are set down
the conjurations necessary for "invoking demons of all kinds, of the
sky, of hell, the earth, fire, air, and water," to destroy all sorts
of "enchantments, charms, spells, and snares," in whatever place they
may be hidden, and of whatever matter they may be composed, whether
male or female, magician or witch, who may have made or given them,
and notwithstanding "all compacts and all conventions made between
them." Ought not the fact that the church forbids any one to read or
to keep these kind of books, to be sufficient to convince us of the
falsehood of what they imagine, and to teach us how contrary they are
to true religion and sound devotion. Three years ago they printed in
this town a little book, of which the author, however, was not of
Verona, in which they promised to teach the way "to deliver the
possessed, and to break all kinds of spells." We read in it that
"those over whom a malignant spell has been cast, lead such a wretched
life that it ought rather to be called a long death, like the corpse
of a man who had just died," &c. That is not all, for "almost all die
of it," and if they are children, "they hardly ever live." See now the
power which simple people ascribe, not only to the devil, but to the
vilest of men, whom they really believe to be connected with, and to
hold commerce with him. They say afterwards in this same book[696]
that the signs which denote a malignant spell are parings, herbs,
feathers, bones, nails, and hairs; but they give notice that the
feathers prove that there is witchcraft "only when they are
intermingled in the form of a circle or nearly so." And, again, you
must take care that some woman has not given you something to eat,
some flowers to smell, or if she has touched the shoulder of the
person on whom the spell is cast. We have an excellent preservative
against these simplicities in the vast selection of Dom Martenus,
entitled _De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus_, in which we see that amidst
an infinity of prayers, orisons and exorcisms used at all times
throughout Christendom, there is not a passage in which mention is
made of spells, sorcery, or magic, or magical operations. They therein
command the demon in the name of Jesus Christ to come out and go
away--they therein implore the divine protection, to be delivered from
his power, to which we are all born subject by the stain of original
sin; they therein teach that holy water, salt, and incense sanctified
by the pra