The Spiritualist newspaper > No.107, September 11th 1874

Sept. 11, 1874.
THE SPIRITUALIST.
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out to you that the degraded view of the Almighty
which they present is by no means borne out by your
own subsequent experience.
Where are the evidences of the curse said to have
been pronounced by the Creator against the earth?
Not in the rich and bounteous store with which she
rewards the tiller of the soil; not in her smiling land¬
scapes ; not in the inexhaustible blessings contained in
her lap, ready to be poured out at man’s bidding to
meet his every requirement! All declare a blessing,
not a curse!
And in what terms, as affecting man himself, is this
supposed anathema expressed ?
“ In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread.”
Such is God’s law, not his curse—the law of labour,
common not to men alone, but to angels.
Is idleness compatible with happiness ? Is the
crust less sweet when eaten “ in the sweat of a man’s
brow ?”
What evidence, again, have you in your earth-life
that the justice of God demands the punishment of the
whole human race ?
What is your experience of God’s dealings with men ?
Philosophers may say, “We have no evidence on
the subject, we know not if there be a God.” The
labours, however, of the astronomer and the naturalist
should speedily convince you, not only that there is a
Supreme Being who created and upholds the universe,
who set the stars in their courses, and who taught the
spider to weave his web, but you will further find,
on a very superficial examination, that all is designed,
all created with a minute and tender care for the wants
and comforts, not of man only, but of the meanest
insect.
Is this the same God who cursed this beautiful earth
that He had but just made, and who decrees that every
child of man who is born upon it should enter existence
with the taint of death upon him ?
The second assumption contained in this doctrine is,
“ That one Person of a Divine Council, actuated by
compassion, Himself offered to bear all the penalty that
was to be exacted: that this offer was accepted, and
that the sufferings and death of Christ followed.”
If this be true, then what men call the “justice of
God” becomes more and more incomprehensible. We
have seen above that, for the sin of one man, this justice
is (supposed to have visited the whole human race with
dire, indiscriminatmg punishment.
You are now shown the same justice consenting to remit
a portion of the penalty in consideration of the incarna¬
tion, suffering and death of one person of the Trinity.
The Atonement, awful as it§ is, only indeed relieves
mankind from the eternal death which is their doom,
the sin and misery appertaining to this present life
remain unabated, and the boon is further limited by the
necessity of a child-like faith in its efficacy.
The whole doctrine conveys to an unsophisticated
mind the impression that one person of the Godhead is
of a more merciful disposition than the other; that in
fact two great opposing principles are represented by
Them, justice and mercy. This is in fact the teaching
of the Church, however much she may repudiate it; it
is abundantly shown in her literature, and the necessity
of a “mediator” between God and man is unmistakably
declared in her public ministry.
We come now to the third and last assumption.
“That those who faithfully believe in the efficacy of
this stupendous act of atonement are henceforth
justified and redeemed, but the unbelieving more
effectually and hopelessly condemned.” The peculiar
difficulty here presented to a reasoning mind is the
supposition that an evil and malicious man can be
justified by a mere reliance upon the expiatory sufferings
of another person. The intellectual difficulty is by no
means removed, even if it be conceded that the atone¬
ment is made by the very Son of God.
It is true that the effect, produced by wrong or
violence may in certain instances be repaired, but even
in such a case the reparation in no way diminishes the
guilt of the original act.
The evil deed is a thing of the past, and reason
loudly declares that no vicarious suffering can remove
from the shoulders of the sinner his self-imposed burden.
We submit, therefore, that this third assumption is as
incomprehensible and irrational as those that precede it.
Apart from the above considerations, we would point
out to you that this most important truth, as it
is proclaimed to be by your Church, a non-acceptance
of which she teaches must involve, the eternal misery of
the unbeliever, has been left by the Almighty destitute
of testimony of the smallest literary or historical value.
The authors of the Gospels are unknown, and their
writings are allowed, even by orthodox Christian Divines,
to be contradictory and irreconcilable.
PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON MESMERISM.
The following is the full text of Professor Huxley’s remarks
about mesmerism, in the course of his lecture to the British
Association at Belfast:—
I need not say that since those days of commencing anato¬
mical science when criminals were handed over to the doctors,
we cannot make experiments on human beings, but sometimes
they are made for us, and made in a very remarkable manner.
That operation called war is a great series of physiological
experiments, and sometimes it happens that these physio¬
logical experiments bear very remarkable fruit. I am indebted
to my friend, General Strachey, for bringing to my notice the
other day- an account of a case which appeared within the last
four or five days in the scientific article of the Journaldes Debats.
A French soldier, a sergeant, was wounded at the battle of
Barcilles, one, as you recollect, of the most fiercely contested
battles of the late war. The man was shot in what we call
the left parietal bone. The bullet, I presume, glanced off, but
it fractured the bone. He had enough vigour left to send his
bayonet through the Prussian who shot him. Then he wan¬
dered a few hundred yards out of the village, where he was
picked up and taken to the hospital, where he remained some
time. When he came to himself, as usual in such cases of
injury he was paralysed on the opposite side of the body, that
is to say, the right arm and the right leg were completely
paralysed. That state of things lasted, I think, the better
part of two years, but sooner or later he recovered frbm it,
and now he is able to walk about with activity, and only by
careful measurement can any difference between the two sides
of his body be ascertained. The inquiry, the main results
of which I shall give you, is conducted by exceedingly compe¬
tent persons, and they report that at present this man lives
two lives, normal life and an abnormal life. In his normal
life he is perfectly well, cheerful, and a capital hospital
attendant, does all his work well, and is a respectable, well-
conducted man. That normal life lasts for about seven-and-
twenty days, or thereabouts, out of every month ; but for a
day or two in each month—generally at intervals of about that
time—he passes into another life, suddenly and without any
warning or intimation. In this life he is still active, goes
about just as usual, and is to all appearance just the same
man as before, goes to bed and undresses himself, gets up,
makes his cigarette and smokes it, and eats and drinks. But
in this condition he neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes, nor
smells, nor is he conscious of anything whatever, and has only
one sense organ in a state of activity—viz., that of touch,
which is exceedingly delicate. If you put an obstacle in his
way, he knocks against it, feels it and goes to the one side, if
you push him in any direction he goes straight on, illustrating,