Superstition and Magic

SUPERSTITION AND MAGIC.
Sec. XVII.

It is not the man who believes in a super-terrene spirit-world, reaching into that which is earthly, who on that account is superstitious, although he is considered so by those who think themselves enlightened. He assuredly believes what Scripture declares, what reason finds consistent with itself, and what experience confirms. But he who, in respect of supersensual things, and of the mysterious background of sensible things, regards as true, and allows impressions to be made on himself by, thoughts or occurrences, whose reality has neither the warranty of undoubtedly credible tradition, nor the warranty of internal force of conviction in their favour, he is rightly called superstitious; and should he, by preference, be addicted to such a

1 It is therefore superficial, when Richard Mead, whom we name by way of example, in his Medica Sacra (1749), looks on the dsemoniaci only as insani et epileptici.

pretence of mystery (jreplepya, Acts xix. 19), and act upon it —bigoted. It is thus essential to superstition, that the object which one believes, should either not exist at all, or at least should not exist in the way that he believes it; whereas faith, resting upon external and internal foundation, has for its object and substance that which is real, though invisible. Superstition, moreover, is, in spite of the unsubstantiality of its object, a tendency of the spirit and soul, neither subjectively indifferent nor objectively without relation. Not subjectively indifferent; for the surrender of man to that which is untrue, or to the truth defaced, is always a self-perversion fraught with danger, which finally makes him incapable of distinguishing between truth and untruth, and wholly incapable of perception of what is true. Not objectively without relation; for, inasmuch as the superstitious man plunges with his thought and imagination into the night-side of nature, and into the invisible world, which is the reverse side of the visible, on the one hand,—and on the other allows himself, willingly and of set purpose, to be affected thereby,—he comes into a condition of reciprocal relation thereto, which presents to the evil spirits sufficient points of connection to entangle him into increasingly mischievous delusions, and to make use of him as a serviceable instrument. In the former case, his spirit is led away further and further from sound and wholesome perception of the truth, into errors in which, confirmed by all kinds of illusory' and marvellous experiences, he loses himself more and more deeply; in the latter case, he involves himself actually with demoniacal powers. This is the great wide region of magic, which by the ancients is very rightly treated, along with the worship of idols, as a species of superstition. On the lowest stage (cf>apfj.aK€ia, Gal. v. 20), such mysterious means are used to attain certain results as owe their efficiency absolutely to something beyond any natural and experimental link of causation. One is not conscious to himself of a demoniacal co-operation; indeed, one perhaps believes himself acting altogether as an instrument of God, because divine and other holy names are invoked therein, —in such a way, nevertheless, as that the effect is expected, not from the promise given to the prayer of faith, and from powers obtained from God by means of prayer, but from the traditionally infallible operation of formulas and ceremonies. The form which is apparently the most harmless of this lowest degree of magic, is the election of days; i.e. the superstitious opinion that certain duties, if they are performed on certain days, with observance of certain rules, infallibly have a definitely good result, and are protected against evil casualties. In this case, means and end stand in no relationship; it is a blind surrender of one's self to a causality opposed to nature, or to a mocking delusion. On a higher grade, one is conscious that there are higher spiritual beings in whose strength he is speaking or acting; but regarding them as good angelic powers, he is a dupe, to the injury of himself, and of others whom he designs to serve. To this kind belongs, for the most part, the heathen magic as pseudo-theurgy,1 and the heathen soothsaying, which is essentially distinct from the Israelitish prophecy (Num. xxiii. 23). To this belongs the Jewish practical Cabbala (retym r63p); the visionary heretical gnosis (Col. ii. 18), of which the pastoral epistles give warning, as of that which is falsely so called divine magic (magia tlieurgica), with its secret books, named after Adam, Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Solomon, and others. To this also belong the modern magnetic oracular speech, and the magnetic necromancy which are especially at home in Paris and in London, and which are only a new form of the old Godcontemning disorder that was condemned by law (Deut. xviii. 11) and prophecy (Isa. viii. 19). On the highest grade, a man is willingly and knowingly in covenant with evil spirits, w hether it be that, without intending thereby to revolt from God, he has surrendered himself to them in exchange for some deceiving assistances and glittering distinctions, or that, driven by enmity against God, he has attached himself to the side of Satan, and of the powers of the kingdom of darkness 2 enlisted under his banner. In the first two degrees, the characteristic of an evil design is not absolutely essential to magic;3 but, in this third

1 It was called in the imperial age of Rome, ars mathematica.

* "Diabolus," says the author of the Quststiones v. et N. Test., " non speciale nomen est, sed commune; operis enim nomen eat, non natune."

3 This in opposition to Aberle, who, in his clear-sighted article " Zauberei"inthe Wetzer- Welteschen Kirchen-Lexikon, declares that this is an essential characteristic of all magical agency, that it proceeds from an evil will. Chr. A. Orusius has rightly avoided adopting this characteristic into the definition. He defines: Magia est genus superstitionis, ubi adhibitis formulis certis et ritibus per se ad affectum non aptis vel saltern non sufficientibus,

degree, and the highest of all, it is human and demoniac activity combined for evil purposes.

All these kinds of magic are strictly forbidden and rejected in Scripture, with an acknowledgment of their objective dark background1 (Deut. xviii. 10-12; Jer. xxvii. 9; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6; Mic. v. 11; Gal. v. 20). The church has from the beginning lifted up her earnestly warning voice against it:* nevertheless they are all still current in the present day, from the sympathetic cures, the election of days, the fortune-telling by cards, even to the conjuration of the dead; and still further, even to formal compacts with evil spirits, and formal obligation to Satan, which usually ends in despair. These kinds of superstition and of magic it is not the problem of psychology to set forth individually, but rather of the demonologic part of dogmatics; and it is the office of ethics to warn against them. But psychology, in explaining the natural condition of man,

ope potentiae, quse superat humanam, qusque suas operationes his conditionibus adstringit, certi effectus vel prsestantur vel tentantur.

1 Proof: The Egyptian magicians in Moses' time, whose magical works are related as such, not as jugglers' tricks (Ex. vii. 11, viii. 8); Balaam, whose incantation is regarded as a power from which Jehovah saved Israel (Josh. xxiv. 10); the witch of Endor, who actually disturbs the spirit of Samuel from his repose (1 Sam. xxviii. 15); and, according to Scripture, there are satanic miracles which, in the time of the end, will deceive many (2 Thess. ii. 9; Apoo. xiii. 13-15, xix. 20, xvi. 14). It is therefore false when Aberle maintains that the objective reality of magical agency cannot he proved from the Holy Scripture.

2 To the teachers whose writings are full of the most terrible warnings of this kind, belongs first of all Augustine, who, prior to his conversion, glanced deeply into this abyss. Thus he says, e.g., in respect of the election of fortunate days, Sermo de temp. 215: "Quia audivimus, quod aliquos viros aut mulieres ita diabolus circumveniat, ut quinta feria nec viri opera faciant nec mulieres lanificium, coram Deo ct Sanctis angelis ejus contestamur, quia, quicunque hoc observare voluerint, nisi per prolixam et duram pcenitentiam tale sacrilegium emendaverint, ubi arsurus est diabolus, ibi et ipsi damnandi sunt." And Serm. 241: "Ego me apud Deum absolvo, dum iterum atque iterum admoueo paritcr et contestor, ut nullus ex vobis carragos vel divinos sortileges requirat nec de qualibet eos aut causa aut infirmitate interroget." And Tract, xiii. in Joan.: "Contra mirabiliarios, ut ita dicam, istos cautum me fecit Deus meus, dicens: In novissimis temporibus exsurgent pseudo-prophetse. . . Ergo cantos nos fecit sponsus, qui et miraculis decipi non debemus." Thus spoke the church, while at the same time the synagogue, as the Talmuds show, was becoming ever more securely entangled in the net of superstition and magic.

as we are doing in this Division, cannot avoid drawing attention to the demoniacal region, by which the natural condition of man is surrounded on all sides as the earth is by the atmosphere, or, according to a talmudic image, as the vine by the heap of mould; and from which dangers are threatening man, all the greater in proportion as he has become in addition, in consequence of the fall, the more related and the more accessible to these powers of darkness.

We revert here once again to the already more than once mentioned subject of somnambulism. That which we said of possession in the Gospels is true also of this state. Antiquity has nothing to produce that veils itself under this phenomenon. The waking intercourse with the outer world in some other than the customary way of the senses, the rapport, the absence of memory on the part of the person awakened, and the waking up of the memory immediately upon the re-entrance into a similar condition,—these are four characteristics which are thus found associated in no analogous phenomenon of antiquity.1 Most of the cases of ecstasy are distinguished from the somnambulists, by the fact that the ecstasy comes on without intervening sleep as an immediate consequence of the convulsions. But Tertullian's Exstatica, of whom we made mention above (Sec. XIII.), even apart from the fact that she did not see in the condition of sleep, is distinct from a somnambulist, because of the remembrance of what was seen abiding with her after the ecstasy. And the maid at Philippi (Acts xvi. 16-18) runs in broad daylight after the apostles, while the state of the somnambulist is always, even when sleep-walking is

1 It is in vain that Ennemoser (Gesch. des thier. Magnetismus), Passavant, J. A. G. Meyer (Natur-Analogien, 1839), Steinbeck (Der Dichter ein Seher, 1836), Choulant (Vorlesung ilber den Animal. Magn. 1840), Mayo1 (Wahrheiten im Vulksaberglauben, 1854), and others, have sought to allege similar instances of antiquity. When Aberle (art. Verziickung in Wetzer- Welteschen K.L.) says that somnambulism has been long known, and that Augustine relates several cases, it is an assertion that leads to error. The energnumenoi mentioned by Augustine in lib. xii. de Genesi ad literam, are, more closely considered, very different from somnambulists.

[l Is this book perhaps Mayhew On tin Truths contained in Popular Superstitions?—Tr.]

associated with it, a sleeping state. Moreover, the somnambulist himself makes a distinction between himself and the spirits with which he has intercourse; while that maid does not speak herself, but a irvevf>ui irvdwvo<; speaks out of her, making use of her organs of speech, which spirit the apostle drives out. Even in the cases in which the ancient magic produced conditions of clairvoyance, it occurred through other means than the irradiation of magnetical power; and the effect was a condition similar indeed to somnambulism, but still not identical with it.1 As Scripture mentions no special somnambulists, somnambulism might appear to lie altogether beyond the region of biblical psychology; but still it is within its region, inasmuch as, if anywhere at all, we must expect a well-founded judgment upon the subject from biblical psychology. In order to obtain this, the spontaneous somnambulism (Idiosomnambulism) and that which is induced by magnetic agency must be distinguished; whereby it may be observed, that the latter does not appear in all, but only in rare cases of magnetic agency, as the climax of the other symptomatic conditions. But it is always the boundary of the present and future, on which the somnambulist finds himself planted, at one time by the immediate direction of God, at the other by human instrumentality. The true religious-moral ground of his inward nature, withdrawn back upon itself, and thus mightily empowered, which in the waking state could not manifest itself, becomes evident. And they are actually agencies of God and of spirits which go forth upon the clairvoyant, and are reflected in his internal nature2 laid open towards the spiritual world. So far as in this phenomenon there is an evidence to confound materialistic unbelief, and as there is always presented to the so-called reli

1 Thus, e.g., the magical practice of the oriental mustantikGn (iticantatores) places boys, in order to have clear insight, and to predict, in a benumbed state, but through enchanted potions and the like. The fact still occurs, and is attested. See thereupon Fleischer, in the Catalogue of MSS. of the Leipzig Town Library, p. 505.

* Both very plainly in Selma, the Jewish Female Seer (1838). The glimpses of light coming from above, and features of the father in the son, are here unmistakcable. But the cloud, with its phantasmagoria;, which lies thereupon, remains unbroken. Noticeable is her confession, "I have never been able to see quite clearly" (p. 121), and "no man can see quite clearly and live" (p. 106).

gious somnambulists the separate future destiny of the pious and the godless in a manner corresponding to the divine holiness, it suggests a loud call to repentance. Moreover, it is not to be denied, that the declarations of all somnambulists coincide in certain visionary facts, which, compared with Scripture, confirm its testimony, or may avail as experimental and actual illustration of it. Apart from these fundamental facts, the value of the declaration is measured always according to the position which the somnambulist usually occupies in the deepest ground of his heart towards the word of God and the Redeemer. Even the special ecclesiastical position that he occupies has some influence in determining their value; the views and confessions have, according to the circumstances, a Catholic, a Protestant, or even an indifferent colour. In Sec. XIII. I spoke of a somnambulist, the phenomena of which case have, more than any other known to me, a power to awaken repentance, and truly sanctifying.

But the physical basis of somnambulism is always chronically morbid,—not, as in the prophetic ecstasy, a force put upon the body and its functions similar to that of morbid action, but an actual disease, which, moreover, is regarded as such by the somnambulist, although he knows at the same time that it is to serve the purpose of his cure, and of a testimony for effecting the cure of others. This morbid basis throws its dark shadows into the clairvoyance. For the most part there are clouds ascending thence, which are formed into phantasmagoric images; and even the spiritual world, which allows itself to be seen in objective reality, suffers a more or less distorting refraction, on account of the morbid background of the revealed inward sense. Moreover, evil spirits are mingled among the good ones, and force themselves into the field of view, in order to mock the seer, and, through him, others; and in the spiritual ascendancy of which he is conscious, is only too easily aroused, and by the surrounding circumstances is frequently encouraged and fostered in an unjustifiable manner, the sin of all sins— the sin of self-reflected arrogant contemplation.1 Thus, in the

1 V. Schubert, Die Zaubercisilnikn in ihrer alien und neuen Form, p. 37; and comp. the decision of Fabri (Z)ie Ericeckungen attf deut.ichen liotlen, 1861) upon the revivals associated with convulsive phenomena: "There are sudden illuminations out of the invisible world, in which angelic powers

utterances of the somnambulists, elements divine, subjective, and demoniacal occur confusedly. It would be a revolt from God's word to rely upon such utterances as upon divine revelations; but not the less would it be a closing one's eyes to the signs of the time, to refuse recognition and acknowledgment to the experimental evidence of the truth of the biblical revelation, to the call to repentance, and the trumpet sound of the coming judgment, which are suggested in this phenomenon. It is plain that it is psychologically infinitely instructive.

It cannot therefore be said that clairvoyance is a condition purely demoniacal and pernicious to the soul;1 it is an opening of the inward perception, in which man is exposed to very various spiritual influences. But our judgment is otherwise formed upon the practice of magnetism. It is indeed a natural and no demoniacal power which the magnetizer exercises upon the patient,—namely, that power of his own Psyche, which, emanating therefrom, comprehends in itself the bodily powers as the power of the entire life; and on the first grade of its effects, where they are still of a medicinal kind, magnetism might avail as a means of cure as innocent as electricity. But when from thence its effects are enhanced, it begins in the socalled comatose state, and the symptoms associated therewith, to render the patient as it were a living corpse and a bewitched person: his eyes stare, without seeing; and the pupil, expanded and immoveable, does not shrink even at the contact of the apple of the eye with the finger, or at the approach of a blazing light. This symptom of fiaaKavia (Gal. iii. 1), and the rest taken together, are a state of unnatural bondage, which in Sec. XVI. we have designated as a possession of one Psyche by the other.2

are active; but immediately upon these there lie in wait demoniacal powers and others. The nervous convulsive casualties that not seldom appear iu such cases are a result of the inighty psychical excitement, which must be fiist calmed and spiritually-restored by the subsequent effect of the divine word and spirit, if truly a living fruit is to grow forth out of it."

1 Read the noteworthy law-case of a somnambulist female, who in the ecstatic sleep was dishonoured by a hypocritical villain, but remained therein morally pure, in Hitzig'a Annalen, edited by Schletter, 1855, October part.

1 An illustration: In a moment of enthusiasm, a maid that had fallen after her first communion into the somnambulic state, cried out that she saw such beautiful and glorious things; and when the elders asked what

The impression is ever more terrible when the comatose state is heightened at the third stage to the somnambulic, and at the fourth to the ecstatic. The patient, if God do not for the sake of his heart-reality assist him by good spirits, here becomes an instrument of demoniacal delusion to himself and others. He finds himself hard on the limit of phrenzy and of death; for the ecstasy may become so powerful, that (according to the statement of the initiate, if one does not go cautiously to work in the matter) the soul is actually withdrawn without return; or if it return, it sinks into madness.1 That which runs into such terrible manifestations of power over man, is suspicious even in its beginnings.2

Moreover, there is indeed no art of dark magic which might not associate itself with this magnetic practice: not merely soothsaying professionally practised for gain,3 and even

she saw, she answered, " God surrounded by the angels, the apostles, and Mary." The same maid subsequently was thrown by magnetism into the somnambulic state by a friend of the elders, who was a Voltairian; and when he asked the ecstatic patient what she saw, she replied, "God accompanied by His two apostles, Voltaire and Rousseau." Thus the soul of the magnetized person is wholly and absolutely in the power of the magnetizer. In the work of a Parisian physician, who, after long contradiction, was won over to magnetism, may be read in this matter a warning which closes with the words: Des qu'elles sont en somnambulisme, elles se trouvent soumises comme des esclaves, plus que des esclaves, puisqu'elles sont complices a des personnes qu'elles connaissent a peine; lorsqu'elles sont reveillees, elles ont oublie tout ce qu'on vient de lew faire. The book itself where this is to be read (J. J. Beaux, De Vinfiuence de la Magnetisation sur le de'veloppement de la voix et dugout en Musique, Paris 1855) is not far from this spirit of impurity. In the Holy Scripture, unchastity and witchcraft are twin ideas. A Brazilian of the race of the Cocrunas, questioned by v. Martins, comprehended the mystery of the Indian art of healing in the words: "All witchcraft comes from lust and from hatred, and thence also is healing."

1 Cahagnet, Der Verkehr mit den Verstorbenen auf magnelischem Wege, i. 19G-198. The translation is by an authorized magnetizer in Berlin.

2 Aberle, I.e., although acknowledging magnetism as a natural and serviceable means of healing, says, nevertheless, "Even if magnetism do not go beyond the range of that which is natural, it is still undeniable that it brings man into a condition which makes him more accessible to demoniacal intrusions than is the case in his usual state."

1 In reference to a similar phenomenon in the Romish Church, Hermas, in the Shepherd, gives the criterion: "Spiritus qui desursum est nemini respondet interrogatus nec singulis respondet, neque quum vult, homini

necromancy with the table-rapping1 and psychography, that not long ago had become almost epidemic; with those traps laid for the spiritual kingdom, in which was caught not this kingdom itself, but only a caricature of it;2 but also the construction of all kinds of magical machinery, and magical means for healing, for defence, for disclosing and seeing forbidden things. Let one single example suffice, in which the dark magic whereunto the magnetic practice grows, is actually to be laid hold of with the hands, and is even conceded by the narrator, a magnetic physician, who stands upon the purely medicinal stage. There are persons, says D. Ge. Barth,3 who possess

loquitur spiritus Dei, sed tunc loquitur, quum vult Deus." S. Hilgenfeld, Glossolalie, pp. 71-73.

1 For the art of "table-turning," we bare Jewish testimonies as early as the seventeenth century. Friedr. Breutz, in his Jiidisclien abgestreiften Schlangenbalg, 1614, denounces the Jews, therefore, as practising Kischuph (magic). "We make the table turn in playful times with Kischuph, and whisper into one another's ears, Schemoth, Schel, Schedim (names of demons), and the table springs up then, even when laden with many hundredweight." Zalman Zebi, in his Jiidischen Theirak, 1615, defends this tableturning, as practised not through magic, but the power of God, Kabbala Maasith (practical Kabbala). "Thus, for the table-turning no Maasch Schedim can be employed, for we sing for it excellent mismorim (songs), as Adon olam jigdal (The Lord of the world be exalted). Thus there can be no devil's work suffered when God is remembered." See thereupon v. Harless, Das Buch von den JZgypt. Mysterien (1858), pp. 130-132.

* Examples of such deceptive intercourse with the spirits turning away from the true heavenly ladder (John i. 51) are given in Hornung's Ncue Geheimnisse des Tages, Durch Geistes-Magnetismus Vermittelte GeisterManifestationen aus dem unenthiillten Jenseits, 1858, 8. These manifestations of spirits reduce themselves to self-excitements of the so-called media, and only too truly reflect the cultivation and the religious standing of these personal media. Just so in Preiswerk's narrative of the superstition among the Swiss people (Verhandlungen der Schweizerisch-reform Prediger, Geseltsch. Schaffhausen 1856), it is decided, " that the table-rapping is only a deceiving performance, and only an echo and reflection of the persons engaged in it." It is remarkable, that even the somnambulists deny the reality of this spiritual intercourse by means of table-rapping and psychography (p. 409); nay, the pretended spirits themselves are honest enough to declare, "We can give you nothing really but what must subsist in you already;" and one says to the medium, "Thy head is my library." H. Leo and A. V. Harless deservedly lashed this spiritual misbehaviour in the course of the year 1858 in the Evang. K.Z.

3 Magnetism of Life, its Phenomena and its Practice, 1852, pp. 234-236.

and exercise the capacity or power of seeing in glass globes, or rock crystals, or mirrors formed in a certain manner, the past, the distant present, and the future. Some of these seers descry all this in glass bottles also, which are filled with magnetized water, or in drops of ink which are poured into their hand. I am certainly not in the position to explain the reason of this capacity, but I do not doubt its authenticity, for I have seen sufficient facts to convince me. The art of prophesying by these means is very old, and certain old formulas are known for the preparation and application of the crystals. When the crystal is formed and polished, it is dedicated to some spirit or another: this is called its consecration. Before its use, it is "charged," i.e. there is spoken an invocation of this spirit, in which a vision is prayed for of those things which are sought to be known. Usually a young person is chosen to look into the globe, and to contemplate the desired vision: after some time the crystal becomes clouded, and there appears a diminutive vision, which represents the persons, things, or scenes that are necessary for the communication of the explanation sought for, in a miniature picture to him who looks in the crystal. If the desired disclosure be received, the crystal is "discharged," and the spirit to which it is dedicated is thanked for the service rendered, and dismissed. I have neither time nor inclination to enter upon this matter personally. I know from facts which have come to my knowledge, that it is possible to employ supernatural agencies pertaining to the spirit-world, to produce results in this natural world. I know the fearful, shocking, and ruinous consequences which have arisen to men from the use of such agencies: although I have been summoned as a magnetizer to make good the mischief done, as a magnetizer I myself scorn this assistance.

Thus far this thoughtful physician. He makes a distinction between the magnetism which he practises and the former magic. Even v. Schubert regards magnetism as an actually tested means of cure, within the limits of a morally serious, intelligent, and conscientiously self-restrained treatment, as justifiable. It does not become, says he, the sin of witchcraft until it purposely leads the magically excited soul which is surrendered to it beyond, into the region of demoniacal enticements. But for the psychical life-breath which, proceeding from the soul of the magnetizer into the nerves, penetrates his own nervous body, to be transferred by the power of the will into the bodily domain of another soul, would be in itself an altogether unexceptionable healing process.1 But is not magnetism, even upon this stage, a deliberate use of suspicious doubles, or mimicries,2 of the miracle performed by God's power? Is not this irruption of one Psyche into the sphere of another a derangement of limits contrary to nature? And are there not associated therewith, in a sequence of unregulated declivity, so many abnormal phenomena which Scripture rejects as witchcraft? Operative magnetism in itself is no magic, but it carries in itself all kinds of magic, and thus perhaps its own decisive rejection.

We have now reached the furthest aim of the method of inquiry which in Sec. I. we proposed to ourselves to follow, for the knowledge of the natural essential condition of man as held together by the soul; and without intending it, the issues of this Division have moulded themselves for us according to the plan of Lord Bacon of Verulam.3 This fourth Division forms, so to speak, the trunk of the entire system deduced from the Scripture. Beginning from the innermost personal life, we have advanced in a progressive method even to the visible bodily life in its reciprocal relation to the soul, and have learnt to know the manifold modes of disease to which the human natural condition is exposed in its state of nature perverted by sin. If we now compare the end of this Division (Sec. XVI.) with the end of the foregoing one (Sec. V.), we see how, since the fall of man, two principal distinct powers, a good and an evil one, have grappled in contest about his soul. On the one side there comes to aid man, the might of the divine love, which in promises, and in the gospel of their fulfilment, addresses itself to his faith; on the other side there surround him demoniacal powers which have fallen from the divine love, have their being in the divine wrath, and seek to ensnare and ruin him on the path of superstition. We shall now see how the love of the soul, situated as it is between such opposites, approves

1 V. Schubert, I.c. pp. 11, 35.

* Doppelganger, double-goers—an untranslateable expression.—Tr.

* De augvientis scientiarum, iv. 3: Habet etiam pars ista de facultatibus animse appendices duas—altera barum est doctrina de divinatione naturali, altera de fascinatione.

itself, when, by the power of the redemption of the God-man, it re-attains, in the spirit and in God, again to the position of its decayed ideal or likeness to God, and, as the Scripture expresses itself, is transplanted out of the darkness, into God's marvellous light.