n may seek a new sensation by encouraging a
revival of the demoniacal epidemics of heathendom. But you, who have
been a preacher of the gospel, though, as I must now more than ever
believe, after a devitalized and perverted method,--you, to leave the
honest work of a dweller upon earth, to chatter of immensity, to weaken
the brain that it may no longer separate the true from the
false!--believe me, Clifton, you have been bought by the shallowest
promises which the King of Evil ever exchanged for a sacred and
inviolable soul."

"You have spoken according to your business," replied Mr. Clifton,
impatiently. "You, who begin by assuming the impossibility of
spirit-intercourse since Bible times, with what candor can you examine
the facts we build upon?"

"I make no such assumption," was the rejoinder. "Has it not been
foretold that 'in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils'? Have we not
aforetime been vexed with them in this very New England? For I almost
justify Mather's words, when he stigmatizes the necromancy of his day as
'a terrible Plague of Evil Angels,' or, in still plainer speech, as 'a
prodigious descent of devils upon divers places near the centre of this
Province.' And how better can we characterize this confused and
distracting babblement which gives no good gift to man?"

"It has given him this," exclaimed Clifton, advancing towards Dr. Burge,
and seeming for a few moments to resume his old personality,--"it has
given him the knowledge of a life to come! You think it, preach it,
believe it,--but you do not _know_ it. A susceptibility to impressions
from the inmost characters of men has been mine through life. It has
been given me to perceive what facts and feelings most deeply adhered in
the mental consciousness. And I tell you, Burge, ministers both of your
communion and of mine repeat the old words of sublimest assurance, sway
congregations with descriptions bright or lurid of future worlds, yet
behind all this glowing speech and blatant confidence there has
lurked,--oh, will you deny it?--there has lurked a grovelling doubt of
man's immortality."

"I will not deny it," said Dr. Burge, with slow solemnity. "Sinners that
we are, how can we ask that faith be at no moment confused by the
thousand cries of infidelity which our profession requires us to answer?
Let my soul be chilled by transient shades of skepticism, rather than
dote in a