PRACTICAL BENEFIT OF SPIRITUALISM.—Illustration of the practical
benefit of Spiritualism, in the happiness imparted by the conversion
of an unbeliever to a belief in immortality—Letter from a spirit
daughter—Correspondence with a spirit brother 192
MARRIAGE ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN.—The hymeneal tie in the spirit world
grows out of the necessity of the connubial union in the mundane
sphere—“Free Love” imputation refuted 204
INFLUENCE OF SCRIPTURE ON THE MORALS OF CHRISTIANS.—The morality of
Christendom being irreconcilable with the New Testament, cannot be its
legitimate offspring—Inspiration can have no higher authority than
the human testimony on which its existence is arrogated—Injurious
influence of unreasonable restriction—No one would believe that a
capable farmer would make such a mistake as to sow garlic instead
of wheat; yet God, while represented as having intended to sow
Protestantism, is considered as having caused throughout Christendom
a crop of Catholicism, in the Roman or Grecian form, for more than
a thousand years: those weeds still occupying more than half of the
whole soil—Letter of William Pitt, afterward Earl of Chatham—Offer of
guidance by a mundane spirit—Improper use of the epithet Infidel—On
Atonement—On the massacre at Sinope—Opinions of God held by Sir Isaac
Newton—On God and his attributes, by Seneca—On the better employment
of the first day of the week—Additional remarks respecting the
observance of the Sabbath, so called—If creatures be not so created
as to love their neighbours as themselves, precepts can no more
alter them in this respect than change the colour of their hair or
the number of cubits in their stature—Attacks upon the authenticity
of Scripture cannot endanger the prevalent morality, which, while
superior to that of the Old Testament, indicates a recklessness
of the precepts of Christ, excepting so far as faith is upheld as
a counterpoise for sin—The doctrine of a peculiar belief being
necessary to salvation, and a counterpoise for sin, a source of
discord originally confined to Judea, expanded with Christianity and
Islamism: verifying Christ’s allegation, that he came “as a sword, not
as a messenger of peace”—Superior morality and far less questionable
certainty of the communications from the spirit world—Quotation from
Mosheim—Quotation from Gibbon—For more than a thousand years, the
Grecian or Roman Catholic clergy were the solo depositaries of the
word of God, so called, and regulators of religious morals; yet,
according to Bishop Hopkins, during that time, the clergy were for
the most part pre-eminent in vice, as compared with the rest of the
community; whence it is inferred that, like Pope Boniface, the wicked
clergy in general were unbelievers in the truth of the gospel—If
the morals of the modern clergy are better, it is neither from the
barbarous example furnished them in the Old Testament, nor the ultra
precepts of the gospel; being too much enlightened to be governed
by either—Summary made by Bishop Hopkins—Any religion, like that of
Moses, which does not make immortality a primary consideration, must
be chiefly confined to worldly objects, and, of course, unworthy of
consideration. People profess Christianity more from a desire to
do right, than they do right in consequence of their professions—A
calumny against human nature to represent men as _wilfully_ ignorant
of the true religion—To appreciate the Jewish representation of
the Deity, a reader should first form an idea of this planet and
its inhabitants, comparatively with the hundred millions of solar
systems, and the inconceivable extent of the space which encompasses
them, and which falls within the domain of one common Deity—Our
actions dependent, under God, on organization, education, and the
extent to which we are tempted extraneously—On probation—World least
moral when the Christian church had most sway—Honour and mercantile
credit more trusted than religion. Virtue due more to the heart
than to sectarianism. Bigotry acts like an evil spirit—Progress of
literature and science in Arabia, under the Mohammedan pontiffs,
called caliphs 206
ADDITIONAL CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS.—The
opinions of MM. de Mirville and Gasparin on Table Turning and
Mediums, (considered in relation to theology and physics,) examined
by the Abbot Almignana, doctor of the common law, theologian,
&c.—Mechanical movements without contact, by Mr. Isaac Rehn,
President of the Harmonial Society, Philadelphia—Communication
from J. M. Kennedy, Esq.—Communication from Wm. West, Esq.—Koons’s
Establishment—Communications from Joseph Hazard, Esq.—A visit to the
Spiritualists of Ohio—Letter from John Gage—The home of the mediums,
and the haunts of the spirits—What they did, said, and wrote—The
house of the Spiritualists—Presence of electricity—The room where
the spirits manifest their power—The furniture and occupants—The
manifestations commence—The spirits play on drums, harps, French
horns, accordeons, and tamborines—The manifestations continue, and
the head spirit writes a communication—The spirit’s letter—Concluding
remarks—An evening at Koons’s spirit room, by Charles Partridge, Esq.,
New York—Experience of the Hon. N. P. Tallmadge—Letter from Mr. D. H.
Hume—Spiritualism in London—Lord Brougham with the spirits—Evidence
afforded by the Rev. J. B. Ferguson—An exposition of views respecting
the principal facts, causes, and peculiarities involved in spiritual
manifestations; together with interesting phenomenal statements
and communications, by Adin Ballou—Testimony of the Hon. J. W.
Edmonds—Testimony of Henry Lloyd Garrison.—Testimony of Mr. and
Mrs. Newton—Testimony of members of the New York circle—Testimony
of the Rev. D. F. Goddard, Boston—Manifestations at Stratford,
Connecticut, in the house of the Rev. Eliakim Phelps, D.D.—Remarkable
exhibitions of power—Singular occurrences—Image-making—Destruction
of furniture—Incendiary spirits—The spirits identified—Unhappy
spirits, from the remembrance of wrong done in this world—Wrong
doing revealed—Directions given for restoring ill-gotten
gains—Discontinuance of the manifestations—Idea of the existence
of a spiritual sun, and a vital spiritual oxygen, found to exist,
independently, in the mind of a much-esteemed author 273
OF MATTER, MIND, AND SPIRIT.—Of matter—Strictures on a speculation by
Farraday respecting the nature of matter—On Whewell’s demonstration
that all matter is heavy—Additional remarks on the speculation of
Farraday and Exley, above noticed—Of mundane, ethereal, and ponderable
matter, in their chemical relations—Suggestions of Massotti,
respecting the nature of matter—On electro-polarity as the cause
of electrical phenomena—Of mind, as existing independently, and as
distinguished from matter—Of spirit independently, or as distinguished
from mind and matter—Of the soul, as distinguished from mind and
matter—On the odic, or odylic force 363
RELIGIOUS ERRORS OF MR. MAHAN.—Proposition of Mr. Mahan—Of the origin
of the Books of Moses no higher evidence exists, according to the
testimony of the Bible itself, than that of an obscure priest and
a fanatical king—Scriptural account of the finding of the Books of
Moses by Hilkiah, the high-priest—Account of the finding of the Books
of Moses, by Josephus—If the Pentateuch had been previously known
to the Jews, it is incredible that it could have become obsolete
and forgotten prior to the alleged discovery of it in the temple
in the reign of Josiah—Great importance attached to a belief in
immortality by Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, as contrasted with
the recklessness of Moses respecting the same belief—The worship
of a book, idolatry—Evidence of Josephus and Gibbon _vs._ Mr.
Mahan—The worshippers of the golden calf more righteous than their
assassins—Just denunciation of the religious imposture and usurpation
of Moses, by noble-minded Israelites—Remarkable observance of the
golden rule by Moses, in his last advice to the Israelites—Straining
at spiritual gnats while swallowing scriptural camels—The evidence
which is insufficient to establish the iniquity of a sinner cannot be
sufficient to establish the divine authority of a book—Word of God, so
called, or the golden rule inverted by God’s alleged commands—Pagan
fearlessness of death—Observations of Mr. Huc, a Christian priest,
that it is their religion which makes Christians more fearful of death
than the Chinese—Mr. Huc’s observations—Conclusion of strictures on
Mr. Mahan’s religious errors 396
CONCLUSION.—The Pentateuch inconsistently represented as the basis of
a belief in human immortality—Injustice of representing disbelievers
in the Bible as not having as good ground for belief in immortality as
those who rest their belief on a work which, by its silence, tends to
discountenance the hope of a future life—Those who uphold the Bible
against Spiritualism, the real antagonists of the only satisfactory
evidence ever given to man of a future habitation in the spirit world
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