the earth far, far below them. Descending and it played "at a distance of nearly eleven to earth, the two spirits hovered over a cot- feet from the circle or the medium." When tage, through whose walls, made transparent the spirits had carried the guitar all round for the nonce, they saw all that the cot- the circle, "it was poised in the air, top uptagers were doing and meant to do. When wards, and nearly over the head of one of the the body of nerve and muscle was revived by party." It then "reached forward, and playits better half, Mr. Home, thus created again, fully tapped him three times upon the shoulder." felt his limbs so dead, that it was only after" The indistinct outline of a human hand could half an hour's friction that he could stand be seen grasping the instrument just below its upright. "I give these facts," he 66 says, as centre." It now played in the air; and the they occurred. Nothing could ever convince hand that held it was a female one, terminatme that this was an illusion or delusion." ing at the wrist, thin, pale, and attenuated. At Springfield, in February 1854, a bell A pencil and paper being put upon the table, weighing one pound and one ounce put itself this hand took the pencil, and wrote "the in the hands of the party; and while a hymn name, in her own proper handwriting, of a relwas singing," the bell was raised from the ative and intimate lady friend of one in the floor, and rung in perfect time with the meas- circle, who passed away some years since." ure of the tune sung; " and "it drummed out The writing has of course been preserved as another time against the under side of the an evidence of the reality of the fact. table," like "a skilful performer with drumsticks."

At Boston, Mr. Home's spirit-power "seemed to increase in a manner which surpried himself not less than other witnesses." "On several occasions spirits were seen distinctly by all present in the room; and more than once they kissed persons present so as to be both felt and heard.”

In September 1854, a Mr. Andrew, who had expressed a wish to witness some extraordinary manifestation, had his wish gratified by Mr. Home. When in bed, "the walls, floor, and bedstead shook with the strokes which came like a shower. The bed began to more across the floor. Spirits stepped upon his feet and ankles over the bed-clothes. Hands somewhat cold, but as much like flesh and blood as any he ever felt, came on his head and forehead," answering by the pats the questions put to them.

From America, the birth-place and haunt of spirit-rappers, Mr. Home passes into England, where he arrives in April, 1855. Even in the United States, as he confesses," a few looked on him with pity, as a poor, deluded being, only devil-sent to lure souls to destruction; while others were not chary in treating him as a base impostor." His very aunt, who had adopted him and maintained him as her own child, felt it a duty to turn him out of her house; and a deacon of a Church, as he tells us, had boldly denounced his pretensions; but he has not recorded any instances in which either men of science or ministers of the gospel applauded or condoned his manifestations.

In England, where superstition has never found a quiet home, it was not likely that spiritual manifestations would be favorably received either among the ignorant or the wise. Professor Faraday had established, by direct experiment, the true cause of tableturning, and the enlightened section of the public had acquiesced in the decision of science. It was not likely, therefore, that the kindred art of spirit-raising would escape the scrutiny and baffle the sagacity of an English jury.

Passing over the fact, that one spirit-child called up by Mr. Home prevented her father from cutting his throat, and that another took her mother's handkerchief, "and knotted and twisted it into the form of a doll-baby," we come to the miraculous works of a guitar of an unusual size and weight. It was played upon evidently by real substantial fin- When Mr. Home reached London, he took gers, dragged out and carried away to a door, up his residence at Cox's hotel in Jermyn where it played music surpassingly beautiful, Street. In order to have the sanction of a sweeter and more harmonious than was ever great name, and one well known to science, heard. From exquisite sweetness it rose to, Mr Cox invited Lord Brougham to a seance "a full orb of strong, tempestuous melody, with Mr. Home, to witness his miraculous filling the house with its sounds." By de- powers. Lord Brougham, it appears, invited sire," it struck on all the chords at once," Sir David Brewster to accompany him; and

on this occasion certain experiments and manifestations were exhibited, which we shall presently describe. In returning from this seance, Lord Brougham and Sir David Brewster talked over what they had seen, and agreed in opinion that the performance was not that of spirits. They had expressed, it would seem, to Mr. Home their gratification with his experiments, and acknowledged that they could not account for them; and these civil words—the confession of ignorance, and not of faith-from persons who came only to gratify their curiosity were made the foundation of a rumor that Lord Brougham and Sir David Brewster had acknowledged their belief in spirit-rapping.

the power of introducing among the feet of his audience the spirits of the dead, of bring ing them into physical communication with their dearest relatives, and of revealing the secrets of the grave, he insults religion and common sense, and tampers with the most sacred feelings of his victims."

The sentiments expressed in this letter called forth the ire of Mr. Cox, and a Mr. Coleman, who accused Sir David Brewster of giving an untrue account of what he saw, and put into his mouth expressions which Thus put upon no educated man could use. his defence, he made the following exposure of the spiritual manifestations in a letter ad

dressed to Mr. Coleman :

"Sir.-You have been pleased to address a letter to the editor of the Morning Adver

Shortly after this seance, Sir David Brewster was invited to another, held at Ealing, in the house of the late Mr. Rymer. Mrs.tiser, the object of which is to report a cerTrollope, the accomplished novelist, and her distinguished son, Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope, with several other persons, were present at this seance; and we willingly give Mr. Home the full benefit of Mr. Trollope's certificate, that, "after many opportunities of witnessing and investigating the phenomena caused by or happening to Mr. Home, he was wholly convinced that, be what may their origin and cause, and nature, they are not produced by any fraud, machinery, juggling, illusion, or trickery on his part." That is Mr. Trollope believes that they were supernatural phenom

ena.

Although Lord Brougham and Sir David Brewster viewed the phenomena which they saw with a different eye from that of Mr. Trollope, and judged of them with a different result, they had no desire to give any public expression of their opinion. Mr. Home and his bottleholders, however, had circulated in London the slander, that Lord Brougham and Sir David Brewster were believers in spiritrapping, and an American newspaper gave it a wider range. When these facts were made known in the Morning Advertiser, Lord Brougham addressed a private letter to the editor, repudiating the idea of his being a behever, in the sense ascribed to him, in spiritual manifestations. Sir David Brewster published an ampler repudiation, concluding with the following paragraph

"Were Mr. Home to assume the character of the Wizard of the West, I would enjoy his exhibition as much as that of other conjurors; but when he pretends to possess

tain conversation which took place in the
lobby of the Athenæum Club, when Mr.
Rymer, accompanied by you, invited me to a
seance with Mr. Home, at his country house
correctness of the statement that
at Ealing. Without noticing further the in-
you called
upon me, accompanied by Mr. Rymer, and
without questioning your right to report a
private conversation carried on with another
person, I unhesitatingly state that the con-.
versation is most erroneously reported. My
conversation was not with you, but with Mr.
Rymer; and had he, or even yourself given
the substance of it, I should not have minutely
criticised it. I never used the words which
you have put into my mouth, and which you
have placed under inverted commas to make
them pass as the very words I used. They
are not the words of an educated man. I do
not know even what the word delusion means
in its present place; and still less can I un-
derstand what is meant by upsetting the
philosophy of my whole life,' having never
occupied myself either with spirits or their
philosophy. But, excepting these defects in
your report, I am willing to accept of the
substance of it, and that too in nearly your
ical effects produced by Mr. Home, the last
own words, that to account for the mechan-
explanation I would adopt would be that of
spirits skulking beneath the table.'

6

"Before proceeding to point out the extreme incorrectness of your statements, I may once for all admit that both Lord Brougham and myself freely acknowledged that we were puzzled with Mr. Home's performances, and could not account for them. Neither of us pretend to be expounders of conundrums, whether verbal or mechanical; but, if we had been permitted to take a peep beneath the drapery of Mr. Cox's table, we should have

tied, unless by spirits? During the half-diates the idea of his being a believer in hour's absence of the handkerchief, Mr. Home spiritual manifestations;" and his lordship three or four times gave a start, and looked has distinctly stated to his friends, that he wildly at the company, saying, 'Dear me, altogether agrees with Sir David Brewster how the spirits are troubling me! and at in his statements of what passed at the the same tiime putting down his left hand as if to push away his tormentors, or soothe the limb round which they had been clustering. He had, therefore, both his hands beneath the table a sufficient time to tie the five marvellous knots.

"I offer these facts for the spiritual instruction of yourself and Mr. Cox, and for the information of the public. Mr. Faraday had the merit of driving the spirits from above the table to a more suitable place below it. I hope I have done something to extricate them from a locality which has hitherto been the lair of a more jovial race. I am, sir, yours, etc. D. BREWSTER.

"St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, Oct. 9, 1855."

As this was the first and the most damaging exposure of Mr. Home's pretensions made by a scientific individual, it excited his wrath to such a degree that, after he had submitted to it for eight years, he comes forth with his reply in 1863; and, in an Appendix of twenty six pages, charges Sir David Brewster with truthless and calumnious statements, and assails him with a series of the most reckless and unblushing, falsehoods. The exposure which called forth these spiritual anathemas has left such a sore upon the temper of our God-sent medium, as he claims to be, that he never ceases to place the name of his critic, and sometimes that of Professor Faraday, among the unfortunates who have challenged the authenticity of his miracles.

Though with less acrimony of reproof, Lord Brougham has been subjected to the same calumnious charges.

seance in Jermyn Street.

The manifestations witnessed at Cox's hotel and at Ealing were those of an apprentice conjurer; and we are curious to consider what Lord Brougham and his companion would have thought of the higher manifestations of Mr. Home's riper genius. How severely would their skepticism have been rebuked had they seen, in a dark apartment, the God-sent medium floating in the air, and leaving his handwriting on the ceiling; or a lady suspended with her piano in ether, and still discoursing with it sweet music; or several gentlemen galloping round the room upon a quadruped table; or Mr. Home" carrying round the room, as if it were a straw, a log of wood which two stronger men could hardly move; or phosphorescent human hands cut off by the wrist from their putrid carcasses in the grave!

It is difficult to understand how the possessor of "God-given powers" should feel so sensitively the exposure of his manifestations, unless upon the supposition that he knows himself to be an impostor. The man who recognizes in the depths of his soul a divine afflatus, and listens to the palpitations of an honest heart, would pity the skepti cism which questions his heavenly commission, and scorn the attempt to discredit his beneficent revelations. Have mercy upon

unbelievers," he should have prayed, "for they know not what they do." Like his great friend Cagliostro, whom he summoned from the grave, he "should not have cared for the untruths of earth.”

"In order," says Mr. Home," that Lord Brougham might not be compelled to deny Nor is it less difficult to comprehend the Sir David's statements, he found it necessary distress which our medium has suffered from that he should be silent; and I have some the supposition that his performances at Ealreason to complain that his lordship pre-ing and Jermyn Street might have been the ferred sacrificing me to his desire not to im- result of muscular or mechanical molate his friend, since his silence was by less upon the supposition that the investigamany misconstrued to my disadvantage.”

It will hardly be credited by those who regard Mr. Home simply as a fanatic, that, while he was writing this paragraph, he knew of a letter, quoted by himself in his Appendix, and privately addressed to the editor of the Morning Advertiser, in which, as we have already stated, "Lord Brougham repu

agency,

un

tion of his claims was there more successful, and the exposure of them more irritating than any that had previously occurred. It was nothing new to assert that he rapped with his toes, as he tells us Professor Huxley asserted-it was nothing new to suppose that be was equipped with lazy tongs-that he carried about with him the machinery of his art,

Church, and finding them expressive of so many facts in his own experience!" he became a Roman Catholic. The pope received him with kindness, and after hearing much "regarding his past life," his holiness, pointing to a crucifix on a table, said, "My child, it is on that that we place our faith." Though *The Inquisition demanded from the medium an denied by Mr. Home, it is stated on unques-ual powers. An English lady, a Roman Catholic, account of the way in which he acquired his spirittionable authority, that at this interview he translated the narrative into Italian.