his brethren and sought refuge in a hermit's hut in the forest!" The spirits of departed brethren and sisters returned to the refectory at this bishop's bidding; they partook of bread and meat, and even conversed with their successors. There can be no doubt that Beissel, abundantly and exceptionally gifted, possessed the power to put his unhappy subordinates, already exhausted by asceticism of every kind, into a state of ecstasy, in which they sincerely believed they saw these spirits, and were subjected to magic influences. That such power has by no means entirely departed from our continent, may be seen in the atrocities perpetrated at the command of the negroes' Obee, of which well-authenticated records abound in Florida and Louisiana, as well as in Cuba. The Indo-Germanic race has known and practised black magic from time immemorial, and the Vendidad already explains it as an act which Ahriman, the Evil Spirit, brought forth when overshadowed by death. In Egypt it flourished for ages, and has never become entirely extinct. Jannes and Jambres, who led the priests in their opposition to Moses (2. Tim. iii. 8), have their successors in our day, and the very miracles performed by these ancient charmers have been witnessed again and again by modern travelers. Holy Writ abounds with instances of every kind of magic; it speaks of astrology, and prophesying from arrows, from the entrails of animals, and from dreams; but, strangely enough, the charming of serpents and the evil eye are not mentioned, if we except Balaam. The Kabbalah, on the contrary, speaks more than once of the evil eye (ain hara), and all the southern nations of Europe, as well as the Slavic races, fear its weird power. The eye is, however, by no means employed only to work evil; by the side of their _mal occhio_ the Italians have another gift, called _attrativa_, which enables man, apparently by the force of his eye only, to draw to himself all whom he wishes to attract. The well-known Saint Filippo Neri thus not only won all whom he wished to gain over, by looking at them, but even dogs left their beloved masters and followed him everywhere. Cotton Mather tells us in his "Magnolia" that quakers frequently by the eye only--though often, also, by anointing or breathing upon them--compelled others to accompany them, to join their communion, and to be in all things obedient to their bidding. Tom Case, himself a quaker, certainly possessed the power of overwhelming those at whom he looked fixedly for a while, to such a degree that they fell down as if struck with epilepsy; once, at least, he turned even a mad bull, by the force of his eye, till it approached him humbly and licked his hand like a pet dog. Even in our own age Goethe has admitted the power of certain men to attract others by the strength of their will, and mentions an instance in which he himself, ardently wishing to see his beloved one, forced her unconsciously to come and meet him halfway. (Eckermann, iii. 201.)