“Delightful! There is nothing I should like better. You must explain to us these mysteries, and convert my friend there also, for she is a sad infidel.” “I suppose,” I rejoined, “I am too matter-of-fact, and have too little imagination to be caught by what I cannot but consider as a mere trick to amuse children, and utterly unworthy rational beings, whether in or out of the body.” “Pardon me, Miss Mildmay,” said D’Arcy, “but if these knockings, which appear to you so puerile, have been tested and proved _not_ to be tricks, and that such and similar manifestations have been the means of convincing the confirmed sceptic that there is an actual hereafter, it appears to me that the spirits of the departed are rather occupied in a good work, and that _we_ have at least ‘method in our madness.’” “But,” I answered, “surely the Bible is all-sufficient for the salvation of the world.” “No one, my dear Miss Mildmay,” replied D’Arcy, “reveres the Bible more than myself—yet I am bound to confess it never convinced me. Till my eyes were opened to the perception that spirit really _does_ exist, palpably, apart from matter, the Bible was to me as a sealed book. In earlier youth, I worshipped as my deity the intellect of man, smiling in contempt at the idea of a blind faith in the mysteries of Religion, which I looked upon as the foolish inventions of a venal and ignorant priesthood. It was through the much despised manifestations of the spirit circle, that I first realized the ‘_certain hope_ of a blessed immortality,’ and learned to bow my reason before the Divine inspirations—in fine, _I believed_.” D’Arcy spoke with the deepest feeling, but calmly, and as a man whose doubts were for ever at rest. You recognized in each word the power of a great mind, and instead of wishing to cavil, you felt your place was rather to sit at his feet and learn. “One question I would ask,” said Evelyn.—“Might not these phenomena be produced by magnetic influence, and so be accounted for in a merely natural way?” “Undoubtedly, Mrs. Travers. Human magnetism and the will-power are almost omnipotent as physical forces, and also as influencing the mental faculties; but the communications being not only intelligent, but actually and frequently even contrary to the desires and expectations of the circle, precludes the idea of entirely accounting for them in the way you have very plausibly suggested. Besides, the phenomena of direct writing and drawing could be explained by no other theory than that of supernatural intervention. Electric shocks, too, have been sensibly felt, and exquisite odours have filled the room—and this in the presence of witnesses, many of them men of superior learning, intelligence, and undoubted piety, who would not for worlds have been made the instruments of propagating fraudulent or erroneous doctrines.” “If you have personally witnessed all you speak of,” I said, “I confess that even my incredulity must at last give way before such evidence.”