be presented to show that this is a Bible
doctrine; and wherever this is received, the fabric of Spiritualism from
base to finial falls; it cannot possibly stand. But where the doctrine
prevails that only the thin veil that limits our mortal vision, separates
us from a world full of the conscious, intelligent spirits of those who
have departed this life, Spiritualism has the field, beyond the
possibility of dislodgment. When one believes that he has disembodied
spirit friends all about him, how can he question that they are able to
communicate with him? and when some unseen intelligence makes its presence
known, and claims to be one of those friends, and refers to facts or
scenes, known only to them two, how can the living dispute the claim? How
can he refuse to accept a claim, which, on his own hypothesis, there is no
conceivable reason to deny? But if the spirits are not what they claim to
be, how shall the inexplicable phenomena attending their manifestations be
explained?--The Bible brings to view other agencies, not the so-called
spirits of the departed, to whose working all that has ever been
manifested which to mortal vision is mysterious and inexplicable, may be
justly attributed.

The Soul Not Immortal.

Spiritualism declares it to be the great object of its mission, to prove
the immortality of the soul, which, it says, is not taught in the
Scriptures with sufficient clearness, and is not otherwise demonstrated.
It well attributes to the Scriptures a lack of plain teaching in support
of that dogma; and it would have stated more truth, if it had said that
the Scriptures nowhere countenance such a doctrine at all. But, it is
said, the Scriptures are full of the terms, "soul" and "spirit." Very
true; but they nowhere use those terms to designate such a part of man as
in common parlance, and in popular theology, they have come to mean. The
fact is, the popular concept of the "soul" and "spirit" has been
formulated entirely outside the Bible. Sedulously, unremittingly, for six
thousand years, the idea has been inculcated in the minds of men, from the
cradle to the grave, that man is a dual being, consisting of an outward
body which dies, and an inward being called "soul," or "spirit," which
does not die, but passes to higher spirit life, when the body goes into
the grave. The father of this doctrine is rarely referred to by its
believers, as authority, possibly through a little feeling of
embarrassment as