human nature itself for an antagonist. But the tendency of the times is not from the dangers that result from devotion to the supernatural (which may be, after all, but the natural misinterpreted). Science has relieved us from all ghostly terrors; and even spirits are, by a large class of the community, believed to come and go, and to move ponderable articles, without exciting so much alarm as might be caused by a burglar in the flesh.

Still, it cannot be disguised that, outside of the ranks of the scientific Spiritualists, the present drift is toward a materialism barren in all hope of a future life. In the great anti-metaphysical warfare which has been begun, it is not every devout Christian champion who repudiates the alliance of philosophy in repelling assaults aimed at the very foundations of all spiritual belief. Ernest Naville of Geneva, editor of the works of Main de Biran, and author of Lectures on Modern Atheism, is what would be called in the United States an "evangelical believer." He holds to the great doctrines of the fall and ruin of man by nature, the necessity of divine agency in his recovery, the atonement, and the eternal condemnation of the unregenerate. This writer remarks:

If you think the most important of the discussions of our day to be that between natural and revealed religion, between deism and the Gospel, you have not well discerned the signs of the times. The fundamental discussion is now between men who believe in God, in the soul and in truth, and men, who, denying truth, deny at the same time the soul and God. * The great question of the day is to know whether our desire of truth is a chimerawhether our effort to reach the divine world is a spring into the empty void.

*

*

A spring into the empty void! That is what our efforts to make a belief in God acceptable to the reason result in, if we may adopt the conclusion of Messrs. Hamilton, Mansell and Spencer. You must put up with religious "nescience," or else, without troubling your thinking powers in the matter, you must summon a blind faith, and compel reason to abdicate at the feet of some one of the various forms of "revealed religion."

Dismissing all sectarian prejudice, and fully recognizing the gravity of the crisis, M. Naville gives utterance to expressions which have in them almost a sound of welcome to all theistic believers who will make common cause with Christians everywhere in defence of fundamental truths. "The unbridled audacity," he says, "of those who deny these truths is bringing ancient adversaries, for a moment at least, to fight beneath the same flag. What they would rob us of is not merely this or that article of a definite creed, but all faith whatever in Divine Providence, every hope which goes beyond the tomb, every look directed toward a world superior to our present destinies."

In another place he says: "When the question relates to

God, to the Universal Cause, we find ourselves at the common root of religion and philosophy, and distinctions which exist elsewhere disappear."

This writer is one of the few faithful watchmen on the tower who are not blind to the signs in the world of thought. While others are heedlessly contending about this or that interpretation of Scripture, about Ritualism and anti-Ritualism, about Bishop Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, there are indications of a contest coming when it will require the efforts of all believing men-whether Jews or Gentiles, whether formal adherents of some Christian sect or simple believers in God and the moral law-to save the rising intelligence of the age from a blank negation, or a still more fatal indifference, under the excuse conveyed in the conveniently coined phrase of "theological nescience.'

In the approaching struggle, we may be sure that there will be room among the foremost defenders of divine and spiritual truth, for those who have explored the great field of metaphysical inquiry, undeterred by what they hear of its barren and delusive character; who have studied the meditations of Plato, and Des Cartes, and Locke, and Newton, and Leibnitz, and Spinoza, and Kant, and Jacobi, and Cousin, and Hegel, and many more, their peers or their disciples, and not turned from them as the authors of so much obsolete rubbish.

So long as there exists in the human mind a consciousness which prompts the utterance of such expressions as "I will" and "I ought"-so long as there are affections in our nature which suggest the hope of a re-union with the loved and lost-so long as there are mysteries in life and in the soul which lead our thoughts to seek repose and light in the idea of God*so long is the period not yet arrived when there will be "no more metaphysics."

"A single aspiration of the soul," says Hemsterhuis, "toward the better, the future, and the perfect, is a demonstration, more than geometrical, of divinity."

And it is here, on the idea of God, not as presented in theological history and in authoritative creed, but as reached by the intuitional and logical faculties of man, that the great battle between Spiritualism and Materialism, belief and unbelief, must be fought.

When we consider that natural science, at every step it takes in advance, reveals to us facts which intimate more and more distinctly that the physical itself may be but a stage or condition of the metaphysical; that even in "the stuff that

* "Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouvé.”— Pensées de Pascal.

things are made of," in matter itself, there are depths of mystery which may make us doubt whether, in the ordinary sense of the word, matter can be said to exist-whether, in its last analysis, it may not be a gradation of spirit, or resolvable, as Faraday thought, into points of force-we need feel little apprehension as to the result in any philosophical or scientific encounter between the opposing schools.

Chemistry tells us that the diamond, which to our senses is inert, ponderable matter, can be volatilized in the fire of the burning mirror, so as to develop neither smoke nor cinders. On the other hand, fire, essentially volatile, can be condensed, in the calcination of metal, so as to become ponderable. From these facts De Montlosier deduces the interesting conclusion that all the bodies of the universe might be volatilized and made to disappear in those spaces which our ignorance calls the void; and that, in its turn, what we call the void might be condensed, so that the number of the celestial bodies might be multiplied a hundredfold; and, through all this, the universe would not have changed in its nature and essence, though it would be changed in its appearance!

In facts like these there is matter for meditation which it would be well for the Positivists and the Materialists to ponder well before they enter upon the task of trying to exclude from the universe, and from the heart of man, the great ideas of God and the immortal life, and of the invisible world of substance and of cause.

SIGNOR DAMIANI'S EXPERIENCES.

SIGNOR DAMIANI has addressed a letter "to the Committee of the Dialectical Society now sitting to investigate the Phenomena attributed to Spiritual Agency," in compliance with their desire that he would send them his experiences in writing. As these experiences are of great interest and value we give the principal portion of Signor Damiani's letter. After administering a wellmerited reproof to the press which had misreported his evidence before the Committee, June 22nd, as they have misreported the evidence of Mr. Varley, Mr. Shorter, and other witnesses (though the Committee are not responsible for the newspaper reporters), Signor Damiani proceeds:

"I am, comparatively, a novice in Spiritualism, having been engage together, only four years in the investigation of its

phenomena and the study of its literature. I am not a medium, nor have I sought to be developed into one; but I have come in contact with more than one hundred of that class (of whom only three were professional, or paid mediums), and have assisted at more than two hundred séances in England, France, and Italy. I am personally acquainted with many of the leading Spiritualists of Europe, of whom I here make bold to say that, as a class, they are certainly not inferior in intellectual calibre to any other body of scientists whom I have yet been privileged to encounter. Amongst the many phenomena which I might lay before you, I will content myself with the relation of a few only, as being sufficient to effectually dispose of all the theories of unconscious cerebration,' 'mental aberration,'' collective delusion,' and other woeful epidemics, propounded by the advanced philosophers of the day in order to account for, and explain away, matters which even they admit to be somewhat abnormal in their nature.

"Now for facts. In the spring of 1865, I was induced by a friend to attend my first séance. This took place at No. 13, Victoria Place, Clifton, the medium being Mrs. Marshall. I had been, up to that moment, an utter sceptic in spiritual matters; full of positivism, I conceived man to be but a very acute monkey (simia gigantis stupenda, to be scientific), and recognised in life only a brief and somewhat unsatisfactory farce. I was, however, at the same time open to conviction, which, perhaps, was foolish in me. I found assembled at this séance some forty gentlemen, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and journalists, besides a fair sprinkling of ladies. A medical man, well known in the neighbourhood of Bristol, Dr. Davy, of Norwood, filled the chair. At first, I refused to sit at the large table whereat the manifestations were to take place, for being then what I have now ceased to be, an unqualified believer in the candour and truthfulness of the newspaper press, I made up my mind (certain journalistic comments being fresh in my recollection) to keep a sharp look-out upon the medium's

movements.

"I was thus occupied (intentaque ora tenebat) when sounds, altogether unlike anything in my experience, were distinctly heard by me to proceed from the ceiling, some four yards as I should judge, above the medium. These sounds, travelling down the wall, along the floor, and up the claws and pillar of the large round table, came resounding in its very centre. This ought to have convinced me at once that the medium's toes, at least, had nothing to do with the phenomenon ; but prejudiced incredulity is so strong a cuirass against the sword of truth, that I remained still watching the feet of the medium

under the table, as a cat does its prey. The chairman was the first to commence conversation with our (supposed) spiritual visitors. Shortly afterwards it came to my turn to talk with the spirits. Who is there?' Sister,' was rapped out in reply. 'What sister?' Marietta.' 'Don't know you; that is not a family name;-are you not mistaken?' 'No; I am your sister." This was too much: I left the table in disgust. Still, those knocks proceeding from the ceiling had puzzled me, and excited my curiosity; therefore, when the company dispersed I remained behind, to discover, if I could, the modus operandi. I invited myself (the assurance of sceptics is proverbial) to take tea with Mrs. Marshall and her hostess, after which I begged to have a private séance. Now I shall catch you,' I thought. Sure enough the raps came again, distinct and sonorous as before. Who are you?' Marietta.' Again! why does not a sister whom I can remember come?' 'I will bring one;' and the raps were now heard to recede, becoming faint and fainter until lost in the distance. In a few seconds a double knock, like the trot of a horse was heard approaching, striking the ceiling, the floor, and lastly the table. Who is there?' Your sister Antonietta.' 'That is a good guess,' thought I. 'Where did you pass away?' 'Chieti.' When?' 34 loud distinct raps succeeded. Strange, my sister so named had certainly died at Chieti just 34 years before. How many brothers and sisters had you then? Can you give me their names? Five names (the real ones) all correctly spelt in Italian were given. Numerous other tests produced equally remarkable results. I then felt I was in the presence of my sister.

"If that is not in truth my sister,' I thought, then there exists in nature something more wondrous and mysterious even than the soul and its immortality.' What had taken place at this, my first séance produced such an effect upon my mind that I determined to continue the investigation until I could come finally to a rational conclusion upon the subject. During the fortnight of Mrs. Marshall's stay in Clifton, I frequented the séances daily, and on an average for four hours a day. Spirit after spirit I evoked, who one and all established their identity through the most scarching tests. Having been thus uniformly successful, I felt somewhat perplexed about Marietta. Had I been mystified in her case, and in hers alone? Finally, I wrote to my mother, then living in Sicily, inquiring whether, among the nine children she had borne and buried, there had been one named Marietta. By return of post, my brother, Joseph Damiani, architect, now residing at Palermo, wrote as follows:-'In reply to your inquiry, mother wishes me to tell you that on October 2nd, 1821, she gave birth, at the town of Messina, to a female