"A table moves (he writes) and apparently without any aid or assistance from those around it. Professor Faraday gives as his opinion, that the movement is the result of unconscious muscular, or nervous agency; and I am free to confess that, if the phenomenon had not been further developed, I dared not have ventured to have gainsayed the conclusion of Faraday; but pursue the enquiry, and you will find that tables not only move from side to side, and round and round, but they are raised perpendicularly from the ground. Twelve of my family and friends were seated round my drawingroom table, all had their hands on the surface, on the table was a large moderator lamp in full light; the table was raised at least six inches from the ground and waved in the air, at such angle that the lamp under ordinary circumstances must have fallen off. One of the party, a clergyman of the Church of England, was so surprised, that he held up his hands, exclaiming the laws of gravitation are suspended.'

We sat in circle again and again; in addition to the movement, loud knocks were heard; they did not proceed from any of the persons present. We had been told that these sounds were made by some unseen and intelligent being who wished to communicate -and that if any of us would call the alphabet, there would be a sound or knock at the letter wanted-that each letter so sounded or knocked at would form a word, and that the several words would be the sentence to be communicated-we did so, and the result was invariable. On the occasion I allude to, the sounds or knocks on the table were loud and distinct;-we asked if the alphabet was wanted, and if so to give five knocks on the table-five loud knocks were immediately given, which were heard by all at the table. The letters of the alphabet were then repeated, and at each of the letters there was a distinct knock;-by this means we had repeated communications, all of which bore the stamp of intelligence, still I hesitated to conclude, and determined to continue my investigations. We recorded every incident,- -we sat in circle-our friends were admitted,―strangers were invited,—and certainly not fewer than one hundred persons had the opportunity of witnessing and examining at my house.

Sir David Brewster, Mrs. Trollope the authoress, and her son Thomas Trollope, my brother a man of intelligence, a friend a collegiate, Mr. Home (in whose presence wonderful physical manifestations took place), and the members of my own family were present one summer evening. The table at which we sat was a long telescope dining table, having two legs at each end and none in the centre. One end was occupied by Mr. Trollope, Sir David Brewster, and my eldest girl, Mr. Home sat about the centre of one side, having Mrs. Trollope on his left; I sat at the other end, the others present occupying the remainder of the table. There was no cloth or drapery of any kind; Sir David was invited to look under the table and make every investigation, and he did most

properly avail himself of the opportunity afforded him by carefully looking under the table, both before sounds were heard and during the time they were being made. On this occasion I find recorded, in the handwriting of my brother, a short account of what took place; I will give you it in his own words: "Table moved from side to side, raised at one end, raised entirely from the ground; Sir David tried to lift the table, sometimes he could not, at other times he could, or, as Sir David said, 'the table was made light and heavy at command.'”

I purchased an accordion, it was called for: hymns and tunes were played, and without any visible agency. After the party broke up, Sir David, in the course of conversation, said, 'I should have liked if we had been all standing when the table lifted.' Sir David, Mr. Trollope and myself then sat down to see if it were possible to move the table or to raise it by our feet, but it could not be moved by the the united efforts of the feet of all three. I invited Sir David to come the next evening for the pupose of complying with his request of standing at the table, but he could not, having a pre-engagement.

This table, which is twelve feet long, has been completely turned over, while three of my own family and a friend were seated at it, replaced, and again turned over, all our hands being on the surface; occasionally it had been moved while we were all standing, without any one touching it, even with their hands.

Mr. Trollope came on the following evening; we sat round the same table as on the previous evening; the alphabet was called for, and three of us were told to go into another room, to get a smaller table, and stand. We were not to sit but to stand; we did so, and a heavy card table, on pillar and claws, and which was brought at my request from another room, and at which we had never sat before, was repeatedly lifted off the ground at least twenty inches.

These are strong facts, and it is allowing a great deal to say that we think Mr. Rymer to be in earnest in stating his belief in them. For ourselves, we entirely disbelieve them, and shall gladly give any one the opportunity, as we have many weeks ago told Mr. Rymer, of convincing us of our unbelief. In the meanwhile, we venture to recommend to his attentive study an old-fashioned college text-book, which we suspect he has never opened-Pratt's Mechanical Philosophy. He will there learn of those immutable laws which the unchanging God has impressed, once for ever, on his creation; laws which alike bind the planets to their orb, and fix in their unvarying relations every atom of inanimate nature; and reading of the wondrous harmony and order which reigns by their operation throughout the wide bounds of creation, he may perhaps come to share our doubts and

disbelief of those imaginings which tell us of their violation in moving tables, and shaking lamps, and dancing chairs, and all for the senseless object of repeating the platitudes of the pulpit oratory of the day, as distilled through the medium's mind. And he may perchance, should his study prosper, catch also a sense of the pitying scorn with which those, nurtured on the strong meat of the inductive philosophy, within the very courts and halls that Newton trod, view these sickly spiritualist dreamers, thus drunk with the new wine of folly and credulity.*

We make this appeal to Mr. Rymer rather than to the other narrator of the incredible from whom we have quoted, Mrs. Crosland, because his vocation affords a probability that the rules of evidence and laws of logic may have some influence on his judgment; while, alas! the unfortunate lady in question is evidently willingly, and, we fear, so hopelessly lost in the dark mazes of an ignorant, unquestioning superstition, that we are content to let her pass on without farther challenge, in the path she has chosen for herself, of "declaring and proclaiming, and not wrapping in a napkin, the talent of spiritual experience which has been vouchsafed to her."

And this good old text-book mastered, Mr. Rymer may also with advantage ponder on the warning words of the

* Since writing the above, we have met with the following passage in Mr. Buckle's recent History of Civilization in England, which we earnestly commend to the consideration of those who, like Mr. Rymer, believe in the power of supernatural agency to influence the mechanical laws which regulate the movements of their chairs and tables, and other fixed bodies. Yet surely it is sad here, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to have thus to argue for the truth of the most simple laws of dynamics:

"It is evident," says Mr. Buckle, "that a nation perfectly ignorant of physical laws, will refer to supernatural causes all the phenomena by which it is surrounded. But so soon as natural science begins to do its work, there are introduced the elements of a great change. Each successive discovery by ascertaining the law which governs certain events, deprives them of that apparent mystery in which they were formerly involved. The law of the marvellous becomes proportionately diminished; and when any science has made such progress as to enable those who are acquainted with it, to foretell the events with which it deals, it is clear that the whole of those events are at once withdrawn from the jurisdiction of supernatural, and brought under the authority of natural powers. The business of physical philosophy is to explain external phenomena, with a view to their prediction; and every successful prediction which is recognized by the people, causes a dissolution of one of those links which, as it were, bind the imagination to the occult and invisible world. Hence it is, that supposing other things equal, the superstition of a nation must always bear an exact proportion to the extent of its physical knowledge. This may, in some degree, be verified by the ordinary experience of mankind. For if we compare the different classes of society, we shall find that they are superstitious in proportion as the phenomena with which they are brought in contact, have or have not been explained by natural laws."

founder of modern philosophy, who, in the Advancement of Learning, when illustrating the vices or diseases of learning, and coming to discourse of deceit or untruth, so wisely says: "This vice (deceit or untruth,) brancheth itself into two sorts; delight in deceiving, and aptness to be deceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they appear to be of a diverse nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the verse noteth,

Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est, an inquisitive man is a prattler; so, upon the like reason, a credulous man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe rumours will as easily augment rumours, and add somewhat to them of his own, which Tacitus wisely noteth when he saith, Fingunt simul creduntque; so great an affinity hath fiction and belief. This facility of credit, and accepting or admitting things weakly authorised or warranted, is of two kinds, according to the subject for it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact, or else a matter of art and opinion. As to the former (which is Mr. Rymer's error, or, as Bacon would say, his vice or disease of learning,) we see the experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical his

tory; which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations of miracles, wrought by martyrs, hermits or monks of the desert and other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels, and images: which though they had a passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the superstitious simplicity of some and the politic toleration of others, holding them but as divine poesies; yet after a period of time, when the mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed, but as old wives' fables, impostures of the clergy, illusion of spirits and badges of anti-christ, to the great scandal and detriment of religion."

Mr. Rymer very strongly presses the theory, that these spirit rappings are sent for the furtherance of our knowledge in divine truth. Thus he writes:

"They come to enforce, explain, and expound the Bible. This they do daily. Time will not permit me to give many examples; the following must suffice. It was written, "Read the second and third verses of the eighth chapter of St. Matthew." We read, "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy was cleansed."

The two verses were thus expounded.

"By leper, you must understand one who profanes God and his truth and word. Leprosy is a spiritual disease.

"To worship, is to acknowledge the Lord God and believe in him; God and man manifest in the flesh.

"If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Spiritual confidence in God's power and glory, which every one must have; every one must have full confidence in God to be made clean.

"And Jesus put forth his hand; putting it forth is God's will being executed; hand, means power. Remember he is always putting forth his hand.

"And touched him. By touching is meant the communication of the will and the power; the man diseased was brought unto the Lord, the divine influence, and was cured.

"And immediately the leprosy was cleansed, that is, having confidence in the Lord's power, he was made clean by the Lord's omnipotence."

Now really the mildest domestic commentary, say Scott's or Barnes', would deal better with this text, which we have selected at hazard, than the spirits do. By leper we are to understand, they say, one who profanes God; leprosy, they add, is a spiritual disease. Why a leper was a man suffering from a real physical disease. Many a wretched outcast Jew doubtless wished it had been a spiritual not a physical ill.

That this affliction was used by the prophets and our Lord in their teaching, as a type of sin, and the Jewish sanitary law, in force against it, and the seclusion and mournful separation of the leper from society, as an emblem of the exclusion of the polluted by sin from the true city of God, is a very different story.

Again, and touched him. Could the spirits here see nothing taught beyond the usual result of touching viz: communication of the will and power? No glimpse of His taking on Him, touching, laying hold of, our nature—a truth caught by the great apostle of the Gentiles, when he writes to the Hebrew converts of his risen Lord taking on Him (by contact or touch, as the Greek word used carries with it) our very nature? And so on through the other verses and illustrations given, where the spirits sadly miss in their rappings the spirit of the Inspired Word. Ignorant laymen as we are, we are content to back with heavy odds our commentary on any given text, against that of Mr. Rymer's spirit teachers. Mrs. Crosland prints a long Discourse on the Trinity received through the alphabet by raps, too long for us to reproduce here. It is a most common place ordinary dis