Thanks, good Peter; it may comfort you to know that your original lucubration helped to relieve the tedium vitæ of three desolate fellow-mortals at Aberfoyle. But the Inn is all dark and quiet; it is off to bed; the rain still prevails; and we retire also, resolved to be off with the first train from Bucklyvie in the morning. Morning wet as before; machined to the station. Bucklyvie more forlorn-looking than ever. Arrived in Glasgow at 10 A.M., with very moist remembrance of Aberfoyle, which is a pity, for I always like to part with a place, as with a person, pleasantly, it makes such a difference in the pleasures of memory. But we have seen what Aberfoyle would be in happier circumstances a quiet autumn day, with an azure sky and a smiling sun-and we may yet return to bear away from it sunny memories for leisure hours.

63

A SEANCE WITH A SEQUEL.

It has long been subject of speculation and discussion among philosophers whether the lower animals have souls. The dog, the horse, the elephant, and many others, as is well known, have furnished striking illustrations of the possession of something marvellously like the reasoning faculty in man-something different from and superior to mere blind instinct. The ingenious author of the "Vestiges of Creation" is the great apostle of this theory; for it will be remembered that he proves, by a mass of recondite inductions and analogies, that the remote ancestor of man must have been a monkey, or a creature still lower in the scale of intelligence and physical organisation. This author has been recently followed, on the same side, by the learned Mr. Darwin, whose "Origin of Species" has set the whole philosophical world by the ears, and produced an array of treatises, pro and con, sufficient (when perused) to make

a man entertain serious doubts respecting his humanity. But, leaving these disquisitions aside, and also ignoring for the present the Turkish philosophy which assumes, as a matter of course, that women are not possessed of souls, we think the following surprising revelations will convince everybody who believes them that animals are endowed with spirits, and that they are as well entitled to them too as a large number of the higher class of bipeds who assume to be "lords of the creation." The Hindu doctrine of the transmigration of souls is well known, which maintains that the spirits of human beings, in proportion to their delinquencies in the flesh, are doomed at death to pass into the bodies of animals, superior or inferior as the case may be, and to ascend by slow gradations and a process of moral purgation to their proper "sphere." Whether the revelations I am about to record have anything to do with such a metempsychosis I cannot pretend to say, and the reader must just accept them for what they are worth, but as the narrative of an impartial eye-witness, who has no interest on the one side or the other. It is likely the narrative may provoke furious opposition in some quarters, and contempt in more. For this I am prepared, remembering that it has been the invariable fate of all great discoveries to be so welcomed by the world. Further, if I am asked to explain how such things can

be, I must just answer, "The reason why I cannot tell," as I deem it at all times at once more candid and philosophical to confess ignorance in a single word than to prove it by long explanations, showing that I know nothing whatever of the subject—a common mode nowa-days of procuring a learned reputation. But before any sceptic ventures to thrust aside with contempt the following mysterious facts because they cannot be explained, let him reflect how really little he knows of the great physical facts of the world around him. Can he explain the law of gravitation—why an apple falls down and not up? He may give us a long array of words, but not come one pin-point nearer the thing. Can he explain what electricity is? or heat? or light? or attraction and repulsion? Did he ever see the wind, even although he may have helped to raise it? If his answer to all these queries must be a dumb negative, let him modestly pause before consigning to contempt the innumerable "things in heaven and earth that are not dreamt of in his philosophy."

The modus operandi of Celestial Telegraphy (I consider this a more appropriate appellation than Spirit Rapping or Spiritualism) has been so frequently described, and is now so well known, that I need not detain my readers with any preliminary details of the following interesting séance; suffice it to say, that the

E

occurrences here set forth took place in a most respectable mansion in the West-End of Glasgow, and in presence of a highly-intelligent and veracious company of gentlemen, among whom there could be no possibility of collusion. The room having been darkened to "a dim, religious light," as is usual in such cases, and the company, with the medium, being seated round a capacious table, the medium put himself en rapport with the coming spirits in the usual manner. After a solemn pause of three or four minutes, three emphatic knocks were heard upon the table, signifying that a spirit was in waiting. Thereupon the following interesting communications took place :

:

Who are you? I am the spirit of one of the geese who saved Rome.

How many geese composed that famous company?—— Three hundred and twenty-five.

You must have made a considerable noise when all your voices were "lifted up" at once?-Rather.

Are you all together in your present sphere ?-Yes, on account of that heroic achievement.

Could any number of geese save Rome now ?—No ; within three years Victor Emmanuel's troops will occupy the Vatican, and the Pope will be in blank.

How many of your brethren (and sisters) might be sacrificed within England this present Christmas ?-435,976.