SPIRITUALISM VINDICATED

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4242, 5 August 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

SPIRITUALISM VINDICATED

(To the Editor of the Evening Slav.) Sin,— Mr Taylor has been saying some strong, bitter, and false things against Spiritualism, and as your paper is noted for admitting both sides of a question, I hope you will do me and my friends the favor to admit a few remarks to be made upon his lecture. He does not deny the phenomena of Spiritualism of the present day, but he says the spirits are notthemani festations of departed human spirits, but demons. I might ask how does he know this, and what proof has he for it P If this be true then what are God and good angels about to allow those wandering vagabonds to go about doing so much harm to us poor simple ignorant people. Tf God cannot stop them then he has not all power; and if he has the power and will not do it, then he cannot be all good. The dispute this time is not about an opinion or a belief but it is about what is positively known. The spiritualist knows it to be a fact that man has a spirit that never dies; on this we have the testimony of thousands that—the spirit of their departed friends have comeback to them,and ihey have seen them, heard them, and felt them. Of course such as Mr Taylor say they dispute it, but that does not alter what we know ; but such as Mr Taylor throw all this evidence overboard, and to convince them we go over to their favorite ground —that is, the Scriptures. What does the Bible say upon it. You tell them that John saw a great number of departed spirits, that no man could number, that had come out of great tribulation. They reply that was a vision, and there was nobody that had come out of great tribulation after all. Then again you tell them that the Bible says two men died— one a rich man, the other a poor man— and they both existed after death, for the Bible says so. You might think that now you had them in a corner. no, they escape again; for this was a parable, and neither the rich man nor the poor man existed at all. Then again you tell them that Jesus said that his followers would not perish and would not die, but live on for ever. You could not imagine how they got over this plain teaching of Christ's own words. In contradiction to this, they say that men do not live on for ever, but'only until death, and then they cease to live at all until the resurrection. Can anyone say this is everlasting. I could easily fill the remainder of this letter from the Bible to prove that man lives on after denth. Mr Taylor says that Dr Hatch never knew spiritualism to improve anyone. Ido not think it was worth publishing that which Dr Hatch did not know. I suppose there are , many more things he did not know ; but I happen to have this knowledge—l know many that Spiritualism has made better, and never one that it has made worse. There is nothing in Spiritualism to make anyone worse. What is considered peculiar about Spiritualism is the belief that our departed friends are alive, and have the power to come to earth again, and that they know all our sorrows, troubles, and joys; that they have the power to assist us; and that they have a great interest in our welfare. But supposing that this is a delusion—that it is a sort of day-dream,—what is there in it to demoralise and to make people worse. The assertion that is made, that the teachings of Spiritualism are demoralising, is false. Some men that believe in Spiritualism are bad, and so are many believers in Christianity. But Spirituali ism is not to blame for it, for it teaches that wbatsover a man sowetb that shall he also reap; and let him do what he may, he cannot escape the consequences of his own actions. Spiritualists do not believe that an unjust man can be made just by faith ; they believe there is no other way to be made just but by doing justly, and no other way to be made righteous but by doing right. They do not believe that men can lire the worst of lives, and when they lie on their death-bed, send for a minister to pray for them, and he (the minister) gets them to believe, and they are sent direct to a mansion in the skies. I have no anxiety that all should hold my views, but 1 should like all to be truth-loving and honest, and then we should not have so many shams in Church and State.—l am, &c, J. Hobn. [Spiritualism has bad the double innings of two long letters, which is as much as our space will afford.—Ei>.]