Mr. C., of London; informed me that at his own house while sitting at a table with his family, the windows were shaken violently, and the room seemed to tremble; and then commenced spiritualistic manifestations.

JEWISH DAVID :-The Philistines spread themselves over the valley of Rephaim. Therefore David inquired of God; and God said unto him, "Go not up-turn away from them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees, and when you hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you are to go out to battle; for God is gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines." David did as ordered, and defeated his enemies. Notice here, not only were words of direct guidance given, but a sound as of an army going was to be heard in the air above the trees before he was to stir.

CHRISTIAN-The one hundred and twenty disciples on the day of Pentecost, while in a house, heard a sound as of a mighty rushing wind, which filled the house they were in; and there appear cloven tongues like as of fire, and it rested on each of the one hundred and twenty.

In reading Plutarch's Lives of the Heroes of Antiquity, we find that nearly all considered themselves under the influence of the gods; and narratives of prodigies and sounds which influenced and guided those men, are frequent.

Jewish history is a storehouse of the same kind.

Christian history, as unfolded in the books of the New Testament, continues the same strain.

Roman Catholic history of the fathers of the church, continues the narratives.

The Greek Church, and the biographies of the leading men of the Protestant Churches, vibrate with similar narratives; therefore, if the sounds be taken up from the remotest era of knowledge, the reverberations come pealing down all time like echoes from afar. While man is the image of God, God's mode of action continues to him unchanged; deprive him of that image, and then angels may cease to act for him by sounds and by other methods as portrayed in the pages of this book. As to the asserted foolishness of rapping, it appears to me that foolishness is want of wisdom. Wisdom is the skilful adap

tation of means to produce a result. I have conversed with scores of materialists, whose minds were never reached by the gladiatorship of words, to believe in futurity; but by the "foolishness" of sounds have been subdued, and made as little children ready to receive instruction from those invisibles who have made their presence known. Rapping is only the "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man open, I will come in, and sup with him, and he with me." Angels were the ministers of God for the prophets and apostles, therefore they knocked; knocks lead to converse with those unseen beings;-that converse being carried on in wisdom, according to the physical and mental of the inviter, as developed in the various phases of mediumship to be hereafter unfolded.

Instead, therefore, of isolating the sounds from the other incidents of the sittings; it will be more interesting to note their occurrence, in concert with other displays of spirit power, as evidenced in the moving of heavy or ponderable bodies; and we, therefore, pass on to show the uniform law in action by the angels, in past history down to this year 1860.

SECTION II.

SPIRIT POWER-MOVING SOLID SUBSTANCES.

So immutable are the laws of nature, that where we place a solid substance, there we expect to see it remain. If we go into a room, having in it the ordinary articles of furniture, the tables, chairs, and other inanimate substances remain where they have been placed, and move not at our approach; if any of them are in our way, we have to place our solid or physical powers on such article, and by the leverage, move it. In the whole range of physical phenomena, it was never understood or taught, that a dead substance could move itself; or that any human being by his mere wish, or will, could move or lift any such substance. If therefore, any solid body move without there being attached some physical substance; it must have been from, or by, some power not acknowledged in science. Men's minds have run rank with surmises and hypotheses as to the possible cause of such a phenomena, but they never give an illustration of the correctness of their theories, by practical proof.

The phenomena I am about to place before the reader so far transcends mere sound, or mental action, as to place them out of the reach of any decision, but either that the alleged facts never took place, or that they are the results of intelligent powers not inhabiting a corporeal body. That the incidents, &c., are true, I believe; because I saw a considerable portion of them-not," in the dark," but in the broad daylight, or in the evening, with the usual lights used by the family; and a second portion were seen by persons I know, at their own houses and their own rooms; and who, but for the bitter persecution, and the mental Smithfield in prospect for them, if they frankly gave their names, would attach their signatures to the several statements of facts witnessed in the privacy of their own homes. However, their names are by hundreds in London, and embrace some of the brightest intellects in law, divinity, medi

seems never to have crossed their minds. But we pass on. At Sandgate, and again at Ealing, in 1855, I heard those sounds, and the names of deceased relatives of parties present were frequently given, and incidents referred to as tests, which tests were joyfully accepted as demonstrative of their presence in the room, though unseen. Long-forgotten incidents in the past were thus brought up; and to see the sunlit countenance of each sitter, as test upon test was produced, and immortality proved; was of itself a happiness. Where there is a mixed circle-that is, several strangers unaccustomed to the phenomena―it generally takes the phase of simple detonations; sometimes by a series of running ticks like a watch running down, responded to at the other end of the table by the same kind of ticks, but in a different tone; and thus, apparently, is a kind of conversation carried on for a time; they would then change to sounds of another kind. I have heard them as loud and vigorous under my hand on the loo-table I was sitting at, as if the under side of the table were struck with a piece of metal,—say, the edge of a penny piece; and the frequent opportunities I have had of observing the phenomena, have convinced me of the perfect knowledge the Spirit has of the mental cast of the sitters, and the nature of the manifestations required for their cast of mind.

When anything required alteration, the raps gave the necessary information.

Raps may be considered the lowest phase of spiritualistic phenomena, in the same sense as I have said elsewhere, that speech is in man; which speech is only intoned raps or vibrations on the air, by which we are able to convey our thoughts by sounds to the listener, those raps or sounds conveying of themselves no idea, no image, of the thing communicated.

These sounds are very frequent in old houses in London, and in various parts of the country, but are divested of intelligibility from the fear of the individuals who hear them, and the want of knowledge how to extract information from the spiritual power producing them. I have heard ex

traordinary statements from parties as to noises of various kinds; thus, as if a barrel and other heavy substances were rolled from the top of the stairs to the bottom, doors opening and shutting, footsteps walking up and down the stairs, and in the rooms over head, and in the room they were in; coming in at stated hours in the day and in the night, supposed to be some deceased person, a previous occupier of the premises, who wished to communicate information; the proof of this I have had in well-attested narratives.

THE NOISES produced in Epworth Rectory, heard and felt by several members of the Wesley family, are as well attested as any fact in science; and doubtless those incidents occurring in the house of Wesley's own father, toned his mind to listen to similar statements made to him in his journeyings through England and Scotland, and have therefore found place in his journals.

In London, a few yards from the Royal Exchange, there is a house which up to a few months ago, had been occupied by a London merchant for many years; the noises and sudden sounds on the stairs at dead of night, often caused the family to spring out of their beds and run to the bed-room doors. A brother of the same merchant in business in Weymouth, Dorsetshire, had similar sounds in his house; and sometimes when he was sitting up at night with his books, sounds as of heavy weights would come against his room-door, &c. I have the names of the parties, and know the premises in London.

During the prevalence of the idea that spirit manifestations are mental hallucinations, I know of no more rapid method of convincing, than that of sounds on the table you are sitting at, evidently produced by a power not visible; and not more foolish is the click sound called rapping, than the click of the telegraphic clock when acted upon by the unseen electricity, guided by intelligence, as those clicks or sounds which letter by letter, produce the message. I have heard those sounds under my own hands often and again; they have a