23. Such an inference coincides with the communications recently received, from the spirits of departed friends, which it is the object of this publication to promulgate.
24. Unfortunately, human opinion is very much influenced by passion and prejudice. Hence in questions respecting property, we often find honest men differing as to what is just. So when any creed is associated with the hope of enjoying by its tenure a better, if not exclusive, pretension to eternal happiness and the favour of God, the sectarian by whom it may be held becomes honestly tenacious of its despotic supremacy over all others.
25. I have no doubt that a large portion of our American priesthood are sincere in the advocacy of the tenets respectively held by them. Among them I have known some of the best of men, and I have generally found them more tolerant of skepticism than the majority of their followers. It has not, however, been unfrequently urged by clergymen as a ground of adherence to Christianity, that without it, there is no authentic evidence of a future state of existence. I have seen an argument from an able and respectable Christian writer, urging that there is no refuge for the mass of mankind to be found in pure deism, unaccompanied by any specific evidence of a future state.
26. Under these circumstances should Spiritualism afford such a refuge to those who are utterly dissatisfied with the evidence of the truth of scriptural revelation, it will certainly be a blessing to them; and those who have heretofore found this essential comfort in one way, ought not to object should their neighbours find it in another way.
27. An effort has been made to throw ridicule on spiritual manifestations, on account of phenomena being effected by means of tables and other movable furniture; but it should be recollected that, when movements were to be effected, resort to movable bodies was inevitable; and as generally the proximity of media, if not the contact, was necessary to facilitate the movements, there was no body so accessible as tables. But these violent mechanical manifestations were always merely to draw attention; just as a person will knock, or even kick, violently at a front door, until some one looks out of a window to communicate with him. The more violent manifestations ceased both at Hydesville, at Rochester, and at Stratford in Connecticut, as soon as the alphabetic mode of communicating was employed. I never have had any to take place during my intercourse with my spirit-friends, unless as tests for unbelievers, when intellectual communications could not be made. It is more than fifteen months since I have resorted to instruments which have nothing in common with tables. Of these instruments, engravings and descriptions will be found in this work.
28. But is it not a great error to consider our tables as less sacred than our firesides? Could any appeal more thoroughly vibrate to the heart of civilized man than that of any invasion of his rights which should render his fireside liable to intrusion? Hence, in the Latin motto, “Pro aris et focis,” the inviolability of the fireside is placed side by side with freedom of conscience. But, with the passing away of winter, the interest in the fireside declines: ’tis changeable as the temperature of air. It loses all its force in the tropics; but, throughout Christendom, the table still draws about it the inmates of every human dwelling, at all seasons, and in every kind of weather. Even when not excited by hunger, we value the social meeting which takes place around it.
29. At tables, moreover, conferences are held, contracts and deeds signed, and decrees, statute-laws, and ordinances are written. Treaties, also, are made at tables, on which not the fate of individuals merely, but of nations, depends.
30. Is the renown of the “knights of the round table” tarnished by their being only known in connection with the word in question? Is any director or trustee ashamed of being, with his colleagues, designated as a “board?”—a humble synonym for table.
31. It was at a table the Declaration of Independence was signed; and in Trumbull’s picture of its presentation to Congress a table is made to occupy a conspicuous position. Our tables should be at least as much objects of our regard as the vicinity of our fireplace.