THE RELIGTON OF GHOSTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1775, 30 August 1884, Page 4

THE RELIGTON OF GHOSTS.

: ' lkh"M, there is a woman that hath a f„ >:;:,,? at En-dor, And Said dis- ,)„• ,-' himself, and put on other raiment, and )i, vii.', ami two. men with Mm, and they (■■ :■■ ,'.) the woman by night: and he said, I f: • ■ thi.t. divine unto m>, by the familiar t : .' '■'. iiml khvj mchimup, whom I shall v ■ niilo //ue'."-iS,wi, xxxviii 7, 8. '.fumble to the right, of him, and iv- : >ilil(> to tlio left of him, Saul knew r. •, what to do. As a last resort, he (••-eluded to seek out a spiritual ii;c Hum, or a witch, or anything that \. ;i please to call her—at any rate a v: man who had communication with th" spirits of tho eternal world; Itwas a -itv (Moult thing to do, for Saul had (".''Kir skin all tho witches, or compiled them to stop business. A s:■:-ant, one day, said to King Saul: '■ ' know of a spiritual medium down at- En-dor." "Do youf said the ]T;ig. Night falls. Saul, putting off hi; kingly robes, and putting on the (I oss of a plain citizen, with two savants, goes out to hunt up this spiritual medium. It was no easy tiling for Saul to disguise himself, for t!;o tallest people in the country only c 'me up to his shoulder, and I think iy-jdi the strength of the man and the v.-ny he bore himself, that he must have 1.-: on well-proportioned. It must have \ 1k::ii: a frightful tiling to see a man wilking along in the night eight or nine feet high. I suppose, as the people saw him pass, they said: •' Who is that? He is as tall as the king"— buying no idea that in such a plain dress there really was passing the king, fruil and his servants after awhile inched the village, and they say: " I v, oiuler if this is the house;" and they look in and see the haggard, weird, and spiritual medium sitting by the light, and on the table sculptured images, and divining rods, and poisonous herbs, mid bottles, and vases. They say: " Yes, this must bo tho place." One loud wiap brings the woman to the duor. and as she stands there holding tiie candle or lamp above her head, and p.rring out into the darkness, she says: ••' Yho is there?" The tall king i Tonus her that ho has come to have IT: fortune told. When she bears that !.i"! trembles, and almost drops the j : lit, for she knows there is no chance i':.' a fortune-teller or spirit medium in ; i i.he land. But Saul, having sworn i .it no harm should come to her, she ; ,vs: "Well, who shall I bring up ; m the dead?" Saul says: "Brmg v i Samuel." That was the prophet -. in) had died a little while before. I : her waving her wand, or stirring r iiome poisonous herbs in a cauldron, i: car her muttering over some incan- ■'. ions, or stamping with her foot, as : .■ ■ cries out to the real of the dead: '■ uiiuel! Samuel!" Lo, the freezing ror! The tloor of the tenement • -us, and the grey hairs float up, and ■ forehead, the eyes, the lips, the I'lilders, the arms, the feet, the entire i Ay of the dead Samuel, wrapped in : ,i iMiral robe, appearing to the : .i.-unshed group, who stagger bock : i hold fast, and catch their breath, :ii shiver with terror. The dead ■ iiihet, white and awful from the nil, begins to move his ashen '■■■■ s, and he glares upon King . nl, and cries out: "What did you -'ing me up tor? Why did you break ■ y long sleep? What do you mean, ing Haul ?" Saul trying to compose .-. il control himself, makes this :: i.mmering and affrighted utterance, lie says to the dead prophet: " The Tn'd is against me, and I have come to you for help. What shall I do?" The i \d prophet stretched forth his finger ti King Saul and said: "Die tomorrow I Come with me into the sepulchre. I am going now. Come, come, with me I" And lo I the floor (■gain opens, and the feet of the dead i'?ad prophet disappear, and the arms, mul the shoulders, and the forehead, The floor closes. Nothing is left in the room but Saul and the two servants, mid the spiritual medium, and the sculptured images, and the diviningj'ods, and the bottles, and the vases, and the poisonous herbs. 0, that was an awful seance! I learn first from this subject that Spiritualism is a very old religion, It is natural that people should want to know the origin and history of a doctrine which is so wide-spread in all the villages, towns, and cities of the civilised world, getting new converts every day—a doctrine with which many of you are already tinged. Spiritualism in America was bom in 1847, in Hydesvillc, Wayne County, New York, when one night there was ii loud rap heard against the door of Michael Wcekman; a rap a second time, a rap a third time; and all three times, when the door was opened, there v/iis nothing found there, the knocking having been made seemingly by invisible knuckles. . In that same house iiiere was a young woman who had a ■-.old hand passed over her face, and .'lore being seemingly no arm attached ■ > it, ghostly suspicions were excited. ..•* iter awhile Mr Fox and his family ; lived into that house, and then every there was a banging at the door; . :il one night Mr Fox said: " Are you -jiirifc!" Two raps answering in the ; irmative. "Are you an injured Tit ?" Two raps, answering in the : irnmtive. And so they found out, as ■'.:•)' say, that it was the ghost or ; iiit of a pedlar who had been inlcred in that house, many years ■''re, for his five hundred dollars, ■holier the ghost of the dead pedlar ! come there to collect his five viri'd dollars, or his bones, I cannot ; v, not being a spiritualist; but there s a great racket at the door, so Mr ''■ i-.'kman declared, and Mrs Weekv hi, and Mr Fox, and Mrs Fox, and i the little Foxes, The excitement ;■ cni. There was a universal rumpus. r i ilon. Judge Edmonds declared, in rook, that he had actually seen a bell i us from the top shelf of a closet, ki'.rd it ring over the people that were ; aiding in tho closet; then, swung by r:\ isible hands, it rang over the people in the parlour; and floated through iiie folding-doors to the front parlour, r.iug over the people there, and then (■Topped on the floor, N. P. Talmage, Senator of the United States, afterv. ads Governor of Wisconsin, had his li"ad completely turned with spiritualkic demonstrations. A man as he was passing along the road, said that he was lifted up bodily, and carried

toward his homo, through tho air, at such great speed he could uot count tho posts on the f onces as ho passed; and as he had a handsaw and a square in his hand, they beat as ho passed through tho air, moat delightful music. And tho tables tipped, and the stools tilted, and tho bcistoads raised, and chairs upset, aud it seemed as if the spirits everywhere had gone into the furniture business! "Well," the people said: " VYa have got something new in this country j it is a new religion." , 0 no, my friends, Thousands of yoars ago we find in our text o spmlimlMc seance. Nothing in the spiritualistic circles'of our day Ins been moro strange, raystorioi.s, and wonderful than things which have been in tho past centuries of tho world, In all tho ages there has been necromancers, those who consult with the spirits of the departed; charmers, those who put their subjects m a mesmerio state ■; sorcerers, thoso who by taking poisonous drugs see everything, and hear everything, and tell everything; dreamers, people who in their Bleeping moments can see tho future world and hold consultation with spirits; astrologers, who could read a hew dispensation in the stars; experts in palmistry, .who can tell by. the lines in the palm of your hand your drigin and your history. From a cave oa Mount Parnassus, we are told, there was au exhalation that intoxicated the sheep and the goats that oame anywhere near it, and a shepherd approaching it was thrown by that exhalation into an excitement in which he could foretell future ovents and hold consultation with the spiritual world. Yea, before the .time of Christ the Brahmins went through all the table-moving, alb the furniture excitement, which the spirits have exploited in our day; precisely the same thing, over and over again, under the manipulations of the Brahmins. Now, do yon say that Spiritualism is different from; 1 those ? I answer, all these ilolusions I have mentioned belong to the saroo family. They aro exhumations from the unseen world. What does God think of all f'ese delusions ?, He thinks so severely of them that Ho never' speaks of them but with livid thunders of indignation. He says! -'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And lest you might make some important distinction between Spiritualism and witchcraft, God says, in so many words: "There shall not he among you a cousultcr of fami'iar spirits, or wizard, or necromancer; for they that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord." And he says again:" The soul of those who seek after such as have familial spirits, and who go whoring after them, I will set myself against them, and he shall bo cut off from among his people." Tho Lord Almighty, in a score of passages, which I have not now time to quote, utters his indignation against all this great family of delusions, After that be a Spiritualist if you dare I Still further: we learn from this text how il is thai people full into Spiritualism, Saul M enough trouble to kill ten men. He did not know where to go for relief. After awhile he resolved to go and see the witch of En-dor, He expected that somehow she would afford him relief. It was his trouble that drove him there. And I have to toll you now that Spiritualism finds its victims in tho troubled, the bankrupt, the sick, the bereft. Yon lose your watch, and you go to the fortune teller to find where it is. You aro sick with a stranee disease, and you go to a fortune teller doctor to find out by a lock of hair what is the matter with you. You lose a friend, you .want tho spiritual world opened, so that you may have communication with him. In a highly wrought, nervous, and diseased state of mind, you go aud put yourself in that communication. This is why I hato Spiritualism. It takes advantage of one in a moment of weakness, which may come upon us at any time. We lose a friend. The trial is keen, sharp, suffocating, almost maddening, If we could marshal a bost.hud storm the eternal world, aud recapture oar loved ono, the host world soon be marshalled. The house is so lonely. The worid is so (lark. The separation is so insufferable. But Spiritualism says; "We will open the future world, aud your loved one cm comeback and talk to you," Though we may not hear his voice, we may hear the rap of bis hand, clear tho table. Sit down. Put your]hands on the table, Be very quiet. Five minute? gone. Ten minutes, No motion of the table. No response from the futuro world. Twenty iniuutes. Thirty minutes, Nervous excitement all the time increasing. Forty minutes, The table shivers. Two raps. from the futuro world, Tho letters of tho alphabet are called over, The departed friends name is John, At the pronunciation of the letter 11 J" two raps. At the pronunciation of the letter" 0" two raps. At the pronunciation of the "H" two raps. At the pronunciation of tho" N" two raps. There you have . the whole name spelled out, J-o-h-n, John, Now the spirit being present jou say,': " John are you happy ?" Two raps give an affirmative answer. Pretty soon the hand of the medium begins to twitch and toss, and begins to write out, after paper and ink are furnished a message from the eternal world. What is remarkable, tho doparted spirit, although it has been amidst the illuminations of heaven, cannot spell as well as it used to I 1 It has lost all grammatical accuracy, and cannot write as distinctly. I received a i letter through a medium once. I sent it back. I Baid: "Just please to tell those ghosts they had better g o to sohool and get Improved in their orthography." Now, just 1 think of Spirits that the Bible represents as enthroned in glory, coming down to crawl ■ under the table, aud break crockery and ring , tea-bells before supper is ready, and rap the ' window shutter on a gusty night, Is there 1 any consolation in such poor miserable , work compared with the thought that our departed Christian friends, got rid of pain and languishing, are in thi radiant society of heaven, and that we shall join them there, 1 not in a stifled and mysterious half-utterance which makes the hair stand on end and the cold chills creep the back, but in an unhindered and illimitable delight. " And none shall murmur or misdoubt, When God's great sunriso-finds us out," Yes, my friends. Spiritualism comes to 1 those who are in trouble and sweeps them into its delusions,. Saul, in the midst of his disaster went to the witch of En-dor. The vast majority of thoso who have gono to spiritual mediums have been sent there through their misfortunes. I learn still farther from this subject that Spiritualism and Necromacy are affairs of darkness. Why did not Saul go in the day ? He was ashamed to go. Besides that he knew that this spiritual medium performed her exploits in the night. The Davenports, tho Fowlers, the Foxes, the spiritual mediums of all ages, have chosen the night or a darkened room, Why ? The majority of their wonders have been swindles, and deception prospers best in the night. Some of the performances of spiritual mediums are not to be ascribed to fraud, but to some occult law that after awhile may be demonstrated. But I believe that now nine •hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand acbievments on the part of spiritual mediums are arrant and unmitigated humbug. Tho mysterious red letters that used to como nut on tho arms of the mediums were found to have been made by an iron pencil that went heavily over the flesh, not teariug it but so disturbing the blood, that it came up in great round letters, The witnesses of the seance have locked the doors, pat the key in their pocket, arrested the operator, and found out by searching the room, that hidden levers moved the tables, Tho sealed letters that were mysteriously read without opening, have been found to have been cut at the Bide and then afterward* slily put together with gum arabio; aud the medium who, with a heavy blanket over bis bead could read a book had a bottle of phosphoric oil, by tho light of which anybody can read a book; and ventrilotpiisn; and sleight of hand and optical delusion account for nearly everything. Deception being the main staple of Suiritualism no wonder it chooses darkness, (To be continued inowrmxt.).