This I did not compose, nor had I ever heard or seen it before. One evening it was promised that "Brain workers of philosophical bent" would answer our questions. The first question asked was, "From your standpoint do you consider death the end of conscious existence?" Ans. "Death we know only as a phrase used to indicate change of environment.” Ques."Is death expected on your plane as on ours, or do all understand that the next change is progressive?" Ans. "Slow are even those on our plane to understand the law of unending evolution.” Ques."But we may apprehend what we do not fully understand or comprehend?" Ans."Comprehension sees farther than understanding. Comprehend means complete understanding." Ques."Do you mean that comprehension is a word of wider significance than understanding?" Ans. "You are right." I had never given any thought to the difference between the words "understanding" and "comprehending," and when this was written was not satisfied in my own mind that comprehend did mean more than understand. On the following day I consulted Worcester's Unabridged Dictionary and to my surprise, under the word “comprehend" found this note: "Comprehend has a more extensive meaning than understand or apprehend." So in this case, as in several others I have not time to cite here, the intelligence which moved my hand to write gave me knowledge which I did not myself possess. Very often in place of writing, all I could get from them would be spiral lines. Sometimes Sometimes a page would be crossed and recrossed with these lines as if with some definite purpose. This suggested to me the possibility that such lines held some meaning unknown to me, and I put the question. The answer was given, “We have different modes of thought from yours-and the spiral signs are most in use with us: Some of our less advanced scientists forget that on your plane our mode of control is not understood by you. Lines are made of such esoteric meaning that, while we understand at a glance, it is impossible for those on your plane to perceive any words." Mr. Underwood here remarked: "There are numerous spirals — all modifications of the primary straight line." Ans."Yes, the spiral is a primal law, simple yet complex, which we who understand life's manifold ascensions grow to symbolize in our thought, language, and writing." I am warned by the length of this paper that I must close without being able to give one tenth part of the many strange and surprising revelations, or statements, philosophical and other, which we have gained from this strange source. I have confined myself to those which show most strongly evidence of an intelligence outside of Mr. U. or myself, the only two persons who have been concerned in obtaining them. To me personally these are not the most wonderful phases of this influence. The reasonable explanations given of the laws governing another state of human existence, but very little different from this except in being a step forward in the direction of Mind- that is to me the most wonderful, but of that I cannot speak here. I know that my experience at this time is by no means exceptional. Before I had ever said one word to any human being except Mr. U. in regard to it, there came to me a confidential letter from a valued friend in another State, a lady of intellect and culture, confessing that like, but far more varied, phenomena were occurring through her. Like myself her position had been that of an agnostic, and the communications to her are very similar to those I have obtained. I had not heard from her in a year previous to the receipt of this letter. I have been told of two or three other cases, so far unknown to the public, all occurring within the year, and to non-spiritualists. And I judge from magazine articles written by such well-known people as O. B. Frothingham, Elizabeth Phelps Ward, and M. J. Savage, as well as from public utterances of Mrs. Livermore and others, that this wave of communication from some not fully understood source is far more extensive than is generally suspected. It is, therefore, time that all whose opinions may have weight, who have personal knowledge of such phenomena, relate what they have seen or experienced in order that these experiences may be compared, and the real source from which they emanate may be discovered, if possible. One other strange experience in this line came to me a few years ago at the bedside of a dear friend at the point of death, which, perhaps, may be related in this connection. It was near midnight; death was momentarily expected. All the other watchers, exhausted by days of grief and care, were snatching an hour of rest; and I stood alone looking at the unconscious face before me which was distinctly visible, though the light was heavily shaded to keep the glare from the dying eyes. All her life my friend had been a Christian believer, with an unwavering faith in a life beyond this, and for her sake a bitter grief came upon me because, so far as I could see, there were no grounds for that belief. I thought I could more easily let her go out into the unknown if I could but feel that her hope would be realized, and I put into words this feeling. I pleaded that if there were any of her own departed ones present at this supreme moment could they not and would they not give me some least sign that such was the fact, and I would be content. Slowly over the dying one's face spread a mellow radiant mist-I know no other way to describe it. In a few moments it covered the dying face as with a veil, and spread in a circle of about a foot beyond, over the pillow, the strange yellowish-white light all the more distinct from the partial darkness of the room. Then from the centre of this, immediately over the hidden face, appeared an apparently living face with smiling eyes which looked directly into mine, gazing at me with a look so full of comforting assurance that I could scarcely feel frightened. But it was so real and so strange that I wondered if I were temporarily crazed, and as it disappeared I called a watcher from another room, and went out into the open air for a few moments to recover myself under the midnight stars. When I was sure of myself I returned and took my place again alone. Then I asked that, if that appearance were real and not an hallucination, would it be made once more manifest to me; and again the phenomenon was repeated, and the kind, smiling face looked up at me - a face new to me yet wondrously familiar. Afterwards I recalled my friend's frequent description of her dead father whom she dearly loved, but whom I had never seen, and I could not help the impression that it was his face I saw the hour that his daughter died. A DECADE OF RETROGRESSION. BY FLORENCE KELLEY WISCHNEWETZKY. DURING the ten years which ended with 1889, the great metropolis of the western continent added to the assessed valuation of its taxable property almost half a billion dollars. In all other essential respects save one, the decade was a period of retrogression for New York City. Crime, pauperism, insanity, and suicide increased; repression by brute force personified in an armed police was fostered, while the education of the children of the masses ebbed lower and lower. The standing army of the homeless swelled to twelve thousand nightly lodgers in a single precinct, and forty thousand children were forced to toil for scanty bread. Prostitution, legalized in the purchase of besmirched foreign titles and forced upon the attention of youth in the corrupting annals of the daily press, was flaunted publicly as never before. Scientists competed for the infamous distinction of inventing appliances for murder by electricity, while in the domain of politics the sale of votes in the closing years of the decade was more notorious than at any period of the city's history. In a society in which all things are commodities to be had for money, the labor power of stalwart men and tiny children, the innocence of delicately cherished girlhood, the marriage tie, the virtue of the servant, and the manhood of the statesman, it is eminently fitting that the record of progress should be kept officially in dollars and cents. This is done in all our communities in the report of the disbursing officer who is known in New York City under the title of the Comptroller. His report shows what money the city spends, the sources from which it is derived, and the purposes for which it is used. The following data. taken from statement "G" of his report for '89, may be readily verified, and will prove, upon examination of the original, to be but few among many conspicuous indications of retrogression. Expressed in dollars and cents, then, the growth of pauperism and crime was such in the decade which began with 1880, that we now spend more than a million each year in excess of the sum spent then for the same purposes. If we have grown in population so rapidly that the percentages remain unchanged, the fact cannot be ascertained for want of data. Nor is it important. The weighty fact is this, that pauperism and crime have gained upon us. Riches are greater and poverty is greater. The moral and social retrogression indicated in this item of the Comptroller's report is thrown into bold relief by another item, the expenditures for schools. While the paupers and criminals have grown upon us by an annual expenditure of more than a million in excess of the sum needed in 1879, the school children's share of the public funds has grown by less than a million in excess of the requirements of 1879. More shameful still is this retrogression when the item of police expenditure is considered, for this exceeds outright the appropriation for the Department of Education, and has grown more rapidly than the expenditure for schools. It appears that, under existing conditions, when property appreciates half a billion in value, it is necessary to have four and one half millions' worth of police to watch over and protect the half-billions' increase in assessed value from ravages of our paupers and criminals. It seems also that in 1879 our police cost less than our schools, while they now cost more. The problem assumes a still greater aspect when the expenditure for paupers, criminals, and police are taken together, for it then appears that they cost nearly twice as much as the schools. the Thus the community is clearly moving in the direction of more demoralized masses of population kept in check by the brute force of an armed police, since each year the excess grows which is spent for paupers, criminals, and police over the expenditure for education. One retrogressive influence fails to find positive official expression, and is, therefore, the more worthy of notice. This is the collusion among officials to reduce primary school attendance. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment never approves the full appropriation made for the schools. The Board of Education strives to live well within |