The Holy Winding Sheet of Besançon, again, was greatly resorted to for the relief and cure of possession. This venerable relic, being one of the linen cloths used at the burial of Christ, was brought to Besançon in 1206 by Otto de la Roche, and the feast of its arrival (_Susceptio_) was ordered to be kept on 11 July. At present it is a double of the first class in the cathedral, St. Jean, and of the second class throughout the diocese. Novenas made in the church at Bonnet, near Nantes, were popularly supposed to be of especial efficacy in healing possession. It is, of course, impossible even briefly to catalogue the most important and striking of the numberless cases of possession recorded throughout the centuries in every country and at every era. Of these a great number are, no doubt, to be attributed to disease; very many to a commixture of hysteria and semi-conscious, or more frequently unconscious, fraud; some few to mere chousing; and, if human evidence is worth anything at all, many actually to diabolic influence. There were some curious episodes in England during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when a third-rate Puritan minister, John Darrel, made a considerable stir owing to his attempts at exorcism. This idea seems to have been suggested to him by the exorcisms of the famous Jesuit missionary priest, William Weston, who after having been educated at Oxford, Paris, and Douai, entered the Society on 5 November, 1575, at Rome. He then worked and taught in Spain, until he was called to his native mission, actually arriving in England, 20 September, 1584. In the course of his labours, which at that dangerous time were carried on in circumstances of extremest peril, he was required to perform the rite of exorcism upon several distressed persons, who were for the most part brought to him at the houses of two zealous Catholics, Sir George Peckham of Denham, near Uxbridge, and Lord Vaux of Hackney, both of which gentlemen had suffered in many ways for their faith. With regard to the patients we can only say that we lack evidence to enable us to decide whether the cases were genuine, or whether they were merely sick and ailing folk; but we can confidently affirm that there is no suspicion of any fraud or cozenage. Father Weston is acknowledged to have been a man of the most candid sincerity, intensely spiritual, and of no ordinary powers. Although the rites, in which several priests joined, were performed with the utmost secrecy and every precaution was taken to prevent any report being spread abroad, somebody gossiped, and in about a year various exaggerated accounts were being circulated, until the matter came before the Privy Council. A violent recrudescence of persecution at once followed, many of the exorcists were seized and butchered for their priesthood, the rest, including Weston, were flung into jail, August, 1586. A long period of imprisonment ensued, and in 1599 Weston was