lics and Protestants, upon this and innumerable other passages in
both the Old and New Testaments, gave rise, through the special
influence of Christian ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions
and judicial murders of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women,
and children. And when I reflect that the record of a plain and simple
declaration upon such an occasion as this, that the belief in witchcraft
and possession is wicked nonsense, would have rendered the long agony of
mediaeval humanity impossible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonouring,
the supposition that such declaration was withheld out of condescension
to popular error.

"Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man" (Mark v. 8)[32] are
the words attributed to Jesus. If I declare, as I have no hesitation in
doing, that I utterly disbelieve in the existence of "unclean spirits,"
and, consequently, in the possibility of their "coming forth" out of a
man, I suppose that Dr. Wace will tell me I am disregarding the
testimony "of our Lord." For, if these words were really used, the most
resourceful of reconcilers can hardly venture to affirm that they are
compatible with a disbelief "in these things." As the learned and
fair-minded, as well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander remarks, in an editorial
note to the article "Demoniacs" in the "Biblical Cyclopaedia" (vol. i. p.
664, note):--

... On the lowest grounds on which our Lord and His Apostles
can be placed they must, at least, be regarded as _honest_
men. Now, though honest speech does not require that words
should be used always and only in their etymological sense,
it does require that they should not be used so as to affirm
what the speaker knows to be false. Whilst, therefore, our
Lord and His Apostles might use the word [Greek:
daimonizesthai], or the phrase, [Greek: daimonion echein], as
a popular description of certain diseases, without giving in
to the belief which lay at the source of such a mode of
expression, they could not speak of demons entering into a
man, or being cast out of him, without pledging themselves to
the belief of an actual possession of the man by the demons.
(Campbell, _Prel. Diss._ vi. 1, 10.) If, consequently, they
did not hold this belief, they spoke not as honest men.

The story which we are considering does not rest on the authority of the
second Gospel alone. The third confirms the second,