he French sage calls the "aromal state." From the hope thus
gleaned it forms the hypothesis, under whose banner it collects its
facts.

Long before these slight attempts were made to establish, as a science
what is at present called animal magnetism, always, in fact, men were
occupied more or less with this vital principle,--principle of
flux and influx,--dynamic of our mental mechanics,--human phase of
electricity. Poetic observation was pure, there was no quackery in its
free course, as there is so often in this wilful tampering with the
hidden springs of life, for it is tampering unless done in a patient
spirit and with severe truth; yet it may be, by the rude or greedy
miners, some good ore is unearthed. And some there are who work in
the true temper, patient and accurate in trial, not rushing to
conclusions, feeling there is a mystery, not eager to call it by name
till they can know it as a reality: such may learn, such may teach.

Subject to the sudden revelations, the breaks in habitual existence,
caused by the aspect of death, the touch of love, the flood of music,
I never lived, that I remember, what you call a common natural day.
All my days are touched by the supernatural, for I feel the pressure
of hidden causes, and the presence, sometimes the communion, of unseen
powers. It needs not that I should ask the clairvoyant whether "a
spirit-world projects into ours." As to the specific evidence, I would
not tarnish my mind by hasty reception. The mind is not, I know, a
highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left
open. Yet it were sin, if indolence or coldness excluded what had a
claim to enter; and I doubt whether, in the eyes of pure intelligence,
an ill-grounded hasty rejection be not a greater sign of weakness than
an ill-grounded and hasty faith.

I will quote, as my best plea, the saying of a man old in years, but
not in heart, and whose long life has been distinguished by that
clear adaptation of means to ends which gives the credit of practical
wisdom. He wrote to his child, "I have lived too long, and seen too
much, to be _in_ credulous." Noble the thought, no less so its frank
expression, instead of saws of caution, mean advices, and other modern
instances. Such was the romance of Socrates when he bade his disciples
"sacrifice a cock to AEsculapius."

_Old Church._ You are always so quick-witted and voluble, Free Hope,
you don't get time to see how often you err, and even, per