Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 20, 1858
THE TOBACCO ABOMINATION.
By M. E. Cornell
In attempting to say a few words under this head, it is not with any expectation that it will be possible for me to find language to fitly describe the tobacco abomination. Having of late seen the evil carried to a greater extent than I ever before witnessed, I can no longer refrain from speaking out on this subject.
In my late tour south I was about one hundred and fifty miles nearer where they buy and sell men, women and children into slavery, than ever before; I had known numerous instances of men and women selling themselves as slaves to the tobacco lust; had lived where in some instances little ponds of tobacco juice, and now and then a stray quid had been found even in the house of God, but never until the last few weeks had I seen all restraint thrown off, and the system carried out to perfection.
While in—I walked over to the meeting house, which was being cleaned; and what did I behold? Tobacco juice not merely in ponds, but in comparison as lakes, seas and oceans, in which the heaps of quids and cigar-stubs were like so many promontories, islands and volcanic mountains, emitting an effluvia so revolting that adjectives and superlatives would fail to describe it. I turned away from the sickening sight profoundly impressed with the thought that there was a fit "cage for every foul spirit, and every unclean and hateful bird," and that Babylon was indeed fallen. I was told that every one of the five preachers in the place, and the majority of both old and young men, and many of the boys, yes, and even some of the ladies used the detestable stuff. In view of this can we wonder that the majority in that place should reject the holy law of God?
The Apostle says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. viii, 7. And it is evident that those who indulge in the filthy, idolatrous habit of chewing or smoking tobacco, cannot be free from the carnal mind.
But the thought that some among us, who are called brethren, after all that has been written on the subject, should still persist in using the infamous weed, is truly distressing: I can no longer hold my peace; for duty imperatively demands that the servants of God should "cry aloud and spare not" on this subject.
Will my dear friends in bondage, allow me to place the sins connected with their practice in array before them: Come and let us reason together! You should immediately leave off the use of tobacco.
1. Because most men and all women who do not use it, and the majority of those who do, are ready to acknowledge it a filthy, hurtful practice.
2. Because its use is contrary to nature. Even the swine will not touch it, and the noble elephant regards an offer of tobacco as the highest kind of insult.
3. Because it has been demonstrated that the very flesh, and blood, and brains, of those who use tobacco are tainted with it, hence its use is a defilement of the temple of God. See Rom. xii, 2: 1 Cor. iii, 16, 17: vi, 19: 2 Cor. vi, 16.
9. Because, the Apostle says, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." Rom. xiv, 21: 1 Cor. viii, 12, 13.
10. Because you have no reasonable excuse for using it. It is neither food nor medicine.
But, says one, it is a medicine, for physicians often recommend its use for certain diseases. But because physicians sometimes prescribe it as an antidote, does it follow that it must be used excessively for years? Is it not a fact that when so used its medicinal properties (if indeed it has any) are entirely destroyed? After a certain period all medicine becomes second nature, and ceases to have the desired effect. Would sound wisdom dictate that because blue pills had cured one man, therefore two thirds of the human family should take to eating blue pills the rest of their lives? Then away with foolish excuses, and remember that the promise is to the overcomer.2
Dr. Clarke says: "Every medical man knows well that the saliva which is the first and greatest agent that nature employs in digesting the food, is copiously drawn off by the infamous quid, and the scandalous pipe.
"The brains of smokers have been found on dissection, to be dried and shriveled up from excessive use of the pipe. That it is sinful to use it as most do, I have no doubt, if destroying the constitution and vilely squandering away the time and money which God has given for other purposes may be termed sinful.
"The impiety manifested by some in the use of the herb, merits the most cutting reproof. When many of the tobacco consumers get into trouble, or under any cross or affliction, instead of looking to God for support, the pipe, the snuff-box, or the twist is applied to with quadruple earnestness. What a comfort is this weed in time of sorrow! what a support in time of trouble! in a word, what a god!" Clarke's Theology, pp. 405-408.
Says King James I, "Tobacco is the lively image and pattern of hell; for it hath, by allusion, in it, all the parts and vices of the world, whereby hell is gained: to wit, first it is a smoke, so are all the vanities of the world; secondly, it delighteth them that take it, so do all the pleasures of the world delight the men of the world: thirdly, it maketh men drunken and light in the head, so do all the vanities of the world: men are drunken therewith: fourthly, he that taketh tobacco cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him, even so the pleasures of the world make men loth to leave them: they are for the most part enchanted with them, . . . Have you not reason to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof, sinning against God, harming yourselves both in person and goods, and taking also thereby the marks and vanities unto you, by the custom thereof, making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned!" He closes by saying, "It is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
"Linnæus, the noted botanist, in his natural arrangement, placed tobacco in the Luridæ, which signifies pale, ghastly, livid, dismal, and fatal. 'To the same ominous class,' he adds, 'belong fox-glove, henbane, deadly nightshade, lobelia, and other poisonous plants, bearing the tremendous name, Atropa, one of the furies.'"
"Says Dr. Shew, 'When tobacco is taken into the stomach for the first time, it creates a nausea and extreme disgust. If swallowed, it excites violent convulsions of the stomach and bowels to eject the poison either upward or downward. If it be not very speedily and entirely ejected it produces great anxiety, vertigo, faintness, and prostration of all the senses; and in some instances death has followed.'"
"Linnæus says, 'The oil of this plant is one of the strongest vegetable poisons, insomuch as we know of no animal that can resist its mortal effects.'"
"Dr. Waterhouse, a man of close observation said, 'he never observed so many pallid faces, and so many marks of declining health, nor ever knew so many hectical habits, and consumptive affections, as of late years; and I trace this alarming inroad on young constitutions principally to the pernicious custom of smoking cigars.'"
"Dr. Wood, one of the authors of the United States Dispensatory, observes, 'that it is one of the most virulent poisons known; and that a drop of it, in the state of concentrated solution, was sufficient to destroy a dog; and small birds perished at the approach of a tube containing it.'"
"If that's the case, then let us shun
That weed that many has undone,
And our just vengeance wreak upon
Tobacco!"
TO WHOM, WILL YE FLEE FOR HELP?
By Editor
"And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help, and where will ye leave your glory?"Isa. x, 3.
SAFE in your fancied strength,
Proud in a worldly name,
Dream ye not there will come, at length,
An end of all earthly fame?
Have ye no thoughts for the future dim—
The future that filleth to the brim
Your cup of woe and shame?
From the gathering storm a voice is heard,
As from Jehovah a warning word:
"What will ye do in the day of war,
In the desolation that comes from far?"
A day all dark with wrath,
Comes swiftly on its sullen gloom;
It seeketh the sinner's path,
With portents of fearful doom.
And where will ye flee for aid?
On whom will your trust be laid
For help and succor then?
Think ye to hide from harm,
'Neath the puny and feeble arm,
Of mortal men?
When the Lord shall arise in his might and power,
Where is your help in that fearful hour?
And your glory too! the ephemeral fame
That gilds for a season a mortal name!
And the phantom honors that round you glide
Through which the vain heart swells with pride!
Where will ye leave it all;
For the towers of pride must fall,
Which man has reared;
And the Lord alone shall stand,
Monarch of sea and land,
Adored and feared.
The haughty shall bow, the stubborn break,
The proud be humbled, the mighty quake,
And the Lord alone shall exalted be,
As becometh his might and majesty,
And when with sword and flame
He vindicates his name.
Where will ye leave, 'mid the sons of men,
The faded wreaths of your glory then?
Ah! better far
To cease the unequal war,
While pardon, hope and peace may yet be found;
Nor longer rush upon the embossed shield
Of the Almighty; but repentant yield,
And all your weapons of rebellion ground.
Better pray now in love, than pray ere long in fear:
Call ye upon him while he waits to hear;
So in the coming end,
When down the parted sky,
The angelic hosts attend
The Lord of heaven, Most High.
Before whose face the solid earth is rent,
You may behold in him a Friend Omnipotent;
And safely rest beneath his sheltering wings,
Amid the ruin of all earthly things.—Ed.
The Fountain of Joy
The Fountain of joy became a Man of sorrows; and the Lord of glory was covered with shame; and why? amazing mystery! that we might be raised to happiness and glory.
SELECTIONS.
Destruction of the Inquisition at Madrid.
In the year 1809, Col. Lehmanousky being at Madrid, his attention was directed to the Inquisition in the neighborhood of that city. Napoleon had previously issued a decree for the suppression of this Institution, wherever his victorious troops should extend their arms. Lehmanousky reminded Marshal Soult, then governor of Madrid, of this decree, who directed him to proceed to destroy it; he informed him that his regiment [the 9th of the Polish lancers] was insufficient for such a service; but that if he would give him two additional regiments, he would undertake the work. He accordingly gave him the two required regiments; one of which, [the 117th,] was under the command of Col. De Lile. With these troops Col. Lehmanousky proceeded forthwith to the Inquisition, which was situated about five miles from the city. The Inquisition was surrounded with a wall of great strength, and defended by about four hundred soldiers. When they arrived at the walls, he [the Col.] addressed one of the sentinels, and summoned the holy fathers to surrender to the imperial army, and open the gate of the Inquisition. The sentinel who was standing on the wall appeared to enter into conversation for a few moments with some one within, at the close of which he presented his musket and shot one of the men. This was a signal for attack, and he ordered his troops to fire upon those who appeared upon the walls. It was soon obvious that it was an unequal warfare. The walls of the Inquisition were covered with soldiers of the holy office; there was also a breast-work upon the walls; behind which they kept continually, only as they partially exposed themselves as they discharged their muskets. Our troops were in the open plain, and exposed to a destructive fire. They had no
cannon, nor could they scale the walls, and the gates successfully resisted all attempts at forcing them. He (Col. Lehmanousky) saw that it was necessary to change the mode of attack, and directed some trees to be cut down, trimmed and brought on the ground to be used as battering rams. Two of these were taken up by detachments of men, and brought to bear upon the walls with great power, notwithstanding the continued volley, which was heavily poured upon them from the walls. Presently the walls began to tremble, and under the well directed and persevering application of the rams, a breach was made, and the imperial troops rushed into the Inquisition. Here they met with an incident which nothing but Jesuitical effrontry is equal to. The Inquisitor General, followed by the father confessors, in their priestly robes, all came out of their rooms, as we were making our way into the interior of the Inquisition, and with long faces and their arms crossed over their breasts, their fingers resting on their shoulders, as though they had been deaf to all the noise of the attack and defense, and had just learned what was going on, they addressed themselves in the language of rebuke, to their own soldiers, saying, "Why do ye fight our friends the French?"
Their intention apparently, was to make us think that this defence was wholly unauthorized by them, hoping if they could produce in our minds a belief that they were friendly, they should have a better opportunity in the confusion and plunder of the Inquisition to escape. Their artifice was too shallow and did not succeed, they were placed under guard, and all the soldiers of the Inquisition secured as prisoners. They then proceeded to examine this prison-house of hell. They passed through room after room, found altars and crucifixes and wax candles in abundance, but they could discover no evidence of iniquity being practised there, nothing of those peculiar features which they expected to find in an Inquisition. Here was beauty and splendor, and the most perfect order on which their eyes had ever rested. The architecture—the proportions were perfect. The ceiling and floors of wood were scoured until highly polished. The marble floors were arranged with a strict regard to order.
There was everything to please the eye and gratify a cultivated taste; but where were those horrid instruments of torture of which we have been told; and where those dungeons in which human beings were said to be buried alive? They searched in vain, the holy fathers assured them they had been belied, that they had seen all and Col. Lehmanousky was prepared to give up the search, convinced that this Inquisition was different from any other of which he had heard, but Col. De Lile was not so ready to give up the search, and said to him, "Colonel, you are commander to-day, and as you say so it must be, but if you will be advised by me, let this marble floor be examined more, let some water be brought in and poured upon it, and we will watch to see if there is any place through which it passed more freely than others," he replied to him, "Do as you please Col.," and ordered water to be brought accordingly. The slabs of marble were large and beautifully polished; when the water had been poured over the floor, much to the dissatisfaction of the Inquisitors, a careful examination was made of every seam, in the floor to see if the water passed through. Presently Col. De Lile exclaimed that he had found it. By the side of one of the marble slabs the water passed through fast, as though there was an opening beneath. All hands were now at work for further discovery, the officers with their swords and the soldiers with their bayonets, seeking to clear out the seam and pry up the slab, others with the butts of their muskets striking the slab with all their might to break it, while the priests remonstrated against our desecrating their holy and beautiful house. While thus engaged, a soldier who was striking with the butt of his musket, struck a spring and the marble slab flew up. Then the faces of the Inquisitors grew pale, and as Belshazzar when the hand-writing appeared on the wall, so did these men of Belial shake and quake, in every bone and joint and sinew. We looked beneath the marble slab, now partly up, and we
saw a staircase. Col. Lehmanousky stepped to the table and took from the candlestick one of the candles four feet in length, which was burning, that he might explore what was before them. As he was doing this he was arrested by one of the Inquisitors, who laid his hand quietly on his arm, and with a very demure and holy look, said, "My son, you must not take that with your profane and bloody hand; it is holy." Well, well, he said, I want something that is holy to see if it will not shed light on iniquity; I will bear the responsibility. He took the candle and proceeded down the staircase, and he now discovered why the water revealed to them this passage. Under the floor was a tight ceiling except at the trap door, which could not be rendered close; hence the success of Col. De Lile's experiment. As they reached the foot of the stairs, they entered a large square room, which was called the "Hall of Judgment." In the center of it was a large block, and a chain fastened to it. On this they had been accustomed to place the accused, chained to his seat. On one side of the room was one elevated seat, called the "Throne of Judgment." This the Inquisitor-general occupied and on either side were seats less elevated, for the holy fathers when engaged in the solemn business of the holy Inquisition. From this room we proceeded to the right, and obtained access to small cells, extending the entire length of the edifice, and here what a sight met our eyes? How has the benevolent religion of Jesus been abused by its professed friends. These cells were places of solitary confinement, where the wretched objects of Inquisitorial hate were confined year after year, till death relieved them of their sufferings, and there their bodies were suffered to remain till they were entirely decayed, and the rooms had become fit for others to occupy. To prevent this practice being offensive to those who occupied the Inquisition, there were flues or tubes extending to the open air, sufficiently capacious to carry off the odor from these decaying bodies. In these cells we found the remains of some who had paid the debt of nature; some of them had been dead apparently but a short time, while of others nothing remained but their bones, still chained to the floor of their dungeon. In others we found the living sufferer of every age and of both sexes, from the young man and maiden to those of three score and ten years, all as naked as when they were born into the world. Our soldiers immediately applied themselves to releasing these captives of their chains; stripped themselves in part of their own clothing to cover these wretched beings, and were exceedingly anxious to bring them up to the light of the day. But aware of the danger, Col. Lehmanousky insisted on their wants being supplied, and being brought gradually to the light as they could bear it. When we had explored those cells and opened the prison doors of those who yet survived, we proceeded to explore another room upon the left. Here we found the instruments of torture, of every kind which the ingenuity of man or devil could invent. At the sight of them the fury of the soldiers refused any longer to be restrained. They declared that every Inquisitor, monk and soldier of the establishment deserved to be put to torture. We did not attempt any longer to restrain them. They commenced at once the work of torture with the holy fathers. I remained, says Col. Lehmanousky, till I saw four different kinds of torture applied, and then retired from the awful scene, which terminated not while one individual remained of the former guilty inmates of this antichamber of hell on whom they could wreak vengeance. As soon as the poor sufferers from the cells of the Inquisition could with safety be brought out of their prison to the light of day, (news having been spread far and near, that numbers had been rescued from the Inquisition,) all who had been deprived of friends by the holy offices, came to inquire if theirs were among the number. Of what a meeting was there; about a hundred who had been buried alive for many years, were now restored to the active world, and many of them found here a son and there a daughter, here a sister and there a brother, and some alas! could recognize no friends. The scenes was such that no tongue can describe. When this work of3recognition was over, to complete the business in which I had engaged, I went to Madrid and obtained a large quantity of gun powder which I placed underneath the edifice, and in its vault, and as we applied the slow match there was a joyful sight to thousands of admiring eyes. O! it would have done you good to see it; the walls and massive turrets of that proud edifice, were raised towards the heavens, and the Inquisition of Madrid was no more.—Sel.
Hume's Argument Against Miracles.
This well-known infidel argument was brilliantly refuted by the Hon. Edward Everett, in his recent address before the State Agricultural Society at Buffalo.
"A celebrated sceptical philosopher of the last century—the historian Hume—thought to demolish the credibility of the Christian revelation by the concise argument, 'It is contrary to experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to experience that testimony should be false.' The last part of the proposition, especially in a free country on the eve of a popular election, is, unhappily, too well founded; but in what book-worm's dusty cell, tapestried with the cobwebs of age, where the light of real life and nature never forced its way—in what pedant's school, where deaf ears listen to dumb lips, and blind followers are led by blind guides, did he learn that it is contrary to experience that a miracle should be true? Most certainly he never learned it from sower or reaper, from dumb animal or rational man connected with husbandry. Poor Red Jacket, off here on Buffalo Creek, if he could have comprehended the terms of the proposition, would have treated it with scorn. Contrary to experience that phenomena should exist which we cannot trace to causes perceptible to the human sense, or conceivable by human thought! It would be much nearer the truth to say that within the husbandman's experience, there are no phenomena which can be rationally traced to any thing but the instant energy of creative power.
"Did this philosopher ever contemplate the landscape at the close of the year, when seeds and grains and fruits have ripened, and stalks have withered, and leaves have fallen, and winter has forced her icy curb even in the roaring jaws of Niagara, and sheeted half a continent in her glittering shroud, and all this teeming vegetation and organized life are locked in cold and marble obstruction; and after week upon week and month upon month have swept, with sleet and chilly rain and howling storm, over the earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon the door of nature's sepulchre; when the sun at length begins to wheel in higher circles through the sky, and softer winds to breathe over melting snows, did he ever behold the long-hidden earth at length appear, and soon the timid grass peep forth, and soon the autumnal wheat begin to paint the field, and velvet leaflets to burst from purple buds, throughout the reviving forests; and then the mellow soil to open its fruitful bosom to every grain and seed dropped by the planter's hand, buried but to spring up again, clothed with a new mysterious being; and then, as more fervid suns inflame the air, and softer showers distil from the clouds, and gentler dews string their pearls on twig and tendril, did he ever watch the ripening grain and fruit, pendent from stalk and vine and tree; the meadow, the field, the pasture, the grove, each after his kind arrayed in myriad-tinted garments, instinct with circulating life, seven millions of counted leaves on a single tree, each of which is a system whose exquisite complication puts to shame the shrewdest cunning of the human mind; every planted seed and grain which had been loaned to the earth, compounding its pious usury thirty, sixty, a hundred fold, all harmoniously adapted to the sustenance of living nature—the bread of a hungry world: here a tilled cornfield, whose yellow blades are nodding with the food of man: there an unplanted wilderness—the great Father's farm—where he 'who hears the raven's cry,' has cultivated with his own hand his merciful crop of berries and nuts and acorns and seeds, for the humbler families of animated nature: the solemn elephant, the browsing deer, the wild pigeon, whose fluttering caravan darkens the sky: the merry squirrel who bounds from branch to branch in the joy of his little life: has he seen all this, does he see it every year and month and day: does he live and move and breathe and think in this atmosphere of wonder—himself the greatest wonder of all, whose smallest fibre and faintest pulsation is as much a mystery as the blazing glories of Orion's belt—and does he still maintain that a miracle is contrary to experience? If he has, and if he does, then let him say that it is contrary to experience that the august Power which turns the clods of the earth into the daily bread of a thousand million souls, could feed five thousand in the wilderness."
Principles of Interpretation.
Says Bishop Jeremy Taylor: “In all the interpretations of Scripture, the literal sense is to be presumed and chosen unless there be evident cause to the contrary.”
Says Prof. J. A. Ernest: “There is in fact but one and the same method of interpretation common to all books whatever be their subject. And the same grammatical principles and precepts, ought to be the common guide in the interpretation of all. Theologians are right, therefore, when they affirm the literal sense, or that which is derived from the knowledge of words, to be the only true one; for that mystical sense, which indeed is incorrectly called a sense, belongs altogether to the thing and not to the words.”
Says the learned Vitringa: “We must never depart from the literal meaning of the subject mentioned in its own appropriate name, if all or its principal attributes square with the subject of the prophecy—an unerring canon, he adds, and of great use.”
Says Martin Luther: “That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere, I here once more repeat, viz: that the christian should direct his first efforts toward understanding the literal sense [as it is called] of Scripture, which alone is the substance of faith and of christian theology. The allegorical sense is commonly uncertain and by no means safe to build our faith upon: for it usually depends on human opinion and conjecture only, on which if a man lean, he will find it no better than the Egyptian reed. Therefore Origen, Jerome, and similar of the fathers are to be avoided with the whole of that Alexandrian school which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, formerly abounded in this species of interpretation. For later writers unhappily following their too much praised and prevailing example, it has come to pass that men make just what they please of the Scriptures, until some accommodate the word of God to the most extravagant absurdities; and, as Jerome complains of his own times, they extract a sense from Scripture repugnant to its meaning: of which offence, however, Jerome himself was also guilty.”
Says Rosenmuller: “All ingenuous and unprejudiced persons will grant me this position, that there is no method of removing difficulties more secure than that of an accurate interpretation derived from the words of the texts themselves, and from their true and legitimate meaning, and depending upon no hypothesis.”
Dr. John Pye Smith defines the literal sense as “The common rule of all rational interpretation, viz: the sense afforded by a cautious and critical examination of the terms of the passage, and an impartial construction of the whole sentence, according to the known usage of the language and the writer.”
Such is the system adopted in this volume, it being regarded as the only safe principle of interpreting the Bible.—Voice of the Church.
Leaning Upon God
He that leans upon his comforts will find them to be a reed: he that leans upon his God, will find him to be a rock: he that leans on comfort, loses it: he that leans on God, secures it.
Every trouble is the forerunner of some mercy.
Spiritual Alchemy.
By S. A. Peters
DR. HARE TURNING COPPERS TO GOLD—MAGICAL PERFORMANCES.
Correspondence of the Spiritual Telegraph.
Philadelphia, April 18th, 1858.
BEING in this city on a visit from the State of Missouri, I embraced the opportunity to call on Professor Hare, to see what new developments or discoveries he was making in Spiritualism. My main object in writing this letter is to state what I was witness to myself. The manifestations that are taking place before the analytic mind of Dr. Hare, in his laboratory, are certainly the most extraordinary, and of a kind the world has never seen or heard of, which will force conviction upon the minds of those who are even determined not to believe, for the very reason that, under the circumstances, it is impossible for mortal man to do them. I will, however, state some of the manifestations the doctor told me have taken place within a short time past.
A common manifestation, or one that is frequently made by Dr. Hare, is the changing of a copper cent in a few minutes’ time into a piece of gold. The doctor has quite a number of pieces of gold, all of which have been made by the spirits from copper cents. He showed me a solution of Russia platinum, made from the ore by the spirits. Also a piece of pure silver, weighing 3,980 grains, which had been converted into a fluid state by the spirits, and then changed back to the original solid mass. He placed at one time a number of coins of different kinds—gold, silver and copper—into a glass jar, closely corked, and then put the jar containing the coins into an empty wooden box, which was then also closed. In three minutes—the doctor standing by with his watch in hand—it was changed into a two-and-a-half dollar gold coin. After he had examined it, and placed it in a jar, and then in the box, in five minutes it was converted into the same kind and number of coins he had put in. On another occasion, he placed a number of coins of different kinds, in like manner, in a jar, and had them converted into a solid mass in a few minutes. The spirits then changed this solid mass of metal into the same number and kinds of coin he had put in.
Many other extraordinary manifestations have taken and are still taking place in the doctor’s laboratory, and have been witnessed by others.
I will now state what I saw myself. Dr. Hare, the medium, M. Aug. Ruggles (a young man, eighteen or nineteen years of age, to whom I was an entire stranger when I entered the laboratory,) and myself were all who were present. The medium seated himself before the spiritoscope, which was upon the table in the center of the room, Dr. Hare and myself being seated on the opposite side, and near the table. After a few minutes the spirits said, through the spiritoscope, “Let Dr. S. A. Peters put two glass tubes and two pieces of Russia ore in the box.” Dr. Hare then left his seat and got me two glass tubes about six inches in length and about a half an inch in diameter, hermetically sealed at the ends, and also two pieces of Russia platinum, each about the size of a common bullet. The box into which I was to put them I examined. It was on the table before me. It was in the shape of a writing-desk, two feet or more in length, and a foot and a half in breadth, and from four to eight inches in depth, having a sloping lid, with hinges and a clasp. In this box I placed the two glass tubes and two pieces of platinum—nothing else being in the box—and closed it. Dr. Hare and myself then took the seats we had occupied before, and the medium [M. Ruggles] continued to remain at the spiritoscope. After waiting 55 minutes the spirit said, through the spiritoscope, “We have a present for Dr. S. A. P.; let him go to the box and get it!” I then went to the box, which was only a few feet from me, opened it, and found the two pieces of Russia platinum inside of the two hermetically sealed glass tubes. S. A. PETERS.
Preparation for the Kingdom
If God has prepared the kingdom for you, he will prepare you for the kingdom: and if you are under preparation, you are very anxious and concerned that God should carry on his work.