I have known many apparently sincere and pious persons driven to apostasy by the scepticism with regard to the phenomena they have themselves seen. The very worst way in the world to deliver ourselves or others from the power of Satan, is to deny his existence. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you; laugh at him, if you will, and he will hie himself back to hell, for he cannot endure contempt; but deny his existence, persuade yourselves that there exists no devil, and he in turn will laugh at you, and take quiet possession of you. Oppose the Spiritists we certainly should, but not where they are strong and we are weak. The true way is to concede the facts, concede all that they really and honestly observe, concede even their mysterious and superhuman character, and then explain to them their principle and origin, and show them that they proceed not from good angels, even when apparently they are pure and unobjectionable, but from the enemies of Christ, from Satan and his angels carrying on, with devilish malice, their never-ending war against Heaven. Such at least are the conclusions which I have been forced in my own mind to adopt, and such, it seems to me, all must adopt who study the question in the light of Christian theology. I am at least honest in these conclusions, and, though I may err now, as I have so often erred before, yet I am not more likely to err than others. Err indeed I may, but, if I must err at all, I would rather err on the side of superstition, than on the side of scepticism and irreligion. CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSION. My story, like my life, draws to its close. The change which my religious views have undergone has been more than once hinted. On religion, as on most other subjects, I no longer think or feel as I did in the day when I fancied I possessed more than human science, and wielded a more than human power. I grew up without any decided religious doctrines, though inclining to what was called Liberal Christianity, that is, a Christianity kept up with the times, and conformed to the ever-changing spirit of the age. I was not an avowed unbeliever; I was not an open scoffer; I even thought it well to pay a decent external respect to religion, to attend church when convenient, and to patronize the Gospel, providing it was not preached with too much earnestness and devotedness, and not promulgated as a law which must govern all my thoughts, words, and deeds, but was proposed simply as a speculation, as a theory, or as an opinion, which I was at liberty to accept, modify, or reject, as seemed to me good.