When he faded Sophia reappeared and continued going and coming with a phantom between each of her appearances, so that she was in turn replaced by Luther, Cleopatra, Robespierre, and others, concluding with the Italian patriot Garibaldi, who eclipsed all the others, for his bust was converted into a bronze urn from which red flames burst forth.

The flames took a human form, and gave back Sophia to the assembly.
Such is the gift of substitution, which follows penetration, and such is the substance of the memoirs of M.Bataille, ship's doctor, who, in the year 1880, undertook to exploit Freemasonry and has come forth unsinged from Diabolism.

There is one maxim of the Psalmist which the experience of most transcendentalists has taught them to lay to heart, and to repeat without the qualifications of David when certain aspects of supernatural narrative are introduced--_Omnis homo mendax!_ But lest I should appear to be discourteous, I should like to add a brief dictum from the Magus Eliphas Levi.

"The wise man cannot lie," because nature accommodates herself to his statement.

In a polite investigation like the present, there is, therefore, no question whether Doctor Bataille is defined by the term _mendax_, which is forbidden to literary elegance; it is simply a question whether he is a wise man, or whether nature blundered and did not conform to his statement.
The credibility, in whole or in part, of Dr Bataille's narrative will involve some extended criticism, and I purpose to postpone it till the remaining witnesses have been examined.