they give us conviction, and assured knowledge for wavering belief.

13th. The chief motives which induce spirits to communicate with men appear to be a benevolent desire to convince us, past doubt or denial, that there is a world to come; now and then the attraction of unpleasant memories, such us murder or suicide, sometimes in the worldly minded the earth-binding influence of cumber and trouble, but far more frequently the divine impulse of human affection, seeking the good of the loved ones it has left behind, and at times drawn down, perhaps, by their yearning cries.

14th. Under unfavourable or imperfect conditions, spiritual communications, how honestly reported soever, often prove vapid and valueless. And this chiefly happens when communications are too assiduously sought or continuously persisted in, brief volunteered messages being the most trustworthy. Imprudence, inexperience, supineness, or the idiosyncrasy of the recipient, may occasionally result in arbitrary control by spirits of a low order, as men here sometimes yield to the infatuation exerted by evil associates; or again, there may be exerted by the inquirer, especially if dogmatic and self-willed, a dominating influence over the medium so strong as to produce effects that might be readily mistaken for what has been called possession. As a general rule, however, any person of common intelligence and ordinary will, can in either case cast off such mischievous control, or if the weak or incautious give way, one who may not improperly be called an exorcist, if possessed by strong magnetic will, moved by benevolence, and it may be aided by prayer, can usually rid, or at least, assist to rid, the sensitive from such abnormal influence.

ADDENDA.

HOW TO FORM SPIRIT CIRCLES.

INQUIRERS into the spiritual philosophy should begin by forming circles in their own homes. No professional medium is necessary, but should any friend have studied the subject, and his attendance be obtainable for the first sitting of the circle, his experience may be of benefit in facilitating its proper formation, and in initiating the investigation. Should no results be obtainable on the first occasion, try again with the sitters. One or more persons possessing medial powers, without knowing it, are to be found in nearly every household.

1st. Let the room be of a comfortable temperature, but cool rather than warm. Let arrangements be made that nobody shall enter it, and that there shall be no interruption for one hour, during the sitting of the circle.

2nd. Let the circle consist of four, five, or six individuals; about the same number of each sex. Sit round an uncovered, wooden table, with all the palms of the hands in contact with its top surface. Whether the hands touch each other or not, is usually of no importance. Any table will do, just large enough to accommodate the sitters. The removal of a hand from the table for a few seconds does no harm; but when one of the sitters breaks the circle by leaving the table, it sometimes, but not always, very considerably delays the manifestation.

3rd. Before the sitting begins, place some pointed lead

pencils and some sheets of clean writing-paper on the table, to write down any communications that may be obtained.

4th. People who do not like one another should not sit in the same circle, for such a want of harmony tends to prevent manifestations, except with well-developed physical mediums; it is not yet known why.

Belief, or unbelief, has no influence on the manifestations; but an acrid feeling against them has a weakening influence.

5th. Before the manifestations commence, it is well to engage in general conversation, or in singing; and it is best that neither should be of a frivolous nature. A prayerful, earnest feeling among the members of the circle gives the higher spirits more power to come to the circle, and makes it more difficult for the lower spirits to get near.

6th. The first symptom of the invisible power at work, is often a feeling like a cool wind sweeping over the hands. The first manifestations will probably be table tiltings, or raps.

7th. When motions of the table, or sounds, are produced freely, to avoid confusion let one person speak only, and talk to the table (as it were) as to an intelligent being. Let him tell the table that three tilts or raps mean "yes," one means "no," two mean "doubtful;" then ask whether the arrangement is understood. If three signals be given in answer, then say: "If I speak the letters of the alphabet slowly, will you signal every time I come to the letter you want, and, so, spell us out a message?" Should three signals be given, set to work on the plan proposed; and from this time, an intelligent system of communication is established.

8th. Afterwards, the question should be put, "Are we sitting in the right order to obtain the best manifestations ?" Probably some members of the circle will then be told to change seats with one another; and the signals will be afterwards strengthened. Next ask, "Who is the medium ?" When spirits come, asserting themselves to be related or known to

anybody present, well-chosen questions should be put to test the accuracy of the statements, as spirits out of the body have all the virtues and all the failings of spirits in the body.

9th. A powerful physical medium is usually a person of an impulsive, affectionate and genial nature, and very sensitive to mesmeric influences. The majority of media are ladies. The best manifestations are obtained when the medium and all the members of the circle are strongly bound together by the affections, and are thoroughly comfortable and happy. The manifestations are born of the spirit, and shrink somewhat from the lower mental influences of earth. Family circles, with no strangers present, are usually the best. Possibly, at the first meeting of a circle, symptoms of other forms of mediumship than tilts or raps may make their appearance.-(From the London Spiritualist.)

In order to show the tendency of popular opinion in regard to the lingering superstitions of the dark ages, I append a copy of a leading article in the Argus newspaper of 31st March, 1875, which is the principal daily paper of Victoria, and from which I have previously made various extracts:—

"One of our Ballarat contemporaries addresses a moving appeal to the Government to set apart a day of humiliation and prayer for the terrible visitation of disease to which this community is now, and has been for some time past, subjected." The article is written in too serious a strain to justify us in regarding it as a grim jest; and we have, therefore, no option but to accept it as a genuine evidence of the existence in this colony of a form of superstition as gross and degrading as that of the Indian rain-maker, or of the savage who beats his tomtom for the purpose of putting an end to an eclipse. If there be one lesson which all history, all science, and all experience combine to teach us more impressively than another, it is this: that every epidemic is necessary, nay, the salutary consequence

and penalty of the violation of a natural law. Nor can our ignorance of that law be pleaded in mitigation of the punishment which its transgression entails. The rules for the pre

servation of health, and for securing immunity from disease, are simple enough and intelligible enough. During the last half century more particularly have they been laid down with admirable perspicuity and precision by a host of eminent members of the faculty, from Dr. Southwood Smith to Dr. William Budd. There is no mystery about the laws which govern health; but they are unchangeable and irreversible, and if we choose to oppose them, they "fall upon us and grind us to powder." To implore the all-wise Author of them to suspend them, or to set them aside because we have thought proper to ignore or to act in contravention of them, is such a proceeding as could only be resorted to by persons whose anthropomorphic conceptions of God are so debasing and debased as to assume that He is as capricious and vacillating as an Oriental potentate. It would be as reasonable to pray for a reversal of the earth's motion on its axis, for a retardation of the speed with which it travels round the sun, or for the transformation of a stalk of wheat into a sugar-cane or a palmtree. It is now very generally acknowledged that all zymotic diseases are the outgrowth of a seed sown and developed in the human system, and that this seed has an amazing power of self-multiplication and reproduction, like all the lower forms of organic life.

"And what," asks Professor Tyndall, 66 are the crops that arise from this husbandry? As surely as a thistle rises from a thistle-seed, as surely as the fig comes from the fig, the grape from the grape, and the thorn from the thorn; so surely does the typhoid virus increase and multiply into typhoid fever, the scarlatina virus into scarlatina, and the small-pox virus into small-pox."

When our fields are overrun with thistles, and our pastures