voyantly disclose a submerged continent, the relics of its civilizations still preserved in its swashing brine.

He was now on Italian soil, in the city of Messina, Sicily, the guest of Mr. Behn, the American consul, land of Tasso, Columbus, Galvani, Perasee, and other geniuses ascended! were they not his companions? The very thought of it hallowed every instinct to grateful meditation. Noticing the papal monasteries and churches, the superstition of the lower classes, removing their hats before the priests, the devoutness of the wild brigands, " equal to American Christians at eight-o'clock prayer-meetings," and invoicing the French bayonets that guard the papal throne and the Romish machinations of Empress Eugenie, "the Pope's Imperial Nuncio," he concludes his lesson in these memorable words,

"Educate the people, permit women to vote, and republics like Edens will cover all isles and continents."

This feeling was evoked mainly by the following experience in Messina, an episode which he afterwards related in one of his American lectures upon his "Orfental Travels:

"The sound of a band of music attracted me to the street, where I saw a small procession carrying sacred images, and surrounded by a crowd, which idleness, curiosity, or religious enthusiasm had induced to swell their ranks. It was St. Agatha's Day; and being a stranger, and curious to know what was going forward, I joined the procession as it entered the Plaza, and there witnessed the performance of a variety of ceremo nies. Not seeing as distinctly as I wished, I mounted a block, steadied myself in my place by a branch of a tree, and, to use an American phrase, was ' enjoying it hugely,' when all at once I became conscious that the attention of the crowd was diverted to and concentrated upon me. They began to talk to me: I couldn't understand them. They gesticulated fiercely, for the Italians, like the French, talk as much with their hands as their tongues, still I did not know what they meant, nor what to make of it, and made up my mind that I had better retire from the scene. With this intention, I stepped down from the block; but the throng pressed round me with louder words and wilder gestures, as if to frustrate such an attempt. Then I thought of calling the police to my aid. I had learned Italian enough for that: it was an essential that I took care to acquire the first thing after my arrival. I shouted till I brought one to the ground, and he, too, began to talk to me with an astonishing severity; which, incomprehensible as it was, warned me that I must look further for safety. In this strait, a lucky expedient suggested itself. I threw open my coat, displayed the badge of the Progressive Lyceum that I fortunately wore, struck it with the air of a man who proclaims himself to be somebody, and signed the policeman to follow me to the Hotel de Victoria.' The effect was magical. Impressed with a sense of my importance, and a conviction that there was a mistake somewhere, the throng fell back, the policeman at my urgency accompanied me to the proprietor of my hotel, by whose aid I succeeded in making him understand that I was an American consul. The explanation of this popular demonstration against me was, that they had mistaken me for Father Gavazzi, who was reported to have recently landed on the island, intending to harangue the people

against the pope's infallibility. Gavazzi, you may recollect, was at one time a priest; but, latterly apostatizing from the church, he drew upon himself the righteous fury of all its devoted followers. For some unaccountable reason, I was regarded as in league with Garibaldi, the very unruly anti-churchman; and so I was! and the excited mobs were shouting, 'Down with the agitator! Away with Padre Gavazzi!' The moral to be derived from the adventure is this: If you would insure your safety in a foreign country, keep out of crowds."

Voyez Naples et mourez. “I change the traveler's motto,” said Mr. Peebles, "See Naples, but never die! Boarding a neat Italian steamer, he was among the monks; cowled, crossed, cloaked beggars ! "They not only looked fat and sleek, but drank wine and smoked cigars very much like sinners ingin palaces, dirty and lazy too!" Passed close to volcanic Stromboli, the ancient Æolus, revered by Pliny, the exiled home of Charles Martel, famous with the Crusades; and, landing, he found rooms in the Vico Carminillo,—former residence of Robert Dale Owen while American minister there. The odor of his good name still lingers in that city. At rapid glances, he analyzed the kaleidoscopic scenery; and his soul enlarged in reverence for the beautiful of other days, still blooming amid ruins. We catch some of his sunbeams of thought,

"The waters of the Bay of Naples have a cerulean tint, crescent-shaped, backed by an amphitheater of hills and mountains, with rocky slopes covered with sunny villas, sprinkled with orange and lemon, fig and oleander; Capri, loveliest of isles, in front, a silver slipper; caves and grottoes in it; Sorrento, gleaming through the waves, home of Torquato Tasso; the streets narrow and dingy, paved with lava; badly constructed dwelling-houses, iron gates, flat-roofed; insolent carriage-drivers, villainous misrule of Catholics!

“O Pius IX! you so rich from hoarded taxes, Peter's pence and foreign purses laid at your feet, feed the people! . . . Get your sleek bishops and priests to plowing, sowing, and cultivating the fields for your beggars' sake, instead of mumbling prayers for Christ's sake.' Who with brains cares a fig for the decisions of your Ecumenical Councils? The people are above all councils. Who cares whether there be one, three, or thirty thousand gods, provided they are all good ones? Who cares whether Jesus was begotten by a holy or unholy Ghost, allowing he was well- begotten, and lived (as I believe he did) a beautiful and divine life? Who cares whether Jonah, of Nineveh memory, swallowed, or was swallowed by, a whale, providing the bones of neither obstruct the navigation of the Suez Canal? Pope Pius, no more of your dictatorial bulls, nor muttering of formal prayers in Latin! FEED THE BEGGARS! EDUCATE THE PEOPLE! No more pretensions to infallibility, or wasting of kisses upon that brazen toe in St. Peter's. FEED THE BEGGARS! EDUCATE THE PEOPLE! No more bowings, twistings, crossings, before a speechless image or golden cross. FEED THE BEGGARS! EDUCATE THE PEOPLE! No more confessions from sinning Catholics to equally sinning priests and popes. FEED THE BEGGARS! EDUCATE THE PEOPLE!"

With Samuel Guppy and lady and others, all intelligent, hospi

table Spiritualists, of high-toned character, Mr. Peebles improved this Neapolitan visit in inspecting the historic places and ruins in and about Naples. Starting on a warm December day, they soon reached Virgil's tomb. Over it he stood and mused, reading the inscription to his memory, best engraved upon the hearts of all scholars. Reaching a mountain, they rode through the Grotto di Posilipo, cut by the ancients, — magnificent, arching eighty to ninety feet, and two thousand three hundred and sixteen feet long, and twenty-two feet wide, tunnel for a railroad; drove to Pozzuoli, Cicero's "Rome the lesser," founded 558 B.C., now dim in its ancient splendor; stood on the jutted mole whereon rested the famous bridge of Caligula; saw the remains of the temple of Augustus, with its fragments of Corinthian columns; studied the figures in basso relievo upon the white marble monument in the square of Pozzuoli, personifying the fourteen cities of Asia destroyed by an earthquake. As these were executed two or three thousand years ago, he inquired naturally, "How and in what direction have men progressed? Has this century produced any thing original in art or metaphysics?" Pozzuoli was the ancient Puteoli of Paul (see Acts xxviii. 13), who here walked; and here he may have preached the re-appeared Christ. "Brother Paul fell into a trance; was a missionary in Ephesus, Rome, and the Isles of the Mediterranean; had visions; was a healing medium."

the very stones

The amphitheater, there it was, amid the mold of Pozzuoli! — the place of Nero's gladiatorial sports, himself in the arena when Tiridates, king of Amedia, was his royal guest. Five hundred feet in length, one hundred and forty in breadth, in form of an ellipse inclosed in a circle, it could seat fifty thousand spectators! Our "Pilgrim" walked over it, — a silent spectator now, voicing his thoughts of this strange world of ours, life budding on the stalk of death! He ascended its marble steps and over its four tiers of seats. Far below, under the mårble flooring, were the stalls for the bears, lions, and tigers; the deep wells; and on the sides were the visible entrances for the gladiators and animals. There, too, was the imperial seat, distinguished by Corinthian columns of black marble. What brooding meditations were his !

"Where dead men

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,

He lingered, poring on memorials

Of the world's youth.”

"Pil

Sinyl's cave, beyond the ruins of Baia! how weird to our grim!" Over the earthquaked soil,-over Lake Avernus in the socket of an extinct volcano's eye, hot water boiling up from its center; on its verge the cave, eight feet wide, and six feet arch; 66 it was a deathly-silent retreat." He describes it,

"The mosaics, the old Roman fresco inscriptions on the stone stairway, the rock-hewn path, the weird throne on which the sibyl sat while giving the oracles in a trance ecstasy, together with the niche and aperture for the use of the individual receiving the oracular responses, were to us deeply interesting. Many of those sibylline oraclesancient Spiritualism are still extant, and have often been referred to in settling church controversies.'

Nero's baths! He penetrated thither, several hundred feet into the winding passage of a mountain, narrow and black. "The stream is hot; boils eggs in three minutes. The descent is certainly fearful: few go down to the edge. Bathing my forehead in the boiling water, and examining the rocky bed on which gouty, rheumatic old Nero used to rest after his bath, I came out quite exhausted." Mr. Peebles plunged into Nero's dungeons, cut in the tuffa-stone mountain, "where this cruel emperor used to imprison rebels and captives." What a somber spell came over him as he inspected them! How they psychologically voiced the long ago! "How," he thought, "does rock and stream record the deeds of men, never to be effaced!" "History is a grand lie!" said Voltaire. A truer statement was never made. Only the Spiritual psychometrist can correctly write it. He alone can unriddle its fables and its churchal hypocrisies, written on so-called "sacred books." "Who is able to loose the seals?" The psychometrist! Said M. Dupotet, "Whatsoever thou shalt have thought shall be known to all who wish to know of it." Said Prof. Babbage, "The air is one vast library, on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered." Said Wm. Denton, the Spiritual scientist, "The very rocks drink in the character of the people of the country in which they exist," startling truths, which the Spiritual Philosophy reveals! Most wonderful will be its developments, when wisely-disciplined media, standing on the places memorable in history, inspired by the acting spirit risen to heights of perspective, shall read the "soul of things" and the soul of events, magnetically engraved on ruins, rocks, and dust.

The Catacombs, subterranean burial-places, those of Naples anciently extending nine miles in one direction and thirteen in

another, entered now by the church of Gennero dei Poveri: down, down, he and his friend D. descended to this "nether world," led by two solemu-visaged guides," the living city over our head, a dead city of bones under our feet." There they were, "coffins, sarcophagi, tiers of tombs, rotten boards, rusty nails, nameless heaps of skulls, spines, arms, ribs, a frightful aspect! There, too, were urns, vases, crosses, and the remains of the altar and church of St. Januarius, of the third century. This saint and his believing companions, being Christians, were thrown into the arena of the wild beasts, by order of Emperor Diocletian, but were not harmed. "Some psychological or spiritual influence may have saved them, as in the case of the prophet Daniel." In the year 305, he was beheaded on an eminence between Pozzuoli and Solfatara. He is the patron saint of Naples. "During the festival days that commemorate him, the 3d of May and 19th of September, his preserved blood is said to liquefy in the presence of the people. That the liquefaction takes place, Protestants admit; but is it blood, the genuine blood of the martyr, or a chemical preparation? That's the question. The purported miracle is performed in the cathedral." Mr. Peebles wanted to take away a skull as a relic, but was refused. "They are the skulls of Christians," said the monkish guide: "it would be sacrilege!" Afterwards finding a nice skull down several hundred feet, having a large frontal development, he convinced the guide, “it is Pagan, because of large reasoning faculties and full benevolence and conscientiousness: so he was permitted to take it. Whose the skull, he has hope of yet tracing mediumistically, with a history therewith connected.

Solfatara, the Forum Vulcani of Strabo; what a sight to our "Pilgrim!" It is nearly extinct; but, near the edge of the crater, he noticed “a fearful, fiery orifice, belching out steam, gas, and sulphur-impregnated smoke, half strangling us." He cast down a stone upon the crater-flooring: hearing its deep echo, and looking over, he called it the "mouth of hell." He thus suggests a Yankee enterprise, "Let Elder Knapp and other revivalists ship this firemountain to America, and exhibit it as a foretaste or practical illustration of the bottomless pit. The Church could make money out

of it."

Vesuvius, — volcano of the centuries! Mr. Peebles stood upon its summit, and gazed down into its awful vortex. There rolled before