P. If religious teachers will but study these facts, simply as facts, in all the different aspects which they have presented, from their first appearance up to this time—study them in the same spirit in which the chemist studies affinities, equivalents, and isomeric compounds—in the same spirit in which the astronomer observes planets, suns, and nebulæ—in the same spirit in which the microscopist studies monads, blood-discs, and protoplasm—always hospitable to a new fact, always willing to give up an old error for the sake of a new truth; never receiving the mere dicta either of spirits or men as absolute authority, but always trusting the guidance of right reason wherever she may lead—if, I say, they will but study these great latter-day signs, providential warnings and monitions, in this spirit, I promise them that they shall soon find a rational and scientific ground on which to rest every real Christian doctrine, from the Incarnation to the crown of glory—miracles, the regeneration, the resurrection, and all, with the great advantage of having the doctrine of immortality taken out of the sphere of faith and made a fixed fact. Furthermore, I promise them, on those conditions, that they shall hereafter be able to lead science rather than be dragged along unwillingly in its trail; and then science will be forever enrolled in the service of God’s religion, and no longer in that of the world’s materialism and infidelity.
I. Planchette, your communication has, upon the whole, been of a most startling character; tell me, I pray you, what do you call all this thing, and what is to come of it?
WHAT THIS MODERN DEVELOPMENT IS, AND WHAT IS TO COME OF IT.
P. Can you, then, bear an announcement still more startling than any I have yet made?
I. I really know not; I will try; let us have it.
P. Well, then, I call it a Fourth Great Divine Epiphany or Manifestation; or what you will perhaps better understand as one of the developments characterizing the beginning of a Fourth Great Divine Dispensation. What is to come of it, you will be able to judge as well as I when you understand its nature.
I. What! so great an event heralded by so questionable an instrumentality as the rapping and table tipping spirits?
P. Be calm, and at the same time be humble. Remember that it is not unusual for God to employ the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and that when He comes to visit His people, He almost always comes in disguises, and sometimes even “as a thief in the night.” Besides the spirits of which you speak are only the rough but very useful pioneers to open a highway through which the King is coming with innumerable hosts of angels, who, indeed, are already near you, though you see them not. It is, indeed, an hour of temptation that has come upon all the world; but be watchful and true, prayerful and faithful, and fear not.
I. Please tell us then, if you can, something of the nature and objects of this new Divine Epiphany which you announce; and as you say it is a Fourth, please tell us, in brief, what were the preceding Three, the times of their occurrence, and how they are all distinguished from each other.