nder rift
In the dark rocks that hem his toilsome way,
The clouds an instant lift
From countries bathed in everlasting day,
I stand and stretch my yearning arms in vain
Toward the blest light, too swiftly lost again?

Into thy hands, my Father, I commit
This dearest, last hope too,
Old as the world, and yet forever new,--
The hope wherewith our dimmest paths are lit,
With life itself indissolubly knit!
That too is well, I know,
In thy eternal keeping. Ah! and so
Let my poor soul dismiss
Each fear and doubt, hush every anxious cry,
Forget all thought save this,
Some time,--oh, dream of joy that cannot die!--
In those beloved hands, a priceless store,
All our lost jewels shall be found once more!

STUART STERNE.

A CHAPTER OF MYSTERY.

Science, as a rule, has avoided the subject of Spiritualism. Its results
are too much unlike the hard, visible, tangible facts of scientific
research to attract those accustomed to positive investigations. And its
methods and conditions are usually of a character to set a scientist
beside himself with impatience. Crucial tests do not seem acceptable to
spirits in general. They decline to be placed on the microscopic slide
or to show their ghostly forms in the glare of the electric light, and
prefer to haunt the society of those who do not pester them with too
exacting _conditions_. Thus they have been mainly given over to a class
of somewhat credulous and, in some instances, not well-balanced mortals,
whose statements have very little weight with the general public, and
whose strong powers of digesting the marvellous have originated a
plentiful crop of fraud and trickery sufficient to throw discredit on
the whole business.

It cannot be said, however, that all the adherents of Spiritualism are
of this character, or that science has completely failed to investigate
it. It has won over many persons of good sense and sound logic,
including several prominent scientists, to a belief in the truth of its
claims. Were its adherents all cranks or credulous believers, and its
phenomena only such common sleight-of-hand performances as suffice to
convince the open-mouthed swallowers of conjurers' tricks, it would be
idle to give it any attention. But phenomena sufficiently striking to
convert such men as Hare, Crooks, Wallace, Zoellner, and the like are
certainly worthy of some attention, and