religious believers. In this way, Spiritualism afforded the occasion for the incipient manifestation of an impulse which had taken root in the aggregate population. Spiritualism was the channel through which this impulse first came prominently to the surface. One form in which this impulse became manifest was the protest on the part of thousands of American women against the assumed right of their husbands to the possession of their bodies for the gratification of their animal desires! Henry C. Wright's book entitled, "The Unwelcome Child," contains sufficient proof of this statement. These same conditions are not on the surface in all the churches, and in general society. The trial of Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn, and more recently Reverend Brown, of San Francisco, are two among a multitude of examples showing how modern society as the final word relating to social morals.

While the great majority still profess to venerate the traditional form of social life, yet it is easy to detect that there is a rapidly increasing laxity in the current of social morals. In the social transition to which we have been witness in the last forty years, there is now manifest a more than usual tendency to yield to temptation and break away from the customary restraints which formerly held the passions in check. While the general populace, without regard to religious profession, are swayed more or less by this new impulse, they have but little if any idea about the social readjustments which all this portends, hence there ensues a state of comparative social chaos, for which the latest Spiritual or religious movement is held responsible by all who remain well housed. within the pale of older organizations. It is not here attempted to discuss the meaning or probable outcome of the existing social disorders, but merely to note that it is neither the offspring of Spiritualism nor confined to its professed believers.

It has been the habit of both men and women to turn to our brother in their distress, as to a wise and sympathetic counselor. Never did a child come closer to a maternal bosom than a troubled brother or sister to his heart. The secrets of the inner life and struggles oft conceal the rarest pearls

of character, and indicate the deep undercurrents of love. It is good to trust the divine in human nature. It is through suffering that the hidden worth of character oftenest becomes revealed.

The old, old story: Here is a case of an unhappy marriage; the man warm hearted, the woman unresponsive; both in a domestic hell! He loved another, and that other, unschooled in the philosophy of magnetic spheres, confiding as a resting bird, whatever the spirits said was to her law and gospel. When alone by themselves, he, the husband of another, was entranced by a positive spirit, who, " for the sake of health," as runs the subtle plea, suggested a disregard of the legal tie that bound the husband to his wife. It was a temptation to this unsophisticated girl; but rallying her moral courage, again she parried the advances, and yet her love held her under the magnetic spell! She faltered, wept, prayed, but kept her person inviolate. In her struggles and desperation she confided her secret to Mr. Peebles and sought his counsel. She wrote him a full statement and asked his advice. Mr. Peebles's reply was: "Resist without a moment's hesitation! Die rather than plunge into an entanglement which can have no other ending than bitterness and disappointment!" He portrayed the social perils, the need of renunciation and selfdenial, the glory of martyrdom, such as angels love to witness. The divinity of such a death rather than the ignominy of such a life. "Weave not," he said, "your chords of holy love into the meshes of a domestic quarrel. Wait until God and man shall sunder the false, and your heroism will give you a rest. of soul approved by high heaven!" This counsel restored her to self-possession. A new tide of force surged through her being. The path of duty now seemed luminous to her newly awakened vision, and she was content to walk in the way which wisdom prescribed.

Here, also, is a heart-pleading letter and its answer. sorrow over these wounded lives. It is surprising how the human heart can bleed and yet live. How woman can suffer and yet hope and love! How carefully we should guard against the perils of obsessing spheres! The sister who writes the following has treasures beyond the border:·

"DEAR BROTHER PEEBLES,-I write to you for aid, sympathy, and influence. My husband has become so infatuated with a young lady, that he says he does not love me, and that he will never live with me again. This is a terrible blow. I love him as dear as I ever did, yet I can have no control over him. I think he is either obsessed, or deranged. He has left me perfectly destitute; no home. I am now a dependent upon my friends, which, you know, is very humiliating to me. And now, dear brother, I want you to help me establish my home again, happy as it has been. It can, I feel; it must be done. He must not bring this reproach upon Spiritualism, and a curse like this on his family. See him, and turn him right. For God's sake, help me! As I look at our four helpless little ones, it almost crazes me to know that I am left alone to protect and care for them. Dear brother, let me hear from you soon. I feel you can and will help me, and save him. I feel that the good and true spirits will, and are trying to aid and help me. I will not despair, though all seems of inky darkness, and the gulf impassable; yet I hope. Please let me hear from you at once; for my heart is almost broken.

"MRS.

"CLEVELAND, OHIO, Jan. 6, 1871.

Dear Friend,- Your communication of

lies before me, inciting sadness of spirit. It is only one. among many of a similar character reaching me each year. This social problem is to me a continual puzzle; and, while I mean to be charitable, I must be just. How your husband, possessing the instinct common to humanity, could thus leave. you destitute; how he could leave those four little children, whom he has been instrumental in bringing into the world, leave them to look up with tearful eyes and call in vain for a father, a father to love and counsel, savors of a reckless inhumanity, bordering upon mental insanity. It is not the work, my sister, of Spiritualism, but rather of demonism,—a psychological infatuation thrown around him by the serpentine charms of that 'young woman.' Is he dead to common justice, dead to duty, dead to those holy and paternal relations. that should unite father and child? He will awake some day,

in this moral maelstrom, to feel those bitter, biting, galling regrets, to feel that anguish that no painter can put on canvas, so sure as God is, so sure as there is compensation. The hells await him. He would evidently say to me, in pursuing this course, I am seeking happiness.' So does the slimy serpent, when leaving his frosty den to catch the first sunbeams of spring. Happiness based on selfishness can not succeed; neither can the priceless boon be obtained at the expense of a wife's happiness, and injustice done to four little children. Every child born on this earth has the right to demand honorable recognition, care, and counsel from the father as well as the mother; has the right to be loved by both parents; and the right to a sound, practical education. . . . Gladly would I assist you, were it in my power; but I do not know where Mr. is, nor have I the means of finding him. Could I lay my hand upon his shoulder, and plead for those children, - those olive branches, that need to grow up under the sunshine of home and sweet home influences,- perhaps I might induce him to return, prodigal-like, to his family. Does he not know there is such a principle as self-sacrifice? that it is noble to forget self for others' good? Rest assured that you have my sympathy, and may command my services in any possible way that will bring about reconcilation, and help secure the good of all concerned. . .

Most truly thine,

"J. M. PEEBLES."

Ever since the Spiritualist movement took its rise, there have been great diversities of opinion among Spiritualists on fundamental questions relating to ethics, the historical, religious, restrictive legislation, the relation of the sexes, etc. Among all these differences, the social question has been the chief occasion of bitter discussion and division. In the church. this question is never, or but rarely, discussed; and while there is an outward conformity to a conservative standard of social ethics, those who are inwardly impure, indulge their disorderly practices in secret. Probably no greater diversity of sentiment exists among Spiritualists than in the churches, but Spiritu

alists have formed the habit of proclaiming "from the housetops" their real convictions. No class deplore immorality any more profoundly than do true Spiritualists. But we have not only the poor, but the evil with us always. It may be conceded that Spiritualists as a class have their share of the frailties common to human nature, nor have any religious body. of believers any immediate prospect of entrance into the kingdom of unalloyed purity, while all the rest of the world remains in iniquity. The race must rise as a whole before any considerable number of units will be redeemed. Let us exercise charity.

In a valuable article published in The American Spiritualist, making distinction between mere Spiritists and Spiritualists, Mr Peebles says:

"If in any way given to constructive thought, they [Spiritists] place the base of the pyramid in the air, and then seek to adjust the physical forces and relational magnetisms to the neglect of those divine principles that take hold upon heaven and eternal life. They insist that their bodies are their own, and they have a right to use them as they will. Another way this of asserting the right of passional promiscuity.' The slavering, staggering drunkard admires the argument. Have I not a right,' he indignantly exclaims, 'a right to use my body as I choose? to put anything into it I please?' and down goes the poisoned dram of liquor! To state is to refute such a monstrous position.

... Through suffering, discipline, and painful experiences, these social errorists will learn that liberty is not license; that love is not lust; that psychological influence is not spiritual attraction; and that gratification is not happiness; nor the right way to obtain it, in any realm of existence where intelligences exist as moral beings. To 'him that overcometh' is the paradise of purity promised. Our angels teach us that sensualists stung with mental suffering, people lowest conditions in the tartarean spheres of the after life. It is not much, it is not all, to be a mere Spiritist. Multitudes of wild Indians are Spiritists; millions of Chinamen have been Spiritists from remotest antiquity; the polygamy-practicing dervishes in Mohammedan