Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/48

40 and then well up from the overcharged spirit to thrill us with horror?

My "spiritual" investigations were not confined to the history of the unhappy Avery. My purpose was to learn something of the "undiscovered country" from whose bourne such travellers do return; but it is not within the scope or design of this paper to make a statement of the "truths" announced to me by the spirits. Indeed, such a statement would require a volume, not an article; for the doctrines of Spiritualism are as numerous, diverse and contradictory as those of all other theologies put together. In fact, they are the doctrines of all other theologies—Pagan, Mohammedan, Jewish and Christian—that have appeared in the world, and consequently no intelligible and consistent system can be founded upon them.

I cannot think that Spiritualism is intended to be a revelation of religious truth. It is simply an opening of the door between this life and the other; and through this open door we may catch glimpses of the future state of immortal man; but we may not take spirits as our religious guides, for they, like us, are but men—a little older, it may be, than we are, and a little higher in the scale of existence, but still men—weak, deluded, imperfect, and often wicked, and knowing no more of God or of the great truths of our faith than are taught to us in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The conclusions to which I have arrived after four years of careful investigation are, that Spiritualism is a great fact, not a philosophy; and that it should be made a science, not a religion.

Let the man who is assured of his immortality "go to the law and to the testimony" (Isaiah, viii., 19, 20), and wait until these facts are digested into a science; but let the one doubtful of a future life investigate if he will, but, as he values his soul, let him investigate only with the Bible in his hand, and always bear in mind that it tells him to "believe not every spirit, but to try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false teachers are gone out into the world."