“There is a very well authenticated case of a domestic in the German village of Kleische, who, returning one evening from a place near by, where she had been sent of an errand, saw a little gray man, not larger than an infant, who, because she would neither go with him nor answer him, threatened her, and told her, as she reached the threshold of her master’s house, that she should be blind and dumb for four days. The prediction was exactly fulfilled. Instances enough are on record of persons afflicted, as they supposed, by evil spirits, who have foretold the day and hour when they would be delivered. In the case of the parsonage of Cideville, which in 1849 made so much noise in France, the agent that rapped was intelligent, for the raps gave distinct and intelligent answers to the questions addressed to it, and communicated facts unknown to the questioner and to all the persons present. “The ancient pagan oracles may be cited. They did not, I concede, foretell what belongs exclusively to the supernatural providence of God, but they did foretell, clearly and distinctly, events belonging to the natural order, beyond the reach of ordinary human foresight. That many of the responses were false, that many of them were ambiguous and suited to the event, let it turn out which way it might, I by no means deny, but this cannot be said of all of them. The contrary is evident from the great reputation they enjoyed, and the long ages that they were consulted, not by the vulgar only, but by kings, princes, nobles, and philosophers, of the most learned and polite nations of Gentile antiquity. Men are deceived, deluded, but never by pure falsehood. It is the truth mingled with the falsehood that deceives or misleads them.” “But the whole,” said Jack, “was a system of jugglery, cheatery, and knavery, of the heathen priests.”