The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1919-10-03
FAD OF -SPIR|TUALISM
DENOUNCED BY JEROME
The Honorable Witnesses Who Vouch
Far 1t On Par With Those Used
In Witchcraft Trials


it seems has been popular of late in
England. Jerome K. Jerome, another
well known writer, has severe critl-
els moi this "new religion" as some
of its followers term it, in recent
article published in the New York Tri-
bune, a part Of which we give below :
"Sir Arthur admits that before he
became converted he would occasion
ally return from a seance puzzled
and disbusted.' What he had witness
ed struck him as either fraud or fol-
ly so supreme as to render the whole
subject unworthy Of attention. The
explanations by which spiritualists
sought to remove his skepticism did
not satisfy him at the time Before
this conversion he admits having come
across mediums whose performances
mprest him, but who were, later, de-
tected in trickery. After his CONVEX
sion he appears to have had no ex-
periences calculated to weaken his
faith, while the explanations that had
before this time appeared so unsatis-
factory to him he is now able to re-
gard as rough approximation to the
truth
Zone of the first things that APP
pears to have shaken Sir Arthur in
his reliance upon his own reason was
that a fact he could not himself
believe had been attested by three
+y,o col Of honor
repute.' l do not doubt for moment
that these three gentlement did ac-
tually see a certain Mr.. Home, a
medium, float out of the window and
into another at the height of seventy
feet above the ground. But / have
to bear in mind that less than two
hundred years ago men of honor and
repute,' men of intellect and educa-
ton, kindly Christian gentemen-
were attesting in open court that
they had seen old women riding
through the air on broomsticks! They
knew-these men of honor and re-
pute'-that the words they were
speaking would condemn some poor
stake. There can be no doubt that
they honestly believed what they
swore to. Belief in witchcraft was in
the air they breathed 1t was part
of their religion. Its accompanying
physical phenomena were doubted
only by heretics and skeptics. The
gradual rise of rationalism in Europe
has cleared mems eyes so far as this
particular delusion is concerned. The
man of honor and repute' to-day who
saw an old lady riding through the air
on a broomstick would consult a spe-
cialist. Man is a more self-contained
creature than he knows. His heaven
and his hell they are within him. The
mystery and marvels that confound
him are contained within the cells
of his own brain"
with gladness would | accept a
new religion founded upon human
reason on thisside and upon spirit in
spiration upon the other But what
are we offered? On this side the
darkened room, the ubiquitous tam
BOURNE, the hired medium (some-
times detected in trickery' and some
times not,) now tied into a chair,
and now locked up in an iron cage
the futile messages, proved frequently
to be connections" vague prophecies
of the kind that we can read in any
old Moore's Almanac These things
do not appeal to my reason. We have
descriptions given to us of the spirit
ual world that are supposed to clinch
the matter. 1t is description of the
sort of place that everybody wants
to go to. All our more respectable
earthly desires will be gratified. Life S
joy with trouble or expense. We are
to be reunited to our loved ones, and
everybody is to be good looking and
aged about thirty. We are to be very,
very happy Am l asked to accept
this sort of thing as proof of spirit
inspiration?
where is this new religion?
What does spiritualism preach? Or
is it content with the world as it is
l take the last five years. Has spirit
ualism done anything--is it doing any
thing-to help men to be less brutal,
less hypocritical, less greedy? Has it
done anything-is it doing any
thing-to lessen the appalling wicked
ness that is threatening, like some
fould eew, to poison the whole earth?
For fiv eayresArjbvbre6O ??
For five years savagery and cruelty
have been preached to US from pulpit
and from press. Our children are
being taught it at their mothers
knees. Vengeance and hatred are the
new virtues. Christ, amid roars of
laughter, is Knocked in our parlia-
ments. What has spiritualism done
what is it doing-to help mankind to
recover its senses, its manhoodo to