For Cotton Mather's view, see the chapter From Signs and Wonders to Law, in this work.

For the Bishop of Verdun, see the Semaine relig.

de Lorraine, 1879, p.

445 (cited by "Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des Pelerinages, pp.

141-143).
This theory, which attributed injurious meteorological phenomena mainly to the purposes of God, was a natural development, and comparatively harmless; but at a very early period there was evolved another theory, which, having been ripened into a doctrine, cost the earth dear indeed.
Never, perhaps, in the modern world has there been a dogma more prolific of physical, mental, and moral agony throughout whole nations and during whole centuries.