"We deem it safe to assert," says Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten in her most valuable and interesting "History of Modern Spiritualism," "from opinions formed upon an extensive and intimate knowledge of both North and South, and a general understanding of the politics and parties in both sections, that any settlement of the questions between them by the sword was never deliberately contemplated, and that the outbreak, no less than the magnitude and length of the mighty struggle, was all, humanly speaking, forced on by the logic of events, rather than through the preconcerted action of either section of the country. We say this much to demonstrate the truly prophetic character of many of the visions and communications which circulated amongst the Spiritualists prior to the opening of the war." Not only was it prophesied by the Quaker Joseph Hoag thirty years in advance, but more fully prophesied from the spirit world by the spirit of Gen. Washington, and again most eloquently predicted through the lips of Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten in 1860. Yet who among all the leaders of the people knew anything of these warnings, or was sufficiently enlightened to have paid them any respect? The petition of 15,000 Spiritualists was treated with contemptuous ridicule by the American Senate, and even the demonstrable invention of Morse was subjected to ridicule in Congress. Congressmen stand on no higher moral plane than the people who elect them, and it is the moral faculties that elevate men into the atmosphere of pure truth. But ah! could we have had a Congress and State Legislatures in 1860, composed of men sufficiently elevated in sentiment to realize the state of the nation and the terrible necessity of preserving the peace by conciliatory statesmanship, that four years of bloody horror and devastation might have been spared. Will the time ever come when nations shall be guided by wisdom sufficient to avoid convulsions and calamities? Not until there is sufficient intelligence and wisdom to appreciate the _science of man_, to understand the wondrous faculties of the human soul, to follow their guidance, and to listen to the wisdom of our ancestors as they speak to us from a higher world.