THE MEDIUM AND DAYBREAK
LONDON, JUNE 7, 1872.
No. 114.—VOL. III.
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MR. MASSEY'S CONCLUDING LECTURE AT
ST. GEORGE'S HALL.
On Sunday afternoon Mr. Massey delivered his fourth and
concluding lecture in the above hall to a moderately large though
apparently highly appreciative audience. The subject of the
discourse was: "Christianity as hitherto Interpreted; a Second Advent in
Spiritualism." We suppose the audience was composed more purely of
Spiritualists than on any of the three proceeding occasions. It
rests with time to prove whether they will accept the platform so
ably marked out on Sunday, or not. We feel convinced that Mr. Massey
laid down, as fully and clearly as could be done in one discourse, the
truths and principles which must form the basis of a "second advent" of
Christianity—or, in other words, of a universal church, based on the
brotherhood of man and the fatherhood or God. The hearty and
prolonged applause which frequently interrupted the lecturer gave evidence
enough of the fact that the ideas enunciated by him fell into ready
hearts; but whether they will have courage sufficient to apply them as
their living and acting principles in everyday life, in face of the
existing conditions of society, is another thing. That there are
hundreds—nay, thousands—both in this country and America, who are acting
up to such principles, we know, but they are, for the most part,
individuals standing alone—poor, obscure, and persecuted; so that when a
man like Mr. Massey, who has won a position of honour and respect by his
genius, coupled with persistent industry, comes forward, and, when most
men begin to think of laying aside the trappings of warfare, boldly enters
the arena of political and religious strife, and casts his gauntlet at the
feet of society, thereby endangering his well-earned fame, and drawing
upon himself the malignancy of a world whose delusive security he has
evaded, it is a noble spectacle, emboldening to the timid, and giving
renewed vigour to the weary and suffering.
Mr. Massey said that he had, in this course of lectures,
brought forward his personal experience in substantiation of the truths of
modern Spiritualism. He did not think anyone would believe that he
would be so senseless as to do so if the whole thing were a falsehood.
He had used his facts as the basis of his lectures. One of his
critics had said he should not like to go through a similar experience in
order to be converted to Spiritualism. He was sorry it was so
disagreeable, but there it was, and he could not alter it. He did
not by any means imply that such an experience was necessary to everyone.
Guided by this experience, he had tried to trace a few links in the past,
and to try them by the spiritual light of to-day. It had been his
effort to trace how God had wrought amongst all people, in order to
develop in their minds a knowledge of spiritual existence, and ultimately
a knowledge of himself. It was false to suppose that Spiritualism
was a survival of savage civilisation, evolved in ignorance and
superstition. It was not based upon their philosophy at all.
It was a survival of the same spiritual facts; and if we were compelled to
recognise the same spiritual cause, it was a double reason for the truth
of Spiritualism. It was the oldest form of worship in the world, and
the one destined to survive all others. It was the most universal in
its claims; its range of revelation included the whole human family—it
would keep the heavenly fire burning in the heart when it had died out on
the altar. He had been amazed at the light which the facts of
Spiritualism cast on the beliefs of the past. Most of the mysteries
of bygone times which puzzled us, as Friday's foot steps in the sand did
Robinson Crusoe, it unravelled. It gave us, as it were, the Masonic
grip whereby we could interpret so many things. It seemed to create
a new seeing sense.
The lecturer here said that, had he not been obliged to leave
out so many things, he might have shown that Spiritualism would explain
many old ideas and facts. For instance, the doctrine of
pre-existence might have arisen from the double consciousness he spoke of
in his first lecture. Another illustration which Mr. Massey
introduced was that of the shepherds and woodmen of Languedoc—the
Albigenses. They were called by their persecutors "black phantoms,"
because they fought with such super-human power, overthrowing vastly
superior numbers. The secret of their might lay in the fact of their
being assisted by legions of spirits, who told them when to fight and when
to flee. Yet when those men bore witness to the facts of spiritual
appearances they were denounced as impious fanatics. The lecturer
said he could mention many lives in the past in illustration of this
belief in spiritual aid and guidance. He would, however, mention but
one—Tertullian, who was the first man of his
age. St. Cyprian, in calling for one of his books, would say, "Give
me my master." He at first believed in Christianity as then taught;
but he afterwards accepted a broader faith, believing in an eternal stream
of revelation always passing from heaven to earth. He maintained
that God descended in all ages to illumine man—that the stream of
revelation could be traced through the patriarchs and prophets of the
past, and that it had not attained its highest point in Christ. Such
living Spiritualism was, and is yet, considered the most damnable doctrine
by the orthodox.
Revelation by means of objective manifestations was one way
in which the ages arrived at a knowledge of God. It was derived from
the positive communication with the spiritual world. The ladder
between heaven and earth—the bridge spanning the chasm of death—was seen
by them. The only hold they had of the spiritual life was the one
they had had presented to their senses. Infinitude had spoken to
them with spirit-voices, and in the most natural way illuminated their
material existence, and low and selfish as they were, they had left us a
spiritual record which we had used at second hand. Jesus Christ, the
most perfect Spiritualist, could have had no idea of founding a religion
without spiritual manifestations; he laid claim to them as the proof that
God was with him. He dwelt in sight and sound of the spiritual
world, so that the two worlds became one visible unition. The veil
betwixt the two was rent during his life, as that of the Temple was on the
day of his death. Spiritual communication was the means of fusing
these two into one. The holy spirit called the
Paraclete was the deliverer of spiritual truth. It would take
Spiritualism a long time to get that which had been personified as the
Holy Spirit. It was the highest kind of mediumship. St. Paul
said: "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power,
and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." The assurance of
convocation at the present day was of a very different kind. The
followers of Christ were to be made mediums, and were to prophesy, heal,
and perform miracles of various kinds—this was to be the proof that they
were of God.
"Turn," said the lecturer, "to the Christian Church, and see
if it is of God. Where are its signs of divine mediumship?" He
said the priesthood of Israel was always subordinated to individual
manifestations. Was it so now? It was subordinated to men who
were mere bookkeepers. They had no visions, no divination, no living
word from the Father to a living people. The light of their
Urim and Thummim had gone out—its glory was departed.
There was no sign of the divine presence with the Church of the present
time; it had not warmth of heart enough to quicken into splendour its
hidden light. We could not live on the manna that fell in the desert
to feed the Israelites. We could not start in this or other
life-matters just where the wisest and best had left off. Every man
must begin from the beginning, be guided by the light God had given to his
individual soul. We could not inherit our faith ready made; those
who lived deepest would be the most perplexed before they perfected their
faith.
There was a vast difference between Jesus Christ and his
followers. His was a daily converse with heaven, whereby he was fed
from heaven. Their inspiration was mainly drawn from a dead well,
whose waters, seldom stirred by an angel from heaven, had been impregnated
with the sulphurous fumes from below. It had been with the Christian
Church as with the Hebrews. So long as the law was given to them by
the Spirit of God it was living, but when written it became dead and
useless. Then came their ruin and dispersion. They could not
go on living on one year's fruitfall; they must have it every year.
Mr. Massey hero introduced a Story of a French curé who once,
on the occasion of the annual blessing of the fields, came to one which
was in a very bad condition, and accordingly refused to give it his
benediction, saying it would be no use, as it needed manuring. The
whole Christian world, said the lecturer, wanted a top dressing and a
thorough digging and dunging. Manifestations were the earliest
necessity, and he thought they were just as necessary now. The
disbelieving Thomases were becoming more and more every day. They
must touch the other world in order to believe it. The spiritual
world had come to be looked upon as a far-off land that existed in legend
alone. Yet there never was more need of the signs of its existence.
What did it matter in which shape it proves its existence?
Shipwrecked people did not quarrel with the land they saw at hand.
In one sense at least the objective means had an advantage over the
subjective. In the Eucharist the difficulty was to find where the
spirit was located, and the dispute was sufficient to divide churches.
The most thorough and English way of getting God was to eat him.
There surely never was greater need of revelation than now.
Protestantism, which had done so much for mankind in freeing it from the
tyranny of dogmas, was an utter failure as a spiritualistic movement.
Its greatest strokes had rebounded against itself. It had had no new
sources of spiritual life. It had fed the spirit of freethought, but
mostly in the direction of science. It manifested its life in
continually dissenting. We, as a people, always grumbled when
agreeing, but when disagreeing grew glorious. He imagined that the
acme of Protestantism was never gained in this world but once, and then it
was sublime. A Scotch sect had divided and divided until the
ultimate offshoot was represented by two persons, an old man and an old
woman. She being then asked if she did not consider that they had at
length constituted the true Church, replied: " Weel, I'm nae sae sure o'
John."
In presence of the revelations of science at the present
day—telegraphy, photography, spectrum analysis, &c.—we need another which
will give us the spiritual assurance that we are nothing in this
infinitude save pure consciousness of God, and his consciousness with us.
What would the scientific world say if it were announced that a new
species was in process of evolution? It would crawl on all-fours to
the ends of the earth to see it. But it might be that here was a new
motion, a new life, a new world evolving before our eyes; and yet
Professor Huxley could say, "But supposing the
phenomena to be genuine, they do not interest me." There
surely never could have been greater necessity for revelation than now.
But was Spiritualism, with its absurd rapping's and tippings, going to
effect the necessary change? It might be urged that, in comparison
with the miracles performed in the past, such manifestations were trivial
and nonsensical. But if spirits were present, there was nothing
unnatural in their rapping and knocking. We imagined that the divine
life, the spiritual world, must come to us with pomp and power, with the
sound of trumpets and the beating of drums. But such was not the
case; it came silently and stealthily. The tiny tap had been the
turning-point in many lives. He believed that, as an evidence of
spiritual life, one spiritual manifestation was worth the hearsay of a
world. It was the life and resurrection of the rest.
Immortality was not a "perhaps"—it was a fact. Once immortality thus
grasped as a fact, all words about it seemed unimportant. The man
who had once felt sure of spirit-presence, once heard a spirit-voice, or
been breathed upon with spirit-breath, was in a different position to one
who had not experienced these things; he had lost all cowardly fear of
death. The Christian world had cultivated the greatest fear of
death, which to it was like taking a step in the dark—putting the foot on
the last step of a stair and finding no foothold. Our faith did not
conquer death at the last moment, but carried a triumphant consciousness
of having conquered death the whole life through. With such an
assurance, the Spiritualist could walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, and, having passed it, could turn round and ask: "Is this the
bugbear that has frightened so many?" We could say farewell to the
old dread and despair. What cared we for the broken shell, who had
heard the flute-note of the immortal bird? Death was but the shadow
of life's presence.
This communication of the divine life was to beget in us the
divine life. If God had been with us, we must prove it to others.
"I believe in spirit-rapping" was no great creed. The thing of
importance was, what we were going to do. It was useless to climb to
the hill-top if we had no eyes to see the glories of the sun. Belief
was not given to us to be limited to a form of belief. It was not in
believing but in doing that we could get the true focus for God to act
upon us. The visitation of God did not descend on the bended knees
of piety, but on the wearied feet of active charity; and before offering
up prayer men should ask themselves what it is worth. If we had a
love, we should let it work. Jesus called it a love of one's
neighbour. We must be as mediums for transmitting to others what we
had found for ourselves. Pass them on; that's your proof of the love
of God, be they golden thoughts or golden nuggets. That is the sole
return we could ever make. The consciousness of self must be
absorbed in doing good. In this trance of self God came nearer to us
than in any other way. The only proof of our love of God was in
freely using our riches of every kind for the love of others. It was
in action that we most nearly touched the divine life. What had men
not found compatible with belief? Had they not killed and
slaughtered their fellow men for the glory of God? Had they not
believed they should find God if they only got far enough away from
humanity, and so had become monks and gone into the deserts? Men had
believed that by standing on one leg for thirty years they could hop into
heaven at last. They had seen their brothers and sisters suffer
starvation and miseries of every description too horrible to think of, and
had only remembered that they were all of one flesh and blood when
epidemic disease had brought them to death's door. They believed on
Sundays that they should not bow down to graven images, and yet during the
whole of the week they grovelled before and worshipped a piece of metal
stamped with the image of the sovereign of the realm. Men had
believed that God was the author of diseases, when they themselves were
the cause of them. They had mocked us long enough with their lying
beliefs about the origin of evil.
After a severe denunciation of the present form of belief,
Mr. Massey went on to say that Spiritualism, as he understood it, meant a
new revelation. Many things would change, and some things we mistook
for real would whiten with the seeds of dissolution around them. But
the eternal truth could not be changed—only the false. Spiritualism,
as he interpreted it, meant a new life in the world. New light and
life did not come to impoverish; they came to enrich. Spiritualism
would prove a mighty iconoclast. It would break many an image of
God, thereby to reveal the true God concealed.
In speaking of the question of woman's suffrage and woman's
suffering, he said the degradation and injustice were too horrible to
think of. We had never known what was woman's proper place in
creation. We did not get geniuses by hereditary influence.
Perhaps it was on account of woman's nature and her more spiritual
rapport with the Creator that we got the higher specimens of God's
image amongst humanity. If it were not so, he did not see how she
could have made her way through the world. He believed that had it
not been for this rapport humanity must have been far worse that it
is at present. He looked upon her as a coadjutor with God.
Instead of woman having been the cause of the fall, he believed she had
been our salvation. He dared only hint at things that were done in
the land. How many idiots were born into the world because of
drunken fathers! How many women brought into the world little
children the picture of their fathers in a state of moral death! It
was a wonder that they were not worse than hopeless idiots. It was
enough to make us rise and try to help one another. It was the
desire of Jesus Christ to establish the kingdom of God, not merely
hereafter, but here, and at once, though its beginnings were as small as a
gram of mustard seed. It was to be the kingdom of God on earth as in
heaven. Christ never made any distinction between the here and the
here after. A true spiritual life, lived in fulfilment of spiritual
relationships and in the presence of God, would constitute the kingdom of
heaven. He said there were some who should not taste death until
they had seen the Son of Man. He spoke of the spiritual life.
He had no notion of its being shut up in the church; neither did he
contemplate a religion for one day in seven. If men did but live now
and act here as they would desire to do when their spiritual vision was
unfolded, it would be the kingdom of heaven. Christ asked for
fellow-worshippers, not mere repeaters of his words. He said: "Why
call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?" And again: "He
that heareth and doeth not, is like the man that, without a foundation,
built a house upon the earth." We remembered his hatred of
pretenders. The one drop of gall in his nature was wrung out in this
instance. When asked by the young man what he should do to inherit
the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said, "Sell all thou hast and give to the
poor." He knew what riches became when they possessed their heritors.
He said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of
heaven." He did not mean that it was not to be founded on this
earth. He meant that those who did not help to found it here would
not find it hereafter. "Bear one another's burthens." "Lay not
up treasures on earth;" such was what he commanded. Yet this was
exactly what myriads of his followers were doing. The Church had
made of Christ's life, a life lived for us, whereas it was meant to
be a life lived by us. Jesus Christ must himself be offended with
the world's worship of him. He no more asked for this now than he
did eighteen hundred years ago. He asked for souls burning with love
for one another. We had made a fetish of Jesus. He bequeathed
his life to us that we might continue it. It was a life of hardship
and pain lived for the sake of humanity. Instead of living that
life, we had merely erected statues to his memory. We were tempted,
as he was, by the powers of this world. He conquered the temptation
by resisting the devil; we conquered by succumbing, and this we called the
religion of Christ. What was considered the prop and stay of heaven
had been the very means of preventing heaven from coming down to us.
Mr. Massey here characterised the prevailing custom amongst
the rich, of worshipping on Sunday and treading down the poor man during
the week, as totally opposed to the spirit of Christ's teachings. He
also considered the orthodox faith, which made man think of nothing but
his own salvation, as eminently mean and selfish. The man who was
always thinking of himself in the battle must be a coward. A man
consumed with the thought of his own safety and salvation could not be
worth much in this world or another. He related the anecdote of the
Scandinavian chieftain, who was promised salvation if he would believe and
consent to be baptised. He was half inclined to give way, when he
thought of his companions and those who had died in the faith and of their
forefathers, and asked what would become of them. "They are certainly
damned," was the reply. "Then I would rather be damned with them
than saved by myself," said the grand old hero.
The clergy of the Church of England were so far off as to be
out of hearing. Many of them were very good fellows in their way.
Speaking to several of them with reference to the agricultural labourers,
they all of them, with one accord, took sides against them. He knew
a poor man who for forty-five years worked for one firm. He began at
16s. per week, and worked his way down to 6s. That was his own
father. At 6s. per week he broke a limb, and was pensioned off with
a fourpenny piece. At the same time, during these forty-five years
any possessor of capital might have put it out to usury, and it would have
been more than quadrupled. Such was one of our laws, and yet no
Christian minister would dare to go to the root of the matter. The
consciousness of this wrong was yet to be created in the minds of men so
far as Christianity was concerned. They never seemed to think that
Jesus Christ meant what he said. He spoke so figuratively that they
considered he was not in earnest. Ask them to believe in the
Thirty-nine Articles, and they would swallow any number; but ask them to
believe all Jesus Christ said as true, and they would not do it.
Were such a person as Jesus to appear in the House of Commons
now he would be patted on the shoulder and lionised; but let him speak out
such sentiments as Jesus uttered in his lifetime, and the members would
immediately begin to remonstrate with him, and say, "You surely do not
mean all this in earnest?" It had been looked upon us a piece of the
grossest injustice that trades unionists had made it a law that good and
bad workmen should receive the same wages. He considered this a
practical realisation of the teaching of Christ.
We cannot follow the lecturer into his examination of the
question of capital and labour. It was a powerful piece of
argumentation. In conclusion, speaking of Christ's second
coming—"What if he is on earth already?" What if, while we were
sitting gazing at the skies for his appearing, he might be coming out in
burning cities? What if he were tired of 1800 years of preaching,
and had at length sent Communists and Internationalists to bring about his
mission?
Mr. Massey said that the little good that such as he could do
in twenty or thirty years, by writing and speaking, those with Capital
might do in the course of a year or two. Take, for instance, the
agricultural labourers. Let any man with money work a farm on the
co-operative principle, or any principle whereby the labourer would be
raised above the position of a chattel hireling, and see what a revolution
he would cause in a short time!
The lecturer here introduced the story of a mail steamer,
full of gold diggers returning from California, which was wrecked.*
When it was known that the ship was sinking, and there was no chance of
escape, all emptied their hoards of gold on to the cabin floor, and
invited anyone to help themselves that liked. When a chance offered
itself for the saving of the women and children, these rough men quietly
helped them into the boat, and saw them put off without any sign of
selfishness. Immediately afterwards the vessel sank.
Spiritualism, he thought, must have some such effect on those who felt its
arresting hand put on them for the other world to look into their faces;
for if the spiritual world presented itself in life, its effect must be
lifelong. It must be impossible for men to continue living on in
utter selfishness or in vice, when they knew that the spirit-world was
present with them—when they know that those loved ones who had gone before
were still watching them, sorrowing for them in their degradation, and
helping them in their trials. We all had our angels walking and
talking with us, though they might not break into visibility.
* In 1857 the paddle-steamer SS
Central America was on passage to New York City laden with gold
coins, ingots and specimen gold fresh from the California Gold Rush, when
it foundered in a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina.
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WHO'S WHO.
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus,
anglicised as Tertullian, (ca. 160–230) was a church leader and
prolific author during the early years of Christianity. He was born
and spent his life in Carthage, in modern Tunisia. He was the son of
a centurion and was well educated, especially in law. Tertullian
converted to Christianity ca.197 and became a formidable defender of the
faith and the first important Christian ecclesiastical writer in Latin,
his writings being witness to the doctrine and discipline of the early
church. Tertullian denounced Christian doctrines he considered
heretical - in his doctrinal treatise refuting heresy, 'De praescriptione
hereticorum' (On the Claims of Heretics), he argued that the church alone
has the authority to declare what is and is not orthodox Christianity.
However, later in life he adopted views that were themselves regarded as
heretical when he joined the Montanists, which accounts for his failure to
attain sainthood. Like all Montanists, Tertullian held that
Christians should welcome persecution, not flee from it. He later
established his own sect, the Tertullianists.
Paraclete, Comforter (Latin 'Consolator'; Greek 'parakletos'),
an appellation of the Holy Ghost. The Greek word which, as a designation
of the Holy Ghost at least, occurs only in St. John (xiv, 16, 26; xv, 26;
xvi, 7). According to St. John the mission of the Paraclete is to abide
with the disciples after Jesus has withdrawn His visible presence from
them; to inwardly bring home to them the teaching externally given by
Christ and thus to stand as a witness to the doctrine and work of the
Saviour. Paraclete is important to Christians because it sheds much light
on the nature of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and brings into
question the concept of the Trinity, often a source of great confusion.
The Holy Spirit, or Paraclete, is the third person of the Holy Trinity.
The Paraclete is also called the 'Spirit of Truth', the 'Comforter' and
the 'Supporter', as it is the Paraclete who comes alongside the Christian
to provide guidance, consolation and support throughout life’s journey.
Urim and Thummim—the sacred lot by means of which the ancient
Hebrews were wont to seek manifestations of the Divine will. Urim is
derived from the Hebrew for "light", or "to give light", and Thummim from
"completeness", "perfection", or "innocence". From which it is
surmised by scholars that the sacred lot had a twofold purpose in trials,
viz. Urim served to bring to light the guilt of the accused person, and
Thummim to establish his innocence by revealing the will of God on the
contested point or other problem. However, the relatively few mentions of
Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament leave the precise nature and use of
the lot a matter of conjecture.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) - English biologist and
administrator, president of the Royal Society, 1881-1885. Huxley
qualified as a doctor. He later undertook a voyage as a navel
surgeon to the southern hemisphere, where he devoted much time to the
study of marine invertebrates, sending details of his discoveries back to
England where his paper 'On the Anatomy and the Affinities of the Family
of Medusae' was printed by the Royal Society in the Philosophical
Transactions in 1849. On his return to England in 1850, he was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in the following year received
the Royal Medal and was elected to the Council. His first reaction
upon reading Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' was "How exceedingly stupid
not to have thought of that." Referred to as "Darwin's bulldog,"
Huxley fought valiantly on Darwin's behalf, while never accepting the
Darwinian principle without qualification. A talented populariser of
science, he coined the term "Darwinism" to describe organic evolution by
natural selection. In 1869, Huxley was charged with heresy after giving a
Sunday lay sermon "on the physical basis of life", in which he justified
the materialist investigation of life while insisting that materialism as
a philosophy of ultimate existence was no more legitimate than
spiritualism. On this basis he coined a new label for himself, "agnostic".
Huxley's agnosticism was widely held to be a natural consequence of the
intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 1860s, when clerical
intolerance was trying to excommunicate scientific discovery because its
apparent clash with the book of Genesis. |
MR. MASSEY'S LECTURES CONCLUDED.
The utterances of the lecturer on Sunday afternoon were those
of a man thoroughly honest and deeply in earnest. It is seldom one
sees such a sublime manifestation of the grandeur of our common humanity
as was presented by Mr. Massey when, amidst a torrent of moral missiles
which were hitting his audience right and left, he declared himself the
son of that patient old labourer who towards the end of a penurious
existence was pensioned off with a fourpenny bit! The world in
general depends on its trappings and other fortuitous circumstances for
making an impression; but the lecturer, like a true poet, simply and
trustingly relied on that divine and priceless gift—his manhood, and won
gloriously. If the highest heads in the realm had bowed themselves
before the audience with the tale of their family lineage—even if the
Sovereign herself had done so—the plaudits could not have been heartier;
nay, they would not have been so hearty. It was a triumph worth the
sufferings of a lifetime, and, to those who witnessed it, a more
instructive lecture than empty words could possibly convey. In it
was exemplified the whole genius of Spiritualism, which, like its exponent
on Sunday last, conscious of intrinsic worth, can disregard with well
merited contempt the silly baubles which are so highly prized by the
children of the human family.
In every respect the lectures were more than a success, and
eclipsed the highest anticipations of all concerned. The chief glory
of the occasion culminated in the conduct of the lecturer himself,
who exceeded all that could possibly be expected of him in his treatment
of the subject. This is a more pleasing result than crowded houses
and an overflowing treasury. It is men, not circumstances, that
Spiritualists are looking for, and a true specimen has been found in Mr.
Massey. Of all the literary men of the age, no one has attained such
unsolicited distinction from such a small beginning. He is a
literary man in the true sense of the term, because he is creative.
He feeds the world's mind with new ideas and improved forms of thought.
Is it not to be expected that when such a man advances into a new and
unworked field, and there displays the richest characteristics of his
genius, his brother litterateurs would rally round him, and with
warm, fraternal sympathy encourage one who is universally acknowledged to
be an ornament to the profession? Most certainly, if there were any
such his contemporaries. It is well known that the Poet Laureate
stands on the same spiritual platform with Mr. Massey, and would have been
present at St. George's Hall had he been in town. But where are our
other literary men? These egotistical book-makers, professional
magazine hacks, and newspaper cab-horses are no more literary men than
their equine prototypes are martial steeds. They are like the Irish
servant, the son of a drunken hodman, who euphoniously described his
father as an architect. The true literary man, like every other
class, is known by his sympathies. Need we be surprised, then, that
Mr. Massey's late effort was parsed by in insolent silence by these
inferior creatures, who have as little power to appreciate the lecturer's
performance, as an owl has to emulate a bird of song? Where were our
Internationalists, Communists, National Reformers, our Republican
Bradlaughs and Odgers, and their tongue-tied sectarian organs? Where
was the Beehive, with its queenless cloud of buzzing drones?
Where were the Nonconformist organs, and the anxious seekers after divine
light in creed and rationality in church polity? Empty hypocrites
all! Selfish place-seekers, blowers of their own trumpets, the
bantlings of tyrannical sects! If they were true reformers, real
well-wishers of humanity, the term "Spiritualism" would not have the
effect on them which a scarecrow has on the feathered thief. Theirs
is a party cry, and hence the radical principles which dare be uttered
only by the Spiritualist, rebuke them as severely as the sects they war
against.
But we must defer further punishment to these recreants this
week, simply suggesting that if they had not the decency to acknowledge
the courtesy of an admission to the lectures, perhaps they will have so
much regard for self as to attempt the defence of their conduct, when we
shall be at their service with a further instalment of our opinion of
them.
Respecting the financial aspect of the affair, we have much
pleasure in presenting the following very satisfactory statements from Mr.
Daw, who acted officially in getting up the lectures:—
To the Editor of the Medium and Daybreak.
DEAR SIR,—As treasurer to the
Committee of Mr. Gerald Massey's lectures, I beg to hand you the
balance-sheet of receipts and expenditure, by which the guarantors will
see they are relieved from any call being made on their proffered
kindness.
In the monetary as in every other point of view, the lectures
have been an absolute success.—Yours faithfully,
N. FABYAN
DAW, Treasurer.
To Tickets sold
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
£42 2 1 |
Cash taken at doors
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
51 5 4 |
|
|
£93 7
5 |
By
Printer's expenses, tickets, circulars, postages ... ... ... |
... ...
... ... ... ... |
£18 17 11 |
,,
Advertising
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
11 14 3 |
,, Bill posting and
distributing handbills ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
6 17 9 |
,, Stationery
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
0 17 9 |
,, Rent of hall and
expenses
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
15 14 0 |
,, G. Massey's fee
for four lectures
... ... ... ... ... ... |
... ... ... ... ... ... |
25 4 0 |
,, Balance,
appropriated as follows:— |
|
|
Ten subscriptions to Progressive Library
... ... ... ... |
£10 0 0 |
|
Towards expenses at Cavendish Rooms
... ... ... ... |
3 1
9 |
|
Subscription for copies of J. H. Powell's poems,
"Invalid's Casket "
... ... ... ... |
1 0 0 |
14 1 9 |
|
|
£93 7 5 |
N. F. DAW,
Treasurer.
Spiritualists need not trouble themselves with the
indifference of the outside masses. Numbering amongst themselves, as
they do, the first minds in the land, the above facts show that in
bringing their views before the public they can achieve as much success as
any party in the country. Such results as are shown above—the time,
most inauspicious of all, a Sunday-afternoon—in the most unmistakable way
indicate, we have no doubt, even to the owls referred to above, that after
all there is SOMETHING IN SPIRITUALISM.
|