Unfortunately mysticism also has not been able to keep its votaries free from an admixture of imposture. False miracles are known to have occurred within the Church as well as without it, and credulity has accepted many a statement that could not have stood the simplest investigation. It becomes the careful student, therefore, here also to distinguish with the utmost caution genuine and well-authenticated facts from reckless or willfully false statements. Even then, however, he ought not to forget the words of Pascal, who, in speaking of the apostles said: "I am quite willing to believe stories for whose truthfulness the witnesses have suffered death." It is even by no means improbable that the spiritual world may have its changing productions as well as the material world, and as the organisms of the Silurian period are impossible in our day, so-called magic results may have been obtained by certain former generations which lie beyond the power of our own. No one can with certainty determine, in this direction, what is possible and what is impossible; the power of man is emphatically a relative one, and each exploit must, in fairness, be judged with a view to all the accompanying circumstances. It is as impossible for the men of our day to erect pyramids such as the old Egyptians built, as it is for an individual in good health to perform feats of strength of which he may be capable under the influence of high fever or violent paroxysms. A curious feature in these phenomena is the intimate relation in which sacred and so-called demoniac influences seem to stand with one another. The saints are represented as tempted by evil spirits which yet have no existence except in their own heart, and the possessed, on the other hand, occasionally have pious impulses and holy thoughts. In the former case it is the innate sinfulness of the heart which creates images of demons such as St. Anthony saw in the desert; in the latter case the guardian angels of men are said to come to their rescue. There are even instances on record of men who have wantonly given themselves up to the temporary influence of evil spirits--under the impression that they could thus please God!--as travelers purposely suffer the evil effects of opium or hasheesh in order to test their powers. Thus mysticism finally devised a complete system of angels, saints, and demons, whose varied forms and peculiarities became familiar to votaries at an early period of their lives, and filled their minds with images which afterwards assumed an apparent reality during the state of trance. That the physical condition enters as a powerful element in all these phenomena appears clearly from the fact that whenever women are liable to trances or visions of this kind the latter vary regularly with their state of health, and in the majority of cases cease at a certain age. This fact illustrates in a very characteristic manner the mutual relations between body and soul; the condition of the former is