altar from which he took it; and finally, after many days of anxiety,
he was too happy in finding himself again restored to some oriental
port, from which he secretly vowed never again to sail with a saint's
skull, or with any skull, however remarkable phrenologically, not
purchased in an open market.

Thus we have pursued, through many of its most memorable sections, the
spirit of the miraculous as it moulded and gathered itself in the
superstitions of Paganism; and we have shown that, in the modern
superstitions of Christianity, or of Mahometanism, (often enough
borrowed from Christian sources,) there is a pretty regular
correspondence. Speaking with a reference to the strictly popular
belief, it cannot be pretended for a moment, that miraculous agencies
are slumbering in modern ages. For one superstition of that nature
which the Pagans had, we can produce twenty. And if, from the collation
of numbers, we should pass to that of quality, it is a matter of
notoriety, that from the very philosophy of Paganism, and its slight
root in the terrors or profounder mysteries of spiritual nature, no
comparison could be sustained for a moment between the true religion
and any mode whatever of the false. Ghosts we have purposely omitted,
because that idea is so peculiarly Christian [Footnote: '_Because
that idea is so peculiarly Christian_'--One reason, additional to
the main one, why the idea of a ghost could not be conceived or
reproduced by Paganism, lies in the fourfold resolution of the human
nature at death, viz.--1. _corpus_; 2. _manes_; 3. _spiritus_;
4. _anima_. No reversionary consciousness, no restitution of the total
nature, sentient and active, was thus possible. Pliny has a story which
looks like a ghost story; but it is all moonshine--a mere
_simulacrum_.] as to reject all counterparts or affinities from other
modes of the supernatural. The Christian ghost is too awful a presence,