SPREAD OF SPIRITUALISM. 179 



mind, too solemn for derision in the idea of communing with 

 the spirits of the departed ~ or that the time is approaching 

 when living men and the souls of the physically dead, are to 

 meet, as it were, face to face, and know each other as they 

 are. It is one which I can, and do reject, but cannot ridi- 

 cule. The world, however, regards it differently. And yet 

 with all the contempt and derision that has been poured 

 upon this singular delusion, its devotees have multiplied be- 

 yond all precedent in the history of the world. They num- 

 ber, it is said, in this country alone, millions, and have some 

 forty or more newspapers in the exclusive advocacy of their 

 theory." 



" The wise people of this world," said Spalding, " that is, 

 those who are wise in their day and generation, laugh at the 

 believers in this modern theory of Spiritualism. They pity 

 them, too, as the unhappy devotees of a faith which sober 

 reason and all the experience of the past prove to be as un- 

 substantial as the moonbeams that dance upon the waters at 

 midnight. Still these same devotees point to the demon- 

 strations of what they regard as living facts, phenomena pal- 

 pable to the senses, things that appeal to the eye, the ear, 

 and the touch, and say that these are higher proofs than all 

 the dogmas of philosophy, all the observation and experience 

 of former times, all the logic of the past. And here is the 

 issue between Spiritualism and the mass of mankind who 

 deride and contemn it. 



" Now, be it known to you, that I am no Spiritualist. I 

 reject not all the evidences of the phenomena upon which 



