behind, with as
much suppleness as if she had neither nerves nor joints. There was
nothing supernatural in all that; she had exercised herself from
extreme youth in these movements, and had contracted the habit of
performing them.

St. Augustine[267] speaks of a soothsayer whom he had known at
Carthage, an illiterate man, who could discover the secrets of the
heart, and replied to those who consulted him on secret and unknown
affairs. He had himself made an experiment on him, and took to witness
St. Alypius, Licentius, and Trygnius, his interlocutors, in his
dialogue against the Academicians. They, like him, had consulted
Albicerius, and had admired the certainty of his replies. He gives us
an instance--a spoon which had been lost. They told him that some one
had lost something; and he instantly, without hesitation, replied that
such a thing was lost, that such a one had taken it, and had hid it in
such a place, which was found to be quite true.

They sent him a certain quantity of pieces of silver; he who was
charged to carry them had taken away some of them. He made the person
return them, and perceived the theft before the money had been shown
to him. St. Augustine was present. A learned and distinguished man,
named Flaccianus, wishing to buy a field, consulted the soothsayer,
who declared to him the name of the land, which was very
extraordinary, and gave him all the details of the affair in question.
A young student, wishing to prove Albicerius, begged of him to declare
to him what he was thinking of; he told him he was thinking of a verse
of Virgil; and, as he then asked him which verse it was, the diviner
repeated it instantly, though he had never studied the Latin language.

This Albicerius was a scoundrel, as St. Augustine says, who calls him
_flagitiosum hominem_. The knowledge which he had of hidden things was
not, doubtless, a gift of heaven, any more than the Pythonic spirit
which animated that maid in the Acts of the Apostles whom St. Paul
obliged to keep silence.[268] It was then the work of the evil spirit.

The gift of tongues, the knowledge of the future, and power to divine
the thoughts of others, are always adduced, and with reason, as solid
proofs of the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but if the
demon can sometimes perform the same things, he does it to mislead and
induce sin, or simply to render true prophecies doubtful; but never to
lead to truth, the fear and love of God, and th