Delphi. St. Gregory's saintliness and magnanimity. Confusion of
pagan gods and Christian saints. 26. Church in North Europe. Thonar,
etc., are devils, but Balda gets identified with Christ. 27. Conversion
of Britons. Their gods get turned into fairies rather than devils.
Deuce. Old Nick. 28. Subsequent evolution of belief. Carlyle's Abbot
Sampson. Religious formulae of witchcraft. 29. The Reformers and
Catholics revive the old accusations. The Reformers only go half-way in
scepticism. Calfhill and Martiall. 30. Catholics. Siege of Alkmaar.
Unfortunate mistake of a Spanish prisoner. 31. Conditions that tended to
vivify the belief during Elizabethan era. 32. The new freedom. Want of
rules of evidence. Arthur Hacket and his madnesses. Sneezing.
Cock-crowing. Jackdaw in the House of Commons. Russell and Drake both
mistaken for devils. 33. Credulousness of people. "To make one danse
naked." A parson's proof of transubstantiation. 34. But the Elizabethans
had strong common sense nevertheless. People do wrong if they set them
down as fools. If we had not learned to be wiser than they, we should
have to be ashamed of ourselves. We shall learn nothing from them if we
don't try to understand them.
III.
35. The three heads. 36. (I.) Classification of devils. Greater and
lesser devils. Good and bad angels. 37. Another classification, not
popular.
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