The daily herald. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1886-1887, 1886-11-20
THE POWER or exoscisM.
An Old Scotch LeEend--Layins Perturbea
Ghosts.

An Old scotch Legend-Laytng RerturDen
Ghosts.
No persons were less tolerant Of nee.
romancy than the Puritans of the seven
tenth century, the witch prosecutions
of Salem forming the darkest page in
the history of the colony. Many Of
these stern professors, who burnt old
women for the supposed exercising Of
unlawful arts, claimed various super
natural powers for themselves. But, as
expressions which are "choleric words"
to the captain become frank blasphemy"
in the mouth of the soldier, 80 dealings
with unseen forces which were highly
reprehensible in the case of ignornant
old women became lawful, even laud-
able, in the case of the student or the
enthusiast. There is a Scotch legend of
pious old minister of a country parish
in the seventeenth century who had
entered into league with a familiar
spirit and was thought none the worse
of for it by his parishioners. Like Solo
mon, the minister held this power on
condition. Solomon's lay in the renten-
ton of his ring, the loss of which, ac-
cording to the Talmud, once subjected
him to terrible misfortunes. The Scotch
divine held his familiar spirit subject to
his will as long as he wore only one gar
teri To this condition the venerable
minister adhered throughout his life
though it is recorded that the baffied
spirit stopped to the meanness of trans
forming itself into a flea, for the pur-
pose of tormenting the minister's maid
while she knitted his stockings, making
her lose count of stitches and manufac-
ture share hose. But the minister was
not to be entrapped; and walked tran
gully through life with one stocking
down at heel.
The power of exorcism-of laying
troubled spirits in the Red sea-was one
eagerly claimed by the ministers of va
rious denominations; and the successful
exercise of this influence regarded as a
kind of hall mark of orthodoxy-akin to
the power to heal vested in the rightful
sovereign alone. "Sir, they did not
take me far enough; they should have
taken me to Rome" whispered johnson,
between jest and earnest, when some
one remarked that his visit to London as
child to be touched by Queen Anne
had not resulted in the miraculous cure
expected. Possibly he was not alto
gether destitute of faith in the efficacy
of the healing touch of the direct male
heir Of the Stuart line.
In the same way, duly ordained min
listers of the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries ridiculed the claims
of their Dissenting or unorthodox
brethren TO quiet or lay perturbed ghosts
and restless COLLINS; while fervent pro-
fessors professed powers over the
unseen world which far excelled
the everyday gifts of the ortho-
dox divine. In the we'll known
Cornish tale of the "Bonathen Ghost, ="
which made itself troublesome in the
early seventeenth century, the perturbed
spirit is brought to reason by the min
lister of the parish and besides departing
In peace gives information of the COM
ing plague of 1664-5. Many Scottish
goblin has been banished by the power
of some painful preacher" like the cele-
brated Peden; while Sir Roger de Cover
ley found it sufficient exorcism to the
ghosts which had appropriated all the
best bedrooms in the manor house to
cause his chaplain to lie in each in turn.
London Globe.