friends, that a letter was written the very next day to a friend of the Rev. Joseph Wilkins, upon the presumption that he was dead, to inquire particulars. The individual who publishes this statement concludes by observing, that it may appear strange that the narrator lived half a century after this circumstance, and "would never attribute any thing that happened, which could apply to this plain and simple matter of fact."-Strange indeed, surpassing strange, it would have been, if viewed as a spiritual com. munication; but an extraordinary coincidence only, if considered as resulting from a state of cerebral irritation, existing in two individuals of the same family, with similar constitutional predispositions, at the same time. The fact, I am not disposed to deny, may have happened; its circumstances may not be easy to explain: one thing, however, is certain-namely, that the supposition of coincident cerebral irritation is possible; while that of a heavenly agency to produce a false impression, painful and useless, upon the mind, is untenable, nay, impossible. And if the inference from a single instance of wellauthenticated fact can be thus proved to be false, the usual consequence is subverted; and then, the essential character of the Divine proceeding being wanting-namely, truth and immutability-the effect cannot be ascribed to an Almighty agency. The position that such assumed appearances may be ascribed to the evil spirit is equally untenable, because it would be wanting in that character of malignity, and that perversion of good, which must attach to demoniacal influence.

The present seems to be a fit opportunity for mentioning what has happened to A. B.- a lady, who many years since thought she saw the children of a friend of hers, at some distance, in the grounds, in deep mourning, and concluded that this was a warning of the decease of her friend; but no such conse

quence followed. At another time, this same lady saw her own coachman pass through her room dressed in the usual habiliments of woe, and her thoughts turned anxiously to her husband, whose health was at that time precarious; but no occasion for mourning happened in the family. This lady, it is true, was not carried away by these appearances; but, had they happened to a person of a different mental calibre, they would have been viewed as mournful presages, and would have been considered as apparitions.

But, secondly, the history of Colonel Gardiner affords an example of our second division; and, indeed, it is perhaps one of the most extraordinary upon record. The circumstances are too well known to require recapitulation. Yet let it be recollected, that the impression resulting from this circumstance, however beneficial to the party, was immediately attended by a most powerful influence upon the nervous system, and was followed by very severe illness; and, according to the views maintained in this essay, was produced by the approach of that malady, through a peculiar, but not uncommon, agency exerted upon the brainular system during the incubation of disease. That the brain is liable to illusory excitement under such circumstances, is shewn by the well-known fact of the fallacious feeling of high health, and comfort, and hilarity, which often precedes, scarcely by an interval of five minutes, all the miserable sensations of indigestion, acidity, heart-burn, sinking, and wretchedness, which accompany certain states of disordered function of the stomach. Now, if this acknowledged illusion be dependent upon a slight disturbance of the general harmony of the system, can it be deemed extraordinary that the approach of its more serious and threatening invasions should be attended by some important illusions, and more deeply shadowed creations of a morbid brain?

To this view of the subject it may be replied, that in the instance of Colonel Gardiner it was followed by the conversion of a sinner, and that therefore it must have owned a supernatural origin. But this is by no means a consecutive result, and cannot be admitted in the argument. For it is perfectly possible, and consistent with all we know of the mysterious wisdom and goodness of a God of order and of infinite mercy, who works by the agency of means, that this sickness, and the effect produced upon the nervous system by its approach, should be employed as the very means of arresting the sinner in his headlong course of vice and widening alienation from God, and of recalling him to better thoughts and principles; awakening him to repentance, to a sense of his lost and ruined state, and to the only hope of salvation, through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only refuge for the convinced unpardoned sinner, the only means of obtaining peace. In the order of God's providence, nothing is more usual than that affliction, and especially sickness, should be employed to accomplish spiritual good, even the purposes of Divine mercy towards the sufferers; for we well know how greatly the heart is softened and rendered impressible by sorrow. Sometimes even wicked men are permitted, unintentionally on their parts, to bring about these designs; at other times, we become ourselves the authors of our misfortunes, by our imprudence, or neglect, or vices. God is not the author of evil, and does not employ evil in his service. But the wicked agents of their own desires and devices are permitted, in following their own wills, to bring about the designs of the Almighty. So, also, impressions upon the nervous system, which result from a physical influence, as well as the calamity of insanity itself, may be overruled for good, and may be instrumental in the conviction and con

version of the sinner. And although it is desirable for us to form just views of these cases, it might not always be advisable to combat opinions of this kind, where we found them referred to a supernatural agency; provided always, that we could trace their holy influence upon the heart and conduct of those who

verily thought they owed their "second thoughts" to some such special miracle. The feverish heat of enthusiasm is certainly not to be desired, but it is infinitely less to be deprecated than the death-like torpor of unbelief; that gloomy collapse of action, which scarcely admits of hope. Still, enthusiasm is an evil, which admits of prevention rather than cure; and the first of these objects forms the great purpose of the present essay. And how delightful is the reflection, that all our affairs are in the hands of such an omnipotent and all-wise Jehovah, whose merciful designs cannot be circumvented, and who deigns to over-rule for good even the wicked devices of his rebellious creatures. Without, therefore, the necessity of supposing any supernatural influence, we have a most rational explanation of this mystery-one which enlarges our views, and fixes them upon the infinite goodness of the Almighty, who doth all things well, instead of upon a very questionable agency, which has often been perverted to bad purposes.

Besides, a similar appearance has been often made without being followed by a similar result. And if the Almighty should have condescended to employ this extraordinary revelation in bringing about his designs of mercy, it can scarcely be supposed that this can ever have occurred without being followed by the alleged consequence. For however, under common circumstances, the sinner, in the hardness of his heart, may resist the striving of the Spirit in all ordinary means of impression, it cannot be allowed that this would be the case when a

miracle—that is, an interference with the customary laws of nature-had been produced for this express purpose; for the Omnipotent does nothing in vain. Now two cases, very nearly similar to that of Colonel Gardiner, have occurred in the experience of the writer of these remarks, and the supposed consequences have not taken place. They were the following.

A farmer, in returning from market, was deeply affected by a most extraordinarily brilliant light, which he thought he saw upon the road, and by an appearance in that light, which he conceived to be our Saviour. He was greatly alarmed, and, spurring his horse, galloped home; remained agitated during the evening; was seized with typhus fever, then prevailing in the neighbourhood; and died in about ten days. Be it observed, that on the morning of the day of the supposed vision, he had complained, before he left home, of head-ache, languor, and general weariness. In fact, this is only to be accounted for, rationally, by supposing the existence of the nervous impression preceding the open attack of severe disease. It would be well if we would sometimes borrow caution from a heathen; "Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderit." An analogous case has been related to me, in which there was an appear ance of the evil one, and which was followed by severe illness and death; but as this has not happened within the sphere of my own investigation, it is merely mentioned as shewing the frequency of such impressions.

Another instance, but which was followed by a fatal result, occurred in the case of C. D., who has several times witnessed a luminous appearance, only without a visible representation of any particular form. This has happened almost immediately after going to bed; and although the individual may be said to be free from superstitious fears, and religion cannot bear the unjust blame of inducing them, for

he is sceptical on the subject of many of the grand truths of Christianity; yet it has been difficult, nay, impossible, to convince him that the light was not real; and that the apparent vividness with which he saw every surrounding object, although he was really in the dark, was the actual result of recollected impressions previously made upon the sensorium, and now associated with the ocular spectrum produced by a peculiar state of the optic nerve; that condition being the result of disordered health, since upon all these occasions the general health has been manifestly deranged.

Again: E. F. is a young gentleman, who had for years been subject to paroxysms of epilepsy, and, I apprehend too, of maniacal hallucination. His history, so far as it fell under my own observation, is shortly this. He came into my neighbourhood for change of air. He had been one day to visit a friend of his, residing in a village a few miles distant, and had left that house about eleven o'clock at night. He did not return to his lodgings until five the next morning, and then in a state of great exhaustion, with his clothes in so wet, and dirty, and disordered a condition, as indicated that he must have spent a considerable portion of the night upon the wild commons, with which this locality is surrounded.. Be it observed, that, on account of his head, he had taken only one glass of wine; so that the excitement of intoxication is entirely out of the question. His account of himself was: that he had been met by a light of the most extraordinary brilliance, in the centre of which was a female form of exceeding beauty; and that he had followed this light, until, when it finally disappeared, he found himself completely bewildered, and knew not where he was. He then wandered about, until at length he came to a cottage, and there remained till, with the assistance of day-light, and

of the cottagers, he found his way home. Two days after this occurrence, I was summoned in the night to see him, on account of an extra ordinary state of insensibility in which he appeared to be, and of the impossibility of his friends' getting him to bed. I found him in a paroxysm of ecstasy, with his Bible in his hands, opened, and too firmly grasped to be relinquished without the use of great violence; his eyes fixed on a particular part of the room, with the utmost intensity of eager desire; his lips quivering in imaginary conversation; his feet cold, though it was a very hot night; and the head greatly heated with an accelerated and excited circulation through its vessels. This state was only the precursor of a regular attack of insanity, which gave way, after a few days, to cupping, leeches, blistering, cold applications to the head, mustard plasters to the feet, the usual medicines, and rational treatment of a mental and moral complexion.-And what do these circumstances prove, if they do not shew that these supposed supernatural appearances are the result of disordered action of the brainular system, arising for the most part from the incubation of disease? At least, we have traced back several instances of this kind to this peculiar condition of the nervous system; and it becomes the objector to shew why we may not argue from circumstances which we can fathom, to analogous circumstances, which are beyond the reach of our bounded vision, but which admit of easy explanation upon this principle, while on any other hypothesis they are wholly and entirely inexplicable.

It is related, in the Memoirs of Pastor Oberlin, that there appeared nightly to the family of one of his parishioners the ghost of an ancient knight, who gave information of a treasure bidden in the cellar. Pastor Oberlin was called in his ministerial capacity to witness this appearance. It is needless to add,

that he could see nothing but he very wisely addressed the supposed apparition in a commanding tone, desiring it to delude these poor people no longer; and most prudently introduced into his address the only legitimate means of acquiring riches, by persevering energy. The nocturnal visitor never again appeared; clearly shewing that his pastoral influence was enough to supersede the morbid hallucination which had been produced upon several brains, by the agency of that community of feeling and interest which exists between the different branches of the same family.

A young man, within the circle of my acquaintance, was severely ill, and suffered large loss of blood. This was succeeded by irregularity in the distribution of that fluid, and the head got an undue proportion; the consequence of which was an excited state of the brain, and what he termed a happiness on religious subjects, which rendered him full of gratitude and hope. This was followed, in a day or two, by his assertion that he had had an extraordinary revelation from God, in which he was called by name in an audible voice, and had received a commission to teach and preach by every means: in fact, a paroxysm of insanity had set in. He burst into a rhapsodical, incoherent prayer; laid his hands on a little girl, and blessed her, as in the character of our Saviour. The instant the Bible is mentioned, he asserts that he no longer needs it, because he has received a special revelation, which supersedes its necessity;-in itself an abundant proof of the patient's delusion, and shewing, on the whole, the influence of physical causes in disturbing the manifestations of mind,

But I advance a step further, and assert, that, if these supernatural appearances be considered as the commissioned agents of the Omnipotent to convince the hardened heart, it is quite impossible to resist the conclusion that the same

agency has been employed as a weapon against the spread of true religion in the world. But it is impossible to allow that any portion of God's providential arrangements can be directly opposed to his most holy will; therefore an event can never have occurred which would involve this solecism: consequently the apparition cannot be traced to spiritual agency, without involving a tremendous absurdity; whereas, if it be considered as of bodily origin, though its consequences may have been such as, in the hands of a God of infinite grace, to be sometimes rendered the means of stopping the sinner in his maddening career, all is comprehensible, all is in keeping with the revealed and ordinary methods of God's providence.

The instance to which I particularly allude, is that of the wellknown Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who, while meditating the publication of his work, "De Veritate, prout distinguitur a Revelatione verisimili, possibili, et a fulso;" and, indeed, while hesitating as to the propriety of publishing, what he knew would attach some considerable odium to its author; prayed thus: "O thou eternal God, Author of the light which now shines upon me, and Giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee, of thy infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough, whether I shall publish this book, De Veritate: if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it. He had no sooner spoken these words, than a loud, though gentle, noise came from the heavens; which so comforted and supported him, that he took his petition as granted, considered that he had the sign asked for, and resolved to print the work in question." Now, it is quite impossible to gainsay this fact, since it rests on the same basis with others of similar pretensions, though of an opposite cast of character-namely, human testimony,

which, if admitted as evidence in the one case, must also be allowed in the other. It may indeed be said, that God overrules all things for the promotion of his kingdom in the world; and therefore, that, as every event redounds to his glory, this was among the number. But it cannot be supposed that the Almighty would actually commission an enemy to the cause of truth to make an attack upon that cause (which would ultimately triumph), for the purpose of obtaining a refutation; although he may have made the devices of man's froward heart contribute, by His power, to some real and substantial good, and to the setting forth of his glory. If, then, we separate these results in any one instance from the immediate agency of God's providence, so do we legitimately in others: we estimate them aright; we refer them to a peculiar state of morbid cerebral irritation; and the individual so acting is to be considered as entirely under a bodily influence, however he may be deceived into a contrary opinion, by feeling, prejudice, ignorance, or passion.

We have next to notice more particularly the appearance of individuals to others, and especially of the dead or dying to their distant friends. We shall observe, that these appearances occur in a disordered state of the brainular system arising from bodily disease, or in the particular condition of that organ which results from intense mental emotion. In either case, there will be remarked a peculiar susceptibility to impression of every kind, and a predisposition towards the indulgence of emotions of a painful character. But this is a morbid state, not of the immaterial, indestructible spirit, but of the organ through which its manifestations of action are made, by which its perceptions are received, and its impressions are conveyed. This may exist in a greater or less degree, as will be best illustrated by the history of some cases which have fallen under my own observation.