SPIRITUALISM.

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

SPIRITUALISM.

To the Editor.

g I R ( While thanking you for the uniform impartiality with which you treat correspondents of adverse notions and theological theories, will you allow me to say that, though somewhat conversant with the spiritualistic literature (?) of America, I do not remember having seen or heard of the “ two books” (referred to by Dr Dunn in the lecture delivered by him in the Queen’s Theatre, on Sunday evening, the 23rd hj eb. last) written by Professor Hare, against Spiritualism. As others appear to be quite

as ignorant of the matter as myself, will the Doctor have the kindness to give the names of the said books to Mr Wilson, or publish their names through some one of our journals ? Aii'l as he pretentiously deli ncs “ Spiritualism proper” to be “the simp'e fact of communing with spirits,” will ho permit me to enquire if lie considers our New Zealand Maoris spiritualists ? They believe in communion with spirits (see “ Old New Zealand,” pages 138 and 139). What a spectacle, by the way, it must have be n in Maori war-time to have seen one cannibal spiritualist eating another! And then there are those African negroes, known as Obeah-meu, who, by the use of “obies,” converse with spirits. Are they really spiritualists ? Does the Doctor, in his vociferous efforts, speak of these as his “brethren of the faith,” residing in Ethiopian lands? Moreover, according to accredited writers, some of the polygamy-practising Mormons of America believe in communion with spirits, by the aid of which they profess to prophesy and heal the sick ! Are these also spiritualists ? As these are enquiries of vital importance at the present time, it is presumable that the Doctor, or his more wary and less obtrusive senior Mr Peebles, will hasten to enlighten others, as well as to especially edify a Dunedin SWEDENBORGIAN.

To the Editor.

Sir,— The great fault of “the new and beautiful faith ” is its utter one-sidedness. There is a whole hemisphere of truth which it quietly ignores. It deals partly in history, but much more in prophecy concerning man’s progress in virtue and happiness; but throws no light upon those moral questions which in every age of the world have perplexed the reason of the philosopher, and saddened the heart of the philanthropist. It is a satisfying faith fur the shallow thinker, and a comfortable gospel for the self-satisfied; but it sheds no ray of light on the dark problem of moral evil, nor can kindle any just hope in the breast of self-conscious guilt. To listen to the mellifluous discourse of Mr Peebles (the spectre of evangelical theology having first been decently laid), the he irer would fancy himself already a denizen of paradise, “ the toiling millions wreathed with white roses,” and “artesian wells making the Saharan desert to blossom as the rose. ” Indeed, Mr Peebles appears at length to be himself overcome, for he breaks forth, ‘ ‘ 0 mortals ! how worldly and selfish you have become, that you cannot discern these things.” To all this the natural answer would seem to be that not only do we discern these things, but some others which the seer entirely overlooks. He lifts his hands in pious horror at the conceptions of evangelical theology—human depravity, the devil, hell —and is shocked at the idea of such things being supposed to exist in a universe under the government of a righteous and loving God. Let Mr Peebles review his position, and he will see how narrow and shortsighted his plausible optimism is. Take the doctrine of human depravity. The evangelical conception is only concerned with accounting for what is after all a terrible fact, and whatever explanation of the fact be accepted or rejected, the fact remains. Mr Peebles may deny (what Christ asserts) that the foil, s et orhjo of defilement is the human heart; he may deny (differing herein from Christ, vide John 11,, 24, 25) that human nature is itself depraved : but not all the seer’s denunciations of the doctrine of human depravity will expunge from the pages of history, its Nana Sahib, its Caesar Borgia its Heliogabalus. I would like to know what additional terrors the Evangelical theory of sin adds, or can add, to the terrible fact of sin itself, Mr Peebles need not make a bugbear of the doctrine till he has got rid of the fact of human depravity. So with the doctrine of a personal devil : Mr Peebles alternately rages against this conception aud sneers at it. Now the devil is dead, an obsolete fiction beneath contempt : anon he is a deadly foe to be strangled by Herculean adjectives. But let us bring this vaporing wrath and silly affectation to the test of fact. Has Mr Peebles never met in his travels, has he never read in his histonal studies of monsters, in whom all the various possible elements of wickedness have been so blended aacl intensified as to merit no other name than diabolical ? Take Judge Jeffreys—a bloodthirsty nature, a malignant gloating pleasure in human suffering, an ambition that would stick at no infamy to secure its aim. avarice which could farm out the spoils of judicial murder, lewduess and drunkenness, an infinite meanness, an infinite audacity, to which add great natural sagacity, penetration, and cunning, and what further elements, 1 would fain ask, are needed to constitute a devil ? Mr Peebles rejects the notion of a devil, because the existence of such a being seems to him to impeach the character of God, In his own choice and reverent phraseology, “If God made the devil, he should have known bis business better.” But this, to say nothing worse about it, is just a piece of shortsightedness. Mr Peebles believes in the historical existence of “The Wicked Judge” of Caligula, of Antiochus. Wherein do these offer less moral difficulty than the existence of the devil? If Shakespeare’s I ago might have been historical, why not Milton’s Satan ? Is there nothing intelligible in the words of the noble Moor to the crouching snake at his feet “ If that thou boost a devil ?” Indeed, one may well ask, to what purpose does Mr Peebles get rid of the devil while the devilish remains ?

And as for the doctrine of a future hell, has the world never seen what might not inappropriately be called a present hell ? Arc there not scenes in human history, aud even in existing society, which have about them all the moral horrors of Pandemonium? Why should that which is in a degree a present fact not be admitted to be a future possibility ? Of course one is prepared for the objection of the vast difference in degree. But such differences seldom disturb the conclusions of the ethical philosopher. The existence of moral evil at all, in any degree, carries the whole question. There is no difficulty to the mind of the student of this subject which can be solved by the difference between a greater moral evil and a less. If the world has already witnessed scenes of cruelty, malignity, aud moral debasement akin to the hell of the New Testament, then the possibility of the hell of the New Testament is established. Mr Peebles has read “ Butler’s Analogy. ” To show such of your readers as have not read the book how ancient, after all, are the objections of modern infidelity, and how ancient also is their refutation, I subjoin a sentence from the pen of this great theologian “ May it not be said of any person upon his being born into the world, he may behave so as to be of no service to it, but by being made an example of the woful effects of vice and folly. That he may, as any one may, if be will, incur aninfamous execution from the bands of civil justice. . . orbring uponhimself infamy and diseases worse than death ? So that it had been better for him, even with regard to the present world, that he had never been born. And is there any pretence of reason for people to think themselves secure, and talk as if they had certain proof that, let them act as licentiously as they will, there can be nothing analogous to this with regard to a future and more general interest, under the providence and government of the same God?” Behold the modern “Seer of the Ages” answered by the wisdom of a hundred and fifty years ago ! My letter grows too long; I must conclude, 1 cannot do so, however, without observing that the new and beautiful faitlj is as unpromising to the philanthropist as to the philosopher. Cui bono ? What is there in all this weak sentiment that can lay hold upon the moral evil of the world aud subdue it ? We know what evangelical theology has done. It has sent its four hundred city missionaries into the dens of London, and scattered its two thousand missionaries over the face of heathendom. And there is a healing power in its gospel which makes the world purer and better. What is there answering to this in Spiritualism? Can it minister to a mind diseased ? Can it answer the agonising question of the philo*

sopher of Uz, “ How can a man be just with God!” Can it satisfy the “instinctive legalism” of an awakened conscience ? And to the cry of man, wiestling with those social disorders which poison the verylPe of the community, and endanger the stability of nations, has it no response but some babbling about “ lute-like voices ” and “ white roses?”—l am, <tc., Kappa. Dunedin, March 12,