Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-05-09

have been cut at the side, and then after.
wards slyly put together with gum arabic
and the medium who. with heavy blanket
over his head, could read book, has been
fonnd to have had bottle of phosphoric
oil, by the light of which anybody can read
a book; and ventriloquism, and legerde
main, and sleight of hand, and optical de-
lusion 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 unaccount.
able things in the night. Almost every
man has at some time had a touch of hal.
lucination. Some time ago, after I had
been over tempted to:sat something indigcs.
tible before retiring at night, after retiring
saw the president of one of the prominent
colleges astride the foot of the bed, while
he demanded of me loan of five cents!
When l awakened had no idea it was any
thing supernatural. Aud have to advise
you, if you hear and see strange things at
night, to stop eating hot mincs pie and
take dose of bilious medicine. 1t is an
outraged physical organism, enough to de-
celve the very elect after sundown, and
does nearly all its work in the night. The
witch of En-dor held her seances al night;
so do all the witches. Away with this re-
ligion of spooks.
Still further! I learn from my text that
Spiritualism is doom and death to its disci-
pies. 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 everyone that yields to it. 1t
ruins the body Look in upon an audience
of spiritualists. Cadaverous. Weak.
Nervous. Exhausted. Hands clammy
and cold. Nothing prospers but long hair
soft marshes yielding rank grass. Spirit
ualism destroys the physical health. Its
disciples are ever hearing startling news
from the other world. Strange beings
crossing the room in white. Table fidget-
ty, wanting to get its feet loose as if to
dance. Voices sepulchral and ominous.
Bewildered with raps. I never knew a
confirmed Spiritualist who had healthy
nervous system. 1t is incipient epilepsy
and catalepsy. Destroy your nervous sys-
tenn and you might as we'll be dead. l
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. 1t is an awful thing to triae with
ones nervous system. 1t is 50 delicate-it
is SO far reachiDg-its arrangements are SO
terrible. Get the nervous system a jangle,
and so far as your body and soul are con-
cerned, the whole universe is a-jangle.
Better in our ignorance experiment with
chemists retort that may smite us dead, or
with an engineers 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 shat
tered. Spiritualism smites first of all, and
nightly, against the nervous system, and
SO makes life miserable.
| iDdict Spiritualism also, because it is
social and marital curse. The worst deeds
of licentiousness and the worst orgies of
obsceIity have been enacted under its pat
ronage. The story is too vile for me to
tell. | will not pollute my tongue nor
your ears with the recital. Sometimes the
civil law has been evoked to stop the out
rage Families innuumerable have been
broken up by it. 1t has pushed off hnn-
dreds of young women into life of prOfii-
gacy. It talks about ''elective affinities,"
aud 'saffinital relations" aud spiritual
matches" aud adopts the whole vocabulary
of fres-lovism. Iu one of its public jour-
nails its declares 'sUarriage is the monster
curse of civilization. cit is a source of de-
bauehery and intemperance. If Spiritual
ism could have its full swing, it would turn
this world into pandemOnium of carnali-
ty. 1t is an uncleap, adulterous, damnable
religion, and the sooner it drops into the
hell from which it rose, the better both for
earth and heaven. For the sake of mans
honor and woman's purity, I say let the
last vestige of it perish forever. wish I
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
rap of annihilation
| further indict Spiritualism for the fact
that it is the cause of much instantly.
There is not an asylum between Bangor
and San Francisco which has not the torn
and bleeding victims of this dslusion. Go
into any asylum, care not where it is, and
the presiding doctor, after you have asked
him: sWhat ia the matter with that nan?"
will say: ''Spiritualism demented him." or
"What is the matter with that womap?"
he will say: "Spiritualism demeuted her."
Il has taken down some of the brightest in
tellecss. 1t swept off into mental midnight
Judges, senators, governors, ministers of
the Gospel, and one time came near cap
turing one of the Presidents of the United
States. At Flushing, nsar this city, man
became absorbed with it, forsook his fami-
ly, took his only fifteen thousand dollars,
surrendered them to a spiritual medium in
New York, attempted three times to put an
end to his own life, aud then was incarcer-
ated in the State Lupatic Asylum, where
he is DAY rayiug maniac. Put your
hand in the hand of this witch of En-dor,
and she will lead you to bottomless perdi-
ton, where she holds her everlasting seance.
Many years ago the steamer Atlantic start
ed from Europe for the United States. Get
ting mid ocean the machinery broke, and
she foundered around day after day, and
week after week, and for a whole month
after she was due people wondered, and
finally gave her mp. There was great an
guish in the cities, for there were many
who had friends aboard that vessel. Some
of the women, in their distress, went to the
spiritual mediums, aud inquired as to the
fate of that vessel. The mediums called
up the spirits, and the rappiugs on the
table indicated the steamship lost, with ali
on board. Womsn went having mad and
were carried to the lunatic asylum. After
awhile one day gun was heard off qraran-
tine. The flags went up on the shipping
and the bells of the churches were rung.
The boys ran through the streets crying:
Extra! The Atlantic is safe!' There
was the embracing as from the dead, when
friends came again to friends; but some of
those passengers went up to find their
wives in the lunatic asylum, where this
cheat of Internal Spiritualism had put them.
A man in Bellevue Hospital, dying from
wounds made by his own hand, was asked
why he tried to commit suicide, and he
said: "The spirits told me to-" Parents
have strangled their children, and when
asked why they did it. replied: spiritual.
ism demanded it." It is the patroniser
and forager for the mad-house. Judge
Edmonds, in Broadway Tabernacle, New
York, delivering lecture in behalf of
Spiritualism. admitted, in so many words:
"There is fascination about consultation
with the spirits of the dead that has q ten
dency to lead people off from their right
judgment, and to instil into them fanati.
cism that is revolving to the natural mind" I"
1t not only ruins its disciples, but it ruins
the mediums also, only give it time. The
Gadaraean swine, on the banks of the Lake
of Galilee, no sooner became spiritual me-
diums than down they went, in an ava
lanche of pork, to the CONSERVATION of all
the herdsmeD. The Office of medium is
bad for man, bad for woman, bad for a
beast.
bring against this delusion more fear