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appropriate ability of his profession in defending the view he has espoused, than I could hope to exert. It is only in the strength of truth that I feel strong. "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just."

889. It is of no small importance that this learned and subtle psychologist, should explain how my spiritoscope, or any other instrumental means of alphabetic indication, becomes necessary to effect the psychologization of a medium at a great distance, so as to convey to her mind the ideas which it is an object to impart. Why is it necessary that the index over a disk at Cape May, should revolve to the letters requisite to spell a message, in order that the index of another disk in Philadelphia, should revolve at a subsequent time? How does the mechanism in one place, acquire a power from the remote actuation of another? Will it be pretended that they are affected analogously to the sympathetic snails; whence, having kept each other's company, this miracle ensued? But even this is not true, since they were not kept together, if ever they were in each other's company.

890. Could any process be divined by which an instrument for supposed alphabetic communication with spirits, could be applied to transmit such messages as that for which I employed mine, according to this psychological hypothesis, it would be superior to the existing telegraphic process, since the ocean could be no barrier to messages which, although dependent on snail-like sympathy, would have nothing in it of the proverbial creeping attribute of the animal in question.

891. The following manifestations are of a nature, as it seems to me, to invalidate Dr. Bell's notion that the communications received from the spirit are acquired from the minds of the bystanders :

892. Calling on Miss Ellis, it was found that her time was so preengaged, that she could not, as she said, sit for me till the day but one succeeding. My spirit sister manifested her desire to communicate, and conveyed the idea that Miss Ellis could give an hour named next day, if she would examine her list. This examination being made, the suggestion was verified.

893. Here was an idea not obtained from the mind of any person present. It could not exist in the minds of those who, like my friend and myself, had not seen the list, nor could it have been in Miss Ellis's mind, as in that case she would not have had to consult the list, in order to determine the truth of the suggestion.

894. In this visit, Dr. W. F. Channing, who was my companion, said that possibly he had better not accompany me. It was left to my spirit sister to decide. No instrument being ready, as the quickest mode of communication, the medium was made to take up her pen, and began forthwith to make figures upon a sheet of paper. When the operation terminated, nothing but figures were seen to have been written. The medium said she did not know what to make of it. But under the letters it was written, "Select, from the alphabet, the letters corresponding, and you have

my answer." This being done, the following sentence was obtained: "My dear brother, come alone.”

895. It cannot be reasonably imagined that either Miss Ellis, my friend, or myself suggested this reply, as my friend and myself regretted the result, and it was not the interest of Miss Ellis to lessen the circle. But none of us had the ability to have perceived the numbers indicating the relative position of letters in the alphabetic row, so as to have selected them correctly. It would take some time to associate the letters with the numbers duly, and an unusual strength of memory to recollect them.

MODERN PROCESS FOR ALPHABETIC CONVERSE WITH SPIRITS, AS NEW TO MAN AS THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

896. In his instructive work on Spiritualism, the idea is advanced by Capron, that the species of modern spirit communication, of which his book mainly treats, dates back to a period of history so early that no age or country is exempt from accounts of them.

897. To me it seems that I have never read any thing in history in which intellectual communication was established by sounds or mechanical movements with invisible beings. Sight has almost always been the sense most appealed to in evidence of the appearance of ghosts. In the instance of the Witch of Endor, Samuel is made to come from his grave, not like one of our happy spirits from his beautiful abode in the spirit world :

"Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. afraid: for what sawest thou? gods ascending out of the earth. of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? And the Lord hath done to him as he spake by me: for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David: Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce

And the king said unto her, Be not And the woman said unto Saul, I saw And he said unto her, What form is he

wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines." 1 Sam. xxviii. 11-19.

898. It is represented in this quotation, that the ghost of Samuel came and conversed with Saul; that he "ascendeth out of the earth; an old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle." Where is there any thing in common between this representation and the process by which I communicate with my familiar spirits,-not coming up from the grave, or the disgusting heaven of Josephus, but from their magical abodes in the skies! challenge any one to adduce the idea, as having ever been expressed, that any one had found any mode of conversing with spirits resembling in its operation that which we now have discovered. This seems to be as new to the spirits as to us, being as much a novelty as the electric telegraph. The very limited degree in which it has been recently accomplished has been attained with very great difficulty. It appears that efforts were made to establish this intercourse in England at the mansion of the celebrated Wesley, without any beneficial result. If ever this art had been discovered, certainly it would not have been lost. Even the idea of rapping or knocking independently of mortal agency, had the fact ever been established, could not have been held so incrcdible as it was, almost universally, when it took place at Hydesville, or in Great Britain, as above mentioned.

899. The learned Dr. Priestley, utterly incredulous that the rappings at Wesley's could be ascribed to any supermundane agency, attributes it to some trick on the part of servants, assisted by neighbours. It appears that in general the most scientific and well-read persons are the most backward in ascribing such phenomena to invisible spirits. If, therefore, during past ages such inscrutable noises and movements of bodies had occurred, resembling those recently noticed, still no such use had been made of them as we now behold. Such manifestations being once so far demonstrated as to induce people of sound mind to unite in referring them to the immortal spirits of departed friends, is a fact of such awful, thrilling interest, that it never could have become obsolete; especially as the same state of things which permitted it once to be successfully witnessed, would have led to its reiteration. Neither the spirits nor mortals had laid it aside, any more than the telegraph or the railways will be disused, after experiencing the advantages of those inventions.

900. Is there not as much reason for the lateness of this discovery, as for that of any of those inventions by which modern times are distinguished from ancient? Even now, with what difficulty has it been accomplished to the degree to which it has arrived. After eighteen months of laborious

investigation, I find myself surrounded by inveterate skeptics among my own family friends and most of my comrades in science.

901. There is scarcely a country besides this in which I should escape legal penalties or tyrannical restraint, in expressing the opinions which I most devoutly entertain, and am impelled irresistibly to express; and, although in this country, free from legal penalties, there is scarcely an orthodox female tongue belonging to some of the best of the sex (in all other respects amiable) which will not devote itself universally in the service of bigotry and intolerance.

902. But beside the arguments thus founded, there is another, resting on the fact that had there been any intellectual communication with the spirit world, there could not have been such an ignorance of the religious doctrines which there prevail. There is in that world no diversity as respects the existence and unity of God; nor as to the unimportance of those creeds which have caused in this world so much mischief, by the consequent animosity, persecutions, and warfare. The superior efficacy of good works over creeds is by the higher spirits invariably insisted upon.

903. Then, agreeably to the same authority, the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and prescient God being under the necessity of subjecting things to trial, is considered as involving a contradiction; the premises being irreconcilable with the conclusion. There is not an elevated spirit that will not answer in the affirmative, every query proposed in the verses inserted, (page 34.)

904. There is but one sentiment as respects the question between probation and progression, and that is in favour of the latter. "Onward and upward is the motto on our spiritual banner." Such is the language held, and repeated over and over again. It would not take a quarter of an hour for a spirit to pour information into the ear of a mortal which, if credited, would put an end to all honest discord respecting religion, and induce that mortal thenceforth to look to the spirit world as his ultimate destination. The language of the paragraph in the address through Lanning, would go home to every human mortal having reason to comprehend it, so that whatever they might pursue in this world would be with an ultimate view to ascendancy in the other. (See Preface.)

905. Bigotry, fanaticism, selfish sectarianism, the want of media and bold, enlightened investigators, seem to have formed impenetrable obstacles to the promulgation of a knowledge of the greatest importance to human prosperity, morals, and future happiness. No doubt that so much evil should arise merely from want of a knowledge so near at hand, is one of the facts which human reason finds it most difficult to reconcile with the power and goodness of the Almighty Ruler of the universe; but that is a difficulty which exists in case any one creed be assumed as true; since none has been heretofore so communicated as to be within the reach of mankind in general. Meanwhile the error has originated in various sects, that they

have been especially favoured by God, so that they alone of all his creatures have had true light let in upon them.

906. Happily, from the mode in which the light of Spiritualism has been received by its present votaries, it may be gradually extended to all their fellow-creatures; and meanwhile those who enjoy this light do not assume that their fellow-creatures who are in this respect less fortunate, are on that account to be censured, denounced, and persecuted as far as the power to persecute goes. Spiritualists believe the wonderful manifestations. on which their creed rests, to have far more testimony in its favour than any other before accredited; and that the manifestations relied on being more recent, and observed by multitudes of eye-witnesses, known by their neighbours to be truthful, have, as mere hearsay proof, an immense superiority over the recorded tradition of an obscure, illiterate, superstitious age and country. But then the same privilege which has been enjoyed by one set of observers belongs to any succeeding number, and no less to succeeding ages than to this. It is not assumed that any special inspiration appertains to any existing being, as an instrument of promoting truth, that will not inure to others. No particular exclusive capacity for miracles is claimed for this age; on the contrary, the belief is that in this, as in other things, there will be improvement and progression, and that posterity will learn directly from the same high angelic source whence we learn.

907. The more the moral code of Spiritualism is contrasted with that which has heretofore prevailed, the better we shall be pleased. We challenge the strongest, the most learned of those who adhere to that dispensation, to meet us ore rotundo seu currente calamo. Confident in the strength of truth and the feebleness of error, the writer of these lines fears not any competitor who makes error his client.

INFLUENCE OF MUNDANE WEALTH IN THE WORLD TO COME.

According to the Spiritual Code, riches elevate or degrade according to the virtue displayed in their acquisition and employment.

908. THE great object of the more prudent and calculating portion of mankind, is to provide for that old age which they all hope to attain, or, if it be not reached, to provide the means for themselves or families which may insure a comfortable if not luxurious support, in case sickness or mutilation should deprive them of the power of making money, or competency to earn wages.

909. But how precarious and fleeting are any such worldly advantages, when compared with those of an eternal home, where every thing desirable may be had without causing a drop of sweat to fall from the brow! Let

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