A. DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 WILLIMANTIC SPIRITUALIST SOCIETY, 
 
 BY JOHN HOOKER. 
 
 U.#££x 
 
 The Fowler & Miller Company, Printers. 
 

 • c • • • 
 
A DISCOURSE . 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 Willimantic Spiritualist Society, 
 
 At Willimantic, Conn., on Sunday, March 21, 1886, 
 
 BY JOHN HOOKER, 
 
 HARTFORD, CONN. 
 
 Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I 
 desire beside Thee. — Psalm Ixxiii. 23. 
 
 I HAVE some serious and earnest words that I wish to speak 
 to Spiritualists, and in coming before you at this time as 
 such, and with the message that I wish to bring, I am sure that 
 you will listen to me with a patience and confidence that I 
 should not meet if I had no sympathy with you in your spiritu- 
 alistic views. I have, therefore, a certain vantage ground in 
 addressing you, and the fact that I can go before Spiritualists 
 sure of this patient hearing makes me feel that I have a special 
 duty to address them wherever I have the opportunity, and 
 speak the earnest word that they might take in a more kindly 
 way from me than from some others. And I thank God for the 
 privilege and opportunity. 
 
 I have spoken of myself as agreeing substantially with you in 
 your spiritualistic views. There may be a variety of views that 
 would be called by that name. Let me say, then, that I believe 
 in the reality of communication between the spirits of the de- 
 parted and those of us who are still in earth life. There have 
 undoubtedly been frauds, which all Spiritualists condemn, and 
 honest delusions, which all must deplore. But allowing for 
 all these, there is left a great mass of phenomena that not 
 only must be regarded as genuine, but, it seems to me, can 
 
not be explained upon any other theory than that of actual 
 communication between human beings that have departed this 
 life and those who are still in it. The subject was brought to 
 my reluctant attention, some ten years ago, in a way that com- 
 pelled me to consider and finally examine it, or give up all 
 pretense of honest-mindedness and respect for truth; and from 
 that time, as I have had opportunity, I have most critically 
 studied and tested its phenomena. For a long time I held 
 tenaciously to the theory that they might be explained by what 
 is known as "mind-reading," or by some reflex influence from 
 the mind of the person receiving the supposed communication; 
 but I found that there were facts that this theory could not ex- 
 plain. My whole life has been spent in the practice of the legal 
 profession, where it has been my constant employment to study 
 and apply the laws of evidence, and to determine whether cer- 
 tain facts would warrant and establish a certain conclusion, and 
 with this training I could not well doubt the correctness of my 
 own mental operations in applying the phenomena of Spiritual- 
 ism to the theory to be deduced from them. Actual facts are 
 God'' 's facts ■, and have a place in the divine economy; and God 
 cannot respect, and we ought not to respect, the man who 
 sneers at them, or thinks them unworthy of his serious consid- 
 eration . 
 
 One of the most eminent naturalists of the day is Alfred 
 Russell Wallace of England. One of our leading religious 
 papers says of him that he is "an acute and accurate observer, 
 and a man in whom the candor of the scientific method is con- 
 spicuously illustrated." Mr. Wallace gave the subject of Spirit- 
 ualism a candid and thorough investigation, and became, and 
 has continued to be, a Spiritualist, and has written an able work 
 in its defence. In a recent article in an English journal he 
 speaks of the subject as follows : 
 
 " The fact that Spiritualism has firmly established itself in our skeptical and 
 materialistic age; that it has continuously grown and developed for nearly 
 forty years; that by mere weight of evidence, and in spite of the most power- 
 ful prepossessions, it has compelled recognition by an ever-increasing body of 
 men in all classes of society, and has gained adherents in the highest ranks of 
 science and philosophy; and, finally, that despite abuse and misrepresentation, 
 the folly of enthusiasts and the knavery of impostors, it has rarely failed to 
 convince those who have made a thorough and pains-taking investigation, and 
 
 P, 
 
has never lost a convert thus made — all this affords a conclusive answer to the 
 objections so commonly urged against it." 
 
 To the Christian investigator it comes with a peculiar claim 
 to respect. The culture of the world is very much running to 
 materialism — ^ to the old Sadduceeism which said there is no 
 spirit, and Spiritualism comes in to antagonize this deadliest foe 
 to Christianity. Many is the man who has been converted to a 
 belief in immortality by it; many a man has been brought by 
 it within the Christian fold. Lord Brougham said: "Even in 
 the most cloudless skies of skepticism I see a rain-cloud, if it 
 be no bigger than a man's hand. It is modern Spiritualism." 
 Joseph Cook said, in one of his public lectures, that he was not 
 sure but Christianity, in its struggle with prevailing unbelief, 
 would have to appeal to it for help. Then again, the Bible is 
 full of Spiritualism. The argument against Spiritualism is an 
 argument against the Bible. Thus a leading scientist, in writing 
 against Spiritualism, declares that there never has been, in all 
 time, a manifestation that has appeared to come from the 
 spiritual world that could not be explained upon natural princi- 
 ples. To his clear mind there was no use in denying a part 
 unless the whole was denied. Then again, we are told in the 
 New Testament that there will be a great spiritual outpouring 
 and experience — in other words, great spiritual phenomena — 
 in the last days. I refer to all these considerations in support 
 of my statement that this subject has a special claim on the 
 Christian investigator. 
 
 Some of the opponents of Spiritualism, unable to deny the 
 genuineness of the phenomena, take the ground that the com- 
 munications come from evil spirits. But what sort of a father is 
 God, if, with all the disadvantages that we labor under, he lets 
 loose evil spirits upon us, and keeps back the good ? I can hardly 
 conceive a greater libel upon God. It is as if a father should 
 send his son to a distant school, and direct the master to give 
 evil companions free access to him, but to keep away all the 
 good. Such a father would be a monster. And what less 
 would be such a God? The preaching of such a doctrine 
 could only make infidels. I verily believe that the enemy of 
 all good delights in having it preached. It will not do to say 
 that God's ear is ever open to those who seek his protection and 
 
guidance. Alas ! how many of the children whom God has 
 created never heard of him ! How many who have heard his 
 name, yet have never learned to pray to him ! To how many, 
 to what a vast majority of the people of the earth, is he not a 
 far-away, unknown, unreal being, clothed with a certain terror, 
 but without anything to attract their love? It is as if, in the 
 case I was supposing, the father who placed his boy in a dis- 
 tant school, had never disclosed himself to his son, but had 
 communicated with him only through an agent, and was known 
 to the boy only as some mysterious personage who supplied his 
 wants. Against this horrible impeachment of the fatherliness 
 of God, I, as one who loves him, and desires to bring others to 
 the knowledge and love of him, protest, with all the emphasis 
 of which my nature is capable. 
 
 But I did not come before you to convince you of the truth 
 of Spiritualism, or of its claims on honest minds. You believe 
 all this already. I came to make an earnest appeal to you, as 
 Spiritualists, on certain points, as to which I have strong con- 
 victions and feel strongly, but as to which it is very likely that 
 some of you, perhaps many, will differ from me. 
 
 i. And first, I wish to say to you that, in becoming a Spir- 
 itualist, there is no need that a man should give up his religious 
 faith, if he has any. I have many times heard it objected to 
 Spiritualism that it leads religious men, good orthodox Christian 
 men and church members, to abandon their churches and reli- 
 gious associations, and apparently their religious faith. I not 
 only cannot see the need of this, but it seems to me that all 
 that is truly religious in a man's character would only be quick- 
 ened and elevated and intensified by it. Look at the matter 
 for a moment. The question whether spiritualistic phenomena 
 are genuine is wholly a question of fact, as much so as any 
 question of fact that was ever tried in a court of justice. The 
 question of fact being settled in favor of their genuineness, then 
 comes the question how they are to be explained ; that is, by 
 what theory. This is purely an intellectual operation. There 
 is nothing religious in it. It is not even a moral question. It 
 is a question for the honest exercise of one's best judgment. 
 Now all these inquiries can be carried on by an earnest Chris- 
 tian man, or by a man of no religious belief; by a Roman 
 
Catholic, an Episcopalian, a Congregationalist, a Baptist, a Uni- 
 tarian, a Universalist, or a Jew. And when, after full investi- 
 gation, each arrives at the conclusion that the spiritualistic theory 
 is the true one, the whole being a mere intellectual inquiry, 
 why should either be any less of a Christian, or of any particu- 
 lar kind of Christian, or any more of one, than he was be- 
 fore? And why should even the total disbeliever, by this mere 
 intellectual exercise, be made a different man from what he was 
 before? It is true that all may get impressions from communi- 
 cations which they suppose they receive that may modify the 
 religious or non-religious views which they had previously held. 
 I will speak of these by and by; but I am now speaking of the 
 effect on their general religious views or character, of their 
 arrival at the intellectual conclusion that there are communica- 
 tions from disembodied spirits. I am sure that I found no such 
 effect upon my own religious character. I had been for nearly 
 forty years a member of a Congregational church, and for over 
 twenty a deacon. I have not only found no reason or desire 
 to withdraw from the church, but I have never, in all my life, 
 been so fond of attending upon its religious services ; never so 
 fond of the weekly prayer-meeting, in which I almost always 
 take a part ; never, I am sure, did I have a stronger hold upon 
 divine things ; never did the life and teachings, and death and 
 resurrection, and present help of Christ, seem more to me; never 
 did I live more as "seeing Him who is invisible." I hope you 
 will pardon me for thus referring to my own experience. It is 
 too serious a matter for one to let his delicacy stand in the way 
 of his making the most effective possible appeal. But this is 
 not alone my experience. I could fill pages with like testimony 
 from earnest Christian men, who have examined the claims of 
 Spiritualism, and been compelled to accept them. They have 
 declared themselves made better Christians by their belief in it. 
 And why should it not be so? Is not everything a spiritual 
 benefit that makes the spiritual world real and near to us? Is 
 it not morally wholesome to be brought under " the power of 
 the world to come " ? Is it not well to be lifted above this evil 
 and transitory world into a higher atmosphere ? 
 
 Thus, Prof. Barrett, a British scientist and a Fellow of the 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh, says: "I know, and rejoice in, 
 
the blessing Spiritualism has been to my own faith, and that of 
 several dear friends of mine." An American clergyman, in a 
 recent letter which I have seen, says : "To this subject [Spir- 
 itualism] I have devoted much study for several years, and in as 
 candid and teachable a spirit as I could attain ; and I am satis- 
 fied that I have obtained from this study the most valuable 
 knowledge, and especially an aid to my religious faith, of which 
 I would not, on any account, be destitute." Another Christian 
 writer speaks of it as "shedding a new and glorious light upon 
 his pathway, and opening his eyes to clearer and higher percep- 
 tions of God's truth, his wisdom, and his wonder-working 
 providence." The well-known English writer, S. C. Hall, the 
 founder and editor of the Art journal, says: "As to the use 
 of Spiritualism, it has made me a Christian. I humbly and 
 reverently thank God that it has removed all my doubts. I 
 could quote abundant instances of conversion from unbelief to 
 belief — of some to perfect faith from total infidelity. I am 
 permitted to give one name, that of Dr. Elliotson, who expresses 
 his deep gratitude to Almighty God for the blessed change that 
 has been wrought in his heart and mind by Spiritualism." 
 Pages of like citations might be given. 
 
 It may be said that it is impossible for one who believes in 
 Spiritualism to hold to all the dogmas that he has been taught 
 in the churches, and that so a departure from his old beliefs 
 becomes unavoidable. Well, there are dogmas that commanded 
 the general Christian belief a century ago that the best religious 
 sentiment of the day has discarded, and some are still professed 
 and perhaps largely held that are losing their hold upon 
 thoughtful Christian men ; but I hardly know a doctrine now 
 fully adhered to which a thorough Spiritualist may not hold. 
 My own belief had been considerably modified before I gave 
 any attention to Spiritualism, and I have had no occasion 
 to modify it further since I became a Spiritualist. I ought, in 
 candor, to go into particulars a little. I had long been settled 
 in the belief of a future probation. Spiritualism confirmed me 
 in that belief, but did not give it to me. I meet few intelligent 
 Christian men, outside of the theological schools, and perhaps I 
 should say (qualifiedly) outside of the ministry, who do not 
 hold the same view. The doctrine of a final and unending 
 
punishment of all who die impenitent has lost its hold on the 
 Christian mind. If this be an error, Spiritualism is not the 
 originator of it. But you will say : You cannot still hold the 
 doctrine that Christ was divine, and that by his death he ap- 
 peased an angry God, who would otherwise have consigned the 
 whole human race to perdition. I think, my friends, that the 
 life and death and resurrection of Christ are the greatest factors 
 in rescuing the world from the power of sin, and in the salva- 
 tion of men, but I think he came to reconcile the world to God, 
 rather than to reconcile God ; and I am not able to make him 
 merely a man. Such communications as I have had, or sup- 
 posed I had, from friends in the other world, have told me, in 
 reply to my earnest inquiry about what they could say as to 
 Christ, that he is at the head of the spirit world, not wearing 
 a crown or royal robes, but known only by the radiance of his 
 countenance, and working, working, as here on earth, among the 
 low and wretched spirits of that world, to raise them up and 
 bring them to the light ; — a most entrancing conception of him, 
 far beyond any that puts him upon a gorgeous throne, with 
 myriads prostrating themselves before him; a conception of him 
 that seems most in accordance with what we know of his 
 character, preserving still the human nature and aspect which 
 he bore on earth, and with which he ascended. I verily believe 
 that it will be in that form that we shall see our Lord, and en- 
 gaged in that saving work ; and it is the constant comfort of 
 my heart that I shall, before long, be permitted to engage in 
 that same loving and rescuing work with and under him. 
 
 I say then that we can accept Spiritualism and yet retain, in 
 our belief and in our affections, all that is vital, all that the 
 Christian intelligence of the age will continue to accept, of what 
 has been taught as Christian truth. Oar hold must stilt be on 
 God ; our trust must still be in him ; and for him our love. We 
 must still be able to say, in the words of our text, " Whom have 
 I in Heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I 
 desire beside Thee." 
 
 2. My second word of caution and counsel to Spiritualists 
 is this : 
 
 Do not accept communications from spirits in the other world 
 as coming with anything more than human authority. I believe 
 
that there is often a feeling among Spiritualists that everything 
 said from the other side has about it a certain superhuman, 
 almost divine quality. It seems reasonable to suppose that our 
 friends over there have a higher wisdom than ours; or, at least, 
 that, with their larger knowledge, they are better able to advise 
 us wisely; but many Spiritualists go far beyond this, and forget 
 entirely that they are merely human, with limited knowledge, 
 knowing perhaps no more than we of the mysteries of God, and 
 certainly having nothing of his foreknowledge, and nothing of 
 the power of prophecy. They have larger data to act upon and 
 to judge of, but this is all. It is only human judgment after 
 all. Their talk about the future is little more than human con- 
 jecture, or, if more than that, it is only a more enlightened 
 human wisdom, dealing with probabilities. 
 
 In this view, it will never do for us to build up a system of 
 theology on what they say to us. They only tell us what they 
 think about it. And what one thinks about it often differs from 
 what another does. Their idiosyncracies, even their old preju- 
 dices, affect their views. They have not got beyond the region 
 of human imperfection. Especially is this so of those who have 
 been but a little time in that world. Truth, in its fullness, does 
 not burst upon them. They learn it gradually. It is one of 
 the delights of that world that we shall always be exploring and 
 learning there. There must be a vast difference in the mere 
 matter of knowledge between the childhood of spirit life and 
 its mature age. I have no doubt that many a spirit who went 
 over with little spiritual experience is often, even after months 
 and years, behind some people in earth life in spiritual experi- 
 ence and attainment. 
 
 There is perhaps nothing that persons holding communication 
 with departed spirits more often seek to obtain than advice as 
 to their action in some matter of practical importance. Per- 
 haps there is no serious objection to this, if we accept it only 
 as the advice of a friend, and exercise our own best judgment 
 in the matter. But I believe that God never meant that we 
 should relax at all our hold on him for guidance. The true way 
 to obtain guidance is still the old way. Go to God, in prayer, 
 and trust, and he will, in some way, impress his will upon us. 
 And it is his w/Y/ that we want, even if it leads us into disaster, 
 
or what we call disaster. If he leads us into disappointment 
 and trial and sorrow, it is because disappointment and trial and 
 sorrow are what we need, and anything else would be a real 
 calamity to us. It may be that the very way he adopts for 
 reaching our minds is through the spirits of our departed 
 friends. 
 
 Let us, then, go to him with our wants. Even if our friends 
 advise us, let us still carry their advice to him for confirmation 
 or rejection. With the spirit world full of friends, with whom 
 we have the most loving communion, let us still be able to say : 
 " Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none on earth 
 that I desire beside Thee." 
 
 3. And thirdly. Do not let us get the impression that we 
 may lead irreligious lives and all will go well with us. I have 
 never had the direful effect of sin impressed upon me so strongly 
 as it has been by w T hat I have learned through Spiritualism. 
 I have never had the transcendent importance of character so 
 impressed upon me. The old view, put before a wicked man, 
 of a hell that was inevitable, whose tortures were inconceivable, 
 and whose duration was endless, used to fill me as a boy with 
 a vague horror, but as I emerged from childhood it grew more 
 and more vague and unreal to me, and long before I began to 
 confess even to myself any doubt about it, I can see that it was 
 not making the impression of an actual truth upon me. But 
 Spiritualism teaches that if a man descends into the pit of sin 
 here, he has got to work his way out of it over there, by slow 
 and most painful struggles upward, perhaps for long years. 
 The hell is in the man's own soul. And no picture of a mate- 
 rial hell has ever overdrawn the horrors of that inward hell. 
 And one of the agonies of that world will be, over work here 
 left undone — opportunities neglected — wealth used only for sel- 
 fishness — a life of indolence and uselessness where the world 
 needed so much done. A few years ago I had a long conver- 
 sation with a very wealthy man about the duty of using his 
 wealth for good. I saw that I made no impression upon him. 
 Not long after the conversation he died. After his death I was 
 in another city and was asked by a friend living there to go 
 with him and see a medium in whom he had great confidence. 
 I did so, and to my surprise the spirit of the man of whom I 
 
IO 
 
 have spoken announced himself and addressed me. It was 
 indeed an entire surprise to me, as I had not thought of him. 
 I at once welcomed him, and soon after alluded to my con- 
 versation with him. "Yes (said he), I remember it well. You 
 was right and I was wrong. Yes, you was right and I was 
 wrong — wrong — WRONG. To be happy here we must be 
 good on earth." Early in life I knew intimately a young man 
 of rare talent, who was brought up in a christian home, but 
 who had become irreligious and profane in the last degree. In 
 the hope of rescuing him I repeatedly remonstrated with him ? 
 and in his last illness labored by his bedside to bring him to a 
 change of feeling. He died after a few years, and died as he 
 had lived. More than fifteen years after his death I was sitting 
 in a room with the wife of a clergyman in Boston, who (the 
 wife) had remarkable mediumistic gifts, which she used occa- 
 sionally for her friends, and wholly without compensation. 
 She was a sweet, motherly, christian woman. She had been 
 talking with a lady who sat near (we three being the only per- 
 sons present), when suddenly she seized my hand in a most 
 convulsive manner, and in an almost shrieking voice, called 
 out " Help me ! help me ! You did help me in life. You can 
 
 help me." I at once knew who it was and I said, "A , is it 
 
 you?" He said, "Yes — Help me, help me." I began to say 
 something, when with a failing voice he said " All gone — all 
 gone " — -and that was all I ever heard from him. 
 
 I could give other recitals, equally dreadful, but I intended 
 to give only illustrations of the fact that our sins will find us 
 out. Spiritualism teaches us this, and that there is no evasion 
 of them. The Scripture still holds true, and awfully true, which 
 saith: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever 
 a man soweth that shall he also reap." There is no law more 
 sure than this law of retribution. 
 
 Let us not forget this in the hymns which we sing of "The 
 sweet By and By." Those hymns are well enough in their 
 place and full of comforting power. But let us sing also some 
 of those grand and heroic hymns that have given strength to 
 our fathers in their conflicts with temptation and the powers 
 of darkness. Such hymns as 
 
II 
 
 My soul be on thy guard, 
 
 Ten thousand foes arise ; 
 The hosts of sin are pressing hard 
 
 To draw thee from the skies. 
 
 Oh, watch and fight and pray ! 
 
 The battle ne'er give o'er; 
 Renew it boldly every day, 
 
 And help divine implore. 
 
 The wages of sin are death ; not necessarily death eternal, but 
 with all the horrors of such a death while it lasts. It may be 
 escaped from by repentance and reformation, and I fully believe 
 that Christ labors for the repentance and reformation of such 
 lost souls. No words of doom were ever uttered more terrible 
 than those uttered by the loving and compassionate Christ. 
 He saw what this terrible penalty was, and his words, I verily 
 believe, were in no way words of exaggeration. To an unre- 
 pentant sinner there is an endless hell. When he repents his 
 hell ceases; but not till then. He never reaches the point 
 where repentance will not save him. Christ came "to seek and 
 save the lost; " and he is " the same yesterday, to day, and for- 
 ever" And God's mercy, the Psalmist tells us, is "everlasting." 
 
 Now in this world of temptation, where it is so easy for one 
 to go astray, Spiritualism, while it leaves us all the divine help 
 that we ever had, teaches us this great lesson, really taught in 
 the Gospel, but so emphasized by Spiritualism as to make a hew 
 impression upon us, that if we open our hearts to good spirits, 
 they come in and help us, and if to evil spirits that they come 
 in their demoniacal power and possess and curse us. We must 
 keep ourselves pure if we would have the help of pure spirits. 
 We must be unselfish, and upright, and truthful, if we would 
 make our hearts a castle that devils cannot enter. And if we 
 open the door and let in devils, the good spirits cannot abide 
 there and we become the prey of the evil ones. I cannot con- 
 ceive how the lesson of virtue and godliness can be better taught 
 than it is by Spiritualism. 
 
 Spiritualists therefore, who seriously and earnestly accept its 
 true teachings, should be better men and women than others 
 around them who do not share their belief. I say they should 
 be. Are they so? I believe there is a common impression that 
 
12 
 
 they are not. I must say that among those whom I know are 
 some of the most truly christian people in the sweetness and 
 unselfishness of their lives, in what I may even call a consecra- 
 tion to all that is good, that I have ever known. Yet my 
 knowledge of the mass of Spiritualists is very limited. What- 
 ever they are in fact, they are most utterly failing to apply their 
 own principles, if they are allowing themselves to live below 
 the highest standard of virtue. 
 
 We must remember that God reigns — that all power rests 
 with Him — that to Him we must give account. But we may 
 comfort ourselves with the thought that He is our Father — ever 
 ready to help us — asking for our trust and our love. And after 
 we have wandered in imagination over the whole universe, we 
 ought not only to be able to say, but to love to say, "Whom 
 have I in Heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that 
 I desire beside Thee." 
 
 Note. — I wish to add a few words upon a point that I had not time to dwell 
 upon in the foregoing address. I have repeatedly heard it charged against Spirit- 
 ualism that the believers in it are often immoral men. I think there may be a 
 basis of fact for the charge. But it is no more of an argument against Spirit- 
 ualism than it would be against Christianity that many men believe in it and 
 are yet immoral in their lives. In neither case has the thing believed in 
 wrought its legitimate work. It is obvious that a man may have an intellec- 
 tual belief in either without its affecting his moral character. It ought to do 
 so, but it does not. The belief in spirit communication is wholly an intel- 
 lectual belief, founded on evidence — on an investigation of facts. One may 
 reach that point and be wholly unmoved by the great truth that it teaches 
 him. It does not discredit the cause that he has come to believe in, that the 
 belief has failed to do its proper moral work on him. It is to his own per. 
 sonal discredit, and that is all. Look at Paul's description of the Corinthian 
 church, especially in the 5th chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians. Their 
 conduct was a disgrace to themselves, but it did not prove Christianity false. 
 
 A singular argument against Spiritualism was addressed to me by a clergy- 
 man in a recent conversation. He said there were a great many more non. 
 religious people, than religious, that believed in it. I said to him that, in the 
 first place, a fact could not be any more or less a fact from the character of the 
 persons who believed or disbelieved it. In the next place, that with the 
 clergy condemning it, and the constant assertion that it was a demoralizing 
 belief, it could not be expected that church members would very largely look 
 into it, or be ready to accept it, and where they had come to believe in it 
 that they would make proclamation of the fact, though I believed there were 
 
a great many more than he suspected who were really believers in it. And 
 finally, that it would naturally be so with any new truth that was not accept- 
 able to the churches. I adduced the case of the discover}- by science early 
 in this century that the world was not created in six days, by so many suc- 
 cessive fiats of God, as we had been taught to understand the Bible as teaching. 
 The church was shocked at this attack upon the Bible, and threw itself into 
 antagonism to it. In thirty years from that time it could probably be truth- 
 fully said, that there were ten believers in the new theory outside of the 
 churches where there was one within them. Yet these outsiders had the truth 
 with them and the insiders had the delusion. And this truth that the 
 " infidels,' ' as they were regarded, were championing, was God's truth, and is 
 now accepted as such by all the Christian world. 
 
 The church I believe is making a great mistake in denouncing Spiritualism, 
 and doing what it can to bring into discredit and odium those of its members 
 who come to believe in it. It made the same mistake in its treatment of the 
 early anti-slavery movement. The writer came upon the stage soon after Gar- 
 rison had begun to strike his first blows at the system of slavery. No one much 
 younger than he can have a conception of the position of the churches at that 
 time towards him and his followers. It has been well said by a writer on the 
 subject that " it was a few fanatics on one side and all the churches and society 
 on the other.*' Yet these hated and ostracised abolitionists were in the right, 
 and the churches and society in the wrong. If the churches as a body had 
 stood by the abolitionists instead of denouncing them, they would never have 
 become a hostile organization, denouncing the unfaithfulness of the churches. 
 They did many extravagant and offensive things. But so do all reformers. 
 The world would never move if there were not some men so zealous as to go 
 too far. It is the more the duty of men who have some leaven of conservatism 
 in their constitutions, to join in the reform, that they may secure a better 
 average of decorousness in the conduct of its advocates. Benjamin Du Plan, 
 the "Gentleman of Alais," who lived in the South of France a hundred and 
 r.irs ago, was a noble specimen of a true reformer in the highest social 
 position joining with extravagant zealots because he knew they were on the 
 Lord's side. The Hartford Courant, in an editorial notice of his life, recently 
 published, says : "To be a Protestant was to be an outcast in every way. 
 It was this lot that young Du Plan chose for his worldly portion. The reader 
 will not be surprised to learn that there was Protestant fanaticism as well as 
 Catholic bigotry, and that there were abnormal developments of religious zeal. 
 "Many women and girls took up the character of prophetesses and preachers, 
 fell down in ecstacies, and went through all the scandals of fantastic demeanor 
 and imposture. Du Plan was deterred from his choice neither by the extrava- 
 gance of some of the sect nor by the persecutions. It is largely owing to his 
 labors that the French Protestant Church is alive to a.: 
 
 Truth almost always makes its first appearance in a despised form. Christ 
 was born in a stable. When he began to preach he was called a glutton and 
 wine-bibber. The old prophets with their long hair, their heads covered with 
 
14 
 
 ashes, their garments of sack-cloth, and their denunciatory proclamations 
 in the market-places, were the " cranks " of their time, and very repulsive 
 ones, too ; yet God made them his mouth-piece. What more uncouth than 
 John the Baptist, wearing a goat skin and living on locusts and wild honey as 
 he wandered about, and yet he was the forerunner and herald of Christ. So 
 it is through all history. The question with every soul is, shall I espouse the 
 cause of God's truth in its poverty and shame, or shall I wait till it has 
 made its way to public recognition and "society" has put its stamp of ap- 
 proval upon it? Christ was willing for the sake of truth to become "of no 
 reputation." Are we ? I believe no soul is dearer to God than the one which, 
 whatever religious or non-religious name it bears, stands fearlessly for God's 
 despised truth, and that our Lord's warmest welcome is given to such a soul 
 as it enters the spirit world. 
 
 " In that world Truth clasps her adorer to her breast, 
 Saying — Remember that on earth I was thy guest." 
 
 " Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are 
 called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world that He might 
 put to shame them that are wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the 
 world that He might put to shame the things that are strong ; and the base 
 things of the world and the things that are despised, that He might put to 
 naught the things that are." I Cor. i. 26, 27, 28. 
 
 What more humble instruments were ever employed than those whom 
 Christ chose for his apostles ! 
 
 Shall we stand with those whom the world counts wise and mighty and 
 noble, or with God and those despised ones who, perhaps in a very imperfect 
 way, perhaps half blindly, are yet the bearers of his truth, and his commis- 
 sioned messengers to men ? 
 
h£R£SI of congress 
 
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