The superstitious purchasers sprinkle small patches of this dust in front of their own doors, believing it will bring them blessings and immunity from plague and famine.
(3121)
The rude and unread of past ages have always connected natural phenomena with supernatural agencies, adoring the sun and the moon with altar fires on high places and in groves, of which the witches’ Sabbath was a fancied descendant; and even in the twelfth century there were remnants of these forms in the fire-worship supposed to be led by old women, one of whom was called the night-queen, and who, as old women will, cherished traditions and forms to such an extent that the bishops were finally ordered to have them watched. It was but a little more than three hundred years ago when it was generally believed that the appearance of a huge comet was the work of Satan, and its disappearance was the work of the Church. Perhaps we have not left all these follies quite behind us yet. People who nowadays make a wish at the first sight of the evening star, expecting to receive the thing wished for, who are particular about seeing the new moon, not through glass, and with silver in their pockets, and who hold that the position of the slender horn signifies either a dry month or a wet one, as it may be—such people have hardly any right to call in question the demonology believed in by the people of the Middle Ages and the old dames of later days.—Harper’s Bazar.
(3122)
“Refuse old wives’ fables,” is a good Biblical rule. Christianity is slowly dispelling such foolish beliefs as the following:
There are still some places where people believe a felon on the finger is caused by having pointed the finger at the moon, and that some headaches are caused by having one’s hair cut while the moon is crescent.
(3123)