surfaces the rod passed, and on it each cube-two of its sides almost touching the next two-revolved freely, and independently of the other cubes. The mau having made his salaam, sat down, as desired, on the edge of the carpet, on which we were all seated.

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'Do you know why I sent for you?" asked my friend. The Rammáll made no reply; but producing his three long dice, or rather sets of dice, he handed them to my friend to cast. For this purpose, he laid them side by side in the open palm of his right hand, the fingers being slightly curved. With a gentle but quick motion, alternately advancing and retiring his hand, he caused the dice to roll, now wristward, and now fingersward, on his hand. Shaking them thus for a few secondsboth the absolute and the relative positions of the cubes and their surfaces necessarily changing at each roll-he at length cast them on the carpet on which we were sitting. As he did this with some violence and to a little distance, the dice rolled a good deal before they came to a final rest. The fortune-teller gathered them up together, carefully avoiding any disarrangement of the order and position of the cubes or their surfaces. He placed the three sets of dice on the carpet before himself, and seemed, after carefully examining the cast of the dice, to go into deep thought and complicated calculations.

Let us see. There were, say, six cubes on each of the three slender rods, and each cube had four marked surfaces. There were therefore seventy-two surfaces, to combine in sets of six exposed surfaces on cach rod; and these, again, with the positions of planets and other fortune-telling matters. The number, therefore, of the possible combinations (not permutations) is practically as limitless as are the eventualities of human life.

After awhile, the Rammáll said: "You wish to consult me regarding your House meaning, of course, my friend's wife. Both being Mohammedans. etiquette did not allow a more direct allusion to the lady. My friend, admitting that he had guessed rightly (and thus far it might easily have been a good guess and no more), again took up the proffered dice, and went with them into the private apartments of the house to get the lady's

cast.

A Mohammedan gentleman's wife is never shown to any of the opposite sex

except the nearest relatives. The fortuneteller meanwhile took his "tasbeeh" or rosary off his wrist, and began telling the names of God in Arabic on his beads. The lady having made a cast as her husband had done, he carefully brought back the dice undisturbed to the fortune-teller. The rosary was replaced round the wrist; and the Rammáll examined the dice carefully. He produced and consulted a selfmade almanac, the sun, moon, stars, and planets all coming in for their share of questioning. He took paper, pen, and ink, and made calculations. After about a quarter of an hour's work, he read out the results: (1) The lady would give birth to a child—(2) Who would be a daughter (not so welcome an addition to Oriental families as a son)~(3) On a day which he named, and which was yet over seven months off. (4) The child would die within five months after its birth; and (5) she would be his last child; but why, he could not (or would not) tell, as in the ordinary course of nature my friend might expect several more.

The man was paid a sum of money, and went his way. Months passed. The child was born on the day foretold; proved to be a daughter; died a week after completing its fourth month of life; and my friend himself died within the year. All the five predictions were effectually fulfilled. Such a complicated series of verified coincidences or guesses would be as wonderful at least as the man's having somehow got the knowledge of the future.

Of a different kind is my next instance, which I shall give briefly, as it has been several times described-the strange case of suspended animation, under the Maharajah Runjeet Sing, the late tyrant of the Punjab. My first acquaintance with the narrative dates from my boyhood. About the time of the occurrence I heard it related by my father; and his authority was the well-known General Avitable, Runjeet Sing's right hand man, who was present at the facts. Those facts are, that a certain "joghee" (Hindu anchorite), said to possess the power of suspending at will and resuming the animation of his body, was sent for by Runjeet Sing, and declining to obey, was brought by force into the tyrant's presence, and ordered to give, under pain of death, a practical proof of his supposed power. He submitted perforce. He was put by his disciples

through certain processes, during which he became perfectly unconscious; the pulses ceased, his breath_did not stain a polished mirror, and a European doctor who was present declared that the heart had ceased to beat. To all appearances, he was as dead as Queen Anne. In this state he was put into a carefully made box, the lid was closed, and sealed with Runjeet Sing's own signet ring. The box was buried in a vault prepared in an open plot of ground under the royal windows at Lahore; and the place was guarded day and night by Runjeet's own guards under General Avitable's own supervision. Sun and rain came and grass sprung up, grew and withered on the surface over the grave; and the sentries went their rounds; and the joghee's disciples and friends were all kept under careful surveillance, not to call it imprisonment. After forty days. in Runjeet Sing's own presence the vault was uncovered, and the box extracted from it with its seals intact. It was opened, and showed the joghee within precisely as he had been placed. He was taken out, dead still, to all appearance, but the body incorrupt. His disciples were now brought to manipulate the body in the manner which he had taught them, and which he had publicly explained before his burial. He revived, as he had said he would; and was soon in as perfect health as when he had suspended his life! He refused all gifts, and retired to his former retreat; but shortly afterward he and his disciples disappeared. It was not safe for such a man to live in the jurisdiction of so inquisitive and arbitrary a ruler.

Runjeet Sing cared little for human life, which was his toy or plaything. No one who knows his historical character will for a moment admit that he would let himself be deceived or played upon in a matter on which he had set his heart. Each scenethe suspension of life, the burial, the disinterment, the reviving, took place in the tyrant's own presence, and before hundreds of spectators, in open daylight, and with every precaution that absolute despotic power could command. Runjeet cared little whether the man lived or died, so that his own curiosity was gratified. The guards under the palace windows commanded by Avitable would be anxious solely to carry out Runjeet Sing's wishes.

Will you say it is impossible? Remem

ber Succi's fast, last spring. Do not some animals hibernate for months? Are not living toads found in solid stone hundreds of years after their entombment? With the suspended animation of these toads in evidence, it will not do to set down the story as simply impossible. And it may be added that in India no one would think of calling in question the accuracy and truth of the narrative.

There are jugglers and jugglers, who perform the celebrated mango trick-the mango being a luscious Indian_fruit, in perfection in July and August. The ordinary juggler causes a miserable mango tree, a stunted abortion, like a small branch, to grow out of a handful of earth from a seed deposited there before you, and covered with a sheet. And from this, in half an hour's time, he produces a mango more or less ripe, which you can eat, but which is evidently not fresh. Such performances are generally done so clumsily that ordinary observation will enable you to detect the sleight-of-hand practised. The real mango trick is quite a different affair. It was once performed in the veranda of my own house, in March, myself and three other incredulous and sharp-eyed persons witnessing the whole, seated in a little semicircle, at the centre of which was placed a large flower-pot, filled freshly with earth out of our own garden. The juggler mixed something with the earth, and in it planted a dry mango seed. He watered it, and covered it-placed about six feet from us with a square sheet of long cloth. He and his only attendant then proceeded to perform, a few yards off, many other astonishing feats of jugglery, for the remainder of the audience, and we four confined our attention to the mango, determined that no deception should take place. We noticed the sheet gradually rising in the middle, as if pushed up from below with a stick. Higher and higher it is now about eight inches above the flower-pot. The juggler approaches the sheet, and seizing two of its corners, without at all touching the pot, draws off the sheet carefully right under our eyes. There is the young shoot of a mango plant, with its stiff stem, and four little glistening leaves—apparently about a week old. He recasts the sheet over pot and plant, and we see that he touches neither. He returns to his performances, and we continue our watch.

Higher it rises and higher-it is now about two feet high, and the sheet shows a rounded dome-like shape. Again he removes the sheet; and behold a young plant, like a two-year-old mango-tree-a real though dwarf tree. He again covers it, and we continue our watch. Higher it rises and higher. When about four feet high, he again uncovers the mystery, and shows a mango tree with two small green fruitlings on it. When next uncovered, it has two fine ripe mangoes. Now touch ing it for the first time, he plucks and hands us the mangoes, which we cut and eat, and find good and fresh as the best. The tree is then plucked up, handled and examined by us a genuine dwarf tree root, stem, bark, branches, leaves, all complete, as real as the mangoes we eat! Remember, four acute-eyed, incredulous, suspicious Europeans, watching the whole thing during the whole time (nearly an hour), and attending to nothing else; the performer an almost naked native, with only a loin-cloth on; the flower-pot right under our eyes, no one touching it during the whole time; in our own veranda, and in broad daylight. All the stock objections of sleight-of-hand, optical delusion, &c., fail in this case, to my own certain knowledge; and others can vouch for its not being a very rare thing in India.

But how explain it? Are there hidden forces in Nature, of which some succeed in learning the secret, and utilize their knowledge to work what seems an impossibility or a wonder? Do not gardeners force early plants? Do not the Chinese grow miniature forest trees, showing every sign of premature but fully-developed old age in a dwarfed body? Who can dogmatize as to what is or is not impossible in nature ?

From several quarters I heard of, but did not myself see, what does appear an impossible feat; this, therefore, I give on mere hearsay evidence. A juggler "pitches" at a corner of a bazaar or wide street; and in the presence of a gaping crowd which speedily assembles to witness the "tamasha" or fun, he takes out of his wallet a large ball of twine, and tying one end of it to a corner of the wallet, casts the ball up, skyward, with all his might. Up it goes, unwinding, gradually-up and out of sight. It does not come back; it has unfolded itself on, into the blue sky, it

(Ven

seems. He orders his attendant—a small boy, possibly his own son, and about eight years of age-to "go up." The boy grasps the twine, and goes hand over hand, up, up, and out of sight. Remember, please, that Indian houses are low, and that it needs but little sense to see whether a ball of twine has been thrown in a common way on and over a neighboring house, or has unaccountably gone up into the sky without coming down; whether a small boy has by means of this twine gone on to a house-top, or has disappeared into the heavens as unaccountably as the twine did. After a number of ordinary tricks, the juggler declares he needs the boy's help, and looking upward, calls him by name. A voice replies from a distance above, saying he will not come down. triloquism, you suggest. Very well; perhaps so wait.) The man gets angry, says the boy must be punished; and taking a long knife between his teeth, he goes up the twine hand over hand, as the boy had done before, and apparently disappears in his turn into the sky. A scream is heard above. Then, to the horror of the spectators, drops of blood rain down; and then the child falls, dismembered, with his few clothes cut, and covered with blood. The man then slides down the twine, with the knife all bloody at his waist. He casts a sheet over the mangled remains of the child, and leisurely proceeds to wrap up into a ball the twine which comes down to him by degrees from the sky, as if there were a kite at the end of it. He puts his things into the wallet and then takes up the sheet. From under it, whole and intact, alive and grinning, rises up the identical small boy! There are no mangled remains, and no blood! On this I make only one remark: the thing itself seems really impossible, yet that does not prove that the performance is not actually done. The paradox may possibly find its resolution in the "suggestive experiences' of hypnotism. A hypnotized patient sees and feels what his hypnotizer wishes him to see and feel. it possible to hypnotize a whole crowd? If so, and the crowd thereupon proceeds to see what the juggler or hypnotizer desires them to see, a great many of the wonders of Indian magic would be thus explained. - Chambers's Journal.

Is

DURING the first week of this month, the well-known Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and burial-ground in City Road, London, will be the scenes of such representative Christian gatherings as have never previously been witnessed in this island since the outward unity of the Western Church was shattered at the Reformation. The Established Episcopal Church will be represented by the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, Chaplain of the House of Commons. The Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain will speak through the lips of Principal Rainy and Principal Cairns. Dr. Dale and Dr. Allon on behalf of the Congregationalists, Dr. Clifford on behalf of the Baptists, and Mr. J. B. Braithwaite on behalf of the Society of Friends, will represent the ancient Dissenting communities of the realm. The Rev. W. Taylor, a Bishop of the Moravian Church, the Rev. J. B. Figgis, of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection, and the Presidents of all the Methodist Churches in Great Britain and Ireland, will complete the representation of Evangelical Christendom. Every variety of Christian theology, and every form of ecclesiastical polity, except Roman Catholicism and Oriental Catholicism, will for the first time heartily combine in an octave of public services. What is the occasion of this unprecedented exhibition of Evangelical Catholicism? On the 2d of March, 1791, John Wesley, at the great age of eighty-eight, after exclaiming "The best of all is, God is with us," fell asleep in the house adjoining City Road Chapel, and on the following Wednesday was laid in the burial-ground behind the Chapel. A hundred years, the most wonderful hundred in human history, have passed away, and the representatives of all the Evangelical Churches meet around the dust of John Wesley to pay an almost unparalleled tribute to his memory. Similar services will be held in every part of the world. It is very astonishing that so little is yet known, even by educated men, about one of the most influential Englishmen that ever lived. The University of Oxford has not yet realized that no son of hers ever made history so swiftly and on so gigantic a scale. I hap

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pened once to express my surprise to the late Mark Patteson, when he was Rector of Lincoln College, that even his College had no adequate memorial of the most illustrious Fellow that ever adorned its common room. What other Fellow of Lincoln, I added, or indeed of any Oxford college, had twenty millions of avowed disciples in all parts of the world, within less than a century of his death? 'Twenty millions!" exclaimed Mr. Patteson, with a start; "twenty millions! you mean twenty thousand ?” And I had to repeat it three times over, before I could persuade him that I meant it. "I had not the faintest conception," said the illustrious Rector of Lincoln, positively gasping with astonishment, that there were so many Methodists." As a matter of fact, the figures I gave him were much below the mark. In 1881 the first Ecumenical Methodist Conference met in City Road. It represented every branch of Methodism throughout the world, and included among its appointed delegates a yellow Chinaman from the far East and a Red Indian from the far West. Advantage was taken of this unique opportunity to form an approximate estimate of the total number of Methodist adherents; and those who had most carefully collected statistics from all lands were of opinion that "the people called Methodists" numbered at least 25,000,000. Whitaker's invaluable Almanack is the statistical vade mecum of the British citizen, and I am therefore glad to have this conspicuous opportunity of correcting a gross inaccuracy which Mr. Whitaker unconsciously reprints year after year, and which I have seen quoted again and again. In giving the "estimated numbers of religious denominations among English speaking communities throughout the world," he puts the Episcopalians at the head of the poll with 23,000,000, the Methodists second with 16,960,000, and the Roman Catholics third with 15,200,000. I do not know by what process Mr. Whitaker makes out that there are 23,000,000 Episcopalians. Does he include those who, like a famous Lord Chancellor, are "buttresses" because they "support the Church from the outside?" The Methodist statisticians reckon