the case of the Woodstock Commissioners and their man, and the case
of the Identity of the Stockwell Ghost, with the maid-servant. They
must disbelieve the vanishing of champion haunted houses (except,
indeed, out of Mr. Howitt's book), represented to have been closed
and ruined for years, before one day's inquiry by four gentlemen
associated with this journal, and one hour's reference to the Local
Rate-books. They must disbelieve all possibility of a human
creature on the last verge of the dark bridge from Life to Death,
being mysteriously able, in occasional cases, so to influence the
mind of one very near and dear, as vividly to impress that mind with
some disturbed sense of the solemn change impending. They must
disbelieve the possibility of the lawful existence of a class of
intellects which, humbly conscious of the illimitable power of GOD
and of their own weakness and ignorance, never deny that He can
cause the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He may
have caused the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He
can cause any awful or wondrous thing to be; but to deny the
likelihood of apparitions or spirits coming here upon the stupidest
of bootless errands, and producing credentials tantamount to a
solicitation of our vote and interest and next proxy, to get them
into the Asylum for Idiots. They must disbelieve the right of
Christian people who do NOT protest against Protestantism, but who
hold it to be a barrier against the darkest superstitions that can
enslave the soul, to guard with jealousy all approaches tending down
to Cock Lane Ghosts and suchlike infamous swindles, widely degrading
when widely believed in; and they must disbelieve that such people
have the right to know, and that it is their duty to know, wonder-
workers by their fruits, and to test miracle-mongers by the tests of
probability, analogy, and common sense. They must disbelieve all
rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences (only) which