ch circumstances, it is extremely doubtful whether
the most determined character would not be prepared to see somewhat
unusual phenomena for the sake of a short respite.

[Footnote 1: The Tryall of Maister Darrell, 1599, p. 2.]

[Footnote 2: Harsnet, p. 53.]

76. Another remarkable method of exorcism was a process termed "firing
out" the fiend.[1] The holy flame of piety resident in the priest was so
terrible to the evil spirit, that the mere contact of the holy hand with
that part of the body of the afflicted person in which he was resident
was enough to make him shrink away into some more distant portion; so,
by a judicious application of the hand, the exorcist could drive the
devil into some limb, from which escape into the body was impossible,
and the evil spirit, driven to the extremity, was obliged to depart,
defeated and disgraced.[2] This influence could be exerted, however,
without actual corporal contact, as the following quaint extract from
Harsnet's book will show:--

"Some punie rash devil doth stay till the holy priest be come somewhat
neare, as into the chamber where the demoniacke doth abide, purposing,
as it seemes, to try a pluck with the priest; and then his hart sodainly
failing him (as Demas, when he saw his friend Chinias approach), cries
out that he is tormented with the presence of the priest, and so is
fierd out of his hold."[3]

[Footnote 1: This expression occurs in Sonnet cxliv., and evidently with
the meaning here explained; only the bad angel is supposed to fire out
the good one.]

[Footnote 2: Harsnet, pp. 77, 96, 97.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 65.]

77. The more violent or uncommon of the bodily diseases were, as the
quotation from Cotta's book shows[1], attributed to the same diabolic
source. In an era when the most profound ignorance prevailed with regard
to the simplest laws of health; when the commoner diseases were
considered as God's punishment for sin, and not attributable to natural
causes; when so eminent a divine as Bishop Hooper could declare that
"the air, the water, and the earth have no poison in themselves to hurt
their lord and master man,"[2] unless man first poisoned himself with
sin; and when, in consequence of this ignorance and this false
philosophy, and the inevitable neglect attendant upon them, those
fearful plagues known as "the Black Death" could, almost without notice,
sweep down upon a country, and decimate its inhabitants--it is not
wonderful that these