->»3 > 41 
 
 l||p> ^> 
 
 
 > 3>3 >3>5>^I^ 
 iv\S3>3 3>3oO^ 
 
 X>3 :>5>33_ 
 .■ 31>3> 32>3 3_ 
 
 >>o3r> j>" : ;;288C> ^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 32i> >>>- , ■ .<?. 
 
 33 
 
 D3 
 >> 
 
 :>3!ip> 
 
 >> 
 
 ^^-iH> 
 
 >3 
 
 3>>I* 
 
 ►2> 
 
 1^> 
 
 > 3» J> 
 
 ^r> 
 
 -^>jj> 
 
 
 ibrarM of (S)0ttgtf!fliifii. 
 
 .Ill .6. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 KS*D 
 
 3 ^ 
 
 {3 ■> 
 
 » > 
 
 »3 
 
 
 ? 
 
 
 aps a 
 
 
 3 
 
 ' 332>_ 
 
 >>3> 
 
 >>:£> 
 
 ^ >3 
 
 53 ^ 
 
 3l> Z 
 
 
 3 - 
 
 
 $m ^>»^^ 
 
 
 ^ £9 
 3 ^> 
 
 3 H2> 
 > 12> ^ 
 
 3 3>~ 
 
 3 I3> 
 
 3 3) 
 
 

 o yj > 
 
 ^ ^> r > - 
 
 felp 
 
 33 >> 
 
 fei ^> 3 
 
 3> ~yJ> 
 
 ->> -. 
 
 
 t 3l3*> 
 
 y>^ ) ?y> > >»3> - yyy 
 
 r^-.V- 3>^> ;»>> £> ":»; 
 
 yyy " 
 
 > yr>v 
 
 - >>>>; 
 , x>> 
 
 r>y»: 
 
 
 > m> 
 
 ml 
 111 
 
 ferns : 
 
 
 
 >3» ^ ^> «^> 
 
 
 y^^yy^y^:y " 
 '^>'^- X) > » i- 
 
 <r$ ^J£> yy&> 2>~^yyyy .. g\ 
 
 \soyyyy5C*^>y 
 ^jyyym^^yyy 
 
 Zg» i D5)/'-/>0)| 
 
 3 53 3 3333D 331>3 3 1 
 D3^ 3J3aD3DSL> >^ 
 3 7 3> 3 33^»^>3iSr> J> Jl 
 3D!> ,>3M>y3A : »3 31 
 
 i>mp 3 35EB?3 O^Svj» J 
 
 'i©SS» 3:3^)3 33S03 3 
 
 0!S> D«3 33W3S 
 03S3 :3 3»SD' 3.3^*3 3S 
 7DSS> 3) 2a»3 333^ 
 
 j » rp:^myjs> 3 :.-E»a3 3^33*3 
 
 3 ::»to :^^323 3^^»S)3Z35p5o ■ 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/rappomaniaoverthOOwick 
 
RAPPO-MAMA OVERTHROWN 
 
 IN TWO PARTS PART FIRST, 
 
 THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION TRIUMPHANT, 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 SCRIPTURES. REASON, PHILOSOPHY, COMMON-SENSE AND RELIGION 
 VINDICATED AGAINST THE CLAIMS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE "SPIRITUAL" RAPPERS. 
 
 " It was inevitable that whenever the attention of free and original minds should 
 be tarned to the examination of this philosophy, its popularity should be unable to 
 save it from destruction. 1 '— Introductory Notice to Cousin's Attack of the Sensual 
 Philosophy. 
 
 " The fire shall try every man's work."— St. Paul* 
 
 BY HENRY WICKLIFFE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF VARIOUS REFORMATORY WORKS,, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 FOWLERS &_W ELLS & CO 
 
 1853. 
 

DEDICATION. 
 
 To ail sincere inquirers after truth, who, in the words of Cousin, 
 believe that " every man is in possession of a reason, which is the 
 common patrimony of human nature," this little effort, to establish 
 the reign of reason, is respectfully dedicated. 
 
 To those who decry reason, and substitute the revelations of 
 " Spirits," it is not dedicated, but simply commended to their notice. 
 
 The Author. 
 
INTKODUCTION 
 
 It is with feelings of unmixed dislike that we undertake to prepare 
 the following pages : Our sympathies are with the party of pro- 
 gression. u Old fogyism," whether in Church or State, we have 
 but little respect for. Indeed, for many years we have occupied an 
 advanced position among those who are denounced as " innovators" 
 and " lovers of new things.'' It is, therefore, with feelings of ex- 
 treme reluctance, that we venture to put forward our hand, to 
 H steady " what many people regard as the " ark of God." But al- 
 though radical in our feelings, we have never been in haste to em- 
 brace reformatory ideas, which we account for, in part, by the fact, 
 that Caution is marked very large in our Phrenological Chart. Still 
 less quick have we been to fall in with every new idea merely be- 
 cause it was new. Some sincere persons seem to be afflicted with a 
 monomania on the subject of new things. Like the dog that ob- 
 served the shadow of his bone in the brook, they are so eager after 
 new things, that, in their anxiety to seize them, they sometimes drop 
 the subslance for the sake of the shadow, and experience the same 
 result as did the dog. Like the " horse-leech's two daughters, they 
 continually cry, " give, give," and u never can say they have enough " 
 of new things. They may be compared to a man, who, with his 
 eyes inflated, his hair dishevelled, and his cheeks flushed, is rushing 
 through a town, crying out, " Hurrah for Australia ! more gold, more 
 gold ! " and, leaving his comfortable home, he betakes himself, with 
 all possible speed, to the nearest sea-port, and embarks on board a 
 crowded packet for Australia, although he is not in need of any 
 " more gold " than he possesses. His thirst for gold has become a mon- 
 omania, and produced partial derangement. Precisely so is it with 
 some enthusiastic believers in the " Spiritual Rappings," — only with 
 them, the monomania is on the subject of " new things." Of this 
 class of persons, the Athenians, in Paul's time, furnish a notable 
 example. 
 
 The reason why so many people are afflicted with this disorder, is 
 because they experience alack of terra Jirma on which to plant their 
 
 ■ r 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 weary feet, and they desire to stand firm somewhere. Like the 
 mariner, whose bark has been for a long time at the mercy of the 
 waves, they " long for land." Having " no root in themselves," they 
 turn their excited eyes to every new creed that this fertile age may 
 offer, expecting to find something to refresh their weary souls, and 
 to fill the " aching void " that exists in their hearts. 
 
 And they are not to be blamed. It is right for hungry souls to 
 cry out until true food is furnished them, although it is not best to 
 forsake the granaries of the living God for the sake of the chaff of 
 this or any other new delusion. Nor is it well for them to imagine 
 they are feasting on "angel's food," when in reality they are eating 
 naught but the " bitter apples of Sodom." They should not " spend 
 their money for that which is not bread," because it resembles that 
 nourishing article. 
 
 In the words of an article written by us some years ago, we would 
 say, " In an age of radicalism, we propose a true conservatism ; in a 
 declining period of conservatism, we offer what we deem a safe 
 radicalism. At a time when all systems are being sifted, and efforts 
 are made to separate the wheat from the chaff, retaining the one, 
 and rejecting the other, we would occupy, in an humble manner, the 
 position of the sifter." 
 
 No doctrine is to be rejected because it is new. Still less is it to 
 be received for that reason. In an age of reform, there must nec- 
 essarily occur no small amount of chaff among the pure wheat of- 
 fered to a starving world. It is our purpose, in the following pages, 
 to demonstrate, that the " Spiritual Rapping " creed is that chaff, 
 instead of the golden wheat it pretends to be. 
 
 We repeat, that it is with pain that we enter upon this task, for 
 we recognize many of our " spiritual " friends as among the choice 
 spirits of the earth, of whom " the world is not worthy," and for that 
 very reason we are anxious to see them restored to their right minds, 
 and " sitting at the feet" of Reason. We have but very little hopes, 
 however, of converting them immediately. Time, and the " fruits 
 of their own ways," we think will accomplish that work ; and we 
 doubt not, before the lapse of many years, that, like the owner of a 
 diseased limb, who at first curses the surgeon's knife, they will at 
 length kiss the instrument, that by its sharp thrusts sought to pre- 
 serve their whole body from putrefaction. Until then, for their 
 sakes, we are content to receive their anathemas. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 Boston, July, 1853. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 CLAIMS OE THE " SPIRITUAL RAPPERS." 
 
 At the outset of this investigation, we find it nec- 
 essary to state distinctly the claims of our friends, as 
 we do not wish to fight a " man of straw." We believe 
 that we have a veritable monster with which to contend, and 
 that he may be seen under his own colors, and in his hid- 
 eous proportions, we deem it necessary to assert the truth 
 respecting this " child of sin," as we really believe him 
 to be. 
 
 Very few persons, not conversant with the writings of the 
 " Rappers," by which name, for brevity's sake, we shall 
 distinguish this new party, are aware of the claims put 
 forth by them, in behalf of their new faith. These claims 
 are not confined to the assertion, that the " Rappings " 
 are produced by Spirits, but are much more extensive in 
 the ground they cover. After a few preparatory remarks 
 on this subject, we will quote the exact words of the " spir- 
 itualists," and our readers can judge for themselves, if we 
 are too severe in our denunciation of them. 
 
 Charity, we are told, is kind, and so is the surgeon's 
 knife. We charge, then, upon the Rappers, that their 
 system involves a denial of Christianity, and the establish- 
 
8 CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 
 
 ment of an entirely different system of religion from that 
 taught by Jesus Christ. Far be it from us to misrepresent 
 any class of persons, but we believe this is the upshot and 
 object of the whole movement. By Christianity, we do 
 not mean the system of religion believed in by the evan- 
 gelical sects merely, but that platform upon which all re- 
 formers, except technical infidels, are content to stand. 
 
 It may be said by our friends, that many persons have 
 been converted to a belief in immortality, through the 
 " Rappings," but that does not militate against our asser- 
 tion ; for Christianity, by no means, consists in a belief of 
 immortalitv. All false religions alike recognize that. What 
 boots it that a Mohammedan is converted to Roman Ca- 
 tholicism ? Is he, in the estimation of Protestants, any 
 nearer the kingdom of heaven ? And is Robert Owen, of 
 Lanark, any more a child of God, on account of his new 
 faith, than before ? Of what value is a mere belief in the 
 immortality of the soul ? Do not " the Devils believe and 
 tremble ?" 
 
 But, we are told, that men have reformed in their lives. 
 Some have ceased the traffic in intoxicating drinks ; others 
 have become Anti-Slavery men, Sabbath-keepers, &c. 
 
 What then ? Is our assertion any less true ? Is Mor- 
 monism any less opposed to Christianity, because under its 
 influence conversions to morality have taken place ? We 
 trow not, as long as Joe Smith is its acknowledged head. 
 
 Is the system of the false prophet of Mecca any more 
 friendly to Christianity, because it forbids what wine-bib- 
 bers say Christianity allows ? We imagine not. Moral- 
 ity is not peculiar to Christianity, else were multitudes of 
 infidels Christians, — for are they not very generally men 
 of good morals ? 
 
CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 9 
 
 The inquiry naturally suggests itself here, what, then, 
 does the writer understand by Christianity ? We under- 
 stand this : — that Jesus Christ was a teacher sent from 
 God, to teach men the way of salvation, and that his teach- 
 ings, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of 
 men, constitute the neplus ultra of teaching upon the sub- 
 ject of religion. All false systems of religion deny this 
 submission to God, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. 
 We are aware that a false construction may be put upon 
 this assertion, and an effort may be made to make it ap- 
 pear, that we deny the theory of human improvement. 
 Our answer to this charge is as follows : For wise purpo- 
 ses, God, in the days of Jesus Christ, did not particularize 
 all that was implied in the words of Christ ; but the Holy 
 Spirit was promised to all his followers, by whose teachings 
 the " many things " Christ had to say to his disciples, that 
 they " could not then bear," were to be more fully ex- 
 pounded ; and it is under the continued teachings of this 
 same Holy Spirit, that the true reforms of the nineteenth 
 century have originated. The sermons of Christ are 
 deep mines of the richest ore ; and for generations to 
 come, they will occupy all the spiritual miners, who, under 
 the " Comforter's " guidance, are in search of the ore of 
 truth. Happy will it be for us, if we obtain a lump of the 
 precious gold secreted there. 
 
 The dispensation of Christianity was that of Christ and 
 the Holy Spirit, as the old one was that of God alone. 
 Christianity rests upon no other foundation than this, — 
 the ability of Christ's teachings, as interpreted by the Holy 
 Spirit, to make " all men wise unto salvation." 
 
 Mormonism rejects this idea^and puts Joseph Smith in 
 
10 CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 
 
 the place of Christ. Mohammedanism does the same, and 
 installs Mohammed in the chair occupied by Jesus. The 
 " Rappers " do this in reality, and put Dr. Franklin, Ben- 
 jamin Rush, Thomas Paine, &c, in the place of Christ and 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The true child of God is in no danger of being seduced 
 by this doctrine ; for, like the recipient of the old wine, 
 spoken of by Christ, " having drank the old, he desireth 
 not the new, for he saith the old is better" The true im- 
 biber of heaven's " wine and milk " feels no need of the 
 new beverage of the " Rappings," - — for he has experi- 
 enced the truth of Christ's assertion, " He that drinketh 
 of the water I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but it 
 shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting 
 life." 
 
 that our spiritual friends would drink from this limpid 
 fountain, instead of from the muddy stream sent down 
 to the earth by Dr. Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 A Christian, when asked to believe in the " Rappings," 
 is apt to reply as would a man living in a splendid palace, 
 who should be asked to forsake his home, and take up his 
 abode in a hovel : " I thank you, Sir, but I am quite well 
 off now, I assure you." But the restless man who longs for 
 a home somewhere, and has not entered into " the rest that 
 remaineth to the people of God," is quite likely to enter 
 the hovel, which perhaps is better for him than no home 
 at all. Not so with him whose heart is fixed on God. 
 His language is, M Whom have I in heaven, God ! but 
 thee? — and there is none on earth I desire besides thee." 
 
 We are thus particular in these remarks, because the 
 u Rappers " endeavor to press their nefarious claims upon 
 
CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 11 
 
 the world under the guise of Spiritualism, when in reality 
 their system is rank Materialism from beginning to end. 
 
 But to the extracts we have promised. The first in 
 order is a statement of the manner in which these powers 
 of the Spirits were first discovered, at which point we sup- 
 pose dates the natal day of the " new era." It is given 
 by Andrew Jackson Davis, in a work, entitled " The Phi- 
 losophy of Spiritual Intercourse, " published in 1851 : 
 
 " By direct influx, or impression from the highly accom- 
 plished spirit of Benjamin Franklin, I learn that we owe 
 principally to him the discovery of this electrical method 
 of telegraphing from the Second Sphere to the earth's in- 
 habitants. The substance of my communication with him, 
 on the sixth day of January, 1851, was as follows : (I 
 give his own words faithfully rendered ;) ' In searching 
 out,' says that great mind, ' the numerous manifestations 
 of spiritual presence among the multitudinous sects and 
 nations of the earth, I perceived that the great general 
 principle of aromal intercourse had been observed, but 
 never particularly understood by Spirits, when they have, 
 from time to time, communicated. In compliance with the 
 great and inextinguishable love I feel for scientific research 
 and exploration, I have steadily, with calm and fervent joy, 
 progressed from point to point in this attainment, by follow- 
 the principles of panthea, or of electricity, into their innu- 
 merable windings and diversified modifications.' i These 
 wonderful and soul-absorbing observations have also been 
 made by individuals, far more distinguished for intellectual 
 accomplishments and discoveries, than myself.' ' I sug- 
 gested to my companions the propriety of demonstrating, 
 upon that birth-place of the human mind, (the earth) the 
 doctrine of immortality, to the end, that man's ever-search- 
 ing soul might thus no more, in its early stages of exist- 
 ence, have its bright light clouded by the shadows of death, 
 — a gloom of ignorance which we, for want of palpable 
 evidence, had ourselves experienced on the earth.' ' I 
 
12 CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 
 
 found the German Spirits most sympathetic to this propo- 
 sition.' ' I then listened to the serene observations of 
 Fenelon and William Ellery Channing, who declared that, 
 from their co-equal researches into the moral and spiritual 
 necessities of mankind, it was their knowledge, that, in 
 case such aromal communication could be established, the 
 people, on some portions of the earth, would listen, and 
 be thereby advanced toward enlightenment, wisdom and 
 truth.' " 
 
 Dr. Franklin then gives an account of the first efforts of 
 himself and friends, in this praiseworthy enterprise, saying, 
 according to Mr. Davis : 
 
 " I accompanied my numerous German associates to a 
 position, from which we (united in purpose as one strong 
 mind,) commissioned and directed, by an exercise of our 
 volition, an aromal current to produce vibrations in the 
 house of a gentleman of distinction and learning in 
 Germany.'' 
 
 So it seems that the world is as indebted to Dr. Frank- 
 lin for this new discovery, as it is for the more tangible 
 one made while he yet dwelt on earth. Whether the last 
 discovery will add anything to the fame he has obtained 
 on account of the first, the future will determine. At any 
 rate, he seems to stand at the head of the third dispensa- 
 tion, as Christ did at that of the second, and Moses at the 
 first. Thus we see, that man's discovery, and not God's 
 purpose, lies at the bottom of the new system, that is to 
 do what Christianity has failed to accomplish. Poor puny 
 Deity ! According to this theory, thou hast tried, for six 
 thousand years, to induce man to believe in the doctrine 
 of immortality, but all thy efforts to enlighten " man's 
 ever-searching soul " proved fruitless, until a greater than 
 thyself, even Dr. Benjamin Franklin, set his extraordinary 
 
CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 13 
 
 powers to work, and in due time u opened heaven to earth," 
 and established the new dispensation ! Christians in the 
 other world may sing, " Worthy is the Lamb," &c. ; but 
 " Spiritual Rappers " must cry out, as they enter the New 
 Jerusalem, " Great is Dr. Benjamin Franklin." Imagine 
 their disappointment, when, instead of Dr. Franklin, they 
 find the "Lord Jesus Christ" sitting on the throne of 
 God. 
 
 The next quotations are taken from Mr. Hammond's 
 " Light from the Spirit World," and are doubly authorita- 
 tive, we suppose, for they are dictated by the Spirits. 
 " Light from the Spirit World " was published by Bela 
 Marsh, Boston, in 1851 : 
 
 u Miracles were wrought in many places by Christ and 
 his Apostles. Miracles will be wrought by the Apostles 
 of a Spiritual Philosophy. Miracles, wonders, signs, and 
 works, will be wrought to confound the wisdom of a cavil- 
 ling world, — to establish the truth of communications 
 made by Spirits in the Second Sphere, and deliver men 
 and women from the yoke of ignorance, in less than one 
 year. Miracles will be wrought to deliver men and women 
 from the power of intolerance, priestly rule, infidel scepti- 
 cism, wrong and error of every form." " When miracles 
 shall be wrought, scepticism, intolerance, priestly rule, 
 wrong and error, must yield to the overwhelmning force of 
 their destroyer." " When miracles shall be wrought by 
 you as a medium of spirit power, the new dispensation will 
 commence, and the old dispensation (of course Christian- 
 ity,) will vanish away. It will be consumed with a brighter 
 day than ever dawned upon humanity, (Christianity is here 
 unceremoniously kicked aside,) a day which will blend in 
 union the primary and celestial spheres, a day when v self 
 and sin shall write their work no more on the temple of 
 God, and the wail of broken hearts be exchanged for the 
 anthem of eternal union" 
 
14 CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 
 
 All of this is to be accomplished by the Spirits. 
 
 "Miracles will do what argument, and reason, and sci- 
 ence cannot do. We (the Spirits) mean to revolutionize 
 the whole race of man, to overturn, until humanity shall 
 rejoice in the fulness of a spiritual dispensation." 
 
 When we look at the character of the mass of the reve- 
 lations from the Spirits, and then at this declaration, we 
 are forcibly reminded of Whitfield's celebrated reply to 
 the drunkard, who professed to have been converted by 
 Whitfield. 
 
 Thus we see openly claimed by Spirits, that they are 
 the almoners of heaven to establish a purer system of re- 
 ligion than has ever been established before. The work 
 from which these assertions are quoted is advertised among 
 the standard spiritual books, and we have never heard, 
 from the great number of our spiritual acquaintances, a 
 single word in condemnation of these sentiments. Indeed, 
 the Editor of the " New Era," published in Boston, puts 
 forth very much the same claims, as will be seen by read- 
 ing the following standing sentence in his paper : The 
 vignette, — angels descending, — " corresponds with the 
 title of the publication, and is eminently significant of the 
 New Age on which our w r orld is entering." 
 
 His paper is termed the " New Era," or "Heaven 
 Opened to Man" and seems to be the organ of New Eng- 
 land Spiritualists. So far as our observation extends, by 
 far the greater portion, if not nearly all of the " rappers," 
 sanction the claim of introducing a new dispensation. 
 
 Says James Richardson, Jr., an accomplished clerical 
 writer in the Journal of Progress, a spiritual paper recent- 
 ly commenced in New York city, i4 How is it, (the world,) 
 
CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 15 
 
 to be made better ? Plainly by the introduction of some- 
 thing new and different, by bringing in fresher, newer, 
 more pure and perfect elements." Says the Editor of the 
 New Era, in a note to John Murray's messages, u The age 
 of power had its advent with the advent of Moses. Jesus 
 gave us the gospel of love. The present is the age of 
 wisdom, and is a fuller development and a more perfect 
 realization of that love in life, which is the very essence of 
 Christianity. It is superior, not in essence, but in appli- 
 cation and order" 
 
 Says Adin Ballou, one of the few strong-minded Spir- 
 itualists : 
 
 " It will convert thousands from gross infidelity. It 
 will render a future existence real to the whole human 
 family. It will usher in a new era of faith, hope and char- 
 ity. It will peaceably revolutionize the religious, moral 
 and social state of the world" 
 
 Poor Christianity, thou must stand aside. Thou essayedst 
 to do this work, but hast been forced to yield it into the 
 hands of the " Spirits !" What a pity Dr. Franklin had 
 not died before Christ's time, and thus saved our Lord the 
 necessity of a journey from heaven to do what the Spirits 
 are going to accomplish in short metre ! For 1800 years 
 Christ and the Holy Spirit have not been able to reform 
 the world entirely, but the " Spirits," since they have taken 
 hold of the work are going to usher in speedily the univer- 
 sal jubilee ! This reminds us much of an ignoramus who 
 should see a scientific man poring over some intricate pro- 
 blem, and should give the savant a rap on the shoulder, 
 saying, " Here, old dolt, let your superior solve that ques- 
 tion." But, seriously, is it not shocking to every religious 
 mind, to be told that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, 
 &c, are going to do in a short time, what Jesus Christ 
 
16 CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 
 
 and all his followers have been striving to do ever since the 
 advent of Jesus, but have not yet been able to accomplish ! 
 Say the Spirits of the 6th sphere, (which is a place of 
 some authority, as the 7th, which is 4000 miles distant from 
 the earth is the highest of all,) through R. P. Ambler, 
 Editor of the " Spirit Messenger :" 
 
 A new era is dawning upon the earth. Man has been 
 blessed as he was never blessed before. The Christian era 
 represented the preparatory process, which was designed 
 to fit the whole mass of humanity for the introduction of 
 a still higher and more heavenly reality. Spirits have 
 seen, that the blessings which have been conferred on the 
 world in all previous ages, have been concentrated and 
 poured in one. beautiful stream upon the heaving breast of 
 earth. The era of spirtual truth has now arrived" 
 
 Says John 0. Wattles, of Indiana, in a letter written 
 to Capron and Barron, authors of " History of Mysterious 
 Noises," which letter Mr. Coggshall, author of " History of 
 Rappingsin Cincinnatti," recommends as containing " the 
 sentiments which should actuate every man engaged in 
 Spiritual Investigations, " They (the Spirits) have been 
 bending over us, and flocking around the world ever since 
 they have left their bodies, and only need access to man to 
 guide him out of the wilderness, over the desert, and up 
 the hill top, to the land of redemption" 
 
 Says Dr. Chambers, through James Paterson, published 
 by Bela Marsh, " In the year of our Lord 1854 there 
 will be so much death among you, that you will not be able 
 to bury your dead. You will then be assured that the 
 time is at hand, when the Son of God ivill come, with all 
 his holy angels, to claim his kingdom." 
 
 These writings are purchased and read by the Spiritual- 
 sts, and with the exception of the last mentioned one, are 
 
CLAIMS OF THE SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. 17 
 
 approved of by the great body of the Rapiers. Much 
 more of the same kind of language might be quoted, but 
 we presume the above quotations are sufficient to satisfy 
 any candid man that our assertion is true. If any one 
 doubts, however, we w T ould refer him to the books them- 
 selves. 
 
 Is it not strange, if the Bible is true, that no prophecy 
 should have been recorded there respecting this extraordi- 
 nary change that is to come upon the earth, through the 
 agency of the Spirits ? How short-sighted in the Al- 
 mighty, when inspiring his prophets to foretell the glories 
 of Christianity, that he should have entirely overlooked 
 this much greater dispensation ! But probably he did not 
 then know that so extraordinary a genius as Dr. Franklin 
 would ever arise in the heavenly sphere, to discover what 
 had escaped his observation ! It is not to be at all won- 
 dered at that this Dr. Franklin should be able to equal the 
 Deity in omnipresence, as he has proved himself superior 
 in omniscience ! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 
 
 We' propose 4 fro* examine this creed in the light of 
 
 1st. The Scriptures. 
 
 2dly. Reason. 
 
 3dly. Philosophy. 
 
 4thly. Common Sense. 
 
 Sthly. Heliffiorij 
 and then to point out what we believe we have discovered 
 to be the true cause of the rapping phenomena. 
 
 1st. What do the Scriptures say upon this point ? 
 
 Our readers will pardon us for taking a general survey 
 of the grand doctrine of the Bible, before considering par- 
 ticular passages. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to settle the doctrine of the ple- 
 nary inspiration of the Bible. As the " Rappers" have 
 fled to its pages for consolation, even if those pages were 
 not authoritative, it would be important to show that the 
 slaveholders never made a greater mistake in fleeing to the 
 Bible for protection from the darts of the anti-Slavery 
 archers, than our spiritual brethren have made in casting 
 up their intrenchments of Biblical lore, behind which they 
 luxuriate in loving fellowship with drunkards, slaveholders, 
 war makers, and other false interpreters of Christianity. 
 
T/HAT 8AYS THE BIBLE ? 19 
 
 1st. What crime does the Old Testament accuse the 
 Jews of committing ? Of going after other gods and 
 teachers than Jehovah. The sin of the Israelites was sim- 
 ply this. They went after strange gods. Nothing more 
 can be made of their idolatry. They did not forsake en- 
 tirely the God of heaven, but they added the worship of 
 other gods to their religious system. Precisely the same 
 acts in spirit were committed by the backsliding Christians 
 of John's time. Errorists added to the worship of the 
 true God, that of Antichrist, This appears plain from 
 John's accusation of these disciples. 
 
 Now what are our Spiritual brethren doing but reviving 
 the ancient sin of the Old and New Testament transpires- 
 sors ? As we have seen from the quotations from their 
 writings, under pretence of introducing a purer system of 
 religious faith than the old one, they have formed acquain- 
 tance with other gods than the one living and true Jeho- 
 vah. They have abandoned the Urim and Thummim of 
 the Christian dispensation, as Saul did that of the Mosaic, 
 and like him have chosen to consult with familiar Spirits. 
 
 We will now introduce a very few quotations more, that 
 show the important part human spirits occupy in this new 
 way of saving man. 
 
 In the "Spiritual Teacher," by R. P. Ambler, then Edi- 
 tor of the Spirit Messenger, the Spirits say, " It is the 
 mission of the Spirits to bring life and immortality to light." 
 "The angels have decided to accomplish the purpose 
 which they have conceived" " They will cover the earth 
 with fruits of immortal growth." " They will cause the 
 tears of men to flow no more." 
 
 In the " Philosophy of the Spirit World," by Hammond, 
 
20 . WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE? 
 
 we have the following from the Spirits : " You see no hope 
 of reform unless a radical change is wrought," &c. "The 
 work must be commenced and completed by Spirits" 
 
 In " Light from the Spirit World, 5 ' the Spirits say, 
 " We will pour out upon you a full measure of inspiration 
 from heaven." "You will write and preach as you will be 
 moved by the Spirits ." 
 
 Says "John Howard," in the "New Era," " Spirits 
 have taken the position of teachers, they will instruct all 
 who will receive their instruction. 
 
 It is plain, that the Spirits are to be the chief actors in 
 the vast drama of reform now opening before the world. 
 What has become of God, we are not expressly informed, 
 as the " Father of Spirits" is a being about whom the 
 " Spirits" have but little to tell us." They are the ones 
 who are to do all these things, and to them will belong the 
 glory of the final salvation of the race, unless it is said 
 that God has commissioned them ; but that is a point upon 
 which both Spirits and Rappers are wisely, nearly silent. 
 " The Spirits or angels have decided to accomplish the 
 purpose which they have conceived." 
 
 Thus we see the startling principle recognized, that err- 
 ing man is the medium of communication with heaven, and 
 that only through human Spirits can the world be " made 
 wise unto salvation." This is the crime of errorists in all 
 ages, and is emphatically the sin of the Catholic imitators 
 of that holy ministry established by Him, who taught the 
 glorious doctrine of the equality of all men before God. 
 The Urim and Thummim were the appointed means of re- 
 vealing God's will to the ancient Israelites. Under the 
 Christian dispensation, prayer in the name of Christ was 
 
WHAT BAYS THE BIBLE ? 21 
 
 substituted for this ceremonial. Under both dispensations, 
 God was recognized as the only legitimate teacher of his 
 people. By this- we mean that both Jews and Christians 
 were required to believe in no other teacher of truth, ex- 
 cept the respective heads* of the two systems. Moses was 
 ''faithful over hk own house," and Christ over his. The 
 Jew was expected to cling to Moses, as the chosen medium 
 of the Almighty in revealing his will, and the Christian 
 was required to put the same confidence in Jesus. Priests 
 existed under the ancient dispensation, but not as teachers. 
 Their office was to take charge of the temple service. So 
 ministers had a being under the Christian dispensation, 
 but were never fled to as teachers in the place of Christ. 
 Under both of these dispensations God assumed absolute 
 authority over his people. Moses and Jesus were only 
 mediums through whom Ms wiH was declared. Not so with 
 the Spirits. Let this point be distinctly xmderstood. We 
 beg of our spiritual friends to look at it candidly. Moses 
 and Jesus each stood as the acknowledged interpreter of 
 God's will to man, and their words, were to be implicitly 
 confided m as authoritative. 
 
 Then it is admitted, that God through Moses was the 
 only legitimate teacher of the Jews, and through Christ 
 the same of the Christians. If it is urged in reply to this 
 statement, that God also anointed prophets, who spake 
 from direct inspiration, we answer, they spake only as the 
 rebukers of the people for disobeying the law of Moses 
 God inspired them to warn the contemners of his ancient 
 law of the terrible fate that awaited them fer their disobe- 
 dience. It is plain that Moses was the representative of 
 God to the ancient Jews, and that to him, as the me- 
 
22 WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 
 
 dium of God, were they to hearken. Whenever they went 
 after other gods, they cast aside the authority of Moses, 
 who required them to worship Jehovah only. That we 
 may not be misunderstood, we will use the following illus- 
 tration. Supposing a pipe is laid from a never failing 
 fountain to the streets of a large city. Years roll by, and 
 the stream still flows uninterruptedly through the main 
 pipe, until it reaches the gates of the city. A designing 
 man pierces the pipe just outside the city walls, and while 
 the inhabitants are crying for water, he introduces a stream 
 from another fountain, of a poisonous nature, which he 
 causes to flow through sweetened conduits. The drink 
 tastes deliciously to the people, bat, alas ! death is con- 
 cealed in its nectarine elements, and the city is filled with 
 woe. 
 
 Precisely so is it when God's chosen way of nourishing 
 his children is abandoned, and " broken cisterns that can 
 hold no water' ' are applied to, for that spiritual water of 
 which " if a man drink he shall never thirst." Whatever 
 way this is, when it is forsaken, nothing but spiritual lean- 
 ness is the result. Now, if God established the Mosaic 
 dispensation, then it was the " fountain of living waters" 
 until he ordained a better. He did, under Christ, estab- 
 lish a better dispensation, which in its turn was to stand 
 until revoked by the same power that established it. Let 
 this point be well weighed. The Mosaic dispensation 
 stood as God's law, until Christ was anointed in Moses' 
 room, and he is to stand until Gro d appoints his successor. 
 Here we plant ourself, and challenge the Spiritualists to 
 refute our arguments, or drive us from our position. If 
 God is the author of the Bible, Moses was the only head 
 
WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE I 23 
 
 of the Jewish church, and his laws were binding until 
 Christ came, who now, as interpreted by the " Comforter," 
 stands before the world as God's only vicegerent to man. 
 This is Protestantism, but this is not modern Spiritualism. 
 
 We now make this charge against " Spiritualism." It 
 upsets Christianity, as far as the authority of its recognized 
 teachers, Christ and the Holy Spirit, is concerned. If its 
 doctrines are true, there is more than "- one Mediator be- 
 tween God and man," for every Spirit from the other 
 world affects to be either a mediator, or a teacher on his own 
 responsibility. Christianity, as far as its authority and 
 perfection are concerned, is thus overthrown, although some 
 reliance may be placed upon the precepts of Christ, — but 
 this is not Christianity, as understood by the believers in 
 the Bible. 
 
 Thus, as long as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and the 
 Holy Ghost, " which they that believe on him should re- 
 ceive," are seated at the head of God's church, can there 
 be no room for the Spirits. The only way in which they 
 can substantiate their claims, is by proving the abdication 
 of Christ and the Holy Spirit in their favor. Our Spirit- 
 ual friends cannot deny this. 
 
 One point more before we allude to some of the texts 
 of Scripture, which the Rappers quote to sustain their 
 insane position. It is this. All along adown the stream 
 of time, there have arisen numerous hypocritical pretend- 
 ers to being able to teach men "the way of salvation." 
 Ever since Aaron set up the golden calf on the plains 
 around the burning mount, and allowed the besotted Israel- 
 ites to worship it as their deliverer, has man rebelled 
 against the authority of Jehovah, in this matter of reli- 
 
24 WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 
 
 gious teaching. In the days of the Apostles numerous 
 false teachers arose, and professed to be the almoners of 
 heaven's bounty to earth. Of them It is said, w Every 
 spirit" (or person) "that confesses that Jesus Christ has 
 come in the flesh," (that is, that recognises his authority as 
 a divine teacher,) " is of God." Now, do the Spirits of 
 to-day bow before this authority ? Do they acknowledge 
 Jesus as "Lord of all?" Then they are not of God, 
 according to the New Testament. 
 
 This is the standard by which to try them. Do they 
 assert the supremacy of Christ, and confess that they are 
 messengers from the Holy Spirit. Not one of them. On 
 the contrary, many of them deny in toto the magnitude of 
 Christ's mission, and, as we have seen, claim that they are 
 going to establish a purer and better dispensation, as Jo. 
 Smith did before them. It is in vain for our Rapping 
 brethren to attempt to evade this point. They have set 
 themselves " up against the Lord and his Christ," and if 
 they are not very blind, they must see that they are Anti- 
 christ. 
 
 It matters not they still acknowledge God as the chief 
 of divinities ; this did the Jews, while they were worship- 
 ping the idols of the heathen. It is enough that they are 
 not satisfied with God's teachings, but hanker after new 
 Gods or teachers. In this consists their denial of God's 
 dominion, for if God is still alive and able to instruct them, 
 what need is there of their applying to Dr. Rush and Ben- 
 jamin Franklin ? 
 
 If we are asked, if by applying to spirits for wisdom we 
 believe God is insulted, our answer is, most emphatically, 
 yes, for a child who runs to other children in the street to 
 
WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 25 
 
 know his duty, instead of asking his father to shew it him, 
 is no more insulting in his treatment of his father than we 
 are in our treatment of God, by applying to Spirits to in- 
 struct us. We have said that Jesus' authority remains 
 binding upon us, until it is set aside by Jehovah, as Moses' 
 law, was. In lieu of the personal presence of Jesus, by 
 which we can be instructed, we have that gift promised 
 by him, as his interpreter and representative to the end 
 of time. "If I go away the Comforter will come." We 
 are thus armed " cap a pie," with the gospel armor, and 
 as John as said, " we need not that any man teach us, &c." 
 Now with this plain fact before their eyes, we do not know 
 how our spiritual friends, can retain their faith, and with any 
 shew of reason profess to believe in Christianity. Either 
 God or they must be greatly mistaken. He says the 
 Comforter, Jesus' representative, is an all sufficient guide for 
 the church. They say nay, but give us Dr. Rush. They 
 thus manifestly prefer Rush to Christ, and Thomas Paine 
 to the Holy Spirit. Is it any wonder that they should 
 " be filled with the fruit of their own doings ? " We are 
 aware that the " Spiritualists" will attempt to reply to this 
 argument as follows. Is it any more a violation of God's 
 command, not to worship other gods, and to apply to him 
 only for truth, when we consult Spirits, than it is when we 
 attend church and read the writings of commentators upon 
 the Scriptures ? Our reply is, look at your practice again, 
 and see if there is any similiarity between the two. In the 
 first place, every church claims to be founded upon the 
 doctrine of the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and every 
 minister and commentator profess to be guided by that 
 Spirit in their teachings. Do the Spirits in the other world 
 
26 WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 
 
 claim that the Holy Ghost has inspired them to speak f 
 Do they lisp the name of the Holy Spirit ? 2d. Even 
 if it were true, that the cases were similar, it wonld not 
 justify your conduct. God has positively declared, " if any 
 man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth liberally 
 and upbraideth not." If men err in seeking human teach- 
 ers, is it any justification of your act in seeking superhuman 
 scources of instruction ? To this it may be replied " shall 
 we never ask advice from man ? " We are now treating 
 upon religious wisdom, and have only stated the words of 
 God himself in relation to the matter. But do you con- 
 tent yourselves with asking advice of Spirits ? No, but 
 you look to them as the grand regenerators of the " latter 
 day/' the greatest apostles of reform, the world has ever 
 seen. 
 
 Of course strong-minded and thinking men, of whom 
 we are sorry to say there are not many among the spiritu- 
 alists, laugh at these pretensions of the majority and are 
 beginning to shake their skirts from all connection with 
 the subject. One of them, formally a contributor to a 
 spiritual paper, caused his name to be removed, upon per- 
 ceiving the extravagant pretensions put forth by the more 
 enthusiastic, which surpass the powers claimed by even 
 the Apostles, as will be shewn in another place. Another 
 very distinguished Spiritualist informed the writer not long 
 since, that he had concluded that it was a mere theological 
 belief, and not worth contending much about. But the 
 " New Era" the chief organ of the movement in New 
 England, still persists in declaring that it believes 
 " Heaven is opened to Earth," and that a " new era," is 
 dawning upon the world. We will now present the par- 
 
WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 27 
 
 ticular passages of the Bible that are claimed by the Rap- 
 pers, as teaching their doctrine. It will be borne in mind, 
 that if what we have said is true, of course there cannot 
 be anything in the Bible to favor the Rapping doctrine, for 
 in that case, it would overthrow itself. It must also be 
 borne in mind that if the claims of our brethren are true, in 
 regard to the " new dispensation," of course the Bible 
 can contain nothing to favor them, for in that case, their 
 ideas would not be new, but as old as Moses and Joshua. 
 Indeed their principal doctrine being true it is utterly im- 
 possible that the Bible can support it, for then the singu- 
 ar spectacle would be presented of its author upholding, 
 the doctrine that it was to become an effete affair. Is it 
 likely that the author of the Bible would sustain a theory 
 the principal feature of which is, that it, the Bible, along 
 with all other remedial agents had utterly failed to redeem 
 man, and therefore the Spirits had commenced the work 
 of rapping out the gospel in a new and convincing 
 manner. 
 
 We wish to say here, that whatever may be said in the 
 Bible to favor the doctrine of spiritual intercourse, that 
 there is not one word there to uphold the modern doctrine 
 of Spiritual Rappings.* Spirits existed and God conversed 
 with man, but there is not a solitary instance from Genesis 
 to Revelation of the carrying out of the Rapping doc- 
 
 — * It is quite a singular phenomenon in the history of mental delusion 
 that men should with one breath proclaim aloud the glories of the new 
 dispensation, and almost burst their blood vessels, in their frantic joy, at 
 the coming of God upon earth, and then before these words are hardly out 
 of their mouths, should seize their Bibles to prove that all they claim was 
 performed ages ago. They are like a man who should boldly claim to be sent 
 of God to establish a new religion, and when asked for the proof of his 
 claims, should pore over the Bible and quote passages to show that Moses, 
 Joshua, Jesus and Paul taught, the very same religion, thousands of years 
 ago, " Our system is a new one, hutifjt 'isn't, it is em old one." 
 
28 WHAT SAYS THE BIBLE ? 
 
 trines. No Spirit of a human being ever of his own ac- 
 cord appeared to man and held converse with him, by 
 rappings, or in any other way. Thus the Bible affords no 
 support to this theory, and no explanation of the pheno- 
 mena, tending to materialism, can invalidate any portions 
 of the Bible, for the plain reason that nothing of the kind 
 ever occurred in Scriptural times. And yet with a singu- 
 lar madness our brethren fiercely rush to the Scriptures, 
 and wrest them to their own destruction. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 NO RAPPINGS OE SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 And why should there be ? Had God grown weary of 
 the Urim and Thummim, his appointed way under the old 
 dispensation of revealing his will to man? Was Christ's 
 spirit the Comforter no longer able to instruct men under 
 the new dispensation, and therefore, Socrates must under- 
 take the mighty work ? Both of these things must be 
 necessarily true, if in the Bible, God has authorised the 
 Spiritual Rappings. Think of it ! Under Moses, the 
 Jews had been led through various difficulties, until the 
 laws of Mount Sinai were fully established, and all with- 
 out the Spiritual Rappings. 
 
 Under Christ the much grander work of restoring the 
 worship of the true God, had been completed, and the 
 Spirits had not been employed. Now, w r as it likely, w T hen 
 both of these dispensations were established without the 
 aid of the Spirits, that it would be necessary to obtain 
 their assistance, merely to sustain these dispensations ? 
 The buildings had been erected without the help of these 
 Spiritual carpenters. Was it necessary to employ them 
 to prop up those structures ? 
 
 Our adversaries do not fly to the Scriptures because 
 they have any idea of abiding by their decisions, for they 
 have already told us that the dispensation of the Spirits, 
 is superior in point of ability to accomplish holy results, to 
 any other. Neither can they really believe that the Bible 
 contains a single mstance^i^Spiritual Rappings, for they 
 3* 
 
80 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 claim as we have seen, that those are latter-day wonders, 
 and give us the date of their discovery. Why then do 
 they fly to the Scriptures ? For the same reason that 
 slaveholders do the same, because in that book, there are 
 some allusions, that seem at first sight to favor their doc- 
 trine, just as there are some few passages, that seem to 
 uphold slavery. But a closer examination of both of 
 these kind of texts proves that neither the rappers nor 
 the slaveholders, have the least shadow of foundation in 
 the Bible, for their doctrine. 
 
 We are aware that it will be said, that angels appeared 
 to men, and so did God himself, but it by no means fol- 
 lows that those angels were departed spirits, or that God 
 was in reality a man. 
 
 It is a most singular fact, that our friends in the total 
 lack of other passages of Scripture to sustain their doc- 
 trines, have resorted to the utterly untenable position, that 
 angels are the spirits of human beings. So foolish is 
 error. By this argument they shew their consciousness 
 of inability, otherwise to prove their doctrine from Scrip- 
 ture, for nought but a desperate cause would feel obliged 
 to use such an argument. We wish this point to be un- 
 derstood, that Spiritualism has been obliged to assert the 
 human nature of angels, in order to prove the oldness of 
 their doctrine. " Angels are human spirits." " Where 
 was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
 of God shouted for joy." Pray tell us, if this earth was 
 inhabited before its foundations were laid ? 
 
 If the word angel, means messenger, as any consulter 
 of the original can determine for himself, then surely it is 
 an absurdity for the term to be applied exclusively to 
 spirits, and especially to the spirits of human beings. 
 That the word angel is applied to other than spiritual be- 
 ings, is evident from the messages addressed to the angels 
 of the several Asiatic Churches, in which case it mani- 
 festly is applied to the elders of those Churches, who, ac- 
 cording to the gospel signification of ministers, were the ser- 
 
NO KAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 81 
 
 vants of those Churches. It, therefore, implies nothing more 
 than one who does a service for the Almighty, and it may 
 mean God, super-human, or human beings, and those in the 
 flesh as well as those out. The angels of the Eastern 
 Churches, were God's servants and messengers to those 
 Churches. Thus Phebe is termed the servant of the 
 Church at Cencrea, and the Apostle frequently styles 
 himself the servant of God. 
 
 That there are, in existence, beings above the race of 
 man, there is no reason whatever for doubting, for there 
 is nothing at all unreasonable in the idea. Indeed, noth- 
 ing but rank materialism would find it necessary to be- 
 lieve that angels were departed spirits, in order to ac- 
 count for their existence, for it surely would be no more 
 difficult for God, to create an intelligence without a body, 
 than it is to create one with a body, as he has done in the 
 case of man. Materialism connects matter with every- 
 thing, and has no faith that rises above the mud. 
 
 If we examine the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, we 
 shall be able to obtain a pretty correct idea of the nature 
 of these intelligences. Let us turn to the 1st chapter of 
 that Epistle. In the 6th verse we read, " When he 
 bringeth his first begotten into the world, he saith let all 
 the angels of Grod worship himP Now if angels here 
 mean the spirits of departed persons, why are they called 
 the angels of God ? Are the spirits of human beings 
 necessarily the messengers of God ? How then, does it 
 happen, that so many evil and ignorant spirits obtrude their 
 messages upon our spiritual friends ? Says Adin Ballon : 
 
 " We admit the facts, as to contradiction, mistakes, in- 
 congruities, &c. We regret the facts, they embarrass us. 
 We cannot fully account for them." 
 
 Thus we see that angels are God's messengers, and 
 not the whole horde of spirits who inhabit the other 
 world. Again, these angels were to submit to the authori- 
 ty of Jesus Christ ! Do all the spirits of the other world 
 do this ? 
 
32 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 In the 7th verse we are told, " Who maketh his angels 
 spirits." That is, God uses for messengers, spirits, or 
 spiritual beings, as well as men in the flesh. It does not 
 say spirits of human beings, and those who so understand 
 this passage, need to anoint their eyes with spiritual eye- 
 salve, so that they will be able to see other spirits, than 
 those who once inhabited human forms. 
 
 But in the 9th verse we are told, these angels are the 
 fellows of Jesus Christ. Do the immense horde of 
 deceiving spirits, now seeking to communicate with man, 
 seem to be the fellows of him, " in whose mouth there 
 was no guile ?" They could not be, without the Saviour's 
 permission, and that he would recognise such beings as 
 his fellows, seems hardly probable. If all spirits were 
 then, their successors are not all now, for some of them 
 deny his divinity in toto. 
 
 In the 13th verse, angels are again spoken of as God's 
 obedient servants. This seems to be the distinguishing 
 trait of an angel. A holy person made use of by God, to 
 accomplish his purposes. 
 
 The 14th verse reads as follows : — " Are they not all 
 ministering spirits, sent forth to minister (or serve) for 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " — a very unfortu- 
 nate passage for the Eappers, but one upon which they rely 
 considerably to establish their point of angels being departed 
 spirits. As well might they quote the following passage, 
 to prove that Spirits are capable of rolling a stone from 
 the door of a sepulchre : " For the angel of the Lord de- 
 scended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone 
 from the door." If this proves that Dr. Franklin's spirit 
 can move a table, then may the other passage prove that 
 departed spirits are sent forth to the earth to minister unto 
 all men. But to return : 
 
 " Are they not all ministering spirits ? " Now, will 
 any sane man assert, that every departed spirit is God's 
 ministering servant ? Again, " sent forth," — that is, ac- 
 cording to the Eappers, sent down. Says one of the 
 principal correspondents of the New Era, " The place from 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 33 
 
 whence the Spirits come is twenty-one thousand miles above 
 our atmosphere." The angel of the Lord who rolled away 
 the stone descended from heaven. " Jacob saw in his 
 dream angels ascending and descending." " The Lord 
 shall descend from heaven with a shout." " The Holy 
 Ghost sent down from heaven." 
 
 Now, as great as is the difference between going forth 
 into different parts of the spiritual world, and descending 
 thousands of miles to our earth, so great is that between 
 the mission of angels, and that of the spirits of the " new 
 dispensation." The angels were to minister. Do the 
 Spirits of to-day minister or serve ? Ask the hundreds of 
 persons who have offended these very humble beings, and 
 therefore have not been able to get responses. The Spirits 
 are proverbially testy and proud. 
 
 The angels were sent forth to minister unto those who 
 should be " heirs of salvation." Who are these ? Not 
 the whole human race in their present condition most cer- 
 tainly ; for no man is heir to anything not secured to him, 
 and surely salvation is not secured to the present wicked 
 inhabitants of the earth, for then they must have no need 
 of repentance. Even the Universalists do not believe that 
 sinners are heirs to heaven, but only that when they die, 
 God will confer upon them the power to embrace the offers 
 of salvation. Restorationists believe it will take some time 
 for them to repent. The more ultra, that they will imme- 
 diately accept the offers of God, but none of them believe, 
 that while a person is a sinner, he is an heir of salvation, 
 for salvation, they believe, consists in deliverance from 
 sin. 
 
 So that, none but the pure in heart are heirs of God's 
 salvation. " If a son, then an heir of God." " Whosoever 
 is born of God doth not commit sin." " In this the chil- 
 dren of God are manifest." It is quite plain, then, that 
 none but the righteous are now the heirs of salvation, and 
 to them only were the angels " sent forth " to minister 
 unto. But under the " new dispensation," the righteous 
 are no more blessed than the^icked with these messages 
 
34 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 of mercy. On the contrary, as their principal object ap- 
 pears to be to convert the unbeliever, the inference is, that 
 those who are " in their sins " are more blessed in this 
 way than any other class of persons, on the principle, we 
 suppose, that " the whole need not a physician." Quite 
 the reverse, however, of the manner in which God's angels 
 operate. 
 
 But, it is asked, " What need is there of angels minis- 
 tering unto the good in the other world ? Plainly on the 
 principle, that a one star differeth from another in glory." 
 Socrates was an honest man. Plato was the same. Lu- 
 ther, Calvin, Wesley, Fox, Whitfield, Edwards, and a host 
 of others who have differed from each other, were honest 
 men, but they could not all have been right in their views ; 
 therefore, when they enter the other world, holy angels are 
 commissioned to instruct them, until they all u see eye to 
 eye." Says Christ, " I say unto you, their angels (those 
 of his disciples) do always behold the face of my Father 
 in Heaven." Of course they must be in heaven, then. 
 This fully explains the other verse. The angels of God 
 look on his face, and receive his messages, and go forth to 
 the " general assembly of the church of the first-born," to 
 lead them into all truth. Glorious mission, thus to perfect 
 and enlighten all true lovers of holiness, the " pure in 
 heart " of all ages ! 
 
 We thus learn five very important differences between 
 the character of these angels, and that of the Spirits, with 
 whom our friends suppose these angels to be identical. 
 
 1st. The angels are all holy, and bow 1st. The Spirits are often the op- 
 
 to Jesus. posite. 
 
 2d. The angels always behold God's 2d. The Spirits go down to the 
 
 face, and go forth only in heaven. earth. 
 
 3d. The angels are sent unto the 3d. The Spirits go to all, but espe- 
 
 children of God only. cially to the unbelievers. 
 
 4th. The angels are servants and 4th. The Spirits are testy. 
 
 humble. 
 
 5th. The angels are God's messen- 5th. The Spirits are their own 
 
 gers. master. 
 
 Thus we see, 1st, that, as great as is the difference be- 
 tween holiness and sin, so great is that between angels and 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 35 
 
 modern spirits ; 2d : that as wide apart as are heaven and 
 earth, so far asunder are angels, and the spirits of the 
 " new dispensation ; " 3d : that as deep as is the gulf be- 
 tween the rich man and Lazarus, so low is the pit between 
 angels and our friends' new guides ; 4th : that, as diverse 
 as are humility and pride, so different are angels and the 
 teachers of the " third dispensation ; " and 5th, that, as 
 great as is the difference between being a messenger of 
 God, and as independent as Satan, so great is that between 
 angels and modern spirits. Yea, more ; as far apart as 
 are the " fellows " of Jesus Christ, and the vulgar, 
 abominable beings, who nightly intrude their execrable 
 presence upon the sight of numerous spiritual circles, who 
 vainly endeavor to brush them aside, that the good spirits 
 may come, so far asunder are the heralders of the old 
 dispensation, and the body-guards of the vastly superior 
 " new era." 
 
 But the whole matter of the superiority of angels to 
 men can be summarily settled by an appeal to the follow- 
 ing passages : Heb. ii. 7, informs us, that Christ was made 
 46 a little lower than the angels." Of course, if the angels 
 are human beings, Christ became less than man, or neces- 
 sarily a brute. To this conclusion does modern spiritual- 
 ism, in its effort to prove its doctrines, lead us. But the 
 16th verse is conclusive : u For verily he took not on him 
 the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abra- 
 ham." Let us interpret this passage in accordance with 
 the views of those Spiritualists, who believe angels are de- 
 parted spirits. u For verily Christ took not on him the 
 nature of human beings, but he took on him the seed of a 
 human being," or, in other words, Abraham's seed was 
 different from that of other human beings, consequently 
 Abraham was not a human being. To this absurdity does 
 the modern spiritual doctrine lead. 
 
 While upon this matter of angels, it may be proper to 
 repeat, that, in no case are angels spoken of as acting on 
 their own behalf, but always as the agents or messengers 
 of God, except where they-are spoken of as the Devil's 
 
36 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 angels. In modern spiritualism, as we have seen, the 
 Spirits are as independent as Satan supposed himself to 
 be, when he proudly replied to God's inquiry, " Whence 
 comest thou ? " " From going to and fro in the earth, 
 and from walking up and down it." In this, as well as in 
 several other respects, they seem to be much more like that 
 being, than like the holy angels of God, to whom they do 
 not seem to possess hardly the faintest resemblance. 
 
 We will now notice the Old Testament passages that 
 refer to angels, and there we shall find something still more 
 remarkable respecting the " nature of angels." In the 
 16th chapter of Genesis, and 10th verse, we read, 
 " And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will 
 multiply thy seed exceedingly." Was this a departed 
 spirit ? In the 13th verse, " And she called the name of 
 the Lord that spake unto her, thou Grod seest me" Was 
 the Lord and God a departed spirit ? Again, in the 
 17th chapter, 1st and 2d verses, we are informed, 
 that u the Lord " appeared to Abraham, and said, "I am 
 the Almighty Grod" It was an angel who spake to 
 Sarah. That angel she calls " the Lord." " The Lord " 
 says to Abraham, " I am the Almighty God." There- 
 fore, " Almighty God" is a departed spirit, if this doc- 
 trine is true. Genesis xviii. 1, tells us that " the Lord ap- 
 peared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre." The 4th 
 verse represents Abraham as saying, " Let a little water, 
 I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet." The 13th 
 verse declares, that " the Lord said unto Abraham " so 
 and so. The 23d, that " the men turned their faces from 
 thence, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord," In the 
 19th chapter, and 1st verse, u came two angels to Sodom." 
 In the 10th verse, it is said, " the men put forth their 
 hand." In the 12th and 13th verses, u And the men said 
 unto Lot, we will destroy this place, and the Lord has sent 
 us to destroy it." 
 
 Here we have the remarkable fact, that the Lord ap- 
 peared unto Abraham in the form of one or more human 
 beings ; and after he had thrown off the human disguise, 
 
NO RAPPINGS OE SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 37 
 
 he still was present to Abraham. We have, also, in Lot's 
 case, the still more remarkable fact, that angels appeared 
 to Lot as men. They ate and drank as men, and reached 
 forth their hands as men, and, to all appearance, were as 
 veritable human beings as Lot himself. And yet, in the 
 18th verse, Lot addresses them as " my Lord," and in the 
 19th, calls himself " thy servant," and expresses his grati- 
 tude to some superior power for protection. Query : If 
 angels, who are acknowledged to be spirits, could thus ap- 
 pear as human beings, could not God do the same ? In 
 the 21st verse, we are told, u I will not overthrow this 
 city ; " and in the 24th and 25th verses, and " the Lord 
 overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." 
 
 In Exodus xxiii. 20, we read, " Behold, I send an angel 
 before thee, to keep thee in the way," &c. Now, that 
 this angel was God himself, appears from the next verses, 
 and from the fact, that Paul says, " the rock that went 
 with them was Christ," as also from the following 
 considerations : 
 
 1st. Moses was not meant, for in Isaiah lxxiii. 9, we 
 read, " The angel of his presence saved them." Of course, 
 Moses did not save them, but God himself. " In his love 
 and pity, he redeemed them, and he bare them, and carried 
 them all the days of old" This surely could not have 
 been Moses. 
 
 2d. "The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of 
 cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire." Therefore, if the 
 angel was other than God himself, it must have been the 
 cloud, for that was all that went before them except God. 
 
 8d. Moses was never invested with such power as that 
 here attributed to the angel. 
 
 4th. Moses always lead the people in person, but the 
 angel of the Lord, which went before the camp of Israel, 
 removed and went behind them." This surely was not 
 Moses. That this was none other than Deity, represented 
 as an angel, is certain, because, on no other hypothesis can 
 the solemn assurance of Jehovah, that non-obedience to 
 the angel would be equivaleM-with disobedience to him, 
 4 
 
88 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 be accounted for, as also the command, "Beware of him, 
 and obey his voice, and provoke him not." Moses never 
 assumed so much authority as this, but rather lost sight 
 of himself, as he pointed the people to God as the only 
 authority. It would be w 7 ell for our modern Spiritualists, 
 if they were a little more like him, in this respect. 
 
 The cases where God is called an angel are so numerous, 
 that we can quote but a very few of them. The angel of 
 the burning bush was " the God of Abraham, the God of 
 Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The angel that wrestled 
 with Jacob was God, for he said, " As a prince hast thou 
 power with God, and hast prevailed ; " and Jacob said, 
 "For I have seen Grod face to face." In this case, God 
 appeared as a man, as he did w 7 hen Moses was hidden in 
 the cleft of the rock, and saw not the face, but the " back 
 parts of the Almighty." 
 
 But one case will settle the point, that God, assumes 
 the form of man, beyond all shadow of a doubt. In 
 heaven, Ezekiel saw the Lord sitting upon a throne. He 
 says, " upon the likeness of the throne, was the likeness, 
 as the appearance of a man, above upon it." "And when 
 I saw, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one 
 that spake, and he said unto me," " thus saith the Lord 
 God" Isaiah, also, "saw the Lord sitting upon a 
 throne." " Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
 Hosts." Now Christ declares — "no man has seen God 
 at any time," and Paul says, " whom no man hath seen, 
 nor can see." The inference is irresistible, that God as- 
 sumes the form of man, or even of inanimate things, on 
 very extraordinary occasions, and in that form, he appear- 
 ed unto Abraham and to Lot. 
 
 So we see that an angel, instead of being a departed 
 spirit, is either a living man upon the earth, or a being — 
 above the " seed of Abraham," or God himself. There is 
 no difficulty in the w r ay of the latter hypothesis, on 
 account of the angel being alluded to, as one sent from 
 God, any more than there is, when the Holy Ghost is 
 spoken of, as " sent down from heaven." God sends his 
 spirit, and sends his angel. 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 39 
 
 In this manner, was the word of the old dispensation 
 u spoken by angels," Heb. ii. 3, and the two dispensations 
 being both ushered in thus gloriously, it ill becomes our 
 friends of the " far greater dispensation," to lift their 
 feeble voices in opposition to those old dispensations, until 
 the " new era" is as clearly sanctioned by the Almighty. 
 God appeared at the commencement of both of the old 
 dispensations, and why should he not at the beginning of 
 the new one ? ye Spiritualists, hide your faces in the 
 dust, while we record the fact, that the " far more pure " 
 dispensation was ushered in by — what ? — by rapping on 
 a table. Tell it not in Gath, that the glorious Ci new era" 
 was heralded, only by the knocking of the ghost of a mur- 
 dered man ! If Christianity is to be superseded by and 
 with the consent of its author, how strange, that he should 
 be so entirely silent upon the subject ; yea, more, should 
 seldom, if ever address the "rappers" on any subject. 
 But irony aside. Is it not little short of blasphemy for 
 men and women, of no particular renown for virtue, to 
 attempt to crowd upon the community, the insane ravings 
 of their own, and their friends' brains, as the commence- 
 ment of the grandest reform, the world has ever witness- 
 ed, and yet, utterly ignore the teachings of the God of 
 heaven ? Of all the pretended reforms the world has ever 
 witnessed, this is the most bare-faced. 
 
 Prophecy is entirely silent upon the matter. God ap- 
 pears to no man, either in a dream or in a vision, or as 
 the angel Gabriel. No solemn consecration to God is re- 
 quired, to fit persons to be the almoners of his bounty. 
 No joyful religious experience is related. It all consists 
 in being in " a peculiar electrical condition," and like a 
 good fool, " giving yourself up to the spirits," to be in- 
 structed of them. Verily, if this is not the age of hum- 
 bugs, then such an age never existed ! We know we speak 
 plainly, but duty to God, and to the human race requires 
 this plain speech. 
 
 Our misguided friends, rely principally on three passa- 
 ges in the Bible, (which weTshall presently examine,) to 
 
40 NO BAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 prove that departed spirits appear unto man, although 
 lately, a very learned gentleman, has volunteered to aid 
 them in their down-hill road, by introducing to their com- 
 pany the demons of the Bible, and quoting " Jamblichus, 
 Athenagoras, Athanasius, Minucius, Felix, Metermicus, 
 Furnicus, Lactantius," and other worthy gentlemen in 
 favor of the doctrine as he says, of " the Pharisees," 
 " Josephus," and the " Catholic faith of Christendom," 
 as well of the world in general, that the departed spirits 
 of wicked men, took up their abode in the bodies of 
 living men, tormenting them, and making them miserable 
 in various ways. Now, never were the words of Fes- 
 tus to Paul, u much learning hath made thee mad" more 
 fully verified, than in this case. We are often told, that 
 44 a little learning is a dangerous thing," but that a deeper 
 draught from the well of knowledge, will cure the evil. 
 So if Mr. Beecher, had closed his heathen oracles and 
 semi-pagan professed Christian books, and gone to God, 
 and asked of him to pour his spirit upon him, we imagine, 
 a grain of common sense at least, would have been ap- 
 parent in this logical deduction of his. But a man who 
 can compose such a sentence as this, on so simple a sub- 
 ject, as the one upon which he was writing, as if to imi- 
 tate the incantations of those oracles he quotes, can hard- 
 ly be said to possess enough of reason to qualify him to 
 receive God's inspiration. Hear him. Speaking of 
 " Jamblichus," he says : 
 
 iC Thus infiltrations of ancient occult-lore, percolating 
 clear of sediment through manifold mental strata, sparkle at 
 last in the Coelo-Syrian cave." Again, in speaking of the 
 improbability of accounting for the rappings on the theory 
 of Dr. Rogers, he says, w At present the phenomena blend 
 in a penumbra, and form aland of shadows and of debate," 
 and he closes his remarkably lucid argument with this doc- 
 trine, ct Powers unseen, powers serial, under the masterly 
 guidance of some one mind of fathomless ability and fath- 
 omless guile." 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 41 
 
 And what is the object of the Rev. gentleman in this 
 school-boy display of learning (see his book,) that most 
 pedants would be ashamed of? Is it to afford a rational 
 solution of the phenomena, or to caution people against 
 being led away by the errors of the new system ?* No, 
 but the whole thing may be summed up in one word. 
 " The devil is almighty." If he had given us his idea of 
 what the devil has been about for 6000 years, and told us 
 why, in the plenitude of his " fathomless ability" he never 
 ascertained how to rap before, we should have been better 
 satisfied. But now, he proves himself swallowed up in 
 the superstitions of the past to such a degree that even the 
 Spiritualists are far ahead of him. Poor man, he can 
 afford us no other clue to the mystery, than that u the 
 devil has done it." And are we any wiser than before ? 
 Who allows the devil to exert himself in this manner ? and 
 what are the laws of his operations ? For one, much as 
 we dislike the creed of the Rappers, we do not see how we 
 are at all extricated from a portion of it hy Rev. Charles 
 Beecher's exposition. What more hideous nightmare can 
 possibly brood over the soul, than the idea that God allows 
 this terrible monster, the devil, to ape our nearest and 
 dearest friends, and come to us hourly as a messenger of 
 mercy ? How in the name of all that is holy are we to 
 be able to avoid Lucifer ? 
 
 Charles Beecher's doctrine is a gross libel on God, and 
 should be scouted by every lover of Christianity. The fact 
 is, there is much more evidence that the Spirits are tolerably 
 good, than that they are evil, for they generally, when 
 they touch upon morality, preach the most exalted doctrines 
 outwardly. Indeed, we know of no greater argument in 
 
 Mr. Beecher may comfort his soul with the idea that his crumb of 
 comfort is hailed as a perfect God-send by the Spiritualists all around. 
 The " N. Y. Telegraph" advertises and recommends it as likely to be of 
 great use to the cause. The " New Era" thinks that together with Mr. 
 Tallmadge's letter, and Robert Owen's conversion, it has given a terrible 
 blow to the opposition. Query. What must be the state of that cause 
 that is thus gladdened by an effort to prove that its whole machinery is of 
 the devil? It makes one think of the old adage, " better reign in hell 
 than serve in heaven." — ^_ 
 
 4* 
 
42 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIBITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 their favor, than the fact, that multitudes of them do con- 
 demn the sins of Slavery, War, Intemperance, Oppression, 
 Licentiousness, &c, &c. We say this injustice to the so- 
 called Spirits. Some of them, to be sure, teach erroneous 
 theological doctrines, but they but seldom inculcate any 
 but good morals, as far as outward actions are concerned. 
 They say, " Do right, and be good ;" and if the devil does 
 this, why call him of " fathomless guile ? ,? But we are 
 digressing. 
 
 Mr. Beecher insists upon it that the Bible teaches the 
 doctrine of the possession of persons with evil spirits, be- 
 cause " the Bible writers never insert c pretended,' or 
 so-called." Would any but an infatuated man use this argu- 
 ment? Did God never use language in the sense in which 
 the people understood it, without sanctioning their wrong use 
 of the terms ? What did Christ mean when he said, " Des- 
 troy this temple, and in three days I will rear it up." Or 
 when he said, " Except a man be born of water he cannot 
 enter the kingdom of God?" Does Mr. Beecher himself 
 never style his hearers " my Christian brethren," when he 
 does not believe that they are all Christians ? Who ever 
 heard of a Whig refusing to call the Democratic party by 
 that name, because he did not believe the party was truly 
 democratic ? We have already spoken of Spritualism, 
 and what the Spirits do, but does it follow that we mean 
 that we believe the new creed is really Spiritual, and that 
 Spirits are connected with the affair ? No more does it 
 follow because the Bible writers do not say " so called 
 witch," that they therefore believed in witches. We would 
 like to ask the Bev. gentleman a single question. Do you 
 believe that the wicked are to be literally cast into a fur- 
 nace of fire ? And yet, so says Jesus. He does not say 
 so called fire, or punishment as severe as fire, but fire itself, 
 and yet out of the walls of a lunatic asylum, where is 
 there a clergyman who believes in a punishment of literal 
 fire ? Again, we read of streets of gold in the New Je- 
 rusalem. Does any Christian expect to walk on such 
 streets in the other world ? As well might he, as to fancy 
 
NO KAPPINGS OF SPIBITS IN THE BIBLE. 43 
 
 the Bible "writers upheld a belief in witches, because when 
 they preached against them they called them witches. 
 
 Who does not know, that in a dark age of the world, 
 it is very difficult to disposess the mind of its long estab- 
 lished errors ? But shall it on that account be said that 
 those who do not attempt directly to attack those errors 
 believe in them ? When we reach another part of our 
 argument, it will be seen that it is impossible for Spirits 
 to possess human beings. We therefore waive this point 
 at this time, and leave Charles Beecher to repose under the 
 broad wing of his "mind of fathomless ability and guile. " 
 
 In regard to the possession of devils, spoken of in the 
 New Testament, the ways are so numerous of accounting 
 for it, without conjuring up u Satan and his angels," that 
 it seems a waste of time to write upon the point. We will 
 content ourself with remarking, that so great a man as Dr. 
 Albeet Baenes years ago fully accounted for the whole 
 affair, without any such reference, and we would advise all 
 inquirers upon the subject to consult his Commentaries on 
 the Gospels. 
 
 The three passages to which we have alluded, as quoted 
 by Spiritualists are, 1st, Saul and the Witch of Endor. 
 We are reminded in this case of what Festus said unto, 
 Paul : " Hast thou appealed unto Csesar, unto Csesar 
 shalt thou go ?" So say we to our friends the Spiritualists, 
 " Hast thou appealed unto the witch of Endor, unto the 
 witch of Endor shalt thou go V Let us examine that 
 case very critically. It is recorded in the 28th chapter of 
 the 1st book of Samuel. 
 
 The first thing that arrests our attention is the statement 
 in the 6th verse, that God refused to hearkeii to Saul. 
 Then Saul inquired for a familiar spirit. He found one, 
 and says to her, " Bring me up him whom I shall name." 
 The woman demurred, for fear of punishment, for Saul 
 had himself forbidden this practice, but on Saul's assurance 
 that no evil should befall her, she called for Samuel, in 
 obedience to Saul's request. Samuel stood before her, and 
 she saw that Saul was htrr^visitor, and was affirighted. 
 
44 NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 But Saul appeased her, and she said, Ci I saw gods ascend- 
 ing out of the earth. An old man cometh up, and he is 
 covered with a mantle. " Samuel then spoke to Saul and 
 censured him for applying to him, and prophesied his death 
 which happened. ' 
 
 Now, in all this, what is there to sustain the idea of a 
 departed spirit conversing with a living person ? Plainly 
 the opposite, for we are assured by Solomon the " spirit of 
 man goeth upward, with that of the beast goeth down- 
 ward," and that when a man dies " his spirit returns to 
 God who gave it." Did Samuel's spirit arise from the 
 grave ? Will our friends venture the assertion ? Then 
 how did it know what was going on in the world ? Do 
 the spirits of to-day " ascend from out of the earth ?" If 
 not, when did they change their residence ? But irony 
 aside. Can any rational person believe that a woman called 
 a witch, by any power of her own, could actually raise a 
 man from the dead ? Then where did she get the power ? 
 Would God have upheld her wicked arts, by working a 
 miracle in her favor ? And if he would in ordinary in- 
 stances, would he at this time, when he had refused to 
 answer Saul by the Urim and Thummim ? God, of course, 
 could have had nothing to do with the matter, and as the 
 woman of herself could not have actually raised the body 
 of Samuel, with its mantle, &c, it is fair to infer that Sam- 
 uel was not consulted at all. 
 
 Another thing. Samuel was a true child of God, and 
 yet he is represented as telling Saul precisely what God 
 did not want him to know. Now, how absurd to suppose 
 that Samuel would have thus acted. Again. Samuel 
 says, " tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." 
 Now was Saul likely to be buried in the same place with 
 Samuel ? By no means. But was his soul to be in the 
 same place with Samuel's ? He, a wicked King, and 
 Samuel a servant of the Lord. Of course not, for the 
 pure in heart only shall see God. We must conclude, 
 either that Samuel's spirit resided in the ground, or that 
 he was a wicked man, both of which ideas are expressly 
 contradicted, or that he did not appear truly to SauL 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 45 
 
 How, then, shall we account for the witch's performance ? 
 Nothing is more easy. 1st. It is plain that the woman 
 was a conjuror. 2d. All such persons doubtless possessed 
 the modern magnetic power. 3d. Saul evidently believed 
 in her power. Now, in the case of the biologised person, 
 when these three conditions exist, much more wonderful 
 results follow than the mere seeing of a dead man. The 
 writer has caused a person to see the devil, so that the 
 poor fellow shrieked with affiright, and the tears ran from 
 his eyes freely. This man was almost if not quite awake, 
 too. In India the mesmerisers are able to show to whole 
 crowds of people, tigers, snakes, &c. Saul was a very 
 superstitious man, and withal very fearful, at (his time, for 
 the Lord had forsaken him. We know also that he was 
 subject to turns of insanity, during one of which he sought 
 to kill David ? Is it to be wondered at that the woman 
 made him hear the words of Samuel ? As to the fulfil- 
 ment of the prophecy, it could hardly be otherwise with 
 Saul's nerveless arm, as he thought of the vision of the 
 preceding day. The soothsayer ran but little risk in that 
 prophecy. The whole thing was on a par with nearly all 
 the arts and divinations with which ignorant people in all 
 ages have been deceived. 
 
 Long before the Rappings were heard of, a man in 
 Canada gave the writer a particular account of a visit he 
 had from a supernatural gentleman dressed in modern 
 style who approached him, one night, from the fire-place. 
 The man, was as certain of seeing the person and hearing 
 him speak to him, as he was of his own existence. 
 
 It is certain that Samuel's spirit did not arise out of 
 the earth. Now if there was any similarity between this 
 case and the modern ones, the Spirits of to day, must 
 come from the ground, with their ordinary clothing and 
 speak aloud, which has happened yet but in very few in- 
 stances. 
 
 The next case of importance quoted by our friends is 
 the appearance of Moses and Elias. Let us understand 
 this case also. Who were-Moses and Elias ? Persons 
 
46 NO RAPPINGS of spirits in the bible. 
 
 whom the disciples had never seen. Then is it likely that 
 they could have recognized them, except by thinking of 
 the traditions concerning them ? We will grant, for a 
 moment, that some persons did appear to their affrighted 
 imaginations. Did the disciples converse with them ? 
 Not so, says the account. Then there is no similarity 
 between this appearance and that of Spirits to-day. 
 But did Moses appear again on earth ? If so, then 
 the prophecy of Daniel respecting the end was not 
 fulfilled, for the resurrection was not to take place until 
 Messiah was cut off, after which "many of them that 
 sleep in the dust of this earth were to awake, " which 
 prophecy it seems was literally fulfilled after the death 
 of Jesus. So Paul says " Christ is the first fruits " 
 of the resurrection. It is plain then, that no resurrection 
 of the body could have taken place, and yet they saw 
 men, w T ho needed a tabernacle to dwell in. If they were 
 thus mistaken about the forms of Moses and Elias, it is 
 plain they might have been in regard to their presence at 
 all. But if Moses and Elias really did appear, it was not 
 of their own accord, and still less by the disciples calling 
 for them. The whole account resolves itself into this. 
 They saw a vision. Now w T hat is a vision. Is it anything 
 real ? A vision, says Locke, is " something imaginary." 
 Behold the difference between this event, and the appear- 
 ance of a modern Spirit. In the one case the body of 
 Moses appeared to the imaginations of the disciples. In 
 the other case, the soul actually addresses the Spiritual 
 believer. 
 
 Christ terms it a vision and not a reality. The account 
 states, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking 
 with Christ. It was only an appearance then, not a 
 reality. In this idea we are sustained by the facts that 
 Christ was supernaturally changed before them, which blin- 
 ded their eyes, so that they could not see distinctly, for 
 " his face shone as the sun and his raiment, was as white 
 as the light" and " they fell on their faces sore afraid." 
 Moses and Elias held no converse with the disciples^ so that 
 
NO KAPPINGS OE SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE- 47 
 
 even if they appeared, the doctrine is not true of Spirits 
 conversing with man, unless we regard Christ as a man 
 only, which we cannot do, if we believe the Old Testament, 
 for that declares that, " he is the mighty God, the ever- 
 lasting Father. 
 
 We cannot doubt that if Christ was really God, as the 
 New Testament asserts that he could cause Moses and 
 Elias to appear to his disciples, but in that case, it would 
 be a miracle, and not what our friends claim for the 
 Spirits. That God can cause all the Spirits to come and rap, 
 we have not the least shadow of a doubt, but not without 
 a miracle. The only remaining passage, that we are aware 
 is triumphantly quoted by our Spiritual brethren is in 
 Revelations 22 chapter, 8th and 9th verses, " And when I 
 had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of 
 the angel, that shewed me these things. Then saith he 
 unto me. See not, for I am thy fellow servant and of thy 
 brethren the prophets, worship God." u There" exclaims 
 an enthusiastic Spiritualist, " explain that if you can. There 
 is no biolugy about that." If we cannot explain it ration- 
 ally and reasonably, we will become a convert, to the Spir- 
 itual doctrine, for one well authenticated case of a Spirit 
 by his own power appearing to a man and conversing with 
 him, will disprove of course our assertion, that such a thing 
 is impossible, although it will by no means prove that 
 Spirits come to day through the Rappings. 
 
 This " prophet" did not rap or tip, or obsess a medium, 
 Still less did he appear on his own accord and by his own 
 power. And surely John never called for him. Three 
 things then are true respecting this angel. 1st. He was 
 not called for. 2d. He came not of his own accord. 3d. 
 He did not rap, or obsess any one. But he did converse 
 with John, as John thought. What then is the rational 
 explanation of the difficulty. There is no difficulty at all 
 about it. John " was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." 
 That is, God made a revelation to him, Now this is a 
 key to the whole matter. The angel was God himself, 
 according to our explanation^)]^ God assuming the form of 
 man, for extraordinary reasons. 
 
48 NO BAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 Our first proof of this assertion is, John was not an idol- 
 ater. He never worshipped a man when in his ordinary 
 state, for his religion forbade that. Still less when inspired 
 in this extraordinary manner would he have violated that 
 plain command of the decalogue, Therefore John unless 
 insane could not have thought of worshipping a man. He 
 was not insane, for God would not have chosen an insane 
 man for such a mission. Again, John's word was so sacred 
 that whoever took from it, was to have his part taken from 
 the tree of life, and was it likely that he should make so 
 great a mistake as to suppose a man was God ? Recol- 
 lect he was fully inspired also. Therefore John could 
 not have attempted to worship any being but God. He 
 did attempt to worship this being. Therefore this being 
 must have been God, 
 
 2d. The angel was God appearing as man, because in 
 no other way can it be made to appear that God's assertion 
 respecting the divinity of the message of John, was likely 
 to be true, for no human Spirit could be relied upon per- 
 fectly to convey this message to John. And besides there 
 was no need of a human being intervening in the affair. 
 As man's salvation depended upon his not adding to the 
 words of that book, it is not likely that the message would 
 be allowed to pass through more than one man at least, and 
 he St. John, the one necessary to reveal it to the world. 
 3d. The account expressly asserts that it was God, although 
 we grant, that the angel said "I am of thy fellow ser- 
 vants the prophets, worship God." It does not appear 
 that God is not a servant of man, any more than it does 
 that Christ is not. A prophet was one divinely inspired, 
 and of course while a prophet, was equal with God in point 
 of infallibility, otherwise his inspiration, could not be the 
 word of God. If he who is the " brightness of his father's 
 glory" could humble himself so far as to be born in a 
 manger it is wonderful that his father, of whose person he 
 is the expresss (moral) image" should say 4t I am thy 
 fellow servant a prophet." Recollect that John was now 
 raised from the mortal state, and was appointed of God, 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 49 
 
 to see things never before seen by mortal man, and as such 
 was for the time being like God, as much as one could be, 
 who lived " yet not he, but Christ lived in himP God 
 was in one sense a prophet, and as John was elevated to 
 that rank, he was not to worship the angel only as he 
 recognized him as God. So Christ says to one who called 
 him good, " there is none good but one, and that is God, 
 and why callest thou me good ? " Is it not as unqualifiedly 
 asserted here, both that Christ was not God and was not 
 good, as it is that John was not to worship the angel as 
 such ? But yet we know he claimed to be both at other 
 times, and surely was good at least. There is a mighty 
 enigma in regard to God's relation to his people. They 
 are called his sons, and said to speak by the power of God 
 residing in them. Christ prayed that the same relation 
 might subsist between them and him, that existed between 
 him and his father, and yet of course there is a vast dis- 
 tinction in reality. 
 
 In the case under consideration, there is one fact 
 worth noticing. John does not inquire the name of the 
 angel, nor does the angel tell him who he is. Now this 
 is singular, if he really supposed the angel to be a mere 
 man. Does any Spiritualist of to-day converse with a 
 spirit, whose name he has not attempted to ascertain? 
 Then John does not: speak of arising from his low condi- 
 tion. The inference is, that God wished him to forget the 
 image of a man, with which his spirit was enshrouded, 
 and worship God, " in spirit and truth. " John certainly 
 saw the form of some body, and surely God could have 
 appeared in bodily form, as well as could the spirit of a 
 prophet. 
 
 But we asserted, that the account stated it was God. 
 Here are the very words, "lam Alpha and Omega, the 
 beginning and the ending, the first and the last." We 
 do not wish to advocate any particular theological doctrine 
 here, but merely to quote the Scripture as it reads. 
 
 Now as to who this u Alpha and Omega" is, we shall 
 be informed by perusing tha^gth verse of the 1st chapter 
 5 
 
50 NO KAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE, 
 
 of Bevelations. " Which is, and was, and is to come, the 
 Almighty" Is " the Almighty," then a human spirit ? 
 But if any doubt lingers in our minds on this point, we 
 can have that doubt removed by consulting Bev. xx. 11 
 & 12, xxi.; 5, 6 & 7th verses. Here we are told, that 
 seated on a " great white throne" was a being, who said, 
 unto John " write." Was his dictator, then, God, or a 
 human spirit ? In the 6th verse, he claimt to be, "Alpha 
 and Omega," and in the 7th, " I will be his God." But 
 to make assurance doubly sure, as this is a very impor- 
 tant point, we beg leave to draw a parallel of the different 
 statements respecting the angel. 
 
 1st. He claims to be a fellow ser He also says, " I am Alpha and 
 
 vant. Omega." 
 
 2d. He forbids John to worship He commands John to worshipGod. 
 
 him. He says, il l am the Almighty." 
 3d. He says he is of the prophets. 
 
 The Spiritualists assert that, God asserts that, 
 
 1st. He was a created spirit. 1st. He was the •' beginning and 
 
 2d. He was a human spirit. the ending." 
 
 3d. He was an ancient prophet. 2d. He was "the Lord." 
 
 3d. He judges the world. "Behold* 
 I come quickly, and my reward 
 is with me, to give to every man 
 according as his works." 
 
 Now it is impossible to get rid of these conclusions. 
 They are drawn from positive statements of the book, and 
 no believer in the Scriptures can deny them. 
 
 We would kindly ask our spiritual friends, if they real- 
 ly suppose a human spirit is going to assemble all nations 
 before him, and judge them ; and yet, this angel declares 
 that such is the case, unless there are two " Alphas and 
 Omegas," which is an absurdity. God calls himself 
 " Alpha and Omega." The angel declares, he is also. 
 "We leave the inference to all honest readers. That 
 angels are always human spirits, no rational man can sup- 
 pose, in the light of such passages, as the following : 
 
 " And I saw another mighty angel come down from 
 heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon 
 his head." " And he set his right foot upon the sea, and 
 his left upon the earth, and cried with a loud voice as 
 when a lion roareih" "And swear by him that liveth 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE, 51 
 
 for ever, that there should be time no longer." That a 
 holy angel should disobey Christ's commands and swear, 
 does not seem at all reasonable. But that God, who, when 
 " he could swear by no greater, swear by himself" should 
 solemnly assert, that time should be no longer, seems 
 quite probable, because the sinfulness of an oath, is in the 
 adjuration of a higher power, to condemn you, if you do 
 not speak the truth. 
 
 In the 16th verse of the 22d chapter of Rev., this 
 angel calls himself Jesus, and says, " I have sent mine 
 angel to testify unto you, these things in the churches." 
 If we turn again to the 1st chapter, we shall learn who it 
 was, that testified to the churches. In the 11th verse we 
 read, " I am Alpha and Omega," and of course the angel 
 who was talking to John, in the 22d chapter, " What thou 
 seest, write in a book, and send unto the seven churches 
 which are in Asia." In the 12, 13 & 17 verses, we learn 
 that it was the same being who calls himself " the first 
 and the last," and in the 19th verse, he commands John 
 to " write the things that he had seen," and in the 1st 
 verse of the 2d chapter, says, " unto the angel of the 
 church at Ephesus, write." Therefore, it is plain that 
 the angel, Jesus had sent to testify to the churches, was 
 none other than the " Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
 and the ending, the Almighty." We are neither a Trini- 
 tarian, nor precisely a Unitarian in our religious views, 
 but here are the plain words of the Scripture, and be- 
 cause we cannot see the reasonableness of the doctrine, 
 it does not follow, that a literal interpretation of Scripture 
 does not teach it. At any rate in this threefold represen- 
 tation of Deity, as God, Jesus and angel, we see a beauti- 
 ful representation of the Trinity, which, after all, may be 
 the true doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The same 
 idea seems to be taught in the 4th & 5th verses of the 
 1st chapter of Rev., " Grace be unto you, from him that 
 is ("God,) and from the seven spirits before his throne 
 (angels,) and from Jesus Christ." And then they all 
 seem to be resolved into J^sus, who speaks, and says, "I 
 am the Almighty." Our inference is, that, accommodating 
 
52 NO BAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 himself to the views of the church, in regard to the various 
 relations God sustains to his people, the sacred writers call 
 him Angel, or Holy Spirit, to signify his activity in the 
 service of righteousness, — Jesus, or Saviour, to signify his 
 power to save from sin, and God, to signify his protection 
 and authority. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is constantly spoken of as being sent 
 forth from God ; and yet he is the identical God, if God is 
 a Spirit, — from all of which, we infer, that Biblical writers 
 availed themselves of the terms in common use among the 
 people whom they addressed ; and if God appeared to 
 them as Creator, Redeemer, or Comforter, they spoke of 
 him as such. It matters not how we allude to God, as far 
 as his various relations to the world are concerned. We 
 may call him Father, Creator, Saviour, Friend, Judge, 
 Comforter, Messenger, or Teacher. The same glorious 
 idea is contained in all of these expressions, that he is our 
 God and only Help. 
 
 As our limits are somewhat prescribed, and we have al- 
 ready far exceeded them in this portion of our work, we 
 turn reluctantly from a further consideration of u what 
 saith the Scriptures ? " and enter upon another very 
 important point, premising a few reflections. 
 
 Friends of the Scriptures. You have read the testimony 
 of these writings upon the points advocated by our friends. 
 Are you prepared to cast them aside, and adopt the 
 " Spiritual Rappings " in lieu of them ? And yet, to be 
 consistent, you must do this. Remember, there can be no 
 greater gulf than that existing between the believers in the 
 Bible, and those in the Rapping doctrines. The one calls 
 your attention to God, to Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit, 
 and declares, that although " heaven and earth shall pass 
 away," yet shall not the words of Jesus pass away, till all 
 have been fulfilled. The other says the old dispensation is 
 to be superseded by this new and brighter day of Millenium 
 glory. 
 
 Will you continue to receive the dispensation, " spoken 
 unto us by him, who, being the brightness of God's glory, 
 sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," which 
 
NO RAPPINGS OF SPIRITS IN THE BIBLE. 53 
 
 dispensation was ushered in by " a multitude of the heav 
 enly host praising God, and saying, " Glory to God in the 
 highest," and by " a voice from the excellent glory," 
 saying, " Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well 
 pleased;" or will you " turn from him that speaketh from 
 heaven, and whose voice shook the earth," and give your- 
 selves up to the teachings of fallible human beings, who 
 have no better way of instructing you, than to rap on, and 
 tip over tables ? If so, then of you it may well be said, 
 " they are clouds without water, carried about of winds, 
 trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, 
 plucked up by the root, raging waves of the sea, foaming 
 out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom it is re- 
 served the blackness of darkness forever." And if you 
 have ever " tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious," it 
 may be written of you, " It has happened unto them ac- 
 cording to the true proverb, the dog has returned to its 
 vomit, and the sow that was washed to its wallowing in the 
 mire." 
 
 How strange that the last dispensation should be so full 
 of incoherencies, falsehoods, and mistakes, as almost every 
 Rapper acknowledges to be the case, and yet we should 
 be asked to throw aside other dispensations, and receive 
 this ! Our answer is, " Not so, for the old is better." 
 Having tried the " old paths," and found them leading to 
 " a land flowing with milk and honey," for one we shall 
 never turn aside, voluntarily, into the " new road of mod- 
 ern Spiritualism, although u broad " it may be, and " wide 
 the gate thereof, and many there be that go in thereat." 
 
 Besides, how shall we know what the end thereof will 
 be ? Human spirits appear to have the control of it, and 
 surely they cannot certainly tell where they will lead us, 
 for they are not omniscient. The case, then, stands thus : 
 " The Bible vs. the Rappings." Which will you choose ? 
 
 5* 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 
 
 Before entering into a discussion of this point, we will 
 premise, that having dwelt so long upon the Scriptural ar- 
 gument, we shall be obliged to be very concise in many of 
 our future arguments, and therefore we beg the reader's 
 close and candid attention. Logic is not gospel, we know, 
 but we submit, is anything gospel that is illogical ? Our 
 spiritual friends perceive this dilemma, and roundly assert, 
 that reason is inferior to intuition. We shall, therefore, 
 be obliged to say a few words upon this point. 
 
 By Intuition, our friends mean the power the soul posseses 
 to acquire truth without the aid of reason, and by a much 
 shorter process than the dull plodder in reason's paths is 
 able to use. They perceive truth by instinct, just as ani- 
 mals scent their prey by instinct. Now, in God's name, 
 we would ask, what is this Intuition ? Is it the voice of 
 God to the soul, — an immediate revelation from on high ? 
 Or is it merely a rapid process of thought, the consequen- 
 ces of which are presented to the mind, while the process 
 is hardly noticed ? Can there be any other intuition ex- 
 cept this, if we lay aside the brute instinct ? — which 
 surely is not what our friends mean hj intuition ! We 
 will grant that God inspires the soul, at times, without the 
 conscious exercise of the reasoning faculties, that " holy 
 men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 
 but do our friends lay claim to such superior enlighten- 
 ment as this ? If so, then they must be insane to forsake 
 such a certain guide, and apply to the uncertain revelations 
 of the Spirits ? The very fact of their applying to Spirits, 
 proves that they do not receive this heavenly illumination ; 
 for a man, with a lump of pure gold in his hand, would not 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON, 55 
 
 search the streets for stray coppers. Do they reason so 
 quickly as not to be conscious of the reasoning process 
 themselves ? Benevolence would require them to put a 
 chain upon their thoughts, so that duller mortals may fol- 
 low them with the lumber of their reasons. The truth is 
 all this talk about intuition is perfect nonsense, and un- 
 worthy the utterance of a rational being. Knowledge can be 
 obtained only through experience or the senses ; revelation 
 from God; and by the exercise of reason. If our spiritual 
 friends are acquainted with any other way of obtaining 
 knowledge, we should be glad to know what that way is. 
 Even your fancied revelations from the Spirits must all 
 come through the senses, Intuition is defined to be men- 
 tal perception, whereby we comprehend the relation of 
 ideas, without reasoning or reflection, as that the whole is 
 greater than its part. But we know this only by reason. 
 It does not follow, because we reason rapidly, that, there- 
 fore, we do not reason at all. If intuition is to be our 
 guide, then every whim of the most crazy brain may be 
 mistaken for truth. What we call intuition exists, but is 
 of no value, unless tested by reason. Reason is the great- 
 est gift of God to man, — next to the Holy Spirit to en- 
 lighten and make active that reason. By it, all questions 
 are to be adjudicated. It is the court of the soul, to 
 which every doubtful proposition should be referred for its 
 impartial decision. It is often used for wrong purposes, 
 but it never speaks falsely. Its office is to point out truth. 
 It enables us to know what is truth, and to be aware of its 
 existence. That this faculty exists in every man, not an 
 idiot, must be acknowledged by all believers in a God of 
 love, — for how could he create us, with a disposition to 
 err, and fail to give us any guide to lead us away from 
 error ? How command us not to embrace falsehood, and 
 still leave us utterly destitute of any means to detect that 
 baneful commodity ? We are required of God to be per- 
 fect, and, of course, the means to become so, must be 
 placed within our reach. Reason, enlightened by God's 
 spirit, is a sure and certains-guide, for which we greatly 
 thank our Heavenly Father. Sophists may avail them- 
 
56 THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 
 
 selves of the effects of reason enstamped upon their brains, 
 and ape the exercise of pure reason ; but to say that soph- 
 istry employs reason, is as great an absurdity, as to accuse 
 God of employing the devil. How can truth, as a whole, 
 be used in teaching error ? Parts of truth may be inco- 
 herently linked together, so as to form a chain that shall 
 resemble that bright one of reason that falls from Jeho- 
 vah's throne, and is thrown around the souls of all wor- 
 shippers of the goddess of truth ; but these links do not com- 
 pose the chain of reason, for in reason there is no error, for 
 all error is unreasonable, and what is unreasonable is not 
 reason. 
 
 We have been thus particular in regard to reason, as 
 our spiritual friends are struggling now to escape from its 
 confinement, although many of them have heretofore been 
 valiant advocates for its supremacy over everything, and 
 including even the Scriptures. 
 
 What, then, does reason teach respecting the doctrine 
 of our Rapping friends ? Not what does your reason, or 
 my reason teach, but what does Reason itself say upon the 
 subject ? What does universal reason declare more loudly, 
 than that every effect must have an adequate cause ? Of 
 this axiom, there can be but one opinion. The cause to 
 which a given effect is attributed, must be adequate to the 
 promotion of that effect. In the light of this proposition, 
 let us examine the spiritual theory. 
 
 One of the acts attributed to Spirits, is the moving of 
 heavy articles of furniture. Can a Spirit accomplish this 
 feat without the aid of the Almighty ? It will not do to 
 point to the rolling of the stone from the door of the sepul- 
 chre by an angel in proof that Spirits can move tables, — 
 for there is no proof that angels are always spirits. On 
 the contrary, as we have seen,, in very many cases, re- 
 corded in the Bible, we are assured they had bodies, and 
 eat, and drank, and, in some cases, were human beings 
 living on the earth. An angel is not, necessarily, a spirit. 
 But if it was a spirit in the above case, it was one express- 
 ly commissioned by the Almighty for the performance of a 
 specific act. God, we doubt not, if he chooses, can apply 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 57 
 
 his infinite power to the moving of tables and chairs, but 
 it by no means follows from this, that man, in the other 
 world, can do the same. As well might it be said, that 
 Spirits could create the world because God can ; and yet 
 our friends often say, " if Spirits cannot do this, how can 
 God ? God understands every law in Nature, and knows 
 how to apply all of her vast resources, in the accomplish- 
 ment of every possible act. But man is not thus potent. 
 If it were so, and the Spirits are as bad as Spiritualists 
 own, we might well tremble for the result. 
 
 Every effect must have an adequate cause, we have 
 said. A heavy table moves. Of course, some power suf- 
 ficient to move it must be applied, or the table cannot be 
 moved. That an angel endowed by the Almighty with a 
 body for that purpose, as we have seen angels were en- 
 dowed with, in the cases of Abraham and Lot, could roll 
 away a heavy stone from the door of the sepulchre, is quite 
 likely, but it no more follows, that a human spirit can do 
 the same now, than because Jesus walked on water, that 
 you and I can do the same. The logic of our friends is 
 surprising. Spirits can move tables, because angels opened 
 prison doors, &c. ;- — that is, a certain effect had an ade- 
 quate cause, even the will of the Almighty, therefore, the 
 like effect can be produced without the agency of the Al- 
 mighty. This is a pretty fair specimen of the logical pow- 
 ers of the whole horde of Rappers. Is it any wonder that 
 they should essay to decry reason ? The fact is, of all the 
 perfectly absurd doctrines ever palmed^ upon man, in the 
 shape of a religious system, the Rapping creed is the sil- 
 liest ; for Mohammed did not profess to work miracles 
 without the aid of God, nor did the Roman priests, or even 
 Joseph Smith. When were men called upon before, to 
 receive a new system as divine, which was founded upon 
 miracles wrought wholly by man ? And yet, this is the 
 claim of the Spirits. " Miracles shall be wrought by the 
 Spirits," say they, through Mr. Hammond; and John M. 
 Spear commissions men and women to go forth and ' 4 heal 
 the sick, and raise the dead^ Verily, this is a " new 
 era ; " for man apes the power of the Almighty. It may 
 
58 THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 
 
 be well enough to remark, in passing, that many of these 
 devout believers in Mr. Spear's movements, and we be- 
 lieve Mr. Spear himself, once doubted the miracles of the 
 New Testament. One of the strongest of the spiritual 
 brethren once wrote a large book in opposition fco these, 
 and other seemingly wonderful things recorded in the Bi- 
 ble, but now they are able to swallow these human mira- 
 cles without gulping. It is hard to believe that Jesus, by 
 the power of God, walked on the water, but perfectly easy 
 to believe that Mrs. Mettler, of Hartford, is to do the same 
 by the power of John M. Spear ! 
 
 This, for some time, was the standing argument with 
 Spiritualists with whom we conversed, when we suggested 
 that a Spirit could not move a table. u How can God 
 move matter, then ? " The fallacy of the argument is seen 
 in this way : 
 
 Man, by his will simply, cannot move his arm ; but by 
 the action of the complicated machinery of his brain, 
 nerves, muscles, and bones, set in motion by his will, the 
 power is obtained to move the arm. Man stands, in the re- 
 lation to his own body, that the steam of an engine sustains 
 to the cars upon the track. If thrown against the cars, no 
 motion would follow, but made to act upon a certain part of 
 a machine, which part acts upon another, and that, at 
 length, upon the cars, motion is produced. God probably 
 sustains the same relation to the universe, that man does to 
 the mass of matter called his body, and in that way can eas- 
 ily control the operations of Nature, when and where he 
 pleases, so that *'not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
 out his knowledge." It is true, that, acting without the 
 agency of machinery, he probably could not cause the 
 earth to turn upon its axis, or else he would not have pro 
 vided the machinery now in use, for he is an infinite econ- 
 omist, and never uses unnecessary means, or any but the 
 best, to accomplish his ends. We would like to see a 
 Spirit move a table in a way that even God does not at- 
 tempt, for he has certainly never been suspected of being 
 one of the Tipping Spirits. If, then, God does not choose 
 to operate in this way, why does a Spirit ? 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 59 
 
 The whole thing resolves itself in a nut-shell. God does 
 not move tables, ergo he cannot do it, or if he could, he 
 sees it is of no use. If he cannot, then Spirits are more 
 powerful than he. If he does not choose to, then the 
 Spirits are mistaken. To be sure, it may be replied, God 
 works by means, and allows the Spirits to move tables. 
 Granted, for a moment. He allows them. Then they 
 possess the power of themselves ; for if not, he more than 
 allows — he commissions, and, of course, commissions evil 
 Spirits to disturb man, for, it is allowed, that evil Spirits 
 appear. But waving this point for the present : The 
 Spirits possess the power to appear to the circles of our 
 friends. 
 
 Do they ? Let us see. Are they omnipresent ? Can 
 they, when in the Sixth Sphere, understand your faintest 
 whisper, and, in a moment of time, be at your side ? We 
 know of nothing equal to this, except in Mohammed's jour- 
 ney to heaven, which he is said to have performed in so 
 incredibly a short space of time, that, when he returned, 
 the water had not ceased running from a pitcher, that was 
 upset as he left his bedside ! 
 
 According to the estimated rapidity of sound, it would 
 take five hours for the words of a Circle to reach the ex- 
 treme of the Sixth Sphere, and, according to Mr. Grid- 
 ley's idea of the distance his spirit-friends travel, it would 
 take over twenty-five hours for his words to reach them, 
 even if, after leaving our atmosphere, another equally good 
 sound-conductor presents itself, which we doubt ; but the 
 Spirits, probably, like some of their dupes, are blessed with 
 very long ears. In fact, they must be; for whether in Asia, 
 Africa, or America, they appear equally able to hear their 
 friends, and equally able to come to their rescue. Sound 
 cannot travel from here to California, by the most direct 
 course, in less than five hours, and yet there seems to be 
 no difficulty in making the worthy discoverer of this new 
 mode of conversing with mortals, hear from that, or any 
 other place, in a few moments. 
 
 Thus, they possess miraculous powers of hearing. Now, 
 of locomotion. Mr. Gridley says, they travel at the rate of 
 
60 THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 
 
 two hundred and sixteen thousand miles an hour, or over 
 two hundred and seventy-five times as fast as sound trav- 
 els ! Somewhat rapid travelling this, and not without 
 danger, one would think, when we reflect, that, at the end 
 of their journey, they must necessarily meet with a rather 
 rough reception, from coming thus, Jehu-like, against the 
 outer walls of the building they propose to enter. Poor 
 things ! We do not blame them for being testy occasionally. 
 We wonder our brethren should willingly subject their de- 
 parted wives, brothers, and children, to the perils of such 
 rapid journeying. It is strange that they should enter 
 the room so quietly. But it is possible they " haul up " 
 outside, and, after refreshing themselves, enter the room 
 like moderately travelling gentlemen. 
 
 Well, they have arrived, and after resting from their 
 long journey, they proceed to tip the table. They have 
 got the power, remember, and they proceed to exercise it. 
 Up goes the table. What does that mean ? The letter 
 W is pointed at. Then H, and so on, until a sentence is 
 tipped out. Now, if the Spirit, after such a long journey, 
 by his will can send electricity enough against that table 
 to move it, and could hear his name called when in his 
 ethereal home, why could he not have sent a current of 
 electricity from above against the table, and thus saved 
 himself the trouble of that long journey ? If he could 
 travel at that, or any other rapid rate, through the atmo- 
 sphere, he surely could will electricity to go as fast, if he 
 can will that element at all, as it is claimed he does, when 
 he moves the table. But if he can thus move the elements 
 at his will, why tip the table ? He surely could force open 
 a passive person's mouth, and cause speech, as well as to 
 tip the table ! Why, then, does he tip the table ? The 
 answer to this question brings us to the grand doctrine of 
 the Rappers, which we will now proceed to combat seri- 
 ously. The doctrine is this ; The object of these mani- 
 festations, is to present to unbelievers some tangible evi- 
 dence of the reality of a future life. On this point, we be- 
 lieve all the Rappers agree, that the thing aimed at by the 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 61 
 
 Spirits, is " to satisfy men of the existence of a world of 
 Spirits beyond the grave/' 
 
 Very plausible this seems at first, but it carries with it 
 its own refutation. 
 
 1st. If Dr. Franklin, by moving a table, can convince 
 Robert Owen of the reality of a future existence, then, by 
 moving a house from its foundations, he can convince more 
 sceptics. 
 
 2d. If Dr. Franklin can tip a table, the angel Gabriel 
 can move a house. 
 
 3d. Then if the angel Gabriel is as good as Dr. Frank- 
 lin, he will tip over a house, to convince many sceptics. 
 
 4th. The angel Gabriel has done no such thing. 
 
 5th. Therefore the angel Gabriel is not as good as Dr. 
 Franklin. 
 
 6th. The angel Gabriel was God's chosen messenger to 
 Daniel, and of course was good, for God never sends un- 
 holy angels to his children to instruct them. 
 
 7th. Therefore Dr. Franklin cannot move a table.' 
 
 Again, if Dr. Rush, by inspiring J. M. Spear to heal 
 persons, can convince sceptics, then* a greater than Dr. 
 Rush, by inspiring other men to heal more persons, could 
 convince a greater number of sceptics. If God does not 
 wish to convince sceptics, and scepticism is wrong, God is 
 not as good as Dr. Rush. 
 
 If God wishes to convince sceptics, and a greater than 
 Rush can inspire many men to perform various cures, and 
 thus convince many sceptics, then God would do this, for 
 he is greater than Dr. Rush. 
 
 But God since the days of Christ has not inspired men 
 to cure the sick, and it is not claimed that he does it now. 
 Therefore, Dr. Rush has not inspired anybody to cure the 
 sick, or the Most High is deficient in duty. 
 
 If miracles were now necessary to convince men of the 
 
 truth, would the Almighty leave the working of miracles 
 
 to those who possess the power, as we are allowing, for the 
 
 sake of the argument, that the Spirits possess it ? Would 
 
 6 
 
62 THE TESTIMONY OE REASON, 
 
 he not exercise that power himself ? Query, "Has God 
 forgotten to be gracious ? " 
 
 vain man, attributing to Dr. Franklin a more kindly 
 regard for the good of earth's inhabitants than thou dost 
 to the all-merciful Father. To this, it may be replied, 
 " Spirits do not prevent God from operating, but he chooses 
 to allow them to do so." God never acts foolishly. As we 
 have said, he never wastes his means. If Gabriel can per- 
 form a certain mission better than Dr. Rush, he sends 
 Gabriel. If he sends Rush, then Rush can do the work 
 better than, or as well as Gabriel, or else Gabriel is other- 
 wise employed. 
 
 But if he can do the work better himself, he sends him- 
 self. Now that the work of the Spirits has been very 
 poorly done, appears from the oft repeated assertion of very 
 many of the Spiritualists. We quote the following, from 
 the pen of 0. H. White, a very prominent Spiritual be- 
 liever. Speaking of the Spirit's directions, he says : 
 
 " I obeyed until I had reached the number of two hun- 
 6?r6<ihours, and I received but seven or eight foolscap pages 
 of messages." " I have formed two circles by instruction 
 from the Spirit world 3 and should judge had four hundred 
 sittings, during which we were the recipients of only ten 
 or twenty sentences of love and wisdom." 
 
 This is the faithfulness of Spirits to their promises. 
 Again, says La Roy Sunderland : 
 
 " I have been often amazed to find, as I thought I did, 
 how really, nay, utterly ignorant, certain spirits were, of 
 persons, places and things, of which they professed to have 
 knowledge." 
 
 We have already quoted Mr. Ballon on this point. It 
 is certain, then, that many of the Spirits do their evange- 
 lizing work quite badly. If so, then, if God can do it 
 better, why does he not take it into his own hands ? This 
 God does not do. The inference is, that it is not his way 
 of convincing men. 
 
 And is it ? Ever since the establishment of Christianity 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 63 
 
 by the labors of the Apostles, he has steadfastly refused 
 to enforce the claims of religious teachers by an exertion 
 of his supernatural power* The foundation of the spiritual 
 temple being laid, it was not necessary to use the materials 
 any longer, and the working of miracles was exchanged 
 for the more important work of regenerating men's hearts 
 by the operations of the Holy Spirit. Luther, Melanc- 
 thon, Whitfield, Wesley, Bunyan, Fox, and many men of 
 our own times, all desired to save the world from error, 
 but did Grod vouchsafe unto them the testimony of a single 
 miracle ? Indeed, the primary object of Christ's miracles 
 was not to satisfy unbelievers, for we read that Jesus 
 " could not do many mighty works " in a certain place, 
 " because of their unbelief." According to the Rappers, 
 the Saviour was altogether in the dark. He ought to have 
 astounded them by some mighty demonstration of his di- 
 vine power. He almost always required faith to exist be- 
 fore he would cure a sick person. If miracles would have 
 the effect attributed to them by our Rapping friends, why 
 in the name of all that is holy did he not rap in Jerusalem 
 in so mighty a manner as to convince the hardened sceptics 
 of that city ? On the contrary, we perceive that he reas- 
 oned with the Sadducees, and in that way endeavored to 
 convince them of the reality of a future state of existence. 
 He even refused to appear after the resurrection to these 
 unbelieving persons. 
 
 Numerous instances are recorded in the New Testament 
 of Christ positively commanding men whom he healed, to 
 " tell no man." When he raised the daughter of Jarius 
 from her sleep of death, and therefore, according to the 
 doctrine of the Rappers, proved an immortal existence by 
 bringing back the departed spirit, he very strangely forbade 
 the story to be told. But our friends and their Spiritual 
 allies in the other world, are no doubt vastly wiser than 
 Jesus Christ was. 
 
 Supposing the " New Era" had been published then, 
 should we not have been favored with an article like the 
 following ? — \_ 
 
64 THE TESTIMONY OF KEASON. 
 
 " THE OPPOSITION WANING." 
 
 " The hearts of all true believers, we doubt not, will 
 leap for joy, as we inform them of the joyful fact, that the 
 daughter of a very distinguished citizen has been restored 
 to life by the power of Jesus, and thus the great fact is 
 made to stand out before the world, that death is not " an 
 eternal sleep." We wonder if our Sadduceean brethren 
 will any longer attempt to block the wheels of Spiritual- 
 ism. Friends, our cause is onward. Spread the glorious 
 tidings far and wide, that a soul has returned from the 
 other world !" 
 
 But Jesus " charged them, that they should tell no man 
 what was done." 
 
 From all that we read of Jesus, we must believe that he 
 was equally in earnest with our modern friends, Dr. Bush 
 and Thomas Paine, but, unlike them, he did not tip tables 
 to convince unbelievers. Instead of this, we hear him 
 relating a story to show the folly of convincing men in 
 that way. " If they believe not Moses and the prophets, 
 they will not be convinced though one rise from the dead" 
 Our Spiritual friends say, " no, Lord, but only rap loud 
 enough, and Dr. Owen and the editor of the Investigator 
 will surely believe." Here we have Christ and the Rappers 
 in juxtaposition to each other. Which shall we believe ? 
 Said one of these converted infidels to the writer, "If you 
 can prove that these Rappings are not from the Spirits, 
 then I must relapse into my former condition." Verily, 
 this man's faith stood " not in the power of God, but in the 
 wisdom of man" Of what use is such a faith ? The 
 moment the Spirits become tired with their arduous labors, 
 that moment Robert Owen relapses into infielity ! Of 
 course his reason, then, has never been convinced^ and a 
 man not rationally convinced of the truth of a doctrine 
 is no credit to any cause. 
 
 But the question returns, Why does not God operate in 
 this way himself on a larger scale, and thus save the world 
 to-day ? It is a fair question, and we would like our Spir- 
 itual friends to answer it to themselves, if not to us. 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 65 
 
 There can be but one rational reply to the question, 
 which is this, that God is not in favor of converting men 
 by these means. 
 
 What would be easier than for God to write in burning 
 letters, on the mighty dome above us, these words, "there 
 is an immortal existence, 5 ' and to continue them there for- 
 ever ? Who then could doubt the reality of a future state? 
 
 And of how much more importance is it to convince the 
 universe of his own blessed existence ? What joy would 
 then fill the hearts of multitudes of doubters ! But he does 
 not do this. Man is left to exercise his own moral and intel- 
 lectual faculties, and thus obtain that precious knowledge. 
 Again, what would not Luther, or the pioneers in any of 
 our modern reforms, have given for an assurance from 
 God to the people, that they were right ? Protestantism 
 was not thus blessed. Humanity in none of her 19th 
 century struggles has been thus favored. Why, then, 
 should a system, having no specific object in view, except 
 to change the theological opinions of a very few, be so 
 abundantly blessed ? We pause for a reply. 
 
 Will it be said, that God is at the bottom of the move- 
 ment and operates through the Spirits ? Why, then, does 
 he allow the " lying Spirits" to communicate ? Are there 
 not a plenty of good ones ready to labor in so holy a cause? 
 
 Shall we be told that the Sapping phenomena are on the 
 whole useful, but that evil is connected with the matter ? 
 Then how can it be that this third dispensation is going to 
 accomplish so much more than the others, and is so much 
 more pure than they ? It is true that God overrules evil 
 for good, but it is also true, that he does not allow evil 
 when he can prevent it without disturbing the freedom of 
 the individual. Can he not prevent the evil Spirits from 
 coming to this world ? Then he must be accused of crea- 
 ting beings who should forever be beyond his control, which 
 a wise and good being certainly would not do. 
 
 For a season man is allowed to injure others, but only for 
 a season, otherwise God must be the author of unnecessary, 
 misery for what more dreadful fate can we imagine, than 
 6* 
 
66 THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 
 
 to be allowed forever to wander over the universe deceiv- 
 ing and injuring others ? This is a hotter hell than one 
 of literal fire. 
 
 We will take either the Orthodox or the Universalist 
 doctrine, and from it show the impossibility of this theory. 
 If Orthodoxy be true, of course God has power over men 
 in the other world, or he cannot punish them ; and an Or- 
 thodox believer who, like Charles Beecher, professes to be- 
 lieve in the power of these wicked Spirits thus to trouble 
 man, must suppose God does not wish to control them, for 
 he believes God has power to " destroy both body and soul 
 inhell." If God does not wish to control them, then he is 
 in favor of increased sin, and, of course, increased misery. 
 Plainly, if God can control them and does not, one of two 
 things must be true, either God delights in misery, or he 
 trusts in sin to accomplish more good than its absence, in 
 either of which cases the Bible is false, for that of course 
 declares that God is merciful, and it says the " damnation 
 of those who do evil that good may come is just," and to do 
 evil and not to prevent it when you consistently can, are the 
 same according to that Scripture, " he that knoweth to do 
 good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Therefore, Or- 
 thodoxy being true, evil spirits cannot come to man. We 
 would respectfully call Mr. Beecher's attention to this state- 
 ment. 
 
 Let us now try the opposite doctrine. That being true, 
 God did not create man knowing that he would continue to 
 sin ad infinitum, therefore man will not always sin. But 
 if evil Spirits now appear to men, they are continuing to 
 sin. Now if God would not have created man knowing 
 that he would forever run the race of sin, would he have 
 created him, knowing that after death he would be subject 
 to those influences, that for a season would infalliblv lead 
 him to sin ? Or, in other words, as the Most High has infi- 
 nite wisdom, would he have subjected man after death to 
 influences that he knew would for a season lead him into 
 farther sin, for if he continues to sin one year, and thus 
 increases his sinful tendencies, what will ever induce him 
 to retrace his steps and turn to God ? Will a farther resi- 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF REASON. 67 
 
 dence in the world of spirits, have a greater effect upon a 
 sinner than the first sight of God's glorious effulgence ? 
 And if so, why ? 
 
 The fact is, if a man has a disposition to sin, after he 
 enters the other world, unless that world changes, that dis- 
 position may continue, and the sinner may become an 
 eternal sinner, in which case God's " tender mercy is not 
 over all his works," according to Universalism, for that 
 says God would not have created a single man, unless he 
 knew that man would sooner or later become holy. We 
 commend this argument to our respected spiritual brother, 
 Adin Ballou, who believes, or did believe in the doctrine of 
 final restoration. 
 
 But whichever of these doctrines is true, it is certain 
 that no sinner hereafter can long wish to continue sinning, 
 for if he is suffering punishment, certainly he must be a 
 fool to wish to increase that punishment, and if he is learn- 
 ing the right way, surely he cannot wish to disturb us with 
 his lies. 
 
 Our own opinion is, that no soul after entering the other 
 world can any longer love to sin, but whether he will be 
 allowed to " seek the Lord then " is a question we do not 
 care now to settle. It is safer to seek him now, while it is 
 certain " he may be found." 
 
 But all this time we have been taking it for granted that 
 the Spirits possess the " natural ability" to come to our 
 earth, which we now expressly deny, for reasons that will be 
 set forth in the following chapter. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 We stated some time ago, that no effect could be pro- 
 duced without an adequate cause. We now propose to 
 shew, that so far from the Rapping phenomena being 
 accounted for, by attributing them to Spirits, they are only 
 involved in a more inexplicable mystery than before. When 
 did any but an ignoramus utter so absurd a doctrine as 
 that taught by our spiritual friends, that a cause was less 
 than the effect attributed to it ? We have shewn that God 
 does not work miracles now to convince men, and that he 
 surely would not do it in the case of evil Spirits ; and it is 
 not claimed by our friends that he does exert this power, but 
 that the Spirits possess it, in and of themselves. That is, 
 to day on account of Dr. Franklin's discovery of the powers 
 of electricity, it is possible for a Spirit, by his will, to direct 
 a current of this element against a table or chair and cause 
 it to move. Now we affirm that unless electricity possesses 
 totally different properties from those ever attributed to it 
 before, no human Spirit in the universe can produce the 
 effects attributed to Spirits, by the agency of electricity. 
 What is electricity ? It is the most subtile element known 
 to science. A thousand " Ley den jars " filled with it, do 
 not perceptibly increase the weight of those jars, so that it 
 seems to be hardly matter. Electricity is negative and 
 positive, both conditions being necessary to promote move- 
 ment in that object. The only way an electric battery can 
 generate, or collect electricity, is by bringing substances 
 together, that by their action upon each other, will produce 
 these two electrical conditions, and not by manufacturing 
 the article, for all of that element that ever existed or ever 
 will exist is already in existence. To be plain upon this 
 
THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 69 
 
 point. A material change in the condition of particles of 
 matter, is all that is now supposed to constitute this wond- 
 rous power, which change is effected in various ways ; in the 
 case of the production of galvanism, by a curious connec- 
 tion of various agents, which causes a change in the minute 
 particles of matter of which the body supposed to be gal- 
 vanized is composed. Now our spiritual friends may fight 
 this idea as much as they please. By inquiry of any adept 
 in electrical science, they can satisfy themselves. 
 
 The will of man alone can no more throw electricity into 
 a table, than it can make that table talk. It is a contra- 
 diction in terms, for electricity, being simply a change in 
 the particles of matter of which a certain body is composed, 
 that body must be operated upon by another material body 
 to effect that change. Galvanism is simply an electrical 
 phenomenon, produced by the action of a diluted acid upon 
 a metallic plate, generally of zinc, so arranged as to con- 
 vey the influence to a corresponding plate of copper, between 
 which and the zinc plate, the diluted acid is placed, a mul- 
 tiplication of these plates and acids constituting a galvanic 
 battery. Common electricity is produced by the friction of 
 two electrics. Now how do the Spirits proceed in their 
 production of this dangerous element ? The good ones, of 
 course, would be wary of their power, lest they did harm. 
 Imagine Dr. Franklin standing on the battlements of the 
 other world, as he is about to proceed to Germany, at the 
 head of his battalion of Spirits. His object is to produce 
 an electric rap on a certain man's pillow. What anxiety 
 must he experience, at the trial of this, his first experiment 
 in the new way of electrical action. To be sure, when on 
 earth, he had dragged the powerful element from heaven to 
 earth, by means of a kite, but now, alas, he lacks even 
 that little implement. He gazes upon the German's house, 
 down the thousands of miles it is necessary for him to 
 travel, with his friends, in order to reach the earth, and 
 then reflects upon the sad absence of all matter wherewith 
 he can produce an electric current, sufficient to disturb the 
 German's slumbers. Bear4njnind that the Dr. is an adept 
 in the art of managing electricity. He looks about him for 
 
70 THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 his plates of copper and zinc, but alas, there are none to be 
 found. Then he asks Fenelon for a piece of amber, but 
 the good man replies, " Amber in heaven ! pooh, non- 
 sense," and the Dr. recollects that he has left all earthly 
 things behind. At length he says to his comrades, let us 
 go and trust to luck to find our amber when we reach 
 the earth. They start and rush precipitately to Germany. 
 They enter the house of the man spoken of in our extract, 
 and perceiving some sealing wax on the table, the Dr. seizes 
 it, breaks it into two pieces, and commences rubbing it vig- 
 orously, but alas, he soon perceives that he has no con- 
 ductor to carry it to the man's pillow, and accordingly he 
 essays to find a knitting needle, which he at length accom- 
 plishes, but after all the machinery does not work, He is 
 not insulated himself, nor is his conductor, and he cannot 
 rub the wax vigorously enough, so he at last turns from the 
 room in despair, giving the German a Blight spiritual rap 
 on his face, which disturbs the quiet slumbers of the ple- 
 thoric sleeper. 
 
 But the difficulty does not end here. Sealing wax, 
 although light for material hands, is a heavy article for a 
 Spirit to lift, and in his efforts to rub the pieces together, 
 he must have so exhausted his etherial strength as to have 
 hardly sufficient left to carry him across the Atlantic, 
 where he tells us he went next, and wandered over Ameiica, 
 until he reached Cincinnati. 
 
 Seriously, a Spirit can no more generate electricity by 
 simply willing it to be done, than it can overturn a house. 
 An electric battery of some kind is absolutely necessary to 
 produce the element, and where, in the Spirit's case, is the 
 battery located ? Suppose it is in the 4th circle. Will 
 the Spirit tote it to earth with him, or will he leave it there 
 and go down to see it operate ? If the former, how will he 
 be able to get it into the house through the walls, even if 
 the difficulty of carrying it so far through the atmosphere 
 was surmounted ? If the latter, then it would not aid him 
 in rapping. But we are told that the Spirits " control the 
 electricity of the other world" and thus rap. Tell that to 
 a bigger fool than yourself, if you believe it, but not to a 
 
THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 71 
 
 decent idiot. Control the electricity of the other world ! 
 and what then ? Remember the sealing wax, and Dr. 
 Franklin. Surely it is enough to make a rational man's 
 blood rise to fever heat to hear sensible men degrading 
 themselves in this way. Control the electricity of the other 
 world ! Try it, and see. How will they go to work ? Shall 
 they say " electrity come here ?" But they may as well 
 " call to the spirits of the vasty deep." Electricity can 
 not come, but it moves only as matter acts upon matter. 
 But supposing that by their wills, they collect a quantity 
 of this element. How long will it remain with them, in an 
 uninsulated condition ? As long as they can keep from 
 contact with substances not electrified. Imagine a Spirit 
 reaching the confines of earth, surcharged with the elec- 
 tric element. He touches our atmosphere, and away flies 
 his rapping agent. Can he say, " go not so far, my child." 
 As well may he "send lightnings that they may go, and 
 say unto him, " Here we are." 
 
 But he arrives at the door of the mansion which he 
 wishes to enter. He has of course lost his electricity. 
 Will he seek to recollect it, and cry out, " thou subtile 
 element, come to my aid." " He that sitteth in the heav- 
 en shall laugh, and shall hold him in derision." 
 Yea more. Let him be successful and produce an electric 
 current. Can he say unto it, " hitherto shalt thou come, 
 but no farther." He would be likely to be a dead spirit 
 if there was any matter about him, and our friends assure 
 us that a spirit without a material body is an impossibility. 
 
 But supposing he obtains just sufficient electricity to 
 rap succesfnlly, and thus charged seeks to enter the room. 
 Maugre the thickness of the walls, he enters, and what then ? 
 Just as he is about to rap, he finds himself suddenly relieved 
 of his stock of electricity, by the presence of the negative 
 persons, who, always compose a part of a circle. He may 
 protest, and wish to give his electricity to a positive person, 
 and thus produce an electric current, but he cannot choose 
 between them. It "takes to itself wings and flies" to the 
 negative sister, unconsciously^. But we will suppose that 
 he is so fortunate as to become recharged, what then ? 
 
72 THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Then the next negative person relieves him of his burden, 
 and so on, until all in the circle are positive, and then he 
 stands some faint chance of being able to produce the 
 raps, that is, if by any expedient, when all are positive 
 or an electric equilibrium exists, an electrical current 
 can be made to flow ! " Only believe" brethren. 
 
 But, say you, will not the first passage of electricity 
 from the spirit to the medium, produce the raps ? Proba- 
 bly. If you think so, just stand next to a powerful 
 person, you small-bodied man or woman, and listen 
 attentively, and see if you don't hear the raps, from the 
 electricity flowing into you. Listen attentively. And if 
 not successful in that experiment, enter an electrician's 
 office, and grasp the handles of his battery, and hear the 
 loud raps ! Astonishing. How like the spirits ? The 
 only trouble is, that you hear them with your nerves and 
 muscles, aud not with your natural ears. 
 
 But if the raps are thus produced, can the spirit control 
 them ? 
 
 The fact is, this whole matter of disembodied spirits rap- 
 ping upon tables with electricity, is the greatest piece of 
 nonsense ever palmed upon the stupid credulity of men, 
 blessed with marvellousness of the size of any two common 
 organs. It is a disgrace to any man of intellect, to pay the 
 least attention to it. It is a sheer impossibility from begin- 
 ning to end, as every truly scientific man knows full well. 
 
 But how about the moving of tables. Can a spirit 
 rush against a table with such force as to displace it ? 
 Momentum sufficient to accomplish such a task could hard- 
 ly be produced, by an ethereal Spirit, in the same room 
 with the object moved — and why ? Because, in the first 
 place he is much lighter than the table. Now, one of two 
 things must be true. Either the spirit has a body, or he 
 has not. If we say he has, then how did it pass through 
 the walls of the room it has entered ? Can matter mould- 
 ed into the shape of a human body, penetrate the hard 
 substance of which a wall is composed ? Not without a 
 miracle, and we have seen that jlod has no agency in the 
 matter. Then how did the body enter the house ? Plain- 
 
THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 73 
 
 ly by passing through an open door or window, or possibly, 
 by coming down chimney, although we are assured on 
 high authority, that the spirits are " too dignified" to come 
 through the chimney often. Then the body finds itself in 
 the room and wishes to move the table. According to the 
 well known laws of matter, its velocity, or its weight, or 
 both combined, must be sufficient to overcome the inertia 
 of the table. It is not likely that its weight is sufficient, 
 but is its velocity ? To understand the probability of 
 this, we must be certain that any velocity is exhibited. 
 When the immense rushing to fill a vacuum, of the mighty 
 mass of air, which covers our globe, was manifested at 
 West Cambridge, the effects of the terrible velocity were 
 every where apparent, but, how is it with the Spirits ? 
 Do not the tables rise very slowly in a majority of in- 
 stances ? Thus, we see, there can be no great velocity, 
 and as there is no weight, the table cannot be moved by 
 them personally, and they cannot control electricity, as 
 we have seen, therefore, Spirits do not move tables ; that 
 is, unless electricity is differently developed from what it 
 has been heretofore. Are they devoid of weight ? If 
 not, or at least lighter than the atmosphere, how can they 
 ascend to their ethereal home, through forty-five miles of 
 that element ? 
 
 Again : where is the proof, that a Spirit can leave its 
 home in the skies ? What powers of locomotion does it 
 possess ? Allowing that its ethereal nature, immediately 
 on its separation from the body, causes it to ascend to the 
 Second Sphere, by what process is it to be able to descend 
 again to our earth V Has Grod provided it with an air- 
 balloon to travel in ? No, for we have seen, that he does 
 not countenance the movement, and if he does it for a 
 good spirit, he must also for a bad one. How then can 
 the spirit move? This idea of the free locomotion of 
 spirits from the other world to this, is unmitigated hum- 
 bug. It cannot be done. The most skilful iEronaut liv- 
 ing, could not descend from above our atmosphere, for 
 there the laws of gravitation end. And yet, we are 
 7 
 
74 THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 gravely told that a Spirit has only to will, and he can at 
 once, or in a few minutes descend to the earth and visit 
 our abodes. What a figure would he cut, essaying with 
 his ethereal body, to divide our atmosphere. Remember 
 that the Rappers believe his body is lighter than air, which 
 it must be, or he could never leave the earth after death. 
 Now he dives down in one place, but the impenetrable 
 atmosphere buoys him up, and he floats aloft as at first ; 
 anon he seeks to descend in a thinner spot, but above he 
 is borne again, like a balloon on " eagles wings," and all 
 his efforts to descend are unavailing. Poor fellow ! Thus 
 futile are the efforts of puny man to counteract the will of 
 Jehovah. If God had intended man to return to this 
 earth, he would have consigned him to some other place, 
 than the blue empyrean, beyond the star-spangled firma- 
 ment. 
 
 But as he cannot descend, unless he can send his mes- 
 sages, he cannot communicate with man. This brings us 
 to another stage of our inquiry. 
 
 What good is to be answered by man being allowed 
 power to re-visit the earth ? Was ever anybody essen- 
 tially benefitted by conversing with the dead ? Sweden- 
 borg is a melancholy instance of evil resulting from such a 
 course. Now, far be it from us to affirm, that Swedenborg 
 never held spiritual communion with holy beings, through 
 the revelations of God, but was he benefitted, on the whole, 
 by what he learned of the other world ? He assures us 
 that it is very difficult to distinguish good from evil Spirits, 
 and that he was very often deceived himself ; and yet, his 
 way of holding communion with Spirits was as far in ad- 
 vance of the Rappings, as intelligence is before stupid ig- 
 norance. But does God allow Spirits to influence man ? 
 This is a great question. Upon it turns that of the spirit- 
 ual nature of clairvoyance, whose advocates claim, that 
 Spirits communicate with them by mental impression. 
 
 If God was in favor of this practice, why, in all ages, 
 has he limited our knowledge to this world ? Is there any 
 man, not excepting the Saviour of the world, who, when 
 inspired of God, has undertaken to give us a direct de- 
 
THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 75 
 
 scription of heaven, except in figurative language ! Did 
 not Paul say, " he heard things unlawful for man to utter ? " 
 And did not Tenant refuse to communicate what he learned 
 on high ? If such knowledge was valuable to us, why did 
 not Christ, or the Holy Spirit, present it to us, when they 
 treated of heaven ! 
 
 Again : would it conduce to the happiness of our friends, 
 to know all that we suffer here ? — or to the happiness of 
 any Spirit, in the other world, to learn of the transactions 
 of this sphere, except the joyful ones ? Has not God 
 wisely drawn a veil between the two worlds, so that they, 
 who would go from this to that, cannot, and vice versa, as 
 the rich man was told by Lazarus, in regard to heaven and 
 hell. Is not the blue firmament a deep gulf existing be- 
 tween earth and " the starry world on high ? ' : Astrolo- 
 gers may gaze upon the stars, and learn our " nativities,'' 
 but are we any wiser for it ? Who, at the commencement 
 of his existence, could bear to have the future of his life 
 unfolded before him ? Would he not shrink from the 
 scenes of suffering through which he is designed to pass ? 
 None but God can bear the sight of the world's miseries, 
 and he only, because he is at work steadfastly for their re- 
 moval, and comprehends the bearing of every act of man ; 
 but no Spirit could do this, and if at all humane, he must 
 suffer inconceivable anguish at the sight of the world's 
 miseries. We cannot bear to read a tale of sorrow. How 
 should we feel, if we were obliged continually to gaze upon 
 the world in its present condition ? 
 
 Here we see the selfishness of spiritual believers. For 
 their own gratification, they will subject their friends to all 
 this misery. Yea, more ; for who does not know, that 
 one, long used to refined society, is tormented while in the 
 presence of gross and vulgar beings ; and yet, we will 
 consent to drag our sainted friends from the society of God, 
 and the holy angels, to our own material abodes, for our 
 own gratification. ! for shame, ye Spiritualists ! 
 
 Therefore, we believe that our Heavenly Father is op- 
 posed to all communication^between the two worlds, except 
 what comes through himself. He is " the way, the truth, 
 
76 THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and the life," and through him, we can obtain all neces- 
 sary information respecting the other world. On this ac- 
 count, he has endowed man on earth with a material guard 
 to his soul, which guard is called the train. It is only 
 when this is in action , that either spirit or man can com- 
 municate with us, or we with them. On no other princi- 
 ple can we obtain a hearing from our fellow-men in the 
 flesh, and is it likely that a Spirit can be heard by us in 
 any other way, if at all ? Then the only access to us a 
 Spirit can possibly have, is through the brain ; and can a 
 Spirit, without such a brain, impress ours ? It seems to 
 us it cannot ; for if it could, then a dense substance could 
 be moved by a Spirit's will alone, which we have just seen 
 is impossible. If it could, then the laws of Nature are 
 suspended, and matter can be moved, by simple will, with- 
 out an apparatus, like the brain, to produce electrical motion, 
 which, we have seen, cannot be done ; for electricity is not at 
 the command of the will, only as it is collected in the brain, 
 to do the bidding of the will through the brain. But hav- 
 ing no material nature to move up and down, as on the 
 earth, the Spirit needs no brain, and, therefore, possesses 
 none. Brain is only needed as a medium of communica- 
 tion between us and the external world. No such medium 
 being necessary with the Spirit, all he possesses is sheer 
 mentality. He is mind, and not matter. If he possesses 
 a material brain sufficient to contain and emit electricity, 
 then he would be too heavy for his elevated position, and 
 would be precipitated to the earth. Aware of the diffi- 
 culty above stated, the Rapping theory invests the Spirit 
 with a material body, but still it does not explain his resi- 
 dence above the atmosphere, and how he can ascend 
 through it so easily, on his return from his visits. This 
 whole matter can be thus summed up : Have the Spirits 
 power to communicate with this earth ? They have not, 
 for the plain reason, that the brain is with them lacking. 
 They can neither hear, nor see, taste, or smell, as we do, 
 and, consequently, are no longer adapted to the holding of 
 intercourse with mortals. 
 
 i 
 
THE RAPPINGS CONTRARY TO PHILOSOPHY. 77 
 
 But it is not a future state, in the common acceptation 
 of that term, that our friends believe in, but simply a 
 transmigration of souls, like the Pythagorean doctrine. 
 They do not believe in a spiritual world at all, but only in 
 the bodies of human beings, containing the souls of their 
 friends, existing elsewhere. What perceptible difference 
 is there, between their idea of the other world, and the 
 descriptions they give us of Jupiter, Saturn, &c. ? 
 
 The fact is, hypocrisy has too long covered this whole 
 so-called spiritual movement. It is not Spiritualism, but 
 only another name for Materialism. All they tell us of 
 the future is of a material character. Indeed, a modern 
 Spiritualist seems to be as utterly unable to comprehend 
 the idea of purely spiritual existence, as is the Indian, who 
 buries along with his friend, his tomahawk and faithful dog. 
 Heaven is like all other material places, and materialism 
 is the essence of the whole affair. According to the true 
 idea, God is a Spirit, and has " made man in own image," 
 who is, therefore, a Spirit, also ; but, according to the Spir- 
 itualistic creed, it is impossible for mind to exist without 
 matter ! Now, where is the vast difference between this 
 idea, and that of the honest infidel ? We can see no essen- 
 tial one. Indeed, we have heard, in more than one in- 
 stance, open and avowed Infidels, of the Investigator 
 school, defend the Rappings, and argue for them, with all 
 the warmth of a full-blooded Spiritualist ! 
 7* 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 Phrenologists define common sense as the result of the 
 exercise of the organ of Causality, which, if true, renders 
 it a commodity of no inconsiderable value. By common 
 sense, we mean a certain innate idea that most persons 
 possess, of the adaption or non-adaption of a particular 
 measure, to the promotion of the object desired ; thus 
 all men believe that a hungry man should be fed, before 
 his soul is converted. Common sense is necessary in all 
 the affairs of life, as without it, men would knowingly trust 
 rogues, and make bargains with their eyes closed. Deride 
 the quality as much as we may, it is, probably, the noblest 
 faculty we possess, for without it, our religion would end 
 in superstition, our poetry in nonsense, our love in insani- 
 ty, our benevolence in blind impulse, and our conscien- 
 tiousness in bigotry. Great orators are often, sadly defi- 
 cient in this valuable commodity. The reason is, they 
 aim too high, and overlook the ground upon which they 
 tread. Splendid theorists are quite apt to lack common 
 sense. They are like a man who walks along gazing upon 
 the firmament above him, and overlooks the mud at his 
 feet, so that even his high aspirations cause him to fall into 
 a quagmire. 
 
 So that when we accuse our friends of lacking common 
 sense, we are paying them a very high compliment, for 
 we mean that, in their love for the heavenly, they over- 
 look the earthly, and are in danger of falling into the 
 quagmires, scattered along their paths. We do not use the 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 79 
 
 word invidiously, or mean by any means, that they are 
 unlearned, or even lacking in imagination, but that they 
 are looking too high, and must " come down a peg or two," 
 to use a homely adage. That is they must reason a 
 little, as well as dream and pray. A great philosopher 
 once was observed making a hole in the wall of his house 
 to admit a large cat, whose free ingress and egress at such 
 times as suited Tabby, he deemed desirable. After he 
 had finished his task, he proceeded to excavate a smaller 
 aperture. He was asked by a friend what his object was, 
 when he replied, " why, that is to admit the little Malteese 
 kitten." So with our friends. Like the great philosopher, 
 their minds are too vast to comprehend common things. 
 
 Men may possess uncommon, and still lack common 
 sense. We do not wish to be personal, but we will select 
 a few of the revelations of our spirit friends, to different in- 
 dividuals, and see if a reception of such messages does 
 not argue an almost total lack of the faculty in question. 
 We might fill columns with similar quotations, but we 
 have room for only a few. In an account of a late 
 spiritualist convention in Springfield, the editor of the Re- 
 publican gives the following scene : 
 
 One of the secretaries of the Convention stated to the 
 writer about the same thing, and, therefore, there can be 
 but little doubt of the correctness of the picture, although 
 the editor of the " New Era/' of course presents it in a 
 little different light. But any gentleman who doubts the 
 picture, had better send to reliable persons in Springfield, 
 and ascertain for himself. One of the most prominent 
 spiritualists in Springfield assured the writer, that it was 
 very near the truth. 
 
 " Mr. Spear began to go to sleep, his right hand raised, 
 and held tremulously upward," and then, he put both 
 hands to his face and burst out into a most lugubrious bel- 
 lowing, and as nearly as we can recall it (says the editor,) 
 we will give some of the first of the performance." 
 
 Mr. Spear. (Hands to his face — face as red as a 
 cabbage.) Boo-hoo, Qh-hr-feoo-hoo ! Oh-h-h boo-hoo-oo- 
 
80 COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 00 ! ! ! My father is dead, iry mother is dead, and my 
 little boy is dead ! I saw them all buried in the grave ! 
 And I must be buried in the grave, (wringing his hands.) 
 Boo-hoo ! Oh where is my mother, where is my father, 
 and where is my little boy ? (more blubbering.) 
 
 Lady. (Arising and advancing.) Your father and 
 mother are here, and little Johnny is here. Dont you see 
 them ? 
 
 Some more conversation ensues when Mr. Spear says 
 " Little Johnny is dead. I saw him die." 
 
 Lady. No, Johnny is not dead. 
 
 Mr. Spear. It's a lie. 
 
 Lady. Why here he is. Can't you see him ? 
 
 Mr. Spear. It's a lie ! It's an infernal lie. Oh 
 where is " Johnny ? " and thus the drama proceeded. 
 
 Mr. Hewitt, who is always anxious to cover the spiri- 
 tual nakedness of his friend Spear, with whatever fig-leaf 
 apron he may have handy, offers a solution of the affair, 
 something like this. We quote from memory in this case, 
 and, therefore, may not be exact. " Mr. Spear was ob- 
 sessed by a low material spirit, who, having lost his 
 friends, could not believe that they " still lived," but 
 owing to the lack of power in the teachings of the church, 
 he really supposed that being dead, they were inanimate. 
 The lady was possessed by a higher spirit, who endeavor- 
 ed to teach the lower, that his boy " being dead, yet 
 speaketh," and that a glorious future life awaited all the 
 " sons of Adam." This may be the proper explanation of 
 the affair, but still we would ask why a spirit should think 
 it necessary to charge such a result upon the church ? 
 We were not aware that materialism, was one of the sins 
 of the church. If we mistake not our enthusiastic, and 
 we doubt not, perfectly conscientious friend Mr. Hewitt, 
 has heretofore, rather charged upon the church, the neg- 
 lects of man's material interests, in her anxiety to provide 
 for his souVs salvation. The church has always professed 
 great regard for the spiritual welfare of man, and we 
 apprehend is not particularly open to the charge of 
 materialism. We believe she is too apt to forget man'd 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 81 
 
 material welfare, in her efforts to " deliver him from the 
 wrath to come." 
 
 Bear in mind that this scene is defended by the only 
 Spiritualist paper in New England. 
 
 At the opening of this same Convention, Mr. Spear 
 presented the following communication from the "Associa- 
 tion of Beneficents," a society, Mr. S. says, formed in 
 the other world for a useful purpose. Benjamin Rush is 
 agent of the Association. After specifying various things 
 that ought to be attended to, Dr. Rush proceeds : 
 
 " Let there be much forethought among those who 
 have ample means, so that they, who are commissioned to 
 attend the National Convocation, shall not be too heavily 
 burdened by the distant journies, that may be required by 
 the travellers." 
 
 Now, when we consider that Mr. Spear is a great travel- 
 ler himself, it is not at all wonderful, that Dr. Rush 
 should inspire him to offer such a sentiment to the Conven- 
 tion. 
 
 We recollect reading once in one of the Mormon Books, 
 something like the following: — "Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 unto my servant, A B , Thou shalt take thy 
 
 farm, situated in such a place, and give to my servant 
 Joseph Smith, for I have need of it. This shalt thou do, 
 and thus become my obedient servant." The spirits are 
 quite apt to inspire us all according to our tastes and fan- 
 cies. Read the following clear case of delusion or some- 
 thing worse. It appears that a large gathering of spirits 
 has been held, and that a committee has been appointed 
 by them, to open a correspondence with Mr. Spear. This 
 Committee, we are told, consists of ten persons, four of 
 whom addressed this letter to their very intelligent corres- 
 pondent. One of the Committee was Dr. Franklin. The 
 revelation was as follows : 
 
 " Let this medium go (to Barre) in one, two, or three 
 days. He will be compensated for his labors,and will have 
 in hand more when he returns than when he commenced. 
 Let him go in faith and great love, and let him give inti- 
 mation oi his expectations^X.oi course including the money 
 
82 COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 part.) " You will find a most important work to do at 
 the place where you are to go tomorrow. You need not 
 hesitate," &c. 
 
 He went, when the following beautiful scene was wit- 
 nessed, according to Miss Gibson's own account. Miss 
 Gibson was a medium also, and says that Dr. Rush spoke 
 through her modest flatterer. He said, addressing Miss 
 Gibson : 
 
 " This woman is in a most exalted mental condition. 
 There is scarcely another so highly exalted, among the in- 
 habitants of your earth. It is nearly impossible to find in 
 this respect her equal" " It is seen that this woman may 
 and will exert a wide and most wise influence. This me- 
 dium, (Mr. Spear) was qualified, instructed, commissioned 
 and free to see this woman for a most important purpose. 
 From this hour there will be an inter-communication be- 
 tween these two most remarkable mediums. There never 
 ivas before on your earth a meeting from which will flow 
 such important results, (of course not excepting the out- 
 pouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost.) It 
 will be seen and felt that the visit of this remarkable me- 
 dium [Mr. Spear] to this highly exalted medium, [the lady 
 whom he is addressing,] will most rapidly and convincingly 
 serve the better to accomplish the great work to be con- 
 summated." 
 
 Afterwards, " this remarkable medium" addressed his 
 Spiritual partner as follows : 
 
 " From this hour [laying on of the hand] thou art con- 
 secrated to the service of humanity. By thy moving and 
 thy flowing speech, and thy cheerful foot, thou shalt go on 
 thy mysterious and righteous way, and there shall thence 
 flow blessings countless. Sweet, gentle peace shall adorn 
 thy placid brow, and pure wisdom grace thy beautiful 
 neck, and righteousness shall repose on thy breast" 
 
 Is it any wonder that the poor woman thus saturated 
 with double-distilled flattery, should speak as follows : 
 
 " The heaven that is within thee is open to men. Thou 
 art filled with the Holy Gchost. The Spirit of the Lord is 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 83 
 
 upon thee, because he hath anointed thee to preach the 
 gospel to the poor," &c. " Give thyself wholly to the 
 Lord." " These eyes shall yet see the glory of the Lord 
 •while enclosed in this encasement." " She then rebap- 
 fo'zed him, (the account further states,) in the name of the 
 Holy Spirit, and consecrated him anew to his work of love. 
 There was much of thrilling interest said and done that 
 pen can never record, and its results eternity alone can 
 unfold. At the morning interview, there was not a repor- 
 ter present" Miss Gibson then states, " It seemed that 
 the Spirits within the two bodies could not be parted. 
 Their hands were disjoined and their bodies separated, a 
 communication was formed between these two mediums." 
 " what sweet communion ! what nearness, what similari- 
 ty of soul ! what congeniality of spirit ! Angels 
 might bless this parting scene ! This parting of bodies 
 but uniting of souls. This interview will never cease, 
 for mind within these two bodies, by these two bands of 
 Spirits, was then and there united in Spiritual bonds, nev- 
 er to be disunited /" Happy man, in so short a time thus 
 to be admitted into the inner sanctuary of a holy wo- 
 man's loving heart. Have a care, however, that the god 
 Cupid does not transfix thy heart with one of his fatal 
 arrows, while thou art gazing in solitude upon the " beau- 
 tiful neck" of the "most highly exalted mental nature 
 among the inhabitants of your earth." 
 
 Before the close of the bridal scene, Dr. Rush gives the 
 following technical advice to Miss Gibson, using the no- 
 menclature for which he has become somewhat famous, 
 since he undertook to inspire Mr. Spear : 
 
 " 2dly. She must continue to have a care of the foods. 
 Better abstain for a season entirely from the meats, though 
 the poultries will not harm. Let her prepare a coffee of 
 the barley, for general drinks, at meals, taken moderately 
 warm. She may occasionally eat of the eggs. She had 
 better for a season eat two and perhaps three figs, each day. 
 She should on arising fronTfee^ morning slumbers, moisten a 
 
84 COMMON SENSE OPPOSEE TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 soft cloth in water, and rub herself most freely, — always 
 carefully rubbing down" 
 
 Let it be distinctly understood, that it is not for the pur- 
 pose of ridiculing Mr. Spear, that we quote these insane 
 doings of his, for the most charitable conclusion one can 
 come to, respecting him, is that he is insane. In this opin- 
 ion some of his own brethren concur, for many of them 
 utterly reject his whole proceedings. 
 
 Afterwards, Dr. Rush told Mr. Spear to go to Wood- 
 stock, Vt., assuring him that his " expenses should be sea- 
 sonably supplied," which seems to be quite an item with 
 the Dr., or with the medium. He there baptized Mrs. 
 Taylor, as follows : After offering a short prayer for " Di- 
 vine benediction on this apparently insignificant gather- 
 ment" he arose from his knees, and after a " few mo- 
 ments of solemn stillness," he placed one hand on Mrs. 
 Taylor's head, while his daughter assisted by holding 
 Mrs. Taylor's hand, and placing her other hand on Mrs. 
 Taylor's shoulder. After some remarks addressed to the 
 candidate for holy orders, he said, " In the presence of thi3 
 assembly, and by the permission of the congregation of 
 the Beneficents, thou shalt now receive thy new name, 
 and thou shalt henceforth be known as the " Strengthen- 
 eress." And wherever thou goest there shalt thou strength- 
 en the weak and the faltering." " And thou shalt be in- 
 structed to say, ' Come unto me, all ye who are weak, and 
 /will give you strength.' After the consecration was 
 ended, the Spirits spoke through Mr. Spear as follows : 
 " We come on missions of beneficence — we come to say 
 to the weak, be strong. We come to say to the faltering, 
 press onward. We come to say to the lame, arise and 
 walk. We come to say to the closed eyes, be thou opened. 
 We come to say to the diseased, be thou whole. We come 
 to say to the dying, thou shalt live. We come to the in- 
 habitants of your earth to give them freedom, to bring 
 Love, Joy, Hilarity, and we select the instruments with 
 which we are to accomplish the beneficently intended la- 
 bors." 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 85 
 
 Here we have Spiritualism in its ripest stages of devel- 
 opment. It has here thrown off the mask and asserted its 
 power to save the world, in unqualified terms. Men of very 
 ordinary qualifications are selected by the Spirits to travel, 
 and anoint " silly women" to open the eyes of the blind, 
 and in the case of Mrs. Mettler, of Hartford, to " walk 
 on the elements" and "to raise the dead" all by the power 
 of man. Unlimited obedience to the "impressions" of the 
 Spirits is required, and ere long the worst scenes of Mor- 
 monism will perhaps be re-enacted. Unless a determined 
 effort is made to discourage the whole movement, it will 
 not be long before the Spirits will inspire their dupes to 
 commit atrocities, like those that the " fifth monarchy men" 
 in Cromwell's time committed, under the- idea that heaven 
 inspired them, and that the kingdom of God was about to 
 be set up. It is a dangerous thing to surrender ourselves 
 to the guidance of " we know not what," for it is well 
 known that no Spiritualist is certain of receiving revela- 
 tions from the Spirits who pretend to converse with him, 
 for communications are received from living persons, from 
 imaginary existences, from animals, and from brandy, zinc, 
 &c. It seems to us a delusion from beginning to end, and 
 the sooner rational men abandon visiting the mediums and 
 circles, and frown upon the whole proceedings, the better 
 will it be for man. 
 
 Already crimes the most diabolical have been attempted 
 under the direction of the Spirits, and much misery has 
 been caused to members of families, where the Spirits have 
 operated. In short the whole thing is but little less than 
 Bedlam let loose, as all but infatuated persons are begin- 
 ning to see. 
 
 We beg the reader's pardon for offending his taste by 
 quoting the following extract from a recent work on Spir- 
 itualism, entitled the " Spirit Home." The book is run- 
 ning over with similar incoherent passages : 
 
 " Mother Haskell wears the indispensable breeches un- 
 der the triangular shirt, which with its mice points pricks 
 
 8 
 
86 CONMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 the serpent, as he raises his head from the dust to see the 
 power in pants, to bruise that head, and give his brain a 
 lift in wisdom. " 
 
 This is from the Spirits, but it seems to us it would take 
 them to interpret its meaning, if it has any. 
 
 One of the principal leaders of the party in Boston 
 owned to the writer, that it was impossible to identify a 
 Spirit, and others acknowledge the same. Says La Roy 
 Sunderland, who is not the person just mentioned, "These 
 have not merely a mixture of truth and falsehood, but they 
 must be admitted often to approach so near the evil and 
 malignant, that it may not be an easy matter to put a cor- 
 rect estimate upon them." He says that H. C. Wright 
 conversed at his house for three and a half hours with a 
 Spirit that purported to be Jesus Christ, and when he had 
 finished, he told him that he was not Jesus Christ, and yet 
 in Philadelphia, according to the u History of Spiritual 
 Manifestations," published by the Spirit's directions, 
 " Many willingly yield to their directions in all matters, 
 great and small" A noted believer in Boston informed 
 the writer that he had never disobeyed the Spirits but 
 once, and that was when they ordered him to move a stove 
 weighing 600 lbs. ! 
 
 A man in Springfield was ordered by the spirits to aban- 
 don the sale of rum. He replied, " If you say so, I will, 
 but I would not for any other reason." 
 
 Friends of common sense, of reason, and of God, we 
 ask you, if such a system is from him who says, " Come 
 now, and let us reason together," or from him who declar- 
 ed, " Why even of you rselves, judge ye not what is right ?" 
 Is God in favor of inspiring men to give themselves up to 
 the direction of man ? and yet this is the quintescence of 
 modern spiritualism. Our friends may equivocate as much 
 as they please, but there it stands in black and white, in 
 their own books, as follows, " The medium must be pass- 
 ive, must not resist, you must obey. You need not be 
 afraid. Do what you are impressed," &c, &c. Mr. 
 Finney, a celebrated medium, says that he does not obey 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 87 
 
 the spirits unless his reason approves, and yet he says he left 
 New York City and went to Cleveland, Ohio, in obedience 
 to nothing but an impression, although he says as a clair- 
 voyant he felt it would all be right. 
 
 Mr. Grant, of Boston, a gentleman who has paid a great 
 deal of attention to the subject, as far as visiting mediums 
 are concerned, assures the writer, that he has ascertained 
 beyond all doubt, that he could by his will effectually con- 
 trol the answers of the medium ; and Mr. Haskell,a settee 
 manufacturer, a gentleman of distinguished worth and 
 probity of character, asserted the same, as far as answers 
 to himself were concerned,and yet the revelations, thus liable 
 to be perverted, are to be swallowed. 
 
 We could fill our book with instances of the false asser- 
 tions and directions of Spirits, that have come to our know- 
 ledge, but every one knows that it is true that such false 
 directions are given, and therefore we forbear. 
 
 One lady in Boston was directed by the Spirits to go to 
 a neighboring town, and she would find a house ready 
 furnished for her accommodation. She went with her 
 child and $200 in money belonging to her husband, and no 
 traces of her could be found until a month had elapsed. 
 The Spirits had told her that Boston was to be visited with 
 a dreadful pestilence, and that her husband would be one 
 of its victims. 
 
 One man conversed with the spirit of a living sister, 
 who said she had been dead eleven years. 
 
 A gentleman on the Cape was informed by a certain 
 Spirit that he had perished at sea, together with all the 
 other hands, on board a certain vessel. There was great 
 mourning in the town, but afterwards the ship and all 
 hands arrived in port safely. 
 
 One man was directed to go " down-East," and when 
 he got there he was told to return. Daniel Webster assured 
 one man that his 7th of March speech was all correct, but 
 later intelligence from him represents him as lamenting 
 bitterly over that speech, and calling it the greatest sin 
 of his life. Still later accounts deny the story of his 
 repentance. 
 
88 COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 
 
 Mr. Sunderland, himself a believer in the spiritual origin 
 of the manifestations, in a new work of value, entitled 
 u Book of Human Nature," gives a great variety of inci- 
 dents of a contradictory nature. He says Spirits have 
 accused others of murdering them, when they were all the 
 time alive and on the earth. 
 
 The great Dr. Rush directs us to look at the rising sun 
 if we wish to enjoy good health, to hold our hands wide 
 open while walking, and to dissolve gum-shellac in cold 
 water to cure the bronchitis. He also gravely informs us 
 that the nose is a very important part of the face, that there 
 are two eyes in the head, as there are two hands in the 
 body, and that the right aperture of the nose is made for 
 smelling perfumes, and the left for scenting unodoriferous 
 objects, and to crown all he tells us that "the time was 
 when God was not," but that two particles of matter came 
 together and formed the Deity ! 
 
 Mr. Gridley, one of the principal writers in the New 
 Era, informs us that the Spirits tell him that it is much 
 easier for a Spirit to become intoxicated, than it is for a 
 man. He says they go into a cellar and hold their faces 
 over the rum hogsheads, and thus inhale the precious fumes, 
 and often have the delirium tremens. 
 
 Other spiritual writers assure us that Spirits are u sub- 
 ject to like passions with ourselves." They eat, drink, 
 wear clothes, have parties, &c, &c. The ladies " wear 
 their hair in flowing ringlets." u Some men wear Persian 
 trousers, and a majority wear all of the beard." " Their 
 bodies are as really material as ours" and yet " they 
 move with almost the rapidity of thought," " can go to 
 Chagres in three minutes and California in five." " They 
 can take perfect control of a susceptible medium, can cause 
 him to do anything desirable." If they wish they can 
 grow shorter or longer than they are, and to crown all, they 
 know all the thoughts of the inhabitants of the earth. This 
 used to be considered the prerogative of God only, but 
 under the third dispensation, even the drunken Spirits 
 possess it. 
 
COMMON SENSE OPPOSED TO THE RAPPINGS. 89 
 
 Mr. Ambler declares they choked him while eating in 
 order to show that they had perfect control of him, and he 
 says when he came to Boston, they led him to precisely the 
 places where he wished to go. " They come at all hours of 
 the day and of the night, and generally to friends every day, 
 but could not converse if it were forbidden." Now, " Hear 
 heavens, and give ear, earth. Come near, ye nations, 
 to hear, and hearken, ye people. >? When before has it been 
 said that ignorant, sensual, inexperienced, mistaken human 
 beings, were the chosen almoners of heaven to distribute 
 its spiritual bounty to man ! Since the days when " God 
 thundered from Paran," when has he before resigned the 
 cause of the world's conversion into the hands of such a 
 feeble, misguided crew as the Spirits seem to be ? The 
 man who gravely asks another to believe that this is God's 
 instrumentality to save the world, should be quietly told 
 that all the Lunatic Asylums are not full, and measures 
 should be immediately taken to convey him thither. 
 
 8* 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 KELIGI0N VERSUS KAPPERS. 
 
 What is religion? Various definitions are given to 
 this term, by different individuals, but we mean by it, 
 " The life of God, in the soul of man," as expressed by 
 Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians ii. 20, and by other 
 inspired writers. In other words, it is the " indwelling of 
 the Holy Ghost," — the inspiration of the Almighty. It 
 is preceded by repentance, faith, and regeneration, but is 
 of itself nothing more, nor less, than being " filled with all 
 the fulness of God." Of course, he who enjoys it is holy ; 
 for " he that is born of God doth not (knowingly) commit 
 sin." He also trusts in God ; for, " without faith, it is 
 impossible to please him." Having the spirit, he is filled 
 with the fruit thereof, which " is in all goodness, and 
 righteousness, and trath." " The King's daughter is all 
 glorious within — her raiment, also, is of pure gold." 
 
 Thus, inward and outward righteousness are the charac- 
 teristics of the truly religious man. " Herein are the chil- 
 dren of God manifest, and the children of the devil ; who- 
 soever doeth not righteousness is not God, neither he that 
 loveth not his brother." " He that committeth sin is of 
 the devil." 
 
 Christ was religious, when in the agony of his last hours 
 he exclaimed, " If it be possible, let this cup pass from 
 me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." Sub- 
 mission to God's will, is an essential feature of true relig- 
 ion ; indeed, when rightly understood, it includes the whole 
 of religion. Now, we assert, that this religion, utterly and 
 unqualifiedly, condemns the whole spiritual theory. 
 
 1st. Because God is not heartily acknowledged by it. 
 Any system of reform, that neglects to assert its depen- 
 
RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 91 
 
 dence upon Deity, is not a religious one ; for true religion 
 consists in perfect submission to God's will, and produces 
 the fruits of such dependence, which, in the case of sin- 
 ners, includes a regeneration of the soul. 
 
 2d. Because it teaches a very defective morality in 
 relation to the motives of action. 
 
 3d. For the reason, that its advocates are not honest 
 seekers after truth, at reason's fount. 
 
 4th. Because it assumes a material basis. 
 
 5th. For the reason, that under its influence very dele- 
 terious effects are produced. 
 
 6th. Because it sets up another authority than that of 
 the glorious and eternal God. 
 
 Our first point is, that the spiritual theory does not 
 really acknowledge God, and require conversion to him. 
 "We might quote almost ad infinitum from spiritual writ- 
 ings to prove this, as we have already done, to some ex- 
 tent. It is plain, that, in the work of regenerating the 
 world, it is not God operating through the Spirits, but the 
 Spirits themselves, who have discovered the " new and 
 living way." Says " Supernal Theology," " It is a dis- 
 covery which Spirits have made ; and this cannot be con- 
 sidered strange, when it it is admitted they live in a world 
 of progress." Not at all ; only it is a wonder, that the 
 u Father of Spirits " had not made the discovery before. 
 " You will write, and preach," not " with the Holy Ghost 
 sent down from heaven," but " as you will be moved by 
 the Spirits." (" Light from the Spirit-World.") Now, 
 then, as great as is the difference between the unerring 
 God and fallible men, so great is the difference between a 
 truly religious system, and this " new dispensation." It 
 matters not that Spirits profess obedience to God, for this 
 makes the case ten times worse, for God has chosen to give 
 them this power, and yet, unlike Peter and John, they re- 
 fuse to say, " Be it known unto you all, that by the name 
 of Christ (or God) doth this man stand before you whole." 
 In fact they are imposters of the worst character if this is 
 true, for they never assert their own inability to do these 
 things, and ascribe all thejgower to God, but " we," the 
 
92 RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 
 
 great and mighty Spirits, are going to " overturn' ' the 
 world and to " make all things new, 5 ' and yet they are 
 only agents of God ! 
 
 Our Spiritual friends had better hold fast to the other 
 horn of the dilemma, and argue that the Spirits are not 
 under the direction of God, for that would be delivering 
 them from the charge of imposters, and be crediting them 
 with extraordinary sagacity, though at God's expense. 
 
 Even Jesus Christ utterly renounced all self-elevation 
 and said, u I do nothing of myself, but as my Father 
 taught me, I speak these things." Behold, ye Spirits 
 of the Sixth Sphere, a worthy example of humility that you 
 would do well to imitate ! 
 
 Good men in all ages have always owned the same when 
 engaged in promoting a religious reform. They have all 
 declared that they wished to " glorify God on earth, and 
 finish the work which he gave them to do." And here con- 
 sists the very remarkable difference between other sys- 
 tems of religious reform and that of the Spirits. Elated 
 with the magnitude of their fancied discovery, they rush to 
 this world, with all the zeal of a new convert, and tell what 
 great things they are going to do. Instead of saying, " we 
 are nothing," it is immense we. " Behold our greatness!" 
 They are like a little boy dressed for the first time in jacket 
 and trousers, strutting through the town, and boldly de- 
 claring that now the people had better look out, for he is 
 determined to keep them straight. " Pride goeth before 
 destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," we are 
 told — therefore we fear the Spirits will one day be rub- 
 bing their faces and exclaiming in anguish, "0 that we had 
 not got on to those high stilts." Vanity is always ridicu- 
 lous, and never more so than when accompanied by ex- 
 treme impotence, as in the case of the Spirits, for if God 
 created them, they have no power of themselves, and if 
 they were humble they would acknowledge it. But in- 
 stead of that, they assume to be gods of this lower world, 
 to know the thoughts of men, to come and go when and 
 where they please, and to be in as many places about the 
 same time as they please. Indeed, allowing that they 
 
RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 93 
 
 have been sent by God to reform the world, they have evi 
 dently become elated with the dignity of their mission, 
 and suppose not that they are u men of like passions with 
 us," as Paul declared to the inhabitants of Lystra when 
 they thought of worshipping him, but that they are de- 
 serving of divine honor. If they had been in Lystra, 
 they would hardly have " restrained the people," when 
 they "brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and 
 would have sacrificed" unto Paul and Barnabas. 
 
 Again, Wesley, Fletcher, Fox, Luther, Doddridge, 
 Scott, Edwards, Dwight, Brainerd, Payson, and a host of 
 others, too numerous to mention, although equally desirous 
 with the Spirits of reforming men, yet taught regeneration 
 as the only condition of acceptance with God, which re- 
 generation was not " of man, but of God." Do the Spir- 
 its tell their converts they " must be born again ?" and 
 yet they are going to save the world in a very short time. 
 "We suspect that the principle on which they propose to 
 convert the world is that of errorists of all ages, to make 
 the conditions of salvation so easy that all men will em- 
 brace them ; like the Campbellites in the Southern States, 
 who convert great numbers to religion, by telling them that 
 immersion in the water is regeneration. 
 
 "When Wesley arose he " laid righteousness to the line 
 and judgment to the plummet," and preached the most holy 
 and self-denying doctrines, as necessary to acceptance 
 with God. Fox did the same. So did Thomas Scott, 
 Baxter, Bunyan, Brainerd, Payson, and the early Metho- 
 dist and Baptist preachers of America. They all endeav- 
 ored to elevate the standard of piety, as Christ had set 
 them the example. 
 
 It was so when the reformers of the 19th century com- 
 menced their efforts. " Greater purity," " more holiness 
 in the church," was their watchword. But with the Spirits 
 it is, mainly, " believe in us and hearken to our teachings, 
 and we will reform the world." It is not, " repent and be 
 converted," but become Spiritual mediums and believers. 
 Like Catholics they seem to care much more about faith in 
 themselves than about -poetical righteousness. They do 
 
94 RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 
 
 indeed prate about morality, and so do all false teachers, 
 but where is the instance of a former opponent of re- 
 form having become a genuine laborer in reformatory 
 movements through their influence ? All great reform- 
 ers are able to point to the u living epistles" of their 
 ministry, as evidences of what they have accomplished, 
 but with the exception of the conversion of Robert Owen 
 and some other infidels to nominal Christianity, where are 
 the trophies of the Spirits' victories? They come with 
 flying banners and swelling trumpets, and proclaim their 
 mission. " By their fruits shall ye know them," says 
 Christ. These fruits are where ? Echo answers, where ? 
 
 On the day of Pentecost three thousand souls were 
 converted, and such a change took place in their mode of 
 living as the world had never before witnessed. How is it 
 with the Spirits, who are going to reform the world so 
 quickly with their more powerful instrumentality? Indeed, 
 so far as our experience is concerned, it has made some 
 men decidedly worse than they were before. It has dwin- 
 dled their souls into the dimensions of a Rapping circle, 
 and made them imagine that all the piety of the land was 
 confined to one little fanatical sect of three years of age. 
 
 Yea more, it has drawn away many noble-minded per- 
 sons from laboring zealously in reformatory causes, and 
 almost hushed their voices in behalf of rational religion. 
 We know of many individuals to whom these remarks will 
 apply. When all the rum-sellers, now spiritual believers 
 shall have abandoned their trade, — all the slaveholders 
 and pro-slavery men, shall have become practical aboli- 
 tionists, - — all the warriors, and makers of implements of 
 war shall have enlisted under the banner of the " prince 
 of peace," and all the oppressors of, and " grinders of 
 the peace of the poor" shall have learned the lesson, 
 taught the young man by Christ, and all the selfish men 
 shall have become benevolent ones, then will we believe 
 that the Spirits are of use to man ; but as long as none, 
 or but very few of these changes have taken place among 
 the believers, we shall conclude with the apostles that 
 
RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 95 
 
 their faith, although great enough to remove mountains, is 
 but a " sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." 
 
 2d. But this system teaches a defective morality in re- 
 gard to motives. But, have you not acknowledged, says 
 one, that their morality was good ? We have asserted that 
 as far as they treated of morals, they said more good things, 
 than bad ones, but morality alone is not religion, for 
 morality has reference to the outward actions, whereas 
 religion begins with the heart. 
 
 A man may be a very good man to all appearance, and 
 receive the plaudits of the world for his labors, in behalf 
 of the prisoner, for instance, and yet be actuated by the 
 most sordid motive, in which case, his heart is no better 
 than that of an openly vicious man. 
 
 It is the motive that constitutes the virtue of the 
 action in God's sight, and that motive must be something 
 else than to support one's self, or to obtain fame. Even 
 to enjoy one's self is not a legitimate motive of action, 
 and yet this lies at the foundation of the whole spiritual 
 movement. It originated in a selfish desire to pry into 
 what God has wisely hidden from us. It received its 
 strength from a longing after bliss, a desire to be happy in 
 the society of Spirits — in short, in a spiritual epicurism, 
 which often deceives the persons under its influence. 
 
 They engage in the Rappings, not because they think it 
 is their duty, not because they believe God commands 
 them, but that they may be happy — that their curiosity 
 may be gratified. 
 
 It longs to converse with friends, because it is pleasant 
 to do so. It is so gratifying. 
 
 Now, at the risk of being considered an ascetic, we 
 affirm that the man who ordinarily acts from this principle, 
 although he goes to Spiritual circles nightly, is as much 
 slave to self, as the drunkard. Tea, more, his devotion 
 to self-being under the garb of Spiritualism, is more 
 dangerous than sensuality. 
 
 The man who is not actuated in the great majority of 
 his actions by duty, is not a religious man, although his 
 outward life may be blameless. 
 
96 RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 
 
 Now, if Spiritualism is intending to supersede Chris- 
 tianity, it must teach a stricter doctrine than it does now 
 on this point. It must, at least equal Christianity in this 
 respect. 
 
 3d. Religion is opposed to " Spiritualism, " because 
 the advocates of the latter, are not honest seekers after 
 truth through reason. Any system which tends to be — ■ 
 little reason is of the devil, for reason is God's vice- 
 gerent in the soul, the medium through which he commu- 
 nicates his will to man, and the one who tramples that 
 under foo*", is man's greatest enemy. Supposing we could 
 abolish Atheism, by establishing Budhooism in its place, 
 Would the world be a whit better for the change ? Is 
 not an intelligent athiest a more hopeful subject, than 
 a besotted pagan, and yet, the rappers rejoice over the 
 conversion of men to a belief in immortality, for what 
 reason ? Because their intellects have been addressed by 
 the Spirits, and new, and powerful arguments have been 
 presented to their understandings ? No, but because a 
 material effect convinces them of a spiritual cause ! Vain 
 conversion. It is worthless. It depends not upon reason, 
 and, therefore is worth nothing. 
 
 But its advocates do not wish to understand the cause 
 of these manifestations. They have made up their minds 
 that it is Spirits, and they are "wiser in their own conceits, 
 than seven men who can give a reason." They are like 
 an ignorant Irishman who says, " it is so," and if you 
 do not believe him, perhaps he will beat it into you physi- 
 cally. That is, they are as stubborn, and as impervious 
 to reason. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, 
 and among such is the liberal president of the Boston 
 Spiritual Society, but the exceptions are not so numerous 
 as we wish they were. 
 
 In illustration of our meaning, we would remark that, 
 but few of them have given Dr. Rogers' able explanations 
 of the rappings, a thorough perusal. We have heard 
 many affected sneers of this explanation from Spiritualists, 
 but hardly ever have we seen a Spiritualist who had 
 thoroughly examined the work. Therefore, we say, they, 
 
RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 97 
 
 or many of thein, are not seekers after truth, at reason's 
 fount. 
 
 Again, what progress in intellectual life, can men 
 make, who consider an abnormal and passive condition, the 
 most favorable one for receiving truth ? 
 
 Look at the monstrous doctrine ! Cease exercising 
 your intellect, — close your books, — think no longer, 
 and you shall enter the kingdom of wisdom. This is 
 modern Spiritualism, and is it any wonder, that those who 
 prize human intellect, should eschew the hateful doctrine. 
 
 4th. Religion rejects this creed, because of its material 
 basis. And what a material basis ! Talk of Spiritualism, 
 as connected with this affair ! As well might Mohammed 
 in his most voluptuous moments tell of a heaven of pure 
 spirituality ! It is the rankest materialism from beginning 
 to end. Dr. Rush says, God was formed from matter, 
 and, of course is inferior, or not superior to it, for " the 
 stream can rise no higher than its fountain." Mr. 
 Fin ney, very renowned Spiritual teacher, asserts that 
 " God acts as he is compelled to by his organization, and 
 cannot act differently," and that " it is fanaticism to be- 
 lieve that God can influence us, for he is an infinite being 
 and we are finite." This, says one of the great high 
 priests of Spiritualism. Says A. J. Davis, — " Matter is 
 the foundation of mind. Mind is the Spiritualization of 
 matter." Of course God is the sublimation of matter. 
 This is the modern Spiritualism, we suppose that as the 
 Spirits say, is the " concentration of the wisdom of all 
 past ages." Of A. J. Davis, Mr. Finney says, "He is as 
 far superior to Jesus Christ — as Christ was to those who 
 preceded him." The editor of the New Era says, " I 
 grant this, if wisdom is superior to love." That is in the 
 estimation of two of the leaders of Spiritualism, Davis 
 is wiser than Christ, and, of course, is pretty good au- 
 thority. 
 
 We do not mean to assert, that this idea prevails among 
 Spiritualists, although, one of their favorite preachers 
 some years ago, when the rappings were first heard, 
 9 
 
98 BELIGION VEBSUS BAPPEBS. 
 
 taught the doctrine publicly, that " God was matter,' 3 and 9 
 therefore, we suppose other persons, than Dr. Rush and 
 Mr. Davis may believe, that he is not superior to matter. 
 
 But it is certain that they all teach that the future life 
 is a material life, as we have already shown. The Spirits 
 have bodies, that can be seen, felt, that can eat and get 
 drunk, &c. And then, what glowing descriptions of 
 physical beauty are given us of the other world ! In what 
 respect does heaven differ from earth according to this 
 theory ? 
 
 Now, true religion begins with the idea of mind pre- 
 dominating over matter. The body is of but little conse- 
 quence in comparison to the soul, which came from God, 
 it tells us. Its language is, " God is a Spirit, and if thou 
 would be qualified for his society hereafter, eschew the 
 cultivation of material good, as an end, and purify and 
 cultivate thy inner nature." It tells us that we cannot 
 enjoy material pleasures hereafter. It says " heaven is a 
 pure mental existence, and its only happiness will be in 
 union of thy soul with God." But " Spiritualism" says, 
 not so, but look forward to a time when thy body shall be 
 of the size thou desirest, when if a lady, thou shalt wear 
 flowing ringlets— if a man shall dress in Turkish trousers. 
 When apples shall be given thee to eat, and fine fields, 
 and splendid temples shall be open to thy view ; in short, 
 it revives the old Mohammedan idea of a sensual existence 
 beyond the grave, and is no better than that system. 
 
 Then it relies on material demonstration to convert men, 
 whereas, true religion writes its laws, not " with ink, on 
 tables of stone, but on fleshly tables of the heart, with the 
 spirit of the living God." 
 
 Now, as great as is the difference between the moving 
 of tables, and the operations of the Holy Spirit in the 
 heart of man y so great is that between modern and true 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 5th. Religion eschews the Rappings, because of their 
 very injurious effects. When we come to the cause of 
 these phenomena, this point will be clearly shown. At 
 present, we will but allude to the multitude of persons who 
 
TIXIGION VEBSI7S PAPPEES. 99 
 
 have been misled, and told to do things, that have injured 
 themselves and others. Numerous cases, of this character, 
 ■appear in the papers, but only a tenth part of the real in- 
 juries ever find their way to the public eye. Reason is 
 oot only dethroned, but the mind is weakened, and the 
 will rendered irresolute. How can a person accustom him- 
 self to ask the Spirits about every item of his daily life, 
 and retain an ordinary degree of intellectual life ? Ask 
 the ignorant follower of Romanism, who goes to the priest 
 to learn his duty. But the most besotted Catholic never 
 went so far as to ask his priest about every act, and to 
 consult him in the commonest affairs of life. That degra- 
 dation of intellect was reserved for the greatest reformers 
 the world has ever seen, the recipients of the third dis- 
 pensation. It is said, that religion always produces insan- 
 ity. So far from this being the case, Dr. Woodward found 
 it a very essential aid in restoring reason to his patients. 
 This is a gross libel on religion. The preaching, or the 
 practice of Christianity, has not the remotest tendency to 
 produce insanity. If it had, it would not be divine. Sup- 
 posing we ask a victim of religious insanity what made 
 him insane, he says, " I was told I should go to hell unless 
 I repented." " But," we ask, " you was not told you 
 would go to hell, if you did repent, was you ? " no ! " 
 says he. " And were you not commanded to repent by 
 Christianity ? " " Yes," he replies. ■" You then refused 
 to yield to Christianity, did you not ? " " Of course," 
 says he. 
 
 But how is it with the Rappings ? Are those who refuse 
 to yield to them the insane ones ? No ; but those who 
 give themselves up to them, — who become believers. 
 
 Now, as great as is the difference between opposing a 
 thing, and giving yourself up to it, so great is the differ- 
 ence between insanity from Religion^ and from the Spirit- 
 ual Rappings, — and it cannot be denied. But the Rap- 
 pings are yet in their infancy. Unless all good men unite 
 and endeavor to roll back these desolating waves of 
 rapping-mania, ere many years have elapsed, we shall 
 witness effects most terrible. 
 
100 EELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 
 
 6th. Eeligion is opposed to the Rapping creed, because 
 the latter ereets another authority than that of God ; and 
 here we would gladly draw a veil over the foul picture 
 that presents itself, but truth compels us to proceed. 
 
 1st. As we have seen it refuses to recognize God as its 
 inspirer. 
 
 2d. It turns from him to human beings. 
 
 3d. It re-opens the very worst sore the world ever had 
 polluting its fair surface. 
 
 1st. It refuses to recognize God: We have already 
 enlarged upon this point, but we wish to offer one more 
 thought. What, in the eye of the Christian, constitutes 
 the chief attraction of heaven ? Is it not, that 
 
 " There we shall see his face. 
 
 And never, never sin, 
 There, from the rivers of his grace, 
 
 Drink endless pleasures in 1 " 
 
 And do we not pray, 
 
 " And let our ransomed spirits go, 
 That we may grasp the God we seek ? " 
 
 " The pure in heart shall see God." This is heaven ; 
 but from the Spirits what do we learn of this adorable 
 Being ? Almost absolutely nothing. Is it not fair, then, 
 to suppose that " God is not in all their thoughts ? " 
 
 2d. It turns from him to man. " My people have com- 
 mitted two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of 
 living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns that can hold 
 no water." 
 
 Both of these evils have the Spirits upheld. They seek 
 to draw off man's notice from the God within him, and turn 
 his attention to the muddy streams of their devising. There- 
 fore we say, this doctrine is infidelity. It leads men to 
 forget their Heavenly Father, and apply to Benjamin 
 Franklin. It says that Dr. Franklin, Thomas Paine, &c, 
 are better able to instruct the soul, than is the true and 
 living God. It trusts these men, because they are Spir- 
 its. It thus sets up an idol in the heart, in the place 
 
RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 101 
 
 of the God of heaven. No Christian can, therefore, 
 receive it. 
 
 3d. It re-opens the worst sore that has ever afflicted 
 the earth : And what is this ? What, but false religion ? 
 And what greater curse has the world ever had preying 
 upon its vitals than false religion ? Examine the records 
 of antiquity, and what more fruitful source of crimes, too 
 hideous to mention, appears, than the heavenly messenger 
 of truth and love changed into a foul incarnation of relig- 
 ious hate ? Did not Christ find his most fearful enemies 
 among the advocates of a man-made religion, who raved 
 upon him, when he taught the necessity of rejecting man's 
 intervention in the matter of religion ? For this oifence, 
 they crucified the Son of God. 
 
 Next came the hydra-headed beast of Polytheism, 
 Humanity shudders at the recital of the agonies and tor- 
 tures of its unfortunate victims. God only can contem- 
 plate the picture with forbearance. And yet its virulence 
 was owing only to its man-authority being attacked. The 
 people needed priests to atone for their sins, to save them 
 from the wrath of the gods. 
 
 Paganism being conquered, Eomanism soon assumed the 
 sway, and numbered its victims by tens of millions, where- 
 as, Paganism could boast of only its millions. In what 
 consisted the sin of the opponents of this new form of 
 " the man of sin ? " In refusing to receive man as the 
 interpreter of God's will. 
 
 Luther protested against the enormous man-made relig- 
 ion, and what was the result ? Behold the lion uncaged 
 upon him ! Then English Episcopacy usurped God's 
 place, and pointed the soul to a variety of forms instituted 
 by man, instead of pointing him to God alone. 
 
 Lastly, came the modern decline of piety in all Protes- 
 tant churches, with the substitution of creed for life. Wit- 
 ness its hatred of the more spiritual part of its members. 
 Now, what have we ? Modern creedism ? Episcopacy? 
 Romanism ? Paganism ? or Judaism, with its hoary locks 
 rising from the tomb it found beneath the smouldering 
 ruins of its gorgeous temple ? No ; but what ? We hes- 
 
102 RELIGION VERSUS RAPPERS. 
 
 itate ; for we love our friends, and do not wish to injure 
 them ; but the truth must be spoken, " though the heav- 
 en's fall." We have a worse than all ! Yes, Judaism, 
 with all its array of mitred priests, seeking to entrap the 
 Son of God, professed to owe its origin to the Almighty. 
 So did all the other systems of religion of which we have 
 spoken ; for even Paganism recognized one superior Being, 
 the father, and director of all the other gods, and of 
 men ; but modern Spiritualism boldly casts off all recog- 
 nition of God's authority, and points us to man as the only 
 hope of the world. 
 
 It is in vain for this assertion to be evaded by the Spir- 
 itualists. It stands out prominently in almost all of their 
 writings, as we quoted at the commencement of this work. 
 But lest we should be misunderstood, we beg leave to 
 repeat what we have elsewhere said. 
 
 It is not that Spiritualism does not allude to the Deity ; 
 for this it occasionally does, although not often as having 
 anything to do with the new movement ; but our charge 
 is, that it virtually places men in the position that God oc- 
 cupies in all other systems of religion. Man is the founder 
 and perfecter of the new dispensation. 
 
 Sometimes, it lisps the name of God, but never asserts 
 that God is the originator and controller of the whole 
 movement. This, bear in mind, it could not do, without 
 making him the Author of evil. It, therefore, wisely al- 
 lows the Spirits to claim the honor of being its originators 
 and sustainers. 
 
 Again, if Spiritualism admitted that God was at the 
 foundation of the movement, and the Spirits were his 
 agents, then it knows it would be met with the remark- — 
 " Romanism revived ; " for what greater similarity to that 
 system could there be, than the one that required human 
 beings to officiate as God's vicegerents on earth ? If the 
 Spirits are sent of God, then, of course, all we have to do, 
 is to obey them. To teach implicit obedience to Dr. Bush 
 and Dr. Franklin, would savor too strongly of mental slavery, 
 to suit such " progressives " as our friends ; therefore, they 
 are obliged to grasp the other horn of the dilemma, and 
 
RELIGION versus rappees. 103 
 
 boldly claim divine power for the Spirits, whom they wor- 
 ship instead of God, or even the Virgin Mary. It thus 
 enstamps the name of Atheist upon its sin-begrimmed 
 visage. 
 
 Behold it, ye sons of men, and " come not thou into its 
 secret," for its touch is pollution, its embrace is spiritual 
 death ! 
 
 An atheistical religion ! We have heard of " a State 
 without a King, and of a Church without a Bishop," — but 
 here we have the kingdom of heaven come on earth without 
 a God! 
 
 In the second part of this book, which is soon to be 
 published, we hope to be able to demonstrate what the 
 cause of the Bappings is, as clearly as we believe we have 
 in this part, that Spirits are not connected with the move- 
 ment. Our explanation is novel, but we think will prove 
 more satisfactory to all lovers of religion, than any that has 
 yet been offered ; and w r e believe, of course, that it is the 
 true one, and must eventually prevail. 
 
 THE E^D. 
 
f?m!&Sm: 
 
 
 WILL BE PUBLISHED SOON! 
 
 ■ RAPFO.-MANIA OVERTHROWN 
 
 s 
 
 g| PART II. 
 
 OR, THE CAUSE OF THE SO-CALLED 
 
 "SPIRITUAL RAPPLNGS" DEMONSTRATED. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Q 
 
 B 
 
 A 
 
 This work will explain the natural cause of the won- 
 derful phenomena attributed to Spirits, in a new, and it is 
 believed, a perfectly convincing manner. All honest en- 
 quirers after truth, will not fail to perceive the rationality 
 of the author's theory, as it will be made so plain, that 
 " the wayfaring man, though a fool, will not " need to " err 
 therein." It will be presented to the reader, not in the 
 language of the schools, — although it will invite a slight 
 knowledge of science on the part of the reader, — but it will 
 be couched in such terms as the public are familiar with. 
 It will be, therefore, a popular, as well as a scientific expla- 
 nation of the phenomena. ' 
 
 ml 
 
: . : 
 3 Ifev 
 
 *35sEsg^ 
 
 afer 
 333^ 
 
 > 3»i: 
 
 ii2> : 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;s^>3^ ... 
 s^JS^p-^? 3 
 
 ^5^»>o^ 3 
 
 »CT^S3fe>>^> 3 
 3>3:3P33 3 :\ 
 
 > ^-^J»2> >_3 ^ 
 
 52II»33 v 
 
 33 
 
 3 ^^ 
 
 3t^X= 
 
 3fc>> % ^ _ 
 
 3&:m3 === 
 
 73p>>s> r>ZZ3j»^ 
 3^^>3^ 
 
 Ci»3^> 
 
 r^E>s>3>Z>^ 
 
 }3>>3* 
 
 3TX>3 
 
 S33>3 
 
 
 >I3»> 
 
 53 3 > 
 
 33>3 3> 
 
 33L 
 
 32^ 
 
 3J^ 
 3 
 
 20E~*2SE3KIX> 3:S> 
 5 w: 
 
 >'33*>>i: 
 3 33>>M 
 
 3£> 3»3^ 
 
 ■>-3>>J ~" 
 
 00 :s>2g 
 33 JD®> 
 
 33^*2 
 
 3330)3 
 ^333212 
 
 33331 
 
 3^o3pi 
 
 3 TJ»>^ 
 
 ^3 ^ 3j§> 
 33J> >v^> 
 
 3:3Ba> 
 
 33>Sb 
 
 
 :>^3>: 
 ■»3: 
 
 30S23I>^^ 
 
 - 3>33igl5r> gs> 
 
 ^£>2Sl> 3 
 ^>2»3» ■■:; 
 
 3>)^>>^jt>^ 
 3fc>€x>^ 
 
 '3M>U^3 
 
 -^3^>^> >X> 
 ^>3 2IP) 
 
 ^>>:&> S 3j» 
 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologie 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATK 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111 
 
 

 ???3*3 
 
 
 >^o 
 
 ^>^ 
 
 
 ^S550tap>s 
 
 l» 3£-V> '^->J> 1>}3*>;, >^^^> 
 
 4^3 
 
 
 ^ »-} = 
 
 ^8> O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 &*«£& 
 
 
 ^"■'"W-^ai 
 
 
 
 
 >*5 t>m 
 
 
 m>-^i 
 
 s^ ism