
 a hay-rick. In a similar mode, a man, while 
 professing to denounce gambling, may himself 
 be habitually practising it under the plausible 
 disguise of mercantile pursuits. 
 
 In the year 1634, the tulip-root became con- 
 nected, especially in Holland and Germany, 
 with a mania for pecuniary speculation. The 
 excitement of this new passion was very great. 
 It gave rise, also, to some ludicrous occurrences. 
 Amusing stories are related, how a sailor, 
 coming into a merchant's counting-house, and 
 supposing a bulb which he saw (some of them 
 realized more than 5,000 florins) to be an onion, 
 took it home to eat with his red herring, and was 
 found, little conscious of the mischief he had 
 done, holding it half devoured in his hand — a 
 crime expiated, however unjustly, by half-a- 
 y ear's imprisonment. Another gentleman, of 
 some botanical taste, finding a similar bulb in a 
 conservatory, set himself to peel off its several 
 coats, and then cut the remainder in pieces. 
 
144 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 The reader may suppose the damage which was 
 done, when he is told that the root was that of 
 a van eyck, then deemed one of the most 
 precious of all tulip varieties. The infuriated 
 proprietor dragged the offender before the 
 magistrate, where the unfortunate culprit 
 learned that the botanical specimen he had 
 examined w r as worth 4,000 florins. He was 
 imprisoned till he found securities for the 
 payment of that sum. Such a rage, however, 
 must necessarily have its limits. A panic 
 began, and government was appealed to, to stop 
 its course. But at such a time, the strongest 
 government becomes feeble as a child. Actions 
 for breach of law were threatened ; but the law 
 refused to interfere with contracts so nearly 
 akin to gambling. The glittering pagoda fell 
 down with a crash, and it was long before 
 public credit recovered from the shock it had 
 sustained. This mania has been attributed to 
 Lipsius. He was, however, innocent of the 
 gambling part of the transaction, having only 
 sought good flowers at high prices. 
 
 The years 1824 and 1825 are memorable in 
 the annals of this mercantile nation, as a period 
 that promised great national prosperity. Agri- 
 culture, manufactures, and trade of every kind 
 were profitable. This flattering state of things 
 reduced, of course, the interest on money, and 
 stimulated men to seek for new investments; 
 whilst all kinds of projects abounded. No less 
 than 624 new joint-stock companies spread 
 their shadowy, but brilliant visions before the 
 
JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. 145 
 
 public eye. Though proposed, as many of them 
 were, by men known to be destitute of capital, 
 the shares were usually sold. " You talk," said 
 a satirist, " as if we had any real business to 
 transact. All we have to do is to puff up our 
 shares to a premium, delude the public into 
 buying them, and then let the whole concern go 
 to ruin." Mining companies started up in pro- 
 fusion, and were successful in proportion to 
 men's ignorance of the localities whence they 
 were to derive their wealth. The history of 
 the day was, in short, just that of a bright sum- 
 mer hour, which brings into the sunshine a 
 thousand insects of every hue only that they 
 may be destroyed by the fury of the coming 
 thunder-storm. Clerks were to become rich — 
 labourers to be changed into masters — dazzling 
 wealth danced before the eyes of those who 
 w T ere rich already. So long as public enthu- 
 siasm lasted, all was well ; but the climax was 
 speedily reached, and the downward course was 
 terrible. Banks of deposit began to be beset ; 
 commercial discounts became difficult ; houses 
 of high credit sought advances to meet their 
 pressing demands, and heads of the most dis- 
 tinguished firms were seen to await with soli- 
 citude the answers to their requests for dis- 
 counts. It Was the time when one-pound notes 
 were permitted to be issued by country bankers. 
 These notes became suspected, and caused a 
 tremendous run upon the banks. Nor was 
 it only the originally insolvent firms which 
 suffered. The enormous difficulty found in 
 13 
 
146 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 such a moment of pressure, in turning the best 
 securities into cash, involved in a common ruin 
 many companies worthy of the largest con- 
 fidence. Men worth £100,000 were to be 
 seen begging earnestly for the immediate ad- 
 vance of £1,000. Even where the most serious 
 consequences did not ensue, many firms suffered 
 tremendous losses by the sudden disposal of 
 their securities. The panic of the moment 
 justified the statement, " that it arose from want 
 of confidence in men able to pay 405., 505., and 
 60s. in the pound." The Bank of England did 
 all which was possible, but it was feared that 
 its own stability would have been ruined in the 
 crisis. At length one of the directors, who 
 had said that the bank could not stand such a 
 run another week, exhausted, faint, and stag- 
 gering with fatigue, presented himself before 
 the cabinet council of the day then sitting, and 
 with difficulty articulated the words — "All is 
 well." The worst danger had gone by. On 
 these occasions, the truth never appears till 
 men begin to suffer. Large discoveries were 
 made of fraud, puffing, bolstering, and using, as 
 if they were securities, the names of men whose 
 riches lay on the negative side of a single 
 farthing ! The capacity of man to be deluded 
 is not easily gauged ! The stones, sticks, etc., 
 which are found in the ostrich's maw, are easy 
 of digestion compared with the incredibilities 
 which may be assimilated by an all-trusting 
 credulity. 
 
 One would suppose such a panic as this 
 
RAILROADS. 147 
 
 quite enough for a generation, and that those 
 who had witnessed its disclosures would need 
 no other lesson during their lives. For a few 
 years, indeed, the lesson sufficed, and this ex- 
 perience, combining with other causes, checked 
 the prodigality of adventure to which a mer- 
 cantile community is prone. But, in 1845, 
 another of these epidemics of delusion seized 
 upon the community. It will be long known 
 by the name of the " railway mania." 
 
 This phrenzy, like others, arose out of pros- 
 perous times. Trade was plentiful, and money 
 abundant. The system of railways had now 
 come into complete operation, and men flew to 
 them for safe investments, then becoming diffi- 
 cult. The sanguine looked upon the metal road 
 as the best regenerator of society. The rewards 
 of virtue, the results of peace, the triumphs of 
 civilization were expected, not from moral 
 means, but from steam engines and lines of 
 iron. What may be a legitimate source of 
 pecuniary profit became, as thus regarded, 
 suggestive of conclusions equally mournful and 
 absurd. Multitudes rushed to seek a share in 
 the high adventure. Every quarter, each nook 
 and corner of the island, the lonely dell as the 
 city mart, echoed to the sounds of u scrip," 
 " discount," and " premium." Neighbourhoods 
 where only a few poor mining huts were to be 
 found, or vast districts uninhabited by any 
 huts at all were to be penetrated by railroads, 
 the direction of which none could account for, 
 and the benefits of which none could explain. 
 
148 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Prices of shares lay on the tradesman's counter, 
 and near the gauze and riband of the milliner — - 
 were to be found in the dashing equipage and 
 in the rumbling cart — imparted new life to the 
 old, and suddenly matured the young ; whilst a 
 wide-spread desire possessed almost every man 
 to be something which as yet he was not. And 
 there were not wanting birds of evil omen to fly 
 about in so excited a state of the mercantile 
 atmosphere, which, whilst increasing the cla- 
 mour, availed themselves largely of its advan- 
 tages. It is a pity even to name the man 
 who set fire to the temple of Diana ; and we 
 shall call none from the oblivion we hope they 
 have found, and proclaim none whose names 
 already " fester in the infamy of years," as the 
 chief promoters of such a crisis. We may 
 regard the following as a not inapt representa- 
 tion of many scenes of the time : "A young 
 gentleman need only look to a half-crown rail- 
 way map in search for a district tolerably clear 
 of the rail. Taking two of the towns that form 
 that open space, he draws a diagonal with his 
 pencil, and thus creates a direct line. He then 
 writes down the name of the company, his own 
 name as promoter, either alone or with the 
 names of as many friends as he can venture to 
 take that liberty with, or with any names real 
 or fictitious ; his own occupation, whether gen- 
 tleman or esquire, engineer, artist, or solicitor, 
 or clerk, or perfumer, or tailor, or M.A., or m.d. ; 
 his place of business, if he has one ; his place of 
 residence, whether it be castle or hall, or in 
 
RAILROADS. 149 
 
 Berkeley- square, or rooms in Gray's-inn, or 
 lodgings in the Borough. In the course of his 
 walk to the office in SergeantVinn, he may, if 
 he pleases, remodel his company, changing 
 every name in it. Arrived at the office, he 
 invests a few sovereigns, begged or borrowed, 
 and then enters his company. Advertisements 
 and letters of allotment do the rest. It may, 
 for anything the registrar knows or cares, be 
 straight across a mountain a mile high, or 
 straight across an arm of the sea, ten miles 
 broad. It would be his duty to register a 
 tunnel under the Atlantic." * During the above 
 operations, the most active measures were 
 employed to enhance the price of shares. " In 
 schemes where as many as thirty thousand 
 shares have been advertised, not more than 
 fifteen thousand have been allotted to the 
 public, the remainder being reserved, part of 
 them for property on the line, part for the pro- 
 visional committee and officers. In this way a 
 scarcity of scrip was created, and the shares 
 rose to a premium. When the price was thus 
 forced up to a point supposed to be worth 
 realising, the reserved shares were sold, and the 
 proceeds divided among the committee." 
 
 Some of these undertakings were prepared 
 and executed with a rapidity perfectly astonish- 
 ing. The last day allowed by law for the send- 
 ing in of plans and documents was the 80th of 
 November, and to be ready by that day was 
 an object of eager effort. Apprentices were 
 
 * Francis's Bank of England vol. ii. p. 201. 
 13* 
 
150 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 suddenly promoted to he surveyors, and draughts- 
 men were brought over from the continent. 
 Sunday was no longer respected ; both in pre- 
 paring plans and cutting railways, that hallowed 
 day was appropriated to forward man's schemes 
 to be rich despite the laws of God. 
 
 Matters continued in this state till October, 
 1845, when a general expectation of something 
 ominous began to pervade men's minds. This 
 was increased by the course taken by some 
 leading newspapers. The crash came. It fell 
 upon the heads of many who had thought to 
 get free from the rafters of the falling house ; but 
 it also fell upon thousands who had been only 
 w r eak, and not guilty. Honest tradesmen, parents, 
 widows, poor men, had drained themselves of 
 their last resources to embark in these specula- 
 tions ; and on them the ruins fell most heavily. 
 
 But though this delusion was soon over, it 
 was long before business returned to its ordi- 
 nary channels ; and who has not, even yet, 
 among the number of his friends, some who will 
 travel to the grave impoverished, and perhaps 
 broken-hearted, from having yielded themselves 
 to such an infatuation. If we hear of a widow 
 who had lost her little all — of a tradesman, once 
 in a position of comfort, now reduced to embar- 
 rassment and decline — of a merchant who had 
 overtraded — of a nobleman whose property has 
 come to the hammer, — it is easily, and not 
 always unjustly concluded — the railway specu- 
 lation has been at work. 
 
 Such are the issues of the snares by which 
 
RAILROADS. 151 
 
 " the god of this world" perpetually deceives 
 his victims. u Man never is, but always to be 
 blest." Well does some moralist say, " the 
 world is a cheat, which never pays what it pro- 
 mises." Hungry, thirsty, faint, weary, and 
 sick at heart — a thousand victims have learned 
 in the royal preacher's tones, to say, " Vanity 
 of vanities ; all is vanity." The only " true 
 riches" are not found below. The weaned 
 heart, the holy character, the spirit changed 
 by the grace of Gcd and " satisfied from itself," 
 the presence of God, the life of immortality — are 
 alone substantial possessions, and are all of 
 heavenly origin. Alternations will not affect 
 them ; thieves will not steal them ; they will not 
 burst as bubbles ; they are superior to death 
 itself ! 
 
152 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DELUSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH RELIGION. 
 
 Heathen oracles— Stones of Druids— Romish legends— St. 
 Gregory— Empress Helena— St. Dionysius— Relics— Blood 
 of St. Januarius— Other legends— Coat of Treves— Cru- 
 sades — Mohammed — Seva — Rosenfeld — Enthusiasts at 
 Munster — French prophets — Miracles at tomb of Abbd Paris 
 — Joanna Southcott, etc.— Mormonites. 
 
 This chapter constitutes a painful part of the 
 duty we have undertaken to perform. To a 
 religious mind, nothing is more painful and 
 detestable than the delusions which have been 
 promoted, the crimes which have been per- 
 petrated, in the name of God. Yet, by how 
 much religion is powerful as an instrument of 
 good, by so much it is deemed worthy of adop- 
 tion by the base and degraded as an instrument 
 of evil. The most lamentable result of such 
 errors is, that religion is made responsible for 
 the tricks and enormities perpetrated in its 
 name ; and men easily learn to decry that 
 which they have found to be associated with 
 fraud and imposture. Let it be remembered, 
 however, that if piety has been abused and per- 
 verted, so also has every other system which 
 has ever conferred benefits upon the world. 
 
HEATHEN ORACLES. 153 
 
 Yet, as the frauds of speculators do not pro- 
 scribe traffic ; as the frauds of the empiric do 
 not proscribe medicine ; as the frauds of trades- 
 men do not proscribe all trade ; as food is 
 nutritious, though liable to be adulterated ; and 
 as friendship is true, though sometimes employed 
 for base purposes — so religion must not be 
 identified with that which bears its name, but 
 has no affinity with its character. Painful as the 
 misrepresentation is, a secret homage to religion 
 is nevertheless involved in it. The truth is, 
 that, broadly speaking, the most inveterate 
 opposers of Christianity by name are the most 
 tenacious protectors of its leading principles of 
 justice and integrity, and would set up much of 
 Christ's kingdom though they dethrone the 
 King. Could they be only convinced that, but 
 for Christianity, these principles would never 
 have been fully known, they would beware lest 
 they sweep away, under the name of priest- 
 craft, the only truths by which the dangers of 
 priestcraft can be prevented ; and would they 
 but think that much, which, in various ages, has 
 called itself Christianity, was but a well-known 
 superscription upon spurious metal, they would 
 save themselves much real, and some pretended 
 perplexity. In the mean time, nothing more 
 concerns the Christian professor than to remem- 
 ber, that if Christ's name be put upon trickery, 
 selfishness, hard-heartedness, and fraud ; or upon 
 intemperance, lasciviousness, and ambition — he 
 who so writes it is a forger and a traitor. The 
 bearer of the august name of Christ is deeply 
 
154 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 concerned in being true to his own professed 
 principles. 
 
 Plato, who proposed to banish priests from 
 his republic, with singular inconsistency, ad- 
 vocates the employment of methods not dis- 
 similar to those which he would explode ; and 
 whilst vindicating marriages by lot, suggests 
 the employment of secret means to regulate 
 the decisions. 
 
 The oracles of the ancient heathens are 
 notorious exhibitions of innumerable frauds. 
 The most celebrated among them was that at 
 Delphi, consecrated to Apollo. The priestess 
 of that god was placed upon a tripod over a 
 cavity, whence a gaseous and highly intoxicat- 
 ing vapour was exhaled, and under this influ- 
 ence uttered mysterious sounds, which were 
 immediately caught up and interpreted by her 
 attendants. But as the promulgation of any 
 predictions was attended by some danger to the 
 reputation of the priests, care was taken to 
 limit and regulate the number of their utter- 
 ances, and not to give forth spontaneous oracles. 
 Expensive sacrifices were demanded before the 
 consultation. It sometimes happened that the 
 moment was not favourable to a response, and 
 the answers when obtained were often ex- 
 tremely delusive — mere equivocations. If, after 
 all, the prophecy turned out a mistaken one, it 
 was often pretended that something had been 
 omitted in the previous ceremonial ; and the 
 ambiguity of many of the answers transmitted 
 to posterity was evidently such that they might 
 
STONES OF DRUIDS. 155 
 
 receive an interpretation on the one side or the 
 other, as the case might afterwards require. 
 To aid, moreover, in the fabrication of these 
 oracles, the inhabitants of the whole vicinity 
 were in league with the priests, and furnished 
 them with much necessary information. Dis- 
 coveries have been recently made in some of 
 the temples of antiquity, of the secret chambers 
 and hollow statues in which the priests were 
 used to secrete themselves. Dr. Johnson relates 
 the following in his description of the temple 
 of Isis at Pompeii : — " We see the identical 
 spot where the priests concealed themselves 
 whilst delivering the oracles that were supposed 
 to proceed from the mouth of the goddess. 
 There were found the bones of the victims 
 sacrificed, and in the refectory of the abstemi- 
 ous priests were discovered the remains of ham, 
 fowls, eggs, fish, and bottles of wine." 
 
 The rocking-stones of the Druids were used, 
 in all probability, to imply the presence of 
 supernatural agency. Some of them still 
 exist in Cornwall. One, which stood in the 
 parish of Sithney, was so adjusted, as that the 
 touch of a child could set it in motion on its 
 pivot. The celebrated Loggan-stone was of 
 a similar kind. It was seventeen feet in length, 
 and its weight was estimated at sixty- six tons. 
 Even a breath of wind caused it to vibrate. It 
 was overturned by the captain of a revenue 
 cutter, who excited such odium by his daring 
 act as to be compelled to restore it to its original 
 position. Toland imagines that the Druids 
 
156 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 persuaded the people that these stones could 
 only be removed by miracle. 
 
 To record many of the foolish, and more than 
 foolish legends palmed on their deceived vota- 
 ries by the teachers of the Eomish religion, 
 would exceed the compass of our volume. 
 Before the Eeformation, not only were a count- 
 less number of such legends current, but they 
 constituted the principal materials from which 
 the priests professed to instruct the people in 
 religion. " The golden legend " — one of the 
 earliest volumes printed in this country, proba- 
 bly by Caxton himself— was a repertory of such 
 extravagancies, read by the priests instead of 
 sermons. A few specimens of the deleterious 
 food by which the people were then fed will be 
 sufficient for our purpose. 
 
 The legends associated with the name of St. 
 Gregory are manifold. It is related of him, 
 that one day, when officiating at the altar, a 
 bright cloud descended, which filled the church 
 with so heavenly an odour, that none could 
 dare to enter it. On another occasion, he caused 
 the consecrated bread to appear in the form of 
 visible flesh. Again, when certain ecclesiastical 
 ambassadors came to Eome searching for relics, 
 he gave them a linen cloth which had been in 
 contact with the body of a saint. The mes- 
 sengers saw nothing in this present, and de- 
 spised it ; on which St. Gregory pierced it with 
 a knife, and the cloth shed miraculous blood. 
 When Gregory absented himself from Eome to 
 escape the honours of the popedom, a pillar of fire 
 
EMPRESS HELENA — ST. DIONYSIUS. 157 
 
 and a crowd of angels appeared above his head, 
 by which signs he was "miraculously betrayed." 
 The most incredible stories were promul- 
 gated respecting the discovery of the cross by 
 the empress Helena. This cross was repre- 
 sented to possess such powers, as to be capable 
 of being reproduced to any extent without loss 
 of its original virtue. This was convenient, 
 especially at a time when so many pieces of it 
 were spread about in Europe as to have made, 
 had they been all collected, many crosses in- 
 stead of one. 
 
 The story of St. Denis, or St. Dionysius, is 
 perpetuated in the neighbourhood of Paris by 
 the church which bears his name, and which 
 was formerly the mausoleum of the French 
 kings. Dionysius is reported to have been 
 beheaded for his adherence to the Christian 
 faith, on the " Mount of the Martyrs," (Mont- 
 martre.) Immediately after his decapitation, 
 his dead body rose from the ground, took its 
 head into its hand, and, amidst a crowd of 
 angels, walked for two miles, till it met an old 
 woman, into whose hands the saint put his own 
 head. It was even believed that St. Denis 
 kissed the head he carried. Is it wonderful 
 that such tales as these have brought the name 
 of Christianity into suspicion and contempt 
 among a community who only know it through 
 the imperfect representation of it which Popery 
 presents ? 
 
 In some of the letters relating to the sup- 
 pression of monasteries, now published in one 
 14 
 
158 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 volume by the Camden Society, are curious 
 particulars relative to the growth of credulity 
 in a former age. The following is from a 
 letter of Lay ton, one of the commissioners for 
 the suppression, to secretary Cromwell : — 
 
 " By this bringar my servant, I send you 
 reliquies, fyrste, two flowers wrapede in white 
 and blake sarcenet, that one Christymas evyn 
 hord ipsa qua Christus natus fuerat, (in the 
 very hour in which Christ was born,) will 
 spring and burgin (bud) and bear blossoms ; 
 quod expertum esse, (bad Latin for, ' which is a 
 fact,') saith the prior of Maden Bradeley ; ye 
 shall also receive a bage of reliquis, wherein ye 
 shall see strangers thynges as shall appere by 
 the scripture as Gode's cote, (God's coat,) oure 
 lady's smoke, parte of Gode's supper in cend 
 Domini," (in the Lord's supper,) " pars petri 
 super qua natus est Jesus in Bethelem, (part of 
 the stone on which Jesus was born in Beth- 
 lehem,) belyke ther is in Bethelem plentie 
 of stones and sum quarrie, and maketh their 
 mangers of stone," etc. etc.* 
 
 No so-called miracle of the Romish' church 
 has been paraded with more eclat than the 
 liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius — a 
 wonder still exhibited at Naples. It is pre- 
 tended that this blood, which is kept in a glass 
 phial, becomes fluid when applied to the head 
 of the saint on the day of his festival. Addison 
 describes it as " one of the most bungling tricks 
 
 * Letters relating to Suppression of Monasteries. Camden 
 Society. 
 
BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS. J59 
 
 he had ever seen." Dr. Duan says, "I ap- 
 proached through the crowd till I got close to 
 the bust of St. Januarius. The archbishop 
 had been attempting to perform the miracle, 
 and an old monk stood by, who was at the 
 utmost pains to instruct him how to handle, 
 chafe, and rub the bottle which contained the 
 blood. He frequently took it also into his own 
 hands, but his manoeuvres were as ineffectual 
 as those of the archbishop, \v r ho was all over in 
 a profuse sweat with vexation and exertion, 
 fearing lest the people might interpret so un- 
 propitious an omen against him. The old 
 monk, with a genuine expression of chagrin, 
 exclaimed, ' Cospetta di Baccho, It is as hard 
 as a stone. An universal gloom overspread 
 the multitude. Some were in a rage at the 
 saint's obstinacy, and called his head an un- 
 grateful yellow-faced rascal. It was now almost 
 dark, and, when least expected, the signal was 
 given that the miracle was performed. A 
 Roman Catholic, who remained close by the 
 archbishop, assured me this miracle failed 
 altogether ; the bottle was turned with a rapid 
 motion before the eyes of the spectators, who 
 would not contradict that which they were all 
 expecting to see." Precisely how this delusion 
 is practised we do not know. It may be imi- 
 tated by reddening sulphuric ether with 
 orcanet, and saturating with saltpetre. This 
 mixture is solid at a few degrees above freezing- 
 point, and melts at a little higher temperature.* 
 * Salverte i. 332. 
 
160 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 All travellers are well aware of the innumer- 
 able legendary stories and relics attached to the 
 various Eoman Catholic churches on the conti- 
 nent. Cologne exhibits, for the devotion of its 
 pilgrims, the skulls of " the three kings," as 
 they are termed, who brought presents to the 
 infant Saviour at the nativity. These persons 
 exist only in tradition, though Caspar, Melchior, 
 and Balthasar, were fearful names in ancient 
 times ; for it was believed that those who 
 wrote these names on their foreheads with 
 blood, and then looked into a mirror, would 
 see themselves in the forms in which they 
 would afterwards die. 
 
 The miraculous wonders attendant on the 
 eleven thousand virgins, whose bones are exhi- 
 bited in another church at Cologne ; the drops 
 of blood still shown at Bruges as the real blood 
 of our Lord ; the extraordinary theft of the 
 holy wafer by certain Jews, the puncture of 
 which spouted out blood, represented on the 
 windows of the cathedral church of Brussels : 
 together with a thousand phenomena of the 
 same order, believed by the multitude, but 
 laughed at or deplored by the more intelligent 
 are familiar to all who have travelled on the 
 continent. 
 
 The exhibition of the holy coat of Treves 
 has originated, within our own day, a class of 
 reformers, disgusted with the mummery of a 
 senseless religion, though unhappily distin- 
 guished by no love for evangelical truth. This 
 coat, professing to be the seamless vesture of 
 
COAT OF TREVES. 161 
 
 our Lord, " woven from the top throughout," 
 was first shown in 1196. For three hundred 
 years after that time the coat was never dis- 
 played, but Leo x., in 1514, authorized a 
 new exhibition. At the time of the French 
 revolution the garment was secreted ; but 
 when, subsequently, the Khenish provinces 
 were adjusted, it became the subject of a 
 special treaty. It was again displayed in 1810. 
 Besides this relic, there was then displayed 
 one of the nails of the true cross. A more 
 notorious demonstration was made in 1844, 
 and complete absolution (an equivocal term, 
 asserted by the priests to mean nothing, but by 
 the people everything,) was, in accordance 
 with the pope's bull, given to each worshipper. 
 Outrageous and profane spectacle ! which, by 
 setting up the external in the place of the 
 spiritual, hid the Saviour behind his own 
 cross. The accounts of the crowding multi- 
 tudes gathered together to behold this sight 
 must be sought for in other volumes. The 
 relic was inclosed in a golden and glazed 
 frame, (its colour being brown, as if long stained 
 by age,) and each pilgrim was allowed to insert 
 his hand through an opening, and so to touch it. 
 Was it wonderful if such a scene should have 
 awakened in inquiring minds a sensation some- 
 what resembling that which followed the 
 preaching of indulgences by Tetzel ? But how 
 wide, in point of gospel power, has been the 
 difference between the "second Eeformation ,, 
 and the first ! It was not by unsubstantial doubt 
 14* • 
 
162 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 that Luther prevailed ; it was by something 
 earnestly believed. But Tationalism has no 
 creed, and, therefore, no extended influence. 
 It is a system of negations — at least of hesi- 
 tations ; positive truth alone omnipotent. 
 
 We cannot undertake even to enumerate the 
 various delusions which a papistical super- 
 stition has, under the name of religion, palmed 
 upon the world. The Crusades, which exerted 
 so important an influence over the aspects of 
 the then existing society, merit a volume to 
 themselves.* When Peter the Hermit, journey- 
 ing from province to province, first represented 
 the injuries received by monks and pilgrims 
 from the Saracens then occupying the Holy 
 Land, he kindled a contagious enthusiasm 
 which is altogether without parallel. Nobles, 
 princes, sovereigns, hastened in a transport of 
 excitement to assume the cross, and, during 
 two centuries, the western provinces of Europe 
 were but the highroad to the " kings of the east." 
 
 Nor have we allowed ourselves room even to 
 mention those various other absurdities— that 
 farrago of miraculous rubbish — which, in 
 every age, have constituted the stock-in-trade of 
 Romanism. Eadiant saints and winking Ma- 
 donnas ; visions of supernatural light ; pictures 
 which bleed when touched, and marks of the 
 five wounds impressed upon the bodies of 
 enthusiastic votaries — such delusions, whether 
 of more or less modern fashion, whencesoever 
 
 * See volume on " The Crusades," in the present monthly 
 series. 
 
SABBATAI SEVA. 163 
 
 imported, and by whomsoever, do nothing to 
 commend a pure and spiritual religion to man- 
 kind. 
 
 The leading particulars of the gigantic im- 
 posture of Mohammed may be found already 
 narrated in a volume of this series. The 
 attempts recently made to whitewash the cha- 
 racter of this renowned deceiver have been 
 manifestly unsuccessful, and can only be 
 regarded with favour by those who hold that 
 "it is no matter whether there be a God or 
 not." Mohammed's first principle of promul- 
 gating his religion by gentle and peaceful 
 means was notoriously violated by himself in 
 the course of his after career, whilst the hypo- 
 critical means by which he introduced succes- 
 sive pretended revelations to sanction the 
 impulses of his ambition or his lust, stamp his 
 character with undying infamy. Strange as, 
 in many respects, the progress of this delusion 
 has been, we must not forget that it was the 
 interpolation with his own lying materials of 
 many of the nobler precepts of the religion of 
 God, which alone imparted to it influence. 
 
 About the middle of the seventeenth centmy, 
 great excitement was caused among European 
 Jews by the claims of Sabbatai Seva, who 
 declared that he was the Messiah of that 
 ancient people. Though renouncing, in the 
 face of the wonderful accordance of fact with 
 prophecy, the demands of Jesus to be regarded 
 as the predicted Messiah, that ancient people 
 have ever shown a remarkable disposition to 
 
164 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 believe in false prophets. Seva was the son of 
 a merchant of Smyrna, and after a somewhat 
 erratic course in the earlier period of his life, 
 declared himself to be the long-expected one of 
 the Jews. He was assisted in this imposture 
 by one Nathan, who personated the character 
 of Elijah, Messiah's precursor. The 26th of 
 June was fixed as the period of manifestation ; 
 and it was announced that at that time the 
 Messiah would sit upon the throne of the grand 
 signor. The deception succeeded to a large 
 extent, and multitudes of the Jews engaged in 
 preparatory acts of devotion, and expected their 
 deliverer. But the chief men alone were sus- 
 picious, denouncing Sabbatai as an impostor, 
 and they consequently exposed themselves to 
 great unpopularity among the mass of their 
 brethren. Sabbatai in the mean time advanced 
 from prediction to asserted miracle. As a 
 pillar of fire had guided the Israelites on their 
 first emancipation from Egypt, so, it was de- 
 clared, a similar spectacle should herald them 
 back to the scenes of their former glory. Such 
 a portent, Sabbatai said, had already greeted 
 him, though he alone had been able to discern 
 it. Yet this was believed on his own uncorro- 
 borated testimony. He next determined to 
 visit Constantinople, there to proclaim his new 
 mission. But his claims had given some un- 
 easiness to the Sublime Porte, and instead of a 
 triumphant entry, the impostor only found in 
 that ancient city chains and prison-darkness. 
 He was summoned at length before the grand 
 
ENTHUSIASTS AT MUNSTER. 165 
 
 signor, and told, that nothing less than a mira- 
 cle would save him from being punished for 
 wilful deception. The test to which he was 
 exposed was severe. He was ordered to be 
 stripped naked, and it was declared, that if 
 when shot at by marksmen he remained unhurt, 
 his Messiahship should be immediately acknow- 
 ledged. The impostor quailed and confessed. 
 But this was not all. He was ordered to 
 be immediately impaled, unless he renounced 
 Judaism and embraced Mohammedanism. To 
 this also Sabbatai consented, declaring that to 
 become a Turk was an honour he had long 
 coveted. Such was the disgraceful unveiling of 
 this " speaker of lies in hypocrisy !" 
 
 Several other pretenders to the Messiahship 
 of the Jews have since appeared — amongst 
 which may be distinguished Hans Eosenfeld, a 
 German, who for this offence was whipped and 
 imprisoned for life ; and Richard Brothers, who, 
 in the latter part of the last century, found a 
 home in Bedlam. 
 
 The dreadful extravagances practised at 
 Munster, in 1533, if not well attested, would 
 seem almost incredible. Certain so-called 
 religionists, with whose impieties no sect in the 
 present day can be legitimately associated, pro- 
 claimed that a new Jerusalem was to be set up 
 in that city, which was to attract the whole 
 earth to its influence. As they were pretty 
 numerous, and did not disdain the use of carnal 
 weapons, they put down the magistrates, and 
 occupied their places, whilst they filled the 
 
166 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 whole city with crime and outrage, proclaiming 
 a general community of goods, the abolition of 
 all distinctions or rank, and general polygamy. 
 With such delusions any civil society must be 
 manifestly a thing impossible, and religion 
 itself could not long exist when its administra- 
 tion was taken into the hands of those who 
 vindicated every enormity by the pretence of a 
 special revelation from heaven. Against such 
 doctrines, therefore, the early Eeformers, and 
 amongst others Melancthon, lifted their loudest 
 protests. From Munster, however, the flame of 
 disaffection spread into Holland, where John of 
 Ley den, already notorious for the part he had 
 taken in the first insurrection, was proclaimed 
 the apostle of this insane and dangerous mission, 
 attended by twelve disciples, most of whom 
 were women. This man claimed, by authority 
 from heaven, to be king over the whole earth, 
 avowing that he was commissioned to raise an 
 army which should put down the unbelieving 
 powers of this world. He was at length be- 
 sieged in Munster by its bishop, count Waldeck. 
 For a long time the city held out under his 
 influence. But John of Leyden was at last 
 betrayed ; an entrance was treacherously 
 effected into the city, and the leaders of the 
 insurrection were punished by exquisite tor- 
 ments, their flesh being torn from their bones 
 with red-hot pincers, whilst their mangled 
 remains were exhibited in iron cages. In this 
 insurrection, joined as it was by many who 
 were smarting under severe civil oppressions, 
 
FRENCH PROPHETS. 167 
 
 it is calculated that not fewer than a hundred 
 thousand perished. 
 
 In the year 1707, Dr. Calamy, the well- 
 known Nonconformist minister, writes thus 
 concerning a sect which appeared in his day : — 
 
 " About this time we had a mighty noise 
 about us concerning new prophets risen up, 
 that foretold strange and heavy judgments. 
 They were for bringing in a new dispensation 
 in religion, and had many admirers and fol- 
 lowers. This fancy had been at work in France 
 in 1703, and many fell in with it. Some of 
 them coming in England in 1706, with great 
 vigour and earnestness, endeavoured to spread 
 their notions here, where they were but too 
 well entertained ; their common cry among us 
 was, that this new prophetic dispensation was 
 to be proclaimed in every nation under heaven, 
 beginning in England, and to be manifested 
 over the whole earth within the short time of 
 three years." These people were called "French 
 Prophets." One of their adherents was called 
 Lacy, and was well known to the doctor. This 
 man imagined himself inspired. But one Elias 
 Marion was the most conspicuous. He claimed 
 the right to deal out the judgments of Heaven, 
 and to discover the hidden secrets of the future. 
 Dr. Calamy gives a prolonged account of the 
 strange " agitations" which accompanied their 
 prophetical utterances, and of their claims to 
 miraculous gifts, and even to raise the dead. 
 By prophesying in the streets they attracted 
 much attention, and made many converts; and 
 
168 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 when they denounced constituted authorities, 
 there were some who greedily listened. Several 
 of them were fined, and exposed on the pillory. 
 This sect, having little of doctrine to subsist 
 on, soon died away. 
 
 The miracles said to have been performed at 
 the tomb of the abbe Paris would be scarcely 
 worthy of mention, but for the use made of 
 them by certain sceptics of a former day. This 
 man was a pious Jansenist, whose devoutness 
 had gained for him high reputation. After his 
 death, extraordinary cures were asserted to have 
 been performed on those who made a pilgrimage 
 to his tomb. Most of these were the results of 
 strong imagination, operating on the physical 
 frames of persons afEicted by a certain class of 
 ailments, and were such cures as gave, within 
 a more recent day, notoriety to the names of 
 prince Hohenlohe and others. It is well known 
 how, for a time at least, bed-ridden and infirm 
 persons have been made, under the impulses of 
 a strong credulity, to recover the suspended 
 use of their bodily functions. Similar results 
 were in this case witnessed. By drinking of 
 the well consecrated by the memory of the 
 abbe, people were also thrown into violent 
 convulsions — a phenomenon by no means 
 unusual when the sympathetic emotions are 
 strongly appealed to. Tortures, only to be 
 equalled by those of the Brahminical Hindoos, 
 were voluntarily submitted to by others of these 
 visionaries, with a courage worthy of a better 
 cause. 
 
JOANNA SOUTHCOTT. 169 
 
 Many now living will well remember the 
 freaks and impostures of Joanna Southcott, and 
 there are yet to be seen, in the streets of some 
 of our towns, men whose long beards, unat- 
 tended by the usually accompanying Jewish 
 physiognomy, proclaim them to be the fol- 
 lowers of that ignorant and guilty woman. 
 Her story and pretensions were, in brief, the 
 following. She declared herself to have re- 
 ceived a Divine commission, as the mother of the 
 Messiah, who was shortly to appear on earth ; 
 and she succeeded, by the influence which 
 usually attends a confident imposture, in per- 
 suading multitudes of ignorant, with some better 
 taught persons, of the truth of her pretensions. 
 She professed, that by her agency and that of 
 her child, the visions of the book of the Reve- 
 lations were speedily to be fulfilled upon earth. 
 At the same time, she claimed the right to pre- 
 sent to the sealed ones the credentials of their 
 acceptance, and in a handwriting, which dis- 
 played her ignorance, and was barely legible, 
 issued certificates to her followers. Contrary 
 to the assured belief of her disciples, however, 
 she died without giving birth to the Messiah ; 
 and though her body was kept unburied till the 
 most active signs of decomposition appeared, 
 many refused to believe in her death, and, after 
 her burial, many more asserted that she would 
 rise again, and bound themselves by a vow not 
 to shave their beards till this consummation. 
 What bounds can be set to the extension of 
 human folly? 
 
 If 
 
170 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Easy would it be to add to the names already 
 given a large list of those who, under the 
 influence of an enthusiasm in which inten- 
 tional deception had no place, have yielded 
 themselves up to religious delusions, and suc- 
 ceeded oftentimes in rendering others partakers 
 in their folly. It is incredible to what extra- 
 vagancies v men may be led by the influence of 
 diseased self-esteem. Even in ordinary inter- 
 course with society, a sagacious observer must 
 have known many who are utterly incapable 
 of deliberately violating truth, and yet who so 
 torture the smallest occurrences into self-flat- 
 tery, as to derive incense from the most insig- 
 nificant sources. Let this predisposition be- 
 come but connected with the religious element, 
 and such persons readily imagine themselves 
 the inspired prophets of the Divine will, though 
 their only warrant for believing so is their own 
 self-confidence. It cannot be too strongly im- 
 pressed upon the mind, that religion is a system 
 of external evidences, as well as of internal 
 experience ; that it is as much objective, as it is 
 subjective; that its revelations are not only sus- 
 tained by inward consciousness, but by pro- 
 phecy, miracle, contemporaneous testimon} 7 , 
 and a world-wide adaptation. As we dwell on 
 the pages which record the progress of reli- 
 gious delusion, how strong is sometimes the 
 desire that we could subject its promoters — not 
 to the tortures of the red-hot pincers, or the 
 boots, or pilliewinkies of former times — but to 
 a searching cross-examination as to their visions 
 
THE BUCHANITES. 171 
 
 themselves — the motives of love of applause by 
 which they might have been influenced — the 
 state of health in which they were at the 
 moment — the tests they would apply to sepa- 
 rate their own convictions from the impositions 
 of credulity — and the Scriptural warrant for 
 believing their practices true. Under such a 
 process, powerfully pursued, and unless he were 
 raving mad, which is very likely, we imagine 
 St. Simeon Stylites would come down from his 
 pillar, St. Anthony would cease to preach to 
 the little fishes, Emanuel Swedenborg would 
 abandon his unintelligible mysticism, Boehmen 
 his religious jugglery. But these spirits are 
 now beyond us, and elude our grasp. They 
 have gone where delusion mocks no more, 
 and self stands no longer in the place of God. 
 Let us beware how we regard the illusory as if 
 it were real. Let us cultivate with special 
 urgency the influences which belong to Him 
 who is called " the Spirit of truth." 
 
 The religious delusions of the last century 
 W T ould not be complete without a passing 
 reference to the Buchanites, named after a 
 person called Buchan, who, in 1783, professed 
 herself the woman spoken of in the twelfth 
 chapter of the Kevelation, and promised to her 
 followers that they should not taste death. 
 Their influence was very limited and transient, 
 and they were soon forgotten. 
 
 The delusions possessing the body called 
 11 Mormonites, or Latter-day Saints," are some 
 of the most extraordinary of any we have 
 
172 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 related. As its pernicious errors have exten- 
 sively spread, a more detailed exposure of them 
 may be useful. This sect originated with one 
 Joseph Smith, who, though he was, perhaps, at 
 a subsequent time partially the dupe of his own 
 delusions, began his course as an impostor of the 
 blackest order. Hypocrisy is seldom found 
 unmixed, and the most atrocious deceivers are 
 usually, in some important respects, self-deluded. 
 Joseph Smith was born in the state of Vermont, 
 (U.S.) in the year 1805, and though an illiterate 
 man, who could scarcely read and write, was 
 possessed of great talents, which he afterwards 
 used for the most injurious purposes. The 
 whole family to which he belonged were loose 
 and unsettled, incapable of industrious applica- 
 tion, and seeking their livelihood by digging 
 for treasures supposed to be deposited in the 
 earth by the ancient buccaneers. In these 
 exploits Smith distinguished himself as a clair- 
 voyant. Putting a certain stone, to which he 
 attached much value, into his hat, and then 
 hiding his head in it, he professed to be able to 
 point out the quarters in which the search of 
 his friends would be most successful. But 
 as deception is suggestive and accumulative, 
 Joseph Smith advanced from one lie to another. 
 He pretended to receive visions from Heaven, 
 and though not yet fourteen years old, he found 
 those who were ready to give credence to 
 his tale. These visions, however, did not alter 
 the course of his life, which was at this time, 
 according to the admissions of his own people, 
 
THE MORMONITES. 173 
 
 vain and abandoned. He pretended to have 
 been Divinely told, that the American Indians 
 were descendants of the ancient Israel — the 
 colour of their skins having been miraculously 
 changed in punishment for their transgressions ; 
 that they had emigrated to America at an early 
 period of the world's history ; that their records 
 were Divinely preserved, and constituted a book 
 of revelation from God ; and that he himself, if 
 found faithful, should be employed to exhibit 
 these records to the world. In process of time, 
 another revelation, he declared, told him where 
 this sacred book was deposited, and Joseph Smith 
 communicated the information he had received 
 to his father and brothers. The father insisted 
 that they should immediately go to the indicated 
 spot, and satisfy themselves of the existence of 
 this extraordinary volume. The family went 
 accordingly, and dug up the ground with im- 
 plements provided for the purpose. But when 
 the chest had just met their view, it was super- 
 naturally removed out of their sight. Again 
 they disinterred .it, but amidst thunder and 
 lightning the same process was repeated, and 
 they fled in terror to their home. Joseph alone 
 remained behind them. As he was slowly 
 returning to his house, he encountered a dread- 
 ful vision of an angel, who in a fearful voice 
 spoke to him, whilst lightning was flashing 
 around, upbraiding him for the disobedience 
 of which he had been guilty, in communicating 
 the dreadful secret. He was afterwards sent 
 alone to the spot, and was commanded to take the 
 15* 
 
174 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 chest, and to bury it under his hearthstone, but 
 forbidden to investigate its contents. Together 
 with the book, he professed to have found two 
 stones, designated in his first narratives a pair 
 of spectacles, but afterwards termed " the Urim 
 and Thummim" — -"two transparent stones set 
 in the two rims of a bow," which were to 
 enable him to decipher these wonderful records. 
 Dr. Authon, of whom we shall speak hereafter, 
 relates : — " The w r ay that Smith made his 
 translations and transcripts was the following : 
 Although in the same room, a thick curtain 
 or blanket was suspended between them, and 
 Smith, concealed behind the blanket, pretended 
 to look through his spectacles or transparent 
 stones, and would then write down or repeat 
 what he saw, which, when repeated aloud, was 
 written down." The severest judgments were 
 denounced against the scribe, if he should pre- 
 sume to draw near to, or even to look upon 
 Smith, whilst thus dictating. One Sidney 
 Rigdon was largely engaged in this work of 
 transcription, and at length, under these aus- 
 pices, what is called " The Book of Mormon" 
 was brought forth to the world as a new 
 revelation. It professes to have been found 
 written on golden plates, in a mysterious 
 character, which only Smith himself was able 
 to read, and he simply by a supernatural 
 impulse. Its contents relate to different pe- 
 riods, and contain fifteen books, the produc- 
 tions of as many authors. It comprehends 
 a period of a thousand years, from the time 
 
THE MORMONITES. 175 
 
 of Zedekiah, king of Judah, down to the 
 year 420. 
 
 About the same time, a document was put 
 forth, bearing the names of Oliver Cowdery, 
 David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, declaring 
 that an angel from heaven had showed them 
 the golden plates, and commanded them to 
 bear witness to J. Smith's testimony. Simul- 
 taneously, another paper was put forth by 
 eight other witnesses, declaring that they had 
 seen the plates, which bore the appearance of 
 gold, and that they had also seen the engrav- 
 ings upon them. Such, then, is the basis of 
 the Mormon imposture. Joseph Smith, who 
 appears to have had Mohammed in his eye, 
 and to have imitated some of his leading trans- 
 actions, professes a new revelation ; declares 
 that an angel from heaven has directed him to 
 a Divine book, long hidden from the world ; 
 supports his declaration by bringing forward 
 three witnesses, who avow they have seen an 
 angel, who corroborates Smith's statements, 
 and eight others who declare that they have 
 seen the golden volume. But it remains invi- 
 sible to all other eyes, and is, as the Mormonites 
 pretend, divinely shut up from the view of all 
 besides. On this testimony the Book of Mor- 
 mon claims to be received as a special revela- 
 tion from God. 
 
 Now the absence of the book itself, it must 
 be obvious, gives the complete lie to the whole 
 transaction. Such a pretence as that of Smith 
 demands the largest proof — the most open pub- 
 
176 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 licity. Christianity could say, " These things 
 were not done in a corner." Mormonism, on 
 the contrary, is the most " hole and corner 
 device" imaginable. Christianity is, it is true, 
 dependent on testimony, as Mormonism pro- 
 fesses to be. But the testimony which sup- 
 ported Christianity was a testimony borne in the 
 most open and the strongest manner. Our Lord 
 had been crucified by the Jews and buried ; his 
 disciples declared him risen again, and asserted 
 that he had so proved his Divinity. Not three 
 only, but " above ^ve hundred brethren at 
 once," were ready to prove that they had seen 
 him. The disciples bore this testimony in 
 Jerusalem, before our Lord's very crucifiers, in 
 the most repeated form, and when the produc- 
 tion of the body of Jesus would have silenced 
 them at once, such a proof could never be 
 made. Mormonism, on the contrary, produces 
 three witnesses, who bear witness to an appear- 
 ance which might have been delusive, and if 
 not an invention altogether, has not strength 
 enough to influence the world in its favour. 
 They say that they have seen the engravings 
 and the plates, and they declare that an ange! 
 brought them from heaven. But they do not 
 declare that they saw the angel — only that he 
 came and laid the plates before their eyes. The 
 statement is so loose that one wonders at the 
 amount of credit it has received. There was 
 obviously nothing in Smith's previous character 
 to render it unlikely that he should invent the 
 whole story. All testimonies concur in repre- 
 
THE MORMONITES. 177 
 
 senting his former life to have been abandoned 
 and dissolute, and his own followers confess 
 that his life was not irreproachable subse- 
 quently even to his first revelation. The Mor- 
 mon writers lay great stress on the unlikeliness 
 of so young a man inventing such a lie. But 
 the improbability is altogether imaginary. The 
 annals of deception furnish many much younger 
 criminals. 
 
 If we examine the names of the witnesses, 
 namely, of the three affixed to the first paper, 
 and of the eight subjoined to the second, Ave 
 shall find that of the three first, one was Smith's 
 amanuensis, (Cowdery,) one probably either a 
 relative or intimate connexion, (Whitmer,) and 
 one an amanuensis and a dupe, (Harris,) and 
 that of the eight others, four were Whitmer' s 
 and three Smith's own family. The majority 
 were thus unprejudiced witnesses truly ! ! It 
 may be observed respecting Martin Harris, who 
 perhaps was the most honest of the group, that 
 he was evidently one of the weakest of men. 
 " A gentleman of Palmyra, bred to the law, a 
 professor of religion, and of undoubted vera- 
 city," is reported on good authority to have 
 " appealed to Harris, and to have asked him 
 directly, i Did you see those plates?' Harris 
 replied he did. ' Did you see the plates and 
 the engravings on them with your bodily eyes ?' 
 Harris replied, ' Yes, I saw them with my 
 eyes ; they were shown me by the power of God 
 and not of man.' ' But did you see them with 
 your natural, your bodily eyes, just as you see 
 
178 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 this pencil-case in my hand ? Now say yes or 
 no to this?' Harris replied, * Why I did not 
 see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw 
 them with the eye of faith; 1 saw them just as 
 distinctly as I see anything around me, though 
 at the time they were covered over with a cloth?" 
 At the time the pretended finding of these 
 books took place, this man applied to professor 
 Authon, a man of large reputation as a scholar, 
 informing him that " a gold book, consisting of 
 a number of plates fastened together by wires 
 of the same material, had been dug up in the 
 northern part of the state of New York, and 
 along with it an enormous pair of spectacles. 
 These spectacles were so large that if any per- 
 son attempted to look through them, his two 
 eyes would look through one glass only. . . 
 4 Whoever, 7 he said, * examined the plates 
 through the glasses was enabled not only to 
 read them but fully to understand their mean- 
 ing.' " Harris, moreover, said, that having been 
 requested to contribute a sum of money for the 
 publication of the said book, he had come to 
 ask the professor to counsel him on the contents 
 of a paper he had brought with him, which 
 professed to be an extract from this mysterious 
 volume. The professor regarded the matter 
 first as a hoax, and then as a cheat. The 
 paper consisted of " all kinds of crooked cha- 
 racters," composed of different ancient alphabets, 
 and ending with " the rude delineation of a 
 circle, divided into various compartments, 
 decked with various strange marks, and evi- 
 
THE MOBMONITES. 179 
 
 dently copied after the Mexican calendar given 
 by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not 
 to betray the source whence it was derived. 1 ' 
 Subsequently the professor advised Harris to go 
 to a magistrate, and have the whole affair 
 examined. This he declined to do, stating his 
 conviction that the curse of God would rest 
 upon him if he did so. Such is the testimony 
 of professor Authon. By what means Harris 
 was afterwards induced to affix his name to the 
 paper which professed that he had seen the 
 plates is unknown, but the process taken with 
 so weak a man is not inconceivable. 
 
 It may appear strange that an illiterate man 
 like Smith should have been able to invent 
 a story such as that contained in the Book of 
 Mormon. But there are other circumstances 
 which explain the wonder. It appears that, in 
 the year 1809, one Solomon Spaulding, who had 
 been previously a clergyman, set himself to 
 compose a religious tale, based upon the assumed 
 fact that the North American Indians were 
 descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. As he 
 proceeded in his story, he read portions of his 
 manuscript to his neighbours, who became 
 greatly interested in it, especially in that part 
 in which he fictitiously related how he had 
 found an ancient record, imitating the style of 
 the Old Testament. This volume was after- 
 wards put into the hands of a bookseller for 
 publication, and whilst there was copied by 
 Sidney Rigdon, who it is to be observed was 
 one of the promoters of the Mormon imposture. 
 
180 KEMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Spaulding's brother declared that the pretended 
 Scriptures were altogether compiled from his 
 deceased brother's manuscript. The widow of 
 Spaulding bore the same testimony ; and it is 
 added that the neighbours to whom the original 
 tale had been read, instantly recognised the 
 production w T ith which they had been heretofore 
 familiar as incorporated in the Book of Mormon 
 which came forth from Joseph Smith as a new 
 revelation from Heaven. Eigdon denied, indeed, 
 the whole transaction, but in so abusive a 
 style and manner as by no means to add to our 
 conviction of his veracity. 
 
 The manner in which this pretended revela- 
 tion is compiled, is extremely clumsy and 
 illiterate. Such phrases as the following are 
 frequent : — " I saith unto them" — " these things 
 had not ought to be" — " ye saith unto him" — 
 "ye are like unto they." The mariner's com- 
 pass is spoken of as having piloted these ancient 
 Israelites upon their voyage, though well-known 
 not to have been applied as a nautical instru- 
 ment until many ages later than the professed 
 period. The Messiah is called by names not 
 known at all to the ancient Hebrews, and of 
 well-known Greek origin. 
 
 What are the doctrines of the books them- 
 selves? If the Book of Mormon have any 
 moral power, it is derived from its appropriation 
 of Scriptural truth which it admits, though its 
 interpretation grossly garbles the contents of 
 the sacred volume. It receives the doctrine of 
 atonement and of punishment for sin, and it 
 
THE MORMONITES. 181 
 
 avows a code of pure morality. But certain 
 allegations borne to the conduct of some of its 
 followers, even of Smith himself, have tended 
 to throw considerable suspicion upon the prac- 
 tice of the most eminent of its apostles. Mor- 
 monism enunciates an entirely new system of 
 church government, dividing its priesthood 
 into two branches, each consisting of many 
 officers — the Melchisedec and the Aaronic 
 priesthood. In these offices, Joseph Smith, as 
 might be expected, bears the pre-eminence. It 
 lays great stress on baptism for remission of 
 sins. It regards the church as a living inter- 
 preter of revelation. It interprets the Hebrew 
 Scriptures literally, never symbolically. It 
 therefore believes that God possesses a human 
 form, which doctrine is avowed in all its 
 creeds and catechisms. It sets up a great 
 scheme of worldly polity, to which it believes 
 that all the inhabitants of the earth will become 
 ultimately subject, and which affords peculiar 
 advantages to its founders and leaders. 3* 
 declares that " no one can possibly be saved 
 and reject" its messages. Against all forms 
 and creeds it wages, therefore, the most offensive 
 and deadly warfare ; labouring thus to uproot 
 and destroy all the seeds of piety sown in the 
 hearts of men. Of all spiritual religion — the 
 religion of the heart — it is mainly ignorant, 
 the visible and external being the leading 
 objects of its ambition. How different % from 
 the system of which it shall not be said, " Lo 
 here, or lo there," but whose seat is ivithin ! 
 16 
 
182 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 Only the religion which can change men's 
 hearts is that which can convert the world. 
 Mormonism is, in short, a religion which, adopt- 
 ing much of the contents of God's word, hacks 
 and hews it to its own purposes, and makes it 
 the foundation of an organization purely secular 
 and ambitious, and tending greatly to the ad- 
 vantage of its founder. 
 
 Besides all this, Mormonism recognises the 
 working of miracles as attesting its Divine 
 origin, though its miracles are of such a kind 
 as sometimes to excite ridicule, and to be 
 seldom capable of proof or of disproof, consist- 
 ing mainly in the alleged casting out of evil 
 spirits, or the cure of malignant diseases. Such 
 wonders often arise out of the faith of the 
 operator alone. 
 
 The history of Mormonism is, however, very 
 singular, and affords a remarkable proof how 
 persecution may lift into eminence the system 
 against which its attacks are directed. Basing 
 his sjrstem on such pretensions as we have 
 detailed, Joseph Smith soon found himself the 
 head of a growing sect. From the 1st of 
 June, 1830, when its numbers were thirty, it. 
 advanced like the religion of Mohammed, in 
 regularly increasing development. As it grew, 
 the opposition against it became loud and 
 vehement, and men, disgusted with its preten- 
 sions, attacked it with a violence which savoured 
 altogether of this world. Smith travelled about 
 in search of a location for his contemplated set- 
 tlement, not without some misunderstandings 
 
THE MORMONITES. 183 
 
 among his own people, but exposed to an 
 incessant fire of persecution from his indig- 
 nant enemies. A mob dragged him from 
 his bed in a village called " Hiram," and 
 violently tarred him and some of his followers. 
 The same mob tracked his footsteps, caused 
 riots wherever a Mormon settlement was found, 
 sacked the houses of the religionists, and 
 compelled them to emigrate into distant coun- 
 tries. Such proceedings as these of course 
 excited sympathy and furnished undeserved 
 power to the new sect ; and though the public 
 authorities reprobated the persecution, it was 
 easily put by the Mormons to the discredit of 
 the old sects. The expatriated people moved 
 into the state of Missouri. Whilst there, the 
 following entry occurs in one of the journals of 
 the elder accompanying the prophet. It will 
 be understood as bearing reference to the 
 meteoric appearances w T ell-known to philoso- 
 phers as characterising the month of Novem- 
 ber, and may be taken as an example of the 
 whole delusion : — 
 
 " November 13. — About four o'clock, a.m., 
 I was awakened by brother Davis knocking at 
 my door, and calling on me to arise, and behold 
 the signs in the heavens. I arose, and to my 
 great joy beheld the stars fall from heaven like 
 a shower of hail-stones — a literal fulfilment o* 
 the word of God, recorded in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, as a sure sign that the coming of Christ 
 is close at hand." 
 
 Such were the delusions which impressed 
 
184 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 the minds of the Mormon leaders, and were by 
 them communicated to their people. 
 
 In the midst of dangers such as those to 
 which he was exposed, Joseph Smith began to 
 organize his followers into a body-guard to 
 defend him against his enemies. His brother, 
 Hiram Smith, was nominated captain, and 
 another brother, George Smith, held the office 
 of armour-bearer. Such measures on Smith's 
 part provoked corresponding ones on the side 
 of his enemies. An antagonist force was rapidly 
 raised, and one of the leaders of this band swore 
 to destroy Smith and his army. Before he 
 could accomplish this threat, however, the man 
 was drowned in the midst of the Missouri 
 river — an event which Smith did not fail to 
 regard as a just punishment of his foe. Soon 
 after this event, the cholera broke out in the 
 Mormon army. At first, Smith endeavoured to 
 cure it by the power which he supposed to be 
 vested in himself, but he soon learned that the 
 disease was quite beyond his influence, and 
 thirteen of his band were removed by it. 
 About the same time, Smith was accused by 
 some of his own followers of prophesying lies, 
 and appropriating the money of his people. He 
 met the charge boldly, however, and the accuser 
 retracted the charge. 
 
 Joseph Smith is accused of having fled from 
 his debts in Kirtland, where his first settlement 
 had been, in the middle of the night, leaving 
 his creditors to do as they could. This trans- 
 action was followed by a great schism among 
 
THE MORMONITES. 185 
 
 bis people themselves, led on by two of the 
 
 three who had signed the first paper testifying 
 to the authenticity of the books of Mormon, 
 in alliance with whom was Sidney Rigdon. But 
 the last was deep in Joseph Smith's secrets, and 
 was soon forgiven. The persecution of the 
 body in the meantime continued. Obstruc- 
 tions being offered to the right of voting in 
 political elections by the enemies of Smith, a 
 regular series of assaults took place, which 
 lasted during several weeks. In the end, an 
 attempt was made to massacre the Mormons. 
 
 The Mormons now began to establish them- 
 selves in Illinois, where they formed a town, 
 which they called " Nauvoo," or beautiful. Of 
 this town Smith was appointed mayor, and in 
 addition to his titles of prophet and president, 
 was also termed lieutenant-general. 
 
 In 1837, Mormonism began first to make 
 head in England, and in that year made many 
 converts among the ignorant and weak-minded, 
 principally in the manufacturing districts. Those 
 who looked to religion for a system of external 
 advantage and polity, saw much in this new 
 system which corresponded with their views. 
 In 1841, Joseph Smith directed, under inspira- 
 tion, as he termed it, the construction of a 
 magnificent temple at Nauvoo, to which he 
 invited contributions from ail quarters. It was 
 well situated, and of large proportions, and a 
 million of dollars were expended upon its 
 construction. 
 
 Among other descriptions given at this time 
 16* 
 
186 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 of the prophet, is one delivered by a public 
 lecturer, named Newhall, who was present at a 
 review of his army by Smith himself, attended 
 by " six ladies on horseback, who were dressed 
 in black velvet, and wore waving plumes of 
 white feathers, and rode up and down in front 
 of the regiment." The prophet himself is called 
 " very sociable, easy, cheerful, obliging, and 
 kind, and very hospitable — in a word, a jolly 
 fellow, and one of the last persons whom he 
 would have supposed God would have raised up 
 as a prophet or priest." 
 
 It was about this time that one of the leaders 
 of the Mormonites, Sidney Kigdon, promulged 
 the abhorrent doctrine of plurality of wives, in 
 imitation of Mohammed himself — a doctrine 
 which Smith was regarded as greatly favouring. 
 Smith, now at the very height of his ambi- 
 tion, was put forward as a candidate for the 
 presidentship of the United States, and pub- 
 lished what he termed " General Smith's Views 
 of the Government and Policy of the United 
 States." It is needless to say that his preten- 
 sions were regarded in the main with contempt. 
 Soon after this, the accusation against Smith of 
 promoting the " spiritual wife " doctrine, sus- 
 tained as it was by the affidavits of sixteen 
 persons, led to the destruction by the Mormons 
 of the newspaper which had published them, 
 and thence to a serious conflict between the 
 Mormonites of Nauvoo and the surrounding 
 inhabitants, in the course of which Joseph 
 Smith and his brother were shot. The pro- 
 
THE MORMONITES. 187 
 
 phet's death gave to him a power which it is 
 probable his life, had it been prolonged, would 
 have utterly prevented — he became enshrined 
 and worshipped. 
 
 After the death of Joseph Smith, Sidney 
 Rio-don endeavoured to vault into the vacant 
 
 o 
 
 chair. His reputation was, however, so low, 
 that this was found to be impossible. He was 
 expelled from the society, and Brigham Young 
 was appointed the leader — a post which he still 
 holds. 
 
 Again the Mormon body were compelled to 
 emigrate. They were driven from Nauvoo, 
 and have now fixed their residence at Deseret, 
 in the vicinity of California, in the great salt 
 water lake valley, which they first reached 
 after incredible troubles and privations. They 
 have formed here a large and increasing settle- 
 ment ; they have built an enormous temple ; 
 they are said to have been the first who profited 
 by the gold found in California, and they have 
 established a perpetual emigration fund, to aid 
 those from all countries who are attracted by 
 the hope of an earthly paradise. The latest 
 account of them is given by Mr. Kelly, who, in 
 his " Excursion to California," gives no very 
 favourable description of the morals of the new 
 settlement. If only half the narratives given of 
 the practices of the leaders be true, they will 
 demonstrate the fact that chastity and purity 
 have no true basis among them. It is indeed 
 true that the Mormonite books profess to abjure 
 such practices. But a new revelation is with 
 
188 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 them always possible, and who can say what 
 vices it may sanction? 
 
 Melancholy as are these illustrations of delu- 
 sions connected with religion, the student of the 
 word of God will see in them only a fulfilment 
 of many warnings which that Divine record 
 contains upon this subject. " The Spirit 
 speaketh -expressly, that in the latter times 
 some shall depart from the faith, giving heed 
 to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ; 
 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their con- 
 science seared with a hot iron." A corrupt 
 state of the heart is the prolific source from 
 which these delusions spring. There is a want 
 among their votaries of an earnest, simple- 
 minded, child-like desire to attain to the truth, 
 and mingled, as this often is, with the indul- 
 gence of some known sin, it ends in the judicial 
 surrender of the victim to a strong delusion to 
 believe a lie. Those, however, who earnestly 
 and with uprightness of purpose seek to know 
 the Lord, no such delusions will be permitted 
 to entangle. The promise of God standeth 
 sure, that they who seek him with their whole 
 heart shall surely find him. The highway of 
 holiness that leadeth to His kingdom is so plain, 
 that a labouring man, though a fool, shall not 
 err therein. 
 
CONCLUSION, 189 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Our illustrations of credulity are now nearly 
 closed. To spend much time in winding up 
 these observations may be censured by the 
 reader as superfluous. A few short words will 
 be enough. 
 
 The reader who lives in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury stands on vantage-ground with regard to 
 most of the errors which we have detailed. The 
 self-complacency naturally attendant on our ad- 
 vanced knowledge can well afford to pity those 
 who lived in a period of comparative disadvan- 
 tage, and who were thus victims of their own 
 infatuation. We censure delusions not our own, 
 as the man despises the delusions of the child. 
 
 But what if we conceive of a state of things, 
 as much or more in advance of the present, as 
 the present is in advance of the past? We 
 speak not now of science, but of truths much 
 higher and holier than science has ever known, 
 and in comparison of which mere scientific dis- 
 coveries are but as baubles. What, if we think 
 of one who has himself passed " the flaming 
 
190 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 bounds of space and time," looking down from 
 his " empyreal throne," with all his faculties 
 now quickened and enlarged, upon " the smoke 
 and stir of this dim spot which men call earth," 
 and passing sentence upon the thoughts which 
 now occupy others, and which once amused 
 himself. Would there be nothing to excite 
 surprise and pity ? 
 
 Below him is a world, every atom of which 
 bears upon it the significant impress of an 
 almighty Creator, walking through all its , 
 scenes in the varieties of his majestic power. 
 The opening day — the summer evening — the 
 plumage of its birds — the instincts of its 
 animals — the fragrance of its flowers — and the 
 commanding intellect of the being who, as God's 
 vicegerent, commands them all, speak to man 
 at every turn of " God's eternal power and 
 Godhead, so that they who deny him are with- 
 out excuse." Yet, by that noblest production 
 of almighty workmanship — by man himself — 
 God is neglected and scorned. The creature 
 who basks in God's sunshine does not value his 
 smile ; nor does he who shudders at God's 
 tempest dread his frown. The eye, the ear, 
 the understanding, proclaim the Divinity. But 
 the heart refuses its homage, and man walks like 
 an atheist through a world full of the Holy One, 
 knowing him not, obeying him not, and care- 
 less of all that might do Him pleasure. Is 
 there any of the delusions we have just exhi- 
 bited so great an infatuation as this ? 
 
 Or, let us look again at the gigantic powers 
 
CONCLUSION. 191 
 
 of evil everywhere stalking abroad in the world. 
 Man sees sin poisoning society in all its forms, 
 yet he clings with eagerness to the very influence 
 which destroys him. He gives up his soul, by a 
 succession of voluntary acts, not quite so appa- 
 rent, but quite as real as in any case heretofore 
 believed. Pie risks that soul upon ventures in 
 which the chances of repentance are inconceiv- 
 ably small, and the probabilities of final ruin over- 
 whelmingly great. The spendthrift embraces 
 the want he dreads. The drunkard faints for 
 his " liquid fire." The pleasure-seeker labo- 
 riously invites the ennui which he yet feels to 
 be intolerable. The debauchee eagerly invites 
 disgrace, premature exhaustion, and a nerveless 
 death. Men ask for martyrdom in forms which 
 bring all its pains without its attendant conso- 
 lations. The mind grows sick at such exhi- 
 bitions. Delusion and infatuation possess the 
 world. 
 
 In all directions men are seen to act like 
 maniacs. Insane, when in youth they lay up 
 for themselves future diseases and death ; insane, 
 when in manhood they solicit their own inevit- 
 able disappointment ; insane, when through life 
 they kindle the fires of a life to come. That flat- 
 tering looking-glass gives back this warning to 
 the beauty who sits before it. That engrossing- 
 business gives it back to the merchant or 
 tradesman who sacrifices soul and body at its 
 venture. That parental fondness gives it back 
 to those who, like the Carthaginians of old, are 
 sacrificing their children to a senseless god. Do 
 
192 REMARKABLE DELUSIONS. 
 
 we not seem to see a vast collection of maniacs, 
 
 intent, as maniacs often are, on perpetrating on 
 
 themselves the most deadly injuries ? 
 
 Is there, then, no remedy for this wide-spread 
 
 infatuation ? no place in which men may find 
 
 something that shall satisfy the deep craving of 
 
 the human heart for solid happiness ? Thanks 
 
 be to God, .there is one remedy that never fails 
 
 — one place at which all who truly seek shall 
 
 find abiding satisfaction, 
 
 " The Cross- 
 There no delusive hope involves despair, 
 No mockery meets yon, no deception there. 
 The spells and charms that blinded you before, 
 All vanish there, and fascinate no more." 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 The true Christian alone has found the secret 
 of happiness. Taught by the Holy Spirit, he has 
 seen through the emptiness of the world, and has 
 abandoned the chase of those empty shadows 
 which such multitudes around him pursue. The 
 fountain at which he has drunk is free and open 
 to all. " If any man thirst, let him come unto 
 me and drink," is still the Saviour's invitation 
 to the children of men. May the reader hearken 
 to this affectionate appeal, and with gratitude 
 welcome the gospel offer of reconciliation through 
 faith in His blood ! " For God so loved the 
 world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." 
 
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