"THE King is dead! Long live the King!" is a salutation with which we may hail every New Year as it enters on its reign, and more appropriately than it could ever have been addressed to the members of any royal dynasty. For what rule is so ancient or so strong-what sway so wide-what succession so certain as that of Old King Time? And so 1863 is gathered to his fathers, and 1864 reigns in his stead! The holly is yet green on the grave of the Old Year, as the bells, which toll his death, with merry peals ring in the new. Every one wishes him happiness; and all who can, hail his accession with rejoicing and festive sports. Here, in our editorial arm-chair, we bid him welcome. May his reign be less troubled than that of his predecessor! Under it, may philosophers grow wiser, and critics more modest, and readers multiply, and thoughtfully digest what they read! But, though sorely tempted, we are not going to begin the year with a homily. In the New Year which has dawned, we anticipate for our Magazine new contributors and new readers, and to retain the old ones. Considering the obstacles we have had to contend with, it is something that we now enter upon our fifth year, and are able to mark how, all around us, as the years have rolled on, prejudices have subsided, fallacies have been exposed, sophistries refuted, an ever-increasing body of facts accumulated, books multiplied, and converts from scepticism and materialism have continued to join our ranks. It is true that death has taken from us some friends, but we know that the spiritual world gains by the loss of this. We indeed sadly miss them in the common ways and walks of life, but, though invisible, we know they are often with us,-that their ministrations have not ceased; that they have but changed their form and those special characteristics which attach to the life of earth. And so, in the assurance that our faith is a true and a consolatory one, which the world needs, and the more that it is not VOL. V. A sensible of its need-that we, however inadequately, deal with a class of facts, and represent a philosophy, which has no other organ in the periodical press of this country-and that our humble efforts have not been without some good result, we again gird up our loins for the labours of another year, which we hope may be not less fruitful than the past. If, during it, we bring but to one soul a conviction of the great truths of a life beyond death of a spiritual world-of his consequent duties and relations, and of the blessed company of immortals which, even in this life, the pure in heart gather around them by holy aspirations and loving acts, sure we are that such an one, and we also in the knowledge of the fact, will abundantly realize what we wish to all our readers-A HAPPY NEW YEAR. SPIRITUAL SPHERES AND ATMOSPHERES. II. BEFORE entering upon an enquiry into the nature and mode of existence of spiritual emanations or spheres, which is my special object, I will venture to mention yet a few other of the many phenomena which seem to me to suggest their operation. And in doing so, let me repeat, that I do not pretend to be offering evidence. I speak of facts which come within the range of every one's observation, and in stating them I wish only to group them together, as phenomena springing from the operation of the same laws. I have frequently observed that a friend or acquaintance will make a call, just when one has been thinking about him, as though his approach were perceived before he arrived in person. Doubtless, also, in many cases, the friend is at that moment thinking of the person he is about to call upon. Sometimes, however, one thinks of a person just before meeting him unexpectedly in the street. Probably in most of these cases there is a feeling of the person's approaching sphere, of which the external consciousness takes no note. Sometimes two friends, who are together in the same room, or walking together, is each silently pursuing his own train of thought. The thoughts of one of them will wander to something entirely unconnected with any previous conversation or with any business on hand, and immediately the other makes some remark on the same subject; showing that, without any outward suggesting cause, the thoughts of the one have followed the other's thoughts to the same subject. I have long observed that every town has its own special |