Spiritualism, through the brave advocacy of heroic men and women, is at last becoming credible; more toleration is now shown for its claims. Phenomena once considered trivial now receive attention. Many are awakening to the new thought, and becoming better able to read the mystery of their past lives through what it teaches. The influence of a noted journalist like Mr. Stead is sure to keep the flame alight, and divert the thought of those who want rest on this most important of all problems that concern us. Thanks to such men as Wallace, Crookes, Stainton Moses, Taylor, and others, who have collected and verified facts so patiently, and demonstrated so surely that our dead live on, and take an affectionate interest in our goings out and comings in.
MISCELLANEA.
By Andrew Glendinning.
“Wherever a road opens, and I am moved to examine and experiment, there I shall most surely go.”—Rev. George W. Allen.
Either the discoveries made by Mumler, Stainton Moses, Beattie and others, have now been confirmed, or a very eminent man, specially trained in rigid investigation, and an acknowledged expert in optics and the chemistry and manipulation of photography, has been the victim of a marvellous and inexplicable delusion.
To say that, notwithstanding all the precautions arranged, and carefully carried out by Mr. Taylor, he was time after time deceived, is to make a statement entirely opposed to probability and common sense, yet that is the false refuge to which some fly from whom better things might be expected. It exhibits strongly the credulity of incredulity, and an ability to strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. To print insinuations against the characters of those who investigate new and important facts, and to air the superior wisdom of the critics in what are apparently intended as witticisms, may serve the purpose of a day, but truth remains unsoiled and unassailable.
When George Cruikshank was preparing his pictorial brochure against Spiritualism, he was asked what he knew of the subject; he replied he knew nothing, and did not intend to inform himself till he had finished his book. That is the position of many in regard to spirit photography; the less they know about it, the more they feel qualified to judge; and a man who, for the first time, deigns to consider it, will, with the utmost confidence in his own opinion, condemn as fraudulent a genuine spirit photograph; yea, he will even profess to discover the mark of the scissors and the grain of the paper from which he imagines the photograph has been cut and copied.