nces his oration, a strange medley of Scripture and
nonsense. According to him the world is in the worst possible way; and
the devil has a fine time of it. The present commercial system of
society by no means meets with Whatmore's approval. The poor are rotting
off, and woe to them to whom such a catastrophe is due. There are many
disciples, he tells us; but fear of this world and a false sense of shame
prevent them from declaring themselves. There must be some, otherwise
the man could not get a living. His library seems to consist chiefly, if
not exclusively, of the New Testament and his own absurd hand-bills,
which a printer supplies him with on the chance of his selling them. In
answer to my inquiry as to where he attended when not preaching himself,
his reply was that he sometimes went to the Agricultural Hall; but they
were not advanced enough for him, and so he falls back on himself, and
goes about to do what he thinks is--or at any rate what he says he thinks
is--the Lord's work. There is no bounce about him. He is apparently a
muddle-headed, well-meaning mystic; about as mad or sane as others of his
way of thinking. That he is wretchedly poor, that he is ignorant, that
his language to ordinary folks seems simply unintelligible, perhaps in
certain quarters may be accepted as signs of his Divine commission. At
any rate, he is a representative man. If he is ignorant and talks
nonsense, what must be the ignorance and the nonsense existing in those
who listen to him? How dense must be the ignorance, how crass the
nonsense cherished in his hearers! It may be asked, and this is a
question I put to the religious public, is not the manifestation of such
religious folly a reproach to our age? If the Church had done its duty,
would such a folly have been possible?

THE SPIRITUALISTS.

Somehow or other the Spiritualists are under a cloud in this country, and
their leader--Mr. Home--has been compelled, in consequence of the
decision of a highly-prejudiced and extremely ignorant jury, to hand over
to Mrs. Lyon a very handsome sum of money which she had conveyed to him
in consequence of representations made by him to her that such was the
desire of her deceased lord and master. Up to that time Spiritualism was
making great way, and Mr. Home, as its high priest and apostle, was in
request with the nobility, and was the friend of kings and emperors. He
had married a Russian Countess; he wore a diamond ring