be taught to refrain-for the young man that he study to use with caution-for the aged that he indulge with fear-and for all that they be careful, at all times, so to partake of the good things provided by the Creator (and improved by man for his use) as not to be disqualified, when the feast is over, for a sincere and rational thanksgiving!

ART. II.-Lavater the Physiognomist: his singular character; and opinion of Animal Magnetism.

(Continued from p. 125.)

The following narratives present, the one an amiable, the other a serio-comic instance of the real sympathy which exists between kindred spirits, however widely separated the bodies which they actuate and enliven.

In August 1773, Lavater being out on a journey wrote to his wife that all was well [so far.] The next day she was attacked with low spirits, and had a sudden impression on her mind, that her husband had either met with some dreadful misfortune, or was in most imminent danger.-In an agony of distress, she earnestly prayed for the safety of her husband, and his deliverance from any danger to which he might be exposed. At this very time, Lavater was crossing the lake of Zurich in a small vessel, in a violent storm, and himself suffered all the terrors of approaching death, which appeared to be inevitable. With anxious affection his thoughts recurred to his beloved wife and children, whom he feared he should never again behold in this world, while he [too] prayed fervently to heaven for deliverance: and he was delivered the vessel reached the shore in safety.

Professor Sulzer was once (in his 22nd year) attacked with an extraordinary melancholy and anxiety, without his being able to assign any cause for it, from his own situation with respect to any external circumstances. It seemed to be impressed on his mind, that his future wife at that moment suffered by some severe and dangerous accident, though he then neither had any thought of marrying, nor any knowledge whatever of the person who afterwards became his wife. Ten years afterwards, when he was married, and had almost forgotten this incident, he learned from his wife that, precisely at that time, when she was a girl of only ten years of age, she was nearly killed by a violent fall; from the injurious effects of which she had never entirely recovered.

'Joseph Gossner, a man of much piety, humility and virtue, had in his youth studied medicine at Inspruck; he afterwards became a secular priest: he was at this time attacked with severe pains in the head as often as he read mass. He had recourse to the ablest physicians, but without obtaining any relief. In the mean time he frequently read books that treated on the subject of Exorcism, and

made the first trial on himself. From that moment his pains in the head left him, and he then prayed to God that he would bestow on him the power of extending the same aid to his fellow-men. "I laughed at all this [says Dr. Hotze the relator] when I first heard it and thought it an old woman's tale. The bishop sent for him to Marspurg, where were two sisters from Munsterlingen, extremely ill: these he healed in the name of Jesus, and they are now restored to perfect health. I came here several times in a week, but could not be convinced till I had myself twice spoken to the father. I beheld wonderful and powerful cures, far exceeding our art. His expression is, I conjure thee in the most holy name of Jesus'—and then follow effects which overwhelm me with awe."

case.

This view of the case supposes the influence of evil demons, as in the times when Christ and his apostles cast them out from the bodies of those to whom the Gospel was preached. It appears that the disorders cured in this instance were 'contractions and epilepsies '-cases in which the nerves are chiefly affected, and through these the muscular action of the parts. Let us proceed to what is still more evidently a nervous "I presented to Gossner [says M. Walter, privy counsellor and physician to the king of Bavaria] my daughter, a woman of understanding and resolution, who was troubled with rheumatic pains in her head. He made her kneel before him, and having placed his hands on her forehead and the back part of her head, repeated some prayers in a low voice, after which he directed her to stand up and began his exorcisms in this manner I command thee in the name of Jesus to fall into frenzy and convulsion of the head, without any other part of the body being affected.' At the same moment nature obeyed, and the patient uttered the most frantic expressions; but at the instant he pronounced the words 'Let it cease' she was immediately restored to her natural state, without recollecting any thing of what had passed. He repeated similar and various commands, and at length laid his hands on her head, prayed and gave her the blessing, and she is now free from the slightest trace of her disorder; from which, before, she almost continually suffered in a greater or less degree." [Compare Mark i, 26: ix, 26: but recollect, that Jesus did not command the previous convulsions.]

Lavater was not yet satisfied: he wrote to Dr. Walter, enquiring whether he had observed any appearance of cunning or trick in Gossner; whether the extraordinary ceremonies he used did not seem rather of this nature, than merely intended to strengthen the faith of the patient and the bystanders. He had also an interview with this monk, the result of which was, that the latter made no favourable impression on his understanding or his heart. He witnessed none of his cures or exorcisms, nor any extraordinary effects produced by him. He admitted that he believed him to be sincere, according to his ideas and doctrine, but he found him destitute of spirit and feeling. He termed his art summum imperium in nervos,' but it seems that even this left him, in the presence of a man of sufficient penetration, and having also faith in something higher.

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Lavater appears at length to have come to the following conclusion, viz. That it is most probable (as Gossner asserted) that all transient evils [such as those in question, we may suppose he means] proceed from Satan, or at least one under his immediate influence to deny the existence and the fearful action of the kingdom of Satan would, in his opinion, be to deny the Scriptures.

Again Though I saw no effects produced by him, [Gossner] similar to those of which I had heard and read so much, and which it is impossible should be mere fictions, I am disposed to believe in the possibility of this power of action of man upon man and I think I am authorised to conjecture that this power, which resides in all men as the image of God [but suppose this image lost-what then?] is a MAGICAL POWER of the human mind over the bodies and powers of the corporeal world, which may continually become more perfect; and by faith in the humanity of Christ be advanced and matured to the highest and most perfect power.

Here is the vexation of the nerves, the epilepsy, or whatever it may have been, attributed to Satan as the immediate agent: and the cure, by the influence of a spirit fortified with faith in the humanity of Christ, to the human exorcist, as a man and as made in God's image. But let us examine further. Why should the Satan be charged with the whole of the evil, and the man have attributed to him the whole credit of removing it? The Pharisees said of Christ,

He

casteth out devils through the prince of the devils,' which shews that there existed in that age some pretensions, at least (if not some real effects attributable) to a delegated authority of this kind, under the evil one. Now such authority, if it existed, was more likely to be exercised in such a way, as that the evil should be procured as an infliction (by Divine permission also, for the trial of the faith of the sufferer) on such or such a person-and that the cure should follow, by a return of the nerves to their natural state, either on the cessation of the persecution as to that person, which the PROCURER IN THE FIRST INSTANCE may also be supposed to ask and oblain-or, upon the approach of a superior spirit, really united to Christ and in the image of the invisible God; on the utterance of the word of faith with power, by the person in whom it dwells.

:

Philosophers often look no higher than to second causes-and they will chiefly have regard, in these cases, to the manifestations of certain sympathies belonging, as they think, to the very constitution of our nature by means of which, when one person, for instance, takes a dose of Laudanum and is affected by it in the usual way, another person in his state (as they term it) or magnetized to him, or by whatever other words they may choose to conceal their ignorance, shall be also affected with sleepiness, without having taken the opiate and the like of many ridiculous, and some detestable and dangerous operations of the kind. Jer. li, 8: the advice is in irony.

But these sympathies (as it seems to me) are but effects of certain causes, operations of certain agents, undiscernible by the light of

natural science; and of which we should have known nothing but by their effects, had it not pleased Almighty God to reveal to mankind what we find recorded concerning them in Holy Scripture. Whoever reads, with due attention and in a right disposition, what he there finds on the subject, will feel that he is able, with the help of his own experience, to unravel many mysteries of this kind for himself—and will be prepared, both to resist the devil until he flee from him, and to renounce the use of those works of darkness which proceed from him-together with every kind and degree of power, credit, influence and especially of sordid gain, which by such means he might have procured to himself or his party. Ephes. v, 11. Luke, x, 17-20.

It is clear to me, that they who move and act in the power of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, delight on all occasions to be doing good; and that they can proceed to their object in no other than a fair, direct, and honourable way: that such will scarcely be found to take upon themselves the office of tormentors; less still of executioners. They who kill men, thinking to do God service, must needs be under a delusion of the devil. And we may apply the like reasoning to every degree of connexion with the dark power-in fine, to all study and practice of occult arts, capable of being used as engines of annoyance, or of mischief and destruction to mankind. Acts xix, 19.

If the Apostles, in their time, had and used a certain delegated authority over evil spirits, for the just and noble purposes of their office and mission-if priests in subsequent ages, and especially simple monks having a strong faith, have been able by pronouncing the name of Jesus, with prayer to God the father, to remove many nervous pains, and other affections attributable to the operation of evil spirits on the human frame-lastly, if the mere possession of a strong faith in 'the powers of the world to come gives to the spirit of one individual a superiority or ascendancy over the spirits of others-is it not possible, nay is it not probable, that the prince of the power of the air himself may, on the other hand (by Divine permission and] to a limited extent) have his apostles, his agents, his adepts, through whose application to him and observance of his directions (though at the price of their own damnation, to his society, hereafter)-a spurious holy ghost, and a spurious set of signs and wonders, and mighty works and seeming cures, may be kept up and propagated, for the trial of professors of the Christian faith more especially; whether indeed they be of the number of God's elect? 2 Thess. ii, 3-12. Matt. xxiv, 24.

Animal magnetism, in the judgment of Lavater, was an art capable of producing real effects on the bodies of men. "I do not (says he) believe in the whole system of Mesmer, though I do not permit myself hastily and without examination, to condemn a man to whom Providence appears to have entrusted a secret of nature. I do not, I repeat it, believe in his whole system; but I believe what I have been assured of by the most respectable witnesses, and what I have repeatedly seen with my own eyes. My brother, a very intelligent physician, who has the rare gift of uniting in himself two qualites, each

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extremely rare, that of being able strongly to doubt, and that of firmly believing, has a hundred times seen with his own eyes, what any other person may every day see, that there is a power in man which, by a certain kind of motion, may pass into others, and produce the most striking and determinate effects. I believe that many persons of delicate sensibility, especially when they suffer from nervous complaints, may by that operation which I know not with what propriety is called Magnetization, be thrown into a divinatory sleep; in which, according to their frame of organization, their character, and their circumstances in life, they may have much more just perceptions than they could have had waking; and frequently discern and indicate with the most punctual accuracy things which have relation to themselves and the circumstances of their health! [Qry if rightly translated here.] cannot be more convinced that I exist, than that I have by this operation relieved in the most evident manner the bodily infirmities of my wife; and that on any new attack I am able to afford her the same relief. Whether the world ridicule or pity my weakness, its pity or its ridicule will not have the least effect on me; I know what I know and see what I see, whether what I affirm be believed or not. I disregard whether it be imagination or reality. If by imagination I am restored to health, I will prefer that beneficent imagination to the reality which renders me again diseased.

I

One word more with respect to magnetism: I consider it as a method of cure easy to be profaned, sometimes very dangerous, at all times difficult of application, not to be applied without medical caution, by no means universal in its effects, and which has been too much extolled by some, and too much degraded and decried by others."

Let any sound Christian judge whether in all this (notwithstanding the mention of profanation) there be any thing of a higher nature and origin than that spirit of the Pythian Apollo, which possessed the damsel at Philippi. Acts, xvi, 11-40.

are

But supposing the power by which the effects of Animal Magnetism produced at this day to be the same with that which was entrusted to the Apostles, in the first appearances of the Christian religion: that is, to be a degree of command over the spiritual and invisible world, sufficient to divert the course of nature, or, when disturbed to restore it-how could this, consistently with their example and the precepts of Christ, be used to inflict evil on any one-or to obtain riches, or any worldly advantage-or to promote the interests and credit of a party? Our blessed Lord's acts were manifestly the extension of Omnipotent aid to fallen and suffering humanity. All were beneficial—and he did much more than any modern priest or juggler has even pretended to do: he not only healed the sick and cast out devils, but restored the maimed to wholeness and raised the dead! Can any modern magnetist put so much as a little finger on the hand of his friend?

When Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying to the Holy Ghost, it was not Peter who did it, nor was even more pronounced than