by the advocates of what is now called, by way of distinction, "Christian Spiritualism," is, that it is calculated to convince the unbeliever, and in point of fact has done so in many instances, of the existence of a future state of existence for man. This is the ground of defence taken up by a gentleman of some literary eminence, Mr. S. C. Hall, in a letter written by him on the "Use of Spiritualism," and "printed for private circulation." "I believe," says Mr. Hall, "that as it now exists, it (spiritualism) has mainly but one purpose―TO CONFUTE AND DESTROY MATERIALISM, by supplying sure, and certain, and palpable evidence that to every human being God gives a soul, which He ordains shall not perish when the body dies." But granting, for the sake of argument, that spiritualism does indeed supply such evidence, and putting aside the fact, that in most cases at least, the evidence itself, and consequently the conviction induced, is of a somewhat dubious character, the grand question remains to be considered— what is the soul-value of this conviction? In other words, what is a man the better for believing that there is a future state, if his belief extends no further, or if it be coupled with intimations which effectually neutralize its moral influence? Docs spiritualism afford any evidence that the future state which it professes to reveal to us is one of moral retribution ? Does it tend to deepen our sense of the evil of sin and the necessity of holiness? These questions are suggested, and, thank God, they are inferentially answered, by a most solemn parable which is recorded for our instruction in the 16th chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. In that parable we read of a certain rich man, who, finding himself after death in a state of most grievous suffering, of which all alleviation was declared impossible, urges the following remarkable petition: "Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Mark! "If one went unto them from the dead"-in other words, if the very selfsame evidence be afforded them which spiritualism professes to afford,-"they will repent." Such is the argument of this lost and miserable soul; and surely we must hear it with a strange and wondering pity. "Because one has come unto them from the dead, they do repent." Such is the assertion-using the very argument of this lost soul-of modern spiritualists! But what says the answer of God by Abraham ?-for it is the answer to both alike:-" And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." (Luke xvi. 37-31.) Of what would they not be persuaded? Not surely that one had been sent to them from the dead; of that men are easily enough persuaded; but persuaded to amend their lives, and to adopt the only effectual means-because the only means of God's appointmentof escaping the awful doom of their miserable brother.* God's word,

"Inasmuch as we all have assurance enough in the Word concerning the condition of the dead (though not specific charts of their domains, or answers which might gratify curiosity as to how they may employ their tongues and fingers there),, nothing more copicus or precise would avail to supply the deficiency of man's

then, most explicitly declares that the appearance-nay, more, the actual bodily resurrection-coupled with the most solemn warnings of one from the dead, would be utterly ineffectual to turn a sinner from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Spiritualism asserts the direct contrary, and on this contradiction of the plain declaration of God's inspired word it bases its only claim on ourconfidence, and the vindication of its own character.

"The true mission of spiritualism," says William Howitt, "and it is a great and magnificent mission, is to recall to the knowledge, and restore to the consciousness of mankind, the Christian faith, with all its divine and supernatural power."

"As to the use' of spiritualism," observes S. C. Hall, "it has made me a Christian: I humbly and fervently thank God it has removed all my doubts!"

"I could," he adds, "quote abundant instances of conversion to belief from unbelief-of some to perfect faith from total infidelity. I am permitted to give one name-it is that of Dr. Elliotson (a name well known throughout Europe), who, in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Knatchbull (an earnest advocate of spiritualism), thus writes: "You ask me if I believe in spiritualism? I believe all that you, as a Christian minister, believe, and perhaps more.' The now abjured opinions of Dr. Elliotson, as recorded in his writings, do not demand comment; he expresses his deep gratitude to Almighty God for the blessed change that has been wrought in his heart and mind by spiritualism.'

Here then the issue is fairly joined. Which are we to believe-the Word of God or the word of man? To the Bible Christian at least the alternative though painful is not difficult. "To the law and to the testimonies; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isa. viii. 20.)

But we must proceed to consider the more precise subject of these remarks. In the former paper we directed the reader's attention to a most significant passage in St. Paul's first Epistle to Timothy, in which the apostle, among other marks of the apostasy of the last days, mentions expressly the "giving heed to deceiving spirits, and teachings of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy." (1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.) And we then expressed our conviction, which we now repeat, that if spiritualism be all that it assumes to be, we have in these words its portrait drawn by the pen of inspiration. The inquiry is, however, naturally suggested What was the nature and character of the "demons" so frequently mentioned in the New Testament? And what reason have we for concluding that the "spirits," if such indeed they be, concerned in the

repentance. It may, indeed, appear to be otherwise in the case of some of our owu times, for whom magnetism and spiritual noises may appear to have paved the way to faith; but that could have been only a corroboration of the Word in which they were not altogether disbelievers, and Abraham's precise and solemn utterance remains unaffected in its simple truth. Did Saul repent when Samuel, coming to him from the dead, preached to him the same truth which he had preached to him when living? Have all, or indeed many, of those believed, who have verily persuaded themselves that they have seen such apparitions? What avails, then, 'second sight' to those dissolute men of shattered nerves, to whom ordinarily such things occur?"-Stier," Words of the Lord Jesus," in loco.

January 1, 1865.

production of the phenomena of modern spiritualism belong to the same class ? Now there are two Greek words (Διάβολος and δαιμόνιον) used in the New Testament, both of which, as is much to be regretted, have been rendered by our English translators, "devil." There is, however, only one devil (ó Atáßodos) mentioned in Scripture, while there are legions of demons (dapóvia). What, then, is the nature and character of the latter? Usually it seems to be supposed that demons are the same beings as "the angels which kept not their first estate," this is a very natural inference from the erroneous translation of the original word by "devil," but it has really no foundation in Scripture. Demons are referred to about eighty times in the New Testament, and are even spoken of as of different classes, but they are never mentioned in a way to show that they are to be identified with the fallen angels. They are never assigned a celestial origin. They are never referred to except in connection with our world. The devil is never called a demon. The word demon, in its commonest and bestunderstood meaning, denotes the spirit of a dead man, particularly the spirit of a wicked dead man. With a few exceptions, this appears to be its import in the heathen, the Jewish, and the early Christian writers. That the Pharisees in the Saviour's time so understood it, there can be but little doubt. Josephus says, "Demons are no other than the spirits of the wicked, that enter into men." Philo says, "The souls of the dead are called demons." Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenæus, Origen, and Augustine have spoken to the same effect. Dr. Appleton affirms that this is the sense in which the word was commonly used. Jahn refers to numerous authors who have maintained by a multitude of quotations from Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers, that "the demons are the spirits of dead men, who have died a violent death, particularly of such as were known to have sustained bad characters while living." If Jesus, the apostles, and the New Testament writers, then, meant to be understood by those to whom they spoke and wrote, they could hardly have used the word demons in any other sense than that attached to it by their contemporaries. There is but one shade of difference between the heathen and the scriptural use of the word. The Greeks sometimes applied it to what they considered GOOD spirits; thus Plato says, "When good men die, they obtain honour and become demons; " and according to Hesiod, when the men of the golden age died and became demons, the change was deemed an "honourable promotion." The Scriptures, however, seem to confine the designation to evil beings; such being the character, we have good reason to believe, of the spirits next behind the veil which divides the material from the spiritual world. We are disposed, therefore, to agree with an able scholar, that "all scriptural allusions to this subject authorize the conclusion that demonsare the spirits, and especially the wicked and unclean spirits, of dead

"In the ancient Syriac version," says Professor Campbell in his learned Dissertation, "these names are always duly distinguished. The words employed in translating one of them are never used in rendering the other; and in all the Latin translations I have seen, ancient and modern, popish and Protestant, this distinction is carefully observed. It is observed also in Diodati's Italian version, and most of the late French versions. But in Luther's German, the Geneva, French, and the common English, the words are confounded.—Campbell on the Gospels.

men." And these we think, moreover, are in all probability the same class of evil agents described by St. Paul as "the wicked spirits in the aërial regions” (πρὸς τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις). (Eph. vi. 12.) They are, at all events, a class of beings of depraved and mischievous character, belonging to the Satanic kingdom. They have their abode in our atmospheric regions, and hence Satan is called "the prince of the power of the air." (Eph. ii. 2.)* They wander, like their dread master, "to and fro in the earth." (Job i. 7.) They enter into close relations with men, and constitute, perhaps, the most efficient "mediums" for the accomplishment of Satan's infamous designs against the peace and happiness of our race.

One feature of their unclean and debasing operations, presented with remarkable prominence in the New Testament, is that of incorporating themselves with men in the body, superseding and directing the will, inciting the passions, destroying the reason, undermining the health, and doing various forms of despicable mischief. Those infested with them in the Saviour's time were affected in various ways. Some were epileptics; some were deaf and dumb; some were corporeally deformed; some were furious madmen; some were supernaturally prophetic; some were so disabled as to be incompetent for the common duties of life; some were so extraordinarily aided as to be able to do what no mere man could do, and to say what no mere man could say. But in whatever form the obsession was manifested, it was always evil, disgusting, deplorable, and abhorrent.

Another form of evil wrought by the agency of demons is the corruption, deception, and infatuation of men by a forbidden and unnatural intercourse with them. "Some think such communications mere pretence. But the plain testimony of the Scriptures, and well-authenticated phenomena of ancient and modern times,† leads to the conclusion that men may communicate with demons, and by them do many supernatural things. What do the Holy Scriptures mean when they speak of consulters with familiar spirits, enchanters, witches, wizards, magicians, soothsayers, and necromancers? What is a consulter with familiar spirits but one who seeks information [from a demon with whom he is in compact, and who attends at call? What is an enchanter but a person who practises incantation, calls up spirits by magic formularies, and brings into action the power of demons? What is a witch or wizard but a woman or man who practises divination by the aid of evil spirits, or does supernatural things by the mediumship' of demons? What is a magician but one who experiments in the same black arts, a sorcerer, a diviner, an enchanter? What is a

"We live," says Auberlen, "in an atmosphere poisonous and impregnated with deadly elements. But a mighty purification of the air will be effected by Christ's coming." "The power' is here used collectively for the powers of the air;' in apposition with which 'powers' stand the spirits,' comprehended (also) in the singular; the aggregate of the 'seducing spirits' (1 Tim. iv. 1) which work now (still; not merely, as in your case, 'in time past') in the sons of disobedience."-Fausset.

"No one, with any insight into the awful mystery of the false worships of the world, but will believe that these symptoms were the evidence and expression of an actual connection in which these persons (ie., seers, pythonesses, and the like) stood to a spiritual world-a spiritual world, indeed, which was not above them, but beneath."-Archbishop Trench," Synonyms of the New Testament," Part I. p. 43.

January 1, 1865.

soothsayer but a demoniacal prophet, who foretells events, or undertakes to guide by divination, and by the 'impressions' derived from some foul afflatus produced by the invocation of spiritual agencies? And what is a necromancer but a consulter of the dead-one who reveals secrets by the assistance of the departed-one who resorts to demons for aid and information? It is useless to say that these were all false pretenders, and that all ascribed to them was mere trickery and deceit. The Bible says, in so many words, that the four hundred lying prophets whom Ahab followed to his ruin were really inspired by wicked spiritual beings. The changing of rods into serpents, water into blood, and the bringing up of frogs over the land of Egypt by the sorcerers and magicians who withstood Moses, were not delusions of the senses, but realities, so given in the holy record. And all the expressions which the Bible contains on the subject proceed upon the assumption that this intercourse with, and aid from, demons, is something more than imaginary. When we read of a man consulting familiar spirits, it is necessarily implied that spirits may be consulted. The case of Saul and the witch of Endor clearly shows that the alleged communication with the dead was regarded as a substantial fact. And from the thunders and smoke of Sinai, Jehovah said, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' A man or woman that hath'-not in pretence, but reality-hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.' Here was a statute given by the great King Himself; and has God legislated against a nonentity?" When, therefore, modern spiritualists do avowedly hold communion with the dead, receiving messages from and being powerfully influenced by them, they virtually acknowledge themselves to be "giving heed to the teachings of demons; or, in other words, to be practisers of that necromancy which the word of God so emphatically condemns.

But, as it has been well said, "they are twice overcome who are beaten with their own weapons," we shall here adduce some remarkable admissions as to the identity of modern spiritualism and the demonology mentioned in Scripture.

Mr. Howitt, speaking of our Lord's transfiguration, says :-"Tho Lord of life, who was about to become the Prince of the spirits of the dead, broke the law prohibiting the intercourse with the spirits of the dead, and in no other presence than that of the promulgator of that law, who had long been a spirit of the dead, and at the same time in the presence of those selected by Christ to teach this great act to posterity. And the disciples admitted to a convocation which would have brought the penalty of death on their ancestors, found it so good for them, that they desired to build tabernacles, and remain with those illustrious dead."

Mr. Brevior says:-"Those who question or deny the lawfulness of spirit-communion on grounds deduced from Scripture, rest their objections mainly on the prohibitions in the Mosaic code. But surely it is by no means self-evident that we are now under these prohibitions, that they apply to us and to all time."

* Dr. Seiss, "The Wonderful Confederation." A truly admirable discourse.