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intensity of her strong nature, "God has never lit on your soul as He has on ours. My husband has but one life, and that life is the cause of spiritualism; he has but one truth, and that is the truth of spiritualism; and he has but one God, and that is the God of the spirits."

The friend left her, and appealed to William Fletcher, on behalf of the British National Association of Spiritualists. "Do you consider," he said, "the danger you are in? Your placard is of no use. Do not profess to explain the power given you; give it as mental phenomena." Our medium rose from his chair, and with burning indignation said: "There are only two things which will force me to stop giving my sittings, and claiming that they are given under the direct control of spirits; one is a prison, the other is death. I give my sittings, not as a' mental phenomenon,' but as a trance-medium, under the direct control of spirits. If I If I am arrested, I shall only be another martyr for the truth, and if you get twenty more souls in bondage you will alter the law; should I be one of those who will help to do it, I shall count myself a happy man."

Note. Henry Slade's offer to Ray Lankester :

"DEAR SIR,-Dr. Slade having in some measure recovered from his very severe illness, and his engagement at St. Petersburg having been postponed (by desire of his friends there) till the autumn, desires me to make the following offer:

"He is willing to return to London for the express and sole purpose of satisfying you that the slate-writing occurring in his presence is in no way produced by any trickery of his. For this purpose he will come to your house, unaccompanied by anyone, and will sit with you at your own table, using your

own slate and pencil; or if you prefer to come to his room it will suit him as well.

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'In the event of any arrangement being agreed upon, Slade would prefer that the matter should be kept strictly private.

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'As he can never guarantee results, you shall give him as many as six trials, and more if it shall be deemed advisable.

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'And you shall be put to no charge or expense whatever. "You on your part shall undertake that during the period of the sittings, and for one week afterwards, you will neither take nor cause to be taken, nor countenance legal proceedings against him

or me.

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That, if in the end you are satisfied that the slate-writing is produced otherwise than by trickery, you shall abstain altogether from further proceedings against us, and suffer us to remain in England, if we choose to do so, unmolested by you.

"If, on the other hand, you are not satisfied, you shall be at liberty to proceed against us, after the expiration of one week from the conclusion of the six or more experiments, if we are still in England. You will observe that Slade is willing to go to you without witnesses of his own, and to trust entirely to your honour and good faith.

"Conscience of his own innocence, he has no malice against you for the past. He believes that you were very naturally deceived by appearances, which to one who had not previously verified the phenomena under more satisfactory conditions, may well have seemed suspicious.

"Should we not hear from you within ten days from this date, Slade will conclude that you have declined his offer.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
"J. SIMMONS."

"37, Spui Straat, The Hague, May 7th, 1877.”

To this no reply was vouchsafed.

CHAPTER V.

WINONA AND SPIRIT IDENTITY.

"Ah! Christ, that it were possible

For one short hour to see

The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be !"

WHAT the poet dreamed of becomes a realised fact in

the presence of our seer. He does behold the "souls we loved"—and they do indeed tell us through his lips "what and where they be." Thrice blessed power of vision! Who-if they did but know it as some do-would not hasten to spend an hour-short though it might be in the company of him who sees what we would give all we possess to look upon-the well-remembered forms and faces of those who were once with us in the mortal form, and who do all they can to let us know that they live and love us still? That this is "possible," let these chapters declare.

"To be able," says a journal noted for its antagonism to spiritualism, in an article on Galton's psychological experiments, "at all times to recall that dead face vividly, and with the passing changes we knew so well sweeping over it like clouds of a summer day over the sea, or wind over the fields of corn-what would most people not give?" Yet this refers to a mere effort of imagination, exercised by a person recalling the form of one he well remembers. Change it into a living vision seen by a stranger, who describes it to the life, who delivers messages understood by

you and not by him, who gives you proof that not a vision, but an intelligent being stands by your side, one who remembers you and incidents of the past, one who reads. your thoughts and knows the innermost events of your life, -and that wish is once more answered by a fact. It is my desire both to make it known and to explain it.

Winona is the gentle spirit who entrances her medium, and utters the messages of the anxious crowd who stand around her, and who are eager to give the smallest word of affection, or token of identity, to their friends on earth. And who is Winona? She is the most faithful spirit-friend and guardian that a human being could possess, and one of the first spirits who manifested themselves to William Fletcher. She came to him just after his visit to Maine, and soon obtained the confidence which he has, from that time to. this, placed in her fidelity and truthfulness. It was a. pleasant change, also, from the brief companionship of a spirit called "Wanafa," whom he graphically described as. "gossiping," and who attached herself to him for a while. She had nothing to say about the spirit-world; nothing to teach on the momentous truths of the unseen life, but spent her time in reporting everything she witnessed among the people around him, which interested her far more than it did her medium. Very different in nature and in purpose was Winona, who had returned to the life of earth after a long and peaceful rest in the other world, because her spirit was ripe for the great work to be accomplished through William Fletcher's mediumship. Her history as a. mortal is a brief and pathetic one. She, also, was a. martyr-spirit, and as a beautiful Indian maiden, of partly English descent, had chosen, many hundreds of years ago,

in the cruel struggle between the white man and the child of the forest, death to captivity. She is wonderfully intelligent and observant, and often exhibits that love of poetry which seems inherent in her race, and which made Hiawatha such a fitting inspiration for a poem. "The soul climbs by its tendrils," she once wrote through my hand, and I thought, as I saw the words, that they were as beautiful as they were true.

My readers will forgive me for quoting at length the following lines, spoken through Mrs. Conant, by the mother of Winona, as they briefly embody, in simple and musical words, the touching account of her fate. improvisation.

"In the sunlight, in the starlight,

In the moons of long ago

Ere the virgin soil of Shawmut

Quivered 'neath the white man's plow ;

Ere the great lakes and the rivers
Listened to the white man's song;

Ere the Father of all Waters

Bore them in his strong arms on ;

On, from distant lands and wigwams,
Where the sun from slumber comes,
Where the warriors hear the war-whoop
In the voices of the drums;

Lived Winona-child of Nature!

They are an

First-born, beauteous, dark-browed maid,

At whose coming fair Metoka

Where the flowers bloom was laid,—

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