One of the strong points made by the counsel for the defence in prosecutions of this kind was that these insects were sent to punish man for his sins, and should therefore be regarded as agents and emissaries of the Almighty, and that to attempt to destroy them or to drive them away would be to fight against God (_s’en prendre à Dieu_). Under such circumstances, the proper thing to do would be, not to seek legal redress and to treat the noxious creatures as criminals, but to repent and humbly to entreat an angry Deity to remove the scourge. This is still the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy, Protestant as well as Catholic, and the argument applies with equal force to the impious and atheistic substitution of Paris green and the chlorate of lime for prayer and fasting as exterminators of potato-bugs. The modern, like the mediæval horticulturist may ward off devouring vermin from his garden by the use of ashes, but he strews them on his plants instead of sprinkling them on his own head, and thus indicates to what extent scientific have superseded theological methods in the practical affairs of life. Thomas Aquinas, the “angelic doctor,” in his _Summa Theologiæ_ raises the query, whether it is permissible to curse irrational creatures (_utrum liceat irrationabiles creaturas adjurare_). He states, in the first place, that curses and blessings can be pronounced only upon such things as are susceptible of receiving evil or good impressions from them, or in other words, upon sentient and rational beings, or upon irrational creatures and insentient things in their relation to rational beings, so that the latter are the objects ultimately aimed at and favourably or unfavourably affected. Thus God cursed the earth, because it is essential to a man’s subsistence; Jesus cursed the barren fig-tree symbolizing the Jews, who made a great show of leafage in the form of rites and ceremonies, but bore no fruits of righteousness; Job cursed the day on which he was born, because he took from his mother’s womb the taint of original sin; David cursed the rocks and mountains of Gilboa, because they were stained with the blood of “the beauty of Israel”; in like manner the Lord sends locusts and blight and mildew to destroy the harvests, because these are intimately connected with the happiness of mankind, whose sins he wishes to punish.