imagination, every kind of alleged supernatural influence must be admitted; every variety of vision, all the Protean forms of dreaming, every supposed apparition, all the voices that have ever been heard, all the chosen offspring of enthusiasm, all the unexplained lights and shades, all the contentions of good and evil spirits for the mastery, and every other creation of superstition, must be received as spiritual agents; the mind is lost in the wildest and most unlimited speculation; and, to say the very least, it has no means of judging whether the apparition has been produced to answer a good end, or only to deceive through the malignant influence of the arch-fiend.

Besides, so many instances have occurred in which no conceivable good could have been produced, that we are justified, even on this ground, in believing that such supernatural agency, or rather supposed agency, is inconsistent with the ordinary course of God's most perfect providence, and therefore is not lightly to be believed. When, moreover, a natural explanation can be found, for that which is not conceivable without much difficulty upon any other principle, it is the duty of the Christian, humbly to accept such explanation; especially when it offers a beautiful exposition of how far

the spiritual principle is modified in its manifestations, by the debasing influence of that primeval Fall, which separated man from his Maker, and occasioned the loss of the image of God upon his heart; by which he became "very far gone from original righteousness," and "the servant of sin."

So far then from impugning the wisdom, restraining the power, or limiting the agency of Omnipotence, by withdrawing it from the shadowy wand of superstition, his perfect knowledge, and his holy operation, are vindicated from the unhallowed creations of mortality; the vagaries of imagination are distinguished from the suggestion of his Spirit; the influence of the Word of God, and of that unwritten word which is found in the heart and conscience of every man, is defined and separated from those words, and that influence, which result from a disordered state of the animal fibre. Hope and fear, joy and sorrow, desire and love, obedience and transgression, are snatched from the dominion of supernatural influence, and are placed on a just basis; namely, the grace of God, which bringeth salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, revealed to us by his word, and by his providence, and received or rejected by the sinner.

In fact, they only impugn the power of Omnipotence who question the agency upon spiritual mind, of its organic medium of manifestation; and who doubt, nay deny, that disorder of this material medium may be, or rather must be, followed by defective, or excessive, or perverted manifestation; who deny, in fact, that primary or sympathetic irritation of the brain is insufficient to account for the appearances in question; as if it were not in the power of Almighty God, to make as it hath pleased him an organ for this very purpose, and for the reception and communication of moral cause and effect. the humble and sincere Christian constantly lift his heart in adoration and gratitude to that beneficent Creator and Lawgiver, who preserves from disorder a function of such exquisite deliand possessed of such fearful interest.

cacy,

Let

CHAPTER XIV.

Influence of nitrous-oxyde gas on the brain;-agency of belladonna, stramonium, opium, hemlock, fox-glove, &c.— Various illustrative cases.-Influence of several mental excitants in the creation of apparitions.

THE influence of the nitrous-oxyde gas has been alluded to in this discussion, and it has been represented as capable of producing a state of the cerebral system, peculiarly favourable to the production of so-called apparitions. And this is true to a certain extent, inasmuch as it occasions that incipient morbid action which has been shown to be prolific of spectral visions and imaginings: but the more important truth has not been mentioned; namely, that the effect of this article varies according to the peculiarity of physical temperament, or to the varying condition of that temperament at the

moment.

Thus it affords an excellent exposition of two principles; first, as to the creation of apparitions, and unreal images, from a cause operating exclusively on the brain and nervous system; and next, that the specific character of these images, arising from the same source of cerebral irritation, will vary according to the expression. of predominant constitution; or to its fluctuating state at the time of receiving the morbid stimulus; nay more, that, the peculiar temperament of the individual being given, the precise effect may be calculated beforehand.

Now the effect of inhaling the nitrous-oxyde gas will differ upon half a dozen specimens of the same creature, man. One shall be outrageously joyous and happy; another shall be excited to the most incredible muscular efforts, till he sinks subdued by exhaustion; a third shall exhibit the common symptoms of intoxication, after the first effects of alcoholic stimulus have passed; a fourth will lose all power of volition and apparent consciousness, will seem abstracted from this world, and will tell of blissful visions; and a fifth will sink into a state of stupid reverie, from which it is impossible to recal him, and from which he wakens in total oblivion of the interval between inhaling the gas, and his return to consciousness; and all