Spirit, to enable you to discern the truth, and that the truth may make you free. The medium we have employed, has been, for some time, constantly receiving visions when in the interior state, and her spirit has in some degree beheld the glories that are in the heavenly world. She has seen the glory of God in such a degrec as not many mortals before have been privileged with; she has beheld bright visions from the angel world, when in her waking moments, and her spirit has conversed freely with the bright beings who have surrounded her.

"She has borne the scorn and reproach of those who style themselves Christians, with patience; and though unlearned, retired, and poor, and almost unknown in the earth, her name is registered in the mansions of glory. We have watched around her, with intense interest, ever since she began to investigate the truth, and have seen the development and progress of her mind, through all its windings, and we have ever seen one steady aim to persevere in the truth. We have stood beside her, in the silence of the closet, and have seen the tears of heartfelt sorrow, which have flowed freely, because other hearts were cold in the cause of God. We have seen her resolutions, and sympathy for others' woes, that have had a place in her bosom, and God has heard the earnest prayer that has ascended to his throne from her sorrowful heart to him, and has answered it in such a way as will best promote his glory and the good of mankind. Therefore, in conclusion, we would advise you not to look on these pages as the evolutions of the medium's mind, but as truth, which has descended direct from heaven to earth, by spirits.'

Impressional media are multiplying. The temperament of the medium has much to do in determining the strength of his communications. When the control is perfect, the medium is annihilated, so to speak, as far as individualism of character is concerned, and the impressions truly are just what the controlling power desires. From this source there is now flowing into the world a mass of literature-a strange combination of prose and so-called poetic verbiage-which, it seems to me, the world might easily progress without receiving. In another part of this volume, the reader will see examples of undeveloped spirits, still sectarian and in bondage to earth-life doctrines, taking advantage of the passivity of certain correspondingly organized and conditionized media; thus becoming authors, and publishing to the world, with an authoritative emphasis predicated wholly upon the human ignorance of the condition of those who live in the other world-upon the supposed great wisdom and intelligence of spirits-publishing, thus, a species of literature absolutely no better than the majority of sermons and religious tracts which are constantly showered upon North American communities. And yet we welcome it! It is all liberalizing, generalizing, universalizing in effect; hence let us not fail to devote "impressional media" to the great ends of reform; the world needs such evangelists.

When the reader conceives of the almost endless contrariety of media, and realizes the multitudinous phenomena of various degree and import, which so many different channels are constantly engaged in unfolding to the world, he will have but little difficulty in reconeiling to his mind the causes of the numerous contra

dictions. Now there flows into my mind a classification of the various causes of the alleged spiritual incongruities; also, the number of believers in each theory or cause; and the mental experience of each believer, in consequence of his conviction. The scale is arranged on the common financial rule of one hundred-this, for the purpose of simplification.

Moved by the above unpremeditated, and, therefore, unexpected classification, I affirm that, when the unprejudiced eye scans the whole field, occupied by these wonderful developments, the mind can not resist the

*In 1868, at the present time, as close as I can impressionally estimate the advancement of our cause in the public mind, there are, of believers in Spiritualism (i. e., in the theory and reality of intercourse with spirits), in round numbers, in America, four million and two hundred and thirty thousand; of receivers of the Harmonial Philosophy, there are, perhaps, two hundred thousand; the reality of human magnetism and the general claims of clairvoyance are almost universally admitted; while in the long-venerated doctrines of old theology, there is an almost universal decadence; and the liberalization of the human mind in all reform directions is without a parallel in the world's his tory.

conclusion that full forty per cent. of all and every description of the manifestations are truly spiritually originated; that about thirty per cent. is epidemical psychology; about twenty-five per cent. sympathy and misapprehension; and the remainder, five per cent., is simple deception or voluntary imitation, by persons fond of attention and approbation.

From the foregoing scale we learn the relative position and proportion of the causes of modern mysteries. But I am interiorly assured that this percentage will be, ere long, reversed; that is, sixty spiritual causes to forty material causes of the manifestations. The Table indicates the number of minds, in this world, interested in the new developments, to be, in the aggregate calculation, six hundred and forty-six thousand-two hundred and sixty thousand of which immense multitude. already accept the spiritual side of the question; these receive the truth of intercourse between terrestrial and celestial spheres.

Here, too, we have the curious explanation of the diversity of feelings and prejudices which the same phenomena, or the public reports of them, create in different mental organizations. It seems that about one hundred thousand persons have concluded that all psychological wonders, ancient and modern, are simply "Voluntary Deception," on the part of certain individuals, and, when they think of these, that number of ninds is moved with impatience; the disciples of the theory of "Neurologic" or hysteric causes, being fifty thousand, are saddened; the receivers of the "Vital Electricity" doctrine, eighty thousand, are presumptuous and egotistic; the "Nervo-psychologic" party, or

imaginationists, fifty thousand, are distressed with vagaries and skepticism; the disciples of "Cerebro-sympathy," or epidemic diseases of the mind, possessing the power to propagate themselves, eighty-six thousand, are troubled with beclouded ideas of man's mental nature --are in confusion; the receivers of the "Clairvoyant" theory of the wonders, twenty thousand, are moved toward investigation; and the true believers in the doctrine of "Departed Spirits" communicating, two hundred and sixty thousand, are advanced toward mental

ELEVATION.

Let the reader now imagine himself seated, with others, in a "circle" for physical evidences. He has investigated neither the laws of matter nor the ways of mind, to any extent. Electricity and the mechanical sciences have occupied but little space in the chambers of his intellect. He may be a merchant, or a professional character, with seldom opportunities to tread the path of science, and yet he is now professedly examining, and endeavoring to satisfy his thoughts upon, one of the profoundest subjects that ever engaged the attention of the human mind.

The circle has been in session, already, nearly an hour, and several manifestations occur-such as moving, vibrations, rapping with the medium's hand, irregular and convulsive starts, &c.--with satisfying indications of spiritual presence.

This time, all is marvelously astounding and convincing.

Again and again you meet with the "circle,” and it would seem impossible to add any thing to, or take any thing from, your faith n spiritual intercourse. But as