12; and the authorities above cited.

For the tradition of the Jews regarding the darkness of three days, see citation in Renan, Histoire du Peuple Israel, vol.iv, chap.iv.For Tertullian's belief regarding the significance of an eclipse, see the Ad Scapulum, chap.

iii, in Migne, Patrolog.Lat., vol.i, p.701.For the claim regarding Charles I, see a sermon preached before Charles II, cited by Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol.i, p.65.Mather thought, too, that it might have something to do with the death of sundry civil functionaries of the colonies; see his Discourse concerning comets, 1682.

For Archbishop Sandy's belief, see his eighteenth sermon (in Parker Soc.

Publications).
The story of Abraham Davenport has been made familiar by the poem of Whittier.
In these beliefs regarding meteors and eclipses there was little calculated to do harm by arousing that superstitious terror which is the worst breeding-bed of cruelty.