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

24 INTRODUCTION.God, imploring that some light might be given to me.Of course, as soonas the facts admitted of no other explanation than that my father, sister,brother, and other spirit friends, had been engaged in efforts to convinceme of their existence, and of that of the spirit world, the most intensedesire arose to verify the facts tending to settle the all-important question,whether man is immortal.48. If the evidence of the truth of revelation were as adequate asrepresented by its votaries, my conscientious inability to believe in itwould indicate an undue constitutional skepticism; whence I requiredmore proof than the great mass of Christians, in order to producecredence. Yet, now having found the evidence of immortality in thecase of Spiritualism satisfactory, it cannot be urged that my hesitationrespecting the evidence of revelation arose from any unwillingness tobelieve in a future state, or unreasonableness as to the evidence requisiteto justify belief Manifestly, it would be inconsistent to accuse me ofdisbelieving in the one case from undue, hard-hearted incredulity, andyet, in the other, yielding from the opposite characteristics.49. Fundamentally, my reasons for not believing in revelation havebeen, that it violates certain axioms above stated, (18,) which have beenas clear to my mind as those collated by Euclid.50. It may be shown that the existing system fails to give any evidencewhich can be subjected to the intuition of each generation successiveli/.rests on the alleged intuition of human beings who existed ages ago, andof whom we know nothing but what they say of themselves through historyor recorded tradition.It reposes entirely on the testimony of propagandists,who were interested to give it importance, or on partial human narratorsor compilers.It has been erected on a species of hearsay evidence,inadmissible in courts of justice. This species of testimony in the caseof Spiritualism is contemptuously set aside. No one will believe in manifestationsunless intuitively observed. Wherefore this faith in ancientwitnesses, this slcepticism of those of our own times, even when they areknown to be truthful ?51. On my stating to a distinguished savan a fact which has beenessentially verified since in more than a hundred instances, his reply wasI would believe you as soon as any man in the world, yet I cannot believewhat you mention. He suggested the idea of its being an epidemic, withwhich I was of course infected ; nevertheless, that savan, as a professing•Christian, admitted facts vastly more incredible, depending on the allegedintuition of witnesses who lived two thousand years ago, nearly. This,•doubtless, was the consequenceof educational bigotry-, which would have-caused a belief in the miracles of any other religion in which he shouldhave been brought up.52. Such persons strain at the gnats of Spiritualism, yet swallow the•camels of Scripture.It