“After a little more conversation, I desired her to join with me in repeating the Lord’s Prayer. She consented, and without difficulty repeated the first words. But when we came to the petitions, her voice faltered; she was labouring for breath, and appeared to be almost suffocated: her countenance and limbs were convulsed. The greatest stammerer could not find greater difficulty in pronouncing words than she did in pronouncing every word of the petitions. At one time I was inclined to desist, thinking that it was impossible for her to finish it; but we laboured on, and at length came to the end.
“After a short pause, she again began to converse with a free voice, without the least faltering. I explained to her the nature of exorcisms, and proposed to read them over her. She consented, and said that she would endeavour to offer up her prayers to God during the time in the best manner she could. As soon as I began the exorcisms, she fell into a state of convulsive agitation, not indeed endeavouring to get away; but every limb, every joint seemed to be agitated and convulsed, even her countenance was distorted,—it required constant attention to keep her covered.
“Now it was that I felt in a particular manner the awful situation in which I was. All alone with a person in a distressed condition,—the lightning flashing, the thunder rolling, and I with an imperative voice commanding the evil spirit to reply to my interrogatories, and to go forth from her. I acknowledge that my flesh began to creep and my hair to stand on end. However, I proceeded on till I came to the conclusion, and nothing happened except the violent agitation of the poor sufferer, which continued uninterrupted during the whole time.
“After I had finished, she became calm, and in a few minutes began to converse with me with the same ease as before. Among other things, I asked her whether she had felt any particular sensations during the time that I was coming to see her? She said that during the whole afternoon she had felt the most determined resolution to destroy herself; that she employed every means to induce her friends to leave the room, or to make her escape from them; and that if she had succeeded, she would have laid violent hands on herself the moment she was at liberty. I explained to her the nature of baptism, the necessity of receiving it, and the effects produced by it.
“During the course of our conversation, discovering that there were strong reasons to doubt whether she had been baptized at all, or whether the essential rites had been observed in her baptism, I conceived that it would be advisable to re-baptize her conditionally. I proposed it, and she readily consented. I gave her what instructions were necessary, and repeated several acts of contrition. Finding her in dispositions the most satisfactory, I made use of the holy water, and baptized her, subject to the condition, if she was not baptized. During the time she trembled like a leaf, and the features of her countenance were distorted, like those of a person in acute pain. Upon my putting the question to her, she replied as she did before, that it gave her as much pain as if boiling water had been poured over her.
“Immediately after the ceremony was concluded, she began to speak to me with all the cheerfulness of a person in perfect health and spirits. We conversed together for a few minutes, and I took my leave, promising to see her again the next day. Her sister went to her, and her first request was that she might have a cup of tea and something to eat; and before I left the house, she eat and drank as she had done before her affliction. I went to see her the next day, and found her down-stairs in perfect health; at least, no effects of her illness were perceptible, except a weakness of body. From that time to this, she has enjoyed good health, and not the least symptom of her former complaint has been felt. It is more than a twelvemonth since.”
A second example of successful exorcism, now to be narrated, is from the pen of an eminent and well-known clergyman[44] of the Church of England, whose literary labours in the early part of the Oxford movement, were recognized and rewarded by high authority in the English Church. Only a slight verbal alteration here and there to make the narrative of itself quite intelligible, has been made by the Editor.
“The subject is almost too sacred for pen; and I only put it on record to show the goodness of God, and to indicate that His powers are not withdrawn, nor His Arm shortened. It is some years, however, since the event to be related happened; and the subject of it has long gone to his last account. I must scrupulously refrain from any indication of place and person; though, in these latter days of rude and coarse unbelief, when such interpositions of the Almighty’s mercy are laughed to scorn, some may find comfort and edification from its recital.
“The son of a farmer, who had just come of age, having heard a sermon of mine, which I had preached some five years previously, came a distance of more than thirty miles to seek at my hands ghostly counsel. From his childhood he had been led to indulge in breaches of the seventh commandment, and these after a while were certainly of a heinous character. He believed himself (when I saw him) to be possessed by an unclean spirit. Wherever he went, he asserted that he saw a hideous black figure, darkly draped, with a form like a man, but with the face of a beast, sitting opposite to, huddled up, and staring at him. It would appear for weeks together, at home, abroad, in his sleeping-room, in the field, in the market. Sometimes he would throw himself on to the floor in an agony of distraction, and pray God that it might be removed. For a short term he would cease to see it. But in due course it reappeared. And at last (an event which had never happened hitherto,) it would likewise haunt him in dreams. On one occasion he declared that it seemed to elongate itself into a long serpent-like figure, and, as he asserted, tried to creep down his throat. But wherever he went he almost always saw it. Thinking it might be the result of bodily ailment he consulted a physician; but with no effect.
“I am free to say that I was not long in coming to a conclusion, that it was a case of possession; though I did not arrive at that conclusion until I had taken counsel from one of the most pious and holy clergymen I ever knew,[45] and had commended the subject to God Almighty in very earnest prayer.