When the devil that Josephus saw expelled, came out of the man, the channel at which he made his exit, being manifest, it was accordingly specified: it was the man's _nose_. This was something to know: especially, in relation to an occurrence, the time of which was at so great a distance from our own. At the same time, however, other particulars present themselves, by which curiosity is excited, and for want of which, the information thus bestowed must be confessed to be rather imperfect. What the shape of the devil was? what the substance? whence he last came? to what place, to what occupation, after being thus dislodged, he betook himself, and so forth: not to speak of many others, which howsoever instructive and satisfactory it would have been to be acquainted with, yet now that all acquaintance with them is hopeless, it would be tedious to enumerate. In the present instance, not only as to all these particulars, has the historian,--eyewitness as it should seem he was of everything that passed,--left us in the dark; but, neither has he vouchsafed to afford us that single article of information, scanty as it was, for which, as above, in the case mentioned by Josephus, we are indebted to Josephus: to Josephus--that most respectable and instructive of the uninspired historians of his age. In relation to this story, as well as to those others, the same question still presents itself:--if told of the present time,--if spoken of in some newspaper, as having happened in the present year,--exists here any person, even among the most ignorant populace, with whom it would obtain any permanent credence? But, a reported state of things--which, if reported as having had place in the present century, would, by its disconformity to the manifest state of things, and the whole course of nature, be regarded as too absurd and flagrantly incredible to deserve to be entitled to a moment's notice,--what is there that should render it more credible, when reported as having happened in this same world of ours, at any anterior point of time? SECTION 5. SUPPOSABLE MIRACLE IV.--AT PHILIPPI, AN EARTHQUAKE: PAUL AND SILAS FREED FROM PRISON, A.D. 53. The passage, in which these events are related, is in Acts 16:19-40, inclusive.