"Right." Then, the thought-reader was taken out of the room by Dr. G. M. Beard and Rev. G. H. Hepworth; while Mr. Beecher handed a small silver trinket to Dr. A. B. Ball, who concealed it in his shoe. Mr. Beecher also marked two tiny spots on different parts of the wall with a lead-pencil. Mr. Cumberland was then brought in, and, seizing the hand of the Plymouth pastor, he wandered about the room, stopped in front of Dr. Ball, and finally knelt down and took the trinket from the shoe. He also, while still blindfolded, put his finger upon the two spots upon the wall. New York Herald, Nov. 29, 1882.

This power of Mr. Cumberland, Charles Foster, and others, has been by Dr. Crookes and other scientists attributed to induction. "The act of volition or of concentration of thought affects strongly the entire muscular and nervous system. To a person of acute mental perception, this excitement or mental impulse can be communicated by induction, exactly as the current passing along one telegraph or telephone wire will induce a similar current upon another wire running parallel with it."

In this connection, some writers have adduced a theory concerning certain metaphysical phenomena in conversions at colored camp-meetings; and that of Paul. Sampson Staniforth, a Methodist soldier in the campaign of Fontenay, relates his conversion in words which bear plainly marked on them the very stamp of good faith:

From twelve at night until two, it was my turn to stand sentinel at a dangerous post. I had a fellow sentinel, but I desired him to go away, which he willingly did. As soon as I was alone, I knelt down and determined not to rise, but to continue crying and wrestling with God till he should have mercy on me. How long I was in that agony I cannot tell; but, as I looked up to heaven, I saw the clouds open exceedingly bright, and I saw Jesus hanging on the cross. At the same moment, these words were applied to my heart, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." All guilt was gone, and my soul was filled with unutterable peace. The fear of death and hell was vanished away. I was filled with wonder and astonishment. I closed my eyes, but the impression was still the same; and for about ten weeks, while I was awake, let me be where I would, the same appearance was still before my eyes, and the same impression upon my heart, "Thy sins are forgiven thee."*

It is often a phenomenon of an insanity in one direction that the mind is preternaturally keen in another.

"Second sight" is a flag over disputed ground. But it is matter of knowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions

*See St. Paul and Protestantism, by Dr. Matthew Arnold; also Visions: a Study of Pseudopia, by Dr. E. H. Clarke.

- nay, travelled conclusions-continually take the form of images which have a foreshadowing power: the deed they would do starts up before them in complete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or dread rises into vision with a reed-like growth, feeding itself fast on unnumbered impressions. They are not always the less capable of the argumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators of the market. Sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold openings, like the hundred-gated Thebes, where there may naturally be a greater and more miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow, beadle-watched portal.- George Eliot (Daniel Deronda).

So, too, as to cases of "unconscious cerebration." The wonderful movements of some somnambulists are well attested, reminding us of the delicate feats of Japanese prestidigitation, or of the wingings of a bat, eluding an interstrung lace-work of wires in a darkened room. Buni, lately giving mesmeric exhibitions in the larger cities of Hindostan, it is said, invites the public to bring thereto ferocious wild beasts. Like "Rarey, the horse-tamer," Buni "holds them with his glittering eye.' In a few seconds, they subside into a condition of cataleptic stiffness, from which they can only be revived by certain passes, which he solemnly executes with his right hand. A snake in a violent state of irritation was brought to Buni by a menagerie proprietor, enclosed in a wooden cage. When deposited on the platform, it was writhing and hissing fiercely. Buni bent over the cage and fixed his eyes upon its occupant, gently waving his hand over the serpent's restless head. In less than a minute, the snake stretched itself out, stiffened, and lay apparently dead. Buni took it up and thrust several needles into its body, but it gave no sign of angry activity. Subsequently, a savage dog, held in a leash by its owner, was brought in, and at Buni's command let loose upon him, bristling with fury. He raised his hand, and in a second the fierce brute dropped upon its belly as though stricken by lightning. It seemed absolutely paralyzed by some unknown agency, and was unable to move a muscle until released from the magnetizer's spell by a majestic wave of his hand.*

The patient's intercourse with Jesus appears to have been a matter of instantaneous recognition and sympathy. This would not be uncommon. Nothing is truer than the remark of Alexander Knox † that, "in this frail and corrupt world, we

* See two papers by Mrs. A. H. Leonowens, in the Youth's Companion, December, 1882, concerning the Nojai jugglers at the Island of Serpents in the Volga River. † In Southey's Life of John Wesley.

sometimes meet persons who in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of virtue as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather than the result of continued examination." Dr. Thomas Chalmers calls it "a beauty of holiness which effloresces on the countenance, the manner and the outward path."

It is recorded that occasionally there was, however, a failure to heal "because of their unbelief."

The deaf may hear the Saviour's voice,

The fettered tongue its chain may break;
But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice,
The laggard soul that will not wake,
The guilt that scorns to be forgiven,—
These baffle e'en the spells of heaven.
In thought of these, his brows benign
Not e'en in healing cloudless shine.

Come while the blossoms of thy years are brightest,
Thou youthful wanderer in a flowery maze;

Come, while the restless heart is bounding lightest,
And joy's pure sunbeams tremble in thy ways;

い

Come, while sweet thoughts, like summer buds unfolding,
Waken rich feelings in the careless breast;

While yet thy hand the ephemeral wreath is holding,
Come and secure interminable rest.

Soon will the fresh ess of thy days be over,

And thy free buoyancy of soul be flown;

Pleasure will fold her wing, and friend and lover
Will to the embraces of the worm have gone;

Those who now love thee will have passed forever,-
Their looks of kindness will be lost to thee:
Thou wilt need balm to heal thy spirit's feve
As thy sick heart broods over years to be.

Willis Gaylord Clark (Literary Remains, p. 438).

CHAPTER XXXII.

TRANSFIGURATION.

What Three Views concerning the Transfiguration?

(1) THAT there was a supernatural occurrence, literally as described in Matt. xvii. and Mark ix.

(2) That the scene is a mere allegory of the conception that the authority of the law and prophets must be superseded,— Moses and Elijah disappear, leaving Jesus alone singled out as the son of God's good pleasure.

(3) That the account is a traditional exaggeration of a precious interview between Jesus, Peter, John, and James,the latter perhaps a brother of Jesus that had taken the place of a deceased son of Zebedee.

"We are shaped and fashioned," says Goethe, "by what we love." These three are not the only disciples, who, when once on the height of lofty communion with the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, fondly linger and yearn to "abide" there forever, nevermore to descend to life's petty, hampering, commonplace concerns; who have to be reminded that there are other elements of our spiritual nature demanding a fair chance for symmetrical development; that it is only required of us that we be faithful to the pattern shown us up there. Apprehension - comprehension. of the upward often comes of apprehensiveness of the downward.

The most difficult thing in life is to keep the heights which the soul has reached. David Riddle, Jr.

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.

Thyself amid the silence clear,

The world far off and dim;

Thy vision free, the Bright One near,
Thyself alone with him.

John Milton.

Is it entirely fanciful to believe that these favored disciples then and there began to see the world as Jesus saw it? There

is an Arabian proverb, "Get close to the seller of perfumes, if you want to be fragrant." John Bunyan says, "Old truths are new to us, if they come with the smell of heaven upon them." We know that everything became lovely as Jesus looked at it. God was a being of divine loveliness, not a stern king or judge, as the Jews too often regarded him. Did he appear to these rapt contemplators a mere law of nature or order of the universe? So science frequently regards him. Piety, what is it? A devout and advanced thinker, after adverting to the ceremonial, the emotional, the doctrinal, and other kinds of piety, says :

:

If these varieties of piety could be combined in one kind, omitting their defects, we should have the highest kind of all. If we could have a solemn awe and fear of sin and its consequences, as the basis of religion; beautiful, harmonious rites and ceremonies, as the helps to piety; the sympathy of human hearts, social meetings, brotherly fellowship, as the daily food of piety; and the broadest science brought into the Church instead of being left in the college, teaching us to see God in the majestic movements of the stars, in the delicate anatomy of the flower, in the molecular motions and forces of chemical atoms, in the long processes of geology,- by such a combination, we should have the highest piety of all. This can only come through the piety taught us and given to us by Jesus Christ. Its essence is the life of God in the soul, personally communicated through Jesus, the providential mediator, and redeeming us by its power from all evil. It finds God within us as well as around us. It is childlike. The child is not in the least afraid of its parents, if they are what they ought to be; but it looks up to them with reverence, and is afraid of offending them. That is all the fear there is in it.....

God in Christ is a loving order, a fatherly law, a personal friend, yet of unknown depth and height. He is serenely majestic as the central power in the universe, holding all worlds in the hollow of his hand. Yet he is inwardly present to the heart of his humblest child, whenever, in sincere prayer and penitence, his child opens his heart to him.

...

All the love we have learned in this world only needs to take a new direction to become divine love. The greatest scientific discovery of the present time is said to be that of the correlation and conservation of forces. It means that there is one force underlying all forces, now taking one form, now another. It is now motion, then heat, then electricity, then magnetism, then chemical affinity. So in the spiritual world, all forces of the soul are the same, and he who has one can have the rest. Therefore it is that, in the New Testament, faith is sometimes made the whole of religion, and sometimes hope is said to be the source of salvation, and sometimes we are told if we obey the Commandments we shall enter into life, and then we are taught that love is the fulfilling of the law. They are all one and