To eliminate from our investigations every element of distrust, or hostility, or suspicion, or chilling antagonism, we entrusted to Mr. Hazard's friend, Mrs. Patterson, vouched for by him as one of the very best Mediums in the country, two carefully closed and sealed slates, enclosing, of course, the required piece of slate-pencil, with the earnest entreaty that the Spirits should write therein even if it were but the merest mark, sign, or scratch, therewith we would be content, and be ready to accept Independent Slate Writing with its train of consequences. The Medium was fully impressed with the importance of the trial, and with the fame which would thereby accrue from such a wholesale conversion as that of the united Seybert Commission. Every Medium, it would appear, is under the special tutelage of a departed Spirit; this Spirit is termed the 'Medium's control.' In the present case, when the slates were delivered to Mrs. Patterson, her 'control,' one 'Thomas Lister,' at once promised that Spirit hands should shortly write within the sealed-up space. But no writing came that day nor the next, nor the next, although the Medium protested that every attention should be bestowed on the refractory slates. In vain was the Medium again and again adjured to put forth every power. At the end of six months the slates were received again, without any writing, according to the confession of the Medium. So anxious, however, was our Acting Chairman that the experiment should prove successful, that, undeterred by this failure, he carefully sealed up a second slate, and placed it in the hands of the same Medium, with renewed adjurations to put forth all her Spiritualistic strength. At the end of a fortnight or more, after redoubled exertions of Mediumistic power, to which was added the combined Spiritualistic power of the Medium's entire family circle, the exciting announcement was made to us that the fragment of slate pencil within the slates could no longer be heard to rattle, and that presumably the Spirits had written a message for us.