happened that the battery came into possession of just those materials out of which to brew electrieity, such as should be identical with the knowledge possessed by a particular body before it parted with its spirit. If they hold the intelligence to be mesmerism, it devolves upon them to point out the mesmerizer, to explain how he manages to throw from his own mind into that of another, information which never was in his mind, and how he handles the pencil. Hence the burden of the proof is upon the negative. Let her or him who will take the negative bring forth the proof."

The Scientific American, a rightly named and widely circulated paper, writes editorially of the Planchette:

"You may hold a conversation with planchette, provided your own part in it consists in interrogation. Its replies, so far as we have seen, are sometimes true and sometimes false. So are the replies given by human respondents. It sometimes refuses to write at all, and plays the most fantastic tricks, in apparently wilful disregard of the feelings of those who are anxious that it should do its best. * * * These motions seem to those whose fingers rest upon the board to be entirely independent of their own wills, their only care being to avoid any resistance to its motions. The fact that it is impossible to suppose that the wills of two persons could be, by their own desire, mutually coincident, without previous agreement, forms one of the most puzzling features of the subject, as the nature of the question asked and answered precludes the possibility of collusion."

“The spirit with which scientific men have looked upon these phenomena, (denominated Spiritualism) has been unfortunately such as has retarded their solution. Skepticism as to their reality, although corroborated by evidence that would be convincing upon any other subject, refusal to investigate, except upon their own conditions, and ridicule not only of the phenomena themselves, but of those who believe in them, have marked their course ever since these manifestations have laid claim to public credence. Such a spirit savors of bigotry. The phenomena of table-tipping, spirit-rapping (so called), and the various manifestations which many have claimed to be the effect of other wills acting upon and through the medium of their persons, are exerting an immense influence, good or bad, throughout the civilized world. They should, therefore, be candidly examined, and if they are purely physical phenomena, as has been claimed, they should be referred to their true cause. This is due to truth, and the common duty which all owe to their fellow men. Nothing that affects the welfare of mankind should be considered beneath the notice of a true philosopher. What incalculable benefit might have resulted if the same amount of study had been given to the subject of witchcraft, at the time of its occurrence, that has since been bestowed upon it. When such things become matters of history, there are always enough who do not think it derogatory to their dignity to devote their time to speculation upon thei

causes. How much wiser is it to throw aside prejudice, and to look at the facts themselves in a spirit of candor and earnest desire for truth."

The Herald and Review, a religious journal, writes editorially of the progress of the spiritual movement in this style:

"We often hear the remark, 'Spiritualism is dying out.' Whenever we hear one make such a statement, we are led to think at once, Did you know what it is doing, you would take back that saying, and stand aghast at its gigantic strides. He might as well have said, Popery was dying out in the thirteenth century, because very little noise was made about it. The reason was, there were scarcely any left to oppose, hence all was comparatively quiet. Spiritualism has already planted its sentiments so firmly, and generally, in church and state, that the victory is nearly complete. The opposition is now very feeble, like that of a dying man in his last moments.

"We do not say that the great body of the church and state are yet avowed Spiritualists; but that the sentiments of Spiritualists, more or less, are being adopted by the masses."

This, though perhaps an unwilling, is a true manly confession.

Thus are these literati, scientists and sectarists forced to concede to Spiritualism a wonderful destiny of use in every department of earth's government. When the ocean moves in unchainable tides, all the bays and coves fill up to overflowing. Every soul is moved by the inflowing tides of inspiration. All are pushed forward. Even opposition reacts into acceleration. "He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him."

1

CHAPTER XXIII.

CLERICAL AND LITERARY,

"Out of the strong, came forth sweetness."-Judg. 14: 14.

"In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.”— Matt. 18 16.

"I give you the end of a golden string :

Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
That invitingly ope's for all."

The ideal is the prophetic. It precedes, in orderly series, the objective actual. The finest human types, moulding the present, are but dwarfs of those promised men, yet to crown the ages with ineffable splendor. Out from the evolutions of a life divine and circular, are continually being born leaders and witnesses for the people. The good abounds everywhere. Progress is universal. The rock that one civilization fails to crush, crumbles into soil to nourish the roots of the succeeding. The bee extracts sweets from thistles and thorn-blossoms. At the tolling of church-bells on Sunday mornings, there stream from old barreled sermons many glittering truths. Piercing through the sophistries of speculation, the lifeless skepticism of science, and the corpseincrustations of creeds, there are living, regenerating forces at work in the most hidden avenues of society. Angels seek and minister to all conditions of mortality. The clergy, overshadowed by an inspiration that stirs the divinity within,

often preach better than they believe-wiser than their confessions of faith warrant. As in apostolic times, a "rushing wind," a descending afflatus from circling bands of spirits, sometimes completely overmasters them. They then speak as with tongues of fire, and their words touch the heart, the conscience and the reason.

Souls thus kindled from the love-flames of heaven, pulsate in harmony with the infinite Over-Soul. Spirit answers to the spiritual. Partially intromitted, at times, into the realm of that quickening inner life, as was John, of Patmos, "on the Lord's day," the better portion of American preachers often preach Spiritualism; admitting the reality of its phenomena, and the 'truth of much or all of its philosophy. REV. H. W. BEECHER'S testimony:

"Oh, tell me not that the fathers of this Republic are dead-that generous host, that airy army of invincible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?"

In one of his practical sermons, delivered on the 8th of Jan., 1867, he says:

"Our field of conflict is different from that on which men oppose each other. It comprises the whole unseen realm. All the secret roads, and paths, and avenues, in which spirits dwell, are filled with a great invisible host. These are our adversaries. And they are all the more dangerous because they are invisible. Subtle are they. We are unconscious of their presence. They come, they go; they assail, they retreat; they plan, they attack, they withdraw; they carry on all the processes by which they mean to suborn or destroy us, without the possibility of our seeing them.

"I confess to you, there is something in my mind of sublimity in the idea that the world is full of spirits, good and evil, who are pursuing their various errands, and that the little that we can see with these bats' eyes of ours, the little that we can decipher with these imperfect senses, is not the whole of the reading of those vast pages of that great volume which God has written. There is in the lore of God more than our philosophy has ever dreamed of.

"An evil spirit may be consummately refined, may be inspired. Our first thought in contemplating this subject is, that an evil spirit must

be a vulgar thing Doubtless there are vulgar spirits; but it does not follow at all that spirits who are most potential, and most to be feared, are vulgar. On the contrary, where spirits are embodied, it is supposed that those who are the most cultured are the most powerful for evil.

"The perversion of moral ideas-the suborning of all things to selfishness the want of truth and equity-the corruption of religionthese things are inexplicable on any other supposition than that there are mighty powers at work above the agencies of nature, and beyond the will of men; that there are spirits of wickedness that are abroad in the world, and that render life unsafe.

"On the other hand, I believe that there are angels of light, spirits of the blessed, ministers of God. I believe, not only that they are our natural guardians, and friends, and teachers, and influencers, but also that they are natural antagonists of evil spirits. In other words, I believe that the great realm of life goes on without the body very much as it does with the body. And, as here the mother not only is the guardian of her children whom she loves, but foresees that bad associates and evil influences threaten them, and draws them back and shields them from the impending danger; so ministering spirits not only minister to us the divinest tendencies, the purest tastes, the noblest thoughts and feelings, but, perceiving our adversaries, caution us against them, and assail them, and drive them away from us.

"The economy, in detail, of this matter, no man understands. All we can say is, in general, that such antagonism exists; that there are spirits that seek our good, and other spirits that seek our harm; that that there are spirits that seek to take us to glory, and honor, and immortality, and other spirits that seek to take us to degradation."

In another discourse reported in the New York Independ ent, he employed the following unmistakable language. The quotations are introduced without any special view to their logical connection. Mr. Beecher himself is a stranger to the logic of the schools:

"There is an atmosphere of the soul as well as an atmosphere of nature. In the atmosphere of the soul, God sometimes brings down the divine landscape, heavenly truths, so clearly that the soul rests upon them as upon a picture let down.

"Out of the dust and din and mist and observations of life, there come moments when God permits us to see, in a second, further, wider, and easier, than by ordinary methods of logic we can see in a whole life. Do I undervalue logic when I say that it is inferior to intuition? Intuition, when at white heat, teaches a man in a single moment more than logic ever teaches him. Logic constructs the walls of thought, throws up ramparts, and lays out highways; but it never discovers. Logic merely builds, fortifies, demarks The discovering power is intuition. There are certain times when parts of the mind lift themselves up with