we heard a yell." "Perfessor," she screamed, "here's six gents as wants a see-ants, right off!"

There was as little that was spiritual in the appearance of the Perfessor as in his "meejum." He was an uneducated man who had acquired some polish by contact with others. He entered, collected his half-dollar from each, and proceeded to business. A circular table stood in the centre. From this he removed the cover and placed seven chairs around the table. Except a piano with no cover, the room contained no other furniture. We were directed to be seated and "jine hands" with the meejum.

We were all disgusted with the absurdity of the performance, when the medium said to the clergyman, who sat nearest to her: "Naow don't you tickle my hand. If you do I shall giggle right out." We were indisposed to speech. In a few minutes the girl was apparently asleep. The showman declared that he could understand anything said through her by the spirits, but she could only communicate with a stranger by raps and by spelling out the word. Thus one rap meant yes, two raps no, other letters being indicated by numbers on cards which were distributed to each of us. This apparently slow method was used by the medium with great rapidity. The raps were very distinct and apparently made. all over the room-on and under the table, in the lamp-shade, on the back of a chair, and in other localities.

"I will now put the medium in communication with any one of you," said the showman. "She will summon any spirit called for. The spirit will not always come, and some that come will not answer." I was first put into correspondence with her by tak

ing both her hands, and the showman made some passes over us. This done, I mentally invited the spirit of a deceased doctor in my father's family. His presence was announced by a rap. The serious part of the business now began. I asked my questions in an

audible voice.

"Are you a spirit?" Answer-"Yes."

"Whose?"

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Ans.-"I am Dr. Matthew Cole." Are there any scars upon my person?" Ans."Yes. Two."

"Where?" Ans.-"On your right ankle and under your left arm.”

"What caused them?" Ans.-"A cut with an axe that on your ankle; an explosion of powder that under your arm.”

There was not a person in the room but myself who could have known these facts. The answers were perfectly accurate. Dr. Cole attended me when I came near losing my life in my boyhood by the explosion of a half-pound paper of powder ignited in my pocket by the discharge of a musket. There was no fact stated, however, which I did not know.

The clergyman then took his turn and was put into communication with the spirit of his deceased wife. As in my own case, questions relating to his former settlement, residence, marriage, and other events were correctly answered. The clergyman then asked whether he had had any differences with a member of his former congregation. He was answered yes, and the full name of the person was given. "What was the origin of it?" "An unsigned letter which he believed was written by you."

The clergyman declared that he never knew the origin of what came to be a very serious trouble to

him. Now, in the light of well-known facts, he believed the answer to be accurate.

Our learned physician now called for the spirit of his brother and he came. He was, when he died, professor of the Hebrew and allied languages in a German university. After several questions had been correctly answered, the doctor said: "Brother, it would give me great joy to be convinced that you are my brother. Can you make me certain of your identity?"

"I will try," was the response. "I will translate for you from the German into the Hebrew tongue what is known in our mother tongue as the first verse of the 34th chapter of the Second Book of Moses. It commences, as you know, 'Und der Herr, sprach zu Mou- " "Mein Gott!" interrupted the doctor. "This is most wonderful. You are my brother or you are Satan. Nothing ever happened to me so extraordinary as this!"

He then explained that his brother differed from the authorities in the orthography of the name Moses. The Germans wrote it Mose; the French, Moise or Moyse. His brother always wrote it Mousse. That thought was not in his mind when he asked for the proof. It was natural that his brother should have selected it to prove his identity.

We asked that the proposed translation be made. The doctor assented and wrote from the raps the verse. In English it read thus: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest." He took from his pocket the Hebrew Pentateuch and compared what he had written from his

brother's dictation, and said that the words and characters agreed. None of us were Hebrew scholars, but we were none the less certain of the accuracy of the doctor's statement.

Striking as was the illustration, it only served to confirm an opinion which I have ever since entertained. In attempting to carry the translations farther, we found that the spirits would only translate for those who knew both tongues. They would translate a couplet of Virgil into French or English for me, but failed when they tried the Greek, which I did not understand. The trials of others met with the same fate. No one but the doctor could extract from the spirits a translation of one Hebrew character.

It may be the prevailing opinion that this incident is scarcely worth the space given to it. But pray consider the spectacle: A coarse, uneducated, and very common country girl, under the direction of a common showman, translating accurately a portion of the Hebrew Bible for a German scholar. It was an impressive experience to me, and set my mind at rest on some subjects which have much disturbed others. That there is a mysterious process by which one mind operates upon, influences, and in some cases controls another, seems to be incontrovertible. That there is any communication between the spirits of the dead and the living there is not the first particle of satisfactory evidence.

CHAPTER X.

"THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN."

AT the close of the first half of the nineteenth century Vermont was an isolated province on the northern border of the spiritual kingdom of the Catholic bishop of Boston. Too remote for the personal supervision of that prelate, he had permitted the Rev. Jeremiah O'Callaghan to control it for so long a time that he had come to regard his authority as equal to that of the head of the church. The Reverend Jeremiah was an Irish priest of peculiar opinions never entirely in harmony with Catholic principles. On account of these he had been compelled to leave Ireland and had come to this frontier, where he could enforce his uncanonical views of usury, banking, pew-rent, and monopoly without interference from any superior authority. Catholicism had flourished under, or rather in defiance of, his rule; many new churches had been built, much valuable real property acquired, the deeds to which were taken to "the Reverend Jeremiah O'Callaghan and his assigns."

The new congregations were formed of CanadianFrench and Irish Catholics in nearly equal numbers. All were good Catholics, but in temporal matters they were as discordant as the poles of an electric battery. Their united action in a congregation would have been impracticable under the most judicious management.