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 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY! 
 
 FRIENDLY COEEBSPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 MOSES HULL, Spieitualist, 
 
 W. F. PARKER, Christ^. 
 
 iL&; 
 
 y 
 
 • Fair Truth, for thee alone we seek. 
 Friend to the wise, supporter to the weak; 
 From thee we learn whate'er is wise and just; 
 
 Creeds to reject, professions to distrust; 
 Forms to despise, pretensions to deride; 
 And following thee to follow naught beside." 
 
 BOSTON: 4 
 WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY, 
 
 Banner of Light Office, 
 IN"o. 14 Hanover Street. 
 
 1873. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, 
 
 By MOSES HULL, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 No. 19 Spring Lane. 
 
SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 MOSES HULL'S FIRST LETTER. 
 
 Bridgeport, Conn., May 19, 1872. 
 
 W, F. Parker. 
 
 My dear Brother : Excuse the liberty I take in 
 addressing you, and more especially my rudeness in 
 calling you my brother. The fact is, " we be breth- 
 ren." " God hath made of one blood alf nations." You 
 and I can not help it. I would not if I could, nor do I 
 believe that you individually would. The truth is, you 
 are better than your religion. I think you find it hard 
 work to be a sectarian. Every discussion and every in- 
 terview I have with you fastens the conviction upon 
 me, that you are, like myself, more of a cosmopolitan 
 or optimist than anything else. I do not believe that 
 sects-churches are good for men who have grown to 
 your stature. 
 
 II. It may be good for men and women, even after 
 they are grown, to unite on certain principles which 
 may or may not be written. It may be well for them 
 to confederate together for the promulgation of these 
 principles ; but to believe that God. will go out of his 
 
 3 
 
4 SPIRITUALISM OB CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 way to put some people into hell because they do not 
 believe certain propositions, and take others to heaven 
 because of a faith in certain dogmas, is an absurdity 
 that, I beg leave to suggest, is out of harmony with 
 your general character. 
 
 III. Your views with regard to churches and church 
 matters, I conceive, grow out of another error ; that 
 is, that inspiration belongs only to one age or race. If 
 you could only get thoroughly into sympathy with the 
 idea that God is unchangeable, and that all men are 
 brethren, that every age produces the phenomena of 
 previous ages, and that men will differ as to the cause 
 of their production, I think you could then see that 
 Spiritualism is but a reproduction of the phenomenal 
 part of all former religions, and that, instead of being 
 at war with other religions, it comes as an explanation 
 of the past. While its phenomena are similar to those 
 that always have existed, to a greater or less extent, in 
 every part of the world, it has, by proving itself and 
 all other religions fallible, thrown its adherents en- 
 tirely out of the idea of any teaching except absolute 
 demonstration being authoritative. Spiritualism puts 
 Confucius, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, Mohammed, 
 Swedenborg, and Andrew Jackson Davis on the 
 same basis ; and instead of setting any one of them 
 up as an absolute standard of authority either in 
 preaching or practice, it takes them simply as helps, 
 and strives to improve on their sayings and doings. 
 
 IV. Christianity has never pretended to any more 
 than strive to work up to a pattern it supposes this 
 world to have had many hundred years since ; it is 
 simply an imitation, and much that is played in the 
 name of Christianity is only a burlesque imitation at 
 
HULL'S FIE ST LETTER. 5 
 
 that. Spiritualism, while gathering aid from the sug- 
 gestions and actions of all heroes, gods, and historic 
 characters, puts " excelsior " at its mast-head, and does 
 not propose to be content with simply an imitation of 
 the life of Jesus or any other person. Discovering 
 from the history of the past moral and physical world, 
 that past ages have only been repeated efforts of na- 
 ture to perfect and adjust her grand machine for mak- 
 ing men and women, we spiritualists propose that 
 we will not be content with any samples of manhood 
 this world has yet produced. The world is young, 
 and this age must produce a better religion and better 
 men than the past has known. Weighed in the bal- 
 ances of the present, every political, social, and re- 
 ligious system of the past is found wanting. Let us 
 have something better, larger, more potent. 
 
 V. Indulge me now in the humble suggestion that 
 your otherwise great soul is being cramped by its con- 
 finement to the narrow systems of theology, which 
 more or less bind you, a nineteenth century man, to 
 the modes of thought of many hundred years in the 
 past. I sometimes think that your keen perceptions, 
 without words from me, will soon reveal to you the 
 fatal mistake you make in your effort to put nine- 
 teenth century wine into bottles from one thousand 
 to six thousand years old. 
 
 VI. In conclusion, I have written this letter, not 
 with the idea of conveying to you any new thought, 
 but for the purpose of calling out a response from 
 you. You are my brother : I love you as such ; our 
 debates have only endeared us as brothers ; we are 
 
 y also bound by a tie that "the outside world " can 
 know nothing of ; so I feel like going to work in ear- 
 
6 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 nest to see if the gulf between us can not be bridged, 
 or at least narrowed, to the end that we may get spir- 
 itually near enough to each other so that each can see 
 and know the other as he is. Should this call out a 
 response from you, it may be followed by other letters, 
 which, if they do not result in our seeing " eye to 
 eye," will at least enable each to know more perfect- 
 ly the ground occupied by the other. Should you 
 answer this by silence, I would not take it as an of- 
 fense, but would rather conclude that either a desire 
 to avoid controversy or multitudinous cares had 
 caused you to choose that which in many instances is 
 the better part of valor. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, 
 
 Your well-wishing brother, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S FIRST RESPONSE. 
 
 Cedar Hill, near La Grange, Kt., 
 May 23, 1872. 
 
 Moses Hull, Esq. 
 
 My dear Brother : Your very kind epistle, bear- 
 ing date 19th inst., is at hand, and its contents have 
 been duly considered. 
 
 You need not ask me to " excuse " you for writing 
 to me so kind a letter, or for calling me "brother." 
 I am your brother, and I am the brother of every man 
 for whom Jesus of Nazareth died ; and the longer I 
 live, the more I desire to feel that spirit of universal 
 brotherhood which made Jesus so unlike any man 
 
PARKER S FIRST RESPONSE. 7 
 
 that ever lived before his time, and which has been 
 but faintly repeated in the life of any person who has 
 followed him. The common brotherhood of man is a 
 cardinal doctrine of Christianity; and, therefore, a 
 narrow-minded, selfish misanthrope can not be a 
 Christian. Allow me to thank you for the fraternal 
 sentiments of your letter, and to assure you that they 
 are fully reciprocated. I flatter myself that I have 
 learned one of Christ's lessons, which is, to distin- 
 guish a man from the faith he has embraced. And, 
 whilst I would assure you that . I have no sympathy 
 for modern Spiritualism as a "doctrine," "philoso- 
 phy," or "religion," still I love you as a man, and 
 desire your deliverance from the unfortunate bondage 
 into which I think you have fallen. 
 
 I shall with pleasure read your letters, and candid- 
 ly weigh your facts and arguments, and respond to 
 them in the true spirit of the religion I profess ; and 
 I shall also seek to convince you that Christianity, 
 though eighteen hundred and seventy-two years old, 
 is still far better for you and me than anything mod- 
 ern Spiritualism has to offer. 
 
 You say, " I do not believe that sects-churches are 
 good for men who have grown to your (my) stature." 
 Your belief here is sound. " Sects," "churches" in 
 the common acceptation of those terms, are too small 
 for full-grown men. But the " church of God "is so 
 very spacious, that I assure you I am far from being 
 of such a "stature" as to find.it unpleasant, un- 
 profitable, or undesirable. I think, too, your " stat- 
 ure " could find ample space for all its possible wants 
 in that ancient institution. 
 
 II. In your second item I think you show clearly 
 
8 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 that your dislike for the teachings of Christianity 
 arises from not understanding them. "To believe," 
 you say, " that God will go out of his way to put some 
 people into hell because they do not believe certain 
 propositions, and take others to heaven because of a 
 faith in certain dogmas, is an absurdity . . . out of 
 harmony with your (my) general character." 
 
 True. 
 
 But, 1. I do not, and never did, " believe " the " ab- 
 surdity ' ' to which you allude. 
 
 2. I know no Bible document that sets forth the 
 absurdity which looks so horrible. It certainly formed 
 no part of the teachings of Jesus, and surely it can 
 not be charged upon an apostle. Hence you are 
 illogical in rejecting Christianity because you suppose 
 some so-called Christians have been unfortunate in 
 their expositions of Christian teachings. 
 
 III. You charge upon me another error which you 
 seek kindly to correct. ... I have never af- 
 firmed, either in writing or orally, that " inspiration " 
 is confined " to one age or race." Such a statement 
 would not be historically true. I do not know what 
 you mean by " inspiration." But when you would 
 have me believe that " Confucius, Moses, Isaiah, Je- 
 sus, Paul, Mohammed, Swedexborg, and ANDREW 
 JACKSON DAVIS " were equally inspired persons, 
 and occupied the same "basis," I beg leave to say, I 
 can not do so ivithout evidence. As this is a favorite 
 dogma of the spiritualistic creed, I trust you will be 
 ample here in the bestowment of reasons why these 
 men are alike worthy our hearing, belief, and obedi- 
 ence. Until the proof is forthcoming, I shall con- 
 sider your statement as something written " for ap- 
 pearance' sake," only. 
 
paeker's fiest pesponse. 9 
 
 I would like to see your evidence for saying, — 
 
 1. " That every age produces the phenomena of 
 previous ages." Whilst this is true as to some phe- 
 nomena, it is not true as to all phenomena. 
 
 2. " That Spiritualism is but a reproduction of the 
 phenomenal part of all former religions." 
 
 3. That Spiritualism " comes as an explanation of 
 the past" (religions). 
 
 These assertions demand proof. Of course you are 
 prepared to give it, or you would not ask me to be- 
 lieve them. Let us have your proof — your proof, 
 my brother. 
 
 I am in full " sympathy with the idea that God is 
 unchangeable," and "that all men are brethren." I 
 could not be a Christian ancl deny these two truths. 
 They lie at the bottom of Christ's teachings ; and 
 he gave them to the world, first of all teachers, in the 
 positive enunciation which makes them fruitful of 
 good. At least we are not indebted to Spiritualism 
 for them. And, although I as heartily accept them 
 as you do, as fundamental items, still they do not suf- 
 fer me to see at present- any good thing in modern 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 That Spiritualism has proved "itself fallible," as 
 you say, I know ; but how, in consequence of this 
 fact, it has proved " all other religions fallible," I 
 can not see. . . . That Spiritualism " has thrown 
 its adherents entirely out of the idea of any teaching, 
 except absolute demonstration, being authoritative," 
 I have no doubt ; and I hold this to be one of the un- 
 pardonable crimes of Spiritualism against its own ad- 
 herents. It will never succeed in throwing any one 
 but one of " its adherents " out of that " idea." 
 
10 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Spiritualism takes " Confucius, Moses, Isaiah, Je- 
 sus, Paul, Mohammed, Swedenborg, and Andrew 
 Jackson Davis, . . . simply as helps, and strives 
 to improve on their sayings and doings." Hence you 
 would have me become a Spiritualist. Christians, 
 too, can and do use all these as " helps." They use 
 Confucius to show the impossibility of receiving 
 from the unaided human mind a religion adapted to 
 human wants ; they use Mohammed to show the differ- 
 ence between a religion of force and a religion of love ; 
 Swedenborg to illustrate the extravagances of human 
 speculation ; and Andrew Jackson Davis to illustrate 
 the madness of speculative atheism. These all help 
 the Christian to understand human nature, and help 
 him to the conviction, that men unaided from Heaven 
 — even men, as you may insist, that are the media 
 of disembodied spirits — can not give to the world 
 anything worthy the name " religion." 
 
 Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul, are also, to all men, 
 specially to Christians, " helps" safe, sure, unerr- 
 ing, to a religion full of power and glory — a religion 
 fitted to meet and fully satisfy the entire body of the 
 soul's requirements. Of course you do not believe 
 this statement. I think you do not believe it, because 
 you do not understand what " Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, 
 and Paul " have given to the world for a religion. I 
 hope to make this fact good before our correspondence 
 closes. 
 
 Please specify some of the improvements made by 
 Spiritualists " on their teachings." 
 
 IV. You say " Christianity " " is simply an im- 
 itation." This I shall offset with the statement that 
 " Christianity " is an imitation of nothing. 
 
paekee's fiest eesponse. 11 
 
 As to the development of humanity, Spiritualism has 
 no advantage over Christianity. If it has, I ask you to 
 show it. 
 
 V. I am a nineteenth century man ; but I have not 
 yet experienced the unfitness of first century religion. 
 
 I put the first century wine in first century bottles, 
 and the nineteenth century wine into bottles of the 
 same period. 
 
 What is the "wine" of the nineteenth century? 
 Show us wherein it is better than the " wine " of the 
 first century. 
 
 In conclusion, let me ask, Is the Spiritualism which 
 you advocate, and wish me to embrace, " orderly " or 
 " disorderly " ? Is it a philosophy, a religion, or 
 both, or neither ? What is it ? What does it teach for 
 truth ? Is its truth of any authority ? What has it 
 done toward making its " adherents " better men and 
 women, for the last twenty-five years ? 
 
 Let me hear from you speedily. 
 
 Affectionately yours, &c. 
 
 W. F. Paekee. 
 
12 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 MOSES HULL'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 New London, Conn., June 13, 1872. 
 
 Brother, Parker : Knowing your soul, I ex- 
 pected a response to my letter ; but your promptness 
 this time even beats yourself a little. I will try to 
 equal you in promptness and in the spirit of my letter, 
 though I fall behind in every other particular. By 
 the way, the reading of your letter only serves to 
 strengthen the ever-growing bond of friendship I enter- 
 tain for you ; and now, shall I take the advantage of 
 this brotherly feeling, and ask you to agree that this 
 exchange of letters shall continue to the number of 
 somewhere from twelve to twenty, and that we after- 
 ward publish them in some convenient form, for the 
 benefit of the public ? By this I feel that the public 
 would be the gainer. Not only would it get a little 
 insight into the pros and cons of the issues between 
 us, but we could manifest a spirit that would teach 
 the world that people need not be either enemies or 
 bigots because of a difference- of religious opinion. 
 
 II. In the first paragraph of your letter I could not 
 but notice a little of the shrivelling effect of your 
 religion. You are " a brother of every man for whom 
 Jesus of Nazareth died." Jsow, I do not believe Jesus 
 of Nazareth died for me. Are you therefore not my 
 brother ? Suppose Jesus had not died at all ; would 
 you not have any brothers ? Is it the death of Jesus 
 
hull's second letter. 13 
 
 that makes you the brother of the human family ? or 
 are you a brother to all because all are the offspring 
 of God ? (See Acts xvii. 28.) Come, my brother, 
 let us permit our fraternal feelings to take in more 
 than those who accept a dogma. Jesus did not claim 
 that spirit of universal brotherhood of which you 
 boast ; on the contrary, he would not allow any to be 
 his brethren unless they complied with certain con- 
 ditions. Please turn to Matt, xii., and read carefully 
 from verse 46 to the end of the chapter. That will 
 teach you that it is your manhood, and not your Chris- 
 tianity, that leads you to a belief in the universal 
 brotherhood of man. 
 
 I thank you for your expressed desire for my de- 
 liverance from " unfortunate bondage," and shall sec- 
 ond every movement you make to show me the better 
 way. Be sure your arguments will be candidly read, 
 and weighed as impartially as my ability will allow. 
 
 So you think you find ample room " in the church 
 of God " for growth. Well, that is probable. I 
 do not know where that church is ; it is just possible 
 that I am a member of it. I hope you will not confine 
 it to some narrow sect. If so, please tell me what 
 one ; that will at least help me to know what churches 
 are not " God's churches." Wouldn't it be queer if it 
 should turn out that all are God's people, and that he 
 never took much stock in any of the churches ? 
 
 It is possible that I do not "understand the teach- 
 ings of Christianity." I have no knowledge on the 
 subject, only what I get from its books and teachers. 
 The propositions about putting people into hell, how- 
 ever, do belong to the Bible and Christianity; for 
 proof, see Ps. ix. 17; Matt, v. 29, 30, x. 28; Rev. 
 xix. 20, xx. 10. 
 
14 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 III. I think you misread the third paragraph of 
 my letter. I did not intend to state that Confucius, 
 Moses, A. J. Davis, et ah were equally inspired. I 
 did intend to convey the idea that each was in- 
 spired to his fullest capacity. I would not un- 
 dertake to state which of these great men had the 
 most direct or thorough inspiration, nor yet which 
 was surrounded by the more honorable or intellec- 
 tual class of influences. I could not ask you to 
 take any of these men as being " worthy our hearing, 
 belief, and obedience," any further than what they 
 said commended itself to your judgment. Brother, 
 you have an inspiration as true as that of any other 
 man ; it is not infalhble, but it is all you have ; follow 
 it. I hardly know what you mean by asking evidence 
 " that these men were alike worthy our hearing," &c. 
 Do you wish me to show the infallibility of Confucius, 
 Swedenborg, or Andrew Jackson Davis? or the fal- 
 libility of Moses, Isaiah, and Jesus ? As to the former, 
 I confess their liability to err ; and as to the latter, I 
 can present you many pages of positive proof that they 
 were only erring men. If Moses was guided by an 
 unerring inspiration when he said, " An eye for an eye 
 and a tooth for a tooth," then the influence that 
 prompted Jesus erred when it said, " But I say unto 
 you, that ye resist not evil." 
 
 IV. You ask proof of three important assertions in 
 my former letter. I will briefly answer your ques- 
 tions, seriatim. 
 
 1. " That every age produces the phenomena of 
 previous ages." In general you acknowledge this to 
 be true ; yet you say, " It is not true of all phenomena." 
 Quite likely ! Do you not see that the onus probandi 
 
hull's second letter. 15 
 
 is in your hand. You ought to have shown me the 
 exception. I did not mean to have you understand that 
 every particular phenomenon was repeated in every 
 age. But I do mean to say phenomena of the same 
 class are continually repeating themselves. You re- 
 member what Solomon said on this subject : " The 
 thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and 
 that which is done is that which shall be done, and 
 there is nothing new under the sun." Eccl. i. 9. 
 
 2. " That Spiritualism is but a reproduction of the 
 phenomenal part of all former religions." I can not 
 now take up all former religions, and show the proof 
 of this proposition. I will give you a few instances in 
 Judaism and Christianity, and examine any excep- 
 tions you may bring from the history of the past. 
 
 The wonderful deliverance of the children of Israel 
 from bondage, and their establishment as a nation, was 
 the result of the angel appearing and talking to Moses. 
 It was mecliumship that enabled Joshua to do his great 
 work. Elihu describes very minutely one of his clair- 
 voyant visions. The phenomenon of the appearance 
 of Samuel is paralleled by similar phenomena to-day. 
 Every event connected with the various appearances 
 of Jesus finds its parallel in the Spiritualism of to-day. 
 The disciples, speaking as the spirit gave them utter- 
 ance, on the day of Pentecost, finds its equal in modern 
 trance speaking. For proof of this, see Ex. hi. 2 ; 
 Acts vii. 30 ; Deut. xxxiv. 9 ; Job iv. 12-17 ; 1 Sam. 
 xxviii. 14-20 ; Acts ii. 1-4. 
 
 3. " That Spiritualism comes as an explanation of 
 the past theologies." One great proof of that lies in 
 the fact that out of deference to it almost every min- 
 ister (and I think you are not an exception) has re- 
 
16 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 adjusted his discourses. The " thus saith the Lord," 
 in the Bible, becomes thus saith a spirit ; thus the 
 supreme Ruler of the universe is not held responsible 
 for all the nonsense following that form of expression 
 in the Bible. While the ignorance of the people of 
 past ages would incline them to a belief in the god- 
 head of every spirit that communicated, the fallibility 
 of communications given through prophets of old has 
 taught spiritualists not to receive as authority the 
 dictum of any spirit. 
 
 V. You " can not see how Spiritualism has proved 
 all other religions fallible." Well, I may have been 
 too fast in that. I think I was. Every religion has 
 presented in itself all-sufficient proof of its fallibility. 
 Spiritualism was not needed for that work. Yet if 
 anything had been needed on that point, Spiritualism 
 has proved that unless a stream can arise above its 
 fountain, all religions are fallible. The spirit world 
 itself, the source of religions, is fallible. 
 
 Then you do think there is authoritative teaching 
 somewhere. Please tell me in your next where it is, 
 and who is the teacher. On this point I think I have 
 light for you. 
 
 I am a little astonished that Christians should so 
 prostitute the proper use of Confucius, Mohammed, 
 Sweclenborg, and A. J. Davis. Yet all goes to show 
 how perverted one's vision can become. I notice we 
 can not exalt one person above what he should be 
 without sinking others correspondingly low. Let me 
 suggest that your admiration of the good Nazarene 
 prevents your doiug justice by the other persons you 
 mention. Confucius' mind was not unaided. Mo- 
 hammed's religion was no more one of force than were 
 
hull's second letteb. 17 
 
 Judaism and Christianity ; and surely Swedenborg 
 nor any one else could " illustrate trie extravagances 
 of human speculation" more than did Jesus. If you 
 want proof, I will mention a few points in my next 
 letter. So far as A. J. Davis' atheism is concerned, 
 you could not possibly have shot farther from the 
 mark. Have you read his "Arabula"? It is the 
 grandest argument against atheism that it has been 
 my fortune to. read. 
 
 I join with you in the " hope " that your " facts " 
 concerning Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul will be 
 made plain before our correspondence closes. On this 
 subject, brother, " Lo, I am with you always, even 
 unto the end of the world." In this department of 
 our correspondence I will bring out some of the spe- 
 cifications you call for. 
 
 VI. You think Christianity is not an imitation; 
 then it fails in its design. Jesus' words are, " Follow 
 me." Paul says, " As I follow Christ, so follow me." 
 Matt. viii. 22 ; 1 Cor. xi. 1. 
 
 VII. My brother, this letter is lengthening almost 
 beyond what courtesy could demand of you to read ; 
 yet I must notice one request of yours, and I hope you 
 will occupy all the space you wish in reply. You ask 
 me to show the advantage of Spiritualism over Chris- 
 tianity in the development of humanity. Please ex- 
 amine the following twenty propositions. I will give 
 you more before this correspondence ceases.* 
 
 Spiritualism is better calculated to elevate man than 
 Judaism or Christianity, — 
 
 * The substance of these propositions is taken from the author's 
 manuscripts of a book since published by William White & Co., and 
 for sale at their store, 14 Hanover Street, Boston. The title of the 
 book is " The Contrast : Evangelicalism and Spiritualism Com- 
 pared." Price $1.50; postage 16 cents. 
 
18 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 1. Because it recognizes the soul as being the highest 
 authority. Its language is, Man has an inspiration 
 which, if followed, will guide him as unerringly as the 
 instincts of a bird will guide it on its wing. 
 
 2. Because it teaches that all spirit is the same, 
 whether in God or man, and that the lowest, by virtue 
 of their relationship with Deity, can, by proper effort, 
 develop and bring into activity the God within. 
 
 3. Because, in denying the possibility of the pardon 
 of sin in any sense of the word that would permit the 
 culprits to escape the penalty, it teaches them to re- 
 frain from sin as the only means of happiness here and 
 hereafter. 
 
 4. Because the evidences of its phenomena are 
 more in harmony with reason, and better certified 
 than those of the Bible. Its phenomena, being proved 
 by living witnesses, are established by as much better 
 evidence than those of the Bible as " a living dog is 
 better than a dead lion." 
 
 5. Because it is the only religion that teaches the 
 absolute equality of men. Even Jesus calls the Gen- 
 tiles "dogs," and urges that "it is not meet to take 
 the children's bread and give it to the dogs ; " and 
 when he commissioned his disciples to preach, his first 
 commission was, " Into any city of the Gentiles enter 
 ye not ; " the second was, to " begin at Jerusalem." 
 
 6. Because it teaches that perfection never having 
 been attained by any one in this life, there is room to 
 live a better life than ever was lived, and urges upon 
 each one to take as an example the good of all historic 
 characters, and in themselves develop some good 
 never yet illustrated in humanity. 
 
 7. Because it is the only religion that teaches that 
 
hull's second lettee. 19 
 
 the standard by which every one is to be judged can 
 not be swerved by any extraneous power, such as 
 prayer, sacrifices, or the blood of the atonement. 
 
 8. Because, instead of looking to a future day of 
 judgment, when an arbitrary tyrant shall reward or 
 punish men for the belief or disbelief of a dogma, it 
 teaches that every man shall here and hereafter re- 
 ceive the consequence of every act. 
 
 9. Because it teaches that every man must be true 
 to his condition. It would, therefore, treat the klep- 
 tomaniac or murderer as diseased, and find a refuge and 
 proper medical treatment for him, thus elevating him 
 beyond the possibility of committing crime. 
 
 10. Because it makes the practice of the virtues 
 the only path to happiness here and hereafter. It 
 allows no supererogative work to step between man 
 and his duty. 
 
 11. Because it places all men on the same basis, 
 teaching that all are children of the same family, and 
 believing that the ultimate destiny of all is to happi- 
 ness, it, instead of saying, " Let him that is filthy be 
 filthy still," works for the elevation of those whom 
 others recognize as incorrigible. 
 
 12. Because it teaches the principle of fellowship 
 of the entire human family, while Christianity only 
 teaches the fellowship of a certain class, urging that 
 some are of their father, the devil, while others, on 
 certain conditions, may become the children of our 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 13. Because it is the only religion that teaches 
 man that the only method of elevating himself is by 
 the elevation of others, thus giving him a stimulus to 
 work for others in order to help himself. 
 
20 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 14. Because its revelations and documents are al- 
 wa}-s written in the language of those for whom it is 
 written, thus saving its adherents the valuable time 
 and money thrown away by others in the study of 
 languages that no erudition can enable one to per- 
 fectly understand, thus giving its adherents more 
 time for the pursuit of ethical and scientific studies. 
 
 15. Because it teaches, as did ancient heathenism, 
 as Paul was compelled to acknowledge, that man is 
 the offspring of God, a part and parcel of nature, 
 and thus invites its adherents to the study of nature 
 in order that they may understand themselves : thus 
 time thrown away in the study of a book which 
 teaches that God and nature are at war with each 
 other, is by the Spiritualists spent in looking through 
 science to nature's God. 
 
 16. Because it advocates the principle of self-abne- 
 gation here in order to perfect happiness here and 
 hereafter, thus enabling its adherents to endure the 
 scoffs and sneers' of an infidel Christianity. 
 
 17. Because it lifts its adherents out of a cold 
 church materialism, and gives them a knowledge of 
 endless life. 
 
 18. Because it calls the mind away from the weak, 
 revengeful, passionate, illiterate human spirit that the 
 Bible calls God, and bids its adherents behold God in 
 all nature. 
 
 19. Because it does not compel its adherents, by 
 forms, ceremonies, and memorials, to remember that 
 a Christ was once on earth, but bids them now find 
 him afflicted, sick, and imprisoned, and minister unto 
 his wants. 
 
 20. Because it to-day carries with it living tests 
 
parker's second letter. 21 
 
 that no other religion has, that the ministers of other 
 religions dare not even see, lest they should be con- 
 verted and healed. 
 
 VIII. You ask whether the Spiritualism I wish you 
 to embrace is orderly or disorderly. I answer, yes. My 
 Spiritualism is both a philosophy and religion. Some 
 of it is written in books, some of it is not. It teaches 
 " for truth" that man, as a spiritual being, is allied to 
 the world of spirits ; that spirit comes en rapport with 
 spirit, whether in or out of the body. Thus it puts 
 the fact of spirit communion as demonstrative, and 
 therefore " authoritative." " What has it done to 
 make its adherents better ? " I answer, in the lan- 
 guage of Paul, " Much every way." 
 
 Hoping to hear from you soon, and that our corre- 
 spondence may soon develop into a pointed and con- 
 cise presentation of the issues between us. 
 Permit me to subscribe myself 
 
 Your brother, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 Cedar Hill, near La Grange, Kt., 
 June 11, 1872. 
 
 Moses Hull, Esq. 
 
 Dear Brother : Your very long letter is at hand . 
 I have plodded through it with considerable interest, 
 as I always feel pleased with your ideas, although I 
 consider them totally out of the pale of truth. I need 
 not occupy space in returning to you assurances that 
 
22 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 your fraternal feeling toward me finds always its re- 
 flection in me. 
 
 Your letter contains so many things said, that if I 
 were to pay even a passing attention to them, my let- 
 ter would swell into colossal proportions, greater than 
 those of your last epistle. I shall, therefore, leave a 
 multitude of things unnoticed, and let them " go to the 
 jury " for what they are worth. Still, I will endeavor 
 to dig out the important matters, and consider them 
 as fully as possible without being tedious. 
 
 You are at liberty to put into print anything I may 
 write ; and you may continue to write me whatever 
 number of letters you shall please, and if I can find 
 time from my other duties I will promptly respond. 
 
 I. Your supposition that I consider myself a broth- 
 er only of a class of persons for whom Jesus of Naz- 
 areth died, is quite erroneous. Jesus did not die 
 for a " class," but "for the world " — for humanity. 
 Hence I would say, that I love all men, and esteem 
 them brethren, for the following reasons : — 
 
 1. Because God " hath made of one blood all nations 
 of men." Acts xvii. 26. 
 
 2. Because all men are the objects alike of the di- 
 vine love and providence. 
 
 3. Because the individual growth into better things 
 depends on the aggregate growth, and vice versa, God 
 having made all men thus mutually dependent. 
 
 4. Because the Christ laid down his life for all men, 
 thus linking all men to the same individual center, 
 and thus expressing the true idea of universal broth- 
 erhood. 
 
 Besides these reasons, which I think are more and 
 better than you can give for your love of all men, the 
 
packer's second letter. 23 
 
 Bible, Christianity, gives many others why I should 
 be a brother to every human being on earth. 
 
 I have examined the passage to which you refer in 
 Matt. xii. 46-50. You quote it to prove that Jesus 
 did not have the spirit of universal brotherhood in his 
 heart. Now, to my mind, the spirit of universal broth- 
 erhood breathes in every word of it. You say every 
 man is inspired — every man does the will of God. 
 Jesus says, " Whosoever shall do the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sis- 
 ter, and mother." You certainly ought not to impute 
 narrowness to Jesus. 
 
 But when you contemplate Jesus growing up amidst 
 the prejudices of the Jewish people, and speaking and 
 acting as he does, as though those prejudices were to- 
 tally alien from him, you must find in him an expres- 
 sion of fraternity for man before which yours and 
 mine pales into nothingness, since our education and 
 training have been begun and carried on under the 
 influence of a constant inculcation of that duty by 
 our parents and teachers, as well as by the spirit of the 
 age in which we live. Compare the spirit of Jesus 
 with the spirit of the age in which he lived, and you 
 will never again accuse him of narrowness. 
 
 II. In your first letter 3 r ou said, " To believe that 
 God will go out of his way to put some persons into 
 hell because they do not believe certain propositions, 
 and take others to heaven because of a faith in cer- 
 tain dogmas, is an absurdity that, I beg leave to sug- 
 gest, is out of harmony with your general character.' ' 
 I denied that these ideas find any support either from 
 the Old or New Testament. You proceed to show 
 me the Bible proof of your words. You quote four 
 
24 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 passages. You should have given the words, not the 
 places only where the words could be found. Give 
 us hereafter the language of the passages to which 
 you refer ; then we shall be able to see at once wheth- 
 er your language can be found in holy writ. 
 
 In Matt. v. 29, 30, not one word is said about " dog- 
 mas " or "propositions" of any kind; not one word 
 is said of " believing " or not believing anything. 
 
 The same is true of your second passage. 
 
 The same is true of your third passage, and the 
 same is true of your fourth passage. Such proof, my 
 brother, looks quite suspicious. 
 
 III. As to the " inspiration " of such beings as Con- 
 fucius, A. J. Davis, &c, the question nauseates me. 
 It only shows how degraded human reason may be- 
 come when it finds pleasure in defending so unhappy 
 a theory. I do not allude to your reason, but to the 
 reason of those persons who believe in "inspiration," 
 and that Confucius and Davis were inspired. You do 
 not believe in inspiration at all. With you there is 
 no such anomaly. 
 
 You promise me many pages of proof that Moses, 
 Isaiah, &c, were "fallible men." I admit that they 
 were fallible men. I deny that they were fallible 
 prophets. I deny that their teachings, uttered as 
 teachings, are fallible. Of course the proof you prom- 
 ise us will be forthcoming. I remember a little book 
 you once published called God's and the Devil's Me- 
 diums — The Contrast. In that document you at- 
 tempt to array proof of the fallibility of God's proph- 
 ets. Of course you will reproduce that proof. I de- 
 sire you to do it. When that promised evidence shall 
 be adduced, you will find me ready to correct you. 
 
parkee's second letter. 25 
 
 IV. In your fourth section you profess to give me 
 some instances in "Judaism and Christianity," show- 
 ing that modern Spiritualism " is a reproduction of 
 the phenomenal part of all former religions." You, 
 in these instances, allude to certain angel ministra- 
 tions, and boldly say these find "equals in modern 
 trance speaking." I deny in toto your statement. 
 There is no likeness, let alone identity, in the cases. I 
 do not see how a sane mind can be so oblivious to such 
 significant facts as yours seems to be in viewing the 
 record of Bible phenomena. I shall spend no time 
 on your proof texts now, as this very matter will 
 doubtless be brought before us again, and then your 
 proof shall be effectually ventilated. 
 
 V. You ask me, " Then you do think there is au- 
 thoritative teaching somewhere. Please tell me in 
 your next where it is, and who is the teacher." 
 
 I respond, 1. I do so think. 
 
 2. Jesus is the teacher. 
 
 3. The Scriptures give us the teaching. 
 
 The evidences of Christianity are before the people. 
 It does not devolve upon me to defend Christianity by 
 proving it true ; it does devolve upon you to prove 
 Christianity false, if you can. As you may desire a 
 brief statement of one or two reasons why I answer 
 your query as I do, I submit. 
 
 1. The Old Testament proves itself true, conse- 
 quently authoritative, in proving its author the Om- 
 nicient God. 
 
 2. The New Testament proves itself true, and Je- 
 sus authority, in proving that he is the Son of God. 
 
 If these two propositions be true, — and true they 
 are, — has Spiritualism anything better to offer ? 
 
26 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 VI. On your sixth point I shall say nothing, any fur- 
 ther than this : By " imitation " in your first letter I 
 understood you to mean that Christianity was only an 
 imitation of some imposture preceding its appearance. 
 I think this was what you desired me to understand. 
 But since you have abandoned that idea, I agree with 
 you that " Christianity " is an imitation of Christ. 
 
 VII. I come now to your " magnitudinous " cata- 
 logue of reasons why Spiritualism is better calculated 
 to elevate humanity than Christianity. 
 
 Am I to closely and critically try your reasons ? 
 You certainly do not expect that. Besides, such an 
 examination is not demanded ; for I perceive that the 
 substance of your twenty ponderous reasons has actu- 
 ally been " borrowed " from Christianity. 
 
 1. Your first reason says, " Because it (Spiritual- 
 ism) recognizes the soul as being the highest authori- 
 ty." Now, unfortunately for the claims of Spiritual- 
 ism, Christ gave to the world the first true ideas of 
 the soul, and its education for time and eternity. 
 Outside of Christianity I know nothing that looks 
 like a doctrine of the soul. I am aware that certain 
 ancients have said some things about the soul; but 
 those things were ever said hesitatingly, and I may say 
 inquiringly. They doubted as to its existence. And 
 as for the higher life of the soul, the perfection of its 
 immortal capacities for endless happiness, I think 
 the idea was totally unknown to them. The true 
 doctrine of the soul is found in the teachings of 
 Jesus. 
 
 It is a proposition which you can not prove, when 
 you say the soul is its own highest authority. I would 
 like to see you make good this proposition. If the 
 
27 
 
 proposition is not true, then Spiritualism is welcome 
 to all the advantages of an error. If it is true, it 
 gives Spiritualism no grounds to boast over Christiani- 
 ty. God, even, in the gospel appeals to the soul, and 
 in no instance does it any violence, thus recognizing 
 its total freedom. It is this freedom of the soul that 
 looks so lovely to you, and which you would have me 
 accept as a doctrine of Spiritualism. But this free- 
 dom of the soul to choose or reject even what God 
 proffers it is what everywhere finds expression in the 
 soul doctrines of Jesus. 
 
 Man has been following his " inspiration " for thou- 
 sands of years, and I am unable to see anything into 
 which it has "unerringly guided him," unless it has 
 been into folly, excess, crime, and misery. Spiritual- 
 ism may have all it can gain from its doctrine of uni- 
 versal " inspiration." I feel certain that the doctrine 
 of special inspiration has many fruitful advantages 
 over it. 
 
 2. Your second reason, when translated into correct 
 speech, is entirely borrowed from Christianity. 
 
 3. Your third reason demands a little attention. 
 You say Spiritualism denies the possibility of any par- 
 don for any fault, and that therefore it is better cal- 
 culated to make men moral and happy than Chris- 
 tianity, which teaches that all sins against God and 
 man may be pardoned. I can not see the advantage 
 claimed here by Spiritualism. The inevitable punish- 
 ment of sin is a cardinal doctrine of the Bible. The 
 doctrine of Christianity here is clear. It is this : 1. 
 All are here for the formation of a character for eter- 
 nity. 2. Every deed done, word uttered, or thought 
 indulged, fixes its stamp upon the character. 3. Hence 
 
28 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 all the terrors of an eternally deformed character are 
 held up by the gospel before the wicked to deter them 
 from the pursuit of folly and sin, and to incite them 
 to the cultivation of the soul's faculties for eternal 
 life. Spiritualism can do no more than this. Even 
 this teaching of Christianity, Spiritualism would steal, 
 and parade as its own. But Spiritualism repudiates 
 the doctrine of pardon entirely, you say. Then of 
 course it would take out of the human heart the 
 spirit of pardon, and it would blot out of our vocabu- 
 lary the term pardon. Shylock's pound of flesh is 
 Spiritualism's principle and spirit. No more pardon 
 on earth, no more pardon in heaven ; for the doctrine 
 is full of evil, and the practice is worse than the doc- 
 trine. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood, 
 is the law of Spiritualism. I do not see how you are 
 to escape these horrible consequences. I rather think 
 the compassionate, forgiving disposition of the gospel 
 will be more in accordance with the wants of the soul, 
 and better calculated to induce bad men to become 
 good. 
 
 4. Your fourth reason says, " The evidences of its 
 phenomena are more in harmony with reason," &c. 
 
 With whose reason ? 
 
 Give us some of the " evidences of its phenomena, 
 which are more in harmony with reason " than the 
 evidences of Christianity. 
 
 Christianity is a logic — a proposition and its homo- 
 geneous proof. 
 
 Spiritualism is not a logic ; it has no proposition 
 with its homogeneous proof. It is a mass of assertions 
 taken from every source, and offered upon the most 
 heterogeneous phenomena. Spiritualists have not de- 
 
paekeb's second letter. 29 
 
 termined what Spiritualism is ; whether it is a science, 
 a philosophy, a religion, or anything else. The phe- 
 nomena on which they lean are self-contradictory; 
 their " inspirations " are self-contradictory ; their 
 teachings are self-contradictory ; everything in Spirit- 
 ualism is self-contradictory, hence false and destruc- 
 tive. If these things be not so, you are the man to 
 show it. 
 
 5. Your fifth reason is stolen from Christianity. 
 You say Spiritualism is the only religion that teaches 
 the absolute equality of man. Now, sir, you have 
 read the New Testament to little advantage, or you 
 could not have made such an erroneous statement. 
 Jesus was the first to teach the universal Fatherhood 
 of God, and brotherhood of man. The passages al- 
 luded to by you all confirm my statement, when they 
 are viewed, as they should be, in the light of Christ's 
 own teaching. 
 
 6. Your sixth reason, which is based on the fact 
 that Spiritualism teaches that the crimes and errors 
 of this life can be and will be corrected in the life to 
 come, I consider unfortunate indeed. In one of your 
 reasons you have every man punished without any 
 hope of pardon, and in this you hold out the prospect 
 of pardon, after a life spent in the most horrid ex- 
 cesses and crimes. 
 
 I know no doctrine better calculated to keep men 
 in the practice of crime in this life than that which 
 teaches them that they shall have opportunity for re- 
 pentance after death. I only know one thing worse 
 than this in its moral effects, and that is, the doctrine 
 of some Spiritualists, that crime and virtue are equal- 
 ly meritorious and praiseworthy. 
 
30 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Christianity teaches us that the human spirit will 
 always progress. Like God in its attributes, infinity 
 of growth is before it. Spiritualism has borrowed 
 even this doctrine from Christianity. 
 
 7. I am unable to understand your seventh reason. 
 If you intend to say that Spiritualism is the only re- 
 ligion which has a standard by which every one is to 
 be judged, which can not be removed by anything such 
 as prayer, sacrifices, or the blood of atonement, then I 
 say, your reason is groundless ; for while Christianity 
 teaches an atonement effected by blood, and sacrifices, 
 and prayers, yet the standard is always the same, and 
 can not be put out of the way. Will you be so kind 
 as to tell me what the standard is by which Spiritual- 
 ism has anything judged ? What is the judgment of 
 which you speak ? Who is the judge ? What is the 
 code of law by which actions are to be tried ? What 
 are the sanctions of the laws of that code? And 
 what is the power by which the sanction is enforced ? 
 I was not before this hour aware that Spiritualism had 
 borrowed even the Bible doctrine of retribution, a 
 judge, a judgment, and a penalty, together with an 
 unerring standard of rectitude. Give us a little 
 "light " here, if you please. 
 
 8. Your eighth reason is worded more from imagi- 
 nation than from knowledge of Bible teaching. " Ar- 
 bitrary tyrant," punishing for " disbelief of a dogma," 
 is a phantom of your own. But that " every man shall 
 here and hereafter receive the consequences of every 
 act " is the doctrine of Christianity. " For whatsoever 
 a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. vi. 7. " Be- 
 hold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth ; 
 much more the wicked and the sinner" Prov. xi. 31. 
 
parker's second letter. 31 
 
 9. There is more "fancy" in your ninth reason 
 than philosophy. Its spirit pervades Christianity, i. e., 
 the spirit that should impel us to sympathy for the 
 fallen and effort for his rescue. " Brethren," says 
 Paul, " if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are 
 spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meek- 
 ness." Gal. vi. 1. 
 
 What kind of medical treatment will cure klepto- 
 mania ? What kind of physic will cure a murderer 
 of his thirst for blood ? If physic or medical treat- 
 ment can do these moral works, will not Christian 
 physicians do as well as any other ? How many klep- 
 tomaniacs and murderers has Spiritualism u elevated 
 beyond the possibility of committing crime " during the 
 last twenty-five years ? 
 
 10. Your tenth is taken " body and soul " out of the 
 " Army of faith." That is Christianity, not Spirit- 
 ualism. Please do not spend labor to convert me to 
 my own religion. 
 
 11. So also is your eleventh, according to the in- 
 terpretation of Universalists. Hence you have bor- 
 rowed the idea of universal salvation from teachers 
 professedly Christian. But you teach a different 
 doctrine from this, when you teach that there is no 
 pardon. 
 
 12. Your twelfth reason — universal fellowship — 
 is one of the cardinal items of the gospel. It grows 
 out of the universal Fatherhood of God and brother- 
 hood of man, and finds ample statement in the words 
 of the Lord : " Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
 them." Matt. vii. 12. 
 
 13. Your thirteenth reason is also appropriated from 
 Christianity, 
 
32 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 14. I give you all your fourteenth reason can avail 
 you. But with wise men, who have given much study 
 to this matter, it will avail you little. 
 
 15. I see nothing in your fifteenth reason which gives 
 Spiritualism any advantage over Christianity; for Chris- 
 tianity teaches that God is the father of all ; that man is 
 his workmanship, hence a part of what is called nature ; 
 that to study nature is to know God and the works 
 of God ; that the Christian's God is the God of nature, 
 and that nature and God are in complete harmony ; 
 that the Author of the Bible is the Author of nature ; 
 and he who knows nature best is best able to know 
 the Bible. See Dr. McCosh's Typical Forms in Crea- 
 tion. 
 
 16. I deny that your sixteenth reason is to be found 
 in the teachings of modern Spiritualism at all, so far 
 as I have been able to examine the documents of your 
 teachers. On the other hand, I can adduce abun- 
 dance of proof that your teachers advocate an almost 
 unbridled license, in consequence of which one of 
 your luminaries has said concerning the teaching of 
 your Rabbis, — 
 
 We are taught that " those that act the worst will 
 progress the fastest; " that " we must go through hell 
 to get to heaven ; " that a certain drunken woman of 
 ill fame " will become more noble than she otherwise 
 could; " that " sin is a lesser degree of righteousness; " 
 that " there is no high, no low, no good, no bad ; " that 
 "murder is right, lying is right, adultery is right; " 
 that " whatever is, is right ; " that "it is wrong to 
 blame any; " that " none should be punished; " that 
 " we must not expose iniquity, because it will harden 
 the guilty; " that " the union of the sexes is a great 
 
paeker's second letter. 33 
 
 help to mediums to get spiritual elements," but "if 
 the parties are not adapted, it is a great evil, and an 
 awful wrong;" that " as people develop, they become 
 unadapted and poison each other ; " that " affinities 
 will be perfectly satisfied with each other ; " that " to 
 live together without perfect love is worse than pros- 
 titution," &c, &c. 
 
 What are the results ? Just what every student of 
 human nature ought to expect. 
 
 And now, as to the principle of self-denial, the gos- 
 pel lays that down as indispensably necessary to all 
 reformation of life and character, in order to "happi- 
 ness here or hereafter." I sincerely object to your 
 appropriating gospel livery for the service of Spirit- 
 ualism. 
 
 17. So does Christianity. 
 
 18. Your eighteenth reason will demand a little 
 more attention than I have been able to give some 
 other items. 
 
 You have, in your various publications and speeches, 
 said much against the character of the God of Moses. 
 But what you have said is by no means original with 
 you. For over eighteen centuries certain enemies of 
 the Bible have endeavored to show that the God of the 
 Jews was a monster of vice and meanness ; and yet I 
 have failed to see any evidence that would justify the 
 insinuations and slanders heaped upon the divine name. 
 That Moses and Joshua have recorded some things 
 which we in this age think derogatory to the divine 
 character is true. But when those records are viewed. 
 in connection with the facts which called them forth, 
 I think they give a proper representation of the mat- 
 3 
 
34 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 ter, and lose all the horror with which they seem to 
 be clothed. 
 
 It was not for Moses to tell the whole truth. The 
 revelation of the divine character in history was a 
 progressive work ; and it was left for Jesus to give a 
 full manifestation of the character of God. Your in- 
 terpretation of the divine character should embrace 
 all that Jesus has disclosed ; and I know that he has 
 given such a description of the divine character, as to 
 more than explain and remove the apparent difficul- 
 ties met with in the Old Testament records. I say 
 apparent difficulties, because I am sure the conclusions 
 you draw from the Old Testament records are not 
 justified by those records. And when you shall pre- 
 sent the particular facts constituting your evidence, 
 I shall be ready to show you that they do not justify 
 your reproaches cast upon the divine name. 
 
 The Christian documents have given a full exhi- 
 bition of the perfection of God's character. Nor has 
 Spiritualism a correct idea of God which it has not 
 borrowed from those very documents. If you think 
 I am in error here, you will please inform me of any 
 discovery in this direction for which the world is in- 
 debted to your " religio-philosophy." 
 
 Your eighteenth reason you thus boldly enounce : 
 " Because it calls the mind away from the weak, re- 
 vengeful, passionate, illiterate HUMAN SPIRIT that the 
 Bible calls God, and bids its adherents behold God in 
 all nature." This certainly is one thing which pre- 
 tentious Spiritualism does not borrow from Christiani- 
 ty. And this is one thing, which, to my mind, covers 
 Spiritualism with the most horrible shame. It fairly 
 expresses the animus of Spiritualism. It fairly mani- 
 
paeker's second letter. 35 
 
 fests the desperate extremes to which the fallacies of 
 Spiritualism drive its adherents. 
 
 I simply affirm that the " Bible " knows no such 
 "human spirit" called " God." Of course you will 
 now proceed to repeat, for the ten thousandth time, 
 the distorted, perverted, and unreasonable " facts " 
 which the enemies of " God " have repeated from the 
 foundation of the Christian age, drawn from the an- 
 cient Scripture records, in total disregard of legiti- 
 mate canons of interpretation, and in a total disregard 
 of all other facts in the case, which condemn and over- 
 whelm with confusion the imputations cast upon the 
 Jehovah of the Bible. When your catalogue of stale 
 quotations shall be spread before me, I will give them 
 a proper ventilation. 
 
 But your joy rises high enough when you try to 
 persuade yourself and me that Spiritualism " bids its 
 adherents behold God in all nature." That bid is an 
 equivocal one. Do you intend to say that Spiritual- 
 ism "bids its adherents behold" " in all nature " the 
 works of God, a Creator, Governor, and Sustainer? 
 Then I say Spiritualism teaches its adherents to be- 
 hold no such thing, unless it has changed its teachings 
 within the past few weeks. Christianity so bids its 
 adherents. And so the Bible teaches all to learn God 
 " in the works of his hands," " the heavens, the earth, 
 and all things that in them are." If you mean to say 
 that Spiritualism " bids its adherents behold God in all 
 nature, God in mud, filth, dung, grass, and flesh, then I 
 say a God made out of a " weak, revengeful, passionate, 
 illiterate human spirit " would be inexpressibly the bet- 
 ter one. You would ask me to reject Bible Deism for 
 the unphilosophical and degrading belief of Pantheism. 
 
36 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Never, no, never, my brother. Will you tell me wherein 
 your stone-god, mud-god, filth-god, dung-god, vegeta- 
 ble-god, and flesh-god, is better than the all-wise, all- 
 powerful, just, holy, benevolent, merciful, and phi- 
 lanthropic infinite Spirit, called God in the Bible ? I 
 wait anxiously your answer. 
 
 19. As to your next reason, I will say, — 
 
 1. In your repudiating " forms, ceremonies, and 
 memorials" you declare Spiritualism totally unadapted 
 to human nature. 
 
 2. Christianity, in providing these, gives to us, as hu- 
 man creatures, what our nature demands in an effective 
 religion. 
 
 3. These in Christianity are not only, as you would 
 have me believe, " to remember that there was once a 
 Christ on earth." By no means. But these keep 
 alive that fruitful remembrance, and embody the 
 grand spiritual and philanthropic spirit of Christianity, 
 always stimulating its force in the individual and col- 
 lective heart of Christians. 
 
 4. Spiritualism has nothing of this kind ; hence such 
 doleful complaints as these : — 
 
 " In addition to an increase of co-operative unity of 
 method, and systematized order, Spiritualists need 
 more culture and a deeper religious baptism." — Year 
 Booh, 1871, p. 25. 
 
 4 ' If we wish to spread what we believe to be the 
 truth, we must pursue a different course from the 
 past ; if we do not, as a society, Spiritualists are dead 
 — past resurrection." — Year Book, p. 85. 
 
 5. Hear a Spiritualist on Christianity : — 
 "Instrumentalities are as necessary as principles. 
 
 Christianity, considered organically, is, comparatively 
 
parker's second letter. 37 
 
 speaking, perfection. . . . Spiritualists, there- 
 fore, should adopt the methods of the church." Cephas 
 B. Lynn. — Year Book, p. 98. 
 
 I object to your adopting " the methods of the 
 church," and then trying to persuade me and the 
 world that Spiritualism is better than "perfection." 
 
 6. Christianity, not Spiritualism, teaches men " now 
 to find Christ sick, afflicted, and imprisoned, and to 
 minister to him," in finding the sick, afflicted, and im- 
 prisoned among men, and in ministering to them, 
 whilst I have seen multitudes of Christians doing this 
 work, I never yet have seen a Spiritualist doing it. 
 Why will you, my brother, continue to palm off upon 
 me what you have borrowed from Christianity for 
 " the teachings of modern Spiritualism " ? 
 
 20. Your twentieth reason is the " cap-sheaf." 
 
 I respond, 1. The "living tests" of Spiritualism 
 are worth nothing — for they prove nothing. 
 
 2. I admit that "no other religion has" them, be- 
 cause " no other religion " needs them. 
 
 3. " Ministers " have seen them and do see them, 
 and know that, though remarkable in some respects, 
 they prove nothing good which is not better proved 
 by Bible evidence. In fact they know these " living 
 tests " prove nothing for any religion. 
 
 As you have given twenty reasons for thinking 
 Spiritualism better calculated to elevate humanity 
 mentally, morally, and spiritually, I will now submit 
 twenty reasons why I think Christianity is better cal- 
 culated to effect those ends. 
 
 1. Because it puts man under the highest authority 
 — God. 
 
 2. Because it offers to him a social relationship with 
 God — " they shall be to me sons." 
 
38 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 3. Because it teaches that there is such a thing as 
 pardon; and as we desire it, so must we exercise it. 
 
 4. Because it gives us all the true phenomena, of 
 which those of modern Spiritualism are base imita- 
 tions only, better certified, and more consonant with 
 reason and necessity. 
 
 5. Because it gives a social organization, in which 
 all are equal, and, bound by the same ties, are under 
 equal obligations to work for each other's good. 
 
 6. Because it gives to every one the ideal man whose 
 life was so holy, pure, and exalted, that a repetition of 
 it in the lives of others must make them peculiarly 
 holy, and always growing better. 
 
 7. Because it gives a rule of life, speaking to all the 
 same language, by which action may be tried, and thus 
 performed or rejected, as determined to be right or 
 wrong. 
 
 8. Because it clearly declares a day in which the 
 deeds of all shall be tried by an unerring standard, 
 and rewarded and punished according to fact. 
 
 9. Because it provides for an intelligent judgment, 
 to be determined by an unerring judge. 
 
 10. Because there is not a conceivable virtue which 
 it does not enjoin, nor a vice which it does not in 
 principle condemn. 
 
 11. Because it expresses a sympathy felt for man ; 
 and sympathy being the need of every natural being, 
 and promotive of purity and spirituality, it is excel- 
 lently calculated to elevate man. 
 
 12. Because it teaches the principle of fellowship 
 as nothing else ever did, by which the valuable and 
 desirable acquisitions of one become the joint inherit- 
 ance of every member of the body. 
 
Parker's second letter. 39 
 
 13. Because it presents to every man an object of 
 individual interest, and thus furnishes a bond attrac- 
 tive to all ; and thus bringing all into one fraternity- 
 it elevates all by elevating each one. 
 
 14. Because, embracing so many documents in such 
 a variety of languages, it necessitates the study of lan- 
 guage and the cultivation of letters. 
 
 15. Because it establishes a closer relationship be- 
 tween us and God, it forms a link which binds us to 
 nature as the work of God, and therefore truly be- 
 comes the legitimate patron and prosecutor of science, 
 
 — more science in Christianity than out of it, — and 
 out of Christian nations science is hardly known. 
 
 16. Because it advocates the principle of self-denial, 
 out of which flows all reformation, and holds out in- 
 centives to that superior to anything dreamed of in 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 17. Because it gives man a basis for faith superior 
 to anything in Spiritualism. 
 
 18. Because it gives us a better object of worship 
 
 — the God and Father of Jesus Christ. 
 
 19. Because it gives us memorials of which Spirit- 
 ualism is totally barren. 
 
 20. Because it gives us something which has stood 
 the test of nearly nineteen hundred years, and de- 
 monstrated its adaptation to the entire race. 
 
 Hoping to hear from you again soon, and that you 
 will bring out more clearly the better things of Spirit- 
 ualism, I am, as ever, 
 
 Affectionately yours, &c, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
40 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 MOSES HULL'S THIRD LETTER. 
 
 Louisville, Ky., July 2, 1872. 
 
 My good Brother : Yours of June 11 has this 
 day fallen into my hands. Now that our correspond- 
 ence is to develop into an epistolary discussion for the 
 benefit of the multitude, I will try to let it take more 
 the shape of a discussion, and will agree to limit the 
 number of my letters to twelve, neither of which shall 
 exceed ten pages of foolscap. And with this limitation 
 it will hardly be possible for us to examine every argu- 
 ment and assertion made by each other ; so, when I 
 leave points in your letters unnoticed, I trust you will 
 not attribute it to a lack of courtesy, but rather to the 
 fact that I have matter for my space that seems to me 
 more important. 
 
 I. I am a little astonished that you should confess 
 yourself "so pleased" with my ideas, that are "so 
 totally out of the pale of truth." I must confess my- 
 self better pleased with the few truthful ideas you 
 have than the others. Yet I will go as far as I can 
 with you. I am pleased with your mode of expressing 
 even your untruthful ideas. 
 
 II. I am truly pleased at your efforts to extend your 
 fraternal feelings. It is magnanimous. What a man 
 you would be if it were not for your religion ! In 
 your first letter you say, "I am the brother of every 
 
hull's third letter. 41 
 
 man for whom Jesus of Nazareth died." But in par- 
 agraph marked L, in your second letter, you say, 
 "Your supposition that I consider myself a brother 
 only of a class for whom Jesus of Nazareth died is 
 quite erroneous." My brother, "I accept the amend- 
 ment." You are nearer the kingdom than you were 
 when you wrote before'. 
 
 III. And so you think that Jesus indorses my doc- 
 trine, that every man does in a certain sense do the 
 will of God. In this you are mistaken. While he 
 acknowledges none as brothers only those who do the 
 will of God, he emphatically denies that all do his 
 will. Have you forgotten Jesus' Sermon on the 
 Mount ? You could get instruction from it. Here 
 is an extract: "Not every one that saith unto me, 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, 
 but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
 have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name 
 cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonder- 
 ful works ? And then will I profess unto them, I never 
 knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." 
 Matt. vii. 21-23. See also Luke vi. 46. You think 
 Jesus' parentage, associates, and education were in- 
 clined to be a hindrance to his fraternal feelings for 
 all humanity. If Jesus had been only an ordinary 
 man, that excuse would help the matter ; but as the 
 third person in the Trinity, or the plenarily inspired 
 Son of God, such surroundings should not have shrunk 
 him to the dimensions manifested in some of his 
 teachings. 
 
 IV. You object to the texts I referred you to, to 
 show that certain persons were to be cast into hell ; 
 
42 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 that " not a word is said about dogmas, propositions, 
 or beliefs." Very well ; here are others. 
 
 "He that believeth not shall be damned." Mark 
 xvi. 16. 
 
 "And for this cause God shall send them strong 
 delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all 
 might be damned who believed not the truth, but had 
 pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. 
 
 In Rev. xxi. 8, unbelieving is classed with criminal 
 offenses, and is a reason for casting certain ones into 
 the lake of fire and brimstone. 
 
 5. I am heartily glad you have read my little book, 
 " Both Sides." A perusal of that and other such 
 works will help you ; but you want proofs of the falli- 
 bility of the inspiration of Bible prophets. You ac- 
 knowledge that as men they were fallible. I am glad 
 you see that they were made of the same material as 
 other men, that if they were at times inspired, others 
 may be, and if others err, they may. Some of these 
 great men supposed their predictions had been ful- 
 filled, but a reconsideration by wiser heads proved 
 that they had not. Thus Joshua said, " Not one 
 thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord 
 your God spake concerning you ; all are come to pass 
 unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof." 
 Josh, xxiii. 14. On this subject the first Christian 
 martyr differed widely with Joshua. Stephen's dying , 
 words were, " And he gave him none inheritance in 
 it, no, not so much as to set his foot on : Yet he 'prom- 
 ised that he would give it to him for a possession, and 
 to his seed after him7 when as yet he had no child." 
 Acts vii. 5. See also, for a contradiction to this, 
 Josh. xxi. 43-45. For proof that Moses was mistaken, 
 
hull's thikd letter. 43 
 
 see his history of the creation, of making woman out 
 of a man's rib, of the flood, the ark and its bill of 
 lading, of Abraham chasing his enemies to a place 
 that did not exist in his day. That he was morally a 
 bad man, is proved by his commands to " spoil the 
 Egyptians;" to deliver a stubborn, rebellious, glutton- 
 ous, or drunken son up to death ; to put your own 
 child to death for a difference of religious opinion ; to 
 sell bad meat to strangers ; to buy, own, sell, and 
 sometimes kill slaves; to exterminate male Midian- 
 ites, and save alive females for themselves. Other 
 points might be mentioned, but space forbids. For 
 proof of each count in this indictment, see Gen. i. 
 14-19, ii. 18-25, vi. and vii., whole chapters ; Gen. 
 xiv. 14 ; Judges xviii. 29 ; Ex. xii. 35 ; Deut. xxi. 18 ; 
 Deut. xiii. 6-9 ; Deut. xiv. 21 ; Lev. xxv. 44 ; Exod. 
 xxi. 20 ; Num. xxxi. 17. 
 
 If I were to walk naked, as Isaiah did, you would 
 call it strong proof of fallibility. See Is. xx. 2-4. 
 Jeremiah several times confessed that his inspirations 
 deceived him. See Jer. xx. 7. 
 
 VI. And so I have proved my insanity, instead of 
 proving the similarity of modern spiritualism to an- 
 cient manifestations ? "Well, that is a cheap way of 
 meeting an argument. Whether it is effectual, our 
 readers must judge. 
 
 VII. What queer reasons you have for believing 
 the Old and New Testaments true ? " The Old Testa- 
 ment proves itself true, and consequently authorita- 
 tive, in proving its author the Omniscient God." The 
 Latins would call that a complete peiitio principii. 
 Suppose the Old Testament proved the omniscient 
 God to be its author ; would that make the quail 
 
44 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 story, or Jonah and his whale story, true ? Would that 
 make Ahaziah two years older than his father, or 
 would it make it right for jou to bestow your money 
 for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever your 
 soul lusts after ? Num. xii. 31 ; Jonah i. 17 ; 2 Chron. 
 xxi. 20, 22, 23 ; Deut. xiv. 26. So far from the Old 
 Testament having come from an Omniscient God, the 
 God who figures in it always proved himself other- 
 wise. He had to put a how in the cloud, lest he 
 should forget that he had destroyed the world with a 
 flood ! Gen. ix. 16. He had to come down to see the 
 tower which the children of men builded. Gen. xi. 5. 
 He could not believe the cities of Sodom and Go- 
 morrah were so wicked until he came down to see 
 whether the report that had reached him was true. 
 Gen. xviii. 21. He could not tell whether Abraham 
 feared him until he tested him. Gen. xxii. 12. 
 
 I can not for my life see how Jesus being the son 
 of God has anything to do with the truthfulness of 
 the New Testament, for in your first section you 
 acknowledge that we are all the offspring of God. 
 Your argument would make all books authoritative 
 and true. It is still more strange that both should be 
 true. Is the Old Testament correct when it says, 
 " An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth "? Then 
 the New Testament is wrong when it says, " But I say 
 unto you, that ye resist not evil." 
 
 Your sixth paragraph convinces me that you mis- 
 understood my first letter. 
 
 VIII. I hardly expected, when you called on me for 
 a " formulated statement," that you would notice it so 
 slightly ; yet the fault was mine. Had I given the 
 subject more thought, I would have seen that you 
 
hull's third letter. 45 
 
 could do no better than you have. Where did 
 " Christ give the first true ideas of the soul " ? Please 
 give chapter and verse. My brother, since our 
 friendly letters are taking the form of discussion, I 
 would advise you to be careful of your statements. 
 Then you deny that the soul is the highest authority ? 
 Please in your next point me to a higher authority. 
 Is not your soul the umpire by which you try every- 
 thing, even the Bible ? I think it is. 
 
 I hardly know how to understand your doctrine of 
 pardon. On one point I know you are mistaken. 
 Your quotation, " An eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
 tooth, blood for blood," is from your own Bible. 
 Please don't again commit the blunder of calling it 
 Spiritualism. Your " Omniscient God," the author 
 of the Old Testament, originated that saying. If there 
 is a means to escape " the terrors of a deformed char- 
 acter, then that means will incline people to deform 
 their character and use the means. If pardon does 
 not enable them to escape the deformity, then tell me 
 what it does for man. 
 
 So far as the " self-contradictory " phenomena, as- 
 sertions, proofs, and logic of Spiritualism are concerned, 
 they are self-contradictory, just as day contradicts 
 night, the sun the rain, the heat the cold. The sun, by 
 adding more light, does not contradict the moon. The 
 small mind can see contradictions in all nature ; the 
 large one sees harmony where others can only see 
 chaos. 
 
 IX. Your reply to my fifth proposition is so fully 
 met in the proposition itself, that, until you meet that 
 statement, I will "rest the case." I do not see how 
 it is possible for any one to more thoroughly misun- 
 
46 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 derstand anything than you have my sixth proposi- 
 tion. Please read it again. I will not reply to argu- 
 ments so evidently based on a misunderstanding. You 
 have made the best hit on my seventh reason of any 
 you have touched. Your words are, " I am not able to 
 understand your seventh reason." If you had writ- 
 ten that after each one of my propositions, you could 
 have proved your assertion by the other statements 
 you made with regard to them. I think, from your 
 reply to my eighth proposition, you have adopted 
 Universalism. Good : that is on the right road; only 
 don't stop too long at that station. Christian physi- 
 cians might help carry out my ninth argument, if it 
 were not that their Christianity prevents their acknoivl- 
 edging the truth, and applying the remedies for sin. 
 The " Army of Faith " that you accuse me of taking 
 my tenth proposition, " body and soul,' 1 from, I never 
 heard of; would like to see it. If it has that much 
 truth in it, it is ahead of ordinary Christian documents. 
 Where did I teach a " universal salvation " ? Where 
 did I teach a salvation at all, that would allow an 
 individual to escape the consequence of his actions ? 
 
 I am astonished that you should say, " Universal 
 fellowship is one of the cardinal items of the gospel." 
 I had understood Paul to say, " Be ye not unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers ; for what fellowship 
 hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what 
 communion hath light with darkness ? " 2 Cor. vi. 
 14. " From such withdraw thyself;" "From such 
 turn away ; " and other like expressions are used in the 
 New Testament to show that certain persons should 
 not be fellowship ed. ■ 
 
 X. Dr. McCosh's " Typical Forms in Creation " may 
 
hull's third letter. 47 
 
 be good ; still I had rather you would have referred 
 me to the passage of Scripture that proved my fif- 
 teenth proposition, rather than to prove by Dr. McCosh 
 that I had found its substance in the Bible. Your 
 indorsement of my sixteenth reason is good ; but it 
 was spoiled by your quotation from our " Luminary." 
 Why did you not tell us who the ''luminary " was? 
 Ah ! that would have spoiled the quotation, as our 
 " luminary " would have turned out to be one of your 
 allies. Yes, more than an ally of yours against Spirit- 
 ualism, for I do not believe you would invent a lie 
 against Spiritualism, and you knoiu he would. 
 
 I am glad you have come to the conclusion, " that 
 Moses and Joshua have recorded some things deroga- 
 tory of the divine character." As you " are a nine- 
 teenth century man," you will adopt the teachings of 
 the present age, and leave Moses and Joshua where 
 they belong. The world has advanced nearly three 
 thousand years since their day ; let us " keep peace 
 with the truth." I am glad to hear you acknowl- 
 edge that the New Testament is an improvement on 
 the Old Testament, which you inform me had "an 
 Omniscient God for its author." 
 
 I think you must have been nervous when you 
 wrote your reply to my eighteenth reason. Does not 
 the heat overcome you ? Are you not working too 
 hard this hot weather ? Take care of your health. You 
 have introduced the first " dung-god " I ever heard 
 of. You are welcome to him. You know there is no 
 accounting for tastes. 
 
 II. You make several very fine quotations from the 
 " Year Book," and seem to think it would be impossi- 
 ble for us to adopt the "methods of the church 
 
48 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 without adopting its doctrines." In this you are mis- 
 taken. The southern army adopted, as far as possible, 
 the methods of our northern army, but not its prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 XII. As your twenty statements are simply the 
 converse of mine, our readers will find an abundant 
 reply by re-reading my statements in the concluding 
 part of my second letter. I will not now offer a 
 further reply. 
 
 XIII. Permit me to conclude this letter by giving a 
 list of reasons why the teachings of the Old and New 
 Testament Scriptures can not, in the first sense of the 
 word, be morally elevating. 
 
 1. They make good works only secondary in the 
 development of manhood, urging other things as be- 
 ing of more importance. Proof, Eph. ii. 8, 9 ; Rom. 
 iii. 20, 27, 28. 
 
 2. They love sin, and, in fact, make sin the founda- 
 tion of all happiness. Proof, Rom. vi. 17 ; Luke vii. 47. 
 
 3. Their best teacher did not himself know how to 
 perform that which was right : how, then, can they 
 teach the right to others ? Proof, Rom. vii. 14-25. 
 
 4. They teach that a person may escape the conse- 
 quences of sin. Proof, 1 John i. 7. 
 
 5. They lead to war, rapine, and the shedding of 
 blood. Proof, Num. xxxi. 1, 17 ; Jer. xlviii. 10 ; Joel 
 iii. 10-14 ; Luke xxii. 36. 
 
 6. They warn against education and philosophy. 
 Proof, Eccl. i. 16-18, vii. 16 ; 1 Cor. xi. 1-4, 14, 38 ; 
 Col. ii. 8. 
 
 7. They urge men to hate and forsake their families. 
 Proof, Matt. x. 34-38 ; Luke xiv. 26. 
 
 8. They lead to intemperance. Proof, Deut. xiv. 
 26 ; Prov. xxxi. 6 ; 1 Tim. v. 23. 
 
parkee's third lettee. 49 
 
 A want of space has prevented quoting the Scrip- 
 tures to which I have referred. 
 
 Hoping for an early response, and that truth may be 
 the gainer, as the result of this agitation of thought, 
 I subscribe myself, not only fraternally, but 
 Controversially yours, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S THIRD REPLY. 
 
 Cedar Hill, near La Grange, Kt., > 
 July 8, 1872. > 
 
 Brother Hull : Your third epistle reached me 
 this morning, and, as usual, I promptly respond. 
 
 I. You seem to conclude that you must now suffer 
 our " correspondence to develop into an epistolary dis- 
 cussion for the benefit of the multitude." Well, I 
 am glad of it, as you doubtlessly will now buckle on 
 your armor and come up to your contest with the 
 Bible with courage and effectiveness. Up to this 
 time I have failed to see the strength, or " merit of 
 your cause." And so inconclusive and unfortunate 
 have been your assaults upon the fortifications of my 
 faith in Christianity, that really, unless you do much 
 better in your remaining nine letters, I shall be forced 
 to believe that modern Spiritualism is a greater delu- 
 sion than I had imagined. You desired to convert me 
 to the " Harmonial Philosophy." To do this you 
 kindly wrote me, and placed before me some of your 
 objections to the Bible and Christianity. I supposed 
 you would lay before my mind something which would 
 4 
 
50 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 deserve serious consideration, and something, too, 
 which might dispose me to reject the " ancient faith." 
 I am further from Spiritualism than ever. I can not 
 tell how great a distance I shall yet have placed be- 
 tween me and that ; but certainly I see no prospect 
 of anything less than an "infinite distance." Still, 
 as you now conclude to descend into the arena of 
 " discussion," I suppose I shall have to feel your ath- 
 letic blows as the champion of the Harmonial cause. 
 Please give us henceforth your strength. Come to 
 the point. Prove to me that spiritualistic writers are 
 better than Bible writers ; that spiritualistic ivritings 
 are better calculated to make good, happy, prosperous 
 men than Bible writings; that spiritualistic facts are 
 better facts, better in their moral, intellectual, and do- 
 mestic bearings, than the facts of Bible history ; in fact, 
 prove to me that Spiritualism has one gcocl thing in it 
 which is not better found in the Bible or Christianity. 
 
 II. Of course, when you wrote me your last letter, 
 you did not expect me to notice a large part of it. So 
 I will let many items pass to the "jury" without fur- 
 ther remark. 
 
 III. I shall notice your third item. You say, " And 
 so you think Jesus indorses my doctrine, that every 
 man does, in a certain sense, do the will of God." No, 
 I did not, and now do not say it. Please read that 
 paragraph again. 
 
 Nor did I say that Jesus was influenced by his 
 "parentage, associates, and education," so as to affect 
 " his fraternal feelings for all humanity." I think, on 
 another reading of that passage, you will find that I 
 said that Jesus entertained those fraternal feelings for 
 humanity, in spite of his surroundings; which fact 
 
paekee's third letter. 51 
 
 proves Jesus to have been beyond the laws by which 
 every other person has been prepared for his work in 
 life. You can not find in the surroundings of Jesus 
 anything which can account for his character, teach- 
 ings, and power. Try it. 
 
 IV. As to your fourth item, your proof texts do 
 not prove your proposition at all. The gospel is not 
 a "dogma." It is the revelation of -a true life; it is 
 the manifestation of a true life ; it is an exemplification 
 of a true life ; and if your life and mine be not the 
 true life, then, according to your own showing, eternal 
 punishment is the inevitable doom. Herein is the 
 overwhelming advantage of Christianity over Spirit- 
 ualism. The former in its facts does give us the true 
 life ; the latter, up to this time, has not yet been able 
 to tell even what a true life is ; for the true life of one 
 Spiritualist is the false life of another Spiritualist : all 
 is dreamy, confused, dark, and totally unsatisfactory. 
 
 V. As to your fifth item, I deem it worth while to 
 notice briefly a few points. 
 
 1. You fail utterly to show that one of the prophets, 
 who " spoke as they were moved, by the Holy Ghost," 
 ever failed to foretell the truth verified by history. 
 
 2. You try to convince me and " the multitude " 
 that certain of the Bible men were mistaken as to the 
 fact in their teaching. You quote Joshua as say- 
 ing, " Not one thing hath failed of all the good 
 things which the Lord your God spake concerning 
 you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one 
 thing hath failed thereof." Josh, xxiii. 14. Now, to 
 prove Joshua a liar, and consequently the Bible false, 
 you parade before me Acts vii. 5, "And he gave 
 him none inheritance in it ; no, not so much as to set 
 
52 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 foot on. Yet he promised that he ivould give it to him 
 for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet 
 he had no child." 
 
 Did you not know, my brother, when you collated 
 those two passages, that you were perverting the rec- 
 ord ? Joshua was speaking of one thing ; Stephen 
 of another. Joshua was speaking of the promises of 
 God to the Hebrews ; Stephen of the promise of God 
 to Abraham. Alas for the cause which must be bol- 
 stered up by such logic ! 
 
 God did give the land to .Abraham for a possession. 
 As a gift, the land was Abraham's, notwithstanding 
 the fact that at that time he was unable to enjoy it. 
 His seed did enjoy it. And it is universally recognized 
 to-day as the Jews' land, notwithstanding it has been 
 trodden down of the Gentiles for more than eighteen 
 centuries. You, therefore, are wrong again, and the 
 Bible is right. 
 
 VI. As to the counts of your indictment, in which 
 you imagine you array many damaging things against 
 the Old Testament, I shall submit against you the 
 words of one, who, in the Harmonial school, stands 
 as " a shining light," and whose decisions are by very 
 many accepted as unquestionable. I allude to Emma 
 Hardinge. In a speech delivered January 2, 1870, at 
 Harmonial Hall, Philadelphia, she says, " In the life 
 of the Jewish lawgiver we find an especial mission to 
 proclaim an external law, so perfect, so admirable, that 
 every form of life teas provided for. It was perfect in 
 its kind, wise, practical, and strictly adapted to . . • 
 every description of morality. . . . Hence you per- 
 ceive the strict necessity for such laws. . . . All 
 the justice between man and man that was necessary 
 
parker's third letter. 53 
 
 for strict order in social, commercial, and national life, 
 are fully laid down." Thus, by the words of Spirit- 
 ualist Emma Hardinge, are the words of Spiritualist 
 Moses Hull condemned. You have not progressed to 
 her sphere. 
 
 VII. You seem considerably puzzled over the two 
 reasons which I gave you for believing the Bible a 
 divine book. I do not wonder. Were you as familiar 
 as I am with the fullness of those reasons, you would 
 cease trying to persuade men to reject the Bible. Of 
 course I shall not give you in this correspondence an 
 exposition of those reasons. You may learn their 
 meaning pretty well, if you will take the trouble to 
 read Walter Scott's "Great Demonstration." I dare 
 say a candid, thoughtful reading of that valuable book 
 will open your eyes to many of the excellences of 
 Christianity with which you now seem to be totally 
 unacquainted. 
 
 VIII. You charge upon me the misunderstanding 
 of your statements. Perhaps I did misunderstand 
 you. I tried hard to get your meaning ; and I think 
 I got it. I am more obtuse than I desire to be. I can 
 not help it, however, and trust that in future you will 
 write so perspicuously as to enable me to apprehend 
 your meaning, certainly after the third reading. But 
 if I misunderstood you, why did you not, in your last 
 letter, tell me just what you did mean ? I submit 
 your points and my rejoinders to the jury — the " mul- 
 titude " for whom we write. 
 
 IX. I perceive you feel the disastrous effect of 
 my few words on your " eighteenth reason." I see you 
 are ashamed of the Pantheism which you would sub- 
 stitute for Bible Deism. You blush. There is hope 
 
54 SPIRITUALISM OH CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 for one on whoso cheek can glow the " mantling 
 blush of shame." My brother, why do you not show 
 me by fact, by logic, that Pantheism is better than 
 Theism ? What logic is there in this style of writ- 
 ing — "Are you not working too hard this hot 
 weather? Take care of your health." You make 
 God matter, and all matter God. Dung is matter; 
 hence dung is God — according to your advanced 
 " ideas." Get out of it, if you can. 
 
 X. You say, " As your twenty statements are the 
 converse of mine," &c. Now, that is dispatching 
 things in a hurry. I do not think — neither will any 
 intelligent man think — that a "re-reading of" your 
 " statements " will be enough to destroy the force of 
 my twenty reasons for preferring Christianity to Spir- 
 itualism. I did show that your reasons for preferring 
 Spiritualism were mostly borrowed from the Bible. 
 The only excellences of which you can boast as com- 
 mending your philosophy, are excellences which do 
 not belong to your philosophy. Do you not know it ? 
 Now, in return, show me where I have borrowed any- 
 thing from the religion and philosophy which I repu- 
 diate. 
 
 You did not see fit. to attack those twenty reasons, 
 because you were conscious that they embody nothing 
 but truth. 
 
 XI. I will now attend to your "list of reasons 
 why the teachings of the Old and New Testament 
 Scriptures can not, in the first sense of the Avord, be 
 morally and mentally elevating." * 
 
 1. You say, " They make good works only sec- 
 ondary in the development of manhood, urging other 
 things as being of more importance. Proof, Eph. ii. 
 8, 9 ; Rom. iii. 20, 27, 28." 
 
55 
 
 To which I respond, — 
 
 1st. The Scriptures do no such thing 
 
 1. You have quoted the only passages in the Bible 
 which can he tortured into the support of your error. 
 
 2. In Eph. ii. 8, 9, Paul says not a word about 
 44 good works " being "secondary" to anything "in 
 the development of manhood." 
 
 3. But in the tenth verse he says, "For we are 
 his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, UNTO GOOD 
 works, which God hath before ordained, that we shoidd 
 walk in them." 
 
 4. In Rom. hi. 20, 27, 28, the phrase, "good works" 
 is not once found. Hence your ''proof" is no proof. 
 
 5. Jesus taught his disciples always that to do good 
 is the design of human being. 
 
 2d. The apostles invariably inculcated the same 
 doctrine. 
 
 1. This is proved by their constant presenting of 
 Christ, "who went about doing good;" their exhor- 
 tations " to walk in his steps ; " and the "good works," 
 enumerated and enjoined by specific commandments, 
 as well as by the fact that eternal life was to be 
 possessed and enjoyed on condition of " patient con- 
 tinuance in %v ell doing." 
 
 Hence your first " reason " is dissipated. 
 
 2. You say, " They love sin ; in fact, make sin 
 the foundation of all happiness." Proof, Rom. v. 17 ; 
 Luke vii. 4, 7. 
 
 My brother, I fear you wrote these words without 
 reflection. They state either an awful truth or a 
 most base and detestable error. No middle ground is 
 possible. Did you expect me to believe your state- 
 ment ? I fear not. Still, as you refer to two passages 
 
56 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 of Scripture for proof, I will try to think that you 
 suppose your words to have a partial basis of truth. 
 
 Your statement is not true, for the following 
 reasons : — 
 
 1st. Your proof texts do not give a shadow of 
 ground on which to base the affirmation. 
 
 1. You refer to Rom. v. 17, which reads, " For, if 
 by one man's offense death reigned by one, much 
 more they which receive abundance of grace, and of 
 the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 You know that this passage is far, very far from 
 teaching that the " Scriptures " u love sin," and 
 make " it the foundation of all happiness." 
 
 2. Your other text, Luke vii. 4, 7, does not contain 
 a word concerning sin at all. 
 
 3. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament 
 in every sentiment condemn sin, and teach that sin is 
 the foundation of all misery. 
 
 1st. They represent God — 
 
 1. As hating all sin. 
 
 2. As angry with the wicked every day. 
 
 3. As destroying the species by a flood because of 
 sin. 
 
 4. As inflicting death, temporal and eternal, on 
 account of sin. 
 
 5. As manifesting, in every possible way, "the 
 exceeding sinfulness of sin." 
 
 6. As holding out all kinds of motives to win men 
 from sins. 
 
 7. As devising glorious means to save all men from 
 sins. 
 
 2d. They represent prophets, &c, as describing the 
 
Parker's third letter. 57 
 
 • 
 horrid features of sin ; as pleading against it ; as de- 
 nouncing judgment for it ; as crushing it in their own 
 lives ; and as endeavoring, by all legitimate means, to 
 make it exceedingly repulsive to all men. 
 
 3d. They represent Christ as going even to the ex- 
 tent of death to condemn it. 
 
 4th. They represent the apostles as preaching 
 against it ; mortifying it in their own bodies ; and as 
 teaching the inevitably destructive consequences of 
 following it. 
 
 5th. History represents the primitive disciples as 
 loathing it, and abandoning, it as the fountain of all 
 earthly calamities, and the sure token of " everlasting 
 punishment." 
 
 Hence your second reason is proved a baser figment 
 than your first. 
 
 Now, what you charge on the Bible as teaching 
 concerning sin is actually the teaching of modern 
 Spiritualism on that subject. 
 
 1. Spiritualistic documents teach me that " what- 
 ever is, is right." Sin is ; therefore it is right. 
 Hence to sin is to do right. 
 
 2. They teach me that "all actions are morally 
 alike." 
 
 3. They teach me that " sin is essential to devel- 
 opment." 
 
 4. They teach me that "drunkards, liars, prosti- 
 tutes, &c, occupy higher spheres in the other world 
 than do those who have not been disciplined by 
 crime." 
 
 5. The}? - teach me that "man is no more respon- 
 sible for his actions than for the color of his hair." 
 
 6. They teach me that " to obey the appetites, and 
 
58 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 yield to the impulses of the flesh, is to secure the 
 highest earthly pleasure, and to be as good as to deny 
 ourselves these indulgences, and devote our lives to 
 piety." 
 
 These are a few of the teachings of your Harmo- 
 nial religion on the subject of sin. You know these 
 things are taught in books, pamphlets, and papers. 
 You can not find a sentiment like them in the Bible. 
 
 7. Your third reason, for want of space and time, 
 which I can better use, I will allow to go to the jury 
 with its pretended proof. 
 
 8. You say, " They teach that a person may escape 
 the consequences of his sin. Proof, 1 John i. 7." 
 
 1st. You will persist in giving only the place where 
 your proofs can be found. Why do you not quote 
 the words on which you depend ? Is it because you 
 know that the large majority of your readers will not 
 take the trouble to examine the passages to which you 
 refer, but take for granted that they teach what you 
 say they teach, because you tell only where they may 
 be found? 
 
 2d. Any one consulting the passage quoted will see, 
 
 1. That the " consequences of sin " are not found 
 in the text. 
 
 2. That u walking in the light " — by which the 
 apostle means pure, holy, faithful living — is the 
 condition of the fraternal communion, and the effi- 
 cacy of "the blood" to cleanse or deliver from all 
 sin, or unholy actions. So much for your text. The 
 doctrine alleged is not found in it. 
 
 8. But the Bible teaches, as I have proved in one 
 of my former letters, that the consequences of sin 
 will overtake the transgressor. 
 
PARKER'S THIRD LETTER. 59 
 
 Spiritualism is guilty of holding out inducements to 
 sin, by assuring men that there are no grounds to fear 
 the consequences of evil actions. This point I have 
 already proved in this letter. In further proof I will 
 quote from a spiritual revelation, as given to the 
 world in the Banner of Light. " God is just ; and 
 the punishment which comes in this world is enough 
 for anybody. So mother may be perfectly at rest, 
 and feel that, however hard her lot is here, it is the 
 hardest part of life. Of course we have some evils 
 there, but compared with the evils you suffer here, 
 they are nothing. You can skim over them as lightly 
 as over smooth ice, &c. Don't forget my name. 
 Rose Gerry. Mar. 6." 
 
 There are other revelations, which declare that 
 penalties for crimes in this world are unknown in the 
 world beyond. 
 
 .Perhaps these are Universalist spirits, who are still 
 in the " first sphere." 
 
 It is true that other spirits contradict these revela- 
 tions, and declare that there is a " hell " for crimes 
 committed on earth. For instance, Thomas H. At- 
 kinson, in his message from the "other side," says, 
 " So I went into the other world with a double stain 
 upon my spirit, and I would not pretend to say I did 
 not go to hell ; that I did not suffer all that was neces- 
 sary for my spirit to suffer. . . . I went to hell, and 
 paid the penalty therefor." Who is right, Rose 
 Gerry or Thomas H. Atkinson ? Such is what mod- 
 ern Spiritualism gives us ! 
 
 " If in your new estate you can not rest, 
 But must return, O, grant us this request: 
 Come with a noble and celestial air, 
 And prove your titles to the names you bear; 
 
60 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Give some clear token of your heavenly birth; 
 Write as good English as you wrote on earth ; 
 And — what were once superfluous to advise — 
 Don't tell, I beg you, such egregious lies." — Saxe. 
 
 4. You say, " They lead to war, rapine, and the 
 shedding of blood. Proof, Numb. xxxi. 1, 17 ; Jer. 
 xviii. 10 ; Joel iii. 10, 14 ; Luke xxii. 36." 
 
 1st. Numb. xxxi. 1, 7. 
 
 1. God ? s command to Moses to avenge the Jews 
 on the Midianites, is not held forth as an example to 
 be followed by any person on earth. 
 
 2. This was done long before the greatest part of 
 the Scriptures had an existence. 
 
 3. It was not done in consequence of the teachings 
 of the Scriptures at all. A child can see that. 
 
 2d. Jer. xviii. 10. "If it do evil in my sight, that 
 it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, 
 wherewith I said I would benefit them." 
 
 1. Nothing said of " war." 
 
 2. Nothing said of " rapine." 
 
 3. Nothing said of " the shedding of blood." 
 Hence nothing said for your cause. 
 
 3d. Joel iii. 10, 14. 
 
 1. It is a prophecy of war amongst the Gentiles. 
 
 2. Not a soul on earth ever attempted " war, rap- 
 ine, and the shedding of blood," because that proph- 
 ecy is found in the Bible. 
 
 3. Not an intelligent Bible reader on earth sup- 
 poses that passage to justify "war, rapine, and the 
 shedding of blood for any cause." 
 
 How unfortunate your references ! 
 
 4. Luke xxii. 36. 
 
 " Then he said unto them, But now, he that hath a 
 
parker's third letter. 61 
 
 purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip ; and he 
 that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy 
 one." . . . " And they said, Lord, behold, here are 
 two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough." 
 
 Were these two swords for " war," "rapine," and 
 " the shedding of blood " ? If so, why did this same 
 teacher shortly after say, " Put up thy sword. He 
 that useth the sword shall perish by the sword " ? 
 
 I say, concerning this point, " It is enough." 
 
 5. You say, " They warn against education and 
 philosophy. Proof, Eccl. i. 16, 18 ; vii. 16 ; 1 Cor. 
 xi. 1, 4, 14, 38 ; Col. iv. 8." 
 
 1st. Eccl. i. 16, 18. 
 
 " I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I 
 am come to great estate, and have gotten more wis- 
 dom than all they that have been before me in Jeru- 
 salem; yea, my heart had great experience of wis- 
 dom and knowledge. For in much wisdom is much 
 grief ; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth 
 sorrow." 
 
 If those words " warn against education and phi- 
 losophy," I am unable to see it. They do teach that 
 education, or wisdom, is not the chief good, — that 
 thing which satisfies the longings of the soul. They 
 do teach, in connection with other passages, that in- 
 tellectua] culture can not bring peace to the spirit 
 without religion. 
 
 Turn to the book of Proverbs, by the same author, 
 and you hear him exhorting all to "get wisdom, get 
 understanding.' ' "Wisdom is the principal thing; 
 therefore get wisdom ; and with all thy getting, get 
 understanding (knowledge)." "Take fast hold of 
 instruction ; let her not go : keep her ; for she is thy 
 
62 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 life." Prov. iv. In the light of such passages, and 
 they can be wonderfully multiplied, how dare you say, 
 " They warn against education and philosophy " ? 
 2d. 1 Cor. xi. 1, 4, 14, 38. 
 
 1. In the first verse, neither education nor philos- 
 ophy is mentioned; hence not forbidden. 
 
 2. The same is true of the 4th verse. 
 
 3. The same is true of the 14th verse. 
 
 4. There is no 38th verse in the 11th chapter. 
 Perhaps you intend the 14, 38, to refer to the 14th 
 
 chapter, 38th verse: "But if any man be ignorant, 
 let him be ignorant." The correct rendering, from 
 the Greek used by Paul, is this : " But if any man re- 
 fuse this acknowledgment, let him refuse it at his 
 peril." Hence is swept away another of your errors. 
 See Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. 
 Paul, page 453. 
 
 3d. Col. iv. 8. 
 
 " Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, 
 that he might know your estate, and comfort your 
 hearts." 
 
 What has this verse to say about " education and 
 philosophy? " 
 
 What do you mean by trying thus to mislead the 
 "multitude " ? I dare say, from this time forth, the 
 multitude will hardly credit the pertinency and con- 
 clusiveness of your laconic "proofs." 
 
 4th. Your statement is proved false by the follow- 
 ing facts : — 
 
 1. Jesus was a teacher who taught the best philos- 
 ophy the world ever heard, and labored three years 
 to educate a few sound teachers for humanity. 
 
 2. So well educated were the apostles, that, though 
 
63 
 
 they have left behind them sundry writings, you can 
 not find one error in all their spoken or written pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 3. Paul was finely educated in Tarsus, and in the 
 Gamalielan College of Jerusalem. 
 
 4. He never denounced his classical and literary 
 acquirements as evil or useless. 
 
 5. He was anxious to have his manuscripts always 
 at hand. And when he desired one of his ministers 
 to bring him his cloak for winter, he desired " spe- 
 cially the parchments." 
 
 6. He desired Timothy to give attention to " read- 
 ing," and to " study," &c. 
 
 7. Peter commands the primitive disciples to add 
 " to virtue, knoivledge." 
 
 8. The best teachers, during the early centuries, 
 were Christians. 
 
 9. The best schools of the early centuries were 
 Christian schools. 
 
 10. In all lands where the Bible has gone, schools, 
 colleges, universities, have invariably followed. 
 
 11. In this Christian country there are more col- 
 leges under church patronage than you will find in all 
 the world where the Bible is not acknowledged as 
 the Book of God. 
 
 12. Now, if the Bible "warned against education 
 and philosophy," you would not see Christians so un- 
 reservedly devoted to learning and the arts. 
 
 Thus is swept wholly away your sixth error con- 
 cerning the Bible. 
 
 7. You say, " They urge men to hate and forsake 
 their families. Proof, Matt. x. 34-38 ; Luke xiv. 26." 
 
 Matt. x. 34-38. 
 
64 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 1. The words on which you rely in this reference 
 are these : " He that loveth father or mother more 
 than me is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth 
 son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 
 
 2. Not one word said about hating and forsaking 
 one's family. 
 
 3. Jesus says, " He that loveth " the family " more 
 than me is not worthy of me." He simply requires, 
 in these words, that he shall share the love given to 
 kindred. Love your kindred with devotion, but love 
 me no less, is his idea. 
 
 2. Luke xiv. 26. 
 
 " If any man come to me, and hate not his father, 
 and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, 
 and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be 
 my disciple." 
 
 1. The word " hate " does occur in the passage. 
 
 2. Kindred also are mentioned. Hence you have 
 given one text which looks like " proof." 
 
 3. But is It proof? 
 
 1. Compare these words with all the other teachings 
 of Jesus, and it is evident that he does not enjoin 
 "hate," in our sense of the word. 
 
 2. Compare them with his own life, and especially 
 his own devotion to his mother and kindred, and the 
 improbability that he intended to teach what you 
 affirm of the words becomes still greater. 
 
 3. Remember, 1. That he commanded his disciples 
 to teach others what he had commanded them to 
 observe. 
 
 2. That his disciples did do so. 
 
 3. That never did a disciple intimate the doctrine 
 you allege ; and, 
 
BABBLER'S THIRD LETTER. 65 
 
 4. That the disciples have positively, fully, and 
 unequivocally taught and enjoined the contrary doc- 
 trine ; as, 
 
 " Husbands, love your wives." 
 
 " Children, obey your parents." 
 
 " Let the husband love his wife as his own body, 
 for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourish- 
 eth and cherisheth it. . . ." Eph. v. 29. 
 
 " Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular 
 so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see 
 that she reverence her husband." Eph. v. 33. 
 
 Much more might be added, but " it is enough." 
 
 Thus perishes your seventh error concerning the 
 Bible. 
 
 N. B. What you erroneously affirm concerning 
 the Bible is true when affirmed of Spiritualism. 
 
 Proof. 1. Moses Hull, in " Love and Marriage," 
 page 14. 
 
 2. Frances Barry, in the " Universe "for July 3, 1869. 
 " Twenty-three years ago I pronounced popular mar- 
 riage a system of legalized adultery and prostitution. 
 Since then I have done what little I could to oppose 
 and hold up to public contempt the corruption and tyr- 
 anny of the accursed system. . . . Marriage is 
 
 TO BE CONSIGNED TO ITS GBAVE." 
 
 3. Mrs. Corbin. " Marriage ... is simply an 
 abomination before God." 
 
 4. "Light from the Spirit World." "The mar- 
 riage institution of man is wrong, and must be an- 
 nulled." 
 
 5. J. M. Spear. " Cursed be the marriage institu- 
 tion ; cursed be the relation of husband and wife ; 
 cursed be all who would sustain legal marriage." 
 
 5 
 
66 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 And an infinite abundance of the same kind of 
 spite against the family institution. 
 
 " It is enough." 
 
 The end is reached. 
 
 6. Finally you say, "They lead to intemperance. 
 Proof, Deut. xiv. 26 ; Prov. xxxi. 6 ; 1 Tim. v. 23." 
 
 1st. Deut. xiv. 26. " Thou shalt bestow thy money 
 . . . for wine or for strong drink." 
 
 1. This gives the Jews the privilege to buy " wine " 
 or " strong drink." 
 
 2. The principle which the same law applies to 
 prevent excess or abuse in other privileges applies 
 here ; and nothing more is granted than a rational, 
 temperate use of " wine," or " strong drink." 
 
 3. If the privilege to purchase these things had 
 been denied, Spiritualists would have charged it upon 
 the Jiatefulness of the " base, wicked spirit of a dead 
 man " — Jehovah. 
 
 Alas, my brother ! 
 2d. Prov. xxxi. 6. 
 
 " Give strong drink unto him that is ready to per- 
 ish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts." 
 
 1. After what is said above, nothing more need be 
 added here. 
 
 2. No drunkard was ever made because of these 
 words. 
 
 3. Those who study these proverbs the most dili- 
 . gently, and practice them the most carefully, — the 
 
 Jews, — never are found amongst drunkards. Though 
 I have seen thousands of Jews, I never yet saw one 
 affected by an intemperate use of " wine or strong 
 drink" 
 
 3d. 1 Tim. v. 23. 
 
parker's third letter. 67 
 
 " Drink no longer water, but use A little wine 
 for thy stomach's sake and often infirmities." 
 
 1. In granting the use of " a little wine," the use 
 of much, i. e., intemperance, is prohibited. 
 
 2. Its use was granted on account of disease, not 
 to encourage drunkenness. 
 
 3. A privilege given to one man is no reason why 
 another man should claim it and abuse it. 
 
 Hence expires your last error concerning the Bible. 
 But the Bible teaches us that intemperance is hate- 
 ful in God's sight. 
 
 1. It teaches the subtle and destructive tendencies 
 of intemperance. 
 
 2. It denounces curses upon drunkenness. 
 
 3. It declares that " no drunkard can enter into 
 the kingdom of God." 
 
 4. " Drunkenness " is classed amongst the " works 
 of the flesh," with adultery, hatred, murder, and 
 idolatry, and as such discouraged and denounced. 
 
 5. Christians who read Paul's letters to Timothy 
 most are known to be of all men least inclined to in- 
 temperance, which would not be the case if your 
 affirmation were true. 
 
 N. B. What you erroneously charge upon the 
 Bible I can prove true of Spiritualism, and will do so 
 if you desire it. I would do so here, if my letter had 
 not already reached an almost unpardonable length. 
 
 Let us write shorter letters in future. 
 
 Give us fewer points, and better fortified, so that I 
 can get after your logic, and expose it in briefer space. 
 
 Hurry up your response, and accept my kindest 
 regards, as your friend, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
68 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 MOSES HULL'S FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 Lafayette, Ind., July 13, 1872. 
 
 Brother Parker: Yours of the 8th instant is 
 here. It is said, " Brevity is the soul of wit." I will 
 try to put more soul into this than in former articles. 
 
 I. Permit me, before entering upon the review of 
 your article, to correct the errors that my copyist made, 
 or you made in reading my article. 
 
 1. In paragraph X. you quote me, " They (the Old 
 and New Testaments) love sin, in fact make sin the 
 foundation of all happiness. Proof, Rom. v. 17 ; Luke 
 vii. 47." Then you quote Rom. v. 17, and fail to see 
 the connection between that and the thing I designed 
 to prove. I am not astonished. My proof text was 
 Rom. vi. 17. The text reads as follows : " But God be 
 thanked that ye were the servants of sin ; but ye obeyed 
 from the heart that form of doctrine which was de- 
 livered unto you." This text, you will see, thanks 
 God for sin. 
 
 2. I quoted Jer. xlviii. to prove that the Bible 
 leads to war, &c. In your reply you quoted Jer. 
 xviii. 10, instead of xlviii. 10. The text to which I 
 referred reads as follows : " Cursed be he that keep- 
 eth back his sword from blood." This will enable 
 you to discover that you were shooting at the wrong 
 mark. 
 
 3. I quoted Col. ii. 8, to prove that the Bible is op- 
 
69 
 
 posed to philosophy. In your reply you quote Col. 
 iv. 8. The text I used to prove the Bible opposed to 
 philosophy reads as follows: "Beware lest any man 
 spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after 
 the tradition of men, and not after Christ." 
 
 These three innocent errors have made me appear 
 ridiculous, and cost you a great many useless words. 
 We will try to avoid such mistakes in the future. 
 
 II. In your first paragraph, after asserting that 
 Spiritualism is a delusion, you ask me to prove that 
 spiritualistic writers are better than Bible writers ; 
 that spiritualistic writings are better calculated to 
 make good, happy, prosperous men than Bible writ- 
 ers; tha.t spiritualistic facts are better facts, &c. 
 
 1. Suppose I can not prove anything you ask of 
 me ; suppose our writers were no better, our facts no 
 better — would that weigh against Spiritualism, or in 
 favor of the Bible ? Certainly not. The Bible writers 
 may have been exactly the writers needed at that 
 time, the biblical facts just the facts demanded by the 
 times ; but are they adapted to this age ? How can 
 you or I be benefited by Noah's moral character, let 
 him have been as pure as an angel, and the command 
 to build an ark have come from heaven. Let the fact 
 of the flood be a fact, how can you and I be benefited 
 by it? 
 
 2. We want present truth, the truth of to-day, 
 given under the inspiration of to-day. Should our in- 
 spiration of to-day be no better, or not so good, as the 
 past, it is better for us, because it is ours. 
 
 3. If you could prove that our rain is not so wet, 
 our dew not so gentle, nor spring showers so genial, 
 as those of Abraham, I would nevertheless argue that 
 
70 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 our rain, sun, and dew are better for us, will raise 
 better corn, wheat, and potatoes, than we could if we 
 were to shut our fields away from these blessings, and 
 send an agent to read the history of Abrahamic rain, 
 sun, and dew, to them. 
 
 4. Our spiritualistic writers certainly can be no 
 worse than the bloodthirsty robber who is said to have 
 written the first five books of your Bible. Joshua 
 and Samuel were both murderers, and Samuel was a 
 fortune-teller. If our spiritualistic writers are not 
 morally ahead of David and Solomon, they certainly 
 could not be worse. As for Paul's moral character, 
 you yourself would not defend it "before he became a 
 Christian ; and after that he becomes all things to all 
 men. 1 Cor. ix. 22. Quarreled with Barnabas and 
 Peter. Acts xv. 39 ; Gal. ii. 11-14. Went to Jeru- 
 salem. Acts ix. 26. Afterward denied going there. 
 Gal. i. 17. Preached against circumcision. Gal. v. 2. 
 And yet practiced it. Acts xvi. 3. He committed 
 the double dealing of preaching to the Gentiles a salva- 
 tion without obedience to the law, and yet, when he 
 went among the Jews, purified himself according to 
 the law. Acts xxi. 18-21, 26, 27. Then afterward 
 denied it, and declared the Jews could not prove it. 
 Acts xxiv. 12. More derelictions in the characters of 
 Bible writers might be given, but my space to me is 
 precious. I submit that our inspired media can not 
 be worse. 
 
 III. I believe I will allow you the last word intro- 
 duced in paragraphs II. and III., except that I will say 
 that Jesus' doctrine was pure, unadulterated Egyptian- 
 ism. His surroundings, when his father took him down 
 into Egypt, were calculated to develop the very senti- 
 
hull's fourth letter. 71 
 
 merits he uttered, as well as to lead to the mode of 
 life he lived. 
 
 IV. You deuy that the gospel is a dogma, and 
 assert that "it is the revelation of a true life," &c. 
 Will you live the true life preached in the gospel? 
 Please obey the Sermon on the Mount. Abandon 
 public prayer ! Matt. vi. 25-31. Please give your 
 cloak to the one who sues you and takes your coat ! 
 Go two miles with the one who compels you to go 
 one. Carry out that principle in all things — will you ? 
 If you do not, remember eternal punishment is your 
 doom ! You can not see how the true life of one 
 Spiritualist should be the false life of another. I can. 
 Can you see how or why one individual should re- 
 quire sleep, and another at the same time wakeful- 
 ness ? Or why, at the same time, one should require 
 rest and another exercise ? If so, you may yet de- 
 velop to where you can see how the true life of one 
 Spiritualist may be the false life of another. 
 
 V. You say that I " failed to show that one of the 
 prophets, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost, ever failed to foretell the truth, verified hy his- 
 tory." I hardly know how to take that — whether you 
 meant to deny that the prophets were moved by the 
 Holy Ghost, or whether you intended to argue that 
 biblical predictions were all fulfilled. 
 
 If you wish to show the fulfillment of prophecy, 
 please point me to the history of the fulfillment of 
 Jonah hi. 4 : " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be 
 overthrown." I will ask you another question. Can 
 you show me one biblical prophecy that met a fulfill- 
 ment in every point ? You forgot to tell me how it 
 happened that Abraham chased his enemies to Dan 
 
72 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 more than four hundred years before it was built. I 
 perceive that, although you think that Joshua was 
 right in saying that " not one thing hath failed of all 
 the good things which the Lord your God hath prom- 
 ised," you are willing to think that Stephen told the 
 truth when he referred to the failure of the promise 
 made to Abraham. Though he promised that he 
 would give the land to him and his seed, he gave him 
 " none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his 
 foot on." So I was not wrong, after all. 
 
 But you spoil it all. You say in the next sentence, 
 " God did give the land to Abraham for a, possession." 
 You are probably correct ! Stephen was mistaken ! 
 He says, " And he gave him none inheritance in it, 
 no, not so much as to set his foot on." You acknowl- 
 edge that "for eighteen hundred years the land has 
 been trodden down of the Gentiles." Yet it was 
 given to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting pos- 
 session. 
 
 VI. Your quotation from Emma Hardinge, when 
 taken in its connection, is possibly a good thing. Mrs. 
 Hardinge does say many fine things, yet in point of 
 progress she falls fearfully in the rear. I think she 
 to-day belongs in the church with you more than with 
 the reformers. She has ever made a studied effort 
 to hitch her Spiritualism on to Christianity, even going 
 so far as to get married in the church. To this no 
 Spiritualist would object. Our only objection is, that 
 she should be quoted as a representative Spiritualist in 
 its differences from Christianity. She could be more 
 appropriately quoted as a representative Christian. 
 
 VII. I was in hopes you would prove your two 
 reasons for believing the Bible divine, rather than 
 
hull's fourth lettee. 73 
 
 boast of your familiarity with them. Your familiarity 
 with them I will not deny. I have known people to be 
 familiar with a good many silly things. Walter Scott's 
 " Great Demonstration" may exactly do the work. I 
 think our readers would prefer that you would do it. 
 Walter Scott may demonstrate that white is black, or 
 that twice two are five : either proposition is as easily 
 demonstrated as your two reasons for believing the 
 Bible divine. 
 
 VIII. Your eighth point demands no reply. 
 
 IX. Your ninth is an effort to induce me to worship 
 your " dung God." As I have said nothing on the 
 dung God question, " I pray thee have me excused." 
 " O, come, let us worship." Not any, I thank you. 
 Leave me out ! 
 
 X. As you persist in urging me to notice your 
 twenty points of superiority of Christianity over Spirit- 
 ualism, I will devote a little space to them. 
 
 1. "It puts men under the highest authority — 
 God." 
 
 Does not Spiritualism put men under the authority 
 of God ? It does. Christianity does not put a man 
 under the authority of God, but under a man-made 
 Bible. Let a man attempt to obey God in violation 
 of the Bible and you would turn him out of the church. 
 
 2. Spiritualism offers the same " social relations," 
 urging that the spirit is the direct " offspring of 
 God." 
 
 3. If the gospel teaches pardon in any sense that 
 will allow the culprit to escape the consequences of 
 his sins, that is against, rather than in favor of it ; if 
 it does not, it is not in that respect different from 
 Spiritualism. 
 
74 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 4. You say the gospel gives us the true phenomena. 
 Please show me any phenomena of a spiritual charac- 
 ter in the gospel of to-day. The fact is, you have 
 no spiritual phenomena in the churches. In the 
 Bible no one pretends to have phenomena — only 
 its history. 
 
 5. The gospel does not give an equality in a social 
 organization. Its language is, " Let your women 
 keep silence in the churches." " I permit not a 
 woman to speak, or to usurp authority." " Let as many 
 servants as are under the yoke count their masters 
 worthy of all honor." This is not social equality. 
 
 6. Its " ideal man " was not perfect. He got mad at 
 the Jews because they could not answer a question. 
 Mark iii. 5. Destroyed a herd of swine. Matt. viii. 32. 
 Cursed a fig tree because it did not bear figs out of 
 season. Matt. xxi. 19. Drove the Jews out of their 
 own meeting-house. Matt. xxi. 12. Even his first 
 miracle was to make wine to treat a crowd that was 
 already drunk. John ii. 1-10. 
 
 7. The "rule of life" laid down in the Bible is 
 contradictory, sometimes threatening with death those 
 who are not circumcised, or do not keep the Sabbath, 
 at other times urging that " circumcision is nothing, 
 and uncircumcision is nothing," and that no man 
 should judge you with reference to Sabbaths. 
 
 8. If any good could grow out of the Bible's pro- 
 posed judgment day, it puts it so many quintillions 
 of years in the future that it loses its effect. It waits 
 for judgment until " the last day." That is a great 
 way ahead. You have heard of the thief who stole 
 the half of a hog, and was told by the owner that he 
 should pay the penalty at the day of judgment. The 
 
75 
 
 thief responded, " If you will wait until that time, 
 I will steal the other half." 
 
 9. Your ninth proposition is only a continuation of 
 the eighth. 
 
 10. Show me where the gospel prohibits a man 
 from marrying his sister, having a dozen wives, or 
 owning slaves — will you ? 
 
 11. True, the gospel expresses a sympathy for men, 
 but not for every man ; it even forbids prayer for cer- 
 tain ones, and urges that some are doomed to remain 
 filthy. 
 
 12. Your twelfth I have before answered. 
 
 13. In presenting "individual interest to every 
 one," the gospel is not peculiar. Every institution 
 in the world does that. All appeal to man's selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 14. Its " numerous documents," contradicting each 
 other as they do, are very much against it. Its " va- 
 riety of languages " never can be comprehended. 
 
 15. From your fifteenth one would think that a man 
 could not have been " bound to nature " before he 
 had heard the gospel. Men are bound to nature even 
 in China, and if no gospel had ever been written, could 
 not get away from nature. 
 
 16. Please give some proof of your sixteenth prop- 
 osition. The gospel always appeals to man's selfish 
 interest. Even its Jesus died, not for man's interest, 
 but " for the joy that was set before him." Heb. 
 xii. 2. 
 
 17. The gospel may give a " basis for faith; " Spirit- 
 ualism supplies the place of faith with knowledge. 
 
 18. You think it gives a better object of worship. 
 Is it your " dung God " ? I can not argue that ques- 
 tion. 
 
76 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 19. The gospel gives us memorials. We would be 
 in a nice ^.x if it was giving us memorials of things 
 which never happened. My brother, your memorials 
 are to-day leading the church to a system of unpar- 
 donable idolatry. Throw them away, and take prin- 
 ciples, duties, in their place. 
 
 20. Probably the gospel has stood the test of nine- 
 teen hundred years. Sin has stood the test of that many 
 thousand ; but I can not reverence it for its age. You 
 maj'. Please tell me in your next what the gospel has 
 done during its long existence. Has it, or has it not, 
 abolished sin ? 
 
 XI. Next you take up my list of reasons for believ- 
 ing the Old and New Testaments, not in the first sense 
 of the word, elevating ; on this you have done a good 
 job. I wish I had the space to reply to you. As I have 
 not, I will only correct your most glaring mistakes. 
 
 In the references I gave, which speak disparagingly 
 of good works, you say, " In Eph. ii. 8, 9, Paul says 
 not a word about good works." I answer, Paul was 
 preaching, salvation by grace. His words are, " Not 
 of tvorJcs, lest any man should boast" True, he speaks 
 about being " created unto good works: " but what 
 are they? Nothing but the forms, ceremonies, and 
 church ordinances by which they are " built upon the 
 foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
 himself being the chief corner-stone." Your mistake 
 with regard to my second proposition, as well as some 
 others, grew out of your getting the wrong text. I 
 wish I had the space to quote all my scriptures in full. 
 You are right ; the Bible does teach that sin is the 
 foundation of all misery. It also teaches that it is the 
 foundation of salvation, for, "Where sin abounded, 
 
hull's fourth letter. 77 
 
 grace did much more abound." The fact that they 
 were sinners gave a chance for the exercise of " gos- 
 pel grace," which made the gospel so lovely, and 
 caused Paul to thank God that the Romans had been 
 sinners. Rom. vi. 17. Did you know that the logic 
 by which you try to use up the "Whatever is, is 
 right" doctrine of Pope, could be applied to your 
 own Bible ? Let me treat you to a syllogism of your 
 own kind. 
 
 1. All that God made is very good. Proof, Gen. 
 i. 31. 
 
 2. God made evil. Proof, Isa. xlv. 5-7 ; Amos hi. 6. 
 
 3. Therefore evil is good. 
 
 The difference between my syllogism and yours is, I 
 present the proof of mine, and you do not of yours ; 
 indeed the sill?/ part of yours is easily seen ; the re- 
 mainder is not so apparent. 
 
 " Spiritualism teaches that sin is essential to devel- 
 opment : " that is true. The military strength of the 
 North was developed by the sins of the nation. The 
 sin of slavery developed the sentiments of freedom. 
 The sins of the churches and the ministers have de- 
 veloped a holy warfare upon them, which will result 
 in their extermination. In that sense it is essential to 
 development. 
 
 You say that " Spiritualists teach that drunkards, 
 liars, prostitutes, &c, occupy higher spheres in the 
 spirit-world than do those who have not been disci- 
 plined by crime." My brother, have you not got the 
 wrong book ? It was your " blessed Jesus," who said 
 to the virtuous church members of his day, " Publi- 
 cans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before 
 you." Matt. xxi. 31. 
 
78 SPIRITUALISM OB CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 Don't get things mixed. The passage of Scripture 
 that you find fault with me for quoting, states that 
 "the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin." My 
 point was, that if the blood of Christ cleanses from 
 sin, then we are not cleansed by any effort of our 
 own — that if we can be cleansed from sin at all, it is 
 an excuse for indulging in sin. We often handle 
 filthy things we would not handle if we did not know 
 that it would wash off. You make another mistake 
 in my quotations. You refer to 1 Cor. xi. 1-4, for 
 1 Cor. ii. 14. " That alters the case." 
 
 You speak again about the " grand philosophy 
 taught by Jesus." Will you obey it ? Will you 
 preach for a church who would obey it ? Go without 
 purse or scrip ! Take no thought for to-morrow ! 
 Give up your earthly possessions, forsake houses, 
 lands, and all other things that Gentiles seek after, 
 for his sake ! If an enemy strike you, turn the other 
 cheek ! I fear you would use the language of another 
 Christian — "This Jesus, doctrine is played out." 
 Give up your wife and children as he commanded ; 
 follow his example of celibacy. You know that while 
 "publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God," 
 those who marry are not worthy to obtain that world, 
 or at least, it is the unmarried, or those who neither 
 marry nor are given in marriage, that are accounted 
 worthy to obtain that world. Come, brother, stop 
 this eulogizing Jesus' philosophy, and commence 
 obeying. 
 
 You make a mistake in your quotation of Matt. x. 
 34. You quote verse 37. Verses 34, 35, say, " Think 
 not I am come to send peace on earth ; I come not to 
 send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man 
 
hull's fourth lettee. 79 
 
 at variance against his father, and the daughter 
 against the mother, and the daughter-in-law against 
 the mother-in-law." I am astonished that you should 
 so frequently get the wrong quotation. 
 
 I know the Bible enjoins upon men to love their 
 wives in the same sense it would a slaveholder to 
 love his slaves, or a man to love his horse ; that is, 
 take good care of them, give them enough to eat, all 
 for purely selfish motives. "No man ever yet hated his 
 own flesh.^ It is not to a man's interest, pecuniarily, 
 to abuse his wife. You quote from Frances Barry and 
 Mrs. Corban, to get the Spiritualists' views of mar- 
 riage. I am personally acquainted with both parties, 
 and never mistrusted that either of them was a Spir- 
 itualist. You can beat me finding Spiritualists. 
 
 XII. My space is occupied. In my next I prom- 
 ise you a dissertation on biblical and spiritual mar- 
 riage. I discover that you are not disposed to deny 
 the spiritual phenomena. I am glad of that ; it saves 
 me a deal of hard labor. This will allow more space 
 to be devoted to its nature and tendency. 
 
 Hoping that the same spirit of candor may obtain 
 in all our correspondence, and that the public may take 
 as much interest in reading as I do in writing, 
 I remain, as ever, your brother, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
. 80 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S FOURTH REPLY. 
 
 " Cedar Hill," near La Grange, Ky., ) 
 July 19, 1872. ) 
 
 Brother Hull : In response to yours of July 13, 
 I submit the following : — 
 
 I. As to errors of your copyist. 
 
 1. I am forced to read and reply to your letters as 
 I receive them. I regret the occurrence of such 
 things, as I dislike to waste time or labor. But really 
 I sometimes think that your errors regarding the Bible 
 are so palpable, bold, and self-confuting, that I waste 
 paper, ink, and time in opening them out for public 
 inspection. In fact, I sometimes think that you do 
 not, that you can not, believe your own representa- 
 tions of the Bible. Still, in spite of this unfavorable 
 impression, I will consider you sincere, and seek, by a 
 kindly style and sound reason, to correct your untrue 
 conclusions. 
 
 2. In casting my eye upon the proof texts you in- 
 tended to submit to me, I can not see that they are 
 any more favorable to your proposition than the texts 
 which your " copyist " substituted. Both fail entirely 
 to be of any service to you. 
 
 II. I will now present, in fair detail, your proof 
 texts. 
 
 1st. You desire me to believe that the Bible " loves 
 sin; in fact, makes sin the foundation of all happiness," 
 
packer's fotjbth letter. 81 
 
 To prove the truth of this, you say you really quoted 
 Rom. vi. 17, not Rom. v. 17. You unequivocally 
 concede that your doctrine is not in Rom. v. 17. I 
 can not see how you can see any of it in Rom. vi. 17. 
 "But God be thanked that you were the servants 
 of sin ; but ye have obeyed from the heart that form 
 of doctrine which was delivered you." 
 
 1. This passage does not say a word about loving sin. 
 
 2. It does not intimate that " sin " is " the founda- 
 tion " of anything — not even of happiness. 
 
 3. Had you not first desired to find such a doctrine 
 in the Bible, you would never have dreamed of quot- 
 ing this passage. 
 
 4. You try to find the doctrine in the fact that 
 Paul "thanked " God that the Roman Christians had 
 been at one time of their lives "the servants (slaves) 
 of sin." 
 
 1. Admitting, for the sake of argument only, that 
 Paul did thank God because the Romans had been 
 sinners (which is not true), did he say anything about 
 the "foundation of happiness" in connection with 
 their sins ? No. Truly, no. 
 
 2. Paul really teaches that " sin " is the ground or 
 reason of pain, penalty, or punishment — misery ; not 
 of happiness. Hear him. 
 
 To the Romans : 1st. " But unto them that are con- 
 tentious, and do not obey the truth (i. e., do right), but 
 obey unrighteousness (i. e., do wrong, sin), indigna- 
 tion and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every 
 soul of man that doeth evil." Rom. ii. 8, 9. 
 
 2d. Paul says men slandered him in his day by say- 
 ing of him what you say. "As we be slanderously 
 reported, and as some affirm we say, Let us do evil 
 6 
 
82 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 (sin) that good may come, whose damnation is 
 just." Rom. iii. 8. 
 
 This one passage for ever brands your proposition, 
 so far, at least, as Paul is concerned, with falsity. . 
 
 3d. Again, " Shall we continue in sin, that grace 
 may abound ? God forbid." Rom. vi. 1, 2. Which 
 he could not have said had he believed sin to be " the 
 foundation of happiness." 
 
 4th. Again, " The wages of sin is death " (Rom. 
 vi. 23), not happiness, as you affirm. 
 
 More evidence to show your statement false need 
 not be given. 
 
 5th. What does your text really mean ? If you 
 would read it as candidly as you do even a news- 
 paper paragraph, you could not fail to see that Paul 
 thanked God, not for the fact of the Romans having 
 been wicked once, but that they had been saved from 
 that wickedness by obedience. Really and clearly he 
 thanked God for their obedience to the gospel. On 
 consulting the " Life and Epistles of St. Paul," by 
 Conybeare and Howson, I find my idea proven correct 
 by their better translation of the passage : "But 
 God be thanked that you, who were once the slaves 
 of sin, obeyed from your hearts the teaching whereby 
 you were molded anew." See the work alluded to, 
 p. 558. 
 
 Is there anything in such language to justify your 
 charge against the Bible ? Not a word. 
 
 As you profess to love the truth and reason, I think 
 you should never again quote Rom. vi. 17 to prove 
 that the Bible loves sin, and makes it the foundation 
 of happiness. 
 
 III. Your second text. You say, " I quoted Jer. 
 xlviii. 10, to prove that the Bible leads to war." 
 
83 
 
 Well, your copyist gave me Jer. xviii. 10, and so 
 far as your proposition goes, it may just as well re- 
 main Jer. xviii. 10. 
 
 Still, I will give Jer. xlviii. 10 proper attention, and 
 remark, — 
 
 1. That, though that passage has been in the book 
 so long, you can not, nor can any man, show that any 
 man or any nation ever dreamed of quarreling or 
 going to war on the strength of that passage. 
 
 2. Wicked men may have quoted it, like yourself, 
 for a wicked purpose ; but they never did so because 
 they believed it taught them or anybody else to make 
 war. 
 
 3. It is an element of Jeremiah's remarkable 
 prophecy against Moab. He foresees the time when 
 the consequences of Moab's bad religion and bad poli- 
 tics would develop a terrible fruitage of crime, blood, 
 war, and devastation. Under the afflatus of the pro- 
 phetic impulse he cries, " Give wings unto Moab, that 
 it may flee and get away ; for the cities thereof shall 
 be desolate, without any to dwell therein. Cursed be 
 he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and 
 cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from 
 blood." 
 
 4. The Assyrians were the destroyers whom the 
 prophet foresaw and of whom he spoke. And cer- 
 tainly you will not presume to say the Assyrians 
 destroyed Moab or any other country because Jer- 
 emiah said, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his 
 sword from blood." 
 
 5. I am, and have been, a life-long believer in 
 the entire Bible. I believe it to be truth, without 
 admixture of error. And I assure you that I see 
 
84 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 nothing in the passage which would justify me in 
 making war on anything. And if an uncompromis- 
 ing Bible believer like me can see nothing in the pas- 
 sage teaching me the duty of blood shedding, I think 
 it is because no such thing is inculcated in the words. 
 
 IV. Your third text. You say, " I quoted Col. 
 ii. 8, to prove that the Bible was opposed to philos- 
 ophy." 
 
 " Beware lest any one spoil you through philosophy 
 and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, and not 
 after Christ." 
 
 To which I submit, — 
 
 1. You know that Paul speaks here not of all 
 philosophies, but of that thing which was called " phi- 
 losophy ' ' in his day. 
 
 2. If you could prove that Paul meant by that 
 term just what you mean by it, then the text would 
 have some connection with your proposition. What 
 you mean by " philosophy " is " knowledge, learning." 
 Paul did not mean that. 
 
 3. You know that there are many philosophies ; as, 
 1. Natural philosophy; 2. Philosophy of Language; 
 3. Mental philosophy; 4. Platonic philosophy; 5. 
 Epicurean philosophy ; 6. Aristotelian philosophy ; 
 7. Harmonial philosophy ; 8. Philosophy of Religion, 
 &c, &c, &c. 
 
 4. You know that some of these philosophies are 
 worthless for all good purposes. 
 
 5. You know that there is such a thing, and ever 
 has been, as false philosophy, which does more evil 
 than good to its devotees. 
 
 6. It was this false philosophy of his time that 
 Paul discouraged and opposed. 
 
paeker's fourth letter. 85 
 
 7. For the same reasons which moved him to con- 
 demn it, the enlightened mind of this age has repudi- 
 ated it, so that one now teaching the materialism of 
 Epicurus, or the vaporings of the Gnostics, would be 
 considered quite non compos mentis. 
 
 So it seems to me that these three correct quota- 
 tions make you appear just as " ridiculous " as did the 
 "three innocent errors." 
 
 I hope you will keep your promise that you " will 
 try to avoid such mistakes in future. " 
 
 By all means do so — both mistakes in texts, and 
 especially the sense of texts. 
 
 V. 1. I am glad you so candidly confess that 
 Spiritualism can not give us better " writers," or writ- 
 ings, to make better, happier, or more prosperous 
 men; or facts, or moral principles, or spiritual phe- 
 nomena, than are furnished us by the Bible, which I 
 conceive to be a total surrender of the question. 
 
 2. Your "present truth" has no meaning, to my 
 mind, apart from all past truth. 
 
 3. "Should our inspiration of to-day, &c, . . . 
 it is better for us, because it is ours." 
 
 1. " Our inspiration." My friend, do you have 
 any regard for language ? Please, then, say no more 
 about " our inspiration." To a man of sober sense, 
 such abuse of language and reason is lamentable 
 indeed. 
 
 2. Suppose I grant you an "inspiration;" your 
 principle that it is best for you because it is yours, is 
 absurd. Carry out your principle, and a pretty world 
 this will be in one century. The squalid Egyptian 
 would be content still with his rags and filth because 
 they are his, rather than clothe himself in the ancient 
 
86 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 garments of the Pharaohs, because they were made 
 in an ancient day. O, no ; your principle will stop all 
 growth in arts, sciences, and literature. The past is 
 full of glorious things, many of which modern art 
 has been trying, yet in vain, to reproduce. 
 
 But the past inspiration is ours — is ours embodied 
 in imperishable, expressed thought; and it will live 
 forever. Your " inspiration " will die with you ; yea, 
 often dies before your mediums die. Your inspira- 
 tion is a delusion. You claim it, but have no signs 
 of it. I think your letters clearly demonstrate that 
 inspiration, with you, is a minus quantity. 
 
 3. Your defense of spiritualistic writers, on the 
 plea that they " can be no worse than the bloodthirsty 
 robber who is said to have written the first five books 
 of the Bible," &c, is unfortunate for your cause. 
 
 Does the blackness of biblical characters take the 
 stain out of spiritualistic characters ? 
 
 In your repeated flings at the names of the men 
 who are more universally reverenced than any others 
 of history, is a signal betrayal of the unmerciful, un- 
 truthful, malignant, and persecuting spirit of Spirit- 
 ualism. What you do to those men who are dead, 
 because they gave to us the Bible history and its 
 honors, which are the inveterate adversaries of your 
 vain philosophy, you would do to all living oppo- 
 nents if you had the power, and dared do so. This 
 you may deny ; but the persistent calumny heaped 
 upon sacred characters by you and your colleagues 
 indicates the activity of an awful principle, which 
 needs only favorable conditions to stab, hang, and 
 burn ; for the man who will maliciously and know- 
 ingly kill one's reputation will, if need be, kill one's 
 
87 
 
 body and soul, if possible to be safely done. Such is 
 the spirit which is betrayed by modern infidelity in 
 its treatment of Bible men. I trust you are a better 
 man than your faith justifies one to expect ; indeed, I 
 know you are. 
 
 I must notice some of your attacks upon the his- 
 torical characters of the Bible. 
 
 1. Moses. He was not a bloodthirsty man. 
 
 He killed an Egyptian in defense of one of his 
 fellow Hebrews. This you love to call a murder. 
 It was not murder. It was done in heat of blood. 
 It was manslaughter, and, I dare say, wholly uninten- 
 tional. And had he not killed the Egyptian, but 
 attacked him, as a Hebrew he would have been in- 
 famous. Knowing this fact before he made the 
 attack, he discreetly looked around to see if any one 
 was seeing the matter. No witnesses being in view, 
 he attacked the Egyptian, slew him, and then hid his 
 body in the sand. Thus was the crime completed ; 
 and he fled for fear. I have no disposition to deny, 
 nor to get rid of these facts. I regret his folly ; but 
 he was punished for it by a banishment of forty 
 years. I regret the existence of the record, because 
 the enemies of the Bible so abuse it. Yet I am 
 thankful for the record, because it clearly proves the 
 impartiality and honesty of the document. The 
 good is told ; the bad is not suppressed. 
 
 Moses, viewed from the stand-point of his own 
 times, in connection with the circumstances surround- 
 ing him, and judged by the moral standard according 
 to which his conscience was developed and molded, 
 will at once be pronounced as great for his goodness 
 as he was great for his courage and sagacity. And 
 
88 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 the same rule being applied to the characters you 
 allude to will fully vindicate them. 
 
 2. Solomon. His wickedness and folly are ad- 
 mitted. But they teach the best lesson the world 
 ever had on the vanity of sensual pleasures and pur- 
 suits. He does not tell us to do as he did, but 
 makes his experience the warning and lesson of all 
 persons of all ages. 
 
 3. David. He, too, erred; sometimes woefully. 
 Yet his life is full of resplendent nobility, and, like 
 others, he saw a time when repentance for past errors 
 made him well calculated to become a teacher of all 
 good things. Judge him with a just judgment — 
 Christians ask no more. 
 
 4. Paul. This noble hero's life is so well known 
 as to need no defense. Up to the time of Iris perse- 
 cution of disciples, his life was blameless. But he 
 became a persecutor, thinking he was then doing 
 right. When convinced of his error, he stopped ; 
 and he heaped blessings upon what he had before 
 injured. 
 
 As to his becoming all things to all men, there was 
 nothing wrong in that. Your inspired Confucius 
 says of the " superior man," " In a position of wealth 
 and honor, he does what is proper to a position of 
 wealth and honor. In a poor and low position, he 
 does what is proper to a poor and low position. Sit- 
 uated among barbarous tribes, he does what is proper 
 to a situation among barbarous tribes. In a position 
 of sorrow and difficulty, he does what is proper in a 
 position of sorrow and difficulty. The superior man 
 can find himself in no position in which he is not 
 himself." — Chap, from Bib. of the Ages, p. 60. 
 
parker's fourth letter. 89 
 
 In this sense, Paul was all things to all men, — in 
 no other. Paul is right, and Moses Hull is wrong. 
 
 His misunderstanding with Barnabas was no crime 
 or fault. 
 
 The other things alleged against Paul need no re- 
 mark ; they have only to be seen in the Scripture to 
 convict you of doing violence to the record, — as 
 usual. 
 
 You claim Buddha as being one of your inspired 
 ones. In connection with your attacks upon the 
 good men of the Bible, you should remember one or 
 two of his oracles. 
 
 He says, "A wicked man who reproaches a vir- 
 tuous one is like a man who looks up and spits at 
 Heaven ; the spittle soils not Heaven, but comes bach 
 and defiles his own person" 
 
 Again, " He is like one who flings dirt at another 
 against the wind ; the dirt does but return on him 
 who threw it. The virtuous man can not be hurt. 
 The misery that the other would inflict comes 
 back on himself." — Chap, from the Bib. of the Ages, 
 p. 36. 
 
 5. You do admit, then, that Jesus did have a doc- 
 trine? Thank you. But why spoil the appearance 
 of candor here, by affirming that his doctrine " was 
 pure, unadulterated Egyptianism," and that " his 
 surroundings, when his father took him down into 
 Egypt, were calculated to develop the very senti- 
 ments he uttered, as well as to lead to the mode of 
 life he lived"? 
 
 Jesus went down into Egypt under two years of 
 age, and remained there not more than one year, at 
 furthest. How his surroundings could develop so 
 
90 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 much in so young a child and in so short a time, no 
 one but a progressive Spiritualist can see. 
 
 6. Your comments on the Sermon on the Mount 
 are as desperate as all else I find in your logic. 
 
 1. Jesus does not require the abandonment of pub- 
 lic prayer. He only discourages its prostitution to 
 base ends.' He forbids praying, " standing in the syn- 
 agogues or corners of the streets," to be seen of men. 
 Really the privacy of the closet is the place to pray. 
 Private prayer belongs to the closet. An ostentatious 
 parade of devotion in public is, and always has been, 
 disgusting. 
 
 2. In Matt. vi. 24-34, Jesus only dissuades from 
 covetousness — an over-anxiety for material comforts. 
 He would have men first holy, then attentive to other 
 duties. It is a sweet assurance that God so cares for 
 us, that he will not let ns perish from want, if we be 
 pure, holy, and faithful to life's duties. 
 
 He urges us (verse 33) to seek " his righteousness," 
 i. e., perfect life, and "all" needed "things shall be 
 added " to us, as a consequence of our correct life. 
 
 3. As to giving the cloak to the one who by law 
 takes the coat, it is only correcting evil by doing 
 good. The principle is a sound one. Even Buddha, 
 one of your "inspired " men, inculcated this natural 
 principle in these words : — 
 
 " Let a man overcome anger with love, let him 
 overcome evil with good, let him overcome the greedy 
 by liberality, the liar by truth." 
 
 Certainly you should not condemn Jesus and praise 
 Buddha. 
 
 Act on the injunction of Jesus, and you will soon 
 learn that his suggestion is not folly. 
 
packer's fourth letter. 91 
 
 VI. No, I do not see how the true life of one Spirit- 
 ualist can be the false life of another. Your comments 
 give me no light. One Spiritualist teaches that the 
 true life consists in chastening our appetites, control- 
 ling and correcting them ; another says the true life 
 consists in yielding to the appetites. One Spiritual- 
 ist saj^s the true life consists in living in obedience to 
 the " angels " — ghosts. Another says it consists in 
 controlling and developing the " spirits." I know no 
 two spiritualistic writers who are able to agree or have 
 agreed as to what the true life is. I am not able to 
 find a true life in Spiritualism anywhere. But the 
 gospel gives us the exemplification of a true life in 
 Jesus. In this fact we see the extreme superiority of 
 the gospel over " Harmonialism." 
 
 VII. I see no evidence in anything you present for 
 believing that a solitary prediction of the prophets 
 has ever failed. 
 
 1. Jonah. " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be 
 overthrown." 
 
 It was not destroyed in forty days ; ergo, Jonah 
 failed. 
 
 No. He preached to the Ninevites in order to lead 
 them to reformation. The subversion of the city was 
 to be the result of impenitency. But they repented; 
 ergo, the city was not destroyed. 
 
 2. In your remarks on the promise made to Abra- 
 ham you seem to lose sight of the difference in the 
 meanings of the Bible words " possession" and "in- 
 heritance." While the " ownership " or " posses- 
 sion" of the land was in Abraham, yet during his life 
 he did not have the sovereignty over a rood of it. 
 His seed possessed, by descent from him, the land, 
 
92 SPIEITTJALISM OH CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 and they enjoyed it until they were cast out of the 
 enjoyment, to hold the land only as a granted posses- 
 sion. Every Jew living feels that a portion of Pal- 
 estine is his, that the Gentile is a trespasser, and that 
 ere long he will be put into the enjoyment of his 
 " possession." 
 
 There is no conflict between Joshua and Stephen 
 — the " possession " will last forever. The claims of 
 every Jew to-day is a literal fulfillment of 'prophecy 
 made three thousand six hundred years ago. 
 
 VIII. You seek to kill the influence of Mrs. Emma 
 Hardinge by making her out a Christian, not a Spir- 
 itualist. I do not wonder. Her statement was fatal 
 to your impeachment of the Bible ; otherwise she had 
 been " a distinguished Spiritualist." 
 
 IX. Read Walter Scott's " Demonstration of the 
 Authority of the Bible," and impeach it if you can. 
 
 I am not controverting with you the evidences of 
 Christianity. The world needs no more argument 
 for that until infidels fairly respond to those already 
 in print. 
 
 X. As to that " dung God," I see you are wounded. 
 You flutter — you grow sick. I do not censure you. 
 You only shrink from the horrors of your favorite 
 Pantheism — your God of matter. 
 
 XL You touch lightly and with uncertain pen my 
 twenty reasons for believing Christianity better for 
 man than Spiritualism. 
 
 Those reasons I hastily noted down, not as our best 
 reasons, but as a few of our good reasons. 
 
 If my good reasons give you so much trouble, I 
 know not what you could have said if I had enumer- 
 ated our best reasons. 
 
Parker's fourth letter. 93 
 
 1. 1. Spiritualism does not put man under the au- 
 thority of God, nor anything else. 
 
 2. Christianity does put man under the authority 
 of God. 
 
 3. It does not put man under a man-made Bible, 
 but under the authority revealed in that Bible and in 
 Nature. 
 
 II. Spiritualism, as taught by all the documents I 
 have read, has no God; hence, can know no such 
 relation with him as sons. You feel the importance 
 of this social relationship in the work of human eleva- 
 tion ; hence you would claim it for Spiritualism, that 
 ridicules the idea of a God that can be socially related 
 to man. 
 
 III. The gospel teaches pardon, not to take away 
 all the consequences of sin, but to overcome evil with 
 good. Spiritualism, you say, knows no such princi- 
 ple. I know it. Hence it is a bloody Shylock, claim- 
 ing his pound of flesh ; — no mercy, no forgiveness in 
 the code of Spiritualism. Draco had a clean spirit in 
 comparison with it. 
 
 IV. I am not talking about "the churches of to- 
 day." I said Christianity — the documents of Chris- 
 tianity — " gives us all the true phenomena (of which 
 those of modern Spiritualism are base imitations only), 
 better certified and more consonant with reason and 
 necessity." This fact you can not controvert. Your 
 play on "history " is empty. 
 
 V. You seem disposed to deny that " Christianity 
 gives a social organization in which all are equal, and 
 bound by the same ties, are under equal obligations 
 to work for each other's good." 
 
 I do not wonder that you should seek to prove this 
 
94 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 truth an error. But failure will overwhelm you here, 
 as it does everywhere in your war upon the Bible. 
 
 1st. Your first reason for denying my fifth ground of 
 preference for Christianity is based upon these words : 
 "Let your women keep silence in the churches." 
 
 1. Because silence is demanded of women, there is 
 no evidence that they are not socially equal with men 
 in the Christian organization. 
 
 2. Your spirit-inspired Menu, by whom you had 
 rather be governed than by Paul, has laid down the 
 oracle that " A woman is never fit for independence." 
 — Chap, from the Bib. of the Ages, p. 28. 
 
 3. A correct reading of the New Testament will 
 show that women were allowed to talk, and pray, and 
 sing, and eat, in the Christian assemblies, with the same 
 freedom of the men, but they were under the same 
 restrictions also. 
 
 2d. Your second reason reads, " I permit not a 
 woman to speak or usurp authority." 
 
 Why did 3^011 not quote the rest of the sentence — 
 " over the man" ? 
 
 The idea with Paul is this : " If one of two persons, 
 a man and a woman, is to speak, which shall have the 
 preference ? The man. In disputed cases like this, 
 there must be some rule. Either the man or woman 
 must yield. And Paul, in deciding this nice point in 
 favor of man, I do not think denies the social equali- 
 ty of woman ; but I think the social equality of wo- 
 man is thereby plainly manifest. 
 
 3d. Your third reason reads, "Let as many ser- 
 vants as are under the yoke count their masters 
 worthy of all honor." 
 
 1. The Christian Scriptures — even Paul — teach 
 
paeker's fourth letter. 95 
 
 that " in Christ " there is " neither male nor female, 
 bond nor free, Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythi- 
 an ; but all are one, and every one members one of 
 another." 
 
 2. When Paul sent the slave Onesimus back to his 
 master Philemon, he thus wrote : " I beseech thee for 
 my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds, 
 who in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now 
 profitable to thee and to me ; whom I have sent 
 again : thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own 
 bowels. . . . For perhaps he, therefore, departed 
 for a season, that thou shouldst receive him for ever, 
 not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother 
 
 BELOVED." 
 
 3. In the Masonic fraternity, master and servant 
 can and do stand on the same level, without destruc- 
 tion of the relation of master and servant. So also 
 is this done in the Christian fraternity ; in the church, 
 both stand on the same foundation, and both have the 
 same master. 
 
 Enough. 
 
 VI. You try to get rid of my ideal man. 
 
 1. You should show that Spiritualism has some- 
 thing better than an ideal man to offer to men, as 
 a rule for the development of a true character and 
 life. 
 
 2. You try to get rid of Jesus as the ideal man, by 
 trying to show that he was an imperfect man. I can 
 not see how the passages you quote show any such 
 thing. 
 
 A. " He got mad." — Mark iii. 5. 
 
 1. Mark does not say " He got mad." 
 
 2. He does say, " And when he looked round about 
 on them with anger" 
 
96 SPIRITUALISM OE CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 (a) Is " anger " necessarily an evil thing? 
 
 (b) Can not one be angry and sin not ? 
 
 (c) Was not the anger of Jesus, then, sinless ? 
 
 I think so, because Mark said, " he looked round 
 about on them with anger, being grieved for the hard- 
 ness of their heart." 
 
 1. Grief does not cause a sinful anger. 
 
 2. Jesus' anger ended in the healing of a palsied 
 hand. Sinful anger never ends in the simple accom- 
 plishment of good only. 
 
 The anger entertained by Jesus at this time was of 
 a kind that the more there is of it in the world, 
 the better for the world. 
 
 B. " He destroyed a herd of swine." — Matt. viii. 32. 
 You are in error. He only suffered the " spirits of 
 
 dead men " to make spiritualistic mediums of the 
 hogs, when the mediums committed suicide. 
 
 Why do you fight pork eating, whilst the " spirits " 
 seem to be so partial towards swine ? 
 
 C. " He cursed a fig tree." — Matt. xxi. 19. 
 
 1. He simply said that the tree should never bear 
 fruit ; in consequence of which the tree died. Is it 
 any more harmful to destroy a tree by a word than 
 by an ax ? 
 
 2. The very record you quote commends my ideal 
 man as worthy of love and unbounded reverence. 
 
 D. " He drove the Jews out of their own meeting- 
 house." — Matt. xxi. 12. 
 
 1. Perhaps they deserved it. - Then he only did his 
 duty. 
 
 2. The Jews, in their quietly submitting to the 
 offense, confessed that he did right. 
 
 E. He made wine for " a crowd that was already 
 drunk."— -John ii. 1-10. 
 
PAEKEU'S FOURTH LETTER. 97 
 
 1. You admit the wine-making from water. 
 
 2. There is not a fact in the record to show that a 
 soul at the feast was " drunk." 
 
 3. You will have to search more diligently for blem- 
 ishes in the character of my ideal man, before you can 
 persuade me that Spiritualism has anything better to 
 offer the world. 
 
 VII. I submit this item "to the jury." 
 
 VIII. Is also submitted. 
 
 IX. Also. 
 
 X. Also. 
 
 XI. Also. 
 
 XII. Also. 
 
 XIII. There is some difference between an " object 
 of individual interest " and " selfishness." When you 
 attempt an answer to my 13th reason, I will reply. 
 
 XIV. Submitted. 
 
 XV. Also. 
 
 XVI. You say, give some proof of your 16th propo- 
 sition. I will. 
 
 1st. Jesus says, " If any man will come after me, 
 let him deny himself" &c. — Matt. xvi. 24; Luke 
 ix. 23. 
 
 1. Paul says, " Mortify, therefore, your members 
 which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, 
 inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetous- 
 ness, which is idolatry." — Col. iii. 5. 
 
 2. " And they that are Christ's have crucified the 
 flesh with its affections and lusts." — Gal. v. 24. 
 
 3. " Teaching us that denying ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and 
 godly in this present world. 
 
 2d. The incentives are, — 
 7 
 
98 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 1. Personal purity and happiness. 
 
 2. The good of others. 
 
 3. The honor of the gospel. 
 
 4. The glory of Christ. 
 
 5. The glory of God. 
 
 6. The inheritance of temporal good. 
 
 7. The response of a "good conscience." 
 
 8. Assurance in trial. 
 
 9. Triumph over the fear of death. 
 
 10. A resurrection from the dead. 
 
 11. A heavenly body. 
 
 12. An everlasting home with God. 
 
 Has Spiritualism incentives to self-discipline supe- 
 rior to these ? If so, show them. 
 
 XVII. Submitted. 
 
 XVIII. Also. 
 
 XIX. Also. 
 
 XX. Also. 
 
 In concluding this part of my letter, allow me to 
 say, that your reply to my twenty reasons is very 
 much like a confession of total defeat on your part. 
 You have not displayed your usual courage and 
 strength. You seem to wither when you approach 
 them ; but I can not blame you. 
 
 1. Accept my thanks for your honest acknowledg- 
 ment that I did a " good job " in my animadversions 
 on your twenty reasons for Spiritualism. I wish I 
 could return the compliment, but candidly I can not. 
 
 2. As my letter is already so long, I shall not no- 
 tice the " mistakes " which your " copyist " has com- 
 pelled rne again to make. 
 
 3. Your syllogism. 
 
 I admit that " all that God made is very good." 
 
Parker's fourth letter. 99 
 
 I deny that " God made " all "evil." 
 Hence your conclusion may or may not be true ; 
 as, " therefore," some " evil is good." 
 Your proof texts. 
 
 1. Isa. xlv. 5-7. 
 
 " I . . . create evil ; " not all evil. 
 
 2. Amos iii. 6. 
 
 1. This passage seems clearly to favor your position* 
 
 2. "Evil," in your sense, means " sin," as well as 
 pain ; for that reason I deny your minor. 
 
 3. If you mean by " evil," physical calamities or 
 affections only, I will even grant your minor, and then 
 show that your conclusion that evil is good is true ; 
 for every pain felt is an evil, and, if properly inter- 
 preted, must develop good. 
 
 I will close this letter by hurriedly noticing a 
 few points with which you conclude yours of the 
 13th inst. 
 
 1. " The sin of slavery developed the sentiment of 
 freedom." 
 
 No. An abuse of "freedom," rather, developed the 
 sentiment of slavery. 
 
 2. War was made upon the churches before their 
 " sins " outraged anybody. 
 
 3. You think the Bible teaches " that drunkards, 
 &c, occupy higher spheres than do those who have 
 not been disciplined by crime." 
 
 Your proof is, "Publicans," i. e., tax-gatherers, 
 " and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." 
 — Matt. xxi. 31. 
 
 1. Publicans were not sinners because they were 
 publicans. 
 
 2. Their discipline as publicans did not fit them for 
 the kingdom. 
 
100 SPIRITUALISM Oil CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 3. Publicans forsook their publicanisrn before en- 
 tering the kingdom. 
 
 4. In the kingdom they mourned the fact that they 
 ever had been sinful publicans. 
 
 So with the harlots. 
 
 1. They forsook that life. 
 
 2. They deplored that life. 
 
 3. They entered the kingdom to avoid that life and 
 its fruits, not to enjoy them. 
 
 4. No Bible writer ever intimates that one of these 
 characters occupies a "higher sphere" in the king- 
 dom in consequence of their former sins. 
 
 The Bible specially says that no " liar, drunkard, 
 adulterer, fornicator, or unclean person,'" shall inherit 
 the kingdom of God, which it could not say if those 
 sins disciplined any one for that kingdom. 
 
 Defeated again. 
 
 Finally : your fourth letter has been read and duly 
 weighed. Still, I have seen not one good reason for 
 forsaking the Bible for Spiritualism. You are not 
 converting me. I know I shall continue in the 
 " darkness of the old superstition," — a stranger to 
 the glories of Harmonialism — unless you begin soon 
 to display some of the excellences of the system. 
 
 You promised me argument. I have not seen it. 
 
 Can you not give one good argument in support of 
 Spiritualism ? 
 
 If so, display it. 
 
 Wishing you health, 
 
 I am, as ever, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
hull's fifth letter. 101 
 
 MOSES HULL'S FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 Boston, Mass., August 3, 1872. 
 
 Brother Parker : Your fourth letter was re- 
 ceived more than a week since, but being just on the 
 eve of a camp-meeting where I had to conduct all of 
 the business, and do the principal part of the speak- 
 ings I have not had time, until this morning, to read 
 it. Now I will try to jot down a reply. 
 
 I. I remember my promise to say a few words on the 
 biblical and spiritual ideas of the marriage question. 
 You seem to be in a terrible fear that Spiritualism will 
 overthrow the sacred institution of marriage. Does 
 your marriage hang on so slender a thread that Spirit- 
 ualism could snap it in twain ? If so, the quicker it 
 is sundered, the better. You know that Christianity 
 shook off all that could then be shaken of Jewish in- 
 stitutions ; and promises, " Yet once more I shake not 
 the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet 
 once more, signifleth the removing of those things 
 that are (or may be) shaken, as of things that are 
 made, that those things which can not be shaken may 
 remain." Heb. xii. 26, 27. Now, if your marriage can 
 not be shaken, it will remain. If it can be shaken to 
 pieces, it should not remain. Let us have the bonds 
 that bind two souls in one so strong and so natural 
 that nothing can snap them asunder. Your fear that 
 true marriage will suffer from Spiritualism is kin- 
 
102 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 dred with the fear so often expressed in former times, 
 that, "If the niggers are set free, they will all come 
 right here among us, and marry our sons and daugh- 
 ters." I always answered, "No doubt your sons and 
 daughters will find their level ; that is a matter that 
 does not depend upon the abolition of slavery. " So, my 
 dear brother, I answer you : If love is stronger than 
 all things else, it will hold you to your wife. If love 
 should prove strong enough to hold you to your wife, 
 you will not need the aid of any institution to strength- 
 en the bonds. If love is not strong enough, cursed 
 be the institution that forces you to live with one for 
 whom you have no love. Have no fear ; Spiritualism 
 does not design to cut any ropes that lift humanity 
 heavenward. It only designs to sever those that bind 
 the soul bach from truth, progress, and heaven. 
 
 II. I will not speak for others, but my Spiritualism 
 is certainly opposed to the sj^stem of marriage taught 
 in many places in the Bible. The old bachelor Paul 
 did not believe in marriage at all. He believed there 
 were other worse institutions, and would accept mar- 
 riage as an alternative — on no other ground. He said, 
 " It is good for a man not to touch a woman ; never- 
 theless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his 
 own wife." 1 Cor. vii. 1, 2. As little as Paul thought 
 of the marriage institution, he thought he would pre- 
 fer it to going to hell. His words are, " I would that 
 all men were even as I myself (that is, unmarried) ; 
 but every man hath his proper gift of God, one af- 
 ter this manner and another after that. I say, there- 
 fore, to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them 
 that they abide even as I But if they can not contain, 
 let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.'" 
 
hull's fifth letter. 103 
 
 Verses 7-9. Paul thought, to avoid fornication it 
 was necessary to marry. I think that what passes for 
 marriage is one of the poorest preventives in the 
 world. David had a few wives of his own ; then a 
 batch of Saul's wives were given to his bosom (see 
 2 Sam. xii. 8) ; but they were not all enough to pre- 
 vent fornication. See ii. 11, 1-5. The marriage 
 system, though Abraham had beautiful Sarah for a 
 wife, was not enough to prevent fornication in his 
 case, for he left his wife's bed, and went to that of his 
 servant girl. But he set an example for many of his 
 Christian followers of abandoning his paramour and 
 her illegitimate offspring. Gen. xvi. 4, xxi. 14. 
 
 Solomon was married seven hundred times, and had 
 three hundred concubines, or paramours, thrown in, 
 and yet he was not satisfied. These and other such 
 instances of marriage recorded in the Bible are not 
 indorsed by the great body of Spiritualists. 
 
 At a convention in Vermont, the Spiritualists 
 handed the world a resolution embodying my views 
 of marriage. Here it is : — 
 
 "Resolved, That the only true and natural marriage 
 is an exclusive conjugal love between one man and 
 one woman ; and the only true home is the isolated 
 home based upon this true love." 
 
 And you really oppose the Spiritualists' views of 
 marriage ! Do you ? or are you only trying to frighten 
 your ignorant brethren who may read this discussion ? 
 Probably your views of marriage would be better ex- 
 pressed in Num. xxxi. 17 : " Now, therefore, kill 
 every male among the little ones, and kill every 
 woman that hath . . . But all the women 
 children that have not . . , keep alive for 
 
 yourselves." 
 
104 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 That is a system of marriage (or concubinage ; 
 which do you call it ?) opposed to modern Spiritual- 
 ism. So was that practiced by Rev. Robertson of 
 Louisville, while you were writing your last letter to 
 me on the evils of Spiritualism. 
 
 You will remember how the tribe of Benjamin got 
 their wives. They stole them, trapped them, and 
 took them without so much as their own consent — 
 lay in ambush and caught them as you would a wild 
 animal, or a panther does its prey. If that is biblical 
 marriage, I prefer another kind. See Judges xxi. 
 7-23. 
 
 Pardon me, dear brother ; I have occupied so much 
 space in the fulfillment of my promise, that I must 
 pass many of the smaller points of your letter with- 
 out notice. That, however, is hardly to be regretted, 
 as many of your points are so self-refuting that no 
 words of mine could hasten their destruction. All the 
 ad eaptandum about "your not believing your own 
 arguments," " insincerity," &c, you may consider 
 thrown in. I have no space for such remarks, nor to 
 reply to such charges in your letter. 
 
 I made no " concession " one way or another with 
 regard to Rom. v. 17. I have not attempted its dis- 
 cussion in any way. Don't be in too big a hurry for 
 concessions and victories ; you may " catch a Tartar." 
 Rom. vi. 17, thanks God that the church had been 
 " the servants of sin." The texts you quoted about 
 " obeying the truth," " obeying unrighteousness," 
 &c, referred to church forms and ceremonies. It 
 made no difference how good a man was — he did not 
 obey the truth, but lived in unrighteousness, if he 
 failed to comply with the forms, ceremonies, and ordi- 
 
hull's fifth letter. 105 
 
 nances preached by Paul. It was simply Jesus' obe- 
 dience, and a belief in that, that made people right- 
 eous in Paul's estimation. See Rom. v. 3 9. It was 
 Abraham's belief, and not his good works, that made 
 him righteous. Rom. iv. 3. And the righteousness 
 preached by Paul was imputed, not the real right-do- 
 ing of the person. See verse 11. The " babes and 
 sucklings " of the gospel were sinners as really as 
 others ; but they had a blessing that common people 
 have not. Their iniquities were covered, and the Lord 
 would not impute or account their sins to them. See 
 Rom. iv. 7-8. 
 
 Conybeare and Howson saw the difficulty, and tried 
 to dodge it in the way you speak of. Alexander 
 Campbell invented another and better dodge. Dr. 
 Clarke still another. They are all capital illustrations 
 of "twisting and turning," nothing more. You are a 
 scholar, and know as others can not, that they are 
 all only artful dodges. 
 
 III. And so you think I am like other wicked men, 
 and quoted Jer. xlviii. 10, " Cursed be he that keep- 
 eth back his sword from blood," for a wicked purpose. 
 Complimentary — ain't you ? 
 
 I have no reply. When I want to know the mean- 
 ing of a passage. of Scripture, I must refer to "an 
 uncompromising Bible-believer " like yourself. The 
 Bible can certainly have no meaning that you have 
 not seen. I like the compliments you bestow on your- 
 self better than those you give me. 
 
 IV. You think Paul did not warn against knowl- 
 edge or learning, when he admonished his brethren to 
 " beware lest any man spoil them through philoso- 
 phy." In this you are mistaken ; he was always very 
 
106 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 careful to warn against " excellency of speech or wis- 
 dom," even resolving every question back to the 
 power of God, in contrast with " the wisdom of men." 
 For himself, he determined to ignore all knowledge, 
 save " Jesus Christ and him crucified." 1 Cor. ii. 1-5. 
 
 Your division of philosophy into eight different 
 classes does not help the matter. Paul did not specify 
 any class of philosophy. In the absence of any spe- 
 cifications, I submit that he meant anything that could 
 come under the term. 
 
 V. You forget that this is a written discussion, 
 and thus render yourself liable to the charge of mis- 
 representation, when, if my words were not written, 
 you might escape a just visitation for some of your 
 sins. 
 
 Here is an illustration. In section III. you say, 
 " I am glad you so candidly confess that Spiritualism 
 can not give us better writings or writers to make 
 better, happier, or more prosperous men, or facts, or 
 moral principles, or spiritual phenomena, than are 
 furnished by the Bible, which I conceive to be a total 
 surrender of the whole question." 
 
 Here it is ! Surrendered again ! You are an adept 
 at gaining victories ! This is about the hundredth . 
 time you have whipped me out of my boots since these 
 letters commenced, and yet I seem to have them on ! 
 Now, it is unfortunate for your victory, but the con- 
 fession you quote from me I never made, publicly or 
 privately, with pen or voice. You should read my 
 letters before replying to them. 
 
 The term " present truth " has no meaning to your 
 mind. It ought to have. So " uncompromising a 
 believer in the Bible ' ' as yourself ought to have read 
 
hull's fifth lettee. 107 
 
 it enough to have formed the acquaintance of such 
 phrases. You will find this, to you meaningless ex- 
 pression, in 2 Pet. i. 12. 
 
 You can not see that an inspiration which comes 
 to us is ours, and think I murder the English lan- 
 guage. I can not be responsible for your obtuseness. 
 
 The " squalid Egyptians," of whom you speak, 
 could not, if they would, get " the garments of the 
 Pharaohs." The best they could possibly do is to read 
 the history of their garments. I incline to think that 
 their " filthy rags " would render them more practical 
 service in a cold clay than a gilt-edged bound history 
 of Pharaoh's old clothes. So I think our inspiration, 
 though it may not amount to very much, is better for 
 us than the history of that which came to Moses or 
 Isaiah. I am a man as really as was Moses of old ; and 
 though, for the sake of the argument, I grant that 
 Moses' inspiration was perfect, I, by virtue of my 
 manhood, demand an inspiration for myself. Your 
 prophecies about our inspiration dying with or before 
 the mediums, comes by inspiration from a not-very- 
 far-seeing class of spirits. 
 
 VI. Your defense of the robber and murderer who 
 wrote the first books of the Bible is such as one 
 would expect in the first effort of a pettifogger who 
 was taking upon himself the role of a lawyer. The 
 reader who could not see through the groundwork of 
 your pettifogging is not worth an effort to enlighten. 
 
 Brother, had you not better take out a warrant for 
 me, and bind me to keep the peace ? You are so 
 much afraid that I will "kill your body and soul" ! 
 I am dangerous, and if I were not a coward, would 
 probably attack you! Don't you get tired of such 
 
108 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 nonsense ? Can't you see far enough to know that 
 all such talk must recoil upon your own head ? Your 
 readers are not all fools. They demand argument. 
 If you have it, for Heaven's sake bring it along. If 
 you have none, show yourself a man, by laying down 
 your pen, and yielding the controversy. 
 
 VII. So you defend Paul in becoming " all things 
 to all men/' The effort to defend him is laudable, 
 the arguments inconsistent. The quotations from 
 Confucius, Buddha, and other heathen writers are 
 splendid. You will profit by studying these authors. 
 None of the quotations are parallel to those I made 
 from Paul. There is a vast difference in adapting 
 one's self to the circumstances of the poor and the 
 rich, and the material circumstances of those by which 
 one is surrounded, and becoming lawless when among 
 those who are without law. It will do for a minister 
 to "weep with those who weep," suffer with those 
 who suffer, and adopt the physical, but not the moral, 
 condition, of those by whom he is surrounded. 
 
 VIII. Please give your proof that Jesus was in 
 Egypt only once, and then only one year. You can 
 thus enlighten the world. Even admitting that this 
 is true, it does not militate against my position that 
 Jesus' doctrine was pure, unadulterated Egyptian- 
 ism. 
 
 IX. How do you know that Jonah preached to the 
 Ninevites in order to lead to a reformation ? There 
 was not a word said about it in his preaching. And 
 why was it necessary to preach a lie to reform those 
 people who did not know their right hand from their 
 left ? Why should Jonah lament the failure of his 
 prophecy when they repented, if their repentance was 
 
hull's fifth letter. 109 
 
 to cause the salvation of the city ? Was Jonah's 
 prophecy conditioned on the wickedness of the peo- 
 ple ? Is the reformation of the people generally the 
 cause of all the failures of prophecy ? Your argument 
 on the Abrahamic promise will fall of its own weight. 
 I will not kick a dead argument just to convince it of 
 after-death punishment. 
 
 X. Did I say Emma Hardinge was not a Spiritu- 
 alist ? Did I hint such a thing ? Please read my 
 letter again. I never said or thought such a thing. 
 I do say she is not a representative of American 
 Spiritualism in its differences from Christianity. She 
 is a Spiritualist of the English type — one who hitches 
 Spiritualism on to Christianity. 
 
 XL Next you seek to shirk the controversy by in- 
 viting me again to read Walter Scott's " Great De- 
 monstration of the Authority of the Bible" and impeach 
 it if I can. I know you would prefer to have me af- 
 ter Walter Scott, rather than W. F. Parker. I pre- 
 fer at present to follow my own opponent. I presume, 
 however, that you have read Walter Scott, and boiled 
 his arguments down, and put them into your letters. 
 If they were as sickly when used by Walter Scott as 
 when put into your articles, "The Great Demonstra- 
 tion "is in feeble argumentative health. You must 
 call in your doctors of divinity ! That thought that 
 " the world needs no more arguments for Christiani- 
 ty," is a happy one. If you had thought of it just 
 before you undertook to defend it, it would have 
 been well for your cause. 
 
 XII. Now that your twenty arguments for Chris- 
 tianity have proved worthless, you decide that they 
 are not your best arguments. Why did you not hand 
 
110 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 out your best ? Were you only " funnin' " ? Please 
 in your next give us a sample of your very best. I 
 think I will yet extort the confession from you that 
 all your arguments are worthless. 
 
 XIII. You still stick to your ''ideal man." Well, 
 while you only aim as high as Jesus, you will surely 
 not ascend beyond him. I want all the good there 
 was in Jesus, and more. I do not want it because Je- 
 sus or any other person had it, but I want it because 
 it is good. Even the mistakes in Jesus' life I want to 
 use as illustrations, to save others from the same. 
 
 You think those hogs that Jesus converted, who 
 committed suicide, were mediums ; you are mistaken ; 
 they were members of your own church; they believed 
 in faith, repentance, and baptism for the remission of 
 sins, and as soon as they made " the good confession, 1 ' 
 that you to this day require of all your converts, viz., 
 that Jesus was the Son of God, they went to the sea 
 for the purpose of being baptized, and in their eager- 
 ness to attend to the ordinance, they got into so steep 
 a place that they could not get out. Brother Parker, 
 these poor prototypes of yours were the first Christian 
 martyrs. I notice many Christians to this day imi- 
 tate these ancient hogs in swinishness, if not in other 
 particulars. 
 
 XIV. In the record of the wine-making, you think 
 " there was not a fact to show that a soul at the feast 
 was drunk." Let us see. " The governor of the feast, 
 supposing that the bridegroom had furnished the wine, 
 called him, and said, Every man at the beginning doth 
 set forth good wine ; and when men have well drunk 
 (or are well drunk), then that which is worse ; but 
 thou hast kept the good wine until now." John ii. 10. 
 
hull's fifth letter. Ill 
 
 What can that mean but that he had departed from 
 the usual custom of giving them the good wine at the 
 beginning, and had kept it until they were well drunk? 
 If they were not " well drunk," that is, very drunk, 
 then there is no meaning in that text. Enough of 
 your ideal man. 
 
 XV. The best argument you have made is your re- 
 ply to my seventh and fifteenth paragraph inclusive. 
 Here it is: "I submit this item to the jury." If you 
 had said that at the first of your letter, and then 
 written the word " also," after each of my items, your 
 case would have stood in a more favorable light. 
 
 XVI. In your incentives to Christianity, many of 
 which are very good, you have not given one but 
 that is purely selfish ; thus you have proved my words 
 true. The most of them I obey. I do it from the 
 purely selfish motive of being better and happier. I 
 am after happiness, and will do anything that will 
 bring it. As nothing wrong will bring lasting happi- 
 ness, I will try to refrain from doing wrong. 
 
 Your twelve propositions could be embraced in one 
 or two at the furthest. I will embrace the incentives 
 Spiritualism offers for purity in one proposition — the 
 elevation of humanity. 
 
 XVII. You next admit that all that God made is 
 " very good," but you deny that God made all evil. 
 That admits that God made some evil. Very well ; 
 here is a syllogism : — 
 
 1. All that God made is very good. 
 
 2. God made some evil. 
 
 3. Therefore some evil is good. 
 
 But to your argument. You deny that God made 
 all evil ; tell me how it began to exist. 
 
112 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 1. Evil or sin, if you please, exists. 
 
 2. Evil either exists by God's power and consent, 
 or contrary to God's power and consent. 
 
 3. If it exists by his power, then God is the au- 
 thor of sin and evil, and responsible for it. 
 
 4. If it exists contrary to, and in spite of, his power, 
 then God would put it down, but can not. 
 
 5. If God can, but will not, put evil down, it is be- 
 cause he sees that it is best it should exist, and is, 
 therefore, good, or God is malignant. 
 
 6. If God would, but can not, put evil down, then 
 evil is king, and God is no longer God. 
 
 My brother, you can not believe that absolute evil 
 exists without believing that God is either weak or 
 wicked. Which is it ? 
 
 In conclusion, you ask for one good argument in 
 support of Spiritualism. I suppose by that you mean 
 one argument in favor of the spiritual phenomena. 
 You shall have it in my next. 
 
 As ever, your brother, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
 W. F. PARKERS FIFTH REPLY. 
 
 Cedar Hill, near La Graxge, Kt., > 
 August 15, 1872. 5 
 
 Dear Brother : Your letter, dated August 7, 
 came duly to hand, and its contents have been duly 
 considered. 
 
 Your remarks on " marriage," which find place in 
 the first part of your letter, I will leave unnoticed un- 
 
paeker's fifth lettee. 113 
 
 til I shall have paid due attention to the other matters 
 spread out in your communication. 
 
 I. I must say you have a speedy way of dispos- 
 ing of serious difficulties. How easy it is to say. 
 11 As many of your points are self-refuting, no words 
 of mine could hasten then destruction*' ! I would 
 like to have you take the trouble to show some few 
 of my ;i self-refuting '• "points.'" And as to my 
 charges of insincerity. &c, I will say I am not aware 
 that I have hastily made any such charges. I am 
 ready to give you the credit of being sincere in the 
 most glaring perversions of Scripture record, if you 
 avow your "sincerity." But I do honestly think 
 your cautious readers will find many statements in 
 your documents which it will be difficult to believe 
 bear the stamp of "sincerity." But let this kind of 
 talk pass. Our readers will form their own conclu- 
 sions, and I think will not need our aid in making up 
 their verdict. 
 
 Still, as you undertook to lead me out of the fogs 
 of Bibleism into the ethereal light of Spiritualism, and 
 as your arguments are directly for my conversion, I 
 submit that it is allowable that I should pronounce 
 my judgment on the arguments by which you would 
 convince me. I did not expect to re-convert you to 
 Christianity. That would be. I dare say, a hopeless 
 task. For to such ones as yourself I believe the words 
 of Paul forcibly apply : — 
 
 " For it is impossible for those who were once en- 
 lightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and 
 were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have 
 tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the 
 world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them 
 8 
 
114 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to them- 
 selves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open 
 shame." Heb. vi. 4-6. 
 Now to your arguments. 
 
 1. "It was no matter how good a man was ; he 
 did not obey the truth, but lived in unrighteousness, 
 if he failed to comply with the forms, ceremonies, and 
 ordinances preached by Paul." 
 
 This is a " hefty " declaration, and if it were true, 
 would, in my estimation, certainly damage the teach- 
 ing of Paul. But it is not true. Nowhere do I find 
 Paul putting " forms, ceremonies, and ordinances " 
 before purity of heart and life. According to my 
 reading, Paul gives forms, &c, the last and most in- 
 significant place. When you adduce a bit of proof to 
 sustain this assertion, I will give it respectful consid- 
 eration. 
 
 2. "It was simply Jesus' obedience, and a belief in 
 that, that made people righteous in Paul's estimation. 
 See Rom. v. 19." 
 
 I have examined your proof text, and do not find 
 your statement in it. Here it is: "For as by one 
 man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the 
 obedience of one shall many be made righteous." 
 
 Now, it would be just as rational for you to affirm 
 that " it was simply Adam's disobedience, and a be- 
 lief in that, that made people wicked " in Paul's esti- 
 mation, as to utter the statement you do. 
 
 3. "It was Abraham's belief, and not his good 
 works, that made him righteous. Rom. iv. 3." 
 
 1. Your text reads, " For what saith the Scrip- 
 ture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted 
 unto him for righteousness." You have excepted 
 
packer's fifth letter. 115 
 
 good works here, which Paul has not. He does not 
 specially mention them. But he makes his statement 
 in full view of " what saith the Scripture " ? 
 
 2. The words of the apostle James are conclusive 
 against you in this particular : Was not Abraham, 
 our father, justified by works when he had offered 
 Isaac, his son, upon the altar ? Seest thou how faith 
 wrought with his works, and by works was faith 
 made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled 
 which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was im- 
 puted unto him for righteousness : and he was called 
 the friend of God. Ye see, then, how that by works 
 a man is justified, and not by faith only. James 
 ii. 21-24. 
 
 You do not, so far as I am able to judge, under- 
 stand Paul's doctrine of righteousness at all. And it 
 seems to me to be a waste of time to controvert what 
 proceeds from a total misapprehension of the great 
 apostle's doctrine. 
 
 Your whole effort appears to be, to make me be- 
 lieve that Paul looks upon sin as the foundation of 
 all good in human life and history. I think I have 
 conclusively shown the erroneousness of this position, 
 and by barely referring to the proofs submitted, I am 
 willing to let the matter pass for the judgment of our 
 readers. 
 
 3. Your supposition that Conybeare and Howson 
 " tried to dodge " the difficulty in Rom. vi. 17, mer- 
 its no attention whatever. 
 
 II. I shall suffer your reply to my explanation of 
 Jer. xlviii. 10, to pass for what it is worth. I think, 
 however, it would be better to show wherein my ex- 
 planation was wrong, than to enter upon a general 
 
116 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 work of scolding me for so successfully meeting your 
 position. Until you do show, by sound reasoning, 
 that my disposition of that passage is incorrect, I 
 shall take it for granted that you feel the correctness 
 of my views. 
 
 III. I deny again that Paul was an enemy to 
 learning, in any sense. He did condemn that pedan- 
 tic pride of the so-called philosophers of his day, 
 which did not suffer them to take into proper consid- 
 eration the grand facts developed by the gospel. 
 
 I do not think you strengthen your cause by al- 
 luding to 1 Cor. ii. 1-5. When Paul elevates the 
 "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," he does 
 not declare the inutility of science, knowledge, and 
 art. Circumstances alter cases. Paul was writing to 
 a body of Christians, some of whom were inoculated 
 with the speculations of Grecian and Oriental philos- 
 ophy. That philosophy was more of imagination 
 than of fact. Indeed, it was in the way of fact. 
 When Lord Bacon published to the world his " Or- 
 ganum," then the inutility of speculation was clearly 
 enunciated. From that time, learning was less in 
 word, more "in deed and in truth;" i. e., more the 
 result of experiment, fact. So Paul would have the 
 Corinthians less beguiled by the imagination, and 
 more under the control of demonstrated facts. In 
 fact, I see in Paul's communication to the Corinthian 
 church the seed which afterward found so full fruit- 
 fulness in the canons of Lord Bacon. Thus Paul, to 
 my mind, instead of being the foe of all learning, is 
 really the father of the true inductive philosophy. 
 
 It is strange the infidel Lyttleton, when he was 
 sifting the conversion and life of Paul for evidence 
 
Parker's fifth letter. 117 
 
 to condemn Christianity, did not see as you do the 
 apostle's hostility toward learning, which he cer- 
 tainly would have done had Paul been really opposed 
 to true philosophy in any sense. The noble lord not 
 only failed to find this fault in the apostle, but he also 
 found developed in his history overwhelming reasons 
 why he should cease from infidelity, and become a 
 devout Christian. 
 
 IV. I am aware of the fact that this exchange of 
 friendly letters has assumed somewhat of the char- 
 acter of a written discussion. But I am not fearful 
 of having fixed upon me any ''misrepresentations" 
 of facts. I think I indite my thoughts with mod- 
 erate care, and I seldom venture to make a statement 
 until I feel secure in making it. 
 
 When, therefore, I said, in my fourth letter to you, 
 " I am glad you so candidly confess that Spiritualism 
 can not give us better writers," &c, &c, than are given 
 us by the Bible, I certainly said, what I then felt jus- 
 tified in saying, and what I now feel justified in re- 
 peating. I asked you to show me that Spiritualism 
 could give us better writers, facts, principles, &c. ; 
 and as you made not the least effort to do so, but 
 evaded the point in toto, by a " suppose I can't," &c, 
 I took this plain evasion to be a clear confession of 
 inability to do so. And I shall be obliged to believe 
 Spiritualism herein a failure, until your catalogue of 
 better things shall be forthcoming. 
 
 There are, remember, more ways than one in which 
 a confession may be made. What if you have not 
 "with pen or voice" said, in so many words, that 
 Spiritualism fails to give the world better authors, 
 facts, promises, commandments, &c, than the Bible ; 
 
118 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 still, when I ask you fairly to give us the better 
 things of Spiritualism, you fail or refuse to do so. 
 What can I consider this other than a plain confes- 
 sion of inability to do so ? 
 
 V. You accuse rne of pettifogging in order to 
 shield Moses from the imputation of murder. I 
 freely admit the killing on the part of Moses, but I 
 positively deny the damning circumstance of the 
 fact — "malice aforethought." And besides, I say, 
 Justice will try the man by the moral standard of his 
 own day, and not by that of a thousand years after 
 his death. Moses Hull, tried by the conscience and 
 law of A. D. 3000, will fall far short of « holiness." 
 So with the best men of all ages. Compared with 
 the men of his day, Moses has nothing to fear. And 
 by the justice of his own clay he falls or stands, and 
 not by any verdict either you or I can pass upon him. 
 
 The second paragraph in your sixth section shall 
 pass unnoticed. 
 
 VI. I shall say no more touching the point in con- 
 troversy in your seventh section. 
 
 VII. You desire me to give proof " that Jesus was 
 in Egypt only once, and then only one year." 
 
 I hardly think the burden of proof devolves upon 
 me. You affirm that Jesus taught Egyptianism, and 
 that he learned it in Egypt. In reply to this gratui- 
 tous and unsupported assertion, I intimated that the 
 only reliable documents on earth that give the facts 
 in the history of Jesus clearly show that he was in 
 Egypt only once, and then for not probably more 
 than one year. Hence your charge of Egyptianism 
 is without proof. 
 
 Matt. ii. 14, says Joseph " took the young child" 
 
paekee's fifth lettee. 119 
 
 and departed into Egypt. Matt. ii. 20, says, " He arose 
 and took the young child . . . and came into the land 
 of Israel." Nothing is said as to the length of time 
 between these two events. Only one thing is certain — 
 that a young child, and the same young child, went down 
 into and was carried up out of the land of Egypt. 
 His stay there may have "been one year or two years ; 
 but it was not long enough for him to be schooled in 
 Egyptianism. Now, if you have good proof that Jesus 
 was ever afterward, and for a longer time, in Egypt, 
 please adduce it. 
 
 VIII. You ask me, " How do you know that Jonah 
 preached to the Ninevites in order to lead to reforma- 
 tion?" 
 
 1. I know it from the fact that his preaching pro- 
 duced that effect upon the king and his subjects. See 
 Jonah iii. 5-10. 
 
 2. Again, Jesus said the Ninevites " repented at 
 the preaching of Jonah." Matt. xii. 41. 
 
 3. I have said on this point all that need be said ; 
 but to avoid the possibility of your using my silence 
 as an indication of the difficulty of your other ques- 
 tions, I will proceed to answer them in detail, even at 
 the risk of repeating what I may have said before. 
 
 1st. " Why was it necessary to preach a lie to re- 
 form those people who did not know their right hand 
 from their left ? " 
 
 1. This is, to my mind, " a foolish question." 
 
 2. The preaching was not to reform that class of 
 "people," for they needed no reformation. 
 
 3. He did not preach a lie. He simply denounced 
 a judgment, which was conditional, as is evident from 
 the passage already indicated. 
 
120 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 2d. " Why should Jonah lament the failure of his 
 prophecy when they repented, if their repentance was 
 to cause the salvation of the city ? " 
 
 1. Jonah was a servant, and sent to preach the 
 city's destruction. He had but one thing to do, and 
 he did it. 
 
 2. God was under no obligation to give Jonah a 
 knowledge of all his intentions, any more than I am 
 compelled to instruct my messenger, whom I send on 
 a special errand, with all of my intentions. 
 
 3. I dare say Jonah did not know all of his Master's 
 intentions, and he wept because of that fact. 
 
 4. Jonah was evidently quite unmerciful toward 
 the heathen ; but this error was subsequently de- 
 monstrated to him. 
 
 5. You seem to find fault with God, and to accuse 
 Jonah of being a false prophet, because God did not 
 destroy "that great city," "wherein were more than 
 six score thousand persons that could not discern be- 
 tween their right and their left hand, and also much 
 cattle." Jonah iv. 11. 
 
 6. But suppose God had done just what Jonah 
 denounced against the city ; what would you have 
 said ? Would you have been better satisfied ? In 
 that case you might have given Jonah the credit of 
 having been a true prophet, but you would have ac- 
 cused God with perpetrating an abominable and in- 
 discriminate murder. I do not see how it is possible 
 to satisfy you or your colleagues. 
 
 3d. " Was Jonah's prophecy conditioned on the 
 wickedness of the people ? " 
 
 Allow me to assure you that you have no authority 
 for calling Jonah's preaching "prophecy." Jonah 
 
Parker's fifth letter. 121 
 
 does not call it "prophecy " nor does the historian of 
 Jonah call it so ; nor does any other Bible writer 
 known to me call it so. Neither should you call it 
 prophecy. There is a wide difference between preach- 
 ing and prophesying. Jonah was a preacher, but not 
 a prophet. He was no more a prophet, in the true 
 sense of the term, when he simply denounced judg- 
 ment upon the city for its wickedness, than is a 
 Methodist preacher who denounces " hell " upon the 
 impenitent at death. First prove that Jonah was a 
 prophet, prove that he made any pretensions to that 
 office, and then you may have perhaps a shadow of a 
 basis for your charge of failure upon him. Until you 
 do make good at least one of these points, jovly affirma- 
 tions will deserve no further notice. 
 
 4th. Your third question deserves no attention. 
 
 IX. As to Mrs. Hardinge I have no more to say. 
 I am glad you say she is a Spiritualist. That fact is 
 all I want ; for it proves that the Bible by at least one 
 4 'star" in the spiritualistic heavens is treated with 
 becoming respect — that in her estimation the Jewish 
 law, which you consider so abominable, was simply 
 "perfect" and accomplished its end. ' 
 
 X. Walter Scott's Demonstration may be scoffed 
 at — it can not be answered. I perceive that you 
 have a happy way of getting out of logical difficulties. 
 When your knowledge of the matter in dispute is 
 exhausted, and when an unanswerable document is 
 offered for your inspection, you simply invent a ridicu- 
 lous evasion, and drop the subject. This is an old 
 trick, in which there is now no deception. 
 
 I have borrowed nothing from Walter Scott in thia 
 controversy, as I have yet no need of borrowing capi- 
 
122 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 tal. You put me to a very limited expenditure of 
 resources, and I assure you I have ample means on 
 hand of my own to meet all the demands you can 
 make upon me. 
 
 When the evidences for Christianity come legiti- 
 mately before us, you will find me sufficiently pre- 
 pared. 
 
 XI. Those hogs nevertheless were spiritualist me- 
 diums ; for a medium is one possessed of a demon — a 
 dead person's spirit. This you can not deny. I shall 
 admit that those spirits in pork did do two things — 
 confess Jesus as the Son of God, and immerse them- 
 selves. All that is clear ; but their immersions were 
 their destruction. Hence I learn that even the per- 
 formance, by spiritualistic mediums, of some things 
 enjoined on others for salvation, is everlasting destruc- 
 tion to said mediums. If those hogs got into my 
 church, as you say, remember they got into it to 
 perish ; let your mediums see the point, and be careful 
 never to be found where they must as mediums for- 
 ever perish. 
 
 XII. Your comment on " well drunk," is too glar- 
 ing a perversion to need further notice. I affirm again 
 that there is not a fact in the entire passage that a 
 soul was in any degree of intoxication at any period 
 of the feast. Your manufactured " that is," is Moses 
 Hull, and not John the apostle. 
 
 XIII. I am glad you consider my submissions to 
 the jury good arguments. I agree with you they are' 
 my best arguments for this reason, that to submit 
 what you frequently write to persons of common sense 
 is to at once seal its doom. I am glad you are aware 
 of this fact. 
 
paeker's fifth lettek. 123 
 
 XIV. Your eighteenth item introduces the ques- 
 tion of "Evil." I do not see how the discussion of 
 the question, "How did evil come into the world?" 
 will be any advantage to either side at this time. I 
 think I am fully able to show, 1, That some " evil " is 
 really good, because its consequences are good only ; 
 2. That some "evil" (sin) is really bad, because its 
 present and future consequences are bad only; 3. 
 That God is the author of certain instruments and 
 agents by which " evil "(suffering) and " evil " (sin) 
 are produced : the first " evil " (suffering) is directly 
 from his laws, and always good in its design and con- 
 sequences ; the second " evil " (sin) is exclusively the 
 act of the created agents (man), it being, to my mind, 
 impossible for God to make man, and yet to deny him 
 the power to sin, if he desires to do so. This power 
 to sin denied to man, he would not have been man — 
 he would not have had human nature ; 4. That " evil " 
 (sin) can be and is in the world, and that neither the 
 goodness nor power of God is therefore compromised. 
 I think your captious question, " God is either weak 
 or wicked — which is it ? " proceeds from a want of 
 understanding. But I am prepared, at the proper 
 time, to admit the presence and power of " evil " in 
 the world, and to prove that that fact does not justify 
 the supposition that therefore " God is either weak or 
 wicked." I think you had better be bringing out 
 the beauties of Spiritualism for our inspection, than 
 wasting your time in profitless questions, far from the 
 object of your letters. 
 
 XV. The last part of your letter, which was written 
 on a slip of paper, is lost ; and hence I must pass it 
 
124 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 without remark. If there was anything of importance 
 in it, please notify me in your next. 
 
 XVI. In conclusion, allow me to say, that I have 
 not time just now to pay attention to your views on 
 marriage. Perhaps you will develop them more fully 
 in your sixth letter. If you do, I will then pay them 
 respectful attention. 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
125 
 
 MOSES HULL'S SIXTH LETTER, 
 
 Boston, Mass., September 14, 1872. 
 
 Brother Parker : Your reply to my last was a 
 long time getting written, and still longer getting to 
 me. The accompanying reasons for tardiness are ac- 
 cepted as all-sufficient. While your letter seems to 
 lack the vigor and logic of former letters, the most of 
 it makes up in candor what it lacks in argument. As 
 I have important matter to bring out, and the most 
 of your letter only touches points already before the 
 jury, you will pardon me if I remain silent on many 
 of them. 
 
 I. You and Paul give me the consolation of know- 
 ing that my case is hopeless. "Impossible to renew 
 them again to repentance." Well, be it so; until I 
 hear something better than you have presented, it 
 will indeed be impossible. I have done just what 
 Paul told me to do. I have "left the first principles 
 of the doctrine of Christ, and gone on unto perfection, 
 not laying again the foundation of repentance from 
 dead works and faith toward God, of the doctrine 
 of baptisms, and the laying on of hands, and of resur- 
 rection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Heb. 
 vi. 1, 2. Probably Paul knew as well as yourself that 
 when a person renounces the nonsense preached in 
 the name of Christianity, he hardly ever returns to 
 it. Christianity is like the small-pox ; it seldom at- 
 tacks the same person twice. 
 
126 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 II. You miss it terribly in quoting James' words 
 to show Paul's belief with regard to " good works." 
 Please let Paul represent himself. Paul's religion 
 consisted almost wholly of forms and ceremonies, while 
 James had little or no use for them. His religion was 
 to " visit the fatherless and the widows in their afflic- 
 tion, and keep himself unspotted from the world." 
 James says, " Ye see, then, how that by works a man 
 is justified, and not by faith only. Jas. ii. 24. Paul 
 saj^s, " By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that 
 not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God. Not of works, 
 lest any man should boast." Eph. ii. 8, 9. 
 
 III. You have made the important discovery that 
 Paul, instead of being opposed to wisdom, as he teaches, 
 is a true philosopher — really " the father of the true 
 inductive philosophy." O, shade of Bacon! Philos- 
 ophers will consider that the best joke of the season. 
 Brother, you are acknowledged to be a good joker ; 
 but such jokes on so serious a matter, and at the ex- 
 pense of Lord Bacon, are just a little out of season. 
 
 IV. You err in taking my evasion of certain points 
 you undertake to make for confessions that you are 
 right. When I confess a point, it is for argument sake, 
 or because it is true. I evade points because they are 
 entirely irrelevant to any issue between us. As there 
 is no dispute between us yet as to which was the best 
 medium, David, Paul, Swedenborg, or A. J. Davis, 
 the only point being, are the latter inspired at all, I 
 have not as yet found it necessary to dispute as to 
 who has given us the best writings. Were you to 
 deny that the rain which is falling to-day is wet, I 
 should not undertake to prove that it was more wet 
 than showers which fell upon Abraham. I should be 
 
hull's sixth letter. 127 
 
 content with, proving its moisture. Then you, by 
 your course of reasoning, would torture that into a 
 confession that there was more moisture in water in 
 Abraham's day than now ! You would, as in this 
 case, be welcome to all you would make. 
 
 V. Why do you contrast the moral standard of 
 Moses' day with that of the present ? If it was as 
 good as that of to-day, there is no room for a contrast ; 
 if not, why urge me to give up present inspiration for 
 the past ? My great objection to the Bible is, that it 
 is but the child of the moral, mental, and theological 
 standards of the nations and times in which it was 
 written. We could now make a better one. 
 
 VI. If you will investigate the history of Jesus 
 from the time he was twelve years old until he was 
 thirty, you will find the burden of proof on the side 
 of his having spent that time in Egypt. 
 
 VII. You discover that my sole aim is to be brief. 
 All you have said about Jonah needs no reply ; its 
 falsity or truthfulness can not affect the issues between 
 us ; but as you demand positive proof that Jonah was 
 a prophet, you shall have it. The proof is the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 1. He prophesied. Jonah iii. 4. 
 
 2. Jesus said, "An evil and adulterous generation 
 seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given 
 it but the sign of the prophet Jonas" Matt. xii. 39. 
 Brother, be more careful of your assertions ; your re- 
 peated assertion that Jonah was not a prophet, like 
 many other things you say, will hurt you. 
 
 VIII. It is strange that you should introduce the 
 doctrine of " whatever is, is right," as a principal ob- 
 jection to Spiritualism, and, when I meet you at every 
 
128 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 point, reply with, "I think you had better be bring- 
 ing out the beauties of Spiritualism for our instruction 
 than wasting your time with profitless questions." 
 Why did you not think of these " questions " being 
 " profitless " when you introduced them? Now that 
 you have, after exhausting your store of arguments 
 against them, found them to be "profitless," I hope 
 you will confine yourself in the future to questions 
 that can profit somebody. 
 
 IX. There, I have gone through your letter, and 
 though I found no point in it really deserving a reply, 
 I have taken every sentence that could be tortured to 
 look like an argument against my position, and re- 
 viewed it. The other points in your letter are so 
 perfectly irrelevant, and such outrageous quibbles, 
 that they need no aid of mine to throw them down. 
 
 X. I remember my promise to lay before you in 
 this letter some of the reasons for believing in the 
 spiritual phenomena. I believe you already under- 
 stand that I was a materialist, or soul-sleeper, before 
 Spiritualism came to my rescue. I had searched the 
 Bible in vain for evidences of immortality. If I found 
 historical records of phenomena in that book that went 
 far toward proving the return of the dead, I always 
 found positive authoritative declarations, in the same 
 book, denying the immortality of the human soul. Thus 
 my phenomenal evidences were balanced by what I re- 
 garded as being more positive and perfect inspiration. 
 Did the Bible talk of Samuel's return (1 Sam. xxviii.), 
 — it also said, " The dead know not anything, neither 
 have they any more a reward ; for the memory of 
 them is forgotten, also their love and their hatred, and 
 their envy is now perished. Neither have they any 
 
hull's sixth letter. 129 
 
 more a portion forever in anything that is done under 
 the sun." Eccl. ix. 4, 6. 
 
 Did the Bible speak of the handwriting coming 
 from Elijah the prophet (2 Chron. xxi. 12), — it also 
 said, " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son 
 of man, in whom is no help, for his breath goeth 
 forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his 
 thoughts perish." Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4. Did the Bible 
 speak of the return of Moses and Elias, or John's 
 brother (Matt. xvii. 1-5 ; Rev. xxii. 8, 9), — this 
 evidence to my mind was neutralized by the declara- 
 tion concerning a dead man. " His sons come to honor, 
 and he knoweth it not ; they are brought low, and he 
 perceiveth it not of them." Job xiv. 21. Thus my 
 belief in the infallibility of those authoritative dec- 
 larations destroyed my faith in the historical facts 
 to which I have just referred. 
 
 XL More mature reflection has convinced me that 
 biblical writers would be more likely to be correct in 
 recording historical facts than in giving hypotheses 
 concerning them. This taught me to accept their 
 facts as such, and their statements with regard to the 
 state of the dead, the gods, angels, devils, and, in 
 fact, any theoretic statement, as theory, — nothing 
 more. This gave me a new mode of interpreting the 
 Bible, and all other ancient books. I then went 
 into a comparison of ancient and modern phenomena, 
 and found them the same, and that either, when cor- 
 roborated by the other, contained a sufficient proof 
 of the immortality of the human soul. 
 
 Brother Parker, I withstood the batteries of the pul- 
 pits and press ; all the eloquence and logic that could 
 be brought to bear was not sufficient to make me be- 
 9 
 
130 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 lieve in immortality until I saw this harmony between 
 science and modern Spiritualism. In this I am only 
 a representative of a large class who have reached the 
 44 knowledge of eternal life " through the same source. 
 Can you take it from us ? Will you ? If so, there is 
 nothing left for us but materiality, mortality, death, 
 annihilation ! 
 
 XII. Evidences of the spiritual phenomena are so 
 numerous that there are few now who would deny 
 them. Here is an extract which I clip from this 
 morning's Providence Journal. It contains proof 
 enough to show the return of those whom we call 
 dead. 
 
 " A young lady from New York has been visiting 
 relatives in Providence, living on the west side, dur- 
 ing the past two weeks, and had made all arrange- 
 ments to return home last Friday night, having a 
 strong impression upon her mind that she must go 
 home without delay. For the sake of the company of a 
 relative on her journey, however, she was induced to 
 postpone her departure till Monday morning last. 
 Sunday morning last, after a quiet night's rest, she 
 was suddenly awakened between three and four 
 o'clock; and, as soon as she was aroused, she saw a 
 figure distinctly, or was convinced she did, standing 
 in her room, near a door, looking toward her, which 
 bore an exact resemblance to a sister that she had left 
 at home in New York in her usual health, and had 
 not been informed of her being ill. The young ]ady 
 was not alarmed by the vision, or apparition, but got 
 up and went toward it, when it disappeared. She 
 then opened a window and looked, but saw nothing 
 more of the figure, or anything else unusual enough 
 
131 
 
 to attract attention, returned to her room, retired, and 
 feel asleep again. In a short time she was awakened, 
 and saw the apparition of her sister again, with the 
 same life-like appearance, and in the same position as 
 before, and got up again ; and as she advanced toward 
 it, it receded from her approach and disappeared as be- 
 fore. Again she looked about from room to room, and 
 out of the window, but saw nothing more of it. Being 
 now too much excited to sleep longer, she dressed her- 
 self, and remained sitting up in her chamber, waiting 
 for daylight to come. Her uncle, who is an early riser, 
 heard her moving about her room ; and on his inquir- 
 ing why she was up so early, she related her experi- 
 ence and vision as stated above, and when the family 
 had all risen it was the subject of general remark and 
 comment. Sunday noon the young lady received a 
 dispatch from New York informing her that her sis- 
 ter, whose presence she thought she saw twice in her 
 chamber, at four o'clock in the morning, had died at 
 home quite suddenly, at that hour." 
 
 I will not comment on this extract. I have not 
 given it because it is the best I have, but because it is 
 the first at hand, and from a secular paper. 
 
 XIII. The following letter from Mrs. T. B. Cranz, 
 in a recent number of the Banner of Light, speaks 
 for itself: — 
 
 " I feel I can not too publicly proclaim the wonder- 
 ful tests given through Dr. Slade, of 210 West Forty- 
 Third St., New York city, and of the perfect spirit 
 pictures taken by W. H. Mumler, of West Spring- 
 field St., Boston. I was a firm Orthodox ; was a 
 member, with my husband, of the Dutch Reformed 
 Church here for twenty years. One year ago last 
 
132 SPIRITUALISM OR. CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 September, I sat at the death-bed of my husband's 
 sister, who was a member of the same church with 
 myself. 
 
 "As she was dying, the scales dropped from her 
 eyes ; she saw the shining ones around her bed, and 
 called them by name. Among the number were our 
 two little ones, Willie and Linda, who had passed 
 over several years before. 
 
 " She called them by name, and declared they, with 
 many others, were with her ; and in bidding farewell 
 to her little boy, who was in tears at her bedside, she 
 said, 4 Cheer up, my boy, and remember that although 
 you may not see mamma, yet God will sometimes let 
 my spirit come down, and hover around my little 
 ones.' This made such an impression on me that I 
 mentioned it to a friend who happened to be a Spirit- 
 ualist. She directed me to Dr. Slade. I went last 
 May, and there I received some beautiful communi- 
 cations, written on the slate, with my dear little ones, 
 names signed in full, with a request that I should go 
 to Mr. Mumler's, and they would try and show them- 
 selves to me. The doctor was an entire stranger to 
 me. I had never met him before ; it was impossible 
 for him to know who I was. Then, in August last, I 
 went to Mr. Mumler's. I had never met the artist 
 before ; and it was impossible for him to know whom 
 I hoped to get in spirit form. 
 
 " He asked me no questions; I sat alone for my pic- 
 ture ; and when he brought the plate to me, I was 
 struck with wonder. 
 
 " A complete group surrounded me. On one side 
 of me stood our darling Linda, and on the other our 
 dear Willie, close nestled at my side ; and a lit- 
 
hull's sixth letter. 133 
 
 tie back stood my father, yet plain to be seen ; and 
 with her' arms clasped around rny neck is my aunt, 
 whose face I at first could not recognize, as she died 
 when I was very young ; but it has been fully recog- 
 nized since by those who knew her." 
 
 With an extract from Rev. T. B. Taylor, A. B., 
 M. D., in the same number of the Banner of Light, I 
 will close this letter. 
 
 " Another form of mediumship is doing a great 
 work in this country, as well as elsewhere ;-and that 
 is, the power to heal the sick. 
 
 " Not long ago I removed a tumor, or wen, from 
 the shoulder of one of our leading citizens of this 
 city, a Mr. George W. Crane, of the firm of Crane & 
 Byron, without the dissecting-knife. It created quite 
 a sensation. Modesty forbids me to speak of many 
 other cases of as wonderful a • character ; but I can 
 with propriety speak of the still more wonderful 
 mediumship of that strangely endowed man, Dr. P. 
 B. Jones, of Atchison, Kan. There seems to be no 
 disease that flesh is heir to which does not yield readi- 
 ly to his wonderful magnetic powers. I know him 
 and his works. . They testify of him. Here he has 
 rebuked fevers, lockjaw, St. Vitus Dance ; withered 
 hand and arm have also been restored ; so that, in 
 this 4 staid old Orthodox town,' people exclaim, ' How 
 strange ! ' Mediumship is what the people want. May 
 there be many more laborers called into this field." 
 
 The difficulty with this whole question of the spirit- 
 ual phenomena is, the proofs are so abundant, that the 
 chief trouble is in culling from the vast mass of ma- 
 terial. Volumes ten times the size of our letters, all 
 combined, might be filled. 
 
134 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 In these extracts you find not only the proof of 
 spirit identity, but some of the good being done by 
 spirit communion. 
 
 Hoping to hear from you soon, 
 
 I am, as ever, yours, &c, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S SIXTH REPLY. 
 
 " Cedar Hill," near La Grange, Ky., 
 September 25, 1872. 
 
 Brother Hull : Your letter, dated at Boston, 14th 
 inst., was put into my hand when I reached home last 
 night. I shall now reply to it as fully as the time 
 will allow, and as your matter shall demand. 
 
 Your letters are getting remarkably short, which 
 may be an improvement, provided you make each one 
 "brief, but strong." I do not know whether you are 
 failing to find material to keep up your usual volubil- 
 ity, or are disposed to give us your documents in a 
 concentrated form, but with more frequency. If the 
 latter, I am pleased with your idea, and shall hence- 
 forth expect sterner pleading for the claims of Spirit- 
 ualism than we have heretofore had. 
 
 But on carefully inspecting your last letter, I do 
 not see that it manifests any more strength than do its 
 predecessors; in fact, your sudden determination to 
 abbreviate has shattered your logical strength, and 
 the document before me seems to be a " sick child." 
 Your next one will be better. 
 
Parker's sixth letter. 135 
 
 Always bear in mind that the object of your writ- 
 ing is to convert me from the fables of Christianity to 
 the better things of modern Spiritualism. I thank 
 you for making this effort. If I love anything on 
 earth, it is truth ; and I am independent enough to 
 embrace it, whenever and wherever found. If I am 
 in error, I desire to know ; and for me to know an 
 error, is to reject it at once and forever. 
 
 Up to the present time, I have failed to see, in all 
 that you have said, any reasons why I should reject 
 the Bible for the documents of modern Spiritualism. 
 You will not point out to me the superior charac- 
 teristics of the inspiration of A. J. Davis, Mrs. Har- 
 clinge, Wheeler, Peebles, &c, &c. Unless I can see 
 in them something more deserving my veneration and 
 confidence than I can see in Paul, Peter, and other 
 apostles, I shall remain quite unwilling to exchange 
 my " prophets." I wish you would pay some atten- 
 tion to this particular, and show me by unanswerable 
 testimony that my morals and safety will be more 
 secure by following either one of your colleagues 
 named than by following the teachings of the New 
 Testament teachers. 
 
 I had hoped to find in your second letter a fuller 
 presentation of your views of marriage. But as you 
 have added no more, I shall not spend space by con- 
 troverting what you have said. 
 
 I will now pay a little attention to the points which 
 you enumerate in your last letter. 
 
 I. Your first point is burdened, to my mind, with 
 a strange error. You seem to assume that Christian- 
 ity, once rejected, is never again adopted. Paul knew 
 nothing like tins. And the experience of multitudes 
 
136 SPIRITUALISM OB CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 is against it. Many have rejected Christianity for 
 Spiritualism ; and again have rejected Spiritualism 
 for Christianity. And these changes have been sin- 
 cere ones, too. 
 
 Christianity, to be enjoyed, must be understood. 
 Many, not understanding it, have tried something 
 called ''Christianity," and have rejected that. But 
 I never knew a man to reject Christianity who really 
 understood it. Nor do I believe you would to-day be 
 fighting the Bible if you really had apprehended what 
 that Bible teaches to humanity. Now, to show you 
 that the above remarks are true, allow me to place 
 before you the following letter from Joseph Barker. 
 
 Mr. Barker at one time, in England, was known as 
 a champion against the opponents of the Bible, and 
 he published a work there entitled " Christianity 
 Triumphant" He afterward rejected Christianity, 
 and became an avowed Atheist. But he returned, 
 after his trial of "deism" and "atheism," to Chris- 
 tianity again, and five years ago wrote to C. Collins, 
 Jr., the following letter : — 
 
 Victor Place, William Street, Southport, ^ 
 Lancashire, England, Nov. 21, 1867. > 
 
 Rev. C. Collins, Jr., Philadelphia. 
 
 My Dear Sir : I am happy to be able to say that 
 I have " entirely renounced the views I formerly held 
 with regard to the divine authority of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures," and that I have now for nearly five years been 
 advocating "the gospel of Christ as the only antidote 
 for sin, and the sovereign remedy for the healing of 
 the nations." 
 
 The change did not take place suddenly; it was 
 
PARKER'S SIXTH LETTER. 137 
 
 spread over several years ; nor can I trace it to any 
 one event, or man, or book. I believe it commenced 
 while I was in Nebraska, and advanced somewhat 
 irregularly from that time to its happy consmnmation 
 in 1863. 
 
 A correspondence which commenced between me 
 and the Rev. Dr. Cooke, of London, in 1862, was of 
 great service in accelerating the change, and bringing 
 it to a happy issue. 
 
 But to give you an account of the process in a let- 
 ter would be impossible. I am thinking of preparing 
 a statement for the press, and when it is published, I 
 shall be glad, if 3 r ou desire it, to forward a copy or 
 two to your address. If the post office regulations 
 allow me, I will forward to you, along with this letter, 
 copies of the pamphlets I have published since my 
 return to Christ. I would send you one I published 
 on the Bible, but it is out of print. I have often 
 wished to write to Dr. Berg, but I was told he had 
 left Philadelphia. 
 
 I expected to return to Philadelphia before this, 
 but the state of my wife's health has thus far ren- 
 dered it impossible. 
 
 I desire very much to have an opportunity of mak- 
 ing known to my former hearers and readers the 
 change which has taken place in my views and feel- 
 ings, and the considerations and influences by which, 
 under God, it has been effected. 
 
 You are perfectly at liberty to publish this state- 
 ment in any way you think well. So far from having 
 any objection to its publication, you will greatly 
 oblige me by giving it as extensive a circulation as 
 possible. All I should ask is, that if my statement 
 
138 SPIRITUALISM OE CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 be accompanied with any remarks, they shall be such 
 as shall have no tendency to exasperate my old unbe- 
 lieving friends. Many of them were . very kind to 
 me ; and in every case, meekness, and gentleness, and 
 love, are best calculated to win skeptics and unbe- 
 lievers to Christ and his cause. 
 
 I am in connection with the Episcopal church, 
 though my labors as a lecturer and preacher have 
 been mostly in connection with the primitive Meth- 
 odists and other dissenting denominations. 
 
 Lamenting that I should ever have erred, but re- 
 joicing that I have been so happily restored, I am, 
 my dear sir, Yours, most respectfully, 
 
 Joseph Barker. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing, I desire to call your 
 attention to another extract, taken from a speech of 
 Mr. Barker since his return to Christianity. 
 
 " To you, young men, who are beginning to enter- 
 tain skeptical views, let me offer a word of counsel 
 and warning. I assure you, you know not what you 
 are doing. The path on which you are entering may 
 seem right to you in your present state of mind, but 
 the end thereof is death. You are preparing for 
 yourselves matter for bitter repentance. 
 
 " 1 have trod the dreadful path, from beginning to 
 end. I know it all. It is a weary and dismal road, 
 and it leads to wretchedness and ruin. I have seen 
 the terrible effects which infidelity produces on men's 
 characters. I have had proof of its deteriorating in- 
 fluence in my own experience. Its tendency is to 
 utter debasement. I have studied both sides, and 
 what is more, I have tried both, and the result is a 
 
parker's sixth letter. 139 
 
 full assurance that infidelity is madness, and that the 
 religion of Christ is the perfection of wisdom and 
 goodness. 
 
 " I think of my wanderings in the dark shades of 
 doubt and unbelief with unspeakable sorrow. I 
 would give a world if I could have my time to live 
 over again, that I might avoid the dreadful mistake I 
 made in turning my back on Christ and his cause, 
 and joining the ranks of his enemies. The only com- 
 fort I have is, that I was permitted to return while in 
 the fullness of my health and strength, and in the full 
 vigor of my mental powers; that I am allowed to 
 speak for Christ and Christianity once more ; that my 
 family are all happy in the love of God, and in the 
 faith of the gospel ; and that my large and varied ex- 
 perience enables me to speak of the infinite excellency 
 of religion with an assurance, and to substantiate 
 what I say with a kind of evidence which, without 
 such an experience, might have been impossible. 
 
 " I have no inducement to address you thus but re- 
 gard to your welfare, and to the welfare of those 
 over whom your influence may extend, and a sense 
 of duty to that great, good God who is the Father of 
 us all. I owe it to you, I owe it to all, to make 
 known the result of my life-long experience ; and 
 this is the reason why I speak. I know that virtue 
 is necessary to happiness, and that religion is neces- 
 sary to virtue, and that Christianity is religion, and 
 virtue, and happiness, in their highest and divinest 
 forms. I have proved its power, I have felt its 
 worth, I have tasted its blessedness, I have seen its 
 elevating and cheering power in others, near and dear 
 to me, in the hour of grievous suffering. It is — as 
 
140 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 the best and dearest creature I know on earth said to 
 me not long ago, when apparently drawing near to 
 death — it is ' the pearl of great price ; the one 
 thing needful.' 
 
 " I could say more ; my heart is full, and would 
 fain pour forth itself in prayers and entreaties to you 
 to return to Christ. The man that leaves the religion 
 of Christ for unbelief, or sinful pleasures, or worldly 
 gains, makes a dreadful exchange. He leaves the 
 fountains of living waters for cisterns that hold no 
 water. Like the prodigal son, he leaves the home of 
 his soul, and the love of the Father, for a far country, 
 where, after his short, delusive pleasures, he must 
 encounter the horrors of friendlessness and starva- 
 tion. The prodigal was beside himself, and so are 
 they who imitate his example. When the prodigal 
 came to himself, he returned with shame and sadness 
 to his father and his home again, and when you come 
 to yourselves you will do the same. 
 
 " God grant that it may be soon. God grant that 
 you may be brought to see things in their true light, 
 and to seek his mercy, and give yourselves to his ser- 
 vice without delay. 
 
 " Infidelity, and sin, and all that they can give, are 
 but vanity and vexation of spirit ; but a life of faith 
 on the Son of God, and of obedience to his gospel, 4 is 
 profitable unto all things, having promise both of the 
 life that now is and of that which is to come.' ' 
 
 Joseph Barker is only one in tens of thousands. I 
 need refer to no more. His testimony is to the point. 
 He repudiated Christianity, and the result was 
 " death." He returned to Christianity, and " lives 
 again." Why, then, should you say, " Christianity is 
 
packer's sixth letter. 141 
 
 like the small-pox ; it seldom attacks the same person 
 twice"? I expect to see the day when Moses Hull 
 will feelingly retract all that he has said against God, 
 the Bible, and Christianity, though he may be a Spir- 
 itualist still. 
 
 II. I do not think, as you say, that I missed it 
 when I quoted James to show that Paul believed in 
 "works." Paul and James held the same opinions 
 on the point in debate ; and the very fact that every 
 one of Paul's letters is full of injunctions to clo good 
 things, proves to a demonstration that Paul taught 
 u good works " just as much as faith. Look at this : 
 " Having, then, gifts differing according to the grace 
 that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy 
 according to the proportion of faith ; or ministry, let 
 us wait on our ministering ; or he that teacheth, on 
 teaching ; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation : he 
 that giveth, let him do it with simplicity ; he that rul- 
 eth, with diligence ; he that showeth mercy, with 
 cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. 
 Abhor that which is evil ; cleave to that which is 
 good. Be kindly afTectioned one to another with 
 brotherly love, in honor preferring one another ; not 
 slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the 
 Lord ; rejoicing in hope ; patient in tribulation ; con- 
 tinuing instant in prayer ; distributing to the neces- 
 sity of saints ; given to hospitality. Bless them 
 which persecute you ; bless, and curse not. Rejoice 
 with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that 
 weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. 
 Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low 
 estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recom- 
 pense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest 
 
142 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as 
 lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." Rom. 
 xii. 6-18. 
 
 Some thirty good works are enjoined in this ex- 
 tract, and no man repudiating good works could pos- 
 sibly enjoin such things upon his disciples. This, 
 brother, is a stern fact, and settles the dispute. Paul 
 does not make good works secondary to anything — 
 but love. 
 
 You quote Eph. ii. 8, 9 : " For by grace are ye 
 saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is 
 the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should 
 boast." 
 
 And of course the effect of that quotation is to 
 make superficial readers conclude that Paul really 
 ignored " works." But had you dealt with Paul just 
 as you desire to be treated, you would have quoted 
 just what he did say in this place on " good works." 
 The very next verse says, — 
 
 " For we are his workmanship, created in Christ 
 Jesus unto good works, which God hath before or- 
 dained that we should walk in them." 
 
 Now, it would be difficult to dissuade from " good 
 works" one taught that he had been created for the 
 purpose of " good works." You had best surrender 
 this point. You can gain nothing by kicking against 
 the goad of Paul's own testimony. 
 
 III. Yes, I am still of the opinion that the induc- 
 tive philosophy is older than Lord Bacon. If I un- 
 derstand Bacon, he would have all theories tested by 
 experiment. If I understand Paul, he, too, would 
 have his followers demonstrate their " theory " by 
 experience, or experiment. Paul would have them 
 
Parker's sixth letter. 143 
 
 " prove j^our own selves," and he would have them 
 "prove all things," holding fast to that which exper- 
 iment has demonstrated " good." Lord Bacon caught 
 the idea, and gave us the "Novum Organum." Now, 
 before one of our scientists will accept any theory, it 
 must be " proved " by " experience" or experiment. 
 In spite of your laugh about my being a " joker," I 
 am still where I stood, and reaffirm that Paul was 
 before Bacon as an inductive philosopher. 
 
 IV. But there is a dispute between us about 
 "which was the best medium (prophet), David, Paul, 
 Swedenborg, or A. J. Davis." I think this is, and 
 has been, the dispute. I think you have affirmed 
 that the two latter are just as good mediums as the 
 former ; in fact, I think your readers have inferred 
 from your letters that you hold out the "inspiration " 
 of the latter as better far than that of the former. I 
 think I have denied clearly that either of the latter 
 was "inspired" "at all." I use the word "inspira- 
 tion " perhaps in a sense different from that which 
 you give to it. Before we can argue this question at 
 all, we must agree on the signification of the terms 
 employed. Tell me what you mean by " inspiration." 
 Give me the reasons why you believe Davis and Swe- 
 denborg to be "inspired at all." Let us come to the 
 point, and " try the spirits." 
 
 Why do you accuse me of torturing your statements 
 into confessions? I do not intend any such thing, 
 and I can not believe I do so, until you shall give me 
 a clear evidence of it. It is, my brother, much easier 
 for you to say, " you torture," — I presume my points 
 are afflictive, — than for you to disprove my positions. 
 
 V. You say, " Why do you contrast the moral 
 
144 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 teaching of Moses' day with that of the present ? If 
 it was as good as that of to-day, there is no room for 
 the contrast ; if not, why have me give up present 
 inspiration for the past ? ' ' 
 
 I do not know that I have "contrasted" these 
 standards. I think I have taken this position, and I 
 think it a correct one : — 
 
 1. That the race is progressing ; 
 
 2. That the era in which Moses lived was fourteen 
 hundred years short of the era in which Christ lived ; 
 and 
 
 3. That as the race grows up to a standard, a new 
 one will be provided, until that which is perfect is 
 come. 
 
 You can not find any fault in these positions, unless 
 you deny the great Christian doctrine of growth in 
 the race. Moses killed an Egyptian; hence you call 
 him a " bloody murderer." I admit the fact, but I 
 deny that he was a "murderer," in the Christian 
 sense of that word. All killing is not murder. Some 
 killing has no guilt at all attached to it ; other is jus- 
 tifiable, and some is excusable. Moses killed one in 
 beat of blood, even though he "looked this way and 
 that way ; " still it was done in heat of blood, in de- 
 fense of a "brother." That killing, too, had a mean- 
 ing, which the Jacobite slaves did not understand. 
 But I do not propose to vindicate Moses. I am will- 
 ing to grant he perpetrated manslaughter ; but I 
 affirm he did that at a time when his deeds can be 
 made no plea against his claims as a prophet. 
 
 My brother, I think I see hanging about you an error 
 which you should speedily put far from you. That 
 error is the dragging up of evil history to blacken the 
 
pabkee's sixth letter. 145 
 
 reputation of human beings. You do not like Moses 
 nor his religion — specially do you not like his re- 
 ligion. You desire to kill the moral influence of his 
 name and of his teachings. Now, how do you pro- 
 ceed ? Why, you try to show that he was a bad man ; 
 you drag out and brand every one of his faults ; you 
 call him hard names indeed, and you infuse your 
 hatred of him into the hearts of those who hear you. 
 This course I do not like. It is too much like the con- 
 duct of some who profess to -be Christians. These 
 persons forget the cardinal rule of charity, and blacken 
 the names of their brother Christians, by digging up 
 every crime and fault which had been done "in sin." 
 A religion which can not be blind to errors and faults 
 is no religion for humanity. True Charity will never 
 repeat the sorrowful paragraphs in any individual's his- 
 tory. The fact that many Spiritualists so persistently 
 and systematically proclaim the faults of the dead and 
 of the living, is no commendation of the animus of 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 As for past standards, the New Testament gives us 
 the last which has ever been given to the world. How 
 long humanity will need that standard depends upon 
 the moral growth of the race. We need no new one 
 until the old one is outgrown. To say that the 
 standard erected by Christ is outgrown, is to utter a 
 proposition which no man can prove ; is to affirm that 
 humanity has outgrown itself, and an infinitely perfect 
 will is incapacitated to legislate for man. Alluding 
 to the law of Christ as a fabric of the past, you say, 
 " We could now make a better one." 
 
 1. Who are the " we " to whom you allude ? 
 
 2. In what would that " better " consist ? 
 
 10 
 
146 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 3. If "we could (can) now make a better one," 
 why have we not done it ? 
 
 4. If " we " means Spiritualists, I have not yet 
 seen any evidences of their ability to give us a 
 "better one." 
 
 5. Suppose in your next letter you give me an out- 
 line of the better moral standard which "we could 
 now make." 
 
 6. Until you do so I must say "we" can do no 
 such thing. And "we" will need Christ's standard 
 for some time yet to come. 
 
 7. The " spirits " have said many things, but I am 
 not yet aware that they have given to the world any 
 moral principle not found in the Bible, although they 
 have taken pains to decry many of the principles in 
 that book enforced. 
 
 "If you will investigate the history of Jesus from 
 the time he was twelve years old until he was thirty, 
 you will find the burden of proof on the side of his 
 having spent that time in Egypt." 
 
 Well, as investigation is my business, I will thank 
 you if you will tell me where I can find the authentic 
 documents to study. What eye-witnesses have given 
 to the world their testimony ? Please give me " light," 
 and dissipate my darkness. 
 
 VI. This statement is true : " You discover that 
 my sole aim is to be brief." This discovery I made 
 at the beginning of your letter ; but I fondly hoped 
 you intended to make brevity strong also ; now you 
 take away from me my wish, and leave me a prey to 
 my worst fears, that your " sole aim is brevity." Can 
 "brevity" prove that Spiritualism is true? Nay. 
 Your "sole aim" should have been sound reason- 
 ing — not brevity. 
 
parker's sixth letter. 147 
 
 As to Jonah, I will further say, — 
 
 1. Jesus does call him a "prophet." Did I ever 
 say he does not ? 
 
 2. The word "prophet" in the New Testament 
 means sometimes simply " preacher," and in this sense 
 I think Jesus used it ; for he does not call what Jonah 
 uttered " prophecy," but " preaching." " The men of 
 Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this genera- 
 tion, and shall condemn it ; because they repented at 
 the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than 
 Jonas is here." Matt. xii. 41. 
 
 VII. Your 8th and 9th sections demand no notice ; 
 hence I give them none. 
 
 VIII. You approach the " phenomena " of modern 
 Spiritualism with considerable caution. I do not 
 blame you for that. I am anxious to see the process 
 through which you were carried from the damps and 
 gloom of soul-sleeping, up into the warm sunshine of 
 Spiritualism. Your first faith is just as unaccountable 
 to me as your last. I see, so far, no more evidence 
 for the one than for the other. 
 
 You say, " I had searched the Bible in vain for evi- 
 dences of immortality. If I found historical records 
 of phenomena in that book that went far toward prov- 
 ing the return of the dead, I always found positive 
 authoritative declarations in the same book, denying 
 the immortality of the human soul." 
 
 I have no doubt you " searched the Bible in vain 
 for evidences of immortality." Still, that does not 
 prove that there are no evidences there. Others have 
 found evidences there ; and I am amongst them. In 
 fact, the Bible seems to me to be full of the doctrine 
 of immortality ; so full that all the phenomena claimed 
 
148 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 by Spiritualists can add nothing to my faith. A good 
 deal depends upon how the Bible is read. You con- 
 fess that the " historical records " looked fully in the 
 direction of immortality, but your trouble arose out 
 of "■positive and authoritative declarations in the 
 same book denying the immortality of the human 
 soul;" and you quote, " The dead know not any- 
 thing, neither have they any more a reward ; for the 
 memory of them is forgotten, also their love and their 
 hatred, and their envy is now perished. Neither have 
 they any more a portion forever in anything that is 
 done under the sun." Eccl. ix. 5, 6. 
 
 Now, suppose I should say that there is no truth in 
 your quotation, and that it was never spoken as a 
 truth. Now, allow me to say, that this book of 
 Ecclesiastes was written for the express purpose of 
 showing the folly of materialism. Hence the author 
 imagined himself a sensual materialist, and he talks 
 like a sensual materialist. It would be just as rea- 
 sonable to quote Paul's words, " Eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow we die," to prove materialism, as to quote 
 the passage you do. Paul's words, read in connection 
 with his argument, are easily understood. So of 
 Solomon's. It seems to me impossible for one to con- 
 sider the passage quoted by you, when viewed with 
 the design and construction of the argument, to have 
 any countenance for non-hnmortalit}-. 
 
 Take into consideration Solomon's views of the 
 being and attributes of God ; his views as a Jew of 
 the " spirit ; " his views of " hades," i. e., " sheol," &c, 
 and then consider his words, " Then shall the dust 
 (body) return to the earth as it was (before it became 
 a bod}'), and the spirit shall return unto God who gave 
 
149 
 
 it." These words, from a Jew, admit only one inter- 
 pretation — God gives to a body a spirit ; when that 
 body dies, God takes the spirit, or it returns to him, 
 i. e., to his custody. 
 
 Again, had Solomon spoken the words you have 
 quoted as truth, he could not afterward have told 
 the "young man, 1 ' "God will bring thee into judg- 
 ment." Judgment with the Jew was after death. 
 See Josephus on "hades." 
 
 The next point you quote as an authoritative denial 
 of immortality is, " in that day his thoughts shall per- 
 ish." It is one thing to say of a man in dying, his 
 " thoughts shall perish," and quite another to say 
 the man shall perish. These words were spoken of 
 " princes " who boast much, and promise and threaten 
 much. Death stops their ambitious career, and the 
 moment in which they die sees all their ambitious 
 schemes (thoughts) fail (perish) forever. Their de- 
 signs failing does not prove the princes annihilated. 
 
 I am glad you state so freely that you found a 
 new mode of interpreting the Bible ; for I had long 
 ago made up my mind that you could have reached 
 the conclusions you now hold only by adopting a new 
 method of intrepreting the Bible. Herein I think you 
 err. The Bible is a book written in human language, 
 and by men for man. It must be studied as any other 
 book is studied. The laws of interpretation common 
 to men govern the Bible as well. These laws are as 
 old as language. 
 
 Nor do I believe that the writers of the Bible form 
 any theories concerning the human soul or its destiny. 
 " Hypotheses " are something in which Bible writers 
 deal with a sparing hand. I can see exact correspon- 
 
150 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 dence between the facts written by Bible men and the 
 deductions drawn from them. If the phenomena of 
 the Bible do not prove spirit incorruptibility, you 
 can not find the doctrine taught by phenomena any- 
 where. 
 
 You quote Job, but he talked about matters of 
 which he was ignorant. This Job* himself declares. 
 Hear him. 
 
 " Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know 
 that thou canst do eve^thing, and that no thought 
 can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth 
 counsel without knowledge ? therefore have I uttered 
 that I understood not ; things too wonderful for me, 
 which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will 
 speak : I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto 
 me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; 
 but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor my- 
 self, and repent in dust and ashes." Job xlii. 1-6. 
 
 Job talked volubly about man and his soul. Yet he 
 says, " I uttered that I understood not." Before this 
 the Lord had said to him, " Who is this that darken- 
 eth counsel by tvords ivithout knoivledge f " Job 
 xxxviii. 2. Now, certainty to me the authoritative 
 denial of man's immortality by Job would pass only 
 for " words without knowledge." 
 
 You speak feelingly of " the harmony between an- 
 cient and modern Spiritualism." I believe, too, that 
 there has ever been a " spiritualism " which was true ; 
 also, I believe there has been and is a Spiritualism 
 that has been and is false in the extreme. I do not 
 say your Spiritualism is the latter. I trust it is not. 
 So I am certain that, there have even been sensible 
 evidences of the incorruptibility of the human spirit. 
 
parkee's sixth letter. 151 
 
 They have never appeared to me, but others have 
 witnessed them, and I am confident their testimony 
 is true. 
 
 You do not tell me wherein that "harmony" con- 
 sists. I would like to get full information just here. 
 You can not give me too much of it. 
 
 Your quotations touching the modern phenomena 
 which are presenting themselves, I need not notice 
 fully. I have given them consideration, and now 
 say, — 
 
 1. I admit the occurrence of the facts. 
 
 2. I deny that they are the work of spirits. 
 
 Now, prove that spirits do the work, if you can. 
 Please do not attempt to get out of this difficulty by 
 asking me, in your next letter, " If these things are 
 not done by spirits, then what does them?" At 
 present I am not on the affirmative. You say these 
 wonders are caused by spirits out of the body. I 
 deny it, and call for the proof. 
 
 I shall ask you now to peruse the following pages, 
 which I cut from a book handed down to me from my 
 grandfather. It contains facts which no rational man 
 will dare dispute. One case like this, properly at- 
 tested, comes clothed with power. It occurred one 
 hundred and fifty years before "Spiritualism" was 
 born, and was not invented for the purpose of mak- 
 ing converts to a new u superstition." 
 
 A Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal. 
 
 This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and 
 on so good authority, that my reading and conver- 
 sation have not given me anything like it. It is fit 
 
152 SPIRITUALISM OK CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. 
 Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal ap- 
 peared after her death ; she is my intimate friend, and 
 I can vouch for her reputation, for these last fifteen or 
 sixteen years, on my own knowledge ; and I can con- 
 firm the good character she had from her youth to 
 the time of my acquaintance ; though since this rela- 
 tion, she is calumniated by some people, that . are 
 friends to the brother of Mrs. Veal, who appeared, 
 who think the relation of this appearance to be a re- 
 flection, and endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. 
 Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh the story out of 
 countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and 
 the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwith- 
 standing the ill usage of a very wicked husband, there 
 is not yet the least sign of dejection in her face ; nor 
 did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmur- 
 ing expression ; nay, not when actually under her 
 husband's barbarity, which I have been witness to, 
 and several other persons of undoubted reputation. 
 
 Now, you must know Mrs. Veal was a maiden gen- 
 tlewoman, of about thirty years of age, and for some 
 years last past had been troubled with fits, which 
 were perceived coming on her by her going off from 
 her discourse, very abruptly, to some impertinence; 
 she was maintained by an only brother, and kept his 
 house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and 
 her brother a very sober man, to all appearance ; but 
 now he does all he can to null or quash the story. 
 Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Bar- 
 grave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances 
 were then mean ; her father did not take care of his 
 children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hard- 
 
Parker's sixth letter. 153 
 
 ships ; and Mrs. Bargrave in those days had as unkind 
 a father, though she wanted neither for food nor cloth- 
 ing, whilst Mrs. Veal wanted for both, insomuch that 
 she would often say, " Mrs. Bargrave, you are not 
 only the best, but the only friend I have in the world ; 
 and no circumstance in life shall ever dissolve my 
 friendship." They would often condole each other's 
 adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon 
 Death, and other good books ; and so, like two Chris- 
 tian friends, they comforted each other under their 
 sorrow. 
 
 Some time after Mr. Veal's friends got him a place 
 in the custom-house at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. 
 Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy 
 with Mrs. Bargrave, though there -was never any such 
 thing as a quarrel, but an indifferency came on by de- 
 grees, till at last Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in 
 two years and a half ; though above a twelvemonth 
 of the time, Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from 
 Dover, and this last half year has been in Canterbury 
 about two months of the time, dwelling in an house 
 of her own. 
 
 In this house, on the eighth of September, one thou- 
 sand seven hundred and five, she was sitting alone in 
 the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and 
 arguing herself into a due resignation to Providence, 
 though her condition seemed hard. And said she, 
 "I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not 
 but I 'shall be still, and am well satisfied that my 
 afflictions shall end when it is most fit for me." And 
 then took up her sewing work, which she had no 
 sooner done, but she hears a knocking at the door. 
 She went to see who was there, and this proved to be 
 
154 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was in a riding-habit. 
 At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at 
 noon. 
 
 "Madam," says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am surprised to 
 see you, you have been so long a stranger ; " but told 
 her, " she was glad to see her," and offered to salute 
 her, which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips al- 
 most touched ; and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand 
 cross her own eyes, and said, " I am not very well ; " 
 and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave she was 
 going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. 
 But says Mrs. Bargrave, " How came you to take 
 a journey alone ? I am amazed at it, because I know 
 you have a fond brother." " O ! " says Mrs. Veal, " I 
 gave my brother the slip, and came away, because I had 
 so great a desire to see you before I took my journey." 
 So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her into another room 
 within the first ; and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an el- 
 bow-chair, in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she 
 heard Mrs. Veal knock. Then says Mrs. Veal, " My 
 dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship again, 
 and beg your pardon for my breach of it ; and if you 
 can forgive me, yon are the best of women." " O," 
 says Mrs. Bargrave, "do not mention such a thing. I 
 have not had any uneasy thought about it ; I can easi- 
 ly forgive it." "What did you think of me ? " said 
 Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs. Bargrave, " I thought you 
 were like the rest of the world, and that prosperity 
 had made you forget yourself and me." Then Mrs. 
 Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly 
 offices she did her in former days, and much of the 
 conversation they had with each other in the times of 
 their adversity; what books they read, and what com- 
 
Parker's sixth letter. 155 
 
 fort, in particular, they received from Drelincourt's 
 Book of Death, which was the best, she said, on that 
 subject, ever written. She also mentioned Dr. Sher- 
 lock, the two Dutch books which were translated, writ- 
 ten upon death, and several others ; but Drelincourt, 
 she said, had the clearest notions of death, and of the 
 future state, of any who had handled that subject. 
 Then she asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she had Dre- 
 lincourt. She said, " Yes." Says Mrs. Veal, " Fetch 
 it." And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up stairs, and brings 
 it down. Says Mrs. Veal, "Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if 
 the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our 
 body, we should see numbers of angels about us for 
 our guard. The notions we have of heaven now are 
 nothing like what it is, as Drelincourt says. There- 
 fore be comforted under your afflictions, and believe 
 that the Almighty has a particular regard to you, and 
 that your afflictions are marks of God's favor; and 
 when they have done the business they are sent for, 
 they shall be removed from you. And believe me, 
 my dear friend, believe what I say to you : one min- 
 ute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for 
 all your sufferings ; for I can never believe (and claps 
 her hand upon her knee with great earnestness, which 
 indeed ran through most of her discourse), that ever 
 God will suffer you to spend all your clays in this af- 
 flicted state ; but be assured that your afflictions shall 
 leave you, or you them, in short time." She spoke in 
 that pathetical and heavenly manner, that Mrs. Bar- 
 grave wept several times, she was so deeply affected 
 with it. 
 
 Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Dr. Horneck's Ascetick, 
 at the end of which he gives an account of the lives 
 
156 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recom- 
 mended to our imitation, and said, " Their conversa- 
 tion was not like this of our age ; for now (says she) 
 there is nothing but frothy, vain discourse, which is 
 far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, 
 and to build one another up in faith; so that they 
 were not as we are, nor are we as they were ; but 
 (said she) we ought to do as they did. There was an 
 hearty friendship among them; but where is it now 
 to be found?" Says Mrs. Bargrave, " It is hard in- 
 deed to find a true friend in these days." Says Mrs. 
 Veal, " Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses, called 
 Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. 
 Have you seen the book?" says Mrs. Veal. "No," 
 says Mrs. Bargrave ; " but I have the verses of my own 
 writing out." " Have you? " says Mrs. Veal. "Then 
 fetch them." Which she did from above stairs, and 
 offered them to Mrs. Veal to read, who refused, and 
 waived the thing, saying, " holding down her head 
 would make it ache ; " and then desired Mrs. Bar- 
 grave to read them to her, which she did. As they 
 were admiring friendship, Mrs. Veal said, " Dear 
 Mrs. Bargrave, I shall love you forever. In these 
 verses there is twice used the word Elysian." " Ah ! " 
 says Mrs. Veal, " these poets have such names for 
 heaven ! " She would often draw her hand cross her 
 own eyes, and say, "Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think 
 I am mightily impaired by my fits?" "No," says 
 Mrs. Bargrave ; " I think you look as well as ever I 
 knew you." 
 
 After all this discourse, which the apparition put 
 in much finer words than Mrs. Bargrave said she 
 could pretend to, and as much more than she can re- 
 
Parker's sixth letter. 157 
 
 member (for it can not be thought that an hour and 
 three quarters' conversation could all be retained, 
 though the main of it, she thinks, she does), she said 
 to Mrs. Bargrave she would have her write a let- 
 ter to her brother, and tell him she would have him 
 give rings to such and such ; and that there was a 
 purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have 
 two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson. 
 
 Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a 
 fit was coming upon her, and so placed herself in a 
 chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling 
 to the ground, if her fits should occasion it (for the 
 elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling 
 on either side) ; and to divert Mrs. Yeal, as she thought, 
 took hold of her gown-sleeve several times, and com- 
 mended it. Mrs. Veal told her it was a scoured 
 silk, and newly made up. But for all this, Mrs. Yeal 
 persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she 
 must not deny her ; and she would have her tell her 
 brother all their conversation, when she had oppor- 
 tunity. "Dear Mrs. Veal," says Mrs. Bargrave, "this 
 seems so impertinent that T can not tell how to com- 
 ply with it ; and what a mortifying story will our con- 
 versation be to a young gentleman! Why," says 
 Mrs. Bargrave, "it is much better, methinks, to do it 
 yourself." " No," says Mrs. Yeal; " though it seems 
 impertinent to you now, you will see more reason for 
 it hereafter." Mrs. Bargrave then, to satisfy her im- 
 portunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink ; but Mrs. 
 Veal said, " Let it alone, now, but do it when I am 
 gone ; but you must be sure to do it." Which was 
 one of the last things she enjoined her at parting ; 
 and so she promised her. 
 
158 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave's daugh- 
 ter ; she said she was " not at home ; but if you have 
 a mind to see her," says Mrs. Bargrave, I'll send for 
 her." "Do," says Mrs. Veal. On which she left 
 her, and went to a neighbor's to see for her ; and by 
 the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning, Mrs. Veal was 
 got without the door into the street, in the face of the 
 beast-market, on a Saturday (which is market-day), 
 and stood ready to part, as soon as Mrs. Bargrave 
 came to her. She asked her why she was in such 
 haste. She said she must be going, though per- 
 haps she might not go her journey till Monday ; and 
 told Mrs. Bargrave she hoped she should see her 
 again at her cousin Watson's before she went whither 
 she was going. Then she said she would take her 
 leave of her, and walked from Mrs. Bargrave in her 
 view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her, which 
 was three quarters after one in the afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. Veal died the 7th of September, at twelve 
 o'clock at noon, of her fits, and had not above four 
 hours senses before death, in which time she received 
 the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Veal's appear- 
 ing, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indis- 
 posed with a cold and a sore throat, that she could 
 not go out that day ; but on Monday morning she 
 sent a person to Captain Watson's, to know if Mrs. 
 Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave's 
 inquiry ; and sent her word that she was not there, 
 nor was expected. At this answer Mrs. Bargrave 
 told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or 
 made some blunder. And though she was ill, she put 
 on her hood, and went herself to Captain Watson's, 
 though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs. 
 
PARKER'S SIXTH LETTER. 159 
 
 Veal was there or not. They said they wondered at 
 her asking, for that she had not been in town ; they 
 were sure, if she had, she would have been there. 
 Says Mrs. Bargrave, "lam sure she was with me on 
 Saturday, almost two hours." They said it was im- 
 possible ; for they must have seen her, if she had. 
 In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, 
 and said that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and her 
 escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised 
 Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the person immedi- 
 ately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then 
 she related the whole story to Captain Watson's fam- 
 ily, and what gown she had on, and how striped ; and 
 that Mrs. Veal told her it was scoured. Then Mrs. 
 Watson cried out, " You have seen her indeed, for 
 none knew, but Mrs. Veal and myself, that the gown 
 was scoured." And Mrs. Watson owned that she 
 described the gown exactly. " For," said she, " I 
 helped her to make it up." This Mrs. Watson blazed 
 all about the town, and avouched the demonstration 
 of the truth of Mrs. Bargrave's seeing Mrs. Veal's 
 apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentle- 
 men immediately to Mrs. Bargrave's house, to hear 
 the relation from her own mouth. And Avhen it spread 
 so fast that gentlemen and persons of quality, the ju- 
 dicious and skeptical part of the world, flocked in upon 
 her, it at last became such a task that she was forced 
 to go out of the way ; for they were, in general, ex- 
 tremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly 
 saw that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypochondriac ; for 
 she always appears with such a cheerful air, and pleas- 
 ing mien, that she has gained the favor and esteem of 
 all the gentry ; and it is thought a great favor if they 
 
160 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 can but get the relation from her own mouth. I 
 should have told you before, that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. 
 Bargrave that her sister and brother-in-law were just 
 come down from London to see her. Says Mrs. Bar- 
 grave, " How came you to order matters so strangely ? " 
 "It could not be helped," said Mrs. Veal. And her 
 brother and sister did come to see her, and entered the 
 town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs. 
 Bargrave asked her whether she would drink some 
 tea. Says Mrs. Veal, " I do not care if I do ; but I'll 
 warrant you this mad fellow (meaning Mrs. Bar- 
 grave's husband) has broke all your trinkets." 
 "But," says Mrs. Bargrave, "I'll get something to 
 drink in for all that ; " but Mrs. Veal waived it, and 
 said, "It is no matter, let it alone;" and so it 
 passed. 
 
 All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was 
 some hours, she recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. 
 And one material thing more she told Mrs. Bargrave 
 — that old Mr. Breton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a 
 year ; which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bar- 
 grave till Mrs. Veal told it her. 
 
 Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story, which puz- 
 zles those who doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to 
 believe it. A servant in the neighbor's yard, adjoining 
 to Mrs. Bargrave' s house, heard her talking to some- 
 body an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. 
 Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbor's the 
 very moment she parted with Mrs. Veal, and told her 
 what ravishing conversation she had with an old friend, 
 and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death 
 is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And 
 it is to be observed, that notwithstanding all the 
 
PARKER'S SIXTH LETTER. 161 
 
 trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone upon 
 this account, she never took the value of a farthing, 
 nor suffered her daughter to take anything of any- 
 body, and therefore can have no interest in telling the 
 story. 
 
 But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, 
 and said he would see Mrs. Bargrave ; but yet it is 
 certain matter of fact, that he has been at Captain 
 Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never 
 went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends 
 report her to be a liar, and that she knew of Mr. Bre- 
 ton's ten pounds a year. But the person who pre- 
 tends to say so has the reputation of a notorious liar 
 among persons whom I know to be of undoubted 
 credit. Now, Mr. Veal is more of a gentleman than 
 to say she lies ; but says, a bad husband has crazed 
 her. But she needs only present herself, and it will 
 effectually confute that pretense. Mr. Veal says, he 
 asked his sister, on her death-bed, " whether she had a 
 mind to dispose of anything; " and she said, "No." 
 Now, the things which Mrs. Veal's apparition would 
 have disposed of were so trifling, and nothing of jus- 
 tice aimed at in their disposal, that the design of it 
 appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bar- 
 grave so to demonstrate the truth of her appearance, 
 as to satisfy the world of the reality thereof, as to 
 what she had seen and heard, and to secure her repu- 
 tation among the reasonable and understanding part 
 of mankind. And then again, Mr. Veal owns that 
 there was a purse of gold ; but it was not found in 
 her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improba- 
 ble; for that Mrs. Watson owned, that Mrs. Veal 
 was so very careful of the key of the cabinet, that 
 11 
 
162 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 she would trust nobody with it. And if so, no doubt 
 she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's 
 often drawing her hand over her eyes, and asking Mrs. 
 Bargrave whether her fits had not impaired her, looks 
 to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs. Bar- 
 grave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange 
 that she should put her upon writing to her brother 
 to dispose of rings and gold, which looks so much like 
 a dying person's request ; and it took accordingly 
 with Mrs. Bargrave, as the effects of her fits coming 
 upon her, and was one of the many instances of her 
 wonderful love to her, and care of her, that she should 
 not be affrighted ; which indeed appears in her whole 
 management, particularly in her coming to her in the 
 daytime, waiving the salutation, and when she was 
 alone ; and then the manner of her parting, to prevent 
 a second attempt to salute her. 
 
 Now, why Mr. Veal should think this relation a 
 reflection (as it is plain he does, by his endeavoring 
 to stifle it) I can not imagine ; because the generality 
 believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse was so 
 heavenly. Her two great errands were to comfort 
 Mrs. Bargrave in her affliction, and to ask her forgive- 
 ness for the breach of friendship, and with a pious 
 discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to sup- 
 pose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an inven- 
 tion as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon 
 (supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's death the 
 very first moment) without jumbling circumstances, 
 and without any interest too, she must be more witty, 
 fortunate, and wicked too, than any indifferent per- 
 son, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs. Bargrave 
 several times if she was sure she felt the gown ; she 
 
parkee's sixth letter. 163 
 
 answered modestly, "If my senses be to be relied on, 
 I am sure of it." I asked her if she heard a sound 
 when she clapped her hand upon her knee ; she said 
 she did not remember she did ; but said she appeared 
 to be as much a substance as I did, who talked with 
 her. " And I may," said she, "be as soon persuaded 
 that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I 
 did not really see her ; for I was under no manner of 
 fear, and received her as a friend, and parted with 
 her as such. I would not," says she, " give one far- 
 thing to make any one believe it: I have no interest 
 in it ; nothing but trouble is entailed upon me for a 
 long time, for aught I know ; and had it not come to 
 light by accident, it would never have been made 
 public." But now, she says, she will make her own 
 private use of it, and keep herself out of the way as 
 much as she can ; and so she has done since. She 
 says she had a gentleman who came thirty miles to 
 her to hear the relation ; and that she had told it to 
 a room full of people at a time. Several particular 
 gentlemen have had the story from Mrs. Bargrave's 
 own mouth. 
 
 This thing has very much affected me, and I am 
 as well satisfied as I am of the best-grounded mat- 
 ter of fact. And why we should dispute matter of 
 fact, because we can not solve things of which we 
 can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems 
 strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority and sin- 
 cerity alone would have been undoubted in any other 
 case. 
 
 I will make no comments now on the foregoing. I 
 desire to perpetuate its remembrance, and hence have 
 
164 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 mutilated an ancient volume in order to give these 
 pages again to the world. In my next I may give 
 you more on the subject of " jmenomena." 
 Hoping for a speedy response, 
 
 I am, as ever, &c, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
hull's seventh letter. 165 
 
 MOSES HULL'S SEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 New London, Conn., 
 October 7, 1872. 
 
 } 
 
 Brother Parker : Yours of the 25th ult. greeted 
 me on my arrival here Saturday night. I can not say 
 of 3 r our letters as you do of mine, "Your letters are 
 getting remarkably short." Indeed, you seem to have 
 entirely ignored "the soul of wit." As your ideas 
 thin out, your letters become more prolix than before. 
 In this I shall not imitate your example. As long as 
 one half of all you say is on my side of the ques- 
 tion, and half of the remainder is irrelevant matter, 
 I will indulge you in an extra amount of verbosity. 
 
 I. I am heartily glad to see the expressions of willing- 
 ness to investigate and step out on truth wherever 
 found. I think them sincere, and shall take courage, 
 and labor more earnestly for your conversion. 
 
 II. You have not as jet been able to see why you 
 should " reject the Bible for the documents of modern 
 Spiritualism." Brother, please read my letters again, 
 and see if I have ever asked you to " reject the Bible," 
 or receive the documents of " modern Spiritualism." 
 All I ask of any one is to receive the truths, and reject 
 the errors of both. You seem to think it is impossible 
 to embrace Spiritualism without rejecting the Bible, 
 or see anything good in the writings of A. J. Davis 
 without first seeing that those of Paul and Peter are 
 all bad. In this you have failed to understand me 
 
166 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 and a great majority of spiritualistic writers. I do 
 not point out the errors in the Bible to claim that the 
 Bible is all error ; only to show that, like other books, 
 it is liable to err. I would not advise you to trust 
 your "morals and safety" with Paul, Peter, A.J. 
 Davis, or J. M. Peebles. On this subject " call no 
 man master." Take W. F. Parker for your guide. 
 
 III. And so you ignore the marriage question ! 
 Well done. You first assaulted Spiritualism on that ; 
 now that I have repelled the attack, and given you 
 some samples of biblical marriage, you think it well to 
 drop that part of the controversy. On that, silence 
 for you is the best argument. 
 
 IV. One element, almost indispensable to a good 
 debater, you lack; that is memory. In letter V., and 
 section I., you say, "I did not expect to reconvert 
 you to Christianity. That would be, I dare say, a 
 hopeless task. For to such ones as yourself, I believe 
 the words of Paul forcibly apply." You then quote 
 Heb. vi. 4-6. In your last letter, section L, we have 
 the following: " Your first point is burdened, to my 
 mind, with a strange error. You seem to assume that 
 Christianity, once rejected, is never adopted. Paul 
 knew nothing like this, and the experience of multi- 
 tudes is against it." Again you say, in the same 
 section, " I expect to see the day when Moses Hull 
 will feelingly retract all he has said against God, the 
 Bible, and Christianity." 
 
 Does that look any like Parker vs. Parker ? Which 
 of these prophecies shall I believe ? 
 
 V. I can not imagine why you wish to burden our 
 readers with that gossipy letter from Joseph Barker. 
 It contains the fact that he has joined one church and 
 
167 
 
 preaches for another. He has changed, but does not, 
 and confesses he can not, tell why. No " event, man, 
 or book " brought it about. He hopes to be able some 
 day to make known " the change which has taken place 
 in his views and feelings, and the considerations and 
 influences which, under God, brought it about." If 
 Mr. Barker can not make it known, some of his old 
 friends can. How strange it was that simultaneously 
 with his conversion to Christ he renounced his abo- 
 litionism, his reformatory sentiments, became an aris- 
 tocrat, and went to Europe to plead the cause of the 
 rebels against the best government in the world. 
 Brother Parker, you are welcome to him, especially 
 till he gives some reason for his faith, or accepts the 
 challenge of some of his former associates to meet the 
 issue. 
 
 The long extract you give from Barker's speech is 
 as good, and no better, than if Parker, instead of Bar- 
 ker, had said it. Where is the argument in it ? What 
 fact does he state ? What irresistible conclusion does 
 he draw? What is there in it more than a vulgar 
 appeal to ignorant young men, to frighten them from 
 investigation ? If you will compare it with Mr. Bar- 
 ker's own speeches, made while he was an infidel, you 
 will never again be guilty of using it as argument, or 
 even as ad captandum. It will not frighten thinkers. 
 Is it possible that Mr. Barker has labored ten years to 
 produce nothing better than the two extracts you 
 produce from him? And is this the Joseph Barker 
 before whom not a Christian on earth could stand ? 
 Who would have believed that such a giant could in 
 his dotage have become such an imbecile ? " Let him 
 that stands take heed lest he fall." 
 
168 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 VI. The lengthy quotation you make from Paul in 
 Rom. xii. is good. Paul did say many good things. 
 Yet in this, the Lest chapter Paul ever wrote, good 
 works are secondary. The first thing in importance, 
 as well as in the order laid down, is prophecy, faith, 
 ministry, exhortation, &c. Then good works follow 
 as a secondary consideration. You think Paul's argu- 
 ment, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works," 
 squarely against me. So it would seem ; but if you 
 will read the remainder of the chapter, you will learn 
 what the good works were. They were simply the 
 work of accepting the blood of Christ, and "building 
 upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." 
 Eph. ii. 13-20. 
 
 VII. You still think Paul the father of the Baconian 
 system of philosophy, because he believed in testing 
 things by experiment. That is a new argument, but 
 it does not fit your case, since Moses, Joshua, and 
 David all argued the same thing. 
 
 VIII. I have heard nothing about the " dispute 
 between us about which was the best medium, David, 
 Paul, Swedenborg, or A. J. Davis." That dispute 
 has been a one-sided affair. I have not said which 
 was the best. The dispute on your part has been 
 whether Swedenborg and Davis were mediums at 
 all. The quality of their mediumship is an after con- 
 sideration. 
 
 You ask for my definition of inspiration. The fol- 
 lowing, taken from a book you will find almost every- 
 where, is as good as I have : — 
 
 " Inspiration. 1. Act of inspiring, breathing in, 
 infusing, and the like ; inhalation. 
 
169 
 
 2. An extraordinary elevation of the powers of 
 the soul. 
 
 3. The result of such extraordinary elevation in 
 the thoughts, emotions, or purposes inspired. 
 
 4. Specifically, a supernatural divine influence on the 
 sacred writers, by which they were qualified to com- 
 municate moral or religious truth with authority." 
 
 The second in this series of definitions would tell 
 better than either of the others what I mean by the 
 term in this debate. You want proof that Davis and 
 Swedenborg are inspired at all. My dear brother, 
 you will find it in their writings. 
 
 IX. You really are a convert ! You have learned 
 that the race has progressed a great way since Moses' 
 day ; that even since the introduction of Christianity 
 it has grown not a little. Good ! Now, will you tie 
 me back to the dark ages of Moses and Jesus ? Shall 
 I put the new wine of present inspiration into those 
 old bottles ? Brother, let us be consistent ! You 
 again undertake to defend the murderer, Moses — 
 that is a great undertaking ! I know you hate to 
 have me " drag up history to blacken the reputation 
 of human beings ; " but has the thought occurred to 
 you, that I could not "drag up evil history " if it had 
 not been written ? You have been holding up those 
 men and their inspirations as perfect. I, from their 
 own history, show you their imperfections, and then 
 you accuse me of dragging up evil history ! My 
 brother, while you have a perfect right to object to my 
 course, please don't slander me, by accusing my course 
 of being too much like that of some Christians ! ! 
 
 The following paragraph looks good, but it cer- 
 tainly comes with a bad grace from one who has said 
 
170 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 so many mean things of Spiritualists as have fallen 
 from your lips and pen. I can hardly resist the temp- 
 tation to say, " Physician, heal thyself." But to the 
 paragraph. Here it is : " A religion which can not be 
 blind to faults and errors is no religion for humanity. 
 True charity will never repeat the sorrowful para- 
 graphs in any individual's history." 
 
 And this is the way, after denouncing Spiritualists 
 and Spiritualism as you have, you would beg for 
 mercy in behalf of the Bible-makers. Well, he must 
 indeed be hard-hearted who would be deaf to so 
 humble a prayer ! 
 
 X. You say, " Alluding to the law of Christ as a 
 fabric of the past," that I said, " We could now make a 
 better one." Did I ? Read that again. It is strange 
 I should say that, when Christ never made a law at 
 all. Christ was neither a law-maker nor enunciator 
 of new principles. No ; here is what I said : " My 
 great objection to the Bible is, it is but the child of 
 the moral, mental, and theological standards of the 
 nation and time in which it was written. We could 
 now make a better one." When I say that, I do not 
 mean we can find better principles than some there 
 are copied into the Bible, but we can leave out some 
 of the bad ones. 
 
 XI. I do not really suppose that any " eye-wit- 
 nesses" ever saw Jesus in Egypt, or anywhere else, 
 between the ages of twelve and thirty, or at any other 
 time. Yet I promise you that when I can get access 
 to my library, I will produce as much authority for 
 saying Jesus spent those days in Egypt, as you can 
 that he spent any time there. You certainly are not 
 so poorly posted as not to know that an ancient*, 
 
hull's seventh letter. 171 
 
 argument against Christianity was, that he learned 
 his tricks and received his education of Egyptian 
 magicians. 
 
 XII. And now your cause is damaged by your bad 
 memory again. You say, " As to Jonah, I will further 
 say,— 
 
 1. Jesus calls him a prophet ; did I say he did not ? 
 
 2. The word " prophet " in the New Testament 
 means, sometimes, simply " preacher." 
 
 In order that you may answer your own argument, 
 and convince yourself that you flounder around and 
 place yourself on all sides of every question, I will let 
 you read your own words as recorded in your sixth re- 
 sponse, section VIII. " Allow me to assure you that 
 you have no authority for calling Jonah's preaching 
 prophecy. Jonah does not call it prophecy, nor does 
 the historian of Jonah call it so, nor does any other 
 Bible writer known to me call it so ; why, then, should 
 you call it prophecy ? There is a wide difference be- 
 tween prophecy and preaching. Jonah was a preacher, 
 but not a prophet." 
 
 There, brother Parker, as they say in your state, 
 "How is that for high?" I will not comment. 
 "Brevity is my sole aim." 
 
 XIII. You say, " Others have found evidences 
 (of immortality) there (in the Bible) ; and I am 
 amongst them. In fact, the Bible seems to be full of 
 the doctrine of immortality, so full that all the phe- 
 nomena claimed by Spiritualists can add nothing to 
 my faith." 
 
 I answer, — 
 
 1. The Bible may be full " of the doctrine of im- 
 mortality," and yet lack the evidence. It is evidence, 
 and not doctrine, we want. 
 
172 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 2. It is not faith, but knowledge, we are after. You 
 confess yours is but faith. Spiritualists claim more. 
 
 3. Please tell me where the Bible teaches immor- 
 tality. I defy you to prove immortality by that book 
 without proving Spiritualism. 
 
 My quotations from the Bible you think amount to 
 but little, as the author of the book of Ecclesiastes 
 Wrote on "purpose to show up materialism," and Job 
 " uttered things he understood not." As to the latter, 
 I have no doubt of the truth of it. There never was 
 a Bible writer in the world but that uttered things 
 which he nor no one else could understand. But 
 what a nice way you Christians have of disputing a 
 Bible text ! When I differ with any of these old fel- 
 lows, I am at once denounced as an infidel ; when you 
 dispute them, it is, " O, they did not understand 
 themselves." 
 
 By the by, what a strange way that book of Ec- 
 clesiastes has of " showing up materialism; " it argues 
 it from first to last. The only text opposing it you 
 quote. But Dr. Clarke and other eminent critics tell 
 us that is an interpolation. What a pity that the 
 only text in all the book that hints toward another 
 world should be interpolated, and of heathen origin. 
 If more heathen texts had got into the Bible, it would 
 have been a better book. 
 
 You refer me to Solomon's views of the attributes 
 of God, but you do not tell me how you learn them. 
 You quote, " Then shall the dust return to the dust as 
 it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." 
 But to the scholar that means nothing, as all scholars 
 argue that the original word rendered spirit is the 
 same as in Ps. cxli., " His breath goeth forth." When 
 
hull's seventh letter. 173 
 
 the objection is urged that the breath does not go to 
 God, that is met by a writer in the book of Job, who 
 declares that if he gathers to himself his spirit and 
 his breath, all flesh shall perish together, &c. Job 
 xxxiv. 14, 15. It is laughable for you to send me to 
 Josephus for Solomon's views of Hades. Did you not 
 know that Josephus and Solomon were two different 
 persons, living in different ages of the world ? Jo- 
 sephus was after the Babylonish captivity — after 
 Jesus. No one disputes but that the Jews learned 
 important lessons from their captors. Then Jesus, 
 with his Egyptianism, may have taught Josephus some 
 important lessons. 
 
 XIV. You .next come to the sage conclusion, that, 
 "if the phenomena of the Bible do not prove spirit in- 
 corruptibility, you can not find the doctrine taught by 
 phenomena anywhere." 
 
 That may be true. The phenomenon of the return 
 of Samuel to Saul may be as good to him as the phe- 
 nomenon of the return of Alexander Campbell would 
 be to you. But it is not the same to you. 
 
 1. It is Saul, and not W. F. Parker, who saw the 
 sight. 
 
 2. The circumstances may not be all recorded. 
 
 3. There may be errors in their translation. 
 
 4. Saul may not have been so competent a witness 
 as yourself. 
 
 5. The statement is only historical ; you could not 
 swear to it as you could if your eyes had been the wit- 
 nesses ; and, 
 
 6. You don't know who wrote the history. 
 
 I submit that the phenomena themselves are bet- 
 ter evidence than their mere history could possibly 
 
174 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 be ; in the Bible you have the history of the mani- 
 festations ; in Spiritualism, the manifestations them- 
 selves. 
 
 XV. I must take this opportunity to thank you 
 for the admission you make in the latter part of sec- 
 tion IX. You believe there is and always has been a 
 true Spiritualism. You also believe the phenomenal 
 facts I quoted did occur, but deny that they were the 
 work of spirits. A man of your ability certainly 
 would not deny without a reason ; he might doubt, 
 but could not deny. 
 
 You ask me to prove that spirits do the work. Will 
 you prove that Mr. Parker writes the letters I get 
 from him. They look to me much like " machine " 
 letters, and I rather question whether he ever wrote 
 them. In fact, I " deny " it ; now, will you prove it ? 
 
 Here are some of the evidences that the manifesta- 
 tions are from spirits. 
 
 1. They are intelligent. 
 
 2. They universally say they are spirits, as you say 
 you are W. F. Parker. 
 
 3. They sign names of friends well known in 
 earth life, and in many instances not known to the 
 medium. 
 
 4. They give tests, such as the relation of incidents 
 only known to the sitter and the one purporting to 
 give the communications ; and, 
 
 5. They often relate circumstances not known to 
 the sitter, but known to the spirit, which afterward 
 prove to be true. 
 
 Permit me here to relate one instance. I met a me- 
 dium in Boston. about a month since, who said, " Who 
 is Eddie ? " I replied, " I had a brother-in-law Eddie 
 
hull's seventh letter. 175 
 
 killed in the war." " O, it is not he," said the medium ; 
 " this Eddie is not over two years old; and here is lit- 
 tle Victoria with him, not over ten months old ; they 
 are brought here by your sister Harriet. They have 
 been in the spirit world but a few days." I went to 
 Springfield the next day, and received a letter from 
 my brother, D. W. Hull, informing me of the birth 
 of his little Victoria into the spirit world, and one 
 from my wife, informing me of the death of my little 
 nephew, Eddie Earle. Will my brother give an ex- 
 planation of this ? 
 
 XVI.* I am very glad indeed you give me that twelve 
 page extract from that old document. I could not have 
 asked you to indulge me in so lengthy an extract, and 
 as it is a positive proof of Spiritualism, and a proof 
 of my proposition that these phenomena always have 
 existed, I hope it will have the effect to open the 
 eyes of your brethren. It certainly will go further 
 than if it had appeared in my letter instead of yours. 
 Brother, you will never overcome the argument in 
 that extract. 
 
 Permit me to relate one incident as stated by Rev. 
 J. G. Fish, in his debate with Mr. Dunn, which I trust 
 will go far toward convincing you of the identity of 
 the spirit commiuiicating. " I once visited a cele- 
 brated medium — Mrs. Robinson, of Massachusetts. 
 I went into her room. I had never seen her. She 
 
 * Since the MS. of this letter was sent to Mr. Parker, I have 
 ascertained that there are strong probabilities that the facts in Mr. 
 Parker's twelve page document, are apocryphal. It was written 
 by De Foe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. Though De Foe was 
 a Spiritualist, he undoubtedly wrote this for the same purpose he 
 did many other apocryphal stories. M. H. 
 
176 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 addressed me as my mother. I had a recent letter 
 from my mother in my pocket, and knew nothing of 
 her death, and so stated to the medium ; but she re- 
 plied, ' Yes, I am your mother.' I called for some test 
 by which I might know if it were she. She replied, 
 ' In my last conversation with you I told you I re- 
 garded you as deluded, but I pledged you that if 
 Spiritualism were true, I would seize the first oppor- 
 tunity after my decease to come to you. My son, you 
 are right — Spiritualism is true ; and I, your mother, 
 who would not shake hands with you, now greet you 
 from my immortal home. 1 
 
 " I felt disgusted, almost. I did not believe one, word 
 of it ; did not believe I had a mother in the spirit 
 land. It is true the letter I had was ten days old 
 when I received it ; but she was, at the time of the 
 writing of it, alive and well. Five days after this, 
 while debating with Elder Grant, of Boston, I was 
 passing the post-office, and received a letter ; thrust 
 it into my pocket, and went to the hall. I opened the 
 letter there, and judge of my surprise, on reading it, 
 to find that my mother passed into spirit life on the 
 29th of January, five days before she came to me 
 through the medium. She did not sleep beneath the 
 clods of earth." 
 
 I still expect to hear of your conversion to Spirit- 
 ualism. 
 
 As ever, 
 
 Moses Hull. 
 
Parker's seventh letter. 177 
 
 W. F. PARKER'S SEVENTH REPLY. , 
 
 Cedar Hill, near La Grange, Ky., > 
 October 31, 1872. 5 
 
 Brother Hull : I ought to have answered your 
 letter of the 7th inst. before to-day ; but I have been 
 so fully pre-occupied that delay with me has been a 
 matter of necessity. 
 
 From this time forth for some months I shall be 
 fully occupied, and our correspondence will be com- 
 pelled to drag heavily. I therefore propose that we 
 close further writing, and let the case go to the jury. 
 
 I will say, however, that I have not seen fit to dis- 
 cuss the phenomena of Spiritualism, from the fact 
 that I know nothing about them. I have heard of 
 things remarkable said to have been done by spirits. 
 So, recently, I have heard of remarkable miracles in 
 Europe done by Roman Catholic priests. I do not 
 believe either class of reports, as they come to me. 
 But that unusual facts have manifested themselves 
 both among the Spiritualists and Papists, I am willing 
 to accept on the word of those who say they have wit- 
 nessed them. I do not and can not feel any interest 
 in these matters. 
 
 That "ghosts" have been seen by some persons I 
 have no doubt ; but what of it ? You may say it is a 
 demonstration of immortality. Well, that demonstra- 
 tion, then, has been in the world for six thousand years, 
 12 
 
178 SPIRITUALISM OR CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 and we are not indebted to modern Spiritualism for 
 it. I can not become a Spiritualist for this reason. 
 
 I have read your letters carefully, and I think dis- 
 passionately, and I see no reason why I should cease 
 to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. I am satisfied 
 with my understanding of the teachings of prophets 
 and apostles, and shall cleave to them until I see bet- 
 ter reasons than I have seen in the writings of any 
 Spiritualist, Infidel, or Atheist, for abandoning them. 
 
 I can not, in all the world of Spiritualism, find one 
 new truth ; nor one old truth put into a more accepta- 
 ble form. 
 
 My brother, you have my kindest regards ; and hop- 
 ing that our labors for the common good may not be 
 in vain, 
 
 I am, as ever, 
 
 W. F. Parker. 
 
M 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 III 
 
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