These functions should be in equipoise, and when they are not, when we see excess either on the natural (so called as distinguished from the spiritual,) or the spiritual side, we feel that the law is transgressed.  And, if it be the greatest sorrow to see brain merged in body, to see a man more hands or feet than head, so that we feel he might, with propriety, be on all fours again, or even crawl like the serpent; it is also sad to see the brain, too much excited on some one side, which we call madness, or even unduly and prematurely, so as to destroy in its bloom, the common human existence of the person, as in the case before us, and others of the poetical and prophetical existence.

We would rather minds should foresee less and see more surely, that death should ensue by gentler gradation, and the brain be the governor and interpreter, rather than the destroyer, of the animal life.  But, in cases like this, where the animal life is prematurely broken up, and the brain prematurely exercised, we may as well learn what we can from it, and believe that the glimpses thus caught, if not as precious as the full view, are bright with the same light, and open to the same scene.

There is a family character about all the German ghosts.  We find the same features in these stories as in those related by Jung Stilling and others.  They bear the same character as the pictures by the old masters, of a deep and simple piety.  She stands before as, this piety, in a full, high-necked robe, a simple, hausfrauish cap, a clear, straightforward blue eye.  These are no terrible, gloomy ghosts with Spanish mantle or Italian dagger.  We feel quite at home with them, and sure of their good faith.

To the Seherin, they were a real society, constantly inspiring good thoughts.  The reference to them in these verses, written in her journal shortly before her death, is affecting, and shows her deep sense of their reality.  She must have felt that she had been a true friend to them, by refusing always, as she did, requests she thought wrong, and referring them to a Saviour.

Farewell, my friends,
All farewell,
God bless you for your love—­
Bless you for your goodness. 

    All farewell!

And you, how shall I name you? 
Who have so saddened me,
I will name you also—­Friends;
You have been discipline to me. 
Farewell! farewell!

Farewell! you my dear ones,
Soon will you know[4]
How hard have been my sufferings
In the Pilgrim land. 
Farewell!

Let it not grieve you,
That my woes find an end;
Farewell, dear ones,
Till the second meeting;
Farewell!  Farewell!

[Footnote 4:  The physician thought she here referred to the
examination of her body that would take place after
her death.  The brain was found to be sound, though
there were marks of great disease elsewhere.]

In this journal her thoughts dwell much upon those natural ties which she was not permitted to enjoy.  She thought much of her children, and often fancied she had saw the one who had died, growing in the spirit land.  Any allusion to them called a sweet smile on her face when in her trance.