their father, the devil," without introducing the whole Pandemonium into our houses, to overturn our tables and upset the laws of gravity and mechanical philosophy. We believe that miracles were performed of old, for holy purposes, and no other; that they were necessary to enforce the truth of revelation; that the day of miracles has gone by, and that they ceased when their necessity ceased. We have our own mode of fixing that period, but the discussion would be too far from our present purpose, and we have digressed too much already. We take the ground that every witch, wizard, magician, astrologer, sorcerer, necromancer, and fortune-teller, from the earliest, down to the present time, has had no more power over matter, or the laws of nature, than any other person, and that whoever lays claim to familiar spirits, foresight, or any direct communication with the invisible world, through raps and tips, is either witch, wizard, conjurer, or sorcerer _de facto_.[3] The prime movers in all these marvels are _impostors_, and their disciples, _dupes_. While the former are filling their coffers at the expense of the latter, they must often indulge in secret merriment at the credulity of their adherents; and particularly at the grave discussions of the learned clergy and others upon electricity, magnetism, the new fluid, the nervous fluid, or the devil's immediate agency, as probable causes of these strange phenomena. Surely the "children of this world are wiser than the children of light." The juggler with his legerdemain far outstrips any thing that has ever been accomplished by rappers and tippers, but then he tells you that he performs by sleight of hand, and that unless your eyes are quicker than his hands, you will be deceived. If certain of his performances were to be introduced with some religious jargon and pretext, his success in infatuating the mass of the people, would put the rappers and tippers entirely in the shade, for the tricks of these latter are clumsy and poorly done at the best. Mr. Anderson, the professed juggler, known as the Wizard of the North, has, to his great credit, published a series of communications, in which he boldly avers that these rappers are all impostors, and has contrived a system of rapping and spiritual communications, quite as successful as those of the original fraternity. He has failed, however, to elucidate the whole subject, from the fact that he has been contented with a mere imitation, which the rappers will of course pronounce a counterfeit. Our first visit to the rappers, was in company with a gentleman of high eminence in science, of keen discernment, and very fruitful in expedients. We had formed no particular plan of procedure, except that we had agreed to feign belief in these performances, lest incredulity might prove an obstacle to investigation, and keep the rappers too much on their guard. Repudiating all idea of the supernatural, we were not liable