SPIRITUALISM IN ALL AGES. In the course of a lecture upon Spiritualism once delivered by Judge Edmonds in New York, he said : “ In two ancient works lately falling under my notice (Dr. John Dee’s Dealings with Spirits, published in 1659; and Glanvil’s Sadducismus Triumphatus, published in 1681), I have found an account of mani festations two hundred and three hundred years since identical with those of to-day. The faith of the Methodists under Wesley, and of the Quakers under George Fox, was inaugurated one hundred years ago under the same influenee. The manifestations through Swedenborg in the last century, were of the same character. The thirty years' war which attended the Reformation under Luther and Melanethon, was accom panied by a lively display of the same power. The preaching mania, which so much disturbed both the church and the government in Sweden in 1842, was the same as our tranee-mediumship. And now modern Spiritualism, much contemned as it is, has within the last ten years sprung up in all parts of the earth, every where bearing the same characteristies, under circum stances which absolutely preclude all idea of collusion —often betrayed but never exposed; defying the utmost severity of investigation to which human ingenuity can subject it ; calling to its aid, thousands of intelligent witnesses ; invoking human testimony, which no sane mind can disregard; and establishing a marvel unsurpassed in the history of mankind; namely, the marvel of inanimate matter moving without mortal contact, and displaying intelligence, and that intelli gence embracing a knowledge of the alphabet, of reading, writing and arithmetic; speaking in man tongues, and reading human thought, and revealing to us what purports to be the spirit life, with details which no imagination can fabricate. "Now, may we not ask, whence comes this, and what produces it? “ The man of seienee denounces it as superstition the man of the world calls it delusion, and the religionist characterises it as satanic. We, on the other hand, insist that we must believe the evidenee of our senses, and the deductions of our reason—that we can not reject the overwhelming evidence that is all around us. We insist that there is no other hypothesis but that of spiritual intercourse which can give any solution to the phenomena we behold. And we insist that there is a power now at work in our very midst capable of producing marvellous results, which is well worthy the investigation of the learned, rather than their scoffs and sneers. “ And now let us pause yet once again, and ask what is it that the opponents of our faith demand “ They ask us to yield to their opinion, against the universal belief of mankind in all ages; against the teachings of sacred history of all religions; against the testimony of profane history as to all nations against human testimony which the human intellect can not disregard; against the evidence of our own senses without whieh we could not live; and against the opinions of the wise and the good in many ages. “ Nay, they ask even yet more. They demand that we acknowledge that man has attained the end of his knowledge of the works and the word of God, and that, though in former times and places He has once and again spoken to man through His ministering spirits, He can not, and will not, thus speak to him again; that the glory which once descended and sat between the wings of the Cherubim, has faded alike from the sight and the memory of man; that the light whieh onee shone on Mount Sinai is extinguished, and for ever ! Can this be so? “ No, my friends, it is not ; in can not be. If there is faith to be placed in human testimony—if the past can speak its lessons of wisdom to the present ; if it is the destiny of man to move onward ever in the pathway of knowledge—we must believe that the spirits of the departed do commune with us; that a power has entered into our midst and abides with us which we yet may know; and which can work marvellous things in the sight of God and angels ; and we may be well assured that the time is not distant though it may not be in my day nor in yours, when the work which has been begun so feebly in the present will be finished in the future by elevating us, both physically and morally, yet nigher and nigher to Him who has created us in His own image." FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN:—The fear of the unknown is a very potent influence among savages, and is lost only as man ascends in the scale of civilisation and edueation. The medi eine men, to be found more or less among nearly all savages, owe their influence entirely to this fear of the unknown among their less crafty brethren. The feeling is very preva lent among animals. The Rev. Charles Kingsley once spoke of a pony which reared on end and snorted with affright at a terrible object in its path. The owner of the animal picked up the source of terror and gave it to the pony to smell. After a few trembling sniffs the pony calmed down—it was only a kettle. So man, in his upward path, has “ shied ” at many kettles—he has committed endless crimes because of superstitious fears—but it is to be hoped that those “good old times” have now gone for ever, and that better and happier times await him in the future.