MODERN INSTANCES OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 165 



over which, the witch had doubtless muttered wicked spells. 

 Fifty dried pears — and this is the number the boy is said to have 

 eaten — one would think, might suffice to play the devil with his 

 stomach, without supernatural aid or intervention. It is the old 

 story : If the child suffers from a surfeit of sweetmeats, it is not 

 the goodies, but the goody, who is at the bottom of it, and who 

 must have sprinkled her gift with devil's powder in saccharine 

 disguise, or manufactured the sugar-plums at midnight out of 

 witches' butter. 



We are further informed that the father, after frequent con- 

 ferences with the capuchins, has made good his unfortunate mar- 

 riage : the nuptial ceremony has been performed again according 

 to the Catholic ritual, and the children have been rebaptized by 

 a Catholic priest. The mother, too, has been persuaded to join 

 the Catholic communion, or rather driven into the fold by the 

 persecutions of a violently bigoted mother-in-law, who was evi- 

 dently the real demon of the household. 



A "mixed marriage," although recognized as legitimate by the 

 law of the land, has never been regarded by the Church as just 

 and valid, but is characterized in ecclesiastical legal terminology 

 as matrimoniiim legitimum sed non ratum. It has been reserved, 

 however, for Father Aurelian to discover that the offspring of 

 such unions easily come under the influence of evil spirits, and 

 are peculiarly liable to demoniacal possession. 



As convincing proof of diabolic agency, the exorcist makes 

 the following assertion : " When I sprinkled the possessed boy 

 with holy water, he sprang toward me in rage ; if I used ordinary 

 water, he kept perfectly quiet. In like manner, when I uttered a 

 prayer of the Church in Latin, he became furious; if I repeated a 

 passage from a Latin classic, he remained perfectly calm." Be- 

 sprinklings with the foul contents of an a spercorium might excite 

 the wrath of even a gentler spirit than a goblin from Tartarus ; 

 and although it may be true, as a popular proverb asserts, that 

 " the devil is an ass," he would also seem to be a good Latinist 

 (a union of the twain is not so rare a phenomenon as the un- 

 learned are apt to suppose), and a sensitive purist quick to de- 

 tect and to resent any forms of expression less correct and ele- 

 gant than strictly classical locutions. Unfortunately, however, 

 for Father Aurelian's argument, another priest who examined 

 the boy positively denies this statement, and declares that, when 

 Michael Zilk was sprinkled with holy water secretly from be- 

 hind, the indwelling devil gave no sign. In concluding his re- 

 port, Father Aurelian uses the following strong language : 

 "Whoever denies demoniacal possession in our days, confesses 

 thereby that he has gone astray from the teaching of the Catho- 

 lic Church ; but he will believe in it when he himself is in the 



