Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-11-23
BELIEF IN SPOOkS.
superstition Has Always Been Strong
Annonn ALI People.

EIoo FN"eJs-
Among All People.
The belief in ghosts and in the su-
pernatural generally has been preva-
Ilent in all ages and in all climes. The
Twelve Tables of the ancient Roman
law contained provisions against
witchcraft and sorcery. The Eastern
world has always been a prey to su-
perstition. Science and common sense
have frowned upon such beliefs In
vain. When Shakespeare shows US
the ghost of Hamlet's father and the
witches on the blasted heath and
makes Macbeth alone Of the COM
pany to see the spectre of the blood
bolter'd Banquo sitting at the feast
he is but giving us vivid realization
of the faith Of his own time, not OF
the distant periods with which these
two great tragedies deal.
In fact, it may safely be inferred
from several of his plays that Eliza
bethan and Jacobean England was
reeking with belief in the preternat-
ural. Besides, did not King James
vi Of Scotland himself, ere yet he had
succeeded his Tudor cousin on the
throne Of England, pen with his own
royal hand a learned treatise on de-
monology, in which he stoutly main-
tanned the fearefull abounding at tfis
time in this countrey Of these detes-
table slaues Of the deuil, the witches
or enchanters," and accuse of Saddu-
ceeism all those who denied the exis-
tence Of spirits?
The stout-hearted Pilgrim Fathers
and their immediate descendants,
who faced wild nature and savage
man with equanimity, could not, for
all their Puritan training, rid them
selves Of the dread Of the preternat-
ural, and at the fanatical outbreak
against witchcraft at Salem, Mass, IN
which toward the end Of the seven
teenth century nineteen persons were
executed, is a proof of their weird
dread of uncanny agencies.
In our own day beliefs are in mix.
| ed condition. 1t Is a very material
world we live in. We profess no
longer to marvel. The wonders
wrought by science are such as In an
earlier age would have brought their
inventor to a cruel death at the
stake. We are inclined, on the whole.
to be of the earth, earthly; but behind
/ the veneer of our extreme modernity
there lurk, regarding what the veil
of another life conceals, those primal
instincts which civilization in all Its
progress has signally failed to ban.
ish. Hence we have society OF
Psychical Research. Hence we have
Dr. WI Ting Fang consulting medi-
ums Hence too we have William T.
Stead setting up in the heart OF Lon
don a bureau Of spooks, where for
consideration of guinea you can en-
ter and summon spirits, II not from
the vastly deep at least from the cir
cumambient.
And what Is to be said of those
mysterious visi,aI ts whose appear
ance at Windsor Castle, at ancient
country seats in I erbyshire and York
shire and in different parts Of Scot
| land have been vouched for by the
baronets and ladies' Of high degree, by a
Lord High Chancellor Of England,
by King Edward VII.-most modern
of monarchs- himself? Catherine OF
Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Queen
Elizabeth, not to mention other less
august persOnages, would seem to
have again taken to walking the
earth and revisiting the glimnses OF
the moon.
1t Is all very disquietlng, very up
setting, to the preconceived notions
Of most people. But 1t Is a subject
on which no one can speak dogmati-
cally. To assert a negative in such a
matter as in most others, Is impossi-
BILE. The wise man will suspend judg-
ment while awaiting further evidence.
He. least Of all, will in the present
state Of our information be inclined
to dispute the truth Of Hamlets prop
osition that there are more things In
heaven and earth than the dreamt OF
' in our philosophy.-Washin Post.