strength which has been promised in the performance of duty: let him diligently seek for support in prayer, in the word of God, and in waiting upon him; and then he will be enabled, in the promises of the Gospel, to realize the Saviour's presence with his suffering children; let him strive to imitate Him who knows all our infirmities, and was himself made perfect through sufferings: above all, let him look to his sufferings upon the cross, and during his last agony, and let him contemplate for what and for whom he suffered; so that the firmness of his principles, the reality of his faith, and their efficacy to support him, shall be demonstrated, and shall present a rational, a wellgrounded, and a lovely example of Christian fortitude.

CHAPTER XII.

Agency of evil spirits. Possession; - demonomania ;temptation; astrology;-doctrine of apparitions;-spiritual contemplation;-peculiar physical state.

THE agency of evil spirits is so nearly connected with this part of the subject, that it presents a just claim to consideration before we proceed further.

The principal forms in which we meet with this variety of superstitious influence, are those of supposed possession, and alleged temptation. Almost every hamlet has its traditional legend of the former state, or its actual habitation of some "cunning woman," or witch, or other pretender to supernatural information; and in almost every coterie will be found some mind under the actual agency of temptation. With these views are associated various processes,

by which the power and presence of the evil one are to be evoked or deprecated; and a whole host of excuses, for a particular line of conduct or thought, which conscience admonishes is wrong, and which reason and religion prove, on other grounds to be indefensible.

1. With possession, as far and as frequently as it may be the result of fraud or imposture, we have nothing to do; but instances are to be met with, in which it is verily believed by the patient, and has been adopted as an absorbing and exclusive idea; and it then forms a variety of religious melancholy, under the appellation of demonomania. This, with other indications of insanity, is to be referred to a peculiar bodily condition, and is attended by certain morbid manifestations of mind, which originate in a diseased state, either primary or secondary, of the intellectual organ. Its classification, as a variety of melancholy, would show, that the ancients believed it to originate in a disordered secretion of bile; and indeed it is very certain, that irritation of the liver has a decided influence in throwing a sombre cloud over all the present, as well as the future events of life. But I am more disposed to believe, that in this case the first link in the chain of morbid action will be found in the brain itself; and that the

disturbance of the digestive functions, is a consequence, rather than a cause, of such irritation, though it may afterwards tend to keep up, and even ultimately to aggravate, the operation of the originating cause.

This view of the subject is borne out by considering the circumstances of the malady. In the first place, there will be found to have existed a general predisposition to insanity. General ignorance, and contracted mental manifestation, will show how little attention and cultivation have been bestowed upon the intellectual organ: the patient is remarkable for mental feebleness and pusillanimity; thus proclaiming a want of brainular energy, and of intellectual expansion. Previously to the fully-formed paroxysm of malady, it will be found that the mind has been under the influence of prolonged disquietude, fear, or even terror; and these very generally own their commencement in false and erroneous opinions on the subject of religion, arising either from an injudicious statement of its real truths, or from partial and exclusive views; or from placing too great dependance on mere feelings and emotions, rather than on the sentimentsthe results of sound judgment and a spiritually enlightened understanding; or from such a

degree of physical nervous irritation, that the rays of religious comfort do not reach the mind through the material veil which disorder of cerebral function has drawn around its perceptions.

Again all these causes of disturbance will be mutual re-agents with accumulating force; and after a certain degree of conflicting and anxious attention, the false notions take possession of the individual, and, beyond an ineffectual struggle, claim their supremacy-a supremacy of disease. Now it will be seen, that the remote causes of this malady operate rather immediately than intermediately upon the brain; and that its irritation is to be traced rather to mental than to bodily sources. This opinion is strengthened by the fact, that these views have become less frequent, and exert a diminished influence, exactly in proportion as knowledge has become diffused; as the Scriptures of truth have been rendered more accessible, and as they have ceased to be a dead letter, by the extension of religious education, and of juster views on the subject of God's dealings with his sinful children.

That this state is the result of brainular irritation, is still further shown by the prevailing disposition to suicide by which it is accompanied.