miracle consists in the regeneration and reformation of human life and customs. The hidden secrets formerly hidden were revealed by the light of the mission which Christ fulfilled; appearing in the darkness to illuminate all men ; for in him was light and life, which darkness did not understand. The true miracle is the ever-active spirit of Christ in the priestly mission to destroy the dominion of the devil and superstition, and to spread light and blessing over the whole human race, and to work all the miracles as Christ promised his disciples.

Lastly, it is a miracle that Christianity gives a new direction and strength to the human mind, makes it fearless and enduring in all trials and sufferings, and perfects each individual organization; and as it spreads leading the heathen to a true worship of God, and founding peace and brotherhood among all men.

The idea of Christianity as a development of religious consciousness in humanity, from a certain spiritual dependence and community of man with an Eternal Creator, has been found to exist in all nations from the earliest ages in a more or less perfect form; not only the idea of the being of God and of his government, but also of the fall and of a future restoration. This idea first became the pure consciousness of truth through the living word of Christ. Christianity is therefore not new in its roots or trunk; it is, in fact, deeply rooted in the history of Israel, and the germs are traceable to the origin of mankind, so that even the Messiah who should crush the serpent's head was promised to the mother of the human race.

As Christianity, therefore, stands in an organic connection with the earlier religious stages of human development, and as a higher form of existence embraces the former, it is occupied with a continuous purificatory process of religious consciousness, and the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, "which, indeed, is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Not that Christianity proceeded in an imperfect state from its founder; its contents were at the outset pure; but the signification takes a different shape in its manifestation, and spreads according to various consti

tuted forms of religious consciousness, and according to its various modes of acceptation. The process of purification consists, therefore, in the religious illumination of the undertakings of nations and ages, in the separation of truth from fallacy; and in this manner Christianity is subject to the laws of development which govern mind and nature. The real signification remains, but the forms are changeable, and the explanation of them is a task for learning. Religion is, however, not a finished, but a living system; it is not merely letter and outward words, but an acting and lifegiving spirit. True knowledge must therefore be a religious philosophy or theosophy, which speculatively endeavours to spiritualise the faith. True philosophy will therefore be Christian, smoothing down all inequalities of revelation and reason, of faith and science. It will therefore hold firmly by the most valuable portion-to preserve it; explain the varying modes of perception as periods of self-conscious development according to the age; and pluck up, destroy, and reform the weeds of distortion which spring up in this development.

A truly Christian philosophy will therefore reconcile religion as the most profound, ineradicable, and inexpressible sentiment, with the idea, faith with knowledge; it will especially recognize the universal conceptions of Christian faith as a necessary want of the mind, as the repose of the soul, and endeavour to make them agree with history and nature; for such philosophies are regarded by all parties as the truest, and are always more generally accepted: such, for instance, as those of Augustin, Tauler, Jacob Böhme, Arndt, &c. A philosophy which overturns a faith which has many followers is certainly only a transient meteor: on account of its onesidedness it is always condemned before the inner universal popular feeling has adopted it, or before a more comprehensive positive contemplation has dispersed its edifice like a glittering mist.

The influence of Christianity upon magic could not be small; material changes would undoubtedly be brought about through its influence: we shall at a later time make more minute investigations, for the purpose of understanding the modifications of magic and the belief in sorcery. I shall here only remark, in a few words, that, at the epoch of Christ's

appeara, faith in demons, and particularly in evil spirits, was not only gen among the heathen, but also among the Jews to an incrediuxtent; and unbounded powers, as great even as those of the inity, were shed to them, which not only were supposed to me the minu but also nature and physical life. Superstition imagined all possible ways of gaining the favour of these demons, and of transferring their noxious influence upon others by permitted or unpermitted means, or to use these supernatural powers for any purposes. In short, magic had now become a black art, and its true signification and worth in the noble and original sense was lost. Then came Christ to destroy the works and the dominion of the devil upon earth, to illuminate and enlighten the obscurity of the mind; to supersede falsehood by truth, and fear by faith; and to confirm confidence and love towards God and our neighbour, instead of insecurity, despair, and hatred. This in itself made Christ a true saviour in necessity; for, of all others, the chosen people were plagued by evil spirits, so that the possessed persons became a perfect national trouble, falling upon the traveller in the highway, and the shepherds in the fields, and in this manner endangering the public safety. No difference was any longer known between natural and supernatural, and the inclination in man for evil tended towards principles of darkness within and without, and became in itself an evil spirit and sorcerer. If we regard this misery, this universal mental confusion, which not only entirely demoralised but even endangered the existence of society, it is impossible to say how full of blessings the advent of Christ was. Christ cast out devils, made men peaceable, and on all sides deprived hell of its power; he tore the coverings from its false arts, and taught men to withstand all the temptations of the flesh, as of the devil, by return to penitence with prayer and fasting, with renunciation of the lust of the senses, and by works of love. To the false magic of perverted sinners, who produced supernatural devil's-works in a natural manner by material means, Christ opposed the pure elevated magic of the true knowledge of God, by the aid and assistance of which, man, strengthened in faith, is made capable of influencing nature, of loosening the bonds of Satan, and thereby of freeing him

self from the power of hell. Besides this, the aerial contents of Christ's teachings, the Go, very rarely refer to the belief in demons and snis, and in this manner the New moment distinguishes itself from all other religions. The Indian arsee religious writings contain throughout references to subjects of magic and demonology; and in Manu's laws some enactments are found relating to sorcery, which is therein considered as an objective reality. On the contrary, the Gospels only teach the belief in God, and endeavour to dissipate the superstitious fear of demons; at least in its influence upon the physical world. The Gospels, therefore, do not contain teachings of evil spirits and their arts, nor means by which man can be armed and secured against them, but they rather show throughout the real evil to be the moral evil in man, by which man gives himself up to the devil; and that man has only to reform and return earnestly to God to be safe from all evil influences and devil's-works.

Although at the time of Christ there were many Jews who endeavoured to turn Christ's miracles to ridicule by jugglery, yet in the whole of the Gospels we do not find one passage which mentions real sorcery or magical soothsaying, or that men performed such evil acts by the aid of demons or the deyil. The sacred writings, on the contrary, say distinctly that the works of the flesh are sorcery, and that devilish suggestions influence the minds of men, by which, if they give ear to it, they become servants of the devil, and not of God. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And they that are in Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galat. v. 19—24.)

THIRD SECTION.

MAGIC AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

FIRST DIVISION.

MAGIC AMONG THE GREEKS.

THE Greek is one of the most remarkable of all nations, and, irrespective of anything else, especially so in magic. The whole of Greece is a living magic, such as no other people before or after has exhibited; for the Greeks were peculiarly poetic in temperament. Humanity now stepped forth from its severe schooling, and from the rude wilful age of boyhood to the freedom of maturing youth; or, which is the same, the human tree unfolded in Greek individuality its flowers of the mind in poetical gushes of intense inspiration. As up to this period the nations had, from the depths of their mind, sought outwardly for God in a purely spiritual manner, and either elevating themselves like the Orientals became embodied with the Divinity, or perceived God upon the earth during periods of self-humiliation, as among the Israelites, the youthful imagination of the Greeks now enlivened the abode of nature with divine ideas, with which, as it were, they incorporated all things. The whole of nature is among the Greeks spiritually animated, and the Olympus of the gods is upon earth. Gods transform themselves into men, and men into gods; in short, the whole of life is a metamorphosis of