"[3]
[Footnote 1: See Hooper's Declaration of the Ten Commandments. Parker
Society. Hooper, 326.]
[Footnote 2: Daemonologie, p. 60.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. Hamlet, I. iv. 60-80; and post, sec. 58.]
56. But the belief in the appearance of ghosts was too deeply rooted in
the popular mind to be extirpated, or even greatly affected, by a
dogmatic declaration. The masses went on believing as they always had
believed, and as their fathers had believed before them, in spite of the
Reformers, and to their no little discontent. Pilkington, Bishop of
Durham, in a letter to Archbishop Parker, dated 1564, complains that,
"among other things that be amiss here in your great cares, ye shall
understand that in Blackburn there is a fantastical (and as some say,
lunatic) young man, which says that he has spoken with one of his
neighbours that died four year since, or more. Divers times he says he
has seen him, and talked with him, and took with him the curate, the
schoolmaster, and other neighbours, who all affirm that they see him.
_These things be so common here_ that none in authority will gainsay it,
but rather believe and confirm it, that everybody believes it. If I had
known how to examine with authority, I would have done it."[1] Here is a
little glimpse at the practical troubles of a well-intentioned bishop of
the sixteenth century that is surely worth preserving.
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