maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive
messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is
not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile
the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke
the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At
even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great
horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; whatsoever I enjoin;
full acknowledgment before pardon.

"January 13, 1665.--At sunrise I was again in the field. She came in at
once, and, as it seemed, with freedom. Inquired if she knew my thoughts,
and what I was going to relate? Answered, 'Nay, we only know what we
perceive and hear; we cannot see the heart.' Then I rehearsed the
penitent words of the man she had come up to denounce, and the
satisfaction he would perform. Then said she, 'Peace in our midst.' I
went through the proper forms of dismissal, and fulfilled all as it was
set down and written in my memoranda; and then, with certain fixed
rites, I did dismiss that troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew,
gliding towards the west. Neither did she ever afterward appear, but was
allayed until she shall come in her second flesh to the valley of
Armageddon on the last day."

These quaint and curious details from the "diurnal" of a simple-hearted
clergyman of the seventeenth century appear to betoken his personal
persuasion of the truth of what he saw and said, although the statements
are strongly tinged with what some may term the superstition, and others
the excessive belief, of those times. It is a singular fact, however,
that the canon which authorises exorcism under episcopal licence is
still a part of the ecclesiastical law of the Anglican Church, although
it might have a singular effect on the nerves of certain of our bishops
if their clergy were to resort to them for the faculty which Parson
Rudall obtained. The general facts stated in his diary are to this day
matters of belief in that neighbourhood; and it has been always
accounted a strong proof of the veracity of the Parson and the Ghost,
that the plague, fatal to so many thousands, did break out in London at
the close of that very year. We may well excuse a triumphant entry, on a
subsequent page of the "diurnal," with the date of July 10, 1665: "How
sorely must the infidels and heretics of this generation be dismayed
when they know that this Black Deat