If the hiohway robber is dead and wants to send a mes-sage to earth as to his condition in spirit life, you have no right to deny him. If a saint, on the other hand, wishes to send a message, you have no right to demand that that saint shall be the only one to communicate. Lessons are learned by contrast as often as by direct teaching; and he who can tell you of his condition in the spirit world as the result of his shadow-life upon the earth, may give you a better warning than he who comes to you with radiant language and pictures of immortal glory.

There are too many who are prone to desire to regulate mediumship; to turn on the light here and shut it off there; to declare in what condition it shall come and under what it shall not come. Begging pardon, and giving you all credit for good intentions, keep your hands away from the valves; keep your minds as free as possible and let the spirit world manage their own mediums. This organist does not want you to help him play the organ; if you can sing, you are welcome to do it. But if each one of you should say, " Turn this stop; put on that pedal," your organist would certainly object. So we from the spirit world understand and know best how to manage our instruments, and we say " hands off;" keep your minds free and pure to receive whatever good may come, but do not try to regulate the instruments. If they are valueless, we shall find it out for ourselves; and fortunately you are not compelled either to witness anything that you do not approve of, nor to listen to anything that you do not like; and there are no laws in this or any other land to compel you to seek mediums whom you distrust, and witness manifestations that are not satisfactory. But if you attempt to regulate the manifestations, like him who tampers with the clock, setting it at different hours to suit himself and his conscience, you will have no correct report from the other world at all.

We know of several who have mediums of their own; who have them thoroughly regulated and developed to suit themselves. No messages come through those mediums not approved by the censor of the circle, and the result is very little intelligence from the other world. We know of those who think that there is nothing satisfactory excepting handcuffs and thumbscrews. This kind of intelligence certainly would have appealed to the middle ages. We are accustomed to upbraid those in the Church who apply the car of Juggernaut, and who believe in the method of extorting a confession by the application of such forces, for it is below the understanding of the present day.

Any man who is not qualified to trust his intelligence, and to know whether a message is genuine or no, cannot certainly be any better satisfied by such methods and appliances. From the seance room we should have nothing that will remind us of the persecutions of former days. In the inquiries of the seance room, the men of science who claim to investigate should not desire to emulate our Puritan fathers, whom they accuse of great bigotry in religion. Let us have intelligence as the source of inquiry; let us have careful and calm judgment; observe, watch, witness what is produced, but do not attempt to control the manifestations. If you have a chronometer you do not put it under a sledge-hammer to test its power for keeping time. Let those who are instruments between you and the spiritual realm be not only sheltered from violent passions, suspicion, and such acrid elements as frequently enter, but let the law of sympathy and love so surround them that the message that comes to you shall be the direct and distinct word of the spiritual world.

That you cannot control it is evident from the fact that for thirty-five years Church, clergy, scientific men, men of business, and the whole world have tried to drive it out of existence; first by ridicule and scorning, by unbelief, by denial, and by claiming it to be the work of his Satanic Majesty; next by electricity, but every form of explanation proving inadequate.

Now, steadily increasing, there is scarcely a household that has not its medium; some loved and revered member through whom the messages come, breathing words of affection from the world of spirits. Would you admit any one to rudely tear away that light and strength? It is no act of bravery to cut down telegraph wires and destroy the communication with another city. It is no act of intelligence to tear up a railroad track and wreck a train. Yet many consider that they have accomplished a wonderful act in breaking up a spiritual seance. Surely it proves nothing except the vileness and ignorance of him who does it.

The intelligence of the world moves in response to that which appeals to its intelligence; and if mediumship means anything, it means that which, independently of your will, independently of your wish if need be, shall demonstrate the presence of disembodied spirits in your midst, and when that evidence comes to you the continual teaching from spiritual life shall bring you intelligence of that which lies beyond.

Destroy the fountain from whence a city receives its supply of water; destroy the light which guides its citizens in the night-time, and it is the act of a traitor and coward; and there is no other name to apply to one who, if he could, would turn out the lights from the upper realm that are guiding mankind through the Valley and Shadow of Death; no other name to one who seeks to blot out the fair and sacred message that is now being traced upon the walls of your dwellings, and now being gathered to millions of hearts.

O treasure your spiritual gifts ! Hold them as you would a sacred lily in your hands; let your lives be guided and guarded by them; let the light that cometh from within be as a charmed cup in which the nepenthe of life is held, that all may drink who will apply it to their lips, and none shall be thirsty who will come to the fountain of the spirit.