This eBook was produced by David Widger
From the Supernaturalism of New England, in the Democratic Review for1843.
IN this life of ours, so full of mystery, so hung about with wonders, sowritten over with dark riddles, where even the lights held by prophetsand inspired ones only serve to disclose the solemn portals of a futurestate of being, leaving all beyond in shadow, perhaps the darkest andmost difficult problem which presents itself is that of the origin ofevil,—the source whence flow the black and bitter waters of sin andsuffering and discord,—the wrong which all men see in others and feelin themselves,—the unmistakable facts of human depravity and misery. Asuperficial philosophy may attempt to refer all these dark phenomena ofman's existence to his own passions, circumstances, and will; but thethoughtful observer cannot rest satisfied with secondary causes. Thegrossest materialism, at times, reveals something of that latent dreadof an invisible and spiritual influence which is inseparable from ournature. Like Eliphaz the Temanite, it is conscious of a spirit passingbefore its face, the form whereof is not discerned.
It is indeed true that our modern divines and theologians, as if to atonefor the too easy credulity of their order formerly, have unceremoniouslyconsigned the old beliefs of Satanic agency, demoniacal possession, andwitchcraft, to Milton's receptacle of exploded follies and detectedimpostures,
"Over the backside of the world far off,
Into a limbo broad and large, and called
The paradise of fools,"—
that indeed, out of their peculiar province, and apart from the routineof their vocation, they have become the most thorough sceptics andunbelievers among us. Yet it must be owned that, if they have not themarvellous themselves, they are the cause of it in others. In certainstates of mind, the very sight of a clergyman in his sombre professionalgarb is sufficient to awaken all the wonderful within us. Imaginationgoes wandering back to the subtle priesthood of mysterious Egypt. Wethink of Jannes and Jambres; of the Persian magi; dim oak groves, withDruid altars, and priests, and victims, rise before us. For what is thepriest even of our New England but a living testimony to the truth of thesupernatural and the reality of the unseen,—a man of mystery, walking inthe shadow of the ideal world,—by profession an expounder of spiritualwonders? Laugh he may at the old tales of astrology and witchcraft anddemoniacal possession; but does he not believe and bear testimony to hisfaith in the reality of that dark essence which Scripture more than hintsat, which has modified more or less all the religious systems andspeculations of the heathen world,—the Ahriman of the Parsee, the Typhonof the Egyptian, the Pluto of the Roman mythology, the Devil of Jew,Christian, and Mussulman, the Machinito of the Indian,—evil in theuniverse of goodness, darkness in the light of divine intelligence,—initself the great and crowning mystery from which by no unnatural processof imagination may be deduced everything which our forefathers bel