A brief record of Mr. Moses' life, with some estimates of the work done by him in ordinary professional capacities, will help the reader to form something of a personal judgment on his character.

On the events of his life the Speer family, who were his most intimate friends, and are well acquainted with his nearest surviving relatives, are my main authority. Their importance as witnesses of the phenomena is so great that I must be pardoned for inserting a "testimonial" to the late Dr. Speer (M.D. Edinburgh), which shall not, however, be in my own words, but in those of Dr. Marshall Hall, F.R.S., one of the best known physicians of the middle of this century. Writing on March 18th, 1849, Dr. Marshall Hall says (in a printed collection of similar testimonials now before me): "I have great satis-faction in bearing my testimony to the talents and acquirements of Dr. Stanhope Templeman Speer. Dr. Speer has had unusual advantages in having been at the Medical Schools, not only of London and Edinburgh, but of Paris and Montpellier, and he has availed himself of these advantages with extraordinary diligence and talent. He ranks among our most distinguished rising physicians".

Dr. Speer held at different times various hospital posts of credit, and was much valued as a practising physician at Cheltenham and in London. The work of a physician, however, was rendered somewhat trying to him by an over-anxious temperament; and as he possessed private means, and had strong scientific and artistic tastes, he quitted his profession at thirty-four, and preferred to spend the latter part of his life in studious retirement. Dr. Speer's cast of mind was strongly materialistic, and it is remarkable that his interest in Mr. Moses' phenomena was from first to last of a purely scientific, as contrasted with an emotional or a religious, nature.

I regret that I never met Dr. Speer, who died in 1889. His widow, Mrs. Stanhope Speer, is well known to me; and I regard her as an excellent witness. Her son, Mr. Charlton T. Speer (also an excellent witness), is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and is well known in musical circles as a successful composer and performer.

With these words of preface I pass on to the facts - simple and ordinary enough in their external aspect - of Mr. Moses' life.

William Stainton Moses was born in Lincolnshire, November 5th, 1839. His father had been headmaster of a grammar-school at Donington, near Lincoln. His mother's family name was Stainton. Mr. Stainton Moses believed that the name Moses had been originally Mostyn, but that an ancestor had changed it in order to avoid some peril in the time of the Commonwealth. There seems no reason to suppose that the family, which had been for some time settled in Lincolnshire, was of Jewish descent Mrs. Moses - still living and vigorous (1893) at the age of ninety-one - was a serious and intelligent woman, and brought up her only son with pious care. He showed ability; and the family moved to Bedford, about 1852, that he might have the advantage of education at Bedford College. There he did well, and in due time gained a scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford. In his school days he occasionally walked in his sleep, and on one occasion his mother saw him go down into the sitting-room and write an essay on a subject which had puzzled him on the previous evening, and return to bed without awaking. The essay thus written was the best of those sent up by the class that day (Mr. Moses tells us), and was fully up to the level of his waking performances.

This is the only incident of which I have heard which in any way foreshadowed his future gift. He is not recorded as having been a specially nervous or excitable child 5 and he was at this time strong and healthy. In after life his health was bad; but his troubles were mainly respiratory - constantly recurring catarrh and bronchitis - until near the end of his life, when he was attacked by Bright's disease, which ultimately caused his death. His phenomena, it may be observed, were at their best when he was in his best health, and declined or disappeared altogether when he was ill.

To return to his Oxford career. At Oxford he was an ambitious and hard-working, but not in other ways a very noticeable, undergraduate. His health broke down from overwork, and he left Oxford without taking a degree, and spent some considerable time in travel, mainly with friends, but in part alone. He was already much interested in theology, and he lived for some six months (none of these dates are very precise) in a monastery on Mount Athos. Beyond the mere fact of his residence on Mount Athos, to which his surviving friends testify, all that is known of this period of seclusion consists of allusions made by his "spirit guides," who say that they directed him thither that he might study the Eastern Church, and be prepared by a comparison of theologies for the reception of a wider truth. Be this as it may, he recovered his health, returned to Oxford, took his degree, was ordained by Bishop Wilberforce, and accepted a curacy at Kirk Maughold, near Ramsey, in the Isle of Man, at the age of twenty-four. He was an active parish clergyman, liked by his parishioners, and holding Anglican views of an ordinary type.

On the occasion of an outbreak of small-pox he distinguished himself by his zeal and kindness; and it is recorded that in one case he helped to nurse and to bury a man whose malady was so violent that it was hard to get any one to approach him. During this period also he began to write for periodicals, Punch and the Saturday Review being specially mentioned. The memorial verses to the Rev. F. D. Maurice which appeared in Punch have since been quoted as of Mr. Moses' writing; and I should conceive that his other contributions were probably in this serious strain. He continued to write much, anonymously, for various periodicals during many years of his life, and showed an easy style and a good deal of miscellaneous knowledge.