ed that theory to practice, or attempted
to do so, would have a right to conclude against the experience of
him who did. But it is obvious that the question affects the theory
itself, and especially the consciousness of those terms of possible
communion with God, those relations of the soul to him, on the
reception of which all the said spiritual experience must depend.

How, then, stands the argument? I ask how I shall know the intimation
of the spiritual faculty, which renders all "external revelation" an
impertinence? I am told, with delicious vagueness, that I must gaze on
the phenomena of spiritual consciousness; I say I exercise earnest and
sincere self-scrutiny, and that I can discern nothing but shadowy forms,
most of which do not answer to those which these new spiritualists
describe; and then Mr. Newman turns round and says, that the unspiritual
nature cannot discern them! What is this but to give up the only
question of any importance to humanity,--which is not what are Mr.
Newman's spiritual phenomena; if they are known to himself, it is
well; he has been very long in discovering them, in spite of the
clearness of the internal revelation;--but what are those of man? In
the former be all, Mr. Newman is safe indeed; he is intrenched in his
own peculiar consciousness, of which I am quite willing to admit
that all other men (as well as I) are inadequate judges. But the
monograph of a solitary enthusiast is of the least possible consequence
to humanity. For reasons similar to those which render us
incompetent to pronounce on his experience, he is incapable of judging
of ours. There is only one other answer that I know of, and that is
the answer which Fellowes made to me the other day, when you were not
by:--"O, but you have the same spiritual consciousness as I have,
only you are not aware of it?" I contented myself with saying, that
I was just as able to comprehend a perception which is not perceived,
as a consciousness which when sought was not to be found. The question
is one of consciousness; you say you have it, I do not deny it; I have
it not. Now, if we are not disputing as to whether it be a
characteristic of humanity, it little matters: if we are, I plainly
have the best of it, because want of uniformity in the phenomenon
is destructive of the hypothesis.

But I proceed to ask my second question. Is the "absolute religion"
of Mr. Parker, or the "spiritual faculty" of Mr. Newman, of such
singular use as