The seance ended, the Devil slapping a safe portion of the children's bodies, with a sound resembling applause. After many months of this really annoying conduct, poor Campbell laid his case before the Presbyters, in 1655, thirty years before the date of publication. So a "solemn humiliation" was actually held all through the bounds of the synod. But to little purpose did Glenluce sit in sackcloth and ashes. The good wife's plate was snatched away before her very eyes, and then thrown back at her.
In similar "stirs," described by a Catholic missionary in Peru soon after Pizarro's conquest, the cup of an Indian chief was lifted up by an invisible hand, and set down empty. In that case, too, stones were thrown, as by the Devil of Glenluce.
And what was the end of it all? Mr. Sinclair has not even taken the trouble to inquire. It seems by some conjuration or other, the Devil suffered himself to be put away, and gave the weaver a habitation. The weaver "has been a very Odd man that endured so long these marvellous disturbances."This is the tale which Mr. Sinclair offers, without mentioning his authority. He complains that Dr. Henry More had plagiarised it, from his book of Hydrostatics. Two points may be remarked. First: