A FRIENDLY EPISTLE. Dear Reader, — My object in writing this book is to encourage the world's reformers. In the fall of 1868, busily engaged in literary work at my residence, Mr. Peebles related some of his experiences by way of pleasantry; when, deeply interested, I playfully said, "Why, James, such incidents have a beautiful moral! you should publish them for others' benefit." Urging the claim with cogent reasons, I succeeded in parrying off his jokes about it, but put myself in a dilemma unexpectedly, for I must be the biographer! Embosomed in the faith of this brother's love, it did seem a natural choice. -- Meeting him again the next summer, on the shore of Elkhart Lake, Wis., in that "Wigwam Bower of Prayer," I took the horsocope of his life, the shadows of fact cast in the light of the spirit. Corresponding with some of his friendswhose kindnesses are gratefully acknowledged-to procure old and new letters, and seizing upon his voluminous writings, I at length had a little mountain of documents; and what a chaos! So checkered did I find his life, my greatest difficulty was to reduce this sketch to consistent bounds. Much remains untold. A biography, you know, is the hardest portraiture to delineate. It is a slight task to measure by rule, and quite a different art to impress the soul till sentences think with words that burn. The writer must have sympathetically the experience of his hero, fight his battles, weep with his tears, rejoice with his joy, feel the pulses of his heart. Oh, for Nature's art! The poet's success is what he feels; inspired feeling through a practical mind is divinely eloquent. The painter needs more than an anatomy: he must catch the soul of his subject, and stamp it upon canvas, or his effort is a failure. Sweden's song-birds, Jenny Lind and Christine Nilsson - poor peasant girls once-enchant the nations; for theirs is the soul of music. I never would have undertaken the honored task of writing the actual biography of a man whose life-line threads over all the world, and heaven too, interlacing with the "New Gospel" in its most delicate and refined activities, had I not been guided by a genius higher than my own, by an angel familiar with all the experiences of the "Spiritual Pilgrim." Have I caught it, the soul? "Thy song, the joy and sorrow of all races, J. O. B. GLEN BEULAH, WIS. PREFACE. BY EMMA HARDINGE. TIME is the great and original touchstone of truth. When this impartial judge has pronounced his verdict upon movements whose source dates back to periods antecedent to our own, the records that are left us gain force and interest in our minds in exact proportion to our information concerning the personages who were instrumental in creating the events recorded. It is for this reason that biography is esteemed as the most acceptable and analytical form that history can assume. All human transactions originate in the influences of the human spirit, whether in the visible or invisible world; hence we can only approach the problem of causation, when we begin to understand the nature of the spiritual forces that have been brought to bear upon the events we trace. When the great spiritual outpouring of the nineteenth century shall be submitted to the judgment of posterity, and the criterion of time, unbiassed by passion or prejudice, shall determine its true value to mankind, the more precious the record may become, the more eagerly will humanity search for the footprints of its pioneers, preachers, teachers, media, and martyrs. It is this tendency to identify all human interests with human individualities that has led to the errors of hero-worship, and god-men. Perhaps the best corrective that can be devised for this species of idolatry is the calm and strictly human record which biography presents; and therefore we know of no better service that the writers of the present era can perform to posterity than to prepare for their use truthful records of the various individualities that have been engaged in the wonderful and world-wide movement known as "Modern Spiritualism.” Perhaps none of the phenomenal personages of this movement can furnish a more striking, instructive, and interesting theme for the biographer than J. M. Peebles. His early education and connection with the ministry in phases of religious belief utterly opposed to the great modern revelation; his long, patient, and self-sacrificing labors for the promotion of Spiritualism, when, Saul-like, he became inspired as its apostle; his admirable and scholarly contributions to its literature, and the vast geographical areas over which his experiences have been extended in both hemispheres, all contribute to render this biography at once one of the most interesting and important that the movement can furnish. Will the bright angelic visitors, whose presence here is now so clearly demon. strated, continue their missionary labors amongst earth's children? Can they, if they would, do so? or are these bright forerunners of our immortal destiny to perform the work of building the temple of the new Zion, and then to pass away from the longing eyes of mortality? Will Spiritualism be absorbed by sectarian organizations, and used simply as an agent for the promotion of liberal ideas? or will it remain a concrete movement, itself absorbing all other religious associations in the vortex of its irrepressible powers of demonstration and reason? Will the spirits continue to experiment until they have perfected their glorious telegraph between heaven and earth? or, weary of our apathy, shortcomings, and indifference, will they permit nó glimpses only of the possibilities that lie dormant within the human soul, and then leave the earth to await the uprising of a more faithful and spiritually-minded generation? These are questions upon which the Spiritualists have formed widely diverse opinions, and upon which no Cassandra's voice will be accepted as authority until the results shall be proven in time; but, however these may ultimate, the immense importance of clear, concise histories of what has been done, said, thought, and suffered in the earlier phases of this movement can never be exaggerated. The causes which operated to convert so many various grades of character and intellect as Spiritualism includes should all be weighed and duly considered. The world's reception of its spiritual teachers, -the effects of their unparalleled labors, and too frequently of their sufferings, in the performance of their mission, the records of all this should be preserved as milestones on the road of human progress, without which the pilgrims of the future are liable to fall into precisely the same toils and snares as have beset the paths of the pioneers. The writer has herself proved the impossibility of condensing the events of the world-wide movement known as Spiritualism into any more comprehensive form than a mere compendium; but, to do justice to the personages who have so faithfully and toilfully created the chain of spiritual history, nothing but individualized biographies will suffice. As a brother laborer in the cause of Spiritualism, as a writer whose pearls of glowing eloquence and gems of historic research always formed felicitous subjects for quotation, the writer has long known and gratefully esteemed J. M. Peebles. As a laborer on the older soil of Europe, where the fogs of tradition and the stern spirit of religious bigotry and conservatism weave a pall around the mind as fatal to the new life of Spiritualism as the panoply of the grave, Mr. Peebles has been equally bold, indefatigable, and successful. Returning to his native country, freighted with the rich treasures of knowledge and experience gathered up in many lands and from contact with many minds, Mr. Peebles is eminently fitted to perform his share of the mighty work of knitting together in the ties of divine fatherhood and human brotherhood all the broken and scattered lines of humanity distributed over life's ocean, from the farthest East to the remotest West. The man that has stood on the last foothold of Western civilization, on the golden sands of California, and wandered amongst the pioneer men whose ancestors first numbered up the mystery of the solemn stars on the plains of Ara bia, — the man who has been enabled to compare the influences of the spiritual outpouring over nearly all the vast breadth of the equatorial belt, and speak Spiritualism in the ears of the wandering Arab, the fateful Mussulman, the degenerate Roman, the fickle Frenchman, the sternly orthodox Briton, and the inquisitive cosmopolitan American, — such a Spiritualist, faithful in his belief and its expression to all persons and in all places alike, is an historical man whom the world ought to know, and of whom the ranks of Spiritualism have just cause to be proud. That a scholar, a thinker, and a man of large heart, broad principles, and high intellectual attainments has been inspired to the work of collating the materials which form the subject of the following pages is also a source of congratulation, and can not fail to secure for their perusal respectful and candid consideration. The writer can not answer for the methods pursued by authors in general; but, in her own case, she has more than once realized the advantage of writing a preface after a perusal of the main body of the work. Of course, this admission implies a recognition of some disadvantages in the per contra of this system; still, the knowledge which we possess of the field of resource to be traveled over, and the able hands in which that field of labor has. fallen, justifies us in anticipating a rich treat to the student of the following pages. That the dear angels who have so faithfully and tenderly guided their missionary through the thorny paths of an unpopular reform will themselves superintend and inspire the transcription which bears witness to their divine achievements, we can not doubt; hence we may confidently usher into the world the biography and spiritual experiences of J. M. Peebles as one of the most important and remarkable contributions to the literature of the age of which the nineteenth century can boast. |