The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Spirit LandThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Spirit LandAuthor: Samuel B. EmmonsRelease date: July 17, 2013 [eBook #43237]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT LAND ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Spirit LandAuthor: Samuel B. EmmonsRelease date: July 17, 2013 [eBook #43237]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)
Title: The Spirit Land
Author: Samuel B. Emmons
Author: Samuel B. Emmons
Release date: July 17, 2013 [eBook #43237]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT LAND ***
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Spirit Land, by Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch) Emmons
A woman and two angels, kneelingTHE SPIRIT LAND.
THE SPIRIT LAND.
THE SPIRIT LAND.
By S. B. EMMONS.
PHILADELPHIA:JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY.Nos. 614 and 617 Sansom Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, byL. P. CROWN & CO.,in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
This volume is intended as an antidote to a species of errors that have been rife in every age of the Christian church. Notwithstanding the disclosures the Most High made of himself to his ancient people, they were yet prone to turn aside from the worship of the true God, to follow the lying spirits of the prophets of Baal, and other deceivers, from the days of Moses till the destruction of Jerusalem. So, likewise, under the Christian dispensation, there has been a succession of Antichrists, until their name islegion, whose teachings have clouded the understandings and blinded the moral perceptions of men, subverting the faith of many whose mountains stood strong, and who had been counted the chosen people of God.
The present is viewed as an age ofisms. Men have run mad, and are chasing phantoms. They are roaming round to find some fulcrum to overturn the church and the Bible; they are imagining they are receiving utterances from heaven, when nothing is uttered but the vain fantasies of their own minds and hearts. It is the grossest fanaticism—fanaticism in its most frightful form, leading its unhappy victims, not unfrequently, to flagrant crimes, and to the most horrid of all—that of self-destruction.
These pages are submitted to the public with the counsel of the wisest and best of all ages, that, amid the wily arts of the adversary, we should cling to the word of God, the Bible of our fathers, as the only safe and infallible guide of faith and practice.
We would here give credit to the principal works from which valuable and important matter has been selected for these pages: Whitman's Popular Superstitions; Upham's Lectures upon Witchcraft; Christian Freeman and Family Visitor; Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers; Influence of the Imagination upon the Nervous System, by Rev. Grant Powers; Life of Adam Clarke; Hayward's Book of all Religions; Miller on the Second Coming of Christ; Borrow's Gypsies of Spain; Stone on False Prophets and Christs; Dickens's Household Words; Capron and Barron on the Spirit Knockings; Dick on the Improvement of Society; Revelations of A. J. Davis; The Great Harmonia; Rogers on Human and Mundane Agents; Miss Crowe's Night Side of Nature; Spiritual Telegraph, &c.
As the work embraces a mass of facts of an absorbing and intensely interesting character, we trust that it will commend itself to an enlightened and judicious public.
THE AUTHOR.
THE SPIRIT LAND.
The object of this treatise upon some of the various errors of the past and present ages is to explain their nature—investigate their origin—describe their injurious effects—and to offer and recommend the necessary measures for their banishment. Most persons, even those who have been well educated, can call to mind the avidity with which, in their days of childhood, they listened to the nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and witches. The effects of these juvenile impressions are not easily effaced from the mind, and the impressions themselves are but rarely, if ever, forgotten.
To doubt, in former times, the power of charms, and the veracity of omens, and ghost stories, was deemed little less than atheism. The terror caused by them imbittered the lives of persons of all ages. It either served to shut them out of their own houses, or deterred them from going abroad after it was dark. The room in which the head of a family died was for a long time untenanted; particularly if he died without a will, or was supposed to have entertained any peculiar religious opinions. If any disconsolate maiden, or love-crossed bachelor, became the instrument of their own death, the room where the fatal deed was committed was rendered forever uninhabitable, and not unfrequently nailed up. If a drunken farmer, returning from market, fell from his horse, and by the fall broke his own neck, that spot, ever after, was haunted and impassable. In truth, there was scarcely a by-lane or cross-way but had its ghost, which appeared in the shape of a headless cow or horse. Ghosts of a higher degree rode in coaches, drawn by six headless horses, and driven by a headless coachman. As for the churchyards, the legitimate habitations of spectres, clothed all in white, the numbers who swarmed there equalled the living parishioners; and to pass such a place in the night was more perilous than the storming of Badajos.
Confuted and ridiculed as these opinions have been, in later days, the seeds of them are still widely diffused, and at times attempt to spring up in all their earlier excess. In the year 1832, crowds of men, women, and children flocked to the village of Waltham, a few miles from Boston, to see a ghost which was said to make its appearance towards midnight, walking to and fro in a turf meadow, declaring itself, in unearthly tones, to be the spirit of a murdered man, whose bones lay in a mud hole near by. The excitement spread many miles around, and hundreds from the city and neighboring towns hied to the spot, with eyes agape, to behold the solemn visitor from the spirit world. And such was the credulity inspired in the minds of the people, that a clergyman in the vicinity declared from his pulpit, on the following Sabbath, that the awful crime of murder had been revealed by the spirit which had appeared in Waltham! Such is theexcitabilityof the mind, and its tendency (notwithstanding the light that has been scattered abroad) to give credence to all the vagaries and nonsense of the darker ages.
Ignorance of correct reasoning has undoubtedly given rise to many superstitions. Inductive reasoning teaches us to infer general conclusions from particular facts which have come under our observation. This definition may be illustrated by an example. You know that water boils on the application of a certain degree of heat. You have seen this experiment tried many times without a single failure. You therefore conclude that water will always boil on the application of this degree of heat, although you have seen it applied but to a small portion of the water in creation. Thus you draw thisgeneralconclusion from the fewparticularfacts which you have witnessed. But had you noticed several failures in the trial, your conclusions would have been doubtful. And if the experiment had failed ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, you would have adopted an opposite conclusion. You would have said that the application of the specified degree of heat would not boil water. In this way, logical reasoning leads to the discovery of truth. Now, apply this principle of sound reasoning to the whole mass of pretendedsigns. Let me select one to show you the absurdity of believing in any. It is commonly reported that the breaking of a looking glass betokens death to some member of the family. This sign probably originated in the following manner: A death happened to follow the breaking of a mirror. Some ignorant person immediately concluded that the breaking of the glass was a sure sign of death. The story soon spread among credulous people, and at length was handed down from generation to generation as an established truth. But you readily perceive the absurdity of forming thisgeneralconclusion fromoneor afewparticular facts. We all know that death does not follow the supposed sign oftener than once in a hundred times; and therefore the breaking of the glass is almost a sure sign that no death will immediately take place in the family. But as mirrors are always breaking, and people are always dying, it is not strange that the latter event should sometimes follow the former. It would be a miracle if it did not. But the events have no connection whatever with each other. The coincidence in any case is altogether accidental. We might with the same reason affirm that the breaking of a teakettle is the sign of death, or any thing else, as the breaking of a mirror. But the truth is, there is no sign in the case. It first originated in ignorance of correct reasoning, and has been perpetuated by the credulous. It is but a short time ago that a girl in Exeter, N.H., broke a mirror. She believed that ill luck always followed such an event and therefore became seriously affected in her mind. Finally, her strength failed, and she died a victim to her superstition. Hence we perceive the great importance of a just conception and well-informed judgment upon such apparently trifling, yet oftentimes serious events, in their effects upon social and individual happiness.
We have only to apply this principle of correct reasoning to every sign in existence, to find them to be superstitious. We shall find, upon investigation, that they are based upon no rational evidence, and consequently are not entitled to our belief or confidence. If they indicate any thing, it is something directly opposite to what is generally supposed, for they do not come to pass more than once in a hundred times, and therefore warrant a different conclusion. Not only so. If you believe in the present pretended signs, you may make a million more equally good. A man quarrels after drinking a glass of wine; you may therefore say that taking a glass of wine is the sign of a quarrel. A man draws a prize in a lottery; you may say therefore that the purchase of a ticket is the sign of a fortune. A man dies after supper; you may say therefore that eating supper is the sign of death. In this you may multiply signs to infinity, and they will prove just as true as any now in existence. But our Creator has endowed us with understanding. He has given us reason to regulate our belief by satisfactory evidence. And if we do this, we cannot believe inanyof the pretended signs. We must conclude that they have all originated in ignorance of correct reasoning, and are kept in remembrance by those who will not use their intellectual powers as their Maker designed.
Ignorance of inductive philosophy has given rise to many superstitions. By the means of inductive philosophy, we are enabled to trace effects to their true causes. For example: Lights have frequently been seen dancing over marshy grounds, near tan-yards, and burying-places, and along the sea shore. Credulous people have believed them to be the spirits of the uneasy dead. This belief must be considered superstitious, not having any foundation on rational evidence. Philosophy teaches that these lights are occasioned by an inflammable gas, which arises from decayed animal and vegetable substances, and takes fire on coming in contact with atmospheric air. Thus we may trace all effects to their true causes.
Many persons have supposed that pork killed in the increase of the moon would swell in boiling, while that killed in her wane would shrink. This opinion probably originated in the following manner: Some person killed, at different periods of the moon, two hogs which had been born and fattened together. That killed in her increase swelled in boiling; while the other, killed in her wane, shrunk. He could conceive of no way to account for the facts but on the supposition of lunar influence. This conclusion was accordingly adopted, and at length became an established truth. Yet there was no philosophy in forming this opinion from a few such facts. More experiments should have been tried; and they results would have shown that the real cause of the swelling and shrinking existed in the constitution of the animals. It would have been discovered that pork of fine and solid texture would commonly swell, whenever killed; while that of loose and coarse grain would as generally shrink. And the person would no more have thought of attributing the difference in his pork to the moon than to the spirit of Bonaparte.
Let this philosophic principle be applied to this whole class of superstitions, and we shall arrive at similar results. There is the supposed influence of the moon on making soap, grafting trees, cutting timber, and also upon the fortunes of love-sick swains and maidens. The latter are directed to go out in the evening and stand over the bars of a gate, and, looking on the moon, repeat the following lines:—