their torments, fell naturally enough into convulsions on seeing the first appearances of these remains.

But, independently of all this, show. ing what might happen in the mere natural course of things, can we for a moment doubt the possibility of our Lord's being able to impress a conviction of his own divine character on these victims of physical disease, whom he came to relieve, without supposing in them any other second personality than that which the shattered intellect, like a broken mirror, might present to their consciousness, or the awakening of any higher spiritual faculty in abeyance during the ordinary periods of the body's health? Can we doubt that He, at whose command the dead son of the widow sat up and began to speak upon the bier which was carrying him out to his grave-at whose voice the already tainted Lazarus came forth from the tomb in all the freshness of life-whose rebuke stilled the tumult of the winds and the waves -can we doubt that He had the power to make the very anger of Satan praise him; to call up a testimony from the storms which, as the permitted scourger of sinful man by physical discase he had raised in the intellects of these unhappy men, and elicit a voice of recognition and worship of Him, the Man-God, from these, the very graves of human reason?

The very word daimon [dav], as well as its neuter form daimonion [da], and its derivative partici. ple, daimonizomenos [dayμorquivos], the three terms which are always applied to these cases of possession in the Gospels, and which have been rather questionably translated "devil," and "possessed with devils," in our English version, has, as all scholars know, a very different meaning in classic Greek. The daimoniac nature-and we shall use this form of orthography throughout the remainder of this paper, because the terms demon and demoniac have become associated with ideas not originally attached to daimon and dai. moniac-the daimoniac nature comprehended all the interval between man and God. To the philosophic and

the well-informed, therefore, who distinguished between the supreme God, who is termed Hypsistos, the Most High, and in the Platonic dialogues, Agathos, or the Good; and that multitude of powers who fill the Homeric Pantheon, and received the popular worship, these latter gods and demigods were nothing but daimons; and hence we find this term so often used as almost synonymous with divinity. But even in popular language it always expresses something, not lower than, but superior to man-generally something not evil and infernal, but excellent and divine-a demigod-a protecting numen, or guardian angel a celestial inspiration; sometimes, indeed, the genius or fortune, whether good or evil, which inspires man's thoughts and actions from within, and rules over his destiny; in a word, a something connected with or within man, higher than his ordinary human nature -a second inner personality, gifted with a profounder insight than him. self; and thus applied by Socrates to the source of his own higher intuitions; for it is very manifest that this famous daimon of the virtuous Athenian was nothing external, but something within himself. The word daimon, indeed, derived as it is from the verb da, "to divide, to know by a profound analysis," may be fairly rendered a divining intelligence: and its application to that class of cases which constituted the supposed possessions, however subsequently modified by varying religious views or popular traditions, must have first originated in the fact of the ancients recognizing, in all or many such cases, this dual personality, and this appearance of superior prophetic knowledge or insight. This application, however, received a different interpretation according to the views and notions, whether of a purely religious or of a superstious character, which prevailed among different races.

The nations of classic antiquity, from whom this term was borrowed, must have applied it to cases of epilepsy in a good sense-in a sense harmonizing with the other name which they bestowed upon this visitation

The Jews, on the other hand, recognizing something anomalous, and apparently supernatural, in these cases-debarred by their religion from acknowledging any but the one God, and unable to recognise his divine character in the distortions, the sufferings, and the howlings of the epileptic or the maniac-looking upon everything evil to proceed from Satan, personifying every beneficent and every evil energy in nature as good or evil angels, and more or less imbued or affected in their belief, as the book of Tobit clearly proves, by the angelic and demoniac theories, and the superstitions flowing therefrom, which prevailed among the nation amid which they had so long dwelt as captives, when by the rivers of Babylon they sat down and wept, when they remembered Zion, and hanged their harps upon the willows in the midst thereof the Jews, acting under all these influences, regarded this daimon, this dual personality and superior inner intelligence, to be literally a messenger of Satan-a wicked, tabernacling spirit.

The Hindoo belief comprises both the Hebrew and Greek views, admitting, as we have before shown, both a demoniac and a divine possession. Modern European science, on the other hand, passing by both the supernatural theories, gives names sim

ply medical to the same class of phenomena. We have lunacy at one extreme of the chain-mesmerism at the other; and, intermediate between the two, epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, and all the long and mournful train of manias, and of convulsive and nervous disorders.

And, although it is evident that the disciples of our Lord, like the rest of the Jews, looked upon the phenomena of possession as resulting from the literal indwelling of individual wicked spirits, and have recorded this impression with the simplicity and truthfulness which is stamped on every portion of the evangelic narrative, it does not follow that their views upon this question, which is medical and psychological, rather than moral or religious, no more than their notions on astronomy, and the other natural sciences, were necessarily correct. We must never confound the two classes of instruction which, through the whole sacred volume, are kept so sharply distinct that addressed to the heart and will of man, and that appertaining to his intellect. The one, laying down man's relation to his Maker, and to his fellow-creatures, what he consequently owes to both; or, in other words, his duty to God, and his duty to man, in regard to which the fullest light, which man's heart is capable of receiving, is poured from the sacred volume, especially in the precepts and example of our Lord himself. The other, relating to the constitution and laws of the universe, including the occult bonds of relation, which connect the material with the spiritual world, and subordinate the former, through the latter, to the divine will. In this the Bible does not teach; but invariably uses, whether in regard to the facts of the material, or those of the spiritual universe-to the rising, and setting, and standing still, of the sun, or to the exit of daimons and unclean spirits the common language of the men, through whom and to whom the spirit spoke-spirit being as completely independent of the for

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mal understanding, which takes cognisance of all natural science, and must be employed in all metaphysical reasoning, whether analytic or constructive, as it is of matter itself. What Coleridge alleges as a quality of the 'pure reason," that it often presents a contradiction to the understanding, of which he gives this instance

"BEFORE Abraham WAS, I AM"

is really and truly a quality of spirit, as was long ago maintained by the penetrating Jesuit, who gave a regular intellectual form to the obscure spiritual intuitions of Ignatius Loyola.

Must we not suppose, then, that the Apostles, partakers in the ideas of their times, were enlightened only to the extent of the age in which they lived, and were partakers also in its ignorance and its errors; and that this ignorance and these errors were removed in those matters only which appertained to the work confided to them; that though made wise in all that was necessary to the success of their sacred mission, and the salvation of man-in all that concerned the transcendant character and wonderful mission of their divine Master, and the glad message which he came to preach, they shared, to the very last, in the popular notions, the narrow views, and the prejudices of their countrymen on many subjects? We find that, even after the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, it required a vision from heaven to correct Peter's narrow views of the extent of the Gospel dispensation, and induce him to preach Christ unto the Gentiles.-Acts, x. 28–34. Nay, even after this, the Apostle Paul, as he himself relates (Gal. ii. 11-14), had to withstand him to his face at Antioch, "because he was to be blamed," and "walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel," but, for fear of the Jewish converts, used dissimulation in departing from and declining to eat with the Gentile converts. Again, we find the Apostle Jude quoting a passage from the book of Enoch (Jude, 14), a translation of which is now before the world; and the apocryphal, and even absurd character of which, is admitted by all scholars. And, if they were permitted to continue thus long ignorant, in matters which appear, at least in some measure, connected with the work of their mission, how

much more so in one which wassupposing the theory of disease to be the true one-rather a question in medical science, or at most in psychology, than one having any practical bearing on morality or religion. Our Lord did not come to enlighten mankind in matters of science. He left untouched the false systems which he found prevailing in astronomy and the other departments of knowledge connected with external nature-and the same in what concerned man himself. Neither in metaphysics, nor physiology, nor psychology, the border land which lies between the two, did he vouchsafe any instructions to his followers. Nay, of that world of spirits which lies beyond the grave, the solemn reality, the sublime character, the awful importance of which he enforced with such surpassing power, and to prepare mankind for which was the object of his whole mission-of his death as well as of his life-of this spiritual world how much has he revealed? Of detail, absolutely nothing: a few pregnant hints and suggestive parables-a few awful figures-a few burning words, admirably well adapted to influence man's moral conduct, but not at all to satisfy his curiosity, or enable his intellect to construct any systematic scheme. We observe our Lord even checks a natural but an illtimed curiosity on subjects which seemed intimately connected with the mission on which he was sending his Apostles, and a full revelation upon which would, it might a priori be supposed, have inspired them with additional ardour, and contributed to their success; and this because, in his fulness of knowledge, both of the course of future events, as marked down in the divine counsels, and of the constitution of the human mind, he foresaw that such knowledge was not good for them. 66 It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put [kept] in his own power."Acts, i. 7. We can now appreciate the profound wisdom of this reserve. Had the Apostles been informed that more than eighteen centuries must elapse before the Lord should come again to restore the kingdom of Israel, and crown his faithful followers, what effect would such information have had upon their burning faith? Where would have been the ardour which led them and their successors to pour out

their blood with joy for the hope that was set before them? Man ever stands in need of things that are neur, as powerful motives to influence him. Remoteness, whether of time, or place, or causality, like the actual effect of space upon attraction, weakens, and ultimately annihilates, the motive influence of all things upon him. And so it must be pre-eminently in the effect of man's impressions of the relation which exists between the invisible and the visible. His impressions cannot, indeed, change the nature of that relation, or affect its reality; nor can the specific nature of that relation itself, whether it be direct or indirect, immediate or mediate, with but one or with a thousand intervening stages of causality, or instrumental agency, between the first term of the series and the last, the invisible moral cause and the visible physical effect, render it one jot less true, less solemn, less terrible in its results to man. But man's impressions of the greater or lesser length of this series of intervening causalities and agencies, must materially affect the influence which this relation shall have upon his own conduct as a motive of action. For, constituted as he is to be vividly affected only by that which is near-to look upon the remote, indeed, almost with as much indifference as though it had no existence he may come to regard a causality, which, though most intensely real, has to pass through many intervening links, the necessary connexion between which he cannot discern or appreciate, as vague, and indefinite, doubtful in its operation, and undeserving of his regard.

Now, the influence of Satan, and consequently of sin in man's miseries_ a great and important truth-was clear enough to the eyes of the disciples, when manifested in the form of one or more of his subject devils entering into and torturing the bodies of their fellowmen, and perverting their reason. The evidence of Christ's divine mission-another great and important truth was clear and convincing, when binding the strong man, as it were, before their eyes, he cast out the afflicting daimons by his mere word. The testimony to his personal divinity was powerful and immediate, when the departing spirits cried out, and confessed, through the mouths of the possessed, that he was the Son of God.

But if, in lieu of thus permitting them to learn and hold essential truths, in a form suited to their degree of culture, our Lord had taught his disciples, imbued as they were with the notions of their age and nation, that the declarations of the possessed regarding their own demoniacal character, were the results of previous associations; that the appearances supposed to arise from the actual indwelling of one or more individual devils, were the effects of general laws operating upon an organisation subjected through sin, and the consequent dominion of the evil one, to derangement, pain, and final decay; and were only a portion of the bitter inheritance of fallen humanity, proceeding from Satan, in the same manner as death proceeds from him, through a causality too mysterious, too universal, and too remote from man's apprehension, for them to understand, and requiring an equally universal and mysterious, and, to them, incomprehensible power, to arrest its devastations, and restore its ruins ;if, in his cures, he had acted in accordance with the information thus given, and, omitting all condescension to their prejudices, or to the illusions of the diseased, proceeded to unfold the occult page of knowledge, which connects moral with physical evil, to illumine the lines of transition from sin to disease, and explain the mediate agencies through which the Sinless One could cause the blind to see, the lame to walk, the dead to arise, and the lunatic and epileptic to sit clothed in their right mind; -if, moreover, he had informed his disciples that the knowledge manifested by these parties. of his person and dignity-when not derived from public rumour. - proceeded not, as they supposed, from an indwelling foreign spirit, but from that awakening of a higher spiritual insight within dual man himself, which is often the result of a weakening or derangement of the bodily life, whether through fasting, contemplation, disease, or the near approach of death, and is a special concomitant of peculiar abnormal and reversed conditions of being; and that utterances made in such a state of awakened spiritual vision, which may have a certain irresistible force upon it, to recognsie the divine beauty of holiness when placed in its presence, constitute as powerful testimonies to the truth

as the imagined cries of devils, whose tendency must ever be rather to deceive man, and to deny their Lord. Had such been our Lord's proceeding (upon the hypothesis of this being the true view of the subject), what would have been its effect upon the disciples and the Jewish people? Could they have comprehended-would they have believed would they have glorified their Master, as in their own simple view they were enabled to do? This question, we think, must be answered in the negative; and if so, it would afford a full explanation of the economy observed by our Lord in the instruction of his followers, whose moral perceptions he came to purify, and whose faith and courage he raised to the most heroic elevation; but whom he found and left in ignorance on all matters of mere science, or curious and unprofitable inquiry; and many of whose prejudices and weaknesses, even in religious questions, he left to be gradually dispelled by the indirect and remote, but ultimately unfailing, operation of the great principles which he laid down for their guidance.

The language of Scripture itself necessarily suggests these questions to a reflective mind; for the absolute identity of some of these possessions with lunacy and long-standing disease, recurring in periodical paroxysms, is there set forth in express words. In Matthew, xvii. 15, we have a certain man addressing the Lord thus:"Lord have mercy on my son, for he is A LUNATIC, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water."

The phrase, he is a lunatic, is expressed in the original by a single verb, sara, literally, he is moon-affected, or he labours under a disease depending on the moon, i.e., recurring, or aggravated, at the lunar periods. We know that this is actually the case with madness; hence the very name lunacy; and, at least in tropical countries, with many other types of cerebral and nervous disease. The intermittent fever of India, as most of our Oriental readers know to their cost, always recurs, or is very much aggravated, at the springs; and so powerful is lunar influence in those latitudes, that long after the fever itself has been cured, some of its accompanying symptoms, such as a nervous tremor, pains in the head, side, or feet, weakness of vision, and even, in

some instances, deafness, recur for a short period at the new or full moon, or the springs, and then pass

away.

We can understand clearly enough, therefore, this dependence of physical disease upon a physical cause like lunar influence, found by observation to be thus powerful; but it is difficult to imagine how the entrance of a wicked spirit into the body of a man, should be at all dependent on the age of the moon. Indeed this case alone, where an affection expressly declared to depend on lunar influence, and the recurrence of which is stated to have been habitual, from childhood upwards, is at the same time called a daimon and a spirit, is sufficient to make us pause and reflect before we determine too literally the true significance of these popular terms, as employed in the Gospels, more especially when we find a parallel phraseology existing at the present day in the East, among a people at nearly the same stage of civilization as the Jews of Herod's day, regarding similar physical affec tions. And hence it is that we have deemed it requisite to throw out the foregoing suggestions, for the purpose of showing the profound wisdom and harmony of our Lord's conduct in regard to these daimoniacs, on the ground of a purely physical theory. For it is of this very lunatic, this sufferer from the moon's physical influences, that we read-" And Jesus rebuked the devil (daimon), and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that hour." In Mark, ix. 17, which, from a comparison of the context, evidently refers to the same case, the father describes his son thus- Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit: and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away. In the 20th verse it is said "Straightway the spirit tare him, and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming." The two next verses are remarkable, as indicating the long duration of the visitation, and the symptoms of the paroxysm-" And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, OF A CHILD. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him." This is the case which Hammond alleges to contain a description of epilepsy, and