Colloquies on Society | Page 7

which are invisible to us because of their
subtlety. That there are such I am as little able to doubt as I am to
affirm anything concerning them; but if there are such, why not evil
spirits, as well as wicked men? Many travellers who have been
conversant with savages have been fully persuaded that their jugglers
actually possessed some means of communication with the invisible
world, and exercised a supernatural power which they derived from it.
And not missionaries only have believed this, and old travellers who
lived in ages of credulity, but more recent observers, such as Carver
and Bruce, whose testimony is of great weight, and who were neither
ignorant, nor weak, nor credulous men. What I have read concerning
ordeals also staggers me; and I am sometimes inclined to think it more
possible that when there has been full faith on all sides these appeals to
divine justice may have been answered by Him who sees the secrets of
all hearts than that modes of trial should have prevailed so long and so

generally, from some of which no person could ever have escaped
without an interposition of Providence. Thus it has appeared to me in
my calm and unbiassed judgment. Yet I confess I should want faith to
make the trial. May it not be, that by such means in dark ages, and
among blind nations, the purpose is effected of preserving conscience
and the belief of our immortality, without which the life of our life
would be extinct? And with regard to the conjurers of the African and
American savages, would it be unreasonable to suppose that, as the
most elevated devotion brings us into fellowship with the Holy Spirit, a
correspondent degree of wickedness may effect a communion with evil
intelligences? These are mere speculations which I advance for as little
as they are worth. My serious belief amounts to this, that preternatural
impressions are sometimes communicated to us for wise purposes: and
that departed spirits are sometimes permitted to manifest themselves.
Stranger.--If a ghost, then, were disposed to pay you a visit, you would
be in a proper state of mind for receiving such a visitor?
Montesinos.--I should not credit my senses lightly; neither should I
obstinately distrust them, after I had put the reality of the appearance to
the proof, as far as that were possible.
Stranger.--Should you like to have an opportunity afforded you?
Montesinos.--Heaven forbid! I have suffered so much in dreams from
conversing with those whom even in sleep I knew to be departed, that
an actual presence might perhaps be more than I could bear.
Stranger.--But if it were the spirit of one with whom you had no near
ties of relationship or love, how then would it affect you?
Montesinos.--That would of course be according to the circumstances
on both sides. But I entreat you not to imagine that I am any way
desirous of enduring the experiment.
Stranger.--Suppose, for example, he were to present himself as I have
done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity
suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen--after dinner;
and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in
aspect than the being who now addresses you?
Montesinos.--Why, sir, to so substantial a ghost, and of such
respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say
with Hamlet,
"Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee!"

Stranger.--Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now that
our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I told you
truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more distant
country than America, and had long been naturalised there. The country
whence I come is not the New World, but the other one: and I now
declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost.
Montesinos.--A ghost!
Stranger.--A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the
world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation
if ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne. And now what
test do you require?
Montesinos.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns
as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame. You
look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give
entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that
belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil!
Stranger.--The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me
almost three hundred years ago. I had a character through life of loving
a jest, and did not belie it at the last. But I had also as