In addition to their claim to be in possession of special means of ascertaining the occult causes of phenomena (as in illness), and of special contrivances for penetrating the future (as in astrology or fortune-telling), priesthoods pretend to a more direct inspiration from on high, qualifying them either to announce the will of their god on exceptional occasions, or to intimate his purpose in matters of more ordinary occurrence. This inspiration was granted to the native North American priests at the critical age of puberty, "It was revealed to its possessor by the character of the visions he perceived at the ordeal he passed through on arriving at puberty; and by the northern nations was said to be the manifestation of a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was not a faculty, but an inspiration; not an inborn strength, but a spiritual gift" (M. N. W., p. 279). So in India; among the several meanings of the word Brahman, is that of a person "elected by special divine favor to receive the gift of inspiration" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 259). The missionary Turner, who has an eye for parallels, observes, among other just reflections, that "the way in which the Samoan priests declared that the gods spoke by them, strikingly reminds us of the mode by which God of old made known his will to man by the Hebrew prophets" (N. Y., p. 349). Although the Levites were said to be the Lord's, and to have been hallowed by him instead of all the first-born of Israel, yet it does not appear that they were in general endowed with any high order of inspiration. The high-priest no doubt received communications from God by the Urim and Thummim. Priests were also the judges whom the Lord chose, and whose sentence in court was to be obeyed on penalty of death; but the inspiration that was fitted to guide the Israelites was supplied not so much by them as by the prophets, a kind of supplementary priesthood of which the members, sometimes priests, sometimes consecrated by other prophets, were as a rule unconsecrated, deriving their appointment directly from Jehovah. While, therefore, it was attained in a somewhat unusual way, the general need of an inspired order was supplied no less perfectly among the Israelites than elsewhere. Christian priests enjoy two kinds of inspiration. In the first place, they are inspired specially when assembled in general councils, to declare the truth in matters of doctrine, or in other words, to issue supplementary revelations; in the second place, they are inspired generally to remit or retain offenses, their sentence being—according to the common doctrine of Catholics and Episcopalian Protestants—always ratified in the Court above.