p. 61 | Spiritualism Advancing by M. E. Cornell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1874

Spiritualism Advancing.

By M. E. Cornell

For twenty years, those who have understood prophecies which relate to the great latter-day wonders and deception of the spirits of devils, have believed and taught that modern spiritualism filled the prophecy, and that it would increase and spread in its power and influence till the end.

The clergy and men of science have quite generally ridiculed the idea, and on the other hand have predicted that it would die out. They have cried “humbug,” “odicforce,” trickery,” &c., while this masterpiece of Satan has been steadily gaining ground, until now they number not less than eight millions of converts in the United States alone. As foretold in the prophecies, it has gone to the whole world, and is preparing for the final conflict.

The kings of the earth have been visited and influenced, and it would seem that the way is all prepared for their closing wonders and miracles, which will deceive all but the elect—those who give heed to the “sure word of prophecy.”

At present it appears to have taken a new departure, and is coming into more general and favorable notice. The new phase bids fair to accomplish more than all in the past.

The following is from one of the leading dailies of the Pacific Coast—The San Francisco Chronicle:—

“UNTIL QUITE RECENTLY, science has coldly ignored the alleged phenomena of spiritualism, and treated Andrew Jackson Davis, Home, and the Davenport brothers, as if they belonged to the common fraternity of showmen and mountebanks. But now there has come a most noteworthy change. We learn from such high authority as the Fortnightly Review that Alfred R. Wallace, F. R. S.; William Crookes, F. R. S., and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science; W. H. Harrison, F. R. S., and president of the British Ethnological Society, with others occupying a high position in the scientific and literary world, have been seriously investigating the phenomena of spiritism. The report which those learned gentlemen make is simply astounding. There is no fairy tale, no story of myth or miracle, that is more incredible than their narrative. They tell us, in grave and sober speech, that the spirit of a girl who died a hundred years ago appeared to them in visible form. She talked with them, gave them locks of her hair, pieces of her dress and her autograph. They saw her in bodily presence, felt her person, heard her voice; she entered the room in which they were, and disappeared without the opening of a door. The savants declare that they have had numerous interviews with her under conditions forbidding the idea of trickery or imposture.

“Now that men eminent in the scientific world have taken up the investigation, spiritism has entered upon a new phase. It can no longer be treated with silent contempt. Mr. Wallace’s articles in the Fortnightly have attracted general attention, and many of the leading English reviews and newspapers are discussing the matter. The New York World devotes three columns of its space to a summary of the last article in the Fortnightly, and declares editorially that the “phenomena” thus attested “deserve the rigid scientific examination which Mr. Wallace invites for them.” This is treating the matter in the right way. Let all the well-attested facts be collected, and then let us see what conclusions they justify. If spirit communication is a fact, it is certainly a most interesting one. In the language which the World attributes to John Bright, “If it is a fact, it is the one beside which every other fact of human existence sinks into insignificance.”

Robert Dale Owen, in a recent letter says:—

“All my former experience in spiritualism, favored as I have been, pales before the new manifestations witnessed by me in the course of last month. After the strictest scrutiny, with every facility promptly afforded me by the mediums to detect imposition had it been attempted, I here avow my conviction that the phenomena are genuine; that I have again and again, on more than twenty occasions, seen, heard, touched, forms to appearance human and material, and to sense tangible.”

In reference to spiritualism it has often been said, that “straws show which way the wind blows,” but here we have something greater than straws.

On this coast also it is spreading rapidly, and many men in high standing, editors and others, are known to be believers, giving the whole weight of their influence in its favor. The prophetic student and believer will make a note of this new phase, and recognize in it an ominous sign of the times.

M. E. CORNELL.

San Jose, Cal., July 23.