DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND; OR, YANKEE SUPERSTITIONS.—?MATTHIAS THE IMPOSTOR.—?NEW YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.

There is a story that on a great and solemn public occasion of the Romish Church, a Pope and a Cardinal were, with long faces, performing some of the gyrations of the occasion, when, instead of a pious ejaculation and reply, which were down in the programme, one said to the other gravely, in Latin “mundus vult decipi;” and the other replied, with equal gravity and learning, “decipiatur ergo:” that is, “All the world chooses to be fooled.”—“Let it be fooled then.”

This seems, perhaps, a reasonable way for priests to talk about ignorant Italians. It may seem inapplicable to cool, sharp, school-trained Protestant Yankees. It is not, however—at least, not entirely. Intelligent Northerners have, sometimes, superstition enough in them to make a first-class Popish saint. If it had not been so, I should not have such an absurd religious humbug to tell of as Robert Matthews, notorious in our goodly city some thirty years ago as “Matthias, the Impostor.”

In the summer of 1832, there was often seen riding in Broadway, in a handsome barouche, or promenading on the Battery (usually attended by a sort of friend or servant,) a tall man, of some forty years of age, quite thin, with sunken, sharp gray eyes, with long, coarse, brown and gray hair, parted in the middle and curling on his shoulders, and a long and coarse but well-tended beard and mustache. These Esau-like adornments attracted much attention in those close-shaving days. He was commonly dressed in a fine green frock-coat, lined with white or pink satin, black or green pantaloons, with polished Wellington boots drawn on outside, fine cambric ruffles and frill, and a crimson silk sash worked with gold and with twelve tassels, for the twelve tribes of Israel. On his head was a steeple-crowned patent-leather shining black cap with a shade.

Thus bedizened, this fantastic-looking personage marched gravely up and down, or rode in pomp in the streets. Sometimes he lounged in a bookstore or other place of semi-public resort; and in such places he often preached or exhorted. His preachments were sufficiently horrible. He claimed to be God the Father; and his doctrine was, in substance, this:—“The true kingdom of God on earth began in Albany in June 1830, and will be completed in twenty-one years, or by 1851. During this time, wars are to stop, and I, Matthias, am to execute the divine judgments and destroy the wicked. The day of grace is to close on December 1, 1836; and all who do not begin to reform by that time, I shall kill.” The discourses by which this blasphemous humbug supported his pretensions were a hodge-podge of impiety and utter nonsense, with rants, curses and cries, and frightful threats against all objectors. Here is a passage from one;—“All who eat swine’s flesh are of the devil; and just as certain as he eats it he will tell a lie in less than half an hour. If you eat a piece of pork, it will go crooked through you, and the Holy Ghost will not stay in you; but one or the other must leave the house pretty soon. The pork will be as crooked in you as rams’ horns.” Again, he made these pleasant points about the ladies: “They who teach women are of the wicked. All females who lecture their husbands their sentence is: ‘Depart, ye wicked, I know you not.’ Everything that has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap-sheaf of the abomination of desolation, full of all deviltry.” There, ladies! Is anything further necessary to convince you what a peculiarly wicked and horrible humbug this fellow was?

If we had followed this impostor home, we should have found him lodged, during most of his stay in New-York city, with one or the other of his three chief disciples. These were Pierson, who commonly attended him abroad, Folger, and—for a time only—Mills. All three of these men were wealthy merchants. In their handsome and luxuriously-furnished homes, this noxious humbug occupied the best rooms, and controlled the whole establishment, directing the marketing, meal times, and all other household-matters. Master, mistress (in Mr. Folger’s home,) and domestics were disciples, and obeyed the scamp with an implicitness and prostrate humility even more melancholy than absurd, both as to housekeeping and as to the ceremonies, washing of feet, etc., which he enjoined. When he was angry with his female disciples, he frequently whipped them; but, being a monstrous coward, he never tried it on a man. The least opposition or contradiction threw him into a great rage, and set him screaming, and cursing, and gesticulating like any street drab. When he wished more clothes, which was pretty often, one of his dupes furnished the money. When he wanted cash for any purpose indeed, they gave it him.

This half-crazy knave and abominable humbug was Robert Matthews, who called himself Matthias. He was of Scotch descent, and born about 1790, in Washington county, New York; and his blood was tainted with insanity, for a brother of his died a lunatic. He was a carpenter and joiner of uncommon skill, and up to nearly his fortieth year lived, on the whole, a useful and respectable life, being industrious, a professing Christian of good standing, and (having married in 1813) a steady family-man. In 1828 and 1829, while living at Albany, he gradually became excited about religious subjects; his first morbid symptoms appearing after hearing some sermons by Rev. E. N. Kirk, and Mr. Finney the revivalist. He soon began to exhort his fellow-journeymen instead of minding his work, so uproariously that his employer turned him away.

He discovered a text in the Bible that forbid Christians to shave. He let his hair and beard grow; began street-preaching in a noisy, brawling style; announced that he was going to set about converting the whole city of Albany—which needed it badly enough, if we may believe the political gentlemen. Finding however, that the Lobby, or the Regency, or something or other about the peculiar wickedness of Albany, was altogether too much for him, he began, like Jonah at Nineveh, to announce the destruction of the obstinate town; and at midnight, one night in June, 1826, he waked up his household, and saying that Albany was to be destroyed next day, took his three little boys—two, four, and six years old—his wife and oldest child (a daughter refusing to go,) and “fled to the mountains.” He actually walked the poor little fellows forty miles in twenty-four hours, to his sister’s in Washington county. Here he was reckoned raving crazy; was forcibly turned out of church for one of his brawling interruptions of service, and sent back to Albany, where he resumed his street-preaching more noisily than ever. He now began to call himself Matthias, and claimed to be a Jew. Then he went on a long journey to the Western and Southern States, preaching his doctrines, getting into jail, and sometimes fairly cursing his way out; and, returning to New York city, preached up and down the streets in his crazy, bawling fashion, sometimes on foot and sometimes on an old bony horse.

His New York city dupes, Elijah Pierson and Benjamin H. Folger and their families, together with a Mr. Mills and a few more, figured prominently in the chief chapter of Matthews’ career, during two years and a half, from May, 1832, to the fall of 1834.

Pierson and Folger were the leaders in the folly. These men, merchants of wealth and successful in business, were of that sensitive and impressible religious nature which is peculiarly credulous and liable to enthusiasms and delusions. They had been, with a number of other persons, eagerly engaged in some extravagant religious performances, including excessive fasts and asceticisms, and a plan, formed by one of their lady friends, to convert all New York by a system of female visitations and preachings—a plan not so very foolish, I may just remark, if the she apostles are only pretty enough!

Pierson, the craziest of the crew, besides other wretched delusions, had already fancied himself Elijah the Tishbite; and when his wife fell ill and died a little while before this time, had first tried to cure her, and then to raise her from the dead, by anointing with oil and by the prayer of faith, as mentioned in the Epistle of Saint James.

Curiously enough, a sort of lair or nest, very soft and comfortable, was thus made ready for our religious humbug, just as he wanted it worst; for in these days he was but seedy. He heard something of Pierson, I don’t know how; and on the 5th of May, 1832, he called on him. Very quickly the poor fellow recognized the long-bearded prophetical humbug as all that he claimed to be—a possessor and teacher of all truth, and as God himself.

Mills and Folger easily fell into the same pitiable foolery, on Pierson’s introduction. And the lucky humbug was very soon living in clover in Mills’ house, which he chose first; had admitted the happy fools, Pierson and Folger, as the first two members of his true church; Pierson, believing that from Elijah the Tishbite he had become John the Baptist, devoted himself as a kind of servant to his new Messiah; and the deluded men began to supply all the temporal wants of the impostor, believing their estates set apart as the beginning of the material Kingdom of God!

After three months, some of Mills’ friends, on charges of lunacy, caused Mills to be sent to Bloomingdale Asylum, and Matthias to be thrust into the insane poor’s ward at Bellevue, where his beard was forcibly cut off, to his extreme disgust. His brother, however, got him out by a habeas corpus, and he went to live with Folger. Mills now disappears from the story.

Matthias remained in the full enjoyment of his luxurious establishment, until September, 1834, it is true, with a few uncomfortable interruptions. He was always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him down upon a sofa. The humbug knowing that his living was in danger, took this very mildly, and readily accepted the renewed assurances of belief which poor Folger soon gave him. In the village of Sing Sing where Folger had a country-seat which he called Mount Zion, Matthias was exceedingly obnoxious. His daughter had married a Mr. Laisdell; and the humbug, who claimed that all Christian marriages were void and wicked, by some means induced the young wife to come to Sing Sing, where he whipped her more than once quite cruelly. Her husband came and took her away after encountering all the difficulty which Matthias dared make; and, at a hearing in the matter before a magistrate, he was very near getting tarred and feathered, if not something worse, and the danger frightened him very much.

He barely escaped being shaved by violence, and being thrown overboard to test his asserted miraculous powers, at the hands of a stout and incredulous farmer on the steamboat between Sing Sing and New York. While imprisoned at Bellevue before his trial, he was tossed in a blanket by the prisoners, to make him give them some money. The unlucky prophet dealt out damnation to them in great quantities; but they told him it wouldn’t work, and the poor humbug finally, instead of casting them into hell, paid them a quarter of a dollar apiece to let him off. When he was about to leave Folger’s house, some roguish young men of Sing Sing forged a warrant, and with a counterfeit officer seized the humbug, and a second time shaved him by force. He was one day terribly “set back” as the phrase is, by a sharpish answer. He gravely asserted to a certain man that he had been on the earth eighteen hundred years. His hearer, startled and irreverent, exclaimed:

“The devil you have! Do you tell me so?”

“I do,” said the prophet.

“Then,” rejoined the other, “all I have to say is, you are a remarkably good-looking fellow for one of your age.”The confounded prophet grinned, scowled, and exclaimed indignantly:

“You are a devil, Sir!” and marched off.

In the beginning of August, 1834, the unhappy Pierson died in Folger’s house, under circumstances amounting to strong circumstantial evidence that Matthias, with the help of the colored cook, an enthusiastic disciple, had poisoned him with arsenic. The rascal pretended that his own curse had slain Pierson. There was a post mortem, an indictment, and a trial, but the evidence was not strong enough for conviction. Being acquitted, he was at once tried again for an assault and battery on his daughter by the aforesaid whippings; and on this charge he was found guilty and sent to the county jail for three months, in April, 1835. The trial for murder was just before—the prophet having lain in prison since his apprehension for murder in the preceding autumn. Mr. Folger’s delusion had pretty much disappeared by the end of the summer of 1834. He had now become ruined, partly in consequence of foolish speculations jointly with Pierson, believed to be conducted under Divine guidance, and partly because his strange conduct destroyed his business reputation and standing. The death of Pierson, and some very queer matters about another apparent poisoning-trick, awakened the suspicions of the Folgers; and after a good deal of scolding and trouble with the impostor, who hung on to his comfortable home like a good fellow, Folger finally turned him out, and then had him taken up for swindling. He had been too foolish himself, however, to maintain this charge; but, shortly after, the others, for murder and assault, followed, with a little better success.

This imprisonment seems to have put a sudden and final period to the prophetical and religious operations of Master Matthias, and to the follies of his victims, too. I know of no subsequent developments of either kind. Matthias disappears from public life, and died, it is said, in Arkansas; but when, or after what further career, I don’t know. He was a shallow knave, and undoubtedly also partly crazy and partly the dupe of his own nonsense. If he had not so opportunely found victims of good standing, he would not have been remembered at all, except as George Munday, the “hatless prophet,” and “Angel Gabriel Orr,” are remembered—as one more obscure, crazy street-preacher. And as soon as his accidental supports of other people’s money and enthusiasm failed him, he disappeared at once. Many of my readers will remember distinctly, as I do, the remarkable career of this man, and the humiliating position in which his victims were placed. In the face of such an exposition as this of the weakness and credulity of poor human nature in this enlightened country of common schools and colleges, in the boasted wide-awake nineteenth century, who shall deny that we can study with interest and profit the history of impositions which have been practiced upon mankind in every possible phase throughout every age of the world, including the age in which we live? There is literally no end to these humbugs; and the reader of these pages, weak as may be my attempts to do the subject justice, will learn that there is no country, no period, and no sphere in life which has not been impiously invaded by the genius of humbug, under more disguises and in more shapes than it has entered into the heart of man to conceive.

CHAPTER XLV.

A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.—?JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.—?THE SECOND SHILOH.

Joanna Southcott was born at St. Mary’s Ottery in Devonshire, about the year 1750. She was a plain, stout-limbed, hard-fisted farmer lass, whose toils in the field—for her father was in but very moderate circumstances—had tawned her complexion and hardened her muscles, at an early age. As she grew toward woman’s estate, necessity compelled her to leave her home and seek service in the city of Exeter, where for many years, she plodded on very quietly in her obscure path, first, as a domestic hireling, and subsequently as a washer woman.

I have an old and esteemed friend on Staten Island whose father, still living, recollects Joanna well, as she used to come regularly to his house of a Monday morning, to her task of cleansing the family linen. He was then but a little lad, yet he remembers her quite well, with her stout, robust frame, and buxom and rather attractive countenance, and her queer ways. Even then she was beginning to invite attention by her singular manners and discourse, which led many to believe her demented.It was at Exeter that Joanna became religiously impressed, and joined the Wesleyan Methodists, as a strict and extreme believer in the doctrines of that sect. During her attendance upon the Wesleyan rites, she became intimate with one Sanderson, who, whether a designing rogue, or only a very fanatical believer, pretended that he had discovered in the good washerwoman a Bible prodigy; and it was not long before the poor creature began literally, to “see sights” and dream dreams of the most preternatural description, for which Sanderson always had ready some very telling interpretation. Her visions were of the most thoroughly “mixed” character withal, sometimes transporting her to the courts of heaven, and sometimes to a very opposite region, celebrated for its latent and active caloric. When she ranged into the lower world, she had a very unpleasant habit of seeing sundry scoffers and unbelievers (in herself) belonging to the congregation, in very close but disadvantageous intercourse with the Evil One, who was represented as having a particular eye to others around her, even while they laid claim to special piety. Of course, such revelations as these could not be tolerated in any well regulated community, and when some most astounding religious gymnastics performed by Joanna in the midst of prayers and sermons, occurred to heap up the measure of her offences, it became full time to take the matter in hand, and the prophetess was expelled. Now, those whom she had not served up openly with brimstone, agreeing with her about those whom she had thus “cooked,” and delighted in their own exemption from that sort of dressing, seceded in considerable numbers, and became Joanna’s followers. This gave her a nucleus to work upon, and between 1790 and 1800, she managed to make herself known throughout Britain, proclaiming that she was to be the destined Mother of the Second Messiah, and although originally quite illiterate, picking up enough general information and Bible lore, to facilitate her publication of several very curious, though sometimes incoherent works. One of the earliest and most startling of these was her “Warning to the whole World, from the Sealed Prophecies of Joanna Southcott, and other communications given since the writings were opened on the 12th of January, 1803.” This foretold the close approach of the great red dragon of the Revelations, “with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads,” and the birth of the “man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”

In 1805, a shoemaker named Tozer built her a chapel in Exeter at his own expense, and it was, from the first, constantly filled on service-days with eager worshipers. Here she gave exhortations, and prophesied in a species of religious frenzy or convulsion, sometimes uttering very heavy prose, and sometimes the most fearful doggerel rhyme resembling—well—perhaps our album effusions here at home! Indeed, I can think of nothing else equally fearful. In these paroxysms, Joanna raved like an ancient Pythoness whirling on her tripod, and to just about the same purpose. Yet, it was astonishing to see how the thing went down. Crowds of intelligent people came from all parts of the United Kingdom to listen, be converted, and to receive the “seals” (as they were called) that secured their fortunate possessor unimpeded and immediate admission to heaven. Of course, tickets so precious could not be given away for nothing, and the seal trade in this new form proved very lucrative.

The most remarkable of all these conversions was that of the celebrated engraver, William Sharp, who, notwithstanding his eminent position as an artist, by no means bore out his name in other things. He had previously become thoroughly imbued with the notions of Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the famous Richard Brothers, and was quite ripe for anything fantastic. Such a convert was a perfect godsend to Joanna, and she was easily persuaded to accompany him to London, where her congregations rapidly increased to enormous proportions, even rivaling those now summoned by the “drum ecclesiastical” and orthodox of the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon.

The whole sect extended until, in 1813, it numbered no less than one hundred thousand members, signed and “sealed”—Mr. Sharp occupying a most conspicuous position at the very footstool of the Prophetess. Late in 1813, appeared the “Book of Wonders,” “in five parts,” and it was a clincher. Poor Sharp came in largely for the expenses, but valiantly stood his ground against it all. At length, in 1814, the great Joanna dazzled the eyes of her adherents and the world at large with her “Prophecies concerning the Prince of Peace.” This delectable manifesto flatly announced to mankind that the second Shiloh, so long expected, would be born of the Prophetess at midnight, on October 19, in that same year, i. e. 1814. The inspired writer was then enceinte, although a virgin, as she expressly and solemnly declared, and in the sixty-fourth year of her age. Among the other preternatural concomitants of this anticipated eventful birth, was the fact that the period of her pregnancy had lasted for several years.

Of course, this stupendous announcement threw the whole sect into ecstasies of religious exultation; while, on the other hand, it afforded a fruitful subject of ridicule for the utterly irreverent London pamphleteers. Poor Sharp, who had caused a magnificent cradle and baby-wardrobe to be got ready at his own expense, was most unmercifully scored. The infant was caricatured with a long gray beard and spectacles, with Sharp in a duster carefully rocking him to sleep, while Joanna the Prophetess treated the engraver to some “cuts” in her own style, with a bunch of twigs.

On the appointed night, the street in which Joanna lived was thronged with the faithful, who, undeterred by sarcasm, fully credited her prediction. They bivouacked on the side-walks in motley crowds of men, women, and children; and as the hours wore on, and their interest increased, burst forth into spontaneous psalmody. The adjacent thoroughfares were as densely jammed with curious and incredulous spectators, and the mutton pie and ballad businesses flourished extensively. The interior of the house, with the exception of the sick chamber, was illuminated in all directions, and the dignitaries of the sect held the ante-rooms and corridors, “in full fig,” to receive the expected guest. But the evening passed, then midnight came, then morning, but alas! no Shiloh; and, little by little, the disappointed throngs dispersed! Poor Joanna, however, kept her bed, and finally, after many fresh paroxysms and prophecies, on the 27th of December, 1814, gave up the ghost—the indefatigable Sharp still declaring that she had gone to heaven for a season, only to legitimatize the unborn infant, and would re-arise again from death, after four days, with the Shiloh in her arms. So firm was this faith in him and many other respectable persons, that the body of the Prophetess was retained in her house until the very last moment. When the dissection demanded by the majority of the sect could no longer be delayed, that operation was performed, and it was found that the subject had died of ovarian dropsy; but was—as she had always maintained herself to be—a virgin. Dr. Reece, who had been a devout believer, but was now undeceived, published a full account of this and all the other circumstances of her death, and another equally earnest disciple bore the expenses of her burial at St. John’s Wood, and placed over her a tombstone with appropriate inscriptions.

As late as 1863, there were many families of believers still existing near Chatham, in Kent; and even in this country can here and there be found admirers of the creed of Joanna Southcott, who are firmly convinced that she will re-appear some fine morning, with Sanderson on one side of her and Sharp on the other.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.—?ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS OF FORMER AGES.—?HEATHEN HUMBUGS.—?THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.—?THE CABIRI.—?ELEUSIS.—?ISIS.

The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother, Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition, cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice.

Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then alive. It is a curious fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn. This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions, which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude, true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a dream from the god—these were the machineries of the ancient heathen. They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day.

The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as every respectable Christian family has a bible—and, as an ill-natured proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion—a one horse religion, so to speak—that had no mysteries.

The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis. These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions, voices, lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries, striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of nonsense, etc., etc.

The mysteries of the Cabiri are the most ancient of which anything is known. These Cabiri were a sort of “Original old Dr. Jacob Townsends” of divinities. They were considered senior and superior to Jupiter, Neptune, Plato, and the gods of Olympus. They were Pelasgic, that is, they belonged to that unknown ancient people from whom both the Greek and the Latin nations are thought to have come. The Cabiri afterward figured as the “elder gods” of Greece, the inventors of religion, and of the human race in fact, and were kept so very dark that it is not even known, with any certainty, who they were. The ancient heathen gods, like modern thieves, very usually objected to pass by their real names. The Cabiri were particularly at home in Lemnos, and afterward in Samothrace.

Their mysteries were of a somewhat unpleasant character, as far as we know them. The candidate had to pass a long time almost starved, and without any enjoyment whatever; was then let into a dark temple, crowned with olive, tied round with a purple girdle, and frightened almost to death with horrid noises, terrible sights of some kind, great flashes of light and deep darkness between, etc., etc. There was a ceremony of absolution from past sin, and a formal beginning of a new life. It is a curious fact, that this performance seems to have been a kind of pious marine insurance company; as the initiated, it was believed, could not be drowned. Perhaps they were put in a way to obtain a drier strangulation. The reason why these ceremonies were kept so successfully secret, is plain. Each man, as he was let in, and found what nonsense it was, was sure to hold his tongue and help the next man in, as in the modern case of the celebrated “Sons of Malta.” It is to be admitted, however, to the credit of the Cabiri, that a doctrine of reformation, or of living a better practical life, seems to have been part of their religion. This is an interesting recognition, by heathen consciences, of one of the greatest moral truths which Christianity has enforced. Something of the same kind can be traced in other heathen mysteries. But these heathen attempts at virtue invariably rotted out into aggravations of vice. No religion except Christianity ever contained the principle of improvement in it. Bugaboos and hob-goblins may serve for a time to frighten the ignorant into obedience; but if they get a chance to cheat the devil, they will be sure to do it. Nothing but the great doctrine of Christian love and brotherhood, and of a kind and paternal Divine government, has ever proved to be permanently reformatory, and tending to lift the heart above the vices and passions to which poor human nature is prone.

The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated every year at Eleusis, near Athens, in honor of Ceres, and were a regular “May Anniversary,” so to speak, for the pious heathens of the period. It took just nine days to complete them; long enough for a puppy to get its eyes open. The candidates were very handsomely put through. On the first day, they got together; on the second, they took a wash in the sea; on the third, they had some ceremonies about Proserpine; on the fourth, no mortal knows what they did; on the fifth, they marched round a temple, two and two, with torches, like a Wide-Awake procession; on the sixth, seventh, and eighth, there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so, because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say, We make hogs of ourselves.

There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear, systematic conspirators’ meetings, in which the more experienced matrons instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.

The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno, Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying; and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only guesses and general statements about the details of the performances. Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the travelers who held a post mortem on the great heathen god in the story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told—very authentic, of course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked soda-water bottle! This indicates—what is beyond all question the fact—that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas. Indeed, the whole composition of these impositions was, gammon, deception, hypocrisy—Humbug! Truly, the science of Humbug is entitled to some consideration, simply for its antiquity, if for nothing else.

CHAPTER XLVII.

HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.—?HEATHEN STATED SERVICES.—?ORACLES.—?SIBYLS.—?AUGURIES.

Something must be said about the Oracles, the Sibyls, and the Auguries; which, besides the mysteries elsewhere spoken of, were the chief assistant humbugs or side shows used for keeping up the great humbug heathen religion.

One word about the regular worship of heathenism; what maybe called their stated services. They had no weekly day of worship, indeed no week, and no preaching such as ours is; that is, no regular instruction by the ministers of religion, intended for all the people. They had singing and praying after their fashion; the singing being a sort of chant of praise to whatever idol was under treatment at the time, and the praying being in part vain repetitions of the name of their god, and for the rest a request that the god would do or give whatever was asked of him as a fair business transaction, in return for the agreeable smell of the fine beef they had just roasted under his nose, or for whatever else they had given him; as, a sum of money, a pair of pantaloons (or whatever they wore instead,) a handsome golden cup. This made the temple a regular shop, where the priests traded off promised benefits for real beef; coining blessings into cash on the nail; a very thorough humbug. Such public religious ceremonies as the heathen had were mostly annual, sometimes monthly. There were also daily ones, which were, however, the daily business of the priests, and none of the business of the laymen. To return to the subject.

All the heathen oracles, old and new (for abundance of them are still agoing,) sibyls, auguries and all, show how universally and naturally, and humbly and helplessly too, poor human nature longs to see into the future, and longs for help and guidance from some power, higher than itself.

Thus considered, these shallow humbugs teach a useful lesson, for they constitute a strong proof of man’s inborn natural recognition of some God, of some obligation to a higher power, of some disembodied existence; and so they show a natural human want of exactly what the Christian revelation supplies, and constitute a powerful evidence for Christianity.

All the heathen religions, I believe, had oracles of some kind. But the Greek and Latin ones tell the whole story. Of these there were over a hundred; more than twenty of Apollo, who was the god of soothsaying, divination, prophecy, and of the supernatural side of heathen humbug generally; thirty or forty collectively of Jupiter, Ceres, Mercury, Pluto, Juno, Ino (a very good name for a goddess that gave oracles, though she didn’t know!), Faunus, Fortune, Mars, etc., and nearly as many of demi-gods, heroes, giants, etc., such as Amphiaraus, Amphilochus, Trophonius, Geryon, Ulysses, Calchas, Æsculapius, Hercules, Pasiphae, Phryxus, etc. The most celebrated and most patronized of them all was the great oracle of Apollo, at Delphi. The “little fee” appears to have been the only universal characteristic of the proceedings for obtaining an answer from the god. Whether you got your reply in words spoken by the rattling of an old pot, by observing an ox’s appetite, throwing dice, or sleeping for a dream, your own proceedings were essentially the same. “Terms invariably net cash in advance or its equivalent.” A fine ox or sheep sacrificed was cash; for after the god had had his smell (those ladies and gentlemen appear to have eaten as they say the Yankees talk—through their noses,) all the rest was put carefully away by the reverend clergy for dinner, and saved so much on the butcher’s bill. If your credit was good, you might receive your oracle and afterward send in any little acknowledgment in the form of a golden goblet, or statue, or vase, or even of a remittance in specie. Such gifts accumulated in the oracle at Delphi and to an immense amount, and to the great emolument of Brennus, a matter of fact Gaulish commander, who, at his invasion of Greece, coolly carried off all the bullion, without any regard to the screeches of the Pythoness, and with no more scruples than any burglar.

The Delphian oracle worked through a woman, who, on certain days, went and sat on a three-legged stool over a hole in the ground in Apollo’s temple. This hole sent out gas; which, instead of being used like that afforded by holes in the ground at Fredonia, N. Y., to illuminate the village, was much more shrewdly employed by the clerical gentlemen to shine up the knowledge-boxes of their customers, and introduce the glitter of gold into their own pockets. I merely throw out the hint to any speculating Fredonian who owns a hole in the ground. Well, the Pythia, as this female was termed, warmed up her understanding over this hole, as you have seen ladies do over the register of a hot-air furnace, and becoming excited, she presently began to be drunk or crazy, and in her fit she gabbled forth some words or noises. These the priests took down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.

Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn’t do he got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that “truth is at the bottom of a well.” At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At PherÆ, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury, and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make the best of it. At Pluto’s oracle at CharÆ, the priest took a dream, and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius, after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had seen, which would, I imagine, usually be “the elephant.”

And so-forth, and so on. Humbug ad libitum!

Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of the oracles were frequently shrewd fellows, and could often pick up the materials of a very smart and judicious answer from the appearance of the customer and his question. Very often the answer was sheer nonsense. It was, in fact, believed by many that as a rule you couldn’t tell what the response meant until after it was fulfilled, when you were expected to see it. In many cases the answers were ingeniously arranged, so as to mean either a good or evil result, one of which was pretty likely.

Thus, one of the oracles answered a general who asked after the fate of his campaign as follows: (the ancients, remember, using no punctuation marks) “Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish.” The point becomes visible when you first make a pause before “never,” and then after it.

On a similar occasion, the Delphic oracle told Croesus that if he crossed the River Halys he would overthrow a great empire. This empire he chose to understand as that of Cyrus, whom he was going to fight. It came out the other way, and it was his own empire that was overthrown. The immense wisdom of the oracle, however, was tremendously respected in consequence!

Pyrrhus, of Epirus, on setting off against the Romans, received equal satisfaction, the Pythia telling him (in Latin) what amounted to this:

“I say that you Pyrrhus the Romans are able to conquer!”

Pyrrhus took it as he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged, the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and most wofully too.

Trajan was advised to consult the oracle at Heliopolis, about his intended expedition against the Parthians. The custom was to send your query in a letter; so Trajan sent a blank note in an envelope. The god (very naturally) sent back a blank note in reply, which was thought wonderfully smart; and so the imperial dupe sent again, a square question:

“Shall I finish this war and get safe back to Rome?”

The Heliopolitan humbug replied by sending a piece of an old grape-vine cut into pieces, which meant either: “You will cut them up,” or “They will cut you up;” and Trajan, like the little boy at the peep-show who asked: “which is Lord Wellington and which is the Emperor Napoleon?” had paid his penny and might take his choice.

Sometimes the oracles were quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to get rich? The oracle said: “Own all there is between Sicyon and Corinth.” Which places are some fifteen miles apart.

Another fellow asked how he should cure his gout? The oracle coolly said: “Drink nothing but cold water!”

The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose. Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly “see” the priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a bull-headed, hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he “fixed” Delphi by bribes. When Alexander the Great came to consult the same oracle, the Pythia was disinclined to perform. But Alexander rather roughly gave her to understand that she must, and she did. The Greek and Roman oracles finally all gave out not far from the time of Christ’s coming, having gradually become more or less disreputable for many years.

All the heathen nations, as I have said, had their oracles too. The heathen Scandinavians had a famous one at Upsal. The Getae, in Scythia, had one. The Druids had them; so did the Mexican priests. The Egyptian and Syrian divinities had them; in short, oracles were quite as necessary as mysteries, and continue so in heathen religions. The only exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated, being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they quietly receive everything as it comes, and don’t take the least trouble to find out how it is coming.

The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three, four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the Lybian, the Delphic, the CumÆan, much honored by the Romans, and half a dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and desperate old maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these circumstances, went to work and wrote books.

I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs. These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not, etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur could look another in the face without laughing.

It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means, escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.—?FETISHISM.—?OBI.—?VAUDOUX.—?INDIAN POWWOWS.—?LAMAISM.—?REVOLVING PRAYERS.—?PRAYING TO DEATH.

A scale of superstition and religious beliefs of to-day, arranged from the lowest to the highest, would show many curious coincidences with another scale, which should trace the history of superstitions and religious beliefs backward in time toward the origin of man. Thus, for instance, the heathen humbugs, whether revolting or ridiculous, which I am to speak of in this chapter, are in full blast to day; and they furnish perfect specimens of the beliefs which prevailed among the heathen of four thousand and of eighteen hundred years ago; of the Chaldee and Canaanite superstitions, and equally of those of the Romans under Augustus CÆsar.

The most dirty, vulgar, low, silly and absurd of all the superstitions in the world are, as is natural, those of the darkest minded of all the heathen, who have any superstition at all. For, as if for the humiliation of our proud human nature, there are really some human beings who seem to have too little intellect even to rise to the height of a superstition. Such are the Andaman Islanders, who crawl on all fours, wear nothing but a plaster of mud to keep the musquitos off, eat bugs, and grubs, and ants, and turn their children out to shift for themselves as soon as the little wretches can learn to crawl and eat bugs.

These lowest of superstitions are Fetishism and Obi, believed and practiced by negro tribes, and, remember this, even by their ignorant white mistresses in the West Indies and in the United States, to day. Yes, I know where Southern refugee secessionist women are living in and about New York city at this moment, who really believe in the negro witchcraft called Obi, practiced by the slaves.

A Fetish is anything not a living being, worshiped because supposed to be inhabited by some god. In some parts of Africa the Fetishes are a sort of guardian divinity, and there is one for each district like a town constable; and sometimes one for each family. The Fetish is any stone picked up in the street—a tree, a chip, a rag. It may be some stone or wooden image—an old pot, a knife, a feather. Before this precious divinity the poor darkeys bow down and worship, and sometimes, sacrifice a sheep or a rooster. Each more important Fetish has a priest, and here is where the humbug comes in. This gentleman lives on the offerings made to the Fetish, and he “exploits” his god, as a Frenchman would say, with great profit.

Obi or Obeah, is the name of the witchcraft of the negro tribes; and the practitioner is termed an Obi-man or Obi-woman. They practice it at home in Africa, and carry it with them to continue it when they are made slaves in other lands. Obi is now practiced, as I have already hinted, in Cuba and in the Southern States, and is believed in by the more ignorant and foolish white people, as much as by their barbarous slaves. Obi is used only to injure, and the way to perform it upon your enemy is, to hire the Obi man or woman to concoct a charm, and then to hide this, or cause it to be hidden, in some place about the person or abode of the victim where he will find it. He is expected thereupon to fall ill, to wither and waste away, and so to die.

Absurd as it may seem, this cursing business operates with a good deal of certainty on the poor negroes, who fall sick instantly on finding the ball of Obi, two or three inches in diameter, hidden in their bed, or in the roof, or under the threshold, or in the earthen floor of their huts. The poor wretches become dejected, lose appetite, strength, and spirits, grow thin and ill, and really wither away and die. It is a curious fact, however, that if under these circumstances you can cause one of them to become converted to Christianity, or to become a Christian by profession, he becomes at once free from the witches’ dominion and quickly recovers.

The ball of Obi—or, as it is called among the Brazilian negroes, Mandinga—may be made of various materials, always, I believe, including some which are disgusting or horrible. Leaves of trees and scraps of rag may be used; ashes, usually from bones or flesh of some kind; pieces of cats’ bones and skulls, feathers, hair, earth, or clay, which ought to be from a grave; teeth of men and of snakes, alligators or other beasts; vegetable gum, or other sticky stuff; human blood, pieces of eggshell, etc., etc. This mixture is curiously like that in the witches’ caldron in Macbeth, which, among other equally toothsome matters, contained frogs’ toes, bats’ wool, lizards’ legs, owlets’ wings, wolfs’ teeth, witches’ mummy, Jew’s liver, tigers’ bowels, and lastly, as a sort of thickening to the gravy, baboon’s blood.

A creole lady, now at the North, recently told a friend of mine that “the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything they want!” The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South, tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among the white people.

The practices called Vaudoux or Voudoux, are a sort of Obi; being, like that, an invoking of the aid of some god to do what the worshipers wish. The Vaudoux humbug is quite prevalent in Cuba, Hayti, and other West India islands, where there are wild negroes, or where they are still imported from Africa. There is also a good deal of this sort of humbug among the slaves in New Orleans, and cases arising from it have recently quite often appeared in the police reports in the newspapers of that city.

The Vaudoux worshipers assemble secretly, with a kind of chief witch or mistress of ceremonies; there is a boiling caldron of hell-broth, a la Macbeth; the votaries dance naked around their soup; amulets and charms are made and distributed. During a quarter of a century last past, some hundreds of these orgies have been broken up by the New Orleans police, and probably as many more have come off as per programme. The Vaudoux processes are most frequently appealed to for the purposes of some unsuccessful or jealous lover; and the Creole ladies believe in Vaudouxism as much as in Obi.

In the West Indies, the Vaudoux orgies are more savage than in this country. It is but a little while since in Hayti, under the energetic and sensible administration of President Geffrard, eight Vaudoux worshipers were regularly tried and executed for having murdered a young girl, the niece of two of them, by way of human sacrifice to the god. They tied the poor child tight, put her in a box called a humfort, fed her with some kind of stuff for four days, and then deliberately strangled her, beheaded her, flayed her, cooked the head with yams, ate of the soup, and then performed a solemn dance and chant around an altar with the skull on it.

The Caffres in Southern Africa have a kind of humbug somewhat like the Obi-men, who are known as rainmakers. These gentlemen furnish what blessing and cursing may be required for other purposes; but as that country is liable to tremendous droughts, their best business is to make rain. This they do by various prayers and ceremonies, of which the most important part is, receiving a large fee in advance from the customer. The rain-making business, though very lucrative, is not without its disadvantages; for whenever Moselekatse, or Dingaan, or any other chief sets his rainmaker at work, and the rain was not forthcoming as per application, the indignant ruler caused an assegai or two to be stuck through the wizard, for the encouragement of the other wizards. This was not so unreasonable as it may seem; for if the man could not make rain when it was wanted, what was he good for?

The ceremonies of the pow-wows or medicine-men of the North American Indians, are less brutal than the African ones. These soothsayers, like the Obi-men, prepared charms for their customers, usually, however, not so much to destroy others as to protect the wearer. These charms consist of some trifling matters tied up in a small bag, the “medicine-bag,” which is to be worn round the neck, and will, it is supposed, insure the wearer the special help and protection of the Great Spirit. The pow-wows sometimes do a little in the cursing line.

There is a funny story of a Puritan minister in the early times of New England, who coolly defied one of the most famous Indian magicians to play off his infernal artillery. A formal meeting was had, and the pow-wow rattled his traps, howled, danced, blew feathers, and vociferated jargon until he was perfectly exhausted, the old minister quietly looking at him all the time. The savage humbug was dumbfounded, but quickly recovering his presence of mind, saved his home-reputation by explaining to the red gentlemen in breech-cloths and nose-rings, that the Yankee ate so much salt that curses wouldn’t take hold on him at all.

The Shamans (or Schamans) of Siberia, follow a very similar business, but are not so much priestly humbugs as mere conjurors. The Lamas, or Buddhist leaders of Central and Southern Asia are, however, regular priests, again, and may be said, with singular propriety, to “run their machine” on principles of thorough religious humbug, for they do really pray by a machine. They set up a little mill to go by water or wind, which turns a cylinder. On this cylinder is written a prayer, and every time the barrel goes round once, it counts, they say, for one prayer. It may be imagined how piety intensifies in a freshet, or in a heavy gale of wind! And there is a ludicrous notion of economy, as well as a pitiable folly in the conception of profiting by such windy supplications, and of saving all one’s time and thoughts for business, while the prayers rattle out by the hundred at home. Only imagine the pious fervor of one of these priests in a first-class Lowell mill, of say a hundred thousand spindles. Print a large edition of some good prayer and paste a copy on each spindle, and the place would seem to him the very gate of a Buddhist heaven. He would feel sure of taking heaven by storm, with a sustained fire of one hundred thousand prayers every second. His first requisite for a prosperous church would be a good water-power for prayer-mills. And yet, absurd as these prayer-mills of the heathen really are, it may not be safe to bring them under unqualified condemnation: for who among us has not sometimes heard windy prayers even in our Christian churches? Young clergymen are especially liable and, I might say, prone to this mockery. These, however, are but exceptions to the general Christian rule, viz.: that the Omniscient careth only for heart-service; and that, before Him, all mere lip-service or machine-service, is simply an abomination.

A less innocent kind of praying is one of the religious humbugs of the bloody and cruel Sandwich Islands form of heathenism. Here a practice prevailed, and does yet, of paying money to a priest to pray your enemy to death. For cash in advance, this bargain could always be made, and so groveling was the spiritual cowardice of these poor savages, that, like the negro victim of Obi, the man prayed at seldom failed to sicken as soon as he found out what was going on, and to waste away and die.

This bit of heathen humbug now in operation, from so many distant portions of the earth, shows how radically similar is all heathenism. It shows, too, how mean, vulgar, filthy, and altogether vile, is such religion as man, unassisted, contrives for himself. It shows, again, how sadly great is the proportion of the human race still remaining in this brutal darkness. And, by contrast, it affords us great reason for thankfulness that we live in a land of better culture, and happier hopes and practices.

CHAPTER XLIX.

ORDEALS.—?DUELS.—?WAGER OF BATTLE.—?ABRAHAM THORNTON.—?RED HOT IRON.—?BOILING WATER.—?SWIMMING.—?SWEARING.—?CORSNED.—?PAGAN ORDEALS.

Ordeals belong to times and communities of rudeness, violence, materialism, ignorance, gross superstition and blind faith. The theory of ordeals is, that God will miraculously decide in the case of any accused person referred to Him. He will cause the accused to be victorious or defeated in a duel, will punish him on the spot for perjury, and if the innocent be exposed to certain physical dangers, will preserve him harmless.

The duel, for instance, used to be called the “ordeal by battle,” and was simply the commitment of the decision of a cause to God. Duels were regularly prefaced by the solemn prayer “God show the right.” Now-a-days nobody believes that skill with a pistol is going to be specially bestowed by the Almighty, without diligent practice at a mark. Accordingly, the idea of a divine interposition has long ago dropped out of the question, and duelling is exclusively in the hands of the devil and his human votaries,—is a purely brutal absurdity. But in England, so long was this bloody, superstitious humbug kept up, that any hardened scoundrel who was a good hand at his weapon might, down to the year 1819, absolutely have committed murder under the protection of English law. Two years before that date, a country “rough” named Abraham Thornton, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Ashford, but by deficiency of proof was acquitted on trial. There was however a moral conviction that Thornton had killed the girl, and her brother, a mere lad, caused an appeal to be entered according to the English statute, and Thornton was again arraigned before the King’s Bench. In the mean time his counsel had looked up the obsolete proceedings about “assize of battle,” and when Thornton was placed at the bar he threw down his glove upon the floor according to the ancient forms, and challenged his accuser to mortal combat. In reply, the appellant, Ashford, set forth facts so clearly showing Thornton’s guilt as to constitute (as he alleged,) cause for exemption from the combat, and for condemnation of the prisoner. The court, taken by surprise, spent five months in studying on the matter. At last it decided that the fighting man had the law of England on his side, admitted his demand, and further, found that the matters alleged for exemption from combat were not sufficient. On this, poor William Ashford, who was but a boy, declined the combat by reason of his youth, and the prisoner was discharged, and walked in triumph out of court, the innocent blood still unavenged upon his hands. The old fogies of Parliament were startled at finding themselves actually permitting the practice of barbarisms abolished by the Greek emperor, Michael Palaeologus, in 1259, and by the good King Louis IX of France in 1270; and two years afterwards, in 1819, the legal duel or “assize of battle” was by law abolished in England. It had been legal there for five centuries and a half, having been introduced by statute in 1261.

Before that time, the ordeals by fire and by water were the regular legal ones in England. These were known even to the Anglo Saxon law, being mentioned in the code of Ina, A. D., about 700. It appears that fire was thought the most aristocratic element, for the ordeal by fire was used for nobles, and that by water for vulgarians and serfs. The operations were as follows: When one was accused of a crime, murder for instance, he had his choice whether to be tried “by God and his country,” or “by God.” If he chose the former he went before a jury. If the latter, he underwent the ordeal. Nine red hot ploughshares were laid on the ground in a row. The accused was blindfolded, and sent to walk over them. If he burnt himself he was guilty; if not, not. Sometimes, instead of this, the accused carried a piece of red hot iron of from one to three pounds’ weight in his hand for a certain distance.

The ordeal by water was, in one form at least, the same wise alternative in after years so often offered to witches. The accused was tied up in a heap, each arm to the other leg, and flung into water. If he floated he was guilty, and must be killed. If he sank and drowned, he was innocent—but killed. Trial was therefore synonymous with execution. The nature of such alternatives shows how important it was to have a character above suspicion! Another mode was, for the accused to plunge his bare arm into boiling water to the elbow. The arm was then instantly sealed up in bandages under charge of the clergy for three days. If it was then found perfectly well, the accused was acquitted; if not, he was found guilty.

Another ordeal was expurgation or compurgation. It was a simple business—“as easy as swearing;” very much like a “custom house oath.” It was only this: the accused made solemn oath that he was not guilty, and all the respectable men he could muster came and made their solemn oath that they believed so too. This is much like the jurisprudence of the Dutch justice of the peace in the old story, before whom two men swore that they saw the prisoner steal chickens. The thief however, getting a little time to collect testimony, brought in twelve men who swore that they did not see him take the chickens. “Balance of evidence overwhelmingly in favor of the prisoner,” said the sapient justice (in Dutch I suppose,) and finding him innocent in a ratio of six to one, he discharged him at once.

This ordeal by oath was reserved for people of eminence, whose word went for something, and who had a good many thorough-going friends.

Another sort of ordeal was reserved for priests. It was called corsned. The priest who took the ordeal by corsned received a bit of bread or a bit of cheese which was loaded heavily, by way of sauce, with curses upon whomsoever should eat it falsely. This he ate, together with the bread of the Lord’s supper. Everybody knew that if he were guilty, the sacred mouthful would choke him to death on the spot. History records no instance of the choking of any priest in this ordeal, but there is a story that the Saxon Earl Godwin of Kent took the corsned to clear himself of a charge of murder, and (being a layman) was choked. I fully believe that Earl Godwin is dead, for he was born about the year 1000. But I have not the least idea that corsned killed him.

The priests had the management of ordeals, which, being appeals to God, were reckoned religious ceremonies. They of course much preferred the swearing and eating and hot iron and water ordeals, which could be kept under the regulation of clerical good sense. Not so with the ordeal by battle. No priests could do anything with the wrath of two great mad ugly brutes, hot to kill each other, and crazy to risk having their own throats cut or skulls cleft rather than not have the chance. In consequence, the whole influence of the Romish church went against the ordeal by battle, and in favor of the others. Thus the former soon lost its religious element and became the mere duel; a base indulgence of a beast’s passion for murder and revenge. The progress of enlightenment gradually pushed ordeals out of court. Mobs have however always tried the ordeal by water on witches.

Almost all the heathen ordeals have depended on fire, water, or something to eat or drink. Even in the Bible we find an ordeal prescribed to the Jews (Numbers, chap v.,) for an unfaithful wife, who is there directed to drink some water with certain ceremonies, which drink God promises shall cause a fatal disease if she be guilty, and if not, not. It is worth noticing that Moses says not a word about any “water of jealousy,” or any other ordeal, for unfaithful husbands!

This drinking or eating ordeal prevails quite extensively even now. In Hindostan, theft is often enquired into by causing the suspected party to chew some dry rice or rice flour, which has some very strong curses stirred into it, corsned fashion. After chewing, the accused spits out his mouthful, and if it is either dry or bloody, he is guilty. It is easy to see how a rascal, if as credulous as rascals often are, would be so frightened that his mouth would be dry, and would thus betray his own peccadillo. Another Hindoo mode was, to give a certain quantity of poison in butter, and if it did no harm, to acquit. Here, the man who mixes the dose is evidently the important person. In Madagascar they give some tangena water. Now tangena is a fruit of which a little vomits the patient, and a good deal poisons or kills him; a quality which sufficiently explains how they manage that ordeal.

Ordeals by fire and water are still practiced, with some variations, in Hindostan, China, Pegu, Siberia, Congo, Guinea, Senegambia and other pagan nations. Some of those still in use are odd enough. A Malabar one is to swim across a certain river, which is full of crocodiles. A Hindoo one is, for the two parties to an accusation to stand out doors, each with one bare leg in a hole, he to win who can longest endure the bites they are sure to get. This would be a famous method in some of the New Jersey and New York and Connecticut seashore lowlands I know of. The mosquitoes would decide cases both civil and criminal, at a speed that would make a Judge of the Supreme Court as dizzy as a humming-top. Another Hindoo plan was for the accused to hold his head under water while a man walked a certain distance. If the walker chose to be lazy about it, or the prisoner had diseased lungs, this would be a rather severe method. The Wanakas in Eastern Africa, draw a red hot needle through the culprit’s lips—a most judicious place to get hold of an African!—and if the wound bleeds, he is guilty. In Siam, accuser and accused are put into a pen and a tiger is let loose on them. He whom the tiger kills is guilty. If he kills both, both are guilty; if neither, they try another mode.

Blackstone says that an ordeal might always be tried by attorney. I should think this would give the legal profession a very lively time whenever the courts were chiefly using tigers, poison, drowning, fire and red hot iron, but not so much so when a little swearing or eating was the only thing required.

This whole business of ordeals is a singular superstition, and the extent of its employment shows how ready the human race is to believe that God is constantly influencing even their ordinary private affairs. In other words, it is in principle like the doctrine of “special providence.” Looked at as a superstition however—considered as a humbug—the history of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great American principle of the separation of state and church.

CHAPTER L.

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.

The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.

One of their most surprising instances—in fact, perhaps, absolutely the leading impostor—was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to determine which) known as Apollonius TyanÆus so called from Tyana, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again, dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say the olden chroniclers—probably geese, every one of them—clapped their wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the place too much for him, and soon removed to ÆgÆ, a smaller city, at no great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with moderation.

At ÆgÆ there stood a temple dedicated to Æsculapius, who figured on earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death was made a god. The edifice was much larger and more splendid than the Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of Æsculapius having bestowed upon the world any such benefaction as the universal pills. However, unlike our modern M. D.s, the latter was in the habit of re-appearing after death, in this temple, and there holding forth to the faithful on various topics of domestic medicine. Apollonius was allowed to take up his residence in the establishment, and, no doubt, the priests initiated him into all their dodges to impose upon the people. Another tenet of the Pythagorean faith was a total abstinence from beans, an arrangement which would be objectionable in New England and in Nassau street eating houses.

Apollonius however, who knew nothing of Yankees or Nassau street, manfully completed his novitiate. Restored at length to the use of beans and of his talking apparatus, he set forth upon a lecturing tour through Pamphylia and Cilicia. His themes were temperance, economy, and good behavior, and for the very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit, when he “pitched into” the corn merchants who had bought up all the grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day! Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon a tablet the following advice to the speculators in grain:

“The earth, the common mother of all, is just. But, ye being unjust, would make her a bountiful mother to yourselves alone. Leave off your dishonest traffic, or ye shall be no longer permitted to live.”

The grain-merchants, upon beholding this appeal, relented, for there was conscience in those days; and, moreover, the populace had prepared torches, and proposed to fry a few of the offenders, like oysters in bread-crumbs. So they yielded at once, and great was the fame of the prophet. Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching virtue by the wayside, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who can talk “horse-talk” at the races, but probably none so perfectly as this great Tyanean. The author of “The Ruined Cities of Africa,” a recent publication, informs us that at Lamba, an African village, there is a leopard who can “speak.” This would go to show that the “animals,” are aspiring in a direction directly the opposite of the acquirements of Apollonius, and I shall secure that leopard, if possible, for exhibition in the Museum, and for a fair consideration send him to any public meeting where some one is needed who will come up to the scratch!

But, to resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius saw by the roadside a lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and skill of the noted stranger, that he promised him any twelve gifts that he might choose to ask for, but Apollonius declined accepting anything but food and raiment. However, the King gave him camels and escort to assist his journey over the northern mountains of Hindostan, which he crossed, and entered the ancient city of Taxilia. On the way, he had a high time in the gorges of the hills with a horrible hobgoblin of the species called empusa by the Greeks. This demon terrified his companions half out of their wits, but Apollonius bravely assailed him with all sorts of hard words, and, to literally translate the old Greek narrative, “blackguarded” him so effectually that the poor devil fled with his tail between his legs. At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a lineal descendant of the famous Porus—and truly a porous personage, since he was renowned for drinking—gave the philosopher a grand reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose temples he explored. These Hindoo gentlemen opened the eyes of Apollonius wider than they had ever been before, and taught him a few things he had never dreamed of, but which served him admirably during his latter career. He returned to Europe by way of the Red Sea, passing through Ephesus, where he vehemently denounced the speculators in gold and other improper persons. As they did not heed him, he predicted the plague, and left for Smyrna. Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just after his departure, and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd, on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail, and made away at “two-forty” and with him the pestilence departed. For this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring that it was only justice to good men. In these degenerate days, we have accorded the term to only one person, “the divine Fanny Ellsler!” That, too, was a tribute to superior understanding!

Our hero next visited Pergamus, the site of ancient Troy, where he shut himself up all night in the tomb of Achilles; and having raised the great departed, held conversation with him on a variety of military topics. Among other things, Achilles told him that the theory of his having been killed by a wound in the heel was all nonsense, as he had really died from being bitten by a puppy, in the back. If the reader does not believe me, let him consult the original MS. of Damis. The same accident has disabled several great generals in modern times.

Apollonius next made a tour through Greece, visiting Athens, Sparta, Olympia, and other cities, and exhorting the dissolute Greeks to mend their evil courses. The Spartans, particularly, came in for a severe lecture on the advantages of soap and water; and, it is said, that the first clean face ever seen in that republic was the result of the great Tyanean’s teachings. At Athens, he cured a man possessed of a demon; the latter bouncing out of his victim, at length, with such fury and velocity as to dash down a neighboring marble statue.

The Isle of Crete was the next point on the journey, and an earthquake occurring at the time, Apollonius suddenly exclaimed in the streets:

“The earth is bringing forth land.”

Folks looked as he pointed toward the sea, and there beheld a new island in the direction of Therae.

He arrived at Rome, whither his fame had preceded him, just as the Emperor Nero had issued an edict against all who dealt in magic; and, although he knew that he was included in the denunciation, he boldly went to the forum, where he restored to life the dead body of a beautiful lady, and predicted an eclipse of the sun, which shortly occurred. Nero caused him to be arrested, loaded with chains, and flung into an underground dungeon. When his jailers next made their rounds, they found the chains broken and the cell empty, but heard the chanting of invisible angels. This story would not be believed by the head jailer at Sing Sing.

Prolonging his trip as far as Spain, Apollonius there got up a sedition against the authority of Nero, and thence crossed over into Africa. This was the darkest period of his history. From Africa, he proceeded to the South of Italy and the island of Sicily, still discoursing as he went. About this time, he heard of Nero’s death, and returned to Egypt, where Vespasian was endeavoring to establish his authority. While in Egypt, he explored the supposed sources of the Nile, and learned all the lore of the Ethiopean necromancers, who could do any thing, even to making a black man white; thus greatly excelling the skill of after ages.

Vespasian had immense faith in the Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the latter modestly refused the crown of victory, after having destroyed Jerusalem.

“Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of Rome, sendeth greeting. Since you have refused to be applauded for bloodshed and victory in war, I send you the crown of moderation. You know to what kind of merit crowns are due.”

Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant at Puteoli, one hundred and fifty miles away. The distinguished Mr. Jewett, of Colorado, is the only instance of similar rapidity of locomotion known to us in this country and time.

After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.

This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a temple was dedicated to his memory.However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors, and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher’s ashes.

Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all:—“Have courage, good Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!” On that same day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this “miracle” is simply that Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant’s life.

Long afterwards, Cagliostro claimed that he had been a fellow-traveler with Apollonius, and that his mysterious companion, the sage Athlotas, was the very same personage, who, consequently, at that time, must have reached the ripe age of some 1784 years—a lapse of time beyond the memory of even “the oldest inhabitant,” in these parts, at least!

THE END.

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