Truth and the State of the Dead
TRUTH is developed as it is needed. As the enemy is about to spring upon the world some gross delusion, the Lord lets another ray of truth shine forth to enlighten the minds of men and thus counteract the error; and it takes the dark back ground of the error to bring out the truth in bold relief, and show it in all its force and beauty. Thus it happens that we sometimes at first but faintly understand the importance of any given truth and the essential part it is to act in the regulation of our belief. The time is not beyond our memory when the doctrine of the unconscious state of the dead was by some regarded as comparatively unimportant, since they could not see the practical bearing it was to have upon them, or how it could be anything more than an abstract item of their belief. A few years pass away, and a stupendous delusion begins to work its way among men. The enemy of all truth springs one of his most artful schemes. What is it? A huge deception intimately connected with this very question. A doctrine which a correct view of the state of the dead will alone enable us to withstand. A firm belief once established among men that their dead friends are conscious and can communicate with them, is sufficient for the Arch-deceiver's diabolical purposes. He can then send forth his agents to personate them, and an unbounded flood gate is opened for every delusive doctrine, which the Devil may see to be to his advantage to foster in the creeds of men. The error is black enough, and it brings out this truth of man's unconsciousness in death in bold relief, in all its force and beauty. We now see its vast importance. Nothing else could shield us from the seductions of this great modern heresy. There is nothing in the creeds of the popular churches, upon which Spiritualism is founded, by which they can consistently reject its claims. But raise once the Bible standard that "the dead know not anything," till their re-animation at the resurrection, and the fraud is at once exposed—the fair schemes of Satan are nipped in the bud. Thus the truth is brought out in all its power and distinctness by the darkness of the error which it is designed to expose and counteract.