spondency as the unseen
_something_ set at nought his deep-laid plans and secret hopes. It will
suffice to say here that his experiments ended in his accepting the
spiritual explanation of the phenomena and publishing a work on the
subject.

The same was the case with Judge Edmonds, from whose published work we
may make a few quotations, as his high standing as a jurist and
reputation for veracity and legal shrewdness make him a witness whose
word would be accepted without question on any ordinary subject. He
gives the following strange experience: "During the last illness of my
revered old friend Isaac T. Hopper I was a good deal with him, and on
the day when he died I was with him from noon till about seven o'clock
in the evening. I then supposed he would live yet for several days, and
at that hour I left to attend my circle, proposing to call again on my
way home. About ten o'clock in the evening, while attending the circle,
I asked if I might put a mental question. I did so, and I know that no
person present could know what it was, or to what subject even it
referred. My question related to Mr. Hopper, and I received for answer
through the rappings, as from himself, that he was dead. I hastened
immediately to his house, and found that it was so. That could not have
been from any one present, for they did not know of his death, nor did
they understand the answer I received. It could not have been the reflex
of my own mind, for I had left him alive, and thought that he would live
several days."

Of his statements in regard to physical phenomena the following may be
quoted: "I have known a pine table with four legs lifted bodily up from
the floor in the centre of a circle of six or eight persons, turned
upside down, and laid upon its top at our feet, then lifted up over our
heads and put leaning against the back of the sofa on which we sat. I
have seen a mahogany table, having only a centre leg, and with a lamp
burning upon it, lifted from the floor at least a foot, in spite of the
efforts of those present, and shaken backward and forward as one would
shake a goblet in his hand, and the lamp retain its place, though its
glass pendants rung again. I have seen the same table tipped up with the
lamp upon it, so that the lamp must have fallen off unless retained
there by something else than its own gravity; yet it fell not, moved
not. I have known a mahogany chair thrown on its side and moved swiftly
back and forth on th