children, which was expunged upon revision, the doctrine of obsession having in the mean time triumphed over the older belief.  It is necessary to bear these facts in mind whilst considering any attempt to depict the general bearings of a belief such as that in evil spirits; for many irreconcilable statements are to be found among the authorities; and it is the duty of the writer to sift out and describe those views which predominated, and these must not be supposed to be proved inaccurate because a chance quotation can be produced in contradiction.

[Footnote 1:  I Tyndale, p. 82.  Parker Society.]

110.  There is great danger, in the attempt to bring under analysis any phase of religious belief, that the method of treatment may appear unsympathetic if not irreverent.  The greatest effort has been made in these pages to avoid this fault as far as possible; for, without doubt, any form of religious dogma, however barbarous, however seemingly ridiculous, if it has once been sincerely believed and trusted by any portion of mankind, is entitled to reverent treatment.  No body of great and good men can at any time credit and take comfort from a lie pure and simple; and if an extinct creed appears to lack that foundation of truth which makes creeds tolerable, it is safer to assume that it had a meaning and a truthfulness, to those who held it, that lapse of time has tended to destroy, together with the creed itself, than to condemn men wholesale as knaves and hypocrites.  But the particular subject which has here been dealt with will surely be considered to be specially entitled to respect, when it is remembered that it was once an integral portion of the belief of most of our best and bravest ancestors—­of men and women who dared to witness to their own sincerity amidst the fires of persecution and in the solitude of exile.  It has nearly all disappeared now.  The terrific hierarchy of fiends, which was so real, so full of horror three hundred years ago[1], has gradually vanished away before the advent of fuller knowledge and purer faith, and is now hardly thought of, unless as a dead mediaeval myth.  But let us deal tenderly with it, remembering that the day may come when the beliefs that are nearest to our hearts may be treated as open to contempt or ridicule, and the dogmas to which we most passionately cling will, “like an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a wrack behind.”

[Footnote 1:  Perhaps the following prayer, contained in Thomas Becon’s “Pomander,” shows more clearly than the comments of any critic the reality of the terror:—­