Two things, however, must be steadily kept in mind. First: that if such interventions in human affairs are facts, the agency which can be exerted is only a permitted agency, and only capable of being exerted in subordination to the divine purposes in the government of the universe. A large number of the difficulties with which the subject is attended have originated in the wholly inaccurate idea that a power is attributed in the New Testament to Satan, of interfering both in the material and the moral universe at his own will and pleasure. This, however, is altogether contrary to the fact. Whatever power is attributed to him is an entirely permitted one, and exercised in subordination to the general purposes of God. Secondly, that although the disorder in the moral world might lead us to suspect the presence of an evil agency, different from that of man; yet as it is not a visible one, but confined to the regions of the mind, it is one which cannot come under our distinct observation, and could therefore only become known to us by revelation. One more difficulty has to be considered. It is alleged that possession never takes place now. It is therefore inferred that it never took place at all. I reply first, if we grant that demoniacal action, in the form of possession has now ceased, it by no means follows that it was not once real. The objection overlooks the fact that its action was a permitted one; and could only be exercised within the limits assigned to it. There may have been reasons at the time of the Advent why the exercise of a Satanic agency should be permitted at that particular period to a greater extent than it ever has been before or since. Secondly: certain moral and physical conditions were necessary for its exercise. These may be no longer in existence, but they may have passed away with many other abnormal conditions of human nature which existed in the ancient world. Thirdly: it is not possible to affirm with certainty that, even at the present day, no supernatural agencies bearing an analogy to possession, are exerted on the mind. This will be only possible, when all those abnormal phenomena which manifest themselves in connection with various debased forms of religion and other cases of phrenzied excitement can be traced to known forces, originating solely in the mind itself. There is one further objection which requires a brief consideration. It is urged that the writers of the New Testament entertained the belief, that diseases were generally occasioned by demoniacal action, quite independently of possession; and that this belief has received the sanction of our Lord. One case only is alleged in proof of this, that of the woman with the spirit of infirmity. She was no demoniac, but an ordinary diseased person, and the disease is asserted to have been occasioned by demoniacal action.