While Paul and his suite,--of whom, according to the author of the Acts, he himself was one,--were at Philippi,--a Roman colony, and capital of a part of Macedonia,--among their hearers, is Lydia--a purple-seller of the City of Thyatira. Being converted, she receives the whole party into her house. From this house, on their way to prayers,--probably in a Jewish synagogue,--they are met by a certain damsel, as nameless as the lame-born cripple, who, being possessed of a spirit of divination, or of Python, brings to her masters, for masters it seems she had more than one, much gain by soothsaying. Here then is a female, who, by being possessed by or with a spirit,--a real spirit, whether devil or a spirit of any other sort,--is converted into a prophetess, and, doubtless, in the main a false prophetess. In the present instance, however, she is a true prophetess: for, following Paul and his suite, she runs after them, saying, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days." If, instead of a demon, it had been an angel, that took her vocal organs for the instrument of his communications, it is difficult to say, in what manner he could have deserved better at the hands of these "servants," real or pretended, "of the Most High God." Yet, from some cause or other that does not appear, so it was it seems,--there was something about her with which Paul was not well pleased. "Being grieved, he turns and says,"--not to the damsel herself, but to the spirit, which _possessed her_, or rather, since for the benefit of her masters, it brought her so much gain, which _she possessed_,--"I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her." Amongst the superstitions of that and other ages, one was--the notion of a property, possessed by such and such words--possessed, by these mere evanescent sounds--by the air of the atmosphere, when made to vibrate in a certain manner:--a property, of working effects in endless abundance and variety, and those, too, supernatural ones. In some instances, the wonders would be wrought by the words themselves, whatsoever were the mouths by which they were uttered. In other instances, they required, for the production of the effects, a person, who being possessed of a particular and appropriate power, should, for the purpose of giving exercise to such his power, give them passage through his lips. Of this latter kind was the present case. The command issued as above, "he," for it was a he-spirit, "came out of her," the damsel, "the same hour."