Mr. Sinclair professes that his proofs of the existence of Devils "are no
old wife's trattles about the fire, but such as may bide the test." He
lived, one should remember, in an age when faith was really seeking aid
from ghost stories. Glanvil's books--and, in America, those of Cotton
Mather--show the hospitality to anecdotes of an edifying sort, which we
admire in Mr. Sinclair. Indeed, Sinclair borrows from Glanvil and Henry
More, authors who, like himself, wished to establish the existence of the
supernatural on the strange incidents which still perplex us, but which
are scarcely regarded as safe matter to argue upon. The testimony for a
Ghost would seldom go to a jury in our days, though amply sufficient in
the time of Mr. Sinclair. About "The Devil of Glenluce" he took
particular care to be well informed, and first gave it to the world in a
volume on--you will never guess what subject--Hydrostatics! In the
present work he offers us
"The Devil of Glenluce Enlarged
With several Remarkable Additions
from an Eye and Ear Witness,
A Person of undoubted
Honesty."
Mr. Sinclair recommends its "usefulness for refuting Atheism." Probably
Mr. Sinclair got the story, or had it put off on him rather, through one
Campbell, a student of philosophy in Glasgow, the son of Gilbert
Campbell, a weaver of Glenluce, in Galloway; the scene in our own time,
of a mysterious murder. Campbell had refused alms to Alexander Agnew, a
bold and sturdy beggar, who, when asked by the Judge whether he believed
in a God, answered: "He knew no God but Salt, Meal, and Water." In
consequence of the refusal of alms, "The Stirs first began." The "Stirs"
are ghostly disturbances. They commenced with whistling in the house and
out of it, "such as children use to make with their small, slender glass
whistles." "About the Middle of November," says Mr. Sinclair, "the Foul
Fiend came on with his extraordinary assaults." Observe that he takes
the Foul Fiend entirely for granted, and that he never tells us the date
of the original quarrel, and the early agitation. Stones were thrown
down the chimney and in at the windows, but nobody was hurt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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