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

March 26, 1875.
THE SPIRITUALIST.
153
§&ebteto.
Son, Remember. An Essay on the Discipline of the
Soul beyond the Grave. By the Rev. John Paul,
B.A., Rector of St. Alban’s, Worcester. H. K. Lewis,
136, Gower-street.
There are but a few indications of the fact that the
thinkers in society, begin to suspect that there is more
in our spiritualistic researches than they at first gave
credit for, or than the unthinking still believe. Among
medical doctors, Messrs. Richardson and Radcliffe
favour us with their speculations concerning the spirit
body within us and around us—speculations which
hover so closely over the facts of Spiritualism as to
render it clear that those very facts have set the writers
speculating in the direction of the spiritual nature of
man in opposition to the theories which explain all his
afiections, hopes, fears, and intelligence by brain ganglia
and their cerebration.
Whilst welcoming these lagging thinkers into our
circle, we cannot but remark on the moral cowardice
which rendered them so quick to ignore and so slow to
inquire, and which, even in their tardy inquiry, ex¬
hibits itself in tbe cautious avoidance of all reference
to the subject which gave them the food for their specu¬
lations, and some of their facts. Dr. Radcliffe’s paper
in the Contemporary Review is a paper strongly assert¬
ing all that Spiritualists hold, and have for twenty years
held, concerning the existence and functions of the
spirit body as a distinct and surviving attendant on the
flesh body, but Dr. Radclifie carefully avoids even the
slightest reference to Spiritualism and Spiritualists, who
taught him to think at all about his subject; for Dr.
Radcliffe must make believe that he is original, and, as
a presumed man of science, he stands in dread of the
laughter of his ignorant compeers of science.
The theologians also have in some instances hovered
about the subject, of which the Rev. Mr. Bickersteth’s
Hades, published three or four years ago, is an
instance. But no writer on the religious question of
man’s life beyond the grave, has handled the subject so
courageously and acutely as the author of the volume
which is here introduced to our readers. Premising his
knowledge that the doctrine regarding man’s future life
is at variance with that commonly accepted by English
Churchmen, he boldly maintains that Holy Writ, and
all the indications which can be drawn from the obser¬
vation of God’s ways in nature generally, and in man
specially, point to the continued living of the human
soul in a state of progressive improvement for an un¬
defined time before the final judgment is passed upon
him, and his place in the mansions of eternity is fixed;
that, in short, this life is not the only life of probation.
In a preliminary paragraph the author speaks thus of
the aim of his publication:—“This essay is based
altogether on teaching of Holy Scripture. Groundless
speculation is avoided. It is designed to prove that
man’s eternal destiny is not definitely fixed at the hour
of death; that the disembodied soul retains its con¬
sciousness, and therefore memory; and that the per¬
sistency alike of the habits of thought and feeling con¬
tracted in the flesh, and of the unvarying designs of
God indicate a condition where the selfish shall realise
that they have sown to the flesh, and the earnest Chris¬
tian shall attain to that perfect holiness, without which
no man shall see the Lord.”
The body of the work consists of an “ Introduction,”
in which are exhibited the beliefs held concerning the
fate of the soul after departure from the body by the
various churches. Then follow chapters headed thus:—
“ Death merely a Dark Tunnelthe “ Manifold Wis¬
dom of God,” in which the existence of what we call
“evil” is most ingeniously explained; in the chapter
on the “ Analogy of Nature” the probabilities of our
continued identity and life after death are dwelt upon
eloquently and positively; then follows a chapter on
the “ Intermediate State,” which will delight all high-
thinking Spiritualists ; the chapter “ What is Written”
is a spiritualistic reading of the passages in Scripture
which seem to involve the immediate decision of the
soul’s fate after death, concerning which believers in
the mediaeval creed on this subject will be astonished
to find how much the author has to say per contra;
the. “Soul’s Discipline” is the heading of the sixth
chapter, and is at once most cogent in argument and
touching in development; the “Conclusion,” forming
the seventh chapter, is designed to meet objections
made to the doctrine of continued life and progress
after death, and to demonstrate the good influence
it is calculated to exert. The entire work is written
in the best style of statement and argumentation; the
author’s meaning is given with complete lucidity and
absence of turgidity. and—what so often attends the
exposition of proofs drawn from Holy Writ—cant, Such
a work will be warmly welcomed by all Spiritualists,
and especially by those who seek or find in Spiritualism
a firm.basis for moral and religious teaching.
AN ORIENTAL TRANCE MEDIUM.
BY XENIXGALE COOX, B.A.
Perhaps some day, when the accounts of modern medium-
ship slacken a little, so as to leave you with a corner of your
paper to spare, you may be able to find room for the following
interesting narrative. It is some three-and-twenty centuries
old, and is to be found in Platp's Republic, Book x., c. 16.
I will tell you the story of a brave man (Eras), the son of
Armenius, by descent a Pamphylian. who happening on a
time to die in battle, when the dead were on the tenth day
carried off, already corrupted, was taken up sound; and being
carried home, as he was about to be buried on the twelfth
day, when laid on the funeral pile, revived; and being
revived, he told what he saw in the other state, and said, that
after his soul left the body, it went with many pthers, and
that they came to a certain mysterious, hallowed place, where
there were two chasms in the earth, near to each other, and
two other openings in the heavens opposite to them, and that
the judges sat between these ; that when they gave judgment
they commanded the just to go on the right hand and upwards
through the heaven, having fitted marks on the front of those
that had been judged; but the unjust they commanded to the
left, and downwards, and these likewise had behind them
marks of all that they had done. But when he came before
the judges, they said he ought to be a messenger to men con¬
cerning things there, and they commanded him to hear and
contemplate everything therein; and that he saw there, through
two openings, one of the heaven and one of the earth, the
souls departing, after they were there judged; and through
the other two openings he saw, rising through the one out of
the earth, souls full of squalidness and dust; and through the
other, he saw other souls descending pure from heaven; and
that on their arrival from time to time they seemed as if they
came from a long journey, and that they gladly went to rest
themselves in the meadow, as in a public assembly, and
such as were acquainted saluted one another, and those
who rose out of the earth asked the others concerning
the things above, and those from heaven asked them con¬
cerning the things below, and that they told one another,—
those wailing and weeping, whilst they called to mind
what and how many things they suffered and saw in
their journey under the earth (for it was a journey of a