OassJ3Jl_iiM 
 
 Book_L.d_4iS__ 
 Copyright N° 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
• 
 
SPIRIT COMMUNION 
 
 A RECORD 
 
 OF 
 
 COMMUNICATIONS THROUGH 
 H. B. CHAMPION 
 
 v oO i 
 
 WITH EXPLANATORY OBSERVATIONS BY 
 
 "j. B. FERGUSON 
 
 r 
 
 Revised Edition 
 
 
 PARKERSBURG 
 
 PRINTED BY GLOBE PRESS 
 1888 
 

 Copyright 1887 
 
 By Marius C. C. Church. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 Love is the immutable principle that must bind 
 mony and union this extended Universe. Then w 
 be God in the Heart of Humanity. % Cham\ Jjn. 
 
 4 
 
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 A few of the friends of the Spiritual Movement 
 started in Nashville thirty -five years ago have request- 
 ed the writer to compile and put into permanent form 
 the Inspirational Utterances of H. B. Champion. 
 Mr. Champion wrote and dictated a large amount of 
 matter which he intended to give to the world, but 
 his own life, up to the time of his death in August 
 last, was so beset by one form of difficulty and another 
 that he failed to put his MSS. in a shape that can now 
 be made available for the purposes of his friends. 
 The Communications herewith presented to the read- 
 ing public, and first published by Mr. Ferguson, 1 in 
 1854, are all that we have, thus far, been able to 
 secure for this work. Fortunately these Communica- 
 tions give the fundamental thought of the Inspirational 
 Intelligences who controlled his mental organism. 
 
 I. Mr. Ferguson died at his home near Nashville, Tennessee, September 3, 1870. 
 
(iv ) 
 
 These, taken in connection with the "Explanatory 
 Observations" of Mr. Ferguson, give the reader a 
 very clear idea of the influences which directed the 
 Movement. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson has given, in these Records, such a 
 full and particular account of the development of 
 Mr. Champion as a Medium, that we refrain from tres- 
 passing upon the limits of our own work, in a recapit- 
 ulation. At some other time we hope to be able to give 
 a full and fair estimate of Mr. Champion's Life and 
 Character. 
 
 In arranging the matter in the following Records 
 we have thought it best to preserve the original form 
 of their presentation to the public, expurgating only 
 such temporary and local allusions as would now be 
 out of place in a work of this character; and also 
 such irrelevant statements and obscurities of language 
 in the "Communications" as are unnecessary to a prop- 
 er understanding of the thought. The latter has been 
 done very sparingly. 
 
 In the year 1850 the writer was a member of the 
 congregation of Independent thinkers, in Nashville, 
 Tennessee, over which the Rev. J. B. Ferguson pre- 
 sided. This relation continued until 1856. During 
 that time an intimacy was formed which cemented a 
 friendship as enduring as eternity. During those 
 years was born a reciprocal thought and affection 
 which culminated in the experiences detailed in these 
 
(v) 
 
 Records. Mr. Ferguson was a man of commanding 
 appearance, of undaunted personal courage, an unrival- 
 ed pulpit orator and a born leader of-men. Although 
 occupying a Southern pulpit, he was a devoted admirer 
 of Channing, and preached and sympathized with his 
 broad views in regard to human Freedom, the dignit}' 
 and worth of Man's Higher Nature, and the attain- 
 ment of that Moral Perfection which was the leading 
 thought of Channing and — the aspiration of Fer- 
 guson. Such a man, in such a pulpit, excited the 
 animosity of the intolerant sects and the hatred of the 
 slave-holding class. His eloquence flamed against 
 human bondage whether of the body or of the mind, 
 and, as a consequence, he was opposed by every 
 influence that could be arrayed for his destruction. 
 Through all his persecutions he stood, a shaft of light, 
 single and alone in those hours of darkness. Amid 
 it all, his faith was serene and trustful in the Provi- 
 dence of God. 
 
 As we review the past thirty-five years — years 
 memorable in the history of Mankind as witnessing a 
 great struggle for Freedom and Free Thought, for 
 which Mr. Ferguson, with Channing and others, so 
 strenuously struggled — the whole seems like a dream. 
 We can hardly realize that the events which were then 
 heralded with so much ardor and self- sacrifice, have 
 become cold facts ; and that only a few now remain 
 to bear witness to the transpiring deeds which at the 
 
( vi ) 
 
 time tested our manhood. To be a believer in Spirit 
 Communion, thirty-five years ago, was simply ostra- 
 cism from all that a man held dear in life. Perhaps no 
 man made more sacrifices than Mr. Ferguson. With 
 him it was the giving up, not only of social and family 
 relations and ties, but the giving up of one of the 
 largest and most influential congregations in Nashville 
 — a congregation composed of the wealth, social 
 standing and intellectual culture which that city more 
 than any city in the South could boast. He sur- 
 rendered it for what he believed to be the Truth, and 
 took his place as the leader of those who thought and 
 felt and worked with him. 
 
 To one who understands the law of Spirit attraction, 
 — "Like seeks Like," — there is but little to surprise 
 in the lofty character of the "Communications" re- 
 ceived ; only a small portion of which appear in these 
 Records. Nowhere else in the world did Spiritualism 
 assume so important and commanding an aspect ; 
 nowhere else were such results obtained; nowhere 
 else were its principles so securely fixed in the mind 
 of the Race; nowhere else was trifling less tolerated. 
 We were made to feel that it was a sacred cause which 
 we had espoused. What was then planted will stand 
 the test of Time, and its fruits will be garnered in 
 Eternity. 
 
 It was asked at the time why it was that the presiding 
 Intelligences used such a strange form of literary 
 
( vii ) 
 
 expression. To the ordinary reader the diction seems 
 strained. It was replied that the work in hand was 
 not for a day, nor for a generation, but for all time ; 
 that it had method, purpose, and an end to accomplish ; 
 that language is a vehicle for the refining of the influx 
 of thought; and whilst the language used might seem 
 strange to this generation, it would not be so to those 
 coming after. 
 
 Again. It was asked : "Do we really hold personal 
 and direct communication with the spirit of Dr. Wil- 
 liam Ellery Channing?" It was answered : Yes, 
 and No. Names have an occult meaning. The)' 
 bring the person en rapport with the qualities of the 
 person who is named ; hence, both the danger and 
 advantage of the invocation of names. The Ancients 
 understood this, and made it a solemn part of their 
 worship. It survives only, in the present day, in the 
 Catholic Church. The name Jesus has an especial 
 significance to all Christians. The name of Channing 
 has such a responsive significance to all who love the 
 qualities expressed by his life-work. When in the 
 form he was in spiritual rapport with an innumerable 
 host connecting him mediately with God. All bear 
 this relation. Hence, in a sense, Man has a double 
 immortality ; that which he holds in the form of the 
 Race — here and there — and that which he holds as 
 an individualized soul or entitv. The more Universal 
 the Thought, the more is the individuality of the 
 
( viii ) 
 
 spirit of Dr. Channing expanded in the impersonal 
 character of the Truth he communicates. The more 
 individualized, local and temporary the Communica- 
 tion, the more is his personal identity preserved. Not 
 every Spirit, however, communicating in that name, 
 is Dr. Channing. A wise discrimination only can 
 settle such questions. We care nothing for names, 
 persons, or things ; but for the Truth. This is Eternal 
 in God. It is God. We are forms through which 
 It is reflected to Man through the Infinite Series of 
 Souls in whom He dwells and through whom He 
 communicates His Spirit in adaptation to all neces- 
 sities. 
 
 The law of Spirit, as of so-called Matter, is : Like 
 seeks Like. This law is universal, and is the key to 
 all the problems which have so puzzled Mankind on 
 what is called "Spiritualism." No man, or woman 
 either, should seek to open him or herself to the 
 Spirit-world until Moral and Physical purity insures 
 attractions — both beneficial to the Spirit communica- 
 ting and the mortal communicated with. It has been 
 the want of this preparation that has wrecked so many 
 hopes and brought to disaster the highest expectations 
 of the more sanguine. No Communication should be 
 allowed that does not comport with the strict Law 
 of Truth and Purity, and none should be sought 
 except for purposes of unselfish good to Humanity. 
 When Heaven's higher truth is appreciated, Man will 
 
(ix) 
 
 look to his Heart for the affinities which hold him to 
 Eternal Life. On his Soul is written the Intuitive 
 Impress of God. 
 
 One object of the teachings through Mr. Champion 
 is to bring to Man, without distinction, the fact of 
 the existence within his own breast of an "Infallible 
 Monitor, born of God," who there unfolds to the self- 
 conscious spirit the Infinite fullness of Divinity ; so 
 that Man may no longer be led from without, but 
 from within — a Freeman in the Universal Empire of 
 Being ; — holding universal kinship with those affinities 
 which ally him with the Source of All-Good. 
 
 In all ages ; in all pure Religions ; in all the moral 
 heroes who have stood the martyrs of human Liberty 
 and Faith; in all who have striven for Right and 
 Justice, for Moral and Spiritual Progress : the Inspi- 
 ration of God's Presence in the Soul has ever been a 
 Conscious Living Fact of Experience. It has inspired 
 the noblest Religious fervor, and under its influence 
 the grandest purposes of Human Effort have been 
 accomplished. M. C. C. C. 
 
 Parkersburg, West Va., October 26, 1887. 
 
Ifntrobuctlon. 
 
 THE Records of Communion with the high- 
 born spirits of another sphere, now presented 
 in the following pages, were made, for the most 
 part, without reference to the Public. We took them 
 down as worthy of preservation among our private 
 records, and the thought never entered our minds that 
 they would be spread before the reading world until 
 we were called upon by our Spirit Monitors to know 
 whether we would confine such blessed intuitions of 
 Divine Wisdom and Love to our narrow circle, or 
 give them forth to relieve and elevate a common 
 Humanity. We were called to a sense of our respon- 
 sibilities and privileges by being reminded that we 
 were in danger of undervaluing those benign influences 
 intended to follow Man from his cradle to his grave ; 
 that the knowledge of their enjoyment by any would 
 serve to awaken our fellow-mortals to a just appreci- 
 ation of most blessed privileges and bring them to a 
 sense of their gifts as Men, inherited from their God, 
 out of which so many have been cheated by false 
 fears and unlicensed assumptions over their Spiritual 
 Natures; that the most hallowed influences would 
 everywhere accompany and surround these evidences 
 of Spirit-influx, awakening desires high and holy 
 that cannot be satisfied short of the great Ultimate of 
 universal good promised and found in the recognition 
 of an Eternal Destiny — when each shall know that 
 God is the Universal Parent — Man, the Universal 
 Brother — and an endless Union and Felicity the 
 Universal End of all rational intelligences. We were 
 
(2) 
 
 fully satisfied, by the most graphic and enlightened 
 evidences, that it was not to destroy or subvert any 
 just conception of the Good, Useful, or Beautiful in 
 Human Organizations for mutual help ; not to dim any 
 exalted recognition of virtue or virtuous conduct 
 that makes the man and elevates him above the brutal 
 tendencies of a misdirected fleshly nature : but to instil 
 within the fermentations of his thought that which 
 shall cause it to ascend in unison with every holy 
 desire to be benefitted and to benefit others. We 
 believe they will aid man — every man — rationally and 
 charitably to regard the differences between man and 
 man, and break down the despotic sway over human 
 consciences which has clouded and deadened their 
 highest sense of Right and prevented many from recog- 
 nizing their true and common paternity in God. To 
 believe that the recognition of the Impress of God 
 upon every heart, which Spirit Intercourse invariably 
 invites, will breathe forth anything but purity and 
 preparative longings for the highest ends of virtuous 
 devotion is only to reveal, in the heart thus believing, 
 its own traitorous enslavement to an authority that 
 robs us of our highest aims, in our estrangement from 
 the Fount of Life Immortal. Like seeks its Like with 
 unerring aim, and God recognized in the soul will 
 only lead us to higher and purer knowledge of His 
 purposes and ways. 
 
 It is not the interests of one, or many, we feel in 
 presenting this work ; but the interests of all. We 
 do not publish for a class, to meet their applause or 
 parry their criticisms, but to serve and awaken all 
 who would rather be true to their natures and their 
 God than dwell amid the hosannas of thousands 
 whose praise is as ephemeral as the promptings from 
 whence it flows. It is not the cause nor the right of 
 one man, or of one family, however unspeakably 
 favored, but the great chart of Human Rights, that 
 Spirit-guides seek to protect and perpetuate to all 
 coming generations. Of this we are well assured; 
 and our hearts beat responsive to the inspirations of 
 
(3) 
 
 so noble and glorious an object. Blessed privileges of 
 liberty of thought and sentiment once came forth to 
 this great American family, in all their majesty ; and 
 they have decorated our fair heritage with all it can 
 now claim as permanent and hopeful : and it is only 
 in the highest and most solemn exercise of these 
 privileges, we have recorded and now publish what 
 is here presented, believing it will challenge the 
 admiration and open the fondest hopes of every lover 
 of God and Man. 
 
 We can but feel — it would be inhuman did we not 
 deeply feel — for those who have been deprived of that 
 immortal solace we have learned to prize so dearly. 
 Such realize no true life. They are but as signets set 
 to remain in fear and doubt and, perchance, in hatred 
 for ages yet unborn. This solace has more than 
 compensated for every unnatural opposition, unfriend- 
 ly misrepresentation, physical or mental suffering, 
 we have been called upon to bear, and it has made 
 them as nothing, to the rich repast daily spread for our 
 longing desires. Our comfort and our strength may 
 prove a beacon-light upon the outer walls of the 
 Temple now opening to all, in the dim distance of the 
 Future, and guide their steps amid the darkness of 
 superstition and the countless wrongs of human as- 
 sumption over the best mental gifts of Humanity. 
 And could we but bring to a single soul the joy we 
 feel beneath these genial rays of Angelic Wisdom, 
 breathing light and liberty into the darkest abodes 
 of sorrow and injury, it would be ample compensation 
 for all of ridicule or derision they may excite in the 
 minds of the unfortunately servile or fearful. It is 
 sufficient apology to any man, having the heart of a 
 man, to say we realize what we present, as true. We 
 would stand before the world as a man, recognizing 
 and desiring its good. This is what we need personally ; 
 it is what all need. Do any ask, what is good? We 
 answer, prompted by Angelic Wisdom, — that which 
 gives character. To bring forth the long-hidden 
 treasures of the Soul, in an}^, is to bless Mankind. 
 
(4) 
 
 The Soul is the abode of Truth, and the opening of 
 its doors is the freedom and glory of the world. The 
 tainted and cumbrous inheritances of the Past, found 
 in dainty books and supercilious Institutes, have in- 
 vaded this sacred retreat, till men almost doubt that 
 they have souls, and quite fear to use them except at 
 the beck of self-constituted and selfish authority. 
 We feel that the common interests of Man call lor 
 these evidences of his native birth and destiny in a 
 Divinity that makes sacred and eternal every natural 
 tie. We would ask : Is the measure of man's standard 
 of knowledge so high that he needs no more? We 
 deem it not amiss to give additional reasons why we 
 present these Records. The wants and necessities 
 of our human brethren cry aloud. We offer them 
 our measure of present supply, and know that it will 
 return to us laden seven-fold. 
 
 Every Spirit must receive, and does receive accord- 
 ing to the form of his genius, the measure of the 
 powers of its attraction, adaptation, and the use made 
 of its privileges, the influences of that perpetual 
 inspiration out of which, as from an exhaustless 
 fountain, flows every stream that dignifies, purifies, 
 or elevates the Individual or the Race. The antag- 
 onisms of life, springing from a repression of the True 
 Instincts of the Soul, sometimes almost crush, and 
 quite cloud this Divinity within, and then its capacity 
 and privileges are unnoticed, dwarfed, or encased in 
 the hard, cold covering of vice and crime. The 
 Soul is not free. Too often it is regarded by its 
 possessor, and treated by those who have momentary 
 power over its manifestation, as though it were 
 capable of but one note; and that in praise of the 
 unnatural influences that enslave it. When Man shall 
 regard the diatonic harmony of the scale God has 
 impressed upon it, the dead and monotonous tones 
 it too often utters upon all subjects, will be tuned in 
 a diapason of full, grand and infinitely varied worship 
 and praise. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 We claim nothing in the following pages but what 
 we believe to be open to all. We do not believe the 
 world rests upon our shoulders any more than upon 
 those of the priests who ascribe every unaccountable 
 phenomenon to the Devil. The attractive forces that 
 sustain all minds may be recognized by all. A higher 
 development of freedom and patience will secure a 
 higher degree of illumination than any, however we 
 esteem it, presented in our experience. But no truth 
 nor true privilege can be enjoyed unless we comply 
 with the conditions by which it would attract and fill 
 the small or large vessels of our souls. The Divine 
 Spirit is indwelling in the Soul of Man ; its outflow 
 may be suppressed; its glorious manhood dwarfed; 
 its purity and integrity tainted; and its sovereign- 
 ty over its external and transitory circumstances 
 prevented — by its own neglect and by organized 
 aggressions upon its inborn rights: and thus it may, 
 for a time, be despoiled of its real life, its only liberty, 
 and its sustaining happiness. We say, then, confi- 
 dently, that whoever lives in Justice, Liberty and 
 Love, amid all the varieties of human character, will 
 see and realize every truth, and greater truths, than 
 those presented in these pages. But where we turn 
 the continual inspiration to Love and Justice into 
 Hate and Iniquity, we cannot expect the Soul to bloom 
 and expand in the atmosphere of its native purity and 
 power. 
 
 Although we have witnessed most, if not all, the 
 phenomenon called physical demonstrations, yet we 
 never regarded them as sources of reliable intelligence. 
 To us they but indicate the presence of Spirits, and 
 invite to that recognition of our powers of Soul by 
 which we may hold the communion they seek, in all 
 gentle and peaceful teachings ; in bright and blessed 
 assurances of immortality ; in the opening and refining 
 influences our natures demand ; in expanding our per- 
 ceptions and conceptions of Truth and Right, and 
 thus, by brightning our own Spirits, make them as 
 a clear mirror of Heavenlv Wisdom and Love. 
 
(6) 
 
 This Earth — this human form — these Heavens ac- 
 knowledge an Author. Were we to spend an age 
 philosophising upon their origin, still we would be 
 compelled t<5 call it — God. If the Infinitude of 
 Creative Power placed it here, are not its laws as eter- 
 nal as its existence ? Is the law of Spirit Intercourse, 
 claimed by every form of Religion and Government 
 that ever honored or disgraced God's heritage of 
 blessing to Man, buried and lost? Is there an over- 
 ruling Providence for good ? If so, nothing can be 
 good to us unless it be realized. O, that I had language 
 to express the force and bearing of my own experience 
 of this truth! I can but say, O God! receive the 
 thanks of a grateful heart for the privileges we enjoy ! 
 To Thee, as a token of our gratitude, we give these 
 memorials of our privileges and hopes. Let Angel- 
 messengers whisper peace to the troubled heart, 
 whenever it ponders over the truths that have brought 
 to us, in all our imperfect surroundings of language 
 and habits, the sweet consolations of another sphere. 
 May they awaken in each, emotions that shall lead 
 to a clear recognition of the kindred ties that bind 
 them to the departed, and to our common paternity 
 in God. May they help them to feel as men created 
 capable of recognizing their greatest good. And when 
 their God-given faculties, inherited by their birth, and 
 not dependent on the forms or ceremonies of human 
 wisdom or infatuation, are elevated ; O ! then, lift 
 them to Thee ! above all fear, all doubt, all grief, till 
 by ties of kindred affinity with loved ones departed 
 from fleshly sight, they may realize that though 
 dwellers upon earth, they live in God and He in them ! 
 
 Without these direct evidences of human immor- 
 tality, we know that many minds have accepted the 
 hope of Future Existence, and perhaps no sane mind 
 has been entirely bereft of the desire to live after the 
 dissolution of the body , but the hope has often been 
 made to sanction the most enormous assumptions over 
 
( 7) 
 
 human consciences, and clouds of the darkest super- 
 stitions have everywhere gathered over it, which have 
 denied to it its natural privileges and made it more a 
 dread and slavish fear than a buoyant and purifying 
 anticipation. To believe the Soul formed merely for 
 the present uncertain and unsatisfying mode of exist- 
 ence, to an enlightened mind, was to believe it created 
 without a worthy purpose, in a Universe everywhere 
 displaying most happy adaptation of means to ends. 
 Possessed of desires that are never fully gratified; 
 aspirations never reaching their ideals ; loves, severed 
 but not destroyed ; hopes, disappointed but not oblit- 
 erated ; — it seems to exist only as a splendid failure 
 and tantalization, unless it is regarded as sustaining 
 Spiritual Affinities yet to be realized, after its present 
 organization is dissolved. Such considerations as 
 these give to many, a ready and strong perception 
 of human immortality ; but the revolting imagery 
 with which our future life has been reflected in the 
 consecrated pastimes of fanatical and selfish forms of 
 Religion and Political Despotisms, has deadened or 
 dwarfed the loftiest conception of the mind. As the pli- 
 ant tool of bigotry and superstition, or the consuming 
 flame of blinded fanaticism, it has come to be doubted 
 by the priest, dreaded by the multitude, and rejected 
 by those cultivated intellects that have ascended the 
 heights of the physical sciences and arts. False and 
 bewildering imaginings, so numerous and so inter- 
 mixed with all the duties and trials of life that they 
 could no longer be classified, has so covered up the 
 few grains of truthful intuition, beneath immense 
 beds of chaffy superstition, that help is called for by 
 every sincere Philanthropist and devout Christian. 
 And it has come! And every Enfranchised Mind 
 will hail it as the reflected grandeur of Humanity's 
 Dawn. 
 
 It would be premature to attempt an anticipation 
 of its results. A few may be noted as already indi- 
 cated in its present tendencies and effects: 
 
( 8) 
 
 Spiritualism will correct the materialistic tendencies 
 of human philosophy. 
 
 It will make the Spiritual Life a reality to the 
 conviction of every inquiring' mind, and thus save it 
 from the lamentable gloom in which it has groped 
 its way, amid clouds of sorrow and mourning, seeing 
 only a threatening sky and the frown of an angry God. 
 
 It will open a power and privilege of thought upon 
 all that pertains to human happiness, such as the world 
 has never recorded. It will present and promote a 
 Purer Morality than has ever been recognized or 
 practiced by the religious or political organizations 
 of the world. 
 
 It will make a basis for Human Charity, more rational 
 and more reciprocal than the world has yet recognized. 
 
 The teaching from the Spirit-spheres accords with 
 the rational culture of the present age in an unmis- 
 takable view of the Spirit-Life, that relieves it of many 
 difficulties. It shows, most uniformly, that every 
 man commences the future life in the precise state of 
 development in which he leaves this; that it is an 
 advancement upon the privileges of the present life, 
 in light or the degree of knowledge ; but does not 
 change the essential nature and tendencies of the Soul. 
 That is to say : The Future Life gives a more perfect 
 knowledge of the True and Good, in contrast with 
 the False and Evil; a knowledge so much more per- 
 fect that the desire for improvement is anew generated 
 and proportionally increased. The punishment, there- 
 fore, of that state is that which arises from a sense of 
 incapacity and ill-desert, and there is no such thing 
 as eternal, objectless, vindictive punishment. 
 
 Now when Ave remember that the vast majority of 
 human beings who do evil, do so from feebleness of 
 vision more than from deliberate, wilful intention, we 
 will see the justness of this conclusion. But some 
 seem to do wrong with their eyes open, and with free 
 will. The latter, of course, must suffer greater inten- 
 sity of disappointment and regret than the former. 
 But even then, in the ideas a pure mind would form 
 
(9) 
 
 of that state, they must become the objects of com- 
 passion to the nobler natures filled with unselfish, 
 not to say ineffable love. They are more the objects 
 of compassion than any ; and as such, need the very 
 highest in Love to desire their relief and to help their 
 advancement. 
 
 It is not Love that despises or disregards the 
 condition of the suffering, because it is intense. And 
 the man who supposes that he would be perfectly 
 happy in some glorified state of changeless felicity, 
 while an)r were suffering the tortures of an endless 
 misery only shows himself more an animal than a 
 man — with a Soul yet to be opened to the pure influ- 
 ences of the Spirit of Christ. He has not partaken 
 of the Life of Changeless Love, and, in the proportion 
 in which he has not, he is indifferent to the condition 
 of the debased and suffering around and beneath him. 
 Tired of the folly of selfish imaginings, in whose 
 revolting glare we clothe the future good or ill of our 
 kind, we are now turned by High Intelligences from 
 another sphere to behold an infinite series of cycles 
 of being, — from the lowest forms of soul development, 
 Avhich barely vegetates with the life of Love, and 
 scarcely feels the darkness of its earthly dungeon, 
 to the mighty expansion of a Christ-like Soul ; — and 
 we may know that into one or the other of these circles 
 we will enter at death, corresponding to the state of 
 mind and character with which we leave this life, and 
 to the means which are best adapted to secure im- 
 provement. We are informed of the fact, which, in 
 our minds, admits of no question and which we believe 
 to be within reach of every human soul, that in that state 
 as in this, the higher or more advanced Spirits ever 
 visit the lower or less advanced, to inspire them with 
 desires for holier associations and more blissful enjoy- 
 ments. Thus, friendship or fellowship there, depends, 
 as it should depend here, upon desiring and doing 
 good; and all are interested in the elevation and 
 perfection of all souls, so as to finally secure the 
 crowning glory of a long severed Brotherhood, in its 
 
( io) 
 
 Endless Union and Felicity. This evidence, we think, 
 is all the human mind, in its calm reflection, can desire. 
 
 When the reader reflects, that Fear never improved 
 him, or anyone ; that at best it can but restrain, and 
 is the necessary possession of a soul that has never 
 felt the full freedom and power of Love ; when he 
 calls to mind his own experience, which unmistakably 
 reveals, to all, that Love and Hope inspired by those 
 who possessed them in larger measure than others, 
 alone help to throw off the burdens of grief and wrong 
 from any soul, he may of himself see the principle of 
 progressive improvement that regulates and measures 
 all departments of the Rational Universe. More light 
 then ; a clearer vision of the unity of human interests 
 and destiny, is called for, and we already see from 
 whence it is to come, to Avork out all Hatred, even 
 upon earth. When extirpated and outgrown, what 
 will we behold? I ask, what principle will then pre- 
 vail ? And whatever we decide it to be, that is the 
 principle of the only real life the Soul can ever enjoy, 
 and as it enjoys it, it secures its own highest advance- 
 ment and the approach of Humanity's Triumph. 
 
 Apply this brief reference and conclusion to Man's 
 Spiritual relations in a Future Life. There, as the 
 vision of Wisdom and Love must necessarily enlarge, 
 the wish to become perfect must open. The improve- 
 ment of Man ever begins with the wish to improve. 
 The wish cannot exist without some revelation of the 
 possibility. Companies sympathising with that wish, 
 be it ever so low, and capable of enlarging it to a 
 strong and active desire come near to influence for 
 Good, and immediately an advancement will begin ; 
 and we can conceive of no limit to Spiritual, as there 
 is to fleshly progress. Are you now, and here, strug- 
 
 ?^ling for self-improvement? There, you shall start 
 rom a higher eminence, and receive the Divine 
 Father's approval in every endeavor. That approval, 
 for which the Soul ever longs, redoubles its ardor 
 and opens anew the upward career with infinite joy. 
 Thus we realize in advance the applauding " Well 
 
( » ) 
 
 done! enter, ever enter into the joy of thy service, 
 which is the joy of thy God." 
 
 But look once more abroad over the earth and view 
 its most elevated societies and individuals, whom you 
 know are seeking Good and not Evil. Do you not 
 see that some particular attribute characterizes each? 
 In that attribute most of the band — if it be a band — 
 concur, while they differ in almost every other respect. 
 So is the Spiritual state revealed. The circles are 
 infinitely varied, so that each individual entering will 
 find the society for which he is suited and which is, 
 therefore, best adapted to his improvement. 
 
 It may be asked, are we subject to defeat and 
 failure there as we are here ? Not so liable ; as that 
 state is an advance upon this, but still liable; for 
 failure and defeat must be predicated of all fallibility. 
 Mind — all mind save God's — varies in its states of 
 efficiency and in its power of sustained effort. It 
 must, therefore, be subject to weakness and ill-success. 
 But there, as the well-developed and disciplined mind 
 here has already realized, our failures are but stepping- 
 stones to more inspiring and earnest effort ; and when 
 success comes, as come it must to all persevering 
 endeavor, it comes with more clear and thrilling 
 triumph to those who have often failed and desponded. 
 So infinite and infinitely wise and good are all our 
 Father's provisions for the growth and glory of his 
 children. Certainly we may expect to be delivered 
 from all the weakness and liability to failures that 
 grow out of our fleshly bodies ; but to suppose that 
 by putting on the Spiritual body we will be made 
 equal to God in power, wisdom and love is to suppose 
 an absurdity that shocks all common sense. 
 
 Brought to a clear point in this department of our 
 investigation, we would say : The Soul, in its essential 
 nature, is the same everywhere. Its advances from 
 fleshly to Spiritual corporiety is a change of circum- 
 stances and conditions. But in all conditions, the Law 
 of Improvement is its ever present and only natural 
 law. 
 
( 12) 
 
 We advance in this life by first feeling the want of 
 a new relation to some person, persons, or thing. 
 This sense of want creates a desire for information as 
 to that relation. This desire attracts us to those, or 
 that, which we esteem capable of supplying our want. 
 We are directed wisely when we meet the appropriate 
 satisfaction — unwisely when we do not. Every failure 
 reveals the necessity of a more successful effort and, 
 in a pure mind, increases the desire. And as an 
 immortal thirst can never be fully gratified, Eternal 
 Progress is made the Law of laws throughout the 
 Universe, while the measure of Wisdom and Love is 
 increased at every step in our upward path. 
 
 The mind begins by inference as to what will do it 
 good ; but is never happy till it arrives at certainty. 
 Truth, in its full and satisfying proportions, is never 
 obtained merely by desire, nor can it be given by 
 force. We grow into it. 
 
 This illustrates and confirms the great doctrine 
 of a Universal Brotherhood. It shows, not only how 
 our life reacts upon our own natures, but by what deli- 
 cate agencies it sends forth its influence upon others. 
 Every one sees this influence in our outward relations, 
 for the effect of outward actions upon the welfare of 
 other minds is visible to all who have eyes to see. A 
 word spoken in childhood reaches in its effects to 
 maturer years, and through that child, when he be- 
 comes a father, goes forward to another and another, 
 and so on almost endlessly. 
 
 But, some one will say, will not a false word or deed 
 go forward also by this endless line of human relation- 
 ship, and produce evil endlessly? We answer, no — 
 emphatically, No ! It will go forward, doubtless, till 
 it is corrected, whether the line of its march be long 
 or short. For the False can be corrected by the True ; 
 but the True needs no correction and, hence, its 
 influence is as eternal as its nature. Thus, the Good 
 and the True are seen to be Absolute ; the Evil and 
 False, Relative. To see this is to realize the Supremacy 
 and Eternity of Good, which is our best definition of 
 Faith in God ! 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 But it is not the outward effect of merely outward 
 action to which we would call attention. Not to what 
 is generally seen and heard ; but to what is unseen and 
 Spiritual. Our thinking, feeling and willing, also 
 affect others, and influence them in exact proportion 
 to the affinities of our natures and the intimacy of 
 relation subsisting between us. This truth the reader 
 can corroborate by reference to his own experience. 
 
 In unrecognized ways do many truths become 
 apparent to us. We feel the grief, the anger, the love, 
 the vice of a friend — and often before we have extern- 
 ally witnessed, we feel it with delectable approval or 
 painful repulsion, according to our existing affinity 
 and the amount of interest that unites our hopes and 
 fears. And thus "no man livethto himself, nor dieth 
 to himself." No man falls into error or wrong without 
 affecting others. Such a phenomenon cannot happen 
 in a creation the links of whose chain are united in 
 universal dependency. However secret the lapse, it 
 weakens our own vigor of moral action, and that of 
 others. And so, also, every victory over temptation 
 not only creates its hero but makes heroes of others. 
 
 Let this doctrine be generally understood ; let its 
 fearful yet glorious power be fully appreciated ; and 
 the highest motive possible to the human mind for 
 individual improvement and social elevation would be 
 gained. From the outer husk of the fleshly body to 
 the inner core of the Spirit-life we would know that 
 we rise and fall together. This knowledge is the only 
 knowledge that will enable a man practically and 
 uniformly to fulfil the command : "Love thy neighbor 
 as thyself." The improvement and happiness of my 
 neighbor, in this light, become my improvement and 
 happiness. 
 
 Nor will this doctrine, as some have supposed, lead 
 to Pharisaical and officious espionage or intrusiveness. 
 It turns the mind upon itself and its own highest 
 interests and thus frees it from all desire for inter- 
 meddling suspicions and oversight. Self-development 
 for the elevation of others! who would call that 
 intrusive ? 
 
( 14) 
 
 Assuredly, then, to know that ignoble and base 
 states of mind drag down others, as well as the mind 
 indulging its low feelings, would give a new aspect 
 to all sensuality and vice, and make many pause on 
 the road to a ruin that would involve so much more 
 than their own individual degredation. This very 
 thought has turned many to nobler paths. To know 
 that all clear and energetic thoughts, all noble aspira- 
 tions, all holy volitions, not only bring us nearer and 
 nearer to the ever accumulating power of Eternal Life ; 
 but also, in a thousand ways, seen and unseen, go forth 
 to raise the tone and stimulate the faculties of others ; 
 — of those who are now wasting blessed hours of 
 holiest privilege, and are gravitating to the plane of 
 the brute, that seeks only the supply of its own animal 
 instincts ; — surely this is the knowledge from whence 
 cometh the never-failing endeavor of human souls. 
 The vital power of Spiritual Energy, in the most 
 humble, awakens many from their lethargic dreams 
 and inglorious pursuits ; and from being mere nebulous 
 spots upon the great surface of Humanity's chart, 
 they are rounded into stars and suns of never-dimning 
 brilliancy. It brings the everlasting guerdon of a 
 rational life to selfish, scheming and irresponsible 
 indulgence, and consecrates it to holy affections and 
 beneficent aims. 
 
 Now, when we add to this the assurance of the 
 power of the Eternal Truth, brought within the reach 
 of every man by Spirit Manifestation, that the future 
 life is but a continuation of the Spiritual part of the 
 present ; — when we come to know, and not merely to 
 accept, upon the interested or fanatical testimony of 
 others, that we only throw off the mere modes and 
 customs of life, and not Life, itself, at death, — our 
 steam engines, railways, ships, shops, banks, farms, 
 houses, offices, and apparel, — and that ever their 
 Spiritual meanings are as eternal as the Spirits out 
 of which they were made ; that the outside covering 
 conceals only a part of our nature, and that all our 
 higher faculties can be exercised, even now, in a purely 
 
( *5 ) 
 
 Spiritual direction, and are so exercised in every 
 effort to separate Truth from Falsehood, in all high 
 meditation and devout abstraction ; when we are made 
 to see that even those of our faculties that are wasting 
 in the using, can be made servants to the Purer Life, 
 and that the channels of their exercise, in our business 
 and pleasures, may be penetrated by the influences of 
 our kindred, of nobler development, beyond the fleshly 
 hindrances of the body : we may make our lives on 
 earth flow, almost without a break, into that of the 
 heavenly spheres. And, thus, we would not so much 
 prepare for Eternity as live it now. Not fix the eye 
 so impatiently on the distant future as to cause us to 
 stumble over every object before us and ingloriously 
 waste our days in needless repinings and disappoint- 
 ments, but make our every step here an advance to 
 our Ideal of hereafter. This life would become but 
 a part of that. The same Law would be found to 
 regulate both. High Aspiration and holy Duty would 
 be seen as the means — the only means — -to create the 
 atmosphere of unbounded confidence everywhere. 
 And to carry out the highest conception of beauty 
 and excellence possible to the present condition ; to 
 extract and enjoy the real and not the factitious 
 sweets of the passing moments, and we would daily 
 feel that a wholesome Future can only grow out of a 
 healthful Present. Our sickly sentimentalities and 
 despondencies would be outgrown, and the present 
 and future would be so enrapt that the twain would 
 be as one, united by God, so that Death would but 
 seal the Union. 
 
 Thus are we taught that our present life predicts 
 our future. "As we sow, we reap." The judgment 
 is always "to come;" and the issues of the present 
 conduct are always before us. He that does nothing 
 is nothing and tends to nothingness. If we are not 
 growing better we grow worse. We cannot stand 
 still ; and the desire to do so reveals an ignoble and 
 degenerate character, taking us back to the sloth and 
 degradation of feeble animals. 
 
( i6) 
 
 All good thought elevates ; all evil thought degrades 
 the thinker ; and no thought weakens till we almost 
 lose our identity and become machines. 
 
 The outward appearance of vice is repulsive to all. 
 Spiritualism proves that the inward ought to be more 
 so. If a man would not speak a lie, Spiritualism would 
 say : Do not think it. The atmosphere of evil think- 
 ing makes the miasma that destroys Spiritual health. 
 You cannot breathe it freely ; you cannot feel while 
 breathing it the immortal beat of a God-like nature. 
 
 Thus, Spirit-Intercourse opens up hope for all, and 
 provides its conditions. It makes every thought and 
 wish of the Soul proof of its reality. It says to every 
 honest questioning : Examine your own Soul — in soli- 
 tude, alone, afar from the grosser considerations of 
 fleshly demands and it will become a mirror of Spiritual 
 Light it could neither create nor destroy. It teaches 
 that a pure thought in any Soul, however sunken, 
 generates a light that opens up glories and attributes 
 that may yet adorn it with Brightness and Beauty 
 Eternal. 
 
 Hail! then, thrice hail! ye bright evidences of 
 Human Immortality, now brought to bear upon the 
 highest interests of suffering Humanity. They swell 
 the heart with the fondest anticipations in token to 
 the great and inestimable boon bequeathed from the 
 God who gave us life ! They penetrate the porten- 
 tous cloud of to-day with the rays of the glories of 
 to-morrow. They stay the desolating hand of sectarian 
 animosity as it would destroy the fairest prospects of 
 all who look beyond the mortal conflict to the Im- 
 mortal Peace! They bring to lost Man — lost amid 
 the chaotic waste that has left him scarcely a pillar 
 of hope to which to cling — the restored vegetation 
 that shall out-live all the monuments of Time ! They 
 lay low the foolish conceptions of all whose greatest 
 aims are personal aggrandisement over the misfortunes 
 of their fellows, and rob the hydra-headed monster 
 Vice of the false decorations that have ever enwrapped 
 proud ambition in an iron grasp and fiendish hate. 
 
( 17) 
 
 They bring a fellow-sympathy with the cares and 
 misfortunes of those who make up the great pale of 
 Mankind, in every age, which absorbs them in one 
 common end. They tell our desponding hearts that 
 God lives in man, though the murky mire and the 
 clodded earth weigh down all that would adorn and 
 beautify him as the Archetype of the Eternal One ! 
 and we already know that the sparkling gems of that 
 life as the glory of night will span with hope his mid- 
 night Heaven ! They assure us that every frail barque 
 of Humanity is launched upon a fathomless ocean, 
 and however tossed by the diverse currents of human 
 reasoning, the gentle zephyrs of Peace shall yet waft 
 it placidly to the longed-for haven ! and the fierce 
 winds that threatened it shall sing a requiem over the 
 burial of all its fears! They help all to stand un- 
 appalled at the darkest and most trying hours of human 
 responsibility, for they illume the drooping soul with 
 hope, and point unerringly to the untold treasures it 
 bears above the aim of every bolt of injury or death ! 
 They carry the bright visions of life's early morn to 
 the meridian of its strength, and extend their serenity 
 and peaceful hope to its hastening decline, and, amid 
 all its gloom, make each become brighter and brighter 
 until it ascends in honor to its kindred gone before ! 
 They give calmness to the conflicting elements that 
 boisterously roar over the world, by revealing the 
 same o'ershadowing Heaven and the same great des- 
 tiny to which we may triumphantly march even amid 
 the terrific howlings of disappointed scheming at the 
 expense of Humanity's dearest hopes ; and they make 
 us know that there is no hour so sweet, no day so 
 bright, but that its equal succeeds, in its turn, to bring 
 the conscious reflections that carry us back to the 
 trying scenes forever passed, with a joy no tongue 
 can utter, no language express. 
 
 "A leaf before the eye may hide the Universe." 
 So a prejudice or misdirection of mind may confine 
 its narrow vision, and the grandest and sublimest 
 
( 18) 
 
 Truths that ever exercised the reason or won the 
 affections of our nature may pass before it in vain. 
 This observation will be found especially true with 
 respect to all that class of subjects that relate to the 
 Spiritual Nature and Eternal Progression of the human 
 being. Fixed and confined views of the conditions of 
 the Future Life are too readily accepted by all. They 
 save the labor of thought. And although they sel- 
 dom or never secure strength or joy, and often, if 
 not always, promote selfishness and intolerance, we 
 find them clung to as by a death-grasp. Before 
 our minds are opened to see the just and hopeful 
 relations of our nature, we are, from the necessity of 
 our ignorance, ever ready to grasp the Shadow for 
 the Substance. For this men should not be blamed, 
 as the shadow is perhaps all their eyes are opened to 
 see ; but when new truth and new phases of old truth 
 rise up before us, it is degrading to our intellect to 
 deny or neglect what alone can bring us enlargement 
 of mind and satisfaction of soul. 
 
 The doctrine of a Future Higher Life is alike the 
 doctrine of Human Instinct and Direct Revelation. 
 The sacred books and monuments of every people 
 corroborate this statement, and the Records presented 
 in the following pages prove it to us and place it 
 within the power of all to demonstrate the reality of 
 that Life. But clear, definite and satisfying concep- 
 tions of that Life depend upon the clearness of our 
 Reason, and our moral capacity to appreciate disclo- 
 sures from the Spiritual world. Men do not, as a 
 general rule, believe in that world vividly, because of 
 the vagueness of their ideas and a blind acceptance 
 of sensuous views respecting it. We need to remember 
 that every new disclosure of a Law of Mind throws 
 a light upon the futurity of that mind by revealing a 
 new power or privilege to its Spiritual nature. 
 
 In making this statement, in connection with these 
 happy disclosures, we fully appreciate the objections 
 they will awaken in many minds. It will be said, there 
 is danger of giving a too free exercise to the imagina- 
 
( 19) 
 
 tion. We admit the danger, but ask that we shall be 
 allowed the same honest desire to avoid it, as others 
 claim. We would ask, are the popular views of a 
 Limited Heaven and an Endless Hell the result of 
 Rational or Imaginary decisions ? Did they originate 
 in cultivated or barbarous eras of human development ? 
 Come they from the hidden recesses of the Soul, that 
 the progress of Humanity has opened in Science, Art 
 and Philosophy, or from the superficial decisions of 
 unbridled and often stupefied imagination? For my- 
 self I would say, the subject is of too much importance 
 to allow me to trifle with it upon the field of imagina- 
 tion. It is too dear to the human heart, too necessary 
 to human happiness, and indispensable to human 
 improvement, to allow me to receive Imaginary 
 Descriptions in the place of Substantial Realities. 
 Hence, the Speculations of a thousand ages are nothing 
 in comparison with the Direct Disclosures from the 
 Spiritual world accompanied by irrefragable proofs. 
 And when these Disclosures are seen to correspond 
 with a rational view of the past experience of the 
 world and to awaken a response in every soul true to 
 its native desires, it will be easy to see who leans most 
 to the bewilderings of imagination, — the Faith in a 
 Future Life which we present, or that which crushes 
 the hopes of thousands around us. 
 
 We hold it to be as irrational as it is distressing 
 to believe that our present fleshly life is the All of Man. 
 There are higher modes of existence than any our 
 poor eyes can see; modes where the mind is less 
 circumscribed and the affections throw off the clogs 
 of earth. Of this we present positive and direct proof. 
 And, hence, we assert, from the clearest decisions of 
 Reason and Experience, that we believe in the Spiritual 
 World and Life and look forward to it as a life of 
 progress in the infinite power of mind. 
 
 But we are well aware that many will not accept 
 this view of Man's Spiritual relations. Many are 
 hindered from seeing the future as a promise of limit- 
 less progression. And, we ask, what hinders so rational 
 
( 20) 
 
 and inspiring a hope ? False views of what they have 
 been taught to regard as Divine Revelations respecting 
 that life. We propose to notice a few of these, and 
 we select the most prominent, that the reader may 
 see how blindly men accept the crude and contra- 
 dictory notions that dwarf their Reason and often 
 almost obliterate their Hope. 
 
 i. You frequently hear it said, that the Bible 
 declares that "as the tree falleth so it lies;" and this 
 supposed declaration of divine truth is quoted as 
 referring to the Spiritual world. You will allow me 
 to tell you there is no such Scripture in our Bible. 
 In the book of Ecclesiastes, chap, xi, 3, we read : 
 "If the clouds be full of rain they empty themselves 
 upon the earth ; and if the tree fall towards the north, 
 in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be." 
 The writer is referring to common and acknowledged 
 natural phenomena ; such as the visible sources of rain, 
 the course of the wind, the mysterious growth of bones 
 in the womb ; and he draws a conclusion, leading to 
 humility, in the view that we know but a very little 
 part of the works of God, who, he says, "maketh all." 
 He makes no reference whatever to the Spiritual 
 State. His lesson is an admirable one, and might be 
 stated thus : Be humble, be teachable, be industrious ; 
 for you cannot alter the established laws of God, but 
 must adapt yourself to them. The whole lesson is a 
 direction for docility and charity — for charity, under 
 the thought that you, yourself, may some day need 
 it; and should you, in your prosperity, fall as "the 
 tree falleth," there you may lie, uncared for and 
 neglected ; while if, as the clouds, in the day of your 
 favor, you have poured out the refreshing rain of 
 your goodness upon fallen hearts you may be lifted 
 up and blessed. There is no allusion to Death nor 
 the Future Spiritual World in the passage, and, 
 consequently, no warrant for its popular use save 
 that of ignorant priestly assumption over matters that 
 have never been rationally examined. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 2. Another passage of the same Book is also fre- 
 quently referred to with a similar application. Eccl. 
 ix, 10: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with all thy might; for there is no work, nor device, 
 nor knowledge in the grave whither thou goest." 
 
 I regard this Scripture as a sceptical objection 
 placed in the mouth of a man who had serious doubts 
 of a Future Life. It surely never was intended as an 
 oracle respecting the Spiritual State. If it were, it 
 affirms the doctrine of the baldest Materialism or 
 annihilation of all men, righteous and wicked. The 
 whole chapter seems devoted to the proposition that 
 there is no difference between the lot of the good and 
 the bad, affirming, "that all things come alike to all." 
 
 But, were we to regard it as a wholesome lesson, its 
 application could not be made to any part of man 
 save his fleshly body. Mark you : it says of all the 
 dead, good and bad, "there is no knowledge, wisdom, 
 device, or work." This, you discover, is annihilation 
 — an absurdity. It may be affirmed of the earthly 
 body, but never of the Spiritual part of man. It may 
 be said of the grave, but cannot be said of the Spiritual 
 State. Unless we are prepared to affirm the annihi- 
 lation of all men, just and unjust, holy and unholy, 
 the general use of this Scripture must be abandoned. 
 Do the men who use it, I would ask, believe there is 
 neither knowledge nor wisdom in the future state? 
 The best critics, ancient and modern, have concurred 
 in the opinion that much that is dark and obscure in 
 this Book has its rise in a failure on the part of the 
 writer or transcriber to note what was intended as a 
 dialogue, and what as a treatise. 
 
 3. But, once more : We frequently hear it referred 
 to as invalidating the Spiritual Disclosures of these 
 and similar Records, that Christ says, [John, ix, 4,] 
 "I must work the works of Him that sent me, while 
 it is called day, the night cometh, wherein no man 
 can work." But, I ask, has this any allusion to Death, 
 in the abstract? The season of Christ's mission was 
 rapidly closing — closing as every day is closed by a 
 
. (22) 
 
 night. He must, therefore, speedily finish His earth- 
 ly work. But it does not follow from this that there 
 would be nothing to do in the Spiritual State. If it 
 did it would contradict the facts of the case. At His 
 death He represents Himself as ready to enter Para- 
 dise with a malefactor. His apostles describe Him 
 after death, and even after His ascension, as appearing 
 to many; as "preaching to Spirits in prison;" as 
 bestowing Spiritual gifts upon men ; as ruling over 
 Principalities, Powers, and Invisible Authorities of 
 every name; as reconciling things in Earth and in 
 Heaven ; &c, &c. Surely this could not be said of a 
 state in which "no man can work." It was, therefore, 
 evidently His earthly labors to which He referred, and 
 not to that grandly active and blissful state beyond 
 the experience of death. 
 
 But suppose it a description of the final and un- 
 alterable state of the dead — then Christ and all the 
 dead, good and evil, wise and foolish, have ceased to 
 exist ; for "this Scripture says, "the night cometh 
 wherein no man can work." 
 
 How foolish and absurd must that, superstitious 
 view of death be which would annihilate Christ and 
 all Souls by a legitimate following of its own rule of 
 interpretation ; that would deny half the New Testa- 
 ment, descriptive of the direct and indirect labors of 
 Christ after His death, in order to sustain the dogma 
 of the inactivity of mind after it is freed from fleshly 
 clogs. 
 
 The idea of a future final cessation of knowledge, 
 wisdom or work, to the Spiritual nature of any soul, 
 is not true. It is an assumption of ignorance and 
 sensual philosophy, made to support the rotten soph- 
 istries of dead creeds that have tyranized over large 
 portions of the Human Race by assuming a knowledge 
 of the Future conditions of men, exclusive and authori- 
 itative — predicated upon false conceptions of Man, 
 and the communications from the Spiritual state to a 
 generation long since passed away. 
 
(2 3 ) 
 
 The Future Life, as a life of opening privileges and 
 helps to all the Souls that God has formed, is the 
 Dictate of Reason and the Demonstrated Disclosure 
 of these times. Death does not necessarily change 
 the Character but it does change the Relations of the 
 Soul. Many are content after death, as before, with 
 false occupations, amusements, and works of ignor- 
 ance ; but their state is not a hopeless one. The 
 sunlight of Divine mercy never grows dim. It shines 
 on forever, and sooner or later it will reach every 
 soul with the genial rays of its pure wisdom, and 
 warm the winter of its indifference and purify the 
 miasma of its sluggish corruption by the warm flow 
 of its Love, consecrating every kindred tie as a chan- 
 nel that neither ignorance nor assumption can destroy. 
 The unvarnished truth upon this subject is: That 
 until men learn what is wise, pure and truthful, the 
 beautiful and glorious wear no attractive charms. 
 Content with vanity and vexation they pass their 
 monotonous years and see not the Elevating and 
 Progressive until some terrible revolution separates 
 them from the sleep of their God-given faculties. 
 
 Man must be brought to a just estimate of the 
 physical organization and its product of a rational 
 spirit before he can take his truly dignified and 
 hopeful station among his kind. He must see himself 
 greater than the world — alike in the simplicity, mys- 
 tery and grandeur of his nature. He must be brought 
 to see that everything in the Universe points to him, 
 and tends to his development. He must realize that 
 his fleshly body is but a vessel into which the Stream 
 of Spirit that encircles the Universe pours itself to 
 receive shape and individuality; that his mind is the 
 mirror through which, according to the degree of its 
 purity and elevation, God would reflect the nature 
 and use of all things — suns, earths and Spiritual glo- 
 ries. He must know himself as designed to be the 
 highest issue of Nature's creation. In his form and 
 shape he admits of no improvement. In his spirit, 
 immortal. In the disorganization of his body he loses 
 
( 24) 
 
 nothing, but gives back to Nature what God gave 
 for a temporary use, to be laid aside when its accidents 
 and diseases would not allow his Spirit to be longer 
 confined by it. He must come to know that Death 
 is a wise and unalterable Law of physical organization, 
 stamped upon all bodies, and that it is only fearful 
 to the undeveloped soul, in the freshness of youthful 
 or immature imagination, or to the dark and forbid- 
 ding views of God and the 'Universe, and mistaken 
 notions of the nature and purposes of our being — 
 views that make that Universe an abortion, and the 
 designs of Almighty Love a failure. His enlightened 
 reflection and sanctified Reason, illustrated by the 
 faith and victory of every opened soul, will come to 
 regard Death as but another step in Life ; a great 
 and momentous step, indeed, but, like Birth, appointed 
 by .Infinite Wisdom and guided by unchangeable 
 Love. A step by which we advance beyond the 
 outward struggles and discipline of earth, to where 
 all physical and moral deformity may be removed, 
 under the power of that holy sympathy that reigns 
 throughout the empire of Spiritual Intelligences, 
 foretastes of which we all experience in every feeling 
 of pity and hope. A step by which the Universal 
 Father would lead upward all the images of His 
 intelligent and purified creation; all the diversified 
 members of His immeasurable household, to fill the 
 "many mansions" of the Home of the Spirits with 
 His ingathering family and open to them blessings 
 and blessed missions amid worlds of beauty and har- 
 mony, immeasurable and indescribable. There, anew, 
 He throws the bands of kindred affection tenderly 
 around them ; anew He opens the greater elements and 
 energies within them ; anew He spreads the unspeak- 
 able glories over them ; and through millions of 
 centuries that no arithmetic can number He holds 
 them on to the greater and more perfect, and still 
 greater and yet more perfect, in Eternal Progression. 
 O ! my soul, and soul of my brother, however hardly 
 used and fallen I find thee — whether fallen upon a 
 
( 2 5 ) 
 
 polluted pulpit where denunciation has taken the 
 place of Love, or upon an editorial tripod whose fumes 
 are the poisonous steam of decay and detraction in- 
 stead of the grateful incense of help and salvation, 
 or in the pit of vice, — to bring to thee the knowledge 
 that Life is engirdled by angel bands of sweet and 
 helping friends ; that Death is the way of the Spirit 
 to the shining paths where angels tread ; to the opening 
 communications which Seraphs speak, and to the 
 celestial enjoyments of the Eternal House not made 
 with hands, — is there any help above this to inspire 
 thee to live justly and purely, and to win and woo 
 thee away from unworthy worldliness, selfish schem- 
 ing, and the low ways of folly, sin and shame? 
 
 What an eternal value does this view of man give 
 to his soul! It shows it, never mature but ever 
 maturing, with appropriate delights provided for its 
 every step. It reveals that soul as the offspring of 
 God, to make the physical form and then wear it out 
 by contact and collision with the gross world in which 
 it has the nursery of its being. It makes the material 
 eye, and when it becomes glazed and dim, it opens its 
 Spiritual essence to the clear vision of eternal light. 
 As its outward ear becomes closed and deaf, the 
 Spiritual ear opens to the melodies of eternal sym- 
 phony. And when the whole form stiffens and falls 
 as a clod, to rise no more, the Spirit, .young and 
 undying, soars gracefully over the bright fields and 
 through the joyous scenes that awaken its life anew 
 to everlasting sympathy. It finds its home in that 
 bright world out of which every form of beauty in 
 this receives its essential origin, and into which, at 
 their decay in form, they return. No language can 
 describe its boundaries ; no pencil paint its beauties ; 
 no intellect grasp its grandeur. It is worthy of God ; 
 and our moral and intellectual progression mirrors 
 its scenes as we are prepared to receive their grand 
 ideals. Were we really just, and pure, and free, we 
 would feel, as these disclosures come to us, a God-like 
 nature opening within that would give us more reali- 
 
( 26) 
 
 zing- views than any imperfect description can ever 
 command. If the native nobleness of our Nature 
 were opened, so that its vision would rise above the 
 mists that gather o'er the ways of deceptive and in- 
 iquitous indulgence and perversion of the passions 
 and appetites we bear, we would see a world of 
 meaning in every object of sight or sound, and daily 
 rekindle the eternal flame of Love at altars over which 
 no strife nor battle's roar are heard. Little Spirits in 
 the flesh, whose years had revolved but half a score, 
 have given me, in their happy trances, brighter visions 
 of the land to which we all are rapidly moving than 
 have ever been open to m'e along the plodding ways of 
 Philosophy or the dark aisles of a formal Religion. 
 They have said, and seemed scarcely to know why 
 they said it, that its mounts were glorious — " festooned 
 with vines and blooming with flowers" — that its broad 
 rivers were variegated with cascades and cataracts, 
 and flow ever amid the eternal bloom of purest blos- 
 soms and the bending burdens of the Tree of Life ; 
 that sweetest strains of music pour forth from myriad 
 voices — not one discordant note — while hosts of happy 
 Spirits move to the melodious notes, in offices of duty 
 and ecstasies of Love. And their little voices, tuned 
 by Spirit hands, spoke so simply, so sweetly, and yet 
 so grandly, of that Immortal Land that I, even I, 
 with all my unworthy grossness, almost heard the 
 strains that came so gently on their innocent ears ; 
 and I, too, longed to pass away from a world and a 
 church that had met nry best and purest motives, my 
 daily and nightly labors in their behalf, with so much 
 of misconception, injury and wrong. But then the 
 strain swelled to clarion notes of victor} 7 and glory, 
 above as well as within the strife of human passion, 
 and revealed that it would be servile and traitorous 
 to leave while one hope for good remained. Ah ! yes ! 
 Spirits have descended from their native home and 
 given to us revelations of the deep indwelling realities 
 of those expanded fields of Almighty planting, whose 
 shining glory penetrates the deep azure by day, and 
 
( 27) 
 
 whose myriad lights span the dark archway by night, 
 and they invite, our purest affections thitherward. 
 Would we but freely exercise these affections, we 
 could know that these things are so. If we will not 
 purify them, no amount of evidence can make them 
 realities to us! Then 
 
 Come ! And let the Spirits guide 
 
 Where doubt and darkness never come ; 
 
 Where purest blossoms by the side 
 Of living streams forever bloom. 
 
 There have been, and doubtless will be, a variety 
 of speculations as to our views of the Spiritual or the 
 Future Life, and it seems necessary that we should 
 at least disabuse the public mind of false impressions 
 and injurious inferences, as well as give our private 
 records to the world. Never having indulged a desire 
 to make a party to any view of a subject so unavoid- 
 ably indefinite, and so dependent upon the nature and 
 extent of our personal spiritual culture and experience, 
 we have not deemed it necessary to reply to ever)' 
 representation that sensitive egotism or ambitious 
 fear has seen proper to make. To add another to 
 the many petty and conflicting parties of the great 
 family of Christendom, or to become the leader of 
 any peculiar philosophy of the Future Life, is repug- 
 nant to all our views of religious duty and our hope 
 for the rational liberty of Man. What we have 
 written upon the subject was written in the freedom 
 of a faith that had been established by years of investi- 
 gation and we have no desire to change a single 
 sentence. Our principal positions remain unscathed, 
 and the kind of opposition they have occasioned is 
 no mean evidence that they have their foundation 
 in unalterable Truth. As far as we have gone, we feel 
 assured that our faith stands upon a rock of truth, 
 and will yet become the strength of many inquiring 
 Souls. 
 
 We have taken our stand upon the broad, and we 
 think, impregnable basis, that Future Life is the 
 
 DEMAND OF MAN'S SPIRITUAL NATURE, AND ITS 
 
( 28) 
 PROMISE IS THE PROMISE OF PROGRESSION TO ALL 
 
 Souls. Hence, we regard all interpretation of an- 
 cient Scriptures as subordinate to this Truth, and that 
 any interpretation that foregoes it is destined to be 
 numbered with the things that were. Our position 
 may be plainly stated thus: 
 
 i. There is a Life — Spiritual Life — to all human 
 beings, that Death cannot destroy. 
 
 2. That Life is Progressive in Knowledge, Happi- 
 ness and Power. From which we infer, and our 
 experience corroborates the inference, — 
 
 3. That a belief in this truth will enable all who 
 appreciate it, to labor for their own enlightenment 
 and elevation, and for that of others. 
 
 With this statement of the result of our humble 
 investigations and imperfect experience, we proceed 
 to a brief review of the ancient idea of a Future Life. 
 
 We know not of a nation of people so sunken in 
 sensuality and barbarism that it has not entertained 
 some ideas of life beyond or despite the physical 
 appearances of death. Their ideas have been rude 
 or refined according to the degree of intellectual 
 and religious culture of those who gave expression to 
 them. All ancient and modern research may be 
 appealed to as corroborative of these declarations, 
 with a confidence that no one will deny them who 
 has given an unprejudiced attention to the facts of 
 human history. 
 
 There have been two methods of accounting for 
 their origin and prevalence. First, that they are the 
 debris of an original revelation, made to the Father 
 or Fathers of the Race, and preserved by recorded or 
 verbal tradition. Second, that they are the imperfect 
 expression of the desires and aspirations of the human 
 spirit, by which God has provided for the faith and 
 hope of the Race. We take the latter view, as most 
 accordant with facts, as being fully sustained by the 
 witness of every opened soul ; and we make the single 
 addition, that every man whose soul is truly opened 
 may have a demonstration of the nature and reality 
 
( 2 9 ) 
 
 of the Spirit-life. God has provided for faith in 
 immortality by giving to man a religious nature, 
 capable of indefinite religious culture. 
 
 It is the general belief of Mankind that we shall live 
 forever. The fact is as Universal as the Race ; the 
 doubt is the exception, and only proves, here as in 
 everything else, that we may, for a time, silence or 
 pervert the clear witness of our nature. People who 
 have no houses, who live in tombs of the dead or the 
 caverns of the mountains and who know not even the 
 use of fire or of garments, believe in the immortal 
 life. The dirt-eaters of the Rocky Mountains and the 
 bird-voiced and monkey-shaped Ajetas, of the Philli- 
 pine Islands, in common with the astute Philosophers 
 of Greece and Rome and the acute Theologians of 
 all Christendom, have expected to live beyond the 
 dissolution of death. The form of their idea is silly 
 or wise, grotesque or consistent, according to their 
 amount of intellectual development, — but the Idea is 
 there, underlying the jabbering cries of the Ajetas, 
 who place the betelnut, the bow and the arrow upon 
 the grave of the dead, believing that as the night 
 darkens he will quit the grave for the sport of hunting 
 — as well as in the finished periods of the artistic 
 oration, sybiline prophecy, or poetic description, of 
 the most classic or spiritual, — Asiatic or European. 
 It has been taught, in all ages, by all people, whether 
 believing in miraculous revelations or making no 
 pretence even to letters or organized government. 
 
 It is not the result of reasoning ; though reasoning 
 ma} r clear the conviction from the mists and fears of 
 superstition and dogmatism. People not capable of 
 the art of thinking, are as well confirmed in its belief 
 as those who apply logic to inspiration and measure 
 poetic feeling by the miserable square of cent-per-cent. 
 This Truth was never thought out ; it was never prov- 
 ed by logic ; it never needed a miraculous disclosure, 
 except to deliver it from the darkness of human 
 tradition. It belongs to man's Nature as much as 
 does his capacity for mathematics or music, and comes 
 
( 3o) 
 
 as the belief in God, the love of man and the sense 
 of justice. It is a spontaneous act of the Spirit of 
 man, and may, like his need of God and his sense of 
 justice, be grossly perverted and misdirected; but 
 it is there, and cannot be wholly removed. As men 
 see without glasses and before they can establish a 
 theory of optics, so they believe before they establish 
 a theory of Future Life. The theory only gives 
 form and distinctness to what originally existed. No 
 words can make it more true. Immortality is a part 
 of the Nature of man — an instinct of that nature, and 
 has its endless ties in the links of life that gave us birth 
 and still bind us to God, the fountain of all life. 
 
 It is dogmatism that has denied or slandered the 
 nature of man ; and dogmatism never reasons. It 
 starts with an assumption, and that assumption, in 
 this case, we utterly deny. Our appeal is to the 
 Nature of Man, and to Universal Experience. So 
 far as we represent that nature and experience truth- 
 fully, our statements will be confirmed. We assert 
 again, then, that man instinctively believes in his 
 immortality as he believes in his present existence. 
 He asks proof of the one no more than he does of 
 the other, and he attains to clear knowledge of both, 
 as he awakens to the consciousness of his mental 
 powers and thirsts. As the eye belongs to the body 
 of man, and may be clouded or clear, so immortalit}' 
 belongs to his Spirit, and may be dimmed by ignorance 
 or sensuality, or cleared by knowledge or Spiritual 
 purity. It is a truth that comes to our consciousness 
 as light comes to the eye. It is written of God, in 
 our nature — in all human nature ; it is written as a 
 desire, and it is written as a fact. It asks no argu- 
 ment, and need not wait for death for infallible 
 certainty. It is a truth that cannot be proved except 
 by the on-going experience of every one, and in this 
 respect is not singular. Many things are true that 
 no man can prove to another. My personality is 
 impenetrable, and so is my immortality. It is, there- 
 fore, one of those truths that may be safely taken for 
 
& 
 
 ( 3i ) 
 
 granted. Let us proceed, then, to clear it of its mists 
 and fears, according to the measure of our knowledge 
 in the reality of things. It is an interesting investi- 
 gation to go over the ancient Ideals of immortality; 
 and, if attentive, we may see in them the basis of 
 most modern superstitions and absurdities; and also 
 a confirmation of our repeated declarations. 
 
 For the sake of perspicuity, we give the general 
 idea of an Invisible Spiritual State that was prevalent 
 in the times of the writers of the New Testament. 
 It was essentially the idea of Locality. It gave a 
 local habitation to God, Angels, Devils and departed 
 Spirits. God and sinless Angels dwelt above the 
 stars. Satan and his rebellious company had their 
 habitation in our atmosphere, where they brought on 
 storms and pestilence and all the ills that afflict Man- 
 kind by atmospheric agency. Man, as an embodied 
 Spirit, dwelt upon the surface of the earth ; as a 
 departed Spirit, down below or under the earth — from 
 which subterranean abode no one of woman born 
 had ever been freed, save Enoch and Elijah, and, 
 perhaps, Moses, until the Messiah passed through 
 and led captivity captive. It will be easy for the most 
 superficial scholar of our day to see that the whole 
 foundation of these localized ideas is baseless and 
 absurd. Modern Astronomy has swept the whole 
 away and left not even a wreck behind, in the mind 
 that accredits its indisputable truths. No one can 
 point upward and say God or Spirits are there — nor 
 can he point downward and say they are there. We 
 may be loth to give up the long cherished idea that 
 Heaven must needs be above, and, the place of the 
 dead beneath ; but it must go to the tomb of many a 
 favorite ideal of human ignorance and superstition, 
 such as we all inherit. The Spiritual idea alone is 
 left to us ; but men may be expected to hold on to 
 the fleshly and traditional, till they labor and suffer 
 enough to see that the flesh profiteth nothing, and it 
 is the Spirit alone that giveth life by giving knowledge 
 and joy. 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 In the Scriptures, Heaven is described as the abode 
 of God, as a city, as a garden, as a Paradise, as the 
 region of the sun, moon and stars, and of the atmos- 
 phere ; Hell, as an underworld, dark and prison-like, 
 below the grave, and either in the center or "clean 
 through" the earth. The reason "is obvious. The 
 teachers of God spoke in the language of their age, 
 then as now, and from the very necessity of the case. 
 The unknown is learned by the use of and through 
 the known. The clearest Spiritual idea of Heaven 
 found in the Scriptures is that of Society — the society 
 of the Pure, the Blessed, and the Glorified. The pres- 
 ence of God and of congenial Spirits makes the true, 
 the Christ-like idea of Heaven. He, Christ, there- 
 fore, abode in Heaven though He dwelt upon earth ; 
 — Spiritually, His constant abode was Heaven. He 
 was always with the Father, and He conversed with 
 the dead as with the living. This idea embraces 
 Knowledge, Purity, and Power. The Spiritual idea 
 of Hell is darkness, ignorance, sensual slavery, and 
 misery. Farther than this, my investigation has not 
 gone. 
 
 This localizing idea of the invisible was not confined 
 to the Hebrews. It belonged to all the ancient na- 
 tions and belongs to us ; for it grows out of the fact 
 that in the incipient stages of all individual and national 
 culture, we personify and localize everything. Even 
 the great God, Himself, appears before the fleshly 
 eye in the image of a Man, a Beast, a Bird, or a Reptile. 
 The human mind, ever intent on realizing its Ideals, 
 seeks to give them habitation and name; and all this 
 is well, and unavoidable; but its abuse is terrific 
 when it leaves the Ideal for the Form — makes the 
 Spiritual I AM like to a man or a four-footed beast ; 
 its Heaven an Eastern cit}^; and its PI ell a heated 
 furnace, into which the creatures of God are arbitra- 
 rily moved, as by locomotion. This is idolatry, 
 whether it appear in the worship of a leek, on the 
 banks of the Nile, or the fear of Eternal Torture, on the 
 throne of the Hudson or Mississippi. Having pre- 
 
( 33) 
 
 mised this much, we proceed to collect, briefly, the 
 ancient ideal of a future life, or life of the departed. 
 The dead were supposed to dwell deep down in the 
 earth, as far removed from the surface as the surface 
 is from the firmament above ; entirelv shut out from 
 the light of day. It was the realm of darkness, pene- 
 trated only by the faint lights of night, and they, 
 clouded and gloomy. Upon the borders of this realm 
 of the departed, were all the calamities that befell 
 Mankind, clothed in serif orm bodies, terrible to behold. 
 Wan Sorrow, wasting Disease, revengeful Malice, 
 heart-piercing Remorse, pale Fear, squalid Poverty, 
 morose Age, frantic Discord, terrific War, and vora- 
 cious Famine, had each its place and mission, and 
 moved forward as with the heels of iron, the vehe- 
 mence of Furies, and the coils of vipers. Even 
 delusive dreams and midnight spectres had their trees, 
 upon which, owl-like, to perch, in that dolorous realm. 
 There, too, was the half-man-and-half-horse, the hun- 
 dred-handed giant, the double-formed Scylla, the 
 fifty-headed snake, and the filthy Harpy. A river 
 separates the departments of this realm, and old 
 Charon conveys over, all who had been buried, and 
 sternly repels all unburied, till they have completed 
 the wanderings of a hundred years. The three-headed 
 dog, Cerberus, with mouths wide open, guards the 
 entrance into the interior borders of Hades, where 
 we find three departments, answering to three classes 
 of dead: first, infants whose wailings never cease; 
 second, all who have died by the injustice of others, 
 and suicides ; and all the other dead, variously divided 
 and ranked according to the absurd distinctions of 
 life. Here, also, are haunts and walks for deceased 
 lovers ; and beyond are the ghosts of warriors, — whilst 
 far, far beyond, are the adamant walls of Tartarus, 
 which neither gods nor men can demolish ; and upon 
 the right the flowery plains of Elysium, where sunny 
 skies are spread, and beauteous streams flow on for- 
 ever, upon whose banks the trees of immortality per- 
 ennially bloom and cast their golden fruit. As we 
 
( 34) 
 
 get nearer to the traditions of particular nations, this 
 description may be extended ; but the information is 
 within the reach of all, and we have not room for 
 farther particularity. 
 
 The Israelites, after their sojourn in Babylon and 
 Persia, believed: 
 
 I. There was a world of immortal bliss over the 
 sky, the abode of God, a few of earth, and all sinless 
 Angels. 
 
 II. There was a region between this abode and the 
 earth, to which Satan and rebellious Angels had fallen, 
 who were hostile to Man and delighted in his affliction 
 and torment. 
 
 III. That upon earth, Man had a temporary abode. 
 
 IV. That there was a dreary world of darkness 
 under the earth, the abode of all departed Spirits ; 
 which was divided and subdivided according to the 
 prevalent views of rank and character with God. 
 
 There was a gradual development and increase of 
 distinctness in these Ideas according to the nature of 
 mental culture that prevailed in each writer. In the 
 days of Isaiah, the good and the bad dwelt together 
 in that dreary abode. In the days of Christ, they 
 were separated, as in the parable of the rich man and 
 Lazarus. In the days of Homer, all men are in the 
 same shades and are there partitioned off according 
 to his idea of earthly rank. But in the days of Virgil, 
 the region is divided — a few are in perfect bliss — the 
 mass in a sort of purgatory, and the daringly impious 
 in the excruciating torments that were endless. The 
 Catholics got their idea of Purgatory from this old 
 notion, and Protestant notions of an " intermediate 
 state" — a modern phrase — has the same origin. A 
 world of bliss for the saintly, and one of hopeless 
 misery for the wicked, and an intermediate state for 
 all who can be purified, was the orthodox doctrine 
 of the church for many hundred years. 
 
 The Nature of Man demands a Future Life ; his 
 ignorance clothes the idea with an erroneous and 
 absurd imagery, and he gives form to his ridiculous 
 
 / 
 
 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 fancies and foolish conjectures, till the assurances of 
 his hope become so burdened with superstition that 
 they fall of their own weight. Happy for us, if we 
 are willing to fall back on the original and simple 
 truths to which our nature more and more responds 
 as it becomes more developed and elevated ; — the 
 truths which Christ, and every truly illuminated 
 mind, taught and illustrated in the language of their 
 people and times. They are few, they are simple, 
 and they alone meet our wants. He taught the 
 Fatherhood and constant providence of God ; the 
 Brotherhood of Man, and an accountable immortality. 
 The most lowly souls long for these truths, as the 
 hungry long for food; and the most elevated cannot 
 dispense with them. There is one God — one Universe 
 — one Family — one Destiny; — but every man in his 
 own order in that destiny — and that Destiny, now pro- 
 claimed by thousands who have entered upon its 
 realization beyond the change of death, is the harmony 
 of all heavenly and earthly relationships, and the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, as it shines in humani- 
 ty on earth, and of our Immortality as it will appear 
 when we shall enter its shining ranks, to surround the 
 founts of Wisdom and Love. 
 
 If it be asked what good we expect to effect by the 
 statement of these facts, we answer: the spread of 
 Truth upon the dearest, purest and holiest relations 
 of man, and the breaking away of the clouds that 
 gather around the mind of man in view of Death and 
 Futurity, the darkness of which can nowhere be more 
 distinctly felt than in the asking of such a question. 
 The Purity, Angelic Loveliness and Divine Holiness 
 that such a faith, if firmly based, must secure, inspires 
 the Loyal Soul, as with heavenly beatitudes, in the 
 contemplation. It has power to restrain and reform ; 
 to soften the hard heart of evil indulgence ; to expose 
 the still harder heart of bigotry and religious denun- 
 ciation ; to moisten the eye of criminal effrontery, 
 which the h}-pocrisies of the world have made stern 
 and fixed ; to bring the strong man of selfish apathy, 
 
( 36) 
 
 as a child, once more in company with his brother 
 children at the feet of Maternal or Sisterly Tender- 
 ness — through the ministration of those whose earthly 
 bodies have long since been entombed ; to keep down 
 the unnatural separation of families, beneath the 
 manly wisdom and fatherly affection of one who 
 claims all as his, and still needing his care ; to turn 
 the scoff of Godless ribaldry into loving faith, and 
 the shame of pulpit curses of eternal doom, pronounc- 
 ed upon Human brethren and by Human beings, 
 into blessings of eternal help ; to make all, yes, All ! 
 realize an Inner Religion which worships at the altar 
 of Eternal Truth and Unchangeable Love. 
 
 With such aims and prospects before us, to ask what 
 is the good of general, tangible Spirit Intercourse, 
 is to ask the good of Immortality, of Heaven, and 
 of God. j. b. f. 
 
 Nashville, October 26, 1854. 
 
Spiritual Communion. 
 
 UCH that purports to come from the Spirit- 
 ual world, we regard as the unburthening 
 of the mind of the Medium, under a Spiritual 
 impulse, indeed, but as merely preparatory to a more 
 perfect impression from that source. When the control 
 becomes perfect, and only then, should we expect com- 
 munications such as the controlling power desires. 
 Upon this subject Spirits have frequently admonished 
 us of what our own good sense did teach, or should have 
 taught, us. Indeed, they say we cannot imagine the 
 insufferable sorrow they feel when misunderstood or 
 when their imparted knowledge is misjudged and 
 abused. Mediums, in such cases, usually lose their 
 privileges. A mass of undigested writings, half prose 
 and half poetry, is often presented to the world as 
 pure Spiritual Teaching, though it consist of almost 
 every form of ignorance, sectarianism and duplicity, 
 while every person concerned is, in every such in- 
 stance, admonished of its true nature, and should state 
 their admonitions to the public. We believe it will 
 be found that the Spiritual teaching of this age pre- 
 sents a more harmonious uniformity than can be 
 claimed for that of any religious sect in Christendom ; 
 and that, too, in the infancy of its movement, and 
 from every variety and diversitv of temperament, 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 culture and character of the persons used as Mediums. 
 But while we state this undoubted truth, the difficulties 
 represented above should not be lost sight of if we 
 would go forward to the highest forms of wise and 
 considerate discrimination. We have found that the 
 least anxiety manifested by the persons witnessing; 
 the most perfect quiet and composure of mind — nay, 
 we would more truthfully say, the greatest amount of 
 calm aspiration of mind after the Pure, the Good, the 
 Eternal; the least said to the medium, in the normal 
 state, as to what you desire ; and a willingness to learn 
 before we assume to teach and guide: are the condi- 
 tions upon which we have received the most satisfac- 
 tory evidences and inspiring truths. So well satisfied 
 are we, by every sense of our bodies and faculty of 
 our minds, that Spiritual Intelligences do commune 
 with us, that we deem everything objectionable that 
 would excite or make anxious the mind of the Medium, 
 fearing that in that anxiety the Intelligence communi- 
 cating may so mingle with the desires of the instrument 
 that we cannot distinguish between them. In a word, 
 we know of but one condition of perfect Mediumship ; 
 a condition easily remembered, but not so readily 
 complied with. That is: we should neither aid nor 
 resist the influence brought to bear upon the Medium. 
 We and the Medium should be sufficiently free from 
 our fleshly or personal anxiety, to be willing to receive 
 first, and afterwards judge of what we had received. 
 Or, we might say, we will always find that communi- 
 cation is governed by the laws of mind ; and the 
 conditions necessary to any and all mental improve- 
 ment must be observed; and in the exact degree of 
 that observance will be the degree of advancement 
 by all concerned. We get what we seek, when we 
 
( 39) 
 
 are prepared to receive it. A due consideration of 
 the laws of the mind and the conditions of all mental 
 experience will satisfactorily explain all of folly or 
 disappointment that attends the approaches of men 
 to this high form of intellectual and moral improve- 
 ment. Let no Medium suppose that he or she can be 
 perfect in more than one type of development at the 
 same time. When you seek Physical demonstrations, 
 do not expect Intellectual; or when receiving Intel- 
 lectual Thought and Love, ask not to see a table 
 turned, or a man suspended in the air ; for though 
 the one may be seen, and the other realized, you need 
 never expect them through the same Mediumship. 
 
 It is known to the Spiritualists, and many others, of 
 Nashville, that Mr. Champion has been developed, in 
 the past two years, into one of the most remarkable 
 Mediums of the age. The nature of his development 
 will be fully presented in a volume now preparing 
 under Spirit Direction. The volume referred to is 
 a commentary upon the Bible, critical and expository, 
 and is regarded by all who have examined it, as a 
 volume worthy of the highest commendation. He 
 has already reached some one thousand six hundred 
 pages, and it will be published so soon as the Spirits 
 communicating it shall direct. 
 
 Mr. Champion was, some two years since, informed 
 that he was a Medium — at a time when he regarded 
 the claims of Spiritualists as an unmitigated im- 
 posture. He makes no pretension to literature — had 
 not read the Bible for fifteen years, and scarcely ever 
 looked into any book. When he received a commu- 
 nication from the Spirit of Dr. Channing he did not 
 know that such a man had ever lived. Under his 
 
(40) 
 
 influence he frequently sent me, contrary to his own 
 desires, for we were strangers to each other, but by 
 an almost irresistible impulse, communications, criti- 
 cisms upon my sermons, and details of my investiga- 
 tions of various metaphysical and theological subjects, 
 conceived in a comprehensiveness of idea, a beauty 
 and force of style, and an appropriateness of applica- 
 tion, that would compare with any documents, ancient 
 or modern. Of course I sought him, and, to my 
 astonishment, found him able to converse with me, 
 when under Spirit Direction, so as to appropriately 
 and forcibly answer questions, and offer criticisms 
 upon treatises he had never seen or heard. I have 
 held interviews, for hours at a time, without uttering 
 a syllable, writing my questions at one table in a room, 
 and receiving anwers from him at another, in the 
 presence of the most respectable witnesses, leaving 
 me without a shadow of doubt as to the reality of 
 his claims. I could publish a small volume of com- 
 munications received from him, but as the great work 
 upon which he is engaged will be given to the public, 
 it is not necessary. The following, as making part 
 of my records, is presented as worthy of the attention 
 of all honest and candid men. I ought also to say that 
 Mr. Champion will write in two hours more than an}' 
 ordinary clerk can copy in two days. I regard him 
 as the most remarkable psychological phenomenon 
 of the age. 
 
 Mr. Champion is both a writing and a speaking 
 Medium. He was developed as a speaking Medium 
 very unexpectedly to himself, at my house. He 
 frequently, by interior vision, sees Spirits ; is carried 
 by them through a variety of pleasing and mournful 
 scenes, and seems to live, for a few hours, in the 
 
(41 ) 
 
 magnificence of the Spirit-state. His experience, in 
 this respect, would make an interesting volume. The 
 process of death ; the re-forming of the Spiritual 
 bod}^ after its freedom ; its rank and habits ; its power 
 and pleasures ; are often presented before him ; and 
 the effect of beholding their serenity, harmony and 
 elevation, swell his heart with gladsome emotions, 
 altogether inexpressible. Most of the communica- 
 tions from him have been given me without solicitation 
 and on occasions that neither he nor I provided. 
 They seemed accidental, but were evidently arranged 
 by his Spirit-Guides. 
 
 Mrs. FERGUSON is a Medium for visions as well as 
 writing. She always sees the Spirit while commu- 
 nicating; whether through herself or others. Fre- 
 quently, while engaged in her household duties, she 
 receives a request from some Spirit-friend to give 
 forth a communication. In such cases she sometimes 
 refuses, and then, after her duties are over, will sit 
 down and in a few moments, pour forth the wishes 
 of her invisible visitants. She often recognizes them 
 while engaged in ordinary conversation with her 
 friends; while visiting among her neighbors; at 
 church, and on the street: and refers to such greet- 
 ings only in the sacred privacy of confiding friendship, 
 and then with evident wonder that all do not realize 
 their presence. She sees them come and go ; marks 
 their pleasure and disappointment ; and were it not 
 for the materialistic scepticism she meets, would, per- 
 haps, never meet an earthly friend without calling 
 attention to a presence near them, they ma)^ still 
 cherish in their memory, or may have forgotten 
 
(42 ) 
 
 COMMUNICATION I. 
 
 In what follows, I sought Dr. Channing through 
 Mr. Champion, upon Spiritual Training, a subject to 
 which he had frequently called my attention. 
 
 YOU need, sir, composure of mind if you would 
 have all your wishes gratified. You need it 
 unmistakably — quietude of mind under any 
 and all events that present themselves to your mature 
 deliberation. Man can only realize the pure and native 
 elements of his Soul, when it is abstracted from the 
 grosser elements of his body. All communications 
 should be free. Never restrained nor forced, as undue 
 evidence of this still marks and mars our most cherished 
 desires. In this they fail to appeal to the understanding 
 in a manner that would be productive of the greatest 
 good. When we are abstracted from the grosser 
 considerations of life we are well prepared to entertain 
 those Spiritual Affinities that ever urge us on to higher 
 and nobler ends. Man is the arbiter of his own de- 
 sires, and not unfrequently precipitates his noblest 
 treasures. Spiritual Communion is born of God, and 
 is as legitimate as the breath we breathe. Because 
 the diamond may he obscured it does not detract from 
 its brilliancy. Its nativity is the clodded earth, and 
 once beheld, it decks the Soul in living fire to illum- 
 inate the pathway of life. 
 
 I wish you to state or write, pointedly, what you 
 desire, and let it be expressed audibly and distinctly. 
 No man is prepared to impart to others unless candid 
 in his desires and honest in the great end to be attained. 
 Let me say, dear sir, you have passed the Rubicon, 
 and are now prepared to explore more lofty and ex- 
 
(43 ) 
 
 tended eras. Consequently, it is not to satisfy any 
 peculiar notion you may entertain, but a consciousness 
 that Truth is mighty and will stand the test of time, 
 and adorn Man in his noblest nature, in the Semblance 
 of his God. Your investigations, hereafter, are desired 
 to be of that character that shall bespeak a due regard 
 to what may be presented, bereft of many peculiar 
 notions that may be entertained, at best of a specula- 
 tive nature, recognizing no fixed principle or extended 
 basis. Various degrees of culture not unfrequently 
 present various aspects in different views. Conse- 
 quently, let not any opinions entertained invade. But 
 understand me as ever advocating the supremacy of 
 Thought as the Intuitive Impress of the Infinite One. 
 And whenever I am requested, I will do ample justice 
 to one and all that may be presented to your reflec- 
 tions. Your questions you will please state. 
 
 i. What am I to understand by Spiritual Training, 
 so far as I am personally concerned, in view of the 
 great end of Spirit Manifestations? 
 
 Spiritual Training may be understood as encom- 
 passing a variety of aspects — all equally momentous 
 in their bearing; for the great Ultimate of Life is 
 Death, so-called, by which man is born anew to more 
 extended views of his being. Spiritual Training is 
 that which leads man to acknowledge that affinity 
 which exists between the departed and those of earth. 
 Shall we regard this as a definition without an appli- 
 cation? No! 
 
 First : Man should ever endeavor to inculcate the 
 lessons of private judgment, and it is but vain and idle 
 to expect to realize a great moral truth, bereft of this 
 prerequisite of Divine Parentage. Next: Present 
 and suggest to the many who look to you for direction, 
 
(44) 
 
 what will add to the advancement of man, as Man, 
 and this can only be made visible by that great and 
 Infallible Monitor, born of God. It will speak, when 
 judiciously applied, beyond the terrific fires of a Sinai 
 or the lamentations of an expiring God o'er the per- 
 verseness of Humanity. I would have you understand 
 this as a great religious truth ; equally applicable to 
 all, but not in the sense of bondage, to any. I might 
 adopt a better word and say a Heaven-exalted truth, 
 for it brings Man in communion with his God and 
 his Heaven. 
 
 Spiritual Training occupies the nearest and dearest 
 relations of life. We believe, we hope, we know, that 
 Life is Immortal. We see these evidences scattered 
 broadcast over the earth, and who can say it is in 
 vain? Then gently whisper around those who are 
 seeking Light, sweet sentences that will impart growth 
 and vigor to the young, and let not the parental 
 fondness obscure the greatest end — which is the 
 emolument of the Heaven-born Principles that urge 
 us on the illimitable sea of Progress, not dimmed 
 by time, but made sacred by every relation of life. 
 Then give the timely admonitions to those who need 
 aid, and become the Exemplar of the Theosis not yet 
 explored by those whose affections are apt to be 
 blasted in the zenith of their glory. 
 
 Spiritual Training is of vast moment to those whose 
 desires lead them to commune with the departed. 
 You are not aware what has brought this great sub- 
 ject to your calm and discriminating reflection. I 
 will say to you, it demands a recognition, and let it be 
 observed wherever and whenever we find it essential 
 to inculcate these Heaven-born Truths, that inevitable 
 effects must follow the abuse of any great truth. One 
 
(45 ) 
 
 star does not illuminate the great galaxy that spans 
 all space. But a multiplicity re-echo the sweet music 
 that instils the ineffable glory of God. Otherwise, 
 we might say, one star pervades the midnight dark- 
 ness, when Peace has lost its endearing consolations. 
 One may fall in your midst. That one would blacken 
 the brightest hopes and anticipations of the future. 
 One maniac would display all the horrors that could 
 be depicted upon the broad expanse of space. An 
 accumulation of sorrow could make it no worse. Then 
 let us pursue our investigations and affinities with a 
 due regard to what controls the Spiritual Spheres. 
 Are you ready to infer that this is foreboding ill? 
 Not to such an extent as you suppose. But, sir, after 
 our most cherished desires and hard-earned endeavors 
 to reach this people for their eternal good, shall it be 
 in vain ? Let gentleness, and kindness, and sweetness 
 of expression ever guide us in our convictions and 
 expressions of truth. For without the promptings 
 and guidance of the great Principle of Love to ALL, 
 no man can find the advantages of Truth. Spiritual 
 Training will lead to this, as your own Intuitions and 
 love of God have taught you. 
 
 Too prompt and effective measures, when the atten- 
 tion is first arrested by Spiritual Influx, not unfre- 
 quently moves a tremendous revolution. Never let 
 your friends be influenced by more than one Spirit. 
 I mean at any one sitting. It is better at all times 
 they, should be influenced by but one. But not un- 
 frequently Spirits press to speak to those most dear. 
 Man, in such cases, too frequently errs ; why, his life 
 is one succession of errors. And shall we lose those 
 affinities that are strong in death? Let me appeal to 
 your Highest Reason. Consequently, let no commu- 
 
(46) 
 
 nication be allowed that swerves from your convic- 
 tions of Truth. Man makes a link in an extended 
 chain that binds him to Eternity. Shall we mark this, 
 link by link? And what are the reflections drawn 
 from a mutual observance of this fact? These links 
 of kindred affinities encompass an endless extent, but 
 there is not always that oneness that regards a com- 
 mon destiny. 
 
 2. Do you mean that Mrs. F. can confine herself to 
 the influence of any Spirit she pleases? 
 
 I have desired to impress the necessity of a strict 
 observance of this in Mr. Champion. It is but seldom 
 that one is delegated to fill so high a mission. Think 
 you it is all that I esteem it ? These Truths now dawn- 
 ing upon the world will be reconnoitered through the 
 coming ages. They will stand as the radiant Light 
 that burst upon the midnight darkness of the nineteenth 
 century. But I have wandered from a pointed ex- 
 pression. You must confine all Spirits to a specified 
 time, and in no instance admit a transgression. I 
 speak to you timely warnings and important truths. 
 I will not now refer you to what has deceived the 
 minds of many and laid waste the fondest affections 
 of their hearts. If you desire pointed and lofty appeals 
 confine your search within one source of investigation, 
 for all is born of the same legitimate end, and Like 
 will seek its Like. We would have Mrs. F. confined 
 to one Spirit. 
 
 3. Would you select the Spirit? 
 
 This is devolving on me an unpleasant task. 
 
 4. How would Mr. Parker's answer? I would 
 select Dr. C. M. for Virginia. 
 
 A good and noble selection. Should you desire my 
 aid, you shall have it in her training. 
 
(47 ) 
 
 Affinities are matured by time. Consequently, the 
 first named being a new acquaintance, I cannot speak 
 so readily as of the last. I feel bound honestly to 
 speak my convictions of persons as well as things. 
 
 5. Do Spirits communicate through more than one 
 with equal advantage? 
 
 I would hazard nothing in sa} 7 ing they could not. 
 It is extremely difficult to find persons sufficiently 
 susceptible, to give that tone and sentiment that is 
 •desired for the great ends in view. The mental or- 
 ganisms of persons are as varied as their faces. You 
 readily see the obstacles to be overcome. For it is 
 impossible to pour liquids through different avenues 
 and not have them tainted by the contact. 
 
 6. Must Mrs. F. select her Spirit-Monitor? 
 
 I cannot say, but feel confidence in the benefit of 
 such a result. You will find it essential to ward off 
 many who will intrude. Ever treat such with becom- 
 ing reverence and dignity, for their desires are but 
 the out-pourings of honest hearts interested in the 
 improvement of mortals. But in the accomplishment 
 of a great design we must adhere to a justness of pro- 
 portions that will admit of pleasant and pleasing 
 observance to all, whether in the form or out of it. 
 
 7. Is it possible for me to become a Medium? 
 Not without great difficulty. 
 
 8. Is it desirable? 
 
 Not at present I assure you. My dear sir, you 
 have honorable employment enough for any man. 
 
 9. Shall we attempt to convince all who inquire? 
 Here one word of caution. Let us not savor too 
 
 much of that which may tend to bring an unjust decree 
 upon our own ends. Otherwise purity of heart and 
 sentiment may clothe in language that fails to meet 
 
(48 ) 
 
 its desired end. Consistency, thou art a jewel of the 
 richest hues, not always judiciously applied or rightly 
 understood. Do you apply my meaning? 
 
 io. Do you allude to physical purity? 
 
 Not altogether. 
 
 1 1. Do you mean to avoid anger, irritability &c? 
 That is what I mean. 
 
 If time reveals and circumstances control, I will be 
 heard. You need not fear for me Immense forms of 
 opposition, such as ever appal worth and labor, are." 
 gathering. Stand like the sturdy oak in Nature's 
 forest. Dark clouds may hover o'er thee, the gilded 
 lightnings may encircle thy brow, but they shall only 
 adorn it with richest sapphire, and ennoble the soul. 
 Fear it not. It is but a luminous foreboding to ex- 
 cite curiosity. Nothing more. 
 
 12. Will Dr. C. present us the subjects he would 
 have us examine? 
 
 I would desire first to hear from you more explicitly 
 on subjects infinitely important to us both. 
 
 Were we to differ on this momentous subject, the 
 Paternity of Man — for from this springs the relations 
 of life — we could not advance together. Let us com- 
 mence at the base, then the superstructure, when 
 reared, will be a credit to its architect. It is im- 
 possible to measure distinctly what I mean, as it 
 encompasses an immensity in its design. Consequent- 
 ly, were I to suggest or present themes of thought to 
 your people, I would not take such broad and com- 
 prehensive views until their acquaintance would more 
 familiarize their conceptions of man's relations. 
 
 Under this head I will present what I think appro- 
 priate, hereafter. First of all is Law — its application 
 and design ; but first bring man to a knowledge of a 
 
(49) 
 
 True Life. This it is in which he most needs to be 
 thoroughly instructed. Do not understand me as 
 disclaiming- or desiring to enforce an acknowledge- 
 ment. Only the design and ends of Humanity must 
 be benefitted thereby. Doctrinal subjects should be 
 suffered to repose beneath the shades that dim the 
 memory with their perversity. 
 
 Not fully comprehending the Doctor's meaning, 
 I sought Mr. Champion again and submitted the fol- 
 lowing questions, on a leaf of paper before me, which 
 the Medium did not see, nor has he seen it to this day, 
 when I received the following pointed replies: 
 
 i . In your communication to me on Spiritual Train- 
 ing, to what do you refer when you say you would 
 have me "recognize a fixed principle and an extended 
 basis?" 
 
 The Principle of self-government — the Basis that 
 underlies all the achievements of Man's desires, inter- 
 woven as they are with the results to be obtained. 
 These achievements are the result of the first-named 
 specification. I have told you this Basis is broad and 
 extended. It would require space and time to do it 
 ample justice. But remember never to draw any 
 other than Rational conclusions. 
 
 2. How am I to prepare myself to recognize the 
 affinity existing between myself and the departed? 
 
 By high and holy communion with the Inner Man, 
 that its Infinite Semblance may partake of that. Infi- 
 nite Source only known as the GOD-IN-MAN. 
 
 If you would add health and vigor to a plant, that 
 its branches may be refulgent with light and life, you 
 should ever prune it to the root. Disencumber your- 
 
 6 
 
( 5o) 
 
 self of the mass that may deaden your highest hopes 
 and purest desires. Then gently apply yourself to 
 Spiritual Communion and its benefits must follow. 
 
 I would have you understand me as saying: Cast 
 off the grosser considerations of Time when you come 
 to drink of the Elixir of Eternal Life ; for it is not 
 Time but Eternity that then calls for your purest 
 thoughts — and ever know that the purest thought is 
 often fermented beneath the darkest abodes, whose 
 affections would otherwise chill the holiest desires 
 and brightest hopes of Humanity. When so purified 
 let the gentle Messengers of Peace enter, that they 
 may partake of the bounteous repast provided by 
 God for Man's eternal destiny. You cannot expect 
 two adhesives to be equally congenial. Consequently, 
 I would say : Prepare, prepare for Spiritual guests. 
 Do you ask how? Would you have me specify? 
 
 Yes, by all means. 
 
 We stand upon the brow of a high and majestic 
 eminence whose heights but bow in token of the 
 sublime heavens that overshadow its tremendous 
 base. A retrospective view presents every variety 
 of aspect. We behold, far in the dim distance of the 
 Future, the miraculous stream of Eternity. We say 
 miraculous, because it is fraught with every diversity 
 of imagery. We behold upon its bosom the cloud 
 and the sunshine of life. But our attention is arrested 
 by the approach of many a frail barque burdened with 
 the cares and toils and tumultuous misgivings that have 
 clouded the brow and sickened the heart with its 
 lamentable dangers. They have been borne on amid 
 storms and tempests, but have at last one— but one — 
 solitary hour of repose beneath the umbrageous 
 boughs of a sacred decree, inhaled, it may be, from 
 
( 5i ) 
 
 Heaven. But mark its intangible evidences written 
 upon the human heart. They cast but one sad glimpse 
 to the future and behold the tumultuous ocean of life 
 rocked amid the endless desires of Man, in horror and 
 despair. Man boldly looks forward, and what pre- 
 sents itself to his dim vision of the Future? The 
 mighty pallisade of human rearing towers amid the 
 heavens. Its height and depth soar beyond the com- 
 prehension of Man. We now behold him, as it were, 
 just emerging from the dark and gloomy aspect, that 
 clothed the future with the desert waste of his own 
 imaginings. Now shall he go forward? Yes; but 
 step by step he ascends to greater heights, and each 
 successive step but measures the descent that awaits 
 a wrong conception of his end. O, how important 
 that we should look down from this extended elevation, 
 and point unerringly the means by which he may as- 
 cend to that oneness of purpose which shall redound to 
 his moral and intellectual elevation, from which he may 
 never recede, if inculcated by lessons of soberness and 
 truth. 
 
 It is by degrees, and not by any measured view, 
 that Man must recognize his all. When we bring 
 him to the level of his nature — not corrupt, for that 
 is a fallacy — then he will stand in the full stature of a 
 Man. Then he will look with an eye single to Truth, 
 that will brighten his perceptive faculties. He will 
 behold the grand ends of his being and the steps of 
 his ascent. Who so able to apply this as yourself ; or 
 one who has suffered for the want of such appliance ? 
 In other words, Man will behold the dim labyrinths 
 of the past, and regret their immensity and mourn 
 their enormity. He beholds at one view from this 
 
( 52 ) 
 
 elevation more than he would ever see from the base 
 of this extended eminence, in an Eternity to come. 
 
 Thus have we passed over the saddened and deso- 
 lating realizations of Mankind. We now will turn 
 our minds to higher and holier aspirations. We bury 
 in the shades of the past all the view that has marred 
 our peace, and look beyond ; for it all tends to an end 
 not realized by Man. Yonder is extended before our 
 view an elevation ascending as it were to the heavens. 
 It is interspersed with delightful groves and mur- 
 muring streams whose cnrstalized semblance bespeaks 
 the native purity of the Soul. Its rugged heights 
 have faded from our view and we leave them behind 
 to seek more congenial climes. Its alluvial soil and 
 aromal plains but bespeak God's best gifts to Man. 
 But there is no ascent so great that one mis-step may 
 not precipate to unknown chasms below. Its links 
 all flow in one unbroken chain to God from whence 
 they came. Shall not Man, then, face his foe? Be 
 true to himself and his God? 
 
 I have made this impress that it may present a figure 
 worthy of your contemplation. Then let it sink deep 
 into the profundity of thy highest ends. Let not the 
 cloud dim. Oh, no ! For some gentle zephyr wafted 
 by holy hands will dispel its darkness — and behold ! 
 what comes forth? A meteor of endearing grandeur 
 and redolent splendor, to warm the once doubting 
 and icy heart-throb, frozen by the countless wrongs 
 of man to his fellow-man. For all shall yet see the 
 gentle stream whose gurgling dew will add balm 
 to the suffering- soul and give growth to its most 
 ardent achievements. Let not thy heart and mind 
 be troubled ; for great good is at hand. Believe in 
 the mercy of God, not measured b}~ frail humanity. 
 
( S3 ) 
 
 3. What do you mean by an Infallible Monitor born 
 of God? 
 
 The Intuitive Impress of God upon the heart of 
 Man. Many, very many, say this is fallacious. They 
 know not themselves ; how can they know their God ? 
 
 Many declarations in my communications, suggest- 
 ing- many others, may appear not as satisfactory as 
 might be desired — but you fully perceive my purpose. 
 I cannot, in each and every instance, give you my 
 meaning. Consequently, you must charitably draw 
 your own conclusions in that discrimination you have 
 inherited as a man. I refer to this because many 
 expressions must go unheeded, and at the time may 
 appear inexplicable. 
 
 4. Please briefly point out the evidences of Man's 
 Immortality, which you say, are scattered broad- 
 cast over the earth. 
 
 I could not give you what you most ardently desire 
 without consuming days; for the subject is vast and 
 broad. I might give one evidence, and still another 
 would present itself requiring time and labor. 
 
 The greatest evidence of Man's Immortality is 
 here: He is the Head of Creation. Point to one 
 thing in Nature that does not make up the great 
 measure of its design. Then ask what is the design 
 of Man ? To die and be the least of all ? 
 
 5. How can I become an exemplar of the Theosis 
 to others, if not a Medium? 
 
 Your higher nature will teach you more, if con- 
 sulted in simplicity and truth, than many lengthy 
 communications on that point. 
 
 6. What do you mean by an abuse of Spiritual 
 Communion? 
 
( 54) 
 
 Its abuses are varied. I would have you consult 
 Spiritual Intelligences only in hope of benefit. 
 
 7. To whom do you refer when you say: "One 
 may fall in our midst ?" Who is in danger of becoming 
 a maniac ? 
 
 Those remarks are admonitions to be truly observed. 
 I had no special reference, only desired to admonish 
 in time. It is not necessary to remind you that what 
 would seriously affect some would destroy others. 
 
 8. To what do you refer as controlling the Spirit- 
 ual Spheres? 
 
 Love to all Mankind. That is the Immutable Prin- 
 ciple that must bind in harmony and union this ex- 
 tended Universe. Then will God be God in the 
 Heart of Humanity. 
 
 9. To what do you refer when you speak of hearing 
 from me on subjects of infinite importance to us both? 
 
 I mean a full expression of what is deemed vital to 
 the interests of Mankind. Should I suggest or pre- 
 sent, when I would point in blood the impressive 
 fact — Exercise your Reason and be a man? Oh, no! 
 Were I, sir, to do it, I would forestall the highest and 
 loftiest ends that Man shall ever attain. We may 
 feel our way over a precipitous flight where haste 
 would endanger our safety and exhaust our nature. 
 Consequently, Man should learn — yes, learn — and 
 when he has learned all, he is ready to depart. 
 
 10. What do you mean by an acknowledgement? 
 Conscious wrong to our Highest Nature. You 
 
 must understand me. I would have you understand 
 me as saying that there are differences which I would 
 have you fully understand before I can feel at liberty 
 to present what I may deem essential to the Moral 
 growth of Man. I mean that Consciousness of Intui- 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 tive Impress that enables Man to behold one error 
 upon another, or a wrong- conception of what he 
 deems right. 
 
 ii. What do you mean by Law? 
 
 Well, sir: Law is a principle that should and must 
 be observed, to instill thought and administer equally 
 to the general good of all. I mean that without 
 Law we do not, cannot exist. It is the highest prin- 
 ciple known to Man. And he must exercise the 
 capacity God has given him to partake of its benefits, 
 unerringly. I would have you understand that the 
 vote of a multitude does not make a Law — onlv in 
 form. Here we recognize a "Higher Law," if you 
 please: the Unerring Law of God — that which has 
 impressed its Semblance upon the Human page. Can 
 you strike at a deeper Principle? When Man errs, 
 he must obe}'- the Law of his Nature to be a better 
 man. It is the Law of God. Majorities nor minori- 
 ties make it just. All Law is sacred. This, whether 
 proclaimed or inherited. Talk of Law here, and Law 
 there — Law, sir, is everywhere. It is not Law be- 
 cause it may conform to certain conceptions of its 
 bearing. No; any and every vital principle that 
 redounds to the improvement of Man is sacred. Go 
 to Palestine or Judea? Go to your Soul and your 
 God. Its adulterations are unnumbered, and bespeak 
 their impress throughout the endless ages of time. 
 Law is a broad principle. Every man is interested 
 in its requirements, and has inherited its Impress. 
 
( 56) 
 
 COMMUNICATION II. 
 
 THERE is much to benefit and interest you yet 
 to come. I cannot express all I desire. The 
 mental state of the Medium will not admit of 
 it. You have done your work faithfully and satis- 
 factorily, but not without a hazard of future earthly 
 prospects. Therefore, let your mind be stayed, not- 
 withstanding the appalling stroke that bids fair to 
 overwhelm the most cherished anticipations of future 
 good. I can but admire the facility and felicity 
 that has so intimately interwoven themselves around 
 these manifestations of the Godlike in Man. 
 
 The eventful stream of Life is interspersed with 
 many besetting currents; by which means we are 
 deprived of our most earnest endeavors. These be- 
 setting currents are ever averse to all that could 
 animate the heart. 
 
 Think it not strange that many attempts are in vain ; 
 by which means is destroyed that affinit}^ of mind 
 and effectiveness of influence which would character- 
 ize these manifestations. Greater currents mingling 
 with smaller currents, will unquestionably divert the 
 influences thus mingling, from the desired ends. 
 
 Man stands upon a broad and extended plain. The 
 horizon may be blackened and clouded o'er with the 
 chilly frosts of adversity. He may behold, on yonder 
 cloud-capped peak, the snowy mantle beneath whose 
 folds is encased a germ, immortal. When more pros- 
 perous hours shall dispel its cold-clad folds, he may be- 
 hold, interspersed from base to summit, the evidences 
 that Man too plainly imprints upon the pages of his 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 destiny. It comes forth in genialty of Soul — but it 
 comes forth from sterility. 
 
 The penetrating rays of enlightened culture may 
 dispel and disrobe this horrid monster of its vice, ignor- 
 ance and superstition, when we may behold Man, the 
 GoD-of-Man, or GOD-in-Man. But then, persons less 
 favored of productive proportions, mainly absorb 
 whatever is near them, in the shades of their memory, 
 to weep o'er their depravity. But when this Divine 
 plumage of Brotherly Love shall encircle all men, 
 what shall we behold ? No diversity. This manna 
 from Heaven's bounteous field moves with the gentle 
 zephyrs of Peace, not perceptible by the short-com- 
 ngs and frailties of Mankind. 
 
 One isolated expression which may more fully 
 display what is deemed subservient to the best and 
 dearest interests of Humanity we will give. That is: 
 All tends as desired — though, apparently, not so com- 
 prehensible and satisfactory as man}' could wish. It is 
 not the deepest current that runs .most rapidly, but 
 upon its bosom may float the greatest burthen. It 
 is not necessary always to express your faith. 
 
 This expression I have endeavored to avoid, un- 
 hesitatingly and uncompromisingly. I would be 
 understood as presenting the best and most success- 
 ful mode of attack. It is not valor that always crowns 
 the brow of the hero of many a well-fought field. 
 
 Discretion places you upon a mountain where at 
 every rill Man may quench his parched nature, to 
 gather strength to inhale at last victories emblazoned 
 in liquid fire upon the azure vaults of Heaven. 
 
 We would ever advise and counsel the best and 
 most effective means. Therefore, think it not strange 
 that we withhold an expression that might destroy that 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 equilibrium of forces that tends to bring all to the 
 desired end. An expression of all you know, and an 
 undue application, might not work as effectively as 
 could be wished. No two can discern at unequal 
 distances with the same precision. 
 
 Speak of Moral Progress and the great ends to be 
 attained by Man — Moral Elevation; Freedom of 
 Thought and Sentiment; the Light of Reason and 
 Justice, that proclaims Universal Peace to all men ; — 
 not circumscribed by differences, immaterial or other- 
 wise. If God created all, he is the Common Parent, 
 and Mankind is one Universal Brotherhood. Their 
 Heritage is one and the same. Yes, this is what we 
 would have impressed and deeply imbibed. This is 
 what is meant by Discretion. 
 
 [I here asked how a murderer could be proved a 
 Brother.] 
 
 How will you prove that Humanitv is frail ? When 
 Day approaches we behold the Light, whose com- 
 mencement bears hence the sable mantle of Night. 
 
 [Why not proclaim it?] 
 
 You may proclaim it when the Meridian proclaims 
 sufficient warmth and vitality to sustain the Soul. 
 
 I desire to give you what may be productive of 
 that oneness of feeling and sentiment that shoidd ever 
 prevail where Truth ascends ; as all intervenings are 
 but the products of false imaginations. 
 
 I have desired to express in more feeling and affec- 
 tionate terms, what lies in the depths of the Future. 
 We have reproved, nay, censured. These we should 
 ever regard as the emblems of affection, not obscured 
 by the passing cloud of impulse. No. But the re- 
 flective rays of candor ; not shielded by what may 
 best suit the vitiated desires of mortals. We feel and 
 
( 59) 
 
 bear a lively conception of what has transpired ; and, 
 hereafter, we can and will present all in our capacity, 
 to forward and shield in the great and indomitable 
 struggle that is pending. These expressions we pre- 
 sent, not in the cold severity of ordinary acceptation. 
 No ! I would farther add : 
 
 You have doubtless observed a disavowal and a 
 repugnance to what would tend to a reasonable accep- 
 tance. This has sprung from unseen causes, but not 
 less essential. This must still be adhered to, to some 
 extent. Sirs, one shadow shall encircle Humanity. 
 Still nearer and nearer dawns the day, to your vision, 
 when one and the same shall be recognized. 
 
 Truth is Eternal and shall never die. Humanity 
 must learn to wait. 
 
 The gentle dew and the pattering rain descend to 
 invigorate and beautify God's footstool. One aval- 
 anche would drown all. So is Man. He may bear 
 great burdens. But greater still, would crush him to 
 the earth. I have expressed myself understandingly 
 in order that we may ever feel that though apparently 
 chilly and diverse currents are interspersed, yet all 
 tends to the desired end. 
 
 Man, though free, is not entirely the arbiter of his 
 own desires or inclinations. Still we would not call it 
 Destiny that rules him. 
 
 Let not your memory become dim over the sad 
 recollections of the Past, but contemplate the Future, 
 whose brilliancy shall never dim its lustre by Time's 
 besetting tide. 
 
(6o) 
 
 COMMUNICATION III. 
 
 IN addressing you so unexpectedly to yourself, we 
 would desire to be promptly and fully understood ; 
 which is extremely difficult, as one event ulti- 
 mately calls in question some successive link in the 
 great moral network of Eternity ; but a true discrim- 
 ination must silence all the reverses that may appear 
 inadmissable and intangible in your investigations. 
 As the darkest hour precedes the approaching light, 
 so may we expect to behold the evidences of biased 
 judgment until the day of Reason shall approach. 
 When that day is ascendant in any mind, the Real 
 and Unreal will be beside each other — for the mount- 
 ain and mole-hill are here. The gurgling brook and 
 engulfing maelstrom are distinguishable ; and none 
 need fear — for the true characteristic of Spiritual 
 Impress will speak in tones of thunder upon the ad- 
 amantine heart. He who expects to behold the 
 Divinity of God by outward evidences, will find such 
 anticipation vain ; they will fade from the memory as 
 the reflective rays of the declining sun — for the gem 
 is encased in the Temple of Thought, and those off- 
 shoots of Divinity that now becloud, are but the 
 adulterations of the Original, and bear the impressive 
 evidences of Man's ingenuity. 
 
 Truth is triumphant and shall stand, though the 
 heavens and the earth were to pass away. Be not 
 appalled at the approach of a crisis that shall shake 
 the Christian world. 
 
 We shall behold the eruptive influence of Free 
 Thought imprinted upon the dome of Nature's para. 
 
(6i ) 
 
 dise — Truth immortal. Does this inspire one thought ? 
 If so, give it place, that it may vegetate, and it will 
 be found not in vain ; for Man is the inheritor of God, 
 and reflects the Divinity of his Author — but the chilly 
 winds of adversity, encircled by the avarice of a soul- 
 sacrificing desire which must be quenched upon the 
 misfortune of his brother, have buried this Paternity. 
 Still it exists, though unknown, in a reasonable ac- 
 ceptation of true knowledge. No man can behold 
 what is presented to his understanding at this day, 
 and envy the peace and quiet that pervades the moral 
 discipline of the world. Need we say, there are 
 sufficient evidences of what is to follow this moral 
 finale of departed hope from the breast of Man? 
 
 I would desire to instruct all in the true estimate 
 of these Teachings. But alone — and alone, only — can 
 we behold what would be most desirable for our good. 
 I have written this, that you may understand me, not 
 without hoping it may prove available and well di- 
 vined to meet the emergency of others. 
 
 You should observe the evident progress that has 
 been made, with satisfaction ; and the universality of 
 these Teachings will yet add additional- weight, as 
 they proceed. Why not be alike encouraged at the 
 bounteous repast that will soon be prepared for the 
 good of Man? Your history is marking an enviable 
 day, that will ascend beyond your brightest anticipa- 
 tions. So let this suffice; for the Future will picture 
 these characteristics, in letters of living fire, upon the 
 Dawning Era that shall bespeak Universal Good to 
 all men. 
 
 I cannot make these evidences plainer at present. 
 You may fail to comprehend my meaning, but time 
 will suffice to add the rest, that will impart strength 
 
(62 ) 
 
 and vigor to these developments. You should use 
 all commendable zeal in propagating these Spiritual 
 Evidences, and they will return to you laden four-fold. 
 They are not as unreal as many seem to think. Oh, 
 no ! They are but the true characteristics of God, 
 speaking through the Soul, which is the Man-of-GOD, 
 so to speak, literally, for it is the Divine Essence in Man. 
 Should you behold all that tends to awaken an unus- 
 ual interest, you would be no silent watcher o'er the 
 results that must follow these Divine Revealments. 
 
 O, then, labor to promote the desired end, that we 
 may behold the reflective orb of Thought ascending, 
 blended with eternal destiny, triumphant in the heav- 
 ens. How could we expect to prove the destiny of 
 Man, if we fail to approve and apply these evidences 
 of Universal Good that are at our command, for the 
 propagation of the proof of Immortality? 
 
 Why not, then, embrace with ardor all that mav 
 commend itself to your understanding? When duly 
 considered, we may behold the events of miraculous 
 intuition, which have been imprinted on every page 
 of the Primitive Era. Such evidences will not be in 
 vain. They will appeal to the grosser considerations, 
 as it may be the only method of awakening many 
 from the normal lethargy that pervades their Spirit- 
 ual horizon. 
 
 I could desire that they were more universally en- 
 joyed ; but the adverse influences that retard our 
 Manifestations are momentous, and present, an unusual 
 interest, such as ever clothes every mystery that does 
 not approach the ordinary understanding of Man. 
 
 There are equally interesting circumstances, inti- 
 mately interwoven in these developments, which could 
 with propriety add much to your progress; but the 
 
(63 ) 
 
 affinities existing are so counter to the legitimate end 
 desired, that we falter to undertake to give that instruc- 
 tion which would require an analysis of the component 
 parts or portions that pervade the moral development 
 of Man. But if you desire, you may behold the 
 advanced end so ardently sought. I wish to be 
 understood as presenting a positive and negative 
 principle that would be more conducive to Spiritual 
 Influx on human culture, which you should recognize 
 in your efforts at your own fireside. The properties 
 and affinities existing between Spirits in and out of 
 the form, offer a subject that would require time not 
 now allotted to me, to guide the intuition of thought 
 and the prevalence of Spiritual or atmospherical in- 
 halation, in order to help you to receive the benefits 
 to be desired, from such investigations — and without 
 mature consideration, all that could be transmitted 
 would fail to add one ray of light in addition to what 
 you now have. 
 
 If time and opportunity allow, I will then make 
 such suggestions as may be productive of good. Until 
 then, I must defer any further expressions on this 
 point ; as time is of avail to forward the great lever 
 upon which rests the highest and sublimest evidences 
 of approaching good to Man. I cannot leave without 
 hoping these evidences are not in vain, and shall be 
 alwa)'S ready to sanction where sanction is due, and 
 equally free to condemn when and where it may be 
 merited. With these assurances, let us endeavor to 
 behold the true existence of Man in a Divine Life. 
 
 The above Communication is from Dr. Channing, 
 through Mr. Champion. 
 
(6 4 ) 
 
 COMMUNICATION IV. 
 
 IS Humanity the same extant? Is Divinity the 
 Common Parentage of all? Is Divine Will re- 
 flected in the sunshine and in the breeze? Is no 
 law immutable — but adapted to suit the exigencies of 
 the times? Are these the considerations upon which 
 is based the Immortality of Man? 
 
 Pause well. Here is involved more than an Eternity 
 of words could utter. All Truth is Eternal in Divin- 
 ity. Eternal Justice is the prerequisite of power. Its 
 refinings will be the fruit of One Universal Brother- 
 hood. 
 
 What is Man— the Man of God? The Spirit of 
 Infinite Power expanded in the heart. Its melodious 
 sounds re-echo in the bosom of the Infinite One. Its 
 Parentage is Divine — and in the semblance of Truth 
 It couches o'er Its orphanage. 
 
 You, sir, as a man, should not be to be, unless the 
 inherited right had breathed forth the inspiration it 
 contains. The Temple of Man is but the Temple of 
 God. Its decorations may ill time with its exalted 
 occupant ; but, sir, the dark midnight is illuminated 
 by the returning joys of the coming day. The silent 
 watches of night but instill into our meditations the 
 realizing influences of the returning morn. 
 
 Divinity, where are thy portals, whose gentle breez- 
 es resound in the distance, whose mellow light trans- 
 cends our loftiest conceptions, whose radiance casts 
 no shadow and effects no illusion? 
 
 Is this true? If so, who forged the chains that 
 palsied the beauties of Love or the emblems of Peace, 
 in thee, O Man? Have the slumbering ages of an- 
 
( 65 ) 
 
 tiquity been resurrected and renewed, to comport 
 in unison with assumed demonstrations of power, to 
 win Man to God? 
 
 Threads of revelation may be immortal! If so, 
 future ages may inscribe upon their banners and 
 perpetuate the memory of the death-knell of Immor- 
 tality. But shall we regard this inscription with a 
 critic'seye? O, no! Let the truth of Reason inscribe 
 upon every heart a true estimate of what claims to be 
 Divinity. You, sir, behold no midnight darkness at 
 the meridian of day, to blacken and dwarf the imagin- 
 ation of Man. You behold no politic stream, swaying 
 with torrents mountains high, to calm the placid surges 
 of despair, in Nature's domain. 
 
 The adaptation and consideration of this hypothesis 
 are not for me to consider, but are left for your tran- 
 quil meditations. But that Divinity that speaks in 
 the noon-tide of the eve of existence is ever the same 
 when true to the instinctive qualities of head and 
 heart that should ever sway the actions of Man. Art 
 thou weak? Then lean upon Eternal Principles, and 
 they will bear thee above the phosphorescent illumin- 
 ations of worldly considerations. No amalgamations 
 can stand. The variances are unreasonable ; as one 
 stream cannot run in diverse directions, and the 
 planetary orbs rescind not their splendor to meteors 
 of less reflective brilliancy. Apply this to the divine 
 traditions of the ancient regime. 
 
 If we beard the lion in his lair, let us meet him clothed 
 with the armor of Divine Communication, not matured 
 by the extended era contained on parchment — reverse, 
 categorical, illusory, and inadequate to meet the 
 scathing eye of Justice and Reason. 
 
 When we point to the mantle of GOD that enshrouds 
 
(66) 
 
 the dead waters of human misery, let us look well to 
 its folds, and see if Time has not rent the pellucid 
 fabric of near all that sustains the flimsy portions that 
 cover the vortex of human woe. Shall we present 
 illusions? O, no ! Shall we erect false monuments 
 of grandeur, and point to their sublimity and com- 
 ment upon their architecture, when at the same time 
 the great Architect of Nature has presented the foliage 
 unrevised, uncorrected upon the Record of Eternity? 
 Do we point to these and ascribe them to Divine Con- 
 summation, or do we look to the whole truth (which 
 encompasses infinitude) as a memento of an age when 
 light burst from the mount of Sinai? 
 
 You, sir, in your view of ancient revelations, have 
 shed — what? Hope? O, no! Have you illuminated 
 the catholistic strata drawn from the records of Time? 
 No ! Do you erect the great Eternal Tabernacle of 
 Immortality upon perverse and indigent circumstan- 
 ces, to cap it all with the fallacy that God has ceased 
 to speak to Man? The illimitable ethera of munifi- 
 cence in Divinity is Piety. 
 
 Is God still building upon such lascivious buddings 
 of depravity as your ancient records present ? Any 
 and all propositions should be duly considered. But 
 let us not point to a Record, however Divine, when 
 two-thirds of the same has met the devouring flame, 
 to harmonize the agitations of the public mind. 
 
 When we point to its sublimity, let us recollect 
 that a minority are not the judges to govern. Let us 
 also recollect that this munificence of Divinity may 
 be, can be, and is carried in the breast of every man. 
 Let us be ever mindful that when we state its design 
 we also survey its accomplishments. Let us ever 
 recollect that this Tower of Thought only illumin- 
 
(67) 
 
 ated one spot in the vineyard of Immortality. Let 
 us recollect that these "linen pages" of Divine Law- 
 were confined to one part or portion of Creative 
 munificence, and when we ascribe such perfections to 
 these Revealments, ask from whence emanated the 
 Spirit, the Living Life that spake to a part, and then 
 darkened the understanding of the remainder. 
 
 Is not the immortal chain from God? Has it been 
 rent? As in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall 
 all be made alive. Is it superfluity that consigned 
 some nations to the mandate of destruction? Was 
 this law inadequate to its design, that annihilation 
 should precede, as it ever preceded, its propagation? 
 Or should not the streamer of Life Immortal float over 
 the cherished Divinity of GOD-in-Man everywhere? 
 These are the harmoniovis ends that announce the 
 Bible as alone profitable to Man ! Let us mark well 
 the spring or source of action. Shall we point to the 
 Tree of Knowledge? If so, let us dwell beneath its 
 foliage and mark well its maturings, the means, the 
 protector, the exhalations. 
 
 So may we receive all that commends itself to our 
 consideration. We propose to strike at the Fountain 
 of thought and regale beneath its Intuitive lessons. 
 You extract the bark of distrust that enshrouds the 
 meditations of the Bible, and you will have no facts 
 left. It is the mean, the great conductor, so to speak, 
 that adds the foliage of Life Immortal. In accordance 
 with the incentive lessons of theoretic thought, these 
 evidences instill our minds with due observances of 
 their proportionate properties. We should ever pen- 
 etrate the sullied virtues of the Soul, where is assem- 
 bled love and meekness, to the Intuitive lesson of 
 Reason. The bark that has spoiled these aspirations 
 
(68) 
 
 is nearer the Fount of Eternal Destiny. It is the 
 conductor or sap from whence the volition or the 
 arteries of Thought will cast asunder the fruits thus 
 matured. But the fruits will be the blasted evidences 
 of creeds divine ; for these conductive influences have 
 illuminated the mind, whose foliage is the verdure of 
 of souls renewed by the invigorating rays of the 
 summer's sun of Reason, inspired by the instinctive 
 qualities of Divine Illumination. 
 
 But have we erected or presented the tablet of 
 ancient lore, whose analemma is diverse to its exalted 
 and stupendous eminence? Do these proportions 
 speak symmetry and harmony in the noble illusions 
 of thought in the character of Jesus of Nazareth, in 
 unison with the base of this immortal mansion ? Does 
 eye for eye and tooth for tooth go hand in hand with 
 the exalted communications of smiting on one side to 
 turn the other? 
 
 I need only one word ! Do the teachings and laws 
 of the Pentateuch beat in unison with the exemplary 
 teachings of Jesus? If not, what is meant by I came 
 not to destroy the law but to fulfil? Do these har- 
 monize with that sublimity that characterizes the 
 Divinity of God as manifested in all Nature? No 
 abusive contortions mar the symmetry of Divine 
 plumage. It ever speaks in the language and char- 
 acters of Love, and never fails to impress the heart 
 with a realization of its existence. The sun never 
 shines so bright but the dark hour of midnight spreads 
 her sable mantle o'er the visionings of Man. But does 
 it, therefore, lock up the great storehouse of Immor- 
 tality ? Shall Man abuse the induction of thought or 
 succumb to the inherited pastimes of circumstances? 
 Was the law of Moses given to save or redeem Man? 
 
 a~e* 
 
(69) 
 
 Was it intended for his help or injury ? Does it com- 
 pose the step-stones in that ascension that burst asun- 
 der the bands of death, that a crucified Redeemer 
 might ascend to the realms of Love, to abide the 
 diverse schisms and contortions of faith that swell 
 the human heart with woe unutterable? 
 
 If this is of God, was it not that Mankind should 
 be better by this Law? But what does the sequel 
 prove? That annihilation must ensue to prevent this 
 holy decree from being polluted. Oh shame ! where 
 are thy stings, that mock at Justice and encircle a 
 bigot's frown? 
 
 Are these the contemplations that must heighten 
 our conceptions of that God who sways the destin}' 
 of Man? Never, sir, abide the firm conviction of the 
 Soul, that Man is doomed ; for Law — Eternal Law — 
 is of God, and is the sheet anchor of merit in the sin- 
 cere illuminings of even traditionary courts. 
 
 The views of Divinity now prevalent are enough 
 to swallow in a catalepsis the most normal stage of 
 Man's mind. Hear well this lesson, that it may not 
 inveigh our thoughts of immortal joys on high. 
 
 W. E. CHANNING. 
 
 Sir, after hearing your discourse, to-day, on the 
 Bible, I was impressed to write the above from the 
 Spirit whose name is appended. I transmit it accord- 
 ing to your request. Yours truly, 
 
 H. B. CHAMPION. 
 
 I publish this without comment, simply remarking 
 that man)'- of its phrases, such as "linen pages," the 
 Bible compared to a tree whose bark should be dis- 
 tinguished from its fruit, &c, are allusions and distinc- 
 
( 7o) 
 
 tions I had made in a very popular sermon. To a 
 request that Dr. Channing would explain more fully, 
 the preceding- Communication, I received the fol- 
 lowing-: 
 
 I would prefer more calm and quiet, that you might 
 become more spiritualized in feeling. Then these 
 addresses to your understanding will fall with due 
 regard to the effect that awaits all Truth. They are 
 plain, and appeal to your serious meditation. Here- 
 after I will address }^ou to }rour entire contentment 
 and satisfaction ; but not now. 
 
 [In response to the question, why do I hear Spirit 
 raps so constantly and for so long a time without 
 giving any positive information, he said :] 
 
 Rest assured the Providence of God attends all 
 His creatures. Can you feign them to be ill-omens 
 of future good ? You would fail to appreciate the 
 design of the distant thunder if you were to regard 
 it as wholly sent to arouse human fears. So of these 
 Manifestations when regarded either with fear or 
 contempt. 
 
 Of the propriety or adaptation of what I have pre- 
 sented to you, as I have told you before, it is not for 
 me to measure. Its height and depth is left for your 
 calm meditation. But, sir, I might thunder with all 
 the power that enraptured the hearts of Israel, as 
 portrayed through the blazing torrent from God, in 
 Horeb — and what would it avail? This would be as 
 though I were addressing an infant mind to excite its 
 curiosity and dazzle its perceptions with a splendor 
 that would clog all thought ; and it would scarcely 
 carry as much weight as a metaphor to a benighted 
 mind. Think you this strange? Do you comprehend 
 my meaning? 
 
( 7i ) 
 
 [To this I replied : Not full}-. He continued :] 
 
 Do you think what I said to you aimless? My 
 manner of address is but the moving- that Reason will 
 ever give to foreshadow Error, when and wherever 
 it may be found. Think not this strange. I allude 
 to what you have received. Sir, your v r iews are so 
 near the Truth we can but foreshadow to you where 
 the error of many, lies. 
 
 My application tends to this point: Were we to 
 say the day is approaching when the effulgence of 
 the glory of these Manifestations shall illuminate 
 all the dark and benighted spots of earth, we would 
 but utter the simple truth. Sir, the Sun is near its 
 meridian. I wish to be understood, as well for your 
 satisfaction as for the Universal good of Man. We 
 often (in our communications) miss our most cherished 
 aim. Such, let me say, has been, to some extent, the 
 record of the past. When }^ou think me unchari- 
 table, reflect well. I would only add to Truth, and 
 illuminate what may appear a mirage or mist to 
 engulf our most sanguine anticipations of future 
 bliss. Let me say one word explanatory : Think it 
 not rash nor ill-natured ; for it comes for- the united 
 benefit of all. We must be candid. You can only 
 benefit men by making them candid. Equivocation 
 is not the land-mark to future treasures beyond the 
 grave. When we see misdirected zeal in a good cause, 
 we can but desire to set it right. The heartless op- 
 position you have met in giving utterance to Divine 
 Illuminings upon your mind, somewhat obscures vour 
 vision, or you would understand me fully. 
 
 [I supposed him to allude to my unwillingness to 
 make known what I knew of Spiritual Manifestations. 
 To my thought he at once replied :] 
 
( 72 ) 
 
 You may mistake my end. We have said, Truth 
 is Eternal and knows no death. Let us, then, embrace 
 it with extended arms. Were I to address you, as I 
 do, in plain language, not foreign to your birth, yovi 
 would comprehend its adaptation and application; 
 by which means you should measure what is breathed 
 forth as the impressive throb of Spiritual Intuition. 
 So when we address our fellowman. If we aim at 
 higher, and it may be, greater accomplishments than 
 they appreciate, Ave may present what fails to impress 
 the mind with our most cherished desires. Then 
 what have we accomplished? 
 
 I have addressed you; mark the sentence: "Of 
 its adaptation or application it is not for me to con- 
 sider." If you consider, let our words be illuminated 
 by the halo of Eternal Truth that dwells within every 
 man. 
 
 [Still I felt I did not understand him, and my mind 
 was laboring to see his point, when he again wrote :] 
 
 O, that I could address myself to you more under- 
 standingly. I would not fail of the desired end. O, 
 No ! I cannot but hope that time may prove a bless- 
 ing in these interviews and help you forward in that 
 glorious work which looks to the Revelation of the 
 Divinity in Man and the Union of a long-severed 
 Brotherhood. 
 
 During the evening of this day, while sitting in my 
 yard, in rather a meditative mood, alone, my head 
 leaning against the fence, I heard a distinct stroke, 
 as of a hatchet, upon the fence, immediately behind 
 my head. I sprang to my feet, supposing it was my 
 little boy, and fearing that, in the dark, he might next 
 
(73 ) 
 
 strike my head. There was not a soul to be seen, 
 either near me or the fence. I pondered the matter 
 over, and concluded it must have been my imagina- 
 tion transferring some distant and unobserved sound 
 to the location in which I seemed to have heard it. 
 I was not satisfied with my own manner of accounting 
 for it, but mentioned it to no one. I was soon after 
 called in to meet a worthy friend, with whom I had 
 a conversation on Spirit-Intercourse, meeting very 
 satisfactorily his difficulties on the subject. He left 
 at nine o'clock, and as he left, said he would like to 
 receive a communication upon the employment of 
 Spirits. 
 
 He had scarcely gone when Mrs. F. came under 
 Spirit-influence, and said : "There is a noble looking 
 Indian Chief marching over these parlors, and he 
 desires to communicate." She manifested the usual 
 timidity of American ladies at the thought of the 
 presence of an Indian. His subsequent appearance, 
 as will be seen by the records that follow, form no 
 ordinary incident in our progress : 
 
 COMMUNICATION V. 
 
 WE desire, this evening, to address you as 
 regards the progress of our people, in this 
 world and the immediate world we enter 
 upon leaving the body. We, my dear sir, have been 
 driven out before the face of the White Man, to live 
 among savage beasts ; therefore, little is expected of 
 us. He would have been calculated to civilize and 
 
 8 
 
( 74) 
 
 train the mind of the Red Man had he approached us 
 properly, from the first. We would not then have 
 worshipped our images. The bow and arrow, the 
 tomahawk and scalping-knife, would not have been 
 our emblems of Justice, had he placed before us the 
 True Teaching. We need pure teachers among our 
 people. Such teachers, let me tell you, as are sent 
 to the Red Man, only make him worse — more corrupt. 
 Ah ! when they leave the civilized portions of the 
 world they think they can do pretty much as they 
 please, among savages. We see and behold them 
 with scorn and irreverence. We cannot respect them. 
 They are more savage than we. I say savage, because 
 their low natures, their unbridled lusts, make them 
 lower in vice. They, therefore, leave us in a much 
 worse condition than they found us. The Red Man, 
 like the White Man, needs something to elevate his 
 desires and aspirations. We must worship something. 
 We do worship — but, then, all do not know who or 
 what they worship. Yet, when they send forth a 
 prayer or supplication, if they know no better, God 
 sees their desire to look to something above them- 
 selves. Therefore, seeing his heart is pure, and that he 
 desires something above this life, the Indian receives 
 it. But his ignorance is such, he knows not what he 
 wants. Rest assured, God has provided for the rude 
 Indian. Ah ! yes, he, too, has the spark of Eternal 
 Life resting in his dark but manly body. 
 
 It is, my dear sir, with trembling we have approach- 
 ed this Medium to-night. Ah ! yes. She looked upon 
 our rude form with dismay. We saw it. We will 
 not harm thee or thine, my pale-faced sister. 
 
 You desired to know somewhat of our employment 
 in this Spiritual life. Immediately after leaving this 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 world we go to that society we are best prepared to 
 enter. We are placed under Spiritual Teachers. 
 God has thus provided. If we have not the proper 
 training in your life we are not driven off from the 
 face of the Father who created and sustains all. He 
 places us under Spiritual guides. If they fail to influ- 
 ence and instruct we pass into other circles to receive 
 a training such as we can best appreciate. Our em- 
 ployment is to learn Spiritual things. We are trained 
 by those above us. We have various amusements, 
 differing according to our advancement. As we sow, 
 we reap. But then, we do not live upon the flesh of 
 animals, as in your state. When we enter here we 
 leave all desire for fleshly things. Some of us, dying 
 undeveloped, and having degraded our privileges in 
 your life, are not so happy as those who have been true 
 to their Spiritual Nature. It is so with the Red Man 
 and with the White Man. Oh ! could we so impress 
 the Medium as to better give you instruction ! Per- 
 haps it would have been better to have left off our 
 savage appearance, but we desired to appear in the 
 Red Man's costume, that you might know us as we 
 once were. 
 
 The Communication having been interrupted by 
 company, in the morning, it was unexpectedly resumed 
 just as we had made ready — carriage waiting — for a 
 neighborly visit; and in less than ten minutes the 
 following was written — scarcely detaining us from 
 our proposed ride longer than a rapid communication 
 with a friend ready to leave, would have done : 
 
( 76) 
 
 COMMUNICATION VI. 
 
 WE cannot let you go until we come again 
 into close Spiritual Communion. We 
 see many minds about you we ought to 
 impress, and who need light upon this holy Move- 
 ment. We would not arouse prejudice, but inspire 
 the loftiest aspirations. But we see the atmosphere 
 of prejudice so dense in many who visit you, we 
 scarcely know how to penetrate it with light so pure 
 as that of Angelic Wisdom. 
 
 Men think were they to embrace Spirit-Intercourse, 
 it would dethrone their Reason ; do away with the 
 inspiration of the Holy Bible ; break up their churches 
 and disorganize society. We see that these are the 
 fears of large and benevolent minds around you. To 
 them we say — Not so. We would build up all that 
 is noble in Man, pure in the Bible, and useful and 
 improving in all organizations of society, religious or 
 otherwise. We would have even those who think 
 thus of our teachings, cast off much of their fleshly 
 natures. We would search the inmost depths of 
 their thoughts. We would make them familiar with 
 their own Souls. We would ask — Do you believe in 
 the Spiritual Communion of the ages past? Is not 
 the mind of Man the same? Is not God the same 
 now as then? Are Spiritual Intelligences degenerate 
 in their interest in their human brethren, that they will 
 not impart light to any age or people that will re- 
 ceive it? 
 
 We would not destroy, but rather purify your 
 Communion. We would not tear down, but build 
 up your churches. We would enter them and make 
 
( 77) 
 
 your worship a true and holy worship. We do not 
 desire to create a new Church. We have sects 
 enough in Humanity's name. But if you cut off from 
 your church fellowship the men we have enlightened 
 for your good, what is left for them but to form other 
 societies? We will elevate Man. We would inspire 
 his teachings with Heavenly Aspirations. We would 
 enlarge his mind and spirit, and if your churches are 
 too narrow or too fleshly to permit this God-ordained 
 work, rest assured the present generation will look 
 upon their fall. They need elevating thoughts, duties, 
 hopes. They need more — they need Communion 
 with the Divine Influences that lead the upward way 
 of an Infinite Universe to its great Center — GOD. 
 
 Can the supply of this need of Spiritual Communion 
 destroy the mind of Man ? No sirs ! It alone can 
 make and preserve the mind. But do you say you 
 cannot believe? Then we wquld say — Do not ridi- 
 cule. The time is not far distant when you will have 
 to embrace it. Your teachings are so fleshly, so low, 
 so unworthy, they must be, and they will be displaced 
 by the pure embodiment of Spiritual Truth. The 
 high-born Spirits, flesh once of your flesh, and spirit 
 still of your spirit, now call to you from their elevated 
 homes, saying — HEAR us! HEAR US!! Do not 
 denounce us until you have investigated what we say. 
 You doubt us from the influence of your lower, and 
 not your spiritual nature. Throw this off and you 
 will appreciate our teachings. We call upon you to 
 think of your departed ones. Think of those God 
 made you to love with an everlasting love, but who 
 have gone from earthly vision. Think you they ever 
 forget you ? Think rather they are ever near you, 
 and learn to bear their remembrance and image within 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 you. These loved ones are now trying to communi- 
 cate with you. These loved ones are now trying to 
 communicate with this people. Let your desires be 
 purified, your thoughts devotional, and you will real- 
 ize this truth. Could you see how calmly your best 
 thoughts are wafted to the Spirit-World to give hope to 
 our longing desire that we may yet create within your 
 minds more noble and spiritual power to correct the 
 impure and imperfect, you would often think of us. 
 
 Were we to thunder with terrific power, that opens 
 wide the flaming jaws of a volcano, and amid the 
 darkening smoke and burning lava, utter our voices 
 of alarm, you would believe. But, would you be 
 improved? We call upon you peacefully, and say: 
 give play to your own nature. We want a willing 
 mind. The voice of thunder would alarm and de- 
 grade you. We desire your best and clearest power 
 of examination. It w,ould relieve you of dread super- 
 stitions that have darkened your earthly path, and it 
 would come, as with the sweet breathings of Angel 
 voices, to relieve your declining years. You have 
 lost fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, broth- 
 ers and sisters, helpers and friends — each has lost 
 some kindred spirit. Would you deprive that one, 
 bound to you by eternal ties of existence, and to the 
 Father of all, from renewing that kindred, made sweet 
 in death? Ah! yes; ask yourselves if you would de- 
 prive these cherished ones of coming into close com- 
 munion with you. It is our right — we demand it of 
 you. We are the only ones who can speak you peace 
 when you feel the wearisome burdens of life upon 
 you. We hold the power that can calm the sinking 
 soul, and will ever use it where we are allowed. Will 
 you reject us? Could, O, could you desire to reject 
 
( 79) 
 
 us, were you to realize the pure and holy mission we 
 have to this land and people? 
 
 We come to enlighten and make you as one band 
 of brothers. If we fail in this, we fail in our most 
 cherished and blissful objects. We desire to bind to- 
 gether all Mankind, that they may feel and act as one 
 Brotherhood. Instead of separating, as you suppose, 
 we have come to draw together. Look at a large 
 diamond incased by the smaller ones, cemented insep- 
 arably together. Each has its light, of never-dimning 
 beauty. So would we have the Race of Man; so 
 would we have you, so that all who come within your 
 atmosphere, however humble or exalted, would feel 
 the heart of a brother. We would not insinuate that 
 we would make all minds as one mind. Man must 
 allow of difference. We were made to differ, and 
 should expect to differ. Without this all progress 
 would stop, the mind would become dwarfish, and 
 God would be robbed of His ends in the human crea- 
 tion. The rarest power and beauty of mind is called 
 forth by our differences. Let us differ, then, in love. 
 We differ in this life; but Love rules the Spiritual 
 Spheres. 
 
 Allow us, while this idea is before you, to present 
 you an earthly view of death. You have witnessed 
 the opening of a Panoramic Painting combining scenes 
 of Nature, imagination and history. You enter the 
 hall ; you wait with patience the opening of the scenes. 
 One enters and extinguishes light after light till you 
 are involved in darkness. You see nothing but a dark 
 curtain. Perchance you hear a strain of sweet music. 
 You wait, you listen, your anxiety increases. Sudden- 
 ly the curtain is lifted, and your eyes rest upon a lovely 
 landscape. So in death — but we do not call it death. 
 
( 8o) 
 
 As you approach near the close of life, your vision 
 becomes dim — dim with age, with care and fear — dim 
 as it regards your heaven-born life. You rejected 
 the heavenly influences that would have opened your 
 ' minds to the bloom and glory of the, to you, far-off 
 Paradise ; and now your hope sets in darkness, and 
 your feet tremble where you should stand firm to 
 behold the glories of Eternal Day. 
 
 Let me assure you, you. can make your declining 
 days brighter than any picture we can draw. You 
 may so commune with your own soul and the kindred 
 souls around you, that you will feel the welcome that 
 awaits you in the glad home of Spiritual and undying 
 affection. You will feel and embrace their presence. 
 If you will now live a life of self-sacrifice, you will 
 feel more than all we, your holy visitants, could bring 
 before you. 
 
 But, reluctantly, we must close this communication. 
 Oh! could we speak to you without raising your 
 selfish prejudices; how the darkness of your minds 
 would clear away, and the shout of joyful triumph 
 re-echo through all the vaulted courts of an unfolding 
 Universe! Do you believe in God? And yet believe 
 not in the Communion of His holy Spirits ! It can- 
 not be. Reject not what alone can ennoble and hallow 
 your desires. True, much that professes to come 
 from Spirits ought not to be countenanced. But, is 
 this our fault or yours ? Rest assured you must judge ; 
 but how can you judge when you are not true to the 
 purest and deepest thirst of your own Souls? Re- 
 member, Spirits have to use imperfect Mediums. 
 Remember your own imperfections ; of which you 
 need no better evidence than your own unnatural 
 and sinful prejudices against what you know ought 
 
( 8i ) 
 
 to make for your highest good. Be true to yourselves, 
 and you will know how to discriminate. Know that 
 nothing but the Pure can come from God and His 
 holy Messengers. We come from Him to invite you 
 to brighter thoughts, hopes and visions than have 
 ever blessed the walks or ways of the most enlighten- 
 ed mortals. 
 
 We met according to the appointment of our 
 Chieftain friend. He spoke as follows, through Mr. 
 Champion: 
 
 A 
 
 COMMUNICATION VII. 
 
 M I lost in the profundity of thought that 
 encircles my vision, to pour forth the sublim- 
 est conceptions of my nature, in adoration of 
 the God who gave me life? Do I stand upon the 
 brink of a precipice whose undimned heights soar 
 beyond the loftiest conceptions of Man? Or am I 
 placed upon the broad plain of maternal affection 
 that encircles all in one Common Brotherhood? Do 
 we behold this vast ocean untenanted? No. It but 
 bespeaks its design in Man. Is it to soothe the lonely 
 hour of solitude, or to charm with affections most 
 dear to the human heart, that we shall present the 
 ultimate of all earthly ties ? Shall I speak to you of 
 the divisions and subdivisions that have wrecked the 
 highest hopes and fondest anticipations of the Future ? 
 Crude, yes, crude — a pale-faced world will call it 
 crude. But it speaks from the vineyard of immortal 
 planting while our tone and sentiment are true to 
 our nature and true, sirs, to our God. Do we speak 
 
( 82) 
 
 forth those mutations, pillared, not tainted, _by the 
 loftiest conceptions of Man's policy? No. These 
 Heavens were as pure ; the sun shone as brightly ; 
 and the foliag-e that mantles the fair domain of earth 
 in its redolent splendor, came forth undimned by the 
 successive changes of time before the White Man 
 boasted of his prodigies of work. We stood, sir, 
 upon the banks of our own native streams. The un- 
 dulating flame from towering mountain enrobed its 
 majesty in token to its Author — God. We drank 
 purely, serenely, peacefully, from the unexhausted 
 storehouse of Nature, with none to chide or make 
 us afraid. We looked — to what did we look? We 
 looked, and we felt (here) the impressive lesson that 
 Man is born for higher and nobler ends. You may 
 think our observations crude. But ere the setting of 
 many suns the distant thunder of the East shall pro- 
 claim the approach of coming Day. Its inscriptions 
 shall be limpid with the highest and holiest concep- 
 tions of Man. 
 
 Why — yes, why do I pause? I could utter, yes, 
 I could utter a volume too sacred to be recorded 
 with the tears of Indians. These past remembrances 
 and cherished anticipations, burthen the soul. Shall 
 — yes, shall I ask pardon for lingering by the fireside 
 of my untinted Brother? Shall I prove recreant to 
 my nature and to my God ? Shall not those affinities 
 that are as extended as the Earth and as infinite as 
 the Heavens, prove true to their Source ? Why, then, 
 should we boast those kindred ties that bind us to the 
 home of our fathers? Why, also, should we not cast 
 but one faint glance over the past history of this — look, 
 yes look — what, but one century ago, brooded over 
 this fair landscape that now bursts forth with all the 
 
( 83 ) 
 
 j(yy and peace of civilization ? What has it cost ? By 
 what right has my kindred brother been forced from 
 the sacred associations of home, and left to bleach in 
 the wilds of Nature. Do you say that the forest 
 was his Paradise? Has the Red Man, then, no heart? 
 Do not his kindest and purest affections flow forth 
 in one unbroken chain to the God from whence they 
 came? Or does he stand, as the automaton, to be 
 hurled by the passing breeze, to the shades of oblivion ? 
 
 Upon this spot where I now stand, in my earliest 
 days was I dandled upon the knees of loved ones ! 
 But what a change has come o'er me? Spirits of the 
 dead ! Where, yes, where are your sons and daught- 
 ers? Let the pale-face answer ! The toiling millions, 
 spreading far and near throughout this smiling land, 
 we are told, in joy, prosperity and peace, under wise, 
 noble administrations of justice? Were I to bring to 
 your view the record of those brave hearts that once 
 peopled this fair soil, when first the Pilgrim Fathers 
 from oppression fled, and planted their standard of 
 Liberty in the Red Man's heart, what a contrast would 
 it present ! Alas ! alas ! not what their infatuations 
 would make it ! Has Nature proved false to her trust, 
 that the Red Man has disappeared before the wise (?) 
 intelligent (?) just(?) administrations of civilized gov- 
 ernment ? No, no ! It is a picture that would make 
 Nature blush at Man's depravity. Did they come to 
 secure Peace, or to light the fires of Golconda? 
 
 Ah ! Would you have, says my pale-faced brother, 
 — for I hear his sigh, — would you have the Toma- 
 hawk and Scalping-knife the emblems upon the altar 
 of Justice ? No, O, no ! But what better than these 
 have deprived our graves from inheriting their own ? 
 The answer is — Civilization ! My God ! Has Man 
 a Spiritual nature ? If so, for what was it given ? 
 
( 8 4 ) 
 
 But shall we descend the plane, others will say, of 
 Retrogression ? In the light of the Past, it would be 
 Progression. Even the mists of Nature protect her 
 own from mortal harm. But while I speak, O, noble- 
 hearted and hopeful Brother, in the Future, an extend- 
 ed eminence rises to my view, upon whose summit is 
 inscribed what can never be told by Man. Wait — yes, 
 kind friends, — wait ! You hear the rumbling thunder 
 still speaking ; but soon its sound will no more be 
 heard. What? yes, what? you ask. I come to say to 
 you, the hour will be given, encompassing its bearings, 
 its end and its purpose. Therefore, kind friends, wait 
 till the troubled waters shall be calm. The Sun will 
 again come forth in all its glory, not dimned by the 
 wiles and infatuations of Man ! Adieu ! Adieu ! 1 11 
 come to you again! 
 
 There was not a sentence of the above that was 
 not uttered with a power of voice and manner superior 
 to any oratorical display I have ever witnessed. It 
 frequently drew involuntary tears, and commanded 
 our full, almost rapt attention. I lost a few of the 
 words, but have not attempted to replace them. 
 
 Mr. Champion said, as from our Indian friend : 
 COMMUNICATION VIII. 
 
 THEN let me speak forth an index to those 
 thoughts that have burdened my heart amid 
 the cherished hopes that have blossomed and 
 bloomed beneath the shades of Nature's own planting. 
 When I come to you, my friend, receive me as a 
 
( 8 5 ) 
 
 welcome guest, not robed in the apparel of my 
 ancient home, but Spiritualty enlightened, to pour 
 forth those holy Intuitions that shall speak their im- 
 press upon the heart of Man. Let me be welcomed 
 with extended arms, ever ready to cherish the holiest 
 recollections and highest ends to be attained by Man. 
 My God speaks under your roof as well as under that 
 of the mighty. He is heard — and where, yes, where 
 should He not be heard? Here is a storehouse im- 
 measurably great. It knows no confines. It spreads 
 over the grave its brightest gems. It robes Man in 
 his true Paternity. 
 
 Can we look far into the depths of the Future and 
 say that one extended ocean bears us on to a common 
 destiny ? Can we dwell by the lascivious wanderings 
 of the mind and behold their meaning and intent? 
 Or must some sceptered vision be seen upon the hill- 
 tops to admonish us all that we live? Oh! no. Let 
 this index here awake from the dead lethargy that 
 has bound its highest and most glorious aspiration. 
 
 Here Mr. Champion found it impossible to go on, 
 owing to the powerful nature of the impression, and 
 our Indian minister gave way to another Spirit, who 
 addressed me as follows : 
 
 • 
 
 IN your interviews with men, be careful that you 
 do not overstep the bounds of propriety in a 
 recital of what we may deem subservient to the 
 best interests of Man. The soul-stirring appeals you 
 have received, are lofty in their character and weighty 
 in their meaning. But it will not do to direct too prom- 
 inently from their own theories, if you would bring 
 Man to the recognition of his high and holy attributes 
 
(86) 
 
 and ends. The ends subservient to our great mission 
 must be attained before we can go forward to the 
 achievement of those great and sublime precepts 
 that would inculcate the greatest of all truths. 
 
 I have intruded this morning, not for the purpose 
 of adding anything new to what has already been said. 
 It is but the reassurance of those kindred affinities 
 that bind us to loved ones on earth ; and when we 
 shall have accomplished this mission we shall feel 
 relieved of a high responsibility that we owe to you 
 as well as ourselves. 
 
 Let unanimity of feeling, of heart, of sentiment, 
 speak peace to the troubled ocean of Life. It wafts 
 us on, it is true, but when, oh ! when we realize the 
 unfathomed depths beyond, we are permitted to bring 
 from the records of Eternity that oneness of feeling 
 that shall make us neither ashamed nor afraid. Let 
 the goodness of God ever impress the heart with its 
 high-born mission. Death is but a sweet sleep after the 
 toils and vexations of Time, from which we come forth 
 afresh, renewed and prepared for higher and holier 
 achievements. Therefore, let the dark mantle whose 
 shroud has woven its texture around thy brow, be 
 precipitated from thy mind. I have given you this, 
 that we may go forth rejoicing, and not in gloom, in 
 your contemplation of the Future. 
 
 T want you all to feel as one in this great movement ; 
 for many high-born Spirits live in daily communion 
 with you to guide you unerringly, if allowed to be 
 heard implicitly. They now tell me, yes. They tell 
 me that here is to be a grand center around which, 
 Light shall be revealed Universally ; not to charm 
 your fancies or to excite your desires, but to conse- 
 crate you as the humble instruments for propagating 
 
( 87) 
 
 high and holy Truth to Man. Then live the life of 
 the righteous, that thy peace may be like theirs. 
 
 I cannot express the admiration I feel at the very 
 kind and recriprocal manner in which all tends to 
 minister universally to the desired end. Sacred asso- 
 ciations have been formed, but what virtue is there 
 at their command, without unanimity of feeling? 
 None. Sacredness consists in holy thoughts; in purity 
 of thought and sentiment to advance the interests of 
 fellow-mortals like yourselves. Sacredness consists 
 in holding strict communion with your hearts and 
 your God. Motive ! — let there be none that is not 
 dedicated to the interests of Humanity ! Let your 
 moments be sacred when drawing from the exhaust- 
 less Fount of Wisdom, that which shall adorn and 
 beautify Man in higher costumes than ever bedecked 
 the regal couch of Sovereignty. 
 
 I cannot say more now. Then fear not ; but march 
 boldly forward, ever hearing the timely admonitions 
 of kind friends. Undue interest or alacrity might 
 destroy the means that bear us safely on our journey 
 with peace to ourselves and comfort to others. 
 
 Mr. Champion professed himself much relieved 
 by coming under the influence of this Spirit — when 
 Dr. Channing's presence was manifested to him, and 
 he spoke again: 
 
 A word to you, Mr. Champion. I want you to 
 speak whenever called upon or so impressed, unhesi- 
 tatingly. I will guide and minister whenever needed. 
 If you repose in me as representing the great Ulti- 
 mate of Eternal Truth, hear what I have to say. Sir, 
 I am in hopes to give orally my impressions. I want 
 
( 88 ) 
 
 you to avail yourself of every instance of Spiritual 
 approach. If not in accordance with my wishes, I 
 will tell you. You need never fear contending Spir- 
 its ; for, ever true to their natural affinities, Like will 
 seek its Like. Therefore, go on. All is legitimate 
 and designed. I cannot make my impressions more 
 definite without the Indian. Consequently, he will 
 be a welcome guest. Do not be abashed. Do not 
 fear the result. I say, Peace to all awaits these 
 missions of Mercy. 
 
 Under a concurrence of happy coincidences we 
 believe to have been directed by Spirits, Mr. Cham- 
 pion and myself made a rapid visit of one week to 
 Todd County, Ky. It is but due to truth to say that 
 he knew not one of the parties with whom we met, 
 and could not by any possibility have known any of 
 their Spiritual relations. After a pleasant night at 
 Goodletsville, we passed rapidly through Springfield 
 to the neighborhood of Allensville, Kentucky. 
 
 While at the residence of my father, the larger 
 portion of his family and immediate connections being 
 present, Mr. C. came under Spirit direction and ad- 
 dressed several members thereof as from their Spirit- 
 friends, in most affecting and appropriate terms. 
 Before making a direct address he was directed to 
 prepare them, as from the Spirit of our Indian friend : 
 
A 
 
 (89) 
 
 COMMUNICATION IX. 
 
 M I here amid my native wilds adorned in 
 the semblance of a man, to breathe forth 
 those mighty truths imprinted on Nature's 
 own Paradise to enliven our holiest recollections of 
 the Past and fondest anticipations of the Future ? Do 
 I behold around me many travelers to the same great 
 end — which is God? Am I here to speak the lessons 
 of soberness and truth or to spend an hour of idle 
 pastime? Oh! let the thought I speak to you be true ! 
 Let not the wiles and infatuations of }>-our minds dim 
 them to their highest and holiest visions ! Then let 
 us come into one common union of heart and senti- 
 ment, and feel as Man should ever feel when he looks 
 forward to one Common Destiny. 
 
 I cannot express on this occasion — no language can 
 express those kindred affinities that ally mortals to an 
 Immortal Destiny. These things may appear strange, 
 but they are legitimate parts of God's handiwork, 
 all tending to their designed and desired ends. The 
 kindred ties that bind you to the departed are not 
 blasted, but bloom in all their native loveliness, and 
 are here to-day to speak Peace to your hearts. Then 
 come, desiring one hope, one end, one destiny. 
 
 Shall we speak of the glowing terms presented to 
 win Man to his God? No. It is not in them but in 
 your hearts you will find the link that binds. We 
 would have you prove true to your nature and your 
 God. Not bought — not traitorous to your highest 
 interests. No, no ! We would not delude you with 
 the charm of inexhaustible pleasure. You must come 
 to be men. Neither would we frighten you with the 
 
(9o) 
 
 terrors of a flaming Hell. Neither would we ascribe 
 to that Eternal Principle of Love, what would con- 
 sign Man to the depths of Eternal Woe. We would 
 speak of a God not bereft of the fond affections of a 
 Parent who cares for and chides not his child in vain. 
 I come, my pale-faced Brethren, to speak to you of 
 undying relations that await you all. We have heard 
 the monotonous roar of the distant thunder, but it is the 
 idle foreboding of greater epochs to which your hopes 
 should be elevated. When, sirs, the grass shall grow 
 over the graves of many who hear me to-day, you 
 will have reason to rejoice at the sweet anthems that 
 shall enwrap your hearts in the ineffable glory of God. 
 Need I call your attention to the recollection of 
 the precepts of early years? Need I say, sirs, there 
 was then planted what has robbed Man of his highest 
 and holiest privileges, by what they called religious 
 kindness. And now when the years of maturity should 
 bloom in all their native purity, my God ! what do 
 you behold ? The casket is robbed of its highest ends 
 — robbed of Liberty of Conscience to speak and act 
 as a Man. Then when we look, what do we behold? 
 A man bereft of the Divine prerequisites of a Man. 
 O, ye fathers and mothers, discharge your high duty, 
 and frown at once upon every effort that would en- 
 slave the minds given to bless you and the world. Let 
 not false notions or conceptions of depravity, cloud 
 your brow or dim your vision to the highest and 
 holiest mission that awaits your offspring. Let the 
 plant as it comes forth be prepared to feel the scorch- 
 ing blast that would lay its highest hopes and interests 
 in the dust. Would you rob these dear jewels of the 
 power to do justice when it is needed? O, let these 
 reflections sink deep into the profundity of your 
 serious thoughts. 
 
( 91 ) 
 
 Fear not ! Fear not ! If the agencies and minis- 
 trations now dawning upon the world are not as they 
 should be, rest assured they will disappear as the dew 
 before the scorching sun. If true, shall you not hear 
 them ? Then stand free, upright — not bowing to forms 
 and conceptions that have swallowed up the highest 
 gifts of God to Man. No! Judge for yourselves- 
 That is what we want. A Man ! not a truckling to 
 the powers that be. No ! If so, he proves traitorous 
 to his God. Hear their heavenly voices, then, for 
 without them you will go backward to what will 
 degrade and enslave you and make your progress 
 only the more difficult where you now desire it to 
 be free. 
 
 I have said much that may be but faintly understood. 
 But your perceptive faculties shall be enlightened. 
 Then shall you behold the redolent effulgence dawn- 
 ing upon what should be a happy, but what is a too 
 credulous people. But another, and a kindred Spirit, 
 is here and desires my place from which to speak to 
 you: 
 
 KIND friends: What shall I speak? I wish 
 to say one word to you that may urge you 
 forward in the prosecution of a great and 
 noble enterprise. It is Humanity that calls ; shall it 
 be heard ? Then prove true to the exalted privileges 
 granted to you and yours. I speak with the impress- 
 ive intuitions of a fathers's love. Let the kindnesses 
 we feel, be extended. Let them not awaken unholy 
 recollections or desires, for know such are not born 
 of God. Let us be enlivened with the holiest antici- 
 pations of the Future. I cannot do more than to 
 impress upon your minds a strict necessity of the 
 
(92 ) 
 
 observance of the rights of others. Let your bless- 
 ings and purest affections, then, encircle all in one 
 Common Union. Let not the perversities and mis- 
 givings of deluded men, embarrass and retard your 
 honest convictions of propriety. Let not the effusions 
 that are broadcast in the land dim thy vision to their 
 approaching doom. Let not the sad desolations 
 awaiting a thorough conception of your highest hopes 
 or best interests arouse one reflection that shall em- 
 bitter the holiest associations and kindred affinities 
 that speak upon the heart the Design of Man. I 
 would say more, but time and circumstances forbid. 
 They admonish me of brighter and loftier conceptions 
 of the Inner-Life, which should be poured forth in all 
 its native purity. Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
 This Spirit was understood to have been Jesse 
 Babcock, our grandfather. Another Spirit, the third 
 son of our parents, deceased thirty -five years, turned 
 the Medium to our Father and Mother, and said : 
 
 I FEEL impressed to say one word of consolation 
 to these friends here. I feel it a duty I owe to 
 you. I feel that there is an inseparable barrier 
 to what you would desire promulgated as the eviden- 
 ces that enlighten our minds and enforce the convic- 
 tion of Man's Immortality. An undue regard for 
 those we cherish most dear, robs us — yes, my friends, 
 robs us of the greatest privileges Man ever enjoyed. 
 I must speak what comes. You must bear it. Were 
 I to consult my own inclinations it would not be so. 
 My aged Father : Hear one word from the grave. 
 Let me calm your wrinkled brow and declining years. 
 Thy hopes shall not be dim. Pleasures unspeakable 
 
(93 ) 
 
 await thy exit to more extended climes. Let not the 
 sympathies and cares of life rob its flickering rays of 
 their wonted brilliancy. No ! Look to higher and 
 loftier ends. I would have you be charitable in your 
 feelings, as I know you are. I would rob you of the 
 unpleasant emotions that ever arise in a father's heart 
 as he contemplates the trials of his child. Let not 
 thy heart and mind be troubled. We are born of 
 God, and to Him must return. I feel the inadequacy 
 of language to express what I desire. Let the bright- 
 est wreath of hope encircle thy venerable brow. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 There were many other things equally touching 
 and beautiful, which was lost in the amount of sym- 
 pathy awakened — always detrimental to the Medium. 
 
 Wednesday night, October 4., 1854. 
 At night a still larger company were gathered 
 together, when Mr. Champion came under the influ- 
 ence of the Spirit of Dr. Channing, and spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 COMMUNICATION X. 
 
 J WANT to communicate to you, this evening, up- 
 on the Immortality of Man. His hopes — ah ! yes, 
 and his desires. I wish to awaken within you 
 all, the true feelings of a man. God, in His infinite 
 mercy, created all. Made He Man from the dust of 
 the earth? Then what more was he than what we 
 behold upon the broad expanse of Nature ? Nothing, 
 sirs, nothing more. Hark ! the gentle zephyrs of the 
 
( 94) 
 
 exalted grandeur of an all-wise God breathe the sub- 
 lime power of a Living Soul! Call you this, Death? 
 There is no Death. Each native element seeks its 
 own. Shall not the Intuitive Impress of an all-wise 
 God retain the affinity it bears? Or shall it die and 
 fade as a fleeting show to awaken the false concep- 
 tion of the mind's recollections of the past? Then, 
 know that Life — Eternal Life — breathes everywhere. 
 These Heavens, in all their redolent glory, burst forth 
 daily before your vision, to proclaim the ceaseless 
 flow of the powers and ties of that Life. The fathom- 
 less ocean and extended earth but whisper the gentle 
 notes of praise to the God who gave their elements 
 of power and beauty. What more is Man, when the 
 life-giving principle departs? Nothing! Nothing 
 more ! Shall the breath that bears us on, curse the 
 Intuitive Impress that marks the sullied image of 
 Eternal rearage ? No ! Talk of Divinity, here and 
 there. With as much propriety we might inculcate 
 the absurdity that Man has no being. Divinity, sir, 
 reigns triumphant throughout the endless changes 
 that have awaited or shall ever await the monuments 
 of Time. Divinity is here. No conception can be 
 brought to dethrone it. The extended grandeur of 
 the Eternal God reigns everywhere. Man's hopes 
 shall slumber on to an Eternal Progress that knows 
 no end. Dark and portentous clouds may obscure 
 the horizon, but they only reflect another gem to the 
 ever increasing brilliancy of the Soul. The)' bespeak 
 the endless vicissitudes through which his nature 
 and his God beckon him on to an Endless Life. Then 
 let the hope, never exhausted, bear him on to that 
 oneness which knows no distinction. 
 
 Call yourselves more favored than your brothers, 
 
(95 ) 
 
 because you sit under the droppings of Heavenly 
 Wisdom ? The meridian of day is obscured by the 
 approaches of the solitude of age. Then rejoice not, 
 for thy hopes are the enslaved anticipations of ap- 
 proaching day. Boast, yes, feeble Man, boast you 
 of a Law that bequeaths unequal privileges? It's 
 false ! I mean, sir, it is false. Understand this asser- 
 tion not in its broad acceptation. No truth is false. 
 No ! The Divine Impress of an Infinite Father has 
 mantled these heavens from before the beginning of 
 Time. Through the hypocrisy and traditions of the 
 ancients, many things are blended with the Chart of 
 Immortality. Do they make it all, Divine? "All, 
 yes, all Scripture is profitable." But what is Scrip- 
 ture ? Here lies the basis on which has been erected 
 a superstructure that makes Humanity mourn. Like, 
 yes, Like, ever true, seeks its own. Love is the spirit 
 of the Law. Will my kindred friends show me what 
 it has brought forth ? Has this Divine Principle prov- 
 en true? O, m) r God ! Let the hearth of the widow 
 and the orphan answer ! Let the Sixteenth Century, 
 with its damning feuds, settle this question. Let the 
 broils and contentions that spread over this fair, but 
 alas ! not happy land, answer. And from whence has 
 all this evil come? It has arisen from the perversion 
 of this nature we bear. O, yes ; we could express our- 
 selves in a manner that would not be acceptable to you, 
 nor agreeable to us. The mercenary motives of Man 
 have robbed him of his highest hopes and his holiest 
 ends. Liberty of Conscience, Liberty of Thought, 
 and Freedom of Sentiment upon the great and mo- 
 mentous Truths that would lead us on to a more 
 extended elevation, is what you need. Have, then, 
 the means to awaken within Man the most incalculable 
 
(9M 
 
 blessings to his fellow-man. Why sir, if I am a free 
 man, why should I not contemplate these heavens 
 serenely? Has God, in His mercy, been more bounti- 
 ful to one than to all? Why then, should Man behold 
 in his brother-man, a fiend? Recollect thy Paternity 
 is one, and thy relationship should not be counter. 
 One union, one chain, binds all to God. One breath 
 poured forth these myriads over creation. They came 
 from God, and to Him shall return. They speak 
 now in every breeze. Innumerable hosts approach 
 me at this moment. - They stand as one, urging the 
 claims of this great mission. Kindred associations, 
 loftiest desires, purest affections, are here to-night, to 
 instill momentous thoughts with a reality not to be 
 excelled. 
 
 Friends, many loved ones surround you, who wish 
 to speak. I now have to choose between many — an 
 unpleasant task. I am turned here. 
 
 Here, Mr. Champion turned to a Miss P , 
 
 present, and addressed her as from her father, de- 
 ceased eight years. He could not have known either 
 her kindred or orphanage. He said: 
 
 MY Dear Child : Weep not over the record 
 that presents to your memory our earthly 
 farewell. I feel your desolate lot, and am 
 not insensible to the chilly reception that often awaits 
 you in a cold and selfish world. But bright is the 
 hope I bring vou, beyond expression bright ; not la- 
 den with the cares and misfortions of a very lonelv 
 life. My child : a fond parent's affection shall ever be 
 near thee, and the blessing of an all-wise God shall 
 overshadow thee. Be hopeful ; and your days shall 
 
(97) 
 
 pass away only to help you forward to a glorious 
 destiny. Weep not! 
 
 This scene was very affecting; so much so that I 
 lost the greater part of the address. 
 
 From the interview recorded above, we passed on, 
 the next day, to Merryville, Ky., where, at night, we 
 met a large company of ladies and gentlemen. This 
 was the late residence of Dr. C. Meriwether, a gen- 
 tleman of the highest intellectual cultivation, honored 
 by all who knew him, and regarded by his immediate 
 acquaintances with a reverence which only the most 
 elevated wisdom and moral worth could command. 
 We spent the remainder of the day in happy converse 
 upon these strange manifestations, in company with 
 Mrs. M. and her son, Mr. W. D. Meriwether. As 
 night drew near, a company of invited guests came 
 in, and a circle was convened for a spiritual interview. 
 Except from what had transpired at the residence of 
 my father, which was as novel to the experience of Mr. 
 Champion and myself as to any who witnessed the 
 happy and improving greeting of kindred, in and out 
 of the form, on that occasion, we had no intimation 
 of what was to follow. We had been seated but a 
 few moments, in this hospitable mansion, when Mr. C. 
 came under Spiritual influence, and spoke as follows, 
 as from Dr. Channing: 
 
(98) 
 
 COMMUNICATION XL 
 
 Y Spirit is lost in the pleasurable emotions 
 that swell this breast in gratitude to the 
 God that gave me birth. Let not the de- 
 sires of Man soar to unknown heights, bereft of the 
 endearing consolation of the knowledge that there is 
 a God who claims obedience from all. Let not your 
 hopes be blasted in the zenith of their beauty. Let 
 not the false imaginings of human ignorance rob the 
 storehouse of Nature of its choicest gifts. Let not 
 your wild fancies, my friends, make you prove recre- 
 ant to your Souls and your God. 
 
 What means all this assembly of blessed Spirits 
 around you to-night ? What means this form ? Why 
 was it created ? Look beyond your vain conceptions, 
 guided by those aspirations which ever arise when 
 you feel the power of the Soul that decorates this 
 form, and it will point unerringly to the Source of 
 its infinite glory ; and beneath that inspiration will 
 breathe forth the sweet adulations of praise to that 
 Source which gave it life. What, says one, transcends 
 this form and bears me on over the trackless fields of 
 space, unknown to mortals? It is the infinite grand- 
 eur of an all-wise God. What, I ask, are the ends to 
 be attained by Man? Was there no design in his 
 creation ? Was he brought forth as the sportive mel- 
 ody of an hour, to charm the celestial spheres? Or 
 is he doomed to sink to the unknown depths of endless 
 wrong? Or does he linger, as the tiny drop, to pass 
 away before the scorching rays of the lightning of an 
 unjust God! Oh! no! 
 
(99) 
 
 Here, with appropriate remarks, the Spirit speaking 
 seemed to give way to the influence of another, when 
 Mr. Champion continued: 
 
 E impresses me to say that there are many 
 kindred friends present who would like to 
 speak in tones that would be recognized by 
 all. I have been heard in the counsels of your Nation. 
 My heart, sirs, has beat in sympathy with the oppress- 
 ed. I fled not from my post when danger invaded 
 this fair land. I stood erect, proud of my native 
 country, and ever willing to do battle in the cause of 
 right. Great and glorious achievements have wreath- 
 ed your country's brow with fame as undying as Eter- 
 nity. But, with the velocity of thought, the fitful 
 ./Eons are passing on, each one oppressed at the signal 
 doom that awaits our land. 
 
 KIND and happy friends: We would com- 
 mune with you to-night. Loved ones are 
 here, and I am here to describe them for your 
 recognition. Here is one — see you her not ? — a lovely 
 maiden. Scarce eighteen summers dim her brow. 
 She passes on and lingers there. With enchanted 
 gaze and enraptured thought, such as no language 
 can depict, I see her moving on. She has loved and 
 is beloved here. Many, many, many are now passing 
 by your eyes — Oh! see you them not? 
 
 Here, (pointing to the honored matron of the family 
 present) stands one with thoughtful brow which be- 
 speaks many long and weary years. But he now 
 appears as though scarcely sixty summers had graced 
 his manly form. Once he graced this fair mansion 
 with all the fondness of a father's love. The emotions 
 
( ioo ) 
 
 that now swell his heart are such as none can utter. 
 
 Here comes another, dear, most dear to you (point- 
 ing to Rev. J. B. F.) With one fond look she passes 
 on. This, friends, is the friendly greeting of kindred 
 Spirits. Let your hearts chant the praises of a God 
 yet unknown to many who profess to speak in His name. 
 (Here was presented a beautiful apostrophe to our 
 nation, and not without a warning ; but it was deliv- 
 ered so rapidlv I was not able to take it down.) 
 
 Here comes one, an aged father, who was once worn 
 down with the cares of life. "Say to these," he says, 
 "be not forgetful of your friends. We visit your 
 homes and sit at your firesides. We rejoice in your 
 pleasures and mourn in your sorrows." He moves 
 here — what that means, I cannot express. (Here he 
 pointed to Mrs. M., who afterwards recognized the 
 aged man as her father, who had died in the parlor 
 we were then occupying, of which fact and of his age, 
 the Medium gave information, although he had never 
 heard of him before, nor did any one, save the family, 
 know the fact.) Dr. Channing, after several similar 
 and appropriate descriptions, continued: 
 
 One great thought : What is born of God? The 
 Spirit. And what shall It accomplish? This respon- 
 sive melody you but begin to hear from Spirit-friends, 
 is given to hush the monotonous roar that now dims 
 the loftiest vision of the Celestial Spheres. When 
 we hear, let us ask what good can Man accomplish 
 in behalf of his fellow-man? What good in any 
 precept, moral in its character, elevating in its ten- 
 dencies, if not recognized by the human heart? Ah ! 
 it is here that Humanity mourns the sad lessons that 
 await its perverted conceptions of things. What law, 
 sacred or divine, can help the toiling millions of earth, 
 
 _ 
 
( ioi ) 
 
 if not submitted to the capacity of Man? Truth is 
 a star of extended brilliancy, not to be dimned by 
 the varied vicissitudes through which it must pass. 
 Then fear not ! clad with the Divine Armor! Spirit- 
 ualism, if true, will stand the test of time. If we 
 would measure the exact proportions of two distinct- 
 ive observations, when brought together, we could 
 readily see where truth lies and makes itself distin- 
 guishable. Immortal Truth ! Impress of God upon 
 every heart! When clothed with thy Divine Armor, 
 who would fear the hydra-headed monster, Error? 
 
 But, says one, where shall I find that truth? This 
 question might do for a brute, but not for a man, to 
 ask. It only reveals the sad lesson, that many have 
 not yet ascended above the miasma that absorbs their 
 highest nature and the dearest relations of life. We 
 tell you that an observance of your own nature will 
 make you capable, — and show Man capable of receiv- 
 ing Divine Communications. Your God created you 
 free, and designed you to be men. Then let your 
 man-like capacity distinguish the immeasurable dif- 
 ference between a man and a brute. No man, who 
 proves true to his nature and his God, fails, here, to 
 behold the mirror of Eternal Truth. Law, yes, law, 
 Divine or otherwise, is subject to that Intuitive Im- 
 press that Man inherits from his God. 
 
 Place Humanity's unfortunate child in your midst, 
 without that Heaven-born prerequisite — Reason ; and 
 what do you behold ? A being bereft of what was 
 designed by God to bloom with a sweetness that 
 would have expanded throughout the Immortal Tem- 
 ple of Eternal Love. Think you this unfortunate 
 child is doomed ? No. Then mark a thought here. 
 What makes his palliation and saves him from blame? 
 
( 102 ) 
 
 Is it not his capacity? He lives beneath the umbra- 
 geous boughs of this life-giving odor, but inhales it 
 not. Say you not, then, that capacity measures with 
 unsparing aim, Man's obedience? Then, friends, will 
 you cast it to the dogs, because some inflated spark 
 of Humanity may chide you for its exercise ? No, no ! 
 Then let all, yes, all, one mighty ALL, succumb 
 to the GoD-in-Man. Are you afraid to trust your- 
 selves? Have you a thief within to steal away your 
 highest hopes and best interests? No! Then live, 
 yes, live in the enjoyment of the choicest gifts of God 
 to Man. I have done! 
 
 Meryville, Ky., Oct. 6, 1854. 
 
 There were other descriptions of attending Spirits, 
 and personal recognitions by those present. But we 
 were at a loss to recognize the Spirit that represented 
 itself as kindred to the family, and as having served 
 in the councils of the nation. While discussing his 
 probable name, several having been suggested, Mr. C. 
 came under Spiritual influence, and after describing 
 most accurately Dr. Meriwether and Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, and delivering a noble speech from the latter, 
 and appealing to a gentleman present who was the 
 only one of our company who knew him in life, for a 
 recognition, he told us that W. H. Crawford was 
 the relative the family were inquiring after. It was 
 not known to any one save Mrs. M. and Mr. W. D. 
 Meriwether, that he sustained any relationship to 
 the family. To sum up what was remarkable in these 
 recognitions of deceased kindred, we would have the 
 
( IQ3 ) 
 
 reader observe: i. Mr. Champion had no acquaint- 
 ance whatever with this family. 2. He arrived but 
 a few hours prior to this interview. 3. He met per- 
 sons here whom he had never seen, from places of 
 which he knew nothing. 4. The meeting was as 
 unexpected to the family as to himself, and he was 
 induced by Spiritual Impression to accompany me 
 there, neither of us knowing whom we would meet, 
 or what would be the nature of the demonstrations. 
 And yet, he accurately described deceased relatives, 
 their peculiar relationship to the strangers present, 
 the time and place of their death, and gave appro- 
 priate messages from each. In addition to this, he 
 gave a description of Mr. Jefferson and his relation 
 to the Republic ; represented him as an associate of 
 Dr. M., not knowing what we afterwards learned 
 from the family — that Dr. MERIWETHER and Mr. 
 Jefferson were intimate acquaintances in life, and 
 greatly devoted to each other. He gave the name 
 of Mr. Crawford as a relative, and his speech above, 
 when I, though I had resided in the family five years, 
 had never learned, till this interview, that he was a 
 relative. Are we not warranted, then, in saying that 
 no honest mind can put these facts together — and of 
 their verity I refer to the family, and am ready to 
 furnish the names of many respectable ladies and 
 gentlemen who were present and will never forget 
 the impressiveness of that occasion — and not admit 
 the reality of Spirit-Intercourse? 
 
( ICH ) 
 
 But the demonstration did not stop here. On the 
 next day, Mr. C. came under the direction of an In- 
 dian Chief, and commanding me to follow him, wend- 
 ed his way directly to the family cemetery, and there 
 pointed out to us the tombs of many whose Spirits 
 he said, had greeted us the night before. Some of 
 the graves he designated had no marks ; and yet he 
 gave the sex, the relationship and general character 
 of each with an accuracy of description that was 
 irresistible. When he had finished here, he again 
 commanded us to follow. He sought a spot, which 
 he bade me mark, and then taking a distinct survey 
 of a forest some distance from us, followed a line, not 
 varying a foot, through fields and over fences, and 
 then on through a dense wood, till he came to a 
 mound I had never previously noticed ; whereon he 
 stood and delivered a description of the habits, power, 
 and disappearance of the aboriginal tribes of this 
 country, that was commanding and interesting in the 
 extreme. I had no materials with which to preserve 
 the oration, as the whole proceeding was unexpected 
 and could not have been anticipated. When he had 
 completed an address, sentences of which are still 
 imprinted upon my memory, he was released, feeling 
 much invigorated, and seemed as unconscious of 
 what he had been doing as if he had been in a dream. 
 He knew not where he was; knew not the way back 
 to the mansion we had left, and such was the difficulty 
 of a return, even to myself, that losing sight of the 
 
( io5 ) 
 
 marks I had made, by his direction, we found our- 
 selves, when emerging- back again from the wood, 
 several hundred yards from the point where we had 
 entered it. I record these wonderful demonstrations 
 of Spirit-presence, alike for the gratification they af- 
 forded me at the time, and as a duty I owe to Truth. 
 I leave them without comment, believing they will 
 make a proper impression upon all sincere men. 
 
 At night Mr. C. addressed the venerable lady of 
 Meryville, from her deceased husband, and also her 
 son, making reference to incidents -known only to 
 them, and leaving them without question as to the 
 reality of the presence and interest of him whose 
 noble form they laid away some twelve years before. 
 The scene was beautiful, hopeful, almost heavenly, 
 and I feel it one that I should not record in its par- 
 ticulars, at least for the public eye. It will never pass 
 from my memory while I have a mind to appreciate 
 the high thoughts of wisdom, or a heart to move to 
 the pure emotions of undying love ; for there was a 
 calm Spiritual meeting that revealed the Inseparable 
 Union of kindred Souls in undying affection. 
 
 This meeting had been made by a lady acquaintance 
 with the hope of receiving a communication from her 
 husband. After a few moments, Mr. C. came under 
 Spirit-influence and said : 
 
( io6) 
 
 COMMUNICATION XII. 
 
 T 
 
 "^HE influences around me are unpleasant. I 
 do not know that I can overcome them. (He 
 was instantly elevated to an upright and ora- 
 torical position, and continued:) 
 
 No hope destroys with care ; 
 
 No life destroys the hope we bear : 
 
 That hope is here and everywhere ! 
 
 Fondness ever clings around the human heart, when 
 we are permitted to breathe forth the atmospheric 
 influences that bear us on. The swelling founts of 
 grief may o'erstep the man, so called ; but it is the 
 true dignity of a man that opens that flood that will 
 engulf the multifidous sorrows we bear. Hope, sweet 
 Hope bids us on, ever on, to higher and nobler ends. 
 It is not by the world known, nor human language 
 told, how endearing are the relations we bear to each 
 other. We would speak Hope for the future, and 
 help you forget the past. That Past broods about 
 you as a fitful dream, robbing you of what you, and 
 all, most desire. It speaks in the heart more than 
 mortal can utter. We would now be heard with 
 feelings of gratitude for the privileges we enjoy. We 
 hope not to excite your fears. We would relieve the 
 sorrowing mind of its numerous cares, that it may 
 sweetly feel that all is well. We should bear with 
 becoming fortitude, whatever is set before us. It is 
 not Fate that guides our destiny. O, no! Every 
 evil you bear is but the fruit of circumstances wisely 
 and beneficently ordered. Then give ear, and hear 
 the impressive lessons of one who bids you cease from 
 trouble. Hope! O, Hope!! Thou art not dead! 
 Then come and give an impetus to pure desire, 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 that shall never be in vain. 'T is an honest hour when 
 we realize our own. Think it not strange that kin- 
 dred matter cannot be lost. Were it so, all our efforts 
 would be fruitless that we are now making to instill 
 into the heart of Humanity what it needs to a bound- 
 less extent. 
 
 I bid you cease from trouble and be at rest. I know 
 not what I can say more, to beautify and adorn the 
 path you are now treading. Only rely on Eternal 
 Mercy, and you will recognize one Infinite Love. 
 Though the past may be blackened o'er with false • 
 impressions, yet one calm and serene touch upon your 
 heart will dispel it all. Let the Future write its im- 
 press, then, in terms of love to those most dear. 
 Mourn not over the frailties of mortals. An Infinite 
 Mercv and a Changeless Love reign everywhere. 
 Our hopes are eternal ; our fears rob us of the dearest 
 and choicest gifts dedicated to all. Can you make 
 this distinction plain ? 
 
 Here is a person whose associations and recollec- 
 tions made him what we could not desire. But let 
 these die. All error, yes, all, must die. Weep not 
 for the dead whose misfortunes made them misguided 
 men ; but weep for joy that this magnificent and ex- 
 tended ocean of Spiritual Life can drown and bury 
 every sorrow and perversity. The Past, by its ad- 
 monitions of suffering, is but a guide to the future 
 Perfection. Then let progress mark every step. 
 Let every effort we make, but mark another attain- 
 ment we gain toward the desired end. 
 
 Kind Friends : We meet as one. One Omnipo- 
 tent hand launched us forth, and still guides our way 
 over the tumultuous waves of human antagonisms. 
 We would now breathe forth those native elements 
 
 \ 
 
( io8 ) 
 
 of the soul which waft us to the shades of Peace, 
 whose foliage is already redolent with the praises of 
 immortal hearts lost in the ineffable glory of God. 
 It is with difficulty we can give utterance to those 
 feelings which, as mortals, we feel to others, and which 
 are as undying as Time. They can never cease their 
 flow. O, let me, yes, let me sweep from your mem- 
 ory all that is afflicting in the past. Let me breathe 
 forth sweet and eternal consolations. Then, O, then, 
 will it appear to all, that our high-born mission is the 
 same, and is to all, humane. 
 
 Another breathes forth a few short appeals that 
 should not go unheeded. Think not this shining sun 
 and blooming Paradise bequeathed to you or me, 
 more than to all. You bear one Common Paternity 
 in God ; one Universal Brotherhood in Man. One 
 mantle encircles all. Let the consoling reflections 
 gathered from this thought, ever urge us on to the 
 Ultimate of all earthly ties, Avhen Man — when one and 
 all shall recognise the eternal heirship the}'- bear, and 
 approach the heavenly mansion with confidence un- 
 faltering. No disinherited sons walk in the solitude 
 of Night, bereft of a Father's care. Do you bring 
 this home? I mean, sirs, one and all may hold sweet 
 communion over the archways of the grave to mingle 
 with its kind. Why, yes, why do any welcome the 
 heavenly messengers from another sphere, to re-echo 
 within, the Divinity we all possess? It is because 
 Man is come to be really Man, and is willing to cast 
 off the grosser associations that encumber his highest 
 affections, and has learned to welcome a brighter day, 
 that shall reveal the true knowledge. It is vainly 
 thought by many, that here and there blazes forth 
 a sickly taper from the Celestial World. Know they 
 
( 109 ) 
 
 not that in their own hearts is a pass-word to the 
 utmost heavens? It is not because dame Fortune 
 appears more lovely to one than another. It is only 
 when Man recognizes that he has a being, that the 
 power of the Spiritual state is felt. And what, think 
 you, means this recognition? The purest diamond 
 may glitter at your feet. You pass it by unheeded. 
 Its reflections are not brought forth ; and only when 
 brought forth and made to subserve the common 
 interests of Humanity, do we realize their never- 
 dimning brilliancy. Thus, the darkest clouds obscure 
 the greatest depths. Apply this to the Soul of Man 
 and you will never fail to recognize its Divinity. 
 Alas ! alas ! that so many should feel it to their inter- 
 est to obscure their only life ! 
 
 Growth of Soul, so to speak — Freedom of Thought 
 and Sentiment, that recognizes no tribunal to preside 
 over its interests ; these are the crystalized semblance 
 of the hopes that urge us on to be what Man was 
 designed to be — "the noblest work of God." 
 
 Here comes another, who would say much, but we 
 cannot impress his thought. Friends, you must wait. 
 But I would not prove true to my nature, true to my 
 God, true to the dearest interests of Humanity, were 
 I not to say, the happy throng around me, your de- 
 sires and meeting have brought together, cause me 
 to feel more than human language can ever express. 
 
 In the hours of adversity and in the seasons of sorrow, 
 we will be ever near to cheer thy heart. This mighty 
 ocean that rises magnificently every morning before 
 thee is peopled with innumerable visitants who revel 
 at your firesides, rejoice in your pleasures and mourn 
 in your sorrows. The Spirit now before you, will be 
 heard when you are alone. 
 
 ii 
 
( »o) 
 
 The preceding was understood to have been from 
 Dr. Channing, representing the wishes and thoughts 
 of others. At this point Mr. Champion became more 
 deeply entranced, and seemed carried further into the 
 realities of Spiritual sight. He exclaimed, after a 
 long pause : 
 
 What means all this? My first impressions give 
 me fear and dread. It is not Hell, I see ? No. But 
 I am lost in beholding a myriad host that crowd my 
 brain. They are more than imagination can paint. 
 With hurried step and thoughtful mien, they are 
 marching on. Could I but see where they are tending 
 I might measure the design of this representation. 
 I am placed, as it were, upon a platform. Before me 
 is an extended waste that no eye can measure. It is 
 densely crowded to its utmost extent. But a few feet 
 to my right, are passing throngs upon a crossing ; be- 
 neath, a deep ravine. If Time's progressive age were 
 stopped, this would be unequalled to the past design. 
 Friends, this scene is but the re-echo of false hopes, 
 wrecked amid the false imaginings of the Future. 
 Whence those imaginings come, you all know. This 
 crossing is but an emblem of Time bearing onward 
 its victims to brighter abodes. The ravine repre- 
 sents your imaginary Hell. Its depths are readily 
 seen by the Medium. 
 
 What means all this? This is no dream, nor idle 
 fancy. I now see how Man is immortal, and through 
 devious ways of fleshly imaginings, is pressing on. 
 His thoughtful brow, furrowed cheek and trembling 
 tread, but bespeak his robbery of the dead, of the 
 privilege of enlightening and unburthening his native 
 
( III ) 
 
 mind. Such are dead themselves— dead in life. This 
 extended plain of countless myriads, towering im- 
 pressively above each other, is but a picture of the 
 influences of false teachings that have clothed with 
 sorrow these bright abodes, to their sight ! They fear 
 to look up. 
 
 Again: What means all this? Our perceptions 
 are awakened to brighter and more extended obser- 
 vations. I am requested to mark their hopeful step, 
 as they are passing by. Is this but a reaction of the 
 mind, or some false fancy that dreams of the future, 
 or are we now really gazing into the infinitude of 
 space to behold what man dare never tell? 'T is so. 
 What! and I am marching too! The very look has 
 startled me, even me. But I am told to stop. I 
 am now standing, kind friends, upon the opposite 
 bank of a chasm that pictures Humanity's likeness, 
 and robs God of His rights by robbing Man of his 
 Destiny ! Why our observations are not more extend- 
 ed, is not for me to say. But from where I now stand, 
 I am permitted to look upon the past. The cold 
 charities of a heartless world and the miserly interests 
 of men, erect monuments there that would obscure 
 the light of day. The visions they reflect can only 
 be left to the Time-honored monster, Death, to dispel 
 from minds that now hide in their own obscurity. 
 One glance of the Future would remove it all. But 
 a thousand shadows rob us of the substance, and 
 horrify the imagination, and picture all that the reality 
 could bespeak. But I am requested to come away, 
 and before doing so, I am instructed to say, this les- 
 son shall be renewed again. 'T is done. Adieu ! 
 
 October 20, 1854. 
 
( "2 ) 
 
 COMMUNICATION XIII. 
 
 NO thought so dear as that which bequeaths 
 to ourselves and the future, the freedom of 
 conscience and liberty of expression we now 
 enjoy. We wish not to overestimate nor undervalue 
 the benign influences that attend us from the cradle 
 to the grave. We bring the enjoyment of the blessed 
 privileges that now should awaken Man to the state- 
 ment of his gifts as a man, inherited from his God. 
 I would not have you fail to mark the distinct evi- 
 dences that everywhere surround these hallowed influ- 
 ences of Spiritual Influx. This communion awakens 
 within Man, a desire that cannot be satisfied short of 
 the great Ultimate of Eternal Destiny. I hope soon 
 to be able to present to you more graphically, that 
 which shall enlighten the highest conceptions of the 
 end that awaits our future greetings. It is not to 
 destroy or subvert that which would brighten our 
 realization of the beautiful in emotion or action ; or 
 dim those exalted recognitions of virtue and virtuous 
 conduct that make the man who speaks forth the true 
 instincts of Humanity. No, no! These are not the 
 ends that await the progressive developments of this 
 age. But to instill within all who approach us, those 
 fermentations of thought that shall ascend in unison 
 to the desires we bear to be benefitted by such con- 
 tact. Divine illuminations and sequestered visitations 
 such as are granted to you, are few when compared 
 with the misgivings which many call the Hope of the 
 world. We approach you now to bring near you 
 many who have attended your way when least sus- 
 pected. Prepare to bear their messages. (After a 
 pause :) 
 
( "3 ) 
 
 What means this? I know not — I comprehend not 
 — here stands a man whose furrowed cheek bespeaks 
 a repose in death, as without an end. Why and how 
 he is made to appear, is beyond expression — entirely 
 so. He would speak of the Future, and point unerr- 
 ingly to what will follow these Divine Revealments. 
 He dwells near your work with emphasis, and 
 desires to say much. Guard well many expressions 
 you are ready to utter to your generation, for they 
 will serve to awaken many new conceptions that will 
 lead to results that will command all your manhood 
 to direct. But understand him as ever approving 
 the presentation of honest convictions maturely con- 
 sidered. The future developments that await your 
 progress will tend to awaken a degree of interest in 
 Humanity's cause, that no one can fully estimate. Let 
 not our selfish natures circumscribe the limitless do- 
 main, of a boundless end. Its atmosphere is one and 
 the same. It knows no distinctions. Its circumfer- 
 ence is Eternity. Its center is God. I see you un- 
 derstand me. Then you can proceed with these 
 developments, fearing no ill and evading no harm. 
 Make a record of the past, unerringly. The field is 
 mighty into which you have so fearlessly entered. 
 It needs the genial rays from the Celestial Spheres, 
 to gave life and vigor where dwarfed imaginings 
 consign Man to an Eternal doom. Let not these 
 reflections fall unheeded. Their depths are immeas- 
 urable to Man. 
 
 Care nothing for a classical, so you make a practical 
 detail. You do not understand me instinctively, but 
 you will judiciously. Relatively and collectively your 
 Records will do, and I would publish them as they 
 were given. One general diversity will but speak 
 
( "4) 
 
 its Intuitive Impress upon the heart, from the Source 
 from whence it came. Short-sighted mortality seldom 
 sees beyond the flimsy veil that bedecks the regal 
 courts of glory, in the Soul. Nature is one. This 
 mantled roof but speaks of Unity in Diversity. One 
 expanse — innumerable stars. The source from whence 
 all that surrounds us spring, acknowledges its parent, 
 earth. Too few they are who, seeing the diversity, 
 mark that oneness born of God. 
 
 Another meets you here in obedience to God's 
 unchanging laws. He breathes and speaks as a man 
 in death not bound, nor in Time's extended arms 
 embraced. He holds to the sceptred crown that spans 
 all space. Indeed, many new and unexpected guests 
 await. Their coming shall herald brighter epochs 
 whose clarion ring shall resound throughout the ages 
 of endless time. He says: "My name is scarcely 
 chronicled there," (pointing to our city cemetery) "and 
 its blood-stained hearth has not grown dim here." 
 (Striking the heart of the Medium.) "Think it not 
 strange that upon the pinions of ceaseless life, we soar 
 to unknown heights, and return to renew the fond re- 
 membrances we bear to that man who nerves his soul 
 in the cause of right." 
 
 What holds this assured friend to your city and to 
 you,T cannot tell. There is still another who waits 
 to give thoughts as immortal as Man and und3^ing as 
 Time. He would go, but wh}r he lingers I cannot 
 tell. He says: "Let all minds be free, and their na- 
 tive purity will come forth undimned. Chain not 
 your thoughts to this nor that, nor to what some 
 would call — All. Why not, then, give your commu- 
 nications their relative position? We must adapt 
 all to the end designed. It is not to mystify or typify 
 
( H5 ) 
 
 anv great event with unknown visions of the future, 
 that will give that knowledge desired by Man, and 
 sought and found only in every honest heart. We 
 deem these specifications subservient to the best 
 interests of the cause, and offer them with no other 
 object." 
 
 Men should never expect what is unreal or unreal- 
 ized. We must look above the differences that mark 
 our progress, and not expect to look with unerring 
 aim at the many fallacious attempts that are made 
 to subserve the interests of a common Humanity. 
 These are only to be avoided when Man is enabled 
 to soar above that humanity he bears. When you 
 meet upon the plain of conflicting strife, you must 
 expect diverse currents to intermingle and so becloud 
 the original of Spirit-thought, that it is lost amid the 
 din and confusion of human action. Whenever these 
 general observations shall be maturely considered 
 and thoroughly appreciated, you, and all, will better 
 understand why unnumbered appeals are made to 
 that God who sways the destiny of Man. These in- 
 terests are immortal, and but breathe forth the im- 
 mortal instincts we bear. The standards of human 
 fame and established criterions of propriety cannot 
 judge, much less measure them. 
 
 Think it not strange that many, very many, appeals 
 are made, and lost in their maturing, over that Infin- 
 ite Semblance in the heart, born of God. The tra- 
 ditionary legends and the hereditary' assets of Time 
 past, have bequeathed to Man all but what he needs. 
 
 The hopes that have been wrecked in early life, 
 shall come forth, not in subserviency- to the purposes 
 of an hour when Man realizes not his own. It is the 
 joy r ous strain whose anointing breathes forth the un- 
 
( "6 ) 
 
 told interests within, we desire to awaken. It leaps, 
 it lives, it dies not ; but borne upward to brighter 
 climes and more extended views, it forgets and de- 
 spises the standards that would hold back its only 
 living fire. It knows in all the semblance it bears ; 
 and holds Man not to earth to check his desires and 
 rob Eternity of its highest ends and purest hopes. 
 It is born — and why is it born? To die only in the 
 infatuations of its mystery ? Or to breathe forth its 
 native purity in Man? Those expressions will yet 
 bring the solace of confiding hope to wean us from 
 the vain anticipations of Man to realize his own in less 
 favored aspects of good, and opens anew the imme- 
 diate relationship existing beyond. 
 
 We would say more, but this hour has been one 
 devoted to still weightier considerations. 
 
 There is a man stands here who once fell in action. 
 His lifeless corpse was but the signet of his glory. 
 Then mark his grave — not as the conquered emblem 
 of peace — but the death-knell of liberty. Though less 
 favored monuments mark the fame of the conquered 
 than of the conqueror, the former die but to burst the 
 the chains that forged the grasp of tyranny wherever 
 exercised. The monuments of a day are but the 
 crownings of an hour to write upon and not within 
 the heart of their fellows. Then think it not strange 
 that the gaping wounds and dying groans of Man, 
 invade these bright retreats to be seen again and heard 
 in the hour of equal justice. Their rights, their lib- 
 erties, their all, extol the flame that is now ascending 
 to bedeck Man in the true armor of life ; and present 
 him not the cringing sycophant beneath the frowns 
 of lordly State or inflated Prelates. It is enough to 
 know that the careworn and weary stand beside the 
 
(ii7 ) 
 
 cherished orb of their hope. What they lost in life 
 is renewed in death. Hope, then, not to exclude the 
 many, for thev breathe in one and speak in all. They 
 conquered who fell, and Freedom's cause will yet 
 receive its own. 
 
 One word : Mark its significance well. It speaks 
 forth truth to be observed. Do you feel, sadly feel, 
 that no basis can be laid, no superstructure reared to 
 beautify and adorn this adherence, unless doctrinated 
 with certain specific relationships? This is, alas! too 
 true. It is this that deludes Man in all his present 
 efforts at elevation. But, sir, 't is not to fame or glory 
 of one short hour's duration we are bixilding a monu- 
 ment. It is to Reason and Truth. We care nothing, 
 then, for what men call doctrine. All the barriers it 
 can present, are as nothing now, before the march of 
 Free Thought. Its death is certain. Let no one fear 
 its power; for its day of enslaving the intuitions of 
 Man is near its close, and its darkness it would be 
 well to forget. 
 
 October 23, 1854. 
 
 Our Chieftain brother addressed me, through Mr. 
 
 Champion : 
 
 COMMUNICATION XIV. 
 
 WHY do I appear to you again ? Is it to 
 speak of Man, — of God ? Is it to instill 
 thoughts of a high and holy character? 
 Is it to awaken realities as changeless as Time? If 
 so, I might come again and again, and still it would 
 not be in vain. But know that I stand upon an em- 
 inence not created by human hands. Know that an 
 
( "8) 
 
 Eternity breathes forth to you truths immortal in 
 their nature. 
 
 Sir: Upon this occasion, hear a few needed, warn- 
 ing truths from the Paradise of God. They speak 
 their impress upon the heart; but like the gentle dew 
 of morning, it soon fades beneath the scorching blast 
 of the wrongs of Man to his fellow. I feel, yes, I feel 
 sad ; my nature shrinks within itself at the contem- 
 plated evidences of Humanity that many suppose ally 
 Man to his God. Why, if ends are noble, should 
 they not be attained ? This sacrifice of the high-born 
 privileges of Man's nature, has decorated earth's 
 bowers, watered with the blood of innocence. It 
 has instilled hopes as false as the God they personate. 
 Pshaw! Ugh!! Ugh!!! 
 
 These recollections draw forth the untutored nature 
 in all its wonted vehemence. It speaks within of 
 crushed hopes and blasted anticipations of my kindred. 
 Let this pass. It is but a distant cloud that obscures 
 the purest rays that shall soon shine forth in their 
 wonted brilliancy from their native birth in God. 
 Attachments, strong in this life, bear their sullied 
 impress upon the Soul. But let us realize that no 
 mystic cloud o'erhangs the onward, yes, onward 
 progress of Man. Its sky is serene with the splendor 
 of its nature. It comes from the throne of an Al- 
 mighty Hand, and presents the fulness of its glory. 
 Stop one moment. Here comes my pale-faced friend. 
 
 Here the Spirit of Dr. Channing addressed us : 
 
 I MUST speak to you, sir, on matters of weighty 
 importance. I must address my remarks in terms 
 tenable in their bearing. I feel the necessity of 
 strong and stringent measures in behalf of the doc- 
 
( "9) 
 
 trines we have mutually espoused. I am impressed 
 to speak to you for the good of all. Therefore, I 
 will answer you, upon this occasion, in a manner 
 that will admit of no doubt in regard to the position 
 I would have all to assume. 
 
 Truth is immutable and shall outlive the successive 
 generations of time. Let this heaven-born principle 
 be the standard to which all may flee, to realize the 
 the impurities of their natures. It is not by the un- 
 measured depth that we can judge of its immensity. 
 It is by true and just discrimination that we gain the 
 ascendancy over matters weighty in their character 
 and infinite in their importance. Sir, give your peo- 
 ple the important lesson that Truth is immortal. Then 
 they need not fear for the deceptive theories of the 
 nineteenth century. Nor need they tremble because 
 there shall ever appear more truth. Tell them to be 
 men, and rejoice at the existence of this life-giving 
 principle, whether found within the folds of the Bible 
 or gleaned from what some call — Hell. Why do not 
 men learn its vitalhVy? 
 
 I speak, upon this occasion, of matters infinite in 
 their bearing, and would have you observe their ref- 
 erence ; for I know of no holier nor loftier conception 
 of Man's nature than to instill into others the fermen- 
 tations of thought that shall speak the progress of 
 Eternal Truth. Bring not to their convictions the 
 existence of Spirit-Communion, for they could not 
 see it if you did. No. But present the abuses and 
 misuses of the greatest gifts of God to Man. Dis- 
 abuse the mind of its earliest prejudices, that they 
 may behold the light of open day and walk forth 
 redeemed from the thraldom of superstitious intoler- 
 ance, that weighs like an incubus upon their Souls. 
 
( 120 ) 
 
 Man must first be honest with himself; and to 
 attain this desired boon he must come forth from 
 amid the dark labyrinths that have obscured the 
 holiest recollections of the past. I would say much 
 more but prudence forbids. One word : I recognize 
 in the Bible many wholesome, wise, judicious expres- 
 sions that can never die. I behold in the counter, 
 more than their equals. I discard not the few for 
 the many, but cling' to them as the immortal instilling 
 of the Divinity in Man. Do you fail to perceive my 
 position? I see you do not. Then we meet upon 
 the platform of Human Rights. We stand as one, 
 in unity of hope and purpose to be attained by Man. 
 This will do. Peace and Love be with you. 
 
 COMMUNICATION XV. 
 
 MY purpose in this interview is to inculcate 
 some general truths to be observed as uni- 
 versally adapted to the onward march of 
 these God-blessed Intuitions. Let growth of Soul 
 and expansion of Thought encircle immensity be- 
 dewed with the high and the holiest recollections of 
 the Infinite Impress of the Divine Mind upon the 
 heart of Man. Blessed Intuitions ! Holiest recollec- 
 tions intervene and radiate the dreary waste, and 
 speak peace to the heart ! A change in the heart but 
 awaits the endless changes of Eternity. It speaks in 
 the sunlight glory of its native birth. It breathes 
 the atmosphere of blessed anthems, instilling the fer- 
 mentations of Thought in ascension to its end. The 
 Divine Evidences of Spiritual Illumination are ob- 
 servable upon the hill-tops of every land. Like bles- 
 
( 121 ) 
 
 sed virgins of peace they waft to the sunny clime, 
 the biddings of the Soul. The frigid zone is melted 
 by the warm appeals to a consciousness of its power. 
 Everywhere the mighty Messenger of hope bids on 
 to the Ultimate of Heavenly care. 
 
 I wish your meetings to be mutually agreeable and 
 essentially observant of what we may present for 
 your strict obedience in the future. I cannot forego 
 a belief that you had better ward off all miscellaneous 
 communications during your interviews with the 
 Chief ; for he speaks under the influence of a higher 
 power, and these conflictions are of no ordinary 
 meaning. 
 
 I would speak of more intimate relations, but await 
 the bidding of the hour when we may rejoice under 
 the vine and fig tree of Nature's own planting. Rec- 
 ollect, my brothers, I appeal to you as men meriting 
 one common interest, absorbed in one common end, 
 which is the good of Man, universally considered. 
 Hope, therefore, for the attainment of great good in 
 the progress that awaits your investigations. Let 
 your minds be occupied in things not of earth, but 
 soar to that Fount of Infinite Presence that awaits a 
 thorough conception of your God. Let not the most 
 approved or graceful fantasies darken within, an ac- 
 cumulation of interests ; for they are as chaff, obscuring 
 the kernel that produces the growth of the intellect- 
 ual manna of Heaven. Wherefore, we are still under 
 the cherished ritual of Eternal Law in the Soul; for 
 it knows no death beyond the consummation of its 
 highest hopes. I meet with friends for mutual bene- 
 fits, and would speak in the befitting attitude of a 
 man, of the realities that await your investigation. I 
 
( 122 ) 
 
 cannot permit a further digression from what is most 
 important to the ends to be attained. 
 
 Spiritual affinities or aspirations are not to be 
 clouded, to be productive of the greatest good. They 
 must come forth undimned by the false reflections 
 that await an evidence unbought in Man through the 
 same channel of Spiritual elevation. I would call 
 your minds attentively to the absolute necessity of 
 freedom in intercourse that one common union of ends 
 may be attained. If you cannot come to this high 
 elevation of your nature, you may truly feel the be- 
 fitting attitude you are in, O, Man ! — which is a dere- 
 liction of your highest gifts. 
 
 I want one breath, one atmosphere, one union of 
 hearts and souls that shall not be dimned by the 
 fleshly gleamings that but mark the meteor whose 
 crystalized semblance should be found in the heart of 
 Man. You may truly say that you hope to attain these 
 ends with a oneness that knows no distinctions. But 
 mark its consummations. They may be few or many, 
 and will tend to awaken an interest unheard of in the 
 consummating of Man's desires. 
 
 I want to express myself audibly before you. I 
 want a oneness of sympathy and feeling that shall 
 characterize our conceptions and its achievements. 
 I want you all to feel that you meet for high and noble 
 endeavors. I want you to hold an honest communion 
 with yourselves and your Spiritual interests. I want 
 you to look beyond the vain and empty show of earth, 
 and realize the immortality of your being. I want 
 you to hold sweet communion with the Celestial 
 Spheres. I want all to awake to the ingathering of 
 the Intuitive Impress of Divinity upon the heart. I 
 want you to feel that your existence is ready for the 
 
( i2 3 ) 
 
 high inscriptions of Immortal Life. I want you to look 
 to your Souls and your God for the confirmation of 
 your acts. I want you to behold in the Spiritual 
 affinities you bear, an Infinite Union with your God. 
 I want you to realize the responsibility you bear to 
 your day and generation. I want you to realize and 
 know that these Impressive Truths will make you 
 wiser and better, and bring you in unison with that 
 Infinitude born of God. I want you to realize that 
 immortal interests are at stake. I want you all to 
 feel as the chosen instruments of Heaven to scatter 
 manna from on high to a famishing people. I want 
 you to look at the deep miasma that absorbs the best 
 interests of Humanity. I want a thorough recogni- 
 tion of the limitless sea that rolls heedlessly at your 
 feet. I want you to feel as mariners embarked upon 
 the tumultuous ocean of life, ready ever to avert the 
 impending storm that bids fair to wreck the high- 
 est hopes of Man. I want you to feel that the world 
 is a charnel house, dead with the stench of its own 
 pollutions. I want you to know that this animal ex- 
 istence is but the foreshadowing of mightier conquests. 
 I want you to be willing suppliants at the throne of 
 Thought. I want implicit obedience to that Higher 
 Nature that speaks of God in the heart. I want a 
 self-sacrificing spirit that looks not to the casualties 
 of time and sense. I want to instill this Higher Nature 
 that bows not to the formalities of earth. In fact, I 
 want a man fashioned in the image of his God that his 
 reflections may be like Him. I want you to hope for 
 a better day that the inspiring influences of this 
 Heaven-born Principle may bear you on to higher 
 achievements. I want you to sacrifice your own 
 peculiarities and conceptions in obedience to the high- 
 
( I2 4 ) 
 
 er Messengers that minister around the festal board 
 of congenial Spirits. Then, O, then, you will be 
 Heaven-born and bound ! 
 
 Let God in the heart adorn the man with robes of 
 sapphire whose enchantments shall inspire our every 
 thought beyond the melodious strains of Seraph as 
 well as Son, born anew to the Divine Illuminations 
 of the heart. I want a united effort to give life and 
 vigor to the Spiritual Manifestations and movements 
 in Nashville, that your brother-man may aspire to 
 higher and greater ends than the seraphic enchant- 
 ments that picture Man lifeless, bereft of the prerequis- 
 ites of Deified Power — robed in Heaven or doomed 
 in an everlasting Hell. 
 
 Let the intuitive lessons of Heaven-born Minstrels 
 chant the high and glorified anthems that shall inspire 
 a thought beyond the selfish motives of Man. Spirit- 
 ual Illuminations will give the hue of Celestial visions 
 to the future, to permit Man to behold his life, his 
 Heaven-born inheritances, if true to the common in- 
 stincts of HumannVy and his God. Then be inspired 
 with renewed exertions in the great cause of Human 
 Freedom. Humanhry's Chart is but the glorified 
 acceptance of Love, Wisdom and Hate : Hate for the 
 insidious designs of those who give vent to the most 
 malignant desires to stupefy all brighter prospects of 
 the Future ; Wisdom to disentangle those who dare 
 give thought to the Intuitive Impression made 
 through the Infinite Impression of the Soul ; Love 
 for their own that their cherished ritual may be made 
 the standard of every man's conscience. Let the 
 multifidous desires be awakened, that Man may come 
 within the sacred influence of Celestial fires, that 
 the glorious era now dawning upon the world may 
 
( 125 ) 
 
 be hallowed by the holiest ties and kindred affinities, 
 both on earth and amid the exhaustless expanse of 
 waste. Let the Harbingers of Peace find a welcome 
 that shall make all feel that it is good to be the recep- 
 tacles of Heaven-born Communion. 
 
 Go on in the cause of Human weal. We admonish 
 all to pour forth the great Truth of Moral Freedom, 
 ever ready to defend its claims against an incursion 
 of those marauding phantoms that horrify and stupefy 
 Man's highest and holiest endeavors in the cause of 
 human amelioration. Do not let your diffidence mar 
 the fair proportions of the superstructure you are 
 erecting. No. Give to the world one symmetry of 
 outlines that shall challenge the admiration of the 
 beholder with its adaptedness to sustain the moral 
 requirements that must ever be productive of the 
 greatest good. It is not superficially to be attained, 
 but through the Infinite Impress of high and holy 
 Communion with yourself and your God. 
 
 I do not desire to expostulate or be deemed unfitted 
 to the great end in view. Therefore, let the teeming 
 millions be the better and wiser for the exhaustless 
 founts of wisdom that daily write their impress upon 
 the human heart. I cannot give expression to the 
 ultimate consummation of what will follow, without 
 awakening desires unfitted for Man to know. As he 
 is earthlike and earthly in his affections, he will be 
 made subservient to grosser considerations that will 
 absorb those true instincts of high-born missions to 
 realize the great consummation of Man's desires 
 among men. Hoping soon the foreshadowing of 
 mightier conquests will incite us on to a more 
 brilliant acceptance of the trust committed to our care, 
 we feel free to expect that its achievements will be 
 
( 126) 
 
 the welcome that shall inhale our highest and holiest 
 interests, from whence may be derived all that will 
 give solace to the soul and joy to the heart. 
 
 We seek associations— and where do we find those 
 congenial evidences that lift us above the grosser 
 considerations of Time? It is not in our fellow-man, 
 for he is as destitute as ourselves of the high-sought 
 evidences that germinate within and give vigor and 
 expansion to the Soul. Then seek that congeniality 
 that will welcome its own, which is Spirit absorbed in 
 One greater, which is God in all and above all. 
 
 But does not my fellow-man possess this Heaven- 
 born germ that radiates this isolation that broods 
 over the hopes and prospects of Man? True; but 
 what better evidence has he than you? Shall the 
 blind lead the blind to' find light? Or will each succes- 
 sive step but entangle them still deeper in the vortex 
 of human misery? This Humanity we bear, must be 
 subservient to the Higher Nature of Man ; and for 
 its cultivation we must look beyond the clodded earth 
 and the aspiring heavens, and drink the Elixir of 
 Eternal Thought within the Infinite exchequer of an 
 Eternal Home. 
 
 These considerations bring Man in close and honest 
 communion with that Infinite Oneness known, we 
 repeat, of God in the heart of Man as the Infinite 
 Impress there. Then let these momentous truths 
 be the standard of religious faith, gathered fresh from 
 the garden of God and sown in the soil of Man's best 
 interests and hallowed by the Impress they bear. 
 
 This Communication is intended for all men who 
 seek Spiritual affinity in a prominent sense to their 
 earthly desires. 
 
( 127 ) 
 
 The above is from Dr. Channing through Mr. 
 Champion. 
 
 COMMUNICATION XVI. 
 
 I AM here and would ever instill those thoughts 
 known to my heart and to God. I would cherish 
 the momentous boon bequeathed bv one common 
 Paternity vested in Man. I would hold the nearest 
 and dearest associations that they might breathe forth 
 their native sweetness, not confined to one but born 
 in all. These are the sacred elements that surround 
 the immeasurable glory of my God. They stand, 
 and why do they stand ? Is it that their light may 
 fade as the approaching morn before the meridian of 
 ascending day? Or is it that Man may realize the 
 kindred affections that connect him with his God? 
 
 I behold, sir, no communion over the wide waste 
 of Humanity. It is lulled to sleep and has slept for 
 ages ; and why does it sleep ? Is not Man known in 
 God? Yes; but, alas! God is not known in Man. 
 Why should I hold this nature free ? Is- it to mock 
 the Being whose image I bear? Is it to live? Is it 
 to die? Then speak, yes, speak, and let the unbound- 
 ed earth re-echo the melodious sonnets that swell 
 from the bottomless abodes of Eternity. 
 
 Here Mr. Champion evidently received physical 
 strength, and came from under the influence, invig- 
 orated and happy. 
 
 On the night previous, Mrs , while great- 
 ly disturbed that I was still prosecuting my inter- 
 
( 128 ) 
 
 course with Spirit-friends, and manifesting indifference 
 if not disgust at the thought of intelligible Spirit- 
 Communion, was, while sitting in the circle, very 
 unexpectedly and strongly influenced. She was vio- 
 lently shaken, made to pass through very imposing 
 and graceful Indian gestures, compelled to speak in 
 a manner entirely contrary to her usual modes of ad- 
 dress, both to Mr and myself, and was held 
 
 under the influence for at least two hours. The effect 
 was not entirely removed for two days, and on the 
 second day I sought Mr. Champion for directions as 
 to her relief. We were all quietly and pleasantly 
 seated, when he came under Spiritual influence and 
 addressed us as follows, as from our Indian friend, 
 and then from Dr. Channing. The transition is 
 noted in the address. The prescription for Mrs. 
 's relief is given in the address of Dr. Chan- 
 ning, which concludes the record of this interview. 
 
 A 
 
 COMMUNICATION XVII. 
 
 MIGHTY Chief of a nation brave, would 
 breathe forth his happy thoughts and peace- 
 ful dreams o'er Nature's swelling flood. He 
 brings from the home of his Fathers glad tidings 
 that shall make all respond in acclamations of praise. 
 He feels the ungrateful injuries done to his nation. 
 He laments over the pitiless tide that professes to 
 flow unerringly to win Man to higher and nobler 
 conquests. But, sir, he would not dig from the grave 
 the bones of his Fathers to bleach on the plains as 
 
( I2 9 ) 
 
 the trophies of your God to mark the conquests of 
 Christian Civilization.- 
 
 You dwell peacefully by your firesides; but your 
 palaces are the mementoes of your shame. Nature's 
 forests bloomed freshly, her native elements flowed 
 freely, her sun shone serenely when the Red Man 
 was here. What ! what, sir, has wrought this mighty 
 change? Here is a question for Humanity to answer. 
 Think you not that I speak with freedom? No! If 
 my own nature were allowed to burst forth with all 
 its vehemence, it would create an ocean whose waves 
 would ascend to heaven, and deluge the infatuation 
 of the White Man. Think not, either, that I am giv- 
 ing vent to these sudden feelings of my nature as I 
 contemplate the wrongs of the Indian. No, no ! I 
 take but a faint glance, that successive governments 
 may learn a lesson. It is but a reprint of an old edi- 
 tion of numerous wrongs, we would bring before you. 
 When we speak, we are heard by the common Hu- 
 manity we bear. Though its tender scions may not 
 have whitened or bleached the plains of our native, 
 God-given home, that the darkest impress of false and 
 horrid government might be more visible, still, those 
 who regard not the claims of the less favored, should 
 make a distinction. Has the Indian one God, and 
 the White Man another? Has the Negro the same 
 claims to that common Paternity you bear? These 
 thoughts and fears await a dread reckoning that shall 
 open the sepulchres of the dead. 
 
 Man holds his life — and often holds a thief to steal 
 away his brains. Be true to your nature and your 
 God. That is life ; and not the fictitious glory of a 
 day. Nor are its blendings lost amid the false glare 
 and promised glitter of an hour's pastime. It lives, 
 
( 130 ) 
 
 and is gone. Remember that where there is life, no 
 death can come. I hear a voice speaking from and 
 through my God. Does it come from the grave? No, 
 kind friends, no. It speaks in the semblance of its 
 native beauty, from the Spiritual light of the freed 
 Soul. Let not thy visions be dimned by the false 
 meteor that bespeaks the man. 
 
 Death ! There is no death. O, horrid sting, what 
 hast thou cost the untold millions of enslaved men ? 
 The expanded vaults of Heaven would fail to inscribe 
 thy sorrows — pictured where the tenantless forms 
 rob, yes, rob thee of thy God. They are but walk- 
 ing emblems of the putrefied masses that degrade 
 Humanity in loathsome disgust. The beauty of the 
 flower is disrobed of its glory before it has arrived 
 at the zenith of its earthly development. It falls 
 lifeless before it is allowed to picture its native Pater- 
 nity in God. 
 
 Here comes another, who speaks and is heard by 
 the thronging millions of earth : 
 
 SPIRITUAL affinities are not to be measured 
 by time nor circumstances. They look not to 
 the empty show and vain distinctions that 
 prevail among our earth-bound brethren. Their 
 anthems have been lost through the dreary wastes 
 of Time. Their associations or kindred relations 
 bring us — where ? To commune with our Souls and 
 our God. Let them not be confined. They speak 
 to you from the depths and lengths of Nature, of 
 undying ties and relationships. They are never silent. 
 A dreary and desolate plain opens to my view. 
 Its surface is peopled by myriads hurrying on with 
 an ardor that is only quenched in death. Time's 
 
( i3i ) 
 
 dusty record has left its impress there. What happy 
 thoughts, bright hosts of light, can you bring to these 
 burdened souls and oppressed hearts ! This dreary 
 plain but pictures our lifeless Humanity. 
 
 Think you not, kind friends, that death robs you 
 of many who people this plain ! No ! It were better 
 they were dead. From the cradle to the grave, we 
 find them without light, without love, without hope. 
 Better to have been a blank Humanity than to have 
 borne the impress they carry with them. Then wel- 
 come now the solace of Eternal Truth that comes 
 from the Impress of God to deliver and uphold you. 
 Its use and abuse bequeath an inheritance not to be 
 estimated. I feel burthened, yes, burthened with the 
 impressive lesson now before me. There stands one 
 here who would impart advice not in the power of 
 man to give. I am held spell-bound by the sacred 
 associations that have here intervened. O, that the 
 strains of an Orpheus could picture to your imagin- 
 nation the serenity and blissful emotions they bring 
 to my heart ! But they would fail. Could I better 
 know what is before me, I could speak ; otherwise it 
 is impossible. Let me say to you that God has im- 
 parted to you the privilege of beholding your immor- 
 tal kindred. But they present what mortals cannot 
 appreciate while chained by their foolish passions 
 and prejudices. 
 
 I would speak some general truths that may prove 
 beneficial to those who are awaiting that influx of 
 thought that shall welcome all to that common inheri- 
 tance vested in Humanity. Kindred affinities or 
 associations are many. Their proportionate differ- 
 ences arise from the various degrees of culture and 
 capacity to act. Then the influx of Spiritual Thought 
 
( 132 ) 
 
 comes like a Tornado's blast ; many fall, as it were, 
 beneath its prostrating- influences, but they will come 
 forth in the genial rays of its cloudless Sun to bedeck 
 this fair mansion with all its native purity. Not pure 
 as taught and conceived by Man, but pure in God. 
 Let not these rude blasts obscure the gems that bedeck 
 the crown immortal. What is good ? It is that which 
 gives character. Many piercing blasts, many, very 
 many besetting currents intervene between us and 
 the cherished ritual of Eternal Law. Men differ in 
 capacity for Spiritual Influx, as in everything. When 
 we speak of capacity we would be understood as 
 measuring the differences that exist in the so-called 
 phenomena of Spiritual Intercourse. It is not for 
 Man to measure the boundless vistas of the Future ; 
 nor need he soar to unknown heights to realize his 
 his own. No. It is here. It is in God. Will you 
 point to the extended earth or arched heavens to find 
 your natural affinities and Spiritual ties? Point to 
 your heart, sir, and read their Impress there. There 
 is a Divinity existing in all — yes, in ALL — one mighty 
 ALL. Naught is known to Man but what acknowl- 
 edges its own. This might be deemed averse to a 
 true distinction in the interest we bear. But first 
 recognize the basis, and then you may ascend the 
 superstructure ; and these lofty pallisades and vaulted 
 domes shall but re-echo the praise of that which gave 
 us birth. Then shrink not before the slender super- 
 ficialities of life as taught by Man. Here, we say, are 
 immeasurable differences. Shall not Man, then, add 
 to the advancement, moral elevation and intellectual 
 ascendancy of his fellow? True ; do not all men par- 
 take of the same, drink at the same fountain ? Nursed 
 by the same earth beneath the genial rays of the same 
 
( 133 ) 
 
 sun, are they not borne to that Infinitude that knows 
 no birth, no end? Our object is to point specifically 
 to that Higher Nature. Man, like yourself, is but a 
 man wherever you place him. If you would reach 
 beyond the misty maze and dreary path that deluged 
 thousands in grief, soar above that common Humani- 
 ty we all acknowledge — drink from its fountain. Are 
 its waters more pure by passing along the ages by- 
 gone? Has Man become wiser than his God, that 
 these waters are purer from the superficial taints he 
 has given them in the past ages of his development? 
 
 We, sir, would cultivate the intimate relations we 
 bear to you and to all. At present I want to express 
 myself distinctly on matters of immediate and vital 
 interest. Persons of a too nervous and sanguine 
 temperament should avoid the influx of Spiritual 
 Thought. It is likely to stimulate their natures be- 
 yond what they can reasonably bear. These evidences 
 are plain and prominent. Though its effects may 
 be peaceful and cheering, it not unfrequently is dele- 
 terious to the best interests of many. In the devel- 
 opment of Mediums, I would suggest the propriety 
 of short, very short interviews. Give not away to the 
 melancholy and saddening influences that not unfre- 
 quently surround you. 
 
 One remedy: Cold water poured gently upon the 
 top of the head will relieve anyone overtasked men- 
 tally or otherwise, at the time — and the influences 
 will gradually disappear. 
 
 Mr. Champion came immediately under Spiritual 
 Influence, manifesting itself in gentle agitations of his 
 
 13 
 
( 134) 
 
 body. He passed into the entranced state and, from 
 a Spirit, said: 
 
 COMMUNICATION XVIII. 
 
 I AM here to speak in the native language of my 
 Soul. I desire to breathe forth those immeasur- 
 able tones of sympathy that shall claim a oneness 
 with Man and his God. I would give forth those 
 evolutions of feeling that encircle the broad canopy 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Mr. Champion being developed as a speaking Me- 
 dium so contrary to his expectation, up to this date 
 and for some time afterward, seemed to hesitate and 
 almost give over the idea of going forward. He so 
 expressed himself on this occasion, when the Spirit, 
 obtaining more direct control of his vocal organs, 
 said: 
 
 Speak it forth, sir, and be a man. Glory, sir, in 
 your day and generation ! Look not to the diverse 
 currents of human reasoning that would rob Man of 
 his hopes, and God of His Ultimate Design. (Then 
 addressing us he continued :) 
 
 You know not, perhaps can never know while you 
 remain in the form, the innumerable visitants that 
 encircle you all. We have come but as the forerun- 
 ners of what is to follow. Do you believe it? Then 
 look with undimned vision and move with unsparing 
 aim to the end to be obtained by Man. 
 
 I desire to speak to you of your future associations 
 in this cause, but we find it difficult to give :our full 
 expression. 
 
( 135 ) 
 
 Brothers: Let our associations be but the wel- 
 come bearers of glad tidings to Man. Let the mani- 
 festations that you enjo}^ be as free as the air you 
 breathe. Let not these Divine behests be confined, 
 but breathe them forth to all who have ears to hear. 
 Go on, and let not thy vision be dimned by the pas- 
 sing clouds of servile ignorance that obscures the only 
 superiority of Man over the brutes beneath him. It 
 is for you to send forth the streams that shall gladden 
 and glorify this people. - 
 
 These blessed Intelligences minister, yes, minister 
 in love to all. A few important truths await your 
 hearing. There is one in GOD; it is said, three 
 in person. It is the Unity we would have you seek. 
 None, no, not one of you doubts that the Sun now 
 shines in the firmament. It is a great reality. Spir- 
 itual Illumination shines forth, ever shines, in all the 
 glory of a Sun of light; and why do not men enjoy 
 that light? It is because there is not that oneness of 
 sympathy, oneness of aim and heart encircling all, 
 which alone reveals a oneness in God, and opens the 
 Soul to the immediate rays of His light, reflected in 
 all. 
 
 Your own peculiarities must be made subservient 
 to this Unity of aim, or the end cannot be attained. 
 You should come forth as one man, rejoicing in your 
 strength ; not doubting, for to doubt is to prove rec- 
 reant to your Souls and your God. Do we say you 
 doubt? No. But we would admonish you that you 
 may help others left to the dark and fearful ways of 
 doubt ; and that you may observe the inevitable ef- 
 fects that must ever follow discord. 
 
 We hope soon to be able to present to you more 
 understandingly, our desires and designs for the 
 
( 136) 
 
 future. At present, we would say, let the basis of 
 this superstructure be laid in Love. Let oneness of 
 aim and purpose characterize all your movements, 
 and you will come forth with all the power of Man- 
 in-God. Yes, sir, when you are fully inducted into 
 that Divinity which Man bears, you will find a God, 
 not of three persons, but of innumerable hosts in 
 whom He dwells and who dwell in Him by the Spirit 
 given to all. Let your day and generation answer 
 through the ages to come for these heaven-bestowed 
 gifts. Let their recollections be as sacred as the 
 Souls you exercise. And we will attend, ever attend 
 and meet all questions that bear upon the results 
 that await the Future. 
 
 We have spoken to you this morning the more 
 impressively, that we may direct your attention to 
 circumstances attending you as strangers to each 
 other, occupying such different walks in life, that 
 may present that congeniality and liberal understand- 
 ing we so much need and desire. Your minds are 
 generally too active when you approach us. Your 
 room should be kept at the same temperature, as 
 much so as possible. Doors should not be opened ; 
 no current of air admitted. Guard these things as 
 much as possible, as your Mediums are in danger of 
 suffering from these causes, and we will not impress 
 them at the expense of either their physical health or 
 mental improvement. We wish, upon all occasions, 
 to give forth our earnest and heart-felt desires to 
 promote the great end to be obtained : viz : the Good 
 of Man. This can only be done when and where 
 there is sufficient affinity existing to give life to our 
 holiest thoughts. You will ever feel depressed, Avhen 
 reluctant to express your convictions. Therefore, 
 
( 137 ) 
 
 we cannot desire anything more than freedom of 
 thought and sentiment, which alone can enable us, 
 and all, to feel, deeply feel, the position we occupy. 
 Breathe forth, then, any and every impression. It 
 is but the droppings from the Celestial world. Never 
 attempt to confine it to the most approved and best 
 conceptions of frail mortality. Be free. Then are 
 you what God designs all to be — free both in act and 
 thought. The immeasurable gulf that intervenes 
 between those we desire to benefit and ourselves, 
 can only be spanned by a true recognition of the 
 design of Man which is Eternal Good. Let liberality 
 and kindness, then, ever adorn your evidences of Spir- 
 itual Illumination. 
 
 I have many things to say which I could not ex- 
 press understandingly to the state of mind which many 
 bring to your interviews. And before we advance 
 another step I want to give a general expression of 
 views, which can only be done with a willing mind 
 and an honest heart. Mrs. FERGUSON possesses pow- 
 ers of vision and gifts of healing to an unlimited extent, 
 but her timidity hinders their exercise in the presence 
 of many. I want to speak to her in person, but if 
 circumstances intervene I will postpone it. 
 
 Mrs. F. had been called out of the room by com- 
 pany. She returned, when the Spirit of Dr. Chan- 
 ning addressed her as follows : 
 
 I want you to feel as one identified with the great 
 interests to be attained. Let not your own mind fancy 
 this or that. I would remove all diffidence if possible, 
 and it must be overcome. You are not aware of the 
 great interests that await this result. Now permit 
 
( 138 ) 
 
 me to speak freely, for I want you to know my sen- 
 timents unerringly. Do not feel you cannot serve 
 the great ends that await this movement. Let your 
 expressions be free. Measure not what you say when 
 Spiritually impressed, but give it utterance without 
 regard to circumstances. Let not — let no place or 
 time invade the sacred retreats of the departed. 
 Breathe forth what you feel. Then, language will 
 fail to repay the joy you will know. 
 
 Cannot I destroy this mental depression? It must 
 be done. I would gather you all together as one — 
 one common end and destiny awaits you all. Can 
 you not arrive at this exalted elevation that points 
 unerringly to the good we are so fondly seeking to 
 gain as one, for the benefit of all? I want to destroy 
 the inseparable barriers that exist between us and 
 your friends, and you must help to accomplish it. 
 Now recollect this, one and all. It must be done. 
 You must be free. (Addressing me, he continued :) 
 
 I can speak unerringly to you on this point. In 
 the solitude of your own calm reflection )^ou feel in 
 the deep recesses of your inmost nature, the end de- 
 signed. It is only then we can know what is pure 
 and honest. I want all to come to this point. This 
 honest communion would make the Celestial Spheres 
 resound with anthems to the ineffable glory of God. 
 Try, sir, try to bring all who meet you to this one- 
 ness of purpose. Then, O, then you shall hear the 
 joyous strains that shall yet encircle all hearts in one 
 inseparable union of love and triumph ! Mrs. F. must 
 be free. Help her to throw off the burdens of worldly 
 care. Help her to allow scepticism on the part of 
 her visitors, to work its own way through the dead 
 mask that has absorbed Man's noblest nature. I would 
 
( 139 ) 
 
 clasp all your circle in one fond embrace if I had my 
 desires accomplished, in unity of purpose and aim. 
 
 I want you to realize that we desire to build a 
 superstructure here that shall adorn its occupants 
 and repay their most sanguine hopes. You cannot 
 accomplish this unless united. I would, therefore, 
 suggest the propriety of making one circle that may 
 entertain those who think as you do. At the same 
 time you must observe the necessity of strict com- 
 munion, alone, with the Spiritual Spheres. I mean 
 ALONE — not subject to the outward influences that 
 events must produce upon the inner thought. By 
 the circle and by private communion, you will ex- 
 perience all the good to be attained by extended 
 and strict intercourse with those departed ones who 
 seek to beautify and adorn Man in the true armor 
 of life. 
 
 You cannot realize the insufferable sorrow we feel 
 when misunderstood. It is burthensome, and often 
 productive of great ill. I want you to know that I 
 here think and act as a man ; as such, approach me ; 
 and be ever ready to breathe forth those impressions 
 upon your mind in regard to the Future. - Man thinks 
 — and why does he think? Because he feels in the 
 flesh ? No, sir. There are many, very many thoughts 
 nurtured beneath the Impress of God, upon every 
 heart. Then let our admonitions be heard as among 
 kindred friends, and they will welcome Man to more 
 extended endeavors in the cause of human progress. 
 
 In regard to the publication of our Record I will 
 hear you and be heard by you when time and oppor- 
 tunity offers. There are yet great obstacles to be 
 removed. I allude to those to which I have directed 
 your minds this morning. When removed I will 
 
( HO ) 
 
 speak audibly my desires. So pursue your honest 
 and onward course, and it will repa}^ your most 
 ardent desires. 
 
 The events connected with your Communications 
 are more intimately blended than }^ou suppose. The 
 differences they observe are necessary to individual 
 progress. Then let your treatise be full, lucid and 
 plain. Do not intermingle too much doctrinal matter, 
 for it cannot be applied or appreciated. Let the un- 
 mistakable evidence of progress mark its every page. 
 Let liberality of sentiment be the greatest acquisition 
 of its contents. I will express myself more under- 
 standingly to you hereafter. 
 
 You wish to know my opinion with regard to the 
 future movement of Spiritualism in Nashville. Let 
 it be observed that the great family of Man is now 
 everywhere aroused. A portentous cloud gathered 
 from the night of ignorance, selfishness and super- 
 stition obstructs their vision so that they cannot see 
 the horizon, illuminated with what alone can charm 
 and invite to renewed beauties of Humanity. Many 
 forbear to reveal the gems that glitter there. But 
 when, sir, the progressive developments of to-day 
 have wafted their endearing consolations over the 
 barren wastes of Man's depravity, they will appre- 
 ciate their dreary visions, that now with midnight 
 darkness hang over their souls. I tell you now, sir, 
 that the great results that will follow this manifes- 
 tation of confidence in Spiritual Illumination will 
 make the mellow light of the Coming Day radiate 
 the dreary mansions of the so-called just. Hallucin- 
 ation will no longer be its highest claim to Humanity. 
 It will stand in open converse ; and the general ac- 
 ceptation of Spiritual Intuition will be recognized 
 
( I4i ) 
 
 upon the heart of Man. Many, sir, yes, many are 
 afraid of themselves. Do you think this strange? 
 If they cannot trust themselves, God grant they may 
 come to know themselves and their only enduring 
 privileges. A long avenue, you will call this, to hu- 
 man souls, but 't is the only way to make many feel 
 their Source. It cannot be otherwise, and survive the 
 changeless vicissitudes through which Humanity is 
 called to pass. No more till our next meeting. 
 
 A large company of ladies and gentlemen had as- 
 sembled at our room to hear the reading of some 
 Spiritual Communications. After the reading we 
 were very much surprised to hear that Mr. Cham- 
 pion, under Spirit direction, was waiting in another 
 room to be admitted. He had received, without a 
 knowledge of our meeting and contrary to all his 
 personal desires, a peremptory communication, as 
 follows: "Go to Mr. FERGUSON'S and speak; we 
 will be with you and sustain you." He, had come, 
 hesitating, but was induced to stand before the com- 
 pany, most Of whom were sceptical, when he said : 
 
 COMMUNICATION XIX. 
 
 MIGHTY Man once fell in the cause of Hu- 
 manity, whose existence in life and in death 
 was all in God — and you justly call Him 
 Christ. But it is not to measure the credulity 
 and superstition of days gone by that we meet you 
 here. 'T is not to carry your minds to some far-off 
 
 A 
 
( 142 ) 
 
 land from whence has sprung the Life Immortal. The 
 voice of that Life is heard everywhere in Man born 
 in God. It knows no distinctions by which to tickle 
 the fancy of the Few or the Many. It speaks in the 
 native Semblance of God in the heart, born, yes, born 
 of the native Purity that gave it life. 
 
 There opens to our view again, the native forest 
 we once trod with elasticity and hope in the days 
 gone by. But its glory is lost in the mighty cataract 
 whose monotonous roar sounds to engulf a common 
 Humanity — in what ? Hell or Heaven ? The recital 
 of its woes superinduced by that falsehood of fleshly 
 devising, would curdle the blood that courses in 
 human veins. But the vice-clad monster of hoary 
 superstition is fast giving way to more genial rays 
 that will soon bedeck the human horizon with more 
 extended observances of that duty which Man ever 
 owes to himself. What nerves the arm to inflict the 
 blow that deprives Man of the life he bears? Does 
 it come from God? Or from some dreaded fiend 
 who stands ready to burst forth and desolate all his 
 work? We pause for your thought, as one thought 
 but bespeaks another. The thought of Man's Immor- 
 tality has ever absorbed the greatest amount of good, 
 when properly directed. Its observation and con- 
 templation has given vitality to every conception of 
 the mind ; and we might say, to every misdirection 
 of Man's greatest contrivances. The throne erected 
 within Man chains the Heavens, expands through all 
 space, and swift-winged messengers fly as with the 
 the velocity of lightning. Think you that its confines 
 can be measured by the grave, as it soars to the God 
 from whence it came? 
 Reason : O, yes, that immortal throne before which 
 
( 143 ) 
 
 all shall be measured, not bound to succumb to the 
 dwarfed conceptions of those who know not what 
 lies within their reach. Let me say-— and heed it 
 well : Though the mighty cataract of public opinion 
 may hurl its anathemas, it will all tend to the end 
 designed. These shall fall lifeless at the feet of those 
 who recognize Man within his God, and God within 
 the Man. Think it not strange, then, that we depre- 
 cate the false assumptions of power that entertain 
 dishonesty at home at the expense of one common 
 Humanity. 
 
 The noble Sage and mighty Sire to whom we re- 
 ferred, has inscribed upon the tablets of memory 
 lessons that shall never grow dim by time. Mother 
 earth has claimed her own. Each parting link of life 
 but adds another genial ray to the ascending vapor 
 to mingle in higher and more extended realizations 
 known in Man — the dead. All the fraternal links 
 acknowledge that source to which it is said all are 
 borne, and none return ; encased in some immeasura- 
 ble vortex to slumber or suffer on. Oh! my God! 
 From whence came we? Yes, we, that we should 
 deem ourselves doomed or damned ones ; that we 
 should linger o'er the pollutions of a by-gone da)' ; 
 that accumulations black and numberless as the de- 
 posits on the ocean's bed should be allowed to bury 
 the highest hopes and fondest anticipations of loved 
 ones! 
 
 O, my friends ! it is a Father's care, welcome and 
 embrace that urge you on to recognize these bounte- 
 ous bequests entailed on Man. If rocks were rent, 
 and mother-earth darkened beneath the injustice in- 
 flicted upon one righteous man, what, O, what shall 
 attend the home that gave Man birth? These, we 
 
( J 44 ) 
 
 are assured, were but the beacons of hope to urg-e 
 on to holier and fairer climes. Truth is immortal- 
 can never die. 'T is born of God. Its impress is 
 written upon every heart. Though the shades of 
 night and superstition cloud its light, it bears the 
 signet of its Gon, and they shall disappear beneath 
 the bespangling gems of Eternal Truth. Immor- 
 tal — It lives but to unfold its kindred nature in 
 the Soul. Is it to this you cling? If so, hold fast. 
 'T will bear you up and on. But let not the Shadow 
 obscure the Substance or your Soul will be as the 
 desert waste — void of that vitality it seeks. 
 
 A Friend, yes, a Friend to Humanity will ever be 
 heard. He speaks not of His own glory nor of the 
 achievements of the Past. He erects no castle, that 
 its gorgeous decorations may bewilder and confound, 
 that the inscriptions of the Architect ma)^ outlive the 
 slumbering ages of Time, whose revealed desolations 
 encumber the most sanguine hopes and fond antici- 
 pations of millions. Such an Honored Friend attends 
 us, and would breathe forth those precepts of love 
 that should instill within the breast of Man those 
 kindred associations he owes to his fellow. In God 
 they acknowledge a Paternity, and in Mankind a 
 Brotherhood. Their fondest visions are not bound 
 by the sturdy fist of avarice. That Brotherhood en- 
 circles all. We look around us and what, O, what 
 do we behold? One mighty mass of craven wolves 
 desiring to pluck from their fellows what Time has 
 bequeathed to all ! Content with this ? O, no ! They 
 would rob him of his inheritance beyond the tomb. 
 Think you that some son of this common Paternity, 
 because possessed of some momentary favor, has 
 undisputed right to sway the consciences of men? 
 
( 145 ) 
 
 Has some more honored sire or regal court sent forth 
 its mighty host, that conquered millions should lap the 
 the dust and not dare to think? Or does not the same 
 genial Sun encircle one Universal Brotherhood? 
 That Brotherhood may be clouded, 't is too true, but 
 it is only to come forth with brighter majesty, and 
 lift Man above the paltry pittance that now buries 
 his all. 
 
 Diversity is universal in unity. It speaks in the 
 sunlight. 'T is heard in the breeze. It is known in 
 Man, and still his brother is the same. Liberty of 
 Life should be as free and as boundless as these heav- 
 ens ; should be as broad and as expansive as this 
 earth — for it is as immortal as the Source that 
 breathes it forth. O, then, let not the false glare of 
 hideous superstition rob you of your immortal rights. 
 If Truth is what you seek, you shall find it, to gild 
 your immortal nature and prepare you for that home 
 where the cares and turmoils of life shall never enter. 
 It is Error that would seek to sow the seeds of distinc- 
 tion there. Nature and Nature's God never placed 
 its signet here (laying his hand upon his heart) to stamp 
 the fiend. 'T is a false conception of Man's compos- 
 ing and Time's unworthy legacy. Fill not the form 
 within thee with such selfish desires; for there is a 
 centre crowned with a Divine armor that must lay 
 waste all such inheritances. Thor^h the diamond 
 may lie obscure beneath the murky waters, its bril- 
 liancy shall shine forth. Then heed not the false 
 illusions that would rob Man of the right to think, 
 to speak, to act. Hope thou to attain, if it be but 
 one step, if, perchance, it may be but one in your day 
 and generation. Though Man has faded from our 
 view in the form, the reflective evidences of his birth 
 
 14 
 
( 146) 
 
 and of his life speak in every breeze. Then look not 
 to the Future in the dim light of the past influences 
 of avarice and selfish ambition that have, alas ! per- 
 verted and almost destroyed the hope that we bear. 
 Many, very many, have lived merely to form the 
 stepping-stones to mortal theories. Has science, art, 
 literature, and all, yes, all the industrial pursuits of 
 life died by the hands of those who had the sight of 
 but one idea — and have they been lost in the mighty 
 ocean of human events? No ; they live to bear to you 
 the agencies and helps that will now bring together 
 the nations and make all men realize that Infinite Sem- 
 blance, born of GOD-in-Man. It could not be so. 
 Light, the nocturnal seasons, ever true, come and pass 
 only to revel in more extended beauties. The charm- 
 ing and inviting luxuriance that mantles this fair 
 earth, but speaks the plenitude of blessings to Man ; 
 and so the fitful ^Eons will pass on, and not one that 
 does not add its right to speak in earth. Its end is 
 in Man. 
 
 There being a number of ladies and gentlemen who 
 had called in, it was asked : Shall they be admitted ? 
 The Spirit of Dr. Channing answered : "Yes." The 
 gentlemen had never witnessed Spiritual Manifesta- 
 tions. After a few moments quiet, Mr. Champion 
 stood erect and spoke : 
 
 COMMUNICATION XX. 
 
 E know of no evidence by which Man is 
 surrounded that can inspire a nobler 
 thought than the Eternity that awaits his 
 loftiest conceptions, his highest hopes and greatest 
 
( 147) 
 
 responsibilities. 'T is said by many, the Modern 
 Manifestations would rob the Soul, and desecrate the 
 graves of their fathers. Think you not the same In- 
 finite Source tends to the same end? What mighty 
 current flows hurriedly on, whose swelling flood 
 would engulf what once burst forth in all its resplen- 
 dent glory known in God. Is this not for Man? Shall 
 it miss its aim ? O, no ! 
 
 Think it not strange, kind friends ; we must speak, 
 and when and where the purifying Semblance of 
 that Intuitive Impress, born of God in the heart, 
 gives vitality to the Soul. Know you not that Angel 
 visitants from another sphere encircle all? The sable 
 mantle of repose may draw around ; the gorgeous 
 gems of Celestial fire may sparkle and mingle through- 
 out the infinitude of space ; its myriad hosts may be 
 counted as one to decorate the gorgeous palace of 
 Nature, that her recipients ma}' be attired with the 
 myriad gaze of its Fatherhood. 
 
 Man! What is Man? A creature — a thing — a toy 
 of a passing hour? O, no! What are his purposes? 
 Does he bear the signet of his God? Or is he as the 
 lifeless leaf of autumn to bite the dust and mingle 
 with the native element from whence he came ? Think 
 you not that he has a higher destiny? The forked 
 lightnings play with velocity unequalled to meet his 
 ends. And yet it is a tale not half told. Nature and 
 Nature's God subserve his ends. For in Her we find 
 the beauty that mantles his form and speaks — yes, 
 speaks the Likeness of Divinity ! The life-giving 
 spark soars through countless time. It is not meas- 
 ured by the vortex that yawns at his feet to claim his 
 own. His ends, his purposes are many; his aims, 
 not unfrequently, too few. No mystic law nor re- 
 
( 148 ) 
 
 lentless hand grasps the onward season in its turn, 
 and holds it there to subserve the purposes of a selfish 
 fiend. No clouded sky broods o'er, no heart of fond- 
 ness yearns o'er what is not a kindred Paternity to 
 another. These bounteous gifts are not measured 
 by the sturdy arm of policy. It holds not lifeless the 
 conscience. It regards not the judicious appliances 
 bequeathed from one Eternal Source to realize an 
 Eternal Destiny. No ! Man should be free as the 
 native element that sustains our mission. 
 
 Our purpose, our end is to bedeck Man with the 
 rights he bears and the heirship he claims to the regal 
 court of Heaven, in token of the kindred Paternity 
 that gave him being. No distinctions encircle this 
 vast domain. Man is the arbiter of his own fate. 
 Ah ! but, says one, the beneficence of an All- wise God 
 should instill its impressive lessons there. Too true ! 
 Though the heavens might be redolent with the 
 grandeur they bore to-day, still Man would veil his 
 vision. These intuitive evidences are but the birth- 
 right he bears from his God. Shall he claim it, or 
 make it subservient to that which robs the memory 
 and chains the soul with the dead pollutions of polic}' 
 that now instill within, the venom of heartless hate 
 to rejoice over Man's misdeeds ? Are these the eviden- 
 ces that encircle one common Humanity ? Parental 
 fondness — a father's desire, a mother's care, not un- 
 frequently lay the desolating hand upon Nature's 
 fa"irest flower. 'T is so. Limit the sea— the engulf- 
 ing ocean that buries our all. In infancy, when these 
 admonitions fall with that vehemence only known in 
 the stern mandates of parental care and the partial 
 forebodings of ill. these desolating evidences that 
 stalk abroad throughout all time, croaking like hid- 
 
( 149 ) 
 
 eous demons, are made the watch-towers to guide 
 Man to an immortal life ! These, O, these ! are the 
 fond emblems of a father's love and a mother's fear, 
 that rob the soul and desecrate these immortal tem- 
 ples reared to God. Why pervert their judgments 
 and dwarf their minds, and bring them to a degraded 
 reverence for the selfish ebullitions called Heavenly 
 Wisdom? Ah! You will say, would you not have 
 us instill those moral lessons and perceptive evidences 
 that lead us on to high and noble ends ? Would you 
 have us encircle in our arms those most dear, and not 
 give them timely warnings of approaching fear? 
 True; but, alas! the sad and desolating spectacle 
 presented to our view is mournful in the extreme. 
 A bounteous Heaven, an engulfing Hell, and a Demon 
 with unsparing aim, must attend to develope within, 
 that GOD-giving power to make Man realize his own ! 
 Oh ! 't is but too true — but truth must out. 
 
 Many venerable friends whose heads whitened o'er, 
 and whose tottering limbs proclaim the setting sun 
 of a closing day, fear to stand as men not dwarfed 
 and subjugated to the powers that be. You arrive 
 at the age of discretion — sold ! In your early years 
 the impressive lessons of infancy, a mother's care and 
 a father's fondness steal away the power of yourown 
 native purity, and when the hours of sadness and 
 gloom come to your maturity or age, you have no 
 light to relieve them but the faint gleamings of hope 
 deferred. 'T is not to burden your imaginations, 't is 
 not to rob you of false hopes and fears that God speaks 
 in Man the impressive lesson he should ever hear. 
 No law however sacred, though_ from the courts of 
 glory it may come, its numberless pages tracking the 
 past with unmeasured tread and soaring to the infin- 
 
( i5o) 
 
 itude of God, Himself, can claim blind obedience. 
 No law can be thus made, that Avill subserve the 
 common interests of Man. What avail the laws of 
 your State if not submitted to suit the ends designed 
 and to call forth healthy and vigorous action for the 
 good of all? No minority nor majority can make 
 them right though their blind observance may be 
 forced by all the penalties of polluted power. How 
 is law to be brought to meet its proper end but by its 
 adaptation to the public good ? All law should be 
 submitted to the capacity that Man receives from 
 God — and that capacity should not be sacrificed to 
 any law. All law remains dead if that capacity be 
 deadened. The opening of that capacity reveals the 
 highest law before which you can stand and be meas- 
 ured. 
 
 Association brings together many, very many who 
 instill within, those thoughts that speak of God. 'T is 
 but the development of that higher law which knows 
 that God created all, and it was good and perfect. 
 Has Man become superior to his Maker, that the em- 
 bellishing stroke of Church or State prepares him for 
 more worthy acceptance beyond? Or stands he be- 
 tween, to measure the end and destiny of Man by a 
 looming Hell and a loving God to mourn or rejoice 
 over human calamity? 
 
 As we desire faithfully to record our difficulties 
 as well as our progress, it is due to the reader that 
 we here state that before the delivery of the two pre- 
 ceding Communications, and one equally forcible and 
 beautiful we were not able to record, delivered in 
 
( i5i ) 
 
 the presence of some forty persons, Mr. Champion, 
 suffering from physical debility and feeling, as a man, 
 sensitively the opposition his development was re- 
 ceiving from honest as well as other opponents to 
 Spiritualism, was ready to give over, and resist further 
 influence. I did not, nor did any feel it our duty to 
 urge a compliance, being fully satisfied that the failure 
 of health or life of us all would not stop a work so 
 Divine in its nature, so exhaustless in its resources. 
 Besides, we felt that we had no right to trespass upon 
 the health or happiness of any fellow creature, how- 
 ever gifted, or whatever pleasure he might bring to 
 us. While we were pondering his condition, which 
 had not been made known to any save a friend and 
 myself, Mrs. Ferguson came under Spiritual influence 
 and directed the means of his effectual relief ; and, 
 strange to say, while so doing he was sent by his Spirit- 
 guide to my house, and came in at the very moment 
 she concluded, and was addressed by her as follows: 
 
 W 
 
 COMMUNICATION XXI. 
 
 E desire you to speak upon all occasions, 
 and whenever called upon by your high- 
 born friends. Your sufferings shall be 
 but momentary. They superintend all, and watch 
 ever}' result with a skill and affection no mortal can 
 appreciate. O, do not resist their elevated influences. 
 Let me assure you, from one who guards you with 
 a father's love, that there are none so well calculated 
 to give forth Spiritual Teaching. We have looked 
 down in sympathy with all your sufferings, and let 
 
( 152 ) 
 
 us assure you that your past sufferings were your 
 claim to the choice we have made of you for this holy 
 mission. You can advance the cause here more than 
 anyone. The time will come when you can go in, 
 under and out of Spiritual Influence with benefit to 
 vour health as well as your mental vigor. We will 
 give you instructions as you need them. For the 
 present when you sit at the table, always select five 
 persons besides yourself, and have one to take your 
 seat and keep up the chain of influence in the circle 
 while you speak. This will preserve a uniform elec- 
 trical atmosphere around you and prevent injurious 
 influences from persons in the room from concentra- 
 ting upon your vital organs. Have confidence in 
 yourself, and more in us. We have led you in all 
 these meetings, contrary, as you know, to your in- 
 clinations, but to results you could never have antici- 
 pated. At first we developed your power of speech 
 in the presence of a few. Have you not noticed that 
 without your knowledge, more and more have been 
 admitted? O why do you fear us? We will guard 
 every point. We will take you into our bosom, fill 
 you with our wisdom and love, and again restore you 
 to your earth-friends, strengthened and improved. 
 
 The influences brought around you here are always 
 favorable. We bring you here to enable you to ad- 
 vance and extend your Communications to the world. 
 It is for that purpose our noble Chief has been called 
 to give }^ou strength in eveiw Spiritual effort you 
 make. Let me again assure you that a father's love 
 is ever around }^ou. 
 
 A beautiful and magnificent plain spreads out be- 
 fore me. (Making a diagram on her paper.) Here 
 Mr. Champion enters, and passes as through an 
 
 -^- 
 
( iS3 ) 
 
 avenue of human beings; and all along the path- 
 way of his life there are Souls he will be made 
 an instrument to purify and instruct. Look, yonder 
 he is, an orphan boy sent forth into the cold and 
 miserly world — truly an orphan. See, unobserved, 
 Heavenly influences descend upon him. These al- 
 ways find the orphan and the friendless. Again 
 I see him after a severe struggle with life's diffi- 
 culties. He lies almost, not quite prostrate. He 
 hears of Spirit-light and seems looking up with more 
 of doubt than faith. He sees but a faint glimpse and 
 it grows brighter, for Spirits are over him, and he 
 resolves that if he dies in the effort, he will die to 
 know there is a happier life. We were with him 
 then. Look once more : that avenue opens, widens, 
 stretches forward — there we are now leading him 
 and he shall guide many Souls. The light is before 
 him; he must follow it. 
 
 So soon as Mrs. F. had finished, Mr. Champion 
 came under Spirit influence, and said : 
 
 PEACEFULLY, serenely, yes, happily are we 
 here to welcome those who instill- within the 
 heart of Man, thoughts immortal. We, too, 
 would fail were we insensible to the Divine Influ- 
 ences that surround us. 'T is not to mark the epoch of 
 one blessed day in contradistinction to another, that 
 should bind us to the associations we bear. 'T is not 
 to make sacred the ritual of what men call Eternal 
 Law, or lift the veil of the Past and rend in twain 
 those mementos of affection that still linger around 
 its sacred associations. 
 
 This interview is intended to give vitality to Man. 
 Its recipients are the favored few — not more favored 
 
( 154) 
 
 than their untutored brothers, but more true. Appli- 
 cation and adaptation are the only means that can 
 subserve the ends of Man. Man only sees as he opens 
 his eyes to external objects. Call you one more 
 fortunate than another, because Nature's gifts are 
 not made to succumb to the perversion of the birth- 
 right we bear? 
 
 We would speak of the various influences that 
 surround our future progress. We would point with 
 unerring aim to the casualties that must be met. 'T is 
 not to frighten Man. Think you that the Collossal 
 Spire of Hope soars not beyond the loftiest concep- 
 tions of Man ? 'T is only lost when we prove recreant 
 to ourselves and our God. Shall it be pillared in 
 earth for its resting-place in some Celestial Heaven? 
 Chain it not to Earth, but let it live its Life Immortal, 
 that its kindred likeness may descend and bless and 
 beautify the world ! We feel distinctly impressed 
 by some great Truth — why, or where it is, is more 
 than can be realized. 
 
 One word: Mark it well. 'T is designed to set 
 at right a wrong, as Man himself makes it wrong. 
 Time, place and circumstances claim their own. 
 Many, very many glide along over the Silvery Lake 
 and partake of its genial waters. Many, very many 
 must ride upon the boisterous sea and be engulfed, as 
 it were, beneath the mighty vortex that yawns ready 
 to receive those who realize not the Intuitive Impress 
 of Divinity within. In other words: A mighty 
 Hell — a miserable vortex with its fiery blasts will 
 always penetrate where Truth is not heard. Such 
 live and die — but 't is not Life. Such are dead ; and 
 the sable mantle of their own perverseness conceals 
 their all. These distinctions mark the differences to 
 
( 155 ) 
 
 be observed in attempting to clear the thorny paths 
 of mortals. Say you the Past chronicles with uner- 
 ring- aim this appeal to the would-be-man? Man, 
 upon this hypothesis, is a traitor to his conscience and 
 his God. Must he be taught this by a Law of endless 
 penalties ? The Spirit of the Law is Love. Am I 
 true to myself and m}' fellow-man because the Law 
 makes me so? This question is enough. Its existence 
 imprints the inscriptions of its shame. 
 
 I feel satisfied of some change. I am surrounded 
 at this moment by influences I cannot express or com- 
 prehend. There is a light surrounding me different 
 from anything I have ever experienced. I feel a 
 pleasantness I never enjoyed before, with an apparent 
 desire to wait. I am impressed to ask why did you 
 think it strange I should come to you this morning? 
 I feel a deep solicitude in your behalf. I know and 
 you know the hopes within to realize a fond and 
 affectionate greeting. The happy influences now 
 brought to bear, give life and vigor to the Soul. 
 They but speak to us of Hope and Life, invested with 
 their wonted armor. They but inspire the fond as- 
 surances that we shall all meet again. I -have been 
 chained to earth to dispel the darkness that broods 
 over the minds of man)^. The friendly greeting and 
 manly parting speaks more than a grateful heart can 
 utter. You, sir, have had a cold and chilly welcome, 
 that "deprives us of our fondest hopes and anticipa- 
 tions. Give to Nature and to God your hopes most 
 dear. Your friends linger around the ascending 
 flame that once ascended high, and fondly encircled 
 all. It is not blackened. Think you not that we 
 speak to awaken aught else than endearing consumma- 
 tions. It is not so ! The bright and joyous day robs 
 
( 156) 
 
 us of no thought. The cold and dreary night but 
 speaks of a fondness that is not obscured on the arch- 
 way of the grave. They hear it as a unit in one, a 
 diversity in all. 
 
 What means what I now see? It meets the eye as 
 ties I cannot describe. An impression distinct, now 
 crowds my brain. O yes, much, O, much is lost 
 from our best Communications — and why? When 
 we first approached, there was opened to our view 
 a creature fair, only to be recalled by the reproaches 
 we feel for not having given her message to one most 
 dear. Would that we could recall it, but it is lost. We 
 behold Man allied to Eternity by a diversity of liga- 
 ments the severance of which, many fear deprives him 
 of life. 'T is not alone in these Spiritual Affinities we 
 bear, we must recognize Man. He has an earth-life, 
 and sad, often sad is its contemplation. He has as- 
 sociations, cares, responsibilities, evidences of hope, 
 fond anticipations, lofty conceptions of what adorns 
 and beautifies his true nature. His relationships 
 with his fellows are as broad and as extended as the 
 earth. We seek not to destroy or undervalue these 
 enduring relations by pointing to loftier concep- 
 tions of his power. We desire not to contrast him 
 with the lofty observances that ally him to his God. 
 We only seek to inspire within, the true man. These 
 communings can only be perpetuated to subserve 
 the interests of Humanity by helping all to recognize 
 the Spiritual relations born of God. Were we to 
 bring these associations within the family circle, where 
 true paternity reigns and brotherly affection dwells, 
 we would not see that diversity which is now meas- 
 ured by the cold and heartless who but triumph over 
 the misfortunes of their brother. 
 
 
( 157) 
 
 Man perverts himself, his nature and his God when 
 he lays aside the responsibilities that should chain 
 him to the endearing relations of life. This is not an 
 enraptured vision to entrance his nature. If it were, 
 the place where he stands had better prove a blank, 
 that he may not be robbed of the inestimable glory 
 that awaits all true men. These truths, these bless- 
 ings are brought that Man may cultivate the God 
 within, that love, peace, good- will to your fellow-man 
 may be the immortal instincts we bear, not hidden 
 nor obscured; if so, they may as well never have 
 existed. Man has individual, social and political 
 rights to be observed to perpetuate his Race, as allied 
 to the Infinite. The reflected rays of an enjoyment 
 of these rights will penetrate the darkest recesses of 
 the human heart. They should inspire a thought 
 whose life and vigor will speak and be heard, and 
 when heard made to subserve the end designed. Let 
 not these remarks be misunderstood. 
 
 I am made to feel extremely pleasant. I stand in 
 wonder and cannot see distinctly. Before me ap- 
 pears a narrow passway spanning a ditch. Upon 
 either side is opened to my view extended fields 
 whose verdure bespeaks the infancy of life. From 
 this we are carried forward with the velocity of 
 thought, following an extended sea that meets our 
 onward march. Its mighty waters are as grass 
 beneath my feet. Its lashing tide may roll on ; it but 
 impresses an evidence of the powers that be. Ah ! 
 yes, we approach the shore. An extended plain is 
 on our left, but yonder is a towering eminence lashed 
 by the mighty billows of the ocean beneath, from 
 which they are hurled back in token of the Majesty 
 that reigns supreme. Upon this eminence is gathered 
 
 15 
 
( 158 ) 
 
 an Angel host, not like Jacob's ladder to ascend and 
 descend, but its ascent is one and all. We view this 
 lofty eminence from a distance. What hinders our 
 approach? 'T is wider! A mighty wheel revolves, 
 and, sirs, could we but read the inscriptions there 
 engraven we would have a light that would obscure 
 the vision of a John and renew, yes, renew and beau- 
 tify the precepts of a Christ. Is there a mystic 
 number, or what else can this mean? Twelve lan- 
 guages, twelve Seers, twelve mighty men, not mighty 
 as men, shall instill the fermentations of thought as 
 undying as the Soul. Are these the re-echoings of 
 the ages gone by ? God's Eternity is ever the same. 
 Is it to rear among Mankind a Sanhedrim to preside 
 over the Ecclesiastical and temporal benefits we en- 
 joy? One skillful mariner may guide a cumbrous 
 ship, and moving in safety it may bound over the 
 mighty deep. But does one frail drop endanger or 
 carry forward the destined end, or is it untold num- 
 bers that float this mortal barque on, ever on, to the 
 haven of eternal repose? When this mingling and 
 commingling of Spiritual Intuition shall expand, it 
 shall unite all as one. No sable host to drink its life. 
 Oh! no. 
 
 O, that we had a better view — different colors, diff- 
 erent views, all tending to one common centre. Upon 
 the outer ray of what I now see is inscribed what Man 
 dare not tell. It extends over the sea from an emi- 
 nence of hundreds of feet, and upon this eminence 
 stands an Angelic host. But why should we not 
 draw near? Its lesson is imparted here (striking his 
 heart) and it will come. We shall realize that aus- 
 picious morn when we shall mingle there and realize 
 those inscriptions that urge us on. It is not at pres- 
 
( 159 ) 
 
 ent permitted for one so gross to invade. It is 
 enough to instill within, that God is Love. We 
 stand, one foot upon a mossy bank, the other on the 
 ocean wave, and the inscriptions seem a quarter of a 
 mile distant. This will give you some faint idea of 
 the meaning of these observances. The wheel seems 
 turned to our view. The first letter from its centre 
 is H. Now it brings to my very soul what I am not 
 permitted to express. This extended wheel is assum- 
 ing the appearance of a large painting. From this 
 source you will yet get the true mission of CHRIST. 
 We must leave it now, feeling conscious of our inability 
 to proceed further without that evidence which every 
 man bears to his God. But I tell you, sirs, here is a 
 lesson that will make the earth quake to its centre. 
 A long scale is attached to this wheel, which extends 
 to the earth. We feel an irresistible desire to ap- 
 proach nearer. The way is open if we could but 
 ascend. * 
 
 I feel impressed to speak of how I feel. Were I 
 to live a hundred years, nay, a thousand more, mem- 
 ory would never prove recreant to the trust confided 
 to its care this blessed hour. It illuminates the path- 
 way to the grave, and I realize that all is not lost. 
 During this interim, for the first time, we have been 
 fully sensible of the circumstances that surround us. 
 Think you not, dear friends, that you alone are the 
 recipients of these messages. Many are recorded 
 here. This interview has been conducted with an 
 eye single to improvement and relief. Its influences 
 have been different from any I have received before. 
 
 Mr. Champion was some minutes held in a mute 
 trance from which, when he came forth, he seemed 
 
( i6o) 
 
 fully invigorated, physically and mentally. His ad- 
 dress was highly instructive to us all — directly so to 
 one or two present — although there are some things 
 in it that evidently admit a future explanation. Mrs. 
 F., continuing under the influence, closed our inter- 
 view as follows: 
 
 Men trample the truth beneath their feet. Some- 
 times they think it crushed, but from every blow it 
 revives in more perfect beauty. We would not de- 
 stroy churches, but we would penetrate the world 
 with that which shall unite all nations. Men must 
 know that they have Souls whose kindred is in God 
 and to Him must return. We have, sir, encircled 
 you as one family, to advance this high and holy 
 Mission. Your way is clear. Then, my Brother, 
 oh ! press on, my Brothers ; all press forward ! 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 THE BIBLE: ITS INSPIRATION AND AUTHORITY. 
 
 r T ^HE certainty of Communion with high-born 
 Spirits of another sphere, and through them 
 
 JL. with the Great Spirit of all Wisdom and 
 Love from whom, in our own Souls, according to the 
 degree of their purity and freedom, we receive all 
 truth and power, very naturally leads to the question : 
 What think you of the Bible? 
 
 It must be manifest to every observing mind that 
 there is a blind and idolatrous reverence for the Bible 
 derogatory alike to the native powers of human Rea- 
 son and Intuition and to the writers of that Book. 
 
 — -^-^— — ^^— 
 
( i6i ) 
 
 Men are taught to reverence the Book more than the 
 indisputable and inspiring truths it records. They 
 claim the Book as an infallible revelation from God 
 when it makes no such claim for itself. And they 
 quote its passages which speak of the Scriptures as 
 inspired, and of the terrible consequences of adding 
 to or taking from its revelations, and apply such quo- 
 tations to the present collection of Books, forgetting 
 that such declarations were made before the present 
 collection was made and that they had special refer- 
 ence to some distinct revelation, made for a specified 
 object, which object has long since been secured. 
 Thus, what Paul says (2 Tim. iii: 16, 17) of the ancient 
 Scriptures or writings is applied to the Old and New 
 Testaments when the latter was not written, and hun- 
 dreds of years before the present collection called the 
 Bible was made ; and the curse the author of the Book 
 of Revelations (Rev. xxii: 18, 19) pronounced upon 
 any who will add to or take from the visions of that par- 
 ticular book, they pronounce upon all who claim 
 Revelations from the Spirit-spheres, as if the curse 
 alluded to the completion of the Bible as it is now 
 bound, when they know or ought to know that it 
 referred to a single Book and that many of the Books 
 of the New Testament were written afterwards, and 
 upon their own principles their writers areunderthat 
 curse. The best modern critics regard the Gospel of 
 John and all his Epistles as written after the "Rev- 
 elation," which, if true, would bring him under his 
 own curse of adding to the Scriptures, and especially 
 if the popular interpretation of the passage be correct. 
 These inconsistencies of interpreters are insults to 
 Reason and are perpetuated only by a blind reverence, 
 not for Truth, but for a popular and ignorant view of 
 
( 162) 
 
 a truth, and a failure to discriminate between the 
 Bible as a revelation from God and the Bible as a 
 record of many revelations. 
 
 It should be remembered that the Bible nowhere 
 purports to be a final revelation from God. It is not 
 a Book but a collection of many books ; not the writing 
 of one hand but of many hands ; not the product of 
 one age but of many ages ; not the collection of the 
 men for whom an infallible inspiration is claimed but 
 of the Fathers and Councils of ambitious and now 
 acknowledged to be worldly Churches centuries af- 
 ter the Apostles and Prophets were dead. 
 
 The prominent and repeated appeals to the ignor- 
 ance of men, in opposition to every advance of the 
 human mind, from the priesthood of our age, is but 
 a trick to entrap unthinking and deceived souls. The 
 great truths revealed in the Bible we not only do not 
 dispute, but rejoice in , and we believe that Spiritual 
 Communion casts light and beauty upon their reflec- 
 tion in past ages. We do not regard every word and 
 sentence of that Book as a direct communication from 
 the Divine Mind, for this would be stupid idolatry 
 and in direct opposition to the positive statements of 
 its own writers. A child can tell that when you are 
 reading the Sermon on the Mount you are not read- 
 ing the cruel laws of revengeful destruction found in 
 the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua ; or 
 the Gospel of John that you are not reading the Song 
 of Solomon ; or the lofty conceptions of God in the 
 Hebrew Prophets that you are not reading the book 
 of Esther in which the name of God does not appear. 
 Who of any remaining reason, unyielded to the absurd 
 assumptions of priestly dogmatism, would place upon 
 the same level of Divine Wisdom the imprecations of 
 
 m 
 
( 163) 
 
 David when he pra}^s that the wife of his enemy may 
 become a widow and his innocent children fatherless; 
 that the brains of the children of Babylon may be 
 dashed against the stones, as the author of the 137th 
 Psalm vehemently prays — who, I ask, in the name of 
 Humanity and of God, would place these brutal 
 curses upon the same level with "Father, forgive 
 them, they know not what they do?" And yet you 
 cannot read for one hour in any part of that Book 
 without finding these contrasts. 
 
 There is truth, holy, Divine, inspiring truth in the 
 Bible, but it flows through the channels of human 
 frailty and error, and there, as everywhere, the God 
 of Man calls upon him to exercise his Reason in the 
 separation of the one from the other ; and he is no 
 benefactor of his kind who fails to do it. 
 
 Spiritualism throws a light over the Angelology of 
 the Bible such as brings it into bold relief and makes 
 it a reality to human experience and hope ; and it cor- 
 rects the superstition that has ever enshrouded it when 
 it was made an exceptional development of the olden 
 time. It is on this account we feel that it is a credit 
 to remember that long before Modern Spiritualism 
 was known, often from the pulpit have we proclaimed 
 that the appearance of angels among the ancients was 
 an ordinary occurrence and that all ancient records, 
 sacred and profane, detail it as a matter of course. It 
 is so ; and no candid mind can admit the truth of the 
 Bible records and believe the mind of Man to be the 
 same and God the same, and deny Spiritual inter- 
 course to this generation or to any other. 
 
 But we are told that if we do not deny the Bible 
 in toto we deny the great doctrines of the Bible such 
 as the depravity of human nature, the regeneration 
 
( 164) 
 
 of the human heart, the resurrection of the body, 
 the final judgment and the eternal punishment of the 
 wicked. 
 
 Upon these points we have not time nor space to 
 devote that attention they deserve, but we can give 
 plainly the teaching of Spiritualism upon each, and 
 the reader can judge how far they are denied, how 
 far illustrated and confirmed. 
 
 Spiritualism teaches that human character is de- 
 praved, but human nature never; that the Soul is 
 born of God — is Spirit of His Spirit — and that how- 
 ever it may be enveloped in vice and crime, it must 
 sometime realize its native birth and ascend above 
 the fleshly perversions that hide its power. Hence, 
 it offers hope to all and believes not in the total de- 
 pravity of any. To say that a nature that comes 
 from God is corrupt, is a fallacy and makes Him the 
 Author of Sin and the remorseless Punisher of His 
 own handiwork. But to say that a limited being 
 may err, may abuse the passions and tendencies of 
 his nature and involve himself in the necessary con- 
 sequences of all such abuse, and, so far as he is con- 
 nected with others, involve them, is alike the dictate 
 of Reason and the testimony of Experience. Hence, 
 we find in the worst of men a capacity for good ; in 
 the best, a tendency to evil ; while the Law of Pro- 
 gression from nothing towards Eternal Perfection is 
 the Law of the mental universe. Not depraved, then, 
 but weak; not doomed, but degraded; not cursed of his 
 Creator, but chided of his Father; not hopelessly lost, 
 but endlessly related to Spirits whose development and 
 progress must bring them by natural and eternal laws 
 of kindred and affection to his help. This is Man in 
 his worst condition — and his worst condition, with 
 
( 165 ) 
 
 Spiritualists, is often seen to be covered over with 
 Pharisaical pretension to all the wisdom and love 
 possible to Man, while it knows not its own ignorance 
 of the first principles of a Divine Life. 
 
 Regeneration, with Spiritualists, is a progressive 
 work. It is reform — mental, moral, physical. The 
 whole universe is in transition, and the mind and hab- 
 its of Man cannot escape the influence of this law. 
 We are changing, ever changing, either for better or 
 worse. If for worse, to meet with pains and barriers 
 over which we cannot pass ; if for better, an endless 
 line of helps and hopes lies clear before us. Wicked- 
 ness is limited in its descent ; there is a point beyond 
 which it cannot pass ; there is a deed at which it can 
 be said: "this is all that it can do." That may be a 
 fearful, awful, horrible point — but it is limited. But 
 Good cannot be limited. It is of the nature of God 
 — it is eternal, absolute, endlessly progressive in the 
 elevations and enjoyments to which it tends. Regen- 
 eration, therefore, is a progressive work — endlessly 
 so. The human Soul, as a germ that barely vegetates, 
 may expand, and will expand to the glory of Angels 
 and towards the glory of God. 
 
 Spiritualism does not teach the resurrection of this 
 temporary body. It reveals the Spiritual body of 
 which Paul spoke ; and assures us by positive and infal- 
 lible proofs that ever)' soul, like every seed, receives its 
 own proper body when it dies. It does not wait a 
 thousand or ten thousand }^ears in slumbering forget- 
 fulness or awful forebodings of eternal wrath, but at 
 once, by the process of death, it is in a body prepared 
 for it. The changes through which the body has 
 already passed, clearly intimate that Death is not a 
 destruction, but only a more sudden transition. Not 
 
( i66) 
 
 a particle of the fleshly bodies we possessed as children 
 do Ave now possess, and yet we are the same persons 
 — our identity is preserved. The doctrine of the 
 Resurrection, therefore, is with us the doctrine of 
 the Spiritual Life, and with Christ we say the "dead 
 live to God;" for there is no death as the word is 
 popularly used. Death with Spiritualists is a great 
 phenomenon to be investigated, and not a hideous 
 bugbear to be feared; a birth, a transformation, and 
 not annihilation of anything. 
 
 Spiritualists believe in the Judgment, but not in a 
 fixed day of arbitrary separations. All Scriptural 
 descriptions that would make it a fixed day, they 
 believe were borrowed from the forms of Oriental 
 Monarchies, and they would consider it as rational to 
 make them literal as to make a literal city, or garden, 
 or marriage festival literal descriptions of Heaven. 
 The Judgment is ever to come ; is, therefore, eternal. 
 It is the result of obedience to or violation of Divine 
 Law, bringing the necessary and unavoidable effects 
 of human action according to a just standard of Right. 
 The Scriptural word for Judgment is Krisis, and our 
 word "crisis" fitly represents it. The crisis of an ac- 
 tion either of mind or body is that point where we 
 reap its results, and as we are ever thinking and act- 
 ing, the crisis is ever coming, and it comes as the just 
 Judgment of a God whose purposes are all right and 
 whose decisions are all good. The crisis of a nation, 
 city or government may come as in that of Babylon, 
 Jerusalem, Rome — and the overthrow may be final. 
 But nations have no immortality, and, therefore, for- 
 ever fall. Man has immortality, and though ever 
 judged can never be destroyed. Men reap what they 
 sow, but can never reap annihilation, for their Spirit 
 
 _= 
 
( i67 ) 
 
 is immortal. To say that God has formed a Spirit, 
 to annihilate it or to make it liable to endless wrong 
 or wretchedness is to say that He is not absolutely 
 or eternally good, and cannot perfect his own work- 
 manship. Every man suffers for wrong-doing and 
 enjoys right-doing. Neither the one nor the other 
 is arbitrary ; for both are the results of a law of his 
 being which in its origin and continuance must be 
 good because from God the fountain of all good. 
 
 We believe, then, in one God, the Universal Father 
 — in one Humanity shared by a universal Brother- 
 hood — in Eternity as the Universal Destiny— and in 
 Spiritual Affinities, made sacred by every natural 
 tie, and Eternal by their birth in God. And every 
 man, here and hereafter, is elevated to their purifying 
 enjoyments in the exact proportion in which he im- 
 proves his gifts and privileges. 
 
 Now we do not deny that a literal interpretation 
 of many Scriptures, both in the Bible and in other 
 ancient Books for which an equally Divine character 
 has been claimed, would teach doctrines contrary to 
 these ; but at the same time we believe there must be 
 a prostration of human Reason before we-can accept 
 the mistakes of the Ancients for the clear demonstra- 
 tions of our own times. The moral and Spiritual 
 devotion of the minds whose speeches and writings, 
 whose laws, powers, virtues, vices, successes and fail- 
 ures are recorded in the Bible we admit, but do not 
 admit their infallibility. This is the distinct point, 
 and we hesitate not to state it. No mind is infallible 
 but God's ; and those He Spiritually illuminates be- 
 come more or less accurate according to the degree 
 of their capacity and faithfulness. Men differ in the 
 degrees of their elevation and illumination ; the Apos- 
 
( 168) 
 
 ties and Prophets differed ; but God is the same, and 
 every advance of the mind brings us nearer His per- 
 fection, while in our lowliest stages He dwells with 
 us and in us — for His Impress is upon all. 
 
 Our position, therefore, upon this question may be 
 plainly and concisely stated thus : 
 
 I. The Inspiration of the Bible Records is unequal 
 and progressive. 
 
 II. The authority of the Bible is the authority of 
 the Truth it contains ; and especially of the truth up- 
 on Man's moral obligations and Spiritual relation- 
 ships. 
 
 All truth cannot be confined in any record. It is 
 an eternal Principle and its range of operation is the 
 entire Universe, where it ever operates to harmonize 
 the qualities and attributes of universal being. Truth, 
 the all of truth, is Universal Harmony. 
 
 Man cannot create truth ; he may discover it. As 
 it is a universal principle, all may discover it. Truth 
 never produces conflicting interests. Error oppos- 
 ing error makes the selfish and sectarian controversies 
 of the world. The grappling of Error with Truth 
 seldom occurs in modern controversies. When the 
 latter pours in the light, the darkness must give way. 
 Truth is never divided, though human mirrors may 
 reflect it in fragmentary forms. It is a unit though 
 its parts are infinitely varied. A few of its recog- 
 nized parts we will sum up as relating to the question 
 before us : 
 
 i. It is a truth that all men possess a Spiritual Na- 
 ture. This truth admitted, Spiritual Illumination 
 cannot be possible to one age without being so to 
 all. That nature does not depend upon what Man 
 
( !<*>) 
 
 believes, but its free and improving exercise does de- 
 pend upon its reception of truth, and truth alone. 
 
 2. It is a truth that Man possesses an animal and, con- 
 sequently, a fallible nature which is but the temporary 
 habitation of the immortal Spirit. 
 
 3. And, therefore, it must be true that infallibility 
 cannot be predicated of any communication it may 
 give forth through the changing agencies of a frail 
 body and a changing language. 
 
 4. Error is, as a consequence, interwoven with all 
 the records of human history, whether called sacred 
 or profane, and it is the truth they contain that gives 
 them sanctity — and nothing else. 
 
 5. Hence, God has stamped an eternal value upon 
 every human Soul and required us to prove all things, 
 even prophesying and Spiritual Illumination, and 
 hold fast that which is good. 
 
 From the worship of a Book we should arise to 
 the worship of God ; from reverence for the mistakes 
 of Jewish sectarianism we should advance to rever- 
 ence for the truth of God among all nations ; from 
 the observance of ceremonies of external purification 
 that superstition makes magical and purifying we 
 should come to regard all external forms as aids or 
 helps to internal purity and love ; and through the 
 errors of the ancients, which modern assumptions 
 over the free-born powers of the human soul have 
 consecrated to the sanction of enormous wrongs in 
 this life and the denunciatory threatenings of Eternal 
 Wrong in the life to come, we may advance to the 
 recognition of one God, one Universe, one Family, 
 one Destiny — and high over all the clouds of discord 
 and selfish strife, move on beneath the discipline and 
 led by the Spirit of Harmony and Love to where, 
 
 16 
 
( 170 ) 
 
 All are lovers in a land of gladness; 
 
 Where discord never grieves the trusting heart ; 
 
 Where glorious companies of angels move 
 
 In blissful circles of unchanging Love. 
 
 After writing- the above I called on Mr. Champion 
 with a view to converse with Dr. C. upon the pro- 
 priety of such an essay. I did not inform Mr. C. of 
 my object, nor was it known to anyone. He instantly 
 came under Spiritual influence, and addressed me as 
 follows. I subjoin the address without a remark, be- 
 lieving that while it calls attention to unobserved 
 facts, it will awaken thought in a direction that no 
 one can as yet fully follow : 
 
 IT would have been well, sir, to have marked a 
 distinction between the first and second chapters 
 of Genesis in your essay. What is referred to 
 "God" in one chapter is ascribed to the "Lord God" 
 in the other. What means the declaration: "they 
 have become as One of Us, to know good and evil?" 
 General outlines of this character may serve to con- 
 trast an evidence at present but little anticipated. 
 Again : In Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bond- 
 age what went before? What went behind? Are 
 we told that these are the emblematic evidences, born 
 of God, foreshadowing One True Light ? They mark 
 a distinction incompatible. "Man"- — "Angel"- — "one 
 of us" — "Lord" prefixed to God. It is here. Who 
 was the first man? Who? Whence this plurality— 
 this plurality which bears the legendary evidence that 
 now absorbs the vitality of Man and leaves him weak, 
 exposed to the dangerous contaminations that sur- 
 round him in life. But Truth outlives Error. Truth 
 is Spirit, analogous only to what it bears and claims 
 
( i7i ) 
 
 as its own. Error may attain its dreaded sequence, 
 but the Divine Principle that illuminates the dark 
 and dreary wastes of time shall expose its divergences 
 and establish its counter axiom. It soars beyond its 
 conflicts, and by immortal growth in Divine Illumin- 
 ings reaches the celestial courts of inherited right. 
 Naught else can do. It is this that unburthens the 
 Soul, and it soars on to the God from whence it came. 
 Still more expressively we may say the germ is im- 
 bedded in Mother Earth, and when its vital Principle 
 or immortal part comes forth its outward cumbrance 
 seeks its own. Shall the spontaneous evidences 
 brought forth from the Bible deaden and destroy the 
 Divinity that gave them birth? The Book has ful- 
 filled its end and in the likeness that stands as its 
 counterpart and the illuminating powers it awakened, 
 it has left its mortal coil behind and Man still soars 
 on. This likeness of the genial spark from whence 
 it receives its imparting vigor, must realize the same 
 and bury its grosser form in conformity to that Infin- 
 ite Semblace it bears. Immortal Truth will ever bear 
 a recognition. The divergence is the Immortal, An- 
 gelic, Manlike — True. These distinctions we draw 
 beyond the conflicting emotions of strife and mis- 
 direction and fleeting wrong. See you the distinc- 
 tion? Truth, in other words, outlives all error ; and 
 the truth in your Book outlives the grosser forms 
 through which it now reaches your eye, and claims 
 its own in the Divine Illuminings of your generation. 
 Do you, and all, mark it well. 
 
 A word on the harmony of Churches, which, it is 
 said, these revealments will disturb. While we should 
 cherish and fondle affections most dear, we should 
 recollect that our Brother-man is fashioned by the 
 
( 172 ) 
 
 same Great Being; that he cherishes his kindred-like 
 in his own breast. It is not for the aggrandizement 
 of one or many, but all, that we should think, feel and 
 act. Harmony is Heaven's greatest gift, and when 
 it cannot be maintained, know ye that the disturb- 
 ance arises from the perversion of Nature's greatest 
 and best bequeathance to Man. God — Eternity — one 
 mighty ALL — one limitless ocean upon which floats 
 one Common Humanity — no distinctions — no inher- 
 ent rights bequeathed by those less loyal to God than 
 their fellows who serve all. Stand, then, in the 
 Church of Almighty God. Its baptismal vows have 
 dedicated all that is good in this fair land. It stretches 
 its Heaven far and wide over the whole pale of Hu- 
 manity. Its ghostly and often ghastly semblance is 
 born and nurtured amidst the strife of human passion 
 and the selfish polic}^ that sits solemnly over the sac- 
 rifice of the interests of your fellows to pollute the 
 fairest heritage of God — the Soul. This world is 
 a Church, Man is the ordinance, God the ministering 
 Spirit ever ready to instill within the dark recesses 
 of your nature the Light and Love of Heaven — open- 
 ing to it the realms of limitless glory. Speak of its 
 confines? They bound beyond the grave; for there 
 it realizes anew the Source from whence it came. The 
 representatives of that Church are but the dwarfed 
 evidences of misguided judgment and perverted 
 action. 
 
 After the delivery of the above Mr. Champion 
 stated that he was impressed to say that on the fol- 
 lowing day Dr. C. desired to add, if I would allow, 
 some observations to what I had written upon the 
 Inspiration and Authority of the Bible. He said 
 
( m ) 
 
 that false views of these were the great hindrances 
 to the elevation and progress of Man. Accordingly, 
 he visited me, and under Spiritual impression deliv- 
 ered the following: 
 
 I KNOW of no tenets nor forms that can express the 
 Deified Impress that God has made in Man. The 
 starving millions that cry aloud beneath the op- 
 pressor's hand are the fit emblems of that perversion 
 that has wrought dread and desolation, strife, conten- 
 tion, bickerings that have made shipwreck of the 
 most bounteous prospects in life. They are but the 
 evidences of misguided Philanthropy. Still the God 
 of Heaven lives — but with Man the God of earth 
 makes but a faint, yes, very faint impress of his handi- 
 work in form — which is Man. Though Earth mourns, 
 and the glorified evidences of pomp and pride re-echo 
 throughout these extended heavens, what, alas! what 
 are its conquests? Tell me because want, wretch- 
 edness and woe, and the triumphal march of indolence 
 is here, that Nature has not proved true to her trust? 
 Because Man has not lived up to the inherited right 
 he bears to his God, shall it be less true? 
 
 The analogous discrepancies and differences that 
 exist in the Revelations of the Divine Will are but 
 the reflective evidences of thought to tinge and min- 
 gle the intermediate evidences drawn forth to sustain 
 and serve the "Sacred Oracles." They hold not the 
 impressive throb of immortality. It is only known 
 in God Himself or in the influx we inherit as the 
 reflection from that Eternal Source. No man can 
 mingle and intermingle with aught else but with the 
 subjective evidence it bears in God. Our position is 
 one to be relatively considered, and equally applied 
 
( 174) 
 
 with that discriminative evidence it seeks as the al- 
 ternating evidence born in the Eternal. It knows no 
 other. We cannot indulge in the vagaries and prom- 
 inent metaphors set forth as the illustrative and un- 
 exampled Impress of the Infinite One. We only hope 
 to bring Man to his true position as a part and por- 
 tion of that Infinite Goodness that fills all space and 
 realizes all time. We can do no more. The con- 
 ditionary effects resulting therefrom lie beneath the 
 submerged hopes and diverse currents of human 
 reasoning. No man is prepared to act judiciously 
 without pruning to the depths that lie beyond the 
 commonalities, conventionalities, sectionalities, with 
 their various differences, alike allied, it may be, to 
 circumstances momentous in their bearing. But these 
 are but the obtrusive evidences formed, sustained 
 and perpetuated by the faculties of mortals. There 
 is a higher, there is a nobler, a greater aim for men 
 than the mere picturesque of human passion and the 
 misguided perversion of those inherent qualities 
 that bespeak the man in form. We refer to his phys- 
 ical nature, his passions, his wants ; not that we would 
 underrate those incentives to human action that sus- 
 tain and propagate among Mankind wholesome and 
 judicious appliances to develope those eternal and 
 undying bequests inherited from the great Fount of 
 unceasing goodness. No ! This needs no commen- 
 dation — none. Would to God these philanthropic 
 impulses were more universal. 
 
 Man must be free — not to seek an asylum among 
 the dead and corrupted evidences that shroud Hu- 
 manity's pall with the long-lost hope born as the true 
 birth-right of Man. Very exceptionable may be 
 their character but nevertheless intuitively the same. 
 
( 175 ) 
 
 Philosophizing upon Man, his acts and incentives to 
 action, is too varied and illimitable in its capa- 
 ciousness to contain or arrive at any definite result. 
 Therefore, it must be left as an absorbent upon the 
 limitless sea of progress to develope its legitimate 
 ends. 
 
 Marked distinctions and variances are but the legit- 
 imate causes arising from the prominent position they 
 may have attained. From thence, diagonally, system- 
 atically or otherwise, may be presented what Man 
 least anticipates. 
 
 Biblically we believe in God; but not theoret- 
 ically. The supermundane requirements made upon 
 Man would bring him to realize his true position. 
 But mundane realities blot the immortal Chart and 
 leave it as a sterile waste to bleach beneath a cold 
 and chilly miasma from these pollutions of the Soul. 
 'T is gone — it knows not its true existence here. 
 
 When, then, shall Man realize his own? Never 
 until he is freed from the horrid delusion of that he 
 bears within, of fiendish hate inherited from his God 
 to damn his soul. What can dispel these erroneous 
 "evidences" so said "to be born of God?-" If the In- 
 finite Father ever breathed from the Celestial Glory 
 of the Utmost Heaven to undying Man, think you 
 that the Cherubic hosts are still and silent when 
 great and wondrous Hate is developing in Man the 
 spirit of alienship from the Common Brotherhood 
 he bears? Oh! no! 
 
 Man — Angel — GOD; no affinity here? No like 
 seeking its own in the native element it bears ? None ? 
 The combined forces of Heaven and Earth would 
 fail to make it less available. 'T is not our purpose, 
 by any means, to excite prejudice — no. But when, 
 
( 176 ) 
 
 in the name of Heaven, will Man cease to be led, 
 and walk forth a fit emblem for the receptacle of 
 those Heaven-born evidences he bears to his God? 
 
 We insist that "Lord" is emblematic, the same and 
 equal only with "Angel." "Man" equally allied by 
 the same chain to the Infinite Lord of Lords, (must 
 we speak it?) — The tradition handed forth from 
 ancient time points to ONE MAN. From whence 
 sprang Woman ? Man, the parent, from whence 
 the germ is inherited that gave vitality to Nature's 
 fairest flower through the Divine evidence mani- 
 fested by a God? Like seeks its own. Woman 
 — Man — Angel — God. Is this not true ? Does not 
 successive day banish from the Paradise of God the 
 highest hopes and the best interests of frail Human- 
 ity? Does it go forth free, or burdened beneath the 
 blasting evidence it bears, to renew its kindred-like 
 throughout all time? O, hopeless Divinity! where 
 is thy solace for the Soul? Let successive ages an- 
 swer ! 
 
 A venerable father in Israel deeply laments that 
 Nature has been partial in her transformations; that 
 less favored welcomes cheer the heart ; that prattling 
 innocence and youthful bursts of gladness steal not 
 o'er the parental mansion to cheer the furrowed cheek 
 and wrinkled brow of declining years. Man — an 
 angel in form, but one and the same, the glorified 
 acceptance of God wafted from the Celestial realms 
 to give imparting vigor to the seed, manifests clearly 
 and distinctly his mission. Still brighter with the 
 glorified evidence of God he is born among men, and 
 of all born there is none his equal. From whom and 
 by what process was this evidence born to Man? 
 "From Woman," 't is so said. Successive day, more 
 
( 177 ) 
 
 luminous, brighter relics of antiquarian research prove 
 that another Harbinger of Peace breathes his sweet- 
 ness upon the Desert Wilds of infatuated Space. 
 
 "Angel" — "Man" acknowledge as man to Manoah's 
 enquiry, foreshadows or o'ershadows, if you please, 
 this eventful time upon which millions have floated 
 to the vortex of unending duration, as far as their 
 mortal conceptions were awakened. 'T is not our 
 purpose to bring more definitely or specifically the 
 enciente ; no ! but cast aloof all else, She stands but 
 the Archetype of the Great First Cause from whence 
 She sprung. Her heritage is Man; and naught else 
 can encircle the two but the productive evidence 
 born to time, from whence has sprung inevitable 
 ruin — so said! Man is bereft of his Paradise. Suc- 
 cession came forth to blight and curse its own. Who 
 can believe it? None that know their conscience and 
 their God. Does this inherited right and connecting 
 link, from time to time o'er the memorable waters 
 that have chilled the soul and submerged the highest 
 hopes of man, bring purity in its train that its out- 
 pourings is a God taken from mortal man and the 
 successive evidences born beneath an Eternal Curse? 
 Though angelic visions may encircle — forms that once 
 decked this fair earth may, were it possible, ignite the 
 vital spark and give vitality to its counterpart, 't is the 
 same — its eternal doom is one and all. Is our vision 
 enraptured with the potent meaning that "they have 
 become as one of us to know good and evil?" May 
 they not have descended to the plain and breathed 
 forth its instillings and preserved it far above the 
 common evidences born to Man, the inherent property 
 more closely allied to the Infinite ! Are not these the 
 fermentations of thoughts most pure to endow Man 
 
( 178) 
 
 with his holy origin? But "Lord" — "Angel" will not 
 admit of so gross a perversion, were it so. It was the 
 angel that ministered, and the acknowledgment made 
 in another portion, to which your attention has been 
 called, precludes any other conception than the in- 
 heritance, born through Man, in the progressive hope 
 he bears to his God. This soars beyond the Para- 
 disaical (?) inheritance that has been so bountifully 
 bestowed upon unfortunate Man. The native evi- 
 dence born of God developes its own. The child 
 must come forth to the years of mature age before 
 you recognize that manly form that bespeaks the im- 
 pressive evidence born of God. He must soar on to 
 that Angelic affection that allies Man more intimately 
 to the Great First Cause. From whence came "one 
 of us?" Has not the gilded evidence born from an 
 Eternal Source shone upon the illimitable pathway 
 of Time that has not imparted to us that knowledge 
 by which we readily perceive that the true instincts 
 of Nature and Nature's God have performed their 
 part for those less worthy to travel the meandering 
 stream of Time to gain the heights of Celestial Peace? 
 Ah ! but, says one, these are but the. degenerate va- 
 garies of a diseased imagination pruning amid the 
 lascivious undergrowth of folly's wanderings. But 
 mark well, they have come to know "as one of us, 
 good and evil." In the name of God ! can Man know 
 what did not exist? Is this not an acknowledgment 
 from the Seraphic hosts of Eternal Wisdom, of the 
 two great Principles upon which depends Life Im- 
 mortal? Is it born in earth and acknowledged in 
 Heaven? Did not these unfortunate evidences, born 
 of God, remain ignorant, and through error, as claim- 
 ed, recognize — what ? A fact to know as much of that 
 fact as one of them? O, sir, this saps the foundation 
 
( 179 ) 
 
 of the present systems, and this is as plain as the 
 meridian of day. The Eternal Source, unchangeable, 
 recognizes Its allied embassies — the vital Principles 
 upon which rests the weal or woe of Humanity. 
 
 No day since time began can boast of greater in- 
 centives to free moral attainments. Not that these 
 everlasting Heavens were not the same yesterday, 
 to-day and forever — the same Eternal Source from 
 which Man inherits his all, one God and Universe to 
 which his adorations are alike due. The light of this 
 day encompasses Humanity within one broad fold. 
 It is of God. 
 
 In submitting these considerations to the mature 
 reflection of Man, 't is well to remember the wrecked 
 hopes and the desolate boon that have been transmit- 
 ted from ages past to the present blessed hour in token 
 to the high and honored revealments from the throne 
 of Everlasting Pity. 
 
 In support of this position we might with propriety 
 call to our aid the instructive lessons of the last six- 
 teen centuries. Why? That they have been more 
 luminous or abundant in their bequeathance to the 
 unfortunate children of human erring? But it is be- 
 yond this. Spiritualism knows no distinction beyond 
 the capabilities with which you are possessed. Its 
 variances are but the legitimate outpourings of the 
 successive commotions and party bickerings that have 
 rent in twain the highest hopes and the best interests 
 of one common Humanity vested in one God Many 
 may be disposed to soar beyond this fact and affirm 
 that some unknown cause may have brought forth 
 the evils of life, beneath the subdued evidence of 
 Reason inherited from one true God. 'T is not our 
 end and mission to mantle the soul in gloom. 'Tis 
 not to leave Man bereft of the protecting evidence of 
 
( i8o) 
 
 God. 'T is not to weave the shroud of oblivion o'er 
 the highest hopes and best interests that we come. 
 It is to endow Man with a conciousness of his being 
 allied to the great Ultimate of Eternal Cause. Then 
 he will speak and see beyond the flimsy veil of hy- 
 pocrisy that mantles the so-called theorems that lead 
 Man to his God. Those who may feel umbrage at 
 the position we have taken know not the interests 
 involved. Their end and destiny depend upon this 
 solution. 
 
 Without further trespassing upon your time and 
 succumbing to the petty variances that rule triumph- 
 ant o'er this fair land, we hold that the great first 
 cause of all error lies beyond the grasp of mortal. 
 We cast at naught the legendary evidence born, so 
 said, of God and that claims the depravity of the hu- 
 man heart. These forebodings, in their true and 
 literal meaning, have weighed as with an incubus 
 upon the God of Heaven, according to the theory of 
 many ; but his triumphant Sons of a brighter day 
 soar beyond the paltry evidences never born to be- 
 queath to Man, endless terror. What did not exist 
 bears no recognition from so exalted a source. Shall 
 Man be doomed for the knowledge he learns of his 
 God and the relative evidences of his birth? Does 
 this make him a fiend? If so, he might well curse the 
 hour that gave him life. 
 
 Another day, a more anterior age, has reaped this 
 knowledge — so it is said. Better remain blind, that 
 the incarceration of the soul had held its doomed 
 tenement aloof from the conflictings that prove its 
 ruin. 
 
 We come not to enforce an}^ peculiar right or 
 inherited opinions. No! 'T is only that Man may 
 prove true to himself, to his God and his fellow. 
 
( i8i ) 
 
 THE relations of Man to Nature are as wonder- 
 ful as they are intimate. These relations have 
 ever been acknowledged, while we have had a 
 variety of theories to explain their nature and purpose. 
 All forms of Philosophy and Religion have acknowl- 
 edged them, however infelicitous and contradictory 
 their explanation or grotesque and absurd the princi- 
 ples deduced from them. At present we may reduce 
 all theory to two forms, however large the theme and 
 comprehensive its details. The one regards Man as 
 the Lord the other as the Slave of Nature. There is 
 something of truth in both, and we purpose to seek that 
 truth, in view of its influence upon our religious hopes 
 and fears. The theory that regards Man as Nature's 
 Lord must admit that he is created dependent, if not 
 helpless. Though Nature feed him from her bounty, 
 she rules him by her inflexible ordinances. When, 
 however, he arrives at his maturity he takes his Mother 
 under his care, while her elements become at once 
 his servants and his guides. The nature of his men- 
 tal organization and the results of scientific research 
 alike corroborate his lordship, while the most inter- 
 esting chapters of his history record his triumph and 
 subordination. Upon the proud promontory of his 
 mental and moral superiority he takes his stand, to 
 survey the earth and the heavens and to proclaim 
 himself master of the soil and the rivers, of the light- 
 ning and the winds, of the fowl and the brute, — sole 
 "monarch of all he surveys." His word of command 
 is, Advance! to the rightful conquest and supremacy 
 — for advance is the law of Humanity — and develop- 
 ment and progress go hand in hand with his authority 
 
 17 
 
( 182 ) 
 
 and dominion. His shout is heard from the steppes 
 of the Andes to the jungles of India, and from behind 
 the Laboratory and the Helm, the Loom and the Plow, 
 the mandate re-echoes — develope, subdue, direct and 
 be served. Along the smooth, macadamized and 
 iron-paved ways of his activity he marches through 
 conflict and peril to start the sleepy powers of Nature 
 from the stillness of death to service and life. Or 
 ploughing the "vasty deep" he calls from its echoing 
 caverns even Leviathan that has been tamed. 
 
 "Whate'er he sees, 
 Whate'er he feels, by agency direct 
 Or indirect, he makes to feed and nurse 
 His faculties; to fix in calmer seats 
 Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights, 
 Of Power divine, his intellectual soul." 
 
 The theory that makes Man the slave of Nature 
 reverses all this. It admits that once he was perfect, 
 in body and mind, in conscience and understanding, 
 and that then all Nature lay submissive at his feet, to be 
 named whatever he should call it, and to be used how- 
 ever he should command. But from this height he fell 
 by voluntary sin, and falling brought corruption and 
 discord, sensuality and mortality as his servile inher- 
 itance, from which there is no deliverance save by 
 bloody expiation and miraculous aid. This theory 
 appeals to the Bible, but finds no support in the dis- 
 coveries of science. The former, by the aid of dog- 
 matical and priestly authority, is made to give credit 
 to most forms of Ecclesiastical religion, but it turns 
 painfully away from the facts of scientific research, 
 and when hard pressed calls them carnal and accursed. 
 We do not believe it fully sustained by Scripture, 
 nor by the assent of critical Theologians; and we are 
 confident it is contradicted by all men know of Nature 
 
( 183 ) 
 
 and of Man. We propose to make our statements 
 good, modestl) 7 calling in question a venerated tra- 
 dition, but fearlessly stating acknowledged facts. 
 
 The theory of the fall of the Original Man appeals 
 to the beginning of Genesis and the statements of 
 Paul's Epistles. It assumes that both are divinely 
 inspired, by Avhich it means they are infallible records 
 and explanations of fact. This is a broad assumption, 
 and as much depends on it, we should do more than 
 barely accept it; we should scrutinize its evidences 
 and make its allegations convictions rather than in- 
 herited persuasions, if found to be true. We would 
 have you mark that this theory also assumes that 
 Moses is the author of Genesis and that the Book was 
 written at least three thousand years ago. We have 
 no objections to these assumptions if true, and it is of 
 little matter to us by whom the account was written, 
 if the deductions drawn from it can be sustained as 
 infallible. Hence, we shall examine it with fairness, 
 and pronounce with caution, but we must la) 7 down 
 the pen forever if not permitted to state unquestion- 
 able facts. It is a fact, then, that the Book of Genesis 
 does not claim to be the production of Moses ; and 
 there is indisputable evidence that he did not write 
 all of it, and good evidence that he wrote none of it, 
 if he wrote it all as an infallible and authoritative 
 document. We repeat, there is no authentic evidence 
 that Moses wrote this Book. The name of Moses 
 occurs not in it; and there are facts narrated by its 
 author that occurred many hundred years after the 
 times of Moses, and could not, therefore, have been 
 recorded by him. For example, we read in chapter 
 xiv, 14, that Abraham pursued his enemies "unto Dan." 
 Now the name of this place was given after the Dan- 
 
( 184) 
 
 ites, many hundred years subsequent to Moses' death. 
 Again, xxxvi, 31, "These are the kings that reigned 
 in the land of Edom before there reigned any king 
 in Israel." How Moses, who died several hundred 
 years before there arose a king in Israel, could make 
 such a record, may be left to those who love theory 
 more than fact, to account for. We are familiar with 
 the usual methods of explaining these facts so as to 
 preserve the tradition of Mosaic authorship, but we 
 are confident they would be regarded as mere shifts 
 in any other cause. The Book is anonymous; is, 
 doubtless, a worthy history of many facts ; but as it 
 lays no claim to infallible authority, its statements 
 must be subjected to the same rational tests to which 
 other documents of a similar antiquity and venera- 
 tion are constantly subjected. The Book, like many 
 others of the canon, contains some of the most sublime 
 and beautiful enunciations of Spiritual truth, such as 
 have exerted a most salutary influence upon the ele- 
 vation of our Race and prepared the way for the still 
 higher enunciations of Christ-like Spirits; but to 
 claim for it what it does not claim for itself, and to en- 
 cumber it with the errors of obsolete and absurd sys- 
 tems of more modern theology is only to disparage it 
 and divert enlightened attention from its interesting 
 pages. But a few years have passed since we were 
 engaged in a course of Lectures upon it which extend- 
 ed through the weekly ministration of two years. 
 Every chapter came under our critical and studious 
 review, and we accepted the popular theory when we 
 entered upon the course. But we state here as fact 
 that after repeated examinations of the chapters that 
 record the "fall of Man" we were so disappointed in 
 the results of our examinations in support of the pop- 
 
 J 
 
( 185 ) 
 
 ular theory — which was the theory of the audience 
 we addressed, and connected with the acceptance of 
 which our reputation and fellowship were made de- 
 pendent, as subsequent events have proved — that we 
 were never able to deliver a Lecture upon them. We 
 repeatedly applied ourself to the task, but the result 
 was ever the same — all contrary to expectation and 
 to every rational view of our temporal interests as a 
 public teacher. We were compelled to pass them by, 
 which we did, for future and since accomplished in- 
 vestigation. . In the light of that investigation we now 
 apply ourselves to the critical review of the popular 
 doctrine of the "fall of Man." 
 
 A careful reading of the first chapter of this anony- 
 mous Book will convince even the unlearned that we 
 have two accounts of the creation, that by no means 
 coincide. They do not appear to have been the work 
 of the same pen. They seem as fragments compiled. 
 According to the first, Man is the last work of crea- 
 tion, and according to the second, he is the first. The 
 first represents trees and plants as springing out of 
 the soil, and the second that they did not exist till the 
 rain fell. In the first, Man and Woman were created 
 simultaneously, and their name called Adam ; in the 
 second, Adam is formed singly, is alone, the woman 
 formed from his rib while he slept, and her name cal- 
 led Eve. These discrepancies destroy the historical 
 value of the account, and I now wonder not that 
 Christ, as a Great Reformer, is never represented 
 as alluding to it. The one ascribes creation to "God," 
 or the Elohim ; the other to the "Lord God." The 
 one represents Man, if not both Man and Woman, as cre- 
 ated in the image of God ; the other says nothing of the 
 image. But there is a stronger fact than any we have 
 
( i86 ) 
 
 yet noted, that leaves not a shadow of the popular the- 
 ory behind. Neither of these accounts countenance 
 the idea that Man was created perfect. It is sheer as- 
 sumption, however beautified by more modern poetry, 
 or made the basis of separating theological systems. It 
 is true that Man is said to have been created in the image 
 of God, but the word evidently alludes to his dominion, 
 and this appears to be the view of the writer of the 
 8th Psalm : "Thou madest him to have dominion." 
 And as the Jewish imagination often pictured the 
 Deity in human shape, there may be an allusion here 
 to corporeal image. The second narrative says noth- 
 ing of the image. It presents him as passing an un- 
 condemned life in Eden, with the privilege to eat of 
 every tree of the beautiful orchard or garden, even of 
 the immortal fruit, but on pain of death it interdicts 
 the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. He names 
 the varied animals and plants of the creation, is naked 
 and not ashamed, and appears altogether as a child- 
 man — innocent but not virtuous. The reason for the 
 prohibition is jealousy lest he come to knowledge, and 
 "be as one of us, or as gods, knowing good and evil." 
 When he eats, he is represented as having become 
 as "one of us." The sin is the result, therefore, of 
 thirsting for wisdom; the "fall" is the awakening of 
 Moral Consciousness ; the punishment is want, dis- 
 satisfaction and labor. According to the narrative 
 he does not become mortal, but is prevented from be- 
 coming immortal upon the earth. He dies because 
 he is "of the dust," and is not permitted to eat of the 
 immortal fruit. His infirmity and transitory earthly 
 career are alike revealed to him by his sin. It re- 
 vealed the burden of his bod} r and bodily wants. And 
 
( i8 7 ) 
 
 the frightful character which modern theology gives 
 to physical death is not in the narrative. 
 
 This account of the primitive Man, when unencum- 
 bered by the fearful philosophy that has been chained 
 to it, is most beautiful; and, considering its antiquity, 
 wonderful in its revealments of accurate observation. 
 We, too, find the primitive Man, that is, the savage 
 Man, naked, without labor and cultivated fields, living 
 upon the fruits of his garden — the grapes, the berries, 
 the game. He fears neither thistles nor thorns, for 
 he asks no cultivated fields. It is only after he has 
 eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that he 
 finds them an evil, sees his difficulties and dangers, 
 and the waste places become an offence to him and 
 he asks for palace, farm and city, with all their de- 
 fences and luxuries. 'T is never till then — till dis- 
 satisfied with the infantile or savage lot — that the 
 winds sigh, the waves sob and the moan of sorrowful 
 disappointment swells on the gale, in requiem and 
 monody. Then the snake drags wrathfully upon his 
 belly, and needs to be away with. Man longs for 
 joy and peace, and feels that suffering and toil are a 
 heavy curse, and needs the Christ-Spirit ,to say "by 
 suffering we are made perfect" — we are never fully 
 born till we die. We have, then, many Adams, and 
 many Edens, and many Falls — and the narrative in 
 Genesis has nothing in it that prevents this natural 
 and everywhere confirmed interpretation. 
 
 In vain we search the other Books of the Old Testa- 
 ment for the doctrine of Man's perfection and fall. It 
 is not in them. "God made Man upright" is indeed 
 stated, but it is stated of all men, and not of Adam in 
 particular. The name Adam is often used as equiv- 
 alent to Mankind, andi there is good evidence that 
 
( 188 ) 
 
 many of the Jewish prophets so understood the be- 
 ginning of Genesis — as descriptive of common and 
 constant facts. True, we read of the horrible murder 
 of Abel ; the bloody and vindictive speech of Lamech ; 
 the strange and unnatural intercourse between the 
 sons of God and the daughters of men ; and the gen- 
 eral dissoluteness of the world, ending in a terrible 
 deluge. Bvit nowhere is this corruption ascribed to 
 the effect of Adam's transgression. Nowhere is the 
 Race described as in a decline. On the contrary, Job 
 persists in asserting his integrity ; the authors of sev- 
 eral of the Psalms affirm their righteousness ; Solo- 
 mon, as already quoted, says Man was created upright ; 
 — and all this with no attempt, either, to hide his 
 sinfulness ; with most vivid descriptions of every form 
 of wrong-doing, and severest denunciations of the 
 righteous judgments of God, irrespective of any re- 
 sults from the sin of Adam. 
 
 But in the Apochryphal writings, after the Philos- 
 ophy of Two Principles, the good and the evil, ruling 
 the world, — imbibed, doubtless, during the Babylonian 
 and Persian captivity, and having its most authentic 
 origin in the Persian worship of Ormuzdand Ahriman 
 — we find allusions to this story of the Fall. "Through 
 the spite of the Devil, death has come into the world ;" 
 and "from Woman is the origin of sin," are dogmas 
 that were not imagined by men so long as they re- 
 tained any clear conceptions of one God — All-Perfect 
 and Powerful. Idolatry is ignorance, and idolatry 
 alone can bear the thought of a Devil as a hostile 
 and persecuting Power. The earlier books of the 
 Jews have neither the name nor the idea. 
 
 The popular theory, therefore, of Man's Original 
 Perfection and Fall, does not appear in the Old Tes- 
 
( 189 ) 
 
 tament, under any rational interpretation. Does it 
 appear in the New ? Christ, we repeat, never men- 
 tions Eden or Adam. He says Man was originally 
 created in pairs, "He made them male and female," 
 and thus denounces polygamy and adultery ; but he 
 gives not the slightest countenance to the assumption 
 that the first man was by nature exalted above the 
 present. He acknowledges good men, or goodness 
 in men, outside of all Jewish and Christian organiza- 
 tions or formalism. Even Paul, who most of all is 
 supposed to teach this theory, says the Heathen "do by 
 nature the things contained in the law," and are "a 
 law unto themselves" — which could not be true if 
 Man's nature is corrupt; and Peter, though it re- 
 quired a severe discipline to teach it to him, and a 
 special vision of God to confirm it, says he had been 
 taught to "call no man common or unclean." James 
 ascribes the sin of Man to his own lust, and Moral 
 Death as its invariable result. Everywhere the sub- 
 ordination of Nature to Man is recognized in the New 
 Testament, though it is ever made dependent upon 
 the supremacy of his Spiritual nature. 
 
 But we will be asked, and very pertinently, how 
 do you understand the statements of Paul : "By one 
 man's disobedience sin entered into the world, and 
 death by sin," and "as in Adam all die ?" We answer : 
 that Paul regarded Adam. as an historic character, 
 there can be no question, but that he held the theory 
 of the fall, we are reviewing, admits of equally justi- 
 fiable doubt. Paul believed in a gloomy under-world 
 of joyless existence, to which all the dead had been 
 doomed, and from which there was no deliverance 
 till Christ descended into the "lower parts of the 
 earth," and "led captivity captive." Hence, he gives 
 
( J 90 ) 
 
 an importance to the resurrection of Christ that we 
 do not find in any system of theology that seeks sup- 
 port from his writings. If he tells us that Christ 
 "died for our sins," it is that he may also tell us that 
 He "arose again for our justification." He predicates 
 a "justification of life" upon the obedience and tri- 
 umph of Christ, and that triumph secured deliver- 
 ance from the under-world. Great workman of God, 
 as he was, it was not given to him to be delivered 
 from the errors of a false philosophy of the creation, 
 which assigned to God and holy Angels an abode 
 above the stars, and to departed Spirits an abode 
 beneath the earth. In the language of his nation and 
 times, he taught great Spiritual truths that speak to 
 and have a response in the hearts of all men, but like 
 all other human teachers, however enlightened, he 
 shows his national education and culture. The dis- 
 coveries of modern astronomy have exploded the idea 
 of a local Heaven above the stars and a local Hades 
 beneath the earth, but the truth that God is the God 
 of the Gentile as well as of the Jew, and that there is 
 no power but of God, and the clear enunciation of an 
 accountable immortality for all — who shall be re- 
 warded according to the deeds done in the body, — 
 are as fresh truths to-day as they were when, in stripes 
 and prison, he uttered them — as connected with his 
 doctrine of the Christ. 
 
 But much more is assumed, even from Paul's state- 
 ments, than they will warrant. Certain it is that he 
 ascribes no mental or physical superiority or suprem- 
 acy to the primitive Adam. And yet this is the 
 corner-stone of the theory, that, as a superstructure, 
 must fall, if it cannot be sustained. He makes him, 
 also, more a contrast than a prototype of Christ. 
 
 . 
 
( I9i ) 
 
 "The first Adam was made a living soul; the last a 
 quickening Spirit. The first was of the earth, earthy ; 
 the last the Lord from Heaven." In like manner, 
 also, he contrasts the natural, mortal, corruptible body 
 with the Spiritual, immortal, incorruptible body. 
 Adam, with Paul, was made to die because he was of 
 the earth, and this accords with the account given in 
 Genesis. Paul, and the author of Genesis, say noth- 
 ing of a change in his nature ; nothing of the corrup- 
 tion of his soul; nothing of the distortion of the 
 outward universe by his transgression: and the 
 transfiguration of the outward universe he sometimes 
 anticipates, as in the eighth of Romans, is much like 
 that portrayed in the prophets, and is less a restora- 
 tion than a glorious transformation — when mountains, 
 trees and seas shall break forth into singing, and all 
 Hearts shall bloom and blossom as the ancient Eden. 
 
 Paul's view was similar to that which prevailed 
 among the Jews oj his time, though relieved by his 
 Christian hopes. To Adam and to the renowned 
 Patriarchs of ancient times, Noah, Abraham &c, thev 
 ascribed a superior wisdom. But he says nothing of 
 inward corruption and transmitted evil. On the 
 contrary he charges home ever) 7 man's sin, and says 
 death passed upon all, not because Adam, but "be- 
 cause all have sinned." Enoch and Elijah, and, per- 
 haps, some others, were all, of woman born, that 
 Jewish tradition believed exempt from death, and the 
 absurd idea of the gloom)- under-world ; and they be- 
 cause they walked with GoDand were perfect — which 
 very perfection annihilates £he idea of a transmitted 
 fallen nature, the effect of primitive sin. 
 
 In the earliest Christian writings we find hints of 
 this doctrine, but nothing that would give it rational 
 
( 192 ) 
 
 confirmation. Some of them ascribe sin to the angels, 
 some to Adam; some deduce the evils of Nature 
 from the sins of the Race : others make the story of 
 Eden an allegory — and all make Adam an immature 
 child. Irenasus and Tertullian are the first who at- 
 tribute death as a loss to Man on account of sin, and 
 infer his immortality previous to his sin ; whilst 
 Irenaeus regards even this death as a mercy, to pre- 
 vent Man from sinning everlastingly. It was not till 
 the Pelagian controversy of the fifth century, that 
 exact opinions, such as the Protestant dogmas now 
 inculcate, were made out and regarded as parts of 
 Christian faith. But it were bootless to trace this 
 dogma historically, as we find in every age opinions 
 characteristic of the degree of culture peculiar to the 
 age, and nothing that would help us to a more con- 
 sistent and satisfying view. Nowhere will we find 
 the theory so well and so strongly stated as in Milton's 
 Paradise Lost; and its poetic fictions, borrowed and 
 improved from all classic antiquity, have done more 
 to give it prevalence than all the commentaries'and 
 books of theology put together. Virgil tells us that 
 at the sin of Dido the earth trembled, the heavens 
 blazed, the nymphs howled ; and we read it as a splen- 
 did stretch of the imagination. But when Milton 
 makes all Nature give signs of woe, the Sun turn his 
 course in the heavens, winter take up his dreary reign, 
 the beasts become savage, and all the elements hostile 
 at the sin of Adam, we read it as Christian Theology ! 
 It was the theology of his day, except among a few 
 proscribed heretics, and he sung it in strains of high 
 emprise. But the poets have since discarded it, and 
 the Theologians will renounce it as the popular mind 
 advances. 
 
( 193 ) 
 
 This theory cannot stand, for it is opposed to facts 
 fatal to every prop by which its friends have sought 
 to sustain it against the rising up of the intelligence 
 of the past fifty years. What it calls corruptions, 
 disturbances and discords in the natural world, 
 were in it, and in more fearful forms, before Man 
 was in it. All Geology now attests that the pre- 
 Adamite earth was convulsed, gloomy and covered 
 with Death ! It was an area of Sulphur and Seething 
 Lakes, earthquake, flood and hurricane, forty to one 
 after Man appeared. Look back to its rocky waste ; 
 listen to the fierce tempests that then shrieked and 
 rent the air; behold the streams of fire that pour, 
 ocean-like, round the seething deep ; and mark the 
 hideous, poisonous monsters, with heads like the 
 snake, fins of the whale, breast-bone of the lizard, 
 beak of a porpoise and teeth of a crocodile ; mark 
 them as they move their hundred feet of length along, 
 on limbs large as the pillars of the temple, and tell 
 me, are they the fruit of original sin? Creatures, to 
 us the homeliest, and dreadfullest, and poisonest, lived 
 and died long, long before the scenes in Genesis 
 claim to have been enacted. And kindly Nature, or 
 Nature's God, I would rather say,- removed them all 
 and buried them away from His infantile and even 
 yet easily terrified creature, deep beneath the ever- 
 lasting mountains, to be called up now only when 
 more frightful dogmas of roaring devils and liquid 
 Hells are claimed as preparations for Man's eternal 
 abode. What, I ask, will this theory do with such 
 facts as these? What will it do with Death before 
 Man lived, with ferocious fish whose teeth were made 
 to crush and craunch the strongest animals, and huge 
 monsters that could devour an elephant at a meal? 
 
 18 
 
( 194 ) 
 
 Will they tell us that Adam's sin reached backward 
 as well as forward? Will they amuse us with the 
 idea that God, knowing that Adam would sin, made 
 these forms and powers of death in anticipation ? Or 
 that He made it a pleasure to the animals that died, 
 before the sin of Adam, to die, 
 
 " So that the pleasure was as great 
 Of being eaten as to eat?" 
 
 Ah! better, far better for religion, for morality, for 
 all manliness, to let the theory go to its wonted ob- 
 livion, and the facts stand. The whisper of Eve and 
 Adam's consent, had no such effect, and the strained 
 efforts to prove so absurd a proposition should con- 
 vince every man of its utter futility. 
 
 But it is not more contradicted by facts than it is 
 by sentiment. There is a sentiment in Nature that 
 ever and everywhere denies so crooked and distrust- 
 ful a theory. Allow me to say, though educated 
 under the influence of this theory and expected by 
 my profession to advocate it, I have never believed 
 it when alone with Nature. And now that I write, 
 upon this most lovely beach of a sparkling bay lined 
 with the green trees of God's own planting, and cov- 
 ered over by winged fowl of varied plumage and 
 habits ; as I sit upon the echoing bank and feel the 
 cool wind fanning my fevered brow and stirring 
 tumultuously the leaves upon which I scrawl — it 
 would be denying my God to believe it — He, the 
 All-good, the All-powerful, who has appointed the 
 evil and the good, the immature and the mature, and 
 each for himself, and all for ends that cannot yet 
 appear, must send me back again to superstitious 
 fear did I utter a creed so cruel, so lacking in faith in 
 the Universal Good, the Infinite I AM. Nature re- 
 
( 195 ) 
 
 bukes complaint. She refines us the more we refine 
 ourselves. She gives peace to the heart that has not 
 renounced its God and its immortal hope. It is in 
 communion with Her that I see and know that God 
 does all. I have seen it in Her waste places, among 
 Her leafless forests, along Her trackless deserts and 
 behind Her bleak hills. Everywhere is the Sancti- 
 fying spirit to the spirit awakened — and if life cannot 
 awaken, death will. Here on the tossing waters, 
 which to many are mourning and melancholy, I feel 
 more with God than I did yonder with holy books 
 before me and holy songs, and distrustful hearts 
 around — feel more that God is Love. And yet I do 
 not deny that there is much imperfection. It, too, 
 is a part, and no mean part either, of divine benefi- 
 cence. The veriest imperfections of Nature are 
 fraught with Hope, and that I can see it, proves my 
 divine nature more than all else; for the horse I ride 
 sees it not, and the spouting porpoise that now moves 
 rapidly with the waves while I write, heeds it not. 
 All evil is full of hope. We are brutal if we see it not. 
 I must utter the truth, and can forbear no longer. 
 Pain, disease, decay, shame, disappointment, I know 
 have hope in each, to be found nowhere else ; and these 
 give me hope in Death. Did I believe that it con- 
 ducted to a gloomy under-world, I, too, with Paul, 
 would expect a Deliverer who would carry that world 
 captive. But I see it as a law of God, and like all 
 His laws, beneficent. Never was it ordained as a pun- 
 ishment of sin, but as a relief for suffering and devel- 
 oping humanity. It enlarges the boundaries of our 
 homes; translates our affections from bricks, and 
 streets, and hard-tilled fields, and brutal persecutions, 
 to where the beatific vision beams on the darkened 
 
( 196) 
 
 clouds of human transformations ; and to the Soul 
 purified by suffering reveals a perfect faith and an 
 undisturbed peace, in whose rounds of severe and 
 painful trial, the great and the good, the living and 
 the dead walk, and the cadence of their heavenly 
 voices mingle with our earthly converse, and lift the 
 hope to the rank above rank in the ascending orders 
 of creation ; and in ways innumerable fulfill the de- 
 signs of a Providence whose light shall irradiate all 
 things, and shining through the darkness of error and 
 perverted good, will reveal the glories of an Eternal 
 Ascension. 
 
Sermons. 
 
 [The preceding part of my work would be incom- 
 plete without giving specimens of the pulpit oratory 
 of the Rev. J. B. Ferguson. The Sermons follow- 
 ing are selected, because, in the first place, they 
 are a key to unlock the grander truths which are 
 to be found in the "Communications" through Mr. 
 Champion. These Sermons have also a permanent 
 value because of the broad and generous views an- 
 nounced ; and because a few still living, among others 
 the writer, shared with him the opinions and truths 
 therein expressed. 
 
 In reading Mr. Ferguson's "Introduction," the 
 "Communications" and the Sermons herewith pre- 
 sented, the reader will observe a unity of purpose 
 sustained throughout. One Spiritual Thought runs 
 through all : the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood 
 of Man and the Indwelling Spirit of all Love and 
 Truth as the outworking life of God — bringing, by 
 obedience to his Higher Nature, Immortality to Man. 
 
 It was stated at the time that the reason for the 
 preservation of this unity of Thought was to avoid, 
 in the initial work, all speculation about God, and 
 
( 198 ) 
 
 "philosophizing upon Man, his acts and incentives 
 to action ;" that the Past had exhausted the discussion 
 without arriving at any satisfactory results; that 
 until Man could attain the measure of his being in 
 God, under the Illumination of His Spirit, it would 
 be futile to attempt to give instruction on the deeper 
 themes of human Destiny and the Divine Life ; that 
 what he needed most to know was the realization of a 
 True Life, not trammelled by the dogmas of Human 
 Creeds. If true to his Higher Nature, and left in that 
 Freedom which was his God-given inheritance, Man 
 would be taught by the Infallible Monitor dwelling 
 in all, his Duty and Destiny. 
 
 Whilst, in a sense, there is nothing new in this 
 fundamental thought, it is the first time in Human 
 History that a World-Religion was ever formulated 
 that left each free to unfold its Life in Unity. All 
 Religions are parts of One Religion ; all philosophies 
 of One Philosophy ; and all evolutions of Life is the 
 Diversity of One Life — seeking Manifestation and 
 Perfection. Until God realizes His own Thought, 
 in Nature, in Man, and in God-Man, "no tenets nor 
 forms can express" the Infinitude of Divinity. Until 
 all Shadow shall reflect the Divine Substance in Ideal 
 Reality and Beauty, God is not God in the Heart and 
 Mind of the — All. This consummation is the Des- 
 tiny of the Universe of Being.] 
 
 « 
 
( 199 ) 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Spirit of All Wisdom ! inspire and direct us in 
 the selection, examination and application of a sub- 
 ject for the opportunities and privileges of this day. 
 Give us freedom and concentration of mind, in the 
 happy exercise of which to both speak and hear. 
 And may our present interview result in that good 
 which the state of our minds, condition and prospects 
 demand, so that we may more heartily glorify Thee 
 in our bodies, by making them more worthy temples 
 of Thy Spirit, and thus have sanctified to us all our 
 meditations, instructions and discipline, in view of 
 the holiest privileges both of the life that now is and 
 of that yet to be disclosed. Amen ! 
 
 WHAT is Immortality? With respect to 
 God, it is life without beginning or end. 
 With respect to Man, it is life without 
 end. Inspired minds have given expression to the 
 idea of our definition, thus: first of God: "Who only 
 hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man 
 can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen or can 
 see ;" and secondly, of Man : "For we are His offspring, 
 for in Him we live, move and have our being." 
 
 The clear recognition of this idea depends upon 
 our interior consciousness, while its expression will 
 ever take the coloring of our culture, condition and 
 educational peculiarities. All sane minds, of all na- 
 tions, recognize an instinctive life, that, in desire at 
 least, looks beyond the apparent dissolution of death, 
 while in proportion as any mind becomes true to that 
 desire and the countless visible and invisible minis- 
 trations it finds in that faithfulness, it arises to the 
 knowledge, privileges and power of life in God. 
 
( 200 ) 
 
 Life in connection with external objects, commencing 
 with the first observation of infancy, and extending 
 to the most comprehensive horizon of hoary experi- 
 ence, is, of course, more readily recognized ; but in 
 no one of its stages is it perfectly satisfactory. The 
 eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hear- 
 ing; nor can any one, or all combined, of the senses, 
 bring to Man the fullness of his hope ; while, ever, 
 beneath every result of external observation, there 
 arises a reflective life that looks beyond for a wider 
 and more exalted horizon. We, by this experience, 
 come to know ourselves as reflecting as well as per- 
 ceptive beings. By the one capacity we observe 
 much ; by the other, we learn more. We perceive 
 that we are in a world of material relations, connected 
 to parents and children, brothers, sisters and friends, 
 who in common with us are subject to a law of change 
 and the deep experiences of separation and disap- 
 pointment it involves. We reflect, and are led, in our 
 reflective thought, beyond the parent for our origin, 
 and beyond the change, however appalling, for our 
 companionship, apparently dissolved. And by the 
 aid of these reflections, gathered and brought down 
 to us in the forms of our civil and religious culture, 
 we name the power recognized before us and before 
 the parent who preceded us, GOD, and in this thought, 
 realized in any degree of distinctness, we begin to 
 know that we live in Him more than in any external 
 relationships. This thought deepened, finds a Law 
 of Life Immortal, in which kindred ties are seen to 
 be linked in indissoluble bonds, of which our natural 
 affections and friendships were the foreshadowing 
 intimations. Under the exercise of these reflections 
 it will be found that hope is a native Impress upon 
 
( 201 ) 
 
 our being, and that it ever soars beyond external 
 achievements. It reveals the highest and dearest 
 ends of that being, and after their happiest consum- 
 mation, still leads on and ever on. True,, it reflects 
 the passing objects of earthly care and pleasure, and 
 often holds back its flight to weep over the sad re- 
 flections through which it held its way ; and it ma)^ 
 be it will stop there till its tears, as a flood, shall 
 sweep away the really flimsy, but apparently insuper- 
 able barriers of avarice and hypocrisy that stay its 
 flight; but again, in higher ends and better interests, 
 it holds its way, forgetting or despising the idolatry 
 of the past. What we desire to express is, that the 
 reflective capacity in Man, which finds a God in the 
 past, finds an immortality in the future, and its evi- 
 dences increase with the depths and heights towards 
 which its free exercise ever leadeth. Its first mani- 
 festation will be a very immature portraiture of im- 
 mortality, but when, in its maturings, it has passed 
 through the storms and sunshine of a varied fortune, 
 it lifts its head above the blasts around and finds its 
 visions expanded to take in the eternal evidences of 
 Life Immortal, with its indissoluble ties of kindred 
 in God as well as Man. 
 
 We insist upon it, therefore, that self-communion 
 alone can bring the unshaken evidences of our im- 
 mortality. In our fleshly vision we have a dim ob- 
 servation of good, while in our self-communion we 
 counteract the influences that would secure our 
 servility to the passing scenes, and rise above base 
 idolatry to the cherished hope we have in God. We 
 have life in two worlds, the outer and the inner. The 
 one we realize by perceptions, but even these, when 
 followed in their essential meaning, lead to the 
 
( 202 ) 
 
 other. That other we realize as we retire within it, 
 and in this retirement of the mind we find the purified 
 affection and interest of every kindred one who has 
 thrown off the outer. 
 
 In it we hear "the voice of the Lord God," as did 
 the fabled Adam, in the cool of the day ; we have the 
 consciousness of acceptance, as had the grateful Abel ; 
 we find the skill of art, as has many a Tubal Cain ; 
 and the spirit of prophecy, as did Noah and his 
 spiritual successors. Angels converse with, deliver 
 and console us as they did Abraham ; we wander 
 with Isaac in the cool retreats of evening meditation ; 
 wrestle with Jacob, and behold his angelic ladder 
 leading up to the very gateway of heaven, and feel 
 the foreshadowings of the fortunes of our kindred, 
 as the spirit, disciplined by the sad vicissitudes of 
 adverse life, brings the sobered reflections of age, as 
 they visited his dying couch. Upon many a staff, 
 worn and trembling, we lean and look, till, with Moses, 
 we behold the unconsumed bush whose livid glare 
 is lost only in the pillowy cloud of hope that leads 
 before and defends behind. The gathered hosts of 
 human brethren make many mountains of flashing 
 rage, from whence comes forth the law of God, bro- 
 ken, ever broken upon the flinty stone, but renewed 
 in the softened heart of Humanity. We wander o'er 
 desert paths beside fierce enemies, and find our sup- 
 port and comfort in angel's food. We hear "the still 
 small voice" that comforted the prophet, and which 
 the roar of the avalanche and the shaking of the 
 earthquake cannot hush; and strains of heavenly 
 music break upon the enraptured ear in psalms as 
 holy and more loving than David sung. From dusty 
 ways of tumultuous strife and labor, we, too, ascend 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 the mount of God and hear of death's deliverances, 
 that make a Calvary glorious and a Jesus king ; while 
 the gloom of Phillipian prisons and the loneliness of 
 our Patmos is driven away by the praises of our God 
 and the visions of immortality that no external im- 
 agery can depict. In a word, we find our eternity, 
 which is life, and life in God, born of heaven, and 
 wafted over the sable mantle of "Death's dark valley." 
 We learn that we live in God, and the living evidence 
 administers to every thought, affection and hope. 
 
 If we live in God, and God is immortal, our life is 
 immortality — an immortality no change of outward 
 relations can ever destroy. To bind the soul by a 
 chain of despotism in religious faith, or bury it in the 
 sepulchre of materialistic doubt, alike prevents the 
 entrance of the light of immortality. The one makes 
 a prison and the other a grave for our higher nature, 
 and it is difficult to decide which is the most hopeless 
 state of Man : sectarianism or Pyrrhonism. Freedom 
 alone reveals the life of Man in God. 
 
 It is the freedom of my thought that has opened 
 the vision that knows that nothing is lost. I know 
 myself to be indestructible, and the knowledge is 
 open to any who have freedom enough to be true to 
 their own souls and the law of the better life within. 
 It is the highest attainment, as it is the holiest assur- 
 ance of our nature. If there is an eternal individ- 
 ualization of God, and Man is His image, Man is 
 individualized, and, therefore, immortal. In the 
 moment of death, made awful by officious ignorance 
 and tyrannical custom, if this solemn assurance be 
 given — no matter by whom, for God speaketh in all 
 — that nothing is lost; that no particle of matter, 
 much less of mind, can be destroyed ; that the assur- 
 
( 204 ) 
 
 ance that WE are, can no more perish than God can 
 perish ; that the facts of the soul can no more be an- 
 nihilated than the Heavens can be annihilated by a 
 thought ; and that as long- as we exist, the might of 
 our love will find its own objects and privileges — we 
 are comforted. If immortality and eternity exist in 
 God, and WE exist in Him, our love will find, ever 
 find its immortality and eternity. Let, then, the sor- 
 rowful billows roll over me, and my soul sink into 
 the depths of grief, I fall upon the bosom of Eternal 
 Sympathy, and while my heart heaves in voiceless 
 emotion within, I say, Father, I love Thee and trust 
 Thee for the treasures of my love and hope ! 
 
 But yesterday I was reclining beneath the cool 
 shade of a tree of Nature's own planting, upon one of 
 the tallest promontories of this fair and smiling land. 
 Above me the Heaven was filled with the light of 
 God's day luminary, and all the air was balmy life 
 and cloudless glory. Beneath the huge cliff upon 
 which I rested in meditative observation, the serpen- 
 tine Cumberland was gently flowing between the 
 green lining of bending boughs and rocky defiles, 
 flowing, ever flowing on, on to the deep, distant sea, 
 that absorbs all, and yet destroys or annihilates not 
 one pure drop of its ceaseless fountain. Behind and 
 around me were the fertile fields of industrious hus- 
 bandry, now extending the regular lines of thick- 
 bladed corn, while the golden harvest waved upon 
 their border, or here and there fell into the arms of 
 the toil-worn but happy reaper. The hot, dusty city 
 to my left, with its roofs shining in the mock fire of 
 the sunlight, was still, as if the mandate of Heaven's 
 summer had said to its tumult, Peace ! Many a rude 
 cottage stood in the open common or field ; many a 
 
 M 
 
( 205 ) 
 
 bright one in the clustering shade, far as the eye could 
 see. A lordly palace, here and there, amid cultivated 
 and flowery gardens, loomed above the green and 
 yellow fields, beside the well-paved walks, where 
 giddy frivolity and stupid dissipation too often reel 
 from the revel of the city, or the nightly glare of 
 their own proud halls. In my first view the hut and 
 palace were isolated, where envy looked up, and 
 contempt down, upon the same daily scenes. The 
 field and the street were separated, where the thin- 
 visaged accountant and hard-featured toilsman knew 
 not each other save as interest or passion commanded 
 their attention. And even the lonely cottage, almost 
 hid in the green trees, appeared before me as the 
 theatre where lovely woman was sometimes en- 
 raged ; where children ruffled the peace of home, and 
 stern mandates from unthinking fathers, fell like lead 
 upon tender emotions, just budding into hope and 
 joy. Beneath the surface of this bright scene that 
 was sending its thousand inspirations into my soul, I 
 knew, for I had felt and seen, there was much of un- 
 told grief, and sad, wasting disappointment. And I 
 said within me, is this all? Is this life of struggle, 
 of defeat, of overburdening evil, of severing friend- 
 ships and martyr-like patience — all? If so, the bright 
 Heaven is a mockery ; the flowing stream, a tantali- 
 zation ; the spreading plenty and beauty, the baits of 
 a Demon, to poison in despair. Anew, and with 
 immortal power, gathered in the rebound of my na- 
 ture, I felt it was but the beginning of Man's heritage, 
 and the ascension of all things around me proclaimed 
 and anticipated my own ascension, now not far off. 
 The tiny plant is ascending to the tree ; the splashing 
 wave sends upward its purest exhalations, thrown 
 
 19 
 
( 206 ) 
 
 off by its conflict with rude rock and filthy de- 
 positings ; even the dank savannah is purifying itself 
 by the streams flowing in and out, — while nothing is 
 lost! And am I less than nothing? O, Heavenly 
 Spirit, never, never let the dark mantle of such a 
 thought spread its sad pall over the ascension of my 
 soul, as now again it feels as then it felt, Godlike, and 
 looked Godward. 
 
 It were unworthy to lie down and fondle beneath 
 the clusterings of that vine of mortal windings, that 
 makes drunken and dumb the spirit born to life and 
 life's great end — immortal happiness ! I feel and know 
 that there is no system of religious policy that guards 
 and guarantees it as it should. But I equally know 
 and feel that there are divine illuminings which, when 
 once enjoyed, instill within the heart of all, the cons- 
 ciousness of Being, Eternal. Unchain thy thought, 
 and the claims of thy humanity and the inspirations 
 of thy divinity will open a vision above every conflict 
 of immature conditions, when in bright or desolate 
 fields of Nature's planting or Man's perversions. 
 Drop the sense of power usurped over the less fortun- 
 ate of a common brotherhood, and thou wilt cease to 
 criminate thy God, or ally thy soul with a malignity 
 that would burn His Heavens to obscure the hope that 
 struggles in the heart of the lowdiest. Make thy soul 
 an honored guest within thee, and its temple will open 
 its hypethral domes to immeasured depths in Life 
 Immortal ; while symphonious sounds from lips whose 
 external covering moulds, there, beneath that bend- 
 ing tree, will sing thy franchise, bequeathed by God 
 to blend thy soul in the interests of relationships 
 eternal. No longer, cynic-like, sit down on what the 
 policy that desolates the world under the guise of 
 
 ^_^_ 
 
( 207 ) 
 
 Religion, calls sacred love, to profit by the misfortunes 
 of thy kind ; and the barriers that have detained thy 
 hopes and held at bay thy progressive instincts, will 
 fall in their isolation and be carried as the drift floats, 
 to disturb the flow of thy spirit no longer. The 
 clouds that dim the luminary of thought arise from 
 selfish scheming, while the winds of a free humanity 
 driveth them as the contrasts of a brighter sky. No 
 longer fawn beneath thy misconceived prejudices; 
 no longer lead or follow in assaults that desolate 
 some human heart. No longer succumb to the policy 
 that dwarfs the native impulses of thy soul. No 
 longer suffer thy judgment to be incased as adamant 
 by the barriers that false conceptions of God have 
 created. No longer bow to the machinations of the 
 designing — and, then, amid every recognition of thy 
 mundane relations, will be seen the supermundane 
 evidence that prepares Man to appreciate and behold 
 the genial influences of the Heavenly Spheres. 
 
 There is an epoch in every life, aye, many of them, 
 in which thoughts immortal, traced by the divine in- 
 fluence, from our birth to our change called death, 
 that link the kindred ties of fond associations, that 
 rise above the funeral pile, to make of brotherly and 
 sisterly affection, fatherly and motherly care, a gal- 
 axy of stars whose undimned light, though broken 
 by the rude storms of earth, ascend to Heaven to be 
 shrined in God; for allare His "offspring," and "in 
 Him we live, move, and have our being." 
 
 But my skeptical friend will tell me he cannot see 
 his life in God, nor the ties that bind him to it in the 
 transformed being of kindred departed. True, but 
 is sight the measure of human knowledge? The eye 
 conceals more than it can possibly reveal. A won- 
 
( 208 ) 
 
 derful organism it is, truly, but its horizon is limited 
 to external manifestations, and it cannot see its own 
 life. The medicinal spring that bursts from yon bank 
 of the absorbing river, my chemical friend tells me, 
 holds a solution of enduring iron, and I see it makes 
 its deposit on the pebbly bed over which it murmurs 
 its ceaseless song. Shall I deny the iron in the glass 
 he forces to my lips, because I cannot see it? And 
 can that pebbly fountain conceal what my eye can- 
 not see, and I, presumptuously deny the soul that 
 hides itself in the perennial stream of God-life that 
 floweth, ever floweth through the forms it maketh, 
 it transformeth and rendereth beautiful even in its de- 
 cay ? A little nitric acid will dissolve the shining silver, 
 with which men pass into a temporary significance 
 among their fellows, so that I see it no more. Can 
 I deny the silver because the solution hides it from 
 my eye? Is it not there as much as when it bore the 
 stamp of the mint and the superscription of conven- 
 tional authority ? And shall I deny that shining coin 
 of the soul, because death transforms it from my lim- 
 ited sight and touch ? Is it not here, there, every- 
 where, in the degree of its ascension ? Death hides 
 from the eye, but not from the mind, and in a higher 
 sense, every opened mind sees or realizes the presence, 
 purified affection, or refined thought of those who 
 have taken on the enduring and, therefore, invisible 
 garment of God. 
 
 Again. The most powerful and the only ubiqui- 
 tous elements of Nature are invisible. The circum- 
 ambient atmosphere, the engirdling electricity, the 
 world-upholding aura, through whose plastic and 
 yet sustaining ocean the planets move in their mystic 
 courses — what eye has seen them ? What lens reflects 
 
( 209 ) 
 
 them ? The vivid lightning becomes vivid and leaves 
 the track of flame along the resistant air, and of its 
 tremendous power, in the fallen pile and the scattered 
 limbs of the giant oak ; but the subtle element, who 
 has seen? So, Spirits, in the form and out of it, are 
 seen in their manifestations, but the Spirit, itself, no 
 eye hath seen or can see. To the ascension of this 
 thought, so feebly expressed, every mind is holding 
 on its upward way ; now in hopeful desire, and then 
 in the anguish of disappointment, but ever upward 
 above the external world of conflict, till the great 
 transformation makes its body and its soul alike in- 
 visible to the outward sense ; mother earth having 
 claimed the former, our Father, God — God, the Spirit 
 in all, through all and above all — claims the soul, in- 
 dividualized from all others, and yet united in that 
 oneness that soars above time and sense, to make them 
 subservient to Eternity and Spirit. 
 
 O, great and glorious word : Immortality ! — Eter- 
 nity — Life — Love — Wisdom — God ! As the thought 
 of it pours its sweet influences over my soul, I almost 
 hear its strains of holy melody, floating o'er and 
 mingling in the great sea of strife beneath, to win and 
 carry upward the least sigh for the good, the lovely, 
 the enduring, unuttered, it may be, from the closed 
 lips of writhen grief, drowned, perchance, in the hoarse 
 and malignant notes of religious strife, and hushed in 
 the tumult of business and revelry, but still, there and 
 everywhere, wherever a human soul lies encased or 
 rises in its measured freedom ; and there its calm, its 
 grand, its eternal anthem shall be heard, exposing 
 and correcting the wrong it has suffered, and making 
 it the mount of its own progress upward, ever upward 
 in Eternal Ascension. O, Immortality! when the 
 
( 2IO ) 
 
 pale stars of serene and all-embracing Heaven are 
 hiding their soft beams in the clouds of years and 
 sorrows that gather o'er our earth ; when the dull 
 years are circling the child of my love and compan- 
 ions of my heart ; when the loved and the hidden 
 come to my memory as I sit beside the little mounds 
 holding the dew-drop of silent night, that prevents 
 an intruder upon my meditations ; when the sunny 
 hours pass wearily, and toil no longer beguiles ; when 
 my sleep comes not and my dreams wander back to 
 the ways of my childhood ; when the narrow vision 
 of my eye shall have answered its temporary end, 
 then, O, then, come with the whisper of angel voices, 
 and to the eye of my spirit bring the day-star of thine 
 own hope, whose never-dying light, upon the night 
 of my departure, shall break in beams of life, joy and 
 glory to all ! 
 
 "To join the innumerable multitudes 
 Who have gone before me. Ah ! the bound is narrow, 
 And still, how dark beyond ; and yet, how light ! 
 The good man springs from earth on wings of love, 
 To love in heaven ! to roam among the stars, 
 To bask in fields Elysian, 'mid perfumes, 
 And flowers, and amber lakes, and golden skies, 
 And thought, and light, and harmony forever. 
 O, God Immortal ! I have fullest hope 
 Through Thee. O, fold me to Thy loving arms 
 And take me home ! " 
 
 And, at best, it is a deception arising from our selfish 
 indifferentism, that mistakes these rocks as solid, and 
 our life as transient. The solid earth is the phantom, 
 and we alone are immortal among its successive 
 apparitions of perishable things. Though it seems 
 enduring as adamant, it is washing and dissolving 
 away, and our individual being, of all things seeming 
 the most precarious, is alone incapable of decay. 
 Gigantic institutions, boastful traditions, pompous 
 
 i^_ 
 
( 211 ) 
 
 wealth and hard-fastened servility, exist by a tenure 
 more uncertain than a sickly infant's life, for they 
 make a sweeping tide, upon which this poor, frail 
 ship of human being alone can ride the storm. The 
 seas of time shall sink and flow away ; . the mighty 
 fleet of human achievements will be carried into the 
 impenetrable night, while, suspended, as it were, in 
 the mid-heaven of divine protection, we shall yet 
 disregard our perils, forget our toils, transcend our 
 anxieties, reposing without carefulness, in sublime 
 peace, in the life of God, while the fashion of the 
 world passeth away. 
 
 It is short-sighted, and not far-seeing, to look upon 
 the external as permanent. Life is the permanent 
 reality, while its scenery, in physical observation, is 
 ever changing. A dull and heavy soul may fancy its 
 wealth, its rank, its name, its government, real and 
 eternal. It may sanction its stupidity by the forms 
 and foibles of a religious boast, and thus hide the 
 light of an all-pervading, but, to it, unconscious faith. 
 It may even argue and expound, but unless it rise to 
 the consciousness of the infinite scale of human life, 
 it will not advance beyond the mere spelling-lesson 
 of its tuition, and its religion will be as confused as it 
 is noisy, until very weariness will cause it to fall asleep 
 over its hornbooks and the fatigues of its jargon, alike 
 deaf to the lessons of divine wisdom and the reality 
 of that angelic hymn that swells upon the breath of 
 our morning-land to keep the spirit open to the skies. 
 Poor spellings of the merest alphabet of eternal wis- 
 dom are the dying forms of religion around me, and 
 the spellers are unwilling pupils who feel not their 
 life in God, and deny its outpourings in those whose 
 souls have found a holier dimension in the divine — 
 
( 212 ) 
 
 and the divine, in all things. O, Spirit of Love ! help 
 us to feel, daily, that we are not our own, nor the 
 world's, nor the priest's, nor the ordinance's, but the 
 everlasting Father's, and shall survive the little spaces 
 of that limited perspective that too often chains our 
 desires to find, experimentally find, that the things 
 seen are temporal ; the unseen, Eternal ! 
 
GOD WILL TEACH HIS CREATURES. 
 
 Father Eternal: How inspiring and elevating 
 to our souls, to know that we live in Thee, by the 
 spirit Thou hast given us ! We live in the external 
 world, and while our eyes are fastened upon it, 
 we feel our feebleness and mortality. Life is change, 
 and our changes oppress and weary us almost to 
 fainting. We see the blindness of ignorance ; the 
 waywardness of temptation; the desolations of 
 vice and crime ; the distrust of selfishness ; the pain 
 of disease, and the darkness of death ! But when we 
 realize that we live also in God, the life, support and 
 perfection of all things, the dark clouds of our ignor- 
 ance are illuminated or cleared away by Thy outshin- 
 ing wisdom ; the scenes of our temptations become 
 the theatre of our deliverances; Thy love, kindling 
 noble hearts, moveth amid the want and ruin of 
 earth's passions, and leadeth to beauteous and holy 
 transformations, as the green grass groweth over the 
 dank and crimsoned soil, and the fragrance of roses 
 penetrates and removes the stench of foul corruption ; 
 and doubt gives place to trust, disease of body, to 
 health and vigor of spirit, while the sunlight of im- 
 mortality falls, as with voices of angels, upon the 
 dark gateway of dissolution, to reveal the links that 
 bind in indissoluble union Thy earthly and heavenly 
 kindred. Evermore, O, Father! teach us and give 
 us this faith, and in its life of love we will trust and 
 adore Thee forever? Amen. 
 
( 2I 4 ) 
 " They shall all be taught of God."— John, vi : 45. 
 
 THE failure to see God as the Teacher of His 
 children, is a failure to distinguish between 
 agencies and an agent, and between agencies 
 and the end had in view in their employment. Because 
 we receive guidance and warning by the wisdom and 
 folly of our parents, by the success and failure of men, 
 in the past and present aspects of human endeavor, 
 by the rise and fall of families and nations, and by 
 all the diversified experience that comes under our 
 observation, in our narrow vision, we too often look 
 to the parents, to success, to failure and personal 
 experience, and expend upon these our praise or 
 blame. We seldom look within and beyond, to the 
 spirit that enfolds itself in and ascends above all 
 things. We rarely think that God filleth immensity, 
 and is, therefore, in all. Now, it is the opening 
 and enlargement of this capacity of the spirit, that 
 makes the truly wise and purely religious mind, and 
 it is only in its full exercise that we behold the Father 
 who worketh all, and in all, and come to know that 
 all are His offspring, permitted to reflect the beauty 
 and peace of His government, in the exact propor- 
 tion of their faithfulness to themselves, their brother 
 associates and their God. While by this unfolding 
 of the kindred nature of our Father within us, we are 
 made to see ignorance as a call for knowledge ; vice, 
 as a demand for virtue ; crime, as an invitation to 
 discipline and reformation ; and failure on earth, as 
 a proof of effort needed to be renewed in heaven. 
 
 We must learn to look at the universe as one uni- 
 verse with many parts, all infinitely related to each 
 
( 2I 5 ) 
 
 other and to the whole. Thus, we will see men as 
 One Brotherhood in many families, and God as One 
 God in innumerable manifestations. 
 
 But does my reader tell me he cannot take so 
 hopeful and harmonious a view of Man and God? 
 Be it so. He has but to ask himself if his narrower 
 view is helpful to himself and worthy of his experi- 
 ence and hope. I do not deny that there are advan- 
 tages to every view of Man and God possible to the 
 human mind. But it is not for me to relate and 
 classify those of the most narrow. These are already 
 heralded in the strifes of Christendom and the con- 
 flicts of the world. They are seen in the boasted 
 results of missionary operations among the heathen, 
 and the bigotry and persecutions of the doctrinal 
 feuds of every hamlet and almost every family of our 
 country. Let others expose or boast of their tri- 
 umphs, we cannot, while speaking for the help of 
 each who reads, refrain from offering hope to all. 
 We would ask the inquirer, most seriously, is that the 
 God of the universe whom we exclude from any 
 person, however hopeless that person may be to an 
 earthly accepted vision ? 
 
 Is that the creature of God, whom we call not our 
 brother? Is that the eternal home of Spiritual affec- 
 tion, whether we call it earth or heaven, church or 
 kingdom, whose deserted sons and helpless daughters 
 wander in eternal orphanage ? And shall we bring 
 God down to our narrow image of His Wisdom and 
 Love, or seek to elevate our souls toward the un- 
 bounded infinitude of His government? 
 
 Narrow views of His workings all have, but our 
 narrowness makes not the confines of the Unconfin- 
 able, and our souls bear testimony, whenever the 
 
(216) 
 
 noise of our strife is hushed within — as in the voiceless 
 hour of pure devotion ; the tongueless moments of 
 unselfish love ; the silent watches of sleepless thought 
 by the side of the dying and over the mouldering 
 embers of the dead — that God is good to all, and 
 Eternity cannot be judged by time? If, therefore, 
 in any case, your views are not hopeful, know that 
 they call for hope and, mayhap, for a discipline that 
 will crush or drive away the barriers that hold back 
 the free exercise of your hope ; a child, a farm, an 
 enterprise, a national prejudice or trivial frivolity, 
 or personal wrong, suffered or committed and not 
 renounced ; and these will be swept, sooner or later, 
 and perchance by the very agencies that now look to 
 you more as the instrumentalities of devils than of 
 God. If your love of God is still fearful, your fears 
 call for more love, and it is a grateful thought to 
 those who love you sincerely on earth and above it, 
 that they will increase their call if you rise not above 
 them, till by their own weight they fall in such con- 
 fusion that your soul shall wonder why it ever found a 
 habitation in their environs. 
 
 A faith in God is a faith without doubt, or which 
 doubts serve to brighten. A love of God is a love 
 without hate, or which hate only serves to quicken 
 and widen. A hope in God is a hope without fear, 
 or which fear only serves to expand and crown. Of 
 course we allude to doubt, hate and fear as once felt 
 in ourselves or seen in others. 
 
 The law of mind is Ascension; Ascension can- 
 not be eternal unless it be toward the Infinite ; the 
 Infinite is not infinite unless it embraces all ; and what 
 is this but the Perfect ? And what mean we by the 
 Perfect, if we do not mean God ? If, therefore, we con- 
 
( 217 ) 
 
 ceive of a wisdom higher than the ignorance we now 
 foolishly boast, that wisdom cannot be judged by our 
 ignorance. If we conceive of a love more perfect 
 than our fondest affections, surely our affections can- 
 not be the standard of that love. In this conception, 
 therefore, you have the witness of God within you 
 to attributes of power, wisdom and love, above you 
 as the Heavens are above the earth — and to judge of 
 God or Man without this, the noblest power of your 
 nature, is to make }"Ourself wiser and better than 
 God. O, that Man, in his vain conceit, were not 
 wiser than his Maker ! Then would he feel and know 
 that the truth of God, like the light of heaven, is not 
 corruptible, nor confined by the dark shadows that 
 earthly forms or objects may cast. 
 
 How humiliating to our presumptuousness is the 
 lesson that strikes us here! We make, in a great 
 measure, the God we worship, the Eternity we enjoy 
 or fear, in the fulness of the end we cherish as men. 
 How many expect, and rightfully, that a Good Man 
 should be better than their God ! Their ideal good 
 man should not, could not injure his enemy, hate his 
 fallen child, nor trample upon the rights and hope 
 of his bitterest foe. While his God is worshipped 
 (shall I abuse the word? — it would be more truthful 
 to say blasphemed) by ascribing to Him anger, hatred, 
 wrath and unending bitterness to the most unfortun- 
 ate and most impotent of His own offspring. Surely 
 the darkness of such views must reveal their falsity, 
 and the imperfection of human language, whether 
 found in laws considered sacred or otherwise, cannot 
 much longer be regarded as absolute truth or infalli- 
 ble descriptions of the Indescribable! 
 
 20 
 
( 218 ) 
 
 By this simple and unanswerable method we learn 
 the advantages of external or human teaching in con- 
 trast with the internal or divine. The former is a 
 help to the latter, but can never be its standard. 
 Where it serves to open, unfold and deepen the power 
 of our own souls, it is a blessing not easily over-esti- 
 mated. Where it deadens, smothers and crushes the 
 God or life within, it is a curse unspeakable. Whether 
 it be government, creed, church, society, book, peri- 
 odical, sermon, farm, merchandise or what not, this 
 remark is applicable, and when the soul is surrendered 
 to either, Man gives his all for a worthless exchange. 
 Whereas, when these and all things are accepted as 
 the instrumentalities of a Divine Teaching, provided 
 in all, and found in the free power of our Souls, when 
 true to themselves, they become the ministers of 
 heaven, and stepping-stones in the ascending temple 
 of Eternal Life. Man was not made for bibles or 
 creeds ; but bibles and all things were made for Man. 
 Without him they would not be, so far, at least, as he 
 is concerned ; with him, in the full exercise of his 
 powers as a man, they work as the great machinery 
 of his beauty and strength. They exist for human 
 welfare; are designed to promote human happiness, 
 and whenever used for any other purpose they are 
 an insult and a shroud to the Divinity enshrined by 
 God within us all. A tree ma)^ teach a divine lesson 
 but a tree is not a man, and he is debased who wor- 
 ships it. A book may teach, but a book is neither Man 
 nor God, and he is a servile idolator who bows down 
 before it. But tree and book may inspire the life within, 
 and music in the limbs of the one and the psalm in 
 the voices of the other, may find responsive melody 
 in our Souls to Him who made and dwells in each. 
 
( 219 ) 
 
 And this melody is one of love and hope, and thus 
 shows itself to be of God, who being Love, can inspire 
 naught but that which is kindred with Himself. God 
 alone is infallible, but books may help to accuracy. 
 
 Such a view alone can inspire a lofty conception of 
 Man's Nature, and lead to that high moral sentiment 
 that will seek his highest good. It will penetrate 
 the various discrepancies of opinion and action with 
 a genial warmth that will yet bring out the pure and 
 helpful in all forms of religion and government. Then 
 the assumption of power, as by a divine legacy, over 
 the human conscience, will be branded as a usurpation 
 no longer to be borne. Time will allow the midnight 
 darkness of past superstition to cover the hideous 
 forms of its gods and men, its saints and sufferers, to 
 be brought to light no more. It will open a brighter 
 vision than the glare of ghastly demons, which 
 has almost rendered sightless the eye of mortals, 
 dimned by fleshly ambition — for it will reveal the 
 agencies of Universal Good. It will call into active 
 speech the Instinctive Divinity all feel, and the world 
 will see that Love alone can develope Love. And 
 the genial waters of life and liberty, flowing from the 
 fountain of God, will be quaffed by every thirsty soul, 
 to bring forth blossoms that will ripen into fruits of 
 deed and duty that shall bring back the long wander- 
 ing and sorrowing sons of a Common Father, to that 
 Record of Himself, written in the Heart, imprinted by 
 an angel-host, and which, o'er its wrecked hopes and 
 anticipated wrongs, shall spread the rainbow of 
 Eternal Hope. 
 
 God teacheth ever}' man ; because every true man 
 bears the evidence of his God within him. Sectarian 
 divisions and sub-divisions may have divided his heart, 
 
( 220 ) 
 
 but whenever true — and all are at times true — it turns 
 to that Eternal Source from whence all receive life, 
 discipline and destiny. And the immortal evidence 
 that God is Love, inherited as his first and last be- 
 queathance to the Soul, will bud forth, leaf, and bear 
 a fruit that the desolating hand of conflicting strife 
 shall never wither. 
 
 But I am told that this hopeful view of God as 
 Man's teacher could be entertained, did we know the 
 Future Life to be one of help as well as reward. And 
 do you not know it? Then you know not what 
 Life means — whether past, present or future. If life 
 is nonentity ; if life is death or nothingness ; if it has no 
 love, no power, no sphere of action, then you might 
 doubt ; for in the proportion in which our lives are 
 doubt and darkness, we, of course, doubt and are 
 dark. 
 
 We know the future life to be one of help. Do you 
 ask by what evidence ? We answer by the testimony 
 of our own Souls, in the proportion in which they 
 live, here — the testimony of God in all, known and 
 recognized in the power of our love. And we know 
 it by the testimony, clear and unmistakable, of those 
 who have thrown off the fleshly form and entered into 
 that life. That testimony is uniform on this subject, 
 and of a character no rational mind can reject — no 
 religious mind will reject. Prattling innocence and 
 hoary age, the fortunate and unfortunate, alike tell us 
 they live as they love, and they love to live to see 
 and develope the agencies that shall disclose the 
 universal kindred of all in God. They also wait, 
 everywhere, to expand the ascending thought of any 
 one who will live long enough to be true to himself and 
 his God. And those who will not be true, must eat 
 
( 221 ) 
 
 the husks and feed with the swine, till their disgusted 
 taste and ragged poverty shall bring the remembrance 
 of a Father's house, the garments of righteousness, 
 and an eternal embrace. 
 
 -From the hill-tops of every land, this light is now 
 breaking. Not many silent watches of the night, ere 
 the not distant day-beams from on high shall proclaim 
 Humanity's Dawn. Its rays now stream over the 
 upper clouds, and the conflicting elements below, in 
 fierce collision will soon exhaust their forces on each 
 other, to be stilled in that death-like silence they so 
 justly merit ; while over all shall spread the epoch of 
 a brighter day, whose penetrating rays shall renew 
 into life and vigor the storm-driven sons of God, 
 whose shout of joyous triumph shall bind the chords 
 of all kindred affinities and cement the long-severed 
 Brotherhood of Man. This I believe — aye, this I 
 know — and, therefore, have I spoken ! 
 
 And this testimony, any man favored with the 
 knowledge of human immortality, should bear every- 
 where and under all circumstances. Not fanatically, 
 but firmly; not offensively, but opportunely; not 
 doubtfully, either, but deliberately ; not captiously, but 
 calmly — in the love of Truth and Humanity, and 
 looking solely to the approbation of God in a con- 
 science void of offence and alive to its obligations. 
 
 That testimony, like the Spiritual Light it desires 
 to reflect, will show its contacts in the coloring of 
 our culture and prejudices ; for a block of wood may 
 cast its shadow, and surely human minds should not 
 be expected to do less. Water poured through a 
 riddle is water ; but Spirit-mind reflected through 
 mind in the flesh, will ever show the coloring of the 
 channel through which it passes. And why should 
 
( 222 ) 
 
 i 
 
 it not? Should not all minds seek the fountains of 
 Eternal Life to fill their own vessels, be they large or 
 small, and may not any bear the evidence of that light 
 and its receptions? The light of God's glorious sun 
 is not less pure because shining dimly through the 
 tapestry of my window ; nor is the light of Immortal 
 Wisdom and Undying Love less enlivening and cheer- 
 ing, because its mediums to this age, or any other, 
 give coloring and refraction to its rays. Let it shine 
 on, we would rather say ; for God will teach His 
 children, and by His own agencies, and Man can 
 never be an infallible reliance for Man. It shines for 
 you, and it shines for me, and it will shine for all; for 
 as a Common Father presides over, so a Common 
 Destiny awaits all. Let the fullness of our measure 
 in that destiny be the proof of our faithfulness. 
 
 But in this view, how are we to understand the 
 popular phrase, Word of God? Has God spoken to 
 Man as Man usually speaks to his fellows? Literally 
 this cannot be true, and it will be found by the can- 
 did inquirer, that in every instance where God is 
 represented as speaking to Man, in the ancient, sacred 
 books, an agent is always employed, and one who 
 professes either to have seen an angel or to have been 
 inspired. God speaks to the Jews of old, but it is by 
 prophets, or men interiorly illuminated. He speaks 
 to Apostles, but it is by the Divinity in Jesus, or the 
 many manifestations of the Spirit of Wisdom, through 
 the Spiritual men and women of the times. Indeed, 
 every manifestation of Power, Wisdom and Love, is 
 called a word, or the Word of God, according to 
 Scripture usage. The creation and garnishing of the 
 heavens and earth; the phenomena of the seasons; 
 the life of Man and the provisions for his sustentation ; 
 
( 22 3 ) 
 
 the origin, revolutions, fall and rise of ■ families and 
 nations ; the decisions of judicial tribunals, and the 
 protection of the unfortunate, are designated in the 
 Scriptures "the Word of God." The Christ, or 
 anointing of the Spirit in Jesus, is emphatically so 
 called in the New Testament. The phrase occurs 
 some thirty-three times, and in no single instance 
 does it refer to a book. This is a profound fact, 
 worthy of due consideration. 
 
 Every honest decision of an enlightened judgment; 
 every plain prompting of a purified conscience ; every 
 just sense of duty ; every providential opportunity 
 for knowledge or service, and every event that im- 
 presses our immortal nature with the being, agencies 
 and will of a Power higher than Man, may be justly, 
 and is scripturally, called "the Word of God." It is 
 the Word of God in our mind and in our heart. It 
 may be feebly felt and ambiguously spoken. But 
 not less feeble or ambiguous were the intimations of 
 holy men of old, who are said to have been moved 
 by the Holy Spirit. Their first monitions were feeble, 
 but faithfulness to them led to the strength and beauty 
 of the religious world. Thus God dwelleth in all. 
 We are excited to do, to bear and to expect. We 
 are roused to reason, to feel and to act and suffer, by 
 innumerable agencies, visible and invisible, and God 
 moveth in and over all. We are warned by danger; 
 entreated by persuasion ; comforted by mercy ; won 
 and changed by love. The warning of wisdom, the 
 mercy of the compassionate, the love of the devoted, 
 is of God, who is all and in all. When attentive to 
 the moving of our Higher Nature, we know His will 
 without a sign from heaven, and if a sign be given, 
 it addeth nothing, save as we are attentive. Thus, 
 
( 22 4 ) 
 
 His "Word" is not only in us, but around us. It is in 
 all things ; for no man can say, there He is not. We 
 hear it from the heavens that declare His glory ; from 
 the earth, filled with His praise, and we are ascending 
 to hear it in the Harmony of all things, as a Psalm 
 of Eternal Gladness. In the stupendous fabric of 
 Nature, and in the course of the smallest events, it is 
 heard by the listening ear. It reveals a wise and 
 governing hand over each ; and if our ear is not filled 
 with the thunder-roar of the world's conflict, it will 
 speak to us of an inheritance revealed in the great 
 Word or Law of Change misnamed Death, where 
 affection finds its undying union, and joy feels no 
 reverses. To reverence a book, therefore, above the 
 Truth it reveals, is an unworthy idolatry ; to rever- 
 ence the form of a man above the angel that speaketh 
 in him, is to make the mortal higher than the immor- 
 tal ; to reverence the angel, book or man above the 
 Divine Spirit, at once the origin and end of Man and 
 Angel, is equally idolatrous, and beneath the ever- 
 unfolding hope of our nature from God. God reveals 
 Himself; but God is Infinite, and His revelation par- 
 takes of His nature. We receive and reflect, both in 
 word and deed, just as our Souls open to His "Word" 
 in all things. Here is wisdom which the simplest can 
 understand, and which the wisest can never exhaust. 
 
 " Above, below, in earth and air, 
 God's Spirit moveth everywhere ; 
 And speaketh, wheresoe'er a voice 
 Uplifts to sorrow or rejoice ! " 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE THE KNOWLEDGE OF 
 SPIRITUAL COMMUNION. 
 
 O, God ! Most High and Holy ! Under the de- 
 pressing influence of our low passions and impure 
 tastes, we know not how to approach Thee ! Our 
 minds grow inactive ; our righteous and benevolent 
 desires languish, and our hope darkens in view of our 
 failures, and those of friends we desire to love and 
 cherish around us. O, help us! Make us feel the near- 
 ness of thy purifying Presence, and prepare us for 
 the holy messages of kindred Spirits, that we may be 
 defended in safety ; led in the path of an ever-unfold- 
 ing wisdom ; inspired in the emotions of Divine 
 Love, and established in that aspiration and duty 
 that brings peace and privilege. Bless our friends 
 and enemies, and make them a blessing to us, and us a 
 blessing to them. By the one, encourage, and by the 
 other, warn, and by all, aid us, that we may throw 
 off the grosser considerations of life, and take on 
 those pure desires that shall elevate us, and ultimately 
 crown us as Thy children, in the light and beauty of 
 undying affection. Help us to check and conquer 
 unworthy thoughts and aims, and forbid it, God of 
 all, that we should ever meditate evil or injury to 
 any one, even the lowest and most injurious of our 
 common brotherhood. Aid us to practice what we 
 preach, and may the good fruits of Spiritual knowl- 
 edge to us, in our deep unworthiness, so richly 
 granted, be ever seen and felt as a help, however 
 feeble, to lead men away from envy, selfishness and 
 the inevitable consequences of degraded desires and 
 
( 226 ) 
 
 deeds. O, God ! help us all above the asking, and 
 contrary to it, if need be, and help us as we need, and 
 not as we vainly, in our infatuations, momentarily 
 desire, and thus make us temples of purity, knowl- 
 edege and glory, and to Thee be the praise, now and 
 forever! Amen! 
 
 " He came to himself." — Luke xv : 15. 
 
 WE are constrained, this morning, to ask 
 what is Man, that he can never be satis- 
 fied with anything short of God? No 
 evidence of hope in his prospects, nor of joy in his 
 Soul, reigns triumphant over the memory of the evil 
 of his diversified fortune, save the hope of a knowl- 
 edge of his God as Infinite Father, in whom alone 
 the instincts of his being can breathe an assured and 
 joyous existence. This knowledge is the life of his 
 Soul, and is called by Jesus the "Eternal Life," more 
 with respect to its quality and blissful influences, than 
 its duration. In the possession of a Soul, he has the 
 assurance of endless being, and in the knowledge of 
 its capacity for eternal advancement in wisdom and 
 purity, he gains such experience of his life in God, 
 as makes his heaven of ever increasing beauty and 
 joy. Without this knowledge, his humanity lies as 
 a lifeless corpse, filling a much deeper and darker 
 grave than that which receives the cast-off taber- 
 nacle of fleshly mortality. He exists without a 
 recognized purpose ; without an end, and if he pro- 
 fess a hope, it is a vain one, that disappoints with 
 every reverse of fortune, and chills the vitality of 
 his Soul. 
 
 Self-knowledge, then, is the knowledge of God in 
 us, and whatever leads to that knowledge is a re- 
 
( 227 ) 
 
 ligious ministration, whether sanctioned by the pul- 
 pit or denounced by the Elders. The Prodigal in 
 the parable, felt not the protection and help of his 
 Father's house till he "came to himself." Coming to 
 himself brought him to his father and the joyous greet- 
 ing of his house. So self-knowledge reveals the Father- 
 hood of God in us ; and the home of Spiritual welcome, 
 everywhere around us, ready to greet every penitent 
 feeling and hopeful desire, and expand them in the 
 love and power of heavenly strength. Self-govern- 
 ment leads to self-knowledge; self-knowledge leads 
 to the knowledge of God in and around us, and the 
 knowledge of God reveals the Brotherhood of all 
 Intelligences throughout an Illimitable Universe, 
 whose sweet strains of earthly and celestial music 
 make the harmony of eternal praise. 
 
 The tainted atmosphere of earth and earthly desire 
 is impregnated with divine impulses, and, hence, Man 
 is constantly visited with a better hope, and a livelier 
 anticipation of good for himself and for those most 
 dear. And as he drops his desire to sustain some 
 peculiar view of an infinite subject, he comes to cherish 
 the blissful evidence of connection with the encircling 
 band of a suffering but hopeful Humanity. He draws, 
 then, from an inexhaustible store-house of immortal 
 planting in memory and thought, and feels the links 
 that bind him to God and the great family of Man. 
 These links he measures according to the capacity 
 given, and that capacity, moral and intellectual, ex- 
 pands as he cherishes his love of Truth, and kindles 
 the flame of celestial fire that consumes all fear, 
 measures all time and reveals eternity. 
 
 It is given to every heart to obtain its God. But 
 the possession bequeathes no exclusive privileges; 
 
( 228 ) 
 
 for it reveals Divine evidences, scattered by a Uni- 
 versal hand, broad-cast over every nation and in every 
 creature. Man's free-born thoughts charm and ele- 
 vate, and their light penetrates every angry cloud 
 that may arise over the horizon of his hope from his 
 own dark deeds of ignorance and shame. He ceases 
 to nurse the deadly viper of hate and malice, lest the 
 poison should still the chorus of his Soul and impreg- 
 nate it with a loathsome stench, that corrupts the sweet 
 odors of peace to the memory and hope to the aspira- 
 tions. He comes to be a thinking and rational being ; 
 and, as such, finds himself pursuing the same journey 
 and desiring the same end with the most elevated of 
 his kind ; and the dark robe of the memory of mis- 
 spent hours, with all its grotesque and detestable 
 figures of superstition and worldly idolatry, falls down 
 in tatters and rottenness, to be gathered up no more 
 as the clothing of an immortal nature. 
 
 Ah ! how few of us know ourselves ! How impos- 
 sible without this knowledge, to know our God, and 
 to know the sublime purposes and ends of that God 
 in us and in all ! What evidence of a future hope, of 
 a blissful immortality, do we bear? We, who were 
 created by God and bear His Infinite Impress upon 
 our Spiritual nature ; live in His perfect and unbound- 
 ed Universe, and live on amid its wonderful and beau- 
 tiful changes, connected by indissoluble ties to those 
 who have cast off the form of fleshly imprisonment, 
 and bound by fear and hope to thousands yet to come ? 
 What miserable Pyrrhonism do we cherish, to cloud 
 our vision to all that could instill a thought of a 
 blissful end ? What welcome do we give to doubt, 
 the misty messenger of the Soul, to distrust the mes- 
 sages of peace, that with relentless hands it may 
 
( 22 9 ) 
 
 snatch from our dying grasp, all that could reveal 
 our entrance upon scenes of light and hope immortal ? 
 Our God is our end and destiny, and, hence, our God 
 is our all. As we are, so is He to us, in all stages 
 of an Eternal Ascension. He blesses us with the 
 gentle zephyrs of a morning promise, or withers every 
 thought that is false to our nature, that its dead or 
 poisonous leaves may be scattered, never to be gather- 
 ed again. 
 
 We cannot grasp Eternity in one short hour. How 
 vain, then, to refuse to learn, where all are divine 
 teachers ! When we learn how to live, we are pre- 
 pared to die. When sincerity of purpose becomes 
 the beacon-star to guide us, we can safely pass over 
 every troubled sea, and our hopes are ever buoyant, 
 because they ever look to God. Purity of heart and 
 sincerity of purpose make the band with which He 
 holds us to the past, present and future- — to Eternity ! 
 Anything less can only hold us to some perishing 
 form that changes while we grasp it, and leaves its 
 deadly sting behind, to force us away from it and its 
 loathsome decay. The prophetic visions of the sainted 
 Fathers of every tribe and every religion, become 
 clear to such a purpose ; and the bright evidences of 
 present disclosures lose their meagreness and ambi- 
 guity when they disclose our varying destiny as 
 Humanity varies in its faithfulness — faithfulness to 
 itself and the God it bears and worships. 
 
 Come, then, my brothers all, let us treat each other 
 kindly, for we have much to bear in our mortal 
 struggles. As we advance in wisdom and devotion, 
 our reputation and feelings are huckstered to every 
 credulous populace which has not become manly 
 enough to know its brotherhood. We are bone of 
 
 21 
 
( 230 ) 
 
 the same bone, and flesh of the same flesh, and must 
 become Spirit of the same Spirit. We are subject 
 to the same imperfections, and equally susceptible to 
 the same false or faithful evidences of hope. We need 
 to be brought to the consciousness of our being in 
 God as we now have our consciousness of being in 
 the external and changing departments of His crea- 
 tion. The idle illusions of the passing rabble may 
 engulf the purest strains of Spiritual melody that are 
 sent to consecrate our earthly hearthstones. Shall 
 we prove false to the Divine Communion for which 
 provision is made in every human heart? Or shall 
 we circumscribe our actions and conduct within the 
 pale of Humanity, that its anthems may find a daily 
 response in our bosoms ? That response shall be of 
 God, and will mingle and commingle with all the 
 vicissitudes through which He calleth every mortal 
 to a knowledge of his Immortality. 
 
 One more question and I have done. I speak not 
 to amaze you, nor in accordance with my views of 
 what a discourse should be. I speak because my 
 Spiritual nature is impressed to speak. And I ask, 
 shall the heathen, in every age, boast of the living 
 evidence of his hope, while we, in our anxiety to 
 enlighten his "dark mind," can only bear to him an 
 evidence that at best is but a memory — a memory, it 
 may be, of privileges granted to men more true, but 
 not more favored? Shall five thousand years of 
 boasted revelations, as claimed in your Bibles, only 
 serve to render Man unfit to commune with God and 
 the angel forms through whom He gave us life on 
 earth, and would now give us hope Immortal? Shall 
 our idolatrous reverence of its pages drive glad 
 tidings of Immortal friendship from our own firesides? 
 
( 2 3i ) 
 
 Shall it still the accents of prattling innocence and 
 hoary age, as they speak of Immortal Purity and 
 Hope? Oh! fables twice-told, when will you cease 
 to make dumb the Reason and paralyze the Conscience 
 of these boasted heirs of freedom, only to assure them 
 of the fallacious boon that speaks a changeful God, 
 more uncertain now than when appealed to in the 
 brutal ages that are passed ? 
 
DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN 
 AGENCY. 
 
 "Spirit of all Power and Goodness ! — whose will is 
 creation, whose creation is beneficence, and whose 
 beneficence is revealed in and above our conflicts, 
 leading' and harmonizing all things in the progressive 
 results of Eternal Wisdom — help us to recognize and 
 realize the Universal Sovereignty of Thy dominion, 
 and joyfully to receive the place and duties ever 
 opening and preparing as our Spirit of Thy Spirit 
 openeth. Forbid that we should judge Thee, and 
 vainly question the wisdom of Thy Providence, by 
 our limited sight or sense ; but may we calm our Souls 
 to the reception of that inspiration that giveth trust 
 in place of doubt ; hope, in the stead of fear ; love, for 
 indifference, disgust and hatred ; so that Thy kingdom 
 may be seen within us as the rule of our Heavenly 
 nature, in and over our earthly antagonisms, and for- 
 ever we will rejoice in the ever-opening vision of Thy 
 glory and majesty in us and in all things! Amen! 
 
 "My Father worketh and I work." — Jesus. 
 
 IT is to be deeply regretted that the fierce and 
 selfish controversies of ambitious Religionists, 
 have given such a general distaste to the ver} 7 
 name of some of the most important questions that 
 ever agitated or can ever interest the human under- 
 standing. They have served to obscure Truth oftener 
 than to hold it forth in its beautiful and attractive 
 proportions, or they have presented it in such frag- 
 
( 233 ) 
 
 mentary and deformed aspects, as to make its very 
 name a reproach or a signal for fruitless and disgust- 
 ing strife o'er its torn limbs and mangled body. Thus 
 the human organism may by brutal or skilful hands 
 be so severed, limb from limb, flesh from bone, and 
 head from trunk, that we can scarcely recognize its 
 once commanding harmonic beauty and power; and 
 the observing mind be turned away from the disinte- 
 grated mass, more in disgust than discriminating 
 reverence. And yet, there is a human body, beautiful 
 and harmonious. 
 
 It is greatly thus with the subject we discuss this 
 morning. From the earliest records of the devel- 
 opment of human knowledge, it has involved questions 
 of vital interest to the hierarchy of thought; while 
 there is scarcely a rational being who has not, in some 
 stage of his progress, felt its difficulties or its solution 
 as the greatest problem of human inquiry. 
 
 Let us, if we can, seek a just and consistent view 
 of the subject, without reference to any sectional creed 
 or separating philosophy. The difficulties, like all 
 difficulties in imperfect ratiocination, arises from 
 exhausting our attention upon single views or frag- 
 mentary aspects of this truth. 
 
 In a universe of positive and negative principles, 
 Truth is ever a harmony of contrasts. The positive 
 and negative principles are found everywhere and in 
 everything, giving the utility of change and the 
 beauty of transformation to every aspect of the uni- 
 verse. What is positive to one state, is negative to 
 another or a higher state of the same object ; and 
 according as the attention is riveted upon the one or 
 the other conditions of the same object, will be the 
 conclusion arrived at by the observing mind. 
 
( 234 ) 
 
 If we look at a newly-born infant, as such, we may 
 affirm, truthfully, that it is helpless ; and while the 
 mind is absorbed in the observation of that condition, 
 it may forget, if it do not deny, the mother provided 
 to care for it, the earth and the heavens to nourish it. 
 If we observe it again when a child, we see it not so 
 helpless, but while greatly dependent, still able to 
 put forth more or less defensive power. When it 
 arrives at vigorous and healthy manhood, again the 
 same narrowness of vision may forget its past and its 
 approaching infancy, and assert its independence. 
 In neither case is the observation just or truthful; and 
 because it sees only one condition, and forgets or 
 overlooks another. The infant is dependent, but not 
 utterly helpless ; for it breathes, and breathes a love 
 that awakens powers around it for its nurture and 
 defense. The man is man, that is, sovereign, in some 
 sort, of a few conditions, but still is he not independent 
 — his sovereignty is not absolute. 
 
 Or we may appreciate the mistakes that involve 
 confused thought upon this subject, thus : When, in 
 our descriptions of his appetites, passions, gross and 
 fleshly propensities, we affirm of Man's body what 
 would present him as an animal, we may affirm no 
 falsehood, and momentarily yield to the thought that 
 he is the subject of materialistic annihilation— an ab- 
 surdity. Again, we may be so captivated by his 
 grasp of thought, depth of love, and infinitude of 
 hope, as to describe him as an angel or a God, and yield 
 to the conclusion that he is perfect and wholly spir- 
 itual. But in neither case have we appreciated Man 
 as he is. At best we have but a fragmentary view. 
 We may have spoken truthfully in our every allusion 
 in either case ; but our descriptions are partial, and 
 
( 235 ) 
 
 truth would be the harmony of the contrasted views. 
 Man is an animal, and he is more. Man is an angel, 
 but he is also less. As a creature of flesh he is con- 
 fined to its necessary and unavoidable conditions, 
 while as a recipient of Spirit-life he ascends above 
 his fleshly condition, and feels the instincts and enjoys 
 the communion of Immortality. 
 
 Or perhaps we can better appreciate the truth at 
 which we aim by a view of morals. Then, we need 
 only to appeal to the experience of every one before 
 me, to clearly reveal what we mean by a harmony of 
 contrasts, or a recognition of positive and negative 
 principles in all things. Thus: A man may be so 
 candid as to become uncharitable in feeling. No one 
 of us could call him a perfect character. Again, he 
 may be so charitable as to tell falsehoods ; and we 
 find, then, as great a defect on the other side. But 
 make him candid and charitable; make him to love 
 Truth and love Man, and love him only the more as he 
 needs his kindly consideration and offices, and you have 
 the perfect moral man, at least in ideal appreciation — 
 the harmony of contrasted but not contradictory 
 virtues. 
 
 The Universe, physical and moral, is full of these 
 contrasts — nay, it is a universe of harmonious con- 
 trasts, change being its law, progress, its pathway, 
 harmony, its end. So with the subject before us. 
 We mav so speak of the absolute power and govern- 
 ment of God as to regard Man as a mere machine, 
 and cursed and doomed at that ; a creature of sin and 
 depravity not his own, and made liable to endless 
 wrong and suffering. While, again, we may so regard 
 the capacity and achievements of Man, as to make 
 him appear independent of the powers that controlled 
 
. ( 2 3 6 ) 
 
 his origin; guide the consequences of his actions and 
 provide for his responsibility and destiny. The for- 
 mer is a God without Man; the latter, Man without 
 God. The truth is not found in either view. The 
 truth is a harmony of Divine Power, making its throne 
 in human hearts, to lead them from nothing to the 
 Infinitude of life, light and joy. God is sovereign, 
 but Man is free. Man is free, not as an angel deliv- 
 ered from fleshly environments, but more free than 
 the horse he rides, the ship he guides, or the perver- 
 sions of his nature his vices engender. He is free in 
 a circle ; free to widen that circle by measured steps ; 
 but not free to control the consequences of any single 
 action, nor of all his actions combined. 
 
 God governs in and by all things. He governs, 
 therefore, in and by Man, and His government by 
 Man is more than a government by brute force or 
 mechanical law ; it embraces his developing intellect, 
 moral tastes and angelic aspirations. Man is rela- 
 tively free, but the measure of his freedom increases 
 as he ascends above the brute and the mechanical 
 plane upon which he finds his being begun ; more 
 free, as he becomes more angelic, more Christlike, 
 more Godlike. Man lives in the world whose laws 
 are divine, and divinely secure the ends Divine Wis- 
 dom contemplated, which ends culminate in his 
 progress, and by his progress lead to a freedom that 
 measures time by Eternity, Man in God, the begin- 
 ing, middle and end of his destiny. If he degenerate, 
 if he fall, he must share the results of the condition 
 to which he falls, but his descent meets the barriers 
 over which he cannot pass, and where, amid severe 
 buffetting, he finds God still seeking his elevation, 
 and by ties of sympathy, provided in eternal relation- 
 
( 237 ) 
 
 ship to Spirits, bone of his bone and spirit of his spirit, 
 he starts again in the upward way. 
 
 The freedom of Man, then, is a freedom of degree, 
 and its degree ascends as he ascends in purity, in 
 wisdom, in love — in a word, in Spirituality. As he 
 thus ascends, he rejoices in death, so-called, as well 
 as in life ; for he finds the life of God filling all things, 
 and revealing itself more and more as he learns to 
 live amid the myriad changes of his condition, and 
 the transformations of his endlessly improvable nature. 
 He is poor, almost to bankruptcy, without a filial 
 trust in God ; he is rich, to inexhaustible treasures, 
 when he finds a God in all and above all. Here, and 
 in this thought only, can he find his measure of peace 
 and progress, and he is never satisfied with the meas- 
 ure he gains: for it brings the desire, however he 
 may smother it, for a larger, and that larger measure 
 is ever before him in the unnumbered perfections and 
 unmeasured care of his God. 
 
 Now, it does appear to me, that this view of God in 
 Man and Man in God, and yet God over all, relieves 
 the subject of the difficulties of a fatalistic philosophy, 
 on the one hand, and a presumptive Man-worship, on 
 the other. And all Nature experiences a Providence, 
 which is but Nature working, speaking its confirma- 
 tion. From the light of the glow-worm, gilding the 
 flower on the wayside, to the flaming meteor of day, 
 rolling its worlds of light through immensity, no 
 separate entity exists, — and all seem to say, "my origin 
 and my purpose is beyond myself." Along the In- 
 finite line of cause and effect, we see the unmeasured 
 Cause in which, in some state, all principles, elements 
 and essences have their existence, proclaiming an 
 Infinite Whole, that regulates their motions, presides 
 
( 2 3 8 ) 
 
 over and guides their apparent collisions, preserves 
 them from destruction, so that nothing is lost, and by 
 which there is no disturbance that can pass a certain 
 limit. We see provision is made for all necessary 
 restoration, and we are enabled to behold 
 
 "The stars preserved from wrong, 
 And the most ancient heavens made fresh and strong." 
 
 True, the subject is incomprehensible, but so is 
 every other when pressed toward the Infinite, which 
 all things proclaim, and which none can fully reveal. 
 But we may apprehend what we cannot comprehend. 
 We see every principle we discover in the Universe 
 of mind or matter, in incessant action. A quietude 
 in one aspect is activity in another. Effects become 
 causes and causes, effects, till we bow down in adora- 
 tion, to rise up in activity and hope before Him who 
 filleth immensity ; and instead of perplexing our minds 
 by the question, what or where is God, we are con- 
 tent to ask, what and where is He not? 
 
 Man lives: The principle that gives him life is 
 seen, wherever he ascends in thought or experience, 
 to combine and inhere in the elements of Universal 
 Nature. From lower elements to higher organiza- 
 tions, he advances by the beautiful law of change 
 which his brutal nature calls death and destruction. 
 When the Ultimate of any form is gained, it decays, 
 that a higher production may be set free, and find its 
 attraction to a higher existence. Thus his freedom 
 increases with his dissolutions, and is only temporarily 
 measured by any condition in which he is found. Is 
 he found an idolatrous heathen, he must yet see, in the 
 flesh or after he has cast it off, that his idol is nothing, 
 whether it be books, men or a shining jewel. Is he 
 found a slave to forms, Jewish, Roman, Christian or 
 
( 239 ) 
 
 Philosophic, so to speak, he will )'et rise above their 
 shadow, and find a freedom of Love and Progress that 
 individualizes his Spiritual nature, and makes him to 
 know himself at once a son of God and a brother of 
 Man. "For if any man love God, the same is known 
 of Him." 
 
 The practical duty to which this view of our theme 
 leads imperatively, however procrastinated, is that 
 Man's highest welfare consists in consulting the high- 
 est wants of his nature, for which he finds an inex- 
 haustible store-house of Divine munificence, ready 
 for the supply. He bows not beneath the weight 
 that crushes him, but gathers strength to place his 
 feet upon it and makes it a stepping-stone, high and 
 strong in proportion to its weight, in his upward 
 way. He complains not of agencies he has neither 
 the power to make, nor the wisdom to control, but 
 adapts himself to them, and thus finds the harmony 
 of all things. Truth is his standard, and he measures 
 himself and all things by its ever-elevating balances. 
 Truth is his Christ, under whose anointing he finds 
 good beyond his domicile, he would neither ward off 
 nor contract. From the narrow conventionalisms of 
 His God — not the God Universal — he steps forth as 
 from a dungeon's gloom to behold, as he may upon 
 this fair day, the rich promises that spontaneously 
 arise to welcome a Common Humanity ; and the em- 
 blems of purity and freshness in the vernal mantle 
 now covering hill and valley, give him a thought 
 beyond the evidence of his own power, and he learns 
 that his hope is my hope ; his life is my life ; his child 
 my child; his end my end, in the exact proportion in 
 which he and I do and suffer; and thus we may see 
 God in Man and Man in unity with God. 
 
( 240 ) 
 
 This harmony of contrasts, this recognition of the 
 positive and negative in all things, this GOD-view and 
 Man-view blended, is the law of God and our neigh- 
 bor ; the fulfillment of all law ; the end of all obser- 
 vation ; the essence of Religion of all forms and above 
 all forms, and the marriage of Divine Sovereignty 
 and Human Agency ; the loving embrace of Justice 
 and Mercy : and it discloses the links of that mighty 
 chain that binds in kindred influences the whole 
 Family of Man, whether on earth external, or in 
 Heaven Spiritual. God is seen to be equally the 
 dependence of the whole; and what is the patrimony 
 of a Common Humanity is mine and yours, and every 
 man should add his mite to the store-house Eternal. 
 
 The appeal upon this subject is very justly made 
 to consciousness. But our consciousness bears its 
 testimony alike to our limited freedom and to the 
 Divine government that creates and enlarges its 
 spheres. Every man is called upon to arraign him- 
 self in some silent chamber of his heart, where the 
 gentle rays of pure judgment and reason mingle in 
 unmistakable decisions. There he may learn how to 
 bend beneath the storm of unyielding Necessity that 
 sweeps by, and there, when it is passed, he will see 
 how to lift his head serenely above the weakness he 
 surrenders to the Almightiness everywhere enthron- 
 ed. There, amid fierce conflicts he cannot control, 
 he holds the empire of Right, and seeks the high ends 
 of his being far beyond the impotent reach of mis- 
 guided misanthropy. The scorpion fangs of polluted 
 fear are extracted when he sees himself the arbiter 
 of his own fate and destiny ; and he never feels him- 
 self a toy or a bauble, save when bereft of the undying 
 
( 241 ) 
 
 influences that reveal a God in him, as in all around 
 him. 
 
 His consciousness will reveal the recognition of a 
 moral and righteous and, therefore, eternal govern- 
 ment. But the same consciousness discloses a life- 
 giving principle within, that may move amid the 
 contritions and misdirections of a great Humanity, 
 as the Source of redeeming action. 
 
 If, therefore, I have a heart to feel, a mind to act, 
 and a sympathy of Soul, let its reckonings be with 
 the Source from whence they are derived. My great- 
 est danger is ever with myself. Here, in the breast, 
 is the altar of God, and each is called to its defense. 
 
 Do we boast of freedom and of rights? There are 
 but two rights in the entire Universe — properly 
 speaking, but one. We denominate them as two, the 
 right of God and the right of Man. As one, the right 
 of GOD-in-Man. This bequeathes and distributes 
 upon all alike. All seek the level of Divine Harmony ; 
 all must ultimately find it, when the distinctions of 
 capacity, circumstances of cultivation and intellect, 
 have made and finished their severances. . Hence, we 
 are called to kindness and love, to a heart overflow- 
 ing with gratitude ; for it is only such a heart that 
 can meet with becoming dignity, the apparently 
 confused and contradictory manifestations from our 
 fellows, that time in its successions developes. Every 
 consolation, every comfort, every prospect of good, 
 is ever beaming with all its undimned radiance ; but 
 we see not nor enjoy the gladdening beams, save as 
 we ascend in moral purpose and action, and all things 
 around and within us, either by deprivation or in- 
 spiration, move forward to reveal the sight. The 
 
 22 
 
( 242 ) 
 
 powers that exist, exist but for a time, while the power 
 of God in our progressive nature, is Eternal. 
 
 We are conscious, therefore, that we are bound, 
 and we are conscious that we are free; but our 
 grateful acceptance of our bonds, breaks them, when 
 our sphere of freedom stretches toward the Infinite. 
 I find it difficult to reach forward toward the Ideal 
 of Right God inspires within me ; but it is impossible 
 to stand still. God is Harmony, for He is Absolute ; 
 but Man is progressive, for he is limited. GOD-in- 
 Man, is a harmony of contrasts, whose apparent con- 
 flicts find their calm, and every calm is stirred to 
 reveal a higher ascension. If we seek within our 
 own hearts, we will find a consummation there that 
 speaks the man and not the machine. The principle 
 of growth is there, and under its influence we find a 
 life and vigor that grieves not at the mistaken reali- 
 zations of Time. It imparts no thought but hope, and 
 feels no joy that gives wrong to the Soul. 
 
 Let the span of Man, then, be the free evidence of 
 the God he bears, and the bounteous repasts of Time 
 shall join anthems of undying Love to the memory 
 of his achievements, whose sweet strains of Heavenly 
 symphony shall still every note of discord in Ever- 
 lasting Harmony! 
 
Conclusion. 
 
 MR. Emerson, in his lecture on "Man the 
 Reformer," said: "In the history of the 
 world the doctrine of Reform had never 
 
 reached such a scope as at the present hour 
 
 Now all things hear the trumpet and must rush to 
 judgment — Christianity, the laws, commerce, schools, 
 the farm, the laboratory ; and not a kingdom, town, 
 statute, rite, calling, man or woman but is threatened 
 by the new spirit." 
 
 These words were uttered when Transcendent- 
 alism was on the up-turn — promising a New Dispen- 
 sation. The choicest spirits of New England gave 
 their best thought, life and energies to the propa- 
 gation of this fragrant gospel of Love. It spiritualized 
 all feeling and made the bending heavens resplendent 
 with the freshened promise of a "Perfect Life" for 
 Man. Liberty of speech and action found promoters 
 in the elder CnANNiNG,'in Parker, in Emerson, in 
 Ware, in Dewey, in Frothingham, in Furness, in 
 W. H. Channing, in James and a host of others of 
 lesser note. A Greeley, a Dana, a Ripley, Margar- 
 et Fuller and Hawthorne, attempted the Impracti- 
 cable in their efforts to organize Labor and Social 
 Reform ; notably at Brook Farm. It was a splendid 
 promise, but like all similar promises it was only a 
 
( 244 ) 
 
 prophecy. The world calls such men and means, 
 "failures." Nothing fails that is honest in effort, true 
 in purpose — having the good of Humanity as its end. 
 God gathers these broken heart-threads and binds 
 them to His Heart forever. The world advances 
 over the "failures" of its moral heroes ; and Truth 
 brightens her torch at these watch-fires — slowly 
 dying — as she moves onward and onward to the 
 enlightenment of the Race. When the cycle of this 
 Transcendental movement narrowed to its close — 
 Spiritualism, with its wonder-working miracles, 
 struck the world of Materialism with a power of 
 demonstration which left no room for doubt as to the 
 existence of supermundane realities. The "Rochester 
 Knockings," in 1848, heralded the dawn of a New 
 Age. It brought to the front men of large experi- 
 ence in the practical affairs of life, as well as some of 
 the most cultivated thinkers of the time. Among 
 those who had the courage to investigate its phenom- 
 ena were Judge Edmunds, Profs. Hare and Fara- 
 day, Brittain, Fishbough and Partridge, and 
 others of prominence. Among the more brilliant, 
 was the Poet-Preacher and Seer, Rev. Thomas L. 
 Harris; Rev. J. B. Ferguson, of Nashville, Ten- 
 nessee ; and Rev. John Pierpoint, of Boston. And 
 last but not least was H. B. Champion. His earlier 
 work is to be found in the preceding pages. The 
 name of Mr. Champion, although unknown to fame, 
 stands pre-eminent among those who had the man- 
 hood, thirty -five years ago, to give this despised cause 
 their names, their fortunes, their lives and their sacred 
 honors. 
 
 Spiritualism has passed through many phases since 
 it became an acknowledged fact, in 1848. Beyond 
 
( 245 ) 
 
 the mere wonder-seekers curiosity, it has answered 
 to almost every form of human belief ; in many instan- 
 ces it has been known to assume all the characteristics 
 of Ancient Sorcery ; and often, unless a high purpose 
 inspired the investigator, Nature, through her"Ele- 
 mentaries," has played with the credulity of the 
 more sanguine and less discriminating of its votaries. 
 Those who have profited most by their investigations 
 have been those who have sought its influence for 
 purposes of good to Man. These have been rarely 
 disappointed ; and the two phases of it which have 
 been most pronounced, and which have found the 
 largest following, and which have promised the most 
 lasting results, have been Christian Spiritualism and 
 that which may be called Theistic Spiritualism. Un- 
 der this latter designation we would place the teach- 
 ings through Mr. Champion. These two forms 
 repeat the old Thought of an Impersonal and Personal 
 Manifestation of the GOD-Idea. The Impersonal Idea 
 of God receives through Mr. Champion its most pro- 
 nounced expression. He brings to the front this 
 almost forgotten Revelation of God's Relation to the 
 Soul. The Age is so materialistic that it can hardly 
 realize that there is a Response of God to the Heart 
 as well as to the Understanding and the Senses. 
 
 The Impersonal Idea of God is as old as Humanity. 
 With a few exceptions, every People, every Religion, 
 prior to Christiantiy, realized God as Impersonal, 
 Invisible and without Definition. Among the more 
 Spiritual Brahmans it was taught that God's Expres- 
 sion — even through the Form of Intelligence — was 
 a finite lowering of Himself to Man's comprehension. 
 Hence, their highest form of worship was Silence. 
 The God of the Heart is invisible, impersonal and 
 
( 2 4 6) 
 
 undefinable. As Goethe says: "'Tis Feeling all." 
 Men in whom the understanding predominates, and 
 who must have a Thought Expression for their wor- 
 ship, are partial to the visible, and sometimes, even 
 to a sensual, physical Man-Form to worship. This 
 is the Ultimate Manifestation. Swedenborg makes 
 this paramount in his evolution of the thought of 
 the Christian God. But the Great Heart of Hu- 
 manity has never been satisfied with this Form of 
 the Divine Revelation. There is a Mysticism in 
 Human Nature which seeks the Unexpressed. And 
 it is to this undefined longing that the writings of 
 Mr. Champion are addressed. Unlike the ancient 
 votaries of this form of faith, he makes his Illumination 
 practical. He obliterates all distinctions in Human- 
 ity; all moral and sanctified priorities; and simply 
 recognizes Man on a Universal Plane of reception of 
 the Divine Bounty, in an Impersonal Communion of 
 Spirit with Spirit in a Oneness of Reality that makes 
 Man, God; and God, Man — Man-in-GOD, and God- 
 in-Man. That obedience to our Higher Nature is the 
 law of an ever-opening vision of the Divine Perfection 
 and of our participation in it. This is the Divine 
 Unfolding Life for All. 
 
 Brahminism and Bhuddism, the Gnostics, the 
 Mystics, in all ages, notably the "Friends of God," in 
 the Middle Ages; Tauler, Meister Eckhart, Eri- 
 gena, the father of Scholasticism; the author of 
 "Theologia Germania;" Madam Guyon, Fenelon 
 and Jacob Boehme, in comparatively recent times; 
 all have felt the Inner Presence of the Infinite Good : 
 — nameless and, in a sense, Impersonal. Its philos- 
 ophy found its clearest expression in the writings of 
 Fichte — especially in his "Blessed Life." Its finest 
 
( 247 ) 
 
 poetic expression is in Shelley's "Hymn to Intellect- 
 ual Beauty," and in Faust's reply to the Religious 
 questionings of Margaret. The Bhagavat Geeta is 
 full of its reflected glory. 
 
 The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
 
 Floats tho' unseen among us ; visiting 
 This various world with as inconstant wing 
 As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. 
 Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 
 
 It visits with inconstant glance 
 
 Each human heart and countenance ; 
 Like hues and harmonies of evening, 
 
 Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
 
 Like memory of music fled, 
 
 Like aught that for its grace may be 
 Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. — 
 
 I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
 
 To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ? 
 With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 
 I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
 
 Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers 
 Of studious zeal or Love's delight 
 Out-watched with me the envious night ; 
 They know that never joy illumined my brow, 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 This world from its dark slavery ; 
 That thou, O awful Loveliness, 
 Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express." 
 
 Shellev. 
 
 margaret. 
 « s:< $ # * 
 
 Dost thou believe in God ? 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 My darling, who dares say, 
 Yes, I in God believe ? 
 Question or priest or sage and they 
 Seem, in the answer you receive, 
 To mock the questioner. 
 
 MARGARET. 
 
 Then thou dost not believe ? 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 Sweet one ! my meaning do not misconceive : 
 Him who dare name 
 And who proclaim, 
 
( 2 4 8 ) 
 
 Him I believe ! 
 Who that can feel, 
 His heart can steel, 
 To say : I believe Him not ? 
 The All-embracer, 
 All-sustainer, 
 Holds and sustains He not 
 Thee, me, Himself? 
 Lifts not the Heavens its dome above ? 
 Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us lie ? 
 And beaming tenderly with looks of love, 
 Climb not the everlasting stars on high ? 
 Do I not gaze into thine eyes ? 
 Nature's impenetrable agencies, 
 Are they not thronging on thy heart and brain, 
 Viewless, or visible to mortal ken, 
 Around thee weavng their mysterious chain ? 
 Fill thence thine heart, how large soe'er it be : 
 And in the feeling, when thou utterly art blest, 
 Then call it what thou wilt, — 
 Call it Bliss ! Heart ! Love! God ! 
 I have no name for it : 
 'Tis feeling all ; 
 Name is but cloud and smoke 
 Enclouding heaven's glow. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 The Personal Idea of God is more limiting — more 
 narrow than the Impersonal ; and is the fruitful source 
 of all the contention and confusion in Christendom. 
 As our minds expand and grow beyond this limitation, 
 it takes on the Universal ; and henceforth we see God 
 as the All — the Living Soul of things. He is then 
 the I AM, — the Only — that which Is. It is the mas- 
 tery of these two Ideas, — an Impersonal and Personal 
 God — in the human understanding and in the human 
 heart, that gives to the mind a full realization of the 
 Absolute. When the Soul attains to this comprehen- 
 sion of the Infinite, its day of rest comes ; it is then a 
 participant in the Universal Harmony, born out of 
 the Universal Discord. 
 
 Age by age these two Thoughts come to Man's 
 recognition as he journeys to the goal of his deliver- 
 
( 249 ) 
 
 ance. One manifests the Eternal, Infinite and Un- 
 changeable Spirit of All Good ; the other His adap- 
 tation of Himself to Man's varied experience in all 
 time, in all worlds. In this age the Personal Idea of 
 God expresses itself in the Revelation of the Word 
 as the Divine Father-Mother of Humanity — one with 
 all its hopes, aspirations and loves — a Revelation 
 taught by every World-Religion except the Jewish 
 and Christian Religions : — taught even by Mosaism 
 until Jeremiah eviscerated it from the mind of the 
 Jehovah people. 9 
 
 It is the union of these Two Ideas — an Imperson- 
 al and Personal God — that gives to man that varied 
 experience in Nature-Life, in Word-Life, and in God- 
 Life — One and the Same — which is his endless por- 
 tion. In these two thoughts the Absolute Truth 
 is revealed. 
 
 There is but one Substance. All Manifestations 
 of this One Substance, whether in Nature, Man, 
 or the God-Man, are generated from this Great First 
 Cause. This One Substance is Form,, as well. It 
 is Inner and Outer — One and complete in Itself. Its 
 Out-Goings or Manifestations are in Discrete and 
 Continuous Degrees. Thus Imaged, Speculative 
 Thought is saved from an All-devouring Panthe- 
 ism, in one direction ; and an All-dividing Dual- 
 
 2. We use the term " Person" in the ordinary accepted sense — which must, in the 
 nature of the case, be Finite ; as it defines God to the human consciousness. In an 
 accurate definition, God's Manifestation is always Personal ; as the word " person" 
 means a "mask." All God's ''manifestations" are "masks" — hiding the Reality. 
 The " Impersonal" God — is a God without a "mask;" and is Love: and impresses 
 the Heart in a boundless ecstasy of communion. When this Love takes Form 
 in the understanding, it is Thought. Love and Thought are, therefore, the 
 union or marriage, of the Divine in the Human Mind. We cannot define Feeling 
 or Love ; we can, Thought ; because Thought is the Form of Love, and hence, 
 in a sense, Finite: and hence, too, God in " Manifestation" — is under a "Mask" 
 — aPerson. "An Impersonal God" — Feeling or Love — is undefinable; and except 
 in Thought — which is its Form — is " Unknowable ; because Infinite. The Finite 
 can never comprehend the Infinite . 
 
( 250 ) 
 
 ism in the other. Until Swedenborg gave the 
 true Intuition of this Idea of the Divine, Philosophy 
 had oscillated between these extremes ; — at one time, 
 wholly Pantheistic, at another time, wholly Dualistic- 
 Syncristic ; ending always in Scepticism, and without 
 any Constructive purpose. But his doctrine of Dis- 
 crete and Continuous Degrees saves the Human 
 Mind from vague dreaming, in one direction, and 
 Isolated Egoism, in the other. 
 
 In God, Love or Will is primal; in God, Wisdom 
 is derivative. It Ex-ists from Love in God. Love 
 in God is the Divine Selfhood — ever appropriating 
 whatever Wisdom correlates and makes necessary, 
 according to the Eternal Idea. Man, on a lower 
 plane, but with the same accommodated Life — pro- 
 ceeding from God — has Will, which first manifests 
 itself as Natural Desire ; he then appropriates what- 
 ever his understanding reflects from the Divine 
 Thought, and thus, by this appropriation of Divine 
 Things, makes them His Own. He Egoizes the 
 Divine Life, and thus is formed what he imagines is 
 a real, actual, inherent selfhood, per se. As he con- 
 firms his belief in this, to him, God-like inheritance, 
 he crystallizes around this Appearance a self-center 
 which makes him guilty of all evil he believes him- 
 self to have committed. Swedenborg has said that 
 this is all "fallacious" and "delusive." It is the "ap- 
 propriation" of the Divine Life, and vainly confirming 
 himself in the belief that this Life is His Own, that 
 is the "Origin of Evil" in Man. Whence comes this 
 power to "appropriate?" The archetype is in God! 
 
 Never, until Swedenborg announced the clear law 
 of the "Origin of Evil" in Man, has it been understood 
 or its nature revealed. Instead of making its origin 
 
( 2 5 i ) 
 
 the violation of some Divine Law, the eating of an 
 apple, for instance ; or the satisfaction of the sexual 
 instinct; or as a principle in Matter; or any other of 
 the fourteen claimed "origins of Evil," — he meets the 
 difficulty without evasion or mystery. He declares 
 Evil to be relative, and, hence, "Nothing" — except as 
 Man vivifies it with his apparent Egoism. He claims 
 that it originates wherever and whenever manifested 
 by Man, in the "belief" that what we do, or say, or 
 think, is Our Own; that whenever we believe that 
 we can, in and of ourselves, commit Evil, then we 
 "appropriate" it and make it our own, and thus, so 
 long as we so believe, we are guilty of those sins 
 which our conscience tells us we have committed. 
 If, on the contrary, we could always realize that we 
 have no selfhood ; that there is but one Real Ego in 
 the Universe, and that that Ego is God ; and that 
 what seems an Ego in us is all an Appearance, we 
 would never be disturbed about the evil of the world ; 
 about our "salvation," or about any other of the co- 
 related problems which have so long perplexed think- 
 ing men. We would not seek to be anything but 
 what we really are — mere forms for the Divine Ego 
 to manifest itself in and through. We would simply 
 enjoy the Divine Life without calling it our own. 
 We would be what Christ said we must be before 
 we can enter the kingdom of Heaven: "Little Child- 
 ren." How simple is the old Seer's solution of the 
 problem — so far as Man is concerned ! 
 
 Good and Evil are taken up and their antag- 
 onisms reconciled in the New Christ-Consciousness 
 born of God in the New Regenerate Manhood of 
 the Race. These terms indicate the provisional 
 
( 252 ) 
 
 poles for the evolution of human character and 
 a Christ-like destiny. The Christ-Man is a Child 
 and regards both as "Nothing." He lives in the 
 Sunshine of a Perpetual Day ; and knows nothing 
 but the play of the spontaneous life of Divinity 
 within him. He knows that the INNER Christ 
 is ever in response to the Outer; and that this 
 One Life is his perpetual inspiration. He no longer 
 lives in conscious acts, but the Self-Conscious-Un- 
 conscious is the unity of his existence. He lives in 
 the glory and splendor of the Divine Natural Hu- 
 manity. 
 
 As in Creation, so in the Soul's Apocalypse, 
 All Light comes through "Darkness." This (dark 
 ness) is the substrate of the Universe; and he 
 who leaves it out of its economies fails in his 
 comprehension of God, and in the masterful knowl- 
 edge of his Own Eternal Self. The Devil and Dark- 
 ness are synonymous. The trail of the Serpent 
 encircles all; and its slippery slime obscures the 
 footprints of God and the Ages; but under the 
 adminstration of the Divine Wisdom, Evil heightens 
 and deepens the fullness of Divine Love and makes 
 sure and steadfast God's final Evolutionary, Progres- 
 sive Purpose. 
 
 Man, when honest with his own Spiritual na- 
 ture, feels in and above his consciousness a Power 
 — a Presence which he calls — God. This Power 
 — this Presence brings him to a realization of his 
 destiny, and in his Self-consciousness fills his Soul 
 with awe as it stands before a Law which is im- 
 perative in its requirements of Duty. It is a Moral 
 Law that tolerates no trifling — no evasion. Through 
 
( 253 ) 
 
 conscience it speaks with more than Sinaitic power. 
 It strips the Soul of its self-righteousness, its hypocrisy, 
 and demands of the Senses unqualified obedience. 
 
 Based upon this Law, the Eternal Progressive 
 Purpose of God begins, and as the Natural and Moral 
 Life dies or is transmuted into the higher Divine Life, 
 the Soul's progress is assured, and Man then lives in 
 God and God in Man in ever recriprocal relationship. 
 Man is the reflector of God in an endless line of 
 Progression. As the Soul opens to the reception of 
 this ever unfolding of the Divine within it, it becomes 
 more and more God-like — more and more Man-like. 
 It is the Infinite becoming the Finite and the Finite 
 taking on the Infinite — through that ever-widening 
 relation which stamps the Universe of Souls — the 
 Man-GOD and the GoD-Man in Eternal Interfusion 
 and blending of purpose. To this End, to this Divine 
 Destiny are all the provisional helps of Nature, Mor- 
 ality, Angelic Ministration, and the endless line of 
 Eternally Progressive Beings — in God. 
 
 Such is the Hope brought to the world through Mr. 
 Champion; such the law of Endless Growth, which 
 he promises. How futile in the light of such a Trans- 
 cendant Revelation, is this delving, criticising, digest- 
 ing and living on the Past. The Present and its 
 duties is what Man needs to be taught. How to be 
 a Just Man, a True Man, a God-like Man, recognizing 
 God's Presence in the Ever-Living Present as the 
 Inspiration of his life, is that which he needs to know. 
 This Religion is simple, pure — a Religion that all 
 can understand. There is nothing in this Religion 
 contrary to the Life of The Christ. To enable Man 
 to participate in the Divine, and thus become God- 
 like, was the main object of Christ's Mission. God's 
 
 2 3 
 
( 254 ) 
 
 Eternity, revealed in Time, is always the same. It 
 is the Perpetual Now. 
 
 Whatever view may be taken of the Manifestation 
 of Jesus the Christ, whether as a mere Man, as the 
 Humanitarians teach, or as the Second Person in the 
 God-head, as the orthodox Church teaches, or as the 
 One Visible God, in whom dwells a Trinity, as Swe- 
 denborg taught, or as the Secret Brotherhood — espec- 
 ially the Gnostics, for six hundred years — taught and 
 still teach, that the Appearance of The Christ, in 
 Judea, was an Illusion adapted to the sensuous 
 conceptions of the Jews, — it is now a matter of in- 
 difference. Since His Glorification and Ascension 
 He lives in the Heart of Manas the Indwelling God 
 of Humanity. 
 
 The Bible, esoterically interpreted, is the Record 
 of the Representative Experience of The Christ in 
 His descent into Human Nature along the Ages of 
 Man's eventful and changing career. That which 
 finally transpired in Judea was nothing more than a 
 faint adumbration of transactions accomplished in the 
 unseen depths of our Common Nature. It was the 
 denoument of the Tragedy of the Hidden Life of 
 GOD-in-Man. This Life having realized its fulfillment, 
 the Book is no longer a necessity to Human and 
 Divine Experience. It is a Form without the Sub- 
 stance. Its Spirit is immanent in the quickened 
 consciousness of the Race ; a Recognized Fact in the 
 Heart of Man — where the Living Christ operates 
 the Perfecting Purpose of God. Truth is no longer 
 confined to a Tribe, or a Book, but is Universal in Its 
 bestowal of Good. Man, when he recognizes Its 
 
( 255 ) 
 
 claims, may share Its unpurchaseable blessings — to 
 be found only within his own breast. 
 
 The Life of Man on this Planet, according to 
 the Old Faiths, has been exceptional. We are, 
 according to the teachings of these Old Religions, 
 the victims of invasion, of conspiracy and of pur- 
 posed limitation. We lapsed from the Original 
 Design of our Destiny through the force of external 
 pressure. Through all this seeming disaster, however, 
 we are to be finally the glorious heritage of the 
 Savior-God. Being the last, we shall, in the Divine 
 Sense, be the first. Upon the Inner Soul of the Race 
 will be transcribed the triumphant struggles of the 
 Crucified Redeemer. Through our experience has 
 been wrought out the final consummation of Evil — the 
 Revelation of Light-in-Darkness. 
 
 What a light does this thought shed upon Human 
 History in God's Revelation of the Redeeming Side 
 of His Character ! The world has never known until 
 now the heights and depths of the Everlasting Love. 
 With the unfolding events transpiring around us, we 
 can now appreciate the meaning of the misapplied 
 doctrine of Vicarious Atonement — the bringing of 
 Man at-one with God, the Source of All Life and 
 Bliss. In the silence of the unnumbered ages, has 
 the meek and lowly and long-suffering GOD-in-Hu- 
 manity waited for a recognition. Underneath all our 
 pride, ambition, lust, avarice and selfishness has the 
 Infinite Mother-Heart yearned in patience for the 
 return of Her prodigal children. In Woman's heart 
 has She suffered ; in Woman's Nature has She been 
 crucified — buried ; but at last She emerges from Her 
 long Imprisonment — the Soul's Hope and the Body's 
 
( 25 6) 
 
 Resurrection and Purification ! She is the Infinite 
 Burden-Bearer, and "knows all sorrow and suffering." 
 Through Her Heart Man and Woman find the 
 Infinite Sympathy, and at last the Infinite Joy ! 
 
 What does all this teach us? That we, too, surren- 
 dering all self — which is Nothing — should bear with 
 Him-Her — our Infinite Father-Mother — the burdens 
 of the Race. It is only as we can thus assume its 
 sorrows, its sins, its ungodly lusts, its hatreds, its 
 ambitions, its pride, avarice and all uncleanness, that 
 we can hope to be co-laborers with God in the grand 
 work of Human Redemption. We must vicariously 
 suffer for others if we would share with Him the 
 work of the Incoming Dispensation. 
 
 The New Era which dawned forty years ago, and 
 which was ushered in by Modern Spiritualism, with 
 all its strange and bitter experiences ; with all its 
 delusions and broken promises, and blasted hopes, 
 and sanguine expectations disappointed ; with all its 
 fraud, failure and falsehood — brings us at last to this 
 great Revelation. We are passing into judgment ; 
 the crisis comes apace — the True from the False 
 is to be separated ; so that the New Life can descend 
 to all, with purifying power and blessedness. 
 
 Spiritualism, the prophecy of God, must realize its 
 True Mission. Underneath its so-called Mystery 
 lie hid gems of truth which should lead Man from 
 the Darkness of Delusion and Doubt into the Light 
 of the Coming Day. Its truths must be brought to 
 the front — and become the chart upon which and by 
 which the New Dispensation shall and must stand 
 and be guided. When its grandest truths are prop- 
 erly presented and appreciated, there is no reason 
 
( 257 ) 
 
 why there should be longer any estrangement between 
 it and that Evangelical Christianity which has been 
 blindly groping in the dark, for centuries. 
 
 Pure Spiritualism is the hand-maid of True Relig- 
 ion; and it is time we were recognizing the fact. 
 Without its aid and the agencies which it commands, 
 Religion will pass into Fetishism ; and the culture of 
 the Age pass under the reign of Agnosticism. Re- 
 ligion is no longer a Ritual Embodiment; it is no 
 longer a Creed or a Form ; it is no longer an Objective 
 Organization, palpable to Sense — the votary of Super- 
 stition: but it is a Subjective Life of the Spirit. 
 Meekness, Gentleness, Graciousness, Purity, Patience, 
 Charity and all good works are its evidences of 
 growth in the Soul. Its issue is a God-like Manhood, 
 inspired with all true nobleness and greatness — the 
 Reflex of God — immanent in the Heart of Man. 
 
 All will yet see this Truth in all its varied adapta- 
 tions to Man's Receptive Nature. We will behold 
 its Unity in Man. In Man — in each individual man 
 — are all the resources of the Spiritual Universe. As 
 Nature finds Her focalization in His Body, so God 
 meets this ascending Life of Multiplicity, with the 
 Unity of His Own Heart and Thought, in Man's Heart 
 and Understanding. Man has only to look within, 
 with aspirations GOD-ward, to find a Response to 
 every pure desire and noble purpose inspired in the 
 Soul. 
 
 We need this New Gospel to direct the footsteps 
 of the Coming Ages on to higher and more glorious 
 results for the welfare of all who are passing along 
 the confines of Eternity. Here all can stand for God 
 and Man. 
 
( 258 ) 
 
 There was one nation in the Pre-Christian world 
 which was pre-eminently philosophical ; that nation 
 was the Grecian. The era of its philosophy extended 
 over twelve hundred years ; six hundred before, and 
 six hundred after Christ. Its classic period culmin- 
 ated in Plato. , The dominant thought of his phil- 
 osophy was the Logos — the Word as it evolves 
 through the world-process in Man. Its principle was 
 the True, the Beautiful, and the Good ; bringing to 
 Man — through Man — deliverance from the power of 
 Nature. In a word — Salvation through the media- 
 tion of the Gods. In the school of Alexandria was 
 focalized this thought. Here it met the Hebrew 
 cult, in the person of Philo. Here, too, Greek 
 thought, in the evolution of the LOGOS as a principle 
 in Man, met the Jewish concept of a Personal Mani- 
 festation of this same Logos — taking form in the 
 Jewish mind as the Messianic Deliverer. Thus, what 
 had been to the Greek a subjective principle, came 
 forth to Sense in the Jewish conception as the "Word 
 made flesh." 
 
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
 was with God, and the Word was God. The same 
 was in the beginning with God. All things were 
 made by Him, and without Him was not anything 
 made that was made. In Him was Life ; and the 
 Life was the Light of men. And the Light shineth 
 in Darkness; and the Darkness comprehendeth it 
 not." 
 
 The Ancient Myths not only perpetuated the knowl- 
 edge of the annual renewal of the Divine Life in 
 Nature, but they were also foreshadowings of the 
 One Life — the Word-Life — as It descended into Man 
 
( 259 ) 
 
 along the ages of his eventful career. That which 
 transpired in Judea, was the bringing out to Sense 
 of the LOGOS-Life, predestined in prophecy in all the 
 ages of Mosaism. It was revealed as the True Light 
 which enlightens All. This WoRD-Life is now con- 
 sciously shared by all who are born in God ; and the 
 evidences of Its Presence are all around us, in the 
 Enlightenment of the Dawning Dispensation. 
 
 Historic Christianity has served to keep present 
 to the perceptions of the Race, the Fact of the In- 
 dwelling and Outworking of this GOD-Life until It 
 could be released from Its Sensuous Environment ; 
 and It takes Its place in the Heart and Mind of Man 
 as the One Religion of Humanity. As such, all other 
 Religions are subsumed under Its Saving and Vital- 
 izing Presence. 
 
 As God moves forth through all the faculties of 
 the Soul, down and out into the Corporeal, Sensual 
 form of Man, he will become God's express Image 
 and Likeness: One-Twain in flesh as well as in the 
 Inner Semblance, born of God. When this consum- 
 mation is reached, it will be found that the highest 
 principle in Human Nature is the Woman principle 
 — Intuition. Man's isolated, frozen Intellectuality 
 will no longer rule the world. But Woman's thought, 
 from affection — a flash of lightning, with its fire — 
 will supplant Man's slower mentality, which is Ration- 
 ality — Logic — Reason: — Materiality. 
 
 There is evolved by this Higher Nature in Man, a 
 New Divine Natural Selfhood — supplementing the 
 Natural fallacious self, which is only provisional, 
 given or permitted for the Diviner Life to fashion 
 a Christ-Self in the New Consciousness, born of God 
 
( 260 ) 
 
 and at-one with Him. This God-Presence, answering 
 to God's Special Revelation to the Soul, is the Re- 
 Birth into the Universal Christ. 
 
 To the Natural Man — the Man unredeemed from 
 the immediate presentation of things — God, Man and 
 Nature seem self-inclosed unities — each taking on a 
 diversified aspect. It is not until the intervention of 
 the Word — through processes of evolution and re- 
 generation, and by the Logical Law of Its Mediation 
 — that he can see the fallacy of this presentation. He 
 finds no ground of unity in the confusion of his 
 thought. It is only as the Infinite Thought — or 
 Reason — is re-thought, that God, Man and Nature 
 become One in that Higher Unity which reveals an 
 Infinite Diversity in One Self-Conscious Reality — the 
 God-Man. He resolves All into this Higher Unity, 
 — into a Unity where God, Man and Nature are One 
 in Diversity or difference — thus preserving this Trin- 
 ity in Unity — One Universe of co-related parts. 
 
 Prior to the Appearance of The Christ, in Judea, 
 it was taught, and generally believed, among all 
 Nations, that Man had a pre-existence, and that he 
 descended into this world to expiate the sins of 
 another state, or to get the necessary experience for 
 his final perfection. This was Plato's fundamental 
 thought in his explanation of the origin of Evil. In 
 the Current Occult teaching, this old faith is revived, 
 and this doctrine, with its connate thought, will make 
 distinctive the True Christian Religion from the Old. 
 Until the last Incarnation of The Christ, which, 
 according to Bhuddism, was the Tenth and Last, 
 Humanity moved in a cycle — ever repeating the old 
 
( 261 ) 
 
 Experience and the old Thought. The Circle was 
 its Symbol. Hence, Solomon was right. In his day 
 there was "nothing new under the Sun." But since 
 The Christ wrought His work in Human Nature — 
 especially since He wrought His work in Hell — 
 making it possible to save All — a New Law has been 
 introduced into the Movement of Humanity. This 
 Law is an ever-ascending Law of Progress — eternally 
 taking on and reflecting God — as we pass into Him 
 and He into us. 
 
 A Crisis or Judgment comes to all sooner or later. 
 It does not mean condemnation, but a clearing-up — 
 a new adjustment. The Past, as a state, no longer 
 exists ; but stands, an object which we contemplate 
 outside of ourselves. It is our contribution — good 
 or bad — to the Universal Life of the Race. If good, 
 it lives in the memory of the Universal Christ and 
 in the memory of His Revelation in us. If bad, it is 
 sunk out of sight — sunk in the waters of Lethe, never 
 again to emerge from its oblivion. This is the Final 
 Forgiveness of sins ; the Salvation of Man. 
 
 Through crises, through clearings-up, the Trium- 
 phant God rolls away the stone from the grave of 
 Humanity, and it rises in Resurrection to behold its 
 Redeemer. Its past state is no longer a part of its 
 Life. Its Bibles ; its Incarnations in visibility ; its 
 palliatives; its expediencies ; its mournful wrecks and 
 disasters are no more to be. But God lives, in 
 all the plenitude of His Love, above all, in all, and 
 through all. Old things are passing away ; the New 
 dawns. M. C. C. Church. 
 
 Parkersburg, West Va., May 15, 1888.