I don't mind a man being a sceptic in Spiritualism. I don't see how he can help (considering the belief in which we are reared) being a sceptic, until he has proved so strange a matter for himself. But I _do_ object to a man or a woman taking part in a _séance_ with the sole intention of detecting deceit, not _when_ it has happened, but before it has happened--of bringing an argumentative, disputatious mind, full of the idea that it is going to be tricked and humbugged into (perhaps) a private circle who are sitting (like Rosa Dartle) "simply for information," and scattering all the harmony and good-will about him broadcast. He couldn't do it to a human assembly without breaking up the party. Why should he expect to be more kindly welcomed by a spiritual one? I have seen an immense deal of courtesy shown under such circumstances to men whom I should have liked to see kicked downstairs. I have seen them enter a lady's private drawing-room, by invitation, to witness manifestations which were never, under any circumstances, made a means of gain, and have heard them argue, and doubt, and contradict, until they have given their hostess and her friends the lie to their faces. And the world in general would be quite ready to side with these (so-called) gentlemen, not because their word or their wisdom was better worth than that of their fellow guests, but because they protested against the truth of a thing which it had made up its mind to be impossible. I don't mind a sceptic myself, as I said before, but he must be unbiassed, which few sceptics are. As a rule, they have decided the question at issue for themselves before they commence to investigate it.