most patient persistence, the table proved true to its lifeless character, and the universal law that "_matter is inert, and cannot move of itself_." What could have been the cause of this abortive conjuration? Were the spirits present, and not disposed to gratify a certain class of _dilettanti_ who were present? Were they jesting and teazing, or in bad humor with our persons, our fixtures, or our espionage? For we had heard from very respectable sources, of the spirits jesting and taunting those present on such occasions. Or were they far away on some errand of duty, or busy and monopolized for some _special tippings_ elsewhere? This last idea seems to be precluded by the fact that certain great spirits, such as Channing, Webster, Clay and Calhoun, who figure so largely on these occasions, rap and tip in different places at the same time. What mummery is all this to the mind that believes in the omnipresence of the Great God himself, who cannot look upon such practices but with abhorrence. Are you, Christian man or woman, one whit better for these doings than that woman with the familiar spirits, the Witch of Endor?[1] Are you not rather her disciple? and is she not held up to you for an example and a warning? Do you think that rappings and table-tippings give respectability to witchcraft? Is reading the future and the invisible world by rappings and tippings any better than the doings of yonder wretched crone, who works out in her concealed abode the same problems by packs of cards and mystical incantations? Are you not ministering encouragement to her hagship, and pursuing her very vocation, though under another name? Shall not this veritable beldame rise up in judgment, and plead in justification of _fortune-telling_ the example of the Christian Church in spirit-rapping and table-tipping? Perhaps you think that these seeming wonders are fraught with more interest, novelty, and mystery, than the magical demonstrations of old. Why, in very truth, they are contemptibly insignificant when compared with the witcheries of old. Read Upham's letters on the witchcraft of the New England Colonies, Sir Walter Scott's demonology and witchcraft, and see how the rappings and tippings dwindle before the performances of the witches of yore. After reading these, study well Sir David Brewster's Natural Magic--a book that should be in the hands of every one who takes interest in these marvels of the day. There you will see how phenomena, at first sight inexplicable, are solved by the touch-stones of science and common sense. You will there find that sorcery was not to be stopped entirely by the gibbet, the gallows or the stake, but that the light of reason and science were most effectual in promoting its overthrow. Sir Walter Scott says of the opposers of witchcraft in the seventeenth century, that the "pursuers of exact science to its coy retreats were sure to be the first to discover that the most remarkable phenomena in nature are