"Thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer, for all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." (Deut. xviii. 10-12.)

Then, magic constituted the special abomination of the Canaanites, and was the great crime which, in the mind of God, justified their extermination. One cannot help asking Would the Most High have been so moved by tricks and sleight of hand if there had been nothing more? Would he for such a cause consign whole nations to the sword? Reason teaches that there must have been something more to justify such language; and if idolatry was the worship of spiritual beings at war with God, and magic the means by which those wicked spirits secured and maintained their power, is not this a satisfactory explanation of such legislation; and is there any other?

Here again bear in mind that the bastard imitations of such things to-day, are no measure of what they were in lands "where Satan's seat was," and in ages before he was cast down from his pre-messianic pinnacle of power.

It may throw some light on the special heinousness of this sin in the sight of God, if we look at the source of the power of magic over the human mind, and no one can deny to it a very great and wonderful power. No doubt it has its foundation partly in that restless curiosity that ever seeks to pry into things unseen, the desire to know ever more keen as the knowledge is forbidden. But is its power not derived mainly from laying hold of those capacities and susceptibilities which God created in us on purpose to draw us to himself, and perverting, yea, prostituting them to the service of fallen spirits: taking the avenues God had opened for communion with himself, and making them the avenues for communion with his implacable and eternal foes-beings invisible and possessed of superhuman power and knowledge, and so fitted to awaken in us some of those feelings which are due to God, yet fixing them on his most unholy and malignant adversaries.

Again, when God says to Moses, "Against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment; I am Jehovah ;" and then, not with confused noise of the warrior and garments rolled in blood, but in a contest on their own boasted vantage-ground, conquers the magicians of Egypt; does this teach nothing of the true connection between magic and idolatry on the one hand, and both of these with demons on the other?

Or when Moses at the Red Sea sings, "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods," or in Sinai exhorts Israel to be no more stiff-necked, "for the Lord their God is God of gods and Lord of lords;" when David chants "The Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods; he is to be feared above all gods;" "Thou, Lord, art exalted far above all gods;" "Among the gods there are none like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto thy works;' are we to understand, by all this, merely that God is exalted above pieces of carved wood and melted brass, or above the fancies of the human brain, for an idol, as idolaters understand it, has no real existence? Is it not rather a showing forth of his greatness above those principalities and powers, that, overcome on the scene of their original rebellion, yet dare in our world to lengthen out a war of malignity against the Lord? Thus explained, these praises are every way worthy of the Most High; and shall we put a meaning on them that insults his majesty ?

And here let us ask what motive could have induced those priests of Baal, on Mount Carmel, to gash their flesh with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them, (1 Kings xviii. 28,) had not previous experience led them to expect the intervention of spiritual beings in that way? It is written, that this was done " after their manner," and what beings could have taught their votaries to serve them by such methods but demons? Truly they who procured themselves to be invoked in this way, and worshipped by living children. being made to pass through the fire, could not have been very different from the demons who tormented men in the days of our Redeemer.

If any object that the statement of the apostle stands alone in Scripture, and we must not hang too much on a single pas

Δαιμόνιοις,)

sage that may be misunderstood, then read the inspired dedescription of the sin of Israel, "He forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils," (Septuagint Aaquórios,) "not to God," (Deut. xxxii. 15–17.) This is near the beginning of the Old Testament; and in the last book of the New it is written, that "the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues, still repented not, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries." (Rev. ix. 20–21.) Why are demons, idols, and sorceries mentioned together if they have no connection?

It is written, moreover, in the Old Testament, that when Moses and Aaron wrought miracles, the magicians did likewise with their enchantments, not seemed to do likewise, as modern scepticism would read, but did likewise. (Exod. vii. 11-22, and viii. 7.) Men stumble at this as though it lifted up Satan to a level with God; but so far from that, it only is letting him do his worst to show how infinitely higher and mightier God is than he. The Most High begins down on a level where Satan can oppose him, to show all men with what ease he can rise above and overwhelm him. We do not mean to affirm that the magicians in Egypt never resorted to any tricks, or that they had no knowledge of what is sometimes called natural magic, imposing on the masses through their su-perior knowledge of natural laws, but only that along with these other things, this coöperation of demons is not to be excluded, or the Scripture wrested from its obvious meaning on purpose to exclude it. As for difficulty in this taking of the record just as it reads, when we see Satan in Eden transform himself into a serpent, we see no difficulty in his transforming the rods of the magicians into the same form. When we see him drive at large herd of swine down a steep cliff into the sea, we see no difficulty in his making frogs to cover the land of Egypt.

If demons have had power over man to cause disease, to deprive of speech, to afflict with madness, we see nothing strange in their having power over inferior animals and the

inanimate creation; but we do see something out of character in professed followers of Christ having anything to do to-day with physicians who depend for success, not on the efficacy of known remedies, but on some mysterious magical virtue of their own.

Man, with all the boasted skill of this nineteenth century, cannot produce particular diseases at will; but if demons have been able to do this as long ago as when Christ was on earth, we see nothing to hinder their working such wonders now or hereafter as shall if possible deceive the very elect. Do we not read of the spirits of demons working miracles who go forth unto the kings of the earth to gather them unto the battle of the great day? (Rev. xvi. 14.) Does not the Spirit speak expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils? (1 Tim. iv. 1.) And is it not written, "then shall that wicked be revealed,... whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved?" (2 Thess. ii. 9-10.)

Is it a mark of folly, then, if we stand aloof from all ensnaring marvels at the present day; remembering that Satan is still the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience? Is it unwise, especially, to beware of all attempts to pass beyond the limits God has assigned to our knowledge of another world? His Word tells us all that he intends we should know at present of that future state, and the effort to go beyond is rebellion against God. It is a crime against his wisdom, in that it is not satisfied with what He deems sufficient. It is a crime against his power, in that it defies Him to hide that which we are determined to know; and it is a crime against his love, in that it questions the benevolence of his so limiting our knowledge. When God created man upright, he may have created him with certain latent powers that obedience would have developed in a manner now unknown. But if there were any such, the fall nipped them in the bud, and if disordered nerves or approaching death sometimes reveals a glimpse of the possibility

of what might have been, the fact that only unnatural states of the body do this, is a sufficient indication of the will of God. The builder of the house may, for the present, defer carrying out his original plan; but if that which is built is finished so completely that only a violent dislocation reveals any trace of the original idea, we know it is his will that it should not be completed now. The rebel should not snatch at anything his sin has forfeited. Faith waits submissively for the development of spiritual powers in that world of holiness where they belong.

As to discoveries made to man by beings not now on the earth, we may rest assured that there is not an angel before the throne, or the spirit of a just man made perfect, that would even think of revealing the secret things that belong to God. If any pretend to open a door that God has shut, be sure it is one of those fallen spirits that once organized and maintained the system of idolatry, that by means of it they might most thoroughly debase and imbrute our race. Shall we put ourselves again in their power? If we do, we do so at our peril ; for God forbids, most explicitly, all resort to such lying vanities.

ARTICLE V.

ESCAPING OBLIVION.

GRAVESTONES will not insure this. The ancient Carian king who gave his name to the ambitious mausoleum has not even kept nine tenths of mankind aware of the paternity of this word; and the other tenth cares nothing for his personal record. Pyramid-builders and the patrons of sepulchral marble discover more ambition than foresight, so far as their own individual commemoration is concerned. Nobody can tell whose dust slept in those sumptuous sarcophagi of porphyry, and basalt, and red granite, and jasper, and alabaster, which glitter in perpetual polish through the galleries of Roman and Florentine palaces.