by a certain
class of investigators. Then there came "a mighty rushing wind," and
afterwards "there appeared cloven tongues like unto fire and it sat
upon each of them." Here is a very definite and clear account of a
remarkable sequence of phenomena. Now, let us compare with this the
results which were obtained by Professor Crookes in his investigation
in 1873, after he had taken every possible precaution against fraud
which his experience, as an accurate observer and experimenter, could
suggest. He says in his published notes: "I have seen luminous points
of light darting about, sitting on the heads of different persons" and
then again:

"These movements, and, indeed, I may say the same of every class of
phenomena, are generally preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes
amounting to a decided wind. I have had sheets of paper blown about by
it. . . ." Now, is it not singular, not merely that the phenomena
should be of the same order, but that they should come in exactly the
same sequence, the wind first and the lights afterwards? In our
ignorance of etheric physics, an ignorance which is now slowly
clearing, one can only say that there is some indication here of a
general law which links those two episodes together in spite of the
nineteen centuries which divide them. A little later, it is stated
that "the place was shaken where they were assembled together." Many
modern observers of psychic phenomena have testified to vibration of
the walls of an apartment, as if a heavy lorry were passing. It is,
evidently, to such experiences that Paul alludes when he says: "Our
gospel came unto you not in word only, but also in power." The preacher
of the New Revelation can most truly say the same words. In connection
with the signs of the pentecost, I can most truly say that I have
myself experienced them all, the cold sudden wind, the lambent misty
flames, all under the mediumship of Mr. Phoenix, an amateur psychic of
Glasgow. The fifteen sitters were of one accord upon that occasion,
and, by a coincidence, it was in an upper room, at the very top of the
house.

In a previous section of this essay, I have remarked that no
philosophical explanation of these phenomena, known as spiritual, could
be conceived which did not show that all, however different in their
working, came from the same central source. St. Paul seems to state
this in so many words when he says: "But all these worketh that one
and the selfsame s