lead, or other metal, upon which the writing. was engraved. Attached to each tablet was a ring, through which a stick being thrust, the whole was thus secured.

19. When it was not desirable to preserve the writing, a tablet of pine was used, covered with wax, upon which inscriptions were made with a pointed steel. Such a one as this was probably used by Zacharias when he called for "a writing table."

20. All their books were thus transcribed with the pen, making it a work of great labor and expense. But very few books consequently were written, and those only the most wealthy could obtain. One manuscript copy of the Bible, before the art of printing was discovered, would cost as much as a good library of choice works at the present day.

CHAPTER IX.

LEPROSY-DEMONIACAL POSSESSIONS.

1. LEPROSY. To this disease frequent allu sion is made in the New Testament, and a short description of it may not be uninteresting or unprofitable. Of all the diseases with which the human family has been afflicted, no one has been more fearful in its effects than the leprosy. It is far more prevalent in warm; than in cold climates.

2. It is first exhibited on the surface of the skin. Spots suddenly make their appearance upon the face about the nose and eyes, like that made by the prick of a pin or the pustules of a ringworm. These spots increase in size for a long period, until they become as large as a pea or bean they are of different colors, giving different names to the leprosy, viz., the white, the black, and the red leprosy.

3. Gradually these spots, few at first, spread over the whole body. Although the disease makes its appearance in the skin, still it is deeply seated in the bones, marrow, and joints of the body. It is inherited by children from their parents, and, ordinarily, under these circumstances does not manifest itself until the fifteenth or sixteenth year.

4. A person afflicted with it may live twenty r thirty years, and even fifty, but they will be years of indescribable suffering. Slowly, but

certainly, this dreadful malady advances from. one stage to another; the joints of the hands and the feet lose their power, the body collapses or falls together, in a manner hideous and awful.

5. Sometimes the disease commences in the extremities; the joints separate, the fingers, toes, and other members, fall off one by one, as the disease gradually approaches the vitals, and thus the poor victim beholds himself corrupting and dying by piecemeal.

6. This disease was contagious as well as hereditary, and to prevent its spread among the Jews, the Almighty, by his servant Moses, designated the wisest means for checking it. As in the first stages it may be mistaken, or may sometimes be cured, certain infallible tests were given to try the presence of the disease, and, if the infected person escaped from its deadly ravages, he again subjected himself to the inspection of the priest, and, if he pronounced him healed, he was received again into the congregation, bringing an appointed offering of doves.

7. When the disease was discovered, and proved to be the malignant and incurable kind, the person was immediately separated from the people, and obliged to dwell outside the cities and towns, away from habitations, in the wilderness and desert, making forsaken ruins and deserted tombs his home, having his food brought to him, until, the dreadful disease conquering, he was relieved by death from his foul

and horrid malady, and from his physion. und mental sufferings.

8. To distinguish these persons, they were clothed in a torn dress, with bare heads and covered chins, and when any person met them they were obliged to raise the warning cry---Unclean! unclean! As this disease was es teemed to be sent as a punishment from God, and incurable in its nature; in healing those afflicted, with one word of authority, our Lord manifested his divine power, as well as his unequaled compassion.

9. Demoniacal Possessions. Nothing has given rise to more discussion, or produced wider differences of opinion, than those miracles of Christ in which he is said to have cast out evil spirits, or devils, from persons who were possessed with them, and whose bodies had suffered greatly under their malicious tor

ments.

10. Some have supposed that these persons were lunatics, or diseased, and not literally and actually in the power of an evil angel; and they have attributed the singular spasms, prostrations, and cries, to the epilepsy, a diseased imagination, or insanity.

11. On the other hand, the clearest and inost evangelical Bible expounders, embracing some of the most profound Scripture students, adopt the opinion that almost spontaneously forces itself upon the mind of every plain and honest Christian reader, that the literal meaning of the text is the only true meaning, and these unfor

tunate persons were really subjected to the malign influence of an unclean spirit, and that the triumphs of our Lord over the powers of darkness were an essential part of the great scheme of redemption ; "for the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works <f the devil."

12. Says Dr. Campbell: "When I find mention made of the number of demons in particular possessions, their actions so expressly distinguished from those of the man possessed, conversations held by the former in regard to the disposal of themselves after expulsion, and accounts given how they were actually disposed of; when I find desires and passions ascribed pecularly to them, and similitudes taken from their conduct, which they usually observed, it is impossible for me to deny their existence, withou admitting that the sacred historians were ether deceived themselves in regard to them, or intended to deceive their readers. * Our Lord and his apostles talked and acted as if they believed that evil spirits had actually entered into those who were brought to them as possessed with devils, and as if those spirits had been actually expelled by their authority from the unhappy persons."

*

13. Bishop Porteus remarks: "There is everywhere a plain distinction made between common diseases and demoniacal possessions, vhich shows that they are totally different things. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, where the very first mention is made