Nations civilized as well as uncivilized: barbarians of the rudest type, and Christians of the highest and deepest spirituality, have always believed that certain localities were the haunts of unquiet spirits."-Richard H. Froude.

JANY who are unaffected by the demoralizing and degrading materialistic theories of life, which are now enunciated by some who name themselves, and whom their flattering admirers style "philosophers," will not be unwilling to allow that a considerable amount of evidence1 is in existence, indicating that certain localities are troubled by the presence of evil spirits, who from time to time manifest their powers, or sometimes appear to mankind in forms which give a shock to those who are enabled or permitted to perceive them.

'The Editor is in no degree concerned with Paganism or Pagan superstitions, nor has he gathered præ-Christian examples. Yet such will have been numerous to the ordinary student of classical history. The Haunted House of Damon, mentioned by Plutarch, will be familiar to many.

If Christian tradition be accepted, a belief in the official ministry of unfallen spirits,-"the armies of the Living God,"-will be held, firmly and intelligibly, as a most reasonable and beautiful part of Almighty God's revelation, Who "has ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order." So, by consequence, the existence and action of fallen angels, the Legions of Satan, and of spirits, who, at the particular judg

'The following is the original of a most beautiful verse in Bishop Ken's well-known “Evening Hymn,” either mutilated in the worst of taste in most hymn-books, or else altogether eliminated and suppressed :

"You, my best guardian, while I sleep
Close to my bed your vigils keep;

Your love angelical instil,

Stop all the avenues of ill."

2 "What do we know of the World of Spirits? Little or nothing, beyond what Faith and Revelation afford. Still we know that they surround us; that they hover over us; that they accompany us whithersoever we go; and that even in the innermost tabernacle of the soul they penetrate and have their being. Good spirits and bad are around us; good spirits to aid us, to waft our lame and imperfect prayers to heaven, and to protect us in the hour of temptation or peril. 'He shall give His angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.' Bad angels, too, are around us and against us, percolating through every avenue of the soul, inflaming the imagination, warping the judgment, tainting the will, and too often, alas! perverting it to perdition. Bad angels are around us, even within the protecting sanctuary of God's Church, when summoned, permitted there by the subdued and corrupted will of man. Bad angels are around us in every walk and rank and condition and event of life: we see

ment following immediately upon death, have merited the swift and righteous condemnation of an all-just Judge, will be fully admitted.

The power, activity, and malice of Satan is apparent from numerous statements in Holy Scripture; and most Christian writers who have dealt with the subject of evil spirits have maintained that their power and influence are unquestionably greater in some localities than others. It is commonly held, that in lonely deserts, on lofty mountains, where the feet of men seldom tread, as well as in the mines of the earth,1 and in vast forests where desolation reigns, the powers of the Devil and his angels, being unchecked and uncurbed by the positive energizing activity of Christianity, are vast. So, likewise, the universal instinct of mankind has maintained that

them not, but they hover over us and around us, and they penetrate within the mysterious precincts of the soul, by many a foul and unholy thought, by many an evil suggestion to sin. And they triumph, and they gibber in their unholy glee whenever they tempt and prevail. They triumph, and they laugh the insulting laugh whenever they steep to the lips in sin an unhappy mortal, and fasten upon him the mocking thought and determination of a deathbed repentance. That is their battle ground, the battle ground of victory. The standard of deceit is then triumphant: the captive is delivered bound into their hands to do with as they list, to be tormented according to the refinement of their infernal pleasure. 'He shall be delivered unto the tormentors.'"-Rev. Edward Price.

1 This belief prevails extensively in Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland.

there are certain places in which the appearances of unquiet or lost souls might be reasonably looked for, rather than in others. Deserted houses and lonely roads, where crimes of violence and special wickedness have been perpetrated; deep mines,1 localities, unblessed by Holy Church, where the bodies of Christians have been placed to moulder away, instead of in God's holy acre, the consecrated churchyard; battlefields, where it may be that so many have been cut off in deadly sin—

"Unhouseled, disappointed, unanealed,"

have each and all been regarded as the fitting haunts of disquieted and wandering spirits.

On this point Southey, in "The Doctor," with much force thus writes:-"The popular belief that places are haunted where money has been concealed

(as if, where the treasure was and the heart had been, there would the miserable soul be also), or where some great and undiscovered crime has been committed, shows how consistent this is with our natural sense of fitness."

I The souls of the dead, or spirits of some sort, are constantly heard and not unfrequently seen in mines. A Shropshire miner informed the Editor that, of his own knowledge, he had heard supernatural sounds of moanings and mutterings underground, and had seemed to feel the passing spirits as they swept by. On one occasion, after the violent and sudden death of a comrade, the noises were unusually loud; while the horses employed underground would stand trembling and covered with perspiration whenever the spirits were heard.