AN APOLOGY FOR FAITH. 13 nor in that of Sir Thomas Browne, fools and dupes, but blessed. Perhaps those who think themselves very wise in scorning all evidence that does not suit them, may be a little surprised at the amazing value set upon this very credulity, by the highest authority, as a quality that requires a certain soundness of heart, and honesty of purpose, and courage of intellect; a quality which cannot be obtained except by the exercise of the very highest elements of human nature. And equal must be their surprise at the very different estimation in the Gospel of another class of men, in whom God made foolish the wisdom of this world, because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling block.'-Romans ix. It would do some people a great deal of good to read that admirable little book, of only 89 pages, called 'Superstition and Science,' by the Rev. R. S. Maitland, D.D. and F.S.A., in which, with a rare mixture of acute logic and fine irony, he deals with certain philosophers, the Faradays, Brewsters, and the like. Speaking of superstition, he says: Few persons, I suppose, are really much the worse in mind, body, or estate for being thought superstitious by their neighbours. As to the matter of fact, every manexcept those, if there be any such, who have renounced all belief in everything is placed somewhere in the scale of credulity and is looked up to as too high, and down upon as too low, by those who are beneath or above him in faith, just as he is in the matter of learning and money. If we hear that a man is learned, we cannot deny it, for who has not learned something? But it makes a great difference whether the testimony comes from his university, or a village ale-house. If he be rich, whether his neighbours and competitors inhabit Finland or Grosvenor Square. And with regard to superstition, one may commonly judge as to the meaning of the word in any particular case, from the general style and character of him who uses it. If a philosopher is excited and sets up a shout over the solution of a difficulty, or the detection of a fraud, and glorifies it as a triumph over superstition, we may suspect-we must not set it down for certain, but we may, I say, suspect that he is not only glad to get rid of something which he did not wish to believe, but that he means directly to impugn something else, which he cannot contrive to disbelieve. The panic haste in which a vulgar dread of being thought superstitious, or being driven to believe something disagreeable, calls on science and philosophy to come to the rescue-the prostration in which frightened ignorance waits to receive the lesson which it is to turn into nonsense by parrot repetition the silent awe with which it listens to profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called all this is miserably ridiculous. It is something which cannot be estimated or even imagined by those who, without taking the trouble to look into the facts, and to use the common sense which God has given them, are content to sit down, calm and silent, under the shameful conviction that they are not scientific, and must not pretend to have an opinion, but must swallow whatever pretenders in philosophy may condescend to tell them.' Equally excellent is what Dr. Maitland says of credulity ; namely, that to believe human testimony is as much a part of our nature as to require food; and that the very men who affect to believe as little as possible go on for threescore years and ten, believing from hour to hour, and from year to year, what people tell them on testimony which they cannot have tested, and which, had they a motive for it, they would reject on mere hearsay. I trust that this work will do much to set the world right on these questions. That it will teach people that all attacks on faith under the pseudonym of credulity do not indicate a philosophical but a shallow mind, incapable or unwilling to determine the true limits of evidence, and to give a rational concession to the powers of the unsophisticated human intellect. That so far from regarding the dicta of mere scientific or literary men on questions of a higher nature than mere physics as decisive, the mistakes and weaknesses in regard to AN APOLOGY FOR FAITH. 15 the supernatural, of such men as Faraday, Brewster, Dickens, Dr. Elliotson-the martyr of Mesmerism turned persecutor of Spiritualism-will do much to cure implicit reliance on men wandering out of their proper provinces. That they will come to regard such men with all honour and respect, as far as they confine themselves to what they really have studied; but, at the same time, to regard them as men suffering under the chronic paralysis of faith left on Europe by the French Revolution. That, in fact, all that part of their minds which regards the science of pneumatology is dead, and incapable of any vital process. That, so far as they are concerned, all further discoveries in the region of our more subtle life and essence is at an end. They must be suffered to die out, as the dried up stalks and stubble of a past season, and the energies of a new and more equally developed order of minds must be relied on for the prosecution of knowledge more important than even railroads and telegraphs, because embracing the eternities of nature and destiny. Instead of allowing faith to be trodden under foot, under the nickname of credulity, men will become conscious of its truly august character, of its gospel greatness. At the same time that they are careful, whilst fixing their eyes on the fair mountains of speculation in the distance, they will be also careful to follow the highways of evidence as they proceed. In such minds, nicknames will cease to possess any influence. In spirit enquiries, the term spiritrapping will not be regarded as wit, much less as argument, any more than it would be deemed clever to call Christians water-dippers because they practise baptism. Yet there is a large class of the vulgar who, when they have pronounced the word spirit-rapping, think they have exploded spiritevidence. These are of the earth, earthy!' animal existences, in the words of John Keats Which graze the mountain tops with faces prone. In the meantime, let us say with Jung Stilling, in his Scenen aus dem Geister-Reiche: '-' Ob uns für Narren und Obscuranten erklärt, oder für verrückte Schwärmer hält, das ist ganz einerley: dafür wurde unser Herr und Meister selber gehalten. Lass't uns zu Ihm hinaus gehen, und seine Schmach tragen.' That is, Whether we are reckoned fools and ignoramuses, or set down as mad fanatics, it is all one: our Lord and Master Himself was pronounced such. Let us go out to Him, and bear His shame.' CHAPTER II. SPIRITUALISTS BEFORE THE AMERICAN DEVELOPEMENT. There is nothing new under the sun. SOLOMON. A man, for want of a better term, is designated a fool when by his O profound is the ignorance of the great subject of Spi Supernatural, in this age—an influence pervading all ages and all nations, wide as the spread of the sun's light, repeating its operations as incessantly as the return of morning so thoroughly has the ocean of mere mundane affairs and affections submerged us in its wavesthat if presented with a new phase of a most ancient and indestructible power, we stand astonished before it, as something hitherto unheard of. If our knowledge reaches yesterday, it is absolutely at fault in the day before. This has never been more conspicuous than in the estimation of American spiritualism in this country. Because it has assumed a novel shape, that of moving physical objects, and has introduced spirits speaking through the means of an alphabet, rapping, drawing, and writing, either through the hand of mediums, or independently of them, it has almost universally in this country been regarded as an entirely new phenomenon. We still continually hear of spiritualism as |