Clouds Without Water

Where is now that spotted soul ? There is but one appalling answer to the question. In the “* place prepared for the devil and his angels ” ; for “ he that believeth not is condemned already”, Not even in that modern evasion, the plea of insanity, can we find any hope. Nothing is clea- rer than that these wretched victims of Satan were in full possession of their faculties to the last moment. Surely the maniacal violence of their unhall- owed lust and hate is no ground for pity but for reprobation. When our blessed Lord was on earth He made no excuses for those who were possessed of devils. He took this simply as a fact — and He healed them. It is only the shocking atheism and materia- lism or modern science that, in an insane endea- vour to whittle away the miracles of our bles- sed Saviour, has sought to include “ possession ” in the category of disease. — VII — Our Lord had no doubts as to the reality of demoniacal possession; why should we, His humble servants, truckle to the Christless cant of an atheistical profession? The facts of this shocking case are familiar enough in the drawing-rooms of the West End. Both the characters in the story were per- sons of considerable education and position. On this account, and because a statement of the truth (however guarded) would have com- promised persons of high rank, and was in any case too disgusting to publish in the press, the tragedy has not — one is glad to say in these days of yellow prurience — become matter for public comment. But the wife of the man, driven to drink and prostitution by the inhuman cruelty of his mistress —- this modern worse than Lucrezia Borgia or Mdme de Brinvilhers — and the fiancé of the girl betrayed and ruimed by her machinations, still haunt the purlieus of the