ment there in the assertion that Christ was born of God in a spiritual state of existence previous to entering this earth plane.

Spirit soils and atmosphere interblend and produce trees, shrubs, flowers, and the cereals, but the human being, after the second birth, ceases to reproduce his species. His children are thoughts born of the spirit. After birth succeeds death. The soul passes through many stages of existence in the process of refinement. The next state of existence to the material, I term the spiritual, and the one beyond that the celestial, and beyond that the seraphic.

In the next state, to which I in common with all men who have not passed some hundreds of years in the spirit world belong, individuals pass through a condition analogous to death upon the earth.

Spiritual bodies are subject to a process of refinement and decay; and the soul, as the winged butterfly to which it is likened, throws off its cerement and assumes a new form.

But with us the transmigration is not veiled in darkness and mystery as with you. We can watch the transformation; we can see the spirit emerge from its old casement more ethereal than ourselves, but still visible; and we can hold communion with it.

So slight is this change with us that your mediums seldom touch upon the fact.

Spirit is inseparable from matter, and can give neither form nor expression without it.

The Great Invisible Creator of the Universe must

have thought of trees, flowers, beasts, birds, fish, and the wonderful exhibitions of form through the vast realm of matter, previous to their existence.

But he had to give them shape in matter — perishable but re-creative matter; and if the Master-mind of all cannot express his thought otherwise than with this ever changing, yet ever reconstructing thing called matter, how can the human soul manifest but through a spiritualized condition of matter, ever changing yet ever re-creating and refining, mounting higher and higher, from the earthly to the spiritual, from the spiritual to the celestial, on-on-till finally reaches Deity-himself!

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.

ACTING.

ALL great actors are media for spirit influx. It would be a marvellous sight if the curtain which hangs between the spirit world and the stage were uplifted, and the invisible drama which is being enacted exposed to view. Then would you behold "the airy spirits" to whom Shakspeare so truthfully alludes, moving like comets in gorgeous light around the inspired actor!

Inspiration is motion, acceleration, intensity; it has no part or parcel with lethargy.

I recall my past experience, portions of which I review with regret. In endeavoring to obtain this energy, this motion, this acceleration, I was obliged in my ignorance to resort to artificial means. A knowledge of the laws of spirit life would have enabled me to have avoided this mistake; but that knowledge I did not possess.

The actor of the present day is blessed with the knowledge that.he has merely to throw himself into the magnetic state, and become en rapport with spiritual conditions, to find himself inspired-inflated with the divine magnetic current which flows

from the spirit world to the inhabitants of earth. If a player desires to represent a certain character,-let it be the subtle, fiend-like Richard III. or the crafty Richelieu, the customary mode of studying such characters is to endeavor to imagine one's self to be the person. That is the first step towards mediumship; for it is one degree from the natural, towards the superior state. Usually, through ignorance, the student proceeds no further than this point; and the spirit assistants can only partially aid him. But an actor possessing the knowledge of placing himself en rapport with these characters, whether traditional or real, is immediately cut loose from his surroundings and becomes the Richard or Richelieu whom he would personate.

From the brain of every spirit medium ascends a blazing sun, which burns the brighter when the magnetic relations between it and the spirit world are most perfect. This blazing light, this radiant effulgence, is perceived instinctively, though not knowingly, by every individual who listens to a discourse from a "trance medium." So from the brain of the actor this glorious light throws out its rays into the assembly, and when he becomes fully inspired, its magnetic influence is felt with overpowering vividness; and the result is, the audience themselves are set in motion, and from pit to gallery you hear vociferous applause.

There are actors who are good, and who acquire fame, who have never felt this divine afflatus. The intellect of the audience appreciates them for their declamation, for the art and artifice which they mani

fest; but the humblest and most illiterate of that assembly know well that this studied eloquence does not fire the brain.

But it will not do to trust blindly to spirit control; a knowledge and constant study of human nature is necessary.

It is a well-known fact that a person steadily looking at one point will influence twenty others to look at that point also, and to imagine they see some object before them. Understanding this principle, you may work upon each attribute in the minds of your audience. If fear is to be aroused, do as your neighbor does as he hastily enters your house after meeting with a fearful calamity. You become excited before even hearing the evil which has befallen him. Every faculty can be acted upon in the same manner — grief and joy alike.

Of the ventriloquial powers of the human voice, many speakers are ignorant. The tyro on the stage wishing to make the remotest individual in his audience hear, bawls at the top of his lungs. He is unaware that the organs of the human voice are a kind of electrical machine, governed by the will-power, and that the actor has merely to throw his will and direct his mind to a given point, for his voice to reach that point and produce a far more startling effect than the loudest blast that any pair of lungs could bring forth. Thus the lowest whisper can be made to tell at the farthest corner of the theatre.

But perhaps I have said enough of the methods

adapted to produce representations of character