NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 455 



by the evil angels.* Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four 

 angels standing at the fourcorners of the earth, holding back the winds 

 and preventing their doing great damage to mortals ; f and he dwells 

 especially upon the fact that the devil is called by the apostle a " prince 

 of the power of the air." J He then goes on to cite the great Fathers 

 of the Church, Clement, Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.* 



This doctrine was spread, not only in ponderous treatises, but in 

 light literature, and by popular illustrations. In the " Compendium 

 Maleficarum " of the Italian monk Guacci, perhaps the most amusing 

 book in the whole literature of witchcraft, we may see the witch, in 

 propria persona, riding the diabolic goat through the clouds while the 

 storm rages around and beneath her ; and we may read a rich collec- 

 tion of anecdotes, largely contemporary, which establish the required 

 doctrine beyond question. j| 



The first and most natural means taken against this work of Satan 

 in the air, was Prayer ; and various petitions are to be found scattered 

 through the Christian liturgies some very beautiful and touching. 

 This means of escape has been relied upon, with greater or less faith, 

 from those days to these. Various mediaeval saints and reformers, and 

 devoted men in all centuries, from Saint Giles to John Wesley, have 

 used it with results claimed to be miraculous. A Whatever theory any- 

 thinking man may hold in the matter, he will certainly not venture a 

 reproachful word : such prayers have been in all ages a natural out- 

 come of the mind of man in trouble. 



But against the " powers of the air " were used other means of a 

 very different character and tendency, and foremost among these was 

 Exorcism. In an exorcism widely used and ascribed to Pope Gregory 

 XIII, the formula is given : "I, a priest of Christ, ... do command 

 ye, most foul spirits, who do stir up these clouds, . . . that ye depart 

 from them, and disperse yourselves into wild and untilled places, that 

 ye may be no longer able to harm men or animals or fruits or herbs 

 or whatsoever is designed for human use." But this is mild, indeed, 

 compared to some later exorcisms, as when the ritual runs : "All the 

 people shall rise, and the priest, turning toward the clouds, shall pro- 

 nounce these words : ' I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared 

 to use, for the accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers of Nature 



* This interpretation of Psalm Ixxviii, 47-49, was apparently shared by the transla- 

 tors of our own authorized version. 



f Revelation, vii, 1. 



\ Ephesians, ii, 2. Even according to modern commentators (e. g. Alford) the word 

 here translated " power " denotes, not might, but government, court, hcirarchy ; and in 

 this sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best ren- 

 dered by our plural " powers." 



w See Delrio, " Disquisitiones Magica?," lib. ii, c. 11. 



|| See Guacci, "Compendium Maleficarum" (Milan, 1606). 



A For the cases of Saint Giles, John Wesley, and others stilling the tempests, see 

 Brewer, " Dictionary of Miracles," s. v. " Prayer." 



