be transformed. Their habits become spiritual dis eases with them.

Now, as to marriage, the mere form does not make the wife different from the courtezan, but her love. exalts her above that condition. If she be united to a man who is repulsive to her nature, and yet submits to his embraces for the considerations of family, or home, or public opinion, she is on the same plane with the courtezan.

It is a proposition generally believed, that there is a soul-mate for every human being, and it is usually supposed that in the spirit world those mates are found, and that those united there live together inseparably. But as there exists in the spirit world the same states, the same variety of progressive development among men and women as in this world, so unions are formed there in which one soul develops beyond the capacity of the other, and in such cases changes must ensue.

I will now speak of marriages more in detail.

In the summer land the union of the man with the woman occurs from very similar causes to those which bring about like unions upon earth- the man is drawn to the woman and the woman to the man through the operation of a natural law. If instinct were not so impaired by the cultivation of the external faculties, there would arise but little difficulty on earth in selecting partners adapted to each other. Considerations of wealth and position are permitted to influence your selections rather than the idea of congeniality and adaptability.

In spirit life this method is reversed, and the mar

riages formed there are productive of greater happiness than those among men in the first condition. of life.

But as I have stated, marriage in the spirit world is not an indissoluble bond. Some minds associate together in harmony and expand in the same direction, and with these the union is permanent. I have seen such in the spirit world,- beautiful and noble souls intertwined and aspiring together.

There be others whose states and conditions after a time become changed. Such seek new companions, and this is permitted without discredit to the individuals.

Many forms of marriage ceremonies are extant in the different societies and countries. Garlands of flowers and symphonies of divine music are bestowed upon the bride and groom. Bright bands of spirits from the celestial heavens attend them, for they represent in their love and in their wedded joy the harmonies of nature!

While they love, sin, sorrow, darkness, and all evils shrink from sight.

From these spiritual marriages are born soul attributes. Human beings are never generated in the second condition; they need what is known as the material world for their nurture and growth; and yet I understand that in some of the more refined spiritual existences births have occurred. The beings born there are indigenous-not generated by earth parents, but offspring of those refined conditions.

I know not of this as a fact; yet if we take the old Jewish Bible as a history, we find an analogous state

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