Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/797

 DEMPSTER

717

D^Nffs

may be well to observe that at best this solution is but a plausible hj^Jothesis and that the facts of the case may be explained just as well by another hypothesis w hieh some philosophic writ^-rs do not seem to have toiisiilered, to wit: the hypothesis that the teaching of revealed religion on this topic is true after all. Can it lu' said that if this were so there would be no trace of Ijelief in demons among races outside the ( 'hristian fold or in religious systems older than the Hilile? If, as our theology teaches, the fallen angels r.'ally exist and are permitted to try and tempt the -iiiis of men, should we not expect to find some belief ill tlieir existence and some traces of their evil influ- I lice in every land and in everj- age of human history? Sliould we not expect to find that here as elsewhere till' elements of truth would be overlaid with error, and that they should take different shapes in each na- tion and each sticceeding age, according to the measure nf knowledge, and culture, and new ideas current in till' minds of men? This hypothesis, to say no more, w ill fit well all the facts — for instance, the universality I if the belief in evil spirits and any evidence adducible fur actual influence on men, whether in the records of ili-monic possession and magic in the past or in the I'll 'nomena of modern Spiritism. And we can s. arcely say the same of the other hypothesis.

'.VniTEHODSE, s. vv. Demon. Derhl. in Hi'^Tiv.;^ p,V-/ nf the

'■; GoRHES. French tr. by SAiNTt -1 "I. / ' 1/ ', ■ .■ nnr,

'lte,€tdiaboliqueilS55); Lenohm - i/e

.n((188r),V; Idem, La inayiV < / ' I; n.a:,

.rian Incantations to Fire and Wu:. . ;u i ,i;,.. .., ,',i;/.., .^■(c.

Archceot. (1878); Brockhaus (ed.), Vciidutad Sade;

\ UTELU. Leaver from My Eastern Garden; Gfrorer, Ge~

'dedes Vrchristenthums (1838), I: Jewish Demonology ; Alex-

. .. H, Demonic Possession in the New Testament (1902);

' ■mentis Romani quee feruntur Homilice, Schwigler (ed.).

W. H. IVENT.

Dempster, Thomas, savant, professor, and author; li., as he him.self states, at Cliftbog, .Scotland, 23 August, 1579; d. at Bologna, Italy, 6 September,

M-'.); son of Thomas, Baron of Muresk, Auchterles.s, ami Killesmont, Aberdeenshire, and Jane Leslie, sister to the Baron of Balquhain; educated at the schools

■ I' Turriff and Aberdeen. His troublous life began I irly. On leaving school, aged ten, he went to Cam- i 'liilge. leaving it shortly for Paris. Illness occasioned his ri-nioval to Louvain, whence, having attracted the ii'itirt' of a representative of the Holy See, he was taken to Rome, and there provided with a pension for liw fducation in a papal seminary. Through failing la alth he returned northwards to Tournai, but was ill! mediately transferred to Douai, means being forth- 1' ailing through royal bounty. On the completion of a three years' course, he returned to Tournai as pro- 1' -^'ir of humanities. Tournai, however, he forsook I ir l>ari.s, where, after graduating in canon law, he '" lupied, at the age of seventeen, a professorial chair in the College de Navarre. He could not remain here rithcr, and, after an interval in Poitou, he became 1'r'ifcs.sor of humanities again, this time at Toulou.se. I'l fore long, zeal in local dissensions sent him adrift iiiire more. Declining a chair of philosophy at Mont- 1" llicr, he successfully competed for one of oratory at Ximes. From this he was suspended, a lawsuit fol- lowing in vindication of his integrity. The post of tutor to the son of the XIar6chal He Saint-Luc he lost through unfriendly relations with the family of his patron. Once more adrift, he visited Scotland, vainly begged assistance from kith and kin, and, through Protestant intrigue, failed to recover his family estates, which had been parted with by his father. Seven years of profes.sorship followed in Paris, at the end of which he was invited to reside in London in the capacity of historian to James I. He married in England, but only to bring on himself domestic mis- fortune. Anglican influence having procured royal dismissal, he left for Italy, and occupied under grand- ducal auspices the chair of civil law in Florence.

Further trouble led to his last change. In disgrace with the grand duke, he passed through Bologna, and was there jirovided with a chair of himianities. Even here he had his troubles, and had to clear himself of a suspicion of unorthodoxy before the Iniiuisition. He lies buried in the church uf St. Dominic, at Bologna.

_ Dempster's worth as an autobiographer and histo- rian is much discoimted by manifest errors, and by immoderate self-praise and zeal for the exaltation of his country. An uru-estrained temper and resentful disposition, added to a harsh e.xterior, were, in spite of learning and good qualities, the cause of his un- popularity and many misfortimes. The seventeenth- century Irish ecclesiastical historians generally re- sented Dempster's dishonest attempts to claim for Scotland many saints and worthies of Irish birth. John Colgan, John Lynch, and Stephen White, all eminent scholars, entered the lists against him (see W. T. Doherty, Inis-Owen and Tirconnell, Dublin, 1895, pp. 108-16).

The chief of his many writings are: "HistoriaEccle- siastica Gentis Scotorum ' ' ; published posthumously at Bologna, 1627; republished by Bannatyne Club, Edin- burgh, 1829; "Antiquitatum Romanarum Corpus Ab- soltitissimum" (Paris, 161.3, 1743); "De Etruriii Re- gali ", brought out during the Florentine professorship (latest edition, 1723-4); "Kepavpis xai 'O^eXis, in Glossam libroriun IV. Institutionum Justiniani" (Bol- ogna, 1622), edition of Claudian; annotated edition of Benedetto Aecolti's " De Bello a Christianis contra Barbaros gesto" (Florence, 1623; Groningen, 1731); annotated edition of Aldrovandi's "Quadrupedum ornnium bisulcorum Historia" (Florence, 1623, 1647). His minor works include: tragedies, poems, especially "Musca Recidiva", thrice reprinted during his life.

Dempster, Autobiography, n. 1210 in Hist. Ecct. Scotia (Edinburgh. 1829): lR\aN<;, Preface to Dempster, Hist. Ecd. Scotiw; Chambers, Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (Edinburgh, 1S55); Bradley, in Diet, of Nat. Biog. (London. 1888), 3. v.; Bayle, Dictionary. Jerome Pollard-Urquhart.

Denaut, Pierre, tenth Bishop of Quebec, b. at Montreal, 20 July, 1743; d. at Longueuil in 1806. After studying at Montreal and Quebec, he was or- dained priest in 1767, and appointed pastor of Sou- langes, when only twenty-four years old. During the American invasion (1775) he maintained his flock faithful to their sovereign. Transferred to Lon- gueuil (1787), appointed vicar-general (1791), he suc- ceeded Bishop Bailly as coadjutor to Bishop Hubert, and was consecrated 29 Jime, 1795. He remained at Longueuil even after his appointment to the See of Quebec (1797), always taking a predominant part in the government of the diocese, w-ith the efficacious co- operation of Bishop Ple.ssis, appointed coadjutor in 1801. He visited his entire diocese, travelling through Upper Canada on his way to Detroit, in 1801 and 1802. In 1803, via Burlington and Boston, he visited the Maritime Provinces, where the Acadians and Indians beheld a bishop for the first time. An enlightened patron of education, he founded Nicolet College (1803), and aided in enlarging Montreal Col- lege in 1804. He resisted the encroachments of a British governor claiming the right of presentation to parishes, and opposed the "Royal Institution" in- vesting Protestants with the control of ptiblic in- struction. Courteous towards temj)oral authorities and firm in the defence of episcopal rights, he pre- ]iared the way for the civil recognition of the Bishop of Quebec and the freedom of the Church.

T£tu, Les C-veques de Quebec (Quebec. 1889); Archives of the archbishop's palace, Quebec. LIONEL LiNDSAY.

Denes (men or people, in most of their dialects), an aboriginal race of North America, also called Ath- apaskans and known among earlier ethnologists as Tinn^ or Tinneh. They are the northernmost of American Indians, and, as regards territorial exten-