LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Gl FT OF /l/t<^.^.:...>../ll.cu'vs...-v^ ii:oiJJ.. Class '^IBRAR^^ PSVCH. OF THE UNIVEPS THE QUESTION SETTLED. A CAREFUL COMPARISON OF BIBLICAL AND MODERN SPIEITUALISM. BY MOSES HULL. AUTHOR OF "THE CONTRAST," "WHICH," "LETTERS TO ELDER MILES GRANT," " BOTH SIDES," " THAT TERRIBLE QUES- TION," " WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING," Etc., Etc. " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is done is that which shall be done : and there is no new thing under the sun." ECCLES. I. 9. UINTH EDITIOW, OF ^'••- ^ihdS^^^' CHICAGO: MOSBS HULL & CO., Cor. West 40th St. and Chicago Terrace, 189I. ^A1 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the vear 1869, by V/ILLIAM WHITK & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetta. PREFACE TO THE NINTH EDITION. This book was hurriedly written twenty-three years ago, when I was but a boy, comparatively speaking. Many passages in it are much harsher than I would write now. For this there are two reasons; the first is I was younger, and, according to Solomon's wise saying, more full of war than I am now. While ''young men" are ''for war," ''old men" are "for counsel." The second reason is the church has largely changed its front in the last quarter of a century. Its opposition to Spirit- ualism is not so vehement and malignant as it was at that time; hence, if this book had been written in 1 89 1, instead of 1868, many things in it would be somewhat modified and more adaptedjo the ad- vanced ground taken by progressive Spiritualists to-day. I have tried to find the time to re-write these pages, but, as yet, have not been able to do so. In my several trips across the continent I have met hundreds of intelligent Spiritualists who have assured me that "Question Settled" has done more 183105 than anything else in the world to take their feet out of the mire and place them on the spiritual rock; also I have had hundreds of importunities to publish "just one more edition." So I have finally decided to let this edition go to press without any revision. Its companion volume, ''The Contrast between Evangelical Christianity and Spiritualism," is re- issued from the same press and at the same time as this volume. That this book may lead many to the light in the future, as it has in the past, is the humble prayer of its author. Moses Hull. Chicago, 111., June i, 1891. PREFACE. A WISE man has said, " To the making of many -^-^ books there is no end." This is literally time. Especially has spiritual literature increased so rapidly during the past few years, that it requires close atten- tion to keep track of the matter almost daily issuing from its press. Yet, in our six years' effort in behalf of the doctrines advocated in these pages, we have again and again observed a niche that we had hoped ere this to have seen filled. Speaking of this a few weeks since, a friend suggested that it was our duty to stand in this gap. As we could see no signs of others who wield more instructive pens occupying this field, we have un- dertaken so to do. How well we have succeeded is to be decided by our readers. When we contracted with our pubhshers, two months since, not a word of this volume was written : we, how- ever, at that time supposed we had the plan of the work arranged ; but our inspiration has stubbornly and per- sistently refused to follow our plan. The book has shaped itself, seemingly, almost without our aid. 4 PREFACE. When we took our pen, we seemed to see a huge chaotic mass of material to work into this book ; and, until it was half done, we hoped to weave it all in : but, like the widow's oil, it has greatly multiplied; and, now that our book is done, we see so much more that has been left out of its pages than has been admitted, that we more strongly than ever see the necessity of another voliune. Should this volume meet the approbation of those for whom it was written, another may follow soon. This has been prepared amid the clash of spiritual arms. It has all been written and rewritten inside of eight weeks, while lecturing, preaching, debating, editing a journal, answering correspondents, &c. It has been written in the cars, in hotels, boarding-houses, dep6ts, and sitting- rooms ; in fact under the varying circumstances attend- ant upon the life of an itinerant. Traveling as we have, we have had but Httle chance to examine libraries or consult books. Indeed, it was unnecessary, as our only aim has been to faitlifully com- pare the Bible with modem phenomena and philosophy. If we have succeeded in this we are content. MOSES HULL. HOBABT, Ind.. May, 1869. CONTENTS. CHAFI'ER I. THE ADAPTATION OF SPIRITUAXISM TO THE WANTS OF HUMANTTT. PAGB. No Argument so good as that of Adaptation — Religions must adapt them- selves to Men — Religions and Sciences have failed to demonstrate an After-Life — Two contradictory Chains of Thought in the Bible — Law forbidding Consultation with the Dead — Its Effect — Bible Writers in Doubt as to a Future — A Dialogue — Spiritualism convinces a Minister of his Immortality — Dying Minister in Despair — Why this Appetite for a Knowledge of a Future — Counterfeit Spiritualism an Evidence of a Grenuine — Spiritualism not a Phantasm — Men love Spirit-Commu- nion — Illustration — Spirits retain their Regard for Mortals — Is it Im- agination — Where and What is the Land of the Dead — All interested in the Question — Sick Healed — Endless Progress — Theodore Parker — Abraham Lincoln — A Pi"oof of the Truth of Spiritualism in its Beauty — Conclusion U CHuVPTER n. THE MORAL TENDENCY OF SPIRITUAXISM. A Natural Query — Jesus regarded as a Blasphemer and a Devil — Every new System passes an Era of Calumny — Persecution purifies — What Good has Spiritualism done — Opponents unfair — Imraorahty in the Churches — Religious Systems not responsible for Errors of their Ad- herents — None perfect — All are God-makers — Men worship their* own Opinions — Short-comings of Bible Saints — Jewish Church — Tes- timony of Jeremiah — Of Jesus — Of Paul — Drunkenness and "Free- lovism" in the Earl j^ Church — Errors of Noah — Abraham — Isaac — Jacob — The twelve Patriarchs — Moses — Joshua — Samuel — David — Solomon — Jesus — Peter — Paul — Spiritualism a Reform School — Welcomes Sinners — Churches disfellowship Sinners— • Illustrative Case — "Come and go with us" — Phenomenal Spiritualism — It appeals to our deepest social Feelings — The Theory of Spiritualism the best moral Governor — Its Philosophy — A Contrast — Orthodoxy and Heathenism — Eternal Punishment for Sin — Familiar Story — Is it 5 G CONTENTS. Just — Living and Dying in Heaven — No Barriers to Sin — No morai Change at Death — Illustration — We are Authors of our Destinies — Conclusion 81 CHAPTER m. BIBLE DOCTRINE OF ANGEL MINISTRY. A. Common Doctrine — Angels are Spirits — Terms " Man " and " Angel " — Angel Men visit Abraham, Lot, Joshua — The Host of the Lord — An Angel appears to Gideon ; to Manoah's wife ; is introduced to Manoah — Writing on the Wall — Daniel a Superior Medium — Gabriel both a Man and Angel — The Stone rolled from the Sepulchre by a Man — Cor- nelius's Visitant — Peter a Trance-Medium — A Spirit talks to him — Peter's Explanation — The Book of Revelation a Series of Spirit-Com- munications — John sees his Brother — An Angel — God's Family — Bible replete with History of Angelic Ministration — No Bible-Writer has tried to prove it — All the Angels are Ministering Spirits — Number of Angels — Bible Saints trusted too much to the Angels — Abraham's Confidence — Angels select Isaac's Wife — "Murder will out" — Moses and the Angel — Angels deliver Israel — A Whole Nation of Mediums — Conditions must be obeyed — Joshua developed as a Medium — Joshua and the Angel — A Circle — Jericho taken — The Modus Ope' rancli — Camels swallowed and Gnats rejected — Angel Ministry vs. Miracle — The Hebrews and the Fire — Nebuchadnezzar sees an Angel — Jugglers play with Fire — Chemicals prevent the Penetration of Heat — Letter fi-oni Rev. J. M. Peebles — The Explanation — The Result, an Increase of Faith — Master Frank Goodman — Mr. D. D. Home and the Fire Tests — Daniel and the Lions — Prayers answered by Angels — Jesus' Prayers —Daniel's Prayer — Angel's Effort to answer — Another finally assists and succeeds — The Emancipation Proclamation — An Ancient Prayer-Meeting — Peter let out of Prison — Peter at the Door — Only Spirit-Raps — Modern Mediums released from Prison — Author does not believe — Admonition , 48 CHAPTER rV. THE THREE PILLARS OF SPIRITUALISM. Spiritual Platform — Three Propositions — Man has a Spiritual Nature — Spirit not immaterial — Spiritual Man — Source of Evidence— Biblical Testimony — Elihu — Zeplianiah — Papal Deci-ee — Hard Questions — Can not answer all — Spiritual Senses — Blind and Deaf Man — inns' tration — Man Double — Two Fathers — Two Sources of Knowledge — Peter awakened — Two Contradictory Histories of Jesus — Both true — Jesus did not always believe his own Prophecies — Somnambulism an Important Witness — Author's Case — A Lady and the Fine Arts — Dr. Slade and Spirit Pictures — The Modus Operandi — Psychometry — Discourses read from the Hand, the Walls of the House, &c. — Paul's Case — (Jutward and Inward Man — One iierishes, the other endures — Modern Facts — Apparitions of the Living — Mrs. Hauffe CONTENTS. 7 — Lady in Albany — Apparition at St. Louis — Iliram Dayton badly mixed — Ills Father appears — Case in New Orleans — Drowning Per- sons — Spirit continues after the Death of the Body — Spirit a Con- scious Entity — Spirits in Prison — Gospel preached to the Dead — Spirits return — Modern Spiritualism a Repetition of that of the Bible — Samuel and Saul — No Devil or Witch in the Case — Joscphus's Tes- timony — Character of the Woman — Moses and Elias — " Only a Vis- ion" — Various Phases of Manifestation — Child Medium — Written Communication from Elijah the l^rophct — Belshazzar's Palace Wall — Elias must come— John the Baptist a Medium — This was Elias — "He hath a Devil" — Ezekiel's Mediumship — Saul a Medium — An Evil Spirit ^^sits him — Modern Evidences — Dr. Johnson's Testimony — Vision of a Fi-ench Marquis — Prediction fulfilled — Testimony Con- clusive 77 CHAPTER V. THE BIRTH OF THE SPIRIT. All Subjects Important — " Ye must be born again" — Xicodemus' Quan- dary — A Minister's Opinion — Author's Objection — Jesus' Tests — Must be born out of Flesh — Birth of the Siiirit a Resurrection — Not of Flesh and Blood — Bible against it (1 Cor. xv.) — Natural and Spirit- ual Body — Opinion of the Woman of Tekoah — Of Job — Of Jesus — Objections answered — Mortal Bodies quickened — Must eat Christ's Flesh — Job and the Worms — Job refers to his Recovery — He did see God — Scientific Arguments — Change of Matter — Interesting Dialogue — Is the Mind an Entity —Abraham in the Resurrection — Dust return- ing to Dust — Resurrection a Birth — Jesus born of the Spirit — Seen by Clairvoyants — He goes and comes like the Wind — His Flesh and Bones — Owasso. the Boots and the Hand — His Explanation — Jesus appears to Paul — Others do not see him — Test from Ananias — Jesus, in show- ing himself, demonstrated Immortality — Practical Conclusions — Born into the Other World of this — Future Happiness and Misery made by Life here — Alexander Campbell — The Good shall shine — Spirits and Tobacco — Appetites may be our HeU hereafter — Admonition . . 113 CHAPTER VI. ARE "WE INFIDELS? Rapid Growth of Spiritualism — The " Mad-Dog" Cry — Charge ignored — Proceeds from Infidel Hearts — Truths and Errors in the Bible — Dia- logue; Minister wants a Bible — All believe Parts, and no one believes All, of the Bible — Illustrative Cases — How shall we decide who the Believers are — The true Test — Works — The Commission — End of the World not yet — Jewish and Christian Age — Preaching, Baptism, and Signs go together — Is Christ in the Church — Signs follow; did Jesus tell the Truth — The Day of Pentecost — Holy Ghost, Definition of — Opinion of Opposers — Peter's Explanation — " Wliat shall we do" — This Power for all — Abrahamic Promise — Holy Ghost for all — Gifts not to cease — Churches acknowledge sc ne of the Gifts — Covet 8 CONTENTS. the Best Gifts — When will the Gifts cease — Advice cf James — Eli- jah's Prayer and the Rain; two Positions — Mind will control Matter — All Things under Man — A Lightning-Tamer — Philosophy of Rain — Rain ou B:ittle-Fields,&c.— Yankee Climate-Regulators — Sick Lady — A Dialogue — God not changed by Prayer — Effect of Prayer — Sick- ness the Result of Sin — Prayer and its Equivalent— Philosophy of Disease and Cure — Impressions Mental and Physical — Philosophy of vomiting — Disease created and removed by Impressions on the Mind — Death from Excitement — Whence the Power of Volition — Spirit- Writing — Cause of Paralysis — Positive and Negative Disease — Phi- losopliy of Controlling a Patient — Electric Currents pass from the Nerves of one to another — The Spirit-World supplies the Operator — Author's Experience in healing — Cause of Failures — Jesus some- times failed — His Disciples do — Author has been healed — Blind see, Deaf hoar, &c. — Statement of Abraham Clarke — Letter to " The New- York Dispatch" — Peter Manning's Case — Another Dialogue — The Devil did it — Devil not so good, after all —Another Evidence — Jesus' Logic — Was his Mission divine — Coming of Christ — SjTubolic Clouds and Horses — Death has lost its Sting — Challenge — World's Conven- tion 144 CHAPTER Vn. ARE WE DELUDED? A. Common Cry — Contradictory Positions — Order of Batteries — They fire into each other — ' ' Kettle Story " — Result of the Warfare — Dialogue — God and Mediums deceiving the World — Are God and the Devil Part- ners—Is it just to damn the World for Unbelief — Author loves God more than Bibles — Lying Spii-its sent out — Did God do it — Case of Jeremiah and Ezekiel — Ezekiel's Explanation — Spiritualism a Delu- sion — The Lord coming — Reasoning in a circle — Wonderful Success of the Opposition ( ?) — Spiritualism will not "down" — "Old SpUt- foot" — Toe-joint Theory — Hidden Meaning in api^ointing these Com- mittees — The Machinery Argument — Arguments of Opposers suicidal to themselves — Human Testimony rejected — Conditions required — Conditions of Sleep — Conversation with a Photographist — Conditions of Photography — Telegraphy — Arguments against Spiritualism would overthrow the Bible — An Infidel Deacon denies his Bible — A Giant Delusion — Spiritualism Twenty-two Years ago and now — A Prospec- tive View — Spiritualism Positive and Aggressive — Reasons for going to Church — Churches not Proselyting — Why do Persons become Spir- itualists—Rev. A. J. Frishback'rt Reply — Suffering for Spiritualism — Ministers' Wives in the Lunatic Asylum for Spiritualism — Author's Experience — The Quality of Converts to Spiritualism — Our Evidence not in the Number or Intelligence of Converts — Giant Minds yield — Atheism and Materialism give place — Hon. N. P. Talmadge and J. W. Edmonds — "The Kings of the Earth" — Opposers fall before the Power — Gamaliel's Opinion — A charaiing Delusion — Efibrts to con- vert a Spiritualist — Death-bed Scene — " Oh, happy Delusion I " — It i» not a Delusion — Child Medium. 186 CONTENTS. 6 CHAPTER Vm. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. Objections usually the Result of Ignorance — A British Lord and the Steam- boat — Objections to the Telegraph ^-Objections to AboUtionism — God legislated against Spiritualism — Necromancy ; Definition of— The Ob- jection proves Spiritualism — Hebrews inclined to apply to the Dead for Knowledge — Law indorsed Spiritualism — This Law abolished — Other Precepts of this Law not binding — Jesus violated this Law — Paul and John violated, and hence deserve Death — The Law good in its Place, and fo»- its Time — Men inclined to worship Spirits which communicated —The Jewish Jehovah not an Infinite God — He incited the Jews to Crime — Jehovah jealous of other Spirits — God goes to Babel to find out concerning a Report — Moses a better Man than his God— Heathen Gods once Men upon Earth — Spirits should be Helps, not Masters— Jews worshiped Spirits; Abraham, Lot, Joshua, Peter, John — Law against Spiritualism had evil Results — Materialism the Results of that Law — Elihu a Claii-\'oyant Medium — Men not Clay — "Old Paths" — Contradictory Objections — Consistency a rare Jewel — All Things were once new — Protestantism once new — Catholic Ar- gument agahist Protestantism — All Religions have run the same Gant- let —" Fanatical Methodists"- Novelty not against Truth — Men in this Worid are Icaruiug; may not others progress — Spiritualism not new — Martin Luther and the Spirits— Wesley and the Spirits — They are Devils — An old Charge — John the Baptist and Jesus had a Devil — Every Reform was instigated by the Devil — Devil left the Church — Devil is Synonymous with Hatred of Progress — The Telescope, Fan- ning-Mill, Printing-Press, and Vaccination, aU of the Devil — Devil dis- covered the Circulation of the Blood — Devil and Michael Servetus — Martyrdom of Servetus — The Devil and Vaccmation — The Devil figur- ing as an Abolitionist, Geologist, &c. — Has God sent a Scorpion for a Fish — A^Hiat a God — The Existence of a Devil can not be reconciled with that of a good God — The Devil always proves himself right- Author of Progress— Devil a Myth— Conclusion . . , . . 214 THE QUESTION SETTLED. CHAPTER I. THE ADAPTATION OF SPIRITUALISM TO THE WANTS OF HUMANITY. No Argument so good as that of Adaptation — Religions must adapt them- selves to Men — Religions and Sciences have failed to demonstrate an After- Life — Two contradictory Chains of Thought in the Bible — Law forbidding Consultation with the Dead — Its Effect — Bible Writers in Doubt as to a Fu- ture—A Dialogue — Spiritualism convinces a Minister of his Immortality — Dying Minister in Despair — Why this Appetite for a Knowledge of a Future — Counterfeit Spiritualism an Evidence of a Genuine — Spiritualism not a Phantasm — Men love Spirit-Communion — Illustration — Spirits retain their Regard for Mortals — Is it Imagination — Where and A\Tiat is the Land of the Dead — All interested in the Question — Sick Healed— Endless Prog ress — Theodore Parker — Abraham Lincoln — A Proof of the Truth of Spiritualism in its Beauty — Conclusion. THERE is no argument so strong in favor of any hypothesis as that which shows unmistakabl}^ tht adaptation of the theory to the work intended. A re- ho-ious theory proving itself adapted to meet all the wants of the human soul comes with God's warrant in its hands. Havinor such credentials from the Almio-hty, but little else is needed to prove it true. As man is the highest type of the creation, yea, " the offspring of God " (see Acts xvii. 28), religions and theories must bend to man : he can not bend to them. They must come to him as he is, in a state of nature, and adapt thera- 11 12 THE QUESTION SETTLED. selves to his wants. The first inquiry which suggests itself is, Wliat are tlie wants of the human soul ? All answer, The first great want of the soul is an evidence of its own continued existence. With all deference to other systems of religion and philosophy'. Spiritualism is the only system which can make man know of his own immortality. Is man im- mortal? is a question which is now being propounded with more earnestness than ever before. How can the question be answered ? If Science be consulted, she stands with drooping wings, looking dov>m into the dax'k grave, and answers, " The knowledge is not with me. I am educated only in the past ; I trace man from the primordial fires, through the granite rock, on through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, to the grave : but I can see no farther." Science can not tell the strength of the disease now preying upon my body, nor yet the power of endurance my physical system may have ; much less can it dive into the dark future, and grapple from its unwritten pages evidences of man's future condition. Poor blind Science ! don't ask it to solve questions so entirely out of its reach. True, we may reason from the great law of design manifest every- where, and from our reasonings draw the liope that this mundane existence will not wind up the course of man ; but at best it is only Jiope. The soul demands evidence of its immortality. Where shall it be found ? If we recur to the Bible, we find two distinct and contradictory classes of ideas upon this subject running through that book. One chain of ideas comes from cer- tain phenomena which were witnessed among the peo- ple ; such as Samuel returning and holding a tete-d-tete THE QUESTION SETTLED. 13 with King Saul, Moses and Elias talking with Jesus on the mount, John's brother talking with him on the Island of Patmos, &c. See 1 Sam. xxviii. 14-20; Matt. xvii. 1-8; Rev. xxii. 8. Thouo-h these foots are said to have occurred, they were in the most open violation of one of the strictest laws of the Jews, which reads as follows : — " There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter of familiar sjyirits, or a wizard, or a necro- mancer.'" — Dent, xviii. 10, 11. Here is a law forbidding spirit-communion. It takes more courage than most people possess to enable them to violate such plain laws, with death as their penalty. The result, as might have been expected, was, that cases of spirit-communion were rare. Death they had before them constantly ; graves they saw every day : but those who had passed on they did not see, did not dare to see them. The result was, many of them con- cluded they had no existence. Jacob, when he sup- posed his son Joseph to be dead, said, " Joseph is not " (Gen. xlii. 36). Rachel, being forbidden to consult her children, naturally enough concluded they were not (Jer. xxxi. 15). Isaiah says of the dead, " They are extinct; they are quenched as tow" (Is. xliii. 17). The writers of the Bible not only supposed, as a result of their being shut away from communication with the dead, that they had no existence, but they believed death to be a state of eternal nonentity. It was not Porphyry, Celsus, or '' Julian the apostate," but Job, ^ho said, " So he that goeth down to the grave shall 14 THE QUESTION SETTLED. come up no more" (Job vii. 9). David, the "man after God's own heart," did not leave it for Lord Bo.ling- broke or Pope to compose the poem Avliich says, " Put not your trust in ])rinces, nor in tlie son of man, in whom there is no help ; for his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth : in that very day his thoughts perish" (Ps. cxlvi. 1-3). It was thirty centuries be- fore the birth of the author of " The Age of Reason," that Solomon, the wise Jewish king, gave utterance to the followincr sentiment : — " The living know that they shall die ; but the dead know not any thing." — Eccl. ix. 5. Not satisfied with uttering the atheistic sentiment of the unconsciousness of the dead, he proceeds to lock the doors of a future against them. Hear him : — " Neither have they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred is now perished ; 7ieither have they any more a portion forever in any thing that is done under the sun.''' — Eccl. ix. 5, 6. All the above-mentioned passages express the most absolute infidelity concerning the future of man. These opinions can but be regarded as the legitimate result of the embargo put upon appealing to the dead for knowl- edire. Remove that restriction, let the Jew" have the privilege which the heathen enjoyed, of consulting the dead, and how long could his infidelity have re- mained ? Not long enough for Job to have said, — '' The grave is my house : I have made my bed in darkness. I have said to corruption. Thou art my father ; to tlie worm. Thou art my mother and my sister. And where is now my hope ? iVs for my hope, THE QUESTION SETTLED. 15 wlio shall see it ? They shall go clown to the bars of the pit when our rest together is in the dust." — ■ Job xvii. 1-3-16. If the Bible writers themselves, for whom a plenary inspiration is claimed, who, it is supposed, enjoyed all the evidences of immortality, were so unbelieving con- cerning the future, is it any Avonder that the world to- day has so nearly run into atheism on that subject ? .If the position assumed be correct, that the elements of the infidelity of the Jews had an origin in their non- intercourse with the dead ; that, in proportion as that people transcended their legal rights, and held occasional converse with visitants from the other side, their unbe- Hef was supplanted by knowledge, — then we may safely affirm, that, without Spiritualism, there is no positive evidence of a future life. When travelino; on a certain occasion throuo;h Can- ada, the writer was introduced to a Baptist minister. As the prefix "Reverend" was used in his introduction, the gentleman of course supposed him to be an evangel- ical minister. Beino; curious to know whether this minister could find any evidence of another world, independent of Spiritualism, he commenced a conver- sation which resulted in the followino; dialoo;ue : — Hull. — How is the cause of relio-ion in Canada ? Minister. — All is well. We had glorious revi- vals through these parts last winter. Of course, matters have cooled down somewhat ; yet, with many, the work seems to be deep and lasting. How, may I ask, is the xrood cause in Michiii'an ? H. — We are havino; trouble there. There are a great many thinkers in that State, and among them a 16 THE QUESTION SETTLED. large proportion of materialists wlio deny immortality ; and we find them hard to meet. M. — Ah ! I see no trouble in meeting them, espe- cially if they believe the Bible. Why don't you tell them that Samuel returned to talk with Saul ? This he never could have done had not he been immortal. H. — True enough. That could be used, for aught I know, in Canada ; but it does not do to use it in Michi- gan. There are in that State about twenty-five thou- sand Spiritualists ; and, were you to quote that text, every one of them would claim you as being on their side of the question ; for, if the text proves any thing, it proves Samuel was immortal by the fact of his having returned and communicated. AVe do not wish, when battling with atheists and materialists, to put a club into the hands of the Spiritualists with which to beat our brains out when we undertake to deny Spiritualism. M. — True ; but could you not tell them of the appearance of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Trans- fiiXuration ? H. — Yes ; but that, too, if it proves any thing, proves the continued life of the parties by their returnmg. M. — Yes, yes ; but should we reject a truth because the Spiritualists believe it ? H. — Certainly not. But is there no way to prove immortality, without resorting to texts, wdiich, if they prove any thing, prove Spiritualism? M. — The fact is, my belief in immortality d'jes not hang upon biblical expressions. / know mar^ is immortal. H. — You are the man I want to see. Tell me how you know it. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 17 M. — Last Saturday I was called tc the bedside of a dying sister : while we were watching for the last breath, she suddenly brightened up, and said, " See there ! do you see? " — " See what ? " I said. " There is my sister, and one who I guess is Jesus : they have come for me." Saying this, she expired. Now I can not think this all deception. God is too good to let one who had trusted him all the days of her life die so deceived. H. — So I think ; but that is Spiritualism. And now let me confess that I am a Spiritualist. I have talked thus with you to see if you had any evidence of immortality which would not prove Spiritualism. M. — I do not see that we are bound to reject a truth because Spiritualists believe it. This last sentence, though true, does not present the matter fairly. Every system of religion in the land lives and is sustained by its spiritual element. The question was not, '' Shall I reject the evidence of im- mortality presented to my dying sister ? " but, "Is there any evidence, except that which comes in such a way, that, if it proves any thing, it proves Spiritualism? " The world demands to-day, above all things, the evidence of immortality. All demand it. As the mother takes the last look at the cold, dead body of her son, and imprints a kiss on his colorless cheek, she involuntarily exclaims, '"' Shall I see my child again? ''^ Then let the minister point her to some biblical decla- ration, and her very soul will revolt at it ; and she will inwardly, if not outwardly, exclaim, " Such authorita- tive ii^se dixits may do under ordinary circumstances ; but they fail to reach a mother's heart in an extremity 2 18 THE QUESTION SETTLED. like tills." What will convince that mother ? " Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there ? " She naturally feels, " If my son lives, why docs he not take this burden from my heart ? Has he lost all interest in me ? Oh for one breeze from the summer-land (if there be such a country), just one rap, one test, one evidence, that my son still lives and thinks ! " Now the Spiritualist believes that that boy can come back and communicate with his mother ; tliat he can say, " Mother, I am alive ! " Reader, don't you wish it was true ? Wouldn't you make it true if you had the making of the truth ? If these questions were asked of the great body of humanity, would one single voice be found to say, " No " ? Once upon a time, we were invited to the bedside of a dying minister, whom we had long known to be a good man and a consistent Christian, if there ever was one : to say the least, his daily life was a better epistle than Paul ever wrote. The minister was taken suddenly with hemorrhage of the lungs, and drew rapidly near the gates of physical dissolution. Looking up to us, he faltered out, " Brother Hull, do ^ou believe in the resurrection of the deadf^^ '' Why," said we, " youliave heard us preach on that question many times : did you think we wou'd preach what we did not believe?" He responded, *• I was taught to believe it ; but I know now, for tlie 11/ st time, that I never did. I received it from my teachers and my Bible without investigating. I am now dying ; and I frankly acknowledge that I do not believe thij body can again be gathered. I can not see that there is a THE QUESTION SETTLED. 19 future ^for man." After reasoning witli the man nearly an hour, we ventured to ask, " Are you now satisfied ? " He responded, " I am dying now : I can not talk. My request is for you to preach my funeral- discourse ; and don't let one who hears it, die, as I am dying now, without any hope of a beyond." Under the influence of this scene, we could but exclaim, " If there is not another world, what a pity there is not ! and, if there zs, what a pity that God (hd not give us a better knowledge of it!" Without Spiritualism there is no evidence of another world. Now we would inquire, Is this appetite for a hcijond the only one God has left ungratified ? or, having granted us this boon, has he left us without any possi- bility of knowing that there is life when the earthly life has ceased, until by experience we know of the better country ? It can not be that God, who has done all in his power for man, has left us thus to grope in darkness. No : when every other source of evidence has been set aside as unsatisfactory, Spiritualism comes to our relief ; thus proving itself, in this , respect at least, adapted to the needs of humanity. Evidences of another life, given through Spiritualism, are many of them of such a character, that those who have witnessed them find no room for doubts. That there are cases of deception, that there are lying mountebanks who wear the fair garments of Spiritual- ism as a cloak for their iniquity, does not affect the genuine manifestations more than a crenuine bank-bill would be affected by counterfeits issued on its credit. Nay, do not counterfeits prove the existence of a true coin, which is worthy of counterfeiting? Men do 20 THE QUESTION SETTLED. not connterfeit copper coin : it is too cheap. llovr strangely beside themselves men get when they con- clude there is no genuine Spiritualism because they have found a counterfeit ! Profound logic that ! When such men as Robert Owen, Robert Hare, Robert Dale Owen, and hundreds of others whom we might mention, who have all their lives, up to the time of their com- munion with the departed, doubted whether there was another life, are, through Spiritualism, so perfectly con- vinced of it, that no room is left for a doubt, and they are ever after not only believers, but open advocates of immortality, we are led to ask. Is any other argu- ment needed to show that Spiritualism is perfectly adapted to meet that earnest longing of the human heart for a knowledge of endless life ? Now, w^e ask. Is not immortahty a natural want ? and, if man -is immortal, is not the evidence of the fact a want natural to him? Spiritualism is found equal to the task of supplying that need. Has it not in this proved itself adapted to the wants of man ? No other religion has done so much. Is it objected that the evidence is not real ? that only the gullible are deceived by it? Admit it, and what is the result? Man is a poor worm, either w^ithout im- mortality, or, if immortal, without any evidence of the fact. All hope pertaining to the future is idle. All our prospects are blasted. Religion is a solemn farce, and man of all creatures the most miserable, placed on the earth, given a taste of life, made to enjoy im- mortality, and yet his highest joys and brightest anticipations all imagination. And is it so ? Has not the Giver of all good been able to make the reality as THE QXTESTION SETTLED. 21 clovious as man, without any image before him, could ^aint the ideal ? Tell us that day does not follow nicvht, that water does not quench thirst, that it is only fanatics who imagine that the sun shines, that this life is a miserable phantasm; but do not tell us that the seeds of happiness sown in the human soul by tins beautiful belief will never grow. Even admitting that man could know of another world without Spiritualism, yet who would not hold sweet communion with those on the other side ? We are all social beings. We love social converse ; nor is that love confined to the living. The true wife does not cease to love her husband as soon as he passes from hersiaht: that husband, whose voice was once sweet to her, and whose friendly counsel was her greatest solace, still lives. Is it not natural that the wife should long for communion with the one whose hte was almost a part of her being ? To illustrate : a mbther had two sons, James and John, whom she loved as her ou-n life ; but when traitors fired into our flag, and trampled it under foot, she -ave them up to defend their country. In the course of the battle, James was killed ; but John, after passing through severe engagements, returns home a triumphant conqueror. How the loving mother hails her son' With what eagerness does she grasp Ins hardened hand ! With what outgushhig of soul does she imprint her kisses upon his sun-browned cheek ! How proudly she watches his every move! With what heartfelt joy does she welcome him to the place at the table made vacant by his absence ! And as he relates his experfences on the battle-fields, in forced 22 TFTE QUESTION SETTLED marches, in prisoii-j)cns, how licr very soul drinks his every word ! Now, who can think that she forgets James, wlio, fired with the same patriotism, went, but never returned? How would her soul rejoice, could James come back from the other side, and fill Jiis vacant chair, and relate the experiences lie has had since his birth into the better world ! Is there one on earth who has a friend in spirit-life, but that would like to see and converse with that friend? The spirit- ual philosophy says, Such communion awaits you. Who does not wish it correct on that point ? Then it is adapted to meet the wants of man. Not only is spirit-communion desirable for lonely ones yet clothed in mortality, but departed spirits themselves must long for the privilege of loving and blessing dear ones whom they have left behind. Were the angel of death to summon us this moment to the better land, we should leave a wife and four daughters, whom we love as we love our own soul. They may not be very mucli in the world; but they are all the world to us. We remember that this world is sometimes cold and heartless, especially toward the feminine half of humanity. Woman is not legally, socially, and politically man's equal ; often compelled to work for less than half w^ages, and sometimes driven to the alternative of stealing or starving, or, even worse than either, compelled to sell her virtue for the bread and butter the world owes her. Could we think of going to heaven and singing praises, and our wife and daughters driven to such lives as these, — we not even having the privilege of looking over its battlements, and asking, How fares thy soul ? Nay ; rather put us THE QITWRTrON SETTLED. 23 into an orthodox hell, with the privilege of an occa- sional respite to bless those left behind, than thus to shut us away from those who need a husband's love and a father's counsel. If this communion be not true, we chide with Almighty God. Has he made that false which man needs, and that true which is so illy adapted to meet his wants? Has the Devil beaten God so badly, and got the best and prettiest theory after all ? Believe it wdio can : we can not. Nay ! the father, mother, brother, or sister who crossed the stream of death before us, can not lose their interest in those left behind. Another reason why the soul longs for Spiritualism is, that each and every one is personally interested in knowing what there is in reserve for him. The realities of another world, if there be another, we must soon taste. How shall we find thino;s over there ? is a query which can not be expelled from any mind. How natural the query ! Were we emigrating to some distant country, how anxiously w^ould we try to learn something of its location, climate, soil, timber, inhabit- ants, &c. ! and how should we find out ? In no other way than by consulting those w-ho have been there. The truth is, we are all emigrants — to wdiat place ? If to a haven " from whose bourn no traveler returns,'' how dark the prospect ahead ! No wonder that Job said, " A land of darkness as darkness itself." Certain it is we can learn nothing of that world, only as we learn it from those wdio have been there. Then how beautiful the thought, that those on the other shore can draw the curtain aside, as did Samuel of old, and give us news concernins; their whereabouts and condition ! 24 THE QUESTION'. SETTLED. In hours of weary sadness, when cares are pressing heavily upon us, and we weary even of life itself, how sweet to have such spirits as Miss A. W. Sprague come through such mediums as Miss Lizzie Doten ; and after announcing that — " I come, I come, from my spirit-home, Like a bird in the early spring, To the loved ones here, whom my heart holds dear, A message of love to bring," and telhng us that — " The heavens are wide, but they can not divide The spirits whom love makes free ! The green old earth, and the land of my birth, With its homes, are still dear to me," to go on and give such glowing descriptions of the heavenly country, that, while reading, we sometimes quite forget that we belong to earth ! " We'll be there, we'll be there, in a little while, We'll join the pure and the blest, We'll have the palm, the robe, the crown, And for ever be at rest." Oh, glorious thought ! How our soul fills with rapture as we contemplate the summer-land as de- scribed by those who have tasted its fruit, breathed its air, traversed its fields, and bathed in its exhilarating waters ! Spiritualism professes to heal the sick. There are persons (mediums) who profess, under favorable con- THE QUESTION SETTLE!). 25 ditions, to come so en raj)2^ort with the spirit-world as to enter into certain magnetic relations with it, by which, by a touch, they can heal disease. Thus the blind have been made to see, the deaf to hear, and even the insane have, by this power, been restored to sanity. Call this all imagination ! How glorious such an imagination ! Whv can it not be true ? Would not a religion which would do what some imagine Spiritualism is doing, just meet the wants of the world ? What a pity that such a religion should lack only the element of truth ! One more point : the idea of endless progression, as taught in Spiritualism, is certainly one of the most beautiful thoughts that ever entered the human brain. If that be true, not only are such men as Newton, Locke, Bacon, Washington, JeflPerson, Clay, Webster, Douglas, and Lincoln alive to-day ; but they live for a purpose. They are interested in matters of theology and jurisprudence as much to-day as when they wore their own bodies. Let two cases illustrate our ideas ; and who shall they be ? One we will select from the theological, and one from the political world. From the rehVious world, we could not make a better selection than Theodore Parker. From the political world, Abraham Lincoln will be the man of our choice. It is unnecessary for us to say a word in Mr. Parker's praise. Most of our readers know with what steady purpose his noble heart was devoted to every reform. Sinners feared him more than all the other ministers of New England put together. He always asked, not. What will bring the praise, honor, or wealth of the world ? but, What is right ? In the winter of 26 THE QUESTION SETTLED. 1857-'58, the people of New England were insane with religious excitement, and yet, in their revival meetings, would publicly rebuke one who dared to remember the poor slave in his chains. Mr. Parker occupied Music Hall in Boston, and, from Sunday to Sunday, preached to the people of " The Revival of Religion which we need^^ — a revival which breaks every yoke, and tears away every burden ; which pays the milliner and dress- maker in proportion as it does the lawyer, doctor, or mim'ster ; which would occasionally let a poor servant- girl make a summer tour to Europe, and let her pay go on the same as thouo;h she were a minister : in fact, a revival which sanctifies the kitchen as well as the ijulpit. Such preaching was too much for New-England Puritanism; and the result was, the "baptized" and " sanctified " infidels to the purer religion held prayer- meetings to pray him out of the world. And when the news came from the " sunny South " that Theodore Parker was dead, what rejoicing and thanksgiving ! " One infidel out of the world ! " " We'll hear no more of Theodore Parker. He is dead and gone ! " How mistaken ! Theodore Parker is not dead. He is here now. His voice rings as melodiously, truthfully, and harmoniously in behalf of every reform as when he spoke through his own organism. The cause of humanity, which is the cause of God, lies as near his heart as ever. Still he follows the waymarks of those ahead of him, and beck- ons those behind to follow on. He, with all of us, can spend an eternity in exploring the vast oceans of knowl- edge. As here, he lives to learn ; and after the longest imaginable period, after he has traversed field after THE QUESTION SETTLED. 27 field that he does not now know exists, he will see so much more aliead of him than there is in the past, that he can but use the sentiment of Sir Isaac Newton : " I seem to myself like a little child, picking up pebbles on the shore, while the whole ocean lies unexplored before me." Now, as to the case of Abraham Lincoln, the la- mented martyr, — where is he? He, too, gave his life for the cause of humanity, — gave liberty to more slaves than any other one man in the world. Again we ask. Where is " Honest Abe"? This noble patriot happened not to be fortunate enouMi to beloncr to a church. He died out of Christ. The church called him an infidel. He died in a theater, with nothing to recommend him but his intelligence, his patriotism, and his unswerving honest fidelity. Again we ask. Where is he ? Church systems can not save him. Do we press the question too close ? We will change it, and ask, Where is " Stonewall Jackson " the traitor, the baptized evangeli- cal minister ! — one who never went into the battle- field to spill the pure, innocent blood of the North without first getting down upon his knees, and asking God to help him with blood to tighten the chains of slavery on four millions of innocent human beings ? He was a Christian after the " straitest sect." Of course, he is in heaven, sinorino; sono-s, and feastincr his riohteous eyes upon the sight of Abraham Lincoln in hell. Reader, do you think the groans and shrieks of Mr. Lincoln in the " fiery pit " are music in the pious ears of Stonewall Jackson ? Do you say you do not believe that Mr. Lincoln is in hell ? Then where is he ? If he is in heaven, away 28 THE QUESTION SETTLED. goes the orthodox scheme of salvation. Men are out- urowinor and eettino: better than their rehmons, and aie not wiUing to let good men out of the church go where their systems assign them. Look from another stand- point. Is Mr. Lincoln in heaven ? What is he doing there ? Sitting down and singing songs, " Where congregations ne'er break up, And sabbaths never end " ? No. Tell us that Mr. Lincoln is telling stories, and we may incline to believe it ; but song-singing or flat- tering the approbativeness of Jehovah is not his business. Then what is he doing ? Let Spiritualism answer. He bade farewell to earthly friends to join the host of immortal statesmen, to assist on the other side in carrying out the work so nobly commenced in this life. At present writing, we seem to be carried back to his birth into spirit-life, and see him clasped in the arms of such men as Georo;e Washinc^ton. Next he is welcomed to the land where all anxiety is gone, by such patriots as Adams, Monroe, Hancock, Jefferson, Clay, Webster, and Douglas ; all bidding him join the host of immortal statesmen, and work in their congress, where his labors will be crowned with tenfold the success whicli attended his efforts here. Is that all ? No. Old John Brown, who went before Lincoln, as Jolui the Baptist went be- fore Jesus, whose soul had been marching on for six years, next extends liis hand, and welcomes Lincoln as slavery's kist martyr. Look again, and see the tens of thousands of "brave boys," whose blood has stained and fattened the fair fields of the South, give him the THE QUESTION SETTLED. 29 ri2;lit hand of fellowship, and welcome him to their celes- tial army. But a moi'c affecting sight yet awaits us. The poor slave, whose bitter experience tells more effect- ually than all things else the horrors and degradation of slavery, approaches the emancipator, the last to drink the bitter cup of martyrdom in consequence of the institution ; and, as he throws his black arms around his neck, we seem to hear him cry out, " Bress de Lordl'" whereupon myriads freed by his Emancipation Proclamation join in bidding him welcome to that land where the servant is free from his master. Such, dear reader, is Spiritualism. Now, we ask, can a theory be so beautiful, so well adapted to man, and not be true ? Has the God of truth been so badly beaten, that man's imagination has painted visions which so far excel the reality ? Don't tell it ! An omnipotent God who does all he can for man can make the reality more than man, in the highest flight of his imaginings, can paint the future. Have no fear of overdrawing in painting the beauty and reality of the '^better coun- try." It can not be done. There is another world, — one of which the present is only a reflection. There joy is great and lasting. " Its glorious light is the smile of God ; Its brooding atmosphere holy peace ; The breath of its life is the spirit of love ; And earth's warring passions and longings cease. Touch us, O death, 'with thy mystic wand, And bring us into the summer-land." CHAPTER II. THE MORAL TENDENCY OF SPIRITUALISM. A Natural Query — Jesus regarded as a Blaspbemer and a Devil — Every new System passes an Era of Calumny — Persecution purifies — What Good has Spiritualism done — Oijponeuts unfair — Immorality in the Churches — Religious Systems not responsible for Errors of tlieir Adherents — None perfect — All are God-makers — Men worship their own Opinions — Short- comings of Bible Saints — Jewish Church — Testimony of Jei'emiah — Of Jesus — Of Paul — Drunkenness and " Free-lovism " in the Early Church — Errors of Noah — Abraham — Isaac — Jacob — The twelve Patriarchs — Moses — Joshua — Samuel — David — Solomon — Jesus — Peter''— Paul — Spiritualism a Reform School — Welcomes Sinners — Churches disfellow- ship Sinners — Illustrative Case — "Come and go with us" — Phenomenal Spiritualism — It appeals to our deep(«6t social Feelings — The Theory of Spiritualism the best moral Governor — Its Philosophy — A Contrast — Orthodoxy and Heathenism — Eternal Punishment for Sin — Familiar Story — Is it Just — Living and Dying in Heaven — No Barriers to Sin — No moral Change at Death — Illustration — We are Authors of our Destinies — Con- clusion. "TXT^HEN a new theological or philosophical aspirant V V to public favor forces itself upon the people, the query very naturally arises, What is its moral cliarac- ter? This is as it should be. A theory which is mor- ally evil can not be theologically or philosopliically good. Still, may we not, in challenging the virtues of new sys- tems, often look at them through glasses colored by old, dilapidated theories, and hence see vice where only vir- tue exists ? It was so anciently. When Jesus presented his claims, tlie response was, " This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath-day " (John ix. 16). 30 THE QUESTION SETTLED. 31 Thus, judging by the old Jewish standard, the Naza- rene was deserving of nothing better tlian death. Yet his system has hved long enough to gain a reputation ; he has come to be considered more pure than his accus- ers, who were in such great fear, lest he, by his exam- ple or precepts, should corrupt the morals of society. He who was once regarded as a devil (Matt. xii. 24) is now worshiped as a God ; thus, " The demons of our sires Become the saiuts that we adore." No churchman found it any trouble in the days of Jesus and Paul to prove them guilty of blasphemy. See John ix. 33 ; Matt. xxvi. Qo ; Acts xiii. 44-50. So, now, churchmen may see huge " camels " of immo- rality in the Spiritualism of to-day, when only " gnats " exist. While it is but just to investigate the morals of any new system of religion, the insinuations which pop- ular opinion has thrown out after every system while in its infancy are unjust. Yet the systems thus misrepre- sented wall not by that means sustain a permanent in- jury. Some will, for the time being, be deterred from investigating; but that will only be transitory. The time will come when the falsehoods of opposers "svill ap- pear ; then men will flock to the standard of the slan- dered theory with more than double the zeal that otherwise would have characterized them in its support. Spiritualism, like all other new truths, has been so unfortunate, or fortunate, rather, as to be compelled to pass through the ordeal of calumny and slander. Like gold, purified in the fire, it wi'i emerge from out the 32 THE QUESTION SETTLED grasp of its persecutors and slanderers, purified, " made white, and tried." Let an advocate of tlie spiritual philosophy go to a place where the people know nothing of its teachings, and how soon his preacliing is met with the question, What good has Spiritualism done in the ^^ orld ? Some even lack the modesty to present their objection in the form of a question : they usually commence their oppo- sition by roundly asserting that Spiritualism never has done any good in the world; that it is evil, and '' only evil continually ; " its aim is to overthrow every good institution, and people the infernal regions with millions who otherwise would have entered the world of " celes- tial glory." Thus every possible eflPort is made to get the idea "grounded and settled " in the hearts of the people, that there is something in Spiritualism calculated to destroy the morals of its adherents. Cases of immo- rality among Spiritualists are magnified, and presented to the world as evidence of the downward tendency of Spiritualism. This mode of argumentation is unfair. The question is not. Are there immoral Spiritualists ? but, Does Spirit- ualism lead men and women who otherwise would be chaste and virtuous to lives of degradation ? We claim that it does not ; that its tendency is in the other direction. We are willing to pledge ourself to find more cases of immorality in any of the evangelical churches than any person can find among the Spiritual- ists of America. What shall be done when cases of immorality are found in the churches ? Shall they be held up as evidences of the immoral tendency of Chris- tianity ? or shall we say, as do others, that " it is human THE QUESTION SETTLED. 33 to err," and look upon their errors as mistakes and shortcomings of humanity, rather than evidence of the damnable tendency of their religion ? If the errors of Christian people are only evidences of the frailty of humanity, may not the errors of Spirit- ualists be attributed to the same source ? The truth is, *' there is none good, no, not one." All are imperfect. .Men differ only in degree; none walk by an infallible standard : yet some come nearer the standard erected by the world than others. No one is absolutely good, even in his own estimation. Not one upon earth but that is " found wantino;," even when weicrhed in scales of his own making. No one ever yet worshiped a God that he did not make himself. " jMan makes God in his own image " is a decided improvement on bibli- cal phraseology. Another proverb might be improved by having it read, " An honest God is the noblest work of man." The truth is, the Infinite never was fully comprehended by the finite ; but all have their ideas of Deity. These ideas we worship, and call God ; and as the ideas of one have fallen below or reached beyond those of another, so one has worshiped a more pure or impure god, as the case might be, than another. In theology, men have been wont to embody all that they can imagine that is pure, good, true, and lovely, and call that God, and worship it as such. As we strive in our every-day life to imitate the character of the god we worship, we approach, by constant practice, nearer to it yet we are only following' on ; we can only advance in proportion as our ideal god advances : hence our theory must eter- nally be ahead of our practice. So, judging every man 34 THE QUESTION SETTLED. by his own theory, he is not exactly correct in 7iis hfe. The only query then is, Who are nearest the true stan- dard, — Spiritualists or others ? Were the religion of any denomination to be judged by the shortcomings of its members, what church could stand ? This mode of judging of any religious theory is illogical and unfair ; yet it is that adopted by the op- ponents of Spiritualism. Try even the religion of Bible times — that of the prophets and apostles themselves — by this standard, and upon its banners will be inscribed, '' Mene, Mene, Tekel." As it is no part of our business to hunt out the short- comings of any sect or party, a few illustrations must suffice. A paragraph or two will sufficiently illustrate the shortcomings of Bible people, living in Bible times. To whom shall we go for evidence ? Shall we consult Porphyry, Celsus, Julian the apostate, or more modem infidels ? Shall Hume, Voltaire, or Paine testify ? No. Let us go to Bible-makers themselves. Jeremiah, an ancient medium, a preacher of the Jew- ish religion, in addressing God's ancient people, said, — " Behold, ye trust in lying words, that can not profit. Will ye steal, murder, and swear falsely, and burn in- cense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say. We are deliv- ered to do these abominations ? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes ? Behold ! even I have seen it, saith the Lord.'* ^Jer. vii. 8-11. Is it so ? Were God's ancient people, who enjoyed the labors of the inspired prophets, such characters ? THE QUESTION SETTLED. 35 Liars, thieves, murderers, and perjured persons con« stitute the church of God in the days of Jeremiah ! And is this the fountain whence Christianity springs ? Good heavens ! Let us hear no more of immoral Spirituahsts. Allowing that Jeremiah tells the trutli, is it any wonder that Jesus said, " It is written that my house shall be a house of prayer ; but you have made it a den of thieves " ? — Matt. xxi. 13. Hundreds of quotations from the Bible might be given, showing that these lamentations are not freaks of the imagination of Jeremiah and Jesus, but real ti^uths. As the object of this chapter is not to prove that other^ religions have not made good men, but that Spiritualism has not made bad men, we will, with one more quotation from the Old Testament, close its evidence upon this subject. Hosea, another of Israel's ancient teachers, said of the church of his day, '' By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.' — Hos. iv. 2. Such extracts from Bible writers need no comment. The religion of the Jews failed to reform them : its ten- dency may have been good, but was not strong enough to hold a rebellious people. Now, shall we take the short- comings of the Jewish people as evidence of the im- moral tendency of their religion ? Such is the course pursued by anti-Spiritualists in regard to the errors and shortcomino;s of those who believe that heaven and earth are in communion. Even Christianity, anciently as well as in modern times, failed to reform those who embraced it. The church at Corinth was composed of such a notorious set of drunkards, that it was unwise and unsafe to adminis- 36 THE QUESTION SETTLED. ter to them the emblems of the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus, one of their gods : the first one that got the wine got drunk on it, and others were compelled to go away without any, doubtless not so much regretting their failure to celebrate their Lord's death, as the fact that they were not the lucky one who got the first pull at the wine. Hear Paul plainly state the facts : — " Now this I declare to you : I praise you not, that ye come together not for better, but for worse. For first of all, W'hen you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you ; and I partly believe it. For in eating, every one of you taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another is drunken." — ! Cor. xi. 17-21. Is it true that the ancient church — those who en- joyed the immediate labors of the apostles — could not come together for a religious meeting without quarrel- ins, and finalh, havino; their meetings terminate in a drunken row / Shall w^e say that Christianity led to their drunken quarrels ? No. It only failed to prevent them. So Spiritualism may, in some instances, for a time, fail to accomplish the great w^ork designed to be brought about by it ; yet those -who accuse it of having an immoral tendency accuse it ^vrongfully. The chief charge brought against Spiritualism is that of '' free love." By this, opponents mean a promiscu- ous intermingling of the sexes, opposed alike to the laws of God and man. While we distinctly deny that Spiritualtsm has any tendency to make man or woman untrue in any sense whatever, we answer, Suppose Spiritualism does tend in that direction ; suppose Spirit- ualism leads to licentiousness, and that in the worst THE QUESTION SETTLED. 37 form that the meanest opponent of Spiritualism can im- agine, — is it any worse than that which has ever obtained among the churches ? Who can find a case that will compare in vileness with that stated by Paul ? Hear him : — "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as mentioned among the Gentiles^ that a man should have his father's ivife'' — 1 Cor. v. 1. This case is not among the Gentiles, Heathens, Spir- itualists, or any other class of sinners, but in the church, under the immediate labors of the apostles. How did the ancient church liivc such things ? Did its members regret that they had such characters in its fold ? Not a bit of it : they were proud of it. Paul says, — " And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you." — 1 Cor. v. 2. While the church in its very foundation, under the direct labors of its founders, is proud to acknowledge such lew^dness, let its children of the nineteenth century examine the block whence they were hewn, and con- sider Avhether they were not " born of fornication," before accusing others at too great a rate. A few words on the errors of Spiritualists, if thrown out in the right spirit, may help them to be better men and women. But how woukl a chapter look devoted to the errors of Bible saints? For instance, parade the following, as a few specimens of the errors of those through whom God anciently manifested himself: — Noah got drunk, cursed his grandson, and, some think, brought slavery upon a whole race, though guilty of no crime. — Gen. ix. 21-25. 38 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Just and riglitcous Lot (2 Pet. ii. 20-25) becamt beastly intoxicated, and committed incest with his two daughters, each of whom liad a child by her own father. — Gen. xix. 31-38. Abraham had a plurality of wives and concubines, abandoned his own son, and left him to die in the wil- derness, married his own sister, denied his own wife, and attempted to kill his only legitimate son. — Gen. xii. 13, 19; xiv. 2-4; xv. 2-5, 12; xxi. 10-14; xxii. 1-11. Isaac followed in the path of his father, and denied his wife. — Gen. xxvi. 6. Jacob took advantage of his brother's starving condi- tion, and cheated him out of his birthright, by lying to and deceiving his old blind father, and thus succeeded in stealing his brother's blessing ; had two wives and several concubines ; stole his father-in-law's cattle, &c. — Gen. XXV. 32, 33 ; xxvii. 19 ; xxix. 18-30 ; XXX. 5 ; verse 40. His twelve sons followed the example of their father, insomuch that there is hardly a crime in the catalogue of which they were not guilty. Moses' first pubhc act was to commit a murder. He advises his brethren to steal, or borrow and run away with the borrowed goods, which is the same thing ; orders the destruction of innocent babes, and the cap- tivating of females for tlic purpose of prostituting them to the gratification of the base lusts of the Jewish sol- diery. — Exod. ii. 12; Num. xxxi. 17, 18. Joshua was perhaps the greatest butcher of men and women that ever lived. The sun is ever represented as obeying his command to stand still while he commits wholesale murder. — Josh. x. 13. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 39 Samuel hewed an old, innocent, helpless, and defense- less man to pieces. — 1 Sam. xv. 33. David had a plurality of wives and concubines ; then lived an illegitimate life with the wife of Uriah ; caused Uriah to be killed that he might continue his licentious debauchery ; put his enemies under saws, axes and har- rows, and burned them in brick-kilns. — 2 Sam. xi. 1, 6, 15 ; xii. 8, 29-31. Solomon's crimes were so great and numerous, that even orthodox commentators feel a little shaky about holding him up for an example of purity. We should require a larger volume than this to record them. Passing to the New Testament, we find matters not much improved. Jesus made mistakes, got angry with an audience because they could not answer a question, destroyed a drove of swine, cursed a fig-tree because it did not produce figs out of season, urged men to hate their wives and children, overthrew the tables belong- ing to money-changers, and by violence drove the Jews out of their own meeting-house. — Mark iii. 5 ; v. 13 ; Matt. xxi. 12, 19 ; Luke xiv. 26. Peter denied his Lord, cursed and swore, quarreled with Paul, and lived after the manner of the Gentiles, at the same time compelling the Gentiles to live as do the Jews. — Matt. xxvi. 74; Gal. ii. 11-14. Paul, by his own statement the " chief of sinners," became all things to all men, lied that the truth might abound, being crafty, caught his brethren with guile, and exhorted to obedience to bad laws. — 1 Cor. ix. 22; Rom. iii. 7; 2 Cor. xii. 16; Rom. jiii. 1, 2. Such, dear reader, is a sample of the spots on the sun of Bible saints. Can Spiritualists exhibit a worse 40 T^E QUESTION SETTLED. record ? We now come directly to the question, la Spiritualism in its phenomena and pliilosophy immoral ? If immoral Spiritualists could be found in every village and hamlet in the world, it would no more prove Spirit- ualism immoral in its tendency than finding an immoral astronomer would prove astronomy immoral. Let it be understood that Spiritualism disfellowships no one on account of his doctrine or conduct. Believino; that each one stands or falls to his own master, it is not our province to say who is or who is not worthy to hold communion with the inhabitants of the other world. If Jesus, while on earth, could talk with the Marys and Marthas (earth's Magdalenes), and say to the woman taken in the very act of adultery, " Neither do I con- demn thee, go, and sin no more " (John viii. 11), why should the denizens of the spirit-world, who have themselves experienced earth's bitter trials, refuse to hold communion with those who most need it ? Let an individual in the church commit a great crime, let him wallow in drunkenness in the mire, and there is not a church in Christendom but that will disfellowship him. While they refuse to fellowship a person because of crime, ought there to be a sinner in the church ? No. Then what is to become of the poor, church-forsaken sinner ? He may wallow in the mire until he grows gray. The priest passes by on one side, and the Levite on the other ; neither extending a helping hand, but each saying, " You miserable wretch ! Go to hell for all of us; we will not have our church polluted with }0u. We came not to call sinners but the righteous to re- pentance." Spiritualism says, ''Never was theie a man so low but there was something good there. We THE QUESTION SETTLED. 41 must bless such." Hence, it welcomes such to its ranks. It is a reform school ; and, if a person needs reforming either doctrinally or morally, he needs Spiritualism. Hence, their doctrines teach them to keep such in their ranks, and labor even more ardently for them than for those whose lives could be squared without it. Ho, ye vile, corrupt, polluted souls ! Spirituahsm calls. Ex- tending its helping hand to you, it says, as Moses did to Hobab, " Come and go ivith us, and we will do thee good.''^ More would we give to see one poor, drunken sinner embrace Spiritualism than to see every evan- gelical Chnstian in the land flock to its standard, leav- ing poor outcasts in the cold. If the religious systems of the day can make their adherents good enough, they, perhaps, need no better ; but, for heaven's sake, let Spiritualism live to bless those who are out of the reach of those who say, "Sit thou here, or stand thou there; for I am holier than thou." Phenomenal Spiritualism teaches us that our friends whom we had supposed to be dead " are ever near us, though unseen." Is that immoral in its tendency ? There is not a Spiritualist in the world who does not believe that he is surrounded by an angel brotherhood ; that good, pure, and noble spirits are watching his every act, ever rejoicing in his good resolutions, and helping in his every effort to carry them into effect, and displeased, grieved, and chagrined with every wicked act. Spiritualists do not believe that they are ever alone. Fathers who have crossed death's "narrow stream," sainted mothers, angel wives, beautiful sons and daughters, all appeal with more than earthly logic and eloquence to the believer to " make strait paths 42 THE QUESTION SETTLED. for his feet." Will that belief make a man worse? Nay, tell us that noonday sun brings midnight darkness, tliat pure living water creates thirst, and that honey is bitter to the taste ; but don't tell us that a behef that we are surrounded by the pure and good will incline us to evil. Admit that Spiritualism is all false, that no spirit ever did or ever will communicate : is not the belief that they are around us, watching all our doings, and, perhaps, telling not only our doings, but our secret thoughts, to others (for Spiritualists believe that dead men tell tales sometimes), calculated to prompt us to watch our actions, words, and thoughts more closely than ever before ? We so decide. We' have had experience on each side of this great question, and, with the stake before us, we could not decide otherwise. Are the dead with us ? Do they watch our every act? " How careful, then, ought I to live ; With what religious fear ! " Taking the above view of the subject, have not Spiritualists at least one stimulant to virtue not known to others ? If we turn from the phenomena to the philosophy taught by Spiritualism, we find that equally as urgently appealing to all there is of man to be true to his man- hood. How is it with orthodoxy ? There is not an evangelical church, or hardly a person who is a mem- ber of one, who does not indorse the sentiment that, — ' " Between the stirrup and the ground, Mercy was sought and pardon found." THE QUESTION SETTLED. 43 If the foregoing couplet is not sung by tliera, they do Bing that, — " While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return." Can any thing be found in all heathenism as corrupt- ing as the above couplet ? It teaches the sinner to pursue his sinful course ; " for as long as there is life there is hope." Where is there a person in all ortho- doxy who does not believe that somehow, through the sufferincr of the innocent Nazarene, his guilty soul, all black with crime, will be washed and made white as the driven snow? The dying profligate offers a prayer, sheds a tear, and is immediately ushered into an upper- ten heaven, and, having taken advantage of the bank- rupt law for sin, sits down by the side of the Great Jehovah as pure and good as the most sinless angel. Spiritualists do not believe this : they believe that all must suffer the consequence of their own actions. " There is no bankrupt law for sin, Though Pharisee may teach it ; No limitation act steps in, Though Paul himself might preach it." There is no ''if," "and," or proviso in the matter; the violator of the law can not escape : he must in his own proper pei'son suffer the penalty. " When you can tread on burning coals. And never scorch your feet, Then you may break God's righteous law, Its penalty not meet." 44 THE QUESTION SETTLED. A familiar story will illustrate our ideas on tliis sub- ject. It is said that in a distant country, almost nine- teen centuries since, there were two individuals of directly opposite characters. One of them went about doing £2;ood, pronouncing benedictions on the poor, the sad, and the sorrowing. He made it his business to relieve all suffering under his control, whether moral, mental, spiritual, or physical. The other was a low, vile wretch, who made his living by highway robbery. In short, he was guilty of almost every crime in the calendar. " Now it happened that these men in their passing away From earth and its conflicts both died the same day." These men were both assassinated at the same time ; one on account of his crimes, the other in consequence of the prejudice of the people. While in the agonies of death, the murderer turned to the other, supposed by some to be a God, and said, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into'thv kino;dom." The other answered, '' To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Now, we are led to ask, Is it so ? Is it just ? Did the thief go with Jesus to Paradise that day ? If so, what is the difference, so far as the next world is con- cerned, whether a person is a Jesus or a thief? All have the same reward ; the only difference being, one has gone into heaven honorably, while the other has taken advantage of a bankrupt law, and gone in on another's ticket. Spiritualism does not teach that any person ever did or ever will go to heaven at the event called death. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 45 It teaches tliat the only way to be in heaven when one passes from this sphere of existence is to die in heaven, and that tlie only way to die in heaven is to live in heaven, and that the only way to live in heaven is to truly live, doing your duty toward every body and every thing. Spiritualists believe that man will find what he carries, either in this or the other world ; that he com- mences living in the other world where he left off here. If he dies a poor God-forsaken wretch, he will find himself such on the other side. The poet sings, — " He wept tliat we miglit weep ; Each sin demands a tear : In heaven alone no sin is found, . And there's no weeping there." But Spiritualism knows of no heaven where " no sin is found." It wants no such place. We ask, we demand, the privilege of sinning to all eternity. Do not mistake us. We do not want to sin ; but we do want to prove to angels, to God, and last, though not least, to ourself, that we have no relish for sin : this we can only do by having the gates of sin thrown open, and the privilege of entering extended to us ; then, if we refuse, all will know it is because we love the right. If, on the other hand, we are taken into the " heaven where no sin is found," and compelled to do right by a power ah extra, no credit is due us for our rectitude. We were only "the clay in the hands of the potter," the ma- chine : if we run well, the builder, and not the machine, has the credit. With such an arrangement, Aliiighty God himself could not tell whether heaven was filled i6 THE QUESTION SETTLED. with angels or devils. Death makes man no better, nc worse : eacli one finds himself, morally and spiritually, on the other side of its stream, where lie left himself here. He opens his books wliere he closed them, commences living where he quit, finds himself surrounded with all the darkness and all the light in the summer-land that he has earned by his life here. Our religion teaches us, not only that the consequences of our actions must be borne by ourselves, but that there is an eternal punishment for every sin, that every act of man makes its mark, that eternity is too short to wipe out the scars occasioned by sin. " Be sure your sin will find you out," is written in the Bible of the Spiritualist ; and *' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap," is as true to-day as in the first century. This may be illustrated in the following manner. Two men at the age of forty have to-day passed to the spirit-world. One of them has spent his two-score of years in acquiring a physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual education, and in living out the principles he has learned : the other has spent his forty years in drunken, carousing debauchery. He enters the spirit- world with his moral, mental, and spiritual faculties all blunted by his negligence and crime, insomuch that he does not realize that he has a spiritual nature. Per- haps it will take him as long after his passage to spirit- life, as he endured this, to wake up to consciou-sness enough to realize that he has thrown off the animal, and put on the spiritual body. He will learn sooner or later, by experience, if in no other way, that " though hand join in hand, the sinner can not go unpunished." In connection with this, he will soon see the necessity THE QUESTIOIS SETTLED. 47 of progress. But, during the perhaps tlirice forty years tliat he has been getting these lessons, his friend has been overcoming difficuUies. Now he finds liimself an almost immeasurable distance behind one by whose side he ought to stand. He never can reach his friend After the most severe struggle, after years of incessant toil, he settles down with the humiliating reflection, " I am so many years behind one by whose side I should stand I Time will not help me to catch up : moments are graciously given, one comes as soon as another passes ; and, though I improve them all, my fi-iend does the same, and thus keeps his distance ahead of me." Is not that an eternal punishment ? Is it not punish- ment enough ? Who would, who could, endure more ? Church systems teach that we are what God makes us : Spiritualism teaches that tve are what we make om^- selves. Patient reader, which of the two theories is the better calculated to urge its adherents forward to seek and put into practice the principles of harmony and trutli ? You are the jnror. May we ask from you a candid and honest verdict ? That all may be led to see and put into ijractical use the pure principles which are being kindly vouchsafed to us by the angel-world, is the devout and earnest prayer of the writer of these pages. CHAPTER III. BIBLE DOCTRINE OF ANGEL MINISTRY. A Common Doctrine — Angels are Spirits — Terms "Man" and "Angel" — Angel Men visit Abraham, Lot, Joshua — The Host of the Lord — An Angel appears to Gideon; to Manoah's wife; is inti'oduced to Manoah — Writing on the Wall — Daniel a Superior Medium — Gabriel both a Man and Angel — The Stone rolled from the Sepulchre by a Man — Cornelius's Visitant — Peter a Trance-Medium — A Spirit talks to him — Peter's Explanation — The Book of Revelation a Series of Spirit-Communications — John sees his Brother — An Angel — God's Family — Bible replete with History of Angelic Ministration — No Bible-Writer has tried to prove it — All the Angels are Ministering Spirits — Number of Angels — Bible Saints trusted too much to the Angels — Abraham's Confidence — Angels select Isaac's AVife — "Mur- der will out" — Moses and the Angel — Angels deliver Israel — A A\Tiole Nation of Mediums — Conditions must be obeyed — Joshua developed as a Medium — Joshua and the Angel — A Circle — Jericho taken — The Modus Operandi — Camels swallowed and Gnats rejected — Angel Ministry vs. Miracle — The Hebrews and the Fire — Nebuchadnezzar sees an Angel — Jugglers play with Fire — Chemicals prevent the Penetration of Heat — Let- ter from Rev. J. M. Peebles — The Explanation — The Result, an Increase of Faith — Master Frank Goodman — Mr. D. D. Homo and the Fire Tests — Daniel and the Lions — Prayers answered by Angels — Jesus' Prayers — Daniel's Prayer — Angel's Effort to answer — Another finally assists and succeeds — The Emancipation Proclamation — An Ancient Prayer-Meeting — Peter let out of Prison — Peter at the Door — Only Spirit-Raps — Modern Mediums released from Prison — Author does not believe — Admonition. " For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." — Fs. xci. 11 ryiHERE is, perliaps, not a Christian in the world -L who docs not believe, tliat, in past ages, angels — ministering spirits — came from their heavenly abode to bless and assist the children of God. Tell cJiurchmen 48 THE QUESTION SETTLED. 49 that angels even now are watching over and blessing them, and they will tell you they always believed that. Have they not ever sung — • " There are angels hovering around " ? But when you inform them that God ^' maketh his angels spirits" (Ps. civ. 4), that they are all minis- tering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation (Heb. i. 14), some will shrink from you as though you were laden with a con- tagion which would sweep them from the earth. " What ! my father and mother, my dead friends, come back ? It is not possible ! " Yes, it is possible ; and we propose in this chapter to prove it. Not that we are going now to undertake to prove directly that spirits of the departed hold communion with earth's inhabitants : we have " rods in soak " on that question. We, in this chapter, design to show that " angels are spirits," and that they ever have and ever will administer to the in- habitants of e^rth. Perhaps our readers are not all of them aware that the terms " man " and "angel" are in the Bible used interchangeably with reference to those who have passed to the spirit-world. If not, a few refer- ences to that book will convince them that it is so. The three men who appeared to Abraliam (Gen. xviii. 8) were none other than men whom we call dead. In Gen. xix. 1, we read that two angels came to see Lot in Sodom ; but verses 8, 9, 10, and 12, each state that they were men. Verse 15 again calls them angels ; but, as if to forever seal the idea that men and angels are the s;ime, verse 16 says, " The men laid hold 4 50 THE QUESTION SETTLED. upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto them ; and they brought them forth, and set thera without the city." In the lieading of the fifth chapter of Joshaa, we read, " An angel appeareth to Joshua ; " but in verses 13, 14, instead of an angel appearing to Joshua, we have the folio wino- : — " And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over ao;ainst him, with his sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him. Art thou for us, or for our adversaries ? And he said. Nay ; blit as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him. What saith my Lord to his servant? " This man declares himself to be the " captain of the host of the Lord ; " but the Lord's host is an angel host. See Gen. xxxii. 1, 2. The " angel of the Lord" which came to Gideon in Jud«^ n. 11, 12 — that Gideon thouMit was a man, verse '22 — is undoubtedly the spirit of the Lord, which came ^apon Gideon in verse 34, enabling him to use such v/isdom, stratagem, and power in putting his ene- mies to flio;ht. — Judo;, vii. 19-21. In Judg. xiii. 3, an angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoali ; but, when she related the matter to her husband, she said, " A man of God came unto me." In verse 8, Manoah prays for the man of God to come back. Verse 9 says, " God hearkened unto the prayer of M'lnoah, and the angel of God came to him ; then THE QUESTION SETTLED. 51 the lady introduced tlie angel to her luisband, calHng him " the man of God ; " after which Manoah and this man have a long tete-d-tete, in which this man is seven times called an ano-el. In Dan. v. 5, it was not said to be the fingers of an angel's, but a man's hand, that wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. May we not reasona- bly suppose that this same man whose hand did the writing is the one who is called " the spirit of the holy gods," who influenced Daniel to interpret the writing? See verses 11, 1-1. Certain we are, that the spirit which influenced Daniel was said to be an excellent one (Dan. vi. 3) ; perhaps the same one who preserved Daniel's life, whom Daniel calls an angel, when he says, " My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions" mouths" (verse 22). Daniel was evidently a medium, superior to any other in Babylon. It was for this rea- son that Nebuchadnezzar appointed Daniel " master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldseans, and soothsayers ; forasmuch as an excellent spirit and knowledge and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel." — Dan. v. 11, 12. In Dan. viii. 13, one saint -is heard talking to another. In verse 16, a man is heard talking to Ga- briel, who is himself distinctly called a man (see Dan. viii. 21). The manhood of Gabriel does not in the least injure his angelliood ; for we read in Luke i. 19, that " the angel^ answering, said unto him, I am Gabriel that standeth in the presence of God." In Matt, xxviii. 1-3, we have the account of the angel of the Lord descending from heaven, and rolling 52 THE QUESTION SETTLED. tlie stone back from the door of the sepulclire, and tak- ing his scat on It. He is described as wearinn; raiment as wliite as snow, while his countenance was hke the hghtning. As this event occurred before dayhght (see verse 1), it was a good time to exhibit spirit-hghts ; and perhaps that was what caused the illumination of his countenance. Matthew does not tell us who this angel was : but J\Iark does. He says, " And, entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the riglit side, clothed in a long, white garment ; and they were affrighted." — Mark xvi. 5. Cases similar to the above could be multiplied almost ad infinitum ; but one more must suffice. In Acts X. 1-8, we have the history of a devout man, one who " prayed to God alway." The writer of the Book of Acts says an angel came to him, and told him to send men to Joppa, to the house of one Si- mon a tanner, located on the sea-beach ; and that he would find one Simon Peter, who had taken up lodg- ino;s with him ; this Peter would tell him some thing's he ought to do. So he sent his servants as per order. Meanwhile, Peter went upon the house-top to pray : while in the act of prayer, he became entranced. (As some of our readers may not know what that means, we will invite them to visit a good trance-medium, and they will have its meaning ocularly demonstrated.) Strange visions were presented to Peter during this entrancement — visions which he did not understand: hence a spirit came to him to make an explanation. The spirit told him to go to the house, and find three men there who were seeking him, and go with them. From the tenor of this whole subject so far, we con- tHE QUESTION SETTLED. 53 elude tliat tliis spirit could have been none other than the angel who appeared to Cornelius. Peter followed spirit direction, and went to the house of Cornelius, and asked, " To what intent have you sent for me ? " (verse 29.) Cornelius replied, " Four days ago I was fasting nntil this hour ; and at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood before me m bright clothing," &c. (verse 30). Peter, upon witnessing the same phenomena among the Gentiles that he formerly had seen among the Jews, makes the discovery that '' God is no respecter of persons; " and hence preached the gospel, and administered the ordinances to them, the same as though they had been Jews. Peter's Jew- ish brethren, of course, called him to an account for his innovation in preaching to the Gentiles ; whereupon he tells his reasons for his course, the first of which was, " The spirit bade me go" (Acts xi. 12). The second was, when he got down there, Cornelius " showed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname Is Peter." — Acts xi. 13. In this narrative we have, 1st, An angel appearing to Cornelius. 2d, This angel goes to Peter on the house- top, but is a sinrit when he gets there. 3d, Cornelius, in relating the phenomenon which occurred in his house, says, A man appeared to me ; and, 4th, When Peter re- hearsed this matter to his Jewish brethren, he said, " Cornelius showed us how that he had seen an angels Is not this enough to elucidate the fact that the terms " angel," " spirit," and " man," are used synonymously and interchangeably in the Bible? If not, we will 54 THE QUESTION SETTLED. favor onr readers witli one more evidence, drawn from the Book of Revelation. The book known as the Apocalypse is but a commu- nication, or rather series of commmiications, from a circle of seven spirits. (See Rev. i. 4.) We do not know who they all are. Daniel the prophet was probably one of them (see Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 7, 8) ; Jesus the Nazarene another (Rev. i. 5, xxii. 16). One of them was seen and very minutely described in Rev. i. 14-17. Others were seen several times, but not described so par- ticularly. Seven times in this book, those who have ears to hear are admonished to " hear what the spirit saith unto the churches.*' Would that the churches even now^ were willing to heed the admonition to listen to spirit-voices ! In Rev. xxii. 8, John gets a view of one of the spirits through whom his book is being given ; again his vene ration is excited, and he is about to fall down and wor- ship: but w^e will let him tell his own story. " And I John saw these things, and heard them. And, when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of tlie angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me. See thou do it not ; for I am thy felloiv-servant, and of thy hrethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayinys of this book : w^orship God." — Rev. xxii. 8. From the array of testimony already presented, it would seem to be impossible to draw any other conclu- sion than that ano;els are inhabitants of the " summer- land," who were once earth's children, clothed in flesh and blood. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 55 How glorious the truth that God has a family in heaven and upon earth ! — Eph. iii. 15. " One family, we dwell in Him, One church above beneath, Though now divided by the stream, — The narrow stream of death. One army of the living God, To liis command we bow; Part of his host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now." Not a member in heaven but that once inhabited earth, nor a member on earth who will not some day go to help make up the family in heaven. " There are little feet I used to meet When the world went well with me, That I knoAv will bound when the rippling sound Of my boat comes over the sea." Paul had a view of this when he said, — " That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christy both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." — Eph. i. 10. We will now advance to the more direct biblical evi- dences of angel ministry, and we may confess here that we do not know where to open the Bible ; indeed, it makes but little difference where we open it. So re- plete is that book with the doctrine and history of the ministry of angels, that it would be hard work to open to the wrong page. We can not now think of a chapter that does not in some way include that doctrine. Yet not a Bible writer has ever undertaken to prove it ; they 56 THE QUESTION SETTLED. have always referred to it in the most famihar manner, as thougli it were impossible that any one should ever have thought of disputing or questioning it. No writer in the Bible has ever undertaken to prove the existence of Deity. Moses commences his record by saying, " In tlie beginning, God created the heavens and the earth ; " leaving us to infer his existence from the work he does: so they have always referred to angel ministry in the same wav. Not a sino;le occurrence is related as tliough the wi'iter supposed he was telling any thing strange or new ; but, on the other hand, every mani- festation is told in such a style, with such an air of open frankness, that one would suppose that the writer sup- posed such occurrences so familiar, that one would almost as soon think of questioning his own existence as questioning such fiicts. Paul's expression, " Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Heb. i. 14,) is not an argument, but rather a reference to a universally-received sentiment, that not a part, but all the angels are ministering spirits. Is it so ? Is every one who has passed to the ^'better land" an angel? and are all the angels minis- tering spirits ? Then, by what a host are " earth-born souls" surrounded! Paul calls it, ^' A71 innumerable company of angels^ . . . spirits of just men made per- fect (Heb. xii. 22, 23). David calls the host, ''Many thousands of angels " (Ps. Ixviii. 17, margin'). Moses represents these many thousand angels as being " ten tliousand saints" (Deut. xxxiii. 2). Daniel and John each saw *•' ten thousand i'nws ten thousand angels" (Dan. vii. 10; Rev. v. 11). Again: John saw a great THE QUESTION SETTLED. 57 company of angels, '^ ^Yllich no man could number." These were redeemed from among the tribes of earth (Rev. vii. 9-16). An illustration of the number of an- gels which may surround and bless each individual may be found in the words of Jesus, " Thinkest thou that I can not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? " (Matt, xxvi. 53.) The Assyrian army numbered more than one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers, for at least there were that many awoke one morning and found themselves all dead corpses (2 Kings xix. 35) ; yet Elislia the prophet was perfectly confident that the an- gels that surrounded him would outnumber the soldiers of the Assyrian army (2 Kings, vi. 16). Our views upon this and kindred subjects, differing as they do from those called " orthodox," have been the cause of the world hailing us as "infidel" a great many times. Now, Ave care nothing for such charges, know- ing that their malignity can only be equaled by their falsity. We never believed so much of the Bible, nor understood it so well, as to-day ; and, though we are a Spiritualist from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot, our chief trouble with the Bible has been its unqualified indorsement of every thing spiritualistic. The writers of the Bible, and those who figured most largely in biblical history, placed entirely too much con- fidence in angel ministry. Not oilly did they depend upon their angel friends to do for them what they ought to have done for themselves, but they often put their own individaality aside, trusting their spirit- guides to do their tldnking for them. The word with Israel's greatest men was, " Go and inquire of the 58 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Lord." One of her greatest kings lost his Hfe by hig unswerving fidelity to what came to him from the spirit-world. (See 1 Kings xxii. 21-33.) A case in point may be found in Gen. xxiv. Abraham had become an old man, and knew that he must shortly pass away ; of course, he felt a degree of solicitude about his son's marriaoe. What did he do but call his servant to him, and make him swear that he would 2:0 and brinor his son a wifc from the land of Canaan, assurino; the servant that p,ri;^els would pick her out ? Hear his bene- diction as bis r;orvant is about startino; : " The Lord God of heaven, -"vhich took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that swear unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land : lie shall send Ids angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my sou from thence." — Gen. xxiv. 7. The servant pursues his journey, consulting angels and getting tests, until, by a series of unmistakable signs, Rebekah was signified as the one to be Isaac's wife. Like a good girl, she goes along with the servant, whom probably she had never seen before, to marry a man whom she never had seen. Lsaac took her as soon as the medium brought her to him, and went with her to keeping house in his mother's tent ; and with one little exception, when he denied her (which may not have been from a lack of affinity, but from a hereditary dis- ease, as his father had done the same thing), got along smoothly with her all his days. Now, we frankly confess, that, as much of a Spiritual- ist as we are to-day, if we wanted a wife, we would not take her, "" sight unseen," as boys trade jack-knives, THE QUESTION SETTLED. 59 even though an angel did pick her out. We would send no less or greater a personage than ourself after her every time. This, dear reader, was what we meant when we Intimated that Bible people relied too much on the an^el world. To give the history of angelic manifestations among the Jews would be to record their entire national history. A few sketches must suffice to Illustrate the matter. Moses' first public act was to commit a murder. The next day after killing an Egyptian, he saw two of his Hebrew brethren In an altercation, and strove, as a good brother should, to create harmony ; but the one in the fault said, — "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? In- tendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian ? " (Ex. 11. 14.) The old proverb, " Murder will out," proved true In this case ; and, though Moses was heir to the throne of Egypt, he w^as compelled to flee his country for his life. He went to MIdlan, and fell in love with the daughter of a Midianltish priest, and married her, and engaged to act as shepherd, to take charge of his father-in-law's sheep. He took the sheep up Into the mountains, and was not there very long, until his atten- tion was attracted by a strange light, a spirit-light^ such as thousands of Spiritualists have seen. He, of course, not having witnessed ^uch phenomena before, was aston- ished to see such a fire in the bush, and tlie leaves re- main 2:reen : so he turned aside to investIo;ate the cause of this strange manifestation, when he discovered that there was an angel In the bush. By this time, Moses became clairaudlent, and the angel enters Into a conver- sation with him ; finally, the whole scene winds up with 60 THE QUESTION SETTLED. sundry physical manifestations, by whicli Moses him- self becomes convinced of his medium-power. — See Ex. iii., iv. From this time forward, not a move was made toward the deliverance of the children of Israel, but that was made under spirit-direction. When the Hebrews be- came convinced that ano;els would so with them, and lead them through the wilderness, they started, and not until then. The ancvel went before them, in the daytime in a pillar of cloud, and at night in a pillar of fire (Ex. xiii. 21, xiv. 19, 20). When they failed to see the angel, they pitched their tents, and tarried until they had a new spirit-manifesta- tion. The spirii-world seemed determined to develop a race of mediums : thus they led them round and round through the mountainous wilderness, for a period of fort?/ years^ to make a journey that could have been accomplished within forty days. The object was to de- velop a mediumship through which they could take the land and inherit it. During this tedious tarrying in the wilderness, they are again and again promised assistance from the angel- world, and urged to yield the most strict obedience to their spirit-guides. One instance out of many we must record. In Ex. xxiii. 20-23, the Jehovah is represented as speaking to them as follows : — " Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep tliee in the way, and to bring thee into the ])lace which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions : for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I THE QUESTION SETTLED. 61 speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites ; and I will cut them off." Here the promise is very positive, " Obey the voice of the angel," comply with the conditions, and you shall conquer the inhabitants of the country wdiere you are going. Fail in obedience, and you will fail to get pos- session. ° To carry these promises out, when Moses gets so old he is no longer fit to lead Israel, he ordains Joshua to the work. (See Num. xxvii. 18 ; Dent, xxxiv. 9.) They cross the Jordan, take the land, and conquer the nations, according to programme ; all except the inhab- itants of the city of Jericho. Of it the historian says, '' Now the city of Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel ; none went out, and none oame in." — Josh. vi. 1. Now the question arises. What can be done? Jericho was surrounded by its towering w^alls, and Israel had no battering-rams of sufficient power to batter them down, no machinery wnth wdiich to throw '' shot and shell " over the walls. How will they take the city ? Joshua walked out one day, and suddenly became clairvoyant, and saw a 7nan with a sword drawn in his hand. Joshua, supposing this man to be one yet in the flesh, says, '^ Art thou forus, or for our adversaries ? "—"Nay," says the angel-man, '' but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come." He then proceeds to give Joshua the conditions upon which they can deliver the city into Israel's hands. The substance of the conditions is, that 62 THE QUESTION SEn LED. a circle must be formed around the city, which must last seven days : the implements of their religion must be carried with them. The foct Is, the atmosphere must become thoroughly impregnated with the magnetism of that mediumistic nation in order to produce a tremendous physical demonstration of spiritual power. The pro- gramme was carried out, the people formed their circle, marched around the city, raised a tremendous shout, and the walls fell. Now, we ask. What brought them down ? Did the people shout them down ? No. If the walls fell at all, it was a physical manifestation of spirit- power. How strange that men will swallow such stories as are found in the fifth and sixth chapters of Joshua, and that without the slightest evidence, the record aside, that they are true, and at the same time utterly refuse to believe stories not a hundredth part as large, that come to us now backed by a hundred times the amount of testimony ! However, we are happy to know that It Is only in religious matters that people reject common sense. Now, there is not a particle of evidence that these things ever occurred (the evidence is all against It), yet men swallow it down without any scruples, and yet deny hundreds of well authenticated proofs that manifestations, the same in kind^ though not in extent, occur every day in their own country and amono; their own nelo-hbors. Had we the space, and our readers the patience, to pursue this interesting subject in extenso, we would ex- amine every so-called miracle in the Bible, and take the miracle out of it, and put angel ministry in its place. But time Is precious : one or two instances must suffice. We have often heard of the miracle of the three THE QUESTION SETTLED. 65 young Hebrews being thrown into a furnace of fire, '* made one seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated," and comino; out without a hair of their heads being singed, or the smell of fire passing on their gar- ments. The fact is, Nebuchadnezzar said he saw four men walking loose in the fire, " and they have no hurt on them, and the form of the fourth is hke the Son of God" (Dan. iii. 25). It was a son of God, one of the very sons of God of whom Jesus spoke when he said, — " But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that work], and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more ; for they are equal unto the angels, cmcl are children of Crod, being children of the resurrection." — Luke XX. 35, 36. Nebuchadnezzar afterwards, instead of referrino; to this deliverance as a miracle, blessed God, "who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants." — Dan. iii. 28. Now, in all candor, we ask. Why not ? Who has not seen jugglers put certain chemicals on their hands, and thus " quench the violence of fire " ? We have. But all the chemicals used by these men are in the earth and its surroundings. May there not be chemists on the other side who have sufficient power to extract these elements, and envelop their mediums in a tissue of them, so refined, that heat can not penetrate it ? We believe, yea, we know^ that, under favorable conditions, it can be done. Who of our readers has not seen or heard of Rev. J. M. Peebles, editor of the Western Department of " The Banner of LiMit " ? We remember, when we were preaching Adventism, and he Spiritualism, iu Battle 64 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Creek, Mich., to liave called on liim one morning, (for we confess to have had a strano;e likhio: for him, even when we regarded him as the Devil's agent. We thought, '• What a pity the Devil selects the best material in this world as his servants ! ") and he related the circumstance of having seen a man play with fire in such a wondrous manner, that had we not been a believer in the Bible, as well as in the veracity and intelligence of the speaker, we could not have credited it. We have written Mr. Peebles to give us the circumstance. His response is so direct and pointed, that we publish it entire. Hammondton, N.J., March 31, 1869. Rev. Moses Hull. Dear Friend^ — Your favor of March 11 lies before me, with contents noted. I cheerfully comply with the request to furnish you a brief statement of a remarka- ble spiritual manifestation witnessed by myself through the mediumship of Dr. E. C. Dunn, involving a seem- ing suspension of the laws connected with heat. These are the main facts : My friend Dr. Dunn, accompanying me several years on my lecture tours as a healing medium, speaking oc- casionally under spirit-control, was often entranced in my pi'esence. Our electric atmospheres naturally inter- mingling, the magnetic sympathy became finally so intensified, that a portion of my circle of spirits could quite easily throw the doctor into an unconscious trance condition. One of these spirit-guides — a thinker and practical chemist on earth — was Perasee Lendanta, living in the THE QUESTION SETTLED. 65 medieval ages, and equally conversant with the Christian and Neoplatonic dogmas. Whenever he entranced tlie doctor, I expected a feast of reason and flow of sound thought. At tlie close of a service in Battle Creek, Mich., on a Sunday of June, 1862, inviting and even urging the doctor, he accompanied me home. Soon, while comfortably sitting in my library-room, he became sud- denly entranced, and, during the entrancement, this conversation^ with tlie manifestation, followed ; — " Owing to the good conditions to-day," said the spirit, " I was enabled to approach very near you while lecturing; thus infusing much of my own force and thought into your discourse." " Thank you. I felt your presence. You are to me like a wall of fire and a shield of brass, imparting a stern, positive, independent feeling." " The world has yet to learn the full import of the terms 'individualism,' ' self-rehance,' 'independence.' . . . What inquiries to-day? " "I desire to ask this question; Were Shadrach, IVIe- shach, and Abednego cast into a fiery furnace, coming out with not a hair of their 'heads singed,' nor the ' smell of fire ' upon them ? " " I don't know, sir. Was not there." " Well, do you believe the recorded scriptural ac- count?" " Most certainly, I do." " Why do you believe it ? " " In the first place, because reasonable, and, in the second place, because the same and even more remarka- ble things may be done in the present." 6 66 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " If SO (half smiling, half doubting), I should like to see a slight practical illustration of your position." " If you have a large kerosene-lamp in your house, procure, light, and place it before this medium, with the blaze on, high as it will bear." Securing the lamp, and placing it before the doctor in full blaze, this controlling spirit thrust the medium's hand into it, holding it there full five minutes ; the flames streaming up between the fingers. It seemed as though it must be burned to a crisp. Finally, the spirit-intelli- gence removing it, I wiped the smoke and soot from the hand, and it was not in the least injured by the fire. After a little spasmodic struggling, as usual, the medium became conscious, complaining only of a terrible mag- netic pressure upon his head. This soon wore away, when, before leavino; the room, he was ao-ain entranced. " There !" said the spirit, "you have seen a man's hand thrust into the fire, and not burned." " Certainly, I have: now tell me how you did it." " Owino; to the feebleness of the Eno-lish lanofuao-e in O CD O O the line of metaphysics and spiritual science, this would be a more difficult task than to seemingly destroy the law of heat. I will try. Aided by others, I gathered or accreted fine, etherealized spirit-substances from sur- rounding spirit-space, and, polarizing and otherwise preparing them, constructed a sort of electric coating or coverino;, windino; it close around the medium's hand. This covering was just as impervious to heat as is a pane of glass to the beating rain-drops. Furthermore, I could envelop this whole mortal form in this magnetic mantle ; and, so long as I could maintain the requisite conditions, the body would not be injured by fire. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 67 *' Something very similar is evidenced in tlie case of the three men cast into the fiery fivrnace. It was an ancient spiritual manifestation. Your Scriptures say, ' Lo, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire ; . . . and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.' This 'fourth,'' seen hy the clairvoyant eye, was an angel, or spiritual being that once inhabited your or some other earth in the universe of the infinite." This circle of spirits has given me other manifesta- tions more wonderful than the above, paralleling those of biblical times. Thus the past and present are made to unite in their testimony of spirit manifestation and communion. I have a more clear, logical faith to-day in those visions, dreams, prophecies, healiyigs, trances, and other wonderful manifestations recorded in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, than wdien wearing my clerical robes. And the partially ''hushed'' infidelity of Pres- byterian, Baptist, Methodist, Universalist, and Second- Advent Christians, is to me absolutely shocking. By the "grace of God," let us. Brother Hull (aided by the sweet fellowship of angels), continue to pray and to labor for the enlightenment and salvation of those Chris- tians whose impudence is only excelled by their deplora- ble ignorance of natural law, spiritual science, and the watchful presence of God's ministering spirits. Most truly thine, J. M. Peebles. After such evidence, from such a source, it would seem that nothino; further is necessary ; yet w^e find it hard to resist the temptation to present other evidences. In a late number of " The American Spiritualist," 68 THE QUESTION SETTLED. we find a lengthy communication from A. Goodman of Columbus, O., giving the history of the mediumship of Master Frank Goodman, a lad of eleven summers. Mr. Goodman says, — " Next came showing, touching, and shaking of hands ; playing on guitar ; and raising Frank to the ceiling. All this was done in daylight, except the raising of the medium ; that, with the showing of phosphoric lights, requiring darkness. Now, in conclusion, I will only add a few of many equally wonderful manifestations, given since our return to this place. One is the fire- test, in which the medium, while entranced, handles red- hot coals, without the slightest injury ; also thrusts his head into the grate among the flames, without a hair being singed. Another is the ring-test. The spirits having made the request, I obtained five copper rings, of different sizes, which Frank keeps with other articles in a small tin box. One day recently, while out on the street, all these rings were put upon his arms and legs, under all his clothing, without his knowledge : and he was obliged to wear them for a week ; for, in trying to remove one of them, I gave him so much pain, that I had to give it up. They were taken ofP by the spirits as quietly as they were put on." The writer concludes his article by saying, — '' Any one desiring further information with regard to the same is at liberty to address the writer, or to visit us in person." Will our skeptical readers avail themselves of this privilege ? It may help them to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. A London correspondent of " The New- York Times," THE QUESTION SETTLED. 09 in speaking of Mr. D. D. Home and his niediumship, says, — ''' He was carried horizontally out of a window in the third story of the house of Lord , and brought in at the window of another room, some thirty feet distant ; havino; been carried through the air forty feet or more from the ground. Finally, he has on several occasions taken a large live coal from a coal-fire, held it in his hand, and laid it in the hands of other persons, without even the smell of fire or the sensation of heat being perceived by them. My informant showed us where his own finger had been burnt in testing the value of this manifestation. He assured me that he had seen Mr. Home go to a large coal-fire, and lay his face upon the white-hot coals, without smgeing his hair or beard. As this is a pretty strong story, I beg to append the follow- ing, which I find in ' The Spiritual Magazine ' for this month. Mr. Hall is the well-known editor of ' The Art Journal;' his wife, Mrs. S. C. Hall, is well known as a writer, and has lately received a pension from the queen. 15 Ashley Place, Victoria Street, S.W Sir, — I state facts without explanation or comment. On the 27th of December, I was sitting, with nine other persons, in my drawing-room. Mr. D. D. Home left the table, went to a bright fire, took thence a lump of living coal, brought it red to the table, and placed it on my head. Not a hair was singed, nor did I sustam any injury. The coal remained upon my head about a minute. Mr. Home then took it, and placed it in Mrs. Hall's hand, without injury to her ; and he after- wards placed it in the hands of two of our guests. The 70 THE QUESTION SETTLED. gas-light and two candles were burning in the loom. 1 add that the nine other persons present would depose to these facts. Your obedient servant, S. C. Hall. " The editor adds the following note : ' At the confer- ence at Lawson's Rooms, Jan. 14, Mr. H. D. Jenckin publicly stated the facts here given by Mr. Hall, and added several instances of the Idnd which he had witnessed. The fire-test, he said, had now been seen by more than fifty persons in the metropolis and its neicrhborhood.' " Epes Sargent, in his " Despair of Science," says, — " At a seance in London, in 1860, in the presence of several persons (whose names are at the service of the curious), Mr. Home, being entranced, did, in the pres- ence of all, lay his head on the burning coals ; where it remained several moments, he sustaining no injury : not a hair of his head was singed." — Pp. 97, 98. We have already referred to the so-caJled miracle of the deliverance of Daniel from the hunm-y lions ; but it was only a physical manifestation of spirit-power. Daniel says, — " My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me ; forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me ; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." — Dun. vi. 22. While we have strong confidence in prayer, fully believing that prayers are heard and answered,* we do not believe that God has any other way of answering prayer but by virtue of angel ministry. It was an angel that administered to Jesus in the Garden of Geth* TilE QUESTION SETTLED. 71 semane, wlicn, in tlic bitterness of liis soul, lie prayed, ''Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Luke xxii. 43). He could pray to his Father, and, as a result, have more than twelve legions of angels to assist him (Matt. xxvi. 53). It was in answer to prayer, that the angel came to Cornelius (Acts x. 1). In Daniel, chapters ix. and x., we have a very full history of the prophet's three weeks' prayer and fasting. At the end of this time, "a certain man clothed in linen," whom Daniel describes very minutely, came to him ; spirit hands touched him ; " one like the similitude of the sons of men" opened his mouth, and enabled him to speak. There w^ere other parties with Daniel, who were not suf- ficiently developed to see ; yet " great quaking fell upon them." This man, or angel, that came to Daniel, in- formed him that his prayers were heard long ago ; but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood him twenty-one days, that is, just three weeks, exactly the length of time Daniel was praying (compare verses 2, 3, with 12, 13, of Dan. x.) ; after which, says the angel, " Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me." This Prince Michael is prince among the angels (see Jude 9 ; Dan. ix. 21). The two, Michael and this other ano-el-man, succeeded in working upon the prince of the kino-dom of Persia; so that Daniel's prayer was an- swered. The emancipation proclamation was written and sent out by the prince of the kingdom of Persia, and Israel was again free. A very important case of the answer to prayer by angels is found in Acts xii. 4-16. The case is so in- teresting, we give it entire. " And, when he had apprehended him, he put him 72 THE QUESTION SETTLED. in prison, and delivered liim to four quaternlona of sol diers to keep him ; intending, after Easter, to bring him fortli to the people. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison ; but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains : and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light sinned in the prison ; and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying. Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the ahgel said unto him. Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals ; and so he did. And he saith unto him. Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel ; but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened to them of his own accord ; and they went out, and passed on through one street ; and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to him- self, he said. Now I know of a suretj^, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the peo- ple of the Jews. And when he had considered the thino-, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood THE QUESTION SETTLED. I'd before the gate. And they said unto lier, Thou art mad. But slic constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angeL But Peter >-ontinued knocking : and when they had opened the doo" , and saw him, they were astonished." A similar case is found in Acts v. 19-2G. We can not take up any sentence of this lengthy parngraph and elucidate it. We see nothino: inconsistent or miracu- lous in the transaction. The soldiers were, doubtless, thrown into a sound magnetic sleep. The light which shone in the prison was a spirit-light, such as our own eyes have beheld on several occasions. The doors did not, as Peter supposed, open of their own accord : Peter was not sufficiently clairvoyant to see the angel who un locked them, and swuno- them back on their hinges* How natural that he should go to the house of Mary I there was a magnet there ; there it was that his bretli- ren were assembled for prayers, and angels were col- lected. When the " raps " were heard at the door, how natural that little Rhoda should be the one who should open it, and, in her joy exclaim, " It's Peter, it's Peter! " But the church had not witnessed enouo-h of the phenomena to be fully convinced : so their first con- clusion was, " The damsel is mad," the girl is insane. Soon, however, they change their mind, and conclude that the raps are only spirit-raps : hence they assert, " It is his angel." Now, we are frank to acknowledo-e that we believe the whole circumstance. We have seen things so simi- lar, that we should be untrue to ourself to deny this. The same law which produces such things now could have produced them then. 74 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Mr. Rand and tlie Davenport brothers were once imprisoned in the common jail of the city of Oswego, N.Y., for the crime of demonstrating immortahty, with- out taking out a juggler's license. Mr. Rand himself tells the story of his release ; from it we extract the follow- ing:— '' They were informed by the spirits that the prison- doors would be opened before their time expired ; and, in the evening previous to its expiration, a voice spoke in the room, and said that I was to go out that night. I was told to put on my coat and hat, and be ready. It was oppressively warm in our small room, with the win- dow and door both closed ; and I asked if I could be allowed to sit with my coat off, as I did not expect we should be released for more than an hour ; but the an- swer was, ' Put on thy coat and hat. Be ready.' I did so, not even then supposing we should be released until the jailer and his family had retired, and all might be still without. But I was disappointed. Immediately, not probably twenty minutes from the time we were locked up, the door was tlirown open ; and the voice again spoke, and said, ' Now go quickly. Take witli you the rope (for a rope had been in our room, which had been used for another purpose in our former room, as we have previously said), go to yonder garret-win- dow, and let thyself down, and flee from this place. We will take care of the boys. There are many an- gels present, though but one speaks.' I hastily passed on, and strictly obeyed the angel. The boys came out with me into the hall, took up the lock which lay upon the floor, and for the first time examined it : sp(»ke of its being warm. The angel told them, as they subse- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 75 quently informed me, to go into the room again ; and tlic door was closed and locked again by the angel, and they were to remain there for the night." — History of Davenports^ hy Rev. Orriyi Abbott^ p. 70. The above case we have investigated qnite thorouoh- ly. We know, that, so far as hnman testimony is con- cerned, its truth is established beyond a reasonable doubt. Other cases of the same kind have occurred within our knowledge ; th^i, why should we deny such things when found in the Bible ? Now, shall we say we believe in angel ministry? We can not. Taking all these biblical evidences, to- gether with the modern phenomena, including what our eyes have seen and our ears have heard, we can not believe, we hiow., " angels are ministering spirits." " They come, and night is no more night, Pale sorrow's rei2i;n is o'er : And death is but the gate of light, And gloomy now no more." We have been too often blessed, advised, protected, defended, delivered, and saved by them, to entertain doubts on the subject. We know the angels have taken us out of the hands of ferocious mobs. We know that they are always present, that the thoughts we now pen are influxes from the spirit-world. Angels are even now in the room. " How cheering the thought that the spirits in bhss Do bow their bright wings to a world such as this, Do leave their bright home in the mansions above To breathe o'er our spirits some message of love 1 ** 76 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Dear reader, would you hwio of tliis divine commuii' ion ? Would you enjoy tlic society of an angel brother- hood ? Would you be led in green pastures, beside the still waters ? Would you drink from the nevcr-faLling fountain of inspiration ? Then place yourself in a con- dition where you can enjoy communion with your " elder brethren." It Avill open to your soul fountains of hap- piness the world can know nothing of. That readers and writer may ever be led hito the paths of truth and righteousness, and be accounted worthy, even (hmng this life, to associate with the inhabitants of the angel- world, is our most devout and humble prayer. CHAPTER IV. THE THREE PILLARS OF SPIRITUALISM. Spiritual Platform — Three Propositions — Man has a Spiritual Nature — Spirit not immaterial — Spiritual Man — Source of Evidence — Biblical Testimony — Elihu — Zephaniah — Papal Decree — Hard Questions — Cannot answer all — Spiritual Senses — Blind and Deaf Man — Illustration — Man Double — Two Fathers — Two Sources of Knowledge — Peter awakened — Two Con- tradictory Histories of Jesus — Both true — Jesus did not always believe his own Prophecies — Somnambulism an Important Witness — Author's Case — A Lady and the Fins Arts — Dr. Slade and Spirit Pictures — The modus opercmdl — Psychometry — Discourses read from the Hand, the Walls of the House, &c. — Paul's Case — Outward and Inward Man — One perishes, the other endures — Modern Facts — Apparitions of the Living — Mrs. Hauffe — Lady in Albany — Apparition at St. Louis — Hiram Dayton badly mixed — His Father appears — Case in New Orleans — Drowning Per- sons — Spirit continues after the Death of the Body — Spirit a Conscious Entity — Spirits in Prison — Gospel preached to the Dead — Spirits return — Modern Spiritualism a Repetition of that of the Bible — Samuel and Saul — No Devil or Witch in the Case — Josephus's Testimony — Character of the Woman — Moses and Elias — " Only a Vision " — Various Phases of Mani- festation — Cliild Medium — Written Communication from Elijah the Proph- et — Belshazzar's Palace Wall — Elias must come — John the Baptist a Medium — This was Elias — "He hath a Devil" — Ezekiel's Mediumship — Saul a Medium — An Evil Spirit visits him — Modern Evidences — Dr. Johnson's Testimony — Vision of a French Marquis — Prediction f ulfiUed - Testimony Conclusive. PERHAPS we have pursued our investigation far enough to hand to our readers a 2^^<^tform upon which Spirituahsm rests. As we now have the " ball " fairly opened, we may as well proceed to lay down a digest of some of the main evidences of Spiritualism, more especially those upon which we as an individual predicate our faith. 77 78 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Tlie " lioly trinity " upon which Spiritualism is built, with which it stands or falls, and which must be attacked by opponents who would inaugurate an hon- orable warfare upon it, can be represented in the fol- lowino; sentences : — 1. Man has a spiritual nature. 2. Tliat spiritual nature exists and retains its con- sciousness after the dissolution of the hody. 3. That spiritual nature^ after it leaves the hody^ can come en rapport with and communicate to those yet ir. the flesh. All must see that with these propositions Spiritualism meets its fate. Take any one of them fairly away from Spiritualism, and upon its banners you write, " Thou art weiohed in a balance and found wantino." On the other hand, with the sustaining of this trinity. Spirit- ualism becomes a tri-U7iity, a " threefold cord," which a wise man has said " is not easily broken." With the sustaining of these three propositions. Spiritualism be- comes a citadel of strength, so fortified that its enemies can do but little more than to pick at its microscopic crudities and irregularities. Then let us turn our attention at once to their proof. Man has a Spiritual Nature, By this })i-oposition we do not mean that man has an immaterial nature. The word " immaterial " has so lono; been connected with "spiritual," that the world has come to consider them synonymous. Yet one stands opposed to animal; while the other can be better represented by the word " nothing " than any other in the English Ian- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 79 guagc. That which is material is sometlii'ig; tliat which is the opposite of material is zmmaterial ; that v.'hich is the opposite of something is nothing : hence that ivldch is immaterial is nothing. This being true, those who take the position that spirit is immaterial deny its existence. By the term "spiritual" we mean what tlicT ancient Greeks meant by the term j^neumatiJwn ; that is, not animal, not corporeal, a nature not comprehended through the external organs of sense. As we hold to no theory but that we can prove, eitlier with or without the Bible, we will on this subject draw our first proofs from that book ; not that they are true because they are in the Bible, but they are there be- cause those who placed them there regarded tliem as true. There are thousands in the world to-day who would not dare to say their souls Avere their own, unless their Bible told them so ; who would only require one " Thus saitli the Scripture," to convince them that a man was older than his father; that the sun stood still about twelve hours while a Hebrew general marched his army several hundred miles, and fought six battles ; that a man caucrht three hundred foxes, and turned tail to tail, and tied firebrands between them, and l)y that means burned down thovisands of acres of his neighbor's green corn ; that a whale got down into the Mediterranean Sea and swallowed a man ; that after a three-days residence in the stomach of a great fish, dur- ing which time Jonah graduated, and prepared for the ministry, he entered unharmed upon his calling, went as a missionary to Nineveh, and proved himself divinely called, by uttering predictions which never were fulfilled 80 THE QUESTION SETTLED. that fire refused to burn certain Jews ; and tliat sun- dry miracles were wrought by the Man of Nazareth on purpose to convince the people of his divinity, and yet the divine decree had gone forth, that, " seeing, they should see and not perceive, and, hearing, they should hear and not understand." For the benefit of such, we \vill first exhibit a sample of the biblical evidences that man has a spiritual nature. The prophet Elihu has introduced this subject in the followino; unmistakable lano;uao;e : — " There is a spirit in man ; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." — Job xxxii. 8. A more positive declaration of spiritualistic faith could not be made by the most sanguine Spiritualist ; nor is this an isolated proof of this position. The Bible abounds in declarations as positive as the above. Zecha- riah, another of Israel's prophets, said, — " The Lord . . . formeth the spirit of man v/ithin him." — Zech. xii. 1. In this declaration, we not only have the assertion that man has a spirit, but that it \s> formed^ shaped. Pope Leo X. decreed that " the spirit is the same form as the body." We do not doubt that this decree of the infallible head of the Church is true, not, however, be- cause it was decreed, any more than the rising of the sun to-morrow mornino* would be the result of a decree of his papal Majesty. When we get thus far witV our subject, we know that some of our readers who do not comprehend spiritual things are ready with a legion of questions concerning man's spiritual nature. May we confess right here, tliat, probably, we can not answer your questions? That, THE QUESTION SETTLED. 81 liowevor, neither proves our theory untrue, nor o.ir in- competency to rationally reason upon it. Paul says, — " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know tliem, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things ; yet he himself is judged of no man." — 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. From this we learn that it is impossible for him whose spiritual faculties have not been aroused to understand spiritual things. " Neither can he hnoio tJiem.^' Then, why should we try to make him comprehend them ? While we can not explain spiritual things to the " natu- ral man " (and the spiritual man needs no explanation : he gets his knowledge of these things by intuition, not by tuition), we may be able to call his attention to phenomenal evidences which may convince him, that, though he can not understand them, they may, never- theless, be true. We can not explain how light passes through a pane of glass without either glass or light be- ing disorganized, yet we can any day, and in any house, point to such phenomena. We can not make the man who was born without eyes understand the difference between red, white, and blue ; yet we can make him know that we see a difference which is not tangible to his senses. Discourse sweetest music to a totally deaf man, until the last hair on your head turns gray, and you can not make him comprehend that there is an inter- val of a fifth between C and G. We said, and have set out to prove, that man has a spiritual nature. We now assert that man is double ; he has a duplex entity. If Paul understood this ques- tion, we all have two fathers. His language is, — 82 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Furtliermore, we liave had ftitlicrs of our flesli, which corrected us ; and we gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of sjiirits, and live ? " — Heb. xii. 9. This passage deserves more than a cursory notice. Paul says, " We have had fathers (plural) of our flesh ; and we gave them (plural) reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father (singu- lar) of spirits (plural), and live ? " By this we see that though there may be as many fathers of the flesli of our readers as there are readers, yet their spirits all have the same father. This father is God, who is a spirit. — John iv. 24 ; Acts xvii. 29. Man, having two fathers, might reasonably be expect- ed to have two natures, sometimes called two men (see 2 Cor. iv. 16). There are two sources whence men get knowledge. Some things we learn by aid of our five senses ; some things we know independent of the organs of sense. Jesus once said to Peter, " that he must go to Jeru- salem, and suffer many things of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed." But Peter did not beheve it. He rebuked his Master, and said, " Be it far from thee, Lord : this shall not be unto thee." Whereupon, Jesus says, " Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an offense unto me ; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." — See Matt. xvi. 21-23. What other idea can any one glean from this than that Peter was not in a spiritual condition ? he could understand the things that came to his fleshly senses from flesh and blood ; other things he could not under- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 83 stand. But Peter's spiritual senses are not always asleep. On anotlier occasion, Jesus asks him, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ? " Peter an- swered, " Some say that thou art John the Baptist ; some, Elias ; and others, Jeremias, or one of the proph- ets." Then Jesus put the question directly to his disciples, " Whom do ye say that I am ? " Peter says, " Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." Jesus responds, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-j(ma ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee^ but my Father which is in heaven." — Matt. xvi. 13-17. Who wonders that Jesus calls him blessed ? He was in a condition where he was receiving knowledge inde- pendent of fleshly organs. He w^as not indebted even to his own fleshly eyes and ears for that revelation. The two paragraplis above quoted show very plainly that at one time Peter w^as in a condition that he was not in at another. Once he " savored not the things of God ; " at anotlier time was receiving knowdedge not from flesh and blood, but directly from the Father in heaven. Such is the history of all spiritually-minded persons ; sometimes they seem so infilled with the spirit that all space and time are annihilated. The past is brought up wdtli peculiar distinctness, and "coming events cast their shadows before." They see through solid walls, and at a distance, the same as though there was nothino; to obstruct the vision. At other times, the animal man holds the dominion, and they, the same as others, view events from a material standpoint. At such times, they not unfrequently disbelieve what their ow^n spiritual senses have told them ; and many dispute what they, in the moments of their illumination, so 84 THE QUESTION SETTLED. clearly saw, that tliey could have pledged their own existence on its reality. It was so with Jesus : at times, his spirit seemed to reach out and grasp the future, so that he could say, " The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and be crucified." At other times, he- did not believe his own predic- tions, and he would promise his disciples that they should have a hundred times the amount of real estate in this world, for following him, that they could get by any other means ; that they should sit on twelve thrones, judging the tAvelve tribes of Israel ; that they should not taste of death till they should see his king- dom established with power. He even went so far on one occasion as to take the kingdom by violent force ; but he saw his mistake afterward, and wept over it. — See Mark x. 29, 30 ; Matt. xix. 28, xvi. 28, xxi. 9-13, xxiii. 37-39. Somnambulism is an important witness to the double entity of man. Its facts are so patent, that, perhaps, there is not one Avho will read this volume who will not remember having heard of persons getting up m their sleep, and performing wonderful feats of physical or mental strength. At the age of fourteen years, we were employed to carry shingles upon a three-story brick house ; and several persons now living will testify, that, after the first day's work, we got up in our sleep in the ni^it and took a bunch of white-wood shingles, perhaps five hundred, and carried them up on the house. Half of the number would have been more than we could have carried in our normal condition. When told of it the next morning, though we had been in the habit of sleep-walking ever since we were THE QUESTION SETTLED. 85 three years old, we could hardly believe the report of the witnesses ; and we have never, from that day to this, been able to gather the faintest recollection of even dreaming of carrying shingles that night. We remember to have read somewhere of a lady gettmg up in her sleep, and. In that condition, painting a picture, which, as a work of art, could not be excelled by the best artists In Europe. This lady Avas surprised, when admiring the painting the next day, to learn that slie herself was its author ; that she had done in a few hours, in a state of sound sleep, what she could by no possibility accomplish In her Avaldng hours. We know that Dr. Henry Slade of Jackson, Mich., when in an unconscious magnetic trance, has. In one hour, produced an exact life-size likeness of his wife, which, as a work of art, could not be excelled on this continent. The picture is in existence to-day, and more than a thousand witnesses in Michigan and New York can testify that the representation Is true to life. How are these thino;s done ? We have but one answer. '' There Is a natural body, and there Is a spiritual body." One or the other of these bodies must hold the positive dominion. Ordinarily, in perfect physi- cal health, Jthe animal man is positive. " But, though the outward man perish, the inward man Is renewed day by day." As the outward man loses strength, the spiritual, or inward man becomes positive : hence. If the physical man can be put Into a perfectly sound sleep. It will be In a perfectly negative condition ; then If the spiritual man can take the physical while asleep, and use It without awakiiig It, It can certainly control It better than It could when the physical was 86 THE QUESTION SETTLED. positive. So with mediumship : an organism that can be put into a sound magnetic sleep, and then used by a spirit-power, without being disturbed or awakened, wall always make a good medium. Psychometry might be presented as another evidence that man has a spiritual nature. We all have senses that we little dream of. Even dumb animals manifest powers which our positive intellectuahty prevents many men and women from knowing they possess. The dog tracks the hare or fox with unerring certainty : so he will distincruish his master's track from that of ten thou- sand other men, by the peculiar kind of caloric his mas- ter throws oif. Every individual is surrounded by a •magnetic aura peculiar to him or her self: that Ave read often, without knowing it. Who has not often, upon being introduced to persons, formed an attach- ment, or taken a dislike, that no future acquaintance could change ? AVliy was it? We answer, " The spir- its, unknown, it may be, to the physical organism, sought and obtained an introduction to each other. They saw an affinity, or lack of it, as the case might be, that may require the bodies many months to learn." We have on several occasions met entire strangers, and recognized them by this magnetic atmosphere^ We could not tell liow we knew them, yet we Avere as positive wdio and what they were before as after a formal introduction. " How do you tell ? " said a gentleman to us whom w^e called by name, never having seen him before. '' By my feelings,"" w^as our response. " It is the most ridicu- lous nonsense," ejaculated our interrogator. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit, neither can he hioio them ; they are foolishness unto him,^^ was our reply. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 87 Thoiigli we never yet took a manuscript into an audience, we have not, in almost seventeen years' con- stant preaching, dehvered as much as one discourse that we did not read. When we get up to speak, we can not look where our discourse is not ; we can see it pho- tographed on the walls of the room ; we can read it in the countenances of our audience, or in our bare hand, or hear it in the very silence of the room, in pauses between our words. Of these phenomena we could not even attempt an explanation : all we can say is, there is a spiritual world, and man is endowed with spiritual senses, which occasionally get a glimpse of what is behind the curtain of gross materiality. We could weary the reader with volumes of such evi- dences as have been here presented. Indeed, it is more trouble to cease than to write ; but we must approach the more direct evidence of the duplex entity of man. The great apostle to the Gentiles relates an historical fact bearing directly upon this point. He says, " I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, ichether in the body or out of the body I can not tell; God know- eth ; such an one caught up to the third heaven, . . . and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful [possible] for man to utter." — 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. From this emphatic declaration of the learned Paul, we learn that he supposed it possible for a man to exist out of the bodv. Had man been all bodv, as certain ones suppose, and Paul understood it so, he never could have used the language, " Whether in the body or out of the body I can not tell." Again : the fact that words were heard wdiich could not be utiered by corporeal 88 THE QUESTION SETTLED. organs of speech is proof abundant, not only that theixi is a language that fleshly lips can not speak, but that the man which exists sometimes in the body and some- times out of it can hear when out of the body. The spmtual nature, upon the existence of which depends the proof of Spiritualism, is, by Paul, referred to as follows : — " For which cause we faint »ot ; but though our out- ward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." — 2 Cor. iv. 16. The inw^ard man is certainly not the corporeal or ani- mal man ; for one man of that kind does not dwell witliin another. Althouo;h we are gettino; ahead of oui* subject, we must be permitted to say, that this text is a most positive proof of our second proposition, viz., that the spiritual nature exists and retains its consciousness after the body is dead. The outward man perish, and the inward man renewed? What can be plainer? Again : when the inward man is out of the body, from the fact of its having perished, or from any other cause, it hears unspeakable words, — words unuttered b}^ fleshly lips. Could we have the framing of testimony to our liking, we could not make the matter more plain than Paul has done in these two instances. But, to come to more modern facts, who has not read and heard and known of instances of persons leaving the body, even here in this life, and appearing, some- times at a distance of hundreds of miles from it ; thus giving proof of their double entity ? Take the case related by Capt. Robert Bruce, of the man on the wrecked vessel appearing at the same time on another vessel, several leagues distant, and writing THE QUESTION SETTLED. 89 on the ca})taiii's slate, " Steer to tlie nor' west." Mr. Bi: ace himself saw the man write ; others saw the writing. They steered as directed, and saved the lives of a crew by doing so. The man who did the writing, it appeared afterward, by a comparison of the notes of the two sea-captains, Avas in a trance at the time it was done. If the reader will take the trouble to take the book called " Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another World," by Hon. Robert Dale Owen, and read any two or three of the several well-authenticated cases he records un- der the heading " apparitions of the living," we feel assured that he will be couA^inced that man has a spiritual nature, which can exist cither in or out of the body. As the whole spiritualistic argument has been sus- pended upon this proposition, permit us to cany the argument further. The sin of prolixity is not so great as that of brevity, where there is so much at stake. Of Mrs. Hauffe, the seeress of Prevorst, Kerner says, " She was more than half a spirit, and belonged to a world of spirits : she belonged to a world after death, and was more than half dead. In her sleep only was she truly awake. Nav, so loose was the connection be- tween soul and body, that, like Swedenborg, she ofteii went out of the body, and could contemplate it sepa- rately." — Despair of Science^ p. 140. The following, taken from " The Albany Times," seems to illustrate the truth of our proposition : — " Some two weeks since, a young lady living here, whose father is eno-ao-ed in mercantile business in this city, awoke from a sleep, feeling distressed and alarmed from the effects of an unpleasant dream. The 90 THE QUESTION SETTLED. iras-liri. 14. Again w^e read, — " And his disciples asked him, saying, Why, then, say the scribes that Elias must first come ? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likew^ise' shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disci- ples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist." So far as argument from the Bible is concerned, we must consider the question settled. Though there are hundreds of passages in that book bearing upon the point, there are none more positive than many of those already quoted. For the benefit of the curious wdio wish to pursue this part of the investigation further, we subjoin a few scriptural statements without comment. Ezekiel was a great medium, as wdll be evinced by the following : — '' Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great iiishing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place." — Ezek. iii. 12. 108 THE QUESTION SETTLED. '' Then the s})irit entered mto me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said nnto me, Go, shut thvself ^vithin thine house." — Ezek. hi. 24. " Then I beheld, and, lo, a hkeness as the appearance of fire ; from the appearance of his loins, even down- 'vard, fire ; and from his loins, even upward, as the ap- Dcarance of brightness, as the color of amber. And he imt forth the form of a hand, and took me hy a lock ?f mine head; and the sjnrit If ted one up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north ; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy." — Ezek. viii. 2,3. Here is either a physical manifestation of spirit-power, or Ezekiel's spirit leaves his body, and is caught away ''in the visions of God to Jerusalem." In either case, it affords the most positive proof of Spiritualism. The spirits with which Ezekiel deals to so great an extent are several times called men. — See Ezek. ix. 2, 3, 11. " Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldtea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me. Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had show^ed me." — Ezek. xi. 24, 25. Death did not change the moral status of men in an- cient times more than it does now ; hence, the spirits communicating were not always good and truthful. In 1 Sam. xvi. 14-17, we read, — " But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's THE QUESTION SETTLED. 109 servants said unto liim, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubletli tliee. Let our lord now command tliy servants, whicli are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp ; and it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me." David was the man provided. " And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp, .and played with his hand : so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." — 1 Sam. xvi. 23. Lying spirits once got the control of four hundred prophets at one time. — See 1 Kings xxii. Permit us, in conclusion, to present a few evidences from the pages of every-day life ; and we must preface them with the truthful words of the renowned Dr. Johnson. '' That the dead are seen no more," says the great lexicographer, '' I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent testunony of all ages and nations. There is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom appari- tions of tlie dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth ; those avIio never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience could make credible. That it is doubted by single cavilers can very little weaken the general evidence ; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it with their fears." Had our readers the time and disposition to candidly 110 THE QUESTION SETTLED. peruse the works of Hon. Robert Dale Owen and Wil- liam Ilowitt, on tliis subject, they would find a mine which would richly repay their explorations ; besides, it would satisfy those who have brains, and use them, that the dead do return. The following extract, taken from " The Spiritual Times " of London, is to the point : — " The Marquis de Bamtouillet and the Marquis de Preccy were intimate friends and companions in arms. Tallving, one day, of the next world, they promised that the one who died first should retm-n to tell the other of the event. Three months subsequently, the Marquis de Bamtouillet started for the seat of war in Flanders : his friend, being detained by fever, remained in Paris. Six weeks later, De Precey was awakened at six o'clock in the morning by the curtains of his bed being drawn aside ; and, turning to see who it was, he perceived his friend. Springing out of bed, he tried to embrace him, to testify his joy at his return ; but Bamtouillet retreated a few steps, and said, caresses were misplaced ; he came to fulfill a promise ; that he had been slain in battle the preceding day, and that all that was said of a future life was true ; that De Precey ought to alter his present mode of life without delay, for he would be killed in his first engagement. Unable to credit his senses, the mar- quis again tried to embrace his friend, believing it all to be a joke ; but he only grasped the air : and Bamtouil- let, perceiving his doubts, showed him the wound which he had received, from which the blood appeared to flow. After this, the phantom disappeared; and De Precey awoke the whole house by his cries. Several persons, THE QUESTION SETTLED. Ill to whom lie related what he had seen and heard, at- tributed the vision to a fevered brain, and, entreatuig liim to lie down, assured him that he must have been dreaming. The marquis, in despair at being taken for a visionary, related all the above-mentioned circumstances, protesting he had both seen and heard his friend while awake ; but it was of no effect until the arrival of the mail from Flanders brought the announcement of the death of the marquis. " This first circumstance proving correct, in the very manner related by De Precey, his friends began to think there mio"ht be some foundation for the adventure re- lated ; Bamtouillet having been Idlled on the eve of the day he annomiced the fact, and there not having elapsed time enough for the information to be received by nat- ural means. The event w^as much canvassed in Paris, but attributed to a heated brain, in spite of the testimony of some wdio had examined the case seriously. The prediction was, however, shortly verified ; for on the mar- quis's recovery, at the commencement of the civil wars, he proceeded at once to the scene of action, in spite of the urgent entreaties of his father and mother, Avho dreaded the fulfillment of the prophecy ; and was Idlled at the battle of Saint Antoine." The above we present as an historical fact. As such w^e demand that it be met. It is only one of a thou- sand. Philosophers and scientists, such facts demand your attention. We will only add, the testimony concerning the anastasis of Jesus, which Peter calls infalliUe^ is not half so good and well authenticated as testimony com* 112 THE QUESTION SETTLED. ing to eartli's inhabitants every day, telling them of a *' beyond," another side to the river of death, where those we mourn as lost wait with outstretched arms to receive us. " It is a faith sublime and sure, That ever round our head, Are hovering on viewless "wings The spirits of the dead." CHAPTER V. THE BIRTH OF THE SPIRIT. All Subjects Important — " Ye must be born again " — Nicodcmus' Quandary — A Minister's Opinion — Autlioi''s Objection — Jesus' Tests — Must be born out of Flesh — Birth of the Spirit a Resurrection — Not of Flesh and Blood — Bible against it (1 Cor. xv.) — Natural and Spiritual Body — Opinion of the Woman of Tekoah — Of Job — Of Jesus — Objections answered — Mortal Bodies quickened — Must eat Christ's Flesh — Job and the "Worms — Job re- fers to his Recovery — He did see God — Scientific Arguments — Change of Matter — Interesting Dialogue — Is the Mind an Entity — Abraham in the Resurrection — Dust returning to Dust — Resurrection a Birth — Jesus born of the Spirit — Seen by Clairvoyants — He goes and comes like the "Wind — His Flesh and Bones — Owasso, the Boots and the Hand — His Explanation — Jesus appears to Paul — Others do not see him — Test from Ananias — Jesus, in showing himself, demonstrated Immortality — Practical Conclusions — Born into the Other AVorld of this — Future Happiness and Misery made by Life here — Alexander Campbell — The Good shall shine — Spirits and Tobacco — Appetites may be our Hell hereafter — Admonition. THOUGH very popular, it is hardly just to say of any question, '' This is important," as such language implies that there are questions of no importance ; which is not the case. Every truth has its bearing on every other truth ; every truth received is a light by "which we may be enabled to discover kindred truths ; every truth rejected is a light extinguished ; and darkness is the result. '' Ye must be born ascain," is the lanoTiao:e of Jesus to Nicodemus : and every one who believes his Bible indorses it , the only question being. What is meant by beinoj born ao;ain ? TJicro is a ditterenc(% '' wide as the 8 113 114 THE QUESTION SETTLED. world," between our views and tliose of our Christian neiglibors, as to what constitutes the birth of the spirit. Jesus, in his conference with a member of the Jewish senate, said, " Except a man be born again, he can not see tlie kingdom of God." This astonished Nicodemus, who could not see how it would be possible for him, under the circumstances, to get into the kingdom ; for he ^N as already an old man : and how could an old man be born ? Jesus answers, — " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. INlarvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." — John iii. 5-7. . Sawyer renders this, " That which is born of the Spirit is a spirit." Here the matter is explained. It is the birth of the Spirit that Jesus is speaking of, as much as to say, " You got your fleshly existence, got into this fleshly kingdom, by a birth of the flesh ; now, in order to enter upon your r.piritual existence, that is, your existence where there is no flesh and blood, you must be born of the Spirit. Don't wonder that I told you you must be born again." '' The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometli, and whithc'r it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit." — John iii. 8. When but a bov, we once asked a minister for an explanation of this verse. He kindly consented to give us the needed light. " The birth of the Spirit," said he, " is nothing more nor less than conversion. All who THE QUESTION SETTLED. 115 are converted are born again. The Spirit is like tlic wind ; it comes and goes, and you can not tell wlience it comes, or whitlier it goes. You can not see the wind ; you see its effects, and feel it : so you can not see the Spirit ; but you do see and feel its operations on the heart." This is substantially the theory of the orthodox world : it may do as a hypothesis ; but it will not do as an ex- planation of this text. The text does not say, '' The Spirit comes and goes like the wind," as this theory would have it, but " The wind bloweth where it llsteth [pleaseth], and you can not tellwdiere it comes from, or whither it goes : so is every one that is horn of the Sjnrit.^^ Thus it is the individual born of the Spirit who goes and comes, and you can not tell luhere he goes to or comes from. Is it so with churchmen ? Can they go and come without being detected, more than sinners, who never belonged to a chui'ch ? They can not. Then we must decide that they have not experienced the birth spoken of in this text. We do not deny that Christians may have experienced a change : no doubt they have ; but we do deny that they have been born again. Jesus gives another test by which to try those professing to be born of the Spirit. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spu'it is spirit" (is a spirit. — Sawyer^. Are not churchmen flesh and blood in the same sense as sinners who do not belong to the church ? But those born of the Spirit are no longer flesh. " Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." We might ask, Why ? Paul an- 116 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." — 1 '^or. xv. 50. Tliis whole chapter is an argument showing the neces- sity of a resurrection in order to get into the kingdom of God, as Jesus shows the necessity of a spiritual birth in order to o:et into the kinfrdom. The verse above quoted tells why a resurrection is necessary: it is because ^^ flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom.^'' A resur- rection, then, delivers us from flesh and blood : the birth of the Spirit does the same. For this and other reasons, we claim that the birth of the Spirit is the resurrection from the dead. Here, before arguing this point, we must tell what we mean by the term "resurrection.^' We do not, by this term, mean, as many others do, the re-collecting of the particles of matter, and converting them once more into flesh, blood, and bone, and maldng them live again. That can not be done, as we will show. By the term ''resurrection," we mean just what the Greeks meant by the term anastasis, — an elevation. Sometimes they used the term ex-anastasis. This will be found in Phil, iii. 11, where Paul says, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." The Greek is, ex-anastasin ton neJcron, which literally signifies, " resurrection out of the dead." How plain ! The body dies, and man is born out of it. This is the resurrec- tion. Before attempting to prove that the birth of the Spirit and resurrection of the dead are the same, we will show that the body never will be raised to life. No one contends that there are any scientific argu- THE QUESTION SETTLED. ll7 nieiits for tlie resuscitation of the flesli. All science is ooufessecUy against it : yet some say, " The Bible says so ; and, though we can not comprehend it, we believe God has power to bring it about." Now, we emphati- cally deny that the Bible, when rightly interpreted, teaches any such doctrine : on the other hand, it is squarely against it. The text above quoted is pointed and emphatic. If the kino-dom of God is the state to be obtained at the resurrection, and " flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom," then, whatever inference may be drawn from Paul's argument in other places, he has here posi- tively committed himself as an unbeliever in the resur- rection of the flesh. This whole chapter is worthy of ati ention : it is all devoted to this resurrection question. Any one who will read this chapter with the idea that Paul is arguing with Epicureans, who did not believe in any future life for man, will discover that he was simply arguing an existence for man beyond this mundane life, and not urging any particular form of resurrection, or definition of the term anastasis. Paul bases the whole argument on certain phenomena, which he, and about five hundred others, had witnessed. Christ, he argued, had been seen after his assassination ; therefore he was not dead. Christ lived after he was killed ; therefore others would live after the event called death. He uro-es that there is life for man, as evinced by Christ being seen alive after his death, unless the witnesses who testified to having seen him were false ; but he was seen on so many occasions, and by so many, that it could not have been falsehood or deception. He urges, further, that the witnesses were honest, as was 118 THE QUESTION SETTLED. proved by their jeopardizing their lives for their testi- mony. In 1 Cor. XV. 32, he says, — " If, after the manner of men, I liave fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not ? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." Thus he stakes his life on his hope of a resurrection, ami, at the same time, informs liis brethren that flesh and blood can not be raised. When certain ones ask, " How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ? " he answers, " Thou sow est not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may cliance of wheat, or of some other grain ; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." — Verses 37, 38. Every seed sown has God's own body. He continues urging that all bodies are not eartlily ; that there are celestial as well as terrestrial bodies, and, finally, says, — "It is sown a uatural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spirit- ual body." — Verse 44. All agree that a better rendering would be, "It is sown an animal body, it is raised a sjnritiial body. There is an animal hody^ and there is a sjnritual hody.''^^ Now we inliabit an animal body ; when born of the Spirit, we shall inhabit the spiritual body. Then will w^e have dropped " this mortal flesh," and been born into the higher life, called,. in this text, "the kingdom of God." Lest some sJiould continue, notwithstanding the posi- tive Scriptures we have quoted, to think that the flesh is to be raised from the dead, we will quote a few para- graphs from the " Book of books," which are so em- phatic, that their meaning can not be questioned. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 119 The wise woman of Tekoab, who went to David to make a plea in behalf of his rebellious son, in the course of her argument, said, — " For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which can not be gathered up again ; neither doth God respect any person ; yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him." — 2 Sam. xiv. 14. In a proper place we shall examine this from the phi- losopher's point of view. Then we shall show that this is literally true. That which goes to the ground can not he gathered up again. Job, when he thought himself on his death-bed, said, — " As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." — Job vii. 9, 10. Stronger language could not be used. How persons can pretend to believe the Bible, and yet argue a resus- citation of the flesh, in the face of such positive declara- tions, we can not conceive. Comments on such para- graphs would be like holding up a rushlight, by which to view the shining sun. Again : this same poet has said, — " But man dieth and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and dryeth up, so man lieth down and risetli not : till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." — Job xiv. 10-12. Until the heavens be no more is the longest time he 120 THE QUESTION SETTLED, coukl fix. If this text is true, man never can come out of tlie grave ; for the graves where men sleep are all in t]ie earth : but, when the heavens pass away, earth with all its graves passes too. Jolm says, — " And 1 saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away : and tlierc was no more sea." — Rev. xxi. 1. Again : he says, " And I saw a great white throne, and liim that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them." — Rev. xx. 11. Now, we submit, that if heaven, and earth with all its cemeteries filled with dead bodies, is gone so that it can not he founds and the dead are not raised out of the earth until after that time, as Job asserts, the chance for the resurrection of dead bodies is so small, that we do not wonder that Watts said, — " Great God, on what a slender thread Hang all eternal things ! " Jesus, in his conversation with the Sadducees, proves the doctrine of the resurrection by the fact that God was said to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, after they had been dead several hundred years. " But," said he, " God is not the God of the dead, but of the living : " so all these patriarchs are alive. His words are, — '' Now that the dead are raised^ even Moses showed at tlie bush, when he calletli the Lord the God of Abra- ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ; for lie is not a God" of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him." — Luke xx. 37, 38. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 121 Now, in all candid honesty, permit us to ask our read- ers. Do you believe that the dead are raised^ as Jesus asserted, and was proved to Moses by the angel in the bush ? or do you look forward to a time in the distant future when the dead shall be raised ? We assert, with- out fear of successful contradiction, that the doctrine of a physical resurrection is made for and not hy the Bible. As the positions of our opposers on this subject can not well come under the head of objections, we will proceed to an explanation of such biblical expressions as are sup- posed to teach the resurrection of the body. Perhaps nothing in the Bible is relied on to prove the resurrection of the flesh more than the following : " But, if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal boches by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." — Rom. viii. 11. This text says not one word about the remaking and revivifying of dead bodies. It only speaks of the quick- ening of mortal bodies. There is a vast difference be- tween a mortal body and a dead body. Oui' mortal body has been quickened a number of times, and that by a spu'it-power; but there never w^as a dead body raised to life. It would seem that the theory of a resur- rection of the animal body must be hard pressed for evidence wdien it grasps at such "straws:" truly, it remmds us of the proverb concerning " drowning men." " You speak," said an opponent in debate with us, " against the resurrection of the flesh. Job says, his flesh shall be raised from the dead : I believe in taking the Bible as it reads." 122 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Very well," said we, "let us take a paragraph liter- ally. Jesus says, — " ' I am the living bread wliich came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever ; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, there- fore, strove among themselves, saying. How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? Then Jesus said unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of tlie Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eatetli my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink in- deed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eat- eth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven : not as J^our fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall hve for ever.' " — John vi. 51-58. Shall we all turn cannibals because Jesus said, " Ex- cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you " ? It is, according to a strictly literal rendering of this passage, our only chance for salvation. If those who believe in a fleshly resurrec- tion could find as positive a declaration that the flesh should come out of the grave, as this, that Christians must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus, with what eagerness would they grasp it ! Do, Christians, in heaven's name, be consistent ! Now, we deny that Job or any other Bible writer said that his flesh should come out of the grave : on the other hand, we have shown that he said just the opposite. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 123 Here is the text supposed to teacli a physical anas- tasis. " Oh that my words were now written ! oli that the}; were printed in a book ! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever ! for I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the lat- ter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom 1 shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." — Jobxix. 23-27. If this text teaches a material resurrection, Job square- ly disputes in it what he said in chapters vii., xiv., and xvi. This we can not accuse Job of doing. This text has no more reference to the future of this hfe than thouo:h tliere was no future for man. Let it be remem- bered that Job was greatly afflicted at this time ; his friends had forsaken him, he was covered with sore boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet (see Job ii. 7) ; that his wife advised him to curse God and die (Job ii. 9). This disease was caused by an animal- cule preying upon his flesh : so that Job says, " My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome." — Job vii. 5. In this very speech, he states that his friends, wife, servants, and all, had forsaken him : though he en- treated his wife for his children's sake, yet she turned against him. His bone cleaved to his skhi, and he es- caped vdth the skin of his teeth. He then breaks out in the language just quoted, expressing his confidence that he will recover, though worms were consuming his flesh. Job did recover, and became a hearty old man. 124 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " All, but Job said, ' In my flesh shall I see God.' Did he see God ? " We answer most emphatically, " He did." The ancients saw God in bodily health and its attendant blessings. God was anciently in every gentle breeze, in the warm sunshine, the genial shower ; in fact, in every pleasant sensation. When God withdrew his face, then the storm, the bhght, the mildew, and pestilence raged ; then it was that disease preyed vipon its victims. By and by the face of God was again seen ; and peace, liap})iness, and prosperity was the result. Reader, this is not imagination : Ave are not left to guess on this point. After Job's recovery, God answers him in such a way, that Job is convinced that he is hold ing converse with the Infinite. Then Job says, — '' I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear . but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor my- self, and repent in dust and ashes." — Job xlii. 5, 6. Thus every part of the text was fulfilled without a resurrection. Now, liavhig shown that the doctrine of a physical resurrection is not a Bible doctrine, we propose to take it from modern theologians, by showing that it is an impossibility, and therefore could not be true, even if it were tauo-ht in the Bible. It is now an almost universally conceded fact that the entire matter of the human frame changes as often as once in seven years. Not Jong since, however, it waf our Ibrtune to hold a pul)lic discussion with a minister, who pretended to some knowledge of science, who de- nied this fact, and, to prove himself correct in his denial, triumphantly stripped up his sleeve to show a scar on b;s arm that he had carried nearly forty years. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 125 ^ riiere,^ said this oracle of antiquated theology, '' why d^ / irot that scar go when matter was passing off? '* Ht' migiit as well have asked why his eye or ear did not pass off \Yit\\ other matter. This reminds us that we once made the assertion that there is no inertia : every particle of steel in the razor-hlade revolves around its fellow particle w3th all the precision that planets move in their courses. ^' Why," said an astonished opponent, " that is self-e vide Ally false. I put my razor away, and always find it where 1 left it, which could not be the case if it were mov.hi^ all the time." The poor man could not see the differ ^'tice between particles revolving around each other, and r^/.ors moving off in bulk. So w^ith this minister and his sear ; the truth is, the scar had passed off several times within the period named, but each particle had retained its place until crow^ded out by another just like it ; so that the size and shape of the scar was not changed in the operation more than a pyramid of apples w^ould change by a purchaser buying an apple from the pyramid, and the grocer dropping another in its place. For the benefit of Adventists, and all uiJiers who can not see any thing of man but flesh and 6icx)d, we Avill re view" this position at length. Imamne the followino; dialoijue between ai^ elder of tlie materialistic school, who can see no future for man other than by a physical resurrection, and a phuosopher, whose researches prevent his acceptance of that theory. Elder. — '' ]Man is to be raised out of the ground, ' and the sea shall give up the dead which are in it.' " Philosopher. — " How can that be, since matter is continuallv changing, and man docs not, any one yef\"5j^^ 126 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Ills lilo, possess the same body lie had any previous year ? Beside, is not the spirit or mind the real man ? what need of a remoldino; and brinmn^]^ to life of the flesh ? " Eld. — " Ah, friend ! you err in two points. First, let me inform you that mind is not an entity, as you sup- pose, it is only a function of the brain. Brain grinds out thouixht. Mind is the result of the oro;anization, and proper combination with the atmosphere, of the machin- ery called man, as the keeping of time is the result of the oriianization and settino; in motion of the machine called the watch. Second, that matter does not change as yon supi)Ose, I will prove by a scar that I have carried more than forty years." Phil. — " As to your first position, it is either true or false. If true, your si^cond argument is not needed. If false, your second argument will only fall of its own weight. If the identity of man is not preserved, there can be no resurrection ; possibly there could be a new creation. God could make a man out of every stone in the ' Granite State ; ' but he can not make Abraham or Moses out of these stones, from the fact that identity consists, in part at least, of the memory of past events ; and those men made of stones could not recognize them- selves as beino; the Abraham and Moses of old. Neither could the particles of matter Avhich constituted the physical of Abraham and Moses at any one time be the same Abraham and Moses, for the reason that the mind of these men was the result of their organization, and, being dependent on the organism, could not exist after the physical man was chsorganized." Eld. — " Let me interrupt you : you are partly cor- i.r.s'" and partly incorrect. The mind ceases to exist THE QUESTION SETTLED. 127 when the bram, its fountain, ceases to act; hut Avlien the brain i:. re'-organizcd, of course the mind, which is a resuh, begins to act as before." Phil. — " Not so fast. The old mind was the result of the old organism, and, per consequence, ceased to exist when the old brain ceased its action. The new mind is the result not of the old hut of the neiu orr/anism ; is ground out by the new brain, and, being the effect or function of the neiu hmin, — made, for aught I care, of the old material, — can not antedate its existence. Memory, being a function of the mind, can not go back of the mind out of which it proceeds ; but that mind was the result of the new organism : hence, the man be- fore death can not possibly be connected with the man after the resurrection." Eld. — " There are difficulties ; but God has power, and ' these dry bones shall live.' The identity is not preserved in the mind, as that ceases to exist, but in the particles of matter of which the body is composed." Phil. — " Then you have lost your identity even Avhile you live, and at this moment are losing part of it : for vou are trimmino; your finger-nails. These nails are a part of the essential elder with whom I am talk- ing, and, if the particles are all to be raised, must come up in the general resurrection, and be joined to your fingers, lest you should lose your identity. Your hair, which was once short enough, got too long, and you had it trimmed last week. Did you know the hair taken oflP your head once w^ent into your stomach as food, then went frolicking and frisking through your veins, and from that time forward was a part of your essential identity, and as such claims a part in the resurrection- 128 THE QUESTION SETTLED. body ? Again : in your tedious spell of typlK)id fever last winter, you lost twenty-five pounds of flesh. Where did that flesh go ? It, too, claims a part in the resur- rection-body. Notwithstanding your friends supposed you would die, you recovered ; that is, all except the twenty-flvc pounds of you which died and left you. As soon as you became convalescent, your appetite began to return, you ate more heartily than before, and, as a re- sult, found yourself increasing in weight at the rate of a pound a day, until you weighed more than before your sickness. Where did this second twenty-five pounds of flesh come from ? Where Avas it while you were wearing the flesh you lost during your sickness ? Let me tell you. Part of it was in the apple-orchard, in the shape of unripe fruit. Some of it was in the garden and potato patch ; some swimming in the ocean, in the shape of codfish and mackerel ; some of it growing in the coffee and tea fields ; other portions were in the air, the water, &c. Now, your present flesh is as much a part of you as that you lost, and vice versd. Which will you have raised from th« dead, — the first, or the second? One has died, the other w^ill die. Will you have both raised ? Then, why not have all the matter that ever formed a part of your body brought back to it ? Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years : that was long enough to wear out twenty-five bodies. Which one of these bodies shall be brought up from the grave ? Or shall all of them come up ? If so, there wall be ' giants in those days.' Abraham ivill have a heard forty feet long^ and can not weigh less than tivo tons.'' Eld. — " You ask questions faster than I can answer THE QUESTION SETTLED. 129 them. Some questions can not be answered. We re- ceive certain statements because God made them, not because we can answer every question concerning them. You ask, Which one of Abraham's bodies will come to life ? We have an example furnished us in the resur- rection of our Saviour. The same body that died was the one raised: so it will be in the case of Abraham." Phil. — " But Abraham's twenty-five bodies each died, one no more than another. Not a particle of mat- ter passed from either body till the body had used up all the life it could appropriate, and its very death sent it fi'om the body to feed the life of vegetation ; and, as it was resurrected in vegetation, it was eaten by animals and men, and, in turn, took its place in other bodies, ad infinitum. If you present the case of Jesus as an examjyle to prove that the last body that dies, or the one that dies all at once, is the one to be raised, you are mifortunate : for the case selected proves the contrary. If Jesus' body that w^as killed came up from the grave, that, instead of proving that others will have a similar experience, proves directly the contrary. Jesus' body Avas made of what he ate, drank, and breathed ; but the corn that he and his disciples plucked and ate on the sabbath day, as well as all other food that ever went into his stomcich, had been fattened on the dead: it drew its life from the decomposition of animal and vegetable bodies. Thus all of Jesus' body was made by the death of other bodies ; but his body, according to your theory, was brought up out of the tomb, revivified, and taken to heaven. " Now think of the general resurrection, when millions upon millions of bocUes shall be called from their beds 9 130 THE QUESTION SETTLED. of dust. Among them are the martyrs, whose bodieg* were burned to ashes, and the ashes scattered to the four wmds by tlicir persecutors, to prevent their resur- rection : thus their ashes have fattened the soil of earth, as our southern battle-fields were fattened by the flesh, blood, and bones of poor soldiers. This soil has pro- duced vegetation, which has been eaten by the ' cattle upon a thousand hills.' The cattle, made fat upon that which was once flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, have, in their turn, been slain and eaten up to suj)ply other bodies with aliment. The fluids of these bodies whose solids have thus been scattered have a thousand times arisen in the atmosphere, and a thousand times been condensed, and fallen in ' gentle dew and summer showers,' only to be evaporated to again fall to water the earth, wash the shores of the Atlantic, or be drunk by man and beast : thus these particles of matter, after having existed in ten thousand forms, and, for aught we can know to the contrary, in a thousand bodies, at tlie moment of death must be raised from the dead, when, to say the least, Jesus had taken part of them and gone to heaven ! " Eld. — "I must go. Good-day." PniL. — " Don't go yet ; I find some figures here made to my hand, which I wish you to hear me read : — " ' Dust returning to Dust. — It is asserted by sci- entific writers that the number of persons who have exist- ed on our globe since the beginning of time amounts to 30,627, 843, 278,075, 256. These figures, when divided by 3,095,000 (the number of square leagues on the globe), give 11,320,680,732 square miles of land ; which, being divided as before, give 1,314,622,076 per- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 131 sons to each square mile. If we reduce these miles to square rods, tlie number will be 1,853,174,600,000 ; which, divided in like manner, will give 1,283 inhabitants to each square rod, and these, being reduced to feet, will give about five persons to each square foot of terra firma. It will thus be perceived that our earth is a vast ceme- tery. On each square rod of it, 1,283 human beings lie buried; each rod being scarcely sufficient for ten graves, with each grave containing 128 persons. Tlie whole surface of the earth, therefore, has been dug over 128 times to bury its dead.' From this extract, it will be seen that there is not dust enough now, if all the soil were converted to dust, to remake all the bodies that have existed on earth." Eld. — " These difficulties are not for me to settle : I only receive the Bible. If you hope to find a theo- loo-lcal system with no difficulties in its way, all I have to say is, you are having a bootless search. Good-day." Yes : the elder thinks he has the Bible ; and, lilce thou- sands of others who never had a liberal thought, it is all he asks. Those who have read this book thus far, can, perhaps, decide whether it is the Bible, or merely his ipse dixit^ that teaches his peculiar views of the resurrection. Now, having shown fi-om the Bible and science, that the anastasis must be a sjnritiial, and not a physical event, we will pass to our main proposition, viz., that the spiritual birth is the resurrection. The resurrection is several times said to b(^a birth. Paul says of Jesus Christ, — " And he is the head of the body, the church ; who is the beginning, the first-bom from the dead, that in all 132 THE QUESTION SETTLED. things he might haA-e the pre-eminence. For it pleased tlie Father tliat in him should all fullness dwell." — Col. i. 18, 19. In Rev. i. 5, John says, — " And from Jesus Christ, Avho is the faithful witness, and the first-begotten of the dead, and the prince of the lvini]i:s of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." The word, rendered first-hcgotten and first-hom are the same ;' thus we have the Bible twice asserting that Jesus was born from death. " But," says the objector, " Jesus was the ^r^^-born from the dead : how can that be, if every one who had died before him had experienced this resurrection ? " We answer, " There are two senses in which the word ' first ' is used ; sometimes it signifies the first in numerical order, and sometimes first in rank or importance, as, for instance, ' The lieutenant-gen- eral is the first militaiy officer in the United States.' ' The office of President is the first office in the power of the American people to bestow.' The word rendered first-born vaiA first-hegotten in these two instances is the Greek word prototokos^ which Greenfield defines to be, ' chief,' ' principal,' * beloved,' &c." The idea of the text is not that Jesus was the first one born from the dead, but that he is chief among those who have experienced this birth. Paul gives as a rea- son why he was the first-born, " that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Fa- ther that in him should all fullness dwell." John uses the term to signify that he is ''prince of the kings of the earth." As Jesus stood in the front ranks of re- formers in this life, as he led their van, so, on the other THE QUESTION SETTLED. 133 side, in tlic kingdom to which he is now born, he occu- pies the front position. In this sense, and this alone, he is first among those born from the dead. Jesus gives two tests by which to try those born of the Spirit. 1st, " That wdiich is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 2d, " They wdio are born of the Spirit, like the wind go and come, and you can not tell w^here they go, or w- hence they come." Now, let us apply these rules to Jesus after his resur- rection. The various appearances of Jesus are enough to convince the candid reader that he did not bring his flesh up from the grave. Had his flesh been made ahve, he could have been seen by the whole Jewish nation ; and thus they could have been convinced of life and immortality. But he was not seen by all. Peter says, — " Him God raised up the tliird day, and showed him openly ; 7iot to all the peoj)U, hut unto ivitnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." — Acts x. 40, 41. How could Jesus have escaped being seen by the multitude, had he been flesh and blood, especially if he was openly among them? " Chosen witnesses" alone, Avho evidently were clairvoyant, had the privilege of seeing him. jMark says, — *' After that he appeared in another form unto two of tliem, as they walked, and went into the country." — Mark xvi. 12. Physical bodies do not change their form in such a way as this text represents ; but clairvoyants of every lo4 THE QUESTION SETTLED. age of the world testify that spirits do assume different garbs and forms to suit the occasion. Permit us now to demote a few words to Jesus' second test. Does he, after his birth from death, come and go in such a manner that it can not be told whence l.c* comes and whither he goes ? He does. Luke says, — - " .And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jenisalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to j^ass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself cb'ew near, and went with them. But tlicir eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them. What manner of communica- tions are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" — Luke xxiv. 13-17. Where did Jesus come from ? The first his disciples knew, he was journeying with them, talking with them, " reasoning out of the law of Moses and the prophets." " But their eyes were holden that they should not know him." The "holdmg" of their eyes consisted in his appearing in a form that they could not recognize, as stated in Mark xvi. 12. Those born of the Spirit are not only to come in this mysterious manner, but they are to go quite as unac- countably. Luke, in this same narrative, proceeds : — '' And they drew nio;h unto the villao;e whither they went ; and he made as though he would have gone fur- ther. But they coi^u^trained him, saying. Abide with us for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed THE QUESTION SETTLED. 135 it, and brake, and gave to them. And tliclr eyes were opened, and they knew him ; and he vanished out of their sight." — Mark xvi. 28-32. Here Jesus has vanished ov faded out of their sight, as spirits vanish from the sight of media every day. Now he has gone, and they could not tell whither he went. Has he in this proved himself born of the Spirit ? But Luke proceeds : — '' And they said one to another. Did not our heart bum mthin us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures ? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying. The Lord is risen indeed, and hath ap- peared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in break- ing of bread. And, as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them. Why are ye troubled ? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see ; for a spmt hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. And, when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. 7^1 d wliile they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them. Have ye here any meat ? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them." — Mark xvi. 32-43. One point in this, that of fastening the doors, we will leave John to bring to light. It is enough for us at 136 THE QUESTION SETTLED. present to know, that, when they first saw Jesus, they only saw dim, shadowy outhnes ; for it is not until Jesus calls attention to his hands and feet, that they saw them. '' Ah," said Elder G , '' you have the wrong text here ; for he tuas not a sjnrit, as his disciples sup- posed, and as you suppose ; hut he had flesh and hones : so the text is positive proof of the physical resurrection." Not so fast. If the rendering of the text is correct, the disciples supposed they had seen a spirit, Avliich is positive proof that they believed not only in the exist- ence of spirits, but that they could return, and make themselves manifest. So far, we will set the text down as a positiv^e proof of Spiritualism. NoAv for a few words of criticism. If the reader will turn to the margin of Greenfield's Greek Testament, or to Griesbach's Greek Testament, he will find the word rendered " spirit," in this instance, is not the w^ordp/zezt- ma^ wdiich is rendered "spirit" more than a hundred times in the New Testament, but phantasina^ which is defined to be a phantom ; that is, an :ontains. Now, since no one believes all of the Bible, and every one believes some of it, how will it be settled as to who the believers are ? Shall we tell them THE QUESTION SETTLED. 151 by the length of tlieir prayers, or by tlie lengUi of their faces? Will their having attached their name to a religious creed be sufficient to prove them believers, or must we decide by the sacredness they attach to certain days of the nock, or the rigor with whicli they enforce certain relioioiis ceremonies ? None of these rules will do. There are thousands of baptized infidels to-day. Jesus has laid down a rule by which to test this mat- ter. He says, — " Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, tlie works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father." — John xiv. 12. This language can not easily be misinterpreted. Jesus set out to tell us who believers are. He does not test them by their j^rofessmis, by forms or ceremonies, but by their ivorks. Christians, are you willing to be tested thus ? " He that believeth shall do the loorks that I do ; " vea, even greater ivorhs. Did Jesus, or did he not, tell the truth ? Do you, or do you not, believe ? Will you do yourselves the ftivor to heed Paul's admo- nition? — " Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the fliith ; prove your own selves." — 2 Cor. xiii. 5. James says, — *' Yea, a man may say. Thou hast faith, and I have works ; show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works." — James ii. 18. These Scriptures can not be misunderstood. You are not only admonished to " prove yourselves," but told how, — show your faith by your works. What works ? " The works that I do, and even greater, shall he do." 152 T IE QUESTION SETTLED. We ask again, Do you believe ? Oh, would that we had the power to ring the question in every ear ! After Jesus' anastasis, he said to his disciples, — " Go ye tlierefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." — Matt, xxvili. 10, 20. Here Christ promised to be with his disciples. This means somethlno;. He is not golno; to be with them and not make himself manifest. The only way the Church can know that Christ Is with them is by certain mani- festations. Mark records the fulfillment of this promise in his day as follows : — "And they went forth, aid preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with siiins followluix." — Mark xvi. 20. When Paul and Barnabas preached at Iconium, Luke says,— '' Long time, therefore, abode they, speaking boldly in tlie Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his sracc, and granted sIots and wonders to be done by their hands." — Acts xiv. 3. Tlie text docs not promise to be with the disciples merely to the end of their generation, but " always, even to the end of the ivorld."" Though many are looking for the end of the world very soon, and almost innumerable times have been set for old Fatlier Time to cease his rounds, he, not do.-inted in the least by the notices that he will cease to brino; the seasons around, trudo-es alonsr as usual. Then Christ is to work with his disciples yet. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 153 or tlie text is not true. Does he do it? Is there a church to-day that has the signs by which to prove that Christ is witli it ? Said a minister to us, "• If the word ' world ' signified all time, as you seem to think, your re- marks would be just ; but the Greek w^ord aion, rendered ' world ' in this instance, only signifies age or dispensa- tion. This lano;uao;e was used in the Jewish, and not in the Christian age : therefore it only means that Christ will be with his disciples to the end of the Jewish dispen- sation." " When did the Jewish aofe end, and the Chris- tion age commence ? " we asked. "On the day of Pen- tecost," was his reply. Very well, the preaching did not commence until the day of Pentecost. They were not to set out immediately on their mission. Luke says, that Jesus, after giving their commission to preach, said, — " And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you ; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." — ■ Luke xxiv. 49. This enduement came on the day of Pentecost, the very time where the beginning of the Christian dispen- sation is located. Jesus is to work with his disciples to the end of the dispensation where the preaching is to be done. Is the command to preach binding yet ? and are persons now baptized in obedience to this text ? Then, if Jesus is not with the Church to-day, it is either because he did not tell the truth, or its members are infidels. A representative of modern infidelity, falsely called theology, informed us that Christ was with the Church until it was established : from that time forward, he had not been with it. This was admitting the whole ground : their Cliurch was composed of Christless infidels I 154 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Mark re]n'eseiits Jesus as saying, — *' And tliL^se signs shall follow them that believe : in my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents, and, if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." — Mark xvi. 17, 18. Here again the language is positive and emphatic. '' These simis shall follow tliem that believe." There is no proviso in the case. Do the signs follow those who accuse Spiritualists of infidelity ? If not, are they not, when they make such charges, speaking of the abundance of their own infidel hearts ? The disciples were requested to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. They did so. On the fortieth day after they first saw Jesus after his martyrdom, they saw him for the last time. They then formed what Spiritualists call a circle in an upper room in the city ; and there they sat for ten days, waiting for this power. At the end of that time, they began to have manifestations, such as are of common occurrence among modern Spiritualists. The writer of the Book of Acts describes it thus : — " And, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And sud- denly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout THE QUESTION SETTLED. 155 men, out of every nation under lieaven. Now when tills was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed, and marveled, saying one to another. Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans ? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born ? " — Acts ii. 1-8. Here is a foreign power lighting upon the disci- ples m cloven, or a diversity of tongues, literally split tongues ; that is, tongues that speak a number of lan- o-uao-es. These illiterate Gahlean fishermen fluently speak seventeen different languages, not one of which they understand. The power thus using these mediums is called " the Holy Ghost;" that k, pneumatos hagion. One of the definitions which Greenfield gives the word 'pneumatos is '' human souls ; " and we know of no better definition of thu word hagion than " good." A " spirit power lights upon them, that the Bible designates as the good spirit." Whose spirit it was we do not know. Of two thino-s we are sure: first, it fulfills the Christ prediction, " I am with you ;" second, it was just such a power as works on modern media. These manifestations of course astonish the people, who were worshiping dead forms and ceremonies, in- stead of having any living evidence of their religion. " And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, say- ing one to another. What meaneth this ? Others, mock- ing, said. These men are full of new wine." — Acts ii. 12, 13. This last charo;e brin2;s Peter to his feet. Here the gospel commences: — 156 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Ye men of Judasa, and all ye that dwell at Jerasa- lem, be tins known unto you, and hearken to my words ; fur these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of tlie day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel : And it shall come to pass in tlie last days, saitli God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall pi'ophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams : and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy/' — Acts ii. 14-18. This is a complete refutation of those Jewish rab- bis. Peter thoroughly exposes their theory of the men being under the influence of wine. It was too early an hour. The wine they drank then was not sucJi drink as men indulge in now-a-days. Men could di'ink all day, and by nightfall they would begin to be intoxicated : hence the proverb, " They that are drunken, are drunken in the night." Beside, wine does not teach men seventeen different languages they never heard. After refuting the position of these exposers of ancient S])irit-manifestations, Peter proceeds to state his own, which is, that this is a fulfillment of a certain predic- tion. His reasonings so perfectly commend them- sc'lves to the peoi)le, that they are convinced, and at once cry out, ''What shall we do?" Do for what? we ask. " To be saved," nearly the whole world re- sponds. Not a bit of it. They, in this question^ had no more idea of salvation than they had of going into Noah's ark. No : they had witnessed certain phenomena ; and they were interested in knowing how they couJd be THE QUESTION SETTLED. 157 produced. Now the question is, What shall we do to have the power manifest here ? Peter's answer is perti- nent : — '' Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of thelloJy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your chil- dren, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.'' — Acts ii. 38, 39. It was the gift of the Holy Ghost that enabled the dis- ciples to work the wonders which were exciting the people. Now, Peter tells them they can have the same power on certain conditions : " for the promise is to them ; not to them only, but to their children ; and not them alone, but all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." A kind friend once volunteered to enlighten us upon this subject. " This promise made to them and their children et al.,'' said he, " was the Abrahamic promise." The promise made to Abraham was in the following words : — " And the Lord said nnto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now^ thine eyes, and look from the })lace where thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to tliee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that, if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be luunbered." — Gen. xiii. 14-16. What reference this text could have to this promise it would take at leasr a divine to Imagine. No: here ia the promise : — 158 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Therefore being by the riglit liand of God exalted, and liaving received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, lie hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." — Acts ii. 33. Now, this m'omise of the Holy Ghost is to all who are called ; but the Holy Ghost enables those under its power to do what was done on the day of Pentecost. " But,"' says the objector, " these signs were to cease." Then all the Scriptures quoted in this chapter thus far are false. Here we venture the assertion, that not an argument, except the fact that the churches do not enjoy the gifts, can be brought to prove that they should have ceased : that, instead of proving the gifts should cease, proves the relapse of the Church into infidelity. Churches themselves do not believe in the cessation of all the gifts. In Rom. xii. 6-8, Paul says, — " Having, then, gifts differing according to the grace that is given us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy ac- cording to the proportion of faith ; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering ; or he that teacheth, on teach- ing, or he that exhorteth, on exhortation : he that givetli, let him do it with simplicity ; he that ruleth, with dilio-cnce ; he that showeth mercy, with cheer- fulness." The gifts all go together ; yet the Church denies the gift of prophecy, and acknowledges that of the ministry, teaching, and exhortation. In 1 Cor. xii. 7-11, Paul says, " But the manifesta- tion of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit ; to another, the gifts THE QUESTION SETTLED. 159 of healing by the saiAC Spirit ; to another, tiie working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, discern- ino of spirits ; to another, divers kinds of tongues ; to am ther, the interpretation of tongues : but all these woiketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." Does Paul tell the truth ? If so, every man is enti- tled to some form of the manifestation of the Spirit. One would think, by the way opposition to spirit-mani- festations rages in the Church, that that, too, was a gift of the Spirit. Here, this Spirit that gives the power to teach and preach the word to one gives to another the power to heal the sick ; to another, the power to proph- esy; another, the power to work miracles (marvels); another, the discerning (seeing and describing) of spirits ; and to another, the power to speak in foreign languages. But Paul continues : *' And God hath set some in the church; first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teach- ers ; after that miracles ; then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets ? are all teachers ? are all workers of miracles ? have ill the gifts of healing ? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts ; and yet show I unto you a more excel- lent way."— 1 Cor. xll. 28-31. The Church now has its teachers, helps, and govern- ments ; then why deny it the other gifts mentioned in this chapter, which it has an equal right to claim ? Nay, why charge infidelity upon the only people in the world who, by the exercise of spiritual powers, prove them- selves legitimate Christians ? 160 THE QUESTION SETTLED. In chap. xiv. 1, -Paul admonishes his brethren to *' follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts.'' But tlie Church, havino; lost both charity and gifts, sjkmkIs its time in ardently wishing others were in equally as doleful a situation. Truly, the words of the Judajan reformer, " The kingdom shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof," are more literally fulfilled than many ima- gine. Verse twelve of this same chapter, instead of teachino; that the o-ifts shall cease, admonishes Christians to "be zealous of spiritual gifts, and seek to excel." " But there is a text somewhere," said an objector, " that teaches that the gifts shall cease." Yes : there is just one. Here it is : — " Charity never faileth : but, whether there be prophe- cies, they shall fail ; whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." — 1 Cor. xiii. 7-10. Here the matter is stated clearly. " When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." When " Hope sliall change to glad fruition, Faith to sight, and prayer to praise," then, and not till then, WMll.the gifts cease. While there are sick, the cift of healino; will remain ; while persons do not all understand one language, the power to speak in others will remain. Until then, if the gifts cease, it is because of infidelity. We will now turn our attention to one particular de- THE QUESTION SETTLED. IGl partment of this subject. We will select that of heal- ing. James says, — " Is any sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the clmrch ; and let them pray over him, anointing liim witli oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and, if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." — James v. 14, 15. Christians, you who take the Bible for the rule of your faith and practice, do you follow James's injunc- tion ? Will you ? Dare you undertake to show your faith by your works ? James did not counsel to send for a doctor: an ancient Christian would as soon think of sending for a lawyer as a doctor. " Send for the elders," is the injunction ; let them pray for him ; the prayer of faith shall save tlie sick. Is there faith enough in all [)rofessed Christendom to save one patient ? But James continues to aro-ue the case : — " Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain ; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and SIX montlis. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit." — James v. 17, 18. James's argument in reference to the sick is based on the fact tliat Elijah controlled the elements. This he did, or the statement made here, and in 1 Kings xvii. 1, is not true. There is only one of two ways in which this could have been done: first, by interceding with an especial power which controls the elements ; or, second, working in liamiony with some law which produced such an effect. In either case, the power that can con- 11 1G2 THE QUESTION SETTLED. trol the elements so as to regulate the falling of rain can certainly control enough to drive disease from the human system. If James argues that it was done as an especial flivor in answer to prayer, then his [osition is, God will hear prayer as in the case of Elias ; otherwise, his position is, man can control the elements as in the case of Elijah. The world is now beo:innin<]j to understand that mind must control matter. Man will yet control all the elements. This idea is found in more than one place in the Bible. David says of man, — '^ Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet." — Ps. viii. 6. Paul quotes and comments on this text as follows : — '' But one in a certain place testified, saying. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of tliy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For, in tliat he put all in subjection under him, he left nothino- that is not init under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him." — Heb. ii. 6-8. So it is. All things — yea, all the elements — are, 2)rospectively^ under man ; but all things are not yet, in fact^ under his control. As man obtains a, knowledge of science, tlie elements, one after another, become subject to him. We do believe, with James, David, and Paul, that man will yet control them all. '' My friend," said a good mother in Israel to us, " that is blasphemy. You talk of making it rain : that THE QUESTION SETTLED. 1G3 is taking GocFs business out of his liands. You must not assume to be God." " Yes," said we : " there are a great many Uasphemers in the world. In the last cen- tuiy, tliere was one, Benjamin Franklin by name, who undertook to take tlie lio-litnino; out of the hands of the Almighty, and succeeded ; corked it up in a bottle, car- ried it in his pocket, and exhibited it as a trophy of the triumph of science. The world which scoffed and laughed at the ' insane blasphemer,' at once began to worship him as a semi-o;od. If the lio;litnino; the most subtile of all the elements, can be even partially con- trolled by man, certainly the grosser elements can be made to yield to his power." There are laws re2;ulatino; the fallino^ of rain ; and man needs but to understand and apply them to produce a shower. Every one knows, that, if a lump of ice be put into a pitcher of water on a very hot day, the result will be, that water will soon cover the whole outside of the pitcher. The philosophy of the phenomenon is simply this ; the atmosphere outside of the pitcher is warm ; the cold water and ice inside the pitcher change the temperature ; the vessel, being a conductor, conveys the cold temperature to its surface ; there it meets the heated atmosphere ; and the result is a condensation ; the hydrogen of the atmosphere in immediate connection with the vessel settles upon it. Thus a small shower has been produced. Apply this law on a larger scale, and a heavier rain-storm is the result. Rains have almost always followed as a result of hard battles, where tliere was a great deal of heavy cannonading. It has been remarked in this country that a shower is more apt to come up on the afternoon of the fourth day of July 164 THE QUESTION SETTLED. than any other day of that montli. The celebration on that day of our nation's birth, which is done by burning powder and jarring up the elements, is undoubtedly the cause. Atmosphere, as it is heated and disturbed, ex- pands, and, of course, in proportion to its bulk, becomes lighter; the result is, it rises, and the colder, heavier at mosphere sinks ; as the heated air rises through the cold, the condensation occurs ; and, as a result, we have a shower of rain. Now, we venture to say, give a Yankee a furnace of sufficient magnitude to heat a sufficient portion of air, and an engine of sufficient power to send the heated atmosphere through the colder stratum, and he will pro- duce a shower any time on twenty -four hours' notice. If it were possible to bore down five miles into the eartli, we would find a heat sufficient to melt the hard- est substance known. May not the time come when man will be able to dive down into the bowels of the earth, and from its eternal fire regulate our climate, both as to temperature and moisture? But if the ele- ments can be controlled, as James insinuates, why may not the other portion of the text be true, and disease pass under the control of man ? Permit us now to examine this from a scientific stand- point. And, first, we must inquire after the philosophy of disease and cure. To illustrate : suppose a lady, the mother of four children, to be taken ill. She decides to send for the elder, as per direction, and have him })ray foj- her. A philosopher chances to meet the elder at the lady's house, and the following dialogue ensues : — Philosopher. — " What is the cause of the lady's sickness? " THE QUESTION SETTLED. 1G5 Ei.DHR. — " All ! 'the Lord hath greatly afflicted her.' You know that * God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform : He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm I * " Phil. — '' Why has God afflicted her ? " Eld. — " Because, in his wisdom, he sees it to be the best." Phil. — " Then why pray for it to be removed ? If it is best for her to be afflicted, do not ask God to re- move that which she needs. The superior wisdom of the Almighty knows that she needs affliction : hence he has sent ir, upon her. Now, will you ask Infinite Wisdom to give place to your folly, and heal her, when he knows that it is not for the best ? and will he obey you ? That makes God a time-serving demagogue, whiffling about to suit the thousand and one notions of his creatures. When you prove that position, I will cease to believe the world is governed by Infinite Wisdom, but by the caprices of his people : so, if God has afflicted the lady, my advice to you is to let him manage the matter. What did God make her sick for?" Eld. — " Oh ! he intends to take her to himself." Phil. — " Ha does ? Well, he is abundantly able to carry out his determinations. He undoubtedly thinks it is best that she should die, or he would not kill her ; and if God, who, you will admit, ought to know, thinks it best that she should die, I will not ask him to revoke his decision to take her life : for, the moment he yields to my judgment, he is icr^God-cd.^^ 1G6 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Eld. — " Slic lias four children, who will be left with- out a mother. It is a pity that she should die : I will tell God all, and ask him to restore her." Phil. — • Then you think, when you lay all the facts before the Author of the universe, that he may recoiisider the case. Perhaps he has not thought tliat these chil- dren will be left in so destitute a condition." Eld. — "Well, the fact is, I do not think we cnn cluing^: the mind of the omnipotent God ; but I will ask him. If it is in harmony with his will, to raise her up. i think he intends to restore her to health." Phil. — " Very well : if he intends to restore her, he will accomplish it. Why do you hiterfere ? If the lady is restored to health, it is in accordance with tlie predetermination of God, and not in answer to your prayers." Eld. — " You must be an infidel: don't you believe in praying for the sick ? " Phil. — "I most certainly believe In praying for the jftilcted ; but convince me that God has any thing to do with the matter, one way or another, and I will never pray. God is abundantly able to attend to his OAvn business." Eld. — " What do you mean ? Has God nothing to do with the case?" Phil. — " Nothing at all. The lady has violated the laws of health, and is now paying the penalty. Jesus, if he were to aduilnister to her needs, would say, ' Daugh- ter, thy sins are forgiven thee.' Sin, a violation of the law, and nothing else, has made her sick. ' God, in his providence,' does not send dyspepsia to one who has not been intemperate either in the quantity or quality of THE QUESTION SETTLED. 167 food and driidv taken into the stomach. I have known many dyspeptics to charge to God what they owed to greed. Rheumatism and all the ailments of mankind come as the result of sin against the laws of health ; and all that is wanted to remove disease is to restore the broken laws." Eld." — " But will prayer do it ? " Phil. — " In many instances, it will. It would do it in almost every case in the days of James ; and now, in cases where prayer will not remove disease, there is an equivalent in something else." Eld. — " What is it ? I do not understand you." Phil. — " I will explain. Disease is under the con- trol of mind, — partially the mmd of the operator, and partially, it may be, the mind of the patient. In order to effectually remove disease, the patient must be not only negative to the operator, but in magnetic rapport with him : so, if the one to be healed is a great believer in prayer, her confidence is mspii'ed, and she passes into more perfect communion with the operator by that than by any otlier means. If, on the other hand, the patient is a philosopher, largely developed in the region of cau- sality and comparison, he will be disgusted w^ith the in- sane verbiage generally handed out as prayer ; and his disgust, if nothing else, will cause him to repel all the health-giving power, which, otherwise, might have been imparted. In such a case, three minutes of philosophy would be worth more than three months of prayer ; for, be it understood, the power must pass from the operator to the patient." Eld. — " This may be infidelity, but it is strangely interesting : please proceed." 168 THE QUESTION SETTLED. PiiiL. — " Disease and cure are always the result of impression, --sometimes mental and sometimes physical. There are cases Avhere it is necessary to produce a phys- ical impression in order to operate on the mental facul- ties. It is well known that lobelia will produce vomit- ing. The philosophy is this : lobelia is a foreign sub- stance, does not belong to the stomach. As soon as it is thrown into it, the whole system learns there is an un- lawful tenant there, and sends its fluids to neutralize it ; the stomach cramps, has spasms, and, as a result, dis- gorges its contents. In this case, vomiting was produced as a result of a physical impression. Now, this effect could be produced by producing a mental impression. Make the patient hioii\ beyond a doubt, that he has taken any kii;d of medicine, and the same result as though he had taken the medicine will follow. Speak to a very sensitive lady in a positive manner, so as to make her believe, beyond a doubt, that she has swallowed a fly, and vomiting will be the result. The stomach will not retain a fly ; and the effect of making a person believe that a fly is in the stomach is the same as though it was there. Criminals condemned to death have been put on clean, nice beds, and been made to believe that per- sons had recently died with small-pox on the beds on which they were to sleep : the result was, they took the contagion, and died. In hundreds of instances, mental impressions have ci*eated disease by which patients have lost their lives. A man was once lying on his back, vuiable to move, from inflammatory rheumatism, when he saw his father fall from the top of a cherry-tree in the yard, and, he su})posed, kill himself. The invalid jumped from his helpless position, and picked up his THE QUESTION SETTLED. 169 fatlier, anlcarriecl liiin into tlie house, and was perfectly ijurprised to find himself restored to health." Eld. — " What removed his disease ? " Phil. — " The excitement of the occasion. Now, man should look from such phenomena to the law which produces them, and he liught apply it with beneficial results." Our philosopher is correct. The excitement started the electric fmid, and that started all the fluids of the system into action : the result was a complete change for the better. We personally knew of an individual, who held a county office by the suffrage of the people, who went to a political meeting of the party whose senti- ments he did not indorse ; and upon being called a liar, knave, and villain, and accused of stealing, and several other such crimes as politicians usually accuse the party In power of committing, the individual became so excited, that he took an apoplectic fit, ,and died. Whatever doctors and coroner's juries may have decided, this man was killed by the abuse heaped on him by the speaker. Now, the law by which this man was killed might be used in many cases (perhaps not to so great an extent as was here used) with beneficial results. There are thousands of hypochondriacs to-day who need nothing more than to have their anger thoroughly aroused to effect a cure. The system can not remain diseased 7/here the electric fluid flows properly; and, where it does not, disease must be the result. Will some philosopher tell the power by which our pen now moves in obedience to our will ? All acknowl- edge that somehoiv mind is the propelling power. All volition inheres in mind or spirit. The mind wills the 170 THE QUESTION SETTLED. pen to mo^ e ; but tlie mind can not operate upon the pen without a medium : it uses the hand as the medium by wliich to move the pen. But the mind can not touch the hand : it must operate on something it can touch. The muscle can operate on the bones of the hand, and all other bones ; but the mind can not operate on the' muscle : the blood, however, can. Now, all would be right if the mind could operate on the blood ; but that it can not do. The nerves, or rather the electric currents flowing through the nerves, can operate on the blood ; and the mind operates directly on these currents. Henc3 we have it as foUc'W -j. : the mind, or spirit, which has its throne in the brain, wdiich is but the termination of all the nerves of the system, operates on electricity, uses it as its agent ; the electricity operates on the nerves, the nerves on the blood, the blood on the muscle, the muscle on the bone, the bone on the pen, and thus the spirit writes. If other spirits could become positive to the spirit controlhng this organism, they could control this spirit, and through it the entire organism. Now suppose, while writing, our pen suddenly drops from our hand, and the hand to our side, totally para- lyzed : where is the disease ? No scalpel can find it. Cut the body into inch pieces, and the right side, though utterly unable to move, would, to all appearances, be found as healthy as the other. Then why does not the right hand move as well as the left? We answer, When the mind wislies tlie hand to move, it telegraphs ironi its office in the brain along these nerves to the hand to move ; and the hand always does its bidding. ]3ut when there is an obstruction in the nerves, so the electiifity can not flow, the hand can not receive the THE QUESTION SETTLED. 171 dispatch, aiul hence can not know that it has been re- quested to move. Remove the obstruction from the nerves, so that the electricity can flow properly, and all is well. All disease is either positive or negative, and always lio-hts on the weakest part of the patient. Load a wao-on too heavily, and the weakest part will break : so, if a person is weakei' in the knees than the lungs, his disease may be inflammatory rhemnatism ; if weakest in the lungs, it may be lung fever; if, perchance, the kidneys are the weakest, all other portions of the organism might escape, and the patient be afflicted Avith inflammation in those organs. If the currents flow too rapidly, the dis- ease is positive ; and the result is fever, acute pain, and sometimes insanity. If, on the other hand, the currents do not flow rapidly enough, the result Avill be cold ex- tremities, dull, stupid feehngs, partial or total paralysis, &c. In either instance, all that is needed is to set the currents of electricity into proper action. How can this be done ? As our philosopher intimated, sometimes by prayer, sometimes by anger, and sometimes by excite- ment. in order to remove or control the disease of a patient, the operator must at least have a partial control of the electric currents of the system : those he can control by controlHng tlie mind of the patient ; and that must be done by the electric currents of his own system. These cun-ents, especially so far as the voluntary organs are concerned, must be under the control of his will-power : lie must by will-power overcome the will of the patient ; to do this, the patient must be kept in a receptive or negative condition. This is easily done by gaining and ]72 THE QUESTION SETTLED. retaining the confidence of tlic patient; so, if the patient is a great believer in prayer, the surest metliod will be to i)ray. If not, some other means must be devised. The electric currents flowino- throuo-h the nerves can be made to pass through the nerves of any number of persons by their joniing hands. Witness where a dozen or more form a circle, and those at the ends hold on to a battery, all in the circle will receive the same shock at the same time. The nerves of those havino; hold of the latter are filled with electricity; and electric currents, like all things else, seek their equilibrium, and hence infill the nerves of all who are in contact with those in connection with the battery. Now, let patient and ope- rator come in contact, either mental or physical, and the electric currents at once seek an equilibrium : when that has been obtained, the cause of disease has been removed. Now, in proportion to the oj^erator's medium- ship, he is interwoven with a circle of spirits, who can impart to him the needed life and health giving in- fluences ; and in proportion as he passes into magnetic rapport with his patients, will they be brought into con- nection with a health-imparting influence from the be- yond. This we know, both as a matter of science and history. Having spent near six years in the study and practice of this mediumship, our faith takes hold of the wonderful cures wrought by prophets, Jesus, and his comrades of olden time. We know there is a law by which such thino;s are beino; done now : that law, beino; as old as heaven, reaches back over the first case of healing, and is more eternal than the " everlasting hills." We frankly confess, that, in our healing efforts, we THE QUESTION SETTLED. 173 fiave tailcnl to perforin a perfect cure In three cases out of five ; hut fjoes that prove there is nothing in this me- diunisliip, ur that it has not been vouchsafed to us ? No : it only [)i'oves that in cases of failure we did not get en rajjjyort, either with the fountains whence we drew our supply, or with the i)atient to whom we humbly sought to impart the needed blessing. The best healers in the world fail sometimes. It was so anciently ; and it is so to-day. Jesus often failed. In his own country, his brethren became offended with liim : the result was such nn antagonism that he could not do any thing. The Evangelist says, — '' And they were offended with him. But Jesus said unto tliern, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief." — Matt. xiii. 57, 58. In j\Iark vi. 4-6, we read, — " But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without r.onor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marveled because of their un- belief. And he went round about the villao-es teachino-." In Mark ix. 17-29, we have a full history of the fail- ure of Jesus' disciples in one case, and of his statement as to the cause. Even after the young man was healed, the friends pronounced him dead. In this case, Jesus would not operate until he saw that the father, who was en rapport with the patient, with tears in his eyes avowed his entire confidence in the healing power of the Nazarene. The case is so interesting, we give it entire : — 174 THE QCTESTION SETTLED. " And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, ■\vliich hath a dumb spirit : and wheresoever he taketh him he tearetli him , and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teetli, and pinetL away ; and I spake to thy disciples, that they should cast him out; and they could not. He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation ! how long shall I be witJi you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him : and when he saw him, straightway the s|)irit tare him ; and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming. And he asked his lather, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said. Of a child. And oft-times it hath cast him into the tire, and into the waters, to destroy him ; but, if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him. If thou canst be- lieve, all things are possible to him that belie veth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears. Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbeliefs When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him ; and he was as one dead, insomuch that many said. He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and hfted him up ; and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out ? And he said unto them. This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting." This case is sufficient to show that in ancient times, where one medium failed to remove disease, another could sometimes afford the needed relief. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 175 In this chapter we have briefly gone througli the New Testament, and sliown that behevers r.]i(«uld exercise the same powei Jesus used. We have also shown, from science, the probabilities that such things should occur. It remains, that we present a few historical facts, show- ing that the Christ-power is yet on the earth. We have so often been relieved of distress in our own person, and have on so many occasions witnessed it in others, that it would take a larger volume than the one w^e are writing to hold every narrative we could bring. From the hands of Dr. J. R. Newton of Boston, Dr. J. P. Bryant of New York, Drs. Freeman and Wilbur of Milwaukee, we have experienced such sudden and per- fect relief, that we could not question the power. We liave seen persons, within five miiuites of the time they have hobbled into the presence of Dr. Newton or Bryant, on crutches, leave their crutches, and go away perfectly well, in many histances " leaping, and rraising God." We have witnessed the opening of blind eyes, and have heard tongues long silent lisp the praise of the poA\ er by which they were loosed. We, ourself, have, l3y the w^ord or touch, cured nearly every ailment that over- takes the flesh. A few statements from those ^\Lo have been healed may not come amiss here. We have seen an autograph letter, of which the following is a true co])y : — I>;dianapolis, Ind., 1\ov. 30, 1868. Dr. J. R. Newtox. Dear Sir, — Duty impels me to give you a plain statement of my life's sufferings, and cure by you ; which you may i)ublish. I, Abraham Clarke, of Indianapolis, Ind., twenty- 176 THE QUESTION SETTLED. one years old tlie 25t]i inst., having been a paralytic cri})ple ever since I was three months old, unable even to lift my hands up to my head, or walk without great difficult}^, and so nervous I could hardly stand or sit still, and at times suffering so great pain that my wailings were intolerable to those around me, on Saturday last, Nov. 28, went with my mother to see if you could cure me ; for 1 had heard so much of your wonderful power of curing all kinds of diseases, without medicine, which all other doctors said were incurable, that I had faith you could. To make a short story, I say, you cured me perfectly^ with one treatment. I arose upon my feet, walked without limping, with a firm, easy step, raised my hands above my head ; then I took a large, heavy chair in either hand by the leo[ of each, holdino; and balancino; them above my head as few well men can do. And, to sum it all u}), I say that I am made whole and sound as any other living man, as flir as I know or others discern, and for the first time in my life am in the full enjoy- ment of heahh. And I tliank my lieavenly Father that I am a well man. My former W^^i and suffering seem like a dream. In gratitude, I am your friend. Aim A HAM Clarke. Indianapolis, Nov. 30, 1S6S. Personally appeared before me Abraham Clarke, wlu) deposes under oath that the foregoing statement is every woixl true. Subscribed and sworn before nie, J. P. Pinker ton, a Notary Public, in and lor the County of Marion, State of Indiana. J. P. Pinivp:rton, Notary Public. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 177 The foregoing statement of my son, Abraham Clarke, is all true. Isabella Clarke. Dr. Newton is now operating at No. 28 Harrison Avenue, Boston, where there are on exhibition faith- ful photographic likenesses of this young man, taken immediately before and after his treatment : the differ- ence ill his looks could not be imagined by one who had not seen them. Tbe following we copy from " The New- York Dis- patch : '' — a just TRIBUTE TO DR. J. R. NEWTON. New York, Oct. 2 Dear Sir, — Having seen in " The Tribune " of Sept. 10 an account of *' Healing by Magnetism," I can not, in justice to Dr. Newton or to my own feel- ings, refrain from giving a true statement of the most wonderful and impressive scene that I have ever wit- nessed in my life of nearly fifty years. The daughter of my brother, a farmer residing in New Boston, N.H., has, for the past three years, been one of the greatest sufferers, and for six years an invalid, suffering from spinal disease and other ailments. Her father has la- bored by day and night to secure for her the services of eleven of the best physicians in the neighborhood of his home : but her disease has defied their utmost efforts and skill : and thev had left her to lino-er and die, de- daring they could do no more for her. The father, in agony of heart, wrote me that he knew not what to do. Deeply sympathizing with him, and being about to visit some friends in Vermont, I wrote 12 178 THE QUESTION SETTLED. to inform hiin that I had heard of one Dr. J. R. New ton (hat I had never seen him), who was reported to have performed some wonderful cures ; and if his daugh ter wished to come, and could bear the journey of two hundred and fifty miles, and would write me while in Vermont, I would go to his house, and bring her home with me to see Dr. Newton. The answer was in the affirmative, and I went to see my niece ; but when I entered the chamber of the sick girl, and looked upon her wan and emaciated body, that had wasted, since I last saw her, from one hundred and twenty-five pounds to less than seventy ; when I recollected that she had lain in that situation for two long years, depending for every motion upon kind and gentle hands, my faith left me : I did not believe she could be moved, much less cured. She was, however, willing and anxious to make the attempt ; and when we laid her carefully upon a narrow bed, and carried her down stairs, and placed her in a carriao-e to ride eia'hteen miles to the cars, it seemed the height of folly to start on such an undertaking with such a charge, with such a faint hold on human life. When she reached the cars, she said it seemed as though all her strength was gone, and that she could not live much longer. She was, however, restored bv the use of stim- ulants ; and we went on. She was taken one hundred and seventeen miles by railroad, and one hundred and fifteen by steamboat, and arrived in New York on the morning of Aug. 30. The patient had suffered in- tensely through the whole of the journey. It was with o;reat difficulty that she was carried on a stretcher to the house of her friends. She reached them, however, but THE QUESTION SETTLED. 179 not to gi'eet tbcm. Her %tlier and two wee2)ing sisters, with others, stood around what all supposed to be her dymg bed. Dr. Newton had been informed of her case ; and, in the unbounded kindness of his heart (contrary to his practice), he left his house, and hastened to the sick girl. The solemnity and impressiveness of that scene will for ever be remembered by all who were preseni, but it can never be described. In a manner (as the doctor truly says) peculiar to himself, he treated the uncon- scious and apparently dying patient ; and in less than three minutes she sat up in bed. She then arose to her feet, and walked the floor with the doctor's assistance. Her pain and suffering had all gone. Her spine, which had not been touched for years without giving her intense pain, could now be roughly handled by all present. Food was immediately ordered ; and amid the solemn silence of the room, where there was no sound save the sobs and fast-flowing tears of joy, she partook of the food. She ate heartily, and relished and enjoyed such a meal as she had not done in five years. I am forced to look back with wonder and amazement at the above-described scene, and bound to ackncw:- edge that it is beyond the reach of my mind to under- stand. I have only to say that her pleasant voice and cheerful smile greet us at the table of the family circle daily : she has continued to improve from that hour, and stands to-day a living witness, ever ready to testify to the power and goodness of her heavenly Father, as ex- tended to her throuo;h the kind-hearted and benevolent Dr. Newton. Moses Cristy, M. 380, Fearl Street, Miv York. 180 THE QUESTION SETTLED. As we spoke of seeing blindness cured, we will give one affidavit. Peter Manning, being swoni, deposes and says: I live in Bordentown, N.J. On the 30th of October, 1862, I called on Dr. J. H. Newton. I was blind two years and three months. When I came to Dr. Newton, I was so bad that I could not see a gaslight in front of me ; after ten minutes' treatment, without pain, I was enabled to see to read and write, and have kept my own books ever since. Petes, Manning. Sworn and subscribed before me, this fourth day of JNIarch, 1863. Wm. P. Hibbekd, Alderman. Hundreds of testimonials such as the above could be gathered ; but it is unnecessary. These cases are of such frequent occurrence, that the reader can very easily su[)ply himself with all the documentary evidence neces- sary. Now, in all candor, permit us to ask. What can be done with such cases as the above ? They are before the w^orld, and demand an explanation. Jesus said, " These sip'ns shall follow them that believe." Are they not sufficient to prove, to those who think, that there are true believers, at least, among the Spirituahsts ? A conversation once occurred between ourself and a lady of the Advent faitli, which sufficiently illustrates the point : — . Lady. — "I saw you operate on Mrs. last even- ing ; and, though we supposed her case to be hopeless, THE QUESTION SETTLED. 181 slic- was perfectly restored in a few minutes : but it was the Devil that cured her.'* Hull. — " Pretty fine old gentleman, that Devil of [Voui's. If that is a specimen of his character, he has leen grossly slandered : what ci pity that churches and ministers misrepresent everybody, not excepting even the Devil himself!" ]^. — " The Devil is not so good, after all. He made Mrs. sick, and then sent you, his agent, to cure her.'' H. — " Then Satan's kingdom is divided against itself, and can not stand: so we can begin to hope to soon get rid of his Majesty." L. — "Not at all. They are all parts of the same work. The Devil made Mrs. sick, and then sent you, his agent, to make her well : he knew that she would see the heyievolenee manifested in curing her, rather than the malevolence of maldng her sick. He is removing disease from the lady for the sake of getting possession of her soul." H. — " In your remarks you have given me another evidence that I am a disciple of Jesus ; for he said, — " ' It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, a:id the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household ? ' — Matt. x. 25. " If such charges were brought by the popular church against a former healer, what better could we expect now ? " L. — " But Tils mission was divine: yours is not.'* H. — " Spiritualists prove the divinity of their mis- sion in the same way that Jesus proved his was an 182 THE QUESTION SETTLED. errand of mercy to liumanity. If you will turn to Matt, xi. 2-6, you will read, — " ' Now, when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him. Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them.' "Now, I ask, in all candor. Was Jesus' logic good? Did lie prove the divinity of his mission by such works ? Then will not the same works prove the divinity of the power by ^^•hich they are wrought ? How startling your logic ! you prove Jesus a God by his good works, and healing-mediums Devils by the same ! " L. — " I do not choose to argue with you. Christ is coming shortly to destroy the works of the Devil : then these questions will be settled." H. — "Christ came once in the person of Jesus Oi Nazareth, and through him did many great works ; but he was, according to promise, to come again, not in the person of one reformer. Jude says, — " ' Behold he cometh with ten thousand of his saints.' — Verse 14. " Tlie Greek word rendered ' with,' in this text, is en^ and should be rendered 'in.' The Christ-power came once in one reformer ; now it has come in ten thousand mediums : so that almost every hamlet on the continent has the evidence that the second comino; of the Christ is accomplishing more than was accomplished through the mediumsliip of Jesus." THE QUESTION SETTLED. 183 L. — " But wliere are tlie clouds ? He was to come in the clouds." H. — "So he was to come on horseback. John says,— " ' And I saw heaven opened, and, behold, a white hoi'se ; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True ; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns ; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed in a vesture dipped in bh)od ; and his name is called. The Word of God. And the armies which were in ,heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations ; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; and he treadeth the win^-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LOKDS.' — Rev. xix. 11-16. " But who looks for ' the Kino; of kino-s and Lord of lords ' on an old gray horse, because of this declaration ? jNIa}^ not the clouds, like the horses, be symbols ? Clouds of witnesses are mentioned in the Bible ; and to-day it is said that there are eleven millioiis of witnesses of the hviiig Christ-power manifested on earth at the present time. I tell you Christ is here : you have had a demon- stration of it in the healing of this lady." L. — "But the grave is to yield up its victory, and death its sting, when Christ comes : I do not see as that is done." H. — "I do. Once I regarded death as a dark and 184 THE QUESTION SETTLED. 3ruel foe. When my friends were taken from me, if iliey were not stung, I was. Now the grave into which I used to look for my mother holds her no longer. I know she is not there, I have seen her and talked with her. She lives to-day ; and, for myself, death has lost its sting. I do not dread it. It is natural ; it is right : but I 11 ever could see it so until it was manifest in the second comino; of Christ." This chapter has already grown beyond the limits in- tended : but we can not conclude without issuins: a dial- lenge to the theological world. Not for words, but deeds. We cad for a convention of the religious world, tlie object of which shall be to ascertain where the true believers are, the matter to be tested by their works. Jesus says the believers shall accomplish even greater works than were wrought through his mediumship. Are the churches believers ? Will they try it ? If they will go into convention, and do the works Jesus did, we propose, in behalf of Spiritualism, to acknowledge them believers. If they can not, will they be honest enough to confess themselves infidels ? After they have all tried and failed, as fail they will as sure as they try, we are willing to be one of twenty mediums (that is one hundred less in number than they had on the day of Pentecost), who will go upon the same rostrum, into the same assembly where the churches failed; and if we do not, in a less space of time than ten days, accom- plish all tliat was done by the disciples within the first ten days after the ascension of Jesus, we will acknowl- edge that Spiritualists are like the churches, — they are infidels. If, however, we accomplish the work, will the orthodox world take back the slanderous, libelous THE QUESTION SETTLED. 185 cliarge of infidelity ? We hand out this challenge in all sinoeritj, yet not with any hope that it will he ac- cepted. That all strife and sectism may give place to the pure doctrines and practices which make men better, and prove them humble followers after ali truth and virtue, is our most earnest nraver. CHAPTER Vn. ARE WE DELUDED? A. Common Cry — Contradictory Positions — Order of Batteries — They fire into each other— " Kettle Story " — Result of the "Warfare — Dialogue — God and Mediums deceiving the World — Are God and the Devil Partners — 13 it just to damn the World for UnbeUef — Author tovcs God more than Bi- bles — Lying Spirits sent out — Did God do it — Case of Jeremiah and Eze- kiel — Ezokiel's Explanation — Spiritualism a Delusion — The Lord coming — Reasoning in a Circle— Wonderful Success of the Opposition (?) — Spirit- ualism will not "down" — "Old Split-foot" — Toe-joint Theory — Hidden Meaning in appointing these Committees — The Machinery Argument — Ar- guments of Opposers suicidal to themselves — Human Testimony rejected — Conditions i-equired — Conditions of Sleep — Conversation with a Pho- tographist-Conditions of Photography — Telegraphy — Arguments against Spiritualism would overthrow tho Bible — An Infidel Deacon denies his Bible— A Giant Delusion — Spiritralism Twenty-two Years ago and now — A prospective View — Spiritualism Positive and Aggressive — Reasons for go- ing to Church — Churches not Proselyting — Why do Persons become Spirit- ualists-Rev. A. J. Frishback's Reply — Suffering for Spiritualism — Minis- ters' Wives in the Lunatic Asylum for Spiritualism — Author's Experience — The Quality of Converts to Spiritualism — Our Evidence not in the Number or Intelligence of Converts — Giant Minds yield — Atheien} and Materialism give Place — Hon. N. P. Talmadge and J. W. Edmonds — " The Kings of the Earth" — Opposers fall before the Power — Gamaliel's Opinion— A charm- ing Delusion — Efforts to convert a Spiritualist — Death-bed Scene — "Oh, happy Delusion I " — It is not a Delusion — Child Medium. FOR iiiore than a score of years the opponents of Spirituah'^TA have heen following it with the cry of '^ delusion f^^ Tho only thing our opponents have ever been able to agree in, is, that Spiritualism is some kind of a delusion. Notwithstanding all agree so far, it excites the mirth fnhiess of a Spiritualist who is posted up as to its evidences to hear the various contradictory 186 THE QUESTION SETTLED. 187 V;^'>itJ<}ns taken by those whose bread and butter depends apon putting it down. Indeed, we ought not to laugh at their cnlamity ; for if their lives^ instead of their living^ depended on writing and preaching Spiritualism down, they could not succeed any better. Not long since, it was our privilege to attend a discus- sion wh^re five men affirmed that Spiritualism was a delu- sion. They succeeded admirably in agreeing so far : but here the agreement ended; for, before they had finished their arguments, they had taken every one of the nine contradictory positions usually brought to bear against it and each other. Each speaker succeeded in placing him- self on as many sides of each of the contradictory posi- tions usuallv brought to bear ao;ainst each other as his limited time would allow. As we listened to the logic of these killers of Spiritualism, we thouglit. What a won- der it does not die, men shooting at it from nine differ- ent directions ! There are only two reasons why oppo- nents have failed to kill Spiritualism : one is, they have ever fired more shots at each other than at then* common enemy ; the other is. Spiritualism is " iron-clad." Bun- ker-Hill Monument could be battered down with pop- guns easier than the monument erected by the angel- world to show its existence, power, and victories, could be overthrown by the artillery of infidel chmTh-members. If the batteries pelting at Spiritualism were named and numbered, they would be about as follows : — Battery No. 1. — " And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." — 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. " Spiritualism is Gori's delusion." 188 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Battery No. 2. — " Even him whose commg is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." — 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. '' For they are the spirits of devils, workmg miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." — Rev. xvi. 11. " Spiritualism is Satan's last and greatest delusion." Battery No. 3. — " The manifestations are produced by machinery." Battery No. 4. — " They are all wicked spirits." Battery No. 5. — " It is electricity." Battery No. 6. — " There are no manifestations. Spiritualists are for the most part idiotic or insane. Those who are not are lying knaves, dealing out de- ceptions to the credulous." Battery No. 7. — " Spiritualism is a contagious dis- ease, working on the mind as small-pox or cholera does or: the body." Battery No. 8. — " God anciently made laws against it; it is therefore wicked to have any thing to do with it." Battery No. 9. — " It is new : we should inquire for the old paths, and stick to the religion of our fathers." One would naturally think, that, under the fires of nine as formidable guns as these look to be, Spiritualism would be compelled to surrender ; but, when the smoke and fog occasioned by this contest clears away, we assure all that not a shell has entered the arena of Spirit- ualism. God-delusions and Devil-delusions have been THE QUESTION SETTLED. 189 shooting at each other, and both are the worse for the battle. The machinery and wicked-spirit arguments have, after pitching into all the other theories, fallen from blows received from each other. The electricity and juggler theories have annihilated each other. The last-mentioned battery — that it is neiv and therefore un- true — has, after silencing the battery stationed where God anciently made laws against Spiritualism, surren- dered to fires from eio;ht directions. Really such a jumble of absurdities reminds us of the '' lawyer's kettle." A noted member of the bar, in summing up the evidence in defense of a client who had borrowed a kettle and returned it broken, said, " May it please the Court, we have proved, first, that the kettle was broken when we borrowed it ; second, that it was whole when we took it home ; and, third, that we never had the old kettle anyhow." The answer to the most of these objections must be re- served for another chapter. We only design here to note the consistency, or rather inconsistency, of opponents. This bushwhacking mode of warfare has resulted, as might have been expected, in converting people to Spirit- ualism by the million, until now the number of Spirit- ualists can not be computed ; even our opponents, some of them, setting it as high as eleven miUions. Were there eleven millions of Spiritualists two years since, when tliis computation was made ? If so, they were eleven millions of evidences that the batteries erected against Spiritualism have slain that many more in their own ranks than in ours. Once, in traveling through the Western States, we fell into the company of a minister vrho was perfectly sui'e 190 THE QUESTION SETTLED. that Spiritualism was a delusion. The substance of what passed between us may be embodied in the following dialoo'ue : — Minister. — "I have not a doubt but that Spiritual- ism is the delusion spoken of in 2 Thess. ii. 11." Hull. — " Then Spiritualists are God^s servants, and you are fighting against him." MiN. — " No. How can that be ? " H. — " The text asserts that ' God shall send them strong delusions.' If your intei-pretation is correct, God has sent several thousand mediums into the worlds with a delusion to deceive the world ; and they would accom- plish it, if it were not that you are exposing the plans of God and the mediums.'''' MiN. — " God has nothing to do with it ; he is op- posed to it : it is Satan who is working, with power, signs, and lying wonders." H. — " Your first text said it was God who was after the people with a delusion : now you have quoted an- other verse of the same chapter to prove that it is the Devil. Must I understand that the Devil is God's agent, — that he is working among the people because God sends them a delusion ? or is God and the Devil each after them with a deception called Spiritualism? " MiN. — " There is the text : make of it what you can. God will damn the world for unbelief; and Spirit- ualists have departed from the faith, and denied every cardinal doctrine of the Bible." H. — "And so you are going to have the world damned for unbelief, are you ? " MiN. — "I am not : God is." H. — "Is there any justice in that? Do I make THE QUESTION SETTLED. 191 my own faith or want of faith ? Can I govern my own belief more than I can the color of my eyes or hair ? Is not God my Author ? and is he not the Anthor of truth ? If I fail to harmonize with truth, am I, who neither made my common sense, nor yet the stories I can not believe, to blame ? But your text asserts more than that. It does not simply say that God will punish im- belief ; but it declares that God will send strong delusion after them, that they may believe a lie^ that he may damn them. I say this is unjust." jNIix. — " If you loved your Bible, you w^ould not dare to speak as you do." H. — "I love my Bible, and believe more of it each day than I did the day previous ; but, dearly as I love the Bible, I love God more. I could not see his char- acter sacrificed in this manner for any book. I find it much easier to believe Paul could be a little mistaken in an hypothesis, than to think God stoops thus to de- ceive his own children." MiN. — " You should not reject the Bible because of an isolated expression like that. There are spots on the sun." H. — " Though I by no means reject the Bible, I assure you this is not an isolated expression. If you w^ill turn to 1 Kings, xxii. 19-23, you will read, — " ' And he said, Hear thou tnerefbre the word of the Lord : I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standino; bv him, on his ri2;ht hand and en his left. And the Lord said. Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead ? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood be- 192 THE QUESTION SETTLED. fore the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him. Wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also : go forth and do so. Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these tliy prophets, and the T^ord hath spoken evil concernino; thee.' " Now, there is a sense in which I believe this para- graph, and a sense in Avhich I do not. If you ask me if I believe God sent -j. lying spirit, I answer, No. If I believe a lying spirit operated on all the prophets, in- cluding Micaiah, I say, Yes. But God does not stoop thus to conquer. Those disembodied wags who influ- enced the prophets perhaps thought their predictions were correct, and knew they would have more weight upon ?v self-conceited, ign-^rant king if they professed to come from Almighty God. You will remember, there were four hundred of these, all bearing testimony the same way, except Micaiah, who crossed his own track. Now let me ask. Do vou believe God did it ? Is it not more charitable, to say the least, to believe the Bible w^riter correct as to fact, and mistaken as to hj^poth- esis?" MiN. — " These proohets were false prophets : no ti-ue prophet was ever led astray in that way." II. — '' There is no evidence that these prophets were any more false than all the others. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were each deceived in the same way. Jeremiah says, — " ' O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.' — Jer. xx. 7. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 193 " Now, I frankly acknowledge I do not believe tjiat text ; but do not misunderstand me. I grant that Jeremiah was deceived; yes, deceived by lying spirits : but, when he accuses the Ruler of the Universe of de- ceiving him, I think he was mistaken. Again I say, ^ Let God be true, though it make every man a liar.' As to Ezekiel, though he was one of the best physical and clairvoyant mediums in the world, he never uttered a truth in any of his predictions. His prophecies, more' than all others, were the cause of a proverb to which he refers as follows : — " ' And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying. The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth ? Tell them, therefore, Thus saith the Lord God : I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel ; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision. For there shall be no more any A^ain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel. For I am the Lord : I wiU speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass ; it shall be no more prolonged : for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God. Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say. The vision that he seetli is for many days to come, and he prophesietL of the times that are far off. Therefore say mito them, Thus saith the Lord God : There shall none of my words be prolonged any more ; but the word which J have spoken shall be done, saith Mie Lord God.' — Ezek jdi. 21-28. 13 194 THE QUESTION SETTLED. " Here the spirit acknowledges tlie truth of the proverb, but says he wJl make it to cease ; that is, there shall be no more any vain visions, nor any prophecies which applied to the distant future, but the effect of every vision is at hand. Again Ezekiel accounts for his false visions and prophecies as follows : — '' ' And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet ; and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will de- stroy him from the midst of my people Israel.' — Ezek. xiv. 9. " Once more I will confess, I do not believe the Lord deceives. I find it easier to believe Ezekiel was a little mistaken in supposing that influence came from ' the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turnino;.' " MiN. — " Aren't you off the track ? We commenced to talk about Spiritualism, and you have gone off into a tirade of abuse of the Bible. Why do you not stick to the question ? " H. — "I have not abused the Bible, only your inter- pretation of certain portions of it ; but I will hear what you have to say about Spiritualism." MiN. — "I say, and can prove, that Spiritualism is the delusion spoken of by Paul." H. — "How do you prove it? You know there never has been a religious theory which has dared to drive out of the beaten track, but that this text has been quoted to prove it a delusion." MiN. — "I prove my point thus : This delusion is to come up in the last days. The Lord's coming is after the working of Satan with power, signs, and lying won- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 195 ders. Signs are so ominous that there is no room left for doubt. The coming of the Lord is right upon us ; but we look for the DeviFs work, — the great delusion, — and find Spirituahsm, and that alone, coming at the right time, and answering the other specifications of the proph- ecy. We are, therefore, justified in the conclusion that Spiritualism is the delusion." H. — " That would do if you could prove your major proposition, that the coming of the Lord is near." MiN. — " That is easily proved ; for, when Spiritual- ism comes up, the coming of the Lord follows imme- diately after." Here the call of " Change cars for Madison ! " ter- minated our conversation. We wanted to dissect our friend's logic for him, but had not the time. The logic comes in thus : — Proposition No. 1. — " The Lord is coming." Conclusion No. 1. — '' Therefore Spiritualism is a delusion." Prop. No. 2. — " Spirituahsm is a delusion." Con. No. 2. — " Therefore the Lord is comino-." What accommodating logic 1 The conclusion of the first proposition forms a basis for the second ; and that of the second quite as accommodatingly " wheels into line," and forms a basis for the first. If this is not a fair specimen of what logicians call " reasoning in a cir- cle," we acknowledge we never saw one. We now come to the direct question : Is Spiritualism a delusion ? A brief examination of its history will answer the question. If the arguments of the opposers of Spiritualism be true, then verily is " truth stranger than fi?tion." Its statement would be about as follows ; 196 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Twenty-one years ago, two little girls, members of a respectable family, one of them ni7ie and. the other eleven years old, undertook, without any motive v/liatever, to de- lude and deceive the world. We say without motive ; for certainly there was no money in the deception, and there could not possibly have been any hon'n* gained by it. These youths would have succeeded, had it not been that the ministers, doctors, and some of the lawyers, organ- ized a warfare against them, in which their talents, books and learning were brought into such effectual operation that, at the end of nineteen years, according to figm-es made by those making the attack, the children had only succeeded in making about eleven millions of converts ! " A stitch in time saves nine." Perhaps the reason of the success (?) of the opposition was their early, un- relenting;, and untirino; warfare. For the battle was com- menced before a test was mven. It is also an acknowl- edged axiom, that " in union there is strength." The opposition was certainly united in one position, if no more ; that is, Spiritualism must be put down at what- ever cost. They paid the cost, " 'quitted themselves like men," sacrificed all, in many cases not excepting their honor ; but Spiritualism proved to be a " Banquo's shost : " it would not " down." Before any intelligence had been derived from the mysterious noises, we remember to have heard it sug- gested that It was the Devil. Indeed, that charge was so common, that, long before they learned there was any intelligence connected with it, the little girls used to ad- dress it as " Old Split-foot." By an accident it was as- certained that this power was intelligeut, could answer questions, and give other signs of knowing what was said to it. THE QUESTION SETTLED. 197 As soon as a communication was received containincr o an undeniable test, committees were appointed to inves- tigate and put it down. The first committee very readily and learnedly came to two conclusions : The first was, Spiritualism is a delusion. The second related to the modus operandi of that deception. The world was in- formed that the facts were simply these : The little girls, in going to school, got their toes frozen. When that was ascertained, the mother wet some linen in turpentine, and wrapped the toes in it : there was a connection be- tween the toe-joint, the linen, and the turpentine, that produced the concussions. This expose of the delusion did not last very long. The opposers had too many toes, and there was too much turpentine and linen among them. With all these implements for producing mani- festations, they failed to produce one single rap. This made it necessary to appoint another committee ; and here, permit us to say, there is a w^orld of meaning in the appointment of this and other committees. It means, first, there are phenomena there which demand investigation ; second, other committees, learned men as they were, failed to give us a proper solution of these manifestations. Other committees soon came to several conclusions : the first always was, that Spiritualism was a delusion ; and the second generally was, that all previous commit- tees were deluded. The knee-joint theory, machinery theory, and all other systems of opposition to Spiritual- ism, had their day. Spiritualism lived to bury them all. " There is machinery in the table," was the cry raised by Prof. Matteson, and hundreds of others who would have been professors, but lacked the ability to 198 THE QUESTION SETTLED cu|)(j wltli this learned blackguard. Many attended circles on purpose to detect the machinery, when, lo ! the raps were heard not only on the tables, but on chairs, stoves, stove-pipes, the walls of the house, the floor, the ceiling, and even sometimes on the hands, fecit, heads, and teeth of sitters. Thus the warfare went on ; the world exjjosijig its folly in attempting to expose Si)iritualism, and the angel-world daily handing out new demonstrations of power. There is a proverb, that " the gods first make mad those whom they would destroy." In this case, it is literally true ; for there has never yet been an arojument adduced against Spiritualism, but that weighs with ;iiJ of Its force against the religion, science, or profession of the one making the argument. The mocking priests demanded that Jesus should come down from the cross, and they would believe ; but he could not come down to satisfy a scoffing mob : so priests now, often with as much audacity and little sense, throw themselves back on their dignity, and demand the production of mani- festations impossible under the circumstances. One of these s})ecimens of the genus liomo^ in a discussion with us, positively forbade the introduction of human testi- mony. Human beings were liable to be deceived, and some would lie ; so he would not take even sivorn testi- mony that tables liad been seen to move, concussions heard, and pencils seen to write without any visible agency. Nothing would do but the production of such phenomena in that audience, at that time. Our reply was, that certain conditions were necessary, which could not obtain in a promiscuous assembly ; that any person proposing to do any thing had a right to state the con- THE QUESTION SETTLED. 199 ditioiis upon wliicli lie could do the thing, and no one had aright to demand the production of the phenomena until all the conditions had been obeyed. " If it can be done anywhere, it can be done here," was his reply ; " and now is the time. We do not care what has been done elsewhere: produce your manifestations here, and we will believe." To illustrate the absurdity of his position, suppose sleep to be the phenomenon in question. A hundred witnesses swearing that they had slept, and seen others sleep, would not convince him : he would demand of the one w^ho affirmed that one-third of every healthy per- son's time is spent in sleep, that he should lie down on the rostrum, and go to sleep in the presence of the audi- ence to convince him. Is there one wdio reads this book who could do it ? We think not. The conditions of sleep do not obtain under such circumstances. The fiict of trying to go to sleep as a test would keep one awake if he had not slept in six months. The light in the room, the magnetism of the audience, and all t)ther conditions, would go to prevent sleep. Any one can sleep better in the dark than in well-lighted apart- ments. Now, if the opposers will learn that conditions for good spirit-manifestations are required to be quite as negative as for sleep, they will cease to exhibit so much folly in their opposition. There is not an opposer of Spiritualism in tlie w^orld to-day, who does not re- quire conditions for certain manifestations in his daily business that he obstinately refuses to give to the spirit- w^orld. The following incident faithfully illustrates the ab- surd position taken by a majority of opposers. We 200 THE QUESTION SETTLED. were invited by a friend, a photographist, to go to his gallery, and sit for a picture. We had liardly entered the room, wlien our friend, in a good-natured way, commenced a tirade against Spiritualism. A dark cir- cle he would not sit in under any circumstances ; and, as to other conditions, they were only an excuse behind wln'ch to hide fraud, deception, and falsehood. " In fact," said he, " I get mad every time I hear the word 'conditions.' " — "And yet," said I, "you require con- ditions every time you take a photograph. I can take a better likeness with my printing-press than you can with your camera^ if you wdll permit me first to destroy your conditions. You first require the subject to sit passive and quiet. He must be willing you should take a picture ; your camera must be properly adjusted ; you require just such an amount of light ; and it must come from the right direction. Then, by having your chem- icals prepared with mathematical precision, and your plates just right, you can do part of your work ; yet you are compelled to go into the dark' before you can de- velop a picture. " Now understand one thing : the chemicals spirits use in coming in communion with earth are as much finer than those used by yourself as heaven is higher than eartli. You, who require such implicit yielding to such subtile conditions, are the last one who sliould fall out with that word, or object to the idea it contains. Now, you ask mediums to go into a hall, and on the rostrum produce certain kinds of spirit-manifestation : they will do it when you go to the same hall, on to the same ros- trum, and, under the same circumstances, produce genu inc and good photographic likenesses." THE QUESTION SETTLED. 201 llius it is : the man could not see until shown bj? this illustration that his argument weiglied quite as hea\'ily against his own occupation as against Spirit- ualism. The man who enters the telegraph-office, tears the batteries from it, cuts the wires, and then demands from the operator communications from distant cities, is quite as sensible as those, who, after destroying all the condi- tions of spirit-manifestation, tauntingly demand spiritual phenomena. How much better to humbly sit in the quiet, and receive influxes from " over the river " ! We repeat, the Bible itself can not stand under the argument which kills Spiritualism. The whole Bible, with its stories a hundred times as large as any told by Spiritualists, is received on human hearsay testimony ; and yet living luitnesses, who can be questioned and cross-questioned, are disbelieved. We were once, at a dinner-party, introduced to a deacon. Soon the conversation turned upon Spiritual- ism. Having just read the debate between Prof. Leo Miller and Prof. J. Stanley Grimes, we decided to borrow one of Mr. Miller's bomb-shells. After relating several incidents known to persons present, all of which were stanchly denied by the deacon, — for he felt that the life of his religion hung upon his zeal in disputing every thing he himself had not witnessed, — at length we addressed ourself to Bro. R. (who was sitting by our side), as though Ave wanted no one else to hear, yet determined that all at the table should hear. '' I read the history of a very strange manifestation this morning, which, if it proves true, ought to set men to thinking," said we. " Ah ! what is it ? " said R. " It happened in 202 THE QUESTION SETTLED. the old country," we replied. " A man was sick, and sent for a healing medium. Though he was not very sick, he thought he was going to die ; and so the medium thought at first. Soon, hoAvever, he obtained a commu- nication, stating that he would recover ; whereupon the man demanded a sign. Well, said the medium, as an evidence that you shall get well, logs of wood, stones, and Jieaps of earth, shall move without any visible agency. And the document adds that these things did move, — that stones, and heaps of earth, of many tons' burthen, moved, to all appearance, of their own accord ; and the man got well." We had hardly got through with our story, when our deacon asked, " Where did you say that happened ? " — " In the old country," we responded. " I Avould like to see the papers for that," ejaculated the deacon : " I know it never occurred. If such thino-s can be done anywhere, why not here ? why locate them so far from home ? No one but an insane person could swallow such a story." We permitted him to blow until his ammunition was spent, and then coolly responded, " Deacon, if you will turn to 2 Kings xx., you will find the story. Hezekiah was the sick man ; Isaiah was the medium ; and the whole earth moved backward ten degrees to convince a man that a boil would not kill him. Now do you believe the story?" His only response was, "It is unfair to catch a man on a pin-hook." It may be unfair ; but we have to do just such work occasionally. It serves to illustrate the admixture of credulity and incredulity in the religions of the day. We now affirm, that, if modern Spiritualism is a delu- sion, it is a giant delusion. Not only has it utterly THE QUESTION SETTLED. 203 baffled the skill of opposers, whose cry has been, " Away with it ! " *■' Let it be crucified ! " but who can take a retro- spective view of its Avork without an inexpressible degi-ee of surprise ? Twenty-two years ago, it was nothing, — not a book except the Bible written in its behalf, and that was regarded more as a dead letter than any thing else ; not a press to advocate its claims ; not a lectui'er in the field ; not a medium in the country ; not a be- liever in the world. At that time one fiomre, and that a cipher, told all there was of Spiritualism. Not a quarter of a century since, it commenced amid the most determined opposition, has vvaded through it, and marched steadily on, until now its mediums are counted by thousands, and it would require a column and a lialf of " The New-York Ledger," set in agate type, to hold the names and post-office addresses of its public lecturers. Its weekly and monthly periodicals, scattered like autumn leaves, are read with more enthusiasm and deHo;ht than ever before. New volumes are continually being issued from its presses ; its literature is being writ- ten and translated into foreio-n lang-uao-es ; and thus it spreads with a rapidity unequaled by any religion ever known before. Now, considering the machinery already in running order for spreading Spiritualism, — its local, county, state, and national associations; the mediums and talent already in its ranks ; and the number of living witnesses there are to its truths, — where will it be on the day of its fiftieth anniversary? Whei'e wont it be? Another question : Where will its opposers be at that time ? They will be where Pharaoh's " fat kine " were, after coming in contact with " the seven lean kine." 204 THE QUESTION SETTLED. Modern Spiritualism, though born in a manger not twenty-five years since, is now the on]y 2)ositlve rehgion in the world. All other religious theories live upon their negative elements. Ask almost any member of a popu- lar church why he belongs where he does ; and, if you get a true answer, it will be about as follows : " Oh ! I must have somewhere to go : I have nothing to do, and there is no other place of amusement for me to attend on Sunday ; and so I go to church. Why should I not ? My father and mother always did the same thing ; my friends and associates go there ; we have good music, and a smart preacher, who preaches smooth things to fashion- able ears : in fiict, the current sets that way, and I drift with it." Another goes to be in fashion; another to exhibit fine clothing ; another to get the custom of some one who attends ; another to see how church-people dress, hear who is married, who is dead ; and so forth, to the end of the chapter. Ask again, " What were you before you were a Meth- odist, Baptist, or Presbyterian ? " and you Avill probably be answered, " Why, I wasn't any thing : I never be- longed to any other church or party." If you find one of a thousand who has left one religious church, and joined another, he has, as a general thing, done it with- out any change of faith or opinion. Some local disturb- ance or jealousy has been the cause of the change. Not more than half of those who belong to the church to-day know what the peculiar tenets of their church are ; and six out of eio-ht who do can not give a rational reason for their belief. Now. go out among the Spiritualists, whose millions of converts have come from atheists, infidels, and everi/ THE QUESTION SETTLED. 205 church in Christendom^ and ask anyone of them why he or slic is a S})irituahst, and yon will be pointed to some pecuhar test, or some beautiful clause of our philosophy which arrested their attention, led them to a further investigation, and finally /orcec? them out of their church. One said to us, '' When my spirit-mother came and talked with me, and when I had learned that my wife, whom I regarded as dead, was still alive, my religion, my church, my friends, my popularity, and my prejudices were not all strong; enough to hold me." When Rev. A. J. Frishback turned his back on his church and salary, to preach these heaven-born truths, lie was asked why he did it ? His reply was, " I have seen the angels." Glorious privilege ! Is it not enough to requite all our toil ? Ministers have left larg;e cong;reg;ations and fat salaries to become fellow-servants with angels. Lawyers have renounced their profession for the sake of these heaven- born truths. Husbands have been compelled to leave their wives, and wives their husbands, children have been turned away from their own homes, and parents forsaken in thefr old age, for their communion with those on the other side. Students, filled with all the ardor and vigor of youth, with the most flattering prospects ahead of them, have been driven from their colleges in dis