Was Not Dr. Whedon a Spiritualist?
By A. T. J.
D. D. WHEDON, D. D., was one of the foremost men of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. He was an authoritative commentator, and an editor of leading Methodist periodicals. He died lately, and left to the world a heritage of which we think the Methodist Church can by no means be proud. We refer to his theory of the soul—the specter as he called it—which is as bald Spiritualism as anything that we have ever seen outside of the ranks of downright Spiritualism itself. In fact it is recognized, and has been taken up, by Spiritualists, as embodying the very views which they have all along maintained, on the nature of spirits. We propose to lay before our readers some of Dr. Whedon's expressions. We have no expectation that anybody can understand them, any more than they can understand the frog-like mutterings of the spirits, but we give them, all the same, for in this peculiarity is one of the most striking likenesses to Spiritualism. Yet we shall do our best to explain. Some time ago he contributed to the New York Independent an article on "The Specter in the Brain," and now since his death another article from him, entitled "The Vanishing Specter," appeared in the Independent of June 25, which he introduces thus:— "In our late article, entitled "The Specter in the Brain," we inferred from analysis of the combined properties of the brute body and soul, compared with those of the human body and spirit, that the former were a united temporality, derived immediately from the earthly, and the latter a perpetuity derived immediately from God." So the brute "body and soul" are a "united temporality," and the human body and spirit are "a perpetuity." But he does not tell us whether the latter are a united perpetuity or a divided perpetuity, and that is the very thing about which we are anxiously concerned. Next he tells us what death is, both in the brute and in man—both in the "temporality" and in the "perpetuity":— "With the brute, death is a vanishing of the specter, an evaporation of the terrene soul, and its return to the world-soul whence it originated." "With man it is the emergence of the human spirit from the body into the region of spirits." That is, in plain words, the death of a man is an emergence of the perpetuity. We have no doubt that it is absolutely essential that this distinction between the death of brutes and men should always be kept clearly defined. For, now that Dr. Whedon has experienced an emergence of the perpetuity, who should ever be able to tell us what dire disaster might follow if this distinction should become confused in the minds of men, and they should speak of the death of a man as, The evaporation of the perpetuity, or, The emergence of the temporality? Next he tells us how the emergence of the perpetuity is performed. He says:— "The process of death with the redeemed man is a struggle of the spirit with the body to make its divine ascent. As it recedes, the formative-conservative power loses its grasp upon the organism, and leaves it to disintegration." And that is exactly how it is done! Now he goes on to tell us what becomes of the "perpetuity" after its emergence—what becomes of the "formative-conservative power" after it has left the "organism" to "disintegration." He says:— "Emerging from the body, the spirit awakes into the pure ether of the region of bodiless spirits. This blessed atmosphere, we conceive, is, as it were, within the atmosphere of our outside troublous worlds. For there are worlds within worlds, enfolding and pervading each other without impeding, just as light can, without obstruction, pervade our earthly atmosphere. This paradisate ether is an effluence from the divine essence, and the emancipated spirit bathes and swims and lives therein as his own native and genial element. Paradise may442thus pervade our air above and around us, and, at death, the spirit enters thereinto as through a veil. Within that veil is the true world, of which our outside world is the coarse, hard shell, the crude repulsive bark." If that is anything else than sheer Spiritualism, we should like for some one to point it out. "Within the turbulences of our earthly atmosphere this celestial ether is a pure tranquility. . . . No pestilences infect, no darkness obscures, no Arctic icebergs can freeze, no volcanic fires can consume, even if the spirit nature were susceptible of such evils. But so transcendent is his substance that he can swim in the glacier without chill, and repose in the lava bed and suffer no heat. . . . By a blessed concord of the infinite and finite wills is this ethereal loveliness created." Swimming in a sea of solid ice, reposing in a bed of living lava, and that is "ethereal loveliness"!! O-h-h-h!!! Another name that he gives this "specter," this "perpetuity," is as follows:— "Among the angels they are angeloids." "The angels wait upon the angeloids." As to whether this "specter" has a form, we are treated to the following sublime piece of "ethereal" wisdom:— "Of all definite existences, there must be limitations. There certainly is a localization within us of the mental essence. It has a presence where it is; and it has an absence where it is not. And between the two, its being and not being, there must be a boundary line or separating margin, and so an approach to form. . . . Our human bodies are bounded or, as we may say, surfaced, by a skin. But the spirit is surfaced, and its individuality and continuity of self-hood are secured, by its own volitions." There, with that, we shall stop; there is plenty more of the same kind, but this is certainly enough. We do not wonder that he died—that there was an emergence of his perpetuity—shortly after writing that article. Such "absolute sweetness," such "ethereal loveliness," is too utterly transcendent for this world. That the perfect likeness between this and outright Spiritualism may be clearly seen we here subjoin three extracts from the Spiritualistic record of creation:— "And God said, Let Mechanical Procedure be! and movement, rhythmical, harmonical, melodial, unfolded from the firmament. And the movement thereof in the moving creation was time." "And God said, Let there be space! and the firmament was separated from the emanation, and the firmament, unmoved, appeared, and the emanation unfolded within the procedure. And the firmament is manifest Infinitude, and the emanation, separated, is encompassed space." "And God said, Let there be light! and the Divine Procedure unfolded a luminary unto the ethereal which divided the emanation from the firmament. And the intelligence was light." Now if there is anybody that can detect any difference between Dr. Whedon's "divine volitional effluence," and the Spiritualist's "divine procedure;" between Dr. Whedon's "evaporation of the terrene soul," and the Spiritualist's "emanation unfolded within the procedure;" or between Dr. Whedon's spirit whose "individuality and continuity of self-hood are secured by its own volitions," and the Spiritualist's "movement, rhythmical, harmonical, melodial" which "unfolded from the firmament," we should like to have them do it. We repeat, it is nothing but downright Spiritualism. And this is the last heritage that this eminent "doctor of divinity" has left to the world. And Spiritualism, its natural heir, has not delayed to claim it. Every Spiritualist paper that we have seen since Dr. Whedon's article was published, has welcomed it, and the New York Dispatch says that,— "It has been promptly seized upon by several of the professional mediums, and in some of this week's [the first week in July] seances, forms, in semblance comporting with the conditions of his angeloids, have been shown to astounded disciples." Just here another question arises. The Spiritualists seize upon this as the embodiment of their views of the death of all men. Dr. Whedon, it seems, uses it in reference only to "redeemed men," yet even this is a question. On the supposition, however, that it has reference solely to the "emergence of the perpetuity" of redeemed men, what is the process in the case of an unredeemed man. If the spirit of a redeemed man, "emerging from the body, awakes into the pure ether of the region of bodiless spirits," "into this paradisaic ether which is an effluence of the divine essence," then into what does the spirit of an unredeemed man awake, when it emerges from the body? Dr. Whedon says nothing about this side of the question. Therefore if the Spiritualists are not justified in applying Dr. Whedon's theory in the death of all men, will some of Dr. Whedon's associates show where and how the line should be drawn between the "emergence of the perpetuity" of a redeemed man, and that of an unredeemed man? And if such line cannot be drawn, then does not Dr. Whedon, does not this representative man of the Methodist Church, in his very latest testimony to the world, stand committed to the veritable support of Spiritualism? But will the Methodist Church allow that, in this, Dr. Whedon is a representative man? If it will not, it surely is strictly in order for it to say so, and that with no faltering voice. But if the Methodist Church does allow that in this Dr. Whedon is a representative man, then does not that church stand fully committed to the support of Spiritualism? And yet all this scheme of Dr. Whedon's is simply the logical outcome of the immortal-soul theory. And the wave which he has raised—to borrow Dr. Quincy's figure—is only "one of those ambitious billows which sometimes run far ahead of their fellows in a tide steadily gaining ground, marking only the strength of that tendency which sooner or later is destined to fill the whole capacity of the shore." As for us we take the Bible and its great doctrine of immortality through Christ alone; and this, not by the vanishing of a specter, but by the resurrection of the dead.