Answer. This is easily explained by a very common law of language. Consider the circumstances. The woman stood ready to bring up any one that might be called for. She believed, of course, that they actually came, just as mediums now-a-days believe the forms they see are those of their departed friends. Samuel was called for, and this mantled old man appeared. She supposed it was Samuel; and Saul supposed it was Samuel; and then, according to the general law of the _language of appearance_, the narrative proceeds _according to their supposition_. When it says Samuel, it only means that form that appeared, which they _supposed_ to be Samuel. Secondly, the conclusion is apparent that this was only a manifestation of ancient necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft, or spiritualism; a wholesale deception palmed off upon his dupes by the devil in disguise. Between the ancient and modern there is this difference: Then he had to pretend to bring up the dead from the ground; for the people then believed that the dead were in the lower regions of the earth: now he brings them down from the upper spheres; for the prevailing belief now is that those regions are populous with the conscious spirits of the departed. Let no one then appeal to the workings of the witch of Endor to prove the immortality of the soul, unless he is prepared to claim openly that the Bible is a fiction, that ancient necromancy was a divine practice, and that modern spiritualism with all its godless blasphemies and its reeking corruptions is the only reliable oracle of truth and purity. CHAPTER XVII. THE TRANSFIGURATION. MATT. 17:1-9. When our Lord was transfigured, on a high mountain of Galilee, before Peter and James and John, there appeared with him two other glorified personages, talking with him. These, the inspired narrator says, were Moses and Elias, as the disciples understood them to be. Luke 9:30-33. With what pleasure does the immaterialist meet with an account of any manifestation or action on the part of those who have long been dead; it has so specious an appearance of sustaining his views, or at least of furnishing him ground for an argument; for, says he, the person was dead, and this manifestation was by his conscious spirit or immortal soul. So far as the case of Elias is concerned, as he appeared at the transfiguration, it affords that theory no benefit; for he, being translated, never saw death, and so could appear in the body with which he ascended. This is conceded by all; and for this reason his case is never put in as a witness on this question, except by those who are so unfamiliar with the record as to suppose that he, too, once died, and here appeared as a disembodied spirit.