has greeted every one of Sardou's productions-not one failure having marked his career-does seem the work of magic. No wonder it is attributed to the spirits.-Birmingham Post, April 10.

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ILLNESS AND TRANCE.

A remarkable case of suspended animation has occurred at Millom, in the neighbourhood of Whitehaven, in West Cumberland. It appears that some 18 or 19 weeks ago, a girl, about 11 or 12 years of age, residing with her parents at Millom was ill, and the medical attendant advised a removal for change of air. The patient was taken to Old Hall farm, leased from Mr. A. Brogden by Mr. W. Troughton. She was attended to with every care, but made no progress towards recovery, and in a short time fell into a lethargic state, resembling that of a person in a trance. In this condition she remained for many weeks, but at length woke up to a state of consciousness, and calling upon her mother, who was in attendance upon her, related how she had been in heaven and seen numerous angels and her brother, who had died some time ago. On being questioned to that effect, she expressed a desire not to recover from her illness, but to go to the happier land of which she had had glimpses. At that time she is described by her attendants as having a most "heavenly expression of countenance," and although she had then been for many weeks without one particle of solid food, her face was plump, her cheeks suffused with a lovely hue, the lips alone being devoid of the colour natural to her age when in health. The power of speech remained only for a short time, and the girl then relapsed into her former state, or nearly so. She lies in a

lethargic condition, but when a question is put to her she manifests her power of understanding it by a slight moving of the head, or some motion to indicate that she is sensible to the sound of human voice. The only sustenance, if it can be called by that name, the girl has received for fully 15 or 16 weeks has been the occasional moistening of the lips with brandy and water or tea. Within the last few days the girl's limbs have become gradually more rigid, as though foretelling of no very distant dissolution.-Newcastle Chronicle, March 29.

THE WELSH FASTING GIRL.

We (British Medical Journal) have received from Dr. Lewis, of Carmarthen, an account of Sarah Jacobs, of Llanfihangel-arArth, whose alleged long fasting has of late excited much curiosity. According to the account given by Dr. Lewis, she is

said to have taken no food since October 10, 1867, and not even water since the end of Deceinber of last year. He remarks that the statements made respecting Sarah Jacobs are of such an astounding nature that belief is scarcely possible, yet accumulated evidence might produce conviction. Some attempt has been made to test the credibility of the parents of the girl, by watching her closely; and the attempt came to an end for want of funds. The girl's parents are respectable farmers, not in needy circumstances. Dr. Lewis does not offer any explanation as to the manner in which life and growth can be maintained without ordinary food.

JUDGE EDMONDS.

The Hon. J. W. Edmonds declines the Presidency of a College, as he did a few years ago a Judgeship in New York. It will, no doubt, surprise our Christian friends to find there is a religion that raises man not only above worldly ambition, but above the highest positions of D.D. in our country, and yet leaves the person working for the spread of the new Gospel among the people, and writing and distributing, gratuitously, tracts and books to open the eyes that are sealed by sectarian bigotry to the light now bursting in from the spirit-world. The vast amount of good the Judge has done will not be appreciated until after he has gone to the other life.-Banner of Light.

AMERICAN OPINIONS OF THE "SPECTATOR'S" BRAIN WAVES.

"A writer in the London Spectator propounds a new theory in reference to the numerous well authenticated cases in which persons at the moment of death have made their presence seen or felt by distant friends. He suggests that the brain has the power of producing waves or vibrations in an atmosphere peculiar to itself, just as a magnetic battery sends an undulation through the magnetic fluid contained in a telegraph wire, or a bell sets the air surrounding it in motion when it is rung. At the moment of death, particularly of death by some violence, which finds the body in full vigour, the brain, exerting itself with spasmodic intensity, causes those brains which are connected with it by affinity to feel its power, and thus to perceive the presence of the person to whom it belongs. Such oblique methods of communicating between brain and brain, if such there be, would, in the opinion of the writer, probably but rarely take effect. influences would be too minute and subtle to tell upon any brain already pre-occupied by action of its own, or on any but brains of extreme, perhaps morbid, susceptibility. But if, indeed, there be

The

radiating from living brains any such streams of vibratory movements, these may well have an effect, even without speech, and be, perhaps, the modus operandi of the little flash-the mystic hint' of the poet-of that dark and strange sphere of halfexperiences which the world has never been without.

The theory, to which its propounder gives the name of 'brain waves,' is an ingenious one, and may yet receive scientific corroboration. That this material world has within it a host of forces not appreciable by the coarser senses, and that mind can act on mind without audible speech or visible motion, and at distances beyond the reach of sound or sight, is getting to be generally conceded. But how, or under what conditions, this power exhibits itself, is still an interesting subject of inquiry."

We clip the above from the New York Sun. To us, who are acquainted with both the facts and philosophy of this and other spiritual manifestations, it is amusing to see the ridiculous shifts of scientists in attempting to explain spiritual phenomena by the laws of matters with which they are acquainted. The above, though not quite as ridiculous as the explanation of spirit rappings by the Buffalo M.D.'s, is nevertheless destined to the same fate in the tomb of forgotten theories of nameless authors.

Twenty-one years have the spirits been rapping to us all over our country, and no explanation of any one opposed to the spiritual theory has given any satisfaction to the public, nor has any one lasted over six or eight months-only long enough to sell one edition of the book containing it. Most of the theories have injured the authors, and none have injured the cause of Spiritualism nor its advocates. The well established phenomena above referred to have been longer noticed and better known to many, but none but the spiritual explanation has given any clue to the cause. That guardian spirits often do carry news and make facts known at a long distance from the place where they occur, both by sounds and by appearances of forms, &c., is certainly true and therefore rational.—Banner of Light.

"MODERN SPIRITUALISM-PLANCHETTE; OR, THE DESPAIR OF

SCIENCE."

This is the title of a work just published by Mr. Epes Sargent, of Boston, U. S. A., and of which we hear that the first edition of 1,500 was sold off in four days; and that it is already passing through its fifth edition. We hope to see a copy of it, and to review it for the benefit of our readers in an early number.

AN INSPIRED ARTIST.

WIGAU, a celebrated English physician, knew an artist who executed 300 portraits in a single year. He communicated to a journal of science, an account of this gifted painter, which will be interesting to our readers, when so many mediums in various parts of our own country, are manifesting similar endowments. According to Wigau, the patrons of this artist, never sat to him more than a half an hour. The portraits, which were admirable likenesses, were continued and finished in their absence.

This wonderful artist became insane, and for 30 years was the inmate of an asylum. When he had recovered his reason, he was asked by Wigau the secret of his marvellous rapidity of execution, and how it was possible for him to produce so remarkable a likeness from one short sitting.

He replied:-" When a subject presented himself, I regarded him attentively for half an hour, sketching a few lines occasionally on the canvas. I had no need of a longer sitting. I put aside the canvas and passed to another person. Then, when I would continue the first portrait, I took the model in my spirit, and placed it in the chair where I saw it as distinctly as if it had been in reality there, if not with outlines more clear, and colours more lively-I contemplated the imaginary face for a few moments, and then commenced painting. I suspended my work to observe the attitude, absolutely as if the original had been really before me, and every time I threw my eyes in that direction, I would see the model.

"This method rendered me very popular; and as I always caught the resemblance, patrons flocked to me, delighted to avoid the numerous sittings to which the other painters forced their clients. I made money rapidly, which I laid up for my children. But gradually, I lost my power to distinguish between the real and the imaginary face; it happened on several occasions that I insisted to certain persons that had not visited my studio for several days, that they had sat for me the evening previous. Their positive denials of what seemed to me reality, predicted a confusion which ended in a complete unbalancement of my spirit. I remember nothing more."

After thirty years of mental derangement, during which time he never touched a brush, most wonderful to relate, this artist's talent returned to him. His imagination served as vivid as ever, and he painted miniatures in eight hours which were striking likenesses, and for which the sitter gave only two sittings of half an hour each.

How forcibly are we reminded by this narrative, of our own Spirit Artists, Anderson and Starr.-The Present Åge, U.S.A.

DEATH OF M. ALLAN KARDEC.

SIR,-A letter which I have just received from Paris, announces the sudden removal on Wednesday, the 31st March, of one of the most gifted of our brother Spiritualists, M. ALLAN KARDEC.

The immediate cause was the rupture of an aneurism with which he had been long threatened, but which he had hoped might be postponed until he had completed three more works, to be added to his valuable contributions to the philosophy of Spiritualism during the last 18 years. To accomplish this the more effectually, he had already placed the conduct of the Revue Spirité in the hands of a committee, and had resigned the Presidency of "La Société Spirité de Paris."

The labour of removal from the Rue St. Anne, which had been so long the centre of the Spiritist movement in Paris, to the Avenue de Ségur, where M. Kardec possessed a small property, seems to have hastened the sad event.

That Madame Kardec, who bore always a devoted and efficient part in her husband's labours, together with the Society of Paris, will receive the deep sympathy of you and your readers in the loss which they have sustained, I cannot doubt.

There was no evidence that any physical suffering whatever had been experienced-and a subsequent communication, made by the glorified spirit to the Society on the Friday following its departure, beautifully corroborated the assurance given in Le Ciel et l'Enfer, that "death for the purified spirit is simply a sleep of a few moments' duration, exempt from suffering, and where the waking is joy unspeakable." "A fitting close," as my correspondent, M. Anna Blackwell, adds, "of a life of abnegation, devotion, untiring labour, unswerving constancy and inexhaustible charity which has gained for M. Kardec such deep and reverent affection from the circle-wide as the world-of those to whom amidst the Atheism, Materialism, and nor belief of the age, his teachings has brought the light immortality."

About 800 persons attended the funeral to the Montmar Cemetery a number which might have been doubled, had m time been allowed between the death and the burial.

When the coffin was in place, M. Levent, the President the Society, read the allocution and prayer. He was followed M.M. Camille Flammerion, Emile Barroult, and Colonel Mallet.