causes.

of the meetings which could be attributed to supernatural The members had fully expected that they would have witnessed some of the alleged extraordinary levitations of Mr. Home, but he explained at the opening of the inquiry that the phenomena produced through his agency were of uncertain manifestation, and that he had no power whatever to produce them at will.

The séances were held in a fully lighted room.

SUB-COMMITTEE No. 6.

This Committee met four times, but failed to obtain any phenomena that deserve to be recorded. On one occasion, a lady visitor brought with her two little girls aged apparently about eight and ten years respectively, whom she declared to be mediums. The children were placed at a small chess-table, which they proceeded deliberately to rock to and fro, to their own intense delight, and to the amusement of the company.

At no other meeting was there even the pretence of any spiritual phenomena.

Gentlemen of the Seybert Commission, as individuals,as candid, earnest, Christian men, -to you, not in your public capacity, but as private citizens, I appeal from the decision recorded in your report. From "Philip in bis abnormal state to Philip in his normal condition, I appeal!" On reflection, are you satisfied with either the manner of your investigation, or the matter contained in your report? Does your experience in the "sealed letters part of your researches, with advertised charletans, really convince you that all claims for spiritual visitations are false or fraudulent? Do you not know that there are thousands of family circles in our land, as pure and truthful as your own, where fathers, mothers, brothers, and

sisters believe they have held communion with those that once occupied the now vacant chair by their hearth-stone? That in those sacred home séances no legerdemain could come? That the bereaved and afflicted have there found a consolation that faith alone would fail to give? Was it the act of Christian gentlemen for you to point your impious fingers of wit and sarcasm at the cherished family altar, the sacred home circles of those who believe what they have seen and heard, and who derive priceless joy from the evidence there given them? Most ruthlessly did the Iconoclasts of the eighth century—under the edict of Leo III. commit their sacrilegious outrages on the temples of God, and the cherished belief of the early Catholic Christians. The choicest works of art as well as the holiest emblems of a Christian faith were destroyed by their Vandalism, and to-day the term is one of opprobrium and contempt. Yet those who executed an infamous decree of a tyrannical emperor were a horde of ignorant soldiery, who but obeyed the commands of a power they dared not disobey. Not wholly so with you, for you are not ignorant, although you may be obedient. Yet the household images of thousands of Christian people you would destroy if you could.

But you will say, "We never have witnessed any of We never saw any of these manifesta

these home circles.

tions."

"You have not, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity

And pity 'tis true."

Yet you might have done so, as did the members of the Dialectical Society, had you so desired. All you had to do was to make your wish known. There are hundreds of private séances among the friends and relatives of those that "have passed away" who doubtless would welcome you into their circles, if assured that you came in friendly spirit, and would conduct yourselves with your

usual urbanity, and regard for the feelings of others; many mediums who would scorn to answer your newspaper advertisement or receive compensation from the Seybert bequest. Yet, gentlemen, as there are some people who are unduly sensitive, and dislike to have their honesty impeached, even by innuendoes, and as one of your number-I believe the one with trained habits of investigation" is a little inclined to by-play remarks (asides), etc., such as are recorded in your report, let me suggest to you that you appoint him a sub-committee to pursue your original line of investigation, while the rest of you seek admission into private circles. There is many a home that would gladly open its doors to you, and welcome you into its inner sanctuary, were it not for the unwarrantable impression caused by your report that it was not truth that you were seeking, but fraud! and that when you have found it, you rejoice with exceeding great joy!

It seems to be the impression of many good and thoughtful men, that had your honourable body been members of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, the failure of Subcommittee No. 4 to obtain any results, and the playful gambols of two little children before Sub-committee No. 6 would undoubtedly have satisfied you that the experiments before the other sub-committees were all jugglery or legerdemain, and that the cry of fraud! fraud! would have echoed throughout all Gath, and been published in all the streets of Askelon.

This would have been in accordance with the logic of your report: verily there are none so blind or deaf in this world as those

"Who having eyes see not, and having

Ears will not hear."

CHAPTER X.

"Now what I want is Facts. - Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. —Stick to Facts, sir."

Thomas Gradgrind, in DICKENS' Hard Times.

READER, I have a few more facts to call your attention to. They are narrated in Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, by William Crookes, F.R.S., reprinted from the Quarterly Journal of Science, London, 1874. There is not living at this day a more learned scientist than Professor Crookes, neither a more skillful experimenter nor accurate investigator. He was the discoverer of the new metal "thallium," and the inventor of the philosophical wonder, the radiometer. His reputation is worldwide and his integrity unimpeachable.

The following chapter is from his book, in his own words, and gives but a faint idea of all he saw in his investigations which extended through a number of years.

To disbelieve or doubt the testimony of such a man is simply stupidity. The Seybert Commission knew of this evidence, and failed to consider it, and therefore I give a small portion of it to the public as evidence in my case.

THE PHENOMENA OF PERCUSSIVE AND OTHER ALLIED

SOUNDS.

The popular name of "raps" conveys a very erroneous impression of this class of phenomena. At different times during my experiments I have heard delicate ticks, as with the point of a pin; a cascade of sharp sounds, as from an induction coil in full work; detonations in the air; sharp metallic taps; a cracking like that heard when

a frictional machine is at work; sounds like scratching; the twittering as of a bird, etc.

These sounds are noticed with almost every medium, each having a special peculiarity; they are more varied with Mr. Home, but for power and certainty I have met with no one who at all approached Miss Kate Fox. For several months I enjoyed almost unlimited opportunity of testing the various phenomena occurring in the presence of this lady, and I especially examined the phenomena of these sounds. With mediums, generally, it is necessary to sit for a formal séance before anything is heard; but in the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud enough to be heard several rooms off. In this manner I have heard them in a living tree- on a sheet of glass on a stretched iron wire on a stretched membrane- a tambourine on the roof of a cab-and on the floor of a theatre. Moreover, actual contact is not always necessary; I have heard these sounds proceeding from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands and feet were held—when she was standing on a chair — when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling - when she was enclosed in a wire cage -- and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a glass harmonicon; I have felt them on my own shoulder and under my own hands; I have heard them on a sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed through one corner. With a full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been started, chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested them in every way that I could devise, until there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences not produced by trickery or mechanical means.

An important question here forces itself upon the at