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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
FOOTFALLS ON THE BOUNDARY OF ANOTHER WORLD.
BEYOND THE BREAKERS.
B** See Notices at the end of this Volume.




THE
IDEBATABLE LAND
BETWEEN
THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT
WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NARRATIONS
BY
ROBERT DALE OWEN
AUTHOR OF
"FOOTFALLS ON THE BOUNDARY OF ANOTHER WORLD."
" Occurrences which, according to received opinions, ought not to happen, are the facts
which serve as clues to new discoveries." —SI JoHN HERSCHEL.
NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton  &  Co., Publishers.
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXII.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
Tn the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washingtom.
Stereotyped at the
WOMEN'S PRINTING  ItOUSE,
Corner Avenue A and Eighth Street,
INew York.




PREFACE.
"In Scripture we are perpetually reminded that the laws of the spiritual world are in
the highest sense laws of. Nature, whose obligation, operation, and effect are all in the
constitution and course of things."-ARGYLL.
ONE of the best known and most brilliant among the triumphs of
astronomical science was the prediction, in advance of actual discovery, of the existence and, approximately, of the place in the
heavens, of a planet belonging to our solar system and revolving
outside of Uranus.
Certain data had long been known to astronomers: as that planets, if subject to the sun's attraction only, would revolve in ellipses;
but that, being subject also, in a feeble but appreciable degree, to
the attraction of each other, this minor influence causes them to
deviate from their true elliptic paths; and that these perturbations,
as they are called, are calculable, so that each planet's exact place
on any given day, past or future, can be ascertained.
Again, though Uranus was discovered as late as 1781, this planet
had been seen, mistaken for a fixed star which afterward disappeared, and its place registered as such, as early as 1690; and it
had been so noted, at intervals, by several observers throughout
the eighteenth century.
It was also admitted that discrepancies existed between the observed places thus ascertained to have been occupied by Uranus, and
the places which, it seemed, that planet ought to have occupied, all
known perturbing influences being calculated; and when, after actual discovery, its tables were accurately kept for a series of years.
it was furtber ascertained that this discrepancy between the tabular




Vi                            PREFACE.
and the observed positions of the planet gradually increased up to
the year 1822; then became stationary; then began to decrease.
This indicated the permanent existence of an occult disturbing
cause. That cause might be a planet exterior to Uranus.
With these data and assuming certain probable postulates as to
the orbit and the mean distance from the sun of the supposed perturbing planet-after profound investigations exhausting the resources of analogy-a young Parisian observer* wrote to one of the
principal astronomers of the Berlin Observatory, telling him where
the required planet ought to be, and asking him to look for it. It
was found that very night; and at less than two diameters of the
moon's disk from the indicated spot.
If some LE VERRIER of Spiritual Science had taken note, twentyfive years ago, of certain perturbing agencies of which the effects
were visible throughout the religious world, he might have made a
prediction more important than that of the French astronomer.
For even then it could have been discerned-what, however, is
much more evident to-day-that an old belief was about to disappear from civilized society; a change which brings momentous results in its train.
This change is from belief in the exceptional and the miraculous
to a settled conviction that it does not enter into God's economy,
as manifested in His works, to operate here except mediately,
through the instrumentality of natural laws; or to suspend or
change these laws on special occasions; or, as men do, to make
temporary laws for a certain age of the world and discontinue these
throughout succeeding generations. In other words, the civilized
* LE VERRIER. ~Mr. J. (. Adams, of the University of Cambridge, without knowing
what the other was about, had engaged in a similar investigation and obtained a similar
result, except that the spot indicated by him was nearly five lunar diameters distant from
the true one. Dr. Galle, of Berlin, to whom Le Verrier wrote, received the letter on the
23d of November, 1846; and during the night of the 23d-24th November, he, aided by
Enck6, discovered Neptune.




PRE1YACE.                        vi]
world is gradually settling down to the assurance that natural law
is universal, invariable, persistent.
The advent of this change conceded, a thoughtful observer, endowed with proleptic faculty, might have foreshadowed some of its
consequents.
If natural law be invariable, then either the wonderful works ascribed by the evangelists to Christ and his disciples were not performed, or else they were not miracles.
If they were not performed, then Christ, assuming to perform
them, lent himself, as R6nan and others have alleged, to deception.
This theory clisparages his person and discredits his teachings.
But if they were performed under natural law, and if natural
laws endure from generation to generation, then, inasmuch as the
same laws under which these signs and wonders occurred must exist
still, we may expect somewhat similar phenomena at any time.
But an acute observer, looking over the whole ground, might
have detected more than this.
He would have found two antagonistic schools of religious opinion; the one basing spiritual truth on the miraculous and the infallible, chiefly represented in a Church of vast power, fifteen hundred years old, which has held her own against bold and active
adversaries, and even increased in the relative as well as the actual
Dumber of her adherents for the last three hundred years: the
other, dating back three hundred and fifty years only, affiliating
more or less with the spirit of the age, and so placing herself in the
line of progress; yet with less imposing antecedents, with fewer
adherents, and, alas! with adherents weakened in influence by a
large admixture of Indifferents, and still more weakened by intesr
tine dissensions on questions of vital moment; even on the religiolls
shibboleth of the day-the question of uniform rule, or miracle;
many of this latter Church still holding to the opinion that tc
abandon the doctrine of the Miraculous is to deny the works of
Christ




V11                      MPREFACE.
Apparently a very unequal contest- -the outlook quite discourag
ing! Our spiritual Le YVerrier might at first so regard it, just as
his namesake may have felt discouraged when he first confronted
the difficulty of predicting where an unknown world could be
found.
Yet if our observer had abiding faith in the ultimate prevalence
alike of Christianity and of the doctrine of natural law, he might,
in casting about for a way out of difficulty, have come upon a practical solution.
History would inform him that the works of Christ and his disciples, mistaken by the Jews for miracles, effectively arrested the
attention of a semi-barbarous age, incapable of appreciating the intrinsic value and moral beauty of the doctrines taught. And analogy might suggest to him that if phenomena more or less resombling these could be witnessed at the present day, and if they were
not weighted down by claims to be miraculous, they might produce
on modern indifference a somewhat similar impression.  Then, if
he had faith that God, who has bestowed to overflowing the means
to supply our physical wants, would, in I-Iis own good time, provide also for our spiritual needs-it might occur to him that the
appearance, under our eyes, of powers and gifts more or less similar
to those of apostolic times, was not unlikely to be the means employed. And, if he was a Christian, this surmise would be confirmed by reading that Jesus, himself exercising these powers and
gifts, promised to his followers after his death similar faculties; *
evidently not regarding them as exclusively his, or as restricted to
the age he lived in.
Guided by such premises as these, our supposed observer of
twenty-five years since-though living at a time when the terms
"medium " and "manifestations" (in their modern sense) had not
yet conme up-might have predicted the speedy appearance and recognition among us of SrInrITAL PiiENOMEiNA, resembling those which
* John xiv. 12.




PREFACE.                         ix
attended Christ's ministry and the Apostles' labors. As Le Verrier,
guided by positive data and credible postulates, wrote, in 1846, to
Dr. Galle, telling him what ought to be found in the heavens; so
might a far-sighted Christian observer have written to a friend, in
the same year, declaring what ought soon to be witnessed on earth.
The occurrence among us of spiritual phenomena under law not
only tends to reconcile Scripture and sound philosophy; not only
helps to attest the doctrine of the universal reign of law; not only
explains and confirms the general accuracy of the gospel narratives; but it does much more than this. It supplies to a struggling religious minority, greatly in want of aid, the means of
bringing to light, even before unbelievers in Scripture, the great
truth of immortality; and it furnishes to that same minority, contending against greatly superior numbers, other powerful argumentative weapons urgently needed in the strife.
Less cogent considerations than these would suffice in proof that
the subject treated of in this volume is of unspeakable importance
in the interests alike of science and of Christianity.
In the following pages I seek to show that Religion, such as
Christ taught, though sure to prevail in the end, is yet, for the
time, hard pressed; on one hand by the hosts enlisted under the
banner of Infallibility, on the other by the vigorous pioneers of
Science: and that in this strait experimental evidence of the existence of modern spiritual phenomena, if it can be had, would assist
her beyond measure. I seek to show, also, that if we but observe
as dispassionately as the Berlin astronomer did, we shall obtain, as
to the reality and the true character of these phenomena, proof as
conclusive as that which demonstrated the existence of our latestfound planet.
Twelve years ago I endeavored to aid in clearing the way. As
Uranus had occasionally been seen, but not recognized as a planet
1*




X                           PREFACE.
for a century, so had spiritual phenomena been observed and noted
from  time to time in the past, yet not then taken for what they
really were-occurrences under law. Regarding them in this light,
I brought what seemed the best authenticated among them to public notice. *
In the present work, partly historical though chiefly filled with
detached narratives in way of illustration, I could not well avoid
touching incidentally on certain doctrines which seem to me less
beneficial than popular.  If I have not succeeded-as who fully
succeeds?-in dealing candidly and dispassionately with contending
creeds, it has not been for lack of earnest endeavor.
I was tempted into the field which I here occupy chiefly by a
profound conviction that it affords phenomenal proof of a life to
conme. But phenomenal proof is far more convincing than historical
evidence.  Had the electric telegraph been invented and employed
for a brief period two thousand years ago, and had telegraphy then
become one of the lost arts, the old records of its temporary triumph,
how well attested soever, if unsupported by modern example, would
have created but feeble belief to-day.
Such reflections outweighed the reluctance one feels in bringing
forward what has lain for, a time under the world's taboo.  Nor am
I over-sanguine, nor especially desirous, of speedy result.  New
ideas, how true soever, are seldom respectable, in the woildly sense
of the term.  Like self-made men they win their way to distinction
-as it is best they should —but slowly, by their own merits.
The reader will find some repetition in this volume.  In discussing
a subject with which the public mind has little familiarity it is difficult to avoid this; and, in such a discussion, a certain amount of
iteration has its use.
* In a work published January, 1860 (Footfalls on the Boundary of Another
World), I traced back the occasional appearance of spontaneous spiritual phenomena fol
two hundred years, supplying many examples.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGII
PREFACE..................................................   5
INDEX.....................................................  17
PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE PROTESTANT CLERGY.
SECTION 1. STATEMENT OF SUBJECT.........................  23
Position of Clergy.-Every age has its needs. —A stationary
policy impracticable.-Problems proposed for solution.
SECTION 2. SUCCESSES AND REVERSES OF EARLY PROTESTANTISM.......................................  26
Conquests of Protestantism in forty years.-Most of Europe
lost to the Pope.-The outlook in 1568. —The reaction during
eighty years thereafter.-Expatriation of Moriscoes and its
effects.-Roman Catholic gains in England: in the United
States.-How explain this?
SECTION 3. INADEQUATE CAUSES SUGGESTING THEMSELVES....  33
The Catholic reformation. —Loyola. -Persecution and the sword
insufficient explanations.-Sceptical revolution of the eighteenth and counter-revolution of nineteenth centuries.
SECTION 4. How EXPLAIN THE FOREGOING EPISODES?........  39
Roman Catholic doctrines.-Scientific research restrcted.Dogma of Infallibility.-Can there be religious progress?Triumphs of Science.-Grand truth in Protestantism.
SECTION 5. TIIE SIN AT MARBURG AND AT GENEVA...........  49
Luther and Zwingli at Marburg.-Luther's radical error.Calvin's sin.
SECTION 6. TIE FORTUNES AND THE FATE OF SERVETUS.....  53
Servetus and CEcolampadius.-Servetus in Paris, in Vienne,
and in Geneva.-His great work.-Escapes from Vienne, is
tried for blasphemy and condemned to be burned alive.Calvin's share in his death confessed and applauded.-Could
such men conquer?
SECTION 7. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION THREE HUNDRED YEARS
AGO.........................................  70
Castalio.-Socinus.-Zwingli.-Virtually no toleration in the
sixteenth century.
SECTION 8. SALIENT DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS..........  72
Their zeal.-St. Augustine's influence. —The "Institutes."Calvin's ideas on human depravity, origin of evil, predestination, and works. —Incredible lengths to which he went.Contrasted with Luther. —Luther on vicarious atonement,
and faith without works. —Sabbath and Sunday in Augsburg
Confession.-Diderot and D'Alembert.-Human will a beast
of burden?




XsA 1CONTENTS.
PAGE
SECTION 9. WHAT LESSON DOES THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION TEACH?...............................  90
How long shall we wait? —Foundation of popular theology.Freer opinions of Luther.
SECTION 10. SPIRIT AND TEACIINGS OF CIRISTIANITY COMPARED  WITH  THOSE  OF  CALVINISTIC  AND
LUTHIERAN THEOLOGY........................  97
Master-principle of Christianity.-Profanations of Christian
name.-Calvinism  and Lutheranism  and Christianity compared. —Who inherit Heaven?-Fascination of Calvin's Theology.
SECTION 11. EFFECT ON MORALITY OF CERTAIN FAVORITE
DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS............... 110
All human actions bear fruit. —Effect inseparable from cause.The scape-goat.-Mercy, not sacrifice. —Belief neither crime
nor virtue. —Christ before Paul. -We must not preach cowardice.-True humility.-Overmuch introspection.-Power of
faith and love.-HelL
SECTION 12. CORROBORATION FROM HISTORY................. 126
Luther's despondency.-Iron rule ill Gnlleva.-Comedy and
Tragedy.-The  Scottish kirk.-Puritans courageous and
cruel. -Quakers.-Roger Williams.-Laws to hang children.
-World's debt to the Reformers.
SECTION 13. CHRISTIANITY, SHORN OF PARASITIC CREEDS, A
PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE........................ 141
Infallibility arrests progress.-Grammatolatry the worst idolatry. —Safer without doctrine of plenary inspiration. —Miracles or law?-Temple and Baden Powell.-Conscience
supreme.
SECTION 14. SPIRITUALISM NECESSARY TO CONFIRM THE TRUTHS,
AND ASSURE THE PROGRESS, OF CHRISTIANITY.. 154
Renan's leadership.-Two variant theories.-The Indifferents.Deism  unsatisfactory.-Did spiritual gifts cease?-Christ
never taught the miraculous, nor a finality.-Ecclesiastical
" miracles" discredited. — Inspiration the origin of all relig
ions.-Accordance of Spiritualism with Christianity.-The
doctrines of Spiritualism.-It teaches no speculative divinity. -It denounces no religion.-Proof of immortality imperatively needed.-Sacred duty of investigation.
BOO K I.
TOUCHING  COMMUNICATION  OF RELIGIOUS  KNOWLEDGE
TO MEN.
CHAPTER I.
OF HUMAN INFALLIBILITY..................................  183
Subject proposed.-The great problem.-Direct revelation?



CONTENTS.                        Xiii
PAGH
Theory of evil. -The tide against infallibility.-Church of
Rome's stronghold. —Translations and canon of Scripture. —
King James' instructions. —Proof of immortality indispensable.
CHAPTER Il.
OF MEDIATE SPIRITUAL REVEALINGS........................ 19
Infallibility, Scepticism, and a third element.-Why came spiritualism so late?-Belief in devil.-Possession.-Witchcraft. —
Christ's treatment of these influences. -The Salem tragedy.
-No infallible teachings.-A bishop's blunder.-Demoniac
theory untenable.-Phases of belief in Christendom.-Secularism. -A lost opportunity. -Movements in Anglican Church.Quakerism and Swedenborgianism: their truths, errors, and
failure.-Spiritualism: its growth, successes, and the number of its adherents. —Temporary schism. —How Spiritualism
should be studied. -Hints and warnings.
CHAPTER III.
OF INSPIRATION.....................................1....... 21
This subject in bad hands. —What inspiration is. —The source
of all religions.-Two theories: Socrates sets forth one, and
Cicero the other.-Demon of Socrates.-Socrates before his
judges. —A  French magnetizer alarmed. —Mental powers
during somnambulism.-An illogical Prince.-Homer and
Shakspeare: literary inspiration.-Raphael: artistic inspiration. -Beethoven and Mozart: musical inspiration.-The
Titanic steps of the world.-Darwin's theory.-Man's first
appearance.-Unprecedental step in Spiritual progress.Scepticism at fault. —The ANOINTED. —What man may be.Whence Christ's preiminence?-Spiritual communication
touching His birth.-His powers conditional. -Danger of putting trust in incidentals. -How interpret " the Son of God"?
-Christ's promise fulfilled.
CHAPTER IV.
DIFFICULTIES AND PREJUDICES............................. 277
Inexperienced pioneers.-Physical and Spiritual science need
differing modes of treatment.-An infant hypothesis.
i
BOOIK II.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHENOMENA.
CHAPTER I.
TnEm COMING USUALLY UNEXPECTED....................... 281
At the Russian Miinister's.-The strange answer: what thinking entity made it?-Changed tenor of author's life.-A
domestic invasion-Apparition soon after death.-Midnight
excursion to California.-Speaking by influence.-Why a




Xiv                      CONTENTS.
PAGE
villa was sold at a loss. —A midnight visitor.-Apparition of a
repentant domestic. -Repentance among " spirits in prison."
CHAPTER II.
ANIMALS PERCEIVING SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA................ 302
What befell a Swiss officer.-The dog, cat, and canary-bird:
how affected.-What preceded a child's death.-The dog in
the Wolfridge wood: its life-long terror.
CHAPTER III.
UNrVERSALIT'Y OF SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS.............. 310
Is Spiritualism a superstitious epidemic? —Bell-ringing in England: a cluster of narratives.-Satan in the bells.-Captain
Marryat and the Lady of Burnham Green.-The House of
Mystery. -Endemical disturbances throughout a hundred
years.-Knock and it shall be opened.
CHAPTER IV.
SPIRITUAL  PHENOMENA  SOMETIMES RESULT  IN  SEEMING
TRIFLES.....................................    336
The butler's ghost: Lord Erskine's testimony. —A fashionable
lady's " dog-ears and folds. "-A mere trifle predicted.
BOOK III.
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
TIIHE SPIRIT-RAP........................................... 842
With Leah and Kate Fox.-The spirit-rap tested throughout a
house; on water; in trees; on a ledge of sea-shore rock.Seeing the raps. —Touched by the agency which spirit-raps. —
A phosphorescent light raps on a door.-Spirit-hands melt
away. -Poundings by a homicide.-Tremendous knockings:
house shaken.-Visit to a haunted house.-Overpowering
clatter.-Effect of sudden light.
CHAPTER II.
MOVING PONDERABLE BODIES BY OCCULT AGENCY........... 361
Crucial test: Robert Chambers present. —Table, weighing one
hundred and twenty pounds, suspended in air. —Table, flung
into the air, rotates. —Terrible power shown.
CHAPTER  III.
DIRECT SPIRIT WRITING.................................... 399
Baron de Guldenstubb6: his experiences in direct writing. —
Strangely suggestive!-My own experiences.-Seeing an
illuminated hand write.-Specimens of writing.-Can the
senses be trusted?-Direct writing by gas-light. — Specimen.



OONTENTS.                       xv
PAGII
Experiences of Mr. Livermore and of Mrs. John Davis.,
Writing on human hand and arm. —Letters appear and fade
under author's eyes.
CHAPTER IV.
SPIRIT TOUCrES.......................................... 891
In Naples with Mr. HIome. —Prince Luigi's experience.-Spirittouches by gas-light in New York.-The difficulties of disbelief.
BOOK IV.
IDENTITY OF SPIRITS.
CHAPTER I.
STUBBORN FACTS CONXECTRITG TWO WORLDS................. 396
A Spirit arranges its worldly affairs.-Sister Elizabeth and the
family register.-The grandmother's promise and apparition.
CHAPTER  II.
A CASE OF IDENTITY THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD..........  409
Human love bridges the gulf: so may philanthropy.-Earthbinding influences.-The spinet.-N. G. Bach's dream; his
hand writes.-The parchment. —BaltazariniL-Henry III.;
song composed by him. —Marie de Cleves.-M. Bach's certificate.
CHAPTER  III.
A BEAUTIFUL SPIRIT 1MANIFESTING HERSELF............. 434
An old promise kept.-Proof of identity from 500 miles off.Apparition of the betrothed. —Typical test.-Portrait with
emblem.- Deductions.
BOOK  V.
THE  CROWNING PROOF OF IMMORTALITY.
CHAPTER I.
THE  GREAT FAITHr-ARTICLE OF TUE FIRST CENTURY........  451
Early Christian faith based on Christ's apparition.-Study of
apparitions important.
CHAPTER  II.
APPARITIONS S1TOWING THEMSELVES SPONTANEOUSLY........ 455
False ideas touching ghosts, very injurious.-Appearance soon
after death.
CHAPTER III.
MY OWN EXPERIENCE TOUCHING APPARITIONS............. 459
Hour with Leah Fox. —An apparition seen, felt and heard. —A




Xvi                      CONTENTS.
PAGE
ghost speaks.-Interruption.-Spiritual sculpture.-Appari.
tion in Boston. -Plan of locality. —Shining raiment.
CHAPTER IV.
A NEAR RELATIVE SHOWS IIERSELF, THROUGHOUT FIVE YEARS,
TO A SURVIVING FRIEND...................... 482
Ir. Livermore's testimony. —The crucial test.-Figure reflected in mirror. —Exhibition of rare beauty. -Corroboration
throughout years.-Figure throws shadow on wavl. —Apparitions seen through three hundred sittings. -Spirit flowers.Additional witnesses.-Mr. Livermore's letter to author.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT APPARITIONS ARE AND HOW FORMED................. 502
The spiritual body.-A temporary induement. -Spiritual sculpture.-An imperfect apparition completed.
BOOK VI.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS OF THE FIRST CENTURY APPEARING
IN OUR OWN TIMES.
CHAPTER I.
CURES BY SPIRITUAL AGENCY..........10............. 510
Christ's mission. -Marquis de Guibert's hospital. —Cure through
Leah Fox. —The instantaneous cure.-Insanity cured by
spiritual influence: two examples.
CHAPTER  II.
OTHIER SPIRITUAL GIFTS..................................   525
Gifts of prophecy, of discerning of spirits, of tongues, of working of " miracles," of seeing the hidden past, all exemplified
in our day.-The proleptic gift.
BOOIK VII.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.
CHAPTER I.
SUMMARY.................................................. 530
Roman Catholic argument.-An alternative.-What should be
discarded, and what retained.
CHAPTER II.
WIHAT  UNDERLIES CHRIST'S TEACHINGS, AS FOUNDATIONMOTIVE....................................... 537
When comes the Kingdom of Heaven?-The hunger and thirst.
-Christ seeks to awaken the slumbering love of the Right.
-His promise, on conditions.-Questioning the unexplored.




I N D E X.
PAOg
Acts, human, all entail their appropriate results............ lt2, 113
Adventure, Midnight, in the Wolfridge Wood...............  303-309
Anglican Church makes advances to Greek Church..............  219
Animals have spiritual perceptions........................  302-309
Anointed, The..............................................  266
Apparition immediately after death.......................  288, 456
Apparition in shining raiment............................  474
Apparition, Subjective, of the betrothed.......................  440
Apparitions, Study of, important..............................  454
Apparitions, My own experience touching.................  459-481
Apparition, an, seen, felt, and heard......................  462, 463
Apparition in Boston: plan of rooms where  seen...............  475
Apparitions in New York: seen throughout five years by Mlr.
Livermore..........................................                 482-499
Apparitions, what they are, and how formed...............  502-508
Apparition, at first imperfect, afterward completed.............  508
Atonement, Vicarious, according to Luther....................   84
Augustine, St., his early life and vast influence.................    73
Bach,  N. G., his dream, 415; writing by impression............  418
Baltazarini, Henry III.'s favorite musician....................  429
Bealings bells...........................................  312-314
Belief neither crime nor virtue...............................   117
Bell-ringing, unexplained, Cluster of narratives regarding....  312-320
Bells, Satan in the, scares a bell-hanger.....................  316
Bishop, A Catholic, his mistake...............................  210
Burinam  Green, The Lady of.................................  323
Burns, Robert, his compassion for the devil...............  132
Butler, Apparition of a, seen by Lord Erskine.................. 337
Calvin, his consistorial court and its tyranny...............  128-131
Calvin, his share in Servetus' death......6.....1......  61, 62, 68
Calvin, his doctrines.......................................  74-$2
Calvinism  and Christianity compared......................  102-105
Canon of Scripture...................................... 11,  192
Chambers, Robert, Test suggested by...................  362
Children, laws condemning them  to death.............  131, 138, 139
Christ, his office, 267; his birth, 269; his powers conditional....  271
Christ seeks to awaken the slumbering love of the Right.....  538, 539
Christ's teachings: what underlies them, as foundation-motive...  536
Christ's promise touching spiritual g'fts....................  197, 540
Christian morality, Master-principle underlying.............   98-100
Christianity, profanations of its name.....................  100, 101
Christiaity a progressive science..................  141




Xviii                              INDEM.
PAGSE
Christendom, Chief phases of religious belief in...............  214
Cicero, his psychical view  of inspiration.......................  249
Clergy, Position of..........................................    24
Compacts with devil: Christ did not believe in them........  202, 203
Conscience, the supreme interpreter..................  152, 153, 183
Creeds of Christendom: table of chief phases of belief.........    214
Crucial test touching an apparition...........................  435
Cure, instantaneous..........................................  517
Cures by spiritual agency................................  510-524
Cures by magnetism in M. de Guibert's hospital................            512
Cures of insanity by spiritual influence........................  623
D'Alembert, his scepticism  and his benevolence................   88
Darwin, his theory discloses no link between brute and man.. 262, 263
Davis, Mrs. John, example of spirit-writing....................  385
Decree, a quaint old one, indorsing Calvin's " Institutes"........   61
Deism, Simple, ungenial and unsatisfactory................ 159, 160
Demoniac theory unphilosophical and untenable...........  212-214
Depravity, Original, Calvin's ideas on........................  75-77
Devil, Effect of belief in.............................  199, 210, 211
Diderot, his opinions; imprisoned for teaching them............   88
Disturbances, Endemical, throughout one hundred years....  326-332
Doctrines of the Reformers...............................  70-89
Doctrines to be discarded...................................  534
Doctrines to be retained......................................  535
Dog under the window, 305; in the Wolfridge Wood...........  306
Domestic invasion, The.....................................  287
Erskine, Lord, sees apparition of his father's butler,...                 337
Evil, Glimpse of a theory of..................................  187
Evil in man cannot be good in God............................  119
Faith, Rational, its power for good...........................  124
Faith-article, Great, of first century......................  451-454
Fashionable lady's logic touching apparitions..................   338
Flowers, Spiritual, appear and disappear..................  493, 494
Foster, Charles, powerful test-medium................ 86-390, 443
Fox, Leah and Kate, 343; Leah, An eventful hour with........  460
Fox, Kate, sittings with her, 354, 357, 375; apparitions seen
through her mediumship, during five years............  482-409
Franklin, Benjamin, his eidolon appears...............  491-493, 496i
Ghost, A, speaks............................................  468
Gifts, Spiritual, have not ceased, 161; promised by Christ, 163;
desirable, 164; appear in patristic times...................            3 1G
Gift of tongues in 1880......................................  178
Good deeds to the poor and helpless, service to God.........  107
Grandmother's promise, 404; fulfilled.........................  407
Greek Church..................................   32 (note), 217-219
Guldenstubbe, Baron de, examples of spirit-writing........  370-373
Hell, Theological idea of............................... 2......  12
Henry III., of France, last of the Valois......................  424




INDE                                   xix
PAGhT
Home, D. Dunglas, Sessions with.............................  391
House-haunting, Character of evidence in proof of.........  331-334
House-haunting, Examples of.........................  320-327, 357
House of Mystery..........................................  325
Humility, True basis of......................................   122
Identity of Spirits, Numerous proofs of....................  396-450
Identity of Spirits, A case of, three hundred years old......  409-4-33
Immortality, proof of it the great desideratum.........  179, 194, 452
Indifference as to religion; its great prevalence................  158
Infallibility, Dogma of, 43; a dangerous popular error.........           207
Infallibility utterly untenable, 143-145; no danger in dispensing with this doctrine.............................   146, 147
Inspiration, what it is, 242; origin of all religions..........  169, 243
Inspiration, of genius, 255  poetical, 256; musical............  258
Insanity cured by spiritual influence.............  523, 524
Institutes, Calvin's...........................................  74
Intemperance, Startling statistical item  concerning.........  110, 111
Intervention, Direct, of God does not happen.............  185
King James' instructions to translators of Bible...........  193
Labor-power: its vast increase since 1760.......................  45
Lady of Burnham  Green: midnight adventure.................  323
Law, universal and unchangeable, reign of...........  148-151
Light, suddenly struck, what spiritual phenomena it disclosed....  358
Livermore, Mr., his testimony as to spirit-writing..............  384
Livcrmore, Mr., his experience as to apparitions...........          482-499
Livermore, Mr., additional witnesses confirm his testimony......  495
Livermore, Mr., his letter to author..........................  500
Loyola: his character and influence............................  34
Luigi, Prince, of Naples, Anecdote of, 238; his experience......   393
Luminous hand, seeing it write..........................  375-377
Luther, at Worms, 48, 49; at Marburg, 50; his intolerance...  51, 52
Luther, his doctrine of vicarious atonement..................  84-86
Luther, his ideas on charity and on works...................   85, 86
Luther, his free opinions, 94; rejects St. James................  90
Lutheranism  and Christianity compared.......................  105
Macaulay, on religious progress...........................  44, 142
Magnetizer, A  French, his alarm.........................  250-251
Maid and cook; the author's first experience in Spiritualism....   282
Marburg: meeting there between Luther and Zwingli...........  50
Marie de Cleves, ladie-love of Henry II., of France............  427
Marryat, Florence, her testimony regarding apparitions.........                321
Marryat, Captain, his midnight adventure.................  323, 324
Materialism  found to be cheerless on full trial................  190
Mercy not sacrifice, Christ's doctrine..........................  116
Midnight visitor, A.............................2............  296
Miracles, Opinions on........................................  148
Miracles, Christ does not speak of them................  162
Miracles, Ecclesiastical, discredited by Protestants.........        166, 167




XX                               IN"EX.
PAGE
Morality, effect of certain orthodox doctrines on.................110
Morgan, Lady, her " dog-ears-and-folds" explanation of the
cause of alleged apparitions.............................  338
Moriscoes, expatriation of....................................  31
MIoving ponderable bodies by occult agency....         361-367
Music, old, found by N. G. Bach, fac-simile of............  416
Mystery, The house of......................................  325
Numbers, comparative, of Protestants and Catholics.........  31-33
Number of Spiritualists.                                         233-235
Number of Quakers, 223; of Swedenborgians............  228
Opportunity, A golden, lost by Catholic Church............    217
Orthodox theology founded on two of Paul's epistles.........  92, 93
Parables of Christ versus doctrines of Reformers...........    100, 107
Paralysis of motor nerve suddenly cured......................   13
Parchment, Old, autograph of Henry III.; fac-simile of..       420
Persecution of early Christians: its effect...................   36
Pope and Austrian government at issue................. 218
Possession, in Jesus' day....................................  200
Predestination: Calvin's idea of.............................   77
Problem, The great..........................................  184
Proleptic, or prophetic gift................................  526
Protestants applaud Calvin's part in Servetus' death...........    69
Protestantism: its successes, 27; its reverses..................      30
Protestantism, Grand truth in...............................          48
Public opinion opposed to doctrine of the infallible............   189
Puritans, Calvinism  among, 134; their laws..........   135, 138, 139
Quakers, their persecution by Puritans....................  135-137
Quakers, their original doctrines, their mistakes, their failure 221-224
Questioning the unexplored..................................  542
Rappings, spiritual, see Spirit-rap.............  342-360
Reformers, Doctrines of......................................70-89
Reformers, the world's debt to them..........................   140
Rtinan, whither he leads us, 155; his Christianity...........  533
Repentance in the next world, Example of.............  299
Repentance, mode of exit for " spirits in prison"..............  300
Repentant housekeeper, The.................................  297
Right, Hunger and thirst after the............................  537
Rochester Knockings, see Spirit-rap...........................  342
Roman Catholic argument...................................  531
Roman Catholicism: its gains in England, 82; in America.......   33
Roman Catholicism: its reformation, 34; its doctrines........ 40-43
Sabbath and Lord's Day, according to Augsburg Confession...  86, 87
Salem witchcraft: its origin and its frightful effects........ 206, 207
Scape-goat, The Jewish, involves a false principle..............  115
Scepticism in eighteenth century.............................   38
Science and Spiritualism need differing modes of treatment.  278, 279




INDEX.                            Xxi
PAGE
Scientific research restricted by Church of Rome...............   42
Scientific tests of spiritual phenomena recently obtained in
London............................................  278, 279
Scottish Kirk: its tyranny...............................  132, 133
Secularism gaining ground, 215; especially in England.........   216
Senses, Human, are they untrustworthy?..                        380
Servetus, 53; his creed, 54; trial and death.............. 64-68
Sister Elizabeth: example of': discerning of spirits"...........   401
Socrates, his demon, 246; his opinions on Spiritualism..... 244-248
Soynnambulic increase of intelligence................. 252, 253
" Son of God," True interpretation of....................  274, 275
Song, Original, composed by Henry III. of France.........   422, 423
Southey's opinion touching the use of spiritual phenomena..... 333
Spinet, of Baltazarini; engraving of..........................   41.3
Spirit arranging its earthly affairs........................  397-400
Spirit-hands melting away, note.........................  351, 352
Spirit-rap, the proofs of.................................  342-360
Spirit-raps throughout an entire house, 344; on the water, 345;
in trees, 345; on a sea-shore ledge of rock............   346, 347
Spirit-raps, seeing them made by a luminous hammer......  348-351
Spirit-raps, in phase of violent poundings..................  353-359
Spirit-touches, examples of, 391-395; by gas-light.............   395
Spirit-writing, fac-similes of.....................  372, 373, 378, 383
Spirit-writing, Direct, various examples.............        369-389
Spirit-writing on human arm and hand, Examples of....... 386-390
Spiritual aid needed.........................                     25
Spiritual body, The........................   503
Spirituai gifts of our own time.......................  525-528
Spiritual phenomena, Southey's opinion as to their use......    333
Spiritual phenomena sometimes result in trifles............   336-341
Spiritual phenomena, their universality.............   310-335
Spiritual sculpture, 472; example of..........................  505
Spiritualism, Modern, was it a superstitious epidemic?........ 311
Spiritualism, summary of its doctrines....................  171-175
Spiritualism  accords with Christianity................... 170
Spiritualism denounces no religion............................  177
Spiritualism, why came it so late?............................    198
Spiritualism, dangers of, when unworthily prosecuted......  208, 209
Spiritualism, number of its adherents.....................  233-235
Spiritualism, how it should be studied....................  237-240
Spiritualism, an unprecedented step in........................ 264
Spiritualism, The author's first experience in...............   282-286
Spiritualism regarded as a domestic invasion.............  287
Spiritualism, Modern, a necessary aid to Christianity....  154-170
Spiritualists, Temporary schism among........................  235
State of man here determines his state hereafter......  114, 172, 173
Statement of subject...................................  183
Stationary policy impracticable.......................            26
Statistics of Protestantism and Catholicism...             31-33
Swedenborgianism, its grand truths, 226; its grave errors, and
consequent failure......................                 228-232
Swiss officer, what befell him.. 302
Sword, The, does not explain Catholic successes...............   37




xxni                                     INIDEX.
Table, A heavy, suspended in the air, without contact......  863, 364
Table, A, is flung into the air and rotates.................    365-367
Terrible power exhibited in a private parlor....................  366
Tests, typical and literal.....................................  443
Titanic steps of the world................................  260, 261
Toleration unknown in  sixteenth century....................  70, 71
Trance-speaking, Involuntary, example of.................  291, 293
Translations of Scripture....................................  191
Trifle, A, predicted..........................................   340
Truth, A grand, in Protestantism..................    48
Violet, an English lady: episode regarding her, 434-450; her portrait obtained, 448; her apparition.......................  474
Wesley disturbances: a lesson they teach.....................   212
Westphalian treaties.......................................    30
What befell a Swiss officer.................................    302
Why a villa was sold at a loss................................   295
Witchcraft   caused  by  belief  in  devil, 201;  its  horrors,
202; in Salem......................................   206, 207
Writing, Spirit, direct, 369; on human arm  and hand......   386, 390




THIS VOLUME
ON A SUBJECT INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH
THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
IS DEDICATED
TO THE PROTESTANT CLERGY:
TO WHOM, IN WAY OF PREFACE, THE FOLLOWING REMARKS
ARE ADDRESSED.
" To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven. " -ECCLESIASTES.
FOR every man, according to his light and conviction, there
exists a certain duty to society, be it humble or elevated,
evinced in words or in daily acts. If, after jealous watch set
on motive and strict diligence in probing the verity and weighing the worth of what one may have to say, the conviction still abides that it ought to be said, one may be unfaithful
in remaining silent. With such care and under such impression I tender to you what follows.
My work has this one claim, at least, on your attention, that
what is therein set forth, alloyed with misconception and circumscribed by short-sight though it be, has been written religiously under the dictate of candor and of conscience, as if
every word were to be laid at the foot of the Almighty's
throne.
You will admit the grave importance of my subject-matter,




2-4                POSITION OF CLERGY.
since it refers, first to the present state of theology and the religious needs of the world; incidentally to the reality of plenary inspiration; again, to the character of what, in the gospels
and epistles, are termed sometimes signs and wonders, sometimes spiritual gifts; and, finally and specially, to the question
whether phenomena analogous to these have come to light in
the present age.
A just view of these subjects, vital beyond measure as they
are, is unspeakably essential to the advancement of man's spiritual part. It is to you we may properly turn for this. Your
office, in itself considered and looking to the eminence of its duties, is the highest upon earth; for the spiritual part is the man
- is and will be in other phase of life than this. You ought
to be the leaders of mankind. But zeal, learning, and the sincerest piety even, suffice not for the maintenance of such a position. As the world grows older, the letter of the ancient law,
ecclesiastical or secular, governs less, and the spirit of the age
more. They only can lead the world's advance who act upon
this truth.
A layman, inviting your attention as I do, has this apology:
that, within the immunities of your churches, you are not favorably situated to hear outside truth. I think you hear less
of it than any other body of men. It is a privilege fraught with
temptation to speak once a week, year after year, secure against
challenge or reply: for it tends to mislead speaker and hearers
alike. Among those who approach you the greater number
mistake submissive acquiescence for respect: but the best
token of respect, in addressing any man, or any class of men, is
outspoken frankness and plain dealing.'The common result of your position is to restrict, within sectarian limits, your habitual periscope.  And thus others, transgressing routine bounds, may have come upon fields of research
whicli you, within the pale, disparaging them as barren, never
see. If, for example, any among you have given as much time
and thought as I to the question whether, in our own day as in
times gone by, denizens of another world occasionally influence,




SPIRITUAL AID NEEDED.                 25
for good or evil, the.concerns of this, it has not been my good
fortune to know it. Yet, discreetly pursued, there is no i~nqniry more legitimate, none reaching farther in its ethical and
religious results. Nor is it we, pursuing such studies, who
should defend our course: it is they that neglect them who
may properly be called upon to show warrant for their neglect.
It is a belief justified by the history of the world that God
permits man to acquire fresh knowledge in measure commensurate with his wants, and at the timnes when he becomes able
to bear it.*  Every age has its special needs, industrial, political, social, spiritual. I think there are strong reasons for the
opinion that, at the present time, we lack, to sustain wholesome,
reformatory faiths and to correct old errors that have been
mixed up with these, direct aid from spiritual sources. If the
history written by the Evangelists be a record with any valid
claim to authenticity, it enters into God's economy to grant
unto men, at certain times, such aid. It is a question of fact
to be decided by proper evidence, whether He is supplying it
now. Certain it is that the historical records of two thousand
years ago, standing alone, fail to bring home to the free-inquiring
mind of to-day the same convictions which they wrought in our
ancestors.f Modern belief in the Unseen urgently needs freshening and additional support.
This will appear the rather, if we scan dispassionately the
actual position of the religious world; its attitude toward
science and the dilemma in which it finds itself whether it accepts or rejects the accredited discoveries of the day. The
more thoughtful among your number cannot have failed to
* John xvi. 12.
t " Doubts to the world's child-heart unknown
Question us now from star and stone;
Too little or too much we know,
And sight is. swift and faith is slow:
The power is lost to self-deceive
With shallow forms of make-believe."
WHITTIER: Thie Meeting.




26        A STATIONARY POLICY IlMPRACTICABLE.
mark the signs of the times. They must feel that a stationary
policy is no longer practicable. Scepticism is silently, but
surely, undermining once-popular doctrines,: the old ground is
giving way under our feet.
Not that there is cause for alarm except to those who think
the world can be saved by dint of drag-chains only. Religion
is in no more danger of subversion than are the eternal hills of
sinking away, for its foundations in the soul are firmer than theirs
in the solid earth: but opinions that cannot stand before the
world's growth must, sooner or later, be subverted, do what you
will in their defence. It is in vain that we cling to antiquated
perplexities of doctrine, if it shall prove that these have become
as much out of place under the lights of the nineteenth century
as would be the belief of five hundred years ago that the pillars of Hercules marked the western boundary of the earth.
Beyond doubt many of your number are earnest in their
convictions that what they deem Orthodoxy needs no spiritual
influx to sustain its progress or rectify its errors; that it has
no unphilosophical spirit to be reformed, nor any pernicious
fallacies to be retracted. But if they are right in this, some
problems connected with the history of Protestantism are of
very difficult solution.
I allude to certain incidents for which we must go back some
three hundred and fifty years, and which connect themselves
with the rise and progress of the great REFORMATION —With its
wonderful successes and its remarkable reverses-especially
during the first century and a quarter of its growth.
~ 2. SUCCESSES AND REVERSES OF EARLY PROTESTANTISM.
It was on the tenth of December, in the year 1520, that
brave Martin Luther burnt the Papal bull of excommunication
which Leo X. had reluctantly launched'against him. Less than
half a century passed-the German miner's son and his Medicean opponent both having died the while-and the spirit of




GREAT SUCCESSES.                   27
the reformed religion had spread to the most distant and ob.
scure corners of Europe.  "What an immense empire had
Protestantism conquered in the space of forty years! —an empire
reaching from  Iceland to the Pyrenees, from. Finland to the
summit of the Italian Alps." *
The whole of that vast empire had not, indeed, gone definitively over to the new faith.  In England, Scotland, Denmark,
Sweden, Iceland, Livonia, Prussia, Saxony, Hesse, Wtirtemburg,
and the Palatinate; in the northern Netherlands and in several
cantons of Switzerland; the Reformation had completely triumnphed: while throughout France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia,
Westphalia, Austria, Poland, and- Hungary, though the contest remained undecided, the tenets of Luther or of Calvin
had taken strong hold of the public mind. In France, for example, the reformed doctrines, in their Calvinistic phase, had
invaded every province of the kingdom; in Brittany and Normandy, in Gascony and in Languedoc, in Poitou, Touraine,
Provence, and Dauphine, a majority openly professed the
Protestant faith.  "Your Highness," wrote the Venetian ambassador at the Court of France, in 1561, to the Doge, "may
rest assured that, with the exception of the lower classes who
still zealously frequent the churches, all the rest have fallen
away, especially the nobles, and almost without a single exception, the men under forty."  He says further that not only
priests, monks, and nuns had adopted this heresy, but even
bishops and many of the most considerable prelates; adding
* RANKE: Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of Rome in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Translated by Sarah Austin,
3 vols. 8vo, London, 1840. Vol. ii. p. 18.
Lest too frequent references interrupt this brief sketch, I omit these,
hoping that the student will refer, for verification of my narrative, to
the work itself, one of the most interesting contributions to history that
has appeared during the present century; or if he prefers a compendium, he may consult an admirable one in Macaulay's well-known review of Ranke's work, to which, a few pages further on, I have alluded.
The latest edition of Ranke's work in German (Die Rumischen Pdpste)
is the fourth, Berlin, 1856.




28 -      WIDESPREiD I)REVOLUTION OF SENTIMENT.
that imprisonment, stripes, and the stake, having only served tu
aggravate matters, had been abandoned, and that the liberated
prisoners went about congratulating each other that they had
won the battle against adversaries whom they were learning
to call the Papists.*
In Prussian Poland, the right of the chief towns to the
exercise of religion, according to the Lutheran forms, was confirmed by express charters in 1557 and 1558; while, in Poland proper, Protestants even obtained possession of bishops'
sees. In Hungary, in the year 1554, a Lutheran was elected
palatine of the empire. In Bavaria a large majority of the
nobles had embraced the new doctrines, and the duke himself
occasionally attended Protestant worship.  In  Austria, the
revolution of sentiment was still greater; the nobles studied at
Wittenberg, under professors who had been Luther's disciples;
the colleges of Austria proper were filled with Protestants, and
it was asserted that about a thirtieth t of the inhabitants only
remained faithful to the Pope.  In the Netherlands, the deadliest persecutions failed to effect their object.  The ferocity,
scarcely human, of Alva, the putting to death, as it was calculated, of thirty thousand Protestants in the Low Countries
alone, had been unavailing to arrest the progress of the newopinions.  Spain and Italy-themselves not without taint of
heretical doctrine-were the only European countries, of any
* MTCIrELI. These details will be found in his Relazione delle cose di
Francia l'anno 1561. I have held strictly to his expressions: " gloriandosi," he says, " che aveano guadagnato la lite contra i Papisti, cosi
chiamavano e chiamano li loro adversarii."
A foreign minister of the day may be supposed to have informed
himself carefully on such matters, and one representing a Catholic
country was more likely to underrate than to over-estimate the progress
of the Protestant movement.
t Macaulay has it one thirteenth. In the latest edition of Ranke's
work in the original German (vol. ii. p. 9), I find it thirtieth, as above:
" Man wollte rechnen dass veilleicht nur noch der dreiszigste Theil der
Einwohner Katholisch geblieben sei: " doubtfully expressed, it will be
observed, as to the authority.




PROSPECT IN 1568.                     29
importance, that could be regarded, after a struggle of half a
century, as still loyal to the Holy See.*
Now, if we imagine a man of fair parts and competent foresight, a spectator throughout the religious struggle of the sixteenth century, and one whose convictions coincided with those
of Luther and his adherents; if we suppose this man, when
two-thirds of the century had elapsed, looking narrowly at the
changes wrought by the Reformation, and reflecting upon the
probable religious future of Europe; what must have been
his anticipations? Can we doubt his reasonable conviction
that three or four decades more would witness the expiring
throes of that venerable system of ecclesiastical polity, endowed
with more than antediluvian vitality, which, from the Seven
Hills, had stretched its spiritual sceptre over the world
* Some of the most reliable Catholic authors of that day may be
cited in proof that Ranke has not exaggerated the situation. Paolo
Tiepolo, spoken of by his contemporaries as a man cf good head and
excellent heart, resided nearly three years as Venetian ambassador at
the court of Pius V. He was there in 1568, and has left, written in
that year, a small work entitled: Relazione di Roma al tempo di Pio.1;. e Pio V. Thence I take the following:
" Speaking of these European countries alone, which were wont not
only to yield obedience to the Pope, but also to conform in all their
rites to the customs of the Roman Church, celebrating their offices in
the Latin tongue; it is ascertained that England, Scotland, Denmark,
Norway, Sweden-in fine all the northern countries-are alienated
from him. Germany is almost entirely lost; Bohemia and Poland are
in great part infected; the Low Countries of Flanders are so thoroughly
corrupted, that even under the remedies (!) which the Duke of Alva feels
compelled to employ against them, they will hardly return to their
former health. Finally France, by reason of these bad humors
(questi mal humori) is full of confusion. Thus it appears that there
remains to the Pontificate nothing healthy and secure (non pare che
sia restato altro di sano e sicuro al pontefice) save only Spain and Italy
and a fevr islands, together with certain districts in Dalmatia and
Greece."
It is evident that in Rome itself, in 1568, Roman Catholicism wal
held, by its supporters, to be in imminent danger of dying out.




30                WESTPHALIAN TREATIES.
throughout a longer series of centuries than the successors of
Romulus themselves had ruled from the Eternal City?
Yet how marvellously wide of the truth were such expectations, then cherished by millions! * Eighty years passed; the
contest had been waged and had subsided; and in 1648 the
rights and the boundaries of the rival Churches were determined by treaty.  But how determined?  Of the European
countries which, in 1568, might have been regarded as the
Debatable Land of theological controversy, every one without
an exception,-France and Austria and Belgium; Bavaria,
Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary; even WVestphalia where the
partitioning treaties were signed f —had fallen back into the
Roman faith.t Not only had Protestantism lost them all, but,
after the lapse of two hundred years more, she has never regained o0:;. There is not a single European nation that is
Protestant to-day, except those that had become Protestant
more than three hundred years ago.
We, Christians outside of the Roman faith, have much to
allege in reply. We claim that the national downfall of Spain
from a proud preeminence was mainly due to the influence of
* By Luther himself, among them   lie said: " The Pope is the last
blaze in the lamp, which will go out, and ere long be extinguished, the
last instrument of the devil." —LUTHER'S Table Talk, p. 196. And
again:' The Pope stands like a tottering wall about to be overthrown."
-Same work, p. 331.
f Yet Westphalia, like the rest of Northern Europe, had been overrun, during the preceding century, by. Lutheran doctrines. The towncouncil of Paderborn had been Protestant; in Munster most of the
priests had married; and the ruling Duke, William of Cleves, apparently anxious to conciliate both parties, had received the sacrament in
his private chapel, sometimes according to the Catholic, sometimes according to the Protestant form.
t I would avoid the use of the terms Roman Church, Romanism,
Roman Catholic-grating to the ears of many honest believers in Papal
infallibility-if I could do so without virtually admitting the claim of
the Church of Rome to be the universal Church. Catholicity is a necessaly element of any Faith that is to become the religion of civilization.




EXPATRIATION OF MIORISCOES.                 31
her Catholic Church;* that civilization has been retarded in
Italy and in Ireland by similar agency; and, in a general way,
that the increase of wealth, enterprise, and intelligence has been
greater north of the boundary established by the peace of Westphalia than south of it: nevertheless the geographical frontier
between the two religions, as then agreed upon, has scarcely
been changed at all from that day to this.  So far as the comparative numbers of Protestants and Romanists have varied since
that peace was made, the variation has been in favor of the
Roman Catholic Church.t  Even in countries the most thor* The extermination of the Albigenses, even the St. Bartholomew
massacres, dwindle to petty proportion before the giant wrong perpetrated, at the instigation of the Spanish Church, in the expatriation of
the Moriscoes, the unhappy remnant of the Moorish nation. " About
one million of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were hunted
out like wild beasts, because the sincerity of their religious opinions
was doubtful." —BUCKLE, History of Civilization (New York Ed. 1862),
vol. ii p. 49. Countless thousands were butchered on the road to
Africa, and hundreds of thousands more perished, when cast loose
on a savage coast, by the swords of the Bedouins and by famine in the
desert. The scarcely credible particulars of this wholesale outrage and
of the ruin to Spanish prosperity and power that followed it, will be
found, with ample authentication, in the chapter from which I have
quoted. Never was nation so terribly and so speedily punished as
Spain for one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever perpetrated
by a people claiming to be civilized.
See, for a few important words in this connection, Darwin's D)escent of Mtan, vol. i. pp. 171, 172: (New York Ed.)
f According to the best modern statistical authorities there were in
the year 1868-out of the total population of the world, numbering
1,375,000,000Total number of Catholics.................... 195,434,000
Total number of Protestants................... 1C0,835,000
And, in Europle, the totals for the same year were:
Total number of Catholics..................... 142,117,500
Total number of Protestants.................... 68,028, G00
More than two Catholics, it will be observed, to every Protestant, in
Europe to-day.
And besides the Catholics proper (who alone are reckoned above),




INROADS OF RZOMANISM IN GREAT BRITAIN
oughly Protestant and in our own times, the inroads of Catholicism on the prevailing faith have been such as must arouse,
in thoughtful minds, grave reflections.  In a third of a century, to wit from 1833 to 1867, the number of Catholic churches
in Great Britain had more than doubled, while the number ok
Catholic seminaries had increased upward of five-fold. Up to the
year 1833-the year when the great Tractarian movement had
birth in Oxford-there was not in the British Isles a single convent or one Catholic school: but within thirty-four years thereafter there were founded in Great Britain nearly three hundred
of the former, and nearly four hundred and fifty of the latter.
Surely a very noteworthy progress made in the present age and
in the most Protestant country of the world, by the Church of
Rome! *
But it is in our own country, above every other, that the
recent gains of Romanism upon Protestantism are the most remarkable.  At the close of the two centuries and a half that
elapsed from the first settlement of Virginia to the year 1859,
the number of Catholics in the United States had run up to two
there are the members of the Eastern phase of Catholicism, agreeing
with the Western in a general way, even on the subject of the infallible
authority of the Church, except that they restrict that infallible authority to the CEcumenical Councils.  (Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. ii. p. 234.) In 1868 they outnumbered the Protestants in
Europe, there being, in that quarter of the worldTotal included in Greek and other Eastern Churches... 69,782,000.
At the present time, therefore, less than one fourth of the Christiacns
in Europe are Protestant.
For these and other details see Schem's Ecclesiastical Almanac for
1869 (ioticed in a subsequent note), pp. 81, 82, etc.
* In the Report for the year 1867-8 of the Scottish Refornmation
Society (founded in Scotland, in 1850, to'resist the aggressions of
Catholicism"), tables are given, showing the exact numbers, which sum
up as follows:
Churches. Convents.  ollees andchools.
Seminaries.
In 1833 there were...... 497    none.     3      none.
" 1867  "   "......1,143      294      16       442




AND IN TEI IC UNITIED STATES.              33
millions and a half only: but at the end of the nine years that
succeeded  (namely in  1868), that  number had  doubled.
Twelve years ago they were but a twelfth part of our population; to-day they constitute, probably, more than a seventh.
If we suppose the two great divisions of the Christian Churchl
respectively, to go on increasing among us at the same ratio
for four terms of nine years each from 1868, the Catholics of
the United States would, at the end of that time, exceed the
Protestants in number by several millions.*
How wonderful, if one admits that Reason and Scripture
were on the side of the Reformers, is all this! From the usual
Protestant standpoint, how beset with difficulties in explanation!
~ 3. INADEQUATE CAUSES SUGGESTING THEMSELVES.
Some minor causes bearing on this ebb and flow of opinion,
yet accessory only, one readily perceives. The startling progress of the Lutheran movement, even during the first decade
or two, convinced the astute Court of Rome, that thorough
* Schem's " Ecclesiastical Year-book " for 1860, and his Ecclesiastical
Almanac for 1869, both published in this country by a most painstaking German statistician, professor of Hebrew in Dickinson College,
have the well-earned reputation of being the most trustworthy documents extant among us on the subject of modern religious statistics.
In the first of these (at page 14) I find
Number of Protestants in the United States in 1859... 21,000,000
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1859....... 2,500,000
And in the second (at page 81)
Number of Protestants in the United States in 1868... 27,000,000
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1868....... 5,000,000
Showing that the Catholics had increased, in the nine years from 1859
to 1868, one hundred per cent., while the Protestants had increased, in
the same time, less thian tuwenty-nine per cent.
Those who will verify the calculation of future increase, supposing it
to continue at the same relative ratio for four terms of nine years each,
commencing with the year 1868, will find that in 1904, that is iz thirty.
2*




34         IREFORMATION IN CIIURCII OF ROME,
reformation within could alone enable it to resist the gifnt
Reformation without. This conviction showed itself in the
changed character of the Pontiffs chosen. Before the standard
of heresy was raised on the banks of the Elbe, it had been a
Sixtus IV., with- his inhumanity and his unblushing nepotism;
an Alexander VI., with his sensuality, and those children of
his, the infamous Borgias; at best, the elegant luxury and lavish prodigality of a Leo X.  But when the storm from Wittenberg swept over the land, and the time of need came, then
there succeeded to these the corrective influence of such men as
Paul III., earnest,* intelligent, and sagacious, and Paul IV.,
austere, impulsive, inflexible, and ruled by a single devotion,
that of restoring to its primitive purity the ancient faith. And
more home-reaching than the power of any Pope was the influence of a mant as remarkable in his way as the great Reformer
himself; unlike him as one man could well be to another, yet as
fiercely in earnest, as indissolubly wedded, body and soul, to
one idea. As Luther was the animating spirit of the reformatory movement, so was Loyola of the reactionary one. And,
for a time, the sway exercised over the religious mind of Europe and its dependencies, by the Spaniard, with his intensity
and his asceticism, was little less than that which the stubborn
and warm-hearted German exerted.
three years from to-day, there would be eighty millions of Catholics to
less than seventy-five millions of Protestants, in the American Union.
It is very far from being my belief that any such result is compatible
with the spirit of God's economy and the ceaseless march of human progress.  But to avert it, some religious influences that have been at
work for three hundred years must undergo radical change.
* This Pontiff, expressing to the Emperor Charles V., in 1537, his determination to carry out internal reform in the Church, writes: " Sara
con effetto. e non con parole." It was to be in deeds, not words.
t Ignatius Loyola's public career commenced twenty years later than
Martin Luther's. The bull establishing the new Order was granted, at
Loyola's earnest instance, by Pope Paul III., in 1540. The Order of
Jesus was suppressed in 1773, but restored in 1814: in each case by
Papal authority.




WVITII ITS DRAVWBNCKS.                  35
These things are to be taken into account; but do we find in
them a solution of the difficulty?  If the vices of the Papacy
were weeded out, its errors of opinion remained.  If Popes
like the third and fourth Paul and Pius V., and Gregory
XIII.,* sustained the honor and the cause of the Catholic
Church: if Loyola and his coadjutors gave to it their fortunes
and their lives,t were there not, opposed to these, Luther and
Calvin and Melancthon and Zwingli, and a host of other apostles
of the Reformation, as able and as devoted workers as any of
which Catholicism could boast?
The sword, indeed, was used against the innovators: but persecution, unless its severity tend toward extermination, is in* The last two, however, Pius and Gregory, with the drawback of
an inhuman spirit of persecution. Pius V. complained that the leader
of the French Catholics, Count Santafiore, failed to obey the command
he had given him to take no Huguenot prisoner, but " instantly to kill
every heretic that fell into his hands."  Here are his biographer's own
words: " Pio si dolsi del Conte che non avesse il comandamento di lui
osservato d' ammazzar subito qualunque heretico gli fosse venuto alle
mani. "- Vita di Pio V., by CATENA.
When the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1573) reached
Gregory XIII., he celebrated that great event by a solemn procession to
San Luigi. I can find no foundation for the apology, sometimes offered
by Catholics for this; namely, that Gregory was ignorant at the time,
that it was a general massacre. It is incredible that a religious movement involving the death, it is said, of fifty thousand heretics (RANKE,
Ifistor. Polit. 7eitschrift, II. iii.), should not have been known in its
true character, and at the earliest day, to so well-served and well-informed a court as that of Rome; to say nothing of the fact that the
Ilomish Church has always held it a right and a dutyto suppress heresy,
if need be, by the death-penalty.
f It is to be borne in mind also, that the stern discipline and incisive
austerity of the order of Jesus faded, ere long, into a spirit of compromise with the vices and even the crimes of the age. Speaking of the
Jesuits in the middle of the seventeenth century, Ranke says: " The
spirit which once animated them had fallen before the temptations and
influences of the world, and their sole endeavor now was to make
themselves necessary to mankind, let the means be what they might.
~.. The secret operations of that awful tribunal which is established




36             PERSECUTION AND TILE SWORD
sufficient, if unaided by mental and moral agencies, to arrest a
reformatory movement so powerful and widespread as was that
of Lutheranism in 1570.   It proved insufficient in the early
ages to check a weaker sect, the primitive Christians; although,
under Decius in the middle of the third century, and yet more
especially fifty years later under Dioclesian and Galerius, it
showed itself in forms of death and of torture marked by a
ferocity unparalleled in the history of the world. The martyrs
in those days, greedy of death as the surest entrance to heaven,
denounced themselves, by hundreds, to the authorities; * and
their religious teachers found it necessary to exert their utmost
atuthority in order to check this species of self-immolation.
The spirit of the new religion passed unquenched through the
fiery trial.
The counter-revolution which set in toward the close of the
sixteenth century was evidently a recoil of opinion far more
than a repression by force. Outside of Spain and Italy, no
authority to the Inquisition was conceded, after the date of the
Reformation, by temporal sovereigns; Spain was the chief
scene of its horrors.t  Nor can we ascribe to victories in the
in the inmost depths of the heart of man were thus changed into mere
outward acts. A slight turn of the thoughts was held to exonerate
from all guilt." —istory of the Popes, III. pp. 189, 143.
* If Tertullian may be trusted, the entire population of a small
town in Asia presented themselves before the proconsul, proclaiming
their faith in Christianity and entreating him to carry into effect the
Imperial decree and put them all to death. When, partially acceding
to their supplication, he had executed a few and dismissed the rest,
these departed bitterly prieving that they had been deemed unworthy
of the glorious martyr-crown.
t The number of victims who suffered under the Spanish Inquisition will never be accurately known, yet it was undoubtedly greater
than that of all the martyrs under the Pagan persecutions of the first
three centuries. It is to be conceded that the Protestant faith was actually crushed out of existence in Spain, by the death of obdurate heretics and the extremity of terror in the survivors. At one time, about
1.258, " there were converts in almost all the towns and in many of the
villages of the ancient kingdom of Leon. " —-(MCCRIE, Reformation in




AR - INSUFFICIEI'T EXPLANATIONS.             37
field the losses, in converts and in territory, of the Reformers.
When the war waged by the Smalcalde League of Protestants
against Charles V. was terminated by Alva's victory at Miihlberg,* that seemingly disastrous defeat scarcely at all arrested
the progress of the new faith. Even to the terrible night of St.
Bartholomew and the horrors that succeeded it, though for the
time they undoubtedly crushed hope and spirit among the
Huguenots, we cannot trace the state of feeling which prevailed
throughout France, twenty years after the massacre, when Henry
IV., Protestant and fearless soldier as he was, finding himself
about to be deserted even by the most gallant of those Huguenot nobles whose swords had won for him the battle of Ivry,
was fain to abjure his religion in order to secure a throne.t
No.  Neither fortune of arms nor suffering by persecution;
neither the serpent-wisdom of an Order of which the members
were all things to all men, nor the cleansing of those shameless
corruptions which had so scandalized the Augustinian monk,
Martin Luther, when in 1510 he visited degenerate Rome-not
any one of these incidents, nor all of them combined, can be
accepted as even plausible explanation why Protestantism,
after virtually conquering three-fourths of Europe- in one half
century, lost, in the next eighty years, full one-half of all she
had gained.
Lost, and never recovered it; not after ten generations had
passed; not down to the present day.
Spain, London, 1829, p. 231.) A Catholic historian (PARAMO, gist.
Jnqtisitiones). says: " Had not the Inquisition taken care in time, the
Protestant religion would have run through Spain like wildfire." Biut
that wary institution took the alarm in 1558; the first auto-da-fe was
celebrated;Iay 21, 1559, at Valladolid, in presence of Don Carlos and
the Queen Dowager; and ere five years had passed. Protestantism was
literally exterminated, from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic.
* In 1547.
4" Even the Protestant clergy had the wisdom to exhort the king,
(Henry IV.) to return into the bosom of the Catholic Church. Calvinism, by the burdensome austerities of its moral censures, finished by
losing its attraction for the nobles."-GERVINUS: introduction to.[irs
tory of Nineteenth Century, pp. 47, 48.




38     SCEPTICAL REVOLUTION OF EIGIITEENTII, AND
If still there lingers in vour minds a doubt whether one is
justified in concluding that the reactionary movement dating
from 1570 cannot be explained, as the result of incidental and
extraneous agencies; or if you fall back, perhaps, on the position that the Reformation was premature in so rude a century
as the sixteenth; then I pray you to interpret another episode
in the history of the Lutheran movement, occurring two hundred years after Luther's time.
An episode connected with the days of the French encyclopedists, when Voltaire derided; when D'Alembert and Diderot wrote; when Paine discoursed of an age of reason, and
Volney of the ruin of empires. In those days men witnessed,
some with amazement and terror, some with exultation, what
seemed a concerted attack upon all that was most ancient in
opinion, and all that is usually held most sacred in religion. Let
Macaulay, who has graphically described this uprising of scepticism, often allied with talent and learning, sometimes with philanthropy, briefly sum up to us the result:
" During the eighteenth century the influence of the Church
of Rome was constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in
some countries obtained a complete ascendency. The Papacy
was at length brought so low as to be an object of derision to
infidels, and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants.*
During the nineteenth century this fallen Church has been
gradually rising from her depressed state and reconquering her
old dominion., No person who calmly reflects on what, within
the last few years,t has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South
America, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, in Prussia, and even
in France, can doubt that her power over the hearts and minds
of men is now greater than it was when the' Encyclopedia'
* Ranke's history fully bears out Macaulay's view of the situation.
After giving the particulars of the death, in France, of the aged and
deposed Pius VI., in August, 1799, he adds: " In fact, it seemed as if the
papal power was now forever at an end."-vol. iii. p. 226.
t This was written in 1840.




COUNTER REVOLUTION OF NINETEENTIT, CENTUIRIES. 39
and the'Philosophical Dictionary' appeared. It. is surely
remarkable that neither the moral revolution of the eighteenth
century, nor the moral counter-revolution of the nineteenth,
should, in any perceptible degree, have added to the domain of
Protestanltism.  During the former period whatever was lost
to Catholicism was lost also toChristianity; during the latter,
whatever was regained by Christianity was regained also by
Catholicism. We should naturally have expected that many
minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, or from infidelity back to superstition, would have stopped at an intermediate point.... We think it a most remarkable fact
that no Christian nation which did not adopt the principles of
the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth century, should
ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since
that time, become infidel and become Catholic again, but none
have become Protestant."*
_Macaulay is right. All this is most remarkable. He to
whom it supplies not theme for earnest meditation must be
very careless, or very contracted in circle of thought.
~ 4. HOW EXPLAIN THIE FOREGOING EPISODES?
All that has been said and believed of human progress-how
mighty Truth is, how sure to prevail over Error —is it pure
* MACAULAY'S Essays, New York Ed. of 1856, vol. iii. pp. 339,
340. The extract is from his celebrated review of Ranke's History of
the Popes, an admirable essay, rather, on the Reformation and its ebbings and flowings, and its results. I am compelled to differ from bMacaulay's inferences, while I admire, and in part have followed, his masterly array of facts.
It ought to be borne in mind, in connection with the reactionary
movement in favor of Catholicism above spoken of as occurring during
the early portion of the present century, that the terrors of the Inqui
sition had nothing to do in bringing it about.




40      ABSTRACT OF ROM-lAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINES.
fable?  Or are we to believe that it is not against Error that
Protestantism is losing the battle?
WVe have had recent official reminders what some of tha
claims of Roman Catholicism  are.  That Christ himself has
invested the Pope with full authority to rule and govern the
Universal Church; that the Pope may properly issue decrees,
by his assured knowledge, by his own impulse and by the fulness of his apostolic power; that such decrees shall remain in
force in all time to come, and shall never, on any plea, be revoked, or limited, or questioned, even though an CEcumenical
Council, including the college of Cardinals, unanimously consents to their revocation.*
Other claims, asserted and maintained by the Church of
Rome, may be culled from equally authentic sources.t The
* See, in confirmation, the " Constitution" issued by the present
Pope, under date of December 4, 1869, to provide for the contingency
of his death during the recent (Ecumenical Council. It affirms that'" to the Roman Pontiffs... our Lord Jesus Christ gave the full
power to feed, rule, and govern the Universal Church." The Pope
then goes on to declare: " Of our certain knowledge, our motion, and
in the plenitude of our Apostolic power, we decree and ordain," etc.,
(giving details, excluding the council from all share in the election of
a Pope, and declaring null and void whatever they may do, until a
successor to the Papal chair shall be so chosen). Then he proceeds:
"This decision must not be questioned, attacked, refuted, invalidated,
retracted, legally revoked, or submitted to discussion.... We
declare null and void whatever shall be done to the contrary, during the
vacancy of the Apostolic See, by any authority whatever, whether by
the authority of the Council of the Vatican, or of any other (Ecumenical
Council; even with the unanimous consent of the Cardinals that now
are, or at any future time may be." And the document winds up by
proclaiming that whoever shall " call in question this our declaration,
decree, and will," or shall " dare to infringe them," or shall " make
such an attempt," " let him know that he incurs the indignation of
Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul."-Translation made for the (London) Vatican, and officially published in the
(New York) Catholic Register of January 22, 1870.
t As from the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, which
commenced its sessions in December, 1545, twenty-five years after the




ABSTRACT OF ROMIAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINES.            41
unwritten traditions of the " I-Ioly Catholic Church," as having
been handed down to it from Christ, are to be received with
the same veneration as the Holy Scriptures; of which last the
Vulgate is the only authorized translation.* Tradition is to be
received because the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually in the
Church; the Vulgate, because the Church of Rome, which
adopts it, has been kept free from all errors by the special
grace of God.  The seven sacramentst are divinely ordained;
they are referred to Christ, since the institutes of the Church of
Christ are communicated to that Church not by Scripture
alone, but by tradition. Justification is not to be obtained by
faith alone. The sinner is justified (so the Council of Trent
voted), " through the merit of the most sacred passion and by
the power of the Holy Ghost... While man observes
the commands of God and the Church, by the help of faith and
through good works, he grows in righteousness and is justified
more and more." I Justification, however, cannot dispense
with the sacraments, by which it either begins, or when begun
is continued, or when lost is regained.jl  All religious instruction, all interpretation of Scripture, must be given by ecclesiastical authority,aloue.T  The visible Church is also the true
outbreak of the Reformation. These documents (Canones et Decretcr
Concilii Tlridentini, Roma, 1564) were passed chiefly during Sessions
iv. to vii., xiii., xiv., and xxi. to xxv. They will be found in the Historia del Concilio Tridentino, by SARPI, 1629. The Professio Fidei Tridentince, drawn up (A.D. 1564) by order of Pope Pius IV., embodies
them. It was subscribed by all candidates, may be regarded as the
Confession of Faith of the Roman Church, and as having settled, for
Roman Catholicism as against the Protestant heresy, all the chief
points of doctrine. In Sarpi's work (at page 241 and elsewhere) will
be found discussions on these matters.
* Concil. Trident, Sessio IV.
f Namely: 1. Baptism; 2. Confirmation; 3. The Eucharist; 4. Penance; 5. Orders; 6. Marriage; 7. Extreme Unction. Luther and Melancthon were inclined to add to the two usual Protestant sacraments (ta
wit, Baptism and the Lord's Supper) a third, that of Penance.
t SARPI: Sessio VI., c. VII., ~ 10.  I Sessio VII. ~T Sessio IV..




42           SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH RESTRICTED.
Church, and no religious existence can be recognized out of he,
pale.*
WVith these doctrines was included the seclusion of the
Bible even in its Latin version, much more in the vernacular,
from perusal by any one not an ecclesiastic.t
Then, in later documents, we find the ideas of the Roman
Church, touching the relations between science and religion,
and the definition of the Papal claim to infallibility in religious
teachings.  Scientific research must not, on pain of anathema,
be prosecuted in a spirit of freedom, if, in its progress, science
should assert what contravenes the doctrines of the Church.:
And forasmuch as "this See of St. Peter ever remains free
from all error," when its sovereign head, the Pope, speaking'in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority," defines any
"doctrine of faith or morals, to be held by the universal
Church," he is infallible; and therefore " such definitions of the
*'In addition, of course, are to be noted the well-known Romanist
doctrines of the Real Presence, Intercession of Saints, Absolution by
the Priesthood, and Purgatory including the efficacy of prayers for the
dead.
f Anterior to any translations of the Bible into mbdern languages,
the Vulgate had been declared, to all persons not in sacred orders, a
sealed volume. The (Ecumenical Council held at Toulouse, in 1229,
passed a canon, prohibiting the laity from having the books of the Old
and New Testament.-Concil. Tolos. Canon 14: Sabbei Collect., vol.
xi. p. 427.
t " If any one shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in
such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their
assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine; and that such assertions may not be condemned by the Church; let him be anathema."
" If any one shall say that it may, at any time, come to pass in the
progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the Church must be
taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received.
and yet receives them; let him be anathema."
The above, translated for the (New York) Catholic World, by some of
the bishops attending the Council, are sections 2 and 3 of Canon IV.
of the (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, promulgated April 24, 1870.:-See Catholic Workd for June, 1870.




DOGMA OF INFALLIBILITY.                  43
Roman Pontiff are irreformable (irreformabiles) of themselves,
and not by force of the consent of the Church thereto." This
dogma, also, not to be contradicted on pain of anathema.*
The peculiar religious ideas, then, against which Protestantism, during three centuries, has failed to make head, are
substantially these:  A  Spiritual Sovereign of Christendom
(elected, from time to time, by a College of Cardinals), divinely
ordained, infallible, authorized by the Deity to dictate, without
appeal, the religion and the morals of the world.  A Universal Church in which the Holy Ghost perpetually dwells, keeping it free from  all error, and of which the traditions are of
equal authority with Scripture; both being derived through
plenary inspiration of God.  No entrance into Heaven except
for those who receive the sacraments. No escape from Hell
except by obedience to the Universal Church's commands. No
existence of religion outside of the Universal Church.  Denial
* In Chapter IV. of the Dogmatic Decree on the Church of Christ,
passed by the CEcumenical Council, and approved by the Pope, July 18,
1870, after defining the character of Apostolic teaching, it is added:
" This apostolic teaching all the venerable fathers have embraced, and
the holy orthodox doctors have revered and followed, knowing most
certainly that this See of St. Peter ever remains free from all error,
according to the Divine promise of our Lord and Saviour to the Prince
of the Apostles."
And again, in the same chapter, "We teach and define it to be a
doctrine divinely revealed, that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex
cathedra, that is, when in the exercise of his office of pastor and teacher
of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he
defines that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held by the Universal
Church, he possesses, through the Divine assistance promised to him in
the blessed Peter, that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer
willed his Church to be endowed, in defining a doctrine of faith or
morals; and, therefore, that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are
irreformable of themselves, and not by force of the consent of the
Church thereto.
" And if any one shall presume, which God forbid, to contradict this
our definition; let him be anathema. "-Catlholic World for September,
1870, pp. 856-8.




44        MACAULAY'S ARGUMENT AGAINST THE
to the human soul (outside the Catholic priesthood) of the
right to interpret Scripture. Subordination of scientific facts
to the Church's doctrines. Finally, a solemn curse denounced
against all who oppose or deny any canon promulgated by the
Church.
Does it seem to you that TRUTH ought to have been powerless,
for centuries, against prescripts such as these?-that, in all
that time, against a Church styling itself infallible, she should
have lost ground instead of making progress?  One of the
most powerful and cultivated intellects of the century, not Roman Catholic, seems to have taken refuge in that conclusion.
In the essay from which I have quoted Macaulay says:
" WVe often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this enlightening must
be favorable to Protestantism  and unfavorable to Catholicism.
We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to
doubt whether this is a well-founded expectation.... As
to the great question what becomes of man after death we do
not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted
reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian..... Nor is revealed religion in the nature of a progressive science. All divine truth is, according to the doctrine of
the Protestant Churches, recorded in certain books. It is plain,
therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress analogous
to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology,
and navigation. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible,
is on a par with a Christian of the nineteenth century with a
Bible, candor and natural acuteness being, of course, supposed
equal..... It seems to us, therefore, that we have no security for the future against the prevalence of any theological
error that has ever prevailed in time past among Christian
men." *
The gist of this is, that, under a system of revealed teach* M'acaulay's Essays: vol. iii. pp. 305-307.




POSSIBILITY OF RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.            45
ings, there is no religious progress, nor any reasonable hope
for the prevalence of spiritual truth.
Are you content to rest in a conviction thus hopeless?  Are
you content to labor in your vocation under such discouragement as this?
The triumphs, in our day, of art and science, especially in the
production of material wealth, have been vast beyond all former precedent. In 1760 every species of thread was spun on
the single wheel; water and wind were the chief inanimate
motors; and the horse or the dromedary was the fleetest inessenger, except when the intelligence it bore was occasionally
anticipated by the beacon-fire on the hill-top, or by signal from
the cross-bar and the pivoted arm of that clumsy expedient
which was dignified, in those days, by the name of telegraph.
Then came a sudden irruption of industrial inventions, fabulous in their results.  Have you looked into that subject?  It
you consult the best English statisticians you will find that in
the British isles alone, within little more than a century, the
increased power obtained through labor-saving machinery
equals the adult manual labor out of two worlds as populous
as our own.*
Again, aside from industrial enterprise, there are the start* By English political economists the industrial inventions since 1760
are variously set down as furnishing a power equivalent to the unaided
labor of from five hundred to seven hundred millions of adults. The
mean of these-six hundred millions-may be assumed as near the
truth. But as the average available manual labor of any given population is usually estimated as equal to that which might be performed by
one-fourth of that population if all were working adults, it follows that
the labor of six hundred millions of adult workers is equal to the manual power which resides in a population of two thousand four hundred
millions, in other words, of nearly twice the present population of our
globe.
Our statistics, in the United States, furnish no sufficient data for a
similar calculation. The amount of mechanical power compared to
population, though vast and ever increasing among us, averages less,
doubtless, here than in England.




46               TRIUMPHS OF SCIENCE.
ling disco-eries in the more abstruse departments of science,
connected with such names as Faraday, Darwin, Tyndal, Hux
ley.
Is the great, eternal law of progress to operate in every de.
partment of knowledge save one-the most important of all?
Is everything to move on except religion? There has been a
Galileo to enlighten our ignorance touching the orbit of the
earth and the motion of the sun; a Newton to explain to us
the career of planets and systems of planets throughout the
heavens; a Harvey to detect the circulation of the blood; a
Humboldt to unveil for us the Cosmos; a Bacon to organize
the exploration of all fields of earthly knowledge. In every
department of material and intellectual science, the advance
has been from conquest to conquest. But in pneumatology is
the end already reached? Has an investigator of religion no
longer a legitimate vocation? Shall we say of its doctrines, as
a Scottish philosopher did of the learned foundations of Europe
that they are not without their lesson for the historian of the
human mind: immovably moored to the same station by the
strength of their cables and the weight of their anchors, they
serve to mark the velocity with which, as it passes them, the
rest of the world is borne along.
I thank God that I do not believe this. If it were true, life
would be of little worth. How heart-sinking —how utterly
unworthy-the conception that, under the Divine Economy,
that grand privilege of progress to which man owes all he ever
was or ever will be is denied to the science of the Soul, while
inhering in every other!
It is not of the arcana of Theology that I am speaking; it is
of man's soul, not of God's essence. I do not believe that we
of this earth shall ever make progress in the literature of the
planet Jupiter, or in the language spoken by the inhabitants of
Saturn. There is what to man is the unknowable; and outside
the sphere of the knowable, human progress cannot be. Except so far as God's works around us adumbrate their Author
and His attributes, I do not think that by searching we can




NO PROGRESS IN TIIE UNKNOWABLE.             47
make progress in discovering the Creator's ways, or His
thoughts, or His judgments; seeing that these are not as ours,
but unsearchable and past finding out. When we press on in
quest vf such mysteries, the power of the highest intellect expires before it attains an object, as waves on a troubled ocean
break and lose themselves in the vast expanse.
Evidence is scattered all over God's works of infinite intelligence, mercy, love. But when we seek to know what were the
Deity's specific intentions in the original creation of man, for
what purpose He permits evil and misery, how He himself
exists-when we set about analyzing the divine hypostasis and
the like —we come upon mysteries which it is not probable that,
even in the next world, we shall have vision to penetrate or
means to solve.
Macaulay's argument, then, may be admitted, so far as it applies to the abstruser portions of speculative theology; but only
because abstruse theological doctrines are among the unknowable things.*
But as for Spiritual science, I firmly believe that we have
the means of studying it, and therefore of advancing in its
various branches. When we declare that Truth is mighty and
will prevail, we must not except spiritual truth; for that is the
mightiest of all. Why Calvinism, why Lutheranism, prevailed
not, as against the Roman Church, may be explained without
assuming that Christianity lacks the element of progress. To
the wholesome truths which the Reformation put forth, it undoubtedly owed its half-century of progress.  The hypothesis
remains, that while Protestantism may have approached, in
many respects, nearer to the truth than Roman Catholicism, it
may, in other matters, have failed to meet the wants of the age,
and may have -made radical mistakes in opinion that have
proved fatal to its a(lvancement.
* Said Luther, preaching otherwise than he practised: "Let the
Father's good will be acceptable to thee, O man, and speculate not with
thy devilish queries, thy whys and thy wherefores, touching God's
words and works." —Luther's Table Talk, p. 29.




48           GRATND TRUTII IN PROTESTANTISM.
The grand truth inherent in Protestantism, and through
which, in the sixteenth century, chiefly came the wonderful im.
petus it received, is one that has stirred men's learts ever since
they began to think and to reason.  Luther touched upon it:
" Argue will I, and write, and exhort," he said, "' but compel
will I no one." *  If he is not entitled to be called the Apostle
of freedom in thought and speech, it is because, when men first
emerge to the light, its effulgence is wont to blind them; and
thus the world advances only step by step. If the Wittenberg
Doctor had done nothing more than to demand, and to obtain,
for the people the right to read in the vernacular the sayings
and doings of Christ, instead of taking the Christian system, at
second hand, from a privileged Order, that one deed would entitle him to the eternal gratitude of mankind. Luther was not
tolerant, he was not consistent; but how outspoken and fearless was he, even when life was at stake! WVe cannot think of
him  without calling to mind the celebrated words: "I will
go," he said, when on the arrival of the summons to appear
before the Diet of Worms, faint-hearted friends augured for him
the fate of Huss, —" I will go, if there were as many devils
" -doch zwingen will ich Niemand."  The expression occurs in his
first sermon on his return from Wartburg. (Luther's Works, vol. xviii.
p. 256.) Similar sentiments are found elsewhere throughout his earlier
writings.
Hallam reminds us that we should be careful, in considering the
Reformation as part of the history of mankind, not to be misled by the
idea that Luther contended for freedom of inquiry and boundless
privilege of individual judgment. (Literature of Europe, Boston Ed.
1864; vol. i. pp. 306-7.)
But I think we should not deny merit to those who may have advanced, if it be but a few steps, on the road to mental enfranchisement,
because, clogged by the intolerant and dogmatical spirit of their age,
they failed to go farther.
I shall have occasion also, before closing these remarks, to show,
that Luther held, and boldly expressed, advanced ideas on the subject
of literalism and plenary inspiration.




AT MTARBURG.                       49
there as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses." He went,
and the world will long remember the issue.*
~ 5. TIE SIN AT MARBURG AND AT GENEVA.
Deep must be the regret felt by every friend of the fearless
Wittenberger, in calling to mind that history was soon to present the reverse of the medal.  Eight years later, Luther was
summoned by Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to another meeting;
this time at Marburg; f not, as before, to face emperor, and
nobles, and ecclesiarchs; but, in friendship to confer with a
man as brave and honest as himself; a fellow-soldier in the
good fight of faith, stout Ulrich Zwingli; who brought with
him other of the Swiss Reformers. They differed on the
doctrine of the Eucharist,j and the Landgrave hoped to recon* " Little monk," said the veteran commander Freundsberg, tapping
him on the shoulder as he entered the hall-" little monk, little monk,
thou art on a passage more perilous than any I have ever known on the
bloodiest battle fields. But if thou art right, fear not! God will sustain thee." Quaint and undaunted that monk stood before nobles of
the Empire and dignitaries of the Church. When admonished that
argument was unfit, and that the Diet wanted only a straightforward
answer as to whether he would recant, he said they should have an
answer that " had neither horns nor teeth " (die weder Hirner noch
Zahne haben soil "); and it was that well-known one: " I am consciencebound in God's Word, and cannot and dare not recant; since it is
neither safe nor advisable to do anything against conscience. Here I
stand; I cannot otherwise; God help me! Amen! "
t A town of Hesse Cassel, on the Lahn.
t Luther believed in the "' real presence " of Catholicism; defending
his opinion with his usual plump directness, in his treatise: Dass die
tIorte (7iristi, "das ist mein Leib," etc., nochfeststelen; and in his
Grosses TBekenntniss (1528).  He says (alluding to the text, Matthew xxvi. 26): " We are not such fools as not to understand these
words. If they are not clear, I don't know how to talk German. Am
I not to comprehend when a man puts a loaf of bread before me, and
says:'Take, eat, this is a loaf of bread;' and again,' Take, drink,
3




;50             LUTHER REFUSES  IBS HIAND
cile this difference; but each held to his opinion. At the close
Zwingli exclaimed: " Let us confess our union in all things in
which we agree, and as for the rest let us remember that we are
brothers." The Landgrave again earnestly urged concord.
Zwingli, addressing the Wittenberg doctors, said: "There is
no one on earth with whom I more desire to be united than
with you."  Then the noble Swiss Reformer, bursting into
tears and approaching Luther, extended his hand. The obdurate German rejected it.  "You have a different spirit from
ours," was all he said.*
Ah, Mlartin Luther! Valiant wert thou in defence of the
modicum of holy truth thou sawest; and, for that, honored
forever be thy name!  But at Marburg, like other disciples
before thee, thou knewest not what spirit thou wert of. Quick
this is a glass of wine'?  In the same manner, when Christ says,'Take, eat, this is my body,' every child must understand that he
speaks of that which he gives to his disciples." —Luther's Works,
Walch's Ed. IHalle, 1740-53, vol. xx. p. 918.
And again, in his Larger Catechism, Art. Lord's Supper (p. 554),
he says: "A hundred thousand devils, with a pack of visionaries to
boot, may come at me, asking:'How can bread and wine be Christ's
body and blood?' still I know that all the Spirits, and all the learned
heads that can be lumped together, haven't as much wisdom as God's
Majesty has in his least little finger."
Zwingli, on the contrary, regarded the words in question simply as a
trope, like the other words of Christ: " I am the true vine:... ye
are the branches" (John xv. 1, 5).  "The bread,"he said,:'remains the same, but the dignity of the Lord's Supper gives it value."HAGENBACII: History of Doctrines, vol. ii. p. 313 (New York Ed.
1862).
* It was in 1529. Two years later, Zwingli gave his life, on the
battlefield, for the Protestant cause. One wonders what Luther's sensations may have been when the news reached him.
Since writing the above, I find, in a biography of Luther by one of
his warmest admirers, the following:' When Luther heard of the
death of the brave Swiss, on the sanguinary field of Cappel, fighting
for the liberties of his'country, there is no sympathy, but a grating
harshness in the tone in which he received the sad news."-TULLOCH?:
Leaders of the lefom'mation. London, 1859, p. 62.




TO A NOBLE CO-LABORER.                  51i
to condemn what to thy short-sight loomed up, though but a
mote in another's eye, blind to the beam in thine own, when
thou rejectedst the hand of thy gentle, weeping brother, who
came to thee suing for peace as becomes a child of God, the
Christian was dead within thee: it was that Evil Spirit of selflove, which thy fancy had so often personified as Demon, that
ruled the hour.  Heaven help those who, in this, are still following thy ei ring lead!
This radical error ran through the Great Reformer's life.
While one cannot read his " Table Talk," * without warming
under the blunt geniality of the man, nor without admiring the
force of his rough-hewings, yet his unchristian asperity toward
his opponents-alas! the spirit of his age among controversialists-is as directly opposed to the gentle teachings of his
Master, as if the Wittenberg doctor had never looked into the
Testament, or read the Sermon on the Mount.
We might excuse him, perhaps, considering how he was per.
secuted, for saying: " Seeing the Pope is Antichrist, I believe
him to be a devil incarnate; "t we may find apology even for
this: " He that says the Gospel requires works for salvation, I
say, flat and plain, is a liar." I But what shall we say of the
terms he applies to one of the most distinguished scholars of
the age, the intimate of Sir Thomas More, one who revived the
* Dr. Martin Luther's Colloquia Mensalzia, or his Divine Discourses
at his Table: gathered, with the scrupulous punctiliousness of a Boswell, from the mouth of Luther, by two of his most intimate friends
and disciples (Lauterbach and Aurifaber), translated by Hazlitt, London, 1848.
Under an edict issued by the Emperor Rudolph II., 80,000 copies of
this work (then to be found in almost every parish of the empire) are
said to have been burnt.
t " Table Talk," p. 195. One of Luther's works is entitled: Des
Papstthum zu Rom vom Teufe gestiftet; that is: The Roman Papacy,
an institution of the Devil. The expression quoted above is but one
of a hundred (some much more abusive), which he " thundered," as
his admirers were wont to express it, against the Church of Rome, its
head and its clergy. The mace of steel was his weapon.
t Table Talk, p. 137.




52               CAL M'3S GRIEVrOUS SIN.
study of the Scriptures in the original tongues, publishing, in
1516, the first edition of the Greek Testament fiom manuscripts
-a man who, like himself, had been condemned as a heretic
by Roman Catholic authority-what shall we say of his abuse
of such a man, whose worst faults were timidity and conservative moderation?  "Erasmus of Rotterdam," said Luther, "is
the vilest miscreant that ever disgraced the earth.
Whenever I pray, I pray for a curse upon Erasmus." *
It is to be admitted, however, that Luther is not the exponeant of that phase of early Protestantism which led men the farthest astray from the paths of charity and justice. A man,
second only to himself in prominence as a Reformer, with more
learning, and, in the sense of the schools, an acuter intellect
than Luther-one more polished, too, and far more cold-blooded
than the bluff and hearty Wittenberger-this man, John Calvin, sinned far more grievously than the other, not against
light and knowledge-for the stern Genevan is not to be taxed
with insincerity-but against the Spirit that can alone reform
the heart of man-against that holy Spirit, without which the
most eloquent master of all mysteries and all knowledge is but
as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
One of the forty-one heresies charged against Luther in Leo's
bull of excommunication was that he (Luther) had declared it
to be " against the will of the Holy Ghost to burn heretics."
But Calvin was accessory to that very persecution unto death
for opinion's sake which the other, at the outset of his career
as a Reformer, had thus emphatically condemned.
That I may not be held to have made light assertion here
touching an important episode in history which I had not carefilly examined, I pray you to bear with me while I briefly recall the chief incidents connected with the burning as a heretic,
* Table tazlk, p. 283. The immediate cause of this outburst seems
to have been Erasmus' -expression of opinion that the Epistle to the
Romans, whatever it might have been at a former period, was nlot appli.
cable to the state of things in the sixteenth century. (Same page.)




BERVETUS.                         53
by the Protestants of Geneva, of a fellow Christian, in the yeat
1553. The story has been told by an eminent Protestant divine, with careful impartiality * and an exceeding minuteness
of detail: and there are still extant numerous official, or otherwise trustworthy authorities by which to test the historian's
accuracy.
~ 6. THE FORTUNES AND THIE FATE OF SERVETUS.
Michael Serveto (or, as he is usually called, Servetus) was
born in the year 1509, in Villa Nueva, a town in the kingdom
of Aragon which had, thirty-five years before, become part of
the kingdom of Spain. He was of reputable birth; his parents
being Catholic and his father an advocate in good standing and
notary of the town.  He was probably educated for the Church,
in a Spanish Convent; but he emigrated from his native country at the age of nineteen, never to return to it. He was of
feeble constitution, afflicted with hernia from his birth, and, ac* Mosheim's narrative bears, throughout, the impress of truth.
Deeply feeling the delicacy of his task, he says, at the outset: "It
is easier to pass unhurt between two fires burning close to each other
than to relate, in such fashion that no one shall be offended or exasperated, the history of a man who had so many bitter enemies and strong
friends. The deep emotions which arise when we look into such
a history-emotions of pity, of love, of anger, of hatred-tend to mislead even the man who sets the strictest guard on his conscience.
I approach this work with entire calmness and tranquillity of heart
(mit einer v61lligen Gelassenheit und Stille des Herzens) and take with
me the earnest resolve at once to put down all sentiment that might
disturb that calm.... I deprecate but one thing-of all imputations
the most shameful —that I shall knowingly pervert or suppress the
truth." - MIosINEIrI:  Geschlchte des beriiahten Spanisclcen Artztes,
Michaels Serveto; Helmstaedt, 1748, pp. 4, 5.
This history, which I believe has never been translated, extends,
with its numerous accompanying documents, to 528 quarto pages, displaying an elaborate and exhaustive research rarely to be found outside
of German literature.




54                 CREED OF SERVETUS.
cording to his own declaration, it was on account of his infirm
health that he never married. He seems to have been earnest
and studious from his youth up; and it is not improbable that
incipient symptoms of heresy may have been the cause why, at
so early an age, he left the place.of his birth. It is certain
that three years after his emigration he had already abandoned
the Romish faith, and become imbued with the religious ideas
that were to rule his life. These three years were chiefly spent
in study at the University of Toulouse.
When but twenty-two years of age, to wit in 1530, he visited,
at Basel, a noted Swiss Reformer, Johann Hausschein, better
known under the Greek name he assumed, of (Ecolampadius;
frankly laying before him his creed. It appears to have been
substantially as follows:
There is one God almighty, and none other beside him, single
not complex, who through his Word and through the Holy Ghost,
created all things.  There is one only Lord, Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, begotten by the eternal Word of the Father and
given by God to men as Saviour and Redeemer: He prays to
the Father for us; and through his prayers and by the agency
of angels, we receive the Holy Ghost.*
CEcolampadius, the chief leader of the new religious movement
in Basel and a man highly esteemed all over Switzerland, was
by nature of mild and gentle character for that age; yet he
was sorely tried by the eagerness, and what he must have
* MosrEIrM: Geschiclhte des M2Jiclael Serveto, p. 16. HOTTINGER:
Sczhweitzer Kirchengeseldcehte, vol. ii. p. 94.  Throughout Servetus'
works, when he seeks minutely to define his idea of the nature and
divinity of Christ, his expressions are not very intelligible: a common
fault among the theologians of that age, to say nothing of our own.
Here is Calvin's definition of the Trinity: " There is in the Father a
proper hypostasis, which is conspicuous in the Son; and thence, also,
we may easily infer the hypostasis of the Son which distinguishes him
from the Father. The same reasoning is applicable to the Holy Spirit.
But this is not a distinction of the essence Which it is unlawful tc
represent as any other than simple and undivided."-Inst., Book 1,
Chap. 13, ~ 2.




SERVETUS AND (ECOLAMPADIUS.                 55
deemed the presumption, of a scarcely-bearded youth, who
pressed upon him, a father in Israel, doctrines savoring of
Arianism, and held arogument with one of more than twice his
own age, as man to man, on terms of frank equality. They
parted, as honest men often do, mutually incensed; * the Spaniard protesting that he should' ever recognize Christ as the Son
of God; the Swiss insisting that if his opponent intended to be
a Christian, he must acknowledge Christ to be the uncreated
and eternal Son of God, of identical substance with the Father.
It was the same dispute, unsettled yet, that had convulsed the
Council of Nice, twelve hundred years before, between the advocates of the orthodox Ilomoousian and those of the heterodox Iiomoiousian doctrine.
A little knowledge of the world would have convinced
Servetus that if his doctrines were thus harshly repulsed by a
man of (Ecolampadius' easy temper, they would be certain to
create a storm of indignation among the Reformers generally.
But not perceiving this, or, if he perceived it, undeterred by
prudence and carried away by the conviction that he had a
mission from God, the young Spaniard printed, in Strasburg
in 1531, his work on the. "Errors of the Trinity." t
* When Servetus, next year, went to- Strasburg he complained to
Bucer, a noted Reformer residing there, of CEcolampadius' harsh
treatment. Bucer probably wrote on the subject to CEcolampadius: at
all events there is a letter extant addressed by the latter to Bucer in
which he exculpates himself in these words: " I will be mild in other
things, but not when I hear Jesus Christ blasphemed."-RUCrAT:
Histoire de la Reformnation de Suisse, vol. iii. Book 7.
t De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri Sqetem. As a specimen of the obscurity of definition to which I have referred, take the following from this
work: I' Christ was preformed in the Divine mind; he was a certain
mode of existence which God constituted in himself, that he might
make himself visible to us; namely by describing the effigies of Jesus
Christ in Himself."  (Erat Christus in mente divina prieformatus; erat
quidem modus se habendi, quem in se ipso Deus disposuit, ut seipsuln
nobis patefaceret, scilicet Jesu Christi effigiem in se discribendo.")
Lib. vii. p. 110.




56                  SERVETUS IN PARIS
It had a large circulation, and an exasperating effect. CEcolampadius, writing to Bucer to exonerate his countrymen from
all sympathy with such a heresy, adds that " he knew not how
that beast had slipped into Switzerland." *  And Bucer, usu
ally temperate in language for a theologian of the sixteenth
century, preached violently against Servetus, declaring " that
the heretic ought to be disembowelled and torn to pieces." t
The Reformers felt the more outraged because the Catholics
threw it up to them that this new Arianism of Servetus (as
they called it) was the legitimate offspring of the Reformation.
It became unsafe for the rash innovator either in Switzerland
or in Germany.  He took refuge in France, at first in Lyons,
afterwards in Paris, where, for years, he studied the profession
of medicine, obtaining a degree both in that science and in arts..He lectured, also, on astronomy and mathematics, and, as it appeared, not to obscure audiences; having had distinguished
men among his hearers, one of these being the learned Peter
Palmer or Palmerius, afterwards, fortunately for Servetus, a
lignitary of the Roman Chuirch.  Then he issued a medical
work, got into serious trouble with the Paris faculty, and left
Paris in consequence, in 1540.  In 1542 he settled at Vienne,
a town on the Rhone, some twenty-five miles south of Lyons;
his chief inducement being that his former friend and patron,
Palmier, was then Catholic Archbishop of the place. There,
also, he found warm well-wishers in the Archbishop's brother,
the Prior, Jean Palmier, in Rochefort, President of the medical
faculty, and in a former intimate friend and fellow-student in
Paris, Jean Perellus, the Archbishop's physician.  In Vienne,
he issued two works; a revised edition, with notes and emenda* Epistola Zwinglii et (CEcolamrpadii, vol. iv. p. 801.
f Calvin is the authority for this. After Servetus' death, he wrote
defending his conduct to a friend: " Is [he is speaking of Servetus] est,
de quo fidelis Christi minister, et sanctme memorize D. Bucerus, quum
alioqui mansueto esset ingenio, pro suggestu pronunciavit: dignum esse,
qui avulsis visceribus discerperetur."- Calvirdi Epistola, CLVI. ad Sul
cerum, p. 294 (Ed. Amstelod. 1567, page 90).




AND IN VIENNE.                      57
tions, of that great thesaurus of ancient cosmical knowledge,
by Ptolemy, which Humboldt characterizes as a colossal production; and a new edition of the Vulgate, with a preface and
annotations.
Ten years he spent at Vienne, the most tranquil of his
stormy life; his practice as physician daily increasing through
the favor of influential friends, to wlom, as he gracefully ex.pressed it in the dedication of his Ptolemceus, his obligations
were as great as were those of the students of geography to
Ptolemy himself. During this time, he silently conformed to
the rites of the Catholic Church; constrained thereto, doubtless, by a sense of the extreme rashness of alienating those
benevolent patrons to whom he owed not his present easy circumstances only, but the protection of his life.
After a time, however, he became restless, accusing himself
that, by such conformity, he was paltering with his conscience,
and neglecting the work which God had laid upon him.  He
sought to renew, with Calvin, a theological correspondence
which he had begun ten years before. Calvin's biographers
state that in setting before the Genevese Reformer what he
considered to be his (Calvin's) departure from true Christian
doctrine, Servetus admonished him with much asperity; and
this is doubtless true; for the Spaniard's zeal, like that of
almost all the Reformers of that day, was mingled with arrogance. We may suppose it was for this reason that Calvin replied not a word to the other's repeated missives.*
* It ought not, however, in this connection, to be forgotten that Calvin, years before, permitted a spirit of the coarsest reviling against his
opponent to break out even in his (Calvin's) commentaries on the Bible.
On Genesis i. 3, his annotation is: " This alone is enough to refute the
blasphemy of Servetus. That obscene dog barks that this was the origin of the Word when God commanded there should be light." In the
Amsterdam edition of Calvin's works (9 vols. fol., 1671) will be found
the original Latin, reading thus: " Latrat hic obsccenus canis hoc primum fuisse Verbi initium, quum Deus mandavit ut lux esset." OfheI
passages (as the comment on St. John i. 1) contain similar terms of
3*




58                   SERVETUS PUBLISHES
Then Servetus resolved on the publication of his chief and
most noted work;* one on which he had been laboring for
years and which cost him  his life.  The idea which had formerly haunted him returned with resistless force. He was a
soldier of Christ, called upon to take part (as he was wont to
express it) in the great fight now being waged between Michael
and the Dragon. Luther himself was not more zealous in his
faith, nor more bold in expressing it. Servetus' preface exhibits his profound conviction that God had called him to bear
witness before a benighted world. With a touching earnestness he implores the Son of God that he would reveal Himself
to his servant, enlightening him, vouchsafing a holy spirit and
words of power, and so directing thoughts and pen that the
glory of His own divinity might be set forth and the very
truthof Christian faith be illustrated. t Christ was banished
from the world (he declares in his book) when the Nicean
Council set aside the true doctrine touching His person, and
proclaimed the dogma of a tripartite God. f
opprobrium. (Nec me latet quid oblatret hie canis, etc.) It needs a
reference to such passages as originally written, to convince one that
men of gravity and world-wide reputation, seeking sacred truths, could
indulge, toward fellow-laborers, in spirit and language so utterly disgraceful.
* lestitzttio Cristianismi. It was printed, at Servetus' own cost
(1,000 copies), by Balthazar Arnollet, in Vienne, and published early in
the year 1553. This is said to be the scarcest work in the republic of
letters. Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans concurred in efforts for its
destruction. It is doubtful whether more than a single printed copy
remains, and that brought, at the Valleirian sale in 1784, the sum of
4,120 livres.
t " O Christe Jesu, fili Dei,... teipsum aperi servo tuo, ut manifestatio tanta vera patefiat. Spiritum tuum bonum et verbum efficax
petcnti nunc tribue, mentem meam et calamum dirige, ut divinitatis tuWe
gloriam possim enarrare ac veram di te fidem exprimere." —Preface to
the Restoration of Christianity.
t " Ab eo tempore est in tres res tripartitus Deus, fugatus omninc
Christus, pessundata omnino ecclesia." —Restitutio C1hrstianismi, Lib.
I. p. 394.




ImIS GREAT WORK.                    59
Nor did the enthusiast conceal from himself that life was
staked on the issue. In a letter to Abel Pepin, a Genevese
divine, written some years before the publication of his work on
the Restoration of Christianity, and used against him on his
trial, he says: " I know of a surety that I shall die for this
cause; but not on that account do I lose heart, desiring to become a disciple like unto my Master." *
In another part of this letter to Pepin is a sample of the
imprudence of speech into which Servetus was occasionally betrayed. He bluntly tells the Genevese preacher, " Your gospel
is without the one God, without the true faith, without good
works. Instead of one God you have a three-headed Cerberus;
instead of true faith you have a fatal dream; and good works
you say are empty shows."
It does not appear, however, that in his works he permitted
himself any expression so offensive to trinitarians, as the " threeheaded Cerberus." His strongest printed expressions are a
" chimera," a " mere imagination," and the like.
Scarcely had Servetus' book been issued, when a copy found
its way to Geneva, where it produced no little excitement. A
certain Frenchman, named William Trie, a convert from the
Church of Rome, who had taken refuge in that city, seems to
have been especially irritated thereby.  He wrote, in March
(1553), to a Catholic friend in Lyons, some have said at the
instigation of Calvin, but of that I find no sufficient proof.
He taunted his friend with the carelessness of the Church he
himself had deserted, in tolerating, in Vienne, an arch heretic;
and he gave Servetus' name and address, and the title of the
new work of which he was the author.  His friend held it a
duty to bring the matter to the notice of the Archbishop of
Vienne. Slowly and reluctantly, as it seemed, Servetus' Catholic friends in Vienne moved in the matter; alleging that there
*"'Mihi ob earn rem moriendum esse, certo scio; sed non propterea
animo deficior, ut flam discipulus similis Preceptori." This letter,
written in 154i, is given by Mosheim, copied from the official registez
of the trial. -Gesclichte des Miickaet Serveto, p. 100.




60             IIHE ESCAPES FROM VIENNE.
was not sufficient proof that the well-known and much esteemed physician, Michael de Villa Nueva (for under that
name he was known among them), was Servetus, and had written
the book in question.  Disappointed in his first effort, Trie
procured from  Calvin the private letters on theology which
Servetus had addressed to him, and sent these, in the month of
April, to Vienne. Even then the Catholic officials seem to
have hesitated. Six weeks more elapsed ere Servetus was
arrested; and this was done in a private way, his feelings
being respected to the utmost. In prison he was assigned comfortable quarters; his servant was allowed to be with him; he
was suffered to retain his money and other valuables and even
permitted the range of the building.  On his examination his
book and his letters to Calvin were used as evidence against
him, and he frankly confessed himself the author of both. A
few days later and before sentence, he escaped from prison,
probably by the connivance of his Catholic friends, including
the Archbishop; and, after a fruitless search for him, which
seems not to have been earnestly pressed, he was condemned
as a heretic and burnt in effigy.
It was in the month of June that Servetus fled from Vienne,
resolved to seek refuge and a livelihood as physician in Naples.
Two roads were open to him; that by Piedmont, to which his
objection probably was that he was then liable to be overtaken
by a warrant issued for his apprehension by the inquisitors of
Vienne; the other, by Geneva through Switzerland, which he
selected, doubtless deeming it the safer route.  He probably
underrated  Calvin's power among his fellow-burgesses, not
knowing how narrowly a distinguished member of the City
Council * had escaped a few years before. Nor is it likely he
* Peter Ameaux. He had spoken somewhat freely of Calvin's doctrines, especially of predestination and election, and his temerity cost
him dear. Deposed from his office and cast into prison, he was fain to
l;:rcihase his release by appearing as a penitent, waxlight in hand, conf-ssing the sin he had commlitted and imploring forgiveness for his
heresy. - Geschchte des Mic/hael Serveto, p. 152.




A QUAINT OLD DECREE.                       61
had ever been informed, that in the previous month of Novenl
ber a decree had passed the Council of Geneva, declaring Calvin's Institutes to be a book "well and holily written, its
doctrine to be the holy doctrine of God," and that "from this
time forth no one shall dare to say aught against the said book
or the said doctrine;" commanding all and several that they
adhere to this.*
There was another document, which, had the poor fugitive
seen it, would have warned him that of all places Geneva was
tihe most dangerous for him to pass through. It was a letter,
addressed by Calvin seven years before (to wit, in 1546), to his
friend, William  Farell (or Farellus), in which occurs this passage: "Servetus'wrote to me lately, and to his letters added
a large volume of his ravings, with braggart boastings that I
should therein find things stupendous and hitherto unheard of.
If it pleased me, he added, he would come hither; but I was
* I shall have occasion a few pages farther on to speak of the book
here referred to and its doctrines. The decree from which I have
quoted above is as well worth preserving, in its quaint old dress, as any
Egyptian mummy in its cerements. Here it is, dated, it will be observed, Wednesday, November 9, 1552:
"Estans ouys in Conseil, et savans ministres de la parolle de Dieu,
Maistre Guillaume Farel et Pierre Viret, et apres eux spectables maistre Johan Calvin et maistre Johan Trouillet, en leurs dires et reproches
souvent debattues de l'Institution Chrestiene du diet monsieur Calvin,
et le tout bien cgnsider6, le conseil arrest6 et conclu que toutes choses
bien oyes et entendu, a prononc6 et declar6 le diet livre de l'Institution
du diet monsieur, estre bien et sainctement faict, sa doctrine estre
saincte doctrine de Dieu; que l'on le tient pour bon et vrai ministre de
ceste Cite, et que de l'ici a l'avenir personne ne soit ose parler contre lc
diet livre ou la dicte doctrine. Commandans aux pareilles et a tous se
doive tenir a cela. Le Mequredi, que fut neufvieme de Novembre;
l'an mille cincq cens cincquante et deux."
The original, on the records of the Council, can doubtless still be seen
at Geneva. Castalio, a neighbor and contemporary of Calvin (if, as is
usually believed, he was the author of Contra libellum Calvini, 1554),
publishes it entire in that work.




62                     CALVIN GS THREAT.
not willing to engage my word. For if he does come, so far as
my authority may prevail, he shall never go hence alive." *
Unknowing these things and hoping for better treatment from
Protestants than Catholics, the unfortunate Servetus, after
* The authenticity of this extract has been sometimes called in question, probably because it has been confounded with another letter to
Peter Viret, a minister of Geneva, which Bolsec (in his De vita et
moribus Calvini, Book 3, p. 8) alleges that he saw and in regard to
which the evidence is insufficient. The letter to Farell in Calvin's own,
well-known hand, was found by the celebrated Grotius, in the year 1631,
in a four-volume manuscript collection of letters from distinguished
Protestants in Paris. (GeC chichte des Michael Servetus, p. 130.) The
Dutch historian Vytenbogaert, gives the extract in his Kerkelyken
Historie (Book 2, p. 45), as follows: " Servetus nuper ad me scripsit,
et litteris adjunxit magnum volumen suorum deliriorum, cum Thrasonica jactantia, me stupenda et hactenus inaudita visurum.  Si mihi
placeat, huc se venturum recipit: sed nolo fideln meam interponere.
Nam  si venerit, modo valeat mea auctoritas, vivunz exire nunquarn
patiar."  The italics are my own. Vytenbogaert gives this extract on
the authority of " een seer geleert, ende in dese Landen wol bekennt
Personagie, anno 1631," who had inspected the letter in Paris. (P. 48.)
" One can hardly doubt" says Mosheim, " that Grotius is here designated; he was an intimate friend of Vytenbogaert, and he lived in
Paris in 1630 and 1631." (Gescelichte, p. 131.) But, to remove all
doubt as to the existence of this letter, we have Grotius' own words
which I have verified. Speaking, in his theological works, of those who
have written in favor of punishing heretics by the sword, he says:
" Horum Calvinus autem is est qui antequam Servetus (is autem ipsius
judicium super scriptis suis expetiverat) veniret Genevam, scripsit
(exstat ipsius Lutetie manus) ad Farellum, si quid sua valeret auctoritas,
effecturum  ne vivus abiret." —GROTIUS: Opera Theologica, fol. Amsterdam, 1679, vol. iii. (Append. de Antichristo) p. 503.
It will be observed that Grotius not only states the fact that the letter
to Farellus, in Calvin's own hand, was extant in Lutetia (Paris) and contained the threat against Servetus' life, but also alludes to another circumstance, to be gathered from the extract as given by Vytenbogaert,
namely, that Servetus had solicited Calvin's opinion touching his (Serve.
tus') writings.
Other authors testify to the same effect; but the above suffices.




HE ACTS UPON rr.                       63
secreting himself for sometime in Dauphind, ran into the lion's
mouth.
The precise period of his arrival in Geneva and the term of
his residence there are uncertain: some alleging that he tarried
in thb city a single day only,* others that he lay hidden there,
communicating with no one, for three or four weeks. Certain
it is, that, on the eve of his departure, by vessel, up the lake,
on his way to Zurich, he was, at the instance of Calvin,t arrested as a heretic and cast into prison. The property which
the inquisitors of Vienne had respected was surrendered to
the inquisitors of Geneva;-it included a heavy neck-chaiin of
gold, such as was usually worn in those days by men of his
condition, several gold rings, and ninety-seven gold pieces.
His place of confinement was a dungeon, assigned only to
malefactors committed for capital offences. There he lay during
two months and a half.
IHe was arraigned before the Syndics, judges of the Criminal
Court. The charge against him was for heresy alone; his
private character appearing to have been unblemished. In
Geneva, as in Vienne, he admitted and justified his peculiar
opinions, demanding permission to engage in public argument
with Calvin, in open church, or before the larger council of the
* Principal Tulloch, who seems to have examined the authorities
with care, thinks there is conclusive evidence that Servetus arrived at
Geneva on a Sunday, wandered off, after dinner, into the church where
his great adversary was preaching, was there recognized by some one
who reported the fact of his presence to Calvin, and was arrested the
same evening. —Leaders of the Reformation, London, 1859, p.. 141.
t This will be admitted as beyond question by those who have looked
carefully into the history of the case; seeing that Calvin himself asserts it. In a letter written to his friend Sulcerus, dated September 9.
1553, speaking of Servetus, he says:'At length, driven hither by his
evil genius, one of the Syndics, at my instigation, arrested him." The
original reads: "Tandem hue malls auspiciis appulsum, unus ex
Syndicis, me auctore, in carcerum duci jussit." —Epistola ad Sulcerum
in Epistolis Calvini, No. 156, p. 294.
Servetus was arrested August 13, 1553.




64              TRIAL OF SERVETUS BEFORE
two hundred, on the question whether his doctrine was in ac
cordance withl Scripture. This was denied him; and as a verbal discussion before the Court touching the true sense of the
words person and hAypostasis, and similar theological subtleties,
had led to intemperance of language on the part of both controversialists, it was ordered that Calvin should set forth his
argument in writing, to which Servetus should reply in like
manner.
Two weeks had elapsed before Calvin had completed his
paper. Therein he set himself to prove, and succeeded in proving, that many of Servetus' religious opinions were heretical;
that is, were at variance.with the teachings of his own Institutes,
which Institutes, as we have seen, the Geneva Council had
decreed to be " the holy doctrine of God."  Then Servetus,
having been furnished with writing materials, and with such
books as he desired from Calvin's library and other sources,
was called on for a reply.  Some of Calvin's accusations he
denied indigdnant]y;* but stoutly defended his own actual opinions. All this caused great delay, during which the prisoner
complained piteously to his judges of his miserable condition;
eaten up by vermin, racked with pains from disease and from
the cold and damp; without the means of cleanliness or even a
change of linen; suffering other miseries, he adds, ~"about
which it shames me to write." t
* For example, " that the human soul is mortal" and that "Jesus
Christ derived but a fourth part of his body from the Virgin Mary:""things horrible and execrable," Servetus writes (September 22),' which if I had ever said in private or written in public, I should condemn my own self to death." —_1osheim, p. 419.
t " Les poulx me mangent tout vif, mes chauses sont descirces, et
nay de quoy changer, ni pourpoint, ni chamise, que une mechante."
This was September 15. Under date October 10 he writes: " Quant a
ce que avies command6, qu'on me fit quelque chose pour me tenir net,
nen a rien est6 faict et suys plus pietre que jamais. Et davantage le
froyt me tormante grandament a cause de ma colique et rompure, la
quelle mengeldre daultres pauretes, que ai honte vous escrire."-Original letters, given in Geschichte des Michad eSeveto, p. 421.




THE COUNCIL OF GENEVA.                   65
The theological controversy could have but one issue;
then the Public Prosecutor took up the case, and Servetus
demanded the aid of an attorney, alleging that he was a foreigner, ignorant of the customs of their city. To this the
prosecutor replied'that the prisoner knew so well how to tell
lies, he needed no counsel: and his demand was rejected accordingly.*
Aime Perret, one of the principal members of the City
Council, backed by a few equally tolerant spirits, sought to
avert Servetus' impending fate; but the great authority of
Calvin, who had determined on the heretic's death,t prevailed.
Proposals to commute the punishment to banishment, or to perpetual imprisonment, were defeated; and after some weeks'
delay, to give time for replies from various Swiss Churches
which had been consulted on the matter,: the weary suspense
of the prisoner was at last, on the twenty-sixth of October,
broken by the announcement that he had just been condemned
and would be executed the next day. For five or six weeks
previously his urgent endeavors to procure a further hearing
had been fruitless; ~ yet he seemed to have been wholly unprepared for the terrible result. Weakened doubtless by his long
* DE LA RoCHE: Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv. p. 188. This
author had access to the original papers in the trial.
t Under date August 20 (a week after the arrest of Servetus), Calvin
wrote to a friend: " I hope that he will be sentenced to death; but
the atrocity of his mode of suffering I desire to have remitted."
(" Spero capitale saltim fore judicium; poenae vero atrocitatem remitti
cupio").-Calv. Epist. No. 134, p. 290.
t Namely, the Churches of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel, and Berne.
Though none of these Churches committed themselves on the subject
of capital punishment for heresy, and though the Bernese expressed
the hope that their brethren of Geneva, " would do nothing unworthy
of a Christian magistracy," the gist of their replies was to encourage
the prosecution.
~ " These three weeks," he wrote, October 10, " have I sought an
audience-in vain. I implore you, by the love of Jesus Christ, not tc
refuse me the justice you would grant to a Turk. " —Mosheim, p. 420.




66                THE DEATH SENTENCE.
and painful confinement, he was utterly overcome, shedding
tears and utter:ing cries for mercy.
His death-sentence, after reciting his heresies, of which the
principal seems to have been that, " contrary to the true foundation of the Christian Religion, and detestably blaspheming
the Son of God, he said that Jesus Christ was not the Son of
God from all eternity, but only since his incarnation"-went
on to decree, in the name of the Trinity, that he should be
bound and conducted to the spot called Champel, there fastened
to a stake and burnt alive, along with his manuscripts and
printed book, till his body was reduced to ashes.*
When they summoned the condemned, next morning, to
execution, he begged to be beheaded, instead of undergoing the
torture of fire; adding that if he had erred it was from ignorance, and with pure and good motive, and to further the glory
of God. Farell, Calvin's friend and colleague in the ministry, t
who had been appointed as his escort, told him, for sole answer,
that his best plan was to recant and so gain pardon. Servetus
replied that he had committed no crime, nor ever deserved
death; but that he prayed God to forgive his accusers the sin
they were committing against him. This grievously offended
the other, who retorted sharply; and Servetus ceased to beg
further mercy of man. This submission so far moved Farell
* "Au nom du Pere, du Fils, et du sainct Esprit,.. toy, ThdICIEEL
SERVET condamnons a devoir estre li6 et men6 au lieu de Chapel et la
devoir estre a un pilotis attach6 et brusl6 tout vif avec ton livre, tant
ecrit de ta main qu'imprim6, jusqu'a ce que ton corps soit reduit en
cendre." —Mosheim, p. 446.
t One of the most eloquent and violent among the Protestant divines
of that day. He was the author of the celebrated Placards, written at
Geneva, posted in an evil hour (during the night of October 24-5, 1534).
on the walls of Paris, even in the palace of Francis I., and which, by
the gross intemperance of their spirit, and the virulent abuse of their
language, arrested for the time the cause of the Reformation in France,
defeated the efforts of the gentle Margaret, the king's sister, to procure
toleration for the new creed, and brought to torture and to death thousands of brave and good men.




SERVETUS AT THE STAKE.               67
that he sent to the Council praying that Servetus' punishment
might be commuted to death by the axe; but the judges were
inexorable, and the procession moved toward the small mount
outside of the walls where the sentence was to be carried into
effect. On the way Servetus exclaimed aloud, from time to
time, "0  God, save my soul! O Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me! ".
"Mend thy last words," said his ghostly comforter: "if thou
wouldst save thyself, call on Jesus, the eternal Son of God."
But he could not be moved to this. When he approached the
fatal spot and sawthe stake, with fagots piled around it, he fell
on his face, praying in silence.
Then Farell harangued the crowd: " You see here," he said,
"how mighty is the power of Satan. This wretch, who is
about to suffer death, is a very learned man; and perhaps, even,
he may think that what he has done is right. But the devil
has him in his coils, having taken entire possession. Take heed
that a similar calamity overtake not yourselves."
When Servetus arose from prayer, Farell made a last effort
to procure from him a confession that Christ was God's son
from all eternity. But, in reply, he only cried out: " My God,
my God!"  "Can't you say something better than that?"
persisted the preacher. "What better," replied the poor
wretch, " than to call on God in my utmost need?"  Then he
entreated the bystanders to pray for him.*
At the very last, before he was committed to the executioner's
hands, Farell exclaimed: "The eternal Son of God, say but
that! " Not a word from the convict in reply! He lwas
fastened to the stake by a strong chain about his body and a
rope passed several times around his neck, the book which
constituted his crime being bound to his loins.
When he saw the fagots kindled and felt the first touch of
the flame, he cried out so piteously that the crowd around were
* Calvin (Refut. error. S-rveti, p. 704) actually brings it up as an accusation against his victim that he asked the prayers of those whose
faith he beld to be false and heretical.




68               LAST WORDS OF SERVETUS.
thrilled with horror.  The fuel was green oak wood and hiM
torture lasted a full half hour. Some of the spectators, urged
by irresistible compassion, flung burning fagots over his body,
the sooner to end his agony. His very last words, pronounced
in a loud voice, were these: "Jesus, thou Son of the eternal
God, take pity upon me."*
Thus perished, martyr to his religious opinions, a Protestant
whom  Mosheim  declares to have been " one of the most
thoughtful and learned men of his day." t Calvin caused his
death, but is not responsible for his torture.: Nor should we
* These and many other details will be found in Mosheim's Geschichtd
des Michael Serveto, ~ xxxi. pp. 225-228.
t - -" einer der tiefsinningsten und gelehrtesten Mlanner seiner Zeiten."-MosIEIEM: Geschichte des Michael Serveto, p. 230.
Science, too, owes a debt bf gratitude to the Spanish physician.
The author of the article " Circulation," in Rees' Encyclopedia, says:
" The first ray of light was thrown on the circulation of the blood by a
man (Servetus) whose name cannot be mentioned without feelings of
compassion."
The passage to which the above refers will be found quoted, at
length, in An impartial History of Michael Servetus, burnt alive at
Geneva for Heresie, London, 1724, p. 67.
t When it seemed not unlikely that Perret and the other friends of
moderation might carry the day and save Servetus' life. Calvin threatened, in that case, to leave Geneva and take up his abode elsewhere;
whereupon his friend Heinrich Bullinger, hearing of such intention,
thought it necessary to entreat him (by letter of September 14) not to
desert a Church where so many good men were to be found; since
" though swine and dogs " (the writer's paraphrase for heretics) " were
more numerous than could be wished, yet we should bear much for the
elect's sake, seeing that through many tribulations we must enter the
Kingdom of God."-MosrrEIAi, p. 231. HENR. BULINGER, in Epist.
Calvini, No. 157, p. 295. The text is:' Ne recesseris, oro, ab ea ecclesia,
quam tot habet viros excellentes....  Tametsi enim sunt porci et canes multo Vilures quam velimus, propter electos tamen multa sunt toleranda. Per multas tribulationes oportet nos ingredi in regnum Dei."
To console, under anticipated misfortune, a man who fears he shall
not have the satisfaction of procuring the death of one who holds religious opinions at variance with his own, by reminding him that it is only




HIS SENTENCE APPLAU DED.                  6
regard as feigned a zeal that errs only for lack of knowledge.
We have no right to deny that, like Paul before his conversion,
the Genevese Reformer verily believed that in persecuting those
from whom he dissented he was doing God service. Certain
it is, he boldly justified the deed.*
Nor he alone. Lamentable to relate, it was generally commended by the Protestants of that day as an act pleasing to
God. Mosheim, speaking of the state of feeling among the
Reformers, when the news of Servetus' death spread among
them, says that while a few condemned the severity of the punisllment, by far the greater number endorsed the, deed and
applauded, as worthy of immortal honor, Calvin's zeal for
religion.t The mild Melancthon, himself, writing to Calvin a
year after the martyrdom of Servetus, scrupled not to say:
" The Church owes you now, and will owe you in future times,
a debt of gratitude.... I affirm that your magistrates acted
justly inasmuch as, by judicial sentence, they put to death that
blasphemous man." J
through much tribulation we can reach Heaven, is a very peculiar and
very sixteenth-century idea.
However-to the credit of the Genevese hierarchy be it said-as soon
as it became known that Servetus was doomed to be burnt alive, Calvin
and other preachers went in a body to the Council and sought to procure a commutation of the sentence to a mililer form of death. —MosHEIM, p. 217.
* "Am I guilty of crime," Calvin wrote, " because our Senate, at
my instance (meo hortatu), revenged itself of his (Servetus') execrable
blasphemies?" (execrabilis eius blasphemias ultus est.)-CALVINUS,
Responsionc ad convitia Franc. Belduini, p. 429.
t " Wenn der Haufe derer gezihlet wird, die den Tod des Servet's
bedauren, so ist er nur klein in Ansehen derer die sich fiber den Untergang eines so schidlichen Mannes freueten, und seinen Verfolger als
einen um die Kirche unsterblich verdienten Eiferer lobeten."- Geschichto
des lliicltael Serveto, p. 237.
t " Tibi quoque ecclesia et nunc et ad posteros gratitudinem debet
et debebit..... Affirmo, etiam, vestros magistratus juste fecesse,
quod hominem blasphemum, re ordire judicata, interfecerunt. —Meancthon ad Calvinum, Oct. 14, 1554. Calv. Epist. No. 187, p. 341.




70.      -.TOLERATTON UNKNOWN THROUGHOUT
mrhether Luther would have coincided in this opinion must
ever remain matter of conjecture; he died seven years before
Servetus suffered.  Twenty-five years previous to that event
he had written against capital punishment for opinion; de
claring that false teachers ought to be banished only.*
~ 7. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
In truth, as a general rule, the sixteenth-century Reformers
rejected, in principle and in practice, the idea of religious freedom.  Among all the noted theologianls of the Reformation, I
find but two who upheld man's right to liberty of conscience;
Sebastian Castalio and Laelius Socinus; neither to be ranked
among the influential leaders of the Protestant movement.t
Castalio, French by birth, and for several years professor of
classical literature at Geneva (but banished thence in the year
1544 because of a quarrel with Calvin), was the more outspoken. Socinus, an Italian of noble family, and (as is wellknown) an anti-trinitarian, timid by nature, spoke less openly.1
* "Ego ad judicium  sanguinis tardus sum, etiam  ubi meritam
abundat... Nullo modo possum admittere falsos doctores occidi:
Satis est, eos relegari.-Lutheri TEpistolca (Ed. Aurifabri), vol. ii. p.
381.
f Since writing the above I am glad to find, in a recent work, evidence going to prove that Zwingli should be added to the list. Lecky
(Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 382, New York Ed.) quotes from
Bossuet ( Variations Protestantes, Book 2, Chap. 19) an extract from a
Confession of Faith, written by the Swiss Reformer, just before his
death, in which Zwingli describes that "future assembly of all the
saintly, the heroic, the faithful and the virtuous," when Abel and
Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, will mingle with the sages
and heroes of Greece and Rome, and when every upright and holy man
who has ever lived will be present with his God. All honor to Ulrich
Zwingli, gallant torch-bearer in a benighted generation! Bossuet, of
course, adduces the sentiment as the climax of heresy.
t Beza (Life of Calvin, Book 8) speaks of these two as the chief supporters Of freedom of opinion at that day. In the preface to a Latin




THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.                   71
In a general way, religious liberty was unknown throughout
Europe during the sixteenth century.
It is important to obtain a distinct idea of the stand taken
by the Reformers of that day on the subject of mental emancipation. Luther had divested the Bible of its learned cerements
and submitted it, in homely tongue, to the unlettered mass of
his countrymen.* But in giving them the book, he denied to
them the right of interpreting it.t He and his co-laborers in
the ministry, declared that if any one, reading the translated
Scriptures, derived therefrom, how sincerely soever, conceptions touching the nature of the Trinity or of the Divinity of
Christ, or of the doctrines of the atonement, that differed from
their own, such a dissenter was a detestable blasphemer, who
ought to suffer death, or, at the least, banishment. How much
worse was the decree of a single Pope than the dictation of a
presbytery? How much better the City Council of Geneva
than the CEcumenical Council of Trent-both assuming to decide, for the Christian world, what is "the holy doctrine of
God."
Could such men conquer in spiritual strife? And because
they did not, are we justified in concluding, with Macaulay,
that there is no such thing as religious progress? I think not.
The Protestantism of the sixteenth century failed, indeed, to
establish itself as the one dominant religion of civilization.
But, evincing the spirit it evinced, do you think it ought ever
to have succeeded?
That question (you will perhaps remind me) concerns articles of religious faith as well as rights of private judgment.
translation of the Bible (1573) Castalio boldly asserts the principle of
religious liberty.
* In ten years (from 1523, when Luther's translation appeared, to
153'3), fifty-seven editions of the New Testament were printed, of which
seventeen from the Wittenberg presses.
f "Whoso after my death shall contemn the authority of this school
here at Wittenberg, if it remain as it is now, school and Church, is a
heretic and perverted creature. " —Luther's Table Talk, p. 339.




72             THE AGE OF SCHOLASTICISM.
Undoubtedly.  And though it be aside from my present. pur.
pose to engage in theological controversy-seeing that the
world does not read folios nowadays, and that I propose to
write but a single small volume, —yet it is useful to be reminded
what the dogmas of that day were. And this the rather, because one finds, in the symbolic history of the time, all-sufficient cause, and a certain apology, for the denial of mental freedom  to humankind. While the Reformers set up faith in
doctrine, aside from works, as the one thing needful for the
soul's salvation, they rejected another phase of faith essential
to human improvement. They had no belief in human virtue;
and, as a corollary, they considered man unfit to be trusted,
especially in choice of a religion.
Suffer me, then, here briefly to reproduce, from the accredited text-books of early Protestantism, a few of the more important doctrines; sufficiently well-known, doubtless, to most
students of your profession; but less familiar, probably, in
their original form, to the majority of secular inquirers.
~ 8. SALIENT DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS.
" The mournful record of an earlier age,
That, pale and half effaced, lies hidden away
Beneath the fresher writing of to-day." —LoNGFELLOW.
The sixteenth century was eminently the age of scholasticism. The public mind of Europe fed upon dogmas and confessions of faith, as eagerly as did that of America in Revolutionary days on political axioms and State constitutions. Lutheran and Calvinist and Catholic debated, at market and at
board, in Diet and workshop, the exciting question of Papal
infallibility, with the same absorbing zeal as did the Puritan a
century later the vexed issue touching the right divine of
kings. The early Protestants discussed free-will, and the real
presence, predestination, and justification by faith, with a fiery




ST. AUGUSTINE.                      73
earnestness that far outdid our warmest political strifes.  We
have much more toleration, but also much more indifference,
in matters of religion, than these sturdy controversialists.
The fundamental and characteristic doctrines of the Reformation date from the patristic period. They derive chiefly
from a man whose opinions, disseminated in the fifth century
from the ancient capital of the Numidian kings, influenced
with a power which no other schoolman ever exercised, the
theology of the world throughout a thousand years, dating
from the time he flourished.
St. Augustine seems to have deserved the character he bears,
as one of the purest, kindest, and holiest of men; singular in
his humility and severe in his self-discipline.*  His " Confessions" have spoken to thousands of perturbed and penitent
hearts, as they did, beyond question, to Luther in his Augustinian cell, and to Calvin during his precocious studies. " Luther,"
says Principal Tulloch, " nourished himself upon Scripture and
St. Augustine." t  Calvin's " Institutes " are based on Augustine's " City of God."  In that great work, the monument of
highest genius left to us from the ancient church, and generally
* In very early life led away by profligate companions, then attracted
by the charm of classic poetry and esthetics, afterwards, for nine years,
a Manichman; at the age of twenty-nine, weary of pleasure and philosophy, Augustine went to Rome, made the acquaintance of Ambrose,
Bishop of Milan, and was by him converted to Christianity. The death
of a saintly mother and of an illegitimate son, plunging him in deepest
grief, drove him to a monastic life. His episcopate of thirty-five years
was one long labor of benevolence. Courteous in bearing, he in-K-;
Pagans to his table. In a controversy with the Universalists of his
day, he asserted that their error should be tenderly dealt with, since it
originated in a desire to vindicate the goodness and mercy of God.
While he condemned and combated the heresy of Donatus (founded on
denial of the Church's infallibility), he protested to the Proconsul of
Africa that, if capital punishment was inflicted on the Donatists, he
and his clergy would suffer death at the hands of these turbulent heretics, rather than be instrumental in bringing them before the tribunals.
-S. qAugustini Epistola, No. 127, ad Procons. Africas.
t Leaders of the Reformation, London, 1859, p. 10.
4




74                CALVINGS INSTITUTES
in the African bishop's voluminous lucubrations,* we find the
source, not only of the Reformers' creed, but also, in later
years, of the Jansenist heresy. His doctrine is tersely expressed in that saying of his: " He that made thee without
thy aid, will He not save thee without thy aid?"  Pity it is,
that in reproducing, in exaggerated form, the worthy father's
peculiar views, the sixteenth-century dialecticians failed to imitate his personal gentleness and charity.f
Luther led the forlorn hope against the old fortress of Papal
infallibility, and it was the heavy cannon of his rough rhetoric
that first effected a practicable breach.  But, as regards the
dogmatic history of the early Protestant movement, Calvin is
the central figure. The chief work of his life, his celebrated
"Institutes," 1 officially set up by his fellow-townsmen of
Geneva as a scheme of doctrine too holy to be questioned, won
for him, in his own times, from Melancthon and from the Protestant world generally, the title, by excellence, of "' THE THEOLOGIAN;" and even in our day it is accepted, by popular historians of the Reformation, not only as the most complete and
methodical text-book of that movement, but as one of the most
triumphant efforts of human wit. ~
The chief characteristic of this work is its frank directness.
It is free from all paltering and equivocation. Its author,
* The titles alone of St. Augustine's numerous works make a long
catalogue.
f While full justice should be rendered to St. Augustine's kindly nature, one ought not to forget that the doctrines he taught led logically
to intolerance and persecution.
t In.stitutes of the CAristian Religion (" Institutio Religionis Christianae"), by JOIhN CALVIN. The translation which I have followed,
made from the original Latin and collated with the author's last edition
in French, is by John Allen, London, 1813. It has the reputation, deserved, I think, of being one of the most faithful extant.
~ Merle D'Aubign6 says of this treatise, that it " is the finest body of
doctrine ever possessed by the Church of Christ." And he adds: " This
work, accomplished by spiritual force, far exceeds, in the importance of
its consequences, all that has ever been done by the pens of the ablest




INCULCATING HUMAN DEPRAVITY.                 75
having assumed his premises, hesitates at no conclusions to
which they logically lead. Even while he confesses predestination to be a "horrible decree," * he asserts it none the less
boldly, as divine doctrine, on that account. Nor does he shrink
from inculcating " abhorrence of ourselves,"t nor from such admissions as that grace is not offered to all men, that the most
odious crimes are God's work, and the like. But let this fearless dogmatist speak for himself.
First, on the doctrine of human depravity:
" Let us hold this as an undoubted truth which no opposition can ever shake, that the mind of man is so completely
alienated from the righteousness of God, that it conceives, desires, and undertakes everything that is impious, perverse, base,
impure, and flagitious; that his heart is so thoroughly infected
by the poison of sin that it cannot produce anything but what
is corrupt; and that if, at any time, men do anything apparently
good; yet the mind always remains involved in hypocrisy and
fallacious obliquity, and the heart enslaved by its inward perverseness....  In vain do we look in our nature for anything that-is good."
He reiterates this sentiment again and again, apparently
seeking, by sweep of condemnation, to leave no loophole for
human self-respect. Witness this:
"Everything in man, the understanding and the will, the soul
and body, is polluted..... Man is, of himself, nothing else than
concupiscence." ~
statesmen or the swords of the greatest warriors. " —istory of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin (New York Ed., 1865), vol. iii. pp. 170, 172.
Tulloch, with whom Calvin is no special favorite, admits him to be
"the greatest Biblical commentator of his age," and characterizes his
Institutes as " the charter of the great movement to which he was destined to give theological consistency and moral triumph."-Leaders of
the Reformation, pp. 103 and 167.
* " Decretum quidem horribile fateor," are his words.-Institutes,
Book 3, Chap. 23.
t Inst., B. 2, C. 1, 1.     4 Inst., B. 2, C. 3, ~ 19 and ~ 2.
~ I7,st., B. 2, C. 1, ~ 10.




76                  BUNDRY DOCTRINES
Now and then one is tempted to infer that he deemed all
human effort to reform the race but folly and waste of time.
He says:
" Man cannot be excited or biassed to anything but what is
evil. If this be so, there is no impropriety in affirming that he
is under the necessity of sinning." *
This looks to the Deity as the author of evil; and Calvin
meets the issue squarely. He scouts, as subterfuge which God
himself rejects, the idea that sin and crime occur "' by the permission and not by the will of God." He says that wicked
men and the devil himself " can effect nothing but by the secret
will of God."  In illustration he adds: "' God intends the deception of that perfidious king, Ahab; the devil offers his services for that purpose, and is sent with a positive commission to
be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets." (1 Kings xxii.
20-23.)... "Absalom, defiling his father's bed with incest,
perpetrated a detestable crime; yet God pronounces that this
was His work.... Whatever cruelties the Chaldeans exercised in Judea, Jeremiah pronounces it to be the work of God." t
But " while God, by means of the impious, fulfils his secret
decrees, they are not excusable." T
Again, in the face of that sentiment, common to every creed,
which prompts men, in hours of sorrow or peril, to invoke on
themselves, or on those they love, the blessing of the Almighty,
Calvin, true to his belief in human worthlessness, says: "God
finds nothing in men which can incite him to bless them." ~
He goes further still. It is a daring thing to speak of innocence that has never sinned, as steeped in pollution and hateful
to its Maker; but that is among the corollaries of Calvin's
favorite doctrine; and he courageously admits that it is; thus:
" We derive an innate depravity from our very birth: the
denial of this is an instance of consummate impudence....
All children, without a single exception, are polluted, as soon
* nst., B. 2, C. 3, ~ 5.       Inst., B. 1, C. 18, ~ 4.
t Inst., B. 1, C. 18, ~ 4.  ~ Inst., B. 3, C. 14, ~ 5.




FROM CALVINrS INSTITUTES.               77
as they exist....  Infants themselves, as they bring their
condemnation into the world with them, are rendered obnoxious to punishment by their own sinfulness. For though they
have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they
have the seed of it in them: their whole nature cannot but be
odious and abominable to God." *
But his doctrine of predestination carries him even beyond
this: that doctrine is thus stated:
" God elected whom he would, and, before they were born,
laid up in reserve for them the grace with which he determined
to favor them.... His foresight of our future holiness was
not the cause of his choice....  The grace of God deserves
not the sole praise of our election, unless this election be
gratuitous: now it could not be gratuitous if, in choosing his
people, God himself considered what would be the nature of
their respective works." t
According to this Calvinistic theory even free will is denied
to us; nor is God's grace offered except to a few of the favored
among His creatures.  "Man is not possessed of free will for
good works unless he be assisted by grace, and that special
grace which is bestowed on the elect alone in regeneration.
For I stop not to notice those fanatics who pretend that grace
is offered equally and promiscuously to all." a
After this, one can understand on what grounds he bases the
assertion: " Conversion is entirely of God, because we are not
sufficient even to think." ~
Taken in connection with Calvin's idea of hell, and of the
small numbers of the elect, this dogma predestines countless
millions of the unborn, without any reference to their good or
bad conduct in the future, or to their repentance, to eternal
torments.  Does this imply that the vast majority of the human
race are hated by their Creator?  Calvin, inexorable in his
logic, confesses that it does. "Jacob and Esau," he reminds
* Inst., B. 2, C. 1, ~~ 5, 6, 8.  t Inst. B. 3, C. 22, ~~ 2, 3.
InsB.2G.2~6.~ Inst., B.   C. 2,  6.    Int., B. 2, C. 3, ~ 6.




'78               DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.
us, " are brothers begotten of the same parents, still enclosed
in the same womb, not yet brought forth to light; there is, in
all respects, a perfect equality between them; yet the judgment
of God concerning them is different: for IHe takes the one and
leaves the other.... The children being not yet born, neither
having done good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth, it
was said:' Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."'" *
When one reads, in connection with this commentary, the
strange story to which Calvin here refers,t one seems to hear
the wail, throughout the universe, of millions on millions of
outcast step-children, crying out, like rejected Esau, in vain:
"Bless me, even me also, oh my Father! "
Referring elsewhere to this narrative and Paul's text, of
which he makes frequent use, and to the fact that Jacob, " without any merit acquired by good works, is made an object of
grace," Calvin does not scruple to add: " If we turn our attention to works we insult the apostle.":
One may conjecture the source whence came, to the Reformers, the idea that good works have nothing to do in effecting
man's salvation. In the Augsburg Confession, after a complaint
that'" Catholic traditions obscure the commandments of God,"
it is added: " The whole of Christianity was thought to consist
in the observance of certain holy days, rites, fasts, and vestments." ~  The feeling evidently was that this was but a Phar* Inst., B. 3, C. 22, ~~ 4, 5. The text wherein this doctrine is
found (Romans ix. 11, 13) is here quoted literally; it is supported by
Malachi i. 2, 3.
Another might have been at a loss to explain how Jacob, living seventeen hundred years before the time when Christ made atonement for
the sins of mankind, could have been one of the elect; but Calvin
overstrides the difficulty, telling us: "It ought not to be doubted that
Jacob was ingrafted, with angels, into the body of Christ." (Dubitare
mineme debeat Jacob cum angelis insitum fuesse in Christi corpus.")
— Inst., B. 3. C. 22, ~ 6.
t Genesis xxvii. 1-40.:      Inst., B. 3, C. 22, ~ 11.
~ Augs'urg Confession, Part 2, Article 5.




ALL HUMAN ACTIONS HELD TO BE SINFUL.           79
isaical making clean the outside of the cup and the platter.
But if such was the original source, it was soon lost sight of in
the mazes of theology. Calvin takes special pains to inform us
that, aside from that faith which saves, the most virtuous life
leads only to hell. He says that though what we call good
men " may be esteemed worthy of admiration for their reputed
virtue; though they are instruments used by God for the preservation of human society, by the exercise of justice, continence, friendship, temperance, fortitude, and prudence," yet if
they " are strangers to the religion of the one true God," they
" not only merit no reward, but are rather deserving of punishment, because they contaminate the pure gifts of God with the
pollution of their own hearts.*... They who have no interest in Christ, whatever be their character or their actions or
their endeavors, are constantly advancing, through the whole
course of their lives, toward. destruction and the sentence of
eternal death." t
This is not an isolated expression of sentiment; the main
idea breaks forth throughout the entire work. Here is an example: " The most splendid works of men not yet truly sanctified are so far from righteousness in the divine view that they
are accounted sins..:. The works of a man do not conciliate
God's favor in his person." I
And here is another, showing that Calvin regarded this as
the chief point of difference between the Reformers and their
opponents: " There never was an action performed by a pious
man which, if examined by the scrutinizing eye of divine
justice, would not deserve condemnation.... This is the principal hinge on which our controversy with the Papists turns." ~
* So incautious is the wording here, that one might almost suppose
the author had conceived the idea that the best efforts of man to lead a
purer life-to practise justice, continence, temperance, prudence-were
deadly sins, inasmuch as this is but a culpable mixing up of Christian
graces with the inevitable corruptions of the human heart.
t Inst., B. 3, C. 14,, 3, 4.      Inst., B. 3, C. 14, ~ 8.
~ Lz8., B. 3, C. 14, I.




80            INCREDIBLE LENGTHS TO. WHICH
One is constantly reminded, in reading these sixteenth-century Reformers, of the incredible lengths to which the nature of
their doctrines was wont to lead them; as, for example, to the
declaration of Calvin that a part of this world only belongs to
God. IIe (Calvin) says that the words of Jesus Christ, " I
pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given
me" * (John xvii. 9), afford proof "that the whole world does
not belong to its Creator ('" unde fit ut totus mundus ad suum
Creatorem non pertineat"); only that grace delivers from the
curse and wrath of God, and from eternal death, a few who
would otherwise perish, but leaves the world in its destruction
to which it has been destined. t
Another dismal corollary is this: Calvin did not believe
that either love of God, or imitation of Christ, is efficient to
salvation: we must seek to appease our Creator's anger-there
must be fear, he thought-else all self-sacrifice —every offering
of the heart-is to the Creator but abomination. These are
his words: c" No man can descend into himself and seriously
consider his own character without perceiving that God is angry
with him and hostile to him, and consequently he must find
himself under a necessity of anxiously seeking some way to appease Him.... The beginning of the observance of God's
1,iaw is an unfeigned fear of His name.  If that be wanting, all
the oblations made to him are not merely trifles, but nauseous
* It is remarkable, in connection with this verse from St. John, that,
according to another evangelist, Jesus' last prayer on earth was for his
murderers. See, as to John xvii., note on succeeding pp. 271,272.
f Inst., B. 3, C. 22, ~ 7.
And if Calvin's earnestness is proof against the incredible, so is it
also against the ridiculous. Who but himself would not have been deterred by inkling of the ludicrous from such comment on a scriptural
metaphor as this? After quoting Christ's words, " The sheep follow
the shepherd, for they know his voice," Calvin's comment is: " Now
no man makes himself a sheep, but is created such by divine grace."
(" Nemo, enim, se ovem facit, sed formatur coelesti gratia.")-Il/t.,
B. 3, C. 22, ~ 8.




CALVIN'S DOCTRINES LEAD.               81
and abominable pollutions. Let hypocrites go now and, retain.
ing depravity in their hearts, endeavor by their works to merit
the favor of God." *
Here naturally suggest themselves the questions: If not by
love of God, if not by leading a life of purity and benevolence,
how, under this system, is man to appease an angry and hostile
Creator? How is he to escape hell? The Reformer's answer
is: By belief, not by acts. Those who have an assurance of
election are the elect: but the elect, and the elect only, are
saved by vicarious atonement made by the Son of God. t
This assurance that we are the favored of God is held by
Calvin to be omnipotent to save sinners even though, after obtaining it, they indulge in gross sins. Witness the following
passage, occurring in connection with his favorite illustration
from Romans ix. 11, 13: "'Rebecca, having been divinely assured of the election of her son Jacob, procures him the benediction by a sinful artifice; she deceives her husband, the witness and minister of the grace of God; she constrains her son
to utter falsehoods; she corrupts the truth of God by various
frauds and impostures." This, Calvin calls, " transgressing the
limits of the word;" and he excuses her action: " for," says he,
"as the particular error of Jacob did not annul the effect of the
benediction, so neither did it destroy the faith which generally
predominated in her mind, and was the principle and cause of
that action." I
Every one knows that Calvin was one of the sternest of moralists, and we cannot rationally suppose that he really intended
to palliate vice, or to excuse a vicious life. Observe, however,
in what manner, led away by love of a dogma, he lays himself
open, in the above passage, to the imputation of glossing over
deliberate fraud and imposture, when such sins co6xist with belief in the atonement.
* Inst., B. 3, C. 14, ~ 8.
t This doctrine will be found, a few pages farther on, graphically set
out by the powerful pen of Luther.
Inst., B. 3, C. 11, ~ 31.
4*




82            LUTHER AND CALVIN'S SPIRIT
This doctrine of justification by faith alone is very concisely
and lucidly set forth in the Augsburg Confession:
"Men cannot be justified before God by their own strength,
merits, or works; but are justified freely, for Christ's sake,
through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor
and that sins are remitted on account of Christ who, by his
death, made satisfaction for our sins.  This faith God imputes
for righteousness." *
In the above I have italicized the words which prove that
the faith which, according to this scheme of redemption, exclusively wins heaven, is a belief of our personal favor
with the Almighty, resulting in our election and adoption by
Him.
Let us now turn from the Genevese divine to his great German co-laborer.
We find, as between the two, great difference of character,
indeed, but no essential variation in creed. One cannot doubt
that, in a general way, Luther assented, verbally at least, to
Calvin's system of divinity, as set out in the " Institutes;"
since, while he refused the hand of brotherhood to Zwingli because of variance on a single doctrinal point, and even held it
to be likely that the Swiss Reformer, after dying for the Protestant cause, would suffer eternal torments t because of disbelief in the " real presence,"-he remained in strict fellowship
with Calvin throughout his life. Yet he might have said to
the theologian of Geneva with more truth than he did to Ulrich
Zwingli: "You have a different spirit from ours."  Calvin's
religion, like Jove's armed daughter, was the offspring of his
brain; Luther's, of his heart. The two had this in common,
that they ran the convictions which they had once assumed as
* Augsburg Confession, Part 1, Art. 4.
t " I wish from my heart Zwinglius could be saved, but I fear the
contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned."
LuTErnR: in TaIble Talk, p. 324.




AND CHARACTER COMPARED.                    83
premises, to  their legitimate conclusions, with unflinching
temerity; but Luther's heart carried him into a region comfortable, genial, even jovial; while Calvin's brain tarried in a
limbus, stern in every feature, icy cold, dreary, and, as regards
the general fate of humanity, hopeless and implacable. If one
would penetrate to the essence of Lutheranism, one must read
Luther's own favorite Commentary on the Galatians.* He
there summons up, indeed, the same abasing aspect of human
naturc,t that imparts so lurid a gleam to Calvin's writings; but
the heartiness of the man and the unconventional sprightliness
of his style break out over the saddening picture, lighting it up
as the aurora borealis illuminates northern wastes.  Permit me
to recall to your recollection one or two of its more notable
passages, in illustration.
The one idea (held, of course, in common with Calvin) that
pervades the book and which constitutes, in fact, the cornerstone of Luther's entire doctrinal system, I is, that mankind,
* Luther thought his own best works to have been, his Commentaries
on Deuteronomy, on Galatians, and on the four books of St. John. -See
Table Tack, p. 21.
t It pervades his other writings also, and it was wont to break out in
his conversation. "We have altogether A confounded, corrupt, and
poisoned nature, both in body and soul: throughout the whole of man
is nothing that is good."-Table Talk, p. 119.
So the other Reformers, for example Melancthon: "Anima, luce
vitaque ccelesti carens,... sua quawrat, non cupiat, non velit,
nisi carnalia," etc.-Loci Communes, p. 18 (Ed. Augusti).
t " Luther arrived at the doctrine of the atonement through Christ
wholly independently of works: this afforded him the key to the Scriptures, and became the main prop to his whole system of faith."-RANKE:
Hist. of the Popes, vol. i. p. 186.
Luther himself took the same view of this tenet. He says: " All the
other articles of our faith are comprehended in that of justification; and
if that remain sound then all the rest are sound."- Commentary on
Galatians, at chap. iii. verse 13. And again (same verse): "This is
the principal article of all Christian doctrine, which the Popish schoolmen have altogether darkened."
So, in his preface to the Commentary on the Galatians, his chief com



84           CLOTHING CHRIST WITH OUR SINS.
even down to the latest generations, steeped in sin through
Adam's transgression, can be saved from an eternal hell only
by a transfer of all human sins to Jesus Christ. Do you remember how vividly he sets this out?
" God sent his only son into the world and laid upon him all
the sins of all men, saying:'Be thou Peter, that denier; Paul,
that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor; David, that
adulterer; be thou that sinner that did eat the apple in Paradise, that thief which hanged upon the cross; in brief, be thou
the person who hath committed the sins of all men: see, therefore, that thou pay and satisfy them.' Here now cometh the
law and saith:' I find him a sinner and indeed such an one as
hath taken upon him the sins of all men; therefore let him die
upon the cross.' And so he setteth upon him and killeth him.
By this means the whole world is purged and cleansed from all
sins.... Therefore, where sins are seen and felt, there are
they indeed no sins; for, according to Paul's divinity, there is no
sin, no death, no malediction any more in the world, but only
in Christ. *... But some man will say:'It is very absurd and slanderous to call the Son of God a cursed sinner.' I
answer: If thou wilt deny him to be a cursed sinner, deny also
that he was crucified and died.... This is a singular
consolation for all Christians, so to clothe Christ with our
sins." t
It is curious to note how the man's intense perception of a
plaint against Catholicism is: " the infinite and horrible profanation
and abomination which always hath raged in the Church of God, and
even at this day ceaseth not to rage, against this only and grounded
rock, which we hold to be the article of our justification." —Preface,
p. 1.
* One might almost suppose, from such passages, that Luther held
universalist doctrines. Very far from it. "God, in this world, has
scarce the tenth part of the people; the smallest number only will be
saved...    If now thou wilt know why so few are saved and so
infinitely many damned, this is the cause: the world will not hear
Christ."-Table Talkc, pp. 41, 43.
+ Commentary on Galatians, at chap. iii. verse 13.




CHARITY WORTHLESS?                  85
single favorite doctrine like this led him on, step by step, until,
like Aaron's rod before Pharaoh, it swallowed up all the rest.
Speaking of " the phantastical opinions of the Papists concerning the justification of works," he says: "They do imagine a
certain faith formed and adorned with charity. By this, they
say, sins are taken away and men are justified before God.
But what else is this, I pray you, but to unwrap Christ and to
strip him quite out of our sins, and to look upon them, not in
Christ, but in ourselves. Yea, what is this else but to take
Christ clean away, and to make him utterly unprofitable to
US." *
Again, he declared it to be blasphemy, inspired by the devil,
to say that faith without works was dead, or to assert that
faith, unfruitful of works, was not omnipotent to gain heaven
for the believer. One would read with incredulity in theseo
modern days, if the original was not still extant in proof, such
a passage' as the follow4ing:
"' The perverters of the Gospel of Christ teach that even that
faith which they call faith infused (fides infusa), not received
by hearing nor gotten by any working, but created in man by
the Holy Ghost, may stand with deadly sin, and that the wickedest men may have this faith. Therefore, they say, if it be
alone it is idle and utterly unprofitable. Thus they take from
faith her office and give it unto charity: so that faith is nothing, except charity, which they call the form and perfection
thereof, be joined withal. This is a devilish and blasphemous
kind of doctrine.... For if charity be the form and
perfection of faith (as they dream), then am I by and by constrained to say that charity is the chief part of the Christian
religion, and so I lose Christ, his blood and his benefits; and
now I rest altogether in a moral doing even as the Pope, the
heathen philosopher, and the Turk." t
Yet again: " The true doing of the law is a faithful and a
* Commentary on Galatians, at chap. iii. verse 13.
t Commentary on Galatians, at chap. iii. verse 11.




86              MORAL WORKERS ACCURSED.
spiritual doing, which he hath not that seeketh righteousness
by works.  Therefore every doer of the law and every moral
worker is accursed; for he walketh in the presumption of his
own righteousness against God." *
This doctrine appears, without its Lutheran intensity, yet substantially the same, in the text-book of early Protestantism,
the Augsburg Confession.  We read there; "works cannot
reconcile us to God, or merit remission of sins, grace and justi
fication, but we obtain this by faith only." It is added: "O1.
divines teach that it is necessary to do good works, not that
we may trust by them to merit grace, but in obedience to the
will of God." And alluding to the accusations falsely brought
against them " of prohibiting good works," they declare that
they have "wholesomely taught all the modes and duties of
life, what ways of life, what works in any calling, are pleasing
to God;" while their adversaries "urged puerile and unnecessary works, such as certain holy days, certain fasts, fraterni —
ties, pilgrimages, worship of saints, rosaries, monasticism and
the like." t
* In the English version which I have followed, the words I have
italicized are not very strictly rendered; the original being even stronger
than the translation, thus: " Ideo maledictus est omnis Legis operator,
et moralis Sanctus: t' literally " moral Saint." Luther might have been
thinking of the morality of monkish austerity; at all events, his translator seems to have been afraid to follow him; seeing that Saint has
been often regarded as the equivalent of elect.
t All the above quotations will be found in article 20, part 21, of
the Augsburg Confession. I have followed the translation by the Rev.
Henry Teal, M.A., London, 1842; who appears to have executed his
task with critical care.
Considering that the Lutheran Church of America recently adopted a
resolution that " this General Synod... maintains the divine obligation of the Christian Sabbath " (Annual Cyclopedia for 1868, p. 443),
it is worthy of notice, in connection with the above dictum touching' * puerile and unnecessary works," that in the Augsburg Confession (article
7 of part 2) the following plain words occur: " They who judge that,
by the authority of the Church, the observing of the Lord's day,
instead of the Sabbath day, was ordained as a thing necessary, dc




SABBATH AND LORD S DAY.                   87
Thus, though the Reformers taught that faith requires no
works of us,* they not only inculcated, in their sermons, strict
morality, but the chief leaders, as Luther, Calvin, Melancthbon,
Zilngli, illustrated, by their exemplary lives, the morals they
taught.f
But it behooves us to bear in mind that a man's upright intention, or his good life; is one thing, and the tendency of the
opinions he holds, or the doctrines he teaches, quite another.
greatly err. The Scripture which teaches that the Mosaic ceremonies
since the revelation of the Gospel may be omitted, has abrogated the
Sabbath. And yet, because it was needful to ordain a certain day,
that the people might know when they ought to come together, it appears that the Church appointed the Lord's day,-which day seems to
have pleased the more for this cause also, that men might have an example of Christian liberty and know that neither the observance of the
Sabbath, nor of any other day, was necessary."-Teal's Translation, pp.
78, 79.
No human institution is more needed or more valuable than the setting apart one day in seven as a time of rest from worldly turmoil and
of quiet for spiritual thought. Nevertheless it must be admitted that
the views of the Augsburg Confessionists as to the religious obligation
in this matter accord with the spirit of Christ's teachings (Mark ii. 27,
etc.), and Paul's (Colossians ii. 16). They evince philological accuracy
also, seeing that there is no Christian Sabbath.  The Italians properly
call Saturday, Sabato; while they term Sunday, Domenica, corresponding to our " Lord's Day."
* "Faith requireth no works of us, or that we should give anything
unto God, but that we, believing the promise of God, should receive of
him." —Uom. on Galatians, chap. iii. v. 12.
t When some one drew, from Zwingli's belief in predestination, the
practical inference that the elect could not be harmed, sin as they
might, the Swiss Reformer's reply was, that " whoso argues thus furnishes proof that he himself is not among the elect."-See his De
Providentia Dei., Opera, vol. iv. p. 140.
In this work (Opera iv. pp. 79, 109, 113), Zwingli inculcates the doctrine of Predestination, running it out to all its logical consequences:
asserting, for example, that the sin of Adam was originally included in
God's plan; as also the scheme of redemption. This is Calvin's opinion
also; he terms the exclusion of the fall of the first man from the divine
predestination, afrigidum commentum. —Inst., B. 3, C. 23, ~ 7.




88               DIDEROT AND D ALEMBERT.
Diderot taught atheism and openly avowed enmity to all relig
ious ideas:* yet the sincerity of his enthusiasm in such tenets
is beyond question, his works having been condemned to the
flames, and himself to prison for teaching them. The sceptical
D'Alembert, Diderot's co-laborer in the Encyclopcadie, strongly
expressed, in his correspondence with Voltaire, his disbelief in
Christianity; yet his benevolence was proverbial and his life
without a stain. t But because such writers have upright motives, or lead virtuous lives, are we thence to conclude that
the belief in atheism is no injury to mankind, or that the world
could do quite as well without religion?
These remarks have strictest application when, in the works
of any author how estimable soever, we come upon such a passage as the following: " Thus you find how richly gifted is a
Christian and baptized man, who, even if he wills it, cannot
forfeit his salvation by how many sins soever, unless he is un* Diderot etait un des ennemis les plus acharnes du Christianisme,
et meme de toute idee religieuse; il professait ouvertement le materialisme et l'ath6isme, et pr6chait ces doctrines d'solantes avec une sorte
d'enthusiasme et de fanatisme. —BOUILLON: Diktionnaire de Biographie
Univerisele, art. " Diderot."
t "D'Alembert possedait des qualites qui l'ont fait aimer et estimer de tous ses contemporains; au plus vif amour pour la science, il
joignait la bienfaisance et le desinteressement....  II entretint
avec Voltaire une correspondance suivie qui a et5 publi6e apres leur
mort: tous deux y exhalent leur haine contre la religion chr6tienne. "BOUILLON: Dictionnaire de, Biographie UTniverselle, art. " D'Alembert."
" When D'Alembert's income amounted to 8,200 francs, he gave away
one half.... The Bishop of Limoges said of him, during his life,'His manners are simple andhis conduct withouta stain.'... He
was the first mathematician of his day, and La Harpe says of him:' I
know D'Alembert well enough to be able to say that he was sceptical
in everything except mathematics.... Himself tolerating all opinions, what he censured in the atheists was their intolerant arrogance.
Had it not been for his correspondence with Voltaire, the
world would not have known except by implication what his opinions
were. His published writings contain no expression offensive to relig
ion." —Penny Cyc/opcedia, art. " D'Alembert."




HUMAN WILL AS A BEAST OF BURDEN.                 89
willing to believe.  For no sins have power to damn hiln savd
only the sin of incredulity." *
Finally, the evil tendency of such opinions is aggravated, in
Luther's case, by his fatalist doctrines, pushed even to a distinct denial of man's free agency. Think of the practical effect
-how deadening and discouraging to all virtuous effort-of
such a passage as this: "The human will is placed between
two, even as a beast of burden.  If God mounts it, it wishes
and goes as God wills.... If Satan mounts it, it wishes
and goes as Satan wills. Nor is it free to run toward, or select,
either rider: it is the riders themselves who contend which shall
obtain and hold possession." t
Those who are familiar with the original documents will bear
me witness that the foregoing brief synopsis of Protestant opinions in the sixteenth century, while it omits, for brevity's sake,
many details, neither exaggerates nor extenuates the founda* This passage occurs in Luther's Treatise: De Captiv{itate Babylonican, 1520; the original reading thus: " Ita vides quam dives sit homo
Christianus et baptisatus, qui etiam volens non potest perdere salutem
suam quantiscunque peccatis, nisi nolet credere. Nulla enim peccata
eum possunt damnare nisi sola incredulitas."
There are other passages of similar purport in Luther's works even
more offensively expressed. In a letter to Melancthon (1521), quoted
and excused by Archbishop Hare, occurs a well-known sentence:
" Sufficit quod agnovimus per divitias glories Dei Agnum, qui tollit
peccata mundi; ab hoc non avellet nos peccatum, etiamsi millies, millies uno die fornicamur aut occidamus."
By an opponent of Luther the words" uno die " have been translated, incorrectly of course, " every day: "but even as it stands (however pure may have been the writer's intention) it would be a lack of
candor to deny that it supplies, to evil-minded men, plausible apology
for murder and incontinence.
t "Sichumana voluntas in medio posita est, ceu jumentum. Si insederit Deus, vult et vadit quo vult Deus, ut Psalmus dicit:'Factus sum
sicut jumentum et ego semper tecum.' Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit
quo vult Satan. Nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere aut
euin qunerere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et possid
endum." —LUTHER: De Servo Arbitrio, part I. sec. 24.




90            SHALL THE FIGHT OF FAITH BE
tion-doctrines on which rested the theological system put forth
by the Leaders of the Reformation; to wit, the atonement, including justification by faith alone; the fall, the utter deprav
ity of man, and predestination.
Such a synopsis was indispensable in treating the great historical problem to which I now revert.
~ 9. WHAT LESSON DOES THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION
TEACH?
" Revealed religion is not in the nature of a progressive science...
We have no security for the future against the prevalence of any theological error that has ever prevailed m time past among Christian
men."-MACAULAY. *
Is that the lesson taught?. Guardians of the Protestant
faith, is that the Protestant reply?
If not, bestow, I pray you, dispassionate attention on the
historical and statistical facts; and give your version of the
explanation.
Three hundred years, observe!-from  1570 to 1870-and
still, from a Protestant stand-point, retrogression, retrogression! At the beginning of that term, an overwhelming Protestant majority in Europe; at the end of the three hundred
years, two Catholics there for every one Protestant. Among
ourselves, at the present day, Protestants and Roman Catholics
both increasing, indeed; but at a ratio of increase so different,
in each sect respectively, that if it continues for a third of a
* Already quoted, with context, at page 44. Men, in the orthodox
ranks, who have probably bestowed more thought on this subject
than Macaulay, have reached conclusions similar to his.
" The same impediment which prevents the formation of Theology
as a science, is also manifestly fatal to the theory which assert its progressive development."-MANSEL: Limits of Religious Thought, 4th Ed.
London, 1859. (Bampton Lectures.) The italics are in the original




FOUGHT OUT ON THE SAME LINE.               91
century more, Roman Catholics will outnumber Protestants in
the United States.*
How much longer are we to wait for the turning of the
Spiritual tide? If we fight out this fight of faith on the same
line, what reasonable hope is there that the tide will turn in
our favor at all?
After a monition continued throughout so large a portion of
civilized history-after so persistent a trial resulting in such
miserable failure-ought we still to continue the strife, with
front unchanged, hoping against hope in the future?
-Hoping against hope! For what a terrible thing would it
be to conclude that it was Christ's very teachings, spiritual and
ethical, which have been on probation for three centuries, in
the most enlightened portions of the world, and that have lost
ground throughout all that time, and are losing it still, against
a Church that proclaims the Ultimate and the Infallible to be
hers, and denies to the religious element in man alike liberty
and progress!
Let us glance at the record, as a connected whole, in a trustful, and candid, and catholic spirit, ere we adopt a conclusion
that might well cause thoughtful men to regard the future of
our race with despair.
The Christian record consists of five narratives-four, by
different Evangelists, of the doings and sayings of Christ, one of
the doings of his disciples —and (aside from the Apocalypse)
of twenty-one Epistles, two-thirds of these penned by Paul,
who knew not the Great Teacher, nor believed in his teachings
till after his crucifixion; the rest (with the exception of two
or three pages), t written by the three chief among the
* See note on preceding page 31.
t " The Epistle of Jude is too unimportant to be a forgery; few portions of Scripture, with reverence be it spoken, could have been more
easily spared." — Dictionary of the Bible, art. " Jude," (edited by WlI,.
LIAM SMITH, LL. D., American reprint, Boston, 1863.)




92         EPISTLES TO ROMANS AND GALATIA-NS
Twelve* whom their Master, at the commencement of his pub
lie labors, selected as special associates and co-workers.
Of the Evangelists, two certainly (Matthew and John) were
Apostles who had daily opportunities, throughout three years,
of personal intercourse with Jesus, while it seems likely that
the two others also, Mark and Luke, may have known him,
and heard, from his own lips, many of the discourses they recorded. t
Now, with these ancient  expositions of Christian history
and doctrine all open before them, how did the Leaders of the
Reformation proceed to construct for the world a system of
dogmatic theology?
Substantially, by selecting portions of two epistles, both
vritten by the only one of the New Testament authors as to
whom we know that he never was acquainted with Jesus nor
ever sat under his ministry; and by employing these as foundations and corner-stone of their entire spiritual edifice: the
foundations being laid in the utter depravity of all human
beings; their condemnation by their Maker, as criminals, to
eternal torments; the impossibility of deliverance from these
torments by any virtuous effort, how earnest and persistent
* " The three, Peter, James, and John, are with their Lord when none
else are; in the chamber of death (Mark v. 37), in the glory of the
transfiguration (Matthew xvii. 1), when he forewarns them of the destruction of the Holy City (Mark xiii. 3, Andrew, in this instance, with
them), in the agony of Gethsemane."-Dictioncary of the Bible, art.
"John," vol. i. p. 1105.
f The " young man" mentioned Mark xiv. 51, is usually supposed to
be Mark himself. In like manner, Luke is believed by many to have
been one of the two disciples to whom Christ showed himself after
death, on the journey to Emmaus; or, at all events, to have been one
of the Seventy. See Dietioqaary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 151.
t The narrative of Matthew is admitted to be the oldest of the Gospels, written, as some will have it, eight or ten years only after Christ's
death, but more probably about the year 50; Mark and Luke appear to
have written some ten or twelve years later, and John toward the close
of the first century, perhaps about the year 90, or 95.




TIB FOUNDATION OF POPULAR THEOLOGY.              93
soever: and the corner-stone * being the escape to eternal happi.
ness of a mere handful out of a vast multitude, t selected not
because they were batter than their fellows-did more good, were
more useful in their day and generation-but because they had
adopted two articles of faith; the first, that this minute fraction
of human kind, and they alone, pre-elected of God, are saved
from perdition by an actual transfer of their sins to one of the
three persons of the Godhead, and by the terrible agonies suffered by that Holy Person; I the second (equally important),
that they themselves are among these God-elected few.
I think all careful and candid students of the Christian Scriptures will admit that had the two Epistles, to the Romans and
to the Galatians, never been written, or never been included in
the canon of the New Testament, the above dogmas would
never have become the basis of Protestantism.  I do not deny
that if we select some six or eight chapters out of these two
Epistles, shutting our eyes to the rest of the Christian Scrip* Luther evidently regarded as little better than outcasts all who
dissented from the doctrine of imputed righteousness. " If the article
of justification be once lost," said he, "then is all true doctrine lost;
and as many as are in the world that hold not this doctrine are either
Jews, Turks, Papists, or Heretics."-Argument to Commentary on
Galatians.
And modern writers of authority among Protestants still take a similar
view. " In our day we have lost sight of the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith..    The principle of justification by God's free
grace, which delivered the Church from such deep darkness at the
period of the Reformation, can alone renew this generation-in a word,
bring back to God the world that has forsaken Him." —MERLE
D'AuBIGNE: History of the Reformation, Book 3.
t Calvin puts it even more strongly; he speaks of professors of religion as "a great multitude in which the children of God are, alas! but
a handful of unknown people, like a few grains on the threshing-floor
under a great heap of straw." Inst., B. 4, C. 1.
t "We may imagine what dreadful and horrible agonies Christ must
have suffered while he was conscious of standing at the tribunal of God,
accused as a criminal on our account. " —nst., B. 2, C. 14, ~ 12.




94             LUTHER ASSERTS HIS RIGHT
tures, we may logically deduce from these some such scheme of
redemption as the Reformers set up.
Had Luther and Calvin a right to make this exclusive selection?  Beyond doubt Luther held to that opinion. With his
usual fearlessness, he claimed the privilege to judge the entire
record, holding fast to what seemed to him from the Lord and
leaving the rest. Following the spirit of a Pauline text,* he
says: " Doubtless the prophets studied Mloses, and the later
prophets studied the earlier ones, and wrote down in a book
their good thoughts, inspired by the Holy Ghost. And though
these good and true teachers and searchers sometimes fell upon
hay, straw, and wood, and did not build of pure silver, gold, and
precious stones alone, yet the foundation remains." t
He makes the distinction between the message and the messenger, saying elsewhere: " When I hear Moses enjoining good
works, I hear him as I do one who executes the order of an
Emperor or prince. But this is not to hear God himself." $
Nor must we imagine that Luther. restricted his liberty of
choice and rejection to the old Testament. One of the most
outspoken of mankind, he sometimes lets us into the inner
workings of his mind —a curious study. He advises those who
find difficulty in reconciling other portions of scripture with his
favorite texts from Galatians, to reply to an adversary after this
wise: " Thou settest against me the servant, that is to say the
Scripture, and that not wholly but certain passages touching
the law and works. But I come with the Lord himself who is
above the Scripture.... On Him I hold; Him I stick
to and leave works unto thee.... Hold fast to this and
lay it against all the sentences of the law  and say:'Dost
* 1 Corinthians iii. 13.
t The passage occurs in the Preface to Luther's Commentaries on the
four books of Moses: (" Annotat. fiber die fiunf Blicher Moses.")
The reader will find, in Breitschneider's work entitled Luther und
seine Zeit (1817), pp. 97-99, the freer opinions of Luther about inspira.
tion, brought together.
t See Walch's collection of Luther's works, vol. vii. p. 2044.




TO JUDGE SCRIPTURE.'                   95
thou hear this, Satan?'  Here he must needs give place,
for he knows that Christ is his Lord and Master." *
We find a remarkable example of the bold manner in which
Luther acted out these sentiments. James, as we have seen,
was one of the most prominent among Christ's apostles. To
him, whom he had trusted on earth, Jesus appeared after his
death.t Paul, coming to Jerusalem and finding the disciples
afraid of him-as not believing him  to be a disciple-was
brought by Barnabas to Peter and James, and by them accredited to the brethren. I Afterward James reached the highest
offices of trust in the gift of the early Christian Church. ~
But this distinguished apostle, author of the epistle which
bears his name, sets forth in that epistle doctrine diametrically
opposed to Paul's justification by faith without works. He
there teaches that faith alone cannot save, seeing that the devils
also believe and tremble; finally declaring, "As the body
without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead
also." II
* Commentaries on the Galatians; on chap. iii. verse 10, last paragraph.
t All commentators are agreed that it is to this James that the text
1 Corinth. tv. 7, applies. The apparition seems to have been first
specially to him; afterward to all the apostles.
t Acts ix. 27. With this text compare Galatians ii. 18, 19, where
Paul, after stating that he saw Peter and abode with him fifteen days,
adds: " But other of the apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's
brother. "
~ A.D. 49, he was President of the Apostolic Council. Later he was
formally appointed by the Apostles Bishop of Jerasalem. For his exceeding uprightness he was surnamed "The Just. "-See  SMITH'S
Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. p. 924.
H James ii. 26. But the Apostle's statement of this doctrine runs
through the last half of the chapter, verses 14 to 26. Abraham and
Rahab are spoken of as having been justified by works: and James
adds: " Ye see how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith
only."-v. 24.:
I do not allege that James meant to say that a man can earn justification by works; nor do I believe that he held to the doctrine of justi



96                 LTUTHER ON ST. JAMES.
Now how does Luther deal with such a passage as this, from
so eminent a source? Curtly enough. More logical or more
candid than some of his commentators who have sought to
reconcile the irreconcilable, he rejects the authority; declaring
that James's entire contribution to the New Testament is but
" an Epistle of straw." *  Marvellous example of the effect
which maybe produced in an enthusiastic mind, when it dwells,
with the partiality of love, on a favorite dogma! t
That the bold Reformer was entitled to the privilege here
assumed, every friend of religious freedom will admit, whatever
he may think of good Martin's discretion in the mode of exercising it.  Far be it from  me to deny to Luther, or to any
honest, earnest seeker after truth, the right to judge for himself, as regards the Bible, between the gold and silver and the
fication as a reward of well-doing, but only as a consequent of good
deeds.
* "Epistola straminea" is Luther's expression: it occurs in his
preface to the New Testament.' A writer in the Dictionary of the
Bible (vol. i. p. 926), says:'' Luther seems to have withdrawn the
expression, after it had been two years before the world." I find no
proof whatever of this. Carlstadt, a contemporary of Luther and the
author of a work entitled De Canonicis Scripturis, reprehends Luther
for his opinion about James (Hagenbach's history of Doctrines, vol.
ii. note to page 241); but the great Reformer was not a man to shrink
from an opinion once published, because an opponent attacked it.
t The Epistle thus summarily dealt with is filled with the noblest
passages, and holds more- strictly to the spirit of Christ's teachings than
any other embraced in the Canon. Compare James i. 5; i. 26; ii. 8,
9; ii. 13; iii. 17; v. 1; v. 12; the last clause of v. 16, and other texts
from this Epistle, with the words of Jesus. This apostle's strict adherence to his Master's doctrine may be partly due to the fact that his
Epistle is the earliest in date; being written, as is usually calculated,
about twelve years only after Christ's death.
James is, more pre6minently than any other Apostle, the moral
teacher of the New Testament. Where have we a more excellent
definition of religion than he has given us? " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the
widows in their affliction, and to keep one's self unspotted from the
world."




NOT CIIRISTIANITY THAT IS ARRESTED.           9'
hay and straw which it may contain.  Then, too, we must admit the great importance of the distinction which Luther sets up
between the message and the messenger.  We hear God through
His works or his interpreters only; and that, as Luther remin(ls us, "is not to hear God himself."
This only I assert, that it was not the grand system of spiritual ethics taught by Jesus which was arrested in its progress
for centuries, which failed to make headway against human
claimants of infallibility, which lost more than half the ground
it had gained, which cannot hold its own against the Roman
hierarchy to-day-it was but an Augustinian commentary on
some of the scholasticisms of St. Paul.
I find abundant proof of this assertion in the gospel record,
taken as a whole. In its general aspect what do we find to be
its essential features?
~ 10. SPIRIT AND TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY COMPARED WITH
THOSE OF CALVINISTIC AND LUTHERAN THEOLOGY.
" Scripture, as a witness, disappeared behind the Augsburg Confession, as a standard." —TuLLOCH. *
Men did well, after countless ages marked with fitful struggles only toward the light, to turn over a leaf in the world's
chronology, and begin to date its years afresh, from the time
when, at last, a Teacher spoke to its heart and to the affections
there crushed and to the spirit of God there dormant; instead
of addressing its fears, its superstitions, and its evil passions.
Ignorance or cynicism alone denies or overlooks the moral
and spiritual progress of mankind. But to what is that progress due?  To a spirit inherent in our race as is the vital principle in the bare-limbed, snow-clad forest-tree-a spirit that
hardly manifested existence through the long, barren winter of
human barbarism, but now, stirred to energy in this spring-time
* Leaders of the Reformation (London, 1869), p. 87.
5




98           WHAT IS THE MASTER-PRINCIPLE
of civilization, puts forth, of its kind, fresh, green leafage, to
gladden the world.
How is this spirit named? When it stills, in the individual,
or the nation, the fierce impulses of combativeness, and bids
discard brutal force and substitute the mild appliances of reason,
it is called PEACE. When it softens the asperity of human
codes, and tempers indignation against the wrong-doer, we name
it MERCY. When it seeks, in a neighbor's conduct, the good
and not the evil; when it respects, in others, independence of
thought and speech, and finds in honest difference of opinion
no cause of offence; its name is CIHARITY. When it attracts us
to our fellow-creatures, of every tribe and tongue, impelling us
to take them by the hand and do them good, we call it KINDNESS. By whatever name, under all its phases, a gentle spirit;
eminently civilizing, humanizing; the herald of virtue, the dispenser of happiness.
As it happens that, while winter still lingeringly maintains
dominion over earth, there sometimes intervenes a day of bright
sunshine, harbinger of others, warmer and brighter yet, to
come; so is it also with the changing seasons of the spiritual
world. There have been gleams of premature brightness shed
over an age still too wintry for their maintenance; there floats,
sometimes, the faint fragrance of a summer yet afar off.
Of this there have been marked examples, far back in human
history. In these we dimly recognize the divine efflation. But
we recognize it as we do the remote star in the night-heaven.
Star and sun shine upon us alike with celestial light; yet there
is one glory of the sun, enlightener of the earth, and another
of the pale, twinkling star. And never, in all the history of
our race, has the gentle spirit of which I have spoken been
heralded to humankind as it was, more than eighteen centuries
since, in one of the Asiatic dependencies of the Roman Empire.
A voice from Galilee, first heard by fishermen, its earliest
teachings caught up by publicans and sinners, has reached,
albeit through the din of controversialism, the entire civilized
world.




OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY a                   99
Aside from parasitic subtleties of doctrine which have com.
monly enkindled zeal in the inverse ratio of their practical importance, what is the mastAr-principle, pervading the entire
code of Christian spiritualism and Christian morality,-giving
it life and character, conspicuously distinguishing it from the
Jewish and all other harsh systems of an austere Past?
It is, as to God, the regarding Him  not as an implacable
Sovereign, armed with the terrors of the Law, whose wrath is
a consuming fire; but as a dear Father-his tender mercies
over all his other works-who exacts not long prayer nor formal sacrifice; accepting, as most fitting service to Himself, the
aid and comfort we may have given to His suffering creatures.
And, as to man, it is the substitution, in all his affairs, whether
international, legislative, litigant, executive, or social, of the
law of kindness for the rule of violence.  It is the replacement,
throughout God's world, of war by peace, of severity by humanity: for contention the enthronement of meekness; and for
hatred, of love.
We find, indeed, scintillations from such a spirit dating prior
to the Christian era: in the Grecian schools of philosophy, especially from the lips of Socrates speaking through the transcripts of Plato; and even coming to us from an earlier school,
in the moral code promulgated by the great sage of China, the
contemporary of Pythagoras and of Solon.  Confucius, twentyfour centuries Since, forbade revenge of injuries, commended
clemency, denounced self-righteousness, and declared that the
very foundation of all law was this, that we should do as we
would be done by.*
But what was subordinate injunction or incidental embellishment only in older codes is of the Christian system the soul
and essence. Scarce a maxim but it colors; hardly a precept
* TELA: Life and Morals of Confucius, reprinted from the edition
of 1691 (London, 1818); pp. 80, 82, 89, 92. But Confucius inculcated
hatred of bad men, as of the slanderer, the reviler, the man wise in
his own conceit, the fool who censures (p. 91). Compare with this,
Matthew v. 43, 44.




100            PROFANATIONS OF THE NAME
to which it -does not give tone. It is not one of. many minis
trant spirits, but the presiding deity. LOVE is the fulfilling of
the Law.
It would be wrong to say that such a system was out of
place eighteen hundred years ago, under a rule of legal vengeance and a code of retaliation.  Even in those days, as long
before, the still small voice in human nature, though commonly
drowned by the clang of arms and the noisy conflict of rude
passions, doubtless bore witness, when it could be heard above
the tumult, in favor of the new philosophy; testifying to its
justice, sympathizing with its kindly spirit. And to this
steadfast ally within the citadel is to be ascribed its preservation amid the hostile elements around.
Yet one can hardly imagine anything more at variance with
the temper of Christianity than the everyday thoughts and
doings of men, not only at the period whence it dates, but long
thereafter. And it is a thing very remarkable that the name was
adopted and revered, age after age, while scarcely pretence was
maintained of obedience to the gentle precepts that characterized it. The warrior-monk of Malta, after he had lost, amid
luxury and license, every virtue except valor, called himself a
Christian. The half-million of crusaders who six centuries
since assembled at the call of Father Dominic, and marched
forth, the cross emblazoned on their breasts, to exterminate the
schismatic Waldenses-laid claim to the title of Christian pilgrims. Torquemada-he who during one brief inquisitoriate
burned five thousand heretics,* and gave up ten times that number to torture or other punishment-caused the rack to be
stretched and the martyr-fire to be kindled, by the authority of
Christianity. Like the disciples demanding fire from heaven to
consume the inhospitable Samaritans, these men knew not what
manner of spirit animated IHim, whom they vainly professed to
follow and to serve.
* Variously estimated, by different writers, from two to eight thousand. I have assumed the mean, which I judge from the evidence to be
under rather then over the truth.




OF CHRISTIANITY.                   101
Through these earliest and worst profanations of her name,
Christianity is at length emerging.  We have probably outlived
the era of religious persecution unto death. You can speak of
Roman Catholicism and. I of Calvinism, without risk that either
of us should be brought to the stake.
Under favor of this freedom, I may ask you dispassionately
to reflect how far the'theology taught by the Leaders of the
Reformation conforms to, or diverges from, the religion of
Christ.  The subject should be approached-reverently, prayer
fully, yes-but fearlessly also. The truth maketh free.
I admit, in advance, that a doctrinal system which, in various
phases, has pervaded Christendom for fifteen hundred years,
may rightfully demand to be respectfully dealt with by the historian, the statesman, the philosopher. MWe may rationally assume, too, that in a certain stage of mental development, such
a system, like war, may have had its mission.  Yet this theory
does not bar the hypothesis that its days are numbered, or that
its mission is already fulfilled. To everything there is a season.
Like the dogma-as ancient as itself, and still nominally accepted by two hundred millions of people-that the Holy
Ghost ever guides, exclusively and with unerring wisdom, the
one only true and Catholic Church-the doctrine of innate and
incurable depravity, supplemented by vicarious atonement, may
be destined speedily to pass away.
If it shall appear that such a doctrine, though taught by Paul,
conflicts with the sayings of Jesus, then we shall be relieved
from the despairing conclusion that Christianity is losing
ground, century by century. If it shall further appear that
these favorite dogmas tend to retard the progress of civilization
and to lower the standard of morality,* then we need not ac* In some of the succeeding pages, I shall speak, at large, of Plenary Inspiration. Meanwhile, if the doctrine of Luther suffice not,
in the eyes of my clerical readers, to justify me in assuming it to be
possible that a few of St. Paul's chapters are but straw instead of
gold, let them be reminded what one of the most eminent and enlightened among the dignitaries of the English Church has left on record:




102                COMPARISON BETWEEN
cept Macaulay's corollary that there is no progressive element
in our religion, and no security, in the future, against any theological fallacy of the past.
In a brief address like this, it is impracticable to collate the
writings of Calvin and Luther with the teachings of Christ.
Text crowds on text; one would have to transcribe half the
biography of the Testament.
And how unnecessary would be such a collation, if we of
this generation could but examine that Testament uninfluenced
by preconceptions!
Lot us imagine Christendom to have known, until the present day, no Bible save Calvin's Institutes and Luther's Galatian Commentary. Let us suppose it to be receiving for the
first time, now under the lights of the nineteenth century, the
utterances of him whom it calls "' Lord, Lord,"-to be reading
the just-found words of Jesus,as the peasantry of Germany and
England read them  fresh from the pens of Luther and of Tyndale. Ah! small need would there be then of comment or
studied comparison!  The theology that rejoices in its orthodoxy to-day would melt away in a single year before the glow
of the teachings by the sea and of the Sermon on the Mount.
Thus emerging to view, what a record would it be to us!with first impressions undulled by formal iterations; with convictions still to be formed, not perverted from earliest childhood into antiquated grooves; its words fresh with their original meanin<g; no dogmatic gloss to dim its simple lessons; no
obscuring commentary to cloud its priceless truths.  Some
things, no doubt, would startle us; others might cause us to' I express myself with caution lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason; which is, indeed, the only faculty we have wherewith to judge
colncerning anything, even revelation itself: or be understood to assert
that a supposed revelation cannot be proyed false from internal charactels. For it may contain clear immoralities or contradictions; and either
of these would prove it false."-Bishop BUTLER: analogy of Religion,
part ii. chap. 3, p. 201. (London Ed., 1809. )




CALVINISM  AND CHRISTIANITY.               103
call in question the accuracy of the biographer's recollections.
A portion of Luther's " hay and straw," we should detect; but
the pure gold would be readily recognized; the grand foundation would remain.*
"Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand! "t  These
would be the first words of exhortation that met our eye.
Next we should learn that the "' gospel of the kingdom " was
preached.1 The gospel! That word would come to us in its
etymological purity, ~ not overlaid by suggestions of catechism
and faith-confessions.  It would inform  us that Jesus, the
ANOINTED,| came a Messenger of Good Tidings.
Good tidings?-to us who had been hearing such as these?
" Every thing in man, the understanding and will, the body and
* I may here advert to what I have touched upon elsewhere in this
volume that, in a general way, I regard the three synoptical gospelsthe earlier written-as much more reliable than the later biography of
John; and I have therefore chiefly, though not entirely, trusted to
them for Christ's teachings. The nearer (in time) to the Master, the
more we find of the gold and the less of the dross.
It is remarkable that Justin Martyr, who usually refers to his authorities specifically, never quotes either of the Evangelists by name;
but, instead, what he calls: Jenemoirs of the Apostles. The remarkable coincidences not only in incident, but often almost literal, between
the three synoptical gospels seem to point to some common origin for
these biographies; and it has been suggested that this common source
may have been a Memoir or Biography, drawn up from the recollections of Christ's relatives, his Apostles, and other prominent disciples,
soon after the crucifixion. This seems to me a reasonable hypothesis.
f Matthew iv. 17; Mark i. 15.
$ Matthew iv. 23; Mark i. 14.
~ It would be superfluous, but that it is so often overlooked, to recall
to the reader's memory that the word gospel (god-spell) derives from the
two Anglo-Saxon words: God, good; and spell, history or tidings.
I The titles " The Christ " and " The Messiah " hardly recall to us
now the fact, that both mean simply The Aiointed; the former in
Greek, the latter in Hebrew. ~
The disciples, soon after the crucifixion, "lifting up their voice to
God with one accord," designated their Master (Acts iv. 27) as " Th3
holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed."




104                JESUS AND CALVIN.
soul, is polluted.".... God finds nothing in men that
can incite him to bless them." t
WVhat good tidings, then? These"' Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be
comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure ir
heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the peace-makers,
for they shall be called the children of God." I
So, again, to ears accustomed to doctrine like this: "All
children are depraved from their very birth;... their
whole nature must be odious and abominable to God" ~-how
would sound the good tidings brought by another Teacher,
guiding us from darkness to the " light of life "? I
"Jesus took little children in his arms and blessed them,
saying:'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven:' and to his disciples he added:' Except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a
little child, ye cannot enter therein.' "~
Yet again:  In the gospel from Geneva we had been accustomed to read: " The whole world does not belong to its Creator:... grace delivers from the curse and wrath of God
a few,... but leaves the world to its destruction. **.
I stop not to notice those fanatics who pretend that grace is
offered equally to all." ft
But how would our hearts warm within us when we found,
in the Gospel from Galilee, invitation to all those who labor
and are heavy-laden upon earth: "Ask, and it shall be given
you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
to you: for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seek.
* See preceding page 73.'   Luke xviii. 15-17.
f See preceding page 74.   ** See the words of Calvin at pre
X Mattkew v. 3-10.              ceding page 78.
~ See preceding pages 74, 75.  ft  See preceding page 75.
U John viii. 12.




LUTHERANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.            105
eth, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.,
If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in IIeaven,
give good gifts to them that ask Him? " *
Nor should we find the teachings that had come from Wittenberg to agree, any better than Calvinism, with the tidings
from Nazareth, at last laid open before us; seeing that Luther
had taught us in this wise:'" To say that faith is nothing unless charity be joined withal, is a devilish and blasphemous
doctrine. t... Every doer of the law and every moral
worker is accursed.":
But in the new gospel we should find Christ saying: "-When
thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the
blind; and thou  shalt be blessed: they cannot recompense
thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the
just." ~
We should probably call to mind, too, that from Wittenberg we had heard: "He that says the gospel requires works
for salvation, I say, flat and plain, is a liar." II
But when we open that gospel itself, how different the reading! "Whosoever shall do and teach the commandments, the
same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven." ~[
As we proceeded in the beautiful gospel-story, new surprises would meet us at every step.
That sinner of the olden time, was she, with her many sins,
forgiven because she believed much? We should find the
record to read-" because she loved much." **
And that other sinner, set in the midst for condemnation,
was she bade to go and believe that a Holy Vicar bore her
sins? Verily, no. We should learn that she was left uncondemned and bade to "go and sin no more." tt
That prayer of prayers (it would seem to us, Geneva-taught)
* Matthew vii. 11. -            See preceding page 51,
t See preceding page 83.      ~[ Matthew v. 19.
5 See preceding page 84.      ** Luke viii. 47.
~ Luke xiv. 13, 14.          ft John vii 10..a*




106          THE PARABLES OF CHRIST AND
ought not to have read: " Forgive us our, sins as we forgives
them that sin against us;" * but thus: " Reckon it to us for
righteousness that our sins are transferred to thy Son and that
we are elected of Thee."
Then, again, when amid Christ's good tidings we heard of the
great "joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth," the
question would be sure to arise: "Why, when a sinner repents, should there be joy at all, if it be election, and not repentance, that has power to save? "
But chiefly would the wondrous narrative-teachings of Jesus
be likely to arrest our attention; and what profound subject
for thought should we find in them!
Suppose that, fresh from the Reformer's scheme of atonement, we came upon that noblest of parables, the story of the
prodigal son. The father (we should read) bade bring forth
the best robe and put it on him, and a ring on his hand and
shoes on his feet. Was this advancement (typical of God's
good-will to a sinner) due to the son's sudden adoption of a
dogma, and to his certain belief that he was favored of his
father and destined to happiness?' A thousand times, no!"
(we should have to reply). It was due to the lost one's humility and repentance; to his sorrow for the past, and his
resolution to lead an amended life of usefulness, even in a
menial's place. " Father, I have sinned against Heaven and
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;
make me as one of thy hired servants."
Next, perhaps, reaching the parable of the man travelling
into a far country, we might be reading how he called his
servants and delivered to them his goods; how one servant
improved the talents he had received and to him it was said:
i" Enter into the joy of thy Lord:" then how another servant
left his talent unemployed, and was sent " into outer darkness."
Straightway it would suggest itself to us that, unless we had
* There are two slightly variant versions: Matthew vi. 12, 14:
and Luke xi. 4.




THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS.             107
been misled by blind teachers, this parable ought to have stated
that the one servant, who sought justification through the
works he had done, was told that no man can be justified by
works, and so, dismissed to "weeping and gnashing of teeth:"
while the other, who trusted not to works, should have been
informed that if he confidently believed that he had been
elected to enter on the joy of his Lord, it should be unto him
according to his belief.*
At last, it may be, urgent to have our doubts resolved, we
might turn over the leaves, seeking some definite statement
touching the fate of human beings after death. Matthew, in
his twenty-fifth chapter, would supply our need.
For there we should find Jesus depicting a graphic scene,
typical of the effect which man's doings in this world produce
on his state in the next.
When the King says to those on his right, "Come, inherit
the Kingdom," he assigns the reasons for his choice.  "I was
an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave
me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in, naked and ye
clothed me; sick and in prison and ye visited me." And
when they who were thus addressed disclaimed having rendered
him service, the reply is: " Inasmuch as ye did it unto the
least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me." Could we
construe this except to mean that we best serve God when we do
good to the lowliest of his creatures; and that if we spend our
lives here in such good deeds, then when Death summons us to
another phase of life, our state there will be a happy one?  Yet,
* The passages that would be sure to startle our supposed Genevan
catechumen are without number, and will occur to every candid
searcher of the record. The parable that closes the Great Sermon is,
perhaps, one of the most striking.'" Whoso heareth these sayings of
mine and doeth thnem, shall be likened to a wise man building his house
on a rock. But every one that heareth my sayings and doeth them not,
is like a foolish man, building on the sand." Not the hearing, not the
believing aside from works-the doing is the rock-foundation. Everything else is a structure on sand, that shall be swept away.




lU8 0   WHAT LEADS TO PUNISHMENT HEREAFTER.
if we still retained our Calvinistic proclivities, would it not
seem to us that the words of the King ought to have been:' Come, inherit the Kingdom; for I have elected you of free
grace to enter it, without reference to your works on earth,
whether they have been good or whether they have been evil."
But who, according to Christ, were to go into " everlasting
fire," *-whatever the words thus rendered may mean-at all
events, who were to suffer instead of enjoying? They who,
wrapt up during their earth-life in selfishness, failed to minister to their fellow-creatures. But unless, by this time, we had
no longer the fear of Calvin before our eyes, how should we
receive such a declaration?  With incredulity, doubtless, or
with a feeling that the sentence of the condemned should have!V-en couched in some such terms as these: " Depart, ye cursed,
to dwell for ever with the devil and his angels, for'so from the
foundations of the world was it determined, or ever ye were
born or had done good or ill.  That my purpose according to
election might stand, not of works but of IHim that calleth, I
select as seemeth good to me: I take one and leave the other.
These, on my right hand, have I loved; but you have I
hated." t
* Christ's more usual and favorite paraphrase for the condition of
evil-doers hereafter is " outer darkness, where shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth" (MSatthew viii. 12; xxii. 13; xxiv. 51; xxv. 30;
and Luke xiii. 28); words seeming to typify an utter eclipse of the soul
and grievous mental sufferings. In the body of this volume I shall
give reasons for believing that these words of Jesus aptly describe the
future state of those whose lives here have not fitted them for light
and happiness in a higher phase of being.
I recommend those who have the habit of dogmatizing  on the subject of eternal punishment and assuming that the Hebrew S'heol and the
Greek Hades have, in our Authorized Version, been correctly translated,
to read the article " Hell" in Dr. Smith' s " Dictionary of the Bible."
They will find that the writer, after giving the result of much critical
resea:ch, says: " Respecting the condition of the dead, whether before
or after the resurrection, we know very little indeed.... Dogmatism
on this topic appears to be peculiarly misplaced."
t See, for Calvin's words on this subject, preceding page 76.




FASCINATION OF GENEVESE THEOLOGY.              109
Do you tell me that this is impious? I agree with you; it
is the very climax of impiety.  But it is John Calvin's impiety,
not mine.  And it is an impiety which seems secretly to have
shocked the modern world's sense of right and wrong: for the
last three centuries have given their verdict against it.
Yet, withal, there is a power and a subtile fascination * about
the Genevese theology, terrible as Gustave Dore's conceptions
of Dante's "Inferno."  When I turn fromnCalvinism to Christianity, I feel as one awaking from some frightful nightmaresome dream of an arid desert peopled with phantom-shapes of
demons and monsters-and coming face to face with the calm
loveliness of a bright, genial spring-morning; the song of birds
in my ears, the odor of dew-fed flowers stealing over my senses.
It is for you, guides of the Protestant Church, to say whether
the facts adduced sustain the proposition which I have already
advanced and which I here repeat: It was not the grand system
of ethics taught by Jesus which was arrested in its progress for
* It is beyond doubt that it had strange attraction for the European
mind in its state of transition during the sixteenth century. " About
the year 1540 a little book was published, entitled Of the Benefits of
the Death of Christ, which, as a decree of the Inquisition expressed it,'treated, in an insinuating manner, of justification, depreciated works
and meritorious acts and ascribed all merit to faith alone.' It had incredible success and rendered the doctrine of justification, for a time,
popular in Italy; but it was finally so rigidly suppressed by the Inquisition that not a copy is now known to exist."-RANKE: History of the
Popes, vol. i.
A significant expression, well worth pondering in connection with the
hold which, in these rude days of public wrong and private outrage,
this doctrine obtained on the human mind, occursin the Augsburg Confession. Speaking of justification by faith without works, the Confessionists say: " This entire doctrine is to be referred to the conflict of
the terrified conscience; nor without that conflict can it be understood."-Article 20.
A doctrine of fear, not of love. " What if God, willing to show his
wrath and to make his power known," &c., is Paul's expression.Romans ix. 22.




110         REFORM IN PUBLIC AND'PRIVATE
centuries; which failed to make headway against human claim.
ants of infallibility; which lost more than half the ground it
had gained; which cannot hold its own against the Roman
hierarchy to-day: —it was an Augustinian commentary on some
of the scholasticisms of St. Paul.
You will judge, also, whether I have made good this other
proposition: It is not a fair inference from the history of the
Reformation and the reverses to Protestantism therein recorded,
that Christianity is not in the nature of a progressive science;
or that we have no security for the future against the prevalence
of any theological error that has ever prevailed in time past
among Christian men.
~ 11. EFFECT ON MORALITY OF CERTAIN FAVORITE DOCTRINES
OF THE REFORMERS.
But it is not alone the divergence of some early Protestant
doctrines from Christ's teachings, extreme as it is, that arrests
one's attention. It is also the effect on civilization and human
progress of the doctrines themselves. I intreat your attention
to this branch of the subject, urgent in its importance.
-Urgent, for many reasons. It is far short of the truth to
say that the material progress of the world in the last hundred
years has exceeded that obtained in any ten previous centuries.
Yet I am sure it must have occurred to you that the advance
in morality has not kept pace with that in all physical arts
and sciences. Especially in this new country of ours, liable as
it is to the excesses and the shortcomings of youth, improvemant in human actions and affections, as compared with improvement in mechanical agencies, lags lamentably behind.
Intemperance, partially checkel from time to time, is yet a terrible power in the land.*  Vast wealth and stintiless luxury* Special Internal Revenue Commissioner Wells, whose labors in
connection with financial reform have made his name favorably known
all over the country, states, in his Report to Congress for the year 1867




MORALITY URGENTLY NEEDED.                   111
heralds of ruin that go before the decline and fall of nationsare so swiftly and so widely extending their baneful influence
over our people, that Christ's warning comes to us with tenfold force: "H Iow hardly shall they who have riches enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven!"  Public morality is at a lower ebb
than it was a quarter of a century ago: our legislative bodies
are less pure, our public service generally more stained with
venality. Nay, the very source whence our political system'
springs-the election precinct itself-has become subject to invasions of corruption that have waxed, year by year, more frequent and more shameless.  But public immorality reacts on
private morals.  The vice-diseases which originate in politics,
if they assume a malignant type, cannot, by any sanitary
cordon, be confined to politics; they are sure to infect, first
our business marts, then the home-circle itself.*  Never has
there been a time when a great reformatory agency was more
pressingly needed among us than now.
I do not say this discouragingly; for I feel no discouragethat, during that year, the sales of persons retailing spirituous and malt
liquors reached the sum of $483,491,835. This, however, included
all their sales which, in many instances, extended to other articles, such
as sugar, flour, tobacco. As the tax was much larger than that imposed on ordinary dealers, it is not likely that any one would return
himself as a retailer of liquors unless he sold sufficient of the article to
warrant payment of the increased tax. Mr. Wells (in a letter to me of
February 10, 1871) says: " I think you would be safe in saying that
a third part of the sales returned was for liquors."
This would give upward of a hundred and sixty sillions of dollars,
as the sum annually paid by the people of the United States over the
counter to retailers, for glasses of liquor alone: averaging, probably,
seventy or eighty glasses a year for every man, woman, and child in our
country.
HIlow past human calculation the amount of vice and misery which so
enormous a sum, thus expended, represents!-as little capable of cstimate the amount of good it might represent, if spent for the education
of youth and the instruction of the people.
* I witnessed a memorable example of this during a five years' resi.
dence, under the old r6gime, in the kingdom of Naples.




112          EVERY HUMAN ACTION ENTAILS
ment. The great stream of human progress flows ever onward,
even if we, for the time, are found in one of its side-eddies.
He, without whom no sparrow falls, if He fosters the less will
care also for the greater. In IIis own good time the needs of
the soul will surely be supplied as bountifully as the wants of
the body.
But if we take note of God's economy, we shall observe that
he effects these objects in our world, not by miracle or direct
interposition, but mediately, through meliorating agencies,
under general law. And, as He usually acts upon us here
through human agencies, men, though they cannot arrest God's
law or change its influence, have a certain power to quicken or
retard its operation. They quicken that influence when they
call the attention of their fellows to its inevitable action and
to its power for good. They retard its action when they weaken
the faith of mankind in its existence, or assert that God arbitrarily suspends it. And this last is what zealous men-in a
matter most gravely affecting morals,-have assumed to do for
centuries, and continue to do at this very day.
If there be one universal law, patent wherever man is found,
it is that every act, good or bad, entails its appropriate result,
be it beneficial or injurious to the actor. So far as we know
anything of God, by observation of His works, IHe does not
permit this law, or any other natural law, to change or to be
suspended.*
Men, conscious. of evil-doing, have, in all ages, striven to
evade the operation of this great law; seeking out many inventions whereby, in the matter of sin, the consequence might
be detached from the cause. But this cannot be done, any more
than the sun can shine and no light follow, or a field be sown
in tares and wheat spring up as the result.
A sin can be repented of. A sinful life can be amended. A
man, sorrowing over the evil he has done, may learn to do well.
* I shall speak at large of the universal reign of law and the mistakes
men have made when they imagined its suspension, in another part o]
this book.




ITS APPROPRIATE RESULT.                   113
A sinner may be cured of sin, as one who is sick may be cured
of a disease. Thus, and thus alone, can the consequences of
sin be averted.  When the cause ceases, then only ceases the
effect.*
Any attempt to persuade men that the effect of sin can cease
while the sin remains is of exceedingly immoral tendency-of
tendency much more immoral than would be the striking, from
a statute against murder, of its penal clause.  For it would be
as if we deceived a man under temptation to kill, by telling him
that the law against murder contained no penalty or that its
penalty could be annulled, while in fact the penalty in force was
death.  Does it mend matters that we add: "What, then?
Shall we continue to murder because there is no penalty? God
forbid!"  God has forbidden, and under a penalty.  If you
blind men's eyes to the penalty, little avails it that you repeat
to them, " God forbid! "
Happily for the world, there are men (though Calvin denies
this), in whom  the hunger after the Right t is so strong that
they need no other incentive to virtue.  Yet, in the masses at
the present day, the hope or the fear of consequences chiefly de.
cides action. Thus legislators do not consider it safe to trust
the control of mankind to moral precepts without penal law.
Upon the same principle the world is agreed that it will not
do to leave out of view a future state of reward and punishment. $  Of all demoralizing doctrines I know of none more
* "Cessante causa cessat effectus" is one of the oldest of legal
maxims.
{f Matthew v. 6.
X I by no means assert, however, that the fear of Hell and the hope
of Heaven are the foundation-motives on which Christ's system of ethics
rests, or which lie at the basis of the noblest morality. See, as to that
subject, the concluding chapter of this book. It is indispensable to
distinguish between what may be put forward as chief motive at this
age of the world and what may be man's basic motive in a more advanced stage of civilization. Nor will the time ever come when it wiI]
cease to be important that we should clearly know, and deeply ponder,
the natural consequences of our acts.




114 WELL-DOING HERE LEADS TO WELL-BEING IEREAFTEiR
thoroughly vicious in tendency than this, that character and
conduct in this world do not determine our state of being in
the next.
And, on the other hand, I know of no more powerful incen
tive to morality, at this stage of human progress, than a pro.
f(ound conviction that, by an inevitable law, our well-doing in
this stage of existence decides our well-being in that which is to
come.
That sagacious and kindly man, Bishop Butler, following the
lights of analogy, and from the seen deducing the unseen, has
some wise words in this connection. While he abstains from
anything beyond supposition as to how and in what manner, in
the next world, sin will entail suffering, he suggests " that future punishment may follow wickedness in the way of natural
consequence, or according to some general laws of government
already established in the universe." *
I shall give my reasons, farther on, for believing that Butler
here touches a great truth; that' God's laws for the soul are not
restricted to earth-life; and that His creatures, still under
* BUTLER: Analogy of Religion, part ii. chap. 5, ~ 2 (p. 232 of
London Ed., 1809). A page or two previously occur these sentences:
" The divine moral government which religion teaches us implies that
the consequence of vice shall be misery, in some future state, by the
righteous judgment of God.... There is no absurdity in supposing future punishments may follow wickedness of course, as we speak;
or in the way of natural consequence from God's original constitution
of the world; from the nature which He has given us and from the condition in which He places us; or in a like manner as a person rashly
trifling upon a precipice, in the way of natural consequence, falls
down; in the way of natural consequence breaks his limbs, suppose;
in the way of natural consequence of this, without help, perishes.
Some good men may perhaps be offended with hearing it spoken of as
a supposable thing that the future punishments of wickedness may be
in the way of natural consequence: as if this were taking the execution
of justice out of the hands of God. But they should remember that
when things come to pass according to the course of nature, this does
not hinder them from being His doing, who is the God of nature."pp. 230, 231.




THE SCAPE-GOAT.                   115these laws after the death-change, will find them in the Great
Beyond as on this little planet, unchanged and unchangeable.
Does not such a conception (involving no earning of heaven,
no arbitrary consignment to hell) commend itself to our better
nature as in accordance with the attributes of " the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning?" *
And what have we had in Hebradom and in Christendom
for tens of centuries to replace it?
In the childhood of the world-at all events when it was
three thousand years younger than it is to-day-a strange rite
was instituted, at the alleged command of God, among the
Hebrews. Sins were treated as if they were tangible and movable objects that could be detached from the sinner by a High
Priest, and sent away, as worn-out garments or cumbrous rubbish might ba, on a beast of burden. ~  This typical action
might have been well enough, in that age of ceremonies, if there
had been any true principle underlying it. But it was founded
on an error of the gravest character. We cannot scape sins by
a shifting of them from ourselves to another living being, any
more than we can evade the fever that consumes us, or the
plague that threatens life, by transfer of either to friend or
foe. God's immutable law is against it.  He has made it impossible to detach effect from cause.
Paul, " an HIebrew of the IIebrews and as touching the law
a Pharisee," j continued, after he became a Christian, to cherish
the ancient Jewish idea that sin is gotten rid of by sacrifice,
* James i. 17.
t " The scape-goat shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make
an atonement with Him.... Aaron shall lay his hands upon the head
of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them
upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a
fit man into the wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon him all thei
iniquities unto a land not inhabited."-Leviticus xvi. 10, 21.
t Philippians iii. 5.




116   PARDON. OR NO PARDON, FOR THE PENITENT1 
and that only thus man can atone (that is, reconcile himself,*3
with an offended God. He seems to have forgotten, if he had
ever read or heard, what Christ said to the Pharisees: "' Go ye
and learn what that meaneth,' I will have mercy and not sacrifice."' t
— Mercy, not sacrifice. Miercy for repentance, showing itself
in an amended life; mercy for every human creature who forsakes evil courses and learns to do well; rest to the heavyladen; comfort to the mourner, burdened with the memory of
past misdeeds. Such-so charitable, hopeful, loving-is the
plan of reformation and salvation put forth by the Great Master, gently seeking out those who are soul-sick: such the Gospel,
coming to us with healing under its wings, from the shores of
the Galilean sea. Its tidings are eminently promotive of morality, encouraging, humanizing, civilizing: for it presents to
erring man the strongest of all inducements to resist temptation and to follow wisdom's pleasant and peaceful paths.
How different the influence on the world's morality of the
scheme of redemption imagined by Paul and intensified by the
Leaders of the Reformation! Calvin and Luther exhorted,
indeed, to virtuous actions, inculcated the exercise of Christian
graces; yet, in the same breath, they took pains to instil the
idea that deeds of virtue, even the highest, and Christian graces
the most eminent, are no atonement for past sins, cannot appease God's wrath or awaken God's mercy; and that such good
deeds and graces do not influence, by one hairbreadth, man's
chance of happiness or of misery in the world to come. No
word of pardon or comfort for the penitent mourner; no hope
of heaven to be reached through purification of life. They took
special pains to deny that our well-doing here worked for us
well-being hereafter.  For well-doing they substituted what
they thought to be well-believing. They set up faith in a sin* Atonement; at-one-ment; a pacifying or appeasing of a person
offended, so as to make him at one with the offender.-B-3isla)p BEVERIDGE.
f Matthew ix. 13.




BELIEF NEITHER A CRIME NOR A VIRTUE.            117
gle mysterious dcgma as the one shining, redeeming, immaculate
merit of mankind.
Yet faith in any tenet is not a merit at all.  Love for
truth is a merit; eagerness to learn is a merit; painstaking
research is a merit; but (these duties being religiously fulfilled) the result of such research —belief in any dogma, true
or false-has not, attached to it, one whit more of merit
or' demerit than have far-seeing eyes or dull ears.  Belief
in truth is a blessing, sometimes a priceless blessing; misbelief is a misfortune, often of grievous character: for just
practice is based upon just opinions. But belief in the highest
truth is not a virtue; honest misbelief in the worst error is not
a crime.* Nor, in admitting this, have we reached the full
measure of the folly which sometimes springs from zeal without
knowledge.  The result of sincere inquiry-belief in this or
in that doctrine-is not, in any sense, under human control.
MAln, at the bidding of his fellow, can no more add an article
to his creed than a cubit to his stature.
Tell me, if you can, how I should set about believing that
God, who never disconnects good and evil actions from their
consequences in this world, has seen fit to disconnect them in
the next. Tell me, if you can, how I am farther to obtain belief that God, passing by human deeds which men can control,
selects as worthy of eternal happiness, a certain phase of faith
in the unseen, which the creature from whom it is exacted can
no more have, or not have, by any conceivable effort of his,
than he can arrest the rising of the sun, or hasten the coming
on of night. Explain to me, if you know how, by what process of volition I am to produce in my own mind such a belief.
Reason and conscience within me alike reject it. Shall I do
violence to them?  He is false to God who is false to the sense
* William of Orange, writing in 1578 to the Calvinist authorities of
Middieburg in behalf of the Anabaptists, struck the true note: "You
have no right to trouble yourselves with any man's conscience, so long
as nothing is done to cause private harm or public scandal. "-BRANDT:
Hit'orie der Reformation, vol. i. pp. 609, 610.




118            PREFERRING CHRIST TO PAUL
he has received from God, enabling him to distinguish the
Right from the Wrong.
I know of nothing you can say in reply, except what was
said of old: " Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest
against God?"  I answer that it is not against God, nor yet
against Christ, that I am replying. I am replying against Calvin and Luther's conceptions of God, as I and all men have a
right to do. I am replying against him whom, as guide in this
matter, the Reformers preferred to Christ-against Paul: and
that not wholly, by any means; but only against him in some of
his doctrinal moods.* I am not more thoroughly convinced
that Paul was inspired when he penned that wonderful thir.
teenth chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, than I am
that inspiration was supplanted by vain philosophy in other
portions of his writings. I think he sometimes felt this himself. He seems to have induced, and to have shared Luther's
opinion about the stubble that is sometimes mixed with the
gold.t
It avails nothing to bid me believe unworthily of God, because Paul, now and then, sets me the example; or to arraign
me for presumption because, according to best light, I I decide
for myself what is worthy and what is not. In this twilight
world of ours where all are fallible, we ought not to place the
* At other times his teachings on this very subject harmonize with
those of Christ. " God will render to every man according to his
deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for
glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are
contentious and do not obey the truth,... tribulation and anguish."
-Romans ii. 6-9.
t " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it."-1 Corinthians iii. 11-13. I have
already alluded to this text, preceding page 94.
f " The spirit of man is the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth
the inwardness of all secrets."-Proverbs xx. 27. But the translation
is Bacon's: Advancement of Learning, Book I.




EVIL IN MAN CANNOT BE GOOD IN GOD.               119
candle that gives light to the house under a bushel, merely because its rays reach not as far as those of the sun. I claim for
head and heart, such as they are, the right to judge. And, in
my own case as to this matter, their judgment accords with the
tender-and-true poet of America, when he says:
" I may not look where cherubim
And seraphs cannot see;
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.
" The wrong which pains my soul below
I dare not throne above:
I know not of His hate-I know
His goodness and His love." *
There is one other doctrine, universally accepted by the early
Protestants, to the effect of which on human progress I invite
your attention.
The ideas of these stern theologians touching the inborn corruption of our race were carried, as we have seen, t to a fearful extent. They regarded man as a being so desperately wicked,
of nature so utterly debased and degraded, that his best-show* WHITTIER: The Tent on the Beach; Boston, 1868, p. 140.
f Preceding pages 73 to 75. Other passages might have been added,
showing how deeply rooted this tenet was. The third of the celebrated
ninety-five theses, nailed in 1518 by Luther on the gate of the Wittenberg church, reads thus: 3.'' Works of men, let them be as fair and
good as they may, are yet evidently nothing but mortal sin." Later he
wrote: " Original sin lives and does all other sins and is the essential
sin: one which does not only sin an hour or any given time; but wherever and as long as the person lives, there, too, is sin."-LUTIIER:
Werke, vol. xi. p. 396.
The warm-hearted Melancthon, even, who used to call his nursery
"God's little church " (ecclesiola Dei), gave in his adhesion: " The soul,
lacking celestial light and life,... seeks nothing, desires nothing, save
carnal things."-2IELACCTION: Loci Oomnnures (Ed. August. ), p. 18.
Zwingli, somewhat more lenient, spoke of original sin as a disease.
" Originale peccatum non est peccatum sed morbum." —ZWINGLIUS:
De peccato omiginale, Opera, vol. iii. p. 628.




120        TO TELL MAN- HE IS IRRECLAIMABLE.
ing actions are but veiled varieties of original sin, and his
noblest thoughts mere offshoots of innate depravity.  Nor did
they restrict this anathema to the unbeliever: they held that
all actions whatever-even those performed by the most religious-must be included. " There never was an action performed
bly a pious man " (Calvin says), which, in the eye of God, did
not " deserve condemnation." *
Another phase of the doctrine reaches far in its influence:
for it teaches not only that all men and women, from  earliest
infancy up, are, in their whole nature, " odious and abominable
to God," t but that they are irreclaimable also. " Man cannot"
(says the Genevan Reformer) "be excited or biassed to anything but what is evil." t
Calvin might well have confessed of this tenet, as he did of
predestination, that it was a " horrible decree." For it is a
virtual announcement that there is, in human nature, no element
of moral progress. It is the drawing of a pall across the future
of our race in this lower world. - It is a declaration to the reformer and to the philanthropist that their hopes for humankind are baseless, and their best efforts profitless and vain.
But nothing so takes from man his manhood as the persuasion that he cannot do what he ought.  It discourages, demoralizes. Even in worldly enterprises of mere material character,
it works disappointment and defeat.  Would young Napoleon's
Italian army have effected the wonders it did, if he had preached
* See preceding page 73.
t Preceding page 75.
$ Preceding page 74. At first sight this seems irreconcilable with another sentiment of Calvin (Inst., b. 1, c. 1), reading thus: " There is
no other faith that justifies save that which is connected with charity;
but it is not from charity that it derives its power to justify." The explanation undoubtedly is, that (according to Calvin) even the charitable
deeds of pious men spring, from corrupt motive and therefore deserve
condemnation.
But Luther (preceding page 83) declares that to say "faith is nothing
except charity be joined withal," is a "devilish and blasphemous kind
of doctrine."




TAKES FROM II ITI  MAsNHTOOD.           121
to his soldiers their cowardice and impotence, instlead of inspiring them with wholesome confidence in themselves?
And, in other far nobler fields, consider its evil sway. When
Oberlin commenced his half-century of humanitarian labor in a
benighted Alsacian valley, would he have had courage to proceed, for a day, if he had taken to heart Calvin's abasing assumption that man cannot be moved to an impulse that is good?
Or shall we accept the doctrine that there is nothing good in
holy ministerings like these? Shall we read the history of our
race, bearing with us the conviction that not a virtuous action
there recorded; not a noble deed of'patriotism, self-sacrifice,
mercy, generosity; no fervent devotion of love; no sublime
martyrdom for opinion's sake; no consecration of life to the
relief of suffering humanity; not the purest aspiration above
the mists and the misbeliefs of a dim present, nor the most exalted endeavor to bring about a bright and happy future for
humankind-in a word, that nothing grand or illustrious which
has ken endured, attempted, enacted, by God's creatures in
this world of His, from the earliest dawn of society down to
the present day-is other than a vile fruit of hypocrisy,* a phase
of pollution, at the very best a vain shadow t that is worthlessay, damnable! —in God's sight?
The worst of human errors is to identify God with evil-to
regard Him as a Spirit of Wrong: the next worst is to identify
man with evil-to look upon him as an outlaw, past saving.
God deliver us from the setting up of devil to worship, and of
hopeless depravity to believe!
Better-if Calvin's Stygian creed were truth-to burn at
* " Let hypocrites go now and, retaining depravity in their hearts, endeavor by their works1 to merit the favor of God." -Quoted, with context, on preceding page 79.
t Both Luther and Melancthon called the virtues of the Gentiles
"mere shadows " (virtutum umbrue), and held that Socrates, Cato, and
others were virtuous only from ambition. -HAGENBACH, History of
Doctrines, vol. ii. p. 256.
6




122             ThIE BASIS OF HUMILITY.
once every record of the detestable Past. To what purpose the
perusal of a long series of abominations?
One finds, in Calvin's " Institutes," good cause for belief that
a main object of this Reformer was to inoulcate humility: a
praiseworthy intention. But humility and self-abasement are
as wide apart as vain-glory and self-respect. Humility looks up,
with hope; self-abasement looks around, with despair. There
is no nobler lesson than that taught in Christ's parable of the
Pharisee, supercilious in his self-righteousness, and the Publican standing afar off and imploring mercy, Paul has set out
the true basis of humility: "W hat hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou
glory as if thou hadst not received it?" *  All that we have,
all that we are, is but a gift: if humble we should not despise,
if precious we should not parade it. But we should recognize
it; and we may recognize it with joy and gratitude. What
justice and Christ's injunction alike forbid is that it should inspire us with that pride which leadeth to destructioni  We
ought to receive it humbly; we ought to use it unostentatiously:
but when we have done our very best, we should not, like the
leper of old, go around crying out: "' Unclean, unclean! "
And when one of the elect, self-installed, thus cries out, the
heart-even if he be unconscious of the truth  is seldom in the
words he utters. The belief in innate depravity, coupled with
the belief that one is a favorite of God-selected, with a handful more, by Him, out of countless myriads of his creatures, to
share, by exclusive appointment, His glory forever-such a belief is practically incompatible with genuine humility. I do
not doubt Calvin's earnest desire to be humble; yet his life
was a life of spiritual pride. With what haughty arrogance
did he look down on Servetus! He inveighed against the
overbearing assumption of the Catholic hierarchy: was there
humility in the Genevan theocrat's own tyrannic rule?
It is probable that Calvin took himself seriously to task, pain,
1 Corinthians iv. 7.




EFFECTS OF OVERMUCH INTROSPECTION.          123
fully searching out every sin, dealing harshly with many of his
own spiritual shortcomings. Yet even this may be carried to
an extreme little conducive to that humble charity which seekoth not her own and vaunteth not. The evil effects of a persistent habit of self-introspection are often as great as those
which result from the opposite extreme of self-neglect.  It is a
duty to care that the body be hale and that the spirit be prepared for another world; yet mainly to occupy one's time and
thoughts with every petty detail connected with the condition
of one's health, physical or spiritual, is an unwholesome practice, which nourishes selfishness and fosters a spirit of exaction.
We become, as it were, all the world to ourselves, and our
thoughts and emotions gradually contract, in proportion. Nothing does a man so much good, physically and spiritually-nothing so chastens a haughty, worldly spirit-as, in a measure; to
forget one's self-to feel and to think for others.
The true lesson taught by history, as regards man and his attributes, is this: There is just cause for surprise and gratulation that, considering the terrible influences brought to bear,
by vitiating circumstance and demoralizing doctrine, on the
nature of man, his nature should still exhibit the eminent and
progressive spirit which, ever and anon breaking away from
evil training and ancient prejudice, bids us rejoice that we belong to a race-erring and frail and sinful, indeed-but in
which there still inheres, as Christ has told us, an earnest of
the " Kingdom of God."
Such a race gradually discards its fanaticisms. Into the
creed of the modern world are entering, one by one, such tenets
as these: Fear, distrust, despair, are abject influences. Terrorism, domestic, political, or religious, is of all governments the
worst: it dwarfs and debases the race. A child habitually distrusted is exposed to the most baneful of all temptations. A.
man without hope and trust and self-respect is shorn of half
his strength.
Nor does the Genevese Reformer seek to deny this. Nothing that can be said of the disheartening influence of his creed




124             FAItH'S POWER FOR GOOD.
is stronger than his own words. Hear his confession: " God
generally manages his disciples, that is to say all the faithful,
in such a manner that whithersoever they turn their views
throughout the world, nothing but despair presents itself to
them on every side." *
GoD so manages? Seek the true solution in the lines:
" As one who, turning from the light,
Watches his own gray shadow fall;
Doubting, upon his path of night,
If there be day at all." t
How has Calvin's gray shadow fallen, for centuries, athwart
the Christian world!
But let us turn from the shadow to the light: nor, because
the leaders of the Reformation have sectarianized men's conceptions of faith, let us forget its value. Christ employed the
strongest metaphors to express its potency. t And very surelythe word being accepted in its comprehensive sense-one can
hardly exaggerate faith's power for good: it can remove mountain-difficulties from the path of human progress. Thus, faith
in noble effort; faith in our common nature; in its capabilities:
in its progress. Faith in the Good and the Beautiful-in the
good that is felt, not seen; in the beautiful that must be conceived before it can be realized. Faith, too, in the economy
of the world: tranquil assurance that all is well and wisely ordered by a Wisdom that sees deeper than ours. Faith, again,
reaching farther still: faith that progress in knowledge and
goodness ends not here, but continues in another phase of being where there are many mansions, to be occupied by those
who shall be fitted to enter therein.
And if Paul, in his dogmatic vagaries, did mislead the early
Protestants, nobly has he elsewhere supplemented, in this very
connection, some of the highest teachings of Jesus. Far be.
* Institutes, B. iii. C. 14, ~ 4.
t WnITTIER': Among the HilsE, p. 80.
$ Matthew xxi. 21; Luke xvii. 6.




PAUL IN PRAISE OF LOVE.               125
yond even Faith and Hope, first among Christian graces, embracing in its generous scope Peace and Mlercy and Charity and
Friendship, ruling in Heaven as on earth, is Love.
But who, in terms more glowing than the great Apostle of
the Gentiles, has spoken the praise of that glorious spirit, the
very soul animating the system of morals and civilization set
forth by Christ? Can we ever forget the words?
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels;
though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains; though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor; though I give my body to be burned; and have not
love, I am nothing. " Love suffereth long and is kind; love
envieth not; love vaunteth not herself, is not puffed up, doth
not behave herself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things.           And now'
abideth Faith, hIope, and Love, these three; but the greatest of
these is Love." *
In tendency and influence how immeasurably far from this
gracious spirit, " gentle and easy to be intreated, full of mercy
and good fruits," was the spectre, mysterious and austere,
whose outcry led astray the chief among the Protestant Fathers! Some men cannot hear the voice of God except in the
thunder. t Think of Calvin's scheme of the world! A vale of
* I have followed Tyndale, the virtual patriarch of our authorized
version of the Testament, in his translation, according to its original
sense, of an important word (agape). A writer in Smith's History of
the Bib;e (vol. iii. p. 1676), adverting to King James' fifteen instructions
to the Bible translators, of which instructions the third was to the
effect that " the old ecclesiastical words were to be kept " (as h'hurch
instead of Congregation)-adds: " To this rule is probably due
" Charity" in 1 Corinthians xiii." I prefer not to follow King James
in this matter.
t " Videor mihi non verba sed tonitrua audire "-were St. Jerome's
words, after meditating the Pauline dogmas of Predestination and
Election.




126              THE THEOLOGIANS'  HELL.
tears h6 deemed it-a vale of tears or of impious license, lugubrious and loathsome, thronged with a depraved multitude, myriads on myriads of whom —all but a chosen few-are to their Crea.
tor but as disinherited children, outcast and forsaken; suffered'o wander, for a brief season, shrouded in moral darkness,
along the broad road that leads to desruction, and then consigned, by the divine fiat, to the scorching flames of a bottomless pit, the smoke of their torment ascending forever and
ever! *
I make no argument against the horrors of such a scheme, imputed to a God of Love.  The generation that clings to it must
die out in its superstitions, and we must look to the next for
clearer heads and better hearts.
~ 12. CORROBORATION FROM HISTORY.
This must be very briefly dealt with: for I have already
transgressed the limits which I had originally set for myself in
addressing you.
Hallam, Sir William Hamilton, t and others have spoken in
* The theologians of that age were wont to elaborate the picture:' Alas, misery and pain, they must last forever! O eternity, what art
thou? 0, end without end! O death which is above every death; to
die every hour and yet not to be able ever to die!... Give us a
millstone, say the damned, as large as the whole earth, and so wide in
circumference as to touch the sky all round; and let a little bird come
once in a hundred thousand years and pick off a small particle of the
stone not larger than the tenth part of a grain of millet, and after another hundred thousand years let him come again, so that in ten hundred thousand years he might pick off as much as a grain of millet; we
wretched shiners would ask nothing but that when this stone has an
end. our pains might also cease: but yet even that cannot be! "-Suso:
Biicldeibz der Vseisheit, chap. xi., " Vom immerwihrendem Weh dez
H611e."
f HAMILTON: Discussions, p. 499, etc. HALLAM: literature of
Europe, vol. i. passign.




DANGERS IN FIRST FEELING OF LIBERTY.    127
strong terms of the dissolute manners which followed the
Reformation in Germany. But I think too little weight has
usually been given to the fact that a certain license is inseparable from all great moral revolutions. Tulloch takes a temperate view of the matter: " Such an awakening as this, in the
very nature of the case, soon began to run into many extravagant issues. In the first feeling of liberty men did not know
how to use it temperately; and Anabaptism in Germany, and
Libertinism in France, testified to the moral confusion and
social license that everywhere sprang up in the wake of the
Reformation. We can now but faintly realize how ominous all
this seemed to the prospects of Protestantism. It appeared to
many minds as if it would terminate in mere anarchy." *
It is well known how this state of things embittered Luther's
last days. And we have abundant evidence that, at times, he
distrusted his own system.  " As he -and his Catherine were
walking in the garden one evening, the stars shone with unusual brightness.'What a brilliant light!' said Luther as he
looked upward;'but it burns not for us.''And why are we
to be shut out from the kingdom of Heaven?' asked Catherine.'Perhaps,' said Luther with a sigh,'because we left our convents.'' Shall we return, then?'' No,' he replied,'it is too
late for that.'" t
Six years after Luther's death happened a noteworthy thing.
Amsdorf, one of his dearest friends and fellow-laborers in
Wittenberg, pending a public discussion held in 15,52 with
Major, an advocate for the necessity of good works, maintained
that " good works were an impediment to salvation."  The result is very remarkable: Major renounced his doctrine, lest he
should be looked on as " a disturber of the Church." I
A distinguished Protestant divine acknowledges that the
Wittenberg, Reformers were so engrossed by polemics that they
* Principal TULLOCrr: Leaders of the Reformation (London, 1859);
p. 173.
t Quoted by Tulloch, p. 75.
$ MosHIEIM: Ecclesiastical History (London, 1804); vol. iv. p. 39.




128          CALVINGS CONSISTORIAL COURT
had to neglect " the advancement of real piety and religion;"
and that none of them attempted to give a regular system of
morals. *
This, however, was attended to by Calvin; not, like Luther,
too tender-hearted to frame a moral and ecclesiastical government in accordance with his estimate of human kind. Within
meagre and barren limits, because of that estimate, were his
efforts pent: but what he thought he could do, he did. Body
and soul were corrupt-incurably, beyond earthly agency for
good: yet external decorum goes for something. The cup and
the platter must ever remain full of extortion and excess, but
the outside could be made clean: that was within human power,
and common decency required that it should be done. Phylacteries, fair with the words of the law, could be deferentially
worn, their breadth determined by imperative rule. Tithe of
mint and rue could be paid to public opinion; tombs could be
built and sepulchres garnished; though weightier matters,
judgment and mercy and faith in man, were unattainable.  To
the eye things could be made white and beautiful even if dead
men's bones and all uncleanness must needs abide beneath.
Coercion could effect all this; and the iron will of the rigid
Genevan determined that it should.
In 1536 Calvin and his co-worker, Farell, drew up a confession of faith in twenty-one articles, of which one gave the clergy
the right of excommunication; and they procured from the
Council of Two Hundred a proclamation, in which these were
declared to be binding on the whole body of the citizens. Five
years later a Consistorial Court was appointed, of which Calvin
appears to have assumed the permanent presidency; t and for
* " The number of adversaries with whom the Lutheran doctors
were obliged to contend gave them perpetual employment in the field
of controversy, and robbed them of that precious leisure which they
might have consecrated to the advancement of real piety and virtue.
None of the famous Lutheran doctors attempted to give a regular.
system of morality." —MosrIEIM: Eccmesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 24.
1 TULLOCI: Leaders of the Rfoormnaton,, p. 119. HENRY: Life of
Cailvin, vol. i. p. 469 (Translation by Stebbing).




AdND ECCLESIASTICAL -GOVERNMENT.         129
its government and that of the Council he drew up a code of
laws, ecclesiastical and moral, which were sworn to by the
people.*  This Court had but one direct weapon-excommui.
cation: like the Spanish Inquisition which forbore shedding
blood, it turned over the culprit, when anathema was deemed
inadequate penalty, to the civil authority for punishment, evez
unto death.
History records no more striking example of tyranny, with
authority intimately united of Church and State; with sway,
social as well as religious and political, sumptuary and domestic
as well as social. t Its redeeming point was, that it put down
open profligacy and reformed dissolute manners.
This is what a friendly biographer has to say: " A marvellous change, in the course of a short time, was wrought upon
the outward aspect of Geneva. A gay and pleasure-loving
people, devoted to music and dancing, the evening wine-shop
and card-playing, found themselves suddenly arrested in their
usual pastimes. Not only were the darker vices of debauchery,
which greatly prevailed, punished by severe penalties, but the
lighter follies and amusements of society were laid under imperious ban, all holidays were abolished except Sunday; the
innocent gayeties of weddings and the fashionable caprices of
dress, were made subjects of legislation: a bride was not to
adorn herself with floating tresses, and her welcome home was
not to be noisy with feasting and revelry. The convent bells
which had rung their sweet chimes for ages across the blue
waters of the Rhone, and become associated with many evening
memories of love and song, had been previously destroyed and
cast into cannon." ~
The details, attested by official records, are alternately ludicrous and horrible.
* On the 20th of November, 1541.
t " From his cradle to his grave the Genevese citizen was pursued
by its inquisitorial eye."-Cavin in Geneva; Westminster Review for
July, 1858.
t Leaders of the Reformati, pp. 107, 103.
6*




130                TE-LDICROUS AND
At betrothals, marriages, or baptisms, it was illegal to present
the guests with nosegays fastened with wire-ribbon (canetilles)
or gold cord or jewelled band. At a marriage-feast or other
friendly entertainment it was unlawful to set on the table more
than a single course of meat including fish, and such course was
limited-to five dishes only: while for dessert the law allowed no
pastry except a single tart for every ten persons.* The character of personal ornaments, the mode of cutting hair and the
length it might be worn, the fashion of dress, were all prescribed: slashed breeches, for example, being prohibited. t
There was no novel-reading in those days; but the favorite
substitute for our romances, Amadis de Gaul, was peremptorily interdicted; nay the preachers of Geneva, less tolerant
than the curate and barber when they made a bonfire of Don
Quixote's library, t burned every copy of that work on which
they could lay their hands.
Mere childish indiscretion incurred legal penalty: the lightest jest was a criminal offence. A. young girl in church, singing to a psalm-tune the words of a song, was ordered to be
whipped. Three children were punished by the authorities because, instead of going to church, they remained outside eating
*" "-et q'au dit dessert q'ouai patisserie ou piece de four, sinon une
tourt seulement, et cela en chacune table de dix personnes." The
word now spelt tourte is sometimes used for a fruit or pigeon pie. Under Calvin's law there was temptation to make huge pasties.
Principal Tulloch tells us that, while travelling in Switzerland, he
visited Geneva and sought out Calvin's grave. A plain stone, with the
letters "I. C." on it, was shown to him as marking the spot; and the
old man who conducted him thither seemed (he says) to have little
idea of the Great Reformer except as " the man who limited the number of dishes at dinner."-Leaders of Reformation, pp. 120, 147.
t "We saw," said Calvin, " that through the chinks of those br^?ches
a door would be opened to all sorts of profusion and luxury." —Quoted
by TULLOCI, p. 136.
t " It is the best book of the kind ever composed," cried the barber,
"and ought to be pardoned as an original and model in its way."
"Right," said the curate, " and for that reason he shall be spared foi
the present."




THE TRAGICAL.                    131
cakes.  A man, hearing an ass bray, said "he's sirging a pretty
psalm;" * and for that offence was banished from the city.
Another swore "' by the body and blood of Christ;" and there.
by incurred a fine and exposure in the market-place, hands and
feet in the stocks.
But all this is as nothing, compared to the tragedies that
intervened.  The ecclesiastical legislator who believed that,
from the hour of birth, children are polluted, and that their nature ever remains odious and abominable to God, framed his
laws accordingly. It would be incredible, were it not recorded
by Calvin's warmest admirers, that in 1568 a girl-a mere
child -for having struck her parents, was beheaded /  And that
a lad of sixteen, only for a threat to strike his mother, was condemned to death. t
Order reigned in Geneva!-at what sacrifice of human suffering and crushing of human hearts they only know who still,
perhaps, look back from the bright mansions of a better world
on the gloom and the terrors of their earthly prison-house.
I might turn from the Continent of Europe to that marvellous little island whence we of North America chiefly derive
our ancestry, especially to its northern portion; there to find
the same tree bearing its appropriate fruit. But space fails me;
and another has already exhausted that field. I  The Presbyte* "I  chante un beau psaume."
t The above facts are given in Paul Henry's Leben Johann Calvins, des
grossen Rqformators; Hamburg, 1844: translated by Hibbert, London
and New York, 1854: vol. i. p. 361, of translation.
Partisanship can hardly go farther than did that of Henry; who finds
in these terrible cruelties only "great beauty in the earnestness with
which parental authority was defended. " Yet Henry's is generally considered the best biography of Calvin extant.
1 One of the hardest students of our age, Henry Thomas Buckle, in
the fragment he has left us of a.stupendous work, has a chapter, with
elaborate references, devoted to the influence of the Presbyterian polity
on the Scottish nation in the seventeenth century. So far as the condition of a country can be predicated upon its theological literature and




132               PRESBYTERIAN POLITY OF
rian polity of the Scottish Kirk, within a century after Calvin's
death, embodied almost all the worst features of the Genrvan
tyranLlny: the same despairing views of life and death; the same
abject fear of offending the Creator by innocent pleasures, and
incurrihng hell-fire by wvholesome, light-hearted gayety; the same
repression of human affections, the same domiciliary inquisitions, the same assumption of the right to excommunicate, and
even to inflict, for breaches of church discipline, the torture of
its Church records alone, we have it there before us, and may read it
with much instruction and profit: it justifies all, and more than all, that
I have briefly condensed into the text above. Yet many of Buckle's
strictures on Scottish character and intellect, even in the rude seventeenth century, being founded on too narrow a basis, are hasty and ex_
aggerated. Underneath the religious profession of this people, how
earnest soever, lay a deep vein (almost left out of view by Buckle) of
strong, shrewd sense, and often of daring humor, which protested alike;gainst theological dogmatisms and clerical assumption. The indications
of this temper of mind come to the surface occasionally only during the
period covered by Buckle's authorities; but the temper existed, nevertheless; and, a century later (the eighteenth), it found fearless expression through a child of the people, echoing their social talk and unrecorded protests. Robert Burns was none the less the idol of his
countrymen because of such racy heresies as stamp his addresses To
thle Unco Guid and To the Deil. Of this last- -a familiar remonstrance
with Presbyterianism's Prince of Darkness-how homely but scathing
the satire! And how charmingly imbued with charity the rebuke
launched against the cruel spirit of the Kirk's theology, in its concluding stanza:
"But fare-ye-weel, auld N lckie-ben,
O wad ye tak a thocht an mer2!
Ye aiblins mnicht-I dinna kenStill hae a stake.
I'm wac to think upo' yon den,
E'en for your sake."'"r those to whom the old dialect of Scotland is more or less of an
wn tongue, I here subjoin a prosaic-a very prosaic-paraphrase
inimitable lines:
-3 you well, Old Nick! Oh, if you would but take thought and
your ways! you might perhaps-who knows?-have a chance
1. For your own sake, it is a grief to me, the thought of that dan
of yours!"




THIE SCOTTISH KIRK.                133
the scourge and of the branding-iron.*  In compensation, also,
there was the same unflinching war waged against profligacy
and dissolute conduct.  One marked difference, however, d-.
serves notice. Whereas the Genevan lawgiver inculcated submission to kings, however bad, t the Scottish preachers were
democratic, to the verge of rebellion: t defending the people
against every despotism except their own, and claiming that the
ministers of the Kirk (their commission derived directly from
God) had the sole right to demand implicit, unreasoning obedience. Subjugators of the conscience, enemies of toleration,
they were sturdy friends of political freedom.
But, resisting temptation to enlarge on this and cognate ex.
amples from European history, let us proceed to inquire whether
this plant of Calvinism, when transferred to another hemisphere, essentially varied in its type or in its productions.
Let us pass from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century
and cross the Atlantic with the Puritans.
A grand, old race!-the stuff that heroes and empire-found
ers are made of. What they thought right they did, and
seldom asked whether it was pleasant to do it.  They were
estimable but they were not amiable. They were men and
women to trust to in the hour of trial; but to deal with in
daily life! Right glad may wve be that we did not live among
* " On the 22d October, 1648, the Kirk Session of Dunfermline ordered that a certain Janet Robertson'shall be cartft and scourged
through the town and markit with an hot iron.' "-CIIALMERS: Hiistory
of Dunfermiane, p. 437, quoted by Buckle.
t " The Word of God requires us to submit to the government, not
only of those princes who discharge their duty to us with becoming integrity and fidelity, but of all who possess the sovereignty, even though
they perform none of the duties of their station.... The seditious thought must never enter into our minds that a king is to be
treated according to his merits."-CALVIN: Inst., B. iv. C. 20, ~~ 25, 27.
t See, for sundry illustrations, the chapter of Buckle's work already
referred to.




134         CALVINISM AMONG THE PURITANS.
them in the days when such as Hester Prynne walked about
with that scarlet letter on their breasts. *
In the Colonial character, the theology of the Institutes
was a pervading element, for good and for evil. The best
virtues of the New England pioneers were those of stout, selfsacrificing seekers after liberty. The hardihood that broke
away from Papacy in Rome, cast loose also from intolerant
Prelacy in England. Nor did they heed the cost of voluntary
exile. Calvin's dismal view of God's world toughened them as
settlers. Not expecting ease, comfort, social enjoyment, the
amenities of life —regarding these, indeed, with suspicion, as
effeminacies used by the Evil One for baits to ensnare the unwary-hardship and suffering were what they looked for; and
when, in their rude frontier life, they encountered these, they
met them, as God's normal allotments to His Saints, with iron
fortitude.'They were hard on themselves and on others, as
befitted believers in universal depravity.
These acerbities seemed to assort with their condition. But
the followers of the Pilgrims brought to Plymouth rock a fatal
element, relic of human barbarism, however cherished by the
Reformers-a crime against the deathless soul-religious persecution. *Laws that stain their statute-books, deeds that blot
their annals, are traceable to the same source as the edicts and
the inflictions of the Genevese Consistorial Court.
"' I approve," said Calvin, " of civil government which provides that the true religion which is contained in the law of
God be not violated and polluted by public blasphemies." t
The New England offspring of this sentiment, is a law enacting that whoso affirms works, not faith, to be the mode of
salvation; or opposes infant baptism; or purposely leaves the
church when infants are about to be baptized; shall suffer ban* " A capital A of two inches long, cut out in cloth of a contrary
colour to their cloaths," etc. — General Lawzs and Liberties of Massachu,
setts, chap. xxviii, ~ 1.
f Institutes, B. iv. C. 20, ~ 3.




PERSECUTION OF QUiAKERS.                135
Ishment: * and that whoso denies the infallibility of any portion whatever of the Bible, shall, for the first offence, "be
openly and severely whipped by the executioner," and, for the
second, may be put to death. +
Speaking of those, who imagine to themselves some other
method than the Scriptural one of approaching God, Calvin
had said: " They must be considered not so much misled by
error as actuated by frenzy; " and again: "These persons are
guilty of detestable sacrilege." t
Strictly in the spirit of these doctrines were framed the Puritan laws against " a cursed set of hereticks lately risen up in the
world which are commonly called Quakers." ~  They provided,
as punishment of a Quaker on the first conviction, twenty
stripes; on the second, the loss of an ear if a man, if a
woman to be severely whipped; on the third, whether man or
woman, to have the tongue bored through with a red-hot iron:
Quakers returning to the colony after banishment, to suffer
death. 1
We have no record that the boring of men's and women's
tongues with a red-hot iron was ever carried out. But Bishop,
* Banishment of Baptists under this law occurred throughout several
years of the Colonial history.
t Ancient Laws and Charters of MassachulTetts Bay, published by
order of the General Court, Boston, 1814; pp. 120, 121.
The preamble of these " Acts against Heresy," is a curious specimen
of logic. It recites that " although no human power be Lord over the
faith and consciences of men, yet because such as bring in damnable
heresies.... ought duly to be restrained," it is enacted, etc.
The law above cited making it, at the option of the Court, a capital
offence to " deny by word or writing any of the books of the Old or
New Testament to be the written and infallible Word of God," enumerates these books by title from Genesis to Revelations, including, of
course, that epistle of James which Luther rejected. The Wittenberg
doctor, had he been a colonist of Massachusetts Bay, might have lost
his life for his opinions.
I Jnstitutes, B. i. C. 9, ~ 1.
~ The words of the preamble to the laws against Quakers.
Laws cited' pp. 121-126. Their date is A.D. 1656-7.




136              EXECUTION OF QUAKERS.
in his New  rEngland Judged, has left it on record that three
Quaker men had each his righlt ear cut off; * that " Patience
Scott, a girl eleven years ald, was imprisoned for Quaker principles; and that, when her mother, Catherine Scott, reproved
them for a deed of darkness, they whipped her ten stripes,
though they allowed her to be otherwise of a blameless conversation and well-bred, being an English clergyman's daughter." t
The death, by hanging, of three Quaker men and one Quaker
woman, executed because, after banishment, they returned to
the colony, is well known. They died with eminent fortitude,
willing martyrs to freedom of conscience, on Boston Common.t
Some of the terms of Puritan indictment, against men thus
tried for their lives, sound strangely to-day. It was charged
against William Leddra that he "had refused to take off his
hat in court, and would say thee and thou."  " Will you put
me to death," he asked, " for speaking good English and for
not putting off my clothes? "~
The poor excuse made by their executioners was a declaration, spread on the records of the Court, that " they desired
their lives absent rather than their deaths present."  The
apology usually offered to-day for these legal killings is that
the Quakers who landed at Boston were disturbers of public
peace and decency, wl well as heretics.  But their principles
were emphatically of peace, simplicity, and non-resistance: nor
is it true that they made any disturbance whatever until some
of their property had been destroyed and their personal liberty
* Their names were Holder, Copeland, and Rous.
t Quoted by Hutchinson: history of Mfassachzsetts, vol. i. p. 184.
5 Marmaduke Stephenson, }  Executed October 27, 1659.
William Robinson,
NIary Dyar,               "    June 1, 1660.
William Leddra,            "   March 14, 1661.
Four only, be it borne in mind; and we have no list of the five thousand whom Torquemada handed over to the flames: but Torquemada
never talked about liberty, civil or religious.
~ CHANDLER: American ~rOimina Trials; Little & Brown, Boston,
1841: vol. i. p. 46.




EFFECTS OF LEGAL BRUTALITY.                137
violated. The first two Quakers who set foot in the colony,
Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, were seized on shipboard, their
books burnt by the hangman, they themselves closely impris
oned for five weeks and then thrust out of the colony. *   )uring the same year eight others were sent back to England.
These (and far worset) infractions of the freedom  of the
* They arrived in July, 1656.
t It was a crime to afford them hospitality, or even to direct them
on their way. In 1660, at one court, seven or eight persons were fined
as high as ten pounds for entertaining Quakers; and Edward Wharton,
for piloting them from one place to another, was whipped twenty
stripes and bound over for his good behavior. See, for particulars of
these and other persecutions of this sect, Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i. pp. 180 to 189.
In the legal records of these days we find darker shades. In 1602,
three women, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose (convicted under the law againht " vagabond Quakers ") were sentenced to
be tied to a cart's tail, stripped from the waist up and whipped, with
ten stripes in each town, through eleven towns, to wit, Dover, Hampton,
Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, and Dedham —a hundred and ten stripes, in all. "One of the
nipples of Anne Colman's breast was split by the knots of the whip,
causing extreme torture."  (Criminal Trials, already quoted, vol. i. p.
54.) This was in the dead of a New-England winter, the warrant bearing date December 22, 1662. No wonder that warrant was eventually
executed in three towns only; the humanity of public sentiment rising
in protest against legal brutality.
One reads with more sorrow than surprise some of the extravagances
which followed these indecent cruelties. In 1665 Lydia Wardell, a
respectable married woman, entered stark naked into the church in
Newbury, where she formerly worshipped, " and was highly extolled for
her submission to the inward light that had revealed to her the duty
of thus illustrating the spiritual nakedness of her neighbors."  In the
same year, Deborah Wilson, a young married woman of unblemished
character, made a similar display in the streets of Salem, for which she
was condemned to be stripped from the waist upward, tied to a cart's
tail, and whipped.-Cri4ninal pTrials, vol. i. pp. 54, 55.
How fervid, in those mistaught old times, the zeal among persecutors and persecuted alike! Now that we have knowledge to guide
it, how has the fervor died out!




138             ROGER WILLIAMS BANISHED.
citizen, preceded the clamorous testimony borne by Quakers
against colonial rule.
The Calvinism of those days forbade even to tolerate tolera.
tion.  The bravest champion of man's right to worship God as
conscience bids-the noblest apostle of soul-freedom among
them all *-was compelled to flee the colony under cloud of
wintry night; owed his life to heathen hospitality; and when
this future lawgiver of Rhode Island embarked at last to found
a settlement where God alone should be judge of human religions, it was in an Indian canoe, with five followers only. Yet
the offence for which Roger Williams was banished the jurisdiction, t was not that his own creed was heretical, but that he
was guilty of granting to others the same right to choose a creed
which he claimed for himself.
Little more than a century after this America had a Constitution in which all laws respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, were forbidden. So
fast, despite dwarfing creeds, grows the spirit of man in a new
and a free country.
Other Calvinisms, too, we have outgrown. The counterpart
of laws under which children were beheaded in Geneva, are
found on the records of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay
Colonies.  "If any child or children above sixteen years old,
and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death:" the
only exception being unless it shall be proved that the parents
* I scarcely remember a parallel case, except one-among the Hindoos. A Brahmin once suffered martyrdom under a Mussulman prince,
for preaching the doctrine of his sect, that " all religions if sincerely
practised, are acceptable to God."  " In the whole annals of suffering
for righteousness' sake," says the narrator, " I know of no martyrdom
more glorious than this."-BRucE: Scnes and Lights in the Eaest.
t A warrant enforcing his banishment to England had issued against
aim (January, 1636) at the time he fled from Salem, and wandered for
three winter months, " not knowing what bread or bed did mean," erq
he reached the friendly cabin of Massasoit, chief of Pocanoket.




LAWS AGAINST REBELLIOUS CHILDREN.           139
"have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of
such children," or else that the children "have been forced
thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming."
This refers to both sexes: the next section applies to boys
only: " If any man have a stubborn or rebellious son of sufficient years of understanding (viz.), sixteen years of age, which
will n:)t obey the voice of his father nor the voice of his mother,
and that when they have chastised him he would not hearken
unto them," the parents shall bring him before the magistrates,
and testify that he is stubborn and rebellious, and " such a son
shall be put to death." *
A girl of sixteen, because she struck her mother-a boy of
that age, if denounced to the magistrates by his parents on the
general charge that he was stubborn and rebellious-was to be
hanged! And this, in our own country, little more than two
hundred years ago!
That no executions took place under this law, or under the
clause of the other law according to which a denial that the
Bible was infallible became a capital offence-is due to this,
that the Puritans were men before they were Calvinists, and
that their hearts were more merciful than their doctrines.
None the less, the theocracy of the first two New England
colonies, patterned after that of Geneva, was a despotism, fatal
to progress.
Fatal-because it was founded on the ancient, mischievous
error of retributive justice: an error of which the tendency is
to retard the moral advance of the world.
Take any great social reform that now enlists philanthropic
zeal, whether of law, or education, or prison discipline-whether
in lunatic asylums or in temperance labois, or in the struggle
against the great sin of great cities-take any such enlightened
movement that is made in our modern day, to civilize mankind
* Laws cited; pp. 59, 69. The date is A.D. 1646. The laws of
New Plymouth had the same two sections for the capitalpunishment of
children cursing or striking parents, and of disobedient sons. —Laws oJ
Plymouth Colony, p. 245.




140      THE WORLD' S DEBT TO THE REFORMERS.
-look into its organization, and ask its conductors what is its
governing principle: you will learn that it is based on the belief
that man's better nature can be confidently appealed to; that
love is stronger than fear, and gentle influences more humanizing than penal rigors. This accords with Christ's religion; but
it runs directly counter to the Genevese theology. When re.
forms, thus administered, are carried out, it is done despite the
chilling and deadening tendencies of Calvinism.
The world owes the Reformers a vast debt, but not for their
theology. It owes itBecause they maintained that the succession of ecclesiarchs
who, for a thousand years, had ruled the Christian world from
Rome, were not infallible.
Because they exposed many corruptions which had crept into
the Church over which these ecclesiarchs presided.
Because they denied the merit, and the saving power, of
many empty ceremonials; of ascetical austerities, of monkish
seclusions; of fasts, pilgrimages, celibate vows; and of par.
dons said to be of God, yet purchased with silver and gold.
And, generally, because they shook, to its foundation, an ancient system of ecclesiastical rule which debarred religious progress, which habitually employed religious persecution, and
which, as a whole, had outlived its utility.
-But we owe them far more than this. The inestimable boon
which the Reformers bestowed on mankind was the disenthrallment of the Christian Record, till their day locked up in the
Latin of the Vulgate; and, even in that secluded form, prohibited, as we have seen, by express canon, to all but the priesthood.
Their theology will die out, but the results of that great gift
will endure forever. The gift will finally prove an antidote to
the theology.'
* I would not be understood as denying that the theology, though it
ran much closer to downright Antinomianism than Catholicism ever did,
was yet, in its day, a certain progress. Luther as theologian, for exam



rNFERENCES.                      141
What are the fair inferences from the summary of historical
events and religious doctrines given on the preceding pages?
The Protestantism of the Reformation failed tomake head
against the Catholicism of Rome1. Because its foundation-principles were derived from two
of the epistles of St. Paul, not from the teachings of Christ.
2. Because the theology of the Reformers is not (any more
than Romanism) in the nature of a progressive science.
3. Because that th2eology is not a fitting agent, at this age of
the world, to correct the manners of the day, or work out the
civilization of mankind.
And, finally, the history of the reverses which overtook the
Reformers, after their first half-century of success, is not to be
accepted as proof that Christianity, though a revealed religion,
is devoid of that element of progress which inheres in material
science.
This last inference is negative only: but I advance another
step. I assert that Christianity, wisely studied as a revealed
religion, is in the nature of a progressive science; and, if you
will follow me a few pages farther, I hope to show you good
cause for the assertion.
~ 13. CHRISTIANITY, SHORN OF PARASITIC CREEDS, A PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE.
" A Christian of the fifth century, with a Bible, is on a par with a
Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible; candor and natural
acuteness being, of course, supposed equal."-MACAAULAY.
While I utterly dissent from the opinion which Macaulay
ple, advanced beyond Tetzel. He never, indeed, shook himself free
from the primitive idea of indulgences; but he held that these were
granted by God for the sake of Christ's sufferings, and could not be
granted by priests for the sake of money. He spiritualized the idea;
bub it was a false idea that he spiritualized.




142      MACAULAY DENIES RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.
here expresses I can readily imagine by what process he reaches
such a conclusion.
He means, of course, that his fifth-century Christian should
have had the privilege of reading the Bible, and of finding it
written or printed in a language with which he was familiar:
conditions which existed not, for the body of the laity, until a
thousand years after the fifth century. But he means, doubtless, much more than this. He assumes, probably, thflat his
nineteenth-century Christian believes in the plenary inspiration
of the Bible, as sole source of spiritual knowledge, word for
word as translators have given it; and, further, in the miraculous character of the " signs and wonders," narrated in the four
Gospels.
No doubt many Protestant professors of Christianity do still
hold to such beliefs; and no doubt such beliefs do, in a measure,
put the professing Christian of to-day on a par with the Christian of centuries long past.
If I thought that such beliefs were to continue for generations still to come, I should admit that Macaulay had plausible
ground for his hopelessness in religious progress, and that Roman Catholicism had as fair a prospect of becoming the religion
of Christendom as Protestantism has. But I feel assured that
these old-time doctrines are passing away. Whenever they disappear, then Christianity will overcome not only the errors
which preceded the Reformation, but those of the Reformation
also: and then the Christian-not as Roman Catholic, not as
Protestant, but as CHRISTIAN —will have a future before him of
religious peace and religious development.
Infallibility, whether of man or book; disbelief in the universal reign of law, and misbelief that the Great Lawgiver arbitrarily suspends his own laws; these are the lions in the way
that arrest the Christian pilgrim's progress.
-Infallibility, whether of man or book. These last words
are, in strictness, unnecessary. For God makes no books. Nor
can any book be said to have been written by His dictation.
However it may have been in Eden, God shows Himself not, in




INFALLIBILITY MAN7S DOCTRINEX NOT GOD'S.    143
this world, to man. He does not walk in the garden in the
cool of the day; nor does His voice reach His creatures here,
in exhortation or in reproof.
Then, as God himself does not write history, any more than
He dictates works on science or treatises on art, all history, sacred or profane, must come to us written by man; in other
words, it must come to us transmitted through a fallible medium.
We cannot chance this, and we ought not to forget it. It occurs according to the nature of things; or, otherwise expressed,
by God's ordination.
We can, indeed, imagine God making a Pope, or an Evangelist, infallible; but, in either case,,it is a man. God has not
told us that Pius IX., from the date of his election by a College
of Cardinals, became infallible; neither has he told us that
Matthew was so, while engaged in writing or dictating his
gospel. And although the Pope claims infallibility, neither
Matthevr nor any of his co-evangelists set up any such claim.*
It was set up, for them and for a few other writers, nearly fifteen hundred years ago. The (Ecumenical Council which assembled at Carthage in the year 397, proclaimed the infallibility
of the author of every book.which they then decided to include
in the canon of the Bible, and Pope Innocent I. confirmed their
decision: this decision all orthodox Protestants accept. In like
manner the (Ecumenical Council which assembled at Rome in
the year 1870 declared the Pope to be, like all his official predecessors, infallible: this declaration all orthodox Roman Catholics accept. But orthodox Catholic and Protestant alike accept these canons of infallibility from men, not from God.
The Church of Rome has given to Protestantism an immense
advantage by the error she made in reaffirming the infallibility
of the Pope. But Protestantism will lose that advantage if she
clings to a remnant of Catholicism that is quite as untenable:
* " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
it seemed good to me also... to write, etc.," are Luke's modest
words.-Luke i. 1-3.




144              PLENTARY INSPIRATION IS
the plenary inspiration of every writer in the Bible. It is just
as fatal a mistake to declare one man, or one set of men, infalli.
ble as another.
This mistake connects itself with disbelief in the uniform
prevalence of law. For there is no law governing the world
which is better entitled to be called universal, or which is more
palpable, than that all men are fallible, and are left by God to
the guidance of that judgment, ever liable to error, which He
has given them.
It is the more difficult to imagine any suspension of this law,
because the gift of infallibility to one man would not only render his own reason useless, but would give him a despotic right
over the reason of his fellows: the right which the Pope claims
to-day.
In so far as men act upon the belief that any author, or any
ecclesiarch, is an infallible teacher, just to that extent is freedom of conscience disallowed and trodden under foot. But
freedom of conscience is an indispensable condition of religious
progress.
I am speaking here not as doubting that Christ was an Inspired Teacher, nor as denying the probability that his biographers, in recalling and recording the sayings of their Master,
may have had spiritual aid: * I am speaking of the doctrine
that every word of every book included in the Scriptural Canon
of the Latin Church and translated under instructions from
King James, is direct speech of God, and therefore to be held
as literal and infallible truth.
That doctrine should, in my judgment, be rejected, not only
because it is untenable, t but because of its practical effect. The
* I admit inspiration, but not plenary inspiration; I admit revelation, but not revelation free from liability to error: both inspiration
and revelation occurring under law. Of this, in the next section, a few
pages farther on.
t MIy limits, of course, forbid detailed discussion of this aspect of the
doctrine. Jt takes for granted the infallible integrity of numberless
custodians through dark ages; and the infallible accuracy alike of
copyists and translators-of those translators of our Authorized Version




AN UNTENABLE DOCTR-NE.                    145
worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images.
Grammatolatry is the worst species of idolatry. We have arwho, in the original preface to that work, vindicated a common practice of theirs (namely, the translating one word of the original by
various English words), partly by the childish plea that it would be unfair to choose some words for the high honor of being the channel of
God's truth, and to pass over others as unworthy. It assumes that no
interpolation was possible: yet every well-read divinity student knows
(to select a single example) that one of the most important texts in the
first Epistle of John (v. 7: " For there are three that bear witness in
Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are
one ")-is a forgery of the fifteenth or sixteenth century; being contained in four only out of a hundred and fifty manuscripts of that
epistle. (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, i. 1115.) And this is but one
of many disputed passages; as ii. 23, in the same epistle.
Then what multitudes of other questions arise! Was it through the
special inspiration of God that Paul, in most of his epistles, but especially in Corinthians and Thessalonians, makes repeated references to
himself; to his labors, persecutions, example, care of the Church; and
again to his own holy and blameless conduct (1 Thess. ii. 10), humility
(2 Cor. iii. 1), tenderness (1 Thess. ii. 2), consistency (2 Thess. iii. 7-9):
while Peter and James and John, the chief apostles of Christ, make no
personal allusions, in their epistles, to their own merits or doings or
sufferings? Had the individual idiosyncrasy of the respective authors
nothing to do with this?
Again: in reading John's Gospel, are we not to make allowance for
the fact that it was written thirty or forty years later than the others,
by an aged man who had lived to witness and participate in scholastic
controversy? Are we to believe that God inspired that author to repeat
four times in his gospel (xiii. 23; xix. 29; xx. 2, and xxi. 20), that
he himself was the disciple whom Jesus loved, while neither of the
other three evangelists allude to the fact at all?
Then there are the trivialities, quite natural in a letter to an intimate
friend, but certainly not like divine dictation. Was Paul inspired of
God when he wrote to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 13, and 1 Tim. v. 23) to
bring him a cloak he had left at Troas, and to take a glass of wine now
and then, because of failing health?
Surely we must discriminate. The gold and silver come to us from
the deep mine. Are we to believe that the hay and the stubble are
produced from the same profound source?
But this note is already too long.
7




146         DISPENSING WITH AN INFALLIBLE
rived at an era in which literalism is destroying faith. That
was foretold long ago.  " The letter killeth."
I shall be told, of course, that it is eminently dangerous to
dispense with an infallible standard. I know that many of you
sincerely believe this. But the world is gradually reaching the
conclusion that the danger is precisely in the opposite direction.
Science sets up no infallible standard: if she did, there would
be an end to all scientific progress. But if we separate theology
from the rest of human studies, asserting that the rules which
prevail in other branches of knowledge have no application in
this, the tendency is to discredit religion in all philosophic
minds. The assertion of infallibility was the worst enemy of
Christianity in the sixteenth century: it is her worst enemy
still.
Take note of a few of the difficulties thence arising. There
are numerous discrepancies, alike in narrative and doctrine, to
be found, as you well know, between the different gospels.
These do not at all affect the substantial truth of the narrative,
nor the general scope and spirit of Christ's teachings: the pure
gold-all that is truly valuable-remains.  And, rationally
viewed, they afford evidence that there was no collusion between the evangelists-no concerted plan of deceit. So far,
then, they go to prove the authenticity of the record. But if,
unwisely zealous, you set up the claim of infallibility, you lose
all this vantage ground. The slightest variance becomes fatal.
Such variances can be adduced, and have often been adduced,
as'proof that the entire superstructure is treacherous, and
crumbles whenever its foundations are probed.
Truth is ever strongest without artificial support. We ought
not to ascribe to ourselves faith-or any grade of belief deserving the name of faith —in Christianity, if we do not believe
that, in herself, she is mighty and will prevail.  That was a
suggestive vision of Luther's, in the old fortress of Coburg.
He wrote thence to Chancellor Bruek: "I was lately looking
out of a window when I beheld a wonderful sight. I saw the
stars and Gcd's fair firmament, but nowhere any pillars on




STANDARD NOT DANGEROUS.                147
which the Master-builder had poised this lofty frame: yet the
heavens did not fall in, and the firmament stood quite fast.
But there are some who search for such pillars, and would anxiously grasp and feel them; and, because they cannot, fear and
tremble lest the heavens should fall." *
Fears puerile as these pervaded men's minds in what we are
wont to call the olden time, but what we ought to call the
world's youth. t They believed that unless they erected the
pillars of the Infallible and the Miraculous, the heaven of Christianity would fall in and the world be involved in heathen darkness. If Christ were yet on earth, he would address all such
proppers-up: " Oh ye of little faith! "
They had this apology, however, that the element of true
faith was lacking in their day. As they could not appreciate
the essential excellence of the system they sought to prop, so
neither could they discern its intrinsic power. It is not for
us to deny that the pillars may, in the past, have had their
temporary use.
For there is a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Obedience is fitting in childhood. We cannot always give a
young child the reasons for our bidding. He must learn to
obey, to a certain extent, without reasons. And so it may
have been in the childhood of the world. The fiction of infallibility, enforcing blind assent, may have been in place one or
two thousand years ago. It is out of date to-day. When we
become men, we put away childish things.
Akin to the dogma of infallibility is the doctrine that God,
on certain occasions, has worked miracles; in other words,
* LUTIER: Birefe, vol. iv. p. 128.
f "And, to speak truly, Antiquitas sceculi juventus mundi. These
times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those
which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward
from ourselves. "-BACON. Advancement of Learning, Book I.




148                OPINIONS ON MIRACLES
that he has occasionally suspended, for a time, the laws of the
universe, in attestation of some divine truth.
Having treated the subject at large elsewhere,-* I shall noi
here reproduce my arguments. This is the less necessary because not only is the modern scientific world almost unanimous in  asserting  the  unbroken  prevalence of law, but
Protestant divines are gradually assenting to the view that
what have been called miracles were but the results of laws not
known, or imperfectly known, to the witnesses.
This (held in early days, by some of the ancient Fathers, t
asserted in the last century hypothetically by Bishop Butler, t
and more positively by Archbishop Tillotson ~ and by Locke 1l),
has been brought prominently forward in our own day both by
lay and ecclesiastical writers of reputation and position.
A volume by the Duke of Argyll, on the changeless rule of
* Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, by the author of this
volume: Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, and TriUbner & Co., London,.
1860: Book i. Chap. 3, pp. 70-91 (of Amer Ed.). In proof that the
subject of ultramundane phenomena attracts public attention, it
may be stated that this work, in the United States and in England, has
had a circulation of about twenty thousand copies.
t St. Augustine (himself virtually a Spiritualist, see next section, ~ 14)
held that a miracle was a thing occurring not against nature, but
against what we know of nature. " Portendum ergo fit, non contra
naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura. "-De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi.
cap. 8. This was written about A.D. 420.
+ BUTLER: Analogy of Religion, London, 1809, part ii. chap. 2.
He leaves it in doubt whether we ought " to call everything in the dispensations of Providence not discoverable without Revelation, nor like
the known course of things, miraculous."-(p. 194.)
~ TILLOTSON: Sermon clxxxii. He there says: "'It is not the essence of a miracle (as many have thought) that it be an immediate
effect of the Divine power. It is sufficient that it exceed any natural
power that we know of to produce it."
1 LOCK: A Discourse on Miracles. His words are; "A miracle I
take to be a sensible operation which, being above the comprehension
of the spectator and, in his opinion, contrary to the established course
of nature, is taken by him to be Divine."




AAND ON REIGN OF LAW.                  149
law * (reaching its fifth edition in fifteen months), is a note.
worthy example. The ground there taken as to miraculous
suspension of law, may be gathered from the following excerpts.
" The idea of natural law, the universal reign of a fixed
order of things, has been casting out the supernatural. This
idea is a product of that immense development of physical sciences which is characteristic of our times.  We cannot read a
periodical or go into a lecture-room without hearing it expressed.... We can never know what is above nature,
unless we know all that is within nature.... No man
can have any difficulty in believing that there are natural laws
of which he is ignorant.... There is nothing in religion
incompatible with the belief that all exercises of God's power,
whether ordinary or extraordinary, are effected through the
instrumentality of natural laws brought out, as it were, for a
Divine purpose.... Christianity does not call upon us
to believe in any exception to the universal prevalence and
power of law." t
Another example, as eminent, is to be found in a sermon
preached before the University of Oxford, during the annual
meeting of the British Association for the promotion of science,
by the present Bishop of Exeter. I The Bishop there said:
" One idea is now emerging into supremacy in science, a
supremacy which it never possessed before, and for which it
* ARGYLL: The Reign of Law; Strahan & Co., London, 1866; reprint by Routledge & Sons, New York, 1869. In the preface the author
informs us that he withholds a chapter on Law in Ch7ristian Theology,
among other reasons, because it is " inseparably connected with religious controversy." It is matter of regret that so acute a mind " shrank
from entering" (as the Duke himself expresses it) this important
field.
t Work cited: pp. 3, 14, 22, 25, 51, 53, of American reprint.
t On Act Sunday, July 1, 1860. The preacher was then known as
the Rev. Frederick Temple, D.D., head-master of Rugby School and
Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen: still better, perhaps, as one of the
leading authors of Essays and Reviews.




150            TEMPLE AND BADEN POWELL.
still has to fight a battle; and that is the idea of law. Different orders of natural phenomena have in time past been held to
be exempt from that idea, either tacitly or avowedly. The
weather, the thunder and lightning, the crops of the earth, the
progress of disease, whether over a country or in an individual,
-these have been considered as regulated by some special interference.... But the steady march of science has now
reached the point when men are tempted, or rather compelled,
to jump at once to a universal conclusion: all analogy points
one way, none another. And the student of science is learning
to look upon fixed laws as universal.... How strikingly
altered is our view from that of a few centuries ago is shown
by the fact that the miracles recorded in the Bible, which once
were looked on as the bulwarks of the faith, are now felt by
very many to be difficulties in their way; and commentators
endeavor to represent them, not as mere interferences with the
laws of Nature, but as the natural action of still higher laws
belonging to a world whose phenomena are only half revealed
to us." *
Still another name, no less eminent in physical science than
in sacred learning, may here be adduced. The late Baden
Powell, in his contribution to Essays and Reviews, has this
passage: " The modern turn of reasoning adopts the belief that
a revelation is then most credible, when it appeals least to
violations of natural causes. Thus, if miracles were, in the
estimation of a former age, among the chief supports of Christianity, they are at present among the main difficulties, and
hinderances to its acceptance." t
* This sermon will be found in an Appendix to the Second Edition of
the American reprint of " Essays and Reviews," which was published
under the title of Recent Inquiries in T/heology, Walker, Wise, & Co., Boston, 1861.
The Westminster Review says of this volume: " The social and official
position of the authors, their learning, their abilities, and their sincerity, courage, and earnest, reverential spirit, entitle them to an un
prejudiced and considerate hearing."
1 On tle Study of thle LEvide,aces of C'riAtianity, by BADEN POWELL,
M.A., F.R. S., etc., Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of




INTERNAL EVIDENCE THE STRONGEST.             151
Similar opinions show themselves in the American Churches,
and are even heard from the pulpit, though chiefly, it is to be
admitted, from the pulpit of the more heterodox sects. Th(
Rev. James Freeman Clarke, a representative of the Unitarian
faith, says: " If I considered the wonderful works of Jesus as
violations of law, I should also say that they were essentially
incredible." *
In truth, thoughtful and dispassionate minds, on both sides
of the Atlantic, are reaching the conviction that the old dogma
of miraculous suspension of law is rapidly undermining modern
faith in the gospels. It is creating, in millions of souls, doubt
or disbelief that the signs and wonders ascribed to Jesus occurred at all. Renan is one of the ablest exponents of this
latter opinion. I shall by and by t lay before you my reasons
for believing that this opinion of his is false and mischievous;
yet, none the less, it is spreading far and wide.
But the doctrine of the miraculous not only tends to subvert
faith; it contains also a non sequitur.  It assumes that the
possessor of spiritual gifts, in other words the person through
whom occur phenomena which transcend our experience, is an
infallible teacher of morals and religion. Test this doctrine.
Suppose the moral and spiritual doctrines of the gospel, instead
of being the religion of love and peace and charity they are, to
have been made up of injunctions to hate our enemies, to make
war on our neighbors, never to forgive an offending brother or
to have mercy on a repentant sinner; to trust to violence for
the civilization of the world, to adopt polygamy, to make
slaves of all men whose skins were darker than ours; to murder all men whose creed differed from our own: should we still
believe in its divine character, because of signs and wonders
narrated? If, as in St. Paul's case, a voice from Heaven
called to us; and if this voice, instead of arraigning us that
Oxford. See Recent Inquiries in Theology, p. 158. The italics are in
the original.
* Steps of Belief, by J. F. CLARKE, Boston, 1870: p. 128.
f In the concluding section of this address.




152         CONSCIENCE, WI-HEN EDUCATED, THE
we persecuted for opinions' sake, commanded us to do so,
would that voice be to us sufficient warrant to re6nact the
horrors of the Spanish Inquisition?
I know what must be your answer: No phenomenon, mundane or ultramundane, can make wilful murder a virtue, or
prove that we ought not to do unto others as we would that
they should do unto us. We must fall back at last, you see,
on our inner sense of uprightness and justice.
The obligation to do good, the obligation to shun evil, cannot
be changed according to ally objective occurrences, seeming
ever so marvellous, that may be presented to our senses.
Right and wrong are eternal, and must be judged by that which
is eternal as themselves.  God has provided for this.  His
kingdom is within us. The nearest approach to the infallible
upon earth is the still, small voice of the human conscience.
Do not understand me as denying that the highest character
of spiritual gifts should attract our attention to the doctrines
with which they are associated. A believer in the value of
such gifts, I admit this. Yet, after all, our final judgment on
any system of spiritual ethics cannot rationally be made up
without reference to its doctrinal character and its consistency;
and ought not to be determined by outside phenomena. Internal evidence of any such system is far superior to external;
and nothing can properly be accepted as a rule of action until it
has been subjected to that light within, which is from God.*
* I have set forth this argument elsewhere; and may be pardoned for
here reproducing, from a former work, a single paragraph:
"Let us suppose that, from some undeniably spiritual source, as
through speech of an apparition or by a voice sounding from the upper
air, there should come to us the injunction to adopt the principle of
polygamy, either as that system is legally recognized in Turkey, or in
its unavowed form, as it appears in the great cities of the civilized
world. In such a case what is to be done? The world is God's work.
The experience of the world is God's voice. Are we to set aside that
experience, proclaiming to us, as it does, that under the principle of
monogamy alone have man's physical powers and moral attributes ever
maintained their ascendency, while weakness and national decadence




NEAREST APPROACH TO THE INFALLIBLE.           1'53
This inner sense, like every other divine gift, can be strengthened and developed. The conscience of the world is educated
from age to age. It is more trustworthy now than it was three
hundred years ago; it will doubtless be far more trustworthy
three hundred years hence than it is to-day From generation
to generation it becomes more capable of appreciating the grand
truths of Christianity and of discarding the errors and superstitions that have overlaid these, and that have thus, in a measure, covered up their beauty from our sight. Hence moral and
religious advancement.
I trust you will think that I am justified in deducing, from the
above considerations, this result: Though the Christianity of
Orthodoxy, loaded down by extrinsic dogmas, has failed by the
way, and has seemed, for centuries past, bereft of power to advance; yet the temporary burden is likely soon to be removed.
And whenever it is, the Christianity of Jesus will be found to
contain the element of progress, and will gradually become the
religion of civilized men.
Of this we may the more reasonably entertain a confident
hope, seeing that while we are discarding old burdens, we are
also obtaining new lights and fresh aids.  A few words in explanation of this last allegation shall conclude these remarksremarks which, for some years past, I have greatly desired to
lay before you.
follow in the train of polygamy, whether openly carried out, as in
Deseret and Constantinople, or secretly practised, as in London and
New York? Are we to give up the certain for the uncertain?-the
teachings of God, through His works, for the biddings of we know not
whom? The folly and danger of so doing are apparent."-'Footfa/s,
p. 42.




154     LAWS UNDERLYING SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS.
~ 14. SPIRITUALISM NECESSARY TO CONFIRM THE TRUTHS, AND
ASSURE THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" The need was never greater of new revelation than now."-EMERSON.
And now, Leaders of our Protestant Church, if you have
given me your attention throughout the foregoing preliminary
matter, let me ask your dispassionate judgment on a subject
vital to religious advancement, and which, because I have nowhere found it distinctly stated or fully considered, I have
made the staple of this volume. It does not embrace discussion of disputed doctrines-we have had enough of that-but
relates rather to a study of the great principle upon which doctrines should be received-to the leges legum, as Bacon might
have phrased it-to the laws underlying spiritual teachings and
to the manner in which spiritual researches should be conducted.
The state of religious feeling in the days of the Reformation
was peculiar. The two great divisions of the Christian Church
agreed in this, that the Scriptures-more strictly, perhaps, the
book's comprising the New Testament-are the foundations of
a just faith. The Roman Catholic branch has affirmed, however, that within its Church the same inspiration which produced the Gospels and Epistles has continued, even to the present day, an infallible guide to religious truth; while the
orthodox part of the Protestant branch, repudiating this, has
assumed that all inspiration and all spiritual gifts and revelations similar to those of Christ's time, have been withheld by
God from succeeding ages.
It was natural that the Reformers, protesting against the infallibility of the Pope, should reject also the claim of the
Church of Rome to an exclusive, divinely-directing influx,
emanating from the Holy Spirit. But they were not satisfied
to deny the exclusive character of such ultramundane in



WHITHER RENAN LEADS US.                  155
fluence: for some reason, certainly not derived from the Gospel
itself nor from patristic authority, they rejected it altogether.
I think that, in this matter, the Roman Catholic Church
(aside from  her exclusive pretensions) and the Ancient Fathers are nearer to the truth than our Protestant Churches are.
The chief reason for scepticism in the spiritual gifts of the
present day is the idea that powers of this character are supernatural, coupled with the application to all such modern phenomena, of that other idea put forth by R6nan: "Till we have
new light we shall maintain the principle of historical criticism, that a supernatural relation cannot be accepted as suchthat it always implies credulity or imposture." *
Let us beware! Renan's premises admitted, there follow
logically his conclusions, cold and disheartening as they are.
Thus: The signs and wonders alleged to have been wrought
through Christ are miraculous, but we cannot accept the
miraculous: therefore these signs and wonders did not occur
at all.  His explanation is: "Jesus was a thaumaturgist
against his will..... His reputation as a miracle-worker was
imposed upon him, and he did not resist it very much....
The miracles of Jesus were a violence done him by his time,
a concession which the necessity of the hour wrung from him.
So the exorcist and the miracle-worker have fallen; but the
religious reformer shall live forever." t
This author does not seem to realize the direct corollary from
his words. What reverence, what respect even, can we retain
for a Teacher who lends himself to imposture?
But are we reduced to this alternative?
No. The signs and wonders may have been phenomena, of a
* RENAN: Life of Jesus (Wilbour's translation); p. 45. German
Rationalists concur in this view. "' We may summarily reject all miracles, prophecies, narratives of angels and demons, and the like, as simply impossible and irreconcilable with the known and universal laws
which govern the course of events."-STRAUSS: Life of Christ, Introd.
t Life of Jreus; pp. 235, 236, 238.




156            THE PRACTICAL RESULTS OF
spiritual character indeed, but occurring under law. There may
be intermundane as well as mundane laws.
This explanation would be more generally admitted (since it
is evidently the height of presumption'to assert that we know
all the laws of the universe), but for a difficulty which occurs
to many.  Natural laws are not only invariable but are also
continuous. The effects of natural laws do not show themselves
for fifty or a hundred years and then cease for tens of centuries. These results may, indeed, manifest themselves more powerfully or more frequently at one age of the world than another,
as a particular geological stratum may attain in one locality
vast development, while in another it shrinks into petty proportions. But the action of law is perpetual from generation
to generation, suffering no interregnum.
Thus, if the extraordinary manifestations of power ascribed
in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles to Christ and to
his disciples did occur under certain spiritual laws,* the same
laws must be in operation still: and powers analogous to those
which resulted from these laws eighteen hundred years ago
ought to be traceable in history, and may be confid6ntly looked
for in our own day. t
-Analogous powers: not necessarily powers to the same extent; yet powers exhibiting sufficient similarity to mark their
common origin. Observe, then, I pray you, how the matter
stands.
There are two theories, directly at variance.  The first is
that the spiritual gifts of the Apostolic age were isolated phenomena, showing themselves during a single century only of the
world's existence. If so, they did not occur under law, since
* That is, if they did substantially occur. Not believing in human
infallibility, I admit that the biographers, even if spiritually aided in
their recollections of the past, were liable to errors in detail-to misconception and mistake; as all biographers are.
[ The analogous case, noticed in the Preface to this work, of an
astronomer predicting the existence of a planet, before that planet had
been observed, will here, probably, suggest itself to the reader.




TWO VARIANT THEORIES.                157
all human experience is opposed to the idea that God makes
laws, as men might, to last a hundred years and then to be repealed: therefore they must be regarded as miraculous. But
if, in the progress of science, the belief in the miraculous is
melting away, the ultimate result will be disbelief in the alleged
miracles of the Gospels; and we shall fall back on Renan's
conclusion that Christ countenanced fraud.
The second theory is that there have existed from all time
laws regulating intercourse between this world and the ne;tlaws under which certain men and women, more or less favored,
have occasionally exercised spiritual powers and gifts; that
there occurred an extraordinary development of such powers in
the first century, of which the effect was to attract public at.
tention to the teachings of a system, the innate beauty and
moral grandeur of which were insufficient to recommend it to
the semi-barbarism of the day; that the existence of such spiritual gifts is traceable throughout the history of the last seventeen hundred years; and, finally, that similar gifts and powers
show themselves among us at the present time.
The manner in which the evidences of Christianity are
affected by these two theories, respectively, is worthy your
special notice.
Under the first we are driven to maintain the Roman Catholic
and orthodox Protestant belief in the Exceptional and the Miraculous. If, defeated by scientific progress, we fail to sustain
this dogma, then the wonderful works of Christ and his disciples take their place beside the labors of Hercules, and other
tales of heathen mythology. In that case the gospel biography
of Christ must needs weaken the authority of his doctrines.*
Under the second theory, if history sustains it, and if phenomena occurring daily under our eyes confirm its truth, the
result is precisely the reverse. For in that case we have the
* Speaking of the miracles of Christ, a modern American divine
says: " If such narratives do not strengthen our faith in the religion,
they weaken it. if not proofs of its truth, they are burdens upon it.'
-BULFINCH: Evidences of Christianity, p. 142.




158       THE VAST SECT OF THE INDIFFERENTS.
evidence of our senses in proof that the marvellous powers
ascribed to Jesus, and the spiritual gifts alleged to have been
enjoyed by his disciples, were natural and are credible; that, in
fact, we have no more reason for rejecting them than for denying the wars of Coesar, or the conquests of Alexander. Thus
the alleged spiritual manifestations of our day, if they prove
genuine, become the strongest evidences to sustain the authenticity
of the gospels.
There is another view to take of this matter. To act upon
the ignorance of the first century it needed works which that
ignorance looked upon as miracles. To act upon the apathy of
our day it needs phenomena acknowledged to be natural, yet
of an intermundane character. The need is as great now as it
ever was. When we boast of our civilization as compared with
the rudeness of the sixteenth century, let us be reminded that
in those days tens of thousands gave their lives for their religious opinions, while in these, men will scarcely give their time
to think about them. There are not, it is true, many open
scoffers at religion among us-the age of Voltaire and of Holbach is past-but there are millions who belong to the vast sect
of INDIFFERENTS. There is but too much truth in what one
of the acutest minds of our own country declared, when addressing the senior class in the Divinity School of Harvard
College in Cambridge:
" It is my duty to say to you that the need was never greater
of new revelation than now. From the views I have already
expressed, you will infer the sad conviction which I have, I
believe, with numbers, of the universal decay, and now almost
death, of faith in society. The soul is not preached. The
Church seems to to tter to its fall, almost all life extinct....
I think no man can go with his thoughts about him, into one
of our churches, without feeling that what hold the public worship had on men is gone, or going. It has lost its grasp on the
affection of the good and the fear of the bad.*
* EMERSON: Miscellanies, Boston, 1856. Bishop Butler bears similar testimony in his day. In the Advertisement to his Analogy of Relig.




ADMISSIONS OF A SCEPTIC.                159
Here it is worthy of remark that the better class of sceptics, in our day, regret their own lack of faith. An English
author of a careful and critical inquiry into the origin of
Christianity is a type of this class. He speaks of Christ and
the ethical system he taught with reverence; but reaches the
conclusion that the historical evidence for' miracles and a
Divine mission is insufficient.  One sees that he deplores the
conviction to which his reason had brought him; for in his concluding reflections he says:
" It is impossible to disguise.the momentous consequences of
the rejection of the divine origin of Christianity-that a fiture
state is thereby rendered a matter of speculation instead of
certainty. If Jesus was not seen after he was risen, we no
longer see immortality brought to light: the veil which Nature
has left before this mysterious matter still remains undrawn.
With respect to one of the subjects most interesting
to man we return into the position in which the whole race
stood for four thousand years, and in which a great part has remained ever since."
Again: "Whilst it was thought that Jesus had brought the
guarantee of Heaven for man's immortality, we persuaded ourion (A.D. 1736), he says: " It has come, I know not how, to be taken
for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious.
And, accordingly, they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an
agreed point among all people of discernment."
Strong evidence of the indifference evinced at the present day in England to established forms of religion is to be found in the'English
Census of 1851.' That document informs us that while at that time
there were in England and Wales church-buildings capable of seating
ten nilions two hundred thousand persons, it was ascertained by actual
enumeration that the attendance (averaging morning, afternoon, and
evening services) was but three millions six hundred and thirty-twoo thousand (3,632,022). In other words, each clergyman preached, on the
average, to a congregation which filled little more than one-third of the
seats. And, strange to say! the smallest average attendance was found
to be in the churches in which the seats were free.
Further details from this census will be found in the body of this work




160  SIMPLE DEISM UNGENIAL AND UNSATISFACTORY.
selves that this was necessary to man's improvement and happi
ness. We were mistaken; no such guarantee has been given;
it is wise to acquiesce and to conclude that happiness and improvement are best promoted by our present ignorance....
The withdrawal into obscure remoteness of the future eternal
life may leave men more free to appreciate the advantages of
their present sphere....  Yet it must be owned that there
are states in which all such reasonings are felt to be insipid,
and in which the human mind feels a deeper want." *
Finally this author seeks comfort by " indulging the thought
that a time is appointed when the cravings of the heart and of
the intellect will be satisfied, and the enigma of -our own and
the world's existence be solved." t
These remarks undoubtedly present the frame of mind prevailing among a large proportion of intelligent sceptics; especially among leading scientific men.  Simple theism, shut out
from the cheering warmth of spiritual revealings, is ungenial
and unsatisfactory.
All this, I admit, does not make out my case. As men
knowing the world, you will doubtless concede the danger from
that easy-going scepticism which "hopes it may all come out
right, and that, in the Unknown Dark, we may find something
good in store for us." You may further admit the vast importance it would be to Christianity if God would give to His
* As -witness the tone of deep sadness which, especially in poetic
temperaments, pervades the thoughtful hours of those who findnothing
fairer to bound this checkered earth-life-no more auspicious prospect
in the Great Future-than the dreary vacancy of dreamless sleep.
"' The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own repose,
For the weary winds are silent and the moon is in the deep;
Some respite to its turbulence unresting Ocean knows;
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.
Thou in the grave shalt rest-."
SHELLEY: Stanras, April, 1814.
t HENNELL: An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianit,
London, 2d Ed., 1841: pp. 481, 483, 485, 489.




CESSATION OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS?            161
creatures of to-day the species of evidence which He did not
refuse to the incredulous Thomas. But you will remind me
that to make out the importance, or the apparent necessity, of
a thing is not to demonstrate its existence.
The consciousness of this gave rise to the present volume.
To the body of the work I refer you for direct evidence that
immortality is brought to light now, among us-that the apostolic gifts are reproduced at this day and are not restricted to
the Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile a few words touching
the historical testimony in the case may be of service.
We must refuse to the Old Testament not only all claim to
inspiration, in any sense, but also all credence as ancient history, if we deny that, from the earliest ages, the two worlds
have been, from time to time, in communication. Cut from its
pages all that relates to such intercommunion; and there would
remain, of its narrative, but a lifeless and unintelligible residue.
As to the New Testament, we find neither in gospels nor
epistles, a word to indicate the cessation, in the filture, of
spiritual gifts: so far as there is expression on the subject, it
sustains the belief in their indefinite continuance.
Take a few examples:
Christ, when he appeared after death to the eleven, said:
"These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name
shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.
They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." *
Again, in the immediate prospect of death, Jesus said: " He
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do." t
No limitation as to time, observe; not to the apostles then
living, nor to the disciples of that day, are these promises re* Mark xvi. 17, 18. Some commentators have cast doubts on the
authenticity of the closing verses of MIark's Gospel (xvi. 9-19); but
these verses are quoted, without question, by Irenaeus (iii. 10, 6), are
found in three out of four of the uncial manuscripts and have uniformly been retained in the Canon.
t John xiv. 12.




1 G(2     CHRIST DOES NOT SPEAK OF MIRACLES.
stricted: nothing to show that they do not extend to all wh4
shall believe in his teachings, " even to the end of the world,'l
as in another promise of spiritual aid he expressed it.
Nor were such powers, even at that day, exclusive.  The
seventy enjoyed them.*  And when the disciples saw a certain
man who followed them not, casting out devils in Christ's name
and forbade him, Jesus reproved them, saying: " Forbid him
not: for there is no man that shall do a miracle f in my name
* Luke x. 17.
f In prosecuting such an inquiry as the present, the student is constantly reminded of the urgent necessity for a modern revision, at least
of the New Testament. The word above translated miracle, is dunamin, accusative of daunamis, which, in the best lexicons, we find interpreted: "potency, power, faculty, efficacy." We do not say "'do a
power," or that would have been the literal translation. The true
meaning is, undoubtedly, " exercise a power " or " gift;" and withal a
spiritual gift or power. such as Christ himself possessed. King James'
translators believed spiritual gifts to be miraculous; and so they here
make Christ declare them to be miracles, without the slightest authority, in the Greek text, for doing so.
In the Gospels dunamis is, twice at least, translated virtue, as we
sometimes use the word in the sense of energy, physical or moral.
Speaking of Jesus healing the sick, Luke (vi. 19) says: " The whole
multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue (dunamis) out of
him, and healed them all." Think of saying " there went miracle out of
him"! And again (Mark v. 30), when Jesus was touched by the woman
who was cured of an issue of blood, he felt (so the translation reads)
" that virtue (danamis) had gone out of him." Jesus, it appears, was
physically conscious of this wonderful power. But when the attribute
of the miraculous is ascribed, it is by sheer assumption; prompted,
probably, by the third instruction given by King James to his translators. (See preceding page 125.)
To the spirit of the same instruction it is doubtless due that, in one
passage at least, the word miracle is arbitrarily supplemented, where
there is no corresponding word whatever in the Greek text. It will be
found at Mark vi. 52. " For they considered not the miracle of the
loaves; for their heart was hardened." The literal translation is " for
they thought not of the loaves:" the words " the miracle " being purely
gratuitous. This and similar errors are corrected in Griesbach's text.




CHRIST'S TEACHINGS NOT A FINALITY.           163
that can lightly speak evil of me: he that is not against us is
of our part." *
More striking still is this: At the very close of Christ's
ministry on earth, just before he crossed the brook Cedron into
the garden where he was betrayed, he said to his apostles: "I
have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them
now.  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will
guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak." t
May not this be fairly construed as a promise of spiritual
progress; an assurance of constant advance by the aid of the
spirit of truth-medium of perennial revelation between Heaven
and earth?  Is it not a declaration, too, that Jesus' own teachings, while here, were not a finality; neither, indeed, could be:
seeing that even the Twelve he had selected and taught throughout three years were not prepared to receive what yet remained
to be said?  The Christian world has strangely overlooked
this text and the fair corollaries therefrom.t
The Acts are filled with passages in proof of the continuance,
throughout the Apostolic age, of spiritual powers and gifts.
There came a multitude bringing sick folks to the Apostles,
"and they were healed every one." ~  "By the hands of the
Apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the
people." 11 " Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles (dunamess) among the people." ~   "Special
miracles" (dunameis) were wrought through Paul. **  Peter
raised Dorcas tt and Eutichus $I from the dead. A certain
* Mark ix. 39, 40.
t John xvi; 12, 13. There are many similar promises, where this
spirit is called the Comforter; as John xv. 26; xiv. 26; xvi. 7.
t It is a mere assertion, unwarranted by Scripture, that these promises were restricted to the writers of the gospels and epistles, eight
only in number: or, as others would have it, to the Seven Churches and
during the apostolic age alone.
~ Acts v. 16.       9Acts v. 12.         ~ Acts vi. 8.
** Acts xix. 11, 12.   t' Acts ix. 37, 40, 41. $ Acts xx. 9, 10, 12.




164             SPIRITUAL GIFTS DESIRABLE.
man (Philip, the evangelist) "had four daughters that did
prophesy." * And so on.
To all the disciples, soon after Christ's death, came, on the
day of Pentecost, the gift of tongues.t  The same gi]ft appeared
among the Gentiles also.t
But as to spiritual gifts, various in character, Paul's testimony is the most distinct and comprehensive. He declares
that, in the churches, then including numerous converts, there
are diversities of gifts; besides the words of faith and wisdom,
he enumerates the  gifts of healing, working  of miracles
(dunamesn), prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of
tongues.~ He himself rejoices in the possession of such gifts, 11
and, in the same text in which he enjoins charity, he bids us
desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. ~T  To deny
that this last behest is addressed to us is virtually to assert that
all the precepts contained in Paul's epistles were intended for
the Seven Churches only, and have no application to the present generation of men. Paul's express words are: " There are
diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. But the manifestation
of the spirit is given to every mnan to profit withal." **
Passing on from the first century and coming upon the Ecclesiastical, or Patristic " miracles," we enter an oft-trodden field,
familiar to those who have followed an English Doctor of
Divinity, writing in the middle of the last century, through a
celebrated " Inquiry " into that subject. tt I think a dispassionate student rises from the perusal of Middleton's book, and of
the best modern commentaries thereon, with the conviction
* Acts xxi. 9.       t Acts ii. 1-4.      t Acts x. 45, 46.
~ 1 Corinthians xii. 4-11 and 28-30. But read the whole of chapters
xii. and xiv., in proof of the great importance which Paul attached
to that matter.
1I 1 Corinthians xiv. 18.   ~ 1 Corinthians xiv. 1, and xii. 31.
* 1 Corinthians-xii. 4, 7.
it MIDDLETON:'Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers qohich are
supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church from the Earliest
Ages. London, 1749.




ECCLESIASTICAL " MIRACLES."              I6
that the concurrent testimony of the Fathers for the alleged
spiritual gifts of the early centuries are inadequate evidence of
these, as miracles, but all-sufficient proof to establish (in a general way) their occurrence, if we regard them as natural phenomena. To that testimony I can but briefly advert.
Irenaeus (a pupil of Papias and of Polycarp, both of whom
sat under the teachings of St. John) was Bishop of Lyons A.D.
177. We have but fragments of his works; but he is quoted a
hundred and fifty years later, by Eusebius (writing A.D. 325),
who says, in his _Ecclesiastical II-story, that Irenoeus "shows
that even down to his times, instances of divine and miraculous
power were remaining." lie quotes textually from Irenoeus,
thus: " Some most certainly andt truly cast out devils...
Others have the knowledge of things to come, as also visions
and prophetic communications; others heal the sick by imposition of hands, and restore them to health.... Even the
dead have been raised and have continued with us many years.... It is impossible to tell the number of gifts which the
church throughout the world has received from God." *
To the same effect testify Justin Martyr f and Theophilus,
Bishop of Antioch, both contemporary with Irenveus; Tertullian,
flourishing toward the close of the second century; Origen and
Minutius Felix, in the beginning of the third century; and
Cyprian, pupil of Tertullian, about the middle of the same.
Arnobius and his disciple Lactantius, writing in the fourth
century, may be added to the list.
*EUSEBIUS: Ecclesiastical History, book v., chap. 7. He states
that the extracts are taken from the second book of Irenneus' Refutation and Overthrow of False Doctrine ("Adversus Hoereses ").
f " Justin Martyr, who is supposed to have written his first Apology
within fifty years after the days of the Apostles, says: " There are pro-,
phetical gifts among us to this day, and both men and women endowed
with extraordinary powers by the Spirit of God." —Quoted by Dr. MIDDLETON, in his Free Inquiry, p. 10.
$ See Middleton's Inquiry, pp. 11-19; where are given extracts
from the writings of each, with references to the original authorities




166           PATRISTIC POWERS AND GIFTS
St. Augustine, whom Calvin and Luther copied so closely,
and who was Bishop of Hippo A.D. 395, may be called the
Spiritualist of his age. In his celebrated City of God he has
a long chapter filled with minute details of numerous miracles
wrought in his day. At the outset he says: "' They ask me,'Why do the miracles which, as you say, were performed in
former times, not occur to-day?'"  And his reply is: "At
this very day a multitude of miracles do occur; the same God
who caused the signs and wonders which we read of, works
similar prodigies still by such persons as He sees fit to select."
He attests, as having happened under his own eye, most of the
miracles which he relates, and says that, did space permit, he
could add many more of his own knowledge.*
Of another St. Augustin, the apostle of the English, who
landed in Great Britain A.D. 596-who became Archbishop
of Canterbury and is said to have baptized ten thousand persons in a single day-we read that he had the reputation of
miraculous powers in the restoration of sight and even of life.
I might go on to speak of the St. Gregory of the third century
(surnamed.Thaumaturgus from his wonderful powers), of St.
Martin, and many others deemed equally gifted; and I might
add abundant proof that the faithful Roman Catholic continues
to believe in the reality of Ecclesiastical miracles up to the
present day. But it needs not further particulars.
Middleton discredits these patristic powers and gifts, concluding that " they were all contrived, or authorized at least,
by the leading men of the Church for the sake of governing
with more ease the unruly spirit of the populace." t For this
scepticism his chief motive seems to be that "' the belief and
defence of these miracles... gives countenance to the
modern impostures of the Catholic Church." t He takes pains
Speaking of the gift of tongues, Middleton says: " If the testimony of
Irenmeus can be credited, many were endowed with it in his days, and
heard to speak all kinds of languages in the Church."-Inquiry, p. 117.
* City of God (" De Civitate Dei") book xxii., chap. 8.
1' Inquiry, p. 109.           t Inquiry, p. 176.




DISCREDITED BY PROTESTANTS.                167
to remind us " how naturally the allowance of these powers to
the earlier ages will engage us, if we are consistent with ouir
selves, to allow the same also to the later ages:" * evidently
looking not so much to the amount of evidence that can be found
for the alleged facts, as to the theological results of admitting
their truth.
So also Bishop Douglas, who in his Criterion, assuming to
show how " the true miracles recorded in the New Testament
are, distinguished from the spurious miracles of Pagans and
Papists," f concludes that we are warranted in rejecting the
latter-that is, the Ecclesiastical miracles-" as idle tales that
never happened, and the inventions of bold and interested
deceivers."  
Protestants generally, except those who evince Puseyite proclivities, ~ take the same ground. Locke, doubtless correctly,
states the chief prompting motive: " I think it is evident that
he who will build his faith or reasonings upon miracles delivered by Church historians, will find cause to go no farther
than the Apostles' time, or else not to stop at Constantine's." II
But this Protestant scepticism leads far. The more sweeping among the arguments employed against " Papist miracles"
* Preface to Inquiry, p. xix.
f DOUGLAS (Bishop of Carlisle): Criterion by which the true lMiracles,
etc. (as above) 1754.  See title-page.  This is virtually a reply to
fIume's celebrated argument.
t Criterion, p. 26.
~ As JoHN HENRY NEWMAN, in his Essay on the Miracles recorded in
the Ecclesiastic, History of the Early Ages, Oxford, 1843. This was
written while he was still a Protestant. The gist of his argument is:
" If our Lord is with his disciples' alway, even unto the end of the
world;' if he promised his Holy Spirit to be to them what he himself
was when visibly present, and if miracles were one special token of his
presence when on earth;... surely we have no cause to be surprised at hearing supernatural events reported in any age."-p. 78.
This may savor of Roman Catholicism; but it savors equally of log.
ical inference.
U LOCKE: Thidrd Letter on Toleration, c. x. p. 269.




168        COUNTERFEITS AMONG GENUINE COIN.
by such writers as Middleton and Douglas will be admitted,
by dispassionate readers, to be equally valid against the "signs
and wonders " of the Gospels and the " spiritual gifts " of St.
Paul.
I speak here of wholesale arguments. It is to be admitted,
of course, that many of the narratives coming to us from pat;ristic times are apocryphal, and others obviously obscured
bly superstition. Where there is genuine coin there also will
counterfeits be found.* To St. Anthony, a stout believer in
the Devil, Satan (according to his biographer) appeared, usually as " a spirit very tall with a great show," " who vanished at
the Saviour's name; it burnt him, and he could not bear it;"
with other similar tales.t
It is to be admitted, further, that some of these early ecclesiastical gifts, unlike those of Christ's day, were often committed, not to the principal champions of the Christian cause, but
" to boys, to women, and above all to private and obscure laymen not only of an inferior but sometimes also of a bad character." J This only proves, however, that they were in a measure
dependent, like magnetic power, on certain physical conditions.
The modern examples among us confirm this. Nevertheless,
the highest order of spiritual gifts appear to attach themselves
only to those who are, in a correspondent degree, morally and
spiritually elevated. Hence, doubtless, the unexampled preiminence of Christ's powers.
To arrive at any just conclusion on such a subject we must
examine and test each narrative on its separate merits. It is
a question to be determined, as the fall of aerolites has been,
by facts, not by closet speculations. Even Middleton admits
* Matthew xxiv. 24; Mark xiii. 22 —" they shall seduce the very
elect."
t ST. ATRANASIUS: Life of St. Anthiony; passim.
t MIDDLETON: Inquiry, p. 25. But as to women, it is certain that
spiritual gifts attached to both sexes in Christ's day. See Acts xxi.
9; ii. 17, 18; and xvi. 16, 17.




REVELATION TIIE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.        169
that " the testimony of facts may properly be called the testimony of God himself." *
It was after a careful examination of this testimony, as it is
found among us, that the narratives which follow were written.
There you will find my reasons for the conviction that God has
not left us without present witness touching the great truths
of our religion; that we, like the Apostles when they beheld
the risen Christ, may see immortality brought to light; that
the " Spirit of truth," to-day as of yore, is present " to guide
us into all truth;" becoming the medium between spirits in
the next world and men in this.
I believe that this spirit (divulging what reason tests and
accepts but could not have originated) has been the oligin of sall
religions. This was Bishop Butler's opinion, thus expressed:
"There does not appear the least intimation in history or tradition, that religion was first reasoned out: but the whole of
history or tradition makes for the other side, that it came into
the world by revelation. Indeed the state of religion in the
first ages of which we have any account seems to suppose and
imply that this was the original of it among mankind." t
But if revelation be the origin of all human religions, it cannot be a phenomenon restricted to a single century, or showing
itself up to a certain period of man's history, and then disappearing, to be seen no more. It must be a guiding influence for
all time; a permanent element of civilization and of spiritual
progress; as essential to vital religion among us who live nlow
as it was to the Jews of eighteen hundred years.ago.
To deny that this revelation comes from God is to deny that
the Book of Nature has God for its author.  But like everything else in this world, it comes to. us mediately not directly,
from Him: and so only must we receive it. Thus it aids Reason,
not dethrones it: it appeals to Conscience, not coerces it. If
everything that claims to be revelation were to be accepted as
such, we should have to admit the whole Koran. Because
* Inquiry, p. 10.
t Analogy of Religion (Ed. of 1809), pp. 195, 196.
8




170     SPIRITUALISM ACCORDS WITH CHRISTIANITY.
men, by God's universal law, are fallible, and because the
holiest truths reach us only through fallible men, Reason and
Conscience, God-given guides, must sit in judgment on all alleged revelations —humbly, reverently indeed, but fearlessly
also; for perfect love casteth out fear. *  A captious spirit is
especially out of place in such connection; yet it is our right,
and our bounden duty, to prove all things, spiritual pretensions included.
If the general view I have here offered you of this subject
be correct, then it will not suffer denial that, as clergy, most
of you have hitherto too much restricted the circle of your
duties.  Overlooking what Christ said about the Spirit of truth,
which was to teach men, after his death, what he had left untaught, you have omitted to inquire whether there is a present
revelation; and, if so, how far it is trustworthy-what are its
character and claims. If, as Middleton said of spiritual gifts
coming to light in earlier ages, these are still sometimes committed to children and to persons of indifferent character, this
makes more imperative the duty to sift and to discriminate.
Many of your number are, probably, deterred from entering
on this task by the idea that the (alleged) phase of modern
revelation is anti-Christian in tendency. If, after a varied experience of sixteen years in different countries I am entitled to
offer an opinion, it is, that if such spiritual communications
be sought in an earnest, becoming spirit, the views presented
will, in the vast majority of cases, be in strict accordance with
the teachings of Christ, such as we may reasonably conceive
these to have been from the testimony of his evangelical biographers. They touch upon many things, indeed, which. he
left untouched; but the spirit is absolutely identical. They
breathe the very essence of his divine philosophy.
I speak here of those ideas as to which, in all trustworthy
*" There is no fear in love; perfect love casteth out fear. "-1 John




WHAT SPIRITUALISM  TEACHES.              171
spirit-messages, there can scarcely be said to be variance of
sentiment. As to side-issues and non-essentials, it would seem
that the same variety and uncertainty of opinion exist in the
next world as in our own.
The following may be taken as the great, leading principles
on which intelligent Spiritualists unite:
]. This is a world governed by a God of love and mercy, in
which all things work together for good to those who reverently conform to His eternal laws.
2. In strictness there is no death.  Life continues from tho
life which now is into that which is to come, even as it continues
from one day to another; the sleep which goes by the name of
death being but a brief transition-slumber from which, for the
good, the awakening is immeasurably more glorious than in the
dawn of earthly morning, the brightest that ever shone.  In all
cases in which life is well-spent, the change which men are
wont to call Death is God's last and best gift to his creatures
here.*
3. The earth-phase of life is an essential preparation for the
life which is to come.  Its appropriate duties and callings cannot b3 neglected without injury to human welfare and development, both in this world and in the next. Even its enjoyments, temperately accepted, are fit preludes to the happiness
of a higher state.
4. The phase of life which follows the death-change is, in
strictest sense, the supplement of that which precedes it.  It
has the same variety of avocations, duties, enjoyments, corresponding, in a measure, to those of earth, but far more elevated;
* Contrast, with this, the conception of early Protestantism, on the
same subject. Luther regarded death as the expression of God's wrath.
Said he: " It were a light and easy thing for a Christian to suffer an(
overcome death. if he knew not that it were God's wrath.
An heathen dicth securely away; he neither seeth nor feeleth that it
is God's wrath, but meaneth it is the end of nature."-Tcable Talck.
Christian's weary bundle that dropped from his shoulders as the pilgrim neared the cross, was as nothing compared to the terrible burden,
borne day by day through life, of such a belief as that.




172                 LEADING PRINCIPLES
and its denizens have the same variety of character and of in.
telligence; existing, too, as men do here, in a state of progress.*  Released from  bodily earth-clog, their periscope is
wider, their perceptions more acute, their spiritual knowledge
much greater, their judgment clearer, their progress more rapid,
than ours. Vastly wiser and more dispassionate than we, they
are still, however, fallible; and they are governed by the same
general laws of being, modified only by corporeal disenthralment, to which they were subjected here.
5. Our state here determines our initial state there.  The
habitual promptings, the pervading impulses, the life-long
yearnings, in a word the moving spirit, or what Swedenborg
calls the "ruling loves" of man-these decide his condition on
entering the next world: not the written articles of his creed,
nor yet the incidental errors of his life.t
* This view of our next state of existence, expressed in general
terms, occurs in the religious literature of modern times, antedating
Swedenborg's writings. To select an eminent example, we find Bishop
Butler (A.D. 1736) saying: " There appears so little connection between our bodily powers of sensation and our present powers of reflection that there is no reason to conclude that death, which destroys the
former, does so much as suspend the exercise of the latter or interrupt
our continuing to exist in the like state of reflection which we do
now.... Death may not, perhaps, be so much as a discontinuance of the exercise of these powers, nor of the enjoyments and sufferings which it implies. So that our posthumous life, whatever there
may be in it additional to our present, yet may not be entirely beginning
anew, but going on.... For aught we know of ourselves, of
our present life and death, death may immediately, in the natural
course of things, put us into a higher and more enlarged state, of life,
as our birth does; a state in which our capacities and sphere of perception and of action, may be much greater than at present."-Analogy of
Religion, Part 1, chap. i. pp. 33, 34 (of London Ed. of 1809).
t "The sin that practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour th.at brings remorse,
Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be."
TENNYSON: dyls of the King. Vivien.




OF SPIRITUALISM.                    173
6. We do. not, either by faith or. works, earn Heaven, nor
are we sentenced, on any Day of  Wrath, to Hell.  In the next
world we simply gravitate to the position for which, by life on
earth, we have fitted ourselves; and we occupy that position
because we are fitted for it.*
7. There is no instantaneous change of character when we
pass from the present phase of life. Our virtues, our vices; our
intelligence, our ignorance; our aspirations, our grovellings; our
habits, propensities, prejudices even-all pass over with us:
modified, doubtless (but to what extent we know not), when the
spiritual body t emerges, divested of its fleshly incumbrance;
yet essentially the same as when the death-slumber came over
uS.
8. The sufferings there, natural. sequents of evil-doing and
evil-thinking here, are as various in character and in degree as
the enjoyments; but they are mental, not bodily.  There is no
escape from them except only, as on earth, by the door of repentance,  There as here, sorrow for sin committed and desire
* One finds the germ of these ideas in writings of twenty-three hundred years ago. The wisest of Grecian philosophers-representative
of the Spiritualism of his age-propounded it. Socrates (Plato being
interpreter) says: " Since the soul is immortal, it requires our anxious
care, not only for this interval which we call life, but always."
The soul " can have no other refuge nor safety from evil except in remaining as good and wise as possible. For it descends to Orcus with
nothing else but the results of its mode of discipline and education,
which are said to be either of the greatest advantage or injury to the
departed."... Then, as to the soul of the evil-doer, he adds:
" It strays about involved in utter perplexity, until a certain period has
elapsed, on the expiration of which it is of necessity carried into an
abode suitable to it. But the soul that has led a pure and well-regulated life, having the gods for assscmates and guides, proceeds to inhabit
a region adapted to those like itself." —Pledo, ~ 57, Stanford's translation.
Let us translate Orcus,,' intermediate state;" and, for " the gods,"
let us read "advanced spirits;" and we have here, substantially, an
important tenet of modern Spiritualism and of Swedenborgianism.
t 1 Corinthians xv. 44.




174                 LEADING PRINCIPLES
for an amended life are the indispensable conditions-precedent
of advancement to a better state of being.
9. In the next world Love ranks higher than what we call
Wisdom; being itself the highest wisdom.  There deeds of
benevolence far outweigh professions of faith. There simple
goodness rates above intellectual power. There the humble
are exalted. There the meek find their heritage. There the
merciful obtain mercy. The better denizens of that world are
charitable to frailty and compassionate to sin far beyond the
dwellers in this: they forgive the erring brethren they have
left behind them, even to seventy times seven. There, is no
respect of persons. There, too, self-righteousness is rebuked
and pride brought low.
10. A  trustful,* childlike t spirit is the state of mind in
which men are most receptive of beneficent spiritual impressions; and such a spirit is the best preparation for entrance
into the next world.
11. There have always existed intermundane laws, according
to which men may occasionally obtain, under certain conditions, revealing,s from those who have passed to the next world
before them. A certain proportion of human beings are more
sensitive to spiritual perceptions and influences than their fellows; t and it is usually in the presence, or through the medi* Matthew xiii. 58; Mark vi. 5, 6.
t Matthew xviii. 3.: Those who, in modern phrase, are termed mediums are probably
to be included in the class called by Reichenbach sensitives; persons capable of distinguishing odic incandescence in a perfectly dark chamber.
He thinks that nearly half the human race belong to that class, though
the-power of many among them is so weak as to be hardly appreciable.
He found all natural somnambulists to be sensitives; also all who are
subjects of artificial somnambulism. —Der Sensitive Mensch, Stuttgart,
1854; vol. ii. pp. 549, 555, etc. He found that the gift, or attribute, of
sensitiveness wvs usually hereditary; inherited sometimes from the father, more frequently from the mother, occasionally from both. —pp.
522-526, where lists are given. Children sometimes possess it sc
strongly as to be alarmed by luminous appearances at night.-p. 121.




OF SPIRITUALISM.                    175
unm, of one or more of these that ultramundane intercourse occurs.
12. WVhen the conditions are favorable, and the sensitive
through whom the manifestations come is highly gifted, these
may supply important materials for thought and valuable rules
of conduct. But spiritual phenomena sometimes do much more
than this. In their highest phases they furnish proof, strong
as that which Christ's disciples enjoyed-proof addressed to the
reason and tangible to the senses-of the reality of another life,
better and happier than this, and of which our earthly pilgrimage is but the novitiate. They bring immortality to light under a
blaze of evidence which outshines, as the sun the stars, all traditional or historical testimonies.  For surmise they give us
conviction, and assured knowledge for wavering belief.*
13. The chief motives which induce spirits to communicate
with men appear to be-a benevolent desire to convince us, past
doubt or denial, that there is a world to come; now and then,
the attraction of unpleasant memories such as murder or
suicide; sometimes (in the worldly-minded) the earth-binding
influence of cumber and trouble: but, far more frequently, the
divine impulse of human affection, seeking the good of the loved
ones it has left behind, and, at times, drawn down, perhaps, by
their yearning cries. t
14. Under unfavorable or imperfect conditions, spiritual
communications, how  honestly reported soever, often prove
vapid and valueless; and this chiefly happens when communiReichenbach's researches in this field were continued, with astonishing
industry, through ten years, and were, at an early day, highly appreciated by Liebig (Preface to Sensitive JIensch, p. xxiii.) and by Berzelius
(Jahresbericht, 1846, p. 819). See, for Reichenbach's earlier observations,
Untersuehunzgen iiber die Dynamide, Braunschweig, 1850.
* If we think of the " dark seasons " that overcome the most orthodox professors, and consider how many persons, pious and strictly
nursed in faith, have been overtaken by Giant Despair and led captive
to Doubting Castle, we shall not find fault with the adjective wavering,
as employed above.' See preceding page 127 as to Luther's doubts.
t " Si forte fu l'affettuoso grido. "-DANTE: Inferno, canto 5.




176   SPIRITUALISM IGNORES SPECULATIVE DIVINITY.
cations are too assiduously sought or continuously persisted in:
brief volunteered messages being the most trustworthy.  Imprudence, inexperience, supineness, or the idiosyncrasy of the
recipient may occasionally result in arbitrary control by spirits
of a low order; as men here sometimes yield to the infatuation
exerted by evil associates. Or, again, there may be exerted by
the inquirer, especially if dogmatic and self-willed, a dominating influence over the medium, so strong as to produce effects
that might be readily mistaken for what has been called posses.
sion.* As a general rule, however, any person of common
intelligence and ordinary will can, in either case, cast off
such mischievous control: or, if the weak or incautious give
way, one who may not improperly be called an exorcist-if possessed of strong magnetic will, moved by benevolence, and it
may be aided by prayer, t can usually rid, or at least assist to
rid, the sensitive from such abnormal influence.;
In all this there is no speculative divinity. And I admit
the probability that if, through spiritual source, you were to
inquire whether the theological guessings, touching the essence
of the Godhead, of Arius or of Athanasius come the nearer to
the truth, you might get no reply, or perhaps the answer: " We
are uninformed as to that matter;" with the remark added, it
may be: " We do not entertain such discussions here."
Are they not, in this, wiser than we? -Up through the
mists and horrors of the persecution-ridden Past, the commonsense convictions are reaching us that we have no conceivable
means of settling any such controversy; and, again, that, if we
* Dr. John F. Gray, whose experience entitles his opinion to great
consideration, and others, believe that what some call demoniac possession, may be explained, in very many if not in all instances, by purely
human agency; for example, by mesmerism.
+ Mark ix. 29; Matthew xvii. 21.
t The Rev. James Freeman Clarke has become convinced as to the
reality of possession. —Steps of Belief, Boston, 1870, pp. 132, 133.




sPMIITUALISM DENOUNCES NO RELIGION.           177
had, its settlement would not influence, by a hairbreadth, the
morals or the welfare of man.
Further than this, I have never, out of thousands of communications, received one that denounced any sincere religious
opinion, whether Catholic or Protestant, Mahommedan or Hindoo. It is to be conceded, indeed, that, in these modern revela.
tions, certain orthodox deductions from a portion of the epistles, entertained by: Calvin and Luther, find no countenance.
But, in the preceding pages, I have taken some pains to set
forth the grounds for my.belief, that until these deductions are
abandoned, there will be no religious progress; and that, so
long as they are proclaimed from your pulpits, the Church over
which you preside will stand still or lose ground.
I am sorry to believe that the failure of modern Spiritualism  to indorse the doctrines of vicarious atonement * and
original depravity, will cause many of your number, in advance
of evidence, to condemn its influence, and reject its claims to
be heard.  Yet if a Wise Man of old speak truth, "tHe that
answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame
unto him." f
* Throughout this address I have taken the tenet of the atonement
in its doctrinal sense, as the Reformers held it; deeming that to be the
honest way of putting it. There is a sense inwhich suchl a dogma is
equally true and important. Christ came, as he himself said, "a light
into the world," that whoso accepted his. teachings "should not abide
in darkness"' (John xiii. 43, 47). In inculcation of these teachings,
replete with spiritual light, he spent his life; and in attestation of them
he sacrificed it. If we act out the spirit of his teachings in daily walk,
we reconcile our ways with the eternal laws of our being, and may be
said to be at one with the Great Author of these laws. In this sense
we may declare that Christ died for humankind, and that through his
interposed agency-his mediation-our race is redeemed from error,
and from the sufferings error entails here and hereafter. But this is
not what Luther meant when, in his Commentary on Galatians, he spoke
of one of the Persons of the Godhead accursed for our sake; nor is it
what the orthodox Protestantism of our day means, when it preaches
vicarious atonement.
t Proverbs xviii. 13.
8*




178           THE GIFT OF TONGUES IN 1830.
Others may be staggered at the outset, by the nature of its
claims. The "gift of tongues," perhaps, may seem to them an
incredible absurdity. Yet if it is not incredible nor absurd in
the second chapter of Acts, or the fourteenth chapter of first
Corinthians, at what time did it change its character?
Baden Powell deemed it an actual phenomenon, occurring
under law at the present day.*
So, again, of prophecy. It may seem to us beyond belief that
what is yet to be should ever be disclosed to fallible creatures.
Yet in all ages, back to the days of Abraham and Melchizedek,
certain men have been honored and trusted as possessors of
prophetic power. Is it incredible that the greatest of all earthly
Teachers should have been heralded, more or less distinctly, by
the ancient prophets, as the Anointed of God, who was to call
mankind from darkness to light? Bunsen admits this. t
* The sermons of the Rev. Edward Irving, a clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, created, about the year 1825, an unprecedented excitement in London. In 1830 appeared, in his Church, the Apostolic gift
of unknown tongues. Baden Powell, alludi.g to this, says:
"I At the time the matter was closely scrutinized and inquired into;
and many perfectly unprejudiced and even sceptical persons themselves witnessed the effects and were fully convinced-as indeed were
most candid inquirers at the time-that after reasonable or possible
allowance for-the influence of delusion or imposture, beyond all question certain extraordinary manifestations did occur..... Yet no
sober-minded person did for a moment believe that they were miracubous,... but that they were in some way to be ascribed to natural
causes, as yet, perhaps, little understood. "-BADEN POWELL: Recent
Inquiries in Thteology, p. 122. The italics are in the original.
j In his Gott in Geschichte. He there says that the power of sight,
in the old Hebrew prophets, reaching beyond ordinary prediction, rose
to the character of a true world-survey (sich zur wahren Weltanschauung erhoben hat); and he adds: " They had the power of prophecy
in common with the Pythoness,..  and with many clairvoyants of
our own century."-pp. 149 and 151.
Bunsen regarded this power as a natural gift, consistent with fallibility. Yet his commentator in Essays and Reviewos (Dr. Williams), seems
to regret the admission of prophecy as an actual phenomenon. " One
would wish," he says, " Bunsen might have intended only the power of




CERTAIN PROOF OF IMMORTALITY WANTED.    179
Orthodoxy regards Baden Powell and Baron Bunsen as ultrasceptical authorities. Does it not occur to you that modern
spiritual phenomena which men so able and so little disposed to
superstition admit as realities, may be worth looking into?
I remind you, in conclusion, that, aside from phenomenal
evidence of this character, you have no certain proof, such as
Thomas had, of the existence of another world. It is not
sceptics alone who have alleged this and bewailed it-like
Shelley:
" Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?"
The most eminent divines have admitted a lack of certainty
as to a life to come, in the absence of testimony from the
senses. Examples abound, but I have space here for two only.
Butler, in his Analogy of Religion, confesses: "I do not
mean to affirm that there is the same degree of conviction that
our living powers will continue after death as that our substances will." *
And Archbishop Tillotson, in an argument against the -real
presence, says:," Infidelity were hardly possible to men, if all
men had the same evidence for the Christian Religion that they
have against transubstantiation; that is, the clear and irresistible evidence of sense." f
Hundreds of thousands feel assured to-day that they have
had this "clear and irresistible evidence" for immortality.
Think of such a living conviction! Consider how it stands out
above all that wealth, fame, and every earthly good-fortune can
seeing the ideal in the actual, or of tracing the Divine Government in
the movements of men."- Recent Inquiries in Theology, p. 79. Why
this regret? I think Bunsen's the correct view.
* Analogy of Religion, p. 17. Italics in original.
t Sermons, 8th Ed. London, 1720, Sermon xxvi.




180          SACRED DUTY OF INVESTIGATION.
bestow-the blessing of blessings, which the world can neithei
give nor take away!
I think if we only realized in what deep earnest millions on
millions have longed, with a longing past expression, for some
sure token of another life, we should better conceive the sacred
duty of investigation. With transcendant interests at stake,
can we neglect such a duty without risk that, like the unbelievers in Gamqliel's day, we may haply be found fighting
against God?
Thus I have sought to showThat Protestantism has steadily lost ground for three centuries past, and is losing it still.
That this retrogression seems to be caused by its adherence
to certain so-called orthodox dogmas which the intelligence of
the world has outgrown; perceiving them to be contrary to
God's eternal laws, promotive of intolerance, injurious to mor.
ality, and arrestive of religious progress.
That Christianity, divested of alien scholasticisms which its
Author never taught, is a progressive science, destined to become the religion of Civilization.
That if we admit miracles, we must deny the uniform reign
of law and thus come into direct conflict with modern science:
but if we recognize the reign of law and admit that the spiritual
powers and gifts of the first century existed under law, then,
as law is continuous as well as uniform, spiritual phenomena
of a similar character ought to be found still occurring.
That, in point of fact, the teachings of Christ have been supplemented, as he promised they should be, by revet, lings bringing truths and comfort from that higher sphere of being toward
which we are all fast hasting: and that this happens not miraculously, but in accordance with intermundane laws which it
behooves us to study.
And, finally, that such modern revealings, bringing immor.
tality to light, are essential to arrest the growing scepticism of
the present day.




LET INTERMUNDANE LAWS BE STUDIED.         181
If what has been said should induce the earnest thinkers of
your profession to study intermundane laws, the foregoing
pages will not have been written in vain. But as laws dimly
discerned can only be explored in the phenomena they govern,
I have sought, in the chapters which follow, to lighten, for you
and for others, the labor of such study, by bringing together, in
narrative form, some of the more salient and suggestive of the
phenomena in question; attested, I venture to affirm, by evidence as strong as that which is daily admitted, in our courts
of justice, to decide the life or death of men.
ROBERT DALE OWEN.
NEW HARMONY, INDIANA,,
October 1, 1871.  )








THE DEBATABLE LAND.
BOOK I.
TOUCHING COMMUNICATION OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
TO MAN.
CHAPTER I.
OF HUMAN INFALLIBILITY.
" The mortalest enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done
the greatest execution upon Truth, hath been a peremptory adhesion
unto authority."-SIR ThOMAS BROWNE: Vulgar Errors.
" Conscience is the supreme interpreter, whom it may be a duty to
enlighten, but whom it can never be a duty to disobey. "-TEMPLE:
noaw BiShop of Exeter.
I PROPOSE to investigate a class of phenomena that have
been regarded, by turns, as miracles, feats of magic, arts of
necromancy; signs and wonders, mighty works, spiritual gifts;
occult forces, mysterious agencies, spiritual manifestations.
Not as a topic of curious research; not as a theme of speculative inquiry. I have selected this disparaged subject because
it brings one face to fice with the great questions of the world.
Of late years many earnest and thoughtful minds have been
led to recognize, in certain strange incidents of the above class,




184               TIE GREAT PROBLEM.
when rationally interpreted, beneficent agencies of eminent
power and vast practical importance: influences urgently needed,
in this age of the world, to quicken waning faith in a life to
come, and to afford,. in support of public and private morals,
helps more cogent than, those.which conventional creeds commonly supply.
But the value of these phenomena, as religious and reforma-..............  religious and reform a
tory agencies, rests, at the outset, on their claim to be spiritual;
and that again intimately connects itself with the solution of a
problem than which no more important one can engage the attention of man: Do the denizens of the next world * ever intervene in the concerns of this? Have they the power, and
do they occasionally exert it, to affect, for good or evil, the
lives and the fortunes of human kind? In fine, has God vouchsafed, or denied, to us here upon earth, intercourse on certain
conditions with the spiritual world?
An overwhelming majority among all sects of Christians
holds that spiritual intervention has been; while the most
numerous of these sects teaches that it still is, albeit restricted
within the limits of a single church. A small minority, but
one that is rapidly increasing, believes that intermundane laws
have always existed, and now exist, under which occasional intercourse between the two worlds is possible; and that, in point
of fact, such intercourse occurs at this day, unrestricted to favored church or sect, in various phases throughout the world.
Let us consider how this last belief adapts itself to the wants
of the age, what relation it bears to the intellectual and religious tendencies of the times, and what position it is entitled to
hold among the creeds of Christendom.
Wherever religion has existed, the human mind has been wont
* I here refrain from touching on the analogical evidences for a future
state, having discussed that matter elsewhere; (PFootfalls on the Boundary of Another World, Book IV. Chap. I., -pp. 476-503.)  The subject has been ably treated by Isaac Taylor, in his Physical Tieory oJ
Another Life: London, 1839; pp. 64-69.




A oURRENT OPINION OF THE PAST.           185
to occupy itself with the inquiry how far, and in what mode,
God has imparted spiritual knowledge to men: a sceptical portion of society (specially active all over Europe in the eighteenth century) doubting or denying that He has ever imparted
it.
The current opinion of the past has been that He has imi
parted it directly; and if directly, then infallibly, seeing that
we cannot rationally impute error to God. Thus all spiritual
communication or influence has been, almost by the common
consent of Christendom, interpreted as actual speech of the
Deity, or Divine intromission immediately emanating from one
of the Persons of the Godhead. Hence knowledge spiritually
communicated has been regarded as the equivalent of knowledge
free from all error. Hence, also, derives the claim of all
dominant religions, Hindoo, Mahometan, Roman Catholic, even
Protestant, to be the organs of infallible truth and the depositories of spiritual authority, by right divine; authority which
it is impious to question and incurring eternal punishment to
disobey.*  Even individuals believing themselves spiritually
favored have given in to this idea. "It came to me from the
Lord," was a common expression of Swedenborg.
But the tendency of the civilized mind is unmistakably opposed to the idea of direct divine interposition. We witness a
thousand beneficent agencies around us; and, unless we are
atheists, we ascribe these to God. Yet we see that every one
of them is mediate. There has been no direct gift. To us of
modern times there have been granted, under the divine economy, facilities for acquiring and perpetuating knowledge unimagined by our remote ancestors. But God did not invent for
us the telescope to detect planets and suns which these ancestors had never seen, nor the microscope to penetrate the minute mysteries of an invisible world. lie did not reveal to men
* Exceptions are to be found throughout the doctrinal history of the
Dark Ages. The votaries of Black Magic believed that spiritual knowledge came to them, not from the Lord, but. in illicit form; from the
Devil, or other Mephistophelian agency.




186             CONDITIONS OF GODE'S HELP.
sensible signs to represent human thoughts, the pen to perpetuate these thoughts from generation to generation, the printingpress to enlighten the intellectual world. He is the author of
all these blessings, but indirectly only; they come to us from
IIml, but they come to us through our fellow-creatures.
All analogy, then, fortifies the idea not only that God's
agency in man's favor is ever mediate, but also that His aid is
given on certain conditions. And these conditions involve, on
our part, thought, research, reflection, industry, enterprise.
There is a great truth in a homely proverb: " God helps those
who help themselves."  We can perceive His design that we
should search out what is to benefit us; that we should earn
what we receive. Among God's eternal laws one of the chief
is the law of progress; but throughout the entire physical
world we see that it is by man's head and hands this progress
is worked out, not by miraculous intervention.
Some of the soundest intellects of former centuries, from the
seen inferring the unseen, have reached, or approached, the
conclusion that every exercise of God's power, alike in the
physical and in the spiritual realm, is effected through the instrumentality of means: in other words, mediately under law.*
And surely there suggest themselves, in connection with man's
nature and with his position in a world where evil exists, and
with his career in that world, the strongest reasons in favor of
this intermediate action. Though we can but dimly discern
those things which go to make us the beings we are, yet we
* Bacon, whose mind ranged over all subjects, sublunary and spiritual, takes this ground: " God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere
imposture."-Advancement of Learning.
And we find a distinguished divine of the last century asserting the
credibility of such a view. " The visible government which God exercises over the world is by the instrumentality and mediation oft others.
And how far His invisible government be or be not so, it is impossible
to determine at all by reascn. The supposition that part of it is so,
appears, to say the least, as credible as the contrary. "-BUTLER 
Analogy of Religion, Part II. Chap. V.




GLIMPSE OF A THEORY OF EVIL.               187
perceive that man takes delight in progress, and that his moral
and intellectual wants find full satisfaction only in a progress.
ive state. We perceive, also, that if there is to be progress
there must be the worse and the better-the worse in the past,
the better in the future; in other words there must, as a
general rule, be comparative evil behind us, and comparative
good to come. Thus only do we obtain a glimpse toward a
rational theory of evil, and of the reasons which may underlie
its permission. For, though we may desire unmixed good in
worldly affairs and unmixed truth in spiritual revealings, both
are unreasonable wishes. Witness our consciousness that our
best happiness consists in sustained efforts, from darkness to
approach the light; from evil gradually to attain unto good;
and from error to climb the pleasant paths of truth, as these
open to more and more excellent knowledge. Finality is stagnation; a paradise for the sluggard only.
We perceive, further, that all human powers dwindle if they
are not fitly used, and that judgment itself, if not habitually
called into exercise, is liable to deterioration and decay.*
But to beings thus constituted and existing in such a world,
an infallible revelation, direct from its Creator, would be a
gift utterly unsuited to their nature, at variance with everything we see around us, and involving a conception that is
disproved, as far as the unseen can be disproved, by all the
lessons of analogy. It would be a finality where all else is
* " A world in which men should be exonerated from the duty, or
forbidden the right, to bring the judgment into play-to sift, by the
strict dictates of conscience, good from evil, the right from the wrong,
would be a world disgraced and degraded. If such a principle were
fully carried out, it would at last become a world lacking not only the
exercise of reason, but reason itself. Use, to an extent which it is
difficult to determine, is essential to continued existence. That which
ceases to fulfil its purpose finally ceases to be. The eyes of fishes
found far in the interior of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, shut out
forever from the light of day, are rudimental only." —Footfalls on thi
Boundary of Another World, p. 41.




188          THE TIDE OF IInUMAN OPINION IS
profluent;.therefore, an anomaaly in a progressive world:
avowedly so, indeed, since its friends admit, as to their relig.
ion, that as there has been no scientific formation, so there can
be no progressive development.* It would be an element
alien and discordant in a world to the inhabitants of which
God has given reason to prove all things, and conscience to
hold fast that which is good. It would tend to narrow, in a
lamentable manner, the field of action in which man's intellectual faculties and moral sentiments can have play. As
regards the highest of avocations-the study of spiritual science
-its inexorable effect would be to deaden Reason and to silence Conscience.
Beyond all this, there is a cogent influence which goes to
determine the tide of public opinion that is setting in against
the old doctrine of infallibility. The line of human progress is
from the less to the more of liberty. Despotisms give way to
limited monarchies; limited monarchies tend to republicanism.
And more especially is the sentiment of the present day adverse to mental absolutism and spiritual coercion. But infallibility entails and justifies tyranny, alike of mind and body.
It justifies it logically, even mercifully. If a man be the
possessor of infallible religious truth, to miss which is to sink
into Hell, and to accept which is to attain Heaven, such a man
ought to be-he is, by right divine —a despot. If he loves his
kind and can control them, it will appear to him an imperative
duty, by argument if he can, by force even to death if he must,
to put down all opposing doctrines. When, in Italy, during
the fifteenth century, the plague thrice decimated the population, it was a popular belief that this frightful pestilence was
caused by wholesale poisoners (avvellenatori) whose diabolical
arts caused the death of hundred-thousands. If this idle suspicion had been just, who would have raised his voice against
the punishment of such criminals? Would not Italy and the
* See Prefatory Address to the Protestant Clergy, Motto to section
9, and foot-note to motto.




SETTING IN AGAINST INFALLIBILITY.         189'
world have been gainers by their deaths?  But what was the
offence committed against the perishing body, compared to his
who poisons the deathless soul?
If a Church conscientiously believes that she holds -and
teaches the one infallible religion, must she not, as to all here.
tics, necessarily take this view? In the eyes of devout Romanists, were not the Albigenses and the Vaudois just such poisoners? When the massacres which followed the night of St.
Bartholomew had done their work, were there not tens of thousands of spiritual poisoners less to be found throughout France?
The horrors of the Inquisition are chargeable, not to the
Inquisitors (except such as were hypocrites), but to the doctrine underlying their creed, which vindicates and sanctifies the
mental despotism they have exercised.
But a world that is waxing, age by age, more liberty-loving
and more humane-a world that is learning obedience to
Christ's injunction that we judge not lest we in turn be
judged-a world that, with all its faults, is gradually becoming
more gentle and charitable and kindly-in other words, more
Chritian-such a world instinctively rejects a doctrine that
logically leads to wholesale murders for honest opinion's sake.
It is rapidly reaching the conclusion that a God of Goodness
and Mercy never has granted, and never will grant to any
man, or to any Church, a gift of infallibility which would
entitle its possessor to punish and exterminate other men and
other Churches, because they did what conscience enjoined,
and believed what their reason taught them.
But the spirit of the age, we shall be told, effectually protects us from such outrages on religious freedom. No doubt.
The civilized world of to-day will not suffer the believers in
infallibility to be consistent in carrying out their doctrine.
What then? In proof that the world has outgrown that doc.;rine we find the strongest of all evidence, namely this: that,
~ecause of the progress of humane ideas, its appropriate exer-;ise has become insufferable.
In view of considerations so numerous and so cogent, one




190          CHURCH OF lROME'ES STRONCI.OLTD.
might be led to expect the immediate downfall of a doctrine
fraught with barbarity. Its ultimate downfall is certain; yet
its hold is still strong on the human mind, and there are grave
difficulties in the way of its abolition. Men are wisely loath to
pull down an old house, how dilapidated soever, until they see
their way to some better shelter wherewith to replace it.
During the latter portion of the last century, millions, deserting the venerable mansion of Catholic infallibility, tried the
shelter of Materialism. It proved blank and cheerless, and,
after a brief sojourn, a large portion of these millions, as we
have seen,* returned to the ancient stronghold they had left.
They preferred to be submissive Catholics, and believers in a
life to come, rather than to enjoy religious liberty shrouded
with doubts of a future existence. And they had found, outside of their Church's teachings, no certainties touching the
realities of another world-neither in Rationalism nor in Protestantism.
Not in Rationalism; for Rationalism not only rejected all
revelation of a spiritual character coming to us directly from
God, but denied also, or had never seriously considered, spiritual revealings of a mediate character, coming to us from those
whom we shall recognize as our fellow-creatures by and by,
when death shall have ushered us among them.
And not in Protestantism; because, in Catholic eyes, her
chain of evidence touching the infallible appears manifestly
composed in part of fallible links. Its first links, indeed, she
borrowed from Romanism, agreeing with her in this, that the
New Testament in the original tongues contained infallible
narratives and teachings, infallibly recorded. But by her own
showing, this infallible revelation, long existing in detached
portions, was committed, for unenlightened centuries, to the
custody of fallible men; was translated by fallible men, at first
into Latin, after a thousand years more, into modern tongues;
was gradually separated by fallible men from apocryphal matter; was finally adopted, more than three hundred and fifty
* See Prefatory Address, section 2.




TRANSLATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.                1931
years after the crucifixion, by a Catholic (Ecumenical Council,
and a Catholic pope,* who announced the books that should be
included in_ the canon; authenticating the whole as the Word
of God;t and, finally, has been interpreted, and is interpreted
* Lecky, a writer whose researches touching this matter seem to have
been thorough, speaking of "the Fathers of the fourth century,"
says: "I t is quite certain that they were not, in the ordinary sense of
the word, Protestants. It is quite certain that there existed among
them practices, forms of devotion, and doctrinal tendencies, which
may not have been actually Roman Catholic, but which at least hang
upon the extreme verge of Catholicism, and inevitably gravitated to
it."-Rationalism in Europe, vol. i., p. 169.
t A few memoranda may here be acceptable to the reader.
As to the translations of Scripture. To the zeal and learning of
Jerome (Hieronymus), the best scholar not only of his age, but of many
succeeding centuries, the Christian world owes the first reliable Vulgate
of the New Testament. His translation, as St. Augustine called it, or
revision (emendatio) according to his own more modest expression, was
made at the instance of Pope Damasus, from A.D. 382 to 385. Up to
that time there had been innumerable translations, some partial, some
assuming to be complete-" almost as many forms of text as copies"
Jerome himself says:-(" tot sunt exemplaria quot codices."-Praef.
~n Evv.) Jerome's version, though many exclaimed against it as a
langerous and profane innovation, gradually came into favor; was,
Substantially, for a thousand years, the Bible in common use; was deIlared by the Council of Trent (1546) to be the authentic edition;" statuit et declarat ut hcec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio... pro authen-;ica habeatur;") and is the real parent of all the vernacular versions of
Vestern Europe, especially the English, Wycliffe's translation being an
lmost literal rendering of it. It guided the German edition by Luther,,nd from him the influence of the Latin passed to our Authorized Verion.
As to the Scriptural canon, the New Testament authors, believers in
he speedy end of the world, had evidently no idea that their writings.;ould ever be collected in a volume. An orthodox Protestant authority
ays: "The writings of the New Testament themselves contain little
lore than faint, perhaps unconscious intimations of the positioni which,ey were destined to occupy."... "The canon grew silently under
ae guidance of an inward instinct, rather than by the force of exteral authority." —Smith's Dkt. of Bible, Article "a Cnon of Seript




192         GOOD JUDGMENT NOT INFALLIBILITY.
to-day, by fallible churches who differ grievously in their sev:
eral constructions of its meanings. Nor have Protestant
tre." Books, which finally came to be deemed apocryphal or spurious,
held doubtful places for a time. The epistles of Barnabas and Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, are all more or
less quoted or referred to by the Fathers. The epistle to the Laodiceans
was frequently interpolated in Jerome's Vulgate. Some books that are
now lost had currency in early apostolic days, as the Gospel according
to the Hebrews, that according to the Egyptians, and (in the Marcion
Canon) the " Gospel of Christ." Some now found in our own canon,
as the Apocalypse, the second and third epistles of John, the epistles of
James and Jude, but especially the second epistle of Peter, were more
or less questioned, and were omitted by various councils. Gradually
the canon approached its present form. The Council of Hippo (A.D.
393) accepted nearly all; and, twelve years after Jerome's Latinversion had appeared, the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) admitting Hebrews, completed the Testament as we now have it. A decree of Pope
Innocent I., confirming their selection, finally decided the canon of the
Latin Church.
In all this there seems to have been very good judgment exercised.
Jerome was probably the most trustworthy translator of the Patristic
age. And as to the canon, the gold appears to have been substantially
separated from the alloy. One finds nothing of value in the extracts
remaining of the lost books; and one cannot read the other rejected
Scriptures without a conviction that they were utterly unworthy of
admission. The noble purity of the Parthenon is not more impressive
when compared with some whimsical abortion of the Cinque-cento, than
are the grand simplicity and intrinsic power that speak from the synoptical gospels, when set side by side with the childish crudities that disfigure, for example, the Arabic story called " The Infancy," or the
bungling narrative enriched with a familiar talk between Satan and
Hades, that has been saddled on poor Nicodemus. It is apparent that
internal evidence chiefly governed. Thus we may ascribe to the Council of Carthage sound discretion in her selection.
But judgment in translating, discretion in selection, is one thing, and
infallibility altogether another. The Romish Church affirms that the
translator was selected, and the final canon determined, each by the action of an infallible Pope; one can understand that: but how orthodox
Protestantism can seriously assert that her chain of infallible testimony
touching our present Bible as the unalloyed Word of God, is unbroken




KING JAMES'. INSTRUCTIONS.                193
churches retained the promised spiritual gifts-the miraculous
stamp of the Infallible.
This being the Catholic view, can we wonder that wanderers
from the Roman fold, when they found nothing but dim uncertainty in a heretic world, returned repentant to St. Peter's
arms?
This will occur again and again; a numerous class will go
on believing in the Infallible; the Catholic Church, surviving
reverse after reverse, may continue to grow and prosper
for generations still, as during this very century she has
gi-own and prospered, her professors outnumbering more than
Ihree to one the members of all other Christian sects,* unless
from Christ's day until ours, must remain a mystery to all who are
guided by sound principles of evidence.
To us, readers of the Authorized Version, there are superadded difficulties that complicate the situation. King James, as director of that
translation, and whom the translators address as " that august person,
enriched with singular and extraordinary graces," that had appeared
" like the sun in his strength," sent to each translator fifteen instructions, including a command that " the old ecclesiastical words should
be kept." Was the pedant-king infallible? Yet his instructions undoubtedly determined the translation of many all-important words,
i:ades and dunamis included. Whenever a modern revision is conscientiously executed, the first of these words will not be rendered hell,
nor the second miracle.
* The successes and reverses of Protestantism as against Catholicism,
and the ascendancy still maintained by the latter, have been set forth
at length in the Prefatory Address prefixed to this volume, section 2,
and to which, if he has not read it, I beg to refer the reader.
And see note, there given, in proof that, in Europe, the Catholic
Church (including the Greek and Eastern) numbers nearly two /hundred and twelve millionz votaries (211,899,500); while the Protestants
amount to but a trifle over sixty-eight millions (68,028,000): in other
words, that less than one-fourth of the Christians in Europe are Protestants; also that the Catholic Church agrees, in essential doctrine, with
the Greek and other Eastern Churches, except on one point: the latter
attributing to (Ecumenical Councils the infallibility which by the former is ascribed to the Pope-both believing, therefore, in the existence,
at the present day, of human infallibility.




194      FAITII IN IMMORTALITY INDISPENSABLE.
there be found outside of infallibility conclusive evidence
touching a world to come. Men can cheerfully dispense with
the dogmatic mysteries which have formed part of all infallible creeds; they can be thoroughly happy and contented,
though the inscrutable enigma of the Divine Hypostasis remain
forever unsolved; but they cannot be happy, they cannot be
contented, in ignorance of the Great Future; they cannot dispense with faith in immortality.
So universal, so deep-rooted in man's heart is this sentiment,
that, if the sole alternative be between Roman Catholicism and
Materialism, Catholicism will be the popular choice. In other
words, the masses will resist the tendency of the age to discard
the doctrine of a direct revelation from God, unless it can be
shown that spiritual knowledge, including proof of immortality,
can come to man, like physical knowledge, mediately, in virtue
of natural law.
I think the reader who may have followed me to this point
will begin to perceive why I attach so much importance to the
phenomena of modern Spiritualism. If these prove genuine,
then we can obtain, outside of Infallibility, conclusive evidence
of another world. If these are realities, then we have found
proof that spiritual knowledge may be received, like earthly
knowledge, intermediately; namely, through beings who were
once like ourselves.
And thus the harmony of the Divine Government will be
illustrated in one of its most important relations to man.
For it will appear that, without violation or suspension of the
great law of mediate agency, God brings immortality to light;
affording man perennial aid in educing conceptions of the next
world, as He has guided him, from discovery to discovery, in
the arts and sciences of this.




CHAPTER II.
OF MEDIATE SPIRITUAL REVEALINGS.
"Religious dogmatism is losing all hold of the most living and earnest intelligence everywhere.... A second Calvin in theology is impossible. Men thirst not less for spiritual truth, but they no longer believe in the capacity of system to embrace and contain that truth, as in
a reservoir, for successive generations. They must seek for it themselves afresh in the pages of Scripture and the ever-dawning light of
spiritual life, or they will simply neglect and put it past as an old
story. "-TULLOCH. *
" It needs no diviner to tell us that this century will not pass without
a great breaking up of the dogmatic structures that have held ever
since the Reformation or the succeeding age." —SiAIRP. t
"We are arrived visibly at one of those recurring times when the accounts are called in for audit; when the title-deeds are to be looked
through, and established opinions again tested. It is a process which
has been repeated more than once in the world's history; the last occasion and greatest being the Reformation of the sixteenth century:
and the experience of that matter might have satisfied the most timid
that truth has nothing to fear, and that religion emerges out of such
trials stronger and brighter than before."-FROUDE: ~    Criticism and the
Gospel History.
" Daughter of Faith, awake, arise! illume
The dread Unknown, the chaos of the tomb! "-CAMPBELL.
IF the views set forth in the preceding chapter be just, the
present aspect of religion throughout Christendom may be thus
sketched.
Infallibility is still the ruling element, counting its nominal
votaries by hundreds of millions.
* Leaders of the Reformation, London, 1869, p. 169.
f~ Culture and Religion, by J. C. SIIAIRP, Principal of the United
College of St. Andrews (reprinted from the Edinburgh Edition, New
York, 1871); p. 128. A noteworthy book.




196             A THIRD ELEMENT EMERGES.
There is a manifest tendency, however, in the present age,
to discredit the supernatural,* including, under that term, not
only miracles and infallible revelation, but all ultramundane
agencies of a spiritual character: and this sceptical element has
rudely shaken both the plenary infallibility of Catholicism and
the limited infallibility of Protestantism.
But the inroads of this rationalistic tendency are constantly
repelled by a popular conviction, that to abandon infallibility
is to surrender also all assurance of another and a better world.
Thus, one of the most powerful of human instincts attracts and
attaches millions to the infallible school.
So long as these were the only two elements engaged, there
was, substantially, but a single alternative offered to the seeker
after religious truth-the choice between infallibility (in one or
other of its phases), on the one hand, and some one among the
various.shades of Unbelief, on the other.
But within the last quarter of a century there has emerged
to public view in distinct form, from that phenomenal field
where Science has won all her victories, a third element;
namely the belief in the epiphanies t of Spiritualism; in other
words, in intermediate spiritual revealings, with no claim to infallibility save this, that they supply positive proof of a life to
come.
It is evident that if there be such proof to be found, outside
of direct infallible revelation, and if that proof is derived from
actual phenomena, then the belief in such phenomena, as it
gradually spreads, will take a prominent place among religious
* This tendency is fully and ably illustrated in two modern works by
LECKY: Rationalism in Europe (New York Ed. 1866); and European
Morals (New York Ed. 1870).
f This is one of those ecclesiastical terms which, through restricted
usage, come to lose, for the careless reader, their original signification.
Usually employed to designate the Church festival commemorating
the Magian journey to Bethlehem, one almost forgets that the word,
derived from epiphaneia, means simply an appearance or phenomenon,
and is strictly appropriate in designating spiritual manifestations.




RATIONALISM SHOULD ACCEPT SPIRITUALISM.    197
creeds. To deny that this belief is entitled to such a place is
virtually to assert that it matters little whether man obtains
positive assurance of a life beyond the grave or not.
Such a belief has the elements of a universal creed; or rather
it is fitted to inspire into all creeds an active principle-a
living spirit; while, at the same time, it effectually defeats the
claim which any one Church may set up to sole religious authority in virtue of her possession of spiritual powers and gifts
which, she asserts, are to be found nowhere save within her
divinely-favored precincts.
Infallibility cannot object to such a belief that it neglects the
one thing needful, or fails to bring immortality to light; for
no religion professeJi by man can supply, as spiritual researches
do, proofs patent to the senses, and potent to convert mere
hope 6f another world into certainty of its existence.
Rationalism cannot object to it that it contravenes the doctrine of law; for its phenomena occur strictly under law: nor
yet that it assumes the existence, in spiritual matters, of that
direct agency of God which the naturalist finds nowhere in
physical affairs; for its revealings come to man mediately only:
nor yet that it is dogmatic, or exclusive, or intolerant, as Infallibility is; for its adherents adduce experimental evidence,
open to all men and gleaned after the inductive method, for the
faith that is in them: nor, in fine, that it ignores progress, as
Infallibility does; seeing that it is ever freshly vivified and
cheered by the ceaseless illumings of spiritual life.
Still less can the Bible student object that he finds no Scriptural warrant for such a belief.  If there be one distinct promise made by Jesus to his followers, it is, that spiritual signs
should follow those who believed in his words; * that they
should do the works that he did, and greater works also; i that
his apostles could not bear the whole truth, so that he had to
leave many things unsaid; and that, after his death, that spirit
which pervaded his life-the spirit of truth-should still bring
* Mark xvi. 17, 18; and other texts.   t John xiv. 12.




198        WHY CAME SPIRITUALISM SO LATE 
comfort, communicating with them, even to the end of the
world; * mediately teaching them what he had left untaught. ft  So also Paul.  Can injunction be more positive
than his to seek after spiritual gifts??
These are strong claims. Against them will, of course, be
set up the popular objection to all things novel. Why now, at
this age of the world?  Why not sooner, long ago, centuries
since?  In reply one might suggest that the Atlantic has always been there, though thousands of years elapsed ere a
Columbus adventured its passage.  One might ask when the
diurnal motion of the earth, when the circulation of the blood,
when the fall of atrolites, was first accepted as truth by science. But I rest not the case in generalities like these. I
believe that Spiritualism, in its present phase, could not have
been the growth of an age much earlier than our own.
-In its present phase. In distorted form it has appeared,
from time to time in past ages, to the terror and the unutterable suffering of the world. The holiest things are the most
deadly when they are profaned.
"Ye cannot bear them  now."  In these words we may
find the clue to the late appearance of modern Spiritualism.
Certain debasing superstitions had to disappear before the
world was worthy of it. The letter, which killeth, had itself
to die, and the spirit which giveth life had to replace it, before
the wiser and the better portion of those who have gone before
us could find such sympathy as would attract them to earth,
and meet such reception here as would justify their efforts to
enlighten us.
Take a notable example of the letter which killeth: the old
belief in the personal existence of a Great Spirit of Evil,
* Matthew xxviii. 20.
f John xvi. 12, 13. If any one objects to the words used above" nediately teaching them "-let him refer to the text, where he will
find the remarkable expression: " he shall not speak of himself, but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak." —v. 13.: I Corinthians xii. 31, and xiv. 1, 2.




EFFECT OF BELIEF IN THE DEVIL.           199
roaming the world in search of whom he might devour; the
earliest and crudest of the various human fantasies that have
been suggested by the perception of evil in the world, coupled
with a desire to explain the cause of its existence. In the cxordium to that sublimest among ancient Oriental fragments of
philosophy, the Book of Job, occurs a brief narrative which
modern critics begin to treat as mere allegory. Not so the
theological mind of past times. To our ancestors, if they accepted the Bible at all, it was literal truth. They believed
that Satan, just returned from going to and fro on the earth,
presented himself one day, among the Sons of God, to the
Lord; and that, being allowed after some conversation with
the Almighty, to afflict Job, he destroyed that good man's substance and slew his children. They believed that, on another
day, the Devil, again by God's permission, " smote Job with
sore boils" from head to foot.
So, in the New Testament also. The belief of the orthodox,
even to-day, is that the Devil, taking Jesus up, set him, first on
a pinnacle of the temple, then on an exceeding high mountain whence all the kingdoms of the earth may be seen; there
seeking worship from him: while less literal Christians regard
this as a parable only, informing us that Christ was tempted
as we are, yet without sin.
Now, so long as a belief in a personal devil pervaded Christendom, spiritual agency assumed forms that were hideous in
proportion to the hideousness of the belief that engendered
them. Faith which, in its purity, has power to remove mountains, can also, il its perversion, pile them upi, Pelion upon
Ossa. In spiritual matters, to a certain extent, we receive what
we expect: sympathy being a ruling element. Whether we
fearfully deprecate, or recklessly invoke, a Spirit of Evil, spirits
of truth will not answer to our call. They have still enough
of human nature about them to decline communication with
those who take them for devils.
In ages of the world when the popular mind was imbued
with the notion that there exists around us a hierarchy of




200              POSSESSION IN JESUS' DAY.
malign intelligences, headed by the Prince of the Air, whose
agency, tolerated by God, is unceasingly exercised to instigate
man to evil, and that these are the only disembodied beings
with whom man is permitted to commune, the portals of the
Spiritual seldom  opened except to give exit to frightful errors
and delusions.  In those davs that subtle power (dunamis was
the Evangelists' term for such), corresponding doubtless, in a
measure, to P ichlenbach's sensitivity * and now spoken of among
us as mediumshizp, rarely gave birth save to monstrosities, such
as are usually known under the names of Sorcery and Witchcraft: superstitions only the more dangerous and horrible because there was a small amount of reality underlying the terrible phantom-shapes they assumed.
There was, inl Jesus' day and long before, as there still is,
a certain spiritual condition which may be termed possession.
It was a disease usually induced, in some sensitive organizations, by deluding opinions or impotence of will; its slender
basis of reality being a mental influence usurped by departed
spirits of a degraded order, while its vast Irediveval superstructure was reared by imagination running wild under the
terrors of a pernicious faith.  This disease was aggravated by
harshness, diffused by persecution, intensified by torturings.
It could be cured, like other phases of lunacy, only by charitable judgment, and gentle firmness; but believers in remedies
* For a new occasion I originate a new word. By sensitivity I designate that gift or faculty possessed by Reichenbach's Sensitives, and
to which, elsewhere in this volume, I have alluded. A careful perusal
of the German naturalist's works on this subject, namely Untersuc7vhugen iOber die Dynamide, Brunswick, 1850, and Der Sensitive Menscb,
Stuttgart and Tilbingen, 1854, has convinced me that he has fully
made out both the existence of a new power or faculty possessed by a
certain portion of mankind, and the importance of studying it. The
former of these works has been translated into English by Dr. Ashburner (London, 1850). Reichenbach's works, though they created,
at the time they appeared, considerable excitement throughout Germany, and some stir among us, have never attracted the attention
which they deserve, and which, some day, they will obtain.




ORIGIN OF WITCHCRAFT.                   201
so reasonable as these are, with one illustrious exception, but
of modern times.  The unutterable woes and atrocities * which
followed directly or indirectly, partly from the belief in a
devil, partly from the abnormal ilfluence referred to, exemplify
the great truth that from the same source may proceed healing
or pestilence, happiness or misery, just as its waters are kept
pure by enlightened care, or adulterated by the frenzy of ignorance.
The eminent exception above referred to seems to have been
little noted or understood by those who are wont to seek mysteries and miracles, rather than law-governed spiritual phenomena, in the Gospels.
Among the thousand illustrations of the notorious persistence
with which men and nations professing Christianity have
directly contravened the spirit of its Founder, is the popular
belief in witchcraft, cropping out, more or less frequently,
* In an interesting chapter on Sorcery and Witchcraft, LECKY says:
" Tens of thousands of victims perished by the most agonizing and protracted torments, without exciting the faintest compassion. (?)
In almost every province of Germany, but especially where ecclesiastical influence predominated, the persecution raged with a fearful intensity: seven thousand victims are said to have been burnt at Treves.
In France decrees were passed on the subject by the Parliaments of
Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rheims, Rouen, Dijon, and Rennes, and they
were all followed by a harvest of blood. The executions which took
place in Paris were, in the emphatic words of an old writer,'almost
infinite.'... In Italy a thousand persons were executed in a single year in the province of Como; and in other parts of the country the
severity of the inquisitors at last created an absolute rebellion: etc."Ration(alism in EuTrope, vol. i. pp. 28-31.
This persecution was by no means exclusively Catholic. In Luther's
Tceble Talk, under date August 25, 1538, we find this: " The talk falling on witches who spoil eggs, etc., Luther said:'I should have no
compassion on these witches; I would burn all of them.'" —p. 251.
And Calvin, in remodelling the laws of Geneva, left those which condemned witches to the stake unaltered.
In accordance with such opinions we find that, in England and Scot
land after they became Protestant, witches were pursued at times, es
pecially during the seventeenth century, with an almost insane fury.
9*




202                CHRIST HAD NO BELIEF
throughout fifteen Christian centuries, * the popular abhorrence
of supposed witches, and the incredible cruelty with which these
poor wretches have been treated.t bWe have every reason to
conclude that Christ himself did not believe in a personal devil.
When he used the word devil or Satan he commonly employed
it  to designate either error or wickedness in man, or else a
* There were believers in witchcraft, among Christians as well as
Pagans, at least as early as the middle of the third century (MIDDLETON, pp. 85-87); and there are instances of witch-burning less than
a hundred years old: the two latest examples being, probably, one in
Seville, Spain, in 1781, and (strange to say!) one in Glaris, Switzerland, in 1783-just eighty-eight years ago. Men still alive might have
witnessed these.
t Readers who have the heart to go through the sickening details will
find such, in authentic form, scattered over Pitcairn's Criatinal Trials
of Scotland. It seems scarcely credible now that, in that country of
strong hearts and strong prejudices, less than a single century ago (in
1773) the Divines of the Associated Presbytery passed a resolution declaring their faith in witchcraft and deploring the growing scepticism
on that subject.-MACAULAY: History of England, vol. iii. p. 706.
The rare examples in which any of the Evangelists ascribe to Christ
expressions which might, bear a different interpretation may, in virtue
of his uniform silence touching all diabolical compacts or seductions,
properly be interpreted metaphorically (as " I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from Heaven,"-Luke x. 18); or as simply meaning physical
or moral evil; thus, of the woman " who had a spirit of infirmity and
was bowed together," he says: " Ought not this woman,... whom
Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on
the Sabbath day? "-Luke xiii. 16. It will surely not be held, that
Christ thought, or that we ought to think, that whenever we have rheumatism, or similar infirmity, it is the devil's doing.
But, beyond this, the hypothesis remains that the biographers of
Jesus, how upright soever yet misled by the spirit of their age, may occasionally have mistaken the import of their Master's words; as, at other
times (for example, Luke ix. 54), some of the Apostles grievously misconceived the spirit of his teachings. If we would form a candid and
enlightened judgment of these marvellous teachings, we must take them
as a grand, connected whole, not stumble over incidental expressions at
variance with their general tenor, and very liable to have been misiizterpreted.




IN COMPACTS %WITH THE DEVIL.               203
debased condition in spirits. Thus, to Peter: " Get thee be.
hind me, Satan;" * and, of Judas Iscariot: " One of you is a
devil." t  Thus, again, in the case of the man " possessed with
the devil," his words are: " Come out of the man, thou unclean
spirit!' I  Not a word of reproach to the afflicted; not a hint
of suspicion that the maniac had made a compact with any
Prince of Darkness: he assumes, simply, that a spirit or spirits
of a degraded order had obtained control, or possession, of the
unhappy creature; and, by virtue of the power with which he
himself was gifted, he compelled them to go out of him.~ Yet
again, when he warned his disciples against snares and evils to
come, the warning was not touching a devil who should tempt
them to sell their souls to him for worldly wealth or diabolical
powers to injure, but touching false prophets who should show
signs and wonders, thereby seducing even the wisest. {[ It was
a warning against wicked men, not against fallen angels-a
warning inculcating the much-needed lesson that signs and
wonders themselves are not infallible tests of moral truth.
Thus, eighteen hundred years ago, Christ saw, and habitually
acted on, all that there is of truth underlying witchcraft, sor* Mark viii. 33.       t John vi. 70.        $ Mark v. 8.
~ It is quite evident that if we reject, as delusion, modern examples
of possession and exorcism-in other words, if we deny that inferior
spirits from the next world may sometimes, through the weakness or
credulity of man, obtain a certain control over the human will and the
human thoughts; and if we deny, further, that, in such case, a strong,
magnetic volition may free the sufferer from such control-then we
must accept one or other of these alternatives:
Either the numerous minutely-detailed relations scattered over the
gospels, touching the " casting out of devils" by Christ and his disciples, are all pure fables, throwing suspicion upon the entire narrative:
Or else they refer to miracles, occurring in the first century by suspension of law, and never to occur again; a conclusion which modern
civilization, enlightened by science, rejects.
That is to say: the enlightened portion of society must either discredit the gospel biographies, or accept the fact that possession may
occur, and may be cured, in our day.
I Mark xiii. 22.




204            CURING SPIRITUAL DISEASE.
cery, magic, the black art, or by whatever name imaginary
compacts with Satan may have been called. He knew that
spirits of low character, occasionally obtaining control over
men and women, do cause what we may call spiritual disease;
and he instructed his Apostles and the Seventy how to cure it;
though their power to exorcise was inferior to his.* When he
found others, not of his disciples, following the same practice,
he appr.ved their doings.i
What thousands of lives might have been saved, I what
countless torturings of soul and body averted, had the Christian
world, in this, caught the spirit, and followed the example, of
Christ!
But it is only in modern times that eclectic searchers after
truth, through the study of vital magnetism and spiritual manifestations, have come practically to believe, on this subject,
what the G6spels have been teaching, unheeded, or misinterpreted, to fifty generations of men.
Somnambulism, as I shall have occasion to show by and by,
is allied to mediumship and is governed, in a measure, by the
same laws. Among these laws we find, by experience, the rule
that a dogmatic frame of mind imbued with false doctrine,
whether orthodox or sceptical, tends to produce abnormality in
the ideas received or communications obtained. Here is an
example which I translate from an accredited work on Animal
Magnetism, by MI. Lamy-Senart, a pupil 6f the Marquis de
Puysegur, the first observer of Somnambulism.
" A patient who had become under my care a lucid somnambule was, with my permission, magnetized by another person,
who readily cast her into a magnetic sleep. But this magnetizer believed in the Devil and his influence; and he could not
help thinking of this every time he magnetized. The first day
the patient was restless in her sleep; the second she saw a black
* Matthew xvii. 19, 20.       f Mark ix. 38, 39.
$ Averaging the statistics given in various histories of witchcraft, it
would seem that the number of those who have suffered death for this
imaginary crime exceeds thirty thousand.




EFFECTS OF FAITH IN THE DIABOLICAL.           205
man; the third two presented themselves, with horns; the
fourth they used threatening expressions to her. On the fifth
day it was still worse; they seemed to sit beside her. She rose,
terrified and screaming, thinking they had assaulted her; rushed
out of the room and into the court-yard, followed by her magnetizer, who succeeded at last in awaking her. She suffered
cruelly, complained of a great weight on her breast, her respiration was difficult, and she passed a frightful night." *
This narrative is very suggestive.  Though we cannot doubt
that imposture, spurred on by hate or malice, was an occasional
element in witch-trials; f and though we know that many a confession, wrung forth by torture, was recanted before the sufferer
was led to the stake; yet the general rule is to be found outside
of these incidents.
A condition analogous to somnambulism-trance in some of
its phases-not infrequently supervenes, without magnetization,
in persons of sensitive temperament or secluded habits, especially when inordinately excited. Taking this and the phenomenon of obsession or possession into account, and reflecting on
the probable power of such influences in a rude age when the
conception of the Devil and his agency was far more vivid and
influential,-more constantly present to the mind of the masses
-than the conception of God and his providence, can we wonder that accusers and accused should frequently have been
moved, by honest illusion-the former to accusations that they
were diabolically tormented, the latter to confessions that they
had visited the witches' Sabbath and witnessed its abominations?
* Bibio'hque du Magnitisme Animal, Cahier iv. p. 6. See, for a
beatific vi-ion, similarly suggested, Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, p. 142; note.
f It is a mistake to suppose that imposture supplies the chief explanation of the witch-mania. Hume, writing of witchcraft in Scotland,
remarks: " Among the many trials for witchcraft which fill the record
I have not observed that there is even one which proceeds upon the notion of a vain or cheating art, falsely used by an impostor to deceive the
weak and credulous."- Commentaries on the History of Scotland, vol. ii
p. 556.




206                 SALEM WITCHCRAFT.
Without some such clue as the above, how shall we explain
the fact that judges so clear-sighted as Sir Edward Coke and
Sir Matthew Hale recognized the reality of this alleged crinme
against man's allegiance to God? —that a jurist so eminent as
Blackstone declared it to be a " truth to which every nation in
the world hath,in its turn,borne testimony? " * —that Sir Thomas
Browne, physician, philosopher, and scholar, testified in court
to the same effect; that among divines Baxter, Wesley, and a
host of other worthies set forth elaborate evidences of its existence, and arguments for its condign punishment; and that, in
ollr own country, less than a hundred and eighty years ago,
thirteen women and six men were hanged and one octogenarian
died under horrible torture, all for the alleged crime of witchcraft? — these executions taking place among a people earnest,
* Footfalls on the Boundcary of Another World, p. 30; note.
t A terrible summer for Salem village and its vicinity was that of
1692!-ayear of worse than pestilence or famine. Bridget Bishop was
hanged in June; Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, Elizabeth How, Susanna
Martin, and Rebecca Nurse in July; George Burroughs, John Procter,
George Jacobs, John Willard, and Martha Carrier in August; Martha
Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Reed, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Baker in September: in which
last month Giles Corey, eighty-one years of age, was pressed to death
under a board loaded with heavy stones; not heavy enough, however,
to crush out life, until a day or two of lingering torture had intervened.
Sarah Good's daughter Dorcas, between three and four years old, orphaned by her mother's execution, was one of a number of children
who, with several hundred other persons, were imprisoned on suspicion
of witchcraft: many of these sufferers remaining in a wretched condition (often heavily ironed) for months, some upwards of a year; and
several dying during the time. A child of seven, Sarah Carrier, was
called on to testify, as witness against her mother.
Some of the condemned, especially Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, and
Mary Easty, were aged women who had led unblemished lives, and were
conspicuous for their prudence, their charities, and all domestic virtues.
" The question," says a painstaking, modern historian of Salem witchcraft, " arises in every mind, why did not their characters save them
from conviction, and even from suspicion? The answer is to be found
in the peculiar views then entertained of the power and agency of Sa,




A DANGEROUS POPULAR ERROR.                  207
conscientious, practical, and if piety according to the Calvinistic acceptation of the term entitle to election, worthy to be
called "the very elect."
There is another popular error, treated of at large in the preceding pages, of which we must rid ourselves, ere spiritual communications can be sought or accepted without danger.  It is
the mistake of supposing that because a message or a lesson
comes to us from a denizen of the other world, it must, on that
account, be infallibly true.  Death procures for us higher powers and clearer perceptions; it opens to us a wider horizon and
discloses to us much which we can but dimly surmise here below: but it does not confer on us infallibility.  There is doubtless, in the next world, a more elevated range of thought and
of sentiment, but there is the same variety of character as here;
there is diversity of opinion, too, though probably not to the
same extent as among us. All this is proved by comparing,
tan....   Our fathers accounted for the extraordinary descent
and incursions of the Evil One among them, in 1692, on the supposition
that it was a desperate effort to prevent them from bringing civilization
and Christianity within his favorite retreat, and their souls were fired
with the glorious thought that, by carrying on the war with vigor against
him and his confederates, the witches, they would become chosen and
honored instruments in the hand of God for breaking down and abolishing the last stronghold of the Kingdom of Darkness." —UPIIA.: Salem Witchecraft, Boston, 1867: vol. i. pp. 393, 394; and vol. ii. p. 373.
The evils and miseries growing out of this mental epidemic are not
to be measured by the number of actual sufferers, whether on the scaffold or in loathsome prison.  "It cast its shadows," says Upham,
"over a broad surface, and they darkened the condition of generations.... The fields were neglected; fences, roads, barns, even the
meeting-house, went into disrepair.          A scarcity of provisions, nearly amounting to a famine, continued for some time. Farms
were brought under mortgage or sacrificed, and large numbers of people were dispersed. One locality in Salem village... bears to
this day the marks of the blight.... The ruinous results were
not confined to the village, but spread, more or less, over the country."
— Sa.m Tntitclhcraft, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381.




208       IMPORTANT WARNINGS FROMI THE PAST.
one with the other, various communications, which we may
have ascertained, from  the attendant circumstances, to be unquestionably ultramundane.  Many Spiritualists, like their fcllow-religionists of other persuasions, who do not accept thai
phase of belief, have this important truth still to learn, and fof
lack of having learned it, are often lamentably misled.  IBelief
in infallibility is equally mischievous, whether held by Calvinist,
by Episcopalian, or by Spiritualist.  It is almost as unsafe for a
dogmatic infalliblist, as for a confirmed devil-fearer, to engage
in spiritual research.  It is not desirable that the belief in
Spiritualism should spread, except in proportion as the belief
in Infallibility dies away.  Here we may discern another reason why the appearance of spiritual phenomena, in their modern or normal phase, as a universal religious element, has been
so long delayed.
The lesson taught by a thousand warnings from the past is
unmistakable; and it is of vital moment that we heed it. It is
dangerous for men and women who are confirmed in certain old
superstitions, or who believe in their own possession of infallible truth, to put themselves in the way of communings with a
higher sphere of being: they cannot bear them yet. We seek
aid or enlightenment from  another world in vain, unless we
enter the spiritual school, not only in a reverent spirit, but in a
fit frame of mind. We must seek ere we find: and we must
seek in that catholic temper which is willing to put to the proof
all things, and to accept truth, wherever found. It is not
given to dogmatism, shut up in its contracted shell, to distinguish the still, small voice; it hears but the echo of its own
delusions. Except we be converted from wisdom in our own
conceit-except we draw near to the shrine as little childrenthe spiritual voices, in their purity, will not reach our ears.
It is with the teachings of Spiritualism as with the praying
of men: they are but mockeries, unless approached in a become
ing spirit.*
* The effect of levity in spiritual researches is not so fatal as that
of dogmatic superstition: none the less its tendency is to preclude all




A STRANGE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.              209
But, for the reasons above set forth, even able searchers,
earnestly and reverently prosecuting inquiries into the charac.
ter of modern Spiritual revealings, if still haunted by the idea
of Satanic agency, may be led into a grievous error, the very
opposite of that which sets up all Spiritual messages as Gospel
truths.
A  noteworthy example is before me, in a well-known European journal.*  I find therein an editorial, entitled Tables
Tournantes, in which the writer, after alluding to the fact that
"the marvels of magnetism, or rather of Spiritualism, as the
Americans call it," seem  to be " again coming into fashion,"
quotes fronm one of the most respectable of the Parisian journals, as follows:
" It will be remembered," says the Courrier de Paris, "that
a certain number of French and foreign prelates thought it
their duty, about a year ago, to interdict the practice of tablemoving. Their motive, or alleged motive, was that ihis practice brought men into dangerous communication with the
spirits of darkness. The fact is, that most of the spirits that
manifested themselves through the tables or under the floor,
when questioned as to their identity, answered,' demon,''devil,'
or at least,' damned.' t
" One of the most eminent and enlightened members of our
valuable or satisfactory results. If we enter a church as we would
crowd into a comic theatre, or kneel in prayer-meeting as we would sit
down to a game at cards, the exercises in either case will probabiy not
tend much to edification. Spiritualism is not intended to make sport
for graceless idlers at an evening party: and if to them it furnish but
platitudes, inanities-buffooneries even —what is this but the natural
result of misplaced merriment and thoughtless irreverence?
Yet even at such disadvantage, it has happened, from tim * to time,
that Frivolity was startled out of her heedlessness-the poet s line being
realized"'And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray."
* Le Nord, published at Brussels; No. 185, of date July 4, 1857.
f My experience is the reverse of this. Throughout the many hun.
dred sittings at which I have assisted, no such replies were ever elicited




210       MISTAKE OF THE BISIIOP OF RENNES.
hierarchy, the Lord Bishop of Rennes, had thought it his duty,
for his own personal edification, to institute some experiments
with the tables; but he reached a result which caused him to
abandon the practice. It was as follows:
"The Bishop, the Vicars-General, and his Canons having assembled at the Episcopal palace, interrogated a table as to the
fate and the sufferings of a young and generous missionary
who had recently suffered martyrdom in China. The Bishop
had with him, as a relic, a fragment of the bloody shirt of this
devoted and unfortunate soldier of the faith. Was this the
talisman that operated? We cannot tell. Suffice it that the
table set about relating, in its language (" en sa langue," meaning, probably, by raps), and with a most startling fidelity, the
whole history of the agonies and tortures of the courageous
missionary; all circumstances well-known to most of the assistants. The Bishop, on his part, was so much struck by it, that,
interrupting the proceedings, he cried with a loud voice:' To
know all that, thou must be the Devil. W ell! if thou art the
Devil, by the omnipotent God, by Jesus Christ crucified, I adjure thee, I summon and command thee, to break thyself in
pieces at my feet.'
" Instantly the table made a great spring; and, falling back
obliquely, broke off two of its legs, dropping at the feet of the
Lord Bishop of Rennes.
" It is not our intention," adds the Courrier, "either to
explain or to call in question the incident we have related.
Only let our readers be assured that we have invented
nothing. The fact has been certified to us by witnesses the
most respectable and the most trustworthy. And, for the
rest, it is well-known that we are not among the number ot
those who lend themselves to the circulation of fables, or would
put forth a profane jest at the expense of the revered name we
have just cited."
This anecdote may call forth a smile, but it has its serious
aspect. The Bishop, convinced from the manifestations that air
occult intelligence is communicating, takes it for granted that




ERRORS IN ROMAN RITUAL.                  211
because that intelligence accurately discloses a variety of facts
connected with the martyrdom of a missionary, it must be
Satan himself:* thereupon he addresses it as such. But they
who assume, in advance, the question they propose to investigate, are in no fit frame of mind to enter upon such investigation at all.  Nor will any intelligent Spiritualist be surprised
at the issue of the episcopal experiment: the case thus
prejudged, some such result might have been predicted.t For
there are recorded cases of analogous character. There occurred
a century and a half ago at Epworth parsonage, the paternal
home of the celebrated John Wesley, loud knockings and other
strange disturbances continued for two months, and which Dr.
Adam  Clarke, in his biography of the Wesley family, regards
* This is in accordance with the tests of Demon agency set forth in
the Roman Ritual, and with the practice of the Catholic Church.
Among the signs of possession there designated, is the' disclosing of
distant and hidden things."' Signa autem obsidentis dnemonis sunt:
Ignota lingua loqui pluribus verbis, vel loquentem intelligere: distantia
et occulta patefacere," etc.-R ituale Ronranum (Mechlinioe, 1856), p.
514, Cap. " De Exorcizandis obsessis a Daemonio."
But every well-informed student of vital Magnetism knows that clearsight (clairevoyance) and far-sight (vue a distance) are phenomena of
frequent occurrence during somnambulism; to say nothing of mediumship. To regard these as Satanic powers is no whit more rational than
to declare, as men did five hundred years ago, that the experiments of
the laboratory are unlawful. In Chaucer's tale of the Chanon Yeman,
chemistry is spoken of as an elfish art, conducted by aid of spirits: a
superstition of Arabian origin, Warton says.- Wcarton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 169.
f Those who have assisted frequently and under various circumstances
at such sittings, know well that the table-meaning, thereby, the invisible intelligence which manifests its presence by rappings, tiltings, raising of the table and other sounds or movements-often exhibits, in the
most unmistakable manner, human emotions; and none more plainly
than indignation (as by violent jerkings or stampings), when the phenomena are treated with ridicule, or ascribed to Satanic agency. That
this frequently occurs under circumstances which preclude all possibil.
ity of trickery, any careful and persevering observer may readily ascertain for himself. I have myself witnessed it, on various occasions.




212               THE DEMONIAC THEORY
as Spiritual manifestations connected with the death of Mr,
Samuel WVesley's brother in India. *  Emily Wesley writing
the details to her brother John, after declaring that a month's
experience had thoroughly convinced her that trickery was impossille, adds: "As for my mother, she (at first), firmly believed it to be rats, and sent for a horn to blow them away.
I laughed to think how wisely they were employed who were
striving half a day to fright away Jeffrey (for that name I gave
it) with a horn.  But whatever it was, I perceived it could be
made angry; for from that time it was so outrageous, there was
no quiet for us after ten o'clock at night.           It was
more loud and fierce, if any one said it was rats cr anything
natural." t
It " could be made angryt," Emily Wesley said. So, probably,
could the spirit addressed by the French Bishop, when mistaken
by him for the devil.  Or that spirit might have departed and
another suddenly taken its place.  Abundant facts indicate
(though, in advance of experience, one might reject such an
idea) the frequent agency of a somewhat singular class of
spirits; as imps, we might say, of frolic and misrule; not
wicked, it would seem, or, if wicked, restrained from inflicting
serious injury, but, as it were, tricksy elves, sprites fill of
pranks and levities-a sort of Pucks,-" esprits espqiigles," as
the French phrase it; or as the Germans, framing an epithet
expressly for this supposed class of spirits, have expressed it,
"1oltergteister." T
Whether the Rev. Charles IBeecher, a Congregational clergyman of our own country, has had any experience similar to that
* Mimnoirs of the Wesley Famnily, by ADAM CLARKE, LL. D., F. A. S.;
London, 1843; vol. i. pp. 288, 289. That, also, was Mrs. Wesley's
final opinion. All the details will be found in these Mlemoirs, pp. 245291.
+t Aiemoirs of the Wesley Facmazy, vol. i. pp. 271, 272.
A Footfalls on the Boiundary of Another WVorld, p. 212. For examples of the agency of such spirits see Book iii. chap. 2 of that
volume.




IS UNPTIILOSOPIIICAL.              21 3
of the Lord Bishop of Rennes, I know not. Certain it is, he
reaches the conclusion that all modern spiritual revealings come
through the Powers of Darkness, and that " we are entering on
the first steps of a career of demoniac manifestations, the issues
whereof man cannot conjecture." * A similar mistake was
mode in Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago. When the
people witnessed the "signs and wonders" wrought by Jesus,
they " were amazed and said,' Is not this the son of David?'
But when the Pharisees heard it, they said,'This fellow doth
not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the Prince of the
devils.'" t
It does not seem to have suggested itself to the Pharisees,
nor to Mlr. Beecher, that all analogy is opposed to such an explanation of spiritual phenomena. In this world God does not,
indeed, shut his creatures away from earthly influences tending
to deception and to error. But the good is the rule; the evil
(often good in disguise) is but the exception.  If it enter into
God's economy to permit evidences and influences to come over
to us from a higher phase of being, are we to believe that He
excludes from these all that is true and good, and suffers only
deceptions and false teachings, emanating from the devil and
his angels, to reach us? Is this the doing of a Father, whose
"tender mercies are over all his other works "?  If, in very
deed, such were the Divine plan, then-adopting the lines of a
modern poet" Then God would not be what this bright
And glorious universe of HisThis world of wisdom, goodness, light
And endless love proclaims-He is. "
If we listen to sober reason, she teaches us that, as from this
world, so from the other, there are richly furnished to us the
elements of truth and the means of happiness. If we fail to
* Review of Spiritual Manifestations, read before the Congregational
Association of New York and Brooklyn, chap. vii. (p. 65 of London Ed.
1853).
t Matthew xii. 23, 24.




214         PIIASES OF BELIEF IN CIIRISTESNDO 1.
interpret the revealings from  Heaven or to avail ourselves of
the teachings from earth, it is not by the Divine fiat except so
far as this, that God has made. wisdom and peace obtainable
only through virtuous exertion, and that He has interposed no
regis to protect man from the natural results of his inexperience
and of his misconceptions.
The following table may be useful in exhibiting, in a general
way, the main varieties of religious opinion throughout the
Christian world; and the position which, according to the preceding views, modern Spiritualism occupies among them:
CHIEF PHASES OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF IN CHRISTENDOM.
I. School of Secularism, namely:
a. Radical: Materialists * denying a Hereafter.
b. Conservative: Sceptics, doubting a Hereafter.
II. School of Infallibility, namely:
a. Pure: Catholics, including Greek and Eastern Churches.
b. Mixed: Main body of Protestants.
III. School of Spiritualism, namely:
a. Exclusive: Orthodox Quakers and Swedenborgians, retaining
element of infallibility.
b. Universal: Modern Epiphanists, f rejecting element of infallibility.
In elucidation of the above table I offer a few remarks.
* I here employ the term materiatist in its popular sense, to mean a
person who'believes the soul to be merely a quality appertaining to our
vital existence here, which can have no existence separate from the
body, and which ceases to be as soon as earthly life is extinct.
Whether, in scientific strictness, materialism must be taken to mean
a doctrine which is inconsistent with the immortality of the soul, I need
not here stop to inquire.
f For a new occasion I may be allowed to coin an appropriate word.
Spiritual Epiphanist accurately designates a believer in spiritual appear.
ances or manifestations.




SECULARISM.                      215
(I.) I employ the term Secularism, rather than that of
Rationalism, as more correctly designating the creed of those
who believe it to be the part of wisdom that we restrict our
attention to secular affairs and physical studies, and that we
refrain from the investigation of religion, seeing that man can
find no solid ground for any spiritual belief. Rationalism is
not so much a creed as a cast of thought.*
The age of radical Secularism is passing away: it has, at the
present day, no distinguished leader; and probably never will
have again. If a second Calvin is impossible, so also is a second Voltaire.
On the other hand, conservative Secularism, seeking religious
rest but finding none, is steadily increasing. It includes within
its ranks some of the most eminent scientific men of our day,
large numbers from  the medical and legal professions and
among politicians; together with some worthy and respected
divines. t Especially among English artisans and working
* Lecky defines it to be " a bias of reasoning which has during the
last three centuries gained a marked ascendency in Europe.
It leads men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the
dictates of reason and of conscience, and, as a necessary consequence,
greatly to restrict its influence upon life. It predisposes men, in history, to attribute all kinds of phenomena to natural rather than miraculous causes; in theology, to esteem succeeding systems the expressions
of the wants and aspirations of that religious sentiment which is planted
in all men; and, in ethics, to regard as duties only those which conscience reveals to be such." —History of Rationalienm il Europe, vol. i.
pp. 16, 17 (of New York Ed. ).
f A few years since I had a long, quiet conversation with a Bishop, who
is held in deservedly high estimation by the orthodox body of Christians
to which he belongs. He introduced the subject of modern Spiritualism, and I asked him in what light he regarded its phenomena. He
answered frankly and satisfactorily. Evidences of infidelity, he said,
were multiplying among us: he had lately heard a professor of Harvard College express the opinion that three-fourths of the scientific
men of our day are unbelievers, and that scepticism is beginning to intrude among the clergy. He told me that he himself, a few weeks before, had visited the death-bed of an aged brother in the ministry; a




216                SECULARlISI IN ENGLAND.
classes generally, this passive phase of irreligion has, of late
years, made rapid strides.*
man who had devoted a long life, with rare faithfulness, to the duties
of his profession. As they spoke of the evidences of Christianity a
shade of sadness passed over the dying man's face: " Ah! Bishop," he
said, " the proof, the proof! If we only had it! "
These and similar experiences had led the Bishop to believe that the
evidences of a future life which satisfied our ancestors are insufficient
to convince some of the most honest and able of their descendants.
Looking around for the remedy, he had asked himself if it would not,
in God's good time, be vouchsafed.  "I look anxiously," he added, " to
Spiritualism and its phenomena for the answer."
* The British government, alive to a sense of the important aid which
civilization may derive from accurate statistics, employed, in making
out the Census of 1851, a staff of forty thousand persons, and obtained,
incidentally much valuable information on religious matters. The
results are condensed in an official Report on Religious Worship made,
in 1853, to the Registrar-General. The Reporter states (p. 58) that
while among the upper classes in England and Wales " a regular churchattendance is now ranked among the recognized proprieties of life," it
is the great body of the people who chiefly absent themselves from
public worship. He goes on to say, as to artisans and other workmen:
" From whatever cause,-in them or in the manner of their treatment
by religious bodies-it is sadly certain that this vast, intelligent, and
growingly important section of our countrymen is thoroughly estranged
from our religious institutions in their present aspect.... Probably the prevalence of infidelity has been exaggerated, if the word be
taken in its popular meaning, as implying some degree of intellectual
effort and decision; but, no doubt, a great extent of negative, inert indifference prevails, the practical effects of which are much the same.
There is a sect, originated recently, adherents to a system  called
" Secularism;" the principle tenet being that, as the fact of a future
life is (in their view) at all events susceptible of some degree of doubt,
while the fact and the necessities of a present life are matters of direct
sensation, it is therefore prudent to attend exclusively to the concerns
of that existence which is certain and immediate-not wasting energies
required for present duties by a preparation for remote, and merely
possible, contingencies. This is the creed which probably with most
exactness indicates the faith which, virtually though not professedly, is
entertained by the masses of our working population. "-Report on




A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY LOST.                 217
(II.) Except in restricting the attribute of infallibility to the
Church speaking through CEcumenical Councils, and in steadily
rejecting the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff,* the variations
in doctrine between the Greek and Latin branches of the Catholic Church are non-essential; consisting chiefly in this,that,
while admitting church traditions, the seven sacraments, a mild
phase of original sin, and an intermediate state, the Oriental
Churches scruple about a Purgatory with flames and the efficacy
of private rhasses for the dead, t and (dropping the filioque of
the Council of Constantinople) hold that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only.
With variances in doctrine so inconsiderable, the Greek and
Roman Churches, after their eight centuries of separation,
might, in a tolerant age like this, have united their two hundred and eighty millions of believers in one vast, harmonious
body, had the present Pope but pursued a conciliatory line of
policy. A few timely concessions to the spirit of the age
would, at this juncture, have incalculably strengthened the
Papal influence. But this was not to be. In December, 1867,
the Austrian Government passed a law declaring freedom of religious opinion, with liberty of the press; and granting to all
Religious Worship made by HORACE MANN, barrister of Lincoln's Inn,
to the Registrar-General, under date December 8, 1853.
For a statement, from the same Census, of the average attendance
at church or chapel, as ascertained on a particular Sunday all over
England and Wales, showing how small that attendance is, especially in
free-seated churches, see note on preceding page 159.
* As to the tenets of the Greek Church, Mosheim says: " The Holy
Scriptures and the decrees of the first seven (Ecumenical Councils are
acknowledged by the Greeks as the rule of their faith. It is received,
however, as a maxim established by long custom, that no private person has a right to explain, for himself or others, either the declarations
of Scripture, or the decisions of these Councils; and that the Patriarch,
with his brethren, are alone authorized to consult these oracles and declare their meaning."-MosHEIM: Eccl. Hist. iii. 483, 484.
+ Thus incurring the anathema of Rome: " Si quis dixerit Missaw
sacrificium... non pro defunctis offerri debere: anathema sit." —
Concil Trident: cap. ix. can. 3.
10




218    TIlE POPE AND THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT.
sects the right of establishing schools and colleges and of teaching their own tenets there. This was followed, in May, 1868,
by another statute, legalizing civil marriage, and transferring
from the ecclesiastical to the civil authorities the general
supervision of public instruction. This enlightened policy
proved deadly offence at Rome. The Pope delivered an Allocution (June 2, 1868), in which he took occasion to "' reprove
and condemn those abominable laws," as in flagrant contradiction to the Catholic religion, the power of the Apostolic See
and "natural right itself; " and went on to declare the said
laws null and void. Austria replied that the Holy See was'
extending its strictures to objects not within its jurisdiction;
and added: " We shall none the less persevere in the way we
have begun." A powerful empire virtually lost by this!
Then followed the Council of the Vatican. To this the Patriarchs and Bishops of the Greek Church were, indeed, invited;
but the invitation was coupled with the odious reminder that
their Church, in seceding from that of Rome, had been seduced "by the infernal arts and machinations of him who
plotted in Heaven the first schism;" in plain terms, that they
-the said Patriarchs and Bishops-were, so long as they remained insubordinate to Papal authority, the spiritual agents
of the Devil.
Protestants, too, were exhorted to return to the ancient fold;
but what availed exhortation or invitation to them from an
Ecclesiastical Sovereign who, as we have seen,* set out by announcing that he himself was infallible and that all the dogmas
he might dictate were "' irreformable;" following this up by a
curse denounced against all who should prosecute scientific researches beyond the limits of Roman Catholic permission.
But for these capital errors, the "Holy Catholic Church"
might not only have reclaimed the Eastern branch, but possibly have added twenty millions more to her adherents; thus
massing three hundred million souls under her ecclesiastical
* See preceding page 42.




ANGLICAN AND GREEK CHURCHES.              219
standard: for one of the Protestant sects has recently made
certain advances (which have been favorably met) to the Oriental branch of Catholicism.
In the year 1867, the Pan-Anglican Synod caused to be
transmitted, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the
Patriarchs and Bishops of the Greek Church, a Pastoral Letter, setting forth the faith of the Anglican Church and expressing, in general terms, a wish to harmonize and a hope "that
there may be'one flock and one shepherd.' "  This being received favorably and with profound respect, by the Prelates of
the Greek Church, * was followed up, in the Convocation of
Canterbury, assembled July 4, 1868, by a Report declaring the
object to be, not a submission of either Cliurch to the other,
nor a modification of their respective services so as to conform,
but " simply the mutual acknowledgment that all Churches which
are one in the possession of a true Episcopate, one in sacraments
and one in their creed, are, bv their union in their common
Lord, bound to receive one another in full communion in
prayers and sacraments as members of the same household of
faith." The Convocation, accepting this Report, instructed
its President to open negotiations with the Eastern Patriarchs
and Metropolitans, with a view to the establishment of such
relations.
A movement among ourselves in sympathy with this and resembling, the Tractarian agitation which originated at Oxford in
1833, t has already produced considerable excitement. Its
* The Rev. Mr. Williams, an English clergyman, stated, at a meeting
of the "Eastern Church Company " held in 1867, that he had conversed
with the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, who had
expressed their entire approbation of the union; that the Patriarch of
Antioch proposed to establish a school with a Professor of English, as
preparation for it, and that the Metropolitan of Scio had declared to
him his conviction that the time for such a union had arrived.-See
Sc/ln's EGcclesiastical Almanac, 1869, pp. 23, 24.
t Lecky says of the English Tractarian movement: "It produced
a defection which was quite unparalleled in magnitude since that which




220           GREEK AND ROMAN CHUtRCIES.
character may be gleaned from a pamphlet-volume of sermons
delivered three years since by Dr. Ewer, Rector of Christ
Church, New York; in which the ground taken is that the
Episcopal Church always has been a branch of the one Holy
Catholic Church,* infallible t and blessed with Apostolic succession: denying, however, the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff,
holding each branch of the Catholic Church, Latin, Greek, or
Anglican, to be independent; and admitting that extrinsic
abuses had overtaken the Church of Rome. The title of Dr.
Ewer's second sermon, The Anglican Church not Protestant,
sufficiently marks the position which its author assumes.
The later developments from Rome evidently destroy all
hope of Catholic union except between the Greek and Anglican
Churches; and thus, by lack of temper and judgment on the
part of her most powerful branch, the School of Infallibility
has lost the golden opportunity of a gigantic union. Is there
not a great truth underlying the text that God maketh the
wrath of man to praise Him?
I have alreadyl noticed an enlightened movement in the
Anglican Church; a movement opposed to Literalism: opposed
to the doctrine of the Miraculous; opposed, in a general way,
to the dicta of the Infallible School. It is steadily gaining
ground and has evidently the virtual support of the British
Government.  Its loaders have all maintained their official
had taken place under the Stuarts; and which, unlike the former movement, was altogether uninfluenced by sordid considerations."-Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 174.
* Dr. Ewer appeals to the Apostles' Creed, forming part of the Evening Service of the Episcopal Church, wherein we read: "' I believe in
the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints,
etc." In that which is occasionally substituted for it the words are:
"I believe in One Catholic and Apostolic Church."
t " The very infallibility of the Bible demands the infallibility of
the Church; the two stand or fall together."-Sermwons on the Failure
of Protestantism and on Catholicity, by the Rev. Ferdinand C. Ewer,
S.T.D., Rector of Christ Church, New York: sermon ii. p. 34.
t See preceding page 150.




BARCLAY~S APOLOGY.                   221
standing and one of its ablest exponents has become Bishop of
Exeter.
The six or seven million Jews scattered over the world must
be included in the School of Infallibility.
Of the more liberal class of Protestants many, retaining
their denominational position, but rejecting infallibity, have become Spiritualists.  So also have not a few Catholics.  But the
largest accession to the ranks of the Spiritualists has been fiom
the School of Secularism.
(III). Two hundred years ago there sprang up a remarkable
sect.  The people called Quakers were the Spiritualists of the
seventeenth century. Their Luther was George Fox, and their
Calvin was Robert Barclay, a man of some distinction, who
was appointed Governor of New Jersey.* Barclay's " Apology "
was as much the acknowledged text-book for the Quakerism of
his day, as was Calvin's " Institutes" the code of sixteenthcentury Protestantism.
The fundamental doctrine of this people was that an inward,
saving light, or spirit of truth, promised by Christ, and emanating immediately from  God, is the supreme rule of faith: this
light, or spirit, coming to all men who resist it not, and moving
them to virtue and good works.t To the Heathen and the Gen* In 1682; but he served by deputy only.
f The Apology (A.D. 1675), comprehending fifteen Propositions
(Theses Theologica), and copious commentaries thereon, was originally
written in Latin, but afterward translated by its author into English,
and by others into French, German, Spanish, and Dutch. I quote from
an American reprint of Barclay's English version, Philadelphia, 1805:
"The testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God has been, is, and can be only revealed...   By the
revelation of the same Spirit He hath manifested Himself all along unto
the sons of men, both patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; which revelations of God, by the Spirit, whether by outward voices and appearances,
dreams, or inward objective manifestations in the heart, were of old the
formal object of their faith, and remain yet so to be."-Proposition ii.,
p. 17.




222                QUAX 1ER DOCTRINES IN
tiles of old, as to us of to-day,..this personal revelation has been
given; and all who have acted up to the light within, even
tllouh they had never heard of Christ, are therebyj ustified and
saved.*
Barclay alleges that this inward light never contradicts
either natural reason or Scripture; the teachings of Christ and
his apostles being a declaration by the Spirit, and to be reverenced accordingly. Nevertheless, the light within is, to each
man, the primary law, while the Scriptures are to be esteemed
a secondary rule only.t
A  singular element pervaded  this faith.  It ignored the
lively, the humorous, the esthetic; it forbade, not plays and
dancing alone, but music, whether vocal or instrumental. It
interdicted all gamnes, sports, pastimes; even laughter and jest;
holding the fear of God to be the proper recreation of man;
and restricting "lawful divertisements" to visiting, reading
history, speaking soberly of past or present events, gardening,
geometrical and mathematical studies, and the like.  Adopting
Calvin's sumptuary principles, it enjoined grave simplicity and
strict economy in dress, and declared that for Christian women
to plait their hair or wear ornaments was unlawful.:
* "Both Jew and Gentile, Scythian or Barbarian, of whatever
country or kindred,...  may come to walk in this light and be
saved."-pp. 209, 210. " The outward knowledge of Christ's death
and sufferings... we willingly confess to be very profitable and
comfortable, but not absolutely needful unto such from whom God
himself hath withheld it." —Prop. vi., p. 123.
t " The Scriptures of truth... are only a declaration of the
fountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the
adequate primary rule of faith and manners: nevertheless, as that
which giveth a true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, they
are and may be esteemed a secondary rule."-Prop. iii., p. 81.
t " Games and sports, plays, dancing,... consist not with the
gravity and godly fear which the Gospel calls for."-pp. 550, 556.
" As to their artificial music, either by organs or other instruments or
voice, we have neither example nor precept for it in the New Testament."-p. 422. "Laughing, sporting, jesting, etc., is not Christiar




THEIR ORIGINAL FORM.                   223
The first outbreak of Quakerism was powerful: despite bitter
persecution, it spread rapidly and to remote regions. But, for
many years, it has been stationary or declining; the total number
of Quakers throughout the world not exceeding a hundred and
twenty-five thousand: of whom four-fifths inhabit the United
States.*
This phase of Spiritualism has its strong points and its weak
ones: in virtue of the first it made way and prospered; by
reason of the last it suffered arrest and decay.
It asserted, in unqualified terms, liberty of conscience for all
men; t it declared that the Scriptures are not a finality; it subordinated the old-written Word to the Spiritual revealings
daily vouchsafed to mankind- daring opinions these; a noble
stand for the day in which they were announced. But it
fell, in a measure, into the old error of the infallible; for it
held that the light within, guided by which the Evangelists
liberty nor harmless mirth."-p. 529. " The fear of God is the best
recreation."-p. 554.  " Lawful divertisements " are "for friends to
visit one another; to hear or read history; to speak soberly of the
present or past transactions; to follow after gardening; to use geometrical and mathematical experiments, and such other things."-pp. 554,
555. " Christian women ought not to use the plaiting of hair or ornaments, etc.; for the Apostle (1 Peter iii. 3, 4) condemns the use of
them as unlawful."-p. 549.
* In an elaborate paper (published 1869) in the Westminster Rneview,
entitled " The Quakers," and evidently written by one friendly to the
sect, the writer says: " At the present time there are not more than
14,000 Quakers in Great Britain, and 3,000 in Ireland; and they have
at no time exceeded 60,000. There are scarcely any to be found on the
Continent of Europe.
Adopting their own estimate, as given in Schem's Ecclesiastzcal Year
Book (for 1860, page 82), there are 100,000 Quakers in the United
States; chiefly in Pennsylvania (23,000), Indiana (20,000), Ohio (14,000),and New York (10,000).
The total throughout the world seems to fall short of 125,000.
" The forcing of men's consciences is contrary to sound reason and
the very law of nature...    The conscience of man is the seat
and throne of God, of which God is the alone proper and infallible
judge."-Apoogy, pp. 503, 511.




224                 QUAKER MISTAKES.
and Apostles wrote, and which comes to-day to every man who
will seek and receive, is a direct revelation from God; therefore,
in all its teachings, unerringly true. Hence great confusion of
ideas. For truth must always be consistent with itself: but if,
at any time, the light within assent not to every word of Scripture, then one or other must be at fault; and this discordance,
in point of fact, does happen.
Thus the alternative presented itself, to Quaker teachers, either
to admit that the Scriptures are not infallible, or else to assume
as to every man who dissented from any portion whatever of
the written Word, that he had not received the true light. But
this last, making man the arbiter of his neighbor's conscience,
is a direct denial of religious liberty-in other words, it subverts the very foundation of the original Quaker faith.
The practical result has been that the orthodox portion of the
Society of Friends, clinging to the literal infallibility of the
Biblical Record and directly violating not only the great tenet
of their founders, but the express words of Jesus, " Judge
not, that ye be not judged "-now disown all those who " deny
the divinity of Christ or the authenticity of the Scriptures."
They require their members to believe that Jesus Christ was
miraculously conceived; that we have remission of sins through
his blood, that he was a sacrifice for the sins of the world and
now sits, as Mediator between God and MSan, at God's right
hand.*
But, of course, a Spiritual kingdom thus divided against
itself cannot stand. And its decay has been hastened by the
undue importance it attached to trifles, and its narrow-minded
condemnation of innocent gayety and wholesome amusements.
Many of the liberal or Hicksite branch of the Society have
become Spiritualists.
In the eighteenth century, Spiritualism appeared under the
* Article Quakers, American Cyclopedia, vol. xiii. This article was
furnished to the Cyclopedia as an authorized exposition of orthodox
Quaker doctrine at the present day.




SWEDENBORGIANISM.                    225
form of Swedenborgianism.  From Quakerism to Swedenborg
ianism was a great advance.
Fox and Barclay did not recognize communion with the
spirits of the departed, rigidly adhering to the doctrine of agcney
direct from God: they still held to the old Miltonian idea of
angels created such and of a personal Devil; believed in a day
of judgment on which, by the fiat of their Creator, one portion
of mankind was consigned to happiness, another to misery; regarded the next phase of existence as a life without variety of
duties or of enjoyments, and without progress-a life with but
one avocation for each of its denizens-the constant exercise of
worship for the good, the perpetual endurance of torment for
the wicked.
But Emanuel Swedenborg taught that men, in this world,
can have communion with spirits in the next, which communion is reliable and valuable or mischievous and misleading, ac.
cording as men are sensual and worldly-minded or the reverse;
like attracting its like from the world of spirits: * that there
are no angels, created such, whether good or bad, and of course
no fallen angels, nor any Satan, Prince of Hell; self-love being
the only Devil: t that men carry with them to the next world
* To the Rev. Arvid Ferelius Swedenborg said, " that every maa
might have the same spiritual privileges as himself, but the true hindrance is, the eensual state into which mankind has fallen."  To his
friend Robsahm. " A man lays himself open to grievous errors who
tries, by barely natural powers, to explore spiritual things." Wilkinson, one of his best biographers, sums up his views on this subject thus:
"The reason of the danger of man, as at present constituted, speaking
with spirits, is, that we are all in association with our likes, and being
full of evil, these similar spirits, could we face them, would but confirm us in our own state and views. "-WILKINSON: Emanuel Swedenborg, a Biography, London, 1849: pp. 156, 225.
f " There does not exist, in the universal heaven, a single angel who
was created such from the first, nor any devil in Hell who was created
an angel of light and afterwards cast down thither: but all the inhabitants, both of Heaven and Hell, are derived from the human race.
The falsity of evil and Satan are one." —SWEDENBQRG:
Heaven and Hell, London Ed. of 1851, pp. 136, 33. " There is no par
10*




226              WONDERFUL CONCEPTIONS
the leading characteristics which distinguished them  here;*
that Heaven is reached, not by faith nor by baptism, but by a
pure love of truth and goodness; t that love toward God and
the neighbor comprises all Divine truth; j that there exists an
intermediate state, which men enter very soon after death,
where they have free liberty of choice either to walk in the
paths which lead thence to Heaven, or to follow those which
conduct to Hell: ~ that God rewards no one with Heaven, nor
consigns any one to Hell; each spirit being attracted to one region or to the other, according to its ruling loves, just as men
and women in this world are drawn by their dominant desires,
some to virtuous associates, others to the companionship of the
wicked: I that all sufferings in the next world are self-inflicted;
self-love and worldly-mindedness ruling there and constituting
Hell and its flames: T and, finally, that the duties and occupaticular Devil that is Lord in Hell'; but self-love is so called."-SwEDENBORa: Divine Providence, London Ed. of 1857, p. 302.
* "The ruling affection or love of every man remains with him after
death, and is not extirpated to eternity."-Heaven and Hell, p. 167.
f " Heaven is not imparted to any one by baptism, nor yet by faith.
All reach Heaven who have loved truth and good for their own
sake."-I-eaven and IIell, pp. 147, 157.
t " Love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor comprehend in
themselves all divine truths."-H-eaven and I~Iel, p. 10.
~ " The world of spirits is stationed in the midst between Heaven
and Hell.... All are left to their liberty such as they enjoyed
while in the world.... Spirits that are good walk in the ways
which tend toward Heaven; while spirits that are evil walk in the
ways that tend toward Hell." —leaven and Hell, p. 312.
It Swedenborg expressed himself on this subject to Robsahm thus:
"When men first come into the spiritual world, no one thinks of anything but the happiness of Heaven, or the misery of Hell. Soon the
good spirits come to him and instruct him where he is; and he is then
left to follow his own inclinations, which lead him to the place where
he remains forever."-Emanuel Swedenzborg, a Biograph7y, p. 102.
~T " Not any, the smallest portion, of the punishments which spirits
undergo comes from the Lord; but all of it from evil itself.
Self-love and the love of the world... reign in the hells and also




A HUNDRED YEARS OLD.                    227
tions of Heaven are not restricted to a single rite, but are man.
ifold and various, it being a world of activity, of progress, and
4f uses; * and that human affections, alike to God and to his
creatures, are transferred thither, graciously to blossom and expand into more than earthly beauty and purity, and to make
the happiness of that genial paradise for evermore.t
Grand conceptions these! wonderful conceptions, to have
come to us from the frigid North, through a government Assessor of Mines, a more than a century ago.  Golden conceptions
which, had they been laid before the world unmixed with dross
and in a lucid, concise, practical manner, might already have
worked no small revolution in Christian creeds.  But what has
been their fate?
Though Swedenborg was a man of distinction, highly connected,
in favor with his government, invited to the royal table and regarded with respect, in his own country, both by ecclesiastics,
nobles, and men of science, ~ yet, at the outset, Quakerism (reconstitute them...  Infernal fire, or the fire of Hell, is the love
of self and of the world."-l-eaven and Hell, pp. 285, 289, 298.
* "The occupations that exist in the Heavens... are innumerable and vary, also, according to the offices of the various societies.
Every one, there, performs some use; for the Lord's kingdom
is a kingdom of uses."-Ileaven and Hell, p. 181.
f "All delights flow from love.... The delights of the soul
or of the spirit all flow from love to the Lord and toward the neighbor.
In proportion as these two loves are received... the soul
is turned away from the world toward Heaven."-Heaven and Hell,
p. 185.
f Swedenborg, eminent as a man of science, discharged during thirty-one years, the office of Assessor of the Board of Mines, under the
Swedish government. In 1747, giving himself up to spiritual studies,
he resigned the office; but King Frederick, in consideration of his services, continued the full salary during his life.
~ Swredenborg was a scm of the Bishop of Westrogothia, and was
brother-in-law of the Archbishop of Upsal and of Lars Benzelstierna,
Governor of a Province. He was ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora in
1719; and was a member of the Academies of Sciences of Stockholm
and St. Petersburg. In a letter written from London, in 1769, to a




228               SWEDENBORG S FAILURE.
stricted as was its sphere of influence) was a brilliant success
compared to Swedenborgianism. During Swedenborg's life he
does not seem to have made even a single hundred proselytes; *
and his voluminous folios obtain but a passing notice, here and
there, in symbolic history. t Even now, when three or four
generations have passed, the adherents of the Swedish seer,
avowed and unavowed, do not equal in number those of George
Fox: t a mere handful, one may say. During a century of existence the Church of the New Jerusalem hardly exerted a perceptible influence on the religious opinions of the four hundred
millions inhabiting Christendom. It is chiefly during the last
twenty years-and in great part through modern Spiritualism
-that the fundamental truths taught by Swedenborg have been
gradually coming to win the ear and the respect of the civilized
world.
friend who had asked particulars touching himself and his family connections, he says: " I am in friendship with all the bishops of my country, who are ten in number, and also with the sixteen Senators and the
rest of the Peers..... The King and Queen themselves, and also
the three Princes, their sons, show me all kind countenance; and I was
once invited to dine with the King and Queen at their table."-Letter
in London Ed. of 1851 of Hea,len and Heell, pp. 51, 52.
* And, in Swedenborg's own opinion, his system seems to have been
as unpopular in the next world as in this. When General Truxen asked
him how many persons he thought there were in the world who favored
his doctrine, he replied " that there might perhaps be fifty, and in proportion the saime number in the world of spirits."-Swedenborg, a Biograph/y, by Wilkinson, p. 236.
t HAGENBACI{: History of Doctrines, vol. ii. pp. 391, 393, and a few
others.: Through the kindness of the Secretary of the late General Conference of American Swedenborgians, I have (under date January 1, 1871)
the following: "The number of professed Swedenborgians-that is,
persons who openly and publicly proclaim themselves believers in the
doctrines taught by Swedenborg-in this country is not, so far as I can
learn, more than 5,000. In Great Britain there are about 5,000 more,
and in other parts of the world about 1,000. It is our conviction, however, that ten times this number accept Swedenborg's fundamental
doctrines, bat, for various reasons, say little or nothing about it."




SWEDENBORG'S ERRORS.                  229
The dross was the retarding element.  Swedenborg fell deep
into the old, old error —the worst of drosses-the time-honored
delusion of Human Infallibility.  He regarded himself as a
Spiritual Ambassador from God to man; the One specially
selected from the human race to that holy office, by the
Almighty; the first and sole interpreter of the Word of God,
whom the angels themselves dared not instruct in biblical
knowledge, seeing that he was taught and illuminated directly
by the Deity himself.*
The Bible-or the Word, as he usually called it t —he regarded as a species of spiritual palimpsest, the original meaning
covered up from the apprehension of mankind, hid in wisdom
among the angels, and the visible text which overlies it, a series
of Celestial Mysteries, not at all to be interpreted as it reads in
Scripture; t and to which, since the words were first penned,
* He wrote (1769) to Dr. Hartley: " I have been called to a holy office
by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested himself in person
to me, his servant, in 1743." He adds that " God also opened his sight
to the view of the spiritual world and granted him the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels."-Emnanuel Swedenborg (by Wilkinson),
pp. 74, 75. Elsewhere, speaking of his own communion with God and
with the spiritual world, he says: " This has not been granted to any
one since the creation of the world as it has been to me."-Work
quoted, p. 206.
Again, he says: "I have discoursed with spirits and angels now for
several years; nor durst any spirit, neither would any angel, say anything to me, much less instruct me, about anything in the Word; but
the Lord alone, who was revealed to me, and afterward continually
did and does appear before my eyes as the Sun in which He is, even as
Ile appears to the angels, taught me and illuminated me."-Dirine
Providence (published 1764), p. 135.
+ "But Swedenborg rejected, as not directly revealed by God, certain
portions of the Old Testament; and, of the New Testament, he accepted
the four Gospels and the Apocalypse only, as forming a portion of the'present Word.' "-Emanuel Swedenborg, a Biography, pp. 139, 141.. One cannot look into some of Swedenborg's works, especially his
Arcana Cceevstia, without amazement at the character of the Scriptural
interpretations that run through them; and one is forced to the conclusion that these must be accepted, if accepted at all, for a single reason,




230            THE ERRORS WHICH RETARDED
no living creature ever held the secret key, till it was entrusted
by the Creator of the Universe to a Swedish philosopher.* No
candid student of Swedenborg doubts,his sincerity.  Beyond
question, he believed his " Arcana C.celestia" to be written
under the unerring dictation of God.
This capital error-greatest among all religious fallacies of
the past-here produced, as so radical an error always produces, its legitimate results.  Not-strange to say! in the character of the man; it bred in him no- arrogance; he retained his
modest simplicity to the last: the fatal influence was on his system; sapping its cogency, neutralizing the virtue of its fine gold.
From another superstition, also, Swedenborg failed to shake
himself free: he believed, if less rigidly than Calvin, in the
original depravity of mankind.t  Hence his doubts whether
any of his fellow-creatures were worthy to enjoy the spiritual
intercourse which he felt to have been granted, throughout a
quarter of a century, to himself. Ience, too, his belief that
the wickedness of hell was incurable and its punishments without end.
Again, some of the dogmas which he imagined to have reborrowed from one of the old Grecian schools-because " the Master
said it."  Take three or four examples, selected at hap-hazard out of
tens of thousands.  Cows signify "good natural affections" (Divine
Providence, No. 323). A horse means " the understanding of the Word
of God " ( True Christicn Religion, Nos. 113, 277, etc. ). Ishmanel to beget
tzoelve princes denotes "the primary precepts which are of charity"
(Arcana Colestia, No. 2089). Joseph sold to Potiphar is to be interpreted
to mean " the alienation of Divine truths by scientifics" (Arc. Coeest.,
No. 4790). And so on.
* Speaking of his mission as interpreter of the Word, Swedenborg
thus expresses himself: " The laws of Divine Providence, hitherto hid
in wisdom among the angels, are now revealed. "-Angelic Wisdoin concerniny the Divine Providence, London Ed., 1857, p. 70.
t " Every man has hereditary evil, and therefore he is in the concupiscence of many evils...  A man, from himself, cannot do
good.... Thence it is that in man there is no health, or nothing
sound, but tnat he is one entire mass of evil."-Divine Providence,
p. 277.




THE GROWTH OF SWEDENBORGIANISM.              231
ceived from God, were of a character to retard the acceptance
of the truths he taught.  While he rejected the idea of the
Trinity,* or of a Son of God, t he held that Jehovah himself
descended and assumed humanity on our earth, for the purpose
of redeeming mankind, of reducing hell to subjection, and of
re-organizing Heaven: seeing that He could not save His creatures from  damnation in any other way.   Orthodoxy and
Rationalism, of course, alike repudiate this heretical and illogi-'
cal conception.
But the worst results from Swedenborg's master-error were
connectel with that lack of charity which ever follows the insidious illusion of infallibility.  Despite his equable and gentle
character, despite his own tenet that men are not saved by
faith, he was occasionally betrayed into the harshest intolerance.  Speaking of those " who are called in the world Socinians and some of them Arians," he says: " The lot of both is. ha t they are let down into hell among those who deny
God. These are meant by those who blaspheme the Holy
Ghost, who will not be forgiven either in this world or in that
which is to come." ~
* "Scarcely any remains of the Lord's Church are left. This has
come to pass in consequence of separating the Divine Trinity into three
persons, each of which is declared to be God and Lord. Hence a sort
of frenzy has infected the whole system of theology. "-SWEDENBORG:
True Christian Reilgion, London, 1858, p. 4.
"' The idea of a Son born from eternity, descending and assuming
the humanity, must be found to be altogether erroneous.... The
production of a God from a God is a thing impracticable. It is the
same thing whether we use the terms begotten by God or proceeding
from Him."-True Christian Religion, p. 83.
t Swedenborg's doctrine as to the incarnation is this: "Jehovah
himself descended and assumed the humanity." This he did, " that he
might accomplish the work of redemption, which consisted in reducing
the hells to subjection and in bringing the heavens into a new, orderly
arrangement.... God could not redeem mankind, that is deliver
them from damnation and hell, by any other process than that of asssaming the humanity."-True Christian Religion, pp. 81, 84.
~ Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Providence, p. 231.




232            SWEDENBORGIAN INTOLERANCE.
Even worse than this is the cruel spirit, aggravated by the
assumption of false premises, in which he speaks of those whom
he ought to have commended and hailed as spiritual brethren.
We have it under his own hand, as divinely revealed to him,
that the Quaker worship is so execrable and abominable that if
Christians but knew its true character, "they would expel
Quakers from society and permit them to live only among
beasts." *  And this-think of it!-from  one who deemed
himself the penman of God!-the recipient and inditer of truth
unmixed with error!
* In Swedenborg's diary, under date October 29, 1748, he says: "' The
secret worship of the Quakers, sedulously concealed from the world,
was made manifest. It is a worship so wicked, execrable, and abominable, that, were it known to Christians, they would expel Quakers from
society, and permit them to live only among beasts. They have a vile
communion of wives, etc." Again, October 28, 1748: " They are indomitably obstinate in their aversion to having their thoughts and doings made public. They strove with me and the spirits who desired
(but in vain) to know their secrets. "-See Emanuel Swedenborg, his Life
anld W'itinzgs, by WILLIAMf WRIITE, London, 1867, vol. i. p. 386, 387.
The poison of intolerance, in its most malignant type, still works
among a bigoted portion of Swedenborg's followers.  The (London)
In:tellectatal Repository is the accredited organ of ortwodox Swedenborgianism. Its editor (sixteen years since, however,) after stating his
opinion that " spirits, even the highest angels, have nothing to tell us
in relation to doctrine and life but what is revealed in the Word," goes
on to say: "We therefore conclude that it is not only dangerous, but
impious, to seek to have communion with spirits, especially in regard to
anything of doctrine and life." But he does not stop here. He tells
us that there is good reason for the command " so often repeated to
the Chilren of Israel, to put those to death who had familiar spirits
and who were necromancers, or as in the Hebrew text,'asked inquiries
of the dead.' " —latellectutal Repository, vol. for 1855, pp.. 460, 461.
Anything worse than this we may search the records of modem theology
in vain to find.
Such is one phase of this religious movement. There is a second,
directly opposed to the first. Thousands will unite with me in the acknowledgment that some of our best and most enlightened friends are
liberal Swedenborgians.




GROWTH OF SPIRITUALISM.                 233
One reads such passages as these with deep regret that a man
so eminently wise in many things should have strayed, in
others, so far from charity and common sense.  Yet perhaps it
was best.  The state of society in the middle of the last century may have been such that men could not then safely be
trusted to seek, through communion with the spirit-woirld,
proofs of its existence and information'touching its character
and pursuits.
May we, living in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century,
be trusted in this matter? Can we bear the many things,
promised to us from the spiritual sphere, which Christ's apostles were not yet able to bear, and which our ancestors, of one
or two centuries since, evidently were unfitted to receive?
If it appear that normal spiritual communion, like adult suffrage, is upon us, the fact of its advent will, to a certain extent, be evidence that the world is not wholly unprepared for
its reception.
The character of that reception, too, adds vastly to the evidence for its timeliness. One would think the world must.have been an hungered for the proofs of immortality which
Spiritualism has brought to light. The new faith has overrun,
not our country alone, but every portion of the civilized
world.* At this day, less than a quarter of a century from
* Judge J. W. Edmonds, formerly of the Supreme Bench of New
York, has had more experience among Spiritualists, and a wider correspondence on Spiritualism all over the world, than any one else with
whom I am acquainted. Writing to me in February last, he says: " I
have received letters on the subject, during the last twenty years, from
all parts of the United States, from  England, Ireland, Scotland,
France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Greece, the East Indies, Cuba,
Jamaica, Brazil, Guatemala, Australia, New Zealand, the Sandwich
Islands, the Ionian Islands, Malta, Algiers, and other places that I cannot
now recall." And he mentions having received a letter and book
(published in London, 1865) from an English lady who had spent ten
or twelve years travelling all over Europe, and in Asia and Africa.
From her book he extracts the following:




2.4              NUMBER OF SPIRITUALISTS.
what may be regarded as its inception,* its believers, private
and avowed, probably outnumber, ONE HUNDREDFOLD, the
aggregate to which either of its spiritual predecessors-Quakers or Swedenborgians-ever attained.  The number of those
who accept, more or less unreservedly, its phenomena, may be
safely assumed to exceed, in the United States, seven millions
and a ]alf,t and in the rest of Christendom at least as many
more.
One might have to double this last amount, reaching thirty
millions, to include all in the Christian world whose scepticism in what is called the Supernatural-but what is the lawgoverned Spiritual-has been, chiefly by this movement, more
or less shaken or removed.
The constant increase in the number of Spiritualists is by
no means confined to this country. In London, ten years ago,
" There is scarcely a city or a considerable town in Continental
Europe, at the present moment, where Spiritualists are not reckoned
by hundreds if not by thousands; where regularly-established communities do not habitually meet for spiritual purposes: and they reckon
among them individuals of every class and avocation, and intellects of
the highest order." —Sceptic'om and Spiritualism, or the Experience of a
Sceptic; by the authoress of Aurelia.
* March 31, 1848. See Footfalls, p. 288.
t Judge Edmonds, in a letter to the " Spiritual Magazine " of London, dated May 4, 1867, estimated the number of Spiritualists in the
United States, five years ago, at ten nillions. In a recent letter to
myself he has reiterated the conviction that he had good authority for
such a calculation: adding that he feels assured it is under, rather than
over, the truth. With less extended opportunities of judging than he,
and to avoid chance of exaggeration, I put the number at three-fourths
of that amount only: my own opinion being, however, that this is an
under-estimate.
Those who the most deprecate the influence of modern Spiritualism
are the most ready to confess how far that influence has spread. " The
countless hosts of modern necromancers" is the expression employed
by a religious Quarterly of the day (in a review of Dr. BUSrtTELL'S
Nature and the Sapernatural) to designate the Spiritualists of the
United States.-Theological and Literary Journal for April, 1859, p,
535.




TEMPORARY SCHISM  AMONG SPIRITUALISTS.    235
there was but a single spiritual paper; to-day there are five,*
advocating, for the present, different phases of spiritual belief.
There cannot, of course, be sceptics in immortality, or secularists, among those who admit the phenomena of Spiritualism.
But, for the time, there are those who are termed Christian
Spiritualists, and others, calling themselves Radicals, who look
upon Christ but as one of the ancient philosophers, with no
claim to distinction as a teacher beyond Socrates, Seneca, and a
host of others.
I am convinced that this schism is temporary only.  Spiritualism is the complement of Christianity. Spiritual phenomena
are the witnesses of Christianity. All thoughtful believers in
the epiphanies of Spiritualism will be Christians as soon as they
learn to distinguish between the simple grandeur of Christ's
teachings, as embodied in the synoptical Gospels, and' the
Augustinian version of St. Paul's theology, as adopted in one
form by the Church of Rome, and in another indorsed by Calvin and Luther: a system  associated with infallibility and
known, among Protestants and Romanists alike, as Orthodoxy.
Spiritual Epiphanism is spreading as fast, probably, as the
world can bear it-as fast as its wisest friends desire; and it
is spreading, as they think, in manner the most desirable: not
as a sect-nor ever, I trust, to become such-not as a separate
Church, with its prescribed creed and its ordained ministers
and its formal professors. It spreads silently through the
agency of daily intercourse, in the privacy of the domestic
circle. It pervades, in one or other of its phases, the best literature of the day. t It invades the Churches already estab* Namely, the Spiritual Magazine, the Spiritualist, the Cri~stian
Spiritualst, Humanr Nature, and the Mfedium  and Daybreak: the
first three representing Christian Spiritualism; the two latter advocating Spiritualism in connection with what are usually termed radical
doctrines.
f Writing this in January, 1871, I call to mind that, within the last
four or five weeks, six stories of apparitions, all seriously and earnestly
narrated, have appeared in one or other of Harpers9 periodicals: one




236          HOW SPIRITUALIS.M SPREADS.
lished, not as an opponent but as an ally. Its tendency is to
modify the creed and soften the asperities, of Protestant and
Romanist, of Presbyterian and Episcopalian, of Baptist antd
Methodist, of Unitarian and Universalist.  Its tendency is to
leaven, with invigorating and spiritualizing effect, the religious
sentiment of the age, increasing its vitality, enlivening its convictions.
I would not be understood, however, as expecting that
Spiritualism will effect all this except in measure as its rich
mines are wisely worked; nor as asserting, in a general way,
that we of the present age are worthy recipients of its revealings. There are millions of men and women among us who
lack the judgment needed to prosecute spiritual research, just
as there are millions more who have not the culture necessary
to exercise judiciously the right to vote. In either case there
is but one remedy: the millions must be educated up to the
occasion.
Spiritual manifestations are more inevitable than universal
suffrage; for a majority, if it see fit, can limit the elective
franchise: but no majority, be it ever so large, can summon,
or can exclude, the most important among the epiphanies of
Spiritualism. If dreams do, sometimes, supply warning or
prophecy; if material objects are, occasionally, moved before
our eyes by powers not of this world; if houses really are
what is termed haunted, without human agency; if the spirits
of those whom we call dead do, at times, reveal themselves by
influence, or by intelligent sounds, or by actual apparition as
did Christ to assure his disciples of immortality-what power
leading to the detection of a murder; three others (supplement to
Harper's Weekly of December 24, 1870, p. 846) from the pen of Florence Marryat, daughter of the celebrated novelist: one of these last
having been witnessed by Captain Marryat himself, and all, the writer
says, being " strictly true and well authenticated." But no periodicals
of our country are conducted with better judgment, nor with stricter
regard to the demands of public sentiment, than those issued by the
Harpers.




1OW SPIRITUALISM SHOULD BE STUDIED.          237
have we weak mortals, who must sit still and see winds and
waves fulfil their mission, to control the agency of disembodied
spirits? Shall we set about considering whether we shall
accept the epiphany of the rainbow or the apparition of the
Aurora Borealis?
If the belief in the phenomena called Spiritual be a delusion
of the senses, it will come to naught; if it be of God we cannot arrest its advent. We llay receive it unwisely, interpret
it ignorantly, treat it with distrust or with levity; or we may
examine its phenomena in a patient and catholic spirit of inquiry, in manner suited to its sacred claims: that is all. And
it is inexpressibly important that it find us with our lights
burning. If we seek it, darkling; if we meet it, insensible to
its high character; it may prove a bane instead of a blessing.
That the Spiritualists of our day need wise advice and prudent cautions; that some of them run into extravagance and
misconceive alike the objects of spiritual research and the
fitting mode of conducting it; that their ranks have been invaded by thousands of waifs and strays, possessed by vagrant
and fantastic opinions-is but what happens in all great revolutions of opinion, political or religious; is but that which
befel the German Reformers of the sixteenth century and the
French Revolutionists of the eighteenth. The wild waves of
freedom, as some one has suggested, occasionally cast their
blinding spray beyond legitimate bound.  But time brings
counsel.
Nor is it reasonable to expect that Spiritualism's best fruits
should be obtained in their maturity, at this early stage of
their culture; much less do I assume here to produce them.
If, even, by length of experience and profundity of research,
I had become fully competent to set forth all the conditions
necessary to obtain the surest and most useful results from the
manifestations of Spiritualism, it would require a volume to
contain a detailed statement of these conditions, properly evidenced and illustrated. But, though I have faithfully expended the leisure which fifteen years of active life left me, in




238            HINTS AND WARNINGS AS TO
this study, I am far indeed from being thus competent: not
do I believe that any man living yet is. Such knowledge must
come, like all important knowledge, through the labors of many
and the gradual unfoldings of time.
Such hints and warnings as seemed to me the most important I have already given; as that the Spiritualist must beware of the temptation to imagine that he is obtaining revealings direct from  God, or from any person of the Godhead, or
from any other infallible source. Let him rest satisfied if he
obtain sure proof of immortality: that is the pearl of great
price, to become the possessor of which no efforts are too arduous, no pains too great. For the rest he must trust to general
precepts and advices, tested and approved by reason and conscience. Every profound student of Nature becomes convinced
that infallible teachings touching the details of human conduct and earthly affairs do not enter into the economy of the
universe.
Especially should the Spiritualist be on his guard against
seeking worldly wealth and profit through spiritual revealings.
The very attempt tends to attract spirits of a low order. The
medium who submits to it incurs grave dangers; while the
votary puts himself in the sure road to delusion and disappointment. * A medium who is true to his high trust will refuse to enter a path thus perilous and misleading. t  If, some* But that space fails me I could adduce numerous examples in proof
of this.
t An anecdote, in this connection, may be worth relating. In the
spring of 1858, we had several sittings in my apartments in the Palazzo
Valli, Naples. with the celebrated medium, Mr. Home; at which sittings the Count d'Aquila (or, as we usually called him, Prince Luigi,
third brother of the then reigning King of Naples), at his own suggestion, assisted; no one else except my family being present. It was
thought by some that, in case of a revolution, the Prince's chance to
succeed his brother on the throne was good; and he asked Mr. Home to
obtain for him an answer to a question which, though cautiouslyworded,
evidently looked to the succession. " I know," said Mr. Home, in reply, " that your Royal Highness will pardon me for saying that such an




MODE OF STUDYING SPIRITUALISM.            239
times when all human effort has failed, spiritual aid or advice
in such matters is volunteered, it should, even then, be received with great caution.  Money-changers are out of place
in the spiritual temple. Man's destiny is to earn his bread by
industry, not by divination.
Still another warning is greatly needed. The most experienced Spiritualists believe that no one, though actuated by the
purest motives, can abandon himself to influences from the
next world, exclusively and throughout a long term of years
(for instance as Swedenborg did), without risk of serious injury
and without imminent danger of being, more or less frequently,
misled. Secularism is lamentably in error when she teaches
that it is the part of wisdom to live here without taking
thought, or seeking to fit ourselves, for a hereafter: but, on
the other hand, it is true that earth-life and its duties are an
indispensable preparation for our next phase of being. Each
world, like each age of man, has its own sphere with appropriate duties, to be fulfilled with reference the one to the other,
but not to be interchanged. If, in infancy, dreaming constantly
of manhood and its privileges, we neglect the culture and pursuits which pertain to childhood, we shall suffer for it in our
adult years; and it is doubtful whether any development in
the next world can fully compensate for neglected opportunities
of improvement and of usefulness in this. If, while here, we
do not habitually avail ourselves of such opportunities, it may
be assumed as certain that we shall die at last, like hermits
after a barren life in the desert, utterly unfitted for our future
homes.
Again: Exclusive devotion to meditations, or to spiritinquiry ought not to be made of the spirits. It is their office to supply
us with spiritual knowledge, not to satisfy curiosity about worldly concerns."
"Yon are quite right, Mr. Home," replied Prince Luigi, "and I
thank you for speaking so plainly."
A reproof and a reply which, considering the circumstances, were
equally honorable to the' medium and to the Prince.




240     SPIRITUAL AND THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
influences, connected with the next world, gives birth, fil
Spiritualism as in Theology, to a vague and heavy literature,
in which common sense has small part. Nevertheless slurs
against the current effusions of Spiritualism come with a bad
grace from those, standing afar off, who have never lifted a
finger to sift profitable friom worthless, or done aught, in any
way, to purify or improve what they condemn.
The space I allotted to this branch of the subject is exhausted;
and perhaps I have said enough toward marking the importance of this phenomenal movement, and assigning to Spiritualism itself definite character and fitting place among the religious
beliefs of the day. Though not a sect, it is doubtful whether
any sect, exerting peaceful influence only, ever spread with the
same rapidity, or made its mark during so brief an existence,
on the hearts of so considerable a fraction of mankind. Already it begins to assert its position. Though its truths are
disputed still, yet, except by the ignorant or the hopelessly
bigoted, they are not despised. The idea is daily gaining
ground that its occult agencies may richly repay earnest research. The essential is that the entire subject should be
studied in its broad phase, as one of the vital elements of an
enlightened Christian faith.




CHAPTER III.
OF INSPIRATION.
"That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us." —LONGFELLOW.
" There does not appear the least intimation in history or traditior
that religion was first reasoned out: but the whole of history and tra.
dition makes for the other side, that it came into the world by revelation. Indeed the state of religion in the first ages of which we have
any account, seems to suppose and intimate that this was the original
of it among mankind." —BUTLER.*
THE subject of Inspiration, like that of the signs and wonders
of the Gospels and of the spiritual gifts commended by Paul,
has usually fallen into very injudicious hands. Its would-be
friends have done it far more harm than its opponents. The
rationalistic spirit of the age is disposed to reject it; and the
chief reason for this is the extravagance, and the exclusive
character, of the claims put forward in its behalf by theologians.
Protestant Orthodoxy claims that it is an exceptional and
miraculous gift of God, granted to man during one century only
of the last eighteen; and then granted only to the Author of
* Analogy of Religion, part ii. chap. 2; pp. 195-6 (of London Ed. of
1809). See, in corroboration, pp. 139, 140. See also, on the sane
subject, preceding page of this volume, 169.
11




242               WIIAT INSPIRATION IS.
our religion and to eight others; namely, to the four Evangel
ists and to St. Paul, St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude.*
Roman Catholic Orthodoxy claims that this miraculous gift
of God has been granted throughout the whole of the last eighteen centuries; but, during the last seventeen of these, only to
one ecclesiastical jurisdiction; namely, to the Holy Catholic
Church.
Both Orthodoxies, though differing on so many other points,
agree in claiming for Inspiration that it is a direct gift of God
and the source of unmixed, unerring truth.
Loaded down by claims so unphilosophical as these, we need
not wonder that Inspiration is rejected as a fallacy by many of
the most earnest and thoughtful minds of the day. When Science fully awakes to the fact that there may, as part of the
cosmical plan, be intermundane as well as mundane phenomena,
much of this growing scepticism will be dissipated. Before
this can happen, however, we must discard the orthodox definition of Inspiration, and adopt one more in accordance with the
enlightened spirit of the age; somewhat, perhaps, in this
wise:
It is a mental or psychical phenomenon, strictly law-governed; occasional, but not exceptional or exclusive; sometimes of a spiritual and ultramundane character, indeed, but
never miraculous; often imparting invaluable knowledge to
man, but never infallible teachings; one of the most precious
of all God's gifts to His creatures, but, in no case, involving a
direct message from Him-a message to be accepted, unquestioned by reason or conscience, as Divine truth unmixed with
human error.
To this it may be added, in accordance with Bishop Butler's
* It may, however, properly be added that Protestantism claims that
the majority of a certain OEcumenical Council was inspired by God in
one of its acts; namely, the Council of Carthage when, at the close of
the fourth century, it established the Canon of Scripture. For, unless
this be admitted, there is no sure proof that the Bible, as now canonically constructed, is a miraculously inspired volume.




INSPIRATION THE SOURCE OF ALL RELIGIONS.   243
views, that Inspiration is the source not of one religion alone,
but, in phase more or less pure, of all religions, ancient or
modern, that have held persistent sway over any considerable
portion of mankind. And just in proportion to the relative purity of this source, welling up in each system of faith
respectively, is the larger or smaller admixture of the Good
and the True which-modern candor is learning to admit-is
to be found, in certain measure, even in the rudest creed; as
Lowell has it:
"Each form of worship that hath swayed
The life of man, and given it to grasp
The master-key of knowledge, reverence,
Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right." *
Among those who adopt this broad view of Inspiration as a
universal agency, there are two different opinions touching its
origin: one class of reasoners (including many students of vital
magnetism) tracing it to a peculiar condition of the mind, while
others seek its source in some occult intelligence outside of the
individual, and operating upon him.  My own conviction is,
that there is truth in both theories. Inspiration is a phenomenon sometimes purely psychical, correlative with clearsight
(clairvoyance), and appertaining to the department of Mental
Science; t sometimes produced by influences from the next
world, and to be referred to Spiritualism.
* It is a cheering sign of the times when a clergyman of one persuasion issues a series of sermons, in which he recognizes and sets forth
the excellence of Churches other than his own, prefaced with the remark that " a good man's home is the more delightful as he calls to
mind that the world is full of good homes; and that millions are as
happy as he."  The Rev. THOMAS K. BEECHiER (of Elmira, New York),
has done this, in a small volume entitled Our Seven Churches (New
York, 1870): including, among the seven, the Church of Rome.
t Andrew Jackson Davis, the well-known author of Nature's Divine
Revelation, is often quoted as having written that work under dictation
of spirits. But he himself declares-correctly, no doubt-that it was




244           SOCRATES REGIARDS AN ATHENIAIV
Among the ancient philosophers there were those who, more
or less distinctly, detected its existence; some in one of its
forms, some in the other. I have space but for a single specimen of each.
The most illustrious example comes to us from One who has
not inaptly been called the Father of Moral Philosophy, and
who was the Spiritualist of the age in which he lived. In regard to Inspiration, Socrates, unless Plato has belied him,
adopted the spiritual theory.
Among the celebrated Dialogues of Plato is one in which the
interlocutors are Socrates and Ion, an Athenian declaimer or
rhapsodist who had been in the habit, in his public harangues,
of introducing copious and beautiful illustrations of Homer.
Alluding to the great success these had obtained, and to the
fact that, when he attempted to illustrate other poets, all his
efforts failed, Ion asks of Socrates an explanation of this distinction. Socrates replies:
" I will tell you, O Ion, what appears to me to be the cause
of this inequality of power. It is that you are not master of
any art for the illustration of Homer; but it is a Divine influence which moves you, like that which resides in the stone
called magnet by Euripides." *
Socrates, then, in further explanation, adds: " The authors
of these great poems which we admire do not attain to excellence through the rules of art, but they utter their beautiful
melodies of verse in a state of inspiration and, as it were, possessed by a Spirit not their own."
Then he inquires of Ion: " Tell me, and do not conceal
written in a state of clairvoyance, or as he phrases it, in "the superior
condition." The distinction between clearsight and mediumship is important.
* It is noteworthy that, twenty-two centuries since, a philosopher
detected the connection between magnetism (though only in its terrestrial phase) and that state of mind which frequently gives birth to inspiration. How much Reichenbach's experiments would have interested Socrates I




DECLAIMERK TO BE INSPIRED BY HOMER.           245
what I ask.  When you declaim well and strike your audience
with admiration; whether you sing of Ulysses rushing upon
the threshold of his palace, discovering himself to the suitors
and pouring his shafts out at his feet; or of Achilles assailing
Hector; or those affecting passages. concerning Andromache, or
Hecuba, or Priam-are you then self-possessed? or, rather,
are you not rapt and filled with such enthusiasm by the deeds
you recite, that you fancy yourself in Ithaca or Troy, or whereover else the poem transports you? "
ION. " You speak most truly, Socrates."
The sage then gives his explanation.' You, O Ion, are influenced by Homer. If you recite the works of any other poet,
you get drowsy and are at a loss what to say; but when you
hear any of the compositions of that poet, your thoughts are
excited and you grow eloquent.             This explains the
question you asked wherefore Homer and no other poet inspires
you with eloquence: it is that you are thus excellent not by
science but through Divine inspiration."'
The expression (ascribed, as above, by Plato to Socrates),'"you are influenced by Homer," is very remarkable: it embodies the cardinal doctrine of Spiritualism.
The philosopher had the best of all reasons for adopting this
view of the case; namely, his own personal experience. This
leads me to speak of
* "Ion,"  or of Inspiration. I have here followed the translation
adopted by G. H. Lewis in his " History of Philosophy," series i. The
above extracts and many others in corroboration, may there be found.
The authenticity of this dialogue, as written by Plato, is'admitted on
all hands. It contains, of course, only a narration of Socrates' opinions,
not an indorsement of them by the narrator. Yet they seem to have
been substantially shared by Socrates' illustrious pupil.  An enlightened church historian says: " Plato's speculations rested on a basis
altogether historical. He connected himself with the actual phenomena
of religious life and with the traditions lying before him.... It
still continued to be the aim of original Platonism to trace throughout
history the vestiges of a connection between the visible and invisible
worlds."-NEANDER: Churc7h History (Bohn's Ed.), vol. i. p. 26.




246           SOCRATES BEFORE HIS JUDGES.
THE GENIUS, OR DEMON, OF SOCRATES.*
For particulars touching the noted Guardian Spirit or Demon
(Daimonion) of Socrates, we are indebted to the same eminent
authority through which most of the opinions spoken but not
set down by the martyr-philosopher himself, have reached us.
Though alluded to elsewhere in Plato's writings,t the most
direct and reliable account of this spirit-voice and its warnings
is to be found in the "Apology," written immediately after the
death of Socrates. In this paper, the only strictly authentic
record we possess of that philosopher's defence before his judges,
Plato, who was present at his trial, may surely be trusted as
having reproduced, with fidelity, the statements made, and the
arguments employed, on that memorable occasion, by the master he loved.
Among the charges preferred against Socrates had been set
out his pretence of communicating with a familiar spirit.  In
connection with this, and alluding to the fact that he had
taught in private, not delivered orations in popular assemblies,
Socrates said to his judges:
" The cause of this is what you have often and in many
places heard me mention: because I am moved by a certain
divine and spiritual influence, which also Melitus, through
mockery, has set out in the indictment. This began with me
fiom childhood: being a kind of voice which, when present, is
wount to divert me from what I am about to do, but which
* It need hardly be stated that Demon is here employed, as usual in
Grecian mythology, in the sense of a divinity below the great godl
Thus in Cooke's Hesiod:' Holy demons, by great Jove designed
To be on earth the guardians of mankind."
f As in the First Alcibiades, ~ 1. Also, at length, in the Theages, ~~
10, 11.
To the same subject Xenophon alludes in his Memoirs of Socrates,
Book i.,  1: where he says that those who neglected the warnings of
Socrates' Genius " had no small cause for repentance."




SOCRATES BEFORE IIIS JUDGES.            247
never urges me on. This it was which opposed my meddling
in public politics." *
Another allusion to the same subject, more solemn, pronounced in the immediate prospect of death after a majority
of his judges had passed sentence upon him, is as follows:
" To me, O my judges, a strange thing has happened. For
the wonted prophetic voice of my guardian deity, on every
former occasion even in the most trifling affairs, opposed me if
I was about to do anything wrong. But now, when that has
befallen me which ye yourselves behold-a thing which is supposed to be the extremity of evil-neither did the warning of
the God oppose me when I departed from home this morning,
nor yet while I addressed you, though it has often restrained
me in the midst of speaking. What do I suppose to be the
cause of this?... That which has befallen me is not
the effect of chance: but this is clear to me that now to
die and be freed from my cares is better for me. On this ac
count the warning in no way turned me aside." t
The sincerity of the philosopher when he said this cannot
rationally be doubted. He must be a stubborn or a thoughtless
sceptic who assumes the ground that a man like Socrates, about
to die because he would not purchase life by desisting from
teaching what he felt to be good and just, would, at such a
moment, swerve a hairbreadth from the strict truth. J
According to what rational canon of evidence can we reject
such testimony as this?  The most candid among modern his* Apology, ~ 19.
Apology,,     31, 33. See also, as to that matter, PLUTARCM, De
Gentio Socrates, c. 20; and APULEIUS, Do Deo Socratis.
t Seldom in any age, by sage or martyr, has nobler sentiment been
uttered than by Socrates on his trial, in reply to the charge of impiety:
" If it is your wish to acquit me on condition that I henceforth be
silent, I reply that I love and honor you, but that I ought rather to
obey the gods than you. Neither in the presence of judges nor of the
enemy is it permitted me, or any other man, to use every sort of means
to escape death. It is not deatli but crime that it behooves us to avoid 
crilme moves faster than death."




248            SOCRATES AND CICERO ON TIIE
torians of' philosophy admit that the proof is conclusive.*
Lewis, who will certainly not be accused of superstition or
credulity, alluding, in his History of Philosophy, to Socrates'
belief that he was warned, from time to time, by a Divine
voice, says: " This is his own explicit statement; and surely, in
a Christian country, abounding in examples of persons believing
in direct intimations from above, there can be little difficulty in
crediting such a statement." t
To what extent Socrates owed his views on immortality and
a future life to his Guardian Spirit we can never know; nor is
it likely that he himself could have determined. He seems to
have regarded that influence as one sent to warn rather than to
teach.  Yet it would be strange if, twenty-three centuries ago,
he had groped his way, unaided, to truths which we scarcely
recognize to-day. Take, in addition to the foregoing, the following example:
" When does the soul attain to the truth?  For when it attempts to investigate anything along with the body, it is plain
that it is theIn led astray by it.... The soul reasons most
effectually when none of the corporeal senses harass it; neither
hearing, sight, pain or pleasure of any kind; but it retires as
much as possible within itself, and aims at the knowledge of
what is real, taking leave of the body and, as far as it can, abstaining from any union or participation with it." ~
* AS STANLEY, in his Hlistory of Philosophy, London, 1856. He there
says: " We have the testimony of Plato and Xenophon, contemporary
with him, confirmed by Plutarch, Cicero, and other reliable authorities,
to say nothing of Tertullian, Origen, and others of the Ancient Fathers,
that Socrates had an attendant Spirit, which walred him of danger and
misfoitune."-Chap. vi. p. 19.. G. II. LEWIS: Biographical hIistory of Philosophy, London 2d Ed.,
1857, p. 141., Pacedo, ~ 10. I have followed Stanford's translation.
It is worth noting, however, that Socrates (if he be correctly reported),
following out; this idea, strayed, as many noble souls have strayed, into
the barren regions of asceticism and abstraction; forbidding use, lest
abuse should follow. He sought wisdom through deliverance " frolr




DISJOINING OF SOUL AND BODY.              249
HIere M e have the germ of the apneumatic or psychical view
of Inspiration. Cicero, in a later age, enlarged on this. The
following remarkable passage, literally translated, is from his
"Tusculan Questions."
" What else do we do, when from pleasure, that is from the
body, when from common affairs which minister to the body,
when from public duties, when from all business whatever, we
call off the soul-what, I say, is it that we then do, other than
to recall the soul to itself and to self-communion; and to lead
it in a great degree away from the body? But to segregate the
soul from the body, can it be anything else than a learning how
to die? (nee quidquam aliud est quam emori discere?) Wherefore, believe me, we should lay this to heart, and disjoin ourselves from our bodies; that is, we should accustom  ourselves
to die (disj ungamusque nos a corporibus; id est, consuescamLus
mori).  And thus, while we remain on earth, it will be as if
we approached celestial life; and when at last we are released
from earthly bonds, the exit of the soul will thereby be less retarded." *
The " accustoming ourselves to die" is somewhat fanciful;
yet the expression is, in a measure, borne out by some of the
phenomena of Vital Magnetism.  When artificial somnambulism deepens into what French magnetizers call extase-that is,
profound trance-the bands which connect soul and body seem
to be greatly loosened; a strong desire sometimes shows itself
in the subject to escape from earth to a brighter world; and if,
through inexperience or inadvertence of the operator, this deep
the irrationality of the body;" thought we should "study to live as
though on the very confines of death;" and advises " to use reflection
alone and unalloyed, endeavoring to investigate every reality by itself
and unmixed, abstaining as much as possible from the use of the eyes,
and in a word of every part of the body, as confounding the soul and,
when united with it, preventing its attainment to wisdom and truth."Phccdo, ~~ 10, 11, 12.
He did not recognize the essential value and uses of earth-life, noi
the importance of teachings through the senses.
* Tuscul. Qucest., lib. i. ~ 31.
11*




250              A FRENCII MAGNETIZER
trance is too much prolonged, death may actually ensue. I
was told, in Paris, that several such cases had occurred; but
the names of the parties, as may be supposed, were kept secret.
An instance in which a somnambule * had a. narrow escape is
related by a French magnetizer, author of a curious work on
the "Secrets of the Future Life."  He had two lucid somnambules; one a youth named Bruno, the other, Adele, a woman
in humble circumstances (" simple ouvriire comme moi," he says
of her), not a professional medium nor ever taking money for the
exercise of her gift, but who had been, from infancy, a natural
somnambulist.
One day he had magnetized both simultaneously, desiring to
compare their impressions and to satisfy his doubts whether there
was danger in carrying the state of extase too far. He brought
Bruno into magnetic relation with Adele, telling him to observe
what became of her. While occupied during some time with the
young man, he (Bruno) suddenly cried out: " I've lost sight of
her; awake her; there's but just time." Alarmed, the magnetizer turned his attention to Addle whom, for a quarter of an
hour, he had left to herself. I translate the rest from his own
words: " In that short time her body had become almost icy
cold; I could detect neither pulse nor respiration; her face was
of a yellowish green, the lips blue, the heart gave no sign of
life. A mirror which I approached to her lips remained undimmed. I magnetized her with my utmost force, hoping to
revive her; but, during five minutes, without any effect whatever. Bruno and several persons who were assisting at the
sitting added, by their terror, to my discomfiture; and, for a
moment, I thought all was over and that the soul, in very deed,
had left its body. I begged all present to.pass into the next
room, so as to recover my energy; but, though hope still lingered, I felt powerless. Throwing myself on my knees, I im* I adopt, from the French, the term somnambule, to designate a
patient under the influence of artificially-induced somnambulism; restricting the meaning of the more usual word somnambulist to a natural
sleep-walker.




BECOMES GREATLY ALARMED.                 251
plored God not to suffer that soul, a victim of my doubts, tc
pass away.  After a brief period of anguish, I heard the low
words: " Why did you recall me? It was all but done, when
God, touched by your prayer, sent me back." *
The author adds: " I entreat those who might be tempted to
risk a similar experiment to desist. A more terrible spectacle
cannot be witnessed; and the issue, in their case, might be less
fortunate than in mine."
On a previous occasion, Adele being in the state of extase,
there had appeared to her, and conversed with her (as she believed), her mother and two deceased brothers. The following
conversation between her and her magnetizer then ensued:
" Ah, how I should like to be with them! Let me go; I
shall soon be in Heaven."
"Very generous of you! And what shall I do with your
body?"
"Have it buried, or disposed of as you please."
"And the officers of justice, what am I to say to them?"
" Tell them, I'm gone." t
That there is, during magnetic sleep, a modification of the
normal relations between soul and body, is further attested by
the insensibility to outward sounds and to pain, even the most
acute, which sometimes supervenes. l One cannot read the
* CAAIIGNET: Arcanes de la Vie Future devoiles, Paris, 1848; vol. i.
pp. 117, 118. This work went to press in December, 1847, some months
before even the name of:"Rochester Knockings" had been heard
among us. Yet Cahagnet registers full details of communications made
to his somnambules by eighty different spirits of the departed; and the
identity of several among these he considers positively proved.
t Work quoted: vol. i. pp. 90, 91.
t As early as the year 1846, there was performed at Cherbourg (the
well-known French port in the Department de la Manche), a surgical
operation of the most painful character, affording proof that the phenomena above alluded td are real. The official record of this operation,
sigsed by fifty-two witnesses present, was published in the Journal dd
Cherbourg, and in the Phcare de la lManche of September 25, 1846.
This proce-s-zerbal was drawn up from notes taken on the spot by x.




252         GREATLY INCREASED INTELLIGENCE
best works on Magnetism without comingp upon- strong reasons
for the belief that, in the profound magnetic trance, there is a
certain recession of the soul from its earthly minister and an
approach to that stage of existence, soon to come, when what
St. Paul calls the " natural body" will be wholly discarded.
Another phenomenon is now proved beyond reasonable denial; namely, that, during this partial segregation of the soul
from  physical impressions and worldly concerns, its native
powers, less subjected, it would seem, to the earth-clog that
habitually weighs upon them, exhibit clearer perceptions and
higher knowledge.  This occurs when, as Socrates expressed
it, the soul "retires within itself," or, as Cicero phrases it,
when we "recall the soul to itself, and to self-communion;"
whether this be (lone artificially (as by magnetic passes), or
whether it happen in a more normal condition of the body, by
natural idiosyncrasy.
The most modest and cautious of writers on Vital Magnetism, Dr. Bertrand,* has well defined this state, when artificially superinduced: "The somnambule," he says, "acquires
new perceptions furnished by interior organs; and the succession of these perceptions constitutes a new life, differing from
that which we habitually enjoy: in that new life come to light
phases of knowledge differing from  those which our ordinary
sensations convey to us." t
I myself have, on many occasions, verified this phenomenon
of what may be called double-consciousness, I attended by exalShevrel, advocate and member of the Municipal Council of Cherbourg;
and to its scrupulous accuracy the signatures of the witnesses testify.
I should here give this proces-verbal but for its length, and for the
fact that enlightened physicians no longer deny the reality of this phenomenon.
* Member of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and formerly a pupil
of the Polytechnic School.
f BERTRAND: "Trait6 du Somnambulisme," Paris, 1823; pp. 469,
470.
4 An interesting case of natural double-consciousness, continued
throughout fifteen years, is related by the Roev. Dr. Plumer, in IIHarprs
Monthly for May, 1860, page 807. It is suggestive.




IN THE SOMNAMBULIC STATE.                 253
tation of intelligence in the abnormal state. But others can
speak, as to this, from a much wider range of experience than
I.  A  physician with whom  I am intimately acquainted-one
among the best known and most successful in New York-and
his wife, having, before the advent of Spiritualism, taken a
deep interest in magnetic phenomena, experimented for about
two years with an American sempstress, moderately educated,
with rather more than the average mental capacity of her class.
He told me that Marian awake and Marian in magnetic sleep
were two persons as far apart by perceptions, intelligence, judgment, as could well be imagined. One day when we were talking of magnetism and its effects, be told me that the girl had
made commentaries upon medical and philosophical subjects,
evincing great profundity and acuteness. On many other subjects she was equally clearsighted.*'While adverting, in connection with the subject of inspiration, to such phenomena as the above, occurring under the operation of a special agency, I bear in mind that the world has
* But here is a supplement to such experience. Dr. Bertrand, speaking of somnambules whose power of, clear-sight in detecting disease had
been satisfactorily verified, relates the following conversation which he
had with one of them:
"Do you see your heart and the blood flowing from it?"
" Yes."
" Can you perceive that it is divided into two cavities?"' Yes, I see one on the right and one on the left."
" Then tell mne, is the blood of the same color on both sides?"
" Yes," she answered in a decided tone, " and to prove to you that it
is, you mnr? bleed me here or here (touching first her right arm then her
left), and you will find the same blood."' This reply," says Bertrand, " plainly showed that this woman imagined there were two cavities in the heart, from one of which flowed
the blood to supply the right side of the body and from the other to
supply the left."-TraitW du Somnambulisme, p. 73.
In all such cases there is the chance of what magnetizers call " imperfect lucidity."  It will not do, as Socrates recommended, to al stain
from the use of our eyes.




254         ILLOGICAL CONCLUSION OF A PRINCE.
recognized them, in this special form, for less than a century.1
But the analogy between these and the various phases of intellectual and psychical exaltation, religious ecstasy, involuntary
hypnotism, spontaneous trance, is so close that one cannot reasonably deny the connection of one with the other.  Most of
the spiritual gifts enumerated by Paul come to light, in persons
of sensitive temperament, during magnetic sleep, and showed
themselves during  such  strange, epidemical excitements as
produced the alleged possession of the Ursuline Nuns of Loudun t (1632 to 1639), and brought out pseudo-miracles among
* Somnambulism, in the form now known to magnetizers, was observed for the first time, by the Marquis de Puysegur, on his estate of
Buzancy, near Soissons, on the fourth of March, 1784.
J- flistoire des Diables de Louden, on de la Possession des Religieuses
UrsulirLes, Amsterdam, 1670. At page 235 of this work is a curious
document; namely, the certificate of Monsieur (Gaston, brother of
Louis XIII., then King of France), who visited Loudun in May, 1635, to
inquire into the character of the alleged possession. He certifies that
he had perfect proof of its reality; namely, that the possessed nuns
obeyed his mental orders; in other words, read unexpressed thoughts.
He says: " Ayant desire d'avoir un signe parfait de la veritable possession de ces filles, avons concertb5 secrettement et a voix basse avec le
PBre Tranquille Capucin, de commander au Demon Sabulon, qui possedoit actuellement la Sceur Claire, qu'il all'at baiser la main droite du
Pere Elizee, son exorciste; ledit Demon [meaning, of course, the nun
herself] y a ponctuellement obei, selon notre desir; ce qui nous a fait
croire certainement que ce que les religieux travaillans aux exorcismes
desdites filles nous ont dit de leur possession est veritable."
But this phenomenon of thought-reading is familiar to magnetizers.
I myself instituted, in the years 1856 and 1857, a series of careful experiments to verify it, keeping strict minutes. By referenc3 to these I
find that I propounded 216 questions and obtained about ninety-three
per cent of pertinent answers, through a medium (not professional) and
of but moderate powers. Many of the answers extended to several
lines; and, apart from their strict relevancy, were beyond the mental
capacity of the medium. The following may be taken as an average
example; both questions being asked mentally:
Q. " Can you tell me whether spirits have the power of prophecy?'
A. " To some extent."




WIDnE RANGE OF INSPIRATION.               255
the Prophets (Trembleurs) of the Cevennes* (1686 to 1707).
The mantic fury of the Pythoness was evidently of magnetic
character. Numa, in the Arician grove; Mahomet, in the cave
of Hira; may have been unconsciously under spiritual or somnambulic influence. Peter's vision, when he saw Heaven opened
and a certain vessel descending; Paul's trance, "whether in
the body or out of the body " he could not tell; bear, unmistakably, more or less resemblance to many hundred cases of extase
that have appeared in Paris, in London, and elsewhere, during
the present century. All such manifestations belong to one
great class of phenomena.
The simplest and most usual form of Inspiration is what is
usually called the inspiration of genius; its results appearing
in eminent literary efforts, in masterpieces of art, possibly
in some of our most wonderful scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, more evidently in the highest order of
musical composition. All this is sometimes ascribed to native
organization duly cultivated. t But aside from the confessedly
Q. " What are the limits? "
A. "Perceiving more than men, one element of prophetic power is
greater."-Extracted from sitting of April 11, 1857.
A concise and pertinent reply, not so much to the words, as to the
sense of my mental question. But I did not for a moment imagine, as
Prince Gaston did, that the Devil had anything to do with it. It purported to come from a dear, deceased friend.
For further references on the subject of the Ursuline Nuns of Loudmn,
see note on page 103 of Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World.
* Sometimes called Camisards or Camisars. They were French
Protestants who took arms to resist persecution under the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes. —See Histoire des Camisards, by M. de Court de
G6belin, 1760. Also Clavis Prophetica, or a key to the prophecies of
Monsieur Marion and the other Camisars, London, 1707: 2VNovea6ux
Memoires pour servir d l'Histoire des Camisars, London, 1708; Examin
du TieBatre Sacri des Cevennes.  For other references see FootfakTs,
note on page 103.
t See, on this subject, 3Mr. Galton's interesting work on ITereditary Genitus. I do not assert that in th3 department of what are called
the exact sciences-as, for example, in the researches of Galileo and in
those, still more inestimable, of Newton-we are justified in assuming




95G              TTTEOeRIES PROVORKED BY THE
powerfill influence of a large and well-formed brain-the best
of patrimonies —genius may owe its triumphs to agencies that
are invisible, like attraction, except in their effects.
Great poets from the earliest times have had a dim feeling
that they were aided from above, and were wont to invoke the
assistance of unseen Powers-may we not say (as Socrates
said), with reason?  When a poem by a Greek schoollaster,
dating from the far past, still invites translation by our ablest
scholars, calling forth the same admiration to-day with which
it was greeted almost three thousand years ago; when a few
Aramas by a comparatively illiterate man * are found, after
three centuries have elapsed, to have furnished, to the Saxon
tongue, one fourth of its household words; t does it not suggest
the probability of aid from a higher sphere of being? The
wondrous character of these results, bewildering the world,
has provoked sceptical speculations touching their authors; as
if the effect were out of proportion to its reputed cause. Professor Wolf of Berlin, t in a celebrated work, denies to Homer
that spiritual aid was granted. Even if we do not subscribe to the
poet's lines,
" Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night,
God said'Let Newton be!' and all was light "we cannot but admit that the scientific clearsight of England's greatest
physicist was almost beyond parallel. Still it was of mathematical
character-strictly material, not spiritual-and may have been but
hereditary aptitude, appearing in eminent degree.
* " It is a strong argument in favor of Shakspeare's illiterature, that
it was maintained by all his contemporaries, many of whom have bestowed every other merit upon him, and by his successors who lived
nearest to his time: and that it has been denied only by Gildon, Sewell,
and others down to Upton, who could have no means of ascertaining
the truth." —Life of Shakspeare prefixed to Chalmers' edition of his
Plays, 8 vols., London, 1823, p. 14.
t In BAIRTLETT'S Familiar Qutotations (American edition, 1867), out
of 391 pages of noted passages from various English authors, 94 pages
are devoted to Shakspeare alone.
T Frederick Augustus Wolf, one of the founders, and afterward one
of the Professors, of the University of Berlin. The work alluded to




INSPIRATION OF TWO GREAT POETS.               257
the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, even casting doubts on
his existence, and taking the ground that these immortal poems
were the joint production of many successive rhymers and rhapsodists.  So, too, in the case of Shakspeare, a cultivated and
most industrious writer spent her life, and may be said to have
lost it, in collecting and giving to the public what she believed
to be proof that the pupil of the Stratford free-school was, in
no sense, entitled to the authorship of the plays that have enchanted the world under his name. *
So, again, in regard to the most celebrated among painters:
his contemporaries regarded him, and his biographers speak of
him, though he died at the early age of thirty-seven, with a
sort of reverence, as of a divinely-inspired personage. Vasari
commences his life thus: "The large and liberal hand with
which Heaven is sometimes pleased to accumulate the infinite
riches of its treasures on one sole favorite... is exemplified in the instance of Raphael Sanzio." Again he says that
such as Raphael " are scarcely to be called simple men; they
are rather, if it be permitted so to speak, entitled to the appellation of mortal gods." And, further on, he speaks of this
painter as one of those " who by some special gift of nature or
by the particular favor accorded to them by the Almighty, are
performing miracles in the art." t
We have, so far as I know, no record of Raphael's domestic
life, nor any collection of his familiar letters. These might
above, Pro7egomnena ad  fomrerumn (Halle, 1795), created much excitement in the literary world and called forth many replies.
* The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspeare Unfolded, by DELIA BAcoN: Boston, 1857.
The story of this intellectual, untiring, and eccentric writer is one
of the saddest episodes in the history of literary enterprise. Her peculiarities and her fate-insanity supervening as the result of utter disappointment-are recorded in HAWTHORNE'S Oar O0ld Home; chapter
entitled Recolleetions of a Gifted WomaAn.
1. VASA-RI: Lives of the Painters (Foster's Translation, London, 1851),
vol. iii. pp. 1, 2, 58.




258             MUSICAL INSPIRATION OF
have disclosed his own consciousness of the Inspiration that
marks the artistic temperament.
We have direct evidence of this kind, however, in the case of
two of the world's most renowned musicians.
Beethoven, speaking of the source whence came to him the
spirit of his wonderful masterpieces, said to "Bettina ":
"' From the focus of inspiration I feel compelled to let the melody stream forth on all sides. I follow it-passionately overtake it again; I see it escape me, vanish amid the crowd of
varied excitements —soon I seize it up again with renewed
passion; I cannot part from it-with quick rapture I multiply
it in every form of modulation-and at the last moment I
triumph over the first musical thought —see now! that's a
symphony." *
Even more striking is the following, from a letter written by
Mozart to an intimate friend: " You say you should like to
know my way of composing, and what method I follow in writing works of some extent. I can really say no more on this
subject than the following; for I myself know no more about
it and cannot account for it. When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer-say travelling
in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during tbe night
when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas
flow best and most abundantly.  Whence and how they come
I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas which please
me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been
told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it
soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it; that is to say, agreeably
to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various
instruments, and so on. All this fires my soul, and, provided
I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes
methodized and defined; and the whole, though it be long,
stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I cau
* GOETHE: Briefwecdiseg mit einem Kinde.




BEETHOVEN AND MOZART.                 259
survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance
Nor do I hear, in imagination, the parts successively; but I
hear them, as it were, all at once (gleich alles zusammen).
What a delight this is I cannot tell! All this inventing, this
producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream. Still the
actual hearing of the entire whole is after all the best. What
has been thus produced I do not easily forget. And this
is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank
for." *
These hints and suggestions are necessarily bald and imperfect: necessarily, because the civilized world has but recently
begun to study Inspiration, as a universal agency, in its connection either with the trance-faculty, or with the Spiritual
hypothesis; and because, on that account, experience along
either of these lines of research, is only beginning to accumulate. It has not yet become a common belief that one of the
sources of man's noblest achievements, literary, artistic, spiritual, is in an ultramundane sphere. We puzzle over the anomalies of human character-its extremes of good and evil-repeating
"How poor, how rich; how abject, how august;
How complicate, how wonderful is man!"
But we do not work out one of the explanations. We have
not practically realized how much the soul's bondage to the
body tends to dull its perceptions and check its best aspirings:
nor how it aspires more freely and discerns more clearly, when
the severity of that bondage is relaxed.  Nor have we practically realized how much man may learn and may improve in
wisdom and in goodness, by being occasionally admitted to
communion with a higher phase of being; nor how grievous a
loser he may be, if debarred from such communion. We do
not practically believe what Christ has told us of a Spirit of
* HOLMES: Life of Mfozart, including his Correspondence; London,
1845: pp. 317, 318.




260                THE TITANIC STEPS
Truth, to come after him, who should "guide us into all
truth."
Our researches in this matter have hitherto been prosecuted
in far, misty clouds; not on the fair earth, illuminated from
on high.
I think one reason for this is thabt the marvellous light which
dawned upon the world eighteen hundred years ago has dazzled
and blinded, even while it has informed and improved mankind. It was a spiritual phenomenon alike without example
throughout all history and (to our remote ancestors) without
apparent solution short of the miraculous: without example
not solely, nor perhaps chiefly, on account of the wonderful
works done by Christ; for the Jews, in their history, and even
the Romans and Greeks in their mythology, could find more
or less of precedent for many of these; but because the light of
Christianity, alike in its moral and spiritual aspect and in its
effects, is without parallel in man's previous experience. Not
thus appearing, at first, except to a small band of followers;
but gradually, as it rose upon the mind and soul of the world,
has that light shone as might a sun, rising for the first time
upon an earth of which the inhabitants, till then, had lived and
labored under starlight.
Is such a simile to be rejected because it admits what seems
at variance with all we see of the course of nature?  Let us
not hastily decide that there is such variance: Nature's action
is multiform.
While God's works around us bear evidence that the principle of gradual progression pervades the entire economy of the
universe, and that natural laws are invariable and persistent,
still, under that economy and governed by these laws, there
occur, at certain epochs, vast steps in human progress: even
as, from time to time, political revolutions supervene which,
while changing the wonted action of long-standing government,
sometimes bring about in years an advance which- ages had
failed to effect.
History contains nothing more interesting than the record




OF TUE WORLD.                  261
of these gigantic steps; each, apparently, without precedent'
each breaking in on the monotonous pace of the world. In
cosmical history what incident stands by the side of the single
discovery of Columbus, giving to the ancient world another
half of our globe, about which to speculate, in which to live?
The annals of literature record no victory to match, in practical
result, the triumph of Faust, if to the goldsmith of Mentz be
due the art of printing; that art which enables one man to
converse with all his race. Even the world of Invention, where
labor toils, has had its Titanic epoch, occurring little more than
a century since; that epoch at which steam began to take the
place of bone and sinew; at which' the distaff and spinningwheel, humble aids to human workers throughout three thousand years, were at last superseded by a Briarean system of
manufacture that has multiplied five-hundred fold the productive labor-power of mankind.*
In the individual life of man, strictly progressive though it
be, we find a still more remarkable phenomenon connected with
an unprecedented advance.  Infant, child, adult, patriarchthe boundaries which mark each successive state are imperceptible; but then comes the great epoch: the point of progress
when our powers, perceptive, intellectual, spiritual, are suddenly increased we know not how much; when our means of
communicating with our fellows are freed from bounds alike of
time and space; when, like Columbus, we are borne into a new
world.
So, again, in regard to the succession of animal life on earth,
reaching back into prehistoric time. Geology informs us that
there was a period of untold duration when this world, occupied by the lower races, was uninhabited by man. An emninent
modern naturalist, f exploring that period and investigating
the principle of vital progress, has brought prominently for* See preceding page 45.
t CHARLES DARWIN, A.M., F.R.S. On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favored Races in the
Strugglefor Life: London, 1859.




262                  DARWIN'S THlEORY.
ward a great, general law-governing gradual improvement of
species bty means of natural selection and the preservation of
the best out of each-both animal and vegetable-in the struggle
for existence. But he has adduced no facts attesting change of
one species to another; nor disclosed to us any link connecting brute and man. *  There remains, therefore, intact, the
* It has been surmised that intermediate forms between the higher
quadrumana and the lowest variety of cave-dwelling humanity may
some day be found; perhaps in large unexplored portions of interior
Asia or Africa; but this is mere surmise, unsustained, as yet, by discovery.
The advocates of the Development theory admit the extreme difficulties which stand in the way of assigning to man predecessors from a
lower race. " Admitting," says one of them, " man's structural modifications from the species that stand next under him, there still remains
the fact that something new has been superadded-the organization
fitted for higher functional performance, the intellect capable of improvement and progress.  On no theory of mere transmission or
heredity can these be accounted for. The predecessor did not possess
them and could not bequeath them." —DAvrD PAGE, LL.D.; F.R.S.E.;
F.G.S.: Man, Where, Whlence, and Whither; Edinburgh, 1867; pp.
152, 153.
Another writer on this subject-one of the earliest suggesters of the
"natural selection" theory-makes quite recently the following admissions:' The capacity to form ideal conceptions of space and time,
of eternity and infinity-the capacity for intense artistic feelings of
pleasure, in form, color, and composition-and for those abstract notions of form and number which render geometry and arithmetic possible-how were all or any of these faculties first developed when they
could have been of no possible use to man in his early stages of barbarism? How could " natural selection," or survival of the fittest in the
struggle for existence, at all favor the development of mental powers... which even now, with our comparatively high civilization, are,
in their farthest developments, in advance of the age, and appear to
have relation rather to the future of the race than to its actual
status? "-WALLACE: Contributions to the Thleory of Natural Selection,
London and New York, 1870; pp. 351, 352.
It is difficult to conceive a state of things in which there must not,
in any event, have been some year, some month, some day, when there
existed on earth no animal endowed with capacity for intellectual and




MAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE.                  263
hypothesis-surely not an unreasonable one-that there inhered, in the law which regulated preadamite life, a condition
according to which a creature endowed with reason and gifted
with faculties and sentiments that enable him to conceive and
desire a Hereafter, did, at a certain point of advancement, suddenly appear; a creature destined to subjugate earth and attain
heaven. The vast induction, if one may so express it, failed at
a certain stage of cosmical development; and the progressive
ratio of the past series was no longer the progressive ratio of
the succeeding. For, in virtue of a stride surpassingly great,
there assumed place in the world a race-the only one *-which
could transmit the experience of one generation to another, and
which, after a time, learned to perpetuate that experience by
artificial, enduring signs.  Hence, as result of a single, unexampled step in advance, ethical, intellectual, spiritual progress.
And now, reverting from this digression to the subject immediately before us, we find the same analogy still holding out.
The history of Ethics and of Religion, like that of Cosmogony
spiritual improvement from generation to generation; and then again,
some next year, or next month, or next day, when such an animalthat is to say, when a man-came into existence. The question is of
capacity, how undeveloped soever, however useless to palueozoic man:
the highest quadrumane has it not; and even if in structural formation
he approached much nearer to man than he does, the possession or nonpossession of intellectual and spiritual possibilities of development still
establishes a great gulf, which, if not, under God's economy, impassable is, at least, so far as human research has explored, unpassed.
But even if the Development theorist should succeed in tracing man
to an anthropoid-ape-ancestry, or to an Ascidian origin, still a vast step
in advance, however effected, is not the less a reality; a step which
seems to have been made at once; at all events, a step without precedent in fact and without parallel in the immensity of its results.
* We have no warrant, so far as I know, for asserting that the beaver
of to-day exhibits more ingenuity in constructing his dam than did the
beaver of three thousand years ago: nor is it in evidence that the quadrumane of our own time is more intelligent than was the same animal
in Homer'as




264             AN UNPRECEDENTED STEP.
and Literature, and productive Science, has its epoch, whence
dates a ratio of advancement till then unknown. In the
earthly progress of Spiritualism, as in the succession of races
and in the pilgrimage of human life, we have to note one eminent step upward, as from a lower to a higher sphere of being.
Unprecedented, unlike any other step: the progress which
followed it incomparable with the march of any other revolution, political or religious.
The establishing of a kingdom on the world but not of it;
called, sometimes the Kingdom of Heaven, yet coming not by
observation,8*-heralded by no earthly pomp, ushered through
no opening in clouds of heaven-but founded lowly, peacefully,
silently, in the heart of man. Christ's kingship is of the human soul.
If, to the sceptical, these claims seem overstrained, let them
look, not to the assertions of theologians, nor yes to the uncertainties and obscurities of remote history, but to acknowledged
facts, of grand outline, familiar to every educated man.
In what is usually called the civilized world millions will
say, if asked as to their religion, that they are not Catholics,
millions more that they are not Protestants; but, excepting
the five or six million Jews, we shall not find there one man in
a hundred who, if he has any religion at all, will say he is not
a Christian.
If the Spiritual Teachings first heard in Galilee, eighteen
hundred years ago (aside from alien creeds), be not the religion
of Civilization, it has no other. What we may justly call the
most enlightened portion of the world clings to these teachings,
despite the deadening and retractive influence of alien creeds.
Is it strange that Christendom, before it began to recognize
the universal reign of law, should have sought, in miraculous
interference, the explanation of such a phenomenon as this?
Is it strange even,-considering the presumption to which our
* Luke xvii. 20.




SCEPTICISM'S THEORY.               265
short-sighted race is prone-that Orthodoxy, knowing no natural solution of such an enigma, should take refuge in a conception-one scruples about plainly expressing its pretensions; for
these not only involve the direct intervention and suspension
of His laws by the Almighty Creator and Lawgiver of myriads
of sun-systems and myriads on myriads of worlds; they virtually pre-suppose, also, His presence, in human form, throughout a generation of men, on this small planet of ours-all tile
world, indeed, to us, but a mere speck in immensity, to Him.
Yet if claims so transcendent were consonant with their day
and generation, none the less thev are now furnishing abundant
food and occupation to Scepticism. There is impregnable
ground; but Orthodoxy forsakes it, straying forth into the limitless regions of Dogmatism.  It seeks miracles through the
dim perspective of eighteen centuries; yet the miracle of miracles-if the marvellous constitute the miraculous-lies patent
before, us; is cognizable by our very senses.
Assume Scepticism's theory. Here it is: The son of a Jewish mechanic, living in an obscure village of Galilee, brought
up in his father's house, with the most limited opportunities of
culture, without access to the literature of Greece or Rome,
without worldly experience to replace lack of learning, and also
without spiritual aid-becomes, at the age of thirty, a Public
Teacher; continues to teach during three years-three only;
then, because of the latitude of his opinions, suffers death.
His three-year sayings and doings, which he himself never committed to writing, are recorded, within half a century from his
death by humble and comparatively unlettered followers. Yet,
after more than fifty generations of men have passed away, there
is found in that record-and in that record alone —a religion
that cultivated men can indorse and civilized nations revere.
Surely, the miracle of all miracles! —nay, as Scepticism has
put it, a moral and intellectual impossibility.
The impossibility inheres in one of Scepticism's postulates.
"Without spiritual aid." If such aid be essential to any high
12




266                   THE ANOINTED.
and noble achievement of man, is it conceivable that it should
be lacking in connection with the highest and noblest of all?
But the difficulties attending this main feature in the seeptic's hypothesis do not end here. Unless the recording disciples have utterly belied their Master, it involves a direct charge
of falsehood against him.  For, though habitually calling himself " the Son of Man," * he also suffered himself to be called,
and claimed to be, the MESSIAH, the CHRIST, ofttimes spoken of
by the prophets of old, and long expected, as Deliverer, by the
Jews  In other words-let those who doubt my rendering consult the lexicons, Hebrew  and Greek-in other words, he
claimed to be the ANOINTED of his Father t and our Father; a
divinely-commissioned Messenger, Prophet; Spiritual King.
Shall we accord to him these titles?  There is no sure warrant for so doing to be drawn from history. But his credentials are to be found in the Message itself, in the work that
message has done, and in the recorded life of the Messenger.
All the great figures of antiquity pale, more or less, under
the lights of modern civilization, save only that of Christ. The
thinking world has, in a measure, outlived every phase of religious belief except Christianity. That was planted by its Author so far beyond the point of progress of the age in which its
precepts were first heard, that the current of eighteen centuries,
passing by all other systems, has failed to approach this.
Christ's teachings, proleptic in character, are still in advance
not of the modern world's purest practice only, but almost of
its aspirations. Can we deny to their Author his own claim
* The term " Son of Man," as applied by Christ to himself, occurs
some eighty times throughout the four gospel narratives.
f Jesus himself, at the very outset of his ministry, adopts this interpretation. In the synagogue at Nazareth, after publicly reading the
words of Isaiah (lxi. 1), " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek," —words understood by the Jews of the Messiah-he applied
them to himself: " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."Luke iv. 18, 21.




WBAT MAN MAY BE.                   267
that on Him, the Chosen One, had been poured the chrism of
God?
That was the reply of Christ's most trusted Apostle, interro.
gated by his Master.  "' But whom say ye that I am?' Peter
answering said:' The Christ of God."' *  It was the claim put
forth by the same apostle in the first public address which he
made to the Jews after the crucifixion: for in that he designated the Great Teacher whose disciple he was, as "Jesus of
Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles (dunamesin),
and wonders and signs:" and, again, with slight variation of
phrase, when discoursing before Cornelius and his Gentile
friends in Coesarea: there speaking of his Master as " Jesus of
Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost and with
power, who went about doing good."
-Doing good  His own nature-his character and his doings, as exhibited in the gospel biographies-are almost as marvellous as the system he gave to the world. They accord neither with his country nor with his time, nor-except as one
illustrious example disclosing to us what Man may be-with
that human race with which, on a hundred occasions, he expressly identified himself. It were difficult, in this connection,
to improve on the words of an Anglican clergyman, whose early
death was a misfortune to the Church he adorned: " Once in
the roll of ages, out of innumerable failures, from the stock of
human nature one bud developed into a faultless flower.  One
perfect specimen of humanity has God exhibited on earth.. As if the life-blood of every nation were in his veins,
and that which is best and truest in every man, and that which
is tenderest and gentlest and purest in every woman were in
his character: he is emphatically the Son of ifan." t
Not less eloquent on this subject is the author of a wellknown modern work: " The story of Christ's life will always
* Luke ix. 20.
t Sermons by the re?). F. W. Robertson, Incumbent of Trinity Chapel,
Brighton; sermon xv.; pp. 365, 366 (of New York Ed., 1870). The
word "' man" is italicized by the author.




268             A COMMUNICATION TOUCHING
remain the one record in which the moral perfection of man
stands revealed in its root and its unity, the hidden spring
made manifest by which the whole machine is moved.
All lesser examples and lives will forever hold a subordinate
place, and serve chiefly to reflect light cn the central and original Example. In his wounds all human sorrows will hide
themselves, and all human self-denials support themselves against
his cross." *
Whence this preeminence?  The germ of the Godlike lies,
indeed, deep down in our common nature; but, ere it fructify,
there must be divine breathings from a region purer than ours.
Whether, in this supreme instance of Inspiration, these Holy.
Breathings t assumed an unwonted phase-executed an unwonted office-what mortal shall assume to decide?
Yet I think I should do wrong here to withhold the fact that
I have received on this subject a communication-one only and
that unsought for-which I believe to have had a spiritual
source: it is one of the few such messages that have ever
reached me, touching on any disputed point of doctrine. The
reader has it below,J for what he may deem its allegations
* Ecce lHomo: a Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ.
London, 1866: pp.. 188, 189. This work, published anonymously, is
now known to have been written by Professor SEELEY, filling the chair
of Modern History in the University of Cambridge.
t One scruples to write " Holy Breath," instead of " Holy Ghost"
(from gust, Anglo-Saxon for breath or spirit); yet the terms are strictly
synonymous. Peter, speaking of Jesus as a man " whom God anointed
with the Holy Ghost and with power," certainly employed the term in
some such sense. Christ himself, when he spoke of the Holy Ghost as
the " Spirit of Truth," which " shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak," as certainly did not intend thereby to designate one of the Persons of the Godhead.
t I copy literally from minutes of a sitting held January 25, 1862,
during which I had but this single communication:
" Christ's birth was by inception, not by conception. Mary inherited
a peculiar physical and spiritual organization from her ancestors of
David's line. She was placed in a perfect trance, her bodily life sus




THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.                  269
worth. These involve neither suspension nor violation of natural law, nor, I think, any improbability so violent that we
must needs reject it straightway.  The communication alleges
pended. The spiritual fructifying principle was received during the
trance. Christ's mortal body was the result of Mary's perfect faith,
ruling the organism-a faith of that transcendent kind which is the
centre and circumference of all that is to be desired. It is a literal
truth, and no figure, to say of such faith that it can remove mountains.
It bears the same relation to the common faith of mankind which the
crystallized diamond does to the charcoal.
" In Mary's case, it was the outgrowth of many centuries. It was a
specific faith; the blossoming of that belief, preserved through ages,
that a virgin should conceive and bear a son. No other possible conjunction could have produced a Christ. Yet there was no suspension of
law. His birth was natural. The same conjunction of circumstances
recurring, if we could suppose such a case, a similar birth might happen
again.
" It was necessary for Christ to stand above the plane of mankind, in
order to draw men up to him. He was devoid of appetite and passion
to a degree that no man of human conception could have been. In a
human and bodily sense, he was, on that account, a less complete man.
Yet had it not been for the absence of these appetites and passions, the
truth could not have come to us through him, pure as it did. There
would have been obscurances and hindrances. Under their influence he
could not have preserved his integrity as a Messenger. He would have
been drawn sympathetically into the sphere of his day.
" Christ felt the trials and temptations that assail his brethren of
mankind, even more acutely than they did themselves; but that was
because of the strong repellent force within him; not by any attraction drawing him. These temptations did not attract, they only pained
him. He had before him ever the eternal laws; seeing through the
Present to the End."
The above was called forth byno question of mine, direct or indirect.
I was not thinking of the subject, and of course expected nothing of
the kind. It was not obtained from a professional medium. The lady
through whose mediumship it came-a relative of mine, intellectual
and cultivated-is a Unitarian; believing, in her normal state, that
Jesus was born as other men. It purported to come from an intimate
and highly-valued, long-deceased friend (see Book iv., chapter 3); and
from the same alleged source there have come to me many valuable
teachings on ethical and other cognate subjects.




270       TIINGS WE ARE ILL ABLE TO TOUCH.
that Christ's birth occurred under circumstances so peculiar
that he grew to manhood devoid of appetite and passion to a
degree-necessary to his pure integrity as Teacher-which
no other person has ever shared. At this stage of our knowledge, I feel unqualified to avouch such a theory, and unwilling
to gainsay it. Ungifted with spiritual clearsight-seeing here
but as through a glass, darkly-why should I hasten to decide?
I am content to wait-it can be a few years only, now-for
better discernment and broader light.
The able author last quoted just touches on the subject of
Christ's birth. Speaking of the spiritual enthusiasm which characterized Jesus, he asks: "t How it was kindled in him who
knows? " And his reply is: "' The abysmal depths of personality' hide this secret. It was the will of God to beget no
second Son like him." *
IMr. Gladstone, the British premier, alluding, in a review of
the work where they appear, to the above words, says: " They
seem to deal with things that we know not of, and are ill able
to touch." t
I agree with him.
St range! -and sad as strange-that men in all ages have
been called upon to touch, to deal with-ay! despite sense of
incapacity, even despite counter convictions, compelled to decide
— just such questions!
— Called upon by men like themselves, not by God. I am
not more conscious of my own existence than I am that an allwise and all-good Being will never remember it for judgment
against me, nor against any of His creatures, that, after best
diligence, we have been unable, as to many such arcana, to do
more than confess, that we comprehend them not.
So far only I see: that Jesus was divinely favored and gifted
to an eminent degree-but how and to what degree I have no
means to determine. That there were limits, law-governed, his
* Ecce Homo, p. 321.
t Ecce Homo (reviewed), by the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone;
London, 1868: p. 190.




CHRIST S POWERS CONDITIONAL.               271
biographers inform us. In Christ's own country, where men
asked one another " Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?"
he "could do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon
t few sick and healed them: and he marvelled because of their
anbelief." * Again: all that he would have done for his hard
hiearted countrymen he himself tells us, in words breathing the
very soul of sadness, that he could not do: "Oh Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not! "t
And again, who shall define the limits of his knowledge?.As one reads, one feels, as the Jewish officers of justice felt:
"'NeVer man spake like this man."  Yet, as the record now
itands, I we find many words and paragraphs which, if we are
* Mark vi. 3, 5, 6. Matthew, in the concordant passage, says that
"he did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief."
f Matthew xxiv. 37.
t Take an example. John gives a prayer, as offered up by Jesus,
in presence of his apostles, immediately before he went forth into the
garden where he was betrayed. There is no other example, in any of
the gospels, of a public prayer by Christ. He retired into remote solitudes to pray (Mark vi. 4G; Luke vi. 12). " When thou prayest," he
had said, "enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret." The three synoptical evangelists
agree that, at the most solemn hour of his life —just before his betrayalChrist's action corresponded to his precept, and that he did not pray in
their presence. At Gethsemane, says Matthew, he said to his disciples:
"' Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder:' and he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying:'Oh my Father, if it be
possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will but as
Thou wilt.'"
Mark's relation is, almost word for word, the same as that of Matthew. Luke says he withdrew himself from theim about a stone's cast
and kneeled down and prayed:'Father, if thou be willing, remove
this cup from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done.'"
I believe, with Matthew and Mark and Luke, that the communings
of Jesus with his Father, ere he went to death, were in secret, unheard




272             IT IS DANGEROUS TO REPOSE
to accept them, clearly show that Christ, like all other men,
was liable to error.  Examples will suggest themselves to the
dispassionate student of the gospels.
Let timid souls who think all is imperilled if a single imper.
fection of doctrine, or inaccuracy of record,* be suggested, here
be reminded that the spiritual system of Christ, with its worldwide influence on man, depends not at all on non-essential
incidents like these. Its spirit and substance and efficacy re
main intact. It profits, none the less, as rule for human con.
duct in the world which now is, and as guide, much needed,
preparing us for that which is to come.
In this matter it is dangerous to repose confidence in incidentals, or in any warrant save the intrinsic excellence and
inherent power of the Great Teachings themselves. Not on
ancient fortresses of stone, how seemingly impregnable soever,
may a nation, in her hour of peril, rely for defence: she must
look to faithfulness and valor and affection, animating the
hearts of her defenders. And so Christianity, when assailed
by the legions of Doubt and of -Materialism, must not put her
trust in the old evidences of tradition or of remote history,
though built up by learning and entrenched by. the polemical
labors of ages: if she is to become the Religion of Civilization,
by mortal ear; nor do I doubt that the brief words employed by the
synoptical evangelists-sad, fervent, resigned-embody the spirit of
Christ's secret prayer.
But as to John's narrative the internal evidence signally fails.
Christ's love was of that eminent character which carries out of self,
thinking not of glorification; and, above all, which embraces all humankind, unalloyed by trace of the exclusive. I believe that the
prayer which the aged apostle, after half a century had intervened,
spread over his seventeenth chapter was but what he himself erringly
conceived to have been his Master's feelings ere he encountered his enemnies; a document not more reliable than the long speeches which
other old historians have imagined for their heroes on the eve of a
battle. I am unable to accept it as Christ's, either in the spirit or in the
letter. See further, as to this} foot-note on next page.
* Did Christ ever declare that he would be infallibly reported?




CONFIDENCE LIN INCIDENTALS.                273
her kingdom must be protected by the loyal convictions and
the bold candor and the enlightened love of free human souls.
Here let me b3 permitted to say a word with mere personal
reference to myself. I could not more religiously venerate than
I now venerate Christ's teachings and his person; I could not
more deeply feel than I now feel the bounden duty to heed his
sayings and to do what in me lies toward following his example
-if theologians had succeeded in beating into my brain all the
perplexities they have crowded into the Athanasian creed.  If
others find, through such subtilties, comfort in affliction,
warmth for sinkinog faith, motive to stir flagging zeal, incentive
to religious duty, it is well: let them profit by what they are
able to accept. The Alexandrian Patriarch does not speak
either to my heart or to my understanding.  They who can receive his doctrine, let them receive it.
If, beyond a claim to be the promised Messiah-the Anointed
Prophet of God, commissioned by Him  to redeem  the world
from spiritual darkness-there be any reasonable ground for
belief that Christ declared himself, or regarded himself, to be
one of the Persons of the Godhead, I confess my inability to
find it. *  Very rarely, scarcely half a dozen times throughout
* There are sundry passages in John's Gospel which must be taken
as asserting this dogma; but John wrote thirty or forty years later
than the other evangelists, in his old age and at a period when speculative doctrine was already beginning to obscure the noble candor of
Christ's words. How favorably does the simplicity of Luke's opening
verses, inspiring confidence by their modesty, contrast with the mystical elaborateness of John's! Then we come upon such texts as viii.
23; x. 8; xvii. 9 (used by Calvin); xvii. 5; viii. 58; vi. 51, 54, etc.
When one reads: " Ye are beneath, I am from above; all that ever
came before me are thieves and robbers; before Abraham was, I am;
glorify me, O Father, with the glory which I had with thee before the
world was; I pray not for the world, but for them that thou hast given
me," with other sayings of similar spirit-the internal evidence fails;
we no longer recognize the Christ of the earlier gospels.
Yet, withal, though John is almost as unequal as Paul, we could as
ll spare many portions of his Gospel as we could certain parts of Paul's
12*




274         WHAT IS THE JUST INTERPRETATION
the three synoptical gospels, does Jesus speak of himself as the
"Son of God:"* not nearly so often as he speaks of his
epistles. Like Paul, John is the Apostle of LOVE, in its purest and
widest acceptation; and none of the gospels contain a nrcrative more
eminently characteristic of the gentleness and mercy of Christ than
John's story of the Fallen One, who was bid to go and sin no more.
Its lesson is only beginning to make its way, now after nearly two
thousand years, to the hearts of men.
* This expression, as applied by Christ to himself, scarcely occurs
either in Matthew or Mark or Luke, except that, when interrogated before
the High Priests and scribes as to whether he was the Son of God, he
replied:' Ye say that I am;" to be interpreted as assent; but even
during that very interrogatory, he still designates himself by his favorite expression, " The Son of Man." According to John, he speaks of
himself several times as the Son of God (v. 25; ix. 35, 36; xi. 4; and
on one or two other occasions more or less directly); besides assenting
(xi. 27) to be so called by Martha. But, singularly enough, in the same
gospel, x. 30) is given a remarkable conversation, which I can interpret but in one sense:
Christ asks the Jews: " For which of my good works do ye stone
me?" They answer: "For a good work we stone thee not, but for
blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."
Here, surely-in the sequel to the colloquy-if anywhere, we may
seek the clue to Christ's exact meaning, when he calls himself God's
Son. But what happens? Does he admit the truth of the Jews' accusation? On the contrary Jesus quotes to his accusers a text in which
the author of one of the Psalms, speaking of men, called them gods;
and his comment on that text is: " If he called them gods to whom
the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of
him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world' Thou
blasphemest,' because I said, I am the Son of God?"
Did Christ here evade the question, seeking to deceive the Jews? We
cannot for a moment entertain a thought so derogatory to his character? He claimed, indeed, to have been sanctified by the " Father;"'a
he claimed to have been sent by God, as Peter and the rest of his disciples afterward claimed for him: but he disclamdned any pretension to
godship; explaining to them, by a reference to their own Scripture,
the sense in which he applied to himself the title of the Son of God.
Had they listened to another discourse of his addressed to the Sadducees, and had they profited by it, they would not have needed this warning against the " letter which killeth;" for in that discourse (Luke




OF THE TERM' SON OF GOD"?               275
brethr'en of humankind as God's sons and daughters; bidding
us in the only prayer he has left us, to address the Deity as
"' OUR FATHER."  Then, too, as God's messenger, how preeminent his claims to the title he now and then assumes! If, as
he himself teaches, the peacemakers are to be called the Children of God, is not he, the Prince of Peace-the Bearer of the
Gospel which brings "peace on earth, good-will to men"above all others most righteously to be spoken of as God's belo-ied Son, in whom He was well pleased?
Christ is the crowning exemplar of the INSPIRED: for he,
while abiding among us, lived, more nearly than any other of
God's creatures here, within sight and hearing of his future
home. Therefore it is that his teachings are the noblest fruits
of Inspiration.
In the highest phenomena of Spiritualism —in other words,
in the best examples of the modern phase of powers and gifts
connected with Inspiration-may be seen the fulfilling of
Christ's promise to Christians, of works emulating, his.* In
the purest revealings of Spiritualism may be found the fulfilment of that other promise touching the imparting of truth
and comfort through holy breathings from above.
Primitive Christianity, the greatest of all reformatory agencies, is best evidenced through modern Spiritualism; for the
germ of modern Spiritualism is in primitive Christianity. In
proportion as the epiphanies of Spiritualism  are studied in a
Christian spirit, will the attention of the world be withdrawn
xx. 36), speaking of those who are worthy to enter Heaven, he had said
of them: " They are equal unto the angels and are the children of
God."
Whither does literalism lead? To repeat, after Luther: " When
Christ says'Take, eat, this is my body,' every child must understand
that he speaks of that which he gives to his disciples " (see preceding
page 50); and so, to believe in the " real presence:" and again, interpreting according to the letter Matthew xvi. 18, 19, to accept, as Scriptural
doctrine, the infallibility of the Pope.
* John xiv. 12.




276         PROVE THE SIGNS AND WONDERS.
from religious dogmatism and concentred in Cklrist's teachings,
in their primitive form.
Can more powerful motive be adduced, to make proof ot
these signs and wonders?-rejecting whatever is alien and
faithless, but holding fast to all that is loyal and good?




CHAPTER IV.
DIFFICULTIES AND PREJUDICES.
"A subject of study ought not to be abandoned because it is beset
with difficulties, nor because, for the time being, it may elicit prejudice
or encounter contempt."-BERZELIUs: Jahre8berieht, 1846.
A VERY few words to the candid reader, ere I commence my
narrative-illustrations.
Let not exception be taken to it if it appear that such researches have been chiefly prosecuted, at the outset, in a somewhat immethodical or rambling manner, and under the leading
of volunteers untitled by learned societies. This may be for
the best, even if, in one point of view, it is to be regretted.
It may be for the best, even though it must be admitted that,
among the names of note in the regular ranks of science, there
are men who, of all others, are, in some respects, best fitted
here to head the advance, and to obtain for us, if they would,
reliable results.
-In some respects. For in alleging the peculiar fitness of
distinguished scientific men to investigate a subject like that
under consideration, the opinion is to be received with considerable allowance. Physical Science and Vital Science each
disclose a great class of phenomena; the one distinct, even wid'e
apart, from the other. Both, indeed, are subject to fixed and
universal laws: the reality of both must be judged according
to the same acknowledged canons of evidence.  But the laws
of physical science apply to obdurate matter, that has no nervous system to be soothed or excited; no consciousness to
warm under kindness, or suffer from rude offence; no sense of
wrong, to be outraged by unjust suspicion. The laws of vital




278          PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
science, on the contrary, govern animate agencies of delicate
and sensitive and changeful organization. The materials for
experiment are of two entirely different classes, and must be
treated accordingly.  Faraday as electrician, Herschel as astronomer, Liebig as chemist, have been studying laws under
which the results to ensue or to be produced, at any given moment, on any given substance, can be rigidly controlled or predicted; laws which are the fit objects of mathematical calculation. The habits of rigorous investigation acquired by such
men are invaluable; but yet, if they fail to bear in mind what
an element of diversity and variableness vitality involves; and
if they carry with them into investigations undertaken in the
province of organic life the same purely materialistic and unconditional standard which they have been accustomed to apply
within the domain of physics, they are liable to go far astray
and to miss satisfactory results. Enlightened members of the
medical faculty, taught by experience, know this well.*
Then, again, whatever the qualifications of the ablest leaders
in science, they do not usually esteem it their vocation to lead
the vanguard on an occasion like this. They abandon, to un.
trained experimentalists, an unpopular field. Or, if they
speak, it is to give us prejudices only.t  For if prejudice, as in
* Dr. Holland (Chapters on Mental Physiology, p. 2) has justly remarked: " Neither those accustomed to legal evidence only, nor such
as have pursued science in its more simple forms, can rightly estimate
the vast difference made by the introduction of the principle of life, or
yet more of the states and condition of mind, in connection with bodily
organization."
Bichat (Recherches sur la Vie et la Mort, Art. 7, ~ 1) has some excellent remarks on the same subject. He reminds us, that while physics,
chemistry, and the like are sciences that approach each other, " an
immense interval separates them from the science of organized bodies;
and for that reason the latter should be treated in an entirely different
manner. "
t An exception is here to be admitted. An English periodical of repute, the Popular Science Review, edited by Mr. Crookes, an eminent
chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society, has, in its number for last




NEED DIFFERING MODES OF TREATMENT.              279
etymological strictness it must, be construed to mean a judg
ment formed before examination, then must we regard as prejudices his opinions, however true, who has neglected to weigh
them against their opposites, however false.
From students who devote themselves exclusively to physical
research we must, as a general rule, expect this. They regard
an ultramundane field as outside of their jurisdiction.  The
theory of intervention from  another sphere of being-the idea
of spiritual phenomena-is alien to their pursuits, and cannot
win the scientific ear at once. The growth of any new-born hypothesis, so startling in character, resembles that of a human being. During its infancy its suggestions carry small weight. It is
listened to with a light smile and set aside with little ceremony.
Throughout its years of nonage it may be said to have no rights
of property, no privilege of appropriation. Proofs in its favor
may present themselves from time to time, but they are not
deemed entitled to a judgment by the rules of evidence: they
are listened to as fresh and amusing; but they have no legal
virtue; they obtain no official record; they are not placed to
July, an article by its editor, giving a detailed account of experiments
made on the (alleged) physical powers as a medium of Mr. Home, by
himself (Mr. Crookes), Mr. Serjeant Cox, and Dr. Huggins, distinguished as astronomer and prominent member of the Royal Society.
Mr. Cox and Mr. Crookes acknowledge that these experiments seem to
prove the existence of a new force which they call" psychic": while
Dr. Huggins, more non-committal, admits that they " show the importance of further investigation." The London Spectator, commenting
on this, admits that there is In-ma-facie evidence of the phenomena;
and adds, as to the alleged " new force," that " it is most desirable that
the scientific world should confirm, or explode, the hypothesis of its
existence. " —pectator of July 8, 1871, p. 828.
The experiments included the playing on an accordion placed inside
a copper-wire' cage (purposely prepared by Mr. Crookes); the accordliol Iloating without apparent support, and not played on by any visible agency. A comparatively unimportant phenomenon, but an excellent beginning, nevertheless —a beginning that may lead-one cannot tell how far.




280         FATE OF AN INFANT HYPOTHESIS.
the credit of the minor. An adolescent hypothesis is held to
be outside the limits of human justice.
We ought not very strongly to complain of this. While we
may condemn the manner in which the magnates of science are
wont to treat spiritual researches, we may excuse it also. The
best of us shrink before the world's laugh. Franklin, engaged
in one of the most sublime experiments ever undertaken by
man, sought, it is said, to escape the chance of ridicule by
veiling his purpose. He took with him, as companion, a little
boy; that the kite, destined to draw lightning from the thunder-cloud, might, in case of failure, pass as the plaything of a
child.
But is nothing, therefore, to be done? Because men, with
a hard-won scientific reputation at stake, will not peril it in
such an inquiry, are others, more hardy if less well-trained for
the task, to hold back?
I have put that question to myself and have answered it in
the negative.
I proceed, then, to adduce, in support of various positions
assumed in the preceding chapters, a few-my space admits but
a few —of the many Spiritual phenomena, spontaneous and
evoked, that have occurred under my observation, or come to
me in authentic form, during the last fifteen years.




BOOK II.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHENOMENA.
" Facts like these, with which the world is filled, embarrass strong
minds more than they are willing to acknowledge." —BAYLE.
CHAPTER I.
THEIR COMING USUALLY UNEXPECTED.
" Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the
face, until the time arrives when the mind is ripened: then we behold
them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream." —EMERSON.
WHEN I recall what happened to me in March, 1856, I am
reminded of Emerson's suggestive words.
Up to that time I had been living, as so many millions live,
in vague unbelief that there are, in this world, any spiritual
agencies cognizable by the senses. I had barely heard of the
"Rochester Knockings," and had wondered what supreme absurdity would follow next.
I was then in Naples where, for two and a half preceding
years, I had held the post of American Minister. The members of our diplomnatic corps, living on pleasant and intimate
terms, were in the habit of dropping informally into each other's,
apartments, for an hour or two in the evening. To this habit I
am indebted for a strange experience which I shall entitle




282           AT THE RUSSIAN MINISTER'S.
THE MAID AND COOK.
On the twenty-fifth of March I passed the evening with the
Russian Minister, Monsieur K. Besides his family there
were present the Chevalier de F-, Tuscan Minister, and his
lady; together with several visitors from different parts of the
world. During most of the evening we spoke English, the
Tuscan Minister's wife being from England and another lady
present from America.
Madame KI, a Parisian by birth and'a lady of varied
information, asked me, in the course of conversation, if I had
ever heard of automatic writing. I confessed that I had not.
Then she expressed her belief that some persons had the power
of replying, in that way, to questions, the true answers to
which were unknown to them.
" Pardon me," said Madame de F; " I am very sure you
would not say so unless you were quite convinced that you had
proof sufficient: but I could not believe anything so wonderful,
unless I witnessed it myself."
"Let us try, then," said Madame K-; and the proposal
was eagerly assented to: each person sitting down, putting pencil to paper and awaiting the result. We were all unacquainted
with Spiritualism and unbelievers in it.
Nothing, for some time: then one hand, that of a Mrs.
~M —, began to move, making irregular figures but no words
or letters.
Then, at my suggestion that we should test the matter,
Madame de F       asked a question: "Who gave me these
pins? "-pointing to three large gold-headed pins that fast6ned
her dress, and adding' " If Mrs. MI     can answer that, I shall
believe."
For several minutes that lady's pencil remained motionless;
then, very slowly, it executed a few flourishes, finishing by
writing out, in a cramped and not very legible hand, several
words, the last two written backward.*
* Let any one try to write even two such words backward, and he




THE STRANGE ANSWER.                 283
Madame de F      begged to look at the paper and gazed at
it for some time, turning very pale.
"What is it? " some one asked eagerly.
"Magic, if there be such a thing," she replied.  "It reads:'The one that gives you a maid and cook."'
"How ridiculous! " exclaimed Mademoiselle K: "it is
no answer whatever to your question."
" You think not, Mademoiselle?" rejoined  Madame de
F -.; " let me tell you the facts. These pins were given to
me by my cousin Elizabeth, who lives in Florence. At my request she sent me, from that city, a lady's maid, who came into
my service ten days since, and a cook who arrived day before
yesterday."
The paper was passed from hand to hand, calling forth repeated expressions of astonishment, which were increased when
some one suggested that the concluding portion of the flourishes
which preceded the writing closely resembled a capital E; the
initial letter of the donor's name.*
In myself this incident, trifling if it seem, excited far more
than astonishment. During several hours of silent reflection,
that evening at home, there came over me the indescribable
emotion that is felt when one first awakes to the possibility
that there may be experimental proof of another life. Ere I
slept I had registered in my heart a vow-since kept-not to
rest till I had proved this possibility to be a probability or a
certainty-or a delusion.
Accordingly next day I called on Madame de F, who had
carried off the sheet of paper containing a reply which had at
first seemed so enigmatical, but which proved to be so singularly appropriate; and, on stating to her that I desired to prewill discover the great difficulty of doing so. It should be added that
Mrs. M-  was not only without experience in Spiritualism, but prej.
udiced against it.
* See next page.




284       NEITHER COLLUSION NOR DECEPTION.
serve it for record, she kindly ceded it to me.* In reply to an
inquiry on my part, she stated, in emphatic terms, her conviction that the circumstances alluded to in
the mysterious writing were not-indeed,
could not be-known except to her own
family. It was but a few weeks, she reminded me, since she herself arrived in
Naples. Her cousin was unknown here,
even by name; she herself had nev'er
mentioned her to any one in the city;
much less alluded to the fact that the
gold pins were her gift. But, in addition, she had never spoken to any one
outside her family circle, about the ser.
vants who had recently arrived; or
c3   whence they came, or who sent them.
And finally she stated that she had but
just made the acquaintance of Mrs.
M-, having only exchanged cards
with her.
Intimately acquainted as I am with
the circumstances of this case, to say
nothing of the character and standing of
the parties concerned, I am justified in
asserting unqualifiedly that, whatever
else the solution, collusion and decep[jc,\ 4 tion are out of the question.
But, the facts accepted, how strange
were the deductions!  Restricting myself to commonly-received data, I found
nothing that approached a satisfactory
solution.
It was thus I reasoned the matter
with myself. Had the reply to Madame
~t. 2 de F's question been merely the
* See fac-simile.




WHAT THINKING ENTITY WAS IT?           285
name of her cousin, the donor of the pins (Elizabeth), it would
have been equally relevant but much less surprising. We should
probably have ascribed it to chance. Or, as MIadame de Fwas doubtless, at that time, thinking of her cousin's name, we
might have regarded it only as an example of a word thought
of by one person, andc unconsciously reflected (if that be the
proper expression) from the mind of another; a phenomenon
wit;l which all vital magnetizers are familiar (even if they cannot explain it), and one of the reality of which Cuvier himself
indicates the possibility.*
But the results I had obtained went much farther than this
and were of a far more complicated character.
I inquired of Madame de F    whether, at the time she put
her question and was expecting a reply, she was thinking of
the fact that her cousin had sent her two servants. She replied,
that, very certainly, such a thought had not crossed her mind.
Of course, if she had been asked who sent her the servants in
question, she would readily have replied that her cousin had
done so. But, in that case, the question would have called up
the idea. As it was, the fact, though within her knowledge, was
not present to her mind. If she herself had been required to
answer her own question, she would doubtless have replied to it
in a straightforward, simple manner, as: " My cousin Elizabeth; " or using some similar expression. We cannot imagine,
that she would have gone out of her way to tell us that "it
was the same person who had sent her a maid and a cook."
Then what thinking entity was it, which thus called up, out of
the latent stores of Madame de F-'s memory, this dormant
idea? What occult intelligence went out of its way to answer
her question after this roundabout fashion? Who selected the
unexpected form of reply?
* Anatomie Comparee, tome ii. p. 117. His admission is that, when
two living beings are brought, under certain conditions, near each other,
there exists sometimes " une communication quelconque qui s'etabli*
entre leurs systemes nerveux."




286        WAS THERE A PERSONAL ENTITY 
At first I scrupled about assuming that there was any external personality concerned. But a little reflection convinced
me that if I dismissed that idea, I was shifting, not solving, the
difficulty. For the question then recurred in another shape:
What agency determined the special character of an answer thus
indirect and far-fetched, yet strictly relevant and accurate?
And then (I went on to reflect) without assuming a personal
entity, how are we to explain results that are never presented
to us except as the mental operations of a sentient being; such
as selection of appropriate facts from among many stored away
in the memory, perception of the connection of these facts
with a question which did not apparently refer to them, pertinent application of the selected facts to frame a truthful reply;
nay, even an apparent intention, by giving to that reply an
out-of-the-way and unlooked-for turn, to prove to us the presence of a reasoning and intelligent agent?
I was unable to answer these questions then; and, except on
the spiritual hypothesis, I am unable, after fifteen years' experience, to offer any rational explanation to-day.
Probably most of those who assisted at the experiment I
have recorded went away moved to simple wonder only; perplexed for the time, but ere a month had passed, forgetting,
in the passing excitement of some fresh novelty, both wonder
and perplexity; or at most, perhaps, relating now and then, to
incredulous listeners of a winter evening, that very odd coincidence about three gold pins and a maid and a cook.
To me its lessons are still as fresh as on the day I received
them. They preceded, and induced, a course of study that
eventually changed the whole feelings and tenor of my life.
Within the last owenty-five years multitudes, in this and in
all other civilized countries, have been overtaken, as unexpectedly as I was, with evidence of the reality of spiritual phenomena. And, to hundreds of thousands among these, conviction
has come in the quiet of the domestic circle; has not been




SPIRITUAL SENSITIVES.              287
avowed to the world, and has not disturbed their relations with
the churches they had been wont to frequent.
In illustration -I here supply, out of many examples that
have come to my knowledge, one which is the more noteworthy
because it exhibits various phases of spiritual intervention. I
antitle it
A DOMESTIC INVASION.
In the year 1853 there lived, in the town of R, Massachusetts, a family of the utmost respectability and in easy circumstances, whose name, though known to me, I am not at liberty
here to give. Let us call them Mr. and Mrs. L-.
Mrs. L-~ appears to have been one of a class of which I
have already spoken as resembling Reichenbach's " sensitives,"
if not identical with them: a class which has furnished what
are called "' mediums," and what might appropriately be called
" spiritual sensitives."  She shared many of the peculiarities
of that class; peculiarities which, in her case as in many
others, seem to have beeia hereditary.*
Her grandmother, one morning, preparing to go out walking
and turning round to leave her bed-chamber, suddenly perceived, standing before her, the exact counterpart of herself.
At first she imagined it to be an impression from some mirror;
but, having ascertained that it was not so and seeing the appearance gradually vanish, she became very much alarmed; the
popular idea occurring to her that to see one's double, or wraith
as the Scotch term it, portended death.  She immediately sent
for the preacher whose church she frequented, the Rev. Mr.
Eaton, and consulted him  on the subject.  He inquired whe* Out of 161 sensitives whose names are registered by Reichenbach,
as among.his odic subjects, 143 are from families marked by a similar
peculiarity. Of these he found the faculty to have been inherited, in 28
cases from the father, in 50 from the mother, in 11 from both parents:
and in 54 other cases it was shared by a brother or sister. -Der Senitivd.Mensch, vol. ii. J 2662 to ~ 2666 (Stuttgart, 1854).




288             AN OCCURRENCE TO BE
ther it was before or after mid-day that she had seen the apparition; and, learning that it was early in the forenoon, he assured
her (whether from sincere conviction or merely to allay the extreme excitement in which he found her) that the augury was
of long life, not of approaching dissolution. As it chanced, she
lived after that to a good, old age.
Mrs. L's mother, Mrs. F, was accompanied by
knockings and other sounds in a house in Pearl street, Boston, at
intervals as long as she resided there; namely, through a period
of twelve years.  Somletimes these sounds were audible to herself only; sometimes also to the other inmates of the house.
Finally, they annoyed her husband so much, that he changed
their residence.
Mrs. L     herself, when about ten years of age (in the year
1830), had been witness to one of those phenomena that are
never forgotten and produce a great influence on the opinions
and feelings of a lifetime.
There was, at that time, residing in her mother's house, in
the last stage of hopeless decline, a lady, named Mrs. Marshall,
to whom Mrs. F, from benevolent motives, had offered a
temporary home.
Cecilia-that is Mrs. L's name-had been sitting up one
evening a little later than usual, and, childlike, had lain down
on the parlor sofa and dropped to sleep.
Awaking, after a time, she supposed it must be. late; for
the fire had burned low and the room was vacant. As she
attempted to rise, she suddenly became aware that the figure
of Mrs. Marshall, robed in white, was bending over her.
"Oh, Mrs. Marshall," she exclaimed, "why did you come
down for me?  You will be sure to take cold."  The figure
smiled, made no reply, but, moving toward the door, signed to
Cecilia to follow. She did so in considerable trepidation,
which was increased when she perceived what she still believed
to be the lady herself pass up the stairs backward, with a
slow, gliding motion, to the door of her bedroom. The child
followed; and, as she reached the landing of the stairs, she




EhIEMELBERED FOR LIFE.               289
Saw the figure, without turning the lock or opening thile door,
pass, as it were, through the material substance into the room
and thus disappear from her sight.
Her screams brought her mother who, coming out of Mrs.
Marshall's room, asked her what was the matter.  " Oh, oniamma, mamla," exclaimed the terrified child, " was that a
ghost?"
The mother chid her at first, for nursing silly fancies; but
when Cecilia related to her circumstantially what she had witnessed, Mrs. F-  shuddered.  Well she might!  Not half an
hour before she had assisted at the death-bed of BMi-s.-Marshall!
It was remembered, too, that a few minutes before she expired, that lady, with whom Cecilia was a great favorite, had
spoken in affectionate terms of the child and had expressed an
earnest desire to see her. But Mrs. F   -, fearing the effect
of such a scene on one so young, had refrained from calling her
daughter.
Did the earnest longing mature into action when the earthclog was cast off? Was the dying wish gratified, notwithstanding the mother's precautions?
Later in her youth Cecilia, to her mother's great alarm, bad
from time to time walked in her sleep.  This somnambulism
was strictly spontaneous, no mesmeric experiments of any kind
having ever been allowed in the family. It did not result in
any accident; but, on several occasions, while unconscious and
with her eyes closed, she had aided her mother, as expertly as
if awake, in the household duties.
She had another peculiarity.  In the early part of the night
her sleep was usually profound; but occasionally, toward morning, in a state between sleeping and waking, she had visions of
the night which, though they were undoubtedly but a phase
of dreaming, she discovered, by repeated experience, to be often
of a clairvoyant or prophetic character; sometimes informing
her of death or illness. These intimations of the distant or the
future so frequently corresponded to the truth that, when they
13




290            THE MIDNIGHIT E~XCURSION.
prognosticated misfortune, Mrs. L- hesitated, on awaking,
to communicate them.
Such a dream, or vision, she had one night in the early part
of the month of November, 1853. A sister, Esther, recently
married, had gone out, with her husband, to California, some
weeks before; and they had been expecting, ere long, news of
her arrival. This sister seemed to approach the bedside, and
said to her: "Cecilia, come with me to California."  Mrs.
L, in her dream, objected that she could not leave her
husband and children, to undertake a journey so long and
tedious.'
"We shall soon be there," said Esther, " and you shall return before morning."
In her dream the proposed excursion did not seem to her an
impossibility: so she rose from bed, and, giving her hand
to her sister, she thought they ascended together and floated
over a vast space; then descended near a dwelling of humble
and rude appearance, very different front any which she could
have imagined her sister to occupy in the new country to
which, in search of fortune, she and her husband had emigrated.
The sisters entered, and Cecilia recognized her brother-in-law,
sad and in mourning garb. Esther then led her into a room
in the centre of which stood an open coffin, and pointed to the
body it, contained. It was Esther's own body, pale with the
hue of death. Mrs. L.. gazed in mute astonishment, first
at the corpse before her, then at the form, apparently bright
with life and intelligence, which had conducted her thither.
To her look of inquiry and wonder the living appearance replied, " Yes, sister, that body was mine; but disease assailed
it. I was taken with cholera and I have passed to another
world. I desired to show you this, that you might be prepared
for the news that will soon reach you."
After a time Mrs. L     seemed to herself to rise again
into the air, again to traverse a great space, and finally to reenter her bed-chamber. By and by she aw oke, with this dream




THE TRANCE.                   291
so vividly stamped on her mind, that it required some time to
satisfy her that she had not made an actual journey.
" I have had such a dream! " she exclaimed to her husband.
But his discouraging " What, Cecilia, at your foolish dreams
again? " closed her lips, and she passed the matter off without
further explanation, either to him or to any other member of
the family.
It so happened that, the evening of the same day, Mrs. Lsat down to a quiet family game of whist. Her husband and a
younger sister, Anne, were of the party. In the course of the
game Mrs. L~ handed the cards to her sister, whose turn it
was to deal. Suddenly she saw Anne's arm assume a rapid rotary motion, and the cards flew in all directions. Turning to
chide her for what she thought a foolish jest, she observed a
peculiar expression spread over her face: the look was grave,
earnest, thoughtful; and the eyes were fixed, as with affectionate anxiety, on Cecilia's face.
Very much alarmed, the latter cried out, " Oh, Anne, what
is the matter? why do you look so? "
"Call me not Anne," was the reply; " I am Esther."
" Anne! "
" I tell you it is Esther who speaks to you, not Anne."
MIrs. L —, excessively terrified, turned to her husband, crying out, " Her mind is gone! she is mad! Oh that such a
misfortune should ever have fallen on our family! "
" Your dream, Cecilia! Your dream of last night!  Have
you forgotten whither I took you and what you saw? " said
Anne, solemnly.
The shock was too much for Mrs. L. She fainted.
When, by the use of the usual restoratives, she had recovered,
she found her sister still in the same trance-like state, and still
impersonating Esther. This continued for nearly four hours
At the end of that time Anne suddenly rubbed her eyes,
stretched her limbs, as if awaking, and asked in her natural
voice, ", Have I been asleep? What is the matter? What has
happened?"




292          A LADY SPEAKING UNDER THE
Some four weeks afterward the California mail brought a
letter from Esther's husband, informing the family of his wife's
sudden death, by cholera, on the very day preceding the night
of Mrs. L-'s dream.
When, about six months later, the brother-in-law, having returned to Massachusetts, heard from  Mrs. L~  the description of the rude dwelling to which, in her dream, she had
seemed to be conveyed, he admitted that it corresponded, accurately and minutely, to that of the house in which his wife actually died.
The above incidents were related to me by Mrs. L - herself,* with. permission to publish them, suppressing only the
family name.
That lady also stated to me that, at the time referred to, the
modern spiritual manifestations were unknown in the town of
R -, except by some vague rumors of knockings said to have
been heard in Rochester, and which Mrs. L -'s family had
always treated as a matter too absurd to be seriously noticed.
it need hardly be added that they had never sought or witnessed rapping or table-moving or trance-speaking or automatic
writing, or any similar phenomena, now so common in this and
other countries.
It was, therefore, with mingled feelings of grief and astonishment that they observed, in Anne, a repetition on several
subsequent occasions of the same manifestation which had
startled them during the rubber at whist.
* At the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, on October 15, 1860. The
narrative, written out, was submitted by me to iMrs. L-   on the 17th
of October; and she assented to its accuracy.
Had I not been the author of a work which had attracted the attention, and awakened the sympathies, of Mrs. L-, I should never have
learned these particulars; for, during three years preceding 1860, that
lady and her family had ceased to speak, outside of the domestic circle,
on the subject of their spiritual visitations.  The feeling which
prompted this reticence sufficiently explains why the family name is
withheld.




INFLUENCE OF A DECEASED DIVINE.          293
The next time that her sister's fixed gaze and changed manner indicated the recurrence of this abnormal condition, Mrs.
L     asked, " Is this Esther again?"
" Not so, my daughter," was the reply.  " It is not your sister but another friend who desires to address you."
" What friend? "
"John Murray."
This was the name of an aged preacher under whom Mrs.
L-'s mother had sat in the early part of her life, and who had
died many years before, never personally known to Mrs. L-.
After this, the impersonation, by Anne, of the Rev. Mr.
Murray was of frequent occurrence. On such occasions she
usually addressed those present in the grave and measured tones
that are wont to characterize a pulpit discourse. The subjects
were always religious, and the spirit in which they were treated
was elevated and often eloquent far beyond the natural powers
of the speaker.
Nor was this all. Mrs. L-    herself, at first very much to
her dissatisfaction, became influenced to write by impressional
dictation. Long she resisted, additionally urged to opposition
by the great repugnance of her husband and of her friends, who
regarded, almost with horror, this sudden invasion of the
household circle. "It must be some of these terrible spiritual
extravagances that are going about," they used to say, in a
tone very similar to that in which nervous people deplore the
approach of a deadly epidemic.
After a time, however, when it was observed that these communications were pure and reverent in character, inculcating
the highest principles of religion and morality, and that no
further abnormalities succeeded, Mr. L — and many of their
friends became reconciled to the intrusion; and finally listened,
with interest and pleasure, to the lessons, oral and written,
which were thus mysteriously conveyed to them.
In the above remarkable narrative I'invite attention to the
evidence, therein incidentally presenting itself, of identity.




294                PROOF OF IDENTITY.
We may believe confidently in the spiritual origin of a message or of a lesson, and yet may be justified-we are sometimes
fully justified-in doubting the identity of the spirit purporting
to communicate.*
But what are we to make of Anne's exclamation: "Your
dream, Cecilia! Your dream of last night! Htave you forgotten whither I took you and what you saw?"
Not a single particular of that dream had been related by
Mrs. L-   to Anne or to any one else. No wonder she fainted!
No wonder she felt certain —as shle told me she did-that it was
Esther herself, and no other, who inspired the words. To what
other credible source can we refer them? The hypothesis of
chance coincidence is utterly untenable. As little can we suppose reflection by thought-reading: to say nothing of the incredibility of a simulated four-hour trance.
Of apparitions to relatives and dear friends at or near the
time of death I have elsewhere t furnished authentic examples.
This is more common than any other class of apparition. Numerous examples occur in German works, and the Germans
have a special term (anzeigen) to designate such an appear
ance.
But besides being commonly unexpected and often unwelcome, these phenomena have sometimes resulted in annoyance
and loss to the parties who witnessed them; though usually
* Especially where celebrated names are given; and this may happen
without intention to deceive. The name of Socrates or Aristotle or
Confucius might be assumed by some spirit favoring the school of
philosophy of the sage whose name he gives.
For myself, I have never received a communication purporting to
come from any celebrity whom, in life, I had not known: and but rarely
from any one except those with whom I had been connected by ties of
consanguinity, or of affection.
t In Footfalls on the Bpundary of Another World, at pp. 371-376,
and throughout chapter 3, Book ii.
t " Er hat sich angezeigt" is the phrase usually employed.




A LADY'S LETTER.                29 
without apparent intention to injure, on the part of the unseen
agents.
An example is given in a London periodical,* attested by
date, place, and name. It comes through an English clergyman. The Rev. S. E. Benbough, of Hadleigh, Rochford, Essex,
writing in June, 1860, incloses a letter from a lady with whom
he says he is " well acquainted and cannot doubt for a moment
her trustworthiness."  He goes on to say: "All well-authenticated facts connected, or apparently connected, with the
supernatural are valuable as materials from which, in course
of time, general laws may be deduced;" and adds an expression of regret that so many persons, in narrating such facts,
withhold the guarantee of genuineness contained in a signature.
The letter, which he incloses and which I have slightly abridged,
tells the story. Let us call it
WHY A VILLA WAS SOLD AT A Loss.
" DEAR SIR: A few evenings since you expressed a wish to
obtain, in writing, the circumstances which caused me to leave
my former abode. Here are the facts.
"In January, 1860, I purchased a semi-detached villa, near
Chiswick. The previous occupant was a lady who, sixteen
years before, had built that and the adjoining villa. The latter had been sold to an elderly gentleman and his wife, who
proved most respectable and quiet neighbors. My own family, as you know, consists of myself, my daughter, and a female
roervant.
"The front bedroom, eighteen feet by twenty-five, I selected
for my own use. The very first night of my occupancy-there
being, a bright fire and a night-light burning-I heard a singular noise, commencing before midnight and continuing  for
some time; but I paid little attention to it. The same sound
continued, with few interruptions, for many weeks, and grew
* Spiritual Magazine of July, 1860.




296               A MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
to a serious disturbance; regularly waking me from my first
sleep at from half-past eleven to twelve o'clock, or occasionally
at about twenty minutes past eleven. The sounds seemed to
proceed firom naked or thinly-slippered feet, walking to and
fro, the length of the room, with heavy tread: so heavy that
it caused a vibration of the crockery on the marble washstand,
and of light articles on the toilet-glass.
"My first impression was that my next-door neighbors had
restless nights; but, on making their acquaintance, I found
that this was not the case. Next I sought to account for the
strange sound in connection with a timepiece in my bed-chamber; and this I had moved from place to place, but unavailingly. The sound continued, and the ticking of the timepiece
could be heard quite distinct from it.
"Another experiment was equally without result. I frequently placed myself so, as it were, that I might arrest the
footsteps, but this caused no cessation or alteration of tbc
sound.
" Sometimes I used to open the window and sit by it in the
spring mornings. This made no difference: the sounds went
on, all the same, until four or five o'clock.
" I discovered that to others the sounds conveyed the same
impression as to myself. Three or four times I awoke my
daughter; and to her as to me, they seemed to proceed from a
heavy footfall. Again, on one occasion when a friend, who was
visiting me, had been put in the room which my servant usually occupied, the girl slept on a sofa in my bedroom. Up to
tnat time I had not mentioned it to her. Twice, when awoke
in the night, she cried out, terrified:'Oh, Ma'am, what is
it? what is it?' and hid her head under the bed-clothes.
" At last this disturbance became not only annoying but so
terrible to me that I resolved to leave the house. At a great
loss I obtained a purchaser.
" When this was settled I heard, for the first time, from an
old nurse who came to inquire after the former inhabitants
of the house, that the lady who built it and who had died there,




HOUSE HAUNTIN.                   29,
and from whose brother I bought it, suffered from painful and
incurable disease, and that it was her sad fate, after a short
sleep, to walk the room till four or five in the morning; then
to sink on her bed, exhausted.
" On inquiry, an opposite neighbor confirmed this statement
They had often seen the old lady walking to and fro, when
sickness in their family caused them to be about in the early
morning.
"This may be no solution of the singular affair. But I re.
late it in connection with the other events.
"I am, dear sir, yours respectfully,
" MARY PROPERT.
" To the Rev. S. E. Benbough."
This will be recognized as one of a class of phenomena, often
discredited, known as " house-hauntings." The remarkable
point in the case is its business aspect. The lady from whom
the story comes, and who seems to have been a dispassionate
observer, found the disturbance so seriously real and so persistent that, at a great loss, she sold her house to escape it. I
think it possible she might have been saved from this loss had
she been willing —but no doubt the proposal would have
shocked her-to enter into communication with her nocturnal
visitant. In support of this opinion I here adduce an anec.
dote of
A REPENTANT HOUSEKEEPER.
There is a young lady, Miss V —, well and favorably known
to me, frank and cultivated, a member of one of the old New
York families. A few years since she was spending a week or
two with her aunt, mistress of a spacious, handsome, and hospitable old mansion on the Hudson River. This mansion, like
some of the ancient chateaux of Europe, has long had its
haunted chamber. Little was said about this, but the room
was not used except on pressing occasions. During Miss
V-'s residence there, visitors accumulated to overflowing;
13*




298              A REPENTANT DOMiESTIC
and the aunt, with an apology to her niece, asked her if she
minded giving up her room for a day or two to the new-comers
and running the risk of a visit from a ghost. Miss V —---
replied that she was not afraid of visitors from another world:
so the arrangement was made.
The young lady went to sleep quietly and without fear.
Awaking about midnight, she saw, moving about her room, an
elderly woman in neat, somewhat old-fashioned dress, apparently an upper-servant: but the face was unknown to her. At
first she was not afraid, supposing it to be some one employed
in the house who had come on some errand or other: but a moment's thought reminded her that she had locked the door before retiring. This startled her, and her alarm increased when
the figure approached the bed, bent toward her and seemed to
make an earnest but unavailing effort to speak. Greatly frightened she drew the bed-clothes over her face; and when, after a
little, she looked up again, the figure had vanished. She sprang
to the door of her room and found it still locked on the inside.
"' Can there be such things as ghosts? " she thought, as she returned to bed; "that was a reality, if sight could be trusted."
In that conviction, after a restless hour or two, she fell asleep;
but next morning in the bright light of day, it did not seem to
her quite so certain; and after a few months it faded-as with
y.oung people such things will-to a dim belief.
Then, however, a circumstance occurred which renewed a
faith, not again to be shaken, in the reality of her midnight visitor. Accepting the invitation of an intimate and highly valued friend to spend some days with her, she found that her
hostess, in a quiet way, had been making experiments in Spiritualism and had obtained sundry communications. Miss V -,
curious on a subject of which she had heard much and seen very
little, joined her friend during several sittings.
On one of these occasions an (alleged) spirit announced itself
as Sarah Clarke,* a name unknown to both ladies. The com* This is not the real name. I obtained this narrative from Miss
V — herself, in the winter of 1869-70; at first with permission to give
names and exact dates. But afterward, on conferring with her aunt,




APPEARS TO A YOUNG LADY.               299
munication was to the effect that she had been, many years before, housekeeper in the family of Miss V's aunt; that
she had endeavored, unsuccessfully, to communicate directly
with Miss V      when that young lady last visited the old
mansion; that her object was to confess a criminal act of which
she had been guilty and to ask her old mistress's pardon for it.
A restless desire to do so (she added) had caused her to haunt
the room she occupied when on earth. She then proceeded to
say that she had been tempted to steal and hide away several
small pieces of family plate, including a silver sugar-bowl and a
few other articles which she enumerated; and that she would
be very thankful if Miss V    would tell her aunt this and
express her (Sarah's) great sorrow for what she had done, and
her hope for pardon.
The next time Miss V     visited her aunt, she asked her if
she had ever known a person named Sarah Clarke.
" Certainly," she replied, " she was housekeeper in our family some thirty or forty years since."
" What sort of person was she?"
"A good, careful, tidy woman."
"Did you lose any silver articles while she was with you,
aunt? "
The lady reflected.  "Yes, I believe we did; a sugar basin
and a few other things disappeared in a mysterious way.
Why do you ask? "
" Did you ever suspect Sarah of taking them?"
"No: of course she had access to them; but we considered
her far too trustworthy to be guilty of theft."
Then Miss V -  related the message she and her friend had
received; and, on comparing notes, it was found that the list
of articles, as given by Sarah to the two ladies, corresponded
with the things actually lost, so far as the aunt could recolshe found the old lady unwilling to incur the notoriety consequent on
doing so: and thus Miss V — had to withdraw the permission to use
any names in connection with her story.




300         REPENTANCE THE MODE OF EXIT
lect. What that lady thought of her niece's story I know not
all she said was that, if Sarah had taken the things, she most
freely forgave it.
The remarkable point in this story remains to be told. From
that time forth, the haunted chamber was free from all disturb
ance. Sarah Clarke never again appeared to any of its occu.
pants.
Knowing the standing of the parties I am able to vouch for
the truth of this story. Let us consider what it discloses as to
the next world.
There is repentance there as here. There is restless regret
and sorrow for grave sin committed while here. There is anxious desire for pardon from those whom the spirit wronged
during earth-life.  In other words the natural effects of evil doing follow us to our next phase of life; and, in that phase of
life as in the present, we amend, and attain to better things, by
virtue of repentance.
In this the mode of moral progression after death is similar
to that which alone avails on earth.  " Repent! " was Christ's
first public exhortation.  To the " spirits in prison" on the
other side-spirits not yet released from earthly bondage and
earthly remorse-the same exhortation, it would seem, is appropriate still.
Such indications as these induce Spiritualists to believe that
the next world is more nearly like this than Orthodoxy imagines it to be.
Another corollary is, that when such spiritual phenomena
present themselves, an endeavor to establish communication
with the manifesting spirit may result in benefit alike to a denizen of the other world and to a disturbed inhabitant of this.
In this way Mrs. Propert, getting rid of the midnight footfalls,
might have been in quiet possession of her villa at this day.
I invite attention, also, to the strong proof of identity furui:shed by MALiss V-'s story. The name of the housekeeper
was unknown to both ladies when her (alleged) spirit gave the




FOR "c SPIRITS IN PRISON."           301
message. There was nothing to suggest such a name, or such
a confession as was made. Yet, on inquiry, both name and
confession were found to correspond with facts that had taken
place thirty or forty years before: to say nothing of a new fact,
tallying with all the rest: the cessation of the spiritual visits,
as soon as the visitor had no longer any motive to show herself.
I pass now to another class of manifestations, in which, it
will be remarked, the same element of unexpectedness is found.




CHAPTER II.
ANIMALS PERCEIVING SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.
"The ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way." —NUMBERS
xx ii23.
THOSE who deem incredible certain details of the interruption
which befell Balaam during his unwilling journey to meet the
King of Moab, may find, in modern incidents, cause for belief
that there might have been an important truth underlying the
story.
I think it the more important to adduce some of these incidents because, if sufficiently authenticated, they set at rest the
vague theories touching " expectant attention " and " dominant
ideas," that have been propounded to explain away, as figments
of the brain, all perceptions of spiritual appearances. First let
us examine one which occurred in Holland.
WHAT BEFELL A SWISS OFFICER.
I take the following from a well-known English work on
Sleep, by Dr. Binns. The author gives it on the authority of
Lord Stanhope, who had it directly from the gentleman to
whom the incident occurred, Mr. C. de Steiguer, a nephew of
the celebrated Avoyer de Steiguer, of Berne. That gentleman, in relating it to Lord Stanhope, said: " I do not believe
in apparitions, but there is something very extraordinary in
the subject; and I would not relate what I am about to mention if many persons, some of whom are now alive, could not
bear witness to its truth."
Lord Stanhope then proceeds to give " as nearly as possible




ANIMALS AFFECTED.                303
an exact translation of the expressions which he (Monsieur de
Steiguer) used." Here it is:
" I was early in life in the Dutch service, and had occupied
my lod jings, for some weeks, without hearing anything remarkable. IMy bedroom had, on one side of it, my sitting room;
on the other, a room in which my servant slept; and it communicated with each of them by a door.
" One night, being in bed but not asleep, I heard a noise as'
if some person was walking, in slippers, up and down the room.
The noise continued for some time.;" Next morning I asked my servant if he had heard anything.'Nothing,' he replied,'except that you walked up
and down the room last night, when it was late.' I assured
him that I had not done so; and, as he appeared incredulous,
I told him that, if I should again hear the sounds I would let
him know.
" On the following night I called him, desiring him to bring
a candle and to take notice if he saw anything. He informed
me that he did not; but that he heard a noise as if some person were approaching him, and then moving off in a contrary
direction.
" I had three animals in my room; a dog, a cat, and a canary-bird; each of which was affected in a peculiar manner,
whenever the noise was heard. The dog immediately jumped
into my bed and lay close to me, trembling as if from fear.
The cat followed the noise with her eyes, as if she saw, or attempted to see, what caused it. The canary bird, which was
sleeping on its perch, instantly awoke, and fluttered about the
cage, in great perturbation.
"Occasionally a noise was heard as if the keys of the piano
in my sitting room were slightly touched, and as if the key of
my desk was turned and the desk opened; but nothing moved.
I mentioned these things to the officers of my regiment, all of
whom slept by turns on the sofa in my sitting room, and heard
the same sounds."




304       ARE ANIMATLS DECEIVED BY FANCIES?
M. de Steiguer had the floor and skirting-board taken up,
but could find not even a trace of rats or mice.
After a time he became unwell; and, his illness increasing,
he sent for a physician who urgently advised him to change his
lodgings, though he would give no reason for this advice. Finally M. de Steiguer had himself removed.
He stated further to Lord Stanhope that when he became
convalescent and insisted on knowing why the doctor had so
strongly urged him to leave his rooms, the latter informed
him " that they had a bad reputation; that one man had hung
himself in them, and that it was supposed another had been
murdered." *
This narrative bears the stamp of authenticity. We cannot
believe that Lord Statnhope would have allowed Dr. Binns to
use his name a Ld that of his Swiss friend, in attestation of such
a story, without a deep conviction of its truth.
The witness appears to have been a cool-headed and dispassionate observer; but let us suppose him nervous and imaginative. Did his servant share his temperament?  Were the
senses of all the officers whom he called ill, as additional witnesses, misled by the excitement of expectation? Let us concede these extreme improbabilities. Another difficulty remains. WVas the dog, was the cat, was the canary-bird, nervously expectant?  Were their senses deceived by " dominant
ideas "?
As regards the most sagacious of domestic animals, what has
been usually called popular superstition has assigned to it an
occasional power beyond mere spiritual perceptions-a species
of presentiment in certain cases of approaching death. I do
not venture to affirm that dogs ever have such a power; yet
I know of one strongly-attested case which goes to prove that
sometimes they have an instinct which greatly resembles it.
* EDWARD BLINS, M.D., Anatomy of Steep; second edition, London, 1845; pp. 479, 480.




THE DOG UNDER THE WINDOW.            305
WHAT PRECEDED A CHILD'S UNEXPECTED DEATH.
For thirty years past I have been well acquainted with Mrs,
D, daughter of the late Rev. Mr. R, long and favorably known in Indiana. Her grandparents, named Haas,
were living in Woodstock, Virginia, when her mother, afterward Mrs. R, was twenty years old and still unmarried.
Miss HIaas had a brother, two years old, and the child had a
favorite dog, who was his constant companion and seemed to
take special care of him. The circumstances connected with
this child's sudden death, Mrs. L-     had often heard repeated
by her mother.
It was about mid-day that this boy, running over the parlor
floor, tripped his foot inthe carpet and fell. His sister picked
him up and soon succeeded in soothing him. At dinner, however, it was observed that he gave his left hand, not being able
to stretch out his right. They rubbed the right arm with camphor and the child made no complaint.
While they were at dinner, the dog approached the child's
chair and began whining in the most piteous way. They put
him out, then he howled. They drove him off, but he returned
and took his post under the window of the room in which the
child was, continuing to howl from time to time; and there
he remained during the night, in spite of all attempts to dislodge him. In the evening the child was taken seriously ill,
and died about one o'clock in the morning. So long as it
lived the dog's dismal lament was heard, at brief intervals;
but as soon as the child died, the howling ceased, and was not
renewed either then or afterward.
I have entire confidence in Mrs. D's truthfulness, and
it was by her that the above story was related to me.*
This, however, is the only example of the kind that has
come to me directly authenticated; and I refrain from build* On June 27, 1859. I took notes of it at the time.




306         A REMARKABLE STORY VOUCHED
ing on a single example. Animals may not have the gift of
presentiment; but I think there is sufficient proof that they
have spiritual perceptions. In a former work * I have, inci
dentally, brought up some evidence of this; and I esteem my
self fortunate in being able here to present, from an accredited
medical source, one of the best-attested and most circumstantially related incidents in proof, that I ever remember to have
seen. It is the more valuable because medical writers as a
class-like other scientific men-are ever reluctant to admit
anything that savors of the supernatural.
The story appeared, three years before the advent of Spiritualism in America, in one of the best-known Medical Journals
of Scotland. It occurs in a review of a work on Sleep, then
just published. The reviewer touches on the subject of apparitions and, after noticing several cases which he thinks of easy
solution, thus proceeds:
" The following case, however, is one of those very rare ones,
whose explanation baffles the philosophic inquirer. It is, indeed, almost the only authentic one to which we could refer;
and, as it occurred to a particular friend and every circumstance was minutely inquired into at the time, the narrative is
as authentic as such things can be. It may add to the interest
of this case to state that it was communicated several years
ago to Mr. Hibbert, after the publication of his work on apparitions, when he confessed that he could not explain it in the same
philosophic way in which he had been able to account for all
others, and that it appeared to him more nearly to approach the
supernatural."
The story, thus strongly vouched for, is then given by the
reviewer, as follows, the title only added by me:
THE DOG IN TIIE WOLFRIDGE WOOD.
"F. M. S —   was passing through the Wolfridge wood at
Alverston, one night at twelve o'clock. He was accompanied
* Footfalls, pp. 217, 231, 398, 446, 448.




FOR BY A MEDICAL JOURNAL.             807
by his dog, of a breed between the Newfoundland and mastiff;
a powerful animal, who feared neither man nor beast. He
had a fowling-piece and a pair of pistols loaded, besides his
sword; for he belonged to the Military School there and had
been out for a day's shooting.
"The road ran centrally through the wood; and very nearly
in the centre of the wood, at a part somewhat more open than
the rest, there was a cross erected to point out the spot where
a gamekeeper had been murdered. The place had the reputation of being haunted, and the ghost, it was said, had been repeatedly seen. S —   had frequently before passed this cross
in the wood without seeing anything, and treated the story of
the ghost so lightly that he had, on more occasions than one,
for a bet, gone there at midnight and returned without meeting anything except an occasional gamekeeper or poacher.
"' This night, when he approached the open space in the wood,
he thought he perceived, at the other end of that space, the
form of a man, more indistinct, however, than usual. He
called his dog to his side (for previously it had been ranging
about, barking furiously and giving chase to the game it started),
patted it on the head to make it keep a sharp look-out, and
cocked his gun. The dog, on this, was all impatience. Schallenged the figure, but no answer was returned. Suspecting it was a poacher and prepared for an encounter, he directed
the dog's attention to the appearance, and the animal answered
by growling. He then kept his eyes steadily fixed on the figure;
when, instantaneously it glided within arm's length of him.
Still he looked steadily in its face while it kept its eyes on his.
It had approached him without noise or rustling. The face
was ill-defined, but distinctly visible. He could not turn his
eyes from those of this apparition; they fascinated him, as it
were, to the spot; he had no power in his frame. He felt no
fear of bodily injury, only a certain indescribable sense of awe.
So fascinated were his eyes by those of the figure, that he did
not observe its dress, nor even its form. It, looked calmly and
with a mild aspect, for a space of time which he does not




308                A DOG ENTRANCED.
think exceeded half a minute; then suddenly became invisi
ble. The form had flitted before him about five minutes alto.
gether.
"The dog which before this was furious and growling, now
stood crouched at his feet as if in a trarice-his jaw fallen, his
limbs quivering, and his whole frame agitated and covered
with a cold sweat.  After the form disappeared, S: touched
the animal, then spoke to it without its seeming to recognize
him; and it was some time before it appeared to recover its
senses.  The -whole way home, it never moved from his side
but kept close to his feet; nor, on their way home, did it run
after game, or take notice if game started near it.
"' It was a fortnight before it recovered from the fright; and
it was never afterward the same lively animal. No consideration could ever again induce that dog to enter the wood after
nightfall, nor would it allow any of the family to enter it.
When it was forced to pass by the open spot in daylight, it
would only do so with its master, and it always exhibited signs
of fear, trembling all the time and walking silently by his side.
" S     has frequently since passed this spot in the wood at
the midnight hour, but has never again seen the figure. Before this' occurrence he had always treated with ridicule any
stories about ghosts or spirits; now, he firmly believes in
both."
The reviewer does not hesitate to express the opinion that
the appearance witnessed by his friend was the result of supernatural agency.*
* Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for 1845; vol. lxiv. pp.
186-7.
The reviewer's remarks are as follows:
" This is almost the only recorded case known to us where the evi.
dence is so strong, as to leave no other impression on the mind but that
it was the appearance of some supernatural agency, and, after having
in vain endeavored to explain it on any other supposition, we found
ourselves forced to conclude, with tHamlet, that'there are more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.'"




A SCEPTIC CONVERTED.                309
This, published in a Medical Journal of old standing and
established reputation, three years before the term Spiritualism
in its modern acceptation had been heard of-is certainly a
very remarkable admission.
The incident here related caused a complete revolution of
opinion in the witness. From being an entire sceptic in apparitions and in spirits, he became, through the evidence of his
senses, a believer in both. But to have faith in spirits and
their appearance is to have faith in the reality of another
life.
Could he, rationally, withhold belief? Is not one such incident, unmistakably evidenced, as complete proof of a future
phase of existence as a hundred?  And even if S      had
been willing, as some men have been, to give the lie to his
own senses, rather than believe that the denizens of the next
world sometimes return to this, was there not a dumb witness
remaining to bear testimony, by his changed character and unconquerable terrors, against such stiff-necked and illogical unbelief?




CHAPTER III.
UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS.'Miracles cease when men cease to bolieve and to expect them." —
LECKY.*
THIS is what is usually called a rationalistic, but it is not a
rational, view of miracles.
A portion of the alleged events which go currently under the
name of miracles undoubtedly do not happen. But a larger
portion do. Unfounded belief may cause us to imagine the
former.  The latter are not dependent upon our thought of
them-be it credulous or incredulous t -for their appearance
or non-appearance.
What the world has been wont to term miracles, cease to be
regarded as such when they are critically examined: that is true.
But it is not true that phenomena similar to what theologians usually call the miracles of the New Testament cease,
when we no longer have faith in them, or when we cease to
look for their coming. It is not true, as to certain manifestations occurring through spiritual agency, and governed by intermundane laws, that these are the shadowy offspring of credulity, and that they disappear, like mist of the morning, when
the San of Reason shines out.
* European Moracls, vol. i. p. 373: (Amer. Ed.)
t Hard-set unbelief may, now ani then, by some law of mental science as yet imperfectly understood, arrest a certain class of spiritual
phenomena, and so deprive a dogmatic sceptic of a chance to wit.uets
them: just as the contempt of Jesus' own countrymen diminished his
spiritual power while among them (Mark vi. 5).  But this is the
exception only; as many of the narratives in this volume sufficiently
show.




A SUPERSTITIOUS EPIDEMIC?            311
The great lesson taught in the few narratives I have already
given, in many of those which follow and in a hundred others
attested beyond reasonable denial,* is that genuine spiritual
appearances show themselves in spite of distrust, unbelief, repugnance even-show themselves, when the sight of an angel
from Heaven was as little expected as they —and, so far as the
evidence goes, have always done so, though doubtless more frequently in some ages of the world than in others.
It is a popular notion that, about twenty-five years since, a
superstitious epidemic, originating in Western New York, overtook millions of weak men and women, first in these United
States, then in Europe and other parts of the world; creating
in them a most unphilosophical belief: namely, that there had
*appeared among us a modern dispensation, under which there
were occurring marvellous events without example in the past,
and specially vouchsafed by God to this, his favored generation.
The assumed theory is that this new faith was the mania prevailing for the time; soon to pass away, like a hundred other
ephemeral delusions.
These short-cuts toward a solution of momentous difficulties
are very convenient and very illogical. They save men trouble
in investigating; but they cannot save them from errors of the
gravest character.
Nothing more easy than to allege that if we go back even a
few years before the time when the report of the " Rochester
Knockings" disgusted the Church and scandalized the world
of Science, we come upon an age barren of all miraculous inklings, save only within the suspicious precincts where Romish
ecclesiasticism reigns.
-Easy to say, but at variance with notorious facts. The earliest date of the Rochester disturbances is March, 1848. Will
it do to assert that, say ten or fifteen years before that time,
one camnnot find, in any sober, civilized nation, where science
holds free and respected sway, trustworthy evidence that oc.
* See Footfalls, Books iii., iv., v.




312             A CLUSTER OF NARRATIVES
currences as strange and as little capable of apneumatic expla,
nation-spiritual manifestations in fact-were habitually showing themselves?
Let us see. Our own country is spoken of as young, impulsive, credulous, not given to thorough study.  Let us, in this
instance, pass her by, for another. The English are staid, practical, thoughtful; not easily moved from their equanimity; not
specially tolerant of startling novelties; sufficiently sensitive to
the sting of ridicule; sufficiently inclined to follow the old ruts
of habit and custom, legally, materially, spiritually.  In no
country is Science more free; in none are scientific men harder
students, more sceptical, or more active-minded.
The more valuable, because of these national traits, is the following narrative, or cluster of narratives, to which, through
the kindness of a Scottish friend whom the world, alas! has recently lost,* my attention happened to be directed.  He put
into my hands a remarkable book, little known, written, thirty
years since, by a gentleman of standing; an English officer and
a Fellow of the Royal Society. t
The author of this work testifies to a disturbance of a very
singular character which occurred at his country seat, near
Woodbridge, Suffolk. It continued throughout nearly two
months. The details are minutely given.
FIFTY-THREE DAYS OF BELL RINGING.
This disturbance commenced on the second of February, 1834,
at the house of Great Bealings, inhabited by Major Edward
Moor. On the afternoon of that day, being Sunday, during the
absence of Major Moor at church and while only one manservant and one maid-servant were at home, the dining-room
* Robert Chambers.
t lealings Belli.. An Account of the Mysterious Ringing of.;Bells,
at Great Bealings, Suffolk, in 1834, and in other parts of England: with
Relations of other unaccountable Occurrences in various places. By
Major EDWARD MooR, F.IR.S.; Woodbridge, 1841; pp. 142.




FROM' AN ENGLISH WORK.                313
bell was rung, without visible cause, three times. The weather
was calm; the barometer at 290; the thermometer within its
usual range. There were no remarkable atmospheric phenomena.
Next day the same bell sounded several times, equally without apparent cause. On the third day five out of the nine bells
suspended in a row in the basement of the house, gave forth
several loud peals, while nobody could detect any one meddling
either with the pulls or the wires.
After this all the bells in the house, twelve in number, were
(except one, the front-door bell) repeatedly rung in the same
manner: five bells usually ringing at a time. The wires of
these five pealers were visible in their whole course, from the
pulls to the bells themselves, except where they passed through
floors or walls by small openings.
This continued day after day throughout February and March.
The bells usually rang after a clattering fashion, quite different
fiom the usual ringing.  " With no vigor of pull," says Major
Moor, "could the violent ringing be effected."  Pulling the
horizontal wires with a hook, downward, produced only a gentle, tinkling sound. The Major further says: " The motion of
the bells, and that of their spiral flexible support, when rung
by hand, was comparatively slow and perceptible: not so, at
the peals; it was then too rapid to be seen distinctly." *
Major Moor was naturally much surprised by these apparent prodigies; and he, his servants, and friends made many
efforts to find some natural explanation, but wholly without
success. Then he inserted a minute statement of particulars in.
the Ipswich Joournal, t describing the situations of the bells
and the arrangement of their wires, in hopes that some one
would be able to suggest an explanation; but no explanation
beyond surmises of trickery ever reached him: in reply to cer* Bealings Bells, p. 6.
t Of March 1, 1834. He states that during the very time he was
writing his communication to this newspaper, the bells were repeatedly
rung.
14




314           A CLNSS OF DISTURBANCES
tain inquirers who probably thought they were suggesting ad.
equate cause, he replied that his house was not infested with
rats, and that he kept no monkey.
The last ringing was on March 27, 1834. It is abundantly
evident, from  Major Moor's book, that he spared no pains,
throughout the seven and a half weeks during which the strange
annoyance lasted, to detect fraudulent artifice, had artifice, under
such circumstances, been possible. He avers: " The bells rang
scores of times when no one was in the passage or back-building
or house or grounds, unseen: I have waited in the kitchen for
a repetition of the ringings, with all the servants present-when
no one could be in concealment. But what matters? Neither
I, nor the s3rvants, nor any one, could, or can, work the wonderment that I and more than half a score of others saw."
Finally, the Major declares: " I am thoroughly convinced that
the ringing is by no human agency.*
Now, on the supposition that what have been called spiritual manifestations —doings which we can trace to no human
agency-are the modern offspring of an epidemic commencing
in 1848, what should we suppose might be the probable result
of a newspaper article narrating the above occurrence, and
published in an English paper in 1834? Simply that the foolhardy narrator would incur ridicule as a dupe, or encounter
reproach as an impostor.
But what actually happens?
DISCLOSURES THROUGH BEALINGS BELLS.
From Major Moor's book we learn that his communication to
the Ipswich Journal brought him letters containing fourteen
different examples of mysterious bell-ringing, every one of
them unexplained; all occurring in England, namely, in the
Counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Derby, Middlesex, and in
or near the towns of Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Chesterfield,
* Becalngs Bells, p. 5.




APPEARING THROUGHOUT ENGLAND.             315
Cambridge, Bristol, Greenwich, Windsor, and London; all of
comparatively recent date, and most of them attested by the
signatures of those who witnessed them, with permission to
give their names to the public. He received also three other
3ommunications disclosing further mysteries, to which I shall
refer by and by.
The fourteen examples, be it remarked, are all of one partic
ular phase of manifestation; a rare phase, so far as mny observation goes: I have notes of but one such in the United States,
namely, in a house in Pine street, Philadelphia; lasting during
five days of the week between Christmas and New Year's Day,
1857.*
But even of this rare phase of manifestation, we cannot imagine that in the fourteen examples presented in Bealings
Bells, we have more than a very small instalment of similar
cases which might be found in England. The chances are that
nine men or women of the world, out of every ten, would
shrink from the notoriety, or shirk the trouble, attendant on the
presentation of such narratives for publication.
Even in this small book, then, what a lifting of the veil on
the thousand marvels that may have occurred in all ages, unrecorded or unexplained!
Unable for lack of space to notice Major Moor's fourteen
relations, I here briefly condense the evidences in three of
them.
AN EIGHTEEN-MONTHS' DISTURBANCE.
In a house near Chesterfield, belonging to Mr. James Ashwell, "long and repeated bell-ringings," commencing in 1830
and continuing throughout eighteen months, occurred.
* In this case, there being a sick lady in the house, the attending
nurse said the disturbance must be stopped, and she herself muffled the
bells, wrapping the clappers with cloth and then tying them with twine.
Three hours later they rang themselves loose, of everything, pealing
more violently than before. Finally they rang themselves loose from
the wall itself, drawing out the staples, five inches long-then the belli




31                SATAN IN THE BELLS.
The details are given, partly by Mr. Ashwell himself, partly
by Mir. W. Felkin, of Nottingham, a friend of his.
According to Mfr. Felkin's statement, "all the bells in the
house rang at one time or other; but never before five in the
morning nor after eleven at night. The oscillation was like
that of a pendulum, not a decreasing one. A bell was put up
one Saturday evening, unattached to any wire, and rang in half
an hour.*  Another bell which had been taken down and laid
on a closet shelf, lay there quiescent for some weeks; but being
then fixed by means of the flexible bent iron to which it was
attached between a wooden hat-peg batten and the wall against
which the batten was nailed, it rang. immediately. t
These bells were wont to ring continuously, with violent
clatter and for a considerable time. Sometimes, during their
greatest vibration, Mr. Ashwell would seize one of them between
his hands, and compel cessation: but, as soon as he released it,
it would resume its oscillation and ringing.
All the bells were hung out of reach. Bell-hangers, of
course, were called to lend their aid; but nothing was found to
indicate that bell or bell-wire had been tampered with. On a
particular occasion, while a bell-hanger was engaged in re-attaching the wires, after a long silence, one of the bells began to
ring before his face. Down dropped the man from the ladder;
and, without waiting to gather up his tools, off he ran as fast
as his legs could carry him, crying out that Satan was in the
bells, and that he would have nothing more to do with them.
The house where all this happened was so substantial, its
walls so thick, and its foundations so large that the highest
winds were unfelt within it. " Every part of this extensive mansion," says Mr. Felkin, " was examined by me with the strictest
care, and I could not divine the motive natural power adequate
to the effect."
rang on the floor. The inmates of the house were not Spiritualists
nor in any sense favorers of spiritual belief.
* Bealings Bells, p. 48.
t Page 56.




ALL INQUIRIES BAFFLED.               317
Mr. Felkin says of his friend, Mr. Ashwell, that " he is the
reverse of superstitious; well-educated, philosophical, and indefatigable in research." lM2r. Ashlwell " tried various experiments with electrometers and other tests," and spoke on the
subject with many men of science; but all without result. Mr.
Felkin never heard Mr. Ashwell "hazard a guess as to the
cause."
Again and again, indeed, attempts were made, as well by the
family as by numerous visitors, to discover the occult agency,
"both when the bells were connected with lines and when the
wires had been cut for months: a circumstance which made no
apparent difference in their sounding disposition."  But " these
events quite baffled the acutest inquirer."
Ringings so persistent caused great excitement, not only in
the house, but, being noised abroad, in the neighborhood. The
servants were greatly alarmed, and some left their places. The
children, too, were frightened. but were pacified by being told
that "the bells were ill."
A public footpath passed near Mr. Ashwell's front door; and
"many passengers made a circuit rather than pass close to
it."
Another observation is mentioned in connection with this
case which is intelligible enough to us, but was, no doubt, a
puzzle to Major Moor, writing at a time when " sensitives"
and " mediums " had not yet been heard of. It was this: The
gossips of the vicinity remarked, as to a young lady who resided
in'Mr. Ashwell's family, that the occurrences were nearly coincident with her stay in the house, and ceased about the time she
left it. But (it is added) it does not appear that the slightest
voluntary agency on her part was suspected by the family, who
had the best means of detecting it.*
The next narrative comes from a Londoner
* This narrative extends from page 45 to page 56 of Bealings
Bells.




318                BELLS IN UPBOAR.
A  LADY'S ACCOUNT OF BELL RINGINGS.
Among the numerous letters received by Major Moor waa
one from a Mrs. Milnes, dated No. 19 St. Paul's Terrace, Islington, May 17, 1834..
The writer says: " In the early part of February, 1825, returning home from a walk (to our then residence, No. 9 Earl
street, Westminster), ablout half-past four in the afternoon, I
was astonished to find the family much disturbed at the ringing
of bells in the house, without visible cause. The first bell
rung was in the nursery, the pull of which was at the. bottom
of the house, quite unconnected with any others. This bell
rang several times before the rest began; then that of the
dining-room; next that of the drawing-room, and so on, through
the house: sometimes altogether, as if they were trying to
entice each other in uproar; at others one at a time, but always
violently.
" By this time I was much alarmed and sent for Mr. Milnes
who, thinking to find out what ailed them, had the cases taken
down that concealed the wires. Finding this of no use, he
next placed a person with a light in each room, while he himself held a candle under the row of bells below; but we could
not then ascertain the slightest reason for this strange ringing,
which lasted two hours and a half: nor have we ever since
been able to discover more of it than we did then."
Here again, as in the preceding example, we have an incident
probably intimating through whose unconscious mediumship
these L)henomena occurred. Mr. Milnes adds: "It had a surprising effect upon one of our servant girls, a mulatto.  She,
from the first, had been more terrified than any one else in the
house; and, at the last -peal, fell into strong convulsions; so
strong as to require several men to hold her down. These convulsions continued sixteen hours and were succeeded by insensibility, and a stupor that lasted nearly a week: every means
being used to restore her, but without effect. It is singular




A COMRADE OF NELSON PUZZLED.            319
that the moment she was seized with these. fits the bells ceased
to ring." *
BELLS IN GREENW.ICI HOSPITAL.
The details in this case come, as in the preceding examples,
from a witness present, namely, from Lieutenant Rivers, R. N.,
a comrade of Nelson, who had lost a leg in the service. They
are given in a letter from that officer to Major Moor, dated
April 26, 1841.
The bells began to ring September 30, 1834, in Lieutenant
Rivers' apartments situated in the hospital; and they continued four days.
The ringing was at intervals of five to ten minutes; four
bells sometimes sounding at once. " In the evening," says the
Lieutenant, " about eight o'clock, I tied up the clappers: while
so doing the bells were much agitated and shook violently. In
the morning when I loosed them, they began to ring.'
" The clerk of the works, his assistant and Mr. Thame, the
bell-hanger, came and had another examination, without discovery of the cause. They requested that the family and
servants would leave the apartments to them. We did so,
dining at a neighbor's opposite; and while at dinner we heard
the bells ring a peal. MIr. Thame and the assistant remained
till eleven o'clock; the one watching the cranks, the other the
bells below, in perfect astonishment."
He adds:  "Several scientific men tried to discover the
cause. The front-door bell, detached from the others, did not
ring. I secured the door-pull to prevent its being used, leaving the bell to have full play. About three o'clock in the
afternoon I went home and found many persons satisfying their
curiosity.  When explaining to them that I thought it extraordinary that the front-door did not join in the performances
* Beadings Beias, pp. 60-62.




320          EDXAMPLES OF HOUSE HAUNTING
it immediately set up a good ring. *  The cause of all this re
mains still mysterious."
Another observation made in this case is worth noting.
"What appeared most extraordinary was the movement of the
cranks which, the bell-hanger said, could not cause the bells to
ring without being pulled downward: and this they did ot
themselves, in every room; working like pump-handles."
Lieutenant Rivers adds that similar phenomena occurred in
another officer's apartments in the hospital, continuing for a
week. f
To multiply examples from Major MIoor's book would but
involve tedious repetition; seeing that the narratives all resemble each other: the same violent ringings or pealings, sometimes for a few hours only, sometimes for months; the same
care to detect trickery: the same anxiety to discover the cause;
and, in every case, the same result: inability to trace the phenomena to any human agency.
There is another phase of manifestations, analogous to the
above; sometimes, like them, of a mere material character,
sometimrnes indicating intelligence; and which, because it has
been popularly ascribed to restless spirits, revisiting their
former homes, is commonly termed haunting. 
Of this, again, there are two varieties; one characterized by
knockings and other unexplained noises; the other, often attaching itself to ancient family residences in England and other
countries, marked by the phenomenon of apparition. A large
proportion of the old, well-known English names of rank have
their family legend, referring to peculiar disturbances or appearances, usually persistent through generations, and generally
confined to some ancestral mansion.
Especially when the haunting assumes the form of a " family
* Yet, as this bell was so situated that the wire could readily be
reached by the hand, the incident, taken by itself, is not conclusive.
t Bealings Bells. pp. 81-83.
t For numerous examples, see Footfalls, Book iii chap. 2.




COMMON IN ENGLAND.                    321
ghost" is the story, outside of the family itself, wont to be
pooli-poohed as a nursery tale. No doubt such narratives often
involve exaggeration, mystification, illusion.  As little doubt,
ho-wever-if we but sift the genuine from the spurious —that
many of them  have foundation in truth.  We have testimony
in proof from eye-witnesses of such standing that we have not
the right to impugn their intelligence or their veracity.
Take an example, from'a recent publication.  Florence 3Marryat, daughter of the celebrated novelist, gave, less than a yearago, in an American pIeriodical,* three stories of apparitions,
which she attests as "strictly true and well autheticated."  Of
these the last was witnessed by her father, Captain Marryat,
and is related as she heard it from his own lips. I condense portions of it, giving the main facts in the author's own language.
In one of the northern counties of England stands a country house, Burnham Green, inherited by the present occupants,
Sir Harry and Lady Bell. t  Their house had its ghost; but,
"like most sensible people, they laughed at the report: " surrounding themselves with every luxury and not heeding the
legend.
Their numerous fiiends, cordially invited, flocked to Burnham Green, thought the place and its host and hostess charming; yet, after a while, made paltry excuses to curtail their
visits and were shy of being lured there again. It came out
that they had heard of the ghost, some declared they had seen
it, and the rest could not be persuaded to remain under a
haunted roof.
" Sir Harry and Lady Bell were thoroughly vexed and did all
they could to dissipate the superstition. They disinterred the
* Harper's Weekly, issue of December 24, 1870; pages 846 and 847.
t These are not the real names. The writer says: " While I preserve all details of these stories, I carefully hide the names of persons
and places, lest by negligence in this respect I should wound the feelings of survivors." She says also that the stories which she has related
are selected from a number of similar anecdotes which rise in her
memory as she writes.




322             A GHOST STORY RELATED
history of the ghost who went by the name of' The Lady of
Burnham Green,' and found that it was supposed to be the
spirit of one of their ancestresses who had lived in the time of
Elizabeth, and had been suspected of poisoning her husband.
Her picture hung in one of the unused bedrooms."
Lady Bell caused this bedroom to be renovated and cheer,
fully fitted up; and she had the picture of the Lady cleaned
and new-framed. In vain! " No one could be found to sleep
in that room. The servants gave warning, if it was simply
proposed to them, and visitors invariably requested to have
their room changed after the second or third night. Guest
after guest took flight, to return no more."
In this dilemma Sir Harry applied to Captain 3Marryat, an
old friend of his, for advice. The Captain, utterly disbelieving
the story, offered to occupy the haunted chamber: an offer
which was eagerly accepted.
With a brace of loaded pistols under his pillow, he was undisturbed for several nights, and was beginning to think of returning home: but he was not to escape so easily.
After a week had passed, one evening when Captain Marryat was about to retire for the night, Mr. Lascelles, one of the
guests, tapped at his door and asked him to cross to his room
and inspect a newly-invented fowling-piece, the merits of which
they had just before been discussing in the smoking room.
The Captain, who had already divested himself of coat and
waistcoat, picked up a pistol-" in case we meet the ghost "he
said jestingly-passed along the corridor to Mr. Lascelles' room,
and, after chatting for a few minutes, over the virtues of the
new gun, turned to go. Mr. Lascelles returned with him
" just to protect you from the ghost," he said laughingly, in
imitation of the former allusion. The corridor was long and
dark, the lights having been extinguished at midnight; but as
they entered it they saw a dim light advancing from the farther
end-a light held by a female figure. The children of several
of the families were lodged on the floor above, and Lascelles
suggested that this was probably some lady going to visit the




BY FLORENCE MAIRYAT.               323
nurseries. The Captain, remembering that he was in shirt
and trousers and unwilling to face a lady in that guise, dreu
his companion aside. The conclusion shall be told in the narrator's own words.
THE LADY OF BURNHAM GREEN.
"The rooms in the corridor were placed opposite each other,
and were approached by double doors, the first of which, on
being opened, disclosed a small entry and the second door,
which led to the bedchamber itself. Many persons, on entering their rooms, only closed this second door, leaving the other
standing open; and thus, when Mr. Lascelles and my father
stepped into one of these recesses, they were enabled to shelter
themselves behind the half-closed portal.
" There, in the gloom, they crouched together, very much
inclined to laugh, I have no doubt, at the situation in which
they found themselves, but terribly afraid lest by a betrayal
of their illegal presence they should alarm the occupant of the
bedroom before which they stood, or the lady who was advancing to the place of their concealment.
"Very slowly she advanced, or so it seemed to them; but
they could watch the glimmer of her lamp through the crack
of the door; and presently my father, who had pertinaciously
kept his eye there, gave the half-smothered exclamation,' Lascelles! By Jove! —the ILady!'
"' He had studied the picture of the supposed apparition carefully, was intimate with every detail of her dress and appearance, and felt that he could not be mistaken in the red satin
sacque, white stomacher and petticoat, high-standing frill, and
cushioned hair of the figure now advancing toward them.
"'A splendid "make-up,"' he said, beneath his breath;'but whoever has done it shall find I know a trick worth two
of his.'
" But Mr. Lascelles said nothing. Imposition or not, he
did not like the looks of the Lady of Burnham Green.




324           THE LADY AND THE CAPTAIN.
c" On she came, quiet and dignified, looking neither to the
right nor to the left, while my father cocked his pistol, and
stood ready for her. He expected she would pass their place
of hiding, and intended to pursue and make her speak to him;
but instead of that, the dim light gained the door, and then
stood still.
" Lascelles shuddered. He was a brave man, but sensitive.
Even my father's iron nerves prompted him to be quiescent.
" In another moment the lamp moved on again, came closer,
closer; and round the half-closed door, gazing inquisitively at
them, as though really curious to see who was there, peered
the pale face and cruel eyes of the Lady of Burnham Green.
" Simultaneously my father pushed open the door and confronted her. She stood before him in the corridor just as she
stood in the picture in his bedroom, but with a smile of mralicious triumph on her face; and goaded on by her expression,
hardly knowing what he did, he raised his pistol and fired full
at her. The ball penetrated the door of the room opposite to
where they stood; and, with the same smile upon her face, she
passed through the panels and disappeared."
Of course there was no explanation except what the appearance and disappearance of the apparition afforded. If spirits
cannot appear, what was it that these two gentleman saw and
one of them fired at?
No narrative resembling the above was communicated to
IMajor Mtoor; but he had sent to him, and has recorded in his
book, three cases of hauntings.
They have this in common that the witnesses all testify to
violent knockings, sometimes accompanied by other strange,
disturbing noises; b)ut they differ in this respect: one case
seems to have been of a personal character, that is, dependent
on the presence of some individual-sensitive or medium, as
the modern phrase is; the two others, it would appear, were
independent of personal attributes —were local and permanent,




FROM AN ENGLISH CLERGYMAN.             325
continuing through several generations: or, as we might express
it, were endemical.
Such is the following contained in a letter written by an English clergyman in reply to an inquiry which had been made by
Major Moor.
THE HIOUSE OF MYSTERY.
SYDERSTERNE PARSONAGE, near FAKENA1M, }
Norfokc, May 11, 1841.
SIR: You have, indeed, sent your letter, received yesterday,
to the House of Mystery. In the broad lands of England you
cannot, perhaps, find such another. But I regret to add that
I can afford you no assistance in the " Bell " line.
"Our noises, in this parsonage, are of a graver character;
smart successions of tappings, groanings, cryings, sobbings,
disgusting scratchings, heavy trampings and thundering knocks,
in all the rooms and passages, have distressed us here for a
period of nearly nine years, during my occupancy of this
Cure. They still continue, to the annoyance of my family, the
alarm of my servants, and the occasional flight of some of
them.
" I am enabled clearly to trace their existence in this parsonage to a period of sixty years past; and I have little doubt
that, were not all the residents anterior to that time now
passed away, I could be able to carry my successful scrutiny
on and on.
"In 1333 and 1834 we kept almost open house to enable
respectable people who were personally known, or had been
introduced to us, to satisfy their curiosity. But our kindness
was abused, our motives misinterpreted, and even our characters maligned. Therefore we closed our doors.
"' In 1834 I had prepared my diary for publication. My
work was to be published by Mr. Rodd, the eminent bookseller of Newport street, London; but as the end had not ar




326            ACCOUNT OF DISTURBANCES
rived I postponed my intention from day to day and year to
year, in hope of such consummation." *
" (Signed)                       JOHN STEWART.
" To Jfajor Edward.Moor."
Here we have an example how the knowledge and the memory of such occurrences slip away. I cannot learn that the
Rev. Mr. Stewart's diary has ever appeared. The dislike of
notoriety as a visionary, or worse, has caused the suppression
of a hundred similar expositions.
The next case, one of knockings and other unexplained
noises, apparenuly caused by the presence of a medium, I pass
by; having, in a previous work, adduced many similar examples.
The last example I shall adduce from Major Moor's book is
evidently one of
ENDEMICAL DISTURBANCES.
They occurred, says Major Moor, "in a respectable old
manor-house, in the north-eastern part of — shire, which
was, in very early times, the seat of a family of distinction in
the county."
For eighteen years past this house had been occupied by a
clergyman, known to Major Moor, who vouches for him as " a
gentleman of most unimpeachable veracity and of deservedly
high estimation."  The account is sent to the Major by this
clergyman himself, under date June 28, 1841.
It is also confirmed, from personal observation, by a nephew
of Major Moor, Captain Frazer, of the Royal Artillery, in a
letter dated July 19, 1841.
About the year 1680 the chief part of the ancient mansion
was pulled down and the present house erected on the spot.
The remaining portion of the old house was allowed to stand,
* Given on pages 93 to 95 of Bealings Bells.




GIVEN BY ANOTHER CLERGYMAN.            327
and, separated only by a party-wall, it became thenceforth a
farm-house, occupied by the tenant of the adjoining lands.
The estate came into the possession of the present owner's
father in 1818; and, at that time the house had the reputation
of being haunted; many tales of strange sights and sounds circulating through the neighborhood. The popular belief ascribed
these to the unblest spirit of a former owner, dead more than a
hundred years ago.
In 1823 the clergyman who is the narrator came to reside
there. Noises were often heard, but the family referred them,
at first, to the occupants of the back portion of the mansion,
the farm-house.
In 1826, however, this old part of the building was pulled
down, and still the sounds continued, the same which the family had heard for years, and which have been heard, almost
nightly, ever since.
These disturbances are thus described in the clergyman's letter: " In the dead of night, usually between the hours of twelve
and two, when every member of the family is in bed and there
is no imaginable cause to be assigned, a succession of heavy and
distinct blows are heard, as of some weighty instrument upon a
hollow wall or floor. They are sometimes so loud as to awaken
one from sleep, sometimes scarcely audible."
On one occasion they burst forth with such violence that the
clergyman, accustomed as he was to hear and disregard them,
sprang out of bed and rushed to the head of the stairs under a
conviction that the outer door of the house had been violently
burst in. Another night, when going to bed, the thumpings,
as violent, were continued so long that he had time to go to the
back-door of the house and sally forth, in quest.
On yet another occasion, the sounds having long continued
as if coming from the brew-house or the cellar, which adjoined
each other, the clergymanr and two of his brothers sat up and
went to watch, two in the brew-house and one in the cellar.
Then it ceased there, but was heard, by those in the brew-house,
as if sounding from underneath the lawn, fifty yards distant.




328             TIlE NIGHTLY CARTER IS
Great pains were taken, the clergyman says, to discover some
cause for these noises, but quite unavailingly.  A. large old
drain running underneath the house might, it was thought, be
connected with the sounds. It was thoroughly examined, a
man being sent through it, from one end to the other; but the
noise proceeded as before.
" After above twenty years," says the reverend writer, " we
are entirely in the dark as ever. The length of time it has
been heard; the fact of every domestic in the house having
been often changed during that time; and the pains that have
been taken to investigate the matter, while every member of
the house except the watcher was in bed —have put the possibility of any trick out of the question; and have convinced all
the inmates that it cannot be accounted for on any of the usual
suppositions of " horses in the stable kicking," or " dogs rapping with their tails," or " rats jumping in the tanks or drains."
Horses stamp and dogs rap and rats gallop; but they do not
make such sounds as that one startling and peculiar noise with
which our ears are so familiar." *
Another phase of the phenomenon, mentioned both by the
clergyman and by Captain Frazer, was of a singular character.
When the former was a young man, returning home for the
holidays, he was awoke, one night, by a loud noise, as if a cart,
heavily laden with iron bars, was passing slowly along the path,
under his windows. He threw open the shutters and window;
it was bright moonlight, but he could see nothing, though the
noise continued for some time. When he mentioned this the
next morning, he was laughed at, for his pains. This incident
had almost faded from his memory when, eleven years afterward, it was very strangely recalled. An uncle of his, visiting
the family, was put to sleep in the same room. The next
morning, at breakfast, this gentleman related that he had been
awakened in the night by the clatter of a cart, as if laden with
iron, drawn over the gravel walk beneath the windows of his
* Beatings Bells, p. 115.




NOT AN ISOLATED EXAMPLE.                   329
room. He, too, having risen, opened the window to investi
gate, but nothing could he see. He retired to bed, thinking it
might possibly have been a dream and lay awake for half an
hour. At tile end of that time he heard, a second time, with
unmistakable distinctness, the same sounds of a loaded cart,
again as if passing before the house.
" Now," thought he, "I'll make sure of it."  And, certain
that he could discover the cause, he instantly sprang to the window and opened it-again to be thoroughly mystified and disappointed.  Nothing whatever to be seen!
This incident is certified to by the gentleman in question in
a separate certificate.* Therein he states that it occurred during the month of September, 1840, about three o'clock in the
morning.
Three young ladies, residents of the house, certify to the reality of the sounds. t
Captain Frazer, having sat up one night with his host, to
witness these nightly visitations, thus describes the noises he
heard:
" It was as if some one was striking the walls with a hammer
or mallet, muffled in flannel. It began at first slowly, with a
* Work quoted, p. 123. This may appear too whimsical for credence. It would probably so seem to me had I not sufficient proof of
analogous occurrences. A young lady, intelligent and truthful, men,
ber of one of the best-known families in New York (but I am not authorized to give the name), told me recently that while on a visit of a
few weeks to her aunt's country house, an old mansion situated in the
eastern portion of that State, she had, more than once, while sitting in
the drawing-room in broad daylight, heard the sound of a carriage and
horses on the gravel-drive, as if approaching the main entrance. On
going to the front window, with one or other of her cousins and seeing
nothing there, they would say: " Oh, it's only the ghost-carliage:" and
so, return quietly to their seats. It was, they told her, a common sound.
A similar phenomenon will be found related as occurring in an English
park; the fact certified as well by the lady of the house as by her lady's
maid and by her butler, in SPICER'S Facts and Fantasies, London,
1853: p. 90; and again pp. 93, 94, 95.
t Bea'iings Bels, pp. 12.3-125.




330    CONFIRMATION THROUGH CAPTAIN FRAZER.
distinct interval between each blow; then became more rapid;
afterward followed no rule, but was slow or rapid as if caprice
dictated. The noise did not appear always to come from the
same part of the house. Sometimes it was heard faintly, as at
a distance; then startlingly near. It was much louder than I
expected: I think if I had been outside of the house I should
have heard it.
"I spent three days at      House; and heard the same
noise two nights out of the three.... It seemed as if
moving about the house, and coming, sometimes, so near that I
expected to see the door open and some one come in.
The noise generally continued, at intervals, for about two hours.
I think there was a slight interval between every five blows.
But there was not any regularity in the striking of these five
blows, and it was only at first that there was any regularity in
the interval between them.... This noise usually seemed
to me to become loud or faint, not so much from any intensity
of the blows, as from a change of distance or position. And
the opinion of the other witnesses bears me out in this remark.
I tried, in vain, to form even a probable conjecture as
to the cause." *
The reverend gentleman who occupied the house (designated
by Captain Frazer as L- ) related to him the result of
inquiries made by the family in regard to the antecedents of
the house, as follows:
"It appeared from some of the oldest inhabitants of the
parish, that -- House had formerly been occupied by an
eccentric and dubious character, Squire -. This gentleman
had, in his younger days, travelled much on the Continent,
had visited Italy and brought home an Italian valet also a
character. The two lived in seclusion; and after a time many
reports and suspicions got abroad respecting them  and the
doings at the Hall; though nothing definite was brought
against the squire except that lie was a great miser. At last
* Beatings Bel:s, p. 129.




CAN WE SET ASIDE SUCH EVIDENCE?          331
he died or disappeared (I forget which L. said), and shortly
afterward noises began to be heard in the house. The corn
mon legend was that he had been bricked up by his Italian ser
vant, between the walls in some room or vault, and so left tc
perish.*
This disturbance was known familiarly in the family as " the
ghost."  The inconvenience of its reputation, the clergyman
said to Captain Frazer, had been great; at times they haa difficulty in getting servants to stay in the house. All allusion
to the subject in general conversation was dropped by common
consent. t
Here let me beg, of any earnest reader of mine, a brief hearing. I ask him:
TUpon what rational plea can you set aside such evidence as
this of ultramundane agency? I say nothing of the legend,
and aver nothing as to the identity of any restless spirit causing disturbance.  But the simplefacts! under what tenable
theory can you explain them away?
The clergyman did not give his name: are you surprised at
that? Are you sure you would have given it yourself, under
similar circumstances, thirty years ago? Another clergyman, I
who gave his name, opened, about that time, the "i House of
Mystery," in which he lived, to respectable investigators. His
reward was to find his motives misinterpreted and his character
maligned: that was not encouraging.
Major Moor vouches for the unnamed clergyman as a gentleman highly and deservedly esteemed and of unimpeachable
veracity; and the Major's nephew, Captain Frazer, during a
visit of three days to the haunted mansion, finds all the statements made to be fully borne out by what he witnessed.
If you reject as monstrous-and I think you will-the supposition that these three gentlemen, all of professional standing
* Work cited, p. 129.
f The story is given in detail in Bealings Belis, pp. 112-133.
$ The Rev. John Stewart. See preceding page 325.




332             A MONSTROUS SUPPOSITION.
and one of them Fellow of an eminent Society, should have
combined to palm on the public, without conceivable motive, a
tissue of lies, then what theory of mundane agency, as cause,
have you left?
That it was a trick?-that they were imposed upon?  That
is the explanation.usually set up to explain such phenomena;
and, on the material.hypothesis, there seems to be no other.
-A trick? You will find, if you look closely at the matter,
that this supposition is more monstrous than the first.  "Almost nightly," were the clergyman's words, and for twenty
years. " Two nights out of three " Captain Frazer witnessed
them; and their duration was about two hours at a time. Two
nights out of three for twenty years is nearly five thousand
nights. So some one, prompted by mischief-or by malignity
if you will-is to prowl about the house, hours at a time, for
the purpose of disturbing the family, four or five days a week
throughout half a life time. And so ponderous are the blows
he strikes that they may be heard outside the house! And he
is to move about the house, thus pounding, without being dis.
covered for twenty years together. A servant to do this?
No, thtey had all been often changed during the time. A member of the family?  What! annoy themselves and frighten
away their domestics, and raise every kind of unpleasant rumor
throughout the neighborhood! An outsider?  But why multiply absurdities?
Yet here is but one instalment of the difficulties. Twenty
years is the clergyman's time of residence only. Go twenty
years farther back; and, according to the united testimony of
aged residents, the same disturbances still! And the dwellers
of that day had it from their ancestors that the haunting began
a hundred years ago. Are there centenarious nightly-disturbers
of the peace of private families?
I pray you, earnest reader, to reflect on these things, and to
ask yourself whether the theory of intermundane agency is so
incredible that one ought to resort to unheard-of vagaries in
order to escape it.




THE USE OF IT.                   333
At this stage of our book-voyage together, some reader may
think that an observation should be taken, so as to determine
what progress, up to this point, we have made. He may grant,
perhaps, that we have sufficient proof of the occasional occurrence, through the medium of bells and otherwise, of noises
which we cannot rationally ascribe except to an extramundane
or spiritual cause; and yet he may ask what is gained by such
proof 9 lIe may suggest further that evidence of a Hereafterspiritual revealings-should be intrinsically solemn and reverent; not, like tinklings of bells and rappings on walls, of trifling or whimsical character.
I might reply, in a general way, that nothing in all the works
of Nature around us, how little soever appreciated by man, is
trifling in the sight of Him who
" Sees, with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall:
Atoms, or systems, into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world."
But, aside from this, great truth, is there anything very
solemn or reverent, to the common mind, in the fall, from its
parent tree, of an apple? An infant sees it and claps its tiny
hands; an uncultured peasant notes it-as evidence that his
orchard-crop is ripening; but to a Newton it suggests the law
which holds planets to their course and governs half the natural phenomena that occur throughout the world.
As to what may be gained by proving such incidents as
this chapter records, Southey, speaking, in his Life of Wesley,
of analogous disturbances in Samuel Wesley's parsonage,* and
of the good end such things may be supposed to answer, wisely
suggests that it would be end sufficient if sometimes one of
those unhappy sceptics who see nothing beyond the narrow
sphere of mortal existence should, " from the well-established
truth of one such story, trifling and objectless as it might other
wise appear," be led to believe in immortality.
* Footfalls, pp. 224-239.




334              KNOCK AND IT SHALL
Let us go a step farther. There is not habitual intercourse
between the world which now is and that which is to come: it
is only now and then that the denizens of the one perceive
those of the other. We seem, probably, something like appari.
tions to the immortals, as they, when they revisit earth, to us.
But no one who ever truly loved and who believes in another
life, can doubt that, for a time, the better class of those who
have left friends and kindred here still cling to and sympathize
with them. We have abundant evidence, even in these pages,
that tlley often earnestly desire to convince us, past possible
denial, of their continued existence, of their well-being, and of
their undying love. That evidence goes to show that they
often diligently seek communion, sometimes from affection,
sometimes from other motives, and that they have difficulties
in reaching us: difficulties wisely interposed, no doubt; for if
spiritual intercourse were as common as worldly communion,
who would be willing to labor and to wait in this dim and
checkered world of ours?
They seek, from time to time, to visit us. But, coming from
their world of spirits, invisible to ordinary sight, inaudible by
ordinary speech, how are they to make their presence known?
How are they to attract our attention?
In what manner does a traveller, arriving under cloud of
night, before a fast-closed mansion, seek to reach the indwellers
-seek to announce his presence?  Is it not BY KNOCKING OR
RINGING?
Are we sure that Scripture texts are not read in the next
world, and do not find their application there?  Are we sure
that, to the earth-longings of love immortal, the words of Jesus
never suggest themselves: " Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and
it shall be opened unto you."
The inhabitants of a mansion at which admission is sought,
seeing no one in the darkness, may at first not heed the knock
or the ring; and the pilgrim, for the time, may turn away,
disappointed. So it has been, probably, in thousands of cases,
before any one ventured to interrogate the sounds.  Men




BE OPENED UNTO YOU.               335
either doubted whether these came from a living intelligence;
or they feared to question that intelligence; or they despaired
of any answer, having been taught that though there had been
spirit-communion in ages past, it was impossible, or forbidden,
to-day.
So it may have been in the cases related in this chapter. In
many, possibly in all the cases cited, some spirit may have desired to communicate with earth, as did that of the "Repentant Housekeeper," whose story I have told on a preceding
page.* But if so, they were doomed to disappointment. In
early days the witnesses of spiritual appeals were as that multitude on the Galilean shore to whom Jesus spoke, from the ship,
in parables; and of whom he said, " Hearing they hear not,
neither do they understand." The field was not yet white to
harvest. The time had not come.
I have a few more words to say, in the next chapter, touch
ing the apparent triviality of some spiritual manifestations.
$ See preceding page 297.




CHAPTER IV.
SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA SOMETIMES RESULT IN SEEMING TRIFLES.
"Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit. "                   HORACE.
HORACE, in his advice to writers of plays, assumes that it is
not fitting a god should intervene, unless the case is worthy of divine interference. If God ever did directly intervene-in other
words, if there were miracles-the poet would be in the right.
But what have been interpreted as miracles do frequently manifest themselves, as the rainbow does, with little or no apparent
use or benefit, except it be, like the bow in the clouds, to inspire hope into the heart of man: a sufficient proof that they
are not, any more than the rainbow, interferences of God.
This is true even of the highest class of spiritual phenomena; for example, of apparitions. Witness the story of
THE EARL OF BUCHAN'S BUTLER.
Thomas, Lord Erskine, though he entered the legal profession comparatively late in life, was, at the commencement of
the present century, one of its brightest ornaments.  Elevated
to the peerage for his abilities, and Lord Chancellor under the
Grenville administration, his character, both as regards uprightness and sagacity, has every element of trustwort'iness.
He died in 1823.
In the year 1811 and on the Saturday first succeeding the
appointment of the Prince of Wales (afterward George IV.)
as Regent, Lord Erskine and the Duchess of Gordon called on
Lady Morgan, the well-known literary celebrity.
"The Duchess," says Lady Morgan, " related a very curious




TIHE BUTLER'S GHOST.               337
and romantic tale of second-sight in her own family, whichl
amused, if it did not convert me; while the affecting mann(r
in which it was told left no doubt of the sincerity of the narra
tor."  Lady Morgan then continues thus:
"I also," said Lord Erskine, "believe in second-sight, be
cause I have been its subject. When I was a very young man
I had been, for some time, absent from Scotland.  On the
morning of my arrival in Edinburgh, as I was descending the
steps of a close on coming out from a bookseller's shop, I met
our old family butler. He looked greatly changed, pale, wan,
and shadowy as a ghost.'Eh! old boy,' said I,'what brings
you here?' He replied:' To meet your honor, and solicit your
interference with my Lord,* to recover a sum due to me, which
the steward, at the last settlement, did not pay.'
" Struck by his looks and manner, I bade him fellow me to
the bookseller's, into whose shop I stepped back; but when.
turned round to speak to him, he had vanished.
"' I remembered that his wife carried on some little trade in
the Old Town. I remembered even the house and flat she occupied, which I had often visited in my boyhood. Having
made it out, I found the old woman in widow's mourning.
Her husband had been dead for some months, and had told
her, on his death-bed, that my father's steward had wronged
him of some money, and that when Master Tom returned,
he would see her righted.
" This I promised to do, and shortly after I fulfilled my
promise. The impression was indelible; and I am extremely
cautious how I deny the possibility of such supernatural visitings as your Grace has just instanced in your own family." t
The manner in which the talented lady who relates to us this
story sees fit to receive and to interpret it, should be, to candid
inquirers, a warning lesson.
Lady Morgan, following the dictates of that persistent scep* Lord Erskine was a younger son of the tenth Earl of Buchan.
t The Book of the Boudoir, by Lady MORGAN, London, 1829: vol i
pp. 123-125.
15




338             WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
ticism which men and women having a reputation in society
are wont to adopt, or to assume; and having settled it, probably, in her own miid, that it behooves all who would be deemed
enlightened to think, or at least to speak, of a belief in apparitions as a superstition-is content to set down Lord Erskine's
narrative as due-these are the exact words she uses-as due
only to the " dog-ears and folds of early impression, which the
strongest minds retain." To the narrator, however, she ascribes
sincerity. She says, " Either Lord Erskine did, or did not,
believe this strange story: if he did, what a strange aberration
of intellect! —if he did not, what a stranger aberration from
truth! MIy opinion is that he did believe it."
WVhat sort of mode to deal with alleged facts is this? A
gentleman distinguished in a profession of which the eminent
members ale the best judges of evidence in the world-a gentleman whom the hearer believes to be truthful-relates what,
on a certain day,' and in a certain place, both specified, he saw
and heard. What he saw was the appearance of one, in life
well-known to him, who had been some months dead. What
he heard from the same source was a statement in regard to
matters of which previously he had known nothing whatever,
which statement, on after inquiry, he learns to be strictly true;
a statement, too, which had occupied and interested the mind
of the deceased just before his decease. The natural inference
from these facts, if they are admitted, is that, under certain
circumstances which as yet we may be unable to define, those
over whom the death-change has passed, still interested in the
concerns of earth, may, for a time at least, retain the power of
occasional interference in these concerns; for example in an
effort to right an injustice done.
But rather than admit such an inference-rather than accept
disinterested evidence coming from a witness acknowledged to
be sincere, and known to the world as eminently capable-a
lady of the world assumes to explain it away by summarily
referring the whole to the " dog-ears and folds of early impres.




IUNLESS LORD ERSKINE LIED.           339
Siolr"! What human testimony cannot be set aside on the
same vague and idle assumption?
It is time we should learn that the hypothesis of spiritual
intervention is entitled to a fair trial; and that, in conducting
that trial, we have no right to disregard the ordinary rules of
evidence.
Either Lord Erskine, one morning in Edinburgh, issuing
from a bookseller's shop, met what wore the appearance of an
old family servant who had been some months dead-or else
Lord Erskine lied. Either Lord Erskine heard words spoken
as if that appearance had spoken them, which words contained
a certain allegation touching business which that servant, dying,
had left unsettled-or else Lord Erskine lied. Either Lord
Erskine ascertained, by immediate personal interrogation of the
widow, that her husband, on his death-bed, had made the self
same allegation to her which the apparition made to Lord Erskine-or else Lord Erskine lied. Finally either, as the result
of this appearance and its speech, a debt found due to the
person whose counterpart it was, was actually paid to his widow
-or else Lord Erskine lied.
But Lady Morgan expresses her conviction that Lord Erskine
did not lie.
In itself that was a trifle. Thousands on thousands of such
cases of petty injustice occur and pass away unnoticed and unredressed. To the widow it was, undoubtedly, of serious moment; but I think no sensible man will imagine it a matter to
justify the direct interference of God. If so, and if Lord
Erskine spoke truth, an apparition is a natural phenomenon.
There are cases, however, where the triviality of result from
phenomena that are clearly of a spiritual character is even more
apparent than in the preceding example. Here is one:
PREDICTION IN REGARD TO A MERE TRIFLE.
In the spring of the year 1853, a young gentleman, wellknown to me, whom I shall designate as Mr. X, who is not




H40             A BALE OF DRAP D'ETE
a Spiritualist, and has never given any attention to spiritua.
phenomena, had a remarkable dream. He was then engaged in
a retail store in Second street, Philadelphia; and his dream
was to the effect that, the next day at twelve o'clock, he would
sell a hundred and fifty dollars' worth of a particular kind ol
goods, namely, drap d'e6t (summer cloth), to a customer; the
particular person, however, not being designated.
Goinl down to the store next morning, he related his dream,
between eight and nine o'clock, to a young clerk employed in
the establishment. "Nonsense! " was the reply; " the thing
is impossible. You know very well that we don't sell so large
a lot of drap d'et6 to one customer in ten years."
Mr. X     assented to the truth of this; and, in addition, he
called to mind that, according to his dream, it was he himself
who was to sell it. But it so happened that it was not he who
attended at the counter where the article was sold, but another:
in whose absence, however, should he be accidentally called off,
Mr. X-   was wont to take that place.
So deep was the impression produced by the dream that, as
the time approached, Mr. X   - became very nervous; and his
agitation increased when, some little time before mid-day, the
salesman referred to was called off, and Ir. X - had to supply his place.
Almost exactly at twelve a customer entered, approached
the counter and asked for drap d'6t6. Mr. X-  felt himself
turn pale, and had hardly presence of mind enough left to
reach down the package. It turned out that the article was
required for clothing in a public institution; and the amount
purchased amounted either to a hundred and forty-elight dollars
or a hundred and fifty-two dollars; Mr. X    - does not now
recollect which.
The above was related to me * by Mr. X, now in business
for himself in Philadelphia; and I know sufficient of that gentleman's character to warrant me in saying that the particulars
* In Philadelphia, July 13, 1859.




VERY UNEXPECTEDLY MADE.             311
here given may be confidently relied on; and that Mr. X-'s
word may be unhesitatingly taken when he assured me, as he
did after completing the story, that there had occurred no antecedent circumstance whatever which could give him the
slightest reason to imagine that any one would apply for drap
d'6te; or that there was the most remote chance of his effecting
the sale in question.
In this case the minute particulars of time, place, and attendant circumstances-the unforeseen absence of the usual salesman, the specific article demanded, the unusual quantity so
closely approaching the amount actually sold-are such that
we are compelled to reject the idea of chance coincidence.
In the Erskine case one can comprehend the motive that recalled the departed spirit; the same which operates in the
majority of such cases-attraction through the affections: here
displayed in humble fashion, indeed-in anxiety that the
"auld gude-wife," as a Scotch domestic of those days would
be likely to phrase it, should, in her poverty and widowhood,
have her own-yetnone the less a phase of the longings of true
love.
But in the Philadelphia case one can imagine no attracting
motive whatever: seeing that the predicted sale, to a particular amount and at a particular hour and day, was of no consequence to any human being, except only as proof that, when
Paul enumerated among the gifts common in the early Chris.
tian Church, the gift of prophecy, he was speaking of a phei
nomenon which actually exists and which is not miraculous.




BOOK III.
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIQNS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPIRIT-RAP.
IT is not a difficult thing, if one has time and patience and
an honest love of truth, to satisfy one's self, past all possible peradventure, that what is called the spirit-rap is, like the electric
spark, a genuine phenomenon, with momentous sequences.
And these strange echoes may be as surely referred to agencies
from another sphere as the spark from the Leyden jar may be
identified with the lightning from the thunder-cloud. They
occur, like that mysterious spark, under certain conditions;
but they cannot, as it can, he called forth with certainty at any
moment; for, being spiritual in their origin, they are not at
the beck and call of man.
The conditions under which they present themselves are
sometimes of a personal, sometimes of an endemical character.
They occur more frequently and more persistently in certain localities than in others, and they are heard much more frequently
in the presence of some persons, called mediums or sensitives,
than of others. They are usually most loud and powerful
where the two conditions, personal and local, are found combined.
I have heard them as delicate, tiny tickings, and as thundering poundings. I have heard them not only throughout




LEAH A1ND KATE FOX.                 343
our own land, but in foreign countries; as in England, France,
Italy.  I have heard them in broad daylight and in darkened
rooms; usually most violent in the latter. I have heard them
in my own house and in a hundred others; out of doors; at
sea and oni land; in steamer and in sail-boat; in the forest and
on the rocks of the sea-shore.
But in no circumstances have I witnessed this wonderful
phenomenon under such varied conditions, and with such satisfactory results, as in the presence of two members of that fanlily, in whose dwelling in Western New York, it originally
showed itself-namely, the eldest and the youngest daughters
of Mrs. Fox.*  The faculty of mediumship, or as it might
otherwise be expressed, the gift of spiritual sensitiveness, was
hereditary in the family. t  In Leah Fox (Mrs. Underhill)
and in Kate Fox I have found the manifestations of this power,
or gift, in connection with the spirit-rap, more marked and
more readily to be obtained, than in any other persons with
whom I am acquainted, either here or in Europe.
And it is due to these ladies and to Mr. Underhill to say
that they have kindly afforded me at all times every facility I
could desire to test these and other spiritual phenomena under
the strictest precautions against deception: well knowing that
I took these for the sake of others rather than to remove doubts
of my own. Nor, in all my intercourse with them, have I
ever seen the slightest cause for believing that they were ac
tuated by other motive than a frank wish that the truth should
be ascertained.and acknowledged.
In the autumn of the same year in which I published " Footfalls," I accepted from Mr. Underhill  an invitation to spend
a week or two at his house: thus obtaining ample opportunity
to investigate this and cognate manifestations.
* For particulars of the disturbances in the Fox family, especially
on'March 31, 1848, and succeeding days, see.Footfalls, pp. 287-298.
f Footfalls, pp. 284, 285.
t Daniel Underhill, President of an old-established Insurance Com
pany in Wall street, New York.




344              THE RAPPINGS TESTED.
One of my first experiments was to pray Mrs. Underhill to
accompany me over the house, in quest of rappings. Begin
ning in the lower parlors, I asked if we could have raps on
the floor, then from the walls, then from the ceiling, then on
various articles of furniture. In each case the response was
prompt, and the raps loud enough to be heard in the next
room. Then I asked for them on the steel grate and on the
marble mantle-piece. Thence they sounded quite distinctly,
but less sharply-with a duller sound-than before. Then,
setting open one of the doors into the passage, placing myself so
that I could see both sides of it and putting my hand on one
of its panels, I begged Mrs. Underhill to stand a few feet from
it and, reaching out one of her arms, to touch it with the tips
of her fingers. Within two or three seconds after she had
done so, there were raps on the door as loud as if some one had
knocked on it sharply with his knuckles; and the wood vibrated quite sensibly under my touch, as if struck by a pretty
strong blow.*
When we passed out into the corridor and up the stairway,
it was no longer necessary to request rappings. They sounded
under our feet as we went; on the steps and then from the
hand-rail, as we ascended; from various parts of a sitting-room
and of other apartments on the second floor: then, again, on
the stairs leading to the third story and in every chamber there.
It was evident that, in Mrs. Underhill's presence, they could
be had from any spot in the house. I found, too, that if I requested to have any particular number of raps, they were given
with unfailing precision.
The sounds were peculiar. I could not imitate them with
the hammer, nor with the knuckle on wood, nor in any other
way. They seemed more or less muffled.
I have repeated similar experiments several times with Mrs.
* Some time afterward I repeated the same experiment at the house
of Mrs. C, sister of one of the best known among the New York
editors, where I accidentally met Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, and where
conversation happened to turn on the raps.




THE SPIRIT-RAP ON WATER AND IN TREES.   345
Underhill and with her sister Kate, in various places, and always with the same result. With other mediums the responses
were more or less prompt; and sometimes they were confined
to the table at which we were sitting.
Passing by, for the moment, the hundreds of proofs which
teach that an occult intelligence governs the spirit-rap and
speaks through it, I keep to the physical aspect of the phenomenon.
ON THE WATER AND IN THE LIVING WOOD.
On the tenth of July, 1861, I joined a few friends in an excursion from the city of New York, by steamboat, to the Highlands of Neversink; MIr. and Mrs. Underhill being of the
party.
It occurred to me, while sitting on deck by Mrs. Underhill,
to ask if we could have the raps there. Instantly they were
distinctly heard first, from the deck; then I heard them, and
quite plainly felt them, on the wooden stool on which I sat.
In the afternoon our party went out in a sailing-boat, fifteen
or twenty feet long. There, again at my suggestion, we had
them, sounding from under the floor of the boat. It had a
centre-board, or sliding keel, and we had raps from within the
long, narrow box that inclosed it. At any part of this box
where we called for the rapts, we obtained them.
In the evening we ascended a hill, back of the hotel, to the
light-house. In returning and passing through a wood on the
hill-side, I proposed to try if we could have raps from the
ground: and immediately I plainly Beard them from beneath
the ground on which we trod: it was a dull sound, as of blows
struck on the earth. Then I asked Mrs. Underhill to touch
one of the trees with the tips of her fingers, and, applying my
ear to the tree, I heard the raps from beneath the bark. Other
persons of our party verified this, as I had done.
In returning, next morning, on another steamer, we had raps
on the hand-rail of the upper promenade deck, and also
15*




346             A FINAL TEST OBTAINED
from within a small metal boat that was turned upside down,
on the deck below. *
The next experiment was one which I imagine that no one
but myself ever thought of trying.
MIOVING A LEDGE OF ROCK ON THE SEA-SHORE.
On the twenty-fourth of August, 1861, I accepted an invitation from Mr. S —U, of New Rochelle, a sea-side village
on the western shore of Long Island Sound, to spend the next
day with him, in company with Mr. and Mirs. Underhill.
On the afternoon of August 25, Mr. U    drove us out in
his carriage, through the picturesque country adjoining the
village; the party consisting of Mr. U   and his wife, Mrs.
Underhill, and myself.
In the course of the drive, coming neart the shore of the
Sound, at a point where there were long ledges of rock slanting
down into the water, it suddenly suggested itself to me that
here was an excellent opportunity for a crucial test. I inquired
of Mrs. Underhill if she had ever tried to obtain raps on the
sea-shore. No, she said; she never had.
" Do you think we can get them here? " I asked.
"I have never found any place where they could not be
had," she replied; " so I dare say we can."
Thtereupon there were three raps —the conventional sign of
assent-from the bottom of the carriage.
So we drove down to the beach, and got out to test the matter.
The portion of rock whither we repaired was not an isolated
block, detached from the rest, but part of a large, flat mass of
rock, covering at least half an acre and running back into a
bluff bank tiat rose beyond it: there were also several under* Notes of these experiments were taken, immediately on my return
to New York.




ON THE SEA-SHORE.                 347
lying ledges. We were about thirty feet from the sea and, as
there was a moderate breeze, the surf broke on the rocks below
uS.
But yet, standing on the ledge beside Mrs. Underhill, and
asking for the raps, I heard them quite distinctly above the
noise produced by the surf. This was several times repeated,
with the same result.
Then Mrs. Underhiil and Mrs. S    --    sat down, and I,
stepping on a lower ledge, laid my ear on the ledge on which
the ladies were sitting and repeated my request. In a few
seconds the raps were heard by me from within the substance
of the rock and immediately beneath my ear.
I then sought to verify the matter by the sense of touch.
Placing my hand on the same ledge, a few feet from Mrs. Underhill, and asking for the raps, when these came audibly, I
felt, simultaneously with each rap, a slight but unmistakably
distinct vibratioln or concussion of the rock. It was sufficiently
marked to indicate to me a rap, once or twice, when a louder
roll of the surge for a moment drowned the sound.
Without making any remark as to what I had felt, I asked
IMr. U    to put his hand on the ledge. "Why! " he suddenly exclaimed, " the whole rock vibrates! "
During all this time Mrs. Underhill sat, as far as I could
judge, in complete repose.
It will be observed that it was at my suggestion this experiment on a plateau of rock was tried. From that day forth I
did not consider it necessary further to test the spirit-rap.*
It is true, however, that there were, to dispel my scepticism,
other proofs (one obtained more than a year before this), and
to which I have not yet alluded. In the above there was appeal to two senses-of hearing and of touch. The previous
proofs to which I allude were evidenced by a third sense:
usually considered the most trustworthy of all.
* Written out from notes taken the same day.




348            THE ILLUMINATED HAMMER.
SEEING THEI RAPS.
It was during an evening session at Mr. IUnderhill's, Feb.
ruary  22, 1860. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Kate
Fox, and myself, there were present Mr. UJnderhill's aged
father and mother; venerable examples of the plain, primitive
Quaker, both of whom took the deepest interest in the proceed
ings.
By request, through the raps, the gas was extinguished and
we joined hands.
Very soon lights were seen floating about the room, appar
ently phosphorescent. At first they were small, just visible;
but gradually they became larger, attaining the size and general
outline of hands: but I could not distinguish any fingers.
These lights usually showed themselves first behind and between Leah and Kate, near the floor. Then they rose; sometimes remaining near Leah's head, sometimes near her sister's.
One of them was nearly as large as a human head. None of
these touched me, though one approached within a few inches.
Another made circles in the air, just above our heads. After
floating about for a brief space, they usually seemed to return
either to Leah or to Kate.
While the hands of the circle remained joined, I looked
under the table and saw lights, as many as ten or twelve times,
on or near the floor, and moving about.  Once while I was
looking intently at such a light, about as large as a small fist, it
rose and fell, as a hammer would, with which one was striking
against the floor. At each stroke a loud rap was heard, in
connection. It was exactly as if an invisible hand held an illuminated hammer and pounded with it.
Then, desiring conscious proof that what I saw was not by,
human agency, I asked mentally: * "Will the spirit strike
~ I have found it necessary, in making a mental request, or asking a
mnental question, to concentrate my thoughts, by an effort, on what ]
wish to obtain or to inquire.




ANOTHER TEST.                   349
with that light three times? " which was done forthwith: and
then, after an interval, repeated.
When, a second time, the light was seen and I was noticing
the corresponding sounds, some one said: " Can you make it
softer? " Almost instantly I saw the light diminish and strike
the ground, at intervals, with a soft and muffled sound, just
distinguishable *
On another occasion, during the summer of the next year, I
obtained still more remarkable manifestations.
TOUCHED BY THE AGENCY THAT CAUSES THE SPIRIT-RAP.
On the evening of the twelfth of June, 1861, having two
days before arrived in New York as Commissioner to purchase
arms for the State of Indiana, I called, unexpectedly to the
family, on Mr. Underhill and proposed that we should have a
spiritual session. Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, who knew that I
had already begun to collect materials for this volume, readily
assented. t
For greater quiet we ascended to a parlor on the second
floor; the party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Mr.
Gilbert, an aged gentleman and old friend of the family who
happened to call in the course of the evening, and myself.
Soon after we sat down there was spelled out, by raps on the
floor: " Go in back room." This back room was Mr. and Mrs.
Underhill's bed-chamber. Adjourning to it we sat down to a
small rectangular table (one of a nest of tables), Mr. and Mrs.
Underhill on my left and Mr. Gilbert on my right. The small
size of the table brought us close together.
* From notes taken next morning, February 23.
t To those who know Mr. Underhill's family, I need hardly say that
they never accept any remuneration, directly or indirectly, on such occasions. Nor has Kate Fox, knowing the work I was engaged in, ever
been willing to take payment from me for any sitting with her. "' You
have a better chance to get the highest manifestations' without money
and without price,'' she said to me one day.




350        A FLOATING PHOSPHORESCENT LIGHT
To this bedroom there were three doors; one opening into a
bath-room, a second on the second-floor corridor, and a third
on a passage leading into the parlor, which we had first selected
to sit in. In this passage were several closets and presses.
At Mr. Underhill's suggestion, before sitting down I thoroughly examined these closets and presses, as well as the bedroom itself and the parlor to which the passage led. I also
locked the outer door of that parlor and the doors of the bedroom leading into the bath-room and the corridor. The door
between the parlor and bedroom did not lock; but by the preceding precautions no one from without, even if provided with
a key, could enter either of the rooms.
Soon after we sat down there was spelled out, "Darken."
We extinguished the gas. Then was spelled, " Sing." While
MIrs. Underhill sang, the raps, from different parts of the floor,
kept time. After a brief interval they shifted from the floor
to a lower bar of the chair on which I sat, still keeping time
to the measure. The chair was sensibly jarred-a vibration to
each rap.
After sitting about six or seven minutes, there appeared,
floating above our heads, a light which seemed phosphorescent.
It was rectangular in shape, and about three or four inches
long. After a time it rose to the ceiling, floating backward
and forward from one part of the room to another. At times
it descended till only a foot or two above our heads; moving
slowly from side to side, over our circle.
As I was looking intently at it, there was spelled out, by
delicate raps on the floor: " I was near you in early life, dear
Robert, and am still nearer to you now."
ilrs. Uinderhill.  " Is it Mr. Owen's mother?"
Answer (by the raps).  " No."
lriyself.  "Does the first name begin with C? "
Answer.  "Yes."
JMrs. Underhill.  " How many letters in the name?"
Answer. "Seven."
Mrs. Underhill.  " Caroline, is it?"




RAPS ON A DOOR.                     351
IMyself.  " Caroline has eight letters.  Is it another name,
under which I have had many communications?"
By the raps.  " Yes, yes."
Then the light floated toward me and remained stationary,
back of my left shoulder. I turned and looked fixedly at it.
It appeared to be about the size of a small human hand, and as
if covered with a shining veil. I could not, however, distinguish a defined outline.
Presently it approached my left shoulder, then receded from
it, five or six times. Each time I felt a light touch, as of fingers on my shoulder; each touch exactly contemporaneous
with the motion of the light.
Then it floated away, rising-just above the table at which we
were sitting, nearly to the ceiling. I asked that it would pass
to the door leading into the corridor and rap there, if it could.
Thereupon we saw it pass to the upper part of the door in
question, and perceived its motion, and heard the corresponding rap, as it struck it, eight or ten times in succession.  It
was evident, too, that it was not we alone who heard the
sounds; for a lap-dog, outside in the corridor, barked, as if
alarmed.  Again, as on the former occasion, the idea that suggested itself to me was that of a luminous hammer.
Then the light floated down to Mr. Underhill, increasing in
brightness, and seeming to touch him. He said it did touch
him, as if with some fine, soft, woven stuff.
I asked that it would touch my hand. It moved slowly
across the table, rested for a brief space above my hand, then
dropped and touched my wrist. The feeling was like that from
the gentle touch of a finger..Mr. Gilbert (to me). Are you not tempted to grasp it, so
as to feel what it is like?
Ji~yself.  I have reason to believe that one is not justified
in doing so; and for that reason I refrain.
-By the raps.  Thank you.*
* Two highly-intelligent friends of mine, now deceased, Dr. A. D.
Wilson and Professor James 3Napes, both formerly of New York, each




352            SPIRIT- HANDS MELTING AWAY.
Then the light passed to Mrs. Underhill, touching, as she
stated, her head and neck.
I asked that it would touch my head also. It floated from
her to me, passing behind me; and I felt as if a soft and fine
piece of gauze, gathered up loosely in the hand, were pressed
gently against the back of my head and neck. Also, now and
then, it seemed as if some more solid substance-part of a
hand holding the gauze, was the impression I got-touched me
lightly. The action was as if by a person standing directly
behind me; yet, had I not seen it, a few minutes before, cross
the table and touch my wrist before my very eyes?  Besides,
as the touchings on my head and neck continued for some time,
I several times spoke of them during their continuance and all
present joined in the conversation. Thus I am certain that
they were still seated at their places.
Then the light rose again into the air. Looking closely at it,
as it floated near the ceiling, I observed that there moved across
the luminous body, back and forth, dark lines, or rods, as thick
as a finger. I could not, however, make out the form of
fingers. Mr. Underhill said he saw fingers distinctly.
While the light was floating above us there proceeded from
it occasionally a slight crepitation.
There was not, throughout this sitting, the slightest indication, by footfall, rustle of dress, or otherwise, of any one rising or moving about the room.  When the luminous body I
have been describing came near either of the assistants I could
on one occasion, firmly grasped what seemed a luminous hand, appearing as above. In both cases the result was the same. What was laid
hold of melted entirely away-so each told me-in his grasp. I have
had communications to the effect that the spirit thus manifesting its
presence suffers when this is done, and that a spirit would have great
reluctance in appearing, in bodily form, to any one whom it could not
trust to refrain from interference with the phenomena, except by its
express permission. In my experiments I have always governed my.
self accordingly; and I ascribe my success in part to this continence.




THE INNI KEEPER OF ALEXANDRIA.          353
dimly perceive, by its light, the outline of the person it ap
proached. *
Sometimes when spirits that have exhibited, while on earth,
a violent character, seek to communicate, the raps are of corresponding violence.
HEAVY POUNDINGS BY A HOMICIDE.
At an evening session, August 17, 1861, at Mr. Underhill's t
(by bright gas-light), we heard, after a time, not the usual mod.
erate raps, but instead loud thumping~ or poundings, such as
might be produced by blows dealt on the floor by a ten-pound
mallet. By these we had spelling, on calling the alphabet.
Inquiring the pounder's name, there was spelled out, "Jackson."
I inquired if the spirit had formerly lived in Indiana, where
I had known a man of that name. Answer, by a single thump,
"No!"
Then we asked if it was a person known to any of us. Answer: " The man you do not admire."
Thereupon it occurred to me that it might possibly be Jackson, the innkeeper of Alexandria, at whose hands, some two
months before, Colonel Ellsworth, having taken down the Confederate flag from the roof of Jackson's inn, had met his death.
As soon as I suggested this, there was an affirmative reply, by
three sonorous poundings.
~We spoke of Ellsworth and, by the poundings, was spelled
out: " His manner tantalized me."
Mrs. Underhill said: " I pitied that man; no doubt he did
what he thought right." Reply, by the poundings: "I defended the flag."
* I took notes of the phenomena as they presented themselves;,rit.
ing with pencil in the dark.
t M1r. and Mrs. Underhill and myself wetl the only sitters; and I
took notes of this sitting at the time.




354              BLOWS OF A VIOLENCE
He then said, further, that he had once visited one of Mrs,
Underhill's circles; and that there were in the Southern States
many believers in spiritual phenomena.
I found, by experiment, that when these poundings occurred
on the second floor, I could hear them, as distinctly as if a
mechanic were at work, both on the first floor, below, and on
the third floor, above. They caused the floor to vibrate; and
it was scarcely possible to resist the conviction that there actually was a ponderous mallet at work under the table; yet,
though I looked several times to satisfy myself, there was
nothing there.
Occasionally, it would seem, the character of the raps may
depend, in a measure, on the medium: yet, of this I have not
sufficient evidence to speak with certainty.
BLOWS OF STARTLING VIOLENCE.
During an evening sitting, on. October 25, 1860, in the
front parlor of Mrs. Fox's residence, in the city of New York,
there were present Kate Fox, her sister MIargaret,* and myself.
From this parlor were two doors, one opening on the passage, the other on a back parlor. Both were locked before we
sat down.
Paps spelled out, "Darken."  We did so; then, after the
appearance of a few luminous phenomena, there came suddenly
a tremendous blow on the centre of the table; a blow so violent
that we all instinctively started back. By the sound it was
such a stroke, apparently dealt by a strong man with a heavy
bludgeon, as would have killed any one, and such a blow as
would have broken in pieces a table, if not very stout, and
would have left severe marks upon any table, no matter how
* The only time, I believe, at which she joined our circl,. Having
become a Catholic, she had scruples about sitting.




THA.T MIGHT CAUSE DEATH.             355
hard the wood. The same blow, apparently with the same
force, was repeated five or six times. It was impossible to
witness such violent demonstrations without a certain feeling
of alarm; for it was evident that there was power sufficient to
produce fatal results; yet I myself felt no serious apprehensions of injury, knowing of no case on record in which any one
had thus been seriously hurt.
When, after a time, we relit the gas, the most careful examination of the table, above and below, convinced me that there
was not a scratch, nor the slightest indentation, either on the
polished top or on the under surface.
I consider it a physical impossibility that, by any human
agency, blows indicating such formidable power should have
been dealt without leaving severe marks on the table which received them.
Mrs. Underhill afterward informed me that she had several
times, in presence of her sister Margaret, been greatly alarmed
by blows as tremendously violent as those I have described. I
never heard any so apt to terrify weak nerves, either before or
since. But, several years afterward, I witnessed a demonstration of occult power, more quiet indeed-not calculated to
alarm-but, to judge by the sound, of nearly equal force.
KNOCKINGS THAT SHOOK THE HOUSE.
On this occasion, March 10, 1864, Mr. and Mrs. Underhill
and myself only were present, in the second-story front parlor
of their house; and the session was in the evening, by bright
gas-light.
In a few minutes after we sat down there came sounds of a
very peculiar character. Each stroke-if that term be applicable-sounded exactly like the dropping on the floor, from the
height perhaps of two feet, of a medium-sized cannon ball. At
each sound the entire floor of the room shook quite distinctly.
We felt the concussion beneath our feet; and it was commulmi
cated through the shaken table to our hands.




356              N IMPORTANT MESSAGE.
Occasionally it sounded exactly as if the cannon ball re
bounded, dropping a second time with diminished force.
By these cannon-ball-droppings there was a call for the alpha.
bet (five strokes), and sentences were spelled out to the effect
that the operating spirit was no stranger to me; that the book
for which I was then collecting materials would be acceptable,
as supplying a great public need; and that I should " witness
some startling things from time to time."  Then was added:
" I am little changed. My knowledge of the spirit-world is
not so great as you would suppose. I am sure of the things I
once hoped for. I have found my beloved friends in Heaven,
and I know I live in immortality.      A. D. WILSON."
Not much, if one will; not much, as a superficial mind may
receive it: only a brief, homely message. Yet, if it be true,
how immeasurable its importance! How infinitely consoling
the simple truths it unveils!
Dr. Wilson, well-known to me and an intimate friend of the
Underhills, was an earnest spiritualist and an excellent man.
He was a New York physician of large practice and had died
less than a year before.
The sounds by which the sentence (coming, as alleged, from
this deceased friend) had been spelled out, letter by letter,
seemed to be so unmistakably those of a ponderous metallic
globe dropped on the floor, that Mrs. Underhill said: " I can
scarcely persuade myself that there is not a heavy ball there."
Upon which there was spelled out by these same mysterious
poundings:
" Well, then, look!"
We removed the table and carefully examined the floor.
Nothing whatever to be seen.
As on a previous occasion, I went downstairs; and, on the
floor below, I heard the poundings just as distinctly as when
in the upper room. It was the same when I ascended to the
floor above. Mrs. Underhill expressed a fear that the sounds




IN A HlAUNTED HOUSE.              35o
would disturb the neighbors in the adjoining houses; and I
think they must have heard them.
With a single additional example I close this branch of the
subject.
EFFECTS WHEN LOCAL AND PERSONAL INFLUENCES COMBINE.
A HAUNTED HOUSE.
On the twenty-second of October, 1860, I paid a visit, along
with Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Kate Fox, and another lady and
gentleman, to Quaker friends of theirs, Mr. and Mrs. Archer,
then living within five-minutes drive of Dobbs' Ferry on the
Hudson, in a large, old house, surrounded with magnificent
trees, and in which, at one time, Washington had his headquarters.
This house has been, for a long term of years, reputed haunted.
The person still supposed to haunt it is a former owner, Peter
Livingston, who, on account of lameness, was wont to use a
small, invalid's carriage; and the report was that, at the dead
of night, the sound of that carriage was heard in the corridors
and especially in one of the rooms of the house.
We sat, late in the evening, first in this room; a lower bedchamber, having two doors of exit. Both were locked before
the session began, the keys being left in the doors. Besides our
own party, there were present only Mr. and Mrs. Archer. By
direction of the raps we extinguished the lights and joined
hands.
Within a single minutes afterward, such a clatter began, apparently within three or four feet of where I sat that (as we
afterward learned) it was heard and commented on, by some
visitors in a room separated from that in which we sat by two
doors and a long passage. It seemed as if heavy substances
of iron, such as pondercus dumb-bells or weights, were rolled
over the floor. Then there were poundings, as if with some
heavy mallet; then sharp, loud knockings, as if with the end of




358          AN OVERPOWERING CLATTER IS
a thick staff. Then was heard a sound precisely resembling
the rolling of a small carriage on a plank floor. At first
this sound seemed close to us, then it gradually lessened,
as if the carriage were wheeled to a great distance, until it be.
came, at last, inaudible. Then we asked to have it again, as
if coming near; and forthwith it commenced with the faintest
sound, approaching by degrees till the carriage might be supposed almost to touch the backs of our chairs. Occasionally
there was a pounding on the floor, so heavy as to cause a sensible vibration.
When we relit the lamp and searched the room, the doors
were found still locked, with the keys in them; and there was
not an article to be found with which such noises could, by human agency, have been made.
Then, at my suggestion, we transferred the experiment to a
large parlor opposite, that had been used, I believe, by Livingstone as a dining-room. Again we locked the doors, and, obeying a communication from the raps, put out the lights and
joined hands. And again, in less than two minutes, the
disturbance began as before. At times the racket was so overpowering that we could scarcely hear one another speak. The
sound, as of heavy metallic bodies rolled over the floor was
very distinct.  Also some weighty substance seemed to be
dragged, as by a rope, backward and forward, as much as
fifteen or twenty feet each way.
All this time we kept a candle on the table, with a box of
matches beside it; and, several times, when the clatter was at its
height, we struck a light, to see what the effect would be. In
every instance the sounds almost immediately died away, and the
search we made in the room for some explanation of the strange
disturbance was quite unavailing. The sudden transition,
without apparent cause, from such a babel of noises to a dead
silence, was an experience such as few have had, in this world.
Till the experiment was repeated, again and again, always
with the same result, there was temptation to imagine that our
senses had been playing us false.




QUENCHED BY STRIKING A LIGHT.            359
The impression on myself and the other assistants with whom
I conversed was such, as to produce a feeling that it was a
physical impossibility such sounds could be produced, except
by employing ponderous bodies.*
After a time the celltre-table at which we sat was pounded
on the top, and then from beneath, as with the end of a heavy
bludgeon; and that (to judge by the sound) with such violence
that we felt serious apprehensions that it would be broken to
pieces.
When the noises ceased and we relit the lamps, I and others
examined the table minutely; but no indentations or other
marks of injury were to be found; nor was there an article to
be seen in the room with which any one could have dealt such
blows; nor anything there except the usual furniture of a parlor.
Both these rooms were in a portion of the house known to
have been built and occupied by Peter Livingstone.
I feel confident that the sounds could have been heard a
hundred yards off. t
It is seldom that any one, going in search of phenomena of
this class, comes upon anything so- remarkable as the foregoing.
The conditions are rare: a locality where, for several generations, ultramundane interventions have spontaneously appeared; and the presence, in that locality, of two among the
most powerful mediums for physical manifestations to be found
in this, or it may be in any other country.
I cannot reasonably doubt that, before the present decade
closes, the intelligent portion of society will be as thoroughly
convinced of the reality of the spirit-rap as enlightened inquirers already are that the size and form of the brain have
* See, for similar phenomena, Footfalls, p. 231.
t See Footfalls, pp. 217, 252, 275, for similar noises. I wrote out this
account on the morning after the incidents occurred. We sat till
midnight.




360               POPULAR NONSENSE.
something to do with intellect, and that magnetic influences
may produce hypnotic effects.
When we have admitted the intermundane character of
these wonderful echoes, the first short step in experimental
Spiritualism is taken: but only the first. The rap may be
ultramundane; and yet that single fact is insufficient to prove
that deceased friends can communicate with us. We must
seek, in the rap-spelled communications themselves, for conclusive evidence that intercourse from beyond the bourne is not
forbidden to man.
If I have devoted more space than seems needed to the
proof, in a physical sense, of so simple a phenomenon, I beg to
remind the reader of the persistent nonsense that has been
spoken and written about spirit-rapping, and of the prejudices
that have grown up under the ridicule which has thus attached
itself to the term.




CHAPTER II.
MOVING PONDERABLE BODIES BY OCCULT AGENCY.'" When they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. But as one was
felling a beam, the axehead fell into the water: and he cried, and said
[to Elisha],' Alas, master!' for it was borrowed. And the man of God
said,'Where fell it?' And he shewed him the place. And he cut
down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. "-2 KINGS
vi. 4-6.
THE raising from the ground of weighty substances, or the
moving of these from place to plac6, is one of the most common,
and most easily verified, of physical manifestations. I have
elsewhere given many examples of it.* Here I shall add but
two or three out of the numerous cases that have come under
my eye during spiritual sessions.
A most satisfactory test of the power, by occult agency, to
raise ponderable substances was suggested to nme by that practical thinker, the late Robert Chambers, the well-known author
and publisher, during his visit to the United States, in the
autumn of 1860; and we carried it out on the thirteenth of
October of that year.
On the evening of that day we had a sitting in Mr. Underhill's dining-room; there being present Mr. and MIrs. Underhill, Kate Fox, Mr. Chambers, and myself. In this roonm, we
found an extension dinner-table of solid mahogany, capable of
seating fourteen persons. This we contracted to the form of a
centre-table, and, having procured a large steelyard, we found
that it weighed, in that form, a hundred and twenty-one pounds.
We suspended this table by the steelyard, in exact equipoise
* Footfayls, pp. 110, 112, 113 (note), 252, 256, 276, 279 to 282, and
many others
16




362      TEST SUGGESTED BY ROBERT CHAMIBERS.
and about eight inches from the floor. Then we sat down by it;
and while our experiment proceeded, Mrs. Underhill sat with
the points of both feet touching one of mine; and Kate in the
same relation to Mr. Chambers. This was done, at their suggestion, so as to afford us proof that they had no physical
agency in the matter. Their hands were over the table, near
the top, but not touching it. There was bright gas-light. Thus
we were enabled to obtain
A CRUCIAL TEST.
The table remaining suspended, with the constant weight at
the figure 121, we asked that it might be made lighter. In a
few seconds the long arm ascended. We moved the weight to
the figure 100: it still ascended; then to 80; then to 60.
Even at this last figure the smaller arm of the steelyard was
somewhat depressed, showing that the table, for the moment,
weighed less than sixty pounds. It had lost more than half its
weight, namely, upward of sixty-one pounds: in other words,
there was a power equal to sixty-one pounds sustaining it.
Then we asked that it might be made heavier; and it was so:
first as the figures indicated, to 130, and finally to a hundred
and forty four pounds.
The change of weight continued, in each instance, from three
to eight seconds, as we ascertained by our watches: and during
the whole time the ladies maintained the same position of feet
and hands; Mr. Underhill not approaching the table.
We had given Mr. Underhill no notice of our intention to
ask for this experiment. The steelyard was borrowed for the
occasion from a wholesale grocer, living in the neighborhood.
How much a Jewish axehead commonly weighed, in the days
of Elisha, I know not; it could be but a few pounds. Our
miracle (dunamis) exceeded that of the prophet, as far as
regards the weight of the body that was made lighter: but
the Hebrew seer was at a greater distance from the object raised
than were our mediums.




A TABLE SUSPENDED.                 363
On the evening just preceding that on which we tried the
above experiment I had a sitting at Mr. Underhill's, with very
satisfactory result.
A  HEAVY DINNER-TABLE SUSPENDED IN THE AIR, WITHOUT
CONTACT.
Our session was on the evening of October 12, 1860, lasting
from half-past nine till eleven.* It was held in the same room
and at the same table mentioned above, and by gas-light. Present Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Kate Fox, Mr. Harrison Gray
Dyar, of New York, and myself.
We had very loud rappings, from various parts of the room
and on the chairs.
Then, while our hands were on the table, it began to move,
sometimes with a rotary motion, sometimes rising up on one
side, until finally it rose from the ground all but one leg.
Then we sought to induce it to rise entirely from the floor.
After (what seemed) strenous efforts, almost successful, to rise,
we aided it byreach putting a single finger under it; and, with
this slight assistance, it rose into the air and remained suspended during six or seven seconds.
After a time we asked whether, if we removed our fingers
from the table-top, while it was in the air, it could still remain
suspended; and the reply (by rapping) being in the affirmative,
after aiding it to rise as before, we withdrew our fingers entirely,
raising them above it. The table then remained, nearly level,
suspended without any human support whatever, during the
space of five or six seconds; and then gradually settled down,
without jar or or sudden dropping, to the floor.
Then, anxious to advance a step farther, we asked if the table
could not be raised from the floor without any aid or contact
whatever. The reply being in the affirmative, we stood up and
placed all our hands over it, at the distance of three or four inches
* We found, by repeated trials, that our experiments succeeded better
when we sat at a late hour, after the servants had gone to bed, when
the house and the streets were quiet.




364          A HEAVY DINING-TABLE RAISED.
from the table-top: when it rose of itself, following our hands
as we gradually raised them, till it hung in the air about the
same distance from the ground as before. There it remained
six or seven seconds, preserving its horizontal, and almost as
steady as when it rested on the ground: then it slowly descended,
still preserving the horizontal, until the feet reached the carpet.
As before, there was no jar or sudden dropping.*
The same experiment was repeated, next evening in the presence of Robert Chambers, after we had completed our tests
with the steelyard; and with exactly the same results. At
first, as before, we raised it on our fingers; then, withdrawing
them, it remained in the air six or seven seconds. On the second trial it rose entirely without contact, remaining suspended
for about the same space.
It should here be remarked that we were in the habit, during
these experiments, of moving the table to different parts of the
room, and of looking under it from time to time.
Upon the whole I consider this moving of physical objects
— les a2ports, as the French spiritualists term it-to be as conclusively established, in its ultramundane aspect, as the spiritrap. A hundred-and-twenty-pound dinner-table is no trifle to
lift. The conditions exclude the possibility of concealed
machinery. And by what conceivable bodily effort, undetectable by watchful bystanders, can two or three assistants heave
from the ground, maintain in the air, and then drop slowly to
the floor, so ponderous a weight, with their hands, the while,
in full view, under broad gas-light? No one, in his senses and
believing in his senses, can witness what I have witnessed, and
yet remain a sceptic in this matter.
It makes not, under the circumstances, at all against it, that
Mrs. Underhill and her sister were, at one period of their lives,
* The accounts of this and of the sitting of October 13, were both
written out the next morning. To prevent repetition I here remark
that notes of all the sittings recorded in this volume were taken either
at the time, or next day or (in a few cases) a day or two later.




EXPERIMENT ON STATEN ISLAND.             365
in the habit of sitting as professional mediums. But even if it
did, still, in the seclusion of a private family and in the ab.
sence of every one who had ever, till a few months before, been
suspected of possessing spiritual powers-I have witnessed occurrences even more marvellous than those above related.
Thus it happened:
A TABLE, FLUNG INTO THE AIR, ROTATES.
In the spring of 1870 I was visiting a friend of mine, Mr.
B —, whose charming residence on Staten Island commands
a magnificent view over the Bay of New York, with the distant city on one hand and the Narrows, opening into the ocean,
on the other.
The family had no knowledge of Spiritualism and scant faith
in any of its phenomena, until a month or two before my visit,
when one of the sons, a young man whom I shall call Charles,
suddenly found himself, as much to his surprise as to that of
his relatives, gifted with rare spiritual powers.
Passing by, for the present, the most remarkable of these, I
here reproduce, from minutes taken next day and submitted for
correction to the assistants, part of a record of what I witnessed
at two sessions, both held on the second of April, 1870.
The first was in the afternoon. We had been sitting previously in a back parlor; but, on my proposal, we adjourned to
the drawing-room, on the front of the house, where, until then,
we had not sat. There were present, besides Charles and myself, two other relatives of the family, Mr. N   and Mr.
L —. The room was darkened with heavy curtains which
we drew close; but sufficient light came through to enable us
to see the outlines of objects.
We sat at a heavy deal-table, made, expressly for the purpose, very thick and strong; the legs more than two inches
square; size two feet seven inches by one foot eight inches, and
weighing twenty-five pounds.
At first there was a trembling motion, then a tilting from




366            TERRIBLE POWER SHOWN,
side to side, gradually becoming more powerful, and at last so
violent that it was snatched from our hands. Then, at our request, the table was made so heavy that I found it scarcely possible, with all my strength, to move it even half an inch from
the floor; the apparent weight some two hundred pounds.
Then, again at our request, it was made so light that we could
lift one end of it wit}h a single finger; its weight seeming ten
or twelve pounds only. Then it was laid down on its side;
and, no one touching it, I was unable to raise it. Then it was
tilted on two legs and all my strength was insufficient to press
it down.
Finally, after being jerked with such sudden violence that we
all drew back, fearing injury, and merely reached our fingers
on the edge of its top, it was proj ected into the air so high that
when we rose from our chairs we could barely place our fingers
on it; and there it swung about, during six or seven seconds.
Besides touching it, we could see its motion by the dim light.
WTe sat again in the evening at ten o'clock, in the same room,
darkened: only three at the table, N —, Charles, and myself.
Then-probably intensified by the darkness-commenced a
demonstration exhibiting more physical force than I had ever
before witnessed. I do not believe that the strongest man living could, without a handle fixed to pull by, have jerked the
table with anything like the violence with which it was now,
as it seemed, driven from side to side. We all felt it to be a
power, a single stroke from which would have killed any one
of us on the spot. Then the table was, as it were, flung upward into the air, again so high that, when we stood up, we
could just touch it, and shaken backward and forward for some
time ere it was set down. Again it was raised, even more violentlv than before and swung backward and forward, as far as
by the touch we could judge, in an are of seven or eight feet,
some five or six times. A third time it was hurled into the
air, sometimes out of our reach, but we felt it turn over and
over, like a revolving wheel, eight or ten times. As nearly as we
could judge without reference to our watches, it was sosme




BUT NO HARM DONE.                   367
twelve or fourteen seconds in the air, before it descended. Some
times we were able to touch it, sometimes not.
Then I asked whether, some time hereafter, we might rot be
able to obtain objective apparitions. The answer was given by
raising the table three times from the floor, each time slamming
it down with such force that the noise was distinctly heard in
the story above; and, when a candle was lighted, we found the
top (of inch board), split entirely across and wrenched from the
legs; the long nails with which it had been secured to prevent
such accident being drawn out.
While these manifestations were in progress, it occurred to
me, as very strong evidence of the humane care of the operating
spirits, that when such tremendous power was exerted close to
us, no serious accident happened; and that I had never heard
of any such, on similar occasion. Once N —-'s wrist was
sprained, and twice his knees and also Charles' were struck;
but though this pained thiem a good deal at the moment, the
pain ceased in a few minutes-through spiritual influence, as
they supposed. I certainly would not trust myself within reach
of any similar demonstrations, if produced by human hands.
I expressed my thankfulness and gratification at having been
allowed to witness such manifestations. The answer, by impression through Charles' hand, was: "Don't you know that
we are as much gratified to give them as you to receive
them?"
Then they informed us that " their powers were a little shattered for to-night;" and, at midnight, we adjourned.
I beg that my readers will here note the attendant circumstances. The locality, selectsd by myself, the drawing-room in
a gentleman's house; no professional medium present; the assistants, the son of the gentleman in whose house we were sitting and two other gentlemen, his near relations; the motion
out of our reach, so that it was a sheer impossibility that those
presenlt could havo produced it. The shattered table remained,
a tangible proof of the strong force employed.




368      SUSPICION OF IMPOSTURE OUT OF PLACE.
How thoroughly out of place here the suspicion of deception
or imposture! How utterly untenable the hypothesis of illusion or hallucination! Thomas, touching, would have believed. It would need a disciple of Berkeley to witness these
phenomena, and still remain a sceptic in the reality of such
manifestations.




CHAPTER III.
DIRECT SPIRIT-WRITING.
"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote
over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the
king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote."DANIEL V. 5.
A TRAVELLER, bound on some mission of passing importance,
may now and then, amid the prosaic details he encounters from
stage to stage in his journey, lose sight of the great object to
which it leads: yet, in proportion as he nears the goal, his
thoughts concentre, more and more, on the ultimate issue.
So, in the journey through these pages, may it happen to the
reader. He is travelling in search of proofs, cognizable by
human senses, of another life. As he proceeds, the phenomena,
homely at first, gain in living interest; for they go to establish, ever more and more conclusively, the existence of an
agency not occult, not ultramundane only, but intelligent, but
spiritual: the agency of beings like ourselves, though they be
no longer denizens of earth.
There was published, in Paris in the year 1857, by a young
Russian nobleman, a book* which did not attract the attention it deserved. Its author, whose acquaintance I had the
pleasure of making in Paris, a year after his book appeared,
had devoted his life, almost exclusively, to the study of what
he deemed the Supernatural and of the relatiofis between the
* La JPalit& des Esprite et le Phlnomrne merveilleuxr de leur Ecriture
directe demontr&es, par le Baron DE GULDENSTUBBE, Paris, 1857.
For particulars regarding the Guldenstubb6 family and their residence, see Footfalls, pp. 262 and 260 (note).
16*




370           EXPERIENCES IN SPIRIT-WRITING
visible world and that which we have yet to see: the object
of his,studies being to obtain positive demonstration of the
soul's immortal existence.  His work is that of a classical
scholar, and contains curious and interesting researches touching the Spiritualism  of antiquity.  It exhibits much sagacity,
with the drawback that the Baron believes not only in influences from the next world but also in direct, miraculous intervention of God; as the arresting, by Him, of the earth and the
moon in their orbits for the space of a day.* The book is
chiefly occupied, as its title implies, with proofs of direct
writing by spirits.
In the ten months from August, 1856, when M. de Guldenstubbe first observed this phenomenon, to June, 1857, he obtained more than five hundred specimens; out of which he
gives us lithographs of sixty-seven.  These experiences were
witnessed by more than fifty persons; of whom he names thirteen.t These witnesses furnished the paper that was used in
the experiments.
These experiments were chiefly made, and were most successful, in old cathedrals or in other ancient places of worship, or
in historic residences. But before I reached Paris, in the autumn of 1858, there had been an order issued, either by the
government or the clergy, prohibiting such experiments in
churches and other public buildings. It was vigorously enforced, as we found when Baron de Guldenstubbe, his sister
and myself visited the Abbey of St. Denis, on the twenty-ninth
of September, and placed a paper in one of the side chapels.
I had determined, however, to persevere in my endeavor to
* Work cited, p. 44. Joshua x. 12-14.
t Namely: Prince L6onide Galitzin, of Moscow; Prince S. Metschersky; General the Baron de Br6wern; Baron de Voigts-Rhetz;
Baron Borys d'Uexkull; Count de Szapary; Count d'Ourches; Colonel Toutcheff; Colonel de Kollmann; Doctor Georgii, now of London; Doctor Bowron, of Paris; M. Kiorboe, a distinguished artist, and
M. Raven6, proprietor of a gallery of paintings at Berlin. —ntroduc
tion, p. xv.




OF THE BARON DE GULDENSTUBBfi.               371.
verify this important phenomenon then and there; but was
prevented from doing so by a telegram from England, inform.
ing me of the dangerous illness of my father, Robert Owen,
with whom I remained till his death, six weeks afterward.*
Baron de Guldenstubb6 impressed me very favorably as a
man of great earnestness and perfect good faith; one who pursued his researches in a most reverent spirit.  Enthusiastic he
certainly was; and, for that reason, a less dispassionate observer; yet the multitude of his experiences, obtained under
every variety of circumstance, and the number of respectable
witnesses who permit their names to appear in attestation of
the results, leave little room to doubt their genuine character.
I reproduce three out of the many specimens this author has
given.
The first, in French, was obtained August 16, 1856, in the
presence of Count d'Ourches, under these circumstances: The
Count, a believer in spiritual phenomena but leaning a little
toward demonology, prepared two papers; the one was blank,
on the other he had written the well-known text, " Hereby
know ye the spirit of God: Eyery spirit that confesseth that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." t  These he placed
side by side, on a table, within view. After ten minutes he
found written on the blank leaf: "I confess Jesus in the
/lesh."-A. v. G.  The signature was known to the Baron as
the initials of a deceased friend. l  Here is a fac-simile of the
writing:
* I find the following entry in my journal, written jist after his
death: " During the last seven or eight years of my father's life he
was an unwavering believer in Spiritualism; though I doubt whether
the same amount of evidence which convinced him would have satisfied
me. To the last he spoke of a future life with the same undoubting
certainty as of any earthly event, which he expected soon to occur. IIis
death was the most peaceful I ever witnessed.
1t  John iv. 2.
$ RZalite des Esprits, p. 69.




872               SPECIMENS OF DIRCT
7U Qt-nieC,'
The second, in English, was written, also in the presence of
the Count d'Ourches, September 9, 1856, near the column of
Francis II. Under two crosses, as the fac-simile here given
shows, is written: "lI am  the life;" and the initials, in monogram, are those of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. *
A reminder may here be acceptable to the reader: "In the
north transept of the church of St. Denis, on one side of the
door, is a composite column of white marble, erected by Mary
Stuart to the memory of her husband, Francis II., who died in
1561." t
* Count d'Ourches personally confirmed to me the authenticity of
these two examples of spirit-writing, when I called on him October 1,
1858. See FPootfalls, p. 112 (note).
t Paris and its Environs, London, 1859; p. 323.




SPIRIT-WRITING.                 3 7 
The last of the examples selected, is also of historic interest
It is the conventual signature of the frail and repentant Du.
chesse de la Valliere (Seur Louise de la Misgricorde), obtained
by M. de Guldenstubbe, December 29, 1856, in the church of
Val-de-Grace: Colonel de Kollmann being the witness present.
Here it is:
If the reader ask why especially in the chapel of Val-deGrace, and why not the family name, the following may be
worth recalling:
" A small confessional, with a strong iron railing, opens into
thle church of Val-de Grace, from one of the passages behind.
This was the confessional used by Mademoiselle de la Valliare,
previous to her taking the vows; and from the windows of
the above-named passage is seen the building she occupied at
that period." *
"The Carmelite convent in which the celebrated Mademoi
*Paris and its Environs, p. 174.




374          EXPERIENCES IN SPIRIT-WRITING
selle de la Valliere took the veil in 1675, as' Sceur Louise de
la Misdricorde,' is in the Rue d'Enfer, behind St. Jacques du
Haut Pas." *
-low strangely suggestive all this! We search pyramid and
cathedral and vaulted catacomb in quest of hieroglyphics and
sepulchral sculpture and lapidary epitaphs: little thinking
what relies of *he departed, far more precious than all inanimate memorials, might there be obtained, attesting the continued.existence and memory of those, more alive than we,
whom we are wont to think of only as dead celebrities of the
Past.
Though I was prevented, by business, from revisiting Paris
after my father's death and there verifying M. de Guldenstubbe's observations, I have since been fortunate enough to
procure, in the United States, personal evidence, in corroboration. And, in some cases, this evidence was obtained under
conditions so strict that I think any candid and intelligent
person, witnessing what I have witnessed, must cease to doubt
that which millions will deem incredible; namely, that, here
upon earth, we may receive communications dictated by other
intelligence, written by other hand, than the hand and the
intelligence of any among earth's inhabitants. It avails nothing to allege that this is impossible, if it shall appear that it is
true.
I obtained examples of spirit-writing, during a sitting with
Kate Fox, as early as February 27, 1860, and on one or two
subsequent occasions. But it was during sittings in darkened
rooms; and, on carefully looking over the minutes of these experiments, I perceive that, until the autumn of the next year,
I had not taken all the precautions which might, in the dark,
be taken; nor ever seen any hand while it was writing.'Therefore, and because space is precious, I pass over these
* Same work, p. 191.




IN THE UNITED STATES.               375
earlier examples and shall here record the results of two sittings
only, both of remarkable character. One carefully authenticated case is better than twenty, loosely attested.
During the first of these sittings, held August 8, 1861, in
Mrs. Fox's house, in West Forty-sixth street, New York, I had
an experience, such, probably, as few persons have ever enjoyed.
SEEING A LUMINOUS HAND WRITE.
I sought an evening session with Kate Fox, hoping to obtain an apparition, which had been promised me by rappingsbut without setting the time-a few evenings before. Kate
proposed that we should sit in the lower parlor; but, as I knew
there was a front parlor on the second floor and wished to
avoid interruption, I proposed that we should hold our sitting
there, to which she readily assented.
It was a small room, very simply furnished with sofa, chairs,
and a table, about two and a half feet by three. There were no
closets nor presses in this room, and but two doors; one on the
upper passage, the other communicating with an adjoining
apartment. The table stood in the corner; we moved it to the
centre of the room.
I locked both the doors, and took the additional precaution of sealing them. This I did with short strips of paper
connecting the door with the door-sill, attaching the upper part
of each strip with wax to the door, and the lower part to the
sill; and impressing both seals with my engraved signet-ring.
I told Kate (and I know she believed me) that I did so for the
sake of those who might hereafter read the record of this sitting, not to quiet any suspicions of my own.
As we were sitting down, she said laughingly: " You ought
to look under the sofa, Mr. Owen." I thanked her for the reminder, rolled the sofa out from the wall, turned it over and
examined it thoroughly, before replacing it. Then I minutely
inspected every part of the room.
On the table was an ink-stand and a steel-pen with wooden




376           SEEING AN ILUMINATED HAND
holder; nothing else. In case of a dark sitting, I had brought
with me a small package consisting of eight or ten slips of
writing paper, cut from foolscap sheets and about four inches
in depth: to be used, successively, in case I took notes in the
dark. They were blank, except that I had put, on one cornei
of each, a private mark.
This package, with a pencil, I laid on the table on my left
hand, within reach; Kate sitting beside me, on my right: and
then we awaited instructions.
These soon came, by raps; spelling out " Darken."  We
effectually excluded light through two front windows on the
street by outside shutters and window-blinds: after which we
extinguished the gas and resumed our seats.
Then came the additional instructions.  "Rest your hands
on the table. Join hands."  I caused Kate to rest her hands
on the table, clasped; and I placed my right hand on both hers,
reserving my left hand free.
Then was spelled: "' Put your hand under table." I placed
my left hand under the table, on my knee.
Then, by the raps: " Cover left hand and hold writing-paper
and pencil in it." I had to remove my right hand from Kate's
for a few moments, so as to cover my left hand with a handkerchief and place the package of paper-slips and the pencil in it.
But I had hardly done this, when it spelled: "Join hands."
I replaced my right hand on both of Kate's.
Then I felt the paper drawn from my hand, but the pencil
was left. About a minute afterward the pencil was taken and
my hand was tapped with it, quite distinctly, three times; after
which it was carried off. There was no sound of its falling,
but, after an interval, there was a distinct rustling of paper on
the floor. This alternated with the sound of a pen scratching
on paper; and continued, at intervals, for a considerable space,
during all which I kept my hand on both of Kate's.
After a time, attracted by a rustling on her right, Kate
looked on the floor and, with an expression of surprise, called
my attention to what she saw. Rising and leaning over the




ENGAGED IN WRITING.                377
table, but without releasing Kate's hands, I could distinctly
perceive, on the carpet close by Kate on the right, a luminous
appearance, of rectangular form, very clearly defined, and, as
nearly as I could judge, the size and shape of one of the slips
of writing-paper that had been taken from my hand.
Then, by the raps: "Do not look at present."  Whereupon
I reseated myself.
Kate then asked: " Cannot the spirit raise that illuminated
paper and put it on the table before us? "
Reply, by the raps: " First let me show you the pencil."
After a little, Kate informed me that she again saw the luminous appearance, even more brightly than at first. Then,
leaning over as before and watching it for some time, I distinctly saw, above what seemed to be the illuminated slip of
paper, the outline, in shadow, of a small hand holding a pencil
and moving slowing over the paper. I could not, however,
distinguish the writing.
Kate exclaimed, in tones of delight: " Do you see the hand?
-and the pencil, too?-do you see it write?"  So that she
evidently saw it, just as I did.
All this time both Kate's hands were on the table; for I
bethought me of this, even at that moment.
Then was spelled: " Don't look! " and I withdrew a second
time.
Shortly after, by the raps: "Put hand under table." I
placed my left hand on my knee. Thereupon a slip of paper
was gently placed in my hand, and the tips of my fingers were
distinctly touched, as by human fingers. I brought up the paper,
laid it on the table before me, and replaced my hand. Very
soon something was put into it, which, by the touch, I knew
to be a wooden pen-holder; and that also I laid on the table.
Some time after this, as we could distinguish nothing but
the rustling of paper, Kate again asked if an illuminated sheet
could not be laid on the table. In a short time what seemed
such was raised a little above the height of the table; then it
gradually sank down again, out of sight.




378          SPECIMENS OF SPIRIT-WRITING.
After a considerable interval my left hand was again touehed
by a piece of paper; but it dropped before I could lay hold of it.
Another interval, and we had, by the raps: "Light the
gas." Only then I released Kate's hands. We lit the gas,
and I immediately examined the doors of the room. The seals
were intact and the strips, connecting them with the door-sills,
unbroken.  I looked round.  Everything remained just as
when we sat down, except that several slips of paper lay scattered on the floor, with my pencil among them; while, on the
table, there lay the single slip and the pen-holder which had
been handed to me.
My first thought was that I was now qualified to swear in a
court of justice, had that been necessary, that, during this sitting, Kate and I had been the sole occupants of the room.
Then I examined the papers. One, that on the table, was
written in ink; three others, on the floor, in pencil; two or
three short lines on each. The first had these words:
"The night is not favorable for appearing. I will soon overcome difficulties. You shall see me, believe me."
This, though legible, was evidently written by a very bad pen,
which sputtered, as we sometimes say. Witness these two words:
Here is a fac-simile of the writing on one of the other slips;
originally in pencil, but the pencilling carefully inked over by
me, to preserve it:'t-4e e,
ca-eL,
-~~"; a




WHAT DO THEY PROVE?                379
On one of the other slips an allusion was made to the state
of the atmosphere, as being unfavorable to an appearance in
bodily form. It was, in effect, a murky evening, with drizzling
rain. Such weather, as I had repeatedly verified, is unfavorable for spiritual experiments.
On a fourth slip there was expressed, in strong terms, the
earnest anxiety of the writer to gratify my desire for an appearance, so that I could recognize her features. *
My feelings, when I had carefully examined these results, are
such as seldom fall to the lot of a human being.
I took up the slip that was written in ink. Some one-an
intelligent agent, a denizen of this world or of another-had
taken up the pen-holder that lay on the table before me, had
dipped the pen in ink, and had written these lines. The same
pen-holder had been handed to me under the table by some invisible agency. And all this had happened during the time when
the only two hands in the room except my own were under my
grasp. Then, too, I had heard the writing.
I took up the steel-pen and tried to write out a few notes ot
our session. It was nearly worn out. It sputtered in my
hands, as it had done in those of the mysterious writer. After
managing to write a few lines, I relinquished the wretched pen,
as she had done, for my pencil.
It was a gold one. I remarked to Kate what a heavy
pencil and what a miserable pen they had been obliged to employ: thus writing under great disadvantage.
Were these spiritual autographs? What else? Had I not seen
one of them written? Had I not seen one of these slips, illuminated, rise higher than the table and then sink back again?
Had I not felt Kate's two hands under mine at the very time
when that hand wrote and that paper rose and fell? Did Kate
* Of the writer whose name was appended to each of these communications I shall speak at large, in the chapter entitled: A beautifu.
Spirit manifesting herself; Book iv., chap. 3.




380      ARE HUMAN SENSES UNTRUSTWORTHY?
write eight or ten lines with both her hands clasped? Did I
write them with my left hand, without knowing it? Or had
Kate brought the slips, ready written? I picked them up and
examined them critically, one by one. My private mark, on
one corner of each-namely, letters of the German alphabet,
written in German character-still there!
What way out?
Are the senses of seeing and hearing and touch, in sane,
healthy persons, unworthy to be trusted? Then of what value
the evidence taken in a criminal court, or the experiments
made in a chemist's laboratory?
For me, common sense- bars that way out. I believe in a
phase of life, succeeding the death change. I see nothing unlikely-not to say incredible-in the theory that God may
vouchsafe to man sensible proof of his immortality. And thus
I accept the evidence of my senses when they inform me that
human beings who have passed to another phase of existence,
are sometimes permitted to communicate, from beyond the
earthly bourn, with those they have left behind.
For others, to whom spiritual intercourse seems an absurdity
-for those, more especially, to whom the hypothesis of another
life wears the aspect of a baseless dream-let them select their
own path out of the difficulty. I think that, on any path they
may take, they will have to accept theories infinitely less tenable than those they decide to reject.
I remark, in regard to the foregoing experiment, that the
room in which it was made had been selected by me, after another had been proposed; also that I expected one sort of
manifestation and obtained something quite different. The
chief objection, by sceptics, will be that the phenomena occurred in a darkened room. But, in a preceding example,* it
has been shown that when a light was sprung upon spiritual
phenomena of the most startling character, the only effect was
* See chapter 1 of Book iii., preceding page.




PHENOMENA BY GAS-LIGHT.                381
to arrest them, without disclosing any earthly cause for their
occurrence.
Yet I need not rest the case here. It is but rarely, and
under very favorable circumstances, that direct writing can be
had in the light. Yet it can sometimes be obtained. Witness
the following:
DIRECT SPIRIT-WRITING BY GAS-LIGHT.
At Mr. UJnderhill's on the evening of September 3, 1861,
in the back room, second story.  Present, Dr. A. D. Wilson,*
Mr. and Mrs. Underhill and myself.  Precautions in regard to
locking doors and the like, as usual. The room was brightly
lighted during the entire sitting. We sat at a rectangular table,
thirty-three inches by fifty-three, which had no drawers, and
from which we had removed the table-cover.  The gas lit the
space under the table, so that we could inspect it at any time.
I sat on one side of this table, Mrs. Underhill opposite; Mr.
Underhill at one end, on my right, and Dr. Wilson at the
other, on my left.
A few minutes after sitting down we heard, very distinctly,
the jingling of an iron chain; then a sudden stroke, as if by the
point of a blunt dagger, against the under side of the tabletop, so strongly dealt as to shake the whole table; then a
metallic sound, as if two steel rods clashed against each other;
then a jingling, as of steel rings.
During all this time, as I particularly remarked, the hands
of all the assistants were on the table; and below the table
there was nothing to be seen, for I looked more than once.
Then, after witnessing several other phenomena, we asked
if we could have direct writing in the light; to which the reply,
by raps, was in the affirmative. Then came a call for paper
* He then lived in East Eleventh street, near Broadway.
He was one of the most careful and dispassionate observers I have
met with, and he expressed, in the strongest terms, his conviction of
the conclusive character of this experiment.




382              A REEMARKABLE EXAMPLE
and pencil.  I myself selected a sheet from  the middle of a
quire of foolscap and examined it carefully under the gas
burner: it was entirely blank. I held it and a pencil on m3
knee, looking under the table as I did so. Scarcely had I
looked up again, to be assured that all the hands of the assistants still remained on the table, when paper and pencil were
taken from me, a finger distinctly touching mine, as they were
taken. Then, for six or eight seconds we heard a sound resembling that of a pencil writing rapidly on paper; and instantly,
before I had time to look again, the raps spelled: "Take it
up." I did so, and found written ul)On it in pencil, in a bold,
rude, dashing hand, the words: " The North will conquer." *
The t in the word " North " is crossed with a sweeping dash.
" Conquer" is written conq, then the u is written partly over
the q, and the final e and r run into one another; but the word
is still legible enough. t
I do not think that more than twenty, or at most twentyfive, seconds elapsed from the moment I put the paper under
the table till I took it up, written as above.
The foregoing may suffice as far as regards my own experience in this matter. I add here, in corroboration, the results
obtained by two friends of mine, both of whom have been, in
some respects, even more highly favored than myself, in the
character of evidence establishing the reality of spirit-writing.
The first, obtained by artificial light, is an experience of Mr.
Livermore, of New York,: during an evening session with
Kate Fox, on the eighteenth of August, 1861. No one present
but the medium and himself. The doors locked and bolted;
* The reader need hardly be reminded that this was but six weeks
after the disaster at Bull Run; at one of the darkest epochs of the
Great Contest, when the hopes of the South were triumphant, and the
North was just beginning to take heart, after so severe a check.'f See fac-simile on plate I.
t Of this gentleman and of the wonderful experiences he has had,
touching the phenomenon of objective apparitions, I have spoken at
length, in Book v., chap. 4; which see.




OF SPIRIT-WrITING.  383
~/       E~~
An<    i   A~~Pt
C~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



384          MR. LIVERMOREE'S EXPERIENCE.
the windows secured, and the room thoroughly examined.
Then the lights extinguished. Soon an oblong light, about the
size and shape of a melon, rested on the table, remaining there
a considerable time without moving. Mlr. Livermore asked
if it could rise; whereupon it rose into the air, flashing out
occasionally, and floating about the room. Finally it returned
to the table, shining with increased brilliancy.
Mr. Livermore had brought with him two very large, blank
cards, each with a private mark, hoping to obtain direct writing. These he now deposited, together with a small silver
pencil, on the table, near the light; at the same time securing
both hands of the medium. They were soon taken from the
table and carried near to the floor, remaining apparently suspended, however, some three or four inches above it; and the
light was so moved that its rays fell directly upon the cards.
WThat Mr. Livermore then saw I give in his own words, copied
from the record he himself made at the time: "The cards became the centre of a circle of light a foot in diameter. Carefully watching this phenomenon, I saw a hand holding my pencil
over one of the cards. This hand moved quietly across from
left to right, and when one line was finished, moved back
to commence another. At first it was a perfectly-shaped hand,
afterward it became a dark substance, smaller than the human
hand, but still apparently holding the pencil, the writing going
on at intervals, and the whole remaining visible for nearly an
hour. I can conceive of no better evidence for the reality of
spirit-writing. Every possible precaution against deception
had been taken. I held both hands of the medium throughout
the whole time. I have the cards still, minutely written on
both sides; the sentiments there expressed being of the most
elevated character, pulre and spiritual."
The italics are fiom the original record. Nearly an hour, it
will be observed, the phenomenon continued to present itself,
and under a bright light, even if one not kindled by human
hand.
But the next example occurred in broad daylight. It was




MRS. DAVIS'S EXPERIENCE.             385
communicated to me by one of the witnesses present, at first
verbally, afterward by letter, in which the writer kindly permits me to use her name; a name which cannot fail to secure,
for the narration, respect and consideration. The lady is the
sister of Bancroft, the historian, and the widow of John Davis,
formerly governor of Massachusetts, and best remembered in
New England under the honorable cognomen of " honest John
Davis."
The circumstance occurred in Mrs. Davis's dining-room, in
Worcester, MIassachusetts, the medium  present being Mr.
Willis, formerly a student of Harvard University, and who
had some difficulty there, because of an honest avowal of his
belief in the epiphanies of Spiritualism. "The room," says
Mirs. Davis in her note to me, " had four windows facing east,
south, and west; the hour between eleven and twelve, A.nI.;
so that we had the full light of a summer sun, shut off only by
green blinds. We were at a table on which I had put paper
and pencil; but we had no intention of forming what is called
a circle: we merely sat chatting of some wonderful manifestations we had witnessed the evening before."
While they were so engaged, the pencil rose from the table,
stood at the usual angle, as if guided by a human hand, though
no hand was to be seen, and began to write. The amazement of
Mrs. Davis may be imagined. The motion of the pencil was
regular, and a slight scratching sound was heard as it moved.
Both Mrs. Davis and Mr. Willis saw and heard this alike. It
wrote a brief message of affection from a dear friend of Mrs.
Davis, deceased some years before: then dropped on the paper.
The evidence in this case, it will be observed, is more direct
than in any of the Baron de Guldenstubbe's experiments, for
he did not see the writing done; and it has a certain advantage also over Mr. Livermore's experience and mine; seeing
that, in both our cases, the light was artificial and might by
some be thought less trustworthy than that of day.
TWhat element of authenticity is lacking here?  The writing
was done in the seeing and hearing of both, and in broad day17




386             WRITING ON THE HUMAN
light. For anything which we have not witnessed ourselves,
how seldom is more conclusive testimony to be had!
Commending these various experiments to the critical consideration of the candid reader, I proceed to give a few exarmples of another species of writing, often discredited, yet of
which I have had proofs which I find it impossible to set
aside.
WRITING ON THE HUMAN HAND AND ARM.
Mr. Robert Chambers and myself were well acquainted with
a gentleman whom I shall call Mr. M V, not being at liberty
to give the real name. He is one among the most successful
and best-known business men of our country; not a resident of
New York.
At the time I am speaking of, however, he was on a visit to
that city; and Mr. Chambers and I induced him to call, with
us, on Mr. Charles Foster, one of the very best test-mediums I
have ever known. Mr. M-~ was an unbeliever in spiritual
phenomena, unacquainted with Mr. Foster, and agreed to visit
him merely to gratify Mr. Chambers' wish and mine. We
had given Mr. Foster no notice of our visit, and we did not
make Mr. M-'s name known to him. We sat down to an
ordinary-sized centre-table.
After several remarkable phenomena which I omit, Mr.
M —-- expressed a wish for a test of the reality of spirit-intercourse. Thereupon Mr. Foster requested him to think of a
deceased friend. Then he bade him write, on one slip of paper, a number offirst names, among them the first name of his
fiiend; and on another slip a number of family names, among
them the family name of his friend, keeping the writing concealed. Mr. M — wrote out both lists accordingly; the total
number of names being twenty-three. At Mr. Foster's request
he then tore the names asunder, made up each separately
in a pellet, and held these pellets under the table, in his hand,
the palm open. Then Mr. Foster, who was sitting opposite to




ARMhi TIHROUGH MR. FOSTER.            387
Mr. M -, taking up my hat, held it by one hand under the
table and said: " Spirit, will you please select the two pellets
that have your name and surname, from that gentleman's hand,
and put them  in Mr. Owen's hat?"   In somewhat less
than a minute raps came, Mr. Foster brought up the hat, and
handed two pellets which it contained, unopened, to Mr.
M —. The latter undid them, without showing them to any
of us, and merely said: (" These are the two pellets with the name
and family name of my friend."  Then Mr. Foster, suddenly
exclaiming " Here is his first name on my arm," bared his arm
and we saw, written on it, in large pink letters, the word Seth.
After a minute or two, as we were looking at the writing, it
faded out and Mr. Foster asked: "  Will the spirit write the first
letter of his family name on the back of my hand?" holding it
out. We watched it closely: there was not the least mark on
it. But, after the lapse of a short time, pink marks began to
appear, gradually growing more plain, until we all saw, and
read, very distinctly written near the centre of the back of Mr.
Foster's hand, the capital letter C. Then, for the first time,
Mr. AM — showed us the two pellets. The name was Seth
Mr. Foster then inquired of Mr. M —  if the spirit was a
relative of his; and when the other replied that it was, Mr. Foster sat,'s if musing, for a minute or two; then turned to Mr.
M   -, saying: "' Ah! it comes to me: it is your father-inlaw."'
Mr. C.... was Mr. M —'s father-in-law, as that gentle.
man then informed us; but until that moment the fact was not
known either to Mr. Chambers or to myself.*
Several times (luring this session, Mr. M — became extremely pale, and more than once, exclaimed in surprise. I
did not share his astonishment, because, the day before (Sep* A record of this sitting was made the same day and submitted by
me, for revision, to Mr. Chambers. That gentleman was then on a
visit to this country. He took the deepest interest in such experi.ments.




388          A LETTER APPEARS AND FADES
tember 28), I had had a private sitting with Foster where I ob.
tained a test, perhaps even more satisfactory than the above,
seeing that it came at my own request. I begged Foster tc
bare his arm and I said: "' Can I have the first letter of the
family name of a deceased friend of whom I am thinking written there? "  I kept my eyes steadily fixed on the arm, after a
time the letter W gradually appeared, then, as gradually, faded
out again. That was the first letter of the name I had thought of.
Two marvels here: an answer to a mental question, and
writing upon a human arm before my eyes and in reply to an
unexpected request.
More than a year after this I had, also through Mr. Foster,
a similar test; and as my notes, taken on that occasion, describe
the appearance minutely, I add the record -here, at the risk of
being tedious.
THE LETTER F.
A circle of eight persons had assembled, on the evening of
November 15, 1861, to meet Mr. Foster. It was at a wellknown house in East Twentieth Street, New York; the dwelling of two ladies, both earnest spiritualists, and of whom our
country has recently had to mourn the loss, Alice and Phoebe
Cary.
We had all been invited, early in the evening, to write one
or more names, of deceased friends, each on a small bit of paper; and to fold these up tightly and mix them in the centre of
the table. There were some twenty or thirty of these in all,
thus promiscuously placed together.
From time to time Mr. Foster addressed some message to
one or other of our party, and, at the close of each message, he
selected one of the bits of paper and handed it unopened, to the
party addressed. In every case, the message was appropriate and
the name was given to the right person. In six different cases the
name of the deceased friend was written in full, on Mr. Foster's
arm; but the arm was not bared beforehand, the writing ap.
peared when he drew up his sleeve.




UNDER THE WITNESSES' EYES.             389
When some eight or ten bits of paper only remained, I said
to Mr. Foster: "There is a name written by me among those
you have not yet distributed. Do you think you could get the
first letter of it on your arm?"  I was going to add " and I
should like you to bare your arm before it is written;" but I
refrained, lest Mr. Foster should think that I entertained a
suspicion which I did not feel.
Mr. Foster sat silent for a minute or two, both his hands
resting passively on the table the while; then he said to me:
"You are to look at my wrist:" at the same time extending
toward me the left arm with the hand downward and the fist
clenched, and drawing back his sleeve so as to expose three or
four inches of the wrist. I observed that it was free from all
mark whatever, and it remained so for about one minute. Then
a faint pink stroke appeared across it which, in about half a:minute more, having gradually increased in distinctness, became
a capital F. It extended almost across the wrist, near to
where it joins the hand; and the top of the F, being the last
part of the letter which appeared, crossed into the back of the
hand. The letter was formed by pink lines, about as thick as
the down-strokes in ordinary text-hand. It was the written,
not the printed character; and though it appeared as if written
hastily or carelessly, it was unmistakably distinct and legible;
so that each member of the circle, when it was shown to them,
recognized it at once. It remained visible for as much as two
or three minutes; and then faded away, while we were looking
at it, as gradually as it had appeared.
Then Mr. Foster picked up the folded bits of paper, one after
another, until, as he touched one, there were three raps. That
one he handed to me. It was the one on which I had written
"Florence," the name of a daughter of line whom I had lost
in infancy twenty years before. Neither Mr. Foster, nor any
member of the circle, knew that I had lost a daugllter, nor had
the name ever before come up, at any of our sittings.
Was the particular character of this test-stricter than that
of any other obtained during the evening-determined by my




390          CAN ONE HAVE BETTER PROOF?
unexpressed wish to see the writing while in progress of for.
mation?  The important thing is correctly to state the circum.
stances: let the reader make his own deductions.
The feeling, as the letter grew under my gaze, was somewhat
like that I remember to have had when, for the first time, under the microscope, I witnessed the sudden coming into existence of crystals.
Space fails me to say more touching spirit-writing. In the
way of recital can stronger proof be given? Let those who
still doubt test the matter for themselves.




CHAPTER IV.
SPIRIT TOUCHES.
IN the spring of the year 1858, then living at Naples, I had
four sittings with a medium of world-wide reputation; D. Dunglas Home; and, in his presence, I witnessed a phenomenon
which no earnest thinker can witness, believing it to be genuine,
without a strange feeling that he is brought near to the next
world.
The sessions were held in the parlor of my apartments on the
Chiaja: present, besides my family and the medium, the Count
d'Aquila; dr, as we usually called him, Prince Luigi, third
brother of the King of Naples. They were evening sessions,
the room brightly lighted. We sat at a centre-table, three feet
nine inches in diameter, and weighing, with the lamp on it,
ninety. pounds.
During the second session we were all touched in succession;
and this was preceded by a singular manifestation. At various
points all round the table, the table-cover was pushed outward,
and occasionally upward at the edge of the table-top, as by a
hand underneath. Mrs. Owen touched it and felt, through the
cover, what seemed a small human hand, doubled up. By the
raps it was alleged that it was our eldest daughter, Florence,
whom we had lost when an infant.
Then Mrs. Owen's dress was pulled, on the side farthest from
Mr. Home, as-often as eight or ten times, and so strongly that
3Mrs. Owen says had she been asleep it would certainly have
awoke her: and, as it was, it instantly arrested her attention.
She saw her dress move each time it was pulled.
Then she asked that it might touch me three times, which it
did instantly and quite distinctly. Then I put on my knee my
hand covered with a handkerchief; and, at my request, it imr




392              SPIRIT-TOUCHES OBTAINED
mediately touched my hand through the handkerchief. Then
MIrs. Owen invited it to touch her hand which she placed, uncovered, under the table: upon which it went under one of the
flounces of her dress and touched her hand through the silk;
but did not touch the bare hand.
When under the table-cover, on the opposite side from Mr.
Home, it tapped three times on Mrs. Owen's hand, when she
put it against the cover.
All this tinme iMr. Rome's hands were resting on the table, and
immediately afterward the table rose entirely off the floor some
four or five inches, and was carried about twelve inches toward
where Mrs. Owen sat, and there set down again, Mrs. Owen
rising: then raised a second time and carried about six inches
farther in the same direction. This time the foot of the table
rested on Mrs. Owen's dress; and had to be removed to extricate it.
Then a large arm-chair, weighing forty-eight pounds,* and
standing empty behind Mr. Home and about four feet and a
half from the arm-chair in which he sat, moved suddenly and
very swiftly close up to the table between Mr. Home and Mrs.
Owen. Sitting opposite to them, I happened to be looking in
that direction at the moment, and saw it start. It moved so
suddenly and rapidly, that I expected it to strike with force
against the table; but it stopped, as suddenly, within an inch
or two of it, and without touching. It is proper to add that it
moved on castors.  Mr. Home was, at that moment, sitting
close to the table, with both hands lightly resting on it, and
without the slightest appearance of any muscular effort.
During the next session, April 6, the touchings were repeated; t and still more distinctly, during the fourth sitting on
* I had chair, table, and lamp carefully weighed, and recorded the
weight at the time.
t A phenomenon which occurred during this sitting is well worth
recording. All our chairs were shaken, as distinctly as during an earthquake (we had a violent one, while I was in Naples, so that I speak here
by the book); yet the table, the while, remained motionless. Then the




THROUGH MR. HOME.                    393
April 12; on which occasion the hand touched was uncovered.
Here is the record: " Mrs. Owen's hand, placed on her knee
under the cloth, was touched with what exactly resembled to
the touch a human hand, soft, moderately warm, and a little
moist.  The touch was on Mlrs. Owen's bare hand, and was so
distinct that there was no possibility of mistaking it.  Mrs.
Owen, having on two previous evenings, witnessed the same
phenom-enon, was quite self-possessed, and she stated to me that
she felt not the least nervousness or alarm.
"Prince Luigi was touched repeatedly, as we were; and he
afterward expressed to me, in unqualified terms, his conviction
that the phenomena we had witnessed were genuine. He had
had previous experience of his own." *
Soon after my return to this country, I had evidence confirmatory of this phenomenon.
chairs ceased their motion, and the table was similarly agitated. Then,
at request, the table ceased its motion, and that of the chairs recommenced: and so on, several times; the change from one motion to the
other being instantaneous. I know of no human force that could imitate this. Machinery there was none, for it was in my own parlor. It
was evidently not the floor that was shaken, or that communicated
motion either to the table or to the chairs.
* Here is an item from his experience. He told me that he had
sometimes (as on after reflection he concluded) pressed with unwarrantable eagerness for answers; and, for a time, could obtain nothing
more. On one occasion, when he had done so, there was spelled out:
"' Tu es un vrai diable."
Thle Prince. —" De qui parle tu?"
Ansiwer. —" De toi, Louis de Bourbon."
French and English magnetizers agree in stating that somnambules
are wont to use the familiar tu and du t6 persons whom in their waking
state they always addressed either by their titles, or else using the formal
vous and Sie. See, for an example: Histoire de la Guirison d'unejelno
perlsonze par le Magnatisme Animal, produit par la Nature elle-mame;
by the Baron F. C. De Strombeck: Paris, 1814, p. 38. " Jamais elle
ne m'avoit tutoyM."
In the spiritual realm, it would seem, there is no respect of persons.
-Acts x. 34.
17*




394             SPIRIT-TOUCHES OBTAINED
SPIRIT TOUCHES BY BRIGHT GAS-LIGHT.
Session of October 23, 1860, held in Mr. Underhill's dining.
room in the evening. Present Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Mr.
Underhill's father (Levi Underhill), Mrs. Price, of Westchester,
and myself. The usual precautions taken as to locking doors, etc.
Spelled out by raps: " Look under the table." I did so very
carefully. There was nothing there.
After a time is spelled, " Put handkerchief over hand."  I
asked: " Is that addressed to me? " Answer: " Yes."  I put
my right hand, covered, under the table.
Then it spelled: "Lower." I reached down as far as I
could.
At this moment all the assistants had their hands on the
table, in sight.  Mrs. Underhill suggested that we join hands.
We did so: but as my right hand was underneath the table,
Mrs. Price, who sat next to me, put her hand on my shoulder,
to complete the circle.
In about two minutes after this circle was thus formed, my
hand was laid hold of and pressed by the fingers of a hand, as
I felt with unmistakable certainty. Then I asked to have the
hand touch me once more. It did so; and, this time, it was
the points of the fingers that were pressed against my hand:
I felt the sharp impression of the nails.
During the whole of this time the gas was burning brightly,
and the circle of joined hands was maintained. During the
whole time the hands of all the assistants were in sight, and I
kept my eye on them.
But for the reminder, by the raps, to look under the table
before the experiment began, I might have omitted to take that
precaution.
A year later I had a similar experience, also in the light.
It was during the session, already noticed, of September 3,
1861, when we obtained direct writing by gas-light:* Dr. Wil.
* See preceding page.




THROUGH LEAII FOX.                 395
son and Mr. and Mrs. Underhill present. The table thirtythree inches by fifty-three; without drawers and without
cloth.
It spelled: " Put down hand." I put my left hand under
the table. My foot was touched and pressed and my leg was
seized, as by the firm grasp of a strong hand; but my hand was
not touched.
Then it spelled: " Handkerchief." As soon as I covered
my hand it was touched, through the handkerchief, as by a
large finger. Then my fingers were grasped firmly, as by two
fingers and a thumb. Then, a third time, my fingers were
grasped and tightly pressed as by three fingers and a thumb of
a large, strong hand.
After a time, fingers apparently of a small hand were laid
lightly on mine: and, by delicate raps, it was spelled: "Violet
touched you last."
This experiment was made in a room brightly lighted, without any cloth on the table, and with the hands of every assistant full in sight.
Some readers, theorizing only, may persuade themselves that
a single sense, especially that of touch, is insufficient evidence
in cases like the foregoing. Let them try the experiment. Let
them  try, when they find themselves laid hold of by a hand,
vigorous and real, as firmly as by the grasp of a cordial friend,
to set it down as pure imagination and to rest in the conviction that they have not been touched at all. Short of Pyrrhonism, they will not succeed. When through the avenues of
actual sensation the testimony comes, they will find out, like
Thomas, what are the difficulties of disbelief.
I here close my record of manifestations such as are usually
called physical; and proceed to consider a problem of more
intricate character: that which relates to the identity of spirits.




BOOK IV.
IDENTITY OF SPIRITS.
CHAPTER  I.
STUBBORN FACTS CONNECTING TWO WORLDS.
TIIERE iS, among spiritual phenomena, a class, rare of occur.
rence, but wonderfully convincing when we happen to meet
with them. They teach us much more than the reality of the
next world, invaluable as that truth is. They give us glimpses
into that world, dissipating many preconceptions touching its
character and its inhabitants. We learn from them that our
friends there may still have earthly thoughts and human sympathies; may still recognize us; may still, for a time, interest
themselves even in petty matters that are going on in the world
they have left. They do not, by any means, prove to us that
every ultramundane communication is truly from the spirit who
professes to communicate; but they do prove to us that this is
sometimes the case. In doing so, they establish, in certain
cases, the identity of spirits. They give us satisfactory assurance that we shall recognize our friends in the next world, and
that we shall find them there much less changed than theological fancy has painted them.
Such proofs are the more valuable when they come unsought,
unexpected, at first unwelcome even, in the privacy of home:
where we cannot imagine motive for deception, nor chance of
juggler's trick.
I am fortunate in being able to supply such an example,




GETTING  OVER A PREJUDICE.           397
furnished to me by friends in whose good faith and sagacity
I have entire confidence. I know the names of all the parties
whose initials are given in the following narrative; and if I
am not permitted to publish them, in attestation, the world
has itself to blame. When society, learning to treat upright.
ness with respect, ceases to denounce or to ridicule such testimony as this, it will be time enough for it to condemn the
reticence of those who meanwhile seek refuge from such injustice under an anonymous veil.
A SPIRIT ARRANGING ITS WORLDLY AFFAIRS.
MIrs. G, wife of a captain in the regular army of the
United States, was residing, in 1861, with her husband, in
Cincinnati. Before that time she had, of course, often heard
of spiritual experiences; but she had avoided all opportunities
to examine the reality of these, regarding the seeking of communications from another world as a sin. She had never seen
what is called a professional medium.
It so happened that, in the above year, a lady of her acquaintance, Mrs. C —-, found that she (Mrs. C    ) had the
power to obtain messages through raps; and she occasionally
sat, for that purpose, with some of her intimate friends; among
the rest with Mrs. G —-. These sessions, continued throughout the years 1861 and 1862, in a measure overcame Mrs.
G-  -'s aversion to the subject; awakening her curiosity but
failing to bring full conviction.
In December, 1863, her husband's brother Jack (as he was
familiarly called) died suddenly.
In March, 1864, Mrs. G., then in the quiet of a country
residence near Cinciunati, received a visit from a friend, Miss
L       B-. This lady having power as a medium, Mrs.
G-o and she had a session one day. After a time the young
lady rose and Mrs. G —-- remained alone. Thereupon, with
her hands only lightly touching the table, it moved across the
room in which they had been sitting, and, through an open




398               1IOW A SPIRIT AIDED
door, into a room adjoining. Later it moved, in Mrs. G-'s
presence, without being touched. Thus, for the first time, she
discovered her own powers.
Sitting down again with Miss B, the name of " Jack"
was unexpectedly spelled out.
Mrs. G-   asked: "Is there anything you wish done,
brother?"  The reply was: " Give Anna that ring."
Now Anna M    - was the name of a young lady to whom,
at the time of his death, the brother was betrothed. Mrs.
G  ~ did not know what ring was meant; but she remembered that when Jack died, a plain gold ring-the only one he
wore-had been presented by her husband to a friend of his
brother, a Mr. G —-.  She asked if that was the ring, and the
reply was in the affirmative.
Some days after this Jack's mother paid them a visit.
Nothing was said to her of the above communication. In the
course of conversation she told them that Miss Anna M -
had called upon her; had stated that she had given to Jack, at
the time of their betrothal, a plain gold ring and that she
wished to have it again. Mrs. G    and her husband were
both ignorant that the ring in question had been Miss B's;
Jack never having said anything to them on the subject.
Mleasures were taken to have the ring returned.
Some time after Jack's death three persons, G, C —,
and S   -, came, severally, to Captain G   and told him
that his brother had died indebted to them. He requested
them to send in their bills in writing.
Meanwhile, not knowing anything of debts due by his
brother to these individuals, Captain G   - asked Mlrs. G  -
to have a session, hoping to obtain some information on the
subject. The following was the result.
Jack announced himself and his brother asked:
"Did you owe G-~ at the time of your death?"
"Yes."
"IHow much?"
"Thirty-five dollars."




IN SETTLING ITS ACCOUNTS.            399
"Were you indebted to C?"
"Yes."
"lHow much?"
" Fifty dollars."
" And how much to S?"
" Nothing."
"But S      says he has a bill against you?"
"It is not just. I did borrow of him forty dollars, but I
gave him fifty dollars. He repaid me seven only, and still
owes me three."
G -'s bill, when afterward presented, was for thirty-five
dollars, and C-'s for fifty. S  handed in a bill for forty
dollars. When Captain G-   said, on its presentation, that
Jack had repaid him fifty, S  became confused and said he
" thought that was intended for a gift to his (S —'s) sister."
Captain G-  afterward asked, through the table:
" Jack, do you owe any one else?"
" Yes; John Gr, for a pair of boots, ten dollars."
[Neither Captain nor Mrs. G —-- knew anything of this
debt.]
" Does any one owe you?"
"Yes; C      G      owes me fifty dollars."
Captain G     applied to C.. G., asking him whether
he had been indebted to his brother Jack.
"Yes," he replied; "fifteen dollars."
" But he lent you fifty dollars."
"That is true; but I repaid him all but fifteen dollars."
"You have receipts, I suppose? "
C     G —  promised to look for them; but afterward
came and paid the fifty dollars.
Finally Captain G      called on Mr. Gr ——, the shoemaker, who had sent in no bill. Wishing to make the test as
complete as possible, he said:
"' Do I owe you a bill, Mr. Gr?"
"l No, sir. You have paid for all you had of me."




100                 THE SHOEMAKER.
Captain G —--- turned, as if to go; whereupon the shoemaker added:
" But your brother, Mr. Jack, who died, left a small account
unpaid."
"What was it for? "
"A pair of boots."
"And your charge for them?"
" Ten dollars."
"' Mr. Gr -, there is your money."
The above was related to me by Captain and Mrs. G-.
during a visit I made to them at their country residence.*
If, by way of explaining the above, we imagine deliberate,
circumstantial, motiveless falsehood in persons of the utmost
respectability, of earnest character and of unblemished reputation, we violate all received rules of evidence. But if we
admit the facts, what theory which does not admit the reality
of spirit-communication will suffice to account for the above?
How explain away these stubborn links, actual, tangible, thus
unmistakably connecting the spiritual with the material-the
world yet concealed from our view with that other world, not
more real, which lies around us, palpable to the senses?
And what stronger proof could well be given of the identity
of a communicating spirit than these simple, homely details
supply?
If it seem to us inconsistent with the dignity of our spiritual abode that its denizens should still be able to recall trifling
details of their earthly life, let us bear in mind that, without
such memory of past incidents, the natural consequences of
well-doing and evil-doing would not follow us to the next
world. We cannot repent of sin if we cannot call to mind its
commission: and even Heaven would be a curse if there we
* April 9, 1865. I took notes, the same day, from which I wrote out
the above narrative. I afterward submitted it to Captain G-a, for
correction and approval. He had kept a record of these various communications and of the attendant circumstances, at the time; and so
was able to give me every particular with exactitude.




A DOCTOR IN CHURCH.               401
remembered our evil deeds only. On the other hand we may
reasonably conclude that, as children when they advance in
years put away childish things, so will it be with spirits, as
they go up higher. Petty interests will fade from our thoughts,
to be replaced by the momentous concerns of a better life.
And this will doubtless happen at an earlier or at a later period, in proportion as the actor in these new scenes had been
spiritually-minded, or the reverse, during his sojourn upon earth.
I add here another incident which has its peculiar interest
aside from the proof of identity which it supplies. It furnishes an example of the gift called by St. Paul the "discerning of spirits;" or of what, in modern parlance, is called a
subjective apparition, visible to the seer but invisible to other
spectators: together with evidence that such appearances are
not, because of such subjective character, to be classed among
hallucinations.
SISTER ELIZABETH.
One Sunday evening, during the summer of 1855, a New
York physician, Dr. Hi —, attended morning service in the
Rev. Dr. Bellows' church.
During the sermon and while his attention was engrossed by
the argument of the preacher, it was suddenly diverted, in a
most unexpected manner; namely, by the apparition of three
female figures. They first became visible on the left of the
church and they glided slowly across the vacant space in front
of the pulpit. As they passed, Dr. Ht —- recognized two of
them, both deceased relatives; one his wife, the other his
mother. The third figure, appearing between the other two
and with an arm round the mother, was that of a beautiful
young girl. The attitude and gesture suggested the relationship of daughter; but the features were unknown to Dr.
H —; not at all resembling (he thought) those of the only
sister he had lost by death: Anne, who had died, in childhood,
thirty-nine years before.




402              THE DOCTOR's MISTAIE
This group of figures paused as they reached the extreme right
of the church; two of them, the wife and the young girl, gradually fading away. The mother, remaining still, turned toward het
son and gazed at him, with a look of affection, for several minutes; then vanished like the others. Dr. IH     had full time
to note every well-remembered item of dress: the plain Quaker
cap, the snow-white muslin kerchief pinned across the breast,
the gray silk gown: all just as the good old lady, a strict member of the Society of Friends, had worn them up to the day
of her death.
It was the first time in his life that Dr. II —  had seen an
apparition. Nor, up to that time, had anything seemed to indicate that he had any spiritual powers, except that, on one occasion, a table from which he had just taken a book had moved,
without apparent cause, a few inches toward him. The effect
produced on him by a phenomenon so new and unlooked-for as
the appearance of these figures was proportionately great.
Deeply pondering the matter and inclining to believe that
the third figure must have been his deceased sister Anne, he
called, on the evening of the next day, on a medium (one of
the Fox sisters), hoping to have his doubts resolved.
At her suggestion he wrote out a number of female names,
in secret; and as he pointed to these in succession, the name
Anne was passed by, and the raps indicated _Elizabeth. Dr.
H — taxed his memory in vain in search of any relative of
that name whom he had lost by death. But when, on another
sheet, he had written out as many various relationships as he
could think of, all were passed by till he came to the word
Sister, at which the raps came very distinctly.
"That's a mistake," said Dr. H —. "I never had a sister
called Elizabeth. I did lose a sister by death, but her name
was Anne."  Then, as appealing to the occult intelligence; he
asked: "Do you mean to say that the figure I saw with its
arm roUnd my mother was mlny sister?"
Answer by raps.-" Yes."
"' And that her name was Elizabeth?"




CORLRECTED BY A FAMILY REGISTER.          403
By louder raps.-" Yes."
" Well, it isn't so: that's all I can say."
Three still louder raps reaffirmed the assertion.
Very much mystified, and somewhat staggered by this persistence, it occurred to Dr. HI that the family Bible which
he had not inspected since he was a child, was in the possession
of his step-mother, living seventy miles off, in the country.
Happening sometime afterward to be in the neighborhood, he
paid her a visit and had an opportunity of examining the family record of births and deaths. There, to his amazement, he
found registered, in the year 1826, the birth of a daughter,
Elizabeth, together with the record of her death a few weeks
afterward.
This event occurred during a five-years absence from his
father's house: and though letters were interchanged far more
rarely in those days than now, Dr. II    thinks it likely that
the circumstance may have been incidentally mentioned in one
of his father's infrequent bulletins from home. He has not
the slightest recollection, however, that he ever received any
such intelligence, or that he ever heard the birth or death of
this infant alluded to in the family. A life so very brief usually passes away without leaving a trace, except in the secret
depths of a mother's memory.
Dr. H- has been well known to me for years, as an intelligent man and a dispassionate observer. I confide in his
truth and accuracy. I had the narration from himself, wrote
it out next morning, submitted the manuscript the same day *
to the narrator who, after making a single correction, assented
to its accuracy.
In this case, it will be observed, the fact indicated by the apparition and confirmed by the medium was not only not known to
the observer but was contrary to his convictions; and he remained
incredulous until enlightened by incontrovertible evidence.
With a single additional narrative connecting, like the fore* January 2, 1870.




4;04         AN APPAITION  SHOWS  ITSELF
going, a spiritual appearance with the realities of earthly life,
I close this chapter.
THE GRANDMOTHER'S PROMISE.
In the month of March and in the year 1846, three ladies,
a mother and two daughters, were sitting in the dining-room
of a dwelling in C  - street, West Philadelphia. It was between one and two o'clock in theday. The house was a double
one, with a central entrance-hall: a parlor on the left as one
entered, and the dining-room on the right; the windows of
both rooms looking on the street.
The mother, Mrs. R-, wife of Dr. R, was sitting
close to a front window and to the wall dividing the room from
the entrance-hall. Between her and the door opening into
the hall was a sofa, set against the dividing wall; and thereon
sat her eldest daughter, then unmarried and about nineteen
years of age, now the wife of the Rev. Mr. T, an Episcopal clergyman. Both these ladies were sitting with their faces
turned from the window, so that they could see the door entering from the hall, and could observe what happened in the
room. Facing the mother and seated on a low stool between
her and the elder daughter, was a younger daughter, A —,
then aged seventeen. All three ladies were engaged in needlework and were quietly conversing on ordinary topics.
The door leading into the entrance-hall was ten or twelve
feet from the front wall. At the time I am speaking of it happened to be ajar, open some three or four inches only.
Of a sudden, and at the same moment, the mother and eldest daughter perceived, advancing silently from this door, a
female figure. It appeared in a black Turk-satin dress and
over it a white book-muslin handkerchief crossed on the breast;
and it wore a white bonnet. In its hand the ladies distinguished a white silk bag, such as is often carried by Quaker
ladies, the string of the bag wrapped several times round the
wrist, and the bag gathered up in the hand. The younger




TO THREE LADIES.                  405
sister, observing after a time the looks of the other two ladies,
turned round and saw the appearance also; but not as long not
as distinctly as they did.
The figure advanced slowly into the room, till it came within two or three feet of the front wall. There it stopped opposite a portrait of Dr. R —-, which hung between the two front
windows, and gazed at it, for the space perhaps of half a minute; then it turned and moved slowly to the door where
it had first been seen. The door did not open; but the figure,
coming close up to it, there suddenly disappeared. The ladies
were looking at it, at the moment of its disappearance. In
moving through the parlor and returning, it passed so close to
the elder daughter that its dress seemed almost to touch her's.
Yet there was no echo of a footstep, nor the least rustle of the
dress, nor any other sound whatever, while the figure moved.
This circumstance and the disappearance of the apparition
without opening of the door to permit natural exit, alone
caused the appearance to seem other than an ordinary and material one. To the sight it was as distinct and palpable as any
human visitor; and though the ladies afterward recollected
that its motion seemed more like gliding than walking, yet
this was an after thought only. Not a word was spoken, during the scene here described.
"' Who was it? " was Mrs. R -'s exclamation, addressed
to the elder daughlter, as soon as their first mute astonishment
had a little subsided.
" It was grandmamma! " she replied.
Thereupon the mother, without another word, left the room.
The house was searched, from garret to cellar, but not a trace
was found of any one except its usual inmates.
In addition to this negative evidence there was the positive
proof furnished by a slight, recent fall of snow. The path to
the door-steps (the house standing back from the street line),
and the steps themselves, showed no trace of human foot.
Add to this that two children who were playing, at the time,
on the front veranda, saw no one enter or depart.




406                TEn  GRANDMOTHER
On subsequently comparing notes, the ladies ascertained that
the impressions left on each of them by this extraordinary appearance were the self-same. I had the particulars, first from
the elder daughter, Mrs. Y —, and afterward confirmed by
the mother. To both the figure seemed a real person. Both
recollected the precise dress, and their recollections exactly corresponded. To the eyes of both the figure had crossed the
room, approached the front wall, lingered there to look at the
portrait, recrossed to the door and there vanished. Neither
heard any sound. It should be added that they had not been
talking or thinking of the lady whose image thus suddenly appeared before them.
Mrs. IR, as well as her daughter, had instantly recognized the figure as that of Mrs. R ——'s mother, who had died
about ten years before. Not only the face and form, but every
minute particular of the dress, as above described, were the
counterpart of that lady and of her usual walking attire, when
in life. Originally she had belonged to the Society of Friends,
and she had, in a measure, retained the style and peculiarities
of their apparel.
The ladies related this incident, on the evening of the same
day, to the Rev. Mr. Y —, from whom, I first obtained it:
his recollection of what they told him, only a few hours after
tile event, tallying exactly with their account to me of what
they had seen. He informed me that he had never seen old
Mrs. R —; but, the next morning, meeting three elderly
ladies, sisters, who had been intimately acquainted with her,
he asked them (without mentioning what had been related to
himself) to give him a description of her personal appearance
and ordinary walking-dress. It agreed, point tfor point, with
that of the apparition, as it had been described to him.
Some other particulars which add greatly to the value of
this narrative remain to be stated. Shbrtly before her death
Dr. R —'s mother had strongly advised her son to buy a
house in the neighborhood in which he ultimately purchased.
She had also, about the same time, stated to a friend of




KEEPS HER PROMISE.                 407
hers, Mrs. C:, that if her son (he was an only son) did
well, she would, if permitted, return from the other world, to
witness his prosperity.  This was afterward mentioned by
Mrs. C —   to the Rev. Mr. Y-, and by that gentleman
to me.
But it so happened that, on the very day, and as nearly as
could be ascertained at the very hour, when his wife and
daughters witnessed the apparition of his mother, the deeds by
which Dr. R- became the legal proprietor of the house in
which she appeared were delivered to him by its former possessor. Though he had spoken to his wife and family of his intention to purchase, they had no reason to suppose that the
bargain would be closed on that day. When, on his return in
the evening, he threw the deeds on the table, it was an unexpected surprise. Is it to be wondered at that, after the first
feeling of gratification, the next thought, both of mother and
daughter, should be of her who had so earnestly wished for this
acquisition, and who had appeared to them, in her son's house,
at or near the very time at which that house passed, by legal
conveyance, into his hands?  Is it surprising that Mrs. C
should call to mind her old friend's promise, thus, to all outward seeming, strangely and punctually fulfilled?
It may, perhaps, occur to the reader as singular that the
spirit of the mother should not, at the time of the purchase,
have appeared to her son, rather than to her daughter-in-law.
But it is not certain that this was possible. It would seem
that, as a general rule, apparitions, like other spiritual phenomena, can present themselves only under favorable circumstances, and that these circumstances are often connected with
the personal attributes, or peculiarities of organization, of the
spectators, or some one of them.
But Mrs. R, the daughter-in-law, evidently possessed
some such peculiarities. For, at various periods of her life,
she had had dreams of a prophetic character. To these I shall
advert when I come to speak of the gift of prophecy.




408         WHAT WE SHOULD BEAR IN MIND.
In connection with the above incident it behooves us to bear
in mind:
That it occurred two years before modern Spiritualism had
made its appearance in the United States, when the suggestion
of " epidemic excitement," even if that plea be aver good, was
out of the question.
That the apparition, as far as one can judge, was objective;
seen by three persons at once, who coincide in their report of
it; in broad daylight and at a moment when the thoughts of
the witnesses were occupied by every-day matters.
That these witnesses were disinterested and their social position such as to forbid the supposition of wilful deception.
That the coincidence between the conditional promise and its
fulfilment at the moment the condition was accomplished, is
too striking to be rationally referred to chance.
Whether, under these circumstances, the identity of the
grandmother is made out with reasonable certainty, it is for the
reader to determine.




CHAPTER II.
A CASE OF IDENTITY THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.
THAT branch of Pneumatology which relates to intermundane
phenomena has come into notice so recently, and has been, till
now, the subject of so little careful study, that one ought to
speak very cautiously of its laws, especially those which govern
the conditions under which spirits may, or may not, communicate with earth. It is hazardous to generalize in view of a
comparatively small array of facts.
Nevertheless I think we may assume it to be probable that a
very large proportion of all the spirits who manifest themselves
here, do so for a limited time only after they reach their new
homes. Their destiny is upward and onward; and we may
suppose the better class among them to be more occupied by
the scenes of beauty and excellence that are opening before
them, than by any recallings of the dim and checkered sojourn
they have left.
With one drawback, however: drawn down sometimes to
that lower sphere by a power that is greater in Heaven than on
earth-by an attraction that rules most surely in natures that
are noblest and best.
The most powerful of all the heart's agencies-human love
which so often bridges over a thousand difficulties here-that
same emotion it is, triumphing over the death-change, which
would seem the most commonly to overcome the gulf fixed between earthly life and spiritual existence. And thus, sometimes, for a few years-ten, thirty, fifty, perhaps-so long
as the loved ones still linger behind-that deathless emotion
appears to rule a divided heart.
-Divided between Heaven and earth; unable, yet, while its
mourners are on the other side, fully to realize that peace
18




410            MOTIVES THAT PROMPT THE
which passeth all understanding; unable cordially to rejoice
with them who do rejoice, till these mourners-now removed,
as if they were the dead-become alive again, at its side;
eager, meanwhile, to make known its undying affection, to
evince its constant care; anxious to aid, to comfort, to encourage.
But these earth-bound labors of love are transient only in
that higher sphere. Death is an Angel of Mercy there. He
is Heaven's Herald of joy, for whose messages yearning souls
wait. Through him, the Comforter, comes re-union in the many
mansions that had been lonely, even amid celestial surroundings, till he brought the earthly wanderers home. Then satisfied hearts stray no longer from heavenly abodes.
It is true that what on earth we call philanthropy, and what
in the next world seems chiefly to take the form of earnest
desire to bring immortality to light in this darkling world, may
cause benevolent spirits to seek us here even when their own
circle of love is complete. And this doubtless happens: Franklin (Book v., chap. 4) seems an example. Yet I think it is the
exception rather than the rule. In a general way it would seem
that it is not the higher class of spirits which continue, generation after generation, more especially century after century, to
revisit earth: not such men as Confucius or Socrates or Solon;
nor yet such as Milton or Shakspeare or Newton.
Yet I give this as my individual opinion only.  I have
found no proof of identity in the case of any spirit, once celebrated either for goodness or talent, returning, after centuries,
to enlighten or reform mankind. My idea is that they have
completed their earthly task, and that their duties, now, are of
another sphere. I think that we are left to work out, in the
main, our worldly progress. The help we receive from above
is not to supersede our exertions here below. Only so far we
are to be directly helped-to an ardent, living conviction, instead of a cold, barren belief, of that truth of truths-immortality. That once secured to our race, we are to trust, it
seems, to our own industry and courage for the rest; with




RETURN OF SPIRITS TO EARTH.               411
this consoling reflection, however, that though spirits, long
since departed, descend not to do our work, yet other spiritfriends-though it be unconsciously to us-often secretly aid
the faithful worker to do his own.
But other motives than our benefit appear sometimes to urge
mundane return.  Guilty spirits seem the most frequently to
be earth-bound, as in the case of the lady of Burnham Green,*
and hundreds of other house-haunters. But a purely worldly,
spirit, unstained by crime, yet to whom trifles were wont to take
the place of momentous things-who never, while here, bestowed
a thought on regions beyond-may, long after it passes away,
be recalled hither by the levities that made up its empty earthlife. f Of this I have succeeded in finding a noteworthy example.
HOW  A  FRENCH:KING'S FAVORITE  MUSICIAN  MANIFESTED
HIMSELF.
In those days, not long past, when Paris still thought herself
the centre of civilization, and while she had many claims to be
called the gayest and the most brilliant among the capitals of
the world-in the year 18565-there lived in that city a worthy
old gentleman, inheriting, from musical ancestors, the family
gift. I believe he is still alive.
Monsieur N. G. Bach, then sixty-seven years of age, was the
great-grandson of the celebrated Sebastian Bach, I who flourished during the first half of the eighteenth century. Though
in somewhat delicate health, this gentleman was, at the time,
in full enjoyment of his mental faculties, a busy composer, and
* See preceding page 322.
f See Footfalls, p. 427.
t John Sebastian Bach, one of the most eminent of German comiposers, was born at Eisenach, in 1685, and died at Leipsic in 1754. He
held several high musical offices, was an inimitable performer on the
organ, and left many compositions of great merit. The family is said
to have produced, in the space of two hundred years, fifty celebrated
musicians. — BOUILLET: Dictionnaire de Biograp/le.




412               THE SPINET THAT WAS
highly esteemed by his brother artists, alike because of his professional talents and as a thoroughly upright and amiable
man.*
On the fourth of May, 1865, M. Bach's son, L6on Bach, a
gentleman of antiquarian tastes, found, among the curiosities
of a bric-a-brac shop in Paris, a spinet, evidently very old, but
of remarkable beauty and finish, and unusually well-preserved.
It was of oak, ornamented with delicate carving in tasteful
gilded Arabesque, encrusted with turquoises and intermingled
with gilt fleur-de-lis. It had evidently belonged to some person of wealth or distinction; but all the dealer knew about it
was that it had quite recently been brought from Italy by the
person from whom he bought it.
Thinking, that it would please his father, the young man
purchased it. Nor was he disappointed. M. Bach, who shares
his son's taste for stray waifs of the past, was delighted with
his new acquisition, and spent most of the day in admiring it,
in trying its tones and inspecting its mechanism. It was about
five feet long by two wide; it had no legs; but was packed
away, like a violin, in a wooden case for protection. When
about to be used, it was set on a table or stand. Though richly
decorated, it was but a small, weak beginning of what has
culminated in the elaborate Steinways and Chickerings of our
day, with their wonderful power and superb tones. In general
arrangement, however, as may be seen from the plate here
given,t it resembles them; its small'keys being arranged in the
same order: but these keys, when touched, move a set of
* The Paris " Grand Journal" (No. 62) speaks of him as "61lve de
Zimmerman, premier prix de Piano du Conservatoire au concour de
1819, un de nos professeurs de piano les plus estimes et les plus
honores."
The Paris correspondent of the New York " Nation " (June 12, 1866)
speaks in the highest terms of his acknowledged reputation for uprightness and honesty.
t See Plate II. M. Bach kindly entrusted the spinet to a Parisian
friend of mine, who had it photographed for me.




BOUGHT BY LAON BACH.         413
~~




414                 M. BACH IS DREAM.
wooden sticks as thick as a lady's finger, each furnished with
a point which strikes the corresponding wire. The quality of
the tone may be readily imagined.
Before the day closed, however, M. Bach had made a discovery which atoned for all imperfections. On a narrow bar of
wood which supported the sounding-board he thought he could
distinguish writing. Fitted in above this bar were two small
blocks, interposed between it and the sounding-board. They
entirely concealed part of the writing: but by turning up the
instrument and letting in a powerful light, he could read the
rest of it. Of this he has sent me a copy. It contains the
words, " In Roma Antonius Nobilis;" then a blank caused
by the intervention of one of the blocks; then the words
" Brena Medislani Patrice;" then, after another blank similarly caused, the date " Die xiy Aprillis 1564." *  Of course
these words were written before the instrument was framed.
Thus MI. Bach learned that his spinet was more than three
hundred years old; having been made in Rome, in the year
1564, by a certain Antonius Nobilis, apparently from the
neighborhood of Milan; and probably finished on the fourteenth
of April of that year. M. Bach's specimen was located and
labelled. And, as in all cases in the eyes of the paleontologist,
so in this case in those of the antiquarian, this greatly added
to the value of a curious relic of the past.
Much pleased, the old gentleman retired to rest; and naturally enough, he dreamed of his son's gift. His dream, however, was peculiar. There appeared to him a handsome young
stranger, wearing a carefully-trimmed beard, and elegantly
dressed in the ancient costume of the French court-rich
doublet with ample lace collar and close-fitting sleeves that
were slashed in the upper part; large, slashed trunk-hose, long
stockings and low shoes with rosettes. Doffing a high-pointed,
broad-brimmed, and white-plumed hat, this young man ad* There are also several imperfect words cut off by the blanks; an
0; the letters sone and A per, and, after the last blank, the word
reducit.




THE MYSTERIOUS SONG.               415
vanced, bowing and smiling, toward M. Bach's bed, and thus
addressed the wondering sleeper:
"The spinet you have belonged to me. I often played on it
to amuse my master, King Henry. In his youth he composed
an air with words which he was fond of singing while I accompanied him. Both words and air were written in memory of a
lady whom  he greatly loved. HIe was separated from her,
which caused him much grief. She died, and in his sad moments he used to hum this air."
After a time this strange visitor added: " I will play it to
you, and I shall take means to recall it to your recollection, for
I know you have a poor memory." Thereupon he sat down to
the spinet, accompanying himself as he sang the words. The
old man awoke in tears, touched by the pathos of the song.
Lighting a taper he found it was two o'clock. So, after
musing on his dream, and with the plaintive melody he had heard
still sounding in his ears, he speedily composed himself to sleep.
Nothing remarkable in all this.
If anything happened to M. Bach before he awoke next morning, it was while he remained in a completely-unconscious state.
lie had not the faintest remembrance of anything until, as he
opened his eyes in broad daylight, he saw, to his unbounded
amazement, a sheet of paper lying on his bed and headed, in
these formal old characters:
X   ~-  et  jI'aLct Le   S   (Re   I)uL,   /1/
His astonishment increased when he examined the sheet
more closely. It was a rare archeological specimen: * the
notes minute; the clefs those used in former times; the writing careful and old-fashioned, with here and there the Gothic
tails to be found attached to certain letters in the manuscripts
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the orthography,
too, that of two or three hundred years ago.
* Sec Plate III. for fac-simile of the first two lines of the song, reproduced from the original.




PLATE III.
FAC-SIMILE OF MUSIC, FOUND BY M. B AC,  ON' HIS BED, MAY 5, 186 5.
This song, with English words-a translation, by the author, of King Henry's original ballad-is published and copyrighted by
J. SrI[UBERTI & CO., New York and Leipsic.




REST OF THIE MUSIC AND WORDS?          417
His eye glanced over the first notes. Was it the song of his
dream? And the words-yes, he remembered them! /He
hastened to his piano, and soon convinced himself, beyond possible doubt, that here were, in Truth, reproduced the very air,
and the very verses, which his dream-brought visitor had sung
and played!
The first feeling was one of perplexity and trouble-even
alarm. WVhat could it all mean? To the dream itself, though
very vivid and remarkable, he had, when he awoke in the
night, attached no importance. But what was this?  Absently
turning over the mysterious missive, he observed that it was a
four-page sheet of music-paper, two pages of which contained a
composition of his own which he had sketched the day before,
leaving the sheet in his escritoire. It must have been taken
thence during the night. Who had taken it, and filled the two
blank pages with this mysterious music from a bygone age?
Somebody must have been there!
Or had it been himself?  But he was no somnambulisthad never, that he knew, walked or written in his sleep. Nor
had he any knowledge or faith in modern Spiritualism: so
that the possibility of an actual spirit-message did not suggest
itself. He was mystified, bewildered: the more so, when he
remarked the coincidence of names and dates. The man of the
vision had spoken of " his master, King Henry; " the song itself purported to have been written by Henry III.: but the
spinet was made in 1564, when Henry (then Duke d'Anjou)
was fourteen years old. WThat more likely than that so handsome an instrument should have found its way, after a few
years, from Rome to the court of France, and been bought
there by a young prince, himself (as history tells us) a musical
composer of some little merit?
M. Bach spoke of these marvels to his friends, who repeated
the story to others; and soon a host of the curious-literary
men, artists, antiquarians and others-thronged the apartments
of the well-known musician, to hear, from his own lips, the
strange narrative, and to see, with their own eyes, the wonder18*




418                THE PREDICTED STANZA
ful spinet. Among these visitors came some earnest spiritualists; and then, for the first time, MI. Bach heard of writing
mediums, and listened to the suggestion that his hand might
have been guided to write while he slept.
All this, though too new and strange to enlist his belief, set
him to thinking; and, one day, three or four weeks after his
dream, feeling a headache and nervous trembling of the arm,
the idea struck him that perhaps some spirit wished to write
through him and thus to furnish an explanation of the mystery
he had been unable to penetrate.  No sooner had he put pencil
to paper than he lost consciousness, and, while in that state,
his hand wrote-in French, of course-" King Henry, my master, who gave me the spinet you now possess, had written a
four-line stanza on a piece of parchment, which he caused to
be nailed on the case (etui), when, one morning, he sent
me the instrument.  Some years afterward, having to travel
and take the spinet with me, fearing that the parchment might
be torn off and lost, I took it off, and for safe-keeping put it
in a small niche, on the left of the key-board, where it still
is."
This communication was signed Baldazzarini, and then followed the stanza alluded to above, which, literally translated,
is as follows:
" The King Henry gives this large spinet
To Baldazzarini, an excellent musician;
If it is not good, or not stylish enough,
At least, for my sake, let him preserve it carefully." *
Here, at last, was a chance to obtain tangible evidence in
connection with these mysteries. Here was a test furnished,
whereby to determine whether this Baldazzarini, as he called
* tere is the original, as written by M. Bach's hand:
"Le roy Henry donne cette grande espinette
A Baldazzarini, tres-bon musicien.
Si elle n'est bonne ou pas assez coquette,
Pour souvenir, du moins, qu'il la conserve bien."




AND THE REAL STANZA.                    419
himself, was a myth or a real person, capable of disclosing un
known facts.
To gratify public curiosity the spinet had been deposited, for
a few days, in the Retrospective Museum  of the Palace of Industry; and it was still there when the above communication
was written.  Of course it was sent for, at once.
One can imagine with what nervous eagerness father and
son awaited its arrival, and then set themselves to ascertain
whether this story about a parchment, said to contain a stanza
written by the hand of a French king, and still to be found
within the spinet, was pure romance or sober fact.
During an hour or two, M. Bach says, they explored every
nook and corner of the old instrument-in vain! At last,
when hope had almost deserted theta, Leon Bach, looking over
what his father's hand had written, proposed to take the instrument to pieces, so far as they could do so without injuring
it. When they had raised the key-board and removed some
of the hammers, they detected, underneath, on the left, a narrow slit in the wood containing what proved to be a bit of
parchment eleven and a half inches long and two and threequarter inches wide, on which was written, in a bold, dashing
hand, four lines, similar to those which M. Bach's hand had
traced. And there was a signature —yes, Henry's sign manual!
They cleansed it as well as they could, and here is what they
read:
" Moy le Roy Henry trois octroys cette espinette
A Baltasarini mon gay musicien
Mais s'il dit mal sofie, ou bien [ma] moult simplette
Lors pour mon souvenir dans l'estuy garde bien.
HENRY." *
The stanza, literally translated, reads as follows:
"I, the King Henry III., present this spinet
To Baltasarini, my gay musician:
But if he finds it poor-toned, or else very simple,
Still, for my sake, in its case let him preserve it."
* See, on next page, fac-simile taken from a photograph of the original parchment, which I obtained through the kindness of M. Bach.




420                TIIE OLD PARCHMENT.
It is difficult, in this prosaic world, to realize the feelings of
these excited searchers when at last, from its secret hidingplace, they drew forth-stained by
time and covered with the dust'   and cobwebs of centuries-this
mute witness-of what?   The
father, as he looked at it, was conscious that the announcement
which led to this discovery was.    written by no agency of his, unE less a pen is to be called an agent..i  When he awoke from the trance
~ during which his hand had written,
P he had read the lines as he would
N have read anything else penned'"-~-:':/:.    ~by a stranger and then first pre-.    sented to hium for perusal. And
z yet it was substantially true; and, here, under his eyes, lay evidence,
f  not to be gainsayed, of its truth.' ~ """-'  — Substantially, not literally
X true.   The IKing Ienry" in the
-.:::..'      announcement,   I, the King... Henr'y III" in the original; the
- word large, applied to the spinet,: omitted in the original; a variation in the spelling of the recipient's name, and " excellent" writ-:.::..:..-  ten" gay     in the original; also
"not good" replaced by " poortoned," and" not stylish enough "
by " very sim2pe" finally, in the
last line, the original refers to the
* See, as to this word gay and as to
the spelling of the musician's name, a
remark made a few pages farther on.




THE INTERPOLATED [MA1.                 421
case (l'estuy, as l'"tui was then written), while in the stanza,
as announced, there is no such reference.
Amazed they must have been! Yet I doubt whether it occurred either to father or son, as it occurs to me, that the evidence thus brought to light is vastly stronger on account of its
peculiar character-is much more convincing because, while absolutely substantial in its coincidence with the promised stanza,
it bears no stamp of literalism.
The interpolated ma in the discovered stanza greatly puzzled
them at first, but was subsequently explained. When exhibiting the original parchment to the friend through whom I obtained this narrative, M. Bach said: "No one could imagine
the meaning of the word ma, surrounded by lines, as you see.
But one day my hand was again moved involuntarily, and
there was written:'Amico mio. the King joked about my
Italian accent in the verse he sent with the spinet. I always
said ma instead of mais."'
l71a, Italian for but, corresponds to the French mais; and I
have observed that Italians, in speaking French, frequently
make this mistake. Thus " ma moult simplette," in Baltazari
ni's patois, would mean " but very simple."
The original parchment (blackened by age, as the plate
shows) was taken by M. Bach to the "'Bibliothbque Imperiale " (if that be still the title of France's great national libra.
ry) and there compared with original manuscripts. In theso
last I-Ienry's hand was found to vary, as in that age hand-writ
ings often did: but with some of the acknowledged originals
the writing on M. Bach's parchment-verse as well as signature —w:. found most strictly to correspond.  "L'identite
ftait absolue," M. Bach said. It was also submitted, for verification, to experienced antiquarians, and by them, after critical comparison, pronounced to be a genuine autograph of Henry,
whencesoever obtained.
The minute holes visible along the upper edge of the parchment (see fac-simile), indicating that it had originally been
tacked to some wooden surface, sustain the allegation that
ITenry had caused it " to be nailed to the case."  On the lower




422             THE EXCITEMENT IN PARIS.
edge it seems to have been cut off inside of the nail-holes; but
the marks of four larger holes, one at each corner of the parchment, are distinctly visible.  The rough cross above the quatrain is an additional voucher of authenticity; for a similar
token of easy piety heads almost every specimen of Henry the
Third's writing that has come down to us.
These marvellous incidents, more or less correctly related,
could not fail to find their way into the newspapers.  They
appeared in several Parisian journals, and were thence copied
far and wide.  For a week or two M. Bach's spinet, with its
supernatural accessories, was the great sensation of the noveltyseeking French metropolis. The whole was usually set down
as incomprehensible; they stated the facts, with some such comment as-" MIystere que nous n'osons pas approfondir:" and
though there were general suggestions that some natural explanation must exist, yet-so firmly established was M. Bach's
reputation for integrity-these never took the shape of doubts
that he had acted in entire good faith. After a time, of course,
the excitement was replaced by that of some other engrossing
rumor, but without leading to any solution or explanation
whatever.
The song was published. As no treble accompaniment, but
only the air with bass, was given in the original (see fac-simile
of music on preceding page), MI. Bach had to supply the accompaniment for the right hand, which he did with taste and
judgment. The words are pretty and suit well with the sentiment of the romance.* They contain two special allusions;
one to the royal author having met the object of his passion at
a distant hunt ("CC chasse lointaine "); and the other to the lady
having sadly passed her last days in a cloister.  (" Triste et
cioistr6e," now written cloitree —are the words).
* Here they are, with the original orthography:
REFRAIN.
J'ay perdu celle pour quy j'avois taut d'amour.
Elle, si belle, avoit pour moy, chaque jour,
Faveur nouvelle et nouveau d6sir:
Oh ouy! sans elle, il me faut mourir.




WORDS OF THE SONG.                          423
It need hardly be said that the publication of the incidents
above related and of the mysterious song caused various researches into the annals of the sixteenth century, to determine
how far the historical record of the times bore out M. Bach's
story.  It was soon  discovered  that, according  to  the  best
biographies, the " grande passion " of Henry's life was for the
Princess Marie de Cleves; and that, according to a diary kept
of those times, that princess appears to have died in an abbey.
Also a passage was brought to light, occurring in one of the
works of that laborious chronicler, the Abbe Lenglet-IDufresnoy,
and reading thus: " In 1579, Balthazzarini, a celebrated Italian
musician, came into France, to the court of Henry III." *
Jr. VE1RS.
Un jonr, pendant une chasse lointaine,
Je l'aperqus pour la premiere fois;
Je croyais voir un ange dans la plaine,
Lors, je devins le plus heureux des Roys I... mais I
2nd. VERS.
Je donnerois certes tout mon royaume
Pour la revoir encor un seul instant,
Pres d'elle assis dessous un humble chaume,
Pour sentir mon cceur battre en l'admirant... mais I
3me. VERS.
Triste et cloistr6e, oh! ma pauvre belle
Fut loin de moi pendant sea derniers jours.
Elle ne sens plus sa peine cruelle,
Ici bas, h6las I.. je souffre toujours!.. ah!...
In singing, the refrain is repeated after each verse.
The word si, in the second line of the refrain, seems at first to be
written sy; and it was so printed in the song: whereupon a critic wrote
to M. Bach, calling his attention to the fact that the French have never
written the word si with a y. On examining the supposed y, however,
with a magnifier, M. Bach and his friends came to the opinion that it
was but the long Italian i, often used when i was a final letter, in those
days. It is evidently unlike any other y in the original, as may be seen
by examining the two lines in fac-simile (page 416).
* Tablettes Ct/ronologiques de l'Mistoire Universelle, vol. ii. p. 704.
(Ed. of 1778.)




424             CHARACTER OF HENRY III.
But I determined to obtain, if possible, further testimony,
and have succeeded in procuring some other important particu.
lars.
HENRY, TIlE LAST OF THE VALOIS.
This favorite son of Catherine de Medicis is best known 1)y
the one great crime of his life; his assent to that massacre of
St. Bartholomew, which took place, at the instigation of his
mother and by the authority of his elder brother, Charles IX.,
in August, 1572.
But Henry was not without redeeming qualities.  When
but nineteen years old, he won, for his brother, the battles of
Jarnac and Montcontour; thus achieving a military reputation
which, three years later, procured his election as King of
Poland.
One among the most discriminating of modern historians
says of him: "Henry wished to lead a palace life, divided between pious exercises, the pleasures of the city, retirement and
the reverence due to the sovereign magistrate. He was little
inclined to cultivate the society of old generals, politicians, and
men of learning, who might have informed and instructed him:
preferring young and gay people of handsome exterior, who
emulated him in the faultlessness of their costumes and the
brilliancy of their ornaments." *
But this was one side only of his character.  " His nature,"
says PRanke, " was like that of Sardanapalus which, in seasons
of prosperity, abandoned itself to enervating luxury, but in
adversity became courageous and manful..... His failings
were obvious to every one. His deficient morality, his eagerness for enjoyment, and his dependence upon a few favorites
gave general and well-founded offence. Occasionally, however,
he rose to the full height of his vocation; showing an intelI-ctual capacity corresponding with his exalted position, and,
* RAN.E: Civil Wars and Monarchy in France; p. 307.  (New
York Ed. 1854.)




HENRY IN POLAND.                     425
though subject to many vacillations, great susceptibility of
mind and goodness of disposition." *
Such was the monarch who, according to the allegation made in
M. Bach's dream, composed the elegiac song.  The name of the
lady whom it mourns was not mentioned; but-the genuineness
of the song being conceded-there cannot be a doubt as to the
person intended.  The name of Beatrice is not more inseparably connected with the memory of Dante, nor Laura with Pctrarch, than is the name of Marie de Clkves with that of
Henry III.  Not a detailed history of the time, not a biography of Henry, but alludes to it.
He met her, while still Duke d'Anjou, and sought her in
marriage; but she was a Protestant and he a Catholic of Medi:
cean blood.  The difference of religion, insuperable of course
in the eyes of the Queen Mother, seems to have been the sole
cause that prevented their marriage. f She was married, in
July, 1572, to the Prince of Conde, one of the chief Protestant
leaders; and, the next year, 1573, Henry left France to assume
the throne of Poland, carrying with him, according to Chateaubriand, remorse for the massacres of St. Bartholomew, but-in
still stronger measure-regret for his disappointment in love.
" He wrote with his blood," says that historian,'" to Marie de
Cl'ves, first wife of Henry, Prince of Conde." 1
* RANKE: work cited, pp. 314, 394.
j " La difference de religion, suivant quelques memoires, fut la seule
cause qui l'empecha de l'pouser. "-Biograph7ie Gnarale, tome x. p.
854. The same assertion is made, in more positive terms, in the Biographie Universelle, vol. ix. p. 95.
t " Le Duc d'Anjou (depuis Henry III.) alla preadre la couronne de
Pologne, et raconter, dans les for6ts de la Lithuanie,' son medecin
Miron, les meurtres dont la pensee 1'emp6chait de dormir:'Je vous ai
fait venir ici, pour vous faire part de mes inquictudes et agitations de
cette nuict, qui ont trouble mon repos, en repensant a l'execution de
la Saint-Barthelemy.' En quittant la France, le duc d'Anjou avait t65
moins poursuivi du souvenir de ses crimes que de celui de ses amours;
il 6crivait avec son sang'a Marie de Cleves, premiere femme de Henri,
Prince de Conde."-Analyse raisonnee de l'Ilistoire de France, par CHA



4A6           TIlE c COMMOTION IN THE AIR."
Charles IX. died in 1574, and Henry speedily returned from
Poland to Paris, as heir to the throne of France.  A month
after his return Marie died: and so deeply, according to his
biographers, did Henry take her death to heart, that he remained several days shut up without food, in an apartment
hung with black; and when he reappeared in public, it was in
garments of deep mourning, with deaths'-heads worked all over
them. *
The poets of that day allude to Henry's bitter grief.  In the
works of Pasquier, a contemporary of Henry, is to be found a
TEAUBnIAND, Paris, 1853, p. 315. I think Henry's remorse for the St.
Bartholomew massacres may have been more sincere than Chateaubriand regards it. There is a curious incident, related by Ranke, in
this connection:
"Charles IX., about eight days after the massacre, caused his
brother-in-law, Henry, to be summoned to him in the night. He found
him as he had sprang from his bed, filled with dread at a wild tumult
of confused voices, which prevented him from sleeping. Henry himself imagined he heard these sounds; they appeared like distinct
shrieks and howlings, mingled with the indistinguishable raging of a
furious multitude, and with groans and curses as on the day of the
massacre. Messengers were sent into the city to ascertain whether any
new tumult had broken out. but the answer returned was that all was
quiet in the city, and that the commotion was in the air. HIenry could
never recall this incident without a horror that made his hair stand on
end."-RANKE, work cited, p. 278.
Henry III. probably witnessed this startling phenomenon; at all
events, he must assuredly have known of it, at the time: and it was
an occurrence likely to leave a life-long impression on a mind like his.
A historian, to avoid the charge of superstition, has to say, as Ranke
does, that Henry imagined he heard the same sounds. But how about
the messengers who brought answer back that " the commotionz ioas in
the air"?
* Marie mourut en couches en 1574. Henri III. qui venait de succ6der a Charles IX., et'toit depuis un mois de retour de Pologne, en
fut saisi d'une ai vive douleur, qu'il resta enferm6 plusieurs jours sans
manger, et ne reparut ensuite en public que couvert de v6tements de
deuil, parsemr6s de tates de mort."-Biographie GSnerale, tome x. pp.
854. 855.




THE BEAUTIFUL MARY.                      427
monody on the death of Marie de C1Bves, which the poet puts
in the mouth of the king.*
With all this tallies closely what history tells us regarding
the lady herself.
MARIE DE CLOVES.
This princess seems to have been almost as noted for grace
and beauty as her more celebrated namesake, Mary of Scotland.
She had been the admiration of the court of Charles IX., by
her loveliness and her virtues.t  The poets of that day celebrate her as the " Beautiful Mary; " I and so great was the fascination her charms exerted over Henry that the credulity of
the times was fain to ascribe it to the influence of sorcery. ~
We have additional testimony both as to the character of
this lady, and as to the profound sorrow felt by Henry for her
loss, in the following extract from a manuscript Diary kept,
throughout the reigns of Henry III. and Henry IV., by Pierre
de l'Estoile, Sieur de Gland, a gentleman of an honorable and
well-known family, occupying important posts in the magistracy
and Parliament of Paris: 1
*' On trouve dans les CEuvres de Pasquier une complainte sur la
mort de Marie de Cleves, ou le poete fait parler le roi lui-m6me."Jiographie Unicerselle, tome ix. p. 96.
f " Cette princesse, qui avait fait l' admiration de la cour de Charles
iX., par sa beaut6 et ses vertus, mourut en couches, etc." —Biographie
fhiverselle (Paris, 1813), tome ix. p. 96.
$ "Les postes du temps la celebrent sous le nom de la Belle ]carrie."Biograpliie Generale, tome x. p. 854.
~ "Selon l'usage de ces temps de cr6dulit6, on crut que la princesse
avait employe quelque charme pour enfiammer Henri." —Bfographie
Urniverselle, tome ix. p. 96.
It Pierre de l'Estoile, conseiller du Roi, et grand audiencier en la chancellerie de France, etoit issu d'une famile parlementaire. Sa position
sociale lui permettait de bien connaitre les hommes et les choses de son
temps. I parait qu'il se donna, pour principale occupation de sa vie,
le soin de recuiller tr's attentivement, et de consigner dans des registres




428                FROM  D'ETOILE S DIARY.
" On Saturday, October 30, 1574, died at Paris, in the flower
of her age, leaving a daughter as heir, Dame Marie de Cleves,
Marchioness d'Isle, wife of Messire Henry de Bourbon, Prince
of Conde. She was endowed with singular goodness and beauty,
by reason of which the King loved her devotedly (Cperdiument); so dearly, indeed, that the Cardinal de Bourbon, her
uncle,' when about to entertain the IKing, caused her to be removed from his Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres: declaring to
His Majesty that he (the King) could not enter so long as the
body of the princess remained there. She said, on her deathbed, that she had wedded the most generous, but also the most
jealous, prince in France; to whom, however, she felt conscious
that she had never given the slightest cause for jealousy." t
I have found no positive evidence that Marie passed her last
days in the Abbey in which she was buried; but it is, in the
highest degree, probable.  We know that she died in Paris, and
that her husband, the Prince of Cond6, fearing that the Queen
ou des tablettes, les e6v6nements marquants qui se passait autour de
lui."-Notice of the Life and Manuscripts of Pierre de l'Estoile, prefixed
to the Paris reprint of his " Memoires," Didier, 1854.
Speaking of D'Estoile's diary, Bouillon says, in his Dictionnaire de
Biqorap7hie Unriierselle:
" This collection comprised in five folio volumes, and which was
never intended for publication, is a most valuable source of information
as to events occurring in the reigns of Henry III. and Henry IV."-Art.
" Etoile."
* He was her uncle by marriage only.
f PIERRE DE L'ESTOILE: MIeelor'es potr servir d t' Iistoire de France.
Edition by Didier, 1854.
The wording, in the original, is somewhat obscure: " le roy i'aimoit
si fort qu'il falust que le Cardinal de Bourbon, son oncle, pour festoier
le Roy. la fist oester de son Abbaye de Saint-Gelnmain-des-Pre:s  disant
Sa MIajest6 qu'il n'estoit possible qu'elle y entrast tant que son corps y
seroit."  But the meaning evidently is that the Cardinal, knowing the
violence of the King's grief, thinking that he might insist on seeing the
body of the princess, and fearing the effect on his mind, took the precaution to have the corpse removed from the Abbey, previous to the
King's visit.




cc SAD AND ENCLOISTERED."'            429
Mother designed his death, had, some months before, taken
refuge inll Germany, where he remained till late in the year
1575; * that is, until a year after Marie's death. Marie's father
had died several years before. t The prince, in leaving his wife
behind, doubtless entrusted her to the care of his uncle, the
Cardinal de Bourbon. But the cardinal evidently resided in
his Abbey, since it was there, according to Etoile, that he proposed to entertain the King. Under these circumstances, we
can scarcely doubt that the forsaken and fatherless niece lived
with her uncle in his Abbey. Sad must her life there have
been; uncertain as she was of her husband's fate! All this
strikingly coincides with the " triste et cloistree " of the song.
I pass on to say a few words of the musician, to whom, as
alleged, the spinet belonged.
BALTAZARINI.
His name does not occur either in the Biographie Generale,
or the Biographie Universelle; and, after long search, I had
begun to despair of finding any biographical notice of such a
personage, when I was fortunate enough to discover in the Athenaeum Library of Boston, a French Dictionary.of Musicians,
in some eight or nine volumes. There Henry's favorite has
a place.
"' BALTAZARINI: an Italian musician, known in FLance under
the name of Beaujoyeux, was the first violinist of his day. The
Marechal de Brissac brought him from Piedmont, in 1577, to
the court of Queen Catherine de Medicis, who appointed him
her Director of Music, and first valet de clhambre.  Henry
III. entrusted to him the management of the court fetes; and
* RANKE: " Civil Wars and Monarchies in France," p. 292.
t Marie was the daughter of Francis I., Duke of Nevers. I do not
know the exact year in which he died, but it was before 4565: for
Louis de Gonzaque, having in that year married the heiress of Francis, then succeeded to the Dukedom of Nevers.-BoUILLON: Dietio2nnaire de Biographie Universelle, art. " Never."




43 0              TTII GAY BALTAZARIN1
he long dischlarged the duties of that post with credit.  It was
he who first conceived the idea of a dramatic spectacle, com
blinedl with music and dancing." *
Baltazarini was, then, at Henry's court, surnamed Bealejoycmx —-" the handsome and the joyous."  Compare, with this, the
second line of the stanza, as it appears on the discovered parchnrrent:
" A Baltazalini, mon gay musicien "gai being the synonyme of joyeux.
But in the stanza, as M. Bach's hand predicted it would be
found, the same line reads:
" A Baldazzarini, tres bon.musicien."
A trifling coincidence, this; yet a most significant one, because inconsistent with any arranged scheme of deception.
There can be no stronger proof of authenticity, than just such
incidental trifles as these.
What shall we say of M. Bach's story? The documents
from which I have compiled it were procured for me by an
English friend in Paris, to whom I cannot sufficiently express
my obligations for disinterested and untiring kindness, and
whom I wish that I were at liberty here to thank by name.
That friend, having made M. Bach's acquaintance, obtained personally from him  all the particulars, with corrections of the
newspaper statements and answers to various queries of mine,
suoggested by the documents as I first obtained them: also,
through M. Bach's courtesy, the various photographs 1: possess,
together with the following certificate, in M. Bach's hand* Biographie Universelle des Mltsieiens, vol. i. p. 232.
From the last sentence in the above it would appear that to Baltazarini-or Balthaczarini, as Lenglet-Dufresnoy spelled it, or Baldazzarini,
as it was written by M. Bach's hand-the modern world owes its favorite amusement, the opera.
The uncertainty, in these old times, as to the spelling of proper
names, especially in the case of persons of little note, is notorious.




AKrTESTA rIONS.                431
writing, appended to that fac-simile of the original music, of
which I have given two lines on page 416:
" This is a correct fac-simile from the sheet of music paper
which I found on my bed, the morning of the fifth of May,
1865. The air and the words are truly those which I heard in
my dream.
" N. G. BACHr."
In addition, M. Bach (in reply to a suggestion of mine
which some men would have deemed importunate) did me the
favor to send me a letter, dated March 23, 1867, in which he
says: "I attest the existence of the parchment, still in my
possession, containing the verses composed by the king and addressed to the celebrated musician, Baldazarini; and that it
was found in a secret compartment of the spinet which the
king had given him;. and also that the communication announcing tilhe existence of the parchment, and stating that it had
been placed there, is, in every point, the exact truth.  I add
that the photographs of the spinet and of the parchment, and
the reproduction of the autograph of the music and words, are
well executed and perfectly exact."
Such is the case in all important details. It is for the reader
to decide whether, under the circumstances, the supposition of
imposture is tenable.
What motive? Nothing whatever to gain, in a worldly sense.
Much to risk and something to lose. To risk misconception,
suspicion, perhaps the allegation of monomania; perhaps the
charge of conspiracy to palm off on the world a series of deliberate, elaborate forgeries; forgeries involving a sacrilegious
deception, seeing that there is question of sacred things connected not with this world only, but with that which is to
come. Thus, to risk the loss of a character earned by the consistent integrity of a long and honored life. More certainly
still, to attract importunate visitors, perhaps impertinent questioners, and thus to break up that domestic quiet so dear to a
cultivated and studious sexagenarian.




432            THE SUPPOSITION OF FRAUD
But if character and all imaginable motive did not give the
lie to any such suspicion, the circumstances are such that the
theory of fraud is beset with extreme difficulties. The friend to
whom I owe my documents showed the original of the song to
Monsieur D —, one of the greatest harmonists of the day
and quite a thesaurus of musical lore. This gentleman examined it critically, and declared to my friend that it was so
exactly in the style of the epoch that it would require not only
a great musical genius, but the special studies of a lifetime, to
produce such an imitation. Monsieur D —, lacking faith in
spirit intercourse, did not pretend to explain the mystery, but
-simply said that, though M. Bach was a meritorious musician,
he regarded it as absolutely impossible that he should have composed the song.
Again, if composed by him, it must have been suddenly, in
a single night, without chance of reference to old authorities.
Whence, then, the coincidences between the words of the song *
and the incidents in the life of Henry III. and of Marie de
Cleves?
Every allusion has been verified, except that to the distant
hunt (chasse lointaine): and-let Sadducism smile at my easy
faith in the unseen-I confess my belief that if I had opportunity to consult the library of the British Museum, or, better
yet, the _Bibliotheque Imperiale, I could verify that also.
Add to all this the minor peculiarities to which I have
already adverted. Would any one, concerting a plan of forgery
and similated prediction, be likely to contrive the variations
between the predicted stanza and the original? or the inclosed
[ma], with its explanation? or the si, apparently a blunder,
yet proving correct? or even the variations in spelling the musician's name?-most natural, if we consider the uncertain
orthography of that day, but how unlikely to be planned?
Again, it is only by inference and after long search that I con* My Paris informant tells me that M. Bach never wrote a verse of
poetry in his life.




INVOLVES VIOLENT IMPROBAIMLITIES.       433
elude the words "triste et cloistrds " to be in exact accordance
with the facts: how remote the chance, then, that M. Bach,
during that mysterious night, should have acted upon a similar
conclusion?
Yet again: if the communication indicating the hiding-place
of the parchment be a forgery, then M. Bach must have found
the parchment, without any directions as to its whereabouts,
before the spinet was sent to the Retrospective Museum. Is
it within tho bounds of probability that the surprising discovery of such an interesting document should have been studiously
kept concealed from every one, the spinet sent off under false
pretences to the Museum, and then the communication concocted as an excuse to send for the instrument again and institute a pretended search?
I do not think that dispassionate readers will accept such
violent improbabilities. But if not, what interesting suggestions touching spirit-intercourse and spirit-identity connect
themselves with this simple narrative of MS. Bach's spinet!
19




CHAPTER  III.
A BEAUTIFUL SPIRIT MANIFESTING HERSELF.
3IORE than forty years ago there died a young English lady,
whom I knew intimately. She had enjoyed all the advantages
of the most finished education that her country affords; spoke
French and Italian fluently, had travelled over Europe, there
meeting many distinguished persons of the day. And she had
been favored by nature as much as by fortune. She was as
amiable as accomplished, gifted with strong affections, great
simplicity, and a temperament eminently spiritual and refined.
i shall call her Violet.*
When, twenty-five years after her death, I first instituted
researches in Spiritualism, the thought crossed my mind that
if those who once took an interest in us during earth-life, were
permitted still to commune with us when they had passed to
another phase of being, Violet's spirit, of all others, might announce itself to me. But I have never, on any occasion,
evoked spirits; deeming it wisest and best to await their good
pleasure. And when month after month passed away and no
sign came, I had quite ceased to expect it, or to dwell upon
such a possibility.
I can scarcely express to the reader my surprise and emotion
when, during a sitting held October 13, 1856, at Naples (Mrs.
Owen and one other lady, not a professional medium, being
present), the following incidents occurred.
TIE PROMIISE KEPT.
The name of Violet was suddenly spelled out. After my
* Her true baptismal name (a somewhat uncommon one), which I dc
not feel justified in giving, is, like that with which I have replaced it,
typical of a favorite flower.




AI OLD PROMISE KEPT.              435
astonishment had somewhat subsided, I asked mentally, with
what intent a name so well-remembered had been announced.
Answer.-" Gave pro-"
There the spelling stopped. Repeated invitations to proceed
were unavailing: not another letter could we obtain. At last
it occurred to me to ask: " Are the letters p, r, o, correct? "
Answer.  " No."
Question. —" Is the word' gave' correct?"
Answer. -" \es."
Then I said: "Please begin the word after' gave' over
again:" whereupon it spelled out, now and then correcting a
letter, the sentence:
"Gave a written promise to remember you, even after
death."
I think that no human being except such as have been unexpectedly brought, as I was then, almost within speech of the
next world and its denizens, can realize the feeling which came
over me, as these words slowly connected themselves. If there
was one recollection of my youth that stood out, beyond all
others, it was the reception, from Violet, of a letter written in
prospect of death and containing, to the very words, the promise which now, after half a lifetime, came back to me from beyond the bourn. Such evidence as it was to me it can be to
no one else. I have the letter still; but its existence was unknown except to me: it has never been seen by any one. How
little could I foresee, when I first read it, that, after a quarter
of a century, in a far, foreign land, the writer would be enabled
to tell me that she had kept her word!
A few days afterward, namely during a session held on
October IS, the same spirit having announced herself, I obtained, to various mental questions, replies clharacterized by
the same pertinency and exactitude as are above evinced; the
subjects of my questions being of a private character and the true
replies being known to me alone. There was not a single failure; and, in the course of these replies, allusions were made to




436              A WONDERFUL PROOF
circumstances with which, so far as I know or believe, no one
living in this world is acquainted except myself.
It is within my knowledge that many results similar to the
above have been obtained by others. Yet very few of these
reach the public at all; and when they do, they are usually
couched in the most general and unsatisfactory terms. It
needs, in such cases, as prompting motive to overcome a natural
reluctance, the earnest wish, by such disclosure, to serve truth,
and supply important testimony on a subject of vital importance to humankind. Let us examine that which is here supplied.
The results obtained were not due, in any sense, to what has
sometimes been assumed as a cause of similar phenomena,
under the name of " expectant attention." We were, at the
time, in search of various physical tests which we had heard
that others alleged they had witnessed; as motion without contact, writing by occult means, the exhibition of hands and the
like. What came was utterly unforeseen, by me the person
chiefly concerned as certainly as by the other assistants. When
long-slumbering associations were called up by the sudden appearance of a name, it was assuredly in response to no thought
or will or hope of mine, if consciousness be a guide to the existence of thought or feeling. And if not traceable to me, far
less can it be imagined to have originated in either of the other
assistants. They knew nothing of the letter, not even that it
existed. They knew nothing of my question, for it had been
mentally propounded. This narrows down the question of
mundane influence to myself alone.
But there is additional proof that my expectations had no
agency in this case. When, at the first attempt to reply to my
question, the unlooked-for sentence had been partly spelled
out-" Gave pro "-it did occur to me that the unfinished
word might be;" promise: " and it did suggest itself that the
reference might be to the solemn pledge made to me, so many
years before, by Violet. But what happened? Tile letters




OF SPIRIT IDENTITY.               437
p, r, o, were declared to be incorrect; and I still remember my
surprise and disappointment, as I erased them. But how
much was that surprise increased when I found that the correction had been insisted on, only to make room for a fuller
and more definite wording!-so definite, indeed, that if the
document in question had been set forth in full, it could not
have been more certainly designated.'Under the circumstances, it is not even conceivable that my mind, or any intent
of mine, had anything whatever to do in working out results.
If a spirit-hand had visibly appeared, had erased the three letters, had inserted the omitted word " written" and then finished the sentence, it would have been more wonderful,
certainly; but would the evidence have been more perfect that
some occult will-some intention other than mine-was at
work to bring about all this? And if to no earthly origin, to
what other source than to the world of spirits can this occult
agency rationally be traced?
Yet this was but the commencement of the numerous proofs,
recurring throughout many years, that have assured me of the
continued existence, and the identity, of a dear spirit-friend.
These came to me chiefly after my return in 1859, from Naples
to the United States.
PROOF FROM A STRANGER, FIVE HUNDRED MILES DISTANT.
Five or six weeks after the publication of a work already
referred to, * in February, 1860, my publisher introduced to
me a gentleman who had just returned from Ohio, and who informed me that my book had attracted much attention in that
State; adding that I might add to its circulation by sending a
copy to Mrs. B, then residing in Cleveland, proprietor of
a book-store and one of the editors. of a paper there.  " She
takes a deep interest in such subjects," Ite said, "and is, I believe, herself a medium."
* Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World; published January 1
1860.




438            PROOF COMING TO ME FROM
I had never heard of the lady before, but I sent a copy of
the book, with a brief note asking her acceptance of it, and
soon had a reply, dated February 14.
In this letter, after some business details, the writer expressed to me the great satisfaction with which she had read
the chapter in " Footfalls " entitled " The Change at Death,"
and added: " I am what is called a'seeing medium.' While
reading that chapter a female spirit that I had never seen before stood by me, as if listening, and said:'I guided him in
writing that; I helped to convince him of an immortal life.'"
Then she subjoined a personal description of the appearanceincluding color of hair and eyes, complexion, etc.-which exactly corresponded to that of Violet. She added that a Cleveland merchant, who came in at the time and who is an impressional medium (though not known, nor desiring to be known,
as such), said: "You have a new spirit to visit you to-day-a
lady. She says she knew a Mlrs. D -, naming an English
lady not then living; known to Mrs. B  -- (not to the merchant), by literary reputation, but never having been known to
either of them personally.
Now Mlrs. D       was Violet's sister. But in my reply,
which was partly on business, I neither alluded to the personal
description that had been sent to me, nor to what had been
said of Mrs. D-. In order to make the test as complete as
possible I refrained from any expression which might lead MIrs.
B   - to suppose that I recognized the person who had appeared to her. I merely added, to the business part of my
letter, a few words to the effect that if she could obtain the
spirit's name, or any further particulars tending to identify
her, she would confer an obligation on me by informing me
of it.
In reply I received two letters; one dated February 27,
the other April 5. In these were stated: first, the baptismal
name; second, that the spirit said that Mrs. D-  was her
sister; third, one or two further particulars as to Violet: all
this, accurately according to the facts. Mrs. B-  went on to




THE DISTANCE OF FIVE HUNDRED MILES.        439
say that some other details were added; but these seemed to
refer to matters of so private and confidential a character that
she thought it might be best to state them personally if, in returning to the West, I could pass through Cleveland. Being,
however, obliged to start for Europe on business in two weeks,
I asked, in reply, that she would put these on paper, which
she did in a fourth letter, dated April 20. The particulars
which she gave me had been obtained partly by herself, partly
through the mediumship of the merchant to whom I have above
referred.
When I said that the evidence in this case could never be
to others what it was to me, I but faintly shadowed forth the
truth. A portion of the wonders that opened upon me the
reader can, indeed, appreciate. I had written a brief and
purely business letter to a complete stranger, five hundred
miles away, in a town which Violet had never seen, where I
myself (so far as I can remember) had never been. Anything
like suggestion or thought-reading or magnetic rapport was,
under the circumstances, out of the question. Equally so was
any knowledge, by a Cleveland editor'or a Cleveland merchant, of a lady unknown to fame, who had died thousands of
miles away, in another hemisphere. Yet from these distant
strangers comes to me, unasked and as unexpected as a, visit
from Heaven, first a personal description agreeing with that
of Violet and the mention of a name which strongly indicated
that she was the person who had been communicating with
them; then her own name; then her relationship with Mrs.
D-: all, without the slightest clue afforded by myself.
These things my readers may appreciate, and they supply
wonderful proofs of identity; but when, as in Mrs. BE —'s
last letter, various minute particulars connected with Violet's
early life and mine-particulars unknown to any living creature on this side the Great Boundary-particulars indicated
only, so that the writer herself could but very partially understand their import-particulars buried away not in the past alone
but in hearts of which they were the most sacred remembran



440           WHAT WAS THE ATTRACTION
ces-when these things came forth to light under the eyes of
the survivor, they were, to him, internal evidence of the continued existence, beyond the death-change, of human memories,
thoughts, affections-evidence such as cannot be transferred to
any second person: such evidence as, from its very nature, can
be received directly alone.
Here it may occur to the reader that, as all things, spiritual
as well as material, are subject to law, there must have been
some attraction or cause of election, determining Mrs. Bas the medium, or Cleveland as the place, whence such a communication should come to me.
No doubt. And one can see how this may have been. Mrs.
B     has the olden gift,* by St. Paul called the "discerning
of spirits;" and, at the time the spirit appeared, she was reading-with approval, it seems —-a chapter on the " Change at
Death," into which I had thrown some of the strongest and
deepest of my religious convictions. t This seems to have
been the attraction; for it was during the perusal of that portion of my book that Violet, for the first time, showed herself
to Mrs. B —-.
Is this explanation far-fetched? Is it irrational to ascribe,
to so slight a cause, the spirit's unexpected visit? Yet there
had come to my knowledge, a year before, a similar case, perfectly authenticated.
THE APPARITION OF THE BETROTHED.
In October of the year 1854, my father called on Miss
A, a young lady of his acquaintance, residing near London. Her powers as a medium, though known only to a private circle of friends, are of the highest order.  She has habitually discerned spirits from her earliest age, years before the
modern phase of Spiritualism had come up. Various other
* 1 Corinthians xii. 10.
t Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, Book vi chap. 1I
pp. 476-503.




GRACE FLETCHER.                 441
manifestations, also, of a striking kind, occur in her presence.
My father found her somewhat indisposed, reclining on a
sofa, engaged in reading. She laid aside her book, as he entered, and was about to rise; but he begged her to remain,
adding that, as he had come hoping for opportunity of examining spiritual phenomena, he would sit down alone at a table
not far from the sofa, to ascertain if he could obtain rappings.
lie did so; and after a time raps were heard, though Miss
A ~ did not touch the table.
" Can you perceive," my father asked, " the presence of any
spirits? "
" Yes," she replied; " I see one, that of a young lady."
"Can you tell her name?"
"No; she has never given it to me, though I have several
times seen her, as I sat reading this book "-and she pointed
to the volume beside her-" but perhaps we can get the name
by rapping."
And, in effect, there was immediately spelled out, " Grace
Fletcher."
" What! " said my father; " my old friend, Grace Fletcher?"
" Who is Grace Fletcher? " the young lady asked: " I never
heard the name before."
"You could not have known her, for she died thirty or
forty years ago. I knew her intimately; and a more beautiful
character, moral and intellectual, I never met."
" It is singular," said the young lady, " that I almost always
see her spirit when I sit down to study this book; and only
then."
"Pray what work is it you have been studying?" my
father asked.
" Dr. Thomas Brown's Mental Philosophy; " and she handed
my father the volume.
lIe took it, exclaiming: " How strange! What a wonderful
coincidence! "
19*




442          DR. BROWN AND MISS FLETCHER.
c" What is there wonderful in it? "
hMy father then explained that, as he had always understood,
Dr. Brown and Miss Fletcher were deeply attached to each
other, and that their intimacy was expected to ripen into marriage.  " But she died at nineteen," he added, " and I do not
think poor Brown ever got over it; for he survived her three
or four years only."
Grace Fletcher who, from  all I have heard of her, well deserved my father's encomium, was the daughter of a talented
mother, long noted in the literary circles of Edinburgh and
who died some thirteen or fourteen years since, at a very advanced age. I have ascertained through a lady who was well
acquainted with the family that between Dr. Brown and Miss
Fletcher there was well known to exist, probably not a positive engagement, but certainly so strong a mutual attachment,
that their friends felt confident it would be a match.  She died
about the year 1816; and he, in 1820.*
I had the above from the young lady herself; t and I know
that its accuracy may be strictly depended on. One of the recollections of my childhood is my father's sorrow when the
unexpected news of Grace Fletcher's death reached him.
The point in this case which gives it value is, that the young
seeress had never heard Miss Fletcher's name, nor had she the
least idea, till my father informed her, of the connection there
had existed in life between the lady whose spirit the raps announced, and the author of the book during the perusal of
which that spirit was wont to appear. As a chance coinci* In the prime of life, aged forty-two. He was Professor of Moral
Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. His well-known Lectures
on the Philosoply of the Human Mind, above referred to, reached the
eighth edition in 1834.
f In 1859, I met her in London at Lady B -'s, where she was always
a welcome guest. All her friends speak of her in the highest terms,
and my own acquaintance with her, through several months, confirned
my opinion of her intelligence and integrity.




WITH MR. FOSTER.                 443'dence we cannot reasonably regard it. Standing alone it is
insufficient foundation for a theory. But the appearance o0
Violet to Mrs. B   -, an utter stranger alike to her and to
me, during the perusal of a book of mine, is an incident of the
same class; and if such should be found to accumulate, they
will furnish proof that a spirit may occasionally-though it be
rarely-look back from its next phase of life to this, drawn
down by the desire to note the effect which efforts, made on
earth, by a dear friend, to enlighten mankind, may, from time
to time, be producing. It is a reasonable belief that benevolent
spirits, in their world, continue to take interest in the improvement of ours.
I know not that, in this case, I can adduce stronger proof of
identity than the above, but I have had additional tests, some
of which may tend to fortify the faith of my readers.
TYPICAL AND LITERAL TESTS.
Some two weeks after the receipt of Mrs. B  -'s second
letter, namely, on the thirteenth of March, 1860, in the forenoon, I called on Mr. Charles Foster, to whose mediumship I
have already referred. A lady well and favorably known to
the literary world, and whom I shall call Miss P-, accompanied me. The visit was at her request, as she had never
witnessed any spiritual phenomena whatever; but had heard
much about them, and desired to judge for herself. She had
never seen Mr. Foster.
I mentioned to Mr. Foster, in a general way, that I had
recently received, from a stranger at a distance, an alleged
communication from a spirit, which had passed away many
years before; but I studiously withheld the name and all clue
to personal identity, adding, however, that I should be glad if,
through him, anlly further test could be given.
During the first part of the session Mr. Foster addressed
himself entirely to Miss P —. The incredulous look with
which that lady sat down soon changed to one of seriousness,




444                  A TYPICAL TEST.
then of deepest feeling. The test she received that day led to
researches which rmade her a spiritualist for life.*
Then he turned suddenly to me: " Mr. Owen, I see a spirit
-a lady-standing beside you, perhaps the same of whom you
spoke to me. She holds in her hands a basket of flowers.
Ah! that is peculiar; they are all violets."
1 -" Does she communicate her name?"
IMr. Foster paused.  After a time, "' No," he said, " but she
has taken one of the flowers-a single violet-and laid it before you. Has all this any meaning for you? "
" Yes."
" But we ought to get the name. I usually do."
And, at his request, I wrote down seven female baptismal
names, including that of Violet, taking care not to pause more
at one than at the other.
Mr. Foster took the paper, and, with a single glance at it,
tore off each name separately; rolled them up into small pellets
and threw these down on a pile of pellets (some twelve or fourteen) which he had previously made, some of them being blank.
There were thus about twenty pellets in all.  He bade me take
them up and hold them, in my open hand, under the table.  I
* I am at liberty to give an outline only of the test here referred to,
and have substituted another name (Medway) for the true one.
Mr. Foster said he saw the appearance of a young man standing
beside )Miss P-; and he described his appearance. "Above his
head," he went on, "I see the words:'Fidelity even beyond the
grave i'" Miss P's face betrayed much emotion, mingled, however,
I plainly saw, with doubt. Then Foster suddenly added: " Ah! here
is a name-Medway." Upon which the lady sank her face on the
table, without a word. Nor, throughout the rest of the session, did
she allude to what had passed.
I afterward mentioned the name to a sister of Miss P-, asking if
hc had ever been among their acquaintances.
" How did you hear of him? " she asked me, astonished.
I told her.
" It is all true," she said in reply. "Many years ago we were intimately acquainted with him. My sister was engaged to him; but he
died a short time before the day appointed for their marriage."




A LITERAL TEST.                  445
did so. After a time he said to me: C" The spirits desire to
have your hat under the table." Accordingly he put it there,
but immediately replaced both his hands on the table, saying:
"Spirit, when you have selected the pellet, will you let us
know by rapping?"  About a minute passed when the raps
sounded.
Mfr. Foster. —" Shall I take up the hat?"
Al nswer. -" No."
I-r, Shall I? "
-Answer.-"  No."
JX[iss P.-" Shall I?"
A nswer. -" Yes."
Thereupon the table, with a sudden and somewhat violent
movement, tilted up on Mliss P-'s side, so that, without
moving from her seat, she could reach the hat from the floor.
Therein, lying between two gloves, was the pellet. She handed
it to me and I was about to open it, when MIr. Foster said:
" Please do not open it yet. Let me try if I can get the
same name written under the table."
lHe tore off a small piece of thin paper, took that and a pencil in one hand, and held both for twelve or fifteen seconds
beneath the table. Then, withdrawing his hand, after a glance
at the paper and the remark, "I believe there is a name on
it," he handed it to me. The name was in pencil, but I could
not make out a single letter. At Mir. Foster's suggestion I
held the paper, reversed, against the window-pane. Then I
read distinctly through the paper from the unwritten side, in
minute characters, the name Violet.
Then only I first opened the pellet. The same name there.*
I did not suffer Mr. Foster to see either.  After a few;econds his arm seemed slightly convulsed, as by a feeble electr:ic shock; and he said: "The name is on my arm;" where* 1 have preserved the bit of thin paper, and also the pellet. I need
scarcely here remind the reader, that, as already stated, Violet is an
assumed name. Of course it was the true name, and the flower typical
of that name, which were actually given.




446             THE NAMF ON THE AR]M.
upon he bared his left arm to the elbow, and I read thereon
distinctly the name VIOLET. I did not, however, pronouno?
it, but left him to spell it out, letter by letter. The letters
looked as if they had been traced by a painter's brush, with
pink color. They were about an inch and a quarter in height;
printed characters, as if somewhat carelessly done, but perfectly
legible; the strokes being about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The first letter was near the elbow joint, and the rest
were traced along the inside of the arm; the last letter being
on part of the palm next to the wrist, just below the root
of the thumb. Miss P — read the name, deciphering it without any difficulty.
During all the time of these experiments except at the moment when he placed my hat on the ground, and during the
few seconds when he put the paper under the table to have the
name written on it, Mr. Foster sat quietly with both hands on
the table.
The room was well lighted by two windows.
Miss P-  had never heard Violet's name; nor, as I have
already stated, had Mr. Foster.
Here were four tests: not presenting themselves spontaneously, indeed, as did those which came to me through Mrs. B —;
on the contrary obtained by aid of a professional medium whom
I hal visited, hoping for something of the kind: but yet to be
judged fairly, by their internal evidence, notwithstanding.
1. The appearance to Mr. Foster of the basket of flowers,
and the single flower laid down before me, when I asked for
Violet's name.
2. The pellet, selected out of twenty, taken from my hand
and placed in my hat.
3. The writing, under the table, of the name so that it read
on the reverse side.
And 4. The name written on the arm.
The peculiarity of the basket containing a single species only
of flower, and the name of that species corresponding to the
name of the alleged spirit, together with the selection of a sin



WRITING UNDER THE TABLE.              447
gle flower when I asked for the name, cannot rationally be
ascribed to chance.
As to the pellet, since Mr. Foster had his hands on the
table, full in view, it was a physical impossibility that he
should hav3 taken it, even if he had known which, out of the
twenty, to select.
As to the writing under the table, though it may be alleged
that practice might enable a person to write so that it should'
read on the reverse side, and that this might have been done
with one hand on the knee, yet the writing itself (now before
me) sea:ns to refute this. I have just carefully examined it.
The paper is nearly as thin as tracing paper; the name is written in a current lady's hand, as if the pencil-point had just
lightly touched the surface, the pencil not having sank at all into
the paper; and there is no indication of the writing on the reverse. I do not think it possible for any one, holding a pencil
and paper, in one hand, for fifteen seconds, under a table, to
have produced a word thus written. But, in addition to this,
Foster had no clue whatever to the name.
The same is true of the name on the arm, with this added
difficulty: the arm having been covered, up to the moment
when the medium bared it and showed the name, and his hands
up to that time, having been'seen by us resting quietly on the
table, by what possible expedient could he have produced the
pink lettering?
During the decade from 1860 to 1870 I have had, through
various mediums, numerous communications from Violet:
none, however, of any length; the longest being that relative
to the birth of Christ. *  They were usually only brief, cordial
messages of affection, or short suggestions on ethical, philosophical, or spiritual subjects. On two occasions, at intervals
of years, instead of the name, there was only allusion made to
the flower. One of these came through a Boston medium, the
* See Book i. chapter 3, where it is given in full.




448          THE EMBLEM THAT APPEARED
other through a lady (not a professional medium) in Washington city: both being strangers to each other and to Violet's
name or history.
Finally I obtained, by accident as we usually say, a remarkable test, differing in character from any of the above.
THE PORTRAIT WITH EMBLEM.
In the spring of 1867, being then in New York, I made the
acquaintance of a Mr. Anderson, who, without previous instruction and by spirit influence, as he alleged, had produced
likenesses of deceased persons, many of which were recognized
by their friends. He stated to me that a clergyman of his acquaintance desired to meet me; and I met him, by appointment,
at Mr. Anderson's rooms, on the afternoon of the twenty-first
of March.
While we were conversing, Mr. Anderson brought me a large
sheet of drawing-paper, requesting me to observe that it was
blank on both sides, and asking me to tear a small piece from
one corner of the sheet, so as to be able to identify it. I tore
irregular pieces from two corners. He then requested me to
note the hour, and retired to an inner room.
I supposed that I should have a portrait; and, as my father
was a well-known man, of whom many engraved likenesses
exist, I thought it would probably be one of him, and felt that,
under the circumstances, even if it resembled, it would be an
insufficient test.
But in exactly twenty-eight minutes, Mr. Anderson, returning, pinned against the wall a portrait, in pencil, not of my
father, but a female head and bust, life-size, which, from its'
general outline and expression, I recognized at once as Violet's.
On looking again, however, the features seemed to me more
regular than her's and the whole face idealized. The pose was
graceful: my eye ran over the lines, but was suddenly arrested
-could it be? Hardly trusting my senses, I went closer to
examine. It was unmistakable. There-as ornament at the




ON AN A]LLEGED SPIRIT-PORTRAIT.            449
lower point of the opening of the dress in front-was the typical flower I
I need not say that I had never made the least allusion ta
Violet in Mr. Anderson's presence; and that I am convinced
he spoke truth when he declared to me that he had never heard
of her.*
I carefully adjusted the torn fragments of paper to the corners whence I had taken them, and found the proof thus
afforded that it was the same sheet I had marked twenty-eight
minutes before it reappeared, absolutely perfect.
I showed the portrait, some days afterward, to my friend
Mr. Carpenter, the artist,t without telling him how I obtained it.
He examined it carefully.  " A little out of drawing," he
said, " but clever and graceful: peculiar, too. A young artist?"
" One without much experience, I believe. I-low long would
a good artist take to make such a portrait? "
1" That depends upon whether he hit off the likeness at once.
If he did and worked hard, he might finish it in a day. But,
in a general way, it would take two days, perhaps more."
" How if the artist had begun and finished it within half an
hour?"
" There is no man living who could do so."
That was my opinion also, supposing the artist left to his own
resources: but I was glad to have it confirmed by so competent a judge. I
Upon me these cumulative proofs of identity have produced
* Mr. Anderson appeared to me a quiet, frank, simple man: speaking modestly of what he deemed a spiritual gift, and blaming himself
for his own wavering faith in its continuance. He would accept of no
remuneration from me: it having been, as he reminded me, a volunteered effort.
t Best known as the author of that most truthful and valuable historical painting: The Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet.
5 I shall be glad to show to any artist or other sincere inquirer, the
original portrait, with the attesting fragments, exactly as I obtained it,
at the end of the twenty-eight minutes.




450                  MY CONVICTION.
a profound conviction that Violet has manifested herself; keep
ing a sacred promise after long years, and sending to me, from
another sphere, missives of friendship and words of instruction.
I cannot judge what degree of belief this recital of these proofs
may create in others.




BOOK 0 0  V.
THE CROWNING PROOF OF IMMORTALITY.
"And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some
mocked: and others said,'We will hear thee again of this matter.' "ACTS xvii. 32.
CHAPTER I.
THE GREAT FAITH-ARTICLE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.
" If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain."-1 CORINTHIANS xV. 16, 17.
ACCORDING to the best authorities, the Book of Acts was
written about thirty years after the crucifixion. It is one of
the most interesting and instructive of historical episodes, if we
read it, as but few of us do, unblinded by the glamour of stereotyped preconceptions.
There was, of course, no New Testament in those days.
During the first half of these thirty years there was not even a
biography of Christ; and but one, that of Matthew, until near
the close of that period: nor have wa any proof that even
Matthew's narrative was then known, or readl, in the Christian
congregations. All the apostolic letters of Paul, with the single
exception of Thessalonians,* were written but a few years before the Acts were penned.  The same is true of the other
epistles; with the exception of that of James, which last was
written about the middle of these thirty years.
Thus the faith of the disciples during this period was based
* Written about the year 53, or twenty years after Christ's death.




452           THE EARLY CHRISTIAN FAITH
only on personal recollections, and on oral traditions of recen4
date.  It was much strengthened, no doubt, by the appearance
among them of those spiritual gifts * which Christ promised to
such as trusted in him. t  But it was founded chiefly on one
great phenomenon: the appearance of Christ, after death, to a
number of witnesses, of whom many yet survived. To this,
on every great occasion, the apostles were wont to appeal. I  It
was, indeed, the rock-foundation of their creed, failing which
they admitted that the entire superstructure must fall. " If the
dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain."
The triumph of their faith, then, was, that immortality had
been brought to light: not set forth as a probability by analogical argument, not recommended to belief by glosses and quiddities of the schools; but brought into the light of day, where
the senses can perceive it, where the highest of all human evidences can assure its reality. And the test-proof of immortality among these early disciples of Christ was that the dead could
r'eturn; ~ it was that they themselves, to use the modern term,
had seen the apparition of their Master.
Sceptics deny that they saw him. Strauss, assuming that
an apparition would be a miracle, and holding miracles to
be impossible, discredits the narrative. Yet he candidly states
his conviction that the disciples, self-deceived through the excited state of their minds, firmly believed that Christ had appeared to them.  He says:
* 1 Corinthians xii. 8-11.
f John xiv. 12.
5 Acts ii. 32; iii. 15; iv. 33; x. 40, 41; xiii. 30, 31; and others.
~ It was not Christ alone whom (as we are told) they had seen: if
we may trust the record " the graves were opened; and many bodies of
the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and appeared unto many."-Matthew xxvii. 52, 53.
The decayed body does not come out of the grave; that is not the
mode in which an apparition is formed: but that was the popular conception of the phenomenon in Matthew's day. How often are genuin.
phenomena incorrectly explained!




FOUNDED ON CHRIST'S APPARITION.           453
"From the epistles of Paul and the Acts, it is certain that
the apostles themselves had the persuasion that they had seen
the Arisen.... For the rest, the passage from the first
Epistle to the Corinthians is not hereby weakened which, undoubtedly genuine, was written about the year 59 after Christ,
therefore not thirty years after his resurrection. Upon this information we must admit that many members of the first community, still living at the composition of that epistle, particularly the apostles, were persuaded that they had witnessed the
appearance of the risen Christ." *
The text to which Strauss here refers is St. Paul's assertion
that he has taught what he himself had received, namely, that,
after Christ was risen " he was seen of Cephas [that is, Peter],
then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain until this
present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of
James; then of all the apostles." t
-Seen, not by Peter and James alone, not by the apostles
alone, but by five hundred brethren at once. And the belief
of these men in the reality of what they saw was such that they
endured bonds and scourgings and persecutions even unto death,
under that sustaining faith. The record of all this, too, was
made within thirty years of the time it happened; and is admitted, by a critic so learned and critical as Strauss, to be " undoubtedly genuine."
For any natural event such testimony would be overwhelming. Strauss, having made up his mind that an apparition is an
impossibility, disbelieves the story. I, having, like the disciples, witnessed an apparition, J know, as they did, that it is not
impossible; and believe as they did, that Christ showed himself to them. I can thoroughly understand, though I might
not have imitated, that constancy of faith which braved sufferings and death.
* Leben Jesu, pp. 629, 652.
t 1 Corinthians xv. 5, 6, 7.
t See Book v. chapter 3.




454        STUDY OF APPARITIONS IMPORTANT.
If the religious world is ever to attain the vantage ground
that was occupied by the Christians of the apostolic age, it
must convince itself that an apparition is a natural phenomenon, of occasional occurrence.  Till then, a large fraction of
the intelligent portion of society-its scientific leaders espe
cially-will continue to deny, like Strauss —will stand out, like.
Thomas, saying: " I must see before I believe."
Therefore the question " Is it important to study the subject
of apparitions? " resolves itself into another: " Is it important
to have assured proof of immortal life? "
I make, to the reader, no apology for the space I occupy in
illustrating this and cognate phenomena. The world owes to
itself an apology for its apathy on the subject.




CHAPTER I1.
APPARITIONS SHOWING THEMSELVES SPONTANEOUSLY.
" To a mind not influenced by popular prejudice, it will be scarcely
possible to believe that apparitions would have been vouched for in all
countries, had they never been seen in any. " —REV. GEORGE STRAIIAN,
D.D.*
ONE of the most remarkable phases of scepticism is that which
denies, what all ages have admitted, the occasional reappearance of what we call the dead. The fantastic accessories of
current ghost stories-hideous spectres, naked skeletons clank-.
ing chains, odors of brimstone, lights burning blue-have mainly contributed to this modern Sadducism. False ideas and
morbid feelings touching death have unsettled our judgment,
even our perceptions. Those whom we loved in this world we
have learned to fear, as soon as they passed to another. We
think, with terror, of their reappearance; we faint, perhaps, if
they suddenly present themselves: for terror blinds; it is the
parent of superstition.
In the nursery, or by the home fireside, our children hear
horrible ghost-stories, shuddering as they listen. This is spiritual poison, fatal alike to equanimity and to simple religious
truth.  If we speak to children of ghosts at all, we ought to
tell them, just as we relate any natural event, that we shall all
be ghosts by and by; that only part of our life is spent here;
the rest of it in another world which we cannot see, but which
is better and more beautiful than this.  We ought to add that
perhaps we shall be able to come back from  that world and
show ourselves to some of our old friends; and that, may be,
* In the Preface to his Prayers and Meditations of Dr. Samudel Jo1inson, London, 1785.




456              APPARITION BEEN BY THE
they themselves will be so fortunate, before they go, as to see
some person who has gone before-or what people call a ghost. *
Possibly their nerves might be somewhat tried, in case this
should happen; just as a person, hearing thunder for the first
time, often trembles at the sound.  But, if well-trained, they
would soon witness, without undue excitement, either phenoraenon. Whenever men, in the mass, attain to this frame of
mind, apparitions will probably become more common. Spirits,
reading our thoughts, doubtless often refrain from showing
themselves when they perceive that they will only be objects of
terror.
Short of space and having already treated the subject of
spontaneous apparitions at considerable length, t I here confine
myself to a single example; a narrative which I am able to fortify with name, place, and date. It is one of a numerous class,
an appearance of a dear friend soon after death. t
A FATHER, DYING IN EUROPE, APPEARS TO HIS SON IN AMERICA.
In the year 1862, Mr. Bradhurst Schieffelin, of the wellknown firm of Schieffelin & Co., New York, kindly furnished
me with this narrative, sent with the following note:
" NEW YORK, June 11, 1862.
"DEAR SIR: Herewith inclosed I have the pleasure to hand
* I taught my children after that fashion. The result, even in early
childhood, was some such expression as this: " I do wish I could see a
ghost: could not you show us one, Papa?"
t In Footfalls on the Boundary of Another TVorld, Book iv. chapter 3,
pp. 358-430.
t One of the members of a society formed in 1851 by distinguished
graduates in the English University of Cambridge, for the purpose of
investigating spiritual phenomena, told me that their researches had
resulted in a conviction, shared, he believed, by all the members, that
there is sufficient testimony for the appearance, about the time of death,
or after it, of deceased persons.-See Footfallt, note, pp. 33, 34; and,
for the printed circular of the society, see Appendix to that work,
Note A., p. 513.




REV. FREDERICK STEINS.              457
vou a letter from the Rev. Frederick Steins, relating the apparition of his father. Mr. Steins, a German gentleman of the
utmost respectability, is pastor of the Madison Street Presbyterian Church in this city, having a large German congregration,
"This letter, which you may preserve as evidence, I have
obtained for publication, and I shall be glad if it prove of ser
vice to you.
" Yours truly,
"BRADHURST SCHIEFFELIN.
"To the Honorable
ROBERT DALE OWEN."
The inclosure is as follows:
" NEW YORK, JTune 10, 1862.
"In compliance with the request in your note, I here give
the special facts connected with the apparition of my father.
" It was on the thirteenth of Decemrrber, 1847, as I was
walking, with my two eldest sons, in Grand street, New York.
It was in the forenoon, before twelve o'clock, and the sidewalk was full of people. There the whole figure of my father
suddenly appeared to me. He was in his usual dress, his wellremembered cap on his head, his pipe in his hand, and he
gazed on me with an earnest look; then, as suddenly, disappeared.
" I was very much terrified, and immediately wrote home, relating what had happened. Some time afterward I received
a letter from one of my brothers, written from Neukirchen,
Rlhenish Prussia, the family residence, informing me that on
the morning of the thirteenth of December, our father had died
there. At breakfast on that day he was in his usual health, and
had been speaking of me with great anxiety. After breakfast
he passed out into the yard; and, in returning, he dropped
dead, overtaken by a sudden fit of apoplexy.
"I learned afterward that, at the moment of death, he wore
20




458          YEARNINGS SOON AFTER DEATH.
the very dress in which I had seen himI; the same cap on his
head; his pipe, as usual, in his hand.
"Yours,
" FR. STEINS.
"To BRADHURST SCHIEFFELIN, ESQ."'
The anxious interest which the father expressed in his ab
sent son, immediately before death, is a noteworthy incident
in this case.*
Narratives of cases similar to the above could be multiplied
indefinitely. A very remarkable one —a family reminiscencefurnished to me by my friend, William Howitt, will be found
in the work to which I have referred.t
* Compare with this a similar expression of affection by the dying
Mrs. Marshall toward the child Cecilia; to whom, immediately after
death, she appeared. See preceding Book ii. chapter 1.
ft Fooftjzas, p. 371.




CHAPTER III.
MY OWN EXPERIENCE TOUCHING APPARITIONS.
"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam qum sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."
HORACE -A. P.
I HAVE no mediumistic powers-none of the spiritual gifts
enumerated by Paul and considered by him as desirable. I
can see nothing, hear nothing, except what others, with quick
eyes and ears, can see and hear. As to the reality of subjective apparitions I have to trust to the testimony of the seer or
seeress; fortified, sometimes, by information touching worldly
affairs that has been furnished by these invisible forms, and
afterward ascertained to be true.* Perhaps, at this stage of
spiritual progress, I am, because myself an outsider, more
likely to gain the ear, and the confidence, of the outside world.
If, some day, there should appear a man, endowed alike
with the highest spiritual gifts and with the most eminent
moral and intellectual powers, his influence on civilized society
might be immense. Meanwhile a mere spectator may obtain a
degree of credit for dispassionate judgment which would be refused to an actor.
I regret, however, that it has never been my good fortune
to witness an objective apparition, spontaneously'presenting
itself. I had to seek before I found. But if my readers will
follow me in the relation of what I did find, I think they will
admit that I have taken what reasonable precautions I could,
alike against self-delusion and imposture.  That I was in
search of what I found is, in itself, no proper bar to my testi* A remarkable example will be found in Footfalls, Book iv. chapter
3; story of the Old Kent Manor House, pp. 414-427.




460            A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE.
mony. If I were about to make a study of earthquakes and
volcanic phenomena, I should be likely to visit the western
coast of South America, the southern portion of the Italian
peninsula; perhaps the islands of Sumatra, Java, Iceland. It
is no disparagement to results that they have been obtained
by expressly placing one's self in the way of obtaining them.
My experience in this field, though not so varied as that of
some others, has been a remarkable one. If my life were extended to the term ascribed to the antediluvian patriarchs, I
should remember, to my dying day, the first time I was visited
by an appearance which all the attendant circumstances concurred in proving to have been a visitor from another phase of
being. It occurred, eleven years ago, at the house of Mr. Daniel Underhill, in New York.
AN EVENTFUL HOUR WITH LEAH Fox.
It was on the evening of Sunday, the twenty-first of October,
1860. The sitting was held in Mr. Underhill's dining-room,
lasting from ten till eleven o'clock P.M.
The room was lighted by gas. There were two windows
fronting the street; three doors; one opening on a corridor
whence a staircase ascended to the next floor; another opening
on a short passage leading to the kitchen; the third, the door
of a pantry in which were crockery and various other articles,
including a barrel of loaf-sugar in one corner.
Before we had any demonstrations the raps requested us to
wait until the domestics had retired. There were two servant
girls in the kitchen, whom Mrs. Underhill sent upstairs to
bed, so that everything was profoundly still on that floor of the
house. Then we fastened the inside blinds of both windows,
so as to exclude all light from the street.
Before commencing the session, at AMr. Underhill's request,
I shut and locked the three doors above referred to, leaving the
keys in the doors; so that no one, even if furnished with keys,
could open them from without. I satisfied myself, by careful




A PHOSPHORESCENT PHENOMENON.               461
personal inspection of the furniture, and otherwise, that there
was no one in the pantry, nor any one in the dining-room except
the three persons who, along with myself, assisted at the sitting.
These persons were Mr. Daniel Underhill, Mrs. Underhill
(Leah Fox), and her nephew, Charles, twelve years old. We
sat down to a centre-table, three feet eleven inches in diameter,
of black walnut, and without table-cover. (I had previously
looked under it; nothing to be seen there.) The gas-burner
was immediately over it. I sat on the east side of the table,
Mr. Underhill opposite to me? Mrs. Underhill on my left hand,
and Charles on the right. There was no fire in the room.
The rappings commenced, gradually increasing in number
and force.  After a short interval they spelled: " Put out the
gas." It was accordingly extinguished and the room remained
in total darkness.  Then, " Join hands."  Shortly after doing
so I felt, several times, a cool breeze blowing on my cheek. *
Then was spelled': " Do not break the circle." We obeyed; and,
except for a second or two at a time, it remained, on my part,
unbroken throughout the rest of the sitting.
After a few minutes I perceived a light, apparently of a
phosphorescent character, on my left, near the floor. It was,
at first, of a rectangular form, with the edges rounded. I
judged it to be about four inches long and two and a half
inches wide. It seemed like an open palm illuminated; but
though the light which emanated from it showed quite distinctly its entire surface, I could distinguish no fingers. For
a time it moved about, near the floor; then it rose into the air
and floated about the room, sometimes over our heads.
* See an article entitled Thie Child's Bones Found; " Footfalls," Book
iv. chapter 3. It relates to the Seeress of Prevorst. After stating
that her mother and sister did not see an apparition which showed
itself to her, it is added: " But both, at the times when the spirit appeared to the seeress, frequently felt the sensation as of a breeze blowing upon them: " p. 399,
Such a sensation, as I know from persoAal experience, frequently
precedes, or accompanies, spiritual phenomena.




462                   AN APPARITION
After a time it changed its appearance and increased in
brightness. It then resembled an opaque oval substance, about
the size of a child's head, muffled up in the folds of some very
white and shining material, like fine linen, only brighter. As
it moved about, I began to hear, at first imperfectly, afterward
somewhat more distinctly, the rustling as of a silk dress, or of
other light article of female apparel; giving the impression
that one or more persons were moving silently about the room.
Then the light passed behind Mrs. Underhill; then I saw it
close to Mr. Underhill and just opposite to me. Mr. Underhill said: " Can you not go to Mr. Owen; do try." Thereupon it moved slowly around to my left side. This'time the
folds appeared to have dropped; and what seemed a face (still
covered, however, with a luminous veil,) came bending down
within five or six inches of my own face, as I turned toward it.
As it approached, I plainly distinguished the semi-luminous
outline of an entire figure of the usual female stature. I saw,
very distinctly, the arms moving. At the lower extremity of
its right arm, as if on the palm of the hand, the figure bore
what seemed a rectangular substance, about four inches by two,
as nearly as I could estimate.  This substance was more
brightly illuminated than the rest of the figure. It may have
been only the illuminated palm, but I do not think it was; it
seemed more like a transparent box with phosphorescent light
within it. Whatever it was, the figure raised it above its
head and then passed it slowly down close to what seemed the
face and then over the upper part of the body, as one might
pass a lantern over any object, with intent to make it visible.
This action it repeated several times. By aid of the illumination thus afforded I saw, more distinctly than before, the general form of the face and figure; but both appeared covered
with a half-transparent veil, and I could distinguish no features: nor were the outlines of the body, nor of the limbs,
sharply defined. The motion of the right arm, with the light,
was the most marked and frequent.
While this was taking place I held Mrs. Underhill's hand




SEEN, FELT, AND HEARD.             463
and Charles's. As the various phases of the phenomena succeeded each other, I remarked on what I saw; and Mr. Underhill, from the opposite side of the table, responded to my
remarks; so that I am quite certain he was seated there.
I expressed a wish that the figure would touch me: and Mr.
Underhill said, from his place: "We are very anxious that the
spirit should touch Mr. Owen, if it can."
Thereupon I felt what seemed a human hand laid on my
head. And, as I looked steadily at the figure, which stood on
my left side, I saw its head bend toward my left shoulder. A
moment afterward I felt, and simultaneously heard, just behind the point of that shoulder, a kiss imprinted.
I could not, for any physical fact, obtain the evidence of
three senses-sight, touch, and hearing-more distinctly'than
in this case I did.
Immediately afterward, I saw this luminous body pass behind me; what seemed, by the touch, to be hands gently laid
hold of both my shoulders and turned me round to the right.
I looked on that side and the figure now stood by my right
shoulder.
After pausing there for a few seconds, it moved toward the
window farthest from me, and we heard the sounds as if some
one were attempting to open the window blind. Mr. Underhill, from his place, remarked that. it would probably be able to
effect this; for it had done so on a previous occasion. The
blind was in four compartments, each of which could be
opened or closed by raising or lowering a wire attached to
movable slats. The figure opened the upper, left-hand quarter
of the blind, so that a faint light shone in from the street
lamps. I was looking at the window when this occurred.
Up to this time the appearance, gradually becoming more
luminous, had been in sight, moving about the room, fully five
minutes. There was not the slightest footfall when it moved.
My hearing is very acute; I listened for every sound; and as,
in the intervals of conversation, the silence was unbroken, I
could have detected the fall of the lightest footstep.




464              IIEARING AND FEELING
From this time the light which illuminated the figure gradu.
ally faded; and soon I could no longer distinguish any form.
The slight, rustling sound, unaccompanied by footsteps, still,
however, continued.
Suddenly we heard a noise as of the door opposite to inc
being unlocked; then.of its being hastily opened and shut;
then the rustling sound approached me on the left, and a key
was laid on my left hand. Then a second door was heard to
be unlocked in the same way, and I heard another key laid on
the table just before me. Then a third door (that of the cupboard, by the sound,) was heard to be unlocked and opened,
and a key, as if pitched over our heads, was heard to drop, with
a clatter, on the table.
While this was going on, I commented, fiom time to tlle,
on each occurrence, and received answers from Mr. Underhill,
from his place at the table opposite to me.
While we were conversing, there was a rattling of the crockery in the cupboard. Mrs. Underhill expressed her apprehensions as to some favorite china, but Mr. Underhill replied: " I
will trust the spirits;" and then added: "Cannot the spirit
bring something to Mr. Owen?"  Almost immediately there
was set down on the table, close to my left hand, some object
which I touched, and it proved to be a cut-glass goblet.. In
setting it down, what seemed a human hand touched mine, and
immediately afterward was laid, several times, on my shoulder.
I expressed a desire that it would distinctly grasp my hand, to
which lAir. Underhill responded. Instantly a small hand,e or
what in touch perfectly resembled one, took hold of my hancd
and grasped it. Then it clasped my bare wrist, gently but with
a firm grasp; then my lower arm, then my upper arm; each
time with a distinct grasp. I could not have distinguished
the touch from that of a human hand. It was a little cooler
than mine, but not disagreeably so. There was nothing chilly
or clammy or otherwise unpleasant about it. There was, after
this, throughout the sitting, no sound whatever of opening oz
closing doors.




AN ALLEGED SPIRIT-FORif.            465
While it was touching me thus, Mr. Underhill said: " Can
you fill the goblet you brought to Mr. Owen with water? "
There was a rustling but no footstep; a slight noise in the
pantry, and then the sound of something dropped into the goblet; but, putting my hand in, I felt no water. In so doing I
broke the circle only for a moment.
Then, just behind me, I heard a sound as if the glass of the
clock on the mantle-piece were touched and shaken.
All this time there was no word spoken except by those at
the table; but, 9nce or twice, there was a whistling sound in
the air.
When, soon after, we were bidden, by the raps, to relight the
gas, I found three door-keys on the table, the goblet also and,
within it, a lump of loaf-sugar. Both the room-doors were
closed, but, on trying them, I found that neither was locked.
Two of the keys on the table fitted them. The door of the
pantry, which the third key fitted, stood open, and the cover of
the barrel of sugar was pushed partly off. The left-hand upper
portion of the blind at which we had seen and heard the figure,
was open.
These are facts, all briefly noted down the same evening on
which they happened, and written out in full the next morning.
The allegations, by the raps, were that the spirit present was
that of a daughter of Mirs. Fox who had died young, and that
other spirits were present (among them an Indian spirit), aiding her to show herself to our circle. Emily-that was the
girl's name-had been Mrs. Underhill's favorite sister, long
mourned over, and had lain, during the last hour of her life
and at the moment of death, in Mrs. Undelhill's arms. Mr.
Underhill stated to me that he had seen the same spirit, as
distinctly, several times before; and that he had been able to
distinguish the features. He appeared, also, on this occasion,
to have perceived the whole figure, and especially the features,
more distinctly than I did, though my natural sight has always
been keen, and, except within ordinary reading distance, is still
20




466              REMARKS ON WHAT I
nearly as strong as it was thirty years ago. With these exceptions, all present, so far as I could judge by comparing notes
with them during and after the sitting, seemed to have seen
and heard the succession of phenomena here described just as I
myself had done.
Up to this time, never having witnessed any such phenoluena as these, I had often doubted within myself how I
should be affected by witnessing an apparition, or what I had
reason to consider such. It seemed to me that I should experience no alarm; but of this, in advance of actual experience,
I could not be assured. Now I know just how far I can trust
my self-possession. Awe I undoubtedly felt-awe and intense
interest; but, in looking back on my feelings throughout that
wonder-bringing hour, I feel certain that a physician might
have placed his finger on my wrist, even at the moment when
that dimly-illuminated Presence first bent over me, with
scarcely six inches intervening between its veiled face and
mine-its hands placed on my head, its lips touching my
shoulder-and not.have found the beatings of my pulse unduly
accelerated: or if he had detected acceleration, it could not,
I am very sure, have been justly ascribed to any tremor or
fear, but solely to the natural effect of solemn and riveted expectation. If a man, under such circumstances, may trust to
his own recollections not twenty-four hours old, I can aver, on
my honor, that I was not, at any time while these events were
in progress, under other excitement (though it may be, greater
in degree) than a chemist might be supposed to experience
while watching the issue of a long-projected and decisive experiment, or an astronomer when the culminating point of some
important observation is about to be reached.
I beg it may not be supposed that I mention this as boasting
of courage. There was, in truth, nothing of which to boast.
The preceding and attendant circumstances were such as to preclude alarm. I was not alone, nor taken by surprise. I was
expecting some phenomena and hoping that they would be of a




SAW, FELT, AND HEARD.                461
phosphorescent nature. And though I had not any expectation of seeing an actual form, yet, as the allegation was that a
deceased sister, beloved by one of the assistants, was present,
and as all the demonstrations were gentle and seemingly arranged, by friendly agencies, to satisfy my desire for the
strongest evidence in proof of spiritual appearance, I was
under very different circumstances to those which have often
shaken the nerves even of the boldest, while encountering, for
the first time, what is usually called a ghost.
I state the fact of my equanimity, then, merely as one of the
attendant circumstances which may be fairly taken into account
in judging the testimony here supplied in proof of the appearance, in visible and tangible form, of an alleged spirit of a deceased person. It is often assumed that a man who believes
he sees an apparition is (to use a common phrase) frightened
out of his senses; and so, is not entitled to credit as witness.
If it be objected that, before the sitting closed, the doors
were unlocked, I reply first that all the most remarkable and
interesting portion of the phenomena occurred before this happened; and, secondly, that, as the keys of the locked doors
were left in them, they could only be opened from the inside.
If, in reply to this last, it be still urged that Mr. Underhill,
deserting his post for a few seconds, might have opened one, of
the doors, I reply that I happened to be conversing with him
at the moment we first heard the key turned. I add that during the next sitting, when still more wonderful phenomena occurred, I took a precaution (as will be seen), which made it
impossible that either Mr. Underhill or any of the assistants
should leave their seats, even for a moment, without my knowledge.
Five days after this I had the session here referred to, in the
same room, with the same assistants; during which similar
phenomena were repeated, but with one highly noteworthy ad.
dition.




468             THREE WORDS DISTINCTLY
A GHOST SPEAKS.
The date was the twenty-sixth of October, 1860; and it was
an evening session; from half-past ten till midnight. The
same precautions which I had taken before the commencement
of the former sitting as to locking all the doors, looking under
the table, examining the room and furniture, etc., I carefully
adopted on this occasion also. As before, we waited until the
servants had retired and all was still.
After a time there was spelled "Darken;" then "Join
hands." We obeyed; but on this occasion I took an additional
precaution. Grasping Mrs. Underhill's right hand and Charles'
left, I brought my own hands to the centre of the table; and
Mr. Underhill, across the table, laid his hands on mine. This
we continued throughout the entire sitting. I am able, therefore, to assert that, from the beginning of this sitting till the
end, the circle remained unbroken.
After a few minutes, there appeared a luminous body of an
irregularly circular form, about four inches in diameter, floating between us and the door which was back of Mrs. Underhill.
It was somewhat brighter than when it first appeared on the
previous occasion; that is, on the twenty-first of October.
Then, after an interval, the light, rustling sound seemed to
indicate the approach of some one. The figure was not so distinct as on the previous occasion, the lower portion losing itself
in a grayish cloud. The highest light seemed to be on the spot
corresponding to the forehead. But I saw no features; nor did
I see the arms moving. Very soon I was gently touched on
the head, then on the shoulders, then laid hold of, as with both
hands of some one standing behind me.
Then the figure seemed, by the sound, to move away, toward
Mr. Underhill.  He stated that the figure was approaching
him. He asked it if, as a test, it could take something out of
his pocket; but there was no reply, by raps or otherwise. Im.
mediately I heard a sound as if some one were moving the key
albout in the door opposite to me.




SPOKEN BY AN APPARITION.             469
Soon after Mr. Underhill said the figure had again approached
him. I saw the illuminated circular substance close to his
head, but could not distinguish any figure. Mr. Underhill
said that he could dimly discern the figure.
After a time it moved round to the lad Charles, who exhibited much alarm; crying out " Oh, go away! Pray -don't!"
when it approached, as I saw it do, close to his head, which he
had bent down on the table. It was now very bright, so that,
by the light, I could see the outline of the boy's head. Charles
afterward stated that he saw it distinctly, and that a hand
touched him repeatedly. While it was close to Charles, it ap.
peared to me as if a white handkerchief or some article of the
like texture were thrown over a hand or some similar support.
I saw no figure. When it rose behind Charles, as if to leave
him when he cried out, I could perceive what resembled a hand
grasping some illuminated substance, the outline of the hand
appearing as a shadow across the illuminated ground.
Then it moved, as I could see, to Mr. Underhill, and after a
time crossed over to me, and touched me gently on the shoulder. Of a sudden it occurred to me that one other evidence
was lacking. I expressed a desire that, if it could, it would
speak. It seemed to make several efforts to do so, as indicated
by a slight, guttural sound; then I heard a sound resembling
the syllable es, twice repeated.
Then, by the raps was spelled out: " Sing."' Mrs. Underhill complied. The figure which had seemed to move away and
return, again touched me from behind, drawing me slightly
toward it. Then, in a brief interval of the singing, I heard,
in a low voice, just behind me, the words: "God bless you."
As additional assurance that it was no momentary illusion, I
asked that it would speak again; and again, in an interval of
the music, I heard, in distinct tones, the same words, "God
bless you."  They seemed to be pronounced close to my ear.
The voice was low-apparently a woman's voice —just louder
than a whisper, and the words seemed to be pronounced with
an effort; in subdued tones, as a person faint from sickness




47'0           THE MANIFESTATIONS ARE
might speak. I particularly noticed, also, that each word was
pronounced, separately, with a perceptible interval between;
and there was not the usual accent on bless, followed by the
shortened you; but each word was equally accented. In other
respects the sounds resembled the human voice, when low and
gentle.
Mrs. Underhill afterward stated to me that she distinguished
the word you, but not the others. Mr. Underhill said he had
heard articulate sounds, but could not make out any of the
words: he only knew that something had been said to me.
After a time I saw the figure pass behind Mrs. Underhill
and remain, for a few minutes, near her husband; then it returned to me, appearing on my left side. I saw the outline of
a head and face, but still, as before, covered with a veil which
concealed the features. I perceived, however, what I had not
observed before, what seemed tresses of dark hair dropping
over the face; and the dim outline of an arm raised one of
these tresses, and then dropped it again, several times, as if to
attract my attention. Behind was the vague outline of a figure, but less distinct than during the previous sitting.
Then the figure passed behind me. I was leaning over the
table, so that Mr. Underhill might not have so far to stretch,
in order to reach my hands. I felt a kiss on my shoulder,
then there was the feeling of two hands laid each on one
shoulder and I was drawn very gently back till my shoulders,
above the chair back, were pressed against what seemed a material form. Almost at the same moment my hand was kissed.
Mr. Underhill cried out, " Ah, you were drawn back;" and
MIrs. Underhill said, a little impatiently: "'Every one is
touched but me. Can't you come to me? "
The words were hardly pronounced when she screamed out,
as in alarm: she had been suddenly and unexpectedly kissed
on the forehead.
From that very moment the manifestations entirely ceased.
No luminous object to be seen, not another touch, not a rustle,
not a sound of any kind, in the room. I listened attentively,




SUDDENLY INTERRUPTED.              471
and am certain that no door opened or shut. And scarcely a
minute or two elapsed ere it was spelled out: " Light the gas."
When we had done so we found everything as before, with
a single exception. I ascertained by looking under the table
and in the pantry that there was no one in the room but ourselves: I found all the three doors locked; but the key belonging to the door opposite to me was missing. We aslked
where it was; the raps replied: " Look." We could not see
it anywhere. Then we examined our pockets; and, from one
of his- coat-pockets, MIr. Underhill produced a key, which was
found to fit the door.
Mrs. Underhill asked if her alarmed exclamation had injured
the spirit?
Answer, by the raps-" Not much."
_Mrs. U.-" I'm so much afraid I hurt her!"
Answer.-" It frightened her."
Question (by me).-" Did Mrs. Underhill's cry of alarm
cause the manifestations to cease?"
Answer. " Yes."
As to the door-key, I remarkThat Mr. Underhill asked, as a test, to have something taken
from his pocket; but it was a better test, since he could not
move from his place, to take the key from the door and deposite it in his pocket, Who but a spirit could take it, our circle
remaining unbroken? Is the taking by spirit agency incredible?  But the hands that pressed my shoulders, that grasped
my hand, that clasped my wrist, were surely material enough
to extract a key from a door-lock and drop it in a coat-pocket.
Then all the doors, this time, were left locked; so that no
one could enter from without: to say nothing of the absurd
supposition that a spirit should open a door in order to admit
human assistants.
Though I had every reason to be satisfied with my success I
resolved to prosecute these researches, hoping for an apparition
by gas-light or di:ylight. But I was unable at that time to do




472               SPIRITUAL SCULPTURE.
so. My duties as military agent of the State of Indiana called
me from New York; and, in the rush of events during these
stirring times, my time and thoughts were otherwise engrossed.
In the spring of 1862 Judge Holt and myself were appointed
a Government Commission on Ordnance and Ordnance stores,*
requiring a residence in Washington; and a year later I becafue chairman of another Government Commission, charged
with the duty of reporting on the condition of the recently
emancipated freedmen of the United States. Thus it was not
till the close of the war that I could sufficiently withdraw my
attention from public duties to follow out, in any regular or
consecutive manner, spiritual studies. Perhaps this mingling
of mundane work and ultramundane contemplations is of
wholesome character; tending to infuse broader views and a
more practical tone into speculative researches.
M\{y experience of 1860 led me to the opinion that an objective apparition must be the workmanship of spirits, possible
under rare circumstances.  Sometimes these appear to be
wholly independent of human agency or intention; sometimes
we can, in a measure, promote them, and even anticipate, with
more or less uncertainty, however, the result. In this latter
case, we seem to obtain something corresponding, in a measure,
to a production of human art; and, specifically, of the art of
sculpture; but of sculpture in spiritual phase; evanescent,
only partially material, and liable, at any moment, to dissolve
or disappear.
What I particularly desired was to have an opportunity, in
the light, of witnessing the formation of such an apparition;
*Judge Holt was a member of President Buchanan's Cabinet and
afterward Judge Advocate General We reported on accounts amounting to more than forty-nine millions of dollars, reducing the liabilities
of the General Government, by our decisions, nearly seventeen millions: and our report was sustained.
Some men imagine that profound convictions touching Spiritualism
and Spiritual phenomena incapacitate for business duties; but that is
a mistake.




IN BOSTON.                    473
its actions, its movements from place to place, and its disappearancoe. But it was not until the year 1867 that I obtained
any further satisfaction. During the spring of that year I
heard of Miss B-, of Boston, an elderly lady long known
and esteemed in that city as a successful teacher of music and
dancing. It was said that she, in a private circle, had obtained
numerous objective apparitions, in a partially lighted room.
This was afterward confirmed to me by a most estimable lady,
who had herself been present at many of these sittings; Mrs.
John Davis, widow of the well-known ex-Governor of Massachusetts, and of whom I have already spoken. *
Mrs. Davis expressed to me her conviction that Miss Bwas entirely sincere and disinterested; and that the phenomena
which she (Mrs. Davis,) had witnessed in Miss B's apartments were genuine.
Miss B —, it seems, had several friends, married ladies in
the middle rank of life, who had more or less power as mediums, especially in connection with spiritual appearances of
an objective character. On several occasions, sometimes in one
of their houses, sometimes in another, Miss B  had herself
seen an apparition.
None of these ladies were professional mediums; but it occurred to them that, if they met occasionally, they might, by
their united powers, obtain very interesting results. Miss B —
offered the use of her spacious apartments; and during a
series of experiments which were conducted there, phenomena
of a marvellous character were observed: a great variety of
spirits appearing, chiefly strangers to any of the assistants, in
various costumes.
This was noised abroad, and brought requests, from the curious, for admission to witness such wonders. These were usually
granted, but uniformly as a favor and without charge. Opinions were various: some visitors were convinced; others went
away in doubt whether it was not an exhibition got up to mystify the credulous, or gratify a longing for notoriety.
* See Book iii. chap. 3.




474           A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE
This, of course, was very unpleasant to the ladies concernedi
and when I called on Miss B  -, in May, 1867, I found that,
for several months, they had almost ceased to meet.  When,
however, I expressed to Miss B       my earnest desire to
investigate the matter, intending, some day, to publish the results, she acceded to my wishes with the utmost alacrity.  " I
am so glad," she said, " to have some one, who will be listened
to, test these phenomena. When one has no other interest or
desire than to get at important truth, it seems hard to be subjected to groundless suspicion."
At the first two or three sittings a portion only of the ladies
could attend; and Miss B —-- was of opinion that the discontinuance of their regular sittings had, for the time, weakened
their power.  We had only rapping  and  phosphorescent
phenomena, but of a remarkable character.  Bright stars
appeared on the person of one medium, a line of light along
the forehead of another, the word "Hope," on the back of the
hand of a third. These appearances were brilliant and could
be seen, twenty feet off, across a dimly-lighted room. At other
times the raps were so violent as to shake the sofa on which we
sat.
But until the session of June 4, there was no apparition.
On that occasion we had one under very satisfactory circumstances; but I did not consider the test complete; for I did
not witness either the formation of the figure or its disappearance.
It was not until the twenty-fifth of June that we were able
to bring together all the ladies who had composed the original
circle. I consider that day, like the twenty-first of October,
1860, an era in my spiritual experience.
AN APPARITION IN SHINING RAIMENT.
Miss B  -'s rooms, which occupied the entire third floor of
a corner house in Washington street, Boston, consisted of a
large apartment, thirty feet front by thirty-five feet deep; opening, by folding doors, into a parlor back of it, which was




AND ITS LOCATION.                  475
6wenty-five feet by twenty. From each room there was one
door of exit only, on a passage or stair-landing, thus:
Room     80 by 35.
I
IIPA~~~I
0
W    I                I
— f                       E
r1
Parlor 20 by 25




476                   THE MEDIUMS.
The front room was lighted by eight windows, four on Washington street, and four on a gas-lit court-yard. As there were
no curtains drawn nor shutters closed during the sitting, which
was held after lamp-lighting, this room was sofar lit from without that, by any one seated in the back parlor, a few feet from
the folding-doors, the dress and general appearance of persons
in the front room could be readily observed and every motion
they made distinctly seen. I took notice, however, that there
was not light enough to recognize features, except close at
hand. In this room, employed for dancing lessons, the floor
was uncarpeted and waxed. All footsteps of persons walking
across it could be very distinctly heard.
Except myself there was but one visitor present, Mrs. John
Davis. The amateur mediums who assisted at the sitting were
six in number: Mrs. S. J. D   -, Mrs. George N. B..,
Mrs. Sarah A. K, Mrs. Fanny C. P, Mrs. Wiiliam H.
G- -, and Mrs. Mary Anne C —: all ladies, apparently,
from thirty to forty years of age.
Before the sitting began, Mrs. Davis and myself passed
around the room and examined carefully every part of it. The
furniture consisted of a sofa, a piano, and numerous chairs set
against the walls. There was no pantry, or press, or recess of
any kind. We locked the sole door of exit, and Mrs. Davis
kept the key in her pocket during the sitting. Then we locked
the door of the back parlor, retaining the key.
We sat down in that parlor directly before the folding-doors.
The sofa (marked s. on ground-plan), on which Mrs. Davis,
Miss B — and myself were seated, was about four or five feet
within the parlor. I sat at the left-hand corner of this sofa:
the entrance through the folding-doors was draped by curtains,
which were looped back; so that, from where I sat, I could see
three of the four front windows looking out on Washington
street and the corner of the room to the right of them. The
six mediums sat three on each side of us.
All was quiet during the early part of the sitting, which




THE FIGURE APPEARS.                 477
commenced a little after eight P.M. Scarcely any lapping.  A
few phosphorescent lights.
About a quarter past nine, all the mediums being seated by
us, I saw dimly, near the right-hand corner of the front line of
the large room  (at x), at first a grayish, slightly-luminous
vapor; after a time, a figure draped in white. At first it was
stationary; then it moved very slowly past the two right-hand
windows (A and B) to the centre of the front line of the room
(at c), between two windows. There it remained one or two
minutes, still but indistinctly visible. Then, very slowly and
without sound of footstep, it advanced down the room, coming
directly toward the centre of the folding doors. It stopped (at
D) about twelve or fourteen feet from where I was sitting.
Thereupon, of a sudden, a brilliant light, coming from the right,
striking directly on the figure and only on it-not directly
illuminating the rest of the room-enabled me to see the appearance as perfectly as if the entire room had been lit with
gas.
It was a female figure, of medium height, veiled and draped,
from head to foot, in white. The drapery did not resemble, in
material, anything I have ever seen worn. It gave me, as on a
previous occasion,* the exact feeling of the Scriptural expression, "shining raiment."  Its brilliancy was a good deal like
that of new-fallen snow, in the sunshine; recalling the text
which declares the garments of Christ, during his transfiguration, to have been " exceeding white as snow;" or, again, it
was not unlike the finest and freshest Parian marble with a
bright light on it, only more brilliant. It had not at all the
glitter of spangles or any shining ornament; the tone being as
uniform as that of a newly-sculptured statue. It stood upright,
in a graceful attitude, motionless. Had I suddenly seen it elsewhere, and without having witnessed its previous movements, I
might have imagined it a beautiful piece of sculpture, of singularly-pure material, and marvellously lighted up. The dra.
pery fell around the figure closely, as usual in a statue; not
* June 4; already alluded to.




478            THE FIGURE DISAPPEARS.
at all according to the modern fashion of amplitude. I think
it was shown to us, under the bright light, as long as fifteen or
twenty seconds.
MIrs. K-  stepped out to meet it, going close up to it, and
then returning to us. The figure followed her; and, as Mrs.
K-, when she passed the folding-doors, had stepped aside
to the right, the apparition advanced, with a gliding motion,
into the parlor, till, as nearly as I could judge, it was within
two or three feet of me. There it stopped (at E).
As it remained immovable I raised my left arm, hoping that
I should be touched. As I stretched it out, the figure extended
its right arm, covered with drapery, toward me; and dropped
into my hand what proved to be a white rose; but its hand
did not touch mine.
Thereupon the appearance, still keeping its face to us, slowly
retired with the same silent, gliding motion which had marked
its advance; not the slightest sound of footstep, on the waxed
floor, being audible.
A second time it stopped, again about twelve or fifteen feet
from me; and, a second time, an instantaneous light, coming
from the right and falling upon it, gave it to be seen with the
utmost distinctness. I was enabled to verify my former observations in regard to its appearance, and the unique, rich, resplendent character of the drapery.
Then it slowly receded, still facing us, to the centre of the
opposite wall (at c), gradually diminishing in brightness; and
finally it vanished before my eyes.
Mrs. K     had followed it and remained, a few seconds,
near the spot where it vanished. Then I saw her cross the
window to the right on her return to us. She was dressed in
black.
I am quite certain that one figure only —that of Mrs. Kas she returned to us-left the spot. From the time the figure
in white reached that spot, I kept my eyes intently fixed there,
without taking them offfor a single moment; and the light
from the street was such that it was impossible for any object,




THE ILLUMINATION.                479
black or white, to pass one of the windows without my seeing it.
When a minute or two had elapsed after the disappearance
of the figure, and while my eyes were still fixed on the spot,
the thought rushed vividly upon me: " Is it possible that there
can be nothing there? " This thought, to which I did not give
utterance, had hardly crossed my mind when, as if in reply to
it, the same sort of mysterious light which had previously
illuminated the figure suddenly flashed over the space of wall
between the two windows where the figure had disappeared,
completely lighting it up, while the windows and wall on either
side were not illuminated.  The light remained long enough to
show me that there was nothing whatever there, except two
chairs set against the wall, as I had seen them before the sitting
began.
Then, with my eyes still fixed on the place of disappearance,
I rose and passed entirely around the room: nor did I, for a
moment, take my eyes off the spot that had been illuminated
till I reached it. Everything in the room was exactly as it
had been before the sitting, so far as I could recollect. The
outer door was still locked.
It is proper to add that two of the mediums, Mrs. Kand Mrs. D, informed me, after the sitting was over, that
they did not remember seeing anything of the figure; both
having awoke, as from a trance, at the close of the sitting.
This, Miss B    informed me, was usual with them.
I do not think that any of the assistants perceived the formation of the apparition as soon as I did; but while the figure
was advancing and retreating, the whispered remarks of the
ladies near me-" There it is! "-" Now it stops! " —  Did
you see that light? " etc.-made me aware that they saw it
just as I did. This was confirmed to me, on after inquiry, by
all the ladies except Mrs. K-   and Mrs. D-. All the
others observed the sudden illumination of the spot where the
figure disappeared.
As on a former occasion, it is proper I should state here that,




480                  REMARKS ON THE
throughout the sitting, though the impression produced was
profound, solemn beyond expression, never to be forgotten, yet
it did not partake at all of the emotion of fear. The predomi
nant feeling was a deep anxiety that there might be no inter.
ruption, and that the sitting might not terminate until I had
obtained incontrovertible evidence of the fact that the appearance was of a spiritual character, yet as real as any earthly
phenomenon.
The allegation, by raps, at the close of the sitting, was that
the apparition was that of Violet. Seven years before, during
a sitting with Kate Fox, I had had a promise, purporting to
come from her, that, some day when the conditions were favorable, she would appear to me. The veil quite concealed the
features; but the height, the form and carriage of the figure, so
strictly corresponded to hers that, when it approached me, I
ceased to doubt that she had kept her promise.
My faith in the reality of this appearance is not at all shaken
by reflecting that a Signor Blitz, or a Robert-Houdin, having
a theatre at command, arranged with ready entrances and exits,
with practical trap-doors, with dark lanterns in the wings, with
the means of producing dissolving views-could probably reproduce all I witnessed.
But here were a few ladies, in private life and in moderate
circumstances, quietly meeting in two apartments which were
daily used as school-rooms by one of their number; on the
third story of a private house,* containing not even a recess
where a chair could be hidden away. They meet to satisfy a
laudable curiosity; admitting visitors, now and then, by courtesy only. No remuneration is demanded; nor, very surely,
would any have been accepted. They meet, on this occasion,
at my request, after having discontinued their researches for
months, vexed with unjust suspicions. They allow us to lock
every exit, after a close examination of the rooms. Here is
* The floor below was daily used for mercantile purposes.




FOREGOING EXPERIENCE.                481
neither motive, nor opportunity — to say nothing of qualification
-for deception. The coin of the realm may be counterfeited,
but the coiners must have professional skill, an appropriate
location, and expensive machinery. Nor do counterfeiters ply
their unholy calling except with the prospect of large gains.
Certain it is, that I beheld the gradual formation of the
figure; that I witnessed its movements; that I received from
its hand an actual flower; * that I saw the figure disappear.
Add to this that the place of its disappear.nce was illuminated
by invisible agency, in answer to an unexpressed thought of
mine.  If Robert-Houdin can read thoughts, he has a spiritual
gift.
If the reader still withholds belief, deeming two or three
examples insufficient to prove so strange a phenomenon as the
formation, by spiritual agency, and the subsequent disappearance, of a form sufficiently material to grasp a substantial object and hand it to a human being-let him read the next
chapter.
* I asked Miss B — if there had been any white rose in the room.
She replied that there were several nosegays there that had been pre.
sented to her by her pupils, and, very probably, there might have been
such a rose among them. The flower which was given to me is still
in my possession.
21




CHAPTER IV.
A NEAR RELATIVE SHOWS HERSELF, THROUGHOUT FIVE YEARSI
TO A SURVIVING FRIEND.
A JUDICIOUS mam of science, experimenting in his laboratory,
seeks, before giving to the world the result of an important experiment, to repeat that experiment more than once.  Inasmuch as the governing law endures, any result obtained under
that law must be capable of being reproduced: and its reproduction, time after time, will usually be deemed necessary to give
assurance of its genuine character; seeing that a fallible
observer may readily mistake or misinterpret, when his observation is limited to a single example.
Some physical phenomena, however, are spontaneous and
cannot be produced at will. We cannot evoke an aurora borealis, or call down aerolites from the sky. Apparitions have
usually been thought to be of that character, if believed in at
all: and, to a certain extent, they are. Among the superstitious a belief has sometimes prevailed that the dead may be recalled by mystic and unlawful rites, as Saul by the so-called
"Witch" of En-dor.  But such a superstition finds few
believers in modern times. All that there is of truth underlying it consists in this, that, under favorable conditions, of rare
and difficult combination, we may occasionally obtain appar-:
tions; and may even be favored so as to witness these sgain
and again: not during weeks or months only, but throaghout
years.
I am fortunate enough to be able to lay before the reader
one of the most remarkable-perhaps the most remarkableexample of this that has ever occurred; or, at least, that is to
De found on record: with permission, from the witness, to give




DEATH OF ESTELLE.                  483
his name in attestation. It is a name well known in the comrnmercial and social circles of New York, —Mr.'Livermore.
This gentleman, eleven years ago, lost a near and dear relative: let us call her Estelle. On her death-bed, perceiving the
poignant grief that overwhelmed her relative at the prospect of his approaching loss, she earnestly expressed the desire
that it might be possible for her, after death, still to assure
him of her continued existence.
He attached little importance to this except as evidence of her
affection; having himself, up to that time, found no proof satisfactory to his reason touching a Hereafter.  Neither he nor
Estelle had any faith whatever in spiritual phenomena; and
both had been wont to regard the whole subject with repugnance.
When Mr. Livermore found himself alone, his extreme grief
was terribly embittered by the thought that it was a separation
forever. Expressing this in strong terms to his friend, Dr.
John F. Gray, who had been Estelle's physician from childhood, that gentleman (one of the earliest believers in inter.
mundane phenomena) suggested that there was a remedy capable of alleviating his grief, if he (Mr. L.) saw fit to resort to
it. The reply was a contemptuous fling at Spiritualism and its
delusions: and the sufferer went his way, hopeless and desolate.
After a time, however, came the sober second-thought that
there might be something in a doctrine which so earnest and
thoughtful a man as Dr. Gray implicitly accepted.  Accordingly, at his friend's suggestion, he resolved to seek sittings
with Miss Kate Fox.
The sittings were held sometimes in Mrs. Fox's parlor, sometimes in Mr. Livermore's. *  In all cases the necessary precautions were taken to give assurance that no one entered the
room, or left it, during the sitting: the room itself being thor* Both Mrs. Fox and Mr. Livermore changed residences during the
time these sittings were held; io that the phenomena were obtained
in four different dwellings.




484             TIHE FIRST APPEARANCE.
oughly examined, and doors and windows effectually secured,
At several of the first sittings three or four visitors were admitted as additional witnesses. But it soon became apparent
that the best results could be obtained with a single sitter
only: and accordingly, as a general rule, Mr. Livermore only
was present.
During the first sitting, which was held January 23, 1861,
he, Mr. L., for the first time, heard the mysterious echoes
-the " raps," as they are usually called. Then, throughout
the first ten or twelve sittings, followed the usual phenomena;
spirit-touches, spirit-communications, moving of ponderable
bodies, etc.: finally spirit-writing. During the twelfth sitting
came a message, purporting to be from Estelle, to the effect
that if her friend persevered, her spirit could be made visible
to him. Then, throughout a dozen sessions more, came phosphorescent lights, disappearing and reappearing at intervals; at
last, on the twenty-fourth sitting (March 14th), the dim outline of a figure, moving about. Three days afterward there
came this message: " I know that I can make myself visible
to you. Meet to-morrow night. Secure the doors and windows, for I wish the test to be beyond all doubt, for your good
and the good of others."
The next evening the session was at Mrs. Fox's residence,
but the family were absent, so that the medium and the sitter
alone occupied the house. Mr. L. sealed the windows, sealed
and locked the doors, and placed heavy furniture against them;
then searched the room thoroughly and extinguished the gas.
Soon came the words: "I am here in form." Then a globular
light appeared, with crackling sounds. After a time it became
a head, veiled: then, but for a single instant only, Mr. L. recognized the features of Estelle. Then a figure was seen: all this
being visible by phosphorescent or electrical lights in various
parts of the room. During all this time Mr. L. held both of
the medium's hands. Then the mode of producing raps was
shown: an orange-shaped luminous ball, with blunt point attached, bounding up and down on the table, and the sound of




THE RECOGNITION.                485
each rap coinciding with the approach of the ball to the table
top.
It was somewhat later, however, that
THE CRUCIAL TEST
was first obtained. I copy from Mr. L.'s record:
" No. 43. April 18s 1861. Wind south-west. Weather fair.
Having absolutely secured doors and windows, we sat in perfect quiet for half an hour, my faith becoming weak. Then
we were startled by a tremendous rap on the heavy mahogany
centre-table which, at the same time, rose and fell. The door
was violent'y shaken, the windows opened and shut: in fact,
everything movable in the room seemed in motion. Questions
were answered by loud knocks on the doors, on the glass of tihe
windows, on the ceiling-everywhere.
" Then an illuminated substance like gauze rose from the floor
behind us, moved about the room and finally came in front of
us.  Vigorous electrical sounds were heard. The gauze-like
substance assumed the form of a human head' covered, the covering drawn close around the neck. It touched me; then
receded and again approached. I recognized an oblong substance, concave on the side that was presented to us, and in
this cavity the light was brilliant. Into this I looked intently
for a face, but none appeared. Again it receded and again approached: this time I perceived an eye.  A third time it
moved backward, accompanied by electrical sounds, and when,
a third time, it came close to me the light had brightened, the
gauze had changed in form; a female hand grasped it, concealing the lower part of a face; but the upper part was revealed:
it was that of Estelle-eyes, forehead, and expression in perfection. The moment the emotion of recognition passed into
my mind, it was acknowledged by a succession of quick raps
from all parts of the room, as though an unseen audience
expressed its applause.
" The figure reappeared several times, the recognition become




486           THE REFLECTION IN TIiE GLASS.
ing each time more nearly perfect.  Afterward her head was
laid upon mine, the hair falling over my face.
" Miss Fox (whose hands I had secured during all this time)
and I sat about ten feet from the wall of the room which faced
us. The light moved to a point about midway between us and
the wall; the electrical cracklings increased; the wall was illuminated and brought out an entire female figure facing that
side of the room, the light apparently in one of her hands.
The form remained in sight fully half an hour and each movement was distinctly visible. Then came the message:
"'  Now see me rise:'' And immediately, in full brightness, the figure rose to the
ceiling, remained there a few moments suspended; then gently
descending, disappeared.
" Afterward she showed herself between us and a mirror. Tlhe
reflection of the figure in the glass was distinctly visible, the light
being so bright as to show the veins in a marble slab beneath.
" Here a heavy shower of rain fell, and there was spelled
out:' The atmosphere has changed. I cannot remain in form:'
whereupon both light and figure finally disappeared."
At a sitting held two days later, the following communication was received: *
* I here remark that all communications obtained through Kate Fox
were eitherSpelled out, letter after letter, by the raps:
Or else written, sometimes by Kate's right hand. sometimes by the
left; but the writing always executed ilnversely; so that it could only
be read by holding it against a mirror.
Occasionally she writes two communications at once; both hands
moving at the same time, each on a separate sheet. And I have myself witnessed the following: While her hand was writing, there was,
by raps, a call for the alphabet; whereupon Kate called over the letters and took down the message, letter by letter, withoutfor a moment
discontinuing Ler writingq. Mr. L. has often witnessed all the above
phases of communication.
In addition to this, the internal evidence of many of the messages
is, especially to those who know Mliss Fox well, conclusive evidence
that these originate entirely outside of her will and of her intelligence,




THE FIGURE IN PERFECTION.             487'C My heart is full of joy. We cannot be grateful enough to
the Giver of this great boon. I have seen your heart-the
shadows that rested upon it, the lights that now glorify it. Be
happy and fear not. Peace be with you alway.
"ESTELLE."
So far, the upper part of the face only had been seen; but
on the evening after the above message was received (namely,
April 21), the complete test was obtained. After giving the
details of various manifestations apparently of a phosphorescent character, Mr. Livermore says: " At last a luminous globe
which had remained stationary some six feet to my left floated
in front, and came within two feet of me. It was violently
agitated, crackling sounds were heard, and a figure became visible by its light. Then there was revealed the full head and
face of Estelle, every feature and lineament in perfection, spiritualized in shadowy beauty, such as no imagination can conceive or pen describe.. In her hair, above the left temple, was
a single white rose; the hair being apparently arranged with
great care. The entire head and face faded and then became
visible again, at least twenty times; the perfection of recognition, in each case, being in proportion to the brilliancy of the
light."
But, at this session, he, Mr. L., obtained other proof than
that of sight to confirm the reality of the appearance. The
head of the appearing figure rested for a time upon his, the
luxuriant hair dropping over his face and into his hand. He
says: "I laid hold of the hair, which seemed, to the touch, at
first identical with human hair; but, after a brief space, it
meltedl away, leaving nothing in mny grasp."
I select, at hap-hazard from numerous subsequent descriptions, the following:
"N o. 66. -June 2, 1861: 8.30 P.M. There came a reminder,
by raps:' Examine the room and take the keys of the doors;'
which I did.
"We had scarcely seated ourselves when there were violent




488              EXHIBITION OF BEAUTY
movements, succeeded at first by raps from various parts of
the room, then by terrific, crashing reports on the table-top,
like miniature thunderbolts, or loud discharges of electricity.
c"A rustling succeeded; and a form stood beside me; its
sphere permeating every fibre of my organization. Then there
was rapping on the back of my chair, afterward on my shoulders; and the figure, bending forward, placed a hand on my
head. A bright light sprang up behind us; it rose, attended
by electrical sounds. Then I was kissed on the head and a
light but distinctly-felt substance passed over me. Thereupon
I raised my eyes and beheld the face of Estelle, plainly visiblle
in front of the light, which now vibrated rapidly, throwing its
fitful gleams upon such beauty as, in beings of this world, it is
not given us to witness. She looked at me with an expression
radiant with blessedness.
" At this point Miss Fox became so excited that her irrepressible exclamations of wonder and delight seemed momentarily to disturb the appearance; for it receded, not appearing
again until she became calm; and this occurred several times.
Simultaneously lights appeared, floating about in different
parts of the room.
c" A card with which I had provided myself was then taken
from my hand and, after a time, visibly returned to me. On it
I found a communication beautifully written in pure, idiomatic
French; not a word of which was understood by Miss Fox:
she has no knowledge whatever of the language."
Passing over several intervening appearances on separate
evenings, I find this, under date June 4:
"'No. 81. Weather cool and pleasant. Wind north-west."
After detailing sundry less important phenomena, Mr. L. proceeds:
" There were very distinct rustlings, and there rose, several
feet above the table, a light so vivid as to illuminate all surrounding objects. As it approached me, a dark substance was
suddenly interposed. This descended from the light and remained stationary about two feet from my eyes. Gradually it




BEYOND WHAT IS FOUND ON EARTIr.           489
opened, disclosing a glimpse of Heaven and of an angel as
bright as imagination can picture. The figure of Estelle stood
there, the same pure, white rose in her tresses: features and
expression absolutely perfect unaer a full blaze of light.
" Six or seven times in succession, this form instinct with
life and beauty vanished and then reappeared, before my eyes.
When perhaps a quarter of an hour had elapsed, figure and
light both disappeared; but in a short time the light again
showed itself; this time in a corner of the apartment, where it
shone out so brightly that every article of furniture in that
part of the room was distinctly visible. And there, just as
plainly visible, stood a female figure, in full proportions, the
back toward us, and a veil, apparently of shining gauze, covering the head, and dropping, in front, to the knees.
"I asked if she would raise her arm. She did so-the attitude inexpressibly graceful. No pen can describe the exquisite,
transcendant beauty of what was this night revealed."
I do not see how we can reject, or explain away, such evidence as the above, even if the record were arrested here.
But what will the reader say when he is informed that more
than THREE HUNDRED additional sittings were still to be held;
all confirmatory of the above experiences.
It is impossible, within the limits of this volume, to follow
Mr. Livermore throughout his voluminous record. I can but
pick out, here and there, a few of the more salient and irrefut.
able results.
CORROBORATION THROUGHOUT SEVERAL YEARS.
HIere is an item touching on the resemblances between this
world and the next:
"JNo. 93. July 17, 1861.  Each succeeding appearance
seems more nearly perfect. This evening the figure of Estelle
was surrounded by floating drapery of shining, white gauze.
In her hand, held under her chin, was a bunch of flowers; and
neck and bosom were completely covered with roses and violets.
21*




490               A DARKI-ROBED FIGURE
"I asked:'Where do you obtain these flowers?' The
answer was:'This world is a counterpart of yours. WTe have
all that you have —gardens and spiritual flowers in abundance." 
Next month came this, among many others:
" No. 116. August 29. The figure of Estelle appeared soon
after we entered the room. She stood quietly while a light
floated close to face, head, and neck: as if to show each part
more distinctly. While we were looking on, her hair fell over
her face, and she put it back several times with her hand. Her
hair was dressed with roses and violets, beautifully arranged.
This was the most perfect of her efforts: she appeared almost
as distinctly as in life.." By her side stood a form, dressed, as we clearly saw, in
coat of what seemed dark cloth. Miss Fox became greatly
alarmed and very nervous. Because of this, or for some other
reason, the face of this second form was not visible and it soon
disappeared."  [More of this figure hereafter.]  The form of
Estelle, however, remained.
Then we have an incident going to prove that an apparition
may handle earthly objects. The weather being warm, AMr.
Livermore had brought with him, and laid on the table before
him, a fan. This was taken and held by her, in various positions, sometimes concealing a portion of her face. He (Mr. L.)
adds:
"The figure must have been visible to us, during this sitting,
for an hour and a half."
It appears that the robes with which it was invested, though
they dissolved in the hand, had a certain materiality.
"No. 137. October 4. The figure of Estelle came in great
vividness and with extraordinary power. A light floated about
the room and she followed it, gliding through the air; at-one
time her long, white robes sweeping over the table, and brushing from it pencils, paper, and other light objects, which fell to
the floor."




THROWS ITS SHADOW ON THE WALL.            491
DOCTOR FRANKLIN.
By the raps it was announced that the dark-robed figure
which had once or twice appeared was that of Dr. Franklin;
but no further proof of his identity was obtained until the sitting No. 162, of November 11. Then his face was first seen,
by a light which seemed to be held by another figure.  "If
any judgment can be formed firom original portraits of the
man," Mr. L. says, " there would seem to be no mistake about
his identity. He was dressed in brown coat of the olden style,
with white cravat: his head very large, with whitish or gray
hair behind the ears; the whole face radiant with intelligence,
benevolence, and spirituality."
The next evening he came again. Here is the record:
"The raps requested that a chair be placed for Dr. Franklin
on the side of the table opposite to where we sat. But the
idea of such a vis-a-vis made Miss Fox so nervous that I did
not insist. After a time she became quiet, and we heard the
chair moved to the desired spot.
" At this time the lights were dim; but I perceived a dark
figure standing near me. Very soon it moved round the table,
a rustling was heard, the lights brightened, and we saw what
seemed the old philosopher himself seated in the chair; his
entire form and dress in perfection. So vivid was the light,
and so palpable (as it would seem) the form before us, that
its shadow was thrown upon the wall, precisely as if it had
been a mortal seated there. The position was easy and dignified, one arm and hand on the table. Once he bent forward,
as if bowing to us, and I observed that his gray locks swayed
with the movement. He sat opposite to us more than an hour.
Finally I asked him if he would draw nearer: whereupon figure
and chair moved toward us, and our silent neighbor was in
close proximity. Before he disappeared he rose from his chair;
both face and form distinctly visible."
Thl4 ias at Mrs. Fox's; but the sitting of November 30th




492             AN APPARITION IS SEEN
was held in Mr. Livermore's own house. He tells us what he
then and there saw:
"  o. 175. Doors locked and sealed. Heavy concussions
and electrical sounds, a chair opposite moved into position;
then a request for matches. These were taken from my hand,
as I held them at arm's-length.
"After a time, the sound of friction, as in drawing a match,
was heard; and, after several apparent efforts, a match ignited.
By its light we saw that it was held by the figure, supposed
that of Franklin, which appeared in perfection, dressed as before, only that the color of his coat showed more perfectly.
But as soon as the match went out the figure disappeared.
" Afterward he reappeared (by match-light) ten or twelve
times. The third time my hat was on his head, worn as by
a living person; and then it was removed from his head to
mine. The last time he appeared, the figure of Estelle showed
itself, leaning on his shoulder: but Miss Fox became nervous,
and her exclamations (apparently) caused the final disappearance of both figures. Then there came the following:
"'This is what we have long labored to accomplish. You
can now say that you have seen me by the light of earth. I
will come again, in further proof.
"' B. F.'
This promise was kept on December 12; again, in Mr.
Livermore's house. His record is:
"N Ao. 179. At my own house. I had procured a dark lantern, covered with a cloth casing and provided with a valve so
that I could throw a circle of light two feet in diameter on a
wall ten feet distant.
"I placed this lantern, lighted, on the table and held the
medium's hands. Soon it rose into the air and we were requested to follow. A form, carrying the lantern, preceded us.
The outline of this spirit-form was distinct, its white robes
dropping to the floor. The lantern was placed on a bureau;
and we stood facing a window which was between that bureau
and a large mirror.




BY EARTH-LIGHT.                   493
"Then the lantern again rose, remaining suspended about
five feet from the floor between the bureau and the mirror;
and, by its light, we discerned the figure of Franklin seated
in my arm-chair by the window, in front of a dark curtain.
For fully ten minutes at a time, the light from the suspended
lantern rested on his face and figure, so that we had ample
time to examine both. At first the face seemed as if of actual
flesh, the hair real, the eyes bright and so distinct that I clearly
saw the whites. But I noticed that gradually the whole appearance, including the eyes, was deadened by the earthly
light and ceased to wear the aspect of life with which the
forms I had seen by spiritual light were replete.
"Several times I was requested to adjust the valve, so as to
allow more or less light; and this I did while the lantern remained suspended, or held by invisible power.
"At the close of this sitting we found written on a card:
"' My son: it is for the benefit of the world. I have worked
for this.'                                       B. F."
Other strange items come up, incidentally, in this record.
Here is one:
SPIRIT-FLOWERS.
"No. 218. February 7, 1862. Sky clear; atmosphere cold.
Doors and windows secured with sealing-wax.
"A card which I had brought with me was taken from my
pocket; a bright light rose from the table, and by it there was
shown to us the card, to the centre of which there had been
fixed what seemed a small bunch of flowers. The light faded
and *e were requested to light the gas. The flowers were a
red rose, with green leaves and forget-me-nots; very beautiful,
and apparently real.
" I inspected them for several minutes, at intervals; turning
off the gas and relighting five or six times. The flowers still
remained. Above them was written:
"' lowers from our home in Heaven.'
"Finly the flowers began to fade, and we were requested




494           FLOWERS FROM SPIRIT-LAND.
to extinguish the gas. When we did so, it was replaced by a
spirit-light under which the flowers were again distinctly visible. Then, by the raps:'Do not take your eyes off the
flowers: watch them closely.'
" We did so. They gradually diminished in size, as we
gazed, till they became mere specks; and then they disappeared
before our eyes. When I lighted the gas, I found no trace
of them on the card.
" Then I carefully examined the seals on the doors and windows, and found them intact."
Here is another item from the record of sitting 283, Novem.
ber 3, 1862.
"The hair of the figure (Estelle's) hung loosely over her
face. I lifted it, so as to see her more perfectly. Then she
rose into the air and passed over my head, her robe sweeping
across my head and face."
And here is another of an incident that occurred during sitting 335, of December 31, 1862:
" I turned down the gas partially only. By its light I distinguished a hand, with white sleeve encircling the wrist. It
held a flower which, with its stem, was about three inches long.
I reached my hand to take it; but at the moment my fingers
touched it, there was a sharp snap, as from a powerful electric
spark. Then I turned on the full gas. The hand, floating
about, still held the flower; and after a time, placed it on a
sheet of paper which lay on the table. It proved to be a pink
rose-bud with green leaves: to the touch it was cold, damp, and
glutinous. Then a peculiar white flower, resembling a daisy,
was presented. After a time they all melted away. While
this occurred the room was as light as lay."
Under date October 21, 1863 (session 365), Mr. Livermore
says: "I brought with me, this evening, the dark lantern
already described; and, as soon as the figure of Estelle appealrd, I threw its light full on her.  She quailed a little, but
stood her ground, for some time, while I directed the light to




ADDITIONAL WITNESSES.              4)3j
her face and eyes, afterward to different parts of her dress.
Then she disappeared and I had the communication:' It was
with the greatest difficulty that I could hold myself in form
without disappearing.'"
Through all of the above experiences it will be observed that
M}ir. Livermore himself and the medium were the only witnesses; aLl it will suggest itself that the proof would have
been more complete had others been admitted to the sittings.
This did occur, during the latter years in which these experiments were made.
TwO ADDITIONAL WITNESSES.
It is well known to those who have experience in spiritual
researches that the admission of an additional sitter into a
circle always diminishes the power for a time; retarding and
weakening the phenomena. Sometimes it arrests them altogether; but, in many cases, after a few sessions, the newcomer seems gradually to fall into magnetic relation with the
circle, and the phenomena resume their vigor. This law became manifest when additional members were admitted to Mr.
Livermore's circle. That gentleman has recorded ten sittings
at which Dr. Gray was present, and eight at which his (Mr.
L.'s) brother-in-law, Mr. Groute, assisted.
Dr. Gray is well known in the city of New York, as one
among its most esteemed and successful medical men; * and I
doubt if there be any one in the United States who has devoted more time and attention than he to the phenomena and
the philosophy of Vital Magnetism and of Spiritualism.
The first opportunity he had of joining Mr. Livermore's
circle was during sitting No. 256, of June 6, 1862. On that
occasion the figure of Dr. Franklin appeared, but evidently
with difficulty, and without the full expression which he had
* With the single drawback, as some men would esteem it-but I am
not among that number-that his practice is homoeopathic.




496           APPEAiANCES OF FRANKLIN.
previously worn. The hair, however, and clothing were both
nearly as usual, and were handled by Dr. Gray.
Eleven days later, Dr. Gray was present a second time.  On
this occasion the figure of Dr. Franklin showed itself several
times; but the features, at first, were not recognizable, and, on
another occasion, a portion of the face only was formed, presenting a deformed and disagreeable aspect. This had not occurred during any of Mr. Livermore's previous sittings.
Estelle did not show herself on either of these occasions.
The third time (June 25) the figure of Franklin appeared in
perfection, and was recognized by Dr. Gray.
During the fourth sitting, there was a message to the effect
that a piece of the spirit's garment might be cut off with
scissors and examined. Both Dr. Gray and Mr. Livermore
availed themselves of this permission. For a time the texture
was strong, so that it might be pulled without coming apart.
They had both time to examine it critically before it melted
away.
Other observations touching the partial, and the gradual,
formation of apparitions, were made, during subsequent sessions
by Dr. Gray, and will be adverted to in the next chapter.
During subsequent sittings the figure of Dr. Franklin appeared to Dr. Gray as perfectly and under as bright light, as
it had ever done to Mr. Livermore. But Estelle showed herself before the Doctor on a single occasion only; during sitting
384, of November 10, 1865. This was at Mr. Livermore's
house. She appeared with a white gossamer covering over her
head and a transparent veil; the lower portion of the dress
loose and flowing.
Mr. Groute was present during sitting No. 346, of February
28, 1863; and he held the medium's hands. As soon as the
gas was extinguished, Mr. L. was pulled, apparently by a large
hand, to the sofa; above which Franklin's figure then appeared,
the light rising from the floor. When Mr. Groute saw him
and became convinced that it was the appearance of a human
figure, he went instantly to the doors to assure himself that they




A FIGURE FLOATS IN THE AIR.           497
were still locked. He then returned and handled the garments
of the figure.
But he seems to have been of sceptical temperament; for, a
week later, he came again, resolved to make all safe. He himself secured doors and windows: he " had no idea," he said,
"' of being deceived."
This time the figure of Franklin appeared much more
vividly than before. It held, in its hand, a light, as if that it
might be thoroughly examined, and the " unbelieving Thomas "
oe fully satisfied. Mr. Groute, who had been holding both Mr.
Livermore's and Miss Fox's hands from the beginning of the
sitting, approached the figure, saw and touched; and, like the
apostle, frankly acknowledged his conviction.
During one sitting (No. 355, of May 1, 1863), both Dr.
Gray and Mr. Groute were present: the form of Dr. Franklin
was perfect and was fully recognized by both gentlemen. Next
evening, Dr. Gray being the only visitor, the figure of Dr.
Franklin appeared in the air, about two feet above Dr. Gray's
head, as if stooping toward the doctor and looking down upon
him. He was clothed in a dark mantle, and floated, for some
time, about the room. Dr. Gray, familiar as he was with
spiritual phenomena, declared this manifestation to be " stupendous."
The last time the figure of Estelle appeared, was during session No. 388, held April 2, 1866. From that day forth,
though Mr. Livermore has received, even up to the time I
write, frequent messages of sympathy and affection, he has
seen the well-known form no more.
The first thing which will occur to any upright man, having
the good of his race at heart, is that-supposing this narrative
to be strictly true-the witness of such unexampled phenomena
-selecting, of course, his own time, place, and manner-had no
moral right to withhold from the world the experience which
God had permitted him to enjoy. To whom much is given of
him shall much be required. I know that Mr. Livermore




498                REMARKS ON THE
testifies with that natural reluctance which men feel-to expos,
themselves, even for the greatest truth's sake, to the imputation
of being either deceivers or deceived. I know that he gives
his testimony under the solemn conviction that the most trivial
misstatement, the slightest exaggeration, the least attempt at
false-coloring for the sake of effect, would be little less than
blasphemy-would be treason to a sacred cause.
Deceived by anything resembling imposture it is impossible to
imagine that he could have been. I have known Kate Fox for
years: she is one of the most simple-minded and strictly impulsive young persons I have ever met: as incapable of framing,
or carrying on, any deliberate scheme of imposition as a tenyear-old child is of administering a government. Dr. Gray, who
has been intimate with her from her early infancy, writing to a
friend in England in regard to MIr. Livermore's experiments, under date January, 1867, says: " Miss Fox, the medium, deported
herself with patient integrity of conduct; evidently doing all in
her power, at all times, to promote a fair trial and just decision
of each phenomenon as it occurred." But if she had been the
wiliest of impostors the attendant circumstances would have
rendered her intentions powerless. The locality of the experiments was, in every instance, selected by Mr. Livermore;
often in his own house. Doors and windows were secured
with sealing-wax. The medium's hands were held during all
the most important manifestations. Finally the experiences
stretched over six entire years, and were observed throughout
three humndred and eighty-eight recorded sittings, under every
variety of circumstance.  The theory of persistent imposture,
in such a case, is a sheer absurdity.
There remains the hypothesis of hallucination, so often put
forth as a last resort. But, in this instance, it is singularly
out of place. Mr. Livermore is, in the strictest sense, a practical man of business. He has been engaged, during most of
his life and up to the present day, in enterprises, financial and
industrial, of an extensive, sometimes of a colossal character;
and in these-this the world can appreciate-he has been uni



EVIDENCE OF MR. LIVERMORE.             499
formly successfua. During the very time of his spiritual experiments he was conducting vast operations involving constant
watchfulness and responsibility.
This, then, is no dreamer, secluded in his study; shut out
from the world and feeding on his own thoughts: no theorizer,
with a favorite system to uphold; and, though a man of decided
convictions, not even an enthusiast.  Dr. Gray, writing to an
English periodical in 1861, says of him: " Eesides his general
character for veracity and probity Mr. Livermore is a competent witness to the important facts he narrates, because he is
not in any degree subject to the illusions and hallucinations
which may be supposAl to attac'h to the trance or ecstatic condition.  I have known him from his very early manhood, and
am hi;; medical adviser. He is less liable to be misled by errors
of his organs of sense than almost any man of my large circle
of patients and acquaintance."
Add to this that the evidence does not rest upon Mr. Livermore's testimony alone. There is the corroborative experience
of Dr. Gray and of Mr. Groute. I have conversed quite recently
(October, 1871) with both these gentlemen, and they have declared to me, in the strongest terms, their unqualified convic.
tion touching the reality of the phenomena and the accuracy of
the entire record.
Upon what theory with any claim to consideration is this
mass of testimony to be set aside? Are we to imagine, on the
part of these gentlemen, a base plot to palm upon the world, in
support of the great doctrine of immortality, an impious falsehood? Did the sittings not take place? Or, if they did, was
no figure seen, touched, examined, month after month, year
after year? Is the story of its appearance and disappearance,
hundreds of times, by spiritual light and by the light of
earth-of its floating through the air, of its thousand actions,
demonstrations, messages written by no human hand-is all
this but baseless fable? Is the entire six-years' record a forgery?
Each reader must decide this question for himself. I will




500              MR. LIVERMORE'S LETTER
not, however, withhold my opinion that any one, who should
put forth such a hypothesis as ground sufficient for rejecting
these proofs of man's continuous existence in another world
and of his occasional powver thence to communicate with earth,
would be setting a precedent which, if consistently followed
out, would go to subvert all reasonable confidence in human
testimony.*
* This chapter has been read over by me to Mr. Livermore (October,
1871), and its accuracy assented to by him. I had previously received
from him, with permission to publish it, this note:
FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORn,
July 26, 1871.
MY ESTEEMED FRIEND:
I cannot refuse your request for particulars of some of those experiences which I have read to you from my Journal of 1861-66. In
giving them I desire, by way of averting misconception, to make a few
explanations.
I commenced these investigations an out-and-out sceptic. They
were undertaken solely with a view to satisfy my own mind; and with
no thought, motive, or desire for publicity.
After thorough and careful scrutiny I found, to my surprise, that
the phenomena were real. After ten years of experience, with ample
opportunities for observation (often with scientific men), I arrive at
these conclusions:
First. That there exists, in presence of certain sensitives of high
nervous organization, a mysterious force, capable of moving ponderable
bodies, and which exhibits intelligence.
For example: A pencil without contact wvith human hand, or any
visible agency, apparently of its own volition, writes intelligently, and
answers questions pertinently.
Second. That temporary formations, material in structure and cognizable by the senses, are produced by the same influence; are animated by the same mysterious force, and pass off as incomprehensibly as
they came.
For example: Hands which grasp with living power; flowers which
emit perfume and can be handled; human forms, and parts of forms;
recognizable faces; representations of clothing and the like.
Third. That this force and the resulting phenomena are developed
in a greater or less degree, according to the physical and mental con



TO THE AUTHOR.                    501
I do not expect to see this ground taken. I fear, rather, the
thoughtlessness with which a busy world-engrossed with a thou
sand cares, duties, pleasures of this life-passes by, like the
Jews listening to Paul in the Athenian Areopagus, anything
that relates to another.  " And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and others sail:'We will
hear thee again of this matter.'"
Yet I know there are many, longing for full satisfaction, in
whom the above narrative-even if it fail to work entire conviction as to spirit intercourse-will kindle an earnest desire,
should opportunity offer, to examine for themselves whether
such phenomena-inestimable if they can be substantiatedare a bright reality or a perilous delusion.
ditions of the sensitive; and, in a measure, by atmospherical conditions.
Fourth. That the intelligence which governs this force is (under
pure conditions) independent of, and external to, the minds of the
sensitive and investigator.
For example: Questions unknown to either, sometimes in language
unknown to either, are duly answered.
The origin of these phenomena is an open question.
You may rely on these records as being free from exaggeration, in
each and every particular.
Very sincerely your friend,
C. F. LIVERMORE.
The Honorable
ROBERT DALE OWEN.




CHAPTER V.
WHAT APPARITIONS ARE AND HOW FORMED.
"Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see
me have." -LuE xxiv. 39.
THESE words are ascribed by Luke to Jesus, as having been
spoken to his affrighted disciples, when he appeared in the
midst of them, on the third day after his crucifixion. They
are not given by any other Evangelist; John, who touches on
the subject, merely saying that Jesus " showed unto them his
hands and his side."
Jt so happens that these words are quoted by Ignatius, * one
tf the oldest and most eminent of the Apostolic Fathers, the
lisciple and familiar friend of the Apostles. But, as he quotes
them, there is a variance from the text in Luke, thus  " IIandle me and see, for I am not a spirit without body: " (dainionion asomaton.)
I believe this to be the true reading. Facts appe ar to favor
the opinion that man is composed-First, of an earthly or natural body, visible to us and which, subjected immediately after
the death-change to the chemical laws which govern inanimate
matter, rapidly decays: Second, as St. Paul alleges, of a spiritual body; and this, it would seem, pervades, during earthlife, the entire natural body, and issues fiom it at the moment
of death: Third, of a soul, as to which we have no evidence
that it ever appears or exists except in connection with the
spiritual body. t  According to this view, we must regard the
* He is usually believed to have been a disciple of St. Peter, and was
Bishop of Antioch about the year 70. He suffered martyrdom under
Trajan, at an advanced age, probably about A. D. 107.
t Throughout this work I have employed the word spirit to mean
a soul invested in a spiritual body.




THE SPmIlTUAL BODY.                 503
denizens of the next world as men disencumbered of the natural body: the soul and the spiritual body surviving the deathchange.
It is an opinion fortified by all we hear on the subject
through ultramundane sources, that the spiritual body exhibits
a close resemblance, in form, to the -natural body. There
seems good reason why we should think of our departed friends
not as impalpable shades, but as real, individual personages,
whom we shall recognize, at sight, in another world, even as
we recognized them, erewhile, in this: their forms, perhaps,
gradually becoming more felicitous expressions of a gradually
ennobled individuality.
This spiritual body is not usually visible to human sight.
Those only can see it to whom, as Paul has expressed it, the
power of "discerning of spirits" is given. Naturally-gifted
seers undoubtedly see the Spirit; that is, the spiritual body
animated by a living soul. Nor should this surprise us.
"MIen have no right," says John Stuart Mill, " to mistake the
limit of their own faculties for an inherent limitation of the
possible modes of existence in the universe."
But as this gift of spirit-discernment is rare, and as the
proof it furnishes can -bring direct conviction only to the seer
himself, it is evident that if the outside world is to obtain similar conviction, there must be presented to our sight something
more material than the celestial body which appertains to our
next phase of being.
The evidence I have adduced goes to show that a spirit may
— under certain conditions and aided, probably, by other
spirits-fabricate an ephemeral eidolon, resembling the body it
had while on earth; but evanescent, especially under earthlight; so that the poet's line,
" It faded at the crowing of the cock,"
is in strict accordance with the character of the actual phenomenon.
Those who have been fortunate enough to witness this prod.




504              A TEMPORARY INDUEMENT.
uct of spiritual art under its various phases, allege that
it may sometimes, under favorable conditions, be marvellous]y
perfect and even  transcendently beautiful.   Dr. Gray, one
of the most accurate and dispassionate of observers, told me
that on one of the occasions, already referred to, when the
image of Franklin presented itself, he looked steadily in the
eyes of the figure and noticed their life-like and expressive character; even that their expression changed in accordance with
what was passing at the time. "The living glance of these
eyes," he said to me, " wrought in me a thorough conviction
that it was the old philosopher himself, and no other, who sat
in the opposite chair."
By what process this temporary induement (if it be correct to
regard it as induement) is effected, we certainly do not know
at this time; and perhaps we never shall, until we learn it, on
the other side, from the spiritual artists themselves.  All that
one seems justified in surmising is that there are invisible exudations from  the human organization-more or less from all
persons, but especially from the bodies of spiritual sensitives ** Like Leah and Kate Fox, D. Dunglas Home and other favored
"mediums; " in whose presence these formations occasionally appear.
There are facts which seem to indicate that there exists in the physical
systems of some so-called "mediums," a superfluity of phosphorus;
and this may be one of the principal ingredients. Dr. Wilson, of New
York, whom I have already mentioned, told me that he had been one
of a committee of six persons who, during a carefully-conducted experiment where the strictest precautions against deception were taken,
obtained from the tips of the fingers of a well-known medium, phosphorus, slightly varying from the phosphorus of commerce. He
showed me a small quantity of this which he had preserved, as evidence of the result.
There appear to be exceptions, however, to the rule that apparitions
and other spiritual phenomena can be manifested only when a " mediUInr" is present. I have already stated that endemical,. as well as personal, influences seem occasionally to make possible such phenomena,
persistent through several generations, in certain localities; usually in
old houses which thereby acquire the character of being haunted. It
may be said, in a general way, that we know very little touching the
precise conditions under which such occurrences take place.




SPIRITUAL SCULPTURE.              505
which spirits wan condense, or otherwise modify, so as to produce not only what to the senses of human beings is a visible
and tangible form, but also substances resembling earthly clothing and other inanimate objects. It appears that they can
thus produce also what we might call sculptured representations
of portions of the human figure, as of hands and parts of hands,
and the like. Let us bear in mind, however, that the fact of
a phenomenon is independent of its explanation.
I have myself had one opportunity of witnessing the lastmentioned phenomenon.
WHBAT APPEARED AS DETACHED PORTIONS OF A HUMAN FIGURE
DISTINCTLY SEEN.
On the ewcning of July 27, 1861, T was at Mr. Underhill's
house. Mrs. Underhill proposed that, instead of sitting there,
we should adjourn to her mother's residence, No. 66 West 46th
street, where we should probably be able to add her sister Kate
to the circle. We did so.
Preparations were made to sit in the lower parlor; but as I
observed that there were no keys in the doors, I proposed to
sit in the upper parlor, which was at once assented to; and we
moved thither.
By the raps, I was requested to secure the doors, which I
did, putting the keys in my pocket. I also carefully examined
the whole room, which had no press or closet. Then we were
bidden to put out the gas. Within a few minutes afterward
there were three or four most violent raps, as by a heavy bludgeon, on the table; then a quiet interval of some fifteen minutes; after which there suddenly appeared, between Kate and
Mrs. Underhill, the figure of an arm and shoulder. The hand
was not distinct. The arm was well-shaped and seemed that of
a woman of medium size; the elbow bent and the lower arm
turned upward. Behind it was a light, but I could distinguish
no central point whence this light emanated, as it might from
a lamp or candle.  The arm showed quite distinctly, from
22




506                  EXMPES OF
the wrist to the shoulder, against this light: —distinctly, but
not in sharp outline; the outlines being softened off, as in a
mezzotint engraving. There depended, from the arm, drapery,
hanging down some five or six inches; it was gauze-like and
semi-transparent. This arm and shoulder approached, moving
just above the table and passing Mrs. Underhill in front, until
it came within seven or eight inches of me; the drapery waving to and fro, with the motion of the arm.
There it remained for about a minute; then disappeared and
reappeared, at intervals of some four or five minutes, three
several times; so that I could deliberately observe it and make
sure of my observations; for the light, whencesoever its origin,
moved with the figure; appearing and disappearing coincidently with it. I saw no head or features above the arm: but
adjoining it, dimly indicated, what seemed a small portion of a
human form.
After a time a luminous appearance, more bright than the
first, came over the table and stopped not more than four or
five inches from my face. It resembled a cylinder, illuminated
from within; its length being about five or six inches and its
apparent calibre about one inch.  Over it was something
hanging in dark streaks. By the raps was spelled out " Hair."
I asked that it might touch me: whereupon it was waved forward and touched my forehead with unmistakable distinctness:
the touch resembling that of human hair. After a few minutes
it disappeared.
The other sitters described these appearances as seen by
them precisely as they were seen by me.
As soon as the sitting closed I examined both doors and
found them locked. The room in which we sat, be it borne in
mind, was selected by myself.
Some years after the above,* Dr. Gray, speaking of the
sittings he had with Mr. Livermore, told me that, at one of
* May 5, 1868.




SPIrTUA  SCUTUE.                   507
these, there was laid on the table before them a cylinder about
the same size as that I saw: but, more fortunate than I, they
had an opportunity of handling it. It seemed, Dr. Gray said,
to be of rock crystal, or some similar hard, perfectly transparent
material, and to be filled with some aincandescent fluid, whicb
was only faintly glowing when at rest; but when the cylinder
was agitated the light shone out brightly. During the time
they saw and examined it, there was no other light in the room
except that which it emitted. By the raps it was stated that
the cylinder was the light-vehicle employed by the attendant
spirits to illuminate their ephemeral productions; being, itself,
as ephemeral as the rest.
On the same occasion Dr. Gray stated to me that he saw a
detached hand appear and disappear four or five times. At
first it was of a dark-bronze color; but each time it became
lighter in color, until, on its final exhibition, it was as fair as
any Caucasian hand.
At another time his spectacles, which he had on at the
time, were carried off and soon after brought back. He asked
to be shown how this was done: whereupon there appeared
two imperfect fingers, almost resembling talons, attached to a
small strip of hand reaching into the darkness. These appeared
to be animate, or at least obedient to some will: for, like living tongs, they picked up and bore away the spectacles; then,
after a minute or two, replaced them. *
To a question asked by Dr. Gray why the whole hand was
usually shown instead of two detached fingers, the reply, by
raps, was that most persons would be alarmed or disgusted at
sight of such an amorphous formation.
At another time a mass of what seemed flesh was laid on
Dr. Gray's naked foot which he had exposed for the purpose.
Left there, at his request, for some time, it became intolerably
hot; and he supposes it would ultimately have burned him.
This suggests that phosphorus may have been one of the ingre.
* Session 342. Mr. Livermore found the fingers solid to the touch.




508              A MISSING EYE APPEARS.
dients employed: and perhaps it affords a clue to the stories
of a spectre grasping the wrist or hand of some terrified wretch,
and leaving thereon the marks of burning fingers.
Dr. Gray related to me a still more interesting observation.
On one of the last occasions that the figure of Franklin presented itself, the face appeared, at first, imperfectly formed:
showing one eye only: for, in place of the other eye and part
of the cheek, there was a dark cavity which looked hideous
enough. KIate Fox caught sight of it and screamed out in
mortal terror, causing the temporary extinguishment of the
light under which the figure appeared.
" Silly child," exclaimed the Doctor, seizing her hands;
" don't you see you are interrupting one of the most interesting
experiments in the world-the gradual formation of an apparition?"
This philosophical view of the case quieted, by degrees,
Kate's excited nerves and dispelled her superstitious terrors: so
that when, after less than five minutes' interval, the face of
the sage again appeared, every feature perfect and the expression
that of bright, calm benignity, she herself was the first to
exclaim: " How beautiful! "
This was during one of the last sittings at which Dr. Gray
assisted. On several of the earliest occasions, as the Doctor
informed me, the face, though distinctly marked, seemed sometimes shrivelled and as if made of dough, at other times it resembled the face of a corpse.
Other details* and minor incidents I omit; seeing that all
we yet know furnishes no sufficient basis on which to found
* Both Dr. Gray and Mr. Livermore informed me that, on several
occasions when apparitions presented themselves-especially when
Estelle appeared-the room was suddenly pervaded by a delicious perfume. This seemed to be emitted from the person of the appearing
figure.
When the Church of Rome speaks of some of its saints " dying in the
odor of sanctity," the expression may possibly refer to an actual phenomenora




IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL EIDOLA.            1509
any distinct theory touching the precise character and formation-process of apparitions.
I do not doubt that, even in this world, we shall, some day,
know much more about the matter.* These eidola appear to
be gradually becoming more common; and it may enter into
God's purpose that, in the future of our world, such a phenomenon shall be the foundation of a universal belief in immortality.
I consider this the more probable because it is apparent that
moral and spiritual progress has not, in modern times, kept
pace with intellectual and material. But ability, mental or
physical, is a doubtful good, if there lack an ethical and religious element to give beneficent direction to it.
Nor do I see how such a civilizing element can manifest itself in full power-can prevail against error and vice, can
dominate bur race-without the aid —not of a vague belief
adopted from written creeds-but of a living, abiding, fervent
conviction (such as sense-evidence brings home), that there is
a better world where all earthly thoughts and deeds, how
secretly-concealed soever here, shall unfailingly bear their appropriate fruit: ill-feeling, ill-doing infallibly entailing sorrow
and suffering; well-feeling and well-doing as inevitably bringing about an after-life of satisfying happiness, such as it is not
given to us here to conceive.
* I have not any doubt that some of the apparitions seen by MIr.
Livermore-casting, as they did, a shadow on the wall and a reflection
in a mirror-might, by proper appliances, have been photographed;
and I regret much that it did not occur to Mr. L. to attempt this.
How satisfactory would it have been, in giving his narrative, to re.
produce an actual photograph of Estelle, in all her spiritual beauty I




BOOK VI.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS OF THE FIRST CENTURY APPEARING IN
OUR OWN TIMES.
"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit."- 1 CORinTIImAS xii. 4.
CHAPTER I.
CURES BY SPIRITUAL AGENCY.
-" to another faith by the same spirit; to another the gift of healing
by the same spirit."-1 CORINTIIIANS xii. 9.
T-HE facts which go to attest the substantial coincidence between the signs and wonders related in the Gospels, and the
spiritual epiphanies of the present day, merit a volume: but I
can make room here in favor of that branch of the subject, for
two brief chapters only.
Whenever this topic is fully treated, the results, to Christianity, will be beyond calculation. Now, after eighteen hundred
years, we cannot conceive any evidence in p)roof of the Gospel
narrative so strong as the fact (if fact it be), that wonderful
works and spiritual gifts of similar character to those mentioned in the New Testament come to light among us now.
If they do occur now, it is not conceivable that they were
imagined, or invented, by the Evangelists and by Paul. If they
do appear to-day and if we still set down the Gospel narrative
as fable, I know not what fact, two thousand years old, can be
established by any historical evidence whatever. Caesar miay
not have lived in Rome, nor died in the senate chamber. Soc.




CHRIST S MISSION.                 511
rates may never have spent his life in teaching philosophy, nor
lost it in defence of the truths he uttered.
Of the various spiritual powers exercised by Christ, that of
healing was the chief. His mission, according to his own view
of it, was to bring health to the sick and glad tidings to the
poor. When John the Baptist sent, asking: "Art thou he
that should come, or look we for another? " Jesus, for answer,
sent him word: " The blind receive their sight, and the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are
raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them." * So
also of his disciples.
This power has been claimed by the Church of Rome, as exercised by her holy men and women, and, after'their death, by
their relics. Among what may be called a dissenting sect of
that Church-the Jansenists-it appeared, at one time, in wondierful phase. t
We have overwhelming proof at the present day that it is
not confined to the Roman Church. The curative powers of
what has been called vital magnetism are admitted by all, except the hopelessly prejudiced. This phase of the healing
power has shown itself chiefly in France; sometimes on a great
scale. The -Marquis de Guibert, a benevolent French noble,
established, on his estate of Fontchateau, in the Commune of
Tarascon, an hospital in which, during the six years from 1834
to 1840, upward of three thousand three hundred patients were
treated by magnetic agency, gratuitously. The Marquis, a
powerful magnetizer, operated personally; and has given the
* Matthew xi. 5.
t In 1656, at Port Royal. See Footfalls, p. 83. And again, in far
more marvellous guise, in 1731 and for years thereafter, at the tomb of
the Abb5 P`ris. Those who are curious in such matters, will find
details in a paper contributed by me to the Atlantic Monthly, entitled:
Convulsionists of St. Midard, and published in the numbers for Febru.
ary and March, 1864. See also Footfalls, pp. 85-87.




512                 THE MAGNETIC HOSPITAL
detailed results in an elaborate report, in which each case, with
its separate malady, is set forth.
Of the patients treated by him more than one half were
thrown into somnambulic sleep, while upward of five hundred
were wholly impassive to magnetic influence.  Nearly three.
fifths (1,948) left the hospital cured; and three hundred and
seventy-five more were partially relieved.*
I do not allege that these are cures by spiritual agency; but
they were wrought by an influence with which we are little
acquainted; and which, in past ages, has been again and again
mistaken for miraculous. It is an open question, also, whether
a magnetizer, employing an occult and imponderable agent, and
* I have not been able to obtain the report itself. But its results are
summed up in a French work, Physiologie, Mfdeine et MNitaphysique du
Magnetisme," by Dr. CIARPIGNON, member of the Medical Faculty of
Paris, and of several learned societies. He gives (at p. 274) the following table:
Total Patients.  Impassive.  Somnambules.    Cured.
Men..........    1,194        180          424          663
Women.......    2,121         324         1,259       1,285
Totals........   3,315        504         1,683       1,948
Here are some interesting results. We findThat of the women more than two-thirds were cured, and of the men
more than one-half (0.55).
That of the women nearly three-fifths were affected by somnambulic
influence, and of the men little more than a third.
That nearly an equal proportion of both sexes-a little more than
one-sixth-were wholly impassive; nearly five-sixths being more or less
susceptible.
Charpignon does' not give a detailed list of the maladies; but he
mentions that there were fourteen cases of contraction of the limbs, of
which seven were cured.
He states, on the authority of a medical friend of his (Dr. Despine,
who visited the hospital at Fontchateau), that so great were the Marquis's powers of magnetization, that he couldprodace, in a few seconds,
effects which he (Dr. Despine) and others required half an hour, oz
more, to obtain.




OF THE MARQUIS DE GUIBERT.            513
devoting himself, like the Marquis de Guibert, to the relief of
human suffering, does not receive spiritual aid. I think the
weight of evidence is in favor of the theory that he often does.
I am fortunate, however, in being able to furnish two narratives, attested by name, place, and date, in which I think it cannot rationally be denied that the curative agency was unmistakably spiritual. The first I obtained in this country, the second
in Europe.
PARALYSIS OF THE MOTOR NERVE.
In the month of February, 1858, a lady, the wife of Mr.
Davis, of Providence, Rhode Island, was residing at her home
in the immediate vicinity of that city.
It happened, one morning, when a large and powerful horse
was standing harnessed in front of the house, that a servant,
passing carelessly close to the animal with a child's carriage in
which was an infant daughter of Mrs. Davis, accidentally dropped the tongue of the carriage close to the horse's heels. Mrs.
Davis, seeing the danger of her child, rushed to the horse's
head and, seizing him suddenly by the bridle with her right
hand, the animal reared violently so as almost to lift her fiom
her feet. She succeeded, however, in leading him off from her
child, which thus escaped unhurt.
At the moment she experienced no pain: afterward she went
about her usual occupations, but felt faint and languid throughout the day. About ten o'clock P.M., sitting down to supper,
she first noticed a pain in her elbow, and then, when she attempted to use her right hand, was unable to do so: she found
it impossible to close three of the fingers of that hand; the index finger alone obeying the impulse of her will. After a time
the pain increased and extended above the elbow.
In the course of the night the right leg also became affected,
the pain extending to the hip. In the morning she discovered
that she could not, by any effort of the -will, move either the
right arm or the right leg.
The physicians declared it to be a case of paralysis of the
22*




514            A CASE OF PARALYSIS
motor nerve, caused chiefly by sudden excitement. For a long
time it resisted all remedies. During seven weeks the paralysis
continued unabated. In all that time she never used hand or
arm: when she walked she had to drag the right leg after her
The leg, too, became cold even to the hip, and all efforts to
warm it were ineffectual.
In the month of April she experienced slight relief by the
frequent use of electricity; but only so far that, by a special
effort of the will she could partially move her hand and arm.
Habitually she rested the elbow on her hip, or, when sitting in
an arm-chair, raised it with the other hand so as to rest it on the
chair-arm. Nor did she ever, until the incident about to be
related, regain the power of straightening either leg or arm. Nor
was the warmth of the leg at all restored: and when she
walked she still had to drag it after her along the ground.
This continued, without alteration or improvement, until the
month of July, 1858: and by this time she had become completely disheartened. Life seemed to her no longer worth having; a cripple for life; a burden to her friends; useless to her
family. She gave way to tears and despondency.
In the early part of July a friend, Mrs. J, wife of a gentleman well-known in New York literary circles, and who had
been staying with Mrs. Davis, proposed to close her visit and
return to that city. Suddenly Mrs. Davis experienced an impulse for which she could not at all account. It was an urgent
desire to go to New York and visit Mrs. Underhill* (Leah Fox),
with whom she was not acquainted, having merely heard of her
through Mrs. J-.  She said to that lady that if she would
remain with her a day longer, she (Mrs. Davis) would accompany her to New York and visit Mrs. Underhill in hope of
relief. Mrs. J     consenting, they left Providence on the
evening of July 3, notwithstanding the doubts expressed by Mr.
Davis whether his wife would be able to endure the journey;
* Then Mrs. Brown. Mr. Brown died not long after; and, eventu.
ally, Mr. Underhill married his widow.




BROUGHT TO LEAI FOX.                515
reached New York next morning, and proceeded at once to
Mrs. Underhill's.
Mrs. Davis was so much exhausted on her arrival, that she
kept her bed until the afternoon; when she, Mrs. J, and
Mrs. Underhill met in the parlor.
Loud raps being heard, it was proposed to sit down at the
centre-table. Before doing so, however, Mrs. Underhill requested Mrs. Davis, for her own satisfaction, to examine the
room and its furniture. Mrs. Davis, from motives of delicacy,
at first declined; but as Mrs. Underhill urged her request, Mrs.
D. finally made the examination in a thorough manner, discovered nothing under the tables or elsewhere to excite suspicion, and convinced herself that there was no one in the room.
It being but three o'clock in the afternoon, there was bright
day-lighlt.
Soon after the ladies sat down, all their hands being on the
table, Mrs. Davis felt the ankle of her right leg seized as by the
firm grasp of a human hand, the foot raised and the heel placed
in what seemed another hand.* The touch of the fingers and
thumb was unmistakably distinct, and indicated that it was a
right hand which grasped the ankle, while a left hand received
the heel. After a time the hand which had seized the ankle
released its grasp, and Mrs. Davis felt it make passes down the
leg. These passes were continued about ten minutes. Mrs.
Davis felt a sensation as of the circulation pervading the
paralyzed limb; and the natural warmth, of which it had been
for months deprived, gradually returned. At the expiration of
the ten minutes, there was spelled out by raps: "'Rise and
walk."
Mrs. Davis arose and found, with an amazement which she
said no words could describe, that she could walk as well as she
ever did in.her life. She paced up and down the room, to assure herself that it was a reality: the pain, the paralysis was
* The allegation, by rapping, was, that the agency was that of a deceased brother of Mrs. Davis.




516                      THE CURE.
gone; she could use the hitherto disabled leg as freely as the
other. After more than four months of suffering and of decrmlpitude, she found the natural warmth and vigor of the
limb suddenly and (as it would be commonly phrased) miraculously restored.
This terminated the sitting for the time: the arm still remaining paralyzed as before. But late in the evening, after the
departure of several visitors, the ladies sat down again. This
time, by rapping, a request was made to darken the room. After
a brief delay the arm was manipulated as the leg had been, but
with more force, as if rubbed downward from the shoulder by
a smooth and somewhat elastic piece of metal, like the steel
busk sometimes used in ladies' stays.  After this had been continued for some time, what seemed to the touch a steel busk
was laid in Mrs. Davis' right hand; and, by raps, a request was
spelled out to close the fingers upon it. This she found herself
able to do with a firm grasp. Then the busk was drawn forcibly
from her hand.
From that time forth she recovered the use of her arm as
completely as she had that of her leg. Nor has she had pain
or any return of paralysis, or weakness, or loss of temperature,
in either limb, from that day to the present time; * that is,
during four years.
In communicating the above to me, as Mrs. Davis did, in
presence of the same friend who had accompanied her to Mrs.
Underhill's, Mrs. Davis kindly gave me permission to use her
name. t
The next case is of a still more remarkable character.
* Written July, 1862, when this narrative was communicated to me.
t The above was related to me July 20, 1862, by Mrs. Davis herself.
I wrote it out next day; and submitted the manuscript on the 24th of
July to Mrs. Davis, in presence of Mrs. J-, for authentication. It
was assented to by both ladies as correct.




AN AFFLICTED PATIENT.                517
THE INSTANTANEOUS CURE.
It occurred on the thirteenth of April, 1858, at Passy, neaz
Paris, in the parlor of Monsieur B -, a gentleman who formerly occupied a position of rank in the household of Louis
Philippe.
The lady who was the subject of it, Mrs. Emma Kyd, is the
wife of Mr. A. Kyd, a gentleman of independent fortune, son
of the late General Kyd, of the British Army; and is the
mother of several grown-up children. The family were then
residing in Paris.
Mrs. Kyd had been, for more than half her life, a grievous
sufferer. For twenty-five years she had had a disease of the
heart, gradually increasing in violence. At the time of this
narrative it had reached such a point as to cause, every day of
her life, severe pain, and entirely to deprive her of anything
like a quiet night's sleep. She could never rest except on the
right side; the bedclothes were sensibly moved by the powerful beating of the heart; and if she sought relief by sitting up
in an arm-chair, she was frequently unable to rest against the
back of it, so violent were the palpitations.  She walked with
great difficulty, and only slowly and for a short distance; and
had frequently to be carried upstairs. Though fond of singing,
she had been compelled wholly to abandon it.
This, however, was only one of several diseases under which
Mrs. Kyd was suffering. She had chronic diarrheea, of six years'
standing; and this had proceeded so far, that small portions of
stale bread, and of roast meat and rice, with occasionally a
little tea, constituted the entire range of her diet. Even with
such restriction, she was compelled daily to resort to powerful
medicine; nor could she safely travel for an hour, or make a
visit to a friend, without first taking a preparatory dose. The
disease frequently produced violent cramps and spasms. In addition she was afflicted with a falling of the womb of an agtravated character; together with a disease of the bladder, accom




518            DEBATE WITH A PSYCOGRAPH.
panied by obstruction enduring for many years, and producing
severe pain. For this latter complaint she had consulted Dr.
Phillips, of Paris.
Her life, as she herself expressed it to me, passed with constant reminders of her infirmities; and when she rose from a
restless bed, to the sufferings of a new day, tears would gush
from her eyes, at the hopeless prospect before her. Her husband
had spent a little fortune in taking the advice of eminent medical men.  Dr. Locock, Dr. Chambers, Sir Charles Clark, Dr.
Chelius, of Heidelberg, and many others had been consulted;
but in vain: nor did they hold out any hope, except of temporary alleviation.
It was under these circumstances that, a few days previous
to the date above given, she had visited Monsieur B-, attracted by astounding reports touching the wonders of his
psychograph, * and the extraordinary phenomena attendant on
its writing.
Its filst movements, so like those of a living being, aston* Now known among us under the name of planchette. So far as I
am informed, Monsieur B- was one of the first persons who ever
made or used one. It need hardly be said that this little instrument
has nothing mysterious about it. It is a mere physical contrivance to
gather vital-magnetic power and facilitate involuntary writing It is
easier, by outside agency, to put a castor-working planchette in motion
than it is to influence the human arm or guide the human hand: that
is all. The same power which causes the instrument to write would, if
in stronger measure, cause the hand to write without its intervention.
I have seen Monsieur B —'s planchette write, as fast as an ordinary
scribe: I have seen it write forward and backward, then write inverted,
so that one had to place the writing in front of a mirror in order to
read it. I have held a long and spirited debate with it on abstruse subjects; two daughters of Monsieur B-   having placed the tips of their
fingers on its surface. I have had the pleasure of frequent conversation with these young ladies, who were sprightly and accomplished;
they could talk charmingly on the commonplaces of the day or the last
opera; but I am as sure that neither of them could have maintained
such a debate for five minutes as I am that they could not converse with
any one in Chinese or Arabic.




A PSYCOGRAPH' S DOINGS.             519
ished her beyond measure. After a little while it raised itself
up, moved toward her and remained, for a considerable time,
the'pencil suspended in the air.
"WVllat is it doing? " she exclaimed.
"I am only taking a look at you," was the reply instantly
written out by the psychograph. After a time it added: " I
see you have not come from mere idle curiosity, but from a
better motive." Then it proceeded to set forth some of its
peculiar doctrines, and concluded by requesting her to return
in a day or two and to bring her husband with her.
The night between the twelfth and thirteenth of April was,
to Mrs. Kyd, one of even more than usual suffering, and she
awoke feeling utterly unable to make the promised visit. But
she summoned courage; and, fortified as usual with a dose of
medicine and having prepared another to be taken on her return, she drove, accompanied by her husband, to the house of
Monsieur BThere she found seven or eight friends of Monsieur B - assembled, and seated herself in a corner of the room to watch the
proceedings. They were experimenting with the psychograph;
two of Monsieur B's daughters lightly touching it, as
usual. * The results obtained seemed even more astonishing
than on the previous occasion; and, almost out of herself, she
involuntarily exclaimed: " It seems so like something divine,
that I think if it were to bid me do anything in the world, I
would obey."
"Why, your faith is enormous, Mrs. Kyd," said some one
present.
Shortly afterward the psychograph suddenly wrote:
"Emma, come here!"  She advanced to the table and it continued: "Get a chair and sit down."  She did so: then it
added: "More to the left and closer to me."  She brought her
chair close to that part of the table where the psychograph
was.
* It ought here to be stated that both these young ladies are highly
susceptible and lucid somnambules.




520             THE INSTANTANEOUS CURE
" You shall be cured," it wrote: " it shall be to you accord
ing to your faith."
Then, suddenly and to the utter astonishment of all present,
it sprung (with the hands of the two assistants still upon it)
from the table against her heart, remaining there for three or
four seconds, pressing gently against her, with a sort of fluttering or tremulous motion; then, as suddenly, it sprang back to
the table and instantly wrote:
" You are cured. Go home and do not take that nauseous
draught which you had mixed up, against your return. Eat
whatever you please, as you used to do before you were ill.
Do all this nothing doubting, and be assured all will be well."
Mrs. Kyd informed me that no words could express the sudden revulsion of feeling-the emotion utterly unlike anything
she had ever experienced in her life-which shot over her,
causing her to believe that the cure was real. She seemed actually to feel (as she expressed it to me) the revolution
Throughout her entire frame, and the return of the several
organs to their normal state. She breathed long and deeply,
without effort or pain.  She rose and walked; already, so it
appeared to her, with renovated strength.
When she returned home she ascended the stairs lightly and
without effort; in a word, as she had not been able to do for
fifteen or twenty years past. This she repeated several times;
scarcely believing, even then, in its possibility. The medicine
was thrown out; and from that day to this,* she has not consulted a physician nor swallowed a single dose.
That day, at dinner, she looked at the various interdicted
dishes which the day before she could not have touched without the severest penalty; hesitating still, with natural reluctance, to taste them. But then the injunction to eat, nothing
doubting, recurred to her mind. She did so; felt no evil effects
whatever, and spent a night of almost undisturbed repose such
as for long years she had never been permitted to enjoy.
* Related to me in Paris, on the 18th of April, 1859.




WITH -ITS EVIDENCE.                521
More than a year has passed since then: and, during that
period, she has not had the least return of any one of the
maladies which had made of half her life one long martyrdom.
To describe how gratefully and wonderingly she enjoyed her
relief; or with what zest she entered upon her new life, which
even day after day seemed to her more like some beautiful
dream than any earthly reality-was, she declared to me, impossible.'The allegation, as written by the psychograph, was, that the
cure was the result of Mrs. Kyd's strong faith.
The particulars of this marvellous case I had, first in somewhat general terms from Monsieur B-, the gentleman at
whose house the circumstance occurred, and whom I met in
London in January, 1859; and afterward, during a visit to
Paris, in minute detail, from Mrs. Kyd herself, in the presence
of her husband: he confirming the narrative in every point.
From earnest desire to serve the cause of truth and in token of
gratitude to God for benefit so unexpectedly received, Mrs.
Kyd granted me permission, in publishing the case, to give her
name; and to this her husband also assented. In view of the
peculiarity of the circumstances, I at first felt reluctant to avail
myself of so generous an offer; as, indeed I did also in Mrs.
Davis's case. But on further reflection I decided that, in the
interests of truth and spiritual science, I had no right to refuse
such an opportunity of authentication.
I am authorized also to furnish Mr. Kyd's address to any
medical man, or other earnest inquirer, who may desire direct
testimony for what will usually be deemed incredible.
The public cannot have a better voucher for the sincerity of
the narrators. I myself have stronger proof; for I became
well acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Kyd, and I have the additional testimony touching their intelligence and uprightness
which any one acquainted with the world instinctively derives
from daily intercourse with the earnest and the cultivated.
I may add, what has been stated to me by Monsieur B —
and confirmed by Mrs. Kyd herself, that he had given her no




522              MRS. KTYD'   PSYCOGRBPH.
reason to believe that a cure could be effected through the intervention of the psychograph; nor, though he knew Mrs. Kyd
was in bad health, was he apprised of any of the details of the
case. Monsieur B-.  also stated to me that Mrs. Kyd had
paid his family many subsequent visits; and that it was long
before she could see the psychograph, inanimate medium though
it was, without shedding tears.
It should be stated that a previous cure, though by no means
so striking a one, had been, as Monsieur B-    informed me,
effected in a similar manner.
Mrs. Kyd also told me that she had since procured a psychograph; that, with her hands and those of one of her daughters
upon it, they had, after several weeks' patience, succeeded in
getting it to write as fluently as that of Monsieur B; and
that, even up to the present time, if Mrs. Kyd has a headache
or other slight indisposition, by placing her hands upon it and
retaining'them there some time, the effect is to cast her into
magnetic sleep and, in every case, to afford relief. Indeed she
and her husband seemed to regard the little instrument as a
familiar friend and adviser, to whom, when they felt need of
information or counsel, they might resort.*
I might go on, filling a hundred pages with the details of cures
wrought among us by magnetic or spiritual agency. What
are called " healing mediums" are to be found, in city and
country, by the hundreds; and though, doubtless, many are
pretenders and many more often fail to relieve, that is only
* The above narrative, as here written out, was submitted by me, at
Paris, on the twenty-third of April, 1859, to Mr. and Mrs. Kyd; and its
accuracy in every particular assented to by them.
It may not be out of place here to repeat a caution already given.
There is great temptation, when an inestimable blessing has thus been
received through spiritual agency, to accept, without scruple or scrutiny, all opinions which may be obtained from the same wonder-working source. BIut this is dangerous as well as illogical. The power to
cure is one thing; the capacity to utter truth unmixed with error quite
another. We have proof of the former: we have no proof-indeed
fallible creatures can have none-of the latter.




INSANITY CURED BY SPIRITUAL AGENCY.         523
what happens in the case of thousands who have a legal right
to add M. D. to their names.
But further detail is needless. The proof that the gift of
healing inheres in certain favored natures is as complete, and
as readily attainable, as that some men and women are born
poets and others musicians.*
And space fails me to touch except on a single additional
point. It has been sometimes alleged that Spiritualism tends
to produce insanity. I have never known, or found proof, of
such a case: yet doubtless such have occurred. We have hundreds of examples of mania caused by religious excitement; as
at revivals or camp-meetings: and it would be strange if
Spiritualism, when unwisely or extravagantly pursued, should
prove an exception to the rule. There have, however, come
to my knowledge two cases in which insanity has been cured,
or averted, by spiritual influence; the subject, in both instances, being a widow.
For several years previous to 1860, a Mrs. Kendall had
been an inmate of the Somerville Lunatic Asylum, near Boston; and she was considered by the resident physician of that
institution one of his most dangerous patients. Her lunacy
had been caused by the death of her husband, six years before;
and she remained insane until January, 1860. At that time she
was taken from the asylum, to be received into a family where
there were several mediums. With them she remained many
months; obtaining, from time to time, communications alleged
to come from her deceased husband.
On the tenth of January, 1861, the above circumstances
* I have the full particulars from the patient himself —but no room
here to relate them-of a cure effected by the well-known Dr. Newton.
The subject was a New York merchant of high standing, and he told
me that his case was regarded by friends and physicians as absolutely
hopeless; and that he sought Dr. N. in sheer despair. Several manipulations, throughout two weeks, effected a marvellous and radical
cure; and for years and until the day I saw him, there had been no
relapse.




524     INSANITY CURED BY SPIRITUAL AGENCY.
were stated to me by her son, Mr. F. A. Kendall. His mother
was then at home, completely cured. He told me that he was
not a Spiritualist; not having had what he deemed sufficient
evidence: but he freely admitted  that his mother's cure
was due solely to her residence among Spiritualists, and
to the consoling assurance which she there found that the husband to whom in life she had been devotedly attached still
lived and still thought and cared for her.
The other lady is personally known to me, though I am not
at liberty to give her name. I knew her when her husband
was alive; and her devotion to him was such that I shared the
fears which I sometimes heard expressed by other friends of
hers, that if she lost him, the consequences might be fatal. To
her despair, he enlisted when the war was at its height,
reached the rank of Major and died in a New Orleans hospital.
When the news, no longer to be withheld, was finally broken
to her, it produced a fit of frenzy; and for weeks she was
drifting into hopeless insanity. She had never been a Spiritualist; indeed she usually, as I well remember, had treated
the subject with ridicule: but a sister, visiting a medium in
hopes of getting something for herself, received, instead, a message to the disconsolate widow. It was repeated to her; and
it was the first thing that roused her out of brooding despair.
She went herself to the medium, received numerous messages
embodying incontrovertible tests of identity; brightened day
by day: and when I met her, mnany months afterward, she
had regained all her cheerfulness; and told me that she felt as
if K —-- (his pet name) were living and conversing with her
still.
Thus, in our day, as in Christ's time, lunatics may, by spirit'
ual influence, be restored to "their right mind."  The time
will come when this truth will be acted on by the managers of
insane asylums.




CHAPTER II.
OTHER SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
DEEMING it highly important to run out the parallel between
the spiritual gifts enumerated by Paul and by the Evangelists,
and those which manifest themselves in our times, I had pre.
pared five chapters, with narratives illustrating the general similarity between ancient and modern " signs and wonders;" to
be here inserted.*  But my manuscript has spread over an unexpected number of printed pages; so that lack of space and
a desire that this book should be sold at a moderate price
cause their exclusion.  If I should live to write another work
this omission may be supplied.
Meanwhile a few references, in this connection, may be
acceptable.
Of the gift of prophecy, considered by Paul one of the chief
(- " desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy" f),
some very remarkable examples, exhibited during somnambulism, are given by French writers on physiology and vital
bhagcetism I of acknowledged reputation.  In this volume an
* As will be seen by those who may have looked over a condensed
table of contents included in advance specimen-sheets of this volume,
already issued by the publishers.
t 1 Corinthians xiv. 1.
t See, for example, Aranuel Pratique du Magretisme Aninmal, par
ALPIIONSE TESTE, D.M. de la Facult6 de Paris; membre de plusieurs
societes savantes: 4th Ed. Paris, 1853; pp. 120-128. This book has
been translated into several languages.
See also P/hysiologie du Systeme Nerveux, by Dr. GEORGET, of Paris,
vol. ii. pp. 404, 405. As to Georget's character and standing, see
FootfSaUs, pp. 53, 54.




526'c THE WORD OF KNOWLEDGE.'?
example is supplied; * and in a former work of mine there
are several. t Bunsen believed in this faculty. I
As illustrating St. Paul's text-" to another the word ot
knowledge by the same spirit,"-I had intended here to give a
collection of what I have good reason to regard as spiritual
communications to myself; but I now limit myself to onean average specimen-relating to this very power of prevision.
It purported to be from Violet, and I obtained it~ through a
non-professional medium.  I entitle it
THE PROLEPTIC GIFT.
" There is a faculty which is the complement of memory.
Memory causes that which does not now exist, but which did
once exist, to become, as it were, present. So this other faculty-let us call it prevision —causes that which does not now
exist but will hereafter exist, to appear-like the past when
we remember it,-to be present. But the faculty of memory
is one possessed, in a greater or less degree, by almost every
one; while the faculty of prevision is the privilege of comparatively few: and it is enjoyed by these few in different degrees;
sometimes only as a dim presentiment or premonition, sometimes as a clear prevision.
" Prevision, though it be not as common, is as natural a
faculty, as memory: and it may present to us, quite as clearly
and even more clearly than memory, that which (as regards
time) is remote from us. Our minds may, under certain conditions, anticipate more distinctly than they can recall: for
our own feelings in the present often mix less with our previsions than with our recallings.
* See narrative entitled A Trifle Predicted, in Book ii. chap. 4.
t In Footfalls will be found the following examples of presentiment,
or prophetic faculty, in its various phases: The Negro Servant, p. 204;
The Fir/in~g Party, p. 151; How Senator Linn's Life was Saved, p. 453;
and others.
t See preceding page 178.   ~ November 15, 1861.




CC DISCERNING OF SPIRTrr."              527
" As there is, in reality, no up or down-these terms being
relative only-so, as to time, there is, in one sense, no past or
future. All IS.
" If this faculty of prevision had not shown itself, at times,
throughout all the recorded past history of the world, prophets
and prophecy' would not be the common words they are."
This communication furnishes, at all events, material for
thought. In connection with a subject which we cannot expect, in this world, fully to comprehend, I commend to the
reader a remarkable and suggestive little pamphlet-volume entitled, " The Stars and the Earth;" published some twelve or
fifteen years since, by Bailliere, London; and since republished in this country.*
As regards the gift designated in the text-" to another discerning of spirits "-it is the less important that I should here
advert; seeing that I have furnished examples both in this volume t and in a former work.:
As regards the Pentecostal epiphany-" to another divers
kinds of tongues," —the most remarkable modern example has
been already alluded to; namely the phenomena that came to
light in London, among the Rev. Mr. Irving's congregation,
* Mr. Bailliere informed me that the manuscript of this little treatise came to him anonymously, accompanied by a sum of money to
defray part of the expense of publication; and that all his exertions to
discover the author had been unavailing. A rare example of literary
bashfulness!
t As Sister Elizabeth, preceding page 401; the vision of Violet by
Mrs. B —-- of Cleveland, Book iv. chapter 3; the vision to llr. Bach
in dream, Book iv. chapter 2; and others.
t See Footfalls: the continuous visions of Oberlin, p. 364; The Dead
Body and tle Boat-cloak, pp. 367, 368; Apparition in India, p. 369;
Th/e Brothker's appearance to the Sister, p. 372; visions of Madam6
Hauhfe, pp. 396-400; The Old Kent Manor-house, pp. 415-417; and
others.




528           "T oE WORKING OF MIRACLES.)
and which, as we have seen,* were deemed genuine by so sound
a thinker as Baden Powell.
Mr. Livermore also testifies to the fact that he received,
through Miss Fox, messages in languages unknown alike to her
and to himself. t  I examined one of these (in good German)
the day after it was received.
Then there was the power which Jesus exercised by Jacob's
well-the perception of the hidden Past-causing the Samaritan woman's exclamation to her neighbors: " Come! see a man
who told me all things that ever I did." The same faculty
was possessed, as in his autobiography he informs us, I by a
well-known and much-esteemed German author.
Finally we have Paul's words:-" to another the working
of miracles" (dunameon): referring to other spiritual powers
or phenomena, not specified. We can but conjecture what
these were.
I have myself either personally witnessed, or had trustworthy evidence for various phenomena, seemingly more miraculous than any related in this book; as the powers of levitation,~ of elongation, of handling glowing coals without injury,
and the like.
* Prefatory Address, sec. 14; preceding page 178.
t See Mr. Livermore's letter to the author, at the close of chapter 4,
Book v.
I Eine Selbstschau, von HEINIrCc  ZSCnoKKE, 4th Ed. New York
reprint, 1851; pp. 283-287. Zschokke's works are collected in forty
volumes.
~ Lord Lindsay, in a recent letter to the (London) Spiritualist, narrates the following incident:
" I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare, and a cousin of his.
During the sitting Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state was
carried out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was
brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was
about seven feet six inches, and there was not the slightest foothold
between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection t(
each window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. We hear,
the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after




CIRIST'S PROMISE BEING FULEILLED.           529
As to some of these manifestations I am not, for the present, at liberty, even did space permit, to give to the public the
evidence which is in my hands.
I do not doubt that, as the years pass by, additional proof
will accumulate that Christ's promise to his followers-that
they should do the works that he did and greater works still *is in progress of fulfilment among us.
we saw Home floating in the air outside our window. The moon was
shining into the room; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow
on the wall of the window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above
it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the
window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down. Lord
Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which
he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow
an aperture. Home said (still in trance):' I will show you;' and then,
with his back to the window, he leaned back, and was shot out of the
aperture head first, with body rigid, and then returned quite quietly.
The window was about seventy feet from the ground."
* John xiv. 12.
23




BOOK VII.
ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS IN IMMUTABLE LAW AND IN
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.
CHAPTER I.
SUMMARY.
AN author who assumes to write with a view to the improvement of his race owes it to his readers, ere he takes leave of
them, to sum up clearly what he seeks to do, and how he seeks
to do it.
I address this summary to those who have convinced themselves of the universal and persistent reign of Law, and who
have faith in constant spiritual progress and in the ultimate
triumph of Christ's teachings as the religion of Civilization. I
specially address such believers, because they will best appreciate the general tenor of argument throughout this book.
Consider, I pray you, the following brief propositions, in
connection with each other.
The teachings of Christ, as set forth in the Gospel narratives,
so intimately connect themselves with the wonderful powers
(dunameis) there ascribed to him, and with his claim to be the
Anointed Messenger of God, and with his alleged appearance
to his disciples after death, that if the claim be rejected and
the phenomena denied, faith in the teachings will be rudely
shaken; the most rudely in the most candid and upright minds.
Neither Strauss nor R6nan speak of Christ, in terms, as an




ROMAN CATHOLIC ARGUMENT..531
impostor; yet the virtual effect of their theories touching the
signs and wonders of the first century, is to represent him as
one who lent himself to deceit. But a spiritual system which
had its origin in deceit presents slender claim to become the
supreme religion of a civilized world.
The Church of Rome recognizes this truth. But because
she does not believe in invariable law as the rule of God's government, nor in spiritual phenomena occurring under natural
law, she regards the wonderful works and gifts of which we
read in the Gospels, as miracles, wrought by one of the Persons of the Godhead eighteen hundred years ago, and still
wrought by Him within the jurisdiction of a single Church.
She sets down all persons who deny miracles as denying that
these works and gifts ever had existence; and she declares all
such persons to be anathema; that is, accursed of God.
You, believing in invariable law and believing also in Christ,
as Civilization's great Spiritual Teachers. can say to the Church
of Rome: " We admit that the works were done and that the
spiritual gifts were exercised: we deny, however, that they
were miraculous."
But the Church of Rome has a right to reply: " Your theory
is illogical. You say the works and gifts in question occurred
under natural law, and you assert that all natural laws are
universal and perpetual. If so, the law under which these
works and gifts appeared must have remained unchanged, and
must be still operative at the present day; and, under that
law, similar signs and wonders must be occurring now throughout the world. But this does not happen. They occur within
our Holy Church-the only Church of Christ —and nowhere
else. They are still wrought by Christ; and they are wrought
by him, not under a general law, but among us exclusively and
miraculously, in proof that the Catholic Church is his Clhurch,
and that he recognizes no other."
It is a very strong argument.  It has convinced millions.
To its power is mainly attributable the success of the Tractarian movement at the English University of Oxford, in 1832,




532            THE ALTERNATIVE WHICH
carrying over such vigorous thinkers as John Hemyl Newman
and others of his school. To its power is to be ascribed much
of that enthusiasm and earnest conviction and self-sacrificing
faith which has ever marked the Church of Rome. The phenomena do occur. In favor of her claims that Church has the
evidence of her senses; the same evidence which Christ's disciples had. Thousands witness the wonders. On them she
bases her right to canonize. Through them her greatest triumphs have been achieved.
Now, what are you to reply? That the phenomena do not
occur within the precincts of Roman Catholicism? That allegation has been tried and has failed: men continue to believe
that they do occur. You will be beaten on that issue, as we
have seen that for the last three hundred years you have been.
if I have proved to you, in the preceding pages, that similar
phenomena may be observed outside the precincts of the Roman
Church, why not within these precincts? But if I have not
proved this, then where do you stand? What can you reply
to the Catholicism of Rome?
You cannot deny that a universal, invariable law which was
in operation in the first century must be in operation still.
And if you fail to show, by modern results, that it is in operation to-day, then the Church of Rome reasons fairly when she
tells you that it never had existence; therefore that Christ's
wonderful works were not done under law; therefore that, if
they be not miracles, they are fables. She places before you
the naked alternative -Rnan or St. Peter.
If you have any mode of escape from such a dilemma, other
than by the path which this volume indicates, I pray you to
come forward and set it forth.
And if you cannot suggest any other, think where you stand!
On one side a Church which claims exclusive infallibility,
and with it a right which properly inheres in the Infalliblethe right to persecute even unto death; a Church which claims
the right to circumscribe scientific inquiry; a Church which
pronounces her doctrines to be irreformable and her creed to




IS PRESENTED TO US.                533
be a finality; a Church which denies to humankind religious
progress.
On the other hand a Christianity which had birth in fabulous
legends; a Spiritual System of which the historians-impostors
or self-deceivers-narrate lies; a system pretending to bring
immortality to light, yet assuming, as crucial test whereby to
establish that great truth, a childish superstition. For suchwith all due respect to the talents and the sincerity of the man
-is Renan's Christianity.
With the issue thus made up, I think the Pope will have
the best of it. I see no reasonable ground for the assurance
that the brilliant Frenchman's rationalism will not go down
before the Church of Rome.
As little do I believe that Secularism will prevail against
her. It has nothing to offer but this world, and that is insufficient for man.
But this is dealing in negatives only. " Leave these," you
will say to me," and let your summary inform us, plainly and
briefly, what system, in your opinion, will prevail."
Willingly. A system that can reply thus to Papal argument: " We admit that the natural law under which the signs
and wonders of the Gospels occurred is in operation still. WVe
admit that similar signs and wonders have occurred, and still
occur, within your Church. Wle add that they occur, as we
can testify, outside of your Church also. They are cecumenical. Whether within your Church or without it, they occur in
accordance with universal and enduring law.  They afford
proof, as strong as that which was vouchsafed to the apostles,
of immortality: but they afford no proof whatever that
Roman Catholics are God's children of preference, or that, outside of St. Peter's fold, there is no true religious life."
It suffices not, however, to have a system that can reply to
an opponent's argument. If we would succeed against that
opponent, we must discard the errors upon which our opposition




534         WHAT OUGHT TO BE DISOARDED
to the Roman Church is, or should be, based. We must discardBelief in every phase of the INFALLIBLE, in connection with
any religious matter whatever.
Belief in the MIRACULOUS, past or present.
Belief in the right of PERSECUTION; whether by ecclesiastical excommunication or social outlawry; whether by employment of rack and fagot, or by suborning of public opinion.
Belief in the EXCLUSIVE, as applied to any Church or sect,
supposed to be God's favorite.
Belief in a FINALITY, as found in any branch of knowledge,
including religion.
Belief in Vicarious Atonement, in Imputed Righteousness,
in a personal Devil, in an Eternal Hell and in Original Depravity.
It may be added-though this is a Protestant rather than a
Roman Catholic error-belief in the saving efficacy of faith
without works.
There remains another duty, as imperative. If, misled by a
wholesale spirit of condemnation, we have rejected certain valuable tenets of the Old Faith, because the form in which they
appeared pleased us not, we ought to reconsider our rejection.
Great truths are often covered up in unseemly garb. Let us
reflect whether we may not properly admit our beliefNot in a Purgatory of flames, whence sinners are rescued by
virtue of the Church's intercession; but in a state of progression, intermediate between the life which now is and the higher
phases of another.
Not in the Intercession of Saints, for we need not holy men
to remonstrate in our favor with God, as some of the Jewish
prophets of old assumed to do; but in grateful recipiency of
such guardian aid and wise counsel as may come to us from the
denizens of a better world.
Not in the efficacy of paid masses that find favor in God's
sight and induce him to release from suffering in penal fires
those to whose benefit these ecclesiastical ceremonies inure;




AND WHAT RETAINED.                    535
but in the influence of fervent prayer, offered here below, to
aid a soul struggling upward to the light, whether the struggle
be on our earth, or in that other life, a supplement to this,
where a spirit laden with sin equally needs, ere it rises to
better things, effort and repentance. *
For the rest, I think that he is the most likely to distinguish
Christianity in its purity, who, with ears happily closed to the
harsh murmurs of the scholiasts t reads, in the spirit of a cultivated child, the teachings ascribed by the Synoptical Gospels
to Jesus; interpreting these by that inward light-God's holy
spark within us-to which Christ himself so often refers.
I hope that in preceding chapters I may have succeeded in
giving you, in a general way, my idea of the aspect of Christianity when divested of canonical cerements. Here, ere I close,
I may briefly epitomize. It seems proper in discarding so much
that is called orthodox, to advert to the grand truths that remain.
* See, for an example, how repentance may, by its regenerating influence, change the character and condition of a criminal in the next
world; and how prayers and counsel from this sphere may bear fruit
in another, FootfaUlls, pp. 396, 397, 399. The incident there given is
very suggestive.
t "Wen, als Knaben, ihr einst Smintheus Anacreons
Fabelhafte Gespielinnen,
Dichterische Tauben umflogt, und sein mionish Ohr
Vor dem Lerme der Scholien
Sanft zugirrtet-"                 KLOPSTOCK.




CHAPTER  II.
WHAT UNDERLIES CHRIST'S TEACHINGS, AS FOUNDATION-MOTIVE.
"And now abideth Faith, Hope, and Love, these three, but the
greatest of these is Love." —1 CORINTIIIANS xiii. 13.
" Thy kingdom come I "-M-]ATTHEVW  i. 10.
"REPENT! for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand:" these,
as we have seen, are the earliest recorded words of Christ's
public discourse.
The Pharisees asked him: "When shall the kingdom  of
God come?:'
And he replied: "The kingdom of God cometh not with
observation: neither shall they say' Lo here!' or' Lo there!'
For behold! the kingdom of God is within you."
-Is within us. The light within. The divine, indwelling
spirit of truth. How far-passing by Christ's words-do we
wander, seeking that which is in our own hearts!
WVe think by vast searchings to find out God and his kingdom and his Spirit. But the Spirit of God is not in the fierce
wind of Dogmatism, desolating in its sweep; it is not in the
earthquake of warring creeds, rending and convulsing the religious world; it is not in that fire of zeal which persecutes and
consumes; it is in the still, small voice which, so it be not
quenched, speaks from the soul of every one of us.
-Often obscured; stifled sometimes by adverse influence and
vile surroundings: not unheeded only, alas! unheard: yet as
surely existing, down under the crust, in the Bushman, or in
the Caffre, or in the nomadic outcast of Civilization, as shining
in the Christian who lives the nearest to the bidding of his
Lord.
" Thy kingdom come!"




THE HUNGER AND THIRST.               537
We repeat a thousand times these words of Christ's prayer,
for once that we fully appreciate their deep meaning: forget
ting, that the kingdom  whose advent we implore is (if we
accept Christ's interpretation) a sovereignty of which we cannot witness the coming; to which we cannot assign this place
or that; seeing that we bear it ever about us. NVe pray, even
if we know it not, that the spirit of God within us may assert
itself and rule. We pray for the sovereignty of enlightened
conscience. We pray for the coming of ethical, of spiritual
development; and we pray that, when it comes, it may be the
governing power of our race.
Conscience is God's vicegerent, rightfully ruling the heart
of man. Under her rule alone is human life satisfactory. That
is Christ's doctrine. How simply and how strongly has he expressed this!
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."
-Hunger and thirst, not after this dogma or that sect; not
after ritual or ceremonial or long prayers in the synagogues
or much speaking; nor yet after silver and gold: hunger
and thirst after THE RIGHT-that Kingdom of Heaven within.
Christ's plan is-right-doing because it is the right. Rightdoing, come what will of it, for that is God's affair. Accept
the consequences. Do we not pray: " Thy will be done!"
Things may seem to go ill. Men may revile and persecute
and speak evil. No matter. Even then, Jesus declares, is the
right-doer blessed. He may seem forsaken; bread itself may
be scant: yet, in the end, it is he alone who shall be filled. If
we seek first God's Right, all else-that is Christ's assertionshall be added unto us.
Yet he states this as a fact, not puts it forward as a motive.
The motive on which he relies is not the prospect of gain; it
is the hunger and thirst. We may conform to man's law
through forced obedience, fear of penalty, hope of reward.
God's law can be fulfilled through love alone.
Christ has nowhere said that they are blessed who act right.
23*




.538          CHRIST SEEKS TO AWAKEN THE
eously in order to win Heaven or escape Hell. Fear, a base
motive, enters not at all into his scheme.  He does not, like
the Psalmist, inculcate the fear of God: * his wisdom has a
far nobler beginning. It is based on perfect love-that love
which casteth out fear.
The poet expressed a thoroughly Christian sentiment when
he prayed:
" What Conscience dictates to be done
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me, more than Hell, to shun
That, more than Heaven, pursue."
This matter of basic motive underlying a religion is of vast
practical importance. We poorly appreciate Christ's spiritual
polity if we fail to perceive that it trusts, for a world's reform,
to awakening in man the slumbering love of the Right, for its
own sake; not to arousing his cupidity or playing on his fears.
If a child, passino from under his teacher's hand, grow to manhood honest merely because he thinks that honesty is the best
policy, he may be a fair dealer, and so far commendable; but
* If this startle any one, I beg him to examine, for himself, whether,
in the entire Gospel record, there occur, even once, the direct injunction by Christ, " Fear God:" an injunction repeated, a hundred times,
under the Old Dispensation. He will find, in Matthew (x. 28), this:' Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in
Hell."
Yet the very words next following are these:
" Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall
not fall to the grour.d without your Father. But the very hairs of
your head are all numbered. PTear ye not, therefore; ye are of more
value than many sparrows."
The fair interpretation evidently is this: II It is more reasonable to
fear one who has power over both body and soul than one who has
power over the body only. But fear not your Heavenly Father; for
ye are under his constant care."
With this accords the spirit of the whole record. " Fear not, little
flock," said Christ. And he declared that his disciples should be
known by their love, not by their fears.




SLUMBERING LOVE OF THE RIGHT.           539
he is not a disciple of Christ. If a professor of religion exhibit
the liveliest zeal for his Church, actuated by no higher principle
than that which caused Louis XIV. to repeal the Edict of
Nantes-namely, to save a worthless soul from Hell-he may
be a useful Church member, but he is not a Christian. There
is no Christianity except that which has for foundation the
indwelling love of the Right.
Let us not despair that, some day, such may become the basis of civilization's morality, public and private. A little introvision may encourage. When we have been looking back
upon our early youth, has the thought never come over us that
we are not what we might have been-that our nature was
better than our education?  Do we not sometimes feel-the
dullest among us-that there are springs of virtue within us
that have rarely been touched; generous impulses that have
seldom been awakened; noble aspirations that have never
found field of action? And do such convictions come to us
alone? Shall we stand up in the temple and thank God that
we are not as other men? Is it not written that man was
created in the image of God?
Let it not discourage us that such a change of motive from
the ruling selfishness of the day involves a reform radical even
to regeneration. Christ admitted that. He saw how blind to
the heaven within was the world around him. "Except a
man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
A consideration which will suggest itself to every one here
intervenes.
Conscience alone, if it be uninstructed and undeveloped,
suffices not, how earnest soever, to reform the world. The
most sincere love of the Right can work only according to
light and knowledge: but the light may be feeble and the
knowledge scant.
Beyond the result to be hoped from the general progress of
Civilization, does Christ's system open up to us no special
source whence to supply this need?
The reply connects itself with a subject treated of in one of




.540              TEE PIY) S  2,    -'
the most important chapters of this volume.* Jfesus, as I have
already reminded you, said to his followers, at the close of his
earthly life:
*' I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot beat
them now. IIowbeit when he, the spirit of truth, shall come,
lie will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak."
Whether Christ, in virtue of his proleptic power, foresaw
that it entered into the economy of God, at a certain stage of
human progress, to vouchsafe unto man mediate spiritual revealings, coming to him  perennially from a wiser world than
this; whether the Author of Christianity here indicates the
source whence he believes that the human conscience (so soon
as the world can bear it) shall derive light and knowledge:
that I leave for you to decide.  In the preceding pages I have
furnished you what aid I could, in making up your decision.
This, however, I pray you to observe: that you have to
decide not at all whether the mass of alleged spiritual communications of the day can fitly educate conscience; t but whether,
when prudence and reverence preside, a Spirit of truth, from
an ultramundane sphere, speaking not of itself but from the
knowledge which a heavenly residence imparts, may not be the
medium, promised by Christ, for the regeneration of mankind.
* Book i. chapter 2.
f What impartial historian would judge the Protestantism of Luther's
day by the extravagances of the Anabaptists, or the atrocities of the
Peasants' War?
Some of the best and most intelligent friends I have are endowed
vwith one or more of those spiritual gifts of mediumship, as to which Paul
declares that we should all desire them: and many more share my own
convictions touching the great truths of Spiritualism. Shall I discard
these excellent friends, or hear them arraigned for their belief without solemn protest, merely because the new faith has, lfie early Lutheranism, attracted its waifs and strays; or because it has been often
interpreted, like Lutheranism, by those whose zeal outruns their
knowledge?




CHRIST ON CERTAIN CONDITIONS.           541
-rPromised conditionally. The basis of all-the indispensable condition-precedent-is loyalty to conscience. The promise
is to those who hunger and thirst after the Right. It is theii
hunger, their thirst, which, from a spiritual source, shall be
stilled.
I check the temptation to enlarge on this. A recapitulation
must not stretch out into a second work. Yet permit me to
add a disclaimer, not needed for thoughtful minds, but which
may avert misconstruction.
I have not been asserting-far be it from me-that, in our
day and generation, severity is always misplaced, or that legal
penalties are useless; still less, that we should not carefully
explain to children the suffering they incur by doing evil, the
pleasure which results from doing well: that is an educator's
bounden duty. I but say that Christ discards-as the world
will some day discard-force and fear and selfish gain as motives. I but remind you that Christ trusts, for a world's
reformation, to influences higher, nobler than these-to an
impulse strong as hunger, strong as thirst,-to a love seeking
not her own, rejoicing in the truth, that shall draw men, as by
chain of steel, to do that which is right.
Other characteristics of Christ's teachings will readily suggest themselves. The element of forgiveness, in a degree unknown among us yet. An erring brother pardoned even to
seventy times seven. The merciful blessed; they shall obtain
mercy. A frail offender, excommunicated by society, set friee,
uncondemned, and bidden to sin no more.
Beneficence, espeoially to the weary and heavy-laden, is another marked feature. Helping the poor. Ministering to the
stranger, the hungry, the naked, the sick and those in bonds.
That which we do unto them we do unto God.
WVe are warned against the danger of riches; against overmuch thought for the morrow; against eager seeking of place
or power. The treasures which moth and rust corrupt, the
uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in synagogues




542           QUESTIONING THE UNEXPLORED.
are declared to be objects unworthy to engross the heart of
man.
There are enjoined meekness, peace even to non-resistance of
evil, purity as much in thought as in action, resignation under
whatever God sends.
We are encouraged to have faith and hope, based on the assurance that the Father knows our needs and will provide,
before we ask Him; but, above all and beyond all, as stamp
and witness of our discipleship, as the very fulfilment of God's
behests, we are incited to something greater than faith, greater
than hope-uplifting as their influence is-even to the supreme
law of all-LovE.
A mere skeleton sketch is this; yet it is all that space per-.nits. Is not such a Spiritual System worthy to be called inspired? Is it not profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness?
tiay this generation prosecute more and more careful researches into that Debatable Land on the confines of which we
have been straying! Aided by spirits that have passed on, in
advance of our spirits, under the triumphal death-change and
into the beautiful Beyond-the still, small voice our monitor,
Christ our chief guide-safely shall we question the Unexplored: safely and profitably.. We need the lessons that are
taught by its laws. We need the evidence that is supplied by
its phenomena. In the Border-land between two worlds we
come upon much-needed influences, far more powerful than any
of earth: gracious influences fitted to fortify degenerate morality
and foster spiritual growth.
THE END.




BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME.,oaatfuzat on ft   Vounbarg of Xnozfttr Eiofrb.
WITH NARRATIVE ILLUSTRATIONS.
OF this work there have been sold, in this country and in
England, about twenty thousand copies, and in both countries
it won notices from almost all the leading periodicals. A fair
example of its reception is that it met in All the Year BRound
(September, 1860), from CHARLES DICKENS; who, after dissenting from many of its conclusions, said: "I rise from the perusal of this book with a high regard for Mr. OWEN personally.
He is a gentleman of a sweet temper, and expresses himself as
a gentleman should. He is a good writer, and has an admirable power of telling a story. That one of his stories which
is called Thte Rlescue, is by far the best of its kind to be found.
Excellent throughout, it is told with a singular propriety,
modesty, clearness, and force." -
A NOVEL FOUNDED ON VILLAGE LIFE IN THE WEST.
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