Strange Visitors Part 25

Field preaching should become a regular inst.i.tution of the Sabbath; and discourses instructing the mind in morals and sciences should be given in the tent, or under trees, in parks and woods set apart for that purpose.

Then would, the object of the Sabbath be attained. As I have said, the spiritual nature is more open to the reception of truth on that day.

The state of sleepiness, which is a well-known attendant on the Sabbath, is indicative of the magnetic influence; and those who discard the day, and secretly pursue their active employments, would do well to heed the remarks I have made.

Before I close, I wish to make some observations upon the present style of preaching as compared with the sermonizing of my day. When I occupied the pulpit, the doctrines of election and predestination were the princ.i.p.al themes that engaged the attention of ministers.

Free will and coerced will were questions which puzzled the theologian.

Looking upon the Bible as an inspired book, the most careless sentence therein expressed became a word of weighty import. We engaged the minds of our hearers with abstract questionings and reasonings. But we never could make the doctrine of predestination accord with that of free will.

Nor could we clearly account for the presence of evil, while we believed the Creator to be all wise, all powerful, and cognizant of the end from the beginning. Yet these were the topics which the minister of my day discussed and endeavored to make clear to the comprehension of his hearers. We did not treat of every-day life; the pulpit we considered too sacred for such topics. Religion with the ma.s.ses became an abstract state of holiness. Men a.s.sumed long faces and sober bearings upon the seventh day; but their every-day life was something different, which the minister and his ministering did not reach.

But the pulpits of to-day are platforms of another kind. They have altered, even as their shape has altered. Their outward construction corresponds to their teachings. In my day the pulpit was narrow and straight, and was lifted high above the people. But at the present day a step only separates it from the congregation. It is broad, low, and open.

The teachings received from it correspond with its change of form. The ministers of to-day are one with their flock. Their discourses are practical, relating to every-day affairs. They no more discuss the questions of Satan, of angels, and archangels, nor arouse an undefined fear by descanting on the mysterious prophecies of Daniel: they talk to you like _human beings._

I remember being somewhat shocked while listening to sermons preached by my son, H.W. Beecher. I recall sitting near his pulpit, and longing to get up and tell the congregation my views of texts and matters of which he was discoursing. I thought then it was because the race was going backward--becoming less intellectual--that men should be content to listen to sermons that contained so little theology. But experience in spirit life has caused me to change my opinion.

I now see that Beecher, Spurgeon, and a vast host of others, are teaching human souls the great truths which will fit them for life hereafter. I have done now with endeavoring to solve improbable problems, and with simple faith in man's efforts for his own progression, I give my testimony as to the uses of the Sabbath, and the advantages of religion in advancing their progress, and in preparing the spirit for its future home.

PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH.

_LIFE AND MARRIAGE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD_.

The two worlds--the spiritual and the material--are like twin sisters whom I have seen, so similar that their acquaintances could not distinguish between them, and yet so dissimilar that an intimate friend would wonder why one should ever be mistaken for the other.

I propose to give a short account of the society and conditions of life in the spiritual spheres.

The Swedenborgian Society of which I was a member while on earth, continues to exist as a body in the spirit world, though Swedenborg, the great seer and founder of that sect, is not a leader among them. He has his country seat in Swedenborgia, a beautiful and intellectual settlement named after him, where he retires within himself, and directs his great mind in developing his science of correspondences, which he proposes to arrange so systematically that it will become a part of the teachings of earth's children.

It was never his design to become the leader of a sect, but his desire was simply to reveal like a telescope that which was unknown. He is deeply interested in the political condition of Sweden, Norway, and Germany, and exerts his vast intellect towards emanc.i.p.ating the minds of those nations from the bondage of church and state.

It is curious to witness with what fidelity Swedenborg described in many instances the condition of the soul after death; and also to perceive in other instances how utterly he misinterpreted the visions presented.

Such discrepancies are incidental to all clairvoyant states; and this is not surprising, for it is incidental to humanity.

Man sees clearly when the prejudices of education and the influence of his loves do not pervert his vision.

What political economist, strongly biased in favor of one mode of government, can contemplate dispa.s.sionately an opposing form?

The theological belief which Swedenborg imbibed in his early youth, tinctured his description of the heavens and h.e.l.ls of the spirit world, causing him to represent the soul as reaching a period in its love of evil when it cannot retrace its steps. The h.e.l.ls of the spirit are similar to the h.e.l.ls of earth, being like them the result of the ignorance and perverted loves of animal man.

What h.e.l.l more fearful than the h.e.l.l of licentiousness? Yet it is merely the animal side of the heaven of love.

Swedenborg discovered h.e.l.ls in spiritual existence, where the inmates lived lives of prost.i.tution. His statement concerning such h.e.l.ls is true.

Individuals who have lived such lives upon earth cannot suddenly be transformed. Their habits become _spiritual diseases_ with them.

Now, as to marriage, the mere form does not make the wife different from the courtezan, but her love exalts her above that condition. If she be united to a man who is repulsive to her nature, and yet submits to his embraces for the considerations of family, or home, or public opinion, she is on the same plane with the courtezan.

It is a proposition generally believed, that there is a soul-mate for every human being, and it is usually supposed that in the spirit world those mates are found, and that those united there live together inseparably. But as there exists in the spirit world the same states, the same variety of progressive development among men and women as in this world, so unions are formed there in which one soul develops beyond the capacity of the other, and in such cases changes must ensue.

I will now speak of marriages more in detail.

In the summer land the union of the man with the woman occurs from very similar causes to those which bring about like unions upon earth--the man is drawn to the woman and the woman to the man through the operation of a natural law. If instinct were not so impaired by the cultivation of the external faculties, there would arise but little difficulty--on earth in selecting partners adapted to each other. Considerations of wealth and position are permitted to influence your selections rather than the idea of congeniality and adaptability.

In spirit life this method is reversed, and the marriages formed there are productive of greater happiness than those among men in the first condition of life.

But as I have stated, marriage in the spirit world is not an indissoluble bond. Some minds a.s.sociate together in harmony and expand in the same direction, and with these the union is permanent. I have seen such in the spirit world,--beautiful and n.o.ble souls intertwined and aspiring together.

There be others whose states and conditions after a time become changed.

Such seek new companions, and this is permitted without discredit to the individuals.

Many forms of marriage ceremonies are extant in the different societies and countries. Garlands of flowers and symphonies of divine music are bestowed upon the bride and groom. Bright bands of spirits from the celestial heavens attend them, for they represent in their love and in their wedded joy the harmonies of nature!

While they love, sin, sorrow, darkness, and all evils shrink from sight.

From these spiritual marriages are born soul attributes. Human beings are never generated in the second condition; they need what is known as the material world for their nurture and growth; and yet I understand that in some of the more refined spiritual existences births have occurred. The beings born there are indigenous--not generated by earth parents, but offspring of those refined conditions.

I know not of this as a fact; yet if we take the old Jewish Bible as a history, we find an a.n.a.logous statement there in the a.s.sertion that Christ was born of G.o.d in a spiritual state of existence previous to entering this earth plane.

Spirit soils and atmosphere interblend and produce trees, shrubs, flowers, and the cereals, but the human being, after the second birth, ceases to reproduce his species. His children are thoughts born of the spirit. After birth succeeds death. The soul pa.s.ses through many stages of existence in the process of refinement. The next state of existence to the material, I term the spiritual, and the one beyond that the celestial, and beyond that the seraphic.

In the next state, to which I in common with all men who have not pa.s.sed some hundreds of years in the spirit world belong, individuals pa.s.s through a condition a.n.a.logous to death upon the earth.

Spiritual bodies are subject to a process of refinement and decay; and the soul, as the winged b.u.t.terfly to which it is likened, throws off its cerement and a.s.sumes a new form.

But with us the transmigration is not veiled in darkness and mystery as with you. We can watch the transformation; we can see the spirit emerge from its old cas.e.m.e.nt more ethereal than ourselves, but still visible; and we can hold communion with it.

So slight is this change with us that your mediums seldom touch upon the fact.

Spirit is inseparable from matter, and can give neither form nor expression without it.

The Great Invisible Creator of the Universe must have thought of trees, flowers, beasts, birds, fish, and the wonderful exhibitions of form through the vast realm of matter, previous to their existence.

But he had to give them shape in matter--perishable but re-creative matter; and if the Master-mind of all cannot express his thought otherwise than with this ever changing, yet ever reconstructing thing called matter, how can the human soul manifest but through a spiritualized condition of matter, ever changing yet ever re-creating and refining, mounting higher and higher, from the earthly to the spiritual, from the spiritual-to the celestial, on--on--till finally reaches Deity--himself!

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH

_ACTING_.

All great actors are media for spirit influx. It would be a marvellous sight if the curtain which hangs between the spirit world and the stage were uplifted, and the invisible drama which is being enacted exposed to view. Then would you behold "the airy spirits" to whom Shakspeare so truthfully alludes, moving like comets in gorgeous light around the inspired actor!

Inspiration is _motion, acceleration, intensity_; it has no part or parcel with lethargy.