Let any Man impartially survey the Church-Gestures, the Air, the Postures and the Behaviour; let him keep an exact Roll, and if I do not shew him two Devil Worshipers for one true Saint, then the Word Saint must have another Signification than I ever yet understood it by.
The Church (as a Place) is the Receptacle of the Dead, as well as the Assembly of the Living; what relates to those below, I doubt Satan, if he would be so kind, could give a better Account of than I can; but as to the Superficies, I pretend to so much Penetration as to tell you, that there are more Spectres, more Apparitions always there, than you that know nothing of the matter may be aware of.
I happen’d to be at an eminent Place of God’s most devout Worship the other Day, with a Gentleman of my Acquaintance, who, I observed, minded very little the Business he ought to come about; first I saw him always busy staring about him and bowing this Way and that Way, nay, he made two or three bows and Scrapes when he was repeating the Responses to the Ten Commandments, and assure you he made it correspond strangely, so that the Harmony was not so broken in upon as you would expect it should; thus; Lord, and a Bow to a fine Lady just come up to her Seat, have Mercy upon us; —— three Bows to a Throng of Ladies that came into the next Pew altogether, and incline —— then stop’d to make a great Scrape to my Lord ——, our Hearts, just then the Hearts of all the Church were gone off from the Subject, for the Response was over, so he huddled up the rest in Whispers, for God a Mighty could hear him well enough, he said, nay, as well as if he had spoken as loud as his Neighbours did.
After we were come home, I ask’d him what he meant by all this, and what he thought of it?
How could I help it, said he, I must not be rude.
What, says I, rude to who?
Why, says he, there came in so many she Devils I could not help it.
What, said I, could not you help bowing when you were saying your Prayers?
O Sir! says he, the Ladies would have thought I had slighted them, I could not avoid it.
Ladies! said I, I thought you call’d them Devils just now.