" To another the gift of knowledge by the same spirit."

The Materialist, the Agnostic, the Secularist, will tell you there is no royal road to knowledge. They say thatevery step taken in the department of science, of learning, of intellect, must be the slow and tedious pathway of didactic instruction; that man knows nothing excepting that which he is taught, and that he must be taught from the external; that the brain receives impressions, not from within, but from without, and the whole realm of knowledge is relegated to the senses of man.

Not so ! Even the metaphysician declares an a priori knowledge, whether it belong to the atom or the spirit; and that wonderful German philosopher who, in disproving immortality, has clearly proved it. Kant distinctly declares certain kinds of knowledge to be a priori to the senses.

Some men are born with knowledge and perception of knowledge that others, even with all the schooling of all universities, can never attain. Some have the genius of knowledge - they know things without studying, they perceive them; and as one has music, another poetry, another art, so some have knowledge. You ask them of the affairs of State, they are prophets politically; you ask them concerning that which occurred in past time, and the comprehensiveness is with them that enables them to know what history has, perhaps, but dimly recorded. This may be termed the genius of knowledge.

But there is another gift of knowledge separate from this, and distinct from the teaching of the schools. When the child who manifests no especial superiority either of gift or genius in any direction, is made to speak facts unknown to the child, language with which the child is unfamiliar, grammatical sentences that have never been studied, rhetorical periods that are not the result of culture, historical facts that could not have been obtained except by study or instruction -there is a distinct evidence of the gift of knowledge.

There are only two sources of knowledge in the universe One is that of embodied mind - the mind of man in the human form - and the other is disembodied mind, spirit, angel, or God.

Therefore, when knowledge not known to the individual embodied mind is uttered, it is evidence of inspiration - the gift of knowledge. This is so distinct a gift that you cannot mistake it. It comes in so palpable a form that it is not to be confounded either with the intuition of which we have spoken - the genius which seems to be nearly allied to it - nor any other phase or form of mental or moral power.

It is, in other words, the pouring into a receptive brain, not only thoughts, ideas and principles, but facts. This gift of knowledge is, perhaps, though not so wonderful to the wonder-seeking, though it does not appeal to the senses as the gift of miracles of which we have spoken, though it may not be so enticing as the gift of foretelling events, and though it does not seem to be as philanthropic and beneficent as the gift of healing, still what is there greater than knowledge save wisdom? What is there greater than wisdom save the ineffable Love that encompasses and encircles the whole?

If ignorance is the cause of sin, then knowledge must be its antidote. If ignorance is the universal malady in the world, and to undo ignorance is to bring the healing of all moral and spiritual ills, then what can surpass this wonderful gift of knowledge?

It is a most singular fact, however, that, like all spiritual gifts, this gift of knowledge is held in check by some superior motive. It does not come merely for the sake of gratifying the intellectual gymnast, who would put it to the test, any more than the wonders of Christ, or of modern mediumship, or any gift of the spirit comes at the demand of the curiosity seeker.

The gift of knowledge comes in its own way, speaks its language at its own time and chosen place; conies through the lips of the child, or the gray-haired man, or the simple-minded woman, just as it determines, not as you determine. You may summon it, and it will not appear; when you are not expecting it, it will come.

Most of the inspirational speakers of modern times can be distinctly said to be endowed with this gift of knowledge.

Most of those who have been developed as teachers of spiritual truths, in the modern souse of the term, have been endowed from the spiritual and not from the materia] standpoint. And while many have ripened into Spiritualism from the well-worn paths of theological universities, the knowledge thai is born of the spiritual gift has usually come to young children, young men and women untrained in the schools of knowledge, having no systematic education, and not at all endowed with any of the culture that is afforded through those schools.

It is not usual for us to speak of persons; but the medium who is before you, and the sister medium, [Mrs. E. L. Watson - Rep.] to whom a reception was given last evening, as also Mr. Colville, Mrs. Nellie Brigham, and a score of your best speakers and teachers on the spiritualistic platform, are those to whom no other training has been given than that which the spirit world has afforded. Facts known in history, and perhaps unknown until stated through their lips; material science untaught by any external teaching; the perception of truths or principles in the universe that they are not at all familiar with; rhetorical effects not the result of culture, eloquence of elocution, and the details of public speaking all are the result of the gift of the knowledge of invisible yet palpable intelligences; the knowledge that is known in spirit becomes the knowledge of those who know it not, and by no system of study whatsoever.

When Andrew Jackson Davis was a young man - before the word mediumship seemed to have become obnoxious to him - the powers of his knowledge were derived from the same source - the source of inspiration. Not that his spirit climbed up to the hills of knowledge and seized the facts, hut that those dwelling on the supernal mountain heights of spiritual knowledge imparted those facts to his brain. To-day, alas ! there are many in Spiritualism who, having obtained some simple portion of knowledge would fain deny the source whence it came, and would say: "I am equal to any spirit; why should I not know these things?"