THE SPIRITS AND THE TIDE.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1993, 24 September 1869, Page 2

THE SPIRITS AND THE TIDE.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sir—Your correspondent “Spiritualist,” to my mind, appears to be doing a great injustice to the favorite “Ism” of which he is anxious to come forward as a stern defender. Why should it be thought that our friends the spirits, who are ever present and interested in us, should refuse to be enquired of and to minister wholesome counsel in' a matter which is of the most vital consequence to the community at large, of which we form an inseparable portion, seeing that we are perplexed in the extreme for the want of a very small amount of that prescience which they, in their more exalted spheres must possess, if they chose to exercise it for our benefit? It would assuredly afford them a deeper satisfaction, as it would be an inestimable boon to us to be warned up b such good authority of a great calamity, if it is actually going to befal us. What a miserable conception must it not give us of the spirit land and of the love for those near and dear to them whom they have left behind, if they will, in the face of Saxby’s ominous foreboding. rather employ their time conversing about the mort trivial and senseless of things, often ts ling lies, and knocking about pieces of furniture to the alarm of the spectator, than reply to the rational and all-important question whethe • we are to be carried out to sea or not the week after next if we do not previously seek surer quarters on the high grounds. “Spiritualist” must pardon me for saying that as we in our natural condition es'iinate one another to a large extent by our conversation and conduct, we cannot avoid judging of the peculiar type of the unseen agent or spirit who condescends to make his presence known at a seance, by alternately frightening and amusing the spectators, and ever sending them away without satisfaction about any one tiling ; indeed more curious and dis-atis-fied with the disclosures after than before they were made. The phenomenon of spiritual manifestation, so far as they have been yet witnessed, do not, to my way of thinking add anything to our knowledge of futuriy : on the contrary, if these are the characteristics of the new religion—Christ come again, serving to ennoble and dignify the blessed hope of immortality which we aspire to, and to which these spirits we are told have already attained—it is high time that the time-honored system of Christianity established among ns were modified so as to accord with the new phasis of the faith, the which could only be achieved by dissecting the authorised version of scripture and pitching away otic half of it. As every man has an equal right with another to hold an opinion, “Spiritualist” will pardon me for having mine, oven although antagonistic to his, and stating it. It is this, that I can afford to discard his whole system as not only being us less to humanity, hut as being either altogether or to a great extent the result of the heated imagination, and likely to be productive of evil in place of good, as setting aside the plain teaching of Scripture and the plain teachings of common sense. Most people are born iuto the world with an instinctive sense of right and wrong, and most people do possess a guide also born with them, which, if rightly’ - made use of, enables them to detect and disguise an absurdity the instant they Wear it; but while this is the rule, it may fail, and does fail, in its operation in the case of a small—very small—section of the race, whose credulity and inflamed minds overrule their better parts to such an extent that, in many instances, even brilljaqt scholars qn most subjects make themselves believe s qqe palpable absurdities as well as plain facta. Pardon my opinion, Spirituals,—l very much fear you have joined yourself to this small fraternity.—l am, &c., Omega.