mask the long spurned power of mesmerism is acknowledged. In sixteen years more, what fresh truth shall Spiritualism be propelled against, as a spiked target to push it back? It will be well for those who are now ridiculing and execrating it as a myth, a brain-sick fancy, as a spawn of the devil, to think a little on this.

But there is a great teaching for the Spiritualists themselves in these details. There are those who say, if your assertions be true, admit us to your séances; let us test your mediums. Before any Spiritualists do this, let them recollect the committee of twenty-three Viennese doctors, and their proceedings. Let them reflect on the words of Baron Reichenbach: "Science cannot thus be promoted, but folly may be shown in making such experiments with such men." Ay, folly of the gravest kind: for if cavillers will violate the plainest laws and conditions of the required phenomena; if they will only exhibit ignorance and insolence, the result can only be confusion. To quote once more Baron Reichenbach's words: "When experimenters do not know how to put their questions; when awkwardness and clumsiness cannot use the tools; when ignorance cannot arrange the necessary conditions of experiment; when want of tact cannot comprehend the answers; and when want of acuteness or intelligence is unable to discover the mutual relations of the phenomena;-then begin confusion and perplexity. The results being misunderstood, or misinterpreted, contradict each other; and the ill-qualified observer, rather than admit to himself or to others his own deficiencies, will sooner a thousand times adopt the dishonest expedient of accusing the observed person of deceit. But the deceiver, in regard to nature and science, is no other than himself, who, in his incapacity, has the impudence and the folly to brand truth with the mark of falsehood."

These are admirable observations, admirably in keeping with the spirit of the present time. They are words of wisdom drawn from dear-bought experience: and when Spiritualists receive challenges to give proofs of their faith, by persons of the stamp of the twenty-three doctors of Vienna, let them simply point them to the millions who have now satisfied themselves on this head, and say, "Go ye, and do likewise." The divine principle of Spiritualism is co-extensive with the human race; it is not the monopoly of any man or any woman: those who seek as the millions already convinced have sought, will, if in earnest, be sure to find it. It is the principle of the Gospel promised by Christ, possessed by the apostles, testified to by the martyrs; professed by all saints. It is neither confined to moving tables, nor to rapping sounds, to accordions played by invisible hands, to spirit-writing, nor spiritdrawing-to spirit-touch, nor spirit-sight—but it lies in the power

of God manifested directly from Himself in the still, small voice, and in the peace that surpasseth understanding; in the refreshing that comes from the presence of the Lord, and causes the old to renew their strength, and the young to mount up as on the wings of eagles. On it comes from the great Creator of all forces-odyle force flickering and dancing around the northern and southern poles; electric force speaking amid dark clouds in thunder in the summer noon, or sending man's thoughts along the world-spanning wire on it comes through his ministering angels, through enfranchised souls gladdened by the affectionate mission to train, and warn, and lead heavenwards those they best love on earth. It is the mind of some great hero or artist glorified amid the celestial ages, breathing marvellous visions on the wrapt painter or entranced poet.

Along the vanward coasts and cliffs of heaven,
Piercing with outshoots bold this darker sphere,
Stand great ethereal powers from age to age,
Showering down life and love from God to us;
New art, new science; dreams of vast design;
High resolutions; hero-thoughts and strengths,
Fresh fires to patriot and morn-winged souls,
Devotion to the death for love of men,
Making the fames of Time.

That is Spiritualism! Hallowed of God; exercised by angels: conferred on good and great men: continually speaking in the lives, the deeds, the words and the sentiment of great men. That which, in India, shouted in the soul of Sir Charles Napier, "Truckhee! Truckhee!" That which animates Garibaldi in his hero

course, simple, sublime, unselfish, meek and Christlike. That which enables the forgotten and dying orphan in some obscure and famine-haunted nook to look up to heaven, and seeing such sight as king or kaiser never saw, smiles and says, "Father! mother!" and dies. That is Spiritualism! Let him who has it thank God for it, as the great warrant of eternity. Let him who is ashamed of it, perish in his shame. If the petty, pert phrases of a swarm of little witlings-mosquitos haunting the swamps of literature, or the solemn sarcasms of the horny-souled journalist disturb him, he has not the lion nerve of the hero, or the heart of the martyr, and cycles of disembodied discipline must pass over him before he can look worthily up to Him who wrought great miracles before unrecognizing eyes; and gave no sign to a generation who sought only a sign,-not salvation; who, instead of wasting arguments on mammon-souls, applied the scourge to their backs, their only sensitive portion; and who, walking with angels and with God, stooped to endure earth's deepest ignominies, and died for man and truth. That is Spiritualism! not maimed or crippled; not found in odyle force, or in chloroform,

as Dr. Kidd, of Sackville, amusingly imagines; nor yet in hasheesh, with its wild visions; nor in nitrous oxide, and its sensations; nor in the dreams inspired by morphine, or nicotine, or any other drug, though these may curiously impinge on the spirit-life within us,-Spiritualism, not distorted by demoniac art; not in crumbs or fragments, but in its august completeness.

There is one thing which has particularly struck me in these reminiscences of Reichenbach, whilst passing through the purgatory of doctors and pretenders. It is a great and common objection to Spiritualism that only certain persons are mediums, as if more than certain persons are true poets, or philosophers, or artists. The same objection would destroy the odyle force, now so much idolized, for only certain persons are sensitives. But all sensitives agree in their testimony to the specific phenomena of odyle force, and all mediums to those of Spiritualism. The characteristics of these phenomena are so uniform and positive, that on meeting with them anywhere, you instantly cognize their truth. They are as settled as the green light in burning copper, or the pupil-dilating properties of atropine The shepherd knows the face of every sheep in his flock, be they a thousand: the Spiritualists know every essential mark of the revelations that have once dawned upon him. The moment you read a work, though not professedly spiritualistic, which deals with the true psychological facts, you know that the author has graduated in the school of what George Fox so aptly called THE TRUTH. There let the experienced mind stand calmly and abide. You shall have every true philosopher, every true poet abiding with you. Young, in his Night Thoughts, says:—

"Smitten friends,

Are angels sent as messengers of love;

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By-the-bye, Dr. Kidd says: Any one with a thimblefull of chloroform and one-tenth of his Houdinism might do all that Mr. Home does." If this be true, Dr. Kidd has only to take Hanover Square Rooms for a few evenings, invite all the world there; get a good fellow of some fifteen stone weight, give him a thimblefull of chloroform and apply a little touch of Houdinism, which may easily be procured in this clever little London of ours, float his man up in the sight of the company; let him sail all round the ceiling of the room, and then be brought and laid down on the table in the midst of the spectators, as Mr. Home was on one occasion, in the presence of people as medically educated, and as wide awake as my friend Kidd, and if he does not thereby explode Spiritualism for ever, I, for one, will never after say, that "he is no conjuror."

If, as Dr. Kidd says, it is so easy, that any one may do this with these simple means, he will be inexcusable if he deprive the London public of so astonishing a sight. But as neither he nor any other man will ever do it by chloroform and Houdinism, let me say that Dr. Kidd in thinking of weakening Spiritualism by chloroform has added new strength to it. Chloroform, as Sir John Herschell in his lecture at Leeds on "Sensorial Vision," now published, has shown in his own person, does produce clairvoyance. But clairvoyance is not Spiritualism any more than the telegraphic wire is electricity. The doctor has simply mistaken the telegraphic wire for the man and his intelligence at the end of it."

For us they languish, and for us they die:
And shall they languish, shall they die in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?

Shall we disdain their silent, soft address-
Their posthumous advice and pious prayer?"

Mrs. Hemans says:—

"Hast thou been told that from the viewless bourne
The dark way never hath allowed return?

That all which tears can move with life is fled-
That earthly love is powerless on the dead?

Believe it not."

But this gleaning in the golden corn fields of Spiritualism tempts us on and on: for the present, let us bind up our booty, and once more-home!

A FEW FACTS REGARDING "FOOTFALLS ON THE BOUNDARIES OF ANOTHER WORLD."

I was brought up in the house which had been that of my maternal grandfather, who died before my birth. It was a house of four stories; and I occupied at different times the bed room adjoining the dining room, on the second floor (while my grandmother occupied the one immediately above it), and the two attics. 1. After the death of my mother, abroad, I was one night in the act of lying down in bed, when my eye was arrested by an unaccountable appearance. A tall old gentleman, in his night dress, was feeling for something along the mantel-piece ; and as he moved, he passed between me and the candle which Í had left to burn out, and momentarily obscured it. The figure then, without seeming to observe me, turned towards the bed which was on the left of my own and unoccupied, raised his knee as if to climb in, and sighed at the same time, leaving no trace of his presence while vanishing. I sprang from bed and opened the door which was close at hand on the right of my bed, and to prevent any mischievous person escaping, I stood in the doorway and called loudly for the rest of the family. All came, and the room was thoroughly searched, but nothing was found, and the matter was treated as a joke.

It was then, on enquiry, that I was told that my grandfather had died in that very room.

2. In the same house-in the year 1823-as two aunts were standing at night at the attic window, they were alarmed at the apparition of the husband of their sister, holding in his hand a pen. They ran from the room and informed the rest of the family

of the circumstance. In the course of a few days they received a letter from their married sister, in Yorkshire, acquainting them of the death of her husband on that very night. He had signed his will before expiring.

3. Another aunt, on going up the stairs to the attics, one afternoon late, was jostled by an aged woman who carried a bunch of keys, and passing her, entered one of the rooms. My aunt followed, but on finding no one there, and no means, save by the door, of egress, became seriously alarmed.

4. On another occasion-about 1838-an uncle had just arrived from abroad. It was late, and one of his sisters, with her nephew and a servant, went to one of the unoccupied attics, and on opening the door they were terrified by observing the whole palliasse and mattress of the bed violently thrown upwards and turned. They rushed out, taking care to lock the door after them, for they fancied it might be a robber. The rest of the family then returned with them and searched the room, but nothing was found, and no traces seen of any one having be there. The smoke board was closed, and the window barred the inside.

5. Two grown-up members of the family occupied two beds: in another room-one faced the fire, and the other was beside it. During the night, they were simultaneously awakened by a noise, and looking up, asked each other, what was the matter? Each thought that it was the other who was moving to and fro before the fire in the grate. After stalking violently about for some time, there was a rushing noise, as of wings, and nothing more was seen of the figure. The occupants then rose, and examined the door, but it was locked on the inside, as usual.

6. One night in 1843, when sleeping in the room where I had previously seen the curious figure, I was awakened by a fearful uproar in the room occupied by my grandmother overhead: it sounded as if every piece of furniture had been broken to pieces and dashed about the floor. The house was alarmed, and we ran to my relative's assistance. Her hand grasped the bell pull, but she appeared paralysed with terror, and unable to ring it. She had started up in bed. She never mentioned the subject, except to one of her children, who, however, refused to betray the secret, whatever it was; but my grandmother never again slept alone.

7. An uncle, who was in the army, dreamt that he had got his captaincy by a person called — There was no such officer in his regiment, and it was treated lightly; but in the course of a month, when the packet arrived, he found himself gazetted vice a Captain who had been brought in from the half-pay.

On another occasion, the same uncle, on returning from