twilight plays;
Round the altar, o'er the bier,
Preaching _more than priests do here_.

Solemn are the words they say--
_Silent sermons free of_ PAY;
And the _lessons_ they impart,
_Never vanish from the heart_.

THE LOVE LUCIFER.

[The author of 'The Love Lucifer' says in regard to it: 'I enclose
a narration of _facts_. Not noted for assurance, I yet feel well
assured that its publication in THE CONTINENTAL 'will do
uses.'' Should there be any among our readers who have inquired
into our modern necromancy, they will not fail to recognize in the
excited, wild, incoherent, and uncultured jargon of the spirits of
'The Love Lucifer,' the same style and character evinced by those
to whom they may have been introduced by the 'mejums.' The two
Bulwers, the Howitts, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Halls, the De
Morgans, &c., have taken a deep interest in these half-comic,
half-serious, and always incoherent demonstrations.

Perhaps the matter-of-fact experience of our author may shield some
of our readers from 'obsessions, delusions, magnetic streams of
Od,' be they angelic, human, demoniac, or Koboldic in their
origin.--_Ed. Con._]

CHAPTER I.

The things herein might well remain in soak for one decade, at least.
The writer certainly did well to let a dozen sane, practical years pass
between these experiences and their narration.

I was a youth after the own heart of my Presbyterian
preceptors--proposed to become a Presbyterian preceptor. The son of a
New York merchant, I was schooled in the schooling of such; and was
steadfastly minded to know no life-purpose but the salvation of sinners.
But I was a little restive--felt that the limits of the Shorter
Catechism were too short and strait for me. The shadow of
Schleiermacher's readjustment of Christianity was upon me. I felt that
some old things were passing away. In common with so many others who
inclined toward the sacerdotal office, I was unconsciously turning my
back upon it, on account of the crudities contained in the only existing
creeds for which I had any respect. American Protestant youth have not
been alone in this regard. Says the London _Times_, 'The number of men
of education and social position who enter into orders is becoming less
and less every year.' Let then ancient, true, everlasting Christianity
be speedily adjusted to modern facts, lest it further