A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead Part 9

"These comprise mainly the duties of the citizen to his government. He owes other duties to society and the local community in which he resides, but they are not considered pertinent or germane to our proposition.

"I speak of sustaining the government in war. War is a terrible thing to contemplate, and we would gladly crush it out in its every vestige, but you seem as yet not to have outgrown and developed above and beyond it, and therefore we are compelled to notice the subject, however painful and sorrowful it may be. The time is not so very far distant in the future when nations and men will progress beyond this horrible relic of barbarism, when the fierce G.o.d of war will give place to the sweet and gentle spirit of peace and brotherly love; when all differences will be amicably adjusted without a resort to the arbitrament of the sword and the instruments of devastation, bloodshed, and death."

August 17, 1882:

"In a certain sense the people are the children of the government, and in a still more important sense the government is the offspring of the people. If you ask me what, under the law of your present state of development, are the duties of the child to the parent, I answer obedience, maintenance, and protection. If you ask me the duties of the parent to the child, I answer maintenance, education, and protection. The family government was the first government in the infancy of the race from which all other governments naturally and progressively sprang, and their relations and reciprocating duties are much the same.

"I now reach the second proposition: What are the duties of the government to the people, or what have the people the right to demand of their government? It is the bounden duty of the government, under the const.i.tution, to afford ample and plenary protection to the citizen in the exercise and enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. This protection is due to the humblest as well as the most exalted. The powers of your government are adequate to this end, if properly and effectively wielded, and if exercised without fear or favoritism.

"Again, it is the duty of government to see that public affairs are so managed that its burdens may fall lightly upon the people and mostly upon those ablest to bear them. A judicious system of obtaining revenue to meet the exigencies of government and the liquidation of the national public debt by taxing incomes on acc.u.mulated wealth and its investment in various speculative methods, would be most salutary to the attainment of the object.

"In order that the wise purposes of good government be carried out, and that honesty, frugality, and the most rigid economy should characterize every department of the public service, it is essentially and indispensably important that honesty and capacity alone should be regarded as commanding qualities for public official positions. Dishonesty and corruption and bribery in public stations ought to be severely punished, else there remains no safety and security to confiding const.i.tuencies.

When your government offices reek with corruption and no alarm is manifested and no corrective measures adopted, you are not far from the yawning brink of the precipice over which your liberties and free inst.i.tutions are sure to be precipitated. It is the duty of the government, in the interest of a confiding trusting people to hunt down the official vampires and parasites who thus insidiously prey upon the vitals of government, and inflict upon them such penalties as are commensurate with their enormous crimes. To allow them to go on with impunity and exempt from punishment is to invite and encourage corruption, and to suggest the safety of its increase."

August 18, 1882:

"It is the duty of government to foster, uphold, and defend labor in its unequal struggle against the greed of capital to the end that capital may not utterly crush it beneath its scornful and merciless heel. I tell you in all seriousness that on this subject you are approaching the verge of a volcano whose wrathful pent-up fires can not be much longer controlled, nor is it desirable that they should be unless a speedy change in the treatment of labor by capital, involving justice and right, is brought about. It is a delusion and in opposition to all human experience to expect capital, uncompelled by law, to become quickened in conscience and pervaded by a sense of equity and right. The government must stretch forth its strong arm and compel the exercise by authoritative and coercive power of a spirit of justice and fair dealing that belongs to a common humanity. Revivify and re-adopt that virtuous and beneficent doctrine of the earlier patriotic statesmanship of the republic, namely: 'The greatest good to the greatest number.' The men and women who toil and sweat in poverty const.i.tute the greatest number, and he must indeed be blind to truth and deaf to justice who fails to discover or concede that the toiling millions have wrongs done them by the greedy rapacity of capital, and which appeal with vehement persistency for redress--aye, we fear in a little while, for retaliative and retributive vengeance. They have the right to claim protection from the steady and stealthy encroachments of capital whereby the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. Capital and labor are mutually interested in each others' welfare and prosperity, and are alike equally ent.i.tled to protection when dealing justly with each other, but under the present order of things labor is at the mercy of capital, and receives not justice at its hands. And this great government fought into existence by the common people, defended in every succeeding struggle by the common people, and which claims to be a government of the people and by the people and for the people, stands idly by with folded arms and with an apparent serene complacency permits the great ma.s.ses of the people to become hopelessly impoverished, while the exclusive and favored few become enormously enriched. Verily has the government by its inaction and failure to interpose, become truly and in the sight of heaven a _particeps criminis_ in producing this wretched and deplorable condition of affairs."

August 21, 1882:

"You have a tariff system, which for unrighteousness in the cruelty of its exactions, is without a parallel in modern times. It is unjust and oppressive; wholly indefensible, and with scarcely a palliating feature.

My circ.u.mscribed power in communicating will not allow me to argue the question _in extenso_, or as I would like to. Your tariff is not only unjustly discriminative, but painfully oppressive in its operations, especially so far as the interests of the consumers are concerned. Why do you not honestly examine the subject in its bearings in the laudable endeavor to ascertain to whose benefit it inures. The government to some extent is benefited in the matter of revenue, but the capitalists are more largely the beneficiaries, and it is for them and their interests that you legislate. Have you not yet discovered, if not by close and a.n.a.lytical reasoning, at least by an observance of its practical operations, that the poor artisans, skilled mechanics, and other labors immediately connected with your manufactures, are not favored by high rates of tariff, and that protection to home manufacturing by imposts on imported commodities does not enhance the interests or confer blessings upon the consumers of your manufactured articles. Have you not yet realized the fact that exorbitant and restrictive protection fosters only the interests of invested capital, with no real advantage to the toiling operatives and to the oppressive detriment of consumers? If the operatives in your manufacturing establishments were benefited by high tariffs it would be manifested and plainly discernible in prosperous acc.u.mulations and in their happy contentment. The opposite of all this is true, and it does not require a philosopher to discover it. Why trades unions, repeated and frequent strikes, and an unmistakably unhappy condition of unrest, if the benefits accruing from the system beneficially inured to the workmen? The ma.s.ses of your toiling people are inclined to suffer and bear injuries and injustice with a patience and forbearance not characteristic of any other people under the broad canopy of heaven, and when they protest by strike or otherwise you may safely a.s.sume that they are in the right, and have just grievances. The people not directly connected with the manufacturing interest, but who are the purchasers of its products, have exhibited a still more remarkable degree of patient forbearance, for they are much more numerous and less directly dependent. They have been sorrowfully blinded to their true interests by unconscionable politicians and political tricksters, and most dearly have they paid for their confidence and ignorance. We see signs of the awakening of the hitherto slumbering sensibilities of the people, and feel a.s.sured that in the not remote future will be aroused a sentiment among the ma.s.ses that will compel a change of front on this subject in the meting out of even-handed and impartial justice."

August 24, 1882:

"Another subject of engrossing importance to your weal is the threatening and dangerous att.i.tude of monopoly and corporate power. Your railroad corporations are a.s.suming gigantic proportions, and bode no good to you if left uncontrolled and unregulated by law. Your liberties are not only menaced for many causes, but by this corporate power all the avenues and departments of your government are being influenced detrimentally to the general public interest, if not absolutely sullied by the corroding elements of corruption. These corporations, by the many influences they are enabled to exert, if left unrestrained by legislation, will control your government and its vast machinery as effectually and completely as the planets perform their circuits in obedience to the inflexible and unerring laws of the universe.

"It is nonsense to talk about the absence of const.i.tutional power over the subject. Your national legislature has ample warrant, under the const.i.tutional provision conferring authority upon Congress to regulate commerce among the states, and Congress should exercise that authority promptly and fearlessly. Railroads are common carriers, and are, when considered in connection with this power conferred upon Congress, public, and not private, highways. The Supreme Court of the United States has frequently affirmed this power as residing in the legislative department of the government. Unless regulated and restrained, these corporations may impose such exorbitant rates of transportation as to destroy ordinary profits on manufactured and other commodities, and necessitate an insufferable and unbearable increase to meet the exigency of increased rates of transportation, and, of course, to the detriment and oppression of consumers. The government must take the matter in hand for the protection of the people. Compet.i.tion will prove unavailing without restrictive legislation; for the railroads would engage in pooling, and thereby render nugatory the natural advantages of compet.i.tion. This monopoly const.i.tutes the most threatening element in the country, and will be felt too soon, if not prevented by judicious exercise of governmental authority. The use of steam, as applied to railroads, steamboats, and steamships, was unknown to the founders of your government and the framers of your const.i.tution, or more definite provisions would have been made in relation to the subject of regulating commerce. Why can not your statesmen be as patriotic and as true to the public?

"Although mainly chartered by the states, they are not authorized by implication or otherwise to pursue the selfish course of only subserving the interests of capital, but for the convenience and benefit of the great body of the people in commerce and travel as well. They have, by exercising all undue influence, corrupted courts and legislatures, and will, ere long, as they have already to some extent, invade the sacred precincts of your elections, corrupting the sanct.i.ty of the ballot-box, and demoralizing the independence of electors. Then your government will become a farce, and your free inst.i.tutions subject to the whims and caprices of unholy and unconscionable monopoly power."

August 25, 1882:

"The great agricultural interests upon which you mostly depend for all of your material prosperity receive no protection from your tariff legislation, but are compelled to pay tribute to manufacturing by paying tariffs on manufactured agricultural implements used on the farm by the increased prices on the same. Besides, this great interest (agricultural) is at the mercy of railroad corporations in high rates of transporting the products of the farm to market, and in the end the burden falls on the consumers of such products.

"The recent tariff commission created by Congress, and its members appointed by the President, is a miserable subterfuge and sham, as you will ultimately ascertain. The dodging of the responsibility by Congress, of an immediate revision of the tariff and the correction of its abuses and vices, ought to be vigorously condemned. There exists no valid reason why the old war tariff rates should be continued in this era of profound peace and general prosperity of trade and business. Under the const.i.tution, tariff taxation can only be imposed on imported articles for the purposes of revenue to the government, and this, however arranged, is amply sufficient to afford incidental protection to home manufactories.

The time is coming when free trade and open, untrammelled commerce with all nations will be the policy of all wise governments, and the sooner it is brought about the better.

"The currency policy will also be changed, and a great wrong therein righted. The national banking system projected into being early in the late war, and which had its necessities for an apology, will be abrogated and done away with, and a currency furnished directly by the government to the people, without the intervention and agency of private banking corporations. This will be cheaper, safer, and more durable, predicated, as it will be, upon the good faith of the American people and their government, and secured by their prosperity.

"The time will come when the flag of the American republic will float over Canada, all the British Possessions on this continent, the island of Cuba, the natural key to the Gulf of Mexico, as well as over the cultivated valleys, arid plateaus, and towering mountains of the land of the Montezumas, beyond the Rio Grande. Then will your system of government be remodeled and reconstructed upon a plan infinitely superior to your present one, and the United States will not only become the greatest nation the earth has ever known, but the nucleus around which, in time, all other nations will cl.u.s.ter and revolve, shouting the anthem of human equality and freedom and universal liberty.

"G. WASHINGTON."

CHAPTER XIII.

COMMUNICATION FROM MY SON EMIL ABOUT EX-PRESIDENT GARFIELD--GREETINGS FROM MADAM EHRENBORG--LETTER FROM REV. G.o.dDARD, AND SWEDENBORG'S ANSWER.

On the 26th of September, 1881, at the hour of 9 o'clock, forenoon, it being the same memorable day on which the body of the late lamented Garfield was buried, I went to Mrs. Green, 309 Longworth street, for an independent slate-writing seance. I had previously prepared the following paper, which I laid on the table, writing downwards, and which Mrs. Green had no means of reading, viz:

"Will our dear exalted spirit friends be so kind as to give us some information of James A. Garfield, our late beloved President."

On the slate soon came the following, signed EMIL, the name of my spirit son.

"Good morning, dear papa. Many spirits are here to greet you. Our beloved and martyr President's work has just begun. He awoke immediately to consciousness and to the reality of a future life, of which he had slight knowledge. He was met by Washington, the father of his country, and the martyr Lincoln, with a crown prepared for him, and with many other loving kindred spirits, who had gone before to prepare for his reception, and it was the grandest one he ever had. He has been introduced to our spiritual congress, where he will finish his work, and where he will be more useful to his country. You will soon see a communication from the President in the papers."

Then immediately came:

"Dear papa, weep not for those who pa.s.s from this to higher spheres. Think of them free from sorrow and pain, and wipe away your tears.

"EMIL."

Oct. 10. Through Mrs. Green. "My highly esteemed friend, good morning.

Baron Swedenborg is prevented from meeting you to-day by reason of a called special session of the scientific inst.i.tute or harmonial order of savants, of which he is a prominent member. Matters of transcendent import and pressing moment now engross the attention of that honorable body of advanced spiritual minds. He requested me to thus announce his enforced absence to-day, and to say that it will afford him pleasure to be with you at your next sitting. I avail myself of this opportunity, by the kind permission of the mediums' guides, to give my blessings, and to again urge you to go on with your investigations, and to push forward the n.o.ble work set before you by the spirit world. The elements for your spiritual unfoldment are constantly at work, and will continue to work out for you a rich reward far exceeding your most confident antic.i.p.ations. Only fully co-operate with these elements and continue to act conjointly with your spirit friends and all will be well.

"Bright spirits of light around you stand, Whom you have attracted from the summerland; They come to bless you with their spirit light, And make your life all beauteous and bright.

"Press forward, then, with fearless tread, And learn from those the world call dead; The veil is rent, their presence ever near, Your soul to bless and heart to cheer.

"FREDRIKA EHRENBORG."

The communications from Swedenborg of the 8th of September, 1881, through Mrs. Jennie McKee (the first one from him), and those through Mrs. Green of the 26th of September and 3d of October, 1881, I had printed in a small pamphlet, and sent them to divers parties, and one to the Rev. John G.o.ddard, a minister of the New Church in Cincinnati, with the hope that he would afford the members of his congregation the opportunity to read them.

In answer, I received the following reply from Mr. G.o.ddard, viz:

"PRICE'S HILL, _August 19, 1881_.

"_Dear Mr. h.e.l.leberg_: Your communication with your pamphlet came to me to-day. I hardly know what to say in reply, for I fear that nothing I can say will be of any use. I have no doubt in the world that there is such a thing as communication with spirits, nor has any intelligent and well informed New Churchman. Nor have I any doubt whatever that they are a very low order of spirits, and scarcely ever those whom they personate. It is clear that Swedenborg never sent any such communications as these. To believe otherwise would be to believe that intelligent men in the other world lose their wits instead of increasing in wisdom. Doubtless this is permitted as a forcible and compelling offset to the tremendous and increasing materialism of the day. I can not conceive of any use in it to those who desire to be led by the Lord in freedom and reason. Not only Swedenborg declares the thing disorderly, but all experience coincides with his repeated warnings and emphasises the need of our keeping close to the Lord in his divine word. I say to you frankly that I do not feel warranted in putting this pamphlet before the society, for knowing as I do the seductive and tremendously persuasive power of this influence and realizing the evil in it, I should be doing violence to my sense of duty in bringing the matter to their notice. To those capable of better things it is a delusion and a snare. With kind personal feelings to you and all your family, and deploring your connection with this dreadful sphere, I remain sincerely yours in truth,

"JOHN G.o.dDARD."

On November the 7th I repaired to Mrs. Green's, taking with me Mr.

G.o.ddard's letter, which I did not allow Mrs. Green to see, nor did I speak to her any thing in regard to its contents. I had also prepared a communication to Mr. Swedenborg, which I took along with me, in words as follows:

"To my exalted spirit friend, Emanuel Swedenborg: For conferring on me the honor of receiving your communications for the people who you seek to bless with the truth, I appreciate in the highest degree, and my only hope and wish is that I may be able to do this work in a proper and efficient way. The letter before you from the Rev. John G.o.ddard, minister of the Church of the New Jerusalem here, in answer to my pamphlet containing your three first letters to me, is a sample of what may be expected from that cla.s.s. I have had the opinion that the preachers of every denomination will be the very last to accept this most beautiful truth, and, therefore, I have concluded to send the pamphlet only to free, advanced minds, and to the individual members of the different churches of the New Jerusalem, if it receives your approval. With love and sincere affection, I am your willing and obedient servant,

"C. G. h.e.l.lEBERG."

Placing G.o.ddard's letter with mine on the stand, the following communication came on the slate:

"In the adorable name of the Lord I salute you good morning. The course you have pursued in regard to my communications to you meets my hearty approval. In the future be governed by the directions of your immediate guides, in whom I have the utmost confidence, for they are constantly with you, and are more intimately related to your sphere, and know best how and what to direct. I am advised of the purport of the letter to you from our good brother, Mr. G.o.ddard, and have lately visited him for the purpose of observing his surroundings and perceiving his mental operations. As the result, I believe him honest and nearer your platform than he is willing to make known. He certainly concedes enough in his letter to fortify your faith, and to satisfy those under his influence that modern spiritualism, so called, sprang from the great store house of the father's love, and is in his keeping. May the good brother become so illuminated as to reach the grander conclusion fully in consonance with the truth, that his religion emanated not from the Lord direct, but from the writer hereof under the spiritual instruction suited to that age, and that in lifting the veil between the two worlds of embodied and disembodied man, and permitting, yea compelling, the intercommunion between their denizens, the heavenly father has not made an a.s.sortment of evil only for you, for this would be malevolence under whatever pretext, but that all may, if they desire, hold intercourse with the terrestrial sphere. I have neither lost my wits nor retrograded in wisdom, but since I left the body I have lost much of my arrogance and pride, and am now more interested in imparting plain, simple truth, than in the construction of embellished sentences and high sounding and beautifully rounded periods. The humility taught by Jesus and others anterior to his day and since embodies a sublime law of the spiritual spheres, underlying all true progression, to which I cheerfully bow in reverential adoration. If my dear brother will only humble himself as a little child, forgetting for awhile his books, and casting aside the imperious demands of his system of belle-lettres, he will then from that truly spiritually elevated alt.i.tude begin to perceive and to drink in the beauties of spiritual truth and the glories of the Lord.

"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."