“The most peculiar of all the ideas suggested, as one reads farther, is this: That these spirits, after making such sad mistakes as they said they did in life, should come back to be saved by the reading, in some cases, of one book. If they had discovered enough, through the mere fact of death, to find that they were all wrong, why did they seek at the source of all their errors for more? Why not seek at the source that taught them that they were wrong? The fact is, Death has not the mighty power ascribed to it. If I move from one house to another, the mere act of going out of one does not solve the _why_ that I lived in one, or _will_ in another. I may perceive that one is better adapted to my wants, but the moving into it does not tell me ‘why?’ I, as the tenant, know already the why, and perhaps if I open the windows of my house, the house itself may become pervaded with the knowledge. But it is ‘I’ who do the act, not Death. Death closes my windows and opens the door. I close my door to Death and open my window to Wisdom—perhaps in a new house, quite likely in one which has had another occupant. “If the ‘evil-minded, malicious, and undeveloped souls’ would only unfold their pin-feathers and fly off into the ‘Beyond,’ they would be a source of little sorrow to earth. But they do not. Undeveloped, they cannot fly; malicious, they remain in their proper degree; evil-minded, they are not souls, but elementaries. “The book is the property of Death.” “AMERICAN F. T. S.” MEN, WOMEN AND GODS, AND OTHER LECTURES.—By Helen H. Gardener. Introduction by Robt. G. Ingersoll, (_Truth Seeker Co., 33 Clinton Place, N. Y._) pp. 174, with a portrait of Miss Gardener; Cloth $1.00, paper .50. This is a valuable contribution, being compact, fervid in its reasonings yet not at all heavy. Its statements are unanswerable. Evidently the author read widely, thought deeply, observed keenly, and added to all that, a native genius. On page 53 she has put 12 articles of positive belief, and as the famous Colonel says in the introduction, “there is no misunderstanding between her head and her heart. She says what she thinks and feels what she says.” The design of the book is the emancipation of woman, but in carrying that out she does not abuse men for the position of women. She calls upon the women to dare to think and act for themselves and to gain the place which rightfully, in the author’s estimation, belongs to them.