CHAPTER III.

SPIRITUAL POWERS AND PROPERTIES OF THE CHURCH. It is allowed on all hands by Catholic Christians that liberty has been sometimes permitted to the devil or his angels to enter into the bodies of men (just as of old Satan was allowed to try the patriarch Job), and to obtain such an absolute command over their powers and faculties as to incapacitate them, more or less, for any of the common duties of life. On this point, those who accept the Written Word of God as a portion, and a very important portion, of His Divine Revelation to mankind, through Christ, can have no doubt. In the New Testament, numerous instances of possession by evil spirits are recorded. The case of the daughter of the woman of Canaan, who cried out to our Blessed Saviour, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil,”[35] and obtained from Him the gracious and merciful reply, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,” is familiar to all. So likewise is that of the man with an unclean spirit, recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel according to S. Mark. Here the spirit acknowledging that Christ was the “Holy One of God,” received the rebuke of Jesus Christ. “And when the unclean spirit had torn” the man suffering, “and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him.” Again we read, “Unclean spirits, when they saw Him, fell down before Him, and cried saying, Thou art the Son of God.”[36] And when His apostles were called and formally ordained, it is written that they were “to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils,” power which in due course both the Gospels and the recorded History of the Church assure us was duly exercised. Another miraculous intervention, by which our Blessed Saviour manifested His divine power over evil spirits, and freed suffering men from their frightful influence, is here given from S. Mark’s Gospel at length: “When He was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no not with chains: because that he had often been bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, day and night, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God that Thou torment me not. For He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would not send him away out of the country. Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter unto them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus, and see him that was possessed of the devil, and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind.”[37] With these solemn and awful facts before us, it is impossible to doubt either of the power or influence of the devil and his angels. That such power had been known amongst the ancient nations, and that certain persons had entered into compacts or alliances with evil spirits, seems to be generally admitted. And although the fact of the Incarnation had sorely crippled the influence of the enemy of souls, it is clear from the last promise given by our Lord to His apostles, “In My Name they shall cast out devils,” that such authority and action would still be needed. For possessions were not to cease, as a reference to the Acts of the Apostles shows: where it is recorded that the very authority bestowed by our Blessed Saviour was actually and efficiently exercised; and there is no reasonable evidence to show that such divinely-bestowed powers have ever ceased. All through the History of the Church, here and there, from time to time, as man needed and as God willed, such direct supernatural powers as those referred to, appear to have been put into operation. For the Church can bless and the Church can curse. The Church can bind and can loose. She can commend to the protection of God Almighty and His holy angels, and she can deliver over to Satan. She can bestow light and peace on her true and faithful children, and send out the disobedient and impenitent beyond the consecrated confines of her spiritual powers and graces. As effects of Christ’s most gracious promise, such ordinary and extraordinary works were wrought; for the glory of His great Name, and as a testimony of the truth of the Church Universal. For generations, up to the very earliest age of Christianity, there have been officers of the Church duly set apart and ordained for the particular work of exorcism. Amongst the minor orders of Western Christendom the exorcist has always found a place; and although, in later years, this special work, when undertaken, has been more frequently done by persons in the higher or sacred orders, yet the very office itself, and its title, as well as the existing forms for casting out evil spirits, abundantly attest the Church’s divine and spiritual powers. In countries which are specially and eminently Christian, where churches, sanctuaries, and religious houses are numerous; where, by the road-side and on the hill-top, stand the signs and symbols of the Faith of Christendom; where the Sacrament of Baptism is shed upon so many; where post-baptismal sin is remitted by those who have authority and jurisdiction to bind and loose in the Name of their Master; and where the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, God manifest in the Flesh, reposing in the tabernacle, or borne in triumph through aisle and street and garden, hallows and feeds the faithful--there the power and influence of the Evil One is circumscribed and weakened. Sacred oil for unction, and holy water and the life-giving power of the Cross, and the relics of the beatified as well as of the favoured and crowned servants of the Crucified, make the devils flee away, and efficiently curb their power. Hence it is found that in countries where the Catholic Faith has been halved or rejected, Superstition has taken the place of the first theological virtue, Faith; and the Prince of the Powers of the air comes back again with his evil and malignant spirits to vex mankind anew,[38] and mar and stay the final triumph of Him to Whom all power is given in heaven and in earth. A remarkable case of the Supernatural will here be put on record, which occurred in the diocese of Exeter during the seventeenth century. Preliminary inquiries and comments concerning the various incidents would be obviously out of place; for the well-authenticated story itself is unfolded with a simplicity and yet with a power which efficiently serve to stamp it as true. “About 152 years since,” writes Mr. Fortescue Hitchins, in his “History of Cornwall,” “a ghost is said to have made its appearance in this parish[39] (Little Petherick[40]), in a field about half a mile from Botaden or Botathen (in that county). In the narrative which is given of this occurrence, it is said to have been seen by a son of Mr. Bligh, aged about sixteen, by his father and mother, and by the Rev. John Ruddle, master of the grammar school of Launceston, and one of the prebendaries of Exeter, and vicar of Alternon. The relation given by Mr. Ruddle is in substance as follows:-- “Young Mr. Bligh, a lad of bright parts and of no common attainments, became on a sudden pensive, dejected, and melancholy. His friends observing the change, without being able to discover the cause, attributed his behaviour to laziness--an aversion to school--or to some other motive which they suspected he was ashamed to discover. He was, however, induced after some time to inform his brother that in a field through which he passed to and from school he was invariably met by the apparition of a woman whom he personally knew while living, and who had been dead about eight years. Ridicule, threats, and persuasions were alike used in vain by the family to induce him to dismiss these absurd ideas. Mr. Ruddle was however sent for, to whom the lad ingenuously communicated the time, manner, and frequency of this appearance. It was in a field called ‘Higher Bloomfield.’ The apparition, he said, appeared dressed in female attire, met him two or three times while he passed through the field, glided hastily by him, but never spoke. He had thus been occasionally met about two months before he took any particular notice of it: at length the appearance became more frequent, meeting him both morning and evening, but always in the same field, yet invariably moving out of the path when it came close by him. He often spoke, but could never get any reply. To avoid this unwelcome visitor he forsook the field, and went to school and returned from it through a lane, in which place between the quarry-park and nursery it always met him. “Unable to disbelieve the evidence of his senses, or to obtain credit with any of his family, he prevailed upon Mr. Ruddle to accompany him to the place. ‘I arose,’ says this clergyman, ‘the next morning, and went with him. The field to which he led me I guessed to be about twenty acres, in an open country, and about three furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not gone a third part before the _spectrum_, in the shape of a woman, with all the circumstances that he had described the day before, so far as the suddenness of its appearance and transition would permit me to discover, passed by. “‘I was a little impressed at it, and, though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, I had not the power, nor durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to my pupil and guide; and therefore, telling him that I was satisfied in the truth of his statement, we walked to the end of the field, and returned: nor did the ghost meet us that time but once. “‘On the 27th July, I went to the haunted field by myself, and walked the breadth of it without any encounter. I then returned, and took the other walk, and then the spectre appeared to me, when about the same place in which I saw it when the young gentleman was with me. It appeared to move swifter than before, and seemed to me about ten feet from me on my right hand, insomuch that I had not time to speak to it as I had determined with myself beforehand. The evening of this day the parents, the son, and myself being in the chamber where I lay, I proposed to them our going to the place next morning; we accordingly met at the stile we had appointed; thence we all four walked into the field together. We had not gone more than half the field before the ghost made its appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and moved with such rapidity, that by the time it had gone six or seven steps, it passed by. I immediately turned my head and ran after it, with the young man by my side. We saw it pass over the stile at which we entered, and no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place, and the young man at another, but we could discern nothing; whereas I do aver that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this day’s appearance; first a spaniel dog, which had followed the company unregarded, barked and ran away as the _spectrum_ passed by: whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear and fancy which made the apparition; secondly the motion of the _spectrum_ was not _gradatim_ or by steps, or moving of the feet, but by a kind of gliding, as children upon ice, or as a boat down a river, which practically answers the description the ancients give of the motion of these lemures. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but withal strangely affrighted, the old gentleman and his wife. They all knew this woman, Dorothy Durant, in her lifetime; were at her burial: and now plainly saw her features in this apparition. “‘The next morning being Thursday, I went very early by myself, and walked for about one hour’s space in meditation and prayer, in the field next adjoining. Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the haunted field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the further stile. I spoke to it in some short sentences, with a loud voice, whereupon it approached me but slowly, and, when I came near, it moved not. I spoke again, and it answered in a voice neither audible nor very intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and thereupon persisted until it spoke again, and gave me satisfaction; but the work could not be finished at this time. Whereupon the same evening, an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear now, nor hath appeared since, nor ever will move to any man’s disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour. “‘These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded that my senses all deceive me about their proper objects, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe in Christian Religion, I must and will assert that the things contained in this paper are true. As for the manner of my proceeding, I have no reason to be ashamed of it. I can justify it to men of good principles, discretion, and recondite learning, though in this case I chose to content myself in the assurance of the thing, rather than be at the unprofitable trouble to persuade others to believe it, for I know full well with what difficulty relations of so uncommon a nature and practice obtain belief.’” So much as regards the record of the appearance found in the volume already referred to. The following extract from Mr. Ruddle’s MS. Diary, was taken by the Rev. R. S. Hawker, M.A., vicar of Morwenstow, the accomplished and well-known Christian poet, and appears in his interesting “Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall” (London, 1870), and still further amplifies and illustrates this story, the practical and eventual issue of which is now to be recorded:-- “January 7, 1665. At my own house I find by my books what is expedient to be done; and then Apage Sathanas! “January 9, 1665. This day I took leave of my wife and family, under pretext of engagements elsewhere, and made my secret journey to our diocesan city, wherein the good and venerable bishop then abode.[41] “January 10. ‘Deo gratias,’ in safe arrival at Exeter: craved and obtained immediate audience of his lordship; pleading it was for counsel and admonition on a weighty and pressing cause. Called to the presence; made obeisance; and then, by command, stated my case, the Botathen perplexity--which I moved with strong and earnest instances and solemn asseverations of that which I had myself seen and heard. Demanded by his lordship, what was the succour that I had come to entreat at his hands? Replied, license for my exorcism, that so I might, ministerially, allay this spiritual visitant, and thus render to the living and the dead release from this surprise. “‘But,’ said our bishop, ‘on what authority do you allege that I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.’ “‘Nay, my Lord,’ I humbly answered, ‘under favour, the seventy-second of the Canons[42] ratified and enjoined on us, the clergy, Anno Domini 1604, doth expressly provide that _No minister, unless he hath the license of his diocesan bishop, shall essay to exorcise a spirit, evil or good_. Therefore it was,’ I did here mildly allege, ‘that I did not presume to enter on such a work without lawful privilege under your lordship’s hand and seal.’ “Hereupon did our wise and learned bishop, sitting in his chair, condescend upon the theme at some length, with many gracious interpretations from ancient writers and from Holy Scripture, and did humbly rejoin and reply; till the upshot was that he did call in his secretary and command him to draw the aforesaid faculty forthwith and without further delay, assigning him a form, insomuch that the matter was incontinently done, and after I had disbursed into the secretary’s hands certain moneys, for signitary purposes, as the manner of such officers hath always been, the Bishop did himself affix his signature under the sigillum of his see, and deliver the document into my hands. “When I knelt down to receive his benediction, he softly said, ‘Let it be secret, Mr. Rudall,--weak brethren! weak brethren!’” Some details from the same Diary as to the exact manner in which the ghost was laid give an additional interest to the narrative. “January 12th, 1665. Rode into the gateway of Botathen, armed at all points, but not with Saul’s armour, and ready. There is danger from the demons, but so there is in the surrounding air every day. At early morning then and alone, for so the usage ordains, I betook me towards the field. It was void, and I had thereby due time to prepare. First I paced and measured out my circle on the grass. Then did I mark my pentacle in the very midst, and at the intersection of the five angles I did set up and fix my crutch of raun [rowan]. Lastly I took my station south, at the true line of the meridian, and stood facing due north. I waited and watched for a long time. At last there was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft and rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared, and came on towards me gradually. I opened my parchment scroll, and read aloud the command. She paused and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still: and then I rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every syllable like a chant. She drew near my ring, but halted at first outside, on the brink. I sounded again, and now at the third time I gave the signal in Syriac--the speech which is used, they say, where such ones dwell and converse in thoughts that glide. “She was at last obedient and swam into the midst of the circle: and there stood still suddenly. I saw, moreover, that she drew back her pointing hand. All this while I do confess that my knees shook under me, and the drops of sweat ran down my flesh like rain. But now, although face to face with the spirit, my heart grew calm and my mind composed, to know that the pentacle would govern her, and the ring must bind until I gave the word. Then I called to mind the rule laid down of old that no angel or fiend, no spirit, good or evil, will ever speak until they be spoken to. N.B.--This is the great law of prayer. God Himself will not yield reply until man hath made vocal entreaty once and again. So I went on to demand, as the books advise; and the phantom made answer willingly. Questioned, wherefore not at rest? Unquiet because of a certain sin. Asked what and by whom? Revealed it; but it is _sub sigillo_, and therefore _nefas dictu_; more anon. Inquired, what sign she could give me that she was a true spirit and not a false fiend? Stated [that] before next Yule-tide a fearful pestilence would lay waste the land;[43] and myriads of souls would be loosened from their flesh, until, as she piteously said, ‘Our valleys will be full.’ Asked again, why she so terrified the lad? Replied, ‘It is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.’ We conversed with many more words; but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring and she passed, but to return once more next day. At evensong a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr. B----. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; whatsoever I enjoin; full acknowledgment before pardon. “January 13, 1665. At sunrise I was again in the field. She came in at once, and, as it seemed, with freedom. Inquired if she knew my thoughts, and what I was going to relate? Answered, ‘Nay, we only know what we perceive and hear: we cannot see the heart.’ Then I rehearsed the penitent words of the man she had come up to denounce, and the satisfaction he would perform. Then said she, ‘Peace in our midst.’ I went through the proper forms of dismissal, and fulfilled all, as it was set down and written in my memoranda; and then with certain fixed rites, I did dismiss that troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew, gliding towards the west. Neither did she ever afterwards appear; but was allayed, until she shall come in her second flesh, to the Valley of Armageddon on the Last Day.” Another example, giving with singular power and effect a very striking Glimpse of the Supernatural, from the experiences of a venerated and exemplary Roman Catholic clergyman, the late Rev. Edward Peach, of S. Chad’s, Birmingham, is here given at length. The events narrated occurred in the year 1815, and Mr. Peach deliberately affirmed of the following account that it “_may be relied on in every particular as being strictly true_.” “I,” he continues, in a formal record of the successful exorcism, “was the minister of God employed on the occasion; and truth is more to me than all the boastings of pride and vain glory.” The authentic record stands as follows:-- “Some time after Easter, in the year 1815, I was informed that a young married woman of the name of White, in the parish of King’s Norton, Worcestershire, a Protestant, was afflicted with an extraordinary kind of illness, and that her relations, who occupied a small farm, were convinced that her illness arose solely from the malice of a rejected admirer, who, they said, had employed the assistance of a reputed wizard at Dudley to do her a mischief. These were their terms. I paid but little attention to this story. Afterwards I was informed by a sister who frequents our markets, and supplies with butter a respectable family of my congregation, Mr. Powell, Suffolk Street, that the young woman was married in the beginning of the preceding Lent; that her former admirer repeatedly declared that, if she did marry any other, she should never have another happy day; that the day after her marriage she was seized with an extraordinary kind of mental complaint; that she became suddenly delirious; that she raved, and declared that a multitude of infernal spirits surrounded her; that they threatened to carry her away; that she must go with them. The poor sister informed my friend, with tears streaming down her cheeks, that she continued in that state, day and night, for nearly two months, and that the whole family were almost exhausted with the fatigue of constantly attending her, for, she said, they could not leave her alone, lest she should put her threats of destroying herself into execution. “At the end of about two months, according to the relation of the same sister, the poor creature was so spent that her medical attendant (who, during the whole time of his attendance, declared that her illness arose more from a mental than corporeal cause,) declared that, in all probability, she could not survive four-and-twenty hours. The clergyman of the parish was called in to assist her in her last moments; but he found her in a state not to be benefited by his assistance, and he departed. “Amongst the neighbours who came to make a tender of their good offices for the relief of the afflicted family was a Catholic woman. Her offers were accepted, and she was frequently with her. Finding her reduced almost to a state of inanition, and hearing her speak of these infernal spirits every time she opened her lips, the thought came into her mind of applying to her some holy water. She accordingly procured some, dipped her finger into it, and made the sign of the cross upon her forehead. Instantly the poor sufferer started, and, in a faint voice, exclaimed, ‘You have scalded me.’ However, she leaned upon the bosom of her attendant, and, what she had not done for a considerable time before, she fell into a gentle sleep. On awaking, she continued to hold the same language as before. The Catholic put a little holy water into her mouth. But the very instant it entered her mouth she seemed to be in a state of suffocation. She and the others who were with her were alarmed, and expected that every instant would be her last. In a short time, however, she swallowed it, and after many convulsive struggles she regained her breath, and exclaimed with violence, ‘You have scalded my throat, you have scalded my throat.’ In a few minutes she fell again into a comfortable sleep, and continued so for some hours. The next morning she appeared refreshed, and spoke reasonably for a short time. Being informed of what had been applied to her, she seemed to wish for more. The swallowing was attended with the same sensation of scalding, and the same convulsive struggles as before; but it seemed to give her ease. From that time the danger of death seemed to decrease by degrees. She enjoyed lucid intervals from time to time; and invariably after the application of holy water, although attended with the same sensations as before, she fell into a slumber. “One remarkable circumstance deserves notice. In one of her paroxysms, she insisted on getting up, and going out of doors. She said that there was a large snake in front of the house, that she would go and kill it, and then one of her enemies would be removed. Nothing would satisfy her, till this same sister, who gave the account, assured her that she would go down and kill it. She went down, and, to her great astonishment, found a large snake, and succeeded in destroying it. “This in substance is the account which the sister gave of Mrs. White’s extraordinary illness. At the same time it was asked whether I could be of any assistance to her, or whether it was probable that I could be prevailed on to go and see her? My friend who related to me the whole of the above account, asked me to go. I replied that I knew nothing of them, nor they of me; but that if she would walk over, and examine into the state of the poor woman, I would go, if there appeared to her to be any probability of my being of service. She went, and, on her return, she informed me that all she had heard seemed to be true, and assured me that all the family were desirous of seeing me, and particularly the young woman herself. “However, I still delayed, till at length, on Tuesday in Rogation Week, May 2nd, 1815, a special messenger came over to inform me that Mrs. White was in a worse state than ever, and to request me to go and see her without delay. “I obeyed the call, and I may say with truth that it was the most awful visit I ever made during the whole course of my ministry. The distance was about six miles. No sooner had I cleared the skirts of the town than I heard the distant thunder before me. Before I had proceeded two miles, the storm was nearly over my head; and I may say the remainder of my walk, and during the time I was with her, there was hardly cessation of one minute between the claps of thunder. I do not say that in this there was anything supernatural, but, knowing the business I was upon, it was truly awful. “When I arrived at the house, I was informed that she was in a dreadful state, and that the strength of two persons was necessary to keep her in bed. I went up-stairs, and on entering into the room, before she saw me, the curtains being drawn on the side where I entered, she turned to the other side of the bed, and struggled so violently to get away that it was with difficulty that her husband and two women overpowered her. In a few minutes, before she had lifted up her eyes to see me (for she had turned her face downwards) she stretched out her hand to me, in a convulsive manner, and fell speechless and spent upon her back. “After a time she opened her eyes, and in a faint whisper, answered a question that was put to her, and said she knew who I was. She revived by degrees, and in a short time could speak in an audible voice. Her friends having requested me to try if I could discover what it was that weighed most upon her mind, for they said they had tried to no purpose, I requested them to withdraw. Being alone, she related to me, as far as she could recollect, the circumstances of her illness, and I found that they corresponded exactly with the accounts given by her sister. I questioned her as to the cause, but I could not discover that it was owing to anything weighing heavy on her mind. She was positive, she said, that it was the young man who had done her a mischief. “I then proceeded to explain to her some of the articles of the Catholic Faith. She listened with every attention; and when I assured her that she must believe the Holy Catholic Church before she could obtain relief, she, without hesitation, declared that she did believe, and that she believed from the moment she knew what holy water was, and experienced its effects. From the time it was first applied, she said that the devils seemed to keep at a greater distance from her, and that the number seemed to be diminished. “Such were the ideas on her mind at the time. She was convinced, she said, that it was not the effect of imagination--that she was not delirious--that she knew everything that was said to her, and that she could recollect everything that had passed. I asked her to tell me where the holy water was. Her voice immediately faltered; and with every endeavour, I perceived that she could not point out with her finger, nor tell me by words where it was. She was like an infant attempting to point out an object. “I looked about and found it. I dipped my finger into it, and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. She started as soon as I touched her, and was a little convulsed. I asked her what was the matter. For a few moments she could not articulate; but as soon as she could speak, she said that it scalded her. “After a little more conversation, I desired her to join with me in repeating the Lord’s Prayer. She consented, and without difficulty repeated the first words. But when we came to the petitions, her voice faltered; she was labouring for breath, and appeared to be almost suffocated: her countenance and limbs were convulsed. The greatest stammerer could not find greater difficulty in pronouncing words than she did in pronouncing every word of the petitions. At one time I was inclined to desist, thinking that it was impossible for her to finish it; but we laboured on, and at length came to the end. “After a short pause, she again began to converse with a free voice, without the least faltering. I explained to her the nature of exorcisms, and proposed to read them over her. She consented, and said that she would endeavour to offer up her prayers to God during the time in the best manner she could. As soon as I began the exorcisms, she fell into a state of convulsive agitation, not indeed endeavouring to get away; but every limb, every joint seemed to be agitated and convulsed, even her countenance was distorted,--it required constant attention to keep her covered. “Now it was that I felt in a particular manner the awful situation in which I was. All alone with a person in a distressed condition,--the lightning flashing, the thunder rolling, and I with an imperative voice commanding the evil spirit to reply to my interrogatories, and to go forth from her. I acknowledge that my flesh began to creep and my hair to stand on end. However, I proceeded on till I came to the conclusion, and nothing happened except the violent agitation of the poor sufferer, which continued uninterrupted during the whole time. “After I had finished, she became calm, and in a few minutes began to converse with me with the same ease as before. Among other things, I asked her whether she had felt any particular sensations during the time that I was coming to see her? She said that during the whole afternoon she had felt the most determined resolution to destroy herself; that she employed every means to induce her friends to leave the room, or to make her escape from them; and that if she had succeeded, she would have laid violent hands on herself the moment she was at liberty. I explained to her the nature of baptism, the necessity of receiving it, and the effects produced by it. “During the course of our conversation, discovering that there were strong reasons to doubt whether she had been baptized at all, or whether the essential rites had been observed in her baptism, I conceived that it would be advisable to re-baptize her conditionally. I proposed it, and she readily consented. I gave her what instructions were necessary, and repeated several acts of contrition. Finding her in dispositions the most satisfactory, I made use of the holy water, and baptized her, subject to the condition, _if she was not baptized_. During the time she trembled like a leaf, and the features of her countenance were distorted, like those of a person in acute pain. Upon my putting the question to her, she replied as she did before, that it gave her as much pain as if boiling water had been poured over her. “Immediately after the ceremony was concluded, she began to speak to me with all the cheerfulness of a person in perfect health and spirits. We conversed together for a few minutes, and I took my leave, promising to see her again the next day. Her sister went to her, and her first request was that she might have a cup of tea and something to eat; and before I left the house, she eat and drank as she had done before her affliction. I went to see her the next day, and found her down-stairs in perfect health; at least, no effects of her illness were perceptible, except a weakness of body. From that time to this, she has enjoyed good health, and not the least symptom of her former complaint has been felt. It is more than a twelvemonth since.” A second example of successful exorcism, now to be narrated, is from the pen of an eminent and well-known clergyman[44] of the Church of England, whose literary labours in the early part of the Oxford movement, were recognized and rewarded by high authority in the English Church. Only a slight verbal alteration here and there to make the narrative of itself quite intelligible, has been made by the Editor. “The subject is almost too sacred for pen; and I only put it on record to show the goodness of God, and to indicate that His powers are not withdrawn, nor His Arm shortened. It is some years, however, since the event to be related happened; and the subject of it has long gone to his last account. I must scrupulously refrain from any indication of place and person; though, in these latter days of rude and coarse unbelief, when such interpositions of the Almighty’s mercy are laughed to scorn, _some_ may find comfort and edification from its recital. “The son of a farmer, who had just come of age, having heard a sermon of mine, which I had preached some five years previously, came a distance of more than thirty miles to seek at my hands ghostly counsel. From his childhood he had been led to indulge in breaches of the seventh commandment, and these after a while were certainly of a heinous character. He believed himself (when I saw him) to be possessed by an unclean spirit. Wherever he went, he asserted that he saw a hideous black figure, darkly draped, with a form like a man, but with the face of a beast, sitting opposite to, huddled up, and staring at him. It would appear for weeks together, at home, abroad, in his sleeping-room, in the field, in the market. Sometimes he would throw himself on to the floor in an agony of distraction, and pray God that it might be removed. For a short term he would cease to see it. But in due course it reappeared. And at last (an event which had never happened hitherto,) it would likewise haunt him in dreams. On one occasion he declared that it seemed to elongate itself into a long serpent-like figure, and, as he asserted, tried to creep down his throat. But wherever he went he almost always saw it. Thinking it might be the result of bodily ailment he consulted a physician; but with no effect. “I am free to say that I was not long in coming to a conclusion, that it was a case of possession; though I did not arrive at that conclusion until I had taken counsel from one of the most pious and holy clergymen I ever knew,[45] and had commended the subject to God Almighty in very earnest prayer. “The result was that I unfolded to the subject of this apparition my intention, with God’s help, and his own sanction, to cast out the spirit, according to the old rule and custom of Holy Church. Prior to this he made a full and frank confession of his whole life, and resolved by God’s help to amend. Having made an appointment, a fortnight hence, with him, and being resolved to consecrate my proposed act, by special deeds of fasting, self-denial, and prayer, I was alarmed to hear, by letter, of his most serious illness a few days later. His relations asserted that he was suffering from epilepsy, and that the fits were rapid and most severe. “The following day, taking with me a book containing an authorized form of exorcism, I went to see the sick man. His sufferings seemed to be excruciating: his fits shocking to witness. At a half-lucid interval he saw me; and, starting from his bed, tried to throw himself out of the window. When he was calmer, I knelt down and prayed for him with his relations; making several times an act of Faith. “Then signing him with the cross on forehead, mouth, and breast, I began the authorized form. During this, his fits returned; and his violence and ravings were terrible to witness. Throughout I felt sustained in my action by a Higher Power, and completed my task in the Name of the Adorable and Ever-Blessed Trinity. Here he sank into a deep sleep; and this sleep proved to be the beginning of a complete change for the better. The fits ceased, the body was no longer tortured with writhings; and, as I heard from him afterwards, the hideous vision or apparition vanished, and was never seen again. A few years afterwards he died, as I believe in grace; and, as I commended his soul to God, so I committed his body to the dust; and have always looked upon this remarkable event as a token, to myself most unworthy, of the Almighty’s power and Presence amongst us, as well as of His exceeding great mercy and goodness to this poor sufferer.” Another remarkable instance of the active and energizing powers of the Church of God, unimpaired and uncrippled, may be gathered from the record which follows of the sudden and effectual cure of Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe, which took place in the church of the Carmelites of Pontoise on the 16th of July, 1784, upon the Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The record below is a literal translation of the formal act and deed of the person cured:-- “I, the undersigned Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe, called in religion ‘Sister Josephine-Mary of the Incarnation,’ aged thirty years, declare that my health being disordered at Pontoise, where I resided with the Ursuline Dames for eleven years, I was advised to make a change of air; I consequently withdrew to the Dames of the Congregation of Trouvelle-les-Vernon, where I entered on the 16th of February, 1782. My health continued bad in consequence of the frequent attacks of hæmorrhage to which I became subject. “On the 29th of December following I was seized with a violent headache, beginning with a swoon, which lasted more than two hours, and with a frightful hæmorrhage. Suitable remedies were instantly administered to me by skilful physicians, but in vain; and after this I was attacked with convulsions, and the entire suspension of all motion in my body. “Different consultations were held at Paris; MM. Fumé and Petit sent me prescriptions which produced no effect. This sickness continued until the 13th of May, 1783, when I was removed into the town of my uncle’s. All these facts have been attested by the physicians and surgeons of Vernon, by the testimony of M. Atadie, physician to his Serene Highness the Duke of Penthievre, and of M. le Noble, physician, who had employed magnetism, but without effect. These certificates, duly legalized by M. le Lieutenant-Général of the same town, attest that my disorder was deemed so violent and incurable to the period when I decided upon returning to Pontoise, hoping to recover my health by the means which it might please God to employ. I arrived there on the 5th of August, 1783; from that time my condition was precisely the same, namely habitual convulsions. I was deprived of the use of my limbs, particularly of my right arm, in which the convulsions were so violent that it was found necessary to fix and tie it with a bandage. The left was not much better, for on merely touching it, or on a change of weather, it experienced similar convulsions. Added to this I was attacked violently with gout, which I felt all over my body, but especially in my head and the extremities of my fingers. I was subject to pains in my breast and stomach, so severe as to occasion me to spit blood and to vomit up even the most liquid of my food. Sleep, of which I had in general but little till this period, now became, as it were, a stranger to me. My voice was for a month or six weeks almost extinct, and there was not a part of my body which was not in a state of suffering; the least noise became almost insupportable. “It is moreover to be remarked, that I never discovered, although always valetudinary, what could be capable of occasioning such a malady. This is a testimony I offer to truth. The persons who could not be ignorant of what concerned their patient have made the same depositions.[46] “Such was my condition when they were proceeding at Pontoise, by order of the Holy See, in the process of the beatification of the servant of God, Marie de l’Incarnation, whose name in the world was Madame Acarie, foundress of the Carmelites in France, who, having edified the World by the virtues which characterize great souls, and consecrated at Carmel three of her daughters, herself embraced this holy state under the humble quality of converse-sister in the Convent of Carmelites at Amiens, and died at that of Pontoise in the odour of sanctity on the 18th of April, 1618, aged fifty-two years. “The fame of this process revived my faith. I made a Novena to her, in which the Carmelites, as well as many other pious persons, united. I not only, during this Novena, took no medicines, but I told my physician: ‘Perhaps, sir, you will smile at me when I tell you that I am performing a Novena to the venerable Sister Marie de l’Incarnation, and that I hope to-morrow to be taken to her tomb!’ ‘I commend your piety,’ said he, ‘to make a Novena to that blessed person, but I do not equally commend the step which you propose to take; I fear that none but bad consequences will result from it.’ I replied, as I had done to many other of my friends, ‘that I had the firmest confidence of a cure.’ “I persevered constantly in this moral and physical disposition until the moment when I was carried in a sedan chair into the church of the Carmelites. I was brought there at five o’clock in the morning. I heard mass, and communicated without quitting my chair. Towards the moment of elevation I felt severe pains throughout my whole frame, and seemed to myself to be in such a state of weakness that I then thought if I were to be communicated it would have been for the last time. A cold sweat spread itself at that time over my whole body. The priest who gave me the Holy Sacrament noticed that I was so weak that I could not hold the cloth upon my knees. He was so much afraid from the paleness of my countenance and the alteration he perceived in me, that in fear of some accident he put the sacred ciborium almost close to my lips. “Finding me in this painful state, which announced rather a speedy dissolution than a cure, I formed acts of submission to the Will of God. I begged Him to accept the sacrifice of my life; I also thrice made the prayer of the blind man, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me;’ the while interiorly, having lost my power of articulation. I remained in that state till the end of the mass, and finding my strength recovering I called my nurse, and begged her to go and see if the chapel in which the precious remains of the Venerable Sister Marie de l’Incarnation were deposited was open, having the design to be carried there. But O bounty and mercy of the Lord! at the very moment the people were preparing I quitted the chair myself; my nurse came hastily upon me to stop me, imagining that this movement was a last effort of nature. I corrected her, saying that I thanked her, but that thanks be to God! I had no need of her help, and instantly after, on the steps of the altar, returned thanks after communion; for I did not as yet perceive the change that was made in me. I was not sensible of it till after having made my thanksgiving, which was near a quarter of an hour after. I then raised myself from the ground filled with joy and consolation, finding I had recovered the use of my limbs; my breast and stomach at ease and devoid of pain, enjoying tranquillity altogether wonderful. I first ascended the seven steps of the altar; and then went to the grate of the choir and thanked the community for the prayers that they had the goodness to offer up for me; requesting them to add still further their thanks to mine. I then turned towards the Blessed Sacrament, where I remained on my knees on the ground without any support during the period of three masses, which were said in succession. I afterwards heard high mass, and assisted at the entire Office of the Day, without the noise of chaunting, of the instruments, nor the great concourse of people, occasioning me the slightest inconvenience. Although I had to answer in the course of the day to more than four thousand persons attracted by the novelty of the circumstance to the church of the Carmelites, on the afternoon of the same day I went on foot to visit the Ursuline Dames. “Done at Compiègne on the 12th of Feb. 1792. (Signed) “Françoise-Geneviève-Philippe, “Called in religion ‘Sr. Josephine of the Incarnation,’ Religious Carmelite of the Monastery of the City of Compiègne, in which I had the happiness to enter on the 20th of December, 1786, and to pronounce my holy and inviolable engagements on the 22nd of July, 1788.” Another point bearing very directly on the subject of this chapter here suggests itself for some brief consideration:-- Deeds of benediction have been so universally recognized in history, that it may be credibly maintained that the custom originated in the earliest ages of the World’s existence, either by a direct revelation from Heaven or by the most elementary religious instinct of the immediate descendants of our first parents. The heads of tribes, after the Flood, blessed their children and followers. And, when the Patriarchal dispensation drew towards its close, the power of blessing was exercised by the leaders and chiefs of God’s chosen people. Proof of all this is on record in the Sacred Writings. He, therefore, who runs may read. And we may gather from the same source that a form of blessing was attached to the priest’s office;[47] and that such blessing was efficient. All this is of course taken for granted under the Christian dispensation; and it is evident that the various forms of sacerdotal benediction are true means of bestowing the Divine blessing and grace: and this, because of the salient principle that the Fall of man from original righteousness, having effected a loss of union with God Almighty, salvation is the renewal of that union by and through Jesus Christ and His Church. Now, a Blessing, in the Name of God, is bestowed by a superior upon an inferior.[48] Thus a bishop gives his benediction to a priest, deacon, or layman; a priest to a layman; a father or head of a family to a son or an inferior member of that same family; a patriarch or chieftain to his tribe, or to any member of it. The blessing of God is a great and mighty gift of grace, and has always been intimately conjoined with the offering of sacrifice, and so particularly and specifically with the offering of the Christian sacrifice, as also with and by a benediction, some of the most solemn services of Holy Church have been brought to an end. Of course, if there be a power to bless, there is, as has already been pointed out, likewise a power to curse. Neither blessing nor curse may be absolute in their effect, and all acts and deeds are done under God, or with the permission of the Almighty. Of the results respectively of blessings or curses we know but little. But the glimpses which History, Revealed Religion, and Experience alike afford of those results are full of interest, and are subjects for contemplation and study. Here, as in the consideration of similar details, concerning the Supernatural, the Church Universal should be our guide. Where she leads we should go: where she directs we should follow. As bearing on this subject, it may be suitably pointed out that Mr. Robert Southey in his “Common-Place Book” puts on record a very remarkable story of “citation” by a man unjustly and cruelly murdered:-- “The Philipsons of Colgarth coveted a field like Ahab, and had the possessor hung for an offence which he had not committed. The night before his execution the old man (for he was very old) read the 109th Psalm as his solemn and dying commination, verses 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.” The verses contain a prayer for vengeance upon “the wicked and deceitful, who have spoken with a lying tongue,” and whose days are to be few, and their children to be fatherless, their descendants continually vagabonds and beggars, and their posterity to be cut off. “The curse,” Southey adds, “was fully accomplished; the family were cut off, and the only daughter who remained sold laces and bobbins about the country.” Two remarkable and, as may be well believed, supernatural events occurred (which may be fittingly recorded here) with regard to the cruel and shameful death of Edmund Arrowsmith, a Roman Catholic priest of the county of Lancaster, in the year 1628. He was born at Haddock in the parish of Winwick, five miles from Warrington and seven from Wigan. His father was Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman, and his mother Margaret Gerard, of the ancient and noble family of that name. His immediate ancestors had suffered much for their religion. Edmund, their son, having been received into the College at Douay in 1605, was eventually ordained priest at Arras on December 9th, 1612. A year afterwards he was sent to England to minister to his fellow religionists. One of his flock being exasperated against him because he refused to marry him to his first cousin and had rebuked him for evil-living, informed against him to the vigilant authorities; and Arrowsmith, being apprehended, was sent to Lancaster Castle, “for not having taken the oaths, and upon vehement suspicion that he was a priest and a jesuit.” The judge on circuit was Sir Henry Yelverton. “Are you a priest, sir?” asked the judge, when the accused person was brought before him. Arrowsmith, signing himself with the cross, replied, “My lord, I would to God I were worthy.” On the judge repeating the question Arrowsmith replied coolly, “I would I were.” When the accused, in reply to a minister on the bench, suggested a disputation regarding religion, and claimed to defend his Faith, the judge silenced him at once, and declared that he would not allow him to make any defence at all. “I am ready, my lord, bear in mind,” replied Arrowsmith, “not only to defend it in words, but in deeds, and to seal it with my blood.” The judge then told him, in an insulting and savage manner, that he should die, and see his bowels burnt before his very face. “And you too must die, my lord, and that within a year.”[49] Two indictments were framed against him: one for being a priest and a jesuit, and the other for disparaging Protestantism; on these he was found guilty of high treason, and ordered to die according to the law. To the gaoler of the prison, the sheriff brought express commands from the judge to load him with the heaviest irons in the Castle, and to lodge him in a small cell where he could not lie down. This occurred on the 26th of August, 1628, and he suffered death on the 28th of the same month. He was dragged on a hurdle from the Castle to the place of execution, having received absolution from a fellow prisoner, Mr. Southworth, in the Castle yard. He was bound on the hurdle, and for greater ignominy with his head to the horse’s tail. The gallows and boiling caldron were set up about a quarter of a mile distant from the Castle. The devotion and piety of this holy and zealous man were as remarkable as his constancy and fortitude,--graces which edified those who witnessed his sad end. He offered himself up as a sacrifice thrice: once upon his knees at the foot of the ladder, again on the ladder, which he kissed, and a third time just before the halter was fastened round his neck; and then prayed fervently, “O Sweet Jesus, I freely offer Thee my death, in satisfaction for my sins.” Then he was cast off, suffered to hang until he was dead--an act of mercy, by no means ordinary or common--cut down, disembowelled, and quartered; his head being placed on a pole amongst the pinnacles of the Castle. It is recorded that the judge being vexed and annoyed with the clever and luminous answers which Arrowsmith made when under examination, in the hearing of so many, appeared to take a special pleasure in viewing the execution from his lodgings, through a perspective glass; that he had the curiosity to examine the four quarters of his body, which, by his command, being brought to his apartment, he made an unnatural and shocking comparison between them and a haunch or two of venison with which he had that day been presented; and that he deliberately kicked the right hand of the body in contempt. On leaving the town he ordered the martyr’s head to be placed on a pole six yards higher than the pinnacles of the Castle. The judge, sitting at supper at an inn on January 23, 1629, upon return from circuit, felt a heavy blow, as if someone had struck him on the back of the head; upon which he fell into a violent rage with, and severely rated, the servant who was waiting upon him; who protested that he had not struck him, nor did he see anyone strike him. A little while afterwards, the judge felt another blow like the first; and, as some records say, a third just as the meal was being ended. The blows he himself evidently thought to have come from the hand of divine justice, for he exclaimed in fear and trepidation: “That dog Arrowsmith hath killed me.”[50] In great terror he was carried to bed, and dying the next morning, the prophecy of the holy priest regarding his death was exactly fulfilled. As regards the Hand of the sufferer, it was procured and treasured up by his relatives the Gerards: and the following remarkable occurrence is connected with it. In the year 1813 a young man named Joseph Lamb, then residing at Eccles, near Trafford Hall, about four miles from Manchester, fell from a rick of considerable height to the ground, and received a violent injury in the back. He was so injured that he could neither stand nor walk and suffered very considerable pain; but after many attempts had been made by physicians to give him relief and effect a cure, his case at a later stage was unanimously pronounced to be incurable. In religion he was a Roman Catholic, having been converted to that ancient faith from being an Anabaptist--a sect to which his father still belonged. Local circumstances had led to his investigating the martyrdom of the venerable priest, Edmund Arrowsmith, who, as already recounted, gave up his life in the cause of God at Lancaster, on the 28th of August, 1628. Of this holy man a Hand had been long and carefully preserved at Sir William Gerard’s, of Garswood, near Wigan, where it was and is deservedly venerated and held in respect by all Roman Catholics. The sufferer Lamb, finding that the skill and power of man could do nothing for him, conceived a firm conviction that it would please the Almighty to restore him to health by the instrumentality of this relic, and he consequently most earnestly and systematically prayed to God that it might be so. His parents consequently, in response to his urgent entreaties, on October 2nd, 1814, had him conveyed in a covered cart from his own house near Trafford Hall to Garswood, a distance of fourteen miles.[51] In a state of considerable suffering, and quite unable to assist himself, he was lifted out of the cart and carried into the Roman Catholic chapel, where he was placed before the altar. Then the “Holy Hand,” as it is termed, was brought forth; the sacred sign of the cross was solemnly made over the affected part of the poor suffering man’s back; when, in an instant, he felt freedom from pain and found his former health and strength perfectly restored. He immediately rose, stood up for some time in prayer, and then walked, without any assistance whatsoever, to his relatives and friends who were gathered at the chief entrance of the chapel. He returned home quite recovered and perfectly well, and so remained, up to the 19th of September, 1816.[52] The result of this miraculous intervention was that several of his kinsmen and acquaintances became converts to the religion which he had elected to follow; and these, together with many Roman Catholics who became acquainted with Almighty God’s merciful visitation of him, joined in a solemn act of thanksgiving, by assembling to sing the _Te Deum_ in the chapel of Garswood.[53] Thus, then, we see the prophecy of a Christian priest, who was unjustly and illegally condemned and cruelly murdered, exactly and most strikingly fulfilled; and a wonderful sign bestowed from God to man of Eternal Truth, in the supernatural cure wrought some two centuries and more afterwards upon this Lancashire farm-labourer. Here something may be properly put on record, regarding cases in which visible marks and tokens of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ have been supernaturally and miraculously impressed upon God’s saints and servants, in order to set forth before the eyes of man, as a matter of _sight_ and not as a matter of _faith_, the truth of the Revelation of Almighty God, through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The first recorded instance of stigmatization is that of S. Francis of Assisi, in the thirteenth century. From the life of this distinguished saint, written by S. Bonaventure (chapters xii. and xv.), we gather the following particulars of these remarkable phenomena. It was the custom of the saint, from time to time, to retire into the solitudes of Mount Alverna, in the Apennines, in order the more easily to give himself up to prayer and meditation. “While fasting there for forty days, being in prayer, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and feeling within his soul an intense desire to be crucified with his Lord, he beheld, descending from heaven towards him, a seraph, having six wings as it were of fire.[54] When the celestial messenger came near to him, there appeared between the wings the form of One crucified, with the hands and feet stretched out upon the cross. Two wings rose above the head, two were spread forth in flight, while the others veiled the whole body.” Francis felt a great joy at the apparition, and yet, at the same time, a deep sorrow at beholding Him Whom his soul loved, so cruelly fastened to the Cross, the thought of which pierced his heart as with a sword of grief. It was presently revealed to him that he was to imitate the Passion of our Lord. “The vision disappearing, his soul was filled with heavenly light, while a marvellous sign was left imprinted on his limbs. On his hand and feet were the marks of the nails, as he had beheld in the seraphic vision, and on his right side was a wound, as if made by a lance’s thrust. His hands and feet appeared transfixed with the nails, their heads being seen in the upper part of the feet, and the points on the reverse sides. The heads of these nails were round and black, and the points somewhat long and bent, as if turned back; so that between them and the skin there was the space of a finger. They could be moved with ease; for on the one side they were embedded in the flesh, whilst on the other they were clear of it: yet it was not possible to draw them out, as we are assured by S. Clare, who, after the saint’s death, essayed to do so, but could not succeed. The wound in the side was deep, and of the width of three fingers. It was red, and the saint’s habit was often stained by the blood which flowed from it.” These stigmata were seen during his life by the reigning Pope Alexander with many of his cardinals; and after his death, by more than fifty brethren together, by S. Clare and many of her sisters, and an innumerable crowd of seculars, who came from all parts of the country to be witnesses of these wonders. At the close of the seventeenth century, another case of stigmatization occurred to Veronica Juliana, a nun; and her examination by the bishop of her diocese, aided by several physicians, was of so strict and severe a character, that deception on her part would have been quite impossible. In the early part of the same century, Joanna di Jesu Maria, a Spanish nun, was subjected to even a more rigorous examination, before a court composed of the Commissary of the Inquisition, the Suffragan Bishop, several of the secular and regular clergy of the district, of many learned men, and two distinguished physicians. In this case, the subject of the phenomena bore not only the wounds on her hands, feet, and side, from which blood and water frequently flowed, but also around her head, as from the crown of thorns, a deep wound, which, in the opinion of the doctors, penetrated to the skull. They, furthermore, declared by oath that the wounds were not natural, and could not possibly be the effect of fraud. The most celebrated subjects of stigmata in our own days are Maria Mörl, the Ecstatica of Caldamo, in the Tyrol, and Maria Domenica Lazzari, a peasant girl of Capriana, whose cases were brought before the English public by that late distinguished nobleman John, Earl of Shrewsbury, A. L.