The ethical or moral proposition as to whether spirits should commune if they can, is not under consideration. Those whose theological convictions are such that they do not permit departed spirits to return to earth, would do well to inquire into the fact as to whether they return or no, before deciding the propriety of it; since in the universe of natural law it has been proven in all history that neither nature or God consult humanity as to what should occur in the universe. The law of light and heat, the ebbing and flowing of the tides, the great tempests that sweep over the earth bringing health-giving breath - all occur independently of man's permission, and the only province of human intelligence is to adapt itself to these wonderful changes, and endeavor by the law of intelligence to reach the higher strata of natural science. For just as surely as that sails speed the vessel's course on the ocean, or steam transports the mighty products of the world from one continent to another, so is it sure that human intelligence when acting in accordance with natural law may accomplish wonders, and that there is no limit, so far as we are able to perceive, in the possibility of human achievements.

Between, however, the realm that is called natural law, the movements of which occur with regular, distinct, and periodical directness - the phenomena of the universe materially being regulated by that law - and the manifestation of intelligence through natural forces, which is distinct and individualized, there is as clear a dividing line, as distinct and actual a difference, as between the intellect in man, which forces him to do a thousand things in violence of his physical well being, and yet which constitute, perhaps, the very triumph of his intelligence and the physical being itself. The chronometer or clock will, in accordance with the law of its construction - which of course was an intelligent law - perform its regular office of indicating the time of day, and under certain regulations will do this continually, until the friction upon the materials of which it is constructed shall cause it to wear out. But if the hands of that clock were to suddenly pass swiftly around indicating within one minute several hours; and if it has a striking apparatus, instead of striking regularly at the appointed hours, the bells were to indicate one, two, three, four, and the hand signals within the space of a minute, and that in response to your wish or request, you would certainly know it was not the result of any accident in the action of the atmosphere around you, nor of anything in the construction of the clock, but was some other intelligence. Doubtless your Puritan fathers would say his Satanic Majesty had taken possession of the clock and produced the result. So if this splendid organ, played upon but this instant by your organist, should, without any visible performer, begin to give forth sounds of music exactly in correspondence to musical bars and scales, and rising to the degree of grandeur equal to Beethoven or Mozart, you would certainly say it was not in accordance with the construction of the organ, excepting it was played upon by individual intelligence.

Therefore, I say that where the line of natural law in its ordinary working leaves off, and a distinct individual intelli-gence, even though it be through an invisible form, operates, it is as easily determined as the difference between a shaft of lightning and a telegraphic message.

It is the ordinary question, not only among Spiritualists but investigators. If spirits communicate with mortals, what are their methods? The question indicates the capacity to understand the methods - or should do so, and that the one asking it is qualified by some preliminary steps to understand that which shall follow the answer to the question. Thousands of people are passing over the continent, drawn by a steam engine whose workings they have no more knowledge of than they have of the wonderful mechanism of the soul. They do not question how they go, but accept the results; and only the skillful engineer, who allows no interference in his department can explain the mystery of cylinder, piston-rod, valve and wheel; and even were he to explain it, very few human beings without special culture could understand it. Yet here is a message from the innermost sources of being. bringing to your very doors the fact of immortal life, bearing unto your hearts and minds the wonderful knowledge of the future state; and yet before accepting the fact, or as if it affected the fact in any way, you say: "Well, how is it possible that spirits can manifest? " The fact is before you, like the steam engine; and if you would know its intricate working, you must place yourself as a pupil under the direction of those who understand the law; first presuming that you have the natural capacity to understand, for all persons cannot be engineers any more than all can be astronomers or mathematicians.

The natural gifts of humanity govern the pursuits of knowledge, or in some degree; but all plunge blindly into this question, as though there were the capacity already of comprehending it. Thousands of human beings breathe the air daily, and complain bitterly if it is excluded from their apartments, or crowded cars, or boats; and yet not one in ten thousand can tell the component parts, chemically, of the atmosphere, or why it constitutes the breath of life. Accepting the air as a natural and universal benefaction, they do not say: " Why is it that we must breathe to live?" The same may be said of every physical law that governs your being, and the scientific expert or the adept is able to give only a few of the more intricate effects of which the causes still lie concealed in the innermost recesses of natural law. Spiritual phenomena differ from the phenomena of natural law by the manifestation of individual intelligence - an intelligence that is personal, has distinctly a will of its own; sometimes, seemingly, as capricious as your own, but yet express this intelligence in such a variety of ways and through such a variety of avenues that it demands at once the attention and scrutiny of the world.