of a goat, and the lower part of his body had the form of that animal, &c. His worship was conducted with the same forms and ceremonies as in Labourd. After the worship of the Demon followed a travestie of the Christian mass; after the mass, the usual licentiousness, then the feast. Before they left, the Demon preached to them on the duties they had contracted towards him, exhorted them to go and injure their fellow-creatures, and to practise every kind of wickedness, and gave them powders and liquors for poisoning and destroying. He often accompanied them himself when some great evil was to be done.”

3. In the confessions of those who were tried and executed, it is related in numerous instances that they had, on their first admission at the Sabbath rites and orgies, formally renounced Christ, and uttered blasphemous expressions. It was an article of their compact that they should not, at any of their assemblies, mention the name of Christ; (an interdict similar to that of the Yezzidis, or worshippers of Satan, near Mosul, mentioned by M. Layard;) and it is affirmed that whenever his name was inadvertently articulated, the assembly was instantly dispersed.

4. It was held that the initiated received from the Evil One a particular mark on their persons, to distinguish them as his; that Satan often appeared to them unexpectedly in the form of a goat, a black dog, a cat, a horse, or a toad; and that each new witch received a toad, cat, or other animal, as an imp or familiar to attend them constantly. They pretended to raise storms, destroy vessels and crops, torment and kill animals and men by their sorcery; and for such crimes many thousands of them were accused, tried, and put to death.

CHAPTER XVIIL

Illustration of the subject of the last Chapter, exhibiting the Antagonism as carried on by visible agencies, instrumentalities, and events, in the plagues of Egypt and at the Red Sea.

THERE is a striking instance of this antagonism carried on by visible agencies, instrumentalities, and events, in the narrative of the plagues of Egypt, under the immediate direction of the Messenger Jehovah, after his appearance to Moses in the burning bush; of which plagues it was repeatedly declared to be the object on the one hand to convince the children of Israel, and by rehearsal to their descendants to convince them that he was indeed Jehovah; and on the other, to cause Pharaoh and the Egyptians to know that he was the Self-existent, and to cause his name to be declared throughout all the earth. Pharaoh, and the priests of Baal, and the wise men, the sorcerers and magicians, like Ahab and the prophets and votaries of Baal in his time; and Nebuchadnezzar and the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers and Chaldeans of his, were to witness miraculous and resistless proofs that Jehovah, the Elohe of Abraham and Israel, was the only living and true God, the Creator, proprietor, and ruler of the world, and that their idolatry was an imposture and a cheat. In this, as in the other and all similar instances of a public formal conflict of the great antagonists and their agents, to determine which should be acknowledged as supreme, and be obeyed and worshipped, the demonstrations on the part of Jehovah

were resisted, step by step, by the Adversary and his party, till they were overpowered, shown to be false pretenders, terrified, exposed, and confounded.

Jehovah directed Moses and Aaron, when they appeared before Pharaoh, and were required by him "to show a miracle" in support of their pretensions, to cast down the rod they were to carry, and it should become a serpent-the animal with which the name and personal history of Satan were intimately associated, and whose visible form was familiar among the material images, representative of him under the name of Baal, from the earliest times; the animal which he entered and actuated in Eden, and which, doubtless, he could enter and actuate again, and by jugglery employ rods in his exhibition. "And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent;" as much as to say, Here is a miracle, producing before your eyes the god, the visible image and representative of the god whom you worship. But we may suppose Pharaoh to have said, This we can do: this only shows the power of our god, and is to no purpose as evidence on your side. "Then Pharaoh called the wise men and the sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their enchantments; for they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents." This satisfied him. Simi lar feats had probably often satisfied him before. Visible effects of power in the production, apparently, of living animals, were manifest to his senses. sequel, in the fact that "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods," belonged to another category. If he regarded it as the moderns regard written language, he would be satisfied by calling it "figurative," or saying

The

it was equivocal, and had no fixed or determinate meaning.

The nature of the conflict, and the visibility of the instruments and results, are thus sufficiently apparent. To the view of the beholders, the coincidence of the power of the unseen agent on the one side, with the act of Aaron and his rod as an instrument; and on the other, with the acts of the magicians and their rods, appeared alike. From aught that was apparent, if Moses and Aaron wrought their miracle by the power and will of Jehovah, the magicians wrought theirs by the power and will of their god. It was a miracle transcending the efforts of mortal power, and superior to that by which the magicians acted, that Pharaoh required. Nothing else would meet the case. But as he viewed it, this experiment was not conclusive.

At the next trial, Aaron, in the presence of Pharaoh and his servants, "lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river, and they were turned into blood." The fish died, "and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt." "And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened." The experiment of the magicians, in this case, must have been on a very limited scale, for it appears from the narrative that there was no water to be had for seven days, but such as was obtained by digging near the river. Still, if they apparently produced the effect on ever so small a quantity, those who trusted in them would be satisfied. The Nile was a leading object of Egyptian idolatry, as an instrument and emblem of the munificence of the god of that idolatry, whose superiority and power were argued from the vast benefits occasioned by the river,

without the aid or inconvenience of clouds and rain. The miracle was therefore a public and signal rebuke of their idolatry, affecting directly every inhabitant of the land, and a stupendous demonstration of the supremacy of Jehovah. But the arts and instrumentality of the magicians counteracted its effect.

The ensuing trial, which constituted the second plague, covered the land, the houses, furniture, utensils, and the people themselves, with myriads of loathsome frogs, one of the sacred animals of their idol system, and of the progeny of their sacred river, consecrated to the sun, and, by reason of its inflations, deemed an emblem of inspiration. They were thus confounded by the insupportable multitude and offensiveness of one of the objects of their idol worship, sent forth by another, as if purposely to punish them. After the usual announcements and directions, "Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs. came up and covered the land of Egypt: and the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt." Their enchantments in this case seem to have had no favorable effect. The frogs brought up by them must have aggravated the already intolerable evil. Pharaoh begged Moses to entreat Jehovah to remove the plague, and promised in that case to let the people go. Moses consented, so that Pharaoh, by the counter miracle, "might know that there is none like unto Jehovah, the Elohe of the Hebrews."

The third plague, more tormenting to the persons of the Egyptians than the preceding, baffled and silenced the magicians. "Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast; and the dust of the land be