rits of the departed, or that the time is
approaching when living men and the souls of the physically dead, are
to meet, as it were, face to face, and know each other as they are. It
is one which I can, and do reject, but cannot ridicule. The world,
however, regards it differently. And yet with all the contempt and
derision that has been poured upon this singular delusion, its
devotees have multiplied beyond all precedent in the history of the
world. They number, it is said, in this country alone, millions, and
have some forty or more newspapers in the exclusive advocacy of
their theory."

"The wise people of this world," said Spalding, "that is, those who
are wise in their day and generation, laugh at the believers in this
modern theory of Spiritualism. They pity them, too, as the unhappy
devotees of a faith which sober reason and all the experience of the
past prove to be as unsubstantial as the moonbeams that dance upon the
waters at midnight. Still these same devotees point to the
demonstrations of what they regard as living facts, phenomena palpable
to the senses, things that appeal to the eye, the ear, and the touch,
and say that these are higher proofs than all the dogmas of
philosophy, all the observation and experience of former times, all
the logic of the past. And here is the issue between Spiritualism and
the mass of mankind who deride and condemn it.

"Now, be it known to you, that I am no Spiritualist. I reject not all
the evidences of the phenomena upon which it is based, but I utterly
deny that such phenomena are the works of disembodied spirits. I
myself have seen what utterly confounded me, and while I reject all
idea of supernatural agencies, all interposition of departed spirits,
yet I have become thoroughly satisfied that there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. These
phenomena of which the Spiritualists speak, I will not undertake to
pronounce all lies. Some of them are doubtless impostures--the work of
knaves, who speculate upon the credulity and superstitions which are
attributes of the human mind; but they are not all such. But while I
admit their reality, I insist that such as are so, are the results of
natural laws, which will one day be discovered, and which will turn
out to be as simple as the spirit which presides over the telegraph,
or that which constitutes the life of a steam engine. There may be,
and probably is, a great undiscovered principle w