the present; how it is preserved, and in due time resumes its activity, expands its leaves, produces its flowers, and matures its fruits; is it surprising that we cannot develop all the laws of the finest and most complicated portion of the living machinery-the brain? Let us not be infatuated, and led away by high-sounding prejudice; but let us dwell in adoring gratitude upon the goodness and power of that Supreme and Holy Being, who has thus wisely constructed, and thus essentially protected, so delicate an organ from disease and injury, that its morbid associations, when they do occur, are looked upon with a vague and fearful interest, or an ignorant apprehension, which invests them with attributes they do not possess; and which induces many to call in the operation of spiritual influence, which they cannot explain at all, to account for a natural morbid state; which is in part explicable upon natural principles, but of which we cannot fathom all the peculiarities.

But again the writer above alluded to goes on to remark, that there may be other disorders or alterations "in one or more of the senses, not of common occurrence, which do not, as in the usual cases of disease, strike out existing objects from the cognizance of the mind; but

which present to its view existing objects, which, in the healthy or usual state of the organs, are not perceived."

Now this argument assumes a point as settled, which might well be questioned; namely, the existence of apparitions as spiritual objects. For although we have allowed, and do verily believe in, the existence of spiritual beings, yet we have carefully distinguished between these and the common alleged apparitions. But leaving this objection, let us ascertain the exact meaning of the writer before us, which appears to be this: That as in the common or healthy state of the senses, or of the brain upon which these depend, man is unable to perceive spiritual objects; so there may be some disordered or altered condition of that organ, or some changed mode of their function, which shall give them the capacity of perceiving that which, in their normal relations, was withheld from their notice by the physical structure which encompassed them.

But if so, it should seem that a deviation from perfect action, that is, a morbid state, is supposed to be necessary for the perception of spiritual objects; and since the state of health is the most perfect state, it follows, that an imperfect, or altered, or diseased condition of the

brain, is necessary to the perception of these spiritual beings: so that the point in dispute is granted to a certain extent, or at least, it is resolved into this form, Whether apparitions in general be the creation of a peculiar mode of cerebral irritation; or whether apparitions, being real spiritual existences, this peculiar irritation is necessary to their perception.

Now if it be thus granted, that a morbid state must exist, it will surely be much more consonant with reason, and with our experience of the Divine government, that intellectual and sensorial illusions should be the production of irritated brain, rather than that disease should be produced in order to confer an additional power upon the brain, to enlarge its faculties, and to enable it to receive notices, which could in no other way be obtained. If the contrary position were assumed, who is to decide the kind and degree of this morbid state which may be necessary to confer the requisite additional power? and who is to distinguish between this morbid state and many forms of incipient insanity? That a morbid state exists, is allowed by all; that this state is produced in order to confer the power of supernatural vision, is assumed by the writer of the paper on which I am commenting; that it is in itself the cause

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of alleged supernatural appearances, is contended for by the present essayist: and the issue is by him securely left to the decision of every unprejudiced mind.

That portion of the Sacred History to which the above-mentioned writer refers, ("And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha," 2 Kings vi. 17,) is, throughout, the account of a miraculous interference of the God of Providence for the preservation of his servant and prophet. But we know that the age of miracles has ceased, and we do not now expect them; ; any reasoning, therefore, which is founded upon such a presumption, is clearly untenable, and contrary to the usual course of God's moral government of the world.

Further, there appears at the present hour to be an irritable dread of scepticism, as connected with this question. Now I believe that a tendency to scepticism exists, but not in the way which has been supposed. The human heart inclines to practical infidelity; it longs to forget its accountability; and it desires to live without God in the world. In this awful state

of alienation from God, it will prove a soothing and consolatory reflection, if it can be brought to believe that the existence of spiritual beings can only be perceived during the prevalence of a peculiar mental state, over which it has no kind of influence; because it will naturally say, that other manifestations of mind of a morbid character may be placed to the score of some other mental irritation, equally dependent upon supernatural agency, and equally involuntary; and thus moral responsibility is destroyed; and disbelief of revelation treads very closely upon the footsteps of this fatal delusion. if man's accountability be upheld, and the supremacy of his own will be maintained, and these supernatural appearances be accounted for as the result of brainular action, after it has been separated from the control of the presiding mind, by a physiological action, such as sleep; or by a pathological condition, such as impending disease, he finds no way of escape for himself, and is brought back to the holy law of God which he has broken, and to the consequences which have flowed from its infraction.

But

Many excellent persons are afraid of the liberality of the day, and of the assumed expansion of intellectual manifestation with which it