DR. COPLAND’S LECTURE.

Evening Star, Issue 3140, 13 March 1873, Page 2

DR. COPLAND’S LECTURE.

To the Editor.

Sir, —As Dr. Copland is going to favor the public with another lecture, explanatory of the phenomena of Spiritualism, it would save him much trouble, and save his audience equal disappointment, if he would say plainly what force or law there is in nature, which anybody knows of, which will account for the appearance ■of materialised spirits or ghosts—the Doctor appears to feel that there is nothing outside of ordinary natural law in the entire philosophy. Now, there is overwhelming evidence—that of living witnesses, of unimpeachable sanity and veracity, to be counted in vast numbers all over the world-proving, if human testimony be worth anything, that such forms, within the last twelve months, have been seen, felt, and talked to, and have, in their turn, seen, felt, and conversed with the said witnesses, not in the dark, but in the light. This, too, not coming and vanishing like a shadow, but remaining for a length of time till all present were interviewed with and were satisfied. In a London periodical one of these materialised spectres is reported to have allowed a spectator to take a pair of scissors and cut off and keep a part of her—the spectre’s—robe, which part was materialised for the purpose. The piece of cloth, or whatever it was, was sent to several of the drapers’ shops in London to be matched, but nobody could tell what it was, or where it could have been made. Dr. Copland will please not treat his patient as he found him seventeen years ago, but as he now is. Ido not vouch for the manifestations referred to, but I would say this, that there is immeasurably more and stronger evidence for maintaining that they and the mass of spiritual marvels are true, whatever be the cause of them, than any one can show for believing in the spiritual manifestations of the Jewish and Christian eras. Will the Doctor dispute that? I think not. Tflen, I should conjecture that, just in this little circumstance, lies hid the reason why his brother clergymen have not countenanced the stand he now takes in trying to explode the Spiritual theory. In the same measure as he saps the foundation of modern Spiritualism, he saps the foundation of that higher and Divine system which is the life of the world, and which has expressly predicted that in the latter (presumably our) days, such a light or such a darkness would overtake the world. Whatever natural law will account for and resolve into a myth a modern ghost, will very handily dissipate an ancient one, and might be bent, without great difficulty, to dissolve or appear to dissolve all our best hopes of a future “iu thin air,”—l am, &c., e W. C. March 12, 1873,