Carwin was the miscreant whose projects were resisted by a minister of heaven.

How can this be reconciled to the stratagem which ruined my brother?
There the agency was at once preternatural and malignant.
The recollection of this fact led my thoughts into a new channel.

The malignity of that influence which governed my brother had hitherto been no subject of doubt.

His wife and children were destroyed; they had expired in agony and fear; yet was it indisputably certain that their murderer was criminal?
He was acquitted at the tribunal of his own conscience; his behaviour at his trial and since, was faithfully reported to me; appearances were uniform; not for a moment did he lay aside the majesty of virtue; he repelled all invectives by appealing to the deity, and to the tenor of his past life; surely there was truth in this appeal: none but a command from heaven could have swayed his will; and nothing but unerring proof of divine approbation could sustain his mind in its present elevation.
* Mania Mutabilis.

See Darwin's Zoonomia, vol.ii.Class III.
1.2.where similar cases are stated..