with the spirits of the dead, especially the spirit of her husband.

This occurred before the "spirit rapping" had emerged from Hydesdale, N. Y., and consequently before known of, by any one connected with the above incident.

Mrs. Buton revealed the characteristics of those referred to by Stilling, already noticed, and of those now known as spirit media. However, as she recovered her wasted strength, her disposition to spirit-seeing declined, and although still a resident of Berlin, N. Y., we have not heard that her mediumship has been revived.

In these cases, animal magnetism was the inducing cause of the spirit-seeing, and psychometric impressions, etc.

On page 41, of his work, Stilling thus philosophises:

"The causes from which a natural magnetic sleep may proceed are chiefly the following:

"First: A lively and very irritable nervous system, and a vivid imagination appertaining to it, both of which are generally found united.

"Secondly: An incessant occupation of the soul with supernatural objects; for instance, when superstitious, ill-formed, simple people, are constantly thinking upon bewitchments and apparitions. Even if they be, at the same time, vile reprobate characters, they may at length be

brought, by this means, into a real connection with evil spirits, and then sorcery is no longer an idle tale.

"Sensuous love, particularly in the female sex, is the most fertile source of magnetic fits, and hence arise horrible deceptions, particularly when religious feelings are intermixed with them. I am acquainted with many melancholy instances of this kind, of which, for the sake of persons still living, I will not now give publicity.

"A pious young woman visited the religious meetings which a pious but handsome married man held in his house. By degrees she fell in love with him; and, as an insuperable difficulty stood in the way of her attachment, her nerves succumbed in the conflict, and the poor unfortunate girl became a somnambulist," (a spirit-medium;) "at the commencement she uttered the most sublime and glorious truths in her fits; and she generally entered her crisis when present at these religious meetings. She predicted many things that were to happen in future, several of which were accomplished. She gained a number of followers. In her fits," (the spiritual state,) "she received information by degrees that the wife of the object of her affections was an abomination in the sight of God and angels; this was gradually insinuated with such Satanic cunning and hypocrisy, that the whole company,

which consisted of several hundred persons, most devoutly believed it. The poor woman was, therefore, confined in a remote place, by orders from the invisible world; she lost her reason and died raving mad; and the widower then married the young woman, also by order from the spirit world."

Many instances of quite modern date, although their narration might vary somewhat in the minutiæ, are sufficiently analogous to indicate like causes. Neither will it answer to charge them altogether upon people of the lower and most indifferent classes-those who frantically receive and blindly obey the dictation of bigoted and unprogressed spirits. If our suggestion is questioned by the advocates of the "new philosophy," and the facts disputed, we can easily refer to some in high spiritual authority, who are considered "the Great" of this age, that have sailed in those seas, and returned with their booty.

Precedents are numerous illustrative of this principle, and the mania has already obtained to a much greater extent than the unnoticing public are prepared to admit. And there are more victims than supposed, by far, to this peace-destroying principle, this law of modern progression, this harmonizer of the race, adjuster of human relations, builder of the "spiritual temple," of the so called newly developed or greatly

progressed moral and social rights! But we shall defer, at present, its full illustration by authentic facts. Nevertheless we are pledged to sustain the above by ample proof when dealing with that phase of Spiritualism-the social didactics of that school of philosophers, which is, perhaps, more active and efficient than any other now moulding the human mind: that which is moving in the element of thought, of mental and affectional principles; and by adaptation and practical exertion, is possessing the soul of the young.

CHAPTER V.

MESMERISM IN ASIA.

THE above extracts from Stilling's Pneumatology are sufficient to prove the existence and character of the manifestations of his age. And the following from "Buchanan's Journal of Man" will serve as the connecting link with modern demonstrations.

In an article by James Esdale, M. D., published in vol. 1. of the above named work, under the heading, "Mesmerism in Asia," we find the following:

"The people of this part of the world seem to be peculiarly sensitive to the mesmeric power; and as it has been observed that a depressed state of the nervous system favors its reception, we can understand why they, as a body, should be more easily affected than Europeans. Taking the population of Bengal generally, they are a feeble, ill-nourished race, remarkably deficient in nervous energy; and the natural debility of constitution being still further lowered by disease, will probably account for their being so readily subdued by mesmerism. Their mental constitution also favors us: we have none of the morbid irritability of nerves, and the mental impatience

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