hat I find in spiritualism; and it
meets the wants of my soul."

"What extraordinary heathenish ideas!" said Miss Phillips, who in her
Derbyshire retreat had never heard anything of pantheism, or of this
doctrine of metempsychosis as being entertained by sane Englishmen. "If
you have such notions, I do not wonder at your flying to anything; for
my part, I have never been troubled with doubts."

"The Bible is, I think, purposely indistinct on the subject of the
future life," said Elsie. "Each soul imagines a heaven for itself,
different in some degree from that of any other soul; but to me memory
and identity are so necessary to the idea of continued existence that I
cannot conceive of a heaven without it."

"I do not know," said Mr. Dempster, shaking his head. "Till I saw these
wonderful manifestations, I had no clear or satisfactory feeling of it,
and now I have. The evidence is first hand from the departed spirits
themselves, and their revelations are consistent with our highest ideas
of the goodness of God, and of the eternal nature of love."

"'That which is seen is not faith,' St. Paul says, and the very
minuteness of your information would lead me to doubt its genuineness,"
said Francis. "I do not think it was intended that we should have such
assurance; but that we should have a large faith in a God who will do
well for us hereafter as he has done well for us here. But though I may
not feel the need of such assurance, I do not deny that others may.
There is much that is very remarkable about these spiritual
manifestations;--whether it is mesmerism, or delusion, or positive
fraud, I think it is a remarkable instance of the questioning spirit of
the day, unsatisfied with old creeds and desirous of reconstructing
some new belief."

"I should like you to come to a seance" said Mr. Dempster, glad to find
some one who was disposed to inquire on the subject. He had only
recently become a convert, and was very anxious to induce others to
think with him. "I am quite sure that you will see something that will
impress you with the reality of the manifestations."

"I should like to go too," said Mrs. Phillips.

"I certainly should not," said Harriett. "I think these things are
quite wicked."

"These questions have never given me any trouble," said Mr. Phillips,
"and to my mind, Mr. Dempster, the revelations, such as I have heard at
least, are very puerile and contemptible; but that there must be a
singular exciteme