Although the argument of Samuel to Saul was used with frightful effect two hundred years later by a most conscientious pope in spurring on the rulers of France to extirpate the Huguenots, the papacy in the fourteenth century stood for mercy to the Jews.

But even this intervention was long without effect; the tide of popular superstition had become too strong to be curbed even by the spiritual and temporal powers.( 386) (386) See Wellhausen, article Israel, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition; also the reprint of it in his History of Israel, London, 1885, p.546.On the general subject of the demoniacal epidemics, see Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, vol.i, pp.

260 et seq.; also Hecker's essay.

As to the history of Saul, as a curious landmark in the general development of the subject, see The Case of Saul, showing that his Disorder was a Real Spiritual Possession, by Granville Sharp, London, 1807, passim.

As to the citation of Saul's case by the reigning Pope to spur on the French kings against the Huguenots, I hope to give a list of authorities in a future chapter on The Church and International Law.