That the spirits of the departed are permitted to appear only for special purposes, is what the most credulous believer in such appearances would probably admit, if he reasoned at all upon the subject. On the other hand, they who are most incredulous on this point, would hardly deny that to witness the consequences of our actions may be a natural and just part of our reward or punishment in the intermediate state. We may well believe that they whom faith has sanctified, and who upon their departure join the spirits of the “just made perfect,” may at once be removed from all concern with this world of probation, except so far as might add to their own happiness, and be made conducive to the good of others, in the ways of Providence. But by parity of reason, it may be concluded that the sordid and the sensual, they whose affections have been set upon worldly things, and who are of the earth earthy, will be as unable to rise above this earth, as they would be incapable of any pure and spiritual enjoyment. “He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” When life is extinguished, it is too late for them to struggle for deliverance from the body of that death, to which, while the choice was in their power, they wilfully and inseparably bound themselves. The popular belief that places are haunted where money has been concealed (as if where the treasure was and the heart had been, there would the miserable soul be also), or where some great and undiscovered crime has been committed, shews how consistent this is with our natural sense of likelihood and fitness. There is a tale in the Nigaristan of Kemal-Pascha-zade, that one of the Sultans of Khorassan saw in a dream, Mahmoud a hundred years after his death, wandering about his palace,—his flesh rotten, his bones carious, but his eyes full, anxious and restless. A dervise who interpreted the dream, said that the eyes of Mahmoud were thus troubled, because the kingdom, his beautiful spouse, was now in the embrace of another.