These dumb cattle
would not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Homeopathy fell
on them.
----You don't know what plague has fallen on the practitioners of
theology? I will tell you, then. It is SPIRITUALISM. While some are
crying out against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing
at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as a
mere trick of interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is
quietly undermining the traditional ideas of the future state which
have been and are still accepted,--not merely in those who believe in
it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent
than most good people seem to be aware of. It needn't be true, to do
this, any more than Homeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists
have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been
roughly handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of
the pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the
snap of a toe-joint, and ending with such a crack of old beliefs that
the roar of it is heard in all the ministers' studies of Christendom!
Sir, you cannot have people of cultivation, of pure character, sensible
enough in common things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd
business-men, men of science, professing to be in communication with
the spiritual world and keeping up constant intercourse with it,
without its gradually reacting on the whole conception of that other
life.
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