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But let us not be blind to the connexion of the natural with the spiritual.

The domain of evil as of good, the kingdom of darkness, as well as the kingdom of light, is every where close to us, and seizes the opportu nity offered it of coming into play. Such opportunity is presented by various abnormal conditions of body. We have already suggested that physical causes, congestions, nervous disturbance, &c., may co-exist and cooperate with causes of a more mysterious nature. In fact, physical and spiritual conditions are not, by any sound philosophy, to be separated, though they are to be distinguished. As conceptions, they must not be confounded; but as agencies, they are never to be looked for or assumed apart.

But men cannot see the wood for the trees. Coleridge did not believe in ghosts he had seen too many. Your unbeliever on principle will not believe even his own senses.

Let

a ghost appear to him-he will relate the occurrence to his friends as a "singular case of spectral illusion." Let the ghost speak to him-he will tell you that "the case was the more remarkable, inasmuch as the illusion extended itself to the sense of hearing." Let it sit on him, squelch him, pinch, or pommel him black and blue-strong in unbelief, even this staggers him not: he has his "congestion" to flee to, and his "plastic power of phantasy," all very good as far as it goes, but which does not go far enough. Let him awake out of a nightmare dream, and with eyes open to all around him, see the fiend that vexed his slumbers still hovering near, as if reluctantly retiring from its hellish sport-will this sight convince him that his dream "was not all a dream?" Let Doctor Abercrombie answer :—

"The analogy between dreams and spectral illusions, is beautifully illustra ted by an anecdote which I received lately from the gentleman to whom it occurred, an eminent medical friend. Having sat up late one evening, under considerable anxiety about one of his children who was ill, he fell asleep in his chair, and had a frightful dream, in which the prominent figure was an immense baboon. He awoke with the fright, got up instantly, and walked to a table which was in the middle of the room. He was then quite awake and

quite conscious of the articles around him; but close by the wall, in the end of the apartment, he distinctly saw the baboon, making the same horrible grimaces which he had seen in his dream, and the spectre continued visible for about half a minute."--Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers.

"The analogy between dreams and spectral illusions!" This is the very heroism of unbelief! What is a ghost to do, to get himself believed in? Once more we say, men cannot see the wood for the trees.

The reader doubtless knows the story of the lady whose lover came to her bed-side at midnight, and made known to her that he had in that hour been waylaid and murdered by a rival. The lady desired some sign which should certify her next morning that what she had seen in the night was no dream, whereupon the apparition laid its fingers upon her wrist. She felt as if branded in the place with a hot iron. The next morning the marks of the fingers appeared as if burnt into her flesh; and this mark she bore to the day of her death, so that she was obliged to wear a black velvet arm-band, to hide the ghostly token from curious eyes.

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Here also, questionless, as in the case of Madame V., of N., the Provence parliamenteer's wife, and the nun Emmerich, we shall be told of "the plastic force of the dreaming soul," "the magic of phantasy," "the poetic shaping powers,' "the miraculous artist within us," &c., &c. The cases, evidently enough, are cognate. To the same family belongs the case of a lady, mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie, who, going into a dark room, distinctly saw before her the figure of death as a skeleton, with his arm uplifted, and a dart in his hand. He aimed a blow at her with the dart, which seemed to strike her on the left side. The same night she was seized with fever, accompanied by symptoms of inflammation in the left side; but recovered after a severe illness. To which we may add the case of a gentleman subject to epileptic fits, mentioned by Doctor Gregory, in whom the paroxysms were preceded by the appearance of an old woman in a red cloak, who came up to him, and struck him on the head with her crutch, upon which he presently fell down in the fit.

This old woman in the red cloak has, by the way, been seen by so many different persons, at different times, that we are almost forced to suppose her a real, objectively-subsistent entity. Dr. Dewar, of Stirling, tells us of a blind lady, who never walked out without seeing a little old woman with a red cloak and a crutch, who seemed to walk before her. And an apparition of just such an old woman, in a red cloak and with a crutch, is related with great minuteness in the "Diary of a late Physician." That it is the same old woman in all these cases we can doubt as little as that Dr. Abercrombie's friend's baboon is identical with the Duchess of Devonshire's ape.

But supposing all such cases to find their explanation in physiological and psychological grounds, and to be referable wholly to subjective influences, what are we to say to pins, needles, pieces of glass, &c. conveyed by spirits into people's bodies, out of which they afterwards come by the mouth, or otherwise? Will the "magic of phantasy" go the length of getting up a pinmanufactory in our inside? Is "the artist within us" a needle-maker? Does the "dreaming soul," perhaps, fabricate such articles of hardware out of the iron contained in the blood? Or do spirits, as Paracelsus thinks, "lay hold into man, without opening the skin, as the lightning acts on the sword without affecting the scabbard, or as a man can take a stone in his hand, and thrusting the same into the water, draw out his hand again, and leave the stone in the water, and yet no one sees the hole that the hand made, nor is there any indication that somewhat has been thrust in ?" For men are, according to this writer, to spirits what water is to men: thus, men are a mean term between spirits and water, and we might say, if this were the place for a sorry jest, that men are the medium through which spirits and water often come together.

Pastor Rutzing, of Kleinau, in Altmark, tells us that the tutor of two young gentlemen, sons of the Count von Reuss, was so beset by an invisible power, when taking a walk with his pupils in the court of the castle of Koestritz, after dinner, that he "could by no means walk straightforward, but was hurried away with irresistible vehemence in a sidelong direction." This occurred more than once, so that he

was obliged to give up accompanying the young counts in their after-dinner walk. This might, perhaps, be accounted for on natural principles; but what are we to make of what followed? One day, as he passed alone through a room of the castle, he was suddenly forced by an invisible power to stand still. There was then driven through his foot by an invisible hand a wooden nail or peg, and that with such force, that he was pinned fast to the floor, and stood there unable to move from the spot, until, at his cries for help, some one came, and, not without some trouble, got him loosed. The poor

man, who was personally known to Pastor Rutzing, continued lame all his life. The power

Was that imagination?

of thought might have produced the hole in the man's foot, but where did the wooden peg come from?

After all, is it not a frightfuller thought that our own soul can people its environment with goblins and demons, than that such come near it from a sphere of their own? Were it not better for me to be able to say, when mopping and mowing fiends, or gibbering phantoms surround me"These subsist apart from me—they have no part in me, nor I in them ;" than to be obliged to think-" These are projected aspects of my own spirit, multiplied reflections of my inner self: they are creations of a power within me, over which I have no control;yea, I myself am the abyss out of which they ascend, and which may yet pour them forth, myriads upon myriads, ever ghastlier, ever loathlier ?" Heavens are we, strictly speaking, nothing more than portals, spiracles of the infernal pit? Have we within us the true "devil's ladder," or wellstaircase, winding down into bottomless gulfs and the "blackness of darkness," by which all shapes of night, all hellish spectres, all monstrous and malignant things, come and go between their world and ours? If we will not be afraid of ghosts, have we to be afraid of ourselves? To this has the march of intellect brought us? To come back with this message to us went the schoolmaster abroad? Then let such march of intellect, say we, end in a Russian retreat; and, as for such a schoolmaster-the reader and we will bar him out.

THE CLAIMS OF LABOUR.*

THIS is a thoughtful, well-considered, and thoroughly earnest book. It probably will do much good, for we know no writer who so fastens on the thoughts of his readers a painful and oppressive sense of the responsibility under which—whether we act or forbear from acting-we find ourselves placed, with respect to those in any relation of dependence of us. The ef

fect of the book in this respect, is one wholly independent of the particular details of improvement, which it suggests, and is not unlikely to bring back to many readers the first feeling with which they have read Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade, or Foster's Essay on Popular Ignorance— works which, where they do not rouse the mind into sleepless exertion, actually dispirit and paralyze it by forcing on us the thought that we ought to be more actively employed in the warfare with the evils of earth than in indolently reading or writing books. It is the great praise of the author of this volume, that where the book is read, he is likely to rouse many fellow-labourers, to assist in the exertions in which he is engaged.

The attention of the employers of labour to the interests of those who are called the lower classes, is certainly far greater at present than it has hitherto been; but the separation between ranks of society is greater than ever. We are truly told, that the tendency of modern society is each day becoming more and more exclusive. The family circle is drawn "within narrower and narrower limits. The great lord has put away his crowd of retainers. The farmer, in most cases, does not live with his labouring men, and the master has less social intercourse with his domestics."

In

other words, the enjoyments of home are better understood, and it is the object of the author of this volume to impress on the higher classes, in these changed circumstances, the duty of

providing other comforts, in lieu of those which have been lost, for the humbler classes of society. They, too, should have their enjoyments; they should be so educated as to have the feeling of home-comforts awakened in their mind; they, too, should have their homes.

In every amelioration of the condition of the humble and the poor, our author sees a new development of the principles of Christianity. The humanizing spirit that has already triumphed over a hundred forms of giant oppression, is now, as at all times, making itself felt in many directions. The wisdom from above and from within, is making itself felt around. "Its voice may come out of strange bodies

such as systems of ethics or of politics. Men may call it as they please-it goes on, doing its appointed work, conquering and to conquer.'

There can be no doubt, that public attention to the condition of the labouring part of the population, is now given in a degree before unknown. We speak not of charity, of poor-laws, or any of the means by which the state or benevolent individuals seek to assist the poor. We speak of direct attention given to the absolute rights of a class of men who have been too long neglected. Society has been roused into exertion on these subjects. Some late movements, for the purpose of providing public baths and places of exercise in the vicinity of great towns, give promise of better times approaching. There have also been several reports of parliamentary commissioners, on subjects connected with the health and well-being of the labouring classes, replete with suggestions for legislation. The object of the little book in our hands is, to distinguish what is properly the subject of legislative interference from that which we can do ourselves, and ought at once to do.

That our house should be felt by

The claims of Labour. An Essay on the Duties of the Employer to the Employed. By the Author of "Essays written in the Intervals of Business." London: Pickering-1844.

our domestic servants to be their own home, and a happy home, is often in the power of the master or mistress. In a passage of great beauty, our author dwells on the cruel "force of unkind words" from a master or mistress "upon those whose monotonous life leaves few opportunities of effacing any unwelcome impression." The ingratitude of the poor, and the impossibility of winning their attachment by any kindness, is often spoken of. Alas! in the expectation of a return of gratitude acting in any degree as a motive for kindness, there is some great mistake-some error that, when disentangled, will appear to have arisen not from the faults of the persons whom we wish to serve, but from some lurking selfishness of our own nature. But is the implied reproach true? We more than doubt it. The disproportion has to us always appeared to be in the other way. There are few passages of deeper truth in Wordworth's poetry than that in which he describes an old man's sense of a very trifling service—

"The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
-I've heart of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas, the gratitude of men

Has oftener left me mourning!"

The true consideration, however, is not that of gratitude, where the question is not of favour but of right, and where the obligation is, after all, one of strict duty. If we more often thought of those, whom we call the lower classes, as in truth our superiors in most things-as fulfilling, in a much more perfect degree, the circle of duties to which they are called, than we ever, even in the flattery of imagination, contemplate ourselves as fulfilling ours as our equals at least in intelligence, and, within their limited sphere, our superiors in every virtue, the growth of which is not intercepted among them directly or indirectly by ourselves-we should find it less difficult to realize to ourselves the thought from old Fuller, which furnishes our author with one of the mottoes to his book :-"And well may masters consider how easy a transposition it had been for God to have made him mount into the saddle that holds the stirrip; and him to sit down

at the table who stands by with a trencher." There is-or, may we yet say, was-an habitual feeling taught by parents in every act, and implied in all the usages of society, that there is an actual, essential difference of kind between master and servantthat the rich and poor are not, in reality, children of the same family. What is sometimes called proper pride, was, or is, taught from so early an age as to seem almost a lesson of nature. It was never actually denied in express language, that the poor were human creatures-but the upper ranks proved by all their acts that they did not believe in any identity of nature with them; and, such is the slave-nature of the human mind, when utterly debased, that the doctrine acted on by masters, was not resented as a fraud upon man's rights by those who were the immediate, though not greatest, sufferers from the arrogant falsehood. Rich and poor alike thought of the possibility of individuals being elevated by cleverness of one kind or another, or good fortune, above the class in which they were first found—and the institutions of society seemed not absolutely unfavourable to this. To elevate the class itself was a dream that never seemed to occur to either. The tendency of professional life-the bar, the navy, the army is to separate the individual from the rank to which he naturally belonged; and, where the condition of his relatives was humble, the separation, without any fault of his or theirs, soon became a final one; and how entire such separation becomes, is every now and then evidenced by the difficulty of ascertaining the links of relationship, when accidents of intestacy render the inquiry necessary. The church was, in some degree, an exception. In England, the clergyman taken from the mass of the people, is not unlikely to raise with himself the family to which he immediately belongs; still we cannot but regard the development of Christianity as very imperfect, which proposes as an object, rather the separation of individuals from the class to which they belong than raising that class. There is a passage of great beauty in the volume before us, quoted from the letters of an eminent manufacturer to Mr. Horner, in which it is wisely said

"In all plans for the education of the working classes, my object would be, not to raise any individuals among them above their condition, but to elevate the condition itself. For I am not one of those who think that the highest ambition of a working man should be to rise above the station in which Providence has placed him, or that he should be taught to believe that because the humblest, it is therefore the least happy and desirable condition of humanity. This is, indeed, a very common notion among the working classes of the people, and a very natural one; and it has been encouraged by many of their superiors, who have interested themselves in the cause of popular improvement, and have undertaken to direct and stimulate their exertions. Examples have constantly been held up of men who by unusual ability and proficiency in some branch of science had raised themselves above the condition of their birth, and risen to eminence and wealth; and these instances have been dwelt upon and repeated, in a manner, that, whether intentionally or not, produces the impression that positive and scientific knowledge is the summum bonum of human education, and that to rise above our station in life should be the great object of our exertion. This is not my creed. I am satisfied that it is an erroneous one, in any system of education for any class of men. Our object ought to be, not to produce a few clever individuals, distinguished above their fellows by their comparative superiority, but to make the great mass of individuals on whom we are operating, vigorous, sensible, well-informed, and well-bred men.' And again he states that his object is "to show to his people and to others, that there is nothing in the nature of their employment, or in the condition of their humble lot, that condemns them to be rough, vulgar, ignorant, miserable, or poor:-that there is nothing in either that forbids them to be well-bred -well-informed-well-mannered-and surrounded by every comfort and enjoyment that can make life happy ;-in short, to ascertain and to prove what the condition of this class of people might be made-what it ought to be made-what is the interest of all parties that it should be made."

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Coleridge's theory was, we fear, too aristocratic. He urges, with anxiety, pleading for the people rather than pleading to them, or with them. He seems to grieve even at our not having the power so to conduct our arguments as to prevent their knowing VOL. XXV.-No. 145.

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any thing of the discussions in which their deepest interests are involved. Mr. Landor thinks most of the evils of the condition of society in our time arise from learned men not continuing to correspond, as in the middle ages, in something that was called Latin. We have Coleridge's horror of popu lar oratory, or any pleading with the working classes, the success of which depends on calling men to abandon their duties even for one hour, or on the excitement of the passions; but our own experience has been uniform in the fitness of perfectly open dealing with all; nor have we ever met any man in any rank of society with whom entire truth was not likely to make its way. The separation between classes of men, and this pleading for men and not with them, is only likely to create or to perpetuate misunderstandings. What is there in the education or in the circumstances of the working mechanic to make him incapable of understanding the argument in such a volume as the Results of Machinery?" When Chalmers describes the effects produced on the well-being of a neighbourhood by those, who struggle against a hundred privations, rather than incur the debt to others, involved in receiving poor-law relief, are we to be told that men, practising the virtues of self-control and self-reliance, and thus exemplifying the feeling of independence, are incapable of following the train of thought which their own noble conduct has suggested, and on which they have been acting from the dictates of their own feelings and conscience? If there is one divine of the Church of England whose sermons appear to us, more than any others, distinctly and forcibly to bring out the true meaning of difficult passages of Scripture, it is Horsley. We have not his sermons at hand, but we well remember the delight with which we read his earnest appeals to hearers whom he described as unacquainted with any of the learned languages-as having but their English Bibles-and whom he addressed as persons fully as capable of appreciating his argumentɛ, (even when they seemed to turn on points of minute criticism of the very words of Scripture,) as hearers of the more educated classes. In fact, when the attention of such persons can be engaged, it is

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