That they are on the other side, that they are what men call dead, does not seem to me sufficient reason for taking them into my confidence, courting their company, asking their advice.

A well-attested old-fashion ghost story, where such is to be had, is worth a thousand seances.
"Do YOU believe in ghosts, papa ?" resumed Cosmo, noting his father's silence, and remembering that he had never heard him utter an opinion on the subject.
"The master says none but fools believe in them now; and he makes such a face at anything he calls superstition, that you would think it must be somewhere in the commandments." "Mr.Simon remarked the other day in my hearing," answered his father, "that the dread of superstition might amount to superstition, and become the most dangerous superstition of all." "Do you think so, papa ?" "I could well believe it.

Besides, I have always found Mr.Simon so reasonable, even where I could not follow him, that I am prejudiced in favor of anything he thinks." The boy rejoiced to hear his father talk thus, for he, had a strong leaning to the marvellous, and hitherto, from the schoolmaster's assertion and his father's silence, had supposed nothing was to be accepted for belief but what was scientifically probable, or was told in the bible.

That we live in a universe of marvels of which we know only the outsides,--and which we turn into the incredible by taking the mere outsides for all, even while we know the roots of the seen remain unseen--these spiritual facts now began to dawn upon him, and fell in most naturally with those his mind had already conceived and entertained.

He was therefore delighted at the thought of making the closer acquaintance of a man like Mr.
Simon--a man of whose peculiarities even, his father could speak in such terms.