Spiritual Manifestations in Beecher’s Church.
In the Banner of Light of Nov. 25, we published an interesting letter from New York, giving an account of the physical manifestations which have taken place in Mr. Beecher’s church for some time past. We sent a copy of our paper to the New York Herald, and that paper indorses the account in a lengthy article, from which we take the following extract: There are three reporters’ tables standing against Mr. Beecher’s platform. The middle table, directly in a line with Mr. Beecher, is an innocent-looking affair of pine, stained to imitate black walnut. Some four or five weeks previous to Mr. Beecher’s summer vacation, I noticed an unusual commotion in the little circle of reporters, and, as I had been seated by the usher in a chair very near their table, I could not avoid seeing all that was going on. Mr. Beecher was in the middle of his long præ-sermon prayer. As he uttered the words, “Let the whole earth learn the power of love such as brought Christ to earth to die for men,” the table moved slowly and deliberately toward one of the ladies, and pushed so violently against her arm that she was obliged to move back. Then it moved as deliberately to the lady opposite. You should have seen the faces of the reporters. They had evidently seen table-moving before, but were not prepared for a seance in front of the immense congregation of Plymouth Church. Their eyes said plainly, “What shall we do if this table keeps moving?” But keep moving it did, back and forth, with a slow, monotonous slide, till the prayer was finished, and then it gave three emphatic tips by way of “amen.” “Undoubtedly somebody up stairs indorses Beecher,” said I to myself, my eye still on the table. Then the hymn was given out. It was about adverse winds, and cares, and troubles, but each stanza closed with this line: “As my day my strength shall be.” When that line was sung, the table tipped so that pencils lying upon it rolled to the floor, and the reporters, who had evidently forgotten the spirits for a moment in the music, gave a little involuntary start, and the look of horror to a looker-on was irresistibly comic. They controlled themselves perfectly, however, and took their paper upon hymn books in their laps and began to write. Meaning to do their best, they all moved back, so that not the hem of a garment touched the table. They even laid their gloves upon the projecting rim of the platform. Mr. Beecher preached one of his most radical sermons that day. He spoke of the power of brotherhood and of the love that hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things. He spoke of the cruelty of society in its prisons, and all its disciplinary machinery, and deplored that self-sacrificing love alone could regenerate the world. The table seemed alive. At the very points where a radical reformer would have wished to applaud, the table would push with great force one of the reporters and travel to the opposite side as though to say, “That’s so; that’s the truth.” That the table was not touched by even the reporter’s raiment during the sermon, I would take my oath before any court in the country. “How long did this go on?” “Until the church closed for the summer, and one or two Sundays after the re-opening.” “How do you account for it?” “I suppose the reporters all to be more or less mediumistic.” “What do you mean by mediumistic?” “So organized that spirits can penetrate their atmosphere. Mr. Beecher has the same organization, only in a greater degree, and he stood where he could form a part of the circle. There were well-known spiritualists in the immediate neighborhood, and the conditions were right for manifestations.” “You never heard any rappings there?” “Yes; once. During the whole of one sermon, there were low but distinct raps, not in the table, but in the platform. Mr. Beecher must have heard them if he had not been so earnestly engaged in his sermon.” “How do you account for the cessation of the manifestations?” “The thing was attracting so much attention that the reporters had decided to leave the table and sit separately in the audience if it went on; and I suppose (of course I don’t expect you to agree) that their spirit-friends didn’t wish to annoy them, and so they restrained their wish to communicate.”—Banner, of Dec. 16, 1871.