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SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS 
 
 IN THE LIFE OJ- 
 
 REV. JESSE BABCOCK FERGUSON, A.M., LL.D. 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 TWENTY YEAES' OBSERVATION 
 
 PRETERNATURAL PHENOMENA 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 T. L. NICHOLS, M.D., 
 
 Author of "Forty Years of American Life,-'' "Biography of the Brother, 
 
 yort," %c., $c. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOB, THE PROPRIETOR OF THE SPIRITUAL LYCEUM, 14, NEWMAN- 
 STREET, OXFORD-STREET, W., 
 
 By F. PITMAN, 20, PATEENOSTEE-EOW, EC. 
 
 i860. 
 

 V 
 
 LONDON : 
 JUDD AND GLASS, PRINTERS, PHCENIX WORKS, ST. ANDREW'S HILL. 
 
/ 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Biographical Sketch of Rev. J. B. Ferguson . . . 26 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Early Observations of Physical and Psychical Phenomena 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Spiritual Communications, containing Proofs of Personal 
 
 Identity .......... 68 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mr. H. B. Champion as a Medium. — Indian Spirits and 
 Spiritualism.— Identity of Spirits. — Modes of Spirit 
 Influence 81 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Spiritualism among the Shakers 92 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE BROTHERS DaVEN- 
 
 port and Wm. M. Fay 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Formation of Matter by Supramundane Power . . .128 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Psychometry 134 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAG-E 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Spiritual Intelligence. — Sympathy and Trust . . . 141 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SurRAMUNDANE POWERS OF HEALING • 148 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Education by Scjpramundane Influences . . . .161 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Sympathies and Antipathies • . . . . . -167 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Of Providences and Guardian Care . . . . .173 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Prophecies of the Revolution . . . • . 186 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Philosophy of Spirit Intercourse . • . . .108 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The World of Spirits . . . . . . . .212 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Specimens of so-called Spiritual Communications, Selected 
 
 from Mr. Ferguson's ''Records." 227 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In the autumn of 1864, while residing in London, 
 engaged in literary pursuits, I received a letter from 
 a friend in Memphis, Tennessee, a gentleman of 
 character and position, introducing to me his friend, 
 Rev. Dr. Ferguson, of whom he spoke, not only with 
 the warmth due to personal esteem, but in such 
 terms of admiration as can be applied with truth and 
 the sincerity which marks his character to very few 
 persons. 
 
 I had never seen Mr. Ferguson. He was not in 
 Memphis at the period of my brief sojourn there — 
 his own residence being at Nashville, the State capi- 
 tal. I had, however, heard and read enough of him 
 to know that he had for many years occupied a pro- 
 minent position in the South-west, and had become 
 famous as an eloquent preacher, and a vigorous and 
 independent thinker. I was prepared, therefore, by 
 his public reputation, as well as by the letter of 
 my friend, to consider him a man worth knowing. 
 And I was not disappointed in the expectations I 
 had formed. Frank, genial, and sympathetic, and 
 blending in his character and manners some of the 
 finest traits of the people of the South-west, among 
 whom he had spent his life, he justified the enthusi- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 astic appreciation of those who had known him and 
 enjoyed his friendship. 
 
 The mission on which he had come to England 
 on this, his second visit, seemed to me, I may con- 
 fess, somewhat bizarre and startling. I was a little 
 astonished to learn that he had come with the express 
 object of introdncing to the people of England and 
 of Enrope certain striking evidences of the existence 
 of snpramnndane, or supernatural powers, mani- 
 fested in the presence of the Brothers Davenport, 
 and their companion, Mr. Fay, who for a period of 
 ten years had been, in America, the "mediums 5 ' of 
 various wonderful manifestations. 
 
 Having formed an acquaintance with Mr. Fergu- 
 son, it was natural that I should take some interest 
 in the young men to whom he had come to stand 
 almost in the relation of a father. I therefore became 
 acquainted with them, and satisfied myself, by care- 
 ful observation, of the genuineness of the phenomena 
 of which they are, in some mysterious way, the pas- 
 sive instruments. It was then proposed, I forget by 
 whom, that I should write — perhaps edit would be 
 the best word for a work of so little originality — a 
 biography of the Brothers Davenport. It was written 
 from documents placed in my hands, from long 
 conversations with the two brothers, whose lives I 
 traced by careful questionings, and the statements of 
 Mr. Ferguson, and other witnesses, and the reports 
 of American and English newspapers. 
 
 The critics have disagreed, as usual, as to the 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 merits of the work ; one declaring that " it could 
 not have been done better," and another equally high 
 authority asserting that it could scarcely have been 
 worse. In Blackwood, I am the " Plutarch" of an 
 infinity of "rubbish;" which, if not utterly false, 
 must be utterly wicked. I have only,to say that a 
 considerable portion of the volume consists of articles 
 written by some of the cleverest men connected with 
 the London dailies, monthlies, quarterlies, and distin- 
 guished in other departments of literature. It seems 
 certain, therefore, that the book, whatever its faults, 
 must have some good work in it. It contains, also, 
 the testimony of many very careful and competent 
 observers. The Tablet, a Roman Catholic weekly, 
 while giving me credit for what it seems to consider 
 an extraordinary amount of moral courage in placing 
 my name upon the title-page of such a book, admits 
 its facts, but attributes them to diabolic agency. 
 The Press, on the other hand, denies the facts, and 
 calls upon the police for their suppression. 
 
 If apologies were as much in vogue as formerly, 
 I should say that no one ought to incur ridicule or 
 blame for " the publication of the truth, with good 
 motives, and for justifiable ends." This is all I have 
 done in the Biography of the Brothers Davenport ; 
 and this is all I -propose to do, so far as my 
 modest editorial function is concerned, in the 
 following pages. If these " supramundane facts " 
 are genuine, they must have some value. As a 
 matter of science, they cannot be safely ignored. If 
 
 b 2 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 ponderous objects can be moved by invisible forces, 
 unusual and unrecognized in nature, ifc is an im- 
 portant fact in physics. If substances are sometimes 
 produced, as if by condensation from the atmosphere, 
 without visible or tangible agents or apparatus, it is 
 an important fact in chemistry. If there are con- 
 stantly occurring around us manifestations of unseen 
 intelligences, the fact is one of the highest interest 
 in the domain of psychology. 
 
 There can be nothing more important to man than 
 the proof of his own immortality ; and the value of 
 this proof — the proof of a spiritual existence — 
 remains substantially the same, whether it is given 
 by high means or low, worthy or unworthy, by good 
 spirits or bad, by angels or demons. He who spat 
 on the ground and anointed the eyes of the man 
 who was born blind, worked sublime miracles by the 
 humblest means, and chose the weak things of this 
 world to confound the mighty. A table rising from the 
 floor may give as clear an evidence of supramundane 
 power — of force guided by intelligence — to those 
 who observe the fact, as would the removal of St. 
 Paul's from its present locality to the apex of Prim- 
 rose-hill. The terms, great and small, noble and 
 vulgar, worthy and unworthy, do not properly apply 
 to the facts of science. The microscope may be as 
 important as the telescope, and an atom as worthy of 
 investigation as a planet. 
 
 Such considerations as these — a sense of the im- 
 portance of evidences of the spiritual nature and 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 continued existence of man, whatever the nature 
 of those evidences — induced Mr. Ferguson to come 
 to England with the Brothers Davenport and meet 
 the incredulity, ridicule, abuse, and in some cases 
 violence, which he must have known awaited him 
 in a country where materialism appears to be the 
 rule, and a living faith in a spiritual life the exception. 
 I honour the courage and devotion of a man who 
 could undertake such a mission. He was sure to 
 be misunderstood, misrepresented, and vilified. He 
 should have expected, and I suppose he did expect, 
 that while the ignorant and incredulous would be 
 ready to throw mud or stones, the polite would 
 sneer, and that even those who believed in the 
 reality and value of the truths he presented, would, 
 with a few honourable exceptions, carefully refrain 
 from compromising themselves by unpopular avowals. 
 I can imagine the sort of tragicomic perplexity 
 of some Americans in London the past winter, who 
 had known Mr. Ferguson in Tennessee and Ken- 
 tucky any time during the past twenty years, when 
 they read, let us say, the Morning Star or the 
 Daily Advertiser, to say nothing of the penny 
 weeklies conducted by Mr. W. G. M. Reynolds and 
 other enlightened members of the republic of letters, 
 in which the preacher and orator they had so much 
 admired was represented as a showman and con- 
 federate of a party of Yankee jugglers, who had 
 crossed the Atlantic to humbug John Bull with 
 some stupid rope-tying tricks which had been worn 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 out in the circus, grown stale in the streets, and 
 could be seen for sixpence in every music-hall, and 
 practised by amateurs in every drawing-room. 
 
 And this confederate of a party of " sorry mounte- 
 banks," this showman of vulgar and commonplace 
 "jugglers," out Barnuming Barnum in audacious 
 imposture, as represented by so respectable a por- 
 tion of the English press, could he really be the Rev. 
 Dr. Ferguson they had listened to so often with 
 delight, whose learning and eloquence had made 
 him admired by thousands, and whose fervour and 
 charity had made him universally beloved ; a man 
 to whom senates had listened, whom states had 
 trusted, whom universities had honoured — could this 
 be their Mr. Ferguson, who had the right to put 
 "Reverend" before his name, and "A.M., LL.D.," 
 after it, and could afford, where he was known, to 
 dispense, as he habitually did, with all titles, and 
 stand in simple dignity upon the character he had 
 won ? Yes, it was the same Mr. Ferguson, who 
 had the courage to accept and become the missionary 
 of the truth, without very much regard to imme- 
 diate or even ultimate consequences. 
 
 In avowing my own belief in the genuineness of 
 the facts presented by or through the Brothers 
 Davenport, and in the substantial verity of the wider 
 range of supramundane facts contained in the follow- 
 ing pages, I can claim credit only for that degree of 
 honest frankness which I think every man should 
 exercise in his intercourse with his fellow-men, and 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 which I also think every man of letters should use 
 upon proper occasion with his readers. It may be 
 said that the truth is not to be spoken at all times, 
 and pearls are not for swine. I also believe in the 
 fitness of things, and the virtue of a prudent re- 
 ticence, but I do not see that any man can always 
 withhold his testimony to important truths, without 
 incurring a fearful responsibility. For a conscien- 
 tious man, it may be an act of greater moral courage 
 to conceal than to confess a truth, however un- 
 popular. I trust that there are great numbers of 
 men who would rather stand alone in what they 
 believe to be right, than to win the applause of 
 millions by what they know to be wrong. 
 
 In selecting, arranging, and preparing for the 
 press the statements of facts contained in this 
 volume, I have thought best to present them partly 
 in a natural order of relation, and partly in the 
 order of time, since there are facts of various classes 
 in single narrations which cannot well be divided. 
 I have, however, endeavoured to group together 
 many of the physical manifestations by which in- 
 visible intelligences have made their existence known 
 by appeals to the senses. The facts which prove 
 that invisible intelligences sometimes control the 
 hands of passive and sometimes unconscious persons 
 to write, draw, paint, and play on musical instru- 
 ments, and use their organs of speech to communi- 
 cate with their friends, and convince them of their 
 personal existence and identity, or make them speak 
 
XVI PEEFACE. 
 
 languages with which the passive mediums were 
 wholly unacquainted, or so act upon their whole 
 muscular systems as to make them look, speak, and 
 act like persons whom they had never seen, are all, 
 as I think, as worthy of the attention of men of 
 science and thought, as the much disputed sources 
 of the Nile, or the amiable peculiarities of the 
 gorilla. And when we find evidences of a watchful 
 care exercised by invisible beings over mortals, pro- 
 tection from dangers, foresight, clear predictions of 
 future events, and providential guardianship ; when 
 we read of what may be considered as almost miracles 
 of healing and other works of beneficence, we are 
 compelled, at least, to entertain the question — 
 whether there may not be some important uses to 
 be served in the communications between the visible 
 and invisible worlds, even if we consider their 
 absolute proof of the existence of an invisible world 
 as quite unnecessary, and in view of the teachings 
 of revealed religion, place no value upon direct 
 testimony to the fact of immortality. 
 
SUPRAMTTNDANE FACTS 
 
 IN THE LIFE OF 
 
 REY. JESSE BABCOCK FERGUSON, A.M., LL.D. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 OBJECTIONS ANTICIPATED AND CONSIDERED. 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 He who carefully observes and truly reports a fact of an 
 extraordinary and supramundane character, must expect 
 denial, ridicule, and abuse, and to be treated, with more or less 
 civility in the expression, as either a knave or a fool — either a 
 liar or a victim of imposture. From Blackwood and Fraser 
 to the penny weekly he may look for every kind of injustice, 
 from lofty scorn to vulgar billingsgate. After all, the fact re- 
 mains, and he who has reported the fact may be none the 
 worse for this unfriendly criticism. 
 
 All this opposition is based upon certain foregone conclu- 
 sions. Materialists have settled for themselves the laws of 
 matter, and shut out the possibility of any fact not in accord- 
 ance with those laws. The Sadducees believe neither in angel 
 nor spirit. It is of little use to argue with such people ; only 
 solid, coarse, material knock-down facts, appealing to their own 
 senses, will convince them that there are intelligent forces in 
 
18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the universe not subject to material laws, as they understand 
 them. 
 
 There are also objections to the reality of the facts nar- 
 rated in these pages, made by those who have some faith in a 
 supernatural or spiritual life, which may be worth consider- 
 ing. One of the most common is that many of the so-called 
 spirit communications or manifestations are not in accordance 
 with their ideas of the character and conditions of departed 
 spirits. 
 
 But their ideas of the conditions and states of departed 
 spirits may not be true ones. The individuality and identity 
 of a spirit require that he should be the same person in the 
 other world that he was in this. We do not look for sudden 
 or even very rapid changes. A fool may not become wise, nor 
 a bad man good, the moment he gets rid of his body. Con- 
 sider what the spirit in the body is, and what it is likely to 
 be when it has merely dropped off its outward covering. 
 
 The world of spirits must contain a vast variety of characters 
 and conditions. The ignorant savage, or the, perhaps, more 
 debased helot of civilization, may enter upon a condition of im- 
 provement and progress, but it would be contrary to all expe- 
 rience and all analogy to imagine an instantaneous change into 
 an angelic state of holiness and enlightenment. By the law 
 of universal analogy, we must conclude that men, women, and 
 children — the wise and the ignorant, the coarse and brutal, 
 and the refined and cultivated — enter upon the next stage of 
 life with the same characters, thoughts, feelings, and all that 
 constitutes real individuality — the same beings they were in the 
 last hours of their earthly existence. They are still human, 
 and do not become, by the act of dying, or by their birth into 
 another stage of existence, either angels or demons. 
 
 One fact in this matter, as elsewhere, is worth a thousand 
 theories of probability. Nothing seems so improbable to 
 idealists as the truth. A benevolent man cannot conceive of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 cruelties he reads of in the police reports. An honest man 
 finds it very hard to believe in the crimes which are daily com- 
 mitted. Scarcely a week passes in which we do not read of 
 some horror, which in a romance would have shocked our 
 ideas of probability. 
 
 A man is shocked at the fact that his departed son, so 
 cherished and idealized, should rap to him on a table, when, 
 probably, the last time he ever saw him he did rap on the 
 table, and did many other things quite as undignified. It 
 may be a comfort to a man to think of his noble boy, who a 
 year ago was full of fun and geniality, being a glorified spirit, 
 solemn and awful, and far removed from all human ideas, 
 emotions and expressions ; but is it natural or reasonable ? 
 Are we to look for such changes, and is the world of spirits, 
 necessarily, any more solemn and awful than the world of 
 bodies ? "We are said to go into the presence of our Maker, 
 as if we could ever escape from the Infinite. 
 
 The objections that relate to liability to deception in regard 
 to the phenomena of spiritual manifestations are better 
 grounded. As we are daily deceived in all kinds of earthly 
 matters, lied to, and imposed upon in a hundred ways, it is 
 natural to think that in the matters under consideration there 
 may be even a greater chance for mistake and delusions. But 
 it is to be observed that as lies, deceptions, and impositions 
 in mundane matters do not make us entirely disbelieve in 
 truth and reality, they need not in supramundane. For 
 example : counterfeit sovereigns and bank-notes may make us 
 careful, and even lead us to suspect the genuine, but no one is 
 so absurd as, on account of them, to believe there are no 
 genuine notes or coins. We have adulterated flour, wine, 
 medicines, &c, as we have false reports and partizan histories, 
 but the genuine and the true exist notwithstanding. Collu- 
 sions, illusions, &c, are no doubt possible, and are, in all 
 matters, mundane and supramundane, to be carefully guarded 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 against, but the liability to error disproves no truth, and 
 should not hinder investigation. 
 
 It may be for this reason that we have what some are 
 pleased to call the lower forms of manifestation — the simpler 
 would, perhaps, be a better designation — such as direct appeals 
 to the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and sometimes of smell. 
 In these physical manifestations there is less liability to decep- 
 tion than in what are called the higher forms. But this 
 liability to deception is greatly exaggerated. One person, in a 
 state of disease, may be subject to an optical illusion, but it 
 is against all probability to find three, much less thirty persons, 
 who would all imagine they saw what did not take place ; and 
 we cannot conceive of a whole company, and a series of com- 
 panies, made up of all kinds of people, all the subjects of a 
 particular illusion. 
 
 In the same way the power of persons to deceive is greatly 
 over-estimated. It has been represented, for example, that 
 the Brothers Davenport had the skill to free themselves from 
 the most thoroughly contrived fastenings of ropes, &c, because 
 jugglers performed a trick of tying and untying themselves. 
 But any one who considers the matter a moment will see that 
 in the case of the jugglers the tying is a part of the trick, and 
 that the ropes must always be tied so that they can be untied, 
 while it is equally evident that any skilful person, a sailor or 
 rigger, for example, could tie every juggler in London so that 
 he could never free himself. But no person, of all the hun- 
 dreds who have tried, has ever tied the Davenports or Mr. 
 Fay so that they were not freed in a few minutes, nor so that 
 the manifestations, which must have been made either by them 
 or by an intelligent, invisible force attending them, did not occur 
 in two seconds. And this force, it is to be noted, has acted 
 when they were held as well as when they were bound, and 
 when witnesses of the highest credit have been seated with 
 them, who testified that the Davenports took no active 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 part in the manifestations, while collusion was simply impos- 
 sible. 
 
 In regard to the physical manifestations, there is no 
 difficulty whatever in being satisfied of their genuineness or 
 the reverse. Any man of sense, with an ordinary knowledge of 
 physics or mechanics, laying aside his prepossessions, can 
 satisfy himself in one hour's examination. If the writers in 
 certain organs of opinion had given an hour to personal exami- 
 nation, they would have seemed more like philosophers, but it 
 is not their business to observe facts for which there is as yet 
 no market. 
 
 The difficulty respecting the identity of communicating 
 spirits is, perhaps, greater than that of possible deceptions by 
 pretended mediums. Granting that spirits — invisible intel- 
 ligences — do communicate, how can we be sure that they are 
 the individuals they represent themselves to be ? 
 
 From the nature of the case, absolute certainty is impossible. 
 We can have only that degree of probability which amounts to 
 moral certainty. This difficulty is not peculiar to spirit commu- 
 nion. Men have been hanged in mistake for others whom they 
 so much resembled as to deceive witnesses, court, and jury. 
 Women have been imposed upon by false husbands, and rela- 
 tions by false heirs. Twins are often so alike as to be mistaken 
 for each other, or not readily distinguished. Robbers have been 
 so alike that one was always able to prove an alibi, by 
 witnesses who had been in the employ of the other. How do 
 we assure ourselves of the identity of our relatives whom we 
 have never seen, or whose features we have forgotten ? By 
 certain facts which, put together, produce in us a conviction 
 of moral certainty. So a spirit, by the mention of certain 
 facts, by some familiar form of expression, and more, perhaps, 
 by an undefinable impression, convinces us of its identity. It 
 is not absolutely certain. We do not know what power of 
 deception spirits may have, or may be permitted to exercise, 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but there is a reasonable probability, and often an overwhelming 
 conviction ; and we may trust that those whose motives are 
 good will be protected from any harmful deception. There is, 
 no doubt, a true meaning in the legend that the devil, in 
 spite of all his disguises, must, in some way, betray himself. 
 However angelic he may seem, there is always a hoof, horn, 
 or tail, or smell of brimstone ; which means that if we closely 
 watch the hypocrite and deceiver, in this or any state of being, 
 he will betray his true nature. And we may trust, moreover, in 
 the supremacy of good over evil in all the worlds of the universe. 
 
 The religious or theological objections to what is known as 
 Spiritualism are as various in their character as are the forms 
 of faith. Protestants, who constitute, perhaps, one-fourth or 
 fifth part of what is called Christendom, tell us that revela- 
 tion from the spiritual world and miracles, which lasted from 
 the creation of the world until the days of the apostles, ceased 
 at that period, and have never been renewed, except in the 
 case of necromancers, wizards, and witches, who were burnt 
 or hanged until about a century ago, sometimes in great num- 
 bers, in England and elsewhere, as is now supposed by mis- 
 take ; they also having gone out of vogue at an earlier period. 
 Consequently, all spiritual communications are now impossible ; 
 or, if they exist, they must come from evil spirits, which in- 
 volves another contradiction. 
 
 On the other hand, Roman Catholics, the Greek Church, 
 &c, constituting three-fourths or four-fifths of Christendom, 
 believe that revelations from the spiritual world are still given, 
 and that miracles are still performed, and that these are the 
 permanent gifts of the Church, and the manifestation of its 
 power, as in the days of the apostles. The lives of the saints, 
 through all the past centuries, are records of supramundane 
 facts, of revelations, spirit communications, and miracles. The 
 objections of Roman Catholics to what is now called Spiritualism 
 differ, therefore, from those of most Protestants. They do not 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 care to dispute the facts, which they regard as probable. They 
 may or may not be true. That is a matter to be settled by 
 observation. But, occurring out of the pale of the visible 
 Church, and not apparently connected with its ordinances and 
 ministrations, they are disposed to attribute them to evil spirits. 
 The rash and ignorant — and people are commonly rash in pro- 
 portion to their ignorance — denounce them as diabolism. Better 
 informed and wiser Roman Catholics, and among them very 
 enlightened prelates and theologians, look upon these mani- 
 festations more charitably and hopefully, and the fact that a 
 considerable number of infidels and materialists, after becom- 
 ing spiritualists, have been brought into the faith of the 
 Church, may have had some effect in inducing them to recog- 
 nize the providential character of such manifestations. 
 
 And the true doctrine of the Catholic Church, as held and 
 taught by its most eminent divines, would seem to justify this 
 hopeful belief. The Eight Rev. Dr. Manning, Prothonotary 
 Apostolic, in his letter to Dr. Pusey, says : " According to 
 the faith and theology of the Catholic Church, the operations 
 of the Holy Spirit of God have been from the beginning of the 
 world coextensive with the whole human race." .... 
 ■■' As a dogma, theologians teach that many belong to the 
 Church who are out of its visible unity ;" and he quotes St. 
 Augustine, who says : " Multce oves foris, mutti lupi intus" 
 If the soul of the Church extends beyond its visible body, and 
 includes all good souls, it will hardly be pretended that all 
 supernatural manifestations are of necessity, or, in fact, con- 
 fined to its visible pale. If a man may be a good Catholic with- 
 out knowing it, he may be a saint without knowing it, 
 and may be a medium of spiritual and miraculous manifesta- 
 tions. 
 
 It is imagined by some that the Church has condemned 
 spiritualism. It has not, and could not, since its whole history 
 is one of spiritual communications and manifestations. This 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 would be to condemn all the saints, whose lives were full of 
 physical and intellectual phenomena of a supramundane 
 character ; who held constant intercourse with the souls of the 
 departed ; who knew events happening at great distances ;" who 
 foretold future events ; whose bodies were raised into the air ; 
 who appeared and ministered to persons at a distance from 
 their natural bodies, for whom substances were found miracu- 
 lously ; who healed the sick, and at whose prayers the dead 
 were raised to life.* The Church can only condemn what is 
 evil, and the evil must be known to be such, before it can be 
 condemned. Dealing with evil spirits, for evil purposes, the 
 Church condemns. The only question with the honest Eoman 
 Catholic, then, must be, are these manifestations evil ? That 
 is a question which cannot be settled without examination. 
 
 The Protestant religious objections may be easily disposed of. 
 In the first place, in the exercise of the right of private 
 judgment, every one can decide the matter for himself, without 
 impertinent interference. The statement that all revelation is 
 closed is a mere assumption. As Grod is for ever the same, 
 whatever He has done in the past, He may do, and it is likely 
 that He will do, in the present and the future. There is no proof 
 that miracles are at an end, or that they ended eighteen cen- 
 turies ago, but an immense body of evidence to the contrary. 
 The assertion that miracles have ceased is a begging of the 
 question, and an assertion without authority. No Protestant 
 Church claims infallibility. A church which does not claim 
 to be infallible, is liable, by its own confession, to lead us into 
 error ; and we are not, therefore, bound by its decisions, though 
 they may take the form of an act of Parliament or a decree of a 
 privy council. All Protestantism, by its renunciation of infal- 
 libility (for a fallible authority cannot be safely regarded), 
 throws us back upon individual private judgment, and so leaves 
 
 * See Lives of St. Philip Neri, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Theresa, 
 et multis aliis. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 the whole question exactly where it found it. If, therefore, 
 four-fifths of the Christian world believe in the super- 
 natural, and the other fifth has declined any right to pass judg- 
 ment in the matter, we are at liberty to " try the spirits," and 
 we can " know them by their fruits ;" and, trusting in the power 
 of Him who said, " Lo, I am with you always," we need not 
 fear that the devil, under whatever disguise he may appear, 
 will have power to harm us. 
 
 For me, the solution of all difficulties, and answer to all 
 doubts, is contained — as what is not ? — in the first sentence of 
 the creed of the apostles : "I Believe in God the Father 
 Almighty." 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF REV. J". B. FERGUSON. 
 
 Jesse Babcock Ferguson was born in the city of Philadelphia, 
 state of Pennsylvania, United States of America, January 19, 
 1819. His father, Robert French Ferguson, was of Scottish 
 descent, and his mother, Hannah Champlain Babcock, of 
 English. His grandmother, on the father's side, was of the 
 Quaker family of French, among the early settlers of New 
 Jersey, while he was connected on the mother's side with the 
 Babcocks and Champlains of Rhode Island, mingling thus 
 Scotch and English, Puritan and Quaker. 
 
 Though born in Philadelphia, Mr, Ferguson was taken in 
 his childhood to the Valley of Virginia, better known in 
 England as the Yalley of the Shenandoah, a fertile and beau- 
 tiful region between the Blue Ridge and the main chain of 
 the Alleghanies, since so ruthlessly desolated by its Northern 
 invaders. His father resided near Winchester, of late so often 
 occupied in turn by hostile armies. At the age of eleven he 
 was placed at Fair Yiew Academy, and after three months' 
 attendance was selected by the principal as his usher or 
 assistant, and by diligent study was able to keep so much in 
 advance of the entire school as to be qualified to teach the 
 branches he was studying, to the satisfaction and admiration 
 of the principal and his patrons. 
 
 It has been often remarked that the most zealous and 
 successful teachers are those who keep just in advance of their 
 pupils, and the success of young Ferguson was so great, and 
 the character he established, both intellectual and moral, so 
 
HIS EARLY TRAINING. 27 
 
 remarkable, that it soon opened for him another sphere of 
 usefulness of a still more extraordinary character. 
 
 At that day there were wild valleys of the Alleghanies 
 where the settlers had preceded the preacher and schoolmaster, 
 and religion and education had been alike neglected. The 
 Presbyterian Missionary Society of Shenandoah and Frederick 
 counties having established a mission in one of these regions, 
 wished also to open a school, for which they required a teacher, 
 and young Ferguson, now a boy of thirteen, was considered 
 the best qualified and most suitable person that could be 
 selected for that situation. With the consent of his father, a 
 firm, religious man, he entered upon his duties, and opened 
 the school in a log-house, one end of which was separated 
 from the rest by a thin partition, and occupied by a shoe- 
 maker ; an arrangement the young teacher did not understand 
 at the time, but which was intended to be of service in case of 
 any difficulty with some of his older and rougher pupils. No 
 such difficulty occurred. The boy of thirteen, of his own 
 volition, opened his school every morning with an extempore 
 prayer, and by his kindness and dignity won the love and 
 respect of all his pupils, among whom were young men and 
 women of twenty, to whom he taught the alphabet and first 
 rudiments of learning. So successful was this school of the 
 backwoods, that the county trustees paid most of its expenses* 
 and the magistrates sent the young teacher a gratifying testi- 
 monial and pecuniary reward. 
 
 At the age of fourteen, young Ferguson met with a severe 
 disappointment. His elder brothers had been educated at 
 "William and Mary College, one of the oldest educational 
 institutions in Virginia, and he had expected, in due time, to 
 take his turn as a student. But some pecuniary reverses 
 having overtaken his father, he was told that he must abandon 
 his ambition to acquire a classical education, and learn some 
 
 trade that would ensure him a living. The lad and his 
 
 c 2 
 
28 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 mother found it very hard to yield to this decision. They had 
 no doubt acquired something of the Southern feeling on this 
 subject, but the father was firm, and yielded only so far as to" 
 give his son his choice of a trade, and a trade in America 
 means some branch of mechanical industry. An American 
 boy with a love of learning and literature, and an ambition for 
 distinction, and yet obliged to learn a trade, chooses that one 
 which offers him the readiest means of mental improvement 
 and advancement, and becomes, like Franklin and many other 
 distinguished Americans, a printer. Young Ferguson made 
 this choice, and went alone to Winchester, the principal town 
 in that region, offered himself as an apprentice in the printing 
 office of the Republican newspaper, and was accepted, receiving 
 from the first sufficient wages for his support. 
 
 The editor of the Republican was James Grordon Brooks, a 
 poet and author of considerable ability, but lacking those 
 business habits necessary to success. A year after young 
 Ferguson had entered the office as an apprentice, his employer, 
 who had also become his friend, failed in business, and was 
 obliged to relinquish the publication of the newspaper, and to 
 leave Winchester. Before doing so he released the youth from 
 his obligations, and telling him that he had already acquired a 
 sufficient knowledge of his trade, advised him to obtain a 
 classical education. But his Scotch- Quaker father was not to 
 be baulked of his determination, and insisted that he must 
 complete his knowledge of the " art preservative of all arts," 
 and found him a situation in a book- printing establishment of 
 one of his friends in Baltimore, Maryland. He had been there 
 but a few weeks, however, when his health gave way, and he 
 went home to endure a long, painful, and, as his friends 
 believed, a dangerous illness. This disease was scrofulous 
 periostitis of the tibia, commonly called white swelling, with 
 deep-seated ulcers and exfoliations. After three months of 
 great suffering he was able to resume his studies, but was sup- 
 
HIS REMOVAL TO THE WEST. 29 
 
 posed to be lame for life. An account of the extraordinary 
 cure of this disease will be found in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 At this time an elder brother — R. F. Ferguson — was editor 
 of the Woodstock Sentinel, and one of the most promising 
 young lawyers and politicians of the Yalley of Virginia. To 
 him Jesse, as soon as his health was sufficiently restored, 
 applied for a situation, in which, by superintending the printing 
 establishment and keeping the books, he might support himself 
 and pay for his education ; and he spent the regular hours of 
 study at the Woodstock Academy, kept up with, and often in 
 advance of, his classes ; and, while sustaining himself by his 
 labour, became a good Latin and Greek scholar. 
 
 Having completed the course of study he had laid out for 
 himself, and attained his majority, young Ferguson, seeing no 
 suitable sphere for his ambition in Virginia, crossed the 
 Alleghanies, to seek his fortunes in the great West. He made 
 his first visits to the fast-growing States of Ohio and Indiana, 
 but found the manners and customs of the people so different 
 from those of the frank and hospitable Old Dominion, that he 
 turned his steps homeward again, disheartened with the 
 prospect. But, before leaving Ohio, he met with a congenial 
 spirit in a clergyman, the Rev. Arthur Crichfield, of Logan 
 county, whom he visited, and who induced him to open a 
 school in the village in which he resided. He soon became 
 distinguished as the editor of a religious miscellany which 
 gained a large circulation. Giving his attention to theological 
 studies, and taking an active part in religious exercises, it was 
 not long before he became one of the most eloquent and popular 
 preachers of the West. 
 
 While engaged in these labours he married a daughter of 
 James Mark, Esq., one of the early emigrants from Kentucky 
 to Ohio, and a highly respected magistrate of Madison county. 
 But he was not destined to remain long in that uncongenial 
 northern latitude. Many of his friends and relations in 
 
30 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 Yirginia had crossed the Alleghanies, and found a beautiful 
 home in Southern Kentucky, and Mr. Ferguson was invited to 
 become a missionary to what is now one of the finest portions 
 of that great and fertile State. He declined the offer of a 
 handsome salary at Harrodsbury, Kentucky, and began his 
 missionary labours. These extended over several counties, his 
 family finding a home on the plantation of Dr. Charles 
 Merriweather ; and for five years there was scarcely a day in 
 which he did not preach once or oftener, and five large places 
 of worship were erected in one county, chiefly by his influence 
 and labours, and perhaps twice that number in the counties 
 adjoining. He was welcomed and esteemed by all classes as an 
 eloquent and devoted preacher, free from the trammels of party 
 or sect. He had no regular salary, but the voluntary contri- 
 butions of his friends were not only sufficient for the support of 
 himself and his family, but enabled him to give relief to the 
 helpless and destitute. 
 
 "When the missionary labours of these five years had resulted 
 in the building up of religious societies, able to support regular 
 pastors, Mr. Ferguson accepted a call to Nashville, the capital 
 of Tennessee, which he had often visited, and where he was 
 highly esteemed. The house of worship which had hitherto 
 sufficed for the congregation which had invited him to become 
 their pastor, was soon found much too small to hold the crowds 
 who flocked to hear him. The aisles, and even the space 
 around the building, were crowded. A new and splendid 
 edifice was erected, with sittings for 1,500 persons, and he 
 became the most popular preacher of that region. 
 
 While engaged in his pastoral duties he also became the 
 editor of the " Christian Magazine," commenced by him in 
 Nashville, 1848, and which, from its containing for several 
 years many of his sermons, lectures, and other writings, gained 
 a very large circulation. 
 
 It was not only by the religious community with which he 
 
HIS CALL TO NASHVILLE. 31 
 
 was connected that Mr. Ferguson was held in high estimation. 
 He was honoured with the esteem and confidence of the entire 
 public, and filled some of the most responsible positions. At 
 the age of twenty-five he received the honorary degree of Master 
 of Arts from Bacon College, Kentucky, and at thirty-four, the 
 degree of Doctor of Laws from Franklin College, Tennessee, and 
 was unanimously offered the presidency of the latter institution, 
 an offer he felt obliged to decline, because it would have taken 
 him from more congenial labours. It is proper to say that 
 though entitled to write, A.M., LL.D., after his name, Mr. 
 Ferguson has always modestly disclaimed these honours ; and 
 his name, as attached to all his published writings, has been 
 simply "J. B. Ferguson." 
 
 While residing in Nashville he was appointed by the 
 Governor of Tennessee trustee of the State Asylum for the 
 Blind and the State Lunatic Asylum, and visitor to the State 
 Penitentiary, and by the city authorities was often made the 
 almoner of its public charities. He was constantly called 
 upon to deliver orations, lectures, and sermons before the State 
 Legislature, Conventions of the People, and the most distin- 
 guished literary societies in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, 
 Louisiana, and Ohio. When the Southern Convention met 
 in Nashville, in 1849, he was unanimously elected its chaplain, 
 and invited to preach a sermon in his own church to its 
 members. 
 
 To give any considerable portion of the printed discourses 
 and essays of Mr. Ferguson, during his residence in Nashville, 
 would require a much larger space than can here be spared to 
 them, and we must content ourselves with a few brief extracts, 
 which will show something of the earnestness of piety and 
 philanthropy, as well as the zeal and eloquence, which gave 
 him for so many years, and down to the terrible desolation 
 which fell upon his country, an almost unbounded popularity 
 and influence. 
 
32 SKETCH OF KEY. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 The first extract we give is from the fourth volume of the 
 " Christian Magazine," 1851, apparently a portion of a sermon 
 from the text, " Beware of an evil heart of unbelief, in depart- 
 ing from the Living God." It is a good example of the spirit 
 of his teachings at that period: — 
 
 " Weak and wavering, may be written over the arch of every 
 man's faith who does not practically and daily rely upon, not the 
 God of some dogmatic and mysterious theory of human wisdom, but 
 the Father of our spirits. There is no solid comfort in the worship 
 of an unknown God with the Athenians ; for such need Paul to 
 declare Him as the God who built the heavens, and as not far from 
 every one of us. But we must worship the revealed Father and 
 appreciate the meaning of the name. Not merely the God of 
 nature either, who created rock, bird, and flower, but a God who 
 not only brought them and us into being, but who still exercises a 
 benignant Providence over all His works : Our Father ! true to 
 every parental attribute, and filling out the deficiencies of all earthly 
 parents by His own all-embracing fulness. He exercises a care and 
 supervision vast enough to uphold the entire universe, and minute 
 enough to protect each creature and bring it into a relation of per- 
 sonal communion with Himself. To establish this communion the 
 mission of Jesus was ordained, and the possession of His Spirit 
 makes us not only sons of God, but sons with the Spirit of sons, 
 the filial Spirit, whereby we say Abba, Father. Our baptism is the 
 sacred investiture of our adoption, for by it we put on Christ and 
 enter into the name of the Father. But with all the evidence of 
 our intimate relationship, how many in seasons of prosperity and 
 pleasure forget their Creator, or in times of disappointment and 
 suffering regard His goodness and compassion as questionable ! 
 When the light of His presence shines gloriously, they shut their 
 eyes to it ; and when the robes of darkness fall over their spirits, 
 they doubt its existence. The good things of the world they receive 
 without gratitude; the evil they charge upon their God. When 
 their business goes on in accordance with their wishes, they take it 
 as a matter of course, they feel no need ; when the calamity comes, 
 as come it often will to such, in a moment, they know not where 
 to look for help ; and if God do not speedily interpose for their 
 release and reinstatement, they fear His judgments and forget His 
 
HIS EARLY VIEWS OF RELIGION. 33 
 
 goodness, His loving-kindness, which may be better than life. Fear 
 is the legitimate child of donbt. Men fear enough, sometimes too 
 much {i.e., they do not reverence), the Creator. We cannot dread 
 impiety, ingratitude, or sin, too much ; but a literal, constant dread 
 of the Almighty Father is as impious as it is weak. It destroys 
 the very life of religion, the life of the affections. That name 
 which was revealed as a solace and a joy, which should be, for it is, 
 the dearest object in the universe, the actualized Father and Friend, 
 to become the source of continual apprehension and unrest, is to 
 take from us the very hope of man and fill its place with the fear 
 of demons. It is the childish reversal of the only correct rule of 
 judgment. As a child judges a parent's love through his punish- 
 ments, so judge of the Eternal Parent. Judgments are to be 
 interpreted through love — not love through judgments. Threaten- 
 ings are to be neutralized by promises — not promises by threaten- 
 ings. Earth is to be illuminated by the Hope of Heaven — not 
 darkened by the Fear of Hell. It would seem at times as though 
 it would be a relief to some minds if the idea of God were stricken 
 from the universe — so sadly wrong are all their ideas of His nature. 
 Dark and awful forebodings perpetually embitter all the pleasures 
 of their life. And this fear they call religion ! Sad religion truly; 
 fruitful only in dissatisfied feelings and wretched fears. Slavery, 
 rather, let it be branded, whose bonds are error of judgment and 
 whose cords are perversions of mind. It is from this very slavery 
 that religion proclaims a freedom. Its truth makes free. Its love 
 casts out fear. "Who can dread a God he loves 1 Who can be 
 tormented with an idea of a Being whose essential nature is good- 
 ness, love 1 We must believe more, we must know more of God ; 
 our own vision must rise above the fogs of human prejudice or 
 ignorance, if we would see a goodness which eternity only can 
 fully disclose — if we would discover the workings of a love that 
 can meet and will meet the darkest and strongest catastrophes, the 
 bitterest and most mysterious ills of life. We cannot trust God 
 too much ; for it is written, ' The just shall live by faith.' God 
 is even better than the highest conception of our thought. His 
 tender mercies are over all His works, and they will secure the 
 glory and happiness of all who seek Him as an everlasting refuge. 
 In every hour of sorrow, as in every season of joy, let us with the 
 inspired one of old say, ' How excellent is thy loving-kindness, 
 
34 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 God ! therefore the children of men pnt their trust under the 
 shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the 
 fatness of thy house ; and thou shalt make them drink of the river 
 of thy pleasures ; for in thee is the fountain of life.' And 
 let all who have entered that house, or family, or church rejoice, 
 and let all who have not entered enter, for the Spirit says to those 
 without, i Comei and to those within, 'Partake of the water of 
 life freely. 1 "J. B. F." 
 
 Equally characteristic and prophetic of his progress in new 
 fields of thought and investigation is the following passage, 
 which occurs in a series of lectures on Exodus, delivered in 1846, 
 nearly twenty years ago, and published in the " Christian 
 Magazine," 1851 : — 
 
 " Before we dismiss our review of the magian miracles, we have a 
 single observation to make, in relation to the communication which 
 spirits and demons have obtained with the people of the earth, by 
 their power over the internal forces and laws of nature. There 
 are a variety of facts found in the records of all history which 
 in their number and character are startling to every collected 
 examiner, and which cannot be ascribed to the fantasy of the imagi- 
 nation, however great that may be. I have no theory to propound 
 upon the subject ; I bow before the facts. I am neither sceptical 
 nor superstitious. Everywhere around me I see a strange mingling 
 of apparently opposite and extreme substances and powers, which 
 are as singular as the intercommunication of spirits with the ever 
 strange and intangible mind of man. In the crude and inanimate 
 forms of matter that rustle beneath my feet, I recognize impalpable 
 powers, imponderable agents, invisible realities. Something of the 
 spiritual flows into all the dull forms of earth. There are living 
 forces pervading every particle of matter, along the enduring lines 
 of which the volitions and powers of spirits may glide and operate 
 without contradiction or impediment. All power seems to have 
 its origin in mind, which acts in man, ordinarily, through organic 
 instrumentalities ; but in the spiritual world, through unperceiv- 
 able agents. 
 
 "Becent discoveries in science show experiments where the voli- 
 tion of man may cause the oscillations of the needle to vary from 
 thirty to fifty degrees. We see heavy bodies moved every day by 
 
HIS EARLY ESTIMATE OF THE SUPKAMUNDANE. 35 
 
 the disturbance of the imponderable fluids that pervade them, as in 
 the generation of steam ; and, indeed, of all gases. When, there- 
 fore, we connect with these facts the scriptural revelation that 
 spiritual beings are in constant contact with the men of this world, 
 we may have some faint idea of their power and the manner of its 
 use. It is in vain to tell us that the laws of nature are fixed and 
 uniform ; we speak of the power in the law, and not the mode of 
 its manifestation. The law flows from the power, and is only the 
 mode in which the power acts. There is no power in the law, and 
 what we call the law, as of gravitation, for example, is only the 
 uniformity with which the power acts. In tracing every law and 
 every power, we at last arrive at the divine, the Supreme Being ; 
 and the innumerable mediums in which the divine power termi- 
 nates, we call the laws of nature and of being. Spirits, angels, 
 demons, are the higher laws of His power, and the lower orders of 
 life are the lower ranges of the same power. When, therefore, we 
 consider how near the human mind is to the border of spiritual life, 
 and remember that the imponderable and internal forces of nature, 
 such as magnetism and electricity, permeate every object and have 
 good centres in the human brain, which, by a complicate network 
 of affinities no mind has yet been able to fathom, may connect 
 itself with the next order of spiritual beings above it, we are pre- 
 pared not only to admit the possibility of spiritual communications, 
 but also to form some conception of the manner of their manifesta- 
 tion. But the subject is infinite, and this is not the place to dis- 
 cuss it. I have distinct and somewhat satisfactory views upon it, 
 and in the proper place will take pleasure in laying before you the 
 result of years of patient research and investigation. To conclude, 
 you will discover that I do not coincide with that wholesale dogma- 
 tism which denies the possibility of magian miracles, and limits 
 every phenomenon to its own obstinate and narrow circle of obser- 
 vation j for unless I were to adopt the infidel theory of Hume and 
 reject all testimony on this subject, I must believe not only that 
 they have been performed, but that they still may be and are, and 
 that they will be acknowledged whenever our science in the depart- 
 ments alluded to shall be perfected." 
 
 For eleven years Mr. Ferguson resided in Nashville, oc- 
 cupying the same pulpit with undiminished popularity and 
 
36 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 success, and serving the public also in many highly responsible 
 situations. It should be explained here, that those to whom 
 he preached were called simply " Christians." They had no 
 written creed, aud professed to take the Holy Scriptures alone 
 as the basis of their faith. But the doctrines which Mr. 
 Ferguson drew from the Sacred Yolume did not the less stir 
 up, after a time, a sectarian spirit of animosity, and those who 
 claimed the greatest possible toleration for their own views of 
 truth, were the first to denounce those held by him as heretical. 
 Yery strong efforts were made to separate him from his con- 
 gregation by these denunciations, but they stood firmly by 
 their beloved pastor. When he was slandered, and demanded 
 an investigation of the charges brought against him, his people 
 were still equal to the occasion, and the most distinguished 
 and best men of all parties in the community came to his 
 support, and testified to the purity of his character, and the 
 zeal and ability with which he had laboured for the public 
 good. The investigation which he had felt himself compelled 
 to demand as a matter of justice, resulted in his being unani- 
 mously recalled to the pastorate he had resigned, and his 
 reputation only shone the more brightly for the ordeal through 
 which it had passed. 
 
 The time came, however, when Mr. Ferguson recognized so 
 much of a divergence between his own views and those held 
 by the majority of the society of which he had been considered 
 a member, that he felt it his duty to voluntarily resign the 
 church edifice erected for him to those who might have been 
 called its doctrinal claimants. He had advanced beyond many 
 of his flock, and while not ready to leave those who had been 
 the companions of his progress, he would not stand in a false 
 position towards those who had not been able to make the 
 same advancement. 
 
 This voluntary abandonment of a property to which he had 
 probably a good legal claim disarmed all opposition, and 
 
HIS LABOURS IN REVOLUTION. 37 
 
 enabled him to take what he considered a higher and broader 
 position, in which he claimed the world as his church, and all 
 mankind as his brethren. 
 
 In 1860, when the revolution was approaching its crisis, 
 and the long gathering animosities between the North and 
 South were about to culminate in a desolating and sanguinary 
 contest, Mr. Ferguson was waited upon by the most distin- 
 guished men in Tennessee of both parties, Union and Secession, 
 and invited to give a public address on the duty of the people 
 of Tennessee and of the South in that crisis of their fate. His 
 address was delivered in the hall of the House of Kepresen- 
 tatives in the State Capitol, to an audience of several thousands, 
 and was circulated in a printed form over the whole Southern 
 States. As candidate for a seat in the Legislature of 1861, 
 Mr. Ferguson also gave a series of most eloquent and stirring 
 addresses throughout the district of which Nashville is the 
 centre, which will be found in the local newspapers of that 
 stirring period. 
 
 He was also invited to address the people throughout Middle 
 and West Tennessee, Kentucky, and a portion of Arkansas, 
 and was heard with respect amid the violence of party feelings, 
 and recognized as the Patrick Henry of a new revolution. 
 The city council of Memphis called upon him to deliver an 
 address on the completion of Fort Harris, the first fort built 
 after the war began, and the city of Nashville sent him to 
 address the State troops gathered at Fort Cheatham. He also 
 addressed the first brigade of Arkansas volunteers, encamped 
 at Mound City. As he had done his utmost to unite the 
 South to prevent the war, he now exerted all his impetuous 
 eloquence to unite the South in prosecuting the war that could 
 no longer be avoided. In this work he won the respect and 
 confidence of Southern statesmen and geuerals. When Fort 
 Donaldson was attacked, he was called upon to address the 
 State Legislature at Nashville, and he predicted the capture of 
 
38 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 the fortress wheiv his hearers believed such an event im- 
 possible. His prediction was fulfilled, and the enemy was at 
 the gates of Nashville. 
 
 In this hour of supreme dismay, when the whole city 
 was a mob, the authorities called upon Mr. Ferguson to use 
 his influence and eloquence to calm the popular excitement. 
 Mounted upon his horse, he rode from street to street, and 
 square to square, addressing the people, and giving them such 
 counsels as the case demanded. When order had been brought 
 out of confusion, he devoted himself to the mitigation of the 
 horrors of invading war. 
 
 The establishment of the Federal military authorities in 
 Nashville was the signal for the imprisonment of many of her 
 best citizens. Scores of the best men in Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee have suffered not only imprisonment and banishment, 
 but ignominious death, for no crime but patriotism. No man 
 in Tennessee had been more active and influential than Mr. 
 Ferguson. He had addressed tbe people in their public meet- 
 ings, urging them to unity and patriotism, and the soldiers in 
 their camps, inciting them to devotion and heroism. The press 
 of Tennessee bore witness to the eloquence and effectiveness of 
 his appeals, and published at full length his spirit-stirring 
 addresses. It was not to be expected that when so many pro- 
 minent men were arrested and imprisoned he would be allowed 
 to escape, but he did so in a very remarkable manner, and 
 made his way to Canada, whence he was commissioned by his 
 friends to visit England and present his views of the policy 
 which he believed should govern the Confederate States to their 
 commissioners and their friends in Europe. Returning from 
 England, and seeking to find his way to Richmond, with the 
 object of urging his views upon the Confederate Government, 
 his safe transit through the lines was unconsciously pro- 
 moted by an order of General Rosencranz for his arrest 
 and banishment to the Confederate States, within whose 
 
BANISHMENT AND VISIT TO RICHMOND. 39 
 
 military lines he was safely escorted, whence he proceeded to 
 Richmond. 
 
 While at the capital of the Confederate States, where he 
 had the opportunity of stating his views upon the war, slavery, 
 and the policy of the Confederacy, Mr. Ferguson embodied 
 some of these views in a pamphlet, entitled " The Times ; or, 
 the Flag of Truce, dedicated to the Cabinets at Washington 
 and Richmond, by a White Republican" (Richmond, 1863). 
 In this pamphlet he described the wrong and evils of war, its 
 violation of all human ideas of justice, its waste of energy, 
 resources, and life, its utter uselessness and barbarism. He 
 called upon both governments and peoples to do at once what 
 they must do finally, enter upon negotiations for peace. It 
 was the interest of all, and could be attained without difficulty 
 or sacrifice. Union, a treaty union of the two Confederacies 
 for mutual benefits was still possible, and preferable to the no 
 longer possible union of all the States in one federation. And 
 he asked both governments to unite with all civilized powers 
 to form an International Congress, which could settle all differ- 
 ences, and inaugurate an era of universal peace, which was 
 the highest earthly interest of all humanity. In such a 
 congress he would have every nation, large or small, strong or 
 weak, equally represented, because their rights are the same. 
 Such a congress, backed by the aggregate power of all the re- 
 presented nations, could keep the universal peace, and in 
 securing the harmony, promote the interests of all nations. 
 The millions of men now kept in arms, wasting the strength 
 and wealth of nations, would be set free to engage in produc- 
 tive employments. The genius, skill, energy, force, and 
 resources all wasted in wars or preparations for war, the armed 
 truces of civilized and Christian peoples, would be turned to pro- 
 duction instead of waste and devastation. Nations would save the 
 cost of war and warlike preparations, and they would gain a 
 vast amount of mental and physical power for works of utility. 
 
40 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 These philanthropic and — may we not also say ? — statesman- 
 like views were presented at a later day to members of the 
 British Cabinet and to the Emperor of the French. An 
 European Congress was proposed by the Emperor, but the 
 British Government declined to engage in it. At a later date, 
 after a war had begun upon the Continent, the British Cabinet 
 summoned a Congress to deal with the single question at issue. 
 Its failure may be attributed to the policy which had induced 
 English statesmen to refuse to join in a broader and more 
 promising movement, which might have resulted in universal 
 peace, free trade, and the disarmament of nations. 
 
 Having fulfilled his mission at Richmond, Mr. Ferguson 
 returned to Memphis, from which point he had been banished, 
 and was of course re-arrested. 
 
 On being summoned to the presence of Major- General 
 Hurlbut, the Federal commandant of the Memphis district, Mr. 
 Ferguson made the most frank avowal of his opinions and 
 actions ; a statement of so remarkable a character that it 
 deserves to be given at some length. Mr. Ferguson said he 
 had long foreseen the present crisis — the deplorable and san- 
 guinary conflict between the North and South — and had in his 
 writings and speeches endeavoured to procure an entire union 
 of feeling and action among the Southern people. He wished 
 all the Southern States and people to stand together in 
 securing peace, if possible ; and if not, in resisting aggression, 
 and in a solid phalanx defying death, poverty, and starvation. 
 Now war was in our midst. Carnage sweeps its tide of 
 ensanguined desolation over the land, and where was their 
 safety but in council and peace ? Sooner or later, council must 
 establish peace. Shall it leave us a divided nation, weakened in 
 the presence of the great Powers of Europe ? Only in union 
 was there safety ; but there could be no restoration of the old 
 Union. The attempt to restore it by force of arms must bring 
 a long night of desolation on both South and North. No 
 
HIS ADVOCACY OF PEACE. 41 
 
 submission could be expected from a people who had for two 
 years bravely and successfully resisted the power, intelligence, 
 and perseverance of the North. But concession might restore 
 a fraternal harmony. The South, even after its conquest — if 
 that result were ever attained — could not be ruled by force, as 
 a subject people. Union was the interest of both sections ; but 
 the only union now possible was a union of Confederacies in 
 alliance offensive and defensive, free trade, and reciprocity of 
 commercial relations, leaving all questions of a purely local 
 character to the Governments of the respective Confederacies, 
 He was for peace — in principle opposed to war. It was waste, 
 destruction, dismay, and desolation to every hope for the good 
 of his country and kind. It was unjust to all. Widows and 
 orphans, the maimed and wrecked are its sad trophies. Its 
 continuance would open the way for outlawry, murder and 
 brutality in every form, to the destruction of all civilization. 
 
 In giving his reasons for peace, he said : " I am for peace, 
 because I believe in one Grod and one family of man ; because 
 without peace there is no freedom. No amount of blood shed or 
 treasure expended can ever settle the questions which lead to 
 war; the slaughter of millions and the impoverishing of a 
 nation settle nothing. "War is the culmination of passion and 
 frenzy, the dethronement of reason, alienating man from his 
 brother, and blasting the idea of a common Father. Civiliza- 
 tion has established tribunals for the redress of grievances, and 
 if it is wrong for an individual to appeal to force and violence, 
 how can it be right in a nation ? I have laboured to secure — 
 1st, an armistice; 2nd, negotiation, which is another name, 
 for national reason; 3rd, the free, unfettered voice of the 
 people of all these States as to how this war shall cease." 
 
 Failing this, Mr. Ferguson said he had no hope but in the 
 establishment of an International Congress, such as he had 
 already proposed to the Cabinets of Washington, Richmond, 
 and the two chief European Powers. 
 
42 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 General Hurlbut, who, acting under General Rosencranz, 
 had given the order for his banishment, now permitted him to 
 return to his family at Nashville, demanding of him no oath of 
 allegiance, but, after a personal interview, giving him the follow- 
 ing letter to the Federal Military Governor of Tennessee : — 
 
 lc Sir, — This will be handed you by Eev. J. B. Ferguson, who 
 was banished south of our lines some few weeks since. I have had 
 a full, free, frank interview with hiin, aud I am satisfied he is a man 
 of both truth and character. He has very peculiar views of the 
 nature and tendency of this revolution, worthy of any man's con- 
 sideration. If permitted to remain at home or go where he pleases, 
 he will do good and not harm. As his home is near Nashville, I 
 send him to you, and commend him to your distinguished con- 
 sideration. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, yours, &c, 
 
 " S. A. Hurlbut, Major-General. 
 
 " Hon. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee." 
 
 Governor Johnson had long known Mr. Ferguson, and had 
 been one of his most ardent admirers, though they were 
 supposed to differ widely in their relations to the unhappy 
 struggle which had involved their country. He received Mr. 
 Ferguson courteously, however, and gave him every liberty he 
 desired, and he was not from that time molested. 
 
 This reception and treatment by Governor Johnson caused a 
 report to be spread that Mr. Ferguson had deserted the 
 Southern cause and people. He was even, while residing 
 quietly at his farm, some distance from Nashville, announced 
 as the chief speaker at a convention called " to restore Ten- 
 nessee to the Union." The following card, published in a 
 Nashville paper the day following this unauthorized announce- 
 ment, was his sufficient answer :■ — 
 
 "Note from Eev. J. B. Ferguson. 
 " To the Editor of the Nashville Dispatch. 
 
 " Mount Hope, Tennessee, 17th Jan., 1864. 
 " Your paper of yesterday was handed me to-day, in which I 
 
HIS RESTORATION FROM EXILE. 43 
 
 find the following sentence, closing a notice of a ' Meeting at the 
 Capitol :' ' The chairman announcing that at the next meeting 
 the Eev. J. B. Ferguson would make a public recantation of Eebel 
 principles !' Allow me to say, that I have not at any time authorized 
 or in any way sanctioned such an announcement. There must, there- 
 fore, be some mistake on the part of the chairman or that of your 
 reporter, and you will, I think, do me the justice to publish this, 
 my disavowal of the report. 
 
 " Quietly pursuing my daily toil on the farm, I knew neither of 
 the meeting to which you refer, nor of the one at which it is 
 announced I will make a ' recantation.' I only add, therefore, that 
 I have no recantation to make either in public or private. The 
 stormy era in which we are actors, I had for years anticipated, 
 and, consequently, all my actions connected therewith were delibe- 
 rate, and the result of my most solemn and best matured reflections. 
 I have not in the past, nor do I now shirk, any legitimate respon- 
 sibility therewith connected ; and, although desiring no public 
 notoriety, I hold myself ready, at any proper time and place, to give 
 a full and frank avowal of my estimate of the grave and weighty 
 questions that now press themselves upon every well-wisher of his 
 kind or country. 
 
 " I am, very respectfully, etc., 
 
 "J. B. Ferguson." 
 
 It was naturally expected that the publication of this card 
 would cause Mr. Ferguson to be again arrested, and perhaps 
 banished, but conciliation happened to be the policy of the 
 hour, and he was not molested. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Mr. Ferguson, after the capture 
 of Nashville, went to Canada, and thence to England, to lay 
 his views before the Confederate and European diplomatists 
 on several important subjects, and especially on the interest- 
 ing and important one — the relations of the Confederate States 
 to negro slavery. Educated a Southerner, advocating Southern 
 independence in the interests of peace, he advocated it no less 
 in the interests of the African race, for whom he has a true 
 and generous sympathy, which is found, as every one 
 
 d2 
 
44 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 acquainted with America knows, more commonly in the 
 Southern than in the Northern States. 
 
 The views of Mr. Ferguson on this subject are so original 
 and striking that we give, entire, the memorandum or brief 
 which he prepared on his first visit to England for the purpose 
 of bringing the subject to the notice of the British and Conti- 
 nental Governments : — 
 
 " There has been no legitimate legislation in the United States 
 on the subject of slavery for forty-five years. The reason, so far 
 as the Southern section is concerned, is obvious. The agitation of 
 the question in the National Congress, a common theatre, has 
 served to divert attention from the condition of the African popu- 
 lation to a question of State rights, and the necessity, supposed 
 or real, of resisting a fanatical interference with national and con- 
 stitutional rights, which has now ended in a dissolution of the 
 Union and a fratricidal and most desolating war. Tear for the 
 safety of both races has thrown the South upon the defensive, and 
 all that development of Southern statesmanship which in the early 
 history of our country was directed to the rapidly-increasing 
 number of the coloured race, to the amelioration of its condition 
 and its ultimate emancipation, has not only been diverted, but a 
 forced legislation has taken its place. Prior to the agitation in 
 the National Councils — a common theatre, which, constitutionally, 
 had nothing to do with the question of slavery — the subject was 
 one of investigation and free discussion, alike in our legislative 
 halls and at every altar of thought and service throughout the 
 country. The proof of this statement may be found in almost 
 every book, pamphlet, and speech of abolition literature ; from the 
 Jays to Helper; from Lloyd Garrison to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' 
 Each of these publications abounds in quotations from the speeches 
 and writings of such men as "Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the 
 Pinckneys, Marshalls, Eandolphs cum multis aliis, all of which 
 were written, or spoken, anterior to the national agitation 
 of the question. The South has ceased to discuss at home, because 
 it felt threatened abroad, and endangered in the dearest national 
 rights by an unconstitutional, not to say impudent, intermeddling. 
 Had she been let alone, we insist that she would, ere this, have legal- 
 ized the marriages of her negroes; passed laws to prevent the 
 
HIS ADVOCACY OF SOUTHERN RIGHTS. 45 
 
 separation of mothers and children of tender years ; established 
 civil umpires to decide and effectually prevent cases of cruelty ; 
 and, I solemnly believe, in the natural and unrestrained course of 
 events, made umpires to decide cases of freedom ; or rather, capacity 
 for the enlargement of the privileges of such as were capable of 
 taking care of themselves. To appreciate what we mean, allow us 
 to state a few plain principles and facts. 
 
 " We can never abolish slavery by civil enactment. We but 
 change the condition from one of dependence upon the superior civil 
 development of the white man to that of dependence on the 
 bounty of chance, amid the fierce and intense rapacity which the 
 vast rewards of skill and industry of modern material conquest have 
 organized over the whole area of so-called civilization. To free 
 without provision for his enlargement, is but to victimize the negro, 
 and send him down to a deeper barbarism than any now marking 
 his worst condition in slavery. 
 
 "Again, it is capacity, not resolutions of Congress or emancipation 
 proclamations, that gives right. My right to see is an eye, and not 
 a law of human enactment. The law can but recognize the right, 
 and provide for its free and full exercise. Among our negroes, 
 individuals do arise every way capable of a higher condition. Prior 
 to the national agitation many such were freed by Southern 
 masters ; but since the step has been justly considered impolitic, 
 and not even humane. The reason is clear. In all our vast terri- 
 tory, the gift of Heaven for humanity at large, despite the agitation 
 of abolitionism, not a county, not a township has as yet been set 
 apart for the enfranchised negro — not a place where he can enjoy 
 social equality — not one where his ignorance and even colour does 
 not expose him to enormous trespass. And the strange anomaly 
 presented to-day is, that the negro — the only innocent party in the 
 terrible conflict in America — he who has felled our forests, reaped 
 the abundant harvests of our grain for our use, and woven, so to 
 speak, the very fabric of our greatness, has not a place in all the 
 territory we have wrested, in many instances from another and a 
 savage race, for the safety of the sole of his foot. 
 
 " We ask, then, in view of these patent facts, is it strange that 
 our own heritage is becoming a wide and deep desolation 1 And it 
 is well to inquire, where is the remedy 1 
 
 " Grant a Southern nationality. The South becomes but one 
 
46 
 
 SKETCH OF REV. J B. FERGUSON. 
 
 member of the great family of nations. She becomes so beneath the 
 full blaze of the intellectualism of all nations now rife with oppo- 
 sition to her peculiar institutions. She at once must take and feel 
 the responsibility and dangers, if there be any of her social system. 
 She must provide an outlet to unfolding capacity ; but as she cannot 
 do this alone — as she never could do it while the Union existed, 
 because the question was so urged as to destroy all right, all 
 freedom of thought and action — she will rejoice to have the question 
 considered intern ationally, as the nations alone can say -where 
 the free coloured man may find a place free from trespass. 
 
 " Grant her nationality. She is but one among many. Every 
 advantage is on the side of freedom. She cannot hope to exist free 
 from the common influences of national relationship. Having her 
 rightful position recognized, she must and will feel its responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 "Forty-five years of national agitation has not benefited the 
 negro. It has often only placed him between the upper and nether 
 millstone. It has made him a fugitive in a foreign and, to him, 
 inhospitable clime. It has intensified sectional prejudice, and 
 brought on a fratricidal war of unprecedented malignity and deso- 
 lation. And it has revealed the blunder, not to say curse, of 
 American statesmanship, in that, with all its cry against slavery, 
 it has made no provision for the outgrowth of the coloured man's 
 capacity. Moreover, it has anew demonstrated that the slavery of 
 a tribe or race cannot be abolished, because, like childhood, it is 
 natural. It may be outgrown, is so outgrown in individual 
 instances, for which outgrowth all just governments will and must 
 make provision. This could not be done in the Union. It will be 
 done in a Southern nationality, because the rights of the Southern 
 people to their own dangers and responsibilities being granted, as 
 in any case of a just distribution of responsibility, they must provide 
 for them. I end, therefore, all I have said in one sentence, which 
 the experience of the whole world confirms : Slavery cannot be 
 abolished — it may be, and will be, outgrown. It cannot be 
 abolished, because it is natural to a lack of civic development ; it 
 may be outgrown, because any condition under nature or provi- 
 dence is but the promise of unfoldment into a higher. 
 
 " The South will give up every negro rather than yield in her 
 struggle for independence from what she considers the tyranny of 
 
HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND. 47 
 
 the North. It is for the world to say how or in what manner this 
 should be done. If done ruthlessly and suddenly, the interests of 
 Europe, nay, of humanity at large, strangely connected with the 
 products of slave labour, must suffer, and untold misery, with no 
 near approach to a better condition of the coloured man, will be 
 the inevitable result." 
 
 These statesmanlike views were not unappreciated, but the 
 time had not come for their acceptance, neither were the 
 nations ready for an international congress which should be 
 potent enough to secure universal peace, and he was forced to 
 find other work. 
 
 But business was prostrated, his home and his state de- 
 solated by the scourge of war, and every avenue of usefulness 
 being closed to him, he came to New York to seek the means 
 of providing for his family. There he was soon offered respon- 
 sible and sufficiently lucrative positions, but a path of duty 
 seemed to him to open before him, involving much of sacrifice 
 certainly to a man who had so long been honoured and 
 applauded, but a path he did not hesitate to pursue with, 
 unfaltering courage and trust. In the spirit of faith and 
 obedience to the highest sense of duty, he accepted a mission 
 to make known to the people of England, and to the world, 
 some of those supramundane facts which are the present and 
 tangible evidences of immortality. 
 
 It would have been easy, from the materials before me, to 
 have very much extended this sketch of the life of Mr. Ferguson. 
 I might have copied many eloquent and suggestive passages 
 from his published sermons, essays, lectures, and political 
 addresses, which would have illustrated the character of his 
 mind, his genius, and shown something of the basis of the 
 position he has occupied and the popularity he has enjoyed. 
 Few men in America occupied a more enviable position, were 
 more trusted, or more worthy of trust, than Mr. Ferguson # 
 His testimony to any fact within his observation or knowledge 
 
48 SKETCH OF REV. J. B. FERGUSON. 
 
 is not to be lightly questioned. His opinions or deductions 
 from those facts are entitled to as much respect, as his character 
 may warrant, and I believe there are few men whose opinions, 
 judged by this standard, are entitled to more consideration 
 than those of Jesse Babcock Ferguson. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLY OBSERVATIONS OF PHYSICAL AND PSYCHICAL 
 PHENOMENA. 
 
 Some of Mr. Ferguson's earlier observations and experiences 
 of supramundane facts were published at Nashville, in 1854, 
 in an octavo volume of some 300 pages, entitled "Spirit 
 Communion: a Record of Communications from the Spirit- 
 spheres, with incontestable evidence of personal identity, by 
 J. B. Ferguson." In the introduction to this volume, various 
 objections to the credibility and utility of spiritual communi- 
 cations are answered with force and pertinence ; but these 
 answers, however needful they may have been at the time 
 and under the circumstances, do not now seem necessary. The 
 first question to be answered respecting these manifestations and 
 communications is, do they really exist? Let the fact be 
 established, and its use will appear in due season. The 
 believers in what is called Spiritualism have no occasion to 
 explain its uses, or defend its morality, until its genuineness 
 is acknowledged. It is nonsense to say a thing cannot be or 
 ought not to be, while it can be proven that it is. The true 
 method is to settle the fact, and then look to causes and con- 
 sequences. 
 
 A writer in Blackwood, February, 1865, ridicules and 
 denounces the facts related in the life of Mr. Home, and of 
 the Brothers Davenport. They are humbugs, impostures, 
 absurdities, and rubbish ; but before we get to the end of the 
 article we have a solemn warning against the awful wicked- 
 ness and danger of such manifestations. The facts are utterly 
 
50 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 denied, and in the next breath we are told that they imperil 
 our eternal salvation. In the first 'part of this article the 
 writer hunts with the hounds ; in the last he runs with the hare. 
 When it has been fairly and philosophically settled whether the 
 phenomena to which has been given the name, " Spiritualism " 
 are real, other questions will be in order. 
 
 If these apparent manifestations are the results of imposture 
 or delusion, affecting some millions of honest people, wise and 
 good men can scarcely engage in a more important work than 
 demonstrating the imposture and dispelling the illusion ; but 
 this cannot be done by ridicule or denunciation. 
 
 If, in the progress of their inquiries, learned and scientific in- 
 vestigators who are too wise to be imposed upon, and too strong- 
 minded to fall into any delusion, should, by possibility, become 
 satisfied that the facts of so-called spiritual manifestations do 
 really occur, then they can teach us as to their uses, or warn us 
 against their abuses. 
 
 Our business at present is with the facts ; and we have no 
 fear that any fact, element, force, or action, in nature or above 
 nature, mundane or supramundane, will be found without its 
 proper use. 
 
 In giving an account of his earlier experiences, Mr. Ferguson 
 
 " In the years 1842-3 we prosecuted, in the privacy of family 
 relationships, a thorough investigation of what was called animal 
 magnetism, in which, under repeated experiments — alone and in 
 the company of respectable witnesses — we fully established the 
 following facts :— 
 
 "First. The possibility of mind acting through the outward 
 senses of other bodies besides its own. 
 
 " Second. Of its acting apart from its own and all external 
 senses ; and of holding communion with disembodied mind. 
 
 " All who witnessed our experiments were fully satisfied of the 
 truth of our first conclusion, of which they had evidence — solicited 
 and unsought — of a nature and amount that did not admit of a 
 
ON MESMERISM. 51 
 
 question. Of the second conclusion, myself and the individual 
 through whom our new demonstrations were made were alone 
 satisfied, for the evidence was of a character that did not admit of 
 a clear or satisfactory statement. Still no sooner did the recent 
 developments of modern spiritualism command the popular atten- 
 tion, than every witness to our happy experiments was led to say, 
 'If these things be true, Mrs. F. (the subject of these experiments) 
 is a medium ! ' 
 
 " Years had passed away, bringing new relations to almost every 
 member of our social circle, and the subject had ceased to occupy 
 our attention. Yet, when oppressed by any serious event, Mrs. F. 
 would manifest a degree and precision of intuition that would 
 always astonish and sometimes overwhelm our attention. 
 
 " I wrote in my portfolio, in the year 1844, and published in the 
 ' Christian Magazine,' in the year 1849, as follows : — 'If we may 
 be allowed an opinion, where an opinion is scarcely allowable, we 
 would say that from the invisible world there will be such a mani- 
 festation of the saints, that the veil of flesh and sense will be rent 
 away and the connection will be permanent. The cherubim, or 
 " living creatures," will appear upon the earth. The angels of God 
 will ascend and descend as Jacob saw, and as Jesus promised, and 
 the tabernacles for which Peter asked on the Mount of Glory will 
 be granted to all.' 
 
 " We confess that our experience and observation so deepened and 
 confirmed our faith in the reality and nearness of spirit presence, 
 that it gave a character to our ministrations that was marked by all. 
 
 "When the spiritual manifestations of Eochester and other places 
 were claiming popular attention, I was so occupied in pastoral, 
 editorial and other duties, that I passed them by for the most part, 
 and was disposed to regard them as the minglings of fanaticism and 
 imposture. There was one exception to this statement. When 
 attempting, in company with a medical friend, to relieve a case of 
 physical suffering, finding the subject in the state usually called 
 clairvoyant, I asked her in relation to the Eochester manifesta- 
 tions, and received this response : ' The manifestations are from 
 spirits, many of whom lived before the present nations of the 
 earth existed ; they are seeking access to the world by the agency 
 of spirits recently departed. This is true, and you will find it so.' 
 
 "This remarkable declaration did not pass from my memory ; 
 
52 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 and I made a note of it among my records, but I was disposed to 
 attribute it to a mesmeric reflection of the mind of my friend upon 
 that of the patient. He always protested, however, that I was 
 mistaken. This was in May, 1849. 
 
 " Time passed on with its changing influeDces, and I found myself 
 with its every advance more and more confident of the reality of 
 man's spiritual relations — so much so indeed that my statements 
 from the pulpit and the press frequently required explanations to 
 my friends. So full, so positive, and so unmistakeable were they, 
 that the opponents to my heresies pronounced me a spiritualist, 
 and with the usual confidence of men who never doubt their own 
 decisions, stated that I was in correspondence with spiritual 
 mediums. This was not true in any sense in which they used the 
 word. 
 
 " I allude to these things that I may mark my own progress in the 
 details that follow, with reference to place, time, and event, and 
 not to create any combative opposition, such as I have from the 
 beginning avoided as alike incompatible with the claims of 
 humanity and truth. My subsequent experience and obser- 
 vation are detailed in the following letters and communications, 
 which I now offer to the public as an imperative duty I owe alike 
 to truth and right, and to the responsibilities that grow out of 
 privileges I regard as the highest and holiest ever granted to man. 
 
 "Springfield, Ohio, Oct. 24, 1853. 
 "Mr. W. D. M. : 
 
 "My dear Friend, — In accordance with my promise, I proceed 
 to present you, in as concise a form as possible, my observations 
 on ' spiritual manifestations.' 
 
 " The chief object of my present visit to Ohio was to secure the 
 privilege of personal observation of these strange phenomena. 
 Much to my disappointment, I was informed upon my arrival that 
 the excitement with respect to them had died out, and that it 
 would be difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute my designs. So 
 frequently was this fact stated to me, that I had well-nigh given 
 over the search, when, quite unexpectedly, I introduced the subject 
 in the house of a worthy friend, who informed me that himself 
 and his brother were mediums. They had not been exercised 
 for eighteen months ; had just come in from the corn harvest to 
 pay their respects to me j and, though anxious to gratify me, 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 53 
 
 evidently wished I had sought some other gratification. By per- 
 suasion, however, they consented, and we sat down seriously to 
 the ' table.' We had not been seated long until we had the 
 'raps,' the ' tipping of the stand,' and decided changes in their 
 nervous systems. We received, also, responses by the aid of the 
 alphabet, and the name of an aged and deceased preacher-companion 
 of mine was spelled out. The manifesting power answering 
 to this name gave answers to audible and mental questions, 
 somewhat remarkable in their character, but by no means satisfac- 
 tory as to the degree of intelligence in the replies. There was 
 enough, however, to excite all my powers of inquiry, and to 
 command my most serious attention. I had not thought of the 
 deceased father in Israel ; but having loved and honoured him in 
 the flesh, had no objection to communing with him in spirit. The 
 afternoon, however, was wearing away, and my friends were 
 expecting me at the house of a relative. I persuaded my friend, 
 the best medium, to accompany me there. We opened the 
 examination again at night, with like results. Spirits that had 
 departed in the room we occupied were said to be present ; and 
 among many strange things revealed to us was that I myself would 
 receive unmistakeable manifestations shortly, and manifestations of 
 some degree of palpability during the ensuing twenty-four hours. 
 Those who witnessed the proceeding concluded that all we had 
 seen and heard were involuntary effects produced by the medium. 
 We retired to rest, dismissing the subject. Late in the night I 
 awoke from a most delightful dream, when I recognized distinct 
 ' raps ' upon my right shoulder and breast. Of course I was all 
 attention. Satisfying myself that I was entirely awake, I directed 
 mentally several questions to the rapping power, and received not 
 very remarkable answers. ....... 
 
 " I arrived in Springfield at ten o'clock at night, and found all 
 my family were gone to Madison County. On Sunday a gentle- 
 man called and assured me we could have a meeting with a 
 medium at night. The meeting was arranged to take place in 
 my room ; and after tea at another house, I returned, and found 
 quite a number gathered, and three mediums present. I mention 
 these particulars, because there was much at this meeting that, to 
 say the least of it, revealed remarkable coincidences. With the 
 exception of one individual — a Methodist clergyman, formerly 
 
54 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 from Tennessee— I was a total stranger to all present. They 
 neither knew me, nor knew of me. Some of them had come in, 
 they scarcely knew why ; and one of the mediums was a total 
 stranger to us all, who came, as he said, under the impression that 
 he ' must come to this place to-night.' The coincidences of desire 
 and unexpected meeting were so remarkable, that, but for my 
 knowledge of all that had been done towards the meeting, I would 
 have feared collusion. On this point, however, I was fully 
 satisfied. 
 
 " The meeting was opened by prayer, at the suggestion of my 
 clerical friend. All the company were professedly religious — one 
 of the mediums a Methodist preacher, and a majority, members of 
 that Church. 
 
 " We were soon seated around a table, and joined in a good old 
 song of Zion, as they said, to produce passivity and harmony of 
 mind. Our clerical medium stated to us, what we had previously 
 heard, that he was a man of embarrassing timidity in the presence 
 of strangers, and had been so all his life ; that he enjoyed spiritual 
 communications best alone, and that in company, even when he 
 felt the influence most powerfully, he hesitated to act. We 
 encouraged him, and did all in our power to make him feel at 
 ease. Soon his arm was singularly agitated, and, taking a pencil, 
 he wrote what seemed to be an admonition to himself, as 
 follows : — ' You should do your duty at all times, and under all 
 circumstances. What if you are in the presence of strangers ? 
 You are also in the presence of heavenly messengers, who are ever 
 ready to help and assist you. We know the state of your mind. 
 Be passive. We will think ; you must write. Say to all who 
 look on, God is present by His messengers, and we wish to 
 show that writing may be done intelligibly by one who is not 
 willing to do his duty. You cannot be made to write now. You 
 are too much excited. — E. ~F. Miller.' 
 
 "This gentleman continued nervously agitated, occasionally wrote, 
 but would not allow us to see his communications. He folded 
 them up carefully and put them in his pocket, and could not be 
 prevailed on to exhibit them. He is an amiable, timid man, of 
 the most respectable character, universally beloved ; and, though 
 thought to be demented on this subject by some, he is auditor of the 
 county, and a man of information. The name to the above com- 
 
IN OHIO. 55 
 
 munication is that of his son, deceased, with whom, he says, he 
 enjoys daily communion. 
 
 "Our stranger medium, whom we shall call Mr. S., was all the 
 time nervously agitated. He evidently passed into the state called 
 clairvoyant, when, in a very collected and pleasant manner, he gave 
 us the following, which I took down from his lips : — 
 
 " ' The spirits will speak. Mortals are too anxious. We can 
 communicate, but our communications take the cast and colour- 
 ing of the instrument's mind. The instrument cannot always 
 connect the words as we impress them ; and a very slight alteration, 
 made by the bias of their mind, causes error instead of truth. "We 
 must therefore be cautious. The " truth is mighty and will prevail." 
 Were we possessed of perfectly passive instruments, we could over- 
 power all minds in the body.' 
 
 " At this moment another medium commenced speaking, who 
 had responded to all said by Mr. S. We will call him Mr. L. He 
 seemed to take up the last remark of Mr. S., and proceeded as 
 follows, in the German language, which was translated for the 
 benefit of all present : — 
 
 " ' Love in the heart, and a strong desire for wisdom, connected 
 with a going out of the mind towards God, the all-good, unites all 
 present in a chain of sympathy, by which spirits in the body come 
 in contact with spirit-minds. If supreme love of God were in you 
 all, and reverence for His will over you, a perfect chain of sympathy 
 would be established with you and all spirits throughout the 
 universe, whether in the body or out of the body. Then why will 
 you not submit to His will in the flesh, that your progress may be 
 increased when you leave the body 1 Why waste so much of your 
 precious time and privilege ? Why not progress towards the Great 
 Centre of the wisdom and the love principle ? 
 
 " ' We do not know everything ; nor can we do everything. We 
 do all that can be done with the mediums we influence. Spirits 
 out of the body are often not much further advanced than those in. 
 the body. Many spirits are, also, unwilling to reach forward. 
 But wherever they do desire to advance towards the great perfec- 
 tion, there are ever those who will assist them. Be cautious. 
 Believe not every spirit that purports to come from the Spirit- 
 world. Believe no spirit that bears not the impress of God's 
 character.' 
 
56 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 "Mr. L., in the natural state," cannot speak German at all. 
 
 " After another address from Mr. S. of a useful and impressive 
 character, Mr. L. sang us a most beautiful German song, music 
 and poetry purporting to be composed by a German ancestor, 
 deceased more than a hundred years, for the occasion. The ideas 
 were certainly good — the music very good. What made it 
 remarkable was, that all his acquaintances declared that he knew 
 not, in his natural state, one word of German. 
 
 " After singing, the Spirit again spoke : — 
 
 ". ' The medium's mind is difficult to impress. He resists our 
 power, owing to his fear of the criticism of superior minds present. 
 The thoughts he tries to express are the views and experience of 
 many spirits. We wish to say, through him, that whenever you 
 seek spiritual communion you should divest the mind of all preju- 
 dice, and fill it with a desire for progress in wisdom. If you come 
 with idle curiosity, your good friends in the Spirit- world leave you 
 to inferior spirits, who will also have sympathy with you, and 
 perhaps gratify you, but deceive you. It cannot be otherwise. 
 Like loves like. With a good object spirits everywhere have 
 sympathy. 
 
 1 " Think not that your good friends, at death, go far off. Give 
 up the false idea. Look not to the grave. There is neither father, 
 mother, brother, sister nor friend there. They are around you ; 
 and could they express their happiness and their interest in you, 
 you would never look agdn for them in the dark grave. Your 
 sorrow and grief would pass away. 
 
 " ' Bear up under your lot. In every trial you have Spirit- 
 friends who sympathize with you. Many honest men will not 
 receive this truth, because of its simplicity. They will ask for 
 greater manifestations. When they receive these, they will still 
 ask for greater. But remember the weakness of our instruments, 
 and keep good objects before you. Live right, and your eyes will 
 be opened to heavenly visions.' 
 
 " Here Mr. S. said he desired to speak to me. He said r 
 
 " ' You are often under spiritual influence. We direct you 
 
 in many things. In your daily walk and private devotions 
 
 we are near you. We whisper things to you contrary to your 
 
 former convictions, and we see the growth of your mind. We 
 
ON THE GIFT OF TONGUES. 57 
 
 have led you from the beaten path, you think at times, too far. 
 Look not back, we pray you. Fear not. Press onward and 
 upward.' 
 
 " Thus they continued alternately, speaking in German and 
 English, singing and gesticulating, till the evening had grown quite 
 late, when what purported to be the German Spirit sang a parting 
 hymn through the medium, bidding each of us good night, and 
 assuring us we would meet again. 
 
 " The whole proceeding was to me strange and remarkable. I 
 was left without doubt as to the clairvoyant power of both ; but as 
 to the spiritual origin, you will allow me still to suspend the expres- 
 sion of my opinion for a short time. 
 
 " With assurances of the highest respect, 
 
 " Believe me, dear Sir, very truly, &c, 
 
 " J. B. F." 
 
 In respect to this wonderful fact of supernatural use of un- 
 known languages, Mr. Ferguson elsewhere relates that he once 
 met on the Red River a pilot of the name of Wingard, well 
 known on the Great Western rivers as Captain Wingard, 
 whom he saw write with both hands at the same time, holding 
 a pen in each hand, sentences in different languages, 
 of which he was entirely ignorant. He saw him, as did many 
 other persons of undoubted credibility, write sentences in French, 
 Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. These manuscripts were 
 preserved at the time by, and may still be in the possession of, 
 Dr. Hyde, a physician of New Orleans. 
 
 Nor can this be set aside as a single fact of doubtful authen- 
 ticity. Judge Edmonds, of New York, in a letter to the New 
 York Tribune, July, 1859, gives the names of thirty-five 
 persons who have spoken, under what they believed to be spirit 
 influence, languages with which they were unacquainted. He 
 says, " My daughter, who knows only English and French, 
 has spoken in Greek, Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, 
 Hungarian, and several dialects of the Indian, sometimes not 
 
58 
 
 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 understanding what she said, though it was understood hy the 
 auditor to whom it was addressed."* 
 
 "Nashville, Tennessee, 10th November, 1864. 
 " W. D. M. : 
 
 "My dear Friend, — While I remained in Springfield, Ohio, 
 during a period of six weeks, I was regularly engaged in the exami- 
 nation of spiritual phenomena, under circumstances every way 
 favourable to a calm and candid iuvestigation. After witnessing 
 what I have detailed to you in a previous letter, I requested the 
 privilege of investigating what were denominated ' physical mani- 
 festations.' A meeting was immediately called for that purpose ; 
 a large company of ladies and gentlemen of the highest respect- 
 ability were present, and a circle of sceptics and believers sur- 
 rounded a large dining table, weighing, I suppose, not less than 
 fifty pounds. My attention was directed to a little girl of some 
 fifteen years, perhaps more, very small of her age, who was declared 
 to be the medium of these wonderful appeals to the outward senses. 
 I learned that she was an orphan and a day labourer in a factory, 
 for her own support and that of an aged grandmother. She was 
 well known to two of my brothers-in-law who had accompanied me 
 to the meeting, but who had never witnessed a spiritual demonstra- 
 tion. They spoke of her kindly, said she had been in their 
 employ, was uncultivated, but worthy of the highest commendation 
 for industry and kindness to an aged relative, and that they 
 regretted to see her engaged in a work they regarded as deceptive 
 and dangerous. She appeared awkward and timid when introduced 
 to the company, and evidently manifested a desire to retire from 
 the gaze of so many strange eyes. Her confidence was soon gained, 
 and she took her seat at the table. We had been seated but a few 
 moments, when I discovered a sensible agitation of the table under 
 our hands, which I was ready to ascribe to the unconscious pressure 
 of the party, or some person in the circle. Soon, however, our 
 little ' Mary' — the only name of the medium with which we were 
 favoured — evidently passed through a strange transformation, that 
 gave regularity to her features, kindness of expression to her coun- 
 tenance, and exquisite grace to her general demeanour. She lifted 
 her hands as if to catch some invisible influence descending from 
 
 * " The Two Worlds," p. 341. 
 
ON PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS. 59 
 
 above, and placed them upon the heads of several persons present, 
 and among the rest that of Mrs. F. Her eyes were closed, and I 
 was impressed by her entire manner that she was the most adroit 
 deceiver, or was entirely unconscious of her movements. After 
 completing this pantomimic anointing she again placed her hands 
 on the table, and the following effects immediately succeeded. The 
 table was thrown suddenly from her and against the persons 
 opposite ; it was tipped down on each side and again elevated with 
 a rapidity almost inconceivable. Our hands were thrown above it 
 by a power we could not appreciate, and several of the party 
 present were made to clap theirs above their heads, among whom 
 was one of the most confirmed sceptics present, who has since 
 become a remarkable writing medium. I prescribed several move- 
 ments of the table which were made as with the velocity of thought, 
 and loud raps were heard under and upon it to the astonishment 
 of all present. This character of demonstration was carried on for 
 some twenty or thirty minutes, when ' Mary' said, * Mr. M. cannot 
 rise from his seat.' We examined the gentleman referred to and 
 found him firmly seated, his feet and chair riveted to the floor. 
 Several persons of great physical strength attempted to remove his 
 chair and failed. A number of experiments of this kind were 
 repeated, and repeatedly examined by all the scrutinizing powers 
 our company could command. The company seemed confounded. 
 At length, a Mr. F., a connection of mine, who was present, and an 
 open denouncer of spiritualism, spoke and said, ' If Mary can have 
 that table moved without our or her hands upon it, I will believe.' 
 Of course I did not expect that this could be done. Immediately, 
 with graceful gesture, she motioned every person from the table 
 to a distance of not less than four feet. She seemed to examine — 
 eyes still closed — to ascertain that neither human foot nor dress 
 were near it. She sat down in her chair at the table, and was 
 suddenly moved six feet from the table, her chair carried, as it 
 were, by invisible hands. She then remarked that her chair was 
 fastened and could not be moved. A gentleman attempted to move 
 it and confirmed her statement. She ordered all to be seated and 
 quiet, with an air of authority that would have provoked a smile 
 on a less serious occasion, had it not been for the true dignity of 
 her manner. Then pointing to the table she commanded it to 
 'conie.' It moved more rapidly than any two men could have 
 
 e 2 
 
60 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 moved it, over a rough, carpet, no human hand nor any dynamic 
 power, that we could recognize by the external senses, being near 
 it. She commanded it back again, and it obeyed her order ; when 
 the alphabet was called, and a name, which was said to be that of 
 her deceased mother, was distinctly rapped, each rap answering 
 to the letters as she called them. My sceptical relation spoke 
 out and said, ' It is enough, I am convinced.' I need not describe 
 the effect upon our company, as his honest conviction was theirs, 
 and many who were then present are now avowed believers. 
 
 " I have since witnessed many similar demonstrations, at my 
 own house and that of others, and could refer to gentlemen, who, 
 with me, have heard distinct sounds, made at our request, upon 
 doors, furniture, the floor and ceiling of rooms ; have felt them 
 upon their own clothing and persons, and under circumstances 
 that admitted of no doubt. 
 
 "Allow me to say, however, that while we regard these physical 
 demonstrations as intended to prove the existence and presence of 
 spiritual intelligences, we never rely upon them for satisfactory 
 information, and they seldom occur, perhaps never, in so remark- 
 able a manner as detailed above, when you are engaged in receiving 
 communications through more highly developed — that is, more 
 mentally opened — mediums. You will readily see that a table 
 cannot be made as intelligible a mode of moral and intellectual 
 communion as a human mind and its bodily vocal organs, and it 
 should not be expected. Much of the foolish questioning, such as 
 f fortune-telling/ &c, that, alas! characterize the highest standards 
 of many human desires, we regard as entirely unreliable, and a 
 silly abuse of a knowledge of a presence that might, were the 
 mediums to go forward in their own development, be turned to the 
 loftiest and holiest uses. We have found, also, that where naught 
 else is sought than an idle pastime, in witnessing these unmis- 
 takeable evidences of spirit-presence, they cease to occur, or occur 
 under such conditions as confuse those seeking them, and almost 
 force them to go forward, or abandon their efforts. 
 
 "You will now allow me to sum up briefly the phenomena I 
 have witnessed since my investigations began. 
 
 " First. I have seen tables and other furniture moved, with and 
 without hands ; heard distinct and sometimes loud raps on the 
 ceiling, floor, and furniture of various rooms, which were changed 
 
ON VARIED EVIDENCES. 61 
 
 from one locality to another, as doubts arose as to any unobserved 
 causes, to which we would have attributed them but for the tran- 
 sition ; have had them upon my person, clothing, pillow, pulpit, 
 and still have them in almost every serious hour of thought and 
 meditation, and have them near me as I write ; and I find this 
 experience to be that of hundreds who, with me and others, 
 believers and sceptics, have witnessed or realized all I here state to 
 be true. 
 
 " Second. I have heard — in the presence of scores, whose names 
 are at any man's command who may desire them for an honest 
 reference — native Americans, who never spoke a word of German, 
 discourse for hours in that tongue, in prose and poetry, in the 
 presence of native Germans, who pronounced their addresses pure 
 specimens of the power of their language. I see, daily, lengthy 
 essays and books, written under what claims to be spirit-intelli- 
 gence, above, far above the capacity and culture of the instruments 
 through whom they are written. There is scarcely a day in which 
 I do not receive such communications ; and if a day passes without 
 it, it is my neglect, not that of the intelligence, that seems ever 
 ready to speak when a proper medium can be secured. At home 
 and abroad, in the houses of strangers and acquaintances, such 
 mediums have described the age, appearance, time of death, and 
 the peculiarities of character of the deceased relatives of persons 
 present, and where they could have had no acquaintance with 
 them, and d in many instances could not have known of their 
 existence or death. I have had meetings of mediums who knew 
 nothing of each other occur at my house, and elsewhere, without 
 their knowledge, and to which they were brought from a distance 
 of miles, and which seemed as inexplicable to them as to me, until 
 after some effect, for their benefit, was secured by their meeting, 
 and explained by their spirit-monitors. To prove the identity of 
 spirit-intelligences communicating to me through others, they have 
 detailed private conversations held with me during their earth-life ; 
 referred to incidents and events of which the mediums could have 
 known nothing ; described, accurately, occurrences taking place at 
 a distance of hundreds of miles; answered questions that had been 
 written in my private records for future investigation months after 
 they had passed from my active memory; stated the state of my 
 investigations of various subjects, with the folly or wisdom, as 
 
62 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 they regarded it, of my difficulties ; leaving me, on the whole, no 
 choice as to whether I would regard them as what they claimed to 
 be, save that of honest conviction, or the most shameless hypocrisy. 
 Allow me to say, therefore, that there is no event of history, no fact 
 in mental philosophy, no conclusions in logical dialectics, more 
 fully and forcibly established, in my convictions, than the 
 following : — 
 
 " I BELIEVE, I KNOW, THAT I HAVE HELD, AND NOW FREQUENTLY 
 HOLD, COMMUNION, INTELLIGIBLE AND IMPROVING, WITH KINDRED 
 AND ELEVATED SPIRITS WHO HAVE PASSED FROM FLESHLY SIGHT. 
 
 " You will not be surprised, therefore, at my willingness to risk 
 reputation, the dearest ties of friendship, and prospects of earthly 
 gain and honour, if need be, in the avowal and propagation of this 
 faith, and the results to which it must inevitably lead. God 
 knows, and every intimate friend on earth knows, that I would 
 hesitate, long and seriously, to avow a faith that was doubtful in my 
 own mind, or of doubtful influence for good in my dim foresight, 
 where so much is apparently at stake. I think I may safely appeal 
 to my past life as proof, that the dearest personal and earthly con- 
 siderations have often been sacrificed, where it was thought my 
 action would affect the interests or happiness of others. Know, 
 then, that it is from the maturest consideration of duty, and the 
 obligation that every man owes to truth and right, and especially 
 when truth and right are ridiculed and denounced, that I detail to 
 you these results of a long experience and the most serious and 
 solemn investigations of my life. Willingly, I cannot find it in my 
 heart to disappoint a friend or injure an enemy. And with such 
 friends as in the Providence of God have surrounded me, who 
 have proved themselves true and enduring when every form of 
 bigotry and animosity were aroused against my position, reputation 
 and influence — with all this pressure of enmity and friendship 
 upon me, you must know, and all will hereafter know, that nothing 
 but loyalty to conviction and a desire to preserve privileges I have 
 learned to esteem above what men call life or death, could induce 
 me to lay these facts before the world. 
 
 " If it be asked what good we expect to effect by the statement 
 of these facts, we answer, the spread of truth upon the dearest, 
 purest and holiest relations of man, and the breaking away of the 
 clouds that gather round the mind of man in view of death and 
 
CUI BONO? 63 
 
 futurity, the darkness of which can nowhere be more distinctly 
 felt than in the asking of such a question. The purity, angelic 
 loveliness and divine holiness that such a faith, if firmly based, 
 must secure, inspires the loyal soul, as with heavenly beatitudes, in 
 the contemplation. Its power to restrain and reform ; to soften the 
 hard heart of evil indulgence ; to expose the still harder heart of 
 bigotry and religious denunciation ; to moisten the eye of criminal 
 effrontery, which the hypocrisies of the world have made stern and 
 fixed ; to bring the strong man of selfish apathy, as a child once 
 more in company with his brother-children, at the feet of maternal 
 or sisterly tenderness, whose earthly bodies have long since been 
 entombed ; to keep down the unnatural separations of families 
 beneath the manly wisdom and fatherly affection of one who claims 
 .ill as his, and still needing his care ; to turn the scoff of Godless 
 ribaldry into loving faith, and the shame of pulpit curses pro- 
 nounced upon human brethren and by human beings, of eternal 
 doom, into blessings of eternal help ; to make all — yes, all, realize an 
 inner religion, which worships at the altar of eternal truth and un- 
 changeable love. With such aims and prospects before us, to ask 
 what is the good of general, tangible Spirit- intercourse is to ask the 
 good of Immortality, of Heaven, and of God. 
 
 u I beg leave to present you a brief reference to the character of 
 the mediumship of the persons through whom most of the commu- 
 nications that follow were received. I believe you are personally 
 acquainted with all, and are intimately so with three. And, sir, it 
 affords me high pleasure, after our long and friendly intercourse, to 
 hail one so candid, so truth-loving and so free to express his con- 
 victions, as yourself, as a believer in spiritual intercourse ; and 
 especially when I remember that this result is that of personal 
 observation. 
 
 "Mr. Champion is both a writing and a speaking medium. He 
 was developed as a speaking medium, very unexpectedly to him- 
 self, at my house, Sept. 25th, 1854. He frequently, by interior 
 vision, sees spirits — is carried by them through a variety of 
 pleasing and mournful scenes, and seems to live, for a few hours, in 
 the magnificence of the spirit-state. His experience in this respect 
 would make an interesting volume. The process of death ; the 
 re-forming of the spiritual body after its freedom; its rank and 
 habits, its power and pleasures, are often presented before him ; 
 
64 EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 and the effect of beholding their serenity, harmony, and elevation 
 swells his heart with gladsome emotions, altogether inexpressible. 
 Most of the communications from him have been given me without 
 solicitation, and on occasions that neither he nor I provided. They 
 seemed accidental, but were evidently arranged by his spirit- 
 guides. 
 
 " Mr. C. has been associated with Mr. W. W. Finn, of this city, 
 who has the high honour of first calling his attention to the 
 subject, and to whose zeal and sacrifices the cause of spiritualism in 
 Nashville is more indebted than to any other man. He is himself 
 a medium. 
 
 " Mrs. Ferguson is a medium for visions as well as writing. She 
 always sees the spirit while communicating, whether through 
 herself or others. Frequently, while engaged in her household 
 duties, she receives a request from some spirit-friend to give forth a 
 communication. In such cases she sometimes refuses, and again, 
 after her duties are over, will sit down, and in a few moments pour 
 forth the wishes of her invisible visitants. She often recognizes 
 them while engaged in ordinary conversation with her friends ; 
 while visiting among her neighbours ; at church, and in the street ; 
 and refers to such greetings only in the sacred privacy of con- 
 fiding friendship, and then with evident wonder that all do not 
 realize their presence. She sees them come and go ; marks their 
 pleasure and disappointment ; and were it not for the materialistic 
 scepticism she meets, would, perhaps, never meet an earthly friend 
 without calling attention to a presence near them they may still 
 cherish in their memory, or may have forgotten. "We would delight 
 to give you many of her visions, but have failed to secure her 
 consent. Nothing but the highest sense of religious duty, and that 
 after repeated admonitions from her spirit-monitors, could induce 
 her to allow even this brief notice, and the use we make of the 
 communications that follow. 
 
 "Miss Agnes Morrison was developed under your own observation. 
 She has felt the retarding influence of ridicule from those who 
 knew nothing of the difficulties attending a development so 
 extraordinary, and those who indulged it, now wonder why she has 
 not advanced more rapidly. She is what we would call a pictorial 
 medium, and presents at times the highest psychical and spiritual 
 truths under symbols most beautiful and impressive. She has 
 
MEDIUMS IN HIS OWN FAMILY. 65 
 
 never failed to convince all who have taken the time and pains 
 necessary to an honest investigation. 
 
 "My daughter Virginia both writes and speaks under spirit 
 impressions. Her manner, voice, and language are graceful and 
 appropriate in the extreme. We had no thought of her as a 
 medium till we were advised of her peculiar organization and 
 capacity from the Spirit-world. She seems not as yet aware of her 
 strange privileges when in the normal state, and is more in- 
 terested in what she has been writing or speaking than even the 
 astonished listeners who witness her happy and impressive 
 transformations. 
 
 " To the honest objector we would offer a suggestion. Spiritual 
 communication is a divine institution or appointment, or the 
 foundation of every religion in this land is baseless. The Bible 
 is a collection of spiritual communications, made through 
 angels or spirits, extending over a history of thousands of 
 years. If its claims in this respect be true, spiritual com- 
 munications must be the result of Eternal law : the law 
 of God, respecting the unfolding and perfection of mind. 
 We are not surprised to find, therefore, spiritual commu- 
 nion marking the tablets of every age, reaching over the unsearch- 
 able past, and antedating all reliable history. Its altars stand, or 
 moulder, in silent eloquence, upon the hill-tops of every land. Not 
 a sacred book of any people that does not recognize it. Ever since 
 death removed human beings from external vision, spirits have 
 returned to influence and help those left behind. Hence, we find 
 impressible persons, through whom spirit-messages of wisdom and 
 love have been received, among all nations, and in all ages. All 
 along the line of the centuries we see spiritual light striving to 
 enter the institutions of the world. Avarice and selfish assumption 
 first denounce its mediums, then flatter, and, alas ! too often bribe 
 them into the shameless purposes that characterize the superstition 
 and tyranny of every clime. Now, the den of lions opens to a 
 Daniel, and then he is seated among the nobles of the realm. Now, 
 Joseph is a dreamer in prison, and then Viceroy of mighty Egypt. 
 Now, Paul and Barnabas are mobbed by a rabble, and then 
 worshipped as gods. Now, Anaxagoras is followed by the most 
 powerful Athenians as a philosopher, and then persecuted and 
 driven into exile for impiety to the reigning divinity. Now, 
 
DO EARLY OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 Socrates is honoured as a moral philosopher, the wisest of men ; 
 then ridiculed in a comedy for magical arts, and then doomed to 
 drink the hemlock. 'But wisdom is justified of her children,' and 
 the eternal laws of mind and matter make themselves known to all 
 who desire to obey them. Except, sir, in periods of great and 
 general corruption, such as have usually preceded some tremendous 
 revolution in society, and the downfall of some world-encumbering 
 State, whose vice has long exerted an unrestrained power, and 
 whose hypocrisy walks unblushingly upon the high places of the 
 earth, the mass of mankind never are Sadducees ; never doubt of 
 'angel or spirit.' The reasoning head and the feeling heart every- 
 where admit that our claims to the sensual world are but temporary ; 
 that we belong essentially to a higher world, from which we have 
 a divine birth, and towards which, through new scenes of develoj)- 
 ment, unfolding new powers of action and enjoyment, we are 
 pressing towards that perfection and purity we call God — more in 
 adoration than in comprehension. Our spiritual affinities are in 
 everything proclaimed. The order and regularity of the universe, 
 the wonders and beauties of nature find a response in every 
 uncorrupted and cleansed heart, which utters its faith by day and 
 by night. Faintly it is heard amid the monstrous creations of 
 Oriental mythology, and its light steals through the veil of error 
 and fable that swells the soul of the occidental hunter and warrior. 
 The elegant and graceful forms of Grecian art proclaim it, and the 
 rude Pagoda of Indus hides it not beneath its gorgeous trap- 
 pings. It is the wisdom of the Old Testament and the faith of 
 the New. 
 
 " But if it still be asked how it is possible for spirits to return, 
 I answer, by the same method through which they leave the world. 
 How do they leave ? Let the sceptic answer. If it be asked, how 
 can they converse % we answer, how can men converse on earth, 
 thousands of miles apart, by an earthly telegraph ? Are we told 
 by the medium of electricity 1 You have then our answer. And 
 we would press the inquiry by asking if men, by the knowledge of 
 an eternal principle of nature, can daguerreotype a human counte- 
 nance upon a metallic plate, think you it must be impossible for 
 spirit-friends to stamp an idea, a thought, a sentence, a book, upon 
 a human intellect 1 And which is the most reasonable, to suppose 
 that God, in the constitution of His universe, left no means of com- 
 
MOVEMENT OF PONDEROUS BODIES. 67 
 
 mimication for His children, or that He has given to all the agencies 
 of reciprocal approach and friendship 1 
 
 "Yours, &c, 
 
 "J. B. F." 
 
 Nearly two years later Mr. Ferguson made the following 
 record : — 
 
 "21st May, 1856. 
 
 "Last night, amid the usual addresses and privileges of our 
 regular meetings, our large piano was moved without mortal hands ; 
 its strings were repeatedly touched while the lid was down, and no 
 mortal hand near the keys ; our little altar, a small table, was 
 carried over the room, no one present touching it ; hard raps, con- 
 firmatory of important spiritual impressions, were made upon the 
 table, several articles of furniture, glass, and the walls of the room, 
 so hard as to be heard in the rooms above us ; and all in the 
 presence of eight persons, no one of whom had anticipated or 
 thought of, though each was delighted with such evidences. An 
 orphan girl, who was evidently the medium for these manifestations, 
 had come in by spiritual impression, and amid some of these 
 wonderful demonstrations, was carried to the piano, upon which 
 she performed, improvising three very beautiful songs, although 
 without an ordinary education, or the advantage of a single lesson 
 in music. Her name is Miss Nannie "West, a destitute orphan, 
 whose father received his death by violence, and who has since 
 been cared for by the kindly and truly Christian charity of 
 Mrs. Lee Coleman, of this city, at whose house, whenever she is 
 present in the circle, the same or similar manifestations have been 
 made repeatedly during a period of months, and in the presence of 
 hundreds. 
 
 " I seek only to give a plain statement of facts on these manifesta- 
 tions, and therefore forbear to offer a commentary. They are true." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS, CONTAINING PROOFS OF PERSONAL 
 
 IDENTITY. 
 
 The volume from which, the letters contained in the previous 
 chapter are taken consists largely of communications which were 
 written, or spoken hy, or through, various mediums, and which 
 were recorded at the time with great care and fidelity. As it 
 is the chief object of the present work to present illustrative 
 facts rather than doctrines, I shall give only such portions of 
 these communications, and the circumstances attending them, 
 as will, in my judgment, aid the inquirer after truth — the first 
 truth to be established in the matter — namely, that spirits, or 
 disembodied intelligences, exist, and are able to give us proofs of 
 their existence ; that the so-called dead really do live, and 
 have sometimes, and under certain conditions, power to com- 
 municate with their kindred in the earth-life. 
 
 These communications appear to have been given from July 
 to November, 1854. In one of the first, from a relation who 
 had died a few months before, Mr. Ferguson states that, aside 
 from the evidences of genuineness and identity belonging to 
 character, feeling, and expression, three distinct facts were 
 given which were unknown at the time to himself and to the 
 medium — Mrs. Ferguson — which he afterwards verified. 
 
 A communication of a still more remarkable character, as 
 giving numerous proofs of genuineness and strong evidences of 
 identity, was received also through Mrs. Ferguson, from what 
 asserted itself to be the spirit of 0. F. Parker, who died at St. 
 Louis, Missouri, August 5, 1854. The communication was 
 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. G9 
 
 given on the following day, August 6, at Meryville, Kentucky. 
 It is of so remarkable a character, in many respects, that I shall 
 give the greater portion, omitting only a few passages, interest- 
 ing no doubt to the relations of the deceased, but not important 
 for the present purpose. 
 
 COMMUNICATION. 
 
 " ' I died young ; yes, in the morning of life. Like a fresh flower 
 my spirit was transplanted to a more genial clime ; and I can 
 heartily say, Glory to my Eedeemer ! who has provided for all the 
 exigencies of human experience. As my hour of departure drew 
 near, I looked inwardly and beheld three spirits near me. They 
 came still nearer, and, oh, the glory they brought to my sinking 
 soul ! My father, my grandfather, and grandmother. Oh, that 
 hour ! What new wonders opened to me then ! They spoke me 
 peace as I felt the struggles of a wearying dissolution. They 
 showed me that the time of my departure had really come. They 
 remained with me till my spirit was freed. With them I lingered 
 
 over my dying bed and heard Mr. remark : " Thus died all 
 
 this young man's hopes, talents, and promise." I replied, prompted 
 by my new spirit-companions, but he did not hear me. No ; all 
 of promise I possessed is ready now to be carried where it shall 
 have more free, and full, and happy development. 
 
 " ' My dear cousin, you doubt that the spirit now communi- 
 cating is your relative, and you ask for the evidence of identity. I 
 will give it, so that you cannot doubt. Did I not tell you, before 
 my departure, that I had triumphed over all sexual temptations 1 
 You know I told you.' 
 
 '■' I replied, I remembered a strange conversation with him on 
 that subject, but could not tell where or when it took place. 
 
 '"It was between your house and Bosley's Spring, immediately 
 after crossing the little bridge, as we were ascending the hill. You 
 know what you thought. You thought it might be so, but you 
 doubted me. I told you I had preserved a pure life. Many 
 temptations in profligate cities and private walks had been set before 
 me, but I triumphed over them all. I overcame and have my 
 reward. You have desired some evidence by which to know me. 
 I give you this, and you cannot doubt that I am your cousin. If 
 
70 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 you object to the nature of the reference, remember you desired 
 something that would remove all doubt. 
 
 " ' I need not tell you that I love you and all connected with you. 
 With you I had a home of peace, such as I never had realized on 
 earth. With you I found congenial associations, and it was like 
 severing my heart-strings when I gave them up. You did not 
 desire it — that I knew — but you consented because you hoped my 
 happiness and usefulness would be promoted. 
 
 " ' But you shall have other evidence. My books I ordered to be 
 sold to defray my funeral expenses ; but it was not done. I am 
 afraid, too, that there will be some flaw picked in my life policy, 
 and if so, I wish you to order my books to be sold to pay my debts, 
 and if they fail, do not fail from any delicacy of feeling to write 
 my mother, and she will have all properly settled. The policy now 
 is in the hands of Mr. Hitchcock. 
 
 " ' To show you further that I am he, I will remind you of the 
 bill you paid Mr. Hough. The medium, I know and you know, 
 knows nothing of that. I disliked, in your condition, pressed as I 
 knew you were with your own obligations, to have you add that 
 to your many kindnesses to me. You must pay yourself.' 
 
 " To this I replied, ■ You owe me nothing. I did no more than 
 you would have done under like circumstances.' He answered : 
 
 " ' Yes ; it must be so. You and your children need it. You 
 must have it ; and more you ought to have. You were my friend 
 in a strange land. " A stranger and — (you ill) — you took me in." 
 You have won to yourself many spirits you have similarly served 
 in huts of wretchedness, where no eye witnessed your ready relief, 
 and I see them hovering around you. They will ever be interested 
 in your progression, and they long to satisfy your longing for 
 spiritual knowledge, and they do satisfy it to some extent. 
 
 " ' One more evidence. You remember what I said of Theodore 
 Parker. You will recollect I told you often he was nearer the 
 truth than any one. I do not think so now. 
 
 " ' Do you remember your dream last night 1 I was near you all 
 day and tried to impress you. I wished to show you that I had 
 
 no evil feelings towards , my enemy, as you remember him to 
 
 have been. No hatred, no malice, no envy here towards even the 
 worst of mankind. Love, mercy, benevolence, and charity towards 
 all. You dreamed that — - — extracted a sound tooth for you 
 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 71 
 
 and wiped away the blood with his own kerchief, which was dark 
 — unwilling to soil yours, which was white. That tooth represented 
 me as your friend, dear as a tooth to the body. The blood, your 
 suffering on my account. His handkerchief received it all, which 
 foreshadows an event that will come upon him and his family. 
 Eemember I have told you. Do not forget this. I have with- 
 drawn all feeling against him and every human being. But I tell 
 you this, that you may know it is your cousin-friend now commu- 
 nicating. 
 
 " 'To my friend, W. M., I would say, let me address you as one 
 desiring to come into close spiritual communion with you. Did 
 you not hear a loud rap upon your wardrobe and on your floor on 
 last Wednesday night 1 Did it not arouse you from your sleep 1 
 
 "'I would address you as regards my indebtedness to you, but 
 I can see you would not like it. But I have ordered my friends in 
 St. Louis to attend to that matter. Oh, that I could have spoken a 
 word to you before I departed, to tell you how your many kind 
 favours had cheered my heart ! I found you a stranger, but more 
 than a brother. I know now that you loved me because I appre- 
 ciated you. I still admire your noble benevolence and charity. 
 You, my dear sir, have cheered many a desponding heart. You 
 have helped forward many a soul that would have wept many 
 bitter tears in the straits of poverty. " God ever loveth a cheer- 
 ful giver." Your means and advice have been contributed to build 
 up man as man, and for so doing, already you are repaid tenfold. 
 Your mind and heart are clear before me. You will not thank me 
 for saying both are noble. Here is a word for your mother, as the 
 medium is becoming fatigued. She will soon receive a communi- 
 cation through a departed brother — -not a fleshly brother. I could 
 say much to her. Oh, the joy and brightness of this land ! Take 
 courage, my good mother (if you will allow me so to call you). 
 Take courage in your spirit. Believe more in spirit-communion. 
 
 " ' Oh, the brightness of this glorious abode ! Your weak imagi- 
 nation could neither imagine nor anticipate what you often see. 
 Why shrink and startle at the approach of death % It is as though 
 our spirits were advancing from a dark and gloomy dungeon into 
 the glorious sunshine. Do not sorrow for my early departure. 
 Bright, bright is my future. 
 
 " ' But before I close this, I must say to those I have left behind, 
 
72 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 God has designed us for longer life than I lived. Violations of the 
 laws of nature ; inherited disease from our parents, brings upon 
 man premature death. God does not will it, as many suppose. 
 But He provides for it when it must follow. By living longer on 
 earth we would make much more rapid advances in this state ; 
 that is, our experiences on earth would help us readily to appre- 
 ciate what otherwise we have to be taught. This I say, there- 
 fore, " Be prudent. Live out all your days." 
 
 " 'I will ever visit and love my earth-friends. Love and cherish 
 me, and I can commune with you more easily. Never forget your 
 spirit-friends, for in so doing you will lose their influence. I see 
 my presence will be appreciated ; therefore I can take possession 
 of those who will place themselves under and desire a spiritual 
 communion. 
 
 " ' And now have your minds open for a brighter day, when all 
 mankind will receive spiritual light, leading to the union of nations 
 and individuals, both for this life and the one to come. More 
 Union is the cry of the spirits — More Union. How deficient are 
 all Christian bodies in a rational and an improving union. When 
 now I view them from my spirit-home, my soul almost sinks 
 within me at the shameless hypocrisy of their professed love for 
 all mankind. 
 
 " ' The medium is fatigued, and I must not weary her. By so 
 doing I might injure her health. Adieu ! adieu ! my dear cousin. 
 Preach ! but I can say no more. Peace ! peace ! ' 
 
 "Meryville, Kentucky, Aug. 6, 1854." 
 
 To the record of this communication Mr. Ferguson added 
 the following remarks : — 
 
 " Truth and candour require me to state that the evidence of 
 identity presented by the above communication was overwhelm- 
 ing. At the time it was received the only account we had respect- 
 ing his death was a brief telegraphic despatch. We have since 
 had every particular confirmed, and I will also add that his state- 
 ment respecting my privileges in Spiritualism, which at the time I 
 did not and could not understand, is now literal truth, as scarcely 
 a day has since passed in which I have not received from every 
 variety of mediumship clear and inspiring spirit communications, 
 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 73 
 
 enabling me to bear an amount of care, and perform labours, I 
 would then have regarded insupportable. 
 
 " His life policy to which he refers was, from some neglect, with- 
 out an endorsement of the payment of his premiums, which fact 
 was not known to any of us till six weeks after his death. It was 
 allowed, however, by the generous justice of the company, without 
 difficulty, and without the knowledge on their part of this fact. 
 
 " At the time Mr. P. gave us the spiritual communication, I 
 supposed the policy to be in the hands of Mr. W. Merri weather, of 
 Kentucky, for whose security it was issued. In the last conversation 
 with respect to it with Mr. P. in life, he informed me it was his 
 intention to leave it with Mr. M., and on his way to St. Louis he 
 stopped in Kentucky for that purpose. I mention these facts and 
 leave them to make their impression, which no honest man can 
 resist. 
 
 " It should also be stated that at the same moment, upon my 
 return to Nashville from Kentucky, where the above was received, 
 some eleven days after the death of Mr. P., when I handed it to 
 Mr. M. C. C. Church, he handed me letters from St. Louis detail- 
 ing the circumstances of Mr. P.'s death and the state of his effects, 
 confirming the particulars given from the Spirit- world. Of course 
 no language could express our gratification at the incontrovertible 
 evidence of the reality of our intercourse with the spirit of our 
 worthy relative. There are no less than eleven distinct particulars 
 stated in the communication, which could not have been stated 
 under the circumstances by any other than the spirit of our cousin 
 friend." 
 
 A few days afterwards, a communication was given through 
 Mrs. Ferguson, purporting to be from the same spirit, in 
 which, besides some personal matters, he gives the following 
 account of his spiritual condition : — 
 
 " How we desire to communicate with you, but we find the 
 mind of the medium hard to impress. Did I not say to you in 
 life I would come to you again 1 I will be with you and your 
 house. I have just come from a large assembly of spirits. We 
 meet in immense congregations. We ourselves undergo spiritual 
 
74 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 training, as much necessary as physical training in your sphere. 
 But our advancement is much more rapid than you can possibly 
 imagine. We desire to come near and communicate this morning 
 as regards our spirit-home. Its brightness, beauty, and glory trans- 
 cend the loftiest imagination. But I cannot impress your mind 
 so as to attempt a description. We are constantly urged by the 
 higher spirits to press onward. The lower seldom desire to visit 
 the higher. I have again received a visit from my three com- 
 panions. They have opened to me many mysteries They have 
 carried me to those moving congregations referred to above, where 
 we receive necessary instruction. Here I see many advancing with 
 great rapidity, while others remain almost stationary. Still all 
 advancement is more rapid here than with you 
 
 " c Could my relations view each other as I view them from my 
 spirit-home, they would soon learn to meet in love, and the more 
 advanced would instruct the less advanced, and all feel pure sympathy 
 together. I would speak to them all, peace, comfort, and progres- 
 sion. They must be true to each other, or they cannot inherit 
 the higher spheres together 
 
 " ' How many a rude savage have I met here, whose condition is 
 far more advanced than many who made large boasts of their 
 position and advantages in your sphere. We are advanced 
 here according to the use we have made of our opportunities 
 yonder 
 
 " 'My duty will be to visit the lower spheres, and help others 
 upward. It is my inclination and pleasure, and in so doing I 
 shall advance my own spirit 
 
 " ' Peace be with you. All is well. We will guide, comfort, and 
 protect. 
 
 " ' Look at a small whirlwind, rapidly passing round and round, 
 gathering up a few sticks and much dust. Notice, all falls to the 
 ground. So with the movement of your enemies. They cannot 
 harm where angels protect. 
 
 " ' Commune often with the spirits. Place yourself under direct 
 spiritual influence. Eead and meditate upon spiritual things.' " 
 
 The following, of a similar character, is extracted from a 
 communication from P. W. Martin, in respect to which Mr. 
 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 75 
 
 Ferguson has addressed the remarks which will be found 
 below : — 
 
 " Man is the creature of God. God has created in man a nature 
 which desires the pure and immortal life. He has it within his 
 mortal body. It cannot die. And in proportion as he overcomes 
 the trials and imperfections of his life, his immortal spirit goes on 
 to enlarge itself beyond anything he can imagine. You know not 
 how spirits in our state are held back in their onward progression, 
 owing to the abuse of their gifts in yours. Therefore we come to 
 those we can best influence that they may point out the wrong and 
 instruct others 
 
 " It will be some time before we can so develop the medium 
 as to utter what would be satisfactory to your enlightened aspira- 
 tions. Mediumship has its degrees. The atmosphere around you 
 has a great deal to do with our communications. We need spirit 
 atmosphere. Therefore, when you have a thought not congenial 
 with your spirit nature, cast it to the swine. It is only fit to be 
 consumed, as all imperfect things will sooner or later be." 
 
 " Dr. Martin was a physician of Nashville, to whom I was often 
 indebted for kind professional services. A few months before his 
 death, he asked me for a candid opinion as to the probability of his 
 recovery. I informed him that I believed him on the verge of dis- 
 solution. He at once said : ' If I die before you, and it is possible, 
 you shall hear from me in the Spirit -world.' This was our last 
 conversation, and occurred before my investigations of medium 
 spirit manifestations. It should also be recorded that his excel- 
 lent widow, in the above and subsequent communications made in 
 her presence, received such assurances of his identity and continued 
 interest in the welfare of his family, as left her without doubt, and 
 gave unspeakable consolation." 
 
 Through the same medium, an Indian spirit gave an account 
 of his experiences in the Spirit-land : — 
 
 " You desired to know somewhat of our employment in this 
 spiritual life. Immediately after leaving this world we go to that 
 society we are best prepared to enter. We are placed under spiritual 
 teachers. God has thus provided. If we have not the proper 
 training in your life, we are not driven off from the face of the 
 
 f2 
 
76 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 Father, who created and sustains all. He places us under spiritual 
 guides. If they fail to influence and instruct, we pass into other 
 circles, to receive a training, such as we can best appreciate. Our 
 employment is to learn spiritual things. We are trained by those 
 above us. We have various amusements, differing according to our 
 advancement. As we sow, we reap. But, then, we do not live 
 upon the death of other animals, as in your state. When we enter 
 here, we leave all desire for fleshly things. Some of us, dying un- 
 developed, and having degraded our privileges in your life, are not 
 so happy as those who have been true to their spiritual nature. It 
 is so with the red man and with the white man. Oh, could we so 
 impress the medium as to better give you instruction ! Perhaps it 
 would have been better to have left off our savage appearance, but 
 we desired to appear in the red man's costume, that you might know 
 us as we once were." 
 
 On the same subject, and on the desire of spirits to influence 
 mortals, we have, through Mrs. F., the following communica- 
 tion : — 
 
 " Men think were they to embrace spirit intercourse, it would 
 dethrone their reason ; it would do away with the inspiration of the 
 Holy Bible ; break up their churches ; and disorganize society. We 
 see that these are the fears of large and benevolent minds around 
 you. To them we say — ]S"ot so. We would build up all that is 
 noble in man, pure in the Bible, and useful and improving in all 
 organizations of society, religious or otherwise. We would have 
 even those who think thus of our teachings cast off much of their 
 fleshly nature. We would search the inmost depths of their thoughts. 
 We would make them familiar with their own souls. We would 
 ask, Do you believe in the spiritual communion of the ages past ? Is 
 not the mind of man the same % Is not God the same now as then % 
 Are spiritual intelligences degenerate in their interest in their human 
 brethren, that they will not impart light to any age, or people, or 
 man that will receive it 1 
 
 "You may well fear for the position of many churches. They 
 stand upon a trembling foundation — the foundation of arrogant 
 assumption over free thought, and action, and aspirations. We 
 would not destroy, but rather purify your communion. We would 
 not tear down, but build up your churches. We would enter them, 
 
NOT IN CONFLICT WITH ANY TKUTH. 77 
 
 and make your worship a true and holy worship. We do not desire 
 to create a new Church. We have sects enough, in humanity's 
 name. But if you cut off from your church fellowship the men we 
 have enlightened for your good, what is left for them but to form 
 other societies 1 We will elevate man. We would inspire his 
 teachings with heavenly aspirations. We would enlarge his mind 
 and spirit ; and if your churches are too narrow, or too fleshly to 
 permit this God-ordained work, rest assured the present generation 
 will look upon their fall. They need elevating thoughts, duties, 
 hopes. They need more ; they need communion with the divine 
 influences that lead the upward way of an infinite universe to its 
 great centre — God. They must have it, or no power of money, 
 ministers, or fleshly energy can prevent their ruin. 
 
 " Can the supply of this need of spiritual communion destroy the 
 mind of man 1 No, sirs ; it alone can make and preserve the mind ; 
 it points out and exposes the insignificant mummery that destroys 
 all free and inspiring association. But, do you say, you cannot 
 believe. Then we would say, Do not ridicule. The time is not far 
 distant when you will have to embrace it. Your teachings are so 
 fleshly, so low, so unworthy, they must be, and they will be dis- 
 placed by the pure embodiment of spiritual truth. The high-born 
 spirits — flesh once of your flesh, and spirit still of your spirit — now 
 call to you from their elevated homes, saying, hear us ! HEAR 
 ITS ! Do not denounce us till you have investigated what we 
 say : You doubt us from the influence of your fleshly and not your 
 spiritual nature. Throw this off, and you will appreciate our teach- 
 ings. We call upon you to think of your departed ones. Think of 
 those God made you to love with an everlasting love, but who have 
 gone from earthly vision. Think you they ever forget you 1 
 Think, rather, they are ever near you, and learn to bear their re- 
 membrance and image within you. These loved ones are now 
 trying to communicate with you. These loved ones are now trying 
 to communicate with this people. Let your desires be purified, 
 your thoughts devotional, and you will realize this truth. Could 
 you see how calmly your best thoughts are wafted to the Spirit- 
 world, to give hope to our longing desire, that we may yet create 
 within your minds more noble and spiritual power to correct the 
 fleshly and imperfect, you would often think of us. 
 
 " Were we to thunder with the terrific power that opens wide 
 
78 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 the flaming jaws of a volcano, and amid the darkening smoke and 
 burning lava utter our voices of alarm, you would believe. But 
 would you be improved 1 "We call upon you peacefully, and say. 
 Give play to your own nature. We want a willing mind. The 
 voice of thunder would alarm and degrade you. We desire your 
 best and dearest power of examination. It would relieve you of 
 dread superstitions that have darkened your earthly path ; and it 
 would come as with the sweet breathings of angel voices to relieve 
 your declining years. You have lost fathers and mothers, 
 husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, helpers and friends — each 
 has lost some kindred spirit. Would you deprive that one, bound 
 to you by eternal ties of existence, and to the Father of all, from re- 
 newing that kindred made sweet in death ? Ah ! yes. Ask yourselves 
 if you would deprive these cherished ones of coming into close 
 communion with you. It is our right — we demand it of you. We 
 are the only ones who can speak you peace, when you feel the 
 wearisome burdens of life upon you. We hold the power that can 
 calm the sinking soul, and will ever use it where we are allowed. 
 Will you reject us 1 Could, oh ! could you desire to reject us, were 
 you to realize the pure and holy mission we have to this land and 
 people 1 
 
 " We come to enlighten and make you as one band of brothers. 
 If we fail in this, we fail in our most cherished and blissful objects. 
 We desire to bind together all mankind, that they may feel and act 
 as one brotherhood. Instead of separating, as you suppose, we 
 have come to draw together. Look at a large diamond encased by 
 the smaller ones, cemented inseparably together. Each has its 
 light of never dimming beauty : so would we have the race of man ; 
 so would we have you, so that all who come within your atmo- 
 sphere, however humble or exalted, would feel the heart of a brother. 
 We would not insinuate that we would make all minds as one mind. 
 Man must allow of difference. We were made to differ, and should 
 expect to differ. Without this, all progress would stop ; the mind 
 would become dwarfish, and God would be robbed of His ends in the 
 human creation. The rarest power and beauty of mind is called 
 forth by our differences. Let us differ, then, in love. We differ in 
 this life, but love rules the spiritual spheres. 
 
 "Allow us, while this idea is before you, to present you an 
 earthly view of death. You have witnessed the opening of a 
 
THEIR HARMONY WITH ALL GOOD. 79 
 
 panoramic painting, combining scenes of nature, imagination, and 
 history. You enter the hall ; you wait with patience the opening 
 of the scenes. One enters, and extinguishes light after light, till 
 you are involved in darkness. You see nothing but a dark curtain. 
 Perchance you hear a strain of sweet music. You wait ; you listen ; 
 your anxiety increases. Suddenly the curtain is lifted, and your 
 eyes rest upon a lovely landscape. So in death ; but we do not 
 call it death. As you approach near the close of life, your vision 
 becomes dim — dim with age, with care, and fear — dim as it regards 
 your heaven-born life. You rejected the heavenly influences that 
 would have opened your minds to the bloom and glory of the, to 
 you, far-off Paradise ; and now your hope sets in darkness, and 
 your feet tremble, where you should stand firm to behold the glories 
 of eternal day. 
 
 " Let me assure you, you can make your declining days brighter 
 than any picture we can draw. You may so commune with your 
 own soul and the kindred souls around you, that you will feel the 
 welcome that awaits you in the glad home of spiritual and undying 
 affection. You will feel and embrace their presence. If you will 
 now live a life of self-sacrifice, you will feel more than all we, your 
 holy visitants, could bring before you. 
 
 " But, reluctantly, we must close this communication. Oh, could 
 we speak to you without raising your selfish prejudices, how the 
 darkness of your minds would clear away, and the shout of joyful 
 triumph re-echo through all the vaulted courts of an unfolding 
 universe ! Do you believe in God, and yet believe not in the 
 communion of His holy spirits 1 It cannot be. Reject not what 
 alone can ennoble and hallow your desires. True, much that 
 professes to come from spirits ought not to be countenanced. But 
 is this our fault or yours % Rest assured you must judge ; but how 
 can you judge when you are not true to the purest and deepest 
 thirst of your own souls % Remember spirits have to use imperfect 
 mediums. Remember your own imperfections, of which you need 
 no better evidence than your unnatural and sinful prejudices against 
 what you know ought to secure your highest good. Be true to 
 yourselves, and you will know how to discriminate. Know that 
 nothing but the pure can come from God and His holy messengers. 
 We come from Him to invite you to brighter thoughts, hopes, and 
 visions, than have ever blessed the walks or ways of the most 
 
80 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 enlightened mortals. And now may the Spirit of God rest upon 
 this American people, and bind them as one congenial band of 
 brothers. 
 
 "From the presence of Emanuel Swedenborg, to all who are 
 alarmed at the thought of spiritual communion. . 
 
 "September 26th, 1854." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. H. B. CHAMPION AS A MEDIUM. INDIAN SPIRITS AND 
 
 SPIRITUALISM. IDENTITY OF SPIRITS. — MODES OF SPIRIT 
 
 INFLUENCE. 
 
 A large portion of the recorded experiences of Mr. Ferguson 
 in his investigations of supramundane facts consists of either 
 the spoken or written communications of Mr. H. B. Champion, 
 or accounts of the modes in which he appeared to be subjected 
 to spiritual influences. Before giving such brief notices of these 
 as may be practicable, it may be well to copy Mr. Ferguson's 
 account of the medium as written in 1854. The facts 
 here stated are of a very extraordinary character, and they are 
 of a kind not very difficult to verify. Admitting the facts to 
 be genuine, upon what hypothesis can we deny their supra- 
 mundane origin ? 
 
 " Tt is known to the spiritualists and many others of Nashville, 
 that Mr. Champion has been developed, in the past two years, as 
 one of the most remarkable mediums of the age. The nature of 
 his development will be fully presented in a volume now preparing 
 under the direction of the spirit of Dr. Channing. The volume 
 referred to is a commentary upon the Bible, critical and expository, 
 and is regarded by all who have examined it, as a volume worthy 
 of the highest commendation. He has already reached some one 
 thousand six hundred pages, and it will be published so soon as 
 the spirit communicating it shall direct. 
 
 " Mr. Champion was some two years since informed that he was 
 a medium, at a time when he regarded the pretension of spiritual- 
 ists as an unmitigated imposture. He makes no pretension to 
 literature — had not read the Bible for fifteen years, and scarcely 
 
82 MODES OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 
 
 ever looked into any book. When he received a communication 
 from' the spirit of Dr. Channing, he did not know that such a man 
 had ever lived. Under his influence, he frequently sent me, con- 
 trary to his own desires, for we were strangers to each other, but 
 by an almost irresistible impulse, communications, criticisms upon 
 my sermons, and details of my investigations of various metaphy- 
 sical and theological subjects, conceived in a comprehensiveness of 
 idea, a beauty and force of style, and an appropriateness of applica- 
 tion, that would compare with any documents ancient or modern. 
 Of course I sought him, and to my astonishment found him able to 
 converse with me, when under spirit direction, so as to appro- 
 priately and forcibly answer questions, and offer criticisms upon 
 treatises he had never seen nor heard. I have held interviews for 
 hours at a time, without uttering a syllable, writing my questions 
 at one table in a room, and receiving answers from him at another, 
 in the presence of the most respectable witnesses, that left me 
 without a shadow of doubt as to the reality of his claims. Questions 
 as to why he was selected — for he had been unfortunate in business, 
 and lay under the censure of many ; whether justly or unjustly, it 
 was not for me to say — were answered with a force that no honest 
 mind could resist, of which answers he knows nothing to this day. 
 I could publish a small volume of communications received from 
 him, but as the great work upon which he is engaged will be given 
 to the public, it is not necessary. The following, as making a part 
 of my records, is presented as worthy of the attention of all honest 
 and candid men. I ought also to say that Mr. C. will write in 
 two hours, more than any ordinary clerk can copy in two days. 
 I regard him as the most remarkable psychological phenomenon 
 of the age. After making his acquaintance, I found, to my 
 astonishment, that he could, and did quote whole chapters of the 
 Bible, and critically examine every phrase, fact and bearing of each 
 verse without the book before him; that he could, and did the 
 same with the ancient classics of Greece, Rome, and the Primitive 
 Church ; and when not under the influence of what purported to 
 be the spirit of Dr. Channing, he could not converse intelligibly 
 upon either. Indeed, he did not know their names, much less 
 their statements and opinions. I do not hesitate to make these 
 statements, because there are numbers of respectable men who 
 know them to be true, and to their truth would be willing to make 
 
THROUGH MR. CHAMPION. 83 
 
 the most solemn asseverations. Besides, the evidence is open to all 
 who will take the pains impartially to investigate it. " 
 
 Among the remarkable phenomena of what is called Spirit- 
 ualism in the Western, and therefore more recently settled 
 portion of America, is the frequent influence or possession of 
 persons called mediums by what claim to be the spirits of the 
 Indians, who a few years ago owned and peopled the forests 
 and prairies of that vast region. Many mediums, susceptible 
 of such entire control, give their communications in the Indian 
 languages, of which, in their natural state, they are entirely 
 ignorant. Others, in air, gestures, manners, and customs, 
 show the influence of the controlling spirits, whose thoughts, 
 however, are translated into English. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson records that while standing in the twilight 
 near a rail fence he was startled by a sound which seemed 
 that of a blow from a hatchet cutting into the top rail close 
 beside him. No person was near, nor was there any apparent 
 cause for the sound. But a little later, a medium, seemingly 
 under the influence of an Indian chief, addressed him with a 
 wonderful power and eloquence. 
 
 On another occasion, when the circle had assembled, after a 
 few minutes waiting Mr. Champion said, "I am impressed 
 that we should remain quiet and see what will follow. " 
 
 In a few moments Mr. Champion's head was moved gently 
 to the table. His hands, as if under irresistible, yet pleasmable 
 power, were crossed upon his back. His body was then turned 
 into a graceful and commanding attitude ; his hands and head 
 released. A loud sound was heard upon the door, when he 
 was moved into the highest attitude of the orator, his eyes 
 closed and his whole nature entranced*. After a few moments 
 of breathless silence he commenced an address which filled 
 its hearers with admiration. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson says of one of these addresses : — 
 
 " There was not a sentence that was not uttered with a power 
 
84 MODES OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 
 
 of voice and manner superior to any oratorical display 1 ever heard. 
 It frequently drew tears, and commanded our full, almost wrapt 
 admiration." 
 
 "While adverting to the fact of the frequent appearance of 
 Indian spirits to those who occupy their former earthly 
 residences — and manifestations of this kind may be found in 
 the early records of the New England colonies — it may be 
 interesting to learn that the Indian tribes still living west of 
 the Mississippi are spiritualists, and familiar with the pheno- 
 mena of spirit manifestations. On this point Mr. Ferguson 
 gives the following curious testimony : — 
 
 " On the night of the 7th May, 1856, Rev. James Tanner, a 
 native of the forest, and a member of and missionary to the 
 Chippewa tribe of North American Indians, visited me under very 
 peculiar circumstances. We had met for our usual spiritual com- 
 munion, when he came in, an entire stranger to us all. He 
 modestly introduced himself, and when informed of the purpose of 
 our meeting, consented to remain. We had not been seated but a 
 few moments, until another stranger gentleman present came under 
 spiritual impression, and addressed our Indian friend, recognizing 
 him as a spiritual medium, and detailing the circumstances which 
 led to his coming among us, many of which could not have been 
 known to any other heart but his own. He was then addressed 
 by each of our mediums, in most pointed, eloquent, and impressive 
 orations. He sat in unmoved silence, apparently deeply absorbed 
 in meditation, and no one could judge from his manner or counten- 
 ance what was passing in his mind. The meeting adjourned about 
 midnight, and he left us for his hotel, refusing to remain with 
 us overnight, and promising to call upon us on the morrow. 
 He had never been in a spiritual circle among the pale faces 
 before. 
 
 " On the morrow he called again, when he informed us that all 
 that had been said to him on the night previous was strictly and 
 to the letter true, and that he had realized then, and afterwards, 
 the presence of several spirit-friends, although for years he had 
 been struggling in his mind to evercome all such experiences as 
 inimical to the views of his Christian missionary brethren and 
 
AMONG THE INDIANS. 85 
 
 fellow labourers, and as tending, in their opinion, to the destruction 
 of the hopes of his people. 
 
 "We gave him all the information on the subject we could in an 
 interview of four hours, and found, to our astonishment, that we 
 were but detailing an experience coincident with those of his 
 nation from time immemorial. Not a fact, principle, or distinct 
 point in spiritual philosophy could we state as ours, or the result 
 of our experience or observation, but what he either anticipated or 
 confirmed by a simple and lucid account of the usages of his 
 people. He remained with us several days, during which time we 
 had constant interviews, he receiving, and we receiving through 
 him, the most inspiring and consolatory communications. He spoke 
 to the experience of every one of our circle, confirming to them 
 truths they had been led to doubt, and showing, under the 
 high and pure influences that seemed ever to attend him, a 
 familiarity with the duties, difficulties, trials, and prospects, of 
 all he met. 
 
 " We found him a most interesting and well-informed man, of 
 large and varied experience, and devoted with apostolic zeal to the 
 elevation and interests of the off-cast Indian. He had been for 
 many years a missionary in co-operation with the Baptist Mission ; 
 had become fully satisfied that the sectarian policy of that and other 
 missions tended rather to the injury than the help of his nation. 
 He had secured a treaty with the Government of the United States, 
 by which his people had the privilege of citizenship opened to 
 them for the future, and the moneys appropriated for the education 
 and civilization of his tribe were taken from the direction of the 
 Baptist Board, and placed at the disposal of the chiefs of the tribe. 
 He was now engaged in finding mechanics and agriculturists as 
 teachers to establish shops and farms, instead of churches of sectarian 
 strife, and for his praiseworthy work in this regard, was suffering 
 the reproach of denunciation for heresy his former brethren were 
 heaping upon him. We had every assurance of the purity of 
 his motives, and the sublime and patriotic purposes of his life, and 
 now fee! that he was brought to us that the slumbering customs of 
 his people, which by a slavish and ignorant priesthood had been 
 denounced as devilism, might be revived and purified, to open a 
 new hope to a despairing and persecuted, but never cowardly or 
 forsaken people." 
 
OD MODES OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 
 
 At this period (1854) Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Champion 
 made a visit to several families of Mr. Ferguson's former 
 acquaintance in Kentucky, to whom Mr. Champion was a 
 total stranger, he being in equal ignorance of the persons 
 he visited and of their relations. Yet we are told in this 
 record that Mr. Champion, when he fell into the state "'called 
 trance, addressed them as from deceased relatives, whom he so 
 dramatically personated as to leave no doubt of their identity. 
 In a note appended to the record made by Mr. Ferguson of 
 their visit to the family of Mr. "W". M. Merriweather, at 
 Meryville, Kentucky, he says : — 
 
 " There were other descriptions of attending spirits, and personal 
 recognitions by those present. But we were at a loss to recognize 
 the spirit that represented itself as kindred to the family, and as 
 having served in the councils of the nation. While discussing his 
 probable name, several having been suggested, Mr. C. came under 
 spiritual influence, and after describing most accurately Dr. Merri- 
 weather, President Thomas Jefferson, and delivering a noble speech 
 from the latter, and appealing to a gentleman present, who was the 
 only one of our company who knew him in life, for a recognition, 
 he told us that W. H. Crawford was the relative the family were 
 inquiring after. It was not known to any one save Mrs. M. and 
 Mr. W. D. Merriweather that he sustained any relationship to the 
 family. 
 
 " To sum up what was remarkable in these recognitions of deceased 
 kindred, we would have the reader observe — 1. Mr. Champion had 
 no acquaintance whatever with this family. 2. He arrived but a 
 few hours prior to this interview. 3. He met persons here whom 
 he had never seen, from places of which he knew nothing. 4 The 
 meeting was as unexpected to the family as to himself, and he was 
 induced, by spiritual impression, to accompany me there, neither 
 of us knowing whom we would meet, or what would be the nature 
 of the demonstrations. And yet he accurately described deceased 
 relatives, their peculiar relationship to the strangers present, the 
 time and place of their death, and gave appropriate messages from 
 each In addition to this, he gave a description of Mr. Jefferson, 
 and his relation to the republic, represented him as an associate of 
 
THROUGH MR. CHAMPION. 87 
 
 Dr. M., not knowing, what we afterwards learned from the family, 
 that Dr. Merriweather and Mr. Jefferson were intimate acquaintances 
 in life, and greatly devoted to each other. He gave the name of 
 Mr. Crawford as a relative, and his speech ahove, when I, though 
 I had resided in the family five years, had never learned till this 
 interview that he was a relative. 
 
 " Are we not warranted, then, in saying that no honest mind 
 can put these facts together — and of their verity I refer to the 
 family, and am ready to furnish the names of many respectable 
 ladies and gentlemen who were present, and will never forget the 
 impressiveness of that occasion — and not admit the reality of 
 spirit intercourse ? 
 
 " But the demonstration did not stop here. On the next day 
 Mr. C. came under the direction of an Indian chief, and com- 
 manding me to follow him, wended his way directly to the family 
 cemetery, and there pointed out to us the tombs of many whose 
 spirits, he said, had greeted us the night before. Some of the 
 graves he designated had no marks ; and yet he gave the sex, the 
 relationship, and general character of each, with an accuracy of 
 description that was irresistible. When he had finished here, he 
 again commanded us to follow. He sought a spot, which he bid 
 me mark, and then, taking a distinct survey of a forest some 
 distance from us, followed a line, not varying a foot, through fields 
 and over fences, and then on through a dense wood, till he came to 
 a mound I had never previously noticed, whereon he stood, and 
 delivered a description of the habits, power, and disappearance of 
 the aboriginal tribes of this country, that was commanding and 
 interesting in the extreme. I had no materials with which to 
 preserve the oration, as the whole proceeding was unexpected, and 
 could not have been anticipated. When he had completed an 
 address, sentences of which are still imprinted upon my memory, 
 he was released, feeling much invigorated, and seemed as uncon- 
 scious of what he had been doing as if he had been in a dream. 
 He knew not where he was ; knew not the way back to the mansion 
 we had left ; and such was the difficulty of a return, even to myself, 
 that, losing sight of the marks I had made by his direction, we 
 found ourselves, when emerging back again from the wood, several 
 hundred yards from the point where we had entered it. I record 
 these wonderful demonstrations of spirit-presence, alike for the 
 
MODES OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 
 
 gratification they afforded me at the time, and as a duty I owe to 
 truth. I leave them without a comment, believing they will mate 
 a proper impression upon all sincere men. 
 
 " At night Mr. C. addressed the venerable lady of Meryville, 
 from her deceased husband, and also her son, making reference to 
 incidents known only to them, and leaving them without question 
 as to the reality of the presence and interest of him whose noble 
 form they laid away some twelve years before. The scene was 
 beautiful, hopeful, almost heavenly, and I feel it one that I should 
 not record in its particulars, at least for the public eye. It will 
 never pass from my memory while I have mind to appreciate the 
 high thoughts of wisdom, or a heart to move to the pure emotions 
 of undying love; for there was a calm spiritual meeting that 
 revealed the inseparable union of kindred souls in undying 
 affection." 
 
 In the very interesting and remarkable account of certain 
 manifestations witnessed by Mr. Ferguson during a visit to the 
 Shakers, Chapter Y., will be found further examples of the 
 character of Mr. Champion's mediumship. 
 
 " The evidence of a supramundane intelligence influencing 
 different persons at the same time, although widely separated 
 by distance from each, other, I have had demonstrated beyond 
 a shadow of doubt. 
 
 " With Mr. Champion I sustained the most intimate and con- 
 fiding relations. We were together in the recognition of these 
 evidences in all that makes united life sacred and confiding. 
 We were so from our mutual attraction, and by direction and 
 guidance which we both recognized as the brightest assurances 
 of divine alliances, making and guarding the highest forms of 
 fellowship upon earth. He often gave me communications 
 that claimed the presence of an individualized intelligence that 
 had passed from earthly visibility. At the same time there 
 were others who did the same upon similar subjects and for 
 similar purposes. 
 
 " Among these there were none whose supramundane reflec- 
 tions to me so much commanded my respect and interest as 
 
SPIRIT POWER OVER MIND. 89 
 
 those of George TV. Harrison, a young gentleman who had 
 resided in my family, and with whose parents I enjoyed most 
 delightful relations. They had recognized with me these 
 evidences in various forms, and took deep interest in them, 
 and especially in those reflected through the elevated nature of 
 their own son. With the father, Captain H. H. Harrison (an 
 officer of the United States Government), I arranged that at 
 the same hour of a given day, he with his son in Nashville, 
 and I with Mr. Champion on a visit to Kentucky, should seek 
 some evidence of communication, and both record the result. 
 TVe did so, and we were both compelled to admit that through 
 two organizations — Mr. Champion's and Mr. G. TV. Harrison's 
 — a similar or the same intelligence was reflected, at the same 
 time, and when they were separated a distance of forty-five 
 miles. This was not contrary to my conception of the subject, 
 but was so to his, and led to much thought and discussion on 
 the phenomena, with him, myself, and many others. 
 
 " Some months afterwards, Messrs. Harrison and Champion 
 were with me on a visit to Kentucky. One night we were 
 seated in the drawing-room with the family we were visiting, 
 when both Mr. Champion and Mr. Harrison were deeply 
 entranced. Very appropriate addresses were delivered by each, 
 and the meeting became one of inexpressible interest, when 
 Mr. Champion, still entranced, left the room and house, 
 peremptorily refusing the company of any one or to tell us 
 where he was going. TVhen he had gone, and the company 
 became again composed, Mr. Harrison, still entranced, directed 
 me to get pen and paper and take down what he would 
 deliver. It was eleven o'clock at night, and very dark. He 
 described all Mr. Champion's movements with the utmost 
 particularity — also his mental reflections — and, finally, the 
 place at which he would stop, and when he had reached it. Then 
 he said that the spell on Mr. Champion would be broken at a 
 given minute, and directed that our host should go or send a 
 servant to guide him back, as, in the dark, being a stranger, 
 he could not find the way. This was done by the host, who 
 
90 MODES OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 
 
 brought him back, to confirm all that had been stated to all 
 present ; while Mr. Champion, not knowing what had been 
 said in his absence, seemed confused by the recognition of the 
 company. He had passed through the family cemetery, over 
 the garden walls, through a thickly-planted orchard, and into 
 the centre of a large wheat-field just denuded of its harvest. 
 He had, under the spell which held him, marked the spot 
 where his walk terminated in the field, and while marking it 
 he was brought into his normal condition. 
 
 " Next day, Mrs. Ferguson and Miss King came to the same 
 spot under a similar spell, and took Mr. Champion to show 
 him his own mark. It was remarkable that both ladies walked 
 to it backwards as if to convince us that they were directed by 
 another intelligence than their own, and that it was the same 
 as the one which directed Mr. Champion in the dark, and that 
 revealed through Mr. Harrison in the house at the same time 
 the course he had taken. The spot became one of interest 
 to the family, and neighbours and many foolish persons insisted 
 that there was buried treasure there, and were with difficulty 
 prevented from digging. What was proved to myself and 
 Mr. Champion in the premises was — 
 
 " 1. That a supramundane intelligence can guide two or more 
 persons at the same time. 
 
 "2. That it can guide to the same mental and physical 
 results." 
 
 Mr. Ferguson has related to the editor the following inci- 
 dent, not contained in his records, but which is a fact of so 
 curious a character that it deserves to find a place in this 
 volume. 
 
 During the residence of Mr. Ferguson in New Orleans, Mr. 
 Champion left Nashville by steamboat to join him. The 
 river was low ; the boat was detained by grounding on sand- 
 bars, until Mr. Ferguson became anxious for the safety of his 
 friend. While in this state of mind he called upon a gentle- 
 man of New Orleans, whose wife happened to be a medium. 
 
 
MENTAL TELEGRAPHING. 
 
 91 
 
 She knew nothing of Mr. Ferguson, or of Mr. Champion, or of 
 the anxiety of the former respecting the latter ; but, sitting at 
 a table, she wrote a letter to Mr. Ferguson, dated on the 
 steamboat on which Mr. Champion was expected, at a place 
 twenty-four hours' distance up the Mississippi, stating that the 
 writer was well, and expected to arrive in New Orleans the 
 following day. The letter was signed " H. B. Champion," 
 and was apparently in his handwriting, and contained several 
 of his peculiarities. The next day the boat arrived, and Mr. 
 Champion confirmed the message, of which, however, he had no 
 consciousness, except that at or about the hour it was written 
 he was thinking of Mr. Ferguson, and had a strong desire to 
 relieve his anxiety. 
 
 This fact may be considered as a form of clairvoyance ; but 
 if so, it must be allowed to have been a singular manifestation 
 of that faculty ; besides, we are not very much enlightened as 
 to the modus operandi of clairvoyance. It is also to be observed 
 that those who attribute professed spirit communications to the 
 clairvoyance of the medium, were probably engaged not long 
 since in denying and denouncing the very facts by which they 
 now seek to explain others of a perhaps more difficult 
 character. 
 
 g 2 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 The editor looks upon the following narrative as one of the 
 most remarkable and instructive to be found in the literature 
 of modern spiritualism. In the exercise of the trust reposed 
 in him, he has suppressed the name of the Shaker village, one 
 of fifteen or twenty similar communities existing in the 
 American States. 
 
 The Shaker communities in America were founded near the 
 end of the last century by Ann Lee, an emigrant from Lanca- 
 shire, England, who is believed in and worshipped as a female 
 Messiah, and fourth person, or incarnation of the feminine 
 principle, in the Godhead, sent to open a new manifestation, 
 form the true Church, and gather the saints into religious and 
 industrial communities. The costume of the Shakers is like 
 that of the primitive Quakers. They live in societies, having 
 all things in common, like the early Christians, and profess to 
 live in perfect chastity, increasing their numbers by conver- 
 sions and the adoption of poor children and orphans, whom 
 they take from dissolute parents or overseers of the poor. They 
 are governed by elders, and are under a strict rule and rigid 
 discipline. Selecting large tracts of fertile land, which they 
 cultivate skilfully, carrying on also many lucrative manufac- 
 tures, and having no expenses beyond the bare support of their 
 members, they are prosperous and rich, and seem to have 
 solved, at least, the practicability of communistic associations. 
 In their religious worship they sing hymns to rude and lively 
 tunes, with energetic, though not graceful dancing. They 
 
THEIR RECOGNITIONS. 93 
 
 profess to have spirit communications, with, prophetic and 
 other miraculous gifts. They are very hospitable to strangers, 
 and use every means to attract them to their society. Their 
 industry, sobriety, economy, neatness, and the honesty of their 
 dealings with the world are most commendable. Their domains 
 are models of good culture, and their stock of horses, cattle, 
 sheep, &c, the best that can be procured. Their products, 
 from their excellence, bring the highest price in every market. 
 A Shaker village is plain, neat, cleanly, and in perfect order ; 
 but the aesthetic element is entirely omitted. There are no 
 flower garden's, shrubberies, fountains, pictures, statues, or 
 musical instruments. The only music is the singing of hymns, 
 and the only dancing is that which belongs to their fantastic 
 worship. On the other hand there is no poverty, no intem- 
 perance, or appearance of any vice. There is no tavern, grog- 
 shop, pawnbroker, policeman. They live together in large 
 buildings, professedly as brothers and sisters ; and when 
 married men and women join them, they are obliged to sepa- 
 rate, and conform to the strict rule of chastity. . 
 
 "With this explanation the reader may be better able to 
 appreciate this wonderful narrative, which is evidently a 
 careful record of facts down to its minutest particulars. 
 
 "On the night of the 25th December, 1855, a member of the 
 
 Shaker communion, from the village of , visited our circle, 
 
 under circumstances of a very remarkable and interesting character. 
 
 We became much attached to friend who, so unexpectedly 
 
 to himself and us, was developed as a medium at his first visit to 
 our home. That visit led to quite an interest both on their part 
 and ours in each other, and we frequently enjoyed the privilege 
 of extending hospitable attentions to our Shaker friends. In 
 return, they invited us to their village, and we became, before the 
 waning of the summer moons, quite anxious to see them in their 
 own quiet homes, and rather agitating worship. Eoth Mrs. Ferguson 
 and Mr. Champion, under spirit impression, were directed to go, 
 and it was said to us that the time, circumstances, and pur- 
 
94 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 poses of our visit were arranged by the highest influences attend- 
 ing us. 
 
 " I cannot say that I had of myself any distinct purpose in 
 the visit, other than a retreat to the quiet of the country, and a 
 desire to see what of spiritualism these singular people claimed. 
 As a people, from their plain habits, their skilful and industrious 
 husbandry, their meek and humble demeanour, their freedom from 
 vice and from poverty and destitution, the evidences of plenty 
 and comfort surrounding their societies, and above all, their 
 profession of purity above the degrading sensualism of married 
 and single life in our own civilization, so called, we were more 
 than ordinarily drawn to them. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say, 
 that from our experience of the hostile prejudices of our immediate 
 acquaintances, and the general irrational opposition to the spread 
 of pure spiritual communion, with the many harassing annoy- 
 ances we had met in the unworthy, not to say selfish and sensualistic, 
 tendencies of many who claimed spiritual light and mediumship 
 above the commonalty of religious sects, there was no one of us 
 that would not readily have accepted the retirement of Shakerdom, 
 could we have been assured that its forms, habits, and character 
 would tend to the greatest good of mankind generally. In a word, 
 we were ready to become Shakers, if Shakerism could establish 
 the divinity of its origin, the spirituality of its intentions, and the 
 humanity of its manner of life, and so far as our feelings were con- 
 cerned, they were more in their favour than against them. 
 
 "■ Accordingly, when my connection with Nashville, Tennessee, 
 was dissolved, we turned our faces towards Kentucky. While at 
 Meryville we proposed to pay the long projected visit to the 
 Shakers. We were encouraged to do so by learning that several 
 of that people had, while engaged in selling their fowls, seeds, &c, 
 among our friends and relatives, expressed much confidence in our 
 spiritual guidance, and anxiety that we should fulfil our promise to 
 visit them. But as our meeting with them in the first instance 
 was the result of spiritual direction, and our chief desire was to 
 understand their claims to the same, we waited for spirit intelli- 
 gences to arrange the time and the number of persons for the 
 occasion. We had been at Meryville over two weeks, and at every 
 spiritual meeting we were told that we would have no manifesta- 
 tions, save as they related to our preparation for a meeting with the 
 
OUR VISIT SPIRITUALLY ORDERED. 95 
 
 Shakers. This, of course, tended somewhat to arouse our interest, 
 but we waited patiently for the time and persons to be selected. 
 
 " On the 17th of June, Mr. Champion, Mr. W. D. Merriweather 
 (the gentleman whose hospitality we were enjoying), Miss Frances 
 King, my daughter Virginia and myself, were taken to the orchard 
 and woods, where the following evidences of spirit-presence were 
 given. Miss King, Virginia, and Mr. Champion were seated, as was 
 afterwards observed, so as to form the points of an equilateral 
 triangle, while each seemed deeply entranced. Impressive and 
 interesting addresses were made by each, calculated to awaken the 
 sjnritual nature and aspiration of all men ; at least so I esteemed 
 them. We were then carried to the woods near by, where the 
 mediums again formed their triangle, and knelt in solemn prayer. 
 They changed their position, and called me to them. I was re- 
 quested to kneel with them ; i.e., with Miss King and Mr. 
 Champion, who were deeply entranced. I did so. Then speaking 
 in the most measured and direct terms, I was asked to pledge 
 myself, beneath the unobstructed dome of heaven, near to the silent 
 trees as divine witnesses, to take both mediums under a care that 
 would prove paternal in any trial ; and they assured me a severe one 
 was before them, Mrs. Ferguson and myself. I could not imagine 
 what the proceeding meant; but as nothing unreasonable was 
 required, I gave the pledge. It was repeated thrice, and I never 
 witnessed a more solemn scene. 
 
 " On returning to the house, Mrs. Ferguson, who had remained 
 there during our absence, came under spiritual influence, and 
 detailed what had occurred in the orchard and forest, and gave its 
 general import. She said that on the morrow we — i.e., Mr. 
 Champion, Miss King, herself, and myself — must set out for 
 Shakertown ; and that while there, and after leaving there, I would 
 see and realize the purport of my pledge — the meaning of the 
 triangular position — and we would all witness among the Shakers 
 much to inspire the noblest sentiments and hopes, and also much 
 to render our common humanity low, degraded, nay, ' infamous.' 
 She peremptorily forbade any one from joining our company, although 
 several were ready to do so, alike for the pleasure 'of the visit and 
 the interest awakened by her communication, which was all that 
 any of us disclosed of the events of the orchard and woods. 
 
 " Carriages, by the kindness of our host, were in readiness on 
 
96 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 the evening of the next day, and our company of four set out. It 
 should be said that for one week previous to our starting, Mr. 
 Champion had not tasted food, nor did he taste food of any kind on 
 the way, or at Shakertown, until the end of our visit there, which 
 embraced three days. Although a man of most delicate physical 
 organization, he was, to my knowledge, without food for ten days, 
 and during that time seemed to possess the strength of three men, 
 when under direct spiritual influence ; but when not, he was as 
 feeble as an infant, and needed all the care I had promised in the 
 forest pledge. 
 
 " When within five miles of the village we stopped to bait our 
 horses, I was taken alone into the woods again by Mr. Champion, 
 and under similar circumstances asked to renew my pledge. It was 
 then told me that at Shakertown spirit manifestations of a novel 
 character would attend us in the streets, in the gardens, in the 
 fields, and in the houses, and that I must not manifest surprise, 
 but give myself wholly to the protection of the three mediums com- 
 mitted to my care, whose health and life were intrusted to my 
 instrumental protection. I was assured that by impression un- 
 mistakeable I would be guided, and I renewed the pledge. 
 
 " Towards the decline of the day, covered with dust and wearied 
 with heat and fatigue, we arrived, and received a most hearty greet- 
 ing from the elders, sisters, and brethren, who seemed fully aware 
 of our coming, and were ready to receive us into their hearts and 
 homes. Our greeting, and the kindly and yet not officious attentions 
 that followed, made a happy impression on our mediums, and would 
 have done so on me but for the warnings I had received. As it was, 
 I felt free and cordial, but was constantly impressed to watch as well 
 as rejoice. As the shades of evening came on, amid pleasing and 
 cheerful conversation, maugre a little of flattering compliment that 
 did not comport with the unworldly aspect of the ' believers,' as 
 they called themselves, in the ' region of God upon earth,' quite a 
 company — but, as I remember, mostly of aged persons — came together 
 as by concert. They formed themselves in the large hall, where we 
 sat in a sort of semicircle, not unlike in shape to an extended horse- 
 shoe. There were, perhaps, fifty beside our company. To my 
 surprise, I found our little band forming the triangular position in 
 the seats they had chosen, and myself seated much as I had been in 
 the orchard, where it was first formed. I say surprise, for it was 
 
TESTIMONY OF THEIR MEDIUMS. 97- 
 
 without concert on the part of either, and was unobserved by all till 
 the close of our protracted interview with the Shakers. 
 
 " A song of much animation was sung, all joining in its easy- 
 flowing strains, and all keeping time to the music with rather 
 elegant gesticulation on the part of the women, and not very 
 ungraceful on that of the men. A rather striking and constant 
 motion of the hands and feet was kepi up. At its close several 
 addresses were delivered by the leaders of the society bidding us 
 welcome, recognizing the gifts attending our circle, and their hope 
 from the spread of such, long known to their society, while it was 
 stated that the song they had sung had been given them for us in 
 anticipation of our coming. From a most deeply inspired condition 
 Mr. Champion responded to their welcome in most happily chosen 
 terms, and assured them we were there for purposes of high and 
 holy meaning. He besought them to be free, and assured them 
 he would be so. He was followed by addresses from Mrs. F. and 
 Miss King, of a very affectionate and generally consolatory cha- 
 racter, in which the personal appearance and character of several 
 of their Spirit-brethren were given with marked accuracy. The 
 night was thus passed till a late hour, much to the satisfaction and 
 apparent edification of all. Our own party seemed carried away, 
 when in their normal state, with the kindness, apparent unworld- 
 liness, and spiritual atmosphere of Shakertown, and not un- 
 frequently expressed their opinion that they were finding a heaven 
 upon earth in miniature there. 
 
 " In the morning came eight of the brethren and sisters, two for 
 each of our company, to conduct us through the spacious buildings 
 and neatly kept grounds, gardens, and fields, of their ' retreat from 
 a sinful world.' We had passed through one of their most com- 
 modious homes, built, as they told us with an air of gratified hope 
 as they looked upon and spoke of the spiritual manifestations of 
 this time, for those who were soon to be brought to their Zion, 
 when we were conducted into a very humble, though quiet, neat 
 building or buildings, called the Dairy. While there, amid the 
 many evidences of plenty and tidiness, much interested in the 
 regularity of their allotted and, to all appearance, pleasant tasks, 
 there came running from the harvest field, covered with the sweat 
 and dust of his labour, a stout athletic man of youthful mien, 
 leaping the fence at a bound, and devouring the ground as a swift 
 
98 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 courser. He came as if in the highest glee, and embracing Mr. 
 Champion, they commenced a regular Indian dance, which was 
 kept up for some minutes, interspersed with a song and conversa- 
 tion, in what seemed to us an Indian dialect, and which was an 
 unknown tongue. At its close, assuming a solemn air, this Shaker 
 youth addressed his fathers and mothers around him, and pointing 
 to Mr. Champion, said, ' BeJioId the prophet selected and sent to you 
 from on high. See that you regard the message he brings ! ' The 
 whole proceeding struck our Shaker-friends with surprise, and 
 made upon us all a profound impression. 
 
 " We were next carried to a large culinary room in the basement 
 of an extensive building, and while making an observation there, 
 Mr. C. was entranced and delivered a very forcible address 
 upon the unitary interests, duties, and privileges of man, and at its 
 close, with an air of authority, demanded of our kind Shaker 
 attendants, ' Where is Clarissa ? We must see Clarissa ! ' As 
 we were ascending to the higher rooms of the building, the elderly 
 Shakers drew near me and asked, ' What shall we do V ' Have 
 you such a person among you as Clarissa ? ' I asked. They said, 
 1 Yes ; she is sick and blind.' When we had passed through the 
 spacious corridors opening into neat and airy chambers, where we 
 saw many infirm and aged women, all of whom gave us happy 
 greetings, and many expressed, what had become to us from its 
 repetition rather an officious desire, that we should cast in our lot 
 with them, we were conducted into a room where we found Clarissa 
 in the person of a woman of fifty, with rather a noble-looking face, 
 bearing many traces of patient suffering ; feeble she was, and blind. 
 Mrs. Ferguson, under spiritual influence, advanced and embraced 
 her, and made to her in kind and sisterly accents a most beautiful 
 and affectionate address. The tears from sightless eyes coursed 
 freely down her furrowed cheeks, and she very timidly invoked a 
 divine blessing upon us all. Mr. Champion, at its close, delivered 
 a stern rebuke to the aged persons accompanying us, closing it by 
 saying, ' Had you been true to the nobler instincts of your souls, 
 this suffering had not been ! ' The scene became painful, and I 
 was relieved when he closed an address that seemed to contrast 
 strangely with the hearty welcome everywhere greeting us. Among 
 other things he stated that there were twelve persons in their 
 village he must see, and ajjpointed three o'clock of that day as 
 
STRANGE REVELATIONS. 99 
 
 the time to meet them and the leaders of the society, when he 
 commanded, as it were, that at half-past six the whole village 
 should be called together for the purposes contemplated in our 
 visit. When he came from under the influence attending, he 
 seemed wholly unconscious of what had occurred since the meeting 
 with the medium at the Dairy, and our usual friendly conversa- 
 tion and proposed walk were resumed. 
 
 " Meanwhile I was taken on one side in consultation as to how I 
 was in the habit of acting when appointments such as had been 
 delivered through Mr. C. were made. I answered, ' I always obey, 
 for they are generally agreeable, and always profitable.' But I 
 assured them we had no disposition to dictate their movements, and 
 they must feel free either to make or refuse the proposed meetings. 
 Besides, it was mid-harvest, and labourers were scarce. The 
 meetings were, however, appointed, and at three o'clock we met 
 some thirty aged Shakers, with the twelve mediums Mr. C. had 
 named, all persons whose names neither he nor any of our com- 
 pany had ever heard. They were gathered soon around a table, 
 where our company, again as a triangle, took their seats. 
 
 "Mr. C. was again entranced, when various descriptions of 
 spirit-friends, acquaintances, and associates of the aged men and 
 women present were given, acknowledged, and gratefully, though 
 somewhat fearfully recognized. Mr. C. then informed them that he 
 was made to see their system in all its departments, of which he said 
 there were four. With almost breathless interest they heard him 
 describe the ceremonies of the first, second, and third ; but when 
 he came to the fourth, there was manifest uneasiness, with much 
 muttering among the more prominent members. The medium 
 proceeded. He described a strange and secret ceremony. He spoke 
 of himself as being carried through a subterranean passage till he 
 came to a door. ' Shall I open that door 1 ' demanded he in tones 
 of authority irresistible. Consternation seemed to seize one or two 
 of the company, but deathlike silence prevailed. One less wise 
 than the others said, ' We know not what thee means by a door, 
 which is not a door.' * It is a vault,' said the medium ; ' do you 
 know what that means 1 Shall I enter it ? ' he sternly continued ; 
 ' for here is that which sickens the soul, and blights the fairest 
 
 flowers of Immortal planting ! ' He continued 
 
 his address in most affectionate but pointed appeals, and all he 
 
100 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 said was sanctioned by their owii mediums, under a deep entrance- 
 men t, and the meeting, much to the relief of all, closed. 
 
 " As it closed, the cleanly dressed companies of women in one 
 band, and men in another, followed by children, arranged according 
 to size and age, were passing to the general meeting at half-past 
 six. Mr. Champion informed me in our private room that a work 
 had now been done that had stirred the feelings of the leaders 
 and aged sinners of that people, and excited their fears. He 
 besought me, as I valued his life, and that of those I had solemnly 
 pledged myself to protect, to be cautious, calm, and prepared for 
 any emergency. We must regard ourselves as in danger from that 
 hour. Our meeting with the village would be prevented if it were 
 not too late to conntermand the order. ' Their only hope now, 
 he said, ' is that you did not understand the descriptions, and that 
 my mind was made unconscious of what was disclosed through it. 
 They will do all they can to magnetize us, with a view to an 
 obliteration of the whole from our memory, or to gain us to their 
 society, which is now the blinding hope God bestows upon them 
 for our defence. Let us be true, if we die in our duty.' 
 
 "With such assurances we met the whole village in their capacious 
 meeting-house or chapel, upon their backless seats, and in their 
 strange costume. Our triangle was again unconsciously formed, 
 and Mr. Champion and each of our mediums became fully 
 entranced. I addressed the company, by request, for one hour 
 and a half, and was heard upon the general philosophy and aspects 
 of modern spiritualism with marked attention by young and old. 
 Mr. Champion then addressed them in their four divisions, recog- 
 nizing the fourth as a secret order, but so recognizing it that 
 novices would not understand what was meant. He called by 
 name for the leader of the society, who came forward, and was 
 seated by his order. He delivered to him a most extraordinary 
 address — extraordinary in that he administered rebuke and stern, 
 yet kind, reproof to a man who was an autocrat in that assembly, 
 where strangers never spoke, and were seldom admitted. Each 
 delivered addresses. The scene was solemn, not to say awful. 
 
 "When a farewell warning had been delivered, the elders 
 approached me, and asked the privilege of engaging in their usual 
 worship. Of course we had no right to object, and were curious 
 to witness it. I was at once informed privately by Mr. Champion 
 
A MEDIUM WITHOUT FOOD TEN DAYS. 101 
 
 that their object was to magnetize our mediums, and that as they 
 were the most expert magnetizers in the world, they would 
 succeed if we were not very careful ; and, if they did succeed, the 
 most disastrous results would follow. While their benches were 
 being removed, our little company, by spirit-direction, was formed 
 into its usual triangle, my seat being placed a little in advance 
 of it towards the assembly. In regular files of two, four, and 
 six abreast, the whole assembly was soon formed, with a few in 
 the centre to lead in the singing, when, by singing, marching, 
 dancing, and a constant gesticulation of the hand, the whole 
 company would pass by us with an effort to concentrate all their 
 magnetic power upon us. By every effort they sought to change our 
 position, and bring us into the centre of the room, but they failed. 
 They laboured in this way for a full hour, and I never felt such an 
 amount of electrical or vital magnetical influences in any assembly 
 of any kind. But, strange to say, and almost incredible to believe, 
 whenever they would approach our little band, Miss King, a fine, 
 delicate lady of twenty-five, who made the apex of the triangle, 
 with one wave of her hand would send that whole company 
 reeling backward to the opposite wall. They at length became 
 wearied with their efforts, and proposed an adjournment. 
 
 " We retired, but when we had reached our room, I found our 
 mediums, who had manifested such immense power when under 
 spiritual influence, feeble as puling infants, perfectly exhausted, 
 and requiring my unremitting care for the whole night and the 
 next day and night. Mr. Champion had not tasted food in the 
 village, nor for seven days preceding. Imagine my condition — I 
 will not say anxiety, for how could I be anxious under such 
 evidences of supreme power as had been given to us in word and 
 deed that day % Our Shaker-friends — i.e., their leaders — slept not. 
 They were officious in their kindness. Women and men came to 
 our rooms, and at each visit, under pretended spiritual influence, 
 sought to magnetize our mediums. They often succeeded in 
 making them deathly sick. They brought the key of the vault 
 Mr. Champion described, and sought by some superstitious use of 
 it to obliterate the memory of what he had spiritually seen. In 
 little and troubled conversations they gathered, all day and for two 
 nights, but could agree upon no plan. They suggested brandy 
 as necessary for Mr. Champion's feeble condition, but when they 
 
102 
 
 SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE SHAKERS, 
 
 sent it, it was found to be drugged with a view to his further- 
 prostration. They sent their best mediums into our room with a 
 view to induce us to join them, but they became spiritually affected 
 by the sad condition of the Secret or i Holy Order.' On the 
 morning of the third day we were able to leave, and did so, much 
 to the relief of all concerned. It was more than a week afterwards 
 before our mediums recovered from the effect of Shaker-magnetizing 
 efforts to drown their memory or unite them to their society." 
 
 In recording the above facts in my experience, I owe it to 
 truth, to say, that I know nothing of ijhis people that would 
 warrant such a reflection upon their manner of life as was so 
 unexpectedly to us and all them given. The intelligence making 
 the reflection is alone responsible. Of its truth or falsity it is 
 not my right, but theirs to judge. Neither of my companions 
 in the normal state, nor myself, feel that we or any one has a 
 right to judge of the life and character of any man or people, 
 save from facts brought under our own observation. And so far 
 as this people is concerned we know nothing to their dis- 
 paragement, and much that commends them to the highest 
 esteem and consideration. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE BROTHERS 
 DAVENPORT AND WM, M. FAY. 
 
 The arrival of the two brothers, Ira E. and Wm. H. Daven- 
 port, with their companion, Wm. M. Fay, in England, accom- 
 panied by so able and distinguished a gentleman as Mr. 
 Ferguson, opens a new era in the history of what some have 
 preferred to call " the supernatural " in this country. These 
 young men, already known for eleven years in America as the 
 mediums, so called, of wonderful physical manifestations, differ 
 in some striking respects from any previously known to the 
 British public. They differ in that the manifestations never 
 fail under any tolerable conditions. Out of hundreds of 
 seances in England, only on one occasion, when they were 
 exhausted by contest and confusion, was there a partial failure, 
 which, however, extended only to what is called the dark 
 seance. In every other instance the usual manifestations have 
 taken place. This does not, of course, include the cases in 
 which they have been prevented by violence, as at Liverpool 
 and Huddersfield. 
 
 The manifestations in presence of the Davenports and Mr. 
 Fay, it is also to be observed, have been but little, if at all, 
 affected by the numbers, the character, the incredulity, or even 
 the conduct of the auditors and spectators. They have been 
 witnessed by hundreds, and some cases, thousands of persons, 
 and at the University of Oxford, which can furnish the noisiest 
 congregation ever seen or heard on this planet, when it was as 
 
104 STJPRAMTJNDANE FACTS. 
 
 useless to talk as in a typhoon, the manifestations proceeded 
 without the slightest interruption. 
 
 In a biography of the Brothers Davenport, by the present 
 writer, an account is given of the whole period of their mar- 
 vellous history. In that work Mr. Ferguson gave his testi- 
 mony to the reality and character of the phenomena he had 
 had such excellent opportunities for observing. At my sugges- 
 tion he has prepared for this work another and, in certain 
 respects, a more particular statement, which also contains facts 
 of a more recent date. Every word of this statement is 
 literally true, and all the important facts can be attested by 
 the sworn testimony, if required, of hundreds of intelligent and 
 honourable Englishmen, who cannot for an instant be supposed 
 either so weak and ignorant as to be deceived, or so wicked as 
 to lend themselves to a base imposture. Mr. Ferguson says : — 
 
 " The Brothers Davenport and Mr. Wm. Fay have in my 
 presence been relieved, without any action of their own, or the 
 aid of any mortal, from every form of fastening which could be 
 devised by hundreds of persons, sailors, riggers, skilled artizans, 
 and others, in the cities of New York, New England, Canada, and 
 England, and I am fully warranted in saying that there is no method 
 of fastening ever devised, from which they cannot be relieved, 
 without the slightest active effort on their part, or by any one 
 present. 
 
 " In hundreds of instances, after being so loosed, by a force and 
 intelligence sufficient for the work, they have been again bound, 
 without mortal aid, and usually in a more thorough and perfect 
 manner than by the most skilful committees chosen for that 
 purpose. 
 
 " While thus bound, hands and feet immoveable, without the 
 possibility of any action on their part, and enclosed in a cabinet 
 in full view of the spectators, and without the possibility of decep- 
 tion by confederates or otherwise, I have heard in the cabinet as 
 many as six musical instruments playing together a succession of 
 five tunes, while at the same time two hands were displayed at an 
 opening, and heavy blows were heard upon the sides, back, and 
 floor of the cabinet. The doors of the cabinet have all been thrown 
 
ATTENDING THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 105 
 
 open while the music was still sounding, the instruments were seen 
 to be thrown out with force upon the floor, while the young men 
 were instantly examined and found to be securely fastened, so 
 as to remove all doubt of the fact that they took no active part 
 in the concert to which all had listened. It would take three 
 or four pairs of hands, at the lowest estimate, to play upon the 
 various instruments. The only hands belonging to living human 
 beings in the cabinet were two pairs bound together too firmly 
 to allow them to participate in the performance. 
 
 "In these cases the time occupied in opening the doors and 
 examining the young men bound in and to the cabinet, does not 
 exceed two seconds from the full action of the instruments, so 
 that there is not the shadow of a possibility that if they could have 
 got out of their fastenings they could have returned to them. More 
 than this, it has occurred hundreds of times, that when they had 
 been bound with the utmost care and skill, before the doors had been 
 closed, or a second had elapsed, when only the shadow of the door 
 fell upon one of the Davenports or Mr. Fay, hands would be shown, 
 or heavy instruments thrown from the cabinet. I have witnessed 
 the same facts in kind, though less forcible, when but one person 
 was bound in the cabinet. To place this matter beyond a doubt, 
 I have on numerous occasions invited gentlemen well known to 
 the audience, and of the highest character in England in various 
 departments, to enter the cabinet, and be seated between the 
 persons bound within it, with a hand resting upon each, so that 
 they could detect the least motion. These gentlemen have testified 
 that they felt the pressure of what seemed to be human hands, 
 from head to foot ; that the instruments were carried and sounded 
 all around them ; that their requests were instantly complied with, 
 the instruments being played near their feet, in their laps, or on 
 their heads, as they desired. Finally, when the doors were opened, 
 the audience has seen the tambourine upon the head, and the other 
 instruments piled upon or behind them, while it was evident to all 
 that neither of the persons in the cabinet, nor any other in mortal 
 form, could possibly have done what they saw and heard. This 
 placing a witness in the cabinet removes the last reasonable doubt 
 respecting fraud, jugglery, or collusion. Of hundreds of persons 
 who have had this test, only one has ever expressed a doubt of the 
 perfect passivity of those who were bound with him in the cabinet, 
 
 H 
 
106 SUPKAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 A gentleman at Eastbourne said he thought the hand he felt must 
 have been that of Mr. Fay — because it couldn't be anybody's else ! 
 
 " In hundreds of cases, when the Brothers Davenport, or one of 
 them and Mr. Fay, were bound in the cabinet, in the most thorough 
 and complicated manner, I have witnessed perhaps even a more 
 satisfactory test to the spectators than the one last described. After 
 the knots and fastenings have been examined 1 have placed flour, 
 coins, or other substances in both hands of each. The doors of the 
 cabinet are closed ; sounds are made which denote the presence 
 and action of intelligent forces ; ropes are heard rattling ; and in a 
 few moments the two are seen completely freed from their bonds. 
 They open their hands, and show that the flour, coin, shot, or 
 whatever had been placed in them, still remain ; proving that 
 they had been entirely passive in what had taken place. 
 
 " In the presence of from two or three persons to two or three 
 hundred, and on hundreds of occasions, when two of the young 
 men, usually Mr. Fay and one of the Davenports, have been bound 
 to their chairs, and all the other persons present so held or secured 
 as to remove the possibility of collusion, I have seen and heard 
 musical instruments moving through the air over areas of from five 
 or six to thirty or forty feet diameter, sometimes with immense 
 velocity, producing strong currents of air, making circular or 
 eccentric movements which have been compared to the flights of 
 bats or swallows, sometimes passing high above the heads of the 
 company, sometimes playfully gambolling at their feet, often gently 
 tapping, and in a few cases violently striking persons present. 
 Two guitars often fly in this wavy manner in different parts of the 
 room, both twanging rapidly as they go, while a bell and tam- 
 bourine are sounding. The flight of the instruments can be clearly 
 seen by placing upon them a little phosphorated oil. 
 
 " More inexplicable and astounding than any fact I have yet 
 mentioned in this connection, perhaps, is the following, which I 
 have observed hundreds of times, and in which I cannot by any 
 possibility be mistaken. The young men are fairly tied, their 
 wrists being tied together, and also to the chairs in which they 
 are seated. The knot at the wrist is sealed with sealing-wax, to 
 place the slipping or untying of the rope beyond a suspicion of 
 possibility. Then, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, with 
 the velocity of thought, in no appreciable time, the coat of Mr. 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 107 
 
 Fay is removed from his body, it (the coat) and the knots and seal 
 remaining intact. Here is what natural philosophers will call a 
 physical impossibility, yet I have seen it hundreds of times, and it 
 has been seen by thousands, I may say hundreds of thousands of 
 persons. By the flash of a match in my hand I have seen the coat 
 flying through the air, and the coat and the knots and seals have 
 been instantly examined. To remove any doubt of the marvellous 
 character of this fact, the coat of some person present, lent for the 
 purpose, has been put on in the same way, under the same circum- 
 stances, and with a lightning-like rapidity, which of itself would 
 not be humanly possible if there were no ropes or sealing-wax. 
 On several occasions, not only have coats been removed or put on 
 in this manner, in defiance of all ordinary ideas of possibility and 
 the laws of matter, but the waistcoat of one of the Brothers 
 Davenport has been instantly removed while his hands were tied 
 together and his coat remained upon him. In this case there could 
 be no question of the fact, since the light was struck instantly, and 
 his coat seen in its place. 
 
 "I have seen the rope removed from the wrists of Mr. Fay 
 and W. H. Davenport, while the knots remained unloosed and the 
 seal unbroken. This rope, with the knots and seal, is still kept as 
 a curiosity at one of the hotels of the great American watering- 
 place, Saratoga Springs. In England, as related by Mr. B. Coleman, 
 in a statement published in the Biography of the Brothers Daven- 
 port, a rope, tied and sealed by an officer of the British Navy, had 
 every knot untied, except the one which was sealed, and which, 
 being towards the ends of the rope, was the key to all the others. 
 To understand this, take a rope or cord, and, beginning at the 
 middle, tie a series of knots, such as would confine Mr. Fay's 
 wrists to each other and the chair in which he was seated. Seal 
 the last knot, and imagine all the others untied without the seal 
 being broken. It is, like the removal of the coat, inconceivable, 
 yet it was done in the presence of many witnesses. 
 
 " I have also witnessed the movements and playing of the musical 
 instruments while the faces and persons of those present were 
 manipulated, while the Davenports and Mr. Fay were not tied but 
 firmly held hand and foot by men chosen from the company, and 
 when the doors were locked, and every one so secured as to make 
 deception impossible. This has been done many times, in the 
 
 h 2 
 
108 STJPRAMTJNDANE FACTS. 
 
 presence of hundreds, and also of three or four persons trying the 
 experiment — myself, in that case, making one of them. I have 
 also witnessed similar operations when these so-called mediums 
 were asleep, and no one with them but myself. 
 
 "Furthermore, I have in their presence had articulate and 
 audible conversation with a voice which was not theirs, nor that of 
 any living person. With this voice, or the intelligent power of 
 which it was the expression, 1 have conversed as a man talks with 
 his friend, while the power or being from which the voice pro- 
 ceeded made its presence and reality known to me by other physical 
 manifestations. 
 
 "I have seen large dining tables, with all the dishes for dinner, 
 raised from six inches to two feet in the air, no one aiding in the 
 slightest degree, and not a dish being removed from its place, while 
 all present were touched by hands while the table was elevated, and 
 before and after. 
 
 " In railway carriages, when in company with the Brothers Daven- 
 port and Mr. Fay, in passing through dark tunnels, I have been 
 manipulated all over my body by hands seemingly human, some- 
 times unexpectedly, at others at my request, when no one present 
 could have touched me without my knowledge. 
 
 " It would require a volume to describe the various tests applied 
 by myself and others, which have proved to me and them, beyond 
 the possibility of doubt, that all these occurrences were without 
 the active agency of these young men, but that they were the work of 
 dexterous, intelligent powers, usually invisible and impalpable, but 
 who could, under certain circumstances, make themselves heard, 
 seen, and felt. In the full exercise of all my senses, I have heard, 
 felt, and seen all that I have stated, and much more of a kindred 
 nature. 
 
 "From as good testimony as I have for any fact that I can 
 accept without personal knowledge, I believe that these young men 
 have been raised into the air to the ceilings of rooms, and have 
 been transported a distance of miles by the same force and intelli- 
 gence, or intelligent force, that has for eleven years worked in their 
 presence so many marvels. I have heard and considered every 
 doubt and denial that scepticism has urged wherever it has been 
 my duty to present these facts, and I can say that not one of them 
 is founded upon accurate observation or philosophical deduction, or 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 109 
 
 can weigh the weight of a feather against the thousand times 
 demonstrated reality of the facts above stated. 
 
 " There are some other facts, not often observed, of perhaps a 
 more remarkable character than any I have yet given, and which 
 may at some time help to throw light upon the mode in which 
 certain manifestations are made by the intelligences producing 
 them. No doubt the unseen world has its laws, or modes of action, 
 as well as the one with which we are better, but not too well, 
 acquainted. 
 
 " I have seen, with my natural vision, the arms, bust, and, on two 
 occasions, the entire person of Ira E. Davenport duplicated at a 
 distance of from two to five feet from where he was seated fast 
 bound to his seat. I have seen, also, a full-formed figure of a 
 person, which was not that of any of the company present. This 
 spectre, which appeared in the flash of a match which it caused to 
 be struck, seemingly for that purpose, was seen in the house of an 
 English nobleman, by himself and four others, his friends, as well as 
 by me. The form appeared for a moment and faded while we 
 looked at it. That this phenomena was not of a subjective 
 character, or an illusion of the senses, was proven by the 
 number of persons who saw it, when nothing of the kind was 
 expected. 
 
 " In certain conditions, not yet clearly understood, the hands, 
 arms, and clothing of the Brothers Davenport and Mr. Fay are 
 duplicated alike to the sight and the touch. In other cases, hands 
 which are visible and tangible, and which have all the characteris- 
 tics of living human hands, as well as arms, and entire bodies, are 
 presented, which are not theirs, Or those of any one present. In 
 both cases, the presentation, or manifestation, may be considered a 
 projection made by an invisible intelligence, by such a power over 
 matter or forces which are by some considered as the essence of 
 matter, as in the present state of physical science cannot be clearly 
 conceived, much less definitely stated. 
 
 "For twelve years these young men, now about twenty-five 
 years old, have been before the public, subjected almost daily, and 
 often several times a day, to tests the most intelligent and scientific, 
 and also to those of a boorish and barbarous character, and they 
 claim that they have triumphed in all, and have never been de- 
 tected in any fraud, and have never been tied, by all the appliances 
 
110 
 
 SUPEAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 of human art, so that the ' power' attending them has 
 able to untie them. 
 
 " The theories which have been formed respecting the philo- 
 sophy of these exhibitions of power are as various as the minds 
 that have formed them. I have not heard any that seem to me 
 fully explanatory of the facts. I have my own theory, but it may 
 meet with the same objection. Still I will state it. 
 
 " 1. Spirit, as it ascends, or in its progressive development, 
 holds subordinate all the conditions through which it has passed. 
 
 " 2. Every condition has its alliance with one higher, and is in 
 its measure a reflection thereof ; consequently — 
 
 " 3. Spirit, ascended above fleshly form, is capable of all of which 
 it was capable in form and more ; and in association with certain 
 convenient or kindred conditious called mediumistic, makes known 
 its superior power alike in thought, expression and action. 
 
 " It is not, and has never been, pretended that the physical mani- 
 festations which are given in the presence or by means of the 
 Brothers Davenport and Mr. Fay are peculiar to them. There may 
 be scores, perhaps hundreds, of persons in America in whose pre- 
 sence similar manifestations are given, and there is little doubt 
 that as many might be found in this country in whom such powers 
 exist, or will become developed. One such case may be given as an 
 illustration. 
 
 " Mr. Edwin Woolford, of South Clifton, for seventeen years a 
 churchwarden of the parish of which Kev. George Harper is curate, 
 having heard of the Davenports in London, and read an account of 
 the manifestations, retired to his room, and had the following ex- 
 periences, which have been witnessed by his family and neighbours, 
 who in unqualified terms testify to their reality. 
 
 " He laid a violin on his table, which, without contact with any 
 one, was moved back and forward upon the table, and then raised 
 from it and placed upon his arm, when a sudden flash of light from 
 the fire stopped its motion, and it was left resting upon his arm. On 
 the next trial it rose from the table, floated around the room, was 
 raised to the ceiling, and touched all present, frequently moving as 
 requested by one or other of the spectators. These marvels were 
 repeated on other occasions, and paper and a pencil being laid on 
 the table, plain, intelligible writing was found on the paper, no one 
 present having touched either pencil or paper, while all distinctly 
 
IN THE EXPERIENCE OF ENGLISHMEN. Ill 
 
 heard the process of writing. The table was lifted three feet from 
 the ground, and was moved back and forth, touching all present. 
 Sparks of light were seen falling from the ceiling sufficiently bril- 
 liant to show the position of each one present, with other manifesta- 
 tions of a similar character. 
 
 " These experiences induced Mr. Woolford to visit the Daven- 
 ports and Mr. Fay in London, and observe the manifestations in 
 their presence." 
 
 While travelling in the North of England, Mr. Ferguson 
 became acquainted with a blind collier, residing in or near 
 Huddersfield, who, he was assured by many witnesses, was 
 accompanied by manifestations of a physical character, similar 
 to some of those attending the Brothers Davenport. He had 
 allowed himself to be tied by the wrists, and the cords carried 
 through holes bored in a plank and fastened on the other side, 
 of course beyond his own reach to unfasten. This was done 
 while he was in a trance state, and consequently insensible, 
 and curious and incredulous persons had taken such a cruel 
 advantage of his helplessness as to produce wounds on his 
 wrists, in tying them, which had required weeks to cure. It 
 was beyond question that he had been freed by some power not 
 his own, or that of any being in the flesh. 
 
 The manifestations usually given in the presence of the 
 Brothers Davenport in their public and private seances are by 
 no means the most remarkable which attend them. In their 
 hours of relaxation or privacy they are not unfrequently 
 accompanied by very extraordinary phenomena, and often 
 when nothing of the kind is expected. 
 
 For example : in a Mr. Dixon's billiard-room at Milwaukee, 
 Wisconsin, where the young men were amusing themselves, 
 the proprietor, who had witnessed the public seances, proposed 
 that the room should be darkened, and that all who were 
 present should place their hands on the raised border of the 
 table and await the result. After a few moments the balls 
 
112 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 were heard to roll and click against each other, as if propelled 
 by expert players. The cues moved, the game appeared to be 
 regularly played, and it was marked and counted. No person 
 moved, and in the darkness no mortal could have played the 
 balls as they were played, or have marked the game. This 
 experience, first had at Milwaukee, has since been often 
 repeated, and several times in London. Even when playing 
 themselves, in the full light, the game is often accompanied by 
 audible signals. 
 
 In a private room of an hotel in Manchester, in the presence 
 of Mr. Ferguson and a gentleman from London, there occurred 
 some curious evidences of the powers of invisible beings. The 
 poker was taken from the fire-place and carried across the 
 room, and placed upon the canopy over a bed. A small closed 
 box was placed under the table at which they were sitting by 
 the gentleman above referred to, and on opening it, after a 
 few moments, an inscription was found written on the inside 
 of the cover which had not been there previously. To be sure 
 that no trick had been practised upon him, the gentleman went 
 immediately to a shop and bought another box, which he 
 securely fastened and placed under the table. On opening it 
 a similar and more startling inscription was found written. 
 
 Willing to experiment further, the gentleman poured a glass 
 of spirits into a tumbler and held it under the table. The 
 tumbler appeared to be touched, and moved as if some one 
 were drinking, and when the tumbler was brought into the 
 light the liquid had vanished. The closest inspection of the 
 carpet did not show that a drop had been spilled. This 
 experiment was repeated three times, with the most careful 
 examination in each instance, the tumbler also being held by 
 different persons. The room was lighted, and the falling sides 
 of the table-cover were repeatedly raised by what seemed to be 
 hands beneath. 
 
 It does not follow from this fact of the disappearance of 
 
THE VOICE. 113 
 
 liquids that invisible beings drink, any more than that they 
 are nourished by earthly food, because, as related in the 
 Biography of the Brothers Davenport, they seem to eat. It 
 has been abundantly proved that substances, both solid and 
 liquid, are apparently created by invisible forces, and they as 
 certainly cause them to disappear. Heat changes solids into 
 liquids, and liquids into gases or invisible vapours. There is 
 needed only a suspension of the attraction of the atoms of 
 matter to each other, or an increase of repulsion — in other 
 words, a change in the action of certain forces — to cause the 
 instant disappearance, or seeming annihilation, of all visible 
 objects. 
 
 But no manifestation connected with the Brothers Daven- 
 port, and others similarly gifted, has seemed to the editor of 
 this work so remarkable as the fact that the intelligences which 
 attend them are able to speak with a human voice, and hold 
 conversations in articulate language. This fact has been 
 attested by Mr. Ferguson, by Mr. Coleman, and many others. 
 Such conversations have been heard by scores of persons in 
 England, and by hundreds in America. 
 
 The case in which I heard such a conversation between men 
 in the flesh and an invisible intelligent being was of a character 
 that deserves to be carefully recorded, and in the interests of 
 science I wish to make a faithful record of my observations. 
 
 On the evening of Feb. 28, 1865, I received a telegram from 
 Dr. Ferguson, asking me to come to Room 120, Great Western 
 Hotel, Paddington. I took a cab, found him at the place 
 appointed, and heard from him an account of the riot at Leeds 
 the night before. 
 
 The two Davenports and Mr. Fay came into the room, but 
 the latter, being ill, soon retired. An English gentleman of 
 property residing in the hotel, interested in a scientific exami- 
 nation of the phenomena attending the brothers, was also 
 present. 
 
114 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 When the matter of the riots and outrages at Liverpool, 
 Huddersfield, and Leeds had been discussed, and we had 
 consulted on the steps proper to be taken in view of so violent 
 an opposition, the brothers, Ira and William, proposed that 
 " John " — the name by which they designate what seems to 
 be the chief of the invisible intelligences attending them — 
 should be invited to take part in the council. 
 
 The conditions necessary to an oral converse with the 
 invisible " John " were darkness and a speaking-trumpet — 
 horn — tube of pasteboard — in short, a small, hard tube. The 
 gentleman above mentioned, whom I will designate as Mr. X., 
 volunteered to go in search of such an instrument. In his 
 absence the window was darkened, and the fire in the grate 
 extinguished. He returned with the only thing of the kind 
 he could find, a common tin funnel. This was placed upon a 
 small table. The two brothers, Ira and William, sat on each 
 side, Mr. X. reclined upon a couch, and Mr. Ferguson and I 
 sat fronting the brothers some six feet distant. The door had 
 been locked, and the light was extinguished. 
 
 Observe that here was no question of money, and no interest 
 to deceive. The brothers, for their own sake, wished to ask 
 about the riots, and to be advised respecting the course to be 
 taken in an emergency. Mr. Ferguson had the same interest, 
 while Mr. X. and myself were the only other persons present, 
 and neither of us had any interest but curiosity. I would 
 observe, also, that I was thoroughly acquainted with the pecu- 
 liarities of the voices of every person present. As a physiologist, 
 and as an elocutionist and musician, I have studied the voice 
 and its capabilities. I also understand ventriloquism, and 
 can produce all its illusions. 
 
 The light had not been extinguished twenty seconds when 
 the tin funnel was heard to rattle on the table, and a voice, at 
 first coarse and indistinct, came from it. Mr. Ferguson said 
 that he was touched several times, both with the funnel and 
 
THE VOICE. 115 
 
 what appeared to be the hand of some person, and two large 
 soft finger ends, as they seemed to me, were pressed de- 
 liberately upon the back of my hand. 
 
 Then commenced a conversation between the voice and Mr. 
 Ferguson, and sometimes Ira. The voice was formed in the 
 funnel, for its metallic ring could be distinguished, but it 
 seemed to be formed not at the small end, but where it begins 
 to broaden. The words were well formed and clearly articu- 
 lated, but as if by organs somewhat thick and soft, a little 
 like those of a fat person or a negro. Statements were made, 
 questions answered, and advice given. I do not care to report 
 the words. The persons interested, Mr. Ferguson and the 
 two Davenports, were told that they would probably meet 
 with more difficulties, but that they would be protected as 
 they had been. 
 
 The voice was not that of any of the persons in the room. 
 It was not the ventriloquial voice. Every voice has its own 
 character. Every observing person can distinguish an educated 
 from an ignorant man, a well-bred from a vulgar man, by the 
 tones of the voice and modes of enunciation. Many shades of 
 character are revealed by the speech. Many think the ear 
 judges better than the eye. The blind are thought by some 
 to be as well able to judge of character as those who see. 
 For my own part I can never form a satisfactory idea of a 
 person until I have heard him. 
 
 This voice, then, was that of no person I had ever seen. 
 It was that of a plain, sensible, common man, rather below 
 the middle class in culture, but earnest, and, if one could so 
 pronounce from a voice, honest. If, the room being dark and 
 the door unlocked, a stranger had entered and spoken in the 
 same way, I should have considered him a plain, practical, 
 earnest, well-meaning man, who might be a master mechanic, 
 mariner, or man of business in any similar occupations. 
 
 I watched carefully not only every tone and inflection of 
 
116 
 
 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 this voice, but the place from which it seemed to come. It 
 was not more than four feet from me, in front of Mr. 
 Ferguson, and not above a yard from the floor. "When the 
 last word had been said, and a candle lighted, Mr. Ferguson 
 sat still with his hands clasped together resting on his knees, 
 and the funnel was seen placed over them. It is very certain 
 that not one of the five persons present had moved from their 
 seats. It is as certain that the funnel was brought from the 
 table by some force and volition not belonging to either of 
 them, and I am as certain as it is possible to be of any fact 
 whatever that the voice, distinctly heard in a conversation of 
 ten or fifteen minutes' duration, was not that of any one of the 
 only five persons present. 
 
 Many hundreds of persons have observed the tying and un- 
 tying of ropes, and the tuning and playing upon musical 
 instruments, by forces which must be intelligent to perform 
 such complicated operations. They have seen also the exhibition 
 of hands and arms during the cabinet seances, and the removal 
 of coats while the wrists were tied together in the dark seances. 
 The production of a voice and its use in speech, to my mind, 
 go beyond any of these operations. It is probable that most 
 persons will avoid the difficulty by denying the fact. It is a 
 fact notwithstanding, but one for which I will offer no ex- 
 planation. I must say, however, that the usual theories of 
 sympathy, transference of mental impressions, involuntary and 
 unconscious action, duplication of spirits and bodies, do not, in 
 my view, present or even give a cue to a satisfactory solution. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson, since he has been in England, wishing to 
 offer to a friend a test of what he believes to be spirit power, 
 placed a sheet of white paper in a cigar-box, without a pencil 
 or any means of writing upon it. The box was then covered, 
 and paper carefully fastened over the whole box. In five 
 minutes the box was opened, and a legible inscription found 
 written upon the paper, apparently with a lead pencil, and of 
 
THE TRIUMPH OVER OPPOSITION. 117 
 
 a character beyond the intelligence of either of the four persons 
 present. 
 
 Many other cases could be given, and there is no doubt 
 that these evidences will soon be so many and so overwhelming 
 as to shame, if anything can shame, those who from cowardice, 
 or bigotry, or mere stupidity, have denied their verity. 
 
 " The distinguishing characteristic of the Brothers Davenport 
 and Mr. Fay," says Mr. Ferguson, " is that they are able to 
 give their palpable and unmistakeable demonstrations of supra- 
 mundane power before promiscuous audiences at all times and 
 in all places where the requisite conditions can be attained. 
 Others have, as a rule, been able to exercise or enjoy this gift 
 only in select companies ; have been liable to failure, and were 
 never able to meet the buffe tings of the storm of opposition 
 which so strangely rages around every manifestation of supernal 
 power. 
 
 " The Davenports and Mr. Fay, on the contrary, never fail, and 
 their extraordinary powers seem at times even to increase with 
 opposition ; and in the degree in which timid or inconsiderate 
 friends tremble for their success, and obstinate opponents seek 
 their defeat, they rise to the occasion, and give more powerful 
 and triumphant evidences of truth. This may be, in fact, the 
 effect of long experience, reaching from their childhood to the 
 present hour ; of such an education or training on their character, 
 and the calm and solid faith in a Power which guides and 
 governs supramundane manifestations, and which has made 
 them equal to every occasion and every emergency. 
 
 " They have met and have triumphed over every form of oppo- 
 sition. The boorish demands of the vulgar, the absurd tests of 
 the conceited and presumptuous, the affectations of pretended 
 science, the moanings and fearful forebodings of the would-be 
 conservators of morality and religion, the pretensions of jug- 
 glers, and the jargon of those who talk of ' loiv forms of 
 spiritual manifestations/ and the benighted brutality of those 
 
118 STJPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 who would appeal to the law and revive against them some 
 antiquated statute against witchcraft, and so revive the horrible 
 persecutions of past centuries ; all these they have successfully 
 encountered, and the character of ihe evidences of supra- 
 mundane power given through them has been made so 
 evident that only the wilfully blind can fail to see in them 
 solid and unquestionable proof of its existence and action, 
 and beneficent purpose. 
 
 " I can truly say that I have never seen these young men 
 disconcerted before any form of opposition. They have shown 
 under the most trying circumstances a manly resolution above 
 all praise, and whether the intelligence by which they are 
 guided be considered high or low, good or evil, vulgar or 
 refined, I have found in them abundant evidences of wisdom 
 and inspiration. It has not unfrequently happened that those 
 we might expect to be their friends, professed spiritualists, have 
 repudiated or denounced them or their manifestations, and not 
 only from prudential reasons avoided all responsibility, but 
 attempted direct opposition, when a sudden and unexpected 
 triumph would fill their papers with the praises of the Daven- 
 ports from the very men who had deserted them in their 
 severest trials. Often their success has been attributed to 
 adventitious circumstances. Many have tried to flatter me 
 with the idea that some ability of mine had brought the mani- 
 festations to a successful recognition. It was not so. If I did 
 my duty, or in any way secured attention to the facts pre- 
 sented, it was the reality of these facts and the evidence they 
 gave of the power attending the Davenports which gave the 
 basis of all success. I learned to act in union with their 
 impressions and experience, and the most delightful assurance 
 I have to-day in connection with my relation to these evidences, 
 to these men, and to the cause they represent, is, that a Power 
 Supreme has directed and overruled in all that we are and in 
 all that we meet. Nothing but this assurance could sustain 
 
EQUAL TO EMERGENCY. 119 
 
 either of us a single day or in a single exhibition, and all 
 knowledge and ignorance, passion and prejudice, folly or 
 wisdom, our own or that of others, we had to encounter. 
 
 " My association with the Brothers Davenport and Mr. 
 Fay, and my relation to the manifestations, is of a very 
 remarkable character in this : that such has been the uncon- 
 scious adaptation of my experience to the recognition of 
 these evidences, we have never found it necessary to consult 
 together in respect to a single exhibition, or even an incident 
 of such exhibition. From the time I first witnesssed the 
 manifestations I have been impressed with their nature and 
 purpose, and I feel bound to say that since my connection 
 with them we have never been placed in any emergency for 
 which there was not a manifest supramundane adaptation. 
 Formerly, the Davenports had been perplexed by the inability 
 of the well-intentioned persons occupying a position similar to 
 mine to receive invisible direction ; in my own case there has 
 been no such difficulty. Every experience of my past life has 
 been brought into requisition, and in no part of that experi- 
 ence do I see a more perfect ordering of a supernal Power and 
 Providence than in this perfect adaptation of my past life to 
 my present work, of my powers of intuition or capacity for 
 receiving impressions, to the daily demand for the exercise of 
 such powers, and of this harmony of present action to what I 
 believe will be its result in the divine unfoldings of the 
 fature." 
 
 Since the most of this chapter was written, the Brothers 
 Davenport have been subjected to a series of extraordinary 
 outrages in some of the provincial towns of England, which 
 show that the spirit of opposition manifested by a portion of 
 the public press is ready to take more violent forms when it 
 falls into a lower stratum of society. The facts connected 
 with the riots at Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds are very 
 clearly stated in the following address of the Brothers Daven- 
 
120 STJPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 port to the British public, which, as a portion of the history 
 of the movement, deserves a place in these records : — 
 
 "THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT TO THE BRITISH PUBLIC. 
 
 " We appeal to the free press and the enlightened and fair- 
 dealing people of the British Empire for a candid consideration of 
 the following statement, and for the even-handed justice usually 
 given in this country to all persons, rich or poor, citizens or 
 strangers. We ask, also, as a matter of justice, that journals which 
 have published accounts of the recent riots at Liverpool, Kudders- 
 field, and Leeds, of which we were the victims, should also give 
 the facts contained in this statement. 
 
 "We beg, furthermore, most respectfully to commend to the 
 consideration of the Eight Honourable Sir George Grey and the 
 magistracy and police authorities of the United Kingdom, the fact 
 that within two weeks, in three of the most important provincial 
 towns in England, without any fault of our own, transgressing no 
 law of the realm, and offering no violence or injury to any person? 
 we have been made to suffer in property, and have been menaced 
 with extreme personal injury, with apparent danger to our lives, 
 as will appear by the following statement of facts : — 
 
 "After having given over two hundred public and private 
 seances, or exhibitions of physical phenomena, such as have been 
 described in all the leading journals of Europe and America^ and 
 in our published biography, at the Queen's Concert Rooms, London, 
 and the mansions of the nobility and gentry of England, we visited 
 Liverpool on the 13th of February, and, as is our custom, gave a 
 private seance, to which the members of the press and others were 
 invited, who reported the satisfactory character of the exhibition. 
 February 14th we gave two public seances at St. George's Hall 
 with like results ; a private seance at a gentleman's mansion and a 
 public morning performance on Tuesday were alike satisfactory. 
 
 " On Tuesday evening we were proceeding with another exhibi- 
 tion, when two persons, a Mr. Hulley and a Mr. Cummins, acting 
 as a committee from the audience, in attempting to tie our wrists, 
 caused so much pain that we were compelled to protest against the 
 torture they were inflicting. We were willing to be tied with 
 entire security, as we have been many hundreds of times by 
 riggers, sailors, engineers, and other skilled persons, or to give any 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 121 
 
 reasonable test in proof that we have no active part in the 
 phenomena witnessed in our presence ; we had no fear of a ' Tom- 
 fool knot,' or of any mode of fastening that did not inflict unbear- 
 able torture. We declined to be bound by a committee whose 
 unfairness and even brutality were soon manifest. Hulley and 
 Cummins refused to retire and give place to another committee ; 
 the audience was made to believe that it was the form of a par- 
 ticular knot, and not the cruelty of its application, to which we 
 objected, and we were compelled by an unappeasable tumult to 
 return the money taken for tickets, and postpone further pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 " On the following evening printed regulations were given to 
 every person entering the hall, and read from the platform, in 
 which we distinctly claimed the right of rejecting any person on a 
 committee whom we should find acting with unfairness. This 
 would be our right were we criminals on trial for felony. Before 
 commencing, we invited all persons who were not satisfied with 
 these regulations to retire from the hall, and receive the money 
 they had paid for entrance. 
 
 "Messrs. Hulley and Cummins, backed by a crowd of their 
 friends, came again upon the platform, and, from their previous 
 unfairness, were promptly rejected by us as a committee. They 
 insisted upon tying us, and appealed to the audience to support 
 them in their demand. They refused to leave the platform when 
 requested, took possession of our cabinet, and in various ways ex- 
 cited violent manifestations in the audience. 
 
 " We were then assured by a gentleman of Liverpool that unless 
 we submitted to the demands of these men there would be a furious 
 riot. He promised that they should not be permitted to injure 
 us, and we finally yielded to his assurances. But they had no 
 sooner placed the cords upon our wrists than they inflicted a degree 
 of pain which could not be endured. "We protested against this 
 violence, but in vain, and, refusing to submit to it longer, had the 
 cords cut from our wrists, and left the platform, which was instantly 
 invaded by the mob ; our cabinet was broken in pieces, and Hulley 
 and Cummins, the heroes of this assault of some hundreds of brave 
 Englishmen upon four unarmed, unoffending, and unprotected 
 foreigners, were borne from the hall upon the shoulders of their 
 friends, apparently proud of their triumph. 
 
122 
 
 SUPEAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 "Our cabinet destroyed, and our business interrupted, with heavy 
 pecuniary damage in Liverpool, we returned to London, had a new 
 cabinet constructed, and on the following Monday repaired to 
 Halifax, where we gave our usual public and private exhibitions, 
 without interruption. 
 
 " Our next engagement was at Huddersfield, February 21st. On 
 our arrival we were informed that Hulley and Cummins, the heroes of 
 the Liverpool mob, had been telegraphed to, and were coming with 
 a strong deputation from that town, to break up our exhibition 
 The infuriated mob was the common talk of the town. We ap- 
 pealed to the police, and we are happy to say that, in this instance, 
 a sufficient force was promptly sent to the hall for our protection. 
 The crowd that assembled gave many indications of being prepared 
 for violence. When our representative had stated the regulations 
 adopted, and that we proposed simply the presentation of certain 
 facts, without any theory, and asked for the appointment of a com- 
 mittee, two gentlemen, instructed, it was said, by Hulley and 
 Cummins, came upon the platform and commenced to tie our wrists 
 together behind us, which they did with needless severity. We bore 
 the pain, however, until carrying the ropes through the hole in the 
 seat, -they drew the backs of our hands down upon it with such 
 violence as to threaten dislocation, placing their knees upon the seat, 
 and in one instance upon the hands of one of us to give them greater 
 purchase. This torture, deliberately, and to all appearance mali- 
 ciously inflicted, we of course could not bear, and at our demand the 
 cords were instantly severed. We exposed our livid wrists, in which 
 every strand of the cord was visibly imprinted, to the audience, 
 who, to the credit of their humanity, cried out ' shame !' But the 
 mob organized to break up our exhibition had no such feeling, and 
 made a simultaneous rush for the platform, where, however, an 
 efficient police force saved our property from destruction and us from 
 a violence, which, under the stimulating addresses of the heroes of 
 the Liverpool outrage, expended itself in hootings and howlings. 
 
 " We had engagements for two nights at Hull, but on our arrival 
 we were informed by the gentleman who had engaged us, the chair- 
 man of the hall committee, and the police superintendent, that there 
 were such indications of a violent mob, that we could not be per- 
 mitted to give our exhibition, and we received from the gentleman 
 chiefly interested the following note : — ■ 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 123 
 
 " ' Music Hall, Jarret-street, Hull, 
 
 " ' 22nd February, 1865. 
 " ' Sir, — As I believe there is reason to apprehend a disturbance 
 at the hall this evening, if the seance of the Davenport Brothers 
 takes place, I have come to the conclusion that it would be advisable 
 to postpone the stance. I am sorry to do this, particularly as your- 
 self and the Messrs. Davenport have arrived in Hull, and are ready 
 to fulfil your engagement ; but I am driven to do so by the organized 
 attach which I am given to understand is in preparation. I am 
 also urged to do so by the proprietors of the hall, who are alarmed 
 lest their property should be damaged by any disturbance. 
 " 'I remain, yours faithfully, 
 
 " ' Eobert Bowser. 
 " ' Eev. Dr. Ferguson, Eoyal Station Hotel, Hull.' 
 
 " Failing to find at Hull that protection in our legal rights which 
 we had supposed was extended to every man on English ground, we 
 went to meet our next engagement at Leeds, where the scenes of 
 Liverpool and Huddersfield were re-enacted with increased violence. 
 We were met by an organized mob, and were refused the protection 
 of the police when it was demanded. When the ringleaders or 
 agents of the mob, taking possession of the stage, had subjected us 
 to the same violence that had been planned and practised upon us 
 at Liverpool and Huddersfield — the mob again destroying our pro- 
 perty, smashing the cabinet and breaking up or purloining our 
 musical instruments, and we were protected from personal violence, 
 amid the smashing of door panels and the howling of an enraged 
 populace, by the tardy arrival of a detachment of police and the 
 brave and firm conduct of one of its members — our agent, contrary to 
 all justice, was compelled to order the return of the admission money 
 paid by those who had come for the very purpose of making the riot 
 from which we suffered. On the same day we had given a public 
 seance, attended by the members of the press and some of the most 
 respectable citizens of Leeds, in which the famous ' Tom-fool knot' 
 was used, and in which, so far as we were able to judge, the pheno- 
 mena exhibited gave entire satisfaction. 
 
 " It remains but to state two or three facts which may throw 
 further light on these proceedings. 
 
 " In Liverpool, as reported in the Mercury, Mr. Hulley, when 
 
 i 2 
 
124 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 accused of acting unfairly to, and being an enemy of the Daven- 
 ports, said, { I avow it. I am a bitter foe to the Davenports.' 
 After such an avowal, what right had he to act on a committee whose 
 duty was strict impartiality 1 
 
 " We wish to be just to the police. At Huddersfield, though 
 they could not give us order, we were protected from actual violence. 
 At Leeds such protection was withheld until too late to save our 
 property, 
 
 "At Liverpool the Mercury. says : — ■ 
 
 "' The appearance of inspectors Valentine and Southwell, with 
 a force of thirty men, did not stop the process of demolition. The 
 police, indeed, did not attempt to interfere so long as only the pro- 
 perty of the Davenports was threatened.' 
 
 " The Leeds Mercury, reporting the violent proceedings against 
 us at Huddersfield, says : — 
 
 " ' Mr. Walker, not considering that his hands could pull the rope 
 tight enough, used his Itnee to assist him, and the brother he was 
 
 operating on again protested Several persons had at 
 
 that time gone to the cabinet, and Davenport showed his wrist to 
 some of them. It had a livid mark fringed with red, about the 
 hreadth of a finger, and in the hollow of this mark there were the 
 marks of the individual strands of the rope.' 
 
 " Yet some have been found to insist on inflicting this brutal 
 torture upon us, with howling mobs to back them, as if we were 
 malefactors or wild beasts. It may be doubted if such an amount 
 of violence, wrong, and outrage has been inflicted on any un- 
 offending man in England since Clarkson was mobbed by the 
 slave-traders of Liverpool, and Priestly by the mad bigots of 
 Birmingham. 
 
 " And for what reason ? What evil have we done 1 Of what 
 wrong can any man accuse us 1 How have we offended the public 
 or any individual ? If there were anything immoral or unlawful 
 in our exhibition we could understand the feeling which has 
 prompted so much lawless violence, which has been so largely 
 excused by the press and tolerated by the police authorities. We 
 are called humbugs, but if every humbug in England is to be 
 mobbed, it may be well for both the Government and the people 
 to consider the possible consequences. But we solemnly and earnestly 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 125 
 
 deny that we have ever deceived any man in this matter, or made 
 any false representation, and we can appeal to many thousands of 
 intelligent persons on both sides of the Atlantic who will testify to 
 the reality of these manifestations. It was said to us at Liverpool, 
 ' Admit that you practise deception, and we have nothing to say 
 against you/ How could we admit what is not true % For eleven 
 years we have constantly asserted that the physical facts exhibited 
 in our presence are not produced actively or consciously by our- 
 selves, nor by confederates, nor by any trick or deception whatever ; 
 and we have submitted to hundreds of tests, and are ready to sub- 
 mit to hundreds more, to satisfy any reasonable mind of the truth 
 of this declaration. 
 
 "It is utterly false that we have refused to be tied with a par- 
 ticular knot. We have simply and only refused to be tortured. 
 We have been covered all over with the most complicated fasten- 
 ings that could be devised ; we have been held hand and foot by 
 persons above all suspicion of fraud, and tested in every conceivable 
 way, without affecting the manifestations which occur in our 
 presence. In eleven years we have never been fastened so that the 
 ' force ; attending us, whatever it may be called or considered, has 
 not released us. We do not believe we can be, unless placed in 
 such pain as to destroy the conditions under which this ' force ' is 
 able to act. With or without fastenings this power attends us; 
 single or together, awake or asleep, bound or held, and in whatever 
 way our passivity is procured, the manifestations alike in kind, if 
 not in degree, attend us. There is no fraud, no trick. 
 
 " Were we mere jugglers we should meet with no violence, or 
 we should find protection. Could we declare that these things 
 done in our presence were deceptions of the senses, we should, no 
 doubt, reap a plentiful harvest of money and applause. As tricks 
 they would transcend, according to the testimony of experienced 
 observers, any ever exhibited in Occident or Orient. The wonders 
 of the cabinet, or still more of the dark seance, surpass all preten- 
 sions of conjurers. We could safely defy the world to equal them, 
 and be honoured for our dexterity. But we are not jugglers, and 
 truthfully declare that we are not, and we are mobbed from town 
 to town, our property destroyed and our lives imperilled. 
 
 f What is the possible motive for these outrages, which some of 
 the enlightened organs of public opinion have incited and excused 1 
 
126 SUPRAMUNDANE FACTS. 
 
 Breaking no law, we claim the protection of the law, which, we 
 repeat, even were we criminals, would save us from illegal outrage. 
 If we, asserting physical facts interesting to every man of science, 
 and doing our best to demonstrate their verity, and satisfy a laud- 
 able curiosity respecting them, are to be treated as we have been 
 this past fortnight in four large English towns, who can be safe 
 from similar outrages 1 We have ventured to appeal to her 
 Majesty's Secretary for the Home Department, and we appeal also 
 to every member of the British Parliament, as we do to the 
 whole British people, to give our case a proper investigation. 
 
 " If, in spite of our solemn declarations of entire good faith, and 
 all our efforts to demonstrate the reality of the phenomena which 
 attend us, we are disbelieved, every man in England has the right 
 to absent himself from our exhibitions. We do not ask the 
 attendance of any person who is not ready to give a fair and candid 
 examination to the tests to which we submit and the facts pre- 
 sented. There is no reason for excitement, and no excuse for 
 violence. There is as much call for riot against electricity, or a 
 mob to put down oxygen. We have not even an opinion to 
 support or a creed to promulgate \ only certain curious, or, it may 
 be, important facts to exhibit. 
 
 "Shall we be allowed to do this % This is the question now to 
 be decided. The riots at Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds have 
 excited and alarmed all England. In scores of places where we 
 have engagements, involving many thousands of pounds, our agents 
 or those interested have become frightened, and their and our 
 interests are placed in jeopardy. Shall they be sacrificed 1 It is 
 for the people, the press, and the Government of England to 
 determine. 
 
 " It is our intention to go on in the work in which we are, in 
 perfect sincerity, engaged. We are ready to give in every town 
 in the United Kingdom the proofs that we have given in London 
 of the reality of the phenomena we exhibit, and with which the 
 tying of ropes, on which so much stress is laid, has so little to do, 
 that they might be entirely dispensed with, substituting many other 
 tests of an equally or more satisfactory character. We are ready, 
 in good faith, to fulfil every engagement ; but we demand, as we 
 think we have a right to demand, the protection of the laws under 
 
BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 127 
 
 which we have voluntarily placed ourselves, and a little more of 
 boasted ' English fair play,' of which we have heard so much, and, 
 in .a few cases, experienced so little. 
 
 "Ira Erastus Davenport. 
 
 "Wm. Henry Davenport. 
 
 " (Known as the Brothers Davenport.) 
 
 "London, Feb. 27, 1865." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FORMATION OF MATTER BY STJPRAMUNDANE POWER. 
 
 When we pass out of the range of the common operations 
 of nature, to which we are accustomed, at which we have 
 ceased to wonder, and for which we have discovered causes, or 
 to which we have given names, which seems to answer nearly 
 the same purpose, we find phenomena surprising or astounding 
 in various degrees. A rapping on the wall is comparatively- 
 simple. The raising of a table from the floor requires only the 
 exercise of a force sufficient to overcome that by which it is 
 usually held in its place — the force or fact called gravitation. 
 "We have such an invisible force in magnetism, and are, 
 therefore, better able to conceive -of a similar force being 
 exercised by unseen intelligences. But it is more difficult to 
 conceive of the production, formation, or apparent creation of 
 matter where it did not exist, and apart from any conceivable 
 sources from which it could be derived. Mr. Ferguson has 
 given an example of such production in the following narra- 
 tive : — 
 
 "Among the numerous remarkable displays of supramundane 
 power I have been called upon to note, there are none more worthy 
 of intelligent regard than those in which substances are produced 
 in the presence of persons of peculiar organization and under 
 special conditions, without any possibility of deception or mistake 
 as to their origin. 
 
 "In the summer of 1854 my daughter was on a visit to our 
 friends at Meryville, Kentucky, the country seat of Dr. Charles 
 
FORMATION OF SUBSTANCES. 129 
 
 Merriweather. She had been there two weeks prior to a proposed 
 visit by her mother and myself. She was a favourite of the 
 family, but was not then recognized either by them or us as a 
 medium for any form of what they called spiritual manifestations. 
 When we arrived we were surprised to learn from the venerable 
 matron of the mansion and from Mr. W. D. Merriweather that our 
 daughter had exhibited a fact more astounding than any we had 
 recorded or witnessed. Her mother heard it with evident pain, 
 for it was the desire of her heart that no one of her children 
 should be called upon to bear the reproaches attached to medium- 
 ship before an ignorant and prejudiced people. I heard it with 
 grave suspicion that all my friends were trying to deceive me. I 
 had told them such strange experiences, that I feared they were 
 disposed to set off my truthful representations with an effort to see 
 how much I could believe. Indeed, I was offended at their 
 story, and felt that I was not treated as I deserved, or as was 
 their wont in all matters of truth and honour. So seriously did I 
 feel this that I determined not to remain even with tried friends 
 where there was a trifling with great truths, and especially as I 
 had gone to them for a respite from the foolish and distracting 
 jargon of the city upon this great subject. 
 
 " They saw and felt my condition of mind, and assured me they 
 were never more sincere. Their manner confounded but did not. 
 convince me. It served, however, to relieve me from all idea of 
 trespass upon my serious method of treating the subject, and I 
 remained. 
 
 u These persons averred that my little daughter, standing in the 
 centre of the drawing-room, in the presence of eight or ten 
 members of the family, came under a deep and strange spell, 
 which imparted a beaming expression to her countenance, and 
 gave a womanly self-possession to her manner ; that she ordered 
 a clean tea-cup and silver spoon. When brought she subjected 
 each to the scrutiny of every individual present, and required each 
 to examine and pronounce them clean. Then selecting Miss King 
 to stand by her side, she resumed her place in the centre of the 
 room, and in gleeful spirits commenced stirring the spoon in the 
 vacant cup. All of this seemed meaningless enough, and she 
 joined them in their playful remarks respecting" it, all the time, 
 however, exhibiting a manner clearly not her own. Suddenly she 
 
130 FORMATION OF MATTER 
 
 claimed to be acting under the direction of an invisible chemist, 
 once the head of this family, and deceased some ten years, and an 
 Indian chieftain ; and required, as with authority, that all remain 
 unmoved in their places, and said that a power of spirit over form 
 would be presented, such as no one present had ever witnessed. 
 
 " She continued the stirring of the spoon in the cup, and again 
 subjected it to the observation of each one present. Then returning 
 to the centre of the room, in what they supposed was about five 
 minutes, she presented the cup with over a teaspoonful of an oint- 
 ment, dark in colour, and distinctly odorous all over the room, 
 with which she anointed the face of the gentleman of the house ; 
 he was suffering from neuralgia and professed to have received 
 immediate relief. 
 
 " She then demanded to see every patient on the plantation, 
 young and old (in a negro family of over one hundred souls), for 
 each of whom she prescribed as if with a full knowledge of the art 
 of medicine. Among the number was a lad of fourteen, who in some 
 encounter had dislocated his arm at the shoulder joint. They were 
 on the eve of sending for the family surgeon, a distance of 
 six miles, when she replaced the dislocated arm, bound, it and 
 fastened it securely to the body, with professional skill, and was 
 then relieved from the spell or trance in which she had acted, with 
 every evidence that she knew not, save in some indefinite vagueness 
 of impression, of anything that had occurred since she came first into 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 " Again, I must record that her mother seemed deeply pained in 
 hearing the circumstantial narrative of these facts, and said to me, 
 1 1 would rather bury our dear bright child than see her a medium.' 
 I felt all the mother said ; but as in all true Experiences in life I had 
 learned to know that a Power Supreme directs our destiny, I 
 accepted the strange^xperience. The child seemed to feel this, and 
 nestled to me, when again she became entranced, and produced 
 before me and four other persons the same result. In this' case she 
 prescribed also for a man who happened to come in at the time, and 
 was much emaciated from loss of blood caused by a terrible wound 
 inflicted upon him by an enraged negro some months before. She 
 directed that he should seek and make free use of chalybeate 
 water, and as there was none near, she ordered a glass of rainwater 
 to be brought, which she stirred for some minutes with a spoon, pro- 
 
BY SUPRAMUNDANE POWER. 131 
 
 nounced it chalybeate, and gave him to drink. He also pronounced 
 it such, but we had no other evidence of the fact. He is a physician 
 to-day in that neighbourhood, and has often avowed his belief that 
 what he drank was as distinctly chalybeate as that which he after- 
 wards sought and by which he was benefited. 
 
 " These facts, with all our efforts to conceal them, became generally 
 known, and were treated with ridicule or respect, according to the 
 character of the journals that gave them circulation. They were, of 
 course, inaccurately stated, and I was appealed to by scientific men 
 in many parts of the Union for a true statement. This I made, and 
 it was published in the New York Spiritual Telegraph over my 
 own signature and with the attestation of all who witnessed the 
 manifestation. It is due to truth to say that this manifestation was 
 repeated but once afterwards, and then when no one was present but 
 myself and an invalid friend. It was never given upon demand, and 
 in each case it was evidently the result of a care and direction supe- 
 rior in every respect to that of either parents or friends. 
 
 " One day, some months afterwards, when this daughter was at 
 school in the Academy of Females at Nashville, she was found by 
 her teacher weeping inconsolably, and was sent home, refusing to 
 give to any one but myself a reason for her grief. I was sent for, 
 when she said with deep sobs, i It is gone ! ' i What, my child ? ' 
 said I. ' The power ! ' she replied. I soon understood her trouble, 
 and assured her hope and confidence, more perhaps by my manner 
 than by anything I said, for I never felt more at a loss than in the 
 strange and now sad experience of a most lovely and dutiful child. 
 A week passed, and all noticed that she seemed as one who had lost 
 a parent or friend. My residence was near the academy. One day 
 returning from the city on foot, my little girl came running all alive 
 with joy, and on taking her in my arms she exclaimed, ' I have got 
 it again, pa ! - * What % ' was my question. ' I can't make the medi- 
 cine, but I can write/ said she. ' To-day I was called on in my class 
 for a composition. I could not write one. I thought I would ask 
 you to do it for me, when the teacher required that each one of the 
 class should retire and bring a composition to her. I went away, 
 and while grieving that I could think of nothing to write, my hand 
 felt just as it did when I made the medicine, and I wrote a compo- 
 sition, which Miss S. says is beautiful, and she asked me if I had 
 not committed it to memory from some book.' This power of writing 
 
132 FORMATION OF MATTER. 
 
 continued, and its blessing to myself and to us need not be further 
 described. 
 
 " I have never personally met this experience since ; but a similar 
 kind of manifestation through other mediums I have witnessed, 
 as have many others. The parents of the Davenports relate many 
 facts quite as remarkable, and going to show that real substances 
 are generated in the presence of mediumistic persons ; articles are 
 carried from room to room with no perceptible avenue opened for 
 either ingress or egress, and whatever may be our philosophy or 
 lack of it, our faith or unfaith, the facts I have stated are true. If 
 it be asked, how can these things be % I can only answer — they are. 
 I believe upon accepted principles of so-called science I can give 
 as good, perhaps a better, philosophy of them than that which 
 commonly is resorted to ; but I prefer as yet to give the facts with- 
 out respect to theory, my own or that of others." 
 
 In the chapter on healing will be found an account of the 
 production of a caustic substance in, to say the least, a very 
 extraordinary manner. 
 
 In cases which are beyond our powers of belief, or for which 
 we cannot find some plausible reason, the simplest and, to many 
 persons, the most satisfactory proceeding is to deny the facts, 
 and assert that the witnesses are deceiving or were deceived. 
 There are, however, in the case of this class of phenomena too 
 many facts of a similar character, and too many witnesses, to 
 make such an explanation satisfactory. 
 
 In a curious recent work, entitled " Mary Jane," written by 
 a well-known resident of the British metropolis, the author 
 gives a circumstantial account of the production of numerous 
 drawings and coloured pictures, fac simile copies of several of 
 which are given in the book, which were produced without 
 visible agency, and the colouring matter, and, in some cases, a 
 varnish covering it, came from no known source. In some 
 instances these drawings, which resemble coloured crayons, were 
 produced on sheets of white paper laid under the table around 
 which the author and his friends were sitting ; in others, the 
 
DRAWINGS. 133 
 
 papers, brought and marked for the purpose, were placed in a 
 box, which was itself wrapped carefully in paper and sealed up, 
 to remove any chance of deception. Yet the pictures were pro- 
 duced in seven colours in some cases, with no known sub- 
 stances even in the vicinity from which they could be made. 
 The author of " Mary Jane" is well known to Mr. Ferguson 
 and to the writer hereof, and there is no reason to doubt his 
 testimony, which is also abundantly confirmed by other 
 witnesses. 
 
 There was in New York, some years ago, what was called a 
 " miracle circle," several members of which are now residing in 
 London, and some occupying distinguished positions. At this 
 circle, pictures of a remarkable character were produced, the 
 materials of which seemed to have been condensed from • the 
 elements. While these works of art, created with a wonderful 
 rapidity, were taken from beneath a • table around which the 
 members of the circle were seated, letters, addressed to various 
 persons, were seen to float down from the plastered ceiling of 
 the room. Doors and windows were closed ; there were no 
 openings through which they could have come ; they became 
 visible near the ceiling, and as they came to hand were found to 
 contain letters addressed to members of the circle in the hand- 
 writing of their deceased friends. The production and the disso- 
 lution, or apparent annihilation of matter of various forms, 
 though not among the more frequent supramundane manifesta- 
 tions, are yet frequent enough, and sufficiently authenticated, 
 to leave no doubt whatever as to the facts, however they may be 
 accounted for. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PSYCHOMETKY. 
 
 Delineation of character, without seeing or knowing the 
 person whose character was delineated, has been a very- 
 marked and frequent fact in my experiences. To show what 
 I mean I will give a history of a few instances, and I select 
 those that relate to myself because they were more distinctly 
 noted, and became no small aid in whatever may ha^e dis- 
 tinguished my observations in this department of psychological 
 marvels. 
 
 "When, despite all our efforts to prevent the knowledge of 
 the facts heretofore related, they became very widely circu- 
 lated, among many letters of inquiry I received respecting 
 them, there was one from He v. Mr. H., of Chattanooga, 
 Tennessee. This gentleman wrote me that he had witnessed 
 with Judge Edmonds, of New York, much of what was called 
 spiritualism ; that he believed the manifestations veritable, 
 but generally from " evil spirits ; " but tbat could I give him 
 an evidence like that of the formation of substances, he would 
 believe. 
 
 Not being much disposed to enter upon a correspondence 
 that promised so little with a man who, because he did not 
 understand a fact or find it consonant with his conceptions of 
 good or evil, must ascribe it to evil spirits, and feeling in 
 myself that there could be no greater absurdity than the idea 
 of evil as attached to any spirit, I replied very briefly, and 
 stated that if what he had heard of our experiences were true, 
 he must see that they did not depend upon our wish, and, 
 
DELINEATION OF CHARACTER. 135 
 
 therefore, however happy I would be in affording him or any 
 one the evidence I had received, as it came from above and 
 beyond me, I could not command it. Would he visit me as 
 he proposed, and if it were given, I would rejoice ; if not given, 
 I would not be disappointed. 
 
 After writing a letter politely embracing the above thought, 
 I was pondering whether to send any reply or not, seeing that 
 a plain statement of the truth would only involve such a mind 
 in further doubt, and leave him to think I only wished to 
 evade the responsibility involved in what had been reported as 
 having occurred under my own observation, when there came 
 into my study a. young man, who, without recognizing me, took 
 a seat opposite me at my writing table, and was almost 
 instantly entranced. He directed me to take my pen and 
 paper and write down, word for word, what he would dictate. 
 I did so. He commenced by describing a house with great 
 minuteness of detail ; then a man with similar particularity, 
 even to his exact weight, his physical, mental, and moral 
 characteristics. Closing his description, without the slightest 
 knowledge of any fact here detailed, he ordered that I send 
 my letter to Mr. H., with what he had given added. I 
 did so, appending the description as a postscript, and requesting 
 if there were found any application that Mr. H. would be kind 
 enough to let me have the evidence. 
 
 A week or two brought another letter, in which the reverend 
 gentleman informed me that his friends thought the description 
 of himself very accurate ; that he himself admitted that his 
 house, person, and general mental tendencies were truthfully 
 described, but that morally he certainly was not the person 
 " the spirit " portrayed. But he also enclosed a letter, 
 very carefully sealed, and so marked that no one could open 
 it without detection. If that letter, he said, held in the hand 
 of "the medium/ ' would bring forth a description, the gentle- 
 
136 PSYCHOMETRY. 
 
 man who wrote it was well known, and the truth would be 
 acknowledged. 
 
 Again I felt that I did not desire further correspondence 
 with a total stranger who seemed to appreciate so little the 
 proper methods of arriving at truth. But again, almost pre- 
 cisely as before, my medium friend came in entranced. I 
 handed him the sealed letter. He placed it on his forehead, 
 and commenced another minute description, first of a house, 
 then of a person, very different from the first description. I 
 confess I had not the remotest suspicion of the person he was 
 describing. At its close he came up to me, took me by the 
 hand, and asked me what I thought of the picture. My reply 
 I do not remember. " Send that to the preacher," said he, 
 " with the same letter as you received it, as all the answer it 
 deserves." I did so. One year elapsed, and I never in all that 
 time heard from Eev. Mr. H. Then he wrote me that the 
 sealed letter was my own, and that truth and candour com- 
 pelled him to acknowledge that the evidence was perfect. He 
 came to Nashville to visit me. But when there I was absent 
 at New Orleans. I never saw him ; nor did the " medium" ever 
 hear his name until his descriptions were given, and then with 
 marked indifference. The following is the description given 
 while holding what Mr. H. said was my first letter to him, 
 sealed and returned. 
 
 H. B. Champion, holding the above-mentioned sealed letter, 
 said : — 
 
 " I do not know why I am disposed to recognize in the writer 
 of this letter a friend. He is a man of strong proclivities, and 
 not easily discouraged. He is in the full vigour of mental health. 
 He sets great store by axioms of faith, and wonld like to outgrow 
 them. In this conflict he is firm, but not exactly comfortable. I 
 esteem this letter highly from some cause. I feel there is an in- 
 terior nature in what this man says — an essence about this person 
 which is heartfelt and sympathetic. His best and noblest efforts 
 have failed to accomplish what he most desired. I know of no 
 
FROM SEALED LETTERS. 137 
 
 man whose association I would esteem more highly than this man's 
 and I am judging from a deep interior heart, and not from the 
 world's ephemeral estimate, although I feel that even the world 
 would bend beneath the power of his mind and heart. He is 
 whole-souled, universal. He has met with many reverses, but will 
 come out untarnished from them all. He is subject to deep, 
 poignant depression, but he keeps all such feelings to himself. I 
 hesitate to speak my full impressions, for I see no application. 
 Indeed, I am a little perplexed, and dislike to go on. I feel like 
 I must stop to weigh an expression, and such effort always con- 
 fuses me. But I will describe him. He is tall ; rather slender ; 
 quick of speech ; thinks a great deal, and would rather have ocular 
 demonstration than hearsay. He does not see things from the 
 direct side of the picture. He is honest, and capable of much 
 good. He has a high sense of right ; is free to think and act on 
 all subjects. He is ever guided more by right than by external 
 appearances. Still he has excessive pride. It was this impression 
 that confused me before, and now I doubt it, but I will speak it 
 to get rid of it. He is kind, sociable, free. Something says to 
 me, ' I don't know why you do not see who it is.' I love him any 
 way, and do not care whether I know him or not. His letter is 
 to me more pleasant than any letter I ever held. There is, Mr. 
 Ferguson, but one objection to it, and that is, the secrecy of sealing. 
 The man who did that did not know the writer. I prefer its 
 secrecy, however, where the motive is good. Send this to the 
 man who sent the letter, as the response it deserves. 
 
 " Nashville, Tennessee, February, 1856." 
 
 Again, at a time when all that man can cherish in his life 
 upon earth was placed in jeopardy by the position I was sup- 
 posed to sustain to what the world called spiritualism, and 
 what I myself regarded as the brightest evidences of divinity 
 in and to man, my heart sad and every earthly hope 
 threatened, a true friend of mine, to whom the trying condi- 
 tion my public avowals had exposed me was unknown, intro- 
 duced a sealed and enveloped letter, in a seance, near Mem- 
 phis, written by me, some two hundred miles from where I 
 
 J 
 
138 PSYCHOMETEY. 
 
 resided, which was placed in the hand of a person who had 
 never seen me, and who was to me equally unknown, when a 
 communication was given, which is copied below. There are 
 feelings no language can describe, and all efforts at description 
 are but mockery. Such were mine on receiving and reading 
 this strange document ; for however it may appear to others, 
 to me it was a picture in symbol of my highest aims, my 
 holiest endeavours, and my saddest realizations, amid the vain 
 adulation and equally vain denunciations of men, I only at that 
 time too much felt. 
 
 The communication was as follows. Others must decide, 
 and the future must show how far it may be considered 
 truthful or prophetic : — 
 
 " The letter enveloped is like thyself — child of the strong hand. 
 Like a gem of brilliant lustre is the prisoned soul of the writer. 
 How eloquent is the silent appeal of this soul for some master 
 hand to break the iron casing of cold, formal life, and permit the 
 cramped wings a free flight. 
 
 " Flutter on, caged eagle with the dove eye ; thy bars shall yield, 
 and thou shalt yet perch on high. Thou art an individualized 
 centre in the plastic human mass about thee. Every impulse, 
 act, thought, and word of thine bears distinct and strongly marked 
 features of thy peculiar individuality. 
 
 " There are two cardinal points in this character — childlike 
 susceptibility to kindness, and indomitable opposition to wrong. 
 
 " Language finds in you a full and beautiful exponent of her 
 mystic symbols, but speech is your weakest mode of expression 
 when inspired by sympathy for human suffering. The magnetic 
 power of your eye is most efficient. For brief and energetic action 
 in emergencies I see not your equal. This mind has a lightning 
 rapidity in mental action, and should be regulated by the con- 
 sciousness that the multitude do not fly, but toil laboriously along 
 by-paths and ill-made roads. 
 
 " There is large development of conscientiousness and a corres- 
 ponding smallness of self-esteem, which produces unequal action. 
 By following the strongest mental proclivity, you may establish 
 
FROM SEALED LETTERS. 139 
 
 a fixed point, to which the scattered, tangled, and broken threads 
 of life may attach themselves, as the sun is the centre of the 
 planetary system within the circle of its rays. But so long as 
 you respond to the call of every child to come and put its play- 
 house in order, you will feel the divine impulse goading you with 
 needed pain towards the laying of the corner-stone, even in one 
 human soul, of a house in which the Father may meet His 
 children. 
 
 "To your interior vision earth's mutable and heaven's immutable 
 laws have been revealed, whilst they are a sealed book to those 
 around you. 
 
 "The maimed, robbed, and spoiled of earth await the eloquent 
 advocacy of your newly-baptized soul — await the appeal of a living 
 heart to a living God — await an appeal not for mercy, but for 
 justice to the servant who buried his talent for fear.* 
 
 " Estimate what you must be by what is. 
 
 " He who would stand as a beacon light to every vessel upon 
 the dark tide, must bury deep in his soul the casket containing 
 the jewels* of affection. He must lock it therein, and give 
 the key only to the sovereign good of the universe, the Eternal 
 God. 
 
 " Thus only can he become a centre with power to transmit 
 the harmonic law, by which diverse individualities of men and 
 nations become the union of brotherhood. From the altar of this 
 unity incense shall arise, and fall again a dew of blessing upon 
 the bloody fields of passion. Prone, bleeding, headless to-day 
 lies the universal child of the Father." 
 
 The faculty of describing the physical and mental condi- 
 tions of persons from an impression produced by or coincident 
 with contact with their writing closely enveloped, or a lock of 
 hair or other " relic/" is not very rare, and its exercise has 
 received the name of psychometry. But there are facts of this 
 kind which show either that the human mind has powers of 
 
 * The fear that hath torment, and which perfect love casts out, is no 
 more sin than the imperfect utterance or the tottering steps of the 
 infant. — Ed. 
 
 j2 
 
140 PSYCHOMETRY. 
 
 its own little suspected, or that it is sometimes aided by 
 superior intelligences, or those in superior conditions. The 
 power of prevision most certainly exists, but where or with 
 whom? Either foreknowledge must be attributed to the 
 mundane mind, or it is the result of supramundane enlighten- 
 ment. 
 
 These delineations of character and life are very much extended 
 in Mr. Ferguson's records, but they are couched in a language 
 of symbolism which would require extended observations 
 to make them intelligible to the general reader. They 
 fully justify all he says of them ; but at his suggestion we copy 
 only enough to present the fact that character and purpose in 
 life can be reflected through a mind entirely unacquainted with 
 the mundane history of the person whose state and condition are 
 delineated. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE SYMPATHY AND TRUST. 
 
 The following narration of facts in the life of Dr. Ferguson 
 is full of marvels of a very interesting character, some of which 
 can be verified by the testimony of others, while others will 
 find their support in the experience of many readers : — 
 
 " In the month of May, 1859, 1 accepted an invitation to deliver 
 a course of lectures in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the largest 
 halls of the city was procured, and a suite of rooms secured for me 
 at the Worsham House. In a word, everything was done to make 
 my visit agreeable, and by parties with whom I had no personal 
 acquaintance. To a very large and highly-respectable audience I 
 delivered an address, not allowing myself a thought as to its matter 
 or manner. I yielded myself literally to the occasion, and what- 
 ever influence my nature and condition might spontaneously reflect. 
 My theme opened in my mind as I ascended the rostrum with a 
 depth and beauty of imagery which was alike novel and unsought. 
 It took the form of a proposition — The Unity of Man in the Diversity 
 of Human Manifestation. The audience heard me with unabated 
 interest for over two hours, when I retired to my rooms at the hotel, 
 exhausted physically, but in a serene flow of spirits that was to me 
 ample compensation, whether what I had uttered were appreciated 
 or not. I had scarcely recovered from my physical feebleness when 
 four gentlemen entered my room and introduced themselves : Chan- 
 cellor Scott, of Mississippi, Judge McKearnon, of the Criminal Court 
 of Memphis, Major Penn, the Cashier of the Planters' Bank of 
 Tennessee, and W. J. Worsham, proprietor of the hotel. Chancellor 
 Scott, after the formalities of the meeting were over, inquired — 
 " Mr. Ferguson, are you a Mason V 
 " F.: ' No, sir, in no technical sense of the word.' 
 
142 
 
 SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 " Ch. S. : ' Did you never read any work on Freemasonry V 
 
 "F.: 'Never! Why do you ask V 
 
 " Ch. S.: ' Because your speech to-day was a most able and lucid 
 exposition of the grand principles of Masonry — equal, sir, to any 
 I ever heard, and in some respects superior. We are Masons. I 
 have taken its thirty- third degree, and have written several books 
 upon the subject, and I assure you that you have surprised me by 
 your speech, and now surprise me much more when you say you are 
 not a Mason. 
 
 " F. : 'lam not, only so far as I may succeed in being a man in 
 nature born. I find myself threading the ways of many forms of 
 human development, though I have never found it necessary to be 
 confined by any. With me God speaks in all, but is confined to 
 none.' 
 
 " Mr. Worsham then proposed that we all visit a lady two 
 miles from the city, who, he informed us, had given spiritual 
 communications to many of the craft — himself included. He was 
 lavish in his encomiums upon this lady, and all seemed especially 
 anxious that I should see her. A carriage was soon ordered, and 
 our party drove from the hotel to the house of the ' spiritual 
 medium.' It was a plain log-house in a beautiful grove, and amid 
 vines, arbours, and summer blossoms, it seemed a delightful retreat 
 from the dusty city. Here we were met at the door by the lady of 
 the house, who at once addressed me by name, and with every mark 
 of hearty welcome. 
 
 " As I had never seen her before, nor she me, this recognition 
 surprised my Masonic friends very much. She took the company 
 into a large room she called, for some reason, ' the world,' and me 
 she took into her own room, called by her ' the east room.' Here 
 her action was not only that of an acquaintance, but it was as if 
 we were one in thought, confidence, and mutual understanding. In 
 a few moments she took my hand and led me into the presence 
 of the Masonic Brothers, and introduced me as a Natural Mason 
 — the only one, she averred, that had been brought to her. She 
 seated the Chancellor in what she called the east, and addressed him 
 with deep irony as Grand Master. She placed Major Penn in the 
 north, Worsham in the west, and myself and Judge McKearnon in 
 the east. Then she addressed all, and I am free to say I have never 
 heard an address from mortal lips which I considered its equal 
 
EVIDENCES IN MASONRY. 143 
 
 either in thought, language, or manner. The Masons asked many- 
 questions. All were answered ; but I could not say how appropri- 
 ately, as I knew nothing of technical Masonry. When we were 
 about to leave she invited me to visit her house again on the fol- 
 lowing Tuesday, but gave no invitation to my good company. This 
 they noted. 
 
 " On my way to the city all were for some time silent. When I 
 inquired of the Chancellor, ' What of the address 1 ' his answer 
 was, ' None, sir, but lips inspired could make such an address.' 
 
 " F.: ' Was it consonant with Masonic symbolism V 
 
 " Ch. S.: ' Yes ; I never read or heard anything as much so, and 
 it transcends all the imagery I know anything about.' 
 
 " Each expressed himself in high praise ; and the Judge, who 
 had received a most severely rebuking speech from the medium, and 
 who had maintained a profound silence ever since, said, ' Gentlemen, 
 this day I shall remember to my grave. I never heard such a lesson 
 on judicial clemency.' My own opinion was asked, when I said, 
 ' There is nothing in this proud city comparable to the evidences of 
 wisdom, truth, and good I met there, and that independent of the 
 Masonic symbols. The one is a gilded semblance of greatness ; the 
 other, what we saw to-day, is reality — God speaking to man.' 
 
 " On Tuesday I returned to the log house in the woods, and 
 there met Mr. James Hart, the artist, and Mr. Watson Freeman, of 
 Nashville, both friends of mine ; but we all met without any inten- 
 tion on the part of either. We had not been seated many minutes 
 when Mrs. W., the medium, came in, and falling on her knees 
 before me, under deep entrancement, she gave in form her whole 
 earthly estate to me, and called solemnly upon both these gentle- 
 men to be witnesses to the fact. Then I learned for the first time 
 that it was this lady who had been the medium for the delineations 
 referred to in another chapter. When relieved from the trance, she 
 did in her natural state formally, and, as time has since proved, 
 really, give me her entire material estate, which consisted of one- 
 third of one of the largest landed estates of Tennessee. She was the 
 widow of Major Marcus B Winchester, whose father, in conjunc- 
 tion with Judge Overton and General Andrew Jackson, President of 
 the United States, were the founders of the city of Memphis, and 
 who had been the State senator of that county, and for most of his 
 life held responsible offices under the general Government. He was 
 
144 SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 a man noted for his intelligence, large and practical charities and 
 liberal sentiments. He had died three years previous to the 
 time of my meeting with his widow, and for some years prior to 
 his death he and his children, by a former marriage, had been 
 the recipients of these supramundane evidences, mostly through the 
 mediumship of his wife. So many and varied were they in their 
 forms of presentation to them, that at one time hundreds and even 
 thousands of people were drawn to visit him, all of whom heard her 
 remarkable addresses, and they are remembered to this day. The 
 shrines of the old saints were not more places of resort than was this 
 quiet woodland home, where all, of all classes and conditions of life, 
 from the most eminent statesman and clergyman of the nation to the 
 humblest slave, received the bright evidences of human hope and 
 man's immortality. 
 
 " I visited at this place every day for two weeks, and I must say 
 that in all my wonderful experience I have met nothing that tran- 
 scc nded what I here witnessed. The associations of persons on our 
 continent for so-called spiritual evidences were called circles. I wish 
 to describe the circle at the house of Lucy L. "Winchester. It con- 
 sisted at the time I was so strangely called there, of herself and a 
 daughter of Major Winchester, Miss Louisa M. Winchester, who 
 acted as scribe to the circle, for which she was admirably 
 qualified by superior intelligence and high educational culture ; 
 James E. Chadwick, an English gentleman ; Erasmus T. Rose, 
 M.D., nephew to President Madison, a distinguished physiologist; 
 Young Allen Carr, professor of chemistry in the Memphis Medical 
 College ; Arthur K. Taylor, professor of anatomy, &c. ; James Hart, 
 an artist of national reputation ; and Andrew J. Wheeler, clerk and 
 master of one of the courts of law. 
 
 " To these men, and the company they brought, Mrs. Winchester 
 had discoursed regularly from this abnormal trance condition on all 
 the questions of recognized science, physical and metaphysical, on 
 government, society, and, in a word, almost every theme that 
 interests mankind ; and that without interruption to her household 
 responsibilities or their regular duties. Large manuscript books of 
 her records were presented to me then for examination, and since her 
 death placed at my disposal. Here, after the death of her husband, 
 she set apart the room referred to above, and no person for over 
 three years ever entered that room who did not receive some 
 
EVIDENCES IN LIFE. 145 
 
 evidence of spirit power. Here men and women of fashion and men 
 and women of poverty's lowliest vale resorted ; and here, without 
 money and without price, they received what no one of them will 
 ever forget. I will not mention the evidences given me there, as 
 they were not of that character that admit of a formal record. 
 Suffice it to say, that I received there a preparation for all that can 
 be called by the sacred name of duty that may have since marked 
 my life, and it is to me a most grateful thought that no time, no 
 conditions of mortal care or immortal behests can ever efface the 
 memory and living power of what I then, and through that noble, 
 Godlike woman, received. 
 
 " The material estate committed to me at her death she gave by 
 will to me as sole heir and executor; but I received it then, as I did 
 when spiritually given, as a trust for those who were likely to be 
 defrauded out of their natural rights, which I trust T may be able to 
 protect. 
 
 " From the day I met Mrs. Winchester till the day preceding 
 her death, which took place November, 1860, there was scarcely a 
 mail that did not bring me a letter ; and with some acquaintance 
 with the literature of the world, I can say I know nothing either 
 for depth of thought or classic beauty of expression, to say nothing 
 of their high spiritual tendency, superior to these writings. Since 
 her death, which was revealed to myself and Mrs. Ferguson spirit- 
 ually, just one hour after the event, and that at a distance of 200 
 miles, by her appearance to us, there has been no serious trial 
 or experience of my life in which evidences of her presence are not 
 given ; not always as often, indeed, as I would wish, but always as 
 I have needed help for a life that few can lead." 
 
 It may be proper that I should here give a more particular 
 account of the manner in which this lady gave us an intimation 
 of her departure from this mortal sphere. 
 
 " Mrs. Ferguson, who held Mrs. "Winchester in the highest esteem 
 and affection, had been very anxious as to her condition, and felt 
 that a woman so gifted and useful ought not to die in the prime of 
 life. On the morning of the day of her death we had all conversed 
 freely and most feelingly of her disease and its probable issue. At 
 three o'clock Mrs. F. went into the city of Nashville, and on her way 
 
146 SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 was met by Mrs. Winchester, who said to her, ' I shall live to bless 
 you all.' Such was the effect of these words coming from the appa- 
 rition, that she returned all joyous to tell us that Mrs. W. would get 
 well. We believed her, for her power in these recognitions was very 
 accurate. The next morning a telegraphic despatch from Marshall 
 Ferguson, Esq., Mrs. Winchester's brother, announced that she had 
 died at about two o'clock on the very day in which at three she had 
 appeared and said to Mrs. F., 'I will live to bless you all ! ' Mrs. 
 F. was heartbroken in the event, and for some weeks refused to 
 understand the announcement of the apparition as one of life beyond 
 and after death. Eut so it was. 
 
 " During the life of Mrs. W. she constantly reflected to me from 
 the interior condition, that a revolution was impending in which I 
 would have to take an active part. JSTothing could have been more 
 contrary to my taste and habits than to be forced to address the masses 
 of impassioned people on questions that involved the sundering of all 
 political and social bonds, and threatened the deadly strife of fraternal 
 armies. She had ever associated these events with her own death, 
 and often uttered in solemn cadence the warning that I was being 
 prepared for a day of battle, when my pulpit would be in the forum 
 and the fields. It was not more than one week from her death till 
 my whole State was calling on me to speak upon the crisis of the 
 revolution. As I went up the hill upon whose summit the capitol 
 of Tennessee stands, to address the leaders of the people in the 
 Hall of Kepresentatives, lit up for that purpose, with some feeling 
 of trepidation, growing out of the new position I was called upon to 
 fill, just as I entered the long marble hall she appeared to me, 
 holding an emblem of strength and a shield of brilliancy that gave 
 to me a power of thought and action no language can express. I 
 have since addressed senates and mobs — have met every class and 
 condition of society — but no time or occasion has been without that 
 living power of divine administration to me and my work since that 
 night. And I feel it the brightest evidence of an intelligent care 
 transcending all earthly estimate, that my acquaintance, friendship, 
 and spiritual recognition connected with this great and noble woman, 
 in life and in death, was so formed in purity, trust and confidence, 
 that no vibration of distrust can ever be felt. In life she was ever 
 admired as the soul of truth, and her moral courage was equal to any 
 emergency. In every truly moral reform requiring the action of 
 
MRS. L. L. WINCHESTER. 147 
 
 moral principle against custom, she was stronger than any professed 
 servant of Christ it was ever my lot to meet ; and I feel it an honour 
 to say I have met and acted with many whose nobleness of self- 
 sacrifice no changing vicissitudes of human association can ever 
 efface from my memory; while of course we all meet many who seem 
 desirous to speak and do the right, but who take great care not to offend 
 the eye of mammon or fashion in so doing. The place where she 
 dwelt was humble and unpretending, but no one ever entered it 
 after her consecration to the spiritual good of all mankind, who did 
 not feel that an Almighty care overshadowed it. Her altar might be 
 considered lowly, but an Eternal Spirit ever administered there. 
 And before men and angels, I believe to-day that but for the inspira- 
 tion of this woman, long since I at least would have hid my little 
 lamp beneath the accumulating cares and sorrows that swept away 
 all of earthly hope in the mad struggle that now lays waste a conti- 
 nent of unequalled bounty and blessing to man ! Let my life and 
 not my words record my gratitude. 
 
 " When I was engaged in public speaking in most of the chief 
 cities of the Southern people, and my life and labours were sub- 
 jected to great trials and dangers, I ever felt that some undefinable 
 connections secured by my association with this woman before her 
 death, and, indeed, by her death, gave me wisdom, knowledge and 
 power I had never before realized. Certain it is there was nothing 
 of a purely external character that sustained me. And there was no 
 realization of the state of our people, of the progress of the revolution, 
 the new and trying events that attended the arousing of a mighty 
 Confederacy of States to determined war : or in my individual or 
 social relation to them, to which there was not often a direct interior 
 reflection given, and always some guiding direction that could not 
 be attributed to mortal wisdom." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUPRAMUNDANE POWERS OF HEALING. 
 
 If it can be shown that the extraordinary powers to which we 
 have given the designation of supramundane, not only make 
 raps, move tables, write messages, paint pictures, play on 
 musical instruments, &c, but also heal the sick and comfort the 
 afflicted, those who ask, " What is the good of all this ? " have 
 to this extent an answer. The experiences of Mr. Ferguson 
 in this respect have been remarkable, and to some extent 
 peculiar ; but it must also be remembered that what are called 
 " healing mediums " are to be found in considerable numbers 
 wherever there has been a development of what we may call 
 supernatural gifts. 
 
 At the age of fifteen Mr. Ferguson was affected with the 
 disease commonly known as white swelling — periostitis — of the 
 tibia, or larger bone of the leg. 
 
 The form and virulence of the disease indicated a scrofulous 
 diathesis, and threatened in its progress consumption and pre- 
 mature death. When relieved of pain by medical treatment 
 he suffered from ulcers near the knee joint, from which spiculae 
 of bone were frequently extruded. His grandfather had died 
 of a similar disease, and he was naturally affected by the 
 general belief that his own life would not be of long duration. 
 
 At this period he was studying the classics at an academy 
 in Virginia, and at the same time superintending the printing 
 establishment of an elder brother, who was the popular editor 
 of a political journal. One of his friends and class-mates was 
 
AT THE AGE OF PUBERTY. 149 • 
 
 the son of the family physician. Reflecting on his diseased 
 condition one night, when his lessons in Greek and his business 
 occupations were finished, he fell asleep, if sleep it could be 
 called, in which his mind continued to be oppressed with 
 anxiety and filled with prayer. 
 
 He awoke in the morning with a strange and unaccountable 
 assurance that he would be cured, and with a strong impression 
 that he must not communicate his hope to any one, not even his 
 brother or his mother. This state of secret hope continued for 
 weeks, when, rising one morning full of cheerfulness, he told his 
 brother that he must be absent from school a few days. His 
 absence brought his friend, the physician's son, to see him, and 
 young Ferguson, directed as by an inaudible voice, asked his 
 companion to inquire of his father what article in the materia 
 medica would produce the same effect as a burn. The answer 
 brought him was, oil of vitriol — sulphuric acid. He procured 
 an ounce of this article, and was then told in his sleep to ask 
 for an antidote, which his friend told him was sweet oil or 
 cream. He procured both, and then, unknown to anyone, 
 he applied the potential cautery to the seat of his disease, 
 bearing the pain as long as possible, and then suspending the 
 operation of the acid by applying oil and cream. He was 
 confined to his room three weeks, repeating the cauterization 
 until he removed all signs of the old ulcers, guided in his diet 
 and regimen by the voice which came in his sleep, and keeping 
 the whole matter a secret from every one, and at the end of this 
 period the ulcers were all healed, and he had no returning 
 symptom of the disease for fourteen years. 
 
 This is not claimed by him as a miracle of healing, but as a 
 scientific care wrought by natural agencies under the wise 
 direction of unseen intelligences. 
 
 Of the later experiences and observations of Mr. Ferguson 
 in this important branch of supramundane evidences, he has 
 
150 POWERS OF HEALING. 
 
 given the following statement, which may be worthy of the 
 attention of the most scientific inquirers : — 
 
 " During the years 1854 and 1855, while sustaining the relation 
 of pastor to a large and highly-respectable congregation in JSash- 
 ville, Tennessee, my mind was constantly exercised in experiences 
 and observations upon the evidences of an unseen power attendant 
 upon human effort for good. There was in that city, as there is in 
 all, a large class of persons not connected with any church or 
 fenced fold of the Good Shepherd. These, for some reason, called 
 constantly upon me to officiate at their marriages and funerals, and 
 often sought my advice in sickness and other serious embarrass- 
 ments of their life. At a time when the whole community was 
 interested in the more hopeful estimate of human destiny reflected 
 from my pulpit, I was permitted not only to keep up that interest 
 and meet the discussions that seemed to threaten all that man holds 
 dear upon earth, but also to secure ministration to neglected wants 
 and demands of the most neglected portion of the community at 
 large. I well remember one Sabbath night as I was riding with 
 Mrs. Ferguson to the church, where a congregation of over one 
 thousand persons were in waiting, we were stopped by a sad- 
 looking woman, who appealed to me on behalf of her husband, said 
 to be dying in an opposite direction. She addressed me as an 
 acquaintance, and on inquiry I found that some years before I had 
 secured for her, as an orphan child, a place in the House of Industry, 
 where I had officiated at her marriage to a worthy labourer. Express- 
 ing my regret to Mrs. Ferguson in a conscious inability to meet the 
 demand she made, Mrs. Ferguson at once, under a direct spiritual 
 influence, said, ' The man will not die ; we can raise him up and 
 save him to his family.' The services ended, I proposed to her to 
 accompany me to the room of the sufferer. She consented ; and 
 when we arrived we found a strong, athletic form prostrate, and to 
 all appearance breathing its last. A large company of sympathiz- 
 ing friends was present, crowding the room, and evidently awaiting 
 the act of death. The distracted wife, however, had not yielded her 
 hope. With two infant children in her arms she made her appeal 
 
 to us, saying, ' I hear you can save my husband ; you saved , 
 
 and she was dying ! ' Neither of us spoke in return ; but Mrs. 
 Ferguson, motioning the company from the bed, took my hand, 
 
IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. 151 
 
 and placing it with her own on the breast of the man, offered prayer 
 in silence. We held our position to the patient till he seemed to 
 breathe as we did, when, after an hour or more, he passed into a 
 sweet sleep. We then retired, and learned that his physicians had 
 predicted his death that night ; and one of them, the professor of 
 theory and practice in the Medical University of our city, my 
 personal friend, had made a contribution for what he considered a 
 widowed wife and the infant orphans. The case was typhoid fever. 
 The patient's eyes were set and glassy ; his breathing that of a man 
 in death ; his pulse scarcely perceptible, and his power of recogni- 
 tion gone. We left, Mrs. Ferguson promising to see him in the 
 morning, no one believing we would see him alive. Morning came, 
 and on our return Mrs. Ferguson again laid her hands upon him, 
 and gently rubbed his chest, when he spoke in devout thankful- 
 ness for the good he had received, although still unconscious of the 
 persons around him. We revisited him in the evening, and next 
 day. His physicians, hearing of the result, came to see me, and my 
 friend, the professor, assured me he must die, and that we only 
 exposed ourselves to ridicule to attempt his relief. I replied by 
 insisting on his accompanying me to his patient, which he did re- 
 luctantly, when we found him sitting up in bed, and with every 
 evidence of convalescence. In three weeks he was entirely restored, 
 and all admitted that a marvellous cure was effected, and many 
 claimed that a great miracle had been wrought. His father and 
 mother, wife and sister, never forgot us for what they had seen, and 
 the man still lives to bless a Power Divine, acting through human 
 agency. Many exaggerated accounts were circulated, such as that, 
 after he had actually died, he was brought to life ; but the real state 
 of the case was well known and accepted. My friend, the pro- 
 fessor, detailed it to his class of students, then numbering hundreds, 
 and while saying he did not believe the nonsense of spiritualism, 
 he did believe that God Almighty, by Mrs. Ferguson, delivered a 
 dying man. Frequent conversations with his physician assured 
 me that however the credulous and fearful may be disposed to ex- 
 aggerate the alarming symptoms of dissolution, and, on the other 
 hand, magnify a cure, this man was dying, would in all probability 
 have died in a very few hours or minutes, and that no ordinary 
 or accepted methods of medical relief could have reached his 
 condition." 
 
152 POWERS OF HEALING. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 " An aged and highly-respectable gentleman, whose interest in 
 me and my pastoral labours led to a yearly contribution to the 
 service of my church of £200, seemed much grieved at what some 
 religious journals called my heresy and infidelity, and often in a 
 very fatherly manner expressed his fears for my reputation and 
 usefulness. I of course felt all he said, and it commanded my con- 
 stant and most tender consideration. Still, I knew that in the end 
 he would not fail to realize the justice or good of the enlarged hope it 
 was my duty and honour to reflect. He was a large planter, and 
 much devoted to the comfort of his slaves. He had recently buried 
 a very valuable house-servant, who left an only child some eight 
 years old, which the aged, lonely man had treated as a pet. This 
 little girl accompanied him in all his walks, and was admitted for his 
 sake among all his friends. She was beautiful, almost white, very 
 sprightly, and, as he was quite deaf, often interpreted for him the 
 addresses of those he met whose voices he did not hear. In a word, 
 she was ears, eyes, and feet to him, and the sight was beautiful to 
 see that grey-haired sire of eighty led and ministered to by a little 
 mulatto girl of eight. He was a widower, she recently an orphan, 
 and their companionship seemed an adaptation to each other's needs 
 no one could fail to admire. Many other servants he had ; he could 
 count "them by hundreds ; but ' Kizzy ' was ever with him. He 
 resided in Nashville, but his plantations were in Arkansas, on the 
 Mississippi, some 500 miles distant. Old as he was, his own family 
 all admirably settled in life, his only son a gentleman of marked dis- 
 tinction and influence in the politics of the State, he often spent a 
 month on his plantation in Arkansas. No solicitation or interest of 
 his children and friends could prevent this recurring demand of his 
 habituated nature. It chanced that at the time to which I refer he 
 was absent, and had left ' Kizzy.' In his absence the child was bru- 
 tally treated by a woman slave, and by a blow upon the spine was 
 lamed, as it was supposed, for life. I well remember the old man's 
 grief as he told me the condition of little ' Kizzy. ' In addition, 
 the child was seized with typhoid fever, and was dangerously ill at 
 the time he appealed to me. Calling with many affectionate apolo- 
 gies to Mrs. Ferguson and myself for his past expressions of fear for 
 our usefulness, he appealed to us to know if 'Kizzy' must die. I 
 told him I thought she would, for this was my opinion after seeing 
 
153 
 
 her; and I confess, such was the child's deformed condition and seem- 
 ingly hopeless state, that I felt it would be a relief for the little 
 creature to die. But the old man did not yield to despair. He said he 
 believed Mrs. Ferguson could cure ' Kizzy.' He had met the man 
 cured as described above ; knew him well ; and if one could be re- 
 lieved from his condition, another might. Mrs. Ferguson knew 
 and loved ' Kizzy,' and had herself been most tenderly nursed through 
 a dangerous and protracted illness by the child's mother, who had 
 served her with great fidelity and affection years before. The old 
 man accompanied me to my home, and I joined him in an appeal to 
 Mrs. F. to try. She gave him no promise, save that she would, as 
 a friend, visit the child. She did so alone, refusing the company of 
 either of us. She was gone over an hour, while the old man re- 
 mained with me. She returned to bless the old man's hope by saying 
 she could relieve the child, and would do so. He gave the case 
 into her hands ; called his physician to assure Mrs. Ferguson that 
 she should be protected from any foul aspersions, such as, alas ! too 
 often come from the profession upon those who succeed where they 
 fail ; and seemed as fully alive to the cure as if it were accomplished. 
 Mrs. F. allowed no person to accompany her at any visit, and selected 
 a negro servant to attend the child. In eight days the child was 
 pronounced cured by her physician and master, and in two weeks 
 the latter brought her to us, all gleeful in smiles, leading the old 
 man again, to return thanks for her wonderful restoration. She is a 
 young woman to-day, and there is no curvature of the spine ; and 
 when I saw her two years since, she gave every evidence of a healthy, 
 sound constitution. 
 
 " This case, for many reasons, I noted in all its particulars, for it 
 led to much I am not yet disposed to present to the public. One 
 fact I will state. It was the means of leading us to receive and 
 regard spiritual communications from the coloured portion of our 
 people, for Mrs. F. ever assured us that all she did was done under 
 the direction of the child's mother, who when living was a slave. She 
 gave her particular and unmistakeable evidences of her presence and 
 of her interest, not only in the child's recovery, but in the hope 
 such evidences must bring to all mankind when appreciated in 
 purity of purpose and sincerity of design. The name of this 
 gentleman is John Harding, Esq., of Nashville, Tennessee, whose 
 
 K 
 
154 
 
 POWERS OF HEALING 
 
 family still reside there among the most worthy and respectable 
 of Tennessee society. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 " Mr. Watson Freeman, of Nashville, was and is a merchant of 
 high credit and character, of that city and also of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 He was as a father to a large family of brothers and sisters, who, with 
 a widowed mother, looked to him and another brother for protection 
 and education. His own immediate family was also large and 
 dependent. His business, under his wise and industrious direction, 
 afforded all that was necessary to their comfort ; but all seemed to 
 depend upon him. He was an active, useful member of my congre- 
 gation, and there was no one in it upon whom I relied more in any 
 work of real usefulness and charity. Many very wealthy men were 
 of that congregation, but no one man of his wealth gave more of 
 time, labour or money to actual need than this noble-souled, true, 
 and devoted man. 
 
 " A fire broke out in a large furniture factory near the city, and 
 was consuming all the results of the labour and capital of some enter- 
 prising young men in whom Mr. Freeman took heartfelt interest. 
 He arrived at the fire only to see that all was gone, when he dis- 
 covered that by a bare chance the books and valuable papers in an 
 upper room might be saved. Fearlessly he rushed up the stairway 
 beneath the blazing roof and ceilings, threw the books and papers 
 out of the windows, and attempting to return, found his way cut off 
 by the flames. He came to the window, called for the help of a 
 ladder, but seeing none on the ground, leaped from the third floor, 
 landing on a bed of rock, and was taken up severely bruised, and 
 unable to stand upon what was supposed to be a broken limb. He 
 was conveyed to his home, and a surgeon pronounced him probably 
 lamed for life. His limb was not broken^ but there was such a 
 straining of the sinews and of the leg that he was confined to his 
 bed and room for fourteen months. The opinion of his surgeon, 
 Dr. J. 0. Jennings, than whom no man stood deservedly higher in 
 his profession, was that he would be lame for life. Business, family, 
 and all dependent on his cure often engaged my deepest sympathy 
 and desire for help. He had received in his own person many 
 evidences of supramundane aid. Returning one day from his room, 
 oppressed with the thoughts arising out of his condition and that of 
 
in mr. Ferguson's family. 155 
 
 many depending upon him, I was overjoyed to hear Mrs. F., from 
 deep enhancement, say, * We can relieve Mr. Freeman, and he will 
 walk forth again in all his manly vigour and usefulness.' She directed 
 that he should be brought to our home, and that without giving 
 any other reason than his relief from his confinement in his own. 
 I took my carriage and servant and called upon him, and very care- 
 fully guarded all my expressions of desire to have him return with 
 me. He at once consented, his amiable wife expressing much fear 
 for the result, no one dreaming of the object. He came. Mrs. F., 
 being entranced, announced to him his prospective cure, com- 
 manded that he be seated as she directed, his leg resting on my 
 knee, his body in an easy, reclining position She had scarcely 
 done this when Mr. H. B. Champion came in and was soon entranced. 
 A few moments more and Mr. Freeman gave every evidence of the 
 same state being superinduced upon himself. Imagine me there ; my 
 doors locked by command of an Unseen Power ; a cripple in a coma, 
 his limb upon my knee ; two other persons deeply unconscious to all 
 around. The effort at relief commenced. In a few minutes Mr. 
 Freeman was commanded to arise and walk. He sprang to his feet, 
 leaped, walked, marched through the lengthened rooms, held by the 
 arms by both Mr. C. and Mrs. F., for one full hour. Beautiful, im- 
 pressive, most instructive addresses were delivered by each in a 
 trialogue, far above the culture or habits of thought of either. All 
 was joy, hope, brightness of realization. When the mental spell 
 was broken he verily shouted for joy, but was admonished by Mrs. F. 
 that it was borrowed strength he felt, and that all was not effected 
 yet. He was directed to meet us at Mr. Champion's, where the cure 
 would be made permanent. I think it was two nights after. We 
 met ; he came on foot. We went through a similar experience, 
 when some half-dozen others were added to the circle, and he is a 
 sound, healthy, active, useful man to this day. 
 
 " Among many strange occurrences attendant on this cure I wish 
 to mention, for the benefit of so-called scientific men, that not a drug 
 or chemical of any kind was used, or brought near him during these 
 sittings, and yet my trowsers, where his leg rested on mine, were 
 destroyed as by some powerful liquid caustic ; so were those of Mr. 
 Champion, and a large salver near by gave every evidence of corro- 
 sive application to its silver plating. It was clear to me and others that 
 some liquid was generated through the human organisms used for 
 
 k 2 
 
156 POWERS OF HEALING 
 
 his relief from the atmosphere, or at any rate not from any known 
 substances, equal to vitriol in its effects upon clothing. This expe- 
 rience I have had in several instances, but in none so remarkable as 
 in the case related of my daughter. 
 
 " On the following Sunday, to a congregation of fifteen hundred 
 persons, only a few of whom had heard of the miraculous cure, but 
 most of whom knew of my recognition of the intuitive power and 
 alliances of the human soul, and looked upon me with more than ordi- 
 nary apprehension as an invader of the sacred precincts of supposed 
 divine claims, I read the 3rd chapter of Acts, spoke at length and 
 with much freedom upon the universality of inspiration and divine 
 help, closing my address with words that were remembered by many 
 for years, viz. , ' There is no disease that cannot be cured ; no grief 
 that a proper sympathy may not relieve.' My discourse was ac- 
 ceptable even to the professedly orthodox of my hearers. Some of 
 them seeing Mr. Freeman in the congregation approached him, and, 
 expressing great gratification in the discourse, said, ' .Now, sir, if 
 you could be healed as the apostles healed the cripple at the 
 beautiful gate, we would believe in your spiritualism.' Instantly, 
 as if inspired, he arose, s f ood upon his feet, and told the story of 
 his cure. It was, and is known to hundreds of that city to this 
 clay. 
 
 THE CASE OF MISS KING. 
 
 " Miss Frances King was governess in a highly respectable family 
 in Todd county, Kentucky, for many years, and was regarded by 
 those who knew her best as very capable of reflecting these 
 evidences. We had often resided for months in this family, and we 
 had mutually recognized the wonderful facts that have arrested so 
 much attention in our age and time. By some casualty, Miss King 
 had trodden upon the upturned point of a needle, and it had pene- 
 trated and was broken in her foot. She suffered much and long, 
 alike from the disease that ensued and the many attempts at surgical 
 relief. At that time my family and myself were spending the 
 season in New Orleans. She constantly asserted that if Mrs. 
 Ferguson or Mr. Champion could see her she would be relieved. 
 Mr. Champion, visiting the family, was made to realize her condi- 
 dition, and also felt she could be relieved by a visit to us. But the 
 distance was twelve hundred miles, and her protracted illness 
 
in mr Ferguson's family. 157 
 
 threatened paralysis of the limb, and indeed general prostration. 
 He offered to take her under his charge, and she consented— nay, 
 was anxious to go. They arrived, and she was conveyed to an hotel. 
 There she was relieved, without the use of knife or medicine, and 
 returned to Kentucky in six weeks, and is to-day, as a letter from 
 her before me, just received, testifies, in good health, and engaged in 
 highly responsible duties. 
 
 " These cases are selected from a large number quite as remark- 
 able, and they are selected because I noted them in their details at 
 the time, and can, therefore, more accurately describe them than 
 others. Indeed the time would fail me to relate all I have seen and 
 known in this direction. I have seen partial blindness restored by 
 a touch ; a child with a weeping eye from birth restored without 
 contact, Mrs. F. simply telling the mother and grandmother that the 
 night on which they applied would not pass without the cure, and 
 it was so. Other cures have required frequent and long-continued 
 administration. But in no single case, save one, did I ever meet a 
 failure where a cure was promised, and in that I saw more of the 
 ministering of the power than in any other, though relief was never 
 effected. It was a case of deafness of fourteen years' standing, and 
 to this day the person who promised the cure believes it failed only 
 through the unfaithfulness of some who were selected as the instru- 
 ments of cure. Of this of course I form no judgment. I am more 
 than content to state the fact. I do not mean by this that many 
 who have sought cures have not failed ; but I do mean that in my 
 own family circle, where the desire to administer was never allowed 
 to take the place of a clear supramundane evidence that we should 
 believe and act upon, there was never a failure save in the case referred 
 to, and a larger volume than this would not record the number of 
 actual cures, I can also say that in no case was there a trespass 
 upon the legitimate knowledge, rights, or o Sices of that most 
 useful and honourable class of any community — the true physicians. 
 I enjoyed at the time, and have preserved ever since, the companion- 
 ship and friendly regard of the most eminent of that profession, 
 alike at home and abroad ; and with no class of men have I been 
 so free in my communications upon this subject as with them. Of 
 course we had to meet the suspicions of quackery ; but as we never 
 made a charge for a cure, made no profession of ability, and acted 
 only as directed by a higher power no member of the legitimate profes- 
 
158 POWERS OF HEALING 
 
 sion would accuse of invading its rights, that suspicion gave way to a 
 confidence that accepts truth wherever found, and gratefully accepts 
 aid inhumanity's relief. Besides, there is no conflict in the relief of 
 actual disease. Medicine does not cure in any case. It but changes a 
 condition. Nature cures ; and, therefore, if by a higher direction 
 any man is relieved, or placed in a condition for relief, the true 
 physician only preserves his truth by accepting and, if he can, 
 understanding the conditions of cure." 
 
 It remains but to record the cure of a third attack of the 
 disease from which Mr. Ferguson had been relieved in so 
 remarkable a manner. He returned from New Orleans to 
 Nashville in the spring of 1857, very much broken in health, 
 with the disease of the upper part of the larger bone of the 
 right leg worse than it had been at any former period. He was, 
 however, able to preach in Memphis, and later in Ohio ; but on 
 going to St. Louis in the spring of 1858, he became, after a few 
 weeks of labour, utterly prostrated with the violence of the 
 disease. He was visited by the most distinguished surgeons of 
 that important city, who took a deep interest in the case, and 
 were of opinion that he must submit to amputation. He 
 refused alike medicine and the knife, and waited patiently for 
 the release of death, which his advisers considered inevitable. 
 The relief which came when all other hope failed is best 
 described in the following record : — 
 
 " On Monday, June 7th, while utterly prostrate, my sick couch 
 was visited by Mrs. Eliza Tanner, sister-in-law to the gentleman 
 whose kindly hospitality I am receiving. She sat at my bedside 
 with another friend, while I was in an unconscious stupor, arising 
 from the exhaustion of a sleepless night of agonizing pain. I felt, 
 without seeing her, that she was sent for my recovery. I expressed 
 my consciousness in general terms that assumed the form of a 
 prayer. When I opened my eyes I found my visitors in tears. Mrs. 
 F. withdrew from the room, apparently overpowered, and evidently 
 anxious to conceal her feelirgs. My own could not be described. 
 1 simply remarked to my nurse, ' That lady (Mrs. Tanner) can be 
 
in mr. Ferguson's experience. 159 
 
 made the divine instrument for my relief, if she will.' My nurse 
 responded, ' Yes ; we all know that ; but she has suffered so much 
 by the false estimates of the selfish and time-serving, that although 
 the best healing medium in the city, she is no longer willing to 
 exercise her gifts. She had to leave or undertake your cure.' ' She 
 will yet consent/ said I ; ' but I desire that no one request it, nor 
 move a finger to secure it. If my restoration is divinely appointed 
 through her, it will come, and no opposition of the ignorant 
 or true delicacy of her own sensitive and pure nature can 
 prevent it.' 
 
 " The day and night passed, and nothing was heard from Mrs. 
 Tanner. She went home, as we afterwards learned ; described, under 
 deep entrancement, my disease, its locality, nature, progress, and 
 cure ; asked her family to assist her, by enabling her to give me a 
 room then occupied, and proposed, with their external help, to 
 undertake the cure. She returned to my bed on Tuesday, and 
 Tuesday evening I was removed to her house. I remained there 
 three weeks — was removed at her instance to the country for six more, 
 where she attended me, during which time I was entirely restored 
 to health, and remain so to this hour, the wonder of my friends and 
 the miracle of the community. The process of restoration was, exter- 
 nally viewed, quite severe, and there are some facts connected with 
 it worthy of note. It should be remembered that the disease was 
 periostitis of the upper portion of the tibia, and necrosis, as the 
 surgeons had alleged. For sixty hours, with most of my body 
 bandaged with bandages saturated with salt, an application of un- 
 slaked lime and soap was applied to a space two inches square. 
 This space was burned to the bone, my system sustaining the 
 shock by the constant presence of an invisible, but not intan- 
 gible power, that soothed, nay, even at times sweetened my pain. 
 Every want and wish was met. The regularity of my digestion was 
 preserved by food daily prescribed and prepared under spiritual 
 direction. It were impossible to enter into the details of these 
 strange weeks. My days were days of almost continual inspira- 
 tion, and my nights were glorified by visions no language can ever 
 portray. In the very crisis of my treatment my friend Champion 
 was spiritually brought from Nashville, without knowledge of what 
 was being done, only as he realized it spiritually, and apparently 
 only to assure my confidence that all was divinely ordered for results 
 
160 POVVEKS OF HEALING. 
 
 long expected but now certainly at hand. My surgeon friends came 
 to tell me that my limb could not be saved, and that my life was 
 endangered • but they left, acknowledging that they never witnessed 
 a more skilfully conducted process, and one of them at last acknow- 
 ledged that Mrs. T., although an uneducated lady, reflected a know- 
 ledge of the anatomical structure and physiological functions rarely 
 witnessed in the most accomplished chair of the profession. My 
 death was predicted, but my life was restored." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EDUCATION BY SUPRAMUNDANE INFLUENCES. 
 
 Among what may be denominated the uses of spiritualism, or 
 supramundane influences, there is scarcely one more interesting 
 than the education or development received by many persons 
 from such influences. There are artists whose hands have 
 been moved to make drawings of exquisite beauty. There are 
 musicians who have been made to play on instruments and 
 improvise music until their own faculties were developed. 
 There are accomplished speakers and writers who owe all their 
 training to some guiding intelligence. On this interesting 
 subject Mr. Ferguson has made the following record of facts 
 within his own observation : — 
 
 "Supramundane influence in the unfolding and education of 
 mind has been a common and most interesting experience since my 
 own attention was called to this subject. In the case of Mr. H. B. 
 Champion, already mentioned in these pages, we have a very 
 remarkable instance. This gentleman, now distinguished for his 
 comprehensiveness of thought on all subjects connected with mental 
 and moral philosophy, and for unrivalled force and beauty of 
 expression, was, to my personal knowledge, educated entirely under 
 these influences. He was not educated even in ordinary branches, 
 such as the orthography of his native tongue ; was never at school 
 but a few months in his life ; was deprived of the care of a father 
 when three months old and left to the support of a widowed 
 mother, and was deprived of all the opportunities of scholastic 
 training. Yet, when entranced by these influences, he was a 
 speaker of unexampled power, and interested the most cultivated 
 men and women in his addresses as they were never interested 
 before. He has dictated orations, metaphysical treatises, books of 
 
162 EDUCATION. 
 
 commentary, critical and expository, on the ancient Greek classics, 
 on the Hebrew literature, and on law and order in society, equal, 
 if not superior, to any that ever came under my notice in any 
 period of my most studious research. In these states of trance his 
 sentences were perfect, and would be marred by any change even 
 of punctuation, cadence, or arrangement. Indeed, I know nothing 
 in our language superior either in thought, style, or logical force. 
 
 "I have been most intimately associated with Mr. Champion for 
 some twelve years. In that time I have observed his progress with 
 the greatest care and interest until now, when his association with 
 men of the first eminence in literature only reveals his power equal to 
 any, and superior to most, in what is considered classical attainments. 
 That which was at first the gift of a supramundane power is now 
 his own ; and unless his history were known, he would be con- 
 sidered, as he often is, as a man of the highest accomplishments. 
 Although seemingly without ambition, he is bringing out an 
 elaborate work, which will be soon before the British public, every 
 word of which has, to my knowledge, been given through his sus- 
 ceptibility to the influence of an allied power of mind, entirely 
 without any of the effects of what is called scholastic culture. 
 
 " The case of Mr. George W. Harrison is another marked 
 instance. When a lad he often visited and sometimes resided in 
 my family. Prom ill health in early life he was without the 
 advantages of schools. He was soon discovered by his parents, 
 when their attention was called to this subject, to be possessed of 
 that peculiarity of organization that gives what has been termed 
 the mediumistic power. His history is most marvellous. He has, 
 in hundreds of instances, under my own observation, given unmis- 
 takeable evidence of these and kindred facts. His improvisations 
 of poetry, his orations and essays, given under influence, have com- 
 manded my most sincere admiration. Many of these I have in my 
 possession, but have not his consent to their publication in this 
 book. 
 
 " The first recognition of his susceptibility to supramundane 
 impression occurred thus : — His mother, a member of my congrega- 
 tion, hearing that I gave credence to the facts and privileges of 
 spiritual intercourse, called on me to make some inquiries respecting 
 them. She had never witnessed the phenomena. I informed her 
 that they were true, and that it was within the power of any family 
 
MR. G. W. HARRISON. 163 
 
 to realize the privileges my own had learned to prize, and that 
 demonstrations could be witnessed by all who would seek them 
 with that patience and candour necessary in every investigation of 
 man's nature. She asked me for a demonstration, but I insisted 
 she could find it at her own home and in the sacredness of her own 
 family relations. She heard me with evident confidence in my 
 sincerity, and equally evident doubt of what I promised. I read 
 her some communications I had received. She left me, and in a 
 few days returned, delighted to assure me that both her daughter 
 and son had been similarly influenced, and that the most unmis- 
 takeable evidences had been given in her family circle. Two 
 members of her family, who treated the whole subject with an 
 unconcealed contempt, were convinced in their own persons, and 
 her distinguished husband, Captain H. H. Harrison, wrote me a 
 letter of grateful acknowledgment, closing it by saying he had 
 witnessed in his own children what had challenged his admiration 
 and assured his perfect confidence. From that time to this his 
 family have recognized, and in a most eminent and commendable 
 manner reflected these evidences to many others. 
 
 "Mr. George W. Harrison has been educated by the power 
 governing these manifestations. I have received from him evidences, 
 unsought at my hands and not designed or provided for by him, 
 that transcend all estimates and standards of estimate recognized 
 either in our schools or churches. Often we have met without 
 concert from a distance of hundreds of miles ; often he has spoken 
 to me from a deep entrancement on subjects known only to myself; 
 often reflected to me a direction without which some of the most 
 important and responsible duties of my life would have miscarried ; 
 and, although much my junior in years, I never met him that I did 
 not find him companionable in thought, feeling, and aspiration in 
 the very highest degree. 
 
 " Having instanced these cases selected from many others, I desire 
 to record a general experience that may throw some light on many 
 points similarly observed. 
 
 " Whenever a gentleman or parties of gentlemen were present 
 at our sittings, distinguished in any department of science, such as 
 anatomy, physiology, chemistry, geology, &c, persons like Mr. 
 Champion or Mr. Harrison would deliver addresses on these 
 departments of science. Their addresses were always recognized 
 
164 EDUCATION 
 
 by the representatives of the subject discussed, and admitted to be 
 fully up to the standard of knowledge in these departments, often 
 beyond it, and al ways with extended thought and expression that, 
 as they admitted, could only be commanded by long and diligent 
 study. So true was this, that persons hearing of these facts, but 
 not witnessing them, ever attributed them to reflections of the 
 minds of the parties. For ten or more years some of the most 
 constant of my friends professed to believe that these mediums 
 reflected my own mind ; and admitting the undeniable character of 
 the facts, sought to account for them by ascribing them to my 
 power of impressing them upon the brains of those through whom 
 they were reflected. The result was that I gave direct and 
 systematic attention to this estimate of the phenomena, only to be 
 assured that it was not the case, only so far as all thought has its 
 connections in all human organizations. That is — 
 
 " 1. These men could deliver speeches that embraced my modes 
 of thought and manner, when I was present. 
 
 " 2. My presence was often an aid, as was that of any mind 
 present in any degree of harmony with the subjects upon which they 
 spoke. 
 
 " 3. But under favourable conditions they ever transcended my 
 thought, my investigations, and my conclusions ; so much so, that it 
 required months, and in some cases years, for me to advance to the 
 full realization of what they had reflected. 
 
 "4. Hence, while it is true that one mind aids another to an 
 extent that cannot be too highly esteemed where mutual confidence 
 prevails, it is equally true that the gain of supramundane conditions 
 or alliances of thought transcends all surrounding attainment, and 
 opens up avenues of knowledge that will extend and purify all that 
 we recognize as educational, whether considered physical, mental, or 
 moral. 
 
 " These gentlemen are to-day highly educated men. They speak 
 and write our language with great precision and accuracy. They 
 converse with men of the first attainments on all the questions that 
 engage cultivated thought. They are sought by men distinguished 
 as professors in various departments of science ; and where their 
 history is not known, as it is to myself and others, they are recognized 
 at once as men of a very high order of culture.'' 
 
under mr. Ferguson's observation. 165 
 
 Some of the facts in this relation are too suggestive to be 
 lightly passed over. That mind stimulates and influences the 
 action of mind is a fact observed certainly as early as the days 
 of Solomon. In every company of intellectual people we feel 
 the effects of this stimulus of the atmosphere of thought. 
 Aside from motives of convenience, this is the reason that 
 persons of certain pursuits are gregarious. Artists, who are of 
 sensitive organizations, make and feel an atmosphere of art. 
 Lawyers, who also group together, make an atmosphere of law. 
 A speaker gets invisible hints and ideas from his hearers. An 
 orator speaks with ease and inspiration to a sympathetic 
 assembly ; and an actor owes half his success to the inspira- 
 tion of a genial audience. It is very difficult to speak or act 
 where there is general coldness or opposition. 
 
 Furthermore, one of our delights in listening to an extempore 
 speaker is to hear him express our own thoughts, which we 
 have unconsciously given him. Those are the passages we are 
 sure to applaud. We recognize their truth, because they are 
 our own. A sensitive orator reflects the thoughts of his hearers, 
 but he combines many thoughts in his reflections, so that all 
 are gainers by the process. 
 
 Now if one human mind in the body has this power of 
 stimulating, impressing, and magnetizing another, is it strange 
 that a human mind out of the body should have the same 
 power, even in a higher degree ? And this is what every poet, 
 every man of genius, has felt, and what they have called inspi- 
 ration. All mental phenomena point to the fact that not only 
 the material of thought, but thought itself, flows into the mind 
 from other minds ; and if from minds in the body, still more 
 readily from minds emancipated from the shackles of mortality; 
 from the body so useful for a time, but which in time becomes 
 a hindrance, a clog, and a burden. 
 
 I beg, also, to add another observation, which may be made 
 here as well as elsewhere. I have observed that where minds 
 
166 EDUCATION. 
 
 were in such sympathy as to give mutual help to each other, 
 the action of one may interfere with or paralyze that of another. 
 Two persons in such sympathy cannot write in the same room 
 on different subjects. The strongest mind will take all the 
 power of both. They become positive and negative to each other. 
 In what are called spiritual circles, in which several persons 
 gather to receive spiritual communications or manifestations, 
 the mind of the medium requires to be in certain relations to 
 the minds of others, and in sympathy with them. Those who 
 aid in making the circle require to be passive, merely contri- 
 buting to the sphere or aroma of nerve-essence, so to speak, by 
 means of which an influence is given. If this is disturbed by 
 the absorption or use of this element, the communication is 
 suspended. It is as if a spiritual telegraph wire had been 
 formed, but any disturbance or other use of the wire suspends 
 the communication. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 Among the facts of our mental or spiritual experience we 
 find traces of laws in which further investigation may perhaps 
 discover a theory or system. Among the most curious of these 
 facts are those to which we give the name of sympathy and 
 antipathy, which are the attraction and repulsion of our spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 By sympathy, however, something more is meant than a 
 liking based upon obvious qualities ; and by an antipathy, more 
 than a dislike produced by obvious defects. Naturally a 
 beautiful and graceful person is pleasing and attractive ; as 
 naturally an ugly and ill-mannered one repels ; but it is well 
 known that people often feel an attraction not so justified by 
 external and apparent qualities, and a repulsion amounting to 
 abhorrence, for which it would be very difficult to find any 
 external reason. 
 
 An infant of three months sometimes manifests its attrac- 
 tions and repulsions in a very striking manner. Of two persons, 
 resembling each other in dress and appearance, it shows a 
 strong disposition to go to one, and an equal repugnance to the 
 other. It is probable that every reader may find in himself 
 likes and dislikes to persons, for which it would be very difficult 
 to account. We love and we hate without a known reason. 
 But there is no effect without a cause, and when we are at- 
 tracted to or repelled from a person, if there is nothing in the 
 appearance or manners to justify our like or dislike, we must 
 
168 SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 go deeper and look into the moral or spiritual nature of one or 
 both the persons for the ground of sympathy or antipathy 
 between them. 
 
 There are persons known to the writer so sensitive to quali- 
 ties which are not revealed to the ordinary senses, that a letter 
 coming from a disagreeable person, or written in an unpleasant 
 state of mind, gives pain by the mere touch before its contents 
 are known or suspected. A scrap of paper reveals a character 
 or a life. A person who would seem to many indifferent or 
 even agreeable, tortures by his mere presence. The sphere of 
 another is a delight. Love at first sight, which often seems so 
 inexplicable, may be considered a phenomenon of this kind — 
 the sudden discovery of a mutual sympathy between two sus- 
 ceptible beings. 
 
 But attractions and repulsions are not felt alone for animate 
 beings, as I have intimated in the case of a letter. The letter 
 conveyed pain even by its contact, apparently because it con- 
 veyed in some way not yet understood the character or feeling 
 of the writer. A room or a house may have the same pain- 
 inflicting power. I know a lady who was made very unhappy 
 by residing in an excellent and very pleasant house. In the 
 nicest room of the house she was especially miserable. She 
 had even a strong desire to throw herself from the front window. 
 When she went into the street her bad feelings, depression, 
 misery, and tendency to suicide all vanished, but returned again 
 on returning to the house, and she was finally obliged to find 
 another residence. Wishing to get some clue to this seemingly 
 baseless antipathy, and the suffering and even danger attend- 
 ing it, I made inquiry respecting the house, and found that it 
 had been recently vacated by a gentleman whose wife had been 
 afflicted with a suicidal mania, ending in her throwing herself 
 with fatal effect from a window of the best room, whose sphere 
 had produced such an unhappy effect upon the lady who was its 
 next occupant. 
 
MENTAL ANTIPATHIES. 169 
 
 This lady, I may say to prevent any misapprehension, was a 
 stranger in the city in which the house is situated, and had 
 never heard in any way of its former occupants, and her state 
 was inexplicable to herself, her friends, and her physician, until 
 the above facts were ascertained. 
 
 How shall we account for such facts ? for this one does not 
 stand alone by any means. Can a good or bad, a happy or 
 miserable person impart his qualities or feelings to a piece of 
 paper, or a room — to any material object, as the magnet imparts 
 to a piece of steel its power of attraction ? Do evil communi- 
 cations not only corrupt good manners, but the very matter of 
 the world about us ; and has misery the power of creating a 
 sphere of misery ? Are there also holy places, full of blessing, 
 sanctity, and prayer, which have an absolute influence for good 
 on those who visit them ? Are rings and charms and amulets 
 magnetic, to use an analogue for what we cannot otherwise 
 explain, and has the immemorial belief in the power of relics a 
 natural, not to say a scientific basis ? 
 
 If so, beware of evil influences. A bad man or woman has 
 many ways of using and diffusing badness; while the good radiate 
 goodness all around them, and bless even the paths they tread 
 and the mansions they inhabit. 
 
 To return to personal influences : the lady who was so much 
 troubled by the sphere of a house was visited one day by a 
 popular clergyman, who rivalled Coleridge in being a wonderful 
 talker, preacher, and writer. On being addressed by the 
 clergyman, the lady said, " I cannot talk with you ; there is 
 poison between your soul and mine." The gentleman persisted 
 in wishing to enter into conversation with her. She repeated 
 the remark she had made about the poison at every attempt, 
 until, to her astonishment, he took from his waistcoat pocket a 
 box of opium, and gave it to her, confessing that it was by its 
 influence he had made his reputation in the pulpit and in society. 
 "Warned in this strange manner he promised to abandon its use, 
 
170 SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 and left it for a time ; but, as is usual in such cases, returned to 
 the drug, and died miserably in consequence. 
 
 Here was an antipathy to which a name may be given instead 
 of an explanation. The smatterer in psychology will say, " Oh ! 
 that is a case of clairvoyance." Yery good; but what is clair- 
 voyance ? It is a power of seeing in some extraordinary manner, 
 as into a box in a gentleman's pocket. But the name does not 
 in the least explain the fact any more than the word gravitation 
 explains the fall of an apple. The word as in most cases is the 
 sign of a fact, but not of the cause of the fact. The lady had 
 no consciousness of box or opium ; but there came into her 
 mind the one feeling, " poison" — not by sight, or smell, or taste, 
 but either by some power of the spirit to perceive, without the 
 use of its ordinary instruments, the senses, or by information 
 communicated by some other spirit. 
 
 Antipathies very marked are sometimes felt in the presence 
 of criminals or wicked persons, but not always towards those who 
 have committed crimes, as the criminal will or character may 
 be wanting. A coward full of hatred may *be worse than an 
 actual homicide. The one has blood on his soul ; the other, on 
 his hands. 
 
 The lady above referred to was one day introduced to a 
 gentleman, and saw the whole air about him filled with blood ; 
 but the sight was accompanied by no antipathy, but by a feeling 
 of deep pity. She felt that he was not a bad man, his only 
 guilt being that of anger, and said to him, " You would kill 
 your best friend in a moment of passion, and spend a life of 
 remorse for it." He left the company, and she was told by one 
 who knew him that he had killed his friend in a sudden quarrel' 
 and been tried and acquitted, but had never had a happy hour 
 afterwards. It is not easy to say how this revelation was made 
 to the lady, or why. Did this unhappy homicide carry about 
 with him such a vivid consciousness of his deed as to impress in 
 this manner the spirit of a sensitive person who came into his 
 
ATTRACTIONS AND REPULSIONS. 171 
 
 presence ? Granting this, we have no distinct idea of the 
 modus operandi of such impressions. 
 
 In the experience of this lady such impressions sometimes 
 take almost whimsical forms. She was shown one day, and 
 took into her hand, a letter written by a man of some celebrity, 
 whom she had never seen. It was before the day of cartes de 
 vislte and multitudinous photographs, but instantly there rose 
 before her a vision of the man, more perfect than any picture, 
 and she recognized him the moment she saw him. She has 
 described with perfect accuracy the personal appearance and 
 characteristics of persons whose names were mentioned in her 
 presence, so that every one who knew them recognized the 
 description. 
 
 Sympathies and antipathies, if free to declare themselves, 
 and be regarded, might be to the harmony of society what 
 attractions and repulsions are in the arrangements of the 
 harmonies of nature. In an artificial society they are often 
 violated, always with loss and pain, often with misery. But 
 even in society as it exists attractions group whatever is 
 pleasant and enjoyable, and repulsions or antipathies are often 
 protective. There are persons in whose society sensitive 
 persons feel a chill, or a sensation like choking, and there is an 
 instinct, like that of animals, to avoid what is disagreeable or 
 dangerous. The wicked are like the rattlesnake, only that 
 their rattles are felt, not heard. 
 
 The mediums of spiritual communications are often, perhaps 
 always, highly sensitive to what has been called spheres and 
 personal influences. The higher classes of spiritual manifesta- 
 tions cannot be given in a discordant circle. A person 
 antipathetic to the medium will derange the conditions of 
 communication as a storm deranges the magnetic telegraph. 
 This is not always true in the same degree in physical 
 manifestations, as those of the Brothers Davenport are given 
 amid the tumult of a mob and the most violent opposition. 
 
 l 2 
 
172 SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 There seems to be two kinds of antipathy and protection — one 
 against evil, the other testifying of disagreement and discord. A 
 bad man or woman may have many attractions for very good 
 persons, and good people may be very antipathetic to each 
 other. Then good is a relative term, and only positive to the 
 individual. The highest good I am capable of may be very 
 low to a saint or an angel, and my measure of virtue might be 
 very oppressive to one who had not reached my power of doing 
 or receiving good. 
 
 The nearer we live to the law of right in the heart — the more 
 tender our conscience and the more true our lives, the greater 
 is the protective power about us. Our antipathies are more 
 surely protective than our attractions when obeyed. The 
 heathen named God " The Infinite Check ;" a wonderfully wise 
 definition, in my opinion. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE. 
 
 Particular and personal providences make an impressive 
 portion of the lives of many persons. Where most persons 
 live from knowledge and experience, and lead what are termed 
 rational lives, the man or woman who lives by faith is com- 
 paratively rare. The many distrust this land of life, and are 
 apt to confound it with the dependent laziness of those who lay 
 their burdens upon the shoulders of others and talk fluently 
 and falsely of relying upon the Divine Providence. 
 
 But amid the want of faith that makes over- anxiety and 
 over- work, and the easy-going indolence that simulates faith, 
 there are instances of a true reliance on Providence. A 
 religious person who feels a mission to do something for the 
 good of the world or the Church, from the inflowing divine 
 impulse of the sovereign good, our Heavenly Father, may well 
 say, I give all, and in offering all I must receive all. By the 
 law of universal circulation of the spiritual and material life, 
 those who give all they are, and all they have or can acquire, 
 wisely for God, in the good of man, may expect infallibly to 
 receive all they need for their work of charity, whether it be 
 sustentation and success, or stripes and imprisonments, or 
 death. The folly of the cross is only equalled by its success. 
 The crucifixion gave Christianity and all its beneficences, and 
 the Holy Spirit, with all its treasures of divine power and 
 wisdom, to the world. To the haughty Roman the folly and 
 assumption of the Nazarene, his pretended miracles and his 
 ignominious death, were but the madness and misery of one of 
 
174 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE. 
 
 the vulgar rabble. The martyrdoms of the first apostles, and 
 afterwards of multitudes of Christian men and women, were but 
 the continuation of the madness, folly, and misery of the 
 ignorant and deluded in the opinion of aristocratic unbelievers. 
 The highest civilization, the best system of morals, law that is 
 the perfection of human reason, and a charity that is more 
 than human, because it is divine, have been the gifts of 
 Christianity to the world ; and if it be said, how wicked 
 Christians are with all these, we have only to ask, what would 
 they be without them ? The sublime mystery of suffering may 
 not be explained to any in this world, but so far sacrifice and 
 suffering have been as the breath of life and the condition of 
 wisdom and power to those who have been apostles of great 
 good to our race. "Not that they have always wept ; not that 
 bloody sweat has been continually exacted in their labour of 
 love ; but that they have for a longer or shorter period hung 
 on the cross with the Saviour of men, that they have been 
 united to the Immanuel by suffering, and that only thus 
 have they been called to reign with Him, and to dispense 
 good gifts to the children of men. Great is the mystery of 
 suffering for good, and great the power given to those who have 
 been united by it to the life of our God. 
 
 "When once the soul has been brought into this divine unity, 
 it may be said to have reached the haven of rest. Such a 
 one does not live from men, but for them* He or she does not 
 ask for the goods of this world in credit, praise, fame, or gold, 
 but calmly receives what Providence gives, seeking only to 
 live from the law of God in the heart, to make all things 
 according to the pattern seen in the mount. Such persons 
 may not seem to live differently from others ; they may not do 
 any wonderful work ; they may not fast voluntarily, or by 
 force of poverty ; we may not know them from their neighbours, 
 aud when they accept our hospitality we may entertain angels 
 unawares. All things are easy to those who have vital faith 
 
SPIRIT IMPRESSIONS. 175 
 
 and live a true life. God is omnipotent if Pie exists ; also 
 all- wise and all good ; in a word, God. What, then, is to 
 hinder His care and sustentation of those in unity with His 
 will and purpose ? 
 
 The late Cardinal Wiseman said that he never had a doubt 
 or the shadow of a doubt respecting his faith. How such a 
 man could feel for Deists, Atheists, and dead Christians, one 
 can hardly see, but he was ever the helpful friend of every 
 doubting Thomas who came to him. Of modern spiritual 
 manifestations he spoke as a man of faith. To a woman who 
 had come into the church through the ministry of the Jesuit 
 saints, Ignatius Loyola, and Francis Xavier, he was frankly 
 kind, and after having expressed his gratitude to Almighty 
 God for having thus brought souls into his church, he said, 
 " I should deny my faith if I were to deny these manifesta- 
 tions. If any one thinks less of you for being led in this way, 
 I can bring you to people who will not do so." And then he 
 spoke of a lady, who, he said, always followed interior 
 guidance or impression, and he remarked simply, " It always 
 does well ; she always comes out right." 
 
 To have particular providences it is needful to follow par- 
 ticular impressions and guidance. If a man is impressed that 
 he ought not to take passage on a certain ship or go on a 
 certain railway train, and he does not obey the impression, if 
 he loses his life in the one or the other, there is no special 
 providence, because there has been no special obedience. 
 
 We take note of what is pleasant or seemingly fortunate for 
 us. A special providence may kill or cure, starve or feed with 
 equally beneficent purpose, and we are not to judge of purposes 
 or ends by limited segments of our own or others' lives. 
 Wisdom and experience both teach us that no folly is greater 
 than our most agonized prayers, and that to grant them would 
 be consummate cruelty in our Almighty Father and Friend. 
 The lesson taught in the lives of the faithful is simply this : 
 
176 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE 
 
 Do your best, and leave results and all else to Infinite Wisdom, 
 and not to finite folly. The best of all prayers is to have no 
 will but God's will. The best of all efforts is often to do abso- 
 lutely nothing. The best charity is often to give, not what we 
 have, but what we have not. As the apostle said, " Silver and 
 gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee. In the 
 name (or power) of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk." 
 The gift of power, of energy, of self-help, which is not ours, 
 but Grod's, is the soul of all true giving. It is charity, which 
 alms may be or may not be. The soul true to itself is not left 
 in doubt as to duties. It does not give because gifts are asked 
 from without, but it obeys the law of life in the interior, giving 
 or withholding in obedience to the Infinite Check. Many give 
 as falsely as they hoard, and it is probable that a pure charity 
 is as rare as a true life from the grace that seeks to govern and 
 guide us all. 
 
 Among the records of Mr. Ferguson we find the following 
 narrative of singular experiences, bearing date November 25, 
 1856 :— 
 
 "It is now quite six months since we have made a record of the 
 evidences of spiritual life, inspiration, and power that have attended 
 our family circle for years past. In that time our circle has been 
 severed from two of its regular members, and we have removed from 
 Nashville, Tennessee, to New Orleans, Louisiana. These events 
 have been preceded, attended, and followed by the most signal 
 instances of spiritual manifestation, requiring at our hands a faith- 
 ful, though it must needs be a brief narrative. 
 
 " These manifestations have furnished us the most unmistakeable 
 proofs of the prescience and superior power of spirit-intelligences, 
 holding all mortal relations and external things in subordination to 
 their divine and beneficent sway. All power is of God, and is 
 administered by and through the various conditions and intelli- 
 gences of the universe, in the degree of their ascension, on a scale 
 where moral rectitude and ends form the standard. 
 
 "We left Nashville 16th August, 1856. Two months previous 
 to our departure, the time and manner of that departure were dis- 
 
in mr. Ferguson's life. 177 
 
 tinctly pointed out, with the circumstances leading to and attending 
 it. For example : it was said we would sever our relations to the 
 public, owing to the fact that some of our most trusted friends 
 would prove treacherous, under the fear of spirit-knowledge of some 
 of their selfish designs ; would, as they supposed, secretly betray the 
 trust reposed in them in their nominal Church relations, so as to 
 make it appear that we were usurpers of the rights of others in the 
 house of worship we held ; and that, while professing the strictest 
 friendship for me personally, and confidence in our purposes for the 
 common good, and while really desiring us to continue as their 
 often-chosen public teacher, they would, from temptations of worldly 
 gain, so act as to make it anything but honourable for us to continue 
 our occupancy of the house which had so recently been built for our 
 use. We had no suspicion of anything of this character at the time, 
 and still we found every statement true to the letter, and we were 
 enabled to do what for many months we had fondly desired, but 
 were prevented from doing by our sense of obligation to the profes- 
 sions of friendship of the very men who were secretly surrendering 
 our position, viz., to give up freely and for ever the property our 
 opponents were claiming, on the ground that we did not represent 
 the religious opinions they had when the house was erected. Our 
 course was at once clear. We surrendered all claim, vacated the 
 premises, the scene of so much contention, and were left free to adopt 
 such course as our own judgment and sense of our obligation to this 
 divine cause might warrant. 
 
 " The meetings of our opponents and their plans, so far as they 
 affected us, were pointed out. Their purpose to sue us at the law, and 
 the ground upon which they would predicate a lawsuit, were definitely 
 revealed, so that we prevented them at every point, and to such an 
 extent that it was supposed we were constantly in the advice of the 
 best lawyers of the city, and yet no man living could say we had 
 ever mentioned the matter to him in any way with a view to legal 
 or any other advice. Peace was restored to those who loved it, and 
 -truth and right vindicated without the sacrifice of any man's claims, 
 so far as "we were concerned, which we are fully satisfied could no 
 have been secured by any wisdom we possessed in the difficult and 
 aggravated disputes which had arisen, for the most part, from reli- 
 gious differences, and which had been increased by religious hate 
 for years. 
 
178 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE 
 
 " We were advised by those who had cast off the form of flesh, 
 and whose unselfish nature and divine purposes enabled them to 
 guard the rights and interests of all, whether friend or enemy, and 
 secure the highest ends of each, honestly seeking truth and right. 
 I may safely say that there was not an incident of any importance, 
 not a movement of any one connected with either party, that was 
 not anticipated and pointed out to us often weeks and months before 
 we were called upon to act with respect to them. And while the 
 perverse disposition, injurious designs, and misdirected acts of many 
 were necessarily exposed to us, whenever we honestly sought divine 
 direction — purposes and acts that may be imagined when it is 
 remembered that even the house of worship was set on fire at three 
 different times ; that no character, however pure and tried, was safe 
 from reproach — still, no disclosure was ever made so that any, even 
 of the most perfidious, were injured. Their reputation was guarde < 
 for the sake of their families. 
 
 " Among a number of instances equally remarkable, my mind in 
 now turned to one which I record as illustrative of what I mean, 
 and because it came under the observation of all concerned. The 
 property of the house was still held in the name of Mr. James 
 "Walker, who originally owned the lot of ground on which it was 
 erected. The house had been paid for by those who were then my 
 friends, but a debt for the ground was still owing. Our immediate 
 friends would have paid the debt at any time, but were not assured 
 that they would not, by so doing, purchase a long suit at law with 
 those who claimed all the property on the ground of their doctrinal 
 consistency. It was thought advisable, therefore, to allow him to 
 hold his debt on the property, nominally at least, till the dispute was 
 settled. He was a firm and devoted friend of mine, and had done 
 as much towards building the house as any other man He regarded 
 the movements against us as originating in envy, and degenerating 
 into malice, under the direction of men for whom, as a man of the 
 world, he had no respect. On a certain Monday morning I was 
 informed spiritually that the opposite party would proffer Mr« 
 Walker the money due to him for the lot, knowing at the time he 
 would not receive it, and then proceed at law to recover the pro- 
 perty. I was told it would be done before eleven o'clock of that 
 day. I had no other intimation, for the proposition had been made 
 by a few cautious men on the Saturday night previous. They had 
 
tn mr. Ferguson's life. 179 
 
 agreed, from motives of interest, to keep it a profound secret, as we 
 afterwards learned. At nine o'clock I induced two of my friends, 
 as the representatives of those occupying the house, to offer Mr. 
 Walker, in gold, the amount he claimed. He refused it, of course 
 as we expected, and he and my friends alike Jhought me needlessly 
 concerned in the premises. At ten o'clock the other party came 
 and made the same offer, and were overwhelmed in astonishment to 
 find themselves anticipated in what they supposed no man had 
 suspected. A suit was by this means prevented, and all concerned 
 acknowledged that we had sources of information which could not 
 be defeated, but the majority dishonoured the name of their God by 
 ascribing them to the devil. 
 
 "We will remark another instance, because we are directed to do 
 so, and which comes still nearer home to our bosoms as a lesson of 
 violated confidence and misguided affection. Two of the mediums 
 in our happy, and yet sorely-tried circle, proved false to their high 
 trust and the friendship that had brought them and held them to it. 
 We enter not into particulars, for it would be alike painful and 
 profitless to relate them here. They flattered themselves with a 
 vain ambition ; supposed that earthly glory, perhaps wealth, were 
 at their command in the use of their novel and wonderful experi- 
 ence. They forgot that everything depends upon its appropriate 
 conditions. We loved them with more than ordinary affection ; 
 they loved us, but knew not how to preserve our happy and har- 
 monious union. We had nurtured them as our children ; taken 
 them away from the world's scorn into our own home of affectionate 
 trust. We had enjoyed, as our records will show, many a happy 
 season together. We thought we were united for life. But in a 
 tempted hour, when it was seen that we had given up a salary for 
 our support, and almost every means of temporal sustenance contrary 
 to their wish, though in accordance with their unconscious inspira- 
 tion, they betrayed our confidence, and were separated from us. 
 Private communications, made in the sacredness of the most holy 
 confidence, affecting the character of persons we were asked to 
 benefit, they gave to the parties only to beget contempt for them- 
 selves, and they were thus engaged and otherwise occupied in efforts 
 to destroy confidence in one whom they could honour only by their 
 envy, for months without the slightest suspicion on our part. They 
 were often most solemnly and affectionately warned in our presence, 
 
180 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE 
 
 but in such, to us, vague (but to tliem pointed) terms, that we were 
 not allowed to see their purpose, until finally, although they had 
 pledged each other by an oath not to reveal it, one of them was 
 made to take an over-dose of laudanum at the house of his parents, 
 for which neither he nor they could ever account, and was then by 
 invisible power brought to our house, where he came under 
 spiritual influence, and disclosed all their purposes, and gave us the 
 means of knowing the truth beyond all question. We could not 
 even then believe, but in the course of a few days were left without 
 will in the case by the development of their plans, since signally 
 defeated. "We were, most painfully to ourselves, and, we fear, to 
 them, separated from them, and taught the folly of all human 
 fellowship based upon any personal or selfish consideration or hope. 
 "We saw, also, that however susceptible to spiritual influence 
 men may become under favourable circumstances thrown around 
 them, their sense of right, their love of truth, their convic- 
 tion of honour, and their true virtue, must come as a growth 
 amid the trials and discipline of a common providential culture. 
 Spiritual revelation is not incompatible with degraded moral 
 character, but the instrument in such cases is always self- 
 exposed, and his gifts depart if he seek not to improve. A 
 hundred examples of this character have come before the 
 American public in the past five years of persons selling their 
 inspiration by the minute or hour, and seeking position as authors, 
 fortune-tellers, and ' spirit-rappers,' so called, for public entertain- 
 ment, all going to prove that old but inexorable truth, that they only 
 are spiritual who live in and of the Spirit of all truth, wisdom, and 
 love. Such persons have their place and answer an end, but it is 
 not the highest place of moral power, nor is the end that to which 
 every effort of the human being, living as he does from hour to 
 hour upon the divine bounty, should be directed. 
 
 " We were told that we would leave Nashville in the middle of 
 August, by the Cumberland Eiver, two months prior to our starting, 
 at a time when no boat could ascend it, owing to its low stage of 
 water, and when every probability was that it would be still lower. 
 It rained on the 13th and 14th, and we left on the 1 6th, on the only 
 rise, with one exception, of that river for over three months of the 
 season. We were told that the purchaser for our property, a house 
 and lot and furniture, was spiritually selected, that I need not 
 
181 
 
 advertise, and that I should act as though it were sold in all my 
 business arrangements, which were necessary if we removed, as 
 expected. We sold to John Branham, a worthy farmer of Sumner 
 county, and completed the sale just two days before our departure, 
 while the rain was falling that had been predicted two months 
 before, and which enabled us to give immediate possession, by 
 removing all our excepted property. We were told that one of our 
 company would be taken sick, and that the sickness, though severe, 
 would not end in death, but in the high spiritual good of the person. 
 We were not allowed to know ivho it was, but were told who it 
 was not, with respect to those most likely to be sick. I was taken 
 with fever the last week in August ; was perfectly prostrated for 
 over thirty days ; the only attack of fever I had had for twenty-five 
 years. This prediction was given over two months before our 
 departure, and three months before the attack, when I was enjoying 
 the most perfect health. I was sent to Illinois to see after some 
 lands that a friend of mine had entered for the benefit of my 
 children three years before. I had no means of knowing where he 
 had made the location, and did not know, and yet by spiritual 
 direction was set down right at the place, much to my surprise and 
 gratification. 
 
 " We left Nashville, knowing spiritually that we would locate in 
 the south. We supposed of ourselves that we would select a lake- 
 shore home on the coast between New Orleans and Mobile. We 
 had visited that coast, and had made it the place of our choice. In 
 our removal we started there with our goods. We arrived there 
 according to our plan, but in passing through New Orleans we were 
 directed to leave our goods in the city. We could not understand 
 the direction, but. accepted it on the ground that we might move 
 from place to place on the coast till our permanent home were 
 selected, but still could see no reason why we should leave our goods 
 there any more than at any eligible point on the coast. Two months 
 on the coast satisfied us that it would not be wise for us to live 
 there. We purchased a home in New Orleans, and found our goods 
 had been left there very wisely, both as regards convenience and 
 economy. The purchase of our new home, the time, the manner, the 
 place of location, the methods of meeting the difficulties in the 
 way, were all clearly and pointedly revealed to us by spiritual 
 attendants. Not in recorded history, many of whose pages I have 
 
182 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE 
 
 devoutly scanned and studied, neither in sacred nor profane, so called, 
 have I seen or read brighter evidences of divine rule superintending 
 all — yes, all things, than have been given us, even us, unworthy as 
 we are. We are overwhelmed with their nature and number ; we 
 are elevated in their enjoyment and power. God, of His infinite 
 mercy, make us faithful to the sacred responsibilities they daily 
 involve. Aye, the time would fail us to record the unnumbered 
 instances of direction, protection, and consolation given us during 
 this period, mixing as they did with, and in many instances 
 directly controlling, our daily duties, responsibilities, and privileges. 
 " To show somewhat the confidence our small degree of faithful- 
 ness had secured, in that it brought to us so many and such varied 
 evidences, I remember that while ill, and to all appearance very 
 dangerously so, my friend Champion was directed to purchase a 
 property in my name involving all my means, when also I had no 
 income, and no prospective source of any ; when every day seemed 
 to involve me more and more in straitened circumstances ; far from 
 our former home ; our lot among strangers, and our name associated 
 with a cause much abused by its professed friends, much feared and 
 affectedly despised by its enemies. We made the purchase, which 
 has proved to be in every respect the most advantageous one we 
 ever made. The character of the professed spiritualists of New 
 Orleans ; the degree of their progress ; the circumstances necessary 
 to their further advancement ; the warning that if we connected 
 ourselves with either of their parties we would not benefit them? 
 and would cripple the very purposes for which we had been directed 
 to the south ; all this was pointed out to us at a time when we 
 were both anxious and willing to engage with them in any method 
 that would properly reach the public, and the future has, both to 
 them and us, confirmed the wisdom of the advice. Their little 
 parties came to naught of their own agencies, or lack of them ; their 
 mediums had already seemingly lost their gifts, and their people 
 generally were disappointed and disheartened." 
 
 To this record of providential facts we append the following, 
 which may properly be considered as belonging, for the most 
 part, to the same class of manifestations : — 
 
 " Mrs. Ferguson, while residing in Southern Kentucky, during 
 
in mr. Ferguson's life. 183 
 
 her husband's mission in that region, far from home, and separated 
 a larger portion of the time from her husband, lost a sister by 
 death, under very afflicting circumstances. Her silent grief was 
 rapidly undermining her health. The head of the family whose 
 guests they were was an aged man of high intellectual culture, a 
 physician retired from practice, who had ever been as a father to 
 Mrs. F. He was considered a sceptic in religion of the school of 
 Hume. He had spent five years in Edinburgh to complete his 
 scientific education; was the companion of the first men of our 
 nation ; and no man's advice or opinion had more weight in the 
 circle in which he moved. 
 
 " One day, seated with him and Mrs. F., we observed that Mrs. 
 F. was in a very strange state, which, as a physician, he thought 
 threatened catalepsy. Her arms were rigid ; she was speechless, 
 but still sat upright, and refused, by resistance, to be cared for ; 
 her eyes fixed, bright and beaming. After a few moments or 
 minutes of suspense, she motioned him near her, when her right arm 
 relaxed and she took his hand. Soon the left was similarly placed 
 in mine. "With great effort, seemingly, she commenced speaking. 
 In measured, clear, and distinct sentences, she spoke to that aged 
 philosopher on themes he had written about, but she never had 
 studied ; then, turning to me, she said that she saw and conversed 
 with her deceased sister ; and from that hour her distress was gone, 
 and her health returned. She, to confirm to us the truth of what 
 she said, described conditions of members of the sister's family 
 several miles distant, which w T ere found to be accurate ; made known 
 and replied to most difficult questions in my own mind and his ; 
 described scenes in both lives no one could know but ourselves ; 
 and announced arrivals at the mansion, of whose coming no one 
 knew. In a few weeks all noted a bright and beautiful change, 
 and to this day I have never known her to grieve for that sister's 
 absence, while often she has given clearest evidence of communion 
 with her. 
 
 11 Similar and equally strange experiences were noted in Mrs. 
 Ferguson and others for ovir seven years. For example: Mrs. F. 
 could know where Mr. F. was at a distance of miles ; could antici- 
 pate to a minute any unexpected return from his field of labour. 
 She described for a physician, son of the head of the family, the 
 
184 
 
 OF PROVIDENCES AND GUARDIAN CARE. 
 
 state of his patients she had never seen ; predicted their demise or 
 recovery, and often in direct opposition to the doctor's belief." 
 
 I will give one instance among many to illustrate Mrs. 
 Ferguson's power of knowing events at a distance. Mr. 
 Ferguson had written that he would be home from a long and 
 laborious term of labour. The day had arrived and passed, and 
 the whole family circle gathered to meet him were breaking up 
 in disappointment. Mrs. Ferguson, without expressing disap- 
 pointment, was noticed retiring from the company to the 
 chamber of the matron of the mansion. There she was soon 
 joined by the young physician and his wife and mother 
 Seeing her in an abstracted state, which" they "'attributed to dis- 
 appointment, they said, ""We think Mr. Ferguson will not 
 come." " Yes, he will," said she ;) " he stopped on his way to 
 see a sick friend ; I have seen him mixing something for him 
 which will give him relief. He will stop also for the letters at 
 
 the post-office, and will be here at o'clock." All she said 
 
 the doctor wrote down. Mr. F. arrived at the hour ; he had 
 stopped and made some camphorated ointment for a brother 
 preacher suffering with a painful contusion ; had rode out of his 
 way to bring the letters of the family and his own from the 
 neighbouring post-office, that he need not send a servant ; of all 
 of which he informed them before a hint had been given of what 
 Mrs. F. had stated. 
 
 These events excited a great deal of curiosity and interest. 
 By Mr. F. they were noted and somewhat classified ; but they 
 were never exhibited or detailed merely to gratify the ear of 
 idle curiosity, and Mrs. F. avoided and refused to give what she 
 clearly saw, save as it unconsciously escaped her, or some 
 acknowledged good object called it forth. One other example 
 we record : — 
 
 " During the autumn of 1845 Mrs. F. insisted that Mr. F. and 
 her family, then consisting of herself and two children, must go to 
 Ohio to her father's home, or she would never see him again upon 
 
EVIDENCES OF PREVISION. 185 
 
 earth. Her anxiety was attributed to filial affection and natural 
 apprehension. Her letters spoke of her father as in his usual health, 
 and there was no indication of any illness in the family. However? 
 at length, for other reasons, we made the visit. We arrived ; found 
 all well save the father, who, though not seriously ill, was neverthe- 
 less suffering from an old disease. We remained two months, 
 during which time we were witnesses to the most painful suffering, 
 which finally closed in a serene and hopeful departure of the father, 
 whose death, at a distance of five hundred miles, she had antici- 
 pated four months before it ^ took place. When we left our former 
 home she told Mr. F. that her brother, then a seemingly healthy man 
 of twenty-two, would soon follow, and that her aged mother and 
 youngest brother would live alone at the family seat, for she had so 
 seen them. She spoke of thes- facts with deep distress, and gradually 
 they seemed to fade from her memory. Two years later her brother 
 died after a very brief illness, and the younger brother and 
 mother are to-day occupying the old seat, as they have done in com- 
 parative loneliness for nearly twenty years ! " 
 
 To give all the evidences of this and a kindred character 
 that attended the lives of these persons would require volumes. 
 We give but an example here and there, and such only as 
 received the acknowledgment of many disinterested persons. 
 Mr. F. claims that his most painstaking studies of the gravest 
 questions were often anticipated, aided, and matured by the 
 reflections of Mrs. F. from this highly interior condition, and 
 that if he has any claim to-day to consideration in metaphysical 
 or religious teaching, it is the result of his measure of fidelity to 
 the administering of a Power above and beyond all the books 
 and treatises it was his care, as it was his profession, to study, 
 and perhaps master. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PROPHECIES OE THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 " The certain approach, and, to some extent, the character of 
 the present terrific revolution in American society and politics 
 was often foreshadowed to my own mind, and to me through 
 other organizations with which I was associated. So true is 
 this, that I can now say in all honesty that most, if not all, its 
 strange and generally unexpected events were panoramically 
 portrayed to me years before they were actualized in the expe- 
 rience of our people and before the gaze of the world. I was 
 not engaged in politics. True, I was a student of our own 
 system of government and those of other countries, but not 
 with reference to place, position, or partizan triumph in any 
 direction such as modern policy has taken. I loved my country 
 — my whole country — and was not insensible to the disjointed 
 character of our institutions, nor to the disasters which coloniza- 
 tion and emigration from all quarters of the globe threatened. 
 It was clear to my mind from common observation that our 
 statesmanship, degenerating into mere partizan strife for spoils 
 and power, would be unequal to the task of legislating for the 
 natural and unavoidable diversity of sentiment and purpose 
 that our great contrariety in soil, climate, and culture was pro- 
 ducing, and must ever spontaneously produce. But as my duties 
 were all that one mortal man, in my surroundings, could 
 perform, I avoided all political strife, and was content to nerve 
 myself against approaching danger, and hold my mind ready 
 for an inevitable change. 
 
PROPHECY OF THE REVOLUTION. 187 
 
 " Constantly, however, the impending struggle was portrayed 
 before me by these supramundane evidences, as all my records 
 will show, and my speeches, sermons, and indeed all my public 
 addresses, were marked with what my friends have since chosen 
 to call Prophecies of the Revolution. For example : in my 
 last address before my congregation, in voluntarily surrendering a 
 large and beautiful church that was built for my use, in a 
 valedictory sermon that was preached at the time, I used these 
 — then apparently meaningless — words : — ' I have offered you, 
 my friends, to-day some thoughts that, although they live in my 
 soul and can never be separated from my life, may not be 
 verified in my day nor perfected in my generation. But when 
 your sons shall live for the God of avarice that threatens to 
 rule over this fair land, and die slaughtered for their devil of 
 ambition, you will begin to realize that they are not fancy's 
 dream of the night, nor the ebullitions of what some might 
 regard ideal fear for our future. I tell you that civil war is 
 inevitable. I tell you that this proud nation will go to war 
 with itself. I tell you that not the slavery of the African, but 
 the power that wields the consciences of men as so many toys 
 will involve you in another struggle of arms for mental freedom. 
 The men who to-day trifle with the grave questions your 
 condition as a people involves, are as dogs that prowl at night 
 to invade the habitations of peace. Your peace is already 
 invaded, and no power can stay the impending storm. It 
 would be to make myself a dog not to tell you so, and 
 that in language plain and common as the language of your 
 birth/ 
 
 "Almost every reflected evidence given at my own family 
 altar of truthful communion was filled with these warning 
 admonitions. I will select one, from many that are quite as 
 distinct and unmistakeable, that bears the date of 1859, given 
 through Mrs. L. L. "W"., and addressed to me before she knew 
 of my own realizations : — 
 
 * 2 
 
188 PROPHECY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 " Eecord it in your hearts, record it in your capitol, for, as sure 
 as God reigns, the era of justice has dawned, and the upheaving 
 soul of humanity will reveal to you, man of the far-seeingeye, 
 a heap of ashes where the altar of your people now stands. In vain 
 does the most enlightened vision opened to your gaze sleep. In 
 vain your country folds its arms and cries, ' All is well.' The 
 mother, to that sound of ' All is well,' folds her arms about the 
 infant and rocks it to sleep. The father with his iron-heeled boot 
 walks on the edge of the volcano, nor feels the shell tremble beneath 
 his feet. Heaven knocks at the door, and still the enlightened 
 vision sleeps. Agonized mothers and anguished fathers are leagued, 
 not to overcome an obstacle of Spirit-land, so called, but the 
 mountains of earth, that they may reach the hearts of men. It is 
 for this your Washingtons, your Jeffersons, your brightest constel- 
 lations, left silent their harps in highest heaven, and came down 
 barefoot as it were, with the stench of earth filling and sating 
 every sensibility, knocking at the door of every heart. Prostrate at 
 the feet even of the prostitute, threading every fibre of the human 
 heart, they have pleaded and sought to awaken a recognition. But 
 with all the lights which cluster about him, and though the vision of 
 all past times is unfolded before your generation, the statesman 
 refuses to hear. We have knocked at the door of the mother, the 
 woman, the man, and at last we have taken up our station at the 
 open heart of the prostitute soul, and that is why God has sounded 
 His note so long in the so-called lower spheres. 
 
 " Then after a fall description of the revolution and its world- 
 wide direction and influence, the address continues : — 
 
 " This is a mere outlining of the picture which should arise to 
 the statesman's vision were it not obscured by the death-stroke of 
 passion. And while the domestic, the social and political aspect of 
 your country is blazing with stars of mighty brilliancy, should one 
 break out from the dark cloud, how around it the wanderers in 
 darkness would cluster, expecting to receive light from this source ! 
 But no sooner do they approach than it is gone out, and the dark- 
 ness is deeper than before. Lo ! in the Southern horizon another 
 looms to view, but the children no sooner ask of its light than it 
 too is swallowed up in darkness, and another flock is dispersed, 
 
DELIV ERED IN NEW ORLEANS. 189 
 
 until there is presented to view one vast herd of sheep scattered in 
 wild dismay ; while from the North comes the shout of ' Wolf, 
 wolf ! ' and they flee in mad terror to the South ; but here also 
 is the shout of ' Wolf, wolf ! ' which hurries them in confusion to 
 the West ; but yet again, ' Wolf, wolf ! ' till at last, obscured in 
 gloom, they turn wolf and devour each other ; until even from the 
 Masonic East, where the grand master takes his seat, there is dark- 
 ness and confusion, and the cry goes up, ' The temple is demolished, 
 the craft dispersed, the instruments are worthless, the compass lost, 
 the square broken, the plumb-line gone,' and no Mason rises up to 
 say, 'God is established, and I am firm.' 
 
 " Again, in an address delivered in Dr. Clapp's church, in 
 New Orleans, 3rd March, 1856 (reported in the New Orleans 
 Delta), to a large audience, in which were some of the most 
 distinguished men of the country, many of whom observed the 
 singularity of my extempore utterances, I remarked : — 
 
 " These solemn and undeniable considerations leave me to survey 
 my country from a human stand-point, independent of sectional and 
 selfish estimates, whether regarded as great or otherwise. We love 
 our country without seeking or sharing her offices of honour or 
 emolument. We rejoice in her unparalleled prosperity, her ascend- 
 ing greatness, and love to contemplate her destiny, under God, as 
 the protector of the rights and privileges of all her people. But we 
 are not blind to the dangers that threaten her peace and progress, 
 now being fearfully felt by all sincere lovers of our kind over the 
 civilized world. She stands upon the brink of civil and perhaps 
 foreign war. Yes ; civil war will be but the ripening of the seeds of 
 sectional jealousy and sectarian animosity, sown over all her fairest 
 fields of promise. The so-esteemed religious organizations of the 
 country are powerless before this spirit, for they are kindred with 
 it and increase its fury. The political will culminate in wild 
 anarchy and its consequent distrust. The spirit of human brother- 
 hood both affect and both despise. The unity of God in a diversified 
 humanity neither seem able to recognize, much less to exemplify in 
 the assertion and promotion of the sublime principles, precepts, and 
 practices that ever tend to justice, which is peace. And Innce the 
 
190 
 
 PROPHECY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 perilous attitude of our country over tlte most horrible of all whirl- 
 pools of passion and desolation is the result of the enthronement of 
 an old Daemon, which has despotised over the fairest fields, and 
 blighted the brightest prospects of human hope in all ages. Not 
 the slavery of the African, nor the propositions to precipitately free 
 him ; not Missouri compromises, nor Nebraska-Kansas bills ; not the 
 predominance of Whig, Democratic, Free soil, or American organiza- 
 tions. No ! These are subordinate issues, and are the occasions, not 
 the causes of the danger ; and the angry and dangerous conflicts 
 that grow out of them have a deeper root. Avarice is that root. 
 Our people are sold to an all-grasping, and consequently an all- 
 defeating avarice ; and its seed of dissension is growing the tree 
 which bears the fruit of bitterness and discord, that disrupts our 
 friendship, disorganizes our society, corrupts our legislation, renders 
 hypocritical our religion, and must desolate before we can revive 
 our hope. It will, my good friends, whether we believe it or not, 
 precipitate us into a fratricidal or parricidal war ; a war against the 
 Government, and a war of States against States. God has said in 
 every noble impulse of the human heart and every fallen monu- 
 ment of mortal greatness, the oppressors of the poor shall perish in 
 their power ! Upon the lofty eminence of eternal right the spirit 
 of truth and justice has her everlasting throne from which to spread 
 her guardian care over the homeless and weak. It inspires their 
 hope in poverty and unrequited labour ; it arouses their indignation 
 under legalized frauds ; it renders them restless and passionate 
 under oppression ; ay, and it watches over that very passion and 
 its ignorant direction, and guides to a tempest that sweeps with un- 
 relenting power till all is prostrate before it. It deserts them not 
 amid the^pestilences of the sinking cities they live and die to feed, 
 and never abandons them to the merciless fate their oppressors 
 anticipate, save to upturn and destroy the instrumentalities of such 
 polluted power. Oh ! that I were lost, as it were, in the infinite 
 realm of thought, that I might portray the lesson that humanity ever 
 indites as the behest of God Eternal to man universal ! As a dim 
 picture, it rises now before me by a Power I cannot reflect in its 
 fulness of wisdom ; I can only faintly discern and picture. As with 
 the voice of God from behind the black cloud of their wrongs, the 
 inspiration that overturneth proud cities and states, and levels luxu- 
 rious wrong in the dust, ever speaks to the outcast children of a 
 
DELIVERED IN NASHVILLE. 191 
 
 common bounty, saying, Courage ! The double eye of pity and 
 wisdom bendeth over them and says to the oppressor, Beware ! for 
 the day of thy power is short, and there will be a time when tern 
 porary greatness will be naught. Commiseration for the homeless 
 and friendless is the guarantee of safety to any Government, be it 
 great or small. It opens the heart ; it bindeth it in unity with the 
 divine purpose of social peace and individual progress, and the 
 turbulent passions of envy and malice are then fed no more. Yes ; 
 I know that civil war is now inevitable. The power that trampleth 
 a fellow mortal beneath its feet disgraces itself and defies its God* 
 Oh ! dreadful day. Is there not virtue and patriotism, humanity 
 and philanthropy enough in this heaven-favoured land to avert a 
 calamity so fearful 1 Shall the glory of our country, destined, as all 
 have hoped, to be great and wondrous in the annals of the world, 
 fade beneath the dark clouds of differences and conflicts that make us 
 less than men % Must our slaughtered sons redden the earth with 
 their blood to commemorate some fancied wrong — some momentary 
 supremacy of pretended right 1 Shall brave men and honest hearts 
 made to lead forward the army of progress to the conquest of the 
 earth for a common brotherhood, the union of all the children of 
 God, and the opening of the very gates of Paradise in the know- 
 ledge of a spiritual nature in all, and a Godlike destiny for all, 
 whose evidences are so signally manifest to this age and this people, 
 breathe forth their last as miserable poltroons, fancying themselves 
 aggrieved because their political and religious usages are not accepted 
 by men who, however unfortunate in the meagerness of their earthly 
 possessions, dare to be men ? 
 
 " Again, in an address delivered in the New Masonic Temple 
 of Nashville, December, 1860, on the ' Nature of the Human 
 Mind/ in the midst of my subject I made a sudden and 
 marked digression, and said : — 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen, — You are vastly beyond the compre- 
 hensive view of what I conceive to be a duty, if you fail to com- 
 prehend the unmeasured and immeasurable importance of a subject I 
 have now proposed for your contemplation. I know of nothing, 
 high or low, broad or less, that does not take within its scope an 
 idea that cannot be measured. That idea ever stands to the human 
 
192 
 
 PUOPHECY OF THE HE VOLUTION, 
 
 gaze as immensity, as both, high and low, without beginning, without 
 ending— the Infinite in degree. And why shall I grasp it 1 Be- 
 cause we know it not, and still have it most. What pulsation of 
 the human soul that acts contrary that is not the executive to the 
 thought that breathes its joy, inspires its hope, and looks cherish- 
 ingly even upon its dissolution % Where ? What power ? What 
 breath ? Where is Nature or her God, if not in the impulses of 
 the man or the soul that speaks the dictum of human kind ; and 
 upon what and where rests the nature that speaks in presence 
 before you to-night, but in the links that make the chain that girds 
 time, eternity, death, desolation, devil, heaven 1 I speak, Grand 
 Master of the East, from the western wilds, and I look to heaven 
 and soar in earth, and in the mid-realms of my nature, and what do 
 I behold? What do I behold in other lands? But especially, 
 what do I behold here ? Man's efforts building monuments whose 
 only inscriptions are everlasting shame to their progeny. 1 see 
 forms of government, state or national — so called — around me. 
 But I behold the land of promise bedewed with the blood of its 
 sires in its very birth. And alas ! what less ? The approaching 
 eve of the ministering hand of desolating time brings her sequel ; 
 sequel to my, your country ! My hope ! my love ! my joy ! 
 my future ! All that makes the manhood of my heart breathe 
 neavily, while it labours most seriously to encompass the divinity 
 that perpetuates the growth, that burdens the natural condition of 
 my country. The hope I would cherish, the life I would live, the 
 duty I would feel well performed for my day and my generation, 
 my time and my kind, like the sun of life and the immortality of 
 nature, is beclouded in open day, and sinks before my vision and 
 holds me spell-bound. I am lost amid the realities of myself, and 
 anew taught that humanity is frail, and the uncontrollable events of 
 time are immortality, the insignia of God. Heaven to this people 
 seems masked in disma}^, and no man knows true day. Time, the 
 unfathomable, the unseen, the unknown, the height, the depth, 
 the broadcast, where is thy resting-place ? Upon what altar dost 
 thou breathe thine incense, that we may know that thou art and 
 hast a God ? For diversified, beyond all that falls to the finite, 
 we fail to comprehend and encompass thee. Shall we then still 
 seek thee or seek thy origin? — the birth of thought, the home, 
 the pinnacle that ascends above the object and holds in supreme 
 
AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION. 193 
 
 reverence the day that crowns thy exit as the memento of thy birth 
 divine, and of thy omnipotence as hallowed % Or shall we leave 
 the God of our fathers, and call humanity a fiend and death 
 nothing 1 Then I give you this emblem of my thought, of my 
 nature and my kind : viz., The inspiration of the human mind I It 
 wafts man over a sea unknown, and bids him return to his native 
 home, whose treasures are immortal, unexhausted by convulsions 
 deep and wide of erring nature or human tide, in which a nation's 
 birth will speak in this fair land, or a cold and dark embrace clasp 
 all that we have or are known to be. . . . Then let it be our 
 province to allay all fear, and march boldly forward to the conquest 
 of the unity of those indissoluble ties that bind and interbind the 
 instincts of all human kind — of life, of love, of liberty ; for all are 
 scintillations of the human mind !" 
 
 Perhaps a still more noticeable order of suprarmmdane 
 direction may be seen in the manner in which. Mr. Ferguson 
 was sent to the Chicago Convention that nominated Mr. 
 Lincoln for the Presidency. He knew there was to be a con- 
 vention of the Republican party, but he did not know where 
 or when. On the night of the 15th May, at a distance of 700 
 miles from Chicago, and in the midst of duties of quite another 
 character, he was waked out of his sleep by a voice saying, 
 "You must attend the convention." Next day he inquired 
 for a convention, and found there was none in the city where 
 he dwelt or in its vicinity. The next day and night his mind 
 was constantly impressed, " Go to the convention.' ' He arose 
 and determined to make a call in the country to get rid of the 
 indefinite direction if possible. As he was getting into the 
 carriage for his country drive, he was forcibly stopped by an 
 unseen hand, when, an old friend approaching, he asked his 
 usual question, " Is there any political convention near here ? " 
 " No," said the friend ; " but the Republican Convention 
 to nominate a President comes off the day after to-morrow at 
 Chicago, Illinois, and I have come to tell you of it." " I will 
 go," was Mr. Ferguson's response, and he left in an hour or 
 
194 PROPHECY OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 two and arrived at Chicago, the only man from his State that 
 attended the convention. What he did there it is needless to 
 record ; bnt while there he received a message, dictated, as he 
 afterwards learned, from what proved to be the death-bed of 
 the person through whom it was given. It was addressed to 
 him " at the Chicago {Lincoln) Convention" These were its 
 exact words of address. It should be remembered that Mr. 
 Lincoln was not thought a prominent candidate at that time, 
 and it is said that his name was actually unknown to the person 
 who sent the letter to Mr. Ferguson : — 
 
 " From the Spirit of the 15th May. 
 
 " Greeting : 
 
 " The crown hath fallen from the brow of Judah and settled in 
 brilliancy upon the forehead of the wandering child of Ishmael. 
 
 " The dove hath folded its wings over the ark of the covenant of 
 the God of Abraham. 
 
 " The within is sacred and pure. The casket is locked and the 
 key placed in the hand of the master. Blindness hath fallen upon 
 the hosts of Israel. The standard bearers have fallen from the 
 mount, and the citadel is invaded by the host clustered so long and 
 eagerly around the mount. 
 
 "Alas! alas! that the beating of drums and the sound of 
 martial music should make the last band forsake the altar of the 
 living God ! But 'tis even so ! A camp fire lit by the hand of 
 nature hath gone out in midnight darkness, and the conflagration 
 upon the surrounding hills shall ere long reserve to your sight, 
 O man of the far-seeing eye, but a heap of ashes where the ark 
 of our God rested. 
 
 " The hewers of wood and drawers of water will cease their 
 work, and there are none to replenish the fires. 
 
 " From the sentinel on the western wall, 
 " Whose name is Death beneath the pall ! 
 
 "Addressed to J. B. F., Chicago (Lincoln) Convention. Dated 
 15th May, I860." 
 
 This document, though written in highly figurative language, 
 
AND THE FUTURE REVOLUTIONS. 195 
 
 came to Mr. Ferguson as a distinct and genuine prophecy, 
 corresponding with all his impressions and premonitions ; the 
 forebodings of conflict and desolation that had come to his own 
 mind or been received from or through the minds of others. 
 
 On this very curious and most interesting subject, the editor 
 hereof received, on the 13th of February, 1865, a letter from 
 Mr. Ferguson, of which the following is a copy. It will be 
 observed that the letter, hastily written, was not intended for 
 publication, but, in the exercise of the discretion permitted him, 
 he has thought best to place it in this record just as it was 
 written. The unknown future will decide its value as an 
 evidence of prevision. No one will pretend that the 
 events here predicted could be calculated upon as those which 
 might naturally have been expected : — 
 
 "Liverpool, 12th February, 1865. 
 
 " My dear Friend, — For one week I have been pursued by a 
 thought I shall now attempt to express, and that without respect 
 to the book or my personality, or that of any other mortal entity. I 
 wish you to know it distinctly, and your 'knowledge thereof is 
 the full and entire object of this writing. 
 
 " First, then, last March (1864) in unison with all the evidences 
 of perfect and undeniable guidance of my entire life, amid the 
 scenes of revolution in America, I was made to know and make 
 known that Grant would not take Richmond, when an entire nation 
 believed, either from fear or hope, that he would, in the then pro- 
 jected campaign ; that terrific battles would be fought, ineffective 
 in all the ends contemplated, and in no way tending to the cessation 
 of slaughter and desolation. 
 
 " Secondly. That the South would, in the end — that is now at the 
 door — form an alliance with France, which alliance would first be 
 sanctioned and then sustained by England, Austria and Spain. 
 
 " Thirdly. That France, failing in her most commendable efforts 
 to unite nations so diverse in interests as England and Russia in 
 an offer of mediation, and then failing in her own offer of such 
 mediation, would establish in a legitimate and orderly course of 
 
196 PROPHECY OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 events her authority and legalized right over large portions of 
 American territory. 
 
 " Fourthly. That the inevitable course of events would lead her 
 and her allies to send fleets and armies to the ports of Mexico, and to 
 the breaking up of the blockade of the ports of the Southern States; 
 to war with the Northern States ; the taking of San Francisco on 
 the Pacific, of Washington city in the east, and an undesigned and 
 undesired invasion of Federal territory beyond the boundary claimed 
 by the Confederate States, — all of which would be justified toEnglish 
 and European conceptions of humanity and international justice by 
 the rejection of all offers of mediation and pacification. 
 
 " Fifthly. That these events would place the people and property 
 of the entire Union — so called — under military rule and direction, 
 drafting every man capable of bearing arms, and controlling, by 
 forcible seizure, all the resources of the States under a military 
 despotism- 
 
 " Sixthly. That when these events and their natural concomitants 
 were manifested, revolution in Europe would lead England to break 
 her alliance with the Continental Powers, and cause the European 
 armies to be withdrawn from American soil, but not until the most 
 destructive battles had been fought there that time has ever re- 
 corded. 
 
 " Seventhly. That then the full use and abuse of so-called spiritual 
 manifestations would be seen and recognized in displays of power, 
 destroying embattled hosts, and verifying all the visions of all the 
 seers of God, in all ages past, and in the inauguration, out of mate- 
 rials being prepared, of a Government that would be in fact, as well 
 as in name, human and divine, and that all this would occur between 
 the present time and 1871, and most of it during the years 1865, 
 1866, and 1867. 
 
 " Now, I believe all this and much more, and my every act is 
 regulated by the living consciousness of the ripening of events, con- 
 ditions, and agencies, that look to these and kindred results. 
 
 "This is only too specific, and yet not enough so ; but it is all 
 that imperfect writing, as I am now placed, can portray. 1 do ■ 
 not write it for your belief, or for the book, or any purpose other 
 than to lay it before you as an index of my horoscope of coming 
 events. God wills the future, and I own my God by bowing to 
 His present, whatever that may be. All I have said to Confederates 
 
LETTER OF MR. FERGUSON. 197 
 
 or Federates is in this line, and every line thus far has been verified 
 even with and beyond my faith. Eead, reject, or regard as you 
 may form or mature your own intuition or trust. Let the book 
 be your estimate of me and the truths for which you may see me 
 stand. 
 
 " In good hope and fulness of love, yours, 
 
 "J. B. F." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 The reasonable man, having become satisfied of the reality of 
 a fact, next demands a theory. An effect must have a cause 
 and a mode of action. To everything there must be a why 
 and a wherefore, though both may be for the present beyond 
 our reach. As a matter of fact, the causes of all natural 
 phenomena are beyond our reach. "We give names to facts, 
 occurrences, or phenomena, as Newton gave the name of 
 gravitation to the fact that masses of matter tend to each other 
 with a certain force ; but he neither knew nor pretended to 
 know the nature of that force or its mode of operation. If we 
 cannot tell how a blade of grass grows, or how the hand is 
 moved by an act of the will, how can we be expected to explain 
 the actions of thought and sympathy, and the modes by which 
 spirits communicate ? 
 
 In our sciences we observe facts — we arrange them — we dis- 
 cover analogies ; and finding that certain phenomena occur 
 with considerable uniformity, we call such uniformity of action 
 a law, while we may be very far from the heart of things, and 
 mistaken in many of our theories. This is our condition 
 respecting physical science. I have a very vague idea of what 
 constitutes the hardness and elasticity of the steel pen with 
 which I am writing. I know much less of the brain by which 
 it is guided, and still less of the mind, of which the brain is an 
 instrument. It is manifest, then, that an attempt to give the 
 philosophy of spirit-intercourse must be, from the nature of the 
 
mr. Ferguson's theories. 199 
 
 case, a failure, and can only consist of guesses, suggestions, and 
 deductions more or less reasonable. I propose, therefore, in 
 this chapter to give such observations as I find in the writings 
 of Mr. Ferguson committed to my charge, as I may consider 
 most pertinent, with such comments, if any, as they mayseem 
 to require. 
 
 It was while Mr. Ferguson was the minister of a large con- 
 gregation at Nashville that he became from experiences such as 
 are related in this volume a firm believer in the fact of spirit- 
 communion. In a pamphlet addressed to his congregation, " On 
 the Relation of Pastor and People," Mr. Ferguson gives a 
 " Statement of Belief/ ' from which I take the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " It has been said, you believe in spiritualism. I answer, 
 unhesitatingly, I do. So far as the word spiritualism represents 
 the opposite of the materialistic philosophy, I do not remember 
 when I was not a spiritualist. So far as it might represent devo- 
 tion to spiritual things, such as truth, holiness, charity, it is my 
 profession to be a spiritualist. And so far as it represents now an 
 acceptance of the possibility of spirit-intercourse with man, it is 
 but candour to say, I believe it without hesitancy and without doubt. 
 That there are many absurdities and some mischief connected with 
 what claims to be spirit-manifestation I know, but I know also that 
 there is much truth and good. My brethren, I have examined this 
 question in all the reverence for God and love for truth of which 
 my nature and circumstances are capable. At home and abroad, for 
 days and weeks together, alone and in company, with believers and 
 sceptics, I have investigated ; and I could neither be an honest man 
 nor a philanthropist, did I not say I know that I have had intelli- 
 gent and blissful communion with departed spirits I 
 
 call upon heaven to witness that I have no consciousness of ever 
 having stated a conviction in your presence that was more a convic- 
 tion of my highest reason than the solemn and yet joyous assevera- 
 tion, that I believe God has granted spiritual intercourse to these 
 times. And this conviction does not lessen any faith I have in 
 God, in Christ, in the Spirit of Holiness ; but only enlightens, hal- 
 lows, and beautifies it, and deepens my reverence." 
 
200 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 In one of the notes appended to this pamphlet, Mr. Ferguson 
 
 " In the reference made to our belief in the reality of spirit- 
 intercourse, we desire to be understood. We esteem it the height 
 of folly to meet this grave subject with ridicule and sneers ; and 
 especially so from men whose professed duty it is to guide the faith 
 and train the religious sentiments of their hearers. If from no 
 other consideration, the fact that some of the wisest and best of 
 men, in and out of churches, go by our churches to what are called 
 mediums to seek or replenish their faith in spiritual realities, must 
 awaken attention in all serious lovers of their kind. We cannot 
 fail to see that there is a faculty in man which waits and longs to 
 lay hold of immortality, and that it will not be put off by vague 
 generalities. Has the modern pulpit baffled or met this faculty ? 
 Has it fed or starved this want of the soul 1 Is the dread future it 
 presents a vast inane — a land of selfish separations, clouded in 
 superstition, or is it a land of sun-bright and satisfying realities 1 
 Have we a consistent pneumatology alike satisfactory to the reason 
 and captivating to the imagination of man ? I leave the reader to 
 answer. 
 
 " There can be but two modes of communication between the 
 spiritual world and the natural — one through the reason and affec- 
 tions, the other through the external senses. The first is the 
 ordinary method of Divine Providence, by which our hearts may 
 be renewed and our understandings illuminated. By this method, 
 I doubt not, the angels of God constantly guide and strengthen us, 
 giving light to our minds and love to our hearts. They are with 
 us in trial to soothe us ; in the day of conflict to nerve our arms 
 with conquering strength ; and as our nature becomes more 
 spiritualized, we will realize that we live in their society, and 
 although we may not see them, they encamp as a wall of fire 
 around. Such influence tends not to repress but to unfold all our 
 highest powers . It ennobles our nature ; fortifies or makes our 
 manhood ; acts within our own faculties, and gives them growth 
 and compass ; purifies our affections, and opens them as a clear 
 mirror of heavenly truth. Thus spirits unfold the angel and 
 transform the animal within us, and make our faculties so clear 
 and strong that we anticipate the bliss while we see the divine laws 
 
ITS PHILOSOPHY. 201 
 
 of the spiritual world. We do not deny that we have witnessed 
 appeals to the grosser nature of man. But these appeals we regard 
 as intended to awaken many who could not otherwise be awakened 
 from the moral lethargy that pervades their spiritual energies. The 
 apostle Paul has laid down the axiom that ' signs are not for those 
 that believe, but for those that believe not.' So I have seen the 
 physical demonstrations of modern spiritualism. Like index boards, 
 they are not the road, but only indicate it. Those who are satisfied 
 with signs, doom their moral powers to inaction and bring upon 
 themselves all the weakness of the old superstitions. They move 
 like too many professed but blinded Christians, among spectral 
 shadows, lose their self-reliance and degrade their God-given reason. 
 . . . From my own personal observation and experience, I 
 would say to all my friends : — The privilege of spirit-intercourse 
 exists ; and it may come to you in all gentle and peaceful influences ; 
 in all Christian graces and charities ; in bright and blessed assur- 
 ances of immortality ; in faith made full and clear that realizes 
 already the solemn ranks and sweet societies of the radiant homes, 
 whither the departed have gone ; may come as Christ has ever 
 sought to come into the heart of humanity, refining its spirit and 
 forming His bright image within you. It will be our own shame if 
 we abuse so high and holy a privilege. The elements are certainly 
 at work by which the objects of immortality will be made as real to 
 the soul as matter is to the senses ; and the day is at hand when 
 the light of the spirit-world will throw its steady splendours over 
 all earthly affairs. As a Christian teacher I desire more than I 
 desire any earthly good to be ready for the crisis that day will reveal. 
 My position, then, can be easily understood. I am not a propagandist 
 of spiritualism. If true it will propagate itself despite all opposition 
 and every mistake of its friends or foes. Knowing it to be a real 
 privilege, I stand ready to accept and appropriate its helps, I trust, 
 with becoming humility and sincerity, and faith in the benevolent 
 purposes of God." 
 
 Later, in the printed volume from which some of these 
 records are taken, we find the following observations on " The 
 Future Spiritual Life and its Relations to the 
 Present" : — 
 
 11 The bright evidences of personal identity and individuality 
 
 N 
 
202 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 preserved in, and disclosed from the spiritual world, as recorded in 
 the preceding pages, form no ordinary chapter in human experience. 
 They fully warrant us in saying, we know, from the clearest intui- 
 tions of our souls, and most accurate observations of our understand- 
 ing, that the human soul is made to sustain spiritual and eternal 
 relationships, sanctifying and makiDg sacred every natural tie of 
 kindred and affection. 
 
 " Without these direct evidences of human immortality, we know 
 that many miuds have accepted the hope of future existence, and 
 perhaps no sane mind has been entirely bereft of the desire to live 
 after the dissolution of the body ; but the hope has often been made 
 to sanction the most enormous assumptions over human consciences, 
 and clouds of the darkest superstitions have everywhere gathered 
 over it, which have denied to it its natural privileges, and made it 
 more a dread and slavish fear, than a buoyant and purifying antici- 
 pation. To believe the soul formed merely for the present uncertain 
 and unsatisfying mode of existence, to an enlightened mind was to 
 believe it created without a worthy purpose, in a universe every- 
 where displaying most happy adaptation of means to ends. Possessed 
 of desires that were never fully gratified ; aspirations never reaching 
 their ideals ; loves severed, but not destroyed ; hopes disappointed, 
 but not obliterated — it seemed to exist only as a splendid failure 
 and tantalization, unless it were regarded as sustaining spiritual 
 affinities, yet to be realized, after its present organization was 
 dissolved. 
 
 " Now, when we add to this the assurance of the power of the 
 eternal truth, brought within the reach of every man by spirit 
 manifestation, that the future life is but a continuation of the 
 spiritual part of the present — when we come to know, and not 
 merely to accept, upon the interested or fanatical testimony of 
 others, that we only throw off the mere modes and customs of life, 
 and not life itself, at death — our steam engines, railways, ships, 
 shops, banks, farms, houses, offices, and apparel, and that even their 
 spiritual meanings are as eternal as the spirits out of which they 
 were made ; that the outside covering conceals only a part of our 
 nature ; and that all our higher faculties can be exercised even now, 
 in a purely spiritual direction, and are so exercised in every 
 effort to separate truth from falsehood, in all high meditation and 
 devout abstraction ; when we are made to see that even those of our 
 
ITS HOPE FOR ALL. 203 
 
 faculties that are wasting in the using can be made servants to the 
 purer life, and the channels of their exercise, in our business and 
 pleasure, .maybe penetrated by the influences of our kindred of nobler 
 development beyond the fleshly hindrances of the body — we may 
 make our lives on earth flow, almost without a break, into that of 
 the heavenly spheres. And thus we would not so much prepare for 
 eternity, as live it now ; not fix the eye so impatiently on the 
 distant future as to cause us to stumble over every object before us 
 and ingloriously waste our days in needless repinings and disap- 
 pointments, but make our every step here an advance to our ideal 
 of hereafter. This life would become but a part of that. The 
 same law would be found to regulate both. High aspiration and 
 holy duty would be seen as the means, the only means, to create 
 the atmosphere of unbounded confidence everywhere. And to 
 carry out the highest conception of beauty and excellence possible 
 to the present condition ; to extract and enjoy the real and not 
 the factitious sweets of the passing moments, we would daily feel 
 that a wholesome future can only grow out of a healthful present. 
 
 "All good thought elevates ; all evil thought degrades the thinker ; 
 and no thought weakens till we almost lose our identity and become 
 machines. 
 
 11 The outward appearance of vice is repulsive to all. Spirit- 
 communion proves that the inward ought to be more so. If a man 
 would not speak a lie, spirit-communion would say, Do not think 
 it. The atmosphere of evil-thinking makes the miasma that destroys 
 spiritual health. You cannot breathe it freely ; you cannot feel 
 while breathing it the immortal beat of a Godlike nature. 
 
 " Thus spirit-intercourse opens up hope for all, and provides its 
 conditions. It makes every thought and wish of the soul proof of 
 its reality. It says to every honest questioner, Examine your 
 own soul — in solitude, alone, afar from the grosser considerations 
 of fleshly demands — and it will become a mirror of spiritual light 
 it could neither create nor destroy. It teaches that a pure thought 
 in any soul, however sunken, generates a light that opens up 
 glories and attributes that may yet adorn it with brightness and 
 beauty eternal. 
 
 " What an eternal value does this view of man give to his soul ! 
 It shows it never mature, but ever maturing, with appropriate 
 delights provided for its every step. It reveals that soul as the 
 
 N 2 
 
204 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 offspring of God, to make the physical form and then wear it out, 
 by contact and collision with the gross world in which it has the 
 nursery of its being. It makes the material eye, and when it be- 
 comes glazed and dim, it opens its spiritual essence to the clear 
 ■vision of eternal light. As its outward ear becomes closed and 
 deaf, the spiritual ear opens to the melodies of eternal symphony. 
 And when the whole form stiffens and falls as a clod to rise no 
 more, the spirit, young and undying, soars gracefully over the bright 
 fields and through the joyous scenes that awaken its life anew to 
 everlasting sympathy. It finds its home in that bright world, out 
 of which every form of beauty in this receives its essential origin, 
 and into which, at their decay in form, they return. No language 
 can describe its boundaries ; no pencil paint its beauties ; no intel- 
 lect grasp its grandeur. It is worthy of God ; and our moral and 
 intellectual progression mirrors its scenes, as we are prepared to 
 receive their grand ideals. Were we really just, and pure, and free, 
 we would feel, as these disclosures come to us, a Godlike nature 
 opening within that would give us more realizing views than any 
 imperfect description can ever command. If the native nobleness 
 of our nature were opened, so that its vision would rise above the 
 mists that gather o'er the ways of deceptive and iniquitous 
 indulgence and perversion of our passions and appetites, we 
 would see a world of meaning in every object of sight or sound, 
 and, daily, rekindle the eternal flame of love at altars over which 
 no strife nor battle's roar are heard. little spirits in the flesh, 
 whose years had revolved but half a score, have given me, in their 
 happy trances, brighter visions of the land to which we all are 
 rapidly moving, than have ever been open to me along the plodding 
 ways of philosophy, or the dark aisles of a formal religion. They 
 have said, and seemed scarcely to know why they said it, that its 
 mounts were glorious — 'festooned with vines, and blooming with 
 flowers ;" that its broad rivers were variegated with cascades and 
 cataracts, and flow ever amid the eternal bloom of purest blossoms, 
 and the bending burdens^of the Tree of Life ; that sweetest strains 
 of music pour forth from myriad voices, not one discordant note, 
 while hosts of happy spirits move to the melodious notes in offices 
 of duty and ecstasies of love. And their little voices, tuned by 
 spirit hands, spoke so simply, so sweetly, and yet so grandly of that 
 immortal land, that I, even I, with all my unworthy grossness, 
 
TO DEFINE IS TO LIMTT. 20-5 
 
 almost heard the strains that came so gently on their innocent 
 ears ; and I, too, longed to pass away from a world and a church 
 that had met my best and purest motives, my daily and nightly 
 labours in their behalf, with so much of misconception, injury, and 
 wrong. But then the strain swelled to clarion notes of victory and 
 glory, above as well as within the strife of human passion, and re- 
 vealed that it would be servile and traitorous to leave while one 
 hope for good remained. Ah ! yes ; spirits have descended from 
 their native home, and given to us revelations of the deep indwell- 
 ing realities of those expanded fields of Almighty planting, whose 
 shining glory penetrates the deep azure by day, and whose myriad 
 lights span the dark archway by night, and they invite our purest 
 affections thitherward. Would we but freely exercise these affec- 
 tions, we could know that these things are so. If we will not 
 purify them, no amount of evidence can make them realities to 
 us. Then 
 
 1 Come ! and let the spirits guide 
 
 Where doubt and darkness never come ; 
 Where purest blossoms by the side 
 Of living streams for ever bloom ! ' " 
 
 These were among his earliest thoughts on this subject of 
 infinite interest. "We subjoin one of his latest expressions in 
 the following brief essay, which he has entitled "The Philosophy 
 of Supramundane Evidences, as recognized in my experience 
 and observations" : — 
 
 " To define is to limit. To limit is to circumscribe. There is 
 that which admits of no definition. There is the unlimited, the 
 undefined, and undefinable. JSfot as a dread secret of nature or 
 divinity committed to certain authorized agents or agencies, but 
 in its own nature unlimited, illimitable. It cannot be defined, 
 because it is the definition of all we see, realize, or know. It 
 cannot be explained, because it is the explanation of all in, around, 
 above, and beneath us. We may call or name it nature, Cosmos, 
 God, immortality — no name expresses what the intuition of the 
 soul realizes, and therefore no name should be used as a circum- 
 scription for thought. Spirit is as good, perhaps to our culture the 
 best designation we can use : spirit as divinity ; divinity as power ; 
 power as ministering everywhere and in everything. 
 
206 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 " Spirit with me, then, is an intangible reality. Mark you, a 
 reality ; though intangible, unmeasured, and unmeasurable by any 
 manifestation, whether considered great or small, good or otherwise. 
 Spirit is the all, and all is spirit. Form or effect is its manifesta- 
 tion — existing, changing, developing by it and for it. Thus man, 
 contemplated as form, is a manifestation of spirit, and he receives 
 his physical stature from spirit, under a law of progress or ascent, 
 and can never in any recognized condition or relation be regarded 
 as its measure or standard. He is immortal by this law, for its 
 existence is unending. He drinks from its founts ; is constructed 
 and reconstructed by its ordering ; and his stature of attainment, 
 whatever it may be, is but a stature under the ever-developing law 
 of change. 
 
 " Spirit, as it ascends, holds subordinate all the conditions 
 through which it has passed. This is true of whatever we con- 
 template or analyze, and is expressively so of man to man. To 
 illustrate : You hand me a grain of wheat. In that grain I recog- 
 nize all the constituent properties of root, solid fibre, sap, stalk, 
 blade, blossom, through which it has ascended. Take it to Egypt 
 or America, and place it in appropriate conditions, and it will repro- 
 duce these and again ascend above them. So of all that we recognize 
 in the mineral, vegetable, and animal departments of external nature 
 around us. Eminently, and on what is to us a higher scale of 
 recognition, is this true of man. Spirit in an infant scarcely com- 
 mands a single muscle. The hand, for example, slowly and very 
 awkwardly opens. In the child it has ascended to a ready use and 
 effect ; still more in adolescence, and yet more in what we call the 
 attainment of his stature or maturity. 
 
 " Let us suppose him what we call dead ; and what is death, so 
 far as a matured form is concerned. Eollow the law of ascent, and 
 by analogy we would expect that all he could once do he can still 
 do, and more, by the very fact that he has ascended above this now 
 cast-off form. Spirit in him, or by him, has ascended, and holds 
 subordinate the conditions through which he has passed. Hence 
 in all ages, and now most undeniably in this, the intelligence, force, 
 and varied human manifestations we in this book and in kindred 
 books choose to call supramundane, are the evidences of this 
 ascending power in man ; so they make claim for themselves, and 
 so we are forced to recognize them by every analogy of our existing 
 
ITS LAW OF INDIVIDUALITY. 207 
 
 cognizance and condition. An intelligence, therefore, that has 
 ascended above its, to us, tangible form, can do all it ever did and 
 more. Ay, as the mature man can do all he did, or reveal all the 
 power he manifested as an infant or a child, or as an adolescent, so 
 now he can do all he did in these conditions, and all he could do 
 as a man and more in the power of his new condition. He com- 
 mands the conditions he was once in, in which we are still, and in 
 nature, in God, if you please, still goes forward by the law of 
 infinitude, the law of immortality. Death is thus seen to be the 
 opening to a new sphere of life, creating new powers and command- 
 ing all the conditions already attained, whether considered physical, 
 mental, or moral. 
 
 " There is a law of growth. Man grows as the vegetable grows 
 — by the same law and in alliance with elements that unfold in 
 and promote the attainment of his stature as a man. He moves 
 by the same law of locomotion that characterizes all animals, and 
 reveals the alliance of his nature with the elements and province 
 of all motion. So he thinks, feels, perceives, and reflects by the 
 allied power of all thought, of all intelligence, of all emotion. 
 Thus the communion of his higher, of his intellectual, his emotional 
 nature, is an allied attribute of that nature reflecting his power and 
 province in the degree of his ascension in nature. Spirit-commu- 
 nion, therefore, is as natural as the air he breathes ; and all thought, 
 all motion and emotion are the reflective evidences of an immortal 
 origin and destiny in the Infinite. Hence God and man are one, 
 eternally the same. 
 
 " If his individuality be inquired for, we answer, he is an indi- 
 vidual, discriminated or discreted from every other individuality ; 
 but his individuality is under the same law of growth, motion, or 
 change ; so that while it is never lost, it is ever changing. As a 
 material man in stature, for example, he is the same individual he 
 was as a boy, as an infant, though not a particle of matter now 
 composing his body is retained. So of his mind. He has his 
 individuality, his personality, his identity. But he has it in unity 
 or unison with the whole, which whole is infinite, and therefore 
 cannot be measured by his attainment, whether considered with 
 respect to his physical or mental condition. The individual runs 
 parallel with the universal, and can never invade it. They recipro- 
 cate, and their responses make the life, the death, the ascension, 
 
208 
 
 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 the relations and glory of the individual, of the whole — unity in 
 diversity. Not that man is God, only as atoms of water make the 
 ocean, sands the shore. Each atom is a part, a portion, indefeasibly 
 such, and though in unison with every other drop, it is only in that 
 eternal unity it has its alliance with the whole. For example, the 
 unity of my body is in the diversity of every limb thereof. Not 
 that my head is my foot, or that any member is another. In the 
 free exercise of each member I behold the sublime unity of the 
 whole, and yet the distinct office and indefeasible right of each part. 
 So is man in nature, in God, and the majesty of this thought makes 
 vain and puerile all efforts at definition or circumscription. Man 
 is ; the individual is ; therefore for ever will be. He is in unity 
 — infinite, eternal. He evermore will be, because that unity is not 
 invaded, much less destroyed, by his diversity. Whenever and 
 wherever man becomes endowed with the consciousness of his own 
 being, its alliance to the great ultimate of eternal cause ever asserts 
 its claim and power, and that assertion is denominated natural or 
 supernatural, according to the degrees and conditions of his recog- 
 nitions and culture. No tenets, no forms of expression can fully 
 convey this consciousness of the deiiied impress upon our nature — 
 
 none!" 
 
 • 
 
 To this statement of spiritual philosophy the editor begs to 
 append — claiming for it, however, no authority but that of the 
 truth it may contain — the following on 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNITARY CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Among what has been recognized as the teachings of spirits, 
 the assertion of the right and duty of every individual to be 
 himself, and to act according to the dictates of his own con- 
 science and his highest sense of right, has led to more misunder- 
 standings and more mistakes, perhaps, than any other. 
 Connected with this assertion of the supremacy of the individual 
 conscience, we have had various doctrines of the sovereignty of 
 the individual, the freedom of the affections, absolute individual 
 freedom, and the denial of all government, authority, or 
 subordination. 
 
 It is forgotten that society has its laws, its rights, its duties, 
 
INDIVIDUAL AND UNITARY. 209 
 
 and its conscience. There is a unitary conscience, which 
 should govern society, as well as the individual conscience, and 
 the true social order is the harmony of the unitary with the 
 individual conscience. The individual conscience must be 
 obeyed, but the individual must consider his duty to society as 
 second only to his duty to God, if, indeed, they can be separated 
 from each other. The divine law sums up all duty in love to 
 God supreme, and in loving our neighbour as ourself, which is 
 the perfect unity of the social and individual conscience. 
 
 The collective conscience of a nation, embodied in its laws, 
 customs, usages, and standard of manners and morals, is the 
 result of the action of individual consciences. When indi- 
 vidual action has become harmful or oppressive, and this harm 
 or oppression has become apparent to the intelligence of the 
 nation, the sentiment of self-preservation has led to preventive 
 or punitive laws. The purity and justice of manners and 
 laws depend upon the virtue and enlightenment of individuals. 
 The assertion of freedom as the right to do wrong is a con- 
 tradiction in terms, and an evident absurdity. There is but 
 the right to do right, and there can be no right to do wrong to 
 society or to any individual. What is right? That which 
 promotes the good of one, in harmony with the good of all. A 
 true freedom should secure our physical, moral, and social 
 welfare. The good of each one tends to the good of all, and 
 the evils and misery of each member of society lessen the 
 happiness of all. As the individual sick of plague, or typhus, 
 radiates an atmosphere of disease — as one who is weak is an 
 unconscious but not less real burden to those around him, so 
 the spheres of moral evil and misery spread over the whole 
 community. It is perfectly natural and perfectly true that not 
 only the miasma of disease from the fevered pauper of Bethnal 
 Green penetrates the richest mansion of Belgravia, lessening 
 the health of its inmates, but the misery of the lowest human 
 brother penetrates the spirits of the highest, marring his enjoy- 
 
210 SPIRIT INTERCOURSE. 
 
 nients ; and by an absolute law of life man cannot be happy but 
 in obedience to the law which commands him to love his neigh- 
 bour as himself. 
 
 "We do not live — we cannot live wholly to ourselves. Hence 
 " it is better to give than to receive." Hence the good we do 
 returns to us with increase. Hence we best promote our own 
 happiness by promoting the good of others, and the happiest 
 man in the world is of necessity the one who has done most to 
 secure the" happiness of others. The hand cannot say to the 
 body, I will act independently, because its life is from the body. 
 So the individual must refrain from any action which violates 
 the right of another, and even in reforming his life, must make 
 his reformation so gradual and general as to include others in 
 his good, and thus raise the moral tone of the society around 
 him. Yiolence in right may be a greater wrong than the evil 
 we seek to reform, and endurance of evil may be a relative 
 good, compared with the mischiefs which may spring from 
 partial reforms. As a rule, a fierce individual conscience is but 
 a veil for passion and selfishness. 
 
 It may be granted that the commercial relations of the 
 sexes in marriage and out of marriage are a fatal gangrene that 
 is destroying the life of a nation. It does not follow that indi- 
 vidual loves or lusts, breaking up a false order, and violating 
 even oppressive laws, will cure the evil. The freedom wanted 
 in the relations of marriage is the freedom of health and 
 wisdom to form healthy and wise, and therefore happy 
 relations. 
 
 A man lives in the life of a nation as a bud or branch in the 
 life of a tree. He adds to and partakes of the common life. 
 The good of one is the good of all. Every man rejoices in the 
 national happiness and glory, and in its humiliations and mis- 
 fortunes every one participates. This fact, which is always 
 true, whatever may be the seeming exceptions, is. the basis of 
 the sentiments of loyalty and patriotism, and it is illustrated in 
 
INDIVIDUAL AND UNITARY. 211 
 
 the devotion of the statesman, the heroism of the soldier, and the 
 unselfish labours of every man who labours for the good of his 
 country and his race. There is a spiritual reality in a blessing 
 when merited, or a curse deserved. The heart expands with 
 the sympathy of others, or it withers in the public scorn, unless 
 sustained by a consciousness of innocence, and the sympathy of 
 more enlightened spirits. 
 
 In a truly constituted society the good of all is the good of 
 each ; the highest good of each is the highest good of all. In 
 a society so constituted there would be no competitive interests, 
 and no sacrifices of the individual to the general good would be 
 required. The hand makes no sacrifice to the body ; the twig 
 loses nothing for the good of the tree. Those conditions which are 
 best for each are best for all ; and what is true of the plant and 
 its parts, of the individual man and his members and organs, is 
 equally true of the human society or nation, and the individuals 
 which compose it. When every Englishman is prosperous and 
 happy, England is a prosperous and happy nation, and it cannot 
 be truly so considered while any Englishman is left in igno- 
 rance, poverty, and misery, or while he is the victim of oppres- 
 sion and injustice. 
 
 The highest condition of a nation is that which is constituted 
 by the highest well-being of the individuals which compose 
 that nation ; and the perfection of social organization is the 
 harmony of individual and general interests, or of the individual 
 and unitary conscience. 
 
CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson, at an early period of his spiritual experience, 
 came to the belief that the future, interior, or spiritual world 
 was a state or condition of progress and of hope to all souls. 
 He has expressed this faith substantially in the previously 
 quoted essay on the "Philosophy of Spiritualism," and he 
 suffered for it in Nashville in a severe persecution, some of 
 the incidents of which have been given in previous chapters. 
 
 That evil — great evil — sin, and misery, exist in the spiritual 
 world is to be inferred from the fact that it is, partly at least, 
 peopled from this. The uniform testimony of spirits is that 
 the two worlds are more alike than we can imagine ; that they 
 closely correspond to each other ; that they are as body and 
 soul to each other, and that the disembodied spirit is at first 
 scarcely conscious of the change. 
 
 It is not my province to dogmatize in this matter. Facts 
 and analogy indicate that the spiritual world, like the natural, 
 has its good and evil, its more and less perfect, its highest and 
 its lowest spheres. On this subject I prefer to give such testi- 
 mony as can be obtained, claiming to have a spiritual origin. 
 
 In the winter of 1863-4, a lady, well known to Mr. Fer- 
 guson and the editor of this book, then residing in London, 
 became the medium of the following communication, which 
 purported to be given by the spirit of a deceased foreign lady 
 to her sister, a lady of high position in England. The matter 
 was written by the medium, while in a passive state, on sue- 
 
THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 213 
 
 cessive evenings — she sitting alone, or in circle, for the influ- 
 ence or power which gave the communication. The medium 
 knew nothing of the spirit from whom, or the lady to whom 
 the communication came. The name, country, and religion 
 of the deceased were correctly written by the medium, also the 
 relationship that she bore to the lady to whom the communi- 
 cations were addressed, and who at once recognized their 
 origin and adaptation. 
 
 The production of such a document, in such a manner, is an 
 interesting fact in psychology, but still it must stand upon its 
 own merits. Its peculiar origin gives it no authority. Its 
 testimony is to be weighed, and its reasoning examined as 
 carefully as if it were written as other papers are written. The 
 evidence given by a spirit as to its conditions and surround- 
 ings, employments and enjoyments, is to be received with the 
 same care, and with the same regard to credibility, probability, 
 &c, as other evidence. If we are satisfied of the identity of a 
 spirit, and of his veracity, we give him credence accordingly, 
 in a matter of fact ; but in regard to what is beyond his know- 
 ledge, his arguments can only appeal to our reason. If a spirit 
 tell us, from his own observation, what is going on in the planet 
 Saturn, it is a question of fact and credibility; but if he 
 undertake to solve for us a mathematical problem, we must try 
 him by scientific principles. All the spirits in the universe 
 cannot make the three angles of a triangle more or less than 
 two right angles. 
 
 As a matter of curious interest, then, we state the apparently 
 supramundane character of the following paper, but we do not, 
 therefore, claim for it any supramundane authority. It ought 
 to be, and must necessarily be, accepted or rejected on other 
 grounds. It is not claimed as a revelation, only as one soul, 
 from a higher sphere, with a wider range of observation, may 
 be expected to reveal something of truth and good to those of 
 more limited opportunities : — 
 
214 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 " THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 
 
 11 ' What can we reason, but from what we know ? ' 
 
 " We know the earth more or less fully when we are in the 
 earth-life. I was Catholic and Christian, and my devotions 
 took the place of duties. It did not come to me as true that 
 Heaven could be the prayer of labour still. To me, in my 
 imperfect state, it was to be rest — an idle happiness for eternity. 
 A mistake, than which none can be greater. 
 
 " The difference between earth, purgatory, and heaven is 
 this : earth may be order, so far as there is development, 
 disorder, or the mere undeveloped life, while purgatory is the 
 reduction of disorder. "When the will is thoroughly united to 
 our Lord, then we graduate, so to speak, from purgatory to 
 heaven. But do uses cease then ? ISTo ; they most completely 
 begin. Then there is no time lost in correcting mistakes. All 
 works like the hand of the musician on the perfect instrument. 
 Purgatory tones — perfects. Heaven uses the perfected instru- 
 ment. 
 
 " Do you wish to know what was my life in purgatory ? It 
 was the reduction of pride, or the removal of obstructions 
 that hindered the flow of the Divine Spirit into my interior, and 
 from thence through my whole spiritual life. Sharp suffering 
 was mine, though I was called a saint upon earth. I have no 
 words strong enough to condemn the proud folly that makes 
 idols and calls them saints — idols very miserable, that need a 
 fierce and long purgatory. 
 
 " It is only by knowing the earth-life that one can learn the 
 life within, and correspondent to this world. You judge of the 
 interior of a fruit by the rind. The spiritual life is interior to 
 the earth-life. It is more orderly ; but all of the will on earth 
 subsists from the interior in order or disorder. Many persons 
 with you live badly from habit, not from will. These are like 
 children. The child's face is dirty from accident. The face 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 215 
 
 that is blackened for an evil purpose is very different. If one 
 is in evils from habit, and not from will, the moment the clay is 
 dropped the spirit is as clear as the newly-washed face of the 
 child. Many childlike spirits are in great outward evils, not 
 because they wish to be, but from ignorance, absorbing pursuits 
 or duties. As the leg broken by accident is still a broken limb, 
 and must suffer unless set, so these persons so long as they are 
 in the earth-life must suffer, unless a change come and order is 
 introduced. What I wish to say is, that a spiritual limb is 
 never broken by accident. No one in the spiritual life is wrong 
 from habit, but from will. Herein is a great difference between 
 the life within and the life without. The laws by which we 
 live, labour, suffer, and enjoy, are all contained, in one word — 
 prayer. In explaining this I shall explain the order of this 
 interior world — the order of earth, and its disorder. 
 
 " Prayer is complex. First, it is energy — the life of Gfod in 
 the soul. The spirit of man is like a musical instrument, more 
 or less perfect, more or less comprehensive. Within this instru- 
 ment is the divine life. This life is threefold — divine, human, 
 demoniacal, according as it is ordered or disordered in the will 
 of beings angelic, human, diabolic. Desire is second to energy. 
 It is energy in its first impulsion. We have first to deal with 
 desire. After that is elucidated, we may speak of disorder. 
 
 " Desire, will, impulsion is the life in its beginning of activity. 
 This is the material spiritual basis of all prayer. Prayer, in 
 its definition of desire, is the most imperfect power or impulse 
 of the soul. Only when energy becomes desire, and when this 
 wish takes to itself other energies, other wills, and then proceeds 
 and actuates itself in doing and in modes of doing, does desire 
 really become prayer. Labor are est or are is the true progress 
 of prayer. If it progress not to the taking hold on other wills, 
 and uniting in them and with them in an ever- ascending series, 
 till they take hold on our Lord — on the Supreme Will — and 
 
216 
 
 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 then descend in blessed and comprehensive action, they cannot 
 be called prayer. 
 
 " Life is substantially the same in all worlds. It is a mistake 
 to suppose that we cease to pra}^ or, in other words, to work, 
 when the labours and trials of earth are done. If these works 
 have been wisely done ; if these trials have been worthily 
 borne ; then we are by them made worthy to enter into rest- 
 that is, into a higher work, which, by grace, is so easily and 
 readily accomplished that it is indeed rest. The poor criminal 
 who is chained to the galley, and uses all his strength on the 
 hard, monotonous stroke, would consider working in an art that he 
 loved, a rest almost or quite divine. Disorder makes the burden 
 of labour. When we labour, or cause others to do so, to feed wants 
 that are false, there is a complex burden and misery in our work. 
 False wants are a burden, and thus wring out the life, by means 
 of the evils they cause in many directions. They necessitate a 
 labour like the rolling of the stone of Sysiphus, that returned 
 ever upon him who was upheaving it. The labour that is 
 prayer is wise and orderly work which achieves happy results. 
 There is selfish prayer and disorderly work. I may suffer in 
 wisely working and praying for another, making, in some 
 sense, atonement for their sin. If my sister, by selfish indul- 
 gence, induced sickness, I might be obliged to bear much of 
 the burden of her sin, in caring for her, in nursing her into 
 health, and perhaps sacrificing my own health or life in this 
 laborious, practical prayer. Thus sisters of charity, in all 
 departments of life, offer themselves a sacrifice for sin, uniting 
 themselves to our -Lord, by His grace, which enables them to 
 labour and suffer for others. All sickness is the result of sin 
 — of the individual or of individuals who preceded him — the 
 progenitors of his or her life. The prayer of faith (that is, 
 wise labour and trust in our Lord, and in His Spirit, which 
 alone is life) shall save the sick and raise him up. Man has 
 left the life of wisdom that is lived by grace. He would be 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 217 
 
 taught the things that make for peace in all worlds, if he were 
 but humble and attentive to the divine life in the soul. 
 
 " Life is not single. The French say, ' To be happy, there 
 must be two/ To be holy, there must be many — must be 
 unity. Our humanity must be harmonized by being united to 
 its Heavenly Head, and its units each to other. Our Lord 
 lives in, quickens, and reduces to order, His Church. Hearts 
 who are in good faith, become consciously united to God the 
 Lord — our Lord. We do not say the Lord, when we become 
 conscious of unity, but we say our Lord. He has established a 
 law of order for this unity, and the transgression of law brings 
 punishment. There is no lack of mercy in punishment, for 
 mercy is not predicated of it, but yet exists in it and by it. The 
 water flows through pipes and supplies the city. If one 
 wickedly or accidentally collapses a pipe, many must suffer. 
 The law is broken by which life is supplied, and suffering is 
 induced. This makes us seek knowledge. Knowledge is the 
 remedy for evil caused by and through ignorance. Wisdom 
 is predicated of good. Knowledge comes by evil. Whoso is 
 wise, is in unity with our Lord. His life is a harmony because 
 derived from the fountain of life, of love. 
 
 " In order to have wisdom none need sin. We have only 
 to cleave in loving humility to Him who is God with us, and 
 we are made wise, for love hath wisdom. All love hath all 
 wisdom ; and each special love hath its own wisdom, which 
 teaches us, draws us, or impels us right, and therefore heaven- 
 ward, while knowledge comes of experience and of error. 
 When we have gone wrong, we learn to mend our ways for 
 our own safety. Alas, for our age, that knowledge is not 
 wisdom ! 
 
 " With us, in the world of spirits, life is threefold. We live 
 from wisdom, from knowledge, and from a mixture of both. 
 Those whose life is not ordered by one, or the other, or both, 
 cannot be said to live. Thus you see that our world is but a 
 
218 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 continuation of yours. You may be anxious to know our life. 
 -With many it hath no greater difference from the earth-life 
 than another house or another country in the natural world. 
 So far as I know, there are superior conditions here, as civiliza- 
 tion is superior to savagism or barbarism. There may be life 
 without hope here, but it surpasses my knowledge, and, in my 
 belief, is but for a season. I must speak of what I know and 
 testify of what I have seen. If others give other testimony, I 
 have only to say they speak from their own life to their own 
 congeners. Truly we can only speak to our own. !STo one else 
 can hear us in the spiritual world, and no one else can receive 
 or understand in the natural world. 
 
 " The difference between the spiritual world, to which souls 
 are translated when they pass through the change called death, 
 and the world of matter and mind united, which is called the 
 material world, is of great interest to all men. The rudest and 
 most undeveloped human being testifies great interest in this 
 matter. It is true that such souls have mostly the interest of 
 terror. They have an undefined dread of the future. They 
 people the spiritual world with bad beings ; they give it action, 
 but mostly that of misery, or what results in torment. 
 
 " To find the reason of this estimate of the world that is to 
 come, we have to look into undeveloped human nature as it is. 
 All its consciousness is of imperfection. All its experience 
 shows that this imperfectness brings suffering. Knowing then 
 itself, in its poverty, and knowing the results of that want of 
 what brings peace and joy, how can it look forward to a heaven 
 for such souls ? All its instincts, blind though they may be, 
 protest that man must be perfected in order to enter heaven. 
 The sinner must sink to hell, says conscience, or the instinct of 
 perfectibility in the soul. 
 
 " Nothmg is more true than this. The wicked, the dis- 
 cordant, those who are cut off from the fountain of life, are in 
 suffering. Their state ensures it so long as it continues. The 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 219 " 
 
 sinner may sink. It may be that in every hell known to 
 
 humanity there is a lower deep than has been reached, because 
 
 the life of our Lord penetrates and saves to a certain extent. 
 
 What is to be understood, and what is coming now very much 
 
 into the mind of man, is this great fact — that sin alone causes 
 
 suffering of body or soul. It may not be sin of the individual. 
 
 We are not alone. To be holy, we must be many ; that is, we 
 
 must be in unity with our Lord and His body, which is the 
 
 Church — His humanity. We are not alone in good or in evil. 
 
 We have the benefit of the virtue of our ancestors. We have 
 
 also the misery of the vices of those to whom we are joined by 
 
 natural descent. The great good to us is in the will. If we will 
 
 not to be partakers of their sin, then we begin to rise out of it ; 
 
 Our purgation, or purgatory, begins. While we will to be in 
 
 sin, we are in hell. All souls are in hell who consciously, 
 
 wilfully, willingly sin. So soon as the will to sin is past— so 
 
 soon as the soul aspires in humble prayer that sin shall have 
 
 no more dominion over it, so soon hell ends and purgatory 
 
 begins. 
 
 " Prayer is the pulse of the circulation of the divine life in 
 
 the soul. Prayer is selfish, useless, and vain, when it draws 
 
 not the infinite blessing of power, the grace of Grod, into the 
 
 soul. We breathe in this divine blessing when in unity 
 
 with our Lord, as we breathe the air in the natural world. 
 
 Obstruction comes from within and without, as respects the 
 
 divine life in the soul, and the natural life in the lungs. We 
 
 may breathe air poisoned by others who lead impure and filthy 
 
 lives, and we may breathe this impure atmosphere into crippled 
 
 and diseased lungs. So, in the soul of man, selfishness makes 
 
 his prayer a sin, and the sins of others join with his own. We 
 
 are all members one of another. No one lives to himself or 
 
 dies to himself. In an evil life we are joined to many in a false 
 
 and discordant way ; in a holy life we are joined to our Lord 
 
 and His members in a true and harmonic manner. 
 
 o 2 
 
220 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 " ' A God all-merciful were a God unjust,' says the mind 
 which comprehends not the meaning of universal justice. God 
 is just to the child that had not sinned but by the parents' sin 
 — just in inflicting the penalty of violated law, which is predi- 
 cated of humanity, and not of one human being. Cause and 
 effect are eternal and co-eternal. Eternally punishment treads 
 on the heel of violated law. Oh, my sister, can you believe in 
 a God who ordains or administers suffering for no cause, and 
 to no end ? Despair alone could really believe such a creed, 
 and, believing, confer a dishonour on Almighty wisdom and 
 goodness, deep as its own abyss of insane suffering. God can 
 have no mercy on such, but by the law of His being, which is 
 divine cause, and limited or limitless effect. I assert that, if 
 there is aught of the wisdom of grace in my soul, effect is 
 eternal as cause, which is only another mode of expressing the 
 fact that cause is eternal. That it is cause is demonstrated by 
 effect. As God is eternal, cause is also. As effect subsists by 
 and from cause, it is also eternal. Cause exists in order or 
 disorder. In order, or in the effort to reduce to harmony, is 
 purification, purgatory, progress. In discord, evil, sin, without 
 even the inception of order, is hell. Perfect order is perfect 
 happiness. As sure as heaven is eternal, subsisting by and 
 through the divine order, as a divine effect, from the divine cause, 
 so sure hell is eternal, subsisting by and through disorder, as a 
 discordant or diabolic effect of a disordered cause. Heaven is 
 no more surely eternal than hell. Is heaven, therefore, to be 
 defeated by hell ? Assuredly not. The soul that sinneth, it 
 shall die. Its death is as eternal as its sin. Can it rise from 
 this death ? Ask Him who is the resurrection and the life : 
 ' If he turn from his evil way, and will to do that which is just 
 and right,' the will is accepted for the deed ; the deed follows ; 
 the dead is raised, and his soul is saved alive. Still the law 
 remains. Punishment, death, and hell are as eternal as sin. 
 
 " Limitless is the power of our Lord. In all worlds He is 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 221 
 
 the same — a heart of divine and human love. If we make our 
 bed in hell, He is there, the same heart of love. If we turn to 
 Him in humble prayer, He is ours — ours in mercy, as He has 
 been, and is, in justice. Man, then, is his own judge and 
 doomsman. If he love evil and cleave to it, he dooms himself 
 to suffering. If he love good, and implore to be a partaker of 
 it, the good becomes his own, and its resulting joy and happi- 
 ness. Visibly or invisibly, consciously or unconsciously, human 
 beings are saved or lost together. The diseased blood in dis- 
 ordered lungs no more surely infects the general health than one 
 evil-doer increases the moral disease of many. There is joy in 
 heaven over one sinner that repenteth. He is joined to many, 
 and they are all made better and happier by the first pulse of 
 prayer that throbs in his sin-sick soul. Great is the mystery of 
 godliness, but much of mystery may be revealed to the pure in 
 heart. Verily, it is the pure in heart who shall see God ; and as 
 no one has seen the Almighty essence with corporeal eyes, this 
 must mean that the pure in heart see God — the sovereign 
 Good — in the law of love, which has in it the law of 
 wisdom. 
 
 " The law of life is, to be amenable to the inner wisdom. How 
 is this ? Principally it is apprehended in what it forbids. There 
 is a sort of unconsciousness in well-doing — unconsciousness of 
 pain or evil. "VVe feel no check against doing what is best and 
 right, if we are living in interior wisdom and peace. There is a 
 check and pain that comes from the outward. "What will the 
 world say ? Those who are in this exterior life are in bondage. 
 They are bondsmen and bondswomen, to whom I do not now 
 speak. I speak to you, my sister, who have so strong a desire 
 to live to interior wisdom. I say to you, that you know God in 
 what He forbids through pain as a warning and as a penalty. 
 Knowledge, as I said before, is predicated of evil. You know 
 the grace of God in your interior as a check against wrong- 
 doing—as a pain and punishment of wrong acts. When our 
 
222 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 Lord comes to you in peace, you are wise to do well ; you can 
 hardly be said to know. 
 
 " The rule of life, then, is twofold ; the saintly rule, 
 which is wisdom — the wisdom of the divine grace in the soul. 
 Christ testifies of it when He says, ' My peace I leave with you ; 
 my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth.' The world 
 giveth knowledge through pain, the pain of wrong-doing teach- 
 ing a safer way. Our Lord gives us wisdom, peace. We love 
 the right. We are made wise in our interior to do the right, 
 and to keep the peace of our Lord. Happy the soul that dwells 
 in wisdom. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her 
 paths are peace. But the tree of knowledge is the tree of good 
 and evil. Do you not see, my sister, that, though knowledge 
 is good, it is of evil ; it comes by evil, though it leads to good. 
 Wisdom is of good, and is unmixed. Cleave, then, O beloved, 
 to our Lord's presence in your inmost soul. It is no matter 
 what name you give this divine love and wisdom, that emanates 
 from the divine love and wisdom of our Lord— grace, light, 
 love, conscience, peace. All are different forms of expression 
 for the same great truth. 
 
 " The childlike soul is wise. It clings instinctively and in 
 obedience to what nourishes. The babe does not know its rela- 
 tion to its mother. It is related. It lives from her, in obedience 
 to natural instinct. There is a divine intuition in the mature 
 soul, which is a synonym of this. What I wish to make plain is 
 this. The law of life is twofold — that which is predicated of 
 wisdom and peace, of unity with our Lord in obedience to the 
 law of grace. This is the law of life — of life from our Lord in 
 His Church. There is another law, which is the resurrection 
 from death through knowledge. Knowledge leads us upward 
 to our Lord, but only when we have suffered the pains of death, 
 through our evil-doing. This death may be partial, or it may 
 comprehend our whole life. In either case, if wilfully incurred 
 it leads to hell. Death and hell are as soul and body to each 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 223 
 
 other. I am the resurrection and the life, saith our Lord. Only 
 by His grace do we rise from the death of sin. Peace is our. 
 instructor. The law, when violated, becomes the schoolmaster 
 that leads us to Christ our Lord. In the maze of sin, of death, 
 and hell, the soul is said to be lost. Lost souls ! how sad and 
 terrible the words ; but He came to seek and to save that which 
 is lost. Herein is our joy. The Lord, our God, is a Saviour. 
 
 " The Lord, our God, is a Saviour. This dogma holds 
 within it almighty wisdom, which is of the almighty love. 
 Love, almighty to achieve infinite good ; wisdom, almighty to 
 determine the mode of its achievement ; and power, almighty 
 to execute the behest of love and wisdom. If death and hell 
 are his ministers, who shall gainsay the Saviour of man ; not 
 few or many men, but man, the creature of Almighty love, 
 wisdom, and power ; conceived by love, created by wisdom, 
 redeemed and saved by power, that contains the Trinity in 
 unity. 
 
 " The wise soul says, let me do the will of God, because it is 
 His will. The wise soul clings with love to the Infinite Love by 
 the law of likeness. The evil man says, ' If Christ can and will 
 save us, let us go down into hell, and learn what are the 
 delights of devils.' Hear not for those whose steps go down 
 into the pit. The depth of God's mercy is only measured by 
 the pains of hell ; in them is penance, a penance that all shall 
 know and suffer, if they will to commit the sin that hath not 
 forgiveness, but punishment ; and pain that is the sure result of 
 sin against the Holy Ghost, the divine truth, the grace of God. 
 Whoso hateth his brother, hath the seeds of death in his 
 heart. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. The 
 depth of the divine mercy is imaged in the pit that is bottom- 
 less. Love, infinite, unfathomable, hath ordained death and 
 hell, and their infinite use is assured by their infinite author. 
 In life, in death, in pain, in the fire that is not quenched, in 
 remorse and misery, known only to the chief of sinners, our 
 
224 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 Lord is a Saviour, a just God and holy, infinitely holy. He 
 breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living 
 soul — living from the inspiration of Omnipotence. Let none 
 separate man from God. In order or disorder we live from the 
 Infinite Life. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What we 
 sow we shall reap. If we sow to the flesh we shall reap corrup- 
 tion ; if we sow to the spirit, life everlasting. It is sad and 
 terrible to be saved by fire. 
 
 " The wise shall live by faith, and faith is substance ; infinite 
 and divine substance. Those who thus live are the little 
 children of whom our Lord said, ' Suffer little children to come 
 unto me.' When death and hell give up their dead, then 
 these are ministers of the Most High, to those who come 
 tb rough this resurrection from the dead. Herein we see those 
 on the right hand and the left. The wise are on the right ; 
 they live by faith, they enter into rest — they are partakers of 
 the life and joy of our Lord. Those who lose the interior 
 wisdom, who live in self-love without reference to their neigh- 
 bour, who revel in mortal sin because it is the choice of their 
 disordered wills, these are on the left hand. These depart into 
 everlasting pain, prepared for evil and false spirits — everlasting 
 pain prepared for what is false and evil. In this eternal misery 
 are found all those who are on the left hand. Here they pass 
 through their lustrations, and only when they repudiate the 
 false and evil can they be saved from the eternal pain prepared 
 for the wicked. Only when they turn in will to our Lord does 
 their being change, and the mode and state of their being 
 become changed also. There is eternal union between evil and 
 misery. Eternal punishment is for the wicked. Only when he 
 would turn from his evil way, and do what is just and right, 
 can he save his soul alive. Being and state, or mode of being, 
 subsist as soul and body. Wicked or disorderly being, by 
 inexorable law, has the concomitant of misery. All shades of 
 being have their concomitant states, from the life that is in 
 
THE GOSPEL OF RECONCILIATION. 225 
 
 unity with. God and which lives in the heaven of love and 
 wisdom, down through all degrees of disorder to the culminat- 
 ing evil and pain which constitute death and hell. The last 
 enemy which our Lord shall destroy is the death which never 
 dies. It is destroyed as an enemy of the soul, the moment that 
 soul turns to our God and wills to do what is just and right. 
 The everlasting chains of death and hell are flaxen bonds in the 
 fire of the divine love. Whoso is wise let him understand to 
 do the things that make for peace. Whoso are foolish let them 
 learn wisdom by the things they suffer. My sister, take this to 
 your heart. Be not fearful or unbelieving. The Lord our God 
 is a Saviour, and our Saviour is the Lord our God. Therefore 
 we may well be content that He should turn His hand upon us 
 in wisdom and in judgment, for shall not the Judge of all the 
 earth do right ? 
 
 " To what end ? All energy, faith, and belief are given us 
 to serve a use. What is not thus made subservient is turned 
 to evil and suffering. Faith is the primal fountain by which 
 the life of man is fed and nourished unto eternal life. Many 
 substitute opinion for faith. It is one thing to be based in faith 
 — to live from the substance out of which are continually evolved 
 the things that we hope for, and quite another to be blown about 
 by every wind of doctrine — to have this opinion to-day and that 
 to-morrow, and to find them all equally barren of good to the 
 soul. That faith in God as Immanuel, which is in us a fountain 
 springing up unto everlasting life, asserts forever its unity with 
 the source or everlasting ocean of divinity. 
 
 " This divine assertion in the soul bears always flowers and 
 always fruitage, like the orange-tree of the tropics. To dwell 
 in this faith — to have it order our life and exert its orderly 
 influence on all around us, is truly to live and to promote life, 
 while to be rejecting, wandering, seeking, finding, and rejecting 
 again, or hugging to the heart a loss and a sorrow, this is the 
 portion of those who have left wisdom for knowledge- — who 
 
226 THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 
 
 would know their duty instead of being wise to discern it. The 
 just man lives by faith. It is substance. It is God in the soul. 
 The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
 him up, and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven 
 him. 
 
 " How does the prayer of faith save the sick ? How does 
 our Lord raise him up, and how are his sins which he has com- 
 mitted forgiven him ? Love is the fulfilling of the law. If we 
 so love the Lord that we can take hold on this life by prayer 
 (and remember, prayer contains labour as well as desire), then 
 we can infuse life into a fainting brother or sister ; and this love, 
 which is creative, cures the sick and saves from sin. It is life 
 for death. The one sin which cannot be forgiven is that which 
 shuts out faith or the grace of God from the soul, and which 
 bars the inflowing natural life from the body. Animal life or 
 health is the correlative of grace in the soul. Whoso sins against 
 his soul by denying faith or unity with God, practically will hate 
 his brother — will strive to absorb uses into himself — and will 
 procure a spiritual apoplexy, or palsy, and consequent death. 
 Broken law brings its penalty of pain, but love fulfils all law. 
 It is the divine life. It fills the soul, aud becomes transfused 
 into the body. It is the new birth — the new creation. It is 
 life from the dead. 
 
 " Our first duty, then, is to seek faith in God, and His 
 eternity, which is our immortality. Because God is, we are. 
 Because He is eternal, we shall live for ever. When ? and how ? 
 then become questions. The first answer is, we live here ac- 
 cording to our love. If our love is true, our life is centrally 
 joyful, though circumstantially afflicted. "When we have 
 answered the question, how to live here ? we have answered 
 it for eternity, for whatsoever truly is exists for eternity. Life 
 lives on. Love is undying. Death and change are for what i.s 
 false and unloving. Life and immortality, for all that is good 
 and true." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 SPECIMENS OF SO-CALLED SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS, 
 SELECTED FROM MR. FERGUSON'S "RECORDS." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 
 
 For what follows, the editor is in no way responsible. But as 
 frequent allusion is made in the preceding pages to what are 
 denominated Supramundane or Spiritual Writings, Mr. Fergu- 
 son has selected from an extended collection a few specimens, 
 that the general reader may judge of their nature and char- 
 acter. Perhaps no spiritual writing can be properly estimated 
 except by the persons to whom and for whom it is given, and 
 these only in a just appreciation of their mental status and 
 moral surroundings. Different states call forth different 
 administering, and the adaptation and application are rarely 
 or ever made by the intelligence communicating. I have seen 
 men of almost every contrast of creed and condition listen to 
 the same communication, and deduce therefrom what to each 
 was confirmatory of what he or she regarded as essential 
 truth ; when, perhaps, were the communication placed under 
 the critical eye of some one isolated from these, it would not 
 have been understood as directed to either. For the most 
 
223 APPENDIX. 
 
 part, such communications are regarded as vague, indefinite, 
 and unsatisfactory, when judged by the ordinary standards of 
 criticism. This is the case with respect to those that are here 
 appended. But I do not regard this as a good reason why they 
 should be withheld, at least where we desire to reflect truth- 
 fully what we regard as a spiritual administering. Human 
 destiny, even for a single day, is vague and unsatisfactory to 
 every effort at realization. A direct and personal application of 
 any address is in its very nature limited and circumscribed. 
 What we readily and at once appreciate is often but a reflex of 
 ourselves, and of our existing condition. Whatever awakens 
 deep thought and serious meditation is ever at the first hearing 
 more or less vague. Not that it is so in itself, but that we come 
 to it with the mind already prepossessed with existing concep- 
 tions that may so occupy and hold it as to prevent what a 
 further attention may clearly disclose. So with every commu- 
 nication unmistakeably spiritual, or reflecting an intelligence 
 above the culture of the medium through whom it is given. 
 Whenever we attempt to measure, we circumscribe. Not that 
 we should surrender our reason or any known truth to what 
 purports to be spiritual. This could not be done even if we 
 would ; for that to which we would surrender it would not be 
 the spiritual, but simply our conception of the spiritual. 
 
 It must be clear to every reflective mind that the question 
 first to be settled respecting so-called supramundane facts or 
 writings is, Are they facts ? Is the writing what it claims to 
 be ? This question is established, we think, so far as the facts 
 are concerned, in the preceding pages beyond all rational 
 denial. When the facts are thus established in the conviction 
 of any one, new departments of thought naturally open, and it 
 is to be expected that every variety of dogma, doctrine, and 
 opinionism will be reflected. A block of wood will cast its 
 shadow when standing in the sunlight. A human mind should 
 not be expected to do less. All communications will, to a 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 229 
 
 greater or less extent, take the form or colouring of the mind 
 through which they are reflected. Hence a Catholic or Pro- 
 testant medium may be expected to give, or seem to give, a 
 Catholic or Protestant mould and hue to what is reflected 
 through his or her organism. But in these cases, so far as my 
 observation goes, no Catholic or Protestant medium ever gave 
 what may be truly called a spiritual reflection that did not give 
 a thought that ascended above and transcended all their existing 
 conditions or dogmata of faith. For myself, therefore, as an 
 eternal principle inherent in man's nature, and marking the 
 deific impress upon it above all prescriptive thought or expres- 
 sion, I claim the right to freedom of conscience. From this 
 will flow a liberty of expression on any and all subjects, linked 
 to no party, sect, or creed. Now, if this be true of me as an 
 individual in a divine whole of humanity — if it be a realization 
 of the soul of its right in God universal and eternal — if it, in 
 a word, be more than mere profession, I will prove it by award- 
 ing an equal freedom to my fellow. We cannot be free our- 
 selves, only as we grant the boon to others. 
 
 The evidences of supramundane guidance and protection I 
 have never found incompatible with the exercise of every 
 faculty of my mind. On the contrary, they have ever served 
 to enkindle within a desire for the highest good, which cannot 
 be gratified short of the great ultimate of eternal destiny. 
 Hence I have never found them circumscribed by any set form 
 of thought or mode of action, but to all forms and to all modes, 
 ministering not to destroy or subvert, but to purify and 
 brighten every true and noble recognition, either in sentiment 
 or action. Not, then, to assert any new or old dogma or 
 doctrine do I publish the following examples of spiritual 
 teaching, but to show how deep and broad their reflective evi- 
 dences may become to our most careful and serious thought. 
 I could extend them indefinitely j but will not, as my object is 
 more to give a specimen than to compile a collection. Any 
 
230 APPENDIX. 
 
 mind true to itself and the intuitive impress of Divinity it 
 bears, will find what may serve its highest uses as well, or 
 better, than any communication I can select, even from a col- 
 lection that would make volumes. The first communication 
 appended was given March 1st and 2nd, 1857, in the city of 
 New Orleans. The gentleman through whom it was given 
 was at the time as feeble as an infant, though suffering from 
 no recognized disease. It should also be stated that he had 
 never written a treatise on any subject, that he was destitute 
 of ordinary scholastic culture, and was entirely unconscious, 
 during the delivery of sentence by sentence of this communica- 
 tion. He had passed through a strange experience, seemingly 
 without object, and was at the time prostrate from that experi- 
 ence, needing my constant and watchful care. In that condi- 
 tion he directed me to take down word for word what follows. 
 Indeed, from the same state and preparation, he delivered 
 many treatises on various subjects, which were carefully 
 preserved by me, but taken no further notice of by himself. I 
 select this one only because it is a fair specimen of the series. 
 How others may estimate it I know not. I can only say for 
 myself that the years that have elapsed since it was so strangely 
 given have not exhausted its interest and value, now that I 
 have given to it a re-perusal. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 THE RELATION OF SPIRIT TO MATERIAL FORM. 
 
 " Law is infinite in duration and adaptation ; consequently 
 we can explain how a spirit may leave the body. 
 
 " Spirit is an intangible reality. It exists as the basis of all 
 calculation : inherent in all properties ; divided throughout all 
 extent ; adapted and adapting itself as man conceives in proxi- 
 mity to an end, to a fulfilment, a realization ; to the under- 
 standing mind, to a development, which may be considered as 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 231 
 
 the maximum for which any given property was created. This 
 end may be an intangible reality, as regards the very existence 
 and object to be attained in the great universe of space. For 
 what is time but an annihilator of all the miscalculations, the 
 misconceived and erroneous inferences that have been drawn 
 from the diversity of existence that has developed in unison 
 with the mighty plan, whose fulfilment is God, whose realiza- 
 tion is eternity ? For the perfectibility of Deity is omniscient, 
 and omnipresent every hour. 
 
 " Man obtains the zenith of his stature. This is the fulfilment 
 of his God in the exemplification of his being. So the flowing 
 field and the gathered grain display the inherent properties 
 that speak in Nature, in Deity. 
 
 " What is end? What is change ? It may be, to us, finite, 
 but the very act itself proclaims it infinite. We may bring to- 
 gether two substances. There may be inherent properties, 
 parts, or portions of each which may assimilate, thereby unfold- 
 ing the innate powers of each in new and varied forms. But 
 the very nature of the two being separate and distinct, marks an 
 impress that only breathes one mighty thought. What is 
 that ? Must we go to the laboratory and throughout the dim 
 shades of the past to find it ? Must scientific research annihi- 
 late within the bosom a kindred interest, and emotions of no 
 ordinary conception swell the heart as we behold the varied 
 aspect which deep thought and mental agony may realize as 
 the tokens awarded for such indefatigable researches ? Is this 
 the labour of a day ? Or does it enkindle within the spirit a 
 desire for knowledge, for infinity, for the varied forms which 
 each step opens to our view ? This may be the boon awarded 
 for an investigation so elaborate as the one just mentioned. 
 
 " But our remarks apply to two halves of a substance. Let us 
 turn to the other half. If finite expression conveys the whole, 
 different in degree, differing in condition, not the same in part 
 or portion, why when tried and subjected to chemical process 
 
232 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 will the action be the same ? It may be developing in more 
 extended form the inherent energies clothed with what man 
 calls mystery ; yet, true to itself, it exists — it has its laws. It 
 realizes each part or portion as a whole. Here in the two sub- 
 stances is an unending variety, like the branches of the mighty 
 tree of science, pointing in every direction, but still it points 
 upward and onward to its God. Why this variety ? Why 
 these constituent parts or portions forming a whole, and still 
 existing upon the subservient law of conditions? for all ends are 
 conditions when adapted to an analytical disposition of each 
 part or portion. These parts or portions are distinct indi- 
 vidualities. They possess all, and retain less. 
 
 " Here is a wise discrimination. God is in all, but developes 
 through the whole. But let us now follow the law of what we 
 call assimilation. What is it? It is the law of change. 
 There are no circumstances or conditions — nay, there is no other 
 conception than this. What is nature ? Change ; each part or 
 portion assimilating to the whole, developing new forms, dis- 
 playing unnumbered varieties, joining in one mighty song that 
 breathes the spirit of the whole as an emblem of Deity. 
 
 " JN"ow, not to weary your attention, or desiring to trespass upon 
 the conditions we purpose to subserve, we propose to draw what 
 might be termed a finite condition. If assimilation is change, 
 and the very act constitutes the proposition, what relationship 
 exists between two parts or portions that may draw or attract 
 to each other ? The very act of change demonstrates their dis- 
 tinctness. If they are two, they are not one. The law of 
 assimilation, so called by man, is but an accommodated phrase 
 for something realized, but not understood. Upon a thesis 
 strictly laid down, tangible in its form, unmistakeable in its 
 relation and character, there is no escaping a defeat ; for the 
 very purpose and plan thwarts the mighty purpose and end it 
 might attain. 
 
 " Now, what forms the whole ? It is spirit. Like attracts 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 233 
 
 like. Is there an infinite like that permeates all conditions 
 — that holds the mighty universe together — that binds and 
 interbinds the misty ends of the past and the unending ages of 
 the future ? Is life a stream that flows ever on ? Is there a 
 part or portion that forms any less than any other part or por- 
 tion on the mighty whole ? What circumstances or conditions 
 enable the discerning mind to see where is and where is not the 
 active spring that gives voice to the muttering thunder from 
 the silent recesses of the so-called" cave of thought ? Spirit is 
 eternal — -is universal, unchangeable. The action of that spirit 
 upon external power is universal, unceasing. We use the 
 phrase external power, as accommodated to man's conception of 
 change. Then it is spirit that acts upon external nature, or 
 materiality, so called, and developes an adhesive power that 
 draws together, undivided and unspent, a new fountain rising 
 above the external conditions that it wielded before. A true 
 and familiar — no, not familiar to the human, but to the divine 
 eye — illustration we will present. 
 
 " Water thrown upon your fire extinguishes its vitality. That 
 very same fire, conditions being equal, will develope through 
 that water agencies that annihilate space, and give vivacity to 
 the mind, and chain together the mysterious cords of abundance 
 that have been broken, and left humanity a skeleton to loathe 
 and be loathed by that very abundance it has brought. 
 
 " Why is Gfod in all thought and transmitted in all mind ? 
 Why does darkness cover the heavens ? Why is life a burden 
 and charity a song, to lull to repose the opulent, the so-called 
 rich? Rich in death ; rich in desolation ; rich in forged walls 
 of adamantine slumber ; for light divine never penetrates the 
 recesses where penury and want are strangers. But hoarded 
 gain stifles not the voice of God. His unending day only sheds 
 more light upon truth and her altars. Her contrasted ends fill 
 the heart and speak a new judgment to every thinking mind. 
 
 " What is action ? What is process ? What is time ? What is 
 
234 APPENDIX. 
 
 development ? What is thought ? "What is feeling ? What 
 is affection ? What is memory ? What is mind ? That is 
 spirit. What is spirit ? It is Grod. 
 
 " Action is work. It is cause administering effect. What 
 is process ? The chain that links that effect into a subjective 
 cause, that developes what? What time unfolds to man. What 
 is time ? An eternity of events ; nothing more. What is 
 thought ? It is a reflection from the interior, giving form and 
 vivid expression to feeling. ^Thought comes ; feeling opens and 
 administers. What is affection ? A spring of animate action 
 that vibrates at every touch, be that touch coarse or fine ; an 
 unmeasured something, vacillating in its character, suited to all 
 ways and to all conditions. 
 
 " But I have a counterpart ! Is it not a kindred thought, of 
 a nature divine ? It is not viewed in the general as very 
 commendable, and entitled to an authority so exalted as the 
 appellation or expression here given — divine. It is hate. 
 What is it ? It is just as much a part and portion as the 
 whole is one body or manifestation, though opposite. Now, I 
 will make what might be esteemed a very ungenerous or un- 
 warrantable assertion in connection with these two. But 
 there is still another — mind — the sensorium of the intellect. 
 It is God. What is Grod ? In order to accommodate that 
 expression to a finite conception, we would say, part and 
 portion of the whole, but absolutely the whole, the all, 
 admitting of no condition, and subjected to no cause, within 
 the comprehension of a universe of universes, holding no light 
 to foreshadow a distrust upon a claim so unbounded in extent, 
 so unending in duration. 
 
 " But here let me analyze. I possess thought. It changes. 
 I possess feeling. It changes. I possess affection. It is 
 delighted. But I love to-day and I hate to-morrow. Is this 
 God ? It is. Arrange or range it. The very nature of 
 eternal cause is action — is process — is a development of time. 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 235 
 
 There is no law, there is no conception that does not develope 
 itself under condition. Even God Himself exists in unison 
 with His own instrumentalities. These we call condition. Is 
 the active spring of thy brain the same when thy thought 
 changes ? Does the motive power acting upon the outward 
 semblance develope the same ? If so, there will be no change. 
 But eternal cause indites its lesson of reflected power, which is 
 thought. 
 
 " What is feeling, in a rational view ? Reason from cause to 
 effect, and you realize the sensation produced by heat, and the 
 opposite by cold. Do the identical same conditions produce 
 the same effect ? No. "Which has the precedence — either in 
 an Almighty hand ? No. In accommodation to our condi- 
 tion, one may develope results more in unison with us. But 
 the principle is an opposite one, and adapted to an infinite 
 existence which extends throughout the broad plane of time, 
 upon which every individualized form has its position. 
 
 " But affection lingers by the bedside of the so-called dying. 
 In a few short hours it breathes its last, and sports in its 
 gambols with the memory that it once regarded as scintilla- 
 tions from heaven to brighten and enliven its conceptions of 
 God and duty. Where has it gone ? Am I less true, or is 
 God less just ? Which of the two ? Have not the conditions 
 changed ? Are not the surroundings different ? But does it 
 speak in gratitude because I am not prostrate, and unable to 
 discharge the duties that nature has brought forth as a 
 counterpart to life ? But conditions are different, and I pass 
 on to the opposite — hate. Did I once hate ? No ; I loved. 
 Why do I hate ? The very proposition marks, with an infinite 
 impress, that change is there, and conditions and it are one. 
 Without circumstances and conditions, be their nature and 
 character whatever they may, there would have been naught 
 to describe but a fiend as monstrous as that one that invades 
 our peace and dissipates our hopes of the future. 
 
236 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 "But memory ! a storied gift, indelibly imprinted upon the 
 human soul, acting in unison to all, for it surveys from the 
 summit of time the unending links that bind it to the future, 
 by recounting the mysteries of the past. It occupies a 
 central position. It guards by its treasures what is called by 
 mortals, time-honoured experience. It is, so to speak, the 
 lamp-post of an infinite realm of association. But let me not 
 chide it, because I choose, 
 
 ' In heaven's unending way, 
 
 Ever upward and onward to stray.' 
 
 If the light is an infinite rule, developing the same in indi- 
 vidualities, I cannot always occupy the same position. Memory 
 may afford me to-day what she cannot to-morrow. Is she less 
 true, less in order, because she complies with my then existing 
 condition, in place of going back and recounting what once 
 might have been the gem I liked and the unfolding laurel of 
 my death to a higher reality ? No ! She is divine, omnipo- 
 tent, omnipresent, because she holds together a mighty fabric 
 to the whole ; because, when necessity does not want her, she 
 brings from her treasured depths that which speaks unerringly 
 of the future, by contrasting it to the past which are the positive 
 and negative forces of action in life. This is true. 
 
 " Must I say there is no God in one part or portion not equally 
 allied to every part or portion, because the north is opposite to 
 the south, or the east is antagonistic to the west ? Does this 
 prove that God is less in one part than another ? Does this 
 prove humanity lifeless and bereft of a divine and paternal 
 care because these antagonisms exist ? Or will you silence 
 such disputants in the human heart, and let treasured thoughts 
 ascend to do honour to the soul, and not blacken the scroll of 
 humanity with deformities lifeless and dead ? It speaks to the 
 thinking mind, and will bring man from each part 
 
 ' To form the whole, 
 And live a life undying to its native soul ! ' 
 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 237 
 
 But if mind is God, where is the idiot ? He moves. Is there 
 no God in him ? Is there no God in all this extended space 
 that I behold ? Is it all confined in mortality ? If there is a 
 spirit that warms, that nourishes, that glows, from whence 
 vibration springs in notes of lullaby to the passing winds, why 
 is that spark, undoubting, left a deformity ? Is nature defec- 
 tive ? Is God supplanted by condition or circumstance of His ? 
 All, then, is not ordained. What link, what part, what portion 
 of the great whole of humanity is exhibited here ? If God 
 is mind and there is no mind here, there is no God there. 
 If there is an innate something called eternal, be it spirit or 
 otherwise, that does the thinking, the feeling, where is it ? 
 What part or portion is not realized ? But he has feeling ! 
 Is this of God ? Yes. To doubt that would imply an annihila- 
 tion, and would separate him from the human form. To doubt 
 every exhibition of his nature to be an administration of eternal 
 law, just in all its course, would be to doubt the Omnipotent. 
 Then he must be of God, and God in him. Yet how frail man's 
 judgment — which I will call his condition. Because he realizes 
 not in the idiot the same exhibition of divinity, is it less true ? 
 Does he recognize the same exhibition in the grass that grows 
 and the violet that blooms that he does in the native founts of 
 himself ? If God is external and internal — which is clear to 
 every mind that can recognize one thought above another — the 
 reality of His existence is in all things. You can separate Him 
 from no condition, you can annihilate Him from no circumstance, 
 but you can view the unending variety attendant upon forma- 
 tion and transformation ; for they are one in nature, but two in 
 God. 
 
 " Here appears an inexplicable difficulty. Two in a finite 
 sense, for it cannot be exhibited to human capacity in any 
 other form. If progress were identical there would be no 
 change ; it would be a falsity. Now there are two relations of 
 that word. One is infinite. And again, there is no progress 
 
238 APPENDIX. 
 
 but what is infinite. "Why ? I will illustrate. One single act 
 is a change. I turn over a clod of earth. It does not occupy 
 the same position, and does not retain the same relationship to 
 anything upon the plane of materiality, upon which every 
 created semblance can recognize it as one and the same — as 
 identical. Now look at it, as it were, infinitely. If it occupied 
 one position before, that condition established its relationship 
 to the infinite as it then existed. If it occupies another now, 
 its relationship as far as it extends is different, as its position is 
 changed. Here arise two realities based upon the relative 
 situation and condition attained by the action. Now God is 
 in and through both, relatively considered, and developing as 
 much in one as in the other. Here is an attainment. That 
 attainment is progress. Now suppose an utter annihilation 
 of this condition, that progress attained is infinite, though you 
 cannot conceive of an utter annihilation. How much greater 
 must it be in the fulfilment of natural law, circumstance, and 
 condition, as it rises above from one to the other. But annihi- 
 lation is an inconsistency. It is not an adhesive term, for it does 
 not bring together, but exasperates and destroys all. But we 
 purpose not to bring antagonism, for it is not real in the universe 
 of God. Unity and strength develope as one throughout His 
 infinite realm. We speak of annihilation as a corroborative 
 evidence, as brought to the sense of man in the termination of 
 his mortal existence. We speak of it as a change, as a dissolu- 
 tion from whence man in his finite condition may judge and 
 estimate the relation he sustains to the Infinite. We denomi- 
 nate change as the substantive evidence that unites the inex- 
 plicable decrees of fate to man in the changes he naturally 
 sustains in the varied relationships of life, This works an 
 impress upon the great figure-head of form, indelibly fixed, 
 eternally indited by the finger of the Omnipotent One. If 
 annihilation could come, it would smother the fibres that beat 
 symphoniously to the tuneful embrace that outbursts from 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 239 
 
 nature and nature's God in man. But not to substantiate the 
 position of change as administered in the foregoing, proves man 
 a lie to his being, to his existence, and immortality worthless. 
 There is no such thing. This shows that development is change 
 in accordance with natural law, which is God. This gives life 
 and vitality to the soul, gives breath to the pure in heart, and 
 breathes forth emotions of gratitude and love to the true in 
 spirit. 
 
 " Sentimentally men believe in God ; proficiently they do not. 
 Man should receive according to the light given. You cannot 
 develope a whole without parts. This is in accordance with the 
 very law of knowledge, which tends to what is and what is not 
 a tangible existence or reality. Two parts or substances coming 
 in contact make one by the very nature of the adhesive qualities 
 that bring them together. There are differences to be measured 
 and rightly applied to enforce a conviction that would paralyze 
 any effort to overthrow and thwart an end so divine. Mystified 
 may be the causes that produce and reproduce, attaining ends 
 as well as agencies for a development that can be realized upon 
 a mundane sphere. For instance : Two substances come in 
 contact. They impart and reproduce — what ? Themselves, 
 each substance ? If both produce, what is the production like 
 unto — itself ? No ; for they are not alike. Consequently, 
 some inherent part or portion of each, forming a combination, 
 developes within itself a perfectibility of the two constituent 
 elements so brought together, each element being a part or 
 portion of the whole. 
 
 " To substantiate this declaration : Life is from God. There 
 is no such thing as inanimate action. This, in phraseology, 
 appears to be a contradiction, as there could be no action 
 without life. But we wish to impress upon the mind the 
 exact observance of one fact. If all life is Deity, it must be 
 the active spring of all action, developed through causes to an 
 ultimate, or realization. The animative spark, inhaled and 
 
240 APPENDIX. 
 
 exhaled throughout creative munificence, carries within itself 
 the unmistakeable evidence of its origin. "Why ? No man 
 can understand it ! Why can he not understand it, if the 
 motive power or principle within himself is a part or por- 
 tion of that which constructs and re- constructs all the visible 
 evidences of a mighty power ? Would you know ? Here is a 
 thought greater than man. If mind is God, if spirit is God, 
 if the active principle of formation is God, if I am a part and 
 portion of that stupendous whole, why do I not realize its ends 
 and its workings ? I may be an infinitesimal of the mighty, 
 and may possess in a slight degree that part or portion adapted 
 and suited to what I call a realization of time and things. 
 That divinity within me may be my judgment, my discriminat- 
 ing faculties, affections, feelings, working upon what we call 
 external nature, exhibited in acts, denominated good, bad, or 
 indifferent, all suited to a condition, all subserving an end ; for 
 who can encompass immensity and lay restriction upon Deity ? 
 This relation here presented I would call the social one 
 between matter and spirit. Their connection is intimate ; 
 their responses endure. 
 
 " But another mighty thought crowds my brain ; but not 
 like the livid lightning across the summer sky, to leave dark- 
 ness with her mantle night. No, no ! But if I possess any 
 degree of the Infinite, in what unmeasured extent does Supreme 
 Power rest ? Why not as much here as anywhere ? When 
 man shall recognize this fact, he will not desire to shift and 
 change the responsibilities of each succeeding hour, but will 
 know that God dwells in all conditions and inherits all extent, 
 as an existence that no time can pervert, nor no action destroy. 
 Man may try in vain to prove himself the legitimate from the 
 causes and effects he bestows through the instrumentalities 
 peace has conferred. 
 
 " But why is man finite if a part and portion of Deity ? If 
 finite, what condition or circumstance is Infinite ? Where is 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 241 
 
 the distinction ? This thought is a gem. Where did you get 
 that light from ? From above you. Where do you get 
 darkness from ? From above you. Where do you get rain 
 from ? From above you. Air, heat, cold, life, existence — all 
 come from beyond or above you. This physical illustration 
 amplifies most clearly the ends to be attained in its construc- 
 tion. If all things tend from a source higher than you, 
 though you be a part or portion of Deity, you see in the 
 physical world that all light, all life, comes from something 
 higher than you, maintaining, at the same time, that you hold 
 your relationship ; that very relationship enforces that convic- 
 tion. The very thought of a distinction exists right there, 
 between an Infinite and a finite. Light from a source higher 
 than you enables you to see — to realize any tangible reality. 
 Without it you could not do it. Here is a thought that may 
 be carried out in all processes of reasoning. God being 
 Infinite, there is nothing higher than Him to reflect upon 
 Himself; and man being part, and existing through the 
 instrumentalities of that condition, is not the whole. That is 
 the difference between finite and infinite — between spirit and 
 form. This latter expression I mean in an accommodated 
 sense. 
 
 " And what does thought present ? Why her mysterious 
 wanderings ? What prompts her to act in the stillness of the 
 night ? With mementoes fresh and dear she brings her trea- 
 sured boon. She dwells not in silence. No ; nor does she 
 invade the tomb ; but, with thoughts most dear, tends her 
 upward and onward course to life. This is God. This is man 
 in God. How is thought generated ? If all thought is of God, 
 it is one, and cannot be lost. It developes according to the 
 necessities of the conditions that surround. If a part or portion 
 in man has the ascendancy over the material, it developes, pro- 
 tects, guides, directs, realizes, throughout its relationships, its 
 tendencies, its ends, its consummations. This naturally arises 
 
242 APPENDIX. 
 
 from action, which is the higher or ascendant acting upon the 
 lower or diverse part, or portions of the reality, called spirit. 
 But you say it does not act all the time. What part or portion 
 of an infinite principle can cease its action and not destroy its 
 reality ? If thought is from God at all, does man always think 
 the same ? Then, if that very part or portion whose exhibition 
 we denote from action does not act always to one direct and 
 isolated condition, must it necessarily cease to act at all ? No. 
 The fact of existence shows the active principle from life is 
 maintained when thought is gone ; shows that it is an infinite 
 principle, adapted to condition, to consummate what we con- 
 ceive to be an end desirable, with the help and instrumentalities 
 it has been our lot to enjoy. To maintain that any exhibition 
 of thought is not from the Infinite in thought, whose diversi- 
 fied claims are innumerable, would be to say that if the weather 
 is pleasant to-day and unpleasant to-morrow it is not of God. 
 It is but the exhibition, and tends to the very position that man 
 might seek. This strengthens, maintains, in an unmistakeable 
 manner, what we claimed for change or a process, for time, for 
 progression, for feeling, for affection, for hatred, for mind, for 
 God. 
 
 " But, sir, here comes the tidewater of events. Wbat part 
 or portion has it ? Unceasing in its flow it buries and builds ; 
 it desolates and it sustains; nay, it maintains all. It is a 
 signet set in these heavens, and no child of nature was ever 
 forbidden to gaze thereon. No angel has ever been found 
 sufficient to indite its message ; and unburdening ages may 
 cease to live ere it can breathe upon man the power sufficient 
 for the task. It is hope, that God-spring of action, that never 
 leaves when death clings, in her cold embrace, all that would 
 tinge the memory with a fit recollection of its treasured march. 
 It bids a welcome to the human heart that inspires our song 
 and gives victory to the weak. 
 
 " When we can say that nature is not true to herself, we can 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 243 
 
 say that hope is not divine. We can say that God has created 
 and not maintained. We can say that there is no infinity. 
 We can set bounds to thought. We can measure conditions. 
 We can adapt means to meet every emergency that existence 
 bestows. What is hope ? O ye men of to-day, where is your 
 hope of to-morrow ? What instilled visions of thought can 
 give conceptions to this birth of the soul ? Ministering angels 
 breathe inspired intonations of love and repose ; gently they 
 coil their way. They bring to every human heart invitations 
 of love, mingling therewith the odours of their nature, which 
 enables man to respond amen to what ? To fate ? No ; to 
 God. It is a guardian care of a protecting agency that lifts the 
 veil from mortal eye, and permits a responsive throb to condi- 
 tion, to destiny, to God. 
 
 " Why do you say, then, there is an hour when hope has 
 sped her way ? Is it that God is less pure, less just, less holy, 
 less true ? The condition does not exist. How can condition 
 in nature be so fickle, so changeable that one thought inspires 
 that hope ? Was not that thought God ? Was not that hope 
 the instrument, borne by that thought by angel hands to 
 minister, to whisper to my condition ; to breathe upon me the 
 purified evidence of its kindred nature ? What so consoling ? 
 Take from the human heart this incentive, and what is left ? 
 Is God less ? No. But the action may cease ; the condition 
 may not be there. If so, will Deity act in contravention to 
 its own unfoldings ? No. 
 
 " You draw from earth all that sustains physical conditions. 
 You draw — recollect it is a process of Providence — your earthly 
 form from spiritual intelligences, that which sustains the spirit- 
 ual and the physical. The connecting link between the two is 
 here. Why, in the order of existing nature and intelligence, 
 do spirits come, minister to, and sustain ? From the fact they 
 are in condition and unison with us, being the connecting link 
 from materiality to spirituality. They are the barriers, also, 
 
244 APPENDIX. 
 
 of hope that guard our action ; inspire and develope condi- 
 tions and circumstances strictly in accordance with our relation- 
 ships to each other." 
 
 Here the medium ceased. The next day, March 2nd, he 
 commenced again as before, taking up the thought precisely 
 where he left it, as follows, which I designate — 
 
 Section II. 
 
 " Any exemplification of truth will give unmistakeably the 
 philosophy of life, when time and conditions will admit. 
 Assertions are common property ; but a contrast in reasoning 
 is an infinite durability. In the communication above there 
 was a variety of reasoning, contrasting materiality with spirit- 
 uality, God with form. I shall now place before you some 
 considerations fraught with inconceivable interest to mankind. 
 This day and generation are illy prepared to estimate their 
 significance ; but that makes them not the less true. What 
 is God in quantity and quality ? JSTo response can be given 
 but the tangible proof of existences everywhere. So is man. 
 What is the difference ? Is he not God ? Yes ; but he is not 
 without God. I mean in the existing relation of humanity in 
 God ; for humanity is one and the same. If it were not so its 
 Deity would be omnipotent, but not divine. If spirit is through 
 all form, all form is through all spirit, for the active principle 
 is one and both ; or it may be said to be the active principle in 
 form or formation. 
 
 " You cannot conceive of an active agency, denominate it 
 whatever you please, acting upon anything if all is infinite 
 solubility, for then it would have nothing to act upon. This 
 developes the thought : God is a rock as much as an elephant, 
 forming, adapting, or acting upon, in and through all things, all 
 conditions and circumstances. Mark this assertion in all its 
 force. There is nothing but what is G od in the divinest sense, 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 245 
 
 nothing. There is as much of deity in one condition as another. 
 Proof: extricate any part or portion of a conceived idea of 
 God, and it is not God. Does anything, then, exist without 
 Him ? Nothing. Burden, hope, joy, sorrow, life, death, 
 nature, a harmony of contrasts, a union of visibilities. To the 
 outer sense man is but a contrast to the rock ; death is but a 
 contrast with the life. What measures it all ? A perceptive 
 faculty, so called. What is that ? Just as much a part and 
 portion of the whole as the rock ; but the contrast gives the 
 definition to perception. It is only a different relation sustain- 
 ing a different union that presents an infinite harmony. Now, 
 if this is true, what is the duty of life ? 
 
 " To study the harmony of contrasts, and the fruits of that 
 study, should be to unite and bind together individualities, 
 developing infinitely the resources of each. This makes unend- 
 ing progression, perfection ; for nothing can be perfect only in 
 its own state. God is only perfect as He is God. When you 
 conceive of anything less than this it brings to your heart sad- 
 ness and regret ; for all perfection is Deity. God worketh in 
 us a perfect work unto righteousness in Himself. Then if God 
 is in all things, the manifestation of that God is adapted to 
 perfection. He is perfect in Himself. If so, and lives, breathes, 
 vivifies all extent, is it not perfect in its state or condition then 
 existing, relatively considered ? No. Why ? This is only 
 an apparent clash of propositions. God is life ; life is action. 
 If there were no action you would have inanimation. That is 
 inconsistent with the idea of an Infinite Being. One would 
 destroy the other ; consequently unceasing action is the mani- 
 festation of Deity. 
 
 " God cannot be death. Death, in an appellative sense, is 
 non-existence. These expressions of death or inanimation are 
 mere hieroglyphics to a language of thought, of Deity ; for we 
 deal with infinite problems, which can only be solved by an 
 infinite alphabet, which man must learn at his leisure ; for he 
 
246 APPENDIX. 
 
 gives not to God the product of His heart. We say leisure, 
 because he is estranged from his own ; ' for He came to His 
 own and it knew Him not.' Estranged from himself, I would 
 say, as it gives more tangible proof of an identity. 
 
 " Then, if God is infinite action, let us receive the behest 
 conferred by an infinite action, that must develope in an ulti- 
 mate which extends throughout eternity. Now, sir, this pro- 
 cess of reasoning brings us to see our hates, our loves, our dis- 
 likes. Do you suppose that in the infinite universe of God hate 
 can spring without a cause ? — that love can be inspired with- 
 out a motive ? — -that God can act without an end, which is 
 Himself ? Then the result of that action is divinity. This 
 brings the heavens together. This brings kindred ties. This 
 brings infinite unions. 
 
 " Again, should I essay to bring together that which is not 
 apart ? If God extends throughout all, is He at variance with 
 Himself? No. The proposition of an existing difference is 
 no proof. There is a rock ; here is a house ; there is a man ; 
 yonder a mighty tree ; mother earth ; the unceasing tide. 
 They are all one in an infinite relationship ; but a different 
 manifestation of a principle establishes that relationship. In 
 water, earth, tree, man, rock, house, the connecting principle 
 is the same, though each preserves its relative condition. This 
 is an infinite condition, for it is in all. Being in all establishes 
 the harmony of its contrast. So it goes unendingly on through 
 eternity. 
 
 " We come now to consider some laws of nature, or the 
 affinitizing of the spirit : conjugal life or aflmitizing associa- 
 tion. God is in materiality ; but in a strict sense is spiritu- 
 ality. The difference or distinction is a matter of association ; 
 in an external sense, manifestation. We will take for a figure 
 materiality and spirituality, their conjoined association, and 
 illustrate the union of man and woman. God's manifestation 
 in nature is more true than in man — external nature I mean. 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 247 
 
 Her flowery meads but bespeak this truth. It dies from period 
 to period, which is step by step to God. That death resurrects 
 a new semblance of internal strength. Now, God's manifesta- 
 tion, of whatever nature or character, is ever onward. The 
 contrast between dead formation, which we will call man being 
 spiritually born and renewed, is a contrast between a visible 
 death manifested in nature, in the two periods contrasted as 
 fall and spring. There is a death in nature, and still it lives, 
 radiates, and is vivified again in newness of life. Is man less 
 than the external manifestations of God in form ? If this death 
 exists in the material world, how much greater in unison with 
 its condition in man. Man may die to a greater extent. His 
 passions, his desires, his physical force, may be superseded by 
 the active energizing influence imparted by coming in contact 
 with all that assimilates alike to him in spirit. Here a dis- 
 tinct difference is to be marked, which we give as merely 
 explanatory in relation to what is noted as congeniality or 
 spirituality. I wish to draw a distinction. 
 
 "Suppose a pair of balances. On one side the spiritual 
 man ; on the other the animal man. The balance may be 
 equal. Spirit being above matter, more readily pervades and 
 assimilates through the grosser than materiality ; and in coming 
 in contact with its like, though it may not be its like in the 
 sense of perfection of oneness ; for it is in comparison like 
 water. There is the crystal dew and the murky stream : in- 
 finite variations, but water is water, and all water when sub- 
 jected to like conditions will seek its level. A breath of the 
 winds may breathe upon this balance in spirit-life and give the 
 preponderance. Now, the leverage here gained is an additional 
 strength. Thus the spirit has the ascent ; the flesh is out- 
 weighed. 
 
 " One thought you may never be able to conceive ; but if 
 God be ever onward, ever upward, it is true. The spirit, when 
 once it has attained the preponderance over the flesh, goes on 
 
248 APPENDIX. 
 
 propagating, increasing, strengthening, realizing, in the same 
 manner, under the same conditions, in the same form, to the 
 same ends and results, only in a higher degree, as spirit is ahove 
 matter, increasing, strengthening, proportioning through all 
 extent, in the same manner as the material, the animal pro- 
 pensities gain the ascendancy. Thus the spirit, when predomi- 
 nating, guides, directs, changes, interchanges its likes, each one 
 fulfilling a higher law of generation, developing to a oneness. 
 
 " Now here note. Again, under a new "birth it expands into 
 another condition, which condition is a relative one to spirit, as 
 spirit is to matter in this life, extending through infinite varia- 
 tions. Thus two persons spiritually horn go on in attainment, 
 and as nature perfects each attainment it is but a death, 
 because a step to an infinite condition from whence another 
 birth is to be attained. Now, what shall be the consequences, 
 developed, realized by a truly animal man ? He propitiates 
 his desires by excessive indulgence. Does he go back? Is 
 not God and spirit as much in him as in another ? Yes. 
 You'll allow me to say that God's relationships are infinite. 
 You'll allow me to say that these relationships were established 
 from the beginning. If God is infinite, there can be no change 
 in God : His attributes, His character is one. I make this asser- 
 tion in order to do away with what will arise as a mystery as 
 we proceed. That is, God's justice, that one man's condition 
 should be below another's. "We cannot stop to recapitulate, 
 but say this is false. But we would say that man is in unison 
 with the order of nature, which is the order of God. The dif- 
 ference between the truly animal man and the spiritual is in 
 the manifestation, is in unison with the contrast we made 
 some time ago in the rock, the house, the man, the tree, earth, 
 water — each subserving its great part, that forms a mighty 
 whole. 
 
 " But now let me show you the detrimental usages of society. 
 Let me show you why prostitution brings its endless train of 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 249 
 
 evils. Woman in unholy association with many men comes 
 in contact with what annihilates the spiritual or ascending 
 spark. The greater the number the more detrimental the 
 reality. Being so gross, so material, it developes itself in 
 diseased tumours, from which arise loathsomeness and disgust 
 hideous to look upon. This is a caricature of true association 
 and a violation of natural existence — not law. All flesh is the 
 manifestation of God. So is water ; so is earth ; so is spirit. 
 Though God is manifested in the water, it is not the earth, and 
 you cannot make it so. They are both the manifestation of 
 the spirit, but you cannot bring them together and make them 
 one. Here is the tree. It is neither the earth nor the water, 
 though it may have the constituent parts or portions of each. 
 But you cannot bring them together, for their position to each 
 other is different in the harmony of contrasts. Now the solu- 
 tion. Change their relative positions to each other. The tree 
 by the developing process of fire evaporates in smoke. Coming- 
 in contact with other gaseous substances, forms or is formed into 
 vapour distilling dew. Thus you see one part or portion is 
 assimilated. This we will call generation of the spirit, bringing 
 it in unison and harmony with the then existing conditions. 
 Thus it assimilates as water. Thus spirit assimilates with spirit 
 or unto spirit as described in the preponderating scale. This 
 is a mighty thought, a stupendous whole, but we must go on. 
 
 " Some one will say : Am I to understand that in the process 
 of time I, being a gross animal man, I may approach by this 
 routine of influence called development, by being scathed by 
 the fires of my own passion to realize a condition or perfection 
 with a perfectly spiritual being ? In this process of reasoning 
 hast thou placed me, Heaven ! where I may realize the ends 
 and desires of thy Spirit in me ? God, thou hast in the 
 purpose of thy Spirit in me ; but hast not in that attainment. 
 Why ? Then there is a point I cannot approach to. No 
 Thou mayest approach to it in time Well ; if in time do I 
 
 Q 
 
250 APPENDIX. 
 
 not meet that spiritual elevation or union with that soul that I 
 once desired : my motives being pure, my life, my hope, my all 
 being in unison with thy condition, Father ? What is the 
 hindrance ? It is here, my son. God works in the whole. 
 While working in your soul He ceases not His action in 
 another. It is an infinite whole. If He ceases to act in one 
 that you may make a certain attainment, you may be sure it is 
 not God. If He works more in thee, it is change and more 
 than God ; incompatible with His nature and character. Were 
 either of these propositions true, to harmonize what we will 
 call the conditions of honest effort the world would cease ; 
 all conditions, all existences would run into one — would 
 form a stagnation in action. Now you can see the ap- 
 plicability of our first remarks in regard to the harmony 
 of contrasts, the manifestations of Deity. If God had 
 an established order from the beginning, it still exists ; 
 but, like His Infinite Spirit, being from Him they permeate 
 all conditions — they electrify the universe. They must drink 
 from its depths. They must draw from its founts. They must 
 partake of its unceasing waters. They must wash and become 
 pure — tried in the ordeal of the fixed furnace of eternity, de- 
 veloping law and order out of chaos. Abstractly, God is 
 nothing. Intuitively He is everything, in and over all. 
 
 " Now, what is development ? It is being in God through 
 all the instrumentalities of His power. A manifestation of His 
 power is now made manifest in a figurative expression which I 
 will give. There arises before me a column of immense height, 
 of imposing grandeur. It pours forth from its summit living 
 light. Sparkling founts are opened. Every conceivable hue 
 tinges the pearly drops as they fall from the summit so elevated. 
 To earth these droppings are but the attributes of heaven. 
 They fall in every conceivable form and condition around the 
 base of this mighty elevation. Though separate and dis- 
 tinct, each drop forms a rivulet ; each rivulet speeds its course 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 251 
 
 onward from its parent home. It mingles and intermingles 
 with the changeless voices of time — recounts the varied forma- 
 tions of earth, and spell-bounds the demon strides of annihila- 
 tion that so often blast the hope of man in life. But it is an 
 infinite elevation. Its presence is the Spirit and power of God 
 working upon the heart of man. Each rivulet from this 
 mighty throne is an individuality. Each hue of colour is the 
 positive and negative principle working in destiny. Now they 
 work on, and as they work through the changeless formations 
 of time they are equally allied to the whole, partaking of all, 
 maintaining their counterpart. From where it springs it 
 realizes in spirit the formation of the whole. Now, it is the 
 mingling of these crystal drops ; it is the reflection of these 
 radiations, whose changeless colours reflect and re- reflect upon 
 the varied conditions that bring contrast, that developes the 
 rock ; that preserves the soil ; that flows in the streams ; that 
 rides upon the winds ; that glistens in the stars, and inspires 
 each motive of truth divine. 
 
 " We have established the relationship of spirit-hope — of a 
 spiritual life upon an unending scale. But there is a subser- 
 vient principle yet to be developed in what man faintly conceives 
 to be moral attainment • as though he could do anything without 
 God; as though that God could sanction wrong. Is it not 
 much easier to reconcile the thought that I am frail, my sight 
 is dim, my imagination distorted, than to separate myself from 
 the Infinite, or thrust home all wrong as a creative energy of 
 heaven? — to instil wild notions of Deity — of purpose — of 
 infinity ? 
 
 " Now, as Spirit is one in God, and its relative condition 
 being equally a manifestation of that same God, it acts in 
 greater degree upon, yea with spirit, though its condition may 
 deaden, may electrify, may destroy, may prostrate the condi- 
 tion it comes in contact with. This is the case here in our 
 union. It is God's love. 
 
 Q 2 
 
252 APPENDIX. 
 
 " One thought in illustration. You behold an infinite mani- 
 festation in formation. Let your imagination conceive of 
 innumerable elements. Harmony, spiritually, is one of those 
 elements. Now the manifestation of this element is one and 
 the same, not only upon the plane of Deity, but of harmony. 
 Being the same external manifestation of Deity, it may be in 
 man, in woman the same, identical. A lamp burns well by the 
 application of heat and oil. But mix it with water, it still 
 burns ; but how does it burn ? You see the scintillations, the 
 flickering spark of hope and joy in the human breast. The 
 taper becomes sickly. The reverse is at hand. Dark gloom 
 is spread over all. Again, a faint ray may shoot athwart the 
 imagination ; but it is only to deaden the sensibilities with the 
 contrast, and finally dark gloom of midnight wretchedness 
 envelopes all that was the hope of God to man. Such is 
 nature's lesson when abused. Such is the imprint of Deity. 
 Shun it who will ; master it who can. None can do it. It is 
 as inconsistent as hell and heaven to thwart nature, for she 
 speaks as the roaring wind, and peoples earth as the drops 
 abound in the mighty deep with the desolating gods that bind 
 together reversion. Grod is a willing soul, and works in the 
 just. Perfect His truth, and live holy to His light. I am 
 done. I will come again on Monday. 
 
 "Joy encircle thy brow, and instil thy breast ; 
 Thy slumbering shall be awakened, and thy heart at rest." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPIRITUAL WRITINGS CONTINUED. 
 
 In Chapter VIII. of the body of this work, the editor has 
 selected some evidences of psychometrical delineation of 
 character, to which I beg to append the following. It is 
 worthy of remark that delineations of character, though often 
 reflecting the existing condition and past life of the person 
 whose character is delineated, always reflect a higher thought 
 and purpose than any connected with mere personal descrip- 
 tion. This is especially true of all the communications given 
 through the late Mrs. L. L. Winchester, from whose records I 
 select what follows. There is always some peculiar principle, 
 really or supposed to be, illustrated in the life of the person 
 whose character is delineated, to which the delineation will be 
 found most happily applicable. For example, in the delinea- 
 tion which follows, charity or benevolence is the principle 
 embodied ; and expressions that would be extravagant as applied 
 to any person, are full of deep meaning, clothed in most striking 
 symbols, with this more general application. 
 
 I desire further to remark, that I print these communica- 
 tions precisely as given — capitals, punctuation, and formation 
 of sentences unchanged. It would be easy to put them in such 
 form that they would be in harmony with the rules of the 
 " grammar art," as universally recognized, but I prefer to give 
 them as written, for to me there was a marked significance in 
 the use of capital letters, &c, as used : — 
 
254 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Muscogee Camp, near Memphis, Term., 
 May, 1859. 
 
 " Best beloved and brightest Jewel of our Father's crown, 
 hail ! In the name of Brotherhood hail, faithful Servant of the 
 Living, Invisible God. Thou bearest upon thy workman's apron 
 marks of Vulcan's shop, in which thou hast toiled in the glori- 
 ous consciousness that spirit hands upheld and made strong 
 your Soul. Brother of my heart, hail ! John of my Soul, hail 
 in the name of the dark wilderness through which we have 
 gone together, eating wild honey, swallowing Humble Bees, 
 Sting and all. 
 
 " My father, my foster-father, my only father, hail, in 
 the name of the returned prodigal Judas ! Judas, the outcast 
 of the twelve, who hath found in thee an able and willing 
 advocate at the bar of both heaven and earth. 
 
 " Brother, my camp fires are burning in the city of Mem- 
 phis. My tents are stretched. My Sentinels are posted. My 
 position taken, my cannons pointed, my men numbered 
 and known. There is no traitor in their midst, for we have 
 received Judas as commander-in-chief of the spiritual forces of 
 Memphis. 
 
 " Brother, I send you greetings in the name of our Father, 
 God ! 
 
 " I know all the bypaths and thorny Roads in which thou 
 hast left drops of Heart Blood ! And where thou hast dropped 
 one tear, or breathed one sigh of despair, flowers are growing 
 which will illumine thy way in Spirit Land. 
 
 " Thou art one of the few working for the reward of 
 Heaven. Expect not, then, thy open reward upon Earth ; 
 because if we get full pay here we need not expect it there. 
 
 "But believe an old soldier who now and often communi- 
 cates with your mind, who has served under Judas and the 
 Devil, that the darker the way on Earth the brighter and more 
 triumphant the entry into our Land. If thou recognizest me in 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 25 
 
 the Medium, Ferguson, send me word. I would establish a con- 
 nection between thy camp in Nashville and mine in Memphis. 
 If thou knowest the Spirit sending these messages of brother- 
 hood to-day write to this my agent on Earth ; for she is a medium 
 through whom I am still working in the Battle-field of men. I 
 have much to say to thee through this channel. 
 
 " Thine armour is strong and polished by coming in contact 
 with the rough stones of the Earth Sphere, and upon thy breast- 
 plate is engraved the name of the High Priest of Nature, 
 Freedom ! And upon thy footstool is engraven the names of 
 the twelve tribes of Israel. Thy helmet is an aggregation of 
 the particles of faith gathered from all sources ; and recorded 
 thereon, in letters of living, immortal light is the word, Truth ! 
 Thou wieldest a Battle-axe upon whose blade is graven in 
 letters of fire, ' Pioneer of the wilderness of Judas' — through 
 which no Christian ever passed on Earth — the handle of which is 
 a conglomerate of the metals called gratitude, whose interior 
 vitality will uphold thee on all seas and convey thee safe into 
 that port where Jfchy ship shall anchor in safety, and upon whose 
 flag shall float in blazonry of gold, The Snake, every coil of 
 which shall bloom for thee a flower of imperishable fragrance. 
 For thou, oh ! best beloved Brother and most efficient co- 
 labourer, art one of the few who have taken the snake in thy 
 hand, and with the instrument of knowledge extracted the 
 poison from his mouth and made him what Grod and Nature 
 designed him to be — one of the many channels through which 
 His Love and Wisdom are given to man. 
 
 " My Brother, Thou art one of the few who has been strong 
 enough to take into thy fold the Lost Sheep ! Thou hast dared to 
 preach health to those who need it — the sick ! Thou hast girded 
 on the armour of Moral Courage and taken into thy church the 
 rejected stone, without which no Temple can be complete. Thus 
 thou art a true and perfect likeness of our Brother the Lord 
 Jesus Christ; the true image of God the Father in whose 
 
256 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 name I greet you and bid yon hold fast to Freedom's hand. 
 Yon will find it strong when all are weak. 
 
 " This is but a breath, a whisper — an intimation of my 
 appreciation of your efforts in the working part of the Spiritual 
 Temple. You are known far and wide in Spirit-land, and the 
 outcast both here and on Earth never hesitates to come to the 
 ever-burning lamp placed on your brow for light. 
 
 " We work at the root of the tree underground. If you 
 can penetrate the disguise in which I come to you I shall 
 triumph. For it is thus the Shepherd tests and tries all his 
 flock. " 
 
 Remarks. 
 This was subscribed by a well-designed and beautiful 
 hieroglyph. Beneath all its symbolism I saw the clear shining 
 of the light of true charity, and so far as it was in any measure 
 true in its application to any principle it had been my province 
 to illustrate, or any work in the common vineyard of Immortal 
 planting it had been my part to perform, it came as an 
 unspeakable recognition, and with added strength. The medium 
 was at the time a total stranger to me and my work ; but in 
 the brief period that elapsed between the giving of this com- 
 munication and her death an acquaintance and friendship was 
 established that has not been broken, but has been made only 
 more pure, more true, and more enduring by death. Below I 
 give another : — 
 
 THE MAN AS HE APPEARS TO THE " DARK BAND. " 
 
 Purporting to be a Spiritual Communication given through 
 the Mediumship of Mrs. L. L. W., Memphis, Tennessee, 
 June, 1859. 
 " Behold ! From the chaotic ruins of a once mighty 
 Temple A Man arises, and defines against the sky of desola- 
 tion the outlines of a New Life. The calm of Jehovah's Self- 
 Hood helmets his brow with strength, as the Death Struggles 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 257 
 
 of the Old Life roll in seething waves of anguish at his feet. 
 The voice of pleading supplication from the ruined Altar of 
 the first Eden disturbs not the deep waters which have encom- 
 passed the Rock of his Soul. The wild thunders of discord 
 and the mad lightnings of passion play harmless around a 
 Brow on which Truth hath 'graved its imperishable Signet. 
 
 " In his Left Hand is the Shield of Confidence, burnished 
 with the sands of Knowledge, amalgamed with the ore of 
 Experience, reflecting to the dim eye of the Past her Infant 
 Child, 'The Present' restored to his inheritance — the Future! 
 
 " In his Right Hand is a Pen, with which he records upon 
 Human Hearts the Landmarks of a Principle by which the 
 Soul-bound Slave of Mammon may break his Chain — by which 
 woman shall become the Mistress of the cruel tyrant to whose 
 use she hath prostituted not only the gorgeous chambers of her 
 Brain, the Sacred Altar of her Heart, but the precious fruit of 
 her "Womb ! ' 
 
 " Yea, a principle by which the dismembered fragments of 
 the human family shall arise like the dry bones of the Yalley 
 and attract unto themselves a Covering of Manhood's strength, 
 Woman's beauty, and Childhood's wisdom. 
 
 " A Principle by which the waves of the Ocean, the sands of 
 the Desert, the Snow of the Mountains, the fires of the Earth 
 shall recognize the Bonds of Original Brotherhood, and obe- 
 dient to the vibrations in the umbilical cord between mother 
 and child, return to the Altar of Sacrifice at which officiates no 
 longer the dead Heart of Superstition's Priest, but, lo ! the 
 mystery of the oneship of God is solved, and in Mother, Father, 
 and Child behold the Trinity of Unity ! Behold the Tree of 
 Knowledge Canopied over this newly erected shrine. In the 
 Roots, the stem, the Branches see the Father — in the Branches, 
 the Leaves, the flowers, behold the Mother — in the flowers, 
 the fruit, the Seed, behold The Child. In the Form, Function, 
 and Use of the Tree, estimate the duration of the Union be- 
 
258 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tween the Three. If in this Marriage Ceremony between the 
 Adam and Eve of the New Life, the Individual Law runs 
 parallel with the Universal, the Union is without end, and 
 impervious alike to the heat of the South, the Cold of the 
 North, Darkness of the West, and light of the East ! If the 
 Altar is composed of Stones from the Universal Quarry, and 
 thereon is placed the Individual Child, the extreme influences 
 from the four cardinal points may encloud the New Life in the 
 despair of Doubt's midnight gloom ; yet through all, above all, 
 below ail will chime the marriage-bell of union between Soul 
 and Soul. 
 
 " This is the Cord of many fibres by which the Anchor hath 
 been let down by the Craft above to ascertain if there is one 
 Rock in the waters of Earth against which The Storm could 
 pull without breaking a single hair- wire of the cable ! 
 
 " The Captain of our Ship is testing the Cord now on a rock 
 in the Bottom of the Ocean ! 
 
 " The Anchor in going down touched the submarine tele- 
 graph and brought the Old and New World together in the 
 middle of the Atlantic, where they are now holding a Caucus ! 
 A Caucus for the purpose of deciding the question of forming 
 the first link in the chain by which the tottering child America 
 may find its way to the Bosom of the Mother from whence to 
 receive nourishment, strength, and courage in the day of 
 battle ! 
 
 " What the woman hath done for us in the Heart, the man 
 hath done for us in the Head. We know now that in the 
 lowest Court of the temple of Justice the outcast hath an 
 Advocate to whom we entrust our cause in full faith of acquittal 
 at the bar of Nature ! 
 
 " We control the Cord of feeling between the Head of Earth 
 and Heart of Spirit Land, and the heart which can pulsate 
 through our dark sphere and receive an echo back is worthy to 
 be the Bride of the Lamb, whose fleece, caught by the 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 259 
 
 briers of the wilderness, indicate to the flock the Path of the 
 Leader ! 
 
 " In receiving us in our various and ugly disguises you have 
 revealed the metal for which we have all been searching — 
 called Moral Courage ! 
 
 " This is the stone without which a new temple cannot be 
 built. So long as this one is rejected all buildings will be after 
 the pattern of the Old, in which Experience testifies God in 
 His Unity cannot enter. 
 
 " God, as illustrated in the books of men, was to us a thing 
 of fear and horror. We could not love him any more than we 
 could believe ourselves in Heaven while we were suffering in 
 Hell. The time hath come when the dark book of Mystery is 
 to be illustrated and illuminated through the highest type in 
 which God can make Himself known to his Child. 
 
 " A Living book hath been printed and bound for us — The 
 woman will teach us His Love, the man His Wisdom, and the 
 little Child, the Dove with the olive, will combine these two 
 elements into food for our immortal souls. And through the 
 ministration of these three we will learn obedience to our Father 
 in whose upper mansion we, too, hope to sound the notes of The 
 Return Song ! 
 
 " From the marriage of the two worlds our Saviour is to 
 come. Souls impregnated with the principle of Eternal Union 
 will obey the magnet. The waters from the fountain above 
 must percolate through our burning sphere to reach the soil of 
 Earth ; then, oh ! Severed Mother and Child, Husband and 
 Wife, if ye would open a way from the Dome to the Pave of 
 the Living Temple, use upon us the intervening Cloud, your 
 weapons of Love, Confidence, and Hope ! 
 
 " Oh ! let a branch from the Central wire of Love transmit 
 tidings of gladness to us, the watchmen upon this dark road, for 
 the silvery thread, though strong, is small, for as yet not many 
 seats are filled at the Table of the Lamb's wedding supper ! 
 
260 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Upon the shores of the Old and the New the waves ebb 
 and flow. A pilgrim weary and travel- stained is embarking 
 for a passage across The Gulph ! The sky is dark ; the winds 
 whisper prophetically of storm and shipwreck ; but Hope pilots 
 the Ship, Faith points the Needle of the Compass, Love fills the 
 sails, ice hold the tiller ropes ! And who's afraid ? 
 
 " So revel in glee ye elements of discord and strife, we've 
 made a new Eden and in it placed man and wife ! " 
 
 Section II. 
 "the woman" as she appears to the eye of the 
 
 1 Draped in raiment soft and white, 
 
 A woman's beauteous form 
 Stands pictured to my raptured sight, 
 
 An image of the mom ! 
 Repose hath found within her heart 
 
 An Eden resting-place ; 
 Eor suffering's purifying art 
 
 Hath passion's mark erased ! 
 And childhood's shield of confidence 
 
 Illumes her placid brow, 
 In hues with which Omnipotence 
 
 Records His lasting vow ! 
 Her eye reflects the light whose oil 
 
 Springs from a living hope, 
 Which warms the germ in earth's cold soil, 
 
 And bids its prison ope ! 
 About her lips love's nameless power 
 
 Hath throned itself in state ; 
 And there, within the sacred bower, 
 
 He guards the pearly gate ! 
 
 Hail ! Woman, hail ! In childhood's guise 
 We take thee for our guide ; 
 
SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 201 
 
 Our beacon light shall be thine eyes 
 
 "When rises doubt's cold tide. 
 The treasures which thou hast on earth 
 
 We'll guard with hearts of steel : 
 The hope to which thou'st given birth 
 
 We'll guard through woe and weal. 
 Beneath thine ensign we will fight, 
 
 'Gainst error's strong array, 
 Till ignorance's host is put to flight, 
 
 By love and wisdom's ray. 
 The head o'er which thy pinions strong 
 
 Are canopied in love, 
 We will protect from every wrong, 
 
 And guide to thee above ! 
 Then rest npon this sacred shrine, 
 
 From which frankincense pure 
 Uprises from two souls combined, 
 
 And falls on us in dew ! 
 
 " From which the roots of life's great tree 
 
 Shall centre in one stem, 
 Whose flowers and fruits shall form for thee 
 
 A woman's diadem ! 
 A diadem of living pearls 
 
 Gathered on hell's hot shore, 
 To witness at the bar of Worlds 
 
 That thou didst use the oar, 
 By which thy frail and lonely bark 
 
 Now anchors firm and fast 
 Within the hearts of spirits dark, 
 
 Whose heads control the blast ! 
 
 " Against the future's stormy sky 
 Thy form stands clear defined, 
 A lamp held up by God on high 
 To show the path divine ; 
 
 By which the soul returns again 
 Unto its Eden state, 
 
262 APPENDIX. 
 
 And at the end of life's long chain - 
 Finds innocence its mate ! 
 The only dress in which the soul 
 
 Can enter our domain, 
 And from the liquid mass remould 
 A paradise regained. 
 
 "Then fear not, child of faith and love, 
 We hold thee in our hands ; 
 The rock beneath thee cannot move 
 When clasped by iron bands ; 
 The ore of which from wisdom's fire, 
 
 Came forth from dross all free, 
 With which we framed a blazing tire, 
 Around our centre — Thee ! 
 
 " Thou hast been to us a sun of light 
 Where gloom engulfed us all ; 
 Thou left us not by day nor night, 
 But answered every call. 
 Till hate's dark band by love disarmed, 
 
 Like little children came, 
 
 Obedient to the magic charm, 
 
 Embodied in thy name ! 
 
 " The sound of which e'en envy's ear 
 ]NTow greets with warm applause, 
 While trembling, timid, coward fear, 
 Quick advocates thy cause. 
 The fiery hosts of jealousy 
 Accord to thee the palm, 
 For having made true minstrelsy 
 'Tween Japheth, Shem, and Ham ! 
 
 "Then in the name of duty done 
 We speed thee on the way, 
 O'er doubt's dark host the victory's won, 
 We ask thee not to stay. 
 
263 
 
 SPIRITUAL WRITINGS. 
 
 Thou hast written here a Book of Acts 
 For those who blindly linger, 
 
 Tis God the Father writes the facts 
 In love — His index finger ! " 
 
 Section III. 
 "the child." 
 
 United for ever ! for ever as one, 
 
 Before Thee, Father ! we stand, 
 A type of the earth, and her bridegroom the sun, 
 
 Thou hast written in woman and man. 
 
 In Eden once more as Adam and Eve 
 
 We worship at nature's pure shrine, 
 Clothed in the dress which innocence weaves 
 On a loom whose Maker's divine. 
 
 The mystical veils of death, time, and space, 
 
 "No longer with doubt can enshroud 
 The light which encircles with glory the face 
 
 Enveloped in love's sacred cloud. 
 
 ; From the heights of ambition to the valley of gloom, 
 The dove hath not paused on the way, 
 But hath sought in the caverns of earth's darkest tomb 
 An altar on which it could lay — 
 
 ' The casket of wisdom with love's precious store, 
 Gathered from death's stormy clime, 
 As a tribute to one whose heart's inner core 
 Reflects every feeling of mine." 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 In the chapter on " Delineation of Character," in the pre- 
 ceding pages, reference is made to this medium, now deceased. 
 I wish also to state here, that while a delineation or manifes- 
 
264 APPENDIX. 
 
 tation of the above character might be found significant or 
 applicable to some peculiar principle embodied in the life of a 
 person to whom it was addressed, and though a circumstantial 
 detail of that life was at times given without any external 
 knowledge thereof, still every communication of this nature 
 I regard as intended more to embody some general principle 
 than to measure the character of any one. Without attempting 
 an application of the above, or of any communications in this 
 book, I present them, and here leave them and the work to 
 subserve, I trust, the cause of truth and right, irrespective of 
 all personal desires or claims. 
 
 J. B. F. 
 
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