cred penman who records their conversation, appears as little doubtful as the king. And Saul, says he, perceived that it was Samuel, and Samuel said. The son of Sirach also, who is thought to have written two centuries before the Christian era, expresses himself on this topic with the same unhesitating confidence. To a brief account of Samuel's life and character, he subjoins-and after his death he prophesied and showed the king his end, and lift up his voice from the earth in prophecy, to blot out the wickedness of the people.* Josephus, a contemporary of the Apostles, relates the story, without betraying the smallest suspicion that it was not the soul of Samuel who, on that occasion, conversed with Saul.t So that whatever was the real case, we are warranted to conclude, that the reality of such appearances after death, and consequently of such a state of departed spirits as above described, were standing articles in the popular creed of the Jewish nation."

Sir Walter Scott has discussed the story of the Witch of Endor in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, but calls it a dark and difficult question, and leaves "to those whose studies have qualified them, to give judgment on so obscure a subject." The remarks, however, of such a man, must be considered interesting; and I shall subjoin a part of them, on which I shall make a few observations.

Sir Walter appears to wish, if possible, to suggest some other explanation of the scriptural account, than that it really was the spirit of the prophet; but, although there are to us some very unaccountable things involved in the transaction as we find it recorded, we are not warranted in believing that the story is untrue, and only founded on deception. Sir W. after noticing what led to the interview, observes, that the-"Scripture proceeds to give us the general information, that the king directed the witch to call up the spirit of Samuel, and that the female exclaimed, that

* Ecclus. xlvi. 20.

Dr. Campbell's 6th dissertation.

+ Antiq. Lib. vi. c. 15.

gods had arisen out of the earth-that Saul more particularly requiring a description of the apparition, (whom consequently he did not himself see,) she described it as the figure of an old man with a mantle. In this figure the king acknowledges the resemblance of Samuel, and sinking on his face, hears, from the apparition speaking in the character of the prophet, the melancholy prediction of his own defeat and death.

"In this description, though all is told which is necessary to convey to us an awful moral lesson, yet we are left ignorant of the minutia attending the apparition." "It is impossible, for instance, to know with certainty whether Saul was present when the woman used her conjuration, or whether he himself personally ever saw the appearance which the Pythoness described to him. It is left still more doubtful whether any thing supernatural was actually evoked, or whether the witch and her assistant meant to practise a mere deception, taking their chance to prophesy the defeat and death of the broken-spirited king, as an event which the circumstances in which he was placed rendered highly probable, since he was surrounded by a superior army of Philistines, and his character as a soldier rendered it likely that he would not survive a defeat, which must involve the loss of his kingdom. On the other hand, admitting that the apparition had really a supernatural character, it remains equally uncertain what was its nature, or by what power it was compelled to an appearance, unpleasing, as it intimated, since the supposed spirit of Samuel asks wherefore he was disquieted in the grave. Was the power of the witch over the invisible world so great that she could disturb the sleep of the just, and especially that of a prophet so important as Samuel; and are we to suppose that he, upon whom the spirit of the Lord was wont to descend, even while he was clothed with frail mortality, should be subject to be disquieted in his grave, at the voice of a vile witch, and the command of an apostate prince? Did the true Deity refuse Saul the response of his prophets, and could a witch compel the actual spirit of Samuel to make answer notwithstanding?

"Embarrassed by such difficulties," as Sir W. acknowledges himself to be, he gives two hypotheses as attempts at explanation of the mystery; but these, he admits, are again subject to other objections.

We must, however, believe the account in the Bible to be true as related, and not substitute our own fancies, because we cannot explain every thing in a satisfactory manner, and especially as the real appearance of Samuel's spirit is confirmed, as Sir. W. himself notices, in other places of Scripture. To criticise an account in Holy Writ, and doubt the plain statements in it, the same as might be done to a modern witch story, is wrong; for we ought most certainly to view it in a very different light.

In the passage I have just quoted, the author speaks of the spirit of Samuel, as having been awaked out of sleep, and of having been disquieted in the grave; but there is no authority for saying that the ghost had been either sleeping, or in the grave; and, indeed, in the next page, Sir W. says that it was the sins and discontents of Saul which were the ultimate cause of Samuel's appearance, and-" had withdrawn the prophet for a space from the enjoyment and repose of heaven:"-thus also admitting the reality of his appear

ance.

We have little more reason to believe that the soul of Samuel was in heaven, than that it was in the grave. Both the king and the witch speak of bringing him up, and Samuel asks why he was brought up, meaning from the region of departed spirits, where they all, good and bad, were then supposed to reside in a great place, believed to be below the earth, which the ancients imagined to be of unlimited extent.

"In the conversation between Saul and the ghost of Samuel, the prophet said to the king-To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, which does not imply that their condition would be the same, although each would have his place in the receptacle of departed spirits.'

* Dr. Campbell.

"

To suppose the witch should be so bold, after the naturally described terror she was in on discovering the king, as to prompt any ventriloquial deception such as what the sacred writing terms "the words of Samuel,”-prophecies so unwelcome to the royal ear, and so like what we might expect the prophet to have uttered, is too much beyond all probability, and shows a very blameable want of confidence on the direct and plain statements in the inspired record, especially as the spirit or voice was so explicit on several most important points, announced, too, in sublime terms, as the will of the Almighty-the whole having come to pass as predicted.

Sir Walter's further notion, that the apparition might have been a good angel sent by God to personate or speak in the character of Samuel, and to the surprise of the witch who merely meant to practise a deception, can be believed by no one who will attentively read the passage, and if we were always at liberty to have recourse to mere conjectures of our own in opposition to what we find written, there would be no end to them, and none would know in what to have faith. It is as easy to believe that it really was the spirit of the prophet, as that of a good angel, and it could not be, of course, imagined that a witch, by the assistance of a demon, could bring a good angel down on any occasion, or that God would attend and assist their incantation, by ordering one of his holy angels to answer it by appearing and joining in the deception!

Sir W. in fancying the witch to have either practised or intended a mere act of legerdemain, does not sufficiently attend to the preliminary information, that the woman was enabled to exercise supernatural power by the aid of a familiar spirit or demon; and it is clear from Holy writ, that such an order of spirits were once allowed power over mortals, or to assist them when not controlled by a higher influence. Saul desired the woman to divine to him by her familiar spirit, and he evidently had no doubt that she could actually bring the ghost of Samuel, or that he conversed with the prophet's spirit, whose voice or style of speaking

must have been familiar to him. We are not at liberty to suppose, from any obscurity in the narration, that the woman merely meant to produce some phantasm to deceive, when Saul had such full confidence in her power by the aid mentioned, and he must have had strong reason for judging from similar cases with which he must have been well acquainted. Neither should we fancy that it was not the ghost of Samuel, but "some good being," or "benevolent angel personating him," for the one is as inexplicable as the other. It may now appear improbable to us that a familiar spirit should have power to bring a soul from Hades, even for a moment, but it is much more likely that a spirit should be brought from this place than from Heaven, or that region where bodies and souls reunited are to dwell for

ever.

We read that the witch was enabled to see the form of the spirit, although Saul could not; her eyes were opened to behold what our eyes in their common state could not; so her vision must have been supernaturally assisted. Aided by such a powerful and wise Being as we may safely assume any "familiar spirit" must be, in comparison with man, it is rather making light of such to say, as Sir Walter Scott does, that "the witch was a mere fortune-teller," on a level, perhaps, with a Scottish Spae-wife, with the real extent of whose powers, the author must be more familiar than with those of the scriptural times. He owns, too, that the king, "in some way or other, obtained the awful certainty of his own defeat and death;" so here is an admission of an actual communication with the spiritual world on the occasion, and not in the least less wonderful if any other spirit had made it than that of the prophet. When the opinion of an author is, that the whole story conveys to us "an awful moral lesson," the circumstances related should not be examined with that incredulity which would reasonably endeavour to account on natural grounds for a modern apparition story.

The witch seems to have been enabled to bring the spirit of any deceased person, for she gave the king his choice