Yet, if we reject that hypothesis, what other, more plausible, remains?

Even if we accept that explanation, however, it is not to be assumed, as of course, that it was the spirit of his poor victim that thus ceaselessly followed her deserter, the betrayer of her trust. Love may be changed, for a time, into vehement dislike: it is difficult to believe that, after the earthly tenement is gone, it should harden into hate eternal and unrelenting. And we can conceive that some other departed spirit, of evil nature, obtaining power over the wretched man by the aid of an impressible temperament wrought upon by a conscience haunted by remorse, might have been permitted (who can tell under what law or for what purpose?) to visit, with such retribution, the evil deed.

But here we enter the regions of conjecture. These events happened long before Spiritualism had become a distinctive name. No attempt was made to communicate with the sounds. No explanation, therefore, trustworthy or apocryphal, was reached. There was no chance, then, given to conciliate; no opportunity afforded for propitiation.

It has been alleged that, in many modern instances of what had assumed the character of spiritual interference, the disturbance ceased when communication, by knockings, was sought and obtained. So it might have been, as Mrs. Hall suggests, in the case of Robert LAnd, if so, the spirit-rap, lightly esteemed by many as it is, might have brought to repentance and saved from hopeless suffering-possibly premature death-a young man with heavy guilt, indeed, upon his soul, yet not a sinner above all men that dwelt in London.

here related. In this mysteriously-governed world some criminals escape, while others, less guilty perhaps, are overtaken. "Those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem ?"-Luke xiii. 4.

CHAPTER II.

GUARDIANSHIP.

A PLEASANTER task remains; to speak, namely, of the indications that reach us of ultramundane aid and spiritual protection.

Three stories have come to my knowledge, in each of which the subject of the narrative is alleged to have been saved from death by an apparition seeming to be the counterpart of himself: one related of an English clergyman, traveling, late at night, in a lonely lane, by whose side the figure suddenly appeared, and thus (as the clergyman afterward ascertained) deterred two men, bent on murder and robbery, from attacking him; and both the others the one occurring to a student in Edinburgh, the other to a fashionable young man in Berlin-being examples in which the seer is said to have been warned from occupying his usual chamber, which had he occupied, he would have perished by the falling in of a portion of the house.

But these anecdotes, though for each there is plausible evidence, do not come within the rule I have laid down to myself of sufficient authentication.

A somewhat similar story is related and vouched for by Jung Stilling, of a certain Professor Böhm, of Marburg, in whose case, however, the warning came by an urgent presentiment only, not by an actual apparition.*

Such a case of presentiment, though the danger was to another, not to the subject of it, came to me, through the kindness of a lady, at first hand, as follows::

"Theorie der Geisterkunde."

1

A WASHINGTON ANECDOTE.

455

HOW SENATOR LINN'S LIFE WAS SAVED.

Those who were familiar with the political history of our country twenty years ago remember well Dr. Linn, of Missouri. Distinguished for talents and professional ability, but yet more for the excellence of his heart, he received, by a distinction as rare as it was honorable, the unanimous vote of the Legislature for the office of Senator of the United States.

In discharge of his Congressional duties, he was residing with his family in Washington, during the spring and summer of 1840, the last year of Mr. Van Buren's administration.

One day during the month of May of that year, Dr. and Mrs. Linn received an invitation to a large and formal dinner-party, given by a public functionary, and to which the most prominent members of the Administration party, including the President himself and our present Chief Magistrate, Mr. Buchanan, were invited guests. Dr. Linn was very anxious to be present; but, when the day came, finding himself suffering from an attack of indigestion, he begged his wife to bear his apology in person, and make one of the dinner-party, leaving him at home. To this she somewhat reluctantly consented. She was accompanied to the door of their host by a friend, General Jones, who promised to return and remain with Dr. Linn during the evening.

At table Mrs. Linn sat next to General Macomb, who had conducted her to dinner; and immediately opposite to her sat Silas Wright, Senator from New York, the most intimate friend of her husband, and a man by whose death, shortly after, the country sustained an irreparable loss.

Even during the early part of the dinner, Mrs. Linn felt very uneasy about her husband. She tried to reason herself out of this, as she knew that his indisposition

456

HOW SENATOR LINN'S

was not at all serious; but in vain. She mentioned her uneasiness to General Macomb; but he reminded her of what she herself had previously told him,—that General Jones had promised to remain with Dr. Linn, and that, in the very unlikely contingency of any sudden illness, he would be sure to apprize her of it. Notwithstanding these representations, as dinner drew toward a close this unaccountable uneasiness increased to such an uncontrollable impulse to return home, that, as she expressed it to me, she felt that she could not sit there a moment longer. Her sudden pallor was noticed by Senator Wright, and excited his alarm. "I am sure you are ill, Mrs. Linn," he said: "what is the matter?" She replied that she was quite well, but that she must return to her husband. Mr. Wright sought, as General Macomb had done, to calm her fears; but she replied to him, “If you wish to do me a favor for which I shall be grateful while I live, make some excuse to our host, so that we can leave the table." Seeing her so greatly excited, he complied with her request, though they were then but serving the dessert; and he and Mrs. Wright accompanied Mrs. Linn home.

As they were taking leave of her at the door of her lodgings, Senator Wright said, "I shall call to-morrow morning, and have a good laugh with the doctor and yourself over your panic apprehensions."

As Mrs. Linn passed hastily up-stairs, she met the landlady. "How is Dr. Linn?" she anxiously asked. "Very well, I believe," was the reply: "he took a bath more than an hour ago, and I dare say is sound asleep by this time. General Jones said he was doing extremely well."

"The general is with him, is he not?"

"I believe not. I think I saw him pass out about half an hour ago."

In a measure reassured, Mrs. Linn hastened to her

husband's bed-chamber, the door of which was closed. As she opened it, a dense smoke burst upon her, in such stifling quantity that she staggered and fell on the threshold. Recovering herself after a few seconds, she rushed into the room. The bolster was on fire, and the feathers burned with a bright glow and a suffocating odor. She threw herself upon the bed; but the fire, half smothered till that moment, was fanned by the draught from the opened door, and, kindling into sudden flame, caught her light dress, which was in a blaze on the instant. At the same moment her eye fell on the large bath-tub that had been used by her husband. She sprang into it, extinguishing her burning dress; then, returning to the bed, she caught up the pillow and a sheet that was on fire, scorching her arms in so doing, and plunged both into the water. Finally, exerting her utmost strength, she drew from the bed her insensible husband. It was then only that she called to the people of the house for aid.

Dr. Sewell was instantly summoned. But it was full half an hour before the sufferer gave any signs whatever of returning animation. He did not leave his bed for nearly a week; and it was three months before he entirely recovered from the effects of this accident.

"How fortunate it was," said Dr. Sewell to Mrs. Linn, "that you arrived at the very moment you did! Five minutes more,-nay, three minutes,—and, in all human probability, you would have never seen your husband alive again."

Mr. Wright called, as he promised, the next morning. "Well, Mrs. Linn," said he, smiling, "you have found out by this time how foolish that strange presentiment of yours was."

"Come up-stairs," she replied. And she led him to his friend, scarcely yet able to speak; and then she