book. It falls, as we see, and takes its place with all other human fallible productions. For knowledge, we go to Nature, our universal mother, who gives her Bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting gospel to all people. IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE? It is useless to tell us that a doctrine is popular. Paganism was once more popular than Presbyterianism; the world to-day would have been flat as a table, if the belief of a majority could have made it so. "But our doctrines are old: they have stood for eighteen hundred years." If such an argument is good for any thing, it overturns all Protestantism, and establishes Catholicism in its place; for Protestantism is only a protest against Catholicism, which must, therefore, be the older. But Buddhism, which was established twenty-five hundred years ago, says to Catholicism, "Out, you baby of yesterday!" but, scarcely seats itself in the temple, before it is unceremoniously ejected by hoary Paganism, the son of the ages. 66 For a doctrine to commend itself to the thinkers of the nineteenth century it must be true. It matters not whether one or one million believe it; whether it is declared by the beggar, whose shivering body the rags but miserably protect, or comes from heaven with a voice of thunder and the answering response of archangels. The only significant question that we can ask is, Is it true? If not, God himself cannot save it from the perdition that awaits it. Is Spiritualism true? What is Spiritualism? It is not a belief in the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis. It is not an indorsement of the manifestations that are said to occur through the Davenports, or Eddys, Miss Ellis, or Mrs. Blair; nor is it to believe all that is published in "The Banner of Light," or declared by the thousands of mediums who speak in the name of the departed throughout the land. Whatever truth there may be in them, I object to making Spiritualism responsible for all these things, many of which can only be known to be true by examinations that one may have neither time nor ability to make, and that the parties concerned are sometimes unable, and sometimes unwilling, to permit. Webster gives the What is Spiritualism, then? following definition of it: "Spiritualism is a belief in the frequent communication of intelligence from the world of spirits, by means of physical phenomena commonly manifested through a person of susceptibility, called a 'medium.' A better, because a more accurate definition is, "Spiritualism is a belief in the communication of intelligence from the spirits of the departed, commonly obtained through a person of susceptibility, called a 'medium.' The spirit is something that exists when the body dies; but, since we see nothing depart, it is invisible; it communicates, according to our definition, with the living; it has, then, organs by which its communications are made: hence Spiritualism is first a belief that man possesses a spirit (the unseen man) that is not bound by the limitation of the senses, but can see without using the bodily eye, hear when no sound is conveyed to the outward ear, and can travel without |