seized with cramp while in the water,
and drowned before assistance could reach him. Thus the father's
astrological calculations proved correct.

DIVINATION AND ORACLES.

CHAPTER XL.

Divination--Heathen Gods giving Signs--Sortes
Pr[oe]nestinae--St. Augustine's View of
Divination--Sortes Sanctorum--Divination in the Greek
and Latin Churches--Ceremonies at the Consecration of
Bishops, etc.--Declarations of the Divine Will--How
St. Consortia became a Nun--Responses--Hieroglyphic
Texts--Oracles--Sorcery and Divination among the
Jews--Training of Rabbins--Bath-Kool--Death of a
Friend foretold--Recovery from Sickness made
known--Plutarch on Oracles--Malthus's Belief in
Oracles--A Missionary's Opinion--Sibylline
Oracles--Various Modes of
Divination--Alectoromantia--Belomancy--Divination by
means of Rods--Cleromancy--Napoleon's Belief in
Cleromancy--Questions and Answers.

Divination is an art of foretelling future events by supernatural
means. The word is generally understood to denote fortune-telling or
sorcery, performed in divers ways--such as by the inspection of
planets, stars, clouds; consulting spirits, witches, magicians;
watching the flight of birds, inspecting the entrails of beasts and
human victims, and examining the lines of the hand. But it is not
necessary to extend the list here, as the various methods of
divination will be enumerated and explained as we proceed. It was a
maxim with the heathen nations of antiquity, that, if there were gods,
they cared for men; and if they had any regard for the human family,
they would give signs of their will. The Sortes Pr[oe]nestinae were
famous among the Greeks; and this superstition passed into Christian
nations.

St. Augustine did not disapprove of divination being resorted to,
provided it was not used for worldly purposes. Gilbert of Nogent says
that in his time (about the beginning of the twelfth century) it was
customary, at the consecration of bishops, to consult the Sortes
Sanctorum, to ascertain the success, fate, and other particulars of
their episcopate. Many divines held that the lot was conducted by
Providence. Though several popes about the eighth century disapproved
of divination, and classed it among Pagan superstitions, traces of
this mode of searching into futurity were found in after ages in the
Greek and Latin Churches.

Upon the consecration