al are
the sermons of Increase Mather on The Voice of God in Stormy Winds. He
especially lays stress on the voice of God speaking to Job out of the
whirlwind, and upon the text, "Stormy wind fulfilling his word." He
declares, "When there are great tempests, the angels oftentimes have a
hand therein,... yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several cases
of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, "Nothing can be more
dangerous for mortals than to contemn dreadful providences, and, in
particular, dreadful tempests."

His distinguished son, Cotton Mather, disentangled himself somewhat from
the old view, as he had done in the interpretation of comets. In his
Christian Philosopher, his Thoughts for the Day of Rain, and his Sermon
preached at the Time of the Late Storm (in 1723), he is evidently
tending toward the modern view. Yet, from time to time, the older view
has reasserted itself, and in France, as recently as the year 1870, we
find the Bishop of Verdun ascribing the drought afflicting his diocese
to the sin of Sabbath-breaking.(216)

(216) For Stoltzlin, see his Geistliches Donner- und Wetter-Buchlein
(Zurich, 1731). For Increase Mather, see his The Voice of God, etc.
(Boston, 1704). This rare volume is in the rich collection of the
American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. For Cotton Mather's view, see
the chapter From Signs and Wonders to Law, in this work. For the Bishop
of Verdun, see the Semaine relig. de Lorraine, 1879, p. 445 (cited by
"Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des Pelerinages, pp. 141-143).

This theory, which attributed injurious meteorological phenomena mainly
to the purposes of God, was a natural development, and comparatively
harmless; but at a very early period there was evolved another theory,
which, having been ripened into a doctrine, cost the earth dear indeed.
Never, perhaps, in the modern world has there been a dogma more prolific
of physical, mental, and moral agony throughout whole nations and during
whole centuries. This theory, its development by theology, its fearful
results to mankind, and its destruction by scientific observation and
thought, will next be considered.

II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS.

While the fathers and schoolmen were labouring to deduce a science of
meteorology from our sacred books, there oozed up in European society a
mass of traditions and observances which had been lurking since the days
of paganism; and, although here and there appear