It is affirmed by the author that the Bible asserts the reality of such miracles. I reply that it makes no such assertion, but merely describes them as they appeared to the eye of the beholder. Its strong denunciations of such practices is no evidence that they were anything else than deceptions which the performers endeavoured to palm off for wicked purposes. The precept of Moses, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” has been urged as affording proof that the Bible in unqualified terms asserts the reality of witchcraft. Whether the art was real or simulated, the sentence of the lawgiver would have been equally just, for impostors who practise such arts for the purpose of delusion, are far more injurious to society than many kinds of criminals who have undergone the severest punishment. In the New Testament “lying wonders” are occasionally referred to. The expression may legitimately mean one of two things, either a supernatural act performed for the attestation or propagation of a lie, or an apparent miracle, which is in itself a lie. It cannot be denied that the language of the New Testament will honestly bear this interpretation. I will quote the strongest passage to be found in it. St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, in speaking of the manifestation of a great anti‐ christian power, says, “Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness, in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” This language is quite consistent with the idea that the works here spoken of were not supernatural, but deceptions wrought for the propagation of a system of falsehood. There can be no question that impositions of this kind have been systematically practised in later times in support of a great system of ecclesiastical power, and to attest doctrines in connection with it. But it is worthy of observation that the demoniacal supernaturalism which we read of in the New Testament, is not represented as having been employed for the attestation of any system of doctrine whatever. Elymas, the sorcerer, practised his art for the purpose of establishing an influence over Sergius Paulus, but for aught that appears he was a simple impostor. All the other cases of Satanic supernaturalism referred to in the Gospels resolve themselves into cases of possession, or the occasional production of a disease.