I am now alone in my chamber, but these themes have taken such hold of my imagination, that I cannot sleep.  The room in which I sit is just fitted to foster such a state of mind.  The walls are hung with tapestry, the figures of which are faded, and look like unsubstantial shapes melting away from sight.  Over the fire-place is the portrait of a lady, who, according to the housekeeper’s tradition, pined to death for the loss of her lover in the battle of Blenheim.  She has a most pale and plaintive countenance, and seems to fix her eyes mournfully upon me.  The family have long since retired.  I have heard their steps die away, and the distant doors clap to after them.  The murmur of voices, and the peal of remote laughter, no longer reach the ear.  The clock from the church, in which so many of the former inhabitants of this house lie buried, has chimed the awful hour of midnight.

I have sat by the window and mused upon the dusky landscape, watching the lights disappearing, one by one, from the distant village; and the moon rising in her silent majesty, and leading up all the silver pomp of heaven.  As I have gazed upon these quiet groves and shadowy lawns, silvered over, and imperfectly lighted by streaks of dewy moonshine, my mind has been crowded by “thick-coming fancies” concerning those spiritual beings which

------“walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.”

Are there, indeed, such beings?  Is this space between us and the deity filled up by innumerable orders of spiritual beings, forming the same gradations between the human soul and divine perfection, that we see prevailing from humanity downwards to the meanest insect?  It is a sublime and beautiful doctrine, inculcated by the early fathers, that there are guardian angels appointed to watch over cities and nations; to take care of the welfare of good men, and to guard and guide the steps of helpless infancy.  “Nothing,” says St. Jerome, “gives up a greater idea of the dignity of our soul, than that God has given each of us, at the moment of our birth, an angel to have care of it.”

Even the doctrine of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings which were dear to them during the body’s existence, though it has been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and sublime.

However lightly it may be ridiculed, yet the attention involuntarily yielded to it whenever it is made the subject of serious discussion; its prevalence in all ages and countries, and even among newly-discovered nations, that have had no previous interchange of thought with other parts of the world, prove it to be one of those mysteries, and almost instinctive beliefs, to which, if left to ourselves, we should naturally incline.