Curiosities of Olden Times
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." I have been told of another man in somewhat parallel circumstances, having lately awakened to religious convictions after a life of great laxity, who sought guidance in the same manner, and read, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee."
A story of the baleful effects of this practice among Scotch Presbyterians appeared in a collection of Legends of Edinburgh by a recent writer. The story related how a designing mother persuaded her reluctant daughter into a marriage with a wealthy but dissipated youth, the son of their employer, towards whom the girl felt great repugnance, by manipulating the Sortes Sacræ so as to make the girl read, "Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken." As the name of the young woman was Rebekah, the sentence seemed to her to be a message from heaven.
Gregory of Tours mentions a couple of instances of omens taken from Scripture. The one was that of Chramm, who had revolted against his father Clothaire, and who marched to Dijon, where he consulted the Sacred Oracles, by placing on the altar three books, the Prophets, the Acts, and the Evangelists. In like manner, according to Gregory, Merovius, flying from the wrath of his father Chilperic, and Fredigunda, placed on the tomb of St. Martin
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