THE CONTROVERSIALIST 20O, 



Nor did the Reformation make any difference. 

 Whatever else Luther assailed, he left the traditional 

 demonoiogy untouched ; nor could any one have 

 entertained a more hearty and uncompromising belief 

 in the devil, than he and, at a later period, the Cal- 

 vinistic fanatics of New England did. Finally, in 

 these last years of the nineteenth century, the demon- 

 ological hypotheses of the first century are, explicitly 

 or implicitly, held and occasionally acted upon by the 

 immense majority of Christians of all confessions. 1 



But although this be so with the loose adherents of 

 current creeds ; although the man who smiles when 

 he hears the story of the demons passing into the 

 bodies of terrified swine has a trembling of soul when 

 he hears of the temptation of Jesus by the devil, so 

 that, feeling scepticism to be somewhat perilous, he 

 carries his belief in demonoiogy to a " suspense ac- 

 count," Huxley added that he ventured " to doubt 

 whether, at this present moment, any Protestant 

 theologian who has a reputation to lose will say that 

 he believes the Gardarene story." 



Dr. Wace at once retorted that, so far as he was 

 concerned, the doubt had no foundation. " I repeat," 

 he said, "that I believe it, and that Mr. Huxley has 

 removed the only objection to my believing it," 

 namely, that to reject it would be denial of the 

 veracity of Jesus. While humorously disclaiming 

 any responsibility for the confirmation of Dr. Wace's 



1 Coll. Essays, v. pp. 322, 323. 



