whom she should call. Sir Walter Scott appears to think that it was at the appearance of Samuel that she was so surprised and terrified, but this was plainly not the cause of her fright, for it was on finding out that the person before whom she had exerted her power was the King of Israel, who had put many of her sisterhood to death, and from whom, therefore, she had great cause to fear her own doom, as indeed, she herself says, suspecting a snare had been laid for her life. How she learned that it was Saul who had come to her in disguise, does not appear, but she had instant intimation of it when the ghost came at the bidding of the demon, who acted under her direction. She showed no fear at the spiritual being whom her power had raised, and it is not likely that she would, when she had a familiar spirit with whom she was used to be intimate, and who did her errands.* We have no reason to suspect that Samuel threatened her for disturbing him, for he blamed the king, who indeed was the proper person to find fault with for it, not the enchantress, who exclaimed to the king-"Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. And the king said unto her, Be not afraid." Evidently meaning of himself, or that although she had, as she expresses it, put her life in her hand, he would do her no harm. The king could only answer for himself-for the woman's having nothing to fear from him; but he could not assure her with regard to the spirit as to danger from which, she herself was the best judge what she had to expect.

The supposition that the witch did not expect the spirit of Samuel, but merely intended to deceive by some trick, and that she was afraid of it when it appeared before her, from its being entirely unexpected, proceeds greatly from the idea, that all such reported powers were only delusions, in the same way as these are sometimes now practised on

* « I have been looking at the passage again, said Lord Byron, and do not see that distinction you make about the witch of Endor having been afraid when Samuel's ghost appeared, as an apparition which she did not expect."

Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron, and others, p. 235.

the ignorant,-an idea not warranted when the realities of the accounts are so undoubtingly mentioned in Scripture, and no one can take them for metaphorical. Nothing can be more natural than to believe from the account, that the sudden disclosure of the extreme hazard the witch stood in, was the cause of her exclamation and apprehension; it was fully adequate to alarm her as represented, and if it was so, why fancy another, for which there is no ground in the relation itself, and then give it as one reason for doubting the account being true exactly as we find it? When she found that the great destroyer of her kind stood disguised before her, an actual witness of the power which he himself had proscribed, and attached the penalty of death to, it was no wonder that she at first supposed it a deep-laid scheme to entrap her in the most decided manner. To believe that the reason she was so startled-was the real appearance of Samuel's ghost, must presuppose that she was quite unaccustomed to such sights, and, in short, that no witches in those days could exercise a power over the spiritual world in any degree, and that they had no familiar spirits.

The words of Saul can be explained in entire consistence with the belief that it was not what she saw of the spirit that terrified her, but what she discovered on the appearance of it relative to the person before whom she was exhibiting a proof of her art. The meaning of them is as if he had said -Do not be afraid for yourself in consequence of what you have done before me, but tell me what you see :-the surprise and fear of the witch on account of her own life having made her too slow for the king's impatience to communicate what she saw. He was eager to discover his own fate, and this was his last resource, which might also fail him; his anxiety to know whether the woman had succeeded must therefore have been intense; and having the same as assured her that his visit proceeded from no wish to entrap her, we have no evidence but that she became quite composed.

If we take the scriptural account strictly as it is related, we must be satisfied that the king was perfectly assured of a supernatural presence. Indeed, those who affect to consider

the whole as a deception on the part of the woman, admit that Saul believed the appearance of the prophet's spirit although they do not, and they fain would get quit of the spiritual being by whose agency the whole was brought about, for if such supernatural agency is taken into account, a mere deception, such as an unassisted modern conjuror or cunning woman could now only practice, must appear to have been nowise likely to have been the case. Saul perceived that it was Samuel; now, although he may have been partly thus assured by the description given by the woman of the appearance of the spirit, yet he must also have been in the same place to have carried on a direct conversation with it, and there is nothing in this description of the appearance of an inhabitant of Hades, against our thinking it probable that the king really saw the spirit at the time they were speaking together, for the witch may have merely seen him first, or been alone sensible at first of his near approach. The actual appearance of the ghost to the king, however, can be but conjectural, since it is not directly affirmed. It is probable that the eyes of the king must have been supernaturally aided, before they could see a spirit ;-opened, as the Scripture expresses it; but there would not seem to us to be any greater physical impossibility in our natural vision perceiving a spiritual being, than in hearing one speak. If Saul's ears were opened for the purpose, it is probable that his eyes were so likewise.

In the New Testament, we have an instance of the disembodied spirit of a man being seen by those alive on the earth, and this was at the Transfiguration on the mount, where the soul of Moses was rendered visible to several of the disciples.

"And behold there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." "I grant it possible," says Dr. Isaac Watts, "that these might be but mere visions, which appeared to our blessed Saviour and his Apostles, but it is a much more natural and obvious

interpretation to suppose that the spirits of these two great men, whereof one was the institutor, and the other the reformer of the Jewish Church, did actually appear to Christ, and converse with him about the important event of his death and return to heaven. Perhaps the spirit of Elijah had his heavenly body with him there; he never died, but was carried alive to heaven,* but Moses gave up his soul at the call of God when no man was near him, and his body was buried by God himself,† and his spirit was probably made visible to mortal eyes only by an assumed vehicle for that purpose."‡ By a vision we commonly understand some representation of which our spirits are sensible while we are asleep; but we are expressly informed that at least part of the scene at the transfiguration was seen by the disciples when they were awake. They were heavy or overpowered by sleep when their master's whole appearance first changed, but they saw it when they awoke. He seemed to them too dazzling to look upon. St. Matthew describes his face as shining like the sun, and his raiment of a brilliant whiteness. They saw two men-two living beings like men-in conversation with Christ, having likewise a glorious appearance; the disciples heard these speak; understood what they said; but it does not appear that they took any direct notice of the disciples. The latter, while still strongly affected by their amazement, spoke to their Master when the prophets were departing, and then a bright cloud enveloped them. Why the disciples should be afraid in particular at seeing them entering into the cloud, we cannot explain, for the whole scene was deeply calculated to inspire fear in the spectators. The voice of the Father Almighty was heard coming from the cloud, addressed to the followers of our Lord. All this must have been far beyond a mere vision, or the unsubstantial pageant of a dream, as Dr. Watts admits the possibility of its being. The disciples were evidently allowed with their waking bodily eyes to behold an interview of glorious beings-the mission

* 2 Kings ii. 11.

↑ See Campbell's translation of Luke, ix. 34.

+ Deut. xxxiv. 5—7.

of the prophets to the earth, we are told, was in order to converse with Christ on the subject of his departure, and the meeting must have been of a much greater mysterious importance than is recorded. Connected with his departure was his going to Hades, and his reception there. Dr. Watts believes they may have conversed about our Lord's return to heaven, which may have been one topic in this memorable conference; but it is probable that his visit to the souls of the departed formed one principal object of the meeting, because during the time his spirit was to be with them, he as a man would be under the power of death, and his death, we are told, was the subject of this conversation. Elijah may have come from the highest heaven, as he left this earth with his body in a miraculous manner, and was therefore in that respect in a very different condition or state of preparation for it, from those whose bodies still rest in this sublunary scene of their pilgrimage. The spirit of Moses, on the other hand, had not its material body, as far as we know, and therefore we are justified in supposing, that it had come from the general receptacle of spirits. For the arrival there of so great and heavenly a Being as our Lord-one, too, who had just shown himself so warm a friend to the whole human race-who had given to both the dead and the living-to the separated souls as well as to those who were in the body, a claim through his merits to enter into heaven on the day, emphatically called his day, we may naturally infer there might be necessary preparations to make; that all the spirits, for instance, might be warned to be ready to receive him with every demonstration of honour. He had but a short time to stay, and intended to proclaim the glad tidings to them-that he had reconciled our fallen race to God. To the antediluvian spirits in particular, it would seem he intended to address himself, and therefore they may have had all to be convened for the purpose, and prepared to meet him. An immediate and general liberation from Hades he did not mean to promise to the disembodied spirits there, but even a certain prospect of being reunited to bodies, and of being sometime admitted to heaven, must have been intelligence fraught with exceeding great joy to millions of them. It is remarkable