THE RELIGION OF GHOSTS.

"Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor. And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee."—1 Samuel xxviii., 7, 8.

ROUBLE to the right of him and trouble to the left

TRO

of him, Saul knew not what to do. As a last resort, he concluded to seek out a spiritual medium, or a witch, or any thing that you please to call her-at any rate, a woman who had communication with the spirits of the eternal world. It was a very difficult thing to do, for Saul had either slain all the witches or compelled them to stop business. A servant one day said to King Saul, “I know of a spiritual medium down at the village of En-dor." "Do you?" said the king. Night falls. Saul, putting off his kingly robes, and putting on the dress of a plain cit izen, with two servants goes out to hunt up this spiritual medium. It was no easy thing for Saul to disguise himself, for the tallest people in the country only came up to his shoulder, and, I think, from the strength of the man and the way he bore himself, he must have been well proportioned. It must have been a frightful thing to see a man walking along in the night eight or nine feet high. I suppose, as the people saw him pass, they said, "Who is that? He is as tall as the king"-having no idea that in such a plain dress there really was passing the king. Saul and his servants after a while reach the village, and

they say, "I wonder if this is the house;" and they look in and they see the haggard, weird, and shriveled - up spiritual medium sitting by the light, and on the table sculptured images, and divining-rods, and poisonous herbs, and bottles, and vases. They say, "Yes, this must be the place." One loud rap brings the woman to the door, and as she stands there, holding the candle or lamp above her head and peering out into the darkness, she says, "Who is here?" The tall king informs her that he has come to have his fortune told. When she hears that, she trembles and almost drops the light, for she knows there is no chance for a fortune-teller or spiritual medium in all the land. But Saul having sworn that no harm shall come to her, she says, "Well, whom shall I bring up from the dead?" Saul says, "Bring up Samuel." That was the prophet who had died a little while before. I see her waving a wand, or stirring up some poisonous herbs in a caldron, or hear her muttering over some incantations, or stamping with her foot, as she cries out to the realm of the dead, "Samuel! Samuel!" Lo, the freezing horror! The floor of the tenement opens, and the gray hairs float up; and the forehead, the eyes, the lips, the shoulders, the arms, the feet, the entire body of dead Samuel, wrapped in sepulchral robe, appear to the astonished group, who stagger back, and hold fast, and catch their breath, and shiver with the terror. The dead prophet, white and awful from the tomb, begins to move his ashen lips, and he glares upon King Saul, and cries out, "What did you bring me up for? Why did you break my long sleep? What do you mean, King Saul?" Saul, trying to compose and control himself, makes this stammering and affrighted utterance, as he says to the dead prophet, "The Lord is against me, and I have

come to you for help. What shall I do?" The dead prophet stretched forth his finger to King Saul, and said, "Die to-morrow! Come with me into the sepulchre. I am going now. Come, come with me!" And, lo! the floor again opens, and the feet of the dead prophet disappear, and the arms and the shoulders and the forehead. The floor closes. Nothing is left in the room but Saul, and the two servants, and the spiritual medium, and the sculptured images, and the divining-rods, and the bottles, and the vases, and the poisonous herbs. Oh, that was an awful séance!

I learn first from this subject that spiritualism is a very old religion. It is natural that people should want to know the origin and the history of a doctrine which is so widespread in all the villages, towns, and cities of the civilized world, getting new converts every day-a doctrine with which many of you are already tinged.

Spiritualism in this country was born in 1847, in Hydesville, Wayne County, New York, when one night there was a loud rap heard against the door of Michael Weekman; a rap a second time, a rap a third time; and all three times, when the door was opened, there was nothing found there, the knocking having been made seemingly by invisible knuckles. In that same house there was a young woman who had a cold hand passed over her face, and, there being seemingly no arm attached to it, ghostly suspicions were excited. After a while, Mr. Fox and his family moved into that house, and then every night there was a banging at the door; and one night Mr. Fox said, "Are you a spirit?" Two raps, answering in the affirmative. "Are you an injured spirit?" Two raps, answering in the affirmative. And so they found out, as they say,

that it was the ghost or spirit of a peddler who had been murdered in that house, many years before, for his five hundred dollars. Whether the ghost of the dead peddler had come there to collect his five hundred dollars, or his bones, I can not say, not being a spiritualist; but there was a great racket at the door, so Mr. Weekman declared, and Mrs. Weekman, and Mr. Fox, and Mrs. Fox, and all the little Foxes. The excitement spread. There was a universal rumpus. The Honorable Judge Edmonds declared, in a book, that he had actually seen a bell start from the top shelf of a closet, heard it ring over the people that were standing in the closet; then, swung by invisible hands, it rang over the people in the back parlor, and floated through the folding-doors to the front parlor; rang over the people there, and then dropped on the floor. N. P. Talmage, Senator of the United States, afterward Governor of Wisconsin, had his head completely turned with spiritualistic demonstrations. A man, as he was passing along the road, said that he was lifted up bodily, and carried toward his home through the air at such great speed he could not count the posts on the fence as he passed; and, as he had a hand-saw and a square in his hand, they beat as he passed through the air most delightful music. And the tables tipped, and the stools tilted, and the bedsteads raised, and the chairs upset, and it seemed as if the spirits everywhere had gone into the furniture business! Well, the people said, "We have got something new in this country; it is a new religion." Oh no, my friends. Thousands of years ago we find in our text a spiritualistic séance. Nothing in the spiritualistic circles of our day has been more strange, mysterious, and wonderful than things which have been seen in the past centuries of the world.

In all the ages there have been necromancers, those who consult with the spirits of the departed; charmers, those who put their subjects in a mesmeric state; sorcerers, those who by taking poisonous drugs see every thing, and hear every thing, and tell every thing; dreamers, people who in their sleeping moments can see the future world and hold consultation with spirits; astrologers, who could read a new dispensation in the stars; experts in palmistry, who can tell by the lines in the palm of your hand your origin and your history. From a cave on Mount Parnassus, we are told, there was an exhalation that intoxicated the sheep and the goats that came anywhere near it; and a shepherd approaching it was thrown by that exhalation into an excitement in which he could foretell future events, and hold consultation with the spiritual world. Yea, before the time of Christ the Brahmins went through all the table-moving, all the furniture excitement, which the spirits have exploited in our day; precisely the same thing, over and over again, under the manipulations of the Brahmins. Now, do you say that spiritualism is different from these? I answer, all these delusions I have mentioned belong to the same family. They are exhumations from the unseen world. What does God think of all these delusions? He thinks so severely of them that he never speaks of them but with livid thunders of indignation. He says, "I will be a swift witness against the sorcerer." He says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And lest you might make some important distinction between spiritualism and witchcraft, God says, in so many words, "There shall not be among you a consulter of familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer; for all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord." And he says again, "The soul that