“The brotherhood of man, and the love of God for his children.”
This creed, you perceive, embraces the whole of the spiritualistic faith, which is causing these great changes throughout the Church of Christ on earth.
At this point it will not be inappropriate to make some allusion to the mysterious sounds which occurred in my house in Lincolnshire, England, at intervals within the space of three or more years during my earthly ministrations.
These mysterious sounds, even in that day, were supposed to have been caused by spirit agency. I have ascertained that that supposition was correct; and my attention has since been directed to the fact in Church history, that every separation from the Church body which has originated in a desire to return to the simplicity and purity of the primitive followers of Jesus, has been attended by similar mysterious demonstrations.
Luther and Mclancthon, Knox and Calvin, and the earnest dissenters and reformers of every age, have been haunted in like manner. I say haunted, for they generally have misunderstood the aim of these spiritual visitants.[A] It has devolved upon the scientific researches and the skeptical but investigating mind of the nineteenth century to form a process by which the spirit of the departed can communicate with the dwellers in Time.
[A] The spirit of Rev. Dr. John M. Krebbs, of New York, states through this clairvoyant that the cause of his mental aberration while on earth was a misinterpretation by him of a spiritual vision which he was permitted to receive. Thus misunderstanding the aim of his spiritual visitants, he became haunted with a fallacy which ultimated in his death. ED.
To me this science was unknown. Had I been acquainted with the facts with which I am now familiar, I might have established a more liberal Church, but as it was, this daily association with an unseen spiritual presence enlarged my views of the condition attending the soul after death, and caused me to give utterance to thoughts which happily have aided in preparing the world for the Universal Church which ere long will lift its towering dome toward Heaven.
N.P. WILLIS.
_A SPIRIT REVISITING EARTH_.
(A FRAGMENT.)
How wondrous I
Through illimitable space, where myriad suns
And systems roll their mighty orbs,
The spirit moves like some strange wingless bird,
Darting through space with rapid flight
Until he nears his native home,
The earth.
His home no longer;
He has become the denizen of a world
More rare and beautiful than earth.
With quickening pulse and grand emotion
He gazes down upon the globe,
Whose habitations he has left forever!
Cities with their palaces and towers,
Surging seas, leafy forests, and fields of grain,
The towering mountain and the massy
Icebergs of the Polar sea sweep past
His sight like fading visions.