ie," said the doctor, "ay, strong men, the
tissues of whose brain were, in comparison of those of your old women
and young enthusiasts, as iron wires to pellicles of flesh. And how do
they die if they are Christians, as all men ought to be? What is there
in death, think you, to subvert the known laws of physiology? We might
suppose, that as the spirit is about to leave the mortal frame, it will
be fitful, and flit from tissue to tissue, and gleam and die away, to
flare up again in some worldly image, perhaps, of the past; as where I
have known it show the face of an early beloved one, long since gone, in
all its first glory, to the eyes of a lover. Such are mere exceptions,
from which no rule can be drawn; but they occur, and we admit them as
consonant enough to natural causes. So far we all agree; but where is
that consonance in all those numerous cases which have come under my own
observation, where the man--a strong man even in death--is rapt into a
vision set in a halo of light, and showing forth, as an assurance of
divine favour, the very form and features of Him who died on the cross
of Calvary? Is there anything in physiology to account for this? And
then it occurs so often as almost to amount to a rule."

"I have too much respect for religion," replied I, "to throw a doubt on
certain workings of the spirit in that mysterious condition when it
hovers between the two worlds, and when it can hardly be said to belong
to earth; but the case is entirely different where the common agencies
are all working through their fitted and natural means. We can never say
that any of those means are superseded--only others are substituted; and
we do not understand the substitution."

"You are unfortunate," said the doctor, with a triumphant gravity. "If
you admit that supernatural agencies ever have--in any stage of the
world, in any place, way, or manner, or by any means--had to do with
earthly things, or have to do in those days, or will have to do in any
future time or place on the earth's surface, your admission closes up
your mouth for ever."

"To do, in those days, on this night, not many hours agone!" cried
Graeme, with rolling eyes. "Who cares for admissions of those who see,
when one's own eyes are nearer the brain than are the eyes or lips of
him who admits, or of him who denies?"

"Not hours ago!" said the doctor, fixing his big eyes on the face of
Graeme; "and so near a birth?"

"Oh, she knows nothing," said Grae