Memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions a faithful account of many wonderful and…

SECT. XX. While she was in her Frolics I was willing to try, Whether she could read or no; and I found, not only That If she went to read the Bible her Eyes would be strangely twisted & blinded, and her Neck presently broken, but also that if any one else did read the Bible in the Room, tho it were wholly out of her sight, and without the least voice or noise of it, she would be cast into very terrible Agonies. Yet once, Falling into her her Maladies a little time after she had read the 59th Psalm, I said unto the standers-by, Poor child! she can't now read the Psalm she read a little while ago, she listened her self unto something that none of us could hear, and made us be silent for some few Seconds of a minute. Whereupon she said, But I can read it, they say I shall! ⟨p. 22⟩So I showed her the Psalm, and she read it all over to us Then said I, Chil•, say Amen to it: but tha• she could not do. I added, Read the next: but no where else in the Bible could she read a word I brought her a Quakers Book; and That she could quickly read whole pages of; only the Name of GOD and CHRIST she still skipped over, being unable to pronounce it, except sometimes with stammering a minute or two or more upon it. When we urged her to tell what the word was that she missed, she'd say, I must not speak it; They say I must not, you know […] G and O and D; so she'd spell the Name unto us. I brought her again, one that I thought was a Good Book; and presently she was handled with intolerable Torments. But when I showed her a Jest-Book, as, The Oxford Jests, or the Cambridge Jests, she could read them •••hout any Disturbance, & have witty Descants upon them too. I entertained her with a Book that pretends to prove, That there are no Witches▪ and that she could read very well, only the Name Devils, and Witches could not be uttered by her without extraordinary Difficulty. I produced a Book to her that proves, That there are Witches, and that she had not power to read. When I read in the Room, the Story of Ann Caile in my Fathers Remarkable Providences, and came to the Exclamation which the Narrative says the Daemons made upon her, [Ah she runs to ⟨p. 23⟩the Book!] it cast her into inexpressible Agonies; and she'd fall into them whenever I had the Expression of, Running to the Rock, afterwards. A popish Book also she could endure very well;