[Footnote 64: A writer in a spiritualist journal takes me soundly to
task for venturing to doubt the historical and literal truth of the
Gadarene story. The following passage in his letter is worth quotation:
"Now to the materialistic and scientific mind, to the uninitiated in
spiritual verities, certainly this story of the Gadarene or Gergesene
swine, presents insurmountable difficulties; it seems grotesque and
nonsensical. To the experienced, trained, and cultivated Spiritualist
this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one of the most instructive,
the most profoundly useful, and the most beneficent which Jesus ever
wrought in the whole course of His pilgrimage of redemption on earth."
Just so. And the first page of this same journal presents the following
advertisement, among others of the same kidney:--
"TO WEALTHY SPIRITUALISTS.--A Lady Medium of tried power wishes to meet
with an elderly gentleman who would be willing to give her a comfortable
home and maintenance in Exchange for her Spiritualistic services, as her
guides consider her health is too delicate for public sittings: London
preferred.--Address 'Mary,' Office of _Light_."
Are we going back to the days of the Judges, when wealthy Micah set up
his private ephod, teraphim, and Levite?]
[Footnote 65: Consider Tertullian's "sister" ("hodie apud nos"), who
conversed with angels, saw and heard mysteries, knew men's thoughts, and
prescribed medicine for their bodies (_De Anima._ cap. 9). Tertullian
tells us that this woman saw the soul as corporeal, and described its
colour and shape. The "infidel" will probably be unable to refrain from
insulting the memory of the ecstatic saint by the remark, that
Tertullian's known views about the corporeality of the soul may have had
something to do with the remarkable perceptive powers of the Montanist
medium, in whose revelations of the spiritual world he took such
profound interest.]
[Footnote 66: See the New York _World_ for Sunday, 21st October, 1888;
and the _Report of the Stybert Commission_ Philadelphia, 1887.]
[Footnote 67: Dr. Newman's observation that the miraculous
multiplication of the pieces of the true cross (with which "the whole
world is filled," according to Cyril of Jerusalem; and of which some say
there are enough extant to build a man-of-war) is no more wonderful than
that of the loaves and fishes, is one that I do not see my way to
contradict. See _Essay on Miracles_, 2d ed. p. 163.]
[Footnote 68: _An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_, by
J.H. Newman, D.D., pp. 7 and 8. (1878.)]
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