ifying, though perchance salutary, sense of human infirmity comes from beholding one set over the people as intercessor and counsellor struggling in the meshes of that snare which the Enemy had spr

nt through which the healthy will commands the organism. And when the mental disorder, mocked at and preached against i

ich sounder men among the brethren made out to live cheerfully and to work vigorously. While Clifton madly sought a position of intelligence and satisfaction beyond the reach of humanity, the necessary abstraction enlarged and stimulated his reasoning powers. But the penalty was to be paid. For with terrible recoil from its tension his mind contracted to far less than normal limits. Then came a listless v

the doctrine he assailed by denying it such facts as were true and such attractions as were real. He had cheerfully accepted whatever reproach came to him from freq

"Only women have spoken,-the excited nervous sys

d inspiratio

ducated people, ignorant of analogous phenomen

believer in the possession

life, and I am willing to adopt this hypothesis to explain any occurrence where the facts demand it. That, in rare cases, such may be the most simple

lifton was not to be

l the last,-in the Selectmen's

t, Sir, I would not have you spare an effor

im, then," asse

ricians, two or three stiff armchairs with straws protruding from their well-worn cushions, intolerant benches for unofficial occupancy,-altogether a gloomy aggregate result of the diverse ideals of social well-being to be found among the inhabitants of Foxden. But now I recognized a new element in this familiar chamber; a strange contagion hung about the walls; a something which imparted delicate e

d friend!" excl

objects which are flitting before him. It seemed necessary to withdraw his inward gaze

here?-and

or my own warning, and in the way of my duty as teacher to those who

ugh which a moaning undertone seemed ever trying to be heard. "Say, rather, to produce a finer exaltation than

o dare to substitute a morbid re

at others may use them to give us intima

onal pronoun. "The Apostle declares that his own immortal individuality alone controls his me

with rich cathedral-emphasis, and with

ebuke. The nervous energy with which he had experimented, or which he had l

ved his advantag

nsation by encouraging a revival of the demoniacal epidemics of heathendom. But you, who have been a preacher of the gospel, though, as I must now more than ever believe, after a devitalized and perverted method,-you, to leave the honest work of a dweller

tly. "You, who begin by assuming the impossibility of spirit-intercourse si

aforetime been vexed with them in this very New England? For I almost justify Mather's words, when he stigmatizes the necromancy of his day as 'a terrible Plague of Evil Angels,' or, in still plainer sp

to impressions from the inmost characters of men has been mine through life. It has been given me to perceive what facts and feelings most deeply adhered in the mental consciousness. And I tell you, Burge, ministers both of your communion and of mine repeat the

I am not at all times equally penetrated by the great fact of man's conscious immortality, it is because of my undesert. A way to know of the doctrine has been revealed: it is by doing the will of the Father: who of us has fulfilled the condition? But I can meet you on lower ground, and declare, that, according to our huma

heard at the door. The professors of the "New Dispensation" had come to conduct the Reverend Charles Clifton to their plat

to hear diluted rhetoric, or inflated commonplace, from lips which

at may offer some possible variety in

ight; we w

hance offered. Did not the face of the medium wear an expression of earthly disappointment at this slender recognition? Could it be that there was needed the hot-house heat of a carnal "success" to favor th

gh; and whenever some commonplace truth or plausibility protruded from the general washiness, it was seized upon and beaten and stretched to the last degree of tenuity. Phrases upon phrases of gorgeous dreaminess. A soothing delight,-yet such delight as only the bodily senses demanded. A joyful deliverance from the bondage of intellectual life. Hints that our human consciousness of sin was a vain delusion from

d been strained to the utmost. Other things were to be noted by those a

ium or his audience might be stimulated into specious blossom. Phenomena were exhibited which transcended the conscious powers of the human soul,-nay, which testified of its latent ability to work without organic conditions. Our unemployed brain-organs, as Hamilton and others have clearly proved, are always employing themselves. And from this self-employment-or was it demon-employment?-there swept through the conscio

ldom was over,-an

s of sense, imagination exalted, memory