The Divine Drama of History and Civilisation. By the Rev. James Smith,
M.A.[108] London, 1854, 8vo.
I have several books on that great paradox of our day, _Spiritualism_, but
I shall exclude all but three. The bibliography of this subject is now very
large. The question is one both of evidence and speculation;--Are the facts
{56} true? Are they caused by spirits? These I shall not enter upon: I
shall merely recommend this work as that of a spiritualist who does not
enter on the subject, which he takes for granted, but applies his derived
views to the history of mankind with learning and thought. Mr. Smith was a
man of a very peculiar turn of thinking. He was, when alive, the editor, or
_an_ editor, of the _Family Herald_: I say when alive, to speak according
to knowledge; for, if his own views be true, he may have a hand in it
still. The answers to correspondents, in his time, were piquant and
original above any I ever saw. I think a very readable book might be made
out of them, resembling "Guesses at Truth:" the turn given to an inquiry
about morals, religion, or socials, is often of the highest degree of
_unexpectedness_; the poor querist would find himself right in a most
unpalatable way.
Answers to correspondents, in newspapers, are very often the fag ends of
literature. I shall never forget the following. A person was invited to
name a rule without exception, if he could: he answered "A man _must_ be
present when he is shaved." A lady--what right have ladies to decide
questions about shaving?--said this was not properly a rule; and the oracle
was consulted. The editor agreed with the lady; he said that "a man _must_
be present when he is shaved" is not a _rule_, but a _fact_.
[Among my anonymous communicants is one who states that I have done
injustice to the Rev. James Smith in "referring to him as a spiritualist,"
and placing his "Divine Drama" among paradoxes: "it is no paradox, nor do
_spiritualistic_ views mar or weaken the execution of the design." Quite
true: for the design is to produce and enforce "spiritualistic views"; and
leather does not mar nor weaken a shoemaker's plan. I knew Mr. Smith well,
and have often talked to him on the subject: but more testimony from me is
unnecessary; his book will speak for itself. {57} His peculiar style will
justify a little more quotation than is just necessary to prove the point.
Looking at the "battle of opinion" now in progress, we see that Mr. Smith
was a prescient:
(P. 588.) "From the general review of parties in England, it is evident
that no country in the world is better prepared for the great Battle of
Opinion. Where else can the battle be fought but where the armies are
arrayed? And here they all are, Greek, Roman, Anglican, Scotch, Lutheran,
Calvinist, Established and Territorial, with Baronial Bishops, and
Nonestablished of every grade--churches with living prophets and apostles,
and churches with dead prophets and apostles, and apostolical churches
without apostles, and philosophies without either prophets or apostles, and
only wanting one more, 'the Christian Church,' like Aaron's rod, to swallow
up and digest them all, and then bud and flourish. As if to prepare our
minds for this desirable and inevitable consummation, different parties
have been favored with a revival of that very spirit of revelation by which
the Church itself was originally founded. There is a complete series of
spiritual revelations in England and the United States, besides mesmeric
phenomena that bear a resemblance to revelation, and thus gradually open
the mind of the philosophical and infidel classes, as well as the professed
believers of that old revelation which they never witnessed in living
action, to a better understanding of that Law of Nature (for it is a Law of
Nature) in which all revelation originates and by which its spiritual
communications are regulated."
Mr. Smith proceeds to say that there are _only_ thirty-five incorporated
churches in England, all formed from the New Testament except five, to each
of which five he concedes a revelation of its own. The five are the
Quakers, the Swedenborgians, the Southcottians, the Irvingites, and the
Mormonites. Of Joanna Southcott he speaks as follows: {58}
(P. 592.) "Joanna Southcott[109] is not very gallantly treated by the
gentlemen of the Press, who, we believe, without knowing anything about
her, merely pick up their idea of her character from the rabble. We once
entertained the same rabble idea of her; but having read her works--for we
really have read them--we now regard her with great respect. However, there
is a great abundance of chaff and straw to her grain; but the grain is
good, and as we do not eat either the chaff or straw if we can avoid it,
nor even the raw grain, but thrash it and winnow it, and grind it and bake
it, we find it, after undergoing this process, not only very palatable, but
a special dainty of its kind. But the husk is an insurmountable obstacle to
those learned and educated gentlemen who judge of books entirely by the
style and the grammar, or those who eat grain as it grows, like the cattle.
Such men would reject all prological revelation; for there never was and
probably never will be a revelation by voice and vision communicated in
classical manner. It would be an invasion of the rights and prerogatives of
Humanity, and as contrary to the Divine and Established order of mundane
government, as a field of quartern loaves or hot French rolls."
Mr. Smith's book is spiritualism from beginning to end; and my anonymous
gainsayer, honest of course, is either ignorant of the work he thinks he
has read, or has a most remarkable development of the organ of
imperception.]