d from His Works; I have
learned wisdom at the expense of shame!" I exulted in my new freedom, in
my restored purity of soul; and the wind, that swept down the dark,
lonely street, seemed to exult with me. The rains beat upon me, but I
heeded them not; nay, I turned aside from the homeward path, in order to
pass by the house where Agnes lived. Her window was dark, and I knew she
was sleeping, lulled by the storm; but I stood a moment below, in the
rain, and said aloud, softly,--

"Now, Agnes, I belong wholly to you! Pray to God for me, darling, that I
may never lose the true light I have found at last!"

My healing, though complete in the end, was not instantaneous. The habit
of the trance, I found, had really impaired the action of my will. I
experienced a periodic tendency to return to it, which I have been able
to overcome only by the most vigorous efforts. I found it prudent,
indeed, to banish from my mind, as far as was possible, all subjects,
all memories, connected with Spiritualism. In this work I was aided by
Agnes, who now possessed my entire confidence, and who willingly took
upon herself the guidance of my mind at those seasons when my own
governing faculties flagged. Gradually my mental health returned, and I
am now beyond all danger of ever again being led into such fatal
dissipations. The writing of this narrative, in fact, has been a test of
my ability to overlook and describe my experience without being touched
by its past delusions. If some portions of it should not be wholly
intelligible to the reader, the defect lies in the very nature of
the subject.

It will be noticed that I have given but a partial explanation of the
spiritual phenomena. Of the genuineness of the physical manifestations I
am fully convinced, and I can account for them only by the supposition
of some subtile agency whereby the human will operates upon inert
matter. Clairvoyance is a sufficient explanation of the utterances of
the Mediums,--at least of those which I have heard; but there is, as I
have said before, _something_ in the background,--which I feel too
indistinctly to describe, yet which I know to be Evil. I do not wonder
at, though I lament, the prevalence of the belief in Spiritualism. In a
few individual cases it may have been productive of good, but its
general tendency is evil. There are probably but few Stiltons among its
apostles, few Miss Fetterses among its Mediums; but the condition which
accompanies the tran