Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-02-26

the Foxes, the spiritual mediums of all
ages, have chosen the night or a dark
ened room. Why? The majority of
their wonders have been swindles, and
deception prospers best in the night.
Some of the performances of spir-
itual mediums are not to be ascribed to
fraud, but to some occult law that aft
er awhile may be demon Stated. But
l believe that now nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of every thousand
achievements on the part of spiritual
mediums are arrant and unmitigated
humbug. The mysterious red letters
that used to come out on the medium
arm were found to have been made by
an iron pencil that went heavily over
the flesh, not tearing it, but so disturb
ing the blood that it came up in great
round letters. The witnesses of the
seances have locked the door, put the
key in their pocket, arrested the Op-
orator and found out by searching the
room that hidden levers moved the ia
bles. The sealed letters that were
mysteriOusly read without opening
have been found to have been cut at
the side and then afterWard Slyly put
together with gum arabic, and the me-
dunn who, with a heavy blanket over
his head, could read a book, has been
found to have had a bottle Of phos-
phoric oil, by the light of which any
body can read a book, and ventrilo-
quism and legerdemain and sleight Of
hand and optical de1usiOn account for
nearly everything. Deception being
the main staple Of spiritualism, no
wonder it chooses the darkness!
Doom and Death.
Still further, 1 learn from my text
that spiritualism is doom and death to
it's disciples. King Saul thought that
he would get help from the medium"
but the first that he sees makes him
swoon away, and no sooner is he re-
suscitated than he is told he must, die
Spiritualism is doom and death to ev-
cry one that yields to it. 1t ruins the
body. Look in upon an audience of
spiritualists -cadaverous, weak, nerv-
GUS, exhausted, hands clammy and
cold, voices sepulchral and ominous,
bewildered with raps. 1 never knew
confirmed spiritualist who had a
healthy nervous system. 1t is incipient
epilepsy and catalepsy. 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. 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
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 Righteousness and the worst
orgies of uncleanliness have been
enacted under it's patronage. The story
is too vile for me to tell. I will not
pOllute my tongue or your ears with
the recital. Sometimes the civil law
has been invoked to stop the outrage.
Families innumerable have been bro
ken up by it. 1t has pushed off hun
dreds of young women into life Of
profigacy. 1t talks about elective
af1inities'' and "affinital relations and
spiritual matches" and adopts the
whole vocabulary of free loveism. In
one of it's journals it declares mar
rage is the monster curse of civiliZa-
ton" at is a source of debauchery
and intemperance." If SpiritualiSm
could have it's full swing, it would turn
this world into a pendemonium of car
nality. 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 wo-
mans purity 1 say let the last vestige
of it perish forever. 1 wish 1 could
gather up all the raps it has ever
heard from spirits blest or damned
and gather them all on it's own head
in laundering raps of humiliation!
Cause of Insanity.
l further indict spiritualism for that
it is cause of 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 matter
with that man?" will say, Spiritual
ism demented him." or, what is the
matter with that woman?" he will say,
"Spiritualism demented her." 1t has
taken down some of the brightest in
tellects. It swept off into mental mid
night judges, senators, governors, min
listers of the gospel and one time came
near capturing one of the presidents
of the United States. At Flushing, N
Y, a man became absorbed with it,
forsook his family, took his only $15,-
600, surrendered them to a spiritual
medium in New York, attempted three
times to put an end to his own life and
then was incarcerated in the state luna
tic asylum.