The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme Being had the power of controlling the course of Nature, but that the same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate spirits, both good and evil. Where the pious Christian of the present day would behold the direct Agency of the Almighty, the Jews would invariably have interposed an angel as the author or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction. Where the Christian moralist would condemn the fierce passion, the ungovernable lust, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned the workings of diabolical possession. Scarcely a malady was endured, or crime committed, which was not traced to the operation of one of these myriad demons, who watched every opportunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and the sins of men. Read next the opinion of John Lightfoot, D.D., Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge: ... Let two things only be observed: (1) That the nation under the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure; and (2) that it was given to an easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure... It is a disputable case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superstition in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts: (1) There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed more to dreams than they; (2) there was hardly any people in the whole world that more used, or were more fond of amulets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments. It is from this people, "mad with superstition" in religion and in sorcery, the most credulous people in the whole world, a people destitute of the very rudiments of science, as science is understood to-day--it is from this people that the unreasonable and impossible stories of the Resurrection, coloured and distorted on every page with miracles, come down to us. We do not believe that miracles happen now. Are we, on the evidence of such a people, to believe that miracles happened two thousand years ago? We in England to-day do not believe that miracles happen now. Some of us believe, or persuade ourselves that we believe, that miracles did happen a few thousand years ago. But amongst some peoples the belief in miracles still persists, and wherever the belief in miracles is strongest we shall find that the people who believe are ignorant of physical science, are steeped in superstition, or are abjectly subservient to the authority of priests or fakirs. Scientific knowledge and freedom of thought and speech are fatal to superstition. It is only in those times, or amongst those people, where ignorance is rampant, or the priest is dominant, or both, that miracles are believed.