yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several cases of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, "Nothing can be more dangerous for mortals than to contemn dreadful providences, and, in particular, dreadful tempests." His distinguished son, Cotton Mather, disentangled himself somewhat from the old view, as he had done in the interpretation of comets.

In his Christian Philosopher, his Thoughts for the Day of Rain, and his Sermon preached at the Time of the Late Storm (in 1723), he is evidently tending toward the modern view.

Yet, from time to time, the older view has reasserted itself, and in France, as recently as the year 1870, we find the Bishop of Verdun ascribing the drought afflicting his diocese to the sin of Sabbath-breaking.( 216) (216) For Stoltzlin, see his Geistliches Donner- und Wetter-Buchlein (Zurich, 1731).

For Increase Mather, see his The Voice of God, etc.
(Boston, 1704).

This rare volume is in the rich collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester.