On this the lady began to recal to mind a variety of circumstances, which went to prove that her visitor of by-gone times was more than mortal man, and concluded that it was the Devil; whereon she entered a convent, where she passed the remainder of her days, having become, from a woman of very questionable morality, a very good nun; although if all stories of nunneries are true, she did not alter her course of life much for the better.

We will pass over an anecdote, in Jacob Sprenger, of a sorcerer, at Coblentz, as also what John Francis Vicas, prince of Miranda, writes of the practices of two priests, except that, for the benefit of the Roman Catholic laity, as we presume the priesthood are acquainted with them already, we will give the name of one of these old sinners, Benedict Bern, and that of his familiar spirit Harmone. He confessed to a life of sin for forty years, and his brother priest to one of fifty years. It is a remarkable circumstance that Hildebrand, himself a priest, in relating the histories of these two men, observes, that, "they were given over to be burned, as a temporal punishment," (Hildebrand on Witchcrajt, p. 102,) thereby shewing the belief, which has ever obtained in the Romish Church, that no sin which a priest may commit, can ex

clude him from heaven. John Franciscus Vitus, also, gives us an anecdote of a certain abbess, named Magdalena of the Cross, born at Cordova, in Spain, who fell under the suspicion of the sisterhood as a witch. Being threatened with the fire, and being afraid thereof, she confessed that, when she was twelve years old, she had been seduced by a wicked spirit under the semblance of a Moor, with whom she had ever afterwards continued the intimacy, for a period extending over thirty years. This, however, appears to have been no barrier to her sanctity; for, when she was in the church, she was visibly raised several feet from the ground, which all the world knows, is the approved mode in the Roman Catholic church of demonstrating that the individual so favored is acknowledged of heaven; nay, the host, after it had been duly consecrated, flew from the priest's hands to her, and the church walls at times, when she was outside, opened that she might see the host: whereon the nuns changed their opinion of her, and pronounced her to be a holy woman; in which decision the priest concurred, as she had eaten the host, and had, moreover, obtained the third pardon from Pope Paul. Whether this virtuous abbess was afterwards canonized does not appear. Undoubtedly, she ought to have been,

being just of the materials out of which saints are manufactered

Peter Loyola Loyeoro, another Romanist authority, in his work on spectres, mentions, from Elian Phegontes, a freed man of the Emperor Adrian, that, in the time of the latter, a certain person, by name Demonstrates, had, by his wife Charity, a beautiful daughter, called Philinion. The damsel sickened and died, and her parents, with great sorrow, embalmed her and buried her. About this time, a young man, named Machates, came to the house of the bereaved parents, and, after supper, retired to rest. In the middle of the night the deceased Philinion entered his room, conversed with him, and remained with him till cockcrow, the ligitimate period for spirits to betake themselves off. However, before she left him she gave him, as a token of her affection, a costly ring off her finger, and the rich stomacher in which she had been buried. He, not to be behind-hand with her, gave her in exchange an iron ring and a richly chased silver and gilt cup, the lady promising, 'ere she departed, to visit him again the next night.

Now it so happened that a maid servant, with the inherent curiosity of her sex, having heard voices in Machates' chamber, had peeped through a chink of the door, and had seen the

pair seated most lovingly at supper, and had further heard Philinion's promise to return the next night. She incontinently told the mother that her daughter had come to life again, and that she would see her the next night in Machates chamber. The good lady therefore watched her opportunity and, rushing into the room next night, embraced her resuscitated daughter amidst a shower of tears. Ghosts, however, never stand the presence of a third party, and the dutiful Philinion, after a volley of abuse against her mother for the unseasonable interruption, fell a stark and stiff corpse upon the floor.

This wonderful occurrence was soon noised abroad, and came to the ears of the Stadtholder and the Council, who forthwith proceeded to the grave of the deceased Philinion, which they had opened in her presence, and, behold, it was found untenanted, and nothing therein but the iron ring and the goblet, thereby affording a convincing proof of the wicked machinations of the Devil.

Our author here cautions people against entertaining a belief that deceased persons can really again appear, stating that, whenever such apparitions occur, the Devil has animated the corpse and taken possession of it for his own purposes, which are to induce the living to sin,

and then gives us another anecdote as follows:

"Ganfredins Antiscodus, in the twenty-sixth chapter of his third book, and Ulric Molitor, in his pamphlet upon Witches and Sorcerers, Dialogue the Seventh, relates a wonderful story which they both affirm to be true, and mentioned to them by a young man of very noble birth and an excellent swimmer, as having occurred to himself. It appears that he was bathing in the sea by moonlight, and seized a woman that swam after him, by the hair of the head, supposing that it was one of his companions, who intended to duck him. He addressed her, but could not obtain a syllable in reply, and swam to shore with her; gallantly lending her his cloak as a covering, the 'lady being destitute of a wardrobe, took her home with him, and, finally, openly and honorably married her.

"Now this young man might have led an exceedingly quiet life with his new wife, seeing that she continued as dumb as she was the first day of their acquaintance, (although it is not explained how she managed to get through the responses of the marriage service without speaking,) had not one of his companions, probably excited to jealousy by his peaceable life, taunted him with having married a spirit. Being exceedingly enraged at the taunt, he drew his