CHAPTER V.

A FEW INCONSISTENCIES.

This is one of nature's gala days, Nov. 24th. She seems to be trying to out-do yesterday and the day before. The sun shines out in all his glory. No day in June was more lovely. Some of the summer birds are still with us and they continue to sing some of their sweetest songs. Mother Nature seems to be doing her best to favor the poor; and men who are compelled to work for their daily wages to support their families can yet do so with warm hands and feet.

Soon the cold blasts of winter will be upon us and untold suffering will have to be endured. The poor have no rights that the rich are bound to respect. When suffering and starvation overtakes them and sickness and disease enters their doors their friends and acquaintances forsake them -turned over to the tender mercies of their God. No one has any particular regard for them now except a few who may find time to call on God to intercede in their behalf. However these poor sick families are not always forsaken ; they are watched over and cared for by some kind and loving guardian angel by their influence and watchful care they are sometimes provided for. Many of our best mediums have been born in poverty, and reared to manhood and womanhood, and proved themselves to be some of the most brilliant lights of Modern Spiritualism.

So long as life continues to exist in the mortal body and reasoning faculties hold sway, I shall stand up and maintain what I know to be true; and that is the return of good spirits who come for the sole purpose of instructing us how to live in this life, in order to be happy in the next life.

Some of my professed friends have the hardihood to say that I have been misled; that my belief has no foundation in truth; that the Devil and his angels are the only ones that God permits to come to earth at the present time, and not until after the day of judgment will good spirits be allowed to visit the earth.

Now the fact is, they have got nothing but their own false assertions to prove that there is a living Devil, or ever has been one. They have been called upon time after time to prove that a Devil lived; but whereabouts in the heavenly spheres is his home, and who ever saw him, they are unable to state the evidence being on a par with that which exists in favor of their God. No man hath seen God," sayeth Moses; but this same Moses solemnly declared that God got him to go up beside a cliff, and that he (God) did go by and moved his hand to one side and allowed Moses to see his hinder parts.

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Here we find a plain contradiction in Moses' statement. Moses is not always addicted to telling the truth, and it is a stretch of one's imagination to even guess which one of these . two statements is true.

Many people outside of Jews, Christians, and Catholics have grave doubts about either of them being true, and believe that their God and De vil are myths.

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Now if the Devil has ever lived and is still living, he manages to keep himself very much secluded. No one has ever seen him at any time, and as Moses says of God, Could he see him and live?" Moses is the first and only man who lays claim to ever having had a personal interview with God, and if he only saw his hand and hinder parts, might not

this have been Moses' guardian spirit who came to instruct him that he was yet a man but lived in the spirit world?

Now, it seems to me, if Moses had had his wits about him he could have seen that that hand and other parts belonged to some one that had at that time inhabited this earth. He should have known that hands, fingers, and all bodies that have human shape once lived upon this earth and were still alive and come to Moses to show at least a part of himself as a living truth of mortal life after the death of the body.

If Moses had manifested the same wisdom and power that he did in getting out of Egypt, it seems to me, that he could have learned more of the truths of the spiritual laws, and found out for a certainty who the spirit was, who so anxiously endeavored to materialize and inform him that he still lived and was permitted to return to earth and prove that they were the self same individuals that they were when they lived upon the earth.

The small estimate that Moses puts upon the God that the Spiritualist worship, is altogether too insignificant for Spiritualist to accept. We do believe in the All-Holy Father that exhibits himself in all things, that is every where present; that the immortal part of man is part of him; that all mankind starts from the earth, travels upward through the spheres, and throwing off the crudeness of his nature as he advances. Furthermore preparing himself by doing good and learning more of God's goodness and holiness as he advances through the celestial sphere, until he finally reaches the divine presence of the Holy Father. The destiny of all mankind is to grow better and more holy as they refine themselves in their onward progress through life's changing processes, until they become one with the great fountain of love and purity, and they are all and consequently will have the knowledge and wisdom of God. They take part in the operations of law and nature.

Many of our wisest and best learned men and women are fast coming to the conclusion that evolution is one of

the grandest truths that has ever come to the knowledge of man to investigate. No man has a right to say that progression is not a truth; and being a truth must be a law. If progression is a law no man can truthfully say that it will ever come to an end. Now inasmuch as progression is one of the fixed principles in nature, the grand and holy truth of evolution is revealed to man as the climax of his present earthly knowledge.

Preachers will inform you that we have no right to look into the mysteries of Godliness; that God's hidden laws are past finding out; that man commits a sin to go outside of the Bible to learn anything of God or his laws. Here we have ignorance and superstition boiled and simmered down to absolute bigotry. Who gave these well-dressed, wineimbued, state-fed priests the right to instruct better men than they are? If man is born a little lower than the angels, no preacher has a right to say, "go so far and no farther."

Such arrogance mark strongly of self-constituted laws and made expressly for the benefit of priests and preachers. It may be all right for them; their theology says," go so far and no farther;" but I say go on, hold up your head, be a man, study and learn for yourself; the truth will make you free, and after you have learned the truth, spread it out in plain English or in any other language.

If we are to be confined to only what is given us in that old Bible, it will not take us long to be as big-headed and superstitious as these priests. No man can comprehend the word freedom until he has relieved himself of priestly influPriests have started out to be man's advisors, teachers, and theological dictators, and they are bound to carry it out to the bitter end; and, if necessary, take up arms to compel men to acknowledge them as such.

ences.

"Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.” Their is no method or brotherly love in their madness, and rather than be taught by the advice of angels, they will take up arms, and blood will flow freely all over the land.

How strange it is that all great truths have to be estab

lished by the shedding of blood. They say the Savior's blood established his powers upon earth, and through the loss of blood they will die.

Before giving up the ship, although the old ship is rotten, and should have been laid aside many years ago, still they are as tenacious as ever to keep the old hulk afloat, and will leave no stone unturned until all their energies and wealth are expended in a cruel and bloody war.

A constant feeling of unrest is manifested in all parts of the world; the minds of the laboring people seem to be in a state of agitation; their discontent in some localities amount to almost a frenzy; they are ready to quit work and go on a strike at almost any moment. The Indians are becoming so discontented they can with great difficulty keep from revolting, fleeing from their reservations and take up arms (as they seem to have a good supply), don the war-paint and go on the war-path.

The heavens seem filled with a disturbing element; a terrible commotion is now agitating the minds of the poorer classes. The next we shall hear, To arms! defend your homes and your children! This will be the beginning of a religious war, and the wild, untutored Indian is the first to inaugurate it.

If the Indians were watched and let alone to go on with their dancing until they had satisfied themselves, no doubt it would end peacefully, or at least with but few being harmed. When they see the end of their own folly, they will go back to their reservations and be submissive. They are wild and headstrong; it is hard for them to yield to the dictations of the white people.

However, in this spiritual uprising the Christian missionaries are more to blame than the Indians are. They have kept up a constant harping in the ears of the red men until at last they have become convinced that the Messiah is about to come back and through them revolutionize the world.

The Indians know very well that Indian spirits can and