where that person is referring to the exile of the people in his time. The Israelites were to be deaf and blind to the warnings and exhortations of the priests, and were to worship the gods of other nations, until they were carried away captive to Babylon, and their land had become desolate. The blindness and hardness of heart referred to the worship of strange gods by the people of Isaiah's time (Isaiah xliv. 9-18), and has no reference whatever to people living centuries afterwards.

JOHN XII. 41: "These things saith Isaiah because he saw his glory; and he spake of him." The original of this is in Isaiah vi. 1-3: "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple; above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Now, the "glory" that Isaiah saw was that of the Hebrew God, Yahuh-the sun, and the person "he spake of" was also Yahuh, who was sitting between the two cherubim (see page 135); but the John writer attempts to induce his readers to believe that by "him" Isaiah was referring to the future Christian Messiah.

And such are the "prophecies" upon which the Christian edifice relies for support, and upon which Christians rely as evidence of the truth and reality of their "Messiah”!

MIRACLES OF GREAT ANTIQUITY-BRED OF IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION - NOT BELIEVED BY THE EARLY FATHERS THE MIRACLES ATTRIBUTED TO JESUS SILENCE OF HISTORY-THE JEWS ANXIOUSLY LOOKING FOR A MESSIAH UNABLE TO ACCEPT JESUS — THE EVIDENCE OF THE JOHN GOSPEL-SPECIAL MIRACLES -MIRACLES NOT FOR MAN, BUT FOR THE GLORIFICATION OF THE DEITY AND THE CHURCH-DISEASE AS A PUNISHMENT FOR "SIN " - CASTING OUT DEVILS

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UNFULFILLED PROMISES - THE
RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION.

MAGICIAN'S STAR

WE have seen 66 that inspiration," "possession," and "exorcism" led to the idea that certain persons possessed supernatural power to perform particular acts contrary to the laws of nature, called “ MIRACLES." The following heroes and gods performed miracles :-Zoroaster, who confirmed his divine mission; the Egyptian saviours, Horus and Serapis, who raised the dead to life; Osiris; Isis, to whose temple the sick resorted in crowds; Marduk, the Assyrian Logos," who raised the dead to life; Bacchus, who changed water into wine; Esculapius, son of Apollo, who cured the sick and raised the dead; Apollonius of Tyana, who restored a dead maiden to life; Simon Magus, the Samaritan, who, by his proficiency in performing miracles, was called "the Magician." It may be added that Simon Magus professed to be "the Wisdom of God," "the Word of ""the Paraclete" God," or Comforter," ," "the image of the eternal Father manifested in the flesh," and his followers claimed that he was 66 the firstborn of the Supreme." All these were titles in after years applied to Jesus. They had a gospel called "The Four Corners of the World," from which Irenæus probably borrowed his reason for

the choice and number of the Canonical Gospels. Eusebius (iii., 26) says of Menander, "the wonder worker " of Samaria, that "he revelled in still more arrogant pretensions to miracles......than his master (Simon Magus)...... saying that he was in truth the Saviour." Justin is quoted by Eusebius as having said of Menander: "He deceived many by his magic arts......and there are now some of his followers who can testify the same." Vespasian, a contemporary of Jesus, performed wonderful miracles. Tacitus says that "he cured a blind man in Alexandria by means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot."

The

The Hindu Krishna was in constant strife against the evil spirit, surmounting extraordinary dangers, strewing his way with miracles, raising the dead, healing the sick, restoring the maimed, the deaf, and the blind. It was by belief in the miracles of Buddha that his religion was so firmly established. Buddhist saints also performed miracles; their garments and staffs were supposed to possess mysterious power, and those who touched them were blessed. "ascension" of Jesus; Peter's release from prison, which originated from a company of Buddhist missionaries to China (B.C. 217), who were imprisoned by the emperor, but an angel came and opened the prison door, and liberated them; and walking on water, were not new. A disciple of Buddha, by faith, crossed a river, walking on the water; when he arrived in midstream his feet began to sink, and he at once strengthened his faith, and successfully walked over. A Buddhist saint, who attained the power called " perfection," was able to rise and float along through the air.

The Jews frequently wrought miracles to confirm the sayings of the Rabbis; one of the latter is said to have cried out, when his opinions were disputed: "May this tree prove that I am right!" and the tree was immediately torn up by the roots and hurled to a distance. And when his opponents declared that a tree could prove nothing, he said, May this stream then witness for me," and at once it flowed the opposite way. "No one custom of antiquity is so frequently mentioned by ancient historians as the practice which was so common of making votive offerings to their deities, and hanging them up in their temples-images of metal, stone, and clay; arms, legs, and

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MIRACLES OF GREAT ANTIQUITY.

245

other parts of the body, in testimony of some divine cure effected."* "Miracles for fools was a popular adage among the Greeks. The shrewder Romans said: "The common people like to be deceived; deceived let them be." Celsus, in common with most Greeks, looked upon Christianity as a "blind faith" that "shunned the light of reason." In speaking of Christians, he says: "They are for ever repeating: 'Do not examine; only believe, and thy faith will make thee blessed; wisdom is a bad thing in life, foolishness is to be preferred.'"†

Miracles occur only where people are found ready to believe in them: where they are credulous enough to believe in ghosts, spirits, or fairies, these supernatural beings appear; where charms, prayers, and dreams are credited, there these are efficacious. The belief in miracles is stronger if they have occurred a long way off, or a long while ago, or at night; when they are intended to convert the unbeliever, they only happen to the believer. People who would smile if told that an angel came at a certain time and season to trouble the waters of the fountain in Trafalgar Square, healing the first sick person who stepped in, will look very grave and pious when a similar story is related concerning a similar pool at Jerusalem; distance and time lending the necessary enchantment. Solitude, hysteria, and dreams, as we have seen, in the ignorant and imaginative, are prolific of miracles, which flourish where faith abounds, and decay as faith decays; and faith is only another word for credulity. Those who feel themselves sufficiently inspired to work miracles in these days, if Protestants, find their homes in lunatic asylums; and, if Catholics, the miracle generally occurs in some sylvan retreat, away from all intelligent and educated people; the favoured one being some peasant child, generally of the female sex, who has been preparing for her first Communion, and has been duly dosed with stories of the Virgin.

The fathers of the Church themselves were non-believers in miracles. Origen (185-254) attributed them to magic. He says that the "wonder-workers rambled about to play tricks at fairs and markets "; that they never appeared in

* C. Middleton, Letters from Rome.
+ Origen, Contra Celsus.

the circles of the wiser and better sort, but always took care to intrude themselves among the ignorant and uncultured"; and calls Jesus a "necromancer," saying that he “learned his magical arts in Egypt": we have before seen that his early days were spent in the temple of Serapis at Heliopolis. Justin "Martyr" says that Jesus was accused of being "a necromancer, a magician, and a deceiver of the people." St. Augustine admits the same, and says that he wrote books on magic, one of which was called "Magia Jesu Christi.” Jesus, like Horus, was represented on monuments with magic wands in the received guise of necromancers, while raising the dead to life. The Rev. Dr. Middleton, an English divine, writing of the early Christians, says: "There " in was just reason to suppose that there was some fraud their miracle-working, that "the strolling wonder-workers, by a dexterity of jugglery, which art, not heaven, had taught them, imposed on the credulity of the pious fathers, whose strong prejudices and ardent zeal for the interests of Christianity would dispose them to embrace, without examination, whatever seemed to promote so good a cause......the pretended miracles of the primitive Church were all mere fictions, which the pious and zealous fathers, partly from a weak credulity and partly from reasons of policy, were induced to espouse and propagate for the support of a righteous cause."

We must bear in mind that the age in which these followers of Jesus lived was one of profound ignorance and astounding credulity, for which they were frequently reproached by the Pagans. The sum of all their wisdom was comprised in the single precept, Believe. The populace was in a continual state of feverish excitement, seeking for wonders and portents. A Messiah was expected, and they were ready to believe in anything. What was said to have been done in India was alleged by the writers of the Gospels to have been done in Palestine. The change of names and places, with the mixing up of various sketches of Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman mythology, was all that was necessary. They had an abundance of material, and with it they built. Miracles were performed, devils cast out, and extraordinary cures effected daily by magical art and jugglery. It was generally understood then that the end of the present age was at hand, and was to be heralded by signs from