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Myths and Fables of To-day

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<h2 class="nobreak chap0">XIII WONDERS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE</h2> <div class="center-container b1"><div class="poem"> “The hag is astride This night for a ride— The devil and she together.”—Herrick. </div> </div> All abnormal exhibitions of nature, or in fact any departure from the regular order of things, such as great and unusual storms, earthquakes, eclipses of the sun or moon, the appearance of a comet in the heavens, or of a plague of flies, caterpillars, or locusts were once held to be so many infallible signs of impending calamity. All of our early historians give full and entire credit to the evil import of these startling phenomena, which were invariably referred to the wrath235 of an offended deity, only to be appeased by a special season of fasting and prayer. Of course ample warrant exists for such belief in the Bible, which was something no man dared question or gainsay in those primitive days. For example, in his history of Philip’s War, Increase Mather lays down this, to our age, startling proposition. “It is,” says the learned divine, “a common observation, verified by the experience of many ages, that great and publick calamityes seldome come upon any place without prodigious warnings to forerun and signify what is to be expected.” He had just noted the appearance “in the aire,” at Plymouth, of something shaped in the perfect form of an Indian bow, which some of the terror-stricken people looked upon as a “prodigious apparition.” The learned divine cleverly interpreted it as a favorable omen, however, portending that the Lord would presently “break the bow and spear asunder,” thus calming their fears. This extract taken at random, fairly establishes236 the survival of certain forms of superstition in the second generation of colonists. The first, as has been said already, brought all of its old superstitions with it. In short, every form of belief in the supernatural, for which the fathers of New England have been so roundly abused or ridiculed, may be distinctly traced back to the old country. Very much of the belief in the baleful influence of so-called prodigies, with the possible exception of that ascribed to comets, or “blazing stars,” as they were called, has fortunately subsided in a measure, for we shudder to think of a state of things so thoroughly calculated to keep society continually on the rack. But in those earlier times life and death had about equal terrors. Sin and sinners were punished both here and hereafter; and, really, if we may credit such writers as the Rev. William Hubbard and the Mather family, poor New England was quite ripe, in their time, for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. 237 As regards comets, we risk little in saying that a great many very sensible people still view their periodical appearance with fear and trembling, and their departure with a feeling of unfeigned relief. It is our unwilling tribute to the unfathomable and the unknown. And, disguise it as we may, we breathe more freely when the dread visitant has faded from our sight. In the language of Macbeth after seeing Banquo’s ghost,— <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “Why, so: being gone, I am a man again.” </div> </div> In truth, we know comets as yet only as the accredited agents of destruction. It seems a natural question to ask, If order is nature’s first law, why are all these departures from it? Can they be without fixed end, aim, or purpose? Why should the solid earth quake, the sea overwhelm the land, mountains vomit forth flames, the tempest scatter death and destruction abroad, the heavens suspend a winged and flaming monster over us,— 238 <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “So horribly to shake our disposition, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls”? </div> </div> There was still another form of belief, differing from the first in ascribing supernatural functions to great natural phenomena. In this sense, the storm did not descend in the majesty of its mighty wrath to punish man’s wickedness, but, like the roar of artillery which announces the death of the monarch to his mourning people, was coincident, in its coming, with the death of some great personage, which it proclaimed with salvos of Olympus. Indeed, poets and philosophers of keen insight have frequently recognized this sort of curious sympathy in nature with most momentous movements in human life. We are told that the dying hours of Cromwell and Napoleon were signalized by storms of terrific violence, and Shakespeare describes the earth and air as filled with omens before the murders of Julius Cæsar and of King Duncan. “As busy as the devil in a gale of wind,” emphasizes by a robust, sea-seasoned saying the notion current among sailors of how storms arise. 239 It was just now said that the belief in direct manifestations of the divine wrath, through the medium of such calamitous visitations as great droughts, earthquakes, eclipses, tidal waves, fatal epidemics, and the like, had, in a measure, subsided. The statement should be made, however, with certain qualification; for it is well remembered that during a season of unexampled drought, in the far West, the people were called together in their churches, and on a week-day, too, to pray for rain, just as we are told that the Pilgrim Fathers did, on a like occasion, two hundred and fifty odd years before. Prayers were kept up without intermission during the day. And it is a further coincidence that copious showers did set in within twenty-four hours or so. Even the most sceptical took refuge in silence. From many different sources we have very detailed accounts of the remarkable dark day of May 19, 1780, with the great fear that phenomenon inspired in those who witnessed it, the general belief being that the Day of Judgment240 was at hand.25 In the presence of this overshadowing terror, few retained their usual presence of mind unshaken. One such instance is worth repeating here, if only for its rarity. At that time the Connecticut legislature was in session. The House of Representatives immediately adjourned. A like motion was before the Council. The protest of Colonel Davenport has become historical. Said he, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be lighted.” Nearly fifty years later (September, 1825), a similar visitation, due to extensive forest fires in New Brunswick, again created widespread alarm, hardly quieted by the later knowledge of the atmospheric conditions (an under stratum of fog and an upper stratum of smoke) that were so plainly responsible for it. On241 the contrary, from what we have been able to gather on the subject, it appears that where the phenomenon was visible, people were quite as ill at ease as their fathers were. Once again, under almost identical conditions, the same phenomenon wrought exactly the same chaos in the minds of a very large number of people in New England and New York. This has passed into history as the Yellow Tuesday (September 6, 1881). On this occasion the brooding darkness lasted all day. It was noticed that a fire built in the open air burned with a spectral blue flame. Blue flowers were changed to a crimson hue. By two in the afternoon one could not see to read without a light. At a certain hotel in the White Mountains some of the servants were so frightened that they refused to go to work, and fell to praying instead. These examples at least afford data for a comparison of some little interest, as to how any wide departure from nature’s fixed laws has affected the human mind at widely separated242 periods of time, all the theories or demonstrations of science to the contrary notwithstanding. So much for the effects of what is a reality to be seen and felt by all men. But now and again the mere haphazard predictions of some self-constituted prophet of evil, if plausibly presented and steadily insisted upon, find a multitude of credulous believers among us. It is only a few years since a certain religious sect, notwithstanding repeated failures in the past, with much consequent ridicule, again ventured to fix a day for the second coming of Our Lord. Similarly it falls within the recollection of most of us how a certain self-constituted Canadian seer solemnly predicted the coming of a monster tidal wave, which in its disastrous effects was to be another Deluge. All the great Atlantic seaboard was to be buried in the rush of mighty waters; all its great maritime cities swept away in a moment. Fresher still in the recollection is the prediction that the end of the world would surely243 come as the inevitable result of the shower of meteors of November, 1899. It is a fact that many good and worthy but, alas! too credulous people living along the New England coast, who believed themselves in danger from the destroying tidal wave, were thrown into a state of unspeakable agitation and alarm by this wicked prediction. Yet there was absolutely nothing to warrant it except the unsupported declaration of this one man, whom no one knew, and few had ever heard of. Yet some really believed, more half believed, and some who openly ridiculed the prediction apparently did so more to keep their courage up than from actual unbelief. So easy it is to arouse the fears of a community, who usually act first and reason afterward. I heard of one man who actually packed all his household goods in a wagon, so as to be ready to start off for higher ground upon the first signal of the approach of this much-dreaded rush of waters. <hr /> 244 <div class="figcenter newpage" style="width: 581px;"><ANTIMG id="if_illo_253" src="images/illo_253.jpg" width-obs="581" height-obs="250" alt="" /> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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