_P._ Can you not go a little farther and admit for established fact, proved by the testimony of the Book from which you derive your religious faith, that communications between spirits and mortals have sometimes taken place? _I._ True, but the Bible calls the spirits thus communicating, "familiar spirits," and those who have dealings with them, "witches" and "wizards," and forbids the practice under severe penalties. How does that sound to you, my ingenious friend? _P._ The way you put it, it sounds as though you did not quite understand the full scope of my question; but no matter, since it is at once a proof and an acknowledgment on your part that spirits have communicated with mortals--the essential point in dispute, which when once admitted will render further reasonings more plain. Let me ask you, however, was not the practice of consulting familiar spirits that is forbidden in the Bible, a practice that was common among the heathen nations of those times? _I._ It was, and is spoken of as such in several passages. _P._ Did not the heathens consult familiar spirits as petty divinities, or gods, and as such, follow their sayings and commands implicitly? and would not the Israelites to whom the Old Testament was addressed have violated the first command in the decalogue by adopting this practice? and was not that the reason, and the only reason, why the practice was forbidden? _I._ To each of those questions I answer, Yes, certainly. _P._ Do the Old or New Testament writings anywhere command us to abstain from all intercourse with spirits?--or from any intercourse which would not be a violation of the command, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me?" _I._ Really I do not know that the Bible contains any such command. _P._ Do you not know, on the contrary, that spirits other than those called "familiar spirits," often did communicate, and with apparently good and legitimate purposes, too, with men whose names are mentioned in the Bible? _I._ Well, I must in candor say that there were some cases of that kind. _P._ May you not, then, from all this learn a rule which will always be a safe guide to you in respect to the matters under discussion? I submit for your consideration, that that rule is, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." But even if the "strangers" that may come to you, either of your own world or the spirit-world, should prove to be "angels," do not follow them implicitly, or in an unreasoning manner, nor worship them as gods, for in so doing you would render yourself amenable to the law against having dealings with "familiar spirits."