CHAPTER X.
The inexorable logic of facts. Saul and the witch of Endor. Influence of Elisha's bones. The widow's son. Ideas about ghosts--about their power. Papal belief in ghosts. Ritual for exorcisms. St. Dunstan and St. Anthony. The Bible and ghosts. Scriptural ghosts. Ghosts independent of Judaism and Christianity. Japanese story. Buddhist priests, like Papalists, exorcise ghosts professionally. Ancient Grecian ghosts. Stories from Homer, Herodotus, Iamblichus. Modern French ghosts. Latin ghosts. Ghosts and lunacy. Ghosts and spiritualism. Mistakes of clairvoyantes.
It is not until we systematically inquire into certain tenets of our own belief, and compare or contrast them with those of other people far removed from us, that we are able to form an opinion about how much we owe to what we call "our peculiar religion," and how much we hold in common with other distant members of the human family.
It is probable that there is scarcely a "Bible Christian" in Great Britain who is not impressed with the truth of the statement made in 2 Tim. i. 10--_viz_., that Christ abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel. But the inexorable logic of facts proves to us that the idea of a life after death existed even amongst some ancient Jews--a people to whom it was certainly not revealed by God--and amongst nations who have not to this day become acquainted with Jesus, or what we call the Gospel, and who are mainly influenced by the doctrines of Buddha.
To give examples: no one can read the very fabulous story of the Witch of Endor and Saul without recognizing the fact, that both the one and the other are represented by the historian to have believed, that, though the body of the prophet Samuel had been rotting for a long period in its tomb, the spirit of the man was yet existent. Nor does a Bible Christian see anything peculiar in the miracle of the restoration of the dead man mentioned in 2 Kings xiii. 21, who, when he touched the mouldy bones of Elisha, which represented all that was left, on earth, of that distinguished wonder-worker, at once revived, and stood upon his feet. But the story forces us to believe that the Hebrew writer, who had no revelation from Jehovah about a future life, was, from some cause or other, obliged to allow that the prophet had some sort of existence after his decease. A similar remark may be made respecting the story of the widow's son, given in 1 Kings xvii. 17-23, in which it is clear that both the mother of the child and the prophet believed it to be dead, although the latter acted as if there was yet its living spirit existing somewhere, and capable of being recalled. No simple figure of speech will explain away the doctrine referred to, for there is reference distinctly made to the idea of a life independent of that of the body.
It may well be supposed, that the very extraordinary tales spoken of were introduced into the ancient books by modern Pharisees, as proofs of their faith being superior to that of the Sadducees--it is, indeed, probable that they were so; but into this point we will not enter. We pass by, in like manner, the real signification of the English word "ghost," and make no reference to the idea of there being a Holy, in contradistinction to a profane, vulgar, and unholy, ghost We may also omit anything more than a bare allusion to the fact that the third member of the Trinity, as it is called, appeared in forms recognizable by the eye; and that when it assumed an overshadowing condition (Luke