Therefore, all who did not follow the
custom of believers were not only considered infidels, but as having
enlisted in the devil's corps, and such people in small localities were
kept at an outside, and suspected, being regarded as capable of any
wickedness, and untrustworthy. I remember several persons, both men and
women, against intercourse with whom we were earnestly warned, and were
instructed that it was not even safe to play with their children.
There were other supernatural powers thought to be possessed by certain
persons, which differed from witchcraft in this, that they were not
regarded as the result of a compact with the devil, but in some cases
were thought to be rather a gift from God. For example, there was
second-sight, a gift bestowed upon certain persons without any previous
compact or solicitation. Sometimes the seer fell into a trance, in which
state he saw visions; at other times the visions were seen without the
trance condition. Should the seer see in a vision a certain person
dressed in a shroud, this betokened that the death of that person would
surely take place within a year.
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