drew mentally, or spiritually, very near to any man, however rude,
however humble, he always had the feeling that he was approaching holy
ground. Hidden beneath his generally imperturbable exterior, sunk beneath
the surface incredulity of his mind, there was the deep sense of mighty
truths waiting the appointed day of proclamation. Surely, he often
thought, if there is God in anything, in the last rays of the sunset,
in the silence of night upon the sea, in the waking of spring among the
forests and the gardens, in the song of the nightingale which knows
not lovers are listening, there is God in the will of man.

And when he made investigations into the action of will upon will, or
of will--as it seemed--upon matter, he was held, as he was not held by
the appearance of so-called spirit faces and spirit forms, even when
he could not connect these with trickery which he knew how to expose.
Perhaps, however, his incredulity in regard to these latter phenomena was
incurable, though he did not know it. For he knew nearly all the devices
of the charlatans. And when the so-called spirits came, the medium was
always entranced, that is, apparently will-less, and so to Malling not
interesting.

Now, from what Harding and Chichester had said to him, and from what
he had observed for himself, Malling believed that the two clergymen
must have had sittings together, probably with the usual tremendous
object of the ignorant amateur, that merely of communicating with the
other world. Considering who the two men were, Malling believed that in
all probability they had sat alone and in secret. He also felt little
doubt that from Mr. Harding's brain had come the suggestion of these
practices, that his will had led Chichester on to them. Although he
had not known the rector two years ago, he had gathered sufficient
testimony to the fact that he had been a man of powerful, even perhaps