girl; related, that her venerable uncle had been too indulgent, and
could not bear to hear the girl scolded; that she was willing to have
kept her, but that, after her patron's death, the girl herself refused
to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made concerning the
pastor's habits; and the solution of the phenomenon was soon obtained.
For it appeared, that it had been the old man's custom, for years, to
walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door
opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice, out of his favourite
books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's
possession. She added, that he was a very learned man and a great
Hebraist. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical
writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin Fathers; and
the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages with those
taken down at the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain in
any rational mind concerning the true origin of the impressions made
on her nervous system.

This authenticated case furnishes both proof and instance, that
reliques of sensation may exist for an indefinite time in a latent
state, in the very same order in which they were originally impressed;
and as we cannot rationally suppose the feverish state of the brain to
act in any other way than as a stimulus, this fact (and it would not
be difficult to adduce several of the same kind) contributes to make
it even probable, that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable;
and, that if the intelligent faculty should be rendered more
comprehensive, it would require only a different and apportioned
organization,--the body celestial instead of the body terrestrial,--to
bring before every human soul the collective experience of its whole
past existence. And this, this, perchance, is the dread book of
judgment, in the mysterious hieroglyphics of which every idle word is