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physical, at all events governed by laws as constant and unchangeable as are those which hold the planets to their appointed course. And if, as Scripture intimates* and poets have sung,† the spirits of the departed still take an interest in the well-being of those friends they have left behind upon earth, and if they may sometimes, by virtue of these laws, evince that interest, why may we not imagine a father availing himself of such opportunity to avert an injustice about to overtake his son? And why should we admit and adopt extreme improbabilities in order, at all hazards, to escape from such a conclusion?

Mr. Rutherford seems to have fallen into the same error as Sir Walter; though in the case of the latter it resulted in skepticism, and of the former, in superstition. A more enlightened view of the case might have benefited both. It might have induced the author of Waverley to doubt the propriety of denying (if indeed he did in his heart deny) the occasional reality of ultramundane agency; and it might have spared Mr. Ruther

*Luke xvi. 27.

"They that tell us that such as Dives retain no love to their brethren on earth, speak more than they can prove, and are not so credible as Christ, that seemeth to say the contrary."-BAXTER: World of Spirits, p. 222.

"And is there care in Heaven? And is there love

In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move?
There is !"-SPENSER.

When a beloved child is taken from us, there is, perhaps, no idea to which the bereaved heart turns more eagerly and naturally than to this. In the Protestant cemetery at Naples lie the remains of a young girl, the beautiful and gifted daughter of an American clergyman; and upon her tombstone I had inscribed, by the father's instructions, the well-known stanza,-who has not admired it?—

"Fold her, O Father, in thine arms,

And let her henceforth be

A messenger of love between

Our human hearts and thee."

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CASE VOUCHED FOR

ford the delusion of imagining, as he seems to have done, that he was the favored subject of a special and miraculous intervention from God.

Supposing that

Let us proceed a step further. we are willing to regard the two last-mentioned cases, beset with difficulties though they be, as mere examples of old associations recalled, let us inquire whether no cases are to be found in which there is presented to the mind of the sleeper a reality which could not have been drawn from the forgotten depths of the memory, because it never existed there. What shall we do, for example, with such a case as this, occurring to William Howitt, and recorded by that author himself? It occurred during his voyage to Australia, in 1852.

"Some weeks ago, while yet at sea, I had a dream of being at my brother's at Melbourne, and found his house. on a hill at the farther end of the town, next to the open forest. His garden sloped a little way down the hill to some brick buildings below; and there were green-houses on the right hand by the wall, as you looked down the hill from the house. As I looked out from the windows in my dream, I saw a wood of duskyfoliaged trees, having a somewhat segregated appearance in their heads; that is, their heads did not make that dense mass like our woods. 'There,' I said, addressing some one in my dream, 'I see your native forest of Encalyptus!' This dream I told to my sons, and to two of my fellow-passengers, at the time; and, on landing, as we walked over the meadows, long before we reached the town, I saw this very wood. 'There,' I said, 'is the very wood of my dream. We shall see my brother's house there!' And so we did. It stands exactly as I saw it, only looking newer; but there, over the wall of the garden, is the wood, precisely as I saw it, and now see it as I sit at the dining-room

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

171

window writing. When I look on this scene, I seem to look into my dream."*

Unless we imagine that Mr. Howitt is confounding ideas originally obtained from a minute description of the scene from his brother's windows with impressions here represented as first received by him in dream, (a supposition which in the case of so intelligent a writer is inadmissible,) how can we explain this dream by the theory of past memories revived? And here the hypothesis of mere accidental coincidence is clearly out of place. Indeed, the case is difficult of explanation according to any theory heretofore commonly received.

Equally so is the following, a personal experience, given by Mrs. Howitt in the Appendix to her husband's translation of Ennemoser just cited. "On the night of the 12th of March, 1853," she says, "I dreamed that I received a letter from my eldest son. In my dream I eagerly broke open the seal, and saw a closely-written sheet of paper; but my eye caught only these words, in the middle of the first page, written larger than the rest, and underdrawn :- My father is very ill.' The utmost distress seized me, and I suddenly woke to find it only a dream; yet the painful impression of reality was so vivid that it was long before I could compose myself. The first thing I did, the next morning, was to commence a letter to my husband, relating this distressing dream. Six days afterward, on the 18th, an Australian mail came in and brought me a letter,—the only letter I received by that mail, and not from any of my family, but from a gentleman in Australia with whom we were acquainted. This letter was addressed on the outside Immediate;' and, with a trembling hand,

*Given in Appendix to "History of Magic," by Ennemoser, translated by William Howitt, London, 1854, vol. ii. p. 416.

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MRS. HOWITT'S LETTER.

I opened it; and, true enough, the first words I saw and those written larger than the rest, in the middle of the paper, and underdrawn, were, Mr. Howitt is very ill. The context of these terrible words was, however, ‘If you hear that Mr. Howitt is very ill, let this assure you that he is better;' but the only emphatic words were those which I saw in my dream, and these, nevertheless, slightly varying, as, from some cause or other, all such mental impressions, spirit-revelations, or occult dark sayings, generally do, from the truth or type which they seem to reflect."

What are we to make of such a case as this, directly testified to by a lady of the highest character and intelligence, and resting upon her own personal experience? In dream, opening a letter from her son, then in Australia, she sees, written in the middle of the first page, in characters larger than the rest, and underlined, the words, "My father is very ill." Six days afterward she actually receives a letter from Australia, not indeed from her son, but from a friend, and therein, in the middle of the page, and in characters larger than the rest, and underlined, the first words that meet her eye on opening it are, "Mr. Howitt is very ill." Is this chance? What! all of it? First, the words, almost literally corresponding, and in sense exactly so; next, the position in the center of the paper; then, the larger size of the characters; and, finally, the underlining? The mind instinctively, and most justly, rejects such a conclusion. Whatever else it is, it is not chance. Mesmerists would call it a case of clear-sight (clairvoyance) or far-sight (vue à distance) characterized by somewhat imperfect lucidity.

Lest the reader should imagine that in accounting on ordinary principles for the preceding examples he has reached the limit of the difficulties attending the present subject, I shall here cite, from a multitude of similar examples of what might not inaptly be termed

EDMUND NORWAY'S DREAM.

173

natural clairvoyance, one or two additional cases, with which the reader may find it still more embarrassing to deal on the theory of fortuitous coincidence.

The truth of the first is vouched for by Dr. Carlyon, author of a work from which I extract it, who had it from the main witness, and who adduces, in attestation, every particular of name, place, and date.

THE MURDER NEAR WADEBRIDGE.

"On the evening of the 8th of February, 1840, Mr. Nevell Norway, a Cornish gentleman, was cruelly murdered by two brothers of the name of Lightfoot, on his way from Bodmin to Wadebridge, the place of his residence.

"At that time his brother, Mr. Edmund Norway, was in the command of a merchant-vessel, the 'Orient,' on her voyage from Manilla to Cadiz; and the following is his own account of a dream which he had on the night when his brother was murdered:

"SHIP ORIENT,' FROM MANILLA TO CADIZ,
"February 8, 1840.

"About 7.30 P.M. the island of St. Helena N.N.W., distant about seven miles; shortened sail and rounded to with the ship's head to the eastward; at eight, set the watch and went below; wrote a letter to my brother, Nevell Norway. About twenty minutes or a quarter before ten o'clock, went to bed; fell asleep, and dreamt I saw two men attack my brother and murder him. One caught the horse by the bridle, and snapped a pistol twice, but I heard no report; he then struck him a blow, and he fell off the horse. They struck him several blows, and dragged him by the shoulders across the road and left him. In my dream, there was a house on the left-hand side of the road. At four o'clock I was called, and went on deck to take charge of the ship. I

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