[23] In the year 1240 a large rain-procession was held in Lüttich. Three times repeated it failed of all effect, "because in the supplication of all saints God's mother had been forgotten." In a new procession "_Salve regina_" was therefore sung, and the rain immediately came down with such violence that the devout procession was dispersed.--The clergy sometimes, in order to produce rain, would lead a donkey before the gate of the church, hang the litany about his neck, put a wafer in his mouth, and then bury the animal alive. [24] Especially was the Church of the Middle Ages rich in awful formularies of malediction, testifying to an enormous brutalization of thought and feeling. A single specimen of these formularies will be more than sufficient to illustrate:-- "By the might, power and authority of God, the Almighty Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and in the name of the Holy Virgin the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the holy angels, archangels, St. Michael and St. John the Baptist, in the name of the holy apostle Peter and all the apostles, in the name of the holy Stephen and all the holy martyrs, and St. Adelgunda and all the holy virgins, and of all the saints in heaven and on earth to whom power is given to bind and loose,--we curse, execrate and exclude from the mother Church through the bond of malediction (here follows the name of the persons). May their children be orphaned; may they be cursed upon the field, cursed in the city, in the forest, in their houses and barns, in their chamber and their bed, in the town-hall, in the village, on land and sea; may they be cursed in the church, in the churchyard, in the court-room, on the public square and in war; whether they be talking, sleeping, waking, eating or drinking, whether they be going or resting, or doing any other thing, let them be accursed in soul and body, reason and all their senses: cursed be their progeny, cursed be the fruit of their land, cursed be all their limbs, head, nose, mouth, teeth, throat, eyes, and eyelashes, brain, larynx, tongue, breast, lungs, liver, legs, and arms, skin and hair; cursed be every thing living and moving in them from head to foot, etc. I conjure thee, Lucifer, and all your crew, by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, by the incarnation and birth of Christ; I conjure thee by the power and the virtue of all saints, that thou never leave them in quiet, night or day, until thou have brought them to ruin, destroyed them by water, or led them to the gallows, or caused them to be torn by wild beasts, or their throat to be cut by enemies, or their bodies to be destroyed by fire," etc., etc. [25] A biblical ground for ordeals was found in Numbers v. 12-28. [26] The "Witch-hammer" will be more fully described hereafter. The student of history should not neglect this volume, which is the ripest fruit of Catholic dualism, and clearly shows the results to which it tends. [27] "Gott in der Geschichte," III.