PRODUCT OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM
It is more than thirty years since Spiritualists began, as they claim, to receive communications from the other world. In so long a period of such constant intercourse with beings of another sphere, they ought to have gathered a great deal of most interesting and important information. But what have they been able to teach the world as the result of their superior facilities for acquiring knowledge? The ministry of Jesus of Nazareth lasted but three years—only a tenth of the time during which "the spirits" have been making daily utterances. The words of Jesus have turned the course of the thought of the whole world. But what have the teachings of the spirits amounted to? How many of their communications will take place in the world's thought with the majestic sermon on the mount? During this thirty years men still in the flesh have made many and valuable additions to the world's stock of ideas. In poetry, in philosophy, in science and in theology they have put forth many volumes which must be recognized as of value. But what, meanwhile, have the disembodied spirits added to the world's fund of wisdom? The communications from the other sphere have been very copious, but what have they been worth? What have the spirits told us that we did not know before? The fact is, that while spirits still in the flesh have been producing each year works that were a valuable addition to the world's literature, the disembodied spirits have not in the whole three decades produced a single volume, or even a pamphlet, which the world has thought worthy a place on the library shelf. Nay, more, —take the writings of Judge Edmonds, Superintendent Kiddle and others of the more intelligent Spiritualists, and the better things in their writings are what they have written of themselves alone, and not by the guidance of the spirits. The literature of the last thirty years is very copious and valuable, but if "the spirits" have indited a single work which is of any real worth, the world has yet to find it out. Page after page of "communications" has been published, but in all these pages there has not been a single thing which the world did not know before—there has not been a single sentence which the world would have been the worse for if it had461never been written. These things being so, we may ask what it would amount to if the claims of the Spiritualists were admitted? Suppose we could get communications from disembodied spirits, of what importance would it be if those communications were worth nothing when received? Of what value are spiritual messages which tell us nothing, which cannot give us a single new idea? Of what use is it to obtain new poems from Shakespeare, if the poems he now writes are not worth printing in a country newspaper? Of what importance is it to secure essays and treatises from the other world, if these treatises are not one-tenth as good as are written by men still on earth? Suppose the spirits can tip tables, fiddle in the dark, and fling hair-brushes around the room, is the world pressingly in need of the performance of such feats? Waiving all discussion as to the evil done by Spiritualism, the question may be asked, What good has it done? If in thirty years' time the spirits have not been able to give to the world a single new and valuable idea, it is certainly not worth while for the world to take any pains to keep up their acquaintance. —Examiner and Chronicle.