It must, however, be confessed, that sometimes the answer of the oracle was clear and circumstantial. I have related, in the history of Crœsus, the stratagem he made use of to assure himself of the veracity of the oracle, which was, to demand of it, by his ambassador, what he was doing at a certain time prefixed. The oracle of Delphi replied, in verse, that he was causing a tortoise and a lamb to be drest in a vessel of brass, which was really the case. The emperor Trajan made a similar trial of the god at Heliopolis, by sending him a letter sealed up,(96) to which he demanded an answer.(97) The oracle made no other return, than to command a blank paper, well folded and sealed, to be delivered to him. Trajan, upon the receipt of it, was struck with amazement to see an answer so correspondent with his own letter, in which he knew he had written nothing. The wonderful facility with which dæmons can transfer themselves almost in an instant from place to place, made it not impossible for them to give the two answers, which I have last mentioned, and to foretell in one country, what they had seen in another; this is Tertullian’s opinion.(98) Admitting it to be true, that some oracles have been followed precisely by the events foretold, we may believe that God, to punish the blind and sacrilegious credulity of the Pagans, has sometimes permitted the dæmons to have a knowledge of things to come, and to foretell them distinctly enough. Which conduct of God, though very much above human comprehension, is frequently attested in the Holy Scriptures.