Author Description

For several years I have been aware that Rev. Dr. John L. Nevius of Chefoo, China, was giving careful attention to certain strange psychical phenomena which were presented from time to time in the interior districts of the Shantung Province. I became more interested in the progress of his inquiries from the fact that upon an acquaintance continued for more than a quarter of a century I regarded him as a man peculiarly fitted to examine so intricate and difficult a subject. His philosophic insight, his judicial fairness of mind, his caution and his conscientious thoroughness, appeared to me admirable qualifications for such a study. Moreover his thorough mastery of the Chinese language spoken and written, his intimate sympathy with the people, and his correspondingly truer interpretation of their innermost thought and life, have rendered him still more capable of ascertaining the real facts in the case, and of forming accurate judgments upon them. Antecedently to any knowledge of the New Testament the people of North China believed fully in the possession of the minds and bodies of men by evil spirits. This belief is a part of that animism, or spirit worship, which has existed in China — as in many other countries — from the very beginning of history or tradition. It has always been understood that the personality of the evil spirit usurped, or for the time being supplanted that of the unwilling victim and acted through his organs and faculties. Physical suffering and sometimes violent paroxysms attended the presence and active influence of the spirit, and not only the particular demoniac but all his household were filled with more or less anxiety and distress. When therefore Christianity was introduced into China, and the narratives of demoniacal possession given in the New Testament were read, the correspondence that was at once recognized by the native Christians seemed complete. In relation to this particular form of New Testament miracles there has never been an