What  has  been  said  will  also  meet  and  explain
the  difficulties  which  some  find  in  the  accounts  of
occurrences  in  heathen  lands  at  this  day  ;  mani-
festations, namely,  of  satanical  energy  attested  by
evidence  of  such  a  kind  and  in  so  many  cases,  that
no  one  can  quarrel  with  it  without  shaking  all  tes*
timony  to  its  very  foundations.  The  case  of  the
magicians  of  modem  Egypt  may  be  cited  in  point ;
the  presence  of  the  Church  being  very  feeble  there,
and  the  whole  land  being  the  Scripture  symbol  of
spiritual  darkness,  the  magicians  of  Pharaoh  may
well  have  successors  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.     This


THE  ADRIATIC  AND  iEGBAN.  495

hypothesis,  if  it  does  not  by  this  time  amount  to
something  more  in  the  reader^s  mind,  will  also  pre-
vent ns  from  finding  matter  either  for  scorn  or  self-
disturbance  in  what  are  called,  in  homely  phrase,
ghost-stories ;  and  this  will  not  be  a  slight  comfort
to  serious  persons,  for  there  are  few  of  us  who  have
not  in  our  own  families  instances  of  these  Tisitations
of  sights  and  sounds,  so  distinguished  from  halluci-
nation and  so  authenticated  even  by  parental  lips,
that  we  could  not  reject  them  without  an  offence  to
natural  piety.
There  is  an  ancient  tradition  that  our  Blessed  Lord,
when  on  earth,  was  never  seen  to  smile.  It  is  an
interesting  and  awful  tradition,  if  it  be  true;  in*
teresting,  as  concerning  our  Lord,  and  awful,  as
magnifying  the  work  of  our  redemption,  in  that  it
depressed  His  spirit  continually,  and  as  indicating,
perhaps,  what  a  fearful  place  this  earth  is,  could  we
see  it  aright.  Probably  such  trains  of  thought  as  the
above  may  help  to  deepen  our  awe  of  common
things.
