1875.) Human Levitation. 47 
maledictory Psalms were uttered, an intermediate birth of 
the same? And if so, may not the natural wishes for.such 
a wretched soul’s amendment, expressed by many before 
Burns, have long ago received some realisation, at least if 
Matthew’s story of his remorse and suicide be held probable ; 
and an amelioration have commenced, if not earlier, at any 
rate with those results of his three years’ companionship 
with Him who is declared to be “the Saviour of all men, 
especially of them that believe ?” 
The Hebrew accounts also present, immediately after this, 
an equally close coincidence with the Christian ones on the 
next most public display of miracles, and the only ones, 
before his death, related so as to involve levitation. Those 
of one day and night are thus concentrated. Returning to 
the Jordan, they say, he caused two millstones to float, and 
standing or sitting thereon, he caught fish, and distributed 
to his crowd of followers on the banks. The later ‘‘ Toldoth ” 
has but one millstone, and ‘‘ the sea”’ instead of the river. 
Now the evangelists all place the feeding of the five thousand 
with fish, on a bank overlooking the Lake of Galilee; and 
the miraculous walking, on the following night, upon the 
same lake; which is a mere expansion of the Jordan, but 
is most frequently called by them ‘‘the sea.” Moreover, 
to avoid the crowd’s taking him “ by force, to make him 
a king,” they tell us, immediately before one miraculous 
fishing (Luke, v., 3) he addressed from one of two boats the 
multitude on the shore. The “millstone” has evidently 
come from a figure used in his own predié¢tion of the remorse 
of his betrayer; and thus there is not one feature or word of 
this grotesque medley, not traceable toa parallel in the most 
prominent incidents of the gospels. 
Soon after this, and the Baptist’s death, we read of His 
holding a very private meeting, with only the three most 
developed of his eleven chosen disciples, and while he was 
“‘transfigured ” before them (a phenomenon lately paralleled, 
we are told, by those who observe modern media), two human 
forms conversed with him, ‘‘ which were Moses and Elias.” 
In the similar accounts now given us, of the re-embodiments 
at New York or in London, a slight atmospheric change 
causes the forms to announce that they must disappear, 
and one has complained of the “‘ density of the air” making 
her embodiment difficult. Now Jesus chose for the above 
transfiguration ‘“‘a high mountain.” Has any reason for 
this choice been ever suggested ; or for his habit of ascending 
mountains to pray ? 
For a few weeks after his death, his own form was again 
