The reader will call to mind that this Simon Magus is mentioned and condemned in the Acts of the Apostles, for offering to pay Peter for a bestowment of the gift of the Holy Ghost. And yet every philosopher in this age must concede that Magus' assumption in the case is more sensible and philosophical than that of Peter's. For the latter calls it "a gift from God," whereas every person now acquainted with the nature, principles, and science of animal magnetism, knows that such manifestation as that which Peter ascribes to God and the Holy Ghost, is a simple natural phenomenon; and that, consequently, it can be no more a violation of the rules of propriety to pay for the labor of making such developments than it is to pay a teacher for developing the mind of a child. It was certainly a greater act of courtesy to offer to pay for it than to demand it as a gratuitous favor. Hence we infer he excelled Peter in his demeanor as a gentleman, especially as he bore Peter's severe reprimand with patience, and apparently with a better spirit than that which dictated it. And we may remark here, also, that notwithstanding this Samaritan Jew is so unsparingly denounced by the godly Peter, and by the early Christian fathers also, yet we have the historical proof that he was an Honest, pious, and ardently devout man. His whole life was absorbed in the cause of religion, and his whole soul devoted to his religious duties and the worship of his God. Hence we think Peter's rebuke was uncalled for.
Let the reader note the fact here that there are three circumstances amply sufficient to account for bibles and religious books being profusely supplied with the reports of groundless miracles.
1. As everybody then believed in miracles (at least everybody who dared speak) there was nobody to investigate the reports of such occurrences, to learn whether they were true or false.
2. The few who attempted to disprove the truth of those miraculous occurrences now found reported in sacred history, had their books burned, as in the case of Porphyry and Celsus, in the early history of Christianity, who called in question the truth of bible miracles.
3. These marvelous facts were not usually recorded till long after the period in which they are said to have occurred, when the witnesses had left the stage of time, and every event exciting ay attention had grown to a monstrous prodigy. These circumstances, in an age of boundless credulity and scientific ignorance, which magnified every phenomenon, and looked upon every natural event as a direct display of divine power, accounts most fully and satisfactorily for the burdensome repetition of groundless miraculous stories found upon nearly every page of the sacred history of every religious nation, without driving us to the necessity of challenging the veracity of the writers who recorded them. They may all have been honest men.
CONFUCIUS OF CHINA, BORN 551 B. C.
This moral teacher, religious chieftain, and philosopher, though not subjected to the ignominious death of the cross, deserves a passing notice for the excellency of his morals and the acquisition of a world-wide fame. In the following particulars his history bears a strong analogy to that of Jesus Christ.
1. He commenced as a religious teacher when about thirty years of age.
2. The Golden Rule (see Chap. XXXIV.) was his favorite maxim.
3. Most of his moral maxims were sound and of a high order. The New American Cyclopedia says (vol. v. p. 604), "His writings approach the Christian standard of morality;" and in some respects they excel.