be believed, the individual soul was virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present life debased, and that the idea of man’s eternal responsibility was made ridiculous, and immortality rendered at once impossible, and not worth acceptance. But I would have perished on the spot sooner than believe it.

The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have followed in their train, — such as tables upset by invisible agencies, bells self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on jew’s-harps, — had not yet arrived.

Alas, my countrymen, methinks we have fallen on an evil age! If these phenomena have not humbug at the bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they indicate, in a spiritual way, except that the soul of man is