suppose, at first, that he was amusing himself with me, or that he was under a temporary derangement. But he perseveres in the assertion, his judgment and veracity are evidently the same as formerly, he dies attesting the fact-Should I not believe the fact? Should I then believe it if I had myself scen it? This may be called direct testimony; but, perhaps, most testimony deserves only the appellation of probable. We cannot, in general, have a very perfect conviction of the veracity of witnesses; yet this conviction we may often obtain in a great degree, even with respect to very old stories. There is a simplicity and nature in some old books, which command immediate assent. But, where testimony rests solely on the ground of probability, such as a number of witnesses attesting the same fact, with, perhaps, collateral circumstances supporting it, where we have no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the veracity of any one of the witnesses, it may be doubted how far such testimony will prove a miracle, because the testimony in this case is merely probable, or what in the course of Nature we should not expect would prove false; while a miracle is not only an improbable fact, or something which we should not look for in the course of Nature, but is totally contrary to the course of Nature, or is an incredible fact. It is to this instance alone that Mr Hume's dilemma will apply with any force. In opposition to this case, however, there is a ground on which even weak evidence, or very little stronger than we require for common facts, will be sufficient to establish the truth of a miracle, viz. the probability of the miracle. Considered merely as a fact, a miracle is the most improbable of all facts; considered as a miracle, it may be very probable. Here, indeed, we must take in the principles of natural religion, which will surely be the more easily admitted, if, as has been shown, their truth is implied in all rational belief concerning natural events. One might wonder why an atheist should object to miracles. The greater irregularity there is in Nature, the more totally it should seem to want design, the greater reason would there be in his argument. It would make for his cause, that all the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and all the Arabian Tales, should be true. The first prinriples of common sense, however, force him to acknowledge, that there is something fixed, settled, and established. This is, in fact, Deism; but, in order to avoid that conclusion, he supposes things more fixed than even rational Deism will warrant. Displacing the Deity, by whom the two ends of the chain are held, he supposes them linked together by the indissoluble padlock of necessity. A miracle, accordingly, appears to him, not inerely improbable, but absolutely impossible. A Deist, however, may admit, that it is not quite improbable a suspension of natural laws may, on some occasions, enter into the Divine councils; and, if it should be presumption a priori to say, that, in any given circumstances, there probably would be a suspension of this kind; yet if, on próbable testimony, we have been informed, that, in such and such circumstances, miracles did take place, we may, at the same time, perceive the probability of their happening in such circumstances. Thus, considering Christianity merely as a scheme, it may seem a probable supplement to natural religion, suited to the condition of man, and such as might be looked for from the goodness and wisdom of God. We shall, therefore, be satisfied with less evidence of its truth, than if it had a contrary character. We shall, at least, not close our eyes to that cloud of evidence by which it is supported. PHILOTHEUS. APPARITIONS OF THE DEVIL. BE not surprised, Mr Editor, at the title I have given my paper, nor imagine for a moment that your correspondent is on any terms of undue familiarity with the Prince of Darkness. Assuredly I have never seen him personally, to my knowledge, though, in dark nights, and lonely glens, and church-yards, I have anxiously been on the look-out for him. The anecdotes, however, that I am going to relate of him will show you that he has, at sundry times, and in divers manners, made himself known in a visible shape to some of the godly forefathers of this unbelieving generation. The banks of Crawick, in particular, seem to have been inhabited with devils in former ages, if we may place any reliance on the traditions still current among its hoary-headed chroniclers. One good reason assigned for their being so numerous in this place is, that the people then dwelling by the streams of Crawick were so rigidly religious, so proof against all the temptations of the evil one, that it was quite a hopeless attempt for any one devil to keep his credit among them. The prince of the power of the air had, therefore, seen it absolutely necessary, in the profundity of his diabolical wisdom, to establish a colony in the place; and, even after this goodly reinforcement had been brought in, sorely afflicted the poor devils were to keep their ground. The people were so armed at all points with weapons of spiritual warfare, furnished by the godly divines who flourished after the reformation from Popery,-they had got so many prayers, and psalms, and texts of Scripture, and knew so well how to use them, that it was a perfect tempting of Providence for a devil to set up his head among them. He was not certain of his life for five minutes, unless he could act his part with the most unblushing audacity and determined bravery. The idea of a devil losing his life may, perhaps, sound oddly in the ears of some of my less-learned readers; but I can assure them, upon the authority of the original documents from whence I derive my information, that, in consequence of the frequent skirmishes that took place, not a few lives were lost on both sides. I myself have been at the grave of one of these devils in the church-yard of Say-na-quhair. He lies buried at the west end of the church, I think, if I recollect rightly. Over the grave is a flat stone. The inscription, on account of its age, being overgrown with moss, I never could make out. But to a zealous and learned antiquarian, I have no doubt that it would prove a source of curious and original information. The Devil's Epitaph would, in my opinion, be worth all the inscriptions in Melrose Abbey put together, if it could be decyphered satisfactorily. I would earnestly recommend it to the study of some of Dr Grose's disciples without delay, for I have some hopes that an additional light might be thrown, not only on the state of parties at the time, but also on the character of him who lies below; for I am led to suspect that he was a great coward. I never heard that he durst make his appearance boldly except to women and children. It was customary for him at nightfall, when the milk-maids were returning with their pails of milk on their heads, to assume the appearance of a certain notorious character, then lately buried, and grin ingloriously at them over the kirk-yard dike. The consequence was, that the poor frightened maidens, imagining that it was Auld ———— risen from the grave to seize upon them and devour them bodily, ran home with such precipitation, that they spilled all their milk, and left their unearthly enemy in possession of the field, and not unfrequently of the milk-pails. Encouraged by this signal success in grinning in the inside of the kirk-yard dike, where he knew he was in perfect safety; he one night thought he would boldly adventure his precious person on the outside of it, and try, if possible, to catch one of the skirling maidens. When they came past at the usual hour, he immediately started the pursuit, like a grey-hound, after a parcel of maukins. He ran and they ran, and it was lite rally, "Deil tak the hindermost," but fortunately for the terrified milkmaids, in spite of all his efforts to overtake them, they got safe on the other side of the running stream, or ever he could lay hold of them. Vexed and mortified with his ill success, he was under the necessity of returning to his dwelling in the kirk-yard. This pursuing of the milk-maids turned out to be a most unadvised proceeding in him, for they alarmed the whole town of Say-na-quhair with the report, that the dead man was risen from the grave, and that he would not let them pass the kirkyard in peace one single night; besides, the loss of their milk and milkpails was insufferable,-it could no longer be borne with. Measures were, A mountain stream in the uplands of therefore, to be adopted, and that Dumfrics-shire. instantly, for taking account of this mischievous inhabitant of the kirk victory, from the text, It would be endless to enumerate of a dying man. Psalm: The angel of the Lord encamps, And round encompasseth, And them delivereth. He had no sooner done this, than the spectre vanished in a flash of fire, and left auld Gairland to find his way home, returning thanks to Heaven for his preservation and deliverance. In this same glen, and about the very same place where auld Gairland was so sorely beset, a man was once lost. It was generally believed that the devil carried him away, both soul and body. The following is the story that is preserved among the country people concerning him. He, along with two companions, went from Carcoside to Auld Carco, two farm-houses on the opposite sides of the Cleugh, to spend the winter evening, or, in the common phrase, ' to gie his neebors a night's raikin'. It was a hard frost, and the moon was shining clearly, as they returned home through the glen about eleven o'clock at night. He had had occasion to loiter behind his companions, about the hollow of the burn. They past on, climbing the brae on the other side, and busy with their own chit chat, they did not for some time miss their companion. At last turning round, they began to wonder why he tarried behind, or what he could be doing. After waiting anxiously for a considerable time, expecting he would make his appearance, they began to be alarmed, espe cially as the place had a bad name, and as a thousand tales of terror rushed into their recollections concerning it. They agreed, however, to return, and try, if possible, to find him. They had no sooner turned to accomplish their laudable design, than they heard a most fearful scream by the side of the black pool above mentioned. And through the gleam of the yellow moonlight they could perceive the severed and mangled limbs of a human carcase glide away across the dark wood, accompanied with the most hideous yellings. They followed it with their eyes till the whole vanished, amidst a gleam of blue lightning, beside the rushing of a sheet of water falling over the haunted linn. The steadiest search was made next day for the body, but it was all in vain. Nothing was to be seen except some stains of blood on a clear blue whinstane beside the dark pool. And these, it is said, are shewn in the bottom of Carcoside Cleugh by the shepherds, and cow-herd boys, when the sun is shining, till this day. No person in their sound judgment, except such as auld Gairland, dare ever approach this unhallowed linn by moonlight. These, Mr Editor, are a few of my anecdotes of the devil. I have got a great many more, but as I am afraid that they may be somewhat like Hogg's Tales, rather coarse food for the sickly and tender stomachs of some of your readers who are of a delicate constitution, I would be loath to cram too many of my sulphury ingredients down their throats at the very first. I mean rather to proceed gradually in the serving up of my moorland dishes; and it is probable, that if they will have but a little patience, I may turn not only more expert in the art of cookery, but I may also endeavour to regale them with food of a more delicate nature. If I could only get free of the blue devils with which I am haunted night and day, and out of this confinement in the town, to inhale the fresh breeze of the mountains, to drink the delicious fragrance of the yellow corn fields of my native Nithsdale, to listen to the bleating of its flocks, and the melody of its waters gliding mourn fully among the yellow woods and dyeing heather blooms of Yaughan, or Crawick, or Spango, instead of writing or thinking of the devil, I would endeavour to fall in love with some one or other of the dark-eyed daughters of the moorlands as fast as possible, and feast my readers on love poetry, as warm and innocent as her heart, and as soft as her ringlets. I am afraid nobody will take any pleasure in reading such verses as the following: DESPAIR. THE sun of the morning On my bosom all lightness. To a heart that is sick, When despair's bitter draught Though at evening the cup How oft from the pillow, With the torrent's dark dash, Till misfortune's storms brought the darkness o' nicht, An' luve's sun gaed down among clouds of sorrow. Now lanely 'mang Nith's yellow wuds ye maun stray, Where the winter rains fa' like your tears o' mournin', For your early lover is far far away, Wi' you I hae lain on Nith's gowanie braes, Where the green birks war hingan aboon the waters; Now far frae thae scenes o' our early days, I maun lie in a prison 'mang chains an' fetters. Wi' you I hae wandert amang the wuds, When the mavis the sweet sangs o' simmer was singan, But now I maun lie in a dungeon dark, My music the prison bells mournfully ringan. Wi' you I hae lain in my tartan plaid, While your saft white hands did fondly caress me, Now far far away frae my ain dear maid, The hands of the merciless stranger oppress THERE is room for constant improvement in the selections made for young readers, in an age, especially, like the present, in which there is so much good writing, both in prose and verse. We like to see the names of Byron, Scott, and Campbell, placed on the same file with the older poets who formerly occupied all the columns of our school books, and quotations from Burke and Alison are fully as well adapted to form the youthful mind to a relish of virtue and eloquence, as any from Bolingbroke or Addison. It is upon this principle Mr Darling has proceeded in this useful little book, which he has published for the benefit of schools; and independent of that end, * Edinburgh, 1819. Sold by Waugh and Innes. |