In England magnetism met with fierce and violent opposition, the faculty being no little incensed by this new and unexpected competitor for fees and reputation. Dr. Elliotson, a professor in the University of London, and director of a large hospital, had actually to give up his place, because of the hostility engendered by his advocacy of the new doctrine. Afterwards the controversy, though by no means less bitter, was carried on with more courtesy, and the subject received, on the whole, all the attention it deserved. Germany alone has legally sanctioned magnetism as a scientific method within the range of the healing art, and the leading powers, like Prussia, Austria, and Saxony, have admitted its practice in public hospitals. Unfortunately, much deception and imposture appeared from the beginning in company with the numerous genuine cases, and led many eminent men to become skeptics. The Russian government has limited the permission to practice by magnetic cure to "well-informed" physicians; but the Holy Curia, the pope's authority, after admitting magnetism, first as a well-established fact, has subsequently prohibited it by a decree of the Inquisition (21st April, 1841) as conducive to "infidelity and immorality." In spite of all these obstacles, magnetism, in its various branches of somnambulism and clairvoyance, of mesmerism and hypnotism, is universally acknowledged as a valuable doctrine, and has led to the publication of a copious literature. Magnetizers claim--and not without some show of reason--that their art was not unknown to antiquity, and is especially referred to in Holy Writ. They rest their claim upon the importance which has from time immemorial been ascribed to the action of the hand as producing visions and imparting the gift of prophecy. When Elisha was called upon to predict the issue of the war against Moab, he sent for a minstrel, "and it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the _hand_ of the Lord came upon him." (2 Kings iii. 15.) In like manner "the _hand_ of the Lord was upon Ezekiel" among the captives by the river of Cheber and he prophesied (Ezekiel i. 3); years after he says again: "The _hand_ of the Lord was upon me in the evening" (xxxiii. 22), and once more: "the _hand_ of the Lord was upon me" (xl. 1). It is evident that according to biblical usage in these cases the manner of acting attributed to God is described after the usage prevailing among men, and that the "hand upon men" represented the usual method of causing them to fall into a trance. But this placing the hand upon a person was by no means confined to cases of visions; it was employed also in blessings and in sacrifices, in consecrations and miraculous cures. Daniel felt a hand touching him, which "set me upon my knees and the palms of my hands" (Dan. x. 10), while soon after the same hand "strengthened him" (17); and even in the New Testament a high privilege is expressed by the words: "The _hand_ of the Lord was with him." (Luke i.