Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/787

Rh quod me absente in ea faciebatis—in nomine Pa$$+$$ris, etc. While repeating this formula, which, is efficacious only in Latin, the priest is to lay his hand or, better still, some holy relic on the person possessed. "This conjuration" says our author, "may make the ungodly laugh, but the devil must obey and make his presence known, so great is the potency of these words." If the evil spirit were ordered to come out of the person, the command might not be obeyed, owing to some moral or physical obstacle to the demon's exit, which must first be removed; but if told to give a sign of his presence he must do so; otherwise (and mark the peculiar cogency of the priest's logic) there would be no truth in the apostle Paul's assertion that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. . . . The inhabitants of heaven," he adds, "bow the knee in rapturous devotion, the pious children of the Church in humble faith, and the spirits of hell with repugnance and gnashing of teeth, but they yield to compulsion and bow the knee."

Herr Bischofberger prudently leaves many a loophole of escape in case of failure: the demon may refuse to obey if the priest lacks faith, or utters the words in jest, or lives an evil life, or if the patient has little or no faith, or by the commission of a deadly sin has fallen into the toils of Satan, who has thus acquired an irreversible right to his soul. One would think that these exceptions would cover most instances of obstinacy on the part of the demon. Our author states that often, in his own experience, "the præceptum probativum did not produce any effect until the patient had made a general confession and received full absolution." He also notes that devils, like all evil-doers, are fond of going about in disguise, and if they perceive that they hold possession by a precarious tenure, and that their incognito is endangered, they will sometimes depart before the exorcist asks their names, or practice all sorts of equivocations and evasions, like a criminal under inquisition of the police.

If the demoniac infestation is connected with a physical malady of any sort, the case becomes exceedingly complicated, and the exorcism is attended with great difficulty, since the evil spirits obstinately resist all efforts to expel them by intrenching themselves in the ills that flesh is heir to. Diabolical possession, if permitted to continue for a long time, finally gets to be chronic and inveterate, and develops into an organic and incurable disease. Very often, too, it is quite impossible to determine whether the demon is the originary cause of the malady or merely takes occasion of it to get possession of the person through the breach made by illness, like an enemy lying in wait and ready to seize every opportunity to assault the temporary citadel of the soul.