They told me that it was their intention to open my clairvoyant faculty now with a vengeance. For, having fairly accomplished it, they would worry me to death or madness by the continual sight and hearing of all that hell could show or conjure up. I only wish that a few of those Sadducees who philosophize all this sort of thing into moonshine, could be, for a while, as sore beset as I was on that eventful day! It would need but a few minutes' parley with these 'fierce Ephesian beasts' to induce them to repeat the language of an older sceptic, who returned from the dead to the friend who had discussed immortality with him, and who exclaimed, as he passed from sight:
'Michael! Michael! vera sunt illa!'
The scheme of the diabolians seemed so feasible that I was greatly perplexed. They had shown themselves able to keep me awake the two preceding nights; and I knew that, if permitted, they could accomplish their purpose in that way alone. How much, then, would the perpetual sight of fiery flying dragons, horned satyrs, and other hideous half-human creatures, tearing around, with mouths agape to take me in—while other lost souls flitted about as flying serpents, bats, and owls—hasten the evil work. I thought over all the horrible forms portrayed in the Catholic purgatory pictures, and described by delirium tremens subjects, until I was a thousand times more anxious to have the eyes of my spirit kept shut, than I ever had been to have them opened.
I tried to exorcise the foe by reading the Bible; but this only increased their jeering at the '—— fool,' whom they had worked hard to get, had got, and meant to keep, in spite of 'hell, book, and candle.' Truly 'their mouths were full of cursing and bitterness.'
Did space permit, and were it not that the printing of oaths, which has become so fashionable even in respectable periodicals, is hurtful to morals, I could fill pages with their jeers, taunts, blasphemies, threats, and execrations.
I left my private room, and went among the household, in hopes that, amid busy outer scenes, the hold of the invisible tigers would be loosed. But then, while conversing on commonplace subjects, I realized more fully than ever upon what a fearful precipice the heedless spiritist is ever sporting. For, clearer, more distinct, came threats, curses, goblin laughter; and 'Fool! dolt!' was the cry.
'Simpleton, etc., think you that the company of women and children will save you, when the mightiest spirits (angels they call themselves) cannot now rend you from our grasp? As soon as we choose, we will tear your silly soul out of your carcase; and then we will make a veritable Lucifer of you. 'Lucifer! Lucifer! star of the morning! how art thou fallen, and become as one of us!' Ha! ha! ha! yes! yes! you must go with us. We fancy you. For a callow priest, you have a deal of music in you. Would-be Samson, you must grind in our prison house and sport in our temple; the pillars whereof you can never cause to tremble.'
They said that I was a 'coward—dared not face a set of shadows, figments of the brain, empty nothings.' I saw that 'vain was the help of man;' and, retiring to my room, had an awful season of worse than 'temptation combats.'
Then came the last scene in the tragic part of my unromantic experience. One of the artful dodgers, having transformed himself into an angel of light (in my hearing, not in my sight), informed me, at about eight o'clock in the evening, that, though my destruction appeared imminent, there was one way of escape left. My own prayers were useless: but if I would get down on my knees, and repeat a confession and supplication at his dictation, it might avail. Enslaved as I was, I of course complied; and then underwent a humiliation that, even in my horrified state, was very bitter. I had always, in my most puritanical days, kicked at the doctrine that we are all such abominable, hell-deserving, self-degraded creatures, responsible for our own ruin, that it is the wonder of creation that God would give our souls any least chance of heaven. I had always felt with Tennyson:
'Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man, and Thou art just.'