followed by a similar one in respect to the still more tremendous idea of Deity. To use a strange but most expressive term, first employed by De Quincey (although applied to a different subject) we know of nothing in human experience that threatens to be so utterly _de-religionizing_--in other words, so fatally destructive of all that reverence for the spiritual, that awe of the unseen, that tender emotion, as well as solemn interest, which connect themselves with the idea of the other life, and without which religion itself, in any form, can have no deep or permanent hold upon the mind. We find it difficult to conceive how any man possessed of the smallest share of these holy sympathies, can bring himself to give any countenance whatever to such practices. We appeal to those who have lost the nearest relatives--a parent, a brother, a sister, a dear departed child--how should every right feeling of the soul revolt against the thought of holding intercourse with them, even though it were possible, through such means? Who that has a Christian heart would not prefer the silence of the grave to the thought of the dear departed one in the midst of such imaginings, and such scenic associations as are connected with the usual performances of this kind? Through that silence of the grave the voice of faith may be heard speaking to us in the language of revelation--_He is not dead but sleepeth_. Blessed word,--so utterly unknown to all previous philosophy--never heard in any other revelation than that of the gospel! They are not dead but _sleep_. "They enter into _peace_," says the prophet. And then the precious and consoling addition--They sleep _in Jesus_. Surely the term thus employed can imply no cessation of consciousness, no torpor of the higher and better faculties of the soul; but it does denote, beyond all doubt, a state of rest, of calmness, of security, of undisturbed and beatific vision--a state far removed from all resemblance to this bustling life--a state in all respects the opposite of that which fancy pictures as belonging to the scenes presented in the manifestations of spiritual rappings, and spiritual table-liftings, and, in a word, those spiritual pantomimes, which seem to be becoming more and more extravagant and grotesque in proportion to the infidel credulity with which they are received.