Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/114

 mediums may he and are attacked, the remnant of will destroyed or lulled, the moral sense stupified, and the entire being subjugated by spectral harpies and human ghouls, who wander on either bank of existence.

Many people, when reading the Scriptures, are inclined to explain away many things as 'poetry' which ought not to be so interpreted. Thus the first chapter of the book of Job contains the following assertions, which it would be well to read oftener and more carefully: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." Satan here undoubtedly means an evil chief of the harpy bands infesting the borders of both worlds, whose sole delight it is to circumvent God and man, and bring all good things to an evil end. Whether this state of things shall continue, depends not upon God or the devils, but upon man, and his actions, influence and aspirations. Those ill-meaning ones who live just beyond the threshold, often attain their ends by subtly infusing a semi-sense of volitional power into the minds of their intended victims; so that at last they come to believe themselves to be self-acting, when