Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1857-10-01
Spirit Rappings.

We have had a travelling spirit rapping me.
dunn, in our city during the past week. Mrs.
CoAN. We attended the first evening, without
however, seeing anything to convince us of the
truth of the spiritual theory. The raps were
prompt and distinct, and evidently not produced
by any jugglery or physical agenoy, but we DO
not believe that the conclusion follows, that ergo
tmust be done by spirits We have witnes, ed
all and much more than we heard or saw the
other evening except the raps, hundred times
through the agency of mesmerism, mental cleo
tricity, clairvoyance, &c, without dreaming
that it was necessary to call in the spiritual the
CRY 10 account for it. But that matters not
We have no desire to combat the belief of those
who choose to think their departed relatives
have no better occupation in the spirit world
than to follow around a strolling medium and
make feeble raps upon table for the miserable
pittance oils cents head. For ourselves we
have an entire different conception of the spirit
world
Appropriate to the present occasion is the fol-
lowing from one who has expressed our views
much better than we could hope to.
MkS. STOW ON SPIKITUALiSM.-In the IN
dependent of last week, Harriet Beecher Stowe
thus expresses her sentiments upon warmly.
controverted subject;
Nothing about the doom of death is so dread
full as this dead, infexible silence Could there
be, after the passage of the river, one backward
signal, one last word, the heart would be ap-
peased There is always something left unsaid,
even when death has come deliberately and
given full warning. How much more when it
hos fat ilxp ba iunf tla balo
has been wrenched from life without parting
look or word" There are those who would
have us think that in day there are means
which have the power TO restore us to the COM
mnnion of our lost ones. How many q heart
wrung and tortured with the anguish of this
fearful silence, has throbbcd with strange
vague hopes at the suggestion. When We
hear, sometimes, of persons of the strongest
and clearest minds becoming credulous votaries
of certain spiritualistic circles, let us not won
der. If we inquire we shall almost always
find that the belief has followed some stroke of
death it is only an indication 'of the despera-
ton of that heart hunger which in part ap.
peases. All, acre it true! were it indeed so
that the wall between the spiritual and material
is growing thin, and new dispensation germ
mating, in which communion with the departed
blest shall be among the privileges and posi-
bilities of this our mortal statel All were it so
that when we go forth weeping in the grey
dawn, bearing spices and odors which we long
to pour forth for the beloved dead, we should
indeed find the stone rolled away, and an angel
sitting on it! But for us, the stone must be
rolled away by an unquestionable angel, whose
countenance is as the lightning, who executes
no doubtful juggle by pale moonlight or star.
light, but rolls back the stone in fair and open
morning, and sits on it. Then we could bless
God for his mighty gift, and with love- and awe
and reverence, take up that blessed fellowship
with another life, and weave it reverently and
trustingly into the web Of our daily course
But no such angel have we seen. No such sub
lime, unquestionable, glorious manifestation.
And when we look at what is offered us-ah.
who that had friend in heaven could wish
them to return in such wise as thisl The very
instinct of sacred sorrow seems to forbid that
our beautiful, or glorified ones, should stoop
lower than even to the medium of their cast-off
bodies to Juggie, and rap, and squeak and per-
form mountebank tricks with tables and chairs
TO recite over IN weary sameness harmless tru-
isms which we were wise enough to say for our
selves to triile, and banter and Jest, or to lead
US through endless noonshiny mazes; sadly
and sobery say, that if this be communion
with the dead, we had rather be without it,
We want something little in advance of our
present life, and not below it. We have read
with some attention, weary pages of spiritual
communication protesting to come from Bacon
Swedenborg, and others, and long accounts
from divers spirits of ,thngs seen in the spirit.
land and we can conceive OF no more appalling
prospect than to have them true. If the future
Life is so weary, stale, fiat and improbable, as
we might infer from these readings one would
have reason TO deplore an Immortality from
which no suicide could have an outlet. To be
condemned to such eternal pressing would be
worse than humiliation