dangerous characters; whose names are various," Humbug," Collusion," "Deception," "Ventriloquism," "Legerdemain,” and a host of similar characters, whose well-earned reputation renders them very formidable personages for the weak, unthinking, and prejudiced classes to encounter.

Clergymen, I repeat, generally teach their congregations to believe that the vestibule, which leads to this great temple of Truth, is literally crowded with these deceptive and fiendish characters; and thus they succeed, to a great extent, in preventing the proper investigation of a sublime development of mind, which especially characterizes this era of the world's history. But I must not fail to notice a more enlightened class of opponents, or rather, a class who adopt a more intelligent method of opposing this new manifestation of an eternal principle. I allude, especially, to those who refuse to examine this subject on the ground, that there is nothing, they assert, in the Bible which sanctions or suggests any manifestations of this peculiar nature; from which untenable argument they very illogically conclude that these new developments constitute the last effort of "Satan" to destroy souls, before he is chained up and cast into prison for a period not exceeding one thousand years."

I will not now stop to consider the unsoundness of this position, but will simply affirm, as a basis of future thought, that it is entirely false to say that "the Bible" is silent on the subject before us. On the contrary, I not only find the "Sacred Volume" of Christians replete with demonstrative illustrations of spiritual insight, good clairvoyance, and practical inspiration; but I also find multitudinous examples and demonstrations of analogous phenomena in the Koran of Mohammed; in the Zeuda Vesta of Zoroaster ; in the Shaster of Brama; in the Talmud of the Jewish rabbi; and in the more recent Roll of the Shakers--yea, in each of these "sacred volumes" I find incontrovertible evidences and

indications of the mental manifestations under present consideration. These statements I will make good on future occasions.

But suppose the Hindoo, the Mohammedan, and the Christian Bible did not contain a single allusion to, or palpable illustration of, the magnetic-developments of this century. What then? Are we therefore to conclude that they deserve no mercy and calm examination at our hands? Are we to pronounce every thing which the Bible does not intimate or sanction, as false, dangerous, or devilish? If we take the ground that the "sacred volume" of any nation contains the sum total of all knowledge and Inspiration, then we not only set bounds to reason and human progress, but to the unchangeable and progressive manifestations of Deity.

If we are resolved to reject every thing which is not intimated and sanctioned by the Bible, then let us be perfectly consistent, and forthwith proceed to discard all the recent discoveries in mechanism and all the wonderful disclosures of modern science! Let us never permit the sun to paint our form and features on the burnished plate; let us demolish our railroads our magnetic telegraphs-our various methods of printing; because the Bible is surely silent concerning these marvelous perfections of this century. Indeed, it rather deplores the fact, that man is prone to “seek out many inventions," and especially to be "wise above what is written," and yet we are admonished, among other gettings, to "get wisdom" and to "increase in knowledge" forever! Is all this reconcileable?

It may be proper to apologize for prefacing my examination of the philosophy of clairvoyance and inspiration, thus at length. He who has not thought upon, or investigated this subject to its foundations, is not prepared to enter at once into its vestibule; because, I repeat, his mind is impressed with a species of superstitious apprehensiveness-a kind of educational or religious epidemic, the characteristic symptom of nervous and timid minds—that the devil

is the "door-keeper," and that correspondingly evil characters lurk within the edifice-devils transformed into angels of light.

The good husbandman, if he be also a wise man, will cleanse his

new ground" of all its stones and stumps-its dead and deathly rubbish and noxious weeds-ere he sows the germs of a future harvest. So I come before you, on this occasion, to lead your minds into a new field of thought and inquiry. But ere we can enter upon this broad territory, which commences at our very feet and extends far and wide throughout the realms of immensity, I am impressed to remove the clogs which a false education has fastened upon you, and also, with your assistance, to clear away from the bosom of this new ground, the noxious accumulations which the ages past have cast upon it to the retardation of human progress. But some of you may suffer much mental torture by attempting to burst from slavery into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Indeed, freedom is seemingly too great a luxury for many minds. There are talented men in this community, who dare not reason, who dare not accord to themselves the mental and moral freedom which they internally feel, because they are sensible of a want of that self-reliance and self-government which render some minds a law unto themselves.

America, as you all know, is based upon a broader and more liberal foundation than any nation or congregation of states in the wide world. But what made our forefathers so free and independent in their views of humanity? It was their intellectual and moral liberty. They were a law unto themselves. The Declaration of Independence resided in their souls before it was given to the world. And when they felt an internal conviction that "all men" should "be free," they immediately proceeded, with great determination and magnanimity, to secure, to themselves and to us, the enjoyment of that liberty which no other nation knows on earth. I do not say that American freedom is the acme of Inde

pendence-I believe it is not--but that it is superior to that enjoyed by any other government.

But when our bold and resolute forefathers declared themselves free and independent, what was the uniform expression of all the conservatives and bigots among other nations? Why it was, in substance, precisely what the bigoted and prudential conservatives of modern churches and systems of theology are constantly saying of us--namely, that man was never designed to enjoy liberty--that he can not bear it-that it is identical with, or the parent of, anarchy-and that destruction is the inevitable effect of any attempts to break from established systems of religion and government. But nearly two centuries' experience of the American people has effectually shown all such prophecies chimerical; for our nation is as firm as the consolidations of adamant; and the startling voice of "dissolution," which now arouses statesmen to the elaboration of plans of safety and schemes of reconciliation, is a sound developed, not in consequence of too much intellectual and moral liberty among the people, but in consequence of physical, intellectual, and moral slavery. Some of you, I repeat, may suffer much mental torture in your struggles to be morally and theologically free; but the serene voice of pure reason and conscience tells you to go on, and secure the heavenly state of being, a law unto yourselves. You may suffer, because all births are usually preceded and accompanied with severe pain and anguish; but the issue is certain to be happiness and peace.

Some minds think that it is sinful to strive to be "wise above what is written" in their Bibles. But I have shown you, that Solomon exhorts all to "get wisdom" and "increase in knowledge,” and he evidently desired all future kings and generations to become wiser than he; because his actual wisdom did not extend further than the science of architectural embellishments, as indicated in the building of his temple; for all his Proverbs are simply the

constrained admonitions of one who had become fatigued with sensual gratification and weary of life. Therefore, we find hundreds and thousands vastly wiser than Solomon; because he simply wrote several moral maxims for others to observe and obey. And he who can live a truth is far wiser and more noble than he who merely writes it under a heavy pressure of physical pains and selfcondemnation; which was manifestly the case with the wise man of the Hebrew Scriptures.

But there is yet another class of opposers to the modern developments of clairvoyance. I allude to those who reject them on the ground of their seemingly contradictory character and manifest mysteriousness. This class is composed of two descriptions of minds—those who reject all new manifestations on the supposition, that what contradicts human experience, and, especially, their peculiar prepossessions and prejudices of mind, must necessarily be deception; and also of those who oppose all new mental phenomena and inspiration, on the ground that the Deity would not permit any revelations and developments of a character so trivial and manifestly absurd.

But first let us proceed to consider the soundness of the proposition, that, what contradicts all human experience must be deception. I think there never was uttered a sounder proposition. There is something in our common nature which forms the basis of a universal analogy; and each new development in science, philosophy, and morals, is soon discovered to sustain a relation, more or less remote, to past human experience, and to the common phenomena of every-day life. For instance, when GALVANI discovered the positive and negative manifestations of electricity, he simply unfolded the germs of a system of truth with which every human body is constantly enlivened. Every organ, in the physical and mental economy, is constructed upon positive and negative principles. So, when JESUS changed water into wine, he simply exer