Which rhyme of his was so rapturous to himself, that at the reciting of the second verse the old man turned himself about upon his toe as nimbly as one may observe a dry leaf whisked round in the corner of an orchard walk, by some little whirlwind. With this philosopher I have had many discourses concerning the immortality of the soul and its destruction: when I have run him quite down by reason, he would but laugh at me, and say, this is logic, H., calling me by my christian name; to which I replied, this is reason, Father L., (for I used and some others to call him) but it seems you are for the new lights and the immediate inspirations, which I confess he was as little for as for the other; but I said so only in the way of drollery to him in those times, but truth is, nothing but palpable experience would move him, and being a bold man, and fearing nothing, he told me he had used all the magical ceremonies of conjuration he could to raise the devil or a spirit, and had a most earnest desire to meet with one, but never could do it. But this he told me, when he did not so much as think of it, while his servant was pulling off his boots in the hall, some invisible hand gave him such a clap upon the back that it made all ring again; so, thought he, I am invited to converse with a spirit; and therefore so soon as his boots were off and his shoes on, out he goes into the yard and next field to find out the spirit that had given him this familiar slap on the back, but found him neither in the yard nor the next field to it. “But though he did not feel this stroke, albeit he thought it afterwards (finding nothing came of it) a mere delusion; yet not long before his death it had more force with him than all the philosophical arguments I could use to him, though I could wind him and non-plus him as I pleased; but yet all my arguments, how solid soever, made no impression upon him, wherefore after several reflections of this nature, whereby I would prove to him the soul’s distinction from the body, and its immortality, when nothing of such subtile considerations did any more execution in his mind, than some lightening is said to do, though it melts the sword on the fuzzy consistency of the scabbard: _Well, said I, Father L., though none of these things move you, I have something still behind, and what yourself has acknowledged to me to be true, that may do the business: do you remember the clap on your back, when your servant was pulling off your boots in the hall? Assure yourself_, said I, _Father L., that goblin will be the first that will bid you welcome in the other world_. Upon that his countenance changed most sensibly, and he was more confounded with rubbing up of his memory than with all the rational and philosophical argumentations that I could produce.”