*44 If True 1 ? [March, 
of the living man when still rooted in the skin of his chin or 
scalp. We may at once admit as a well-known fadt — 
having, however, no bearing on the case — that “ the nails 
and hair have been known to grow after death on some 
corpses.” We may dismiss, as simply puerile, the hypo- 
thesis of Mr. Atkinson, that oil or pomatum which had been 
applied to the hair of the subjedt to keep the plaster from 
adhering may have caused the growth of the hair. Surely 
a mere dead fragment of an animal body devoid of all the 
appliances for assimilation cannot take up matter from 
without, and grow thereby, even if such matter contained — 
which pomatum does not — all the necessary constituents. 
But if this growth was caused by spirit-agency, then these 
spirits have succeeded in doing what has generally been 
considered possible to God alone, i.e., giving life to lifeless 
matter, and enabling it to execute vital fundtions, viz., assi- 
milation and growth. It is surely a serious, if not positively 
alarming, supposition, that there exist unseen around us 
beings possessing such power, and left, so far as it appears, 
to exert it at their own discretion ! If such beings exist, 
may they not quite as easily have created from time to time 
new animals, new plants, and new disease-germs, mocking 
thus alike our theories of original Divine creation and of 
Evolution ? 
It would be grossly unfair if we did not here notice a 
passage on this subjedt by “ C. C. M.,” in “Light” for 
January 26 th. He asks, “ But are we therefore, on the 
other hand, to escape from our difficulties by attributing all 
sorts of powers and agencies to ‘ spirits,’ just as many now 
well-understood phenomena were formerly so ‘ explained ’ in 
unscientific ages ? I think this tendency among Spiritual- 
ists is greatly to be deplored, and brings them into not un- 
reasonable discredit.” Here, therefore, we are brought 
again face to face with our former question, What is the 
orthodoxy of Spiritualism ? 
We come to the weeping statues. That on certain 
changes of weather, especially on the sudden breaking up 
of a long frost, statues, like many other articles of stone, 
wood, glass, &c., are found covered with a copious dew is 
known to everyone, and the cause must, we should hope, be 
familiar to the veriest dolt who ever “ went up ” for an 
examination. But has it ever been shown, on sufficient 
evidence, that such moisture issues from the eyes of a statue 
when all the remainder of the figure is dry ? Has such 
liquid ever been analysed and proved to be identical with 
the teais secieted by man ? Is every possibility of trickery 
