of this world-that He should have refused to avail Himself of the smallest aid from them, as though it could only be ruinous to his work, that He was born and lived among the very lowest of the people, associating with the despised and the outcasts of society, that the very best men of his day were looked on with favour by Him only so far as they were inwardly reverent, humble, and living in faith towards God, while the outwardly righteous, many of whom were esteemed as saints, were spoken to in words of burning condemnation, involve, in a worldreformer, an antagonism in modes of thought and feeling, not only to those current when He lived on earth, but to those of our own and every past age.

To see this we need only look at the churches of our own time-the assemblages of the very people who profess to be his followers, and some of whom are true followers, but far, alas! from their Master. Where are the men who believe in the spirit only, and have no confidence in the flesh? Do we not believe in fine buildings, and in ordinances, and in doctrines, and discipline, and eloquent preachers, and wealthy hearers and supporters? And if there be one humble man among the flock whose soul ascends in prayer and faith right up to the Infinite Father, passing all these outward and man-made things, as scarcely either helps or bindrances, and giving no reverence to the ephemeral doctrines of his sect, or the human teacher who ministers, or the man of wealth who sits to hear; but seeks only communion with God, and believes that now, as of old, all things are possible to the prayer of faith, the more this man believes, the less he is esteemed. He is not a safe man-not safe, because he looks to something far above and beyond the doctrines, the men, the institutions, of the outward Church-believes in an infinite progress-in the living and not in the dead-in the spiritual, and not in the natural.

As it was with Christ's own natural body, so it must be with the natural form of his Church. He was crucified, and the Church must also be crucified, or, rather, He must be crucified in his church. Its end is approaching. Is it not, even now, on its Mount Calvary? Are not the true disciples of Christ, even now, shrinking from the sad sight, a sorrow-stricken few, afraid, like Peter, of acknowledging their faith; bewildered, self-condemned, hiding and looking on from a distance, while some of his enemies pierce their Master with sceptical inquiries, and barbed and subtle doubts, and some ask questions which are not answered, and some spit on Him their indifference and contempt, and some scourge Him with attempts to persecute their fellows; and others, with a stinging and bitter irony, bow the knee and hail Him as king, and put the purple robe of a mock-worship upon Him, and give Him

the reed-sceptre of feeble and false reasoning, and crown Him with angry and selfish words as with a crown of thorns-while the great crowd that yesterday cried Hosanna! now looks on in doubtful silence. Not outside, but in and among the churches, must Christ, in his real Church, be crucified. "He came to his own, and his own received Him not."

The Church, in its outward form, comes to its end—but it will rise again, a spiritual and glorious Church. It will then be known that the Church belongs not to this world of nature, and if dwelling for a while in nature, it is to sanctify and bless-to knit the bonds of an eternal union between heaven and earth, but not to be bound in any bonds of this world. The Church will then be known to be the communion of saints above and saints below, and the ever-blessed presence, in each heart, of Christ Himself as king. In that new and risen Church will He come, and eyes of men still in the flesh, but open to the spirit, shall see his glory, and shall become like Him. Breathing his new life, and armed with his divinely-gentle power, they shall be thrilled with holy joy while they do his will, and shall subdue the world to his sway, until nature is restored to harmony; the creation will no longer "groan and travail in pain," because there shall be "the manifestation of the sons of God." "The creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Rom. viii. 21-23).

The truth is, that the new spiritual efflux from Christ, which is changing all things, to make all things new, is entering into all men and all their thoughts. It is as manifest in those thoughts which become scepticism with the doubting, as in those which become truths in the believing. The destruction which we fear in the Church will prove to be no destruction of any truth. Error only can be destroyed. The time is come of which Paul spoke, quoting Haggai :-"Yet once more I will shake, not the earth only, but also heaven;" and this, he tells us, signified, "the removing of those things that are shaken, as of those things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." (Heb. xii. 26, 27.) Nothing will be removed, or even shaken, but the man-made things and notions that have served their purpose, and must now pass away. He reigns and will reign, more and more manifestly. The old " prince of the power of the air," is dethroned; the heavens grow brighter; and the clouds less dense, which have covered the earth, and shut out the beams of the Sun of Righteousness.

LIBRA.

MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH MR. HOME.

Newton Vallence, Alton, Hants,

May 24th.

SIR,-I have been requested by a friend and relative to give a detailed account of some spirit-manifestations, witnessed by myself and various members of my family, through the mediumship of Mr. Home. My experience up to this time had not satisfied me. I had been grossly cheated on a former occasion, so grossly that I began to think all mediums must be knaves, and those who went to them fools. I formed one of the party assembled under my father's roof to meet Mr. Home; with a predisposition against mediums in general. It is true, I had visited none but paid ones, and, as such, to be judged of with extreme caution and distrust. I found Mr. Home a man of very different calibre. He came down to us with my relative as a friend. He was my father's guest for two days. From what occurred during the two evenings he spent with us, I unhesitatingly affirm my belief in the supernaturalism of the manifestations, and I bear a willing testimony to the fairness and courtesy shewn us by Mr. Home. Collusion is out of the question, we did not assemble to make fools of one another. Delusion I equally repudiate. Every facility was offered us for examination. We looked under the table, and some of us even sat under it. I am convinced as I am of my own individuality, that Mr. Home could not have caused by any known human agency the phenomena we witnessed.

That a power was in operation independent of him as a power, though dependent on him for its manifestation to us, none of us there assembled can with justice deny. I must at the same time state, that two of us at least, my father and myself, have for years acknowledged in our own minds, the possibility of the intercommunion of the visible and invisible world, this quite apart from mediums and mediumship. It has grown with our growth; we have read of its occurrence in all ages, amongst all nations, supported by such an amount of testimony, that we must believe the instances recorded or condemn men of the greatest probity, of all creeds and persuasions, as systematic liars. We have read of it in that most marvellous of all books, the Bible. It is sown broad-cast throughout its narratives. We have now begun to comprehend many things therein contained, which before we only believed with a blind faith, because our seniors so educated us.. I know it is said, "Blessed are they who have not seen these things and yet believe." But minds are differently constituted,

and what brings conviction to one has little or no weight with another. I nowhere see it stated in that book that this communion has ceased, though prejudiced minds have elevated into an article of faith, that all such operations, viz., the power of calling up the dead, obsession by good or evil spirits, (the word demon meaning both, as any classic will allow-demonology, converse with spirits, whether divine or diabolic, or neither but human) have ceased since our Saviour's departure from this earth, or at all events since the time of the Apostles. I am not attempting to claim a Divine origin for what is now happening in different parts of the world. I equally disbelieve the diabolic element which some assert, who cannot get over the facts, and who take omne ignotum pro horribile. I merely state my belief in their super-humanity, by which I mean their super-corporeal agency. I take it there is a state which is neither heaven nor hell, neither peopled by all saints nor all sinners—an intermediate condition, the in-dwellers of which are all mankind divested of this fleshy envelope that now so hampers and impedes us, ourselves in fact when we pass from this world, at first much the same in wishes and aspirations, in affections and repulsions. Who is bold enough to assert that these disembodied spirits, may not, and under certain favourable conditions do not communicate with us? This is the agency I believe in all these phenomena phenomena that, in many instances, have convinced unbelievers in a future state. I have prefaced my account with these remarks to shew, as near as I can judge of myself, the bias of my mind, and the pros and cons that existed therein on this subject. I proceed now to give you, as far as my memory serves me, a true account of our twe séances, trusting that any of the party present will correct me in those points in which I may appear to them to have erred. I desire to "nothing extenuate, or aught set down in malice." Sufficient interval has elapsed to enable me to review the matter dispassionately.

Our circle consisted, the first evening, of nine persons, of which five were ladies and four gentlemen. Two of the ladies were personally unknown to all in the room, though we were well acquainted with their relatives, with whom they were then staying in the neighbourhood, and whose place they had taken owing to the absence of one (their host) and the indisposition of the other (their hostess). We did not even know their names or dream of their existence, till the evening in question. The third lady was a Mrs. H, an old friend and neighbour. The fourth and fifth were wife and sister to the writer. the gentlemen, one was father, the other brother-in-law, to the writer. Mr. Home and the writer formed the quartette. Mr. Home's request we seated ourselves at an ordinary sized

Of

round drawing-room table, placing our hands, some one and some both, on the table. We had not been seated more than a few minutes, before a tremulous motion was felt in the table, and also in our chairs a sensible but gentle vibration. On putting the ear close to the table a curious noise was detected, as if a number of pin-points had been jobbed against its surface. These were not heard by all. I heard them distinctly myself. The table then began to oscillate and tip from side to side, and a light rapping was heard on different parts of the table, under our chairs, and at the back of some of the pictures-in fact all around us. Mr. Home said he thought a communication could be obtained, when, as if in response, the raps became more frequent and louder. All this I am quite willing to allow was nothing very marvellous, but how account for what follows? Mr. Home told me to ask the power or being, or whatever it might be, to make the table unnaturally heavy on my side. I did so; and, on trying to lift it up, though a very muscular man, I found it required a great exertion to raise my side from the ground. I had to get up from my chair to do it, and the effort sent the blood hotly to my face. It was then requested to make my side light, and I lifted it easily, or rather it scarcely needed lifting. I would here observe that Mr. Home sat opposite me, and thus, though by pressure on his side he might make mine lighter, he could by no possibility make it heavier. I can with the greatest ease take the entire table and carry it from one room to another; and did so the next evening with less exertion than it then required to lift one side a few inches from the ground. On the question being asked, "Is this done by a spirit?" three raps were heard, which the medium said was an affirmative answer. Mr. Home now desired any one at the table to take pencil and paper, and call out the alphabet, and as the raps came to any letter to write it down. My brother-in-law took the pencil, and first one, and then another repeated the alphabet. Q. If a spirit, what is your name?-A. George. No one seemed for a moment to connect the name with any one in particular. All at once, however, the younger of the two strange ladies exclaimed, "Oh, mamma! Why, it is not George? then suddenly stopped short. Q. What is your other name ?-A. Page. I shall never forget, as long as I live, the expressions of wonder, astonishment and delight that succeeded each other on the expressive faces of both mother and daughter. Though nothing to us, that name, to them it was a whole history. They were breathless with interest and excitement. Q. What do you want to say to us?-4. I, George Page, am come to thank you for all your kindness to me. I must have been very troublesome at times, Marianne. Q. Could mortal woman have done more for

you are