devastation of human intellect, the fearful swellings of the madhouse rolls, the frightful deeds of blood and violence, and the stupendous frauds, all begotten of this monster mania! Are these the fruits of legitimate and holy deeds? Are these your consolations while at your spiritual shrines? Do they not bear evidence in themselves of their diabolical origin, and are they not warnings to you to beware, lest in your attempts to enter beyond the veil into the "_Holy of Holies_," you be struck down also? If these pests of society are beyond the reach of earthly tribunals, will you countenance and encourage their career? Shall we be met here with the assertion that there are religious maniacs, that religious excitement makes madmen, and leads to deeds of violence? We spurn the fallacy; and with proud defiance, armed with the Rock of Ages, we hurl back the apology in the very teeth of the casuist who made it, and, fearless of his replication, triumphantly assert that the true religion of Jesus Christ, whose first fruits and very essence is peace to the soul, NEVER DROVE ANY BODY MAD. We profess a profound reverence for all that is holy, and from our earliest recollection have been imbued with a deep dread of profanity in any shape, and approached this mockery of high Heaven with some reluctance, unwilling that our veneration should suffer so much violence. But we felt justified, in the full assurance that this thing was not of Heaven, but of men. For the sake of unravelling this imposture and illusion, for this purpose _alone_, we have put ourselves frequently in the attitude of dupes of these impostors, and feigning for a time conviction and conversion, have led them on till they were completely baffled in every attempt to perform their tricks, and the spirits became powerless and silent as the mortal tenements they once actuated. When we first sat down to a table with a few well-meaning and particular family friends to conjure spirits, we confess to a momentary feeling of horripilation, not from fear of meeting a visitor from another world, but from the impression that the very act was _heaven-daring_ and _profane_. But when we came to utter the Rapper's Shibboleth, "_If there are any spirits present, will they please to signify it by tipping the table?_" the thoughts of sacrilege vanished, and were immediately supplanted by an irresistible sense of the ridiculous, and the smile and the laugh rose above all convictions of solemnity or irreverence. "Will the spirits please to tip the table?" was again and again reiterated, but no table tipped for us. Perhaps we are not "_mediums_," said one. "The spirits have declared that I am a medium," said another; but that Great Exorcist, _common sense_, was present and prevalent on this occasion; and the spirits would not communicate, and the table would not tip, _certainly not, of itself_. We introduced every variety of manipulation of crossing hands, interlocking fingers, and, in spite of all, and the