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NEW ZEALAND. 99
tahuhu of my house, and the thatch ; straight over you, as
yon go in at the door.' The brother rushed out to see. All
was silence. In five minutes he came hurriedly back, with
the book in his hand ! It astonished me.
" It was now late ; and the spirit suddenly said, Fare-
'
well, my family, farewell, my tribe : I go.'' Those present
breathed an impressive farewell ; when the spirit cried out
again, from high in the air, ' Farewell !
" This, though seemingly tragical, is in every respect literally
true. But what was it ? ventriloquism, the Devil, or
what?"
This last paragraph is simply a sop thrown out to please
the orthodox. It might be paralleled thus : Peter, James,
and John heard the spirits of Moses and Elias " talking with
Jesus" upon the Mount of Transfiguration. " But what was
it ? — ventriloquism, the Devil, or what " ?
Spiritualism is as common in the isles of the ocean to-day
as it was in
Palestine when the Nazarene there lived, eighteen
centuries since. Dillon, commanding the East India
Company's surveying ship " Research," visited the island of
Vanikovo, — lat. 11° 40' south, long. 166° 40' east,— for the
purpose of inquiring into the fate of the French expedition
under La Perouse. At this island, where Dillon remained
twenty-three days, he tells us there were large houses set
apart for the use of disembodied spirits. Markham, in " The
Cruise of ' The Rosario ' in the South Seas in 1871," refers
to the fact as related by Dillon.
STATUS OF SPIRITtrALISM IN DUNEDIN.
Conscious of a necessity for unity of action, the liberalists
of this city organized a " Society for the Investigation of
Spiritualism," selecting the following gentlemen for officers :
Mr. Redfnayne, president ; Mr. Wilson, secretary ; Mr. Beverly,
treasurer, and Messrs. Logan, Stout, and Carrick, a
committee.
Mr. Beverly, bom in Dundee, is a botanist, a mathemati-