cordial and entirely free from misunderstanding and friction; but some amusing incidents have occasionally crept in. On two successive occasions he wrote, "Find within five dollars," but both letters were empty so far as money was concerned. Then we indulged in a little pleasantry at the Doctor's expense, to which he penned the following racy reply:

"History says that a well-meaning ant tried ninety-nine times to get a grain of wheat up into his nest in the top of a royal oak, and failed,- but at the hundredth time succeeded. I have been trying and trying to get five dollars to you, but have so far failed. Stepping into the post-office, and inquiring if I sent the five dollars, I find I am the guilty fellow. Have mercy on this old fad, crank, and absent-minded blunderer,and yet there is an excuse.

"You know it is the growing theory that there is no 'matter in the universe,' that all is mind'-Christian Science says that all is mind, so in mind I sent you five dollars. If you had risen high enough above the material to have recognized the five dollars without the grossness of the paper and currency bill, it would all have been right and proper. My dear brother, you must struggle to attain and get up on that exalted Christian Science plane, where, when I think you five dollars, you get it in your mind, and so all will be well.

"But realizing the fact that you are still in the realm of the material, I herein inclose the five dollars that I previously sent you in my mind, for all is mind.' By the way, Christian Scientists tell us that God does the healing;' but I note that they take the pay for it."

Save for these occasional lapses of memory, Dr. Peebles is exceptionally thoughtful and prompt in meeting his financial obligations. He never haggles over a bill. There is nothing. in his nature that is stinted and mean, but, on the contrary, he is excessively generous and overflowing with human sympathy. We have frequently seen poor children come to his door, whom he loaded up with clothes, shoes, and provisions to carry home, and we know of poor families in adjacent neighborhoods, the heads of which, while lying sick, the Doc

tor has not only given free medical attendance, but kept them from starvation's door for months. But of these things he never speaks. The knowledge that he has relieved suffering and made other hearts glad is sufficient for him.

"I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content."

Whitman.

XLVIII

AUTUMN DAYS

"His wandering step

Obedient to high thoughts, has visited.

The awful ruins of the days of old;

Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers
Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatso'er of strange
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,

Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx,

Dark Ethiopia on her desert hills

Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
Stupendous columns, and wild images

Of more than man, where marble demons watch
The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around.

He lingered, poring on memorials

Of the world's youth, through the long burning day,
Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades

Suspended he that task, but ever gazed,

And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time."

-Shelley.

While sojourning in California in 1861, pale, thin, nervous, in quest of health, Dr. Peebles was assured by the "voices" which sometimes address him prophetically, that his work on the Western Coast was unfinished; that his ripening autumn days should be spent in a land that was consecrated by a prehistoric people with a deep spiritual and magnetic life, a people who deposited in the soil a rich, though invisible, legacy for the uplift of a race that should appear in later times,

"A germ of heavenly power that only waits the magic touch of light to spring forth and assert its parentage."

On the southwest coast of California there was to spring forth

"A city fair,

From God's divine ideal mapped and chartered,"

which, in its incipient outlines, can be none other than the city of San Diego. And this same prophetic voice said in 1861:

"Thou shalt come forget it not, I pray
With all thou hast to that city, fair."

Much of this singular prophecy is already fulfilled. Our brother has planted his home in that "city fair," and a band of "glorious workers" are waiting his "stroke on the sounding anvil" which shall transmute the stubborn substances into golden links.

With no effort on his part to fulfill the prophetic forecasts, events began to take shape in the early part of 1894 which finally drew him to the beautiful city on the shore of the calm Pacific. He thought he was settled for an active business career in San Antonio, but as already stated, on the night of Feb. 4, 1894, while he was absent in a distant city, the fire fiend pulled up his stakes, root and branch, and he found it incumbent to seek a base elsewhere. San Diego was one among many locations in contemplation. So he came. hither to canvass his relative advantages. He found it too remote from the center of the continent for his medical business,- which was scattered over the country and conducted largely through correspondence,- but the superb climate and the physical paradise which he found to obtain almost the entire year, offset all the business limitations, and so he was not long in deciding to make San Diego the home for his old

age.

on

A certain captain of ocean craft had built a fine residence. "Golden Hill," near the celebrated "Montezuma Villa,"

of Jesse Sheppard fame. This captain was caught in the maelstrom of the "boom," and the residence was offered for sale at a low figure, just as our Doctor arrived on the scene. The terms were soon arranged, and he took possession. This was now his home, and for the enhancement of its beauty he has expended upward of two thousand dollars. The grounds have all been planted to fruit trees and flowers, the flowers largely predominating, since no part of the material creation challenges his worship as does the floral kingdom. His soul goes out to nature as the birds do, with songs and rejoicing. He may not analyze a flower with botanic precision, but beholds its glory and rejoices in the splendor and plenitude of its coloring. He insists that they know him. The early morning and hour of sunset, spent in his garden communing with his flowers, are hours of involution, hours in which he imbibes that plenitude of magnetic and psychic inspiration which he pours forth in the literary effusions from his pen, and in the healing influence and cheerful hope which becomes to his patients a restorative potency and an assurance of continued functioning in the physical tabernacle. He often speaks to his flowers saying, "You darlings, how sweet, how beautiful!"

For the present, however, our brother can rest only a small portion of the year in this sunny home on the Pacific slope, since his business has been transferred to Battle Creek, and a portion of his labors is still distributed over wide areas, even extending to two hemispheres. Indeed, he is now seriously projecting a fourth journey around the world, and from present indications will set sail for Australia the coming November (1901). He writes under date of May 27, 1901:

"The Spiritualists of Australia are urging — pressing me to come and lecture two or three months. You remember that I gave the first course of lectures there about thirty years ago ever given in Melbourne. These colonies have now become federated, the United States of Australia,

and they now beg of me to come. I think, Heaven approving, I shall leave early in November."