Year: 1875

rehearsed in private circles, and some
times shudder would creep over the
company when stories of Cotton Mather
and witchcraft were related late in the
evening, and they would think much
but say very little, but query in their
own minds whether or not evil spirits
may not, after all, so possess human
beings, as they did the accursed herd of
swine, that they change their characters
to the extent of rendering them dan
gerous to society, and deserving withal
the severe punishments which were in
flicted upon them in former times.


This is such practical age that peo-
pie in our days think very little of these
things, or they are restricted mainly to
the evening seance of the spiritualistic
medium. We talk rather of spanning
the continent with railroads, crushing
the mountains for their hidden treas
ures, claiming the winged lightning,
navigating the air in ships-even the
thoughts ofchurch people are absorbed
with notions of church architecture,
grand organs, operate singing, book
concerns, and speculating in bibles and
hymn books, or counting the noses of
Moody and Sankey's .tlbion converts.
Nothing spiritualistic-little suggestive
of the probable close relationship be-
tween the two worlds. But in some of
those old New England mansions there
is much that is suggestive Of revisits
from the departed-in these mansions,
spiritualistic cases in the midst of a
materialistic desert, so to speak, one
seems TO breathe for the time the very
atmosphere of spirits, good aud bad.


1t was so in my later years in my
grandfather's house. Two of his sons
and three of his daughters had been
recalled by death; very few of the old
neighbors were living; and that wicked
old miser across the way, who used to
sit upon his bag of gold and mend
shoes, had dropped dead at his work


am not sure but these things, COM
bined with ethers, were exciting causes
Of the insanity of the ColonePs eldest
son, my uncle George; at all events he
used to look queer when new servant
was directed to place five extra plates
upon the table for the children in
heaven. At last it broke out suddenly
like thunder-clap in cloudless sky,
or like an earthquake to upheave the
proud foundation of this grand old
family. Death had been a sore afflic-
ton, but this was really the family's
greatest calamity.


was then just entering my teens
and lived with my grandparents, and
one day came home late in the after
noon, and upon opening the front door
heard an unusual noise, which seemed
to proceed from the room at the top of
the stairs.


ran up quickly, and there in the
front room over the parlor, found my
grandmother lying upon the floor, un-
conscious, aud blood trickling from her
right temple.


In the corner of the room, leaning
against the wall, ghastly pale, his eyes
protruding from their sockets, tremb-
ling like an aspen, stood my uncle
George; he was pointing with his finger
toward his mother, and between his
breathing, which was labored and pant
ing, muttered through his teeth:


"She has taken away my back. She
has taken away my back But | can
stand here against this wall, and this
historic beam shall be my spinal col
umn~


Before | had time to call assistance
the paroxysm was over, the wild ex-
preston had left his countenance, his
breathing became gradually calmer.
and he fell faint and unconscious on
the floor.


Uncle George had for years applied
himself necessarily TO the duties of his
position as Secretary of the Halifax
Marine Insurance Company. The first
intimations that his health was being
undermined, consisted of certain vague
symptoms of indigestion, followed by
inappetence, intolerable headache, and
sensations of chillness. Slowly and in
sidiously the disease progressed until it
eliminated in the first crisis-the par
oxysm which have described. A pro-
tracted illness ensued and partial re-
covery: after that, paroxysm after par
oxysm of mental arrangement and
physical prostration till it developed
into a hopeless mania, which made 1t
necessary that he should be removed to
the asylum.


The mailman had not inflicted
blow, as supposed. My grandmother
had tainted, her nervous system having
received terrible shock at the sudden
change in the demeanor of the son
upon whom she was accustomed to look
with peculiar maternal pride; and the
blood which had alarmed me so much
at first proceeded from slight cut
which had been inflicted in the fall by
the setting OF n diamond ring which
she wore upon her hnger.


never entered that room over the
parlor that dill not experience an un-
defined feeling of apprehension and
dread come over me, and imagine |
saw again the ghastly visage of the in
sane man, who stood there trembling,
painting and muttering; "fou have
taken away nv back" and bolt uprigh.