The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-09-10
Modern sp1rltIsm..


Notwithstanding the decay of religious
| faith which has been SO perceptible since
since the beginning of our century, two
great beliefs have survived the general
| theological wreck Though the time
bonored creeds and catechisms, ssConfes-
sions of Faith" and Bodies of Divinity
so revered in the days of our grand
fathers, are covered with the dust of
oblivion, and are regarded as belonging
| to the curiosities of a past era of thought
that has vanished forever, these two
| great doctrines of an overruling Provi
dence, and of mans personal immor-
| tality, still retain powerful held upon
| though in its general spirit and ten
dency unfriendly to these ideas, is
| powerless to destroy them, since 1t can
never demonstrate their negatives, what
| ever may be the force of its analogies or
| the improbabilities it may suggest. The
order of the material universe, with it's
vast systems of worlds, the great harmo-
nies of nature, the wonderful phenomena
| of life in all its gradations from plant to
man, irresistibly suggest the idea of an
underlying design and intelligence. The
| consistent and uniform operation of in
| flexible laws in the world of moral action,
| the certainty with which retribution fol-
lows wrong in the affairs of individuals,
| families, communities and nations, as
| inevitably suggest the idea of moral
governor. The other belief, the hope of
| mode of individual existence afterphy-
sical dissolution. is less easy to hold with
| out disturbing doubts. When we strew
with flowers the corpses of our dead,
and adorn their tombs with garlands, we
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ourselves, and striving to disguise the
| forbidding features of repulsive reality
| in an alien atmosphere of beauty and
hope. The earthly brow and rigid linea-
| ments seem like solemn mockery of the
| freshness and bloom and perfume of
| flowers. 1t is hard indeed for the fond
est or the firmest faith to contemplate
| the cold clay once instinct with life and
intellect without faltering in the belief
| that any spark of vitality survives.
Yet there are probably million of in
telligent and cultivated people in Eng
land and the United States who hold
| firmly to the belief that death is but the
portal to higher and ampler mode of
existence, and who hold this, not upon
theological grounds, or as doctrine
of revealed religion, but as a fact
susceptible of the same kind of rational
proof that can be adduced in support of
any accepted truth. In this city there
are many hundreds of persons of unim-
| peachable character who claim to have
had occular proof that the spirits of the
dead survive and have the power, under
certain conditions, of returning from the
| land of shades and communicating with
| the living. A multitude of witnesses
solemnly declare that they have again
heard the sound of remembered voices
after they were supposed to have been
forever hushed; that they have actually
| known ssthe touch of the vanished hand
| and gazed face to face into eyes
| long sealed in death. The belief
in existence beyond the grave,
| when it rests upon a religious
| basis, is often rudely shaken when the
mourner finds his intense yearnings for
ga sign' from the beloved one denied.
| Wordsworth, in his exquisite poem,
| 'sThe Affection of Margaret" has de-
scribed the skepticism sometimes engen-
dered even in pious breasts when the
earnest cry, "give me sign," meets
| with no response:
,Tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
For surely then I should have sight
o. him wait for day and night
But how can he doubt who is per-
suaded that he has seen the well known
form and held familiar converse with the
departed on subjects of which few others
had any knowledge? And those who are
thus persuaded, who claim this kind of
personal experience, are numbered in
even SO materialistic a community as
this by the thousands. There are
among them men and women of more
than ordinary intelligence and acquire
ments, many of them as sincere as the
main character in Mr.. Howells' recent
remarkable story, sThe Undiscovered
Country" With the professional inn
4 posters who figure before the public as
mediums" the community is tolerably
familiar. The genuine enthusiast, who
is bewildered by the "phenomena" he
has Witnessed, or supposed he has wit
MESSED, does not often appear in the
role of professional who offers his or
her services for money. as medium of
communication between the living and
/ the dead Yet it would be harsh and
/ wholesale judgment to denounce the en-
tire class of professional mediums as
conscious impostors. Meantime modern
spiritism would seem to have passed its
eliminating point and to be now on the
| decline, both in Great Britain and the
United States.-tS. r. Chronicle.
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