ns already mentioned. It extended to the
Reformed Churches, and indeed this form of superstition lingers among
them still. A most enthusiastic Reformer (the Rev. Donald Cargill),
eminent in his day for piety and learning, who suffered martyrdom in
1681, scrupled not, a year before his death, to excommunicate at
Torwood, Stirlingshire, several of the most notable and violent
persecutors of the time--the King, the Dukes of York, Monmouth,
Lauderdale, and Rothes, Sir George Mackenzie, and Sir Thomas Dalzell.
If Mr. Cargill did not curse others whom he thought had done him and
the cause of truth wrong, he predicted that evil would befall them;
and what he foretold came to pass. He told James Irvine of Bonshaw,
who apprehended him shortly before his execution, that his persecutor
would not long escape a just judgment, not far from the place the
arrest was made. This prediction was verified; for soon after Irvine
had received 5000 merks as a reward for apprehending Mr. Cargill, he
was killed in a duel near Lanark. One John Nesbet mockingly said one
day to Mr. Cargill, "Will you not give us a word?" The reverend divine
looked on the man with concern, while he said, "Wicked, poor man, mock
not; ere you die you shall desire one word, but shall not have it."
Soon after, this man was struck dumb, and died in great terror. When
Rothes, one of those whom Mr. Cargill excommunicated, threatened him
with torture and a violent death, he said, "Forbear to threaten me;
for, die what death I may, your eyes shall not see it." This prophecy
also came to pass. Rothes died, as is well known, a few hours before
the condemned divine and his fellow-martyrs suffered the last penalty
of man's law--death temporal.

One can easily imagine the terror into which a weak-minded person
would be cast by having the Pope's dire curses pronounced against him,
were it not known that he who is authorised to fulminate the
ecclesiastical censure and bans, may, for a moderate pecuniary
consideration, or by a mortification of the flesh, or good works, have
the woes pronounced against him mitigated, if not entirely removed.
Indulgences have been purchasable since the early centuries for this
world, and for the remission of suffering in purgatory as well. Those
most acquainted with the holy places in Rome are best able to make
known the facilities with which indulgences are obtained. There is
scarcely a church or a station, a convent or a holy place, neither is
ther