[92] Veracious, excellent,
sometimes learned and acute persons, even philosophers of no mean
pretensions, testify to the "levitation" of bodies much heavier than
Elisha's axe; to the existence of "spirits" who, to the mere tactile
sense, have been indistinguishable from flesh and blood; and,
occasionally, have wrested with all the vigour of Jacob's opponent;
yet, further, to the speech, in the language of raps, of spiritual
beings, whose discourses, in point of coherence and value, are far
inferior to that of Balaam's humble but sagacious steed. I have not
the smallest doubt that, if these were persecuting times, there is
many a worthy "spiritualist" who would cheerfully go to the stake in
support of his pneumatological faith; and furnish evidence, after
Paley's own heart, in proof of the truth of his doctrines. Not a few
modern divines, doubtless struck by the impossibility of refusing the
spiritualist evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted, and
deprived of any _a priori_ objection by their implicit belief in
Christian Demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge
seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than
those of need, greed, and vainglory.
Under these circumstances, it was to be expected, though it is none
the less interesting to note the fact, that the arguments of the
latest school of "spiritualists" present a wonderful family likeness
to those which adorn the subtle disquisitions of the advocate of
ecclesiastical miracles of forty years ago.
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