At the time Jesus is said to have lived among the Jews, the casting out of devils was a common occurrence; for Jesus, in reply to the charge that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince or chief of devils, says, “_If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore they shall be the judges,_” So that, after all, it follows, that what so many could do without the authority of Jesus, was no miracle at all. It was nothing short of imposition, and failed of being any proof of his divine mission. The truth is, that casting out devils was a heathen practice, among many other things, of heathenish origin; and Jesus, according to the New Testament, fell in with it, as he did with many doctrines which the Jews brought into the land of Israel when they returned from their long captivity. The Jews brought back with them the belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the existence of the soul, a heaven for the virtuous and good, and a hell for the wicked; also good and bad angels, and a future judgment, over which Jesus said to the Jews he was appointed to be the judge. Notwithstanding the silence of the Old Testament as to the tenets above noticed, yet Jesus fell in with them, and he also threatened the Jews that they were in danger of that very hell and damnation which they gathered from their heathen conquerors. Ye Christian priests! your heaven and hell, and also your devil, belong to and originated in a heathen mythology, the beginning of which is lost in a remote antiquity. Yes, Christian doctors! your heaven and hell, which, from the hope of the first, and the fear of the last, you teach as divine truths, and, by so doing, live in splendor,—these very doctrines have nothing divine about them, and you ought to know it.