A man, named B, built a house with second-hand lumber from an old building that had been torn down. The old building was reputed to be haunted by the former owner, who was murdered there. The ghost was very mad because B took his lumber, and, in order to be revenged, he went with the lumber to the new house and haunted that. B says that the ghost would appear to him when he was going to sleep and jab him in the eye with his finger and seize his arm and hurl it against the wall. When B was half asleep one night, the ghost appeared with a pail of water and threw it all over him. The dog could see the ghost even when B could not, and would bark and show his teeth and propose to fight the phantom. B sold the house to some colored folks. They were scared white by the skilligin, gave up the property and demanded their money back, because the ghost was an incumbrance on the estate and a legal defect in title, he being in possession, claiming ownership. St. Clemens Romanus says that Simon Magus (Paul), of the New Testament, could make himself invisible when and to whom he pleased. He created a man out of air, who passed through the rocks and mountains and flew along through the air. He threw himself from precipices without being injured and flung himself into the fire without being burned, he animated statues, he walked through the streets attended by strange figures, which he said were the souls of people departed. CHAPTER XIV. Witches and Sorcerers. “Burn everybody,” the Inquisition seemed to say, “God can easily sort out his own.” Poor fools, hysterical women and idiots were roasted alive for the crime of magic. Catherine de Medicis, the author of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, had in her service an apostate Jacobin priest who was proficient in the black art. King Charles lay dangerously ill, and Catherine, the queen mother, had everything to lose by the death of the King. In her anxiety she commanded the priest to inquire of the Devil what should be done to save the life of the King. The priest, taking with him a beautiful child, went into the chapel and after administering to the child its first communion, decapitated it on the very steps of the altar and placed the palpitating head upon the paten. Then, standing on a reversed cross, he celebrated the Devil’s Mass before an image of the Demon, and commanded the Devil to answer by the lips of this murdered child the question of the Queen. Then a strange voice, which had nothing human about it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr’s head. But the sorcery availed nothing, the King died.—Elephas Levi.