A. _Power of the soul over the body (a.) to resist pain_, as in the case of martyrs, who are burned alive without any appearance of suffering; _(b.) to resist physical injury_, as in the case of the Convulsionists; _(c.) to dispense with the usual service of the senses_, as in the case of the girl at Worcester Insane Asylum, Massachusetts, under the care of Dr. Woodward, who could read a book in a perfectly dark room and with bandaged eyes; _(d.) to give a preternatural energy and strength to the body_. B. _Preternatural knowledge_—such cases as that narrated by Dr. Bushnell, of Yonnt, in California; or _knowledge through dreams_, waking presentiments; cases of _foresight_, or prophecy; of _insight_, or knowledge of what is passing in other minds; of _clairvoyance_, or knowledge of what is happening at a distance, of which multitudes of facts are narrated in such books as the “Seeress of Provorst,” Mrs. Crowe’s “Night Side of Nature,” Robert Dale Owen’s “Footfalls from the Boundary of the Unseen World,” which, after being sifted by a fair criticism, will leave a large residuum of irresolvable facts. C. Higher than these is a preternatural elevation of the whole character, as in such cases as that of JOAN OF ARC, where a young girl, ignorant, a peasant, destitute of all common means of influencing any one, by the simple power of faith, because she believed herself inspired and commissioned, succeeded in gaining the command of the armies of France, and then of achieving a series of victories, equal, on the whole, as mere military exploits, to those of the first captains of the world. In all these cases we see manifestations of a power in the soul over nature, body, men, and the laws of time and space. So we say, _secondly_,— III. This power was possessed in the highest degree known in this world by Jesus of Nazareth, and it differed in him from these other cases in these points:— 1. It was always voluntary in its exercise, never involuntary. He was not possessed by it, he possessed it. He used it just when and where he chose to use it. It was always at his command; he never appears to have tried to work a miracle, and failed. So,— 2. It was in him constant, and not occasional. In other cases where the miraculous element appears, it seems to come and go; but to Jesus the spirit was not given by measure. He had it always. 3. This power in him was total, and not partial. It was therefore harmonious—in harmony with all his other qualities. He had power over diseases of the body, and also those of the soul. He knew what was in man, and what was in nature—in the present, and in the future. There was nothing ecstatic, enthusiastic, nothing of excitement, about him; but everything denoted a fulness, a PLEROMA, of this spiritual life.