al salvation of those to whom they speak. It only extends
to a temporal fortune, always of short duration, and very often
deceitful.

The souls of the defunct, if these be Christians, ask very often that
the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ should be offered,
according to the observation of St. Gregory the Great;[395] and, as
experience shows, there is hardly any apparition of a Christian that
does not ask for masses, pilgrimages, restitutions, or that alms
should be distributed, or that they would satisfy those to whom the
deceased died indebted. They also often give salutary advice for the
salvation or correction of the morals, or good regulation of families.
They reveal the state in which certain persons find themselves in the
other world, in order to relieve their pain, or to put the living on
their guard, that the like misfortune may not befall them. They talk
of hell, paradise, purgatory, angels, demons, of the Supreme Judge, of
the rigor of his judgments, of the goodness he exercises towards the
just, and the rewards with which he crowns their good works.

But we must greatly mistrust those apparitions which ask for masses,
pilgrimages and restitution. St. Paul warns us that the demon often
transforms himself into an angel of light;[396] and St. John[397]
warns us to distrust the "depths of Satan," his illusions, and
deceitful appearances; that spirit of malice and falsehood is found
among the true prophets to put into the mouth of the false prophets
falsehood and error. He makes a wrong use of the text of the
Scriptures, of the most sacred ceremonies, even of the sacraments and
prayers of the church, to seduce the simple, and win their confidence,
to share as much as in him lies the glory which is due to the Almighty
alone, and to appropriate it to himself. How many false miracles has
he not wrought? How many times has he foretold future events? What
cures has he not operated? How many holy actions has he not counseled?
How many enterprises, praiseworthy in appearance, has he not inspired,
in order to draw the faithful into his snare?

Boden, in his Demonology,[398] cites more than one instance of demons
who have requested prayers, and have even placed themselves in the
posture of persons praying over a grave, to point out that the dead
persons wanted prayers. Sometimes it will be the demon in the shape of
a wretch dead in crime, who will come and ask for masses, to show that
his soul is in purgatory