“Of whom speakest thou?” inquired Ezra. “Have we ministering spirits who guard the good from the plots of the wicked ones? Have we evil spirits who tempt and torment men, and teach the maidens ensnaring songs, and lighten their feet and their heads for the wanton dance?”
“Stay, I pray thee,” said the spirit; “there are spirits of evil men and of good men made perfect, who are permitted to visit the earth, and power is given them for a time to work their will with men. I beheld one of the latter even now, a bold one and a noble; but he sees I mean not to harm thee, so we shall not war together.”
At this assurance of protection, the pastor inclined his shuddering steed closer to his companion, and thus he proceeded:—
“You have said that my sect—my meek and lowly, and broken, and long persecuted remnant—have helped to people the profound hell; am I to credit thy words?”
“Credit them or not as thou wilt,” said the spirit; “whoso spilleth blood by the sword, by the word, and by the pen, is there: the false witness; the misinterpreter of the Gospel; the profane poet; the profane and presumptuous preacher; the slayer and the slain; the persecutor and the persecuted; he who died at the stake, and he who piled the faggot;—all are there, enduring hard weird and penal fire for a time reckoned and days numbered. They are there whom thou wottest not of,” said the confiding spirit, drawing near as he spoke, and whispering the names of some of the worthies of the Kirk, and the noble, and the far-descended.
“I well believe thee,” said the pastor; “but I beseech thee to be more particular in thy information: give me the names which some of the chief ministers of woe in the nether world were known by in this. I shall hear of those who built cathedrals and strongholds, and filled thrones spiritual and temporal.”
“Ay, that thou wilt,” said the spirit, “and the names of some of the mantled professors of God’s humble Presbyterian Kirk also; those who preached a burning fire and a devouring hell to their dissenting brethren, and who called out with a loud voice, ‘Perdition to the sons and daughters of men; draw the sword; slay and smite utterly.’”
“Thou art a false spirit assuredly,” said the pastor; “yet tell me one thing. Thy steed and thou seem to be as one, to move as one, and I observed thee even now conversing with thy brute part; dost thou ride on a punished spirit, and is there injustice in hell as well as on earth?”
The spirit laughed.
“Knowest thou not this patient and obedient spirit on whom I ride?—what wouldst thou say if I named a name renowned at the holy altar? the name of one who loosed the sword on the bodies of men, because they believed in a humble Saviour, and he believed in a lofty. I have bestrode that mitred personage before now; he is the hack to all the Presbyterians in the pit, but he cannot be spared on a journey so distant as this.”