PREFACE
FOR over one hundred years Spiritualism has been before the
world. This surely is time enough to enable it to show its character by
its fruits. "By their fruits ye shall know them," is a rule
that admits of no exceptions. If evil fruits appear, the tree is
corrupt.
Spiritualism has made unbounded promises of good. It has claimed to
be the long-promised second coming of Christ; the opening of a new era
among mankind; the rosy portal of a golden age, when all men should be
reformed, evil disappear, and the renovation of society cause the hearts
of men to leap for joy, and the earth to blossom as the rose.
Has it fulfilled all, or any, of these promises? If not, is it not a
deception? and if a deception, considering its wide-spread influence,
and the number of its adherents, is it not one of the most gigantic and
appalling deceptions that has ever fallen upon Christendom? The Bible in
the plainest terms, declares that in the last days malign influences
will be let loose upon the world; false pretensions will be urged upon
the minds of men; and deceptions, backed up by preternatural signs and
wonders, will develop to such a degree of strength, that, if it were
possible, they would deceive the very elect.
Is it possible that Spiritualism may be the very development of evil,
against which this warning is directed?
To investigate these questions, and to show by unimpeachable
testimony, what Spiritualism is, and the place it holds among the
psychological movements of the present day, is the object of these
pages. Not a few books have been written against Spiritualism; but most
of them endeavor to account for it on the ground of human jugglery and
imposture, or on natural principles, the discovery of a new and
heretofore occult force in nature, etc., from which great things may be
expected in the future. But rarely has any one discussed it from the
standpoint of prophecy, and the testimony of the Scriptures, the only
point of view, as we believe, from which its true origin, nature, and
tendency, can be ascertained.
Many features in the work of Spiritualism would seem to indicate that
the source from which it springs is far from good; but it is based upon
a church dogma, firmly established through all Christendom, which in
many minds is of sufficient weight to overbalance considerations that
would otherwise be considered ample grounds for shunning or renouncing
it. It is therefore the more necessary that the reader, in examining
this question, should let the bonds that have heretofore bound him to
preconceived opinions, sit loose upon him, and that he should put
himself in the mood of Dr. Channing when he said: "I must choose to
receive the truth, no matter how it bears upon myself, and must follow
it no matter where it leads, from what party it severs me, or to what
party it allies." And he should remember also, as the eminent and
pious Dr. Vinet once sagaciously observed, that "even now, after
eighteen centuries of Christianity, we are very probably involved in
some enormous error, of which Christianity will, in some future time,
make us ashamed."
In view, therefore, of the importance of this question, and the
tremendous issues that hang on the decisions we may make in these
perilous times, we feel justified even in adjuring the reader to
canvass this subject with an inflexible determination to learn the
truth, and then to follow it wherever it may lead.
Battle Creek, Mich., 1897
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