[64] Apologia, cap. v. De Civit. Dei, lib. xv. cap. xxiii.
[67] Luther, following the current tradition of his day, believed that the Devil could beget children on the bodies of women; and declared that he himself had personally come across, and was well acquainted with, one of the Devil's offspring. So too did Erasmus believe the fact of such generation. It is a tradition in the Catholic Church, that the last and great Antichrist--the final Antichrist--may be born of such an alliance. Of course Mahomet was _a_ great Antichrist; for though he borrowed certain Christian features and adopted many Jewish notions and Rabbinical traditions in his system, yet he plainly and undoubtedly fulfilled the prophetic statement of S. John the Divine--"_He is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son_." (1 S. John ii. 22.) Mahomet's great and leading heresy is expressed in the following dogmatic assertion of the Koran: "_God neither begetteth nor is begotten_." Now no system has more pertinaciously, successfully, and for so long a time opposed Christianity than Mahometanism--not even Arianism. But modern "Liberalism," so called, as still developing amongst ancient Christian nations, promises even to outstrip the system of Mahomet, and to be as blighting and baneful in its results.
[68] "An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians." By E. W. Lane. 5th edition. London: 1860.
[69] See the whole of this chapter, which is full of information and interest. It gives a record of several other similar examples.
[70] In No. 117 of the "Quarterly Review," there is a criticism on Mr. Lane's account of these necromancers; but the facts recorded by him are neither satisfactorily accounted for nor successfully explained away.
[71] My brother-in-law, Captain Ostrehan, of the Bombay Staff Corps, Sir Alfred Slade, Bart., and the Rev. Dr. Dunbar, chaplain to Bishop Claughton, have furnished me with remarkable examples of the power of Oriental necromancers.
[72] Nevins' "China and the Chinese," p. 167. New York, 1868.
[73] "Theory of Pneumatology," by J. H. Jung-Stilling, pp. 136-137. London: Longmans, 1834.
[74] Dr. Sexton in his "Defence of Modern Spiritualism" (London: J. Burns), a tractate written with ability and frankness, remarks that "it is too late in the day to sneer at this matter with a sort of self-complacency, which seems to say, 'You are a poor deluded creature: behold my superior wisdom; I don't believe in such nonsense.' Here are the facts, and we demand in the true spirit of Science to know what is to be done with them. If you have any theory by which they can be explained, let us hear it, in order that we may judge of its merits; if you have not, we are all the more justified in clinging to our own." And, again, referring to the inquiries of a certain Dr. Hare in America, he writes:--"The question with Dr. Hare was--Did the phenomena occur, and, if so, were they produced by the direct action of those persons in whose presence they took place? The nonsensical notions mooted by unscientific opponents, and which are still urged with as much gravity as though they had been made the subject of mathematical demonstration, that electricity, magnetism, odic, or psychic forces are the agents by which the manifestations are produced, he knew well enough could not bear a moment's investigation. Electricity cannot move tables, nor in fact act at all without cumbrous apparatus. Magnetism cannot give intelligent responses to questions, and odic force and its twin brother psychic are probably as imaginary as the philosopher's stone; and even if their existence could be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, they could not in the slightest degree help us to the solution of the great problem of the cause of the phenomena designated Spiritual."