book-revelation was impossible."

"But, my ingenious friend." cried Fellowes, with some warmth, "you are
inferring a little too fast for the premises. I do not admit that
Mr. Newman or any other spiritualist has revealed to me any truth,
but only that he has been the instrument of giving shape and distinct
consciousness to what was, in fact, uttered in the secret oracles of
my own bosom before; and, as I believe, is uttered also in the hearts
of all other men."

"I fear your distinction is practically without a difference. It will
certainly not avail us. You say you were once in no distinct conscious
possession of that system of spiritual truth which you now hold; on
the contrary, that you believed a very different system; that the
change by which you were brought into your present condition of mind
--out of darkness into light--out of error into truth--has been produced
chiefly by Mr. Newman's deeply instructive volumes. If so, one will be
apt to argue that a book-revelation may be of the very utmost use and
benefit to mankind in general,--if only by making that which would else
be inarticulate mutter of the internal oracle distinct and clear; and
that if God would but give such a book, the same value at least might
attach to it as to a book of Mr. Newman's. It little matters to this
argument, the question of the possibility, value, or utility of an
external revelation,--whether the truths it is to communicate be
absolutely unknown till it reveals them only not known, which you
confess was your own case. If your natural taper of illumination is
stuck into a dark lantern, and its light only can flash upon the
soul when some Mr. Newman kindly lifts up the slide for you; or if
your internal oracle, like a ghost, will not speak till it is spoken
to; or, like a dumb demon, awaits to find a voice, and confess
itself to be what it is at the summons of an exorcist;--the same
argument precisely will apply for the possibility and utility of a
revelation from God to men in general. What has been done for you by
man, even though no more were done, might, one would imagine, be done
for the rest of mankind, and in a much better manner, by God. If that
internal and native revelation which both you and Mr. Newman say has
its seat in the human soul, be clear without his aid, why did he
write a syllable about it? If, as you say, its utterances were not
recognized, and that his statements have first made them familiar to
you, the same