had told his dream, and the impression made on him by the maid and mistress, who only laughed at him for his superstitious terrors. However, on entering the house, they found it deserted, and calling in a gentleman who was accidentally passing, they all descended to the cellar, and actually found the corpse in the state represented in the gentleman's dream.-Taylor's "Records of My Life," Vol. I., p. 66.

SECOND DREAM.-THE GAROTTER.

"The other extraordinary story," says Mr. Taylor, "I heard from what I consider unimpeachable authority. Mrs. Brooke, whom I have already mentioned, said she was drinking tea one evening, in Fleet Street, when a medical man was expected, but did not arrive till late. Apologising for his delay, he said he had attended a lady who was suffering under a contracted throat, which occasioned her great difficulty of swallowing. She traced the cause to the following circumstance. When she was a young woman, one night, sleeping with her mother, she dreamed that she was on the roof of a church struggling with a man, who attempted to throw her over. He appeared in a carter's frock, and had red hair. Her mother ridiculed her terrors, and bade her compose herself to sleep again; but the impression of her dream prevented the return of sleep. In the evening of the following day she had appointed to meet her lover at a bowling green, from which he was to conduct her home when the amusement was ended. She had passed over one field, and sung as she tripped along, when she entered the second, and accidentally turning her head, she beheld in the corner of the field just such a man as her dream represented, dressed in a carter's frock, with red hair, and apparently coming towards her; her agitation was so great that she ran with all her speed to the stile of the third field, and with great difficulty got over it. Fatigued, however, with running, she sate on the stile to recover herself, and reflecting that the man might be harmless, she was afraid that her flight on seeing him might put evil and vindictive thoughts into his head; whilst so thinking, the man had reached the stile, and seizing her by her neck, he dragged her over the stile, and she remembered no more. It appeared that he had pulled off all her clothes, and thrown her into an adjoining ditch. Fortunately, a gentleman came to the spot, and observing a body above the water, he hailed others. who were approaching, and it was immediately raised. It was evidently not dead; and some of the party remarking that the robber could not be far off, went in pursuit of him, leaving others

to endeavour to revive the body. The pursuers went different ways, and some at no great distance saw a man at a public house sitting with a bundle before him; his alarm at the sight of the gentlemen determined them to examine the bundle, in which they found the lady's dress. They, of course, seized the villain, and took him before the magistrates. As soon as the lady was sufficiently recovered to give evidence, he was brought up. Immediately on seeing him the lady fainted in terror. On her revival she gave decisive evidence against him. He was committed for trial, condemned, and executed."

The medical man added, that when the lady had finished her narrative, she declared that she felt the pressure of the man's hand on her neck while she related it, and that her throat had gradually contracted from the time when the frightful event occurred. At length her throat had become so contracted that she was hardly able to receive the least sustenance. Mrs. Brooke never had an opportunity of knowing more of the lady.— Ibid, p. 67.

Notices of Books.

RECENT WORKS OF ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS.*

THESE three latest works of Mr. Davis are all in some degree, though in different ways, autobiographical, and have an interest in that connection, apart from the consideration of their immediate subjects. What is said of one of them in the introduction might truly be said of all, that they are to some extent a continuation of The Magic Staff, in which Mr. Davis records his earlier experiences.

The Memoranda (as the title implies) is mainly, though not altogether occupied with a statement of the external facts of the writer's personal history; the others give us more the revelation of his inner life-the autobiography of the spirit-its flounderings through the Slough of Despond, its ascent of the Hill Difficulty, and its passage over the Delectable Mountains

* A Stellar Key to the Summer Land, Part I. Illustrated with Diagrams and Engravings of Celestial Scenery.

Arabula; or the Divine Guest; containing a New Collection of Gospels.

Memoranda of Persons, Places, and Events, embracing Authentic Facts, Visions, Impressions, Discoveries in Magnetism, Clairvoyance, Spiritualism. Also Quotations from the Opposition, with an Appendix, containing Zschokke's Story of Hortensia, Boston; White and Co. London; May be had of J. BURNS, Camberwell,

towards the "Summer Land," of which Mr. Davis in one of these volumes presents us with A Stellar Key.

"This volume," in the words of its author, "is designed to furnish Scientific and Philosophical Evidences of the Existence of an Inhabitable Sphere or Zone among the Suns and Planets of Space;"-a circular belt of refined and stratified matter, to which Mr. Davis gives the name "The Summer Land." He assures us that according to his most careful examination of its physical structure," the fertile soils, and the lovely groves and rivers and flowers which infinitely diversify the landscapes, are constituted of particles that were once in human bodies! These emanations, like the lights and flowers of crystals and magnets, flow forth unceasingly in millions of tons daily, into the soils of the celestial lands." We are further told that "the spiritworld is made up of the aggregate emanations, in zonal forms, of all the teeming planets of our great circle of suns, each one of which contributes its quota of spiritualized elements.

You may see these emanations, by means of spirit-vision, sweeping toward the South Pole, surging toward the spiritual zone, moving upward into the vast magnificent ocean of the spirit-sphere, and thus forming a vast zonal circle." Mr. Davis "has seen the flaming aura of these forms in Nature," which Science by means of the Spectrum-Analysis is now demonstrating. "And what is most remarkable and memorable is, that the seven ascending scales of spiritual zones, with their intervals of suns and planets, were discerned and described by the author, just as they were seen before he lived, and as they have been frequently perceived and pictured by others since his first account was published." And this, too, not only independently of each other, but without any external knowledge or hint of the geometrical law by which Mr. Davis considers the truth of this discovery is explained and demonstrated.

The Spiritual Universe then, according to Mr. Davis, is built up by geometrical law of emanations from the suns and planets, their products and inhabitants. The Physical Universe itself being an effect of spiritual causation through the region of essences "which is "the region of 'magnetisms,' the true 'link' in the chain which unites the positive side or 'mind' to the negative side or matter.'" "This spiritualising process must repeat on a higher scale, in reverse order, the cycle of the career of world building." The ascending process from matter to spirit thus corresponding to the descent from spirit to matter, with this difference, that spiritual force or life proceeding from its central source takes form through matter and becomes individualised.

"The plane of solids is reached by the continuous degrees of

ascending action of the primordial positive Powers;

for

everything is rooted and grounded in spirit;" the physical universe" is nothing but the covering, the material garment, the organized body of that more interior and spiritual universe which was 'not made with hands eternal in the heavens.” Thence the correspondence between the "Summer Land" and the Winter Land-as we suppose Earth in the comparison may be designated. We may here quote the very beautiful and touching testimony of a dying child, which Mr. Davis adduces as corroborative evidence of his view of the Summer Land:

The little child was dying. His weary limbs were racked with pain no more. The flush was fading from his thin cheeks, and the fever that for many days had been drying up his blood, was now cooling rapidly under the touch of the icy hand that was upon him.

There were sounds of bitter but suppressed grief in that dim chamber, for the dying little one was very dear to many hearts. They knew that he was departing, and the thought was hard to bear; but they tried to command their feelings, that they might not disturb the last moments of their darling.

The father and mother, and the kind physician, stood beside dear Eddy's bed, and watched his heavy breathing. He had been silent for some time, and appeared to sleep. They thought it might be thus that he would pass away, but suddenly his mild blue eyes opened wide and clear, and a beautiful smile broke over his features. He looked upward and forward at first, and then, turning his eyes upon his mother's face, said, in a sweet voice:

"Mother, what is the name of that beautiful country that I see away beyond the mountains-the high mountains ?"

"I can see nothing, my child," said the mother; "there are no mountains in sight of our home."

"Look there, dear mother," said the child, pointing upward; "yonder are the mountains. Can you not see them now?" he asked, in tones of the greatest astonishment, as his mother shook her head.

"They are so near me now-so large and high, and behind them the country looks so beautiful, and the people are so happy-there are no sick children there. Papa, can you not see behind the mountains? Tell me the name of that land!" The parents glanced at each other, and with united voice, replied: "The Land you see is Heaven, is it not, my child?"

"Yes, it is Heaven. I thought that must be its name. Oh, let me go-but how shall I cross those mountains? Father, will you not carry me, for they call me from the other side, and I must go."

There was not a dry eye in that chamber, and upon every heart fell a solemn awe, as if the curtain which concealed its mysteries was about to be withdrawn. "My son," said the father, "will you stay with us a little while longer? You shall cross the mountains soon, but in stronger arms than mine. Wait, stay with your mother a little longer; see how she weeps at the thought of losing you!"

Oh, mother! oh, father! do not cry, but come with me, and cross the mountains-oh, come!" and thus he entreated, with a strength and earnestness which astonished all.

The chamber was filled with wondering and awe-stricken friends. At length he turned to his mother, with a face beaming with rapturous delight, and, stretching out his little arms to her for one last embrace, he cried: "Good-by, mother, I am going; but don't you be afraid-the strong man has come to carry me over the mountains !"

In brief, then, the Stellar Key may be considered as a treatise on Spiritual Astronomy, based on the most recent discoveries of astronomical science (of which so far as the writer deems it

bearing on his subject an admirable synopsis is presented), and his own clairvoyant perceptions confirmed by the testimony of other seers. We have not space to present his reasonings, and as this volume is only Part I. of what promises to be an extended work, it would be premature to judge of its conclusions. The theme is captivating, and the author's speculations have the boldness and freedom which distinguish all his writings. It is certainly one of the most interesting volumes, and when completed, the work will probably be one of the most valuable, that he has written.

In the Stellar Key we see something of the intellectual aspect and history of Mr. Davis's mind: in Arabula it is presented to us chiefly on the moral and spiritual side. Arabula is a record of experiences both personal and representative. In the one work intellect wanders through immensity, guided by "the light of stars," in search of the "Summer Land;" in the other the soul seeks for guidance from the Father of Light, that by the light within it may, though it be through darkness and stumbling mid devious paths, attain to Truth, and after all its weary wanderings find peace and rest.

Arabula is The Light-"The light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," the Logos,-the Word,-the Divine Sophia or Wisdom,—the Holy Spirit; the Divine Guest which by whatever name it may be called descendeth from the "heaven of many mansions," redeeming the world, warring with and overcoming its evils, and, as men listen to its soft pleadings, lifting them ever more and nearer into the light of God.

In the selfishness of the instincts and the unregenerate intellect Mr. Davis finds the prime source of all evil in human society. It is "the original sin, the Mephistopheles that overshadows the glory of human nature." He beholds "the dark breathings of universal selfishness poisoning the very air with evil emanations-blinding, polluting, degrading, and filling with torment and consuming anxiety every human heart." This is "the opponent of Arabula-the devil of selfishness who fought and fled the presence of the Light of the World."

เ

"While in the superior condition," Mr. Davis did not marvel "because the Arabula had said, and was always saying, to man's materialistic intellect: You must be born again.' Indeed, intuitively realizing with my impersonal consciousness, as I reverently did, the existence of the grand cardinal ideas and the inherent omniscience of the unchangeable principles of infinity, I should have marvelled if the Light had not said to human ignorance and selfishness, Ye must be born again.'"

Here, as it seems to us, we have the very central truth of all deep true religious teaching. It is the Christian Gospel