The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
world ever clearly asserting. In other words, the ancient heathen world,
though it retained the primitive belief in the immortality of the soul,
had lost belief in the resurrection of the body, and the reunion of soul
and body, or at least only retained some traces of it in their doctrine
of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.
The peculiar Christian doctrine, or the doctrine so insisted on by the
Apostles, was not the immortality of the soul, which was always
presupposed, but the resurrection of the dead, the return to life, not
of that which had not ceased to live, but of that which had died, to
wit, the body. Hence the article in the Apostles’ Creed is not, I
believe the immortality of the soul, but, I believe the resurrection of
the body, _resurrectionem carnis_, the resurrection of the flesh; and to
this belief, it must be remarked, that the spirit-manifestations afford
no confirmation, and indeed they virtually contradict it.
The distinguishing trait of Christian morality is charity, which is
distinguished from philanthropy or benevolence, as a supernaturally
infused virtue is distinguished from a mere human sentiment, but, in the
minds of but too many of those who call themselves Christians, really
confounded with it. The spirits were then, under the name of charity, to
teach a philanthropic, sentimental, and purely human morality, for in
doing so, they would seem to the mass of superficial Christians to be
confirming the distinctive trait of Christian morality, and at the same
time appealing to the morbid spirit of the age.
Bald, naked Universalism is not popular; but there is a very general
disbelief, among the leading men of the times, in the old orthodox
doctrines of heaven and hell, of the last judgment, the everlasting
punishment of the wicked, or that our eternal state is fixed by that in
which we die. Swedenborg had greatly modified these doctrines, and
taught that the punishment of the wicked is purely negative; that men
are in hell only inasmuch as they are not in harmony with God; and not
to be in harmony with God, that is, good, is to be out of the Divine
protection, and exposed to all the sufferings incident to our
abandonment to the natural order of things. He had also recognized
different heavens, rising one above another, and different hells, one
below another; and had hinted or asserted the possibility of the
inhabitants of each improving, and advancing in wisdom and virtue, by
their intercourse with the inhabitants of this world. He had himself
even instructed angels, and assisted feeble and undeveloped souls. Here
were the germs of all that was required. The spirits were to teach that
there are different circles in the other world, into which souls are
admitted according to their respective tastes and degrees of
development, with the chance to rise in due time, if faithful, from the
lowest to the highest. In the lower circles, they are improved by
intercourse with us, as we are ourselves improved by intercourse with
spirits of the higher circle.
The dominant doctrine of our age is that of progress; that the universe
started from certain rude and imperfect beginnings, and, by a continued
series of developments and transformations, is eternally advancing
towards perfection, without however reaching it; and that man,
beginning, if not in the oyster or the tadpole, at least in a feeble and
helpless infancy, develops and advances towards perfect manhood. This
doctrine, which a few facts in natural history, in geology, and
anthropology, at first sight seem to favor, is at bottom wholly
repugnant to the Christian doctrine of a fixed creed, of final repose or
beatitude in God, of final causes, and the final consummation of all
things. So the spirits are to accept it, systematize it, and propose, as
the highest reward of virtue, to be placed on the plane of eternal
progression.
The age is indifferent, syncretic, and disposed to accept all religions
and superstitions as true under certain aspects, and as false under
others, and to pronounce one about as good and about as bad as another.
The spirits, therefore, make no direct war on any of them. In some
places they teach that the Catholic Church is the truest and best of
prevailing religions, but that Protestantism is nevertheless a safe way
of salvation, and that the spirits do not, in the other world, think so
much about differences of churches and creeds, as they did when in this
world. In other places they teach that the Catholic Church is false;
that it is wicked, the enemy of moral and social progress, and that
effectual means should be taken to prevent its extension in the United
States. They do not deny the Bible, nor affirm its inspiration, but
take, to a great extent, the neological view of it, conceding it to be
truthful in many respects, but maintaining it to be unreliable in
others. It was very well when men had nothing better, and no surer means
of information in regard to the spirit-world.
Such is a brief outline of the new religion, which was intended to
supplant Christianity, and to open the way for that “good time a
coming,” for which all our philanthropists and reformers are looking, as
any one may satisfy himself by reading the _Shekinah_, the _Spiritual
Telegraph_, or Judge Edmands’s work, from the prolific press of
Partridge & Brittan, New York. This new religion, which, indeed,
contains nothing new, and which it certainly needed no ghost from the
other world to teach or to suggest, would amount to very little if
promulgated on mere human authority, unsupported by any prodigies,
mysterious or marvellous facts; but, communicated mysteriously from
alleged denizens of another world, bearing the imposing names of William
Penn, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas
Paine, assumes in the minds of the vulgar a high importance, and can
hardly fail to be regarded as overriding Moses and the prophets, our
Lord and his Apostles. It strikes at the foundation of Christianity
itself, and once accepted, it will seem to have a directness and a
completeness of evidence that will entirely set aside, in the minds of
the spiritualists, that in favor of the Gospel. This is what I intended,
and what I hoped.
Having set the so-called spirits in motion, and through them set afloat
a system which I fancied would supplant Christianity, whether in its
Catholic or its sounder Protestant forms, my work seemed done, and I
could retire from my labors. My superintendence was no longer necessary,
and whether the agents I employed were really the spirits or souls of
the dead, as they themselves asserted, or mere elemental forces of
nature, as I was inclined to believe or had wished to persuade myself,
became to me a question of no interest. The work would go on of itself
now, and in a few years Christianity and the Church would be undermined
and fall of themselves. Then monarchy, aristocracy, republicanism, all
forms of civil government, would crumble to pieces, and universal
freedom, leaving every one to believe and do what seems right in his own
eyes, will be realized, and all here, as well as those not here, will be
placed on the plane of eternal progression—progression towards—what?
CHAPTER XVI.
A REBUFF.
I asked not the question, for in fact it did not occur to me; but I
asked another question, What shall I do with myself? A grave question
this. Do what I would, turn the matter over as I might, there was, now
the novelty of the idea had worn off, nothing inspiring in this idea of
eternal progression;—this ever learning, and never coming to the
knowledge of the truth—this everlasting chase after good, and never
coming up with it. Why continue a pursuit which you know beforehand will
bring you never any nearer the object than you are, for as you pursue,
it flies. Is not this evil rather than good, hell rather than heaven? Is
not this the punishment of Ixion?—That war of the Titans upon the gods,
has it not a deep significance? The Titans, the Giants, the Earthborn,
_Terræ filii_, would dethrone the gods, the heaven-born, the divine, and
were defeated and doomed to punishment, to turn forever a wheel, to roll
a huge stone up the steep hill, and just as it is about to reach the
summit, have it slip from the hands and roll down with a thundering
sound; to a task never completed, and always to be renewed, or to
hunger, with food ever in sight, and always just beyond reach; to
thirst, standing to the neck in water, and have it recede always as
approached with the lips. Is not, after all, this the doom that they
bring on themselves who reject the wisdom from above and follow what my
friend Mr. Merton calls the wisdom from below?
I can very well understand progress towards an end, towards a goal that
is fixed and permanent, but a progress towards nothing, or towards a
movable goal, a goal that recedes as approached, is to me quite
unintelligible, and, when I think of it, it seems as absurd as the
supposition of an infinite series. Infinite progression is, in reality,
an infinite absurdity. The origin and end of all things must be perfect,
fixed, and immovable. Every mechanic knows that he cannot generate
motion without a something which is at rest, which can cause or produce
motion without moving itself. Without the immovable, there is and can be
no movable. In like manner, no motion towards what is not immovable, for
if the two bodies remain in the same position relative to each other,
neither, in relation to the other, has moved.
Progress is morally motion towards an end, and if there is no
approximation to the end, there is no progress. As progress is
inconceivable without some end, so it is equally inconceivable without a
shortening of the distance between the progressing agent and the end. If
this distance can be shortened, however little, if not more than a line
in a million of ages, it is not infinite, and the progress cannot be
eternal. This infinite or eternal progression is, then, only a lying
dream.
At the bottom of this idea of progress, which our modern reformers prate
about, is the foolish notion that man is born an inchoate, an incipient
God, and that his destiny is to grow into or become the infinite God;
that he is to grow or develop into the Almighty; that, to be God, is his
ultimate destiny; and, as God is infinite, he is to be eternally
developing and realizing more and more of God, without ever realizing
him in his infinity. The bubble does not burst and lose itself in the
ocean, but by virtue of its bubbleosity it grows and absorbs more and
more of the ocean into itself.
I cannot understand this eternal absorbing process, which, though always
absorbing or assimilating, leaves always the same quantity, physical or
moral, to be absorbed or assimilated. It is impossible to be satisfied
with such a destiny. To be always seeking and never finding, to be
always desiring, craving, and never filled, is not heaven, it is hell,
and the severest hell, in comparison with which the pain of sense, or
natural fire and brimstone were a solace. Man is not moved to act by
desire. His desire to attain must become hope of attaining, before it
can move him, and when you deprive him of that hope, you take from him
all courage, all energy, and all motive to act. Desire to possess the
beloved, may remain and torment the lover, but it can never suffice to
make him continue his pursuit when all hope of success has been
extinguished. I do not say love cannot survive hope, but I do say that
love’s efforts cannot, and it is seldom that even love itself does.
The Christian is stimulated to constant activity, not by charity or love
of God alone, but by hope; and the hope of possessing God, of being