CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY i^S^ * DAHEDUE MAvrs^M^ -t .^^Rr^ a" ijgmlT^] '-^ 1 fl„p^jafii ..iJlfiA^MC.. V^^^mm§m ^ '-AIOl?^ UN|i*'*'^ TtUlL *.^.2' E£Baial UK..- CAVLORO ^RINTEDINU.S.A Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028954050 JUST PUBLISHED. | I A New Edition of Rohert Vale Owetit Great fVork, The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next. ** Mr. Owen*s facts _fo7-ce upon us the spiritual theory, just as the facts of geology force upon us the belief in a long series of ancient forms." — Alfred K. Wallace in (Lottdon) Quarterly Scietice Review . " A book of the same class and interest with Darwin's late work> being a study into the obscure parts of nature, con- ducted in the only true method." — Mrs, C. B. Stoiue in the Christian Union, '* Mr. Owen's logic is of a kind to command the respect of Bishop Butler or Archbishop Whately."— .^zf^T^ Saturday. A Large xsmo volume, beautifiiUy printed, and bound in cloth, price $2.00. G. W. CARLETON &• CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. Lights and Shadows OF SPIEITUALISM. BY D. D. HOME, * Light — more light ! " Goethe. «^ NEW YORK: G, W. Carleton cS" Co., Publishers. (Right of Translation Reserved.) MDCCCLXXVII. H7/o COPVKIGHT BY ' D. D. HOME 1877- / John F. Trow & Son, Printers and Stereotypeks» 205-213 East \zth Si., NEW YORK. TO MY WIFE, WHOSE LOVING SYMPATHY AND CONSTANT CARE HAVE SOOTHED ME IN MANT HOURS OP TRIAL AND PAIN ; AND WHOSE SUPERIOR COUNSELS HAVE AIDED ME IN COMPOSING A WORK, THE END AND AIM OP WHICH IS TO PLACE A MUCH-INSULTED TRUTH ON A PLANE WHERE HONEST LOVERS OF SUCH TRUTH WOULD NOT HAVE CAUSE TO BLUSH IN AVOWING THEMSELVES TO BE WHAT SHE IS — A CHRISTIAN, AND A SPIRITUAL- IST — I, IN AEFECTION AND ESTEEM, Wttiiuh tjiia %ut TABLE OF CONTENTS, |]art Ju'st. ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. CHAPTER I. THE FAITHS OF ANCIENT PEOPLES. Spiritualism as old as our planet. — Lights and shadows of Pagan times 13 CHAPTER II. ASSYRIA, CHALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. " Chaldea's seers are good." — The prophecy of Alexander's death. — Spiritualism in the shadow of the Pyramids. — Sethon and Psammeticus. — Prophecies regarding Cyrus.— The " Golden Star " of Persia 19 CHAPTER III. INDIA AND CHINA. ApoUonius and the Brahmins. — The creed of " Nirvana." — Laotse and Confucius. — Present corruption of the Chinese 34 Vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. GKEECE AND HOME. The famous Spiritualists of Hellas. — Communion between world and world three thousand years ago. — The Delphian Oracle. — Pausanius and the Byzantine Cap- tive. — " Great Pan is dead." — Socrates and his atten- dant spirit. — Vespasian at Alexandria. — A haunted house at Athens. — Valens and the Greek Theurgists. — The days of the Caesars |]art Seconir. SPIRITUALISM JZV THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. CHAPTER I. THE SPIRITUALISM OP THE BIBLE. Science versus Religion. — Similarity of modern and an- cient phenomena. — The siege of Jerusalem. — " The Light of the World." — Unseen armies who aided in the triumph of the Cross CHAPTER II. THE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Signs and wonders in the days of the Fathers. — Martyr- dom of Poly carp. — The return of Evagrius after death. — Augustine's faith. — The philosophy of Alex- andria , CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER III. SPIRITUALISM IN CATHOLIC AGES. The counterfeiting of miracles. — St. Bernard. — The case of Mademoiselle Perrier. — The tomb of the Abb6 Paris. — " The Lives of the Saints."— Levitation. — Prophecy of the death of Ganganelli 110 CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW OP CATHOLIC SPIRITUALISM. Crimes of the Papacy. — The record of the Dark Ages. — Mission and martyrdom of Joan of Arc. — The career of Savonarola. — Death of Urban Grandier 135 CHAPTER V. THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE WALDENSES AND CAMISARDS. The Israel of the Alps. — Ten centuries of persecution. — Amaud's march. — The deeds of Laporte and Caval- lier. — The ordeal of fire. — End of the Cevennois "War. 158 CHAPTER VI. PROTESTANT SPIRITUALISM. Precursors of the Reformation. — Luther and Satan. — Cal- vin. — Wishart's martyrdom. — Witchcraft. — Famous accounts of apparitions. — Bunyan, Fox, and Wesley. 177 CHAPTER VII. THE SPIRITUALISM OP CERTAIN GREAT SEERS. " The Reveries of Jacob Behmen." — Swedenborg's charac- ter and teachings. — Narratives regarding his spiritual gifts. — Jung-Stilling. — His unconquerable faith, and the providences accorded him. — Zschokke, Oberlin, and the Seeress of Prevorst 200 CONTENTS. MOJDJEBN SFIMITUALI8M. CHAPTER I. INTKODUCTOKY 217 CHAPTER II. DELUSIONS. American, false prophets. — Two ex-reverends claim to be the witnesses foretold by St. John. — " The New Jeru- salem." — A strange episode in the history of Geneva. — "The New Motor Power." — A society formed for the attainment of earthly immortality ' 231 CHAPTER III. DELUSIONS {continued). The revival of Pythagorean dreams. — Allan Kardec's com- munication after death. — Fancied evocation of the spirit of a sleeper. — Fallacies of Kardecism. — The Theosophical Society. — Its vain quest for sylphs and gnomes. — Chemical processes for the manufacture of spirits. — A magician wanted 268 CHAPTER IV. MANIA. Mental disease little understood 298 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER V. " PEOPLE PROM THE OTHEE WOBLD." A pseudo-investigator. — Gropings in the dark. — The spirit whose name was Yusef. — Strange logic and stranger theories 301 CHAPTER VI. SCEPTICS' AND TESTS. Mistaken Spiritualists. — Libels on the spirit-world. — The whitewashing of Ethiopians 329 CHAPTER VII. ABSUEDITIES. " "Whet Greek meets Greek." — The spirit-costume of Oli- ver Cromwell. — Distinguished visitors to Italian stances. — A servant and prophet of God. — Convivial spirits. — A ghost's tea-party. — A dream of Mary Stuart. — The ideas of a homicide concerning his own execution. — An exceedingly gifted medium. — ^The Crystal Palaces of Jupiter. — Re-incarnative literature. — The mission of John King. — A penniless archan- gel.— A spirit with a taste for diamonds. — The most wonderful medium in the world 347 CHAPTER VIII. TRICKERY AND ITS EXPOSURE. Dark stances. — A letter from Serjeant Cox. — The conceal- ment of " spirit-drapery." — Rope-tying and handcuffs. — Narratives of exposed imposture.^Various modes of fraud 384 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. TRICKERY AND ITS EXPOSURE (continued). The passing of matter through matter. — " Spirit-brought " flowers. — The ordinary dark s6ance. — Variations of " phenomenal " trickery. — " Spirit- Photography." — Moulds of ghostly hands and feet. — Baron Earkup's experience. — The reading of sealed letters 416 CHAPTER X. THE HIGHER ASPECTS OF SPIRITUALISM. The theological Heaven. — A story regarding a coffin. — An incident with " L. M." — A London Drama. — " Black- wood's Magazine " and some seances in Geneva 441 CHAPTER XI. " OUR FATHER." 466 CHAPTER XII. THE HIGHER ASPECTS OF SPIRITUALISM (continued). " Stella." 476 LIGHTS AISB SHADOWS SPIRIT UAL^ISM |)art Jtrst. &.NGIENT SPIRITUALISM. CHAPTER I. THE FAITHS 01' AITCIENT PEOPLES. Thbeb descend to ns among the fragmentary records which, with shattered temples and decaying cities, form the only remaining proofs that such nations as the Assyr- ian and the Egyptian were once great npon the earth, many evidences of the vividness with which light from another world broke in upon man during the earlier ages of our own. Every spiritual phenomenon which has in the present day startled the Christians of the West was tens of centnries ago familiar to the Pagans of the East. On the common foundation of a belief that spirit-visits were neither few nor far between, every mythology of those far-back times was based. The most superhuman virtues, and ultra-bestial crimes of Chaldean, Phoenician, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, are traceable to a spiritual source. For then, as since, the good of the truth 14 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. that man cannot " die, to live again," but, living once, livesj eternally, was at times largely perverted to evil. Side by side vs'ith noble natures, made yet higher and purer byj communion with high and pure minds that no longer ten-] anted the flesh, were demons doing the behests of demons^ — evil creatures of both sexes, and all ages and conditions,; who, instigated by spirits still fouler, worked ceaselessly to fill the earth with bloodshed and imcleanness. By in- tercourse with spirits the cheerful assurance of immortal- ity was perpetuated through all times and nations, and the dark vestibule of the grave brightened with a glory from beyond. Through intercourse with spirits, also, i the awful rite of human sacrifice — men seeking to ap- pease imaginary deities by the murder of their brethren — had birth. It was natural that when, at the touch of the departed, the clouds which veil our Hereafter shrank away, man, gazing on the newly revealed morning-lands, should imagine he saw gods walking there. Thus the power of the spirits for good and evil became immeas- urable. The valiant phalanx of the Greeks rushing down upon the Persian multitude at Marathon, every breast thrilling with the thought that around thronged the spirits of their ancestors and the deities of their nation, inspiring and encouraging them to the combat, affords an example of the best phase of spiritual influence. The same Greeks solemnly hewing in pieces or burying alive un- happy captives whose torments would, they supposed, win them favor in the sight of evil beings erringly exalted into deities, may stand as an instance of the worst. But the dark and the bright phases alike witness to the inten- sity of faith which primaeval man had in the invisible. Even when we know little else of a nation we know o-ener- ally that the corner-stone of its mythology was a belief in the return of the departed. Heroes and sages were not THE FAITHS OF ANCIENT PEOPLES. 15 when death snatched them, lamented as having forever passed away. Their spirits hung still above the land they had loved and served ; at times visibly appearing to the posterity by whom they were adored ; counselling them in the moment of danger, or leading on their hosts to victory. If a spirit were frequent in his appearances and mighty in the services he rendered, he speedily became worshipped as a god. Again, when it was discovered that only in the presence of certain persons could spirits manifest them- selves, these mediums were set apart, and priesthood had its origin. Immortal man is immortally ambitious — pecu- liarly liable also to mislead and be misled. The priest speedily aspired to be the founder of a sect — the builder- up of some system of theology or government. He walked among men as one with them but not of them ; clothed with distinctive garments ; hedged round by the sanctity of mysterious rites. From among the invisibles .who surrounded him he selected as his peculiar guardians and guides those whose counsels were agreeable to his soul. It leaves a dubious impression concerning the majority of spirits and mediums in ancient days, that in every land of which we have knowledge we find altars dripping with human blood ; prisoners of war butchered by the thou- sand as acceptable offerings to the gods ; temples polluted with licentiousness ; the most unblushing vice ; the most systematic cruelty. These things all sprang from the abuses of communion between world and world ; abuses for which spirits alike with men were blamable. Were the beings anciently worshipped as gods in reality devils ? If by devils we understand human beings depraved to the lowest pitch, then many, probably, might be accounted so. It is not to be doubted that then, as now. the messengers of God, high, holy, and pure spirits, constantly watched over and communicated with the better children of earth. 16 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. Bat to that end mediums were necessary, and the mediums were usually ambitious and often depraved. Loth to be but the servants of the spirits, they foolishly and uselessly aspired to govern them. The entreaties and admonitions of their good angels were neglected and contemned, until these in grief held aloof and seemed to have forsaken the earth. The dangerous beings who counselled pleasant things, and, while seeming pliant to the slightest wish, held their victims firmly to the service of evil, reigned almost unchecked. Dwellers in darkness, they desired, with the malignity of unrepentant wretchedness, that souls yet on earth should enter the spirit-realm tainted with a leprosy deep as their own, Thi'ough their fancied masters and real tools, the priests, nation after nation was led away from faith in the one God to worship His creatures. What these deities were the records that have descended to us irrefragably prove. Resembling men, they are de- picted as possessing the passions and attributes of fiends. In every mythology it was a cardinal point that to avert their wrath blood was necessary. Fearful penalties were denounced against such as offended these pseudo-gods. Among the light, lively peoples of the south of Europe the idea of punishment after death took the shape of con- finement in silence and eternal night ; with sterner nations it was a vision of unhappj^ faces looking up from a burn- ing tomb. The infamous doctrines that have disgraced our own age, doct]-ines which seek to sap the very founda- tions of society, and, taking from love all that is beautiful and endearing, leave only its filthy and debasing mockery — were inculcated by these deities, enforced in their tem- ples by precept and example, and disseminated through nations with the effects of a pestilence. What society was two thousand years ago history witnesses but too well. Good, and good spirits seemed almost to have fled from the THE FAITHS OF ANCIENT PEOPLES. 17 earth. The servants of evil were everywhere. All tem- ples of all deities had become offences to the eye of Heaven ; plague-spots of bloodshed and licentionsness. The many accepted, as they have in all ages done, the deities offered to them, and, obedient to their behests, cul- tivated the evil of man's nature, and carefully repressed the good. The intelligent and gifted perceived that, liv- ing or fabled, the beings to whom the nations erected temples were assuredly not gods, and the creators of the universe, but either monsters of the imagination or crea- tures of a scale somewhat beneath that on which they themselves moved. They sought refuge accordingly in epicurean negation and attention to the things of this life. At length the evil grew to an unendurable height. That period when the Roman power had attained its zenith was the nadir of the morality and happiness of man. Then the forces of good in the invisible world began once more to stir. Upon an earth enervated with wickedness- and convulsed with strife ; upon nations where the most hide- ous vices stalked the land openly and unashamed ; upon nations where the stake, the cross, and the scourge were in hourly use, and where man plotted how to be most inhu- man to his fellow-man; upon the century of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, of Messalina, Agrippina, and Locusta, the great awakening of the Christian gospel dawned. Founded in miracle, attested by prodigy, spread by apos- tles whose touch liealed the sick, whose words caused the maimed to become whole, and the cripple to arise and walk, and to whose eyes was revealed the whole radiance of the Unseen, it conquered rapidly region after region ; setting at defiance the possible and the common, and dis- covering by burning proofs that the ladder which Jacob beheld was but faintly typical of that immortal one stretching from earth to heaven, by which multitudes of 18 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. the departed have in all ages continually ascended and descended. I have said that since the founding of our world com- munion with another has existed, and that in every frag- mentary history of an ancient nation its tokens peep through. Among the very few legends which time has floated down to us respecting the mysterious Etruscans, is one which ascribes to them devotion to magic and the power of raising the dead. Their cognate race, the almost equally mysterious Phoenicians, had in the highest degree the belief both in evil and beneficent spirits, and in their evocation by means of wild and complicated rites. Other nations, of whose mythologies but the most slender scraps have been handed down, the Scythians, for example — the Gauls, the Teutons and the Sarmatians, appear also to have clierished this universal faith. In France and our own isles the Druids were acquainted with the phenomena of clairvoyance and animal magnetism ; they cultivated the trance, and through visions sought for an insight into futurity. The histories of Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, and Persia — of Greece and Pome — of India and China, are steeped in Spiritualism. In a later portion of this work I shall dwell upon the Hebrew annals. It will be sufficient that at present I, under the head of Ancient Spiritualism, devote my attention to the countries already named ; that I bring from the storehouse of history the best-attested incidents illustrating the communion of men and spirits,. and make clear their relation to the phenomena witnessed in our own age. I confess that it is impossible to con- struct from the imperfect relics of ancient chronicles nar-j ratives of such weight and authenticity as are availablej from the rich materials of more modern times- but enough remains to amply illustrate and verify whatever I have already asserted in this introduction to my task. L ■ASaTBIA, CHALBEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 19 shall seek to show that the occurrences received with stubborn incredulity in the nineteenth century were famil- iar to the first, and perhaps equally familiar to centuries long anterior to the Christian era. 1 shall point to the belief in the supermundane entertained by the mightiest minds of these ancient ages, and rank as spiritual believers such giants as Homer, Hesiod, and Pindar ; as ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides ; as Socrates, Plato, and Pythag- oras ; as Alexander and Caesar ; as Virgil and Tacitus ; as Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, and a hundred more. Finally, having pointed out the vivid resemblance which the spiritual phenomena of the past bear to the spiritual phenomena of to-day, I shall call attention to the fact that the outbreaks of evil which of old convulsed the earth were heralded by just such clouds as, at first no bigger than a man's hand, have rapidly come to overcast the present Spiritual horizon. CHAPTER II. ASSTEIA, CHALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. The uncountable years that have elapsed since Kinus shared his sceptre with Semiramis, and the first sage watched on the summit of the Tower of Belus, have all but whirled away with them into oblivion the history of the Assyrian realm, the mightiest of the ancient world. From the scanty fragments of Berosus, and the more copious remains of Herodotus, together with the Hebrew Scriptures, do we chiefly glean what is known to us of this remarkable people ; unless we dare trust the Greek 20 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. historian who recbimts that Sernitamis invaded India with an army of two millions of men. The researches of Lay- ard and Smith, indeed, have of late greatly added to our knowledge of this antique race. From disinterred Nine- veh come to us the pictures, the picture-writings, and the sculptures of the mighty Assyrian warriors, the scourges of all neighboring nations. We have by their own hands portraits of the men who devastated Egypt, and carried the Ten Tribes of the Hebrews into captivity. And, for- midable as was the Assyrian soldiery, the priests wielded a yet more terrible power over their fellow-men. Of the most ancient among them we know little, save that they were devoted soothsayers, and respected by all men for their gift of looking into the future. With the period of the division of the Assyrian empire, our information be- gins to increase. Pre-eminent is that awful instance of spiritual power recorded in the Hebrew annals, and appa- rently confirmed by late researches, the passing above the Assyrian camp of an angel who destroyed silently, and in a single night, Sennacherib's army of a hundred and eighty thousand men. We know, from Herodotus and others, that when the Babylonian empire was in the glory of its power, the influ- ence of the Chaldean sages had also attained its zenith. Every secret of nature which man had unveiled, the whole knowledge then acquired respecting the visible and the invisible, was locked in the bosoms of these famous phil- osophers. They held in the Babylonian commonwealth a station equally dignified with that held in a neighboring country by the powerful magicians' of Egjqpt. They guided the footsteps of the young, just entering upon this present life; they smoothed the passage of the old, just departing to another. Futurity was their especial study, and, by diligent comparing and interpreting of dreams and prodi- ASBTBIA, CEALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 21 gies, they had established what they believed to be a com- plete system of divination. Especially were they famous for their watchings of the stars. The astronomers of the eighteenth and nineteenth, and the astrologers of the six- teenth and seventee)ith centuries a.d., alike recognize predecessors in those inquiring spirits who, from the sum- mit of the Tower of Belus, nightly searched the Assyrian heavens. Even when the Babylonian empii'e fell before the shafts of the Mede, the Magi survived. They flour- ished at Babylon in unchecked power from the era of Cyrus to that of the Darius whom Alexander subdued, and they made one of their most remarkable prophecies to the Macedonian hero himself. At the distance of three hundred furlongs from the Great City, Alexander was encountered by a deputation of the most famous Magi. These warned him that he should on no account presume to enter Babylon, as the gods had decreed that once within the walls he must assuredly die. So deeply was the conqueror of Asia moved by this prediction, that, while sending his chief friends into Babylon, he himself encamped at a distance of two hundred furlongs from the walls. But the Gre- cian philosophers who accompanied him, the doubting disciples of Anaxagoras, and others, went into the king's presence and, by their lively ridicule, temporarily effaced from his mind all respect for the wisdom of the Chalde- ans. Alexander entered Babylon, and in a few months was with his fathers. Various other omens had foreboded the disappearance of this royal meteor from the earth which he astonished. Shortly after the magnificent obsequies of his favorite, \ Hephsestion, a Babylonian who had been placed in con- finement was found by the king, dressed in the royal robes ' and seated on the throne. Alexander, amazed, demanded 22 ANOIENT SPIRITUALISM. of the man who had advised him to this act. The intruder answered simply that "he knew not how he found himself there." By advice of the soothsayers he was put to death, but the omen sank deeply into the conqueror's mind. ITot long afterwards he sailed forth, accompanied by a small flotilla, to view the harbor of Babylon. A storm arose, and Alexander's vessel was parted from the rest. After tossing on the waters for several days, refuge was found in a narrow creek, choked with overhanging shrubs. The king's diadem was plucked from his head by a projecting boiigh, and flung into the waves. A sailor swimming from the vessel recovered the crown, and placed it on his own brow, the more speedily to reach the ship. Both by Alexander and the Chaldeans this second prog- nostic was considered ominous, and he was counselled to offer sacrifices to the gods. At the feast which accompa- nied the proposed rites, the great conqueror quaffed at a draught a huge goblet of wine, sighed, appeared smitten with an overwhelming sickness, and was assisted forth to his death-bed. Two days before, Calanus, an Indian phil- osopher, had, on ascending his funeral pyre, announced to Alexander that the latter must prepare to speedily follow him to the Shades. The philosophy of Egypt divides with that of Chaldea the honor of being the most ancient of which we moderns have knowledge. So many centuries have been numbered with the past since even the decay of either of these civil- izations, that it almost ranks with the impossible to decide on Avhich nation the light of learning first dawned. The preponderance of evidence, such as. that evidence is, in- clines to the side of Egypt. Zonaras, indeed, asserts that the Egyptians derived their mythology from the Chalde- ans, but this modern researches contradict. It is in any case, incontestable that the Egyptian priesthood was the A8STBIA, OSALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 23 wisest and the most magnificent of the ancient earth. In dignity they were equal to their brethren of Chaldea, in wisdom they even surpassed them. What their temples were, the awful ruins of Karnac, the city of shrines, even now witness. The avenues of sphynxes extend for miles ; the desert is crested with columns whose massiveness no other nation can equal. In these stupendous recesses was once hived that wisdom a few fragments of which, despite the sleepless jealousy of its guardians, Greek sages bore back to their own land, and embodied in Greece's sub- limest philosophy. The splendor of the little that remains causes us the more to regret that mass of knowledge which, by the erring system of the Egyptians, is irrecover- ably lost. For here, as in each of the great empires of the East, the few enlightened ones in whose keeping was the wisdom and the science of the age, far from striving to disseminate the seeds of knowledge among the great body of the people, jealously restricted that knowledge to them- selves and their descendants, leaving the outer world in hopeless darkness. The mass of the nation were estimated as cattle, the puppets of the nobles and the Magi, fit only for contemptuous abandonment to the worship of apes and beetles. In the temples, on the contrary, the utmost striving after discovery was apparent — an intellectual activity tliat never ceased. The paintings which Denis and Montfaucon have copied from their walls make manifest that mesmer- ism and clairvoyance were familiar things with the magi- cians of Egypt ; that through these or other means they obtained communication with the world of spirits, and practised with spirit aid the art of healing. In the temples were placed representations of the more miraculous cures These seem to have been chiefly procured by aid of the trance or mesmeric sleep, in which, without doubt, spirits no less than men usually operated. To induce this sleep 24 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. incense was used. Its influence was assisted by the soft music of lyres. Elevated thus above its material prison, the sonl for a space held free communion with the spirit- ual world. King Ehampsiuitiis, the Magi of Egypt asserted to Herodotus, descended by such means to the niansions of the dead, held converse with ,the gods, and returned, after a while, to the upper day. Into Egypt went Pythagoras, to increase from the greater stores of that country the wisdom which he had acquired in Greece. But so rigidly did the Magi restrict all learning to their own caste that not until he had passed from temple to temple, and had undergone disci- plinary initiations more and more severe, was the philoso- pher, after twenty-two years of patience, admitted to the inner mysteries. Keturning to Greece he became the martyr of the spiritual truths with which he astonished his countrymen. Delos, Sparta, Elis, and Crete in turn cast him out. Everywhere derided as a madman he passed over into Italy, and wandered through the magnifi- cent colony of Magna Gra3cia, teaching and working miracles in Crotona, Rliegium, and Metapontus. The fate of the prophets of all ages pursued him. At Crotona the mob burned down his school, and forty neophytes perished in the flames. Hunted by enemies thirsty for his life, he immnred himself in the temple of the Muses at Metapontus, and was there suffered to die of want But his doctrines, the fruits of the painful years passed in Egypt, endured after him, the error with the truth. ^From the Egyptians he had acquired the theory of trans- ' migration as inculcated in the sacred books of Hermesi,, Ti'ismcgistus. At death, according to these bizarre meta- physics, the soul of man passed into another body. Some^ times the spirit reappeared as a human being, sometimes as an animal. The nature of the new receptacle was?. ASamiA, GI-IALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 25 determined by the purity or wickedness of the former life. Three thousand years were passed in this manner, and if then sufficiently purified the spirit ascended to the immortal gods. During the latter centuries of this curi- ous species of purgatory the soul was supposed to reside in those animals which the Egyptians held peculiarly sacred. Thtis a cat represented a being particularly close to eternal felicity — a beetle was pej-haps still nearer. A modification of this marvellous religion was taught by Pythagoras ; exaggerated after his departure by his disci- ples, and finally extinguished in the grossness of its own absurdities. Our own century, strange to say, has wit- nessed the resurrection of this ancient folly. I shall take occasion in a later portion of this work to treat of the belief of those apers of antiquity who, discarding the animals, have unearthed from their dusty receptacle the remaining relics of the Pythagorean system, and, clothing these with the fantasies of their own imaginations, have submitted to the notice of a bewildered world the identity- confounding chimera of E,e-incarnation. Our information respecting the Egyptian oracles falls far short of the ample knowledge accorded to us of the Grecian. The most famous, if in strictness it can be held an oracle of Egypt, was that renowned temple buried in the solitudes of the Libyan Desert, and consecrated to Jupiter Ammon. Alexander of Macedon, in the pleni- tude of his power, visited it to interrogate the deity on some subject near to his heart. Question and answer were alike kept secret, but the magnificence of the con- queror's offerings intimated that he was satisfied with the response accorded him. A very few predictions of less celebrated oracles have been preserved by the Greek historians. Among such two singularly fulfilled prophe- icies deserve notice. 2 26 ANCIENT 8PIBITVALISM. Whilst Sethon, formerly a jiriest of Vulcan, held the Egyptian sceptre, he was dismayed by the approach of that Sennacherib whose invasion of Judaea Heaven so terribly frustrated. Deserted by the warrior tribe, he betook himself to the temple of Vulcan, and implored ao-ainst the Assyrians the aid of the deity whom he had served. As he stood before the image a vision came upon him. Vulcan, he dreamed, spoke, and bade him be of good cheer, for that he himself would fight in his wor- shipper's behalf. Hereupon Sethon, gathering courage, marched to encounter Sennacherib. He was followed only by a rabble of tradespeople and mechanics ; at siglit of whom the Assyrian laughed, accounting himself certain of victory. On the morning of the battle, however, Sen- nacherib found that he was overthrown before the strife commenced. During the night myriads of field-mice had entered the Assyrian camp, and, devouring the bow- strings and quivers of the warriors, Iiad left them almost defenceless. The victory of the Egyf)tians was easy and complete. Herodotus tells us that after the death of this Sethon twelve kings reigned in the different provinces of Egypt. An oracle announced that he who, in the temple of Vul- can, poured a lil)ation from a brazen vessel should expel his fellows and reign as sole monarch. On the occasion of a certain sacrifice, Psammeticus, one of the twelve, having found himself without the accustomed golden cup, filled a brazen helmet with wine and made his libation. On this the remaining kings banished him to tlie marslies of the coast. Burning with indignation, he consulted the oracle as to how he might best avenge the injury. It was replied that vengeance would be accorded him when brazen men arose from the deep. The answer was natu- rally held by Psararraeticus a mockery. Shortly afterwards, ASSYRIA, OHALDEA, EG TPT, AND PEBSIA. 27 however, certain pirates clad in brass armor appeared in Egypt from Ionia and Caria. These strangers Psammeti- cus took into his pay, and having, by their aid, become sole ruler of the Egyptians, the oracle's prediction was most curiously accomplished. From the dim magnificences of the race who reared the Pyramids we pass to Persia and Zoroaster. Even before the time of that mighty iconoclast the history of his country bears interesting traces of intercourse with an- other sphere. Cyrus, the subduer of Asia, was heralded and attended by prophecy both in Persia and among the Jews. Astyages, his grandfather, saw in vision a vine proceed from his daughter Mandane, by which the whole of Asia was overshadowed. The soothsayers explained this to mean that Mandane would be delivered of a son who should conquer all the kingdoms of the East. Fear- ing lest he himself might be among the rulers deposed, the jealous monarch wedded his daughter, not, as was the usage, to a prince of the Medes, but to Cambyses, a native of the subject kingdom of Persia. He again dreamed of the vine that overshadowed Asia ; and again received the explanation of its pointing to the coming of a conqueror who should tread all nations under foot. On this the king determined to destroy the fruit of the marriage the instant that it saw the light. The fruit was Cyrus, whom Astyages commanded Harpagus, his chief captain, to take with him and put to death. Harpagus, reluctant to exe- cute the foul mandate, sent the babe to be reared far from the court, in the rude highlands of Persia. Arrived at manhood Cyrus speedily approved the truth of the pro- phecy, and, deposing Astyages, reigned over Persia and Media in his stead. He conquered Croesus of Lydia, and, overthrowing the Babylonian empire, permitted the cap- tive Jews to return to Palestine. According to Josephus 28 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. this favor was won by the Jews at Babylon displaying to Cyrus the prophecy wherein Isaiah alludes to him by name. The forty-fifth chapter of the prophet thus opens : " Thus saith the Lord to Ilis anointed, to Gyrus, wliose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and make the crooked paths straight ; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riclies of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the Grod of Israel. Yov Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel Mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name, though thou hast not known Me." Cyrus, continues Josephus, on being shown this pre- diction, and the equally remarkable one contained in the twenty -eighth verse of the preceding chapter, acknowl- edged that the Jeliovah of the Hebrews was indeed the God of Nations, and that from Him he received the sceptre of the world. Nor was the close of the mighty conqueror's career im- accompanied by prodigy. Invading Soythia, he dreamed that Darius, tiie son of Hystaspes, stood before him with wings springing from his shoulders, of which the one overshadowed Europe, the other Asia. Believing that the gods had thus warned him of a plot against his throne, he sent Hystaspes back to Persia, to watch over Darius until he should himself return. But, althouo-h the son of Hystaspes was in reality destined as his successor, no con- spiracy had been implied. The vision given to Cyrus was an admonition of his own approaching death. He was vanquished and slain in a battle with Tomyris queen of the Massageta3 ; and the sceptre of Persia descended to A8STBIA, CHALDEA, EGYPT, AND PEUSIA. 29 Cambyses, his son. On the death of that monarch anarchy distracted the empire, and Darius Hystaspes, inspired by various omens, stood forth as a competitor for the tlirone. Overpowering his rival, Smerdis, he assumed that impe- rial purple to which he had not been born, and began a reign of prosperity almost unequalled in his country's anuals. In the time of this Darius, Zerethosclitro, the " golden star " of Persia, dawned upon the world. His name, soft- ened into Zoroaster, is familiar to us as that of the mightiest religious reformer of the ancient East. I3y both lines of ancestry, as well through his mother, Dogdo, as his father, Poroschasp, could he boast of descent from the remote kings of Persia. Poroschasp, says tradition, was descended from that Djemschid, the fabulous embellisher of Istakhar, whom Orinuzd gifted with creative powers ; and who was, according to Persian legends, fifth in line fj'oiu Noah. Of omens vouchsafed immediately before and after the birth of Zoroaster, the Easterns have many most marvellous tales. His mother, being pregnant, saw in a vision a being glorious as Djemschid, who assailed the Djins or Devs — the Persian evil spirits — with a sacred writing, before which they fled in terror. The interpreta- tion of the Magian to whom she applied was that she should be favoj-ed among women by bearing a son, to whom Ormuzd would make known his laws, and who should spread them through all the East. Against this son every power of evil would be in arms. Tried by afflictions and perils innumerable, the prophet would nlti- mately drive his foes before him like chaff, and receive, even in his own country, the ntmost honor. A king should be raised up who would accept his sacred writings as the word of truth, and make them the law of Persia ; every- where the new religion would prevail ; Zoroaster vs'ould 30 ANOTENT SPIRITUALISM. asueiid to the side of Onnuzd in the highest heaven, and his foes sink to Ahriman and hell. Alarmed lest the prophet whose advent was thus her- alded should prove the destroyer of their order, certain among the Magi conspired to slay him immediately upon his birth. Darias, whose ear they had gained, hecoming possessed with an evil spirit, rode off in search of the babe. Less fortunate than Herod, he discovered the objeot of his hatred, and, on lifting his sword to hew in pieces the infant Zoroaster, the arm that grasped the weapon was withered to the shoulder, and the king fled, convulsed with terror and agon}'. Disappointed in their opening plot, the Magi speedily took lieart a second time to attempt murder. On this o(;casion they were themselves the agents of their evil wishes. A fire having been kin- dled, the embryo reformer was stolen from his .mother's dwelling, and cast into the flames. Dogdo, seeking on all sides for her son, found him at length lying peacefully on his fiery couch, as if in a cradle, and carried him home uninjured. As he grew to manhood numerous other efforts were made to compass his death. He was placed in the way of savage bulls, was cast to wolves, and fed with victuals in wliich poison had been mingled. Through all this the spirits to whose service Zoroaster had been consecrated supported him unhurt. At thirty years of age his mission began. Quitting his native place he jour- neyed towards the court of Iran ; but being warned in a vision of an attack which the Magi and Devs combined waited to make upon him, he turned aside into the moun- tains of the Albordi. There the things which " eye had never seen " were revealed to his gaze. He was lifted up to the highest heaven, and beheld Ormuzd in his glory, encircled by the hosts of the angels. Food sweet as honey was given to him, on eating which his eyes were opened ASSmiA, CHALDEA, EQ TPT, AND PERSIA. 31 to all that passed in the heavens and the earth. The darkness of the future was made to him as day. He learned the inmost secrets of nature : the revolutions of worlds ; the influences of the stars ; the greatness of the six chief angels of God ; the felicity of the beatified ; the terrible condition of the sinful. He went down into hell, and there looked on the Evil One face to face. Finally, having received from Ormuzd the divine gospel which should illumine the East, he was bidden to return to earth, and teach it to all conditions of mankind. Celestial fire was given to him, to be kept burning as a symbol of the glory of God in every city where his teach- ings were received. Placed again upon the mountains of Albordi, or the Balkan, Zoroaster reared in a cavern an altar to the Creator, and kindled upon it the first sparkles of the sacred flame. As he resumed his journey a host of f urioiis Devs and Magi beset him, and sought to destroy the Zend-Avesta, the gospel which Ormuzd had committed to his care. These the prophet put to flight by pronounc- ing some verses from the saci-ed book. He continued his course to Balkh, and, being denied admittance to the king, cleft the roof of the palace, and descended into the midst of the court. All save the monarch himself fled in terror; The king caused them to reassemble, and Zoroas- ter, encircled by a ring of courtiers and Magi, expounded with vehement eloquence the doctrines he had been sent upon earth to spread. The Magicians present then endeav- ored to confound him with the learning of which their muids were the repositories ; but the prophet solved with the utmost ease the most abstruse problems of their science, and broke through every mental net that could be spread. Hereupon the monarch declared himself a convert to the new religion, and was followed by others of his court. Many Persians, however, including the 32 ANCIENT SPIBITUALISM. whole body of the Maj^i, were sth-red to rage by the thought that a single daring and snceessfnl reformer should suo'ceed in subverting beliefs which had endured froni an antiquity almost immemorial. For years the prophet's history is that of attempts on the part of ene- mies to destroy his life and credit, and of the miracles by which he pat their rage at defiance. At length the good cause triumphed. Opposition was beaten down, and Zoroaster became to the Persians what, at a yet more ancient date, Moses had been to Israel. His law, like that of the Hebrew prophet, was at once theological and civil. -The portion remaining to us of the Zend-Avesta, or Living Word, has three grand divisions, the Izesclme, the Visfercd, and the Vendidad. These again are parted into sections too numerous to be here mentioned. A Litany, a Liturgy, and a general code of laws are among the matters included. Prayers are di'awn up for even the most trifling occasions. On cut- ting hair or nails; before makhig pastry; after sneezing; on seeing a leprous person, mountains, a cemetery, a city, tJie sea ; on killing cattle ; on killing vermin ; and at a tliousand other times verbose petitions are to be reiterated by tlie devout. The theology of Zoroaster is far more tolerant than that of the Calvinistic section of Christendom. The eternal hell to which all but the elect arc to be consigned makes no appearance in his religion. Even Ahriman and his devils are in the end to be pardoned and restored. The .Creator, he teaches, formed togetlier with the world Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and the evil principle, These, with their respective Jiosts, shall contend on the battle-ground of the universe for a space of twelve thou- sand years. At the end of this period comes a conflict like the Christian Armageddon, in which Ahriman and ASSYBIA, CHALDEA, EGYPT, AND PERSIA. 33- his subordinates are utterly overthrown. The Evil One hereon repents, and, in presence of the Eternal, enters into a solemn league of amity with Ormuzd. «Hell itself is purged, and through all creation sin and sorrow are annihilated. I may mention that Zoroaster condemns all men, even the best, for a space to his Inferno ; but none are to be chastised beyond their deserts, and not even the vilest eternally. Such a revelation was of a truth spiritual and sublime. Zoroaster's place is high above that of Mahomet in the ranks of the founders of faiths. The disciples of the Koran did indeed vanquish and subvert to a newer creed the disciples of the Zend-Avesta, but the event was no miracle^ When in the seventh century after Christ this conquest took place, the Zoroastrian system had endured for near twelve hundred years. As shaped by the found- er its moral teachings wei-e pure and beautiful, and its idea of the Divine One high and just. But with the pass- ing of centuries abuses began, like foul parasites, to cling to and mar the noble structure. As with all other systems of the ancient world, the evil portion of the unseen beings aroand us, having undermined with malignant patience, at length succeeded in overthrowing the work of the good. Aided by the unworthy servants to be found before all altars, they defaced with vice after vice the temples where constantly burned the sacred fire. Sensual indulgence, against which Zoroaster had launched his sternest anathemas, made foul the lives of his descend- ants. The adoration given at first to the Unseen Creator was lavished, in process of time, on the visible objects He had created. The sun, the stars, and the sacred fire were the gods of this new idolatry. Thus tlie great decay went on. The evil influences without worked mightily and with success. Licentiousness desecrated the temples ; 2* 34 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. human sacrifices began to make foul the altars. At last, when hypocrisy had replaced piety, and sensuality and sloth stood in the place of spiritual zeal, there poured down on Persia that ardent multitude of fanatics whom Mahomet's intolerant enthusiasm had inflamed. The choice was the Koran or the sword. Sapped already at all points by internal corruption, the edifice Zoroaster had reared basted to its fall. The few who refused to abjure their religion fied from Persia forever, or, remaining, were relentlessly put to death. At the present day the numerous Parsees scattered through Hindostan and other countries of the far East are the dispersed relics which remain of that once mighty and united brotherhood which revered the teachings of the " Golden Star." CHAPTER III. INDIA AND CHINA. " I HAVE seen," says Apollonius of Tyana, " the Brah- mins of India dwelling on the earth and not on the earth ; living fortified without fortifications ; possessing nothing, and yet everything." The " dwelling on the earth and not on the earth " alludes to their being frequently levitated. Apollonius had journeyed into Hindostan to seek admit- tance to the treasury of Indian wisdom. The supermundane! attainments of the Brahmins were displayed to him im- mediately that the object of his mission became known. He was brought into the presence of the chief sage of the caste, who addressed him in the following words : " It is INDIA AND OSINA. 35 the custom of others to inquire of those who visit them wlio they are, and for what purpose they come ; but with us the first evidence of wisdom is that we are not ignorant of those who come to us." Thereupon this clairvoyant re- counted to Apollonius the most notable events of his life ; named the families both of his father and of his mother, re- lated what the philosopher had done at Mgsd, described by what means Damis had become the companion of his journey ; and repeated all that they had heard and talked of by the way. Awed and humbled by knowledge so un- earthly, the astonished Greek earnestly besought to be ad- mitted to its secrets. After the usual length of waiting he became duly illuminated, and, returning, astonished Europe with his piercing clairvoyance and wondrous powers of healing. Lecturing at Ephesus the words sud- denly died upon his tongue. He bent forward amazedly, and gazing into space, exclaimed: "Strike — strike the tyrant!" Then, turning to the bewildered audience, he continued : " Domitian is no more — the world is delivered of its bitterest oppressor!" In the very day and hour when Apollonius beheld this vision at Ephesus was the despot assassinated at Rome. If a stranger acquired such gifts chiefly from a sojoiirn in the temples of the Erahmins, what must have been the spiritual wealth of those Brahmins themselves ? The aim of their religion was to lift the soul above the thi'aldom of the senses, and place it in unity with God. Like the Platonists they judged that the spirit is enveloped by a form of luminous ether — as the Yedas have it, " sukshonas- arira " — a finer body. A multitude of sensations per- plex, us, and these "buddhi,"or reason, was created to command. Sent into earthly life the soul migrates from body to body in a most marvellous and truly Pythago- rean manner. These incarnations ended, the spirit ap- 36 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. pears before Tamas, the Minos of the Brahmiiiical theol- ogy. As its actions have been righteous or unjust, so is it translated to the paradise of Indra, or condemned to various of the purifying hells. Final beatitude, accord- ing to the ideas of both Brahmin and Buddhist, consists in absorption into the Divine nature, and eternal union with God. By Europeans this creed is commonly regarded as be- tokening a species of annihilation ; but, although violent pains and pleasures vs^ould seem to be immortally banished from these Eastern "just spirits made perfect," the in- dividuality of each is unchangeably preserved. To the heavenly felicity of "Nirvana" but one path conducts — unceasing mortification of the spirit and the body. The laws of Menu minutely prescribe the inflictions which the devotee must endure. To. scorch in summer before the hottest fires ; to shiver naked in running streams in the depth of winter; to pass hours buried in ant-nests, or writhing on couches studded with numerous spikes ; to be clad in the bark of trees ; and have for food leaves and roots, and for drink impure water ; to deny the tongue its use; to swing suspended by hooks passed through the flesh of the back — these are some of the torments in which from immemorial antiquit}' Hindoo existences have been spent. In the day of Alexander of Macedon such penances flour- ished in full vigor, and they have continued unremittingly popular down to the present time. Brahmins and Buddhists alike teach that the Deity has repeatedly descended in human shape to purify the world. The Brahmins, howevei-, decline to recognize Buddha as one amongst these Avatars. They describe the deity whom the Buddhists worship as a species of demon permitted, at a time when the earth was filled with evil, to arise and- lead the wicked astray. Thus an irreconcilable enmity INDIA AND CHINA. 37 exists between the followers of the two great creeds. " Ey their fruits ye shall know them." Despite the holy horror of the Brahmins, the faith of the Buddhists is vastly more spiritual and elevated than their own. If a demon inspired it he had undeniably forgotten his condition, and was for the nonce masquerading as an angel of light. His teach- ings Christians cannot but recognize as wise and pure. The wasting of life in sacrifice is strictly forbidden, and even the blood of animals may not, on any pretext, be spilt. The faithful are earnestly entreated to live at peace with their fellow-men ; and to keep themselves, in the woi'ds of St. James, " pure and unspotted from the world." The eating of flesh is prohibited, and the doing injury to even the smallest creature which God's hand has formed held a sin. The Yedas and Puranas of the Brahmins Buddha altogether rejects, and reprobates these writings for their unholy advocacy of living sacrifices. By so stern a de- nunciation of the darker among its doctrines the more ancient sect of the Brahmins was moved to fury. They drove the converts of the new heresy from Hindostan proper, and relentlessly persecuted all who dared to re- enter that peninsula. But beyond the Granges, and east and north of the Himalayas, Buddhism waxed mightily. Overspreading and becoming the state religion of Nepaul, Thibet, and Afghanistan, of Birmah, China, Mongolia, and Japan, it stands at the present day foremost, as regards the number of devotees, among the great religions of the earth. That this splendid fabric is more imposingly vast than solidly real ; that in various of these lands, China and Birmah in especial, systems of unblushing foulness and hideous • cruelty usurp the pure name of Buddhism, are incontrovertible facts. But a faith that has had so unequalled an influence on the destinies of the East well deserves notice, aud the space can hardly be wasted that 38 ANCIENT SPIBITUALISN. is accorded to a brief resume of the beliefs prevalent among this mighty family of Spiritualists. An article of faith constantly iterated in the Buddhist writings is that departed souls have in all ages returned to our world. Like Milton, in his thousand-times quoted avowal, these scriptures say that " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." Countless numbers are continually ascending and de- scending on the missions of tlie gods. Some are the guardians of cities ; others of individuals ; others again haunt by "night caverns, forests, and all solitary spots. In describing these unseen beings every resource of the glowing imagination of tlie East is expended. They pass to and fro among men, wrapped with an ethereal veil, and thus conceal from earthly eyes their forms, a thou- sand times more beautiful than those of mortals. They are crowned with unfading flowers, and brilliant with all the glories of Paradise. The brightest of the stars are less clear and radiant than their eyes, and the white gar- ments in which they are robed emit the most delicious perfumes. Some are kindly, others fierce, but all wield the mightiest influence over the destinies of mankind. As was natural in the case of beings so attractively de- picted, and whose presence it is probable that spiritual tokens were continually making manifest, the mass of the people have in process of time come to adore them as divinities. At this day there are probably some hundreds of millions of deities set up in the niches of the Buddhist Pantheon. By the kindred sect of Brahma three hundred and thirty millions of these false gods are computed to be adored. INDIA AND CHINA. 39 We find in Thibet, where Buddhism flourishes in the fullest vigor, a startling copy of the ritual and ceremonies of the Roman Church. The priests are tonsured. The faithful have their rosaries for prayer, and tell the beads as zealously as any Spaniard. Monasteries have multlijlied to such a degree that monks and priests are held to be in number almost a moiety of the population. The priest- hood, magnificently robed, sometimes in yellow, some- times in purple and gold, pass on festival days to the temples, attended by bursts of barbaric music, canopied with banners, and surrounded by censers heavy with incense — the faithful, as the procession moves by, prostrat- ing themselves in the dust. Holy water is abundant throughout the temples, baptisms continually occur, and relics of saints are to be found everywhere. The priests are permitted housekeepers, " around whom," says Mr. Howitt, in his History of the Supernatural, " families un- accountably spring up, and are styled nephews and nieces." Indeed, so parallel are the customs, social and ecclesiasti- cal, to those of the Catholic Church, that, when first her emissaries obtained entrance to Tiiibet, two of their number, Fathers Griiber and Maffie, indignantly wrote home to accuse the devil of having " set up in that far land a most blasphemous mockery of the rites and parapherna- lia of the True Faith." In China of old the worship of a single Supreme Being seems to have obtained. Grradually falling from this original Theism, the adoration of the visible objects of creation, and of a host of invisible powers, became, in pro- cess of ages, the theological taints of the Celestials. Spirits presiding over the elements were recognized, and temples erected to each. Ancestors, too, were deified, and annual festivals instituted, at which the progenitors of the reign- ing monarch received the homage of that mighty empire 40 ANCIENT BPIBITUALISM. which in former clays their sceptres had swayed. "With the increase of idolatry abuses of every kind grew and multiplied, until, in the seventh century before Christ, China was eaten up with all imaginable error and cor- ruption. In the latter years of that century the reformer Lao-tse appeared. Spiritual faith had been almost extin- guished, and this present world was the only one of which the Chinese took heed. Lao-tse drew around him the few inquirers into the problems of futurity who still remained, and strove with their aid to awaken a longing after spiritual things in the bosoms of his countrj'^men. Perse- cuted vehemently, as all prophets of all eras and kingdoms have been, he fell into a disgust with his mission, and, shaking the dust of cities from his feet, retired to pass the remainder of his life in religious calm. Yet, although the laborer had turned back from the sowing of the seed, the harvest of such efforts as he had already made was iii no long time reaped. A religious awakening took place, and the sceptical and vicious public mind was stirred to its inmost depths. Then appeared Confucius, the great purifier of the morals of the empire, as Lao-tse had been of its metaphysics. He inculcated the necessity of honor- ing parents ; of being truthful in every business of life; of actively fulfilling all social and natural duties ; of keep- ing faith with others, and of rendering obedience to the laws of man and God. In his writings the most striking of the ancient Chinese legends are transmitted to modern times. These traditions speak like the Hebrew Scriptures of the fall of man, and the hurling down into misery and dark- ness of an angelic host who had rebelled against the Supreme. Lao-tse and Confucius are alike in their deep belief in the nearness of the spiritual world. All truth respecting the future state, says the former, has been brought down \ INDIA AND ORINA. 41 to man by the messengers of God. Prayer and self-denial are the charms which open the eyes of the mind to the spiritual beings aronnd as. Apparitions have occurred since the creation of the globe. Invisible to the dim eyes of the flesh, spirits, evil and good, constantly hover above the earth, checking or aiding the advancement of man. Tiie limitless nniverse constitutes but one family; earth, heaven, the spirits yet in the flesh, the spirits of the dead, form a single empire ordered by the eternal reason of Schang-ti. The beings ever near man watch constantly his deeds. Do we give way to evil, the evil spirits enter, asid become strong within us, by reason of their affinity to the darkness of our souls. If, despising temptation, we drive from us these demons, ministering angels constantly attend us, and cherish within our bosoms a light that gleams brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Such were the high and wise teachings of the two chief prophets of the Celestial Empire. They so far succeeded in their mission as to implant in Chinese bosoms a faith in the supermundane which, if anything, has grown stronger with the lapse of ages. Intercourse with the world of spirits is daily sought after in every temple of the greatest empire of the East. But, whatever the state of spiritual health may have been when the teachings of Lao-tse and Confucius had yet the eloquence of novelty, the present degradation of this unfortunate race appears almost irremediable. Guardian angels seem for a space to have abandoned the Chinese, and the whispers of demfms tempting to evil are the only messages from the Invisible listened to to-day. In China itself opportunities of observation are almost denied to Europeans, and the corruptions of the empire, though known to be extreme, are in great measure hidden. But in the cities of the Pacific seaboard of America, inundated of late years by 42 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. uncountable thousauds of the race I at present treat of, the whole measure of their gigantic wickednesses and dwarfish virtues may be observed. The most rapidly- enlargiug portion of San Francisco consists of a rookery of wretched dwellings styled the Chinese Quarter. There the vices which chroniclers shudder to name, and vfhich among even the most fallen of Eurojjean races lurk but by stealth in the darkest and foulest dens, walk abroad openly and unashamed. Murder is too common to excite more than the attention of a moment. Truth in rnan and chastity in woman are virtues equally unknown. The filth of the dwellings is such that hogs or polecats could scarcely be at ease within them. Children die in fright- ful numbers, or are placidly put out of the way should the parents find them inconvenient to keep. And with all this the Chinaman is frugal, gentle, industrious, and prepossessing in appearance and manners. But beneath the varnished outside crust a sink of iniquity is concealed. The refuse of Europe and America has been drawn to California and Utah by the thirst of gold, yet the veriest wretches among the white men stand amazed at the depths of iniquity to which their yellow rivals can, with- out compunction, descend. CHAPTEE IV. GEEECE AND EOME. I PASS now from Asia to Europe, and from the faint grandeur of the traditions preserved respecting the em- pires which were the mistresses of the ancient East to the OSEECE AND ROME. . 43 fuller and more reliable information possessed respecting those civilizations of the West enthroned by the Egean and upon the Tiber. The " glory that was Greece " is indeed irrecoverably extinct, and the " grandeur that was Rome " fallen into an almost hopeless decay. Empires have been founded, have flourished, and have perished, since the last of the Delphian Pythonesses drew a last response from ' the spirits whom she was appointed to serve. It was cen- turies anterior to the birth of Mahomet that the last pub- lic reading of the books of the Cumsean Sibyl took place in the temples of Rome. But the array of mighty spirits who shone with so immortal a lustre on the City of the Yiolet Crown, the City of tlie Seven Hills, and the lesser commonwealths and municipalities of the Grecian and Eoman dominions have bequeathed to us works in whose undying pages the actions and the thoughts, the worships and beliefs of the Italians of two thousand, and the Greeks of almost three thousand years ago, are as un- dyingly preserved. These great writers were, with few exceptions, believers in the return of tiie departed. Scarce- ly a poet or philosopher amongst them but, whilst busied with the things of this present world, had as active a faith in, and was as anxiously inquisitive respecting the things of the life to come. And the great historians of Greek times, Herodotus and Xenophon in especial, when giving account of apparitions or marvellously-fulfilled prophecies, do not present them as paradoxes which are to be received with wonder and distrust, but rather relate them as tru- isms known and accepted from time immemorial by the race for whom they wrote. Let me, in support of the ' views I have advanced, select some proofs of the extent to which belief in the presence of an eternal and invisi- ble order of things, side by side with this temporal and visible creation, prevailed amongst the Greeks. I shall 44 . ANCIENT SPIBITUALISM. open with the poets, in all nations the voices of the popular faith. " The ^ds," says Homer, ' ' like strangers from some foreign land, as- suming different forms, wander through cities, watching the injustice aud justice of men. There are avenging demons and furies who haunt the ill-disposed, as there are "gods who are the protectors of the poor." — Odyssey xvii. 475. Says Hesiod : " Invisible the gods are ever nigh, Pass through the mist, and bend the all-seeing eye. The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right Aweless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to their sight ; For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove This breathing world, the delegates of .Tove ; Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways. " — Works and Days. Elton's Translation, p. 32. It is Sophocles who supplies me with the following beautiful passage : " I fondly thought of happier days, whilst it denoted nothing else than my death. To the dead there ai-e no toils. They drink purer draughts, and con- tinually ascend higher." Can we term this aught but tlie spiritual teaching of the nineteenth century anticipated ? And hearken to Pindar : " But the good, enjoying eternal sunshine night and day, pass a life free from labor ; never stirring the earth by strength of hand, nor yet the crystal waters of the sea in that blessed abode, but with the honored of the gods all such as lived true lives, and took pleasure in keeping their faith, spend in the heavens a tearless existence." "Spirits," said Pythagoras, "announce to man secret things, and foretell the future. " The doctrine of Socrates was the same. ' ' Socra- tes thought that the gods knew all things, both what is said, what is done, and what is meditated in silence, are everywhere present, and give warnings to men of everything." — Memorab. i. 1. GREECE AND ROME. 45 The fragments that remain to ns of ^schylns ai'e throughout instinct with the mysteries of another world. Strange and appalling beings — the Titans and the Furies — move in shadowy procession across his pages. ITe loves to contemplate the supermundane, but it is the super- mundane in its gloomiest guise, " a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light is as darkness." From the grim sublimity of such tragedies as the Prometheus it is pleasant to turn to the more truly Greek beliefs pre- served in the plays and poetry of Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer, and in the philosophy of Plato. Homer and Sophocles have been already called as witnesses to the intensity of the Greek conviction of the nearness of spiritual things, and I shall content myself with describ- ing, l)y the aid of these and other great brethren of the guild of poets, the faiths which they represent as having prevailed in their age and land. The Greeks, then, saw gods everywhere. The eternal snows of Parnassns ; the marble temples of Athens glis- tening in the rays of a southern sun ; the thousand isles nestling in the blue waters of the Egean ; the fragrant groves where philosophers disputed ; the fountains shad- owed by plane-ti-ees ; the solemn fields of PlatsBa and Marathon — each and all of these had their attendant sprites. A thousand deities received homage in a thou- sand temples. Yet amidst this error the form of that One God, the Uncreated and the Supreme, whom Ciiristianity adores, was by the higher minds of the nation perceived " as in a glass, darkly." Socrates tanght that a single Deity governed the universe. " To the Unknown God " said the inscription which Paul found at Athens. The people, it is true, were not disposed to receive such a doctrine. To the light, lively Greek a pantheon of divini- ties was a mental necessity. From the picture of a single 46 ANOTENT SPIRITUALiaM. miglity Spi]-it controlling tlie destinies of creation, every- where present, yet everywhere unseen ; knowing all, yet known of none ; eternal, invisible, and incomprehensible, the multitude shrank in disgast. Gods who mingled visibly in the actions of man ; who clothed themselves with material forms to lead on to victory the hosts of the countries they cherished ; who shared the passions of humanity and sympathized with its infirmities ; who, while controlling the present, gave omens of the future of nations and individuals — these were the beings to whom, in love or fear, the Greek bowed down. His poets repre- sented one god as appearing angrily in the clouds, and hui'ling down thunderbolts into the midst of armies con- tending on the earth ; another as wandering in the shape of a beardless youth from city to city, and challenging men to contend with him on the Ij're which he loved ; this goddess as snatching from out the midst of the battle an endangered warrior of whose stately form she had beeome enamored ; that, as urging hei- celestial steeds from capi- tal to capital to stir up the surrounding- nations agaiiist a commonwealth that was the object of her hate. And the legends of these gods, which with the vulgar were objects of devout credit, were by the philosopher made the vehi- cles of a higher purpose — allegories for the delicate shad- owing forth of spiritual things. The sage had been struck by the thought that the soul perhaps came from an exist- ence in some distant and different world to be incarnated here, and he hid his idea in the lovely myth of the love and union of Cupid and Psyche. He saw that the great benefactors of mankind, the increasers of the world's stock of mental or physical power, were uniformly tor- mented by that world in life, and worshipped by it after death. Thus the legend of Prometheus and his theft of iire from heaven for the benefit of man, of his torture on QBEEGE AND ROME. 47 Moimt Caucasus, and uneonquerable defiance of the deity who oppressed him, of his mltimate deliverance and triumph, arose. So with all the fables of the Greeks. Through this beautiful mythology constantly breaks the radiance of the spiritual world, even as the eyes of Athe- nian actors gleamed through the openings of their masks. We learn from a hundred masterpieces of the intellect how untiring was that spirit of restless inquiry with which every people of Hellas searched into the secrets of the unseen. No city was founded, no army marched forth to battle, no vessels laden with emigrants set sail for Italy or Asia Minor without consulting the oracles of the gods. The fiery imagination, and the intellect at once subtle and vigorous of the Greeks, peculiarly fitted them for the reception of impressions from the invisible world. To the profounder realities of such intercourse, indeed, they seem never to have penetrated. The secrets hived in those imperishable temples where were celebrated the rites of the mystic Isis entered not into the philosophy of Hellas, or entered only through such men as Pythag- oras, who, scoffed at and persecuted in life, were revered and imitated by their countrymen after death. But although the more startling of spiritual phenomena were not among the Greeks things of daily occurrence, no race more generally impressionable to spiritual influence ex- isted in the ancient world. It is through the Grecian nature that the Grecian name has become immortal. Knowledge was not here, as in the great Asiatic empires, regarded as a lamp of inestimable rarity, to be carefully reserved for guiding the footsteps of a few, while the mass of their fellows wandered in darkness. Like the rain, it fell everywhere. The philosopher or poet, inspired consciously or unconsciously by the whispers of attendant spirits, hastened to publish to all men the ideas which 48 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. fermented in his brain. Inspired by the whispers of attendant sph-its ? Are not poets, philosophers, and indeed all geniuses, knowingly or unknowingly, the subjects of in- spiration from another world ? To what but the prompt- ings of numerous spirits influencing a single mighty imag- ination can be ascribed the marvellous creations which glow in the dramas of Shakespeare? From whence but the sphere of all light could proceed the divine gleams that crossed the brain of a Haphael? And the citizen of Attica was in respect of supremely-gifted countrymen peculiarly fortunate. For him the inspirations of a hun- dred minds had taken imperishable shape. "He saw," says Lord Macaulay, " the plays of Sophocles and Aristo- phanes, he walked amidst the friezes of Phidias and the paintings of Zeuxis ; he knew by heart the choruses of yEsehylus ; he heard the rhapsodist at the corner of the street reciting the shield of Achilles, or the death of Argus." And Homer, Jllschylus, and Zeuxis, Phidias and Sophocles alike inculcated with all the strength of their magnificent genius the constant interference of spirits ill the affairs of men ! Had the Greeks missed being a nation of Spiritualists it had indeed been a miracle. But, , save with such philosophers as those of the Atomic school, the belief in the immortality of the soul and the return of departed spirits to watch over those yet on earth was, as I have endeavored to show, deep and universal. Every nature fitted to be the instrument of the spirits was se- cluded with jealous care from influences prejudicial to such a mission, and consecrated as the life- long servant of a shrine of rat)re or less renown. The majority of such media were of the fairest portion of the fairer sex. A succession of virgins presided over the most renowned oracle of Greece, that of the Delphic god ; and received from another world the messages of prophetic import GBEEOE AND BOMB. 49 destined, now for common weaUhs, now for individuals. And besides that of Delphos a hundred oracles of lesser fame were scattered through Hellas. Even tiie smallest of these shrines blazed with jewels and gold, the gifts of crowds of anxious devotees. This ceaseless hunger for communion with the Unseen, and constant exposure to spiritual influence, had, as in all lands and ages, its dark no less than its glorious side. Human sacrifices some- times made horrible Grecian altars ; departed spirits were frequently elevated into imaginary gods. But the cor- ruption of the Greeks was not as the corruption of Nine- veh, Babylon, and Memphis. Brilliant virtues redeemed it, magnificent acts of heroism were inspired hy this inter- course with the unseen. " To night," said Leonidas to ^ the three hundred of Thermopylae, " we shall sup with the immortal gods." " On ! sons of the Greeks," was the bat- tle-cry of Marathon ; " above you the spirits of your fathers watch the blows which, to preserve their tombs from desecration, you strike to-daj'." Hundreds of well-attested instances have been handed down to us of the manner in which the oracles of Hellas were fulfilled. From these I shall select such as are not " only most striking in themselves, but best supported by outward evidence. As has been already mentioned, the Delphic Oracle far outstripped all competitors in the im- ; portance and truthfulness of its prophecies. Says Plutarch : " It would be impossible to enumerate all the instances in which the Pythia proved her power of foretelling events ; f and the facts of themselves are so well and so generally , known that it would be useless to bring forth new evidences. ^ Her answers, though submitted to the severest scrutiny, ( have never proved false or incorrect." And he relates, J amongst other proofs of his assertions, that she pre- j. dieted the eruption of lava and ashes with which Ve- 50 ANCIENT SPIBITaALISM. suvius overwhelmed the cities of Pompeii and Herculi neum. To Delphi sent CrcEsus of Lydia, when uneasy at tl rapid growth of the Persian power. He had previous] despatched ambassadors to the most renowned shrines c the age ; bidding thein demand of oracles on a certai day in what work the king was at the moment employee The replies from other temples are unknown, but thi from the Delphic god ran as follows : " See ! I number the sands : I fathom the depths of the ocean, Hear even the dumb ; comprehend, too, the thoughts of the silen] Now perceive I an odor, an odor it seemeth of lamb's flesh ; As boiling it seetheth ; commixed with the flesh of a tortoise ; I Brass is beneath, and with brass is it covered over. " The divination was in all respects complete. At th appointed hour Croesus had retired alone into an inne apartment of his palace, and there had indeed cut t pieces a lamb and a tortoise ; afterwai'ds cooking th flesh in a vessel of brass. Awed by the proof of superlii man knowledge which the Delphic Oracle vouchsafed, h sought by magnificent gifts to obtain the favor of th god. The embassy which bore his second question ha also in cliarge three thousand oxen, numerous gold an silver vessels, a golden lion, a hundred and seventy ingo' of the same metal, and a female statue, also in gold, an adorned w^ith girdle and necklace of incredible vabu Depositing these before tlie shrine of the god the ambai sadors of Croesus demanded whether it were well that li should march against the Persians. The oracle's responi ran thus : " If Crcesus pass the Halys he shall destroy great empire." Unconscious that the empire indicate was his own, Croesus already exulted in the thought ( subjugating Persia, and at once prepared for war. - GREECE AND ROME. 51 third ai)d yet more magnificent embassy bore from liiin a gift to every inhabitant of Delphi, and a demand whe- ther his rule should long continue. The oracle replied, "When a mule becomes the ruler of the Persian people, then, O tender-footed Lydian, flee to the rocky banks of the Hermos, make no halt, and care not to blush for thy cowardice." Croesus smiled at a pleasantry which appeared to him to confirm the impossibility of any interruption to that success which had attended the earlier actions of his life. At the head of a vast host he crossed the Halys, and, encountering the Persians under Cyrus, was made captive, his army annihilated, and his kingdom reduced to the condition of a province of the Persian Empire. In despair, he reproached the Delphic god foi* luring him to ruin by predictions utterly false. But the oracle replied that through his own carelessness in not seeking the name of the empire over whidi destruction impended was he brought low, and that with regard to the last of its responses Cyrus, the son of a Median princess and a Per- sian of humble condition, was the ruler prefigured under the type of the mule. Xerxes, the monarch whom the combined fleets of Greece vanquished at Salamis, crossed the Hellespont at the head of the mightiest host Europe had ever seen. Dismayed by the' myriads who marched under the orders of the Persian king, the Athenians sent to beg counsel from the chief oracle of Hellas. The Delphic god replied : " Unfortunates, wherefore seat yourselves ? Fly to the verge of the earth: forsake your houses and the lofty crags of your wheel-shaped city. For neither does the head abide firm, nor does the body, nor the lowest feet, nor therefore the hands, nor aught of the middle remain — all is ruined. For fire and griding Mars, driving the 52 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. Syriac car, overturn her, and destroy many other tower ing cities, not yours alone; and to the devouring flam( deliver many temples of the immortals, which even iiov stand dripping with sweat, shaken with fear. Dowij from the topmost roof trickles black blood, token of wo« unavoidable. Begone then, from the shrine, and pour the balm of courage into the wound of calamity." This prediction, and the counsels which accompanied it, reduced the Athenians to despair. No city, ancieni or modern, was ever more beloved by its inhabitants tharl that of the Violet Crown. To die, sword in hand, in its defence, seemed a doom far preferable to a flight, the citizens knew not whither. They sent a second embassy! humbly beseeching that the innnortal gods would not command them to leave to destruction and desecration their hearths, and the tombs of their fathers. But the Pythoness replied that Heaven knew not how to change its purpose, and that the decrees of the deities were as adamant. Tet for the comfort of the suppliants she was inspired to add : " When all is taken that Cecrops' hill in itself contains, and the fastnesses of sacred Cithffiroii, wide-knowing Jove gives unto the goddess Triton-boni a wooden wall alone to abide inexpugnable ; this shall save yoii and your children. Await not quietly the throng of horse and foot that invades your land, but turn your backs and withdraw : the time shall be when you too will stand against the foe. Godly Salamis ! thou shalt see the sons of women fall, whether Ceres be scattered or collected." Never was prediction more exactly fulfilled. The mighty host of the Persians, having disembarked from their ships at the nearest point available for an attack, marched against Athens. As the heads of the enemy's columns came in sight the Greek galleys put to sea. The GREECE AND ROME. 53 city was deserted, save by a few desperate patriots who, knowing that the Acropolis had once been encircled by a hedge, and vainly imagining that this might be the wooden wall of which the god had spoken, determined to defend that portion of Athens to the last. They fell to a man, fighting with the valor common to the Hellenes of the age. Atliens was entered by the Persians, and, after having been plundered, destroyed by fire. Then the invading host returned through Attica, burning and pillaging what- ever lay in the way. Expeditions were despatched for the sacking of distant towns ; and finally the Asiatics returned to their ships. OfE Salamis, in accordance with the prophecy of the oracle, the combined navies of Greece encountered them ; and, by reason chiefly of the burning valor which animated the Athenian poition of the fleet, and the skill with which Tiiemistocles, the Athenian admiral, manoeuvred his ships, a complete victory was obtained, and the freedom of Greece achieved. An oracle of BcEotia had, we learn, predicted this event in equally clear terms with that of Delphi. I have mentioned that expeditions were despatched by Xerxes for the destroying of towns distant from the line of jnarch adopted by the main body of his armj'. Amongst other expeditions one of four thousand men marched to pillage the shrine of Delphi, and bring into the treasury of the Persian king the vast riches collected there. Unprepared for any effectual defence, the alarmed priest- hood demanded of the oracle whether they should flee with the treasures of the temple to some more secure spot, or bury those treasures in the precincts of the shrine it- self. The deity replied that " he would himself preserve his property, and forbade even the least of the offerings consecrated to him to be moved." On this all, save the Pythoness, and a few of the boldest dwellers in Delphi, 54 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. departed to seek refuge in the monntains. Speedily the Persian legion canie in sight, and passed forward exult- inglv to the pillage of the wealthiest fane of the ancient ■world. The temple at first remained silent as the grave. When, however, the barbarians sought to ascend the crag on which it stood, clouds suddenly gathered overhead, froiri which unceasing flashes of lightning broke ft^i'th, accom- panied by deafening thunders. Then a superhuman voice was heard to proceed from the shrine, and hiige rocks, loosened from the summits of Parnassus, crashed through the ranks of the invaders, and levelled them like grass. Appalled, the remnant turned and fled. On this the Delphians gathered ; and, hastily snatching weapons, de- scended from their hiding-places and pursued the fugi- tives for miles. Such was the slaugliter occasioned in the Persian ranks by lightnings, falling crags, and the spears of the Greeks, that of the whole four thousand scarcely a man escaped. The foregoing instances are gathered from Herodotus. I ha\'e chosen them because, occurring (save in the case of Crossus, the narrative of whose intercourse with the Delphian Oracle other historians confirm) at no great dis- tance from his own time, the Father of History was well qualified to judge of the truth or falsehood of these por- tions of his work. And, when not deceived by evidence merely hearsay, no ancient author adhered more rigidly to facts. Says Professor G-aisford, his translator : " It can hardly be doubted that one who took such pains to ascertain the truth would be equally scrupulous in offering nothing but the truth to his reader ; and indeed, strange as it may sound to those who hare been In the habit of hearing Herodotus stigmatized as a liar by persons who ought to know better, there is probably no author, ancient or modern, the inspired writers excepted, who deserves to be placed before him in the scale of truth and accuracy. " — Introduction^! p. xxxi. GREECE AND ROME. 55 Pausanias, Plutarch, aud a somewhat less trustworthy- writer, Diodorus Siculus, are equally full of the super- mundane, and equally emphatic in asserting the veracity of the narratives they give. In the Laconics of Pausanias is to be found one of the weirdest and most picturesque stories of Pagan times ; that of his namesake, the king of Sparta, who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Plataea, and Cleonice, the Byzantine maid. Cleouice, slain unknowingly by the monarch who had enslaved her, was thenceforward the haunter of his life, appearing when any great evil menaced Pausanias, and predicting the woe that was about to happen. Plutarch also has the tale. In modern times it has furnished the groundwork for one of the noblest passages of Byron's '' Manfred." " The Spartan monarch drew From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit An answer, and his destiny — he slew That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, And died unpardoned — though he called in aid The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused The Arcadian Evocators to compel The indignant shadow to depose her wrath. Or fix her term of vengeance ; she replied In words of dubious import, but fulfilled." The prediction to which the poet refers was that in which Cleonice indicated the ghastly manner of her slayer's death. Pausanias, after rendering mahy eminent services to the state, was detected in a conspiracy against it, and fled to a temple for sanctuary. In Lacedsemon the kings were merely elective magistrates, such as in more modern times have been the Doges of Venice. The oliganihy of Sparta assembled, and, having deposed and outlawed their monarch, caused every opening of the tem- ple in which he had taken refuge to be hermetically 56 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. closed. Thus entombed alive, the unhappy Pausanias perished of want. Space forbids that I should quote more than a verj few of the instances to be gathered from Plutarch and Dio- dorus. The remarkable narrative which succeeds is given by tlie former writer. " Pan is Dead." In the reign of Tiberius, certain mariners had set sail from an Asiatic port for one in Italy. As they lay becalmed off tlie Echinades, an unearthly voice was heard tlirice to call upon one Tharau's, an Egyptian of the company, and, after the third time, to bid liim tliat, as the ship passed Palodes, he should declare loudly that " the great Pan was dead." Thainus, having consulted with his fel- lows, resolved that, should a steady gale be blowing when tlie vessel reached Palodes, lie would journey on silently ; bat that, if becalmed there, he would speak that which the voice had commanded. As the marhiers gained the charmed spot, the wind again died away, and the bark lay idly on a smooth sea. Then Thamus, looking forth towards Palodes, cried with a loud voice, " 'O fieywi Uav jiOxrtjKe" " The great Pan is dead." This he had no sooner done than there broke forth the sound of many voices, uttering mighty lamentations, intermingled, however, as it seemed, with shouts of triumph. Then a breeze sprang up, and the sails of the vessel filling, Thamus and his companions were borne rapidly away. The date assigned to this oc- .currence is that of our Saviour's death. ' Tiberias, says Plutarch, was extremely concerned to discover the truth or falsehood of this - narrative, and, having made searching inquiries, fully satisfied himseli that these events had taken place exactly as described. According to Diodorus, Althseraenes, the son of a king GREECE AND ROME. 57 of Crete, was warned by the oracle that he would unknow- ingly slay Catrens, his father. Dreading the fulfilment i)f the prophecy, he quitted his country, and, settling at Eliodes, hoped to escape so horrible a fate. In course of time, his father became extremely old, and, longing to see his son once agahi before he died, set sail for the place of his exile. Having landed during the night, a fray comr inenced between his attendants and some persons of the town. The unhappy Althseraenes, coming angrily forth to end the riot, slew one of the strangers in the heat of passion, and looking on the face of the dead man per- ceived his father. From the same writer we learn that Philip of Macedon, when he consulted an oracle respecting his ambitious de- sign of attacking Persia, was bidden to remember that the ox being crowned and garlanded implied his end to heat hand, and that men stood prepared to sacrifice him. This enigma Philip's wish made father to the thought that he should seize and slay the monarch of the Persians. He began therefore mighty preparations for war. But the death foreshadowed was in reality his own. As, clothed with more than royal magnificence, and having his image borne before him in company with the statues of the gods, he entered the theatre at ^gea, Pausanias, an esquire of his body-guard, suddenly drew a dagger, and struck him to the heart. I cannot better close this portion of ray subject than with a reference to the spiritual guidance vouchsafed to the noblest mind of all Pagan antiquity. Socrates, as every one in the slightest degree acquainted with Grecian history must be aware, was from his earliest youth the object of unearthly monitions. A " divine voice " (as he himself terms it), attended him ; not to urge to good, but to restrain from evil. It was equally busy in the most 3* 68 ANCIENT BPIBITVALISM. momentous and the most trifling actions of life. A Athens, at Ooi-inth ; when he lifted a spear against th enemies of his country ; when he bore with meekness th revilings of the shrewish Xantippe ; when, in the heigh of his success, he stood surrounded by Plato, Alcibiades and others of the noblest youth of Greece ; when, old feeble, and persecuted, he calmly prepared himself to die the voice was ever with him. It did not advise respecting the conduct of any action in which he was engaged, bu it uniformly warned him against taking any step whicl might have proved prejudicial or evil. This has beer made the ground for interpreting the history of the un earthly monitor as nothing more than an allegorical repre- sentation of conscience. But the conscience of Socrates was unlikely to warn him of unknown dangers awaiting himself or his friends ; nor, when any of those friends meditated a crime, was it probable that it would perceive and endeavor to prevent it. Tet Xenophon testifies that Socrates obtained from the voice and imparted to his intimates many foreshadowings of perils which awaited them, and was never convicted of error. Yet Plato relates that Timarchus, a noble Athenian, being at a feast in company with Socrates, and rising to depart, was per- emptorily bidden by the latter to reseat himself. " Tor," said he, " the spirit has just given me the accustomed sign that some danger menaces you." Some little time after Timarchus offered again to be gone, and was again stayed by Socrates, who had heard the warning repeated. Taking advantage, at length, of a moment when the phi- losopher was absorbed in earnest discourse, Timarchus stole off unobserved, and a few minutes afterwards com- mitted a murder, for which, being carried to execution, his last words were " that he had come to that untimely end by not obeying the spirit of Socrates." GBEEOE AND ROME. 59 As the Qum'terly Review once remarked, it is impossi- ble to avoid being struck by the extreme similarity be- tween certain points of the careers of Socrates and Joan of Arc. The Greek sage and the French heroine were alike accustomed from early childhood to be controlled by heavenly voices, which none but themselves could hear. Both rendered to these counsellors the most im- plicit obedience. In either case the voices approved their unearthly origin by undeniable tokens. The subject of such monitions saw at times in vision the radiant beings by whom he or she was guided. Each demon- strated by a noble and blameless life the heavenly nature of those beings, and the purity of their teachings. Both were warned by the invisibles who guarded them that their careers would close in the reception of the crown of martyrdom. Both, amid the execrations of the mob, passed by roads terrible to ti"avel from a world that was not worthy of them. Here the parallel ends. How im- measurably beneath the Greece of two thousand three hundred years ago was the Europe of the fifteenth cen- tury after Christ ! Socrates, though execrated as the attempted overturner of his country's i-eligion, was suf- fered to pass away in the gentlest manner consistent with a sudden end. Indeed, tlie death he died can hardly be described as a violent one, or bitter to be endured. Sur- rounded by attached friends, he took from a weeping executioner the cup of poison, and, draining it, departed calmly and almost painlessly, to be with the immortals. Joan, reviled, tormented, and immodestly used, endured for months a bitterness deeper than the bitterness of any death, and in death the utmost agony of which the human frame is capable. Lied to and abused, mocked by ene- mies with false hopes of life, and by pretended friends with false hopes of succor, her torment of suspense was 60 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. only ended by that other agony of the stake, of whicl even to think is to sicken with horror. From the fate of Socrates no less than that of the French heroine may we reap the lesson of the blindness of man in all ages to spiritual liglit ; but no other narrative in the world's repertory reveals so raournfully and awfully as that of the saintly maiden of Domi'emy the unrelieved darkness of those depths to which, when it misconceives the origin of that light, humanity can descend. In Eomo we find reproduced the spiritual beliefs preva- lent among the Greeks, but darkened and made more severe, to accord with the darker and severer natures of the masters of the ancient world. The poets, like the poets of Greece, crowd their pages with portraits of the dwellers in the invisible. Virgil is as rich in the spiritual as Homer^Ovid, Horace, and Lucan deal throughout iu miracle. As in Hellas the gods descend among men, and are described as displaying passions akin to the pas- sions of man. But love, which was in Greece the chief motive for the visits of these deities— who, like their brethren described in Genesis, " saw the daughters of men that they were fair" — was in Rome altogether absent. To wreak their wrath on nations which had offended them ; to lead on to conquest people that stood high in their favor; to enjoy the tumult and carnage of the battle-field — these are the motives by which the Italian poets represent the truly national among their gods as in- variably actuated in their descents to earth. The lust of pleasure is supplanted by the Inst of blood. It is such a difference as exists between the good-natured amorous Zeus worshipped by the Greeks, and the stern majesty of. the Jupiter of the Roman people. Yet from Greece came the whole of the pliilosophy and arts of Rome. The oracles of Greece were revered OBEECE AND ROME. 61 in Italy, and up to the very time of their becoming finally silent did emperora and senates send to consult them. As Horace tells us: "Capta ferum victorem cepit." Greece, enslaved by the swords of the Komans, ruled yet by supremacy of mind. Nor should we forget the peculiar connection between the civilization of Italy and that far more ancient one whose almost immutable relics sK)wly moulder by the Nile. The metaphysics of Rome were those of Egypt, brightened by a sojourn in Greece. The mesmeric treat- ment of the sick practised in Roman temples was but an apish reflex of that deep knowledge of magnetic and spirit- iial phenomena possessed by Egyptian priests. Nay, the most celebrated of all Roman miracles, the supernatural cure by the Emperor Vespasian of a blind man and a paralytic, was wrought on Egyptian ground. This event, which two great contemporary historians, Pliny, and the sceptical Tacitus,4iave described from the narratives of eye- witnesses, and which David Hume, in his Essay on Miracles, declares the best-attested instance of the supermundane in all history, took place in that magnificent Egyptian city named after Alexander the Great. I quote the story : " Vespasian spent some months at Alexandria. During his resi- dence in that city a number of incidents out of the ordinary course of nature seemed to mark him as the particular favorite of the gods. A man of mean condition, born at Alexandria, had lost his sight by a de- fluxion on his eye. He presented himself before Vespasian, and, fall- ing prostrate on the ground, implored the emperor to administer a cure for his blindness. He came, he said, by the admonition of Serapis, the god whom the superstition of the Egyptians holds in the highest vene- ration. The request was that the emperor vrith his spittle would con- descend to moisten the poor man's face and the balls of his eyes. ■ Another, who had lost the use of his hand, inspired "by the same god, begged that he would tread on the part affected. Vespasian smiled at a request so absurd and wild. The wretched objects persisted to implore Ms aid. He dreaded the ridicule of a vain attempt ; but the 62 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. importunity of the men, and the crowd of flatterers, prevailed upon the prince not entirely to disregard their petition. " He ordered the physicians to consider whether the blindness of the one, and the paralytic affection of the other, were within the reach of human assistance. The result of the consultation was that the organs of sight were not so injured but that, by removing the film or cataract the patient might recover. As to the disabled limb, by proper applica- tions and invigorating medicines, it was not impossible to restore it to its former tone. The gods perhaps intended a special remedy, and chose Vespasian as the instrument of their dispensations. If a cure took place the glory of it would add new lustre to the name of Caesar ■ if otherwise, the poor men would bear the jests and raillery of the people. Vespasian, in the tide of his affairs, began to think that there was nothing so great and wonderful — nothing so improbable or even incredi- ble which his good fortune could not accomplish. In the presence of a prodigious multitude, all erect with expectation, he advanced with an air of severity, and hazarded the experiment. The paralytic hand recovered its functions, and the blind man saw the light of the sun. By living witnesses who were actually on the spot both events are con- firmed at this hour, when deceit and flattery can hope for no reward." The hour alluded to was that at which Tacitus wrote. Vespasian was dead, and the imperial tiara had passed for- ever from his family. Nothing remained to impede the exposure of deception, if deception there had been ; nothing could make those witnesses with whom the histo- rian conferred fear to speak the truth or hope to profit by a lie. It deserves to be mentioned that Strabo and Sueto- nius, as well as Pliny, confirm this narrative of the great- est of the Homan annalists. A species of apparition, of which I have myself been made the subject, occurred to this same emperor. He saw- in a temple at Alexandria the double of one Basilides, then living, and known to have been at a considerable distance from the place. Here is the tale as Tacitus relates it : " Vespasian was now determined to visit the sanctuary of Serapis, in order to consult the god about the future fortune of the empire. Hav- ing given orders to remove all intruders, he entered the temple. While ho adored the deity of the place he ' perceived, in the midst of GREECE AND ROME. 6» his devotions, a man of principal note amongst the Egyptians advanc- ing behind him. Th3 name of this person was Basilides, who, at that moment, was known to be detained by illness at the distance of many miles. Vespasian inquired of the priests whether they had seen Basilides that day in the temple. He asked a number of others whether they had met him in any part of the city. At length, from messengers whom he dispatched on horseback, he received certain intel- ligence that Basilides was not less than fourteen miles distant from Alexandria. He therefore concluded that the gods had favored him with the preternatural vision ; and from the import of the word Basi- lides (royal), he inferred an interpretation of the decrees of heaven in favor of his future reign." Pliny the youBger has preserved to us numerous ac- counts of apparitions, among which stories that respecting the philosopher Athenodorus is the most remarkable. Athenodorus, having occasion on his arrival at Athens to purchase a house, a large and fair one was shown him. The lowness of the terms demanded being out of all pro- portion with the size and beauty of the mansion he per- ceived that there was some mystery in the case. He inquired, and received the history of the events which had driven all former tenants from the house. At midnight a noise was heard, and the ghastly figure of a skeleton passed through the various apartments, dragging with it a rusty chain. Athenodorus, undaunted by the story, philosophically bought the mansion, and installed himself therein. As, at midnight, he sat writing, the spectre appeared, and, clanking its irons, motioned that he should follow. The philosopher calmly signed to it to wait, and proceeded with his task. At leug'th, when the entreaty had been several times repeated, he rose, and intimated himself ready to follow where it desired. On this the spirit preceded him to an inner court of the mansion and there vanished. Athenodorus laid some leaves and grass to mark the spot, and returned to his studies. The next morn- ing he sought the magistrates of the city. A search was 64 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. instituted, and a skeleton loaded with rusty chains discov- ered beneath the place marked. This having been in- terred in a proper place, the philosopher placidly pursued his labors in the house he had purchased, unvisited for the future by such grisly guests. Trajan, says Macrobius, previous to his invasion of Parthia, was invited to consult the oracle of Heliopolis, where the method of inquiry was by sealed packets.- Incredulous as to the power of the deity he forwarded a packet, and desired a sealed reply. This arriving, and being opened, a blank paper only was found. The cour- tiers expressed amazement, but the emperor confessed that, being sceptical as to the wisdom of the oracle, he had placed nothing in his own packet but a blank sheet. The response was therefore apt, and Trajan now confessed his curiosity and mystification by sending ambassadors to demand whetlierfrom his war in Parthia he should return safely to Rome. A vhie cut in pieces and wrapped in a linen cloth was sent him, as symbolizing the manner of his return. He died in the East, and even so were his reiTiains brought back to Italy. I shall cite now some instances of phenomena, strik- ingly similar to the phen(jraeiia occurring in our own day. The handling of live coals without injury, a manifestation which has frequently occurred to myself, was witnessed also in these ancient times. Strabo and Pliny unite in assuring us that in the reign of Augustus the priests of a temple at the foot of Mount Soracte dedicated to the god- dess Fcronia had been known to walk bare-footed over great quantities of glowing embers. The same ordeal, says Strabo, was practised by the priestesses of the god- dess Asta Bala in Cappadocia. That a mode of convers- ing with spirits by means of the alphabet was known and used in Roman times, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus proves by the following narrative : OBEEOE AND ROME. 65 " In the days of the Emperor Valens, A.D. 371, some Greek oaltivators of theurgy, who in those days usurped the name of philosophers, were brought to trial for having attempted to ascertain the successor to the throne by means of magical arts. The small table or tripod whioh they had used for this purpose was produced in court, and, on being sub- mitted to the torture, they gave the following account of their proceed- ings: " ' We constructed, most venerable judges, this small ill-omened table which you behold, after the likeness of the Delphian tripod, with wood of laurel, and with solemn- auspices. Having duly consecrated it by muttering over it secret spells, and by many and protracted manipula- tions, we succeeded at last in making it move. Now, whenever we con- sulted it about secrets, the process for making it move was as follows : It was placed in the centre of a house which had been purified by Arabian incense on every side; a round dish, composed of various metallic substances, being, with the needful purifications, set upon it. On the circular rim of this dish the four and twenty characters of the alphabet were cut with much art, and placed at equal intervals, which had been measured with perfect exactness. A person clad in linen garments, in slippers also made of linen, with a light turban wreathed about his head, and carrying branches of the sacred laurel in his hand, having propitiated the deity who gives the responses, in certain pre- scribed forms of invocation, according to the rules of ceremonial science, sets this dish upon the tripod, balancing over it a suspended ring attached to the end of a very fine linen thread, which also had pre- viously undergone a mystic initiation. This ring darting out, and striking at distant intervals the particular letters that attract it, makes out heroic verses, in accordance with the questions put, as com- plete in mode and measure as those uttered by the Pythoness, or the oracles of the Brauchids. " ' As we were, then and there, inquiring who should succeed the present emperor, since it was declared that he would be a finished character in every respect, the ring, darting out, had touched the sylla- bles 6 E O, with the final addition of the letter A (making Theod), some one present exclaimed that Theodoras was announced as appointed by fate. Nor did we pursue our inquiries any further into the matter, for we were all satisfied that Theodoras was the person we were asking for.' " It is amusing to note the pedantic minuteness with which these ahcient Theurgists detail the rites and invo- cations throua-h which their intercourse with another world 66 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. was, as they supposed, obtained. Of the fact that their intense desire for communion with spirits alone attracted spirits to them, tliej seem to have been blissfully ignorant. It is quite within the limits of probability that genuine messages from the spirit-world would be obtained by a circle which should repeat with the same solemn faith the " derry down " chorus of the Druids, the nursery rhyme of Mother Hubbard, or fhe Theosophical nonsense of the present day. The story has a tragical and remarkable sequel. The tyrant Valens, fearing for his throne, caused Theodoras, though a man eminent for his virtues and attainments, to be at once put to death. Nor was his jealous alarm satis- fied with a single victim. The Pagan philosophers were also judicially murdered, and as many whose names com- menced with the letters " Theod " as the emperor could get into his power. Yet the prediction was, in spite of all, fulfilled. Theodosius, whose name was similar to the letters of the answer, so far as that answer had been suf- fered to proceed, succeeded Valens upon the throne of the "West. The story of Marcellinus, I may add, is con- firmed by the early church historians, Socrates Scholasti- cus, Sozomen, etc. In view of that similarity of phenomena, as an instance of which the foregoing narrative is given, a passage to be found in Tertullian is very striking. The Christian father thus reproaches the Pagans of his age : " Do not your magicians call ghosts and departed souls from the shades below, and by theii- infernal charms represent an infinite number of delusions ? And how do they perform all this, but by the assistance of evil angels and spirits, by which they are able to make stools and tables prophesy ! " The object of Tertullian's book, like that of his whole life, being to destroy Paganism, it was natural that he should OBEECB ANDBOME. 67 represent these things as the work of fiends. "Whether evil spirits or good were concerned the fact tliat fifteen centuries ago seances were held with tables remains a most remarkable one. Space fails me to describe the omens that attended CiBsar's death, and how the apparition of that Caesar was beheld by Brutus at Philippi ; how Caracalla was fore- shown his assassination in a dream; and Sylla, the night before he died, saw in a vision the manner of his end. These, moreover, are things that have a thousand times been described. Nor can I find room to tell of the spiritual in the lives of Scipio, Marius, Cicero, Antony, Augustus, and other famous Romans. I have depicted now intercourse with another world, as it existed in the various ancient nations, and have given the principal and best-authenticated instances to be found in the history of each people ; but, were the whole of the supermundane occurrences that old historians relate to be collected and commented upon, we might suppose with the apostle that "the world itself could hardly contain the books which should be written." With some remarks on Koman Spiritualism, in its relation to the social condition of the people, I shall therefore close. The worst and most frightful time of heathen mis- government was that of the twelve Caesars. During the whole of this period the foulest vices and the most hideous cruelties stalked abroad arm-in-arm. Nothing in the nineteen centnries of the Christian era : neither the Italy of Alexander the Sixth, nor the England of Charles the Second, nor the IVance of the Regent Philip, has yet been found to eqnal the Rome of Nero and Tiberius. The hard, systematic, unblushing vices and ferocities of the Italians of that age remain unapproachable. As the Christian revelation is the highest of all gospels, so 68 ANCIENT SPIRITUALISM. the time of the dawning of that light was tlie darkest i the history of the world. And why liad earth fallen ( low ? An impartial studeTit of history will answer, as answer, because of the corruptions of those wlio served i instruments for intercjourse with spiritual beings. " T are of your father, the Devil, and do his works," said Chrij to the Judean priesthood of BLis day. Tlie same reproac might be applied to the priesthood of Imperial Eom| and more or less, as I have endeavored to show, to ever hierarchy of the ancient world. Only spirits yet moi: evil than themselves could manifest through beings & cori-upted as these consecrated mediums gradually bt came. Every wicltedness that can be committed b beings merely human was on the head of tlie wretehe( '■ sacerdos " of the Eoman Empire. It had been founi in a long course of ages that the true spiritual phenom ena were exhaustive, infrequent, and difficult to obtain Attention was therefore directed to simulating them b; falsehood, and priest after priest toiled with a nusdirecte( ingenuity to invent or perfect the machinery of impos ture. By the time of Augustus this system of deceit wa in full flow ; it continued so for centuries, decaying onh with the decay of the Roman power itself. Exposures doubtless, were less frequent than in our own age. Th( medium power of the ancient world was chiefly to b( found in tlie ranks of the priesthood ; it is chiefly to b( found outside those ranks at present. Thus the wholj weight of sacredness and authority might of old be alliec with fi-aud ; but, although fewer and further between, ex posui'es did come, and their effect was exceedingly great The lives and teacliings of the priests, too, were causes ol endless scandal aiid demoralization. What were tlie in telligent to think of a man whose life was one long careei of hypocrisy and vice, interrupted only when he wai GREECE AND ROME. 69 asleep or drunk ; whose temple was filled with contri- vances for palming off the vilest impostiu'es on a credu- lous public ; and who, frqm a succession of false pre- tences to medial powers, had come at last almost to dis- believe iu thoir existence ? What were they to think of the deities whom these priests were appointed to serve- deities who cried constantly for human sacrifices ; who saw their temples made receptacles for the foulest vice, and smiled approvingly ; who gave teachings inciting to every form of immorality and bloodshed? The intelli- gent stigmatized the priests as utterly worthless impostors, whose deities were the hideous creations of their own foul minds. They cried, as so many in our own day have done, that religion was from first to last a lie ; that there was no God, neither any immortality for man. Suddenly from out this chaos rose the foundations of the first Christian Church. It was founded, as in the succeeding part of this work I shall seek to show, by men to wliom spiritual signs and wonders were as their daily bread, and whose pure minds held communion only with the benefi- cent portion of the dwellers in another world. To the Spiritualism of the Christian era will my next chapters be devoted. It suffices to say, iu concluding this description of communion with another sphere as pi'actised in Pagan times, that the corruptions through which the pretensions to mediumship of the Roman and other priesthoods ulti- mately came to be received with such derision are ram- pant among the mediums of our own age. How often do we see men— aye, and women — who, although possessed of medial powers, have degraded themselves and the noble cause to which they should be devoted, by the vilest and most unblushing fraud 1 How often, too, do we perceive a still lower class of impostors who, destitute of the slightest pretensions to mediumship, earn a shame- 70 ANCIENT. SPIRITUALISM. fill livelihood by the simulation of certain forms spiritual phenomena ! And what among the lives aj teachings of the flamens who ccniseuted to deify Ke could surpass in fouluess the antic fiithinesses of a fi creatures of our own age who have introduced themselv lilie ghouls into the Spiritual ranks, disgusting and rep ling the pure-minded and the thoughtful ? Is Mode' Spiritualism a Divine revelation given for the elevatij and brightening of the world ? Then liow are we estimate the impostors mentioned above, whetlier th mingle medial gifts with their deceit, or confine the; selves to falseliood unrelieved by any gleam of trut| How are we to regard the vile and foolish teachings whi have of late years been produced in such plenty throuj these and their kindred harpies 'i Above all, in wli manner may we regard the weak-minded enthusiasts whom these evils are encouraged and perpetuated, w accept the most absurd and vicious doctrines with a kii of inspired idiocy of belief ; which, if not able to remoi can at least gulp down mountains ; who, as regards spir ual phenomena, display "a folly almost unparalleled ancient or modern times, whom any boy can deUide wi imposture and any madman witli absurdity ; and wl whether that boy or madman were willing or unwillii would exalt him to the rank of a prophet, and revere hi as a spiritual guide ? It is these who will accept " exp nations " of whose supreme ridiculousness an Australi; savage might be ashamed, rather than admit that medium can deceive. It is these who reject the admoi tion to " try the spirits " as a needless insult, and th bar the door at once on scientific research. Finally, it from these and the knaves whom they encourage tb Modern Spiritualism emphatically requires to be c livered. IP art 0«onit. SPIRITUALISM m THE JEWISH AFD CHRISTIAN ERAS. CHAPTER I. THE SPIEITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. I HAVE separated the Hebrews from the peoples dealt with in the former portions of this work, because it has appeared to me that the Spiritualism of the TestameiitH, Old and New, would best be treated of as one great whole. The signs and wonders recorded by the prophets and apos- tles of Israel, from Moses to St. John, are indubitably the mightiest and most famous which the Creator has vouch- safed to mankind. 1 do not, however, propose to devote to them any very great proportion of these pages, and my reasons will, I trust, be held sufficient. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of my readers are as familiarly ac- quainted with the histories of the signs accorded to x\bra- ham, and the miracles wrought through Moses, as with any of the chief events of their own earthly lives. The commentaries on the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Eze- kiel, Daniel, and others, would require a lifetime to number. The sermons preached on the miraculous events recorded in the lives of Christ and His Apostles might, if collected and printed, fill a hundred libraries as large as the Alexandrian. Were I to quote the chief wonders of 72 SPIRITUALISM-JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN BRAS. Hebrew times, as recorded in oar own noble version of the Scriptures, I should be simply deluging the reader with histories, magnificent, indeed, but tlie tritest of the trite. Were I to attempt in my own language a descrip- tion of these occnrrences, bow poor would such efforts seem beside those of the inspired writers ! I shall confine myself to the citation of certain remarkable instances, and to an inquiry into their influence and the circumstances of their origin. The few incidents dwelt upon at any length will be found incidents bearing more or less upon the phenomena of to-day. We find the foundation-stone of the Biblical writings to be everywhere miracle. The assumption which, since the mighty discoveries of Newton, has been constantly becoming more rooted among scientific men, that the physical laws of the universe ai-e eternal and immutable, here has no place. Such an assumption, indeed, if admit- ted, reduces the Hebrew Scriptures to a collection of fables — and not even "fables eunnhigly devised." The present condition of the scientific world affords a strikhig example of its effects. In no other age has research into the mysteries of creation been so diligently pursued. In no other age has the disposition to set up the " laws of nature" as a species of idols appeared so strong. The natural consequence has been that our scientific men have progressed from a disbelief in miracle in general to a dis- belief in the particular miracles recorded in the Bible, and from a disbelief in the Bible appear rapidly pi'Ogreus- ing to a disbelief in God. In 1874 we had Professor Tyndall's Belfast address. It appears likely that in a very few years this minute and studied oration will be openly received by the school wliich the Professor represents as an able exposition of their articles of faith. I search it in vain for any indication of a belief in a Personal God. TEE aPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 73 The deities to whom this scientist would appear in secret to bow down are known to him and his fellow-adorers by the awe-inspiring titles of Atom and Molecule. Not yet, however, are the penetralia of the temple to be unveiled to the outer world. Such a casting of pearls unto swine would utterly misbecome a man of the Professor's acu- men. For the uninitiated he has a kind of convenient shadow known as "Nature," which he interposes between their gaze and the inmost secrets of his philosophy, and respecting which he discourses in a most excessively mys- tic jargon. Nature appears to serve him as she served the Arbaces of Lord Lytton's novel. On her shoulders may be laid the burden of all which does not accord with the philosopher's idea of the fitness of things. It would be unjust to say that the whole of the scientific men of the age are at one with Professor Tyndall in his peculiar theology. But, although the law of the physical sciences is progress, the law governing the ideas of devotees to those sciences respecting religion, both natural and revealed, would seem to be as undoubtedly retrogression. The .Deity whom even the most religious of such men worship is nothing more than an imitation of tlie Zeus of the Greeks, as limited in power as that Zeus, and governed like him by an inexorable Fate. The Omnipotent God of Christianity they totally reject. That this is so quotations from a hundred autliorities would prove. I shall content myself with citing part of a critique directed, in the early years of the Spiritual movement, against certain phenom- ena occurring at Ealing, I being the medium through whom they occurred : " These are strong facts, and it is allowing a great deal to say that ■we think Mr. Rymer to be in earnest in stating his belief in them. For ourselves we entirely disbelieve them, and shall gladly give any one the opportunity of convincing us. In the mean while we venture to recom- 4 74 SPIBITUALI8M— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. mend to Mr. Rymer's attentive study an old-fashioned college text- book which we suspect he has never opened — PratVs Mechanical Philosophy. He will there learn of those immutable laws which the unchanging God has impressed once and forever on creation ; and, read- ing of the wondrous harmony and order which reign by their operation throughout the wide bounds of creation, he may perhaps come to share our doubt and disbelief of those imaginings which teU us of their viola- tion in moving tables and shaking lamps and dancing chairs, and he may perchance, should his study prosper, catch also a sense of the pity- ing scorn with which those nurtured on the strong meat of the inductive philosophy, within the very courts and halls that a Newton trod, view these sickly Spiritualist dreamers, thus drunk with the new wine of folly and credulity. '' Such is a fair specimen of the mode in which these Sir Oracles discourse on subjects not in accordance with their own systems of philosophy'. I may answer them throu^-h the mouths of their own gods. It is tolerably certain that, nigh two hundred years ago, Newton was to Des- cartes and others of the renowned scientists of the age, " a sickly dreamer, drunk with the new wine of folly and credulity." It is still more certain that Francis i3acon ■\vas, by many philosophers of the time of James the First, allotted a place in that " Ship of Fools " to which this ad- mirer of Bacon's inductive philosophy so calmly consigns the Spiritualists of the era of Victoria. As regards any and every system of Christianity, is not the friendship of such men more dangerous than their hostility? They diligently search for and remove from between the covers of the Bible whatever the scientific mind cannot grasp. They gravely assure us that the laws of the universe are not to be altered or superseded even by the Deity who instituted them— thus at once depriving that Deity of His attribute of omnipotence, and reducing the Creator to be subject to the created. Did Elisha cause iron to float on water ? Was the shadow of the sun turned back on tlie dial of Hezekiah ? Was Aaron's rod, on his throwing it TEE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 75 down, changed into a serpent? The worshippers of " the laws of nature" would consider themselves besotted did they credit any such absurdities. They are not as the early Christians were. They are assuredly not followers of the Christ who taught that " with God all things air. possible." The theory that there are everywhere through- out the universe wheels within wheels, laws by which that of gravity may be modified or temporarily set aside ; in- visible forces which exert power over matter — such a theory is to the scientific Christian what the creed he pro- fesses was to the Greeks of the first century — foolishness. He calmly assumes that the whole of the ways of God in the governing of the worlds which He has made are now known to man, and he stops his ears against any evidence to the contrary. He dismisses, as I have said, from that Bible which he professes to reverence as the Word of God whatever may be considered as savoring of miracle. To what extent this demolition proceeds, I shall now en- deavor to show. Christianity, deprived of all but what may be explained by the known laws of creation, and ex- posed in such a condition to the assaults of sceptics, resembles a vessel which, having been carefully denuded of rudder, masts, and compass, and pierced with innumera- ble holes, is sent to sea to encounter a storm. We are told frequently in the Old Testament of God appearing visibly to man and speaking with him face to face. Yet we read in Exodus that, when Moses desired to behold the Lord in all His glory, He replied : " Thou canst not see My face ; for there shall no man see Me and live." How are .the apparent contradictions to be reconciled % Spiritualists reconcile them by their knowledge of the countless ministering spirits which constantly watch over earth, and ceaselessly pass to and fro on the errands of the Master of spirits. Such, clothed in a material form, may T6 SPIRITUALISM-JEWISH AJVD CHRISTIAN ERAS. have executed God's commands regarding Adam. Sm ■wrestled with Jacob, and were seen by him in trance, i cending and descendinir between heaven and earth. Sm appeared to Abraham as, towards evening, he sat in tl door of his tent. Such delivered Lot from the destractic which impended over the cities of the plain. Such cani( the commands of Grod to His servant Moses, guided th Moses to the presence of the Egyptian king, and wrong!, by means of the powers accorded to them, the whole ( the wonders related in the Pentateuch. By spirits lil these was Gideon prompted to his mission of deliveranc By such spirits was the mighty host of Sennacherib d stroyed. To the beholding of these spirits were the eyi of Elisha's servant made equal when the Syrians sougl the life of liis master. " And when the servant of tl man of God was risen earlj', and gone forth, behold ahoi encompassed the city both with horses and chariots. An his servant said unto him, ' Alas ! my master ! how sha we do ? ' And he answered, ' Fear not, for tliey that I; with us are more than they that be with them.' Au Elisha prayed, and said, ' Lord, I pray thee, open his eye that he may see.' And the Lord opened the eyes of th 3'oung man, and he saw ; aiid behold the mountain w£ full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." AVe have here a striking proof that the human eye ca be made to perceive spirits. I see no room for scei:»tics cavilling or explaining away. The prophet prayed tha his servant's eyes might be opened, and God opened then so that this Israelite saw the glories of the spiritual Being around. " Clairvoyant " he would have been termed in on own day, and, as such, ridiculed by the scientific men wit whom that word is another term for dreamer. But th particular story I have quoted is from writings all Eurc pean churches hold to be sacred. It requires to be acceptei TEE BPIBITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 77 or rejected in its entirety. Professing Christians must admit that the eye of man can occasionally behold spirit- ual beings, or condemn the Hebrew chronicler as the nar- rator of a circumstantial lie. That spirits can, in the present day, operate npon matter with powers similar to those possessed by human beings still in the flesh is an assertion received with derisive iiicreduhty by myriads who profess every Sabbath their belief that such occurrences were common from two to four thousand years ago. The tens of thousands of clergy- men who have preached against such facts of Modern Spiritualism as the moving of material objects without visible agency, and the millions of listeners who have agreed with their sermons, would doubtless bo indignant were it asserted that they disbelieved in the loosing by an /angel of the chains of Peter, or the rolling away by another angel of the stone which secured the sepulchre of Christ. With what intense scorn, too, are the testimonies regarding that levitation by spirit-power of which I and others have in modern times been the subjects, received by Christians of Europe and America who may read on one page of their Bibles how the Apostle Philip was suddenly snatched up from out the sight of the eunuch whom he had baptized, and conveyed from Gaza toAzotus, a dis- tance of thirty miles; in another place the vei'ses in which Ezekiel tells how the hand of the Lord lifted him, and carried him into the midst of the valley which was fnll of hones. Again, the appearances of spirit-forms and hands which have so frequently occurred in the present age, are heard of with absolute incredulity, and the vouchings of witnesses of the highest standing, intellectual and social, cahnly set aside. Yet one of the most picturesque chap- ters of the Old Testament is that wherein Daniel recounts how the " fingers of a man's hand," at the impious feast 78 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. of Belsliazzar, were seen by the monarch himself and thousand of his satraps to write in fiery characters np the wall of the palace an intimation of the approachil doom of Babylon. And Ezekiel recounts liow he belie a spirit-hand, and the roll of a book therein ; and thi when the hand spread out the book before him, it w written within and without. As to the human body beii made insusceptible to the action of fire, have we u Daniel's history of the three Jewish youths who walk unhurt in the midst of the flaming furnace? If suj mighty works were done two tliousand five linndred yea ago why should not lesser wonders be witnessed in ol own time? Is the arm of God grown less mighty ? Tl question has often been asked, but never responded f Science cannot, and religion dare not answer in t] How science treats spiritual phenomena in general,! have already endeavored to show. How she behav with regard to the particular phenomena of which I ha': just spoken was instanced in the Quarterly Review c October, 1871. The article on Spiritualism contaiiK therein has been praised as logical and able. Tet tl argument it was written to enforce is simply this: ] the author of the essay, has never witnessed certain ph nomena which have occurred in the presence of A, and whose occurrence A has testified. It is highly improbab that such phenomena should occur. The premise th: such events are unlikely to happen, and the premise th E lias never known them to happen, when put togethe produce the inference that their occurrence in the presen( of A is an utter impossibility, and his narrative therefoi worthless. And has the inductive philosophy come this? Were such arguments to be advanced by a man c science on the opposite side, would not his hostile brethri TEE 8PIBITUALI8M OF THE BIBLE 79 have rediscovered that " many dogs can arrive at more logical conclusions 'i " I return to the examination of miracles contained in the Bible. The first passage on which I light (1 Ohron. xxviii. 19) is a remarliable illustration of the inspira- tional writing and drawing of the present day. David had given to Solomon, his son, the patterns of the temple and all with which it was to be fm-nished. " These things," said he, " the Lord made mo understand in writ- ing, by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pat- tern." It would seem that a species of divination, practised in the East to this very day, was known of old among the Hebrews. How are we to understand Genesis xliv. 5 — ■ "Is not this it in wliich my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divlneth? " — unless as an intimation tliat the ob- taining of visions by looking steadfastly into a cup filled with wine or other liquor was a species of clairvoyance practised in the days of Joseph ? Had I space, and did the patience of the reader permit, I might proceed to minutely analyze the prophecies con- tained in the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the lesser seers. The. chief of these prophecies related to the coming of Christ, and all who have ever searched the Scriptures know how exact were the forebodings of His advent. Of lesser interest are those mystical predic- tions given by Daniel and others, on which the ingenuity of theologians of all nations and ages has been frnitlessly expended. Perhaps the terrible attractiveness, with which the prophecies relating to the last siege of Jerusalem are invested, may excuse my lingering over them for a mo- ment. The most awful is that description given by Moses of the calamities which should befall the Hebrews, when they had utterly forsaken the God of their fathers, and 80 BPIBITUALI8M— JEWISH AND OHRISTIAN ERAS. space for repentance was no longer allowed. _ This denun- ciation, the bitterest ever spoken by a prophet, occui's in the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Before Jerusalem was taken by Titiis, every item of its hor- rors had come to pass. And the words of Christ, though they shock us with no such literal presentment of the mis- eries to be endured by the doomed race, are solemnly sig- nificant of the wrath to come : " When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, stand in - the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee unto the mountains. . . . And woe unto them who are with child, and who give suck in those days! . . . For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the begin- ning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.'' (Mattliew xxiv.) Again : " And when ye shall see Jeru- salem compassed by armies, then know that the desola- tion thereof is nigh. . . . For these be the days of ven- geance, that all things which are written may be fullilled. . . . And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Grentiles shall be fulfilled." (Luke xxi.) Seventy years after the Crucifixion came this great woe. The legions of Titus marched into Palestine. Kome still reigned as mistress of the world ; indeed, her power had scarcely attained its zenith. The conquests of Trajan lay yet in the womb of the future, when those of the son of Vespasian were made. ' Tet the Jews for long deemed -themselves secure of triumph. Their city was the strong- est of all cities, and false prophets were not wanting to delude them. Thus encouraged, they fiercely defied the power of the Empire, and vowed to recover that inde- pendence which the Maccabees had died tp preserve, or, like those heroes, fall, fighting to the last. Did not the • THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 81 whole Christian world regaid the miseries of Jerusalem as chastisements sent of God, how frequently would the Bnperlmraan endurance of her children be quoted, to in- stance what can be borne by nations striving to be free ! In no other siege was the valor displayed so frantic. In no other siege did the attacked seem so completely to have triumphed over death. The Romans were at first disposed to make captives of such as fell into their power. But these, in nearly all cases, preferred death in defence of the holy city to a life of ignominious servitude, and fought desperately to the last. And what they so stoically endured they were no less ready to inflict. Such of their enemies as they captured they remorselessly put to death. Enraged by this, and the determined resistance of the besieged, the Romans proceeded to display, in its most refined form, the cruelty seldom absent from their wars. All Jews who came into their hands alive, were crucified in view of the city, and perished in torment, with their dying eyes fixed on home and friends. Even as their fathers had done unto Christ was it done unto them. At length came the end. Wall after wall had been carried, until the last stronghold of the Jews was reached. Within the city no food remained save human fiesli. Even mothers, as Moses had prophesied, slew and ate their children in the madness of hunger. Many Jews had frantically endeavored to break through the Roman lines, and, being taken, were crucified in such numbers that wood became scarce, and no more crosses could be made. Then followed the capture of the temple. As if inspired with a sudden frenzy, the Roman soldiers rushed forward, flinging in firebrands from every side. Titus, who desired the preservation of somagnificent a shrine, in vain ordered his guards to beat them off. The fabric consecrated to Jehovah was burnt to the ground, and over against what 4* 82 SPIRITUALISM— JE WISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. had been its eastern gate did the Eoman legionaries set up their standards, and, offering sacrifices to them, hail Titns as luiperator with " acclamations of the greatest joy." The most awful siege recorded in the world's his- tory w^as at an end. Eleven hundred thousand of the Jews had been slain. So many were carried into captivity that the market became glutted, and the Roman soldiery sought in vain to find purchasers for their slaves. I think none who read of these events but must endorse the pathetic assertion of Josephus : " It appears to me that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were." So fearfully had the pre- dictions of Christ and Moses been fulfilled ! In quitting the Old Testament for the New, let me say that there is to be noticed a remarkable similarity between the miracles recorded of the Jewish prophets and those afterwards performed by Christ. The rendering inex- haustible by Elijah of the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal is a parallel on a lesser scale to the miracle of the loaves and fishes. So with the means by which Elisha fed a hundred men. The restoration to life of an only child by each of these prophets recalls the raising from the dead by Jesus of that young man of Nain, " the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." Naaman, who was healed of leprosy, upon having faith sufficient to obey Elisha's mandate of washing in the Jordan, reminds us of several of the miracles of Christ. And, finally, the narrative of the man whose dead body was cast into the tomb of Elisha, and sprang up revivified on touching the prophet's bones, is a marvel almost equalling anything that the New Testament contains. One other incident in Old Testament Spiritualism de- serves to be noticed. Although such marvellous tokens TIIE SPIBITUALI8M OF TEE BIBLE. 83 of spiritual power were vouchsafed to tlie Jews, the Levitical law forbade them to seek intercourse with the spirits of the departed. The reason is not difficult to find. Jehovah feared that, like the nations around them, His people would be drawn from the worship of the One God to adore a multitude of the beings whom He had created. Nor were restrictions unnecessary. On a hundred occa- sions do we hear of the Jews hastening to this and far grosser forms of idolatry. As Macaulay with great just- ness remarks, their whole history " is the record of a con- tinued struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely-fascinating de ire of having some visible and tangible object of ado- ration." I know that the European mind of to-day and the Hebrew mind of three thousafid years back have little in common. That childish savagery which could satisfy the cravings for some outward symbol of spiritual things with the image of a calf has disappeared from among civilized men. But for a few weak minds the danger out of which all idolatry springs still exists. There are not wanting enthusiasts to say to the spirits, "Ye are gods," and revere, as something more than hamau, those through whom tokens of their presence are given. It was against this great evil that the Levitical law was directed. With the Jews of old almost a whole nation was at all times ready to fall into error — with the Spiritualists of to-day comparatively few are led into such folly. Yet it behooves all who wish well to onr cause to raise their voices earnestly against these things, and, im- pressing upon their weaker brethren that mediums and spirits are alike but fallible, urge that to neither should this unreasoning faith and baseless reverence be accorded. It is from the abuse of the faculty of veneration that such things in great part spring. By minds in which that 84 BPIBITUALI8M—JE WISE AND CEBI8TIAN ERAS. faculty "was exceedingly strong, and caution and judgment correspondingly weak, the wildest extravagances of reli- gious history have been perpetrated. The sceptical type of intellect which can perceive nothing beyond this present world, and which rejects with the greatest disdain all testimony I'elating to future life, may be accepted as a character whose weakness is the antipodes of that just described. The mass of mankind hold a course equally distant from the two extremes, and are neither disposed to accept without testimony, nor to reject without investi- gation. Yet there come periods when almost the whole world seems to be infected with one or other of these dis- eases. Just at present the second is rampant, and is the deadliest foe by which Christianity can be menaced. For the essence of the religion of Jesus is miracles, and signs and wonders accompanied Him throughout His career. Tlie account of tlis birth is the chief marvel in all history; yet it is almost matched \)j what occun-ed at and after His death. From the commencement of His mission, imtil the final agony of the cross, He continued to enforce the tidings He had come upon earth to proclaim, by the mightiest works that earth had ever seen. And the power that was His He kept not to Himself. In His name the apostles whom He sent out were made to do many mar- vellous works. " And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sick- ness, and all manner of disease. . . . And He com- manded them, saying. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, I'aise the dead, cast out devils ; freely ye have received, freely give." Yet, as Christ prophesied, these men were hated of all the world for His name's sake. And to Him- self the nation whom His mission particularly concerned gave only death. They saw Him raise the dead, and TEE SPIBITVALI8M OF TKB BIBLE. 85 cleanse the leper ; give sight to the blind, and cause the lame to walk ; they received from Him teachings such as ear had never before heard, and they rewarded Him with the crown of thorns and the cross. For their condition was worse than that of the man who sat by the wayside as Christ went out from Jericho. Eartimseus, through all his darkness, could recognize his Lord ; but the chiefs of the people, though spiritually blind, desired not that their eyes might be opened. And, unable to comprehend the Light of the world, they sought to extinguisli it. Had the high priest Caiaphas, when, with his acolytes, he mocked the victim stretched upon the cross, saying : " Lie saved others ; Himself He cannot save " — had this man been told that there should come a day when his victim would be worshipped as the Son of God in almost every country over which the Roman sceptre extended, and in yet vaster regions of whose existence those Romans had never dreamed ; that in the very city from whence then went forth the fiats of Csesar would be set up the author- ity of pontiffs who deemed it their all on earth to be revered as vicegerents of this Christ ; that the ancient glory of Jerusalem should be extinguished, and even the foundations of her temple almost pass from view ; and that a scanty remnant of the once mighty and fl.ourishing nation of the Jews should wander from city to city of realms possessed by the triumphant Christians, ever ex- pecting to behold the Messiah who should deli^■er them from their woes, and ever disappointed — would he not have scorned the prophecy as a madman's dream % Had Lucian, when, in the reign of Trajan, he wrote with pitying wonder of that contempt of death which the Christians displayed, been informed that the statue of that very Trajan would be one day hurled from the noble column erected as its pedestal, and an effigy of a chief 86 SPIBITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN EBA8. among these Christians take its place, with what a display of lively ridicule would he have laughed down such a tale ? And could the incredulity of either have been held matter for surprise 1 Was it probable in the days of Caiaphas that the teachings of Christ would ever spread beyond Judea ? Was it probable in the days of Lucian that this carpenter, and son of a carpenter, would bo adored as God by all the nations of the Gentiles ? How comes it then that at His name the heads of such un- countable millions bow ? The Protestant will answer that, Christ being God, the Christian religion was of God, and that, therefore, lie has nourished and preserved it. But how has it been nourished and preserved ? By miracle, all history i-eplies. It is an easy thing now that men should accept the faith which their fathers have, from time immemorial, ac- cepted. The matter was far otherwise in the days of Nero, Trajan, and Diocletian. Then Cliristianity was professed only in secret, and by a few, being held by the many an abomination or a foolishness. Its ethics were as noble as at present. But with those ethics was insepara- bly connected the rejection of the hundreds of deities whom Greek and Roman worshipped, and the acceptance of Christ as God. And he or she, who did so accept Him, became thereby immediately exposed to inflictions such as human nature faints but to contemplate. Tlie renunciation of the pomps and vanities of this world was then no vain form. With the embracing of the Christian religion the certainty of a life of privation and suffering was also accepted, and the peril of a death of agony dared. To encounter the constant opposition of those they loved, and provoke tlie hatred of their nearest and dearest ; to be in continual danger of denunciation to the authorities ; to meet for worship only in deserts and TEE SPIRITUALISM OF THE BIBLE. 87 catacombs — these were some of the things which all Christians endured. It was well if at a meeting for praise and prayer the little congregation were not broken in upon by bands of fierce soldiery, and minister and hearers involved in one common massacre ; if an assem- bling to celebrate the supper of the Lord did not end in those who had partaken of that love-feast being thrown to the beasts of the arena; if, from the funeral rites of some brother or sister departed, the mourners were not snatched away to be smeared with pitch, and set up as torclies in the garden of Nero. How many Christians perished by these and modes of death equally dreadful in the three centuries that followed the Crucifixion, it is impossible to compute. However great the number of martyrs their agonies were insufficient to check the progress of the new faith. Nay, these agonies were even coveted by many converts as the most glorious mode of finishing their earthly career ! Numbers denounced themselves to the authorities, and passed to deaths of lingering torture with triumphant joy. The whole population of a small town in Asia, we learn from Tertullian, sought such a fate. Having heard that the emperor had issued an edict com- manding all Christians to be put to death, they flocked in a body to the proconsul, and acknowledged themselves adherents of the new faitli. On this the Koman deputy executed a few of the chief men, and dismissed the others to their homes. And they departed, not lamenting that their friends had come to so terrible an end, but that they themselves had been deemed unworthy to receive the solemn crown of martyrdom ; not rejoiced because they had escaped dying in unutterable torture, but because a select few of their number had obtained admittance into the noble host of those whose blood was shed in the ser- vice of God. The words of St. Paul express the senti- 88 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. ment with which every martyr seems to have met death : " I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, J have finished my course, I have kept the faitli; hencefortli there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, wliich the Lord, tlie righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." And why were the Christians of the first century so much more devoted to their creed than those of the nine- teenth ? How came it that, in spite of the most bloody and unsparing persecutions men had ever groaned under, the new creed spread with rapidity over the whole of the then civilized world ? What was it hy which zealot and atheist, the prejudices of men bigoted in favor of their old religion, and the prejudices of men bigoted in favor of their no-religion, were alike so speedily and so thorough- ly conquered ? Was it not in great measure by the con- tinual working of signs and wondei-s, by the impetus which the unceasing intervention of spiritual beings gave to the advancement of the Christian religion ? Could a creed whose high teachings were supported by such strik- ing miracles be likely to fail ? The internal evidences, indeed, were alone sufficient to prove this faith to be of God. But tliose internal evidences were recommended to such men as Paul, John, and Peter, by the power which they themselves possessed of working mighty things ; by the marvels which many of them had seen the Great Founder of their belief accomplish ; by the frequent de- scent upon them of the Spirit of God ; by the gift of miraculously healing; by the ability of understanding many and divei'se tongues. Nor was it to tlie apostles alone tliat spiritual things were brought so close. The faith of such of their successors as Polycarp, Ignatius, and Justin' Martyr — as Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augus- tine, and a hundred others, was strengthened by signs THE SPIRITUALISM OF -THE BIBLE. 89 and wonders almost eq^ially great. JSTor are these signs and wondei's yet extinct. The noblest Christians of all ages have sought for and received them. It may be affirmed, withont danger of the assertion being disproved, that there never was a truly great man of any church, one distinguished by the intensity of his faith and the nobility of his life, but knew himself to be attended con- stantly by ministering spirits. Such was the faith of Savonarola, of Loyola, of Bunyan, of Fenelon, of Wesley, and of numerous others whom I have not space to name. Nor is it probable that such men as Calvin and Torque- mada were unsupplied with spiritual guides ; though, doubtless, spiritual guides of an exceedingly undeveloped class. I pui-pose in my next chapters to point out how a constant vein of miracle runs through the history of the early Fathers, and how traces of miracle have continued down to the present day in every church worthy the name of Christian. ISTot now indeed does faith " subd ue king- doms, stop the mouths of lions, quench tlie violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword." By these things were the early Christians " out of weakness made strong." Those countless thousands who, in the time of the power of the Romans, went to death as to a bridal did not ielieve that the faith they professed was the truth — they hnew it to be such. Spirits had spoken with them face to face — they had been permitted, while yet on earth, to catch a glimpse of the glories of the Hereafter. It mattered not what men might do against the body ; for the sonl an incorruptible crown was laid up in Heaven. Such Chris- tians would have heard with mute amazement the assertion that death is a " bourne from whence no traveller returns." By a thousand incidents of their lives were such teachings disproved. Signs that a Thomas could not have doubted were continually afforded them of the watch which those 90 8PIBITUALI8M-JEWI8H AND OHBiaTIAM ERAS. who had gone before kept over the disciples of the true faith yet on earth. Some, like Stephen, saw in the hour of death the heavens open, and the Son of Man stand at the right hand of God. Others, like Peter, were deliv- ered from bondage and peril of death by spiritual hands. Like Polycarp they stood in the midst of flames, and were not harmed. Like Polycarp, too, voices whispered to them to be strong, and quit themselves like men. As Ammon they were borne by spirits through the air. With Montanus they were thrown into ecstatic trances, and delivered messages from another world. With John they were circled at times by the glorj^ of the inner heaven, and those that looked on them saw their faces " as the faces of angels." It was by men like these — men strong with an unshakable certainty of the truth of what they taught — that Christianity was carried to the farthest ends of the earth. It was thus that tlie philosophy of Greece and the pride of Rome were overthrown; that incense ceased to smoke on the altar of Jupiter, and Poseidon and Isis were laid prostrate in the dust. I do not advance these views as tlieories. They are facts, as every genuine Christian will be ready to admit. But there are numbers of men, professing to be Christians, wlio, denying that such things have happened, yf\\\ stigma- tize these great truths as dreams of the most baseless kind. For Christ is now, even more than of old, uncompre- hended by many who call themselves His disciples. They " understand not the sayings which He speaks unto them." It was thus, as every Evangelist proves to us, in Judeea. Upon the earth, to which He came to bear tidings of peace and good-will, the Son of Man walked alone. Mary understood Him not, nor Joseph, nor they who, according to the belief of the Jews, were the sisters and brothers of this Jesus. lie began His mission, and the nation to TEE SPIBITUALI8M OF TEE BIBLE. 91 whom He preached understood Him not. Even the most beloved of His disciples could but faintly comprehend and sympathize with their Master. They perceived His miracles, and, "being afraid," spoke among themselves, saying: "What manner of man is this? " They listened to His teachings, and " wist not of what He talked." They approved their charity by forbidding others to cast out devils in the name of Christ, and tlie extent of their faith by failing to do so themselves. Whether, Christ walked in Jerusalem or in the desert, surrounded by His disci- ples or absent from all men, He was, as regards this world, equally alone. The love that He bore to man not even John or Peter could undei'stand. The spirit in which He taught none could perceive. When, in the garden of Gethsemane, He became " sorrowful e\en unto death," He withdrew to endure that mighty agony alone. The afflic- tions that tormented Him were not trials into which the twelve could enter. Whilst He suffered His disciples slept. So was it before Pilate. So when passing frcim the judgment-seat to the cross. So when on that cross He cried : " My G-od, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " So when, having bowed His head, He said, " It is finished," and as He gave up the ghost the earth quaked, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain. And equally solitary does Christ remain unto the present day. Never have His teachings been truly understood of men. The Master is still alone. "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Had it been better comprehended, how different would have been the history of the whole Christian world ! Then Athanasius and Arius would not have cursed each other, both for this life and the next. Then Constantine would uot-have been accepted as a fitting head for the Church of Christ. Then Julian would not have been driven in 92 SPIBITUALISM-JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN EBAS. despair to the worn-out philosophies of Pagan times. Then religion would not have been found throughout the dark ages uniformly on the side of might, and ever straying further from what was right and true. The career of Becket could never have been lived. Dominic would not have believed in burning the bodies of men to save their souls from eternal fire. Religious wars would never have desolated the world. The Inquisition would not have been established. Such natures as those of Torquemada and Calvin would have been viewed with abhorrence by men of all climes and creeds. In the pages of history we should read of no such laws as those established in the sixteenth century at Geneva — of no such reigns as those of Henry YIII. of England and Charles IX. of France. The touch of Borgia or of Leo would not have defiled the Papal tiara. Instead of sects too numerous to be counted there might, at this day, be seen a single Church, embrac- ing all Christendom. Instead of brethren inflamed against each other hy causeless hatred there might be found that unity which the Psalmist tells us it is so pleasant to see. Instead of gigantic wars, and rumors of wars, we might be living in the midst of the reign of universal peace, the " Federation of the World." Controversy would be a name forgotten, and the pens and works of polemical divijies moulder in oblivion and dust. But these specula- tions are indeed dreams. It is time that this chapter should conclude. I have done my best to prove how intimately miracle is bound up with each of the many books of the Bible, and how total would be the ruin effected by tearing all miracle away. I have sought, also, to point out the resemblance between certain phenomena of Jewish times and the phenomena of the present day. Want of space, indeed, has prevented me from doing the subject justice. Besides the instances THE spiritualism: of tee bible. 93 adduced there are numerous others scattered through eveiy book, from Greiiesis to the Revelation of John. 13ut these any searcher of the Scriptures can readily find for himself. He will also, 1 think, find sufficient evidence to make plain to him that the shadow of Hebrew Spiritualism was the tendency which, even more than Assyrians, Egyp- tians, or Persians, the race chosen of Grod had to listen to the whispers of evil spii-its, and exalt those spirits into deities — a tendency which the most terrible threats and chastisements proved insufficient to restrain. He will agree with me that solely against this tendency were the terrors of the Levitical law directed. He will also agree with me that, by rejecting whatever in the Testaments, Old and New, is inexplicable by known laws, or apparently opposed to those laws, men make the prophets and chron- iclers liars, and the teachings of Christ of no authority. If we are to believe that so much of Scripture is false, what security have we that the rest is true? A single error ad- mitted injui'cs Holy Writ ; what then of this mass of error? It is but cold truth to say that those who, professing to be worshippers of Christianity, would either totally deprive the Bible of miracle, or accept only the miracles attributed to Christ, treat the chief of religious as of old the soldiers of Pilate treated her Founder. They deprive her of the vestments that so well become her. Having plaited a crown of thorns and shaped a sceptre from a reed, they adorn her with these. Then, bowing the knee before her, they expose her in this state to the derision of the nations. 94 SPIRITUALISM-JEWISU AND CHSmTIAN ERAS. CHAPTER II. THE SFIEITtJAL IN THE EAELY CHEISTIAN CHUECH. A FAVOEITE dictum with many divines is that miracle ceased with the apostolic age. We have no certain evi- dence, say they, that signs and wonders occurred after the last of the twelve had departed from earth. Learned bishops have not been ashamed to employ the whole force of their ecclesiastical eloquence in endeavoring to prove this hypothesis a certainty. Yet the fact undeniably is tliat, as regards external evidence, certain miraculous occurrences recorded by Athanasitis, Augustine, and oth- ers are better supported than anything the New Testa- ment contains. The internal evidence, which in the Bible carries such weight, is, of course, weaker in the case of the Fathers. Yet, conjoined with the historical testimony, it has proved sufficient to induce such men as Locke and Grotius to admit the authenticity of these narratives. The first tells US that we must allow the miracles, or, by denying that they occurred, destroy the authority of the Fathers, and even their reputation for common honesty. The second not only warmly defends the Spiritual in the early Chnrch, but avows his entire belief that such things had continued down to his own day. Milton, Cudworth, Bacon, Addisoh, Dr. Johnson, and a host of men equally distinguished, have held one or other of these opinions. Indeed, it is difficult to see how Christians can do otlierwise. The words used by Christ are : " He that believeth on Me the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do." If Protestant divines deny that such TBE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CnURCn. 95 works are now done, is not the inference plain ? Thej' are of opinion that men have ceased to believe in Christ! Not such was the faith of eai'ly and fervent members of the Church. How hardy seem the expressions of Tertul- lian on the subject ! So earnestly did he hold to the text above quoted, that men asserting themselves to be Chris- tians, who yet could not expel a demon, were, in his judg- ment, worthy of death. " Let some one be brought for- ward here at the foot of your j udgment-seat, who, it is agreed, is possessed of a demon. When comn)anded by any Christian to speak, that spirit shall as truly declare itself a demon, as elsewhere falsely a god. In like man- ner, let some one be brought forward of those who are believed to be acted upon by a god. . . . Unless these confess themselves to be demons, not daring to lie unto a Christian, then shed upon the spot the blood of that most impudent Christian." (Apol. 23.) The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians are : " Con- cerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; ... to another, the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit ; to another, the working of miracles ; to another, prophecy ; to another, discerning of spirits ; to another, divers kinds of tongues." As regards the last but one of these gifts, a curious passage is to be found in the " De Anima " of the Tertullian above quoted. " We had a right," says the great orator, "after what was said by St. John, to expect prophesyings, and we not only acknowledge these spiritual gifts, but we are permitted to enjoy the gifts of a prophetess. There is a sister amongst us who possesses the faculty of revelation. She com- monly, during our religious service on the Sabbath, falls into a crisis or trance. She has then intercourse with the angels, sees sometimes the Lord Himself, sees and hears 96 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. divine mysteries, and discovers the hearts of some per- sons ; administers mediuine to such as desire it ; and, when the Scriptures are read, or psalms are being sung, or prayers are being offered up, subjects from thence are ministered to her visions. We had once some discourse touching the soul, while this sister was in the spirit. "When the public services were over, and most of the peo- ple gone, she acquainted us with what she had seen in her ecstasy, as the custom was ; for these things are heedf uUy digested, that they may he duly proved. Among other things, she told us that she had seen a soul in a bodily shape, and that the spirit had appeared unto her, not empty or formless, and wanting a living constitution, but rather such as might be handled— delicate, and of the color of light and air — in everything resembling the human form." Thus, in the early Christian Church, we have an exact counterpart of the clairvoyance, the trance-speaking, and the healing mediumship of the present day. It is also noteworthy that what TertuUian calls the " corporeal soul," or " soul in bodily shape," minutely coincides with the spirit-form, as beheld in the visions of ancient and modern seers. Pythagoras and Plato sj)eak of it as a " luciform ethereal vehicle ; " St. Paul calls it the " spirit- ual body ; " Swedenborg, the " spiritual man ; " the seer- ess of Prevorst, the " nerve spirit ; " and Davis, the " inner being." All genuine clairvoyants, in short, convey, under different forms of expression, the same idea. At the age of eighty-six took place the martyrdom of Polycarp. A few nights previous, whilst praying in his bed, the aged saint had perceived his pillow wrapped in fire, without being consumed. This he knew to be an omen of approaching martyrdom. On the day of his de- TEE SPIRITUAL IN THE EABLT CHUBGH. 97 pai'tnre a number of Christians attended to the place of execution, one who had been the disciple and friend of the Apostle John. As they went a spirit-voice was heard by all to cry loudly : " Be strong, O Polycarp, and quit thyself like a man." When the pile was lighted the flames refused to touch him, and curved outward on all sides from his form. A fragrant scent, as of aromatic d^^lgs, was diffused around, and the martyr, with a glori- ous countenance, stood quietly in the midst of the fire, appearing to the beholders like a figure of burnished gold. In dismay, the executioner thrust him through with a sword. There died with liiin other believers, respecting whom the Church of Smyrna saj's : " While they were under torments, the Lord Jesus Christ stood by, and, con- versing with them, revealed things to them inconceiva- ble by man." Such were the experiences of the early saints. Sozomen and Soci-ates, the Church historians, relate two striking instances of information obtained from the de- parted respecting matters which had troubled the living. Irene, the daughter of Spiridion, Bishop of Trimithon, had been entrusted by a member of her father's flock with the keeping of a large sum of money. Shortly afterwards she died, and the owner came to Spiridion for the return of the deposit. Spiridion, knowing noth- ing of the matter, searched in vain everj' spot where his daughter might have placed such a trust, and was forced to inform his visitor that the monej' could not be found. On this the man tore his hair, and exhibited the greatest distress. His pastor bade him be calm, and, proceeding to the grave of Irene, solemnly called upon her spirit to appear. She at once responded to the summons, and informed her father that she had buried the money, for greater security, in a certain corner of the house. There 5 08 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. it was found by Spiridion, and immediately restored to the rightful owner. But the second narrative is yet more interesting. Eva- grius, a Gi-eeian philosopher, had been, with mneh diffi- culty, converted to Christianity by Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene. Even after his conversion he would appear to have felt doubts as to the certainty of a future life, and these doubts he, on his death-bed, expressed in a peculiar manner. He gave to Synesius a bag containing a very large sum in gold, which sum he requested him to apply to the benefit of the poor of the city, and desired, more- over, that the bishop would give him an acknowledgment of the debt, and a promise that Christ would repay him in another world. Synesius willingly subscribed to these terms, and the poor were made happy with the legacy. But Evagrius had no sooner passed away than his heirs brought an action against the bishop for the recovery of the debt, a memorandum of which they had discovered among the papers of the deceased philosopher. In vain did Synesius plead the circumstances of the case, and, proving that the gift was for the poor, relate the expecta- tion of his creditor that Christ would repay him in another world. Judgment was about to be given for the heirs, when a visit from the spirit of the departed relieved the bishop of theii' claims. At dead of night Evagrius ap- peared, and, witli a joyful voice, confessed that the Lord jiad satisfied the debt in full. lie further bade Synesius go to his sepulchre, and told him that he would there find a quittance for the sura. Next daj', the bishop, accompa- nied by the heirs of Evagrius and the authorities of the city, proceeded to the grave, and caused it to be opened. In the hand of the corpse was found a paper, subscribed as follows in the undoubted handwriting of the departed : "I, Evagrius the philosopher, to thee, most holy sir, THE SPIRITUAL IiV THE EARLT CnUHCU. 09 ]3ishop Syiiesins, greeting : I have received the debt wliich ill this paper is written witli thy hand, and am satisfied ; and I have no action against thee for the gold wliich 1 gave to thee, and by thee to Christ, our God and Saviour." The bill upon which this appeared was the acknowledg- ment made by Synesius, at the time of receiving the gold. It had been placed within the tomb, as the heirs of Eva- grius admitted, in accordance with their father's dying request. But they solemnly denied that the extraordinary words by which the debt was cancelled had then been present on the paper. The receipt thus remains, like the sentences interpreted by Daniel, an instance of that direct spirit -writing so much cavilled at in the present day. Numerous other miracles occurred in the early ages of the Church which I have only space to name. Pi'e-emi- iient are those of Anthony, Martin, and Ambrose, the second of whom is reported to have raised the dead. The cross seen in the heavens by Constantine and his array is a spiritual sign with whose history the reader is probably familiar. So with regard to the discovery, by the Empress Helena, of the sepulchre wherein Christ had lain. Mar- vels equally deserving of notice are to he found scattered through the, pages of Ireiiffius, Origen, Tertullian, Euse- bius, Atlianasius, Theodoret, and Evagrius. Amongst these are the narratives of miraculous incidents which occurred during the relentless persecutions of Maximian and Diocletian, and the history of those Christians of Carthage whose tongues were cut out by Hunnei'ic the Vandal, and who yet continued to speak with all their .former fluency. Regarding this last event the testimony is as perfect as that concerning any incident in modern history. Bishop Douglas, feeling too much embarrassed by the weight of evidence to deny the occurrence of this "wonder, and yet anxious to reconcile it with his pet theory 100 SPIRITUALISM—JEWISH AND CHBISTIAN ERAS. of the confinement of miracle to apostolic times, had tlie pleasing audacity to assure his readers that nothing \7as more common than that men who had lost their tongues should retain their speech. The right reverend Father in God was unfortunate in living a century or so too soon. His statement would have formed a fitting pendant to the theories of certain scientists of the present day. " We might easily prove by citations from the Fathers," says a writer in the EnoyolojKBdla MetropoUtana, " that one object of the experiences to which the Christian neo- phyte was subjected, was liis introduction to a lawful com- munion with the spirits of tlie departed." In this asser- tion I heartily concur. Indeed, nothing can be more amazing than the ignorance displayed by tlioso divines who at the present day infoiun us tliat the Mosaic law for- bidding men to seek communion with the departed has, in all ages, been observed by the Christian Church. Have they the slightest acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers of that Church ? If so, are they not aware that, besides the instances cited from TertuUian in the opening of this chapter, a score of others might be given to prove that, while vehemently condemning Spiritualism as prac- tised by the Pagans, the early Christians were themselves devoted to Spiritualistic practices ? They anathematized the mediums of the heathen because they believed that the spirits manifesting through them were uniformly evil. They sought earnestly for communion with another world by means of their own mediums, because they perceived the spirits who gave token of their presence through these to be departed friends, and believed them, without excep- tion, angelic beings, natures glorified and happy. The outpouring of this gift " to discern spirits '' was coveted hy every congregation of Christians, whether Asiatic or European, of the East or of the West. Even when occur- THE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CHUROE. 101 ring amongst those whom the orthodox deemed heretical brethren, it was not the less rejoiced in. Montanus, though the bodj of the Church held his teachings in the highest degree pernicious, was connived at by many on account of his spiritual gifts. Two of his female followers, the ladies Maxiinilla and Priscilla, were held in such es- teem as prophetesses and clairvoyants that the protection of the Papacy itself was granted them against their ene- mies. The Montanists, it is true, appear to have been far worthier of reverence than the majoiity of those who per- secuted them. The great purposes of their leader were to put down the follies and vices of the period and to reform the discipline of the Church. Wherever a church of Moutanists arose there appeared numei-ons energumeiis, or, as we now saj-, mediums. In the midst of the congre- gation these would pass into an ecstatic state, and deliver addresses whilst entranced. Such a speaker was the sister alluded to by the most eminent disciple of Montanus, the great Tertullian. Nothing can better express the confidence which the early Christians had in the continual protection of guar- dian spirits than the beautiful words of St. Augustine : " They watch," says the son of Monica, " they watch over and guard us with great care and diligence in all places and at all hours, assisting, providing for our necessities with solicitude ; they intervene between US and Thee, Lord, conveying to Thee our sighs and groans, and bringing down to us the dearest blessings of Thy grace. They walk with us in all our ways ; they go in and out with us, attentively observ- ing how we converse with piety in the midst of a perverse generation, with what ardor we seek Thy kingdom and its justice, and with what fear and awe we serve Thee- They assist us in our labors ; they pro- tect us in our rest ; they encourage us in battle ; they crown us in victories ; they rejoice in us when we rejoice in Thee ; and they com- passionately attend us when we suffer or aire afflicted for Thee. Great is their care of us, and great is the effect of their charity for us. They love him whom Thou lovest ; they guard him whom Thou beholdost 102^ SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. with tenderness ; they forsake those from whom Thou withdrawest Thyself ; and they hate them that work iniquity, because they are hatefiil to Thee." So living was the faith of Christiana from fourteen to" eighteen centuries ago! Disputes on other points of faith might distract the Church in these early ages — Homoou- sians rage against liomoiousians, Gnostics anathematize Sabellians, the Arian Constantius persecute the followers of Athanaslus, the Athanasian Theodosius persecute the Arians, but to one strong stay the devotees of either creed equally clung— that of the nearness of the spirit-world, and the possibility of communion between those still on tins side the grave and those who had known the change called death. Origen might differ from Cyril as to whether the condition of the devil were hopeless or not, but he could agree with him that multitudes of spiritual beings, benignant and malevolent, continually sun-ounded his brother Christian and himself. The certainty of a continual spiritual presence, the consciousness of the ceaseless watching of spiritual eyes, were connuon to every flock of believers, from the Pillars of Hercules to the shores of the Persian Gulf, and from the corn-fields of Sicily to the forests of the Grampians. It mattered not whether their condition in this world were one of happi- ness or pain. In the first century or the fourth, as well in the reign of Nero as in that of Constantine, the same angelic whispers upheld the believer in life, and strength- ened him in the hour of death ; the same Christ stood ready to bid the faithful servant welcome to the glory of his Lord. Such men could say with Paul that neither principalities nor powers might wrest from them the great joy of their faith. To live was Christ, and to die gain. The pleasures and pains of earth they equally despised. All their hopes were concentred ou the glorious mansions THE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CHUROII. 103 wherein was prepared for them a place ; all their ambi- tion was devoted to the brightness of an eternal crown. In honor or in lowliness they saw only the mighty mark towards which they pressed. Whether surrounded by the gloom of the Catacombs, or the glory of the palace, they lived less in this world than in the next. Already the heavenly things, which by other men were seen faintly or not at all, were to them more real than the turmoil of that Vanity Fair wherein for a spate their lot was cast. That this might be a hundred miracles were wrought. Lest they should forget that God is mighty to save, they were snatched from the mouths of lions, and protected amidst the violence of iire. Lest their faith should wax weak the spirits who had gone before gave to them con- tinual tokens of their nearness and their love. When " afflicted, destitute, tormented," they wandered in a world unworthy of them, their vision was withdrawn from the things of earth, and fixed on the glories await- ing all who should hold fast to the end. Before the judges, iii the arena, at the stake, voices whispered to them of the realm where God should wipe away all tears, and in the ecstasy of the rcind the body's agonies were forgotten. Triumphant over death, serene amidst the extremity of pain, their radiant countenances witnessed to their enemies of how little avail against those to whom the Spiritual had been brought so close was the fiercest malice of man. Upon such the splendors of the world of light could not break with a brightness altogetiier unconeeived. Whilst yet on earth they tasted of the joys to come. Their eyes were opened to the glories of their future home. Their ears were tilled with its music. Their spirits enjoyed its peace. Thus supported, they encouiitei'ed victoriously all the obstacles of their pilgrim- age, and, " faithful unto death," passed to enjoy the crown 104 SPIBITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. of life which, throughout that pilgrimage, had been ever before their gaze. I am not sure that in a chapter respecting Spiritualism in the early ages of the Christian Church the Alexandrian scliool of philosophy should find a place. But the inex- orable limits of space forbid my devoting to Plotinus, lamblichns, and the rest of the Neo-Platonists a full chapter, and it is certain that such men must not be passed unnoticed. Of all Pagan systems theirs most nearly approached the religion of Christ. Docti-ines, indeed, which Neo-Platonism still more intimately re- sembles, are those of Buddha and Bralima, and it was imperative that this should be, since from India much of the pliilosophy of the school was confessedly drawn. The teacliing of Nirvana was held 1)y Amnionius and his suc- cessors in its sublimest form. To the lessons drawn from the East they added tlie noblest portions of the wisdom of Plato, and mingled with the whole fragments both of the truth and error of Pythagoi-as. The philosophy thus formed flourished long in the schools of Greece, and became, by reason of the nobleness of its ethics, the grandeur of its speculations, and tlie eKtent to which spiritual gifts were possessed by its first teachers, a for- midable rival to the Christian faith. It was not until the reign of Justinian, when the men who had been its chief glories had long departed, that JSTeo-PIatonism finally fell from its high estate. | The prophet of the school was Apollonius of Tyaua. ' (As mentioned in a former chapter of tliis work he ac- quired his theurgic wisdom almost wholly in the East. lie was a native of Tyana in Asia Minor, and nearly con- temporary with Christ. Numerous miracles of the highest class are attributed to him. He cured by spir- itual means the most \'iolent diseases, and gave frequent THE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 105 predictions of future events. Meeting a funeral i-)roces- eion, where a bridegroom in an agony ol: despair followed the bier of his young wife, he caused the procession to Btop, and succeeded in recalling the dead girl to life. At Corinth he became the hero of that legend which has foi'ined the subject of Keats's " Lamia." Apollonius was greatly attached to a young Greek named Menippus, who persisted, contraiy to the wishes of the philosopher, in marrying a rich and beautiful woman of the city. When the guests were assembled for the wedding, Apollonius, unbidden, walked into their midst, and commanded the demon which animated the body of the bride to come fortli. After a fruitless struggle, it is said, the spirit complied, and confessed itself an " empuse " or vampire, wliose intention was to have destroyed Menippus in his sleep. By temperance and purity the earthly life of this sage was prolonged to almost a hundred years. " My mode of living," he wrote, "is very different to that of other people. I take very little food, and this, like a secret remedy, maintains my senses fresh and unimpaired, as it keeps everything that is dark from them, so that I can see the present and future as it were in a clear mirror. The sage need not wait for the vapors of the earth, and the corruptions of the air, to foresee plagues and fevers ; he must know them later than God, but earlier than the people. The gods see the future, men the present, sages that which is coming. This mode of life produces such an acuteuess of the senses, or some other power, that the greatest and most remarkable things may be performed. I am, therefore, perfectly convinced that God reveals His intentions to holy and wise men." By " acuteness of the senses, or some other power," Apollonius evidently implied clairvoyance. How wonderfully this attribute was de- 5* 106 8PIBITUAL1SM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN EBAS. veloped in him numerous events in his history prove. At Ephesus, as related in my chapter on India, he perceived and made known the assassination of Domitian in the very hour when that event occurred at Rome. Unlike many beings less highly gifted, this philosoplier never sought to assume a dictatorship over the souls of men. He was totally undesirous to become the founder, of a religion. His mission was to bring nearer to man* the glories of the spiritual world, and the only preparation for that world which he felt himself empowered to incul- cate was purity, physical and moral. He lived revered by all Greece and Italy, and after his death was regarded with yet higher veneration. lAt Tyana a temple was built in his honor; a species of memorial which he could scarcely have expected or desired. The Emperor Had- rian collected his letters, and every authentic document which existed respecting his life. These, having long been carefully preserved, were finally delivered by the Empress Julia, the mother of Severus, to Philostratus, who constructed from them his life of the great Theurgist, a work which all well-informed critics have agreed in regarding as authentic. Long after the death of Apollonius arose Ammonius Sacchas, the true founder of the Neo-Platonic school. His successors, each of them more famous tlian Ammonius himself, were Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and lamblichus. By these men Neo-Platonism was rapidly carried to its highest development. As I have said, this school pro- fessed extreme respect for the deeds and writings of the philosopher of Tyana. He had, however, left nothing behind him which could justify his being exalted into a Messiah, and no such attempt was made. Indeed, high as was the admiration of the Neo-Platonists for Apollonius, they appear to have felt an equally higli, perhaps higher, TBE SPIRITUAL IN THE EARL T CHUBOH. 10 1 aduiiration for Christ. They admit His miracles, and show no trace of antagonism to His teachings. It was chiefly the fault of the Christian Church itself that it failed to absoi-bthe Alexandrian pliilosophers. Even in those early ages intolerance had sprung up and become strong. Nor need we wonder at this, since, once rooted in any religion, it is a weed that attains maturity as rapidly as Jonah's gourd. Plotinus and lambliclms were now libelled as deadly enemies to the Church of Christ. They claimed to have purified the soul so that they could perceive spirits, and, by the help of these spirits, perform miracles. The Christians, perceiving that irrefragable proof of spiritual gifts existed among the Neo-Flatonists, adopted the priest- ly tactics of all ages and faiths. Without showing that the spirits who communed with Ammonius and his followers were evil, they denounced the mediums' of Alexandria as sorcerers. Fcjrgetting the reply of Christ to that reproach they hurled against them the cry of the Pharisees : " Te cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils ! " Nay, even this did not content them. At the head of a rabble of such bigots as have in all ages defiled the pure name of Christian, a bisliop of Alexandria (Cyril, if I remember aright) succeeded in seizing and murdering a beautiful and saintly maiden named Hypatia, whose teachings were esteemed thi-oughout the city. The outrage was attended by circumstances of the foulest horror. Cyril and his fellow disgracers of the human form, having stripped their victim, hewed her almost in pieces, and dragged the man- gled remains in triumph through the streets. No worse crime was ever perpetrated by Calvin. Yet there can be little doubt but that the ecclesiastical monster and his satellites returned thanks to God for the great work He had permitted them to accomplish, and, with the blood of tlie victim yet fresh on his hands, Cyril may have found 108 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CBBISTIAN ERAS. matter for a very eloquent sermon in the command, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Happily such crimes as this were rare in the early ages of the Church. Not un- til that Church had ceased to struggle for existence, and was become in her turn dominant, did murder assume a clearly-defined position amongst the duties of her ser- vants. Plotinus, the successor of Ammonius Sacchas in the leadership of Neo-Platonism, was as deeply tinged with asceticism as any Christian hermit of ancient ages. He lived sparely, held fasts whose length and frequency tasked to the utmost his bodily powers, and displayed clairvoyance in its highest form. The minds of men, he repeatedly proved, were to him as open books. As re- counted by Porphyry his teachings resembled exactly those of the Indian Brahmins and Buddhists. He held God to be not only without but within us. He is present to all, yet men flee from Him. Spirits released from the hody are not divided hy space, hut iy the di^erence of mental and moral qualities. If suck difference cease, they are immediately near to each other. In the words I have italicized the great Neo-Platonist expresses a truth which the revelations of all Modern Spiritualism go to confirm. Plotinus taught, moreover, that a perfect union with God might be attained by resembling Him in quality and dis- position. Withdrawn from the sensual attractions of earth the spiiit became filled with light from the Source of all light. Out of that Source fiow increasing shapes and spirits — the eidolen of Heraclitus. 'I o community with these we arrive by despising the things of earth. Such communion is obtained in ecstasy — ecstasy being almost invariably the work of spirits. Plotinus possessed this ecstatic sensitiveness, and drew from it all his theurgio power, working thus signs and wonders, predicting future THE SPIBITAUL IN THE EARLY CHUROH. 109 events, and healing the most hoi^eless diseases. Like Soi'.rates, he knew himself to be constantly attended by a guardian spirit, who warned him from evil and inspired him to good. Porpliyry, the disciple of tliis Plotinns, naturally clnng to the doctrines of so enlightened a master. He indus- triously collected materials from which the life of Plotinus might be written, and compiled an account of it with the greatest care. Himself distinguished less by medial power than by intellectual gifts, he was succeeded in the direc- tion of Alexandrian philosophy by a man the most truly spiritual of all the NeoPlatonists. This was lamblichiis, one of the greatest seers of the ancient earth. Albeit clinging still to some of the errors of Pythagoras, he lived a blameless and exalted life. So famous was he for his learning and power of healing that, in process of time, he came to be styled " The Divine." It was this lambli- chus, who, according to Eunapius, " from out their fountain dwellings raised Eros and Anteros at Gadara. ' ' Indeed no inagian of Egypt appears to have had a closer intercourse with the world of spii'its. He was, above all his brethren, familiar with the phenomena of clairvoy- ance. Divine music frequently resounded in his ears. He endured' unhurt the blows of weapons and the touch of fire. His life was passed in a total abstraction from the things of earth. He displayed in the highest perfec- tion the three cardinal virtues, faith, hope, and charity, and his remarks on prayer are worthy of the noblest Christian. With those remarks I shall conclude the pres- ent chapter : "Prayer constitutes a, portion of the sacred service, and confers a universal advantage on religion, by creating an unerring conneotiou 110 SPIRITUALISM— JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS. between the priests and God. It conducts us to a perfect knowledge of heavenly things. It procures us that inexpressible devotion which places its wliole strength in God above, and thus imparts to our souls a blessed repose. No act prospers in the service of God, where prayer is omitted. Daily-repeated prayer nourishes the understanding, and prepares our hearts for sacred things ; opens to man the divine, and accustoms him by degrees to the glory of the divine light. It enables ns to bear our sufferings, and the weaknesses that are human ; attracts our sentiments gradually upwards and unites them with the diviue ; enkindles whatever is holy vrithin our souls. It purges away all way- wardness of mind, it generates true hope and faith. In-a word, it helps those to an intimate conversation with spirits who exercise it dihgently and often. How effectual it is ! How prayer and sacrifiije mutually invigorate each other, impart the sacred power of religion and make it perfect ! It becomes us not therefore to contemn prayer, or only to employ a little of it, and throw away the rest. No, wholly must we use it, and above all things must they practice it who desire to unite themselves sincerely with God." CHAPTEE III. BPIEITUALISM IN CATHOLIC AGES. I HAVE now to deal with that portion of the world's history in which the light kindled in the early Christian Church was constantly becoming dimmer by reason of the gross vapors that surrounded it. No record is written in blacker characters than that of the seven centuries wh'ch followed the assumption of the crown of the West by Charlemagne. The demon of Intolerance, driven forth for a space by the pure teachings of Christ, seemed to have returned, bringing with him seven other devils woree than himself. Hypocrisy was there, and Murder, and crimes and vices which men shudder to name. The chair SPIRITUALISM IN OATEOLIG AGES. HI of St. Peter was filled by a succession of degraded pon- tiffs—each more worthless than his predecessor. The profligacy of churchmen became appalling. " Viler than a priest" was one of the common expressions of Soutliern Europe in the twelfth century. Those who styled them- selves the keepers of the gospel sneered in secret at tlie teachings which that gospel contained. Nay, they ap- peared, with the perverseness of profligacy, to pride them- selves upon shaping their conduct in diametrical opposition to the rules laid down by Christ and the twelve. Because the Messiah was meek and lowly, the prelates of His Church displayed themselves through a succession of ages the proudest of the proud. Because He had blessed th