Chapter XCIV

To be fit and capable of a spiritual visitation from the dead, you must be "pure in heart, and sound in head." There will be no answer to your invocation, unless you can say that your "spirit is at peace with all," as they can who are already in "their golden day" in Paradise. The mind and memory and conscience must be calm and still; for

"when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,"

the departed spirits

"can but listen at the gates,
And hear the household jar within."

This fitness for apprehending any communications from the next world, well describes the condition requisite for intercourse with God Himself.