that there have been manifestations of
more than human power, the evidence for which has never been impeached.
The detection of a few sham mediums, who are trying to impose upon the
credulity of the public, for money, may satisfy the careless and
unthinking, that the whole affair is a humbug. Such will dismiss the
matter from their minds, and depart, easier subjects to be captured by the
movement when some manifestation appears for which they can find no
explanation. But the more thoughtful and careful observers well know that
the exposure of these mountebanks does not account for the numberless
manifestations of power, and the steady current of phenomena, utterly
inexplicable on any human hypothesis, which have attended the movement
from the beginning.

The Philadelphia _North American_, of July 31, 1885, published a
communication from Thomas R. Hazard, in which he says:--

"But Spiritualism, whatever may be thought of it, must be
recognized as a fact. It is one of the characteristic intellectual
or emotional phenomena of the times, and as such, it is deserving
of a more serious examination than it has yet received. There are
those who say it is all humbug, and that everything outside of the
ordinary course which takes place at the so-called seances, is the
direct result of fraudulent and deliberative imposture; in short,
that every Spiritualist must be either a fool or a knave. The
serious objection to this hypothesis is that the explanation is
almost as difficult of belief as the occurrences which it
explains. There must certainly be some Spiritualists who are both
honest and intelligent; and if the manifestations at the seances
were altogether and invariably fraudulent, surely the whole thing
must have collapsed long before this; and the Seybert Commission,
which finds it necessary to extend its investigations over an
indefinite period, which will certainly not be less than a year,
would have been able to sweep the delusion away in short order."

The phenomena are so well known, that it is unnecessary to recount them
here. Among them may be mentioned such achievements as these: Various
articles have been transported from place to place, without human hands,
but by the agency of so-called spirits only; beautiful music has been
produced independently of human agency, with and without the aid of
visible instruments; many well-attested cases of he