make some remark which being repeated to me made me very angry. Altogether I consider this one of the best tests we have had. Lewis's last message to me that evening was, "Good-bye, dear; I am waiting and longing for your coming.'

The next evening, being quite alone, I brought out planchette for a while; but when it had written "Lewis Banks, I am so happy to think that we can," fearing that my own mind was dictating the message, I removed my hand.

October 5th.-Phoebe and I sat for an hour and half but did not get one whole message. The séance exactly resembled one that we had had a short time before; the communicating spirits would not act in conjunction. Phoebe's father and Lewis Banks both attempted to write, but no sooner was a message commenced by one of them than the other tried to begin. In vain we begged them to give place to one another-" In honour to prefer one another." Phoebe even proposed that each one should have possession of our powers for ten minutes, which proposal was received with indignant thumps. We then asked them to unite their powers and give us a message; this they either could not or would not do.

I spent October 10th with Phoebe, and in the face of great difficulties we contrived to have a short séance. Lewis came and wrote something to "Mary, my dear wife" about being very glad that she did love him. Here I said, "Will you not tell me something about life with you? First of all, why do you always call me wife?" He wrote "Because" Then an interruption occurred, and the sentence was never finished.

Here then the matter rests. Time and opportunity have not served for another séance. If they ever again coincide, I shall at once repeat my last question. You will naturally want to know how this strange experience has affected me. I fear my answer will hardly satisfy you. Seven years is a very long interval; I have changed wonderfully in that time; is it not reasonable to suppose that he has changed too? In my opinion he knows as little of my part in the last seven years, as I know of his; his ignorance is to me unaccountable, and it sometimes suggests to me the idea that it is not the myself of this present moment whom he loves, but a "Mary" of his recollection or even perhaps of his imagination. The opportunities for communication being very few, and the difficulty of the process very great, I do not expect to get many questions answered respecting the conditions of life with him; yet failing these answers can I reasonably pledge myself to him?

I should much like to test Lewis further; at present tests do not satisfactorily establish his identity, for when he refers to anything we know, we attribute it to thought-reading, and

when on the other hand he brings forward anything we have either forgotten or never knew, we say at once "It is not he.' I confess that at times I am deeply moved-these times I am thankful to say are very rare; thankful because they unfit me for my daily work. I have no time just now either to regret the past, or to anticipate the future; the present demands all the energies of my mind.

Yours, &c.,

NOTES AND GLEANINGS.

A. E. R.

REV. CAPEL MOLYNEUX ON MINISTERING SPIRITS.

THE Rev. Capel Molyneux says, in his published sermon on the text, "Why weepest thou?" "When Mary was weeping, the Lord she deplored stood close to her. Now, I dare not for a moment say it is so; but who shall say that when a soul is weeping for a departed saint, that saint may not be standing close to it at the very time? We are to be as angels,' if we are God's people, and angels are ministering spirits. I am sure that angels are round about us continually. I delight to think of that; in this church I delight to think about it. I believe there are plenty of angels here now. Well, why may not some of these angels be departed souls? You weep for some departed child of God; perhaps he or she may be close to you at this moment!"

SPENSER ON THE RELATION OF THE SOUL TO THE BODY.

Mr. Gillingham's theory "that the soul fills and builds every atom of man's structure," is not a very novel one, as may be seen by the following quotation from Spenser:

"For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form and doth the body make."

A GUARDIAN ANGEL.

St. Frances was a holy woman who lived in Rome in the seventeenth century, and the legend concerning her states that she was favoured with the visible presence of her guardian angel. She has left us the following description of her heavenly companion :-" He is about as tall as a child of nine years of age, his.

face is full of sweetness, his eyes are turned towards heaven; he wears a long shining robe, and over it a mantle white as snow. When he walks by my side his feet are never soiled by the mud or dirt of the streets." When St. Frances fell into any fault her good angel disappeared, but as soon as she repented, he came back. At the point of death she was heard to exclaim, "The angel has finished his task. He stands before me; he beckons me to follow him." Having uttered these words, her soul was borne by her angel guardian to heaven. St. Frances is commemorated by the Western Church on March 9th.-The Penny Post.

MARLOWE A SPIRITUALIST.

Tradition asserts that the poet Marlowe was an Atheist. It also affirms that he studied the black arts and practised Necromancy. Tradition, if cross-examined on any such subject as this, gets very confused and contradictory. I do not doubt, however, that Marlowe was a Spiritualist, and in some form or other practised spirit-communication. It was partly by aid of this clue that I was enabled to identify Marlowe as the rival poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets, in my book called Shakespeare's Sonnets and his Private Friends. This is Shakespeare's reference to his great rival, in Sonnet 86:

"Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit by Spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished!

He, nor that affable familiar Ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter: that enfeebled mine!"

By this we learn that the rival poet is accredited with being taught by spirits to write above a mortal pitch; that he has spiritual visitants in the night hours, who give him aid in his work; that he is especially reputed to have an attendant spirita plausible familiar spirit-who "gulls him nightly with intelligence." All this supernatural aid Shakespeare acknowledges that his rival receives, but it was not this which made him keep silence in fear of being eclipsed. He grants the facts of this abnormal inspiration, but does not think very highly of it. He takes the common view that the spirit must be a lying one, and the intelligence false. Still, here is Shakespeare's testimony

that his rival competitor for a patron's approval practised spiritintercourse, and it is for that evidence I allude to the subject and cite the sonnet. The rival poet I have shown to be Christopher Marlowe, to whom Thomas Thorpe also-in his dedication to Edward Blunt of Marlowe's translation of Lucian's first bookalludes as a "familiar spirit."-Gerald Massey.

AN APPARITION AT THE TIME OF DEATH.

The following is taken from the Renaissance Chronique des Arts et de la Literature, published in Belgium, in 1840-1:

"Two gentlemen visiting this country many years ago were occupying a hut on the frontiers, when a strange form, youthful but cadaverous, in the garb of an officer, noiselessly entered by the door. Both were greatly alarmed, and, seizing their pistols, demanded the name of the intruder. No response came, but the apparition, regarding them fixedly, raised his sword, which gleamed in the light of the fire, heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly withdrew. "That was my brother," said one of them. The other laughed at him, but they remained no longer there, and continued their way through the forest till the sun rose to dispel their fears. On their return from their mission, a letter was received from England announcing to one of them the death of the aforesaid brother at the time he was seen in the American cabin."

THE WRECK OF THE RANGOON.

The Rangoon, a fine large steamship bearing the Australian mails, passengers, &c., failed to reach her destination-the Western coast of the Australian continent. With reference to this missing vessel, we clip from the Ballarat Star, a newspaper of large circulation upon the Victorian metropolitan goldfield, the following statement. It must be borne in mind that this paragraph was published some time before any information whatever could possibly arrive in the colony respecting the fate of the Rangoon:-"On Tuesday evening (Nov. 21st) a circle was formed by some Spiritualists, and in answer to a question put concerning the mail, the following answer in effect was given: The English mail will never reach Victoria. The steamship has foundered. All the passengers were saved. The mails were lost."" And now follows the sequel. On the 27th (Monday), six days after the message had been given through the medium, and three days after it had appeared in print, the Melbourne Argus gives a detailed account of the foundering of

the Rangoon. The account had arrived overland via Adelaide, to which port the news had been brought by the succeeding mailship, the Bebar. The loss of the mail, the safety of the passengers, the foundering of the vessel, were each and all correctly stated. It may be added that after the wreck three or four coolies perished in the waves; but it should also be stated that these men had come off from the shore to the steamer for the purpose of pillage, after the wreck had taken place, and were in no way connected with the ship. The sea ran too high for them, and they were drowned.

HOW A BOAT'S CREW WAS SAVED.

The springing a leak and loss of the Sachem of Gloucester, occasioned by her sinking on Georges, September 8th, was attended by a singular circumstance, which we find published in the Cape Ann Advertiser, that paper assuring the reader that it is correct in every particular, and will be fully substantiated by the master of the vessel, Captain J. Weuzell, from whose log-book the particulars were gleaned :—The vessel left Brown's Bank on the 7th of September at 9 p.m., for Georges, with a fresh north-west breeze. At midnight the steward, John Nelson, arose from his berth, and going aft where the skipper was, remarked in an agitated voice-his whole appearance indicating great fear-"Skipper, we are soon to have a severe gale of wind, or something else of a dangerous nature is going to overtake the vessel, and we had better make land if we can, or at least keep clear of Georges, so as not to have it so rough when the danger comes." Captain Weuzell asked him what made him think so, as everything was clear at the time, and there were no apprehensions of trouble or danger. Nelson replied, "I have been dreaming, and twice before I have had the same kind of dreams when at sea, and both times have had narrow chances of being saved. The first time we were run into the day following the dream, and left in a sinking condition. With great efforts in baling and pumping we reached the coast of Norway. The other time we experienced a terrible gale, had our sails blown away, and the vessel half full of water ran before it under bare poles, until we met the north-east trade winds when we patched her up and made out to get into Havana." He then told the purport of the dreams, which were of females dressed in white, either standing in the rain or near a waterfall, or attempting to cross a brook. The figures in each dream were the same, but the surroundings were different. The steward is a reliable man, and was so much in earnest that the captain,