[484] Durham, after mentioning 'old abbacies or monasteries, or castles when walls stand and none dwelleth in them,' adds, 'If it be asked, If there be such a thing, as the haunting of evill spirits in these desolate places? We answer 1. That there are evill spirits rangeing up and down through the earth is certain, even though hell be their prison properly, yet have they a sort of dominion and abode both in the earth and air; partly, as a piece of their curse, this is laid on them to wander; partly as their exercise to tempt men, or bring spirituall or temporall hurt to them,' &c. _Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation_, p. 582. So, too, Hutcheson (_Exposition of the Book of Job_, p. 9): 'We should remember that we sojourn in a world where Devils are, and do haunt among us;' and Fleming (_Fulfilling of the Scripture_, p. 217): 'But the truth itself is sure, that such a party is at this day, encompassing the earth, and trafficking up and down there, to prove which by arguments were to light a candle to let men see that it is day, while it is known what _ordinary familiar converse many have therewith_.' One of their favourite abodes was the Shetland Islands, where, in the middle of the seventeenth century, 'almost every family had a Brouny or evil spirit so called.' See the account given by the Rev. John Brand, in his work entitled _A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness_, pp. 111, 112, Edinburgh, 1701.

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