THE

SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE.

SPIRITUALISM is based on the cardinal fact of spirit communion and influx; it is the
effort to discover all truth relating to man's spiritual nature, capacities, relations, duties,
welfare, and destiny; and its application to a regenerate life. It recognizes a continuous
Divine inspiration in man; it aims, through a careful reverent study of facts, at a knowledge of
the laws and principles which govern the occult forces of the universe; of the relations of spirit
to matter, and of man to God and the Spiritual world. It is thus catholic and progressive,
leading to true religion as at one with the highest philosophy.

VOL. IV.

NEW SERIES.

LONDON:

JAMES BURNS, 15, SOUTHAMPTON ROW,

HOLBORN, W.C.

1869.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS SCOTT, WARWICK COURT,

HOLBORN.

THE

Spiritual Magazine.

JANUARY, 1869.

THE PASSING YEARS.

THE Earth and the Spiritual Magazine have again completed their annual revolution. As they have spun

Down the ringing grooves of change,

each, it is hoped, in its own way and measure, has added something to our knowledge and experience, and aided the good cause of progress, widening the thoughts of men with the process of the suns.

The past year has been an eventful one, with its reforms and revolutions-its changes and indications of coming change in every sphere of life-social, political, and ecclesiastical. It has sent forth its stormy petrels, warning us of coming tempests: it has, like a beneficent angel, troubled the stagnant pools of thought, that those who step in may be freed from their infirmities and made whole: it has taken from us many dear and valued friends-taken them, it may be, only that they may be more really, truly, intimately with us than before.

It is a foolish conceit that Spiritualism tends to deaden our sensibilities to all or to aught that pertains to the true interests of the present life, or that it diminishes our care and active participation in its concerns. On the contrary, it gives to them a higher significance-a deeper interest. It makes us feel the intimate blending of the two worlds; that the future life is the inevitable outgrowth from the present, that the great Ygdrasil tree of human life reaches into eternity, and touches the very heavens. Spiritualism gives us higher motives, purifies the affections, and strengthens the springs of action, for it invests with larger meaning the needs and duties of the hour; it enables us to realise the momentous issues, the privileges and responsibilities of earthly existence as those cannot do whose horizon is bounded.

N.S.-IV.

A