Chapter XVI: Evil Effects of Popular Superstitions

Great waste of time.--Ceremonies among the ancients.--Practices in Catholic countries.--Injurious practices in Protestant lands.--Dreams, visions, signs, tricks, omens, &c.--Great waste of human life.--Account of the trial by _ordeal_.--Murder of innocent persons.--Belief in dreams and forewarnings.--Modern miracles, appearances of the dead, &c.--Unfavorable influence of a belief in dreams.--The death watch, new moon, &c.--Predictions of Nanny Scott.--Of the good Mrs. Taylor.--Marriages on a stormy day.--Practice of wedded couples.--Moles on the wrong side of the body.--Opening books, tricks, fortune telling.--Practice of a lady in a clergyman's family.--Disadvantageous matrimonial alliances.--Anticipation of dreadful calamities.--Practice of Rev. John Wesley.--Temperaments of Melancthon and Luther.--Luck, chance, fatality, &c.--Saul and the witch of Endor.--Conjurers and impostors.--Injury done to the cause of medicine.--King's touch in scrofula.--The _ninth_ son of a _ninth_ son.--The _seventh_ son of a _seventh_ son.--Cure by the cold hands of a malefactor.--Plaster on a pitchfork; polishing rusty nails. --A female heart made into pills for consumption.--Heart taken out of a female in Maine, and in Waltham, Massachusetts, and made into pills.--Influence of the imagination.--Account of a Mr. Austin, in Vermont.--His singular mode of healing the sick. --Account of the celebrated _rain-water_ doctor.--Sketch of an _astrological_ physician in New York.--Of Valentine Greataks and Francisco Bagnone.--Momentary relief obtained, and why.-- Injury done to the cause of religion.--Account of the Pharisees, compared to vipers and toads, and their numerous progeny.--How we may know a Pharisee.--A young man catechized by our Savior. --St. Paul once a Pharisee.--Proof.--Customs among the Catholics. --Practices of many Protestants.--Mistaken views upon religion. --Views concerning Satan.--Satan _versus_ Cotton Mather.--Professor Stuart's views concerning the devil.--_Periodical_ revivals of religion; the cause.--How to have a constant revival. 165