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obscuring our purest principles, destroying morality, and driving us 

 into every species of vice ! Self-respect would have pointed out to 

 any ingenuous and sincere author two postulates for the reception 

 by thinking men of such a sweeping anathema against religion as this : 

 Jirst, the preceding argument should have led to the inference ; 

 secondly, an appeal to the present state of the Christian world should 

 have supported the assertion ; whereas this anathema against Christi- 

 anity, placed in the middle of the book, and even cherished as its heart 

 of hearts, neither follows from any passage that has preceded, nor is 

 supported by anything that follows. 



Andrew Jackson Davis, the clairvoyant, certainly never heard of 

 such a science as logic, otherwise he assuredly would have seen that 

 his premises do not induce his conclusions : it is very easy to write 

 the assertion, that Christianity is a fable, and leads to vice ; but in 

 this age there is what Mr. Davis would himself call a strong prejudice 

 in favour of Christianity, and before giving up that prejudice at the 

 beck of a juggling clairvoyant, we want logical proof of the soundness 

 of his assertions : we refuse to take his ipse dixit on points where it 

 is so self-evident that he has trusted to the resources of a fertile imagi- 

 nation, uncurbed by the reflective power required to preserve accord- 

 ance between the component parts of his wondrous tale. 



In order to carry out the deception, he should have made the parts 

 consistent with the whole, and the means accessory to the end. 

 As I wish to render myself intelligible to Mr. Davis's admirers, 

 the latter position may be illustrated thus. Accomplished novellists 

 (Mr. Davis is a novelist, though not accomplished in his craft), desir- 

 ous of disposing of any of their heroes by death, employ certain 

 means which would, if applied to the human body, cause death : I re- 

 collect Moore uses a tank of aqua fort is ; Dickens, an express train, 

 &c. ; and if we turn over the pages of Shakspere, swords, daggers, 

 and poison, old age, and other obvious causes of death are introduced 

 to cause death; but our * Poughkeepsie Seer' kills the Christian 

 religion without even the flourish of a weapon more fatal than the ex- 

 tracts of variegated leaves, or the assertion that men in the planet 

 Jupiter walk on all fours. 



1 have thought it right to relinquish the editorial we, and to avow 

 myself the author of these observations. I am perfectly aware that 

 different opinions are entertained on all subjects; and Vestigianism, 

 Okenism, mesmerism, form no exception ; these have their several 

 advocates, of whom I am not one, and wish to announce that I am 

 not; but I claim for these remarks no fictitious importance on ac- 



