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Disguise it how we may, this is a ghost story.

I. ATTEMPT TO REALISE THE SPECTRE. Recollect that for every one of us spirit has clothed itself with shape and vesture, and that the basis of the whole world in which we live is spiritual. Look at some of the circumstances favourable to such a spectre.

1. It was produced by a likeness of moral state. It was a time of thought. The mind was wandering amazed, the labyrinthine way stretched out on every hand, the mind trod the dark pathways, I do not see that we are under any necessity to suppose a ghost, in the real, spectral, objective sense of that word. The thought of Eliphaz is of God. It was God who was "a trouble to him." And shapeless terror, while it was a Very objective reality to him, need not be regarded as such by us. It was the answer to the voice of conscience within.

2. The fear anticipated the vision. Where man does not feel he wilt not fear; where he does not tear the spectre, he will usually see none, feel none, know none. But man, every man, is accessible to fear. We do not dwell so near to terror as our fathers. Yet what a riddle there is in fear! Until Adam fell, Adam had no conscience, because he was one, his whole nature was a religious sensation. It is different now. The conscience is not free, it would be free, but it is nailed. Conscience is moral fear — conscience is the surgery of the soul. Possibly, all men have not fears. How comes it that man knows what moral fear is? It comes from the forbidden. Our world is a house full of fears, because the fall has removed us into the night, away from God. This is the natural history of fear — of moral fear. What is this natural capacity of fear in me? Nervousness, you say! Nervousness, what is that? It is a term used to describe the fine sheathing of the soul; it is man's capacity for mental and moral suffering.

II. FROM THE SPECTRE TO THE QUESTION. The ghost's question touches very appropriately and comprehensively the whole topic also of the Book of Job. It is a message from the dead, or rather, a message from the solemn kingdom of spirits.

1. How large is the field of thought the message covers. It is the assertion of the purity and universality of Divine providence. It is a glance at the alleged injustice of God. Man stands whence he thinks he can behold flaws in the Divine government. Job and his friend had met together in the valley of contemplation in the kingdom of night; in Job it was an experience, in Eliphaz a mournful contemplation. The spectre's question then was a reality. In the vision of the night the soul was shaken with the terror, and it is the overwhelming thought — God. God was only known as terror. What must the appearance of God be, if an apparition can startle so terribly? The spectator was crushed by the spectre, and by the question of the spectre. If thy thoughts transcend nature, not less assuredly does thy Maker transcend thee.

2. The question was directed to the delectability of man. Consider thyself, thy littleness, thy narrowness, the limited sphere of thy vision. And thou art presuming to find a flaw in the Divine purposes and arrangements.

3. Hitherto, the ghost only crushes; it was not the purpose of the spectre to do more. It asked of man the question which had its root only in the eternal and illimitable will. It referred all to God. But the message probably included the following chapter.

III. THE GHOST IS ASKING HIS QUESTION STILL. "Shall mortal man be just with God?" The moral fear of man, his conscience, is his best assurance of God. Man's ideas are the best proof that there is a God over him, higher than he is, infinite in goodness and wisdom. It is from God Himself man derives the terrors that scare him. God Himself has reflected His own being in the conscience within the soul. But then it is a wounded conscience, and needs healing.

(E. Paxton Hood.)

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KJV: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,

WEB: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,