th is a cure which nature or
ourselves must administer: To this cure I now looked forward with gloomy
satisfaction.

My silence could not conceal from my uncle the state of my thoughts.
He made unwearied efforts to divert my attention from views so
pregnant with danger. His efforts, aided by time, were in some measure
successful. Confidence in the strength of my resolution, and in the
healthful state of my faculties, was once more revived. I was able
to devote my thoughts to my brother's state, and the causes of this
disasterous proceeding.

My opinions were the sport of eternal change. Some times I conceived the
apparition to be more than human. I had no grounds on which to build a
disbelief. I could not deny faith to the evidence of my religion;
the testimony of men was loud and unanimous: both these concurred
to persuade me that evil spirits existed, and that their energy was
frequently exerted in the system of the world.

These ideas connected themselves with the image of Carwin. Where is the
proof, said I, that daemons may not be subjected to the controul of men?
This truth may be distorted and debased in the minds of the ignorant.
The dogmas of the vulgar, with regard to this subject, are glaringly
absurd; but though these may justly be neglected by the wise, we are
scarcely justified in totally rejecting the possibility that men may
obtain supernatural aid.

The dreams of superstition are worthy of contempt. Witchcraft, its
instruments and miracles, the compact ratified by a bloody signature,
the apparatus of sulpherous smells and thundering explosions, are
monstrous and chimerical. These have no part in the scene over which the
genius of Carwin presides. That conscious beings, dissimilar from human,
but moral and voluntary agents as we are, some where exist, can scarcely
be denied. That their aid may be employed to benign or malignant
purposes, cannot be disproved.

Darkness rests upon the designs of this man. The extent of his power is
unknown; but is there not evidence that it has been now exerted?

I recurred to my own experience. Here Carwin had actually appeared upon
the stage; but this was in a human character. A voice and a form were
discovered; but one was apparently exerted, and the other disclosed, not
to befriend, but to counteract Carwin's designs. There were tokens of
hostility, and not of alliance, between them. Carwin was the miscreant
whose projects were resisted by a minister of heaven. H