Never,
perhaps, in the modern world has there been a dogma more
prolific of physical, mental, and moral agony throughout whole
nations and during whole centuries. This theory, its development
by theology, its fearful results to mankind, and its destruction
by scientific observation and thought, will next be considered.
II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS.
While the fathers and schoolmen were labouring to deduce a
science of meteorology from our sacred books, there oozed up in
European society a mass of traditions and observances which had
been lurking since the days of paganism; and, although here and
there appeared a churchman to oppose them, the theologians and
ecclesiastics ere long began to adopt them and to clothe them
with the authority of religion.
Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the
barbarians of the North the Christian missionaries had found it
easier to prove the new God supreme than to prove the old gods
powerless. Faith in the miracles of the new religion seemed to
increase rather than to diminish faith in the miracles of the
old; and the Church at last began admitting the latter as facts,
but ascribing them to the devil.
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