Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

nious and happy being," and usher in the "blissful period !""'

The Church of Rome has been styled " Antichrist," but it is not sure that the sin of denying the sonship of the Redeemer can be justly laid at her door. She has been guilty of enough, and should be charged with no more than her due.

It has been left to our own age more fully to develope this spirit of Anti-christ, which was rife in the apostle's day; and our degenerate race is doing this fearful work.

"Many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh."-John 7.

PAUL says that "Christ was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," and that the last "trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." But in the face of such language as this, these modern sorcerers deny that ever any person was raised or ever will be raised from the dead.

A writer in the New Era "God never did, says: and never will raise up from the grave, a literal, decomposing body, and reanimate it with life! "Tis infidelity, heathenism, and gross, undeveloped nonsense to believe it!!" He says Lazarus was "wakened from a trance!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

INCONSISTENCIES OF SPIRITUALISTS.

SPIRITUALISTS tell of many converts.

To be a

proselyte to demons is one thing. To be converted to Christ, is quite another. To effect the latter is no part of their business. Some of their most prominent publishers ridicule the idea of conversion to Christ; and the doctrine is discarded by every person who thoroughly adheres to the teachings of the spirits. They suppose they have discovered an easier road to the kingdom of God than by repentance, faith in Christ, and pardon through his name.

Many of them have been noted infidels, and they are only converted from one form of infidelity to another, ten-fold more pernicious; hence they

fight" Christianity with redoubled fury. It is really amusing to read the account of some of their wonderful conversions! They are converted to the faith that men have really got souls! that they are conscious after death, and that spiritintercourse is possible! Wonderful! They have learned one thing among the many which they might have learned years ago had they believed

their Bibles. It will be well if their first lesson does not prove injurious.

PROFESSOR HARE, in his recent letter to the convention of Episcopal clergymen assembled in Philadelphia, informs them "that spirits do exist obedient to his call," that he has arrived to a "perfect confidence in the immortality of the soul," and that he deems it his "duty to afford them an opportunity of hearing the evidence on which he relies, and he will be ready to answer any queries that may be made." So this Professor considers himself competent to teach the Episcopal clergy, because he has recently learned from spirit-intercourse "the immortality of the soul," after having been an infidel all his days.

We have yet to learn that their "conversions" make them any better. We have observed that those who used profane language and intoxicating drinks before their "conversion," continue to do so afterwards; and in no instance, from an extensive observation, has the writer noticed the least reform in any respect. And yet these persons, many of whom have but just learned "that there is a spirit in man," think they should be the religious teachers of the age! A little wisdom would incline such persons, for a while at least, to

"Let those teach others who themselves excel.'

The Editor of the New York Tribune when reviewing the so-called discussion between Brittan

and Richmond, says: "We have very harsh things to say of all parties concerned, and the book into the bargain. Messrs. PARTRIDGE & BRITTAN will not thank us for our opinion of the 'better class' of their publications, if the present work is to be considered as a specimen. They must understand that we look upon the spirit-rapping question as a most detestable swindle. While we believe that many of the mediums are poor, deluded creatures, we are convinced that the projectors and promoters of the affair are knaves, as infamous as ever served out a life-sentence in a state prison.

"Of this particular work, which purports to be the record of a controversy between a believer and a skeptic, we can only say that, if it were not saved from our loathing by its stupidity, the evident collusion between the pretended disputants would disgust us. A more dishonest book has surely never been published in our country. We do not, after this judgment, expect to be favored with any more of Messrs. Partridge & Brittan's publications."

[ocr errors]

Professor Mattison says: "The two copies of Mr. Wesley's message, through Mr. Boynton, one published in pamphlet form, and the other in the columns of the Telegraph,' are entirely different ; and Mr. Brittan admitted to me that he made the alterations himself; and that he was in the habit of correcting spirit communications, when they did not come up to his standard of taste, as to what spirit messages should be. Only think of S. B. Brittan

correcting the writings of the spirit of John Wesley! Even, then, upon his own admission, so far as corrections have been made in the so-called spirit communications published in the Telegraph' and Shekinah,' they are messages from Mr. Brittan, and not from 'Spirits.'"*

6

6

Spiritualists are not half so numerous as they often represent themselves. In many places their numbers are diminishing. In their zeal for thousands they reckon all who admit the possibility of holding intercourse with the spirits, whether they receive their doctrines or not.

Professor Brittan coolly informed the writer that the Rev's. Charles, Henry Ward, and other members of the Beecher family were spiritualists! Probably he and his brethren will become sufficiently developed" to discover that they have reckoned without their host in many cases.

[ocr errors]

J. H. Fowler says: "With but few exceptions, every spiritualist with whom I have met has somehow become possessed of an intense desire for "Harmony," Harmony !"—Essay, p. 97.

66

The reason for this is obvious from the following from James Hall, of Philadelphia: "When I enrolled my name with the brethren who first met at the Franklin Hall, I thought verily the time had come for men, at least spiritualists, to judge for themselves; but I had not been long among them before I found that it was not only one Pope we had *Spirit Rapping Unveiled, p. 112.

« AnteriorContinuar »