gin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley: it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open on the dawn."

THEODORE PARKER wrote: "The party (Spiritualists) has an idea wider and deeper than Catholic or Protestant; namely, that God still inspires men as much as ever." * "Now, in 1856, it seems more likely that Spiritualism will become the religion of America, than in 156, that Christianity would become the religion of the Roman Empire. It has more evidence for its wonders than any historic form of religion hitherto. It is thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy; but inspiration is open to all. It admits all the truths of religion and morality in all the world's sects. * Shall we know our friends again? For my own part, I cannot doubt it; least of all, when I drop a tear over their recent dust. Death does not separate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it?"

*

REV. J. CAMPBELL, M. A., St. Paul's Vicarage, Christ Church, N. Z., on Ascension Day, April 13, 1902, preached the philosophy of Spiritualism in these words:

"The spiritual world is co-extensive with matter, extending right through the solar system; and we know the spirit can pass through solid substances just as easily as through the air. A man who is a thousand feet below the surface of the earth in a mine, and is suddenly crushed by a fall of earth-his spirit is not held there: is passes into the spirit world, and is not hindered in the least degree by the tons' weight which may be upon the body. It makes no difference,- just as ether passes through the earth, so spirit passes through the earth. The spirit world inter-penetrates the natural world. You and I are in the spirit world at the present moment. We are in the lowest stage, and shall remain there as long as we are anchored down by the body. After that we pass to another sphere, just that one we are fitted for by our sojourn here. We used to be taught (at least, I was) that there were only two places where the departed went - heaven and hell. Nothing was said about an intermediate state, and yet the Bible is full of such teaching.

"It is about those who are dead (as we say) that I wish to

speak. I said just now that they are not dead,- we must not regard them as dead. 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. There they are, in the spirit world; some in 'sunny Paradise,' yet not so very far away from us. To some it is even permitted to visit this earth again. They have under certain circumstances appeared to those upon earth in physical form. It was so in the days of the prophets, it was so in the days of Christ, and it is so now. You remember the case of the prophet Samuel (recorded in the first Book, the 28th chapter, 14th verse), when he appeared to King Saul, and to the woman of Endor. And so, also, after the crucifixion, we are told that ‘the bodies of many saints rose and appeared unto many.' (Matt. xxvii., 52-3). Very well, then, the first statement I wish to make is this: That the spiritual bodies of the departed are in the spirit world in different communities. There have

been cases of the spirit going for a time to a higher sphere of the spiritual world — to Faradise, without the body dying. For example, St. Paul says he was caught up to the third heaven (II. Cor. xii., 2 4) and he describes himself as a man in Christ. There are babes in Christ as well as men in Christ, and the babes are not in the same sphere as the men. They are not fitted for it any more than a child taken from an elementary school would be fit to associate with a university graduate. The spiritual powers require developing just as the mental powers do. I should have no heart to go on if I did not believe that every fresh impulse that people receive here, mentally and spiritually, will be carried into Eternity, and place them in a higher sphere in the spirit world.

"At death each one passes into the spirit world, into that sphere for which he is fitted. It may be a very low one, but there he is, sorrowing for the carelessness he has exhibited during his life time; for there is no getting away from that; there will be sorrowing until they receive the truth, but they go on rising higher and higher until they come in contact with the 'spirits of the just made perfect.' There they are then, in the spirit world some, perhaps, very near to us, some higher, but

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each in that sphere that their life on earth prepared them for. But they won't stay there; they will rise higher and higher, as I said just now. We say we believe in the communion of saints; we have said it to-day in the Creed. Very well, then, we believe that the spirits in the spiritual world have communion with ours. If we don't believe that, we have no right to say we believe in the communion of saints. We know those in the spirit world are praying for us (Rev. vi., 10), and we know that we on earth may pray for them. Now don't, because there are no dead to pray for! But I do believe in praying for departed spirits. And as for those we look upon as lost -Oh! that we had more charity! What errible doctrines used to be taught! That the poor heathen blacks who had never heard the Gospels went down to damnation! How many are there who would teach that to-day? No, they pass away to the spirit world, and there they are taught, because the Gospel is preached in the spirit world just as it is here. This truth is brought before us by St. Feter, who says that Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison literally, in keeping (I. Peter, iii., 19) those in a low sphere, certainly, but capable of rising to a higher state. And St. Peter goes on to say, 'For this cause the Gospel was preached to those that are dead,'— that is, 'those departed this life.' (I. Pet. iv., 6). The Gospel was preached by Christ, and I believe that the Gospel is preached to the spirit world by the great preachers who have departed thither, and by all great and good reformers who lived the Christ-like life.'"

Judge J. W. Edmonds was born in Hudson, U. S., 1799, and in 1819 entered the law office of ex-President Martin Van Buren. In 1831 he was elected a New York State Senator. In 1843 he was appointed the Sing Sing State Prison Inspector. In 1845 was appointed Circuit Judge. In 1847 was elected Judge of the Supreme Court, and finally in 1851 took his seat upon the bench in the Court of Appeals. In the discharge of his judicial duties, and fearless independent decisions, he was often compared to Sir Matthew Hale. Theologically, he was considered an agnostic, or a materialist, doubting any future existence.

Hearing of the spiritual intercourse, he was inclined to treat it with dignified disfavor. But in November, 1850, his wife died, and he began to think more seriously of a future life, and reasons for faith in it. On one occasion he was alone reading about midnight, when he heard the voice of his wife distinctly. To use his own words, "I started as if I had been shot." He looked around him; his lamp was lighted and the fire burning cheerfully in the grate. Studying and analyzing the operations of his mind, he distinctly heard the voice again. It was a new experience. He began from this time to investigate the subject candidly, and even critically through various mediums; and near the close of 1851, he became quite fully developed himself as a medium for visions, allegorical pictures, and direct communications from the spirit world written through his own hand. His daughter, Laura, also became a writing medium, and a trance medium with the gift of tongues. The Judge now openly avowed his Spiritualism, lectured upon it in public, and wrote articles for it in the American and foreign press. He says that "Spiritualism has deepened my faith in God, and the spiritual life and teachings of Christ. It has also inspired me with the most kindly Christian feelings towards all conscientious religionists of whatever name or party." . . The pride, as he was, of the New York bar for years, a jurist of unimpeachable integrity and keen discernment, as well as an authority on international law, Judge Edmonds was not only a Spiritualist, but a spiritual medium with fine clairvoyant gifts. Sitting in his seance by the hour on Thursday evenings, and other evenings, I listened with intensest delight to the recital of his visions, as exalted as those of Peter or Paul, or of the inspired ecstatics appearing in the pre-Constantine period.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, author, anti-slavery speaker and pioneer "liberator," writing of Spiritualism, said: "The manifestations have spread from house to house, from city to city, from one part of the country to the other, across the Atlantic into Europe, till now the enlightened world is compelled to acknowledge their reality." "We have wit

nessed these surprising manifestations; and our conviction is, that they cannot be accounted for on any other theory than that of spiritual agency."

WILLIAM HOWITT, the noted English writer and author of seventy volumes, was a writing and drawing medium. It gave me great pleasure to sit in one of his seances and witness his automatic drawings. In the English Dunfermeline Press Mr. Howitt wrote thus: "Who are the men who have in every country embraced Spiritualism? The rabble? the ignorant? the fanatic? By no means. But the most intelligent and learned of all classes." "In America the shrewd and honest statesman and President was a Spiritualist. So were the Hon. Robert Dale Owen and Judge Edmonds." "Longfellow now in England, and just treated with the highest honors of the University of Cambridge, is, and has long been a Spiritualist."

When Longfellow was upon his late European tour he attended Spiritual seances at the house of the Guppy's in Naples, and at the palatial residence of the Baron Kirkup in Florence. I had this upon the authority of several eminent gentlemen in Italy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the martyred President, was a Spiritualist. He frequently attended seances at the residence of the Lauries in Washington. The daughter was a medium. It was in this same family that Miss Nettie Coburn was entranced by spirits purporting to be Jefferson, and the fathers of our country, and who plead of Fresident Lincoln to free those four million slaves held in bondage. (See Mrs. Nettie Coburn-Maynard's work entitled, "Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist"). Lincoln's emancipation message was an inspiration from the spiritworld. Judge Edmonds, delivering an oration in Hope Chapel, N. Y., upon the life of Lincoln, gave the proofs of this. It is undeniable.

In Judge Pierpont's address to the jury at the Surratt trial, he said: "I now come to a strange act in this dark drama strange, though not new so wonderful that it seems to come from beyond the veil that separates us from death. . . . “On