The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-05-04
NUMBER As.


future world have but little strength left to
bear the hard raps of this world. 1t is an
awful thing to trifie with ones nervous
system. 1t Is so delicate-it is 50 far reach
ir its arrangements are so terrible. Get
the nervous system a jangle, and so far as
your body and soul are concerned, 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 ex-
pertinent 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 to the man whose nerves
are shatteredl Spiritualism smites first of
all, and nightly, against the nervous system,
and SO makes life miserable
/ indict Spiritualism also, because it is a
social and marital curse. The worst deeds of
licentiousness and the worst orgies Of obscen-
ity 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 outrage. Families innu-
merable have been broken up by it. 1t has
pushed off hundreds of young women into a
life of profiigacy. 1t talks about elective
spiritual Matches" and adopts the whole
public journals it declares marriage is the
monster curse of civilization" st is q
source of debauchery and intemperance" If
Spiritualism could have its full swing, it
would turn this world into a pandemonium
of carnality. 1t is an unclean, 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
l 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 rap of annihilatioD!
1 further indict Spiritualism for the fact
that it is the cause of much insanity. There is
not an asylum between Bangor and San
Francisco which has not the torn and bleed
ing victims of this delusion. Go into any
asylum, care not where it is, and the pre-
siding doctor, after you have asked him:
"What is the matter with that manT' will
say: "Spiritualism demented him." or,
"What is the matter with that womanln he
will say: "Spiritualism demented herr 1t
has taken down some of the brightest intel
Judges, senator's, governors, ministers of the
Gospel, and one time came near capturing
one of the presidents of the United States.
At Flushing, near this city, a man became
absorbed with it, forsook his family, took his
only s15, 900, surrendered them to spiritual
medium in New York, attempted three times
to put an end to his own life, and then was
incarcerated in the State Lunatic asylum,
ybar ha ic fpla win DIT
your hand in the hand of this
witch of En-dor and she will lead
you to bottomless perdition, where she
holds her everlasting seance Many years
ago the steamer Atlantic started from Europe
for the United States. Getting midocean the
machinery broke and she foundered around
day after day and week after week, and for
a whole month after she was due people won
dered and finally gave her up There was
great anguish 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 and injured as to
the fate of that vessel. The mediums called
up the spirits, and the rappings on the table
indicated the steamship lost, with all on
board. Women went raving mad. and were
carried to the lunatic asylum. After awhile
one day gun was heard off quarantine.
The flags went up on the shipping, and the
bells of the churches were rung. The boys
ran through the streets, crying: "Extral
The Atlantic is safel" There was the en-
bracing as from the dead, when friends came
again to friends; but some of those passen-
gers went up to find their wives in
the lunatic asylum, where this cheat of in
fernal 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: "Spiritualism demanded it." IL is
the patronizer and forager for the madhouse.
Judge Edmonds, in Broadway tabernacle,
New York, delivering a lecture in behalf of
Spiritualism, admitted, in so many words:
'There is fascination about consultation
with the spirits of the dead that has ten
dency to lead people off from their right
Judgment, and to instill into them fanati-
cism that is revolving to the natural mind"
1t not only ruins its disciples, but it ruins
the mediums also, only give it time The
Gadaraean swine, IN the banks of the lake
of Galilee, no sooner became spiritual me
diums than down they went, in an avalanche
of pork, to the CONSERVATION of all the herds
men. The office of a medium is bad for O
man, bad for a woman, bad for a beast.
bring against this delusion more fearful
indictment: 1t ruins the soul immortal.
First it makes man a quarter of an infidel;
then it makes him half an infidel; then it
makes him whole infidel. The whole system,
as I conceive it, is founded on the insufficiency
of the word of God as a revelation. God
says the Bible is enough fer you to know
about the future world. You say it is not
enough, and there is where you and the Lord
differ. You clear the table, you shove aside
the Bible, you put your hand on the table,
and say: Snow let spirits Of the future
world come and tell me something the Bible
has not told me-" And although the
Scriptures say, add thou not unto his
words lest he reprove thee, and thou be
found a liar" you risk it, and say: "Come
back, spirit of my, departed father; come
back, spirit of my departed mother, of my
companions, of my little child, and Tell me
some things 1 don't know about you and
about the unseen world" If God is ever
slapped square in the face, it is when spir-
itual medium puts down her hand on the
table, invoking spirits departed to make
revelation God has told you all you ought
to know, and how dare you be prying into
that which is none of your business. You
cannot keep the Bible in one hand and Spirit
ualism in the other. One or the other will
slip out of your grasp, depend upon it.
Spiritualism is adverse to the Bible in the
fact that it has in these last days called from
the future world Christian men to testify
against Christianity. Its mediums call back
Lorenzo Dow, the celebrated evangelist, and
Lorenzo Dow testifies that Christians are
idolators. Spiritualism calls back Tom Payne,
and he testifies that he is stopping in the
same house in heaven with John Bunyan
They call back John Wesley, and he testifies
against the Christian religion, which he all
his life gloriously preached. Andrew jackson
Davis, the greatest Of all the Spiritualists,
comes to the front and declares that the New
Testament is but 'the dismal echo of a bar
barrie age" and the Bible only Zone of the
pen and ink relics of Christianity" They
attempt to substitute the writings of Sweden
borg and Andrew Jackson Davis and other
religious balderdash in the place of this old
Bible. have in my house book which was
used in this very city i'm the public service
of Spirituaiists. 1t is well worn with mucl
service. / open that book, and it says:
''What is our baptisms Answer: Frequent
additions of water What is our inspiration!
Plenty of fresh air and sunlight. What is
our prayers Abundant physical exercise.
What is our love feast! A clear conscience
and sound sleep" And / find from the same
book that the chief item in their public wor-
ship is gymnastic exercise, and that when
ever they want to rouse up their souls to
a very high pitch of devotion they sing,
page 65: "The night has gathered up her
moonlit fringes;" or page 10: "Come to
the woods, heighop You say you are not
such fool as that; but you will be If you
keep on in the track you have started.
But" says some one, wouldn't it be of
advantage to hear from the future world!
DON'T Won think IL would STRENGTHEN Chris