suspected thief, and then repeated the eighteenth verse of that Psalm,
"When thou sawest a thief then thou consentest with him," etc. If the
Bible turned round and fell, it was held to be proof that the person
named was the thief. This method of divining was not frequently
practised, not through want of faith in its efficacy, but through
superstitious terror, for the movement of the key was regarded as
evidence that some unseen dread power was present, and so overpowering
occasionally was the impression produced that the young woman who was
chief actor in the scene fainted. The parties holding the key and Bible
were generally old women, whose faith in the ordeal was perfect, and
who, removed by their age from the intenser sympathies of youth, could
therefore hold their hands with steadier nerve. It is only when firm
hands hold it that the turning takes place, for this phenomenon depends
upon the regular and steady pulsations in the fingers, and when held
steadily the ordeal never fails.

There were various other methods for divining or consulting fate or
deity. M'Tagart refers to a practice of divining by the staff. When a
pilgrim at any time got bewildered, he would poise his staff
perpendicularly, and there leave it to fall of itself; and in whatever
direction it fell, that was the road he would take, believing himself
supernaturally directed. Townsmen when they wished to go on a pleasure
excursion to the country, and careless or unsettled which way to go,
would apply to this form of lot. In the old song of "Jock Burnie" there
occurs the following verse:--

"En' on en' he poised his rung, then
Watch'd the airt its head did fa',
Whilk was east, he lapt and sung then,
For there his dear bade, Meg Macraw."

This practice was common with boys in the country fifty years ago, both
for determining where to go for pleasure, or if in a game one of their
number had hidden, and could not be found, as a last resort the stick
was poised, and in whatever direction the stick fell, search was renewed
in that direction.

Such things as these seem trifling, and it would seem folly to treat
them seriously; but they were not always trifling matters. Some of our
Biblical scholars say that it was to this kind of divining that the
prophet Hosea referred when he said, "Their staff declareth unto them,"
and at the present day there are nations who practice such methods for
determining important affairs of life.

Th