duality, and never forgets its perfect dependence and connection with God and the outer world. The contents of these visions are the common circumstances of life-religious as well as civil; the words are teachings of truth, given clearly and intelligibly to all men and ages. The prophet neither seeks nor finds happiness in the state of ecstasy, but, in his divine vocation, to spread the word of God; not in an exclusive contempt, but in the instructing and active working among his brethren. The true prophet does not, therefore, sink into inner speculations, and forget even himself in his imaginative world, but retains his living connection with God and his neighbour in word and deed. As, in the higher states of inspiration, the causes and the manifestations vary, so do also the motives and the consequences.

The Brahminic seers complained of the gradual retrogression of the mind from its pristine radiance towards perishable nature, and the dominion of death, according to the various stages of the world, and deplored the misery, the dissatisfaction, the deterioration connected with it: all this we find in the mind and body of the degenerated heathen nations of India. On the contrary, how has not the illumination of the mind increased through the prophets of Israel in respect to religion, and through that also, gradually and historically, on the civil system! The spirit of Christianity, which rests upon the west, gradually extends its peaceful influence; and while other nations are everywhere else sinking into the torpor and darkness of Paganism, mountains are here transplanted through faith, and by word and deed, and by true Christian love, trees are planted whose fruit will some time refresh the heathen, but which can only be fully ripened in another world, to which our eyes must unceasingly be directed. The magical seer lives in the intoxication of his own visions; the prophet lives in faith; and actions, not visions, are signs of holiness. "Probatio sanctitatis non est signa facere, sed unumquemque ut se diligere, Deum autem vere cognoscere," says St. Gregory. If we regard all this according to the causes and the results, we shall arrive at the following conclusion:

:

According to its origin, magic vision is the work of man planted in an unhealthy ground, whether it arises voluntarily or is produced by the science of the physician. An

abnormal state of health always precedes it-sleep, and an unusually exalted state of the faculties. Visionary ecstasy has its origin particularly from the body; and, however it may be produced, nature always holds the seer with a strong hand, even when he has reached the higher stages.

Prophetic inspiration is the result of the divine spirit. The voice of God comes unexpectedly, and irrespective of the physical state. The physical powers become perfectly dependent upon the mind, which uses them for noble and pure ends: a state of sleep, with altered functions of the senses, is by no means necessary.

The magnetic ecstasist directs his attention towards objects which present themselves voluntarily, or are produced by himself, or by the skill of the physician, and the earthly life of man forms generally the sole field of his vision. He is influenced from without. The influence of the inclinations, the tendencies of human nature, are never absent in the magnetic circle of the seer; on which account his influence is but seldom of an elevated character.

There are no variations in the exhibition of the true prophet; he announces nothing from the magic circle, but alone the will of Him who is the beginning and the end. To instruct his neighbours in the divine knowledge-to spread the perception of truth and love among his fellow-men, is his one desire; he is therefore an unwearied and victorious antagonist to evil and wickedness. He seeks not anything worldlyselfishness, the passions, ambition, health, are disregarded by him. He preaches the future, not the present happiness of all, through the inspiration of God, and travels on, a mediator between God and man, gloriously radiant in word and deed. He does not seek seclusion, does not lose himself in visions and phantasies, prophesies nothing grievous, but great and universal truths to ages and nations. Armed with divine powers, he is able to perform miracles, as well upon himself as upon others. Comfort, peace of mind in suffering and trial, warnings against great dangers, the healing of grievous sickness, help in want and persecution, are his glorious powers; and to spread the dominion of Christ, and elevate mankind, is the object of his strivings. Self-advancement, and every worldly advantage, is disregarded by the men of God. The belief in His

power is the foundation of their actions; and they complete all commandments by the love they bear to all, and which is the greatest virtue.

Of the ecstatic states and visions of the Old Testament we shall have more to say at a subsequent time: but a few examples from the saints may be mentioned here. The trances of Saint Francis of Assisi are well known, in which the seraph burned the wounds of our Saviour into his body with a ray of fire; as well as the history of St. Anthony, the unwearied combatant against the temptations and attacks of the evil one; the visions and ecstasies of St. Suso, Macarius, Bernard Ignatius, and many others. The following, however, is extremely important with respect to the foregoing remarks:

"The life of St. Catharine of Siena was but short-thirtythree years, but her deeds were great and numerous. With a very weak and fragile body, she was sometimes sunk in religious meditations in her cell; at others, bearing her words of fire through cities and countries, where the people who flocked around her were taught and instructed, she entered hospitals to visit those struck by the plague, and to purify their souls; accompanied criminals to the place of execution, and excited repentance in their obstinate hearts. She even stepped into the fierce tumults of battle, like an angel of the Lord, and restrained the combatants by her own. voice; she visited the Pope at Avignon, and reconciled the Church; she changed the unbelief of sceptics into astonishment; and where her body was not able to go, there her mind operated by her fiery eloquence in hundreds of letters to the Pope, to princes, and the people. She is said to have shown a purity and inspiration in her poems which might have ranked her with Dante and Petrarch. Here is divine inspiration,-holy and miraculous power!"

St. Brigitta, a descendant of the Gothic kings, had spread so many teachings and religious writings among the people, during the fourteenth century, that the Concilium of Basle investigated her doctrines, and having found them to be true, had her words translated into every European language.

Thomas à Kempis describes the life of Lidwina, of Schiedam in the Netherlands, who was blind of one eye and weaksighted in the other, and yet saw events which took place in

other countries. She was afflicted with internal tumours, which never healed, and in which worms were produced. Her forehead and her chin split and opened. She visited the monastic establishments in spirit, and often, when receiving the sacrament, was surrounded by light: even her dark room was often illuminated in the same manner, to the terror of those about her. If any unclean person touched her, black spots were left upon her skin. "But she seized upon the hearts of all men, and her fame was spread over the whole world," says her historian; " and she performed such miracles, radiant with her own holiness, that from the rising to the setting of the sun the name of the Lord was praised in those two maidens (Lidwina and the Maid of Orleans): the Lord, who raises the lowly and humiliates the proud, and who proves that He does not regard birth and station, but chooses the weak-He who reigns in threefold majesty and glory."

Chosen from the many examples which are of a merely secondary importance and interest, a few passages from the life of St. Hildegarde may be quoted as a counterpart to the above, shewing how God is powerful in the weak, and that these, above all others, appear calculated to throw some light upon the nature of magnetic sight. Hildegarde was a Christian prophetess, who in her time exercised great influence in ecclesiastical affairs, and had visions almost more frequently than any other person on record; they were symbolical, and usually to be explained by her. For instance, she bad visions of a great mountain the colour of iron; of innumerable lamps; of a strange round instrument; of an indescribably bright light; of a woman who was of various colours; of a shining and inextinguishable fire; of a portrait of a very quick woman (procerissimæ mulieris); of a round tower as white as snow; of a strangely-shaped head ; of five animals; of a harmony floating through the purest atmosphere, etc.

From her earliest years she had visions, was continually sickly, and fell into cataleptic trances of considerable duration. In a manuscript (which is to be found in the Library at Wiesbaden, as well as some remarkable drawings of her visions), and also in her letters (S. Hildegardis, Epistolarum liber; Colonæ, 1567), she gives minute particulars con

cerning her life; from which I shall make the following

extracts:

"In her eighth year Hildegarde was placed with a very pious woman, who only gave her the Psalter to read, and brought her up in great simplicity. The power of her mind only expanded later. In her book, 'Scivias,' she says,— 'When I was twenty-four years and seven months of age, a fiery light coming from heaven filled my brain and influenced my heart-like a fire which burns not, but warms like the sun-and suddenly I had the power of expounding the Scriptures.' During the greater part of her life she was confined to her bed; but those forces which were wanting to the body were replaced by her spirit of truth and power; and while the body diminished, the intense fire of her soul increased. An inner voice commanded her to make known her visions; but it was very much against her own wish. After this communication her health became better. When Hildegarde became renowned, Pope Eugenius III., on the recommendation of his former tutor, Bernhard de Clairvaux, sent several learned men to her to gain information concerning her. The cataleptic trances were most frequent before she entered the convent at Burgen,-so much so, indeed, that the Abbot who visited her, finding that with the greatest exertion of his strength he was unable to move her head, declared her to be a divine prophetess (divina correptio.) After she had mentioned the habitation of St. Robert at Bingen, and they had refused to take her there, the Abbot came to her, and said, that in the name of God she should arise and go there.' Hildegarde immediately arose as if nothing had ever ailed her. Regarding her visions she wrote as follows to the Monk Wibertus:- God works for the glory of His name where He wishes, and not for the honour of men. In my continual anxiety I raise my hands to God, and am borne by Him like a feather carried in the wind. That which I see is not distinct as long as I am bodily occupied; but I have had visions from my childhood, when I was very sickly, until now, when I am over seventy years of age. My soul rises, by the will of God, in these visions even to the depths of the firmament, and overlooks all portions of the earth and every nation. I do not see things with the outward eyes, nor hear them with the ears, nor