could our Lord have addressed it with any propriety, as he has done here, in saying, 'thou dumb and deaf spirit come out of him, and enter no more into him.'

Is the doctrine of demoniacal influence false? If so, then Jesus took the most direct method to perpetuate the belief of that falsity, by accommodating himself so completely to the deceived vulgar. But this was impossible; therefore the doctrine of demoniacal influence is a true doctrine, otherwise Christ would never have given it the least countenance or support, as he every where has done."

There is one thing remarkable in the above account, which is, that when the Saviour commanded the spirit to come out of the lad, that it cried out with a voice of its own, the lad being dumb, and unable to utter a sound, from exhaustion and loss of strength; by which we discover, the spirit itself cried out with its own voice, by the means of the lips of the child; this the text justifies beyond all doubt, by which is identified the presence of one of those fallen angels, now called devils.

We come now to relate a no less remarkable account of the same description, found in Acts xix., and was followed with consequences, the most advantageous to Christianity, but no thanks to the evil spirit therefore. While St. Paul was at Ephesus a city in Asia Minor, on the eastern side of the Mediterrancan - great success attended his preaching there among the pagans, on account of a miracle done by him, in the name of Jesus Christ; so that if even a garment, or a handkerchief, which had been about the person of St. Paul, was carried, and placed upon the body of any one who was sick, or were possessed with evil spirits, they were immediately cured of their diseases, and the evil spirit went out of them On which account, certain vagabond Jews took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so, and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye? And he in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them and overcome them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house, naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews, and Greeks, dwelling at Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed, came and confessed, and shewed their deeds; many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver," amounting to seventeen hundred and sixty-five dollars; the pieces being the Greek ses

tertius, worth something over three and a half cents of the Ame rican currency.

Now here was a great reformation from Paganism to Christianity, occasioned by a mad man, who took it into his head to - jump on the backs of a lot of Jews, who happened to come in his way, and drove then forth in true pugilistical style-if we are to believe what Universalists tell us about these things. (See the Plate.)

A reforination got up on such grounds--if there was nothing supernatural in the performance of this demoniac-we should imagine, would been of short duration, as it would have soon appeared to be no fact, above a common occurrence, or a mere scuffle, and besides this, the spirit of the Lord is also supposed, as taking the advantage of the circumstance, by which Paul and the then ministers of Christianity, were greatly encouraged to go on, and to preach with great boldness, all bottomed on this freak of a mad man, and his caper with the seven sons of Sceva, a Jew. But as this reformation continued and prevailed, and was owned of the Most High, we conclude the spirit, which was in the man, was a devil, or he never could have overcome seven to one, and that the circumstance caused great fear and concern on religious subjects, which occasioned multitudes to resort to the Apostle's preaching, to know what they should do to be saved, and were converted to the Christian faith.

Respecting this demoniac, we give the remarks of Adam Clarke, as follows: "Certain of the vagabond Jews, who went about practising exorcism, finding that Paul cast out demons through the name of Jesus, thought by using the same name, that they might produce the same effects, and if they could, they knew it would be to them an ample source of revenue-for demoniacs abounded in the land.

Josephus, while speaking of the wisdom of Solomon, says, that he had the skill by which demons were expelled, and that he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they were cast out, and that those arts were known to his countrymen, the Jews, down to his own time, eighty years after the time of Christ," and gives the following relation." "I have seen (says Josephus) a certain man of my own country, a Jew, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacs, in the presence of Vespasian, the emperor, and of his sons, his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this: He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts, mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, when he drew out the demon through the nose, and when the man fell down, he immediately adjured the spirit to return into the person no more-making all the while mention of Solomon,