as it had been handed to her. This has to be regarded as a beautiful specimen of psychometric mediumship.

PHILADELPHIA, March 23, 1855.

1064. My dear Brother John: Your communication last evening at our circle of "progress" afforded me much gratification, as you are doubtless aware from your pervading perception. I regret that circumstances do not allow of a more frequent intercourse with my beloved friends of the spirit land. It is also my ardent desire to hold communion with all my spirit relatives, and would wish with you, my dear brother, to bring about this delightful consummation.

1065. Your injunction of cheerfulness, as an efficient means of securing a healthful equilibrium of the vital organism, I can fully appreciate, and shall endeavour to profit by your welcome brotherly and excellent advice, as far as circumstances will permit. It is true, my dear John, that a longer sojourn here harmonizes with my desire to effect some objects, the accomplishment of which would probably add to my happiness here, and my claim for congenial association. The object to which I allude is the amelioration of the condition of the poor and wretched of my fellow-creatures, making them through my agency the recipients of some active benevolence.

1066. I have imbibed the opinion, that the only acceptable offering at the throne of the great God, is the actual performance of those duties which are incumbent on us as individuals and social beings; beginning with the establishment of our own personal physical and moral character, and those of our own household and immediate social circle of relatives and friends; and then, to the accomplishment of this, to cultivate the sentiment. of benevolence in aiding to promote the individual welfare of mankind in the use of what talent and other means may have fallen to our lot. I am prone, in my relations with the great Omnipotent Ruler of the universe, to apply the time-honoured maxim, "Actions speak louder than words."

1067. Your invitation, my dear brother, to increase my intercourse with my spirit friends, finds in my heart and mind a very ready compliance. You propose a daily appropriation of time to this object. If you will do me the favour to appoint the time most agreeable to them and most desirable for myself, it shall be, to the fullest extent of my power, sacredly devoted to a duty and pleasure that are nearest to my heart.

1068. I feel the assurance that the good earth-character and intelligence of my spirit family, and the extent of our mutual love and affinity, afford me a more than ordinary opportunity for receiving information of that bright world which has become a delightful prospective inheritance to me and to thousands of doubting, fearful, and despairing minds.

1069. Your inspiring cheerfulness, my dear John, has already verified your sensible prognostic of the great influence on disease of a cheerful mind. I have learnt to entertain a high opinion of the bright intelligence

and clairvoyance of the more elevated denizens of the spirit world; and shall always, therefore, regard any advice that may be offered me for the better government of my body and soul as a welcome and precious offering from those I love. I will close for the present with the assurance of my unaltered affection. WILLIAM.

1070. My dear Brother: With heartfelt love and affection I respond to your letter in reply to a message which I delivered through the instrumentality of our devoted friend, Mrs. Gourlay. During our happy interchange of thought, it will be my endeavour to suggest such ideas to your mind as may serve to elevate it and develope its capabilities. To the mind that is ignorant and prejudiced, this mode of communion with the invisible world may seem to be a direct violation and infringement of nature's laws; but it is, on the contrary, not only natural, but perfectly legitimate to the age in which you now live. It is not a new revelation, but simply the discovery of hidden truths peculiarly adapted to the present advanced state of the race. It is old material in a new form. The material and spiritual elements are contributing, as never before, to the elevation and happiness of mankind, and already is established a spiritual telegraph on which I am at this moment successfully operating-sending a message of love to you, my brother.

1071. You say my words of cheer have wrought a change for the better in your system. This is a result which naturally follows a strict adherence to my prescription-cheerfulness.

1072. You desire to know what time would be most advisable for you to sit for spiritual communion. I would say, early in the morning, before the mind becomes taxed with the cares of the day, make a record of your impressions.

1073. You observe that it gives you great pleasure to receive messages from those in the spirit world who are bound to you by the ties of relationship. Let me assure you, my dear brother, that the feeling is mutual; and while time lasts with you, it will be our endeavour to gladden your heart with tokens of our increasing and untiring love. Your cup of happiness shall be filled to the brim, if it depends on us.

1074. Brother, may you meet with friends true and kind; may the labours of the cheerful morn render each day a happier one to you; and when night steals upon a slumbering world, may you close your outward eyes in peace with all mankind! Keep the mind's sunshine bright! You have a soul to feel for others' woes, and this is the true stamp of divinity.

JOHN.

The Hymeneal Tie in the Spirit World grows out of the necessity of the Connubial Union in the Mundane Sphere. "Free love” imputation refuted.*

1075. SOME peculiar views respecting marriage, which are not consistent with the ideas of female delicacy and chastity heretofore entertained, have been designated by the name of "Free Love," and have been commented on as proceeding from the spirit world. I am happy to say that, agreeably to the impressions which I have derived from my spirit friends, any doctrine, having a tendency of the kind thus described, would be at least as much censured in the spirit world as in this. As the best mode of removing this groundless imputation on Spiritualism, I will state the impressions which I entertain on the subject of marriage.

1076. Among the sources of happiness in the spirit world much insisted on is that resulting from a combined union of those really created for each other. The marriage contracted in this world, loses its binding power in the spirit world, yet may endure if mutually desired. If a husband has had several wives, or a wife several husbands, the tie endures only between the most congenial pair.†

1077. Sexual association is the means throughout nature by which the perpetuation of species is effected. But that this association may exist among human beings without degradation, it is manifestly necessary that it should not be indiscriminate. Not only delicacy, modesty, and the cultivation of congenial affection, but likewise the interests of offspring, require that the parents and children should form one family. The welfare of children, their equal duty to both parents, and natural affections between the parents and their children, must make a separation painful to all parties, however affection may have declined between the husband and wife, on the part of either or both.

1078. Hence, in the mundane sphere, the perpetuation of the human race consistently with decorum, and the welfare of offspring, and the happiness of the parties, especially the mother and wife, seems to be the great object of matrimony. In the spheres it is difficult to perceive how any motives of equally high importance can exist. It must be that connubial union in the spirit world rather grows out of marriage in this world, in order to fill up the void in the heart which might otherwise

This article should have been inserted earlier, but was mislaid.

The fact that my father, my brother, my nephew, and my friend General Cadwalader, are each residing with their mundane wives, proves that in this world a hymeneal torch may be lighted, which may not be extinguished by death.

arise from our mundane habits. It would seem as if it were a benevolent indemnification for celibacy, or for the miseries so often resulting from the connubial state in this world, consequent, like the sufferings of child-bearing, to the perpetuation of mankind.

1079. It seems to me an error to suppose that the terrestrial marriage can be a secondary object with God, when the important part which it performs is taken into view.

1080. Incapacity to maintain a family often renders it impossible for those who would marry to come together, and worldly motives induce marriages, even when disgust or indifference may exist on the part of one, if not on that of both the parties.

1081. It seems, moreover, even where marriage actually results from the passion of love, that it is more or less the consequence of a species of hallucination, through which lovers deck an object with all that they would wish to exist in the way of merit, and feel toward them an affection proportionate to their own capacity to love, rather than of the degree of power in the object, reasonably to excite such intense partiality. It is thus that the love of the mother to the child she believes to be her own, will be powerful in proportion to her own capacity for maternal love, rather than of the child to excite love; since though it be a monster, and not really her own child, but fraudulently substituted therefor, it will cause no diminution of her maternal devotion.

1082. It is the impression on the mind that determines the object to which the passion is directed; the character of the being actuated by the passion, which determines its strength.

1083. But where to all those qualifications which would create friendship between persons of the same sex, the peculiar emotions which take place between those of different sexes are superadded, those who come together in this world under the hymeneal tie, may find it something more than a mere civil contract, and not terminated by death. Moreover, independently of the original passion, there arises an affection which is justly distinguished as conjugal, and which differs from the other in this highly important particular, that it is founded on a thorough reciprocal knowledge, instead of that ignorance which too often accompanies attachments produced by the arrows of the blind god, as Cupid is sometimes designated with figurative consistency.

1084. Having always supposed that independently of the emotions peculiar to the sexes, there could only be friendship between a man and woman like that which would exist between a brother and sister, I am at a loss to understand what it can be which, in the spiritual state of existence, can induce indissoluble marriage.

1085. On submitting the suggestions comprised in the preceding statement to the spirit to whom I owe much information, herein quoted, and

to the spirit of a most intimate male friend, by both it was alleged that peculiar emotions were attendant on sexual affection in the spheres, as well as on earth, so far as consistent with the absence of that which exists in common with brutes.

THE MORALITY OF CHRISTENDOM BEING IRRECONCILABLE WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT, CANNOT BE ITS LEGITIMATE OFFSPRING. Inspiration can have no higher authority, than the human testimony on which its existence is arrogated.

1086. Is it not a mistake to suppose that any doctrine gains any validity by claiming inspiration as its source, when there is nothing but human testimony to advance in support of that claim? For if in the instance of Spiritualism, human testimony is deemed to be unavailable, how comes it to avail when adduced in support of this arrogant claim of inspiration? As well might a man expect to cure the defect of a marshy foundation by substituting columns of iron for wooden posts, or that, while resting on wood, the support could be made firmer by introducing iron into the super

structure.

1087. As the introduction of the iron would diminish the competency of the foundation in proportion to the augmentation of weight, so the claim to inspiration lessens the competency of the testimony upon which it is advanced, proportionally as the incredibility is increased.

1088. But as respects the ancient witnesses, their own statements make them out unworthy of confidence. Facts or circumstances are stated which are manifestly blasphemous, inconsistent, and absurd, if not impossible. Thus a want of veracity or of discretion being demonstrated in some points, is sufficient to destroy validity in all.

1089. Revelation assumes God to be omnipotent, omniscient, prescient, and all good, yet represents him as under the necessity of subjecting his creatures to probation, to find out what, by the premises, he must foresee. It represents him while wishing his creatures to know him and his attributes, as not teaching them that which he wishes them to learn, yet punishing them and their posterity for ignorance arising from his own omission.

1090. It does not suffice to allege that the Old Testament taught God's will to the Jews; since it is to me incredible that our Heavenly Father would give instruction of vital importance to a few of his children, leaving all the rest uninstructed, and yet afflict them for this result. But, admitting this possible, it appears that the instruction given the Jews in