rafts. We can only say to one and all, brothers, we cannot become touters for any ship, that is not our vocation; but we to disparage none, and desire every man to be fully peraded in his own mind. With Reason for your compass, the New Testament for your chart, the Polar-star of Duty for your guide, and genial gales from the spirit-world to waft you on Four way, we wish you all a safe and prosperous voyage. Despise not the friendly light-houses Spiritualism has erected to warn you from the sunken rocks and dangerous places, and as you go down to the sea in ships, and do business in great waters, may you see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. In conclusion, we would commend to the consideration of the reader the noble words of Plato. "Let him then take confidence for his soul, who during his life has adorned itat with strange attire, but with that which properly belongs to it, such as perance, justice, strength, liberty, and truth; he may tranquilly await the bour of his departure for the other world, as being prepared for the voyage when destiny shall call him to undertake it. MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF SPIRITUALISM. As a pendant to the foregoing article we present the last chapter, headed as above, of a work entitled Qu'est que le Spiritisme? by Allan Kardec, Editor of the Revue Spirite, Paris. By reasoning, practical study, and observation of facts, Spiritualism confirms and proves the fundamental bases of religion, namely : The existence of an only, omnipotent God, creator of all things, supremely just and good. The existence of the soul: its immortality and its individuality after death. Man's free will, and the responsibility which he incurs for all his acts. Man's happy or unhappy state after death, according to the use which he has made of his faculties during this life. The necessity of good and the dire consequences of evil. The utility of prayer. It resolves many problems which find their only possible explanation in the existence of an invisible world, peopled by beings who have thrown off the corporeal envelope, who surround us, and who exercise an increasing influence upon the visible world. It is a source of consolation: By the certainty which it gives us of the future which awaits us. By the material proof of the existence of those whom we have loved on earth, the certainty of their presence about us, the certainty of rejoining them in the world of spirits, and the possibility of commuBy the courage which it gives us in adversity. nicating with them, and of receiving salutary counsels from them. in giving us a just idea of the value of the things and goods of this world. It contributes to the happiness of man upon the earth:— In counteracting hopelessness and despair. In teaching man to be content with what he has. In teaching him to regard wealth, honor, and power as trials more to be dreaded than desired. In inspiring him with sentiments of charity and true fraternity for his neighbour. The result of these principles, once propagated and rooted in the human heart, will be: To render men better and more indulgent to their kind. To gradually destroy individual selfishness, by the community which it establishes among men. To excite a laudable emulation for good. To put a curb upon disorderly desires. To favor intellectual and moral development, not merely with respect to ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AND MR. HOWITT. WILLIAM HOWITT's article on "The Earth-Plane and the SpiritPlane in Literature," which appeared in our last number, has called forth the following letter: To the Editor of the "Spiritual Magazine." SIR, I cannot resist saying a word in defence of my admired and beloved friend, Mrs. Browning, who is selected by Mr. Howitt in his able and brilliant essay, as an example of the earth-plane in modern poetry. Although in a foot-note Mr. Howitt acknowledges the mistake of having taken the Curse for a Nation to mean England, not America, he does not appear cognisant of the fact that this poem was written several years ago for an anti-slavery association, and was without further explanation placed in this collection. As to Mrs. Browning's admiration of Louis Napoleon, it is founded on a generous and noble enthusiasm, even if a mistaken one; she believes his policy to mean what she makes him say in her Tale of Villa Franca "The world is many, I am one, My great deed was too great; My brothers, we must wait." When Mr. Howitt says that Mrs. Browning has changed and lowered her style since her earlier poems, he surely cannot include in this criticism Aurore Leigh as a proof of the change. He has not indeed named it; but surely such passages as those to which I would call his attention, do not emanate from the inspiration from below. I quote almost at hazard; for one cannot open a page of this truly great work, without opening up some stream of the fulness of intellect and poesy within, "Without the spiritual, observe, The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, Again: Some call the ideal,-better called the real, "For we stand here, we, If genuine artists, witnessing for God's With blossoming causes." But I refrain from further observations at present, and would only remind Mr. Howitt, that Elizabeth Barrett Browning is not only a decided believer in Spritualism from the very earliest manifestations, but she is so, under circumes adverse to belief, in contradiction to the opinions of those around her. As to her earlier poems, beautiful as they are, and full of spirituality-The Dra of Exile, Isobel's Child, The Romaunt of Margaret especially so-I believe they were all written long before her belief in Spiritualism was formed. I feel that I have expressed very inadequately my impression, and offer these as very diffidently to one in every way so complete an adept both in the subject he advocates, and in poetry, as Mr. Howitt. I beg to remain, dear Sir, sincerely yours, RUTH. We placed this letter in the hands of Mr. Howitt, and have received from him the following reply: To the Editor of the "Spiritual Magazine.” -I am much obliged by the perusal of the letter of "Ruth," in defence of Mrs. Browning. I am glad to hear that Mrs. Browning has been for 66 we must steadfast a Spiritualist. It is worthy of her genius; and I wish I could feel that she had in her late Poems before Congress, ascended above the earthplane. In fact, the letter of her friend only confirms my suggestion of her being Whilst writing them, "biologized from below." A person biologized for the time, thinks, feels and perceives, precisely as his or her biologizer dictates. Is this not the case in Mrs. Browning's astonishing infatuation regarding Napoleon III.? Buth, in her generous vindication, quotes a passage in which we are told by the pretess, that Louis Napoleon's "great deed was too great;" and that wait to form a correct judgment of him. Now, why should we wait? Has he not shown to all the world that his " great deed was too great" for him. That surely, must be the true reading. Had he, when he promised to "free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic," done so, and done so without other fee or reward but the satisfaction and the glory of a noble action, he would have ensured himself eternal fame. But he stopped short; left the Austrian still in Italy; and yet sisted on the payment of his half-done deeds by the lopping off Nice and Savoy from Italy, and joining them to France, laying bare the frontiers of Switzerland, and alarming all Europe. Since then, he has refused to sanction the accession of Tuscany and the Legation to Sardinia, though they have voluntarily acceded by his own mode of universal suffrage. Are these the characteristics of a great ? True, Italy has unexpectedly taken herself, in a great measure out of his hands; there is yet a prospect that she will become free but not by Napoleon's t-but by the act and council of that Higher power who works with ambitious men differently to their intentions. Need we wait to know that Napoleon by his 600,000 armed men, and by his enorContinent at the enormous expenditure of war in a time of peace; thus exhausts mens navy keeps all Europe armed to the teeth in a time of peace; keeps us and the civilization and pushes back Christianity by founding the Moloch spirit of destruction? What we wait for is to be well rid of the Napoleon nuisance; and Spurgeon, in his letter from Baden-Baden, gives us hope that we shall not wait for ever. Europe sees with reviving cheerfulness that God, by that incur disease which is wasting the disturber, will ere long give her relief. Much as I admire the warm feeling which has prompted Ruth to stand for her friend, Mrs. Browning, I cannot think that she has mended the ma by her explanation, that The Curse for a Nation was aimed at the United St and was first published in an anti-slavery publication, and then put "promise as the London gamins say, into The Poems before Congress. Thus it app that this "curse" is kept by the brilliant and energetic poetess, as a su cannon which she fires off according to circumstances. Having done i against the Americans, it was mounted on her Italian battery, and discha against England. If not against England, why put into that battery at all! Let us trust that as the liberty-loving poetess is a staunch Spiritualist, will learn what Spiritualists are early compelled to learn, "to discern spir Had "the angel" come to me, as Mrs. Browning says he did to her, and bad write a curse, whether on an individual, or on a nation, I should have "Get thee behind me, Satan! for I am a Christian, and my religion says, 'B and Curse not.'" Nothing is so requisite for Spiritualist or Christian, if can be a distinction betwixt those two names, as to be on the guard ag imposing spirits; and if we are to take this curse," as a bona fide spiri communication, which it professes to be, and of which it certainly has the "This is the curse! Write ;"-there cannot be a doubt but that it came i a false and anti-Christian source. Cursing is no part of Christianity. This confirms my supposition that the extraordinary fascination in favour of the man who disturbs all Europe, is precisely a demoniac spell, impressed # pose to becloud and mislead, and if possible, destroy the genius of the p poetess. Every Spiritualist ought to pray for her enfranchisement à Once discharged of this unfortunate bewitchment which makes her bel continually exclaim, "Why will she do these things?" and her mind op to the influences of more heavenly and friendly spirits, we might expe higher and more potential strains from her pen than we have received hithe May it be so. Yours faithfully, wwwww WILLIAM HOWIT THE UNIVERSAL METAMORPHOSIS.-If a wafer be laid on a surface of poli metal, which is then breathed upon, and if, when the moisture of the breath evaporated, the wafer be shaken off, we shall find that the whole polis surface is not as it was before, although our senses can detect no differe for if we breathe again upon it the surface will be moist everywhere except the spot previously sheltered by the wafer, which will now appear as a spec image on the surface. Again and again we breathe, and the moisture evapora but still the spectral wafer re-appears. This experiment succeeds afu lapse of many months, if the metal be carefully put aside where its sur cannot be disturbed. If a sheet of paper on which a key has been laid be posed for some minutes to the sunshine, and then instantaneously viewed in dark, the key being removed, a fading spectre of the key will be visible. Let paper be put aside for many months where nothing can disturb it, and the darkness be laid on a plate of hot metal-the spectre of the key will again app In the case of bodies more highly phosphorescent than paper, the spectre many different objects which may have been laid on it in succession will warming, emerge in their proper order. This is equally true of our bodies our minds. We are involved in the universal metamorphosis. Nothing l us wholly as it found us. Every man we meet, every book we read, ev picture or landscape we see, every word or tone we hear, mingles with our be and modifies it. There are cases on record of ignorant women, in statel insanity, uttering Greek and Hebrew phrases, which in past years they b heard their masters utter, without, of course, comprehending them. T tones had long been forgotten; the traces were so faint that, under ordin conditions, they were invisible; but these traces were there, and in the inte light of cerebral excitement they started into prominence, just as the spect image of the key started into sight on the application of heat. It is thus w all the influences to which we are subjected.-Cornhill Magazine. A RAP ON THE KNUCKLE S.* “There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.”—Julius Cæsar. WHAT I want," says the hard-headed Mr. Gradgrind," is facts;" that is precisely what the conductors and readers of the Magae have required from the beginning. The facts that come before we record as plainly as possible, carefully refraining from any oration to make them "look pretty" to the eye, and studiously staining from spicing them with those hot exciting zests, which e only used to stimulate a morbid appetite for the marvellous. others we leave the practice of that literary millinery, which nsists in embroidering the raw material of truth with fantastic chet-work, and overlaying the experiences of every-day life th the ornamental imagery of every-week manufacture. It is special object of this publication, to enlighten rather than to ertain its readers, and whilst in the Spiritual Magazine our ges are illustrated with the facts "plain," we contentedly leave t lively periodical All the Year Round to present them to the blic according to the popular tariff of " twopence coloured." But still, as the sagacious Mr. Gradgrind observed, "what we ant is facts;" and when these facts especially interest ourselves, would much rather not see them distorted. In number sixty-six of that publication, conducted by Mr. Charles Dickens, and dated Saturday, July 28, 1860; there appeared an article entitled "Modern Magic," professing to give a veracious account of some manifestations that recently took place at the rooms of Mrs. Marshall, in Red Lion Street, Holborn. As the riter of these lines happened accidentally to be present when he writer of that article witnessed the things to which he refers 3 proofs of trickery on the part of the mediums, and of humiliating elf-delusion on the part of the believers, who were in his company n that evening, it may be worth while considering whether nother version might not be given with more advantage to the anse of truth, though it will be found less elaborated by fancy. It is only evidence against evidence; but the old fable of the two nights with the gold and silver sides of the shield, may be emembered as likely to assist those who would arrive at a fair onclusion. It is not for the present writer to impugn the veracity of his literary co-labourer; on the contrary, he gives the author of * The writer of this article, to whom we have appealed to give a true version f the distorted statement in Mr. Dickens's All the Year Round, is well known to both the writers and readers of our friend Punch. He is himself one of the st gifted periodical writers of the day, and as well known in literary circles As Mr. Dickens himself.-EDITOR. |