:

there were true prophets, Satan had his company of prophets, too. When God was manifest in the flesh, which was one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one years ago, satan was manifest in the flesh too he got up a mimicry-demoniacal possessions. We find the same fact now-a-days; for as God manifest in the flesh was the truth that seems to have struck satan down, so the preaching of this truth strikes down satan still, Rhennius had the idea that among many of the Indians there is something approaching to demoniac possessions. And missionaries declare that they sometimes find manifested among the heathen, the unconverted savages of the desert, a power that is all but superhuman; so that whenever the gospel is preached in heathen lands, there is always a desperate effort to crush and extinguish it. My opinion of the church of Rome is, that it is one colossal demoniac possession. I know that certain men look on it merely as a corrupt church, a church a little astray. I am not denying that there are good men in that church in spite of it; but this I do say, and persist in, that the system seems to me one huge demoniacal possession, where satan has his license and his miracles. I believe that many of the miracles wrought by priests in the middle ages were supernatural, or infranatural rather. Whenever I hear a priest say, 'We have wrought miracles,' I admit it, I say certainly you have. I do not doubt it. If you had not done them, you would

have lost one of the brands by which your church is distinguished.' I believe that that system of apostacy is just the counterpart to the true church; and no man can fail to notice, 'throughout the book of Revelation,' how the two great opposing bodies are, the Lamb and the wife of the Lamb, and they that are his, and the 'beast' of the apostacy, and they that belong to him and are his."*

"And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast."+

"And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time And he brought

him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from hence."‡

It is written that "False Christs and false prophets shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."S

"That man of sin, the son of perdition," was to be revealed "after the working of satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all the dceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.||"

* Cumming on Miracles, pp. 243–244. Luke 4: 5, 9.

† Rev. 13; 13.

Ó Mat. 24: 24.

|| 2 Thes. 2: 1, 10.

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And finally, manifestations are to be expected from the spirits of devils, [demons] working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."*

"'Twas by an order from the Lord
The ancient prophets spoke his word;
His Spirit did their tongues inspire,
And warm their hearts with heavenly fire.

Great God! mine eyes with pleasure look
On the dear volume of thy book:
There my Redeemer's face I see,
And read his name who died for me.

Let the false raptures of the mind

Be lost and vanish in the wind;
Here I can fix my hope secure;
This is thy word-and must endure."

*Rev. 16: 14.

CHAPTER XI.

SPIRITUALISM IS REVIVING POLYTHEISM.

"And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them; I testify against you this day, that ye shall surely perish."-DEut. viii: 19.

THE gods of the Pagans were the spirits of the dead. As evidence of this, the most of their images were made to resemble the human form in some respects; and many of them were the very likeness of human beings.

They were represented as possessing the qualities, appetites, desires, and dispositions of men.

"Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge and lust."

"This was the natural consequence of their origin. Having once animated human bodies, and being supposed still to retain human passions and appetites, they were believed, in their state of deification, to feel the same sensual desires which they had felt

on earth; and to pursue the same means for their gratification."

Mr. Farmer, in his elaborate work on the worship of human spirits, finds that worship first in Egypt, where it became deeply rooted; and from thence spread among all the nations of the earth. He says the twelve great gods of Egypt, as well as the CARBIRI of Phonecia, were dead men deified. He believes these were the immediate objects of worship by both of those nations. In his various and extensive researches, he traces the worship of departed spirits from these nations to the Assyrians, Syrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Arabians, Greeks and Romans. He says, "That the gods of Greece and Rome were derived from Egypt and Phoenecia, is so universally known, that it is needless to multiply quotations in order to prove that Polytheism, among the Greeks and Romans, was the same with that which we have traced in more ancient nations." “The deification of departed heroes and of statesmen was that which in all probability introduced the universal belief of material and tutelar gods, as well as the practice of worshiping those gods through the medium of a statue cut in a human figure." He has adduced a great number of testimonies and facts to show that the worship of human spirits prevailed among the Scythians, Massagetes, Getes, the Goths, Germans, Persians, Arabians and

* Ency. Brit., Art. Polytheism.