MR SCRIMGEOUR IN REPLY.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2256, 30 July 1870, Page 2

MR SCRIMGEOUR IN REPLY.

To the IjUtoy of the, Evening Star. Si n, —I Lave no desire ho be drawn into a newspaper controversy with your correspondent “ Veritas ” about “ his ” so-called Spiritualism. If your correspondent had been present at the lecture he seems so much concerned about, he would then have learned that 1 engaged to lecture to the members of the Institute on a specific subject, and did so to the best of my ability. The subject on wlnch I lectured is known and designated throughout the whole learned world at this moment as “ Spiritualism, ” and to my certain knowledge is doing a vast amount of mischief at present in our community—far m.ore than many who might be supposed to know better, seem to be at all aware of. Mapy of the doctrines of the system on which I lectured, ajpd statements and illustrations selected from the writings of the most distinguished expounders, are jujpbled together in the most extraordinary way possible, by disciples of “spirit-rapping and table-turning,” in letters to the da ly press, and in the fly-sheets so industriously circulated amongst ns, as if these parties believed the two subjects were one and the same ! The former system has a principle running through it, all its laws are clear and well defined, and its literature in general (its teaching apart) of a high character, and there arc? few subjects more fitted to brace the mental faculties and lead to close thinking, than a careful study and analysis of the whole subject, and

on that ground alone, though on no other, it was a suitable subject to discuss before a “ Mutual Improvement Society.” And now, what shall I say of the so-called Spiritualism of the “ spirit-rapper and the table-turner”? To attempt an analysis of its curious incidents—to refute them or ridicule them —would be to acknowledge the weakness of human reason, and the insecurity of our common faith. In order to form a just idea of this system, we should study its development in different countries, and under different articles of faith. It should he looked at specially as it manifests its l -If in ithe United States of America, where it utters from a thousand tongues blasphemous inspirations, and hurls its victims in hecatombs to the halter of the suicide or the cells of the madhouse.

The word by which the thinking principle is designated in all languages, bea r s evidence to the inveteracy of the superstition, that the conception of mind might he formed by conceiving a material substance of extreme fineness and tenuity. Many things have conspired to keep this fanaticism in life. The supposed visibility of ghosts, for example, helps it considerably ; and it is still further strengthened by some of the amusements of the day—such as “Clairvoyance” and ( rirdih’.'postcri ) “ spirit rapping.” These are much worse than the worst form of the doctrine of materiality, These alterations betoken a perverse and prurient play of the abnormal fancy—groping for the very holy of holies in the kennels running with the most senseless and God-abandoned abominations. Our natural superstitions are all bad enough ; but thus to make a systematic business of fatuity, imposture, and profanity, and to imagine all the while that we are touching on the precincts of God’s holy spiritual kingdom, is unspeakably dreadful The horror and disgrace of such proceedings were never even approached in the darkest days of heathendom and idolatry. It is a system which makes shattered nerves and depraved sensations the interpreters of truth, the keys which shall unlock the gates of heaven, and open the secrets of futurity, and inaugurates disease as the prophet of all wisdom - thus making sin, death, and the devil the lords paramount of creation. Oh, ye miserable mystics ! bethink yourselves of the backward and downward course which ye are running into the pit of the bestial and the abhorred, and knew that all God’s truths and man’s blessings lie in the broad heath, in the trodden ways, and in the laughing sunshine of the universe ; and that all intellect, all genius, is merely the power of seeing wonders in common things. This is all I have to say in the meantime to “Veritas,” and to all w r hom it may concern, anent the subject of my recent lecture. I am, &c., IIOBT. SCRIMGEOVK.