and guide, and therefore telling him that I was satisfied in the truth of his statement, we walked to the end of the field and returned ; nor did the ghost meet us at that time but once. “On the 27th July, 1665, I went to the haunted field by my self, and walked the breadth of it without any encounter. I then returned, and took the other walk and then the spectre appeared to me, much about the same place in which I saw it when the young gentleman was with me. It appeared to move swifter than before, and seemed to be about ten feet from me on my right hand, insomuch that I had not time to speak to it as I had determined with myself beforehand. The evening of this day the parents, the son and myself being in the chamber where I lay, I proposed to them our going alto gether to the place next morning. We accordingly met at the place I had appointed ; thence we all four walked into the field together. We had not gone more than half the field be fore the ghost made its appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and moved with such rapidity that by the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I immedi ately turned my head and ran after it with the young man by my side. We saw it pass over the stile at which we entered, and no farther. I stepped on the hedge at one place, and the young man at another, but we could discern nothing; whereas I do aver. that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this day’s experience ; first, a spaniel dog which had followed the company unregarded barked and ran away, as the spectrum passed by ; whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear or fancy that made the apparition. Secondly, the motion of the spectrum was not gradation or by steps, or moving the feet, but by a kind of gliding as children upon ice, or as a boat down a river, which punctually answers the description the ancients give of the motion of these Lamures. This ocular evidence clearly con vinced, but withal strangely affrighted the old gentleman and his wife. They well knew this woman, Dorothy Durant, in her lifetime, were at her burial, and now plainly saw hei features in this apparition. “The next morning being Thursday, I went very early by myself, and walked for about an hour’s space in meditation and prayer in the field next adjoining. Soon after five, I stepped over the stile into the haunted field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the further stile. I spoke to it in some short sentences with a loud voice, whereupon it approached me, but slowly, and when I came near it moved not. I spoke again, and it answered in a voice neither audible nor very intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and therefore persisted until it spoke again and gave me satisfaction, but the work could not be finished at this time. Whereupon the same evening, an hour after sun set, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear now, nor ever will more to man’s disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour. “These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me ; and until I can be persuaded that my senses all deceive me, about their proper objects, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the Christian religion, I must and will assert, that the things contained in this paper are true. As for the manner of my proceeding, I have no reason to be ashamed of it. I can justifiy it to men of good prin ciples, discretion, and recondite learning, though in this case I choose to content myself in the assurance of the thing rather than be at the unprofitable trouble to persuade others to be lieve it, for I know full well with what difficulty relations of so uncommon a nature and practice obtain belief. “Through the ignorance of men in our age in this peculiar and mysterious part of philosophy and religion, namely, the communication betwcen spirits and men, not one scholar in ten thousand, though otherwise of excellent learning, knows anything about it. This ignorance breeds fear and abhorance of that which otherwise might be of incomparable benefit to