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Show H ' C031MUMCATI0 MiTU IN. B it y Materialism does no- admit tbe H , possibility o. communicating with B those spiritual lieings, which re- B vealed religion teaches u, to con-1 1 Elder as the inhabitants of the un teen world. It recogni:;s no world BBpJBi v hut tills vi'ible universe, and it BH' I as' us to believe- in nothing but JH what is vi-Ibloortargibl-. A tiro- m fessor of anatomy at the university H . ' Chn-Uanu once stated this ab- ( , surd doctrine in the following crude HL . I terras: "I have been digging in Uie B,, X cadavers these thirty ytr.rs. bat I H.i never yet eau any spirit; not so j much as could be put on the point II ofmykuife. I do not believe there j Isanj." ThaVUiL. Ileneversaw H It; therefore it itoca not exl.t. How H . j Euch a palpable error could ever be Bc 1 t mistaken for saund philosophy is l inexplicable when it is remem- Bftli 'l? bered that Me live Q a BBVJB1 t world where unseen forces are BBVI,H ' J at work every moment. It woald BBYJl1 I 1 interesting to know whether the BBVJB' anatomist ever found an ounce of BBF , 1 "life," or a grain of "thought," or BBVJK j jl a s uall specimen or "volition" in K ( thocaIaer-. Probably not, and, H i , i ?et;tbcca.istenceortheseisasmLCi It jl I matter of fact iu a lMng person I i s 1 his nose, or- his heart. Tlyeir J. having escaped the dissecting knife .., , I i L J' uo reaMU wiiy we should deny a ' 1 tnelr existence. Xor Is there any fi J ' 1 . reason why we should deny the H ) existence of a spirit or a spiritual H t 8'm rationalists will take H , i aothe position. They will admit ----------l'tf ----------------------------1-1 can never coma la contact wMi each other. They Mak that -what la spirit cannot opante on matter. For instance, since sound fa produced pro-duced by the motion of the air which becomes audible when striking strik-ing on the inner parts of the ear. a spirit, they say, can never make himself heard, because he cannot move the air. They Imagine that you can no more make anj kind of impression by a spiritual substance upon matter than you can hammer an Iron bar flat with a feather. Hence, in their opinion, the impassibility of communication com-munication with a spiritual world. The who'e argument rests on an erroneous conception of tbe sub stance of spirit If it could be admitted ad-mitted that matter is one thing and spirit another, and of a different nature, then there would be some plausibility in the argument. Were spirit to be considered only a quality oranabstracliou it could have no conceivable effect on material objects. ob-jects. It would then be about as easy to make a pair of shoes of rotundity ro-tundity or to build a house of space as to impress spirit on matter. But, fortunately for a true conception of things, it is now more and more conceded that spirit is really matter, although more subtle than that which we daily handle. And v hen this truth is clear, it is easy to see that this Immeasurably fine substance sub-stance can operate on other substances, sub-stances, just as we see that electricity electrici-ty can move a heavy loaded street car ata respectable speed. The question of the possibility of communicating with an unseen world may properly be reduced to a question of facts. Did anybody ever see or bear anything or anybody any-body from that other world? If so, we are as much bound to believe in the existence of that world as we are to believe in the existence of the dwarfs in Africa, of which travelers tell us. In both cases we accept competent testimony to a fact. Itevealed religion is based upon the insslbihty of communicating with God and angels ani spirits. Hut wu have numerous testimonies outside the pages of sacred Writ n hich corroborate the statements of the bcriptu res-. A few may he referred re-ferred to here. Grcgor tho Great, mentions a sea captain, called Uaraka, who drifted about on the keel of his boat in tbe open sea for several days, i ntil he was about to eipro from hunger and ijuiguo. Tbe i-ailor told the following alwui his wonderful deliverance. '"struggling with the waves and about to go under, I was seized with a wonderful feeling. I was neither folly awake norasleep. And, behold, as I was there in the nuddlo of tho sea, somebody appeared to me and brought me a loaf of bread. As soon as I had eaten this, I obtained new strength, and I was shortly afterwards laien up by a ship that passed by." Goethe relates the following of Ucuvcnuto Cellini: This Cellini was Incarcerated and despaired atom bis fate. Once he intended in-tended to commit suicide when an in-visiblu in-visiblu being seized him and threw btm four yards from w here be stood. Tno following night a young.beantiful bein,r appeared and blamed him far his behavior. When tho Castellan, who held Uenvenuto In captivity, contemplated con-templated to kill him, a voice was heard by the prisoner: O, Benvenuto! batten and turn to God in prater and cry earnestly unto him." He prayed and heard the voice again: 'Hest in peace and fear not!' The prisoner was once by this being taken to i large hall, where he could boo many dead pcoplo horn he bad know n. Dr. Woetzel, Chemnitz, ISO, published an account of tbe appearance appear-ance of his deceased wife. He lead taken a promise of her on her death bed that she should appear, if jcs-1-b'e, but on her request, he had againrelcased her from thlspromhe. She came, however. The doctor relate "A few weeks after her death I thought I beard In tbe room, where I was, a w ind blowing. Tho lights were almost blown out. A window was oieiicd and I saw tho form of mv wife who said, with soft voice: 'Karl, I am immortal, we will soon meet. " The author was willing to make a swornstatement of this event. It is known that Tonjuato Tasso often saw and conv ersed with a mys. terious personage. HU biographer, jlanso, says: When ho was told that bis imagination imagi-nation led him artray, he replied. 'That is impossible, because what see aud boar is far abo ve mv knowledge. The imagination can busj it&elf with such things as have been stored up In the thoughts, but I uave repeatedly bad converKatlonswith that spirit and learnt things of w hich I never lteforc heard anything, such tlun-s of which, as far as I know, no-boJv no-boJv evcrkncwanything.' Manso was once present when the splnt came to Ta-so, aud although he did not sec anything, he felt sure that the cclc-bra cclc-bra til pocl had communion with a real being, whoever he were. An incident in tho history of Rime is well known. When Atlila at the head of bis wild hordes Inundated In-undated Italy, tho Pope, Leo the Great, went out to meet him and asked him tosDare the city aud the country, with which rcauest the wild king, fo tho astonishment of all, complied. When his followers asked him sby he had turned away from Rome, he replied. - "I did not do it in order to honor the Homan high priest, but I saw stand- Iing by his lde an old, nuje.-t!c man, robed in ornate and with a sword in his hand. Tins threatened me with I path if I did "not do what I-eo required." re-quired." Xapoleon I. often saw a star, which nobody else could see. Once he said to General Rapp, pointing to the sky: "Do v ou nut fe in Ktar? It .hlnw and h is nver forsaken me. I always see it when great events ara to come. It b ds iuc go on and is a sure sign that I wi'l !e victorious." The following is narrated by Von Schubert in his SymMd. du Traumr The preacher Kvert Luyk-eu on the seaside in Frieslxnd had a small chapel close by tho shore. It was a long wav from tho main church and was not erj w 6ll attended, wherefore the preacher concluded todLscontinue the meetings ther-. With tho intention inten-tion of making this announcement he started one day for thechapek lie had to walk through a lonely forest, On the road, in this deserted place, he siw a man clothed in a sailor's costume, cos-tume, such as was often seen in that region. The man smiled friendly as he iiassed. but when the preacher turned to look after him, ho as nowhere no-where to be seen. He continued his w alk full of wonder. vv hen ths stranger again met him and disappeared as mysteriously as lictore. This was re-lieited re-lieited a third tlins. Oaly thls'tim-. tho mysterious stranger stepped and sKke as follows. "I know your Intention. But n member who has called you to preach tho word in that little house. 1t- aember alas that ttasj t-oVo atteaa then ara fear sa3ets aadOsfesnef whom aMy: boob will nad tfcalr graves in tbe deep. And whsayou think your church Is almost empty, there are many lnvlstbU witnesses to yoor faithfulness. Do therefore what is your dn'y that your reward may not be taken away." Emanuel Swedenborc, that human hu-man conundrum which the great philosopher Kant thought important import-ant enough to study, gives the following fol-lowing statement about his visions: -The Lord has granted ms to speak to all dsad persons whom I knew while alive; with soma a fsw days, with others for months, and with others for years. I have also seen others, and I do not say too much if 1 mention a hundred thousand, of whom some were in the heavens and some in the hells. I have conversed con-versed with some who bad been dead only a couple of days. When I told them thai their frieods now were busy with preparations for their barial, they said that it would be well to throw away all such things as bad served their bodies and its functions in the world. They also wanted me to tell their friends that they were not dead, but that they lived just as before. be-fore. They bad only pawed from one world to another. They did not know that they bad lost anything. They had a form as before, and senses and undcrstandlnsjand wilkas before; tbey bad tbe same kind of thoughts and dispositions and simitar sensations, enjoyments and wishes as they bad in the world. Most of the dead, when they see that tbey live sa human beings be-ings as before and find themselves in similar circumstances, are filled with joy because they live; and they say that thej had not believed this. Tbey were also astonished that the people in tbe world should be in such ignorance ignor-ance shout these things." Luther was often bothered with evil spirits, particularly during his exile on Wartburg. "There are,"says he in a letter to Spalatln, "not only one Satan by me, or rather sgalmt mc."-And In another letter, "There are many bad and Intolerable devils here to while tbe time away, as theysay.butlnahard way. Pray that Christ does not leave me." How these evil spirits tormented him will be understood from the tradition that the devil once appeared to him while he was engaged In the translation trans-lation of the Bible, and made some impertinent suggestions, upon which the great reformer lost his patience and threw the Inkstand at his infernal mijesty. The ink-s'and ink-s'and was shattered in fragments against the wall, and the black spot made by the ink is still visible In the castle. The devil fled. It is clear from the numerous facta of the nature here set forth, that communications with the other world are not anything unheard un-heard of or unreasons.! Ie. If anything any-thing can be believed on testimony, this can certainly be. For the witnesses wit-nesses amount to thousands. The Lalter-dsy Saints have been called fanatics for believing the testimony of their prophets that they have communicated with spiritual beings. But there is no ground for such appellations on that account. The history of the world, both profane and sacred, points to the fact that the Saints have accepted the truth in this matter. It is their opponents who find themselves compelled to shut their eyes and deny a formidable array of well established facts. Kant, who supposes that the splnt never can operate on matter, is nevertheless willing to admit that tills spirit Is capable of Influencing the human mind to which It is akin and thereb) produce sensations and conjure up, as it were, pictures apparently ap-parently cutside of tbe external senses. To him such appearances are very reasonable. But if we accept ac-cept the doctrine of modtrn philosophy phil-osophy which teaches us that spirit is really matter, we see this possibility possi-bility at once. Tbe substance of the spirit may be ever so subtle. Tho FolMUty for it to operate on matter Is there, and the teachings of revealed religion concerning con-cerning spiritual manifestations and revelations are vindicated. |