LIBRARY OF CONGRESS .>,a: OQOOfiHbSSbB LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ii^ap. . iop^rig]^ %. Shelf....iEri3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. m m Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/unanswerablelogiOOfors ^___1 -_ UNANSWERABLE LOGIC: A SERIES OF SPIRITUAL DISCOURSES, GIVEN THROUGH THE MEDIUMSHIP OF THOMAS GALES FOESTER. BOSTON: COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS. No. 9 BoswoRTH Street. 1887. l^ ^^ ■,'k Copyright by Carrie Grimes Forster, 1887. INTEODUCTION. Bear Readers^ — The beloved medium through whom the following thoughts reached the earth-sphere, transplanted as it were from the land of the immortal to the home of the mortal, was Thomas Gales Forster, who was born into physical life at Charleston, South Carolina, May 14, 1816, and born into spirit-life at Washington, D. C, March 23, 1886. He was the son of Rev. Anthony Forster, who went into the investigation of Unitarianism in order to dispel the error which he decided enveloped the mind of his wife's father. The examination ended in his embracing the tenets of that advanced school of thought. The grandfather of Mr. Forster had been obliged to flee from England for his advocacy, in his paper, of parliamentary repre- sentation, and also for the publication of the works of Thomas Paine. Thus it will be seen that this instrument for the angel-world inherited progressive ideas, and his mind was attuned to angelic inspiration. He had also education and cultivation ; and when he left the editorial chair in St. Louis, Mo., and embarked in a cause the advocacy of which was then considered a proof of mental imbe- cility, he was prepared, in an uncommon degree, for the use of the angels ; for we know the better the instrument the more musical the utterances. It is to be regretted that the events that transpired in the early pioneer days were not noted by him, as they would form a wonderful addendum to the history of the spiritual move- C3) 4 INTRODUCTION. ment, and would also yield an insight into the life-line of this gifted man. Persecution and deprivation marked his pathway, even to the extent of personal violence, — threatened and prepared. But heavier than all this outward martyrdom was the ostracism and neglect of relatives and former friends. To one of his sensitive nature, this was painful beyond expression, and not easily to be borne. But, as he now bathes in the brightness and effulgence of the upper sanctuary of the Father, the glory -land of righteous com- pensation, I doubt not he blesses his every experience, and would not have one of them omitted. He realized that the cause to which he had devoted himself was of such immense worth that no detraction could mar its value nor lessen its importance. So he labored on until failing health compelled a partial re- linquishment of the rostrum. His guides, assured that lectures could be written in the privacy of his room more easily, and with less strain upon the physical body, than if delivered in the midst of opposing influences, and it may be anticipating this future use, gave the following pages, that are now presented to the world by his loving and grateful wife, in the hope that they may prove instrumental in the enlightenment and benefiting cf many of earth's children ; a star to guide to the better land ; a chart, or compass, to direct to the haven of rest and peace ; a beacon light upon the storm-tossed billows of their earthly existence. With the prayer that the multitudes of weary ones may gain knowledge of the beautiful hereafter from these pages, and by them be enabled to more intelligently appreciate the blessings of the present life, In the interest of humanity, I am faithfully yours, Carrie Grimes Forster. CONTENTS. LECTUEE I. What is Spiritualism ? 7 LECTURE II. The Spiritual Body, 28 LECTURE III. The Analogy Existing between the Facts of the Bible AND the Facts of Spiritualism, 48 LECTURE IV. Philosophy of Death, 73 LECTURE V. What Lies Beyond the Veil, 91 LECTURE VL The Final Resurrection, 106 LECTURE VII. Future Rewards and Punishments, 126 LECTURE VIIL Joan of Arc, 143 LECTURE IX. Human Destiny, 160 LECTURE X. The Spiritualism of the Apostles, 177 LECTURE XL Heaven, 197 (5) 6 CONTENTS. LECTUBE XII. Hell, 213 LECTURE XIII. The Devotional Elemknt in Man, 232 LECTURE XIV. THANKSGrV'ING Day, 249 LECTURE XV. Do WE Ever Forget? *. . . . 265 LECTURE XVI. Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, 282 LECTURE XVII. What Spiritualists Believe, 305 LECTURE XVIIL Spiritualism without an Adjective, 323 LECTURE XIX. Christmas and its Suggestions, . 340 LECTURE XX. Protoplasm, 359 LECTURE XXI. Anniversary Address, 374 LECTURE XXII. Spiritualists and Mediu^ms, 384 LECTURE XXIII. Ye have Bodies, but ye are Spirits ; the Spirit the Real Man, 402 LECTURE XXIV. The Unity of God, 421 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. LECTURE I. WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? I AM well aware that there are many in this community, and there may be some in this audience, who have been in the habit of looking upon the subject matter of Spiritualism as a vision of some new Atlantis, — born of the imagination, and destined to die from the first hard grip, as it were, of material thought ; or, perhaps, as they have looked upon the beautiful phantom pursued by Shelley's Alastor along the borders of a silent wood, and down the weird windings of a rapid river, until he awoke amid the barren realities of a desert ! Nevertheless, after the lapse of thirty years of earnest inquiry, I am the willing advo- cate of this system, from an honest conviction of its truth, — from an honest conviction that, in comparison with all anteced- ent and surrounding faiths, Spiritualism exists like unto a ma- jestic column in a desert plain, — rich in splendor, and in the beauty of an indescribably grand architecture ! And that, like ocean's rock, it is destined to successfully withstand the wrath of every billow, and the storm of every sky, whilst under its benign and healthful influences Earth's living heart shall yet glow with the fires of love divine, — showers of golden rain fall all over her withered landscapes, and even the tomb grow beautiful with Eden's deathless bloom ! The seventeenth century. Prof. Huxley very justly remarks, (7) 8 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. in one of his lay sermons, constituted one of the most important eras in the intellectual experiences of the race. During that century the physical sciences arrested the attention of mankind more effectually than ever before, giving an impulse to human thought, and an impetus to the spirit of inquiry, the influences of which are felt today, and will continue to be felt as long as this green-browed earth of ours shall remain the patient " mother of the whirlwind and the storm." During the period referred to, the physical sciences, we are told, challenged not only the philosophy of the age, together with the then existing common sense of the race, but likewise the wonderful influences of the Church, that for many centuries had controlled the destinies of Europe. The attempt of Galileo in 1G33 to establish the sys- tem of Copernicus as to the revolution of the earth around the sun, as you well know, was in direct opposition to the faith and teachings of all three of these authorities ; and he met with extreme persecution, especially from the Church, for the announcement of his views. In this connection I may remark that, during the sixth cen- tury, Cosmos, a Greek Christian merchant, wrote a book enti- tled "Christian Topography," the chief intent of which was to confute the heretical opinion of the earth's being a globe, to- gether with the pagan assertion that there was a temperate zone on the southern side of the torrid zone . He informed his read- ers that, according to the true orthodox system of cosmography, the earth was a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred days' journey from east to west, and exactly half as much from north to south, enclosed by lofty mountains, upon which the canopy or vault of the firmament rested ; that a huge mountain on the north side of the earth, by intercepting the light of the sun, produced the vicissitudes of day and night ; and that the plane of the earth had a declivity from north to south, by rea- son of which the Euphrates, the Tigris, and other rivers run- ning southward are rapid in their course, whereas the Nile, having to run up hill, has necessarily a very slow current. WHAT IS SPIEITUALISM? 9 Monstrously absurd as is this statement, it has, nevertheless, been paralleled in the present generation on the other side of the Atlantic* In the Museum of the French Academy at Paris are to be found fifteen hundred hooks and pamphlets in different languages, which were printed during the year 1875 in Europe, with the design of proving hy the Mosaic looks that the earth is flat! William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood in the human system, likewise with Galileo had to buffet the storms of bigotry and oppression. Detraction and persecution followed him, and in consequence of his enunciation of this great truth he was reduced to the most abject poverty and misery. Des Cartes, a distinguished contemporary of the two scien- tists named, we learn deduced from the discovery of the former the fact that the entire material universe is governed by me- chanical laws ; and, from the discovery of the latter, that the same laws preside over the operations of the human body. His mighty genius grappled with the revelations evolved from both the microcosm of man and the vast macrocosm surrounding us, at one and the same time ; and from his study of these he sought to resolve all the phenomena of Nature into matter and motion, or forces operating according to law. This theory is well enough as far as it goes ; but a more spir- itual and legitimate conception as to causes, it seems to me, most certainly warrants the inference that all the phenomena in so majestic a universe as the one we inhabit, including the revealments of the human composition, cannot be considered as referable to matter and motion alone. Be this as it may, however, the investigation of the great truths of Nature, prose- cuted during the century named and since, as I have said, has given an unprecedented activity to thought. And the human mind, growing and expanding upon what it has fed, in connec- tion with increased spiritualistic perceptions, begins to realize, partially at least, the existence of a power in the universe not * Prof. Gunning. 10 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. fully recognized in the formula of material science, — a spiritual power, of which motion is but the untiring agent, and matter but the visible channel of external manifestation, — an Infinite Power which, through matter and motion, is forever adding to all that has been hy perpetually transforming all that is, — an inex- plicable power which we call God, and know no more, from whom have emanated all infinite spiritual existences. At the same time the spiritual philosophy, the most sadly misunderstood and grossly misrepresented theme of the age, — the tlieme Df which I have the honor to be an advocate this evening, — is embracing all the physical sciences, and indeed every other groove of advanced thought, within the scope of its mighty reach, and, through a long line of hitherto unappreciated phenomena and occult forces, is leading the thoughtful and aspiring soul upward and onward toward a loftier recognition of this Primal Cause of all causes, — " the finger which toucheth the stars." Des Cartes was grandly intellectual, philosophical, and scien- tific, — a brilliant luminary along the pathway of material prog- ress ; but his theory as to the sources of human thought, as well as to the general phenomena of the universe, adverted to, was radically wrong, as the facts of Spiritualism are daily prov- ing. For instance, as you doubtless know, he lodged the soul of man in the pineal gland, described as a heart-like substance about the size of a small bean, situated immediately over the corpora quadrigemina, near the center of the brain. The soul existed here, he alleged, as a sort of central office, which, by the intermediation of the animal spirits, became aware of what was going on in the body, and influenced the operations of the same. Scientists of the present day, it is true, do not generally ascribe so important a function to the little pineal gland ; but, in an indefinite sort of way, certainly adopt the theory of Des Cartes when they assert that the hrain of man constitutes the mind or soul. The ancient Jews, I may remark, in passing, likewise held the existence of a nucleus of immortality, differing from that of WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 11 Des Cartes in that it was more grossly material. They con- tended that there was an immortal bone in the human body (called by them ossiculum luz), and that this bone is the germ of the resurrection body. This bone, they declared, one might attempt to burn, boil, bake, pound, or bruise, by putting it on the anvil and submitting it to the strokes of the sledge hammer, but all in vain. No effect could be produced upon it. It was indestructible, incorruptible, immortal. And it must be admitted that the theological dogma of a hodily resurrection, borrowed doubtless, in part at least, from the idea of the ancient Jews, has done but little, if anything at all, to overthrow the materialistic conception of Des Cartes, or the materialistic tendency of the present day, touching the nature and character of the thinking principle in man. Some- thing more, I apprehend, is needed in Christendom than has hitherto been offered to satisfy the utilitarian and skeptical mind of the age with regard to the future destiny of the race. For the alleged evidence of past centuries has certainly failed in convincing the aspiring soul of the present as to the per- petuity of individual consciousness beyond the grave. Said a distinguished clergyman,* in a discourse delivered some time since : — " Outside of the Church is atheism, inside of it there is doubt." This admission must have been founded upon the most painful conviction of its truth, and that it is true the thoughtful observer is fully convinced. Spiritualism, I feel satisfied in my own mind, more than any system within the compass of human investigation, can best supply the important desideratum referred to. This glorious religio-philosophical superstructure is founded Ki^on facts relating to the continuance of life beyond the grave, and its assumptions are capable of being demonstrated by actual experiment, — through mediumistic agency, — through the agency of just such beautiful and powerful mediums as exist so numer- ously in your city ; t and who, alas, I learn, with the utmost astonishment, are now about being taxed by your civil authori- * Kev. Prof. Parks. f San Francisco. 12 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. ties ! And for what are these sensitives to be taxed, when the question is properly analyzed ? For nothing more or less than being organizationally fitted for the presentation of natural phenomena which constitute the basic foundation of a religion the most glorious and soul-satisfying the world has ever known, — a religion that is teaching its faithful devotees that for them there is kindred and commune with every thing exalted and holy throughout the wide-spread universe of matter and of mind, — that for them nature unfolds her hoarded poetry and her hidden spells, — that for their steps are the gorgeous mountains, and for their ears the mysterious murmur of the still woods, — that for them there is sweet music in the rolling revelry of the white-capped waves that kiss your shore, and in the siojhinor of the summer and the autumn leaf, — that for them there is rapture in the matin song and the evening carol of the happy birds as they join in the oratorio of nature's grand cathedral which is as " Boundless as our wonder ; Whose quenchless lamps ttie sun and moon supply, — Its choir the winds and waves ; its organ thunder ; Its dome the sky. " Or, in other words, a natural religion, with the Infinite Father as its high priest, the angels and the archangels as its ministers, and the entire human family as its membership and its benefi- ciaries. And which is further teaching that every human soul proportioned to individual effort and desire, even while a deni- zen of earth, may drink and become saturated with the mys- terious beneficence of the all-pervading spirit of the universe, through the instrumentality of communion with his ministering spirits, — our own beloved and gone before. And is it for the presentation of phenomena through which we gather such sub- lime teachings as these that San Francisco mediums are to be taxed ? Heaven forefend, and the cultured freedom of the nineteenth century forbid. Moreover, it is becoming clearly apparent to the thoughtful WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 13 investigator -that this heavea-born system is to the New Testa- ment the text-book of the popular religion of the day what the New Testament was to the Old in the age in which it was first presented, — an extension of its views^ with a new and stronger light thrown upon its obscurities. The doctrine of immortal life receives from Spiritualism a practical illustration, — much that was speculation becomes matter of fact, and faith is confirmed by knowledge. In this age of free and bold thought, therefore, when the progress of physical science is brought into daily conflict with creeds, and skepticism seems to delight in the demolition of platforms, Spiritualism, as I understand it, comes as a savior to true religion, reclaiming the atheist from his cheerless materialism, and bringing back the deist to the con- sciousness of his own divinity and immortality. Contrary to generally received ideas in this connection, the phenomena of Spiritualism are all the result of the harmonious action of natural law. It derives no powers from beyond the domain of nature. It acknowledges indeed no swjoer-naturalism. But embracing the whole range of being, from the creative cause to the creature, in one universal system of interdependent action, — clustering all human affection about the great center of divine love, — it resolves all rational being into soul, and clothes soul in those substantial angelic or spiritual forms which the Supreme Intelligence is perpetually evolving from dissolving matter. Thus soul, or the thinking principle, is being continu- ously clothed in matter in its most refined, sublimated, beautiful, and durable form ; and all matter, in its ceaseless mutations through the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms, is aspiring to a permanent union with the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual. And in this union, as we are assured, it finds the accomplishment of the divine purpose, and rejoices in the bloom and radiance of immortal life. It requires, then, as has been well asserted, no prophetic endowment to claim for Spiritualism universal acceptance in the not very distant future of our earth, — notwithstanding the 14 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. tempestuous billows of thought that now retard its progress, — that system which is founded upon fact and is capable of demonstrative proof which offers all that the heart craves, the fancy delights in, and the judgment approves, must make its way in the world. Its principle of action is love, — its aim a practical recognition of the fatherhood of God, the motherhood of nature, and the brotherhood of man. It has no arbitrary creed ; but its tenets, at all times held subject to higher convic- tions, may be briefly summed up as follows : — Firstly. The spirit or soul is the real man, the material body being only an external covering adapted to the uses of an earthly existence, which uses having been fulfilled, the "muddy vesture of decay," through the operations of organic law, is thrown aside ; but the man himself lives on, unchecked in his career of progressive development by the decay and dissolution of the material body, destined to higher uses and more glorious surroundings. Secondly. The spirit world is composed of substance, forms, and objects as tangible to the senses and as adapted to the uses of the spiritual man as are the substances, forms, and objects of the material world to the senses and uses of the external body. Thirdly. The spiritual world surrounds and interpenetrates the material universe, and is as closely united thereto as is the soul to the body. Fourthly. Man's relations to the spirit world are compre- hended in an immediate and continuous intercourse. Fifthly. Eternal progress beyond the grave, proportioned to individual effort and desire. The fundamental idea of Spiritualism is God, the Infinite Soul of the universe, who is as imminent in spirit as in space. The fundamental thought of Spiritualism, with the attendant facts, is a present conscious connection with angel life. The fundamental purpose of Spiritualism is to educate, elevate, and spiritualize humanity. WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 15 Considered therefore as a religion, as a science, and as a phi- losophy, Spiritualism underlies and overtops all human interests. At this point allow me to offer a few additional thoughts with reference generally to some of the propositions I have presented as fundamental, — reserving more extended logical effort for subsequent lectures. For instance, I have said in effect that the spirit world, considered as distinct from the material universe, is formed of spiritual substance, together with all things in it, — adapted to the uses and pleasures of human spirits, — or human beings dispossessed of their material bodies. It is no legitimate argument against this assertion to say, as it is frequently said, that there can be no such thing as spiritual substance, simply because the finite mind can form no definite idea of what spiritual substance is in itself. It is equally impossible for you to form a definite idea of what material substance is in itself. " All that you can know defi- nitely of any substance [says a distinguished author*], material or spiritual, is the necessary conditions of existence, and the qualities that inhere in it, as their subject ; and you can learn th^se qualities only from the relation of their subjects to yourself." Hence the same objection would apply as to the existence of the material substance comprehended in the visible universe around us. And, indeed, one philosopher, as you may be aware, has declared that the material objects perceptible around us have no actual being, but that they exist only in the mind of the observer. But the declaration of Bishop Berkeley, and the assumption as to the non-existence of spiritual sub- stance, are alike unwarrantable. Although the abstract fact of a spiritual existence has been taught for more than eighteen centuries in Christendom, yet but little if any knowledge has obtained as to the nature and office of the individual spirit, or of its dwelling place in the realm of the Infinite. It has been assumed in some schools of thought that the only way to arrive at a true idea of spirit is to regard * Rev. Chauncey Giles. 16 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. it as the opposite of matter in every respect. " Matter has form, therefore spirit has none," has been the general conclu- sion. This is practically the method of reasoning in Christen- dom, and as the legitimate result of such method all possible modes of existence appreciable by the human mind are denied to spirit. Ecclesiasticism, while theoretically affirming the existence of spirits, and of a spirit world, in its rejection of the facts of Spiritualism, virtually denies that any thing of advan- tage to mankind may be known in regard to either. The materialist naturally pushes this terrible logic one step further, and denies the existence of spirit altogether, which is certainly the legitimate result of such mode of reasoning. The truth is, however, as the facts of Spiritualism are clearly demonstrating, " spirit is the correlative, not the negation of matter." And, through the instrumentality of the facts and the philosophy of the spiritual school (notwithstanding all the absurdities which, through ignorance or design, have been attached to it), the age will be compelled to recognize eventually the actual existence of spirit substance, and that this substance may have form and feature, or else spiritual existence and a spiritual world must be denied altogether. No other conclusion is possible, it seems to me, through any correct method of reasoning ; and it is a little remarkable that the Church does not perceive the natural and legitimate result of its denial of the spiritual facts of the age. Again, by way of further illustration — reasoning by analogy at least — as to the existence of a substantial spirit world sur- rounding and interpenetrating the material universe, you are aware, doubtless, that a current of electricity passed on a wire round a globe, no matter of what composed, — of earth, wood, or water, — will give to the globe polarity, — will convert it into a magnet, with its negative and positive poles, the positive pole being at the right of the current, and the negative at the left. In connection with these known facts, science declares that a current or ocean of electricity is constantly flowing around the WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 17 globe which we inhabit, from east to west, and that this current puts in motion a transverse current of magnetism which holds the needle to its polar bearing. By these assumptions is the polarity of the earth accounted for. But by them much more important points are conceded, indirectly at least. Thus, sci- ence declares the existence of two great oceans of substance, constantly flowing around the earth in transverse directions without coming in mutual contact, — in which fourteen hundred millions of human beings are living, moving, and acting, wholly unconscious of such presence. Now, is not this a virtual admis- sion that just such an order of things as I have claimed may properly exist, namely, the presence of a substantial spiritual world surrounding and interpenetrating the material globe on which we dwell, and yet remain intangible wholly to the mate- rial senses? The presence of so vast a division of imperceptible substance as constitutes these two oceans of electricity and magnetism is wonderful in the extreme ; but much of that wonder subsides when we reflect upon the relation which we bear likewise to the maierial atmosphere of our world. We know but little through our senses of the power which the atmosphere of the earth exerts upon the human body ; but science tells us that every individual of ordinary size bears constantly no less a weight than thirteen or fourteen tons of atmospheric pressure, or about fifteen pounds to the square inch of the surface of the body. No greater absurdity could be pre- sented to the illiterate, and yet the general mind has accepted as a truth this declaration of science. Again, if an ordinary iron ring of three or four inches in diameter, made of about three-quarter inch iron, be cut in two, so as to make two half circles, the cut surfaces, if put together, will show no signs of adhesion whatever. But pass a current of electricity around any part of the ring, and their surfaces will then adhere together so forcibly as to well nigh defy your ability to pull them asander. Science tells you that this is attributable to the fact that the current of electricity passed 18 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. around the iron puts in action a current of magnetism in tlie ring which, by its inexplicable operations, unites the two seg- ments with such wonderful adhesive force. Now, if there be a similar force exerted upon the world by the ocean of magnetism surrounding it equal in comparison to the force exerted upon the ring, then is the atmospheric pressure on the world and its inhabitants, great as it is, of but pigmy importance compared with its gigantic magnetic power. That two great substantial currents, as electricity and mag- netism, can pass transversely around our world without coming in mutual contact, and without our consciousness of their pres- ence, is an idea certainly as paradoxical as is that of matter and spirit substance performing the same thing. Besides, there is likewise no question on the part of the scientific mind as to the atmospheric pressure upon our bodies referred to, although we ourselves are incapable of realizing the fact. Why, then, should the declaration of the spiritual school as to the existence of a vast spiritual surrounding — "Holding the spirit in its fixed embrace, All unknown though in its breath we live," — still be the subject of such wide-spread disbelief, and that, too, when there is undoubtedly as much proof in favor of the one declaration as the other ? Nevertheless, I can but believe, as time advances — however much this great fact in the present hour may " Seem to the mind upon its sensuous plane The poet's fancy aad enthusiast's dream," — that mankind will yet be induced to recognize the important truths conveyed by modern inspiration, that "Matter is all one substance everywhere, And God, through matter, by unvarying laws, Unfolds for every world a human race. And builds its beautiful immortal seats. Mid springing flowers and groves of fruited bloom, WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 19 In rich abundance for all living things. Each Tvorld has its own race that, like itself, Shines in the galaxy, floats in the stream Of universal harmony, and glows All multitudinous in spheral air, And chants accordant as their planet moves Through mild Elysian realms of holy space. Round every planet glows a spirit world. Most like itself, but fairer. Theris are different Concentric circles round each perfect world, Of spiritual substance made, and all In perfect melody revolve and shine In the white splendor of eternity. Round every solar system glows a sphere Encompassing the planets and their sun, — Translucent as pure thought, with love's own fire Eorever kindling up its lamp of light; An orb of such magnificent extent — An orb of such intensity of life — That all its substance glows incorporate With radiant perfections that stream forth Eorever from the mind of Deity." But I have said, likewise, in effect, that the spirit is the real man, — that we are actual spirit entities in this sphere of mate- rial existence, as it is termed, — bearing about a material shell or body, adapted to the uses and pleasures of this life ; and that as spirit entities we live hereafter, when this material shell shall have been laid aside through the process called death. Permit me to offer a few remarks on this point, also, — introductory to future argument. The theory of material metajDhysicians, that the mind of man is but a function of the animal brain, and the dogma of the theologian as to a material resurrection, to which advertency has been had, are both at variance with the teachings of the spiritual school on this subject. These two ideas have been the fruitful source of incalculable misery to the human family, 20 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. casting a pall of mental darkness, as it were, over the strug- gling hopes and innate aspirations of the soul. To lift this pall from the human mind, causing the waters of life to dance in the sunshine of a happier present, and a more glorious future, is in part the mission of Spiritualism. Its facts and its philosophy are diametrically opposed to the cheerless assumptions of the materialist on the one hand, and the equally cheerless tenets of dogmatic theology on the other. Spiritualism declares we are as really spirits today as we shall ever be; and that wo are as much in the spirit world today as we shall ever be, — although not in the world of spirits. St. Paul declares in the 15th chapter 1 Corinthians : " There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," — not that there will he at some future day. For this and other noble utterances St. Paul has been canonized. Spiritualism proves the declaration of St. Paul to be true^ and yet spiritual mediums are ostracized, taxed, and possibly imprisoned in this world, and are to be damned in the next, it is declared, for accepting the testimony of their own senses in behalf of the truth of Paul's declaration to the Corinthians. And still we are told that we live in a land of religious freedom, and in the light of Christian civilization. Again, in chapter 32, v. 8, of that wonderful epic, the book of Job, Elihu, one of the advisers of the patriarch, makes the following declaration : " There is a spirit in man," — which is, of course, in the light of scientific facts, tantamount to saying man is a spirit, and the facts of Spiritualism, as I have said, prove this declaration to be unmistakably true. Of the many phases of spiritual phenomena, I shall advert to but one on the present occasion to establish the fact of man's spiritual entity in this life, — namely, that of independent clair- voyance, — which, through the instrumentality of mesmerism, as a stepping stone, was one of the earliest phases of Spiritual- ism, as recognized today. These earlier and rudimentary pre- sentations, some of you are old enough to remember, met with the same spirit of virulence as now characterizes the opposition WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 21 to Spiritualism 'per se, and such is the inconsistency of the human mind, when swayed by prejudice, that many who once denounced mesmerism and clairvoyance as the wicked coinage of weak brains are now disposed to acknowledge their existence in nature, and to attribute to them alone all the other phenom- ena so widely diffused throughout the broad field of spiritualistic manifestations. Suppose we accept of this assumption for the present occasion, and let us see what clairvoyance will furnish in regard to the point at issue, namely, the existence of man as a sjjirit entity in this life. And here permit me to introduce a familiar simile by way of illustration. Suppose some one of you, in wandering over a recent battle-field, should find a bone, and upon your submitting it to one of the skillful surgeons of your city, he should tell you that it was the bone of a human arm, what would be your immediate and unavoidable conclusion ? Would it not be that this bone at some time or other must have composed the appropriate portion of an arm ; and that the arm at some time in its history must have been attached to a human body ? Most assuredly such conclusions would be inevitable. And why ? Because everyone intuitively knows that Nature invariably adapts her several parts in harmony with the general whole. Now let us return to the clairvoyant. While an individual is in this state, you are aware that any number of bandages may be placed over the eyes, entirely obstructing all external vision, and yet in thousands of instances the clairvoyant has given unmistakable evidences of being able to see, — the sight being so keen as to be able to distinguish the internal condition of the physical organs as well as objects at remote distances. In order that we may see in a normal or natural state, you know, three things are necessary, — the object to be seen, the eye upon which the object is reflected, and the light, which is the medium of reflection. In the case of the clairvoyant all three of these are obscured, shut out from use ; and yet we know the clair- voyant sees. How can this be ? Modern Spiritualism ascends 22 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. the rostrum of polemic debate and defies the entire army of her opponents to determine how the clairvoyant sees, except upon her own hypothesis. Thus experience, observation, and sci- ence have unitedly taught us that the Divine architect in nature has constructed and designed the eye, and the eye only, as the organ of sight. The external eye of the clairvoyant, as we have said, is entirely closed. And yet we know that he or she sees. It can only be with a spiritual eye, therefore, that sight is obtained. Now, then, if it be with a spiritual eye that the clairvoyant sees, there must be corresponding spiritual organs, and if the natural complement of spiritual organs exist, there must be a spiritual body to contain them ; and spiritual con- sciousness to render them available. I say these things must he, because, as in the case of the bone of the arm, we instinct- ively know that Nature invariably adapts her several parts in harmony with the general whole. This conclusion is unavoidable. To deny it is to ignore that intuitive confidence in the uniformity of nature which is the true basis of all sound philosophy. Again, I have said that the principle of action underlying the philosophy of Spiritualism is love ; and that all its phenomena are in accordance with the harmonious action of natural law. A few general reflections in this connection likewise, if you please. Upon what generally impelling principle have you assembled together this evening ? It is true, some may be here through curiosity alone ; but the major portion have been undoubtedly drawn hither upon some general principle of action, — animated by some common motive, — some general impulse both of thought and feeling, — some universal law of being, which I may desig- nate as the natural law of communion, through affinity of ideas, — an affinity for the subject matter under discussion, or a com- mon affinity of sentiment, one with the other. Look abroad over the wide-spread field of human activities,— what is it that is continually inducing, and likewise determining, the character of the different convocations of men and women throughout WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 23 society, whether religious, political, or social ? Or even lower down in the scale of human experience, — what general principle is operative in the haunts of licentiousness, or in the halls of inebriety, where men, and, alas, too often, likewise, women, are in the practice of dwarfing the image of immortality by swal- lowing liquid damnation ? It is the same general law of com- munion or affinity in operation, whether the body or mind be high or low in the scale of development, — the law of commun- ion being the same in kind, — differing only in the sphere of its manifestation, proportioned to the moral and intellectual con- dition of the party operated upon. It is this law of affinity or communion that renders man gregarious in his tendencies rather than misanthropical, and it constitutes the basis upon which communities, states, and empires have been founded, — such associations remaining permanent or otherwise, propor- tioned to the modification or intensity of the idiosyncrasies of individual character. Being thus general and universal in its operations, the law of communion can but be denominated a law of nature, — a law of man's being, — and, as such, unalterable and eternal, — consequently operative in whatever sphere man may become a denizen hereafter. If man be immortal, and the laws of God immutable, then it follows as a legitimate sequence that our beloved and departed, who have thrown aside the muddy mask of time, are still the creatures of the same law ; and it must therefore be true, as the spirits tell us, that the law of commun- ion through affinity and attraction, which is partially operative here, is more fully operative in determining individual and asso- ciative conditions in the worlds to come. Indeed, in the higher life, we are told, the children of earth gravitate together naturally^ under this law, proportioned to moral, intellectual, and emotional' development ; since in those brighter realms are to be found neither the degrees of arbitrary organizations, the convention- alities of social despotism, or the influences of the honey-comb of popularity, to check the onward progress of the soul. This law of communion, then, existing as the means of intercourse 24 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. between spirits in the form, and of spirits out of the form like- wise, — differing only in degree, — is not the corollary legiti- mate — reasoning by analogy — that the same law must be opera- tive between the two conditions, — although broad graveyards seemingly lie between ; — and that communion between the minds of earth and the disinthralled minds of interior life is entirely practicable, and strictly in accordance with the harmo- nious action of the universal laws of being? This must be so, or else you will have to admit the existence of an hiatus in the economy of nature with regard to man, who stands at the apex of creation, that is to be found no where else in the broad universe of infinite love and infinite wisdom. Again, what is the chief source of happiness in the earth life ? From whence does the human soul derive its truest joys, its greatest bliss in time? The young man mounts ambition's loftiest V7ave, its undulating surface buoys him on toward earthly glory ; but when he has reached the pinnacle where " fame's proud temple shines afar,"- — is he happy? Never, exclusively from this source. The miser, discarding all nobler aims, may garner his heaps of gold ; but, instead of happiness, he finds he has enshrouded his soul with the darkness of desolation. The ambitious and dishonest politician, "cleaving the air with horrid speech," may attain the end for which he has striven ; and all, throughout the walks of life, the schemes of men and women may terminate in temporal success ; but, if the one great soul- need be unsupplied, all earthly hopes and earthly desires fall short of happiness. In the field of the affections, however, exists the supply of this great want. In the cultivation of reciprocal love and confidence, — in the endearments of home, — in the nurturing of ties of consanguinity ; and in the preserva- tion of those endearing sympathieis that link two souls as " with a single thought," and bind two hearts indissolubly as one, — is to be found the richest boon that earth can give. Indeed, the declaration is of universal application, — that, upon the cul- tivation and development of the emotional in his nature, must WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 25 man rely for his chief source of happiness, of contentment, and peace. This is most emphatically true of man in the earth life ; and if true of him here, it must necessarily be eminently true of him, wherever the disenthralled spirit shall find a home, when materiality has been left behind ; for all that makes him a man here, our dear departed ones tell us, becomes intensified through his freedom from earthly surrounding, and goes with liim to the spheres ; hence, whatever gave to the spirit its truest and highest joy here must of necessity be the source of felicity forever, — since the laws of man's being, as I have said, are as immutable and as enduring as are the years of the everlasting. God gives us our loves, — mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives and children, together with all the other ties of love that bind the race together with golden chords of truest sympathy. And yet death (so called) has visited every homestead, — and, oh, how many of these golden chords lie broken through the influence of past teachings with regard to this bereavement. And, too, how we have shuddered in other years as we have been told that death stands continually, like a grim monster, upon the threshold of eternity ready to enfold in his cold and bony embrace all of God's children ? And how our hearts have ached after our beloved have gone from us, — when we have been cruelly assured that they were taken, some- times even in anger, by a jealous God, to the land of silence, — far out in the grim darkness of the dim, inexplicable unknown ? And as we have garnered the fondest reminiscences of these cherished ones within the chambers of the soul, with the arms of our love naturally reaching out after our treasures, how terrible were the funeral tones of those to whom we looked for comfort as they reiterated the dreadful declaration that our friends had gone to that " undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns," and that their voices of love could no more cheer us amid the sorrows of time ? But, heaven be praised, the facts of Spiritualism are demonstrating the utter falsity of all these soul-harrowing tenets, and are teaching that, in the 26 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. economy of nature, human hearts have not been so loosely linked together that they can be thus torturingly torn asunder. Through the inculcations of this glorious philosophy, we are learning a higher and holier appreciation of the infinite love and wisdom ruling in the realm of destiny, as well as loftier conceptions in regard to the true character and future life-line of the human soul. We know now, thank God, through the ministry of His star-eyed angels, that an infinite power in the universe has not given us a capacity for love, and objects upon which to bestow our love, and then, in the cruel spirit of irony, torn them from our arms, giving us no redress for broken hopes and aching hearts. We know now that our beloved, who have passed through the change called death, have not gone to a land of silence, but that in strict accordance with law, and with fondest affection, they still linger around our hearth-stones, aim- ing to comfort, seeking to bless. We know now, from actual demonstration, that the old arm-chair by the fire-side has not been entirely vacated ; that the nursing-chair by the family stand may still contain its beloved occupant; and that even the baby-chair at the table, and the cradle by your side, are not altogether tenantless. We know now that death is not the sad messenger of an angry God, shutting our friends from our sight in time, and perhaps forever ; but that the phenomenon termed death is rather the pale angel of organic law, bringing compen- sation for the varied degrees of martyrdom incidental to time ; and that, as he hovers about the homesteads of earth, he is seek- ing to gather the violets therefrom, that they may be trans- planted amid the flowery planes of a brighter and a happier, clime. We know now, indeed, that there are no dead in all the garden of our God, but that * ' Still the angels bridge death's river, With glad tidings as of yore ; Whilst their song of triumph swelling Echoes back from shore to shore ' ]Ve shall live forever more.' " ; WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 27 In conclusion, my brother and sister Spiritualists, permit me to enjoin upon you a strict adherence to the principles, and a firm maintenance of the facts, of our most holy faith, — if faith it may be called. Let us be firmly banded together in the bonds of brotherly love, with an abiding confidence in the ministry of our beloved and departed ; and rest assured that victory shall eventually perch upon our banner, whilst our hearts shall expand with unfading joy under the influences of our glorious religion. LECTURE IT. THE SPIRITUAL BODY. The harmonization of the Truths of Science, and the Facts of Spiritualism, with the declarations of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, 1st Epistle, xv. ch., 40th and 44th vs. : ''There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another ; " and " There is a natiiral body, and there is a spiritual body." One of the most advanced seers of the present century has truthfully said that there is no division between science, phi- losophy, metaphysics, and religion ; for the first is the rudiment and basis of the second ; the second illustrates the first, and typifies the third ; the third unites with the second, and flows spontaneously into the fourth ; the fourth, true religion, per- vades and comprehends them all, and flows as spontaneously to still higher degrees of knowledge and perfection. As a science, as a philosophy, and as a religion, Spiritualism, as I understand it, holds position in the realm of thought. And as such it claims to have demonstrated among other great facts the existence during man's sojour i upon earth of a spiritual body, — not merely an undefined, formless essence, born of the imagination or of hope, but an individualized reality of spirit- ual substance, formed and objective to the spiritual senses even in time, limited of course to peculiar mediumistic development. And my own investigations of this theme, continuing for more than a quarter of a century, have satisfied me of the justness of this claim of the spiritual school and of the truthfulness of a recent declaration of the highly gifted and spiritually jninded (28) THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 29 Epes Sargent that " there is nothing in chemistry, mechanics, or physics generally that can authoritatively stamp as unsci- entific the hypothesis of a supersensual organism, developed pari passu with the physical, and acting between it and the life constantly inflowing from the central source of all things. Neither observation or science has any evidence to offer against this idea." Hence, the reconciliation of this claim of Spiritual- ism, together with the declarations of St. Paul just repeated, with the acknowledged truths of science is the purpose of my present discourse. And permit me, my friends, to invite your courteous attention to the entire line of my remarks, since the nature of the argument is such that a clear appreciation of the premises is necessary to a full recognition of the conclusions at which I aim. It is admittedly a self-evident proposition that all the objects by which you are surrounded in the domain of inanimate nature, and all the various changes observable therein, are attributable to the two principles, matter and force. By matter, of course, is understood the substratum of that which affects the senses ; and by force is understood the power which produces the various changes that you observe in the former. It is equally self- evident, it is assumed, that you cannot imagine a force without at the same time conceivinaj of some substance ajjainst which it is to be exerted. Hence the two ideas of matter and force are co-existent in the mind; and learned men tell us that upon a clear and definite comprehension of them depends that pre- cise relation of the phenomena denominated science. True it is that the essence of matter and force is unknown to science, but scientific men, by studying the laws by which they are governed, have adopted a constitution of matter which has enabled them to generalize many important facts, among the most important of which, to my mind, is what is known as the atomic theory. According to this theory, in its widest conception, the whole of the material universe accessible to us by means of the tele- scope is occupied by atoms inconceivably minute, hard, and un- 30 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. changeable, which are separated from each other by the laws of attraction and repulsion. These atoms, therefore, constitute the matter of the material universe, according to finite apprehen- sion ; and their attractions and repulsions constitute the forces by which they are actuated, and to which is referable all the power and energy that we observe in the changes to which matter is subjected. Science tells us further that these atoms forming thus a ple- num throughout all space constitute what is termed the ethereal medium, which we know to be unappreciable by the material senses, and in which, at wide distances from each other, are large isolated bodies of grosser matter, such as the earth upon which we reside, together with all the solar and astral worlds by which we are surrounded, and of which ours is but a minute representative ; and that these, larger bodies of matter are com- posed of atoms of another order, or groups of atoms, with spaces between them, wide in comparison to the size of the atoms,— these spaces between being pervaded by the minuter atoms of the ethereal medium. According to this theory, these isolated bodies of grosser matter act upon each other by means of the force of gravitation, and also by tremors and vibrations in the ethereal medium, radiating in every direction from each body as a center. Thus scientists ascribe to the ethereal medium the same con- stitution as that possessed by grosser matter, that is, that it consists of inert atoms at great distances from each other, pro- portioned to their size, each kept in position by attracting and repelling forces. And, further, that through this ethereal me- dium the impulses or minute vibrations just adverted to are transmitted from planet to planet, and from system to system, and that these vibrations or agitations constitute light, heat, and other emanations which we claim to receive from the sun. Or, in other words, it is declared that the solar emanations are not matter but motion communicated from atom to atom, beginning at the luminous body, and diffused in widening spherical surfaces, THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 31 enlarging in size and diminishing in intensity to the remotest portion of conceivable space. Basing their opinions upon these, and other generalities, which need no mention at the present time, accepted authori- tarians have announced within the last quarter of a century, as the general conclusion of science, that all the different ener- gies in the universe of matter — whether termed chemical action, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, muscular action, or mechanical power — are referable to the disturbance of the equilibrium of the atoms of the ethereal medium spoken of, and its subsequent restoration due to their attractions and repul- sions ; and that all these forms of energy are, in one sense, con- vertible into each other, or, in other words, the force generated in the restoration of the equilibrium in one case is sufficient to disturb it, though in different form perhaps in another.* Extending those generalizations, Prof. S. S. Loomis, of the Georgetown College, District of Columbia, some yeara since classed the ethereal medium as a constituent element of all pon- derable bodies, and as subject to all the laws that have been com- monly restricted to gross matter. If this assumption be true, — and I find no reason to contradict it, — that the ethereal medium enters into every compound as a constituent, it becomes appar- ent that what we have hitherto regarded as analyses are such only in part, since one essential has been overlooked, and, as Prof. Loomis suggests, the whole formulary of chemistry will have to be recast. Again, Spiritualism declared — at an earlier date, I believe, than did material science — that the entire body of matter com- prehended in our universe has ever had existence in some form or other ; and that it is therefore equally as absurd on the part of theology to speak of a God without a universe at any time * In illustration of the convertibility of the various forms of force into each other, recent experiments with an instrument called the telemachon have demonstrated that, by means of electro-magnets, power or motion may be transformed into electricity, and the same conducted to any distance, and then again converted into power or light 32 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. within the past as it is ou the part of the atheist of the present age to speak of a universe without a God. In harmony with this declaration of the spiritual school, Prof. Le Conte, in 1859, said in effect that matter, though constantly changing its form, is still in and of itself indestructible ; and that the same amount of matter has ever had existence in the universe. And likewise in regard to force this distinguished scientist has asserted that it is incapable of increase or diminution, and hence the same amount of force exists in the universe at all times and forever. In this connection I may state, as you are awarie, doubtless, that the mutual convertibility of the various forms of force is termed " correlation of forces," and the invariability of the absolute amount of force, amidst the constant changes incidental to time, is termed "conservation of force." This principle of the correlation and conservation of force is deemed by the learned one of the grandest generalizations of science, is looked upon as almost axiomatic, and as a legitimate basis for rational deduction. - Le Conte further enumerates four planes of material exist- ence, which are regarded as being raised one above the other. The ^rs< and lowest is termed the plane of elementary exist- ence ; the second, the plane of chemical compounds, or the min- eral kingdom; the third, the plane of vegetable existence; and ihQ fourth, the plane of animal existence; and declares that it is impossible for any known force in nature to raise matter through all these grades at once. But that, on the contrary, there is a special form or character of force adapted for the elevation of matter from each plane to the plahe above. That it is the special function, for instance, of chemical affinity to raise matter from plane number one to plane number two ; and that all the changes which take place upon plane number two, by the mutual reaction of bodies situated on that plane, are under the guidance and control of this force. And that thus, after matter is raised from the elementary to the mineral con- dition, it requires an additional force of another and peculiar THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 83 kind to raise it into the vegetable kingdom ; and, again, another accession of force to raise it into the animal kingdom, — a greater and still greater expenditure of force being required to maintain matter upon each successive plane. Hence, it follows, as science declares, that " any amount of matter, returning to a lower plane by decomposition, must set free or develop a force which may, under favorable circumstances, raise other matter from a lower to a higher condition." The same distinguished authority declares likewise that, in the same manner as matter may be arranged in several distinct and graduated kingdoms, so the forces of nature may also be divided into distinct groups, — arranged in a similar manner, one above another. These are the physical^ the chemicaly and the vital forces, — the latter-named, more than the others, tran- scending the sagacity of the chemist, and producing groups of atoms materially exceeding his present skill. As in the case of matter, so also in the case of force, it is impossible to pass directly from the lowest to the highest group without passing through the intermediate group. As I proceed in the line of my argument, let the statement I have made be retained in the mind as the declaration of modern science, viz.^ that any amount of matter returning from a higher to a lower plane, through decomposition, liberates or develops a force capable of raising other matter from a lower to a higher condition. And it may be considered pertinent also to remark, just at this point, that the comprehensive idea of a universally operative law of progress, in the realm of matter and of mind, has been promulgated by the spiritual school for more than a quarter of a century ; and that, iii lieu of the Adamic account of creation comprehended in the song of Moses, the spiritual philosophy in association with the divine revelations of geology has long since declared the formation of the earth to have been after the order of sub-position, — first, the non-stratified rock; secondly, the non-fossiliferous stratified rock ; and, thirdly, the fossiliferous stratified rock ; that man was the ultimate in the 34 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. design of earthly formations ; and that the earth and all succeed^ ing existences upon it were wrought into being because neces- sary to that end ; and hence that each general change from the original condition of our planet must have been for the better, and in the direction of the ultimate design. ' This generalization as to the teachings of Spiritualism in this direction necessarily comprehends the continuous progress of the primates, the sixty-five recognized elements,^ be they more OF less, which science declares constitute the primary basis of all matter. Spiritualism, more emphatically than any other school of thought thus far, teaches that upon the development of these primates and their constructive associations depends the relative degree of progress which attaches to all the different forms which serve to make up the various kingdoms which constitute the splendid macrocosm of the material universe. In other words, that, through the agency of life, death, decay, and decomposition, these primaries have been continuously pro- gressing, individually and collectively, from lower to higher forms throughout unappreciable ages, — each successive mani- festation of growth, decay, and death projecting them forward in the scale of existence, into higher capabilities of organic life ; or, as science asserts, setting free a force capable of raising the constituent properties from a lower to a higher plane* And, too, as plane succeeds plane in the scale of material confor- mation, we find not only an increased degree of organic devel- opment, but likewise an increased number of the primaries aggregated together, as one of the primal causes of this ad- vanced growth. After the elevation of matter, through the liberation of the successive forms of force adverted to, above the plane of mineral compounds,^ — upon which plane most of the elements exist in a relatively undeveloped state, — analysis shows that consecutive conditions of growth and decay have pro- *rrom 1774 to 1874 the number of elements had increased to sixty-three, recog- nized as such; and within the last five years nine or ten more, it is claimed, have been discovered. Sixty-five at the present time (1879), I believe, are indisputably recognized. THE SPIRITUAI/ BODY. 35 gressed some fourteen, more or less, of the original number, to a more elevated plane, which, in their aggregation constitute the higher forms of vegetable life. These, in their turn ^ assO' ciated with others under the influence of higher forces, and impelled by the same great law of organic progress, eventually evolve still higher forms of life, as seen in the lower animal structures ; and these, by the same law, through successively higher forms ultimating in the association of thirty-five, more or less, of the original number of the primates, and in a still more advanced condition than they are found in the kingdom below, which advanced condition is manifested in the ratio that the faculty of exercising the senses on the part of the ani- mal predominates over the merely passive life of the vegetable. Finally, the organism of the human succeeds, containing fifty- seven, more or less, of the original number of the primaries, and in a still more advanced condition over those of the preceding kingdom, as is exhibited in this higher animal structure, through which the same intelligent principle that is manifested in the growth of the vegetable and in the instinct of the brute, hav- ing become individually incarnated in the body of man, as an epitome of all below it in the scale of conformation, is thereby enabled to bring into exercise the power of apprehending funda- mental principles, and of controlling in all the wonderful pro- cesses of investigation and deduction characteristic of the mental operations of huinanity. Thus it will be seen that in the evo- lution df the human species from oiit the lower conditions of the universe by which man is surrounded, and upon the apex of which he stands unrivaled amid air finite existences, Spiritual- ism fully recognizes the wonderful forces of nature operating with such beautiful regularity through the immutable laws of growth and decay as but the majestic exponents of an overrating and Infinite Will, — some grand, almighty architect, wholly inexplicable to the human mind,— and of whom man, in his spiritual nature, is the highest individualized finite representa- tive. Nor can it be correctly supposed — although so alleged Sb UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. by the superficial investigator — that this theory of organic growth and development, when contrasted with the Mosaic account of the origin of man, detracts in the slightest degree from either the grandeur and glory of an all-wise Creator, or the wondrous beauty and interest which legitimately attaches to the transcendent drama of creation. Listen to the philo- sophic refrain of modern revelation : — ** * Let there be Light ! and there was Light,' said He, Who spake old time from out eternity. * Let there be Light ! ' — and matter's ocean main Foretells a future, grand organic chain. * Let there be Light ! ' — and primal atoms move In elemental bonds of perfect love. * Let there be Light ! ' — and worlds succeed to worlds, Whilst Force, through Law, great Nature's scroll unfurls. * Let there be Light ! ' — and mighty pulse unseen Their beatings tell Earth's rocky ribs between. * Let there be Light ! ' — as centuries onward move. And glaciers grand Deific impulse prove. * Let there be Light ! ' — these moving glaciers tell Of generous soils, where germs prolific swell. * Let there be Light ! ' — and, lo ! the useful seed Grand offerings make, foretelling future need. * Let there be Light ! ' — and Force has changed its form. Whilst into Life both pain and joy are born. * Let there be Light ! ' — Sensation is the theme,— As seen in brutes, — begot from what has been. * Let there be Light I ' — and still new forms arise, Which upward look with longings toward the skies. * Let there be Light ! and there was Light,' said He, And primaries coalesced to form humanity. * Let there be Light ! ' — and higher truths unroll God's image pure, enstamped upon the soul." XaE SPIPvITUAL BODY. 37 ■ But r shall have more to say upon some other occasion in regard to the divinity of the race, as inculcated by the spiritual school^ in contradistinction to the doctrine of total depravity. . Let us return to the immediate theme of my discourse, in which I hope to show that the law of progress, applicable in the development and sustenance of the material body, is equally applicable in the evolvement and formation from kindred ele- ments of a substantial spiritual body in time, and likewise in the eventual elimination of this spiritual form from its material environment, prepared for higher duties in a more spiritual realm, corresponding to its more ethereal and vital properties. In connection with the declaration of science (of which Ii have spoken), that the decomposition of matter generates a force capable of raising other matter from a lower to a higher plane, or, as Spiritualism expresses it, the progress of the primates, I may add that what is termed isomerism has thus far presented well nigh, if not altogether, insuperable difficulties to the niate- rial scientist. Isomeric compounds, as you are aware, consist of the same elements in precisely the same proportions, but with different properties or qualities. Chemistry fails to account satisfactorily for this difference in compounds which contain the same ingredients in like proportions. The learned Prof. Mapes, some years before his ascension to his guerdon in the skies, aided, I believe, by that beautifully and logically attuned instrument of brighter minds beyond the boundary oi time, Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, threw considerable light upon this sub- ject in a publication given to the world in 1857. Among other facts, he assured us that " the fresh debris of the rock at the mountain side is incapable of producing the higher class of vege- table growth. That the double rose, for instance, cannot be sustained in such a soil, while the single rose, taken from a primitive soil and carried to the older soil of the garden, may be gradually improved to the double rose, and simply because the inorganic constituents of the garden soil have been in organic life many times, and have thus been rendered fit pabulum 38 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. for the new comer." Another fact given by Prof. Mapes is exceedingly striking in this connection, and is clearly illustrative of the idea of the progress of the primates. For more than a century a medicine has been manufactured in London, known as *' James's Powders." For a long time its composition was a secret. The medicine, however, was in general use, and large quantities were annually sent to the East Indies by the East India Company, for the use of its medical department. It was very effective in the treatment of fever, and its action always found to be uniform. The Messrs. James, the original discov- erers of this medicine, died, and their successors of the same name, from philanthropic motives, made known the composition ; and the recipe for its manufacture found its way into the phar- macopia. It was said to be composed of the phosphate of lime and the oxyd of antimony, in certain relative proportions,— which were stated. James's Powders were soon manufactured by others, as well as by the immediate successors of the original discoverers. The East India Company advertised for proposals to furnish the same with medicines, — a large quantity of James's Powders being included in the required list. Another manu- facturer named a lower price for this article than that charged by the Messrs. James. It was furnished and sent out ; but the medical department maintained that it failed entirely to produce the usual results. The Company refused to pay the bill in con- sequence of the reported failure, and a suit ensued. Many of the first chemists, including one of the Messrs. James, made analyses of the rejected medicine, and gave evidence that it was precisely the same composition as that made by the Messrs. James. It appeared, however, in evidence, that the new manu- facturers had calcined the phosphate of lime rock^ and then com- bined it with the antimony as directed ; whilst the Messrs. James made their medicine by calcining the hones of oxen, and mixing the phosphate so obtained with oxyd of antimony. Every chemist, Mr. James included, stated there could be no difference in the effect of these two medicines. The Company, THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 39 however, sent out a new quantity manufactured by the Messrs. James, and, unlike that made from the rock, it was found to be efficient. Thus, adds Prof. Mapes, it is clear that men, like plants, can only assimilate, during the process of digestion, such primaries as are sufficiently progressed for their use. The phosphate of lime procured from the bones of oxen had prob- ably occupied organic life thousands, and possibly millions, of times before it found its way into the bone of the animal, and from thence into the laboratory of the chemist ; and was con- sequently much better adapted to act in an efficient manner as a remedial agent, through the functional processes of the human system, than could reasonably be expected of the unpro- gressed primate extracted from the original lime rock. Again, science tells us that the essential oils of juniper, rosemary, turpentine, copaiva, and the essence of lemon are the same in elements and proportions ; and yet that they differ widely in taste, odor, medicinal qualities, boiling point, and specific gravity. And chemistry, as 1 have said, fails to account satisfactorily for such anomalous conditions. True, it is said " these remarkable facts can only be accounted for by the dif- ferent groupings of the atoms." But, we are likewise told, on the other hand, that this declaration does not rest upon any known facts that there is such a peculiarity of groupings, or upon any analogies elsewhere in chemistry ; for some of the best-informed chemists say the analogies are uniformly against it. In this connection, the professor already named, noting especially that " boiling point " is one of the differences instanced as existing between the oils referred to, decides that this fact is referable to some essential constitutional difference in the amount ofcetheria, — that, hence, these bodies, instead of being isomeric, have a uniform constitution, and that the law that physical properties depend upon chemical composition holds good. And, upon this declaration, he bases the assumption that science will be necessitated to choose between these two conclusions, — to set aside a well-established law of chemical condition, and adopt a 40 , UNANSWERABLE LOUIC. hypothesis without warrant of fact and against analogy, or to make the atomic theory universal over the imponderable alike with the ponderable material, — thus affording a full and satis- factory exposition of isomerism, restoring the law of chemical condition, and making science harmonious. Thus, if it be true, as declared by science, that whenever any amount of matter returns to a lower plane through decomposition, a force is inevitably set free, capable of raising matter from a lower to a higher condition, then is it equally true that the inculcations of Spiritualism in regard to the progress of the atoms, and like- wise as to the declared agency of (so called) death and decom- position in the process, are measurably sustained at least ; and this law of progressive development is applicable to all degrees and conditions throughout the entire realm of matter, to all inorganic relations, and from the earliest and lowest organisms in the sphere of conformation to the last and highest earthly development, — the beautiful and wonderful organism of the body of man. Again, this fact of the existence of the ethereal atoms as elemental constituents of all ponderable bodies underlies an additional truth in physical science, not yet wholly recognized, however, from which I seek to draw the important conclusion toward which my remarks are tending. It is well known that the existence of " animal heat" in the human system has given rise to numerous theories as to its origin. No one of these theories, however, it is authoritatively alleged, has proven entirely satisfactory. The generally accepted opinion is that the greater portion of material consumed by man (about a ton and a half each year) becomes oxygenized or burnt ; and that during this process, which takes place in every portion of the system, heat is evoW^di,-— hidden or latent heat becoming tangible heat. The distinguished professor, to whom I am so much in- debted for the scientific data adverted to in my discourse, pro- nounces this assumed explanation as far from definite; in fact, as containing no idea of the process it claims to elucidate. This THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 41 indefiBiteness, however, he declares, disappears the moment setheria is introduced as a constituent element of gross matter, rendering the process decidedly more clear and intelligible. Heat, it will be recollected, is simply setheria in a state of intense vibration. The moment these refined atoms combine with any other substance, as stated, their vibrations cease, and of course the heat engendered for the time likewise ceases, nor can the vibrations again commence as long as this compound remains intact. Upon these facts (as a substitute for the prevalent idea as to the origin of animal heat) Prof. Loomis bases the theory that " we receive aetheria into the system in our food, in a qui- escent, combined state, as an elemental constituent of the same ; but as assimilation or nutrition takes place, this food is broken up, a small part being used to build up the physical system, but by far the larger portion is eliminated in its more stable form, as carbonic acid, water, &c., — thus liberating astheria in every point of the system, in its intensely vibrating condition ; or, in other words, producing animal heat." Based upon the scientific facts already. enumerated, it seems to me this assumption is entirely legitimate. And, if so, the question naturally arises, what becomes finally of the liberated atoms of setheria which thus engender the heat of the body, the quantity being constantly increased, of course, by the addi- tional portions of food daily introduced into the system ? As additional supplies of material are being constantly broken up by the processes referred to, what prevents a too great accumu- lation of setheria, or an undue amount of animal heat ? The particles of grosser matter, as I have said, are disposed of by assimilation, nutrition, and digestion ; and through these pro- cesses in healthy operation, the physical body is built up and sustained. In addition to the production of the successive quan- tities of animal heat incidental to their liberation from the portions of grosser matter introduced into the system, what are the ultimately assigned duties of these more refined atoms, which have been, of course, increasing in quantity in the ratio 42 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. of tlie grosser particles, from which they have become discon- nected by the functional operations referred to ? Is there any law through the application of which these interrogatories may be satisfactorily answered ? Let us see. , ' j , > As repeatedly stated, heat is simply the particles of aetheria in a state of intense vibration, the heat diminishing as the vibra- tion ceases. But, as I have asked, what becomes of these atoms of aetheria within the physical body, as their heat-engendering activity ceases ? The law that gives the solution to all estab- lished chemical changes, if applied, will likewise give the solui- tion in this case. Science tells us that oxygen, when brought into contact with certain substances, disappears, *. e., becomes latent; and we are further told that it has combined to form a new substance. In the case before us, it is evident that, from some cause, successive quantities of heat within the system dis- appear, — become latent. This is necessarily true, or the over- plus of heat in the human body would become oppressive, and finally destructive, through the daily introduction of food into the system, together with its continuous dissolution, and conse- quent liberation of the vibrating atoms referred to. Why may not the same law of chemical changes be applicable in this case?. Here heat is continually disappearing ; and why not carry out the analogy of its having entered into combination^ as w:ell as oxygen? — the more especially, as we know, through the unmis- takable phenomena of Spiritualism, that there is another sub- stance connected with this physical body of ours, though sepa- rate and distinct in the nature of its composition, a more refined and ethereal substance, of which the inner casket of the intell,i- gent soul, the spiritual body, is formed. And this, 1 apprehend, is literally the fact; and this is the immediate conclusion toward which my remarks have been tending. In other words, the ethereal particles introduced into the system by the process referred to (in accordance with the law of affinity applicable to all substances, visible or invisible) combine with their kindred atoms in building up and fashioning the ethereal or spiritual THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 43 body; just as do the atoms of grosser matter, in the manufac- ture and preservation of the outer form, thus rendering the spiritual or ethereal body as essentially the result of the organic law of growth, hy the supply of material from kindred elements, as is the outer or material body. And this, my friends, as I have said, is the conclusion I have sought to establish, and which I have claimed is in harmony with the declarations of St. Paul to the Corinthians : " There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.'' And " there are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." Hence, to my mind, the conviction is irresistible, as was quoted in the commencement, that " there is nothing in chemistry, mechanics, or physics gen- erally that can authoritatively stamp as unscientific the hypoth- esis of a supersensual organism, developed pari pussu with the physical, and acting between it and the life constantly inflowing from the central source of all things. Neither observation nor science has any evidence to offer against this idea." And this divine life within we term the soul, or spirit, per se, — the in- telligent principle, — which is destined, in the ethereal encase- ment of which I have been speaking, to outwork immortal destinies in ethereal realms beyond the confines of time, when the material body shall have been laid aside forever. If these propositions be legitimate, the corollary is equally so, that this spiritual organism of which I have been speaking — formed, as I have endeavored to establish, in accordance with the universal laws of beinfj — -can but be designed for hioher uses and a more ethereal realm than the material encasement in which it has been formed, and the material universe to which that material encasement is especially adapted. And that death, therefore, cannot be a final termination to human existence, since God in nature performs no bootless task, and evolves no form but for specific uses. Hence, what is termed death can be but an incident of time — an event greeted by many far too sorrowfully — in the everlasting life-line of the human soul. 44 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. And the process of the elimiiiation of the spiritual body from its mold of clay, when the phenomenon of death (so called) occurs, according to the testimony of the most reliable spiritual clairvoyants, is strikingly in harmony with the scientific facts of which I have been speaking, as to the liberation of ethereal particles in a state of luminous activity, through the decay and decomposition of the grosser matter of which it has been a con- stituent element. Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer, and one of the most developed the world has ever had, whilst in a favorable condition, was enabled to observe and investigate the mysterious processes of what is termed dying. He speaks thus of the wonderful event which, in Christendom more than any other portion of the world, I believe, has been surrounded with such unwarrantable fear, as well as heart- rending sadness : — " I saw," he says, " that the physical organization could no longer subserve the diversified purposes or requirements of the spiritual principle. But the various internal organs of the body appeared to resist the withdrawal of the animating soul. The muscular system struggled to retain the element of motion ; the vascular system strove to retain the element of life ; the nervous system put forth all its powers to retain the element of sensa- tion ; and the cerebral system labored to retain the principle of intelligence. The body and the soul, like two friends, strongly resisted the various circumstances which rendered their eternal separation imperative and absolute. These internal conflicts gave rise to manifestations of what seemed to be, to the material senses, the most thrilling and painful sensations ; but I was unspeakably thankful and delighted when I perceived and real- ized the fact that those physical manifestations were indications not of pain or unhappiness, but simply that the spirit was eter- nally dissolving its copartnership with the material organism. " Now the head of the body became suddenly enveloped i7i a fine, soft^ mellow, luminous atmosphere [corresponding, you perceive, to the liberated ethereal atoms of which I have been speaking] ; and, as instantly I saw the cerebrum and the cere- bellum expand their most interior portions, I saw them discon- tinue their appropriate galvanic functions ; and then I saw that THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 45 they became highly charged with the vital electricity and vital magnetism which permeate subordinate systems and structures ; that is to say, the brain, as a whole, suddenly declared itself to be tenfold more positive over the lesser portions of the body than it ever was during the period of health. This phe- nomenon invariably precedes physical dissolution. Now the process of dying, or of the spirit's departure from the body, was fully commenced. The brain began to attract the elements of electricity, of magnetism, of motion, of life, and of sensation into its various and numerous departments. The head became intensely brilliant, and I particularly remarked that just in the same proportion as the extremities of the organism grew dark and cold, the brain appeared light and glowing. Now I saw, in the mellow, spiritual atmosphere, which emanated from and encircled the head, the indistinct outlines of the formation of another head! .... This new head unfolded more and more distinctly, and so indescribably compact and intensely brilliant did it become that I could neither see through it or gaze upon it as steadily as 1 desired. While this spiritual head was being eliminated and organized from out of and above the material head, 1 saw that the surrounding aromal atmosphere which had emanated from the material head was in great com- motion ; but, as the new head became more distinct and perfect^ this brilliant atmosphere gradually disappeared. [Again, you per- ceive, this relation is precisely correspondential to the scientific facts adverted to. Mr. Davis continues:] This taught me that those aromal elements which were in the beginning of the metamorphosis attracted from the system into the brain, and thence eliminated in the form of an atmosphere, were indissolu- bly united in accordance with the divine principle of affinity in the universe which pervades and destinates every particle of matter, and this developed the spiritual head which 1 beheld. " With inexpressible wonder, and with a heavenly and unut- terable reverence, I gazed upon the holy and harmonious pro- cesses that were going on before me. In the identical manner in which the spiritual head was eliminated and unchangeably organized, I saw unfolding in their natural progressive order the harmonious development of the neck, the shoulders, the breast, and the entire spiritual organization The defects and deformities of the physical body were in the spiritual body which I saw thus developed almost completely removed. In other words, it seemed that those hereditary obstructions and 46 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. influences were now removed which originally arrested the full and proper development of the physical constitution ; and there- fore that her spiritual constitution being elevated above those obstructions was enabled to unfold and perfect itself, in accord- ance with the universal tendencies of all things." Mr. Davis continues the interesting experience at some length ; but what I have quoted, it seems to me, is sufficient to establish the analogy sought to be enforced by the remarks to which you have listened. And again, this idea of the existence of man, even in time, as an individualized spiritual being — possessed of an outside cover- ing of clay, designed for the uses and pleasures of the earth life alone — is gaining acceptance, I am gratified to state, among more advanced theologians, notwithstanding long existing dog- mas to the contrary. On the first Sunday in Lent, 1879, I sat in Westminster Abbey, — that venerable mausoleum of Eng- land's good and great for nearly a thousand years past, — and listened to a discourse from Rev. Canon Farrar, one of the ablest and boldest pioneers of free thought the present century has afforded. The echoes of the (so-called) Apostles Creed — "I believe in the resurrection of the body " — had scarcely died away amid the monuments and tombs of superstitious venera- tion around me, when his clear, manly voice was heard ringing along the arches and architraves of the majestic pile, in tones unmistakably impressive : " Ye have bodies^ my friends ; but ye are spirits'^ The one sentence of the Creed seemed the dying cadence of departing love. Whilst the declaration of the in- spired speaker sounded to my soul as the clarion notes of a world's progress. In conclusion — We are spirits clothed in veils, — Soul by soul is never seen ; All earth's cold communing fails To remove from us the screen.' THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 47 Man by man is rarely known ; Mind with mind dotLi rarely meet; We are columns left alone Of a temple incomplete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie, — All is thus but starlight here. Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered store of thought,— Only when we live above, What the dim-eyed world has taught, — Only when our souls are fed By the Fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led Which we cannot draw from earth,— We, like parted drops of dew, Swelling till they meet again, Shall be all refreshed anew, — Eesting — loving — without pain." LECTURE III. THE ANALOGY EXISTING BETWEEN THE FACTS OP THE BIBLE AND THE FACTS OF SPIRITUALISM. Scientists tell us that there are in the mineral world certain crystals which have lain darkly in the earth for ages, but which, nevertheless contain a potency of light locked up within them ; that in their case the potential has never become the actual, — - the light in fact being held back by a molecular detent. When these crystals are warmed, the detent is lifted and an outflow of light immediately begins. In a general sense it may be appropriately remarked in this connection how often do the analogies of physical nature inter- pret the vexing enigmas of intellectual and psychological inquiry. And in a more especial sense may we not find an analogy be- tween this truth in the realm of the material and the subject matter we are considering? The phenomena of Spiritualism Sire facts in nature which have lain darkly for centuries beneath an incrustation of ignorance as to man's spiritual capacities. In their case, as in that of the crystals, the potential has failed to become the actual, — the light held back, indeed, by the detent of materialistic tendencies which so soon took the place of the dawning spirituality which characterized the first century of the Christian era. But through the progress of ideas, and the natural expansion of thought, these mental and emotional jew- els of the soul are being warmed into life, — the detent of mate- rialism is being lifted, and an outflow of light and joy, thank (48) FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 49 God, is beginning to find its way into tlie hearts of the men and women of this the coronal century of all the ages. Spiritualists believe, as stated in a previous lecture, that the spiritual man is the real man, the external body being merely a material shell or covering designed for the uses and pleasures of an earthly existence only ; the man has a conscious indi- vidual existence as a spirit immediately after the death of the body ; and that he can, and under proper conditions does, mani- fest himself and communicate with those still remaining in the earth life. Those who believe these facts are generally termed Spiritualists, whatever else they may believe or disbelieve. But the term Spiritualism is also applicable to a system of philosophy or religion recognizing the facts just named as car- dinal features. When thus applied, it is defined as embracing all truth relating to the spiritual nature of man, — its constitution, capabilities, duties, welfare, and destiny ; also all that is or may be known relative to the spirit world and its inhabitants ; to spiritual influences of whatever kind, and to all the occult forces of the universe which are spiritual in their nature. When thus defined, it will be perceived that Spiritualism is no narrow superstition, as has been supposed by too many, but an all com- prehensive system of truth. It includes, in the estimation of its intelligent adherents, all true philosophy, all true theology, all true theosophy, all true religion, and lies at the basis of all true science ; whilst its grand practical aim may be briefly stated to be the quickening and growth of the spiritual or divine im- pulses of our nature, — which we believe to be innate, — to the end that all animal and selfish propensities may be subordi- nated, and all evil or disorderly affections overcome. But it is of the cardinal facts of Spiritualism particularly that I am to speak at this time. To these alleged facts quite a body of mind in Christendom stand opposed, on the ground that they are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Bible. Against this opinion of Christendom I propose to make issue ; and I shall attempt to show that the phenomena of Spiritualism on which 60 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. rest the items of faith, or rather of knowledge to which I have adverted, are not only not antagonistic to the Bible, but that they are strictly analogous to the facts recorded in that book ; indeed, that there is such a striking analogy between the two classes of facts presented as to be apparent to the most casual observer. And just here, perhaps, I ought to premise, and I wish the premise to be fully understood, that, in adverting to the facts recorded in the Bible, I intend no special disrespect to that book ; on the contrary, I have no hesitation in averring that, although the spiritual school by no means recognizes its pages as infallible, still there are hundreds and thousands of Spiritual- ists today who reverence the truths perceptible in the Bible more than they ever did before they became such. And for this rea- son — looking at the spirit and not the mere letter — they find in their own system an extension of the views of some of the inspired minds of other days, together with a clear and brilliant light thrown upon many of the obscurities of the past by the unmistakable truth and beauty of the actual demonstrations of the present. Entertaining such views, in the very outset of our examina- tion of this Jewish record of spiritual phenomena, my friends, I can but exclaim (in the language of modern inspiration ) — ** Is God asleep, that He should cease to be All that He was to Prophets of the past ? All that He was to poets of old time ? All that He was to hero souls, who clad Their suu-bright minds in adamantine mail Of constancy, and walked the world with Him, And spake with His deep music on their tongue, And acted with His pulse within the heart, And died, — or seemed to outward sense to die, — Evanishing in light, as if the sun Gathered its image back into itself ? Is God less real now than when He sang, Aud smote with His right hand the harp of space FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 51 And all the stars from His electric breath, In golden galaxies of harmony, Went cheering out, heart flushed with life, from Him? Open thy soul to God, O man, and talk Through thy unfolded faculties with Him Who never, save through faculties of mind, Spake unto the Fathers." But to the facts ; and let us commence with the first book in the record. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, you will recol- lect, it is stated that an angel appeared to Hagar (Sarah's maid) in the wilderness, and comforted her, and this one word comfort is the comprehensive definition of spiritual visitations today. In the 18th chapter of Genesis it is recorded that three angels, in the form of men, — that is, materialized, — appeared to Abraham upon the plains of Mamre, and that Abraham entertained these angels with material food, — -of which they partook. Many Spiritualists can readily accept this statement, since, in the present day, they have witnessed the same mani- festation of spirit presence. But, how can any mind credit the existence of such a phenomenon in any age that denies the possibility of spirits rendering themselves visible at all ? Again, during the interview between Abraham and these angels, or spirits, who presented themselves in the form of men, as is done today, we are told that the promise was made to Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed ; and this promise is said to constitute the basis upon which rests the whole Christian plan of salvation. I leave it, therefore, to those who believe in the alleged truth and beauty of this plan to determine for themselves whether or not any credence is to be given to the declaration of the spiritual school that visitors from another life can and do manifest themselves to mortals. In the 19th chapter of Genesis we are told, two angels (also in the form of men) appeared to Lot in the gate of Sodom, and through the warning received from these angels his family 52 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. and himself were saved from impending evil. Many hearts among the Spiritualists are tonight filled with gratitude for the warnings they have received from the angel world, through which they have been enabled to ward off an impending danger, or divert some threatened sorrow, — neither of which could otherwise have been avoided. And, too, if that great and good man, who is now an active and happy spirit, — if Abraham Lincoln, who has left his vir- tues as a legacy to the nation, — had listened to the voices of warning from the spirit world as communicated to him through more than one medium, he would not have been the victim of so treacherous and damnable a taking-off. I was in Washington at the time, and know of what I speak. In the 21st chapter of Genesis it is stated that an angel again appeared to Hagar on behalf of the poor boy Ishmael, and again comforted the mother. Oh, are there not many mothers today within the borders of Spiritualism who can attest to the fact that angels do comfort them in their duties, — duties unques- tionably the holiest upon earth ? In the 22nd chapter of Genesis it is stated that an angel arrested the arm of Abraham when he was about committing murder upon the body of his son Isaac, under the supposition that God had tempted him to do so. The Spiritualist believes that an undeveloped spirit might have tempted him to do so, but that according to the epistle of James, 1st chapter, 13th verse, God tempteth no man to evil. In the 28th chapter of Genesis Jacob is reported to have had a beautiful dream, in which he saw a ladder extending from earth to heaven, up and down which angels were ascending and descending. Modern Spiritualism is proving today that there is an intellectual and aflectional ladder reaching from earth to Heaven, bright with beckoning angels, — a practical Jacob's ladder, — indeed, "a* mighty column, of which physics is the base, science the shaft, metaphysics the superstructure, and Spiritualism the coronal glory of the capital, whose starry FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 53 crown pierces the overarching firmament of Heaven." You believe in the dream of other ages, and deny the fact of today. In the 30th and 31st chapters of Genesis, Jacob is said to have had another dream, in which he receives the curious advice — to say the least of it — by means of which the prop- erty of his uncle Laban is transferred to himself ; and during this dream, likewise, he is advised to leave his uncle Laban. In the 32nd chapter of Genesis it is related that, after having left his uncle Laban, he meets the angels in the road, and he calls them God's hosts ; and, after he had sent his servants to meet his brother Esau, an angel, in the form of a man, wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. Now, this formerly seemed rather absurd to some of the Spiritualists ; but, since their recognition of modern phenomena, they can readily believe it, because there are mediums all through the country today who know that physical force from an unseen personage has been repeatedly exercised toward them. There is another analogy here, likewise: Jacob was distressed and worried — just as many of you Spiritualists are sometimes worried and fretted when you go to a medium — because the spirit will not or does not tell its name. And yet we all know that it is wholly im- material from whom the truth is received, so it be demonstrated as such. Again, it is alleged among other things that the tendency of modern Spiritualism is demoralizing ; that the communications received through modern media are calculated to lead men and women into error. Well, I shall not now inquire as to the truth or falsity of this statement further than to see if the analogy will not hold good even here. In the 3rd chapter of Exodus it is stated that, while Moses was watching the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, near Mount Horeb, an angel appeared to him, and appointed him to the captaincy of the Israelitish hosts in their comtemplated Exodus from Egypt. In the course of the interview between the angel and Moses, the angel instructed Moses that the Israelitish 54 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. women should fraudulently possess themselves of the jewels and the raiment of the Egyptian women,— in other words, steal them. Did you ever receive such advice as that through any medium ? On the contrary, are not the communications received through most mediums of the most refininsf and ennoblius: character? And yet many, while believing in the mediumship of Moses, denounce modern Spiritualism as demoralizing, and seek to tax these glorious benefactors of the race. In the 14th chapter of Exodus it is affirmed that an angel preceded the host of Israel in the final exodus. The Spiritual- ists fully and gratefully believe in the guidance of their angel friends through the tortuous pathways of an earthly existence. Nor are we altogether alone in this respect. I myself heard the late Rev. Dr. Durbin — a most amiable and cultivated gentle- man, as well as a spiritually developed and distinguished clergy- man — say that, during his extensive travels as a missionary and otherwise, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, he had never met with a single casualty ; and that he attributed the fact to angel guidance and protection. And he added this em- phatic statement, which I most cordially concur in : " Those who deny the fact of angel guidance are in effect wiping out the entire Bihur In the 22nd chapter of Numbers it is said that an angel met Balaam by the way as he was proceeding to the camp of the Moabites, whose ruler had invited him to come, in order that he might curse the Israelites, whose encroachments he had begun to fear. In the 24tli chapter of Numbers, Balaam is said to have fal- len into a trance with his eyes open, and to have seen the vision presented. This is precisely the condition claimed by some of the mediums in modern times. In the 2nd chapter of Judges it is stated that an angel spake to all the people at Bochim. In the 6th chapter of Judges we have an account of a mani- FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 55 festation of spirit presence, during the progress of which the recipient gave indications of precisely just such conditions as too frequently prevail today among some professed Spiritualists as well as other investigators, — that is, a constant disposition to doubt the existing manifestation, no matter how convincing the previous one may have been. 1 allude to the following : At the time that Israel was oppressed by Midian, an angel appeared to Gideon, and appointed him to the captaincy of the Israelites against the Midianites. Now, Gideon was a constitutional doubter, evidently, such as we have today in some quarters ; he did not believe what the angel told him ; and he asked of the angel a test, which was this, that he might be permitted to place a fleece of wool upon the ground, and that during the night the ground should remain dry and the fleece become wet. The angel did this for Gideon, and so effectually, the record states, that a bowlful of water was wrung from the fleece of wool. Still Gideon was not satisfied, and he said : " Will my Lord permit that I again place the fleece of wool, and may the ground become wet and the fleece of wool remain dry ? " The angel of the Lord did this, and still Gideon was not satisfied, nor was he convinced until he received still another manifesta- tion, as is related in the 7th chapter, that of the tumbling of a cake of barley bread into the Midianitish camp. All that lean say with regard to these manifestations is that the next time any doubting Spiritualists visit any medium in your city, I hope they may find an angel as complaisant as the one that visited Gideon. In the 1 3th chapter of Judges, an angel appeared to the wife of Manoah, who was barren, and promised her the birth of a child. Afterward the angel appeared to Manoah and his wife at the same time ; and the record states that they conversed with the angel, and did not know that he was an angel until he disappeared in the flame of their own burnt offering. Fre- quently with some of the mediums of modern times it is difficult for them to distinguish at the first presentation whether they 66 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. are conversing with a resident of earth or one who has returned from the brighter shore, so palpably natural is the appearance. In the 5th chapter of Joshua it is related that, when Joshua was proceeding against Jericho, he saw a man standing against the wall with a drawn sword in his hand. He advanced to him, and demanded to know on which side he fought. The record states that the angel of the Lord replied that he appeared there as the captain of the Lord's hosts, and that he would fight on Joshua's side. In the 19th chapter of 1st Kings it is recounted that an angel appeared to Elijah more than once while he was fleeing from the anger of Jezebel to Mount Horeb, and that the angel fed Elijah with material food. Again, it is charged that spirits through modern media are disposed to tell falsehoods ; in other words, that they will lie, and that they are otherwise evil. Admitting this to be occa- sionally true, let us see if the analogy will not hold good even in this respect. In the 22nd chapter of 1st Kings it is stated that God himself put a lying spirit into the mouths of all the prophets of Ahab, in order that he might he deceived. In the 9th chapter of Judges it is stated that Grod sent evil spirits between Abimelech and the men of Shechem ; and the men of Shechem acted treacherously to Abimelech. In the 78th Psalm it is stated that God cast the fierceness of His anger upon the Egyptians, by doing what? By sending evil spirits among them. In the 16th chapter of 1st Samuel it is stated that an evil spirit from God came upon Saul. With what a bad grace, then, do these allegations against this much repudiated and much misunderstood system come, at least from Biblical objectors ! And if the one system is to be denounced on account of imper- fection in some of the details, why not the other likewise ? Again, one class of our mediums are heralded all over the land as impostors because of the material nature of their mani- FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 5T festations. Some are denounced because of their being tied with ropes ; others because horns are used to speak through in their presence ; others because of the bringing of solid sub- stances into closed rooms, and because of rapping, and tipping, and writing upon slates, &c. Said a very estimable and highly cultivated lady to me some time since, she being the widow of a clergyman and I the son of one : " Mr. Forster, I cannot conceive how you can for a moment suppose that such a spirit as my husband or your father must be could condescend to rap upon or tip a table." Now, this is all prejudice, my friends, mis- taken, unhappy prejudice. Does not the Infinite preside in the material as well as in the ethereal elements ? Who shall deter- mine what portion of the bright universe of which we are a part shall be put to honor, and what portion to dishonor ? But let us see whether the analogy will still hold good, and whether there were any physical mediums among the people of whom I am speaking. In the 6th chapter of 2nd Kings it is stated that Elisha, who was certainly one of the best mediums of the olden time, and upon whom the mantle of the gifted Elijah fell, — that Elisha, through the power controlling him, caused a solid iron axe to swim upon the river Jordan. Is Elisha's axe any less material than a horn or a slate ? In the 21st chapter of 1st Chronicles it is stated that David had offended God by numbering the people, and that God had given him the choice of three modes of punishment ; and, fur- ther, that David's means of communication with God were through Gad, the seer. From this it appears they had medi- ums then, and according to this record David — a man after God's own heart — communicated with God through one of them. Gad, the seer, was the agent through whom David received the decision of God, as it is claimed. Examine the manifestations of Gad, the seer; compare them with the mani- festations of Andrew Jackson Davis, the seer ; compare them with the manifestations of many of the seers of today, and judge 58 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. for yourself which of the two gives the greater evidence of divine authenticity. In the 21st chapter of 2nd Chronicles it is related that a hand- writing came from Elijah, the prophet, to Jehoram, king of Judah, when, as the chronology proves, Elijah had, thirteen years before, gone to heaven in a chariot of fire. What reference can this possibly have if not to corresponding, conditions in the present day, such as relate to writing mediums ? In the o4th chapter of second Chronicles we are told that when Josiah was King of Judah, he determined that he would rebuild the house of the Lord. He sent Hilkiah and others to superintend the removal of the rubbish, and to make other arrangements preparatory to this rebuilding. Hilkiah found a book in the rubbish of the temple ; he submitted it to the scribe ; the scribe submitted it to the king ; the king directed that it should be submitted — to whom, think you ? To Huldah, the prophetess. The voice of Huldah was believed by king Josiah to be the voice of God, and, consequently, final ; and Huldah decided that this book was the book of the law of the Lord as given by. Moses. This occurrence took place about one thousand years after the date assigned to the life and writing of Moses, so that for this one thousand years the world was without the books of Moses. You believe in the Pentateuch, many of you. You believe that the law of the Lord as given by Moses is important ; and yet the world is dependent for those books upon a spiritual medium by the name of Huldah, and a woman at that. You have many such prophetesses and mediums today ; and, lo ! instead of crediting their beautiful communications, it is pro- posed in some localities to tax them as you would a gin palace or a beer garden. The Biblical objector believes in the book of Moses as given through the inspiration of Huldah, and yet denounces these women who are seeresses and prophetesses and clairvoyants for exhibiting their mediumship, when they are just as good, just as FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 59 pure, just as perfect, just as intelligent, just as honorable, and just as honest as was Huldah. In the 69th Psalm is a very remarkable text. David is represented as uttering a prayer against his enemies, and he makes use of this expression : "May their tables become a snare; and may that which was intended for their welfare become a trap." Now, it is difficult, I admit, to tell what this text alludes to ; but, if it is an allusion to correspondiug mani- festations of the present day, no one but an experienced investi- gator of Spiritualism can tell how deep must have been the malignity of any man's heart who could have uttered such a prayer. In the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chapters of Ezekiel it is written that the prophet is favored by visions ; and, in the course of one of them, he distinctly says : " The spirit entered into me, and enabled me to hear a voice from the sky." Just what is claimed by many of the trance mediums of today. In the 3rd chapter of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego were cast into a fiery furnace, and an angel was seen walking with them ; and, through the magnetic emanations of themselves and the spirit, the fiery furnace was prevented from injuring them. We have in the present day mediums who can handle fire, and even place the head and face on a grate of burn- ing coals with impunity. The mediums of modern times are called jugglers by the very persons who give credence to the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In the 5th chapter of Daniel it is stated that an angel wrote upon the trembling walls of the palace of the reveling Belshaz- zar : " Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin," and that a medium, as Spiritualists recognize the fact, interpreted the spiritual chirography. We have electric writing upon the wall in the presence of many mediums in modern times ; and the medium Powell will write with the bare ball of his finger upon a slate or paper handed to him by anyone in his circle. The manifestation of 60 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. thousands of years ago is credited by those who denounce the phenomena of the present day as charlatanry. In the 6th chapter of Daniel we learn that Daniel was cast into a den of lions, and that God sent an angel and shut the lions' mouths. Spiritualists may believe this; but how can anyone do so who denies that spirits can either communicate intelligibly or control physically ? In the 10th chapter of Daniel it is stated that, after fasting, Daniel was entranced, — not only the fact as it exists in modern times, but the exact phraseology is used likewise. After fast- ing, — the practice with many of the mediums of the present day, — Daniel was entranced, and a spirit approached him in the form of a man, and spoke to him, and touched him. Precisely similar manifestations are occurring almost hourly all over the land. In this connection, I may remark that some Biblical objectors affirm that Gabriel and Other angels appearing to the ancients were not the spirits of the departed, but " beings of a special creation.'" Yet Daniel distinctly says in the 9th chapter : Hheman GahrieV approached him and touched him. In the 9th chapter of Nehemiah it is said that on a certain occasion all the people praised God. What for ? Because he sent a good spirit to talk to them. In the 9th chapter of 1st Samuel occurs a little history, which I will give briefly. It is recorded that a number of the asses belonging to Kish, the father of Saul, had strayed away ; that Saul's father sent him and one of his servants to search for the asses ; that, after they had been searching for some days, Saul became fatigued, and, remarking this fact to the servant, suggested a return. The servant said to him : " Behold, now there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man : all that ho saith cometh surely to pass : now, let us go thither ; peradventure he can shew us our way that we should go." Saul said : " But, behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man?" The servant said : " Behold, I have here at hand the fourth FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 61 part of a shekel of silver ; that will I give to the man of God to tell us our way." This was a little more than fifteen cents. It was customary in those days for mediums to take money for their manifestations. It seems in the present day they are condemned and taxed for so doing. The good Samuel took money for telling where the asses of Kish had strayed. It is said further that God had appeared to Samuel the day before, and had told about the asses, and had told him, likewise, that Saul would come, and that when Saul did arrive, he must detain him for a day, and anoint him to become king in Israel. When Saul reached Samuel, Samuel told him that the asses of his father had returned home, and that now Saul's father was sor- rowing for him ; nevertheless, he must remain a day with him. He did remain a day, and he went forth anointed as the future ruler of Israel. But he went forth also, my friends, with another blessing, — with precisely the condition that has been engendered in a thousand instances in the present day by a visit to strongly magnetic mediums. He left, a medium himself ; and, as the evidence of it, you will find that in the 16th chapter it is related that he was controlled, as many mediums are, in their earlier experiences, by an undeveloped spirit. How did he get rid of this spirit? By precisely the same method that Spiritualists and mediums get rid of undeveloped spirits today, — by calling in the agency of music and harmony. David was sent for, that he might play upon his harp, thus creating better conditions ; and the evil spirit departed. Is there not a strik- ing analogy in this entire chapter between the facts there related and those of modern times ? Again, you have all heard of the " Witch of Endor," as she is called, — the woman referred to in the 28th chapter of 1st Samuel, with regard to whom, in connection with our mediums, many clergymen have attempted to be exceedingly witty. The Bible does not call that woman a " witch " from the beginning to the end of the chapter; the word "witch "is not in the chapter ; it is in the heading only, and that heading, you, of 62 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. course, understand, was supplied by the translators. She was a good medium, and a benevolent, kind-hearted woman, too ; for, although poor in this world's goods, she set before Saul all that she had. She gave him, too, what would be called in modern phraseology, " a sitting," or a seance, and the result was that the spirit of Samuel presented himself; and Saul received a communication and a prophecy that was fulfilled. Away, then, with this idea of traducing that good woman of the olden time. Mediums are sometimes called " witches " in the present day. Nearly three hundred years ago they were called " witches " in Massachusetts, and were hanged for it. Mediums, do not be alarmed when they call you witches ; rest assured that the Witch of Endor — as she is called— was a good woman, and was doing God's work in the best way she knew how, and angels can do no more. Again, in the 32nd chapter of Job is the declaration : " But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of t?ie Almighty giveth them understanding." In the next chapter, the 33rd, it is stated : '' In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed," God " openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction," — every word of which the Spiritualist, and only the Spiritualist, can believe intelligently. But let us turn to the New Testament, and in the first chap- ter we find a spirit manifestation, or angel visitation, of some considerable importance in Christendom. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream, and explains the condition of Mary before marriage. Of this manifestation I need say but little at pres- ent. It is worthy of remark, however, that the doctrine of the vicarious atonement, which the spiritual school does not accept, and which the Biblical objector to Spiritualism does, rests upon the question whether or not there is in the economy of the uni- verse any law by or through which an angel could have actually appeared to Joseph. Of the dogma itself we may have more to say in a future lecture. FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 63 In the 28th chapter of Matthew it is stated that an angel appeared to the two Marys at the sepulcher. What is more, he performed a physical manifestation in removing the stone from the door of the sepulcher ; and what is of still greater signifi- cance in this age of skepticism and doubt, it was done in the dark, just before the dawn. In the present day, I am aware much distrust prevails even among Spiritualists in regard to manifestations done in the dark, whilst they are denounced altogether by the Biblical objector to modern phenomena. And yet the analogy claimed still holds good in this respect, — since many or most of the manifestations recorded in the New Testa- ment occurred in the dark. For myself, however, I can but think that the suspicions entertained in this respect are without legitimate foundation. True, we are not, as yet, cognizant of all the methods through which our spirit friends act ; but we do know that they are amenable to law, and are consequently com- pelled to require certain conditions in the bestowal of their beneficence, the nature of which conditions, of course, they are the most competent judges. We know but little as yet in any direction, notwithstanding the boasted wisdom of certain schools of thought ; but as we continue our investigations of the mys- teries of nature, we shall doubtless increase in knowledge as to the occult forces that are in operation continually in and around us. We are told by our spirit friends that darkness occupies a negative relation in nature, in contradistinction to light, which is a positive principle in the economy of the universe ; whilst recent investigations of Prof. Crookes of the Scientific Society of London have confirmed the fact that the rays of light abso- lutely exert a positive physical energy. And this is in strict conformity with what the spirits had previously announced, but which was discredited. This is one step, at least, toward the solution of an acknowledged difficulty in the line of investiga- tion. But what we have learned of the dealings of our spirit friends towards us in the light should certainly engender an abiding confidence in the integrity and benevolence of their 64 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. approach, at all times, even though it may be occasionally in the dark. And again, why should there be so much distrust of our mediums in this connection, — men and women, whom we would trust on any other plane of thought and action ? True, there have been charlatans and imitators. These, however, are the exceptions, and favor the truth of the general proposition. In other words, had there been no genuine manifestations, there could have been no counterfeits, of course. Until we learn more, therefore, let us venture to trust the philosophy of conditions, since we find this law prevailing throughout the entire realm of matter and of motion, whilst darkness is evi- dently one of the conditions of growth in nature ? Does not the great God of the universe, indeed, hold a dark circle once in every twenty-four hours, whilst all the table lands of earth are turned upside down thereby ? and does not the Good Father, through the darkness that succeeds the day, manifest his pres- ence as forcibly and as lovingly in the twinkling divinity of the bright-eyed stars, and in the brilliancy of the silver-faced moon in her pathway of benevolence and beauty, as when he floods with sunshine the generous bosom of our common mother ? In the 1st chapter of Luke it is said that an angel appeared to Zacharias and promised the birth of John. Zacharias and his wife being both well stricken in years, he doubted the ful- fillment of the promise, and said as much in effect to the angel. In reply the angel said : " Behold, thou shah be dumb, and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words "; and he at once became dumb. The Spiritualist more than any other can believe in the exercise of such power upon the human organism by a spirit, because he is aware of similar manifestations occurring at the present day. I myself have known of two instances where the power of speech has been temporarily taken away by the spirit controlling ; and for a good purpose. In the same chapter it is declared that an angel appeared to Mary, and promised the birth of Jesus. FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITTJALISM. 65 In the 2nd chapter of Luke it is stated that the angels appeared to ihe shepherds hy night (in the dark), and whilst electric glory shone around (as we render it), proclaimed " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." Simi- lar lights have been seen and similar words been heard from the blessed angels in modern times. In the 9th chapter of Luke it is recorded that, as Jesus, John, James, and Peter were on the Mount, whilst Jesus was trans- figured, '" Behold there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias." In this connection, permit me to remark that one of the charges brought against us as Spiritualists is that we are believers in necromancy, and that our mediums are all necromancers^ — using the term as an opprobrious epithet. Well, we are willing to accept all the opprobrium that can be legitimately attached to it. But what does the term necro- mancy really mean ? It is derived from two Greek words, — nekros (the dead), and manihano (to learn), — learning from the dead. Was not Jesus learning from the dead (so called) when he was talking with Moses and Elias hundreds of years after they had gone to their guerdon in the skies ? May we not be willing, then, to accept the epithet which has been awarded us ? In the 20th chapter of John, after the crucifixion, the disci- ples having assembled together in a chamber, and the doors being shut for fear of the Jews, "came Jesus and stood in the midst." Here, certainly, was what is now termed materi- alization, whether the listener regard the Nazarene as God or man ; and it must have been produced through the same law brought into exercise in modern times in all cases of genuine materializations. For, surely, no one in the present age of en- lightenment will assume that even God himself acts outside of law. The Biblist believes this testimony of two thousand years ago, and yet declines to accept the well nigh overwhelming evidence existing today in favor of similar manifestations in different parts of the earth. In the 3rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles an account is 66 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. given of Peter restoring a man who had been lame from birth ; and in the 9th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of Ananias, a disciple, restoring Saul to sight by the laying on of hands. You have similar manifestations presented every day in your midst, and by precisely the same law. Besides, you have clair- voyants in your city and at other points who correctly diagnose disease without seeing the patient, which is certainly a greater evidence of spirit power than that exhibited by Peter. But, alas, many who believe in Peter's manifestations are ready to prosecute our healing mediums, and tax our inoffensive clair- voyants. In the 10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles it is stated that, while Peter was on the house top at Joppa, he fell into a trance. And in the 22nd chapter Paul declares of himself that, while he was praying in the temple, he was in a trance^ — pre- cisely the phraseology of modern times, and the fact of trance, as occurring among us daily. And in the cases of profound trance, occurring in the present day, we have a parallel to the raising of Lazarus by Jesus, as recounted in the 11th of John, and the raising of Tabitha by Peter, in the 9th of Acts. In the 12th chapter of the Acts is an account of the impris- onment of Peter by Herod, and of his expected execution. While he was in prison an angel visited him, and the result was his entrancement, and his liberation without the knowledge of his guard. " And when Peter had come to himself " in the street, as stated, he proceeded to the " house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together, praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for glad- ness, but ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then, said they, it is his angel,'^ believing that he had already been executed. Now, observe the point which I desire to make : if these early Christians who FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 67 ' were assembled at the house of Mary had not believed it possi- ble that the angel or spirit of Peter could rap, would they have given utterance to such an exclamation ? In this connection, I may state that upon one occasion, in the early history of our cause, when the Davenport brothers had been imprisoned for the non-payment of the tax for jugglery, their prison doors were opened without the agency of human means, and their traveling agent, who had been incarcerated with them, walked forth iuto the street a free man. The young men refused to avail them- selves of the opportunity, however, as they preferred remaining for the purpose of testing the question whether in our land of professedly religious liberty they would really be taxed for mani- festing certain phenomena which, by the mathematics oi facts, demonstrate in part, at least, the solid basis ujoon which is reared the glorious philosophical and religious faith of millions of our fellow-citizens. In the 23rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in the ac- count given in the arraignment of Paul before the council of chief priests, the following declaration was made by " the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part ": " We find no evil in this man; hut if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.'' Surely this is a satisfactory indication that it was believed in the time of the Apostles that spirits could commune with mor- tals, and that to attack a mortal thus communing was considered as tantamount to fighting against God. If this be true, how impious, indeed, are the enemies of Spiritualists and mediums today. But allow me to present one manifestation more, which occurs in the last chapter of Revelation. When John was on the Isle of Patmos, and had received the mysteries of the Apoca- lypse, the angel through whom they had been received ap- proached him. John, psychologized by the materialistic idea of the age, when he perceived the brilliant beauty of the angel, supposed a personal God was before him, and " fell down to 68 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. worship before the feet of the angel which showed him these things." But the angel said : " See thou do it not ; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets. Wor- ship God." Precisely what the spirits, through the various phenomena of Spiritualism, are saying today. They are our brethren, — the beloved of other years, — members of the same great family, who have walked by our sides in the earth life, and who have mingled amid the same conditions that now agitate and animate our being, — who have journeyed across the Niagara of death, but whose affections are still warm toward us, and who are seeking to pilot us securely to the bright and beautiful shores of another and a better land. I have thus given you, my friends, but a few, comparatively, of these recorded manifestations of spirit or angelic presence, in order that I might establish the analogy claimed to exist between those of ancient days and those of modern times ; and also to represent how utterly absurd it is to object, upon Biblical grounds, to the phenomenal phases of what is termed modern Spiritualism. In this connection, permit me to call your attention to the fact that the larger portion of Christendom practically admit the existence of spiritual phenomena, corresponding to those of the olden time, recognizing them under the name of miracles, how- ever, as was done during the days of Jesus and the Apostles ; and likewise requiring their existence under the authority of the Church. A learned divine of the Catholic Church,* in a discourse upon what are known as the " Miracles at Knock," in Ireland, made use of the following remarks : — " I would call your attention simply to the views of some prominent clergymen of other denominations, as expressed in the papers during the past week. In every instance the opin- ions of these Protestant gentlemen were, so far as I saw them, absolutely childish, and in no way indicative of piety or fairness on their part. Not one of them actually knew how to view the *Ilev. M. J. O'Farrell, St. Peter's Church, Barclay Street, San Francisco, FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 69 subject, and instead of shedding light upon the matter they com- pletely stultified themselves. " In their interviews with reporters these gentlemen said, at least impliedly, that God could not perform a miracle, and that if He could. He would not, or, in other words, they would deny to God the very power of working miracles. Now, my brethren, that is plainly an absurd position. If Almighty God cannot work miracles today, it follows that he never could perform them, since he is unchangeable. If these gentlemen that I have alluded to had simply said they did not believe that miracles had been wrought at Knock, or that there was wanting sufficient proof, their position would be tenable and proper ; but when, instead, they attribute them to superstition or something worse, their arguments cease to have any weight. If miracles were possible 1800 years ago, they are possible now, and will be to the end of the world. When the Lord told His Apostles to raise the dead to life, or to drink poison and not sustain injury. He certainly gave to them the power of doing miracles, and there is not in existence any authority stating that the working of miracles ceased with the Apostles. On the contrary, we have miracles performed all through the middle ages and the early centuries of the Church." To do the gentleman full justice, I should state that he said, likewise, in speaking of the Catholic clergy : — " While believing in the power of miracles, we cannot accept them entirely without convincing proof and upon the authority of the Church." Surely, this is a practical recognition on the part of the representative minds of the largest half of Christendom that, as claimed by the spiritual school, the spiritual phenomena of the dawn of Christianity are at least possible in the present day. The hypothesis assumed by the spiritual school in this con- nection is that the laws of nature are uniform, unalterable, and eternal ; hence, all the occurrences both of time and eternity, whether simple or great, must be in accordance with the har- monious action of some law, either known or unknown ; or else we must impiously conclude that the economy of this majestic universe is incomplete, and who will dare thus to decide ? And, 70 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. further, as a sequence, that if in the past there was a law in existence, by means of which three angels in the form of men could commune with Abraham on the plains of Mamre, by which Moses and Elias could have conversed with Jesus on earth, hundreds of years after they had entered the higher life, by which one of his brethren, the prophets, could appear to John on the isle of Patmos, and advise him as to the proper object of devotion, then that law must still he in existence ; and you, my friends, can commune with your brethren, — with your departed companions and friends, proportioned and circum- scribed only by the relations and conditions with which you may be individually surrounded. This, it seems to me, is a logical deduction, a legitimate conclusion, from which there is no escape. And thus, my friends, I can but decide that those Biblists who deny the fact of spirit communion are really undermining the very foundation of their own text-book. For, indeed, in addition to the facts there recorded, every inspired word of the Bible likewise was breathed into man through this glorious instrumentality. " The Patriarchs of old conversed with the angels through it, — ^ Moses, amid Egyptian sands ; Isaiah, clothed in the sublimity of his terrific eloquence ; Jeremiah, out of the depths of his wailing lamentations ; Daniel, in the lions' den, or surrounded by the splendors of an Eastern court ; David, sweeping the chords of his prophetic harp ; the Apostles and pioneers of the Christian era," — with all their perfections and imperfections, were the recipients of this Pentacostal power, which embraces within its influence seraphs and mortals, the spheres of Heaven and the orbit of earth. And even He, whose birth is said to have been heralded by a star, and his death dirge caroled by the mutterings of an earthquake, — He, whose words were " logic set on fire by love," disdained not to be the recipient of angelic ministrations. And shall we refuse this divine beneficence, or decline the advocacy of so glorious a truth ? Forbid it, ye bright and beautiful spirits now hovering around and about us ; and, oh, carry on your heaven-appointed work FACTS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SPIRITUALISM. 71 until the entire race shall have been redeemed from sectarian fanaticism on the one hand, and materialistic obstinacy .on the other. In conclusion, allow me to advert briefly to the fact that the student of the Bible can but observe a difference in the tenor and manner of the communications to be found within its pages. This is, of course, attributable to the conditions and circum- stances of the age in which they were written, and the condi- tions and circumstances of the different individual channels through whom the communications may have come, the law of communication or of inspiration remaining intrinsically the same in all cases. The pivotal point of the revelation of the Old Testament, for instance, was '' an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The pivotal point of the revelation of the New Testament was '' Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do." So that the differences alleged to exist in the spirit- ual communications of today, and which are urged as an objec- tion to Spiritualism of modern times, likewise have their anal- ogies in the past ; and if the one system is to be rejected on the ground of seeming contradictions, so must the other by the same rule of reasoning. The pivotal points of modern inspiration are God is love, man is immortal. The canon of revelation has not closed. With these Spiritualism is before the world. Within a quar- ter of a century, so wonderful have been its attractive qualities that it has become one of the themes of public thought, — sub- ject, alike, to ridicule and to reverence. Which of these two sentiments it shall arouse in your bosoms, you yourselves can alone determine. For myself, I can truly say that, when first I recognized the facts of the perpetuity of individual conscious- ness, and of progress beyond the grave, and that the beloved and the departed can and do commune with the sorrowing hearts of earth, the brilliancy of these consolatory truths shed an illum- inating ray over the entire future, both for time and eternity, whilst the well of sweet waters in the heart became at once and 72 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. forever inexhaustible. With what gratitude and joy, therefore, does iny soul constantly exclaim, — oh, how Brightly breaks this morning light Of truth's effulgent ray. As, banishing all of former night, Is seen the brighter day Of man's redemption from the past, So long by errors dark o'ercast. God's loving angels, firm and true, Are whispering to men Bright lessons that shall mind renew With clearer thoughts again Of the simple truths of purity That fell from Him of Galilee. Of the many marjsions pure and bright, Prepared by loving friends ; A home of joy, a home of light, That unto all extends Who seek for truth with honest soul. And list the music of control. The banishment of earthly fears, — The promises of bliss ; When dried are ail of sorrow's tears, By the magic of love's kiss, — The kiss of love the angels give To all who trusting truly live. ' Earth's bursting bud and blooming flower, Just springing into life. But picture forth the heavenly dower That beams beyond all strife vln that land of beauty, home of joy. Where mingles none of earth's alloy. Angels, bright angels, by their love. Would guide your footsteps free To a home of joy, a home above, Of pure felicity ; Where bliss awaits on every hand God's children in the Summer-Land. LECTURE TV, THE PHILOSOPHY OP DEATH. If a man die, sliall he lire again ? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. —Job, ch. xiv., v. 14. Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. — I Cor., ch. xv., 50. The subject matter of this discourse is one of the most mo- mentous that man is called upon to investigate and decide upon. Not that the physical phenomena of death is in and of itself of greater or less importance than other conditions of discomfort to which flesh is heir ; but its significance in human estimation arises from the important bearing which it is believed to have as to the consequences of the past and the prospects of the future, — the hopes of time and the possible fruition of eternity. And the importance of its philosophical consideration is the more enhanced, as I conceive, from the misconceptions enter- tained by almost every school of thought with regard to this most solemn and interesting event of human experience. The materialist, for instance, entertains the cheerless and ter- rible belief that death is the end of all individual and conscious being ; that when the pulsations of the physical heart and brain have ceased, and the body is consigned to its last resting place, nothing thereafter remains of the man but ashes, or a formless essence that soars away and mingles with the elements ; that the glowing hopes and lofty aspirations of humanity are to be- come as naught ; and that all man's consciousness of capacities for knowledge and happiness which have but just begun to ex- (73) 74 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. pand in the earth life are all cut off by death and buried in the grave, thus rendering man the unsolved and hopelessly unsolv- able enigma of the universe. On the other hand, there are various schools of thought, differing somewhat in their details of faith, vi^hich unite in rendering man, equally with the materialist, an unsolved and unsatisfactory problem, whilst, in the estimation of some, they award the race, in an overwhelming majority, even a worse fate than that of hopeless annihilation ! A few of the human family, they tell us, saved in some mythical manner from the general ruin, are to become participants in an alleged joy, the nature of which, considered in connection with the divine pos- sibilities of the human soul, and the natural pulsings of the human heart, amounts to fearful irony on the part of the head of the universe ; whilst the destined fate of the majority is in- comprehensibly terrible, — a horrible libel upon infinite love and infinite wisdom. Think of it for a moment, as condensed by another mind, amid fiends and devils, all hope departed, all sympathy murdered in self-suffering, all aspiration dead, all consciousness absorbed in agony, all senses consolidated in one unending pain, all language drowned in one eternal, damned shriek, every faculty of being concentrated into an everlasting sense of an ever-present hell fire of torture ! And yet this is to be the fate of poor, blind, suffering, helpless, yet loving and trusting human souls when in the hands of the avenging God of the theologians. But a more glorious and a more consolatory conception as to death and the future of the race — the brighter and more truthful as well as more consistent idea of the philosophy of Spiritualism — has now dawned upon the darkened conditions of bigotry's night. Under the benign influences of this seraph- born system, Earth's living heart is beginning to glow with the fires of undying love, and even the tomb is growing beautiful as the smiles of returning and loving spirits are decorating its portals with Eden's deathless bloom, — the bloom and radiance THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 75 of conscious individuality beyond the grave. This philosophy teaches that, in accordance with the known laws of matter, after what is called death has occurred, the fluid portions of the phys- ical body ascend in the form of vapor, mingling and commin- gling again and again with the gorgeous drapery of the clouds, and, descending in the raindrop and the dew, become absorbed in the undulating beauty of Earth's blue waters, whilst the solid portions of the body seeking their kindred atoms are constantly passing and repassing through the various forms of life compre- hended in the different kingdoms that make up the splendid macrocosm of the universe. But the spiritual or real man has an individual existence and identity of his own, and, having "put off the tabernacle of clay," he seeks a more congenial realm where "Beyond earth's chilling winds and gloomy tides, Beyond death's cloudy portal," human loves shall overlive, and human souls can never die. In other words, Spiritualism teaches that death, as it is termed, is but the termination of the first segment of life, and indicates the end of the seed-time of human experience only ; all man's budding hopes and lofty aspirations, and the dawning conscious- ness of desires for which the earth life has no supply, are but the prophecies of a broader field of activities, the swelling germs of faculties that are to fructify in another and a brighter world. When the phenomenon of death occurs, man immediately leaves the body, " which was but the swaddling clothes of his spiritual infancy, and rises as from a sleep in perfect human form, with all his memories and his consciousness of individual being, to enter upon a career of unending progress," in which hope is changed to fruition, and aspiration to achievement. Thus, natu- ral death, so called, is to the Spiritualist ^/ze grand step of life, a part of the divine plan through which man is to attain to the highest possibilities of his nature. It solves all the enigmas of life ; it is the fulfillment of which this life is but the prophecy ; and, according to individual effort and desire amid the condi- 76 UNAI^SWERABLE LOGIC. tions of the future, it opens the portals to eternal joy. Instead of shrinking from it, therefore, as his direst enemy, man should regard it as his great deliverer and best friend. Nor, indeed, does the simple act of death, when produced alone through natural causes, when not brought about by violence of any kind, pro- duce any immediate change even in the material body. It is still composed of the same particles of earthy substances ; the eye and ear are the same ; the nerves of motion, of touch, and of taste, are all perfect ; the machinery, indeed, is all as com- plete as immediately before ceasing its activity. Why, then, does it lie so still ? Why cannot this same body assume its erect position and answer back the loving smiles of weeping friends ? For the reason, as Spiritualism demonstrates, the in- telligent motive power is not there ; the man himself, the being whom you love, and who still loves you with enhanced affection, has departed from this encasement of time, and like all other matter uncontrolled it lies an inert mass, unable to love, to think, to feel, to act. A change soon commences, however. The active, thinking, individualized spirit which gave i^ organization having withdrawn, it has no power to resist the forces of nature which summon the constituent elements to their duties. Decom- position occurs, and these elements, as I have said, mingle again with the earths, the metals, and the gases, under new conditions, and new formative processes, whilst the man himself hath entered into higher joys and nobler purposes. Such is the change called death, viewed from the standpoint of the Spiritualist, and such, in some sort, it seems to me, was the idea Job designed to con- vey in the words of the text repeated in your hearing. " If a man die, shall he liveV^ is the correct reading, as the word again which occurs in the English version, being printed in italics, was supplied by the translators. The patriarch, seemingly sat- isfied of the non-existence of the paradoxical proposition which he thus presents, adds : "All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come," — - as if he had said, as it appears to my mind, knowing that there can be no death or THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 77 extinction to life once established, I will patiently await the change which cometh to all. But, if the body be considered as the man, — which atheism teaches, and which the other schools of thought to which I have referred have done but little to controvert, — how terrible, indeed, the event termed death ! Or if, as is asserted by some, the inert and rapidly decaying physical frame shall be needed hereafter to complete the man of the future, still how terrible the phenomenon, and how utterly un philosophical such a solu- tion of the melancholy problem ! And I do not wonder that death is looked upon with so much horror by any class of mind entertaining such faint conceptions of the principles of life, and of the true existence of the real or spiritual man. On the other hand, if, as I have said Spiritualism teaches, the spirit be regarded as the real man, there is no change of form but for improvement, and no loss of consciousness necessarily from the event of which I am speaking. To the Spiritualist, indeed, there is no death, so fully convinced is he that the human soul is indestructible, and that its progressive activities will continue forever. The departure of a friend through this means is to the Spiritualist like that of the sun, as it seemingly sets in night below the rose-tinted horizon of the west, — he knows that it has in reality gone to diffuse its light elsewhere, so that, even while sinking in apparent darkness, it is still the same sun. Oh, how true " There is no death. This pulsing heart of mine May cease to beat, the soul-lit eye to shine ; And from the body go the fleeting breath, And yet the risen spirit know no death. There is no death. This clod of mortal clay May lose its form through nature's sure decay ; But the freed spirit in realms supernal Solves life's mystery, — the life eternal." Yes, the same eye sparkles with increased affection, though the external covering is laid aside forever, and the same ear is 78 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. sensitive to the tiniest call for sympathy and love ; the same face beams with a more unselfish devotion, and the same dear lips whisper confidingly to your inner self; the same hands minister more efficiently to your real wants, and the same arms reach out more lovingly for your support ; the same heart beats with a more abiding love, and the same life throbs in and through their inmost being with a stronger pulse thau when you were separated therefrom by a double covering of clay. True, you may not see them with the natural eye, but then you never saw them, only the " muddy mask " they wore was visible to the material sight. Our friends who may have passed through the ordeal termed death have simply thrown off this mask of time. By-and-bye, God's pale angel shall remove our mask likewise ; and then we shall see, " not as with a glass, darkly," but we shall see as we are seen, and shall know as we are known. These consolatory reflections are the legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental propositions of the spiritual school, which are based upon indisputable facts, — these facts having clearly demonstrated the existence of distinct spiritual substance, and a real substantial spiritual world, together with the fact that man is essentially a spiritual being, possessed of a spiritual organi- zation, with spiritual senses, adapted to spiritual objects, as em- phatically as the external senses are to material objects ; and that the physical body, which we place in the grave when the phenomenon termed death has occurred, is no part of the man, but simply the sustaining basis of those spiritual sub- stances of which the more refined body within is formed. In fine, that the intelligent principle, or soul, encased within this refined spiritual body, constitutes the man himself, — the real man of thought and feeling, who survives unharmed his sepa- ration from the earthly encasement, and not some formless essence or unsubstantial ghost, as too many have been taught to believe. It is a sad commentary upon the teachings of dogmatic theology, and upon the faith engendered thereby, that among THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEA-TH. 79 no peoples inhabiting this round globe upon which we dwell is there to be found such fearful apprehension, such terrible dread of the visitations of God's pale angel called death, as is manifested throughout Christendom. So much so that he has been termed the relentless " shadow, cloaked from head to foot, which keeps the keys of all the creeds." Whilst, on the other hand, the Spiritualist is taught to look forward to '' the stroke of death as but a kindly frost, which cracks the shell and leaves the kernel room to germinate." In Christendom there seems to be a con- tinuous and fearful looking forward to the final dissolution awaiting all humanity ; whilst the Spiritualists, from the force of indisputable and appreciable facts, are becoming more and more fully satisfied of this great truth in the economy of the universe that "There is no death; what seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath, Is but a suburb of the life-elysium, Whose portal we c«?Z death." This prevalent gloom in Christendom in regard to a process which is as strictly in accordance with the laws of nature as is life itself is clearly attributable to the teachings of dogmatic theology, both in the past and in the present. For centuries Christendom has been taught to believe literally that the great God of the universe created Adam and Eve of the dust of the earth, and placed them innocent and pure in a garden which He had "planted eastward in Eden "; that this pair were the parents of all the different races now upon the face of the earth ; that the devil or Satan came, no one knows from whence, and, in the form of a serpent, tempted these alleged progenitors of the races into sin ; and that the consequences of this inexplic- able sin fell upon, all humanity throughout all time, — or, as doubtless some of the elder members of my audience recollect, some of the theological j)oet3 were accustomed to announce this dogma within the past quarter of a century : — 80 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. That Eve aud Adam knowledge were pursuing ; His fearful vengeance at them all He hurled, And for their disobedience cursed the world." This fable of the original temptation has given rise, likewise, to other effusions equally absurd, which in many cases evinces a total disrespect for woman, in consequence of an unquestioned reliance upon the letter of Genesis. I will give but one speci- men : — " When Beelzebub first to make mischief began, He the woman attacked, and she gulled the poor man; This Moses asserts, and from hence we infer That woman rules man, and the devil rales her.'' Prior to this assumed "fall of man," it has been taught, like- wise, that the human race was immortal in this life ; that, although God had designed man to live forever, being thwarted by the devil. He doomed him and all his posterity to physical and spiritual death, from which the race could only escape through a vicarious atonement afterwards provided. To the promulgation and acceptance of this dogma, presumably, is to be attributed the torturing fear of death peculiar to Christen- dom, to which I have referred. On the present occasion, I apprehend, there is no necessity to offer any arguments drawn from the natural composition of the human body, for the pur- pose of combating this position of theology, as to death having been produced by the Fall, since it must be self-evident to every intelligent mind that all the elements and their compounds in the human body must necessarily obey the same laws that govern them elsewhere in nature, and are subject to the same changes continuously in growth, maturity, and decay. But allow me to advert briefly to the absurd conclusions necessarily conse- quent upon such views regarding the origin of death as have been demonstrated by numerical calculation, thus, — • scientists agree in the declaration that the human race would double itself every twenty-five years but for the continuous recurrence of THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 81 what is termed death. Thus calculating, at the end of the first one hundred years, after the alleged creation of Adam and Eve, there would have been sixteen persons in existence ; in two hun- dred years there would have bee'n two hundred and fifty-six per- sons in existence ; and in less than eight hundred years there, would have been more than twice the number of people now living on the earth. Continuing at this rate of increase, vci fifteen hun- dred years only, there would have been in existence eight hun- dred and fifty-seven quadrillions^ eight hundred and two trillions, nine hundred and eighty-six billions, four hundred and ninety-two millions, ninety-two thousand, and four hundred and sixteen per- sons (857,802,986,492,092,416). Estimating the inhabitants of the earth at thirteen hundred millions, which is a low estimate, at the end of fifteen hundred years, at the rate named, there would have been about six hundred and sixty millions times as many people living as are now upon the globe. This is a suffi- cient number, after allowing one person to every square inch of the earth's surface, including land and water, to furnish as many inhabitants as we now have to each of the fifty-three millions of planets as large as our own. Hence, it is apparent that, if God originally intended human beings to live forever upon this planet, and in their natural bodies, as has been taught for cen- turies. He certainly could not at the same time have designed through natural processes the vast accumulation of human beings that must have lived upon the earth during the last six thousand years. With no intention of irreverence as to Deity, or disregard for the sublimity and beauty of truth, may I not be allowed the remark, to what monstrous absurdities do such teachings lead when carried out to their legitimate conclusions! Is it not, therefore, in view of the facts adverted to, a legitimate and rational inference that death (so called) was not sent upon the earth as a punishment for sin as has been taught ? — indeed, that its real cause is not even due to disease, but that in the opera- tions of divine economy it is a necessity from both the nature of matter and the nature of spirit. And this view of the subject, it 82 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. seems to me, should disrobe the departure of a soul from the body, through the process termed death, of all the imaginary terrors with which it has been clothed in Christendom, whilst it like- wise engenders juster conceptions as to the comparative value of spiritual and material things. For, indeed, there is no dying principle in nature, — throughout all is unmixed life. "The sun sets and rises," says a modern author;"^ "the stars sink beneath the horizon and return again, and all the spheres con- tinue in their circling dance. Every hour brought forward by them, every morning and every evening, sinks with new increase to the world ; new life and new love thrill from the spheres as the dew drops trickle from the clouds, and embrace nature as the cool night does the earth. All death in nature is birth ; and at the moment of death appears visible the rising of life." This is evidently true of impersonal and unintelligent matter. How much more essentially true is it of the aspiring soul of the race, standing as man does upon the apex of all created things, — the epitome, physically, of all that has gone before him, — spiritually, the prophecy of all that is to come after him. Again, in regard to the opinion of St. Paul as to the impos- sibility of flesh and blood inheriting the conditions of a future spiritual state of existence. It has been taught for many cen- turies in Christendom that Jesus of Nazareth, after his death and burial, arose from the grave with his fleshly body, the same that was tortured upon Calvary ; and that he afterwards as- cended into Heaven, clothed with the same earthly form. This belief, as you readily perceive, is founded upon the teachings of an age and of a people not given to philosophic research, and in almost entire ignorance of the truths of science; a people who seemed to arrive at conclusions touching surrounding phenomena through a superstitious dread of the unknown and the unfamiliar, without stopping to inquire as to causes, and in utter disregard of any process of logical deduction from fundamental truths or first principles. And, notwithstanding the wonderful develop- *richte. THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 83 ments of the present century in science and philosophy, and the consequent enlargement of the human understanding as to the seemingly incomprehensible, together with a loftier and clearer conception of the spiritual truths of the age touching the nature and office of the human soul as well as the laws and character of matter, still this superstition prevails to such an extent that a considerable number in Christian lands yet subscribe to the dogma of a material resurrection. To this idea Spiritualism is diametrically opposed, esteeming it at war with reason and com- mon sense, because contradictory to the known facts of science and the truths of nature, as illustrated by its own unmistakable phenomena, whilst it is at the same time equally at war with the declaration of St. Paul to the Corinthians that " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth cor- ruption inherit incorruption." The spiritual philosophy tells us, as I understand its teach- ings, that the body of man was originally elaborated from the rocks, and that through the intervening kingdoms of nature has attained its present advanced condition in its progress toward perfection in the sphere of conformation. And, further, that from past erroneous inoculation, the mind of Christendom is too much accustomed to conceive the origin of man to have been the result of an especially miraculous event of some six thou- sand years ago, unmindful of the fact that God's mode of opera- tion throughout the wide-spread universe is one of perpetual creation, so to speak, or rather the continuous elaboration of the higher from the lower conditions. In other words, the presence of the Infinite author of being is forever made known to the truly philosophic observer by unceasing additions to all that has been, through continuous changes in all that is. If this world which we inhabit had been formed of some impenetrable and unalterable substance, subject to no mutability of form or vicissitude of circumstance, reference might be had with some degree of plausibility to its supposed creation originally as a spe- cific manifestation of deific power. But, argues an able writer : 84 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. " When all forms are changing-, transitory, and incessantly dis- solving from their original outlines, so that nothing remains im- mutable but God's conception of being, which the whole universe is hastening to realize, we cannot escape the conviction of his im- mediate, living, omnipotent, constructive agency. The truth is, we are being hourly and momentarily created, and it is impos- sible to imagine in what respect the first act of creative power, whenever that may be supposed to have been, was more won- derful or glorious, or afforded any more conspicuous display oi omnipotent wisdom than that august procession of phenomena by which man and the living world are being continuously called into being." The body of man, science tells us, instead of being the theater of a mysterious power which defies investigation, is a system act- ing in obedience to invariable laws, and entirely amenable to investigation ; and, too, that its decay, decomposition, and death constitute immediate agencies of creative energy in the ever- changing realm of matter. This material body, as you know, when the phenomenon of death occurs, decomposes, and settles back into its original elements. These elements, as already stated, become diffused and blended again into other combina- tions ; and this process, by the unvarying laws of matter, con- tinues ad infinitum. These elements are divided into metallic and non-metallic substances. Eighty per cent of the body is water, and a considerable proportion is composed of and returns to gases, leaving but a small amount of mineral residuum. The ultimate materials of the average human body, according to Dr. Lardner, are fourteen pounds of charcoal, ten pounds of lime, one hundred and twenty pounds of water, and fourteen pounds of the gases which form air and water, that is, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen. As an instance of how readily all semblance of the human body may be obliterated, and the elements composing the same diffused into other combinations and other avenues of operation, it is related that a gentleman of devoted affection, adopting the ancient Roman method of burning the body after THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 85 death, a method commended by many in the present day, and certainly approved of by myself, succeeded in condensing and reducing the mineral remains of his departed wife by repeated processes of incineration until they were contained in a locket, which he wore on his finger. Again, the victims of bigotry burned at the stake, and the many who have been devoured by cannibals and wild beasts, furnish additional instances of the irre- mediable distribution of the component particles of the fragile tenement in which we dwell, — the elements composing these bodies, through fire, flame, and smoke in the first instance, and through assimilation and excretion in the last, necessarily be- coming diffused and interblended a thousand and a thousand times, perhaps, in the various and multiplied modes and degrees that make up the life-line of individual and collective existence. In the light of these facts, how monstrously absurd, therefore, is the idea that these miserable bodies of ours are necessary in a future world for the identification of the individual, as is taught through the dogma adverted to in contravention of St. Paul's declaration to the Corinthians by the advocates of a material resurrection ; or, as taught by the atheistical school, that the brain of man is the mind of man. The faith inculcated by the former affords but a remote hope of isimortality after the scenes of earth have faded away, the latter denies the existence of man beyond the grave altogether. The great questions of the age, therefore, in connection with the theme of my discourse, ques- tions as yet unsolved by either dogmatic theology or material- istic teachings to the satisfaction of the inquiring mind of today, may be stated as follows : " Is the thinking principle in man, the soul or spirit, a distinct individual entity ? Or is it an unde- fined and indefinite something, incapable of identity or activity when separated from the physical body ? Or, again, is it the result of the material organization ? If the last-named pro- position be true, as asserted by the atheist, the idea of immor- tality is the merest fable imaginable. If the proposition named secondly be true, as practically taught by theology, in its abso- 86 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. lute rejection of the spiritual facts of today, then the important question at issue is but half solved, at least, and man's destiny still but a labyrinth of doubt. But, if the first proposition be true, as declared by the spiritual school, namely, that the think- ing principle or inner potency is the spiritual or real man, with an individual identity of his own, which survives the dissolution of the material body, then, indeed, must the foregone and gloomy conclusions of Christendom in regard to the subject matter of death be utterly abandoned, whilst to the relieved conscious- ness of humanity, under such a change of sentiment, this grand old earth, with all its appliances and experiences, becomes much more beautiful and fair, with the heavens far brighter and more inviting than ever before. Then must faith give place to knowl- edge, and doubt succumb to demonstration ; for a new era has dawned for humanity ; an era so brilliant and glorious in its influences that even the shadowy pathway of the olden time catches an illuminating ray. If the phenomenal and philo- sophical claims of Spiritualism be true, then it is no fable, but a possible fact in nature that Peter's prison doors yielded to un- seen hands, and that the " still, small voice " from the inner life cheered the heart of the prophet at Horeb ; then, indeed, need it no longer be doubted that the spirit of the departed fellow- servant of John spoke to him upon Patmos, or that three angels in the form of men conversed with the patriarch upon the plains of Mamre. Indeed, the grand truths of Spiritualism, in con- nection with life, death, and the possible destiny of the soul, cast a lengthened light upon all the experiences of the past, gives a brilliancy and beauty to the present, and sheds an unwonted effulgence over the entire pathways of the unexplored y>/^?/re. And that these declarations of the spiritual school are true is clearly established by the privilege of spirit intercourse enjoyed by those who with earnest and prayerful intent have investi- gated the phenomena of the age, — - phenomena which, if fully appreciated, entirely overthrow all the preconceived and iudeii- nite ideas of Christendom in regard to the solemn event termed THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 87 death, as I have said, by unmistakably establishing the imme- diate conscious identity of the beloved and departed in the higher life without the intervention of the earthly incumbrances of flesh and blood, thus realizing the force of the Apostle's declaration repeated in your hearing, as well as the conception of the patri- arch, as I understand it, that the term death is a misnomer, its occurrence being but a change of conditions, for which he expresses himself as willing to wait. Yes, this glorious privi- lege of spirit communion has come to man with gentle and peaceful influences, with positive and blessed assurances of immortality, with a knowledge so full and clear that the human heart can well nigh realize the happy associations and radiant homes to which the departed ones of earth have gone. And, further, this bright evidence of personal identity and conscious individuality beyond the grave, presented through the facts of Spiritualism, — let bigotry and skepticism say what they may, — forms no unimportant chapter in human experience ; no unimportant epoch in the history of human hopes and human happiness. True, the doctrine of immortality has been taught in Christendom for centuries ; but it has been inculcated as a theory merely, independent of demonstration, independent of any practical appreciation of such facts as those of which I have been speaking. So much has this been the case, and so ill-appreciated have been the ideas of individual identity and individual progress beyond the grave, that the clouds of doubt and superstition are still hanging heavily and darkly along the mental horizon of Christendom, as they have done for centu- ries, whilst the realities of the future have become a matter of slavish fear rather than of passive and happy anticipation. And hence the dismal and funereal preparations everywhere exhibited whenever a soul is born into the higher life through the process so sadly misnamed death. But when the glorious truths of Spiritualism are brought within the grasp of the mind, through the aid of the undeniable facts of which I have been speaking ; and when, through these facts man learns that the 88 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. future is but a continuation of the spiritual part of this life, and that when called to leave the conditions of time he only throws off the customs of life, and not life itself, changing only to a higher sphere, and a broader field, where all his nobler purposes and diviner possibilities may be fully realized in the progress of the years, he then begins to recognize some purpose in his making, and that he himself is to be the voluntary executor of God's will, in the practical exercise of the immortal faculties of his diviner nature, — not only as a disembodied spirit in the future, but likewise as an embodied spirit in time. For the same law in this respect, the good spirits tell us, regulates both spheres of being. Man, as a spirit, working through the outer form, may make every step here an advance toward the beau- tiful and true in the hereafter, since high aspirations and noble duties, with holy loves, are admittedly the true life of the soul everywhere. And thus the philosophy and religion of Spirit- ualism, as I understand it, perpetually aad strictly enjoins that a beautiful and virtuous present is the sure guarantee of a health- ful and happy future. Again, when Leverrier perceived that there were irregularities in the motions of the planets of the solar system which could not be accounted for by any known laws of planetary motion, he inferred, we are told, that there must be another planet, unknown to astronomers, and that after many calculations and much obser- vation he told them where to look for it. Pointing their tele-' scopes to the spot, they found it, according to his prediction. Applying the same principle to man and his relations, says an able writer : " When you sfee the perturbations and conflict between the spiritual and material conditions of this life, all analogy would lead to the conclusion that there must be some cause beyond this life, some sphere above this, to the laws of which man is subject, and that this conflict with matter, and this struggle for freedom, is due to grander harmonies, bidding him look to that higher sphere for the solution of these earthly anomalies, and for the true home of the soul." THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH. 89 In conclusion, Spiritualism teaches that the infinite source of all life, the great God of the majestic universe in which we dwell, is as imminent in spirit as in space ; that he is near to the human soul as is matter to the sense, and upon this divine presence in the soul of man the Spiritualist confidently relies, whether amid the tortuous pathways of earthly existence or the untried realities of the future upon which he is destined to enter through the misnamed portal of death. Hence, when through organic law he is called from time to eternity — " Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, Nor weary, worn out winds expire more soft." And, still, more than all others, is the Spiritualist cheered along the journey of earthly experiences through the instru- mentality of the glorious phenomena upon which his entire system rests, as through this agency the beloved of other years who have preceded him to yon bright shore are in some sense constantly assuring him that "They who are lost to outward sense Have but thrown off their robes of clay, And clothed in heavenly radiance Attend us on our lonely way; And oft their spirits breathe on ours The hope, and strength, and love of theirs, Which bloom as bloom the early flowers, In breath of summer's viewless airs ; And silent aspirations start. In promptings of their purer thought, Which gently lead the troubled heart To joys not even hope had sought. Though sorrow brings her hidden good, And tears their dewy benison, Not always o'er the spirit should Their darkness hide away the sun. The rain whose blessed coming nursed The sweetest flowers of blushing spring, If through its cloud no sun had burst. Would blight her loveliest blossoming. 90 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. 'T is well the heart can loose its tide, And gently pour the soothing tear, When joyful hope is crucified In death pangs of the loved and dear ; But when from the sepulchral prison Her angels roll the stone away. Then yield we to the new arisen, And own her everlasting sway. With spirit glance, undimmed by tears, Look upward and forget the clod, Tor brighter than yon million spheres They wheel around the throne of God; And echoes from the choral song- Come quivering down the blue expanse, Like murmurs from the insect throng That on the beams of sunset dance. Then why should bitter tears be shed In sorrow o'er the mounded sod? When, verily, there are no dead Of all the children of our God." LECTURE V. WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL, TESTED BY THE ACCEPTED BITLES OF PHTLOSOPHIC IKQTJIRY. •' O man, thou art heir of the universe forever! Por neither congelation of the grave, nor gulping waters of the fir- mament, Nor expansive airs of Heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, Nor rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of divinity within thee ! Tliou art an imperishable leaf on the evergreen hay-tree of existence^ A word from wisdom's mouth that cannot he unspoken; A ray of love's own light ; a drop in mercy's sea ; A creature marvelous and fearful, begotten by the fiat of Omnipotence ! I that speak in weakness, and ye that hear in charity. Shall not cease to live and feel, though flesh must see corruption; For the prison gates of matter shall be broken, and the shackled soul go free, — Free, for good or ill, to satisfy its appetence forever." Not long since I sat as one of a cultured and intelligent audience in one of our largest cities, and listened to a discourse from an admittedly learned clergyman,* — a minister of the Free Religionist school, also, — who closed his remarks upon the nature and destiny of man with this declaration : " What lies beyond the veil we Icnoto notH^ And I could but think, if this be so, if learned ecclesiastics, after the teachings for eight- *Ilev. Wm. R. Alger, July, 1871. (91) 92 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. een hundred years of dogmatic theology upon the subject of immortality can make such a declaration, surely it is time that some higher truth touching eschatological conceptions were more generally made known. And I could but deplore the fact that the popular mind, swayed by the prejudices engendered through sectarian education, has so long and so generally ignored the facts and the philosophy of Spiritualism with its grand and ennobling conceptions as to the nature and destiny of the human soul. The more especially as this glorious sys- tem has been so emphatically and undoubtedly proved to be not the mere ephemeral superstition charged by its opponents, but a theme of the highest ethical and philosophical importance ; a system which takes up man's conceptions of the future where ecclesiasticism leaves them, and carries them on to a more prac- tical apprehension of the vast possibilities of a life eternal, — • whilst it likewise establishes a satisfactory and consolatory rec- ognition of probable beatitudes beyond the veil which intervenes between the outer and the inner world. Hence, my present discourse, in the hope of aiding some little as to higher and more logical conceptions of the nature and character of the human soul, and its ultimate destiny beyond the grave. " The convinced understanding," says Mr. Davis, " speaks as one having authority." Recognizing this as a truth, it is to your understanding and not to your sympathies that I desire to address myself. Nor shall I aim, by any sensational or ad captandem mode of argument, to stir the depths of your feel- ings : but, on the contrary, I propose appealing to your reason, through accepted methods of inquiry, with the hope of estab- lishing in the minds of my hearers a more complete realization of the broad and comprehensive claims of the glorious cause of which I am the willing advocate. True, it may be said that Spiritualism had its original incep- tion through the longings of the human heart after the beloved and the departed, whom the race has been told for centuries in Christendom had gone to an WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. \)6 "Undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns." Nevertheless, this glorious system, does not rely alone upon an appeal to the affections for its maintenance in human conscious- ness. Men and women of the clearest intellect and wisest fore- thought mark the progress of this movement, and it claims to be able to satisfy the judgment of the scholar, the statesman, and the jurist. As a science and a philosophy it is being meas- ured and defined, and the best thinkers realize that it grows brighter, and broader, and more intensely profound the more earnestly and searchingly the investigation is pursued. Spirit- ualism, therefore, as I understand it, is before the world not only as a religion appealing to our highest and holiest emotions, but as the grandest scientific fact in nature, and as a philosophic truth boundless in its apprehensions as is the universe of thought. Death, we are told by the Church, entered into this world of ours through sin ; that but for the sin of Adam and Eve there would have been no death, and man would have remained upon the earth immortal, as a physical being ; that all the terrible consequences taught by orthodox theology are likewise the result of this assumed primal disobedience. Hence, that physical death in this world fixes the fate of man forever, either for weal or woe. To these ecclesiastical dogmas and their corollaries Spiritual- ism stands diametrically opposed. It teaches, on the contrary, that physical death is as natural as physical life ; that the one is the legitimate sequence of the other, in accordance with the known laws of matter ; that death and decomposition appertain alone to the physical body ; that the real man, after the envi- ronment of clay has been laid aside, lives on, the same individu- alized, spiritual entity, the same being precisely as before he left, save alone the outer covering of the material body ; that he enters into the next sphere of being the creature, as here, of an eternal law of progress, the benefits of which may be en- 94 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. hanced or detracted from, proportioned to individual effort and desire. Indeed, that "The stroke of death Is but the kindly frost that cracks the shell, And leaves the kernel room to germinate." And in advocacy of these and other ideas of the spiritual school, so essentially opposed to the teachings of the popular theology of the centuries as to " what lies beyond the veil," I propose to test their reliability by the accepted rules of philo- sophic inquiry. And, as a starting point, allow me to recall the memory of my audience to the fundamental declaration of mental philoso- phy that, in applying the mind to the investigation of any phe- nomena in any department of knowledge, it should always be recollected that there are certain intuitive articles of belief that lie at the foundation of all reasoning, and that these are termed first truths ; that these first truths, it is declared, are not the result of any process of reasoning, but force themselves, with the consciousness of infallible certainty, upon every sound un- derstanding, independent of its habits or powers of induction ; that the force of these first truths is felt, in a greater or less degree, by all classes of mind, and are acted upon with the most absolute confidence in all the ramifications of thought and action. These first truths are briefly as follows : — First, Man has a conviction of his own existence as a sen- tient and thinking being, and of an intelligent principle within him, as something disconnected with the functions of the bodily form. Second. Man has a confidence in the evidence of his senses, in regard to the existence and properties of external things ; or a conviction that they have a real existence, independent of his sensations. Third. Man has confidence in his own mental process ; that facts, for instance, which are suggested to him by his memory really occurred. WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 95 Fourth. Man has a belief in his own identity. Fifth. Man has a consciousness that every event must have a cause, and that every cause must be adequate to the effect ; and, further, that appearances showing a correct adaptation of means to an end indicate design and intelligence in the cause. Sixth. Man has an instinctive confidence in the uniformity of nature. This enumeration, more at length, exists in the books as first truths, and are deemed intuitive principles of belief that admit of no other evidence than an appeal to the consciousness of every man that he does and must believe them. In proceeding from these first or intuitive articles of belief to the further investigation of what is truth, philosophy points out also various mental processes as necessary in the operation. These are enumerated as follows : — First. To make a careful collection of facts relating to any given subject, and to abstain from deducing any conclusions until you have before you such a series as will warrant your doing the same. Second. To separate from the mass those facts that are con- nected therewith incidentally, and to retain those only that you have reason to consider uniform and essential. Third. To compare facts with each other, so as to trace their resemblances, or to ascertain those characteristics or properties in which a certain number of facts or substances agree. Fourth. To compare facts or events with each other, in order to trace their relations and sequences, and especially that relation of uniform sequence upon which is founded the notion of cause and effect. Fifth. To review an extensive collection of facts, so as to discover some general fact common to the whole. This process philosophy terms generalizing, or the induction of a general principle. When this induction is made, from a full examination of all the individual cases to which the general fact is meant to apply, 96 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. and actually does apply to them all, then, the best philosophical writers affirm, the investigator has truth. And, now, before proceeding in a delineation of the ethical teachings of Spiritualism, permit me to inquire, has not the philosophic Spiritualist in his investigations as to the reliability of the fundamental propositions and basic foundations of his system pursued the same in strict conformity with the universally accepted rules of philosophical inquiry just enumerated ? And shall his conclusions, simply because they are not in harmony with the ecclesiastical dogmas of Christendom, be rejected and denounced, in total violation of every known rule of logical deduction? Has he not complied with every injunction, and followed every direction laid down as to the process of correct and legitimate reasoning ? The phenomena of Spiritualism con- stitute a wonderful array of facts, — ^each separate fact apply- ing directly to the general fact of the identity of individual spirit, through unmistakable and intelligent communion. He has collated these facts and compared them, the one with the other, so as to trace their resemblance and ascertain the charac- ters and properties in which they agree. He has separated from his mass of facts such as seem connected but incidentally with the subject of investigation, and retained only those which he has reason to consider uniform and essential. He has com- pared these uniform and essential facts so as to ascertain their relations and sequences, and especially that relation of uniform sequence upon which is founded the idea of cause and effect ; and by this prescribed process he has deduced an unmistakable general fact, — the glorious truth underlying the sadly misunder- stood and grossly misrepresented system of Spiritualism, — the fundamental fact of the continuity of individual consciousness and individual 'progress heyond the grave. Surely, then, by this legitimate process of reasoning, and in accordance with the declaration of the best philosophical writers, the Spiritualist may be said to have arrived at the demonstra- tion of a great truth touching man's relation to the spirit world. WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 97 which constitutes the legitimate basis of a system of religion, or of ethical reform, unequaled in its scientific data, and in its philosophical deductions by any other as yet known to the aspiring soul of the race. I claim, therefore, that Spiritual- ism is an established form not of faith but of verification ; and that, upon available testimony, the Spiritualist, unlike the clergy- man alluded to in the commencement of my discourse, does know something of " what lies beyond the veil." Some of the philosophical and consolatory items deducible from the glorious facts adverted to, and which are recognized as true by most intelligent Spiritualists, have been enumerated as follows : — That man has a spiritual as well as corporeal nature ; in other words, that the real man is a spirit, which spirit has an organized form, composed of spiritual substance, with parts and organs corresponding to those of the corporeal body. That man as an individualized spirit is immortal. Being proven by existing facts to survive the change called physical death, it is reasonably inferred that he will survive all future vicissitudes. That there is a spiritual world, or state, with its substantial realities, objective as well as subjective. That the process of physical death in no way essentially transforms the mental constitution or the moral character of those who experience it, else it would destroy their identity. That happiness or suffering in the spiritual state, as in this, depends not on arbitrary decree or special provision, but on individual character, individual aspiration, and degrees of indi- vidual harmonization ; or, in other words, on personal conform- ity to universal and divine law. Hence, that the experiences and attainments of the earth life lay the foundation on which the next commences. That since growth or progress is the ]aw of the human being in this life, and since the process termed death is in fact but a hirth into another condition of life, retaining all the advantages 98 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. gained by the experiences of this, it may be legitimately inferred that growth, development, expansion, or progression is the end- less destiny of the human spirit. That the spirit world is not far off, but near, around, and interblended with our present state of existence ; and, hence, that we are constantly under the cognizance of spiritual beings. That, as individuals are continually passing from the earthly to the spiritual state in all stages of mental and moral growth, that state necessarily includes all grades of character, from the lowest to the highest. That happiness and misery depend on internal states rather than on external surroundings ; and, hence, there are as many gradations of each as there are shades of character, each one grav- itating to his own place by the natural law of affinity, thus ren- dering the spirit world practically "a house of many mansions." That communications from the spirit world, whether by men- tal impression, inspiration, or any other mode of transmission, are not necessarily infallihle truth ; but, on the contrary, partake unavoidably of the imperfections of the minds from which they emanate, and of the channels through which they come, and are moreover liable to misinterpretation by those to whom they are addressed. Hence, that no inspired communication, in this or any other age, is authoritative any further than it expresses truth to .the individual consciousness, — for soul-consciousness is the highest and final standard to w^hich all inspired or spiritual teachings must be brought for judgment. That inspiration, or influx of ideas and promptings from the spiritual realm do not constitute a miracle of a past or of the present age, but 2i perpetual fact, — the ceaseless method of the divine economy for human elevation. That all angelic and all (so called) demoniac beings which have manifested themselves, or interposed in human affairs, either in the past or present, were and are simply disembodied human spirits in different grades of development. WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 99 That all (so called) authentic miracles in the past, such as the raising of the apparently dead, the healing of the sick by the laying on of hands or other simple means, unharmed con- tact with poisons, the movement of physical olDJects without visible instrumentality, etc., were produced necessarily in har- mony with universal laws ; and hence, as these laws are uniform and eternal in their operation, may be repeated at any time under suitable conditions. That the causes of all phenomena, as well as the sources of all power, of all life, and of all intelligence, are to be found alone in the internal or spiritual realm, and not in the external or material world. That the chain of causation leads inevitably to a creative spirit, who must be not only b, fount of life or love, but likewise a forming principle or wisdom, thus sustaining the dual parental relations of father and mother to all finite intelligences, who, of course, are all brethren. That man, as the offspring of this infinite source, is in some sense the image or finite embodiment of the same ; and that, by virtue of this parentage, each human being is, or has, in his inmost a germ of divinity, an incorruptible offshoot of the divine essence, which is ever prompting to the good and right ; and which, in time or in eternity, will free itself from all imperfec- tions incident to a rudimental or earthly condition, and finally triumph over evil. That all evil is disharmony, in a greater or less degree, with this divine principle ; and, hence, whatever prompts and aids man to bring his external nature into subjection to, and har- mony vvdth, the divine in his own soul is a " means of salvation " from evil. In addition to these philosophical and ethical deductions, drawn from the fundamental facts of Spiritualism, so clearly established, as I have shown, I claim further that this glori- ous system is not only a religion, in the sense of continually cul- tivating the higher aspirations of the soul, and tending to the 100 UNANSWERABLE LOaiC. elevation of man iuto closer harmony perpetually with the good, the true, and the beautiful in the universe, thereby point- ing unmistakably to the infinite soul of the same as the only true object of worship, as well as constituting a correct system of philosophy, in that it consists of both facts and ideas which wonderfully harmonize, and with unerring precision mutually sustain each other. I claim further, I repeat, that Spiritualism is likewise unmistakably a science, aye, the all-comprehensive science of the sciences. Astronomy, for instance, tells of revolv- ing worlds, and will measure for you their orbits ; but Spirit- ualism tells you why those worlds are there, and what is the des- tiny of their denizens. Material science demonstrates facts relat- ing to matter, together with its wonderful and varied changes, proceeding from cause to effect with unerring precision ; but Spiritualism tells you of loftier and deeper truths, such as relate to the primal cause of all causes,— the Infinite hand that makes no mistakes and leaves no blurred lines upon the face of nature. Material science confines itself mainly to one object of interest, — the glory of external things ; and. this is well as far as it goes, for external things are the outward manifestations of interior potencies ; but Spiritualism deals directly with these potencies, aye, with the soul of things. Hence, the inference is legitimate that the cultured minds of the age, especially, have wholly mis- apprehended this grand and glorious system oi facts and induc- tion, or Spiritualism would ere this have become the recognized religion of the age. And this is the most plausible, as well as the most charitable, conclusion to be arrived at, as we consider the plane of mental activities characteristic of the age in which we live. We see men and women giving forth the light of intellect, the force of feeling, and operating effectively in the different pathways of intellectual and moral development. We see sparks of genius illuminating the paths of literature in well nigh every direction, — sparks unmistakably emitted through contact with brighter minds, either consciously or otherwise ; and yet the recipients and promulgators of these higher thoughts WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 101 seem utterly oblivious to the fact that no mind acts wholly inde- pendent of other minds, that all higher thought is born in brighter realms, — and that, as Spiritualism teaches, the spirit world, impinging naturally upon the material, all minds are in more or less direct communion with all other minds, although the world's broad graveyards lie between. In other words, this glorious system of religio-philosophical truth teaches that inspiration is universal, — proportioned in expression to individual receptivity and organic capability, — that all thought, if God be infinite, must, in some sense, be God's thought ; that the spirits of our beloved and departed ones, through organic law, have become the ministers of this divine beneficence to this the primary department of life; and that all men and women, even the wisest, are passing through the educational processes incidental to time, preparatory to joining the collegiate class in the grand academy of the bright and beautiful hereafter. Why, then, should there be such opposition to Spiritualism, especially among the cultured and refined, except, as I have said, from ignorance of its transcendent merits as a factor in human development. Unless, alas, -it is a fact, even in this the 19th century, that there are still remaining those who love the honey-comb of popu- larity (although generated through ignorance) better than they do the ever-living principles of truth and progress. Again, the wonderful array of facts to which I have referred as constituting the phenomena of Spiritualism, together with the legitimate conclusions deduced therefrom in accordance with established rules of philosophic inquiry, as I have shown unmis- takably demonstrate the great fact of the perpetuity of individ- ual consciousness beyond the grave. But this is not all of Spirit- ualism. This important fact is but a cardinal feature in a grand system of philosophy, of science, and of religion, which shall yet bless the world beyond all present capability of appre- ciation, — a system admirably calculated to expand the intellect, enlarge the affections, and elevate the entire nature, by con- tinuously increasing knowledge touching the spirit world and 102 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. its inhabitants, by more and more comprehensive views of God, the great Father of spirits, by still advancing ideas as to the relations of both mind and matter, together with all that is or may be known as to the hidden forces of the majestic universe which we inhabit, which are essentially spiritual in their nature. There are no authoritarians in Spiritualism. Any man or woman occupying the position of teacher can but give his or her own experiences, deduced from whatever application they may have individually made of the one great fact of a demonstrated im- mortality ; and the listener can only be benefited by what is presented, in so far as that experience may be adapted to his own individual soul needs. Spiritualism, therefore, is in this sense an individual matter, conveying the idea that the descent of the New Jerusalem to earth must be through the shekinah of the individual soul. And yet, at the same time, so broad and universal in their application are the corollaries legitimately deducible from the basic fact of Spiritualism that this glorious religion may truthfully claim to teach all that is written in the moral constitution and spiritual needs of the entire race. Hence, a mere belief that spirits can communicate with mor- tals does not constitute Spiritualism in the broad acceptation of the term, although he who thus believes is in a limited sense called a Spiritualist. The day is passing by when any peculiar merit attaches to a mere readiness to believe ; when a doubting disposition is esteemed a bad one, and skepticism a sin. Eccle- siasticism can no longer practically enforce the dogma that, when authority has once declared what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty to perform. On the contrary, if I apprehend the term aright, Spiritualism absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. With the true Spiritualist, as with the scientist, a judicious skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the one unpardonable sin. He perceives, with Prof. Huxley, that "every advance in knowledge throughout the past, even in religion itself, has in- volved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the WHAT LIES BEYOND THE VEIL. 103 keenest skepticism, and the entire annihilation of the spirit of blind faith." And, hence, he ever holds his convictions of today open to the demonstrations of tomorrow, and believes in '"'justi- fication, not by faith, but alone through verification.'^ Spiritualism, thus defined, you may readily conceive, cannot be confined by the restrictions of a fixed creed, or bounded by the dogmatic limitations of an arbitrary organization. Other ages and other systems have given birth to creeds and dogmas to which we fear truth has been too often subordinated. The glorious mission and privilege of Spiritualism is to elevate the light of divine truth above the plane of dogmatism, and to inau- gurate it upon the altar of the human heart. The Spiritualist, according to his individual conception of right, is cultivating God's image in his soul, through an ever increasing practical appreciation of the good, the true, and the beautiful, in and around him. He is taught, and gratefully accepts the teaching, that he has not been forgotten by an Infinite Father, because the orthodox church of the day refuses him its countenance ; and that, by right of inheritance from this infinite source, there is a broad and deep devotional element in his nature which is none the less pure from not flowing through prescribed channels. He no longer relies upon either council or creed, church or book, as the last infallible guide to truth, but reposes trustingly for time and for eternity upon infinite love and eternal law. If faithful to angelic promptings, the constant effort of the true Spiritualist will be toward the quickening and expanding of his spiritual nature, to the end that all defects of the physical may become subordinated, and all inharmonious and misdirected affections overcome, through obedience to the higher law en- stamped upon his inner and better nature, — thus gradually substituting " the fruits of the spirit " for the " works of the flesh "; and in this wise, trusting to be redeemed from the errors of the past and the misdirections of the present, he is being consciously prepared for that the future may unfold. The prin- ciple of action characteristic of Spiritualism, as I have previously 104 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. said, is love. This constitutes the whole of its creed, if creed it may be called. It promises nothing to faith, nothing even to works, exclusively, but everything to fitness, purity, good- ness, uprightness, justice, and mercj*. It makes no arbitrary distinctions among men, but leaves each to choose from his or her own natural tendencies his or her own place in the eternal world, the moral qualifications of each determining the result. It teaches, in fine, that it is a monstrous absurdity and a libel- lous assumption to declare that Deity could possibly sacrifice a single finite soul merely for the glory of Deity ; that the Infinite asks obedience to no law but the law of man's own nature, of which man himself is to be the executor here and hereafter. And, hence, contrary to the position of the theologian to whom I referred in the commencement of my remarks, the Spiritualist certainly knows something in regard to " what lies beyond the veil! ^' For, indeed, the many facts of Spiritualism, entering as I have shown in the one general fact of the perpetuity of individual consciousness beyond the grave, together with the glorious system of ethical philosophy legitimately deducible herefrom, are certainly replete with consolatory intelligence for the weary souls of the race, — weary, oh, so weary from long stumbling in the tortuous pathways of theological speculation. Ecclesiasticism admits itself ignorant of "what lies beyond the veil "; and, indeed, as a consequence of this ignorance, judging from the gloomy countenances engendered by orthodox Chris- tianity, one might suppose that the dead-march was sounding up and down the aisles of our broad green earth continually, at the instance of some terrible self-constituted demon of destruc- tion. But the great truths of Spiritualism have pierced through this hitherto impenetrable veil, and have satisfactorily answered the important question of the centuries : " i/" a man die, shall he live again ? " The doctrine of immortal life, to the analytical mind, hitherto shrouded in doubt, now receives practical illus- tration. Much that was speculation becomes matter of fact, and faith is confirmed by knowledge. Verily, to the spiritual phi- WHAT LIES BEYOKD THE VEIL. 105 losopher death has lost its sting, the grave its victory. Oh, theo, let us " Talk no more of death as fearful ; Call it not a chilling stream; Thoughts of death should make us cheerful, For it leads to joys supreme. Call not death a mouster cruel, Whom no prayers or tears can move, If it take from us some jewel To the starry spheres above. There they'll shine with growing luster. Brighter for their second birth, And we'ZZ join that radiant cluster When death takes us from the earth. Fear not death, then; 'tis but changing From this world to higher spheres, Where our spirits, ever ranging, Shall progress through countless years." LECTURE VT. THE FINAL RESURRECTION. I CorintMans, ch. xv., v. 44.— There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual Dody. The glorious system of philosophical truths which may be said to constitute, likewise, the ethics of Spiritualism, and which is based upon the fundamental fact of a demonstrated immor- tality, through direct communion with the spirits of the departed children of time, is inculcating, I sincerely believe, higher conceptions as to the capability, duty, and destiny of man than any other ever conceived in the entire range of human or angelic thought. It is inculcating, also, higher conceptions of the infinite purposes comprehended in the law of evolution as made manifest in this green-browed earth of ours, the patient "mother of the whirlwind and the storm"; higher conceptions, likewise, as to an indefinable primal cause of all causes, forever working in the majestic realm of the universe, through infinite agencies toward infinite results; an all-wise incomprehensible Father of all, who plants in the seasons and in the elements, and in all the revolutions of nature, unmistakable signs and symbols of beneficence and power which are forever telling us that "All matter is God's tongue! And from its motions God's thoughts are sung ; The realms of space are the octave bars, And the music notes are the suns and stars." The progress of Spiritualism in human appreciation has been continuous, beautiful, and sure, notwithstanding the fact that (106) THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 107 the bigoted and uninformed have periodically claimed for more than a quarter of a century that the whole matter is exploded and dead. And in this connection I may remark, in passing, that the most recent effort at exposing the phenomenal phases of Spiritualism was attempted during the past week in our city by a rather handsome and gentlemanly looking young man, who advertises under the name of Mr. Stuart Cumberland, of England. This young gentleman, whether acknowledgedly so or not, undoubtedly possesses clairvoyant and psychometric pow- ers, by means of which he gives certain manifestations similar to those witnessed in the presence of some of our mediums, whilst his mind-reading exhibits the same phenomena as were given by Mr. Chauncey Barnes a few years since, whom, doubt- less, some of the Spiritualists remember. He claims that these gifts are natural, and that they are exercised independent of necessary aid from departed spirits. This is a claim that Spirit- ualism itself has insisted upon for the last quarter of a century, and that these powers in and of themselves only prove that man is an individualized spirit while yet within the body. But Mr. Cumberland failed to manifest any interior power beyond that of sight and magnetic mental sympathy with those by whom he was immediately surrounded. He failed to give any evidences of identity on the part of departed friends whose names he clair- voyantly read, and notably gave not a word of intelligence for- eign to the minds by whom he was surrounded, — all of which our spirit mediums have done in thousands of instances, and are still doing today. Again, this young gentleman possesses a wonderful physical conformation, — a body similar to double-jointed contortionists who are sometimes seen in the circus ring, — which enables him to perform several feats when securely tied, which are entirely beyond the ability of ordinarily formed persons under the same conditions. He also has the power common to such persons of disjointing his toes and fingers, and thus producing sounds which he claims are the same as those heard at spiritual seances ; 108 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. claiming, too, that the assumed spirit raps are produced in the same manner. These claims may be satisfactory and gratifying to clergymen and other inexperienced and prejudiced persons, but to the judicious observer, and particularly to the experienced Spiritualist, such claims are extremely absurd and altogether untenable, especially so when reference is had to the fund of intelligence foreign to all persons visibly present, which has been so often received in the presence of our rapping mediums. This is the distinguishing feature of spirit raps, never yet attained by the whole army of mountebanks and charlatans who have so often been received into the embrace of the occupants of the pulpit and the conductors of the press of our country, with the hope of overthrowing a great fact in nature, simply because it is not in accordance with their own preconceived ideas. This young gentleman, therefore, I doubt not, is doomed eventually to the same oblivion that has visited the numerous professed exposers of Spiritualism who have fruitlessl}^ strutted a brief career of arrogance at different times for the last thirty years, whilst the great fact of spirit communion still remains untarnished, and still cheers the heart of the honest seeker after truth. And thus, as autumn after autumn, and age after age, the innocent night wears still the precious jewel of the harvest moon upon her brow, and its soft effulgence overflows the world, clothing it in heavenly splendor, whether mortals care to observe it or not, so the mental night of atheistical doubt and fanatical incredulity is being most surely illuminated by the brilliancy of spiritual truth, although the majority of mankind still close their eyes to this glorious light of all the centuries. And upon no one error, perhaps, has tiiis light fallen with greater effulgence than upon the theme of my present discourse. The idea of a future resurrection in some form and in some manner connects itself more or less directly with the motives, the feelings, and the actions of mankind, of well nigh every shade of belief; and with a brilliant or a somber hue to a very THE FINAL RESURRECTION". 109 great extent colors all their lives. In Christendom, although claiming to be the most enlightened portion of the globe upon which we dwell, the strangest absurdities and inconsistencies have obtained in connection with the doctrine of a resurrection. As the general mind has continued to advance, however, under the influence of the progressive spirit of successive ages, the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, has always found it diffi- cult to reconcile or explain away its views, and in some instances she has entirely abandoned preconceived opinions. At one period in her history the doctrine was maintained that exactly the same body deposited in the ground would be eventually raised ; and some, even in the present day, entertain this mon- strous belief. But to the thinker, certainly, this doctrine in- volves insuperable objections, including the renewal of all phys- ical deformities and infirmities. Besides, many persons die, as it is termed, in old age, after the beauty and vigor of the adult have faded away, or after the body has become emaciated with disease, or crushed and mangled by the casualties of an earthly existence. And yet, again, martyrs have been burned at the stake, and missionaries have been devoured by cannibals, tde different component particles of the original bodies becoming necessarily diffused through vegetable, animal, and human bodies innumerable. And Omnipotence itself, it will scarcely be denied, would find it impossible to incorporate into one body the various particles of matter that naturally and necessarily belong to numerous other organisms, and yet have them all complete and perfect in their original forms. Again, others have maintained that every particle of matter that ever belonged to the body of an individual during an earthly existence is incorporated into the same body at the res- urrection. This, likewise, is an extremely absurd idea, since it could but make monsters of every adult member of the human family upon their entrance into another life, — and more espe- cially of those who had lived to old age in this. Allowing the elements of the body to be renewed every seven years (and 110 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. they are known to be renewed much oftener), a man who weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, and lived to be seventy or eighty years of age, would weigh twelve or fifteen hundred pounds at his resurrection ; and the venerable Methuselah, if the story of his longevity be true, it has been estimated, would have weighed nearly ten tons when he entered the realm that is reputed to be ethereal. To avoid such absurdities as naturally attach themselves to the idea of a material resurrection, some have suggested the theory that only the chemical elements of the body that is buried, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., are to be incorporated into the body that is raised. But the difficulty with all these theories is that they present only a material body at last, what- ever imaginary perfection it may be supposed to possess ; and a material body is necessarily subject, in a greater or less degree, to all the disabilities of matter, and must, to some extent, hold the man to the physical plane. Hence, it must be admit- ted that all such doctrines, wherever originating or existing, unmistakably tend to the veriest materialism. It is certainly evident that gross matter cannot be changed to spirit. If such a change is possible, as is claimed by some, then (argues an able writer) it is true that there can be a spiritual body ; and if there can be a spiritual body, what use at all is there for a material body at the . resurrection ? The fact is that such inexplicable difficulties and absurdities cluster around this doc- trine of a material resurrection that its advocates sooner or later fall back upon the ancient refuge of bigotry, — that " all things are possible with God," a declaration so wholly mis- applied that for centuries it has checked investigation, and materially retarded the progress of human thought. And yet, strange to say, the very book from whence the advocates of the resurrection of the physical body profess to derive their doc- trine most emphatically declares in the words of my text " thern is a natural body, and there is a spiritual hody.^^ Besides, the nature of matter itself furnishes a forcible arsju- THE FINAL RESURRECTION. Ill ment against the duration and immortality of the material body. Both science and observation tell us that no material form can retain its organization independent of some interior force. Mat- ter has no form, indeed, of its own, and is, in itself, compara- tively dead. All material organizations in the plant, the animal, and the human, science teaches, are formed and maintained through special forces, which serve to counteract the general laws to which matter is subject, and through which it is constantly tendins: toward elemental conditions. The substances which compose the human body, chemistry declares, are continually passing away, and are being continuously renewed. The phys- ical form, however, Spiritualism teaches, is preserved for a se- ries of years by the vital and attractive force within. The soul or immortal principle, through law, seizes and appropriates the new material from the food and from the elements, — thus sup- plying the vacant places of the effete particles which are being constantly thrown off, and maintaining by this process its exter- nal image in this outer world. Through disease, and in old age, as the counteracting laws which look to final dissolution become more and more operative, the soul becomes less and less able to preserve continuous vigor in the aggregated particles that make up its external covering ; and eventually what is called death and decomposition occurs. During this entire process the expe- rience of us all clearly illustrates the fact that the inner or spiritual man is constantly limited in his faculties and restrained in his manifestations by the physical body. From infancy to the departure of the spirit from its material encasement, the war- fare continues between the mortal and the immortal. From the first childish effort at walking to the loftiest culmination of soul- thought that ever illuminated the globe the body still holds the spirit to earth, still dims the vision, and checks aspiring hope. Sometimes the soul seems to have gained control over the body,, but the limit of its capacities, or rather the limit of its outer capability of expression, is soon reached ; and then its power to manifest the aspiring thought and deepening feeling continually 112 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. diminishes. And, how terrible, indeed, would be the condition of this intelligent source of vitality and thought — the inner or real man — if there were never to be a release from this en- vironment of clay. This residence in an earthly body, however, as designed, stimulates and develops the spiritual faculties for the future activities of a higher life, and in manifold ways is useful for the time being. The bodily organs, in their healthy state, are said to act as checks or limitations upon the opera- tions of the spirit somewhat as the balance wheel of a watch checks and regulates the uncoiling of the spring. The balance wheel causes the w^atch to move in time. The limitations of the bodily organs compel the soul, more or less, to act with reference to the conditions of time, — with reference to those experiences which, however disagreeable they may be deemed, are the educational processes which the benevolent and Infinite Schoolmaster has provided for the individualization and education of the children of earth ; and as preparatory for a practical appreciation of the higher duties that await them in the collegiate department of the inner life, when the burden of clay has been thrown aside forever. The doctrine commonly entertained by dogmatic theology practically regards the material body as the man, possessed of some vital principle or indefinite motive power, which it desig- nates as spirit, of which the human mind can form no concep- tion. Spiritualism, on the contrary, regards the spirit as the man, having a material body, designed alone for the purposes of the earth life. Again, these teachers tell us in their creeds that at the resurrection the material body is raised from the grave; that the spirit is brought back from some undefined region where it has dwelt during its separation from the body, that it re-enters it and becomes its life. In contradistinction to this idea Spiritualism teaches that the resurrection consists in the withdrawal from the material body, and introduction into the spiritual world of the man himself. Again, theology declares that the resurrection of the material body is to take place at THE FINAL EESURRECTION. 113 some distant period at the end of the world. In lieu of which doctrine Spiritualism teaches that the resurrection takes place immediately after death, or rather that the death of the phys- ical body is caused by the resurrection of the man from it. These, briefly stated, are the points of difference between the legends of the past and the teachings of Spiritualism upon this important subject. The faith of our opponents is founded upon erroneous conceptions, as I conceive, of the alleged truths of the past, whilst the convictions of the Spiritualist, in consonance with a true interpretation of the past, are based upon the expe- riences of the present, through well-attested and unmistakable facts. Through the influence of the former many faithful but mistaken children of humanity are clothing themselves with funeral mantles, and with aching hearts are looking down into the graves for the loved and lost, as they are mistakenly called, with the remote prospect, perhaps, of a reunion at some far future day, through the merits of the world's exemplar, with but little reference to their own individual deserts. The Spiritualist, on the other hand, confident of conditions adapted to his needs, and buoyed up by unmistakable facts, is cheerfully looking upward and outward, through the shining portals of organic law, to an immediate reception by his beloved when his own resurrection shall transplant him likewise upon the bright shores of another and happier sphere. As I have previously said. Spiritualism teaches that the spir- itual man is the real man, and that he receives nothing of his absolute self from the material body, not even his form. The spiritual idea of an immediate resurrection which I have given is therefore a legitimate sequence of this fact. A large class, however, as shown, stand opposed to these facts, and mainly, it is alleged, upon Biblical grounds, but certainly without warrant, as I shall attempt to prove. The original Greek word translated resurrection in the Bible now in use in Christendom has no such meaning as that gen- erally given to the English word resurrection, — that of raising 114 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. up to life again in this world, at some distant day, or at the end of time. This Greek word is anastasis, and it means, according to Rev. Chauncey Giles, an accomplished scholar, " a continuance of existence after the death of the body," " the future life of those called dead." A distinguished gentleman/'^ in a sermon delivered in New Haven upon the subject of the resurrection very forcibly says : " This word anastasis is commonly but often erroneously translated resurrection. So far as I have observed, it usually de- notes our existence beyond the grave. Many passages of Script- ure would have been rendered more intelligible, and the thoughts contained in them more just and impressive, had this word been translated agreeable to its real meaning." This is certainly most decided testimony in favor of the spiritual idea touching the doc- trine of the resurrection, as well as acceptable proof that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches a more beautiful and truthful philosophy in regard to man and his destiny than the mistaken conceptions of orthodox theology have attributed to it. And, further, it is undoubtedly true that the more critically and ex- haustively all the passages in the Bible relating to this subject are examined the more fully will they be found to confirm the declaration of the spiritual school that the resurrection consists in the withdrawal of the ma7i himself from the physical body through the process termed death and his immediate introduction into the spiritual world. Again, independent of what may be said in the Bible, if the mind unprejudicedly investigates this matter, it will be found that reason, in addition to angelic communications, sustains the position assumed. So, likewise, do the analogies of nature, that great bible written by God throughout all the departments of the universe, the revelations of which are indelibly indented in the rocks, thundered by the ocean in all its varied forms of sublimity and terror, exhaled by the flowers, whispered in the rippling streamlet, and murmured in the impressive psalmody of the forest, that noblest of volumes which we can but admire *Ilev. Dr. Dwight, a confessedly learned Biblist. THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 115 even when we cannot understand, — which needs not the sanc- tion of councils or the approval of bishops to render it canon- ical. Indeed, nature is full of the most beautiful examples, analogous to man's true resurrection. The rough, coarse calyx, to borrow a figure, is as a body to the soul of the plant, in winter. The blossom is only the swaddling clothes of the real plant, the seed containing the life. And so man, in the earth life, is but the bud of what he will be. By and by, when, through the process of death and decay, the external shell or covering shall have lost its usefulness, the immortal plant shall bloom and fructify in a more congenial realm. But, adds the able author alluded to, the analogies are still more striking in insect and animal life. The beautiful butterfly, for instance, has found its anastasis through the natural law of change, inci- dental to the growth and progress of its undeveloped original, and can never again return to the chrysalis. The delicate humming-bird, with its exquisite plumage and wonderfully rapid movement, once recognized the horizon and boundary of its universe in the tiniest of eggs. But the law of progress is inevitable, and evolution the continuous pathway of the universe. The humming-bird finds its anastasis in a world of adaptation, an atmosphere of perfume and of flowers, and can never again inhabit the egg. Man, being essentially spiritual and immortal, finds his anastasis by passing out of the material body into a more congenial realm, his true and proper home, and can never again animate his worn-out ten^^ment of time. He attains a resurrection for his material body when he is born into this world, and a resurrection for his spiritual body, his glorious anastasis, when he is born into the world of spirits, through the agency of what is called death, the misappreciated but univer- sally benevolent accoucheur of all aspiring souls. Indeed, all nature bespeaks some such glorious consummation to the hopes and aspirations of the human soul. Under infinite power and infinite will, associated with infinite love and infinite wisdom, we find intelligent force and inert matter waltzing hand in hand. 116 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC so to speak, throughout the vast halls of the universe, and to- day are as vigorous and active, seemingly, as they have been for millions of years. And can we believe that the Divine Author and ruler of all will thus keep the atom and neglect the somZ? That Divine Intelligence will thus impeach and stultify itself in the future by ignoring the noble and aspiring hopes im- planted in the intelligent spirit of the race ? We cannot so dis- regard the indelible premonitions unmistakably apparent in the divine revelations of nature. Just as surely as the acorn fore- tells the unfolding of the future life and beauty of the oak, so likewise does the human soul in time, with all its wonderfully aspiring and expanding powers, foretell its own unending life, its own continued growth, its own increasing beauty and glory in the boundless domain of the hereafter, toward which human hopes unceasingly point, and of which human aspiration is the living prophecy. And, further, in this connection, the soul or spirit being an emanation from, and an individualized finite expression of, the great Father Spirit, as a necessary sequence, this individualized soul, prior to its anastasis, occupies, in a finite sense, of course, the same relative position in the microcosm of the human body — the epitome of creation — that the infinite soul occupies in the grand macrocosm of the entire body of the universe. The universe owes its continued existence in the realm of manifesta- tion to an all-pervading divine principle, distinct from matter as cause from effect, — which we call God. So the material human body without the soul, after the soul has found its anas- tasis, has no life in and of itself. " The active, plastic principle is the soul, — the true man, — of which the body is but the exter- nal expression, and the instrument "; and this soul, as the facts of Spiritualism prove, is an individualized entity. If, then, the spirit or soul is the man, as is demonstrated by the phenomena of Spiritualism, the analogies of nature further indicate the necessity for, and all the laws of nature imperiously demand, the death or dissolution of the physical body, and the THE FINAL RESUERF:CTI0N. 117 resurrection of the man therefrom into another and more spirit- ual realm. When the resurrection is accomplished, our departed ones tell us, man finds himself first among those he has loved the best, and by whom he has been beloved in time, — the dear ones who may have preceded him in the lengthened pathway of the spheres. And, oh, what a consolatory and illuminating reflec- tion is this, — to feel, as the night of time approaches, and we are about to launch our bark upon the silent river, that we shall not be alone, — that the loved of other years, our darlings gone before, are hovering near to welcome us ; and that, almost at the very moment we close our material eyes to the tears of earthly friendship, our spirit vision will be open to the welcom- 'ing smiles of those precious ones inhabiting the higher and brighter life. That our loved ones who have gone before are near us in the last trying moment of earthly existence has been beautifully exemplified in instances reported in the daily press of celestial music, vocal and instrumental, being distinctly heard immediately above the couch of the dying. And what a sweet con- solation indeed must such a fact be to those who are left behind? After a kindly and satisfactory reception by friends, occurring as it does through the law of emotional attraction, has had its legitimate influences, the soul gradually gravitates to just such moral and intellectual associations as the experiences and activi- ties of earth life have fitted it for. Such have all the bodily organs that they had before their resurrection ; they see and hear as in the earth life ; have memory, love, hope, fear ; they reason, desire, reflect, form opinions and express them ; indeed, are the same beings they were before, except in that they have thrown aside the '• muddy vesture of decay," and will, for a longer or shorter period, necessarily be subject to the relative and tempo- rary effects of their earthly masquerading. In fine, the spirit world being here, as Spiritualism teaches, and man an individual- ized spirit in the human form, when the resurrection takes place, when he rises from the body, as described, into the next sphere of existence, stands there a complete human being, — having left 118 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. nothing behind him, as I have said, but his former material covering. There are many persons, doubtless, who are willing to accept these declarations of the spiritual school as true in the abstract, but who practically deny the same by ignoring the facts of Spiritualism, — which facts are satisfactorily demonstrating to the candid investigator that man, as a spirit, is possessed of all those qualities which constitute personal being and individual identity. This rejection of evident facts is mainly attributable to the psychological influences of past educational processes. The mistaken theories of the past and of the present with regard to the human soul and its destiny have inculcated the idea, as I have said, that the mind or soul exists, after what is termed death has taken place, as a formless essence or unsubstantial something, of which no definite conception can be had, destined to await a reunion with the material body at some future period, before its personal identity can be realized or recognized. The soul has thus, indeed, as remarks a modern author, been reduced to something like a mathematical point, which, as you know, is defined to be position without magnitude, and which is about as near to nothing as the mind can conceive. Hence the wide- spread skepticism in Christendom in regard to the existence of the soul at all ; and the sad uncertainty, even among professed believers in immortality, as to its future powers and destiny. If man, after his resurrection, becomes what is practically taught in Christendom it would be impossible that he should know him- self, much less be recognized by others. The word identity means sameness ; and if you do not enter the spirit spheres in the same spiritual form that you possess here, you yourselves will never enter there. But your inner self, say our departed but returning friends, is more essential to identity in your future home than is " the outer form. Your affections, knowledge, experience, and memory, your entire character, as intellectual, moral, and emotional beings must be preserved, or your iden- tity is lost. For all the laws of life, as well as the analogies of THE FINAL KESTJRRECTION. 119 nature, clearly indicate that the true resurrection introduces man into the world of spirits the same being he was here, whether his goodness be shrouded by badness, or his badness be shrouded by goodness. Spiritualism further teaches that infinite love through infinite law has fully provided for the improvement and ultimate hap- piness of all souls thus born into spirit life ; and in this partic- ular, likewise, are its inculcations at variance with, and superior to, the authoritative teachings of orthodox theology. It is esti- mated that thirty-six millions of the human family pass through the change called death annually. This is three millions per month, and one hundred thousand per day. The greater num- ber of these are, or have been, weak and ignorant ; or, as theological soul-critics would term them, wicked. None, cer- tainly, have sufficient goodness to render them fit residents of the perfect heaven of which we have heard ; and just as surely all have too much goodness to warrant their consign- ment to the horrible hell of barbaric fabrication. They can- not be changed instantaneously into beings fitted for either place — supposing these places to have an existence — without de- stroying their identity, and contravening all the known laws of mind. Hence, these horrible dogmas of the past, with their kindred conceptions, are rapidly fading from recognition, let us hope, as the reading and the thinking public are increasing in numerical strength, and are taking position in the great battle of ideas, in advance of those who have too long had their read- ing and their thinking done for them. But, in such a dilemma as to the future of the race, even human benevolence (suggests a recent able writer) can conceive of influences under which all mankind might be brought, even in this life, by which they could be rendered better and happier ; and gradually prepared for the hi2:hest and bricrhtest conditions in the realm of arch- angel existence. And shall it be presumed for a moment that infinite love and wisdom have made no provision for the ulti- mate happiness of helpless humanity, after the unavoidable and 120 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. torturing experiences of earth shall have ended? Can it be sup- posed that no means have been provided for the development of faculties in another life which have fallen short of maturity in this ; and which, from their nature, must have been bestowed by God for ulterior purposes of good ? Brought mto the earth life without being consulted, forced by law through its changing experiences, the merest child of circumstances beyond human control,— and taken from it at the last, independent of his own volition, — surely, the spirit of irony alone must have prevailed in the projection of man upon this planet, if there be no code of life in the hereafter, universally applicable, through which the inevitable errors of time may be corrected, and the sorrows of earth find abundant compensation. The facts and philosophy of Spiritualism, however, inculcate too high an estimate of the Author of existence, and of the laws of being for its believers, to accept any of these horrible dogmas in regard to human destiny. Nor do we accede alto- gether to the more liberal idea entertained by some that (so called) death constitutes a peculiar alchemy by which bad men can be immediately transmuted into good men upon the merits of any vicarious sacrifice in the past, however meritorious or noble it may have been. Still less can we entertain the idea of another class, who practically inculcate the existence of a par- tial Deity in the declaration that the elect of God, — a chosen few, — leaving all their imperfections behind, are alone destined to the enjoyment of bliss beyond the grave. In fact. Spiritualism rejects all such dogmatic theories as have been inculcated on the subject of the soul's future as wholly incompatible with any just conception of a Divine Father, and as unsatisfactory to the innate aspirations of the soul. So much, indeed, do these creeds and systems fall short of supplying the needs of the general mind that men and women all over Christendom are turning from the old familiar pathways to look at all new things claiming the savor of religion. With the Spiritualists, many other minds have like- wise grown tired THE FIKAL EESUERECTION. 121 " Of dropping buckets into empty welis, And growing old in drawing nothing up." " They long for the green pastures along the streams which run among the hills of spiritual truth. And soon, compara- tively, like ourselves, they will be found willing to leap over, crawl under, or crowd through the bars of the old enclosures in search of freedom of thought and a legitimate expansion of the innate properties of the soul." Indeed, a general need is begin- n'mo- to be felt throuorhout Christendom for somethinoj broader, and higher, and better than the past is represented to have fur- nished. The need is even greater and deeper than the popular consciousness thereof. Can such revivals of religion as have been conducted by the Salvation Army, or through Moody and Sankey and others, gratify this need in man's moral nature? Do they not rather, when the fever of excitement has died out, leave the mind in a still more unhealthy state, with a still greater void ? Can present organizations supply this great demand ? We fear they are wholly incompetent, for the reason that, although orthodox theology may have taught some truths in the past, it is today devoted rather to the dissemination of dogmas than to the promulgation of moral truth ; to the observ- ance of forms rather than the elevation of man's spiritual nature. It is busy in the enforcement of creeds which, however well adapted to the mental conditions amid which they had birth, are wholly insufficient to satisfy the soul-needs of today ; instead of inculcating more enlarged views as to the nature of the soul, and the conditions of a future somewhat in consonance with the aspirations of humanity, as well as in harmony with the infinite attributes of the infinite source of all being. " What a joy it would be," said Theodore Parker, upon one occasion, " what a joy it would be, if there should come to pass a real revival of true religion, of piety and morality, throughout Chris- tendom. A great new growth of the soul, prophetic of whole Messianic harvests of truthfulness, of brotherly love, and of true piety yet to come." 122 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. Only think of it. The revival of a true religion, — its repre- sentatives teaching the glorious truths of nature and individual human consciousness, proclaiming the ever-beneficent presence of the Ever-Living God, who inspires man today as lie has ever done throughout time ; who inspires the soul through interme- diate and appropriate agencies, as through the sunshine and the shower He inspires the earth in her production of the sweet- scented flower, and the life-sustaining grain. It is toward such a revival that Spiritualism is looking, — ■ the revival of the Christ principle, practically, in the every-day life of the soul, independ- ent of church and creed, — not the revival or continuance of mere dogmas and enforced beliefs, which seem to impiously regard the Infinite Father as " an overworked and angry magis- trate, man as naturally fit only to be damned, and hell as a permanent penal settlement," located somewhere in the neigh- borhood of the antipodes, or else in some accursed spot in the atmosphere surrounding the earth, unknown to angel or arch- angel lore. Under the influence of such materialistic beliefs, some men seem to act in this world as though they thought themselves privileged, at a money valuation, to purchase reserved seats in the next ; whilst, in some directions, eternal mercy seems to be farmed out, like a turnpike gate on the high road, which none can pass but those who pay toll. And these are some of the results of reliance upon mere authority, without regard to the prompt- ings of the individual soul, which is unmistakably the revelator of truth unto itself. In this connection, the poet Gothe has said: " He who has art and science has religion also." To my mind, he who has art and science, sanctified by true spirit- ual emotion, has a philosophical religion, which needs only the culture of the moral faculties to render it of practical advantage in this life, and of ultimate advantage in the life beyond. But, as Spiritualism teaches, there are no philosophical grounds for such inconsistencies and vagaries of belief as those to which I have referred. The spirit or soul being an emana- THE FINAL RESURRECTION. 123 tion from Deity, as Spiritualism declares, goodness and truth are innate spiritual qualities, whilst evil and falsity are but de- fects of the external organization, and incidental to the law of progress, which is universally operative. The outward mani- festations of these latter qualities, therefore, can have but a reflex action upon man's spiritual nature, and can only be tem- porary in duration. Besides, as I have shown, if men were instantaneously relieved of the relative effects of the organiza- tional defects of time ; if men were immediately and radically changed by the resurrection from the body, they would not even know themselves ; and the purposes of both spheres of existence, of time and eternity, would thus be entirely ignored. Suppose, for instance, everything that is not perfectly beautiful, pure, and true were to be instantaneously eliminated from the will and understanding, the thought and affection, of each one of us here, I fear there would be not a very great deal left by which we could identify ourselves. And, certainly, we are not much worse than others, although not claiming to be of the elect. Thus Spiritualism is not iconoclastic only ; it is likewise con- structive, although through the neglect of proper investigation it is not thus generally understood. Spiritualism has not only " renounced idols of stone and idols of wood, and is likewise urging the necessity of breaking in pieces all idols built up of books and traditions," of fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs and arbitrary authoritarians ; but at the same time the inculcations of this school most emphatically urge the necessity and the wisdom of seeking to cherish whilst in the earth life the noblest and most enduring of man's emotions, the worship of the good, the true, and the beautiful in the infinite unknown, by culti- vating (in the language of one of our best writers) a higher and still higher appreciation of what may be known of these diviner attributes through the progressive tendencies of the finite and the human, and that by this process of moral culture the individual soul is prepared for its resurrection, come when it may. 124 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. Besides, the facts of Spiritualism, those wonderful phenom- ena which have been so often grossly misunderstood and sadly- misrepresented, satisfactorily demonstrate that the spirit world is not located at a distance outside of the realm of human appreciation, but that it is here, all around us, surrounding and interpenetrating the conditions among which we dwell, removed from our sight, and practically separated from us only by the thin veil of matter with which we are clothed as individualized spirits, and that when this veil of matter is removed by a resur- rection of the man from the body, the spirit world in which he has been all the time living is revealed to him more clearly, with no immediate change whatever in the man himself, as I have said, he is the same being, and the creature of the same laws, the law of individual progress included. And in this philosophic conception of individual growth beyond the grave, proportioned as in this life to individual effort and desire. Spir- itualism triumphs over all the dogmatic revealments of the ages that have passed. Death, through this law, brings no terror to the Spiritualist. It is but the flower-encircled door leading to the soul's immediate resurrection into a realm of diviner possi- bilities, a pathway of unending development, by and throuo-h which infinite justice and infinite mercy are beautifully recon- ciled ; a career of progress in which the pangs of retribution are inevitably soothed by the inexpressible joys of legitimate compensation, as successive ceons of thought and feeling shall continue to indicate the ascending scale of human happiness forever. Thus, my friends, the religion of Spiritualism is well suited for both time and eternity. The true Spiritualist should have confidence in God, and confidence in man, knowing that all are alike the children of one common Father. He should learn to pity the inharmonious idiosyncrasies of individual character, and to rise above the petty bickerings of social life as well as all the sterner experiences of the battle of existence, knowing so well what a beautiful sphere of compensation and of just THE FINAL BESUKRECTION. 125 retribution we shall enter upon when the morning of an imme- diate resurrection shall dawn for each. As a conclusion, in the language of modern inspiration, allow me to add — "Oh! tell us, friends, where is Death ! We do not find it here ; We only find still more of life Each moment in this sphere. We now are here, friends, where the flowers Pour forth their fragrant breath, And no one in these heavenly bowers Can tell us aught of Death. They said, dear friends, that we must die, And slumber 'neath the sod, Until at some far distant day We heard the trump of God ; But such sweet tones of melody Are falling on the ear, We know this must be Heaven, And our Father must be here. And when your burning tear-drops fell Upon each pallid brow. We heard your cries of agony, 'We have no darlings, now.' But, could you 've seen the angel throng That bore each soul away. You'd not have shed another tear Upon the pulseless clay. Then never, never say again Your friends are in the grave, For could you see the fountain bright In which we often lave. And could you feel upon your brows Our warm seraphic breath. You 'd know that we have never felt The chilling kiss of Death. " LECTURE VII. FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.— Matt., ch. xxv., v. 46. In my Father's house are many mansions. — John, ch. xiv., v. 2. The prominent evil of Christendom, as I conceive, is a too confident and blind reliance upon what is deemed established authority in regard to all eschatological conceptions and relig- ious matters generally. Whilst under the influence of subser- viency to this alleged authority many opponents of Spiritualism, for the want of better weapons, too frequently assumed to kill its arguments with the silliness of a sarcasm, and to dismiss its truths with the empty impertinence of a sneer. This moral amaurosis has arisen and been fostered through the force of educational faith, during the generations that have come and gone, to such an extent that even in the present age of progress and general enlightenment many are apt at times to lose sight of the great truth so encouraging to the Spiritualist that man- kind never surrenders to time, and that there is a progress even in what is called Christianity. I do not utter these sentiments, or others of like character that may follow at any time, in a spirit of bigotry, fully satisfied as I am that he who dogmatizes in such matters occupies a less enviable position even than he who doubts. Nor do I wish to be understood as at war with individuals, although I may seemingly entrench upon individual opinions ; for I trust I would be among the last to do violence to personal feelings. I am seeking rather in my advocacy of (126) FUTUEE KEWAEDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 127 what I am taught as truth to point out what appear to be misdirections of sentiment, under the influence of ecclesiastical authoritarians, as well as misapplication of principle on the part of denominational associations in the great field of religious thought. An able writer upon " The Rise and Progress of Christian- ity " says in effect, most truthfully, that the treatment of Chris- tianity has hitherto oscillated between Church authority on the one hand and individual impulse and feeling on the other, rea- son playing but an incidental and secondary part. The early misapplication of reason in the attempt to discover by way of speculative inference the essential nature of Deity could but meet with discomfiture. The controversies of the early centu- ries with regard to the trinity were but an entanglement of ideas, in which the human mind, driven from point to point by its own ingenuity, eventually registered the evidence of its tor- ture and despair in the unintelligible jargon of the Athanasian creed. Reason, however, at the dawning of the Protestant Reformation, assumed again to battle with the creeds ; or rather with the articles of dogma that had taken almost entire posses- sion of the Christian mind during the middle ages. But it would seem that this latter attempt has proved well nigh as ineffectual as the former. For, although Protestantism claims to grant the right of private judgment to its adherents, still, with regard to its practical operations, it cannot be said that today there is any real alliance between faith and reason, but rather a mystical coalition, so to speak, between the recognized orthodox dogma and the private opinion of the professed be- liever ; so that, if a man cannot prove the truth of his position, he can at least school himself to believe that he is right, and thus the dogma may be shaped to suit the feeling, or the feeling conveniently expanded to grasp the mysteries of the dogma. Some in the present day find such a course of procedure more or less easy, whilst with others it is becoming more and more difficult. And to this latter class belong those minds who are 128 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. gradually leaping over sectarian barriers, and are seeking greener pastures and broader fields of thought and aspiration. In this connection, I may remark, likewise, that it is admittedly difficult to form an impartial opinion as to what faith the reputed founder of Christianity himself sought to promulgate. Jesus did not write. His early teachings and his example no doubt gave a new feeling and a new spirit to the age in which he lived, but no new system of doctrine. His immediate apostles preached, but the best ecclesiastical historians declare that the written works attributed to them have very little claim to be considered genuine. Nevertheless, the popular churches declare that Christianity either has or will redeem the world. But if it be inquired what is Christianity? the answers will be almost as numerous as the individuals who respond. Hence the phi- losophic Spiritualist is justified in declaring the Christianity of the popular churches of the day nothing more or less than an exponent of individual fancies ; and in enjoining upon the searcher after truth, in addition to listening to the intuitions of his own soul, to unprejudicedly investigate history in order that he may be able to distinguish the essence of religion from its mere appendages, its forms, its ceremonies, and its arbitrary dogmas. Again, as to the uncertainties of the faith said to have been founded by the good man of Nazareth, I may add that imme- diately succeeding the departure of the apostles from earthly labor there were in existence some seventy different sects of Christians, all of them claiming to be the followers of the same good master, and yet all of them differing the one from the other with regard to points of doctrine. There were in exist- ence, likewise, some fifty gospels, thirty-six Acts of the Apos- tles, and twelve Apocalypses. Among these were the Acts of Andrew, the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Bar- tholomew, an Epistle of Christ, the Gospel of Matthias, the Gospel according to the Nazarenes, the Acts of Paul, the Rev- FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 129 elation of Paul, the Gospel of Philip, the Acts of Philip, the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Peter, the Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of Stephen, the Gospel of Thaddeus, the Gospel of Perfection, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and a number of others, all of which in the early centuries were deemed to be equally as divinely inspired as were those which you have today. Besides, the method of selecting the canonical books by the Fathers — for, remember, our world had a Church before it possessed a Bible — was necessarily arbitrary. Instead of measuring the opinion presented for consideration by " some canonical book previously adopted, we are told that the book presented for their decision was measured by some doctrine already agreed upon, and hence some books that were at first rejected, owing to increased enlightenment, or from some other cause, after the lapse of years were elevated to a higher position in the estimation of the world, whilst others previously deemed orthodox were rejected. It is also a fact that the original Hebrew copies of these New Testament books, of which learned doctors of divinity speak so frequently, were entirely destroyed after their translation into Greek, and that what remains to Christendom today is referable to the learning and the labor of the early Fathers of the Church. At about the close of the third century, however, a number of Gospels and Epistles were collated into one volume, and denominated " The New Testa- ment." This copy did not contain the Acts of the Apostles or the Book of Revelation, as now comprehended therein. The Acts of the Apostles was added in A. D. 408, and the Book of Revelation was included in A. D. 565. Other emendations and additions were likewise made, as the best authorities inform us. Notwithstanding such facts as these, which certainly clergymen should be familiar with, the declaration is still heralded through- out the land that you should accept the Bible as the only infal- lible record, the only infallible guide. But in response to this declaration the cultured and inquiring mind of the age can but inquire which Bible is it that we are to accept thus unquestion- 130 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. ingly? Is it the Protestant Bible that has sixty-six books, or is it the Catholic Bible which has seventy-six books, and which existed more than a thousand years before the Protestant Bible now in use? or is it Luther's Bible, which did not originally contain the Epistles of James, or the Book of Revelation ? or is it Boothroyd's Bible which does not contain the Songs of Solo- mon ? or is it the Samaritan Bible, which has only the five books attributed to Moses ? or is it the Jewish Bible, which, according to Josephus, has but twenty-two books ? or some one of the many others I might name ? Of this list the Protestant Church declares the Bible now in use in England and America is unmistakably the infallible will of God ; and there are many good and honest people who, through the force of early educa- tion, really believe that the present version, as we now have it, is verbatim et literatim, as it came from the mouth of a personal God. This Bible was presented to the world A. D. 1617, during the reign of James the I. of England. Let us briefly refer to the circumstances of its introduction. Prior to the adoption of the King James Bible there had been a greater number of translations than perhaps the general reader is aware of. Theodoret, who lived in the middle of the fifth century says that in his day there were in existence the Armenian, the Scythian, the Syrian, the Ethiopian, the Indian, the Persian, and the Samaritan translations. In the year 1200 a translation was made into the French language, and about the same time a translation into the Spanish language ; in the year 1390 a translation was made into the Polish language ; in the year 1471 a translation was made into the Italian lan- guage ; Wickliffe completed his translation into the English language in the year 1382 ; Luther completed his translation into the German language about the year 1530 ; Tyndall com- pleted his translation into the English language about the same year. Other translations into English likewise existed prior to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Early in her reign the English nation possessed an authorized translation, executed by the FUTURE REWARDS AND PtJNISHMENTS. 131 Bishops of the Church of England, under the guidance of Arch- bishop Parker. James I. succeeded Queen Elizabeth to the throne of England, and at his command, as I have said, in 1611, the Bishops furnished another authorized version under his direction and supervision. And this is the Bible now in use in America ; and by the Protestants, strangely enough, declared to be infallible. The reign of this monarch, says an English author, himself a Protestant, remains a foul blot upon the page of history, which not all the blood and horrors of the great rebellion — of which it was the origin and cause — have been able to efface. He was one of the most disgusting monarchs that ever sat on the English throne. He was proverbially un- just. His cold and fanatical cruelties were more horrible than the wildest excesses of passionate tyranny. Indeed, his history is characterized by villainous efforts to crush the liberties of the people, and to establish the kingly prerogative upon the ruins of the English constitution ; as well as his pitiful pedantry of attempting to erect himself into an ecclesiastical judge, and set- ting himself up as the Pope of Great Britain. He likewise believed in the influence of witches in the affairs of human life, and many a poor woman suffered physical death during his reign in consequence. Yet this is the ruler under whose supervision the present version of the Bible was presented to the world, and whose opinions decided all differences among the translators. This version was made by the Bishops from a Greek text which Erasmus in 1516, and Robert Stephens in 1550, had formed from manuscripts of later date than the tenth century. Whether these manuscripts were thoroughly trustworthy has long been matter of diligent and learned investigation. Since the century referred to, Greek manuscripts have been discovered of far greater antiquity than those of Erasmus and Stephens, as well as- others in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Gothic, into which lan- guages the text of the Bible was translated between the second and fourth centuries ; while in the works of the Fathers, from the second century downward, many quotations from the New 132 UNAISIS WEE ABLE LOGIC. Testament have been found and compared. And the result has been that, while on one hand scholars have become aware that the text of Erasmus and Stephens was in use in the Byzantine Empire before the tenth century, on the other hand they have discovered thousands of readings which had escaped the notice of these writers. The question then arose which reading, in each case, most correctly represented what the Apostles had written ? Which, learned men agree, is by no means an easy question, since the variations in the documents are very ancient, and scholars are much divided as to the readings which most exactly convey what they are pleased to term the Word of God. One thing, how- ever, is agreed upon by the majority of those who understand the subject, viz., that the oldest copies approach the original text more nearly than the later ones. Is there not, then, some reason in questioning the infallibility of so late a version as the King James Bible now in use ? iFurther, allow me to call your attention for a moment to three ancient Greek manuscripts, which are esteemed as undoubt- edly standing at the head of all the ancient copies of the New Testament. One is called the Vatican Codex, and is deposited in the Vatican at Rome. Whence it was acquired by the Vatican library is not known ; but it is named in the first cata- logue of that collection, which dates from the year 1475. This manuscript embraces the Old and part of the New Testament, the four Gospels, the Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, nine of the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews as far as the 9th chapter, 14th verse, from which verse to the end of the New Testament it is deficient. The next referred to is the Alexandrine Codex, which was presented to King Charles I., in 1628, by Cyril Sucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had himself brought it from Alexandria, and whence it derives its name. It contains the Old and part of the New Testaments, — portions of Matthew, John, and 2nd Corinthians being wanting. In addition, this manuscript con- tains the Epistle of Clemens Romanus (the only known copy), FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 166 a letter of Athanasius, and a treatise of Eusebius upon the Psalms. It is now in the British Museum, in London, where are also the Syriac Gospels, transferred from the convents of the Nitrian desert. The third referred to is the Sinaitic Codex, discovered in 1844 at the convent of St. Catharine, on Mount Sinai, by the learned Constantine Tischendorf, who, at the instance of Em- peror Alexander II., of Russia, returned to the convent in 1859, and took this ancient manuscript to St. Petersburg, where it still remains. It contains the Old and New Testaments, the latter without the loss of a single leaf. In addition, it contains the entire " Epistle of Barnabas," and a portion of the " Shep- herd of Hermas," — two books which, down to the beginning of the fourth century, were looked upon as a portion of the Scriptures. The first place among these three great manu- scripts, both for age and extent, is awarded by the learned to the Sinaitic Codex, the second to the Vatican, and the third to the Alexandrine ; yet neither is considered as standing so high that its sole verdict is sufficient to silence all contradiction. Of these three manuscripts, however, a learned Christian writer says : " It is by their standard that both the early editions of the Greek text and the modern versions are to be compared and corrected." " Indeed," he continues, " it is not too much to hope that by their means a Greek text of the New Testament may sooner or later be settled, which shall serve as the basis of translation for all Christian communities." In this connection, permit me to remark that the spiritual school is loudly denounced, sometimes even by the liberal pul- pit, for refusing to accept the King James Bible now in use as an infallible record ; and yet I have just quoted high Chris- tian authority for the fact that there never has been a correct basis of translation ; and that hopes are entertained throughout Christendom that one will be eventually established througli the proper use of these three ancient manuscripts to which I have lo4 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. just referred. Surely, then, the utterances of the spiritual ros- trum are not quite so reprehensible as has been supposed. In addition to the numerous translations just adverted to, there are two others of material importance which I will but briefly mention, and then proceed to the more immediate con- sideration of my text, when I hope you will be able the better to perceive the tendency of the remarks already offered. I allude first to what is called the Vulgate, — that is, the translation of the Old and New Testaments into the Latin Language, in the fourth century, by St. Jerome. This is still the authorized translation of the Catholic Church ; and is esteemed as second only to the Septuagint. What is called the Septuagint is a trans- lation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew to the Greek. This translation was made at Alexandria two hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of the Nazareneby seventy- two learned Hebrews, under the auspices and authority of Ptol- emy Philadelphus. The Greek language at this period in the history of mankind had become a common language of com- munication for the learned of the then civilized world, and so remained for many centuries, viz., in Greece, along the shores of the Euxine, the whole of Asia IMinor, Syria, Egypt, Carthage and her dependencies, Rome and her dependencies, together with all the towns and cities of the Mediterranean. "And thus," says an able writer, "the sealed-up literature of Palestine was thrown open to the world "; and thus little Judea, nestling in an angle of Asia, scarcely visible as a fraction of Syria, overshadowed on the one hand by the ancient settlements of the Nile, and on the other by the vast empire that for thousands of years occupied the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, materially affected the religious sentiment of the world. These two translations, the Vulgate and the Septuagint, with the exception of the three great manuscripts already alluded to, are esteemed the best that have been made. But even the Vulgate and the Septuagint are not without their errors of translation, only one of which I have time to FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 135 allude to at present, which has led to an exceedingly absurd mistake in some of the finest productions of Art. Thus, the horn of the Oriental buffalo, and a pencil of light, were both conical in shape ; hence, in the Hebrew language, the same word was used for each. Jerome, in translating the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, made the Vulgate translation say of Moses, as he came down from the mount, that his face or head was horned, or had horns on it ; when he should have translated it (scholars now say) somewhat in this wise : " His very face or head radiated light," etc. In consequence of this, the great Michael Angelo, in one of his wonderful specimens of art, actu- ally placed horns on the head of the man reputed to be the meekest the world has ever known. And now I approach more immediately the consideration of the two texts presented in the opening of my discourse : " These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal "; and, " In my Father's house are many man- sions." One of these texts, as it reads in the English transla- tion now in use, assigns but two places for humanity in the spheres beyond the grave, and one of these, at least, by no means an enviable one ; the other declares there are many. There is no escape from the conclusion that here is a flat con- tradiction existing in a record which is pronounced to be the infallible Word of God. Now, if we are honestly in search of truth, which is the best course to be pursued? Shall we blindly accept both statements, and declare that no difference exists simply because we are commanded to do so upon the assumed authority of sectarian teachers ? Or shall we not, rather, as rational creatures, and in the exercise of the faculties with which God has endowed us, seek for some explanation in char- acter with the high claims made for the book from whence these texts are taken ? The spiritual school has adopted the latter course, and for so doing has been widely condemned. Never- theless, in addition to the teachings of our spirit friends, we find additional authority in the course pursued by learned men for 136 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. generations before us, many of whom, likewise, were essentially religious without being sectarian in their sentiments and practice. The original Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament, as I have stated, were destroyed after copies had been taken in the Greek language. The jEirst, or Hebrew manuscripts, being of course inaccessible in the event of any dispute or doubt as to words or sentences in any modern version, reference could only properly be had to existing Greek copies. The first text re- peated in your hearing, with its doctrine of the durability of rewards and punishments in the future world, has undergone the closest and most critical' examination on the part of some of the ablest thinkers and best classical scholars known ; and the result has been exceedingly gratifying to the lovers of truth wherever found ; whilst it has been unmistakably demonstrated that the English Bible now in use in America is decidedly a mistransla- tion as far as this particular text is concerned, at least. And, it can likewise be readily perceived, as I hope to show, that a true rendering of this text will harmonize beautifully with the teachings of the spiritual school as to future conditions, for which, during the last thirty years, the advocates of this school have met with the most unqualified condemnation of both the press and the pulpit of our land. I will endeavor to explain how the mistranslation in all probability must have occurred, so that any unprejudiced mind can readily perceive the error. With those minds — and unfortunately, through the force of education, there are some such who seem determined that, for the glory of God, some poor souls must suffer eternal punishment — my arguments can avail but little. In the first place, it is a common error, more common in the past than in the present, perhaps, to suppose that every idea or word which exists for one language must necessarily have an interchangeable equivalent in all other languages. And this is the error the translators of the King James Bible seem to have fallen into ; unless we suppose the mistranslation was purposely made, in order the better to enforce upon the common mind the FUTTJEE RBWABDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 137 idea of damnatioD, supposing the fear thereof to be the greater iDccDtive to faith in the various other dogmas they were seeking to inculcate. There are words by the thousand, however, in the various languages for which there is no interchangeable equivalent. Hence, we are coining words in our own language almost daily, especially from the French, coquette, parquet, depot, etc. Such is the fact with one of the words in the Greek of the text in question, — the Greek noun from which is derived the Greek adjective IIwws; the one used in the text is IIwv. This adjective IIwi/os is translated in the King James Bible " everlasting " and " eternal." But every Greek scholar will tell you that this Greek noun and adjective have neither of them an interchangeable equivalent in the English language, and that the two adjectives " everlasting " and " eternal," used in the ver- sion now claimed to be infallible, not only do not convey a true interpretation of the Greek words, but actually express a very opposite meaning to what is the correct definition. What, then, is the appropriate translation ? what is the true meaning of the Greek adjective IIwi/os, or rather of the Greek noun IIwv, from which the adjective used is derived ? As I have intimated, no one word in the English language can possibly serve as a trans- lation. The correct definition of this one Greek word, however, is this, as all Greek scholars will tell you: ''•That duration or cycle of existence which belongs to an object universally in sight of its genus'' Thus, for instance, the IIwv of an apple tree and the Hwv of a hickory tree may be each a full and perfect IIwv in itself, and yet differ very essentially the one from the other. The Hoiv of infancy, the IIwv of youth, the 11 wv of manhood, and the IIwv of old age may all exist in the general IIwv of one life, and yet all be full and perfect ; since, as you doubtless perceive, every II wv furnishes the secret why of its own existence, and that, therefore, every object whatever, every mode of existence, here or elsewhere, has its own separate and independent Hwv. But it is argued by the advocates of eternal punishment that the forty-seven Bishops of the Church of England who, under 138 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. King James, gave us the present version of the Bible constitute exceedingly high authority. And so, perhaps, they do ; but have not 1 given equally as high authority as to the unreliability of the sources upon which these bishops based their translation ? And, besides, in our day, and in our land, the reading and the thinking public are rapidly outnumbering the merely learned public ; and the time has gone by when self-constituted authori- ties in such matters can remain unquestioned, whilst the day is dawning, through the instrumentality of Spiritualism, when soul- consciousness alone shall determine for itself the revelation of the hour. Let us, then, Anglicize this Greek adjective IIwvos, remem- bering the definition of the noun from which it is derived, and, substituting it for the words "eternal" and "everlasting," see how much more rationally the text will read thus : " These shall go away into Ionic punishment, but the righteous into life lonic,'^ — that is, these shall go into just such suffering as they have wrought out for themselves, and the righteous into just such degrees of happiness as they have prepared themselves to enjoy. And thus rendering this text, you can at once perceive how beautifully it may harmonize with the second verse re- peated at the commencement : " In my Father's house are many mansions." No contradiction any longer exists to mar the truth or beauty of either. The Spiritualist, likewise, can recognize an harmonious agreement between the teachings of the dear spirits and the declarations of the New Testament as found in my texts. In contradiction of the orthodox dogma, that death fixes the fate of the race forever in one of two localities, either heaven or hell. Spiritualism has been teaching for more than a quarter of a century that the spirit world is made up of individual condi- tions as consequent upon individual activities iu this life, glorious and happy or the reverse, proportioned to individual preparation for participation in either ; and, further, that the law of prog- ress, of which man is the creature here, extending beyond the rUTTTRE EEWABDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 139 confines of time, each individual, proportioned to desire and effort, may continue to advance from lower to higher conditions perpetually throughout the countless ages of eternity,- thus en- couraging hope of future joy to the darkest soul in the deepest misery of material misdirection. The law of individual condi- tions certainly agrees with the declaration of Jesus as to the " many mansions " existing in his Father's house, whilst the law of individual progress is correspondential to the Ionic rela- tions legitimately deducible from a correct translation of the first-named text under consideration. Surely, it cannot be denied that these are logical conclusions. If so, the truth of the first century of the Christian era and the truth of today are not at variance ; the truths of the New Testament inspiration and of the inspiration of the nineteenth century harmonize most beau- tifully. Indeed, truth is eternal, agreeing with itself yester- day, today, and forever. Therefore, whilst questioning the au- thenticity of the King James Bible, and presenting, as I believe, sufficient grounds for the questioning, I certainly do not wish to be understood as rejecting any truths the individual soul may find therein adapted to its needs. Whilst ignoring the infalli- bility of the Bible as an entity, I can but recognize it as a won- derful collocation of spiritual communications for the most part adapted to the age in which they were written, and as containing many beautiful spiritual truths applicable to man in any age. But the individual soul must itself be the judge as to the applicability of these. truths to its own needs, for, indeed, soul-consciousness is normally and forever the revelator of God's will unto itself. If, therefore, you extract the spiritual facts and truths from the Bible, small indeed will be the remainder ; take Spiritualism from the Bible and you will have left only what the weeping mother holds to her bosom when the spirit of her babe has been received into the arms of God's pale angel of death, — simply the outer coverings. Still, as I have once before said, what the New Testament was to the Old, I believe Spirit- ualism is to the New, an extension of its views, with a new and 140 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. brighter light thrown upon its obscurities. And, for myself, I would not, as is charged against the spiritual school, seek to ignore the Bible altogether. If I am correctly impressed, a majority of this school neither reject it or accept it as an entity, recognizing only what to the individual soul-consciousness recom- mends itself as true. Nevertheless, I can but think that practi- cally we Spiritualists, with all our alleged infidelity, believe more fully in the spiritual truths of the Bible than do its orthodox advocates who professedly recognize the infallibility of all its assumed teachings. This must be so, or these professed believ- ers in what it is declared the Bible teaches are exceedingly incon- sistent in one direction at least if in none other. How can any- one, with the common feelings of humanity, who really believes in the dogmas said to be founded upon the Bible, venture to rear a family, for instance ? What father can look upon the face of his sleeping child, when thus believing, without the most fear- ful and horrible anticipations as to the future of his offspring ? What mother, with the orthodox faith said to be in accordance with the teachings of the Bible, could hold her babe to her bosom and praise God for the blessing, believing it to have been begotten in sin and shaped in iniquity, with the almost certain apprehen- sion, likewise, that, as a totally depraved creature, it must be eventually damned ? Who, I repeat, that really believes in the dogmas of total depravity and eternal damnation, both said to be taken from the Bible, could willingly engage in rearing children on earth with the certainty that well nigh nine-tenths of every family must contribute eventually to the peopling of an ever- lasting hell ? No, it cannot be ! The noble and true-hearted men and women of the nineteenth century, although professedly recognizing the infallibility of the book from whence such dog- mas are taken, do not and cannot believe such monstrous libels upon both man and his Maker. Cultivated humanity is undoubt- edly better than its creeds. The Spiritualist, thank Heaven, does not believe such terrible doctrines, come from whence they may, but is aiming for the development of a higher and a FUTTJEE KEWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 141 nobler faith, under the influence of which men and women can be truer to their children, truer to themselves, truer to nature, and truer to God than to believe that such terrible decrees and fearful alternatives as are found in the professedly Biblical creeds of the day ever emanated from a God of infinite love and infinite wisdom. In conclusion, my friends, Spiritualism teaches us, as I have said, more ennobling conceptions of humanity, a loftier appre- ciation of the majestic universe of which we are a component part, and a higher reverence for the Infinite Father soul, who is ruling the same in so much harmony and beauty through laws co-existent with himself. It teaches us that this Divine Father has given man a boundless field for the occupation of his fac- ulties, with unlimited supplies as the reward of effort ; thought, with its varied expressions ; achievement, with its rich content- ment ; aspiration, with its sacred fires ; self-denial, with its vic- tories; hope, with its promises ; faith, with its yearnings and its rewards ; nature, in all her glory and tenderness ; knowledge, in all its attractions ; art, in all its splendor ; and tells us con- tinually that the soul thus endowed should never descend to the low and groveling things of sense, substituting these for richer and higher blessings. And we know, if we are true to our- selves in the earth life ; if we heed the counsel of our angdl friends, and act up to our highest sense of right in the exercise of brotherly love and charity continually, independent of beliefs and disbeliefs, as we approach the confines of time, and stand upon the shores of the rapidly rolling Niagara of death, we shall see on the other side our beloved and departed who have gone before, weaving for us golden cords of God's own thought, which, bound around the prows of our little barks, we shall be enabled to float joyously into a secure and happy harbor, thus entering upon successive IIcovs of still increasing joys throughout the limitless ages of eternity. But if, on the other hand, we have knowingly run counter to natural law ; if we have sinned against God, by sinning against 142 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. our brother man, or ourselves ; if we have done ill instead of good, and violated our own highest conceptions of right by neg- lecting the loving advice of our heavenly counselors, — we must expect to enter into just such inharmonious and unhappy con- ditions as by such a line of conduct we have prepared ourselves for upon the other side of life, destined eventually, however, under the operations of the law of progress, proportioned to our own individual effort and desire, to emerge from these lower and darker conditions into higher and still higher relations, brighter and sublimer IIcovs of still increasing felicities, succes- sively, amid the unending beatitudes of the boundless pavilion of our God. Since, through the everlasting law of cause and effect, it is undoubtedly true that "We shape ourselves, our joy or fear, Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade. The tissues of the life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of destiny We reap as we have sown. Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And painted on the eternal wall The past shall reappear. For there we live our life again, Or warmly touched, or sadly dim, The pictures of the past remain, — Man's works shall follow him.'* LECTURE Vin. JOAN OF AKC. History, we are told, is " philosophy teaching by example," and, to the external appreciation or surface perception, this is true. But, in addition to the sensuous experiences of life, there is yet another page in the history of individuals and of nations, the soul's record of its inner impulses and experiences, which are unperceived by the many, and appreciated by few. In some histories, however, the distinguishing features of this inner life are the most apparent ; and from these the most lasting impres- sions are received, and the profoundest wisdom gathered. From such lives we learn that " history assumes its adequate signifi- cance only when regarded as a grand intellectual and moral method, — a continuous demonstration, — of which God consti- tutes the premises, and God the conclusion." Such, evidently, was the life of Joan of Arc, whose martyr- dom is a lasting testimony of the ignorance and bigotry of the age that she adorned, and a perpetual memento of the wicked- ness and superstition of a great nation when swayed by the love of conquest and material wealth rather than by a desire for the intellectual and spiritual growth of its citizens. True, modern orators may speak sagely, as they suppose, of " the reflections of her own soul," and of '' the hallucinations " of this mediumistic maiden. True, Hume, Michelet, and Lam- artine may have designated her as an enthusiast, as a fanatic, and as full of romance. But, to what end ? Is there any prin- ciple of deep, vitalizing force (it has well been asked) that has (143) 144 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. not, in some manner, engendered fanaticism? Indeed, that cause which has not sufficient brilliancy and beauty about it to arouse some natures into fanaticism need scarcely be expected to have intrinsic merit enough to justify martyrdom in others. Besides, in the operations of the divine economy, some natures seem to have been endowed with a vivid sense of the heroic, the lovely, the divine, which cold materialism terms romance, but which they themselves know to be that which sustains them for hard duties and bitter trials ; and which comforts them when a heartless world has made external comforts but faint and few. Aud what is more beautiful than the fanaticism of love, for instance, whether it be manifested in affection for a fellow-creat- ure, or in devotion to a principle ; whether it exists in a noble woman, battling for the ascendancy of morality and virtue, or in the self-sacrificing devotion of a Minnesota mail-carrier, who seats a crippled companion upon his only horse, and remains to die in the midst of flames, with the object entrusted to his care locked close in his arms ; whether it have a resting place in the bosom of a cloistered nun, wrapped in visions of her Divine Bridegroom ; or in the heart of a noble mother, a devoted wife, a faithful slave, or even in the poor dog who stretches himself across his master's grave and dies ? Such self-abnegating love still lives, still burns on, even amid the utilitarian heartiessness that may surround it. And it will continue to burn on even unto the grave, and beyond the grave, I doubt not, in the glori- ous hereafter. In the beautiful Summer-Land of the soul we shall find that all true love, every good affection, all benevolence of purpose, every higher aspiration, and all the unsupplied long- ings of the soul in time, whether deemed fanatical or otherwise, have been divinest prophecies to the inner man, to be abundantly and joyously realized in the glorious land of compensation toward which the hungry soul is hastening. The history of Joan of Arc is of importance when considered merely from a material standpoint, or with a view to material results exclusively. The active part taken by her during an JOAN OF ARC. 145 excitiug period in the annals of France, and the wonderful forti- tude, associated with the most indefatigable energy and undaunted personal bravery with which she sustained herself throughout the whole of her career, can but arouse to enthusiastic admira- tion every mind capable of fully appreciating the devotion of the woman, or the self-sacrificing services of a true lover of her country. But her history, in connection with the purpose of my discourse, assumes its greatest significance when considered in relation to many facts in her experience which are strikingly, analogous to innumerable incidents of the present age of almost hourly occurrence, the investigation of which, in the light of the nineteenth century, is developing hopes and truths by no means esteemed the property of the human soul during the historical epoch of which I am speaking ; but which, through increasing knowledge of their illuminating influences, are contributing to the conviction that, as far as the experiences of the Maid of Orleans are concerned, " the best prophet of the future is the past." For the present age is replete with just such phenomena as those which, through her organism, aroused the warrior- statesmen of the period into superstitious awe, and startled churchmen of the fifteenth century into apprehensions, yet to be realized, doubtless, in the overthrow of ecclesiastical despot- ism, and which led to the bitterest persecution and ultimate cruel murder of one of the purest martyrs to spiritual truth ever known amid the intellectual and moral struggles of the shadowy past. Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d'Arc, was born on the night of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1412, of peasant parents, in the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, in the valley of the river Meuse, France. At the time of her birth, France was wasted by nearly a century of conflict and its consequences. Since 1337 there had been war almost perpetually renewed with Eng- land ; but at the immediate date of the birth of the maid, the worst and then present calamities of France were the work of the turbulent princes of the realm, and of the wicked Queen of 146 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. Charles VI., Isabeau of Bavaria. Charles was imbecile both in mind and body ; consequently, from 1392, when his diseases seemed to have culminated, to early in 1421, the rule of France was a matter of continued conflict as to the regency ; and likewise as to the legal rights of different claimants for the throne. The continuance of these wars for some years finally afforded opportunity to the King of England, Henry V., to push the ancient claim of the Plantagenets to the crown of France. In May, 1420, a treaty was entered into between the Queen, by which the Dauphin was disinherited, and Henry married to her daughter, thus giving him further claim to the throne which he coveted. In his progress toward the throne of France, however, he was arrested by the hand of death in about one year after his treaty with the treacherous wife of Charles VI. and her adherents. Seven weeks later the body of this imbecile king was gathered to those of his fathers at Saint Denis ; and the contest was left to be continued be- tween the adherents of the infant son of Henry V. of England and Charles VII. of France, son of the unfortunate king just deceased. This latter-named prince was the monarch in behalf of whom Joan of Arc served and suffered. The wonderful powers exhibited by and through the organ- ism of this interesting woman, and which so much startled the leading minds of the age in which she lived, corresponded in a remarkable degree, as I have said, to those presented at the present time through what is appropriately termed mediumistic agency, — in her deemed supernatural, in ours esteemed as simply supermundane. The .first recognizable indication of any peculiar power possessed by her was during her childhood, while tending a flock of sheep in the field in company with other children. She suddenly stopped in her sports with the children, exclaiming: "I hear my mother call me home," and rushed speedily to the homestead, saying to her mother : " Did you not call me ? I heard a voice." The mother replied : " It was not mine, child, go back to the field." JOAN OF ARC. 147 Whatever skeptics may have decided in regard to this inno- cent child and her " voices," it seems to me as a rational con- clusion that these voices fully correspond to those heard by Samuel as a child, by Abraham, by the Shepherds, by Saul, by John, and, indeed, by many now known as mediums, both in ancient and modern times. But, as you are aware, the voices heard by Joan, and those heard by similarly gifted individuals in the present day, are popularly denounced as " hallucinations," " the reflections of one's own mind," etc. And those who dare to profess a belief in the possible universality of such phe- nomena ; or, in other words, those who believe in the production of like results under like conditions, at all times and in all ages, through the operation of unalterable and eternal law, are ostra- cized and persecuted to the utmost verge of malignity that the advancing spirit of the race will allow. And yet God's truth remains the same, eternal law continues unalterable, these phe- nomena still occur, and a few aspiring souls bask in the sunlight of the glorious truths resultant from these facts in nature. In this connection, allow me to make a partial digression for the purpose of mentioning that I recently read in a reliable paper a statement that when our late lamented, but arisen, President, Gen. Garfield, was a lad of only six or seven years of age, while out at play, he saw his father, then deceased, and talked with him ; that among other things his father told him that, if he would be a good boy, he would make a great man of him, and then disappeared. The boy then ran into the house and inquired : " AYhere is father ? " His mother was surprised, and asked him what he meant. He told her what he had seen and heard, saying that he knew his father was in the house. The paper further stated that it had the intelligence from reliable parties who were at that time neighbors of Mrs. Garfield, and had often heard the circumstances alluded to by the members of the family. " It is, therefore," adds the editor, "no newspaper sensation, but one of the facts of Spiritualism, for which we have a scientific explanation." 148 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. I may mention further that I am myself aware of a little girl in Baltimore, under ten years of age, who has been in the habit for years of holding daily conversation with her mother, deceased when she was an infant. She was accustomed every day, when at home, to watch the clock for a certain hour, upon the arrival of which she would at once leave the rest of the family that she might go, as she said, and " talk with her mother in Heaven." Some officious friends, of course, remonstrated with the grandmother, saying that the child would undoubtedly become deranged. But the more sensible grandmother replied that it did the child no harm, but seemed to contribute materi- ally to her happiness. She refused, therefore, to interfere in the matter, although the whole family were members of an orthodox church. And, again, there is a dear little girl in our city, known per- haps to quite a number who hear me, who has been in the habit of seeing and conversing with spirits for years, having seen and recognized her deceased father at the early age of two years. She is now about thirteen. During the intervening years she has possessed this faculty, and being fortunately a member of a warm-hearted and spiritually developed family, she has herself been developed into a medium for independent voices. There are some, doubtless, in my audience who, like myself, have had the pleasure of attending her seances. God bless our dear mediums, young and old. But, to resume. Gifted with a native intelligence, although unlettered, — pure, fervent, and elevated, — the Maid of Orleans began at an early age to live a second life within her laborious outer life, a life which all philosophical mediums of the present day, and of all time, know to be the most absorbing, the life of the soul. This sentiment of sanctity and holiness, characteristic of the medieval centuries, pervaded her whole nature. She fasted often, and fasted long, thus superinducing the medium- istic conditions to which I have referred, in a manner not unfamiliar in the present day. Absorbed and exalted in spirit, JOAN OF ARC. 149 mysterious sounds often thrilled in her ears, whilst her commu- nications with her unseen visitors were naturally more or less colored by her educational faith and that of the age in which she lived. On one occasion, when thirteen years of age, it is recorded of her, she was meditating alone in the garden, when suddenly a great light broke upon her, and she heard a voice speaking out of it, saying : " Jeanne, be thou a good child and frequent at church, for the King of Heaven hath chosen thee to restore France." In this connection it may be mentioned, also, that her father dreamed upon one occasion that she was leaving, to go away with the men-at-arms. Was this dream of her father's one of her hallucinations ? Again, Brother Richard, a mendicant friar, learned from his visions and declared that " a maid would arise and liberate France." Could the vision of Brother Hichard have been like- wise one of the maid's hallucinations, or the reflection of her own soul, as is alleged with regard to the phenomena that attended her throughout the important experiences of her brief career ? But, alas, the minds who repudiate the spiritual origin of the phenomena attending the Maid of Orleans in the fifteenth century are of the same class with those who deny the facts claimed by the spiritual school of today ; and, with regard to the occurrences of both periods, these opponents will accept any substitute, any explanation, however absurd or improbable, rather than recognize a demonstrated truth relating to the nature and destiny of the human soul which may happen to be foreign to the familiar and popular groove of ethical thought chiseled out by the accepted authorities of an earlier and a darker period in the intellectual history of the race. Two or three years passed with the little maiden without any marked incident, except that the voices, as she termed them, continued. She grew into a fine, intrepid girl, handsome, inde- fatigable, and strong. She was, moreover, sweet-voiced and affectionate, docile and industrious. Her voices comforted and 150 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. encouraged her continuously. Not by weary seeking, high or low, says her biographer, did she realize what she esteemed as the Divine presence, but by trusting never to be left, never forsaken, never to ask and to go unanswered, never to weep and be uncomforted. This was her faith, her sure and stead- fast hope. And it would be far better for us of the present day if we felt a higher confidence in our voices, and in the loving presence of God's ministering angels ; far happier for us if we, like the Maid of Orleans, could drink in continualhT^ the blessed influences of an abiding and holy trust. Notwithstand- ing her great confidence, however, the young maiden very naturally shrank at times from the attempt to execute the im- portant mission assigned her by the voices which had so con- stantly attended her from her earliest years to her now budding womanhood. The well known mission predicted for her execu- tion was "the saving of France from its then prostrated condi- tion, and the crowning of King Charles at the city of Rheims." The importance of the work before her, and the improbabilities of its completion, may be realized when it is known that Charles was not even in possession of Rheims at the time of the predic- tion, and indeed that Orleans was the only town of importance then remaining to the king of France ; and in Orleans he had long been besieged by the English when Joan was assigned the duty of saving him and the nation from threatened destruction. She would at first often weep in regard to the task before her, and plead that she knew nothing of war. The voices, however, answered her upon one of these occasions as follows : " What God bids thee, do without fear. St. Catharine and St. Marga- ret will teach and help thee." At length, inspired by her voices, and imbued with a holy devotion and an unflinching courage, she departed from her childhood's home upon the doubtful and appalling mission before her, — a mission for a maiden which certainly no base- less vision could have incited, no mere hallucination have enforced. Through dangers and difficulties she succeeded in JOAN OF ARC. 151 entering the town of Orleans, and in presenting herself before the king. Among the evidences of the authenticity of her mis- sion and of the supermundane character of the agencies under whose direction she was acting, she revealed to Charles, in a private interview had with her, "the purport and manner of an unspoken prayer'' which had occupied his mind while in retire- ment, prior to her arrival. Could this, it may well be asked, likewise, have been done through the "reflection of her own soul," or by any method of " hallucination " whatever, whilst she was miles distant from the king whom she had never seen at the time of his silent devotion ? In obedience to her voices, she likewise informed the king that, in the conflicts that were about to take place, she must bear a certain ancient sword with five crosses on the blade, which she declared was buried behind the altar in the Church of St. Catharine, in a town where it was known the maid had never been, and requested that it might be sent for. An armorer was despatched, with the description, in search of it. The eccle- siastics of the church knew nothing of any such weapon ; but they caused search to be made in the place indicated by the maid, and an ancient sword was found, marked as she had said, and very rusty with long lying in the ground. This, too, I presume, will be classed among the hallucinations of the maid by those whose eyes are persistently closed to the truth. Before Joan could succeed in establishing in the minds of others a similar confidence in her mission to that entertained by herself, she was subjected to the severest interrogations, the most unkind criticisms, as well as ridicule and insult on the part of the learned men of the day, both of the Church and of the world. But, although unable to read or write, she was equal to them ail in the address and wisdom of her replies. So that even those who still denied the validity of her claims to inspira- tion were compelled to admit her wonderful powers of ratiocina- tion, as well as her integrity of character, honesty of purpose, 152 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. and an earnest faith, on her own part, in the voices and in the intelligence that guided her. And in these particulars, likewise, I think it will not be denied that the analogy which I have claimed as existing between the experiences of the French maiden of the fifteenth century and certain similarly gifted individuals of the nineteenth is unmistakably continued. For, surely, no class of the community is subjected to more unwarrantable and annoying interrogations, or more unkind and unnecessary criti- cism, than have been the mediums of modern times, — and, I may add, with similar convictions in most cases as to the validity of their claims. Finally, Charles himself became convinced, as he declared, that " to doubt Joan, and set her aside, would be to render myself unworthy of the succor of God." And, at length, by his orders, the inspired and intrepid maiden was furnished with the state and attendance of a military commander, and assumed her posi- tion as one of the chief officers of the war with the same ease as she had assumed her martial equipments. Without a doubt in the voices that guided her, with no fear of stumbling or stray- ing in her steps, it is recorded, she took up the commanding tone and perilous duties of a leader. By the lightning of her own pure faith and enthusiasm, she kindled a flame of energetic patriotism throughout France that flashed and rose victoriously for the king and for the nation. But, alas, owing to the igno- rance, the bigotry, and the treachery by which she was sur- roundedj this flame fell and destroyed herself. No, she was not destroyed ; but, through the fire and flame of persecution, her noble spirit passed into a closer union with her beloved voices in another and a better life ; from wlience we, likewise, may hear melodious and instructive voices, if we will but listen and allow our hearts to take heed. Joan of Arc, as you are aware, was burned alive in the mar- ket place at Rouen, on the 30th day of May, 1431, having been condemned as a sorceress. This was done at the instance of the Duke of Bedford, of England, — a dreadful blot on the JOAN OF ARC. 153 character of a man whose life had hitherto been more than ordinarily blameless. Such persecution, more or less severe, has been, alas, the fate of the world's saviors almost universally, whether upon the physical, the intellectual, or spiritual plane of action. But, let us hope that, in the organic progress of the race, such tenden- cies of the general mind are gradually modifying. Indeed, we know such modification exists in our own land, at least ; but, alas, it is but a modification instead of an extinction of the dreadful spirit of hate for opinion's sake, which, in the ages that have past, originated, and for centuries perpetuated, the gibbet, the guillotine, and the stake. In our day, and in our land, how- ever, we are cursed as yet with social ostracism and. theological malediction against all who labor for the redemption of the race from the thralldom of other and darker centuries.' Yet, thank God, we have a host of noble women in our day, as well as men, who, upon the rostrum and elsewhere, are battling for the rights of humanity. And, indeed, those women who are struggling for the equality of women before the law, for the rights of the wives and mothers of the day, and for the general elevation of their sex above the deojradation arising from fashionable ineffi- ciency on the one hand, and enforced sensual servitude on the other, are worthy successors of the beautiful Maid of Orleans. She assumed a military garb, and, inspired by her voices, fought upon a material plane for her king, her country, and her home. The heroines of today, inspired from angel life, both consciously and unconsciously, and impelled by the nobleness of their own natures, " Have put on The surest armor anviled in the shop Of passive fortitude," and are battling, each according to her own conception of right, for the permanent welfare of the race, and in behalf of the dawning truths of the hour. As yet, they are met, for the most part, with ostracism, persecution, and calumny ; but, still. 154 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. the magnetism of tlie truths they utter is winning its way. In the great battle of ideas now waging, the opponents and de- nouncers of these moral heroines will find themselves eventually far in the rear. True, we may not be able to assent to all that may be uttered, but we should nevertheless look to the motive, and properly estimate the true spirit, of these laborers in the reformatory warfare now in progress. The logic of events is rapidly bringing about a material change as to the individual, social, political, and religious rights of woman. And, in an age in which Elizabeth Browning has sung, Charlotte Bronte spoken, Harriet Hosmer chiseled, Mary Lyon taught, and Flor- ence Nightingale lived ; in a generation in which Lucretia Mott, Hannah Brown, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton have suc- cessfully labored, — to say naught of many another noble worker, - — the cavilers of the day as to woman's fortitude, and the sphere of woman's activities, will find that it is too late for the successful opposition of either prejudice or custom. Let our sisters, then, take courage. Armed with the breastplate of conscious rectitude, and crested with the helmet of truth, let them still work on, battling, as did the Maid of Orleans, for what they feel in their souls to be right, and victory shall yet perch upon their banner, and happiness and peace dwell in their households. For "• ever the right comes uppermost "; and the door is already standing wide open through which woman shall advance to the consum- mation of her holiest hopes, and the gratification of all the higher impulses of her diviner nature. But, to return from this rather natural digression to the im- mediate theme of my discourse, I can but endeavor to enforce the idea that the so-called voices attendant upon Joan of Arc were but the evidences of the ministry of angels, the com- munion of departed spirits still interested in what they believed to be the welfare of their native land ; and thus, as I feel satis- fied, constituting a striking analogy between the experiences of the Maid of Orleans and those of many of the mediums of the spiritualistic school of the present century. Nor is the history JOAN OF AKC. 155 of Joan of Arc the only similitude to be found in the past to the experiences of modern times. History is replete with facts and incidents involving the same fundamental idea which con- stitutes the basis of modern phenomena, so much repudiated by materialistic prejudice on the one hand, and theological bigotry on the other. Some clergymen, however, without recognizing Spiritualism as a system, have nevertheless recognized and given utterance in their pulpits to the very facts and ideas upon which Spiritualism legitimately rests. The Rev. Dr. Newman, in a sermon delivered in Brooklyn, N. Y., reported in the New York Herald of June 30, 1880, said as follows : — " Swedenborg was visited by his departed friends, and Wes- ley confirmed the fact. Adam Clark entertained the opinion that departed spirits returned to earth. Hannah More, when dying, extended her arms to embrace some one ; and, calling the name of a departed sister, she exclaimed 'Joy!' and expired. Such experiences are not uncommon in this our day. Strong pre- sumptive arguments may be deduced from the immateriality of mind and the oneness of personal consciousness ; but the appear- ance of the departed is an unanswerable argument. If we im- plicitly believe the Bible record, there should not be left the shadow of a doubt. According to that record, five persons returned to earth, — three of whoDi had entered the spirit world through the portals of the grave, one was translated and returned, and one was caught up into the third Heaven. The first who returned to earth was Samuel the Prophet ; and what informa- tion did he give of the spirit world? That the sainted souls are at rest there ; that they have a knowledge of what is taking place on the earth ; and that they know the future. What did Moses and Elias say ? That they were in their personal identity, consciousness, and knowledge, as previous to their departure ; that they not only knew what was taking place on earth, but had a deep interest therein. From Peter, James, and John we learn that there is another life ; that there are mansions of delight ; that the inhabitants never die ; and that the angels will escort us thither. And we have heard from that spirit land through one who was born here, went there, and returned to us, and remained on earth from A. D. 44 until June, A. D. 64, — a period of twenty years. And what does he say ? That the 156 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. soul and body are separable; that the soul is conscious in this state of separation, and that the body could live (only for a brief period under the power of organic life) in the absence of the soul. It is contrary to reason, to all our ideas of the character of God, to the undying love of our nature, to suppose for one moment that those who have left our earth have either ceased to live, or are disinterested in our earthly welfare. The highest conception of Heaven by some persons is to loaf around the throne and play on a golden harp. Rather let me believe that the departed ones are still the heroes of earth and time, aiding i;s to fight th,e treinendous battle of life." Thus spoke, in June, 1880, Rev. Dr. Newman, at one time one of the most popular divines that ever ministered to Christian needs in Washington. The man spoken of by the doctor, who went to the spirit land and returned, remaining on earth for twenty years afterwards, was undoubtedly Paul the Apostle. If his testimony, together with that of Peter, James, and John is to be received on the authority of ancient writings rendered doubtful through repeated translations, if from no other cause, upon what principle of good sense are we to reject the biogra- phy of Joan of Arc, and the history of the age in which she figured both as victor and martyr; or, much more, by what parity of reasoning shall we denounce similar manifestations in the present day, with living, credible witnesses all around us ? Again, the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity Church, New York, in a sermon on the " Existence of Spirits," delivered March, 1876, reported in the New York Herald, Qxpressed his views as follows : — " Our actual knowledge is not to serve as the total of all that may be known. That yoiclisive pot seen a spirit does not prove that there are no such things. What a solemn view of life this conveys! How greatly must a man's ideas expand when he takes this in mind! It is not superstition, but sober reason. We have heard of dreams, signs, and omens, as thc}^ were viewed in olden times.. We hear, too, of communication with spirits of departed friends, warning us of danger. We have all heard of strange signs and sounds in vacant houses, where a crime has JOAN OF ARC. 157 < been committed. The records of the spiritualistic operations in our day show, too, that there is subject for deep considera- tion. Doubtless, many of the so-called manifestations are but pure nonsense and transparent frauds ; but is it not wiser to believe that there are things happening impossible to explain except under the doctrine of the supernatural ? " The same reverend divine, on a previous occasion, in a ser- mon upon the " Communion of Saints," reported in the New York Sun, Dec. 10, 1871, urged the importance of communion with the departed " as a religious duty," and said : — " It should be brought out of the obscurity into which it has been allowed to fall, and be made to occupy its proper place as one of the great principles of Christianity. At present we are divided from the dead by a wall of darkness. This should not be ; though not present in the flesh, the dead are with us, though in a brighter quarter of Christ's great house ; and we can hold communion with them by the observances practiced by the early Christian Church, and enjoined by a long line of eminent divines of the Protestant Episcopal Church, among whom were Bishop Hobart and Bishop Wainwright, of latter days." Yet again, the Rev. William Lloyd, pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, in a sermon delivered as early as October, 1869, reported in the New York World, put himself on record as follows : — " My position, concisely stated, is, 1st, that the invisible uni- verse is in close contact with the visible ; 2nd, that the inhabit- ants of the spiritual universe are interested in and influentially connected with the destiny of the visible ; 3rd, that departed human souls are most deeply interested in the spiritual welfare of those who remain upon the earth. My arguments are de- rived from the Bible. . . . I am not disposed to doubt, much less to ridicule, those who claim to have seen visions. The a priori wonder is that more do not see them." But enough of quotations for the present, or I might continue them to a verv great length ; and, indeed, if verbal confessions 158 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. were proper to be repeated, the list of educated clergymen who have confessed to a belief in the fundamental facts of Spiritual- ism, as well as in a disbelief in the popular dogmas of the Orthodox Church, would prove to be incredihly large, at least to those who have given but casual attention to the subject. The point which I seek to establish from such testimony is that the opinions of the best educated and most highly-cultured of the clergy of the day are in harmony with the main features of the spiritual school, and that they are in harmony with the idea I have endeavored to enforce, as underlying the peculiar experiences of Joan of Arc, as a necessary sequence. But, still, the less cultured and more superstitious of the Church (which, perhaps, constitute the greater number) are denouncing the voices and experiences of the Maid of Orleans as "hallucina- tions," and the facts and philosophy of the spiritual school as delusion and heresy, whilst they continually inflict upon the adherents of the same (as far as their power extends) ostracism and condemnation in this world, together with damnation and eternal misery in the next. And yet, all along the pathway of past centuries, in common with the age in which Joan of Arc listened to her spirit voices, have indications existed of the presence and communion of angels, more or l^ss distinct and appreciable. At the dawning of the Christian era, and for the first four or five hundred years in the history of the Christian movement, it was deemed rank heresy to deny the possibility of the appearance of departed spirits, and their abiding interest in the affairs of earth. In the opening of the fifteenth century, when Europe was about emerg- ing from the intellectual and spiritual confusion of the dark ages. Brother Eichard of the Catholic priesthood had, as well as the Maid of Orleans, his interior visions and his spirit voices ; and under certain restrictions the mother Church still recognizes the fact of spirit communion. It seems, therefore, to have been reserved for the Protestant Church, strangely enough, to be guilty of the wonderful inconsistence of proclaiming the inf alii- JOAN OF ARC. 159 bility of the Bible, and at the same time denying the existence of spirit manifestations, when that book may be said to be full of evidence in favor of their existence. Indeed, extract from the Bible its spiritual facts, and what is left ? Naught but what the fond mother holds when the pale messenger of organic law has taken her baby from her bosom to the arms of the angels, — simply its external covering. In conclusion, notwithstanding the antagonism of the more bigoted portion of the popular churches of the day, voices from the spirit land are still heard, and other manifestations still continue to be presented with increasing frequency, and in some cases with enhanced beauty and power ; aye, with such distinct and beneficent persistency that neither the pulpit, the press, nor the people have any sure defence against them. In the holiest and most receptive hours of the study, in the quiet moments of the work shop, the counting room, and even in the street, at times, gentle whisperings are often heard from the bright beings of another world, as the loved and long declared lost ones, to whom our fondest affections still cling, hover around us, both seen and unseen, seeking to drop into the mind blessed assur- ances of their undying love, together with cheering and rational thoughts concerning the mysterious and beauteous world where they reside, and its relations to this. .So that it requires no prophetic endowment, as it seems to me, to bespeak for Spirit- ualism universal acceptance ; indeed, it is becoming more and more apparent to all who are not willfully blind to the general tendency of thought in this direction that our glorious faith (independent of whatever ridicule or opposition it may yet have to encounter) is destined eventually to " Weave its fame a rainbow round the sun, And clasp its thought a girdle round the world." LECTURE IX. HUMAN DESTINY, CONSIDERED FROM THE STANDPOINT OP SPIRITUALISM. WHENCE AND WHITHER. To matter or to form The all is not confined; Beside the law of things Is set the law of mind. One speaks in rock and star, And one within the man ; In unison at times, And then apart again ; But both in one have brought us hither, That we may know our whence and whither. The sequency of law We learn through mind alone ; We see but outward forms, — The soul the one thing known. If soul doth speak, we feel The voices must be true That give these visible things. These laws, their honor due; And tell of love which brought us hither, Which holds the key of whence and whither. This love through science plans What no known laws foretell ; The wandering stars, and fixed, Alike are miracle. (IGO) HUMAN DESTINY. 161 The so called death of all, The life renewed above , Are both within the sphere Of this all-circling love ; The seeming chance that cast us hither Accomplishes love's whence and whither. " From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began ; From harmony to harmony, Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man." Thus sings the poet. But, what is man, and whither doth he tend ? What am I ? man asks in his moments of reflection. Of what strange elements composed 1 — body and spirit, — soul and mind. Are the body and external mind the slaves of the soul, of the spirit per se, or are they its jailors ? In a normal state, we can perceive nothing, seemingly, but what they per- mit us to perceive, and through their means must be held all communication with things animate and inanimate in this outer world. From this point of experience the atheist argues ; and yet it is a fact that we can close our external eyes, and the intelligent principle, the soul, as if free from its hard bondage, can wing its flight afar, into the bright blue sky, and question of interior realms as to what is between them and ourselves. Can it be that man's existence in time is the great pausing point in the universe, and that between us and the eternal abodes of life, of affection, and of thought, there is one vast void, untenanted and inanimate ? Or is yonder wide expanse of air, the stars, the heavens, the universe, peopled with beings whom we see not with the material eye, spirits divested of earthly trappings, whose lives have overleaped the seeming agonies of death, and have left their prison-houses of clay behind them ? Are there creat- ures of light and joy now sporting in the sunbeams, reveling in the azure deDths beyond, or breathing, anon, in the atmos- 162 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. phere of our homes ? If so, is it not possible that there are means of communication between us and them ? Or are our bodies unnatural and cruel barriers between the spirits within them and the hosts of spirits thronging around us ? In the great battle-field of material life we can but feel the effects, both in our minds and bodies, of the varying scenes through which we are compelled to pass. We can but feel our dealings with the rougher side of humanity, the wearisome, con- tinuous, yet ever-changing struggle of life displayed all around U3 in this peopled earth ; the infinite varieties of selfishness and folly, of vice and crime, together with the thousand anxieties superadded to loss of health and the means of living incidental to the unceasing treadmill of time. "When we look around us in the world and see the innocent suffering ; when we see the gentle and tender, the noble and true, the gay and sparkling, struck down by some withering blast of fortune, or through the misdeeds of one to whom they may have looked for happiness and support, the heart can but feel saddened, especially when it is known their lives have been spent in kindly acts and good deeds to their fellow-creatures all around them. And, on the other hand, when we see the coarse and the low, the base and the licentious, prosperous and successful, and rising on the ruins of the pure and the true ; when we see wily schemes and villainous intrigues obtaining every advantage, and honesty of purpose and rectitude of action frustrated and cast down, — when the human mind, I repeat, finds the interrogatories I have propounded un- answered, and feels and sees all these painful and incongruous conditions abounding throughout Christendom, and in addition thereto hears a dreadful death and a fearful hell inculcated as among the almost certain possibilities of the near future, the appalled intellect labors ineffectually, indeed, to reconcile such torturing experiences — both immediate and prospective — with either the innate aspirations of the human soul, or the infinite attributes and special providences of a God worthy to be adored. But the bright and glorious light of spiritual truth is now HUMAN DESTINY. 163 dawning above the hill tops of superstition, of fanaticism, and of ignorance, and is shedding an illuminating ray over these vexed questions and experiences of the despairing soul, which all the theologies of the world, with their pains, penalties, and atonements, have certainly failed to reconcile. Spiritualism, through the integrity of its facts, and the solidarity of its teach- ings, is inculcating loftier conceptions of the nature and office of the human soul while encased within the body, together with a more just and beautifying apprehension of all the seemingly contradictory purposes and experiences of time. It is telling us there are no special and arbitrary providences in the dealings of the infinite with finite and dependent individualities. It is veri- fying continually its own many-voiced proclamation that there are no dead in all the gardens of a loving Father. It declares that an angry or a jealous God is an incomprehensible anomaly ; and that a permanent hell-fire could but be a defacement of the economy and the escutcheon of the Infinite. It is peopling the upper air and the atmosphere of our homes with bright and beautiful spirits, — our own beloved and departed ones, — who are the willing messengers of the infinite love, and who are joy- ously telling us that earth's living heart, through this glorious gospel of the skies, shall yet glow with the fires of love divine, as the human mind shall recognize and appreciate its rational and consolatory precepts as to the inexorable law of cause and effect, with its compensations and retributions, both here and hereafter, proportioned to individual effort and desire. Indeed, in all the physical, intellectual, and spiritual relations of human life Spiritualism may be said to have a correspond- ing effect upon the higher pleasures and more exalted faculties of the soul to that exercised by the fabled berry of the African coast upon all material nourishment taken into the human stomach. This berry, it is said, is so delicious that when once tasted it imparts its own sweetness to all after food. So Spiritualism, in my estimation, when once fully appre- ciated, assuages all the ills and sorrows of time, while it sweet- 164 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC. ens all our contemplations as to the prospective conditions of the inevitable eternity toward which we are all hastening. The theory of the spiritual school touching the organic rela- tions of spirit and matter is pre-eminently superior, as I appre- hend, to every other system in the entire range of human opinion. Similar ideas may have been remotely entertained by other schools of thought, perhaps ; but upon the despised phenomena of Spiritualism rests the practical demonstration of the true relations existing between these two grand principles of the universe. The celebrated Leibnitz at one time entertained the belief that there was a pre-established harmony existing between these two principles, matter and spirit ; or, in other words, that neither acted upon the other, and that the two were made to act in concert. This theory, however, I believe, has been aban- doned, and is not seriously advocated at the present time by any school. Another class of thinkers claim to have deduced that mind, or spirit, or soul, — the thinking principle, — is the result of the sublimation of matter ; and those organizations believed by so many to be the repositories of spiritual truth, and the especial pro- mulgators of the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, have really done but little, it must be admitted, to disprove this materialistic idea. This theory, however, according to the teach- ings of Spiritualism, is wholly incorrect ; and is the result, as it seems to me, of the confounding of spiritual substance with the functions of spirit, perse, or soul. And this confounding of two distinct principles has been the fruitful source of confusion and error throughout the entire class of material metaphysicians, from Aristotle to Hamilton, or to the distinguished Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, who, although faulty, as Spiritualism demonstrates, in his conclusions as to the future possibilites of the soul, is nevertheless doing much toward liberating the general mind from the ecclesiastical thralldom of the past, and in preparing it for the reception of those higher truths which his own logic, HUMAN DESTINY. 165 powerful as it is, fails to furnish. The deductions legitimately drawn from the phenomena of Spiritualism, however, are des- tined, I can but believe, to remodel the entire school of meta- physics, establish upon the basis of facts the true relations exist- ing between matter and spirit, and hence the origin of thought, together with the real functions and true destiny of the human soul. Carlyle most truthfully says : " A fact is a divine revelation, and he who acts contrary to it sins against God." Said Dr. Chalmers, with the same import : " It is a very obvious principle, though often forgotten in the pride of prejudice and controversy, that what has been seen by one pair of human eyes is of force to countervail all that has been reasoned or guessed at by a thousand human understandings." Spiritualism is nature's great gospel of demonstration ; and it is upon what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, indeed upon unmistakable facts which appeal irresistibly to our consciousness through all the senses with which infini- tude has endowed us in common with our kind, that, as Spirit- ualists, we rely for the truth of our glorious system of philoso- phy, which has been so bitterly opposed, but which is cheering our hearts amid the tortuous pathways of time, and gilding even the portals of the sepulcher with a brilliancy and a beauty hitherto unknown. Through these facts Spiritualism has dem- onstrated the existence of a spiritual substance essentially dis- tinct from what is known as matter, and of a real, substantial, spiritual world ; and likewise the existence of man as a spiritual being, possessed of a spiritual organization, with spiritual senses adapted to spiritual objects as tangibly as are the physical senses to material objects. In fine, as taught by Swedenborg, like- wise, that the spirit is the man himself, and not some formless essence or unsubstantial ghost, as too many have supposed ; likewise, that the spirit world is not removed to a distance, as has been taught, — somewhere within the realms of space beyond the stars, — but that it is here^ everywhere, in and around this 1Q6 UNANSWERABLE LOGIC, material world, at its center and circumference at one and the same time ; and that what is true of the earth is true of all inhabitedworlds. So that every human being in any world can truly say, in common with the children of our own planet, the spirit world is here. In Christendom, strangely enough, the most charitable decla- ration as to spiritual phenomena (or what claim to be such) is that they are contrary to the laws of nature. And then, with remarkable indifference, the most wonderful and startling facts of the age are allowed to pass without further investigation. How can such an anomaly exist in the experience and practice of the human mind, especially in Christian lands ? Simply because, — and I mean no discourtesy by the assertion,— simply because, notwithstandino^ all the ecclesiastical teachin