The Spiritualist newspaper > No.135, March 26th 1875

152
THE SPIRITUALIST.
March 26, 1875.
more and more from the dominion of the body, and to
show you more and more of the mystic symbolism with
which spirit life is permeated. They take but a shal¬
low view of our teaching who pin themselves to the
letter. We would raise you from the life of the body
to that which shall be to you the fit approach to the
state disembodied. There is but a glimpse possible as
yet; but the time will come when you will be able to
see, as we cannot explain to you in your present state,
the true dignity of man’s higher life even on the earth
Sphere, and the hidden mysteries with which that life is
teeming.
Before you can reach so far you must be content to
learn that there is a spiritual meaning underlying every¬
thing ; that your Bible is full of it; man’s interpreta¬
tions, and definitions, and glosses being but the material
husk which enshrines the kernel of divine truth. Were
we to throw away this husk the tender kernel would
wither and die. So we content ourselves with pointing
out, as you can bear and understand, the living verity
which underlies the external fact with which you are
familiar.
This was the mission of the Christ. He claimed for
Himself that fulfilment of the law, not its abolition or
abrogation, was His intent. He pointed out the truth
which was at the root of the Mosaic commandment.
He stripped off the rags of Pharisaical ritual, the glosses
of Babbinical speculation, and laid bare the divine
truth that was beneath all, the grand principles divinely
inspired which man had well-nigh buried. He’was not
only a religious but a social reformer-; and the grand
business of His life was to elevate the people, spirit and
body, to expose pretenders, and to strip off the mask of
hypocrisy; to take the foot of the despot from the neck
of the struggling slave, and to make man free by
virtue of that. truth which He came from God to de¬
clare. “Ye shall know the truth,” He told His
followers, “ and the truth shall make you free : and ye
shall be free indeed.”
He reasoned of life and death and eternity; of the
true nobility and dignity of man’s nature; of the way
to progressive knowledge of God. He came as the
Great Fulfiller of the law; the man who showed, as
never man showed before, the end for which the law
was given—the amelioration of humanity. He taught
men to look into the depths of their hearts, to test their
lives, to try their motives, and to weigh all they did by
the one ascertained balance—the fruits of life as the
test of religion. He told men to be humble, merciful,
truthful, pure, self-denying,honest in heart and intent;
and He set before them a living example of the life
which He preached.
He was the great social reformer, whose object was
at least as much to benefit man corporeally, and to
reveal to him a salvation from bigotry and selfishness,
and narrow-mindedness in this life, as it was to reveal
glimpses of a better life in the hereafter. He preached
the religion of daily life, the moral progress of the
spirit in the path of daily duty forward to a higher
knowledge. Bepentance for the past, amendment and
progress in the future, summed up most of his teaching.
He found a world buried in ignorance, at the mercy of
an unscrupulous priesthood in matters religious; under
the absolute sway of a tyrant in matters political.
He taught liberty in both ; but liberty without license;
the liberty of a responsible spirit with duties to God
and'to itself; of a spirit corporeally enshrined with a
corresponding duty to its brethren in the flesh.. He
laboured to show the true dignity of man. He would
elevate him to the dignity of the truth, the truth which
should make him free. He was no respecter of persons.
He chose His associates and His apostles from the
mean and poor. He lived amongst the common
people of them, with them, in their homes; teaching
them simple lessons of truth which they needed and
which they could receive. He went but little among
those whose eyes were blinded by the mists of ortho¬
doxy, respectability, or so-called human wisdom. He
fired the hearts of His listeners with a yearning for
something nobler, better, higher than they yet
possessed; and He told them how to get it.
The gospel of humanity is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is the only gospel that man needs; the only one that
can reach his wants and minister to his necessities.
We continue to preach that same evangel. By
commission from the same God, by authority and inspi¬
ration from the same source, do we come now as
apostles of this heaven-sent gospel. We declare truths
the same as Jesus taught. We preach Hia gospel,
purified from the glosses and misinterpretations which
man has gathered around it. We would spiritualise
that which man has hidden under the heap of materi¬
alism.
We would bring forth the spirit truth from the grave
in which man has buried it, and would tell to the lis¬
tening souls of men that it lives still; the simple yet
grand truth of man’s progressive destiny, of God’s un¬
ceasing care, of the spirit’s un slumbering watch over
incarnated souls.
The burdens that a dogmatic priesthood has bound
upon men’s backs, we fling them to the winds;
the dogmas which have hampered the soul, and
dragged down its aspirations, we tear them asunder,
and bid the soul go free. Our mission is the continua¬
tion of that old teaching which man has so strangely
altered; its source identical; its course parallel; its
end the same. + Impeeator.
I inquired whether I rightly understood that the
worlc of teaching, a section of which is under the direc¬
tion of Imperator, derived its mission from Christ.
You understand aright. I have before said that I
derive my mission, and am influenced in my work, by
a spirit who has passed beyond the spheres of work
into the higher heaven of contemplation. * * * Jesus
Christ is now arranging His plans for the gathering in
of His people, for the further revelation of the truth,
as well as for the purging away of the erroneous beliefs
which haVe accumulated in the past.
I have heard something of this from other sources. Is
this then the return of Christ ?
It is the spiritual return. There will be no such
physical return as man has dreamed of. This will be
the return to His people, by the voice of His Messengers
speaking to those whose ears are open; even as He
himself said “ He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ;
he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Is this message coming to many 1
Yes, to many it is being made known that God is
now specially influencing man at this epoch. We may
not say more. May the blessing of ^he Supreme rest
on you. _j. Imperator.
Mr. J. J. Morse has written to the editor of Common
Sense, San Francisco, announcing his intention to pay a second
visit to the United States in 1876, in company with Mrs.
Morse.