462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



theological current steadily developed through the middle ages, the 

 fundamental idea of the whole being the evident influence of the bells 

 upon the " power of the air " ; and it is perhaps worth our while to 

 go back a little and glance over the growth of this deeper current in 

 modern times. Having grown steadily through the middle ages, it 

 appeared in full strength at the Reformation period ; and in the six- 

 teenth century Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala and Primate of 

 Sweden, in his great work on the northern nations, declares it a well- 

 established fact that cities and harvests may be saved from lightning 

 by the ringing of bells and the burning of consecrated incense, accom- 

 panied by prayers ; and he cautions his readers that the workings of 

 the thunderbolt are rather to be marveled at than inquired into.* Even 

 as late as 1673 the Franciscan professor Lealus, in Italy, in a school- 

 book which was received with great applause in his region, taught 

 unhesitatingly the agency of demons in storms, and the power of 

 bells over them, as well as the portentousness of comets and the 

 movement of the heavens by angels. He dwells especially, too, upon 

 the perfect protection afforded by the waxen Agnus Dei. How strong 

 this current was, and how difficult even for philosophical minds to op- 

 pose, is shown by the fact that both Descartes f and Francis Bacon 

 speak of it with respect, Bacon admitting the fact, and suggesting 

 very mildly that the bells may accomplish this purpose by the concus- 

 sion of the air.J 



But no such moderate doctrine sufficed, and the renowned Bishop 

 Binsfeld, of Treves, in his great treatise on the credibility of the 

 confessions of witches, gave an entire chapter to the effect of bells 

 in calming atmospheric disturbances. Basing his general doctrine 

 upon the first chapter of Job and the second chapter of Ephesians, 

 he insisted on the reality of diabolic agency in storms ; and then, by 

 theological reasoning, corroborated by the statements extorted in the 

 torture-chamber, he showed the efficacy of bells in putting the hellish 

 legions to flight.* This continued, therefore, an accepted tenet, de- 

 veloped in every nation, and coming to its climax near the end of the 

 seventeenth century. At that period the period of Isaac Newton 

 Father Augustine de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at 

 Rome, published under the highest church authority his lectures upon 

 meteorology. Coming from the center of Catholic Christendom, at 

 so late a period, they are very important as indicating what had been 

 developed under the influence of theology during nearly seventeen 

 hundred years. This learned head of a great college at the heart of 

 Christendom taught that "the surest remedy against thunder is that 



* See Olaus Magnus, "Pe gentibus scptcntrionalibus" (Rome, 1555), lib. i, c. 12, 13. 

 f See his "Sylva Sylvarum," cent, ii, p. 103 (cited by Montanus, as above). 



% See his "Natural History," ii, cent. 2, 127. In his "Historia Ycntorum" he again 

 alludes to the belief, and without comment. 



* See Binsfeld, " De Confessionibus ilalef." (pp. 308-314, of edition of 1623). 



