One bright morning, when I looked out to salute her as usual, I was filled with dismay to see a grisly cat seated on the bird-box, peeping into the door with eager eyes. She had descended from the roof, and was watching for a chance to devour the inmates of that happy little dwelling. I always had an antipathy to the stealthy and cruel habits of the feline race; but I think I never detested any creature as I did that cat; for a few minutes. The wish to do her harm, was, however, easily conquered by the reflection that she was obeying a natural instinct, as the bird was in catching insects; but I resolved that neither my dear little Lady Swallow nor her babes should furnish a repast for her voracious jaws. So I climbed a ladder, and took down the box, which contained a nest, with two pretty little white eggs. I was distressed with the idea that the hateful cat might have destroyed my favourites before I perceived their danger; but my anxiety was soon relieved by their approach. They circled round and round the well-known spot, peered about in every direction, perched on the platform where their home had stood, and chattered together with unusual volubility. Again and again they returned, bringing other birds with them, and repeating the same motions. They were evidently as much astonished, as we should be to wake up in the morning and find that an earthquake had swallowed a neighbour’s house during the night. Whether there were scientific swallows among them, that tried to frame satisfactory theories in explanation of the phenomenon, or whether any feathered clericals taught them to submit to the event as a special providence, we can never know. The natural presumption is, that they will always wonder, to the end of their days, what mysterious agency it could have been that so suddenly removed their nest, house and all. As for conjecturing why it was done, the mere query was probably beyond the range of their mental powers.
I was watching them all the time, but their bird eyes could not see me, and their bird-nerves conveyed no magnetic intimation of my close vicinity. Their surprise and their trouble were partially revealed to me by their motions and their utterance; but, though they were intelligent swallows, they could form no idea of such a fact. I had removed their dwelling to save their lives; but between their plane of existence and my own there was such an impassable chasm, that no explanation of my kindness and foresight could possibly be conveyed to them.
I thought of all this, and longed in vain to enlighten their ignorance, and relieve their perplexity. The earnestness of my wish, and the impossibility of accomplishing it, suggested a train of thought. I said to myself, perhaps some invisible beings are now observing me, as I am observing these swallows; but I cannot perceive them, because the laws of their existence are too far removed from my own. Perhaps they take a friendly interest in my affairs, and would gladly communicate with me, if I were so constituted that I could understand their ideas, or their mode of utterance. These cogitations recalled to my mind some remarks by the old English writer, Soame Jenyns. In his “Disquisition on the Chain of Universal Being,” he says: “The superiority of man to that of other terrestrial animals is as inconsiderable, in proportion to the immense plan of universal existence, as the difference of climate between the north and south end of the paper I now write upon, with regard to the heat and distance of the sun. There is nothing leads us into so many errors concerning the works and designs of Providence, as the foolish vanity that can persuade such insignificant creatures that all things were made for their service; from whence they ridiculously set up utility to themselves as the standard of good, and conclude every thing to be evil, which appears injurious to them or their purposes. As well might a nest of ants imagine this globe of earth created only for them to cast up into hillocks, and clothed with grain and herbage for their sustenance; then accuse their Creator for permitting spades to destroy them, and ploughs to lay waste their habitations. They feel the inconveniences, but are utterly unable to comprehend their uses, as well as the relations they themselves bear to superior beings.
“When philosophers have seen that the happiness of inferior creatures is dependent on our wills, it is surprising none of them should have concluded that the good order and well-being of the universe might require that our happiness should be as dependent on the wills of superior beings, who are accountable, like ourselves, to one common Lord and Father of all things. This is the more wonderful, because the existence and influence of such beings has been an article in the creed of all religions that have ever appeared in the world. In the beautiful system of the Pagan theology, their sylvan and household deities, their nymphs, satyrs, and fawns, were of this kind. All the barbarous nations that have ever been discovered, have been found to believe in, and adore, intermediate spiritual beings, both good and evil. The Jewish religion not only confirms the belief of their existence, but of their tempting, deceiving, and tormenting mankind; and the whole system of Christianity is erected entirely on this foundation.”
Dr. Johnson wrote a satirical review of Soame Jenyns, which had great popularity at the time. He passes without notice the fact that men of all ages, and of all religions, have believed that malicious Spirits cause diseases, and tempt men, in many ways, to their destruction; while benevolent Spirits cure physical and mental evils, forewarn men in dreams, and assist them in various emergencies. There was, therefore, nothing very new or peculiar in the suggestion of Mr. Jenyns; but Dr. Johnson, in his rough way, caricatures it thus: “He imagines that as we have animals not only for food, but some for our diversion, the same privilege may be allowed to beings above us, who may deceive, torment, or destroy us, for the ends only of their own pleasure or utility. He might have carried the analogy further, much to the advantage of his argument. He might have shown that these hunters, whose game is man, have many sports analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and kittens, they amuse themselves now and then with sinking a ship; and they stand round the fields of Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a cock-pit. As we shoot a bird flying, they knock a man down with apoplexy, in the midst of his business or pleasure. Perhaps some of them are virtuosi, and delight in the operations of an asthma, as human philosophers do in the effects of an air-pump. Many a merry bout have these frolic beings at the vicissitudes of an ague; and good sport it is to see a man tumble with an epilepsy, and revive and tumble again; and all this he knows not why. Perhaps now and then a merry being may place himself in such a situation as to enjoy at once all the varieties of an epidemic disease, or amuse his leisure with the tossings and contortions of every possible pain exhibited together.”
It occurred to me what bearish paws the old Doctor, in his gruff sport, would lay upon modern Spiritualists, if he were about in these days. I smiled to think what an inexhaustible theme for skeptical wit was afforded by the awkward and tedious process of communication employed. But after a little reflection, I said to myself, is not the common action of Spirit upon Matter, while we are here in the body, quite as inexplicable? If we were not accustomed to it, would it not seem nearly as inconvenient and laborious? The Spirit which dwells within me, (I know not where, or how,) wishes to communicate with a Spirit dwelling in some other body, in another part of the world. Straightway, the five-pronged instrument, which we call a hand, is moved by Spirit, and promptly obeys the impulse. It dips a piece of pointed steel into a black fluid, and traces hieroglyphic characters invented by Spirit to express its thought. Those letters have been formed into words by slow elaboration of the ages. They partake of the climate where they grew. In Italy, they flow smoothly as water. In Russia, they clink and clatter like iron hoofs upon a pavement. It appears that Spirit must needs fashion its utterance according to the environment of Matter, in the midst of which it is placed. By a slow and toilsome process, the child must learn what ideas those words represent; otherwise he can scarcely be able to communicate at all with the Spirits in other bodies near him. If they are distant, and his Spirit wills to converse with them, it must impel the five-pronged instrument of bone and sinew to take up the pointed steel, and trace, on a substance elaborately prepared from vegetable fibres, certain mystic characters, which, according to their arrangement, express love or hatred, joy or sorrow. If Spirits out of the body do indeed tip tables and rap the alphabet, to communicate with Spirits in the body, it must be confessed that the machinery we poor mortals are obliged to employ, in order to communicate with each other, is nearly as tedious and imperfect as theirs.
Ancient oriental philosophers, and some of the Gnostics at a later period, believed in a gradation of successive worlds, gradually diminishing in the force of spiritual intelligence, and consequently in outward beauty. They supposed that each world was an attenuated likeness, a sort of reflected image of the world above it; that it must necessarily be so, because, in all its parts, it was evolved from that world. They believed that the inhabitants of each world knew of those in the world next below them, and were attracted toward them; but that the world below was unconscious of the higher sphere whence it emanated.
Swedenborg teaches that all the inferior grades of being in this world are representative forms of the spiritual state of mankind, and owe their existence to the thoughts and feelings in human souls. Thus if men had no bad passions, there would be no lions and tigers; and if they were inwardly pure, there would be no vermin. In other words, he teaches that the lower forms of Nature are reflected images of man, as the orientals taught concerning successive worlds; and in this case also the higher is attracted toward the lower, and wishes to communicate with it, while the lower remains ignorant of the existence of the higher. I knew something of the swallows, and wanted to talk with them, but they knew nothing of me.
Swedenborg teaches successive spheres of existence, as did the orientals, though in another form. He says Spirits in the sphere nearest to this earth are attracted towards us, and wish to communicate with us; but that some of them are in a low state, and capable of great duplicity. Many people are satisfied with the theory that these are the Spirits who are believed to be rapping and tipping tables in all parts of the country. Certain it is, many of the phenomena that actually occur cannot possibly be the result of jugglery; though miracles sometimes seem to be performed by that adroit agency. Candid minds cannot, I think, avoid the conclusion that Spirit is acting upon Matter in some way not explainable by any known laws of our being. Whether it is Spirit in the body, or out of the body, seems difficult to decide. The agents, whoever they are, are obviously nearly on a level with our own spiritual condition; for they tell nothing which had not been previously known or imagined; and they do not always tell the truth.
Minds of mystical tendencies find joy in believing that all inspirations in religion, science, or art, come to us from above, through the medium of ministering Spirits, who dwell in higher spheres of intelligence and love, and are attracted towards us by our inward state. The fast-increasing strength of evil, which often leads men to think the Devil drives them into some crime, they account for by supposing that the indulgence of wrong thoughts and feelings brings us into affinity with Spirits below us, who are thus enabled to influence our souls by the operation of laws as universal and unchangeable as those which regulate the attraction and repulsion of material substances.