“Now the morning (a Thursday) following the day on which the above conversation had taken place, Mrs. Stephens came to Professor Richet, and told him she had passed a very strange and perturbed night. She said that, towards eleven o’clock, she was suddenly awakened by a sensation that some one was in her room; she was filled with fear. She turned on the light, but saw nothing. She kept the light burning, but still felt unaccountably frightened. She heard raps on the head of her bed. Gradually her fear quieted down, and she said she began to feel as though there were a host of spirits in her room, and a Great Presence was among them. ‘And she imagined,’ writes Professor Richet, ‘that a voice spoke to her in these terms: “A powerful spirit is here, be not afraid; it is the child’s guide; your child will be a boy; he has a great destiny before him, he will be a reformer. We counsel you not to force his inclinations, to choose no career for him, but to let yourself be guided by the child himself, when the time comes to think of his education.” “‘Mrs. Stephens was still speaking of her night’s experience, when Dr. Maxwell came into the room, and handed me,’ continues Professor Richet, ‘some verses which, he said, had just been written by M. Meurice—a kind of quasi-automatism—in a state of semi-somnolence. He could not understand what it meant, and simply stated the fact without offering any comment on it.’” Here are the verses. For the sake of brevity we omit five of them, they are in the same strain as those given. We believe the reader will prefer to see these verses in the original:— Quand un enfant vient au monde, Vient au monde d’ici-bas, Il faut qu’un ange en réponde, Et le suive pas à pas. Pas à pas il faut qu’il guide La petite âme en chemin, La petite âme timide, Qu’il doit prendre par la main. Et les anges se querellent Autour des bébés naissants, S’ils sont de ceux-là qu’appellent Vers la Clarté les Puissants. Dans la foule qui l’assaille La petite âme choisit; Elle est émue et tressaille, Et la crainte la saisit. Il faut qu’autour de la mère, De la mère qui l’attend, Seuls les anges de lumière Guettent le petit enfant. “During the course of the day, Professor Richet said to Mrs. S. that it would perhaps be well if she spoke to the medium about his sister; but Mrs. Stephens answered: ‘No. Wait a little longer. I would have spoken to M. Meurice, had I been encouraged to do so by the spirits; but I think it better to let the spirits tell them.’ “Thursday passed away without any further incident, and nothing was said to Dr. Maxwell concerning Mrs. Stephens’s experiences in the night, or the concomitant nature of the automatic script with those experiences.