CLASSIFICATION OF MEN--THE SUPERSTITIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN--THE OLD CULTS CONTINUED IN THE NEW--FIRE WORSHIP--THE SORCERERS--MY LEGAL FRIEND'S STORY A LAUGHABLE ONE INDEED--THE DESPONDENT OLD MAID, THOUGH ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED--AN AUNT ARRIVES IN "THE NICK OF TIME"--THEY HUNT UP A FORTUNE-TELLER--MRS. SEYMOUR, THE SORCERESS, AND HER PRETTY LITTLE "ORATORY"--THE "PRIE-DIEU"--THE OLD MAID MARRIES--MRS. SEYMOUR'S PLAN FOR INSURING THE AFFECTION OF HUSBANDS--HER POWERS AS A CHARMER--THE SACRED BOX AND ITS FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS CONTENTS--MRS. SEYMOUR IS LOST SIGHT OF--SEARCH FOR HER IN BROOKLYN AND AT BOSTON--THE CHARMED BOX OPENED BY MR. AND MRS. ----, AND THE CONTENTS FOUND TO HAVE CHANGED FORM MATERIALLY--MY LEGAL FRIEND AND I LOOK AFTER MATTERS--A PORTION OF THE TRANSFORMED VALUABLES FOUND--A MRS. BRADLEY, A "MEDIUM" IN BOSTON, PROVES TO BE THE IDENTICAL MRS. SEYMOUR--THE HIGH-TONED DEVOTEES OF BOSTON--SUDDEN PROCEEDINGS TAKEN--MRS. SEYMOUR AND HER HUSBAND COME TO TERMS--RESULTS--RESPECTABLE VICTIMS OF THE SORCERERS NUMEROUS--THE DUPES IN THE "ATHENS OF AMERICA." What the human race might have become without the love of the mysterious or marvellous in its composition, would be a pretty subject of speculation for the philosophers, but one which human genius will prove perhaps ever unable to solve. There are three classes of human beings,--or so I am apt to divide them in my "philosophy,"--the good, and in different degrees, sensible; the crafty; and the simple and weak, neither positively good or bad. These latter two divisions comprehend the vast majority of mankind, made so, to a great extent, by the institutions which the race has, in its ignorance, wrought out for itself, and by which it is constantly cursed, until one by one it outgrows, along the course of the ages, these outrages upon itself, which itself has imposed. This process of outgrowing we call _progress_, and so it is, perhaps; but it would be more satisfactory progress if, when it overrides or abates one wrong or malicious incumbrance upon a race, it could or would also avoid the establishment of another equally bad. The love of the mysterious is, to a great extent, the religious element in man. Some writers hold that it is such to the full extent; but I am not about to decide that, even for myself alone, much less for others. True it is, however, that in all historic time this element, or whatever else one is pleased to call it, has been the medium through which the intellectual and tyrant forces in the race have subjected the weaker to their sway. The ancient oracles played upon the superstitious in men in the government of whole races and nations, and to-day the oracles of old are reproduced among us in a thousand ways, and the religions of the past, in their symbolizations, exist among us, and exert their influence, almost unconsciously to the masses.