Conscientious men still linger on who find comfort in holding fast
to some shred of the old belief in diabolic possession. The sturdy
declaration in the last century by John Wesley, that "giving up
witchcraft is giving up the Bible," is echoed feebly in the latter
half of this century by the eminent Catholic ecclesiastic in France who
declares that "to deny possession by devils is to charge Jesus and his
apostles with imposture," and asks, "How can the testimony of apostles,
fathers of the Church, and saints who saw the possessed and so declared,
be denied?" And a still fainter echo lingers in Protestant England.(411)

(411) See the Abbe Barthelemi, in the Dictionnaire de la Conversation;
also the Rev. W. Scott's Doctrine of Evil Spirits proved, London, 1853;
also the vigorous protest of Dean Burgon against the action of the New
Testament revisers, in substituting the word "epileptic" for "lunatic"
in Matthew xvii, 15, published in the Quarterly Review for January,
1882.

But, despite this conscientious opposition, science has in these latter
days steadily wrought hand in hand with Christian charity in this field,
to evolve a better future for humanity. The thoughtful physician and the
devoted clergyman are now constantly seen working together; and it is
not too much to expect that Satan, having been cast out of the insane
asylums, will ere long disappear from monasteries and camp meetings,
even in the most unenlightened regions of Christendom.

CHAPTER XVII. FROM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.

I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.

Among the sciences which have served as entering wedges into the heavy
mass of ecclesiastical orthodoxy--to cleave it, disintegrate it, and let
the light of Christianity into it--none perhaps has done a more striking
work than Comparative Philology. In one very important respect the
history of this science differs from that of any other; for it is the
only one whose conclusions theologians have at last fully adopted as
the result of their own studies. This adoption teaches a great lesson,
since, while it has destroyed theological views cherished during many
centuries, and obliged the Church to accept theories directly contrary
to the plain letter of our sacred books, the result is clearly seen to
have helped Christianity rather than to have hurt it. It has certainly
done much to clear our religious foundations of the dogmatic rust which
was eating into th