Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-05-11

found to have had bottle of phosnhorit
oil, by the light Of which anybody can read
book; and ventriloquism, and leperde
main, and sleight of hand. and optical de
fusion, account for nearly everything. De.
ception being the main staple of Spiritual.
ism, no wonder it chooses the darkness,
You have all seen strange and unac.
countable things in the night. Almost
every man has at some time had touch
of hallucination. Some time ago, after ]
had been over tempted to eat sometime
retiring [ saw the president Of one of the
prominent colleges astride the foot of my
bed. while he demanded of me a loan Of
five cents When l awakened I had no
idea il was anything supernatural. And
I have to advise you, if you hear and see
strange thing at nights, to stop eating hot
mince pie and take dose of bilious med
icine. 1t is an outraged physical organism,
enough to deceive the very elect after sum
down and does nearly all its work in the
night. The witch of En-dor held her
Away with this religion OF spooks!
Still further learn from my text that
Spiritualism is doom and death to its dis
ciples. King Saul thought that he would
get help from the "medium;" but the first
thing that he sees makes him swoon away,
and no sooner is he resuscitated than he
is told he must die. Spiritualism is doom
and death to every one that yields to it.
!, It ruins the body. Look in upon an audi
.ence of Spiritualists. Cadaverous. Weak.
Nervous. Exhausted. Hands clammy
and cold. Nothing prespers but long hair
soft marshes yielding rank grass. Spirit
ualism destroys the physical health. It's
disciples nre ever hearing startling news
from the other world. Strange beings
crossing the room in white. Table tidgety,
wanting to get its feet loose Us if to dance.
Voices sepuichral and ominous. Devil.
dered with raps. never knew confirmed
1 Spiritualist who had healthy nervous
system. 1t is incipient epilepsy :i1d cata-
lepsy. Destroy your nervous system and
you might as we'll be dead. Have noticed
that people who are hearing raps from the
future world have but little strength left
to bear the hard raps of this world. It is
an awful thing to trihe with ones nervous
system. 1t is so delicate-it is SO far reach.
ing-its arrangements are so terrible. Get
the nervous system jangle, and SO far as
your body and soul are concerned, the
whole universe is a jangle. Better in our
ignorance experiment with chemists re-
tort that may smite us dead, or with an en-
gineer's steam boiler that may blow us to
atoms, than experiment with the nervous
system. A man can live with only one lung
or with no eyes, and be happy, as men
have been under such Affections; but woe
be to the man whose nerves are shattered.
Spiritualism smites first of all, and might
lily, against the nervous system, and so
makes life miserable.
| indict Spiritualism also, because it is
a social and marital curse. The worst
deeds of RIGHTEOUSNESS and the worst or.
gies of obscenitv have been enacted under
its patronage. The story is too vile for
me to tell. I will not pollute my tongue
nor your ears with the recital. Sometimes
the civil law has been evoked to stop the
broken up by it. 1t has pushed off hun
dreds of young women into life of prof
ligacy. 1t talks about elective afiinities"
and "affinital relations" and Spiritual
matches" and adopts the whole vocabu-
larry of free loveism. In one of its public
journals it declares "marriage as the NOM
ster curse of civilization" sit is source of
debauchery and intemperance." If Spirit
ualism could have its full swing, it would
turn this world into pandemonium Of
carnality. It is an unclean, adulterous,
damnable religion, and the sooner it drops
into the hell from which it rose, the bet
sake of mans honor and woman's purity,
say let the last vastige of it perish for
ever. wish could gather up all the raps
it has ever heard from spirits blest or
damned. and gather them all on its own
head in one laundering annihilation!
I further indict Spiritualism for the fact
that it is the cause of mach insanity.
There is not an asylum between Bangor
and San Francisco which has not the torn
and bleeding victims OF this delusion. Go
into any asylum, care not where it is,
and the presiding doctor, after YOU have
asked him: What is the mattes with that
MANI" will say: "Sriri!ualism demented
him; or "What is the matter wito that wo-
MANI" he will say: "Spirituslism de-
| mented her." 1t has taken down some of
the brightest intellects. 1t swept off into
mental midnight judges, senators. govern
ers, ministers of the Gospel, and enc time
came near captaring ose of the Presidents
of the United States. At Flushing, near
this city, man became absorbed with it,
forsook his family. tooa his only Sis, 900,
surrendered them TO a spiritual medaum in
New York, attempted three times to, put an
end 10 his own life, and then was inearcer-
uted i'll the State lunatic asylum, where he
is to-day a raving mamie. Put your hand
| in the hand of this witca, of En-do,, and
[ she will leaAy you to lottomless perelition,
where she holds her everlasting saance.
Many years ago the steamer Atlantic
started FROM Europe to tae United States.
! Getting in mid ocean, her machinery
( broke, and she hounderea around day after
day, ard week after week, and for whole
month aftey-ehe was duerpeople wondered,
and finally gave her up. There wass great
anguish in tie cities, for there were many
who had friends aboard saat vessel. Some
Of the women, in their distress, woaat to
She spiritual mediums. and inouired' as to
she fate OF that vessea The medium
called up the spirits, and the rappirgs on
the table indicated tbs steamship lost,
with all on board. Women went raying
mad, and wore carried tcsthe lunat:0 asy-
lum. After awhile one day gym was
heard off quarantine. GIhe flags Wsnt up
on the shipping. and she bells of the
churches wage rung. TIE boys ran Though
the streets, crying: Extra! The Atlantic
is safe~ There was the embraeing as
from the Goad when friends came again to
friends; but some of thsse passengers went
up to ind their wives IN the lunlaie asy-
lum. whene this cheat of infernsS Spirit
ualism had put them. A man in Bellevue
Hospital. dying from wounds maze by his
own handl was asked. why he tried to COM
/ mil anici,1a and he sajd. U.rha s,ir;to told