But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference!  Has any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the priest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker?  Not even in the most civilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified of institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America!  I study with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as controller of the fate of crops.  I note a chastened caution of phraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the sorcerer’s apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and then could not make them stop!  The spell invokes “moderate rain and showers”; and as an additional precaution there is a counter-spell against “excessive rains and floods”:  the weather-faucet being thus under exact control.

I turn the pages of this “Book of Common Prayer”, and note the remnants of magic which it contains.  There are not many of the emergencies of life with which the priest is not authorized to deal; not many natural phenomena for which he may not claim the credit.  And in case anything should have been overlooked, there is a blanket order upon Providence:  “Graciously hear us, that those evils which the craft or subtilty of the devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought!” I am reminded of the idea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the hero who was allowed three wishes that would come true.  I could never understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for all—­by wishing that everything he wished might come true!

Most of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable; but now and then you come upon one which is sinister in its implications.  The volume before me happens to be of the Church of England, which is even more forthright in its confronting of the Great Magic.  Many years ago I remember talking with an English army officer, asking how he could feel sure of his soldiers in case of labor strikes; did it never occur to him that the men had relatives among the workers, and might some time refuse to shoot them?  His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had worked out its technique with care.  He would never think of ordering his men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first start the spell of discipline to work, he would march them round the block, and get them in the swing, get their blood moving to military music; then, when he gave the order, in they would go.  I have never forgotten the gesture, the animation with which he illustrated their going—­I could hear the grunting of bayonets in the flesh of men.  The social system prevailing in England has made necessary the perfecting of such military technique; also, you discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a religious sanction for it.  After the job has been done and the bayonets have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church, and the officer kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel with the parlor-maids, and the clergyman raises his hands to heaven and intones:  “We bless thy Holy Name, that it hath pleased Thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately raised up among us!”