plea. It were as wise for a child of four years old to deny that the planets move round the sun, because its infant mind cannot receive the explanation, as for you and me to ridicule arcana of the soul's connection with the body, because we cannot comprehend them, in this imperfect state of existence. Beings so ignorant, should be more humble and reverential; this frame of mind has no affinity whatever with the greedy superstition that is eager to believe everything merely because it is wonderful.

It is deemed incredible that people in magnetic sleep can describe objects at a distance, and scenes which they never looked upon while waking; yet nobody doubts the common form of somnambulism, called sleep walking. You may singe the eye-lashes of a sleep walker with a candle, and he will perceive neither you nor the light. His eyes have no expression; they are like those of a corpse. Yet he will walk out in the dense darkness; avoiding chairs, tables, and all other obstructions; he will tread the ridge-pole of a roof, far more securely than he could in a natural state, at mid-day; he will harness horses, pack wood, make shoes, &c. all in the darkness of midnight. Can you tell me with what eyes he sees to do these things? and what light directs him? If you cannot, be humble enough to acknowledge that God governs the universe by many laws incomprehensible to you; and be wise enough to conclude that these phenomena are not deviations. from the divine order of things, but occasional manifestations of principles always at work in the great scale of being made visible at times, by causes as yet unrevealed.

Allowing very largely for falsehood, trickery, superstitious fear, and stimulated imagination, I still believe most fully that many things now rejected as foolish superstitions, will hereafter take their appropriate place in a new science of spiritual philosophy. From the progress of animal magnetism, there may

perhaps he evolved much that will throw light upon old stories of oracles, witchcraft, and second-sight. A large portion of these stories are doubtless falsehoods, fabricated for the most selfish and mischievous purposes; others may be an honest record of things as they actually seemed to the narrator. Those which are true, assuredly have a cause; and are miraculous only as our whole being is miraculous. Is not life itself the highest miracle? Everybody can tell you what it does, but where is the wise man who can explain what it is? When did the infant receive that mysterious gift? Whence did it come? Whither does it go, when it leaves the body?

Scottish legends abound with instances of secondsight, oftentimes supported by a formidable array of evidence; but I have met only one individual who was the subject of such a story.

She is a woman of plain practical sense, very unimaginative, intelligent, extremely well-informed, and as truthful as the sun. I tell the story as she told it to me. One of her relatives was seized with rapid consumption. He had for some weeks been perfectly resigned to die; but one morning, when she called upon him, she found his eyes brilliant, his cheeks flushed with an unnatural bloom, and his mind full of belief that he should recover health. He talked eagerly of voyages he would take, and of the renovating influence of warmer climes. She listened to him with sadness; for she was well acquainted with his treacherous disease, and in all these things she saw symptoms of approaching death. She said this to her mother and sisters, when she returned home. In the afternoon of the same day, as she sat sewing in the usual family circle, she accidently looked up—and gave a sudden start, which immediately attracted attention and inquiry. She replied, 'Don't you see

cousin

They thought she had been dreaming; but she

said, 'I certainly am not asleep. It is strange you do not see him; he is there.' The next thought was that she was seized with sudden insanity; but she assured them that she was never more rational in her life that she could not account for the circumstance, any more than they could; but her cousin certainly was there, and looking at her with a very pleasant countenance. Her mother tried to turn it off as a delusion; but nevertheless, she was so much impressed by it, that she looked at her watch, and immediately sent to inquire how the invalid did. The messenger returned with news that he was dead, and had died at that moment.

My friend told me that at first she saw only the bust; but gradually the whole form became visible, as if some imperceptible cloud, or veil, had slowly rolled away; the invisible veil again rose, till only the bust remained; and then that vanished.

She said the vision did not terrify her at the time; it simply perplexed her, as a thing incomprehensible. Why she saw it, she could explain no better than why her mother and sisters did not see it. She simply told it to me just as it appeared to her; as distinct and real as any other individual in the room.

Men would not be afraid to see spirits, if they were better acquainted with their own spirit. It is because we live so entirely in the body, that we are startled at a revelation of the soul.

Animal magnetism will come out from all the shams and quackery that have made it ridiculous, and will yet be acknowledged as an important aid to science, an additional proof of immortality, and a means, in the hands of Divine Providence, to arrest the progress of materialism.

For myself, I am deeply thankful for any agency, that even momentarily blows aside the thick veil between the Finite and the Infinite, and gives me never so hurried and imperfect a glimpse of realities which lie beyond this valley of shadows.

LETTER XX.

June 9, 1842.

There is nothing which makes me feel the imprisonment of a city, like the absence of birds. Blessings on the little warblers! Lovely types are they of all winged and graceful thoughts. Dr. Follen used to say, 'I feel dependent for a vigorous and hopeful spirit, on now and then a kind word, the loud laugh of a child, or the silent greeting of a flower.' Fully do I sympathize with this utterance of his gentle, and loving spirit; but more than the benediction of the flower, more perhaps than even the mirth of childhood, is the clear, joyous note of the bird, a refreshment to my soul.

The birds! the birds of summer hours

They bring a gush of glee,

To the child among the fragrant flowers,
To the sailor on the sea.

We hear their thrilling voices
In their swift and airy flight,
And the inmost heart rejoices
With a calm and pure delight.
Amid the morning's fragrant dew,
Amidst the mists of even,
They warble on, as if they drew

Their music down from Heaven.

And when their holy anthems

Come pealing through the air,

Our hearts leap forth to meet them,
With a blessing and a prayer.'

But alas! like the free voices of fresh youth, they come not on the city air. Thus should it be; where mammon imprisons all thoughts and feelings that would fly upward, their winged types should be in

cages too. Walk down Mulberry-street, and you `may see, in one small room, hundreds of little feathered songsters, each hopping about restlessly in his gilded and garlanded cage, like a dyspeptic merchant in his marble mansion. I always turn my head away when I pass; for the sight of the little captives goes through my heart like an arrow. The darling little creatures have such visible delight in freedom;

In the joyous song they sing;

In the liquid air they cleave;
In the sunshine; in the shower;
In the nests they weave.'

I seldom see a bird encaged, without being reminded of Petion, a truly great man, the popular idol of Haiti, as Washington is of the United States.

While Petion administered the government of the island, some distinguished foreigner sent his little daughter a beautiful bird, in a very handsome cage. The child was delighted, and with great exultation exhibited the present to her father. 'It is indeed very beautiful, my daughter,' said he; 'but it makes my heart ache to look at it. I hope you will never show it to me again.'

With great astonishment, she inquired his reasons. He replied, 'When this island was called St. Domingo, we were all slaves. It makes me think of it to look at that bird; for he is a slave.'

The little girl's eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered, as she exclaimed, 'Why, father! he has such a large, handsome cage; and as much as ever he can eat and drink.'

'And would you be a slave, 'said he, 'if you could live in a great house, and be fed on frosted cake?'

After a moment's thought, the child began to say, half reluctantly, 'Would he be happier, if I opened the door of his cage?' 'He would be free!" was the emphatic reply. Without another word, she took the cage to the open window, and a moment after,