MR. DENTON’S LECTURES

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2487, 27 March 1882, Page 4

MR. DENTON’S LECTURES

An extra leoturo in addition to tho aooond course which has been given by Mr Denton was delivered on Saturday night in tho Oddfellows’ Hall, when there was a good attend, acce.

Mr Denton said the question arose whore ware the men of heroio mould, statesmen, preachers, saints. There wsa no department of life into which science should enter more than that of religion, especially that portion relating to the destiny of the departed. This had been occupied for ages by hobgoblins and ghosts, only lit up and partially illumined by the lurid fires of hell. Now they must let in the light of science upon it, ar.d thinking men and women must know the truths which science revealed. Tho world to-day—-the Christian world—was buried in tho deepest superstition regarding the destiny of man otter death ; a superstition ns gross as that which called astronomy astrology before science bad conquered the starry heavens. Let them ask their neighbor what became of n man after death, and they would be told that the son! of a man slept till the trumpet of tho last day was blown. Now what what kind of body would the resuscitated aoul occupy it this idea were true. He had a friend who lost his leg when he was tea years old, and he lived to sixty. Would that man go stumping about with a man’s body and a child’s leg. Then there was the next idea that the soul went up to Jesus in heaven or to the fiend’s hell, to receive the just reward of its good works or misdeeds. Let them just consider for a moment. _ There could not be leas than millions of millions of souls for judgment at that great day. Even allowing a minute for each sinner to receive his doom they would have the Day of Judgment prolonged to a million of years. Then let them look at the heaven which they were invited to try to attain. Why, it was singing and crying for eternity ; and it was not possible for this to be the heaven of the hereafter. He had hoard a sermon, in which the minister said there would be work for the astronomer, the geologist, and the botanist in heaven. He was picturing to himself the vast fields open to the men of science, when he was told that the estronomor would spend an eternity gazing on tho Star of Bethlehem, the geologist, in examining tho Kook of Ages, and the botanist in gazing on the Rosa of Sharon and the lily of the valley. Was not this absurd, and yet this was what was told to them time after time. This was what science with her torch of reason came to dissipate. Science wonld live for ever, ages could not age her, nor dim her youth. Where were tho gods of the ancient at that day ? Why did they die ? Because they were unscientific ; that was why. Just so much of astronomy and geography as those oncienta know was accepted now because these were founded on science , but their religions had no basis on science and died. Where would the religions of that day be some thousands of years banco. What waa fact with regard to them would remain, but tho rest would go away like the smoko of the Indian wigwams before tho advent of the white settlers. Then they name to consider the question before them that night. He told them that science was revealing now that there were mighty forces at work in the universe, intangible to the touch, invisible to the eye, and inaudible to the ear. So in the formation of man there was something which in the germ formed the brain. This was the spirit which was in tho whole of the forms of organic life. This spirit dominated over man’s body, and when death came all that was left was the case. The philosopher Socrates knew tho fact that the man was never buried, but merely the body or outer case. Let them consider clairvoyance, the ability to see without using the physical sense, to see in the dark as well as the light. Tears ago a committee of the Koyal Academy of Science iu Paris examined into the claims of animal magnetism. The clairvoyant experiments were tried over and over again, and one with Houdin, the celebrated prestidigitateur, who was called in to endeavour to expose the matter, but he left the seance fully impressed that it was impossible to produce these effects by mere skill. Ho might say that he himself had been satisfied for the last forty years, and was as sure that tho clairvoyant power existed as that he lived. [Mr Denton then proceeded to relate tho results of the seances of Poster, the celebrated American clairvoyant.] Onoo eatabliah the existence of clairvoyance, then there was a foundation for the belief in man’s spirit. Then with clairvoyance came olairaudienoe, or power to hear that which was inaudible to the ordinary ear. This was demonstrated by hundreds of experiments. As there was spiritual hearing and seeing, so there wao spiritual brain power. There were instances of insane patients being put into the magnetic sleep and conversing with perfect sanity—nay more, indicating what means should be adopted for the recovery of tho patient, which was carried out two months and a half afterwards. Thus they bad a sane man inside of the insane man, and when that body died the spirit would go on to a higher state. If this was so,then they must eee that the existence of the spirits in man told them of a world iu which the spirit would find as congenial a home as that now occupied by them in the body. If the body and the spirit were one, then the whole body would in sleep be asleep, but this wos not so, as there were people who were clairvoyant when asleep and then only. This was proved by many instances, in which persons who were not clairvoyant in their waking moments were so in sleeping. He had had the interiors of houses described most correctly in the mesmeric sleep, though tho person had never entered the dwellings. Thou there waa what was known as the death trance, in which the lady seemed to be thoroughly and completely dead, but in which the person, on being revived, stated that she had been above her body, and had watched the processes employed to resuscitate her from her tranoe. This proved that there existed a spirit totally distinct from the body, and that when tho connection was severed by death the body returned to tho dust from whioh it had sprung. Schiller, when he waa just dying, said, “Many things are growing plainer and clearer to me.” Was this tho spirit going down with the body to annihilation ? The little boy just dying says to his mother, “ Oh, see, there is John beckoning to mo.” The people round him say that he is losing his senses, but that boy was jast regaining them, and upon his vision ■was bursting tho dawn of day when he should meet his friends on the other aide, Professor Hare, of Pennsylvania, in 1853, wrote strongly against spiritualism, hut afterwards went into a thorough investigation of it, and spent the greater part of his life in preaching what he had formerly so strongly denounced. He had never known a scientific man who had thoroughly investigated these phenomena who did not believe in it. A. R. Wallis, the naturalist, was one of these ; Professor Wagner, of St. Petersburg!], another, and a host of scientific men. This seemed to him to prove that if they proved that their friends were in the other world in a changed condition, it remained perfectly dear that they themselves would exist in another world under different conditions. He himself had investigated the appearances of spirits most thoroughly. He had obtained casts of spirit fingers, arms, and hands, and eva ■ faces, differing altogether from the faces existing on this planet. He did not wish to press this upon them ; let them not laugh at what they had not experienced. Spirits to him wero tangible, and if men and women believed in tbii, death would wear a very different appearance to them to what it now did. He waa not afraid to die any more than to sleep, nor would any one who discarded tho gross and absurd superstitions whi h were thrust on them by the religionists. Death had no more fear to them than life, nay, it was tho beginning of a new and a higher life, the opening of a new morning in whioh the spirit would go on tho still higher stages of perfection. [Mr Denton then proceeded to relate several extraordinary manifestations in America. I These experiments, he contended, demonstrated clearly ond positively the existence of man after death, which no religion did anything like. He had no desire to say a word as to the religions whioh, in many cases, wero so much of a comfort to men and women passing through the valley of the shadow of death. They were as good as human intellect could make them. The words of the Bible were as stars to the morning, but the bright suu of science was rising behind the eastern hills ond the stars faded out, Lst not the mother who had lost her baby believe that it had gone down into the grave never more to bo seen. It waa waiting on the other side for her, and was not this a comfort. Now, tho light had come, there was no grave, but beyond this life a spiritual life of a higher character. People said were bad and good people to bo mixed up in the spirit world ? Well, tho good and bad people mixed up pretty much in this world. These people said in the spirit world

were there no belle. Oh, yes, there were holla, but the spin's would only atop there just so long as they liked ; let them do good, cease to do evil, and there would bo no hell. Lot them tell him who was a righteous man — one who thought all else but him were going down to the pit, and he would ask them to send him along. But ho would not believe him ; let them first ask his wife. [Laughter.] If only the righteous men wore to go into heaven, it would be as empty as a ohuroh on the week day. There was not u perfect man on the pi?.not; nor was there a totally wicked man. Let them bring along the wickedest man they could find, and they would have an old grandmother coming forward and saying that “ John was good at heart,” and so he was ; no one was totally bad. But the doctrine which was preached of a God of love sending down the creatures of his love to the pit to burn for eternity, was a horrible creed. The penalty of a man’s crimes would no doubt have to bo paid here and hereafter, but there never was a time when the man was prevented from growing better, from growing higher and batter, from ceasing to do evil and learning to do good. Let them look upward, living a manly, noblo, and virtuous life, being better fathers, better husbands, sni better sons, and this was religion. Daring to exorcise their own reason on these subjects, they would advance step by step, and stage by stage, till Heaven and all its glory would be theirs. j Cheers.] The lecture closed with the exhibition of a number of views. Mr Denton, it is understood, intends making a short sojourn at the Wekft Pass, where there are a number of most interesting geological relics.