PERSONAL ACCESSIBILITY BETTER.

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spiritually susceptible to high and pure spiritual influences.

The world has found fault with some Christians, socalled, because they confine their religion to Sunday, the family altar, and the weekly prayer-meeting, instead of carrying it into the thousand recurrences of daily life. Quite as blame-worthy are those Spiritualists, so-called, who confine their Spiritualism to the seance hour and to the private sitting. Spiritualism cannot be engrafted in our nature by such outward appliances. To be worthy of the name it must be a growth from within, and be entirely independent of what may be received through the organism of another person.

Many will say in all sincerity that they are wholly destitute of evidence and consolation, unless they get it through another, because they are not mediumistic. Perhaps they never can be mediums for other persons, but all most certainly can, and to this statement do we beg the most earnest consideration of the reader, all most certainly can become accessible to spirit influences of a pure order, and can also in time receive in their own private, personal experience convincing evidence of the presence and the loving watch-care of their disembodied friends.

But this result, as a general thing, cannot be brought about in a month or even a year. It requires a clear understanding of the processes to be employed, and a persistent and regular practice of these spiritual methods until the growth of the soul has become apparent. From that point, there is no danger that the delighted aspirant will ever cease a development that has already brought such results.

FOUR STEPS TO PEACE.

Always try to do the will of another, rather than thine own. Always seek to have less rather than more.

Always seek the lowest place.

Always desire that the will of God (Infinite Intelligence) may

may be accomplished in you.

He that does this enters into the region of rest and peace."

THOMAS à KEMPIS.

CHAPTER V.

THE AIM OF MEDIUMSHIP.

When mediumship is sought for spiritual purposes, it is a beautiful thing. Reader, test the motive of your desire for mediumistic power. Do you desire it in order to spiritualize all souls everywhere, whether embodied or disembodied? Or do you desire it for advancement in earthly fame, or worldly prosperity? The Old Book said, "Try the spirits." Let each one try his own, and scrutinize his reason for desiring to become a medium between the visible and invisible worlds. A high motive will draw a spirit actuated by the same, but a low motive shuts the door to such, and welcomes those of a lower grade. "Motives are the impulses that stamp souls," wrote Adoniram Judson from the spirit side of life.

The very word aspiration implies a somewhat towards. which the soul desires to grow. And as the fountain does not rise higher than its source, so does the soul, the offspring of God, grow ever towards that out of which it came. But, finite as we are, we cannot comprehend infinity, and we necessarily lose ourselves in endeavoring to unite with it. So, in conformity with our own limited and bounded condition, we can distinctly conceive only of intelligences finite like ourselves, and whose tuition, and aid, and influence we desire, because they are wiser, stronger, and better than we are.

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WE MAY APPLY TO SPIRITS

A pupil who asks his wiser teacher for instruction does not by that act disown a belief in a mighty wisdom far transcending that of his teacher. The wise mother who guides the aspirations of her child is aware that her own knowledge comes from a higher source. The thousand things that we do for others and that they do for us, the suggestions we make, the helpful words we speak, are not designed to take the place of the mighty source of all exerted strength. Nay: it is rather because of God (Allah, Jehovah, Jove, Lord, or Infinite Life itself) that we are able to make these efforts, and become the instruments by which an absolute potency makes itself felt. The wise instructs him who knows less, the strong aids his weaker brother, the advanced spirit helps his aspiring student of earth, because of the strength to do and bear that comes from away beyond. Our strength, our wisdom, our goodness, are not selforiginated. They were implanted in our original germ, and we have thus the security of an existence derived from the Absolute Good.

And, as the child asks its mother to nurse it, as the student asks the teacher to explain the problem, as we ask our friend to lend us a helping hand when we are in trouble, and do not, because of these acts, deny the existence of a power beyond, that enables all these things to be accomplished in accordance with its laws,-so, in like manner, do we ask instruction from wise spirits whose experience enables them to know more than we do, and ask the dear departed to comfort and aid us in those special needs which they care for because they are specially interested in us as individuals, without disowning our trust in God, and our consciousness that

AS WELL AS TO MORTALS.

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because God is, spirits, whether embodied or disembodied, can do thus and so.

Also, as the seeking child, the enquiring student, and the applying friend do not by their acts sacrifice their own individuality and personal responsibility, by seeking from another one what he can give, but is enabled by wise assistance to develop his own individual power, —so do we, in like manner, ask counsel, information and comfort from disembodied spirits who are able to give the same, without sacrificing our own individuality, or debasing our manhood or womanhood, or lessening our power of self-action and self-resolution and decision.

Those who object to such applying to disembodied spirits when they accept doing it in the ordinary associations of this life, do it on the mistaken basis that a spirit is, per se, different without a physical body from what he was when he had one. The mother soothed us here: she can, if we become accessible, soothe us from there. The father counseled us here: he can, under like conditions, counsel us from there. The physician helped our physical condition here: he can, if the laws governing communication be followed, aid us from there. There is no more loss of individuality in being counseled, comforted, or helped by a disembodied spirit, than in being treated in a like manner by the men and women in daily, physical life. In both cases we may cultivate our own individuality, and the sense of our own responsibility for our own actions, if we understand our relations aright with the visible and the invisible world.

There is nothing strained, forced, or unnatural in being disembodied. A mistake is made by those who suppose that a person is made unnatural, and therefore