spired sitting in promiscuous circles, holding hands, and imbibing diverse aural exhalations, is to us mentally painful. ... Promiscuous magnetic blendings are as injurious to the soul as sexual promiscuity to the body. These, all these practices opposed to the natural laws of life, yield but thorns for the flesh, and obsessions for the spirit."

After a confinement of nearly fifty days in the floating prison, the steamer at length touched the wharf at Melbourne, the principal city in Victoria. A committee of welcome met Mr. Peebles at the landing and conducted him to the hospitable residence of Mr. McIlwraith, who was a member of the city council and late mayor of the city. There a choice dinner was waiting, and in the evening a hearty reception was tendered our traveler at the Masonic Temple, in which nearly three hundred people participated. Soon a course of lectures was in progress.

But the Victorian press decided to write Mr. Peebles down. From the first, the Melbourne Telegraph and the Argus grossly misrepresented and slandered him. After the first occasion of Mr. Peebles's public appearance, by his special request his friends vacated the stage and he was given a clear platform. This request was made in public, but the following morning the Telegraph enlarged upon the "desertion of Mr. Peebles by his friends," which it attributed to their shame and disappointment. Speaking of these vile attacks by the press, Mr. Peebles writes:

"Heaven save sensitive reformers in all lands from the mockery of an unprincipled press, from priestly throats that vomit falsehood, and churchly tongues that delight to lap blood! The majority of press reporters are liars! Though addressing audiences in all the American States, except Florida and Texas and Oregon, upon the unpopular yet progressive movements of the age, I was never so unjustly criticised, basely misrepresented, and shamefully vilified as by a portion of the daily Victorian press. Not content with this, I was burlesqued in the Weekly Punch, and pantomimed in the theaters. The personal abuse commenced with the delivery

of the first lecture in Temperance Hall. This was expected. Accordingly, Mr. Charles Bright, a literary gentleman contributing to the Daily Argus, was sufficiently farseeing to secure a superb shorthand reporter. And while a slimy, policyseeking press was pouring out venom, the lecture of this “vulgar blasphemer " appeared in print, entitled, "Spiritualism Defined and Defended," ably prefaced by Charles Bright and published by W. H. Terry. The serpents of the press shake their rattles at all reformers."

The following was written by a man interested in the Daily Telegraph,- organ of the clergy, and was reprinted in The Dunedin Morning Star, New Zealand, before Mr. Peebles opened his course of lectures there:

"I can not better begin to describe him than by giving a few of the delicate epithets bestowed on this Mr. Peebles in all the newspapers, town and country: 'an impudent American,' 'an impious pretender,' 'a long-haired apostate!' These figures of speech might be indefinitely multiplied, and yet half the truth would not be told. This 'great and good man' (Peebles) in speaking, works himself up to a frenzy, while with blood-shot eyes and rolling tongue, and foaming mouth, he tells the opinion that some heathen Chinee' had formed of Christianity away somewhere in the Far West. He then maudles over a Yankee story about some poor youth mourning for his granny whom he has never seen, and who came from Arabula' to pat him on the head."

Notwithstanding all this malicious abuse, immediately following his first course of six lectures in Temperance Hall, the committe resolved to secure a larger and more fashionable place for the second course. Luckily the Prince of Wales theater was obtained, to which, on the occasion of his first lecture, an audience of twenty-five hundred flocked; and before the course closed there was an attendance of over three thousand. Then the press suddenly changed its tone. The Daily Herald said,-" An immense crowd of people assembled again last night to hear the American Spiritualist expound the new religion. He was evidently in earnest, and at times really

eloquent." The Daily Telegraph, which had been the most bitter in assailing Mr. Peebles, thus prefaced a fine report: "A crowd filled the Prince of Wales Theater last evening from pit to ceiling. The assemblage was intelligent and orderly, listening to the lecture entitled, 'Spiritualism Becoming Universal.' The Daily Melbourne Age said, 'The theater was so crowded that even the upper gallery was opened, and many people were compelled to stand.'"

Commenting on this change of attitude, Mr. Peebies

wrote:

6

"This modification, this change of base on the part of the press conductors, entitles them to very little credit. The new and more tolerant position was forced upon them. Can the Ethiopian change his skin?' The press has three creed-words, 'Will it pay?""

Though a few Spiritualists were scattered here and there over the colonies, and a few pamphlets and books were imported from London and Boston, Spiritualism took no organic hold in Australia until about the year 1870. In Melbourne the pioneers of this movement were such indefatigable minds as Messrs. Nayler, Terry, Ross, Walker, Tyerman, and other progressive souls.

Going inland a hundred miles by stage, Mr. Peebles visited and lectured in a number of mining towns,- Ballarat, Castlemaine, Sandhurst, and Geelong. In these large audiences greeted him some attending out of curiosity, others to learn something about Spiritualism.

Our brother's sympathies have always been on the side of the aborigines of all lands. Whether it be the American Indians, the Sandwich Islanders, Samoans, Tasmanians, Fijis or South Australians, he is disposed to plead their cause and see that simple justice is awarded them. From personal knowledge he contradicts many popular conceptions relating to the native Australians. He says:

"Aboriginal children are noted for retention of memory, quickness of perception, and readiness to acquire the usual elements of education. This was demonstrated at the experi

mental school at Merri-Merri. And a few years since an aboriginal by the Normal School of Sydney carried off the prize from all his white companions. They are trusting and affectionate among themselves. Respect to age is rigidly enforced. Without the hollow fashions and jealousies, without the conventional decorum and restraints of civilized society, they sing and gambol in the evening time as though life were a continuous carnival. Suicide is unknown among them. . . In mental acumen and in quickness of sight and hearing, they surpass most white people. Uncontaminated with modern civilization, they are not much lower than ourselves. . .

"Nutrition was abundant till the invasions of the Europeans. They pitched their kangaroo meat upon live coals, steamed their fish, and baked their turtles in the shell. Hunting wild honey was a favorite pursuit. . . . They are rapidly declining.

"Their belief in spirits is quite universal. They believe that one class of spirits dwell in the air, another in the mountain caves, and others still wandering among the tall trees. These natives seldom leave a camp-fire at night for fear of encountering malignant spirits. . . . A principal cause of their passing away is the prostitution of their wives to the Europeans of the long-ago."

XXXVII

IN THE ORIENT

"India of the East, o'er whose valleys sweet

Too quickly pass my ever-wandering feet,

Ere yet your shores in lengthening distance fade,
Let faithful Memory lend my pen her aid."

On the 27th day of March, 1873, Mr. Peebles took passage in a sailing vessel from Dunedin, New Zealand to China, a voyage of sixty-one days, covering a distance of seven thousand miles. His friends, anticipating the tediousness of the journey across the tropical belt, prepared for his comfort flowers, fruits, jams, honey, and other delicacies so enjoyable on a long voyage. The crew of one hundred and eighteen were Chinese. Having reached the tropics, the vessel lay in a dead calm for six days.

"On Sunday morning at sunrise, there came on deck a dozen or more serious-visaged Chinese, with dishes of rice, bowls of tea, different colored paper, slim dry incense reeds, slender red-topped wax candles and matches. What's up?' 'The Chinamen are going to pray for wind.' They went through with certain pantomimic incantations, ending by throwing the rice and the tea into the ocean. Result, fine breeze soon from the right quarter. There!' exclaimed our exultant Celestials, the wind-god has heard us!' Why not just as rational for Chinamen to thus pray for wind, as for Christians bowing over cushioned pulpits to pray in their way for rain, for the staying of the grass-hopper devastation, or for the ' recovery of the Prince of Wales?' God is unchangeable." During this long and tedious voyage, Mr. Peebles and Dr. Dunn punctually observed their four-o'clock sittings twice per week. Among the teachings received at these sittings from the spirit, Aaron Nite, we subjoin a few extracts: