course this suggests the query, How do the spirit manifestations come? I answer, I have many times seen persons put under psychologic control, and then the operator put en rapport with persons in the room, who, under ordinary circumstances could not have controlled the subject. Yet all the while the operator kept supreme control, and others were by his will brought into and driven out of communication with the subject. So in spirit control. Each medium is surrounded with his or her spirit guides, who may, for the benefit of friends on either side of the river of death, serve in connection with the medium, as a connecting link between the two parties. Now take into consideration the peculiarities of the medium, then the peculiarities of the control by which he may be surrounded, and that all these peculiarities must in cases of test be overcome, and any one can see how difficult it may be to always give tests, and yet how easy it may be to give discourses where the power controlling has only his own thoughts to utter.

QUERY NO. 7.

Why can not all be mediums and see spirits? Answer. There is a sense in which all are mediums. Paul says, "But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal." (1 Cor. xii. 7.) Every one who has a spirit, has something that can come en rapport with spirit. Hence all are mediums, though all may not have that one gift of seeing. In Paul's enumeration of the gifts, in the above mentioned chapter, he has them as follows: —

1. The Word of Wisdom.

2. The Word of Knowledge.

3. Faith.

4. The gifts of healing.

5. The working of miracles.

6. Prophecy.

7. Discerning of spirits.

8. Diverse kinds of tongues.

9. Interpretation of tongues.

There are very few but that have, or could have, some of these or some other gifts. All can, by complying with proper conditions, be mediums.

As to seeing spirits, it requires a peculiar kind of mediumship to enable a person to see them either clairvoyantly or psychologically. These are the only ways persons as mediums can see spirits. Spirits sometimes, in the presence of certain organisms, gather a body from elements there are in the room; then all can see them without the aid of mediumship.

A clairvoyant sees spirits by means of having his spiritual eyes opened. A psychological subject sees them by passing en rapport with some power who wills him or her to see them. Mediumship, for extraordi nary manifestations, has always been withheld from the masses of mankind. David was a smart man and good poet, yet, when he wished to "inquire of the Lord," he did not use his own mediumship, but sent for Nathan the prophet, or Gad the seer. Thus all could not be mediums, even for the Hebrew God.

Balaam could not see the angel that was plainly visible to the animal on which he rode. Elisha's servant could not see the hosts of angels by which he was surrounded until Elisha had put his hands on his head. It is no more strange that all can not be clairvoyants, than it is that all cannot be poets or orators.

The Longfellows, Whittiers, Patrick Henrys, and Wendell Phillipses are about as scarce as the Swedenborgs and A. J. Davises.

QUERY NO. 8.

Why is darkness required for certain forms of manifestation?

Answer. Before entering upon a direct reply to the above, permit me to ask a few questions. Why were the great Biblical manifestations nearly all performed in the dark? Even when heaven and earth were created, it was in the dark; "and darkness brooded on the face of the deep." (Gen. i. 1-2.) The Bible God dwells in the midst of thick darkness." (1 Kings viii. 12.) When God threw Jacob in his wrestling-match it was in the dark. As soon as it began to be light, he pleaded, "let me go, for the day breaketh." (Gen. xxxii. 24.) The miracle of pulling Pharaoh's linchpins out was done in the dark. (Ex. xiv. 20-30.) Jesus' resurrection, the greatest of miracles, occurred in the night, so that he appeared to the woman before daylight. (John xx. 1.)

All who have investigated the subject tell us that darkness is a negative condition of the elements. The reason spirits can not speak to us in the light as well as in the dark is, they can not speak to our physical ears without forming physical organs of speech; these organs are organized from elements in the presence of a medium. Light is an agitator, traveling at the rate of twelve millions of miles per minute: it so agitates the elements that spirits can not gather and use them. There is not a reader of this book who can sleep as well in the light as in the dark. Machinery will run

more easily and with less friction in the dark than in the light. If spirits can not sufficiently control elements to appear in a physical form as well in a lighted as in a partially darkened room, how can it be expected that they can pick knots, or chemically separate and join together particles of iron or steel, as well in a lighted room as in the dark? I yet hope to see Spiritualism reduced to a more perfect science when these things can be done in the light.

QUERY NO. 9.

Is Spiritualism sometimes immoral?

Answer. No, never. Always directly to the contrary. Yet mediumship may sometimes call into activity the slumbering devils of the organism. I do not understand that mediumship ever does more than to arouse the latent powers of the organism. Mediumship quickens. A person with a large front brain will therefore be more intellectual under spirit influence than without it. Mediumship stimulates and calls all the latent qualities of the brain into activity. So a large top brain will be more reverential or devotional under influence than without it. A large back brain, with no frontal brain to balance it, will, of course, be stimulated under influence, and the conduct of the medium will be prompted by the back brain. That being the case, he may be more destructive, combative, or amative under influence than without. Does the reader, from this, draw inference that Spiritualism is bad? That is illogical. The shining of the sun, the falling of the rain and dew, certainly quickens and calls into activity the latent germs of life in the earth. Beans, peas, and potatoes,

hyacinths, roses, and dahlias, grow under these combined influences; so does pig-weed and deadly-nightshade. Shall we drag the sun from the heavens, or declare against the summer showers, because they develop thorns, thistles, and poison? Nay, while Spiritual influence develops, and calls into activity that which we call evil in the human organism, it also calls out the good. If a person has the good parts of his organism dwarfed by the theologies of the present and the past, he may, for a time, be worse in his overt acts for becoming mediumistic, yet as sure as mediumship strengthens all there is of the medium, so sure it will eventually bring the moral and spiritual up to balance all other parts of the organism.

QUERY NO. 10.

Why do such spirits as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Theodore Parker dwindle into such insignificance when they manifest through inferior organisms?

Answer. Every communication, at all times, partakes of the nature of the organism through which it comes. I have no doubt that Moses, Solomon, Paul, and Peter were inspired. Yet their inspiration did not destroy their distinctive peculiarities. No one can read the Song of Solomon without deciding that he would have all the wives and concubines he could get. The learning and logic of Paul, and the want of erudition and logic in Peter, are traced through all their inspirations. Inspiration, like water, assumes the shape of that through which it passes. A stream of water, coming through a round hole, will come round; through a flat crevice, will come flat. So let Daniel