and that his wife was very anxious to find a clergyman.  The dignitary went to see the lady, with the intention of offering her his services, when he discovered that he had met her when travelling in Australia, and that her husband had been deeply impressed by a sermon which he had then delivered, and had been entreating for some days that he might be summoned to administer the last consolations of religion.  The clergyman went in to see the patient, administered the last rites, comforted and encouraged him, and was with him when he died.  He afterwards told the widow the story of his mysterious summons to Bristol, and she replied that she had been praying night and day that he might come and that he had no doubt come in answer to her prayers.

But the unsatisfactory part of the story is that one is asked to condone the extremely unbusinesslike, sloppy, and troublesome methods employed by this spiritual agency.  The lady knew the name and position of the clergyman perfectly well, and might have written or wired to him.  He could thus have been spared his aimless and mysterious journey, the expense of spending a night at the hotel; and moreover it was only the fortuitous meeting with a third person, not closely connected with the story, which prevented the clergyman from leaving the place, his mission unfulfilled.  One cannot help feeling that, if a spiritual agency was at work, it was working either in a very clumsy way, or with a relish for mystery which reminds one of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes; if one is expected to accept the story as a manifestation of supernatural power, one can only conceive of it as the work of a very tricksy spirit, like Ariel in the “Tempest”; it seems like a very elaborate and melodramatic attempt to bring about a result, that could have been far more satisfactorily achieved by a little common sense.  If instead of inspiring the lady to earnest prayer—­which appears too to have been very slow in its action—­why could not the supernatural power at work have inspired her with the much simpler idea of looking at the Clergy List?  And yet the story no doubt produces on the ordinary mind an impressive effect, when as a matter of fact, if it is fairly considered, it can only be regarded, if true, as the work of an amiable and rather dilettante power, with a strong relish for the elaborately marvellous.

The truth is that what the ordinary human being desires, in matters of this kind, is not scientific knowledge but picturesqueness.  As long as people frankly confess that it is the latter element of which they are in search, that, like the fat boy in Pickwick, they merely want to make their flesh creep, no harm is done.  The harm is done by people who are really in search of sensation, who yet profess to be approaching the question in a scientific spirit of inquiry.  I enjoy a good ghost story as much as any one; and I am interested, too, in hearing the philosophical conclusions of earnest-minded people; but to hear the question discussed, as one so often hears it, with a pretentious attempt to treat it scientifically, by people who, like the White Queen in Through the Looking-glass, find it pleasant to train themselves to believe a dozen impossible things before breakfast, afflicts me with a deep mental and moral nausea.