"And the resurrection of the Lord?" said Edmond. "Is not," said the former, "to be reckoned among the phenomena, commonly called miracles, if the grosser, unenlightened mind can indeed comprehend them only in this manner." "Go on," said Edmond, "to make your opinions clear to me, I am not yet too old to learn." "It happens not unfrequently," resumed the priest "that remorse and despair either in criminals or in weak, sickly men have produced a sudden cure of old paralysis, so that the strength of the arm has been able to tear off their fetters, or to break iron posts; passion or terror exasperated that man, and gave him what in an ordinary state he did not possess. In dreams, in sickness, strange worlds are often discovered to us, and unknown feelings, scarcely foreboded, are presented to our view, and thus it may well happen, nay, I have myself experienced it, that in excited minds, inspired by enthusiasm, remorse, and passion, a state, as if between sleep and wakefulness, originates, in which, in the struggles of the organs, the spirit breaks in a short time through the bonds that confine it; it sees and hears as a spirit, distance approaches it, barriers obstruct not its view, futurity becomes the present, and in this total overthrow, the original vigour of the soul resumes its own appropriate right." "And wherefore should not this, according to your own words," said Edmond, "be able to be pure and heavenly?" "I will neither combat, condemn, nor ratify it," answered the clergyman, "were our nature entirely pure and refined, had we never falsified our heavenly origin, then indeed might these phenomena deserve our praise and thanksgiving to the Almighty, who again ever raises us to the rank of apostles, and denies us not the gift of prophecy. But frivolity, mortality, and evil have penetrated into us, this death obscures our life, this annihilation struggles against our spirit, as we are of heavenly origin; our outward existence is, however, as well as our spiritual operations continually exposed to this pitiful enemy, as the shadow, it follows every thought and every deed, and to combat it in thought and action, as well as in pure faith and devotion, is the task of our existence; the past must be continually put aside to make room for the coming, of the Lord. But woe to us when that wonderful excitement of the mind, when these gifts of prophecy associate themselves with this nullity, this chaos, and all the dark passions! Then eternal truth, which never slumbers within us, summons falsehood, vanity, pride, wickedness, and bloodthirstiness, to enter into the shadowed gloom of our dark deformed soul, hyenas and tigers then tear themselves free from their fetters, and hapless man imagines, while the spirit of murder is roaring within him, that the Spirit of the Lord is prophesying directly from out of his mouth."