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When the idea to be given is that of the soul -- the something within them that "thinks and feels" -- a method like the following is often taken. The teacher calls to him one of their number. He indicates the most obvious points of difference between the child and some inanimate object in the room, as a table or chair. The table has no feeling, no intelligence. He speaks to it, strikes it, calls it, but it makes no response. The child has sensibility and intelligence. He feels pain and pleasure; he comes when he is called. He can see and understand, and the table cannot. The child plainly differs greatly from the table -- and from every inanimate object. He next takes an example from vegetable life, perhaps a tree. By delineating its outline in the air, the size of the trunk, the waving of the limbs, and the motion of the leaves, they soon recognize the intended object. He describes to them the roots piercing the ground, and the circulation of the sap. The tree has life; it grows; the trunk increases in size, the branches in length. Is the tree like the child? Can it feel, or see, or walk? Dees it understand when we speak to it? No, but the child does. The tree is not much like the child. Their attention is now directed to some animal with which they are familiar, as a dog, or a horse. As the teacher describes its shape, height and common habits, the clapping of a dozen hands, accompanied by exclamations of joy, assure him that they know well the animal to which he refers. Is the animal like the child? It can see, run, eat, love, feel pain, come at command, etc. Should he ask them if the animal could do right, or wrong; -- if it can deserve punishment, he would probably receive a universal assent. But is it as intelligent as the child? Can it read and write, or count? Oh, no! He has now made some progress. The child differs from a table, a tree, or a beast. He is better than either. Why? What has the child that these have not? To show more vividly the peculiar power and activity of the mind, the teacher closes his eyes, and walks about the room. He shows them that, although his eyes are shut, he can still see: -- he can see them. With his eyes closed he moves about rapidly, describes various objects, refers to their friends, and their probable occupations. He shows them that they can do the same. They can see their friends, though far away. Often in their sleep, they look upon their familiar faces and enjoy their society .

By pursuing these and similar illustrations, they soon catch the idea which he wishes to convey: that there is something in the child which they do not find in trees, animals, or anything else. But this wonderful "something" is not his body, or any part of it. His hand does not see, nor does any other limb. You may cut off any one of them, and yet the child can see as well as before. It is not his eye that sees, for the eye of a dead person remains unchanged, and yet has perception, and the same is true of the organs of the other senses. But if this "something" is not the body, it has great power over it. It commands the hand or the foot to move, and is instantly obeyed. It sometimes compels the body to make the most violent exertions, to rush forward, to stop suddenly, and to a variety of efforts, as it pleases. They are now prepared to be told that the power that manifests itself in these different ways is called the soul. It is not flesh; it is not any kind of matter. It is something like breath, or the air, (and this is the sign by which we represent it,) but it is not the same. We cannot see or handle it, yet it dwells in our bodies. It is this that "thinks and feels," and makes us differ from the animals and things about us. He also tells them that the body only is subject to decay; that when it dies, the soul leaves it, and that the soul lives forever.

We need not say that these illustrations (we have given only the briefest outline) are watched with intense and absorbing interest. They are portrayed by signs so natural and graphic as to be understood by most of the persons present. Although so simple as scarcely to be worthy of the name of reasoning, they have, nevertheless, effected a work of no small consequence to the deaf-mute. They have given him an idea of spirit; an idea which, previous to this time, had never entered his mind. That he has it now, you may be convinced by examination, and by his expressions of astonishment at the revelation. His notion of spirit, too, is correct as far as it goes; it is composed of a knowledge of some of its manifestations, of some things which it is not, and of its undying life; -- a knowledge differing in degree, not in kind, from that in the mind of the most profound philosopher.

When the idea of spiritual existence is once clearly in the mind of the deaf-mute, it is comparatively easy to lead him up to the Infinite Spirit.

Various objects are around him which were evidently made by human hands: an article of furniture, a vehicle, or a house are obvious examples. Did man make the trees, the animals, the clouds, the stars? Does he cause the lightning, or the whirlwind, the rain, the snow? No, these agents are not under man's control; -- he certainly did not make them. Who made the sun and moon, the sky, the earth, the sea? "Every house is builded by some man, but he that made all things is GOD." There is an invisible, immaterial, every-where present Spirit, who made all these things "by the word of his power."