of the African and American savages, would it be unreasonable to suppose that, as the most elevated devotion brings us into fellowship with the Holy Spirit, a correspondent degree of wickedness may effect a communion with evil intelligences? These are mere speculations which I advance for as little as they are worth. My serious belief amounts to this, that preternatural impressions are sometimes communicated to us for wise purposes: and that departed spirits are sometimes permitted to manifest themselves. _Stranger_.--If a ghost, then, were disposed to pay you a visit, you would be in a proper state of mind for receiving such a visitor? _Montesinos_.--I should not credit my senses lightly; neither should I obstinately distrust them, after I had put the reality of the appearance to the proof, as far as that were possible. _Stranger_.--Should you like to have an opportunity afforded you? _Montesinos_.--Heaven forbid! I have suffered so much in dreams from conversing with those whom even in sleep I knew to be departed, that an actual presence might perhaps be more than I could bear. _Stranger_.--But if it were the spirit of one with whom you had no near ties of relationship or love, how then would it affect you? _Montesinos_.--That would of course be according to the circumstances on both sides. But I entreat you not to imagine that I am any way desirous of enduring the experiment. _Stranger_.--Suppose, for example, he were to present himself as I have done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen--after dinner; and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in aspect than the being who now addresses you? _Montesinos_.--Why, sir, to so substantial a ghost, and of such respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say with Hamlet, "Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee!" _Stranger_.--Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I told you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more distant country than America, and had long been naturalised there. The country whence I come is not the New World, but the other one: and I now declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost. _Montesinos_.--A ghost! _Stranger_.--A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation if ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne. And now what test do you require? _Montesinos_.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame. You look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil!