Part 4

About the middle of the last century, there were reports of a ghost visiting a house in Cocklane, in the city of London. The whole city was, for many weeks, kept in a state of agitation and alarm, and the magazines and newspapers teemed with strange accounts of the Cocklane ghost. The story, at length, became so popular, and created such excitement, as to require a thorough investigation. The purport of the story was, that a spirit had frequently appeared, and announced to a girl, that a murder had been committed near that place, by a certain person, which ought to be detected. For a long time, unaccountable noises, such as knocking, scratching on the walls of the house, &c, were heard every night. The supposed spirit had publicly promised, by an affirmative knock, that it would attend any person into the vault under the church where the body was deposited, and would give a knock on the coffin; it was, therefore, determined to make this trial of the visitation and veracity of the supposed spirit. On this occasion, Dr Johnson, with several clergymen and other gentlemen and ladies, assembled about ten o'clock at night, in the house in which the girl had, with proper caution, been put to bed by several ladies. More than an hour passed, without hearing any noise, when at length the gentlemen were summoned into the girl's chamber, by some ladies who were near her bed, and had heard knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back. She was required to hold her hands out of bed, and from that time, though the spirit was very solemnly required to manifest its existence by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any one present, by knocks, or scratches, or any other agency, no evidence of any preternatural power was exhibited. The spirit was then very seriously advertised, that the person to whom the promise was made of striking on the coffin, was then about to visit the vault, and that the performance of the promise was then claimed. The company at 1 o'clock went into the church, and the gentleman to whom the promise was made, went with another into the vault. The spirit was solemnly required to perform its promise, but nothing more than silence ensued. The person supposed to be accused by the spirit then went down with several others, but no effect whatever was perceived. Upon their return they examined the girl, but could draw no confession from her, and the father of the girl, when interrogated, denied in the strongest terms, any knowledge or belief of fraud. It was therefore published by the whole assembly, that the girl had some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that there was no agency of any higher cause. Thus ended this singular affair, which had so long been permitted to disturb the peace of the city and of the public. The greatest surprise is, that an artful, mischievous girl, should be suffered to set at defiance the closest scrutiny to detect her imposition and deception.

The following anecdote may be found in some historical publication, but is now related from memory without recollecting the authority. After the execution of Charles the First, the Parliament resolved that every vestige of royalty should be annihilated. For this purpose, commissioners were appointed to carry into effect the decree in the Palace of the late King. While executing their prescribed duties, the commissioners were from day to day annoyed and disturbed by strange and frightful noises, in various parts of the house. Logs of wood rolling over the floor in the kitchen, various utensils clattering together, dancing and stamping were heard in rooms whose doors were closed, and to such alarming heights was the deception carried that the commissioners were about to abandon the house, from the belief that it was haunted by evil spirits. At length, on close investigation, the fact was disclosed that the whole deception was the contrivance of a man of singular art, called _funny Joe_, who was the acting secretary of the commissioners.

In Southey's life of Wesley, we have another instance of supposed preternatural noises in the parsonage house of Wesley's father, in the year 1716. The mysterious noises were said to be as various as unaccountable; such as knocking at the door, lifting up the latch, and a groaning, like a person in distress; a clatter among a number of bottles, as if all at once they had been dashed in pieces; footsteps as of a man going up and down stairs, at all hours of the night; sounds like that of dancing in a room, the door of which was locked; but most frequently, a knocking about the beds at night, and in different parts of the house. Mr Wesley was once awakened a little after midnight, by nine loud and distinct knocks which seemed to be in the next room, with a pause at every third stroke. He and his wife rose, and went below; a noise was now heard, like that of a bag of money poured on the floor at their feet. At one time, the servant heard his hand-mill in rapid motion, without any visible hand to move it. Mr Wesley made every exertion to ascertain the real cause of the noises, without success. He at length became so impatient with the unusual annoyances, that he prepared a pistol, which he was about to discharge at the place where the noise was heard, but was dissuaded from it by a neighboring clergyman, who had been called in to his assistance. But he upbraided the goblin for disturbing the family, and challenged it to appear to him while alone in his study, after which, on entering his study, the door was pressed against him, but no object was seen. At length, the family became so familiar with this invisible spirit, that one of the daughters gave it the name of Old Jeffrey, and they treated it as matter of curiosity and amusement. This unaccountable affair excited much speculation throughout the country. The celebrated Dr Priestley, and many others, undertook to investigate the circumstances, but were unable to make any satisfactory discovery, and it remains inexplicable.

A reviewer of Wesley's life observes, that few will regard the circumstances as anything more than creatures of imagination, the offspring of credulity and superstition; but I should strongly suspect that some one of the family was the prime mover in the business, as was funny Joe in the Royal Palace of King Charles the First.

SUPERSTITION.

Historical records furnish innumerable instances of superstition, fraught with circumstances of inexpressible horror. It is an infirmity inherent in our nature, and extremely difficult to eradicate; no lesson on moral evil, or lecture on physical destiny, can sever the spell or dissolve the dark enchantment. So peculiarly fascinating is the love of the marvellous, that when ignorance and bigotry cooperate, the pure fountain of truth is polluted, and the most preposterous tales of antiquity are held in veneration by every fiery zealot. From this cause, millions of innocent lives have been sacrificed. The intellects of thousands have been shackled, and their energies perverted by irrational fears, and by degrading conceptions of the nature of Deity, and of the purposes and modes of religious worship and obedience. It was in the darkest days of superstition, that the rack was in exercise to chain down the understanding, to sink it into the most abject and sordid condition, punishing imaginary crimes, and repressing truth and philosophical research.

The science of medicine had to encounter the scourge of superstition at an early period; the epithet of magician was applied to the physician, who appeared to be endowed with superior genius and knowledge. The inquisition was constantly prepared to take holy cognizance of those who distinguished themselves by extraordinary cures, and hundreds of miserable wretches were dragged to the stake for this cause alone. Galileo, in the 17th century, was condemned by the inquisition to a rigorous punishment, for his noble and useful discoveries in astronomy and geometry; and about the same period, Dr Bartolo suffered a similar fate at Rome, because he unexpectedly cured a nobleman of the gout.

The University of Salamanca decreed that no physician should dare to bleed his patient in a pleurisy in the arm of the affected side; declaring that such practice was of no less pernicious consequences to medicine, than Luther's heresy had been to religion. The inquisition having adopted the irrational and foolish doctrine that diseases should be ascribed to fascination, a physician who opposed that doctrine was compelled to accede to it, and to declare that he had seen a beautiful woman break a steel mirror to pieces, and blast trees by a single glance of her fascinating eyes. Superstitious opinions prevailed in regard to the cure of diseases, also. Some were supposed to be cured by a song. Josephus asserted that he saw a certain Jew, named _Eleazer_, draw the devil out of an old woman's nostrils, by the application of Solomon's seal to her nose, in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian. Numerous remedies were employed for expelling the devil, among which was flagellation, purgatives, and antispasmodics. Several bewitched persons being cured by a plaster of assafœtida, the question arose, in what way this article excited so much efficacy. Some supposed, that the devil considered so vile an application an insult, and ran off in a passion; but others very sagely observed, that as devils are supposed to have eyes and ears, it is possible that they have noses also, and that it proved offensive to their olfactory nerves. It may be observed that superstition is not confined to those who are ignorant of the laws of the physical world; but through the infirmity of human nature, it has prevailed to the perversion of the profoundest understanding, and the purest intellect. It has arrested the progress of literature and science, and shackled the mind with vulgar fictions, errors, and prejudices. Even the sublime genius of Lord Bacon was subjected to its influence; he believed in witchcraft, and asserted that he was cured of warts by rubbing them with a piece of lard with the skin on, and then exposing it to the sun. Dr More, and the enlightened Cudworth, applied the epithet _Atheist_ to those who opposed the belief of witchcraft. The celebrated Dr Hoffman, the father of the modern theory and practice of medicine, in the large edition of his work in 1742, says, that the devil can raise storms, produce insects, and act upon the animal spirits and imagination; and, in fine, that he is an excellent optician, and natural philosopher, on account of his long experience.

But, blessed be the Almighty Ruler, the present is an era, preeminently distinguished for improvement in physical and moral philosophy; and forgetting the things that are behind, we are pressing forward in the race with rapid strides to the melioration of the condition of the physical and moral world. Had the stupendous works performed, and those contemplated at the present day, been predicted to our fathers in the 17th century, they would have trembled with alarm, lest their posterity were destined to form a league with the infernal powers. The paralyzing idea that the present state of knowledge is as perfect as our nature will admit, should be utterly reprobated; for knowledge is eternally progressive, and we can have no claim to be estimated as the benefactors of posterity, unless by our own efforts and toils we add to the achievements of our ancestors. We may take a retrospect of the meritorious characters of our fathers with exultation, and when disposed to animadvert on the frailties and follies peculiar to their times, let us reflect that it is our happy lot to live in an age in many respects the most glorious the world ever knew. We have a moral interest in all that concerns the human race, and, as philanthropists, we ought to sympathize in every calamity with which our species may be afflicted. Being apprised with what facility mankind deceive themselves, and with what tenacity the mind clings to its darling delusion, sober reflection is awakened to a lively sense of the evils resulting from our imperfections. As the germs of plants may lie dormant in the earth for ages, and be resuscitated, so may the troubles created by unhallowed superstition, revive and be reiterated by means of some depraved spirits in our day.

_Ventriloquism_ is an art which may be made subservient to knavery and deception. An ingenious work on this subject was published in 1772, by M. de la Chapelle, who was of opinion that the responses of many of the oracles were delivered by persons thus qualified to serve the purposes of priestcraft and delusion. That ventriloquism may be made thus subservient to the purposes of knavery, will clearly appear by the following anecdotes.

Louis Brabant, valet de chambre to Francis the First, was a capital ventriloquist, and a great cheat. He had fallen in love with a young, handsome, and rich heiress; but was rejected by the parents as an unsuitable match for their daughter. The young lady's father dying, Brabant made a visit to the widow, who was totally ignorant of his singular talent. Suddenly, on his first appearance, in open day, and in presence of several persons who were with her, she heard herself accosted, in a voice perfectly resembling that of her dead husband, and which seemed to proceed from above, exclaiming, 'Give my daughter in marriage to Louis Brabant. He is a man of great fortune, and of an excellent character. I now endure the inexpressible torments of purgatory for having refused her to him. If you obey this admonition, I shall soon be delivered from this place of torment. You will at the same time provide a worthy husband for your daughter, and procure everlasting repose to the soul of your poor husband.' The widow could not for a moment resist this dread summons, which had not the most distant appearance of proceeding from Louis Brabant, whose countenance exhibited no visible change, and whose lips were closed and motionless, during the delivery of it. Accordingly, she consented immediately to receive him for her son-in-law. Louis's finances, however, were in a very low situation, and the formalities attending the marriage contract, rendered it necessary for him to exhibit some show of riches, and not to give the ghost the lie direct. He accordingly went to work upon a fresh subject, one Cornu, an old and rich banker at Lyons, who had accumulated immense wealth by usury and extortion, and was known to be haunted by remorse of conscience on account of the manner in which he had acquired it. Having contracted an intimate acquaintance with this man, he one day, while they were sitting together in the usurer's little back parlor, artfully turned the conversation on religious subjects, on demons and spectres, the pains of purgatory and the torments of hell. During an interval of silence between them, a voice was heard, which to the astonished banker seemed to be that of his deceased father, complaining, as in the former case, of his dreadful situation in purgatory, and calling upon him to deliver him instantly from thence, by putting into the hands of Louis Brabant, a large sum for the redemption of Christians then in slavery with the Turks; threatening him at the same time with eternal damnation if he did not take this method to expiate likewise his own sins. The reader will naturally suppose that Brabant affected a due degree of astonishment on the occasion, and further promoted the deception, by acknowledging his having devoted himself to the prosecution of the charitable design imputed to him by the ghost. An old usurer is naturally suspicious. Accordingly, the wary banker made a second appointment with the ghost delegate for the next day; and to render any design of imposing upon him utterly abortive, took him into the open fields, where not a house, or a tree, or even a bush was in sight, capable of screening any supposed confederate. This extraordinary caution excited the ventriloquist to exert all the powers of his art. Wherever the banker conducted him, at every step, his ears were saluted on all sides with the complaints and groans not only of his father, but of all his deceased relations, imploring him, for the love of God, and in the name of every saint in the calendar, to have mercy on his soul and their's, by effectually seconding with his purse the intentions of his worthy companion. Cornu could no longer resist the voice of heaven, and accordingly carried his guest home with him, and paid him down 10,000 crowns, with which the honest ventriloquist returned to Paris and married his mistress. The catastrophe was fatal. The secret was afterwards blown, and reached the usurer's ears, who was so much affected by the loss of his money, and the mortifying railleries of his neighbors, that he took to his bed and died.

Another French ventriloquist, named M. St Gile, was not less adroit in his secret art. Entering a convent, and finding the whole community in mourning, he inquired the cause, and was told that one of their body had lately died, who was the delight and ornament of the whole society, and they spoke feelingly of the scanty honors they had bestowed on his memory. Suddenly a voice was heard, apparently proceeding from that part of the church where the singing of the choir is performed, lamenting the situation of the defunct in purgatory, and reproaching the brotherhood with their lukewarmness, and want of zeal on his account. The friars, as soon as their astonishment gave them power to speak, consulted together, and agreed to acquaint the rest of the community with this singular event, so interesting to the whole society. M. St Gile, who wished to carry on the joke still farther, dissuaded them from taking this step, telling them that they would be treated by their absent brethren, as a set of fools and visionaries. He recommended to them, however, the immediately calling of the whole community into the church, where the ghost of their departed brother might probably reiterate his complaints. Accordingly, all the friars, novices, lay brothers, and even the domestics of the convent, were immediately summoned and collected together. In a short time the voice from the roof renewed its lamentation and reproaches, and the whole convent fell on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. As a first step, they chanted a _De profundis_ in a full choir; during the intervals of which the ghost occasionally expressed the comfort he received from their pious exercises, and ejaculations on his behalf. When all was over, the friar entered into a serious conversation with M. St Gile; and, on the strength of what had just passed, sagaciously inveighed against the absurd incredulity of our modern sceptics and pretended philosophers, on the article of ghosts or apparitions. M. St Gile thought it now high time to disabuse the good fathers. This purpose, however, he found it extremely difficult to effect, till he had prevailed upon them to return with him into the church, and there be witnesses of the manner in which he had conducted this ludicrous deception.

WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY.

A belief in the entity of witchcraft and sorcery may boast of a high degree of antiquity. In both the Old and New Testament, we observe numerous tragical events, bearing the semblance of diabolical agency. A prominent instance is found in the witch of Endor, who is said to have been deeply versed in the art of deception, and notorious in her day for skill in practical astrology. It is the opinion of some divines, that to beguile Saul, she raised a demon, counterfeiting Samuel; but it seems difficult to decide in what precise manner she effected her purpose of imposing upon her credulous employer. The sorcery and witchcraft, prohibited under the Jewish dispensation, is supposed by high authority to be a very different species of crime from that which was so abhorrent in the days of our ancestors; the former might have come under the description of idolatry, or of the heathen mythology. 'The ancients believed that there were good and evil demons, which had influence over the minds of men, and that these beings carried on an intercourse between men and gods, conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and divine benefits to men. Hence, demons became the objects of worship. It was supposed, also, that human spirits, after their departure from the body, became demons, and that the souls of virtuous men, if highly purified, were exalted from demons into gods.'

The various instances of demoniacs, lunatics, and possessed, recorded in the sacred scriptures of the New Testament, have received different interpretations according to the particular views among learned expositors. By some of the enlightened German theologians, those subjects are considered as mere prototypes of the maniacs and epileptics of our own times; but most of the English divines have imbibed different opinions. 'Demoniacs,' says Kenrick, 'were persons disordered in their understandings, and supposed to be possessed by an evil demon.' That real miracles were wrought by our Saviour and his apostles, and that both good and evil spirits were subservient to his will, no Christian believer can ever deny. But by all impartial inquirers after truth, it will perhaps be conceded, that demoniacal possession is a subject the least susceptible of a satisfactory solution, of any in scripture. It has received the most critical investigation of commentators and divines, for centuries, and still remains involved in mystery. The subject in its nature, is too intricate and mysterious to justify even a discussion on this occasion, nor is it requisite for my purpose. It must, therefore, be referred to philosophical commentators and learned biblical critics.

In a work entitled, Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, by F. Hutchinson, D. D., published in London in 1720, the author says, 'The divine writings, as well as the soundest philosophy and soberest reason, give confirmation that there are both good and bad spirits. There are superior beings intermediate betwixt the divine nature and ours. But both philosophers and Christians that have ventured to define their natures or works, have been very various in their notions respecting them, and the holy scriptures, though they give us many instances of the employment of both the evil and the good spirits, teach us none such as we commonly meet with in the modern relations of witchcraft, and the conjoint powers of Satan. The holy scriptures tell us of no such tales as these which confound the laws of nature, and absolutely destroy the testimony of our senses.' *** 'The human mind is sometimes so clouded and oppressed, that persons think themselves dead. At another time they are elevated far above their natural pitch, full of raptures, and high conceits, and think themselves kings and queens; now if witch stories are in their heads, or witchcraft in their imaginations, why may they not think themselves bewitched, or fancy themselves witches or wizards, as well as kings and queens?'