debility that he has breathed his last; suppose that on several occasions he is pronounced dead; that frequently, for the period of a fortnight, the only nourishment he takes is two or three tea-spoonfuls of milk and water; and imagine all this to continue for two years and six months, he all the time so incredibly weak that he can never sit on his mother's knee, but has to lie in her lap or on his little couch; and suppose, finally, that it is certain that, up to this period, he has not grown an inch from the hour of his birth,*—and you will have an exact picture of the first thirty months of my existence in the world.

It is superfluous to remark, that the singularity of this case was the subject of curiosity and conversation in Churchbank and its neighbourhood, both among the medical men who had given it up as hopeless, and among sympathising persons, who felt much for my tried mother. She was my only nurse; for whenever any kind neighbour came in to relieve her for an hour, the well-meant purpose was defeated-with one solitary exception-by my unhappiness in the hands of a stranger. The low moan and wail invariably rendered it necessary that the uscless little bit of humanity should be transferred to his mother's lap.

Churchbank, and the county of which it is the chief town, were at that time overrun with superstition. The old mythology, with its invariable concomitants, gross ignorance and gross immorality, exercised a far more potent influence over many of the so-called Christian people than the gospel, with its light and virtue. Threefourths of the population were unquestioning believers in witchcraft, not merely as an historical fact, but as an existing power dwelling among them-crossing their path, blighting their fields, poisoning their cattle, wrecking their fishing-boats, thwarting their purposes, and

Some of my readers have supposed this extravagant, if not impossible. I can only say that I report the matter as it was reported to me.

LOCAL SUPERSTITION.

crazing their offspring. Unlucky days were more numerous than saints' days in the Romish calendar. Black cats standing in the road, leaping a wall, running as if pursued, or, in fact, in any other possible or impossible feline position or act, were specially to be avoided by the spectator as ominous of some undescribed evil, which, from the utter impossibility of guessing what it might be, filled the mind with awful forebodings. The man or woman who occasionally had the hardihood to refuse a slice of his or her best to any black cat that might choose to look in about dinner-time, was considered an infidel person, doomed to some dread catastrophe. Of course, every kitten of the privileged colour was exempt from the terrors of the hydropathic cure; and, of course, black cats were a well-fed public nuisance. But I need not lengthen the catalogue of their immunities.

Many other illustrations of those superstitions might be given. I shall mention only one at present, one in which I was said to be personally interested. The most perplexing part of my case to the good people of the town was, that I would not, or at all events did not, die. Had I died, there would have been an end of the thing; but no; in vain the doctors leave, in vain the shroud arrives, in vain the fortnight's fast! Add to this the mysterious fact, that though life continued, there was neither strength nor growth during the long period already named. The resolution of the whole affair into natural causes, namely, the debility of the mother, and the weakness of the child, to whom it was impossible to administer nourishing food, would not do. No, it was the work of an evil eye, or of witchcraft, or

"No," said Zybil Moss, an elderly lady, whose perpendicular and circumference were three feet ten inches each-and who for the past quarter of a century had been suspected of the habit of promenading the hills and glades in grey cloak and hood, for certain mys

8

WORK OF THE FAIRIES.

terious purposes, when righteous persons were softly slumbering in bed-" no, 'tis the Quarryton fairies."

"The fairies! say ye so?" eagerly inquired Mother Bot, a personage who always pretended to reject Zybil's doctrines as worthless heresy, but who was, nevertheless, charged by knowing gossips with being an accomplice of the mysterious Zybil."The fairies,-the Quarryton fairies, say ye, Miss Moss? Nay, nay, the bairn's safe enough frae them. This is one o' yere tricks— fie!"

"Fie! indeed," retorted Zybil-her capacious nostrils widening under the influence of offended pride"and d'ye mean to insinivate, Bet Bot, firstly, that there are no fairies in Quarryton; or, farther, that they have not changed this bairn; or, nextly, that I don't know their plans?"

"Ye know a great deal, Miss Moss; some say, more than ye ought, but".

"Whoorp!" interrupted Zybil-a sound and pronunciation which it is impossible to describe on paper, but which had the effect of instantly silencing and dispersing even the most garrulous group of idle dames that might gather around her. After that positively alarming utterance, which I have often heard with dismay in my youthful days, no one ventured to continue the conversation. And many persons affirmed that as soon as it escaped her lips, or throat, or whatever other organ she employed to give birth to it, a curious rustling sound was heard, as if a flock of bats had suddenly whirled around the heads of the party.

I do not feel myself called upon to account for, or give an explanation of, these mysteries. But I will take this opportunity of saying, that those who received them as proofs of a supernatural interference in the affairs of men, were far less censurable than the tens of thousands in Europe and America who have given themselves up to the puerile delusions of spirit-rappings,

table-movings, table-prophesyings, and similar reasondishonouring absurdities. These latter have no possible excuse to plead for their preposterous folly. The Bible is now widely circulated, and religion is free. There is no persecution for the sake of opinion-so far, at least, as Great Britain and America are concerned. The press was never more fertile in intelligent and healthy productions. Education runs through the nations with electric speed; and the grand peculiarities of the gospel may be known by every earnest man, no one forbidding him. Yet, with all this, follies unequalled in the days of Odin or Thor, and silly fables unsurpassed in the dark years of the middle ages, are carrying the people away as if with a desolating flood. How is this? Intellect boasts its march; rationality trumpets its triumphs; wisdom proclaims its victories; infidelity scouts the weakness of believers in the glorious old Book of God; and the doctors of the new philosophy parade their beautiful findings as a practical panacea for all the ills of humanity. How is this, then? I repeat. The answer appears to me, in all sober seriousness, to amount to a terrible charge against the Gentile nations, who have had an opportunity of knowing and worshipping the only true God, and who have allowed it to pass unseized. Reason has had, as in the days of ancient Gentilism, previous to the missionary journeys of the illustrious Paul and his companions, ample room to test and try its vaunted resources, and it has failed; failed to find out God, failed to benefit man, and failed to cast a single ray of light on the thousand mysteries of perplexed humanity. Refusing Divine light, the great Source thereof has left it to choose gross darkness. Rejecting truth, it has been allowed to believe a lie. A second trial has been given to human wisdom, and the result is folly-folly intense and pitiful, proclaimed by every journal of the civilized world to the four winds of heaven. Infidelity, so far as the inspired documents

10

REASON'S RESOURCES.

and the true Lord of man are concerned, has, with wondrous credulity, received and adopted, as the veritable axioms of the invisible world, mutterings discreditable to a ballad-singer, and impossible to a Sunday-school child. Reason, reeling from her centre by rejecting the Word of God, has given way before the cabalistic tricks of modern knaves, and exbibited to that portion of mankind which has dared to stand erect in its heaven-revealed faith, a picture of degradation, and a lesson of profound significance. And learned doctors, philosophers, and statesmen, the nobles of nations, and the leaders of the people, have gone beyond the superstitions and idolatries of paganism, by giving heed to seducing spirits, in human form, interpreting the rappings of impostors into the voices of departed souls, and worshipping, as gods gifted with prescience, pieces of common household furniture!

To heave a sigh, and say, "Alas! for man," is easy, whilst it is a kind of sorrowful relief to the benevolent heart. But what is the use of it? Men forewarned, and continuing obstinate, are foredoomed because of that foreseen obstinacy. These modern aberrations, or rather abnegations, of common sense, are the handwriting upon the wall, symbolizing the speedy advent of a new dispensation, which will chase into darkness and oblivion the accumulated follies of six thousand years. The popular talk about the development of intellect, so far as religion is concerned, is one of the myriad hallucinations that have afflicted the world for ages; and the sooner public instructors recognize the fact, and attempt to stop the rapid progress of intellectual imbecility, the greater benefit will they bestow upon their pupils. The truth is, that man knows nothing on this subject but what he receives from the Bible; and if he will not receive the doctrines of this book, he must be left to his own folly, the plaything of every impostor that may choose to seek his suffrages,