Man, we are told, is the reflected image of his Creator: he is so, with the exception that the image is easily defaced. We cannot imagine a more melancholy consideration, than the idea. of a reflected image of a perfect God being submitted to the spoiling process of a mischievous mutilation by a miserable fiend. We hear of fine altar-pieces in churches, painted by the artists who reflect a glory on their country, being destroyed by some wretched being impelled by fiends to an act of barbarity; but this is only the type, or rather copy, of the mutilation we allude to. God's image would necessarily be holy, if the will he vouchsafed to that image had been properly cultivated-if the organ of Concentrativeness had not been allowed to be weakened by wrong training-if, in fact, due self control had been cultivated from the earliest period of life. Men may rail at this new philosophy; men may fancy themselves wonderfully gifted with old facts, and with invincible powers of reasoning: they must succumb to the truth-there is no way of escape from the cogency, and the wisdom, and the absolute correctness of the mode of reasoning here adopted. We are apt to recur to our former convictions, notwithstanding the truth is against us: we are as bad as the Hindoo, who refuses to be converted. There is, however, in the end, no escape from just conclusions. The world may lag behind for a time; royal societies may become old and decrepid; we may all be sure, however, that time does not stay for the indolent, the lazy, the ignorant, and the obstinate.

A HAUNTED HOUSE.-At the Glasgow Small Debts Court on Thursday last, a very singular case was heard. This was a claim restricted to £13, being rent of a furnished house at Strone. The defender served a counter claim on the pursuer, which amounted to £33 18., being damages sustained by the defender. One of the items in the account was as follows:-" That the house let to the defender was under a bad name, and no person that knew it, would live in it. That the pursuer did not inform the defender of this although he knew well that the house had the name of haunted ever since his brother hanged himself, and was stretched on the kitchen table, That the defender obtained a lodger, and from a fright he got from a vision in the night, he became deranged, and went and drowned himself. To loss sustained on not being apprised of the character of the house, £20." The counter account was not entered into, as there was a wrong date in the original account, and the Sheriff dismissed the case.-Perthshire Gazette.

Correspondence.

PERSONAL

EXPERIENCES

IN SPIRITUALISM.

To the Editor of the "Spiritual Magazine.”

SIE-In compliance with the request of several friends, I have_much pleasure in placing at your disposal a few of the phenomenal facts I have recorded during my investigation of the deeply interesting subject of spirit intercourse, and in the first place permit me to say to your readers, that Î am not learned in the laws of physics. I am a plain practical man of business, and I believe an ordinarily sagacious observer. I have gone through all the phases of doubt, and exhibited the usual amount of ignorance, free however from bigotry and dogmatism. I have read much, and heard almost everything that could be said upon the subject, either in denial or explanation of the facts, and am at length forced to admit, that (as all other solutions entirely fail to explain the phenomena,) I do accept the one claimed for them of " spirit manifestations," and I now most implicity believe that the disembodied spirit can and does manifest its existence to man on earth.

It is now about four years since I first witnessed the manifestations at the house of a neighbour, where Mr. Home, the American medium, was then residing. The occurrences so opposed to my pre-conceived ideas were indeed startling, and sufficient to satisfy the mind of any rational man that something -call that something what you will-more than natural agencies was at work. Among other wonders witnessed by me at that time, an accordion, brought from one end of the room to the other by no mortal agency, placed in my hand, and held by me apart from any one, all around having their hands visibly placed on the table, was played upon in the most beautiful manner, and the particular air I asked for executed; there being no possibility of any one touching the keys of the instrument. At another time the table around which seven persons were seated, rose slowly from the ground and ascended nearly to the ceiling, out of the reach of all but myself, descending steadily, and returning to the floor with no more force than if it had been a feather's weight. To talk of such things being delusions, or effected by a well-contrived trick of any kind is simply ridiculous.

I compared notes at that time with Sir David Brewster, who in company with Lord Brougham, had also witnessed phenomena differing somewhat from my experiences, but not less marvellous. Sir David admitted he could not suggest a solution, but said emphatically, "Spirit, sir, is the last thing I will give in to." It might I think be fairly asked if biblical history is to be relied upon, why spirit should not be the first. Some time after, when Sir David Brewster saw in the London journals a paragraph copied from an American paper (to which Mr. Home deceived by the apparent frankness of Sir David had sent it) announcing "the conversion of Sir David Brewster and Lord Brougham to the belief in spirit rapping," he wrote a letter to the Morning Advertiser, denying the statement in the strongest terms, and heaping ridicule and contempt on the whole subject. The result was a correspondence between Sir David and myself, and, when pressed by me to say what he had really seen, and to give if he could, an explanation of the plain matters of fact submitted to his senses, this philosopher made the following remarkable statement, which, as it might be doubted, I beg to say is an extract from a letter addressed to me, dated October 9th, 1855, published about that period by Sir David Brewster in the Morning Advertiser, he says:

"At Mr. Cox's house, Mr. Home, Mr. Cox, Lord Brougham, and myself, sat down to a small table; Mr. Home having previously requested us to examine whether there was any machinery about his person; an examination which we declined to make. When all our hands were upon the table, noises were heard, rappings in abundance; and finally when we rose up, the table appeared to rise from the ground. This result I do not pretend to explain," &c.

We have here the assertion that the table really did rise from the ground, or rather that it appeared to rise, and Sir David could not explain how; if it did, we may allow Sir David to reconcile such a statement to the satisfaction of Professor Faraday, who about the same period, in a lecture delivered by him at the Royal Institution, said, in effect, that the man must be a fool who asserted that a table in subversion of Newton's law could rise from the ground. However, upon this point, Professor Faraday may very easily be satisfied, as among other scientific "impossibilities" he can see a table, or a chair rise from the ground and float mid air, without any human support whatever. It is a fact witnessed by me and many others frequently, and, therefore, Professor Faraday, without over-riding Newton's, may add to his well-stored mind another law which he has not yet recognised. Will the Professor accept the invitation? Dare he? Let me remind him that the Faraday of America, Professor Hare, examined the phenomena, declaring they were explainable by known natural laws; but in the course of his investigations he converted himself to the belief in spirit power, and, as a natural consequence to the belief in a life hereafter, which he had previously been unable to accept, and with a candour which reflects the highest honour on his memory, he had the boldness to make known his conversion to the world.

After the departure of Mr. Home for the continent, where he was well received, and his remarkable powers recognised at almost all the courts of. Europe, and especially by the Emperor Napoleon the Third, I lost the opportunity of pursuing my investigations by practical tests, and had to content myself with reading and hearing what others had to say, regretting that when speaking of occurrences I had witnessed, I had no means of satisfying the natural curiosity of those to whom my statements appeared too marvellous to be readily credited; and, notwithstanding I could appeal for corroborative testimony to many friends, and to a mass of well-attested facts of similar phenomena recorded as having taken place in France and America-yet they were met by many wise people with a shrug of compassion, and no doubt—out of my hearing by some remarks not very complimentary to my sanity, if not in strong condemnation of my venturing to impose on their credulity by a wicked fabrication of what they knew on the authority of "scientific philosophers" to be wholly impossible.

However, after the lapse of a year or two, I met with two humble individuals, Mrs. Marshall and her niece, Mary Brodie, in whose presence I have witnessed phenomena almost as remarkable as any on record, and thus I have found the means of demonstrating to the sceptical, the undoubted reality of a super-mundane agency. I may here explain, for the information of the uninitiated, that the socalled "spirit power" is manifested in various ways, and only in the presence of "media," male or female; sometimes by rapping sounds, or by a rocking movement of the table, at others by hand-guiding, &c. It is not my intention to trespass on your space, or the patience of your readers, to whom many of these things are familiar, by recording messages purporting to come from the spirits of departed friends and relatives, many of which are highly interesting and instructive, but I shall confine myself to a recital of a few of the most remarkable of the physical manifestations I have recently witnessed.

and a Miss L

In the month of May last, I was residing with my family at M-House, Malvern, kept by Mr. W- his wife and daughter, who had on a visit with them, a Mr. M Mrs. Marshall and her niece had come from London at the request of several of the members of Dr. Wilson's establishment, and having a spare afternoon, Mr. W- asked them to spend it with his family and friends. They formed, as I was told, a circle," and soon obtained many manifestations that greatly interested them; and in reply to the questions usually put to the spirits, it was intimated that Mr. W—— and his daughter were both mediums.

The Marshalls left the house early in the evening, and after their departure the family and their friends sat round a good-sized breakfast table, trying if they had any power to produce the raps and movements. I knew nothing of this at the time; but about eleven o'clock, Mr. W- came to my sitting room begging me to go down stairs, as he really did not know what to do; he seemed distressed and excited, and explained that they had been trying to get the

table-movements, and had succeeded beyond their wishes, as, after answering their questions, the table began moving about without any one touching it, and Now, sir," he said, “I don't know what to do, for we cannot stop it." I went to their sitting room, and as I entered, the table, much to my surprise, made three skips and a bow (no one being near it), as if to welcome me. I walked up to the end where two of the females were screaming hysterically, and the table wheeled round and followed me.

I succeeded first in calming the females, and then in bringing the table to a stand still. Mr. M. then assured me that the table had been answering their questions and moving about for more than an hour without any one touching it. Now let me pause to ask Professor Faraday and his disciples how they will reconcile this fact to their theory of "involuntary muscular action.”

I have in my possession several messages written by the unseen agencies in a legible hand on paper with a lead pencil; I have frequently obtained writing (in the presence, of course, of the media, having no power of myself), both on a slate and on paper, sometimes whilst the paper was laid on the floor, at others whilst held in my own hand; the movement of the pencil being distinctly felt, though the agency was not visible.

As a further test of the existence of an independent intelligence, I have placed a closed book on the floor, all hands being on the table, and have requested that some specified page might be turned down. All present could hear the book opened, the leaves deliberately turned over as if by human fingers, the book closed again; and on taking it up I have found the page indicated turned down lengthways. I have repeatedly seen a table raised from the ground and suspended in the air, while those around were standing, all hands as usual being on its surface. I have seen, in fact, more startling phenomena than most of your readers will be prepared to believe-I mean more startling even than those I have here spoken of, and too extraordinary I am sure to be accounted for by any other than a super-ordinary agency of some kind. I think however I have said enough to show that there is in this much-derided "Spirit-rapping" more than is usually thought by those who have not investigated the subject; that as the facts are capable of direct and immediate proof, there is no necessity to dispute longer about what is possible or what is impossible; that the serious asseverations of men like myself, who pretend to no more than to give a truthful record of what they have seen, should be treated with the respect due to serious investigations; and that the last and most feeble of all oppositions is the attempt to destroy such testimony by descending to deal with it in an unreasoning tone of banter and ridicule. An avoidance of the whole subject on the ground of conscientious religious scruples is perfectly fair, and I think entitled to all respect. That state of feeling however implies an admission of a reality, which is all that believers in spirit maniestations desire in the first instance to enforce. The cui bono so constantly asked is answered in the unquestionable fact, that thousands have within a few years been converted by these manifestations to a belief in a future life, and when we so constantly hear the clergy of all denominations assuring their congregations that the safety of even one soul brought by their individual efforts to a state of repentance would be an ample reward for a lifetime of earnest endeavour, may we not rejoice that spiritualism opens the way more readily to a recognition of divine truths.

Let those whose vocations place them in the position of guides and instructors of the human family reflect on the significant fact that many master minds, after a due and calm investigation of the subject, have written volumes in support of their new-born convictions. Among these are the Howitts, Ashburners, Wilkinsons, and others, of London; and of Judge Edmonds, Governor Tallmadge, the Honorable Robert Dale Owen, Professor Hare, and the Rev. Adin Ballou, of America. To this let me add the fact that a catalogue has been recently issued by Mr. George Bumstead, of seven hundred works published at different periods during the last three centuries, all more or less bearing upon the same subject, and recording facts on facts. How can all this testimony be ignored by attributing (as is too frequently done), to these authors gross delusions, or the practice of a deliberate fraud on the credulity of their fellow-creatures? Let me in conclusion admonish these savans, in the words of an orthodox and learned divine, the Rev. S. R. Maitland, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., who, in a clever

little book, "Superstition and Science," published by Rivington, says, "Knowing that I am liable to be misrepresented, I will repeat that I am not writing with a view to maintain that clairvoyants see all or any of the things they profess to see, or that any rapping or tapping, or table turning, is done by one thing or another, by spirit or by matter; but I do most earnestly say, that whether with reference to this or any other subject, broad, sweeping charges of fraud cast about at random, unsupported and unauthenticated, are in a high degree injurious to the morals and the happiness of the human race. They go directly to destroy the faith of mankind in God and in one another, and they tend to promote in those who are simple enough to listen to them, a general, stupid, unreasoning scepticism.

Explanatory philosophers when they find their explanations laughed at as less intelligible than the mysteries which they are brought to explain, seem to think that they have no alternative but to fall back on wholesale reckless denial, as they must admit any solution rather than a miracle,' so they must make any shift rather than confess ignorance.

"At the same time these modest philosophers expect us to believe whatever they tell us. They demand from us a credulity as stupid and unreasoning as their own. They really require a baser and more degrading abnegation of understanding. Their explanations are, to say the least, as incredible and unintelligible as the mysteries themselves."

P.S.-Although I have not subscribed my name to the foregoing, you are at liberty to give it to any serious inquirer who may think it necessary for a fuller corroboration of the facts of which I have spoken.

We have received from Judge Edmonds a most obliging letter, from which we are enabled to make the following extracts:

"It seems to me now that the most acceptable topic for an article from me would be a history of the rise and progress of the Cause with us, and a statement of its present condition.

"Mr. Owen's book will be out in December, I perused a copy of his MS. here at about the same he was reading_the original to you in London; and I was so much pleased with it, that I wrote a notice of it for one of our papers, in which I spoke of it as one of the best of the works in our field.

"I was particularly struck with one feature in it-where he quoted from many writers of old, their views-because I had just been doing the same thing, and making the same qnotations. When his book comes out he will be in danger of the charge of plagiarism, or I shall. But that can hardly be, for I published my lecture before I saw his MS., and he wrote his book before Í prepared my lecture. To the world outside it may be deemed at most a coincidence, but we can readily understand how the spirits can impress two or more minds with the same train of thought, at about the same time.

"I send you a copy of my lecture, as well as others of my tracts, which may interest you-and I will add that, if they can be of any use to the friends in London, I can supply you with any number without any expense except transportation."