three evangelists who relate the history, none gives it so fully and minutely as St. Mark.
We see, in the first place, in these verses, that the possession of a man's body by the devil, was a real and true thing in the time of our LoroVs earthly ministry.
It is a painful fact, that there are never wanting professing Christians who try to explain away our Lord's miracles. They endeavor to account for them by natural causes, and to show that they were not worked by any extraordinary power. Of all miracles, there are none which they assault so strenuously as the casting out of devils. They do not scruple to deny Satanic possession entirely. They tell us that it was nothing more than lunacy, or frenzy, or epilepsy, and that the idea of the devil inhabiting a man's body is absurd.
The best and simplest answer to such sceptical ob-
to these last circumstances, sudden squalls or storms are reported by all travellers to be very common on the lake.
The sea of Galilee and the country surrounding it, were favored with more of our blessed Lord's presence, during His earthly ministry, than any other part of Palestine. Capernaum, Tiberias, Bethsaida, and the country of the Gergesenes were all on its shores, or in the immediate neighborhood of this lake. It was on the sea of Galilee that our Lord walked. It was on its shore that He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection. Sitting in a boat on its waters and in a house hard by, He delivered the seven parables recorded in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew. On its banks, He called Peter, and Andrew, James and John. From it, He commanded His disciples to draw the miraculous draught of fishes. Within sight of it, He twice fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes. On its shore, He healed the man possessed with devils ; and into it the two thou- sand swine plunged headlong after that miracle had been wrought.
Few localities in the Holy Land were so immediately connected with our Lord's ministry as the sea of Galilee and the country round it.
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jections, is a reference to the plain narratives of the Gos- pels, and especially to the one before ns at this moment. The facts here detailed are utterly inexplicable, if we do not believe Satanic possession. It is notorious that lunacy, and frenzy, and epilepsy are not infectious com- plaints, and at any rate cannot be communicated to a herd of swine ! And yet men ask us to believe, that as soon as this man was healed, two thousand swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, from a sudden impulse, without any apparent cause to account for their so doing ! Such reasoning is the height of credulity. When men can satisfy themselves with such explanations, they are in a pitiable state of mind.
Let us beware of a sceptical and incredulous spirit in all matters relating to the devil. No doubt there is much in the subject of Satanic possession which we clo not understand, and cannot explain. But let us not therefore refuse to believe it. The eastern king who would not believe in the possibility of ice, because he lived in a hot country, and had never seen it, was not more foolish than the man who refuses to believe in Satanic posses- sion, because he never saw a case himself, and cannot understand it. We may be sure, that upon the subject of the devil and his power, we are far more likely to believe too little than too much. Unbelief about the existence and personality of Satan, has often proved the first step to unbelief about God.
We see, in the second place, in these verses, what an jiirfidly cruel, powerful, and malicious being Satan is. On all these three points, the passage before us is full of instruction.