till at last he fell into the arms of some of his keepers. During the
night the same apparition stood once more by his bed-side, inviting him
to drink of a gray porridge, which would cure him of all ills and
protect him against further violence. He suffered himself to be
persuaded, when the visitor made himself known as a former friend who
had to attend those mysterious meetings in punishment of the dissolute
life he had led upon earth, and who now wished to save another unhappy
fellow-being from a like sad fate. At the same time he reminded him of
his neglect to pray, and then disappeared. The steward speedily
recovered from his fright, and was no further molested. There can be
little doubt that the man was ill at ease in body and in conscience, and
that this double burden was too heavy to bear for his mind; his thoughts
became disordered, till he felt an apparently external power stronger
than his own will, and thus not only imagined strange visions, but
actually obeyed erratic impulses of his diseased mind, as if they were
acts of violence from without.
A favorite pastime of these pseudo-ghosts is the throwing of stones at
the buildings or even into the rooms of those whom they wish to annoy.
Good Cotton Mather loved to tell stories of such perverse proceedings,
and states at length the sufferings of George Walton, at Portsmouth, in
1682. Invisible hands threw such a hailstorm of stones against his
house, that the door was burst open, although the inhabitants, when hit
by the stones, only felt a slight touch. Then the stones began to fly
about inside, and to destroy the window-panes from within; when picked
up by some of the witnesses, they proved to be burning hot; they were
marked and placed upon a table, whereupon they commenced to fly about
once more. It is characteristic of the whole proceeding that the only
person really injured by the operation was the owner of the house, a
quaker! The learned author delights also in recitals of children who
were plagued by evil spirits, having forks and knives, pins and sharp
scissors stuck into their backs, and whose food, at the moment when it
was to be carried from the plate to the mouth, flew away, leaving yarn,
ashes, and vile things to reach the palate! At other times the
disturbance assumes a somewhat more dignified form, and appears as the
ringing of bells. Thus Baxter tells us of a house at Colne Priory, in
Essex, where, for a time, every morning at two o'clock a large bell was
heard, while in the parish of Wilcot, a smaller bell waked the vicar
night after night with its tinkling, and yet could not be heard outside
of the dwelling. Physicians know very well how readily the pressure of
blood to certain vessels in the head produces the impression of the
ringing of bells, and experience tells us how easily men are made to
believe that they see or hear what others assure them is seen or heard
by everybody. Even the great John Wesley seems not to have been fully
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