“I am glad,” said Jack, “that Mr. Merton has the grace to admit so much. It would have been a blessed thing for me, if I had been taught to regard mesmerism as unlawful; better still, if it had never been recommended to me as a legitimate science. I do not believe in Satanic invasions; but I do believe little good comes from departing from the old ways, and attempting to be wiser than our fathers were.” CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSIONS. Our conversations were continued, but they threw no additional light on the main subject of our investigations, and I may well dispense myself from the labor of recording them. I found my early suspicion confirmed, and finally adopted Mr. Merton’s conclusion, that the class of phenomena which had for several years occupied my attention, and to which, according to the spiritists themselves, the recent spirit-manifestations belong, are real, are facts which actually take place, and are, under certain relations and to a certain extent, superhuman in their origin and character. As these phenomena cannot be ascribed to God or to good angels, they must be ascribed to Satan, to evil spirits, the enemies of God and man. I am well aware that this conclusion will be received by my brother savans with great derision, and that they will look upon me as having lost my wits. Even many who are not savans, who are sincere and firm believers in Christianity, and who, in a general way, admit the fact of Satanic invasion, will laugh at the supposition that the phenomena of spirit-rapping, table-turning, &c., are any thing more than very bungling pieces of humbuggery and sleight-of-hand. Be it so. Their good or bad opinion, their esteem or contempt, is of very little importance to me, who have not many days to live, and who have so soon to face another and a far different Judge. He who fears God, cannot fear man. My conclusion has not been hastily adopted, and it is, as far as I can see, the only conclusion to which a Christian philosopher can come.