RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



93 



""N'o part of nature displays its creative power to every eye, 

 nor do we expose the vital principle of our religion to the vulgar. 

 We reserve it for those who merit our care, and are capable of 

 receiving its fruits. Thyself and this woman Chandela are among 

 the chosen number : — she was once a portion of the vilest class, 

 but thy bounty has made her worthy to convert thee, as the clay 

 that has become fragant by dwelling near the rose, may form a 

 vase to preserve it. Why should a being, capable of such glo- 

 rious self-sacrifice, bow to the deity of one element, when he might 

 behold the author and governor of all ? He who is moisture in 

 the water, light in the sun and moon, breath in the winds, and 

 the invisible soul of all men ! — such is the divinity we worship — 

 such the principle of a religion which the perverse ignorance of 

 the multitude compels us to dress in awful and fantastic myste- 

 ries. Receive this woman as thy wife, and her son shall be as 

 thine own. We devote them to our God in winning thee from 

 thy darkness, and our offerings to his altar are generous and faith- 

 ful hearts." 



% % % % ^ 



The smile which our pastor's romance might have excited, was 

 suppressed by the benevolent enthusiasm of the narrator. After 

 a complimentary debate between the professors of navigation and 

 jurisprudence, precedence was awarded to the latter, and the young 

 clerk was our next historian. 



THE SPECTRE HARPER. 



Those who possess records of French jurisprudence as it was 

 in the beginning of the eighteenth century, know how much the 

 power of magic, charms, and sorcerers, perplexed the doctors of 

 the Sorbonne, even at that period. St. Andre tells us gravely, in 

 his disquisition, printed at Paris, 1724, of the antics performed by 

 one James Noel, of Haye-du-Puis, in Normandy, about the year 

 1669, in company with a certain tall black man, ^' having horns 

 on his head, sparkhng eyes, a switch in one hand, and a hghted 

 candle of pitch in the other." Thus equipped, this venerable 



