All
that remains of him and of his subordinate legions is the ineffectual
ghost of a departed creed, for the resuscitation of which no man will
move a finger.
[Footnote 1: See Dr. Carpenter in _Frazer_ for November, 1877.]
[Footnote 2: See Jenkins v. Cooke, Law Reports, Admiralty and
Ecclesiastical Cases, vol. iv. p. 463, et seq.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 499, Sir R. Phillimore.]
[Footnote 4: Law Reports, I Probate Division, p. 102.]
81. It is perfectly impossible for us, therefore, to comprehend,
although by an effort we may perhaps bring ourselves to imagine, the
horror and loathing with which good men, entirely believing in the
existence and omnipresence of countless legions of evil spirits, able
and anxious to perpetrate the mischiefs that it has been the object of
these pages in some part to describe, would regard those who, for their
own selfish gratification, deliberately surrendered their hopes of
eternal happiness in exchange for an alliance with the devils, which
would render these ten times more capable than before of working their
wicked wills. To men believing this, no punishment could seem too sudden
or too terrible for such offenders against religion and society, and no
means of possible detection too slight or far-fetched to be neglected;
indeed, it might reasonably appear to them better that many innocent
persons should perish, with the assurance of future reward for their
undeserved sufferings, than that a single guilty one should escape
undetected, and become the medium by which the devil might destroy more
souls.
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