se crimes against the credulous faith of
childhood--for they are no less. Then there are particular passages in
our literature, sacred and profane, which do their share at-upholding
the belief in the supernatural, especially as connected with the
uninspired foretelling of future events--"fortune-telling." The case
of the Witch of Endor and her invocation of the spirit of Samuel, which
is given in Holy Writ as an actual occurrence and no fable, of course
takes precedence of all others in influence; and the superstitious man
who is also a religionist, always has the one unanswerable reply ready
for any one who attempts to reason away the idea of occult knowledge: "Ah,
but the Witch of Endor: what will you do with _her_? If the Bible is
true--and you would not like to doubt that--she was a wicked woman, not
susceptible to prophetic influences, and yet she did foretell the future
and bring up the spirits of the dead. If this was possible then, why
not now?"

From the church we pass to the theatre, and from the Book of all Books
to that which nearest follows it in the sublimity of its
wisdom--Shakspeare. No one doubts "Hamlet" much more than the First Book
of Samuel, and yet the play is altogether a falsehood if there is no
revelation made to the Prince of the guilt of his Uncle; and the
spiritual character of the revelation is not at all affected by the
question whether Hamlet saw or _thought he saw_ the ghost of his
murdered father. Again comes "Macbeth," and though we may allow Banquo's
ghost to be altogether a diseased fancy of the guilty man's brain, yet
the whole story of the temptation is destroyed unless the witches on the
blasted heath really make him true prophecies for false purposes. These
sublime fancies appeal to our eyes, and through the eyes to our beliefs,
night after night and year after year; and if they do not create a
superstition in any mind previously clear of the influence, they at
least prevent the disabuse of many a mind and preserve from ridicule
what would else be contemptible.

It was with reference to fortune-telling especially that this discussion
of our predominant superstitions commenced; and this indefensibly
episodical chapter must close with a mere suggestion as to the extent to
which that imposition is practised in our leading cities. Very few, it
may be suspected, know how prevalent is this superstition among
us--quite equivalent to the gipsy palmistry of the European countries.
Of ver