e fierce spectre, which rose giant-like, in its
bloodred mantle, before the selfish and mercenary merchant, ever
increasing in size and, terror with the growth of evil and impure thought
in the mind of the latter, subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patient
watchfulness over the heart's purity, became a loving and gentle
visitation of soft light and meekest melody; "a beautiful radiance, at
times hovering and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating the
bushes and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely,
such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt its power
in the depths of his being,--felt it like the mystic breathing of the
Spirit of God."

The excellent Baxter and other pious men of his day deprecated in all
sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and
diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan
and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would
diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to
see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting
against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from
profane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtful
Scripture and still more doubtful tradition in behalf of detected and
convicted superstitions tossed on the sharp horns of ridicule, stretched
on the rack of philosophy, or perishing under the exhausted receiver of
science. A clearer knowledge of the aspirations, capacities, and
necessities of the human soul, and of the revelations which the infinite
Spirit makes to it, not only through the senses by the phenomena of
outward nature, but by that inward and direct communion which, under
different names, has been recognized by the devout and thoughtful of
every religious sect and school of philosophy, would have saved them much
anxious labor and a good deal of reproach withal in their hopeless
championship of error. The witches of Baxter and "the black man" of
Mather have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of
sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled in
its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its star worlds
and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty miracle is still
over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be the
inheritance of humanity; still are there beautiful repentances and holy