The entire history of the race, when recorded in accurate detail and fidelity to fact, ever has, and ever will be found, marked with the shadowy outline of a second world of existence, supersensuous to that of mortality. On the walls of our earthly dwelling-places ever will be seen a writing inscribed by 'a part of a man's hand,' the form whereof is dimly visible, the full proportions of which no human eye may scan. And these mystic writings are discovered everywhere; they are traced in our holy places, and meet us on the thresholds of our habitations. They are seen in our very city streets, and the stones prate of their whereabouts.
Sometimes we label them 'religion,' at others denounce them by the weird name of 'magic,' 'witchcraft,' or 'sorcery;' in a word, we variously denominate them, as time, prejudice, or custom suggests, under all the different titles which are included in the generic synonym of 'supernaturalism;' but deem of them as we will, they include a set of experiences, occult and incomprehensible though they be, as irresistible and inevitable in time and space as the more material array of facts which we assume makes up the sum of human history. In truth, this same 'supernaturalism' is the woof spun by the hands of a powerful though invisible existence, which incloses all human life and shapes all human destiny. Hitherto, we have either determined to resolve the whole realm of power which makes up man's spiritual existence into the universal solvent of all mysteries, 'God,' and 'His Will;' or else, with still more unphilosophic ignorance, we have striven to stifle the records of its being beneath the pall of unreasoning and senseless materialism. Neither will longer serve our turn.
