tively to the "French Department." There he was whirled round with a magnetic shock, and caused to stoop down and put his hand on a history of Louis XVI, in which was a likeness of himself and his sister Elizabeth, resembling that of her in the spirit-painting,- hair the same, chain of pearls around her neck, with a cross attached. Dr. G. Haskell and others, being present, saw in a moment the correspondence between the two pictures. This strengthened Mr. Peebles's faith in his guides, and made him buoyant in spirit. The question recurs: Whose the hand that led him to that history? The same that twined the cross with the string of pearls?

"Love reflects the things beloved." Mr. Peebles most firmly believes in the pre-existence of the soul, and tentatively in the doctrine of a succession of material vestments. Nearly all the ancient spirits teach these doctrines. But what a peculiar chain of relationships and lineages is here implied! Indeed, our higher and more enduring friendships may eventually reveal long-forgotten ties and labors in the same harvest fields. Interiorly we are banded with spirits of other races and ages. The present career is a very uncertain measure of the aggregate experiences of the soul, since the present life may be on the upward or downward arc of a great cycle, and as a particular expression of the essential life, it may be either stinted or ample in comparison with some of the previous unfoldments. But in the grand summing up of the earth lives, when all is brought to one focus, each career, each chapter, will have a special value and contribute its portion to swell the amplitude of the whole.

After Mr. Peebles became more conscious of angelpresence, he began to inquire into the history and identity of spirit-bands and their special work.

Through the trance-mediumship of Dr. A. P. Pierce of Boston, by whom ancient spirits are writing histories and philosophies unknown in the libraries, he conversed with erudite spirits of millennial ages, who instructed him in the ministries of angels at that remote period. At other times

he talked with Brahman seers, Egyptian hierophants, Chinese moralists, Persian fire-worshipers, Druidic priests, Platonic philosophers. Associated with these ancients, under their inspiration, he has for years been on a pilgrimage to caves, ruins, geological relics, moss-grown records on monuments and obelisks, and antiquarian libraries. From instinct he is thus a student of nature, ruins, and arts. Force of circumstances also molds his love to flow in such channels. Organically spiritual, battling with adversities, so often assailed, so disappointed in a thousand expectations, he courts solitude, and finds in pensive meditations a soul-joy. In that beautiful story of "Paul and Virginia," over which we all used to weep when boys and girls, the historian says, "All suffering creatures, from a sort of common instinct, fly for refuge amidst their pains to haunts the most wild and desolate; as if rocks could form a rampart against social misfortune; as if the calm of Nature could hush the tumult of the soul." Is there not also a "Virginia" for our hero? Surely some angel leads him, a wanderer over the earth, inspiring him with a grand purpose to read somewhat the annals of perished nations which are scattered among the ruins in Oriental lands.

There were two intertwining bands associated with Mr. Peebles's sphere of life acting mainly through the mediumship. of Dr. Dunn,- one more physical, the other spiritual, corresponding with the ethereal body and spirit. The first was hygienic, practical, perceptive; the other interior, "God with us." Conspicuous in this physico-spirit-band were Aaron Nite the Speaker, Powhattan the Magnetic Cleanser, Pawnce Chief the Assistant, and Drs. Schwailbach and Willis the Analyzers; all of whom guarded his forces of body and brain with the strictest vigilance, infusing the very beds and rooms he slept in, and the food he ate, with the aura of spirit-presence.

We must not forget to mention Michael O'Brien,- a quaint, witty Irishman,— who, years ago, greatly disturbed Mr. Peebles by his slang words and obtrusive designs, sometimes driven off when too boisterous, but afterward tamed. down by the voice of our brother's love to educate himself.

He showed marked gratitude toward his earthly benefactor. His rollicking wit was most refreshing. He obeyed Aaron Nite with the trust of a child, and altogether his presence and influence was refreshing and health-promoting.

These spirits have been identified repeatedly by different media. Betsey Howard, whose funeral discourse Mr. Peebles preached in California, once controlled J. V. Mansfield, in 1863, and clearly manifested herself with gratitude for his favors. There appeared in this band having their names written in dazzling, electric light on their foreheads Henry Ware, Jr., Ephraim Peabody, W. E. Channing, and Eliza W. Farnham, who addressed him in vigorous words, with this closing admonition, "Oh, my brother, be true to the light within you! Say the same to Brothers Davis, Mansfield, Harter, and others; that they have for their purpose truth — divine truth!"

The spirits whose names are engraved upon Mr. Peebles's cross of gold and pearl are more intimately his "guardian angels." Lorenzo Peebles is a loving brother; Hosea Ballou is the sermonizer; Canà, the positivist; Aaron Nite, the elucidator; Madame Elizabeth, the love-angel; Mozart, the spiritual harmonizer; Perasee Lendanta, the scientist; John, the beloved, around whom the whole band revolves as planets around their central sun. This spirit, controlling John W. Leonard, a clergyman, of Edinburgh, Scotland, whose identity has been traced in history, so signed himself for years, lest the real, when given, might engender a pampering pride in Mr. Peebles's mind. He prefers to be impersonal. We have no permission thus to announce his name; but from a sense of justice we take the responsibility, the better to unveil the wonderful discipline of spirits. "John" was first discovered through the mediumship of Mrs. W. P. Anderson. Scores of other mediums said the same; but Mr. Peebles doubted, until, by accumulating evidences from almost myriad sources, the statement was confirmed, that this is none other than John, the beloved disciple, who leaned on the bosom of Jesus.

Again, during all his public labors, since his first trip to California, Mr. Peebles had been more or less in communication

with a very ancient band of spirits, between which and the more modern band, the beloved John has formed a connecting link. His public labors - especially his Eastern travels - have been largely inspired and directed by this ancient band. And yet, what purports to come directly from them, he holds tentatively on probation, as it were waiting to prove their words by visible evidences. Nevertheless, he is interiorly drawn into the channel of investigation and exploration which they have from time to time indicated to him. A few of the messages emanating from this eminent source are here appended:

"A belt of the ancestral order we do place about thy form. Ye are given the power to write on the walls of the new, the long-buried histories. Books ye will give to the people. In return we will deliver certain of the lost arts to thy keeping.

"On a seashore, where the ruins of the grandest cities are known of as being long in existence, we bid thee go to gather in of the lost arts,- of those forces long since held as bound forever from the mortal understanding. In time of great need, when the people cry aloud for knowledge of these long-buried cities, we will place a mirror where all can be seen. A lovely light of power lieth in these hidden

ruins.

66 6 'Establish a direct connection with our lives,' we did say to thee when first we met in the Oriental Palace Home, when first we met on the confines of the forest of earth-lands, when in a floral language we addressed thy soul. Marked passages we saw in this delightful valley. In thy own soul we saw soul-songsters, who sing in love of the great peace and content coming, when indeed the earth looketh like a massive laboratory, in which one must labor and receive no dues. Receive our blessings of communion as ye never before have received the same, for one powerful auxiliary we have added, of use to the fulfilling of laws. . .

"One May-flower cometh to thy own garden home and asketh to be admitted to thy own fireside. One June rose

amid the sparkling beauties of May will enhance the glories of thy possessions. One June rose hath been given to thy keeping. When thou art able by finest touches of love to open each leaf, we will give thee a royal baptism; we will open another avenue to lands of gold. The waving corn will bless thy life. The Eastern winds bear to thy knowledge a song of light."

The following was given by the beloved John. It is prophetic and assuring in regard to the future of our republic, though it foreshadows a new "Declaration of Independence," and a prospective struggle before the people's liberties are finally achieved. It was given July 4, 1877, through the "scribe." The style is oriental:

"This day is ushered into being as the holy anniversary season when a people were born into a kingdom of power, when olden conditions were lain aside, when the glorious realities broke on vision of the holily endowed that indeed the free public would stand on rocks of ever-living principles. Out of the chaos it came to the loves of order, an hundred years since that love's most holy ways were given in freedom's halls. Over the past is a halo of power that glory-crowned day when holy loves stood forth and declared all peoples were indeed fully freed in the light of superior knowledge. A day is handed down to all generations of life as the most memorable in the annals of history of any nation on the earth planet. A bold life of freedom was inaugurated. The eloquent tones of the master spirits were visible in all the airs of the New World. August presences stood with hearts of the peoples, who were indeed given strength to stand forth and declare their full lives of freedom could not be invaded. Believe, those words were held most sacred by the sages, by the profoundest thinkers of all lands. Cohorts assembled on that day to give strength to that feeble band, to pronounce all as a mighty light for the kingdoms of earth. The defenders of the right stood and held the staff of power in their own hands. Banded together were the holiest loves. They were called the Stone in the New Building, lain on