Year: 1860

is Man," was the theme of discourse an
hour and half in length. The fair lert-
urer appeared on the stage at the appointed
hour, passed into the trance state in few
moments, and with closed eyes proceeded
to deliver an address eouehed in fine LAM
guage and replete with science and argu-
ment. The lecture was, to say the least,
good one. The theory advanced was SINH
lar to that in the "yestiges of Creation"
in some respects.


Any event which shall provoke discussion
is not without benefit to the human mind
The novelty of the entertainment afforded
by Miss Munson attracts an audience, indu-
ces thought and must rebound to the ad-
vantage of the public, whatever may be
said of the doctrines advanced or the man
ner in which they are taught The bigoted
and intolerant will listen to no new creed,
nor countenanee anything out of the old,
beaten track in which their fathers started
them on the journey of life. The man of
liberalized ideas will pronounce nothing
humbug which comes fairly endorsed, until
after investigation.


We have witnessed some Of the soscalled
spiritual phenomena, and we are not vet
satisfied they are what they purport to be.
We are by no means prepared to say these
phenomena are produced primarily by the
agency of disembodied spirits, but if as
some of our reverend brothers affirm, pro-
fessed mediums speak at the dictation of the
devil, old Nick has been greatly abused for
he inculcates very good morals, and if the
Christian world be any judge, very whole
some doctrines in the main. Indeed we are
at loss to know the cause of the enmity
existing against spiritualists by the clergy.
Ministers have been preaching since the
time of Christ, and exhorting unbelievers TO
become members of churches, believe in the
scriptures, and conform their lives to scrip
ture requirements. During near twenty
centuries but little progress ha. been made.
\ large majority of mankind in most civil
lied countries are not members of churches,
and, if our reverend brothers are correct in
their assertions, on the road to perdition on
account of unbelief. Divines have not been
able to work effectually upon the affections
or fears it may be, of more than one soul in
fifty In eighteen hundred and sixty years,
and to-day we hear dolorous complaints
from them of the spread of inidelity Now
comes up new order of relgionists. the
novelty of whose teaching is calculated to
call the attention of the forty-nine whom
the priests from time immemorial have been
unable to touch. The new order inculcates
good morals, belief in the existence of
God in the Immortality of the soul, of a life
hereafter conditioned upon this, and recog-
nizing thepurity Of the principles taught by
Jesus Christ. ltseems to US that the clergy
should hail the advent of Spiritualism with
JOY, as a coadjutor in great work. since.
judging from the past, there are powers to
subdue beyond their reach. What boots it.
we ask, by what process a soul is brought
to recognize the existence of its God to see
the evil effects of sin and the reward of vir-
tue? Is it not better that another reaper
should enter the field when nearly the entire
crop of souls is going to destruction? Or
do our reverend friends object to some
truths unless all are accepted, and by one
mode and that mode theirs?


We arc told the SpirftuaIists must be
cfedulous to believe what they do. We are
incredul0us, we are free to confess, and.
perhaps, too prone to be skeptical on all
questions not demonstrable to the senses
But we cannot see why any greater credu-
lily is necessary to believe being may hold
communion with the spirit world in the
present age than is requisite to believe the
same were possible in past ages. If there
ever lived a prophet in the days we read Of
the evidence, except to the eye of faith, is
dubious. 1t only exists in the form of wri-
tings, while before the Spiritualist stands
a being whose body, he is satisfied after ex-
PCAlhiehtS' Is IhSeHSlbie 10 pam, whose con-
seriousness is seemingly extinct, and whose
language commends itself to their under
standing and Judgment. This being in a
natural state they are satisfied is lover of
truth and above deception. That being tells
them Of spirits seen and conversed with. Is
II great stretch of credulity for them to
believe, and no stretch to accept as truth
what is reported to have happened three
| thousand years ago?


Skeptics may reject everything not tangi-
BILE to the senses as false, but he who pro-
fesses to believe in the interposition of di-
vine power in the affairs of men will be
| troubled to demonstrate that God is not
equally as indulgent to the present age in
the exhibition of his nower as in times an
terror to ours.


THAT PLAcERvILLE BILL.-We have the
fullest confidence that Governor Downey
will veto the bill appropyiating S50,0OO for
the Improvement of the Placerville route.
should the thing unhappity pass the Assem-
bly,, which we very much doubt. The reas-
ons set forth in the Governors veto of the
Omnibus bill are sufficient of themselves to
induce him to crush the Placerville bill, let
alone the favoritism of the thing. While