According to the Bible, the angels are a distinct order of beings, created before man had an existence, and were placed on probation. Some kept not their "first estate," but, led by their great leader, Lucifer, now Satan, they fell. Since then the good angels have been "ministering spirits" to those who love God and desire to know his truth. Those who followed Satan have been "lying spirits," claiming to be disembodied spirits of dead human beings, of whom the Bible says they "know not anything," that their love, hatred, and envy are perished, and that their thoughts perish the day they die. When a spirit comes to us from God, it will not come as representing some dead person, and its teaching will always be in harmony with God and his word. When a spirit comes to us teaching contrary to God's word, and claiming to be the spirit of one dead, we may know by God's word that it is a "lying spirit," for "the dead know not anything." And the untrustworthiness of these spirits is admitted by Spiritualists themselves. In an article on "The Two Johns," in the Progressive Thinker of the 27th ultimo, the writer says that there was formerly a spirit, of Rev. John Pierpont, in Boston, Mass., which spoke through the Banner of Light, using Mrs. Longley as medium. After a time Mrs. Longley left for the Pacific Coast, and "John Pierpont" went with her, stating that both had given up connection with the Boston circle. More recently the Banner of Light claims to have as its controlling spirit "John Pierpont," while Mrs. Longley, on the Pacific Coast, speaks through the Pacific Coast Spiritualist as the medium of the same "John Pierpont," whereupon the writer in the Progressive Thinker concludes that one of the "Johns" is a liar. He says:— As we have here the all-important question of spirit identity, every student of the spirit philosophy should make a careful study of this case. For, unless we have some reasonable certainty that spirits who return are just what they purport to be, we may be the sport of intelligences who have never even been human, and the whole question of spirit return must once again become a subject of theological faith. And he who would know the truth in the matter must make it a matter of faith,—faith in God and his word. There are none so deceived as those who follow the guidance of the lying spirits of evil, the demons of Scripture; and the worst of the deceptions are not the mere identity of the spirits which speak, but the damnable doctrines which they inculcate. A structure based on a lie is and must prove false; and Spiritualism is based on Satan's falsehood, "Ye shall not surely die," "Ye shall be as God."