SQLite format 3@  ii!%%atableTopicsTopicsCREATE TABLE Topics (Title NVARCHAR(100), Notes TEXT)RMy04 Clairvoyant Revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{fU03 Evidence that the Bible is given by Inspiration{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\ &%502 Phemonena of Spiritualism Explained{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 TiB5]01 Clairvoyant Revelations of A. J. Davis.{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs24 Page VIII 010\par Page IX 011\par \par CONTENTS. PART I. CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS OF A. J. DAVIS. \par \par Reasons for reviewing this Work. - Self-assumed Claims of the Author. -His Manner. - Common Argument for his Inspiration. - His Scientific Principles. - His Theory of Creation.- Fundamental Objections to the same. - His Claims viewed in the Light of his Reliability as a Relator of Facts of History. - Specimen of his Revelations in regard to " Things unseen." - His Moral Principles and Character. - Conclusions from the Previous Deductions,.... pages 1-32 PART II. PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM EXPLAINED AND EXPOSED. General Introductory Observations. - Propositions to be discussed, 33-38 CHAPTER I. HAVE WE VALID EVIDENCE THAT DISEMBODIED SPIRITS HAVE ANY AGENCY IN THESE MANIFESTATIONS? Test Principles. -Facts adduced by Spiritualists classified and stated. - Positions which may be taken by those who deny the Spirit Theory. - Our Position stated and explained. First Two Propositions. From exclusively mundane causes precisely similar and analogous Facts do arise. (ix)\par \par Page X 012\par \par X CONTENTiS These Manifestations occur in circumstances in which such causes are known to exist and to act. Issue stated. - Admitted Facts,..... 38 -48 SECTION I. Electricity, Magnetism, and Animal Magnetism distinguished. -Effects of Animal Magnetism upon the Human System,.. 48-63 SECTION II. THE ODYLIC FORCE. Its Properties.- Illustrations.- Common Facts. -Angelique Cottin. - Case in New Hackensack, N. Y. - Case in Woodbridge, New Jersey. - Case in Stockwell, England. - The Molesworth Case in Edinburgh, Scotland. - Phenomena at the house of Dr. Phelps, Stamford, Conn. - Case in Albany, N. Y., stated by Rev. E. N. Kirk. - Drummer of Tedworth, England. -The Case of Frederica Hauffe. \emdash Of Mademoiselle Ranfaing. - Remarks on this Case. - Cases in the Family of Cotton Mather.... 63- 99 The Odylic Force identical with the Immediate Cause of these Manifestations,...... 99-106 The Immediate Cause of these Manifestations identical with that from which result the Phenomena of Mesmerism and Clairvoyance, 106-109 SECTION III. Principles and Facts applied to the Elucidation of the so called Spirit Phenomena.- General Statements,...... 109- 112 The Physical Manifestations elucidated and explained,. 112-126 Intellectual Communications explained. - Three Classes of Mediums.Phenomena through these explained. - Concession of Spiritualist s. - Consequences of the same. New Information obtained in these Circles,..... 126 - 152 SECTION IV. Third Proposition established, namely, that we have positive and conclusive Evidence, that these Manifestations are the exclusive Result of Mundane Causes, and not of the Agency of Disembodied Spirits. - Points of Agreement and Disagreement. Argumnent 1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason,... 153, 154 2. No new Truth found in these Communicationsj. 154-156 3. The peculiar Sentiments and Opinions comprised in these Mani\par \par Page XI 013\par \par CONTENTS. xi festations uniformly take form from, and correspond with, the peculiar Sentiments of the Circles in which they originate, 157 - 160 4. Apparent Exceptions confirmatory of the above. \emdash Fact which occurred in a Circle in Leroy, N. Y.,.. 160, 161 5. Communications purporting to come from particular Spirits compared with their Writings and Teachings when on Earth, 161 -163 6. General Character of these Communications considered in an intellect ual point of view. -Examples of Spirit Prose and Poetry. -Every Peculiarity of the Inquirer's State of Mind always reflected in these Manifestations.-All Spirits in the same Circles have the same Style. - The same Spirits have a different Style in different Circles. -Bacon and Swedenborg in the Work of Judge Edmonds. - Webster, Clay, and Calhoun in a Spirit Circle in the City of New York. - Apparent Exception,.....163 -175 7. The same Evidence of real Presence, Identity, and Intelligence, can be obtained in reference to the affirmed Departed Spirits of Devils, of Men yet alive, or who never existed, -of Brutes, Shrubs, and Stones, as of any other Spirits,. 175-179 8. The same Evidence of Presence and Identity can be obtained in respect to Persons yet alive, and but supposed to be dead, as in any other Cases. - Example in an intelligent Christian Family. - Important Case in Cleveland,... 175-179 9. Similar Communications are obtained by Spiritualists themselves, in their own Circles. - Case occurring under our own Observation. - Notable Case connected with Judge Edmonds and Others. - Case witnessed by a Lady left a Widow by William Leggett, of New York,.... 179-183 10. The Results of Observations and Experiments made to determine the Location of the Cause of these Manifestations. - Clairvoyant and Spirit Fact. -Experiment made by a Gentleman at the head of a Literary Institution in Ohio, and Others.- Mesmeric and Spirit Experiments made by two Gentlemen in Cleveland. - Important Experiments and Observations made by another Gentleman in Cleveland. - Those of a Gentleman of strong Mesmeric Power in the State of New York, and also of a Professor of Ohio Medical College. - Results of Experi ments and Observations classified. - Facts which occurred at the House of Rev. Starr King, of Boston. - Important Facts furnished by Dr. Bell, of the McLean Lunatic Asylum. - Statements of Dr. Bell confirmed by kindred ones from N. I. Bowditch, Esq., of Boston. - Important Facts furnished by a New England Congregational Clergyman,.. 183-229\par \par Page XII 014\par \par Xii CONTENTS. 11. Argument drawn from a Certain Class of False Answers often obtained in these Circles,..... 229 - 232 12. Argument drawn from Experiments made to determine the Ex. tent of Control which may be exercised over the Cause of these Manifestations. - Case in Hamilton, Ohio, 232 - 235 13. Argument drawn fiom the Experience'and Testimony of certain intelligent Mediums. - A Pupil of Ours. - Intelligent Medium in the City of New York. -Physician in Michigan.-Young Lady in Boston. - Intelligent Clergyman in Cleveland. -Another Clergyman. - Mrs. C- in Rhode Island,. 235 -241 14. Argument drawn from the Forms of Contradiction which appear in these Communications,..... 241 - 243 15. The False Communications which are continuously given forth in these Circles,... 243 - 248 \par \par CHAPTER II. TENDENCY OF SPIRITUALISM. \par SECTION I. Tendency to benefit or injure Mankind physically,.. 250- 256 \par SECTION II. Tendency of Spiritualism to benefit or injure Mankind intellectually, 257 -259 Spiritualism not a reliable Source of Information,.. 259 - 267 Spiritualism has not benefited the World as far as Science is concerned, 268-279 It has done nothing to improve Literature,... 280, 281 \par SECTION III. Moral Tendency of Spiritualism,... 281 -288 Summary Statement of its Tendencies,. 288- 290 \par CHAPTER III. MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS. SECTION I. Special Facts connected with Spiritualism. - Copying the Voice, Manner, and Handwriting of Individuals,.. 91 - 293 Tactual Impressions,... 293, 294 Seeing Spirits,.... 294 - 296\par \par \par \par Page XIII 015\par \par CONTENTS. Xiii Speaking and Writing in unknown Languages,... 296 - 300 Fact witnessed by J. G. Whittier, Esq.,.... 300 - 302 SECTION II. Special Facts which require explanation,.... 303 - 307 SECTION III. Phenomena of Dreaming,..... 307 - 311 Analogous Facts of Common Occurrence,... 312-315 Premonitions of Future Events,..... 315, 316 SECTION IV. Phenomena of Ghost-seeing and of Haunted Houses,. 316-319 SECTION V. Witchcraft,. 319 - 323 Bewitching Persons and Objects, 323 -327 Fortune-telling,..... 328 - 331 Manner in which Mysterious Events are commonly treated, 331, 332 SECTION VI. Spirit Manifestations, and Scripture Miracles,... 33 - 337 Bearing of our Previous Investigations upon the Doctrine of a General and Particular Providence,..... 337 - 343 Conclusion,.... 344 PART III. EVIDENCE THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF TIlE SPIRIT OF GOD, AS CONTRASTED WITH THE EVIDENCE THAT THE SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS ARE FROM THE SPIRITS OF MEN. CHAPTER I. ARGUMENT FROM EXTERNAL MIRACLES. MIRACLE DEFINED. SECTION I. Nature and bearing of Scripture Facts claimed as Miracles, supposing them to have occurred. -1. If admitted as real, they prove the Divine Origin of Christianity. \emdash 2. Original Witnesses could not have been deceived in regard to the Fact of their Occurrence or Non-occurrence. -3. Witnesses who testified to their Occurrence gross Deceivers, if they did not occur,..... 346-350 B\par \par \par \par Page XIV 016\par \par Xiv CONTENTS. SECTION II. Proof of the Actual Occurrence of these Events.-1. Antecedent Probability. -2. More reasonable to suppose their Occurrence than to affirm that Christ and the Sacred Writers were all Deceivers and Impostors. - 3. Amount of Testimony. - 4. Its Nature and Character. - 5. Widespread and rapid Extension of Christianity. - 6. Must admit the Occurrence of these Events, or repudiate all Evidence of a historical kind, 350 - 362 CHAPTER II. ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. Forms of Foresight possessed by Mankind. - Argument stated, 263, 264 SECTION I. Old Testament Prophecy. - 1. Uttered long before the Events predicted occurred. -2. Prophets had before them no Precedents from which to derive their Predictions. -3. Nations, etc., very numerous who were the Subjects of Prophecy. - 4. Harmony of Statement among the Prophets. -5. Were very particular in their Statements, and each Nation, etc., was to have a Destiny peculiar to itself.- 6. Greatest Antecedent Probabilities against the Occurrence of the Events predicted. - 7. Every Prophecy perfectly fulfilled,.. 365 - 374 SECTION II. New Testament Predictions.-Examples.-1. Prophecy pertaining to -the Church of Philadelphia, Rev. 3: 10.-2. Christ's Prophecy pertaining to Jerusalem, and Julian's Attempt to prove it false, 375- 379 CHAPTER III. ARGUMENT FROM INTERNAL EVIDENCE. Argument stated. - Examples.- 1. The Character of God as developed in the Scriptures.-2. That of Jesus Christ. \emdash 3. The System of Moral Duty developed in the Scriptures.- 4. Manner in which the Universal is blended in the Particular. - 5. Experimental Argument. -6. Undeniable Marks of Honesty and Integrity in the Sacred Writers,...... 380 -398 CHAPTER IV. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. No Objections urged against the Christian Argument in any of the Forms above stated.-None to show how a Religion sustained by such Evidence can be false. -No Objections of Weight sufficient to overbalance such Evidence,... 399 - 403\par \par \par  \par Page XV 017\par \par CONTENTS. XV OBJECTIONS RELATIVE TO INTERNAL EVIDENCE. I Hume's Objection to Miracles. - 2. Assumption that all Events occur through Unchangeable Laws. \emdash 3. That Scripture Statements are mythical or fabulous. - Jesus Christ,. 403 - 409 OBJECTIONS BASED UPON WHAT IS FOUND IN THE BIBLE. 1. Doctrine of Retribution.-2. Of Atonement.-3. Destruction of the Inhabitants of Canaan. - 4. Standing still of the Sun and Moon. -5. Facts stated in regard to Balaam. - 6. Israelites permitted to give away diseased Meat.-Deut. 15: 21,.. 409-422 PART IV. CLAIRVOYANT REVELATION OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. Reasons for Reviewing these Revelations,..,. 423 - 428 Objections to their Validity. \emdash 1. Their Cause.-2. Argument from Sufficient Reason. \emdash 3. From the Character of God.-4. Subjective Character of these Revelations. - 5. Misstatements in regard to known Facts. - 6. Intrinsic Absurdity of his Interpretations of Scripture. - 7. Character of God, and Swedenborg's Teachings in regard to different Portions of the Scriptures. - 8. His Fundamental Ideas of a Future State cannot possibly be true. - 8. Iis Moral Teachings. - Reasons offered by Swedenborgians for his Inspiration.- Opinion of Swedenborg and A. J. Davis,..... 423 -466\par \par \par \par Page 018\par \par \par \par Page 1 019\par \par MODERN MYSTERIES. PART I. CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS.* WHEN any new and very gross absurdity is commended to public regard, men of real science, theologians especially, pass it by, under the impression, that should they expose the imposition, they would appear to the public in the repulsive light of "answering a fool according to his folly." It is this fear, we think, rather than a prudent regard to the public welfare, which has shielded modern "spirit revelations" from that degree of scientific scrutiny requisite to unmask the imposture before the world. Whatever may be thought of the subject in general, the writings of the individual whose name stands at the head of this article seem to demand a critical examination. The volume to which we have referred, consisting of 782 octavo pages, purports to have gone through no less than eleven editions in this country. It has been reprinted " The Principles of Nature; her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind; by and through Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer, and Clairvoyant. In three Parts," etc. 1\par \par \par \par Page 2 020\par \par 2 MODERN MYSTERIES. in London; and how many editions it has gone through in Great Britain we have not been informed. It has also laid the foundation for that " spirit " movement which now controls the religious, and, to a great extent, the scientific faith of vast multitudes in this country and in Europe. We shall therefore make no further apologies for an attempt at a somewhat critical examination of the philosophy and character of this great primal production of modern spiritualism. The self-asserted claims of our author are very wide sweeping, and very peculiar. In the state in which his revelations are given to the world, he claims to be possessed of a power hardly less than omniscient, in regard to the past, present, and, to a great extent, future history and condition of the universe.' His philosophy," says his scribe, " is only that which is involved in the laws and principles which control the universe and mankind unerringly, and his theology is only that which is written on the wide spread scroll of the heavens, in which every star is a word, and every constellation a sentence." " An d uwhatever truths," says our seer, " have entered the minds of investigators, they will see the same reflected," (in these revelations,) " which will be a source of inward gratification. There will also be a consolation derived from the things contained in the revelation, consisting in the reflection that the dross and impurities of systems and theories have become purged off, or rather repulsed by the truth, which is positive and eternal." What the stern Mohammedan did with the celebrated Alexandrian li!brary, the world, if our seer's claims be admitted, should now do with all the books of all investigators of truth, since the world began. "Whatever truths," (the italics are our author's,) "these works contain, is found in this revelation, and found\par \par \par \par Page 3 021\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 3 here, as it is not found in those works, in a state of total freedom from all dross and impurities. What use is there then for any such works? Let them be given to the flames. Then these "revelations contain not only the truth, but the whole truth. The revelation, our author affirms, "will progressively reveal every visible and invisible existence, until it arrives at the highest sphere of perfection, and then will retrace the links of development back to the original cause and foundation of all things." WThat investigator, from this time forth, will have the audacity to write another book, when all truth pertaining to the visible and the invisible, and that in its origin and progress, is #here revealed in a state of total freedom from all admixture of error? The manner of our seer claims a passing remark in this connection. Everywhere he speaks " as one having authority, and not as the scribes." The only foundation that he lays for our faith in his revelations, is the fact, that in the state of clairvoyance in which these revelations are given forth, this Poughkeepsie seer has an impression that things are thus and so, and- is impressed to say it. Simply and exclusively because he is thus $in2mpressed, in the state referred to, we are to believe that " the material universe is a vortex,' and " that the earth, when comprehended as an entire whole, is a stomach;" that the world had a beginning, and yet that it revolved around the sun from eternity; [after describing the process of the creation of this and all other planets, he tells us, page 430, that the modern philosopher, who discovered the fact, that the earth revolves around the sun, " discovezred the truth; but that the truth had existe%d the same from all eternity;"] that Jesus Christ was laid in a manger, not at his birth, as the sacred writer affirms, but at a subsequent period, and\par \par \par \par Page 4 022\par \par 4 MIODERN MYSTERIES. that he lay there not over forty minutes by the watch; that the Bible, instead of " bringing life and immortality to light," enshrouds this whole subject in clouds and darkness; that it does not " present any proper conception of the constitution, character, greatness, omnipotence, and majes&ty of the divine mind;" nor "teach that holy virtue, morality, and refinement which should receive the name of religion;" that, in short, it has been a source of injury rather than good to the world, possessing not even the humble merit of preparing the way for the sublime revelations of the Poughkeepsie seer, etc. Take a single example of his manner. " Previous to this journey, [the flight into Egypt,] a necessary circumstance compelled Mary to lay her child in a manger, in which place, I am distinctly i'mpressed, he lay not more than forty minutes." Thus we are to throw away our SBibles, and believe any thing that may be commended to our regard, for one reason only, namely, - Andrew Jackson Davis, in a state of clairvoyance, has had an impression; he is "impressed to say;" is "distinctly impressed." Permit us here to invite special attention to the argument on which, exclusively as we understand, the high claims of our seer are by him and his associates based. In his natural state he appears, it is affir(med, as an uneducated young man; without learning, without science, without high ideas, or an unusual amount of language. In his clairvoyant state, he has the most wonderful visions, and naturally embodies these visions in the sublime language found in these Revelations. The inference based upon these asserted facts is, that these visions must be the pure embodiment of eternal and immutable truth; that his " philosophy is only that which is involved in the laws and principles which con\par \par \par \p)ar Page 5 023\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 5 trol the universe and mankind unerringly; and his theology is only that which is written upon the wide spread scroll of the heavens, in which every star is a word, and every constellation a sentence." Take away the facts above named, and all grounds for the conclusion that such is the character of the revelations of our seer, disappear at once, and that totally. Now, we say that a grosser non sequitur never danced in the brain of Enthusiasm, Superstitio*n, or Fanaticism, than is involved in the above argument. Granting the facts in all their force, how do we know that these visions are the revelations of truth? How do we know that they are not the exclusive creations of an over-excited and disordered imagination? and therefore the embodiment of error, and not of truth? The fact that our seer has no such visions in his natural, and that he has them in his clairvoyant state, presents not the shadow of evidence that these visions are true; unless it can be +shown that in a state of clairvoyance the mind sees nothing but truth. If it is not the exclusive character of the visions of universal mind in this state, how do we know that it is the character of those of our Poughkeepsie clairvoyant in the same state? Should it be said that the visions of our clairvoyant are of a higher order than those of others; does this, we ask, prove an infallible criterion of truth? To what degree of sublimity must the fallible rise to become infallible? The claims of our Seer a,re too shallow, we should think, did not painful experience evince the contrary, to command the faith even of children. The fact that so many quite sensible people have made shipwreck of a divine faith upon such a visible snag as this, evinces to our mind the melancholy truth, that much of the thinking of this age has little of sound reason or logic in it. I*\par \par \par \par Page 6 024\par \par 6 MODERN MYSTERIES. In the case of our seer, however, we have the opportunity to test his claims by an -infallibly " sure word of prophecy." He professes to give us, with no intermixture of error, a knowledge of ",every visible and invisible existence." Suppose that we can convict him of the grossest conceivable absurdity and error in his philosophy, and statements in regard to the visible; his pretended revelations pertaining to the invisible, we shall have no occasion to investigate. We have here indicated the train of thought which we design to pursue. We have little to do with our author, as far as the .invisible is concerned; but confine ourselves almost exclusively to what he is " distinctively impressed " in regard to the visible. Hence we shall pass over unnoticed the first part of these revelations, the part which relates to the principles of nature, and confine ourselves almost exclusively to the second part, in which he gives us his theory of creation, and a professed history of the progress of events from the beginning to the present time. In the progress of our remarks, we intend to show that th/e theory of creation set forth in these revelations, is self-contradictory and absurd, and its truth impossible, and that in his statements pertaining to known facts, our seer shows a degree of ignorance, recklessness, and error which has but few parallels. We shall then give our impressions in regard to the moral character of our revelator, from facts which have come to our knowledge. As a philosopher, our seer is an absolute materialist. In one place, he tells us, that " it is a law of Matter to produce0 its ultimate, Mind." In another, he says, that to him, "all ultimates are matter." Again, " I would, moreover," he says, " have all understand, that I consider (because I perceive) that all things, whether\par \par \par \par Page 7 025\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 7 tangible or intangible, are material." Once more, "I use the terms'spiritual,''celestial,' and' heavenly,' as representing distinct degrees of material refinement.'" As a materialist, our seer is an equally absolute necessitarian, 1or fatalist. His sentiments on this point are fully set forth on pages 463, 464, where he affirms that " it is impossible for any rational mind to conceive of such a thing as' freewill.'" Consequently he holds to the existence of spirit and of God, in no other form than as an ultimate, a development of matter. On this point our seer has, throughout, the merit of self-consistency. He pretends to hold to no other form of spiritual existence, or manifestation, but that under consideration. In testing the val2idity of his theory of creation, we are to take matter as originally given in theory, and then, from the known laws of this substance, see if we can deduce from it, in accordance with the principles of that theory, the facts of the universe just as they are. In regard to the original condition of matter, we will let our seer speak for himself. " In the BEGINNING, the Univercclum was one boundless, undefinable, and unimaginable ocean of LIQUID FIRE! The most vigorous and ambitious imagination is not capabl3e of forming an adequate conception of the height, and depth, and length, and breadth thereof. There was one vast expanse of liquid substance. It was without bounds inconceivable, - and with qualities and essences incomprehensible. This was the original condition of MATTER. It was without forms, for it was but one form. It had no motions; but was one eternity of motion. It was without parts; for it was a whole. Particles did not exist; but the whole was as one particle. There were not suns; but it was one4\par \par \par \par Page 8 026\par \par 11 MODERN MYSTERIES. eternal sun. It had no beginning, and was without end. It had not length; for it was a vortex of one eternity." [H-e has just told us that it had length inconceivable. Strange logic that also; that because it is " a vortex of one' eternity," that it therefore has not length. 6' A vortex of one eternity!" How many other eternities are there? "A vortex of one eternity!" What a palpably intelligible idea.] " It had not circles; for it was one5 infinite circle. It had not disconnected power; but it was the very essence of all power. Its inconceivable magnitude and constitution were such as not to develop forces, but omnipotent power!"' Matter and power," he goes on to say, " were existing as a whole, inseparable. The matter contained the substance to produce all suns, all worlds, and systems of worlds, throughout the immensity of space. It contained qualities to produce all things that are existing upon each of these worlds. The power contained6 wisdom and goodness, -justice, mercy, and truth. It contained the original and essential principle that is displayed throughout immensity of space, controlling worlds and systems of worlds, and producing motion, life, sensation, and intelligence, to be impartially disseminated upon their surfaces as ultimates! "This great centre of worlds, - this great power of intelligence, - this great germ of existences - was one world! - corresponding to a globe visible; for it was bzut one, - containing the material7s and power to produce all others. It had wisdom equal to matter to plan them and direct their infinite movements. It had goodness equal to the extent of its substance, to give perfect harmony and distributive usefulness to all parts of this infinitude. It had justice; but only to be manifested in proportion to developments of suitable mediums\par \par \par \par Page 9 027\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 9 upon these subordinate spheres, or forms of the great sphere. It had mercy, lenity, and forb8earance, to be developed as corresponding with like developments in sensitive and intelligent beings. It contained truth eternalized, like its own nature. So the whole of these principles were joined in one vast vortex of pure intelligence." " The great original mass," he tells us, " was a substance containing within itself the embryo of its own perfection. It became pregnated by virtue of its own laws, and was controlled, guided, and perfected, by virtue of its own omnipotent power." From eternity up to 9a given period, as he subsequently informs us, while it contained in itself the laws and principles of progression, it had not progressed. " It contained the power of progression, but had not progressed." Such, according to our seer, was the original condition of matter prior to creation; a condition in which that substance had, up to a certain period, continued from eternity. How were the worlds and the systems of worlds originated from this "mass of liquid fire? " Around this mass, he tells us, was an a:tmosphere extending infinitely in all directions. The mass itself, at length began to evaporize light, heat, and other materials adapted to the formation of suns and worlds. The substances thus evaporated were borne upward by the atmosphere referred to, and "became at length a nebulous zone [a zone, as we are informed in these revelations, corresponding to the rings of Saturn] surrounding the immensity of space!" Such is the language of our seer. A tolerably large zone that,-a zone which surrounds the imm;ensity of space. " By constant action and development of the particles thus subjected to the motion of attraction, repulsion, and the\par \par \par \par Page 10 028\par \par 10 MODERN MYSTERIES. law of condensation; by a repelling of that which was averse to the process of condensation, and an attracting of that which was of like affinity, and suitable to become a part of the same mass, the formation of worlds was first instituted." Suns were first formed, and from these planets, etc. Thus one circlin the theory under consideration, is no exception to this principle. He is an ultimate of the original condition of matter, which was such as " to develop for us omnipotent power," "power containing wisdom and goodness - justice, mercy, and truth." The whole of these principles, joined "into one vast vortex of pure intelligence," constitute the God of these revelations. And how was this ultimate of matter, this " vortex of pure intelligence," this " omnipotent power," this " great positive mind" pro\par ? \par \par \par Page 11 029\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 11 duced, or, in the language of our seer, developed? By a vast amount of matter in such a state of intense heat, as to constitute "one boundless, undefinable, and unimaginable ocean of liquid fire." Matter to a certain amount, and heated to a certain degree of intensity, being given, and, as the necessary result, we have developed a God, -" a great positive mind," possessed of " omnipotent power," and all possible perfections. If we had a@ smaller amount of matter heated to the same degree of intensity, we should have a God still, a lesser one to be sure, but still a real " positive mind." We should have just as many Gods, as we could have masses of matter thus heated. These are the necessary, undeniable consequences of the fundamental principles of this theory. This is the theology of " Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer and clairvoyant," the only theology we are told that is written upon " the wide spread scroll of the heavens, Awhere every star is a word and every constellation a sentence." We, for ourselves, have endeavored to read this scroll; we have attentively looked at the stars, and the constellations too; but we have been able to find no such theology there. Before we should surrender our faith in " That dearest of books that excels every other, The old family Bible that lies on the stand," to embrace such a theology as this, we should ask considerable time for sober reflection. The theology of our seer has one merit, toB say the least, that of entire originality, as far as our knowledge extends. The idea that matter, heated to a certain degree of intensity, will generate, or develop, mind, " positive mind," and that " one boundless," [not so boundless, but that it may still be surrounded by six, and an\par \par \par \par Page 12 030\par \par 12 MODERN MYSTERIES. infinite number of other circles of suns and worlds,] "undefinable, unimaginable ocean of liquid fire," would generate, or develop the great positive mind,C namely, God, - such an idea never danced in our brain, till we met it in these " divine revelations." And what would become of this "great positive mind," should this " ocean'of liquid fire" once burn out? an effect, which, from the laws of matter, must occur, in the progress of the eternal future. This mass, however large, must be finite and limited, and in perpetually giving off from itself the materials for the formation of unnumbered suns and worlds, must, at length, totally burn out, and consequentlDy wholly cease to give off such materials, or it must become totally evaporated. There is no escaping this conclusion. Where then will be our fire-begotten, or fire-developed, and consequently fire-sustained divinity? If this theology is true, the universe must soon be without a God, without any " great positive mind." 2. To our limited capacities, there is another fundamental error in the theology of our seer. No cause can generate or develop an effect greater than itself. This is a first truth of sciencEe. Now this " ocean of liquid fire," as a cause, must, as we have already seen, be in its nature limited, finite. It is so, according to the positive teachings of our seer; for he affirms, that this very ocean is already surrounded by six circles of suns and worlds. How then can such a cause develop "omnipotent power?" The idea is just as inconceivable and impossible as the supposition, that a globe two feet in diameter actually fills and occupies infinite space. Perhaps our seer is not a little extravagaFnt in the use of language, and by " Omnipotent power" he means merely a very great, but yet finite and limited power.\par \par \par \par Page 13 031\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 13 If so, we have only to reply, that his "great positive mind," in that case, is a being finite and imperfect like ourselves, and is not the deity to whom the intellectual and moral nature of universal mind is fundamentally and immutably correlated. A Deity of absolute infinity and perfection is the only " great positiGve mind" that responds to the nature of universal finite mind. According to this theology, the final ultimate of matter, rational mind, is fundamentally correlated to the unreal instead of the real, as far as God is concerned. The theology of our seer therefore breaks the harmony of nature, instead of filling out and perfecting it. 3. We now advance to the consideration of a difficulty fundamentally involved in our seer's theory of creation, a difficulty which demonstrably renders the validity of that theHory an absolute impossibility. According to this theory, creation, or the formation of worlds, had a beginning, in time. This fact is distinctly affirmed by the author himself. The time was, he tells us, when the great central, primal mass was "one world," when it "contained the power of progression, but had not progressed." He not only represents the process of creation as having had a beginning in time, but as not being yet completed, - the sixth circle of suns and worlds being now in a process of unconIsummated completion, the other five having had their origin, and having attained to their completion in time. According to our seer, also, the process of creation is progressive, and progressive in one direction exclusively, from the less to the more perfect. " Array no arguments, therefore," he says, " against the truthful and magnificent doctrine of progressive development." Now " progressive development," that is progress from the less in the direction of the more perfect, the doctrine every2\par \parJ \par \par Page 14 032\par \par 14 MODERN MYSTERIES. where proclaimed by our seer, implies a beginning in time; otherwise creation would now, the progress having been eternal, and consequently infinite, have already attained to infinity and perfection. It has not thus attained, even according to our seer himself. It therefore had a beginning in time. This will be universally admitted. From eternity up to a given period, this now central mass, this " ocean of liquid fire," pervaded by the "great positKive mind," existed alone, not having evaporated or radiated any substances adapted to the formation of worlds. Had this evaporation been from eternity, so also must have been the formation of worlds, or, by the laws of matter, that formation never could have occurred at all. As by the law of necessity, which is fundamental in the philosophy of our author, what did not occur could not possibly have occurred, this mass, this " ocean of liquid fire," pervaded by the " great positive mind," had existed from eLternity to the period named, without the possibility of producing any evaporations whatever suitable to the formation of suns and worlds. How shall we account for the conmencernent of evaporation from this " expanse of liquid substance," at the moment referred to? Would not the same reasons which rendered it impossible for this cause to produce this result from eternity to the moment referred to, have rendered it impossible for the same identical cause to produce that result to eternity? From eternity to Mthe period named, according to this theory, this mass could, by no possibility, produce these evaporations. From that moment onward, it could not possibly but produce them. Yet the mass itself, with all the laws and causes, external and internal, operating upon it, remained all the while immutably the same. If a theory involving such contradictions can be true, then\par \par \par \par Page 15 033\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 15 it is possible for the same thing, at the same time, to exist and nNot to exist. Evaporation, at the time, and from the cause assigned in this theory, is nothing else than an event without a cause. From the immutable laws of matter also, evaporation can take place but upon one condition, the impregnation of portions of matter with degrees of heat which they did not before possess, and thus changing them from a solid to a vaporous state. No such change could have occurred, at the moment referred to, in any portion of this " mass of liquid substance." The heat must have beeOn equally diffused through all parts of it alike, and that from eternity. No new causes existed to generate new degrees of heat, in any portion of the mass, or in all combined. The evaporations then from which, according to our seer, the universe was formed, must have been an event without a cause, and by no possibility could have been any thing else. His theory is fundamentally self-contradictory and absurd, and its validity an absolute impossibility. 4. Another difficulty, equally fundamental, is found Pin our seer's " nebulous zones," formed around the central mass, as the material for the institution of his six circles of suns and worlds. If from a mass of liquid substance existing in empty space, evaporations should occur, they would be in all directions equally, and could not possibly be otherwise. If from these evaporations, nebulous formations should be constituted at any distance from the surface of the central mass, they would of necessity assume the form of hollow spheres, and not of zones, as oQur seer affirms. that is, worlds would be formed in all directions alike and equally around this mass, and not in circles, as asserted by our seer. The formation of such zones in the circumstances supposed,\par \par \par \par Page 16 034\par \par 16 MODERN MYSTERIES. is an absolute impossibility, and that from the known immutable laws of matter. Consequently, if systems of suns and worlds were constituted from these nebulous formations, they would be in the form of converging spheres, and not of cirRcles. Here, then, the theory of our seer falls to pieces upon another self-evident principle of science. 5. But let us grant the formation of the nebulous zones referred to. The formation of systems of suns and worlds from them, would be an absolute impossibility. The central mass of liquid substance may be conceived of as surrounded or not surrounded with an atmosphere. In the latter case, all evaporations would be collected immediately around the central mass, and no nebulous zones or spheres could be fSormed. Should any portions of the matter thus evaporated become consolidated, they would thereby become heavier than the other portions of the evaporations around them, and would, by the laws of gravitation, fall back into the central mass from which they had been separated. If the mass referred to were surrounded with an atmosphere, the theory of our seer, the matter evaporated would be borne upward till its specific gravity, and that of the atmosphere sustaining it, became equal. There such matter wouldT remain in the form of clouds, till portions of the same should become consolidated. Such portions, by that means, becoming heavier than the atmosphere which had previously sustained them, would then, as in the case above stated, fall back again into the central mass, and not remain as systems of suns and worlds. From the immutable laws of matter no other results could follow. This is demonstrably evident. The universe cannot have been constituted in accordance with the theory of our author, unless there Uhas\par \par \par \par Page 17 035\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 17 not only been an event without a cause, but in opposition to the immutable laws and constitution of universal nature. So much for our seer's theory pertaining to the " institution" of the system of suns and worlds now existing in the immensity of space; a theory which any schoolboy can perceive, on a moment's reflection, can by no possibility be true. We might specify additional contradictions and absurdities in this theory to' Vthe burdening of our readers. The above are sufficient, however, to accomplish what we intended, when we took up our pen,- the demonstration of the fact, that its validity is an absolute impossibility. As a philosopher, our seer evinces the profoundest ignorance of the most palpable and generally known laws of matter, the only real substance, according to his "divine revelations." As a theorizer, he is a very poor copyist of Lamarck, and the author of the development theory a theory which any man of real Wscience would now be ashamed to avow, which science has long since exploded, which has not a single decisive fact in the wide universe to sustain it, or render its truth even probable, and which is most absolutely contradicted by all the facts of geology and other sciences bearing upon the subject. Having shown, by a reference to his central principles, that as a teacher of science, he is nothing but a false light, we shall follow him no further in this department of inquiry, but will now advance to a conXsideration of his reliability as a narrator offacts, facts about which we have certain knowledge. We shall give but a few examples. These, however, will be of such a decisive and fundamental character as to enable our readers to form an unerring judgment upon our revelator's real merits. 2"\par \par \par \par Page 18 036\par \par 18 MODERN MYSTERIES. In his revelations pertaining to the book of Nehenmiah, page 449, we find the following sentence. "For a truthful understanding of the contents of someY of the previous books, this [the book of Nehemiah] and following, ones, I would refer the reader to the theological writings of Swedenborg, the enlightened philosopher - especially to the valuable work entitled' Summaria Expositio Sensus Prophetici.'" In regard to the important statements referred to as in these works, we have the authority of Prof. Bush for saying,- 1. That in none of his writings has Swedenborg given any account or explanation of the book of Nehemiah. 2. That he has never written any wZork whatever under the title above named. 3. That the exclusive design of the only work which he did write in respect to the prophets, was to show, that the prophetic writings have a meaning which our seer affirms attaches to no parts of the Bible whatever. How safe to follow our author implicitly in professed revelations pertaining to the invisible, when we find him such a safe guide in respect to the visible! The next statement to which we refer is found on page 507, and is regarded by our seer as of ve[ry great importance, his design being nothing less than to do away with the evidence in favor of the divine origin and authority of Christianity, derived from miracles. "It is said," he remarks, " that Christ had a divine comminssion, to prove and establish which, he performed many incomprehensible miracles. How such an opinion can be derived from the literal teachings of the New Testament, it is impossible to conceive; for although Matthew and the apostles seriously believed in miracles, they have not, i\n all their writings, intimated that these are designed as a confirmation of Christ's mission, nor do they represent him as ever making any such declara\par \par \par \par Page 19 037\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 19 tion." A more false and reckless statement, we think, can hardly be found in any author, ancient or modern; a statement indicating the grossest ignorance of what children ought to understand, or a very singular presumption in respect to the ignorance of his readers. In Matt. 9: 6, C]hrist is affirmed to have performed a miracle for the express and avowed purpose of confirming his divine mission. "Thiat ye may know, that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," then having made this appeal, it is affirmed that he performed this miracle, the healing of the sick of the palsy. In Matt. 11: 4-6, Christ is recorded as having appealed to his own miracles in proof of the fact that he was the Messiah. In John 11: 15, Christ is recorded as affirming, that one object of the miracle ^which he was about to perform, the raising of Lazarus, was the confirmation of the faith of his disciples in his divine mission; " to the intent that ye may believe." At the grave, prior to the performance of this miracle, he makes a direct appeal to God, affirming that that appeal was made, not on his own account, but on that of the people around him, to induce them to believe in his divine mission. " Because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may beiieve that thou hast sent me." To the s_ame purpose are the words of Christ, as recorded John 10: 37, 38, " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him." In John 15: 2, Christ also is recorded as saying, that, but for his miracles, no guilt would attach to the Jews for not believing in him; and that because of the same, they were without excuse. We need not multiply quotations and references, on a point so clear.`\par \par \par \par Page 20 038\par \par 20 MODERN MYSTERIES. One visible existence our seer reveals, most incorrectly reveals, and that is the Scriptures of truth. On page 497, we find the following statement, affirming a fact which is entirely new to us. " Luke represents Jesus as being about thirty years of age when he began to preach, and that at that time, [the time when he began to preach,] Herod sought his life, while Matthew relates that Herod died before he returned from Egypt." Now every caommonly taught Sabbath school child knows, that Luke nowhere affirms that any man bearing the name of Herod, at any time, sought the life of Christ, much less at " that time," the time when Christ began to preach. In chapter 13: 31, Luke affirms that certain Pharisees, after Christ had been for some years preaching the gospel, told him that if he remained in the place where he then was, that Herod would kill him. Christ gave them full leave to inform Herod of his whereabouts, at the same time asserting thbat no danger was to be apprehended from that quarter. Nor does Matthew anywhere affirm that this Herod had died before Christ left Egypt. We shall adduce but one other example of our seer's safety as a guide in history. We refer to various statements which he has put forth, in regard to the sacred canon, the New Testament especially. On pages 497, 498, he affirms of the books of Matthew and Luke, that "these manuscripts were uncollected and uncompiled for more than three hundred years after the birth and clife of Christ." On pages 547, 548, we have the following: " Also remember, reader, that when you read the encyclopsedia of religious knowledge called the Bible, you are merely reading a book pronounced the word of God by three hundred exasperated bishops, and sealed by their\par \par \par \par Page 21 039\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 21 Emperor Constantine. Moreover, reflect that nearly as many manuscripts as are now embodied in the Old Testament, suffered martyrdom. And why, or how, or by whodse imperative command, shall we believe that those which are saved are the word of God, any more than those which were destroyed?" On page 644, he tells us, that the books of James and Jude, and the Revelation of John, "were not received into the New Testament as pure and canonical until nearly three hundred years after the Council of Nice." This council met in the year 325, at the command of the Emperor Constantine, and was, according to our seer, originally constituted of two thousand and forty-eight bieshops, who were, as he further attests, assembled to settle the sacred canon. The following is his, (our seer's,) account of this council. On account of their violent and vociferous conduct, " Constantine," he says, " was obliged to disqualify seventeen hundred and thirty from having a voice in deciding which books were, and which were not the word of God; and only three hundred and eighteen were left. These decided that the books which composed the Bible, as subsequently known, were the word of God. Sevefral books, however, have since that time, been rejected, but of fifty gospels then extant, they decided that those only of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were worthy of being preserved; while they rejected entirely the books of James, Jude, and the Apocalypse. After this decision, Constantine solemnly declared that the same should be considered as sanctioned by the divine will, and that the books thus fixed upon should thereafter be implicitly believed as the word of God. Those manuscripts that were rejecgted, (among which were three well-written gospels,) were committed to the flames." Our seer has\par \par \par \par Page 22 040\par \par 22 MODERN MYSTERIES. said much more to the same purpose. But this must su ffice. Now what are the real facts of the case, relative to the above sweeping statements? Aside from the fact that the council referred to did assemble at the time designated, and at the call of the individual named, we think that we are quite safe in the affirmation that there is not, in theh above extracts, a solitary statement that is true, that is not, in all respects, the total opposite of what is true. We will specify a few examples. 1. Two thousand and forty-eight bishops never assembled as members of this council. Nor were. seventeen hundred and thirty, nor any other number, forcibly excluded by Constantine. All but the three hundred and eighteen which did sit as members of the council were there as mere spectators, on account of the intense interest which was universally felt in the qiuestion of doctrine then to be acted upon, and this is a well-known fact in history. 2. The canon of Scripture was not, in any form, agitated, or voted upon in this council. Nor was there any disagreement among the different and opposite parties in the council on this subject. The object for which the council was called was altogether another and different affair, namely, the settlement of the Arian controversy, the Orthodox and Arians being as perfectly agreed in respect to the canon of Scripture, as thej Orthodox and Unitarians now are. In the sentence passed upon Arius, in the letter sent forth by the council to the churches, in the famous creed then formed, and in the canons passed, there is not a solitary allusion to what. according to our seer, was the main subject of dispute in the council. Our seer might, with the same propriety, have made the same assertions pertaining to the\par \par \par \par Page 23 041\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 23 sacred canon, in reference to any other council okf the church, ancient or modern, as in regard to this. 3. No books whatever, claimed to be a part of the sacred canon, were directed to be committed to the flames by this council. The only books which suffered martyrdom, by its order, if any did, were the works of Arius, works which were perfectly at one with the Orthodox portion of the council on the subject of the sacred canon. 4. Instead of deciding, as our seer affirms they did, "that of fifty gospels then extant, only those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, anld John were worthy of being preserved," they passed no resolutions on the subject, one way or the other. 5. Instead of " rejecting James, Jude, and the Apocalypse," they and all the other books of the New Testament were assumed as belonging to the sacred canon, just as much, and for precisely the same reasons, that they are thus assumed in all assemblies of the saints which are held in modern times. The question of the reception or rejection of these or any other books claimed to belong to the sacred canomn was not moved or acted upon in the council in any form whatever. 6. This council had nothing to do with questions pertaining to the sacred canon, for the obvious reason that such questions had long previously been settled. In the writings of the Christian fathers prior to this council, we find formal catalogues perfectly agreeing with our own. We also find commentaries on the same. Origen, about a century previous, wrote a threefold commentary on the New Testament, and gave a catalogue of the books embrnaced in it, comprising all now contained in it, and none others. These books were, as they now are, most extensively quoted as of divine au\par \par \par \par Page 24 042\par \par 24 MODERN MYSTERIES. thority, and none others were ever thus quoted. Several years prior to this council, Athanasius the great leader of the Orthodox party, and Eusebius, one of the most influential members of the Arian, gave forth formal catalogues of the books of the New Testament. That of the former perfectly agrees witoh ours, and that of the latter with this exception. Eusebius affirms that all these books but James, Jude, 2 and 3 of John, and Revelation, had, from the first, been universally regarded, by the church, as of divine authority, and that these had been thus received by the majority. While the books now constituting the New Testament, were thus received by the church, none but these were received, as of divine authority, none others were included in the catalogues given by the Christian writers of the sacredp books. None, as such, were made the subjects of commentary, or were thus cited in their writings. These are the simple facts of the case, facts as well known in history as any others can be. It is in the presence of such well-known and undeniable facts, that the broad, sweeping, bold, and impious assertions of our seer, pertaining to the sacred canon, are put forth. 7. Our seer affirms, that the gospels of Matthew and Luke were " uncollected and uncompiled for more than three hundred years after the birtqh and life of Jesus." At least, one hundred years prior to the period here named, one Christian writer published a harmony of these and the other two gospels; another attempted to reconcile the genealogies given in them, and another still, wrote commentaries upon them, and numbered them expressly among the books universally received in the churches, as belonging to the sacred canon. More than a century previous to the same period, another Christian writer, Irenmus, a disciple of Polycarp, who\par \par \rpar \par Page 25 043\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 25 was a disciple of John, names the authors of the four Gospels? states the circumstances in which these books were written, and then affirms that no other gospels but these were received as of divine authority in the churches. Many other references equally to our purpose might be made. These, however, are sufficient. Such is the credibility of our divine revelator in the narration of facts of history. We have made our selections almost at randoms, and we leave the examples adduced to speak for themselves. Any one who would receive with confidence the professed revelations of a person in respect to things invisible, who has been convicted of such errors, misstatements, and falsehoods in regard to " things seen," would heed no remarks of ours upon the subject. In our judgment, our seer has hardly a parallel, as far as recklessness in statements pertaining to matters-of-fact is concerned. Before leaving this department of our subject, however, the rtelations of our seer to the visible, we will present a single example of his revelations in respect to things to us invisible. Of the inhabitants of Mars, we have the following description:" Sentiments arising upon their minds become instantly impressed upon their countenances;" [they have no hypocrites there who "steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in; "] and they use their mouth and tongue for their specific offices, and not as agents of conversation. But that glowing radiation which illumes tuheir face while conversing, is to us inconceivable. Their eyes are blue and of a soft expression," [" variety is not the spice of life' there,]' are very full and expressive, and are their most powerful agents in conversation. Where one conceives a thought and desires to express it, he casts his beaming eyes upon the 3\par \par \par \par Page 26 044\par \par 26 MIODERN MYSTERIES. eyes of another, and his sentiments instantly become known." On reading the above, we were powerfully "impressed" with a vfact or two which occurred when we were crossing the ocean. On board the same vessel was a young man of respectable appearance, who had one very singular peculiarity. He would become almost distracted if he wanted any thing, and it was not instantly brought to him. One day he and ourself were sitting in opposite corners of " the smoke room," while the other passengers were taking their dinner, we being unable to partake from that form of sickness so common under such circumstances. While we were thus seatwed, one of the waiters passed by the door, at the corner of the room the most distant from the place where the young man was seated. As soon as the waiter appeared, the young man leaped up, and rushing forward, cried out at the top of his voice, and with a perfect wail of anguish, "Waiter! waiter! waiter! " We have seldom heard a louder cry, or one uttered with greater apparent anguish. "What do you want? " replied the waiter. "I want some rice pudding," was the deeply sorrowful reply. If we had only beenx inhabitants of the planet Mars then, the distracted young man would have just " cast his beaming eyes upon the eyes " of the waiter, and the latter would have instantly perceived the exact object desired, namely, " some rice pudding." During that voyage, we had also, at a particular period, a somewhat to us, singular experience. For several days previous we had hardly been able to partake of a particle of food, and it seemed to us that we should never desire to taste it again. At length one specific objeyct which had never before been a favorite article with us, became, to the total exclusion of all\par \par \par \par Page 27 045\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 27 others, an object of most intense desire, that of a cold boiled turnip. We finally, in the midst of our sufferings, forced our way to the kitchen, and asked the waiter if he could not furnish us with that one object. What was our suffering, when he told us, that there was no such article in readiness. 0, had we been crossing one of the ozceans of Mars, at that time, all that we should need to have done, would have been to "cast our beaming [blue] eyes upon the eyes" of one of the waiters as he appeared, and he would instantly have perceived, with absolute distinctness and accuracy, the great thought that lay with such weight upon our heart, and the wish, too, that was the father of that thought, the idea of a cold boiled turnip. Such is the blissful condition of the inhabitants of Mars according the " divine revelations" of " Andrew Jacks{on Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer," and " he is a heretic dog that but adds Betty Martyn" to what that divine seer has written. His other revelations in regard to things unseen, are just as credible as the above. We now advance to a consideration of the last topic of remark in this article, namely, the real moral character of this professedly divine revelator. There are but two points of light in which we can regard him - as a self-deceived enthusiast who honestly supposes himself uttering " truth eternaliz|ed," while he is giving expression to the merest errors, contradictions, and absurdities conceivable, -or, like the founder of Mormonism, a deliberate impostor. It is in the latter character exclusively that we are compelled to regard this individual, and we will give our reasons for thus regarding him. We have long been taught to estimate no man's moral character as being better than his deliberately formed and entertained moral principles; and we hold\par \par \par \par Page 28 046\par \par 28 MOD}ERN MYSTERIES. the truth of such a maxim to be self-evident. We believe that no man is practically honest who entertains and propagates a system of belief, that in all respects gives the lie to the immutable dictates of his own moral nature. If there is any thing that is an immutable dictate of that nature, it is that there is an eternal and immutable distinction between actions as morally right or morally wrong; that the most sacred and inviolable obligation rests upon us to do the one and avoid the othe~r; and that the desert of good or ill necessarily attaches to us, as we comply or refuse to comply with the behest of the law of duty. When an individual denies these distinctions, and cherishes the opposite sentiment, the bottom has dropped out of his moral character, and no foundation is left upon which to build a character for integrity, purity, and virtue. Now what are the principles of our seer on this subject? -principles to the propagation of which he has consecrated his life? lie has one merit here, that of self-consistency. He is an openly avowed materialist, and, as such, is throughout a consistent necessitarian. All the actions of all beings, man not excepted, he teaches, are subject to one immutable law. In the circumstances of their occurrence, they cannot be otherwise than they are. Man, therefore, cannot be under obligation to do differently from what he does, or incur, by any actions he may perform, the desert of moral good or ill. Moral obligation has no place in his system, and he does not profess to give it a place there. " Sin indeed," he says, " in the common acceptation of the term, does not really exist; but what is called sin is merely a mzisdir'ection of man's physical or spiritual powers which generates unhappy consequences." All effects, human conduct not excepted, are, according to our author, a\par \par \par \par Page 29 047\par \par CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 29 necessary result of the immutable laws of nature, and cannot, by any possibility, be otherwise than they are. HowT then, can such results be a misdirection of such powers? It is with the moral principles of our seer, however, that we now have to do. In another place he tells us, that, " The nature of the mental and physical constitution of mankind is divine, perfect, and harmonious. This will never deceive. It is perfectly good, and represents the divineness of its origin and cause. Deception, however, exists in the world, and all description of dissimulation. But these do not flow from the interior of man's nature, but arise merely as a consequence of his unholy, imperfect, and vitiated situation in reference to his fellow beings. Unholy situations produce unholy effects. But the interior principle which is of divine origin, cannot be made evil, nor can it be contaminated. And all evil is of external and superficial origin, and is felt by all as external; and hence, in order to banish all evil from the earth, a change must occur in the social condition of the whole world." Again he says: " The innate divineness of the spirit of man prohibits the possibility of spiritual wickedness, or unrighteousness." In other words, the external actions may be wrong, in consequence of the wrong situation of man physically, but the existence of real moral depravity or wrong is an absolute impossibility. Man can no more sin, according to the proper signification of that term, that is, perform an act really and strictly morally wrong, than a steamengine! Such are the sentiments which our seer glories in propagating. Now we say that no man can hold and teach such sentiments, and yet retain his moral integrity and purity, any more than individuals can deliberately 3*\par \par \par \par Page 30 048\par \par 30 MODERN MYSTERIES. perpetrate acts of piracy, murder, arson, seduction, robbery, theft, and not perpetrate acts morally wrong. The moral sentiments can be corrupted only by internal moral depravity and corruption. We will not judge him, however, merely by his principles, but by his acts,- at least by one of them, which, in our judgment, is sufficiently decisive to mark his real character, indelibly. The past fall and winter, nearly one year ago, our seer performed a mission in some of the western States. When in the city of Cleveland, (we were there at the time,) and while delivering a public lecture, he suddenly stopped, and for some minutes seemed to be in one of his favorite states of abstraction, or spiritual revery. On coming to himself, he remarked that he was deeply, painfully impressed with woman's rights. " Will Horace Mann/" he exclaimed, 4 lecture in this city, this winter? He will. Will his subject be Woman? It will." Our seer then requested that portion of the audience who should hear Mr. Mann, to compare what he should now utter with what Mr. M. should utter on his arrival, and carefully mark the correspondence between them. He then delivered a very spirit-stirring paragraph, in which the audience was intensely interested. Ie professed to the audience that, during the revery referred to, \cf1\f1\fs23\par } mes New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs24 Page 33 051\par \par PART II. THE MISSION OF "THE SPIRITS," OR THE PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM EXPLAINED, AND EXPOSED. THE tendency of human depravity, in all ages, has been to supplant the worship of " the incorruptible God" by that of " corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." "In these last days," this same principle is being carried out, by attempting to substitute for the revelations of the spirit of this " incorrviptible God," those of pretended spirits of corruptible men. No revelations which descend to us from this professed mission of "the spirits," lay claim to any higher origin. A revelation coming from the bosom and heart of infinity and perfection, absolutely adapted, in all respects, to meet perfectly the spiritual necessities of universal humanity, and revealing in its own nature and intrinsic adaptations, as well as in its external evidences, the clearest possible indications of its origin from no other cause than the spirit of God, is, if the mission of "the spirits" attains its end, to be supplanted by pretended revelations of the spirits of men, revelations as discordant in themselves as the jargon of Babel, having no adaptations to the necessities of humanity, in any form, physical, intellectual, or moral, and which are totally wanting, as we expect to show, in any positive claims to any connection whatever with any real spirits (33)\par \par \par \par Page 34 052\par \par 34 MODERN MYSTERIES. in " the spirit land," much less with those whose honest intention is to reveal nothing but the truth. We may be permitted, in the outset of our remarks, to recur to a fact noticed,. in our first article, on the general subject under consideration, a fact which throws a most "disastrous twilight" of worse than uncertainty over this mission of " the spirits;" the fact that, in almost no one point, do they so unanimously agree, as in affirming the truth of the " harmonial philosophy,"- a philosophy which, as we have already shown, can no more be true, than the proposition, that things equal to the same things are not equal to one another. Among the standard works issued from " the spirit press," we have, for example, a professed revelation from the spirit of Thomas Paine, pertaining to the original condition of matter, and the origin, progress, and consummation of the work of creation. In this production, which was commended to our high regard by a very intelligent man in most respects, a graduate of Yale College, as solving most completely the great mystery under consideration, the fact of matter as the only substance, its original condition, a condition in which up to a certain period it had remained inoperative for any creative effects, from eternity, as a mass of liquid fire, and the origin and cause of creation from the spontaneous activity of this mass at that moment, are given precisely as set forth in "the divine revelations" of our Poughkeepsie seer. Here the two revelations diverge a little. According to the latter, all'systems of suns and worlds were "instituted" from clouds of vapor spontaneously thrown off from the central mass. According to the former, from this same mass there was, at the moment referred to, spontaneously, from a law inherent in matter, thrown off masses of matter which passed away into the\par \par \par \par Page 35 053\par \par THIE MISSION OF " TIHE SPIRITS." 35 depths of space, and then stopping in their flight at the proper points, took their places as suns and worlds, each spontaneously revolving around its own axis, worlds beginning, in the same manner, to move in proper orbits around their central suns, and satellites around their respective centres, and all together constituting one harmonious universe. The individual that would for a moment credit such an account of creation, that does not instantly perceive it to be as absurd, self-contradictory, and its truth as impossible, as the supposition, that creative power resides in empty space, is prepared to believe any thing but truth,- truth revealed in all her internal harmony and self-consistency, and attended with all possible external evidence of its reality. Truth is too insubstantial a substance to find a lodgement in such a mind. Yet such is the philosophy of the spirits in regard to creation, of which they profess a perfect knowledge. Whatever else they know, they are certainly very poor philosophers. Of the real laws of mind they know almost nothing; of those of matter quite as little, and of neither do they know any thing correctly. Equally absurd is their theory pertaining to the condition of the spirits in the invisible world, -their existence, we mean, in seven concentric circles or spheres. We have the authority of "the spirits" themselves, for discrediting any revelations even from them which do not accord with the great principles of matter and spirit already revealed to us, by experience and observation. Now what is there in the analogy of human experience, or in the laws of our physical, mental, or moral nature, to indicate a future existence in such kind of spheres? Absolutely nothing. Besides, if the law of human progression, which is to continue forever, demands seven such spheres, it would, for the same reason,\par \par \par \par Page 36 054\par \par 36 MODERN MYSTERIES. demand seventy thousand -indeed an infinite number. "' The spirits" are now, they affirm, distributed along through these different circles or spheres, from the first to the seventh, according to intellectual and moral attainments. Among those in the first six circles, there is a continuous advance towards the seventh, where they all finally meet, and to all eternity remain together upon one common level. Now, if the progress of those in the sixth circle, for example, demands an ultimate admission to the seventh, why should not the advancement of those in this last demand an admission to one still higher, and so on to all eternity? On what principle of classification, also, are " the spirits " all arranged into seven, with no intermediate circles? The same principles which would demand this number, would require just as many circles or spheres as there are individual spirits; for there are no two precisely alike. Besides, such a separation as the system under consideration presents, is the most unfavorable conceivable to the great ends for which the arrangement itself is made, to wit, universal intellectual and spiritual progression. The most wise and the most pure are separated at the greatest remove from those who most need the influence of their instruction and example. Jesus Christ, we are informed in the work connected with the name of Judge Edmonds, is so far advanced, that such spirits as those of Swedenborg and Bacon, though they have been one or two centuries in the spirit land, have never yet got even a sight of him. For ourselves, we think this must be true of the spirits lubricating in that work. But think of the idea of the state even of the virtuous dead, as shadowed forth in such an arrangement of spiritual existences, an arrangement in which those who most need the highest forms of illurina\par \par \par \par Page 37 055\par \par THE MISSION OF "THE SPIRITS." 37 tion are placed at an unapproachable remove from it! Then the particular account given of these circles or spheres has but one characteristic which commends it to our regard, a perfect adaptation to secure the faith of credulous minds, namely, its perfect absurdity. That given by the spirit of Thomas Paine, we will notice as an illustration. All the circles or spheres for the inhabitants of this world, have the earth for their common centre. The first encircles the earth at about five thousand miles from its surface, if we rightly remember. A pretty solid pavement " the spirits " must have to walk upon there. What wonderful scenery they must have there in the presence of which "the spirits" may realize the great idea of endless progression; scenery consisting of luxurious prairies in endless perspective, " hills peeping o'er hills," and mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans of corresponding sublimity, orchards, vineyards, fields of waving grain, all beaming with immortal luxuriance, imperishable habitations, towns and cities with their alabaster foundations, gates of pearl, and streets of gold, looming up into untold magnificence, through their " cloud-capped towers, gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples." \\We have the most positive revelation from "the spirits," that the soul on escaping its clayey tenement does not escape the curse of labor. The first thing it is called to do, on entering the spirit land, is to erect its own habitation, and make provisions for its own sustenance, by a careful cultivation of the soil there. We think the soil is rather light up there in empty space, five thousand miles from the surface of the earth. The next sphere, with a scenery of still greater beauty and sublimity, is located at a still greater distance from the earth's surface, and so unto the seventh, 4\par \par \par \par Page 38 056\par \par 38 MODERN MYSTERIES. which encircles the universe. To what depths must human credulity have descended, when it can resort to sources from which such revelations as these proceed, for reliable information pertaining to the soul's immortal destiny! We will now descend from the sphere of philosophy to a direct consideration of the claims of spiritualism to the high regard of which its advocates deem it so worthy. We wish to handle these pretended substantialities, "the spirits," and see if there is any thing really substantial about them. In discussing the subject before us, three, and only three, questions will occupy the attention of the reader, namely, whether we have any valid evidence that spirits out of the body have any agency in the production of these so called spirit manifestations? what is the tendency of this spirit movement? and, certain topics of a miscellaneous character, bearing upon the general subject before us. CHAPTER I. HAVE WE VALID EVIDENCE THAT DISEMBODIED SPIRITS HAVE ANY AGENCY IN THESE MIANIFESTATIONS? AT the outset of our investigations, in respect to this question, it will be necessary to any thing like a scientific procedure, to lay down definitely, certain fundamental principles, which we may apply, as decisive tests of truth, in reference to any conclusions which have been, or may be deduced from the facts which lie in\par \par \par \par Page 39 057\par \par THE MISSION OF " THE SPIRITS." 39 our way,- and then to specify the character of the facts on which spiritualists rely, as proof of the truth of their theory. As fundamental test principles which should guide our investigations, and determine our conclusions on this subject, we specify the following - TEST PRINCIPLES. 1. No facts occurring in the world around us, are to be referred to any supernatural, or ab extra spirit causes whatever, which facts can be adequately accounted for, by a reference to causes known to exist in this mundane sphere. 2. No facts are to be referred to any particular supernatural, or ab extra spirit cause, unless they are of such a nature, that they can be accounted for, upon no other supposition. 3. When particular causes are known to exist, all effects within and around us are to be attributed to such causes, effects resembling and analogous to those known to proceed from such causes, effects especially which occur in circumstances where such causes may be reasonably supposed to be present. 4. Even those facts for the occurrence of which no mundane causes, at present known, can be assigned, are not to be attributed to any ab extra causes whatever, or to the agency of disembodied spirits, when such facts are similar and analogous, in their essential characteristics, to other facts which once appeared equally mysterious and unaccountable on any mundane hypothesis, but for which science subsequently discovered actual mundane causes. Such facts manifestly lie in the track of scientific discovery, and we must suppose them to be the result of mundane causes, which are yet to be discovered, though at present unknown to us.\par \par \par \par Page 40 058\par \par 40 MODERN MYSTERIES. 5. To establish the claims of spiritualism, its advocates must show, (1.) that the facts which they adduce are wholly dissimilar and unanalogous, in their essential characteristics, to any facts resulting from any mundane causes, and (2.) that the occurrence and characteristics of these facts can be accounted for, but upon one exclusive hypothesis, the agency of disembodied spirits. If similar and analogous facts do arise from purely mundane causes, it is a violation of all the laws and principles of science and common sense, to attribute these phenomena to any ab extra cause whatever. The validity of these principles will be universally recognized as self-evident. Their applicability, as fundamental tests of truth, to our present inquiries, is equally manifest and undeniable. Their validity has been universally acknowledged by Christians, in reference to all miraculous attestations of the claims of Christianity to a divine origin and authority. FACTS ADDUCED TO SUSTAIN THE CLAIMIS OF SPIRITUALISIM. The facts on which the reality of the agency of spirits out of the body, in the production of these manifestations, is affirmed, are all, without exception, comprehended in the following classes, namely: \emdash 1. Facts of a purely physical character, such as the moving of tables, chairs, etc., movements which sometimes accord with the thoughts and suggestions of inquirers. 2. Intelligent communications, by means of rapping sounds, speaking, and writing, phenomena which, in many instances, to say the least, occur wholly independently of the direct conscious agency of the mediums, *or any other persons present, on the occasion.\par \par \par \par Page 41 059\par \par TIHE MISSION OF " TIE SPIRITS." 41 3. Communications pertaining to subjects of which the mediums are profoundly ignorant, and yet found to be correct. 4. Correct communications pertaining to facts believed to be known only to the inquirer himself, and the particular spirit with whom he is professedly communicating. 5. Similar communications containing correct responses to purely mental questions. 6. Communications conveying, in some instances, correct information, in respect to facts unknown to the inquirer, or any other person present. Facts falling under one or the other of the classes above named, are continuously occurring, it is claimed, il all parts of Christendom, and can be accounted for but upon one supposition, namely, that these communications proceed from disembodied spirits. Such is the argument of spiritualists, as stated by themselves, and stated as strongly as ever, to our knowledge, given forth by any writer or speaker, who advocates the spirit theory. Either of the following positions may be taken by those who deny this theory. 1. They may deny the facts put forward by spiritualists, and then meet the evidence adduced by them in favor of the actual occurrence of such facts. 2. Or they may admit the facts, and then meet the arguments based upon them. 3. Or, finally, they may deny both the facts and the conclusions based upon them, that is, they may take the ground, that the facts claimed by spiritualists are impositions, on the one hand, and that, if admitted as real, they do not sustain the claims of spiritualism, on the other. In each and every case alike, the burden of proof rests wholly upon the advocates of this new theory. All that its opponents have to do, unless they 4@\par \par \par \par Page 42 060\par \par 42 MODERN MYSTERIES. choose to proceed further, is to meet the facts and arguments adduced by its advocates to sustain its claims For ourselves, in conducting the argument, in the present treatise, we shall admit the facts claimed by spiritualists, and join issue with them simply and exclusively in regard to the conclusions which they deduce from them. We admit the facts for the all adequate reason, that after careful inquiry, we have been led to conclude that they are real. We think that no candid inquirer, who carefully investigates the subject, can come to any other conclusion. While we honestly believe, that there is more imposition connected with this movement, than with almost any other that can be named, yet we as fully believe, that a denial of the facts claimed by spiritualists, as comprehended under the classes above named, has its exclusive basis either in ignorance, or a state of prejudice which is blind to valid evidence. We have ourselves witnessed physical manifestations which, in our judgment, can be accounted for, by no reference to mere muscular action. A lady, for example, places her fingers gently upon a table or stand. Soon the object moves after her around the room, while yet no other person is in contact with the object, or in many feet of it, and her own fingers so lightly touch the smooth surface, or top of it, that the parts touching it are not perceptibly flattened in the least, on the one hand, nor the blood at all driven from under the finger nails, on the other. Who does not perceive, that the movements of such objects, under such circumstances, can be accounted for by no muscular pressure and action whatever? Yet we feel quite safe in vouching for the reality of just such facts, facts which are produced by individuals utterly repudiating spiritualism, in all its forms, facts utterly fatal, as we\par \par \par \par Page 43 061\par \par THE MISSION OPF TIE SPIRITS." 43 shall hereafter see, to its claims, as far as physical manifestations are concerned. That intelligent communications are obtained in the spirit circles, communications undeniably indicating their origin from some intelligent cause, is now doubted by none, and admitted by all. Equally undeniable is the fact, that correct responses are often obtained to questions pertaining to subjects of which it is honestly believed, and no reasons exist for an opposite conclusion, that all present are profoundly ignorant, but the inquirer and the spirit with whom he is professedly communicating. A stranger, for example, from the most distant part of this, or from any foreign country, in passing through a place which he never visited before, and in consequence of an unexpected delay, goes immediately and unattended from the cars into some spirit circle, where no one could have expected him, and where he meets not a solitary countenance or form of which he has the most distant recollection. To all present, therefore, he has the best possible evidence that he is an utter stranger, whose visit no one anticipated. This individual, under these identical circumstances, may call for the spirit of some departed friend, and, on inquiry, obtain correct answers pertaining to the name of that spirit, his age at the time of his death, etc., the only condition required being, that the inquirer shall himself know what answers should be given, and, at the time, have those answers distinctly before his mind. That facts of this character have occurred, we have the most valid evidence, and any one can verify them, in his own experience, who will take the pains to do it. In the same circumstances, and on the same condition, individuals can obtain, in some instances, to say the least, correct answers to purely mental questions. A gentleman of\par \par \par \par Page 44 062\par \par 44 MODERN MYSTERIES. our acquaintance, for example, called upon the Misses Fish and the Foxes, when they were in Cleveland, Ohio, and to the supposed spirit of a departed sister, put mentally, and in succession, twelve questions, and to each received a perfectly correct answer, he knowing, in each instance, what the answer should be, and having his attention, at the time, definitely fixed upon it. This, and cases of a similar kind, which might, without number, be adduced, establish the reality of the class of facts under consideration. The gentleman above referred to, however, wrote out these same questions upon twelve blank cards, and putting them together, the sides containing the questions from him, and having shuffled them so that he could not know what question he might put down, in any instance, put each one successively upon the table, the question downward, and requested the same spirit to give an answer to the question laid down, while he should write that answer upon the blank side. Twelve answers were, accordingly, obtained, but one of which was, in any form, correct; the answers, in most instances, having no relations whatever to the question put. Such facts, which are continually occurring in spirit circles the world over, throw, in the judgment of all reflecting minds, more than suspicion over the truth of the whole spirit theory. The spirit of that sister, or any other truthful, or even lying spirit, a lying spirit who did not wish to bring this theory into universal discredit, would never attempt to answer questions under such circumstances; but would, at once, disavow ability to do it. There can be no doubt on this subject. Truthful spirits, we know certainly, would not give such responses; and lying ones would not, upon any laws of mind known to us, unless they desired, a case not credible, to shut\par \par \par \par Page 45 063\par \par THE MISSION OF "THE SPIRITS." 45 themselves and all other spirits wholly out from all communication with minds in the body. As an example of facts coming under the class last named, we will state one which recently came to our knowledge, and for the occurrence of which we feel quite safe in vouching. A friend of ours who had been. since the summer of 1850, till September last, in Europe, and who, on his return, left two daughters there, one in London, and the other in France, Calais, if we rightly remember, called, not long after his return, upon a venerable Quaker family, in the State of Rhode Island. As the conversation, during the evening, turned upon the merits of spiritualism, the lady of the house proposed to call in, which was done, a friend of hers who was a medium, but never acted as such for remuneration. This medium, our friend had never before seen, and the character of the family precluded the idea of any form of imposition. When the required preparation was consummated, our friend inquired if any spirit was present who would communicate with him, and if so who? Elizabeth B-, was immediately rapped out. He had had a mother, sister, and wife, all now dead, of that same name. After specifying the two former, and receiving a negative answer, he was told that it was the spirit of the latter. To all questions pertaining to their family, such as names, ages, etc., correct answers were given. He then inquired about the present location of their daughters, and was told that each of them was in London. The eldest he supposed to be there, and the other in France. To every inquiry pertaining to the whereabouts of the latter, however, the answer was, London. The next steamer brought a letter from that daughter dated London, to which city she had come six days prior to the time\par \par \par \par Page 46 064\par \par 46 MODERN MYSTERIES. when that professedly spirit communication was received. The unbelief of our friend in spiritualism was very strongly shaken. In a subsequent interview with that spirit, after receiving all the evidence of identity which he had ever done, he asked the question, Where did you die, and where was your body buried? The reply was, Durham. After asking whether the place named was located in Ohio, Michigan, New York, or Massachusetts, and receiving to each inquiry a negative answer, the spirit was asked to name the State herself. Pennsylvania was rapped out. The wife of our friend died in Buffalo, N. Y., and her body was there interred. It is thus, that all reflecting minds who are inclined to place confidence in " the spirits," find their faith continually running upon snags by which it is, in a short period, utterly submerged. We leave such facts, for the present, to speak for themselves. Their full, and, as we hope, perfectly satisfactory explanation will be given hereafter. We might multiply authentic cases, in which correct statements are made relatively to facts unknown to all within the circles where such statements are given forth. One, however, when the reality of the facts is admitted, and all agree, in regard to the class to which they belong, is sufficient. That we may not be misunderstood, in our admissions, we would remark, that while we admit the actual occurrence of the class of facts last named, we also believe, from the best information which we have been able to obtain, that to inquiries pertaining to such subjects, excepting in cases where only a positive or negative answer is required, and one must be true, hardly one answer in a hundred is correct. We have a friend in Europe, for example; we ask the question of " the spirits," Is he dead or alive? Here we are, at any rate, as likely to obtain\par \par \par \par Page 47 065\par \par THE MISSION OF " TIE SPIRITS." 47 a right as wrong answer. But suppose we ask, is he alive, and if so, where he is, and what is he now employed about? we having no means of forming even a probable conjecture of what is true on such subjects. In such cases correct answers are not, in our judgment, obtained in one case in a hundred, if in a thousand. Yet a sufficient number of such cases do occur to constitute the class above named, cases which need to be accounted for. We would further remark, that according to the best information that we have been able to obtain, incorrect answers are continuously, as in the case cited above, given forth to inquiries pertaining to subjects fully known both to the inquirers and the spirits professedly communicating, answers of such a character as to destroy all rational confidence in the claims of spiritualism. ISSUE STATED. Such, as we understand the subject, are the.facts before us, and such are the principles which should guide us in their investigation. To sustain the claims of spiritualism, it must be shown, that similar and analogous facts are produced by no mundane causes whatever, on the one hand, and that they can be produced by no other agencies than disembodied spirits, on the other. In opposition to the claims of this new system, we propose to show: 1. That from known mundane causes, precisely similar and analogous facts do arise. 2. That these so called spirit manifestations actually occur, in circumstances in which such causes are known to exist and to act, and that by a reference to such causes, all these manifestations can be accounted for.\par \par \par \par Page 48 066\par \par 48 MODERN MYSTERIES. 3. That from such causes, and not from the agency of disembodied spirits, these manifestations do proceed. When we shall have proved the first two propositions, we shall have totally annihilated the claims of spiritualism, and when we shall have established the third, we shall have proved that theory false. We shall attempt the accomplishment of both these objects. We will take up the first two propositions together, and having established their truth, will then proceed to argue the last. FIRST TWO PROPOSITIONS ESTABLISHED. Spiritualists, as well as their opponents, admit, that if spirits do produce these manifestations, they do it by controlling a certain force preexisting in nature. No one supposes that they make rapping sounds, guide the hands or tongues of mediums, or move tables, by themselves striking against physical objects, taking hold of the hands or tongues of mediums, or of tables and other objects, and thus controlling their motions. All is done through the medium, or instrumentality of some natural force or power. To proceed intelligently in our investigations, we must, first of all, determine the properties and laws of this mysterious power in nature. SECTION I. ELECTRICITY, MAGNETISM, AND ANIMAL MAGNETISM DISTINGUISHED In accomplishing the object immediately before us, we would remark, that philosophers have unitedly affirmed, and the public generally are now iully aware of the truth of that affirmation, the existence and action of the three\par \par \par \par Page 49 067\par \par THE MISSION OF " THE SPIRITS." 49 following distinct powers or forces in nature, namely, Electricity, XMagnetism, and Animal 3Magonetism. While they all have many characteristics in common, each is distinguished from the others by properties altogether special and peculiar. They all have in common polarity, and with it the power of strongly attracting and repelling certain bodies. The points of agreement and distinction between electricity and magnetism are thus set forth by Prof. Olmsted: " Electricity and magnetism agree in the following particulars. 1. Each consists of two species, the vitreous and resinous electricities, and the austral and boreal magnetisms. 2. In both cases, those of the same name repel, and those of opposite names attract each other. 3. The laws of induction in both are very analogous. 4. The force, in each, varies inversely as the square of the distance. 5. The power, in both cases, resides at the surface of bodies, and is independent of their mass. " But electricity and magnetism are as remarkably unlike in the following particulars. 1. Electricity is capable of being excited in all bodies, and of being imparted to all: magnetism resides almost exclusively in iron in its different forms, and with a few exceptions, cannot be excited in any but ferruginous bodies. 2. Electricity may be transferred from one body to another; magnetism is incapable of such transference; magnets communicate their properties merely by induction, a process in which no portion of fluid is withdrawn from the magnetizing body. 3. When a body of an elongated figure is electrified by induction, on being divided in the middie, the two parts possess respectively the kind of electricity only which each had before the separation; but when a bar of steel or a needle magnetized by induction is broken into any number of parts, each part has both 5\par \par \par \par Page 50 068\par \par ~50. MODERN MYSTERIES. polarities, and becomes a perfect magnet. 4. The directive properties and the various consequences that result from it, the declination, annual and diurnal variations, the dip, the different intensities in different parts of the earth, are all peculiar to the magnet, and do not appertain to electrified bodies." Animal magnetism has, in common with the two forces above named, as we have said, polarity, and consequently the property of attraction and repulsion. This statement is verified by an experiment with which all who have seen persons in a magnetic or mesmeric sleep are familiar. When the ends of the fingers of the magnetizer, for example, are brought near those of the magnetized, the latter being perfectly blindfolded, so as not at all to be aware of what is being done, the hand.of the person magnetized will instantly be attracted towards that of the magnetizer, and will follow it in any direction, just as the loadstone, and evidently for the same reason, draws after itself the needle, or any object in respect to which it has attractive power. Here stands revealed the polarity, and consequently the attractive force of this mysterious power in nature. Its essential dissimilarity from electricity, is equally manifest in the fact, that living, bodies can be charged with the former in circumstances in which they cannot be with the latter, that is, in the presence of electric conductors. The human body, for example, can be charged with the electric fluid, only by being placed upon glass, or some other non-conductor. In direct and immediate contact with such non-conductors, the same body may be most fully charged with animal magnetism. From magnetism it is distinguished with equal manifestness, by the fact, that it may be excited, in all its force, in anizal bodies, while the former is developed, in force, only in iron and\par \par \par \par Page 51 069\par \par TIE MISSION O.F "THE SPIRITS." 51 kindred substances. We might refer to other characteristics, in which this substance, or force in nature, is distinguished from electricity on the one hand, and from magnetism on the other. The above, however, are sufficient for our present purpose. It remains to specify some of the peculiar characteristics of this power, as developed in animal bodies, the human body, we now refer to. Among these we would specify the following to which very special attention is invited, as they will hereafter be seen to have a fundamental bearing upon our present inquiries. EFFECTS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM UPON TIE 1HUMAN SYSTEM. 1. It operates with immense power upon the muscular system, imparting to the limbs a rigidity and inflexibility which render any motion at the joints almost as impossible as at any other parts. We will give a single fact in illustration, a fact which occurred some years since in the city of Cleveland. The subject was a young woman who labored as a domestic in the family where the fact occurred. After putting the individual into a magnetic sleep, and while she was sitting in a chair, the magnetizer extended her right arm in a horizontal direction, and having made a few passes of his hand from the shoulder to the hand of the subject, he requested the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that city, who was present by invitation, to bring that arm down from the position referred to. Taking hold of the hand and wrist of the subject, and pressing downwards with much weight, he expressed the fear that he should break the arm, should he add to the pressure. On being assured by the magnetizer, that he had no reason for apprehension on that subject, Dr. Aikin affirms,\par \par \par \par Page 52 070\par \par 52 MODERN MYSTERIES. that he laid out all the strength he could command, without being able to move the limb downward. It seemed to possess the inflexibility of a rod of steel. The above fact comes from a source- which will command universal belief, and is but one among numberless others of a similar nature that might be cited. With what astonishing power must this force act upon the muscular system to produce such results! 2. Such also is the effect of this substance, or force, upon the physical system generally, that the mind is thereby, in many instances, wholly insulated from any communication with the external world, through any of the senses, and, in instances not a few, rendered equally insensible to any effects produced upon the physical organization itself. A limb may be amputated, for example, and the subject experience no pain, noi any conscious sensation whatever, from the operation. The senses also are all locked up from any communications with the world around but through those with whom, and in respect to objects with which, they are in mesmeric communication. Facts falling under this class are too well authenticated to be denied, and too well known to need illustration, or explanation by the citation of particular examples. 3. In some instances, under the influence of this same substance, the perceptive faculties are greatly quickened, so that the mind perceives objects which lie wholly beyond, and at a great remove from, the reach of the ordinary senses, when the mental and physical powers are in a normal state. That perceptions of this character are to be numbered among real facts of clairvoyance there can rest upon no candid mind, which has made adequate investigations, any doubt whatever. " However astonishing," says Sir W. Hamilton, "it is now\par \par \par \par Page 53 071\par \par THE MISSION OF "THE SPIRITS." 53 proved beyond all rational doubt, that in certain abnormal states of the nervous organism, perceptions are passible through other than the ordinary channels of the senses." " It has been, I believe," says Dr. Wayland, " proved beyond dispute, that persons under this influence have submitted to the most distressing operations without consciousness of pain; that other persons have cognized events at a great distance, and have related them correctly at the time; and that persons totally blind, when in a state of mesmeric consciousness, have enjoyed for the time the power of perceiving external objects." As we wish to have very special attention directed to this class of facts, on account of their bearings upon our subsequent inquiries, we will confirm the truth of the above statement of Dr. Wayland, by the following extract from a letter addressed to him by J. M. Brook, Esq. of the United States Navy, and contained in the work from which the above is taken, namely, " Wayland's Intellectual Philosophy."' WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 1851. SIR, - It affords me pleasure to comply with your request, made through my brother William., relative to some experiments performed on board the United States steamer Princeton, in the latter part of the year 1847; she being then on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Nathaniel Bishop, the subject of the experiments, was a mulatto, about twenty-six years of age, in good health, but of an excitable disposition. The first experiment was of the magnetic or mesmeric sleep, which overpowered him in thirty minutes from the commencement of the passes made in the ordinary way, accompanied with a steadfast gaze and effort of will that he should sleep. 5'\par \par \par \par Page 54 072\par \par 54 MODERN MYSTERIES. In this state he was insensible to all voices but mine, unless I'directed or willed him to hear others; he was also insensible to such amount of pain as one might inflict without injury, that is, what would have been pain to another. He would obey my directions to whistle, dance, or sing. When aroused from this sleep he had no recollection of what occurred while in it. That such an influence could be exerted, I was already aware, having previously witnessed satisfactory experiments. Of clairvoyance I had never been convinced; indeed, considered it nothing but a sort of dreaming produced by the will of the operator. I became aware of its truth rather through accident than design. "It happened, one day, that some of my brother officers asked a question which the others could not answer. Bishop, who had been a few moments before in a mesmeric sleep, gave the desired information, speaking with confidence and apparent accuracy. As the information related to something which it seemed almost impossible to know without seeing, we were very much surprised. It struck me that he might be clairvoyant; and I at once asked him to tell me the time by a watch kept in the binnacle, on the spar or upper deck, we being on the berth or lower deck. He answered correctly, as I found upon looking at the watch, allowing eight or nine seconds for time occupied in getting on deck. I then asked him many questions with regard to objects at a distance, which he answered, and, as far as I could ascertain, correctly. "For example, one evening, while at anchor in the port of Genoa, the captain was on shore. I asked Bishop, in the presence of several officers, where the captain then was. He replied,' At the opera with Mr. Lester, the consul.''What does he say?' I inquired.\par \par \par \par Page 55 073\par \par THE MISSION OF' TIiE SPIRITS." 55 Bishop appeared to listen, and in a moment replied,'The captain tells Mr. Lester, that he was much pleased with the port of Xavia; that the authorities treated him. with much consideration.' Upon this, one of the officers laughed, and said that when the captain returned he would ask him. He did so; saying,' Captain, we have been listening to your conversation while on shore.'' Very well,' remarked the captain,' What did I say?' expecting some jest. Then the (;licer repeated what the captain had said of Xavia and its authorities.'Ah,' said the captain,'who was at the opera? I did not see any of the officers there.' The lieutenant then explained the matter. The captain confirmed its truth, and seemed much surprised, as there had been no other communication with the shore during the evening. I may remark that we touched at several ports between Xavia and Genoa. " On another occasion, an officer being on shore, I directed Bishop to examine his pockets; he made several motions with his hands, as if actually drawing something from the officer's pockets, saying,' Here is a handkerchief and a box; what a curious thing! full of little white sticks with blue ends. What are they, Mr. Brooks?' I replied,' Perhaps they are matches.'' So they are!' he exclaimed. My companion, expecting the officer mentioned, went on deck, and meeting him at the gangway, asked,' What have you in your pockets?''Nothing,' he replied.'But have you not a box of matches?''Oh! yes!' said he,'How did you know it? I bought them just before I came on board. The matches are peculiar, made of white wax with blue ends.''" The surgeons of the Princeton ridiculed these experiments, upon which I requested one of them (Farquhar\par \par \par \par Page 56 074\par \par 56 MODERN MYSTERIES. son), to test for himself, which he consented to do. With some care he placed Bishop and myself in one corner of the apartment, and then took a position some ten feet distant, concealing between his hands a watch, the long hand of which traversed the dial. He first asked for a description of the watch. To which Bishop replied,''Tis a funny watch, the second hand jumps.' " The doctor then asked him to tell the minute and second, which he did; directly afterwards exclaiming,'The second hand has stopped!' which was the case; Dr. Farquharson having stopped it.' Well,' said the doctor,'to what second does it point, and to what hour, and what minute is it now?' Bishop answered correctly, adding,''T is going again.' He then told twice in succession the minute and second. " The doctor was convinced, saying, that it was contrary to reason, but he must believe. I then proposed that the doctor should mark; and directed Bishop to look in his mother's house, in Lancaster, Pa., (where he had never been,) for a clock; he said there was one, and told the time by it; one of the officers calculated the difference in time for the longitudes of Lancaster and Genoa, and the clock was found to agree within five minutes of the watch time." 4. The relations existing between the magnetized, when in the magnetic state, and the magnetizer or other persons in mesmeric communication with the person magnetized, next claims our special attention. Among these relations the following may be specified as having a special bearing upon our present investigations. (1.) Any sensations induced by any cause in the magnetizer are instantly reproduced in the individual magnetized, and that when it is impossible to induce\par \par \par \par Page 57 075\par \par THE MISSION OF " TIE SPIRITS.' 57 any such feelings by any effects directly produced upon the physical organization of the latter. If the magnetizer tastes, smells, or touches any particular object, the person magnetized instantly experiences the same sensations. Aly sensations unexpectedly induced in the former, by secretly twitching his hair, pinching his body, or pricking it with a needle or pin, and when this is done in a manner and form which preclude the possibility of any knowledge of what is done, on the part of the latter, any sensations, we say, even thus induced in the magnetizer, will be instantly reproduced in the person magnetized, each individual, in almost all instances being affected in the same part of the physical system. A gentleman of our acquaintance, to remove all doubt from his own mind in regard to the question of collusion, called a magnetizer aside, and while speaking to him, put a vial of hartshorn to his nose, the vial having just before been sent for from a distance: " Do take that from my nose," instantly exclaimed the subject who was in a magnetic state. The world is full of facts of a precisely similar nature wherever the mesineric phenomena have been witnessed. The law which obtains in these circumstances seems to be this. This mysterious power acts with such force upon the sensitivity of the individual under its influence, (the person magnetized,) that it can, for the time, be affected but through this one power. Any feeling or sensation induced in the magnetizer acts upon this power, and through it upon the sensitivity of the person magnetized, reproducing there the same feelings which had previously been induced in the magnetizer. (2.) In a similar manner, the thozughts of the magnetizer are reproduced in the mind of the individual magnetized, especially when the former wills it. This holds\par \par \par \par Page 58 076\par \par 58 MODERN MYSTERIES. true not only in regard to common conceptions, but equally of all acts of the imagination. A very intelligent and pious lady, a member of the Baptist church in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., while upon her death-bed, made the following statement to her pastor, from whom we received the same. When you come to investigate the facts of mesmerism, she remarked, you will find this to be true, that the clairvoyant when in mesmeric communication with you, can speak your thoughts. I was once present when A. J. Davis, then a lad, was in this state, and was requested to touch his forehead with my own. I did so, and found that he would instantly speak out any thought that came into my mind. A scientific gentleman from the interior of New England, while in the city of New York, some years ago, called upon, and was put into mesmeric communication with a clairvoyant whom he had never seen before. The latter mentally accompanied the former to his (the inquirer's) father's residence, describing the facts of the journey, the external and internal appearance of the house and the surrounding scenery just in accordance with his recollections and conceptions at the time. He then imagined a meeting-house standing before the front door of that residence, (no such object existing,) and asked the clairvoyant, "what do you see now?" A meetinghouse," was the answer. The object was then described in exact accordance with the image preexisting in the inquirer's mind, both in regard to location, form, sizes color, etc. The fact of the transfer of thought in the mesmeric relations is too well known and undeniable to require any further confirmation or elucidation. Many curious inquiries are often raised pertaining to the question, How are such effects produced? On this subject we will venture the expression of an opinion,\par \par \par \par Page 59 077\par \par THE MISSION OF " THE SPIRITS." 59 How is it, that by vocal utterance we reproduce our own thoughts in the minds of others? The action of our vocal organs induces a vibratory motion of the atmosphere, the ultimate result of which (not to specify particulars) is the production, in the mind of the hearer, of certain sensations with which those thoughts are associated. Through those sensations, thus induced, the thoughts referred to are reproduced in the mind of the hearer. Suppose that when a thought exists in the mind of the magnetizer, the feelings thereby induced in him act upon this force so as to induce, in the magnetized subject, the same or similar feelings or sensations that would be induced by the vocal utterance of that thought, when each was mentally and physically in a normal condition. That thought would be reproduced in one instance for the same reason precisely, and upon the same principle, that it is in the other, there being a difference merely in regard to the immediate cause of the sensation with which the idea is associated. This we believe to be the real relation between the individuals under consideration, and this the reason why the thoughts of the one are reproduced in the mind of the other. We have already shown that sensations are reproduced upon this one principle. Why should we not conclude, that upon the same principle thoughts are reproduced? The fact of the transfer of thought in the mesmeric relation will not be doubted, however, whatever may be thought of the above explanation. (3.) A control equally perfect can the magnetizer exercise over the muscular system of the individual in a magnetic state. By simply willing it, with no external motions whatever, the latter can render the whole body, or any given member of the same perfectly stiff and motionless, and hold it in any given position for any\par \par \par \par Page 60 078\par \par 60 MODERN MYSTERIES. given length of time. This power often continues for a period subsequent to the time when the subject has come out of a mesmeric state. Take as an illustration and confirmation of this statement, the following additional extract from the letter of J. M. Brooke, Esq.: " The power which I acquired by putting him to sleep remained after he woke, and was increased by its exercise. If not exerted for several days, it decreased, sometimes rendering it necessary to repeat the passes, and again put him to sleep. While awake, and under my influence, I made many experiments, such as arresting his arm when raising food to his mouth, or fixing him motionless in the attitude of drinking. On one occasion I willed that he should continue pouring tea into a cup already filled, which he did, notwithstanding the exclamations of those who were scalded in the operation. These influences were exerted without a word, or change of position on my part." (4.) Hence I remark, in the last place, that the entire mental and physical activity of the magnetized, is, in many instances, under the complete control of the magnetizer, while the mesmeric relation between- them continues, a relation which, as we have seen, often continues for a period longer or shorter, after the subject has come out of a mesmeric sleep. The wildest imaginings of the latter are thus reproduced in the mind of the former, the objects of those imaginings appearing as objects of real external perception. The magnetizer puts his handkerchief, for example, into the hands of his magnetic subject, and it becomes, to that subject, a flower of surpassing beauty, a kitten, lap-dog, an infant, or a serpent, just as the magnetizer secretly wills. Mr. Brook says still further of his subject: "He remembered or forgot what he saw when clairvoyant, as I willed, of\par \par \par \par Page 61 079\par \par THE MISSION OF " THE SPIRITS." 61 which I satisfied myself by experiment. All his senses were under control, so completely indeed, that had I willed him to stop breathing I believe that he would." A magnetizer agreed with a friend of ours, a gentleman of the most unquestionable veracity, to induce his magnetic subject to sing, she being a beautiful singer, and to stop the singing the instant our friend should raise his finger. As the singing proceeded, and while the singer was uttering a long note, our friend raised his finger, and the voice instantly ceased, with that note half finished. The magnetizer willed the singing to proceed again, and that note, a thing impossible to a person in a normal condition, was finished, and with it the remainder of the stanza. This was done, while the subject was deeply blindfolded, and the magnetizer stood several feet from her, with his eyes fixed intently upon our friend, waiting for the raising of his finger. No collusion therefore was possible. The following facts we adduce, with leave, on the authority of Mr. Covert, formerly president of Central College, Ohio, and now of the Female College on College Hill, near Cincinnati. The facts occurred in Columbus, in the presence of a select company of witnesses. After fully satisfying himself, by experiments about which there could be no mistake, that any sensations induced in the magnetizer were instantly reproduced in the magnetic subject, the latter uniformly experiencing the corresponding sensation in the very part of the body in which it was induced in the former, and after witnessing wonderful exhibitions of the absolute control which the magnetizer had, at will, over the magnetized individual, President Covert called the former into a separate room, the door being closed between them and the subject of the magnetic influence, and requested him, in a tone of voice that 6\par \par \par \par Page 62 080\par \par 62 MODERN MYSTERIES. could be heard by no one but themselves, to will that his subject should leave her seat, come into the room where they were, and seat herself in a particular chair which was designated, many others being in the room at the time. The magnetizer did as directed, and that without moving at all any part of his body. Immediately the magnetic subject opened the door, entered the room, and passing to the other side of it, sat down In the very chair referred to, her eyes all the while being perfectly closed, and the magnetizer, iv\\\\ repeat, giving not the least indication by word, look, or gesture, of what he willed her to do. He then, at President Covert's subsequent request, so uttered that none but the individual spoken to could have heard, willed her to leave that seat, and seating herself at the piano, entertain them with music and singing. This she did accordingly. Thus it is, that the magnetizer, at will, completely controls the mental and physical activity of his magnetic subject. Facts of the most authentic character, and bearing with equal force upon the same conclusion, might be multiplied to any extent. These, however, are abundantly sufficient. From all the facts above adduced, pertaining to the action of this mysterious power in nature, the following conclusions are undeniable:1. There is in nature a medium of communication between mind and mind, other than that by which communlications are had, through the ordinary channels of the senses. 2. Through this same force, one mind may, when the proper conditions are fulfilled, control the action of tlle mental and physical powers of another mind. 3. The action of this force upon the physical system, and through it upon the mind of the magnetized, is as the feelings, thoughts, and purposes of the magnetizer.\par \par \par \par Page 63 081\par \par THE MISSION OF " THE SPIRITS."7 63 4. Through this same power, the mind of the person magnetized, when he happens to be in mesmeric cornmunication (rapport) with any object however distant, and however removed from the reach of the senses, will have a direct and immediate cognition of the same. 5. The action of this force, when certain conditions are fulfilled, is determined, in many important particulars, by mental states and acts, and accords with the same, and here its nature and relations to mind stand revealed, a fact of fundamental importance, but which seems not hitherto, to have been distinctly and generally recognized by philosophers. Mesmeric facts have demonstrated the existence of this power in nature, and thereby laid the foundation for the explanation of many facts around us which have, to this time, appeared to be totally inexplicable. SECTION II. THE ODYLIC FORCE. To prepare the way still further for the full and distinct elucidation of the subject before us, we will now advance to a consideration of a peculiar force in nature, a force the existence, properties, and laws of which philosophers had developed and verified, by the most careful and decisive experiments, years prior to the appearance of these so called spirit manifestations, and which they had denominated the Odylic Force. This force, which indeed pervades all bodies in nature, has many properties in common with electricity and magnetism, polarity, and with it, the property of attrccting and repelling other bodies, for example. At the same time, it differs from these forces in particulars equally fundamental, being,\par \par \par \par Page 64 082\par \par 64 MODERN MYSTERIES. for example, undeniably transmissible through magnetic and electric non-conductors. The physical organisms of individuals of peculiar physical temperaments, become, in some instances, in certain localities, permanently and very strongly charged with this force. The following may be enumerated, as among the more important phenomena which characterize its developments under such circumstances. 1. It acts upon other objects, and is reacted upon by them, as a very strong attractive and repulsive power; objects, in many instances, even without visible contact, being drawn towards or driven from such individuals, and in other particulars acted upon in a very singular and unaccountable manner. 2. Upon the walls, floor, and ceiling of rooms occupied by such individuals, rapping sounds, very much like those produced by striking against such objects with the knuckles, or with a mallet, are not unfrequently heard; such phenomena being also occasionally attended with a sensible jarring of surrounding objects, and sometimes with rumbling sounds, resembling the roaring of distant thunder. 3. The physical systems of such individuals are very powerfully affected, so powerfully as, in many instances, to derange totally the action of the mental powers. 4. In the mental developments thus induced, we have, without exception, all the mesmeric and clairvoyant phenomena, as above presented. 5. This force, when developed in the human organism, has generally a special location in some of the nerve centres. When such centre is not immediately connected with the brain, then the action of this force, like that of magnetism, is simply that of a repulsive and attractive power, without the characteristics of intelli\par \par \par \par Page 65 083\par \par THE MISSION OF THE SPIRITS." 65 gence. When that centre is the brain, then the direction of the action of this power bears, in many important particulars, the characteristics of intelligence, the action of the force, in such cases, being not only in accordance with, but evidently directed by, mental states. In illustration of the above statements, and in verification of the same, we will now present a few well authenticated facts. We cite only such facts as have a direct and immediate bearing upon our present inquiries. Those who would understand the science of the Odylic Force, are referred to the fundamental works upon the subject which are now before the public. With facts which really and truly indicate the existence and action of such a force in nature, so far especially as its attractive and repulsive properties are concerned, almost every one is, no doubt, familiar, though these facts, as generally witnessed, having nothing of a startling character about them, have, for the most part, escaped any special notice. Who has not witnessed, for example, in passing his hand over the head of another, the evidence of an attraction between the hand and the hair upon the head of such individual, an attraction sufficient to disarrange the hair, and cause the ends of it to rise from the head? Such facts clearly indicate the existence of the attractive force of which we are speaking. Some months since, as we called upon an aged clergyman who was just recovering from sickness, he related to us a somewhat interesting fact which had just occurred in his own experience. While engaged, a day or two previous, in adjusting some papers for the purpose of putting them on file, on withdrawing his hand from the paper which he had placed upon the top of others, that object followed his hand, being evidently a tracted by it. After repeated attempts, he 6*\par \par \par \par Page 66 084\par \par 66 MODERN MYSTERIES. found it impossible to adjust that paper, because it would follow his hand when he would withdraw it. His attention being thus attracted, he was led to make some special experiments. On placing the ends of his fingers upon the paper, and raising them up, the object adhered to them, and remained, for some time, suspended, just as a needle and other objects are raised and suspended by the magnet. On trial, he found that no such attraction existed, at the time, between his hand and any other paper before him for the obvious reason, that this attractive force, the presence of which is here undeniably evinced, was not thus relatively developed between his hand and any other paper, as between it and this one. We have only to suppose this same force developed between the organism of this individual and some heavy object, such as the table, and developed to a certain degree of strength and intensity, and for the same reason that this paper was attracted by his hand so as to be raised from the table, the table itself would be drawn after him all around the room, or thus driven from him, if the polarity of this force, as developed in his organism and the object were different or opposite from what we have supposed it to be. The table itself, also, attracted by the hand of the individual just as the paper referred to was, might, like that object, be lifted from the floor and for the same reason. Suppose further, that this force should happen to be developed at the same time, and in the same form, in the table and the floor beneath it. In that case, on the known principle, that, with all forces having polarity, opposite poles attract, while the same ones repel each other, the table would be spontaneously lifted from the floor, and, for a time, held, as by an invisible power, suspended in the atmosphere. If the same force was developed at the\par \par \par \par Page 67 085\par \par THE MISSION- OF " THE SPIRITS." 67 time, in some object near, but with opposite polarity, then the table would be drawn towards such object, whirled over and thrown, it might be, with much violence upon the floor. Thus alternately attracted by some objects, and repelled by others, it would now be driven forcibly against some individuals, and fly from others with seeming terror, and tumbled strangely about the room, till all present were convinced that it must be bewitched, while all these terrifying phenomena are the exclusive result of the natural and necessary action of a peculiar force existing in nature all around us, a force which, like electricity in a thunderstorm, happens, at this time, to be developed with special power, in this particular locality, and in connection with the objects referred to, and when these now strange and unaccountable phenomena lose all their power to astonish and to terrify, as soon as the existence and properties of the force from which they result come to be recognized and understood. A lady attempts to spread out upon a table a silk dress, for the purpose of ironing it. The article adheres to her hand, winding all around it, so that she finds it very difficult or impossible to adjust the article so as to accomplish her object. We state a case which actually occurred in our own family, some months since. Another individual adjusts the same article without any difficulty, no such attraction appearing between her hands and the object referred to. In the case of the first individual, this force happened to be, at the time, developed in such relations between her hands and the object, the dress, as to occasion the singular phenomena under consideration. Such facts which are of almost every-day occurrence in the world around us, render manifest the existence, in the human organism, and in external nature, of\par \par \par \par Page 68 086\par \par 68 MODERN MYSTERIES. the force of which we are speaking, and when wisely considered, prepare us to look with scientific scrutiny, and with less wonder, incredulity, and scepticism upon authentic cases in which this same power is developed in the organism of individuals to such a degree, as produce the phenomena which astonish mankind. To a few of these cases, all of which, we believe, have all the marks of credibility that we can, with any show of reason, demand, very special attention is now invited. The first case that we adduce is that of Angelique Cottin, of which we have two well authenticated accounts, one of which is given by Catharine Crowe, in the " Night-side of Nature," and the other in the " Courier des Etats Unis,' of Paris. Both of these accounts are combined in the following extract from " Roger's Philosophy of Mysterious Rappings," to which we are indebted for other important facts hereafter to be cited. " Angelique Cottin was a native of La Perriere, aged fourteen, when, on the 15th of January, 1846, at eight o'clock in the evening, while weaving silk gloves at an oaken frame, in company with other girls, the frame began to jerk, and they could not by any efforts keep it steady. It seemed as if it were alive; and, becoming alarmed, they called in the neighbors, who would not believe them, but desired them to sit down and go on with their work. Being timid, they went one by one, and the frame remained still till Angelique approached, when it recommenced its movements, while she was also attracted by the frame; thinking she was bewitched or possessed, her parents took her to the presbytery, that the spirit might be exorcised. The curate, however, being a sensible man, refused to do it, but set himself, on the contrary, to observe the phenomenon; and, being perfectly satisfied of the fact, he bade them take her to a physician.\par \par \par \par Page 69 087\par \par TIHE MISSION OF " TIHE SPIRITS.1" 69 " Meanwhile, the intensity of the influence, whatever it was, augmented; not only articles made of oak, but all sorts of things, were acted upon by it, and reacted upon her; while persons who were near her, even without contact, frequently felt electric (?) shocks. The effects, which were diminished when she was on a carpet or a waxed cloth, were most remarkable when she was on the bare earth. They sometimes entirely ceased for three days, and then recommenced. Metals were not affected. Any thing touching her apron or dress would fly off, although a person held it; and Monsieur Herbert, while seated on a heavy tub or trough, was raised up with it. In short, the only place she could repose on was a stone covered with cork; they also kept her still by isolating her. When she was fatigued, the effects diminished. A needle, suspended horizontally, oscillated rapidly with the motion of her arm, without contact; or remained fixed while deviating from the magnetic direction. Great numbers of enlightened medical and scientific\cf1\f1\fs23\par }  fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs24 Page 345 363\par \par PART III. EVIDENCE THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD, AS CONTRASTED WITH THE EVIDENCE, THAT THE SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS ARE FROM THE SPIRITS OF MEN. CHAPTER I. ARGUMENT FROM EXTERNAL MIRACLES. THE term miracle we have already defined. It represents exclusively a class of events fundamentally dissimilar and unanalogous,  in all their essential characteristics, to any effects resulting from the action of any purely mundane cause or causes, a class of events whose existence and characteristics can be accounted for, but by a reference to the direct and immediate interposition of creative power, as their exclusive cause. To our mind, it is self-evident, that nothing but miracles, that is, effects which can result from the action of no finite causes, can properly be appealed to, as evidence of the divine origin of Christianity , or of any other religion. If we look at the record itself, its prophetic enunciations, or its system of moral precepts or doctrines, or to the great facts that stand around it, external miracles, we must find that which could not have originated with man, or from any finite cause or causes, before we find (345)\par \par \par \par Page 346 364\par \par 346 MODERN MYSTERIES. "the footprints of the Creator," " footprints " which can properly be adduced as evidence that "all Scripture is given by insp iration of God." Our conviction is, that the divine origin of Christianity is absolutely affirmed by the three classes of miracles above indicated, namely, external events,-prophetic enunciations,-and Christianity itself considered as an effect for which an adequate cause must be assigned. To each of these departments of evidence a separate chapter will be assigned, with the titles, - argument from external miracles,- argument from prophecy, - and argument from internal evidence. The argument from the class first named will be elucidated in the present chapter. Every reader will agree with us in the assumption, that " the incorruptible God" has never performed, and never will perform a miracle, in attestation of the reality of that which is unreal or untrue. A religion really and truly attested by divine miracles must, therefore, be admitted as true. WTithout further introduction we will advance directly to a consideration of the great facts set forth in the Scriptures, in attestation of the divine origin of Christianity. In discussing this subject, two important questions will occupy attention, - the nature and bearing of the facts referred to, supposing them to have occurred, - and the evidence which exists of their actual occurrence. SECTION I. NATURE AND BEARING OF SCRIPTURE FACTS CLAIMED AS MIRACLES, SUPPOSING THEM1 TO HAVE OCCURRED. In discussing any important subject, the question which first of all arises pertains to the nature and bearing of the facts which lie at the basis of all our conclu\par  \par \par \par Page 347 365\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 347 sions. If we admit their actual occurrence, do they, or do they not, sustain the conclusions deduced from them by those who set the facts before us? Are they of such a nature, that the question of their occurrence or nonoccurrence can be determined by testimony, etc.? Of this character are the questions which arise under the present section, in which we are to discuss the nature and bearings of the great facts which are asserted by its advocates, to stand around Christianity, and affirm its divine origin. The Christian argument may be thus expressed. No religion attested as true, by divine miracles, can be false. Christianity, and it alone of all religions on earth, is thus attested. It therefore must be of divine origin. In regard to this argument, we now invite special attention to the following considerations:1. If we admit the reality of the facts under consideration, we mustalso admit, in all its length and breadth, the conclusion before us, the divine origin and claims of Christianity. The reason is obvious. These great facts must be regarded as real divine miracles, and nothing else. They have none of the characteristics of any effects which owe their origin to any exclusively mundane cause or causes. On the other hand, they have all conceivable characteristics of real, miraculous interpositions of creative power. If we suppose them actually to have occurred, as related in the sacred volume, no one will or can doubt the divine origin of Christianity. These facts stand out solitary and alone in their own exclusive grandeur and sublimity, as being, in all their fundamental elements and characteristics, totally dissimilar and unanalogous to any effects resulting from any known or unknown natural causes in the universe around us. They not only lift their summits in\par \par \par \par Page 348 366\par \par 348 MODERN MYSTERIES. finitely above all such effects, but stand in the relation to them of total dissimilarity and opposition. As we walk up and down in their midst, we perceive, in all their essential characteristics, nought but the sublime footprints of creative power, as their exclusive origin and cause. We may refer, in illustration, to the great events narrated by Moses and the prophets, such as the plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, and of Jordan when overflowing all its banks, the giving of the " fiery law " at Sinai, the feeding of three millions of human beings for forty years, by bread from heaven in the wilderness, the opening, on two different occasions, of the flinty rock, when simply smitten, in the name of the Lord, by the shepherd's crook, and the issuing from those fissures of floods of water sufficient to meet the wants of all those famishing millions, together with their countless flocks and herds; the standing still of the sun and moon, at the bidding of Joshua; the preservation of Daniel in the den of lions, and of his three associates in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar; together with " the mighty works " affirmed to have been performed by Jesus Christ. No one will pretend that these are the effects of any finite causes in the world around us. No one will pretend to adduce similar or analogous effects as resulting from such causes. No one will deny that such events, if they did occur, were real miracles, and owe their origin to no other cause than the direct and immediate interposition of creative power. Nor will any one deny, that these great events sustain such relations to Christianity, that if admitted to be real, they present absolute proof of its divine origin and authority. We can, by no possibility, separate the facts from the conclusion deduced from them, and we are necessitated to deny their occurrence, or admit that conclusion.\par \par \par \par Page 349 367\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 349 2. The second remark to which we would invite very special attention is this: Such is the nature and character of these great facts, that those who were present at the time when they are affirmed to have taken place, could, by no possibility, have been deceived in regard to the fact of their occurrence or non-occurrence. The truth of this proposition in undeniable. Facts of a certain character may, in some instances, appear to be to us what they are not. In other cases, this is impossible, and this is the exclusive character of the great events under consideration. Three millions of people, for example, cannot honestly have supposed themselves to have passed through the Red Sea, as related by Moses, unless they actually had done it. The same number of persons could not have really and truly believed themselves to have passed the river Jordan dry-shod, when it was overflowing all its banks, and when the waters stood in heaps on each side of them, unless this event actually occurred in their history. Similar remarks are equally applicable to the other great events referred to, and especially to " the mighty works " ascribed to Jesus Christ. Whatever may be true of certain other events, no persons of common intelligence, whether civilized or savage, can be present when such events as these are affirmed to occur, and be honestly mistaken in regard to the fact of their occurrence. Hence we remark,3. That all who affirmed themselves to have actually witnessed the occurrence of these events, were deceivers, liars, and hypocrites of the grossest character, that ever appeared on earth, unless these great facts actually did occur. We cannot possibly avoid this conclusion, or affirm that the language expressing it is too strong. The alternative is forced upon us, and we cannot escape it, to admit the occurrence of the facts under considera30\par \par \par \par Page 350 368\par \par 3-)50 MODERN MYSTERIES. tion, and with that admission, affirm the divine origin of Christianity, or to brand every individual, whoever he may be, who affirms himself to have witnessed the actual occurrence of any of these great events, as a most gross and perjured deceiver. SECTION II. PROOF OF THE ACTUAL OCCURRENCE OF THESE EVENTS. This brings us to the second department of our subject-the evidence of the actual occurrence of the great facts which, as divinely attested witnesses, affirm the divine origin of Christianity. The proposition which we here lay down, and shall proceed to establish, is this: The evidence in favor of the actual occurrence of these events is exclusively of that kind which never does and never can deceive, which never does, and never can stand around a non-reality, and affirm its actual existence or occurrence. The truth of this proposition we argue from the following most decisive considerations:1. There is an antecedent probability of the highest kind, in favor of the actual occurrence of these, or facts of a similar character, during the past history of our race. Any events have the highest antecedent probability in favor of their occurrence, which perfectly accord, in their essential characteristics, and in the circumstances of their affirmed occurrence, with the known character of God, and his immutable relations to humanity, and with the great facts and analogy of his previous acts of providence and creative power, as developed by the teachings and demonstrations of science. What are the teachings and demonstrations of science bearing upon\par \par \par \par Page 351 369\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 351 this great question? They are these, -that all the great facts of creation, from its commencement to its final consummation, owe their origin exclusively, not to the action of natural laws, but to the direct and immediate, or miraculous interpositions of creative power. To such interpositions, every leading race of animals and vegetables owes its existence. In respect to the vegetable kingdom, no power or law exists in nature to originate a seed, but through a plant; or a plant, but through a seed of the same or similar genus. How can the oak be produced, for example, but through the acorn, or the acorn, but through the oak? Throughout the wide domain of the animal kingdom, also, a law equally universal and absolute obtains, namely, that by no natural law can an animal be produced, but through the prior union of two individuals of the same or similar genus. These are the immutable laws of nature, or nature knows no laws. Yet science has demonstrated with equal absoluteness the fact, that the time was, when no animals or plants of any kind, nor any embryos from which such creations now originate, had an existence on earth. To what then did the first plant, that stands at the head of eac!h species in the vegetable, and the first pair that stands at the head of each race in the animal kingdom, owe its origin? To a miraculous interposition of creative power, and to nothing else. The following statement of Professor Agassiz presents us the results of all the facts and demonstrations of science bearing upon this subject, and that in accordance with the united conviction and testimony of scientific men throughout the wide world, a conviction the validity of which is undeniably affirmed by all "the facts and deductions of geology, and denied by none of them.\par \par \par \par Page 352 370\par \par 352 MODERN MYSTERIES. " It is necessary," says the Professor, "that we recur to a cause more exalted, and recognize influences more powerful, exercising over all nature an action more direct, if we would not move eternally in a vicious circle. For myself, I have the conviction that species have been created successively at distinct intervals, and that the changes which they have undergone during# a geological epoch are very secondary, relating only to their fecundity, and to migration dependent on epochal influences." Humanity, then, and all other orders of organized existences owe their origin to miraculous interpositions of creative power. No fact in nature is or can be more evident than this. Now, if God created man by a miracle, a fact which we must admit or deny the absolute demonstrations of science in regard to all the great facts of creation, is it not most reasonable to suppose, that he $would interpose by miracles, should it be necessary for the highest interests of humanity, and especially to prevent its remediless ruin? And these are the very reasons for which the great facts recorded in the Bible are affirmed to have occurred, thatis, to open to fallen humanity the vista of immortality, to recover man from the ruins of sin, and restore to him the hope and the possibility of attaining to eternal life. These great events, as all will admit, or none others of the kind have occurred since% the creation of man. In view, then, of the analogy of creation and providence, of the character of God and of his relations to man, together with the known and undeniable condition of humanity, the balance of probability is infinitely in favor of the actual occurrence of miracles since man was created, and consequently in favor of the great facts which, as divinely attested witnesses, are affirmed to stand around Christianity, and\par \par \par \par Page 353 371\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 353 as&sert its divine origin. In arguing for the real occurrence of these events, we are not arguing in favor of that of improbabilities, but of events which bear upon their broad foreheads all the indications of the highest probability. Our second argument is this: - 2. It is infinitely more reasonable to admit the reality of the great facts under consideration, than it is to affirm what, in that case we must do, of Moses, and the prophets, of Jesus Christ and the apostles, of the whole multitude of their imme'diate followers, and of all the sacred writers, namely, that they were all, without exception, deliberate deceivers, and impostors of the grossest character. Either these events really occurred, or they all knew when they affirmed their reality, that they were affirming what was false. There is no escaping this conclusion. The facts, as we have seenj were of such a nature that misapprehension in regard to their occurrence or non-occurrence, was an absolute impossibility. Those, then, who testified, as ori(ginal witnesses to their actual occurrence, were intentional deceivers, or the events referred to actually occurred. Individuals who deny the facts, and yet admit the integrity of the witnesses, must show how honest and intelligent minds can honestly suppose themselves to have witnessed just such events, when no such thing ever occurred. This they may do, if they can do it, in either of these two ways or both together. (1.) They may show, upon truly scientific principles, how just such errors may occur wi)th honest and intelligent minds; so that we may induce similar misapprehensions in ourselves and others. Or (2.), they may themselves actually induce similar misapprehensions in a corresponding number of individuals similarly circumstanced, and of similar mental capacity and cultivation No individu30 *\par \par \par \par Page 354 372\par \par 354 MODERN MYSTERIES. als, we venture the affirmation, will ever attempt the accomplishment of either of these objects; and that for the obvious reason, that a*ll are and must be aware, that it would be attempting an absolute impossibility. If, on the other hand, an individual should deny the facts before us, and assert, as the only alternative left him, the hypocrisy of Christ and the other witnesses referred to, he would, if not regarded as beneath contempt, meet and most justly meet with the deep reprobation of the universe. For ourselves we never met with but one individual who had the hardihood and effrontery to impeach the moral character of Jesus Christ, +and he is the only consistent infidel that we ever did meet with, there being no conceivable absurdity greater than this, to admit the perfection of his moral character, and then deny the divinity of his mission, or the divine origin of the Scriptures. Either Jesus Christ; is the crowning impostor of earth, or his mission was divine, and his religion from heaven. We dare not assert the former, and therefore, as the only conceivable alternative left us, admit and affirm the latter. For ourselves, we have n,o confidence whatever in the real moral honesty of the men who are fulsome in their eulogies of the character of Christ, and then deny the divine origin of that religion which he proclaimed as from heaven. Similar remarks apply equally to the sacred writers generally. Their deep sincerity, honesty, and integrity, are so manifest in all their writings, that no man can, by any possibility, impeach their integrity and retain his own. Yet, by no possibility, can he show how they could have been any thing else- than the grossest impostors and deceivers that ever cursed the earth, if the great facts to the reality of which they bear testi\par \par \par \par Page 355 373\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 355 mony never occurred. No possible alternative is left us, consistent with moral integrity in ourselves, but to admit the facts, and with that admission the necessary conclusion, that Christianity is of divine origin. We hesitate not to affirm to every reader, that he cannot maintain internal moral integrity .and come to any other conclusion. 3. The amount of testimony existing on this subject, that is, the number of witnesses testifying to the actual occurrence of these great facts, is wholly incompatible with the assumption, that they never occurred. Its existence, on the other hand, can by no possibility be accounted for, but upon one supposition, the actual occurrence of the facts referred to. That a few individuals should unite, for interested motives, in the propagation of known falsehoods, is quite conc/eivable; though it is not conceivable that such individuals as Moses and the prophets, and Jesus and the Apostles, should do it. However this may be, it is not even conceivable that whole nations should, with absolute unanimity, join together for any such purpose. How stands the case in regard to the facts before us? In regard to the miraculous events recorded in the Old Testament, we have the united testimony of the entire Jewish nation living at the time, to the reality of their occurrence. We have also0 the unbroken testimony of that entire race since those periods, to the reality and universality of the belief among them, of the real occurrence of these events, at the time and under the circumstances related. In this respect this nation sustains precisely the same relations to these events that ours does to the facts of our past history. Our ancestors then living unitedly testified to their occurrence. Historical records made at the time, and an unbroken\par \par \par \par Page 356 374\par \par 3156 MODERN MYSTERIES. tradition since, have handed them down to us. as actual occurrences. Our forms of government, s ate and national customs, annual festivals, and national monuments, all have such relations to those events, that the existence of the latter can be accounted for, but upon the supposition of the actual occurrence of the former, all together constituting a form of evidence which never does and never can deceive, and which distance of time can never weaken or invalidate. Precisely similar re2lations does the Jewish nation, together with all their historical records, traditions, national monuments, and usages, sustain to the events under consideration, and no one can show why this evidence should not be regarded as just as valid for the actual occurrence of these events, as that presented by this nation is for the facts of our past history. Let us now turn to the great events recorded in the New Testament. Who are the witnesses to their occurrence? They are the following: the sacred writers th3emselves, - the entire mass of primitive converts,multitudes of early apostates from the faith, - the whole Jewish nation,-and the entire pagan population of Palestine, of whom there were vast multitudes. The testimony of the first two classes was direct and absolute. They had been eye-witnesses to the things whereof they affirmed, and the fact that they unitedly laid down their lives in defence of the gospel, evinces absoJutely the honesty of their convictions of the reality of these great events. We mus4t bear in mind, also, that they could not possibly have been mistaken, in regard to the truth or falsehood of their testimony. Can we suppose that such vast numbers of individuals would lay down their lives in testimony to the reality of that which they knew absolutely never occurred, and where, from\par \par \par \par Page 357 375\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 357 the nature of the case, no conceivable motives existed to induce them to become Christians but the reality of these events? The other th5ree classes must be admitted to be very important and credible witnesses, inasmuch as they could not but be aware of the deception which was being perpetrated upon the world, had these events not occurred, and they had every conceivable motive to unmask the imposition. Nothing, therefore, but the deepest conviction of the reality of these events could have induced them to testify to their occurrence. There is one characteristic of the testimony of these three classes which demands our special attention, t6hat of their silence. When any very startling events are affirmed to have occurred, events which all have the highest conceivable motives to deny, if they did not occur, and when no one can possibly be mistaken in regard to the fact of their occurrence or non-occurrence, the total absence of all denial among all classes of community, is the highest and most positive testimony which that community can give to their actual occurrence. It shows, that in the united judgment of all, the evidence of their occur7rence was so palpable and overwhelming, that it could not be invalidated. Now while the great facts of which we are speaking, were held before the world as having occurred in the presence of all the classes under consideration, no apostate, Jew, or Pagan, can be shown to have denied their actual occurrence as affirmed by Christians. Would they not have done it, had they not known that their occurrence could not have been denied? On the other hand, all these classes together unitedly admitted the occurrenc8e of these events. We find such admissions in the Jewish writings of the highest authority among that people. In the epistles of Pilate and\par \par \par \par Page 358 376\par \par 358 MODERN MYSTERIES. other Roman governors also, formal records of these events were contained. This is evident from the fact, that the early Christian writers were accustomed to appeal to those very epistles as existing in the archives of the Emperors, and as containing the records of these events. The early Christians 9never had any controversy with their opponents in regard to the question, whether the mighty works ascribed to Jesus Christ were actually performed in their midst. How shall we account for such testimony, the reality of which cannot be denied? It can be accounted for, we reply, but upon one exclusive supposition, the actual occurrence of these events, and the consequent divine origin of Christianity. Those millions of people, Apostles, Christians, apostates, Jews, and Pagans, never did unite in thus testi:fying to what they all knew to be false, which they did do, if these events never occurred. The opponents of Christianity never have met this argument, and we are well persuaded they never will do it. 4. We shall fail to do full justice to this department of our subject, if we do not make some special remarks upon the nature and character of the evidence under consideration. In every possible respect, it bears the clearest marks of the highest conceivable credibility. It is the testimony of enemies, drawn; from them contrary to all their worldly interests, principles, and prejudices, and can be accounted for but upon one supposition, the firm and immutable conviction, that these events had actually occurred, and were attended in their occurrence with such palpable evidence, that it could not be resisted nor invalidated, a conviction, also, which could by no possibility be induced but by the actual occurrence of the events themselves. Every convert to Christianity was originally its enemy, and\par \par \pgle known instance, denying its miracles, is the highest demonstration of the fact, that in their judgment, those great events could not be denied. No other conceivable supposition can account for their silence on this subject. Their testimony, then, bears the marks of the highest credibility. In regard to the Jews, these great events were everywhere, as they well knew, being proclaimed, as having occurred under their direct and immediate observation. They were held up to the world as opposing Christianit?y with a full knowledge of the reality of the facts on which its claims to a divine origin were based. They, moreover, based the claims of their own religion on the evidence of its miracles, and stood publicly committed before the world to the principle, that none but the true religion\par \par \par \par Page 360 378\par \par 360 MODERN MYSTERIES. is or can be attested by such evidence. Of all religions on earth, we remark finally, none were held by them in such utter detestation as Christianity. Ho@w shall we account for the fact, that under such circumstances, they never denied the reality of the great events under consideration, on the one hand, and that they positively admitted their occurrence, as affirmed by Christians, on the other? No explanation of such conduct is possible, but upon the fact that they knew absolutely that these events, as affirmed by Christians, had occurred under such circumstances that their reality could not be denied. The relation of the Pagan inhabitants of Palestine toA those events was such, that they could not have been ignorant of the real facts of the case. It was a part of the business of their rulers to acquaint themselves fully with the character of all important events which were occurring among the people, and especially in their large assemblages, whenever occurring, assemblages in which these events are affirmed to have occurred. If these events had not taken place, as related and affirmed by Christians, their pagan rulers could not but have been aware of theB imposition which was being perpetrated upon the world, and would have unmasked the imposture to the reprobation of mankind. Instead of this, they not only did not deny these facts, but admitted them, and themselves positively testified to their actual occurrence. If such testimony as this can deceive us, we may safely affirm, that nothing on earth or in heaven can be established by testimony. Such testimony, however, never does and never can deceive. The claims of Christianity, therefore,. to a divine orCigin, rest upon an eternal and immovable rock. 5. The argument drawn from the rapid and wide\par \par \par \par Page 361 379\par \par TIE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 36. spread extensionu of Christianity, in the era of its first development, should not be overlooked in this coniecetion, an extension in which, notwithstanding the unparalleled opposition and persecutions which it encountered, it advanced onward from the smallest and apparently most contemptible beginnings, with such resistless power lhat, in lesDs than three centuries fromn the era of the crucifixion, it ascended the throne of the Cesars, and became the established religion of the then civilized world. How can this strange event be accounted for? Upon one supposition only, the deep, universal, and immovable conviction, in that age, and throughout the Roman empire, of the reality of the great facts under consideration. The extension is admitted and detailed by Gibbon. The existence, depth, and universality of this conviction, is also admitted and Eaffirmed by him, and assigned as one of the nmain causes of the power and progress of Christianity, and none will call in question the truth of his statements on this subject. Now we affirm that it is no more impossible to account for the universal belief of the world in the reality of our Revolution, on the supposition that it never occurred, than it is to account for the existence of the conviction under consideration, on the supposition, that the great events to which it pertains never took place. We mFay challenge the world to assign any other adequate cause for the existence of this conviction, but this one. The opposers of Christianity never have done it, and they never will do it, and that for the obvious reason that the thing is impossible. These great events, then, did occur, and Christianity is from God. 6. We remark, finally, that we must admit the actual occurrence of the facts under consideration, and with 31\par \par \par \par Page 362 380\par \par 362 MODERN MYSTERIES. that admission aGffirm the divine origin of Christianity, or, to be consistent, we must deny the validity of all evidence of a historical kind, in regard to any past events whatever. On this topic we remark: (1.) That the authenticated records of any nation or people, are to be received as valid for the reality of the leading facts which they relate, unless there are reasons of the greatest weight of an opposite character. This is a universal principle pertaining to historical records of every kind. (2.) The historical reHcords of the Jews and Christians, the Scriptures, records containing the account of these great events, are as well authenticated as are those of any other nation or people on earth. This is undeniable. (3.) Hence, no reasons whatever can be assigned why we should credit the historical records of any nation on earth,. and deny the reality of the great facts attested as real in the historical record of Jews and Christians, that is, in the Scriptures. All history of every kind must be held as utter fable anId fiction, or the validity of these records must be admitted for the reality of the great events under consideration, and, consequently, for the divine origin of Christianity. We know very well that the opposers of Christianity will never meet this argument. Such is a bare specimen of the nature and force of the Christian argument for the divine origin of our holy religion, as far as this one department of evidence is concerned. We again affirm, without fear of contradiction, that this is a kind of evidenJce which never does and never can deceive. We leave the argument upon the conscience of the reader. Let him weigh it, decide and act upon it, with a solemn reference to the coming revelations of his approaching destiny.\par \par \par \par Page 363 381\par \par THE BIBLE. MIRACLES. 363 CHAPTER II. ARGUMENT FROMI PROPHECY. THE reader is well aware of the fact, that a large portion of the Bible consists of professedly divinely inspired predictions pertaining to events lying in the future, at the time wKhen these predictions were uttered. No one will doubt, that these predictions, supposing them to have been uttered prior to the events to which they pertain, were uttered either by inspiration of the Spirit of God, and consequently in their fulfilment encircle the Scriptures, as divinely attested witnesses of their divine origin, or else that they are the result of mere human foresight and sagacity. There are but three ways in which the human intelligence, unaided and unguided by wisdom and foresight highLer than its own, can even conjecture what shall occur in the future. The first is this: When all the causes that are operating or will operate to produce a given result are fully known, the result, by a calculation of the force and direction of the action of such causes, may be predetermined. The calculation, in such a case, is purely mathematical, and the conclusion certain. Such is the character of all astronomical calculations. The second is, when men reason from mere precedent, conjecturing from what Mhas occurred in the past, what will be in the future. Here we find ourselves in the region of uncertainty, the greatest events in human experience often turning upon purely accidental circumstances and occult causes, which no human sagacity could have foreseen, or even conjec\par \par \par \par Page 364 382\par \par 3r64 MODERN MYSTERIES. tured. Hence the total uncertainty of human foresight, in the wisest of men, is proverbial. The last class of human predictions are mere imaginings of what may be,N with a supposition merely that it will be. Such suppositions, or guesses, are generally wrong, and are yet, in instances few and far between, verified by the actual occurrence of the events referred to. Prophetic predictions originating from the inspira-!ion of the Spirit of God, and bearing the evidences of their divine original, must stand, in all their essential characteristics, at an absolute remove from each of the classes of human predictions above named. They must be of such a nature as to be wholOly out of the sphere of calculations from cause and effect, or from precedent, together with those of preimagined probabilities or possibilities. Their fulfilment also must be absolutely universal and perfect, thus indicating their origin from infinite wisdom and foresight. Predictions of this character, vast in number, and relating to an endless diversity of events which no human foresight could even conjecture, and yet all fulfilled in their exact time, and in absolute perfection, we all know can originPaite but from the infinite and eternal mind who sees the end from the beginning. Our object, on the present occasion, will be to show, that such is the precise character of the prophetic predictions recorded in the Scriptures, predictions which thus, as divinely attested witnesses, stand in the midst of iits sublime revelations, and affirm their divine origin.\par \par \par \par Page 365 383\par \par TIIE BIBLE. PROPIECY. 365 SECTION I. PREDICTIONS RECORDED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. In accomplishing ourQ object, our first remarks will have a special reference to predictions recorded in the Old Testament. On this subject, we remark:1. These prophecies were uttered and recorded many centuries before most of the events to which they relate, and long periods before hardly any of them occurred. Four considerations render the truth of the above statement perfectly evident: (1.) The writings containing these predictions have ever been received among the Jews, as the productions of the very persons to whom they Rare now referred, namely, of prophets who lived at the periods named in the books themselves, periods centuries antecedent to most of the events foretold. (2.) No evidence whatever exists against the testimony of this nation on this subject. No period in their history subsequent to the affirmed time of the prophets can be named when these writings did not exist among that people, and when, for the first time, they were introduced. (3.) At periods long prior to the occurrence of most of the events predicteSd, these writings were translated into other languages. The Septuagint translation, for example, containing all these books, was made about three centuries prior to the birth of Christ. (4.) They were then translated as ancient writings, which had most of them for centuries previous existed as sacred books among the Jews. No further evidence surely is required to sustain the above proposition. 2. The prophets had before them, at the time they uttered these predictions, no examples whatever of the rise andT fall of nations and empires, from which they 31 i\par \par \par \par Page 366 384\par \par I6()6 (MODERN MYSTERIES. could form even a conjecture of the fate of those then existing around them. The nations also to whom their prophecies pertain, existed, at the time, in all their strength and glory, presenting the appearance of an immortal youth, with no indications whatever of a near or remote decay and dissolution, especially of a destruction in any specific form. 3. The nations and cities are veryU numerous whose de.stiny is foretold with great particularity in these prophetic writings, nations and cities, for example, such as Ass.yria, with Nineveh as its capital, Babylon, and the Chaldean empire, Persia, Greece, Egypt, Syria, and its capital Darnascus, Tyre and Sidon, and Philistia, Edom, Ammon, and Moab, with their respective capitals, Petra, Rahab, and Heshbon, and Israel and Judah, with their capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem, etc. With all the particularity of history, we find the destiny of thVese illustrious cities, nations, and empires, mapped out in these wonderful writings. 4. While a large number of different writers give forth predictions in respect to the destiny of these cities, nations, and empires, while some of these writers speak particularly of that of most or all of them, others of a less number, and some of but one or two, and while some predict particulars not mentioned by others, the predictions of all together blend perfectly into one harmonious unity of description and represWentation, with the total absence of all contradiction. We are quite saf., in affirming that no one has yet pointed out, if any has ever attempted it, a single contradiction in all or any of these numerous predictions proceeding from so many writers, writers living at great distances of time, located in widely different circumstances, and of natural talents and intellectual attainments equally diverse and unequal.\par \par \par \par Page 367 385\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPHECY. 367 5. While the destiny Xof all these cities, nations, and empires is mapped out with great minuteness and particularity, in these prophetic writings, that of each one was to be peculiar to itself and widely diverse from all the others. The predictions pertaining to any one would not be at all applicable to any other. This is one of their most striking peculiarities. Let us consider a few of them as examples of all the others. We are all aware that the Assyrian empire was to be subverted by the Persian and Babylonian, the BabylonYian by the Persian under Cyrus mentioned by name, and this last by the Grecian, which after the death of its first king, was to be divided into four, and none of these come to the heirs of that monarch, and finally out of one of these four kingdoms, another and small one was to rise from which the greatest calamities were to descend upon the Jewish nation. Of the nation last named, one part, (the ten tribes,) were to be carried captive to Assyria, and the other, (Judah and Benjamin,) to Babylon. After remZaining seventy years in captivity, the latter portion were to be resettled in their own land, after which all distinction of tribes among the whole Israelitish nation was to cease. About five hundred years of mingled prosperity and adversity, mercy and judgment were then to intervene, when, subsequent to the death of " Messiah, the Prince," the nation itself, as a civil State, was to be blotted from existence, and to remain "scattered and peeled " among all nations, till " the fulness of the Gentiles shou[ld come in." Tyre, Philistia, Edom, Ammon, Moab, etc., were to be utterly and permanently annihilated as nations, and Egypt, after going into captivity for a certain period, was to be restored again, but was never to regain its nationality. Such are some of the general features of these predictions.\par \par \par \par Page 368 386\par \par 368 MODERN MYSTERIES. Let us now descend still further to a consideration of a few particulars. The army of Assyria was to be destroyed while engaged in a bacchan\alian revel. " While they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry." Nahum 1: 10. Nineveh its capital was to be destroyed by successive catastrophes; first by a flood, then by fire, and then by being sacked by its enemies. Nahum 1: 8. 3: 15. Its destruction was to be utter and final. Its " affliction was not to rise a second time," but it was to "become a desolation," a " place for beasts to lie down in." Nahum, 1: 9. Zeph. 2: 13, 15. "Babylon, the golden city, the glory of ki]ngdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," was, after its armies were defeated in the field, to be taken by Cyrus, while its inhabitants were revelling in drunkenness and debauchery, and captured for two reasons,- the drying up of the river that ran through the midst of it, and the providential opening, at the same time, of the brazen gates which guarded the entrance to the city from the banks of that river. Isa. 45: 1. Jer. 50: 38. 51: 36. After being successively plundered, it was to be wholly des^olated, and never again inhabited. The Arabian caravans were not to pitch their tents, nor were the shepherds to fold their flocks in it any more. On the other hand, it was for a period to become the dwelling-place of wild beasts; then its palaces and habitations were to become the abode of owls, dragons, serpents, vipers, and doleful creatures. Subsequently, it was to become " pools of water," in which the seafowls were to swim and utter their cries. Last of all, it was to become a " burnt mountain." Isa_. 13: 19. 14: 22, 23. Jer. 51: 13-43. Egypt was to go into captivity for a season, and on its return was never again to lift itself up among the nations. On the other hand, it was\par \par \par \par Page 369 387\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPHECY. 369 to become " the basest of kingdoms," and to be ever after ruled by foreign princes and not her own. Ez. 29: 15. 30: 13. Of Tyre, the then centre of commerce for the civilized world, we have the following predictions: "And they shall destroy the walls of Tyru`s, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Edom also was to " be a desolation," as when God overturned Sodom and Gomorrah, and such a desolation as to be utterly uninhabited. " No man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it." Jer. xlix. and elsewhere. We have given the above simply as examples. No prophet appears as a copyist of any other. Yet, while one oaften predicts what is not referred to by others, when speaking on the same subject, no contradiction, we repeat, appears among them, but a perfect unity of design and representation. At the same time, how particular and specific are their statements. How peculiar is the destiny marked out for each people, nation, or city, and how diverse from that of every other. We never find prophecies of desolations in general, but always in specific and peculiar forms. 6. This leads us to remark, in the next instance,b that at the time when these prophets lived and wrote, no events conceivable, seemed of less likely occurrence than those to which these predictions refer. All these kingdoms existed, as we have already said, in all the plenitude of their power and glory. Every city referred to was the abode of untold wealth, and surrounded with the most impregnable defences that could be erected by the art of man at the time. Nineveh, according to Diodorus Siculus, was surrounded by walls\par \par \par \par Page 370 c388\par \par 370 MODERN MYSTERIES. sixty miles in extent, one hundred feet high, and so thick that three chariots could go abreast upon them. It had fifteen hundred towers at proper distances in the walls, each tower being two hundred feet in height. Within were every means of defence, and provisions to sustain a siege to any length of time. The walls of Babylon were three hundred and fifty feet high, and eighty-seven feet in thickness. Outside of these was a ditch of great width and depth, and always fdilled with water. Its gates were all of brass, and were opened but in the daytime. It was garrisoned within by numerous armies, and so provisioned that it could not be straitened by being besieged from without. How utterly improbable was it, that cities which for ages had stood thus " proudly preeminent" amid surrounding nations, and against which no force then existing on earth could have any apparent power, would, ere a few centuries were past, become utter and perpetual desolations. So of all the othere objects of the prophetic predictions under consideration. Upon mere calculations of worldly experience and observation, those who gave utterance to such predictions must have appeared as madmen, rather than as speaking by inspiration of the Spirit of God. 7. Yet, we remark finally, not one of these strange utterances failed of its full and complete accomplishment. The prophet had said of Assyria, that when its army was " drunken as drunkards, they should be destroyed as stubble fully dry." Accordingly, Dfiodorus Siculus relates, that "while all the Assyrian army was feasting for its former victories, that those about Arbaces (king of the Medes) "being informed by deserters of the negligence and drunkenness in the camp of their enemies, assaulted them unexpectedly by night,\par \par \par \par Page 371 389\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPHECY. 371 slew many of the soldiers, and drove the rest into the city." " In the third year of the siege," he further informs us, " the river-being swollen with continual raigns, broke down the walls of Nineveh for twenty furlongs." The king then " built a large funeral pile in the palace, and, collecting together all his wealth and his concubines and eunuchs, burnt himself and the palace with them all; and the enemy entered the breach that the waters had made, and took the city." Thus, according to the sayings of the prophets, it was destroyed, first by the drunkenness of the army, then by water and fire, and finally by being sacked by the enemy. Its destruction also was comphlete and perpetual. Modern science is now developing, from the bowels of the earth, where that proud monument of ancient greatness once stood, the demonstrations of prophetic foresight in Israel's divinely inspired seers. With the manner in which, in perfect accordance with prophetic prediction, Babylon was taken and plundered by Cyrus, the reader is no doubt familiar. Defeated in one or two battles without, the Chaldean army took refuge within the walls and defences of the city, which the conqueror referired to proceeded to besiege. Learning that on a given night the whole city would be given up to feasting and revelry, he succeeded, by means of trenches, canals, and an artificial lake which he had excavated, in draining, on the same night, the Euphrates, which ran through its centre, so as to leave the channel dry for the introduction of his army into the heart of the city, where, as he expected and as the prophets had foretold, they found the gates which guarded the entrance from the channel into the stjreets, left wide open. Thus Babylon was first taken and plundered. For\par \par \par \par Page 372 390\par \par 372 MODERN MYSTERIES. a long period, however, though successively plundered, it retained much of its royal magnificence, being made the capital of the Macedonian empire, under Alexander. When Seleucia, however, became the capital of the eastern portion of that empire, after its division, the nobility and wealthy portion of the people of Babylon followed the royal family to the former city.k These in time were followed by the entire population, and Babylon became desolated of all its inhabitants. Subsequently, one of the latter kings of Persia, in the fourth century after Christ, converted it into a chase to keep wild beasts for hunting within its walls. Ages rolled on, and by the falling in of the roofs of houses, the decay of vegetation, etc., it became the abode of serpents, vipers, and poisonous reptiles, so that, according to an ancient writer, no one could approach excepting in winter,l within half a league of it. In a subsequent age, by the change of the channel of the river, much of the city was overflowed, and became " pools of water," in which, as predicted, the sea-fowl makes its appearance. Now the curtain falls over this devoted city, and for centuries it remains concealed from the vision of civilization, till'modern travellers visit the place where "the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency once stood." We wish to know whether one more prediction has been fulfilled. Babylon was to mbecome a "burnt mountain." History records no occurrence whatever in which such a prediction could be fulfilled. Israel's seer, however, has said that it should be so, and what do modern travellers find there? In approaching the place, a high mound lifts its form to view, a mound constituted no doubt of the ruins of the ancient temple of Belus, or the tower of Babel, now composed, in the language of another, of "immense fragments of brick\par \par \par \par Page 373 391\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPHECY.n 373 work of no determinate figures, tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses," masses "completely molten." "The heat of the fire," says Sir Robert Ker Porter, "which produced such amazing effects, must have burned with the force of the strongest furnace; and from the general appearance of the cleft in the wall, and these vitrified masses, I should be induced to attribute the catastrophe to lightning from heaven. Ruins by the explosion of any combustible matter would have exhibited very odifferent appearances." Again he says, " the falling masses bear evident proof of the operation of fire having been continued on them as well after they were broken as before, since every part of their surface has been so completely exposed to it that many of them have acquired a rounded form, and in none can the place of separation from its adjoining one be traced by any appearance of superior freshness, or any exemption from the influence of the destroying flame." So much for the relations of prophetic pforesight to this once proud mistress of the world, who boasted in the pride of her vainglory saying, " I shall be a lady forever; I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children." Let us now turn in other directions. The voyager, as he sails up the Mediterranean, approaches at length the site of ancient Tyre, " the crowning city, whose merchants were once princes, and whose traffickers the honorable of the earth," and what does he now behold there? A mqass of naked rocks from which even the dust has been totally scraped off; and upon which a few miserable fishermen are drying their nets. Egypt, disrobed of all her former greatness, deprived of her nationality, and ruled over by foreign despots, has stood for eighteen centuries, the "basest 32\par \par \par \par Page 374 392\par \par 374 MODERN MYSTERIES. of kingdoms," as a monument visible to all the world, of an unearthly and superhuman foresight in those ancient prophets. We need not speak of Isrrael and Judah, of Edom and Moab, and Ammon and Philistia, and other nations and their proud capitals. From one hundred to one thousand years prior to the full occurrence of the great events predicted, the destiny of all these nations and cities were definitely marked out with an astonishing particularity, and where each was to be subject to a series of catastrophes altogether peculiar to itself, and diverse from that of all the others. Yet not one of all these endlessly multiplied and diversified predictsions has failed of its full and complete accomplishment, and that in every particular, the least as well as the greatest. Yet every solitary event predicted had the greatest conceivable antecedent probability against its occurrence. Nothing in the previous experience of these or other nations could have suggested, even to the wildest imagination, the peculiar destiny of any one of these cities or nations. WThat must we think of this strange foresight in these wonderful men? We affirm that but one cause catn be conceived of adequate to the production of such results, and that is the cause assigned in the Scriptures themselves, namely: " For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The cause which originated these predictions possessed not only a foresight of the future, but one that has all possible characteristics of absolute infallibility. By a reference to the known powers of the human mind, we cannot account for the mere existuence of the ideas expressed in those predictions, much less for the relations of infallible foresight which they sustain to the events to which they relate.\par \par \par \par Page 375 393\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPIECY. 375 SECTION II. NEW TESTAMENT PREDICTIONS. Of the numberless predictions recorded in the New Testament, we select but two as examples of all the others. The first is found Rev. iii. 10, and pertains to the church of Philadelphia. "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I alsov will keep. thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." This one city, or rather the church in it, was to be preserved amid the sweeping desolations which were to overwhelm all the others. How has that prediction been fulfilled? Let an infidel historian tell us. Speaking of this and the other cities containing the seven churches of Asia, Gibbon makes the following statements: " In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of thwe first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick of the Revelation: the desolation is complete, and the temple of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus, and three stately theatres of Laodicea, are now peopled by wolves and foxes. Sardis is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamos; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Axrmenians. Philadelphia alone had been saved by prophecy or courage."' Among the Greek colonies, and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect: a column in a scene of ruins." How happened it, that the eye of the Revelator fell upon this single church and marked it out as the only one which was to be preserved in the midst of the sur\par \par \par \par Page 376 394\par \par 376 MODERN MYSTERIES. rounding desolations? The individual that will entertain the sentiment, that this is an instance of unayided human foresight, shows an equal want of candor, and ignorance of what is alnd is not possible to man. The second prediction to which we will refer, we will place before the reader, by presenting the attempt of an arch.enemy of Christianity to prove it false, by the accomplishment of what Christ had said, should not then be accomplished. Christ had predicted, that the temple and city of Jerusalem should be trodden down by the Gentiles, " till the fulness of the Gentiles should come in." Julian the Apozstate, when Emperor of Rome, resolved to prove that prophecy false, by rebuilding that temple, and restoring it to its ancient splendor. This he resolved upon about three hundred years after its destruction. He accordingly turned the resources of the empire to the accomplishment of that object. The following is Gibbon's account of the effort, and of its final result. The minister Alypius "received an extraordinary commission, to restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem, and the diligence o{f Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and| pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contri\par \par \par \par Page 377 395\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPHIECY. 377 bution; every hand claimed a share in the pious labor; and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people." " Yet on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which i}s now covered by a Mohammedan mosque, still continues to exhibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. "Perhaps the absence and death of the Emperor, and the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life of Julian. But the Christians entertained a natural and pious expectation, that in this memorable contest, the honor of religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whir~lwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested, with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence. This public event is described by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the Emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and Gregory Nazianzen, who published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this preternatural event was not disputed by infidels; and his assertion, strange as it may seem, is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues without adopting the prejudices of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and candid history of his own times, the 32*\par \par \par \par Page 378 396\par \par 378 MODERN MYSTERIES. extraordinary obstacle which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged with vigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned. Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous mind." Such is the record and testimony of the infidel historian. We leave it to speak for itself. The authority and facts adduced do satisfy the believing, and should they not more than astonish the incredulous mind? Should they not induce in him the apprehension, if not the unshaken conviction, that beneath the system of Christianity lies the rock of eternal truth, and that the superstructure raised upon that rock is nothing else than the handiwork of God-himself? In the strong-hold based upon that rock, may we not safely take refuge for eternity? Such is prophecy, as it appears in the Scriptures of truth, and such is its fulfilment. We might with almost as much show of reason affirm absolute omniscience of the prophets, as to affirm that they were illuminated by any other cause than Omniscience itself, in the predictions recorded in Scripture, -predictions which, now verified by their most minute and absolute accomplishment, stand in the midst of its high revelations as divinely attested monuments and witnesses of the\par \par \par \par Page 379 397\par \par THE BIBLE. PROPIIECY. 379 divine origin of Christianity. We might have multiplied examples to any extent. What we have adduced, however, is sufficient for our purpose. We affirm, that such predictions as these do not attest the truth of that which is unreal and untrue. In their midst, the Bible, that " dearest of books, that excels every other," stands before us as nothing else than the divinely attested word of God, and as such, as a light shining in upon our darkness, a " light to which we do well to take heed, till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts." All these divine predictions, however, are not yet fulfilled. Some refer to what is yet to be in the future history of our race. Others extend our vision beyond the circle of time, and indicate what shall be the connection of present character and deeds with the events of that eternal future, long after "the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood." Every foretold event of the past has taken its place in exact accordance with these predictions. Is the connection between these same hitherto infallible predictions and what yet remains to be accomplished, less indissoluble? " Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word," says the Author and spirit of prophecy itself, "shall not pass away."\par \par \par \par Page 380 398\par \par 380 MODERN MYSTERIES. CHAPTER III. ARGUMENT FROM INTERNAL EVIDENCE. EVERY production of an intelligent agent will bear somewhere upon it the indications of the character of its author. Whatever is strictly human in its origin, will present the characteristic imperfections of humanity. Whatever, on the other hand, is really and truly of divine original, will have pencillings upon it which the mind will perceive could have been drawn but by the finger of God. All will admit, at the outset of our remarks, that the Scriptures are either human or divine in their origin. If they are exclusively of man, they will present the characteristic imperfections of humanity, and of humanity in the particular era and circumstances in which they were written. But if they are of divine original, the production itself, when wisely and candidly contemplated, will present the most absolute demonstration of the divinity of its origin. We here lay down this proposition, which we shall proceed to establish, that there are two great volumes that God has written, the book of nature and the book of inspiration, that each bears equally the most absolute indications of a divine original, and that it would be just as unreasonable to suppose that man is the author of the one as of the other. The author of the former, we know perfectly, must be possessed of all the attributes involved in the ideas of absolute infinity and perfection. On the other, we perceive with equal distinctness the pencillings of the same infinity and perfection. The mind cannot entertain a greater absurdity\par \par \par \par Page 381 399\par \par THE BIBLE. INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 381 than to ascribe the origin of the universe of matter and mind, to any finite cause. An absurdity not less gross, as we purpose to prove, is involved in ascribing the Bible to man as its originator and exclusive author. It is not easy for us to set limits to the possible attainments of humanity. Yet there are some things which no one hesitates to affirm, as impossible to man. We know absolutely, for example, that no untutored savage could originate the Paradise Lost. Above all, we know absolutely, that twelve such savages did not, and could not, each, without knowing at all what either of the others were doing, write one of the twelve books of that great production, the twelve books thus separately written, possessing an absolute unity of conception and arrangement, and all together constituting one perfectly harmonious whole. Equally manifest is it, that no twelve men of any degree of mental cultivation, could thus independently and undesignedly produce the separate parts of any such work. Suppose that twelve men had, in this or in a similar manner, originated such a production, each writing perfectly independently of all the others, and in absolute ignorance of what they were doing, and yet the productions of each should fall in with those of all the others, so as to constitute one grand, sublime, and perfectly unified whole, having all possible indications of being the production of some one mind, a mind which comprehended the whole together with all its parts, and originated and adapted each part accordingly. We should conclude in that case, with the most undoubting certainty, that each and all these twelve individuals acted under the guidance of some such mind in what they produced, and that they were but instruments in its production, thinking and writing only as they were moved by this\par \par \par \par Page 382 400\par \par 382 MODERN MYSTERIES. one mind, and that in accordance \cf1\f1\fs23\par } \f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\f0\fs24 Page 423 441\par \par PART IV. CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. WE have the following reasons, among others, for subjecting, in the present treatise, the professed revelations of the individual above named to a sufficiently careful and rigid criticism to develop their real merits: \emdash 1. They undeniably belong to the very class of developments which were the subject of criticism in the first two Parts of this work. 2. These pretended revelations are now being very diligently urged upon public regard, on account of this very fact. Mr. Bush, for example, has published a work of 288 pages, the exclusive object of which is to disclose the relations of these revelations to Mesmerism. The following extract from this work will give the case as now presented to the public by the advocates of Swedenborgianism among us. " The indubitable facts of Mesmerism are affording to the very senses of man a demonstration which cannot be resisted, that Swedenborg has told the truth of the other life. The denial of his claims has now to encounter something more than the intrinsic character of his statements. It must meet, and, in order to be successful, must overcome, the strong array of facts planted around it by the progress of mesmeric discovery. These facts (423)\par \par \par \par Page 424 442\par \par 424 MODERN MYSTERIES. are intuitively seen to connect themselves indissolubly with the whole tissue of Swedenborg's relations, as to the laws and phenomena of the spiritual world. The result is inevitable. If Mesmerism is true, Swedenborg is true. Can the further inference be resisted, that if Swedenborg is true, he is a divinely commissioned messenger from heaven to man? It avails not to say in reply, that his revelations may have been merely mesmeric, and consequently are no more authoritative than those elicited from persons in ordinary magnetic extase. We have already shown that his state differed from that of ordinary mesmeric subjects, \emdash that while there are certain points of resemblance and relation between them, his psychological condition was distinguished by peculiarities which elevated it immeasurably above theirs. The repetition of our proofs on this head will be unnecessary here. We content ourselves with the simple affirmation, that it is impossible to deny, on intelligent grounds, that the higher mesmeric phenomena fall into the same category with the revelations of the Swedish seer, and that the truth of the former establishes that of the latter." 3. If we admit the validity of these revelations as now commended to the world by their advocates, we must hold, and that for no other reason than the simple word of this one man, that a part of the Bible was given by inspiration, and a part, about one sixth of the Old, and one half of the New Testament, the Acts, and cll the Epistles, was not thus given. This we are to hold, when we have all the evidence, Swedenborg's testimony aside, that the parts rejected were thus given, that we have that the others were. 4. The main and almost exclusive interest which that portion of the Holy Writ which is left us, is to possess\par \par \par \par Page 425 443\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 425 in our minds, after receiving these revelations as divine, is to be derived from the new meaning which we are now to attach, and that simply because Swedenborg says we must, to the words of Scripture, a meaning arbitrarily attached to them, and which they have no adaptations whatever to convey. The literal meaning of the Bible, we are taught, that is, the Scriptures, when explained according to the laws of language, is often self-contradictory and false, contrary to valid history and true science, and of an immoral character and tendency. It is only when we come to the higher and spiritual meaning which Swedenborg was commissioned to reveal, that we find real and absolute truth, truth self-consistent and eternal. The great interest, then, which the Scriptures should possess, and will possess, the validity of his claims being admitted, the interest which, with all his followers, they do in fact now possess, is to attach almost exclusively to this new and higher meaning. Yet this one all-absorbing meaning, the words of Scripture have no adaptation to convey. We will give a single illustration, Swedenborg's explanation of 1 Samuel chapters v. and vi., which contain the account of the retention of the ark for a season in the land of the Philistines, and its being sent back by them. " The Philistines represent," he says, "those who exalt faith above charity; which was the occasion of their continual wars with the Israelites, who represent those who cherish faith in union with charity. The idol Dagon is the religion of those who are represented by the Philistines. The emerods are symbols of the appetites of the natural man, which, when separated from the spiritual affections, are unclean. The mice, by which the land was devastated, are images of the lust of destroying, by false interpreta36 *\par \par \par \par Page 426 444\par \par 426 MODERN MYSTERIES. tion, the spiritual nourishment which the church derives from the word of God. The emerods of gold exhibit the natural appetites, as purified and made good. The golden mice signify the healing of the tendency to false interpretations, effected by admitting a regard to goodness. The cows are types of the natural man, in regard to such good qualities as he possesses. Their lowing by the way expresses the repugnance of the natural man to the process of conversion. And the offering them up for a burnt-offering typifies that restoration of order which takes place in the mind, when the natural affections are submitted to the Lord."* Who, from any correct laws of interpretation, could ever have dreamed that God intended to represent by two cows " the natural nan in regard to such good qualities as he possesses," and by the lowing of these cows "the repugnance of the natural man to the process of conversion?" The words have no adaptation whatever to convey such an idea. The same holds equally true of every other spiritual idea which this revelator affirms to be expressed by the words of Scripture. Yet, if we receive him as our guide, our interest in these ideas thus arbitrarily attached to the words of Scripture, will become the almost, if not quite exclusive source of interest with us, in the Word of God. 5. As a natural and necessary consequence, the Bible, as originally given to man, will in human estimation, be thrown into a deep, dark, and permanent eclipse.; while the so called revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg will take its place, as the only revelations with which we have any deep concern. Among the Swedenborgians, as the world cannot but know, this result has followed already, and it will universally follow, should * True Chris. Religion, ~ 203.\par \par \par \par Page 427 445\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 427 this religion prevail. This, we say, is practical infidelity in regard to the Bible, as God gave it to man. 6. We see nothing in these ideas thus arbitrarily attached to the words of Scripture, that indicate to us that they have a natural, or can have a divine right thus to take the place of this great central source of moral and spiritual illumination to fallen humanity. On the other hand, we see very little in these ideas which do not tend most powerfully to veil from our vision humanity as it is and must become, in order to be prepared to meet the exigencies of the coming future, to neutralize the efficiency of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, in the work of human moral renovation, and finally, to degrade and debase our ideal of God and immortality. 7. For ourselves, we could not make any approach towards receiving these revelations, without becoming utterly infidel in our notions in regard to the whole Bible. In that case, we must hold that all the evidence that now exists, or ever has existed, for the divine origin of those portions of the Scriptures which we are required to reject, the Acts, and all the Epistles of the New Testament, for example, is totally invalid and deceptive. But no higher, nor any other evidence exists for the divine origin of any other part of the Bible. If the Christian argument fails in one case, it fails in the other. It does totally fail and deceive, in one case, according to Swedenborg. The same identical evidence cannot but fail and be deceptive, therefore, in both cases alike, and we have no divine revelation to the words of which Swedenborg's spiritual ideas can be attached. This is the necessary consequence that we must adopt, before we can even look at the claims of Swedenborg. If the Christian argument is valid, for\par \par \par \par Page 428 446\par \par 428 MODERN MYSTERIES. the divine origin of any one book of the New Testament, it is equally valid for that of all the others, and Swedenborgianism, from the beginning to end, is a delusion. What evidence, for example, can be offered for the inspiration of Luke in writing his gospel, that would not affirm, with equal absoluteness, his inspiration, as the author of the book of Acts? What evidence exists for the inspiration of John, in writing the Gospel and Revelation, that does not affirm with equal absoluteness his inspiration, as the author of his epistles? But one alternative is left us, we maintaining logical consistency, and that is to reject Swedenborg, or become throughout infidels. We cannot be infidels, and therefore we must repudiate wholly the claims of Swedenborg. S. The time, in our judgment, has now arrived, when the real claims of this self-assumed divine revelator, may be set with such distinctness before the public mind, that they will be duly appreciated. Without further introduction, we shall now proceed to lay before our readers our reasons, some of them, for regarding the claims of this individual as an inspired revelator, utterly false and vain, and his system, taken as a whole, as nothing but delusion and error. We regard him as, like Frederika Hauffe, simply a clairvoyant, whose visions were to him real, but were the exclusive subjective result of an abnormal odylic physical and mental state, and utterly void of any claims to objective validity, or to be thus regarded by us. That his revelations are utterly void of all claims to validity, and that they should be held by us as untrue, we argue from the following considerations: \emdash 1. These professed revelations belong exclusively to a class which the unvarying experience of mankind in\par \par \par \par Page 429 447\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 429 all ages, have found to be an utterly unreliable and deceptive source of information. "If Iliesmerism is true," says Mr. Bush, " Swedenborg is true." Suppose we state the proposition in a somewhat different form, namely, if Mesmerism is a reliable source of information, Swedenborg is a true and reliable revelator. If, on the other hand, Mesmerism is an unreliable and deceptive source of information, then we should be guilty of infinite presumption in placing confidence in the revelations of Swedenborg; for the two classes of phenomena have a common origin, and must have common characteristics. Now clairvoyant revelations, Swedenborg's aside, have never, in a solitary instance, stood revealed to the world as thus reliable, -as any thing else than the most uncertain and unreliable source of information conceivable. The clairvoyant, in all instances, is subject to visions, the vast majority of which are untrue, with exceptions very few and far between correct, while the subject is utterly void of all capacity to distinguish the true from the false. This is the immutable law which characterizes them in all forms of development in which they have ever appeared, in any age of the world, or in any nation on earth. No man can intelligently read the life and experience of Swedenborg, without being convinced, that his revelations are exclusively from this one source. To regard them, therefore, as a reliable source of information, is as presumptuous as it would be to expect a suspension of the natural laws of the universe, and that without a miracle. Judging from the immutable law which characterizes these phenomena, the probability that any one of his visions pertaining to the other worlds, or to a future state, is true, is not as one to a hundred, while the probability that they are generally true, is not as\par \par \par \par Page 430 448\par \par 430 MODERN MYSTERIES. one to millions. He certainly is very unwise, who accepts such sand-banks, as the rock of eternal truth. There is one fundamental fact which characterizes this class of phenomena, that should not be overlooked in this connection. The only objects lying beyond the compass of ordinary vision, in respect to which the perceptions of the clairvoyant are ever found to be true, are mere physical facts, with which he happens, at the moment, to be in odylic rapport. Whenever he attempts to reveal general truths, truths especially pertaining to objects lying beyond this mundane sphere, then his visions become utterly lawless and unreliable, and we might show that, from the nature of the case, it could not be otherwise. The history of the world, we believe, presents us with not a solitary exception to this statement. Now it is in this very sphere, where clairvoyance has ever, without exception, utterly failed, that the visions of Swedenborg as a clairvoyant are found. The probability, therefore, is as infinity to unity against their reliability. 2. The fundamental principle of science to which we have alluded on other occasions, that of sufficient reason, demands the assumption that the visions of Swedenborg are mere mental hallucinations, having an exclusively subjective origin without any corresponding realities. When we have ascertained that a part of a given class of facts owe their origin exclusively to a certain cause, and that this cause is fully adequate to the production of all the rest, we must refer them all alike to such cause, or we abandon the fundamental principle on which all scientific deduction is based. Let us apply this fundamental principle to the visions of Swedenborg. Of the manner in which these visions commenced, together with the exclusive ground of con\par \par \par \par Page 431 449\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 431 fidence which the subject had, that he was a divinely commissioned and authoritative revelator, the following extract from Dr. Pond's " Swedenborgianism Reviewed," will present us with a clear and authenticated account. " In the spring of 1745, an event took place, which was regarded by Swedenborg (and is so regarded by all his followers) as the most important in his whole life. He professed to have had his spiritual senses opened, so that he could look directly into the invisible world, and converse with departed souls, angels, and demons, as freely as with men here on the earth. But the account must be given in his own words.'I have been called to a holy office, by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested himself in person to me, his servant, when he opened my sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels.' * Again:'I can sacredly and solemnly declare, that the Lord himself has been seen of me, and that he has sent me to do what I do; and for such purpose, he has opened the interior part of my soul, which is my spirit, so that I can see what is in the spiritual world, and those that are therein; and this privilege has now been continued to me for twenty-two years.' To another friend, who inquired how and when it was, that he was enabled to see what was done in heaven and hell, he gave the following answer.'I was in London, and one day dined rather late by myself, at a boarding-house, where I kept a room, in which at pleasure, I could prosecute the study of the natural sciences. I was hungry, and ate with great appetite. At the end of the meal, I remarked that a vapor, as it were, clouded my sight, and the walls of my chamber * Letter to Dr. Hartley. f Letter to Dr. Oetenger.\par \par \par \par Page 432 450\par \par 432 MODERN MYSTERIES. appeared covered with frightful creeping things, such as serpents, toads, and the like. I was filled with astonishment, but retained the full use of my perception and thoughts. The darkness attained its height, and soon passed away. I then perceived a man sitting in the corner of my chamber. As I thought myself entirely alone, I was greatly terrified; when he spoke and said,' Eat not so much.' The cloud once more came over my sight, and when it passed away, I found myself alone in the chamber. This unexpected event hastened my return home. I did not mention the subject to the people of the house, but reflected upon it much, and believed it to have been the effect of accidental causes, or to have arisen from my physical state, at the time. I went home; but in the following night, the same man appeared to me again. He said,' I am God, the Lord, the Creator and Redeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to lay before men the spiritual sense of the holy word. I will teach thee what thou art to write.' On that same night, were opened to my perception the heavens and the hells, where I saw many persons of my acquaintance, of all conditions. From that day forth, I gave up all mere worldly learning, and labored only in spiritual things, according to what the Lord commanded me to write. Daily he opened the eyes of my spirit to see what was done in the other world, and gave me, in a state of'full wakefulness, to converse with angels and spirits." It is undeniably evident that Swedenborg, in his own mind, based the validity of his commission, as a divine revelator, upon that of the supposed visions of God which he had on these two occasions. It is equally evident that he expected that the world at large would thus * See Robsam's Memoir of Swedenborg, in Hobart's Life, 214.\par \par \par \par Page 433 451\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 433 receive him on the assumed validity of the same visions. To these visions he himself appeals before the world, as the basis of his high claims. "I can sacredly and solemnly declare," he says, " that the Lord himself has been seen of me, and has sent me to do what I do." Suppose that we can show, that by the fundamental and immutable principles of science, we are required to hold these visions as merely mental hallucinations which had an exclusively subjective origin, without any corresponding object whatever external to the mind. Then we should be sacredly bound to hold all his other visions as nothing else but hallucinations of this exclusive character; for the latter sustain such relations to the former, that they must be placed together under the same class or category. This is undeniable. Now, these very assumed visions of God are presented to us by the author himself, as a part of a class, all the rest of which were and could be nothing but mere mental hallucinations without any corresponding objects of real perception, and the cause which produced the latter is equally adequate to originate the former, in the total absence of such objects. Prior to these visions, it should be borne in mind, that according to the express testimony of Mr. Wesley, and the celebrated Dr. Hartley, one of Swedenborg's intimate personal friends, and earliest followers, " he was seized with a fever, attended with delirium." Subsequently, when in London, after eating an immoderate dinner, and retiring to his room, he had a vision in which the walls of his chamber, to use his own language,'appeared covered with frightful creeping things, such as serpents, toads, and the like.' Shall we suppose that there were real " serpents, toads, and the like," on the walls of that chamber, on that occasion? -We should be guilty of voluntary and reck37\par \par \par \par Page 434 452\par \par 434 MODERN MYSTERIES. less self-dementation, if we should, for a moment, entertain such a thought. We think, that even the most self-abnegating followers of our revelator, will not show themselves so idiotic as to pretend that there were upon those walls any real objects corresponding to his perceptions on that occasion. Here, then, we have a cause developed, and in active efficient operation in the organism of this individual, a cause which did induce distinct visions as of external objects, when no such external objects existed. In immediate connection with these identical visions, there is the appearance of a man "sitting in one corner" of the same room. Is not the cause which produced the other visions, in the absence of all corresponding objects external to the organism of the subject, equally adequate to produce this one vision in the absence of any such external object? But one answer can be given to this question. Every principle of science, then, requires us to hold this vision as nothing but a mental hallucination occasioned by the peculiar abnormal physical condition of the subject himself. The same cause which originated this vision, to which no corresponding object was present, was equally adequate to reproduce the same vision after Swedenborg had returned to his home. Thus far, we cannot follow the immutable laws of scientific deduction, without regarding ourselves as in the exclusive presence of mental and physical hallucinations, and of nothing else. Yet we have here the beginning and the end of Emanuel Swedenborg's commission and authority as a divine revelator. These undeniable hallucinations also have such a connection with his subsequent visions, that we are bound to suppose, that they are all of the same exclusive character. The same night after this second as\par \par \par \par Page 435 453\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 435 sumed vision of God occurred, "were opened to my perception," says Swedenborg, "the heavens and the hells, where I saw many persons of my acquaintance, of all conditions." Nothing which demands the supposition of the presence and action of any new cause yet presents itself. The same reasons which require us to suppose the first visions to be nothing but hallucinations, demand that we attribute the same character to these, and so of all that follow. No object corresponding to any of them is required to account for its occurrence, or any of its characteristics. The immutable laws of science, therefore, prohibit our referring any of these visions to such objects as their cause, and to present these visions as any evidence whatever of the reality of such objects. 3. A respect, also, for the known character of God, every attribute of his nature, demands of us, that we attribute precisely such a character, and none other, to these professed revelations. Who does not know, that if God was about to reveal himself to man, and that for the high purpose of introducing a totally new dispensation, he would not, under such circumstances, connect the visible manifestation of himself, with undeniable hallucinations, in the same percipient, and so connect the two, that the immutable laws of science would demand, that the same character of utter unreliability, and mental illusion, should be ascribed to each? If we can affirm, with absolute certainty, any thing whatever of God, we can affirm, with the same certainty, that a real revelation from him to man has never come to us in such connections. The visions of Emanuel Swedenborg are not from God, and he was never divinely commissioned to take from our hearts a part of the divine word, and to nullify the rest by veiling them behind a new revelation.\par \par \par \par Page 436 454\par \par 436 MODERN MYSTERIES. 4. The same conclusion is forced upon us by the known and exclusively subjective character of these entire revelations. What are Swedenborg's "heavens and hells" but Swedenborg himself, turned inside out, that is, the exclusive reflections and external embodiments of his own previous mental states? Any philosopher who should fully acquaint himself with the previous history and character of this individual, with the leading direction of his thoughts and feelings and sentiments, on all subjects, social, civil, philosophical, and religious, would predict, with perfect certainty, that if he should ever become the subject of odylic mental hallucinations, and that if these should be connected with the illusion that he was a divinely commissioned revelator to man, precisely these and none others would be the leading character of his visions, supposing that not one of them was valid for any corresponding reality. In his previous life, it is well known, that he was disappointed in an affair of the heart, in consequence of which "conjugial and scortatory love" became with him, the all-pervading element of his mental existence; and this is the central element of Swedenborg's visions of immortality. While in heaven, he attends a wedding of course. All his ideas in regard to the sexual relations are turned over and over, with a disgusting familiarity, in his intercourse with female angels. His heart comes fully out here, and it stands revealed to us combined of elements with which we have no desire to become further acquainted. His hells, too, are eternal brothels, in which nearly if not quite every fallen spirit there is "permitted to keep one mistress." " Conjugial love," he tells us, "is the very sphere of heaven." This single statement indubitably indicates the exclusively subjective origin of his visions.\par \par \par \par Page 437 455\par \par EMANIUEL SWEDENBORG. 437 Swedenborg, also, entertained certain peculiar notions in regard to the trinity, justification, etc. In heaven, he is permitted to attend church, on a certain occasion. The preacher, to whom, of course, such an illustrious personage as our visitant is introduced, stands revealed, as a devoted Swedenborgian, the object of the discourse being to set his hearers right on these special themes. The entire theological discourse of heaven is exclusively upon the very themes with which his mind had been previously exercised. Swedenborg, finally, had peculiar philosophical conceptions pertaining to the universe of matter and mind, and of their peculiar relations. His "heavens and hells" are exclusively constructed in perfect accordance with the principles of that philosophy. On all subjects alike, the highest intelligences of heaven knew just what he knew, and nothing more and nothing less. Swedenborg heard no " unspeakable words" in heaven. The table, at a dinner party which he affirms himself to have attended with the Almighty himself, was spread with the very " sweet cakes and condiments," wines and beverages, with which his appetites had been previously delighted. The dresses, too, of the Prince, his grandees and courtiers, each to "their breeches and stockings," were patterned after his previous ideas of beauty and perfection. All in heaven and hell move in this one circle, and take exclusive form from this one mundane pattern. Now we say, that we cannot have higher evidence, that any visions are exclusively subjective and mundane in their origin, than we have in such undeniable facts as these, of the exclusively subjective origin of Swedenborg's pretended revelations, together with the fact, that none of them have any claims whatever to take rank, but among other mental 37\par \par \par \par Page 438 456\par \par 438 MODERN MYSTERIES. illusions and hallucinations which arise in the human mind, in certain abnormal conditions of the physical organism. There is one very striking feature of these revelations, that should not be overlooked, in this connection, as presenting very nearly, if not quite demonstrative evidence of their exclusively subjective origin, and of their utter want of any claims to objective validity. We find Swedenborg's heaven pervaded throughout with reflections of his peculiar prejudices and antipathies against persons who had previously lived. How hardly all persons get along there who, however honest and excellent in their character, morally and religiously considered, happened to differ on any question of doctrine from this our revelator, especially if they held the doctrine of justification by faith. Luther, for example, " is still in the world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven and hell, where he sometimes undergoes great sufferings," and all for one reason exclusively, that he has not yet given up the doctrine of justification by faith. Poor Melancthon, for the same reason, is shut up in a cold stone chamber, " clothed in a bear-skin, by reason of the cold, because faith without charity is cold." Towards Calvin our revelator at first seemed quite well disposed, giving him, in 1763, a place " in a society of heaven." Subsequently, however, he seems to have become the object of Swedenborg's peculiar dislike. Hence we find him at one time with a company of Predestinarians shut up in a dark cavern underground. Then he is companioned with a company of simpletons who are without ideas on any subject. Next, after residing for a time in a certain governor's house, we find him " in a house occupied by harlots, where he remained some time." Now he is in\par \par \par \par Page 439 457\par \par EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 439 an infernal cavern, where "they are forced to work for their victuals. and are all enemies one to another. Here they do evil one to another to the extent of their power, and this is the delight of their life." Now when we see a professedly divine revelator's vision of immortality thus dotted all over with reflections of his own peculiar personal theological piques and prejudices, we should close our eyes to all the laws of cause and effect, if we did not read here the exclusively subjective origin of these revelations; and we venture the affirmation, that not even Mohammed's visions are so fully charged with these infallible indications of subjective origin, as those of Emanuel Swedenborg. 5. We find in these revelations such palpable errors and misstatements in regard to things visible and known, as to render all confidence in his revelations, in respect to " things unseen," infinitely presumptuous. We will specify two or three cases, as examples. He professed to have perfect knowledge of the solar system, so perfect that he could describe minutely the inhabitants of all the planets, their manners, customs, modes of life, and character. If he had such a range and accuracy of vision, could he not tell us correctly of the number of planets of which the system itself is composed? Certainly he could. Suppose we find him asserting, as absolutely true, what science has demonstrated to be false, and that in regard to great and palpable facts: If he thus errs in regard to what we do know, should we not infer, that he is not to be received as a safe and authoritative guide, in regard to what we do not know? Now he asserts absolutely, that of all the others connected with the solar system, " the planet Saturn is the furthest distant from the sun," and that this is the reason why it is furnished with " a large luminous belt." Did God teach him to make such\par \par \par \par Page 440\par \par 440 IMODERN MYSTERIES. a statement? If he did, then inspiration itself is not a reliable source of information. If he did not, we have no evidence whatever, that in any of our seer's revelations, he was taught of God what to write, and if he was not thus taught, all these revelations are to be held as illusions and nothing else. The following extract from Dr. Pond presents another of our revelator's disclosures in regard to things about which the world has since become informed. "Swedenborg taught that, in his time, a new gospel or revelation was being made to the Africans,'which, having commenced, goes from its region around, but not yet to the seas.' These enlightened Africans'despise foreigners coming from Europe, who believe that man is saved from faith alone.'* In another of his works, Swedenborg introduces- the same subject as follows:'Such being the character of the Africans, there is at this day a revelation begun among them, which is communicated from the centre round about, but d6es not extend to the sea-coasts. They acknowledge our Lord as th\par \par \par \par \par \cf1\f1\fs23\par }  New York, Sheldon, Lamport and Blakeman; 1855.\par \par MODERN MYSTERIES, EXPLAINED AND EXPOSED.\par \par IN FOUR PARTS. \par I. Clairvoyant Revelations of A. J. Davis. \par II. Phemonena of Spiritualism Explained and Exposed. \par III. Evidence that the Bible is given by Inspiration of the Spirit of God, as Compared with the Evidence that these Manifestations are from the Spirits of Men. \par IV. Clairvoyant Revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg. \par \par BY REV. MAHAN, FIRST PRESIDENT OF CLEVELAND UNIVERSITY. \par "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamed of in your philosophy." \par FOURTH THOUSAND. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHIN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTHINGTON. NEW YORK: SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. LONDON: TRUBNER AND CO. 1855.\par \par \par Page II\par \par Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by ASA MAHAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.\par \par \par \par Page III\par \par INTRODUCTION. PERHAPS we cannot better introduce the reader to the treatise before him, than by giving a short statement of the circumstances which led us to adopt the views therein developed in regard to Spiritualism. Since the year 1850, our residence has been in one of the grand centres of this movement, and where, consequently, the mysterious phenomena were continuously pressed upon our attention. Believing it to be our duty as a religious teacher, and an instructor of youth, sufficiently to acquaint ourself with any influences which are abroad in community, and are operating there with great power to give form and direction to the intellectual, moral, and religious sentiments of the public, to be able to speak intelligently in respect to the same, as occasion may require, we accordingly turned our thoughts more or less upon the mysterious phenomena under consideration. One of the circumstances which first impressed our mind was the utter incompatibility of the fundamental characteristics of these facts, as reported even by spiritualists themselves, with the supposition that they are the intended results of intelligent minds who are communicating with us from the heavenly or infernal world. By no laws of mind known to us could we account for the facts, by a reference to such an origin. When they were re(iii)\par \par \par \par Page IV 006\par \par iv INTRODUCTION. ferred to good spirits, our reply was: good spirits cannot falsify as these do; for these falsify, when spirits, if present, cannot but know the truth; profess knowledge, when they must know themselves ignorant, and make positive affirmations, when they must know that they are only guessing. Good spirits cannot thus act. When they were referred to bad spirits, our reply was: these spirits do not lie like men in the flesh, nor as any spirits would do whose conduct is governed by any laws known to us. There is a certain " method " even in lying, wherever it appears, and here is lying which has no such method, nor any method at all which can properly be ascribed to spirits aiming at some intelligent end good or bad. When individuals told us, that they had had communications with their spirit friends, our reply was: the spirit here speaking says some things, that that of your mother, if present, might, and no doubt would say. Your mother, however, when alive and with you, never falsified as this spirit does, and would not thus falsify, if now present. We therefore rejected the ab extra spirit hypothesis, as wholly incompatible with the facts. We were first led to refer the facts to tricks of the mediums. Soon, however, we were confronted with phenomena wholly incompatible with such a supposition. We met, for example, with evidences which we could not resist and maintain our integrity, of the reality of physical manifestations of a very startling and impressive character. We ourselves personally witnessed such facts as we could account for, by no reference to conscious or unconscious muscular action. We also met with individuals of the first intelligence and integrity, and who utterly repudiate the spirit theory, who had themselves witnessed such phenomena. In the Congregational Society's Rooms in Boston, for example, an orthodox Congregational clergyman, of\par \par \par \par Page V\par \par INTRODUCTION. V unquestionable intelligence and integrity, affirmed to us, in the presence of several other clergymen, that on one occasion he saw a medium place her hands gently upon a marble-topped table, no other person being near; that after holding them there awhile, the object began to move after her around the room, that he himself got under the table, and taking hold of its legs, attempted to hold it still, and that he was, with the table, drawn quite a distance over the floor, all his efforts to the contrary notwithstanding. From many others we received precisely similar and equally credible statements. We found, then, that we had to admit the facts, or take the ground that no strange events can be established by testimony. How then could we ask the world to believe in Christian miracles? We found equally valid evidence for the reality of the facts of Spiritualism, as far as the intelligent communications are concerned. We found ourselves necessitated, therefore, in moral honesty, to admit the facts, and then to seek an explanation of them on some mundane hypothesis, as their character precluded any other supposition than their exclusively mundane origin. As we reflected upon the facts under consideration, we were forcibly struck with this suggestion, that they seemed evidently to imply the existence in nature of a polar force not yet distinctly recognized in philosophy, a force having, when developed, very strong attractive and repulsive power; a force, the direction of whose action, when certain conditions are fulfilled, accords with mental states, and is determined by the same; a force, finally, through which the mental states of one mind may be reproduced in others, and thus embodied, as in these communications. The existence of precisely such a force seemed demanded by the facts, whether we supposed it governed, in the production of these manifestations, by spirits in the body or A*\par \par \par \par Page VI 008\par \par Vi INTRODUCTION. out of the body. We were also deeply impressed with the obvious correspondence of these manifestations, physical-and mental, with the phenomena of mesmerism and clairvoyance, on the one hand, and those of another class which from time to time have, in all ages, startled and troubled mankind, and which philosophers now refer to a power in nature denominated the Odylic Force, on the other. This led to a careful examination and classification of each of these classes of phenomena, and to an equally careful comparison of the results thus obtained with the spirit phenomena, physical and intellectual. The following are some of the conclusions to which we were thus conducted: 1. There is in nature a force having the identical properties above specified, and which we denominate the Odylic Force. 2. This force is identical with the cause of all the mesmeric and clairvoyant phenomena, on the one hand, and with the immediate cause of these manifestations, on the other. 3. By a reference to the properties and laws of this force as developed in the spirit circles, and to its relations to the minds constituting the same, we can account most fully for all the spirit phenomena, of every kind, without the supposition of the presence or agency of disembodied spirits. Consequently, the hypothesis of Spiritualism is wholly unsustained by any valid evidence whatever. 4. The entire real facts of Spiritualism demand the supposition, that this force in the production of these communications is controlled exclusively, for the most part unconsciously, by the minds in the circles, and not by disembodied spirits out of the same. 5. We finally found, what we did not at first expect, that we had developed facts and principles which gave an equally ready and satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of witchcraft, necromancy, fortune-telling, etc. etc., phenomena which from\par \par \par \par Page VII 009\par \par INTRODUCTION. Vii time to time have been the wonder and terror of mankind in all ages. 6. Other consequences of equal and far greater importance seemed undeniably to follow from our facts and deductions. The results of our investigations, the reader will find embodied in the following treatise. Before putting our thoughts in type, however, we first, after fully satisfying our mind upon the subject, submitted our facts and arguments to a large number of the first thinkers, clergymen and laymen, in the country, and requested their careful inspection of, and candid judgment on the same. We are gratified to say, that we have yet to meet with the first individual who has thus heard, and with us, admits the facts of Spiritualism, that has not expressed the belief, that the mystery that has hitherto hung around these manifestations is now satisfactorily explained, and who has not expressed the earnest wish to have this work presented to the public. Thus assured and thus encouraged, we throw our thoughts abroad upon the public mind, that their merits and demerits may be adjudicated upon. As we have intended to produce a work which would stand the most rigid test of criticism, we have been exceeding careful in the induction of facts. We have rejected all that came before us, in the reliability of which we were not perfectly assured, that full confidence might be most reasonably reposed; and if we have, in a single instance, overdrawn a single feature of any fact adduced, it has been contrary to our honest intentions. The other topics discussed, are now so connected, in the public mind, with the spirit movement, that none will question, we think, the propriety of introducing them, as we have done, into the same treatise. With these suggestions, we leave the work with the public. THE AUTHOR. JULY, 1855.\par \par \cf1\f1\fs23\par } RRMy04 Clairvoyant Revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{fU03 Evidence that the Bible is given by Inspiration{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\ &%502 Phemonena of Spiritualism Explained{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 TiB5]01 Clairvoyant Revelations of A. J. Davis.{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\bl  E Mahan - Modern Mysteries explained and exposed{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2058\b\f0\fs24 Modern mysteries explained and exposed.\par \b0 By Rev. A. Mahan. 1799-1889.\par \par Boston, J. P. Jewett and company;