11. THE existence of the universe is not more evident than that of the
reasoning power by which it is controlled. The evidence of profound
and ingenious contrivance is more manifested the more we inquire. Yet
the universe, and the reason by which it has been contrived and is
regulated, are not one. Neither is the reason the universe, nor is the
universe the reason. This governing reason, therefore, wherever, or
however it may exist, is the main attribute of the Deity, whom we can
only know and estimate by his works. And surely they are sufficiently
sublime, beautiful, magnificent, and extensive to give the idea of a
being who may be considered as infinite in comparison with man. Yet
as the existence of evil displays either a deficiency of power, or a
deficiency of goodness, I adopt the idea of a deficiency of power in
preference.
12. “If,” as Newton rationally infers, “God has no organs,” the
person of man cannot be made after God’s image, since the human image
is mostly made up by the human organs. Man has feet to walk, arms to
work with, eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, a nose for smelling. It
were absurd to attribute such organs to God.
13. It follows that while we have as much evidence of a Deity as
we have of our own, we are utterly incapable of forming any idea
of his form, mode of existence, or his wondrous power. We are as
sure of the immensity and ubiquity of his power as of the existence
of the universe, with which he must at least be coextensive and in
separatelyassociated. That his power must have always existed, we are
also certain; since if nothing had ever prevailed, there never could
have been any thing: out of nothing, nothing can come.
14. The universe, no less than the Deity, must be eternal, since if at
any time, however remote, the Deity existed without a universe, there
must have been an infinite antecedent period during which the divine
power must have been nullified for want of objects for its exercise. A
Deity so situated would be as a king without a kingdom to govern.
15. I am under the impression that mind is at least as essential to
the creation as matter. It seems to me inconceivable that the various
elementary atoms of the chemist could come into existence, with their
adaptation to produce the multiplicity of efficient combinations which
they are capable of forming, without having been modified by one mind.
The existence of adaptation, I think, proves the existence of mind. But
even were these atoms to possess inherently the adaptation which they
manifest, of what possible utility could be the variegated consequences
thereof, were there no minds to perceive, appreciate, or enjoy them.
The beauty of colour, the music of sound, the elegance of curves or
angles, could have no existence were there no perception of them; since
those attributes are in a great measure attached to objects by mind.
Independently of mind, music is mere aerial vibration, colour mere
superficial texture, or intestinal arrangement producing undulatory
waves variously polarized, which are the proximate causes, which
would be sterile, were there no mind to be actuated by them through
appropriate organs.
16. Could the universe exist without mind, would not its existence be
nugatory?
17. The following allegations seem to me no less true than the axioms
of Euclid:
18. No evil can endure which any being has both the power and desire to
remove.
19. Any result must ensue which any being has both power and desire to
accomplish.
20. No rational being will strive by trial to ascertain that which he
knows as well before as after trial.
21. If God be both omnipotent and omniscient, he can, of course, make
his creatures exactly to suit his will and fancy, and foresee how they
will fulfil the end for which they are created. Wherefore then subject
them to probation to discover traits which by the premises he must
thoroughly foreknow.
22. Is it not more consistent with divine goodness to infer that we are
placed in this life for progressive improvement, and that there is no
evil which can be avoided consistently with his enormous, though not
unlimited, power?
23. Such an inference coincides with the communications recently
received, from the spirits of departed friends, which it is the object
of this publication to promulgate.
24. Unfortunately, human opinion is very much influenced by passion and
prejudice. Hence in questions respecting property, we often find honest
men differing as to what is just. So when any creed is associated with
the hope of enjoying by its tenure a _better_, if not _exclusive_,
pretension to eternal happiness and the favour of God, the sectarian
by whom it may be held becomes honestly tenacious of its despotic
supremacy over all others.
25. I have no doubt that a large portion of our American priesthood are
sincere in the advocacy of the tenets respectively held by them. Among
them I have known some of the best of men, and I have generally found
them more tolerant of skepticism than the majority of their followers.
It has not, however, been unfrequently urged by clergymen as a ground
of adherence to Christianity, that _without it_, there is no authentic
evidence of a future state of existence. I have seen an argument from
an able and respectable Christian writer, urging that there is no
refuge for the mass of mankind to be found in pure deism, unaccompanied
by any specific evidence of a future state.
26. Under these circumstances should Spiritualism afford such a refuge
to those who are utterly dissatisfied with the evidence of the truth
of scriptural revelation, it will certainly be a _blessing to them_;
and those who have heretofore found this essential comfort in one way,
ought not to object should their neighbours find it in another way.
27. An effort has been made to throw ridicule on spiritual
manifestations, on account of phenomena being effected by means of
tables and other movable furniture; but it should be recollected that,
when _movements were_ to be _effected_, resort to _movable_ bodies
was inevitable; and as generally the proximity of media, if not the
contact, was necessary to facilitate the movements, there was no body
so accessible as tables. But these violent mechanical manifestations
were always merely to draw attention; just as a person will knock, or
even kick, violently at a front door, until some one looks out of a
window to communicate with him. The more violent manifestations ceased
both at Hydesville, at Rochester, and at Stratford in Connecticut, as
soon as the alphabetic mode of communicating was employed. I never have
had any to take place during my intercourse with my spirit-friends,
unless as tests for unbelievers, when intellectual communications could
not be made. It is more than fifteen months since I have resorted
to instruments which have nothing in common with tables. Of these
instruments, engravings and descriptions will be found in this work.
28. But is it not a great error to consider our tables as less sacred
than our firesides? Could any appeal more thoroughly vibrate to the
heart of civilized man than that of any invasion of his rights which
should render his fireside liable to intrusion? Hence, in the Latin
motto, “Pro aris et focis,” the inviolability of the fireside is
placed side by side with freedom of conscience. But, with the passing
away of winter, the interest in the fireside declines: ’tis changeable
as the temperature of air. It loses all its force in the tropics; but,
throughout Christendom, the table still draws about it the inmates of
every human dwelling, at all seasons, and in every kind of weather.
Even when not excited by hunger, we value the social meeting which
takes place around it.
29. At tables, moreover, conferences are held, contracts and deeds
signed, and decrees, statute-laws, and ordinances are written.
Treaties, also, are made at tables, on which not the fate of
individuals merely, but of nations, depends.
30. Is the renown of the “knights of the round table” tarnished by
their being only known in connection with the word in question? Is any
director or trustee ashamed of being, with his colleagues, designated
as a “board?”—a humble synonym for table.
31. It was at a table the Declaration of Independence was signed; and
in Trumbull’s picture of its presentation to Congress a table is made
to occupy a conspicuous position. Our tables should be at least as much
objects of our regard as the vicinity of our fireplace.
32. The sarcasms founded on the use of the table in spiritual
manifestations proceed, inconsistently, from those persons who would
bring their deity through all the stages of human life.
33. The human body of Christ must have gone through all the stages
from the embryo to maturity. It was worshipped in a manger, and lived
thirty years in obscurity and inaction. Why all this delay, when the
angel, armed with the power of God, might have addressed Herod, the
Roman emperor, and every other potentate on earth in a single year? The
Almighty softening their hearts, as he hardened that of Pharaoh, the
conversion of mankind had been the inevitable consequence.
34. Alluding to his second advent, Christ used these words:—“They
shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and
glory.” Mark xiii. 26. Wherefore did not his first coming take place in
this conspicuous, glorious, and unquestionable manner?
35. It is often inquired, Wherefore were not these efforts to
communicate with mankind at an earlier period of the world’s duration?
but it may be demanded in return, Wherefore did not Christ come until
the earth had been peopled, even according to Scripture, about four
thousand years?
36. Why was not the use of the compass, of gunpowder, printing,
the steam-engine, steamboat, railway, telegraph, daguerreotyping,
electrotyping, contrived earlier in this terrestrial sphere? Let
orthodoxy take the beam out of its own eye first.
37. Had Christ taught these arts, they would not only have had a more
general influence during the era of their accomplishment, but have left
a durable and irrefragable proof of a towering mental superiority. As
they would have gone into use, there could have been no question as to
their accomplishment; so that every intelligent being might have become
intuitively cognizant of their wonderful results.
38. The invention of gunpowder, the telegraph, and the mariner’s
compass might have been the means of preventing the inroads of the
Goths and Vandals, and, subsequently, the success of the Mohammedans;
since the Arabians would hardly have availed themselves of these
inventions at the time the Mohammedan conquests were commenced.
39. How important would have been the art of printing to the
promulgation of a correct knowledge of the revelation which was the
alleged object of Christ’s mission!
40. Of those who believe in revelation, it may be inquired, Why the
Hebrews were preferred, as the receivers of divine inspiration, to the
more civilized Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, or Chinese? If revelation was
requisite to one nation, was it not equally necessary to all?
41. Wherefore, after Christ had undergone crucifixion in order to make
people Christians, should Mohammed have been allowed to massacre or
enslave them for being Christians?
42. There is even now great difficulty in effecting those
intercommunications with spirits in this country of universal _legal_
tolerance. I say _legal_, since there is, as Owen alleged, “_too much
Christian despotism of another kind_.”
43. Almost every editor is, more or less, a censor to the press, and a
peon of popularity. The tendency is not to _repress_, but to _gratify_,
and, of course, _promote_ existing bigotry. This bigotry and its
Siamese brother, intolerance, have, in all countries and ages, been
exercising a _mischievous_, though often a _well-intended_, vigilance,
over any innovation of a nature to emancipate the human mind from
educational error; and, whenever supported by temporal power, has
resorted to persecution—even to the use of the sword, of the rack, or
the fagot; and, in this country of boasted freedom and much-vaunted
liberty of the press, shows its baleful power by defamation, or
alleging disqualification for employment, wherever its influence can be
exerted.
44. A conspicuous printer in this city refused to print an edition of
my recent pamphlet, as he would allow nothing to go through his press
which was against the Bible. This shows how far fanaticism will go,
even at this advanced era of science and in this country of vaunted
intellectual freedom.
45. Two hundred years ago, Spiritualism would have been as much
persecuted as witchcraft.
46. In reprobation of unbelief in the scriptural proofs of immortality,
it has been usual for self-complacent believers to urge that the “wish
was father to the thought;” that a sincere desire to perceive the truth
could not exist without conviction; but the opposite must have been
the prevailing weakness among unbelievers in Scripture who have become
spiritualists, if they are now over-credulous in admitting the evidence
on which Spiritualism is founded.
47. I declare solemnly, that I always was intensely anxious to know
the truth; that although, theoretically, I doubted the possibility
of changing the course of things by prayer, yet I did often lift my
thoughts up to God, imploring that some light might be given to me. Of
course, as soon as the facts admitted of no other explanation than that
my father, sister, brother, and other spirit friends, had been engaged
in efforts to convince me of their existence, and of that of the spirit
world, the most intense desire arose to verify the facts tending to
settle the all-important question, whether man is immortal.
48. If the evidence of the truth of revelation were as adequate as
represented by its votaries, my conscientious inability to believe in
it would indicate an undue constitutional skepticism; whence I required
more proof than the great mass of Christians, in order to produce
credence. Yet, now having found the evidence of immortality in the case
of Spiritualism satisfactory, it cannot be urged that my hesitation
respecting the evidence of revelation arose from any unwillingness
to believe in a future state, or unreasonableness as to the evidence
requisite to justify belief. Manifestly, it would be inconsistent to
accuse me of disbelieving in the one case from undue, hard-hearted
incredulity, and yet, in the other, yielding from the opposite
characteristics.
49. Fundamentally, my reasons for not believing in revelation have
been, that it violates certain axioms above stated, (18,) which have
been as clear to my mind as those collated by Euclid.
50. It may be shown that the existing system fails to give any
evidence which can be _subjected to the intuition of each generation
successively_. It rests on the alleged intuition of human beings who
existed ages ago, and of whom we know nothing but what they say of
themselves through history or recorded tradition. It reposes entirely
on the testimony of propagandists, who were interested to give it
importance, or on partial human narrators or compilers. It has been
erected on a species of hearsay evidence, inadmissible in courts of
justice. This species of testimony in the case of Spiritualism is
contemptuously set aside. No one will believe in manifestations unless
intuitively observed. Wherefore this _faith_ in _ancient_ witnesses,
this _skepticism of those of our own times_, even when they are known
to be truthful?
51. On my stating to a distinguished savan a fact which has been
essentially verified since in more than a hundred instances, his
reply was—I would believe you as soon as any man in the world, yet I
cannot believe what you mention. He suggested the idea of its being
an epidemic, with which I was of course infected; nevertheless,
that savan, as a professing Christian, admitted facts vastly more
incredible, depending on the alleged intuition of witnesses who lived
two thousand years ago, nearly. This, doubtless, was the consequence of
educational bigotry, which would have caused a belief in the miracles
of any other religion in which he should have been brought up.
52. Such persons strain at the gnats of Spiritualism, yet swallow the
camels of Scripture.
53. In like manner an Eastern sovereign treated a Dutch ambassador as
deranged, because he alleged that bodies of water, in his country, were
capable of solidification, so as to support people on the surface.
54. But if this skepticism is shown with respect to observers of our
day, how can it be expected that it should not be displayed toward
observers of antiquity?
55. Spiritualism will in this respect have a great advantage, as it
will always be supported by the intuition of its actual votaries. It
will not rest on bygone miracles, never to be repeated, if they ever
occurred, but will rest upon an intercourse with the spirit world which
will grow and improve with time.
56. One of the pre-eminent blessings resulting from this new philosophy
will be its bringing religion within the scope of positive science.
This word positive is employed by the learned atheist Comte to
designate science founded on observation and experiment. It will give
the quietus to the cold, cheerless view of our being’s end and aim
presented in his work.
57. Professor Nichol endeavoured, in the following way, to comfort
his Christian auditors against the apparent incompatibility of the
phenomena of the sidereal creation with the language of Scripture:
Having drawn two lines from the same point, making a right angle,
the learned lecturer said, _Suppose A sets out and pursues one of
these routes, B pursues the other, and both arrive at certain truths;
although these results should not seem to have any thing to do with
each other; yet_, said he, _if they be truths, they must come together
eventually; they cannot always travel away from each other_. But if any
person find that, agreeably to all his experience, the results thus
attained, tend to greater and greater remoteness and inconsistency,
there would be little comfort found in the idea of a possible ultimate
approximation.
58. It is upon this actual fundamental discordancy between scriptural
impressions, and the truths ascertained by experimental and intuitive
investigation, that Comte builds his inference that theology is to be
entirely abandoned. But very different is the position of Spiritualism
relative to positive science. It starts from the same basis of
intuition and induction from facts. It does not controvert any of the
results of positive science within the ponderable material creation,
to which the results contemplated by Comte belong. It superadds new
facts respecting the spirit world, which had so entirely escaped the
researches of materialists, that they entertain the highest incredulity
merely upon negative grounds,—merely because the facts in question have
not taken place within the experience of those who have investigated
the laws of ponderable matter and one or two imponderable principles
associated therewith.
59. Such was the ground of my incredulity; which, however, vanished
before intuitive demonstration.
60. It is admitted by Comte that we know nothing of the sources or
causes of nature’s laws; that their origination is so perfectly
inscrutable, as to make it idle to take up time in any scrutiny for
that purpose. He treats the resort to the Deity as the cause, as a mere
abstraction tending to comfort the human mind before it has become
acquainted with true science, and doomed to be laid aside with the
advance of positive science.
61. Of course his doctrine makes him avowedly a thorough ignoramus as
to the _causes_ of laws, or the means by which they were established,
and can have no other basis but the negative argument above stated,
in objecting to the facts ascertained in relation to the spiritual
creation. Hence when the spirits allege that by their volition they can
neutralize gravity, or _vis inertiæ_,[4] there is nothing in positive
science to confute this. The inability of material beings to neutralize
gravitation by their powers is no proof that spiritual beings cannot
effect this change.
62. Thus while allowing the atheist his material dominion, Spiritualism
will erect within and above the same space a dominion of an importance
as much greater as eternity is to the average duration of human life,
and as the boundless regions of the fixed stars are to the habitable
area of this globe.
63. But although Comte be a man of great learning, his fundamental
opinions appear to be faulty, and his distribution of the operations of
the mind imaginary.
64. In treating of gravitation as the _primary_ law, does he not commit
a blunder? Is not vis inertiæ above indispensable to gravitation, since
it may be conceived to exist without gravitation, while gravitation
cannot exist without vis inertiæ?
65. The power of a body A to draw B toward it can never exceed that
which is necessary to put it into motion, which must be directly as its
vis inertiæ; and where the one is null, the other must be null.
66. I cannot imagine how any philosopher so learned as Comte should not
perceive the reduction of the phenomena of the universe to “different
aspects” of the one faculty of gravitation to be utterly impossible.
In the first place, it has been shown that gravitation could not be
the basis of vis inertiæ, without which it cannot exist; and in the
next place, gravitation has always, at any given point of time, its
possible influence limited to the power of making a body move toward an
appropriate centre of gravity, and afterward remain forever at rest,
unless affected by some extraneous cause.
67. It is alleged also that the phenomena of the universe are explained
by gravitation. I here quote his own words:
68. “_Our business is—seeing how vain is any research into what are
called causes, whether first or final—to pursue an accurate discovery
of these laws, with a view to reducing them to the smallest possible
number._”
69. How is it possible, I demand, to reduce the orbitual motion of
a planet to fewer causes than vis inertiæ, motion, and gravitation?
Vis inertiæ and motion are necessary to momentum; and momentum thus
arising, acting in a tangential direction to that of gravitation, is
indispensable to form, with the force of gravity, the resultant which
constitutes the orbitual curve.
70. Yet from subsequent language in the same paragraph, the idea is
suggested of reducing planetary motions to one cause, gravitation! This
will be perceived from his language, subjoined as follows:
71. “_The best illustration of this is in the case of the doctrine
of gravitation. We say that the general phenomena of the universe are
explained by it, because it connects, under one head, the whole immense
variety of astronomical facts, exhibiting the constant tendency of
atoms toward each other in direct proportion to their masses, and in
inverse proportion to the squares of their distance._”
72. How can the revolution of a single planet about the sun be
explained without the centrifugal or tangential force due to momentum?
Were not gravitation resisted by the projectile velocity constituted by
motion and vis inertiæ, would not all the planets fall into their suns,
respectively?
73. Are there not three essential elements in such orbitual
movements,—vis inertiæ, motion, and gravitation? Are not these as
necessary to an orbit as three sides are to a triangle? and is it not
as great an error to suppose that such movements can continue by the
agency of _one_ of them, as to make one right line serve to enclose a
superficies?
74. Between two philosophers, both equally learned with Comte, one may
be, like him, an atheist, the other, like Newton, a believer in God;
and yet, as respects the whole range of positive science, would there
be any clashing? They would attribute every thing to the same _laws_,
whether these should be ascribed to a deity or not. The origin of the
laws recognised by both would, by one, be ascribed to an inscrutable
God; by the other, to inscrutability without a God.
75. Because the movements of the heavenly bodies are ascribed to the
three elements above mentioned,—an unknown source of projectile force,
vis inertiæ, by which that force is perpetuated, and gravitation, by
which it is modified into elliptical, orbitual revolution, operating as
laws governing planetary movement,—it does not make the astronomer who
adopts this conception less of a theologian; it only makes him a more
enlightened theologian. We ascribe _less_ to the _special_ interference
of the Creator in proportion as our knowledge enables us to perceive
results attained by general laws. This, Comte conceives, causes theists
to be less theological, and to lessen what he seems to view as the
domain which theology is allowed to have. But is it not more correct
to assume that it is only the domain of ignorance which grows less,
while that of theology becomes simpler and more correct, but not
less extensive? It is not that less is ascribed to God, but that the
aggregate is more intelligently ascribed as the laws through which his
agency is recognised are fewer.
76. Newton assumed inertia, gravitation, and motion as the foundation
of his philosophy; but attributed these fundamental properties, or
states of matter, to the will of that governing mind of which he held
the existence to be as evident as that of the matter governed. Comte
does not consider that there is any positive proof of the existence
of such a ruling mind, and does not, therefore, find it necessary to
admit the existence of a Deity. Thus, the states or properties above
mentioned are, with Newton, proximate, with Comte, ultimate, causes.
Hence, when we arrive at the foundation of the Newtonian doctrine, we
cannot go deeper without admitting the existence of a God. Without this
admission, we involve ourselves in the irremediable darkness of atheism.
77. In this respect, I have always been a follower of Newton.
Evidently, both the governing reason and the creation which it rules
must have existed from eternity; since, if nothing ever existed
exclusively, it must have forever endured, and there never could have
been any thing. So, if there ever had been no mind, there never could
have been any mind.
78. The human mind, says Comte, by its nature employs, in its progress,
three methods of philosophizing,—the theological, the metaphysical, and
the positive, differing essentially from each other, and even radically
opposed. Hence, he assumes the _successive_ existence of three modes of
contemplating the aggregate phenomena of the universe, any one of which
excludes the others. The first, “_is the point of departure of the
human understanding; the third, its ultimate, fixed, definite state;
the second, merely a state of transition from the first to the third_.”
79. It seems to be assumed that the intellectual progress of the
human mind must necessarily be through these three stages. Moreover,
it is suggested that each individual, in reviewing the progression
of his mind from childhood to mature age, will perceive that he was
a theologian in his childhood, a metaphysician in his youth, and a
natural philosopher in his manhood. If this did not come from a
distinguished philosopher, I should pronounce it ridiculous. If allowed
to be so egotistical, I must say that I am not aware that I went
through these stages in the different periods of my life.
80. Studying metaphysical works as a part of my education, I took great
interest in the theory of moral sentiments, and published essays on
topics of that nature in the “Portfolio;” but previously, I wrote my
“Memoir on the Blowpipe.” In 1810, my “Brief View of the Policy and
Resources of the United States” was published, in which it was first
truly advanced that credit is money.
81. Subsequently, more than a hundred publications were made by me, for
the most part on chemistry and electricity, yet always intermingled
with political, moral, and financial essays.
82. I am now, more than ever, a theologian; and my first publications
touching that subject date after the attainment of threescore and ten.
83. But theology and religion were subjects always near to my heart;
and were accompanied by the pain arising from the discordancy of my
opinions with those entertained by much-loved relatives and friends.
84. I do not understand how any man of common sense can conceive that
theological, metaphysical, or experimental science can be the separate
object of contemplation; or that the share that either may occupy at
any age, to the exclusion of the others, will not depend on exterior
contingencies.
85. I became a believer in God solely from my intuitive perception of
the existence of a governing reason. Of course, all things were to be
ascribed to that reason ultimately, but proximately to the very laws
which this author considers as the object or basis of positive science.
86. He holds that our inquiries should be bounded by the inscrutability
of the well-ascertained physical properties and laws of matter.
Coinciding, _practically_, with Comte until lately, I held that inquiry
should be bounded by the inscrutability of the Divine Lawgiver, to
whom these laws owed existence. But Spiritualism has opened an avenue
to inquiry beyond the boundary thus practically admitted no less by
myself than by Comte. Other inscrutable laws and phenomena have to be
recognised within a region for the existence of which Comte, in denying
spiritual agency, allows no room.
87. Though, practically, this field of inquiry was shut out from me
as well as from Comte, _theoretically_, it was not excluded by my
philosophy. Although in ascribing the universe to mind, the unity of
its design and harmony of its phenomena led to the inference that
it must be due to one supreme mind, there was still room for the
coexistence of any number of degrees of subordinate mental agency,
between that supreme mind and man.
88. Beside those antagonists to Spiritualism, who would set aside the
evidence of persons living at the present time and who are known to
be truthful, by the evidence of others who lived some thousand years
since, spiritualists are assailed by such as admit their facts, but
explain them differently. Thus the Roman Catholic Church has admitted
the manifestations to indicate an invisible physical and rational power
which cannot be attributed to human agency. But instead of ascribing
them to spirits, good or bad, of mortals who have passed the portal of
death, they consider them the work of Old Nick.
89. If this personage ever did influence the acts of any sect,
manifestly it must have been in those instances in which alleged
religious error has been made the ground for persecution, from the time
of the extirpation and spoliation of the Midianites, Canaanites, and
others, down to that of the extirpation of the Albigenses, the auto
da fé, inquisition, massacre of St. Bartholomew, fires of Smithfield,
roasting of Servetus, and the persecution of the Quakers and witches.
90. So far as the devil is only an imaginary embodiment of the evil
passions of men, as conceived by many enlightened Christians, no doubt
those and many other analagous acts were due to the devil; but when the
benevolent language of the spirits respecting sinners is contrasted
with the cruel doctrine of the church in question, as well as by
others, it can hardly be conceived that this language comes from Satan,
and that of the churches from the “benevolent” Jesus Christ.
91. The following verses, which have already appeared in my letter to
the Episcopal clergy, express the sentiments of the spirits—every soul
having the privilege of reforming, and rising proportionally to the
improvement thus obtained:
92. However late, as holy angels teach,
Souls now in Hades, bliss in Heaven may reach.
All whose conduct has been mainly right,
With lightning speed may gain that blissful height;
While those who selfish, sensual ends pursue,
For ages may their vicious conduct rue,
Doom’d in some low and loathsome plane to dwell,
Made through remorse and shame the sinner’s hell;
Yet through contrition and a change of mind,
The means of rising may each sinner find.
The higher spirits their assistance give,
Teaching the contrite how for heaven to live.
93. Let these lines be contrasted with those which are given in the
work on Heaven of the Rev. Dr. Harbaugh—a most excellent orthodox
clergyman of the German Reformed Church—which are as follows:
94. “But the wicked? alas! for him at that awful moment! Oh! my soul,
come not thou into the secret of his sorrows.
“How shocking must thy summons be, O death!
To him.—
In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement;
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help;
But shrieks in vain! How wishfully she looks
On all she’s leaving, now no longer hers!
A little longer; yet a little longer;
Oh! might she stay to wash away her stains;
And fit her for her passage! Mournful sight!
Her very eyes weep blood, and every groan
She heaves is big with horror. But the foe,
Like a stanch murderer, steady to his purpose,
Pursues her close, through every lane of life,
Nor misses once the track; but presses on,
Till forced at last to the tremendous verge,
At once she sinks to everlasting ruin.”
95. But I conceive that the existence of a devil is irreconcilable
with all goodness and omnipotency; and that, were a devil created by
God, the Creator would be answerable for all the acts of the being
so created. Evidently, the devil could be nothing else but what
omnipotence should make him, and could do nothing but what prescience
would foresee. The acts of the devil would therefore be indirectly
those of his maker.
96. I would inquire of those who rely on the Bible as the source of
their opinions, how it happens that Moses makes no allusion to Satan as
an agent in the events of which he is the narrator?
97. Though Milton represents that malevolent being as taking the form
of the serpent, Moses, far from sanctioning that idea, makes not only
the individual snake, but the whole genus forever amenable for the part
performed.
98. In his description of hell, Josephus represents an archangel as the
janitor, which is quite inconsistent with Satan’s being the jailor. Is
it conceivable that an archangel should be doorkeeper to the devil?
99. Moreover, in stating the reasons why the doom of the rich man
(broiling to eternity) was irremediable, no allusion is made to the
satanic despot whose inexorable malevolence would have had to be
counteracted.
100. It would seem to be an axiom, that whenever any event does not
take place, it must be because there is no being who has at once the
_power_ and the _wish_ to cause it to happen; and when any event does
ensue, there can exist no being having at once the _power_ and _wish_
to prevent it from happening. Moreover, consistently, no agent can
exist whose destruction is desired by another being, who, having the
right, is competent by mere volition to destroy that agent.
101. It follows, that if there actually does exist any being, such as
is designated by the words _Devil_, _Satan_, _Beelzebub_, to treat
him as the _creature_ of God, would be inconsistent _either_ with the
attribute of all goodness or of omnipotence.
102. Can any act be more devilish than that of creating a devil? Would
it not be blasphemous to ascribe to a beneficent Deity a measure so
truly diabolical? It has been said that the devil is a necessary agent
in God’s providence. How necessary, if God be omnipotent?
103. Does not the necessity of employing a bad agent involve inability
to create a good agent?
104. The evils which exist in the creation may, to a great extent, be
explained by an inevitable limitation of power. Thus, probably, there
could be no virtue were there no vice; no pleasure, were there no pain.
Ecstasy might become painful by unlimited endurance.
105. Without appetites and passions, an animal would be reduced to the
state of a vegetable, which lives without perception.
106. The language held by certain sectarians on such subjects,
seems to me often contradictory of the idea they strive to enforce.
Thus they represent that our sorrows and our pangs are intended for
our amendment, or designed to prevent some greater evil _here_ or
_hereafter_; but what can justify a painful remedy, if there be power
to adopt one which, while equally efficacious, would be painless?
107. God is, on one side, represented as the cause of all the
circumstances under which we exist; yet, on the other, is under the
necessity of afflicting us in order to remove or to remedy them! If
possessing both ability and disposition to reform us without causing us
to suffer, could suffering be inflicted consistently with all goodness?
108. Of a most excellent Roman Catholic I inquired whether it was not
held by their church that a belief in their tenets was necessary to
salvation? The reply was in the affirmative. And yet, said I, of all
who do believe, only those can be saved who do their Master’s will,—who
add good works to an orthodox creed? The reply was again affirmative.
Of all mankind, then, there is but a very small number, comparatively,
who are not, according to the creed in question, to go to hell? Again
I received an affirmative reply. I would then (I rejoined) when I die,
rather go into an eternal sleep, than awake in heaven to find so many
of my fellow-creatures in endless misery, the mere knowledge of which
would make heaven itself a hell to a good-hearted angel.
109. Another species of objection to the existence of spirits is, that
although movements of bodies are admitted to take place without any
perceptible or conceivable mortal agency, the existence of spirits as
the cause is to be disbelieved, because the observers have not been
successful in getting replies such as they think would have been given
were spirits the source.
110. Thus a very distinguished physician, Dr. Bell, has alleged that
nothing has in his investigations been communicated which was not
previously in the mind of one or more mortals present. This is one
of the instances in which the assailant of Spiritualism founds his
argument in his error. It is an argument which has no other basis than
inaccurate information, because I am enabled to disprove the truth of
the conclusion on which the inference is founded.
111. Nevertheless, I am not surprised that an inference should have
been made, which holds good as respects certain spirits or media,
though not others. If a pack of cards be so cut that the card exposed
cannot be seen by any mortal present, it may be found that although
certain spirits cannot describe the card, unless seen by some
person present, yet other spirits can describe the card under these
circumstances. Among my guardian spirits, there are two who have
repeatedly described the card exposed fortuitously by cutting a pack,
as in the process for determining trumps in a game of whist.
112. Since reading Dr. Bell’s remarks, cards, taken indiscriminately
from a pack, and laid down behind the medium and myself, the
denomination unseen by any mortal, have been named correctly by one of
the spirits alluded to, although, about the same time, another eminent
spirit could not name cards when similarly employed.
113. Agreeably to my experience in a multitude of cases, spirits have
reported themselves who were wholly unexpected, and when others were
expected. When I was expecting my sister in Boston, my brother reported
himself. Lately, when expecting her, Cadwalader was spelt out, being
the name of an old friend, who forthwith gave me a test, proving his
identity. As this spirit had never visited my disk before, I had not
the smallest expectation of his coming.
114. My spirit brother referred to a confidential conversation had with
my brother Powel, in which the former was alluded to, when nothing was
farther from my mind than that he had been present as an invisible
listener.
115. I will now mention a fact of recent occurrence, which completely
refutes Dr. Bell’s inference: Being at Cape May, one of my guardian
spirits was with me frequently.
116. On the 3d instant, at one o’clock A. M., I requested the faithful
being in question to go to my friend Mrs. Gourlay, No. 178 North Tenth
street, Philadelphia, and request her to induce Dr. Gourlay to go to
the Philadelphia Bank to ascertain at what time a note would be due,
and that I would sit at the instrument at half-past three o’clock
to receive the answer. Accordingly, at that time, my spirit friend
manifested herself, and gave me the result of the inquiry.
117. On my return to the city, I learned from Mrs. Gourlay that my
angelic messenger had interrupted a communication, which was taking
place through the spiritoscope, in order to communicate my message,
and, in consequence, her husband and brother went to the bank, and
made the inquiry, of which the result was that communicated to me at
half-past three o’clock by my spirit friend.
118. This differed from the impression which I had from memory, and
was not, of course, obtained from my mind. And it is evident that the
medium could not have known of my message until she was made to receive
it.
119. But independently of the inability to communicate ideas, not
pre-existing in the minds of mortals present, which has been so
erroneously inferred to exist by Dr. Bell, let this eminent physician
suggest any conceivable explanation of the phenomena attested by him,
excepting that founded on the agency of spirits.
120. And, independently of any other proof, the fact that one of my
guardian spirits bore a message from me at Cape May to Mrs. Gourlay
at Philadelphia, so as to induce her to do what was requested, is
evidently, of itself, inexplicable under any other view than that of a
spirit having officiated.
121. To conclude, I hope that while Spiritualism will give a quietus
to atheism, it will be found, agreeably to the facts and reasoning
presented in this book, better sustained by evidence, and to answer
the great objects of religion, as above stated, vastly better than any
other religious doctrine.