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FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS
FROM THE
WORLD OF SPIRITS,
ON SUBJECTS HIGHLY IMPORTANT TO
TIE^E HTTlvr^JNT ZF'-A-ZMHHiTT.
BY
JOSHUA, SOLOMON, AND OTHERS
i a. %w%
PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETOR.
A. J. BRADY, PRINTER, 5 TRYON ROW.
1861.
iff*
\*>,, '''-'-'
xr* 1
s^%^s4,/t./M'
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1S61,
By John Mayer,
In tha Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Conrt for the Southern District of
New York.
I S I
CONTENTS.
PAGB.
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS,
AND THE PROGRESSED STATE OF THE *
PRESENT AGE.
By Joshua, the Son of Nun, 5
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CERE-
MONY, AND REFORMS IN THE SOCIAL
STATE.
By Maey Magdalene 34
ON GOD, IN HIS WORKS.
By Solomon 64
ON TYRANNY.
By Luther 94
ON THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS ; HOW,
AND WHEN, AND WHERE DID THEY
ORIGINATE ?
By George Fox 107
ON THE SPIRIT-WORLD, AND THE LAW
THAT GOVERNS THERE, AND ON
YOUR SPHERE.
By John the Apostle 124
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
By John the Apostle 158
PREFACE.
We would say a few words to the public, or, rather,
to the readers of the following Essays. They have
been given with a view to benefit mankind, in the best
sense of the term. Not with the idea of increasing
their worldly wealth — their mundane possessions, but
with the earnest desire to assist them in their upward
path of progress, which all must tread, however long
they may put it off. None can be truly happy without
first exerting themselves to become so in the right way ;
and it is this way we come to point out to them.
Many mistaken theories are now abroad among men,
and all find some devoted followers ; but the true and
only way for man really to improve his own condition
and that of others in connection with him, is to reform
his own life — to live out, in his own person, the teach-
ings of our great Lord and living head, Christ Jesus.
He will need nothing higher, nothing purer, nothing
better, than the beautiful sermon of our Lord for his
guide and counselor ; and though he may develop to
the highest and holiest spheres in heaven, no better
teachings can be given him there. It is not that men
IV PREFACE.
have been without a knowledge of what they should aim
to become, but that, with the exception of a very few,
thoy have never attempted to practice the doctrines set
forth so simply (and yet so comprehensively) in the Ser-
mon on the Mount.
We have touched on many other subjects in our Es-
says which will, we trust, tend to the enlightenment of
the human family. Some things we have told you that
may surprise, as well as interest, the Bible Christian ;
but he need not doubt our teachings because they may,
in some things, conflict with his old opinions. We have
said nothing but what is true, and nothing that can, in
the smallest degree, injure or put back a good man on
his road to progression. It is natural that many errors
should be mixed with your old records ; but that does
not say that they are all false — far from it.
We have shown you plainly, in our Essay on Old
Traditions, and some others, that the Eden story could
not have been a true one ; neither the Mosaic account
of the Creation. But we have also shown you that
many of the events recorded by Moses are facts. The
character and office of Abraham was truly depicted. He
was a descendant of the old Hindoos, the father of the
Jewish race, and it was promised to him that a Saviour
should come through his descendants to redeem man-
kind from the sins that Abraham, at that time, mourned
over. The account of the Flood was not altogether
false, though it differed considerably from the wholesale
catastrophe Moses described. But, making allowances
for these discrepancies, and many others, which a clear
PREFACE. V
seer can soon discover, there is much truth and a great
deal to be learned from the Old Testament. It has
hitherto "been placed on too high a pinnacle. Every-
thing it contained men were taught to receive as coming
direct from God ; and its study, even by young, pure-
minded children, was constantly enforced. Now your
own good judgments, my friends, if you use them, must
show you that this could not be right. Much in the Old
Testament is entirely unfit for publication in your age
and would sully the purity of any one, much more an in-
nocent child.
Such writings were allowable, during the barbarous
ages, when men were more on the animal plane that
they now are, and were the reflex of their own minds,
not from the Holy Spirit of God. But now, my friends,
that true light from the Holy Spirit can penetrate more
nearly to your souls — now that it can enter into some
hearts and dwell there, these old histories and obsolete
laws will die out of your remembrance — they will be no
longer needed. Men have higher standards of holiness,
better teachings of right and wrong, purer light from
the Gospel of Christ ; and their communion with the
Spirit-world will help them on in their endeavors to fol-
low out the teachings of our Great Master, which have
so long been a dead letter to them.
We do not require to say anything further in regard
to our book. We give it to you for your attentive con-
sideration, and we think many will be benefited by its
perusal. Certain we are, it can harm no one ; and we
hope that each one who feels the good it has done for
Tl PREFACE.
him, will spread its light and teachings to the best of
his ability. My friends, we now take our leave for the
present, to return with newer truths, and more devel-
oped teachings when we find you ready to receive them.
Till then, farewell.
For the Circle who control "John the Apostle."
N. B. In dictating the former little -work, entitled " Communications
from the Spirit World, by Lorenzo Dow and others, through a Lady,"
we were minded not to append the names of the spirits, immediately
communicating ; but, we find men require the sanction of a name to
make gook teachings palatable. We do not object to gratifying their
innocent desires, and therefore, we say to our medium, that she may
affix ours to these Essays ; and, when her first work is republished,
she may, also, insert the names of the authors of those little Essays,
if men desire it. We know there is nothing, really, in a name, but
that is a step in advance, the world has yet to take. We hope, how-
ever, that the readers of our little books will find in them truths of
far more sterling worth than the names of the writers, though they
may receive them with perfect confidedce ; for they were, really, the
earthly cognomens of the spirits who inspired the medium.
Geo. Fox.
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS AND THE PRO-
GRESSED STATE OF THE PRESENT AGE.
GIVEN BY A SPIRIT OF THE OLDEN TIME.
My friends, the world has long wanted some more
positive knowledge in regard to the Old Testament
records. Their origin is obscure, their teachings, in
many instances, barbarous and cruel. The lives of
the chief men mentioned therein, often, nay, generally,
very immoral and very sanguinary ; and, altogether the
book is one that you would never think of putting into
the hands of children, were it not for the sanction of
custom and the high authority claimed for the authors
of it.
It is, indeed, looked upon as divine, in its origin, by
most Christian believers ; and they even go so far, in
their blind faith, as to suppose that God himself in-
spired and excited the Israelitish people to all the acts
of treachery, murder, and robbery mentioned therein ! —
so far will prejudice blind the understanding — so far
will it crush out the light of reason and common sense,
implanted in every human soul, to enable it to judge
and discern things for itself — " calling no man Master "
in this important sense.
6 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
My friends, I will show you the way I would have all
of you examine these records. Whatever in them ap-
proves itself to your souls, as good and true teaching,
calculated to benefit mankind, if they follow it out,
making them wiser, better, humbler, more truthful,
more loving, more self-denying ; that, there can be
no mistake about ; that, they need not hesitate to fol-
low. This seems very easy and simple to do ; and yet,
my friends, it is very difficult to make any one see the
necessity of attending to this plain rule. This living
out the teachings of prophet or apostle, is the great
stumbling block. It is so much easier to talk them
over, to argue on contested points, to find out contra-
dictions and fallacies, and all the seeming incongruities
in the old history, that men waste time, temper, and
even life in the work when they might be spending
happy, useful days, if they had only chosen the better
part and commenced the reformation in themselves.
But all this is merely preliminary. We are going to
take the matter more in detail, and endeavor to show
you ivhy those ancient records cannot be guides to you
at this present time, and yet were all useful in their
generation.
As man progresses, so must his teachings progress.
What suited the Israelites, a semi-barbarous people, re-
cently delivered from slavery, and, consequently, more
brutalized than they would have been had they always
lived in freedom, would not in any way suit the people
of this century. They had to be restrained with bands
of iron, and held in check by laws appealing to their
outward, rather than their inward, sense. Fear of
bodily suffering, bodily privations, were the weapons
to be used with them. But all that has now ceased
to be necessary. Man has a higher knowledge, a higher
standard of right, and he knows, or ought to know, that
ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS. 7
if he violates that, if he departs from the course his in-
telligence assures him is the right one, punishment must
certainly follow ; though no man, save himself, is con-
scious of his derelictions.
I am not going to enter minutely into the historical
matter of the Bible. Moses wrote from his highest
knowledge, derived from ancient Egyptian and Sanscrit
records, and put together in the simple narrative form,
to suit the comprehension of an ignorant people. He
was, himself, learned in all the knowledge of both na-
tions ; but it would never have done to give the Israel-
ites the same teachings he had received. He wrote for
them as simple an account of the formation of their
Earth as he could conceive of; making God a personal
God, to be feared and worshiped with awe and rever-
ence, and inventing the fable of Adam and Eve to show
them the danger of offending against this mighty power.
What a child now would not for an instant credit, if
placed before him in its true light, has been solemnly
and reverently preached upon and believed, by your
Jewish and Christian population, all these centuries.
The belief that God, a God of love, and wisdom, and
justice, has solemnly cursed, not only the earth and its
fruits, but every individual born upon it, because a poor,
ignorant female gathered and eat a fruit that had been
forbidden — a fruit, too, specially spoken of, as tempting
to the eye and palate — is too horrible to think of.
What, but the grossest blindness, could so have sealed
men's eyes that they could not see the fallacy of this
thing ? — that they could not discover long ere this, that
teachings, suitable for the half savage Jews, were en-
tirely unfitted for more progressed minds ? They were
very little more developed than the savages of North
America. They required a personal Deity — one to be
worshiped with outward symbols and sacrifices — and to
8 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS
suit their capacities, Moses adapted his higher knowl-
edge in the story he gave them. It answered its pur-
pose. They learned about God, as much as was neces-
sary to make them amenable to control • and gradually,
as they progressed, other teachings were given to them
— the ten commandments were written. This was a
great step, far in advance of the Eden Fable. Here
there was good moral teaching, mixed with many
errors, it is true, but still they contained what was re-
quired. We cannot now imagine a jealous God — a God
taking vengeance on the innocent children for the crimes
of their fathers, but they, being still under the law of
fear, required such teachings.
The same may be said of the stringent regulations in
regard to the seventh day. My friends, a day of rest is
an absolute necessity of our being. Man could not,
without this blessed institution, continue in the enjoy-
ment of health. He would gradually fail, his energies
decay, die out, in fact, and the human family become ex-
tinct much more speedily than any one has an idea of.
This is one great reason of the decline of the savage
tribes, who have no such observance ; though they can
exist without it much longer than civilized man, as their
pursuits are more healthy. The universal prevalence of
this institution among all civilized people, shows the im-
portance of it, and also, that some wise, overruling
power has inspired men to insure its observance, whe-
ther in a Christian, Mohammedan or Pagan manner."
* We have said, in a former essay, that the institution of the Sabbath
had its rise in fear — and so it had, as far as man was concerned in pro-
moting its origin — but the All-wise God controlled this movement to
bring about the good result that followed. He saw the necessity-
there was that man should have a day set apart for rest and innocent
enjoyment.
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 9
The Israelites were very difficult and stubborn to
teach. Anything they had not been accustomed to,
they rebelled against, and it was only by the law of
force, that Moses could control them. Therefore, even
in an ordinance like this, calculated entirely to benefit
and make them happy, threats were necessary to insure
its observance.
Man is now beginning, almost for the first time, to
feel his need of more liberty, in regard to this day. He
is now realizing that he has the right to employ it as he
likes ; that the day was made to conduce to his happi-
ness, and not that he should be obliged to observe it
with set forms and prayers. This feeling, so proper
now, when man has developed up to it and can regulate
his own conduct by the light of his reason, would not
have done at all a few years back. Men, only a cen-
tury ago, were not prepared to judge for themselves on
these important matters. They required rules and reg-
ulations, and were the better and happier for them. But
the minds of the people are making rapid strides now.
The schoolmaster may, indeed, be said to be abroad.
The teacher, however, is not man, in his fallible sense,
but the great power of the Spirit in the souls of all
who can receive it. And greater and mightier changes
shall yet take place in the ruling and regulating of your
earth-world, not only in respect to the Sabbath, but to
everything that is not conducted with equity and jus-
tice. Men begin to see with more clearness, that all
ought to have equal rights. The next question to be
debated is, " Why do they not have them?" This will
be answered very soon, and then means will be taken by
many noble and far-seeing minds, to commence a move,
ment that shall lead to this result, which will spread
with unheard-of rapidity, and never cease till the end is
obtained, the victory over oppression and tyranny won,
10 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
and all be equal, not only in the sight of God and his
angels, (that they have ever been,) but in the sight of
each other.
We seem to wander from our subject, but it is not so ;
these inferences and remarks are all necessary. By
comparing the present with the past, man learns to rea-
son and draw his own deductions. He sees more
clearly the gradual nature of the development he has
gone through, and he also sees how much there is yet to
be done, before he attains to his highest stand-point.
The Hebrews, as a people, were slow to learn, slow
to develop ; they clung to their old idols, their old
superstitious usages. Moses, though a learned and
gifted leader, eminently fitted for his office, both by
knowledge beyond his countrymen, and great medium-
istic powers, could not always control them or prevent
them from relapsing into gross sins. I would not have
you to understand, however, that the events record-
ed relating to his government are all true. Do not
suppose that he, who is called the meekest of men,
could sanction such butcheries as are there spoken
of. All those old stories must be read with caution.
There is no more truth in the wholesale murdering of
the Amalekites, and other nations, in the manner re-
corded, than there is in the earlier accounts in the book
of Genesis, of the long lives of the patriarchs— the de-
struction of the entire world by the flood, etc. In
regard to the latter, long before the dates spoken of
there, had mankind flourished ; many convulsions and
up-heavings had the earth undergone ; but nothing so
universal as Noah's Flood ever occurred as the result
of God's anger against His people. Common sense, if
you would only use it, would show you this. In the
first place, what a God, to worship, that must be that
could feel anger against all the human race excepting
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 11
one family, and determine to destroy, not only them, tut
all the other living things, and the beautiful face of na-
ture itself, to gratify this debasing passion ! And for
what good result ? Do you see any ? I do not. Noah
was certainly not perfect ; he was a drunkard, if no
worse ; and we do not see any great, or indeed any
little good resulting from this dreadful catastrophe.
Certainly some benefit should have been perceptible ; but
I think you will find the people were just as wicked,
just as rebellious as they were represented to have been
before. Does not this show you, my friends, that there
nust be misrepresentation somewhere? The fact is,
that there had been, in different parts of the earth, and
at different times, terrible convulsions — up-heavings of
lands here, and waters rising there, where people dwelt
in unsuspecting peace. These traditions were known to
Moses, and used by him in forming his history ; he made
them subserve his purpose in controlling his self-willed
sturdy followers. It was another engine of fear that he
held as a terror over them ; but, instead of threatening
them with a recurrence of this catastrophe, fire was to
be the agent used for the next and final destruction of
their world.
That the Israelites, as a people, were remarkably
cruel to the nations they conquered, is not to be denied,
and Moses could not avoid, in some degree, sanctioning
them in this. He wished to establish the worship of
one true God, not only in the outward ceremonial, but
in their hearts. The task was a very difficult one ; they
pined after the idols of Egypt, and took every opportu-
nity to fall back into the worship of them. Their gross
minds could not conceive so readily of a Spiritual God.
The Canaanitish people were idolators of a more de-
based kind than the Egyptians, and to avoid the liability
of Ms people falling into their errors, Moses was willing
12 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
to permit their extermination. He considered he was
doing God service ; but, wise as he was, and so far
superior to the people he led, he had not learned all
things ; he did not follow in this the laws of wisdom or
justice. Now he sees things very differently. His love
for his countrymen, and his ambition as a leader, then
blinded his eyes to the claims of the unfortunate posses-
sors of the soil he coveted for his own followers, and he
saw only a lawful and just proceeding where he was,
really, a robber and a murderer, trespassing on the un-
doubted rights of an unoffending people.
You will observe that all through his writings he
brings forward Jehovah as the author and inspirer of all
he does. This increased his authority with his people,
and made them willing to do his bidding to any extent.
But, my friends, you must not be misled in the same way.
You must know and feel that such commands never
emanated from a God of love. That Moses was under
spirits' control, very often, is quite true, and sometimes
very high and holy influences — for instance, when he
descended from the mount Sinai, and his face appeared
to shine upon the beholders, after he had received the
commandments. But when such cruel orders came from
him to slay and destroy young and old, women and
children, not to leave one alive — these were the unde-
veloped man's own actions, and God must not be made
responsible for them. No one is perfect, even now, when
so much advance is being made. Do not, therefore
condemn too freely, a man so much beyond his times as
was our great Law-giver and Leader. If he erred and
did some wrong things, he did many noble and great
ones. He redeemed his nation from bondage, he gave
them higher laws, higher teachings, higher aspirations,
than they had ever known ; he led them through'dan-
gers and perils by sea and land, undaunted and undis-
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. Id
mayed. When they rebelled against him, he feared
them not ; when they hungered, he found the means to
supply their wants ; and during the forty years they
sojourned in the wilderness, he was preparing and edu-
cating them to enter once more into the arena as a
civilized nation.
No one now can estimate Moses's character justly.
He, brought up in luxury, educated in the most pro-
found learning of the wise Egyptians, following out his
studies and preparing himself for his future career,
during the forty years of his banishment from Egypt,
returned there, at the expiration of that time, prepared
to carry his designs into execution. How faithfully he
worked, his success is the best testimony. The faults
he committed were the faults of his time, not of his in-
dividual character ; that was, even under the most try-
ing circumstances, gentle and unassuming. Only one
instance is recorded in which he arrogated power to
himself, and for that he is said to have been severely
punished. Jehovah was in all his thoughts, supreme
and undivided God. To his orders he attributed every
action of his career, as leader, and every law he wrote
for their internal government. These latter were dif-
fuse and stringent, cruel and arbitrary beyond any-
thing that we can conceive necessary now ; but there
were reasons for them at that time, that do not at pre-
sent exist ; and the people learned through them to re-
spect the rights of others, and more particularly the pa-
rental tie, previously entirely disregarded.
Always bear in mind, my friends, in considering these
enactments, that the people they were intended for were
in a state of lawless barbarism ; that they had no ideas
of right and wrong, no moral law, no internal law —
they had to be treated as children — and coerced by
fear, if they would not obey from love.
14 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TEADITIONS.
It is true these laws remained in force after this state
of things had ceased to be, but the severity of the pun-
ishment became somewhat modified as time crept on ;
and it was the mission of Christ to set aside altogether
these troublesome enactments, then no longer necessary,
and substitute the law of love in lieu of the law of fear.
The perverse and headstrong Jews, retaining their
old characteristics, refused to follow in Christ's foot-
steps, as their forefathers had refused to obey Moses ;
but the true teachings did find entrance into some few
hearts, and gradually are leavening the whole mass of
mankind. We, who now come to you, can preach no
higher or better teachings than those Christ gave, but
we can aid and assist you to work them out in a more
perfect and truthful manner than has yet been done, and
that is our true mission to you. We are not to pull
down, but to build up the religion of Jesus. We do not
come to upset churches, nor to attack creeds, but we
come to say to every man and woman, " your own body
is the true temple of the Spirit," let it abide there and
bring forth its fruits. Individualize yourselves. Let
not this man's teachings or that man's opinions rule
you, only so far as they approve themselves good to
your own souls.
If each man followed the internal light that is im-
planted in him at his birth, and which it is the duty
of his parents and teachers to develop to its most beau-
tiful proportions, he would want no clergyman to teach
him how to act ; no creeds to guide him ; no ceremonials
to bind him. He would have within him the true Spirit
of God to enlighten and direct him. It would be a
lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path, and justice,
love and wisdom, would mark his progress onward.
This, my friends, is what God in his wisdom has al-
ways designed for man. This is what he intends him to
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 15
arrive at, and he is gradually bringing the result about.
Slowly and silently he works, but none the less surely.
Man, developed from the animal he originally was,
has now matured into a thinking, reasoning, highly
intelligent being. He has passed through many gra-
dations, many new developments, and is now so wise
that he thinks he knows all things. But, my friends, if
he understood himself aright, he would say he knew
nothing yet as he ought to know. Self knoiuledge, the
most important of all, he entirely neglects. Only, in
rare instances, do we find one who gives a thought to
this momentous subject. And what is all other know-
ledge compared to it? Have you not ascertained, to
your entire satisfaction, that men live again ? That this
life is only a prelude to an eternal one ? That, accord-
ing as you pass through this state of existence, you will
be prepared or unprepared, for another? Another that
will endure forever ! And, knowing all this, do you
ever, seriously, reflect how far you, individually, are
fitted for that change that must sooner or later come
upon you?
My friends, this is a subject you should all be per-
fectly versed in. Your own souls should be to you an
open book that you can read with pleasure. There, you
should find the records of duties fulfilled, desires and
passions conquered, tempers subdued, aspirations after
good and holy things constantly going forth. Charity,
love, and patient forbearance for the wants and short-
comings of others, always active; and a constant in-
dwelling peace and joy that the world, and the things
of the world, can neither affect nor take from you. If
all of you, my friends, were in this blessed state, if all
of you carried out your self-knowledge into this self-
acting: do you not see how much happier, how much
wiser mankind would become? No need then for sala-
16 ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS.
ried ministers to teach you your duties to yourselves or
to each other. No need then of temples of worship, so
large and costly, and so destitute of true spirit-influence,
as they generally are, to bring you near to God and his
angels. The temple of God would he in your own souls.
" Ye are the temple of God." Every one who can, by
his life and actions, draw down this holy influence has
the Spirit of God in him, and his body is its temple.
In this way, and no other, my friends, would we
attack the churches. We do not come to create con.
tention, but to do away with it. As men become more
sensible of the truth of these teachings they will natur-
ally cease to look to men, like themselves, for instruction.
When they can get all they want within their own souls,
why should they go elsewhere? This will, in time,
empty the places of worship, or change the character of
the teachings there given. As men progress their
teachers must progress in the same ratio, if they expect
to be listened to ; and Spiritualism will have the effect
of opening men's minds very considerably and changing
their creeds in many very important particulars, even
while the parties may be professed and violent enemies
to it. Imperceptibly its enlightened teachings will steal
in among the most bigoted, and their fabric of faith may
be all undermined even while they are congratulating
themselves that nothing can shake it.
We have now finished what we had to say of the
career of Moses. We are not intending to make a
voluminous book, and shall, therefore, only slightly
glance at succeeding events.
As you know, the Israelites gradually succeeded in
exterminating the rightful possessors of the soil and
establishing themselves as an independent nation in the
land of Canaan, but they still retained much of their
barbarism ; they were still cruel, treacherous, deceitful.
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 17
Moses's laws compelled them to observe some kind of
order and obedience to rules, but they were never satis-
fied unless fighting and quarreling with the neighboring
nations, or among themselves. Therefore, their favorite
leaders and chiefs were chosen for eminence in the sci-
ence of war, for personal strength, or personal bravery.
You will not find, if you examine into it, that moral
worth or holiness of life were the distinguishing traits
of any of them.
The various fables that are mixed up with the true
history it is only necessary slightly to glance at, and pass
on. Under their leader, Joshua, who succeeded Moses,
two wonderful events are recorded as having happened.
I allude to the arrest of the sun, in his course, that the
people might have longer daylight to continue their
butchery of the unoffending Canaanites ; and to the fall-
ing of the walls of a fortified city, in consequence of
the blowing of some rams' horns. "Wonderful events,
indeed, my friends, if they had really occurred ; but
they did not. No such thing ever did or ever could
happen as the sun, or rather the earth, standing still.
Do you not know that chaos would be the result of such
an unheard-of procedure ? Is not the universe bal-
anced and controlled by a power that cannot alter an
iota of His own great work, without producing confusion
and discord in the whole ? And is it probable, even if
no such direful result were to follow, that God, the All-
seeing and All-wise, would have favorites ? That He,
the mighty ruler of the universe, would direct the event
of a battle, to benefit a peculiar people of his own ?
No, my friends ; such things could not be, and were not.
Like your own old legends and fables, invented origin-
ally to please and amuse, or perhaps to gratify the
vanity of some illustrious chief, these stories were
written — for, I need not say, the legend of the walls of
18 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
Jericho, falling down, is as unfounded as that of the
sun standing still.
You should not wonder that stories of this nature
could have crept in. Is there any history free from
similar ones ? Even your modern ones of Greece and
Rome, and those of a still later date, are made up at
their commencement, with fables quite as monstrous.
Why, then, should you be astonished if there are some
things in the Hebrew record not authentic ? Their
history is very old. Their vicissitudes, as a nation,
after this first part was written, were many. They
were carried away captives, their records said to have
been lost ; then some parts found again, and no doubt,
the new compilation was very different to the original.
It is not at all likely it could have been exactly the
same, and I knoio it was very dissimilar where I was
myself an actor. No sun ever stood still for me, and
no walls fell down at my bidding. Like any other man,
I fought and conquered.
The Hebrews returned from captivity a humbled and
crushed people, and they tried to elevate their unfortu-
nate condition, in the eyes of surrounding nations, by
recounting their former glorious deeds ; and to make
them more remarkable, they called their inventions to
aid, and described themselves as a nation set apart — a
chosen people (as indeed they were in one respect, for
they worshiped the one true God, while all the nations
round were sunk in idolatry) ; and, to make these asser-
tions more plausible, they told of the wonderful miracles
that had been performed in their behalf — that is, they
invented those wonders to give their statements a greater
semblance of truth. There are many other wonderful
events recorded, besides those I have alluded to, that
will bear examination no better, but it is not necessary
to take all in detail ; when the fallacy of one or two
ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS. 19
stated is made apparent, it is easy to see how the others
may have crept in and become incorporated with the
other parts of the book, and obtained equal credence.
It does not follow, however, that because we discredit
the miraculous parts of the Bible, we must discard the
whole. No, my friends, far from doing so, we admire
and respect its teachings through its Prophets and Seers,
and we see much of instruction in its historical record,
if we study it with attention. The Jews claim for it
all a Divine origin, good and bad alike ; all came from
God ; all was the work of His Almighty hand. Had
they claimed less for Him, they would have paid Him
more respect, and there would have been fewer to quib-
ble and dispute over what does indeed contain, mixed
with errors, the germs of mighty truths.
The Hebrews always asserted that they were a dis-
tinct and peculiar people, set apart to maintain the
worship of one God. Moses instilled this idea into
their minds when he was educating them in the Wilder-
ness ; for, during their long sojourn in Egypt, they had
almost lost all traces of the purer faith of their ances-
tors, and worshipped the gods of the country. But one
of the first duties of their great Law-giver was, to cor-
rect this error, to impress their minds with a higher
idea of their peculiar privileges as the chosen people of
the one true God. He did this with the hope of coun-
teracting the mischievous teachings they had received
in Egypt, not for any other purpose. Moses wished to
give them higher truths, and truer faith, and he did not
foresee the pride and arrogance he was fostering in
them.
In these more enlightened days, men can readily per-
ceive how widely these vices would spread. An idea
so flattering to their vanity, as a people, was not likely
to die out, and you can trace its effects all through their
20 ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS.
history. No nation could be right but their own. No
people were fit to associate with them. To exterminate
every surrounding tribe, was their aim, their highest
ambition ; and all for the ostensible reason of honoring
Jehovah ! True, as we before said, they were the only
people who at that time confined their worship to one
God, and Moses had done a great work in developing
this truth among them ; but there was yet much more to
be learned before they could be fitted to regulate the
faith of the world, and the ignorance and presumption
of the Israelites was strikingly manifested in the bold
way in which they attempted to coerce submission from
all who differed from them. How much teaching, how
much punishment, they brought on themselves, is plainly
related in their history. Prophets and Seers, or Medi-
ums and Clairvoyants, as you would now say, were
inspired to talk to them ; nation after nation con-
quered and led them into captivity ; but still their pride
remained unsubdued — their desires still ran after false
gods — they loved and clung to idolatry, and at the same
time with strange inconsistency, fought with all the sur-
rounding nations because they did the same thing !
One great reason of these back-slidings, was the strin-
gency and severity of the laws of Moses. Their duties
were made too irksome to them ; their religion was a
task : and the penalties attached to any neglect or dere-
liction was so fearful, that they gladly accepted the more
sensual faiths of the idolators surrounding them. Could
another Moses have been given to the Israelites, a few
centuries after the advent of the first one, he would soon
have regulated these things ; he would have revised his
statutes on quite a modified plan ; he would then have
endeavored to develop the higher and nobler instincts
of their natures — appealed to their sense of right instead
of their sense of fear. Laws that were good and proper
ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS. 21
for them at the time they were written, he would have
shown them might now be repealed as worse than use-
less— vicious ; and in their place substituted the higher
law of love. But a Moses was not given them, and the
laws, as they became more and more obnoxious to com-
mon sense, were more and more enforced by ignorant
rulers and demagogues ; no appeal could be made
against them — none was allowed. It is easy to con-
ceive how proud and self-righteous a strict observer 01
them would become ; how he would despise and look
with scorn upon his fellow-man who might be more lax
in his self-discipline. Nothing of the mild and loving
mixed with their faith ; arrogance and scorn was what
it fostered, and certainly nothing could be more needed
than the entirely opposite teachings that Christ came
to bring them. They had been wanted long, but men
had not felt the need ; as soon as they did see the ne-
cessity for something better, and cried out in spirit to
be freed from the bondage in which they were held, a
deliverer was sent to them — a teacher of love and har-
mony was developed, who quietly and unpretendingly
commenced the work of reform.
Old laws and old creeds had too firm a footing in
the land to be attacked openly. The only way to suc-
ceed with the new teachings and make them take hold
of the hearts of the people was by showing them the
value of them. If they could once make an impression
on the minds of the multitude, others would be gradually
brought in ; and on this principle Jesus worked. He
taught the poor oppressed ones to forgive injuries, to
love their enemies, and to pray for those who used them
cruelly. Such teachings were in direct opposition to
the laws of Moses. He, in his undeveloped age, had
said, " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." But
now milder feelings must obtain sway in the human
22 ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS.
family. Man had not lived all those centuries without
some progression. At the time of Christ he was much
farther removed from the animal than he was when
Moses lived. Therefore, higher and more ennobling
laws and teachings were necessary for him, and with
the necessity came the supply. Nothing could be more
pure, more simple and more lovely, than the teachings
of Christ. They supplied all that was wanting. They
gave all that was necessary to make men good here,
and happy hereafter. Few, however, could receive
them at the time, fewer still act up to them ; and
even at this distant date, from the period when they
were given, how few there are who do more than pro-
fess an outward faith in them ; how very, very few, live
them out.
Spiritualism is a revival, as you may term it, of
those teachings Christ labored so hard to introduce
among men. At present it is not clearly understood,
and has been misapprehended by the majority of its
professed followers. The higher teachings, and more
ennobling and harmonizing doctrines it would implant
in the hearts of the human family, have been little
regarded ; and amusement, or the gratification of curi-
osity and affectionate remembrances, or the assistance
of spirits in the pursuit of worldly gain or pleasure
have been the highest aims of most of the Spiritualists,
so called.
But it is time that all this should be changed ; it is
time that mankind should know that something far more
important than these attractive, but not very improving
manifestations, was intended ; and that they must be
superseded by those higher ones, of which they were only
the forerunners. To improve mankind, in a permanent
manner, is the object of this new movement in the spi-
ritual kingdom. They have been long enough groapmg
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 23
under the weight of laws and burdens too heavy for
them to bear. Tyranny in Church and tyranny in State
have held down and crushed the finer parts of man's
nature. The Divine principle implanted in him, at his
birth, has never had a chance to show itself. Many are
so brutalized that a soul does not seem to be a part of
their formation, and yet this God-principle is there —
cruelly smothered, it is true, but they have it ; and if it
gets no chance to develop here, it must hereafter, with
greater pain and difficulty.
Our knowledge of this, and also our sympathy for
those poor debased ones, brings us to earth at this time.
The angel world have long felt the necessity there was
for some reform on earth more thorough and searching
than any that has yet been. They have seen the neces-
sity of ameliorating the condition of the lower classes,
in a worldly sense, before much can be done for them
spiritually ; but the times were not ready for them to
work effectually until now. Before spirits could do any
permanent good it was necessary that some of the human
family should feel the need of reform, and cry out for it.
"When the magnetism of their prayers and aspirations
ascended on high, our magnetism could meet it, our
sympathies could be brought into rapport with theirs,
and our aid could be given to work this great work.
My friends, there is much to be done. Partial ame-
lioration, partial reform, is not our aim. To thoroughly
and entirely redeem mankind from all the sins, vices and
miseries that now afflict them, is the work the spirits
have determined to perform. It may seem an impossi-
ble thing to your finite minds, but we know our powers,
and the mighty Power that is above us, and from whom
we receive all strength. We know that we shall suc-
ceed. This is, in fact, the second coming promised by
Christ Jesus — as different to what men have been taught
24 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
to anticipate, as was his first one to the unbelieving Jews.
Mediums and Seers had prophesied of Him to the Israel-
ites, but their priests and teachers had converted and
perverted their prophecies of His mission of love into a
mission of earthly triumph and glory ; and they could
not and would not see the nature of the spiritual king-
dom He came to establish in the hearts of the children
of men.
Considering the violence of the opposition Christ met
with, is it not wonderful that He produced any effect at
all ? Nothing but the power of Holy Spirit, so abun-
dantly poured out upon Him, and afterwards on His
followers, could have caused His success. Men's hearts
were touched by its softening influences, and they felt in
their inmost depths, the power and force, the beauty and
holiness of His words ; their moral superiority over the
teachings of their schools, and how much more they were
calculated to produce happiness and peace, and prepare
them to live again. The teachings of Christ, had they
been followed out in the same simple manner in which
they were given, would by this time have converted and
redeemed the whole world ; but men had not then de-
veloped high enough for this result to follow, and it was
not anticipated. ' I merely say what might have been
had they been prepared to receive them properly. All
was done that was expected. Newer and higher stand-
ards of morality were given, and took hold of many
hearts ; and in spite of opposition the most violent, and
persecutions the most cruel, they continued to spread
quietly through many lands, softening and humanizing
the people.
Before bigotry and superstition crept in with their at-
tendant discords and contentions, the religion of Christ
was a religion of love ; but pride and prejudices began
to assert themselves — forms and ceremonies took the
OX THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 25
place of true love and vital religion — and the Holy-
spirit of God could no longer come in its fullness into
the hearts of the worshipers of creeds and formulas.
When men begin to assert that one teaches this, and
another that, you may feel sure that all is not quite as it
should be. Either the teachers are arrogating too much
to themselves, or the hearers, forgetful from whence the
truths really come, are making idols of their teachers.
There are no discordant elements in the true teachings
of Christ and his disciples. Passages which you may
think contradict each other, have been wrongly given or
translated. Disputatious and ambitious men, in the
early ages of the Church, did much injury to the cause
they professed to serve, by transforming, mutilating, or
adding to the true records preserved, to suit their oivn
views and purposes. But enough remains pure and una-
dulterated, and which the veriest child can understand,
to make men wise unto salvation, if they will only live
out the teachings. The neglect of this duty has always
been the great stumbling-block. This is what retards
progress so much. It is so much easier to talk than
work, so much easier to dispute about trifles than to do
deeds of kindness and loving-mercy to your poorer
neighbor. So much, alas ! more easy to slander and
blame others, than to reform yourselves — to pluck the
mote out of your brother's eye, and neglect the beam in
your own.
We shall continue to urge these old and simple teach-
ings on your consideration, my friends, with unremitting
pertinacity, till we see men more ready and anxious to
follow them out in their daily lives ; making the exam-
ple of Jesus a reality to their own souls, not only beau-
tiful in itself, but capable of being imitated by all who
are willing to make the effort. When this state of
things partially obtains in the world, when only two or
26 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
three can be brought together who have really devel-
oped up to this standard, then higher and greater
truths may come to you ; more mysteries of the spirit-
world may be unveiled to your sight, more of the might
and power of the great God of the universe may be
made plain to you. Secrets may be revealed and expla-
nations given of many things that now perplex, and in
pondering over which, in your own unassisted, undevel-
oped minds, you often go astray.
If, therefore, you have really any wish for this higher
knowledge, this wisdom of the angel-world; you must so
live that you may obtain it. The purity and beauty of
Christ's lessons must be identified in your life and con-
versation ; your daily walk must be after his example.
Then these angel visitors, from spheres of wisdom and
knowledge, will be able and ready to come into com-
munion with you, and your hearts will be overflowing
with love and happiness •, while your minds will be the
receptors of the great and ennobling truths brought to
you direct from Heaven, and which will make you,
while yet dwellers on this earth-sphere, companions and
friends of the highest intelligences that come to it.
We shall now give a rapid summary or glance at the
gradual way in which man has progressed to his present
advanced state. Many errors and vices he has brought
up with him in his onward path, but still he has gone
steadily forward, imperceptibly at times, and sometimes
apparently retrogacling ; but when such has been the ap-
pearance, a more decided advance was sure to follow.
When things are at their worst, they are sure to mend.
So it is in the development of the human family. When
the darkest ignorance seemed to overshadow them, then
a deliverer would appear, and overthrow the obstacles
that were in the way of progression.
Moses was one of these inspired men. Abraham was
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 27
another. He lived earlier, and in a more barbarous
age than Moses, but still he did his work, and a very
necessary one it was. He recognized only one God at
a time when the worship of idols was universal. What
a grand idea was this for a man to entertain, and that
so fully and firmly, that he obliged all his followers to
embrace the same faith. We do not mean to say that
Abraham was the first who ever realized this idea. It
had been given to others centuries before, but had
gradually lost its hold on men's minds. They wanted
something more tangible than a Spirit God, and their
grosser senses were more attracted by the glitter and
mystery of idolatry. Moses found the Israelites very
much in the same state that the people were in Abra-
ham's time, but still there was some progress made.
They were not quite so ignorant of the one true God,
nor quite so ignorant of the arts and comforts necessary
to civilized life. There was decided progress observa-
ble, and it continued to be made for many ages. They
might have many backslidings, but some inspired leader
or prophet, or some severe temporal punishment, brought
them to a knowledge of their sins, and they were often
humbled and penitent and sought out the Lord with
fastings and prayers.
At the time Christ was sent to them other nations
had become more mixed up with the Hebrews, and were
ready to receive higher teachings than had yet been
igiven to them. He was not sent to redeem the Israel-
ites only. He was to give light and knowledge to all-
who would receive it. The world at that time, though
apparently prosperous, was sunk in the darkest errors.
Vice and immorality reigned supreme among the Ro-
mans and other civilized nations. Some few there were,
more enlightened and elevated minds, who mourned the
decay of all virtuous feelings in their countrymen — who
28 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
saw with terror and dismay the progress of the demor-
alizing influences at work among them ; luxury and
wealth enervating and enfeebling their minds, and sen-
susal pleasures destroying their bodies; and all this
sanctioned by their false deities. The desires and aspi-
rations of such minds could not go forth without some
result. When men earnestly and faithfully seek, they
will not seek in vain. The help may come in a form
they do not expect, and perhaps may not desire ; but it
will come, and they will some time or other realize it
and feel its appropriateness.
Christ, then, was the most needed of the inspired
teachers. The effects of his mission were to be felt in all
lands and to the most distant times. It was not merely
while he remained among men that the benefit of his
coming should continue to be felt. As years rolled on,
and he had passed away from the scene of his labors,
the influence of his teachings would remain and increase
in weight as men lived up to them. But many dark
clouds would intervene to obscure their light, many
errors, some almost fatal — could anything be fatal to a
cause that is bound to succeed? And teachers, inspired
teachers too, though many errors mixed with their
teachings, have been from time to time developed to
counteract these errors. Luther came when he was
most needed. Calvin, too, was necessary for man's
advancement. You may think the doctrines he advo-
cated were worse than those he came to reform, but you
are wrong. Purity of life had almost fled the earth,
and to check the gross licentiousness of the times the
most entirely opposite teachings were necessary. Half-
way measures would not have taken hold of the minds
of the people, as it was important they should do ; and,
therefore Calvin was a necessary teacher and reformer.
His doctrines may appear to you to have been followed
long enough. So they have, and they are dying out.
ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS. 29
We could enumerate many other inspired men who
have, in their day, done good service to the cause of
progress. Wesley, Knox, Huss, Fox, and Swedenborg
are of them'. This latter has made the most decided
step in progression of any named. He did not correct
old abuses ; he gave new ideas. Others labored to en-
force and carry out the teachings of Christ according
to their highest idea of them. Mistaken they often
were, but still they were truthful ; they preached them
as they understood them. But Swedenborg gave en-
tirely new teachings. He taught men that spirits were
around, and could communicate with them ; that the un-
seen world was in their midst, and that all was not
finished, on this side the tomb; but that in another
state man has a work to do for which he must prepare
himself while here. Swedenborg was a necessary fore-
runner of the present spirit manifestations j he may be
called the Pioneer of the Spirits, for he was free to de-
clare what many had known, but none had the courage
to assert in the same open manner. But it takes so
long to get any new truth into men's minds, that the
teachings of Swedenborg have been almost disregarded
until a few years back.
Some minds were capable of receiving them, and trea-
sured them up as worthy of a greater consideration • but
generally he was looked upon as lunatic on these sub-
jects, though acknowledged to be highly intelligent and
unusually well-informed on many others. So men put
away truths from them, preferring old errors and preju-
dices to the newer and better light they might receive
if they sought knowledge aright. It is true that Swe-
denborg did not get all truth. Error was mixed in with
his best teachings ; but there were many bright scintilla-
tions of good that it would have benefited men to have
followed.
30 ON THE VALUE OP OLD TRADITIONS.
Spiritualism is the full-blown flower of what Sweden-
borgianisni was only the undeveloped bud. In Spiritu-
alism you have the highest and most perfect realization of
the teachings Christ promulgated to men. When He, and
other enlightened sages of antiquity, first taught that we
must " do good for goodness' sake," " love our enemies,"
and " treat our neighbors as ourselves," men listened,
but did not act ; they thought the theory was beautiful,
but quite above the powers of man to perform. The
developing process that the world has gone through
during the last eighteen hundred years, has not, how-
ever, been in vain. Men of pure minds and willing
hearts, can now see that such a state of things is not im-
possible, and that it is the duty of every individual, man
or woman, to endeavor to bring it about in themselves.
By this means they will reform the world, and by no
other. In their own persons the change must commence,
and their bright and beautiful examples will work more
efficiently than sermon or psalm, in modifying and subdu-
ing the discordant tempers and passions of the unde-
veloped ones with whom they may be thrown in contact.
When this true life commences in the hearts of men,
how different will be their pursuits and desires ! To
seek out the oppressed and suffering, and pour consola-
tion and relief into their wounds, will be the work they
most delight in ; to make others partakers of the same
hopes and joys they possess, will be their constant aim.
They will not shut themselves up in gloomy abstractions,
meditating on the follies and vices of their fellow-men,
and pharisaically congratulating themselves that they
are so much wiser and better. No, my friends, they will
go forth into the world ; they will enjoy all its innocent
pleasures and relaxations, which are as necessary to the
health of mind and bod}T, as the food they eat and the
air they breathe.
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. SI
While succoring and encouraging all who are in need of
their brotherly assistance, they will cultivate the gentle
harmonies of their own natures, all the talents and gifts
they are endowed with, so that they may add their quota
to the general fund of cheerful and healthy recreations.
It was never intended that this should be a world of
suffering. The sins and vices of men have made it what
it is. Happiness was in their own hands, but they have
taken the wrong way to retain it. They have cultivated
tempers and passions that have brought misery and de-
gradation in their train ; whereas, if they had developed
their hearts, and their moral natures had been educated
and warmed into growth by kindly encouragement, the
whole condition of the human family would be different.
Some few people, at different periods, have been found
living in this simple, harmonious manner. The Sand-
wich Islands, when discovered, were in a state of primi-
tive innocence and purity. Unfortunately, the civilized
discoverers of this happy people have not allowed this
state of things to continue. With their superior know-
ledge they have taught, also, the more developed vices
of their nations, and now we may look in vain for the
purity and happiness of the poor islanders.
The Waldenses were also a very harmonious and
happy people j they were more enlightened than the
Sandwich Islanders, and they were as pure and upright •
they had also far higher standards of right and wrong,
and they faithfully tried to live out what they believed
to be their duty. The teachings of Christ were their
rule of action, and the errors mingled with their creed
did not interfere with their moral culture. If they
were not so assured in their belief as they might have
been, had they had the light you now have, still their
intuitions were so good, so true, they seldom felt misgiv-
ings of the future, on account of the original sin they
32 ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS.
supposed they inherited, or the innate depravity of their
hearts. Many good and inspired men were among
them, and Holy Spirit could come and take up its abode
in the hearts of these simple and devoted followers of
the religion, of Christ. Their mountain fastnesses were
more enlivened and blessed with its benign influence
than any other part of the world has been since the
days of Christ and his apostles.
The Christians of Asia have also retained a conside-
rable portion of this simple and pure spirit. They have
held to their faith, though isolated from all communion
with other Christian nations, and may be cited as hav-
ing chosen the better way to happiness and peace.
But I did not want to give you a history of all those
who had followed a better path in the pursuit of happi-
ness, which every one is aiming to possess. I quote
these instances to show you how opposite is the plan
men generally pursue, for its attainment ; and how much
nearer and easier to be obtained it is, if they would
look in the right direction. My friends, happiness may
be the portion of every one of you, if you will follow
out the teachings we have endeavored to make plain to
you, and cultivate, in yourselves, the virtues and af-
fectional qualities of your being. While bringing them
forward and encouraging their growth, you will find the
evil and vicious will gradually die out. You may not
see any sudden change, any miracle worked for you, but
you will perceive your duties will grow light and easy
to perform ; your tempers will not rise on every trifling
occasion ; your kind feelings will predominate more and
more, and a joyous, grateful, buoyant spirit of love and
harmony with man and nature, will be the inmates of
your bosom. The beauty and goodness of God mani-
fested in his works, will be ever present to your minds?
and fill you with gratitude and rejoicing. Heaven,
ON THE VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS. 33
while on earth, will be your portion, when you can once
develop up to this high, but not unattainable standard
of happiness. The poor Islanders, the Waldenses, and
the Christians of Asia, were all happy ; but what was
their happiness compared to the state man is now, with
his increased light and knowledge, capable of realizing.
The Islanders were not so happy, in an elevated sense,
as the Christians, for their standard was lower. The
Christians were not so happy as the true Spiritualist
may become, for they had not the same knowledge.
They held as true, many errors that Spiritualists have
developed out of, which errors were the cause of much
anxiety to them. Of course, I allude to the doctrines
of depravity, original sin. etc. Uutil they felt them-
selves purified and cleansed by the blood of Christ from
these taints, they had no assurance that they were pre-
pared and redeemed for a future life, and often the
struggle was long before they could feel this assurance.
You, my friends, live in a happier day. A flood of
light has burst upon you. Take care that you do not
let the liberty you have found in the spiritualistic teach-
ings degenerate into licentiousness. Show forth in your
lives the truth and beauty of them. Be patterns and
exemplars to the world. Let not the fear of men lead
you astray. Deny not the blessed gift you have re-
ceived, but let it shine forth in your daily lives and con-
versation. " If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,
live peaceably with all men ; owe no man anything, but
to love one another. And may the God of all peace bo
with you now and forever. Amen."
(Signed,) Joshua, the Son of Nun.
October 28th, 1860.
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY AND RE-
FORMS IN THE SOCIAL STATE.
We have often endeavored, my friends, to get our
ideas on these important subjects more clearly explained
to you, through the various mediums, than we have yet
been able to accomplish. Something or other inter-
feres to prevent our speaking our minds as we would
wish, or even using the mediums at all, if our intention
is perceived. What is the cause of this ? Is it that
men prefer going on in error, and spirits are willing to
connive at it? Or is it, rather, the medium's own
ideas that are so biased in one direction that even
Spirit influence cannot overcome them ? The latter, I
am inclined to think, is most generally the cause of the
false and erroneous teachings so often given, in refer-
ence to these subjects.
We come to enlighten mankind on all things pertain-
ing to their happiness both here and in the future ; and,
certainly, the use and necessity of the marriage tie is
one of the most important subjects, in reference to that
end, we can well treat upon. Every other has been
fully handled, and diverse teachings have been given
in reference to them ; this alone has been slighted and
overlooked. Free love has been advocated, in many
instances, by parties who little knew the dangerous
doctrines they were propagating. The poor abandoned
ON THE USE OP A MARRIAGE CEROMONY. 35
ones in your streets have been brought before your no-
tice, made out by these far-seeing spirits, as choice re-
ceptors of spiritual truths, and the source from whence
your best media shall be derived ; while the ennobling
and dignified position of the heads of families, living
out their daily lives in the quiet routine of duties ful-
filled, calls forth no panegyric from them, no words of
encouragement, no exhortation to other members of the
human family to " go and do likewise." And yet, my
friends, this is the situation it was designed by an All-
wise Providence you should all occupy ; this was the
aim and end for which you were created.
Man and woman are necessary to each other. Nei-
ther is complete apart. Neither can enjoy life in the
same high and elevating sense, when alone, as they can
with a companion to sympathize and share with them
their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows.
From the earliest times men have felt the necessity
of this marriage tie. As soon as they could be said to
have been endowed with reason, and while still closely
approximating to the brutes, jealousy of their com-
panion or mate was a distinguishing characteristic.
They could not endure that another should share what
they had so entirely and exclusively appropriated to
themselves. It is true that the male usurped an un-
just and tyrannical power over his weaker companion,
and often converted what should have been his equal
into a drudge and slave ; but, as civilization and en-
lightenment spread over the earth, these abuses natu-
rally corrected themselves, and, though not yet alto-
gether extinct, they are gradually dying out ; and
woman, by her virtues, her talents, and her higher and
more harmonious development, is, by slow degrees, as-
suming the position in the world it was always intended
she should fill, viz., the equal and co-ivorlcer ivith man.
36 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
It lias taken many ages, my friends, to develop men
and women to their present standard. Many rough
and revolting trials has the weaker vessel had to pass
through ; but she has now nearly attained her proper
footing in the most civilized countries, and proportion-
ate elevation will be observed in the more barbarous
ones.
We do not mean to say that women were not enti-
tled to this higher and more just consideration before,
for we think they were ; but man, in his undeveloped
state, could not realize it, or if one did in some rare
instance, he was too much the slave of surroundings to
follow out his higher intuitions and give her her due.
Now she will not ask it of him. She will claim as her
right equality in all things.
The minds of the age are too far advanced , at this
present time, to see inferiority in the intellect of the
female, because her muscular power may be less potent
than that of the man. Thinking and analyzing minds
are ready to acknowledge that, if educated with the
same care, having the same advantages for study, the
female would prove a competitor, both in arts and sci-
ences, that the man might find it hard to surpass, if
equal.
As a general thing, however, woman's mission and
woman's highest enjoyments are more in the domestic
line. There is her most genial sphere of action ; there
she shines unrivaled ; for man cannot compete with her
in these daily duties, though she can rival him in what
he has hitherto considered his own more peculiar depart-
ment ; and it is this fitness, this adaptedness of the wo-
men for these home requirements that makes the mar-
riage relation perfect. The man and the woman, truly
harmonizing and living out their highest conceptions of
this sacred tie, are a picture of felicity to be imitated, if
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 37
possible, by the whole human family ; and so far from
depreciating or running down, by jibes and sneers, this
Holy and God-designed institution, each one should en-
deavor to strengthen its bands and give it a firmer
footing.
We, the missionaries of progress, from a higher
sphere, tell you, my friends, that till the man and wo-
man act together on terms of perfect equality, true hap-
piness and harmonious feeling cannot reign in either
bosom, to their full extent. The man is as much to be
pitied as the woman. He tyrannizes over, or he spoils ;
he treats with contempt, or he makes an idol, just as
his disposition leads him, of the being God designed
for his helper and counselor, his comforter and refiner.
To watch over him in sickness, to wait upon him and
attend to his orders when in health, are employments
he is willing she should, and thinks her quite compe-
tent, to fulfill. To go still farther and allow her to
manage his affairs for him, when himself incapacitated,
in some unforeseen manner ; all this he will allow she
can perform to his satisfaction ; but when restored to
his normal condition, and able to resume his duties, he
would resent any interference, or word of counsel, from
her as quite out of her sphere, and beyond her cabability
of understanding.
This unnatural, and improper state of things is
fostered and encouraged by all your institutional sur-
roundings, and your laws. The woman is made second
to the man, inferior in position, incapable of asserting
her own rights, and often of holding her own property.
She is considered only as a chattel, a toy for his amuse-
ment, and a mother for his children ; to whom, if he
choose to will it otherwise, she cannot even be the
guardian in the event of his decease. This unjust and
improper exaltation of the man fosters in him pride,
38 ON THE USE OP A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
arrogance, and a thoughtless and inconsiderate way of
acting to his partner, though of course in different dis-
positions different manifestations are exhibited.
If a man is violent, and irritable in his temper, impa-
tient of contradiction, and always fancying himself in
the right, the wife's chance of happiness is small indeed.
She may have a high temper also ; then, what conten-
tions, what fearful scenes will ensue — pray God that
there be no innocent children to be the witnesses and
sufferers from them. Again, she may be timid and
nervous, in which case, she will probably fall into ill
health, and soon be relieved from her cares ; or, if not,
change into a lying, prevaricating woman, afraid to
tell what ought to be known, because she shrinks from
raising the tempest of ungoverned passion she so much
dreads. But to take another example. Suppose he is
a man of unsociable, stern and sullen disposition, to
whom no one in his family dares speak, to whom no
one has courage to declare their wishes, however
natural or innocent; all may feel the heavy and
oppressive weight of such an atmosphere to live in ;
but on whom does the burden principally bear ? Who
is it for whom there is no escape ? Who must not only
soothe and conciliate the tyrant, but must, for the bene-
fit of others, often have to beard him in his den to ask
the favors for her children, or dependants, they have
not the courage to prefer for themselves ? The wife.
She is, you may well say, the greatest sufferer, and we
agree with you in part. She has her griefs, her burn-
ing, and often indignant, feelings ; but she has learned
that it will only make matters worse to show them,
and she at least smothers, if she cannot entirely subdue
them ; and this is, to her, a benefit and development ;
it will lead her to think of a time when all cruelty will
be done away with — when she shall find rest and peace.
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 39
Every time she restrains her temper, when unjustly
taunted, or unkindly treated, she is adding to the
crown of glory she is weaving for herself ; therefore,
though she may suffer here for a short season, her re-
ward is sure.
But the man's condition is far more to be deplored ;
for he does not feel, he does not perceive, the need he
has to do differently. He has been so nurtured by
parents and nurses, teachers and friends, and indeed
society at large, in the idea of his superiority in mental
as well as physical development, that it never enters
his head to question the matter ; and he would go on,
as his fathers had done before him, hugging himself up
in this fancied superiority to the end of creation, if such
a thing could be, did we not come to give him light on
the subject. We pity the poor misguided ones the more
deeply, because we can see into futurity enough to know
that all these unjust assumptions and indulged tempers
will have to be atoned for in a future state. The very
circumstances that have, through suffering, purified the
wife, have been the great drawbacks in the man's career.
He, priding himself on his position, swaying all within
his control, by his will alone, without consulting or
studying others' feelings and inclinations, making their
pleasures and enjoyments to depend upon, and be sub-
servient to him — he has, indeed, much to contend against,
much to outgrow, and, as we said before, the man in this
unjust state of things, is quite as much, if not more, to be
pitied than the woman. With perfect equality and equal
rights such a state of injustice would cease. When both
parties feel they have the same amount of interest at
stake they will be more inclined to study the best
methods of protecting them. When the husband learns
that it is sometimes necessary for him to make conces-
sions, he will be more capable of appreciating the same
40 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
thing in his wife. Mutual love and mutual confidence
will be much more likely to go hand in hand when this
unity of duties and feelings rule.
You may think, my friends, we have been rather hard
upon the manly character in what we have said. We
do not, of course, mean to assert that all men are such
as we have described ; neither that all women fulfill
their duties in so perfect a manner as to prepare them-
selves for an eternal reward while struggling here.
Far from it. Many men are conscientiously and truly
developing themselves now, and throwing off, by de-
grees, the erroneous teachings of their childhood in
these matters ; and many more are far from being as bad
as those I have depicted. But then, again, I might have
specified other and more lamentable causes of unhappi-
ness in the married state than those I have touched
upon, and from which few, in comparison, are entirely
free. I shall leave this however for the present, and
return to our more immediate theme. Women, as well
as men, arc to blame for the general inharmony of the
married state. Though I have previously stated that
they are developed by the sufferings their trials cause
them, when living with inharmoniously-tempered men,
this is always supposing they act so as to profit by their
situation. But too often it is quite the reverse, and the
woman sinks, as well as her husband, into a contentious
and discordant state of being.
There are many other ways, also, in which a woman
might do more to make matrimony less inharmonious
than it too frequently is. She is often vain, frivolous
and trifling in her pursuits ; indulging in all the show
and parade of finery in her appointments and dress;
placing, as it might seem, her highest hopes and ambi-
tions on the amount of display she can make, and the
envyings and heart-burnings she can excite. Men are
OX THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 41
almost as much to blame as their wives in these cases ;
they have often quite as low ambitions and take pride
to themselves when they hear and see the excitement
their wives cause by their profuse and wasteful expendi-
ture. A woman, with a properly constituted and de-
veloped mind, could not find her happiness in these
toys and displays ; she must have something higher and
nobler to live for ; she would see that though dress and
fascinating manners may draw crowds around her and
make her the idol of her husband for a few months.
they are not the attractions that will retain him by her
side, during the long years they may have to pass in
company. She must have some more sterling qualities
than these to build her future happiness upon, or, I fear,
when youth and beauty have departed, that, also, will
follow in their train.
Women have a great responsibility laid upon them,
and it is time that they understood it aright ; it is quite
time their eyes were opened to see the important field
they should labor in. We have censured the existing
state of things for not allowing women their rightful
privileges and for not placing them in the position
they were designed by God to occupy. But, my female
friends, are you prepared, yourselves, to fill that elevated
position in a proper manner? Are you so developed
beyond dress, luxury and trifles, that you are fitted to
take your rightful places in the councils of your nation,
or assist in the formation of its laws ? I fear not at
present. Other thoughts than these occupy your minds ;
other desires and cravings are more prominent than ad-
ministering justice or ameliorating the condition of your
fellow-men and fellow-women, and yet these latter have
a peculiar claim upon your sympathies, and by their
groans and tears for relief, continually ascending on
high, seem to make an earnest and irresistible appeal to
their more fortunate sisters for help and assistance.
42 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
You may say that the council is not your sphere, that
men are more fitted for such public business, and have
more time to devote to it. Granted that it were so, my
friends, which however I do not altogether allow, for
many women are fitted by talents and leisure to meet
their co-workers there, and the wrongs of their fellow-
women will never be thoroughly righted, till they do so.
But allow that it is, as you say, not your vocation.
Have you no interest in these things? Have you no
other means of showing that interest, if you object to
public demonstration ? Can you not inform your minds
thoroughly, on these and every other momentous subject
that arises, respecting the well-being and development
of the human family ? And cannot you, by your fire-
side in your home circle, give to your husband and
friends your more softening and humanizing coun-
sels ? The woman's voice should always be raised on
the side of mercy. Man's passions are stronger, more
unsubdued ; he is apt to call severity, justice ; but the
woman, when properly developed, would then step in,
and her plea for pardon may be listened to, when the of-
fender might have supplicated in vain. Her softening
and humanizing counsels will gradually effect a change
in the whole moral standard of the man, and by imper-
ceptible degrees, she may bring him to her more harmo-
nious stand-point.
Of course, I am now speaking only of a progressed
woman, for it is only such an one that can exert this
beneficial influence. It is time, however, that all women
should progress ; it is time they should exert themselves*
throw off the shackles of luxury, idleness, and indiffer"
ence, and see things as they really are. While you are
sleeping thus supinely indifferent, vice and depravity are
spreading around you. Your own husbands or your
sons may be among the most guilty. Will you make no
effort to reclaim them ? Your daughters may be the
OX THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 43
victims ; will you not try to save them ? Vice, my
friends, has no place, no particular station ; it spreads
as the pestilence, through all ranks, and none are safe
from its influence, because they are elevated, or secure,
because they are lowly. In the moral culture of your
children, and in the charm you can throw around your
family, by your enlightened conversation and harmonious
dispositions, will be found the first steps to improvement
in these things. A husband who always feels his home,
congenial and happy, his wife cheerful and intelligent,
will rarely want to stray. A son, accustomed to the
elevating and refined pleasures of his father's house, and
seeing the modest and retiring character of its inmates,
will shrink disgusted from meretricious charms. The
daughters brought up under such a mother and father,
would have a seven-fold aegis to protect them from dan-
ger, and would be well fitted to enter into that holy es-
tate they were destined to fill, when they in their turn
will elevate and harmonize their chosen companion. Or,
should they be so fortunate as to meet with one entirely
congenial, what unalloyed happiness and felicity will be
theirs.
Thus you see, my friends, woman's mission is one of
the highest importance. Upon her, more than upon the
man, the well-being of the human family is dependent.
She has more to do with the internal workings of the
soul, the finer feelings of your natures ; these, which
have so long lain almost dormant, it is her mission to
call into action. It is not in man or in woman, alone,
that the awakening must take place. All want rousing
up : none are alive to the value of the beautiful gifts
they possess, to their full extent, and some are not aware
of owning any at all. But, my friends; though lost and
hidden so long, they are there, ready to be brought to
the light, and opportunity is all that is wanting, in most
44 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
cases, to develop them. This opportunity is now at
hand. Teachers and preachers are going forth, uttering
new doctrines, and higher truths than have ever yet been
given, and toe have told you many things ourselves, both
in this and former essays, which, if you will endeavor to
follow out in your daily lives, will soon cause these beau-
tiful flowers of the soul to blossom in you. We want to
see all happy, all living out their lives here in harmoni-
ous contentment, and progressing steadily onward to fit
themselves for an endless hereafter. Much may be done
by each one in this great work, both for himself and
others. None are so pure, so good, they may not re-
ceive help and benefit on their journey ; and few are so
low and debased they cannot do some kind deed, some
good, however trifling, to their fellow-creatures. Mutual
dependence, and mutual reciprocity in kind actions, ex-
tending through all branches and degrees of society,
will tend more to harmonize and equalize the condition
of the whole, and there would be a more brotherly and
sisterly feeling developed in this way than in any other.
But we are now speaking more particularly on the
marriage tie — the relations and duties existing between
two parties brought into immediate contact, and in
which, more than in any other state, mutual forbearance,
kindness and considerateness, is necessary. In the world
at large men may quarrel, dispute, contend, exhibit all
their vile tempers and malicious dispositions ; but society
can put a check upon them — they are not tolerated —
friends are not bound to submit to their humors, and
the people will not. In the domestic circle it is quite
different. As the marriage relation is now understood,
the poor wife must bear the brunt of all the tyrant man
may choose to inflict ; she has no redress, no escape.
However uncongenial, dissipated or brutal he may be,
the wife must submit to all without murmuring. It
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 45
is not the thing for a woman to make known her indig-
nant or wounded feelings on such subjects ; decorum
says she must keep quiet — bury her wrongs in her own
bosom — wear a smiling face in public, and let her heart
break quietly in secret. If she is made of sterner stuff
— if she can endure and live — she may, perhaps, rear a
family under such unfavorable circumstances. But what
kinds of dispositions and physical formations do you sup-
pose children could be expected to have, born under
such conditions ? A mother, unhappy and discontented,
would not be likely to endow her unborn offspring with
harmonious and joyous tempers ; a father, dissipated and
reckless, could only contaminate them with disease and
an excess, probably, of his own ungoverned passions.
Such are the fruits you may expect to gather from
such ill-assorted unions, and unless a change is soon
made in your laws, enabling a woman to free herself
without disgrace from such legal prostitution, your de-
scendants, a few generations hence, will be idiots and
lepers. We use strong terms, for we know the impor-
tance of what we urge. We can see, and you may, in
part, if you will cast your eyes back and then regard
the present, that the spread of vice and luxurious effemi-
nacy have already made their baleful effects visible in
the persons and characters of your young men and
maidens, especially in your large cities. Have the
former the energy, the decided character, the muscular
development, the moral worth, the freedom and inde-
pendence of thought, of the men of the revolution?
Have the women the modesty, the sobriety, the intelli-
gent and elevated character of their grand-parents?
No, my friends, your young men of leisure are idle cum-
berers of the ground ; prematurely old, developed in vice
and infamous pleasures, while yet boys, and sated and
blase with their excesses before their beards are ma-
46 ON THE USE OF MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
tured on their faces. What kinds of husbands and
fathers can you expect from such characters ? — and, in
a lower grade, are they any better ? I think not. If
you will read your newspapers, you will see, almost
daily, accounts of young men robbing, forging, cheating
— and all for what? Why, to vie with their richer
companions in their dress, gambling, and other debasing
amusements ! The same unhealthy, immoral tone of
feeling pervades all alike — only, that some are able to
indulge their vicious tastes with more ease, from the
possession of more money.
The feminine portion of your society are also far from
living out the lives of usefulness they were intended to
fulfill. Though less, apparently and openly, vicious than
the men, they are still far from the purity and simplicity
of life that characterized their ancestors, and which they
would do well to imitate. Flirting, dress and admira-
tion, engross time that is far too valuable to be so mis-
used ; and often, I grieve to say, far more sinful and de-
grading pleasures are indulged in by young and appar-
ently virtuous women, that will bring upon them severe
retribution, and would, if known to their parents and
friends, wring their hearts with agony. No young female
can go on indulging in the trifling and inordinate love of
dress and admiration, to the extent it is carried on in
this country, without rapidly deteriorating in character.
The time it takes to attend to it, prevents her having
any leisure to devote to her own or others' benefit ; and
by so wastefully and unnecessarily squandering on her
own person the money she has had committed to her
charge, and for the mis-use of which she will be respon-
sible, she deprives herself of the means of relieving her
suffering fellow-creatures. But the evil does not stop
here ; dress and admiration will not long content her ;
she must have more exciting pleasures — more stimulating
ON THE USE OF MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 47
draughts from the Circean fountain. Intrigue is indulg-
ed in — assignations are made — and the modest and vir-
tuous maiden, that should be, is changed into an aban-
doned prostitute — no better in reality, if so good, as the
poor despised ones that walk your streets.
This is a horrid picture, but it is a true one. I wish
we had not more to add to it ; but, sad to tell, the wives
and mothers in your cities are equally, nay, more guilty.
They go and do likewise, and in many instances allow
their poor deceived husbands to continue in ignorance of
their sin for years, or for ever ! What good can you ex-
pect among you when such a state of things prevails ? —
when men and women alike are sunk in debauchery and
vicious indulgences ? Are these the people from whom
you must look for intelligent and wise legislators ? Are
these the people from whom you must look for harmo-
nious marriages, healthy and promising children ? No,
my friends ; if this unwholesome and vicious state of
things is allowed to continue much longer, your people
and your institutions must alike fall into decay — nay,
they are already doing so.
But my business at this time is, more particularly,
with the institution of marriage ; and to that subject I
must again lead you. It will not require a Solomon
to tell you that unions consummated between persons
so brought up, as those we have been describing , are
not likely to be very happy ones. One party, probably,
looking for wealth to gratify her extravagant tastes ;
the other, smitten bj the evanescent beauty of the lady;
neither giving a thought to the many higher require-
ments, necessary to make the journey of life a happy
one, after youth and beauty and, perhaps, money fails
them. Many other equally unlikely cases might be
cited, but I need not multiply examples to convince
you. Daily you see youth and beauty married to age
48 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
and wealth to gratify, sometimes, the parents7 ambi-
tion, but quite as frequently the daughters' misdirected
and perverted tastes. Again, you hear of young, and
you would suppose, refined females disgracing them-
selves by unions with persons far beneath them in
culture, and habits of life, so that your very thought
shrinks from the idea of the contact. In such cases
the man is quite as much to be pitied as the woman.
He is equally out of his own sphere, and as sure to be
a sufferer by the ill-considered step he has taken.
These things, my friends, constantly occurring in
your midst, joined to the low state of morality your
cities exhibit, outside of, as well as in, married life,
should lead you earnestly to examine into the causes
of them, and try if you cannot find some remedy,
some means of checking these growing and deadly
evils. Are there no far-sighted, and virtuous men
among you who can suggest some cure ? — some way
of eradicating this plague spot that is destroying your
fairest flowers, and changing the whole face of your
society ? Spirits can, and will show you where the
origin of this vast evil is. They are not afraid to go to
the root of the disease. They see no other way, indeed,
of performing a cure. Smoothing over the surface is
not what is required. It must be a thorough purgation
alone that will be effectual.
Your institution of marriage must be re-modelled on
a different basis. The foundation is now entirely
wrong. Man's superiority and woman's dependence
are the recognized conditions of the present agreement ;
equal rights, equal privileges, and equal love, are the
only just agreements that ought to obtain among you.
This is the first great error that must be corrected.
But how many have sprung from it ? The woman, de-
pendent and submissive in ages past, bore the yoke that
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 49
was laid upon her without murmuring, but the injustice
was not the less great. Gradually she has learned
what ought to be her position, but not knowing how to
attain it in a proper manner, she has resorted to wiles
and snares to establish her power. Her moral nature
has deteriorated. Her natural modesty and delicate
sense of refinement have been too often swept away by
other feelings and passions ; and instead of being more
elevated and spiritualized, as she has progressed in in-
tellectual development, she has retrograded. Love of
dress, admiration, excitement, pleasure in all its varied
forms, have occupied the mind, and formed the happi-
ness of beings who, differently situated, would have
been ornaments to their country, and blessings in their
families. If women are to be respected and virtuous,
they must have higher and better aims and aspirations
allowed to them ; they must be free to act, and free to
think ; free to speak, and free to refrain from speaking.
Free as the man has always been — free to choose for
themselves husbands congenial to them ; and free,
should their choice prove an unfortunate one, and they
find themselves uncongenially united, to dissolve the
tie without stigma or reproach attaching to them.
What but the grossest injustice could ever have made
the laws so one-sided ? Is not this an evidence to you
that both the male and female element should be repre-
sented in your councils ? If women had had any part
in framing your laws, think you that there would not
have been more equality of justice administered? I
am sure there would. And this leads me to one of the
other causes of the present demoralized condition of
your people.
Women require, and must have, as high pursuits to
occupy their minds as the men. Why should they be
debarred from studies that could make them happy and
50 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
respectable ? Why, if poor, should they be limited to
the use of the needle or menial employments ? Is there
more to offend their modest sense of propriety in the
daily avocations of business and commerce with men
upon the mart than in their meetings at crowded thea-
ter or ball-room ? Are they not as fitted to attend to
the diseases of the human frame ? Is not their sense
as keen, their touch more light and tender ? Why
have women for so many years been debarred from this
their natural calling ? Every man acknowledges they
make the best and tender est nurses. Why then might
they not, without so much odium attaching to them, be
allowed to prescribe as well as practice the healing
art ? And so I might go on and ask the same questions
of every branch of employment the world calls honora-
ble. All are closed against the woman ! She may in-
deed go upon the stage, and with all the talent of a
Siddons portray, in living colors, the various passions
that actuate her sex, but it is rare indeed when she can
do this unscathed.
The very best women who have followed this calling
have been exposed to suspicion ; and but few have been
able to retain their position in respectable society.
From the nature of their profession, people shrink from
them, and yet, with strange inconsistency, they shut
them off from other employments for which, perhaps,
they are eminently fitted. Is this just ? Is this doing
to your neighbor as you would be done by ? Man has
too long engrossed for himself the lion's share. It is
time that his eyes should be opened to see the injustice
that has, so far, kept back the woman from her rightful
sphere. She is not a greater sufferer than he is by the
mistake that has been made. If they had had employ-
ments and occupations suited to them, their active and
brilliant minds would not have gone astray after frivo-
OX THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 51
lous and vain toys. They would have been companions
and supports to their husbands, instructors and guides
to their children, ornaments to society, and blessings to
all around them ; while the man, instead of becoming,
as is too often the case, a domestic tyrant, would have
been harmonized and softened by the gentler influences
of the female character, and comforted and assisted in
all his ordinary business duties. This subject is one
that requires deep consideration from you. my friends ;
you all ought to know that when minds fitted for active
thought and employment are left without food, they are
ready to receive any outside influences that may present
themselves. Many of your female population, having
abundant means of living, and no call for exertion in
their families, are ready for any mischief that may pre-
sent itself, and in these idle unoccupied minds vice often
finds ready entrance. Whereas, had they learned to
employ themselves in some useful, active manner, they
might have been honorable and respected, not only to
the outward seeming, but in their own internal con-
sciousness.
Do you not see then, how much your own happiness
and comfort is bound up in the elevation of the female
character ? Do you not see that much of the vice of
your sons may be traced to the low standard of the fe-
male's position ? If she had been justly and fairly treated
as an eqnal, how much more elevated and refined she
would be ? How different as a mother, how superior as
sister or wife ? What a change there would be in the
style of intimacy and conversation between your young
and unmarried population. Young fops would not try to
charm by their dress and adornments ; they would learn
that something higher than outside glitter was required
to captivate intelligent, self-contained, modest women?
feeling their own individuality and independence of the
52 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
marriage-tie, unless it was thoroughly congenial in heart
and feelings.
And young maidens, too, would have to acquire
much better manners than they now possess, if they
would win the love of wise and enlightened men.
They must lay aside the alluring looks, the bold and for-
ward style of display, so unseemly, in which they now
delight, the loud laugh, the stare, the giggle, the whole
catalogue, indeed, of their present captivations (if I may
so misname them), and substitute in their stead, modesty,
sobriety and temperance in all things. Purity of heart
and modesty of demeanor, sobriety in dress and adorn-
ment, and temperance in the pursuit of pleasure and
amusement ; cultivating, instead of those meretricious
charms they have so long delighted to display, the
higher and more ennobling gifts they are endowed with,
but which, hitherto, they have suffered to lie dormant ;
bringing up instead, all the weeds and noxious plants
that spring in the uncultivated soil of the human heart.
Men and women both, you have a long task before
you ; for you must undo, by slow degrees, what you have
taken so much trouble to do. The paths of vice and
folly seem easy and pleasant to follow, but they have a
sad ending ; and if you, my friends, do not at once re-
trace your own steps, and endeavor to convince others
of the necessity of doing the same, I see nothing in
prospect for you and your fair land, but ruin — moral
and political ruin. It is not yet too late for the effort
to be made ; but it soon will be. Vice is making such
rapid strides, corruption in your public offices is so rife,
men's minds are so stirred up, and yet they know not
where to turn for council and comfort, that a change of
some kind must take place ; and it were better for all
that it should be a bloodless and internal one ; that in
your own souls the reform should commence ; then each
ON THE USE OP A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 53
one can work for himself, each man can be his own Re-
deemer. All of you know your own shortcomings, your
own delinquencies, and can see the way to correct them,
if you have the courage to follow it out. No one can
help you as we can, and as we will, if you will only call
upon us in sincerity. We can do all that you require ;
make you strong to resist temptation, patient of injuries,
kind, gentle and merciful. We can, if you trust in us
fully, make you to hate and abhor the vices you have so
long indulged in. We can bring to your hearts an in-
fluence of Holy Spirit, that will cause you to loathe and
despise every evil way. But we must be sought aright ;
we must have truthful and earnest inquirers, if good re-
sults are to be obtained ; willing and convinced minds^
men who see and feel in their inmost depths that the pre-
sent state of things is wrong, and that thorough reform
is necessary for the well-being of the whole community.
When men come to us in this spirit, we shall be pow-
erful to save. It will seem long perhaps to you, before
the effects of our work and teachings are visible, but if
you will only go with us heart and hand, much may be
effected in a short period of time. You must remember
that many besides yourselves are inquiring into things,
and dissatisfied with the present state of the human
family, many that you would little suspect, and who
would come boldly forward and join the cause of re-
form, if it were conducted in a proper manner. But, as
is always the case in new movements, the scum or worst
part of its advocates come into notice first, and make
the most noise. People listen to their often senseless
clamor, and are disgusted ; but attention is attracted,
and when this scum is cleared off and the ring of the
pure metal is heard, men will gladly come forward and
investigate for themselves, what promises so much for
the benefit of the race, collectively and individually.
54 OX THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
We are carrying on our remarks further than we at
first intended on this subject, but it is such a momentous
one, and so deeply affects the whole constitution of so-
ciety, that at the risk of tiring you with it we must say
some few things more.
And, first, in regard to the amount of licentiousness in
your cities. I touched only on this in alluding to the
causes of unhappiness in the marriage state. It was
not, however, because I thought lightly of it, but that I
deemed it better to give it a separate notice. It is so
pregnant of misery to numbers in your midst who, out-
wardly, appear smiling and happy while gnawing grief
and jealousy are in their hearts, that it must be consid-
ered as taking the lead in the ranks of vice. Many 01
you are not aware to what an enormous extent infidelity
to the wife is carried on in your fashionable circles ; the
numbers of men there are among you, wearing smooth
face and serious deportment, regular in their attendance
at their places of worship, and, apparently, fulfilling all
the duties of husbands and fathers, who have their regu-
lar places of assignation, or their kept mistresses. The
young men pattern by the old and middle-aged, and
rival them in profligacy; and, sorry am I to have to
add, to this shameful catalogue, many fair seeming and
apparently virtuous women who sell themselves to these
moneyed tempters for the wealth and dress they heap
upon them. Young men are even known to consent to
the sacrifice of their own and wives' honor to obtain
money for their extravagant and wicked pleasures — so
low is morality fallen among you, so given up are the
bulk of your people to the intoxication of vicious enjoy-
ments.
Is it not time some reforming hand commenced the
work of purification ? Is it not time that those, yet
uncontaminated, should join the spiritual forces arranged
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 55
for the battle against sin and consequent suffering ? The
world has gone on in this wicked manner, unchecked,
long enough. The time of retribution is at hand, and
the hosts of God are come to cleanse your dark and
fetid atmosphere and bring in the light of Holy Spirit
to enlighten and sanctify all mankind. They cannot
allow this unhallowed state of things to go on. A stop
must be put to it by kindly teachings, if possible,
and, if they fail, justice will overtake the guilty and
sinful who neglect and despise them.
The importance of the marriage ceremony was a part
of the title we prefixed to our essay, and you may say
we have left the consideration of it entirely out of sight
in the - manner we have been treating upon it, but we
have not intended to do so. All we have said has had
a bearing and reference to that important point. If you
will use your own reasoning powers you will see that
from the present condition of marriage, most of the evils
we have enumerated take their rise ; therefore in the
reorganization of this institution must one of the prin-
ciple remedies be found.
Before men and women can act in harmony together
in the wedded state they must know by their intuitions
that they are suited to each other — that they are one in
feeling and purpose. There must be no doubt, no ques-
tioning of this; they must have positive assurance of
their mutual love and of the congeniality, repose, and
peace they find in each other's society, if they would,
with propriety, enter into the more intimate relation of
husband and wife. Then very little ceremony and no
oath will be necessary to bind them to each other. The
tie of love, in its highest and purest meaning, will be
firmer than adamant to hold them together ; no force
could dissolve, no temptation could break such a mar-
riage ; for no other could be put in comparison with the
56 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
one to whom they are already united. Such unions as
these, where true congeniality is found, where wealth,
station, and beauty have been only secondary considera-
tions, and the true affinity has been sought, will bear
very different fruits than you now see from your many
ill-considered marriages that daily take place. Harmo-
nious in themselves, their offsprings will be harmonious
also. Shunning vicious pleasures, their children will be
healthy and well developed. The harmonious spirit
will have a mortal tenement worthy of it, and the suc-
ceeding generations, instead of deteriorating, as they
now do, in physical as well as moral beauty, will grow
more and more lovely as they progress. The evil pas-
sions of your natures, when indulged in, never fail to
leave their impress on the countenance — shall not the
good and ennobling virtues of your hearts and souls
leave their traces also? Assuredly they will ; and
when to these moral virtues are added temperance and
sobriety, in food and drink, and a regular attendance to
the laws of health, you will see man approximating to
the angels. But it will take more than one generation
to produce these desirable results. As I said before,
much has to be undone, much to be corrected, and much
to be purified. The taint of disease cannot be eradi-
cated in one lifetime. Children must suffer for their
parents' sins.
But if those parents will bring up their children with
higher and better aims than they had given to them — ii
they will endeavor to avoid all contention or disputing
in their presence, and teach them, from the higher light
they are now receiving, the importance of living har-
monious, virtuous lives, and, still more, the immense
responsibility they assume when they enter the marriage
state— the necessity they now see that they should not do
so unless certain that they have found their true part.
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 57
ners, they will be paying the way for the next genera-
tion in the best and most effectual manner ; and if their
advice and teachings are followed out by their sons and
daughters, they may live to see some of the beautiful
results that will ensue from them.
Marriage, to be perfectly harmonious, must be a mu-
tual agreement between two parties on an equal footing.
Man is not complete in himself, neither is woman.
United, they form a perfect whole. But because they
are not complete apart, does it follow that one is greater
or less than the other ? Certainly not. They are, and
always were, the two halves of 'a whole ; neither is per-
fect separately. If man is the type of wisdom, and
woman of love, wisdom is incomplete without love, and
love is not perfect, unless joined to wisdom. Both are
equally good, equally necessary ; but, to be enabled to
shine forth in their brightest lustre, they must be united.
Let me entreat you, my friends, to take this subject
into your earnest consideration. You have much to do
to reform existing abuses, and you may, and will, meet
with strong opposition ; but you have so much at stake
that you must not allow any sneers, or war of words to
daunt you. Come forward boldly, like men, and assert
the rights of your partners and fellow-workers on this
earth-sphere. It comes from you with a better grace
than it does from them, and as you have so long usurped
their rights, it is but fitting that, now you see your errors,
you should acknowledge and endeavor to correct them.
It will be quite as much for the happiness of the man as
the woman when justice is done in this important matter.
His nature will be softened and subdued into harmony,
and all the gentler, happier and more wholesome feel-
ings of his soul will be brought into action — while the
woman, feeling the dignity of her true position, will
give up the pursuit of pleasure in the trifling, enerva-
58 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
ting, and often degrading, way in which she has hitherto
followed it, and try to elevate her mind and cultivate
her faculties, to bring herself more on the wisdom-plane
which man should, but does not, occupy at present.
Each one will strive after that which will bring him or
her more into rapport with their true affinity, and so
produce perfect harmony in the married state. No fear
then that vice will pollute such a household — no fear
that the one or the other should find tempters outside to
lead them astray from their duties. It could not be ;
their best and truest enjoyment would consist in per-
forming them, and making all around them happy.
You may ask, my friends, for some more definite di-
rections as to the ceremony of marriage, or whether we
think it should be done away with altogether ! My
friends, I should like to answer you this clearly and ex-
plicitly, and I think I shall be able to do so ; at any
rate, I will try to make myself understood, as I would
wish to be. In all ages of the civilized world, the mar-
riage or union of a man and woman has been observed
as a time of joy and rejoicing, and worship and praise
to the great Father of all has been one of the accom-
panying ceremonies. The reason is obvious and beauti-
fully appropriate. God, the first cause of all, the Fa-
ther and Mother, as we may say, of every living thing,
is, in this union, more truly typified than in any other
event on your mundane sphere. And the marriage is
more sanctified and hallowed when His presence and
His goodness are recognized and invoked, to bless these
earthly types of Him, that they, like Him in their
sphere, may fructify and replenish the earth with new
recipients of His bounty and untiring love. No one
who thinks rightly on this subject can wish the mar-
riage ceremony omitted. No right-feeling man or wo-
man would be contented in such an unblessed, unsancti-
OX THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 59
fied state. They may object to the present form and
ceremony, but that is not to say they would do away
with it altogether. To me. my friends, it appears the
most solemn, the most important, both to yourselves and
your unborn children, and also, if rightly entered upon,
the most joyful ceremony that can be performed upon
your sphere. And while we would have no oaths, no
bonds of man's devising to cement it, we would have it
observed with all dignified solemnity. The prayers and
good wishes of the assembled friends should bless the
day, and the Holy Spirit of God be called down to
sanctify and purify the newly-married ones for the jour-
ney of life that is before them.
I cannot here set down what forms should be ob-
served, but there should be some simple, and at the same
time, solemn ones. The day should be one to be remem-
bered by the parties in a reverent manner : and they
must feel that they have undertaken responsibilities,
which they cannot and would not lay aside. There
being no oath or law to bind them, must make no differ-
ence to them in this matter ; they have a moral law in
their own souls, and by that they must stand.
In the early stages of this reform movement, parties
may find that they have been mistaken in the choice
they have made, and when this is the case, let them ex-
amine themselves carefully before they make known their
difficulties, and when they are convinced that they are
unconquerable, quietly and decently separate before chil-
dren, who may be tainted with their parents' discordant
feelings, are born to them. It can only be for a short
time that such ruptures of the marriage-tie will occur,
for as men and women develop and assume their true
position, they will be more particular and more clear-
sighted in this, as in everything else, and will know by
intuitive perceptions who is their true affinity.
We would not be understood to sanction the hasty
60 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
and ill-advised unions and separations that are now so
rife among Spiritualists in the most distant manner.
No, my friends ; while we wish to make all free and
happy, we hold out no encouragement to licentiousness.
Many of you have been sadly misled in this matter, and
we would give you better and higher teachings. We
would show you that there is no union so blessed and
hallowed by God, as the married one ; and of what im-
portance it is for each one who thinks of entering into
it, to examine thoroughly and ascertain to his, or her,
satisfaction, that the party selected is the one intended
for them ; that they are truly congenial, and that they
love them with an undying and well-founded affection
that can never know change. Then there will be no
cause of fear for the results ; they are sure to prove
happy ones. Worldly trials and cares may sometimes
darken over their peaceful lives, but sustained by a love
such as I have been picturing to you, they cannot injure
their permanent and well-grounded felicity.
This state of social reform so necessary, so important,
on which the well-being and development of your pos-
sterity, yet unborn, wholly depends, we call upon you,
enlightened Spiritualists, to advocate and endeavor to
propagate by your lives and teachings. You know, if
the world at large do not, how important and how
much needed is reformation. You know that the evils
we complain of are spreading, and will continue to in-
crease, unless more effectual measures are adopted to
put a stop to them. You also know that the reform we
advocate, and so urgently impress upon you to carry
out, may be commenced individually as well as socially.
For, when the hearts are made pure within, outside
allurements will cease to charm, and when no encou-
ragement is given to your numerous dens of vice and
iniquity, they must of necessity, cease to be.
These hot-beds of sin are among the first things we
ON THE USE OP A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 61
would attack. Not with man's weapons, but by that in-
creased purity and morality that will render them useless.
But it is possible to go on with more than one thing at a
time, and while purifying your social life, carry out also
your more enlightened and just measures for the equali-
zation of the female portion of your population. Let
their rights and privileges be at length assured to them
on a firm basis, and let them assume the position that is
theirs, by Divine authority, and which has been so long
withheld from them.
We have now said all that we think, at present,
necessary on the important subjects on which we have
been treating. If you will carefully read and digest
what has been here written you will find much to cause
you sorrow and regret, and much to teach you how to
avoid, or prevent the continuance of the evils which
produce your sorrows. There is no doubt that all we
have asserted, as to the extent of moral delinquency, is
true, too true alas! but if you know the evil it is the
more easy to apply a remedy. If it continued veiled
from public gaze much longer it would be incurable.
Now, fathers and mothers of families, will you not
put your shoulders to the wheel ? Will not you assist
and help us to save your innocent, and as yet pure, chil-
dren from ruin ? Young men and young women — you
who may already have tasted of the Circean cup and
found its concealed bitterness — will not you help us?
Your past experience has not been too pleasant, your
joyous hours have been clouded by remorseful thoughts,
and the stings of conscience have often checked you in
your gayest moments. Will not you then, before all
good feeling is dead within you, come out and help us,
by your advice and example to your younger and less-
experienced imitators ? You will receive ample recom-
pense for all you forego in the improved health of your
62 ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
moral as well as physical being, and from the harmoni-
zing and elevating thoughts that will dwell in your
bosoms, springing up and developing there in place
of the frivolous and wicked ones that have so long made
it their abode, but which you and your spirit friends
will soon drive out, when good desires and higher aims
seek to come in.
We need the aid of all classes, of all grades of society,
to carry out these wholesome reforms. All are equally
interested — all will be equally benefited. Would, my
friends, that we could show you these important truths
as we see them. Would that we could magnetize you
with our magnetism, imbue you with our spirit, then,
how differently would you act, how differently would
you judge of things ; how would you all rush forward
to carry out this great work of progression — this moral
reform that we are now urging, and waiting on you to
effect.
Until these things are corrected, in a great degree,
do not think or expect that the true harmonial marriage
union we have portrayed to you can obtain much stand-
ing, or be carried out in its purity and beauty among
you. A far higher state of morals and of feeling is
necessary before the conditions will be right for such
an entire change in your society as this will involve.
Men and women must be placed in their right position
with regard to each other. Freedom of election on
both sides is requisite — and for this to obtain, the woman
must be on a perfect equality in all things. We insist
so much on it, because we know the strong opposition it
will excite in many bosoms, and so retard the progress
of what we have so much at heart ; but our friends must
have more faith, and believe that what we tell them is
only for their good. We are so anxious to make the
human family happy, that we may say things, in our en-
ON THE USE OF A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 63
deavors to do so, more in advance of many of your
minds than you can receive, but you will develop up to
them in time, and be able to recognize their necessity
and beauty — and ice will work and pray for you that
you may be privileged to see the workings of this great
movement we project, and feel some of the benefits re-
sulting from it. All, you can not do, for it will not be
in your day that its full effects will be perceived or ap-
preciated.
Mary Magdalene.
November 6th, 1860.
[The Medium doubted the propriety of giving to the public the
name which was signed to the above communication, and hesitated
to do so, when the spirit of George Fox wrote : " Mary Magdalene
did exercise the chief control in writing the essay to which her name
is attached ; but ail are more or less directed by the circle, at the
head of which sits Jesus our Lord."]
GOD IN HIS WORKS.
The Almighty Framer and Governor of the universe
has been hitherto little understood by men. They have
delighted in portraying Him as a being with like parts
and passions with themselves, as a something to be
feared and reverenced, appeased and mollified when
angry, by sacrifices and prayers ; and, when supposed
to be in a more placable mood, to be gratified with
songs, dances, or music.
Nothing more unlike the real character of the Deity
can be imagined than the one that has been generally
received by civilized nations, both Christian and
heathen. It is time now that something more real and
more true should be known of this great power that
formed and sustained all things, (not in your sphere
alone, but in ours also), and who is still framing new
worlds, new universes.
This great unknown, unseen Being, so constantly at
work, yet never tired, is in your midst as He is in ours.
He pervades all space. He is everywhere, and yet He
is nowhere. He is in the highest heavens, and he is in
the lowest hell. None are so high as to approach Him,
none so low and debased but that He can reach them.
How shall we make your finite minds comprehend us ?
How explain our meaning to you? God everywhere,
yet nowhere. Seeming contradiction, and yet perfectly
true. In His works you will find Him. In the mani-
fold gifts He bestows upon you. There He is. In the
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 65
air you breathe, in the food you eat, God is manifested.
This great power that pervades everything is the
Essence, or God-principle, of life or motion. It is not
motion, but it is the cause of motion. Motion, you
know, produced life. But what caused motion ? This
subtile Essence is the light of life, a portion of Deity,
and Deity, through it caused motion.
The great centre, the fountain from whence this Divine
Essence flows, is God. Not a personal being, but yet
containing and originating in Himself all the qualities,
the passions, the feeling, that go to form a perfect man ;
and all the wisdom and love that has designed so many
worlds, and filled them with such beautiful creations,
both animate and inanimate.
The way in which these stupendous works are
carried out, I almost despair of making clear to you ;
and yet the simplicity, beauty, and order of the whole
arrangement is perfect and complete in every part.
God, the great first cause of all, sitting on his throne
of light, sent forth that light, or Essence of Himself, and
bid it work. How must it operate ? How commence ?
By animating the chaotic masses of darkness that were,
where light was not. As this penetrated them they
condensed — they hardened. Still further did the light
go on in its work, and, after hardening, it penetrated
what it had condensed, broke it up, and made other
kinds of formations. This light, this essence, working
in and through its great Creator, continued on, steadily
effecting the wondrous changes that led to the present
results.
The thought that originated so many and such vari-
ous beauties, retained its central situation, as the soul
does in your bodies, and the light evolved from thought
did the work. Then you will say : Is God thought ?
He is. But can you tell us what thought is ? Thought
66 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
is inspiration in you. It is the essence or light of God
in your souls. In Him, it is as much more, as much
grander, nobler and diviner, as God's actions, God's
works, are superior to man's.
You can now see, my friends, how my seemingly con-
tradictory assertions can be verified ; for surely thoughts
may be everywhere, and yet who can seize them in tan-
gible form ? If you try you will find they are nowhere,
God is the impersonation of all wisdom, love, and
knowledge — so your teachers say — but He may rather
be considered as the source or fount from whence these
things flow ; for He is certainly not a personal Deity, as
we told you before. He can give from his fount all that
is needful to all parts of his many universes, and still
there will be no lack of supply. His light pervades
all things. Not any are too low for it to reach. It
can penetrate into the darkest and deepest abysses
of creation, as well as into the lowest and most degraded
human mind.
Christianity has always taught that God is a being
to be referred to in troubles and difficulties, and that
help can be obtained from Him to sustain and support
in such cases. This was good as far as it went. But
how far short of the real, tangible benefits men might
obtain from Him if they understood more clearly the
true nature and power of the great unknown, misun-
derstood principle (or Deity if you will) that rules your
planet in connection with all other worlds or spheres.
Man is a miniature microcosm of the Deity. He is
possessed of the same powers, the same feelings, the
same elements for thought, the same undying life-prin-
ciple, the same capabilities of action ; and when he has
developed higher and higher in the scale of progression,
he likewise may create and multiply creations from his
thought-plane. But not yet, my hearers, are these
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 67
startling effects to be looked for. Ages and ages of
progressive improvement will have to be gone through.
Spirit must be etherealized into still more ethereal
spirit ; and still again must it be refined ; over and
over will the purification be renewed, till the God-
spirit is attained ; and when this takes place, man may
be said to merge into Deity and become part and parcel
of that Divine and mystical Essence • and united to
it, share and assist, devise and execute works as won-
drous, as noble, as grand, as beneficent as those he
now, from his low and untaught sphere, admires with
awe and veneration. (Note 1 .)
Nothing is impossible to man. The God who formed
him, as he is, foresaw and prepared for a time when
His creation would rise to this height, and become like
Him. The ignorance of men, hitherto, has kept their
development back. They never understood the nature
of the Being who formed them into life. Besides, all
progression is necessarily slow at first. It took ages
to develop man from the ranks of the animal, to bring
to him a comprehension of articulate sounds, or lan-
guage, which would enable him to rise. As soon as
this was partially accomplished, creative powers were
developed in him. He began to labor for more com-
forts, more pleasures, than he had hitherto felt the
necessity for. So he has gone on, slowly still, but less
slowly than at the first. And he will continue to accele-
rate the speed of his progress the higher he advances,
because more light* can now reach him from the great
fountain of all progress.
Men originally were created little more developed
than apes. Still, they were higher brutes, as the ape
is higher than the baboon and lower monkey tribes.
All animals have gradually developed, in improved
forms, from the next lower species. Man is no excep-
68 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
tion to the rule ; he was originally, as we have said, a
well-developed ape ; but into this Ape God's light has
been gradually, more abundantly, instilled than it was
or ever will be into the lower animal kingdom. He
was designed for higher life, nobler purposes ; he had
more work to do, more good to perform, more to re-
ceive, and more to lose and suffer for the loss of, than
the animals. He was the crowning creation of God —
the ultimatum — the finishing stroke to his great work
on this earth of yours, as he is on every other.
Man is the perfection of all — the animal, the vege-
table, and the mineral combined, and superior to the
whole in possessing the soul or God-principle in him
that is to develop up to the God who gave it. (Note 2.)
Animals have not anything of this ; they have life and
they have instinct, but this essence of divinity that
shall bring man ultimately to a level with God, they
have not. This is what makes man superior to the
brutes ; this is what no sins, no crimes can deprive him
of. Though darkened and degraded he may be, will
keep it ; and long and weary may be his necessary de-
velopment out of darkness ; but a time must come
when it will shine forth ; a time must come when this
emanation, this beautiful essence of Deity, must find
its way to Him again ; and it will not do so without
bringing the spirit with it. (Note 3.)
This is a great thought ; man may well not conceive
of it, for it is hard for many who have passed away to
understand it ; indeed, multitudes do not, and will not,
till they are more progressed.
Many different grades of men are on your earth, as
there are many different classes of spirits here. You
have often wondered why some races of men are so
much more intelligent and progressed than others ; but
this should not excite surprise in your minds, if you
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 69
looked at the subject from a right point of view. You
are so accustomed to consider that all mankind sprang
from one source — one original pair, that you rarely
reason fairly on this point. We can, however, en-
lighten you, somewhat ; and some of our former teach-
ings have shown you what reliance there is to be placed
on that, and many other old fables.
We also told you that, since its formation, this earth
had undergone many convulsions and upheavings. At
such times animal and vegetable life were destroyed,
and new creations and developments had to be origi-
nated. Of course, in such cases, the human family were
proportionately late in their appearance, and are, where
you find them inferiorly endowed, only waiting the lapse
of years and proportionate progress to become as you
are now. The inequality must always remain as ob-
servable, for you will be advancing in the same, or even
greater ratio. This is a very simple explanation of
what has caused, on your earth, much confusion and
strife. And we would urge on all, who shall read this,
to use their earnest endeavors to mollify the feelings at
this time engendered in your midst, originating from
the mistaken knowlege possessed on this subject.
We do not intend to enter into party strifes in this
essay ; we write for the world at large ; and we would
benefit the African, the Hottentot, or the Slaveholder
equally ; all are the same to us. But we must tell you
that war and contention are the enemies of progress,
far more deadly than the apparent injustice of the Afri-
can's bondage. He is not nearly on the same plane
that you are. He is happier under his southern mas-
ters than in his native freedom ; and he will develop
much more rapidly. The cruelties you complain of in
separations of families and so forth, he rarely feels with
the keenness your more elevated and refined natures
70 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
would do ; and if you complain of the liberties taken
with the women by their owners, I grieve to tell you
that, in your own northern cities there is more profli-
gacy and licentiousness indulged in than in the entire
Southern States.
This is a digression, but a necessary one ; for war
and contention are at hand, brought about by misguided
men, led on by false teachers of an erroneous creed, and
they little know the suffering and woe they are bringing,
not only on the slave population, but more especially on
their Northern brethren.
It was necessary that a severe retribution should
overtake your land; your sins have grown to such a
monstrous head, purification was absolutely required,
and it is just that you should, yourselves, light the
torch that is to consume you ; but, at the same time?
we mourn for the prospects of your ill-clad, suffering
poor, your unemployed artisans, your women and chil-
dren. This coming winter will tell a sad tale of woe in
your towns and villages, and, as is always the case in
these unjust proceedings, the innocent must suffer with
the guilty.
Fortunately for man, there is a Providence ruling
over all, and bringing out of the most discordant ele-
ments beauty and improvement. What men think are
the greatest calamities often prove, in their results, the
most valuable blessings. They turn and twist their
mundane affairs in the most heterogeneous and con-
fused manner, and think they are regulating and order-
ing a world, when they are in reality plunging it into
almost inextricable confusion.
At this time such a condition of affairs is impending,
not in one part but in all. Revolutions and wars, con-
fusion and bloodshed will prevail generally, and an
entire change in the governments of the various con-
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 71
tending powers will supervene. Men cannot foresee
this ; they cannot tell what may be the termination ot
the bloody fights they wage, the ambitious schemes they
indulge in ; but there are wiser and far more intelligent
beings watching the conflict, and ready, when the time
comes, to step in and take every advantage of circum-
stances to benefit and raise the human family. These
overseeing spirits all receive their light and knowledge
from higher sources, and these higher intelligences re-
ceive it in still more direct proximity to and from God
himself, the fountain or principle of it.
I repeat this, that it may impress itself on your minds,
that God is in all His works. He sends down His di-
vine afflatus through us to you, and it pervades all the
extended regions of space, and benefits and beautifies
wherever it penetrates.
I am not now going to show you what results will accrue
from the present state of affairs ; but I would encourage
you with the assurance that high and developed spirits
are waiting and working for you at this crisis, and will
bring much good to the human family generally, out of
the seeming evils that now threaten you. Never despair
of their help ; they are mighty and powerful to aid you,
and they come not alone, as I saidj the spirit and power
of God is with them, and they cannot fail in what they
have to accomplish.
God, the supreme Creator and Governor of the uni-
verses, has now sent down light from his own high
sphere, to drive the darkness before it. The clouds that
have so long obscured men's minds shall be dissipated by
this penetrating power ; and wisdom, and knowledge
shall flow in upon them. Men shall be able to see the
beauty, order, and love, that designed and perfected
their earth and its inhabitants. They shall read the
book of nature with profit and facilitv, and man him-
72 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
self shall be taught to rightly appreciate his own high
eminence in the structure ; the crowning and finishing
touch of the vast edifice.
And when they begin to understand these things
aright, then higher knowledge will be given to them,
and they will be taught to see clearly, how mistaken
they have been in their rule of conduct, (how unjust,
how illiberal) how they have trampled on all the finer
and nobler feelings of their natures,, and cultivated
those that pertained to their animal and earthly origin.
Fighting, contentions, the desire to rule, the love of
place, position or money, all spring from this low source,
and must and will die out in your midst, when the true
light we come to bring can once penetrate and permeate
among you.
It is time now that you should realize that you were
designed for something nobler — better than all this. It
is time that you should recognize and respect the God-
principle implanted in you, and try to make it work.
Only let it have fair play, listen to and follow its dic-
tates, and you will soon perceive a change in your feel-
ings and tempers, your tastes and avocations. Suppose
that all recognized it and tried to follow out its dictates,
can you not see for yourselves what a changed world
you would have ? No wars, no strife, no contention for
this thing or that thing, no ambition to rule, no desires
for inordinate wealth, for selfish or licentious pleasures,
no murders, no robberies, in fact, no sin. Such will be
the condition of the inhabitants of your earth, if we
can once bring the light to bear upon them fully and
generally. Such is the desirable result we hope to at-
tain. And before very long, we shall have some of the
first fruits of our labors, visible to the eyes of men as
well as spirits.
When men are softened and subdued by adversity or
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 73
trouble of any kind, then is the best time for spirits to
step in and labor for them. At such seasons they are
less wrapped up in selfishness, less absorbed by worldly
gains or pleasures, and we can generally find a crevice
through which to enter into their hearts, and work for
them. Thus it is, only on a larger field We hope to find
the greatest facility in touching the hearts of men, in
this coming time of trouble and distress ; and thus from
the general nature of the sufferings impending over, not
this country only, but many others, we calculate to pro-
duce golden fruits in the hearts of many, and general
amelioration, not only in the social system, but in the
national governments also.
Things must be more equalized ; the rich must share
with the poor. Their superfluous wealth, which is only
a burden and toil to them to manage, must be distrib-
uted among their more needy brothers, and both be
made happier by the division. The intellectual must
give of their talents to benefit and improve their loss
advanced brothers, and the skillful, in any way, must use
their gifts for the good of their neighbors, as well as for
themselves.
I might go on and enumerate the variety of ways in
which this feeling of universal brotherhood would work ;
but it is useless at the present time, when men are not
prepared to carry out our ideas, so we will now return
to our more immediate theme, " God in his works/'
the multitude and infinity of which should fill your
minds with awe and wondering admiration. To think
on this great subject, exalts and benefits your souls. To
dwell on his greatness, brings you more nearly into
communion with Him, and fills you with a portion of
His own spirit. You are benefited by the smallest ap-
proach you can make to this mind of God ; and there is
no better method for you to pursue in your endeavors
74 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
to progress, than studying Him in His works. You
may say you cannot understand much that you see, much
that you hear, in relation to them. True, you cannot.
But none are so ignorant that they cannot see beauty in
a flower, a leaf, a human eye, or a human hand ; and
they can do more, for all can see, not the beauty only,
but the appropriateness, the fitness, the adaptedness of
them for their various uses.
Can anything be more wonderfully and judiciously
contrived than the eye of a man ? So delicately organ-
ized to receive impressions from surrounding objects, at
the same time, so carefully protected from injury by its
judicious position in the head, and its covering lid and
eyelashes. Did not the thought that originated it, show
the highest wisdom ? And can you not find profit and
pleasure combined in thinking on these things ? Or
are you so accustomed to the offices and appearance of
this organ, that it has ceased to be regarded by you ?
J hope it is not so ; but if it is, refresh your ideas on
this point by visiting some institution for the blind, and
you will then see more plainly the blessing you enjoy,
without appreciating its possession.
Then your hand — have you ever thought on its varied
uses, its beautiful adaptedness to the numerous offices it
is required to perform ? Or have you allowed that also
to pass by unheeded, playing out its part in regular and
methodic manner, as you might require its services —
your willing docile slave to do your bidding, while you,
entirely unconscious of the wondrous beauty of the or-
ganism that thus works for you, accept its services, and
never pause for a moment to dwell on the wisdom and
love that designed it, or to consider what that Being
must be who so multiplies His benefits to all, that men
take them as a right, and entirely overlook and neglect
the Giver.
GOD IN HIS WORKS, 75
These simple examples will show you how easy it is
for the most ignorant to study the Almighty in His
works. They are so surrounded by them that they need
not seek from abroad subjects of contemplation ; and
they will find God's Spirit quite as near to them when
contemplating His presence in the lowliest grub, as in
more exalted and beautiful objects. The same care in
the formation, the same adaptedness for its peculiar
vocation, every organ necessary for it to enjoy life in
its own sphere, is given to it, and the food suitable to
its habits and tastes are provided.
Such thoughts ought to be elevating for any mind.
They fill us, in the spheres, with rejoicing and wonder-
ing admiration when we try to bring them home to you.
It is true we can see more clearly into these mighty
works, we can go deeper into their mysterious beauty, but
there is plenty for man to know and feel, if he will take
the pains to search it out.
Some of you may be attracted by the wonders of the
heavens, and look there for evidences of God's power and
thoughtful love, and you may fancy it is more mightily
displayed there ; or again, others may examine into the
beauties of the deep, and see its workings there. Any
and everywhere you will find them, and all display, in
an equal degree, the power of thought, the wisdom and
beneficence of the Being who planned them. In the
smallest blade of grass, in the tiniest flower, apparently
so useless, but yet which has its office, the same careful
thought is traced, and in the same perfection.
Can you then wonder, 0 man, that we wish you to
know these mighty truths for yourselves ? Can you
wonder that we, your superiors in knowledge and wis-
dom, wish to make you realize the true nature of the
God who formed you ? — and who, previous to placing
you on your beautiful earth, had filled it with such a
76 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
profusion of blessings. Are you not daily, hourly, mo-
mently receiving from him unnumbered benefits — so
common in their occurrence, that you cease to regard
them as such ? And yet should you be deprived of any
one, what a calamity you would consider it. Are you
not possessed of everything conceivable to make your
lives happy, did you only realize what you have in your
possession ? Most of the wants men feel so deeply, and
suffer so much if they cannot supply, are artificial ones ;
they have cultivated the necessity for them, and the
sooner they can learn to do without a great many of
them the happier they will become. Food, dress, fire,
air, amusemeut, exercise, music, drawing, singing, every-
thing that conduces to the well-being and happiness of
man we advocate. They are designed for that purpose,
and every one should enjoy his share of them. But the
factitious wants of a few, to supply which the many must
toil, are not of God's designing ; neither do we approve
of them.
Excess of all kinds is injurious. Dress is a necessity,
but when carried beyond the bounds of simplicity and
comfort it is an evil. Food also may be put under the
same limits. It is a necessity of your natures, but when
the necessity is satisfied, let not the animal step in and
usurp the place of the man. So I might continue my
remarks on some of the other things enumerated, but
you can see for yourselves that excess in the indulgence
of any of them may convert great blessings into great
curses. And is not this a just retribution ? If one
takes so large a share of the good things of life that he
infringes on the portion of others, and they get little or
none, should he .not be made to feel his selfish greedi-
ness ? He should, and he does, not only here on earth,
but hereafter still more.
It will be a hard task to teach the human family
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 77
that God, the great thought of the universe, sees no
difference in men, and that He, in creating all His boun-
tiful provisions for the happiness of mankind, intended
them for all equally. He did not say to one, " thou
shalt have more than thou needest," and to another, " I
have formed thee to starve." No, this dreadful result
has been engendered by the indulgence of the animal
passions in men, blotting out, as much as they could do,
the principles of justice and love implanted in them. It
is time now that they should begin to cultivate what
they have so long discarded and disowned. They
think they are growing very wise in all knowledge, and
understand many high things. Let them take this
simple act of justice into their consideration, and see
if their worldly wisdom will enable them to overcome
the selfishness that has so long kept them in bondage to
its debasing teachings. Shall the strong always op-
press the weak ? The rich the poor ? Or shall a more
equitable state of things supervene, and equal rights,
equal privileges and equal blessings, be enjoyed by all?
In this land of plenty much might soon be done to
ameliorate the condition of the lower classes. They
are not so down-trodden as in other portions of the
world, and they could more easily, and with better
grace, assume the position destined for them. They
have an adaptiveness of character that is very favora-
ble to work upon, and they see and feel more clearly
than in other countries the injustice of the inequalities
they suffer from. They have developed up to this in
consequence of the greater freedom of your national
institutions aud government. Therefore, here the work
must commence, here the reformation begin.
Some few men are already laying out plans and devis-
ing methods to effect it, but they have scarcely the right
idea, and we would be glad to see others take it up
78 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
and co-operate with them, so as to bring more intelli-
gence into their meetings, and more worldly know-
ledge, that they may work with better success.
The great reformer, however, who will lay his axe at
the root of these evils, is punishment — -just punishment,
brought on your own heads by social and national
errors. You cannot now escape it. The evils you
have engendered must be swept awa}^, and with them
will disappear much of the pride and pomp of station,
the luxury and effeminacy that are corroding your
vitals.
When thoroughly humbled and subdued by the se-
vere chastisement you must receive, then we can come
in to you, and take up our abode with you. We can
then instill into you the more humanizing and just prin-
ciples we have failed hitherto in making you appreciate.
We shall then be listened to with delighted attention.
Our company will be sought for, onr presence invoked,
and from mediums of a very different class to those
you now consult, will words of wisdom and consolation
flow. Never again will the social fabric be erected on
the same basis that it has been. Men will fight against
it, and spirits will aid them. When once the convulsion
is commenced, it will go on, spreading ruin and desola-
tion over your land, and uprooting most of your old
institutions. For a time it will be sad to see the con-
fusion and distress that must prevail, but good will
result from it. The turbid waters must be agitated, or
they cannot be purified and cleansed ; and it is neces-
sary that this disturbance, in your social and political
condition, should take place, that a better order of
things may be established.
Had men been wise enough to correct the abuses
that are so rife, by wise and stringent laws, and by
humane and Christ-like efforts to ameliorate the con-
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 79
dition of the poorer classes — had they felt that they
could not, in justice, enjoy their superfluous luxuries
while the starving poor were so destitute around them
— then, these calamities might have been avoided, a
more prolonged, but at the -same time, bloodless revolu-
tion might have taken place, and men, by degrees, have
found their true position and equality.
We would like, my friends, to give you some few
words of advice on this impending crisis. We would
like to warn, and we would like to encourage you.
Can we do so, think you ? Some, we think, may be
glad to receive our teachings, and for them we will
write.
We never weary in our labors for you ; we work on,
untiringly, amidst the most apparently discouraging
circumstances, for we know that, ultimately, we must
prevail. The great God who gives us the power, and
the will to come, is now making manifest through us
the love-principle He has implanted in us, and in you,
from His own great fountain. We, in our more ele-
vated and progressed condition, feel and act upon it
more strongly, and more readily than you can do in
your present darkness and ignorance ; but this prin-
ciple is what we come, more particularly, to develop in
your hearts. We must have you softened and subdued
by it, so that you will feel all the sorrows of your
neighbors as keenly as if they were your own. In
times of trouble and calamity, how needful is it that
men should possess this God-like attribute ; how many
they may comfort and relieve ; how many they may
encourage and improve.
Filled with this Divine Principle, they may act the
parts of ministering angels to their suffering brothers ;
and such should be your mission, ye Spiritualists, in these
coming trials. You know not the good you may do, the
80 GOD IN HIS WOEKS.
numbers you may convince of the truth of your belief,
while administering to their bodily necessities. You
have much work to do, much that as yet you cannot see,
but when famine and pestilence stalk in your midst, then
do not ye be found lacking, but, armed with the panoply
of a true and undoubting faith, go forth to your work.
Relieve, assist, comfort and support the sufferer to the
utmost of your power. Help, strength and confidence
shall be given you. Ye shall carry a balm of healing
for soul as well as body, and while ye minister to the
bodily wants of the poor stricken ones, ye shall be en-
dowed with words of power mighty to convince.
It will not be the poor alone that will need aid in
these troublous times. Many with wealth and its at-
tendant luxuries will then be glad to find you out and
solicit your services, " for great fear will be upon all
men," and they will seek for every means to get conso-
lation. But stand ye fast in your faith, unmoved by
dread of earthly troubles, for they shall not come nigh
you if you only follow our bidding. We can protect,
so long as ye are true to your own selves, but beware
that ye contaminate not your souls with the dross of
earth. Let not the vile lust of gain pervert you, for
then your souls will become more darkened over than
those of the poor afflicted ones ye came to save, and We
can no longer work through you. " Ye are the salt of
the earth, beware that ye lose not your savor." Keep
yourselves pure and unspotted, and ye shall be filled
with the light and love of God's own sphere, and work
greater works and perform greater deeds than man can
at present conceive of.
I speak now to those media who are willing and de-
voted servants of our cause. None others need look
for these glorious privileges ; and even to our most
faithful and tried mediums these warnings are necessary.
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 81
In such time? of confusion as are impending, it is not
easy for any to keep themselves quite free from all
temptations, but wherever we see the willing heart we
are always near to assist and keep it from falling.
It is not our province to alarm you unnecessarily, we
would rather bring you words of consolation and good
cheer ; but we should be unfaithful missionaries to you
did we not warn, before-hand, of these impending dan-
gers. They are fast closing around you, and it be-
hoves every man to be prepared for them. You may
wish to know, what means you must take for protection.
Spiritualists who know in what they believe need not
make these inquiries ; if they are living out the true
teaching of their faith, they must be certain that they
have no cause of fear. Are they not protected and
guarded in a way that others can not be ? And have
they not the undoubted assurance that if they should
pass away from your sphere, it will be for their advan-
tage, and to enter far higher and more developed condi-
tions ? Therefore, to them we only say, " Keep quiet,
be prepared for every good word or work we may call
upon you to perform, and we will order all tilings for
you to your best advantage."
But to those who receive us and our mission as a
means of worldly profit, disregarding all our warnings,
and pandering to the vices already so prevalent among
you, what shall we say ? Our mission is of mercy and
love, and we would still strive with them, but the con-
ditions will not permit these unholy, impure, and untrue
teachings to go on much longer. Sudden destruction
will fall upon the heads of those who give them ; their
gains will be taken from them ; their mediumship will
cease to be ; and they, and the low and ignorant spirits
who have assisted them, will be confounded together in
deeper darkness and distress than they can form the
82 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
least idea of. It is to them, more particularly, that we
now address our warning, for there is yet time for them
to repent, and we would have all do so. Take advan-
tage of the short period yet left to you, and cast from
you all low and debasing influences, both in your own
natures and from the unseen world. Be determined to
be pure, and to give pure and elevating teachings. You
know that you are endowed with gifts that many might
crave and could not obtain. Do not go on abusing
them for such low purposes as you now do. When
first you felt the influence of the spirits, it was not so
with you. You were then more guileless ; you did not
think of trafficking with the Holy Spirit, but were wil-
ling to receive it with grateful and rejoicing hearts.
Why could you not go back to this more child-like,
truthful way,? Why do you not pray your guardian
angel to help you to rid yourselves of these evil ones that
you have, by your different vices, drawn to you ? And
while you seek their help, why do you not assist your-
selves, and, by resisting evil in every shape, drive it
from you ? You may say, " How then am I to live ? —
do spirits think I am going to throw away my means of
support, and starve ?" You know well, poor deluded
ones, that spirits never counsel that ; but if your living
as a medium depends on your giving such teachings, as
too many of you do, it is better to turn your attention
to some other way of obtaining support, and let your
mediumship rest till you see opportunities of using it for
the benefit of your fellow-creatures, and not, as you now
too often do, employ it for their ruin.
In the times that are coming good mediums will be
the lights and guides of many, and through them we
shall give our teachings with vigor and effect. Men
will want something more tangible, more staple, than
the worn-out creeds of their clergy. They must be fed
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 83
with something more spiritual, more enduring, than old
formulas can supply ; and they will find what they re-
quire in no other way. We can, through these pure
sources, give such instruction and such consolation as
the world has lacked for so long a time. They will
not be of the same nature as your old Bible stories, but
they will be what you all want, and what will tend to
establish the harmony and equality on the earth that
prevails with us. For instance, instead of setting chil-
dren to learn long creeds and catechisms of faith, we
shall have them go forth into the world of nature and
find God there. We shall have them note well the for-
mation and design apparent in every portion of His
works, and the beneficent kindness and overflowing
love that planned the whole. Easy will it be to elevate
and enlarge the minds of your youth by such teachings.
No debasing thoughts will have place where God is
known to be present, where His principle of love is felt
in everything they touch, taste, or see — an ever-present
living principle pervading every benefit He bestows
upon them. Can children not be made to understand
these things, think you ? Can they not be made to feel
the beauty and the glory of them ? Oh ! yes, far more
than man in his more advanced age. Youth is the time
for all these things to be instilled, and when you see
the results that will follow, I think, nay, I am sure, you
must agree with me.
The minds of children are easily moulded to good or
the reverse. But we will take the first, and imagine a
child educated in the way I speak of— for it is educa-
tion, though so simple — and commenced in his earliest
years. But supposing that he or she is thoroughly im-
bued with this idea of God, in all the beautiful crea-
tions he sees around him, and still more, in his own
soul he feels and knows His presence, he will have this
84 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
consciously present to him on all occasions ; lie can
never run away from the thought, and it will be to him
a delight and joy unspeakable. This feeling of hap-
piness induced, will harmonize his being, and make him
a receptive pupil for any further teachings he may re-
quire, and spirits can carry on the work so well begun,
and give him all he needs. They can make of him an
artist or a musician, a mathematician or an astrono-
mer, whatever his fancy may turn to. Or should he
be very emulous of knowledge, they can endow him
with the whole. None of these things are impossible
where harmony exists to bring the spirits and mortals
into complete rapport. And when all the confusion
that now prevails among you is done away with, and
men have time and inclination to look into these things
more thoroughly, they will see for themselves the supe-
rior wisdom of this kind of training for their children,
even should they doubt the power of spirits to carry
on the work as I have described.
If the whole world has got to be reformed, as we
spirits are continually affirming, there must be some
means of doing it, for it would be folly to preach up
anything impossible to be attained ; but we know that
this is not so. Great suffering and punishment will
have to be endured, and after that is gone through
there will need much wisdom to order affairs on a bet-
ter basis. And in conjunction with all the other means
to be adopted, and as one from which most benefit may
be looked for, we consider this change in the method of
educating your children, is most essentially important.
They, like yourselves, require harmonizing before we
can do much for them. Their little minds can resist
the spirit when contentious and quarrelsome, and it is
only by taking them in their earliest bud that you can
overcome what is engendered in them before birth by
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 85
the inharmonies of the parent stock. By commencing
at this early period you prevent the additional mischief
derived from bad surroundings, acting on already inhar-
monious natures.
Children require to be more carefully guarded from
bad influences the first five years of their lives than at
any other period. The effect may not be so perceptible
to you, because you cannot see what the difference would
have been if an opposite course had been pursued. But
at this early period the seed is sown, the buds are de-
veloped of the, afterwards, ruling passions and disposi-
tions ; and if they have inherited from their progenitors
inharmonious and bad characteristics, then, and then
only, can they be eradicated by judicious and careful
training — a training of the physical and moral com-
bined. Be as watchful over the one as over the other,
for much depends on the health of the body when you
are developing the higher, more spiritual, part of the
future man or woman.
This important subject has been hitherto too little re-
garded. The first few years of a child's life were looked
upon as merely for the development of the physical, and
most frequently wrong methods were taken to do that.
Improper dress, improper food, and too often, improper
nurses were provided ; sometimes old and infirm, but
often young, inexperienced, and unrestrained in their
own tempers and dispositions, and quite unfitted for the
office they assumed.
Every unjust thwarting of the little one raises antago-
nistic feelings • every sly shake and jerk wounds their
little spirits, and every time you accede to their tyran-
nical demands, when your reason tells you that they are
wrong, you assist in bringing some unholy temper into
existence.
Who that has ever looked into this subject with atten-
86 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
tion but must have noticed how early in its life a child
begins to understand ; how plainly he can evince par-
tiality or the reverse, and how easily he can be made to
know that some things are forbidden him. If they can
distinguish in one way they can in another, and be
easily and pleasantly controlled by the laws of love
and wisdom combined. In fact, their education should
begin with their birth, or before it rather, for much may
be done by the parents for their future offspring.
This, however, is a part of the subject we do not wish
to enter into at the present moment. We have been
led farther on, in the matter of education already, than
may seem relevant to our subject-matter ; but so much
of human happiness and progression hinges on this im-
portant point that we have rather stepped out of our
path to present some features of this subject to your
consideration.
We will now return to our original theme — the omni-
presence of Deity, not only to control and guide our
actions, as the Bible teachers tell us, but the vital, liv-
ing, acting principle in all nature and in man. God
everywhere — wonderful thought ! — incapable of com-
prehension by your minds ; and yet, when looked upon
by the simple intuitions of man, in a natural state, easy
to be understood.
The wild and untutored savage of your western wilds,
rude and uncultivated as he may appear to you, in your
higher state of refined civilization, has truer and more
elevated notions of the Deity than you have. He sees
and feels the presence of the Great Spirit in every effort
of nature, not only in the rushing wind, the storm, or
the pestilence, but in all the beautiful outpourings of
His goodness ; in the flowers, the leaves, the gently
flowing stream and the shady forest. In all, and every
bountiful gift he recognizes the presence of the great
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 87
Power who created them for his pleasure, and he thanks
Him for them by appreciating and using them to make
himself and his family happy. He does not seek to add
house to house, field to field, and call them his, but he
takes the gifts as they are offered to him, uses them as
far as his needs may require, and leaves the rest free to
all God's other creatures.
You may say, these Indians are inconsequent and
careless for the future, and so they may be. We do
not say they are perfect, neither do we say we would
have you take them for your guides in your more ad-
vanced state of civilization. But, we do say, that they
are possessed of higher, nobler, truer conceptions of
Deity than you are, and so far, you may learn from
them. They are now fast disappearing from their land.
The onward strides of commerce and man's greed of gain
is compressing them into smaller and smaller possessions ;
but they will not pass away unavenged ; justice must
be done, and if it does not overtake their persecutors
here, it will surely do so hereafter. The earth is large
enough for all to partake of its bounties, and they were
and are entitled to a share of its gifts. Oh, man, man !
short-sighted for your own eternal interests, and so far-
reaching after worldly honors and worldly distinctions,
is there no way of touching your hearts ? Is there no
way of showing you how fatally wrong is the path you
are pursuing ? It cannot bring you to happiness, either
here or in the future. The temporary and fading dis-
tinctions of this short life on earth cannot, for a mo-
ment, be put in comparison with the joys of eternity.
Why is it that ye continue so blind to these important
truths ? Why is it that lust, avarice, pride, and all the
lowest and most animal parts of your natures are left to
riot unchecked, and the spiritual graces are entirely un-
developed ? We could weep for you, would that
88 GOD IN HIS WOKKS.
avail. We would bathe you in our magnetism, and re-
fine and purify you, but we cannot approach you. Your
iniquities raise up a wall of partition that we cannot
cross, and it is only through the imperfect means we now
employ, that we can at all reach you. Angels and
spirits mourn over your guilt and degradation ; they
see so plainly what it is you are laying up for your-
selves. They know that every sin must be atoned for,
every vice and every evil temper lived out, and that the
more they are indulged in here, the longer time of suf-
fering you are preparing for yourselves. Therefore,
they wish to help you now. It is a far easier thing to
reform while on earth, than in a future state. There, it
seems almost impossible to progress when sunk so low
as many of you are. And for the sake of your children
and posterity at large, they would urge this most im-
portant subject on your attention, for truly the Bible
says, " The sins of the fathers are visited on the chil-
dren."
Will not you then, one and all, help in this great
work we are advocating ? Will not you, each one, com-
mence this much to be desired reformation ? As we
have so often told you, in your own lives the change
must begin. Examine them thoroughly and see in what
they are deficient or in what they are culpable, and re-
form both. Every man is sufficiently enlightened to do
this in regard to the most glaring sins, and as he cor-
rects them, his moral perceptions will become more
clear, and he will be prepared to discover his less con-
spicuous failings.
We will now take our leave of this important subject,
committing it to your consideration and earnest atten-
tion. We may have failed in giving you our ideas as
clearly or as connectedly as we could wish, but we have
succeeded in bringing you some very important thoughts
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 89
to meditate upon, and we trust they will not be thrown
away. Surely some among you will be able to gain
wisdom from them, and a more correct, though still not
very clear idea of the Deity who is so truly "God with
us ;" for you must see that he pervades all nature and
all space. His thought and his care are everywhere ;
none too high, none too lowly to be the recipients of it.
Everything good and great comes from Him.
The effort, we are now so earnestly prosecuting, to en-
lighten your earth, had its origin in this great mind of
the universe, and it is by His power and aid alone, that
we can work for you. He gives the thought, the mag-
netism, the Spirit to do it, and we, His willing agents,
carry out the idea.
Solomon.
Noyembek 16th, 1860
NOTES TO GOD IN HIS WORKS.
Note 1. — We have made use of, seemingly, contradictory assertions
at the commencement of our Essay, but they would not be so coul d
you see things as we do — for even so it is ; man cannot see God, nei-
ther can spirits ; for He is not a being to be seen, but a principle per-
vading all space. At the same time developed spirits will attain to
that perfection of holiness and love, when they will be entirely per-
vaded by this God-principle, and merged, as it were, in Deity. Their
identity will not be taken away ; their personal freedom of thought
and action always remains ; and having so far progressed as we have
supposed, they will be endowed with gifts from Deity proportionately
great with those we have endeavored to describe in our Essay. Do
not, my friends, try to understand, or find out, more than is written.
We told you we would do all we could to make ourselves clear to you.
But after you have learned what God is not, and what you must do to
develop yourselves, you need not go so far into these mysteries ; they
are not needed for your progression or happiness.
Note 2.— Our friend has again asked us for explanation of the for-
mer part of our essay 5 we are sorry that we cannot oblige him in this
particular. But we said, at the commencement, that the subject would
be difficult to make clear to men's minds, and it seems we were right
in our conjecture. Be satisfied, my friend, with the light we have
been able to impart ; we may give you more at another time, but not
now. God's mind is not as the mind of one man ; it is as the mind
of all. You cannot comprehend this idea, and yet you expect to un-
derstand clearly and fully how the worlds were formed by Him.
When we attempted to give you some light on the subject, we knew
the difficulties we should have to encounter in saying anything that
would prove satisfactory, but we hoped what we did bring to you
would be true as far as it went, and we know that it is so . We are not
responsible for the teachings of other, and perhaps lower, spirits
We give, what we do give, from the highest source of knowledge and
wisdom that comes to man. We do not say that these high and holy
intelligences come into direct rapport with the medium, and influence
her hand or control her mind ; but they send it down as directly as it is
ever sent to earth — only two, or sometimes three, circles intervening
when the medium is out of condition. I, Lorenzo Dow, am at this
moment standing by her side, and dictating this from that higher
GOD IN HIS WORKS. 91
sphere direct. AdcI we would say, before we leave, that it is better to
be a little obscure on such high matters than over-plain and methodi-
cal, as it is not possible for any to understand God as He really is.
Therefore why should the finite minds of men endeavor to do that,
when the angels fear to look into it. They have never seen Him^
They never will ; but they will progress higher and higher in His light,
and become more and more imbued with it, and more and more like
Him, but he will be still an unknown God to them ; for He, as I said
before, is everywhere, yet nowhere.
My friend, I fear if I go on I shall get you into greater fog than you
were in before. Do not strive to be wise above that which is writ-
ten. You have light, abundantly, given to you in various ways. Who
is more favored with communications from the Spirit-land ? Do not
be too anxious to get everything so very undisputable. A little cavil-
ing on some subjects does no harm.. Supposing we do say some things
contrary to what others have said, or even supposing we contradicted our-
selves, is it to be wondered at, when you consider the difficulties we la-
bor under in getting these things to you ?
With respect to the development of man from the monkey tribe,
you seem troubled at our way of expressing ourselves, and I would
like to make it clearer if I could. Monkeys have, you are aware,
much more natural acuteness than any other animals, though many
showed considerable sagacity before the monkeys and apes were
introduced.
Man is a combination of all these different instincts shown, some in
on-3 brute, some in another, but all collected together in the man.
He was not formed out of the earth, as the old record says. He did
not start into existence a perfect being, but he was the offspring
of some other being — he was, in fact, an offshoot of the monkey
tribe. Have you not precocious and wonderful children in your
day ? Wiry could not the power who developed them develop as
comparatively wonderful an ape or apes ? Have not all animals
progressed in the ascending ratio from the first simple mollusca
and infusoria? Has not vegetation progressed with them to sup-
ply their wants, from the mosses and ferns, to your present Fauna
and Flora. If God so ordained and arranged, in his wisdom, for ani-
mals and vegetables, why should he not finish his work with man, his
master-piece? Is it any degradation to humanity that it has de-
veloped up to its present high standard from so low a one ? - 1 think
you will agree with me that it is not. God, the all-wise, when He
had brought His creative work to this closing point, and formed the
man, developed in him the gifts He intended him to be the recipient
of. By his beautiful formation, so like, and yet so unlike the animals,
he was fitted, admirably fitted, for what he was designed. Every
organ was brought to its highest perfection in him, and in addition to
92 GOD IN HIS WORKS.
the instincts of the animal, reason and a soul were added. Why
should this be impossible to a power who had already done so much ?
It was the work of ages upon ages to develop the other forms of life
so that man might spring from them, perfected in body, to receive his
mental gifts ; and it was not all at once that the full height and know-
ledge of what he was dawned upon him.
After he had received his endowments, it took ages yet to develop
the embryos in him, and show him his own superiority over the ani-
mal kingdom. Gradually the light entered into his soul. Like a new
born babe, he was unconscious of the gifts he possessed, and ignorant,
as a child would now be of their value, unless taught by its parents and
tutors — for, my friends, you must know that every individual child
receives this God-spirit now, just as much as the first developed ape
or man did. ■ Reason is quite another thing. That, man has cultivated
for himself. Instinct first supplied its place, but as the soul shone
forth in the man, higher thoughts, higher aspirations arose, and he
cultivated the intellect into its present state of progress.
You wish me to say something in respect to the color of the differ-
ent races of men. My friends, I will try to do so at some future time,
perhaps to-morrow — at present the Medium is tired.
Note 3. — Men, my friends, having developed from the lower animals
on an ascending plane, have not necessarily sprung from one pair, as
you have so long been taught, but from many ; and they did not all
originate in one country, or at one period of time, or from the same spe-
cies of apes. Different latitudes have their different Fauna and Flora,
and races of men, as distinct in the one case as the other. Is it not
simple and plainly to be seen that the various processes of develop-
ment would be influenced, very naturally, by climate and soil ? Nay,
are you not shown this clearly at the present day, when you undertake
to change the localities of animals and men ? Do they not lose some
characteristics, and assume others? Very slowly, sometimes,- the
change of situation works, but in some instances it is more rapid,
and, as I said, plainly perceptible to the curious observer. Let
this theory obtain in your examination of the causes of the varieties
in the human species, and I think you will find an easy solution of the
question.
The higher and more temperate regions necessarily produced a
more active and intelligent race of animals and men ; their pro-
visions were. not so easy of attainment, more forethought was re-
quired ; even the insects and animals intuitively laid up food for their
winters. Man derived the benefit of all this activity in the lower
classes ; it all conduced to his higher status when he made his appear-
ance. Climate, working first upon the animal kingdom, and then upon
man, tended to produce the fair skin, the delicate and refined features,
GOD IX HIS WORKS. 93
and the superior intellectual endowments of what you call the Cau-
casian race.
In the warmer and more enervating climate of the Torrid Zone,
where fruits and roots abundantly supplied the herbivorous animals
all through the year, supineness and inertia were the consequences ;
having no call to put forth any energy and mother wit, as we may
say, to satisfy their wants, Necessity, the great teacher, never devel-
oped it in them, and though the progressive development of the differ-
ent animals went on, it was all on a lower and very inferior plane. But
if the climate of those regions was not suited to the rapid growth of
intellect, it was well adapted to the habits of the ferocious beasts of
prey that flourished there, and contributed their quota to forming the
man — uniting in him the ferocity of their natures, combined with the
laziness of the herbivorous denizens of those parts, to wit. : the rhino-
ceros and hippopotamus. Climate, that could so alter the animal
kingdom, would naturally produce a new variety in the man, when
he appeared on the stage of existence — all the particles of which he
was composed were developed through a similar yet different process,
and produced a different race to the Caucasian. His skin dark as the
race of apes he sprung from, his hair crisped and woolly, his pro-
truding sensual mouth, and low receding forehead, all testify to the
truth of what we assert, and show plainly the inferiority of mental
endowments to the white race.
I might go on and prove to you, still further, the effects of climate
in the stunted growth of the Laplanders and Esquimaux, caused by
the excess of cold in their native regions— but the Medium feels so
unwell that I must curtail my communication. You can, for your-
self, now, having this account of the origin of men, and why they natu-
rally differ, so clearly pointed out to you, trace the effects still further
in other countries, where differences from the same cause are still
plain to be seen. . The Chinese and Japanese have the same origin ;
the Hindoos are of a slightly different species, a later development,
though they preceded many other races ; the Africans are more
recent than any, excepting the Australian ; the Indians of North
America preceded both the latter, and also preceded those of the
Southern Continent ; the Islands of the Pacific are indebted for their
population to stray waifs from other countries, principally China and
Japan. I have given you this rapid summary, as I thought it might
interest you, but I must now leave — first, however, stating that the
Caucasian race was developed previous to the others, excepting the
Chinese and Hindoos. Farewell, my friends, I will talk to you again
at some future time ; at present we must continue our more immedi-
ate work, for times are pressing upon us, and it is much wanted by
many on your suffering earth. Lorenzo Dow.
ON TYRAMT.
"We are commencing a subject this morning that may
be extended over many branches, though generally the
terms tyranny and tyrant are applied to rulers and
kings over the people. But there are domestic tyrants
as well as public ones, and these latter have power to
wound and mortify, nay, even slay their victims, with
as much real ferocity of disposition as the one who, by
his more exalted station, has a larger and more extended
field to work in. It is with this latter class, more es-
pecially, that we now have to deal, though both will
come under our cognizance ; for, though the tyrant
king puts his victims to death or to torture in a more
wholesale manner, he does not really inflict so much
pain and suffering as the domestic tyrant does on his
defenceless wife and children.
"We do not wish to harrow up your feelings by de-
scriptions of sufferings and privations that are the
birthright, as it might seem, of so large a proportion
of the human family. We come to redress grievances,
to amend errors, and to harmonize and make all happy.
But, to do this effectually, it is absolutely necessary that
you should be made to see in what way you err, or you
cannot correct your wrong doings. A man may be a
complete slave to some besetting vice or passion, and
yet be entirely ignorant of his failing — such is the self-
delusion and blindness of the human heart that we
ON TYRANNY. 95
strive to enlighten. We tell you plainly what evils are
among you, we point out their workings and their
effects, and then we say to you, "examine yourselves and
see if this wicked thing be in you," and if it is, cast it
from you. Let it not continue any longer to poison
the moral atmosphere of your being, and destroy the
happiness of others. For, my friends, there are no sins
so exclusive that their ill effects can be confined to
yourselves alone. Some one or more, and perhaps
many, may be injured or contaminated by them. There-
fore it is that we expose vice in all its hideous deprav-
ity. We want to see it appear in as loathsome colors
to you as it does to us higher intelligences ; and we
shall take every root and branch of sin that prevails
among you, and analyze and dissect it for your benefit.
When all are laid bare before you, surely some good
will result, some minds will be too tender, too spiritual,
to go on in the paths they have been shown are so in-
jurious to their moral and spiritual progress. Oh, my
friends, the peace and contentment that can flow into a
heart divested of these gross elements, will richly com-
pensate for any loss of friends or sneers of the worldly
that your changed conduct may excite.
I will not go on and imitate your church ministers who
make up so much in exhortation for what they too often
lack in practice, else I might give you a very good dis-
course on the folly of depending so much on appearan-
ces, and following the multitude to do evil ; but you have
often had these subjects urged upon your attention by
your spiritual guides, and hitherto with sadly too little
effect. I am willing to believe, however, that they
would have been more successful in their efforts to benefit
their congregations had they, as I said, lived out their
own advice, which is the true secret of success in the mis-
sion of a clergyman, or of any other person who wishes
96 ON TYRANNY.
to do good to his fellow-men. We cannot show you
the beauty of our teachings in this manner, excepting
as we can inspire you and others to carry them out, and
we anticipate the time — not very far distant — with joy,
when not one, but many little bands of spiritual bro-
thers shall be, indeed, practicing what we are laboring
so earnestly to instill into mankind.
Among the many causes of unhappiness that prevail
among men, tyranny is not one of the least. It may be
exerted in a variety of ways, and often the persons ty-
rannizing, may be entirely unconscious of their failing.
Habit has become second nature. This, we might
almost say, is the worst form of the disease, for it is far
the most difficult to eradicate ; but we will not despair.
While mortals and spirits are willing to work, much
good may be done • for have they not the light of God's
Holy Spirit to shine into their hearts, and help them on
in their way ?
Tyranny is often found existing in the relations be-
tween man and man, brother and sister, child and
nurse, master and servant, friend and friend ; every-
where this feeling can enter, and destroy the hap-
piness and harmony that should exist. The strong
rule the weak ; freedom of thought and freedom of
action are often curtailed, and men and women are fre-
quently as truly slaves to their positive and self-consti-
tuted task-masters, as the most oppressed Negro on a
plantation. Nay, they are in a worse condition of
slavery, for theirs is the bondage of the mind, in the ma-
jority of cases. This is a lamentable state of things.
How are you to progress while it continues ? Neither
the slave nor the despot can receive the true spirit influx
while it is the case.
Every man must be free in thought, in action, in
purpose ; he must choose for himself the way in which
OX TYRANNY. 97
he would walk, and no other should attempt to control
his path. Each one is an individual entity, with his
own peculiar feelings, tastes, dispositions, and inclina-
tions, and no other can put himself in his place and judge
for him. Neither was it ever designed that he should.
To individualize himself, is the duty of every one ; all
are alike included in this requirement, both male and
female.
When we speak of each one choosing his own path in
life and progress, of course we do not intend to include
children ; they must be guided, guarded, and carefully
trained up from infancy, in all right principles and feel-
ings, that they may, when they arrive at manhood or
womanhood, be prepared to make their selection wisely ;
and much responsibility and care falls upon parents who
rightly understand and fulfill their duties in a proper
manner, so that the children of their love may become
wise and virtuous individuals. Much of the tyrannical
disposition evinced .by boys over their sisters or more
juvenile playmates, may be counteracted or removed, by
a parent's watchful care ; and future good insured to
their offspring, by such means. Many a boy who be-
comes in time a domineering, selfish husband, might have
been a blessing and comfort to his family, had his over-
bearing temper been properly corrected and subdued in
childhood.
All evils, my friends, are of much easier eradication in
the spring-time of their growth. Then their roots have
not taken such firm hold ; their shoots are young and
tender, and may easily be nipped off ; and thus, it is far
more desirable and more successful in any great reform-
atory movement, to work more particularly upon the
young and tender hearts of your children, than to labor
to convince and improve the aged.
The latter are so rooted and grounded in their old
98 ON TYRANNY.
prejudices, and educational bias is so firmly established,
that it is next to impossible to eradicate it, and give them
more liberal and just ideas. Therefore, let your cares be
particularly bestowed upon the younger members of your
community, and succeeding generations will feel the bles-
sed result of your labors.
Tyranny in every form is to be condemned. The
birds of the air and the beasts of the field, except in
some few instances, are free. Man, alone, is the will-
ing slave of his appetites, passions and tempers, and
being ruled so hardly by them, he, in his turn, rules his
fellow-man or fellow-woman with an equally harsh,
though different control. There are so many kinds of
tyranny exercised among men, that it is difficult to
know where to commence our dissection of them ; but
I think the tyrannies of the passions are among those
most to be dreaded. When a man allows any particu-
lar temper or inclination to attain such power over
him that he feels unable to resist it, and weakly yields
to its indulgence, for the temporary gratification it
affords, he is the slave of that temper or passion ; be
it anger, lust, avarice — whatever its nature — if he gives
up to it, and indulges himself in it, knowing it, as he
can scarcely avoid doing, to be wrong, he is the bond
slave of that sin — and long I fear will it take to de-
velop him out of it, if he passes to a future state still
in its thraldom.
Men are too often slaves to appearances. This is one
of the weakest and most childish of errors. Because
one man does this thing, and another does that, are you
to do likewise ? How many different causes may there
be that renders an act quite proper in your neighbor
that will be just the reverse in you. How much misery
and guilt this weak and slavish imitation of your
richer, more influential, or more talented brother can
ON TYRANNY. 99
produce, thousands could testify to, if tliey would.
Expenses incurred that were quite beyond the resources
of the parties to discharge ; showy and expensive
dress, furniture, houses, just as it may be, most proba-
bly all are indulged in, and as they have no means
of paying for more than a third of what they have
weakly bought, in order to keep up appearances with
their richer associates, the guilt of dishonesty is ad-
ded to their other failings, and industrious and deserv-
ing tradesmen are ruined by their misconduct. How
wide spread are such evils as these ! Who can tell
where the effects of guilt are going to stop. The weak
devotee of fashion and dress, who gratifies his, pas-
sion at the expense of his honesty, rarely pauses
to consider how far the consequences of his sin may
extend ; how many families of hard-working men
may be deprived of necessary comforts from his selfish
indulgence in luxuries for which he had not the means
of paying them the money, and of which money he
would spurn the idea of depriving them by an at-
tack on their purses ; and yet, my friends, he might
do the one with as much justice as the other. The
sufferings he inflicts are really more severe ; because
the industrious men he wrongs are buoyed up with the
idea that they are earning a comfortable subsistance ;
and the^ , on the strength of the money owing them,
also incur debts which they cannot meet ; and so other
individuals suffer. We might trace the evil farther
yet, but I think you must now see for yourselves how
it works, and I hope may be led to avoid it in your
own lives.
Tyranny of the intellect is often the cause of much
unhappiness. A man or woman fancying themselves
wiser than their fellows, set themselves up to censure
and control the rest of the world, or at least that part
100 ON TYRANNY.
with which they come in more immediate contact, and
allow no one's opinions to have weight but their own.
Now, this seems a very singular charge to make
against any one, for self-knowledge would naturally be
supposed to be a part of their education, as it is so im-
portant, and that ought to have taught them that no one
man's mind can direct another's altogether, much less
that of a community.
The greatest knowledge any one can acquire is
self-knowledge ; and if a man possesses this he will
plainly see that he is not yet perfect, and quite unfit
to teach in this dogmatical way. Very few, indeed,
have the true faculty of imparting knowledge aright.
And even when it is possessed, people are not so well
inclined to listen as they might be. They are so used
to be domineered over, and have the law laid down
to them in a dictatorial manner, that when a mild and
persuasive voice would make itself heard among them,
they think there is no power in what is said, because
it is so mildly and gently spoken !
But, my friends, such was Christ's method ; he came
healing the broken-hearted, cheering the down-trodden.
He did not bluster and storm ; he allowed others to
speak and to think as well as Himself. He only told
them the better way to act, and so it should be with
you my friends. Let Christ-like kindness and meekness
rule your actions. Be not proud and overbearing —
puffed up by the little advance in knowledge you may
have made beyond your fellow-men. For far, far be-
yond any learning you may have attained is the knowl-
edge and wisdom that awaits you in a higher sphere,
where all this earth wisdom will sink into insignificance,
and you will wonder that you have ever contended or
striven about it.
To tyrannize over the thoughts of another might be
ON TYRANNY. 101
supposed to be impossible, but it is not so. Strong
minds very often tyrannize over the weak, and cause
them much oppression and distress. They feel bur-
dened, and they know not how. An incubus seems to
be upon them ; they cannot breathe freely in the pre-
sence of their tyrants, and they know not why it is they
have such difficulty in expressing their sentiments. It
is only when the cause is removed that they fully real-
ize the amount of the burden they have been laboring
under. The lightness and elasticity of feelings, so differ-
ent to what they have experienced in the society of their
strong-minded or positive friend, is so delightfully oppo-
sed to it, that they dread a recurrence of the same feel-
ings now they have become alive to the change. Some-
times, however, they do not find this out for a long
period of time — the potent magnetism of the one may
keep the other enthralled, a willing but not happy
slave. Sometimes, also, family ties prevent a release
from the bondage, and the captive must be a captive
still, unless the captor can be brought to see his or her
error and rectify it. Jt is good to be firm and decided
in a right cause, but different minds see things in oppo-
site lights ; the weak tremble and doubt, the strong go
a-head ; but let not the one coerce the other. Freedom
to act and freedom to think should be allowed to all,
but let not the stronger and more powerful mind tyran-
nize and oppress the feeble one. All have equal rights7
equal responsibilities, and no one can be judged or con-
demned for wanting what he never possessed.
Tyranny over the soul, in matters of faith, has long
been one of the great stumbling-blocks of the world.
All creeds are thought right by their peculiar devotees,
and, as a general rule, all fancy it their province to bring
opponents and outsiders to their way of thinking. Va-
rious measures have been, and are resorted to, to effect
this. Sometimes cruelties of the most revolting kinds,
102 ON TYEANNY.
sometimes kindness and persuasive arguments, but most
frequently the tyranny of old usages and customs plays
the most distinguished part, in forcing men's minds to
keep in the faith they often loathe and contemn, while
at the same time they weakly adhere, outwardly at least,
to its forms and ceremonies, though they know they
are a dead-letter to them, and from which they would
gladly escape, were they not so hedged in by custom
and the fear of man.
Religion has been felt necessary by all nations ; but
such various and wrong ideas have been adopted by
the different sects ; and so much of the positive ele-
ment of men's natures have been brought into play, while
contending for their different faiths, that it is almost
an impossibility to impress them with any truer and
more liberal belief. Each sect think they have got
possession of true light, and that all others are mis-
taken. Their priests and teachers instill this into the
young minds of their flock from the earliest moment,
and they become so rooted in their opinions that it takes
more effort to overcome their opposition to new teach-
ings, even though so much better than their old ones,
than it would to remove mountains. Therefore it is that
I say it requires firmness, courage, and strong self-reli-
ance to break through the difficulties with which men
are hedged around, and dare to be free in thought, and
act on this important point.
For the clergy, individually, it is an almost hopeless
attempt to move them from their present position.
Human nature is weak and fallible, and they are
too firmly and comfortably ensconced in their pre-
sent surroundings to desire to make an alteration,
even though they may perceive it is for a positive
good to man. Do not blame them too hardly, my
friends, for this. The tyranny of custom, of luxurious
ease, and of worldly deference and respect, are so plea-
ON TYRANNY. 103
sant and agreeable to them that they cannot shake off
their fetters ; and you must work for yourselves, in these
matters, and leave your beneficed pastors, in their con-
tented supineness, till they find their charges have grad-
ually deserted their folds, and that they are left shep-
herds minus sheep. We pity while we blame them.
Some few are of the salt of the earth, and could they
be persuaded to look fairly into these things, might be-
come great lights in the spiritual horizon. But they
cannot be moved without great effort, and. who is to
make it ? who is to attack the church in its might and
power, and pull down its defences ? Are you prepared,
my friends ? Are you so superior in your lives and
teachings since you became Spiritualists, that you can
go boldly forward to these good men and say : " See
the superiority of our faith over yours. We act out all
Christ's teachings ; we call all men brothers, and act
to them as such ; we hold all our goods in charge from
God, for the benefit of all who are in need ; we do not
lay house to house, and field to field, making treasures
for ourselves here ; but we give of our surplus funds
willingly, and look for our treasures in a higher and
holier sphere. We have learned that this earth is not
to be the boundary for man's progression ; we know
that we shall continue to go on unto perfection in far
higher light ; and that death has lost its terror and its
nameless dread, and will be hailed by us as a passage
to a brighter land, where we shall continue to work for
others, as well as for ourselves through all eternity.
We knoiu that spirits are constantly working now for
the people of earth, and trying in every way to bring
to them the baptism of Holy Spirit, promised by Christ
and so long forgotten to be sought for in your churches.
We knoiv that they can come into direct communion
with us, sympathize with us in our joys and sorrows.
104 ON TYRANNY.
and magnetize us with their heavenly influence till we
cease to feel our troubles, as we once did. And, when
no troubles oppress us, we are so buoyed up and ele-
vated by it, that the petty cares of this world become
as nothing, and we are filled with light and joy."
When you can go forward and say all this truly, from
your own experience, then, my friends, you will be in
a proper condition to talk to these good men, and to
attack their long-cherished institutions. But, till such
is the case, it is better to let them follow on in their
own paths, for you have nothing better to offer them ;
and they may be doing as much or more good in their
generation than you are.
Adopting the name of Spiritualist does not make a
man spiritual minded. The spirituality must be in the
soul, and many persons who never heard the term Spir-
itualist may be better followers of that faith than you
are.
Our writings being generally of a practical charac-
ter, and intended for the use and application of the
great body of the people, irrespective of rank and
station, it is to them, individually, we address our re-
marks. We wish to give teachings that each soul may
find, in some measure, applicable to itself. We do not
wish when perusing these Essays, that their searching
effects may be overlooked by any ; we want them ap-
plied, as they are read, to yourselves.
It is not our object to lead you off on a useless and
unkind examination into the failings of your neighbors
and friends ; but to look carefully into your own
hearts and examine into your own short-comings and
delinquencies. None are so perfect, my friends, but
they may find something in what we have written to
benefit and improve them, if they will be faithful in
their examination of their inner life. They may dis-
ON TYRANNY. 105
guise much from the world, and sometimes blind them-
selves ; but it is this blindness we would remove.
Their spiritual eyes we would open, so that the higher
teachings we come to inculcate may be perceived in all
their beauty, and applied to the healing of each one's
own spirit, wounded and disheartened by the sins and
short-coming of its earth-tenement.
It is on this account, and to further this object, in
every possible way, that we leave political and public
tyrannies unnoticed, and confine our remarks to the evil
in your social life. You are all clear-sighted enough in
regard to outside and irrelevant affairs ; you can talk
over and discuss them freely, and examine, with critical
accuracy, all delinquents in public life ; you do not need
any help to assist you in discovering where they are to
be blamed. Pity, my friends, that you do not /exert
equal acumen and depth of thought in making the sur-
vey of yourselves. What a flood of light and knowledge
would dawn in upon you, and how much would you be
astonished by this true picture of your inner lives!
Upon this very subject of tyranny, on which we are
now writing, how ignorant are the bulk of mankind ?
Looking upon it as referring to public characters gene-
rally, they rarely apply the term in any other way ; and
yet, my friends, one-half of mankind are the tyrants of
the other moiety — tyrants in the true meaning of the
term, wounding, mortifying, crushing the hearts and
bodies of their victims. To remedy this evil much self-
examination, self-knowledge, and self-correction is neces-
sary. One must succeed the other. After examination
knowledge will be attained, and if you desire, as I trust
you will, to reform what is amiss — correction of the
tempers, passions, etc., that you have detected in your-
selves, will be the result. Do not, my friends, let our
words of instruction pass idly by you. leaving no im-
106 ON TYRANNY.
press on your souls. Work for yourselves now, that
you may not have to do it hereafter. We have so often
told you how much easier it is to reform yourselves in
this life than in the future, that I fear we may weary
you with the repetition ; but it is so important a truth,
and so much of your future enjoyment depends on your
following out our teachings, in this respect, that we run
the risk of being tedious in the hope of impressing it
more firmly upon you. We have, I think, said enough
on this point now, to show you how deep an interest we
feel in seeing this abuse corrected. We leave it in your
hands, trusting you may be led to see its importance ;
and how impossible it is for mankind to be happy or
harmonious, while such unjust sway is exercised, by a
portion of them, over their fellow-men and women.
Luther.
Decembek 8th, 1860.
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS ; HOW, AND WHEN, AND
WHERE DID THEY ORIGINATE!
Men have many things yet to learn respecting them-
selves and the world they inhabit. They pride them-
selves very much on the slight knowledge they have
acquired in regard to the Sidereal Heavens, the Solar
System, and all the various ramifications into which
they have pushed their inquiries on these subjects ; but
yet they are really very ignorant and uninformed on
these high subjects. What do they really know of the
laws governing the universes, of the wisdom that plan-
ned, of the thought that originated them?
Men say, " God created all things, and for His plea-
sure they are and were created." Others again say,
" G-od could not create ; He might change the forma-
tions into other and higher ones, but to create out of
nothing — that is impossible." Again, others say, " No-
thing is impossible with God." So you see, my friends,
how little is really understood of Him or of His works.
Here are three assertions, all firmly believed in by
many thousands, nay millions, of people, and yet as dia-
metrically opposite to each other as it is possible to be.
We do not mean to assert that each individual believes
them all, but that one or other is his stand-point of
faith, and a stumbling-block to his opponent, How can
10S THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
man reconcile these incongruous teachings? He can-
not do it with his present light and human wisdom;
but, perhaps, we may be enabled to assist him in his
researches, if he will follow us in our attempt to eluci-
date this, and many other obscure teachings he has
received and promulgated. "We spirits love to teach
where we can find receptive and inquiring minds ready
to receive us, and give our teachings faithfully to men ;
and we think that we have now found one through
whom we can convey some of our higher truths to the
human family.
We gladly avail ourselves of every opportunity that
offers to instruct and benefit mankind, and we shall not
neglect this one, but, by purifying and developing pro-
cesses, prepare the medium to be more and more recep-
tive to our teachings, and capable of giving them to the
world at large, in an unadulterated form.
So much for preface, before we enter upon the more
immediate subject we have broached this morning. " The
Sidereal Heavens ; how, and when, and where, did they
originate ?" This is a noble theme, and I hope we may
do justice to it.
We may bring forward, perhaps, some startling as-
sertions, not quite in accordance with old faiths or
new philosophy, but you must not be astonished at
that. As the world progresses, knowledge increases,
and men prove many things to be erroneous, that have
been received as the most sacred truths by their an-
cestors. In the commencement was a blind faith taking
everything for Gospel that was asserted by teachers or
leaders. Then a questioning and doubting faith that
took nothing for granted, believing nothing without
proof. Now, a new era has dawned upon men, and they
may receive all they require of explanation, and proof
of what is taught, if they will seek it in the right way-
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 109
Such is progression, the great law of the universe, act-
ing on great and small alike j all are subject to its influ-
ence, every development in nature, every faculty of the
human mind.
We will now take a look at the opinions we quoted
at the commencement, and see what they are worth ;
and first, that " God created all things, and for His
pleasure they are and were created." This is a start-
ling assertion — " for God's pleasure alone are they cre-
ated!" Surely not. Some other motive than this must
have influenced the great mind of the Almighty, in
forming His beautiful creations. Some more extended
idea than this selfish one, must have had place in that
Great Being who is all wisdom, love, and knowledge,
and in whom no debasing passion can exist.
This, my friends, is a libel on our great Originator.
He never formed anything in vain ; neither did He form
anything without some wise motive, some object in the
great plan of creation. But man, as I said before, can
not understand God aright ; he cannot realize a Being
so wise and good that to do good is His only object, and
in order to accomplish this He forms and creates worlds
and peoples them with sensient beings to enjoy them,
endowed with capacities so constituted that they can
still go on progressing in happiness, and feeling, by de-
grees, some of the same good and wise and loving im-
pulses that characterize their Creator. Man can not
conceive of such a Being, much less can he conceive of
Him as the mighty God of the Universes, who could,
and did, bring them into existence by the breath of His
word or thought — who required no previous worlds of
matter to make them from — who wanted no chaotic
mass to be disturbed into existence ; but could, from His
own thought, His own Almighty will and order, origi-
nate matter as easilv as He can annihilate it. Tell
110 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
me not such things are impossible. Nothing is impos-
sible to Him. Is He not the great First Cause, the mind
of the Universe? How can man measure Deity? How
can man pretend to understand a Being so inconceiva-
bly above him, or say such and such things He might
do — such and such He could not — they are impossible,
and we must use our reason in all things ? Use your
reason as much as you will, and if you use it aright you
will humbly acknowledge that it is only just and natural
that the doings of the great God should be past your
understanding. Would you put yourself on a level
with Deity, and measure it with a rule and compass ?
Oh man ! man ! blind and egotistical, bow down thine
head in humility and adore the great unknown, unseen
Being, who rules and orders all things, both in heaven
and earth, so wisely and with such inconceivable skill.
We have made a startling assertion in the above sen-
tence, but it is true, and men must learn to receive it.
The God who had power enough to form the worlds un-
numbered that surround your little sphere, might be
supposed to have power equal to any emergency — and
so He has. More worlds are continually springing into
existence, under His controlling will, and still will He
continue to create, to originate them — it is His pleasure
to form them as the abodes of future, happy races, and
for the development of more and more of the God-prin-
ciple. He must disseminate His powerful mind, it is so
overflowing in goodness and greatness of conception, and
in this way He finds the best means of making it felt by
other beings He developes into existence.
The idea that God required a seething caldron of
molten matter to form His new worlds from, is errone-
ous in the extreme. Where did this lava come from ?
That must have been created before He used it. The
idea has been wrongly brought to you. That heat is
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. Ill
one of the essential requisites in developing a world
is quite true ; but it is not the original of the world.
That was the mind of God. Id Him alone did it ori-
ginate, from Him alone was it produced. Such is the
theory we advocate — such is the intelligence we come
to give you.
We do not write unadvisedly ; we are not of that
low and undeveloped class of spirits, too many of whom
have deluged your earth with false and injurious teach-
ings. We are here from motives of pure humanity and
love to men, and we leave you to judge from our for-
mer writings, whether we should be likely to bring you
anything that is detrimental and injurious to man, in
his spiritual development, or that .would be likely to
prove false. No, my friends, spirits who have taught
you, as we have always done — trying in every way, and
by every inducement, to lead you on in spiritual as well
as moral elevation, would not be the ones to come to
you with a lie in their right hands ; and we do not.
We are true and faithful to your best interests, and it
is in order that we may be able to conduce to them that
we try to give you correct information on this and
other important subjects.
Man has always had mistaken views of the power of
the Deity, and of His nature. He could not elevate
his thoughts high enough for such a subject, neither was
he spiritually prepared to comprehend His attributes.
Judging of Him from his own low plane, he imagined
God as a being like unto himself, with arms and feet, a
body and a substance — a personal God, somewhat larger
and brighter than he was himself, but very little real
difference, excepting that He had more power to punish
or revenge Himself on the wicked, and love and reward
those who kept His commandments. A being more ut-
terly unlike and unworthy to be worshipped as a God,
112 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
can scarcely be conceived ; and yet, till very recently,
this was the highest conception of Him that the Chris-
tian world realized, and the followers of other creeds
were no nearer the truth.
The light of reason leads men to question on this
subject. They, dissatisfied with the unsatisfying faith
of the multitude, first stirred up the slumbering ele-
ments, and out of darkness evoked light. These pio-
neers of truth, though wrong in their premises, still did
the required work ; they taught people to think for
themselves, and though generally contemned for the
freedom and irreverence with which they criticised the
Bible, and the boldness of their assertion, that " what
would not approve itself to their reason could not be
true," they made many men think on these things —
men who reverenced God, and had received the old
faith from their forefathers in simple confiding trust,
but who, when these startling doubters appeared on
the arena, were able to separate the wheat from the
tares, in their teachings, and lay hold upon the former
and apply it to better purposes than its propagators
often did. Such is generally the way of progress. It
is a rough and briary road. On the first promulgation
of new opinions, much opposition is made to them, and
most generally their opponents have considerable jus-
tice on their side, for error is necessarily mixed with
the truth ; but, as time passes on, and men sift them
down and detect the sterling ore, they seize on the pre-
cious metal, and incorporate it into their system ; and
it becomes the inalienable property of the human
mind ; for truth, once received, can never die out. It
is only error that becomes extinct as time progresses.
This reasoning era of the human mind has been for
some time in the fullness of its glory. One startling
theory after another has been adduced, controverted,
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 113
and died out, and man still goes on arguing, disputing,
proving this fact, and that error — -just as individual
minds may be led or influenced. All this is good for
the world at large, though in respect to the promulga-
gators of the new theories the benefit to them is more
doubtful ; but it all helps men forward, and lifts them
up out of the miry depths of error they were so deeply
sunk in.
Now, however, people are growing tired of so much
reasoning and arguing, so much philosophy and so little
real happiness, and they begin to inquire for something
better, more consoling, more tangible — something more
adapted to every-day wear and tear — something that can
help to rule and govern their own spirits, and prepare
them for a future that all can see in prospective, but
which they have hitherto driven from their thoughts in
every possible way.
The constant and almost universal fear of death that
has obtained among men, is one of the miserable results
of false teachings, and it is one of those errors that we
spirits try to eradicate by every means in our power.
If men could only look upon this change in its true light,
they would derive encouragement and consolation from
the thought ; they would see how very much they have
in their own hands the control of their future state, and
how completely they can do away with all fear and
dread of the short transit to it that death involves.
No man need fear to die, if he live rightly. " The
fear of death worketh a snare," the Bible says, and it is
a true saying ; but while we would do away with the
fear and horror that has so long environed this depar-
ture of the soul from its earthly tenement, we would ad-
vise every one to make fitting preparation for the mo-
mentous change, and so live that when they arrive at
114 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
the last trying hour, they may be able to meet it with
calmness and peace, if not rejoicing.
We commenced to say that men at this epoch have
found out, in very many instances, that the faith they
hold is not what they require, and this is the state of
mind we would like to bring all the world into. The
aspirations of the few after something better, are not,
however, disregarded, and much has been, and is being
given to them to make them happier ; and more will be
added continually, as we get the chance to bring it to
them. The more fervently they send up their prayers
for light, the more bountifully will it be showered upon
them.
"We have now examined the three assertions we
brought forward at the commencement, without, how-
ever, particularizing more than the first ; but I think,
my friends, you can judge from what we have said in
what light we regard them. We certainly do not agree
with the first or second ; but for the last, we affirm that
it is incontrovertible — most undoubtedly a truth, and
will always be so, though men and angels may find them-
selves unequal to the comprehension of it.
We will now continue our remarks upon our more
immediate subject — " the Sidereal Heavens ; how, and
when, and where did they originate ?"
The glorious starry vault of heaven, so often sung by
your poets, so often studied by your astrologers and
astronomers, and so little really understood, is a grand
and noble theme to employ the pen of the highest and
wisest-created beings, and we would bring to it the
overflowing light and knowledge emanating from Deity
itself— for only from that high source can we get the
truth on these hidden mysteries. To Deity we apply
for aid, and it never fails in supplying it according to
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 115
our wants. He, the great Creator of all, says that He
will satisfy all our needs from His great fount of wisdom
and love, and we come boldly to Him and demand what
we require.
The great Father of the Universes has existed always.
No time was, when God was not. He has been ever the
same unchangeable Being, great in His isolation, and
invisible in His position — great in His mighty works,
His unseen, though not unfelt, power. Let us establish
this fact in your minds — "No time was, when God was
not;" no time when this great Being was not just as He
is now — the life and essence of all things.
If you can realize to your satisfaction what constitutes
the aroma of a flower, or the life-principle you destroy
when you crush an insect, then you may, with equal sat-
isfaction, find out what constitutes Deity. He is all-
pervading, all-penetrating, and yet all-unknown to each
one of us. But though we know Him not, we know
His works, and we know to a certain extent, how they
originated. The same life-principle that pervades the
insect and the flower, brought worlds into existence.
The God who could make the one, could just as easily
make the other. The thought of Deity is the only mat-
ter used in the creation of the multitudinous spheres
that crowd in space. Has He not said through one of
your old inspired writers, " God's thoughts are not as
man's thoughts ; neither His ways as your ways." You
may realize the truth of this saying in what we are now
trying to convey to you, "God's thoughts are not as your
thoughts." [See Note.] No, my friends, and yet man
Note. That is, they produce the result they aim to accomplish with-
out any outside help ; they are creative in themselves. When God wills
to do anything, the subtle essence generated in himself, and which
you call magnetism, but which is higher — more refined than that, is
thrown off in great abundance. Equal to the want is the supply, and
this develops all the other constituents. As worlds and grosser mat-
116 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
does, in a very, very slight degree, partake of the nature
of God's thoughts in his own thoughts, for through them
He originates whatever you have, of new and novel
conceptions, on your plane. True, man must have ma-
terials to work out his conceptions, but still there is a
sprinkling of the Essence of Deity which manifested it-
self in the development of the original idea.
We may seem to wander from the subject of our Es-
say, but we have an object in all we are saying. We
wish to lead your minds into the right channel by im-
ter were first brought into existence by this power, so will it pervade,
and gradually purify, all it first developed, till, every impurity being
removed in time, spirits and worlds shall become again cleansed and
rarified, till they are returned to the original essence from which they
were formed. Understand me, men will not, as spirits, lose their
identity, but they will be so etherealized, so ; refined from all gross-
ness, that they will be dwelling, as it were, or pervaded entirely by
this essence — this creative, loving, purifying, and indwelling Spirit of
Deity. I would like to make it more clear to your minds than we
have done in our essay, but I fear it is impossible. We have given
you the account of creation as near as we can get it. Your husband
said truly that the Mosaic account is not so far out of the way as re-
gards the origin of the world. The only and very important differ-
ence is in the time occupied in its formation. From the account by
Moses, you would suppose that God spoke, and it was done ! We do
not say so ; we claim that many, many cycles of years were necessary
to perfect its development sufficiently for the first living forms to ex-
ist, and still more and more cycles before it was fitted for the abode of
man.
We would like to say a few words more in regard to the creation of
the different Universes before we leave, as our medium does not feel
quite satisfied with our explanations, fearing — for we read her mind —
that they may not be quite pure from her own thoughts. We wish to
have it understood by you that, by the laws governing the Universes
and all the different spheres, and which laws originated in the Almighty
mind ; one central sun being developed by the thought, and from the
essence of Deity, other globes, ■ planets, or satellites, whatever you
may choose to call them, were, after the lapse of untold time, pro-
jected from it, and developed, by slow process, into worlds, and con-
tinued to revolve, in regular order, round their central luminary.
You know there are unnumbered Universes, as there are, to your
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 117
perceptible degrees. Gradually we would draw you
on into our sphere of thought, that you may, while real-
izing the truths we teach, see no startling anomaly in
them. First, endeavor to bring your minds to the ele-
vation of thought necessary for this great subject, and
then it will come home to your hearts, with more weight
and power.
We have already told you that there never was a
time when God did not exist in all the fullness of His
glory as at present. There never was a time when He
confined vision, unnumbered stars 5 and you know that the fixed stars
you look upon from your little earth are, in reality, centres of other
solar systems. All had their origin in the same way from the same
great fount of light — God. And far more than you can, in imagina-
tion, picture to yourselves, are pursuing their equal course in regions
too remote for you to obtain the slightest glimpse of.
When you think on these things, and try to realize what we tell you
how can you be surprised that it is out of your power to understand
6uch wonders ? We, who are so far removed from the grossness of
earth, and can see so much for ourselves, can hardly take in the idea
of this great Deity as He is. Our more expanded minds find it hard
to understand how He works ; but be not afraid, my friends, that we
will bring error to you ; what we cannot make clear we will leave in
obscurity. It is better for you to remain unsatisfied on some subjects
than to imbibe a lie. That, from us, you shall never do if we can
rule, and we think we can do so fully. I had intended to say to you
in an earlier part of this note, that the magnetism spirits are bring-
ing to your earth in such abundance is working a change in every-
thing and everybody, and men will be astonished by the results, be-
fore they know the cause, in many instances. It is this magnetism of
Deity, so unseen, so unfelt, that, in a similar manner, brought about
the changes that developed worlds out of darkness. This light, shin-
ing in darkness, brought beautiful creations gradually into existence,
and our magnetism, working on your earth, will also bring new and
beautiful order, harmony and love to light in your planet.
Signed, Jesus, the Christ.
January 27th, 1861.
[In answer to the question if it was proper to give to the public the
name signed to the above note, it was answered : " The note bearing
the name of ' Jesus, the Christ,' was dictated by Him, and thou mayest
append that name to it in all confidence. — G. F."
118 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
commenced or ceased to be the life-principle of all
things, both in worlds and space. We cannot attempt
to describe, for you to comprehend, the boundless sphere
of His power. When we say boundless, you must try
to bring the meaning of the word into your conceptions,
if possible, for then you will understand how he might
always have been a Creator, and still be creating.
Boundless space, like eternity, has no end ; so that cre-
ations, like eternity, may go on forever.
You may like to know when your little sphere was
developed • into being — how it came to exist. We
have already shown you that it was from the mind of
Deity. But we would not wish to convey to you the
idea that the earth was a solitary creation. No, my
friends, wise laws rule the development of these im-
mense bodies. When one is projected into space, it is
generally the developer of many others. It has first to
be impregnated itself, with the magnetism of the Al-
mighty mind, and then it throws off its superabundance
of this life-principle into the space around, and forms
other spheres which revolve around it in regular order,
and it becomes thus the centre of a Universe. The
more distant planets being projected from it first, of
course they are older creations than those nearer to the
central sun of their sphere, which sun was first evolved
from Deity Himself, by the all-powerful action of the
Divine mind.
Thus you see how it is. When a thought of God has
formed or originated this great central sphere, others
are developed from it. The thought that sent forth its
light to develop these spheres, from the surrounding
darkness, endowed them also with heat and motion, and
these three, light, heat, and motion, continued on the
work, and developed other formations. We cannot ex-
plain this fully to your satisfaction, but you must be pa-
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 119
tient and trusting, believing that we bring you as much
as we can.
This is a short account of creation, but it leaves }tou
plenty of food for thought, and I think it may be ap-
plied profitably by all of you, if you will take this
mighty theme into your consideration. " When, and
where the Heavens originated," is answered in replying
to the first query. They have existed from a period of
time beyond man's computation, and were all developed
in the same manner, and from the same source. As I
said before, if you can conceive of the essence of a
flower where it originates, you may conceive of these
so much more stupendous subjects in appearance, but yet,
which do not involve greater impossibilities, as far as
God is concerned, than the other. " Nothing is impos-
sible with God." When you allow this truth, you may
cencecle to our propositions, startling as they may at
first appear.
We would enter more into detail on this important
subject, but we leave it for some future considera-
tion when men's minds have had time to digest the
ideas we have now brought to them.
The food we are giving you, through this medium,
is rather stronger than any you have yet received, and
you must get accustomed to it gradually. It is not
well to overload the mind, or overtax the system in
any way, and we would never agree to doing it. So,
my friends, we will take our leave of the subject, for
the present, to return to it at a future day, when we
will enter into fuller details of many things that are
now obscure to you, and about which you naturally
desire better information.
We have given you much in this Essay that may be
serviceable, if you use it aright. We have shown you
how widely different is the God men ignorantly wor-
120 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
ship, from the great First Cause — the originator of all
things. Think for a moment on the utter want of
similarity between the two. One, so earthly, so low,
so undeveloped in His passions, and attributes ; the
other, so wise, so great, so good, and so full of love for
all things — a Being so high, and yet so lowly, not too
great to regard and cherish every tiny plant and flower,
and yet so great that worlds and universes of worlds
are evoked from His thought ! Is He not a mighty
magician, an incomprehensible being, only to be found
in His works, yet never absent from them. Though
myriads and myriads (and yet more myriads multiplied,
till mind fails to follow out the idea) of worlds are de-
pendent on Him. yet He sustains and pervades them
with his spirit. Here, there, and everywhere, God is.
And let Him create, and go on creating, as He is
doing, to all eternity ; still, His spirit will extend to
these new worlds, and His watchful and loving care be
over them. From the fullness of His own love He en-
dows and blesses His creatures. He has no higher
happiness than this. His wisdom creates spheres
and peoples them with organic life, and gradually de-
velops in each one higher and higher forms, till the
man appears. When this climax is reached, creation
stops, but progression goes on, and the love-principle
comes into more immediate action.
When the man is made he must be educated ; this is
not perfected in one, two, or many generations, but,
though unperceived, unfelt, it goes steadily forward.
One after another, some good or some bad quality is
brought to light. If the former, it is encouraged and
nurtured by the love-principle, as much as possible ; if
the latter, the wisdom principle is active to eradicate
it. This is a very slow process, as you are aware, and
means are used to effect it that would not be recog-
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 121
nized on your plane, but of which you will see the
wisdom when you pass to ours. By slow but sure pro-
gression, however, man has now developed up to that
state of refinement and knowledge that enables him to
come in rapport with still higher intelligences ; and
such being the case, more light, and in greater abund-
ance, can now be given to him, and his advance will
be proportionately rapid.
Till very recently, excepting in rare instances, men
were too gross for spirits to approach ; they could not
work for them as they would like to have done. Now,
the doors to the spirit-world are opened, and spirits
can pass through to you ; and, in some few instances,
man can ascend to the spirits. All this is carrying on
the system of progression, designed by the All-wise, at
the commencement. This is the way He takes to spread
the blessings of His love on the countless myriads He
creates. None will be finally miserable. God could
not, would not, have it so. All, however sinful, must
ultimately emerge from their dark prison houses, and
realize the beauty and holiness of the " God-principle"
hidden, but not dead, within them.
To your finite minds, and small perceptions, the
misery and sin on your little earth may seem to im-
peach the justice and love of God. But look around
you and see from what they proceed. Is not man a
free agent ? Has he not always had the power of act-
ing for himself? Has God ever interfered to control
him ? Never. Men have followed out their own de-
sires, smothered the voice of conscience, the God-prin-
ciple in their souls, and oppressed and tyrannized over
each other as inclinations, or brutal passions, led them.
They are now beginning to see this for themselves,
and, also, that in their own hands is the remedy.
They have "sown the wind, they must reap the
11
122 THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS.
whirlwind." But all this was unavoidable, it was
man's development. He may have gone through some
severe trials, but all had their uses ; and when time
shall be no more with him, he will see them. You
could not expect that he should rise to the high stand-
ard he will finally attain without some hardships — that
he could become a bright angel of light without some
purification. Eecollect his origin, from the brutes, the
roots, the granite rock, the mud and slime of the first
formations ; and then wonder not that he partakes of
some of the lower natures he originated from, and
shows them sometimes too plainly.
To avoid, or rather to prevent this ; purity in life and
thought, purity in food and drink, are essential. Confine
yourselves to the more developed plants, roots, and ani-
mal life (if you cannot lay it aside altogether). Let
your drink be the one God has provided for you, and
you will find purity of thought and purpose will be in-
duced by the change of juices you generate in your sys-
tems.
I am happy, this morning, in getting such good control
of our medium, as it has enabled me to say many things
to you that may benefit your bodies and improve your
ideas on various points. We must now take our leave
of you, with earnest good wishes for your progression in
spiritual truth and development, in all the kindly graces
and loving attributes that shall fit you for your onward
march when you enter on the new and untried spheres
that lie before you. Do as much work for yourselves,
as you possibly can, while on your earth-plane ; it is the
place appointed for it to be performed on ; and you
have all the requisites around you to do it properly. If
you defer the labor till you come here, you will bitterly
repent it. The means are not at hand — sometimes unat-
tainable for a long period of time ; and hard, and al-
THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. 123
most impossible, it is for those who put off all their
spiritual development till they come here, to find a way
to rise. Many, many of you, my friends, are deceiving
yourselves with the thought that it is easier to do it in
a future state — " that however dark and miserable you
may be at first, you can bear it, it won't befor long — at
any rate, none are damned ; there is no lake of fire for
you to burn in, and you don't care — finally you will
come out all right, and you are no coward, yon can en-
dure some pain without flinching."
These are miserable sophistries, my friends, and the
sooner you develop out of them the better for you.
Punishment must follow every transgression. On your
earth you may rise above your vices and escape with
very moderate correction — ruined health, temper, or for-
tune. But if you pass over the dark valley, with the
sins of your life still rampant in your souls ; the atone-
ment for them will be entirely different. They will,
themselves, rise up in judgment against you ; showing
forth in their naked deformity, made ten thousand times
more hideous to you, from your spiritual eyes, being now
open, to see them as they are ; for, my friends, in pro-
portion as God is pure and lovely, so is sin -hideous and
impure in His sight ; and His spirit, in you, will make
this inferiority as palpable to the guilty sinner, as God
can make His love and wisdom felt by the purified and
angelic minds of the higher intelligences.
Think of these things, my dear friends of earth, and
delay not to put the axe at the root of every evil and
debasing thought and temper. Try to attain, while you
are yet spared to do it, to the purity and holiness of
life that Christ first came to bring to men's notice, and
which we now come to urge on your serious attention
and practical carrying out. George Fox.
December 18, 18G0.
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, AND THE LAW THAT GOV-
ERNS THERE, AND ON YOUR SPHERE.
The subject on which we are going to treat, is one
that has too little occupied the consideration and atten-
tion of men. They have gone on their way planning,
projecting, executing projects that they considered ema-
nated from their own brains, their own individuality,
when, probably, hundreds of spirits, unseen, unfelt, or, if
felt, disregarded, had labored to impress those ideas,
those projects, on their brains for weeks before. Yet
man considers himself a free agent, and acts as one. He
never, or very rarely, takes the future of his being into
consideration ; he seldom asks himself what is to be the
next state of his existence — where he will go to when all
is ended to him here — for none now can, really, hold the
doctrine that their souls remain with their bodies in the
tomb. But, though men know, and can realize, the fal-
lacy of this teaching, it is only very recently indeed that
any have concerned themselves about the question so
vitally important to you all, viz., if the soul does not re-
main there, where does it go to ? This important query
they have evaded, and put away from them, to the last
moments of their earthly existence, when they could do
so, and left the discovery of the real state of things till
their separation from the body was accomplished.
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 125
Is not this strange indifference in men ? Would )-ou
not say that their eyes must have been blinded to the
truth purposely ? — that some unseen intelligence must
have sealed up their understandings, so that they should
not look into these things ? My friends, it is so. The
lower spirits of the unseen world, who surround you in
mp-iads, forming a dark wall of separation between you
and the higher intelligences, have filled your minds with
fallacious teachings or contented indifference. They
have either made you supinely inactive, or blindly
trusting in the false teaching? they had previously given
to men, by some one or other more susceptible to their
impressions than the generality of people.
This dark body of spirits who environ you, and con-
trol so many of you, in every worldly action, are the
departed from your sphere, who, having lived upon it in
the same thoughtless, indifferent manner that you are
now doing, can progress no higher, but still hover
around the place where they formerly played their part
in life's drama so badly. They remain because they can
not rise, and they must continue to hang around and
influence you, till you, by your own efforts, drive them
away. You are now under their control, but you may
bring them under your's — for we do not say that this
state of things is necessary, if men will work for them-
selves to remove it.
But I would return a little from what I am now say-
ing, and continue on my first observation, viz., that men
are not aware of the influences they are under, and the
control these unseen beings exercise over every action
of their lives.
Men and spirits are possessed of a magnetism that
attracts or repels, as the influences brought in juxtaposi-
tion to it are congenial or otherwise ; and the magnet-
ism of the earth keeps these low spirits round it on the
126 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
same principle. The earth draws this magnetism from
the people ; they impregnate everything with which
they come in contact, and the earth, being a large sur-
face, and negative to them, retains this magnetism of
the people, and acts as a positive pole to the less dense
magnetism of the dark spirits around it.
Now, my friends, it is only by purifying the atmo-
sphere, in your own souls, that you can reform this state
of things. It is only by your earnest aspirations after
a higher and better life than you have ever yet desired,
sincerely, to follow out, that this cloud that hangs over
your fair earth, and helps to destroy all harmony and
happiness upon it, can be dissipated. By this method,
you may draw down, nay, you cannot help drawing
down to you, the higher magnetism of the heavens, to
baptize you with its influence, and scatter the darkness
around you.
The whole spirit-world is regarding, with interest, this
great effort that is now being made, to penetrate to
you and bring you light, by the higher and more intelli-
gent spirits who have left your sphere, but, who can do
little, effectually, till men co-operate with them.
The time is now come for them to work with success.
Some light has penetrated, some few are enlightened,
and can see and feel the importance of the work ; and
this being accomplished, and the darkness dissipated, in
some few places, the openings will rapidly be made
wider ; and the suffering earth, as well as its still more
miserable inhabitants, shall have light and life brought
to them. The poor spirits, too, who have so long hung
around it in hopeless misery, unable to make any change
for the better, in their condition, shall be sharers in the
benefits — their bonds shall be loosed, their fetters un-
bound. Freed, by the action of our magnetism upon the
earth, from the attraction that holds them to it, they
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 127
will be enabled to shake off their fetters, and rise to a
higher, better sphere.
My friends, you little know the sufferings of these
poor spirits. They arc in darkness, isolation, and
slavery, to the sins that they, formerly, indulged in.
They would rise if they could, but this attraction I
speak of, prevents them ; and, being obliged to remain
near, they, reading your minds, and attracted also by
the similarity of tastes and passions, strengthen and
assist you in the gratification of them. As spheres of
light -and holy spirits are drawn by the pure and truth-
ful mortal, so are spheres of dark and unprogressed
spirits attracted by men of the same stamp as them-
selves. The spheres you understand, are the different
kinds of magnetism which spirits draw around them,
and which is determined by their state of progression,
or the reverse. They are drawn, also, by this power to
men's sides, and they influence, and work in, and for
them. If a man strive against the evil spirits, they must
leave him ; for the very prayerful endeavors he makes
destroys their connection, brings him into a different
sphere, and they cannot remain. Should he, however,
return to his former courses, they will come also, for
then, again, he has gone back to his former, or more
probably, a worse sphere.
So you see, my friends, that these outside influences
unite themselves to those bad passions and dispositions,
in your souls, with which they are congenial. They do
no not force themselves upon you, but they are attracted
by you. When they do come, however, they are sure to
make bad, worse ; for they have the same unsated, un-
gratified passions, and they, being no more developed
than you are, and with no means of indulging their de-
sires in spirit life, will eagerly join and assist you in
evil doings. They feel enjoyment for the time, and they
128 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
try to promote the desires in you, they wish to gratify.
Do not blame the spirits, my friends, for this ; they are
no more in fault than you are, nor so much. You have
the opportunity to do better ; you might rise if you
would. They are not so fortunate ; bound by ties, as
of adamant, to your sphere, they cannot progress, they
cannot develop, unless in some rare instances they are
brought in contact with higher intelligences through
some good medium. But you know, my friends, how
difficult this is — how hard it is to bring them even into
the medium's sphere, they are so drawn by this power
of magnetism to their dark abodes.
We do not enter on this part of our subject so fully
now as we might do, but we would say that where me-
diums, good and true, will consent to take this great
mission in hand, they will benefit, not only the poor suf-
ferers, not only their own souls, but millions of people
yet unborn, who may be by this means freed from the
bad influences that, unseen, unfelt, have wrought so much
evil on the earth in times past, and who, at this present
moment, continue their destructive work.
We do not know what our friends will think of the
doctrines we advocate, the teachings we bring ; they
are so entirely opposed to the pride of man, glorying in
his reason, and in his intellectual attainments, fancying
himself next to a God, and daring to question the wis-
dom of the power that brought him, and every other
thing, into existence. But, humiliating as you may feel
it, my friends, you are, in truth, the bond-slaves of your
passions, and the servants of the unseen beings who
work through them. Apparently free, you are, in reality,
tied fast in the fetters of all the sins and vices that ob-
tain dominion over you, and you can only shake off this
bondage by strong and earnest endeavors after a higher
state of perfection, a more developed principle of good
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 129
within you, extending itself into every fibre of your
being. When you do this, either singly or collectively,
good results will soon be observable ; change of heart
will produce change of life, and the sensual, the debased,
the miser, or the sluggard, will cast off his vices as the
serpent his skin, and appear clothed anew ; the same, to
outward seeming, but in reality entirely different.
We now enter upon a new branch of our subject,
namely ; the reason why these influences are permitted
to work with man ; sometimes for his benefit, but, far
more frequently, for his detriment. The laws that gov-
ern the different universes, all emanate from the same
fount of wisdom and knowledge. One rule works in
and through them. This may be called " the lata of
Compensation" Each one derives from another its ex-
istence, each one is dependent on another for its sup-
port, after it enters into a state of being. The same
rule holds good through every department of creation,
till we reach up to the Great unseen cause of all, who
designed and carried out His conceptions. As every-
thing, in nature, may be traced to another being for its
origin, and its support is also drawn from some source
foreign to itself, so, every living, sentient being is in-
debted to some others for like benefits, and a claim may
be said to be established upon them. Men and spirits
are under this law in a more strikingly obvious manner,
than inanimate objects ; they can, from their superiority
of conception and the larger proportion of the God-
principle implanted in them, see and feel their indebted-
ness to their antecedents. But men do not often see
that this rule works two ways, and that they may owe
to them the many evils and diseases that afflict them ; the
vices and debasing passions, the lust for money, station,
power ; as much as the more noble parts of their natures.
The vices and crimes that now so debase men in thoir
130 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
developed state, were not vices and crimes in the animal
kingdom from which he originated.*
These are the laws that govern you ; man must pro-
gress if he wishes to rise, if he stands still he retro-
grades. This law of compensation is what draws the
dark spheres of spirits around your earth. They sinned
while in the body ; they offended the higher light im-
planted in them, by their misdeeds. They did not follow
on in the law of progression as they might have done, as
they had abundant means of doing ; and the law of Com-
pensation forbids them to leave this sphere and its sur-
roundings till they accomplished what they should have
done on earth. It is true that they, by remaining round
your planet, increase your difficulties, and make it a far
more arduous task for you to develop out of your vices,
but this is a part of the same law, and must be sub-
mitted to. From the world, on which they played their
parts so badly, must they get the means of escaping
from their prison. In various ways they do this, and
new ways of escape are now being revealed to them.
Hitherto, these dark spirits have been attracted, by you,
for the sake of gratifying their passions, or stimulating
in you the tempers they delighted to indulge in while
here, but, now they most frequently come for light and
deliverance.
*But man, when developing from that state, was endowed with
higher and finer sensibilities, with nobler, more God-like attributes.
He was not left unassisted to attain his present position and future
eminence 5 power was given him equal to his necessities, faculties
were implanted, principles were instilled, and he was the recipi-
ent of enough of the God-principle, or soul, to enable him to do all
that was required of him by the law of Compensation — that is, he had
enough of light given to enable him to do all that was required of
him. It was not so bright and defined in him) at first, that he could, at
once, cast off the animal and become the man as man should be, but it
was there, ready for him to develop its beauties by slow or fast pro-
cesses, as he might be led.
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 131
The spiritual excitement, at present creating such a
u shaking of the dry bones" among you, has extended
to them, and they begin to see a way of escape from
their drear abodes. Progression, development, is being
sung among these poor lost ones as well as among you,
and with far more earnest anxiety on their part to be
made recipients of the blessings. We, of the higher
spheres, are laboring for them as well as for you of
earth ; but, we cannot so easily reach them, because
their darkness is a far greater obstacle, it being pro-
duced by the condition of the spirits themselves who
flee from our presence, unable to endure our light. We
have, however, other means of reaching them, and these
are principally through some of their own society whom
Ave have been enabled to benefit through mediums, and
whose delight it is, after they have received some light,
to return to the dark spheres and preach deliverance
to their fellow-captives. These missionaries, in the
cause, can penetrate much near to them than higher in-
telligences are able, because they are not themselves
too light to drive them away.
The reason why the magnetism of a high spirit causes
the poor dark ones to flee from them, when they ap-
proach, is that its light makes them not only miserable
but ill. Now, my friends, this law of retributive jus-
tice works for all alike. Precisely as a man sows, so
shall he reap. If you should say, why, he cannot
help himself, he must sow just as the spirits make him.
I should answer, yes ; he must, indeed, follow their
leadings. If he yields himself a slave to his passions,
he will be led on from bad to worse, in the way he has
chosen, and spirits will help him to his ruin. But if, on
the contrary, he aspires to higher and better things, if
he keeps the rein over his desires, and never permits
his passions to guide him. If he seeketh after wisdom,
132 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
and cultivateth the higher part of his being— the God-
principle, instead of the animal — spirits will still guide
him, still influence — rule him, if you will : but what kind
of spirits will they be, think you ? Surely not the de-
based loathsome kind that would be attracted to the
former character ? No, my friends, high and pure in-
telligences will come to him and dwell with him ; they
will lead him on in the path he has chosen, unseen and
silently, may be, but not the less beneficial and ele-
vating to him. They will never leave him, never for-
sake him, so long as he continues true and faithful ' to
himself; and they will be the first to welcome him to
the mansion he will have prepared for himself, eternal
in the heavens.
So does this law of compensation work through all
things. It extends its ramifications through all parts
of creation. Good produces good, evil is followed by
evil. Shall a fount, at the same time, send forth sweet
water and bitter ? Neither can one do good who
willeth to do evil.
We, my friends, have now enlightened you, somewhat,
on these hitherto hidden mysteries of your being. We
have shown you plainly, I think, how the laws in re-
gard to spirits work among you. We have made you
clearly understand, that though man is apparently a
free agent, he is, at the same time, a willing slave.
We have shown you that, though he is subservient, now,
to his vices and passions, and the uDseen stimulants of
them, which he draws around him by his want of self-
control and self-knowledge, he might free himself en-
tirely from these influences, and, in their stead, draw to
him the higher and holier spirits of the unseen world,
who are waiting, only, the opportunity to come in unto
him and dwell with him. These high powers cannot
approach men without something to draw them. They
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 133
require the earnest aspirations of your souls to go forth
for. light and purification. And, when the prayers of
men ascend for these blessings, they will never fail to
be answered. But they must work as well as pray ;
they must resolutely strive with themselves ; wrestle
with their inmost and most unsuspected failings, as
also with those more palpably evident. To draw these
holy spirits to them, they must, themselves, be pure.
Men cannot accomplish this change in one month or
two, but gradually they will find themselves progress-
ing, and as they rise, in their inner life, to higher stand-
ards, nearer and nearer will they draw the Holy Spirit
of God, given through us, His instruments, to them.
The light in their souls, so long dormant, will find its
congenial surroundings, and the man will become har-
monized and sanctified, while yet on your earth-sphere.
Thus you see, my friends, that, although you are not,
in reality free agents, there is no reason why you
should not make yourself agents for the good, instead
of the bad influences that surround you. You are free
to choose who shall be your masters, and we would en-
treat you to use your privilege aright. By doing so,
the benefit is not confined to yourselves, it will extend
far and wide ; as will the evil, if the reverse is the
case. Men may think that they have some injustice to
complain of as respects the' bad influences by which
they are surrounded. But I think, my friends, if you
will look into the subject with attention, you will not
find it is so. From the first, man has been in posses-
sion of the soul or God-principle within him, just the
same as now. Every child is endowed with it, indi-
vidually, before he enters on your earth-life, and in
the same ratio will it continue to be given to men.
When man first received the boon, he could not ap-
preciate it as he now does, or should do ; and, being
134 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC,
less enlightened, less was expected from him. He had
less to be responsible for, consequently, when he passed
from your sphere, the sins he committed, though per-
haps more cruel and brutal than yours, did not reflect
themselves back to him in the dreadful deformity they
would assume in your more progressed state of being.
Less was expected from him. The laws of compensa-
tion require only in proportion as they give. These
ancient races have a long stage of advancement to go
through after leaving your sphere, but they are not, for
their crimes, compelled to remain around it and in-
fluence men now. No, they have long passed on into
another state, and are going through their higher de-
velopment separate, and distinct, from your earth.
But, gradually, my friends, after these first denizens
passed away, changes in the nature of men, climate,
and animals took place. There was more refinement in
everything, and men could feel, and know, that they
were better, nobler, than the brutes. Then more was
expected from them. They had received more light
and development, and they felt, and knew, there was a
difference, a right and a wrong in men's actions. Then
it was that conscience came into more direct sway ; this
internal monitor could make itself heard, and, through
its teachings and promptings, men might have learned
much, but, as in your own day, my friends, they put
away the light from them ; they preferred gratifying
the animal instincts of their natures, though this light,
that had dawned into their souls, told them they were
wrong. But, though they might stifle conscience, they
could not prevent the compensation that followed them
after they left this sphere. In proportion as they had
received light, so they must receive punishment for dis-
regarding that light. Still, my friends, these early races
were not so hardly dealt with, by themselves, as you now
ON THE- SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 135
are. They were more enlightened than the first inhabi-
tants, but they were far behind you in development, and
their punishments, though severe, are ended, and they
have passed on to another sphere to complete their
education, if I may so say.
After the light of conscience had been given to men,
they began, gradually, toreason and inquire into subjects,
more with reference to their origin, than any which had
yet occupied their attention. From these questionings,
in their rude style, they gradually deduced the fact that
some superior power, or powers, had made their world
and them. They could not get a correct idea, but, in
some instances, their notions on this subject were far
from despicable. They made a god, in their imagina-
tions, like themselves — fierce in his wrath, terrible in his
displeasure. They feared and bowed down to the being
of their fancy; their consciences told them they were
often guilty of sins ; their idea of a God told them they
must be punished for those sins. So they created altars,
they offered sacrifices to this terrible being, and tried to
appease his wrath in a manner they thought most conge-
nial to him. Mistaken they were, in their conception of
his character, and their mistake has more or less tinged
all the ideas men have formed of Deity down to this
late day.
When men had found out, by their intuitions, that
there must be a power outside of themselves and of
their earth, it was easy for them to multiply it into
many — to worship it under as many different names as
they counted its attributes. So, many deities arose, and
almost every division of the earth had its separate, and
distinct, God or Gods.
We have, here, given a rapid summary of the state of
the earth, in general, previous to the time of your early
records, but with some of the nations who had pro
136 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
gressed much farther than the others, we shall enter into
further details. Man's advancement has been slow, al-
most imperceptible to himself, but, by looking back into
the abyss of time we can mark its steady onward march.
You can see for yourselves, however, by examining the
commencement of the eras from which you date, how
much improvement there has been, even in that short
period of time ; and, by that, you can form some judg-
ment of the antecedent epochs. He has slowly, but
surely, ascended the hill of progress, both mentally and
morally ; physically, also, he has not retrograded. He
may not, now, possess the strength and gigantic propor-
tions of his ancestors of the tertian era, but he is far
more refined and nicely proportioned in his organiza-
tion than he was then. Size is not a criterion of devel-
opment. The harmonious arrangement of all the con-
stituent parts is much more to be desired, and in this
way man is becoming more and more perfect. He has,
now, in some races, attained to a high standard of
refinement bodily, but his moral standard has not kept
pace with his physical. He is yet very low on the
plane of wisdom and love. The God-principle has sunk
almost into desuetude, while he has been pampering
and indulging the more perishable parts of his forma-
tion, and it is time for him to awake from his lethargic
state and seek to elevate his soul also.
The people who immediately preceded the Chinese,
etc., were tolerably developed from the animal. They
were capable of inventing, and forming many useful
and interesting means of diversifying their existence.
They had not, at the first, learned the importance at-
tached to a separation of the sexes, that is, for a union
of two together ; but they had found clothing a neces-
sity ; they had, by their increased refinement of living,
and habits, generated a finer and more delicate cover-
OK THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 137
ing ; their skins were fast losing their hard consistency,
and their hair was now confined, more directly, to the
parts it at present occupies ; they began to feel the
effect of summer and winter, and the comfort a coat of
skins could impart during the latter seasons. When
once accustomed to clothing, from necessity, they con-
tinued it from choice. The garments they had worn
in winter, to protect them from the cold, naturally in-
creased the delicacy of their own bodies, and substi-
tutes of a lighter kind replaced the skins, as the seasons
changed. This comparative refinement led to other
luxuries. Shelters from the tempests and storms, the
wind and the sun, were discovered to be wanting —
something pleasanter than caves and hollow trees might
be adopted. So, those more ingenious than the rest de-
vised little huts. Some made them of clay, some from
the branches of the trees, just as they were led. In this
way, the idea of living in pairs originated. When
they had made these little homes, they were not large
enough to accommodate more than two or three in-
mates. Naturally a male and a female went together ;
naturally they attached themselves to each other, and
resented any interference in their domiciliary arrange-
ments : and, in this simple manner, originated the pre-
sent developed state of the matrimonial institution, and
the less important, but more absorbing practice, called
dress.
From the description I have given you, my friends,
of the state men had progressed to after so many, many
ages, you will see how slowly the work goes on, and
you will also see that the ignorant races of that period
could not be held responsible, as you are, for the sins
they might commit. They had not the light and know-
ledge you have, and they were judged accordingly.
The law of compensation requires only in proportion
138 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
as you receive. These, comparatively uninformed and
yet intelligent beings, had souls as you have, and after
passing from this sphere they were placed on another
planet, and with more refined natures and attributes
they continued on in their development. There were
differences in the distribution of gifts bestowed upon
them. As they had acted, on your earth, up to their
highest light, or the reverse, so were they happy, or the
contrary, in their new state. Their advance in refine-
ment and development was justly proportionate to their
conduct here. But, as they were gross and sensual,
more animal, I mean, than the present inhabitants of
earth, they, when they left the body, assumed a denser
and more substantial form, in their next abode, than men
now do ; and their future was not of the same kind as
regards rewards and punishments, that are awarded to
men now, in their more enlightened state.
Having, ray friends, brought man down to the period
when civilization may be said to have commenced, L e.,
when the human animal dressed himself and took a
wife, we will now proceed to show you something fur-
ther of the workings of our law.
You can understand, that, so many ages elapsing
while these changes were slowly passing over mankind,
and the earth also, which shared in the improvement;
many new ideas slid quietly into being — or rather were
silently evolved out of the more progressed minds of
the few, and were adopted by the many. The East was
the most rapidly developed into the knowledge of those
things that constitute the basis of civilized life. The
races of men there had more intelligence, as the climate,
soil, and vegetable life were all favorable for their de-
velopment. The animals were gentle, endowed with
instincts and resources in themselves, and they had been
undisturbed by the many upheavings and convulsions
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 139
the world had undergone in various parts. For these
reasons man came into existence there, under the most
favorable auspices, and his advance was in proportion
rapid. The Chinese and the Japanese have been long
laughed at, by the wise savans of the west, for their
boasted antiquity as a people, and pretensions to su-
preme knowlege. But, my friends, men too often laugh
at things they know nothing about. The antiquity they
claim is theirs ; the knowledge of many things was theirs
ages and tens of ages before the people of Europe had
emerged from brutal barbarism.
They could manufacture; they knew the use of the
silk-worm, the tea plant, the compass, the rotation of
the spheres around them ; they made their delicate
china, their rich silken fabrics, their beautiful carv-
ings and inlayings in ivory and wood, long, long be-
fore the Christian world came into notice.
They and the Japanese may claim the earliest civi-
lized antiquity of any nations on the face of your earth.
Together, yet asunder, they progressed. Their isolation
has been the result of fear ; their timid natures were
first startled by the hordes of uncivilized savage tribes,
who, after the lapse of many ages, invaded their terri-
tories. War was a new thing to these poor people,
and they knew not how to resist the strength and
fierceness of their invaders ; but their indomitable in-
dustry conceived, and executed a project which is almost
incredible. They, finding that they could not repel the
attacks of their foes by force, built the immense wall
that still remains a striking monument of their perse-
vering energy.
The Chinese and the Japanese have now reached a
period in their history when, other parts of the world
having overtaken them in the march of progress, isola-
tion is no longer possible or profitable for them. For
140 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
their further advancement, in higher light and better
knowledge, it is necessary that many changes should be
made, many lives be sacrificed ; but, when the present
turmoil that distracts that country is appeased, new
teachings, new doctrines will be heard among them — a
new era of progression will commence, and the Chinese-
and Japanese (for both will be included), shall have a
higher and holier light to guide them than they have
yet had. Their moral and spiritual standards shall be
exalted, they shall go on with the rest of the nations up
the hill of progression, and share with them the better
and more ennobling teachings we bring to men. When
they shall receive this higher light, this wisdom from
the heavenly fount, then, a new standard of punishments
and rewards will come into action for them. Hitherto,
their moral plane has been very low, they have de-
prived themselves of the benefits that have accrued to
the world from the teachings of Christ and other re-
formers. [See Note.] Since the time of Confucius they
have received no new teachings, consequently they have
been, by their condition, under a different law to what go
verns the more enlightened nations. Their heaven is
not the Christian's heaven, neither are their punish-
ments as severe ; for, many things that you have been
taught from your infancy, and for centuries back, they
are quite unacquainted with.
Note. From their scornful, and at the same time suspicious and
timid, feelings with regard to other nations, they have excluded them-
selves, as long as possible, from contact with them.
We told you, in the former part of our Essay, that the Hindoos of
antiquity were as different from the present inhabitants of that coun-
try as the African from the white man. There was no reason why
the races should not intermingle and improve by the admixture. Be-
cause men have chosen to set up different names foi different races, it
does not follow that they are correct. The Caucasian race, so called
by you, is really the mixed progeny of the Hindoos, and another de-
OX THE SPIRIT WOULD, ETC. 141
We will now leave the Chinese and the Japanese, and
proceed to the Hindoos, the next race that made itself
a name on your earth. This interesting people did not
make their appearance till many ages after the former
ones. Their country had many violent convulsions be-
fore it finally settled down in its present quiescent state.
These convulsions were all good for it ; they purified
and rarified the strata that was thrown uppermost, and
the mountain ranges that bordered it on the North, and
cropped out in bold relief in some of the southern parts,
generated a climate good for the development of the
higher and more intelligent parts of the man ; his physi-
cal and his nx>ral system soon assumed a more human
velopment of the monkey, very similar to the class from which the
Hindoos had originated at an earlier date. The special type of mon-
key is cot now in existence in those parts, as it naturally merged into
man.
Take into consideration, my friend, how very slow the process of
development from one specie3 to another is, and you will see that the
progressed ape would not be so far removed from the unprogressed
ones as to cause a separation. One would naturally learn from ano-
ther, and so, by slow and imperceptible degrees, the change would
come. When the necessary advance had been attained, and reason could
take the place of instinct, then, the Divine principle, or soul, could
enter, and the ape become a sentient being. I do not know that we
can say anything more on this subject to satisfy our inquiring friend.
Why two races of men, originally from the same type of monkey,
could not intermingle, and improve by the admixture, I do not under-
stand. Cannot the Chinese and the Americans amalgamate, and would
not they bear fruit differing from both stocks ; perhaps no better, in
such case, as regards the American, but certainly an improvement on
the Chinese. And yet they were from entirely different species of
ape, and developed from them at widely separate periods. If the
rule works with them, why should it not with the ancient Indians and
the more recently developed race with which they intermingled ?
It worked well, my friends, for it produced, as I before said, people
more intelligent, beautiful, and skillful in all the arts and refinements
of life, than had previously existed. The Hindoos, left to themselves,
have gradually degenerated to what you now see them ; idle, inoffen-
sive » beings if let alone, and cruel, revengeful and treacherous, if
142 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
type, if I may so say ; his ideas were more elevated
than his Chinese neighbors ; the magnificent mountains,
the luxurient products of the soil, the gorgeous plumage
of the birds, even the ferocious qualities of the animals,
tended to excite in him feelings of elevation and grand
conceptions of the Deity, from whom all these emanated.
Is it not wonderful, my friends, how nearly this old
race approached the truth in its conceptions of the God-
principle ? Is it not also wonderful how men, having
got hold of so much light, could let it go again ? But
we must proceed more methodically, and try to trace
cause and effect to their source.
At the period at which we have now arrived, man
aroused. Some few, among their higher classes, retain a little know-
ledge of the teachings and faith of their remote ancestors, mingled with
much alloy ; but progression has ceased among them, and, both bodily
and mentally, they are in a state of decay. Those of them who mi-
grated to Egypt rallied their energies, and, for a time, made great
progress. Sciences and arts flourished among them, though they never
attained to the refinement and elegance of the Greeks ; still they were
a mighty and industrious people, and the ruins of their enormous tem-
ples and tombs are their lasting witnesses.
These nations, together with the Babylonian, have been almost
swept from time's records, while the hardy descendants of these mixed
races, we spoke of, having long since overtaken these older ones in
their onward march, have steadily ascendod the hill of progress to this
time. They have had to mix their blood, in more than one instance,
with uncivilized hordes of later development ; but it has not in-
jured—rather assisted in their progress, after a time.
The barbarians of northern Europe were from a high type of the
monkey species ; they were, from the colder and more arid localities
in which they dwelt, necessitated to endure hardships, and exert their
intuitional faculties. The temperance of their habits, and the cold-
ness of the region, brought into existence a fairer and more robustly
developed man than the more tropical regions, and the benefit to the
race was great when they intermingled with the southern tribes. But,
my friend, I can say no more on these subjects ; let it be a matter of
thought for yourself. You have now got hold of the thread ; do not
let it slip, but work out these ideas in your own mind.
Signed, John.
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 143
had made his appearance in different portions of the
globe. The Occident, as well as the Orient, had its re-
presentatives. True, they were not so advanced on the
plane of progression, but they were approaching to that
state which soon merges into civilization. Tho old in-
habitants of your Western Continent were no whit be-
hind their Eastern brothers in their physical endow-
ments. They were a hardy and intelligent race, and
soon formed for themselves surroundings that would
not have disgraced your more civilized time.
These denizens of your Western world lived for
many ages in unalloyed peace and prosperity. They
cultivated the arts of civilized life to considerable ex-
tent. Many inventions were known to them. They
worshiped a God of Love, and they inculcated peaceful
and humane teachings. The old sculptures, that now
remain to you, are of later origin and by a different
race ; one that sprung up in the more Northerly parts
of the country, and, having discovered their more peace-
ful neighbors, carried war and destruction among them ;
finally, extirpating them as a nation, and almost annihi-
lating them as a people. These events occurred during
the same period of time that the Hindoo sages had car-
ried their people far up the hill of progress, and had
erected for themselves a stupendous theory in regard to
God, which still remains to testify to their wisdom and
advance in knowledge.
After the Hindoos had made considerable advance in
knowledge, a change came over the people ; they sent
out colonists to various other parts. Egypt was one
of these selected locations, Greece was another, Persia
and Assyria, also, were colonized by them. They were
themselves a numerous race, highly intelligent and en-
terprising, and they extended their inquiries and re-
searches far and wide.
144 ON THE SPIKIT WOKLD, ETC.
To you, my friends, who look upon the down-trodden
degraded inhabitants of India now, these things may
seem incredible. But you must remember we are
speaking of a race as different from them as is your
white man from the African negro. They had not so
long developed from the animal, and had sufficient
energy for every project. They were highly endowed
with reasoning faculties, and they had sublime and
poetical ideas of their God and his surroundings.
This intelligent people, removed to Egypt, soon
adapted themselves to the peculiarities of the country
and climate of the land of their adoption. It did not
take them long to form correct observations as to the
extraordinary overflowing of the Nile, and the succeed-
ing fertility. When they had become accustomed to
this phenomenon, they took the best means to make it
subservient to their purposes. They watched the
Heavens, and arranged the stars in clusters to suit
their ideas ; they noticed, with care, what particular
phase the Heavens bore when the rising of the waters
occurred ; and after careful and diligent comparison, one
year after another, for a long period of time, they
classed their clusters of stars under different figures or
devices, appropriate to the different seasons when they
appeared in the firmanent.
The twelve signs of the zodiac were thus called into
existence, typical of the twelve portions of the year
when they appeared in the zenith ; and the rest of the
starry heavens were also classified and arranged under
different names by these wise men.
Having found out the exact period of time it took
for the different constellations to perform their annual
round and return to them again, they easily determined
the duration of a year.
One important thing they failed to discover. They
OX THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 145
imagined that all these bright luminaries revolved
around their own little sphere. They were mistaken
in this, but how much have all succeeding races been
indebted to them for what they did find out and be-
queath to them ?
My friends, these Hindoos, so intelligent, so devel-
oped, were the great pioneers of knowledge and civil-
ization to the world of the East, setting aside the Chi-
nese and Japanese. The whole European and Asiatic
continents owe their present state of development to
them. And, looking from whence the Anglo-Americans
of the northern continent, and some parts of the south,
sprang, may we not say they are equally indebted to
them ? It is indeed so . From India, the cradle of
civilization, enlightenment first emanated.
The Hindoo sages had comunion with higher sources
of intelligence than other men. They were so elevated,
so spiritualized, that they could draw down wisdom
from higher spheres. Their purity and simplicity of
life, separate from the noise and confusion, the dis-
cord and wrangling of lower natures, their isolated
dwellings, generally in elevated and mountainous re-
gions, gave them every opportunity to develop into
those mediums, for higher truths and more ennobling
teachings than had previously been given to men.
Do not suppose that in those early ages, of which so
few records remain, their wise men practiced the aus-
terities and mutilations that are now so often used
as a pretence of sanctity. No, my friends, they were
as the fathers and guardians of their people ; they
lived among them a simple pastoral life, inculcating
pure and lofty teachings among the many, and trying
to bring all into the same peaceful, elevated condition
they had attained to themselves. Under the sway, or
146 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
rather under the paternal care of these wise fathers of
the nation, the people were happy and contented, pro-
gressing in knowledge as well as in love.
But a time came when a stop was put to all this,
when men began to wax proud, arrogant and assuming
— lording it over their weaker brethren. They got
tired of the wise and paternal rule of their elders, and
determined to make a name and station for themselves.
So, to prevent further troubles, their sages proposed
that they should emigrate and colonize some other more
remote region. The proposition was well received,
and Egypt was the land selected by the first body of
adventurers. Disturbances still continuing, other par-
ties left their homes and settled, first in Greece, after-
wards they directed their steps back again, but reached
no nearer than the country you now call Persia, where
they located. Assyria was colonized in the same man-
ner, for the spirit of discontent had gone forth among
the poor Hindoos, and a change was to take place. It
was for a good purpose eventually ; but in the march of
progress individuals and nations must always suffer.
The disturbances that had affected such changes
among these, hitherto, quiet inoffensive people, did not
end here. The remaining inhabitants became discon-
tented with the simple rule under which they had lived
so happily. They wanted something grander, more
imposing ; they would have temples — palaces. Their
God, whom they had so long reverenced in sublime
simplicity, must have a home to dwell in, great as their
ideas of Deity. They had also learned that He was to
be feared as well as loved ; so they must appease Him
with offerings and sacrifices, more or less bloody, as they
were more or less guilty. Then were excavated the
famous temples of India, so long a mystery to the
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 147
learned. They were grand as the conceptions of a
people could make them, who had in their souls the
remnants of a far purer creed.
Men have often speculated as to the comparative an-
tiquity of the Egyptian and Hindoo ruins. The ques-
tion may now be answered. Both nations were of the
same origin, both originally of the same pure faith.
But both, after the lapse of ages, degenerated in their
belief. They lost their first love, and went after idols.
Conscious of their many derelictions from the spirit-
ual faith they had so long known, they invented other
and easier, at the same time, more magnificent and gor-
geous, modes of worship. They also built colossal tem-
ples, and imaginary deities were installed in them with
solemn pomp ; but the pure faith of their fathers was
still retained by some few who loved those higher teach-
ings, and it was from one of these faithful followers of
the old Brahmin creed, that the Israelites were de-
scended.
Abraham, the friend of God, so much misrepresented
in many of his acts in your old records, was this person.
Full of faith and good works, he had seen the decay of
the pure and holy religion, he professed, with heartfelt
sorrow. Himself a Hindoo, originally, but by birth a
native of Mesopotamia, he had followed out the teach-
ings of his people in all their purity. Himself a me-
dium, he could hold communion with the Angel-world,
and from it he got comfort and strength. Promises
were made to him for the future, as well as the present
time. The seal of Circumcision was ordered to be put
upon his descendants, that they might be known as a
distinct and selected race, to keep up the worship of the
one God, and be the cradle in which to nurse the seed,
that should in time bear fruit in Jesus Christ.
Abraham, an enlightened and far-seeing man, under-
148 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
stood and appreciated the blessings bestowed on him-
self and his posterity. He followed the direction of
his spirit-guides. His child was circumcised, his future
wife was selected for him from some of his old Hindoo
relatives, settled not far away, and as yet free from
idolatry. Isaac, also, endeavored to carry out his fa-
ther's teachings. He, too, tried to find wives for his
sons, guiltless of this crime. In Esau's case, he failed
entirely ; but Jacob still respected his ancestors' faith,
and married descendants of his own nation, though, as
afterwards shown, one of them had fallen from the pure
faith of her fathers, and preferred the idolatrous one of
the surrounding Nations.
We have now, my friends, finished our account of the
Hindoos for the present, and we will only add that this
wise and developed people have long passed away from
your sphere and its surroundings. They do not inter-
fere with the law of Compensation that obtains now.
Theirs, at one time, might have been designated as the
Golden Age upon your earth, for they were a happy,
enlightened, peaceful, and intelligent race ; and they
have long since progressed to higher conditions. You
may say, " all could not have been equally good, or else,
why any discord, any necessity to emigrate ?" True,
my friends, some discordant spirits were, after a time,
permitted among them, and they stirred up elements of
strife and contention. But good, you see, came out of
evil. Population, knowledge and civilization, were
more widely extended than they could have been, had
the Hindoos of antiquity always retained their old
boundaries, as the Chinese and Japanese have done.
While the former have been the civilizers of a good
portion of the world, the latter have gone on, for cen-
tury after century, neither advancing themselves, nor
benefiting others.
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 149
We shall now proceed to another branch of our sub-
ject, viz., the introduction of the so-called Caucasian
race into existence, as a people. They had, long before
the time at which we have now arrived, developed from
the animal ; but as they had made little further progress
than the most barbarous nations of your present epoch,
they could scarcely be considered as entitled to be
classed among the civilized. Their origin was not quite
as remote as the Hindoos ; they were, indeed, according
to your computation of time, far later in making their
appearance. Their physical development from the ape
was favorable and rapid in its progress : but, for a long
period of time, they remained in ignorance of most of
the arts of civilized life. They were warriors and idol-
aters, before they were anything further. Their rude
conceptions of Deity were far below the standard of
the wise Hindoos, or even of the Chinese and Japanese.
Stones, rocks, etc., images of clay, hideous to behold,
were fashioned by them, and servilely adored with
bloody and obscene rites. They appeased the wrath of
their monster God, with sacrifices, the most revolting
and the most outrageous to the feelings of a human
being. These savages became, in time, pests to the sur-
rounding people — they multiplied and waxed strong in
iniquity. Their sons and their daughters were offered
up to their idols, and barbarities, the most atrocious,
Were practiced upon them.
Then came a time when the law of Compensation
came into more perceptible action, so that even the bru-
talized natures of these untaught monsters, learned that
there was an unseen power that could not be always
outraged with impunity. As their development was
low, and they more like children than the men of your
day, in intellectual attainments, so their punishments
had to be apportioned to suit their capacities ; and the
150 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
instinctive fear of death, by drowning, or some other
frightful calamity, was called into exercise. They were
surrounded, by floods of waters, terrified by the internal
convulsions of the earth, and rendered frantic in their
despair of escape. This dreadful calamity destroyed
many of them ; but the remainder, grown wiser by the
teachings, endeavored to profit by it. They reformed,
in some degree, their vicious practices. They tried to
civilize and amend their condition. The convulsions
which had scattered them, had also brought them into
nearer proximity to some of the more developed races.
The great centre of the inundations was in Arabia, and
the parts of Asia Minor bordering on, what you now
call, the Black Sea. For some distance East of those
waters, did the floods and earthquakes extend, and con-
sequently drove the savage inhabitants of those parts
into the regions peopled by the Hindoo colonists. From
them they gradually acquired the knowledge of many
arts, tending to civilize and reform them ; and, being a
hardy and industrious race, they soon made themselves
masters, not only of their arts and knowledge, but in
many parts, of their country and persons, almost extir-
minating them from the earth, in some localities.
This mixed race, or Caucasians, as men call them,
were more immediately the progenitors of the present
population of southern Europe. They migrated there as
they increased in numbers and knowledge, and founded
the different dynasties of old. The Grecian, the Mace-
donian, the Persian countries were all inundated by
these enterprising people, and the peaceful Hindoo set-
tlers had to succumb to the superior strength and power
of their half brothers. In some parts it was not so much
a war of extermination — rather a gradual amalgamation,
and where this happened the highest types of beauty and
manly development were the result. The graceful and
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 151
lithe Hindoo mingled his blood with the hardy for-
eigner, and both were improved by the admixture. The
refined intellect of the one was able to work with more
vigor, when sustained by the vitality and energetic force
of the other. And so originated the race who may be
said to have called forth, in its highest earthly type, the
God-principle, latent in all human beings.
From the time of the flood, which scattered and amal-
gamated these races of men, we now proceed to show
you that the law of compensation has been at work.
Before that time the most intelligent men were judged
by a different standard ; as they had not yet attained to
a sufficient development for these laws to come into
effect. They were, as are the American Indians and
the savages of the Isles, and of Africa, tried and judged
by a- law adapted to them. Some were taken to finish
their development in a different sphere, some to the hea-
ven of their conceptions — the happy hunting-grounds —
where added light has been given them ; and they are
blessed in their degree. The Chinese and the Japanese
are not to be held accountable by the same law that
obtains with you ; neither are the poor fallen Hindoos.
They will be held responsible to a law adapted to their
state. They have all had their own Christs, their own
teachers, and according to their light will they be
judged. But, as I said before, the law of Compensa-
tion came into force, in respect to civilized men, when
this latter race, having united to the Hindoo colonists
in different parts, began an era of progression that has
been going on steadily from that period.
But, my friends, you must disabuse your minds of the
idea that there is the same standard for all. It is well
for you to realize, that, just in proportion to the light
you receive, will you be judged. The savages of Africa
will not be responsible by the Christian's standard ;
152
but, if you bring them to your country, and educate and
civilize them, of course more will be demanded of them.
So it has always been. Justice, and love, and wisdom
rule in all the earth ; call it what you please, there is a
law of Compensation working throughout the universes,
and that law regulates all things and all people ; but the
law is applied to different parties in different ways, and
it has its particular bearings, in separate and distinct
forms, for the Christians, the Mahometans, the Pagans,
the Savages — one cannot interfere with the other.
With regard to the Christian world, with which we
have now more immediate concern, we would wish you
to understand us clearly. When God impressed Abra-
ham to separate himself from his idolatrous surround-
ings, and endeavor to preserve the worship of the
Eternal in its sublime simplicity, a higher order or
standard of right and wrong was commenced with him.
As he and his people lived differently, believed differently
to their neighbors, so were they to be judged differently.
As they had more knowledge of the true God-principle,
their rewards were to be greater, if they lived up to the
standard given to them, or they were to be proportion-
ately punished if they failed to do so.
From Abraham's time has the same law of Compensa-
tion obtained among his descendants, gradually increas-
ing in its requirements as they developed more and
more into light. When Christ came he raised the
standard far higher than it had ever been before, and
extended the light of his teachings to other, and far
distant, lands. Men of other races had sprung up and
made so much advance in knowledge that they could
realize the superior beauty and holiness of his concep-
tions of life. They received them gladly, and by so
doing came under the same law that governed the
Israelitish people. So it has gone on, my friends, to
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 153
the present time ; every new nation or people you bring
into this faith comes under this law, and will be judged
by it.
And now, my friends, further advancement must be
made. A higher and holier standard must be erected
among you. Hitherto, your religion has consisted more
in forms than realities — in looking after the stray sheep
of other folds, rather than in cleansing your own.
Your desires and aspirations have gone abroad among
the heathen, who have a law of their own by which they
shall be judged. And you have almost entirely neglected
yourselves, and the poor down-trodden and more de-
graded brothers and sisters of your own enlightened
creed. These, my friends, require your first care, and
then you can extend your sympathies with more freedom
and justice to other benighted ones. But, till reforma-
tion has done its work at home, in your own lives, and in
the condition of your humbler classes, do not go abroad
to heal. The purification must be within yourselves,
in the first place, for as you have more light, more
knowledge, consequently you have more penalty for
sinning.
My friends, another very important part of this sub-
ject remains yet for your consideration, that is, the state
of your departed. From the time of Abraham the spi-
rits of the departed Israelites were judged by a different
law to other nations. They were acquainted with the
right, in a degree, and if they did not live up to their
knowledge they were, as spirits still are, in darkness
and misery — proportioned to their sins. They had to
develop out of them the same as spirits have now. The
only difference was, their knowledge being less, their
standard was lower.
Previous to the time of the flood spirits had gone to
other spheres and developed there. A new era was
154 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
inaugurated, as we may say, with it, and they were
compelled to remain around their former abode, and
progress out of their sins, as best they could, if they had
neglected to do so while here. This law has continued,
and will continue to work, as it now does. If men
" leave undone what they ought to have done, and do
that which they ought not to have done," they must
bear the penalty. They all have to develop, and if
they will not do it in this sphere they must in the next
they enter, and then it will be far more difficult. The
spirits who surround you could bear sad testimony on
this point, were they in a condition to make themselves
heard as they could wish ; but, unfortunately for them
and you, those who suffer most can say the least. They
are not in a state to return to you and teach you by
their sad experience. But you may learn from what we
have now tried to explain to you, the importance we
attach to the reforms we are endeavoring to inculcate.
The unfortunate departed, as well as yourselves and
your unborn children, are equally interested in the
result. As you cast off the vices and pursuits that
have so long bound you captives, you will install a new
era upon your earth. Sin will flee away with your
hidden tempters; high spirits, with purer light and
holier teachings, will take their place; and not only
bring health and comfort to the sick and suffering on
your earth, but the poor world itself, truly cursed by
man's guilt, shall be redeemed from the bondage it has
so long lain under, and burst forth in renewed and
added beauty.
The prophecies of Isaiah shall be literally fulfilled.
" Instead of the thorn, shall come up the fir-tree ; and in-
stead of the briar, shall come up the myrtle ; and the lion
and the lamb shall lie down together, and all flesh shall
rejoice.7' We may not have given our quotation quite
ON THE SPIRIT. WORLD, ETC. 155
correctly, but you can understand its drift. Our mean-
ing and his meaning, though he was not, when he wrote,
conscious of it, is this : That as the earth is now suffer-
ing and diseased by the constant bad magnetism she is
receiving from the human family, she cannot bring forth
her products in the perfection, nor with the facility she
would do, were she under better, healthier influences ;
and this law extends to the animal and vegetable king-
doms ; they, receiving nourishment and support from
the great mother earth, are tainted and injured from the
same cause. The law extends even to your atmosphere.
You have so darkened it over by your sins and vices,
emitting, as they do, such unwholesome taint, that men,
of purely spiritualized minds, can scarcely exist in it,
and only low and undeveloped spirits can endure it.
But with man is the remedy. He can, by cleansing him-
self and his surroundings, benefit and improve all that
is wrong. He can change the condition of earth, air, and
spirits, if he will only set himself faithfully to the work.
Many a poor, unprogressed spirit is thrown into deeper
darkness by coming in contact with the impure of
earth ; whereas, had he been kindly and wisely treated
when he had, with pain and difficulty, made his way to
you, he might have found light and peace, and have be-
come a blessing to his benefactor, who developed him,
or to spirits, suffering as he had been.
These things are not well understood among you, my
friends, at present ; but pray for more light, and more
shall be given. The bright spirits of the higher spheres
are watching and working for you, when a chance is
open to them. But do you not see how hard it is for
them to reach you ? If they do approach, some unholy
desire, some bad passion that rules in you, attracts to it
spirits of its own class, and the higher influences are
shut off. Men must work for themselves, if they expect
156 ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC.
high spirits to help them. They must crucify the flesh
with its lusts, cultivate the affections, and seek to rise to
a level that will bring them into rapport with the
powers above, who can aid them so efficiently.
If men do not choose to make this effort, spirits will
have to take the work into their own hands. The earth
must be relieved, and the light of the higher spheres
must penetrate to do this ; for, though great may be the
power of low spirits, the power of the higher ones is in-
finitely greater, and they can do what they purpose.
No power of man, or spirits of the lower sphere, can
stop them in their work. . But they would that man
should aid and assist them, as by so doing, much of the
misery and ruin that must fall on individuals, would be
averted. The times are rife for change. Excitement
marches at this epoch ; all feel that something is im-
pending. An unsettled, unstable feeling is abroad, and
no man seems to know what a day may bring forth.
This, my friends, is the work of the spirits ; they have
stirred up these elements of change. The world is now
in a very similar, though more developed condition, to
what it was at the time of the fearful punishment we
have alluded to. Vice reigns supreme. Injustice and
oppression bear sway, and the people have forgotten the
teachings of their beautiful creed — the religion of
Christ — and are worshiping Mammon, luxury and de-
grading vices in all forms. When things have pro-
gressed to this pitch of iniquity, a change must come.
The atmosphere must be cleansed of such pollution, and
a scourge will be found to punish the guilty. We write
not this to affright, but to warn ; let each one, while
there is yet time, examine into his own case, and then
try to amend what is wrong in himself. Much good
may be done in this way, even now, though the evil is
ON THE SPIRIT WORLD, ETC. 157
too wide-spread, for the punishment to be evaded alto-
gether.
We have now, my friends, brought our Essay to a
close. Loose and disjointed you may, at first sight, con-
sider it ; but when you have read and pondered on it
with care and attention, you will see that all parts have
a bearing upon our subject. The last mentioned, but
not least important point introduced, is the punishment
now impending over your people, and which will, I fear,
prove to vou the workings of the law of Compensation
in its most disastrous form.
John the Apostle.
January 8th, 1861.
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
The subject of this Essay,, namely, the mission ot
Christ in this His second coming to man, will be a
theme which will, we think, interest and excite atten-
tion in the minds of all who study this important sub-
ject. So many contrary opinions are held in regard to
the personal attributes and station of this divinely in-
spired character, and also in respect to His re-appear-
ance on your earth, that we think it may be well to
give you some clearer insight into these things than you
now possess.
Men have gone on for so many ages disputing and
contending as to the claims of Christ to superior, or, ra-
ther, to Divine origin, that they have quite lost sight of
the object of his coming among men on the first occasion.
And they are now grown so skeptical and wise in their
own conceits, that He has been reduced to the plane of
the commonest mortal, in their estimation, and the
promise of his second appearance considered as a myth.
But, my friends, mankind have been greatly mistaken
on these points, they have overlooked many important
facts, when they have reasoned on these subjects.
Because some errors and discrepancies had crept into
the Old Records, through the mutations and changes
of all earthly things, it did not necessarily follow that
some parts were not genuine, and that a truly spiritual
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.' 159
seeker could not discover those parts. The first mission
of Christ to your earth was, really, foretold by the Seers
and the Prophets of old. The promise was given to
Abraham when he was lamenting the backslidings of his
people ; it was renewed to Isaac and Jacob in a special
manner ; and all through the Old Records glimpses and
promises of a some one, who should redeem them from
their sins, were scattered. Think you, my friends, that
all this was without purpose ? That there was no good
end in view 1 That the Hebrews were deceived by the
promises and fallacious hopes excited ? No, my friends,
these assurances were all to be fulfilled, but in a far
different manner to that which the Jews expected ; for,
notwithstanding all the teachings and punishments they
had received, they were a worldly and ambitious race ;
and they looked for a Saviour to raise them, in the eyes
of the human family, to power and grandeur. They
could not receive the spiritual teachings, the exalting,
purifying doctrines of Jesus. But, because they could
not do so, did it make his lessons of less value and im
portance to the world at large ? By no means.
The Jews, though they knew it not, were working
for the spread of truth when they persecuted and drove
its teachers from among them. As the Hindoos in
ages back had spread civilization and refinement by
their discords and contentions, so did the Jews by their
hard-hearted unbelief cause the Gospel of truth to be
more widely disseminated.
Men act, and think they are free agents, but even
their evil deeds are made subservient to good purposes
by the All-wise Disposer of events. The same may be
seen now among you, my friends ; the evil passions of
men are stirred up ; war and bloodshed must follow ;
ruin and desolation must fall upon many ; but good will
be evoked from the evil, and wide-spread benefits to
160 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
mankind, in the aggregate, will be the result. Were
there not a wise, superintending Power to order all
these things, you might indeed fear when such times
occur. But convulsions of this nature are necessary
to cleanse the moral atmosphere, occasionally, and man
rises purified and benefited, from his punishment.
The mission of Christ to your earth, so long foretold,
so anxiously anticipated by the Jews, was not an ordi-
nary one, neither was it ushered in without many signs
and manifestations. The accounts in your Bible, though
garbled, are mainly true. A star was seen in the
heavens to guide the wise men of the East — descendants
of the old Hindoos. Spirits did appear to the shep-
herds, and many other phenomena indicated that some
unusual event was in progress.
Many spirits have tried to explain the nature of
Christ's coming to you, but they have failed to give you
the right idea ; it remains to be seen if we can convey
it more perfectly. That he was not born into the world
by the same process that man usually is, we do not
mean to affirm. That he was the child of Joseph and
Mary, to all outward aprearance, is also true ; but
laws ruled in the conception of Jesus that obtained in
no other case. Joseph, the reputed father, while in the
trance state, had his place entirely supplied by the
Holy Spirit, or heavenly magnetism ; so that only the
God-principle, unadulterated by his animal nature, had
any part in the conception, so far as Joseph was con-
cerned. (See Note.) Mary was herself unconscious of
Note. We would wish to make ourselves clearly understood in
what we have said regarding the birth into the world of Christ, our
Head. Men have much to learn and much to unlearn ; the pride of
human reason must be abused, and they must understand that there
may be some things that are past their comprehension while in this
finite state. One of these things is the real character and present po-
sition of Christ. He was truly " God with us," as he was conceived
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 161
the act until afterwards, when it was revealed to her by
the spirits. She could then realize the nature of the
charge she bore, the sacred burden she carried. Christ
was indeed truly born of this virgin. Though unconscious
to themselves, Joseph had been made the instrument for
conveying the God-principle to her. The power of the
Holy Spirit was made manifest to these two people, and
they understood what had occurred, and rejoiced with
exceeding joy that this great blessing had been brought
to man through their instrumentality.
The persecutions and troubles of Joseph and Mary,
in the fullness of the God-principle. He was " the light that was to
lighten the world." How was He all this ? Only, as He was more en-
tirely pervaded with that essence of Deity that rendered Him almost
a part of God Himself ; and which fullness of Deity was conveyed to
Him at His conception, when the animal passions of both parents be-
ing at rest, during their entranced state, the necessary process of gen-
eration was accomplished free from lust, and with nothing to con-
taminate or interfere with the God-principle, and the life-principle
then and there deposited, to form the nncleus of a being that was in-
tended and designed to be superior, in all the higher attributes, to the
people of Israel, or any other nation.
He was pre-ordained, by Almighty wisdom, to be the Saviour of men.
His first work was accomplished when He expired on the Cross. His
second mission is in progress ; and its fulfilment may now be looked
for. Christ is not God. Neither is he equal with God ; for that is an
impossibility. But, at the same time, he is the highest created being
that has ever been developed on your sphere: and to Him we all look
as our King and Head, our Leader and Director, our Teacher and Guide,
in all we undertake for. m2n's benefit. Why do we do this, you will
say ? Why not look to Deity himself? Simply because Deity has put
all these things into His hands. He is the appointed Messiah of the
world, and fitted for His high office by His superior development in all
wisdom, love, and knowledge — the peculiar attributes of the Deity.
It may be startling, and perhaps mortifying, to the pride of some of
you, but it is a fact, nevertheless, that He is the only God you will ever
see. He is the nearest approach to Deity you will ever come into
rapport with. But if you have understood our teachings aright, yon
will have already learned that the God-principle will always remain,
as it now is, an unseen, though ever present power, from which Christ
162 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
during the childhood of the infant Jesus, were caused
by the knowledge, all the Jews possessed, that the time
had arrived when they were led to expect a Messiah.
Some part of the people were displeased that He should
come in so humble a guise ; others dreaded that He might
deprive them of temporal power. These contending,
selfish influences, caused the necessity there was, for
Joseph to remove, for a time, with his precious charge
from the country.
My friends, we have gone into this explanation of the
first Advent of Christ on earth, that you may the better
understand His true character and mission. Men have
Jesus our Lord, as well as we His followers, derive our wisdom and
happiness. When I speak of Christ, as the Ruler and Director in
heaven, I wish you to understand that we refer to things relating to
your earth, and the means necessary to take, in order to redeem it
from its present bondage to sin and suffering.
We do not refer to the gift of Holy Spirit, for that must come from
the Divine Originator of it ; neither do we refer to punishments and
rewards in a future state. They, you have now learned, will be ad-
ministered through yourselves, by the law of Compensation. But
Christ is, and has always been, the guiding and directing power in the
war He has so long waged against sin ; and He draws wisdom and
strength for His work from the Deity, who so liberally supplies the
wants of all who apply to Him. Therefore, my friends, confound not
your minds by trying to make all harmonize with your old teachings,
either of one kind or another ; but tiy to realize to your own benefits
what we now bring you.
Though Christ is so high and so good, so powerful, and yet so full of
love for the whole human family ; though He was specially created to
reform and improve the condition of men ; still, He is not God. He is
not to be worshipped as Deity, but He must be ever loved and
reverenced by His faithful followers who have received so much good
through Him, and who see his constant and untiring efforts to benefit
and redeem the people of earth — a work which He will never cease to
carry forward till all are brought into the true light of God's Holy
Spirit. East and West, North and South, from all quarters shall the
darkness ©f error and superstition be done away with, and true light,
and love, and peace, shall be the inmates of every bosom.
John the Apostle.
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 163
grown to undervalue, too much, the records they possess
of Him. His divine nature is scouted, and His holy teach-
ings disregarded ■ but this should not be. Think you,
my friends, that so much preparation would have been
necessary to herald a mere man into your sphere?
Truly, no. The need was great for something higher
and nobler to visit and redeem the poor human race
from their degraded condition. The promise had been
made to Abraham and others, and in this way it was
worked out. You may think the benefits were not in
proportion, but you must bear in mind the gross dark-
ness that had to be dispelled, and also how short a time
it is since these things happened.
Changes, like those Christ advocated, do not take
place in a lifetime or in many ages. Reform is a slow
process, especially when it attacks the cherished desires
and feelings of individuals and nations. To you, my
friends, who now know something of the power of the
unseen world, and the many ways in which it can influ-
ence and guide men, the birth of Jesus into the world,
in the way we have described, should be no subject of
cavil or doubt.
You see many things daily occurring among you,
equally incomprehensible to the unenlightened man,
which to you are perfectly simple. If mediums can,
now, be developed to heal — to speak words of wisdom
beyond their own capacity of conception — if they can
use divers kinds of tongues, and give all kinds of tests
and manifestations from another world, simply because
they are possessed of a peculiar kind of organism that
renders them adapted to these purposes, and even able,
sometimes, to receive the God-principle largely within
their own souls. Think you there was any impossibility
in conveying through two such good and holy people as
Joseph and Mary, mediums as they were, the full influx
164 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
of this Divine Essence to the infant Jesus, who was to
be the Messiah of his people ?
Means must always be used to produce an effect. Jf
the human family required a teacher of higher righteous-
ness and purer truths, than they had yet realized — if
they had progressed to that stage of development, when
the aspirations of many souls went up for light — was it
not to be given to them ? Do men ever really seek for
help in vain? No, my friends, the world had then
arrived at that state foreseen, by Divine wisdom, as the
effect of man's gradual progression.
The time was come that prophets and seers had fore-
told, and a new era of development was to be inaugu-
rated on the earth. Simply, and unostentatiously, was
it commenced. The mother, listening to the wisdom of
her child, and treasuring it in her heart, is the first
result of Christ's teachings. Beautiful and suggestive
idea! She, who had borne contumely and scorn for
Him, was the first receptor of the benefits He came to
bestow. You know little, my friends, of the early life
of our Master and Teacher. It was not spent, as many
suppose, in working at any trade, but in holy meditation
and prayer for that further light that should fit Him for
His mission.
You, many of you, now say He was only a medium.
This is not correct. He was, truly, a Medium, but such
an one as you can little conceive of. From His birth
He had been filled with the Divine Spirit of God. He
was, while yet on earth, in constant communion with
the angels. When He retired to meditate and prepare
Himself for His work, of which He was fully conscious,
wisdom was poured down upon Him in all its fullness.
The Spirit of God lived in Him, and His earthly nature
was entirely subdued by its power over Him.
I would here say, my friends, that you, also, may con-
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 165
trol your earthly natures, in like manner. It is possible
for you to have this Spirit of God living and acting in
you, in the same way it did in Jesus. You have the
development of nearly nineteen centuries to aid you, in
addition to all the wise and beautiful teachings Christ
left for your use. And you must not say in your hearts,
" He could not sympathize with me, for He was never
tried as I have been." How know you what trials He
went through, what developments He passed over?
He was human, at the same time that He was so imbued
with the Spirit of God ; and it was to subdue His hu-
man passions aud tempers, and develop the spiritual,
that He spent so long a time in solitude, before He ven-
tured to give His high teachings to the world.
When He did come forth in His purified and exalted
state, no trials or troubles could move Him. He had
learned His lesson fully ; He perfectly understood what
was in men, and what was required of Him to teach
them. He made no extraordinary parade, no effort to
attract attention ; but a word in due season, dropped
here and there, were the first seeds sown, of the Gospel
that was destined to bear such abundant fruits. Men lis-
tened, with wrapt attention, to teachings so different to
what they were accustomed to receive from their Scribes
and Pharisees. The simplicity and practical utility of
His moral lessons, so easy to follow, and so capable of
producing the best results, struck them with admiration •
and multitudes soon waited on him, to listen to his
words.
The wonderful power of healing he possessed (but
which, my friends, will be the gift of every medium,
truly spiritualized ; that is, of every one through whom
the Spiritual Essence from God can flow,) attracted all
the poor sufferers and cripples to His side, " and He
healed them." These last, simple words speak volumes,
166 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
did you but realize, my friends, the great power of the
Spirit that must haye been in Him. You cannot see as
we do, at present ; and when you think of your own
healing mediums, you may be led to imagine Christ act-
ing as they do. But it was far otherwise. His power
was from a far higher source ; He had the Holy Spirit
direct from God, and His very presence carried a balm
and consolation with it. The heavenly magnetism He
threw off, bore relief on its breath, and men felt, not
only purified in spirit, but better in body, from contact
with Him.
It is not necessary for me to go into the details of
Christ's first mission to men ; your Testament, though
incorrect in some unimportant details, gives you a faith-
ful picture of His life, as far as it is recorded ; and
enough of His teachings to make man wise unto salva-
tion, if he only followed them out in the true spirit.
The last scenes of His earthly career, there related, are,
also, tolerably well described. He suffered the utmost
indignity and cruelty the hard-hearted and unbelieving
Jews could heap upon Him. He was spit upon and buf-
feted, and the pains of His crucifixion enhanced by
every indignity they could devise. But how little could
they really affect, with all their malignity, the purified
and spiritualized soul of the blessed Jesus. His suffer-
ings and death were necessary to convince the world of
the truth of the teachings he had brought to it, and for
which He willing laid down His life ; but the immor-
tal soul, the spirit, could not be affected by them. It
rose superior to every trial, and buoyed up by its own
conscious integrity, soared above all the malice and
cruelty of men, rejoicing, rather, that its work being
now accomplished here, it could enter into those more
congenial spheres with which it had so long held sweet
communion.
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 167
Jesus, the high and pure teacher of the Jewish nation,
and of many others, through them, entered into the
place prepared for Him. Where, my friends, think you
did he go ? Far away from the sphere he had so faith-
fully performed His appointed work upon ? No. He
was too good, too earnest far man's redemption, to lose
His interest in Him when He had left the scene of His
own labors. As He came here, more fully and divinely
filled with light and wisdom, than any other man, so
when He passed from your plane, He took His allotted
place high among the heavenly hosts, the acknowledged
Leader, Governor, and Director, of the spiritual affairs
relating to this earth.
Other spheres have also their great controlling
power, that guides and sways their movements ; but we
do not wish now to enter into this subject, but merely
to say that from the great God-principle, the fountain
of light, all wisdom, as you know, emanates, and is
given to each and all as they desire it. Christ, from
this fountain, derives all the wisdom, love, and know-
ledge He possesses ; but He has drawn from thence so
much more largely than any other human being ; He
has made so much more of it His own — first, by His
sympathy and devotion to the cause of humanity while
on earth, and, since His ascension to the higher spheres,
by His continued exertions on their behalf ; that He, by
right of His superior wisdom, love, and knowledge,
takes the lead in heaven in this reformatory movement
that is now coming to redeem the earth, in a more tho-
rough manner than men have the least idea of. He is
the acknowledged Head, to whom the lower intelligences
look up with love and respect for guidance. He con-
trols all the forces that are brought to battle against
sin and suffering ; and as His power and majesty are
great, and greatly to be feared by the wicked and im-
168 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
penitent sinner, so is His love and kindness to the hum-
ble and truthful seeker after good, ready to be poured
out in all its fullness and abundance.
My friends, we are now entering upon the main ob-
ject of our Essay, namely, to show you what is the
second coming of Christ — so long foretold and looked
forward to by His followers. This important event
was evidently expected, in all sincerity, by the immedi-
ate disciples of Jesus to be very near at hand in their
day. They, like you, sometimes mistook the spirits'
teachings. They could not understand time, as the
spirits did, who have no reckoning of it ; and who,
when they said He would come again quickly, thought
not of the interpretation that would be put on their
words by the human family. But, though periods of
time may appear, almost endless, when men look for-
ward to them ; slowly, but surely, they pass away, and
the time has now, indeed, arrived when they may see
the coming of Christ is nigh at hand.
But think you, my friends, He will come with loud
and noisy demonstrations, terrifying the people with
thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes, as emblems and
symbols of his presence? No, my friends, be not
alarmed by prognostics of such events ; the coming of
Christ will be very different to this, but far more tan-
gible to human reason.
It is to the hearts of the people of earth that his
appeal will be made. Consciences that have slum-
bered long will be awakened. Justice will be aroused
in bosoms that have too often slighted and neglected
its calls. Pity will be excited. Sympathies will be
stirred up, and love, the supreme and universal love for
mankind, shall find an entrance into every bosom.
These are the manifestations that will attend Christ's
second coming to earth. These are the effects that
ON THE SECOND COMING OP CHRIST. 169
will mark his progress. Deeds of violence and blood-
shed may be enacted before that time. Men may be
humbled and prepared by suffering to receive him, but
all the calamities that threaten to overwhelm this na-
tion and others, will work out an end commensurate
with the good that is to follow. Men are now, as a
general thing, so well satisfied with their condition, that
they do not desire or wish for a change ; but, when
they have been tried by calamity, and find all their
fancied supports failing them, and that even their
boasted faith does not bear them up under their trials;
then will they be glad to receive into their hearts the
spirits' teachings. Then can the power of Jesus work,
and Holy Influence find an entrance into their previ-
ously darkened souls.
Jesus the Christ will send His messengers to prepare
the way before him ; nay, He has already done so, and
they have found entrance into some hearts open to re-
ceive them. He is sending more and more daily, as
men can accept their teachings. Soon He will himself
take the field in person, armed for the conflict with the
light of love, wisdom, and knowledge, from the great
God himself. Men cannot yet bear the light of His
sphere, neither could they receive his exalted teachings
in their full extent. But, gradually, as the darkness is
cleared away, and the minds of the people get magnet-
ized with the love and wisdom we bring, higher and
purer light will be pressed forward, and the darkness
of error and sin must flee before it.
We cannot, my friends, make you see these things
exactly as we could wish, because your minds are not
yet sufficiently developed in spiritual knowledge to un-
derstand the workings of spirit power ; but you can un-
derstand quite enough to show you that Christ's second
mission is also a mission of love to men ; and, that though
170 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
much suffering is necessary to awaken the inhabitants of
earth from their lethargy, the suffering and sorrow does
not proceed from any source but themselves. Man has
himself evoked into being the state of affairs that now
exists, and from which he will not be relieved till he has
experienced much necessary punishment. But, when a
change does take place, when the more perfect rule of
harmony, love, and justice, obtains among you, then you
will look back upon these times of trial and suffering
with joy and rejoicing ; realizing, as you will do, the
blessings you have received through them.
My friends, when men think at all of the second
coming of Christ to earth, they imagine a dreadful day
of reckoning and a sorting out among the people, of the
good from the bad, the redeemed from the unregenerate,
and that Christ, as a stern and uncompromising Judge,
shall sit on his throne, and sentence the wicked to ever-
lasting condemnation. This erroneous idea has been
fostered somewhat by a few passages in the New Testa-
ment, erroneously given, and probably inserted, after the
record was written, to assimilate the teachings of the
Christians, more nearly, to the pagans who believed in
the eternal duration of punishment. Be this as it may,
we cannot look into that subject now, neither is it requi-
site for our purpose to enter into these old disquisitions.
The true teachings of Christ are there, in all their beau-
tiful simplicity, high enough for the wisest sages to dwell
on with rapt attention, simple enough for a child to un-
derstand and practice, if it is rightly trained. But this
is a digression, I would say that the misapprehensions,
regarding Christ's second coming, have had their origin,
in part, from passages in the New Testament, wrongly
given, or inserted after it was written ; and in part, also,
from the bias of mind of the old Fathers who compiled
the records, and tinged them with the superstitions
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 171
ironi which many of them had just emerged. Christ
himself never gave utterance to such an idea ; he was too
enlightened, too full of the Essence of Divinity to be-
lieve, for a moment, that eternal punishment would be
the doom of any, however guilty ; and, my friends, while
I would have you reverence and carry out His teachings
in your lives, I would advise you to read the Old Books
with judgment and discrimination ; taking what is good
and worthy to be followed to your own souls, and trying
to live up to the teachings ; but wisely drawing the line
between the good and the evil contained in both Testa-
ments. Much of error got mixed in, in regard to this
second coming of Christ, as I said, and men have specu-
lated in a very self-righteous way on the subject in con-
sequence.
How many thousands have left your earth, wearing.
as they thought, the bridal garments, and prepared to
meet the Lamb, through sanctification by his blood, who
have found out their grievous error when too late to
rectify it ! No, my friends, they only are prepared to
meet the Lamb, or Christ, who have, like him, purified
and sanctified their own spirits. No imputed righteous-
ness of Christ or saint can save or assist a man ; he
must be his own redeemer. But then, my friends, he
may get help and. strength from saints and Christ, and
from the Deity also, to assist him in his work, if he seek
for it in the right way.
Christ Jesus is not coming, and never will come to
Earth, in a personal form, to judge and condemn any ;
but he will, by the power given unto him from on high,
come into the hearts of the people and judge and con-
demn there. He will open each individual's eyes to see
his own naked deformity of spirit, and He will give him
the means of curing his diseases, by showing him how he
may reform and improve himself.
172 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Development has been a slow process, hitherto, be-
cause of the difficulty there was in reaching the human
family through the darkness that surrounded them.
But it will be less and less difficult every day, and more
and more light will be brought down to aid men in this
necessary work. Many will rise from their low sur-
roundings, their impure thoughts, their unholy callings,
without any apparent cause ; a change will come over
them, and they will wonder why they are so different.
Others will be brought to see the light by trials of vari-
ous kinds ; loss of friends, of wealth, of station, of all
that they most valued. A gradual softening of the
hearts of the people will evince the presence of some
power foreign to themselves, silently working among
them.
After its effects are become more perceptible, and
men begin to entertain a different feeling for each other
— when the rich man can regard his poor neighbor as a
brother, and treat him as such, not coldly passing him by,
regardless of his condition — when, by the help of your
mediums, the sick and suffering shall be relieved, and
peace and plenty shall again bless your land — then, my
friends, shall the power of the Spirit of Christ, and the
workings of His sacred mission to earth be more fully
revealed to you ; its effects will then be manifested, and
daily shall men realize them more and more. Earth,
air, and sky, shall rejoice together, freed and purified
from the load of sin, and misery, and oppression, that
had so long kept them in slavery. Birds, beasts, and
fishes shall share in the jubilant song of joy. Vegeta-
tion of all kinds shall improve, shall flourish in luxuri-
ant abundance, relieved from the bad magnetism that
the sins of men had so long oppressed it with, and now
watered with the choice dews of a purified sphere. To
you, my friends, who can realize only the ills that op-
ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 173
press you, this may appear only poetical rhapsody, but
it is simple truth. You have never known, till now,
how wide- spread is the curse that sin brings upon every-
thing connected with it, and you cannot, with your finite
minds, comprehend the amoimt of evil, men's vicious
and indulged passions have generated. But you may
form some little idea of it, when you consider how long
and how devotedly Christ and his followers have
worked, trying to bring their light to you, through the
dense blackness of darkness you have formed around
the earth by your misdoings. Now, however, it is pen-
etrated, and a breach having been made, the hosts of
Heaven rush in armed for the conflict. Doubt not, my
friends, but that they will be victorious. With such a
Leader, and in such a cause, they cannot fail. Their suc-
cess is certain, their triumph is sure. Pray ye, my
friends, that they may come quickly ; assist them in this
way. Let your aspirations go upwards, and let your
deeds be in accordance with your knowledge of what
Christ comes to enforce.
Many will be cut down in this coming conflict of your
people with each other. Many will suffer worldly loss.
But if your hopes are fixed on high, if your desires are
for the better and purer light of truth that Christ comes
to reveal to man, you need not fear the approaching
struggle for earthly power or human rights. You have
a hope higher than the earth ; more sure and steadfast
than anything on this transitory plane ; and which no
changes, no disasters can deprive you of.
We have now concluded what we wished to say to
you on this important subject, and with the nature of
Christ's second mission, we shall close our work for the
present. Read and digest, my friends, the words of
wisdom we have conveyed to you. Let them sink into
your souls, and nourish and sustain your spirits in the
\ approaching time of trouble. There is, in what we
174 ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
have given you, food suitable to all ; none need go
away empty or unrefreshed, if they will come and drink
at the fountain of knowledge and wisdom we have
poured out for them. My friends, despise not the say-
ings of this book ; they have come to you from the
sphere of spirits who are now working with Christ
Jesus, for your benefit, and they have made use of this
instrument, truthful and unbiased, by the opinions and
ways of the world, to convey to you teachings it is now
necessary you should receive, that you may understand,
more clearly, the workings of the unseen hosts that sur-
round you, and assist their efforts in every possible way.
You may have received, heretofore, many wrong and
erroneous teachings from the unseen denizens of the
lower spheres, for they were, and are, permitted to work
for a time. They have their use. When that is accom-
plished, they will cease to trouble you with their con-
flicting opinions. But, my dear friends of earth, you
must now look for something higher and better. You
must press forward in your high calling, and let nothing
short of the truest wisdom, love, and knowledge satisfy
you in what you receive, and in what you aim to arrive
at, in your own souls. Then, my friends, how blessed
will be the commuuion that the saints of earth will hold
with the spirits above. Purified and elevated to their
standard, while yet in the bodjT, they will walk and talk
with the angels, and draw down, from their spheres of
wisdom, new food for delightful contemplation. But it
is almost too soon to enter into this high theme, so few
men are prepared to receive it. We must now take
our leave for a time, of the medium, and the pleasant
task we have been mutually engaged in — trusting, soon,
to commence another labor through her, which, we
doubt not, will be as faithfully performed,
John the Apostle.
January 13, 1861.
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