scorned and disbelieved all ghost stories, and supernaturalism of every kind. However in spite of my rationalism, the more I reflected on the reported facts "stranger than fiction" the more the wish grew upon me to know for myself whether such things could be true; feeling that if so, there were indeed more things in heaven and earth than I had dreamed of. In this mood I was one day trying experiments and to my intense astonishment found I was responded to by some intelligence outside of myself. Gradually I was given to understand that I was in communication with the spirit of a dearly loved uncle. I thought I was going mad. I asked, "Am I going mad?" "No, you are coming to your right mind," was the answer, and true indeed were the words.

Lovingly, but firmly, he reproved me for my many shortcomings; with infinite patience he uprooted from my spiritual garden the deadly nightshade and hemlock of scepticism and rationalism, whose rank growth hid every bright flower from the light. "He taught me to believe in a God of love instead of a God of wrath, in a hereafter of loving communion with those gone before in the presence of our Saviour God. Honour to his loving human heart, he made me, found as a despairing sinner, rejoice with the joy of a reconciled child. Shall we fear to proclaim these truths? Shall we spare to cry aloud to wake those who sleep?" But soon, through the mysteriously opened door, came troops of different visitors. Some to tempt to evil, some to warn from it, some to bewail their misused lives, some to ask help and consolation. Many amongst them I had known in life, of others the names only were familiar to me, some were strangers. Amongst them I learned to recognize those who had for years kept watch over me, when to use their own words, "I neither knew nor would have believed that they were near me."

I thank God I know it now, they have given me consolation in the hour of trial, strength in the hour of weakness, hope when all around was darkness. Many of their communications are too personal to be interesting to you, but I will transcribe a few specimens to shew you their character. No. 1, is part of one of consolation, written on the Sunday of the week in which I was compelled to leave my home and birth-place. Nos. 2 and 3 are instruction.

Frequently I have had messages to deliver from those passed onwards to friends on earth, but oh, how seldom credited. Of the communications from the lower spirits some have been very strange, but if I attempt to describe them my letter which I foresee must be too long will be interminable.

I fear it is impossible to obtain certified particulars of the case to which I alluded of "Displacement of Coffins." I will tell you what I know about it.

The present Mr. N—————, of ——, married for his second wife a person who had been a servant in the house during the life of his first wife. The second wife also died, and on opening the family vault for her funeral, the coffin of the first wife was found to be removed from its place. This was told to my friend by a workman who assisted at both funerals; he said he was certain of the fact, but it was kept quiet. Mr. N- was married during the last summer to a third wife, he would resent and resist all attempts at enquiry. It would not be right therefore to publish the name of the family but I give it you in confidence. My friend has left that neighbourhood.

I am sorry I have nothing better to send you than the enclosed. It is the shadow of a vanished scene. The very day after I left the house the work of demolition commenced, and not so much as a twig remains as there represented. The figure by the door is my aged mother, then in her 87th year, (she was in her 90th when she departed). I am represented holding the gate open for a friend, (now a widow and far away); the white speck within the door is our child-like pet dog, also gone. Literally of all on which the sun shone that fair September afternoon I am the only vestige.

*

If I were to say here that in writing this letter I have had help from my spirit friends, 1 should simply be laughed at, yet it is true! I made a rough draught of the beginning that I might express myself clearly, and while considering how to describe my uncle's teaching, the paragraph beginning "he taught me" to the bottom of the sheet was given to me. The last long communication I had was a wonderfully expressed prayer which I would send but for the length to which my letter has already extended.

F

Spiritual Communication, No. 1.

"Will not all this teach you that heaven is your only safe home? When you are happy in your earthly home,-oh! forget not these lessons-when the sun shines on you, remember those on whom the night has fallen. When want and poverty meet you,-oh! be merciful, be pitiful; be not ashamed to confess that you have tasted the bitter cup! Our love would have you made perfect as human nature can be made through suffering. Make our hearts easy by a resolution to bear up through the coming trial, which we dread you may make more heavy than you need. We will, with all our love, be around you to comfort you. May God, by his Holy Spirit, make you strong in faith. Will our most urgent wishes have power over you ?—then bear up with fortitude; for out of evil, good will come, and soon. What many

thoughts make themselves felt on looking around you, now you are about to see the familiar objects no more; but be of good cheer. Will not heaven be above all, wherever you may be ? Will not our presence and love be there, as here? Will not your mother watch over you as tenderly when your head presses another pillow-when your eyes open no more on the trees which have fanned your slumbers since they witnessed your birth? Will not what we have taught you be strong as ever to comfort you, to tell you to look upward to your real home. Weep not, our darling, our spirit-child! Well we know all you feel; but again we say weep not. Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh with the morning. Will you confess you ought to be more faithful? Try, oh, try, to shew your faith by your works! May the Holy Spirit awaken your sleeping faith-may He pour his beams into your soul. Be not afraid; no evil shall befall you-no plague come nigh your dwelling. We have charge over you, to guide you in all your ways. Will not you let us guide you? When tomorrow shall come, make up your mind to be ready to part from this home. When Tuesday shall come, have no more delays; go at night to sleep in the place now appointed for you. To make a move is the most trying part of the business; you must not linger on the threshold to tear yourself to pieces with useless pangs. Go out at once; leave your blessing on the place, which will never depart from it. You owe it that for the shelter it has given you for so many years-for the lessons you have learnt in it-for the hopes you have been made to entertain in exchange for the fears-nay, worse than fears-which once haunted your thoughts of the hereafter. Will you try to do as we tell you? May our prayers be heard-may your future be all your heart can wish-may no more malice touch you-may our many long years of watch be now made plain to all. May God, in the fulness of time, take you over the river, where we all shall await you with songs of joy and praise-where all tears are wiped from all faces, where one unchanging song of thanksgiving echoes through heaven's vault, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.' More we may not disclose. Only remember that our happiness cannot be described by words of earth. We must, with blessings, say farewell, our loved, most dearly-prized spirit-child."

Spiritual Communication, No. 2.

"Make yourself more hopeful; too much you have given way to despondency. You see your fears were wrong. We must be purified from earthly passions, either on earth or here; better-far better, on earth. No one can enter Heaven without suffering. Without suffering, there can be no purification; without shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sins. Blood of Jesus was shed for our sins to shew us the way to suffer, to make us feel that God's justice must be satisfied before His mercy can overpower our misery. Before Jesus was on earth, the sacrifices of the Temple shadowed this out; but when He came, one sacrifice once offered was enough. But we must tread in his steps; we must carry our cross to crucify upon it our evil nature; we must overcome in his strength; we must wait on his grace to watch the resurrection, with the earthly body changed into the spiritual body-a body which could be felt, touched, handled, as yours can, but which could pass through closed doorswhich could rise on the clouds to our Father's home. So we, too, must lay aside the earthly body in the grave of suffering; we must be made like unto him. Be

not afraid-you have suffered much; but what will that be, in comparison with what it has taught you ?"

No. 3 (In Answer to a Question.)

"Will tell you on Sunday when you have been to Church; we wish you to go to Church, for many reasons. They say you are infidel; you are not; let them see you are not. Too many will, with malice, say Spiritualism wants to overthrow religion. Nay, it seeks to put life into the dead forms of so-called religion-to make those who are asleep open their eyes; to call sinners to repentance by telling them the consequence of sin, by shewing how every tree must bear its own fruit, till the wild branches are grafted into the true olive. Till men learn that sin is suffering, useless will it be to preach to them. Let them hear the wails of unhappy spirits, who cannot love purity of soul; let them hear their cry for the sinful pleasures which they can no more enjoy; let them realize that as death finds them, so they begin eternity. Surely this would make men pause when temptation assailed them."

SPIRIT VOICES.

There are now, I am told, several circles held in London and the neighbourhood where the spirits sing and speak.

Mr. Howitt gave an interesting and graphic account of one in the December number of this Magazine; and a very intelligent lady, Mrs. R, informs me that at a recent séance with Miss Nicholl, with only herself and another present, they were addressed by a spirit, who gave his name as John Bunyan. Mrs. Rasked if he were really the author of the Pilgrim's Progress? He replied "I am the spirit of that unworthy person." Several other questions of a serious nature were asked, and answered in a strictly religious tone and very characteristic of the once profane, but afterwards truly Christian man, John Bunyan.

Mr. E, who resides in London, called upon me and gave me an account some of the manifestations obtained in his family circle through the mediumship of his wife. He stated that they have been accustomed to hold séances once a week for several years, at which they have had the usual phenomena of the spirit-circle; but, that recently, on two occasions, spirits have spoken to them and have said that when Mrs. E- who is very nervous, became more calm they would be able to speak more freely. On the second occasion the spirits entered into a conversation, which lasted two hours, "there was no equivocation, no frivolity, no jesting, but a straightforward intelligent answer was given to every question put. One of the oldest Spiritualists present declared he had never learnt so much before."

One of the circle, Mr. M, is a seeing medium. "He described the appearance of the spirit as a tall, good-looking, intelligent person with a beard," and he said that the whole party "were literally enveloped in a dark blue-coloured cloud of

magnetism." The spirit told them that he would be enabled to preach a sermon to them when he could get the necessary conditions. They closed the séance with singing and prayer, in which the spirit-voice joined. I will merely add that I know Mr. E- and that I have every reason to place implicit confidence in his statements. Mr. E- also informed me that on one occasion the invisibles took away one of his wife's rings, which, after a patient search, could not be found, and it was given up as lost. Ten days after, when Mr. and Mrs. Ewere at a friend's house, who resides two miles from them, the ring was unexpectedly restored to Mrs. E by the invisibles during a séance.*

THOUGHTS UPON MAGIC AND SPIRITUALISM, BY AN M.A.

The following remarks from Mr. C, M.A., of St. John's, Cambridge, whose family experiences I mentioned in the September number of this Magazine, will, no doubt, interest some of my readers; especially those of them who are familiar with the writings of Lord Lytton.

"Since I saw you I have not heard the voice I spoke of again. But once a month back-I was roused from sleep by that strange indefinable horror, mentioned by Sir Bulwer Lytton (Zanoni, Book II., chap. i.), and twice I have seen plainly forms in my bed room, just as I was waking, at the same time as when I heard the voice in the half-dreamy state after sleep which developes into the extasis of the Mystics, referred to occasionally by Lytton and Eliphas Levi. I have, as far as I could, investigated the subject since I spoke to you; and it seems to me that Lytton has drawn most of his ideas from the Cabala and traditions obtained by the Jews in the Babylonish captivity, namely, the ideas:-That man is triple,-body, soul, and spirit; (The Strange Story) that on death the soul returns to God; the spirit, phantasm, or intelligence, flits about this earth for a time; is seen, evoked, &c., not being spiritual, but semi-material; at last dissolves into the elements (The House and the Brain). The Sadducees of our Lord's time are thought to have regarded angels not as real permanent substances, but spectres, which in a short time dissolved into air, or disappeared like the colours of a rainbow. That there are spirits of the elements, the Gnomes,

Since the above was written I have been present at a séance with Mr. Eand his party. At the meetings they have held, a different spirit it appears has spoken to them. On this occasion the voice was that of a calm, thoughtful person, who answered questions in a distinct and somewhat melancholy tone. An intelligent member of this circle has arranged to take down in future questions and answers, so that we may expect some very interesting results from their investigations.

Sylphs, Undines, and Salamanders of Paracelsus, who are different from and hostile to man, and, as the Cabalists said, that the magician who would command the spirits of earth, water, fire, air, must first be superior to the elements themselves,-so Zanoni and his friend are made capable of enduring the fire of Vesuvius and the deathly cold. That there are two kinds of magic, the white and black (Strange Story);-the white, which the Jews attributed to Solomon, performed by the cabalistic use of the Divine name (St. Luke xi, 19). That magic figures have powers over the spirits (Strange Story). This, though agreeing with the Jews, is quite contrary to what M. Kardec says (Livre des Esprits, 236). That talismans and charms have no power on the spirits; but it seems connected with the ancient theory of Pythagoras that numbers are the origin of creation, and to this mathematical foresight, perhaps, may be referred certain predictions; as for instance, Apollonius of Tyaneus laid claim, not to the power of controlling the laws of nature, but to having a wonder-working secret, which gave him a deeper insight into them than was possessed by ordinary men. This power Lytton gives his heroes. I have met one recipe for futurity, by Carden. To find what will occur in any year, consider what has happened the 4th, 8th, 12th, 19th, and 30th year, &c. before, and the most notable occurrences will repeat themselves. Without guaranteeing this statement, I may say, I know some curious instances of its coming true. In Zanoni, Book III., chap. xiv., Book IV., chap. ii., we have mention of the disappearance of the hero when in danger. The Jews say the magician has the power not of becoming invisible, but of troubling the sight of his adversary, and to this power Levi ascribes Christ's deliverance from those who would cast him over the cliff (Luke iv. 29, John viii. 59). This seems to be the glamour alluded to occasionally by Sir Walter Scott. In the Strange Story, Margrave says, that he who obtains the elixir of life can command the subtle space-pervading fluid and the beings in it, and such say the Cabalists is the end aimed at by magic. From this same primordial fluid M. Kardec says spirits draw their envelope, visible things their substance; so he sees no absurdity in what Zanoni and the Cabalists speak of in the transmutation of metals, as all come from the one element. Lytton and the Jews speak of the elixir of life. In this last idea there seems to me to be a fallacy. (1st.) As life is a preparatory state for another, if men stayed on earth beyond their time, they would retard the grand purpose of creation. (2ndly.) No human remedy can check the change from youth to hmanood, manhood to age, age to decay, &c. The interest you took in what I told you induces me to address you again. I am