“But not an infallible one?” said Francis.

“No; certainly not,” said Mr. Dempster.

“But, as to the present, their views are sure to be correct?” said Francis.

“If they are good spirits, and not lying spirits.  We prayed against their appearance, and I do not believe that the spirit who has been communicating with you was of that kind,” said Mr. Dempster.

“How, then, do you judge between lying spirits and true ones?” asked Francis.

“By the nature of their communications.  A false or an immoral message cannot be delivered by a good spirit.”

“Then you still continue to be the judges of the spirits?  You do not bow your morality to theirs—­you select and reject as you see good?”

“Morality is universal and eternal,” said Mr. Dempster.  “Even God himself cannot make evil good or good evil by any fiat of his own.”

“Then have these manifestations taught you anything that could not have been otherwise learned?” asked Francis.

“They have taught me much that I could not have otherwise learned.  I cannot say what other people may attain to through pure reason or through a simple faith in the revealed will of God.  There are diversities of administration, but the same spirit,” said Mr. Dempster, with a simple earnestness that weighed much with Francis.  But here Mr. Dempster’s attention was called to a message from an old friend who had just died one of the saddest of deaths, having been lost in the Australian scrub twelve years before.

These raps were still stronger than those of Mr. Hogarth, being violent, and following immediately on the question wherever a negative or affirmative was used.

Mr. Dempster said he had been a powerful young man, of the most unquestionable determination, and that the raps were always consonant to the character of the spirit when in life.  He eagerly turned to identify him.  The name was correctly given; the date of his death; the length of time he had existed without food and water, and the clothes he had on when he died.  Then a message was sent to his aged mother, who had so long mourned for her youngest born, that he was expecting her soon to join him in the spirit land.  The place where the old lady lived was mentioned, and her state of health was described as being bad.

“All perfectly true, perfectly true, Mr. Hogarth.  Poor Tom!  His was a distressing fate.  I expected that we should have something good in manifestations this evening, but I scarcely looked for anything so perfectly satisfactory as this.  Every name and every date exactly correct.  Are you not convinced now?”

“I am certainly very much staggered,” said Francis.  “Have you been thinking much about your friend or his mother lately?”

“Not particularly that I know of; but I liked him very much, and I often think of his solitary death.”

“Have you heard that his mother is in bad health?”