FREAKS OF FANATICISM AND OTHER STRANGE EVENTS FREAKS OF FANATICISM AND OTHER STRANGE EVENTS BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. AUTHOR OF "MEHALAH," "OLD COUNTRY LIFE," "HISTORIC ODDITIES," "SONGS OF THE WEST," ETC. Methuen & Co. 18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1891 PREFACE. This Volume, that originally appeared as a Second Series to "Historic Oddities and Strange Events," is now issued under a new title which describes the peculiar nature of the majority of its contents. Several of the articles are concerned with the history of mysticism, a phase of human nature that deserves careful and close study. Mysticism is the outbreak in man of a spiritual element which cannot be ignored, cannot be wholly suppressed, and is man's noblest element when rightly directed and balanced. It is capable of regulation, but unregulated, it may become even a mischievous faculty. When the Jews are being expelled from Russia, and are regarded with bitter hostility in other parts of Eastern Europe, the article on the accusations brought against them may prove not uninstructive reading. There is political as well as religious and racial fanaticism, and the story of the "Poisoned Parsnips" illustrates the readiness with which false accusations against political enemies are made and accepted without examination. "Jean Aymon" exhibits the same unscrupulousness where religious passions are concerned. The curious episode to "The Northern Raphael" shows the craving after notoriety that characterises so much of sentimental, hysterical piety. S. BARING GOULD. LEW TRENCHARD, DEVON, _September 1st, 1891_. CONTENTS. PAGE A SWISS PASSION PLAY 1 A NORTHERN RAPHAEL 39 THE POISONED PARSNIPS 67 THE MURDER OF FATHER THOMAS IN DAMASCUS 86 SOME ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JEWS 107 THE COBURG MAUSOLEUM 120 JEAN AYMON 129 THE PATARINES OF MILAN 146 THE ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER 195 FREAKS OF FANATICISM. A Swiss Passion Play. We are a little surprised, and perhaps a little shocked, at the illiberality of the Swiss Government, in even such Protestant cantons as Geneva, Zürich, and Berne, in forbidding the performances on their ground of the "Salvation Army," and think that such conduct is not in accordance with Protestant liberty of judgment and democratic independence. But the experiences gone through in Switzerland as in Germany of the confusion and mischief sometimes wrought by fanaticism, we will not say justify, but in a measure explain, the objection the Government has to a recrudescence of religious mysticism in its more flagrant forms. The following story exemplifies the extravagance to which such spiritual exaltation runs occasionally--fortunately only occasionally.