48 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



and persecution. Deeper and deeper into the 

 hearts of men sank the belief that she was allied 

 with demons, and that not only witches and 

 wizards, but their most terrible Master might be 

 seen by guilty mortals under the disguise of a cat. 

 The unhesitating acceptance of a personal Devil, 

 as an important factor in life, made our ancestors 

 exceedingly alert to defeat his designs. No broad- 

 minded doubts softened their fear and detestation ; 

 and Saint Dominic was not the only powerful 

 preacher who figured Satan as a black cat, that he 

 might thrill his startled hearers into a trembling 

 abhorrence of sin. One result of this darkening of 

 Pussy's character is that she can seldom be found 

 in church architecture or decoration, where more 

 innocent animals have frisked and gambolled for 

 centuries. Indeed there are antiquarians who ma- 

 liciously assert that her rare appearance — distorted 

 out of grace and beauty ■ — in some dim corner of a 

 very old cathedral, is due, not to any softening of a 

 universal prejudice, but to that sombre Manichean 

 heresy which constantly found expression in sym- 

 bolizing triumphant evil. They profess to believe 

 that mediaeval stone-masons, tainted with this un- 

 holy creed, yet discreet enough to conceal their 

 errors from the Church's chastening hand, indicated 

 the nature of their views by carving, on pulpit 

 and on pillar, ravenous monsters, — lions, leopards, 



