utioners of Vengeance--Curses and Anathemas not
confined to the Vulgar--Excommunication generally
accompanied by Anathema--Excommunicated Persons lost
their Civil Rights--Heretics forfeited their
Lives--Interment of Excommunicated
Persons--Excommunication among the Hebrews--Different
Degrees of Excommunication--Solemn Curses pronounced
against Impenitent Persons--Stone laid on an Accursed
Person's Coffin--Last Degree of Excommunication
sometimes followed by Banishment or Death--Form of
Excommunication used by Ezra and Nehemiah when they
cursed the Samaritans--Death upon the Cross, Sawing
asunder, and other Punishments--Mode of Punishment
among the Romans, Greeks, and Persians--The Greek
Church annually excommunicated Roman Catholics--The
Druids resorted to Excommunication--Whole Families
excommunicated with Horrible Ceremonies and Dreadful
Imprecations--Bishops excommunicating Rats, Mice,
Caterpillars, and other Insects and Vermin--The Pope's
Claim--Napoleon I. excommunicated--Victor Emmanuel
excommunicated--Effects of Excommunication--The
Inquisition and its Terrible Doings--The Pope's
Fearful Curse--Mr. Donald Cargill excommunicating the
King and Nobles--Indulgences, Pardons, and Penance.

Curses, excommunication, and anathemas have often been followed by sad
consequences; but whether arising directly or indirectly from the
denunciations, we do not say. Ancient nations had their goddesses
Dirae, who were supposed to be the executioners of vengeance. They were
called Furies on earth, and Eumenides in hell. These goddesses were
invoked with prayers and charms. Curses and anathemas were not in
former ages confined to the vulgar classes of persons, such as in the
present time. Imprecations were hurled out by the priest and prophet,
by the educated and uneducated, by professed Christian laymen, by the
heathen, by the wandering gipsies, and the croaking crones.

Excommunication is generally accompanied by anathema, or
ecclesiastical curse, and punishment, whereby a heretic is not only
cut off from the society of the faithful, but is consigned to Satan,
that condign punishment may follow. Sixty penalties have been reckoned
as accruing upon excommunication. Major excommunication separates or
cuts off the delinquent from all communion and fellowship with
society--disables him from def