Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

222 INFLUENCE OF SCRIPTUREwhose authority was never doubted, particuLirly by a late Rev. prelate, Imean ]5ish.op Atterbury, in his sermon on these words*: If in this lifeonly be hope, then we are of all men the most miserable/ where vice andfaith ride most lovingly and triumphantly together. But these doctrinesof the natural excellency of vice, the efficacy of a right belief, the dignityof atonements and propitiations have, beside depriving us of the nativebeauty and charms of honesty, and thus cruelly stabbing virtue to theheart, raised and diffused among men a certain unnatural passion, whichwe shall call a religious hatred—a hatred constant, deep-rooted, and immortal.All other passions rise and fall, die and revive again; but this ofreligious and pious hatred rises and grows every day stronger upon the mindas we grow more religious, because we hate for God's sake, and for thesake of those poor souls, too, who have the misfortune not to believe as wedo ; and can we in so good a cause hate too much ? the more thoroughlywe hate the better we are ; and the more mischief we do to the bodies andstates of these infidels and heretics, the more do we show our love to God.This is religious zeal, and this has been called divinity; but remember,the only true divinity is humanity. W. Pitt."Offer of Guidance hi/a Mundane Spirit.1161. The Rev. Allen Putnam, whose narrative of his conversion toSpiritualism, has been submitted, gave a very sensible and interesting lectureon this new doctrine, at the Melodeon, in Boston, last October.Oneof his remarks struck me as being very well warranted by my own observationand experience. He said that we are wont to express indignation at theabsurd, cruel, and unnatural Chinese custom of cramping the female foot;but to him it appeared that in Christendom a much worse practice existed,that of cramping the minds of females by bringing them up zealous sectarians,their opinions, in general, being determined by their parentage.Thus Miss A. is a Romanist; Miss B. an Episcopalian; Miss C. a Calvinist;Miss D. a Methodist; Miss E. a Jewess; all most excellent creaturesin any other respect excepting the efi"ects of educational sectarianism,which had been interchanged, had their parentage been commuted. (259.)11G2. One of the blessings of Spiritualism, according to my view, is,that this cramped state of the mind, which attaches importance to variousphases of analogous educational error, will be removed by receivingtheir opinions from the same source. But it seems that one of the mostamiable and interesting among those angelic devotees, has been actuated bythe same anxiety for my salvation from hell, that I have felt for her emancipationfrom the educational ligatures imposed upon her otherwise excellentunderstanding. The following letter is the fruit of her zeal in my favour :August 1, 1855.1163. Mt/ dear Sir : You have too much kindness yourself, not to receivein kindness what is so intended; and you have too much politeness not to