HAUNTED HOUSES AND LOCALITIES.
any who are unaffected by the demoralizing and degrading materialistic theories of life, which are now enunciated by some who name themselves, and whom their flattering admirers style “philosophers,” will not be unwilling to allow that a considerable amount of evidence[22] is in existence, indicating that certain localities are troubled by the presence of evil spirits, who from time to time manifest their powers, or sometimes appear to mankind in forms which give a shock to those who are enabled or permitted to perceive them.
If Christian tradition be accepted, a belief in the official ministry of unfallen spirits,—“the armies of the Living God,”—will be held, firmly[23] and intelligibly, as a most reasonable and beautiful part of Almighty God’s revelation, Who “has ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order.” So, by consequence, the existence and action of fallen angels, the Legions of Satan, and of spirits,[24] who, at the particular judgment following immediately upon death, have merited the swift and righteous condemnation of an all-just Judge, will be fully admitted.
The power, activity, and malice of Satan is apparent from numerous statements in Holy Scripture; and most Christian writers who have dealt with the subject of evil spirits have maintained that their power and influence are unquestionably greater in some localities than others. It is commonly held, that in lonely deserts, on lofty mountains, where the feet of men seldom tread, as well as in the mines of the earth,[25] and in vast forests where desolation reigns, the powers of the Devil and his angels, being unchecked and uncurbed by the positive energizing activity of Christianity, are vast. So, likewise, the universal instinct of mankind has maintained that there are certain places in which the appearances of unquiet or lost souls might be reasonably looked for, rather than in others. Deserted houses and lonely roads, where crimes of violence and special wickedness have been perpetrated; deep mines,[26] localities, unblessed by Holy Church, where the bodies of Christians have been placed to moulder away, instead of in God’s holy acre, the consecrated churchyard; battlefields, where it may be that so many have been cut off in deadly sin—
“Unhouseled, disappointed, unanealed,”
have each and all been regarded as the fitting haunts of disquieted and wandering spirits.