nce, a crowding about my pathway (only a bridle
path) of ostensible, estimable deceased relatives, who, after imparting
a variety of priceless information, started off in the usual style,
magnifying mine office. According as their influence over my rational
faculties became more complete, the proportions of their Munchausenisms
increased. Unfortunately for the duration of the fantasy, their jumble
of Scripture prophecies concerning me--which was then made to appear
nearly coherent--was so plainly writ, that as soon as the blockade of my
faculties was raised, the illusion, never more than half complete, was
dispelled. My 'great mission' was not fully developed at the first
session; but when I had become perfectly clairaudient (I never became
clairvoyant), and could dispense with the pencil, a queer mixture of
metempsychosis and Parseeism was poured into my ear. It ran somewhat as
follows: The two beings first created were, a Lucifer predominant in
love, and a Lucifer predominant in intellect; whom we may call the Love
Lucifer and the Intellectual Lucifer. The latter was the individual who
fell, who played the copperhead in Eden, and has been kicking up such a
bobbery ever since. The story ran, that these two persons--the original
Ahriman and Ormozd--have been tilting against each other all through
earth's career--appearing in the forms of the principal good and bad
men. Thus their quarrels gave the outline and the skeleton to the whole
story of Adam's race. According to this new 'philosophy of history,'
these spirits of light and darkness have been, from the beginning,
striving for the mastery; on the one hand, in the persons of the most
eminent saints, from Abraham to Augustine, and others not yet canonized;
on the other hand, in the persons of the world conquerors noted for
heartless intellectuality, from Nimrod to Napoleon (shall we add Jeff.
Davis?). Well, I, great I, was to enjoy the distinguished honor of
finishing the list of Love Lucifers; and, after winding up the small
affairs of earth, was to lock up the other big dog--after he had
appeared in his last great role--and then inaugurate the millennium--a
new latter-day Jacob's ladder having been established in the centre of
Africa to forward the work.

It soon appeared that there was a star, a _prima donna_, in this company
who--after adding a few loose planks to life's little stage--were
striving to still personate mortals and put off immortality. A deceased
dam