With but very slight efforts, and no advertising on my part, "Family Homoeopathy" sold very well—principally through the different homoeopathic pharmacies in our country; and this increased the sale of "The Avoidable Causes of Disease" very materially, as I expected it would. Seventeen editions of "Family Homoeopathy" have been printed and sold, the last edition by Dr. E. R. Ellis, of Detroit, Michigan, who will continue to print and supply applicants as wanted.
SPIRITUAL CAUSES OF DISEASES.
As I continued my investigation into the causes of disease, and especially as I read the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, I began to see more and more clearly that diseases, to a large extent at least, have a spiritual origin, and that the great obstacles to the removal of their causes lie in the false doctrines of Christian churches. When selfish men who were leaders in the churches desired to exercise their love of rule in spiritual and natural things and to exercise despotic power, when they desired to reduce other men to slavery and to hold them as slaves, or when they desired to gratify other perverted passions and sensual appetites, they all went to the Bible and strove to justify their conduct from its pages, with the expectation of reaching heaven at last; for this purpose it required the invention of special doctrines, and these they taught to their children, and thus the Word of God was made of no effect by the traditions and doctrines of men.
Unfortunately for the Protestant Church, early in its history, instead of "If ye would enter into life, keep the commandments," there was substituted the doctrine of justification by faith alone; which led men, especially the young, to hope that by getting religion and having faith, they could at any time escape the legitimate penalties which are attached by the Lord to evil doing. No young man, religiously brought up, expects to go to hell; but he intends to repent and be converted before he dies; he often thinks he will "sow his wild oats" first, instead of earnestly and faithfully striving to keep the Divine commandments from his youth up. Evil thinking and doing develop an infernal life within him, which often gradually gains strength until he is ruled by his perverted appetites and passions; and day by day his ability to regain his freedom grows less.
When the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church began to teach men that the punishment which rightly inheres to the doing of evil can be escaped by confessing to the priest, doing penance, and receiving absolution, and that every Catholic priest has from the Lord the power to forgive sins and to grant indulgences, then the hope of escaping the penalties of sin by something short of keeping the Divine Law in everyday life was held out to the young of the Catholic laity, similar to that which the doctrine of faith alone offered to the young of the Protestant world; and the results have been similar. We know, however, that among religious teachers there are many to-day in all of the various sects of Christians who have put away, or are gradually putting away, or materially modifying, the perverted doctrines of the past. As an illustration of the changes which are taking place, I clip the following from an English paper, recently received:—
"The Rev. T. Vincent Tymms, the new Principal of Rawdon College, preaching to his late congregation at Clapham, said:—
"'From the first day I stood in this pulpit until now, I have desired to tear away from every heart that obscuring veil of pagan thought which first attributes a wrathful justice to the Father and a tender mercy to CHRIST, and then represents the Son as dying to soothe the anger and satisfy the relentless demands of the Father. Such unholy and revolting ideas are the leaven of heathenism, not the unleavened bread of Christian truth.'
"This is from the first of 'Three Farewell Sermons,' published by Messrs.
James Clarke & Co., Fleet Street, E. C."
More and more, as time progressed, I began to realize that there was very little chance for any radical improvement of our race until the false doctrines which have come down to us from the dark ages were put away; and knowing that in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg we have a new revelation from the Lord, even the truths of his Second Coming in the clouds of heaven, which are destined to make all things new by leading men back to a life of obedience to the Divine commandments; and, furthermore, believing the most important missionary field to-day in the world to be among the clergy of our country, I wrote an "Address to the Clergy" of 24 pages. This Address I sent to over 50,000 clergymen. A few years before I wrote that Address, the late Mr. L. C. Iungerich, of Philadelphia, through the book publishing firm of J. B. Lippincott & Co., of that city, had offered to clergymen who would order and send the stamps to pay the postage, Swedenborg's "True Christian Religion," and afterward he added the "Apocalypse Revealed;" and the New Church Tract Society added to the above works "Heaven and Hell,"—all to be sent free to clergymen on receipt of postage. Several thousand copies of the above works had been sent when I wrote and sent out my Address. Upon the second page of the cover of my tract was a notice of the above-named gift books; and my aim was to hastily call the attention of clergymen to them, and to give them some idea of the claims of Swedenborg's writings to their attention, and to encourage them to send for and to read the books thus providentially within their reach. As a result of receiving the Address, thousands of clergymen sent for and obtained one or more of the above books.
When I commenced sending the above-named Address to the clergy, I resolved to devote one-tenth of my income to the work of spreading a knowledge of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem and of an orderly life among my fellow-men. I can truly say, and will say for the encouragement of others, that as I have given I have received; for never had I prospered financially as I have since that resolution was made and lived up to. After having secured a competency for myself and family I did not stop at one-tenth of my income.