This,

best of these contained beautiful ideas connected with the happiness of a life among the blessed and good in the world of good spirits and angels, very lovely descriptions of the scenery of that world or worlds, and much affectionate anticipation of reunion among friends and future progress in happiness together. These were the elementary thoughts only. The language and forms of imagery might be traced in every instance which I have seen to the brain of the medium. I think, will be found true throughout all the manifestations, and in none is it more apparent than in the writing, from T. L. Harris's always remarkable and frequently poetical productions, down to verses written with excessive rapidity by the hand of a child eight years old. I would say then, even at the risk of repetition, the elementary idea or truth sought to be conveyed does not originate with the medium; the language, spelling, and form of expression is his or hers. It is true that mediums like Mr. Harris and others whom we have known produce both prose and verse in a variety of styles, so as to favour the idea of a variety of influences, according to the names of poets or others given as the inspirers of the composition: but it will be found that the latter never exceeds the ability of the writer to attain and comprehend, though its meaning and characters may be beyond or outside of what he would have himself originated.

The name of a great poet was once given to me by

the hand of a very young medium, and I, who was then inexperienced in the whole proceeding, asked for a complete little poem in three verses for a friend. The child, of course, could have no idea of what was coming, as my request was a sudden thought, but in about five minutes three verses were written with very great rapidity, describing the approach of an army, a battle on the bank of a river, which ran red with the blood of the combatants, another battle on hills whose greenness was especially noticed, and a third when the flowers were in bloom, and when the chief was dead. The metre was uncommon, and though the lines were grotesque, they were not inharmonious.. One of our greatest living authors, himself a fine poet, pronounced these three stanzas to contain a poetical element which could not have proceeded from the mind of a young child. In the following spring, several months after the writing, the applicability of this rhythmical production to the three battles of Alma, Inkermann, and Balaclava was apparent. But they were written long

before the Crimean War broke out.

In what follows, as indeed in all that has been said, I know not how to secure anything like a belief in the trustworthiness of a narrator who is not at liberty to authenticate the truth of any one narrative by the names of those concerned. Perhaps some honesty of purpose may appear in the method both of experimenting and of recording results; this, however, will

only be sufficient to stimulate enquiry, and so I leave my statements, even if ridiculed in the first instance, to receive a larger amount of consideration when the experience of each individual shall have enabled him to verify them for himself.

Many considerations yet remained, and many experiments were still to be tried, before we could have full reason for believing that another intelligence was concerned, or, in other words, that an invisible being directed the operations of the telegraphic wire whose mechanism was in our own organisation.

From the beginning of my experience in these manifestations, two circumstances had struck me forcibly as forming an element of the question as to their nature. The first of these was the invariable assertion that they were caused by 'spirits,' and that these spirits had once lived in the body on earth. The other circumstance was that, whatever the name given, and through whatever means or mediumship it came, the phraseology always agreed with the relationship claimed. To make my meaning more intelligible: Suppose that writings are given purporting to come from the sister or brother of a person present, and that a family party, in which all kinds of relationships are found, compose the circle. The writing, in mentioning members of the family to each other, will always specify them correctly by the relationship subsisting among them. For example;—A supposed brother writing to his sister

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about her son by the hand of a stranger medium, will speak of the son as 'my nephew,' and to the son, of 'my sister,' 'your mother,' &c. I never saw this fail. It seems difficult to believe that any unconscious action of the brain can, without the least premeditation, produce expressions which fall into such coherence of meaning.

Here is a curious and perfect illustration of what I mean, obtained in an experiment which was tried in order to ascertain, whether a 'spirit,' having written something by one medium, can repeat the same word, or convey the same idea, by another who is unacquainted with it. In answer to this general question, we were told that this could sometimes be done, but that it depended on the mental harmony subsisting between the medium and the spirit.

Two young mediums were present; I placed a paper before one of them, begging that some word might be written which might be either literally or substantially repeated by the hand of the other, who was reading quietly at a distance. The writing was—

'That is what you mean to write?' (pointing to the word you, but not repeating it.)

The name given of the spirit was that of one of my nieces. I laid another paper before the other medium, begging him to hold the pencil for a moment. His

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hand wrote, My aunt.'

We then told him the object

of the experiment, and showed him the word You' written by the first medium.

Here the idea, and not the word, was conveyed by the medium's writing.

Another time I asked this question :

'If I were to write down the name of a flower, and Emily (a very young medium) were to write another, each keeping the idea of that flower in our minds, but not mentioning the names to each other, could you (the spirit) write a third and different name, by our joined hands?'

Ans. 'Yes, with Emily and you, but not with all mediums.'

I then wrote Rose, and Emily wrote Sweetpea. Neither mentioned these names aloud. But Emily's hand with mine on the wrist wrote Lily. Again, Emily wrote Jessamine; I, Mignonette; and our joined hands wrote Larkspur. This was done four times in all, the three names each time being clear and distinct from each other. Then our hands wrote, 'Leave off; the power is gone.' It seemed to me that if either Emily or I had influenced the writing by muscular or mental power, the result would not have been a clearly written name, but a mixture of our thoughts.

While the opportunity for making experiments lasted, we obtained stronger presumptive evidence