The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-01-25

In former age logicians tried to prove
that man after death became spirit Now
they are endeavoring to demonstrate that
spirits become men. Death, therefore, is
rule that works both ways. First it strips
the soul of this fabby overcoat we call the
flesh; then it permits the spirit to manufac.
ture temporary suit of bones out of air.
This process is termed naturalization. The
noun is new, but like the shoddy aristocracy,
has wriggled and elbowed until its presence
is acknowledged. By its virtue the spirits of
the departed make themselves visible bit at
time. Thus Benjamin Franklin reappears
in instalments, Socrates visits us in detached
pieces, Lord Byron materializes in chunks
and segments. Our spirit friends, instead of
coming back to us whole, are peppered with
blotches OF nothingness. We have heard OF
people dying by inches, but those who are
dead now come back to us in that manner.
Altogether this process of naturalization is
not SO satisfactory as could be wished.
When we rush to embrace the resurrected
friend of our youth we find, to ouI
dismay, he is half corpse, half cloud. He il
glad, frank, ingenious air he wore when in
the flesh. He has hankering for chains and
darkness and penchant tor dingy cabinets.
He shows his affection for mediums by putting
iron rings around their necks. He rings bells
and strums guitars. He is eccentric in his
logic, and when we ask him for proofs of i'm.
mortality hands US O tumblerful of sweet
lot;o 90 r,t,, IL:
limited to the declaration that he is happy in
the angel world. If it is female friend she
is exasperatngly misty and taciturn and
adopts flowing sleeves and not very flowing
language.
We have no wish to initiate the vitupera-
ton some journals like to use when handling
this subject. We prefer to base our argu-
ments on stronger premises than those which
consist in calling this opponent fool and
that one an ass. But were we to grant that
the modern medium demonstrated the immor-
tally Of the soul we should still DO obliged ia
insist that he did not make the immortality
he proved seem very enviable True the
happy spirits who cluster around mediums
appear to be countless. The majority of men
and women in tho flesh who have attended
spiritual stances will bear witness that few o,
no ghosts acknowledge to being in uncom-
Portable quarters. The uniform testimony,
delivered with suspicious sameness of syn.
tax, is that the spirits with whom the medium
happens ct the moment to be en- rapport are
''happy to meet you at this time and shake
hands with you across the table" Now, hap
piness is good thing, and it would be pleas.
ant to every right-feeling man to know thai
even his departed enemies were having a much
better time than his inventory of their deserts
led him to predict. What we complain Of il
the average unprogressiveness of the spirits
whom the modern medium invokes. Socrates
tells us nothing new. Plato, for all practical
purposes, might as well keep dumb. Theo
dore Parker doesn't pray or preach as we'll a.
he did on earth. Edgar Allan Poe was Bet
ter poet here than he is there. Napoleon
dwindles from great practical genius into
sentimentalist. Aaron Burr becomes weakly
pious and pulingly ddactic. The soul seems
to lose its grit when once the flesh is lifted off,
This is all wrong 1t is better to have the
hope of an ideal immortality never proved
than q demonstrated future with the stiffness
taken out. We belitte the after life when We
level it with the present