there may be grounds for fear that, should ever the Government inspectors of schools hear of it, the poor innocents would be put to an inconvenient questioning; and it is possible that these inspectors, or multitudes of men equally learned, discreet, and wise, may, after lecturing the school teachers and scholars on superstition, go directly, with as great credulity, to a lecture of another kind, and to witness mesmeric experiments, which assume powers far beyond those of any miracles whatever. Those who would smile at the tale of a holy man healing the sick by a word, will credit a somnambulist who, upon a physician's fee, professes to look blindfolded into the inside of his credulous patient, and, without knowing anything whatever about medicine, say what drug will effect a cure; who advertises to be at home for consultation upon people's most private affairs--to tell them of unknown, unsuspected, important papers and documents--to tell the past, the present, and, more wonderful, _the future_. And, with a wonderful inconsistency, there are men who, having entire faith in these assumptions, and on the infallibility of their science, have no belief whatever in a soul, scoff at spirituality, and boldly pronounce the phenomena of seeing without eyes, travelling without feet, bidding doors, whether of mansion or of cabinets, open to them, and, being obeyed, of knowing all secrets which were never told; of knowing what is passing thousands of miles off with persons never before seen, by holding any person's hand; of entering into that person; of prophesying; of knowing thoughts and their consequences, as to be shown in events;--audaciously, we say, pronouncing these phenomena to arise from materialism.