own way, that the spirits were obliged to confine him in an iron cage. He does not see the bars; it appears to him as a small room which he chooses to occupy.'"

The spirits are kind enough to explain pretty fully the moral and physical relation in which they stand to the race of men on earth. Burns and Dugald Stewart, more particularly, contributed through Mr. Scott of Belfast two little essays, in which they stimulated and sustained the ardour of those who are devoted to making known the truths of Spiritualism. Either because they accommodated themselves to the taste of their hearers, or because they have lost something by their passage through the grave, the joint effort seems to us scarcely worthy of their earthly reputation. Dugald Stewart, especially, seems to have entirely parted with that easy elegance of style which distinguished him here. We scarcely think that he would, during his mortal career, have suffered such expressions to escape his pen as "the fulsome freezing fabrication of the fall;" nor would his ardour in any terrestrial cause have prompted him to exclaim that the principles he advocated would "ever despise the iniquitous aid of civil crutches." Spiritualists, however, who probably care more for matter than style, will gladly hear "that the cause will rise up, and proceed on the towering wings (the mortal Dugald would have added of what), and soar in hopes of man's immortality;" and that "the days of every description of time-serving and dishonesty are numbered."

The spirit of "John Edmundson" also gave an account of heaven itself. It appears that the celestial regions unite at once all that can satisfy the imagination of a railway traveller and the memory of a reader of the Hebrew Scriptures. If a country clodhopper were first taken to the Menai Straits, with its tubular and suspension bridges, and then transported to Hunt and Roskell's, the expression of his admiration would be found to accord very closely with those which the signs of heaven elicited from John Edmundson's spirit. We hear that "there were some of the most elaborate carvings and inlayings of pearls and precious stones that could possibly be done;" and that "I was conducted over the suspension-bridge; and the bridge also was finished in the most elaborate style." Two circumstances, however, lent an unearthly solemnity to the scene. The one was, that all the heavenly buildings had been constructed in Hebrew dimensions. We are told, for instance, that the angels conducted the new-comer "through some of the most magnificent streets." They pointed to one, and told him it was "the Wanderer's Home;" and added, "the length thereof is one hundred thousand cubits; the breadth thereof is one hundred thousand cubits; the height thereof is one hundred thou

sand cubits;-so that (as they kindly pointed out) it is foursquare." The other circumstance is, that many buildings, or portions of buildings, have a symbolical character. We read that "my instructors proposed we should have a tower (J. E. has not apparently reached the interior circle where strict English is talked) through some of the great pillars, to see the beauties of the architecture. On the east were models of the human form having garlands of purple, green, and yellow entwined twelve times about each of their figures. These," they said, "will remind you of the beauties of truth derived from love." In the entrance were statues representing vice and virtue, ignorance and wisdom; and they were all in the attitude of showing compassion to each other. "These," said they, "will remind you of the beauties of truth derived from good." The latter revelation does not awaken in us, we confess, the delight which J. E.'s spirit evidently expects. We had hoped that ignorance looking with compassion on wisdom was a purely earthly pheno

menon.

The spirits are also willing to explain the physical methods by which they act on man. A communication from Franklin and Dalton ascribed their power "to vital spirit in its elemental state, the finest of all substances." On one occasion, the spirits, expressing themselves through a medium, explained why, in rapping and other similar manifestations, they generally operated beneath the table; and they stated the reason to be that "the upper part of man, or the brain and senses, were more opposed to spiritual truth than the vital, visceral, or instinctive part,` which, in this case, is conveniently separated from the other by the table." That the pit of the stomach is the organ of spiritual truth is one of the most striking revelations of Spiritualism. Nor is any capable of a wider application. It would be most satisfactory if it could be ascertained that a hardened sinner could be awakened by colocynth, and theological difficulties elucidated by senna.

Communications on social and religious subjects are abundant; and among them is one which has startled us more than any thing else we have met in the literature of Spiritualism. It is a political utterance from the spirits of Stanley and Peel. The sentiments and language are not very like Sir Robert Peel's: but that is nothing; death may have changed his opinion. But who can the Stanley be whose spirit is enlightening us? Evidently it is the Stanley who was the associate and colleague of Peel. That Lord Stanley has certainly ceased to be in one sense, but he still professes to be alive under the title of the Earl of Derby. Chamisso's man, who lost his shadow, is nothing to this. The Tories have been laughed at lately as a defunct party;

but that all this time they should have been suffering themselves to be led by a man whose spirit is actually disembodied, is far beyond what any one could have believed. The Tories have also been blamed not unfrequently for professing rather more than they really held to be true; and Lord Derby has been thought too ciever a man not to have doubts as to some of the propositions which, as a party-leader, he has felt bound to maintain. But the difference between the sentiments uttered by his body in the House of Peers and those really entertained by his spirit in the other world, is quite terrible. Who that remembers his recent speeches, would have for a moment considered it possible that the true thoughts of his spirit were such as these? We quote from an Address from the spirits of Stanley and Peel, on the Suffrages of the People":

"Oppression now lays its iron hand upon the working-classes of England; though your rulers may try all the schemes that lay in their power to make you believe that you are a self-governed people, yet such is not the case-far from it.

Be it known unto you all, that your liberty is in the hands of your aristocracy. The liberty that is so dear to the working-classes of England is now at stake! They have it almost in their power to allay them even with the dust. Such is the power of your rulers.

Does it not become you as well as them to be joined? and joined you must be, or never will you have real liberty and freedom. The hand of oppression must be laid low. Look at the present ruling power of your country. Have they acted a just and upright part? Have they not deluded the country by all the means that have lain in their power? Now is the time for the working-classes of England to strike the blow. Now is the time for them to lift up their voices in the cause of liberty and freedom."

The spirits of poets often condescend to address the circles in poetry, and generally adopt the metre and approximate to the language of their chief poems written on earth. The Scotch poets are especially fond of imitating themselves through mediums; although it must be allowed, that often the success is not great. Walter Scott, for instance, was asked how Spiritualism was getting on at Glasgow: and replied:

"Some cries its all fudge,

Others laugh it to scorn;
But rest you assured
Both parties are wrong.
For, if they live long,
They plainly shall see
The twig you have planted
Will grow to a tree."

He used to have a better ear for rhyme while in the body than to make "scorn" go with "wrong." Allan Cunningham is dis

L

tinguished at once by the Scotch turn of his spiritual verses, and by his interest in theology. He gave the following lines, among many others, to a spiritual circle:

"Weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row,

Weel may the keel row to Scotland's peaceful shore.
The land where first I drew my breath,

Where once I met the monster death,
And learnt to prize a useless faith

Which never was prized before."

On being asked what is the useless faith referred to, he answered, "a faith without good works." We cannot forbear remarking, that if the popular faith of Scotland is useless, there does not seem much object in the keel rowing in that particular direction.

Burns, however, as we have before said, is more frequent than any one in his communications: and he is generally satirical, ironical, or jocose. He is not only friendly, but facetious. For example, a person happening to come into the room wearing a white hat, Burns instantly tipped out, "I wish I had a white hat." The following dialogue ensued: "Q. Will you give this man's name?-A. I look not on men's names, but their natures. Q. Are you Burns the poet?-A. Yes, sir, I am, and no mistake." On another occasion he gave the following communication, which, "of course, must be understood as ironical":

At another sitting he gave the following. "Some unbelievers being present, it was satirical":

To which text was appended a commentary. Alas, like human texts and commentaries, it was obscurum per obscurius. read in continuation that:

We

"This, being all got in single letters, and at first reading, some present said they did not comprehend the meaning. Burns commenced moving the table powerfully again, and settled the meaning by adding -Kick it down.'

But all these are poor revelations and faint triumphs as compared with those vouchsafed to the cream and flower of Spiritualism, Mr. Thomas L. Harris. This gentleman has produced three great poems under the immediate influence and inspiration of various inhabitants of the other world. The Epic of the Starry Heavens is a poem of four thousand lines, and was dictated by Mr. Harris in twenty-six hours and sixteen minutes. As, however, the dictation took place on twenty-two different occasions, his editor, Mr. Brittan, of New York, thinks it necessary to give reasons why the natural solution that Mr. Harris made the poem himself should not be received. His reasons are: first, that Mr. Harris, when not entranced, was occupied in perfecting a mechanical invention, and so his thoughts were turned away from poetry; secondly, that Mr. Harris was just setting out on a journey, and had evidently no notion that he would be detained; thirdly, the fits of inspiration came on at hours such as dinnertime, when no one who could exercise choice would have wished to write a poem; fourthly, that Mr. Harris slept soundly after uttering the several portions of the poem; and fifthly, that it is unlikely Mr. Harris would refuse to lay claim to the credit of the poem if he could honestly do so. Those who are convinced by these reasons will be glad to hear how Mr. Harris came to receive this stupendous inspiration. A short preface, purporting to emanate from "the Lyrical Paradise of the Heaven of Spirits," informs us that because "his interiors (our readers will remember the visceral theory) are of a sacerdotal character, he is permitted to be impressed from societies of hierophants, who discharge the priestly functions in the heaven of spirits ;" and that the poem was "given through the agency of a circle of medieval spirits, who inhabit a classic domain in an ultimate dependency of the heaven of spirits which corresponds in many of its features to lower Italy." It was permitted to a spirit greatly beloved (a foot-note tells us it was Dante) to induct the medium into rapport with the general sphere of their society; and "permission being obtained from superior authority," the various forms of wisdom and beauty which the poem describes were, we learn, imaged on the sensorium.

The merits of a poem are a matter of taste. The preface tells us that the Epic poems written in this way resemble the virgin daughters of the sky, whose spiritual forms are garmented with the robes of light. There may be persons who would prefer to compare them to indifferent hymns. The burden of the whole Epic is, that the carth is going to be changed, that it will hereafter contain any amount of jewels, alabaster shrines, spirals of golden light, and domes of silver; and that it will be delivered over to a race characterised by unmitigated benevolence.