&RP*» LIGHTS AND SHADOWS SPIRITUALISM / LIGHTS AND SHADOWS SPIRITUALISM Bv D. D. HOME " Light — more light ! " — Goethe S/^COXD AXD CHEAPER EDITIOX LOXDOX VIRTUE cS: CO., Limited, 26, IVY LANE PVrERNOSTER ROW 1S78 [,i// R lights rcsct-ved\ 1 tti'JC. ^ PSYCH. TO MY WIFE, Whose loving sympathy and constant care have soothed mo in many hours of trial and pain, and whose superior counsels have aided mo in composing a work, the end and aim of which is to l)Iace a much-insulted Truth on a plane where honest lovers of such Truth would not have cause to blush in avowing themselves to be what she is, a Christian and a Spiritualist, I, IN AFFECTION AM) KSTKEM, DttJicate THIS BOOK. 286 CONTENTS. PAET I. ANCIENT SriRITUAI.LSM, CHAPTER I. THE FAITHS 01' ANCIKNT PEOPLES. PAOK spiritualism as old as mu- Planot. — Fjights and Shadows of Piigaii Times 1 CHAPTER II. ASSYIUA, CHALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. " Ghaldca's Sccrs were good." — The Prophecy of Alexandor'a Death. — Spiritualism in the Shadow of the Pyramids. — Sethon and Psammeti- (•113. — Prophecies regarding Cyrus. — The " Golden Star " of Persia . 7 CHAPTER III. INDIA AND CHINA. ApoUonius and the Brahmins. — The Creed of "Nirvana." — liao-tsi; and Confucius. — Present Corruption of the Chinese . . . . ^0 CHAPTER IV. GREECE AND ROME. Tlic Famous Spiritualists of Hellas. — Communion between World and World Three Thousiind Years ago. — The Delj)hian Oracle. — Pausanias and the Bj'zantinu Captive. — " Groat Pan is Dead." — Socrates and his Attendant Spirit. — Vespasian at Alexandria. — A Haunted House at Athens. — Valcns and the Greek Theur-nsts. — The Days of the Ca-saiM 27 VUl CONTENTS. PART II. SPIRITUALISM IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. CHAPTER I, THE SrmiTUALISM OF THE BIBLE. I'AciK Science versus Religion.— Similarity of Modern and Ancient Pheno- mena. — The Siege of Jerusalem. — '' The Light of the "World." — Unseen Armies who aided in the Trinmiih of the Cross ... 51 CHAPTER II. THE Sn RITUAL IX THE EAKLY CHRISTIAN" CHURCH. Sign8 and "Wonders in the Days of the Fathers. — Martyrdom of Poly carp. — The Eetum of Evagrius after Death. — Augustine's Faith. — The Philosophy of Alexandiia 71 CHAPTER III. SPIRITUALISM IX CATHOLIC AGES. The Countei-feitiug of Miracles. — St. Bernard. — The Case of Mademoi- selle Periier. — The Tomb of the Abbe Paris. — The Lives of the Saints. — Levitation. — Prophecy of the Death of Ganganelli . . 8.5 CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW OF CATHOLIC SPIRITUALISM. < 'limes of the Papacy. — The Record of the Dark Ages. — Mission and .Alai-tyrdom of Joan of Arc. — The Career of Savonarola — Death of Urban Grandier . . 1 OG CHAPTER V. THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE WALDEXSES AXI) CAMISARDS. The Israel of the Alps. — Ten Centuries of Persecution. — Arnaud's March. — The Deeds of Laporte and Cavallier. — The Ordeal of Fire.— Knd of the Cevennois War 126 CHAPTER VI. I'llOTESTANT .si'UUTf ALIbM. )>A(1K rrocinsovs of tlic Krfoniiation. — T.iitluT and Satan. — Calvin. — Wisharl's Martyrdom. — AVitcluTaft. — Famous AurountH of Appaiitioiis. — HuTiyaTi, ]'\)x, and Wesley ......... 143 CHAPTEK VII. .THE SriKIlUALlSM Ol' CKIUAIN GREAT SEERS. •"The Ivcveriosof Jacob Bclrmcn." — Swcdenborg's Character and Te;ieh- ings. — Narratives regarding his Sijiritual Gifts. — Jung-StUliug. — His Unconquerable Faith, and the Providences accorded Ilim. — Zschokke, Uberlin, and the Secrcss of Prcvorst 102 TAET III. MODERN SPmiTUALISM. CHAPTER I. INTKODVCTOKV 177 CHAPTER II. IJELUSIOXS. American False Prophets. — Two ex-Reverends claim to be the Witnesses foretold by St. John. — "The New Jerusalem." — A .Strange Episode in the History of Geneva. — "The New Jlotor I'ower." — A Society formed for the Attainment of earthly Immortality .... 190 CHAPTER 111. DELUSIONS [continued). 'J'he Revival of Pythagorean Dreams. — Allan Kardec's Communication after Death. — Fancied Fvocation of the Spirit of a Sleeper. — Fallacies of Kardecisra. — The TheosOphical Society. — Its vain Quest for Sylphs and Cinomcs. — Chemical Processes for the !Manul'actuie of Spirits. — A ilagician Wanted 223 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAIIIC MANIA 21;) CHAPTER V. PEOPLE FROM THB OTHER WORLD. A Pseudo-Investigator. — Gropings in the Dark. — The Spirit whose naniL- was Yusof.- — Strange Logic and stranger Theories . . . . '2;>2 CHAPTER VT. SCEPTICS AND TESTS. Mistaken Spii-itualists.' — Libels on the Spirit- World. — The Wliitc- washing of Ethiopians . . . . . . . . . 'lid CHAPTER VII. ABSURDITIES. ■When Greek meets Greek." — The Spirit-Costume of Oliver Cromwell. — Distinguished Visitors to Italian si'auces. — A Servant and Prophet of God. — Con^-ivial Spirits. — A Ghost's Tea-party.— A Dream of Mary Stuart. — The Ideas of a Homicide concerning his own Execution. — An Exceedingly Gifted INIedium. — The Crystal Palaces of Jupiter. — Hc-- incarnative Literature. — The Mission of John King. — A penniless Archangel. — A Spirit with a Taste for Diamonds. — The most wonder- ful Medium in the World 2'X. CHAPTER VIII. TRICKERY AND ITS EXPOSURE. Dark Stances. — A Letter from Serjeant Cox. — The Concealment of 'Spirit-drapery.' — IJope-tying and Handcuffs. — Narratives of Ex- posed Imposture. — Various Modes of Fraud <')24 CHAPTER IX. TRICKERY AND ITS EXPOSURE [continued). Tlu! Passing of Matter through Matter. — "Spirit-brought" Flowers. — Tlu; ordinary dark Seance. — Variations of " phenomenal " Trickery. — , " Spii-it-Photography." —Moulds of ghostly Hands and Feet. — Baron Kirkup's Experience. — The reading of Sealed Letters cox TENTS. XI CHAl'TER X. THE HIGHEn ASPECTS OF SriUITUAT.lSM. I'AOE 'I'iie Tlieological Heaven. — A Story regarding a Coffin. — An luciileiit with ' I^.jM.' — A London Drama. — lilackwood'f Magazine and soiwo faiiiiis ill Geneva .......... ;;7 1 ClIAPTER XL THE HIGHER ASPECTS OK SPIHITCALI6M (coilfillUed). "S(rlla" 396 AiiiADix ............ 40,5 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SDIRITUALTSM. PAET I. ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. . CHAPTER I. THE FAITHS OF AXCIENT PEOPLES. Theke descend to us, among the fragmentary records vrbicli, with shattered temples and decaying cities, form the only remaining proofs that such nations as the Assyrian and the Egyptian were once great upon the earth, many evidences of the vividness with which light from another world broke in upon man during the earlier ages of our own. Eveiy spiritual phenomenon which has in the present day startled the Christians of the West was, centuries ago, familiar to the Pagans of the East. On tho common foundation of a belief that spirit visits were neither few nor far between every mythology of those far-back times was based. The most superhuman virtues, and abominable crimes, of Chaldean, Phoenician, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, arc ti-aceable to a spiritual source. For then, as since, the good of the truth that man cannot " die, to live again," but, living once, lives eternally, was at times largely perverted to evil. Side by side with noble natures, made yet higher and purer by communion with high and pure minds that no longer tenanted the flesh, were demons doing the behests of demons — evil creatures of both sexes, B 2 A.\'CIENT SPIRITUALISM. and all ages and conditions, wlio, instigated by spirits still fouler, worked ceaselessly to fill the earth with bloodshed and uncleanness. By intercoui'se with spirits the cheerful assurance of immortality was perpetuated through all times and nations, and the dark vestibule of the grave brightened with a glory from beyond. Through intercourse with spirits also the awful rite of human sacrifice — men seeking to appease imaginary deities by the murder of their brethren — had birth. It was natural that when, at the touch of the departed, the clouds that^veil our hereafter shrank away, man, gazing on the newly revealed morning-land, should imagine he saw gods walking there. Thus the power of the spirits for good and evil became immeasurable. The valiant phalanx of the Greeks rushing down upon the Persian multitude at Marathon, every breast thrilling with the thought that around thronged the spirits of their ancestors, and the deities of their nation, inspiring a,nd encouraging them to the combat, supplies an example of the best phase of spiritual influence. The same Greeks, solemnly- hewing in pieces or burying alive unhappy captives, whose torments would, they supposed, win them favour in the sight of evil beings crringly exalted into deities, may stand as an instance of the worst. But the dark and the bright phases alike witness to the intensity of faith which primaaval man had in the invisible. Even when we know little else of a nation we know generally that the corner-stone of its mythology Avas a belief in the return of the departed. Heroes and sages were not, Vvhen death snatched them, lamented as having for ever passed awa}'. Their spirits hovered still above the land they had loved and served : at times visibly appearing to the posterity by whom they were adored, counselling them in the moment of danger, or leading on their hosts to victory. If a spirit were frequent in his appearances and mighty in the services he rendered, he speedily became worshipped as a god. Again, when it was discovered that only in the presence of certain persons could spirits manifest them- selves, these mediums were set apart, 'and priesthood had its origin. Immortal man is immortally ambitious — peculiarly liable also to mislead and be misled. The priest speedily aspired to bo the 'HIE FAITHS OF AXCIKXT IFiOPLKS. --, romulcr of a sect — the builder up of some system of tlict)lo!::;y or government. He walked among men as ono with tbcm but not of tliem ; clothed with distinctive garments ; hedged round by the sanctity of mysterious rites. From among the invisibles who surrounded him he selected as his peculiar guardians and guides those whoso counsels wore agreeable to his soul. It leaves a dubious impression of the majority of spirits and mediums in ancient days, that in every land of which we have knowledge we find altars dripping with human blood ; prisoners of war butchered ruthlessly, as acceptable offerings to the gods ; temples pol- luted with licentiousness ; the most unblushing vice ; the most systematic cruelty. These things all sprang from the abuses of communion between world and world ; abuses for which spirits -alike with men were blamablc. Were the beings anciently wor- shipped as gods in reality devils '? If by devils we understand human beings depraved to the lowest pitch, then many probably might be accounted so. It is not to be doubted that then, as now, the messengers of God — high, holy, and pure spirits — con- stantly watched over and communicated with the better children of earth. But to that end mediums were necessary, and the mediums were usually ambitious and often depraved. Loth to be but the servants of the spirits, they foohshly and uselessly aspired to govern them. The entreaties and admonitions of their good angels were neglected and contemned, until these in grief held aloof, and seemed to have forsaken the earth. The dangerous beings who counselled pleasant things, and, while seeming pliant to the slightest Avish, held their victims firmly to the service of evil, reigned almost unchecked. Dwellers in darkness, they desired, with the malignity of unrepentant wretchedness, that souls yet on earth should enter the spirit-realm tainted with a leprosy deep as their own. Through their fancied masters and real tools, the priests, nation after nation was led away from faith in the Ono God to worship his creatures. What these deities were, the records that have descended to us irrefragably prove. Eesembling men, they are depicted as possessing the passions and attributes of fiends. In every mythology it was a cardinal point that to B 2 4 ANCIENT SPIRITC'ALIS.}r. avert their wrath hlood was necessary. Fearful penalties were- denounced against such as offended these pseudo-gods. Among^ the light lively peoples of the South of Europe the idea of punish- ment after death took the shape of confinement in silence and eternal night ; with sterner nations it was a vision of unhappy faces looking up from a hurning tomb. The infamous doctrines that have disgraced our own age — doctrines which seek to sap the very foundations of society, and, taking from love all that is beautiful and endearing, leave only its filthy and debasing mockery — were inculcated by these deities ; enforced in their temples by precept and example, and disseminated through nations with the effects of a pestilence. What society was two thousand years ago history witnesses but too well. Good, and good spirits, seemed almost to have fled from the earth. The servants of evil were everj'where. All temples of all deities had become offences to the eye of heaven — plague-spots of bloodshed and Hcentiousness. The many accepted, as they have in all ages done, the deities offered ta them, and, obedient to their behests, cultivated the evil of man's nature and carefully repressed the good. The intelligent and gifted perceived that, living or fabled, the beings to whom the nations erected temples were assuredly not gods, and the creators of the universe ; but either monsters of the imagination, or creatures of a scale somewhat beneath that on which they themselves moved. They sought refuge accordingly in epicurean negation, and attention to the things of this life. At length the evil grew to an unendurable height. That period when the Eoman power had attained its zenith, was the nadir of the morality and happiness of man. Then the forces of good in the invisible world began once more to stir. Upon an earth enervated with wicked- ness and convulsed with strife ; upon nations where the most hideous vices stalked the land openly and unashamed ; upon nations where the stake, the cross, and the scourge were in hourly use, and where man plotted how to be most inhuman to his fellow- man ; upon the century of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, of Messalina, Agrippina, and Locusta, — the great awakening of the -Christian gospel dawned. Founded in miracle, attested by prodigy, THE FAIJ'liS OF AXCIEXT PEOPLES. 5 Spread by apostles "wliose touch healed the sick, whose words •caused the maimed to become whole, and the cripple to arise and walk, and to whose eyes was revealed the whole radiance of the l'nseen,it conquered rapidly region after region, setting at defiance the possible and the common, and discovering by burning proofs that the ladder which Jacob beheld was but faintly typical of that immortal one stretching, from earth to heaven by which multi- tudes of the departed have in all ages continually ascended and f the dead, held converse with the gods, and returned after awhile to the upper day. ASSVAW.l, CIIAI.DEA, EUVri, AM) I'liKSIA. ii Into I\L;ypt wriit J?ytli:i,'4t)ras, It) iucri'asL' frt)iii Ww. ^'rcatcr stores of that country the wisdom Avliich lio Lad ucquircd in Greece. lUit so rii^'idly did tbo magi restrict all learning to their own caste, that not ur.lil ho had passed from temple to temple, and had undergone disciplinary initiations more and more severe, was tlie philosopher, after twenty-two years of patience, admitted to the inner mysteries. Kcturning to (Irccce, he became the martyr of the spiritual truths with which he astonished his countrymen. Delos, Sparta, Elis, and Crete, in turn cast him out. Everywhere derided as a madman, he passed over into Italy and wandered through the magnificent colony of Magna Grfccia, teaching and working miracles in Crotona, Ehegium, and Metapontus. The fate of the prophets of all ages pursued him. At Crotona the mob burned down his school, and forty neophytes perished in the llames. Hunted by enemies thirsty for his life, he immured himself in the Temple of the Muses at Metapontus, and was there suffered to die of want. But his doctrines, the fruits of the painful years passed in Egypt, endured after him — the error with tlio truth. From the Egyptians he had acquired the theory of transmigration, as inculcated in the sacred books of Hermes Trismegistus. At death, according to these strange metaphysics, the soul of man passed into another body. Sometimes the spirit reappeared as a human being — sometimes as an animal. The nature of the new receptacle was determined by the pui'ity or wickedness of the former life. Three thousand years were passed in this manner, and if then sufficiently purified, the spirit ascended to the immortal gods. During the latter centuries of this curious species of purgatory, the soul was supposed to reside in those animals which the Egyptians held peculiarly sacred. Thus a cat represented a being particularly close to eternal felicity : a beetle was perhaps still nearer. A modification of this marvellous religion was taught by Pythagoras, exaggerated after his departure by bis disciples, and finally extinguished in the grossncss of its own absurdities. Our own century, strange to say, has witnessed the resurrection of this ancient folly. I shall take occasion in a later portion of this work to treat of the belief of those apers of' 12 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. antiquity who, discardiug the animals, have unearthed from their dusty receptacle the remaining relics of the Pythagorean system, and, clothing these with the fantasies of their own imaginations, have suhmitted to the notice of a bewildered world the identity- confounding chima;i-a of re-incarnation. Our information respecting the Egyptian oracles, falls far short of the ample knowledge accorded to us of the Grecian. The most famous — can it, however, be held an oracle of Egypt '? — was that renowned temple buried in the solitudes of the Libyan Desert, and consecrated to Jupiter Ammon. Alexander of Macedon, in the plentitude of his power, visited it to interrogate the deity on some subject near to his heart. Question and answer were alike kept secret ; but the magnificence of the conqueror's offerings intimated that he was satisfied with the response accorded him. A very few predictions of less celebrated oracles have been preserved by the Greek historians. Among such, two singularly-fulfilled prophecies deserve notice. Whilst Sethon, formerly a priest of Vulcan, held the Egyptian sceptre, he was dismayed by the approach of that Sennacherib whose invasion of Judaea heaven so terribly frustrated. Deserted by the warrior tribe, he betook himself to the temple of Vulcan, and implored against the Assyrians the aid of the deity whom he had served. As he stood before the image a vision came upon him. Vulcan, he dreamed, spoke, and bade him be of good cheer, for that he himself would tight in his worshipper's behalf. Here- upon Sethon, gathering courage, marched to encounter Senna- cherib. He was .followed only by a rabble of tradespeople and mechanics ; at sight of whom the Assyrian laughed, accounting himself certain of victory. On the morning of the battle, however, Sennacherib found that he was overthrown before the strife com- menced. During the night myriads of field-mice had entered the Assyrian camp, and devouring the bowstrings and quivers of the warriors, had left them almost defenceless. The victory of the Egyptians was easy and complete. Herodotus tells us that after the death of this Sethon twelve kings reigned in the dificrent provinces of Egj-pt. An oracle .■ISSVJ:L1, CllAT.DI.A, FA!Yn\ AXD PKRSIA. 15 aniioiuiooil tbiit bo ■who, in the temple of Yulcau, })oureil :i liluition from a brazen vessel, should expel his fellows and reign as solo monarch. On the occasion of a certain sacrifice, Psammeticus, one of the twelve, having found himself without the accustomed golden {•up, filled a brazen helmet with wine and made his libation. On this tho remaining kings banished him to the marshes of the coast. Jiurning with indignation, ho consulted the oracle as to how he might best avenge the injur}-. It was replied that vengeance Avould be accorded him when brazen men arose from the deep. The answer was naturally held b}' Psammeticus a mockery. Shortly afterwards, however, certain pirates clad in brass armour appeared in Egypt from Ionia and Caria. These strangers Psammeticus took into his pay, and having, by their aid, become sole ruler of the Eg}'ptians, the oracle's prediction was most curiously accom- plished. From the dim magnificences of the race who reared the pyramids we pass to Persia and Zoroaster. Even before the time of that mighty iconoclast the history of his country bears interesting traces of intercourse with another sphere. Cyrus, tho subduer of Asia, was heralded and attended by prophecy, both in Persia and among the Jews. Astyages, his grandfather, saw in vision a vine proceed from his daughter Mandane, by which the whole of Asia was over- shadovv'ed. The soothsayers explained this to mean that Mandane •would be delivered of a son who should conquer all the kingdoms of the East. Fearing lest he himself might be among the rulers deposed, tho jealous monarch wedded his daughter, not, as was the usage, to a prince of the Modes, but to Cambyses, a native of tho subject kingdom of Persia. He again dreamed of the vino that overshadowed Asia, and again received the explanation of its pointing to the coming of a conqueror who should tread all nations under foot. On this the King determined to destroy the fruit of the marriage the instant that it saw the light. The fruit was Cyrus, whom Astyages commanded Harpalus, his chief captain, to take with him and put to death. Harpalus, reluctant to execute the foul mandate, sent the babe to be reared far from the court, in the rude Highlands of Persia. Arrived at mardiood, Cvrus 14 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. speedily approved the truth of the prophecy, and, deposing Asty- ages, reigned over Persia and Media in his stead. He conquered ■Croesus of Lydia, and, overthrowing the Babylonian cnapire, per- mitted the captive Jews to return to Palestine. According to Josei)hus this favour was won by the Jews at Babylon displaying to Cyrus the prophecy wherein Isaiah alludes to him by name. The forty-fifth chapter of the prophet thus opens : — " Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him ; and I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates ; and the gates shall not be shut ; I will go before thee, and make the crooked paths straight : I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron : And I will give thee the treasures of dark- ness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know^ that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name, though thou hast not known me." Cyrus, continues Josephus, on being shown this prediction, and the equally remarkable one contained in the twenty-eighth verse of the preceding chapter, acknowledged that the Jehovah of the Hebrews was indeed the God of nations, and that from Him he received the sceptre of the "world. Nor was the close of the mighty conqueror's career unaccom- panied by prodigy. Invading Scythia, he dreamed that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, stood before him with wings springing from his shoulders ; of which the one overshadowed Europe, the other Asia. Believing that the gods had thus warned him of a plot against his throne, he sent Hystaspes back to Persia, to watch over Darius until he should himself return. But, although the son of Hystaspes was in reality destined as his successor, no conspiracy had been implied. The vision given to Cyrus was an admonition of his own approaching death. He was vanquished and slain in a battle with Tomyris, queen of the Massageta3 ; and the sceptre of Persia descended to Cambyses, his son. On the death of that monarch anarchy distracted the empire, and Darius Hystaspes, inspired by various omens, stood forth as a competitor for the I jssvA'u, CHAi.nEA, /■cn'/'V, j.vn r/:A's/.i. is throne. Overpowering bis rival SmerJis, ho assumed that imperial purple to which he had not been born, and began a reign of pros- perity almost unequalled in his country's annals. In the time of this Darius, Zeri'thoschtro, the " Golden Star " of Persia, dawned upon the world. His name, softened into Zoroaster, is familiar to us as that of the mightiest religious reformer of the ancient East. By both lines of ancestry, as well through his mother Dogdo, as his fiither Poroschasp, could he boast of descent from the remote kings of Persia. Poroschasp, says tradition, was descended from that Djemschid, the fabulous embellisher of Istakhar, whom Ormuzd gifted with creative powers ; and who was, according to Persian legends, fifth in line from Noah. Of omens vouchsafed immediately before and after the birth of Zoroaster, the Easterns have many most marvellous tales. His mother, being pregnant, saw in vision a being glorious as Djemschid, who assailed the djins or devs — the Persian evil .spirits — with a sacred writing, before which they fled in terror. The interpretation of the magian to whom she applied, was that she should be favoured among women by bearing a son to whom Ormuzd would make known his laws ; and who should spread them through all the East. Against this son every power of evil would be in arms. Tried by afflictions and perils innumerable, the pro- phet would ultimately drive his foes before him like chafi', and receive even in his own country the utmost honour. A king should be raised up who would accept his sacred writings as the word of truth, and make them the law of Persia : everywhere the new religion would prevail : Zoroaster would ascend to the side of Ormuzd in the highest heaven, and his foes sink to Ahriman and hell. Alarmed lest the prophet whose advent was thus heralded should prove the destroyer of their order, certain among the magi conspired to slay him immediately upon his birth. Darius, Avhose ear they had gained, becoming possessed with an evil spirit, rode off" in search of the babe. Less fortunate than ilcrod, he dis- covered the object of his hatred, and, on lifting his sword to hew in pieces the infant Zoroaster, the arm that grasped the weapon was withered to the shoulder, and the King fled convulsed with 1 6 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. terror and agony. Disappointed in their opening plot, the magi speedily took heart a second time to attempt murder. On this occasion they were themselves the agents of their evil wishes. A fire having heen kindled, the embryo reformer was stolen from his mother's dwelling, and cast into the flames. Dogdo, seeking on all sides for her son, found him at length lying peacefully on his fiery couch, as if in a cradle, and carried him home uninjured. As he grew to manhood numerous other eilorts were made to- compass his death. He was placed in the way of savage bulls, was cast to wolves, and fed with victuals in which poison had been mingled. Through all this the spirits to whose service Zoroaster had been consecrated supported him unhurt. At thirty years of age his mission began. Quitting his native place he journeyed towards the court of Iran ; but being warned in a vision of an attack which the magi and devs combined waited to make upon him, he turned aside into the mountains of the Albordi. There the things which "eye had never seen" Avere revealed to his gaze. He was lifted up to the highest heaven, and beheld Ormuzd in his glory, encircled by the hosts of the angels. Food sweet as honey was given to him, on eating which his eyes were opened to all that passed in the heavens and the earth. The darkness of the future was made to him as day. He learned the inmost secrets of nature ; the revolutions of worlds ; the influences of the stars ; the greatness of the six chief angels of God ; the felicity of the beatified ; the terrible condition of the sinful. He went down into hell and there looked on the evil one face to face. Finally, having received from Ormuzd the Divine gospel which should illumine the East, ho was bidden to return to earth, and teach it to all conditions of mankind. Celestial fire was given to him, to be kept burning as a symbol of the glory of God in every city where his teachings were received. Placed again upon the mountains of Albordi or the Balkan, Zoroaster reared in a cavern an altar to the Creator, and kindled upon it the first sparkles of the sacred flame. As he resumed his journey a host of furious devs and magi beset him, and sought to destroy the Zend- avesta — the gospel which Ormuzd had committed to his care. ASSV/^/A, CHALDEA. EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 17 Tlicso the prophet put to lligbt b)' proiiouaciiig some verses from the sacred book. He continued his course to Balkh, and, being denied admittance to the lung, cleft the roof of the palace, and descended into the midst of the court. All save the monarcli himself fled in terror. The King caused them to re-assemble, and Zoroaster, encircled by a ring of courtiers and magi, expounded with vehement eloquence the doctrines ho had been sent upon earth to spread. The magicians present then endeavoured to confound him with the learning of which their minds Avcre tho repositories ; but the prophet solved with the utmost case tho most abstruse problems of their science, and broke through every mental net that could be spread. Hereupon the monarch declared himself a convert to the new religion, and was follovv-ed by others of his court. Many Persians, however, including the whole body of the magi, were stirred to rage by the thought that a single daring and successful reformer should succeed in subverting beliefs which had endured from an antiquity almost immemorial. For years the prophet's history is that of attempts on the part of enemies to destroy his life and credit, and of the miracles by which he put their rage at defiance. At length the good cause triumphed. Opposition was beaten down, and Zoroaster became to the Persians whatever, at a yet more ancient date, Moses had been to Israel. His law, like that of the Hebrew prophet, was at once theolo- gical and civil. The portion remaining to us of the Zend-avesta, or Living "Word, has three grand divisions : the Izeschne, the Yisfered, and the Vendidad. These again are parted into sections too numerous to be here mentioned. A Litany, a Liturgy, and a general code of laws, are among the matters included. Prayers are drawn up for even the most trifling occasions. On cutting hair or nails ; before making pastry ; after sneezing ; on seeing a leprous person, mountains, a cemetery, a city, the sea ; on killing cattle ; on killing vermin ; and at a thousand other times, verbose petitions are to be reiterated by the devout. The theology of Zoroaster is far more tolerant than that of tho Calvinistic section of Christendom. The eternal hell to Avhich all but the elect are to be consigned, makes no appearance in his c i8 • ANCIENT SPIRITUALIS^L religion. Even Ahriman and his devils are in the end to he pardoned and restored. The Creator, he teaches, formed together with the world Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and the evil principle. These, with their respective hosts, shall contend on the battle ground of the universe for a space of twelve thousand years. At the end of this period comes a conflict like the Christian Armageddon, in which Ahriman and his subordinates are utterly- overthrown. The evil one hereon repents, and, in presence of the Eternal, enters into a solemn league of amity with Ormuzd. Hell itself is purged, and through all creation sin and sorrow are anni- hilated. I may mention that Zoroaster condemns all men, even the best, for a space to his inferno ; but none are to be chastised beyond their deserts, and not even the vilest eternally. Such a revelation was of a truth spiritual and sublime. Zoroaster's place is high above that of Mahommed in the ranks of the founders of faiths. The disciples of the Koran did, indeed, vanquish and subvert to a newer creed the disciples of the Zend- avesta, but the event was no miracle. When, in the seventh century after Christ,, this conquest took place, the Zoroastrian system had endured for near twelve hundred years. As shaped by the founder its moral teachings were pure and beautiful, and its idea of the Divine One high and just. But with the passing of centuries abuses began, like foul parasites, to cling to and mar the noble structure. As with all other systems of the ancient world, the evil portion of the unseen beings around us, having under- mined with malignant patience, at length succeeded in overthrow- ing the work of the good. Aided by the unworthy servants to be found before all altars, they defaced with vice after vice the temples where constantly burned the sacred fire. Sensual indulgence, against which Zoroaster had launched his sternest anathemas, made foul the lives of his descendants. The adoration given at first to the unseen Creator, was lavished in process of time on the visible objects He had created. The sun, the stars and the sacred fire were the gods of this new idolatry. Thus the great decay went on. The evil influences without worked mightily and with success. Licentiousness desecrated the temples ; human .'iSSVy^'/.l, CIIALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. iq sacrifices began to make foul the altars. At last, when hypocrisy liad replaced piety, and sensuality and sloth stood in the place of spiritual zeal, there poured down on Persia that ardent multitude of fanatics whom Mahommed's intolerant enthusiasm had inflamed. The choice was the Koran or the sword. Sapped already at all points by internal corruption, the edifice Zoroaster had reared hasted to its fall. The few who refused to abjure their religion tied from Persia for ever, or, remaining, were relentlessly put to death. At the present day the numerous Parsees scattered through Hindostan and other countries of the far East are the dispersed relics which remain of that once mighty and uniteiL brotherhood which revered the teachings of the " Golden Star." CHAPTER III. INDIA AND CHIXA. *' I HAVE seen," says Apollonius of Tyana, "the Bralimius of India dwelling on the earth, and not on the earth, living forlilied without fortifications, possessing nothing, and yet everything." The " dwelling on the earth, and not on the earth " alludes to their being frequently levitated. Apollonius had journeyed into Hindo- stan to seek admittance to the treasury of Indian wisdom. The supermundane attainments of the Brahmins were displayed to him immediately that the object of his mission became known. He was brought into the presence of the chief sage of the caste, who addressed him in the following words : — " It is the custom of others to inquire of those who visit them who they are, and for what purpose they come ; but with us the fii'st evidence of wisdom is that we are not ignorant of those who come to us." Thereupon this clairvoyant recounted to Apollonius the most notable events of his life ; named the families both of his father and of his mother ; related what the philosopher had done at iEgae ; described bj- what means Damis had become the companion of his journey, and repeated all that they had heard and talked of by the way. Awed and humbled by knowledge so unearthly, the astonished Greek earnestly besought to be admitted to its secrets. After the usual length of waiting he became duly illuminated, and returning, astonished Europe with his piercing clairvoyance and wondrous powers of healing. Lecturing at Ephesus the words suddenly died upon his tongue. He bent forward amazedly, and, gazing into space, exclaimed, " Strike ! atrikc the tyrant ! " Then, turning to the bewildered audience, he continued, " Domitian is no more ; IXDTA AND CHINA. z\ the world is clelivorcd from its bitterest oppressor." Iii tbo very da)^ and ■ hour when Apollonius beheld this vision at Ephesus was the despot assassinated at Rome. If a stranger acquired such gifts chiefly from a sojourn in tbo temples of the Brahmins, what must have been the spiritual wealth of those Brahmins themselves '? The aim of their religion Avas to lift the soul above the thraldom of the senses and place it in unify with God. Like the Platouists, they judged that the spirit is enveloped b}- a form of luminous ether — as the Vedas have it, " sukshonas- arira," a finer body. A multitude of sensations perplex us, and these "buddhi," or reason, was created to command. Sent into earthly life, the soul migi-ates from body to body in a most marvellous and truly Pythagorean manner. These incarnations ended, the spirit appears before Yamas, the Minos of the Brahminical theology. As its actions have been righteous or unjust, so is it translated to the pai'adise of Indra, or condemned to various of the purifying hells. Final beatitude, according to the ideas of both Brahmin and Bud- dhist, consists in absorption into the Divine nature and eternal union with God. By Europeans this creed is commonly regarded as betokening a species of annihilation ; but although violent pains and pleasures would seem to be immortally banished from these Eastern "just spirits made perfect," the individuality of each is unchangeably preserved. To the heavenly felicity of " Nirvana " but one path conducts — unceasing mortification of the spirit and the body. The laws of Mann minutely prescribe the inflictions which the devotee must endure. To scorch in summer before the hottest fires ; to shiver naked in running streams in the depth of winter ; to pass hours buried in ant-nests, or writhing on couches studded with numerous spikes ; to be clad in the bark of trees, and have for food leaves and roots, and for drink impure water; to deny the tongue its use ; to swing suspended by hooks passed through the flesh of the back : these are some of the torments in which from immemorial antiquity Hindoo existences have been spent. In the day of Alexander of Macedon such penances flourished in full rigour, and they have contmued unremittingly popular down to the present time. C2 AXCIEXT SPIRITUALISM. Brahmins and Buddhists ahkc teach that the Deity has repeatedly descended in human shape to purify the woild. The Brahmins, however, dechue to recognise Buddha as one amongst these avatars. They describe the deity whom the Buddhists worship as a species of demon permitted, at a time when the earth was filled with evil, to arise and lead the wicked astray. Thus an irreconcilable enmity exists between the followers of the two great creeds. " By their fruits ye shall know them." Despite the holy horror of the Brahmins, the faith of the Buddhists is vastly more spiritual and elevated than their own. If a demon inspired it he had undeniably forgotten his condition, and was for the nonce masquerading as an angel of light. His teaching Christians cannot but recognise as wise and pure. The wasting of life in sacrifice is strictly forbidden, and even the blood of animals may not, on any pretext, be spilt. The faithful are earnestly entreated to live at peace with their fellow-men, and to keep themselves in the words of St. James, "pure and unspotted from the world." The eating of flesh is prohibited, and the doing injury to even the smallest creature which God's hand has formed held a sin. The Vedas and Puranas of the Brahmins Buddha altogether rejects, and reprobates these writings for their unholy advocacy of living sacrifices. By so stern a denunciation of the darker among its doctrines the more ancient sect of the Brahmins was moved to fury. They drove the converts of the new heresy from Hindostan Proper, and relentlesslj' persecuted all who dared re-enter that peninsula. But beyond the Ganges, and east and north of the Himalayas, Buddhism waxed mightily. Overspreading, and becoming the state religion of Xepaul, Thibet, and Affghanistan, of Burmah China, Mongolia, and Japan, it stands at the present day foremost, as regards the number of devotees, among the great religions of the earth. That this splendid fabric is more imposingly vast than solidly real ; that in various of these lands — China and Burmah in especial — systema of unblushing foulness and hideous cruelty usurp the pure name of Buddhism, arc incontrovertible facts. But a faith that has had so unequalled an influence on the destinies of the East well deserves notice, and the space can hardly be wasted that is accorded to a IXDIA AXD CHINA. 23 brief nsiime of tlio biliefs prevalent auaong this miglity family of spiritualists. An article of faith constantly iterated in tho Buddhist writings is that departed souls have in all ages returned to our world. Like Milton in his thousand times quoted avowal, these scriptures say that " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth Unseen, both when Ave Avake and Avhen Ave sleep." Countless numbers are continually ascending and descending on tho missions of the gods. Some are the guardians of cities, others of individuals ; others again haunt by night caverns, forests, and all solitary spots. In describing these unseen beings every resource of the gloAving imagination of the East is expended. They pass to and fro among men wrapped Avith an ethereal veil, and thus conceal from earthly eyes their forms, a thousand times more beautiful than those of mortals. They are croAvned Avith unfading floAvers, and brilliant Avith all the glories of Paradise. The brightest of the stars are less clear and radiant than their eyes, and the Avhite garments in Avhich they are robed emit the most delicious perfumes. Some are kindly, others fierce ; but all wield the mightiest influence over the destinies of mankind. As Avas natural in the case of beings so attractively depicted, and Avhose presence it is probable that spiritual tokens Avere continually making manifest, the mass of the people have in process of time come to adore them as divinities. At this day there are probably some hundreds of millions of deities set up in the niches of the Buddhist Pantheon. By the kindred sect of Brahma three hundred and thirty millions of these false gods are computed to be adored. We find in Thibet, Avherc Buddhism flourishes in the fullest vigour, a startling copy of the ritual and ceremonies of the Roman Church. Tho priests are tonsured. Tho faithful haA'o their rosaries for prayer, and tell the beads as zealously as any Spaniard. Monasteries have multiplied to such a degi'ee that monks and priests are held to be in number almost a moiety of the population. 2.4 AXCIEA'T SPIRITUALISM. The priesthood, maguiliceutly robed, sometimes in yellow, some- times in purple and gold, pass on festival days to the temples, attended by bursts of barbaric music, canopied with banners, and surrounded by censers heavy Avith incense ; the faithful as the procession moves by prostrating themselves in the dust. Holy water is abundant throughout the temples, baptisms continually occur, and relics of saints are to be found everywhere. The priests are permitted housekeepers, " around whom," says Mr. Howitt in his " History of the Supernatural " " families unaccount- ably spring up, and are styled nephews and nieces." Indeed, so parallel are the customs, social and ecclesiastical, to those of the Catholic Church, that, when first her emissaries obtained entrance to Thibet, two of their number. Fathers Griibcr and Maffie, indignantly wrote home to accuse the devil of having "set up in that far land a most blasphemous mockery of the rites and paraphernalia of the true faith." In China of old the worship of a single Supreme Being seems to. have obtained. Gradually falling from this original Theism, the adoration of the visible objects of creation, and of a host of in- visible powers, became in process of ages the theological taints of the Celestials. Spirits presiding over the elements were recognised, and temples erected to each. Ancestors, too, were deified, and annual festivals instituted at which the progenitors of the reigning monarch received the homage of that mighty empu'e v/hich in former days their sceptres had swayed. With the increase of idolatry abuses of every kind grew and multiplied, until, in the seventh century before Christ, China was eaten up with all imaginable error and corruption. In the latter years of that century the reformer Lao-tse appeared. Spiritual faith had been almost extinguished, and this present world was the only one of which the Chinese took heed. Lao-tse drew around him the few inquirers into the problems of futurity who still remained, and strove with their aid to awaken a longing after spiritual things in the bosoms of his countrymen. Persecuted vehemently, as all prophets of all eras and kingdoms have been, he fell into a disgust with his mission, and, shaking the dust of JXDIA AND CHINA. 25 cities IVom Lis foct. retired to pass the remainder of his lifo in religious calm. Yet, altliough the hibourer had turned IjucIc from the sowing of the seed, the harvest of such elibrts as ho had iilready made was in no long time reaped. A religious awakening took place, and the sceptical and vicious public mind was stirred to its inmost depths. Then appeared Confucius, the great purilier of the morals of the empire, as Lao-tse had been of its metaphysics. He inculcated the necessity of honouring parents, of bemg truthful in every business of life, of actively fulfilling all social and natural duties, of keeping faith with others, and of rendering obedience to the laws of man and God. In his waitings the most striking of the ancient Chinese legends are transmitted to modern times. These traditions speak like the Hebrew Scriptures of the fall of man, and the hurling down into misery and darkness of an angelic host who had rebelled against the Supreme. Lao-tse and Confucius are alike in their deep belief in the near- ness of the spiritual world. All truth respecting the future state, says the former, has been brought down to man by the messengers ■of God. Prayer and self-denial arc the charms which open the eyes of the mind to the spiritual beings around us. Apparitions have occured since the creation of the globe. Invisible to the dim eyes of the flesh, spirits, evil and good, constantly hover above the earth, checking or aiding the advancement of man. The limitless universe constitutes but one family ; earth, heaven, the spu'its yet in the flesh, the spirits of the dead, form a single empire ordered by the eternal reason of Schang-ti. The beings «ver near man watch constantly his deeds. Do we give way to evil, the evil spirits enter, and become strong within us, by reason of their ufliuity to the darkness of our souls. If, despising tempta- tion, we drive from us these demons, ministering angels con- stantly attend us, and cherish within our bosoms a light that gleams brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Such were the high and wise teachings of the two chief prophets of the Celestial Empire. They so fiir succeeded in their mission as to implant in Chinese bosoms a faith in the supermundane which, if anything, has grown stronger with the lapse of ages. Inter- 26 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. course with the world of spirits is daily sought after in every temple of the greatest empire of the East. But, whatever the state of spii-itual health may have beeu^ when the teachings of Lao-tse and Confucius had yet the eloquence of novelty, the present degx'adation of this unfortunate race appears almost irremediable. Guardian angels seem for a space to have abandoned the Chinese, and the whispers of demons tempting to evil are the only messages from the invisible listened to to-day. In China itself oppor- tunities of observation are almost denied to Europeans, and the corruptions of the empire, though known to be extreme, are in great measure hidden. But in the cities of the Pacific sea- board of America — inundated of late years by uncountable thousands of the race I at present treat of — the whole measure of their gigantic wickednesses and dwarfish virtues may be observed. The most rapidly enlarging portion of San Francisco consists of a rookery of wretched dwellings styled the Chinese Quarter. There the vices which chroniclers shudder to name, and which among even the most fallen of European races, lurk but by stealth in the darkest and foulest dens, walk abroad openly and unashamed. Murder is too common to excite more than the attention of a moment. Truth in man, and chastity in woman, are virtues equally unknown. The filth of the dwellings is such that hogs or pole- cats could scarcely be at ease within them. Children die in fright- ful numbers, or are placidly put out of the way should the parents find them inconvenient to keep. And with all this the Chinaman is frugal, gentle, industrious, and prepossessing in appearance and manners. But beneath the varnished outside crust a sink of iniquity is concealed. The refuse of Europe and America has been drawn to Califormia and Utah by the thirst of gold, yet the veriest wretches among the white men stand amazed at the depths of iniquity to which their yellow rivals can, without compunction, descend. CHAPTER IV. GREECE AND ROME. I PASS now from Asia to Europe, and from the faint grandeur of the traditions preserved respecting the empires which were the mistresses of the ancient East to the fuller and more reliable information possessed respecting those civilizations of the West enthroned by the Egean and upon the Tiber. The "glory that was Greece" is indeed irrecoverably extinct, and the "grandeur that M'as Rome," fallen into an almost hopeless decay. Empires have been founded, have flourished, and have perished, since the last of the Delphian Pythonesses drew a last response from the spirits whom she was appomted to serve. It was centuries anterior to the birth of Mahommed that the last public reading of the books of the Cumasan Sibyl took place in the temples of Rome. But the array of mighty spirits who shone with so immortal a lustre on the City of the Violet Crown, the City of the Seven Hills, and other cities and commonwealths of the Grecian and Roman domi- nions, have bequeathed to us works in whose undying pages the actions and the thoughts, the worship and beliefs of the Italians of two thousand and the Greeks of almost three thousand years ago, are as undyingly preserved. These great writers were with few exceptions believers in the return of the departed. Scarcely a poet or philosopher amongst them but, whilst busied with the things of this present world, had as active a faith in, and was as anxiously inquisitive respecting, the things of the hfe to come. And the great historians of Greek times — Herodotus and Xenophon in especial — when giving account of apparitions or marvellously fulfilled prophecies, do not present them as paradoxes which are to- 28 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. be received -witli wonder and distrust ; but rather relate tbem as truisms known and accepted from time immemorial by the race for whom they wrote. Let me, in support of the views I have advanced, select some proofs of the extent to which belief in the presence of an eternal and invisible order of things side by side with this temporal and visible creation, prevailed amongst the Greeks. I shall open with the poets : in all nations the voices of the popular faith. " The gods," says Homer, " like strangers from some foreign land, assuming different forms, wander through cities, watching the injustice and justice of men. There are avenging demons and furies who haunt the ill-disposed, as there are gods who are the protectors of the poor." — {}'> AKCIEXT SPIRITUALISM. the oracle, the combined navies of Greece encountered them •; and, by reason chiefly of the burning valour which animated the Athenian portion of the fleet, and the skill vdth M'hich Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, manoeuvred his ships, a complete victory was obtained, and the freedom of Greece achieved. An oracle of Boeotia had, we learn, predicted this event in equally clear termn Avith that of Delphi. I have mentioned that expeditions were despatched by Xerxes for the destroying of towns distant from the line of march adopted by the main body of his army. Amongst other squadrons, one of lour thousand men marched to pillage the shrine of Delphi, and lu'ing into the treasury of the Persian King the vast riches collected there. Unprepared for any eflectual defence, the alarmed priest- hood demanded of the oracle whether they should flee with the treasures of the temple to some more secure spot, or bury those treasures in the precincts of the shrine itself. The deity replied that he would himself preserve his property, and forbade even the least of the offerings consecrated to him to be moved. On this all, save the Pythoness, and a few of the boldest dwellers in Delphi, departed to seek refuge in the mountains. Speedily the Persian legion came in sight, and pressed forward exultingly to the pillage of the wealthiest fane of the ancient world. The temple at first remained silent as the grave. When, however, the barbarians •sought to ascend the crag on which it stood, clouds suddenly gathered overhead, from which unceasing flashes of lightMing broke forth, accompanied by deafening thunders. Then a super- human voice was heard to proceed from the shrine, and huge rocks, loosened from the summits of Parnassus, crashed through the ranks of the invaders, and levelled them like grass. Appalled, the remnant turned and fled. On this the Delphiaus gathered heart, and hastily snatching weapons, descended from their hiding-places, and pursued the fugitives for miles. Such was the slaughter occasioned in the Persian ranks by lightnings, falling crags, and the spears of the Greeks, that of the whole four thou- tand scarcely a man escaped. The foregoing instances are gathered from Herodotus. I have i GREECE AND ROME. 37 ■chosen them because, occurriug (save in the case of Croesus, (ho narrative of whoso intercourse with the Delphian oracle othc r historians conlirm) at no great distance from his own time, the Father of History was well qualihod to judge of the truth or false- hood of these portions of his work. And, when not deceived by evidence merely hearsay, no ancient author adhered more rigidly to facts. Says Professor Gaisford, his translator: — "It can hardly be doubted that one who took such pains to ascertain the truth would be equally scrupulous in offering nothing but the truth to his reader ; and, indeed, strange as it may sound to those who have been in the habit of hearing Herodotus stigmatised as a liar by persons who ought to know better, there is probably na author, ancient or modern, the inspired writers excepted, who deserves to be placed before him in the scale of truth and accu- racy." — (Introduction, p. xxxi.) Pausanias, Plutarch, and a somewhat loss trustworthy writer, Diodorus Siculus, are equally full of the supermundane, and equally emphatic ia asserting the veracity of the narratives they give. In the Laconics of Pausanias is to be found one of the weirdest and most picturesque stories of pagan times : that of his namesake the lung of Sparta, who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Plata3a, and Cleonice the Byzantine maid. Clconice, slain unknowingly by the monarch who had enslaved her, v/as thence- forward the haunter of his life ; appearing when any great evil menaced Pausanias, and predicting the woe that was about to happen. Plutarch also has the tale. In modern times it has furnished the groundwork for one of the noblest passages of Byron's " Manfred : " *' The Spartan nionarcii di'ew From tlie Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit An answer, and his de^:tiny. He slew That which he loved, unknowing what he slew. And died unpardoned — though he called in aid The Phyxian Jove, and in Pliigalia roused The Arcadian evocators to compel The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, Or tix her term of vengeance : she replied In words, of dubious import, but fulfilled. 38 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. The prcdictiou to which the poet refers was that in which Cleonico intlicated tho ghastly manner of her slayer's death. Pausania?, after rendering many eminent services to tho state, was detected in a conspiracy against it, and fled to a temple for sanctuary. In Laccdasmon the kings were merely elective magis- trates, such as in more modern times have heen the doges of Venice. The oligarchy of Sparta assembled, and, having deposed and outlawed their monarch, caused every opening of the temple in which he had taken refuge, to be hermetically closed. Thus entombed alive, the unhappy Pausanias perished of want. Space forbids that I should quote more than a very few of the instances to be gathered from Plutarch and Diodorus. The re- markable narrative which succeeds is given by the former writer. " Pan is Dead." In the reign of Tiberius certain mariners had set sail from an Asiatic port for one in Italy. As they lay becalmed off the Echinades, an unearthly voice was heard thrice to call upon one Thamus, an Egyptian of the company, and, after the third time, to bid him that as the ship passed Palodes, he should declare loudly that " the great Pan was dead." Thamus, having consulted with his fellows, resolved that, should a steady gale be blowing when the vessel reached Palodes, he would journey on silently ; but that if becalmed there, he would speak that which the voice had com- manded. As the mariners gained the charmed spot tho wind again died away, and the bark lay idly on a smooth sea. Then Thamus, looking forth towards Palodes, cried with a loud voice *0/xeyas Ilai' TeOvrjKf. — " The great Pan is dead." This ho had no sooner done than there broke forth the sound of many voices, uttering mighty lamentations, intermingled however, as it seemed, with shouts of triumph. Then a breeze sprang up, and the sails of the vessel filling, Thamus and his companions were borne rapidly away. The date assigned to this occurrence is that of Our Saviour's death. Tiberius, says Plutarch, was extremely concerned to discover the truth or falsehood of this narrative, and, having made search- GREECE AND ROME. 39 iiig inquiries, fully satisfied himself that those events had taken place exactly as described. According to Diodorus, Altlia?mencs, the son of a king of Crete, "Was ■warned by the oracle that he would unknowingly slay Catrcus his father. Dreading the fulfilmeut of the prophecy, ho quitted his country, and settling at Rhodes, hoped to escape so horrible a fote. In course of time, his father became extremely old, and longing to see his son once agam before he died, set sail for the place of his_ exile. Having landed during the night, a fray commenced between his attendants and some persons of the town. The unhappy Althajmcnes, coming angrily forth to end the riot, slew one of the strangers in the heat of passion, and looking on the face of the dead man perceived his father. From the same writer we learn that Philip of Macedon, when he consulted an oracle respecting his ambitious design of attacking Persia, was bidden to remember that the ox being crowned and garlanded implied his end to bo at hand, and that men stood prepared to sacrifice him. This enigma Philip's wish made father to the thought that he should seize and slay the monarch of tho Persians. He began, therefore, mighty preparations for war. But the death foreshadowed was in. reality his own. As, clothed with more than royal magnificence, and having his image borne before him in company with the statues of the gods, he entered tho theatre at ^gea, Pausanias, an esquire of his body-guard, suddenly drew a dagger, and struck him to the heart. I cannot better close this portion of my subject than with a reference to the spiritual guidance vouchsafed to the noblest mind of all pagan antiquity. Socrates, as every one in the slightest degree acquainted with Grecian history must be aware, w'as from his earliest youth the object of unearthl}- monitions. A " Divme voice " (as he himself terms it) attended him, not to urge to good, but to restram from evil. It was equally busy in the most momentous and the most trifling actions of life. At Athens, at Corinth; when he lifted a spear against the enemies of his country ; when he bore with meekness the revilings of the shrewish Xantippe ; when in the height of his success he stood surrounded 40 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. by Plato, Alcibiadcs, aud others of the noblest youth of Greece ; when old, feeble, and persecuted, he calmly prepared himself to die — the voice was ever with him. It did not advise respecting the conduct of any action in which he was engaged, but it uniformly warned him against taking any step which might have proved prejudicial or evil. This has been ^made the ground for interpreting the history of the unearthly monitor as nothing moro than an allegorical representation of conscience. But the con- science of Socrates was unlikely to warn him of unknown dangers awaiting himself or his friends, nor, when any of those friends meditated a crime, was it probable that it would perceive and endeavour to prevent it. Yet Xenophon testifies that Socrates obtained from the voice and imparted to his intimates many foreshadowings of perils which awaited them, and was never con- victed of error. Yet Plato relates that Timarchus, a noble Athenian, being at a feast in company with Socrates, and rising to depart, was peremptorily bidden by the latter to reseat himself. "For," said he, "the spirit has just given me the accustomed sign that some danger menaces you." Some little time after Timarchus offered agaui to be gone, and was again stayed by Socrates, who had heard the warning repeated. Taking advantage, at length, of a moment when the philosopher was absorbed in earnest discourse, Timarchus stole off unobserved, and a few minutes after- wards committed a murder, for which being carried to execution, his last words w^ere, " that he had come to that untimely end by not obeying the spirit of Socrates." As the Quarterhj Review once remarked, it is impossible to avoid bemg struck by the extreme similarity between certain points of the careers of Socrates and Joan of Arc. The Greek sage and the French heroine were alike accustomed from early childhood to be controlled by heavenly voices, which none but themselves could hear. Both rendered to those counsellors the most implicit obedience. In cither case the voices approved their unearthly origin by undeniable tokens. The subject of such monitions savtT at times in vision the radiant beings by whom he or she was guided. Each demonstrated by a noble and blameless life the GREECE AND ROME. 41 heavcnl)' nature of those beings, and the purity of their teachings. I>oth were warned by the invisibles who guarded them that their careers would close in the reception of the crown of martyrdom. Both, amid the execrations of the mob, passed by roads terrible to travel from a world that was not worthy of them. Here the parallel ends. How immeasurably beneath the Greece of two thousand three hundred j'cars ago was the Europe of the fifteenth centur}' after Christ ! Socrates, though execrated as the attempted overturner of his country's religion, was suffered to pass away in the gentlest manner consistent with a sudden end. Indeed the death he died can hardly be described as a violent one, or bitter to be endured. Surrounded by attached friends, he took from a weeping executioner the cup of poison, and draining it, departed calmly, and almost painlessly, to be with the immortals. Joan — reviled, tormented, and immodestly used — endured for months a bitterness deeper than the bitterness of any death, and in death the utmost agony of which the human frame is capable. Lied to and abused ; mocked by enemies with false hopes of life, and by pretended friends with false hopes of succour, her torment of suspense was only ended by that other agony of the stake of which even to think is to sicken with horror. From the fate of Socrates no less than that of the French heroine may we reap the lesson of the blindness of man in all ages to spiritual light ! But no other narrative in the world's repertory reveals so mourn- fully and awfully as that of the saintly maiden of Domremy the unrelieved darkness of those depths to which, when it misconceives the origin of that light, humanity can descend. In liome we find reproduced the spiritual beliefs prevalent among the Greeks, but darkened and made more severe, to accord with the darker and severer natures of the masters of the ancient world. The poets, like the poets of Greece, crowd their pages with \ ortraits of the dwellers in the invisible. Virgil is as rich in the spiritual as Homer ; Ovid, Horace, and Lucan deal throughout in miracle. As in Htllas, the gods descend among men, and arc described as displaying passions akiu to the passions of man. But love — which was in Greece the chief motive for the visits of the.o 42 AXCIEXT SPIRITUALISM. deities, who, like tlicir brethren described in Genesis, "saw th& daughters of men that they were fair,'' — was in Eome altogether absent. To wreak their wrath on nations which had oiiended them; to lead on to conquest peoples that stood high in then* favour; to enjoy the tumult and carnage of the battle-field — these arc the motives by which the Italian poets represent the truly national among their goJs as invariably actuated in their descents to earth. The lust of pleasure is supplanted by the lust of blood. It is such a difference as exists between the good-natured amorous Zeus wcr.,hipped by the Greeks, and the stern majesty of the Jupiter of the Roman people. Yet from Greece came the whole of the philosophy and arts of Home. The oracles of Greece were revered in Italy, and up to the very time of their becoming finally silent did emperors and senates send to consult them. As Horace tells us : — "Capta ferum victorem CLpit." Greece, enslaved by the swords of the Romans^ ruled yet by supremacy of mind. Nor should we forget the peculiar connection between the civili- sation of Italy and that far more ancient one whose almost immutable relics slowly moulder by the Nile. The metaphysics of Eome were those of Egypt, brightened by a sojourn in Greece. The mesmeric treatment of the sick practised in Roman temples was but an apish reflex of that deep knowledge of magnetic and spiritual phenomena possessed by Egyptian priests. Nay, the most celebrated of all Roman miracles, the extraordinary cure b>' the Emperor Vespasian of a blind man and a paralytic, was wrought on Egyptian ground. This event, which two great contemporaiy historians — Pliny, and the sceptical Tacitus — have described from the narratives of eye-witnesses, and Avhich David JIume, in his "Essay on Miracles," declares the best attested instance of the supermundane in all historj-, took place in that magnificent Egyptian city named after Alexander the Great. I quote the story : — " Vespasian spent pomp months at Alexandria. Daring his residence in that city a number of incidents out of tlie ordinary course of naturii seemed to murk liini as the particular favourite of the gods. A man ol' GREECE AND ROME. 43 mean ('(1111111 ion, liorii at Alexandria, liaJ Id.st. Iii.s m'^\\ by a ilclliixidii on his oyo. 1I(! prosoiited liiiuselt" bci'orc; \\'si)a.sian, und, ialliiij^ ])r(i.-;tiatt; oil tlie j^round, implored tlu; EniptTor to administer u cure for liis lilind- ucss. He came, he said, by the admonition of Serapis, the god wliom l]i(> superstition of the Ej^yptians holds in the highest veneration. Tht; re(piest was that the Emperor with his spittle would condescend to moisten the jioor man's face and the balls of his eyes. Another who had lost the use of his hand, inspired by the same god, begged that he wimld tread on the part atiVcted. Vespasian smiled at a rerpiest so absurd and wild. The wrcitched objects persisted to implore iiis aid. He dreaded the ridicnle of a vain attempt ; but the Jm])ortiinity of thi- men, and the crowd of Hatterers, prevailed npon the prince not entirely to disregard their petition. *' He ordered the physicians to consider whetlier the ))liiiduess of the one, and the paralytic aflection of t lie other, were within the reacli of human assistance. The result of the consultation was, that the organs of sight were not so injured but that, by removing the film or cataract, the patient might recover. As to the disabled limb, by prosier applica- ti(ins and invigorating medicines, it was not impossible to restore it to its former toiu>. The gods, perhaps, intended a special remedy, and chose \'espasiau as the instrument of their dispensations. If a cure took place the glory of it would add new lustre to the name of Ca'sar, if otherwise, the poor men would bear the jests and raillery of the people. Vespasian, in the tide of lus affairs, began to think that there was nothing so great and wonderful, nothing so improbable or even incredible, whicli his good fortune could not accomj^lish. In the presence of a prodigious multitude, all erect with expectation, he advanced with an air of severity, and hazarded the experiment. The paralytic hand recovered in fimctions, and the blind man saw the light of the sun. By living witnesses who were actually on the spot l)oth events are confirmed at this hour, when deceit and flattery can hope for no reward." The hour alluded to was that at which Tacitus wrote. Ves- pasian was dead, and the imperial tiara had passed for ever from his fomily. Nothing remained to impede the exposure of deception, if deception there had been ; nothing could make those witnesses with whom the historian conferred fear to speak the truth, or hope to profit by a lie. It deserves to be mentioned that Straho and Huetonius, as well as Pliny, confirm this narrative of the greatest of the Roman annalists. A species of apparition of which I have myself been made the subject occurred to this same Emperor. lie sav/ in a temple at 44 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. Alexandria the double of ouo BasiliJo^, tuen living, and known to have been at a considerable distance from the place. Here is the tale as Tacitus relates it : — "Vespasian Avas nov.' determined to visit the sanctuary of Serapis, in order to consult the god about the future fortune of the empire. Having; ^given orders to remove all intruders, he entered the temple. "While Ik-. adored the deity of the place he perceived, in the midst of his devotion^, a man of principal note amongst the Egyptians advancing behind him. The name of this person was Basilides, who, at that moment, was known to be detained by illness at the distance of many miles. Vespasian, incpiired of the priests whether they had seen Basilides that day in. tht'. temple. He asked a number of others whether they had met him in ^any part of the city. At length, fi-om messengers whom he despatched the matter, for we were all satisfied that Theodoras was the person we v.-ere asking for.' " It is amusing to note the pedantic minuteness with whicli these fincient tlieurgists detail the rites and invocations through which their intercourse with another world was, as they supposed, obtained. Of the fact that their intense desire for communion with spirits alone attracted spirits to them they seem to have been bhssfully ignorant. It is quite within the limits of probability that genuine messages from the spirit workl would bo obtained by a circle which should GREECE AND ROME. 47 repeat with the same solemn faith the " dcrry tlown " chorus of the Druids, the nursery rhyme of "Mother Hubbard." or Ibe theosophical nonsense of the present day. The story has a tragical and remarkable sequel. The tyrant Yalcns, fearing for his throne, caused Thcodorus, thougli a man cmment for his virtues and attainments, to be at once put to death. Nor was his jealous alarm satisfied with a single victim. The pagan philosophers were also judicially murdered, and as many whose names commenced with the letters " Theod " as the emperor could get into his power. Yet the prediction was, in spite of all, fulfilled. Theodosius, whoso name was similar to the letters of the answer so far as that answer had boon suffered to proceed, succeeded Yalens upon the throne of the West. The story of Marcellinus, I may add, is confirmed by the early Church historians — Socrates, Scholasticus, Sozomen, &c. In view of that similarity of phenomena, as an instance of which the foregoing narrative is given, a passage to be found in Tertullian is very striking. The Christian father thus reproaches the pagans of his age : " Do not your magicians call ghosts and departed souls from the shades below, and by their infernal charms represent an infinite number of delusions ? And how do they pei- forni all this, but by the assistance of evil angels and spirits, by which they are able to inahc stools and tables j^vophrs;/!'' The object of Tcrtullian's book, like that of his whole life, being to destroy paganism, it was natural that he should represent these things as the work of fiends. AVhether evil spirits or good were concerned, the fact that fifteen centuries ago seances were held with tables remains a most remarkable one. Space fails me to describe the omens that attended Caesar's death ; and how the apparition of that Ca;sar was beheld by Brutus at Philippi ; how Caracalla was foreshown his assassination in a dream ; and Sylla, the night before he died, saw in a vision the manner of his end. These, moreover, are things that have a thousand times been described. Nor can I find room to tell of the spiritual in the lives of Scipio, Marius, Cicero, Antony, Augustus, and other famous Romans. I have now depicted intercourse with 48 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. another world as it existed in the various ancient nations, and have given the principal and best-authenticated instances to be found in the history of each people ; but, were the whole of the supermundane occurrences that old historians relate to be collected and commented upon, we might suppose with the apostle that tho world itself could hardly contain the books which should be written. With some remarks on Eoman spiritualism in its relation to the social condition of the people, I shall therefore close. The worst and most frightful time of heathen misgovernment, was that of the twelve Cassars. During the whole of this period the foulest vices and the most hideous cruelties stalked abroad arm-in-arm. Nothing in the nineteen centuries of the Christian era — neither the Italy of Alexander VI., nor the England of Charles 11., nor tho France of the Regent Philip — has j^et been found to equal the Eome of Nero and Tiberius. The hard, systematic, unblushing vices and ferocities of the Italians of that age remain unapproachable. As the Christian revelation is tho highest of all gospels ; so the time of the dawning of that light was the darkest in the history of the world. And why had earth fallen so low ? An impartial student of history will answer, as I answer. Because of tho corruptions of those who served as instru- ments for intercourse with spiritual beings. " Ye are of your father the devil, and do his works," said Christ to the Judtean priesthood of His day. The same reproach might be applied to the priesthood of imperial Rome, and more or less, as I have already endeavoured to show, to every hierarchy of the ancient world. Only spirits yet more evil than themselves could manifest through beings so corrupted as these consecrated mediums grad- ually became. Every wickedness that can be committed by beings merely human, was on the head of the wretched sacerdos of the Roman Empire. It had been found in a long course of ages that the true spiritual phenomena were exhaustive, infrequent, and difficult to obtain. Attention was therefore directed to simulating them by falsehood, and priest after priest toiled with a misdirected ingenuity to invent or perfect the machinery of imposture. By the time of Augustus this system of deceit was in full flow. It con- GREECE AXD ROME. 49 tinned so for centuries, decaying only Avilli the decay of the Ixoman power itself. Exposures, doubtless, v/ere loss frequent than in our own age. The medium power of the ancient world was chiefly to bo found in the ranks of the priesthood ; it is chiefly to bo found outside those ranks at present. Thus the whole weight of sacrcdness and authority might of old bo allied with fraud. But, although fowxr and further between, exposures did come, and their cflect was exceedingly great. The lives and teachings of the priests, too, were causes of endless scandal and demoralisation. What were the intelligent to think of a man whose life was one long career of hypocrisy and vice, interrupted only when ho was asleep or drunk ; whoso temple was tilled with contrivances for palming oli" the vilest impostures on a credulous public ; and who, from a succession of false pretences to medial powers, had come at last almost to disbelieve in their existence ? What were they to think of the deities whom these priests were appointed to serve : deities who cried constantly for human sacrifices ; who saw their temples made receptacles for the foulest vice, and smiled 'approvingly ; who gave teachings inciting to every form of immorality and bloodshed ? The intelligent stigmatised the priests as utterly worthless impostors, whose deities w^ere the hideous creatures of their own foul minds. They cried, as so many in our own day have done, that religion was from first to last a lie ; that there was no God, neither any immortality for man. Suddenly, from out this chaos rose the foundations of the first Christian Church. It was founded, as in the succeeding part of this work I shall seek to show, by men to whom spiritual signs and wonders were as their daily bread, and whose pure minds held communion only with the beneficent portion of the dwellers in another vforld. To the spiritualism of the Christian era will my next chapters bo devoted. It suffices to say, in concluding this description of com- munion with another sphere as practised in pagan times, that the corruptions, through which the pretensions to mediumship of the Roman and other priesthoods ultimately came to bo received with such derision, are rampant among the mediums of our own age. How often do we see men — ay, and women — who, although E 50 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. possessed of medial powers, Lave degraded themselves and the nohlfr cause to which they should he devoted, hy the vilest and most unblushing fraud ! How often, too, do wo perceive a still lower class of impostors who, destitute of the slightest pretensions to- mediumship, earn a shameful livelihood hy the simulation of certain forms of spiritual phenomena ! And what among the lives and. teachings of the flamens who consented to deify Nero, could sur- pass in foulness the antic iilthinesses of a few creatures of our ovrn age, who have introduced themselves like ghouls into the spiritual ranks, disgusting and repelling the pure-minded and the thought- ful ? Is modern spiritualism a Divine revelation given for the elevat- ing and brightening of the world ? Then how are v/e to estimate the impostors mentioned above, whether they mingle medial gifts with their deceit, or confine themselves to falsehood unrelieved by any gleam of truth ? How are we to regard the vile and foolish teachings which have of late years been produced in such plenty, through these and their kindred harpies ? Above all, in what manner may we regard the weak-minded enthusiasts by whom these evils are encouraged and perpetuated ; who accept the most jibsurd and vicious doctrines with a kind of inspired idiocy of belief, which, if not able to remove, can at least gulp down, moun- tains ; who, as regards spiritual phenomena, display a folly almost unparalleled in ancient or modern times ; Avhom any boy can delude with imposture, and any madman with absurdity ; and Avho, whether that boy or madman M'ere willing or unwilling, would exalt him to the rank of a pi-ophet, and revere him as a spiritual guide ? It is these who will accept " explanations " of whose supreme ridiculousness an Australian savage might be ashamed, rather than admit that a medium can deceive. It is these who reject the admonition to " try the spirits " as a needless insult, and thus bar the door at once on scientific research. Finally it is from these and the knaves whom .they encourage that modern Si)Iritualism emphatically ren[uires to be delivered. PART II. SPIRITUALISM IX THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. CHAPTER I. THE SPIEITUALISII OF THE BIBLE. I HAVE separated the Hebrews from the peoples dealt with in the former portion of this work because it has appeared to mo that the spiritualism of the Testaments, Old and New, would best bo treated of as one great whole. The signs and wonders recorded by the prophets and apostles of Israel, from Moses to St. John, are indubitably the mightiest and most famous which the Creator has vouchsafed to mankind. I do not, however, propose to devote to them any very great proportion of these pages, and my reasons will, I trust, be held sufficient. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of my readers arc as familiarly acquainted with the histories of the signs accorded to Abraham, and the miracles wrought through Moses, as with any of the chief events of their own earthly lives. The commentaries on the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others would require a lifetime to number. The sermons preached on the miraculous events recorded in the lives of Christ and his apostles might, if collected and printed, fill a hundred libraries as large as the Alexandrian. Were I to quote the chief wonders of Hebrew times, as recorded in our own noble version of the Scriptures, I should be simply deluging the reader with histories, magnificent indeed, but the tritest of tlie trite. 52 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. Were I to attempt in my own language a description of these occurrences, how poor would such efforts seem beside those of the inspired Avriters I shall confine myself to the citation of certain remarkable instances, and to an inquiry into their influence, and the circumstances of then- origin. The few incidents dwelt upon at any length will be found incidents bearing more or less upon the phenomena of to-day. "We find the foundation stone of the Biblical writings to be everywhere miracle. The assumption which, since the mighty discoveries of Newton, has been constantly becoming more rooted among scientific men, that the physical laws of the universe are eternal and immutable, here has no place. Such an assumption indeed, if admitted, reduces the Hebrew^ Scriptures to a collection of fables,— and not even " fables cunningly devised." The present condition of the scientific world affords a striking example of its effects. In no other age has research into the mysteries of creation been so diligently pursued. In no other age has the disposition to set up the "laws of nature" as a species of idol, appeared so strong. The natural consequence has been that our scientific men have progressed from a disbelief in miracle in general to a disbelief in the particular miracles recorded in the Bible, and from a dis- belief in the Bible appear rapidl}^ progressing to a disbelief in God. In 1874 we had Professor Tyndall's Belfast address. It appears likely that in a very few years this minute and studied oration will be openly received by the school which the Professor represents, as an able exposition of their articles of faith. I search it in vain for any indication of a belief in a Personal God. The deities to whom this scientist would appear in secret to bow down, are known to him and his fellow- adorers by the awe-inspiring titles of Atom and Molecule. Not yet, however, are the penetralia of the temple to be unveiled to the outer world. Such a casting of pearls unto swine would utterly misbecome a man of the Professor's acumen. For the uninitiated he has a kind of convenient shadow known as "Nature," which he interposes between their gaze and the inmost secrets of his philosophy, and respecting which he dis- courses in a most excessively mystic jargon. Nature appears to rilE SPIRITUALISM OF THE lUIU.E. 5? servo him as she served the Arbaccs of Lord Lyttoii's novel. On bor shoulders may be laid the burden of all that docs not accord Avith the philosopher's idea of the litness of things. It would bo unjust to say that the whole of tho scientific men of the age arc at one with Professor Tyndall in his peculiar theology. But, although tho law of tho physical sciences is progress, the law governing tlio ideas of devotees to those sciences respecting religion, both natural and revealed, would seem to be as undoubtedly retrogression. Tho deity whom even the the most religious of such men worship is nothing more than an imitation of the Zeus of tho Greeks ; as limited in power as that Zeus, and governed like him by an inexorable Fate. The Omnipotent God of Christianity they totally reject. That this is so, q^uotations from a hundred authorities would prove. I shall content myself with citing part of a critique directed, in the early years of the spiritual movement, against certain phenomena occurring at Ealing, I being the medium through whom they occurred : — " These are strong fiicts, and it is allowing a great deal to say that we think Mr. Rymer to be in earnest in stating his belief iu tliiini. For ourselves we entirely disbelieve them, and shall gladly give anyone the opportunity of convincing us. " In the meanwhile we venture to recommend to IMr. Rynier's attentive study an old-fashioned college text-book, which we suspect he has never opened : Pratt's ' Mechanical Philosophy.' He will there learn of those iimnutable laws which the unchanging God has impressed once and for ever on creation ; and, reading of the wondrous harmony and order which reign by their operation throughout the wide bounds of crea- tion, he may perhaps come to share our doubt and disbelief of those imaginings which tell us of their violation in moving tables and shaking lamps and dancing chairs, and he may, perchance, should his study prosper, catch also a sense of the pitying scorn with which those nurtured on the strong meat of the inductive philosophy within the very courts and halls that a Newton trod, view these sickly spiritualist dreamei's, thus drunk with the new wine of folly and credulity." Such is a fair specimen of the mode in which theso Sir Oracles discourse on subjects not in accordance with their own systems of philosophy. I may answer them through the mouths of their own gods. It is tolerably certain that, nigh two hundred years ago. 54 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. Newton was to Descartes and others of the renowned scientists of the age " a sickly dreamer drunk with the new wine of folly and credulity," It is still more certain that Francis Bacon was, by many jihilosophers of the time of James I., allotted a place in that " Ship of Fools" to which this admirer of Bacon's inductive philosophy so calmly consigns the spiritualists of the era of Victoria. As regards any and every system of Christianity, is not the friendship of such men more dangerous than their hostility ? They diligently search for and remove from between the covers of the Bible whatever the scientific mind cannot grasp. They gravely assure us that the laws of the universe are not to be altered or superseded even by the Deity who instituted them — thus at once depriving that Deity of his attribute of Omnipotence, and reducing the Creator to be subject to the created. Did Elisha cause iron to float on water '? Was the shadow of the sun turned back on the dial of Hezekiah ? Was Aaron's rod, on his throwing it down, changed into a serpent ? The worshippers of " the laws of Nature " would consider themselves besotted did they credit any such absurdities. They are not as the early Christians were. They are assuredly not followers of the Christ who, taught that "with God all things are possible." The theory that there are every- where throughout the universe wheels within wheels ; laws by Avhich that of gravity may be modilied or temporarily set aside ; invisible forces which exert power over matter : such a theory It to the scientific Christian what the creed he professes was to the Clreeks of the first century — foolishness. He calmly assumes that the whole of the ways of God in the governing of the worlds v.hich He has made are now known to man, and he stops his ears against any evidence to the contrary. He dismisses, as I have said, from that Bible which he professes to reverence as the Word of God, whatever niaj^ be considered as savouring of miracle. To what extents this demolition proceeds I shall now endeavour to show. Christianity, deprived of all but what may be explained by the knoxcn laws of creation, and exposed in such a condition to the assaults of sceptics, resembles a vessel which, having been care- THE sriRiruALiSM OF TJiE ni/uj:. i5 r;illy (Icniuleil of n;cIdor, masts, and compass, and pierced wi'Ai inmimei'able boles, is sent to sea to encounter a storm. Wo are told frequently in the Old Testament of God appcarinf^ visibly to man, and speaking with him face to face. Yet we road da Exodus that, when ]\roscs desired to behold the Lord in all .iIi^J glory, Ho replied, " Thou canst not sec my face ; for there shall siio man sec mo and live." How arc the apparent contradictions to be reconciled ? Spiritualists rcsconcilc them by their knowledge of the countless ministering spirits which constantly watch over earth, and ceaselessly pass to and fro on the errands of the Master ■of spirits. Such, clothed in a material form, may have executed God's commands regarding Adam. Such wrestled with Jacob, iand were seen by him, in trance, ascending and descending between heaven and earth. Such appeared to Abraham as towards evening, he sat in the door of his tent. Such delivered Lot from the destruction which impended over the Cities of the Plain. Such carried the commands of God to his servant Moses, guided that Moses to the presence of the Egyptian King, and wrought, by means of the powers accorded to them, the whole of the wonders related in the Pentateuch. By spirits like these was ■Gideon prompted to his mission of deliverance. By such spirits was the mighty host of Sennacherib destroyed. To the beholding of these spirits were the eyes of Elisha's servant made equal when the Syrians sought the life of his master. " And when the servant •of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, a host encompassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? And he answered, Fear not : for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said. Lord I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and he saw: and, behold, the moun- tain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." We have here a striking proof that the human eye can be made to perceive spirits. I see no room for sceptical cavilling, or -explaining away. The prophet prayed that his servant's cycs SCy JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. might bo opened, and God opened them, so that this Israelite saw the glories of the spiritual beings around. " Clairvoyant " he -would have been termed in our own day, and as such, ridiculed by the scientific men with whom that word is another term for dreamer. But the particular story I have quoted is from writings all European Churches hold to be sacred. It requires to be accepted or rejected in its entirety. Professing Christians must admit that the eye of man can occasionally behold spiritual beings, or condemn the Hebrew chronicler as the narrator of a circum- stantial lie. That spirits can, in the present day, operate upon matter with powers similar to those possessed by human beings still in the llesh is an assertion received with derisive incredulity by myriads who profess every sabbath their belief that such occurrences were common from two to four thousand years ago. The tens of thousands of clergymen who have preached against such facts of modern spiritualism as the moving of material objects without visible agency, and the millions of listeners who have agreed with their sermons, would doubtless be indignant were it asserted that thoy disbelieved in the loosing by an angel of the chains of Peter, or the- rolling away by another angel of the stone which secured the- sepulchre of Christ. With what intense scorn, too, are the testimonies regarding that levitation by spirit power of which I and others have in modern times been the subjects, received by Christians of Europe and America who may read on one page of their Bibles how the apostle Philip was suddenly snatched up from out the sight of the eunuch whom he had baptized, and conveyed from Gaza to Azotus, a distance of thirty miles ; iu another place the verses in which Ezekiel tells how the hand of the Lord lifted him, and carried him into the midst of the valley which was full of bones. Again, the appearances of spirit forms und hands which have so frequently occurred in the present age, are heard of with absolute incredulity, and the vouchings of witnesses of the highest standing, intellectual and social, calmly set aside. Yet one of the most picturesque chapters of the Old Testament is that wherein Daniel recounts how the " liucrers THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 57 of a man's baiul," at tho impious feast of Jnlsliazzar, -wore seen by the monarch himself and a thousand of Lis satraps, to write in fiery characters upon the "wall of tho palace an intimation of the approaching doom of Babylon. And Ezckiel recounts how ho beheld a spirit-band, and the roll of a book therein, and that, wh n the hand spread out the book before him, it was written within and without. As to the human body being made insusceptible to the action of fire, have we not Daniel's history of the three Jewish youths who walked unhurt in tho midst of the flaming furnace '? If such mighty works were done two thousand five hundred years ago, why should not lesser wonders be witnessed in our own time ? Is the arm of God grown less mighty ? The question has often been asked, but never responded to. Science cannot, and religion dare not answer in the negative. How science treats spiritual phenomena in general, I have already endeavoured to show. How she behaves with rcgai'd to the particular phenomena of which I have just spoken was instanced in the Qnarlerhj Ucvick, of October, 1871. Tho article on spiritualism contained therein has been praised as logical and able. Yet the argument it was written to enforce is simply this : — B, the author of the essay, has never witnessed certain phenomena which have occurred in the presence of A, and to whose occurrence A has testified. It is highly improbable that such phenomena should occur. The premise that such events are unlikely to happen, and the premise that B has never known them to happen, when put together produce the inference that their occurrence in the presence of A is an utter impossibility, and bis narrative therefore worthless. And has the inductive philo- sophy come to this ! Were such arguments to be advanced by a man of science on the opposite side, would not his hostile brethren have re-discovered that " many dogs can arrive at more logical conclusions ? " I rei.urn to tho examination of miracle as contained in the Bible. The first passage on which I light (1 Chrou. xxviii. 19) is a remarkable illustration of the inspirational writing and drawing of the present day. David had given to Solomon his son the 58 JEWISH AXD CHRISTIAN ERAS. patterns of the temple, and all \\'A\\ which it was to be furnished. *' These things," said he, '• the Lord made mc vinderstand in "•.vriting, by His hand upon mo, even a.l the works of this pattern." It would seem that a ypecies of divination practised in the East to this very day was kno\Yu of old among the Hebrews. How are we to understand Gen. xliv. 15 — "Is not this it by which my Lord driuketh, and whereby, indeed. He divineth " — unless as an intimation that the obtaining of visions by looking •stedfastly into a cup filled with wine or other liquor, was a species of clairvoj'ance practised in the days of Joseph ? Had I space, and did the patience of the reader permit, I might proceed to minutely analyse the prophecies contained in the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the lesser seers. The chief of these prophecies related to the coming of Christ, and all who have ever searched the Scriptures know how exact wore the forebodings of his advent. Of lesser intorost are those mystical predictions given bj* Daniel and others, on Avhich. the ingenuity of theologians of all nations and ages has been fruitlessly expended. Perhaps the terrible attractiveness with which the prophecies relating to the last siege of Jerusalem are invested, may excuse my lingering over them for a moment. The most awful is that description given by Moses of the calamities which should befall the Hebrews when they had utterly forsaken the God of their fathers, and space for repentance was no longer allowed. This denunciation, the bitterest ever spoken by a prophe^, occurs in the tv/enty-eighth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Before Jerusalem was taken by Titus every item of its horrors had come to pass. And the words of Christ, though they shock us with no such literal presentment of the miseries to be endured by the doomed race, are solemnly significant of the wrath to come. ^' When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judaja flee unto the mountains. . . . And woe unto them who are with child, and who give suck in those days. . . . For then shall bo ^reat tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be " (Matt. xxiv.). Again, THE SPIRITUALISM OT TIIK niDU:. 5<> ■" And Avhcu yc shall sco Jerusalem coinpasscd by anuies, Ibcii know that the desolation thereof is nigh. . . . For these bo tho days of vengeance, that all things which arc written may bo fulfilled. . . . And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles sh;di be fulfilled " (Luke xxi.). Seventy years after the Crucifixion came this great woo. Tho legions of Titus marched into Palestine. Rome still reigned as mistress of the world ; indeed, her power had scarcely attained its zenith. The conquests of Trajan lay yet in the womb of the future, when those of tho son of Vespasian were made. Yet the Jews for long deemed themselves secure of triumph. Their city was the strongest of all ciaes ; and false prophets were not want- ing to delude them. Thus encouraged, they fiercely defied tho power of the Empire, and vowed to recover that independence which the Maccabees had died^ to preserve, or like those heroes fall fighting to the last. Did not the whole Christian world regard the miseries of Jerusalem as chastisements sent of God, how frequently would the superhuman endurance of her children be quoted to instance what can be borne by nations striving to be free ! In no other siege was the valour displayed so frantic. In no other siege did the attacked seem so completely to have triumphed over death. The Romans were at first disposed to make captives of such as fell into their power. But these, in 3 1 early all cases, preferred death in defence of the Holy City to a life of ignominious servitude, and fought desperately to the last. And what they so stoically endured, they were no less ready to intlict. Such of their enemies as they captured they remorselessly put to death. Enraged by this, and the determined resistance of the besieged, the Romans proceeded to display in its most refined form, the cruelty seldom absent from their wars. All Jews who came into their hands alive were crucified in view of the city, and perished in torment, with their dying eyes fixed on home and friends. Even as their fathers had done unto Christ, was it done •unto them. At lencrth came the end. Wall after wall had been Co JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. carrietl, until the last stronghold of the Jews was reached. "Within the city no food remained save human flesh. Even mothers, as- Moses had prophesied, slew and ate their children in the madness of hunger. Many Jews had franticalh" endeavoured to break through the Roman lines, and, being taken, were crucified in such numbers, that wood became scarce, and no more crosses could be made. Then followed the capture of the temple. As if inspired with a sudden frenzy, the Roman soldiers rushed forward, flinging- in firebrands from every side. Titus, who desired the preservation of so magnificent a shrine, in vain ordered his guards to beat them oft'. The fiibric consecrated to Jehovah was burnt to the ground, and over against what had been its eastern gate did the Roman legionaries set up their standards, and, oflcring sacrifices to them, hail Titus as Imperator with " acclamations of the greatest joy."^ The most awful siege recorded in the world's history was at nn end. Eleven hundred thousand of the Jews had been slain. Sa many were carried into captivity that the markets became glutted, and the Roman soldiery sought in vain to find purchasers for their slaves. I think none who read of these events but must endorse the pathetic assertion of Josephus : "It appears to me that the misfor- tunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be com- pared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were." So fearfully had the predictions of Christ and Moses been fulfilled. In quitting the Old Testament for the New let me say that there is to be noticed a remarkable similarity between the miracles recorded of the Jewish prophets and those afterwards performed by Christ. The rendering inexhaustible by Elijah of the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal, is a parallel on a lesser scale to the mii-acle of the loaves and fishes. So with the means by which Elisha fed a hundred men. The restoration to life of an only child by each of these prophets recalls the raising from the dead by Jesus of that young man of Nain, " the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." Naaman, who was healed of leprosy upon having faith sufficient to obey Ehsha's mandate of washing in the Jordan, reminds us of several of the miracles of Christ. And, finally, the THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE LIBLi:. Ci narrative of the man whose dead body was cast into the tomb of Elisha, and sprang up revivified on touching the prophet's bones, is a marvel almost equalling anything that the New Testament contains. One other incident in Old Testament spiritualism deserves to be noticed. Although such marvellous tokens of spiritual power were vouchsafed to the Jews, the Levitical law forbade theni to seek intercourse with the spirits of the departed. The reason is not difficult to find. Jehovah feared that, like the nations around them, his people would bo drawn from the worship of the One God to adore a multitude of the beings whom He had created. Nor were restrictions unnecessary. On a hundred occasions do we hear of the Jews hastening to this and far grosser forms of idolatr)-. As Macauluy with great justness remarks, their whole history " is the record of a continued struggle between pure theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration." I know that the European mind of to-day and the Hebrew mind of three thousand years back have little in common. That childish savagery which could satisfy the craving for some outward symbol of spiritual things with the image of a calf, has disappeared from among civilised men. But for a few weak minds the danger out of which all idolatry springs still exists. There are not wanting enthusiasts to say to the spirits, " Ye are gods," and revere, as something more than human, those through whom tokens of their presence are given. It was against this great evil that the Levitical law was dhccted. With the Jews of old almost a whole nation was at all times ready to fall into error ; with the spiritualists of to-day comparatively few are led into such folly. Yet it behoves all who wish well to our cause to raise their voices earnestly against these things, and, impressing upon their weaker brethren that mediums and spirits are alike but fallible, urge that to neither should this unreasoning faith and baseless reverence be accorded. It is from the abuse of the faculty of veneration that such things in great part spring. By minds in which that faculty was exceed- 62 JEIVISII AXD CHRISTIAN ERAS. ingly strong, and caution and judgment correspondingly weak, tlie wildest extravagances of religious history have been perpetrated. The sceptical typo of intellect, "which can perceive nothing beyond this present world, and rejects with the greatest disdain all testimony relatmg to a future life, may be accepted as a character whose weakness is the antipodes of that just described. The mass of mankind hold a course equally distant from the two extremes,. and are neither disposed to accept without testimony nor to reject without investigation. Yet there come periods when almost the whole world seems to be infected with one or other of these diseases. Just at present the second is rampant, and is the deadliest foe by which Christianity can be menaced. For the essence of the religion of Jesus is miracle, and signs and wonders accompanied him throughoiit his career. The account of His birth is. the chief marvel in all history, yet it is almost matched by what occurred at and after His death. From the commencement of His mission until the final agony of the cross He continued to enforce the tidings He had come upon earth to proclaim by the mightiest works that earth had ever seen. And the power that was His He kept not to Himself. In His name the apostles whom He sent out were made to do many marvellous works. "And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease And He commanded them, saying : Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils ; freely ye have received, freely give." Yet, as Christ prophesied, these men were hated of all the world for His name's sake ; and to Himself the nation whom His mission particularly concerned gave only death. They saw Him raise the dead, and cleanse the leper ; give sight to the blind, and cause the lame to walk. They received from Him teachings such as ear had never before heard, and they rewarded Him with the crown of thorns and the cross. For their condition was worse than that of the man who sat by the wayside as Christ went out from Jericho. Bartimeus, through all his darkness, could recognise his Lord; but the chiefs of the people, though spiiitually blind. THE SPIRITUALl.-^M OF THE nini.E. 6j. desired not that their eyes might bo opened ; and, nnaldo to comprehend tho Light of thu WorUl, thoy sought to extin- guish it. Had tho liigh-pricst Caiaphas, when, "^vith his acolytes, he mocl;cd the victim stretched upon tho cross, saying : " He saved others — himself he cannot save ; " — had this man been tokl that there shouhl come a day ^vhcn his victim would be worshipped as the Sou of God in almost every country over which the Roman sceptre extended ; and in yet vaster regions, of whose existence those Romans had never dreamed ; that in tho very city from whence then went fortli tho fiats of Cajsar, wouhl be set up the authority of pontiffs who deemed it their all on earth to be revered as vicegerents of this Christ ; that the ancient glory of Jerusalem should be extinguished, and even the foundations of her temple almost pass from view ; and that a scanty remnant of the once mighty and flourishing nation of the Jews should wander from city to city of realms possessed by the triumphant Christians, ever expecting to behold the Messiah who should deliver them from their woes, and ever disappointed : would he not have scorned the prophecy as a madman's dream ? Had Lucian, when, in the reign of Trajan, he wrote Avith pitying wonder of that contempt of death which the Christians displayed, been informed that the statue of that very Trajan would be one day hurled from the noble column erected as its pedestal, and an efBgy of a chief among these Chris- tians take its place, with what a display of lively ridicule would he have laughed down such a tale ! And could the incredulity of cither have been held matter for surprise ? Was it probable in the days of Caiaphas that the teachings of Christ would ever spread beyond Judaea ? Was it probable in the days of Lucian that this carpenter, and son of a carpenter, would be adored as God by all the nations of the Gentiles ? IIow comes it then that at his uamo the heads of such uncountable millions bow '? The Protestant will answer that, Christ being God, the Christi:in religion was of God, and that, therefore lie has nourished and preserved it. But how has it been nourished and preserved ? Ly miracle, all history replies. It is an eas}' thing now that men 64 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. should accept the faith which their fathers have from time imme- morial accepted. The matter %Yas far otherwise iu the days of Xero, Trnjan, and Diocletian. Then, Christianity was professed only in secret, and hy a few ; being held by the many an abomina- tion or a foolishness. Its ethics were as noble as at present ; but Avith those ethics was inseparably connected the rejection of the hundreds of deities whom Greek and Roman worshipped, and the acceptance of Christ as God ; and he or she who did so accept Him, became thereby immediately exposed to inflictions such as human nature faints but to contemplate. The renunciation of the pomps and vanities of this world was then no vain form. With the embracing of the Christian religion the certainty of a life of privation and suffering was also accepted, and the peril of a death of agony dared. To encounter the constant opposition of those they loved, and provoke the hatred of their nearest and dearest ; to be in continual danger of denunciation to the authorities ; to meet for worship only in deserts and catacombs : these were some of the things which all Christians endured. It was well if at a meeting for praise and prayer the little con- gregation were not broken in upon by bands of fierce soldiery, and minister and hearers involved in one common massacre ; if an assembling to celebrate the supper of the Lord did not end in those who had partaken of that love-feast being thrown to the beasts of the arena ; if from the funeral rites of some brother or sister departed, the mourners were not snatched away to be smeared with pitch and set up as torches in the garden of Nero. How many Christians perished by these, and modes of death equally dreadful, in the three centuries that followed the Crucifixion, it is impossible to compute. However great the number of martyrs, their agonies were insufficient to check the progress of the new faith. Kay, these agonies were even coveted by man}^ converts as the most glorious mode of finishing their earthly career. Numbers denounced themselves to the authorities, and passed to deaths of lingering torture with triumphant joy. The whole popu- lation of a small town in Asia, we learn from Tertullian, sought such a fate. Having heard that the emperor had issued an edict JEUISII AXJ^ C//RJSTIAY ERAS. Cj commanding all Christians to bo put to doatb, tlicy flocked in ;i body to tbo proconsul, and afknowlcdgcd themselves adlierents ol" tlio now faith. On this the Roman deputy executed a few of tbo chief men, and dismissed tbo others to their homes. And they departed ; not lamenting that their friends had como to so terrible an end, but that they themselves had been deemed unworthy to receive the solemn crown of martyrdom ; not rejoiced because they had escaped dying in unutterable torture, but because a select few of their number had obtained admittance into the noble host of those whose blood was shed in the service of God. The words of St. Paul express the sentiment with which every martyr seems to have met death : '• I am now ready to bo offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have kept the fixith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." And why were the Christians of the first century so much more devoted to their creed than those of the nineteenth ? How came it that, in spite of the most bloody and unsparing persecu- tions men had ever groaned under, the new creed spread with rapidity over the whole of the then civilised world ? What was it by which zealot and atheist — the prejudices of men bigoted in favour of their old religion, and the prejudices of men bigoted in favour of their no-religion — were alike so speedily and so thoroughly conquered ? Was it not in great measure by the continual work- ing of signs and wonders '? — by the impetus which the unceasing intervention of spiritual beings gave to the advancement of the Christian religion ? Could a creed whose high teachings were supported by such striking miracles be likely to fail ? The internal evidences, indeed, were alone siifficient to prove this faith to be of God. But those internal evidences were recom- mended to such men as Paul, John, and Peter, by the power which they themselves possessed of working mighty things, by the marvels which many of them had seen the great Founder of their belief accomplish, by the frequent descent upon them of the Spirit of God, by the gift of miraculously healing, by the 06 THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. ability of understanding mau}' and diverse tongues. Nor was it to the apostles alone that spiritual things were brought so close. The faith of such of their successors as Polycarp, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr, as TertuUian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, and a hundred others, was strengthened by signs and wonders almost equally gixat. Nor are these signs and wonders yet extinct. The noblest Christians of all ages have sought for and received them. It may be affirmed, without danger of the assertion being disapproved, that there never was a truly great man of any church — one distinguished by the intensity of his faith and the nobility of his life — but knew himself to be attended constantly bj'- ministering spirits. Such was the faith of Savonarola, of Loyola, of Bunyan, of Fenelon, of Wesley, and of numerous others whom I have not space to name. Nor is it probable that such men as Calvin and Torquemada were unsupplied with spiritual guides ; though, doubt- less, spu'itual guides of an exceedingly undeveloped class. I purpose in my next chapters to point out how a constant vein of miracle runs through the history of the early Fathers, and how traces of miracle have continued down to the present day in every Church worthy the name of Christian. Not now, indeed, does faith " subdue kingdoms, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword." By these things were the early Christians " out of weakness made strong." Those countless thousands who in the time of the power of the Romans went to death as to a bridal, did not heliere that the faith they professed was the truth — they knetv it to be such. Spirits had spoken with them face to face ; they had been permitted while yet on earth to catch a glimpse of the glories of the here- after. It mattered not what men might do against the body ; for the soul an incorruptible crown was laid up in heaven. Such Christians would have heard with mute amazement the assertion that death is a " bourne whence no traveller returns." By a thousand incidents of their lives were such teachings disproved. Signs that a Thomas could not have doubted wore continually afiforded them of the watch which those who had gone before kept over the disciples of the true faith yet on earth. Some, like JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. 67 Stephen, saw in the hour of death the heavens open, and the Son of Man stand at the right hand of God. Others, Hko Peter, were deHvcred from hondagc and the peril of death h}- spiritual hands. Like Polycarp they stood in the midst of llames and were not harmed. Like Polycarp, too, voices whispered to them to ho strong, and quit themselves like men. As Ammon, they were horno by spirits through the air. With Montanus, they were thrown into ecstatic trances, and delivered messages from another world. With John, they were circled at times by the glory of the inner heaven, and those that looked on them saw their faces "as the faces of angels." It Avas by men like these — men strong with an unshakable certainty of the truth of what they taught — that Christianity was carried to the farthest ends of the earth. It was thus that the philosophy of Greece and the pride of Rome were -overthrown, that incense ceased to smoke on the altar of Jupiter, and Poseidon and Isis were laid prostrate in the dust. I do not advance these views as theories. They are facts, as every genuine Christian will be ready to admit. But there are numbers of men, professing to be Christians, who, denying that such things have happened, will stigmatise these great truths as dreams of the most baseless kind. For Christ is now, even more than of old, uncomprehendcd by many who call themselves his disciples. They "understand not the sayings which He speaks unto them." It was thus, as every Evangelist proves to us, in Judaea. Upon the earth to which he came to bear tidings of peace and goodwill the Son of Man walked alone. Mary under- stood Him not, nor Joseph, nor they who, according to the belief of the Jews, were the sisters and brothers of this Jesus. He began his mission, and the nation to whom He preached under- stood him not. Even the most beloved of his disciples could but faintly comprehend and sympathize with their Master. They perceived his miracles, and " being afraid, spoke among them- selves, saying, ' What manner of man is this ? ' " They listened to his teachings, and "wist not of what He talked." They approved their charity by forbidding others to cast devils out in the name of Christ, and the extent of their faith by failing to do f2 68 THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIDLE. SO themselves. "Whether Christ walked in Jerusalem or in the- desert, surrounded hy his disciples, or absent from all men, He was, as regards this world, equally alone. The love that He bore to man, not even John or Peter could understand. The spirit in which He taught none could perceive. "When, in the garden of Gethsemane, He became " sorrowful even unto death," He with- drew to endure that mighty agony alone. The afflictions that tormented Him were not trials into which the twelve could enter. AVhilst He suffered, his disciples slept. So was it before Pilate. So when passing from the judgment-seat to the cross. 80 when on that cross He cried: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " So when, having bowed his head. He said " It is finished," and, as He gave up the ghost, the earth quaked and the veil of the temple was rent in twain. And equally solitary does Christ remain unto the present day. Never have his teachings been truly understood of men. The m-aster is still alone. "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Had it been better comprehended how different would have been the history of the whole Christian world ! Then Athanasius and Arius would not have cursed each other both for this life and the next. Then Constantine would not have been accepted as a fitting head for the Church of Christ. Then Julian would not have been driven in despair to the worn-out philosophies of pagan times. Then rehgion would not have been found throughout the dark ages uniformly on the side of might, and ever straying further from what was right and true. The career of Becket could never have been lived. Dominic would not have believed in burning the bodies of men to save their souls from eternal lire. Keligious wars would never have desolated the world. The Inquisition would Eot have been established. Such natures as those of Torquemada and Calvin would have been viewed v/ith abhorrence by men of all climes and creeds. In the pages of history we should read of no Buch laws as those established in the sixteenth century at Geneva ; of no such reigns as those of Henry YIH. of England, and Charles IX. of France. The touch of Borgia or of Leo would not yEUVSn .I.V7) CJIK/ST/AN Lh'.lS. 6<> have tleClcil the papal tiara. Instead of sects too numerous to lio •countcil, there might, at this day, be seen a single Church cm- bracing all Christendom. Instead of brethren inflamed against each other by causeless hatred there might be found that unity ■which the Psalmist tells us it is so pleasant to see. Instead of gigantic wars, and rumours of wars, we might be living in the midst of the reigu of universal peace, the " federation of the v>orld.'' Controversy would be a name forgotten, and the pens i\nd works of polemical divines moulder in oblivion and dust. But these speculations are indeed dreams. It is time that this chapter should conclude. I have done my best to prove how intimately miracle is bound up with each of the many books of the Bible, and how total would be the ruin effected by tearing all miracle awaj". I have sought also to point out the resemblance between certain phenomena of Jewish times and the phenomena of the present day. Want of space, indeed, has pre- vented me from doing the subject justice. Besides the instances adduced, there are numerous others scattered through every book, from Genesis to the Revelation of John. But these any searcher of the Scriptures can readily find for himself. He will also, I think, find sufficient evidence to make plain to him that the shadow of Hebrew spiritualism was the tendency which, even more than Assyrians, Egyptians, or Persians, the race chosen of God had to listen to the whispers of evil spirits, and exalt those spirits into deities : a tendency which the most terrible threats and chastise- ments proved insufficient to restrain. He Avill agree with me that solely against this tendency were the terrors of the Levitical law dii-ected. He will also agree with me that by rejecting whatever in the Testaments, Old or New, is inexplicable by known laws, or apparently opposed to those laws, men make the prophets and chroniclers liars and the teachings of Christ of no authority. If we are to believe that so much of Scripture is false, what security have we that the rest is true ? A single error admitted injures Holy Writ : what then of this mass of error ? It is but cold truth to say that those who, professing to be worshippers of Christianity, would either totally deprive the Bible of miracle or accept only the 70 THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. miracles attributed to Christ, treat the chief of religions as of old the soldiers of Pilate treated her Foiinder. They deprive her of the vestments that so well become her. Having plaited a crown of thorns and shaped a sceptre from a reed, they adorn her with these. Then, bowing the knee before her, they expose her in this state to the derision of the nations. CHAPTER II. THE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH. A FAVOURITE dictum with many divines is, that miracle ceased with the apostoHc age. We have no certain evidence, say they, that signs and wonders occurred after the last of the twelve had departed from earth. Learned bishops have not been ashamed to employ the whole force of their ecclesiastical eloquence in en- deavouring to prove this hypothesis a certainty. Yet the fact undeniably is that, as regards external evidence, certain miraculous occurrences recorded by Athanasius, Augustine, and others, are better supported than anything the New Testament contains. The internal evidence which in the Bible carries such weight is, of course, weaker in the case of the Fathers. Yet, con- joined with the historical testimony, it has proved sufficient to induce such men as Locke and Grotius to admit the authenticity of these narratives. The first tells us that we must allow the miracles, or, by denying that they occurred, destroy the authority of the Fathers, and even] their reputation for common honesty. The second not only warmly defends the spiritual in the early Church, but avows his entire belief that such things had continued down to his own day. Milton, Cudworth, Bacon, Addison, Dr. Johnson, and a host of men equally distinguished, have held one or other of these opinions. Indeed, it is difficult to see how Christians can do otherwise. The words used by Christ are, " He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall ho do also, and greater works than these shall he do." If Protestant divines deny that such works are now done, is not the inference plain ? They are of opinion that men have ceased to believe in Christ. 72 -jEll'ISJI AXD CHRISTIAN' ERAS. Not sucli was the faith of early ami fervent members of tha Church. How hardy seem the expressions of TertulUan on the subject ! So earuestl}^ did he hohl to the text above quoted, that men asserting themselves to be Christians, who yet could not expel a demon, were in his judgment, worthy of death. " Let some one be brought forward here at the foot of your judgment- seat, who, it is agreed, is possessed of a demon. "When com- manded by an}- Christian to speak, that spirit shall as truly declare itself a demon, as elsewhere falsely a god. In like manner let some one be brought forward of those who are believed to bo acted upon b}^ a god. . . . Unless these confess themselves to be demons, not daring to lie unto a Christian, then shed upon the spot the blood of that most impudent Christian." (Apol. 23.) The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians are: — "Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. . . . For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom. ... to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to another divers kinds of tongues." As regards the last but one of these gifts, a curious passage is to be found in the '' De Anima " of the TertuUian above quoted : — "We liad a liglil,"' f^ays tlie great orator, " after what was i^aid by St. John, to expect prophesyings ; and we not only acknowledge these spiritual gifts, but we are permitted to enjoy the gifts of a prophetess. There is a sister amongst us who possesses the faculty of i-evelation. Slie commonly, during our religious service on the Sabbatli, falls into a crisis or trance. She has then intercourse with the angels, sees some- ti iiies the Lord himself, sees and hears Divine mysteries, and discovers the hearts of some persons ; administers medicine to such as desire it, and, when the Scriptures are read, or psalms are being sung, or prayers are being ofiered up, subjects from thence are ministered to her visions. We had once some discourse toucliing the soul while this sister was in the spirit. When the public services were over, and most of the people gone, she acquainted us with what she had seen in her ecstasy, as the custom was ; for these things are heedfully digested that tliey may be (hily proved. Among (jthcr things, she told us that she had seen a soul in a bodily shape, and that the spirit liad appeared mi to her, not empty or formless and wanting a living constitution, but rather such as might be handled : delicate, and of the colour of light and air — in everything resembling the human form." THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 73 Thus, ill the early Cluistiivn Church, wo have an exact couulcr- part of the clakvoyauco, the trance speaking, and the healing luediumship of the present day. It is also noteworthy that what Tcrtullian calls the " corporeal soul," or " soul iu hodily shape," minutely coincides with the spirit-form as beheld in the visions of ancient and modern seers. Pythagoras and Plato speak of it as