weaker members of large congregations. What chance have ignorant people
witnessing such attacks, or being themselves the subjects of them, of
escaping the persuasion that they mark the immediate agency of the Holy
Spirit? Or, to take ordinarily informed and sober-minded people,--what
would they think at seeing mixed up with this hysteric disturbance,
distinct proofs of extraordinary perceptive and anticipatory powers,
such as occasionally manifest themselves as parts of trance, to the
rational explanation of which they might not have the key?

In the preceding letter, I have already exemplified, by the case of
Henry Engelbrecht, the occurrence of visions of hell and heaven during
the deepest state of trance. No doubt the poor ascetic implicitly
believed his whole life the reality of the scenes to which his
imagination had transported him.

In a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Mark Phillips, Esq.,
published in 1841, a very interesting account is given of two young
women who had lain for months or years in a state of religious
beatitude. Their condition, when they were exhibited, appears to have
been that of half-waking in trance; or, perhaps, a shade nearer the
lightest form of trance-sleep. To increase the force of the scene, they
appear to have exhibited some degree of trance-perceptive power. But,
without this, the mere aspect of such persons is wonderfully imposing.
If the pure spirit of Christianity finds a bright comment and
illustration in the Madonnas and Cherubim of Raffaelle, it seems to
shine out in still more truthful vividness from the brow of a young
person rapt in religious ecstasy. The hands clasped in prayer,--the
upturned eyes,--the expression of humble confidence and seraphic hope,
(displayed, let me suggest, on a beautiful face,) constitute a picture
of which, having witnessed it, I can never forget the force. Yet I knew
it was only a trance. So one knows that village churches are built by
common mechanics. Yet when we look over an extensive country, and see
the spire from its clump of trees rising over each hamlet, or over the
distant city its minster tower,--the images find an approving harmony in
our feelings, and seem to aid in establishing the genuineness and the
truth of the sentiment and the faith which have reared such expressive
symbols.

In the two cases mentioned in Lord Shrewsbury's pamphlet, it is,
however, painful to observe that trick and artifice had been used to
ben