our medium foundation of truth." He denies" that he ever abjured any magical or other processes, for he never knew anything of such, and therefore could not abjure them;" but he does not deny that he abjured spiritual manifestations, which his accusers referred to under the name of magic.* A thief who had appropriated your chronometer would hardly venture to deny that he had stolen your watch. Some time after these occurrences, the Pere de Ravignan died, and his life was written by an eminent father, the Jesuit Father A. de Pontlevoy. At the close of the 24th chapter of this work, Father de Pontlevoy thus describes the relations which existed between Mr. Home and his confessor, and to this truthful history we beg the special attention of our readers. him Although the testimony of Mr. Home is "We could not close this chapter," says worthless in opposition to that of two distinM. de Pontlevoy, "without making mention guished Roman Catholic clergymen, one of of that famous American medium who had whom was recommended by the pope the sad talent of turning other things than the self as confessor to the medium, we were detables, and invoking the dead to amuse the sirous of knowing something of the character living. A great deal has been said, even in of Father de Pontlevoy, whose published acthe papers, of his acquaintance, religiously count of the scene in Father de Ravignan's and intimately, with Father de Ravignan, and they have seemed to wish, under the presence has been branded as an entire falsepassport of a creditable name, to introduce hood. On the authority of a distinguished and establish in France these fine discoveries abbè, well known in England and throughout of the New World. Here is the fact in all its simplicity. It is very true that the young foreigner, after his conversion in Italy, was recommended from Rome to the Father de Ravignan; but at that period, in abjuring Protestantism, he also repudiated (his) magic, and he was received with that interest that a priest owes to every soul ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and more, perhaps, to a soul that has been converted and brought to the bosom of the Church. On his arrival in Paris, all his old practices were again absolutely forbidden. The Father de Ravignan, according to all the principles of the faith, which forbids superstition, forbade, under the most severe penalties he could inflict that he should be an actor in, or even a witness of, these dangerous scenes which are sometimes criminal. "One day the unhappy medium, tempted by I know not what man or demon, violated his promise. He was retaken (repris) with a rigor which overwhelmed him. Coming in then by chance, I (Father de Pontlevoy) saw him rolling on the ground, and drawing himself like a worm to the feet of the priest, who was in saintly anger. The father, however, touched by his convulsive repentance, lifted him up, forgave him, and sent him away, after having exacted, IN WRITING THIS TIME, a promise under oath. But soon there was backsliding which made much noise, and the servant of God, breaking off with this slave of the spirits, had him told never again to appear in his presence." Mr. Home, who has himself translated and published the preceding extract, denounces it "as an entire falsehood, without even any Europe, we are able to state that Father de Pontlevoy, the biographer of Father de Ravignan, is an able, excellent, and picus man, tire falsehoods; and without any motive to incapable of uttering any, and still less enmisrepresent the craven conduct of Mr. Home or to charge him falsely with the breach of oral and written oaths. Father de Pontlevoy, personally well known to our informant, occupied the high position of confessor to the late illustrious M. Biot, who mentions him in the second volume of his Melanges.† This testimony to the character of Father de Pontlevoy has been confirmed by a distinguished member of the Imperial Institute, who assures us" that the accuracy of the statements made in p. 298 and the following pages of the Life of Father de Ravignan cannot admit of the smallest doubt," and that this "great confessor," as the medium himself calls him, was keenly opposed to the future conduct of the notorious Thaumaturge." 66 That" his services in France were in great request among the savans," is another of *Since this was written, we have seen the original of the extract from M. de Pontlevoy's Vie du R. P. de Ravignan, and we find in it a confirmation of what In order to enable him to we have above stated. spirit manifestations, Home translates sa magie by contradict the statement that he had repudiated the word magic, in place of his magic. Une personne tres eclairee, dont le regretable Pere de Ravignan m'a legue la bienveillance, M. L'Abbe de Pontlevoy, etc. Melanges Scientifiques et Litteraires, vol. ii. p. 439. those falsehoods to which our medium has given circulation. We are assured that none of the eminent savans in Paris patronized Mr. Home, or believed in his manifestations. On the contrary," he always carefully avoided the scrutiny of the Parisian philosophers, and specially that of M. Babinet, the illustrious member of the Institute, who would have looked about himself as sharply in the presence of the spirits, as his colleague Sir David Brewster did in London. When Prince Napoleon proposed to invite Mr. Home to his palace, and hold a seances with M. Serres, M. Babinet, and M. de Quatrefages-an eminent physiologist, an eminent natural philosopher, and an eminent naturalist, all members of the Academy of Sciences-Mr. Home declined the invitation! * It is impossible to read the preceding details respecting Mr. Home's reception at Rome and Paris, without the mortifying reflection that the Protestant's faith enters into a warmer and a closer alliance with spiritualism than that of the Catholic; and that the clergy of the Church of Rome have a deeper horror than our Episcopalian friends at the mischievous art “of raising the dead to amuse the living." Without defending the latitudinarian theology now spreading in the Church of England, we scruple not to assert that the bishops have as high a duty to perform in calling to account their spiritrapping clergy, and their aristocratic help mates, as in prosecuting Bishop Colenso and the essayists. Four months the brother, "delivered from his enemies." Our medium performed the miracle of healing before he left Paris. The lady mother of a boy who had been deaf for four years was warned in a dream to seek Mr. Home. At the seance, when the boy's head was resting on his shoulder, the medium "passed his hands caressingly over the boy's head, upon which he suddenly exclaimed, 'Mamma, I hear you.' The cure was complete and permanent!" Mr. Home's sixth chapter, entitled "In America-The Press-Gang," is filled with reprints of what he calls the false and idle fabrications, respecting his doings, which issued from the French and English Press. His object in publishing them is "to show the reckless invention of those who assume to enlighten the public through the press." From America he returns to Paris in May, 1857. His power was here very great, and “hundreds of all classes" frequently saw spirit-hands "writing the autograph of the person whose spirit was present. One day, when dining with the Baroness de M, a murdered youth standing at the entrance to the drawing-room proposed to go with him to see his father. Mr. Home having declined to go, the same voice asked of him the same favor when he was seated at table. After dinner the same youth, with blood on his face, induced Mr. Home to go to With the exception of the unpublished the father, who, from the description given manifestations exhibited at the Tuileries, Mr. him, recognized the figure to be that of Home has referred to a small number of his his murdered son. The father sought Mr. performances in Paris. A French Countess Home, in order to "have his own mediumS— had imagined twelve years ago that her ship increased;" and having obtained this brother, having temporarily the peculiar ex-boon, he was greatly comforted and relieved. pression of a fallen angel, was possessed with a demon. The infernal expression frequently occurred when he was calm and happy. When Mr. Home was looking at a beautiful marble bust, his "visage changed," and he was“ violently agitated.” "Madame," said he, "the man whose bust this is, is possessed with a demon," adding that this brother would have a great misfortune," and be *Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the principal facts which they contain have been published by M. L' Abbe Moigno in his able Journal, Les Mondes, 18 June, 1863, Tom. i. pp. 506, 507. He distinctly states, that absolute faith may be placed in the statement of Father de Pontlevoy. " ad At this time" his guardian spirits vised our author to go to Turkey; but after he had packed his trunk, they changed their mind and sent him to Baden-Baden, where he exhibited before the King of Wurtemburg and the present King of Prussia. From Baden-Baden he went to Biarritz, where the spirits told him that "trouble was in store for him," but that in the end "this would prove to be a gain." At Biarritz new forms of necromancy were seen. At the chateau of Count de B—, the spirits wrote "on paper placed before them on the table in full view." Hands ap pearing distinctly above a table, were seen | mother come into the room, followed by his successively to take up a pencil and write. A wife's father. His wife exclaimed, "Daniel, large hand, in its peculiar autograph," wrote there is some one in the room with us. It several communications in their presence, is your mother, and near her stands my some for his wife, who was at the table, and father. She is very beautiful, and I am not some to other persons who were not present. afraid." In an instant the Countess de Bclaimed, "Why are you sitting in the air?" and the medium "was seen raised two or three inches above the chair with his feet not touching the floor." ex I was now impressed," says the wizard, "to leave the table, and was soon carried to the lofty ceiling. The Count de B- left his place at the table, and, coming under where I was, said, Now Young Home, come and let me touch your feet.' I told him I had no volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly allow me to come down to him. They did so, by floating me down, and my feet were soon in his outstretched hands. He seized my boots, and now I was again elevated, he holding tightly, and pulling at my feet till the boots I wore, which had elastic sides, came off and remained in his hands" An aristocratic boot-jack! In furtherance of "the great and holy mission entrusted to him, he "did a great deal of good" when in the Crimea with his brother-in-law; and as a proof of this, "he convinced a young officer of the truths of immortality by what he saw in his presence," and this officer gave a supper to his friends to inaugurate his entrance upon a new life. In January, 1859, when suffering from severe internal inflammation, "beyond the power of his physician," and when sitting with his wife and a friend, the following miracle was performed : "My hands," says he, "were suddenly seized by spirit influence, and I was made to beat them with extreme violence upon the part which was so extremely sensitive and tender. My wife was frightened, and would have endeavored to hold my hands; but my friend, who had sufficient knowledge of spirit manifestations, prevented her. I felt no pain, In Holland and Italy, which our author though the violence of the blows which I visited in succession, nothing very new char- continued giving to myself made the bed and acterized his manifestations. An event, how-the whole room shake. In five minutes' time ever, now occurred of great significance in the swelling had visibly decreased, and the the life of a magician. Accidentally intro- movements of the hand began to be more duced to the Countess de Koucheleff, he was and on awaking the next morning I found the gentle. In an hour I was in a quiet sleep, asked to an evening party at her house. disease had left me, and only a weakness reWhen entering the supper-room he was in-mained." troduced to the countess's sister, a young lady whom he saw for the first time. "A strange impression came over me at once, and I knew she was to be my wife. When we were seated at table, the young lady turned to me, and laughingly said,' Mr. Home, you will be married before the year is ended. I asked her why she said so; and she replied that there was such a superstition in Russia, when a person was at table between two sisters. I made no reply. It was true. In twelve days we were partially engaged, and waiting only the consent of her mother." The family of his fiancée went in June to Petersburg, where Mr. Home was introduced to the emperor, who does not appear to have made the acquaintance of the spirits. Mr. Home was married on the 1st of August 1858; and a short time after this event, when his wife was asleep, he saw the spirit of his Next in importance to Mr. Home's marriage is the birth of a son at Petersburg on the 8th May 1859. This event was preceded by strange phenomena, and heralded by almost celestial displays. A few hours after his birth" birds warbled for several hours, as if singing over him. A bright star appeared several times directly over his head, where it remained for some moments, and then moved slowly in the direction of the door, where it disappeared. The light was clearer and more distinctly globular than any other that Home had seen; and he believes that the star came "through the mediumship of the child, who had manifested on several occasions the presence of the gift." We are unwilling to trench on the delicate ground of his married life; but our medium, who pretends to have the same feeling, encourages us to follow him. In order to re cord some of the "several occasions" on sions, he thinks, are produced by some "physwhich his child "manifested the presence "'ical substance which causes some secret of his "mediumship," he makes the following statement: "I do not like to allude to such a matter, but as there are more strange things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy! I do not feel myself at liberty to omit stating, that, during the latter part of my wife's pregnancy, we thought it better that we should not join in seances, because it was found that whenever the rappings occurred in the room, a simultaneous movement of the child was distinctly felt, perfectly in unison with the sounds. When there were three sounds, three movements were felt, and so on; and when five sounds were heard, which is generally the call for the alphabet, she felt the five internal movements, and she would frequently, when we were mistaken in the letter, correct us from what the child indicated." It is not likely that experiments of this class will be tolerated within the domestic circle of reputable life; but it is probable that this abdominal calculating machine will, in our maternity hospitals at least, be prolific of spiritual results. The Trinity mediumship of Father, Wife, and Child gave birth to new and high spiritual manifestations a week after the christening, and when the parties were living in the vicinity of Petersburg. "One evening," says our author, "I remember one of my friends was converted from his previous unbelief by seeing a female hand, which was visible to all of us in the room, slowly forming in the air, a few inches above the table, until it assumed all the apparent materiality of a real hand. The hand took up a pencil, which was upon the table, and wrote with it a communication which deeply affected my friend, who recognized it as being from his mother. The general belief is that the spirit hands always appear from beneath the table, and already formed; but this is incorrect, for on many occasions, in the presence of several persons at a time, they are seen to be formed in the full sight of all, in the manner I have just described, and to melt away as it were in the same way. Often, too, they have been seen to form themselves high above our heads, and from thence to descend upon the table, and then disappear." On the anniversary of his marriage day, while Mr. Home was embracing his motherin-law, "he had another of those singular impressions which so often come to him at the moment of external contact." Such impres chord of the soul to vibrate and awaken a memory of the Future, or that a flower of the spring-time has been shadowed forth among the chill blasts of autumn as a token of the never-ceasing care of God, our loving Father, for his children, whether in the past, present, or the future, all being alike known to him." During this embrace, "I distinctly saw, at the first moment of touching my mother-in-law, that after I should leave Ostend we should meet no more on earth. This impressional prediction did, as has ever been the case with those which have come to me in this way, prove correct." She died at St. Petersburg, in the middle of May, 1860, when he was in England. In November, 1859, when in Paris, and when Mr. Home was absent from his house, room in which was his wife with the child rappings were heard upon the ceiling of the and his nurse. The spirits having been asked who the medium was, replied "that it was the sleeping child;" "but that they would not manifest through him, as the atmosphere which they made use of was necessary for his physical development in the natural world." For this kind reason 46 they had never from this time but once had any external evidence of any spirit presence through the child, though he has given up many indications of his being a seer." 66 as Spiritual Magazine" and other journals, portions of the descriptions published by the parties who saw them. These gentlemen were Mr. Pears, Mr. J. G. Crawford, Mr. Wason, and others, male and female. Many of the usual phenomena were exhibited at the seances thus described. Mr. Pears testifies that a table, after undulating movements if its top were flexible," rose from eighteen to twenty-four inches clear of the floor,—that the spirits of deceased children of Mrs. Cox and himself deliberately rapped,--that his grandfather and he had a tough struggle with a bell under the table,—and that the presence of the "old, Quaker-like man, though not a. Quaker," was assumed by Mr. Home, who, | Mrs. Home, who, joining hands, held them by handshaking, characteristic words, gest- up, saying:ures, and allusions, intelligible only to Mr. Pears, acted the grandfather whom he never saw, so admirably as to astonish the grand son. At the seance described by Mr. J. G. Crawford, in a room "so dark that they could not see each other," Mr. Home rose in the air, and Mr. C." indubitably felt the soles of both his boots some three feet above the level of the floor." "Touch me not, or I shall come down," cried the man-balloon; but though not touched, he came down. "In less than five minutes after this, he remarked, I am again ascending; and from the sound of his voice we could not but infer that he was actually rising towards the ceiling of the ante-room. He then appeared to float under the archway, then to rise to the cornice of the room we were sitting in; and we heard him quite distinctly make three cross marks on the ceiling, beside doing some other writing. Then he came softly down, and lay stretched out with his back on the table; in which position we found him when the gas was lighted, and when we distinctly saw the marks on the ceiling which we had heard him make." In his comment on this grand ascent, Mr. Home tells us that if his feet are touched, or if he is anxiously gazed at, till he has risen above the heads in the room, he invariably comes down; but when he is fairly above heads, looking or touching has no effect. It is, he conjectures, from some break in the magnetism in the former case, and not in the latter. "Dear spirit, will you be one of my guardian angels-watch over me with my Father? Teach me what you would have me do, and make me thankful to God for all his mercies.' Our hands were clasped by a hand, and her left hand was gently separated from mine, and a ring, which was the signet ring of my father-in-law. was placed on her third finger. This ring was previously in the room, but at a distance of at least twelve feet from where the bed stood. Good-night, dear ones, and God bless you,' was then audibly spoken, and simultaneously with the sound came three wafts of perfume, so delicious that we both exclaimed,How truly wonderful!""" The spirit of Cagliostro vouchsafed its presence for several days afterwards, and remained with Mrs. Home" up to the time of her passing from earth.” The predicted death of Mr. Home's mother-in-law, which took place in the middle of May, 1860, was indicated to Mr. Home, most curiously, when he was visiting with a friend Barclay and Perkins' Brewery. A pot of porter having been handed to him, he put out his hand to take it, and " as his fingers came in contact with the metal, a deep shudder convulsed his frame," and he suddenly knew that his mother-in-law was dead. At a seance two nights later, her spirit placed its hands on the heads of her children, and wrote in her own handwriting, "You will love her always, wont you?" and she signed it Nathalie. Count T, who was present at the seance, 66 came an atheist, and was one no longer." On the 3d April, 1860, Mr. Home attended a lecture by M. Louis Blanc, in which a good At a seance on the 1st of May, a most podeal was said about Cagliostro. On return- etical scene was represented by the spirits. ing home he found his wife in bed with a A beautiful, transparent, unearthly female severe headache. After he had put out the hand was raised aloft. When it vanished, light and was in bed, the room became as another hand appeared, which was followed luminous as under sunshine. Mrs. H. asked by a more earthly male hand placed on the if this was the spirit of Cagliostro. Three table. Then came "a dear baby hand;" flashes of light, almost blinding, indicated then the baby itself showed its head, and a the presence of the great magician. He ap- spirit hand held up the little child with, what proached the bed "till they felt a form lean- was unusual, a full display of her shoulders ing over it," as if it were an actual material and waist. Courteous and graceful gestures presence. The magician at last articulately were then made to the party by a luminous spoke. “ My power was that of a mesmer-hand and arm, covered with a white, transist; but all misunderstood by those about me, parent drapery. Spirit hands then held up my biographers have even done me injustice, an exquisite wreath of white flowers. The but I care not for the untruths of earth." A emblem of superstition was shown them by a hand was now placed on the heads of Mr. and black, shrivelled hand, and the emblem of |