Pike County Democrat, Volume 30, Number 43, Petersburg, Pike County, 2 March 1900 — Page 3

®lw fifee ®ounhj §m0«rat ML McC. STOOPS, Kdltoi and Froprlttot fETEBSBUBG, s INDIANA,

"TljjE FOLKS WE USED TO KNOW. Did you ever notice somehow, 4 As the years so Elidin’ past, 'That you sit to lookin’ back’ard Sorter wishful to’rds the last? .An’ how them 'at’s now your neighbors 1 Don’t stand a ghost o* show "When you go comparin’ of ’em To the folks you used to know? It ’pears we Jist can’t recollect The fracases we’ve had, Uur forty-’leven other things That made us flghtin’ mad. But we’ve salted down the good ’uns, _ An’, no matter whur we go, There’s none can “hold a candle” To the folks we used to konw. 1 mind when we was livin’ Out there on Cedar Crick— There .wa’n’t no better neighborhood— If anyone tuck sick They’d come frum all d’rections, Jist wade through rain ur sndw. To see how you was cornin’ on— The folks we used to know. An’ the vittels that they'd fetch you! Why, ’twould fairly make you laf. You'd bin deader nur a mackerel If you’d only et the half. | Put me in mind of fair-time Ur some p^urvishu^ show, To see ’em packin’ in the truck— The folks we used to know. My stars! but they wassoshable. Out there on the old State road, An’ used t*o go a-visltin’ Jist by the wagon load. They’d grin, shake hands, “How’dy,” An’, as plain as preachin’, show They was tickled most to pieces— Tbe folks we used to know. They’d feed you on fried chicken, . The best *t was in the shop: An’ they’d pile your plate with vittels, An’ I vum! they wouldn’t stop Till they’d made you most feel sneakin’ To see it loaded so, Then say: “Take holt an’ help yourssJf’’— The folks we used to know. 1 “We ain’t no quality,” they’d say,' “We’re only common folks;” An’ then all hands would snicker, An’ we’d fall to crackin’ jokes, An’ afore we’d hardly know’d it, Why, it was time to go, An’ we’d say: “Good-by: come over," To the folks we used to know. Where air they all, I wonder— All these happy, old-time folks, That made this life worth livin’ With their friendship an’ their jokes? Well, I ask for nothin’ better, \ When it comes my time to go, Tha.n a ticket that will take me To the fdiks we used to know. -Alice D.O. Greenwood, in Leslie’s Weekly. ■__ x , .\v. m*. .m/. ma. .at/. .\t/. aii. .\ii. ah. .mi.

A Philippine Courting Cross Dojr Wins a H<*art Where the * World is Topside Down.

HE WAS the ugliest man in the ‘Ste^nth infantry. And he looked it. So the men called him Cross Dog, -and save on the payrolls he knew no other name. Cross Dog was* in the prime of life, butlooked older. He had put in about 12 years in the army and was at that point in,' a private soldier’s career where he realizes that he has lost the knack of ^earning a livelihood in civil life, but still yearns for its freedom. For it is only after about 15 years of service and numerous failures at civil vocations that the average enlisted man ceases to vow that he will never take on again and settles down to soldiering for life. Cross Dog’s tefnper was peppered dynamite. He had thrashed or been thrashed by nine tenths of the regiment, arid was ready at a second’s notice to begin again. His tongue matched his temper, and his face was seamed with surliness. There w as only one thing in the vvorld of which Cross Dog was afraid, and that w;as woman. “SJiure,” said Private Seven spot, “av Cross Dog iver loved a woman he’d be scared so he’d cuss her to death and thin elope with a recruiting sergeant.” Back in the states it it had be'en a fortunate thing for Cross Do^ that he was not. susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, for his personality was not an attractive one and his conversation was a jumble of cusswords and growls. But in the Philippines the world is topside down, as a Chinaman calls it, and curious things happen. And it was in the Philippines, at the Hacienda de Sevilla, near Isabella, Negros, that Cross Dog won a woman’s fieart. , ,

A company of the ’Steenth infantry was stationed at Isabella and a derailment of five men, in charge of Polite rSevenspot, was sent to the hacienda to protect property in that region from the raids of Kapircio bandits who swarmed in the near-by mountains. Cross Dog was one of the detachment. The Hacienda de Sevilla consisted of a big sugar mill, the blackened ruins of the plantation house burned to the ground by the Papircios, and six native nipa-shacks scattered along the western bank of the river Balinbagan. But this little hamlet supported a popula4 tionof 300 native amigos, most of whom, burned out of their homes by the Papir- '■ ‘ •is, camped in the big sugar mill under Jie protection of Private Sevenspot’s little detachment. During the day they worked in the cane fields and at night huddled together in the mill around which the six Americans stood guard. Luisa, the woman imthe case, for girls ■ofi.14 are women where the world is topside down, lived in a six-by-six nipashack built in the box of a two-wheeled <cart that stood beneath the shelter of the sugar mill roof. On the evening that Sevenspot’s detachment arrived at the hacienda old Pedro was absent. Old Pedro was Luisa’s father. His erony, old Jose, in the next village up the river, had received a month’s pay from Senor Holijos that day and Pedro had gone to pass the evening with him and help drink a bucket of tuba. At 11 o’clock he came sauntering homeward with unsteady but catlike steps, in blissful ignorance of the fact that the Americanos wer* in possession of the sugar will,

Pedro’* brown hide was chock of tuba and his soul was filled with great joy. In fact, he was so hippy that he yearned to butcher something—an old woman or a baby or & lame dog. As he came through the trail in the canebrake he slashed at the young stalks and grimaced blissfully as m imagination he neatly clipped the leaders of unarmed foes with his bolo-sword. Gross Dog was on post, too, at the upper entrance to the sugar mill. The first night on guard at a strange post with a small detachment and in a country swarming with treacherous foes is a great trial to men’s nerves. Especially so when it is next to impossible to distinguish friend from foe. Moreover, Cross Dog had been unfortunate in his details for a week back, and had been marched on an average of 15 miles each day through muddy rice fields, which is equivalent to 40 miles a day on an American highway. Consequently, Cross Dog’s temper, usually peppered dynamite, was now saw-edged lightning. Sevenspot had posted him with the information that native amigos were not supposed to be abroad after nine o’clock, and left the rest to his discretion. Cross Dog hacked with his bayonet at the dried mud on his leggings and stared across the narrow clearing between the mill and the cane field. There came just the semblance of a rustle from the cane-brake and Cross Dog stopped hacking and dropped suddenly on one knee. For at night a man can see better squatting than standing. The nearer his eyes to the ground the higher and plainer objects aw thrown up against the horizon. The rustle in the cane field grew louder and Cross Dog unlocked the safety on his krag. Then oblivious of his danger, old Pedro stepped noiselessly into the clearing and the shadow of death;. Cross Dog waited for the second native to come out of the brake. If he came in the footsteps of his fileleader, ohe bullet would do duty for two; And it is a pity to waste ammunition, and a dirty rifle barrel makes work. If old Jose had accompanied old Pedro home that night, there would have been two funeral drums to beat the next day. But as old Pedro caiue alone, Cross Dog hesitated a second and decided to give the intruder a chance for hrs life. “Halt!” he cried.

Old Pedro started and then in his fright came on all the faster, his wicked Aoking bolo in hand. That was too much for Cross Dog’s temper and nerves, but he was an American and instinctively hated to kill a half-armed creature whose life he could take as he would a pandle. Moreover, he had an American contempt for the fighting qualities of these brown pygmies and the disposition to play'cat and mouse with them until they came right up to the bayonet's point. So Cross Dog’s first shot made a kite of old Pedro’s straw hat, his second spattered the mud in front- of him and three more made shallow grooves in his bare brown legs. There was one cartridge left in Cross Dog's rifle when Pedro halted panting at the bayonet’s point. An inch more and that cartridge would have been the final period in old Pedro’s book of life. For Cross Dog was not only rattlesnake mad, but also grossly insulted. A bare-legged Kakiack in his shirftail and a straw hat and armed with a four-span bolo had dared to charge right up to j his rifle's mouth! Cross Dog felt that he ought to kill this fool creature. It was according to orders. But scmehow he couldn’t quite do it. So he jabbed with his bayonet through Pedro’s hide and gave him a choice selection of profanity and advice. “When Melicana say ‘Hat!’ you (jab) halt! (jab) Savey. You caramba fool, if you (jab) keep vamoosin when Melicana say (jab) halt, Melicana boomboom you. When Melicana say halt1 you stop quick till Melicana malayoh (see) you with his mala (eyes) and talkee ah kee (come here). You (jab) savey?” Then old Pedro, after explanations, was permitted to go to his nipa-shack. and the four Americans off guard returned to their blankets. After crawl ing into his shack Pedro ordered his daughter Luisa to make a light and to emphasize the order he beat her with his fist in the face. And Luisa being only a woman made a great outcry. Then she got a big bundle of split bamboo and^. laid it upon the bed of coals in.the center of the mill and fanned the bamboo into a great flaming torch. Then old Pedro ordered her, to dress his scratches, and beat her in the face to insure obedience. The blaze of the torch fell upon Cross Dog’s back so that he was a fine mark for a Papircios ltemington and blinded his eyes so he could not see five paees into the clearing. And Luisa's outcries deafened his ears to the secrets of the canefield. For these reasons and not because he cared to interfere with Pedro’s methods of parental discipline, Cross Dog deliberately violated regulations and deserted his post.

lie pieked up a bundle of dry, split bamboo and marched through the sugar mill to Pedro's nipa-shack. He reached ir. and caught that disciple of Solomon by one ankle and dragged him forth after the fashion of a plantation negro who knows where the chickens roost. Then he applied the split bamboo where it is supposed to do the most good. And Pedro howled and Cross Dog swore and 50 brown babies woke up and squalled and a hundred mongrel dogs barked. “Shure,” said Seven spot, reporting the oceurrtnce to his lieutenant, who visited the hacienda the following day, “when I woke up I thought I were in purgathory the day afther th’ holocaust av an insane asylum, a dog pound an’ an orphan asylum. An’ Duisa there, th’ ould Pedro’s daughter, sat by while Cross Dog larruped her dad an’ wept tears av joy an’ gratitude. Tm thinkin’ ’twere th’ first toirne she iver knew the ould bandit to get his deserts. The other amigos

•ay lie has a brother an’ two sons with the Papircios in th* mountains.” ‘‘If that’s the ctfse,” said the lieutenant, mounting his carabao, ‘‘you neednol bother, to halt him the next time he tries to come in after taps. 1 don’t want this dfl..,uiuent to get cut up out of leniency to any native of doubtful antecedents.” When the detachment turned out for their chiccry the morning after old Tedro’s chastisement, Luisa was waiting for them with a baking powder can half full of carabao milk, for Cross Dog’s coffee. Th'e men squatted on the edge of a sugar vat and gnawed their hardtack and drank their bitter chicory. Cross Dog’s scraggly beard bristled with bad temper and be choked in the effort to eat, drink and swear in the same breath. With eyes that beamed with gratitude and admiration little Luisa timidly presented her offering of carabao milk. Cross Dog glared at her. “Darn you,” he growled, “what do you want?” “Si, senor,” said Luisa, ducking obsequiously and holding the can so that Cross Dog could see the contents, “mucha gooda!” •. v .. And Luisa pointed first at the milk and then to Cross Dog’s cup. Then Cross Dog comprehended and grabbed the can and emptied it into his coffee. “I’ll be darned,” he growled, “if the rag didn’t bring me some milk!” Luisa listened like an attentive pupil. Then, with a knowing air, she nodded her little head and, pointing into the empty can, she said: “Si, senor; I savey. Filipino loobkat. Melicana cuss milk. Si,. I savey mucha Melicana poco tiempo.” Cress Dog stopped in the middle of a gulp of coffee and stared at the little

brown woman. “Well!” he exclaimed, “if the nigger ain’t swearing at me in English!” “Si, si, senor,” she chirped, coquettishly lifting the yard of red calico that served her as a petticoat and dress skirt, “I savey. Senorita—that mein Espanol. Nigger—that me in Melicana. Si. 1 savey mueha Melicana poco tiempo.” Cross Dog choked with irritation. For a week thereafter Luisa followed at Cross Dog’s heels like a faithful dog, much fb that individual’s outspoken disgust. And, meanwhile, Luisa’s vocabulary of English became a thing of beauty and a joy forever to the soldiers Then there came atiother Saturday night. This time old Pedro and Jose went to a village down the river to visit Juan, who had received much money from Senor Holijos. And they tarried late and drank a great deal of tuba and also beno. And the more they drank the braver they grew until in the dark hour just before the dawn they laughed scornfully as they spoke of the white-faced Americtfnos and snapped their fingers at “Haltas!” Then Juan and Jose sallied forth to see Pedro home and help him bid defiance to the American “Halt!” And to insure success they carried their sflhrpest bolos. It was the early morning relief on guard. Cross Dog was on post 2 at the down river end of the mill, and it always stirred his bile to have his sleep broken just before daybreak. The air was chill and damp and Cross Dog shivered and cursed all creation by catalogue. Then he stopped and listened. The light breeze from the east never caused that rustle in the cane field. Again Cross Dog crouched on one knee and threw the safety lock of his krag. A half-naked native stepped out into the clearing. Again Cross Dog waited to see if he came atohe. Another and another stepped out beside the first, and the three advanced crouching with bqlos in hand. They mockingly echoed Cross Dog’s challenge, and came on, and then the hacienda awoke to the music of “Wow-rprp! Tick-tuck-tuck-tick! Wow-rprp! Tick-tuck-tuck-tick! Wow-rprp!” And this tim<y Crass Dog’s rifle had done its deadly work as three silent Kakiacks lying there in the gray morning testified. Six men in blue stood and looked down at the slain. And then there was a great uproar, and native men chattered and native women shrieked and native dogs barked and native babies howled. Only the soldiers were silent and grave as they looked iipon the,dead, until a grayhaired little brown woman came and knelt beside old Pedro and sought to close his eyes and compose his limbs. Then Cross Dog's eyes looked down to the ground, and he was ashamed cf his handiwork, for the gray old woman was old Pedro’s wife and Luisa’s mother. It was while his eyelids were weighted down with shame and pity that little Luisa, pretty and coquettish, nestled up to his side and caressed his hairy, freckled fist and looked up at him with smiling lips and eyes moist with love-light. “Darn you,” said she, pressing his hand over her heart with both of hers, “me love you mucha. You boom-boom madre (pointing to her mother) and we matrimony. Esta?” For in the outlying islands of the Philippines, where the world is topside down, the old folk pound out no rice and are the better for being killed. It was thus that Cross Dog won one woman’s heart. But Seyknspot’s prophecy came true, for he eursed her until his throat was sore, and then exchanged with a soldier at Isabella, to get out of her sight. And now, when some you: g soldier boasts of his-success with the fair sex, Cross Dog blurts scornfully: “Darn it! I can take m3* krag and 200 cartridges and go out and get enough women to start a harem. All you haye to do to make ’em love yon is to kill their mothers and fathers!”—N. Y. Sun.

Genius and Depravity. “I qm writing’ for posterity," said the poet. “And I am taking in plain sewing for' a living,” said the poet’s soulless wife. —Chicago Times-Herald. Railway in Africa. There are 10,000 niiles of raiiviay now in operation or under constm :don in Africa.

RELIGION OF GHOSTS. Dr. Talmage Warns People Against Modern Spiritualism. The Witch ot Bator at Type of the Fallacies of the Preseat Dar> Desoascea It as Witchcraft and Sorcery.

[Copyright, :t*X>, by Loolf Klopsch.] Washington, Feb. 25. In this discourse Dr. Talmage discusses a theme never more under exploration than at this time and warns people against what he calls a religion of ghosts; text, I Samuel 28:7: “Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. And Saul disguised himself and put on other raiment, and he went; and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night.” - Trouble to the right of him and trouble to the left, of him, Saul knew not what to do. As a last resort he concluded to seek Out a spiritual medium or a witch or*anything that you please to call her—a woman who had communication with the spirits of the eternal world. It was a very difficult thing to do, for Saul had either slain all the witches or compelled them to stop business. A servant one day said to King Saul: “I know of a spiritual medium down at the village of Endor.” “Do you?” said the king. Night falls. Saul, putting off' his kingly, robes and putting on the dress of a plain citizen, with two servants, goes out to hupt up this medium. . .

oaui ana ms servants after awhile reached the village, and they say: “I wonder if this is the house,” and they look inland they see the haggard, weird and shriveled up spiritual medium sitting by the light and on the table sculptured images and divining rods and poisonous herbs and bottles mid vases. They say: “Yes, this must be the place.” One loud rap brings the woman to the door, and as she stands there, holding the candle or lamp above her head and peering out into the darkness, she says: ‘‘Who is here?” The tall king informs her that he has come to have his fortune told. When she hears that she trembles and almost drops the light, for she knows there is no chance for a fortune teller or spiritual medium in all the land. B\it Saul having sworn that no harm shall come to her, she says: “Well, who shall I bring up from the dead?” Saul says: “Bring up Samuel.” That was the prophet who had died a little while before. I see her waving a wand, or stirring up some poisonous herbs in a caldron, or hear fier muttering over some incantations, or stamping with her foot as she cries out to the realm of the dead: “Samuel, Samuel!” Lo, the freezing horror! The floor of the tenement opens, and the gray hairs float up and the forehead, the' eyes, the lips, the shoulders, the arms, the feet—the entire body of the dead Samuel—wrapped in sepulchral robe, appearing to the astonished group, who stagger back and hold fast and catch their breath and shiver with terror. The dead prophet, white and awful from the. tomb, begins to move; his ashen lips, and he glares upon King Saul apd cries out: “What did you bring me up for? What do you mean, King Saul?” Saul, trying to compose and control himself, makes this stammering and affrighted utterance as he says to.the dead prophet: “The Lord is against me, and I have come to you for help." What shall I do?” The dead prophet stretched forth hisifinger to King Said, and said: “Die to-morrow! Come with me into the sepulcher. I am going now. Come, come with me!” And, lo, the floor again opens, and the feet of the dead prophet disappear and the arms and the shoulders and the forehead! The floor closes. Oh, that was an awful seance! We are surrounded by mystery—before. us, behind us. to the right of us, to the left of us, mystery. There is h vast realm unexplored that science, I have no doubt, will yet map out. He who explores that realm will do the world more service than ever did a Columbus or an Amerigo Vespucci. There aie so many things that cannot be accounted for, so many sounds and appearances which defy acoustics and,investigation, so many things appigsximating to the spectral, so many effects which do not seem to have a sufficient cause. To unlatch the door between the present state and the future state all he fingers of superstition have been busy. We have books entitled “Footfalls on the Boundaries of Other Worlds,” “The Debatable Land Beween This World and the Next.” “Researches Into the Phenomena of Spiritualism” and whole libraries of hocus >oeus, enough to deceive the very elect. .shall not take time to rehearse the >istory of divination, Delphic oracle, ibyl or palmistry or the whole centuries of imposture.

Modern spiritualism proposes to open the door between this world and the next and put us into communication with the dead. It has never yet offered one reasonable credential. When I find Saul in my text consulting a familiar spirit, I learn that spiritualism is a very old religion. Spiritualism in America was born in the year 1847, in Hydesville, Wayne county, N. Y., when one night there was a loud rap heard against the door of Michael Weekman; a rap a second time, a rap a third time, and all three times, when the door was opened, there was nothing found there, the knocking having been made seemingly by invisible knuckles. In that same house there was a young woman who had a cold hand passed over her face, and, there being seemingly no arm attached to it, ghostly suspicions were excited. After awhile Mr. Fox with his family moved into that house, and then they

had bangings at the door every iif One night Mr. Pox cried ont: “Are j"M d spirit?” Two raps—answer in ne affirmative. “Are you an inju ed spirit?” Two rapa—answer in the iff firmative. Then they knew right uv' ay that it was the spirit of a peddler v ho had been murdered in that house ye ira before and who had been robtied of his $500. Whether the spirit of the pedk Her came back to collect his $500 or his bones I do not know. = The excitement spread. There ras a universal rumpus. Hon. Judge Edmonds declared in a book that lie ;iad actually seen a bell start from the top shelf of a closet, heard It ring i;ver the people that were standing in the closet; then, swung by invisible ha ids, it rang over the people in the back >arlor and floated through the fol ing doors to the front parlor, rang over the people there and then droppe 1 on the floor. A senator of the Ux ited States, afterward governor of Wisconsin, had his head quite turned vith spiritualistic demonstrations. Th t tables tipped, and the stools tilted, and the bedsteads raised, and the cl airs upset, and it seemed as if the spirits everywhere had gone,, into the f urniture business! Well, the people aid: “We have got something new in this country. It is a new religion:'” Oh, no, my friend, thousands of yea rs ago, we find in our text, a spirit ua istic

Nothing in the spiritualistic i rcles of our day has been str.jage, mysterious and wonderful than t| tings which have been seen in past cent uries of the world. In all agues there have been necromancers, thosexwho cc isult with the spirits of the departed; charmers, those who put their sul jec^s in a mesmeric state; sorcerers, hose who by taking poisonous drug 3 see everything and hear everythin! and tell everything; dreamers, people who in their sleeping moments can. s e the future world and hold consultation with spirits. Yes, before the ti ne of Christ, the Brahmans went throujjgh all the table moving, all the furnitu re excitement, which the spirits ha* e exploited in our day, precisely the same thing over and over again, und ;r the manipulation of the Brahmans. Now, do you say that spiritualism is ent from these? I answer, all these delusions I have njentioned belong to the same family. They are exiiumations from the unseen world. ^ j What does God think of all th .se delusions ? lie thinks so severely o f them that He never speaks of them In t with livid thunders of indignation. Hi: says: “I will be a swift witness against the sorcerer.*' lie says: “Thou sh lit not suffer a witch to live.” And, lost you might make some important oistinction between spiritualism and witchcraft, God says, in so many words: “There shall not be among you a cohsulter of familiar spirits, or wit and, or necromancer, for they that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.” The Lord God Almigt ty in a score of passages which I have not now time to quote utters His indis mation against qfl this great family (if delusions. After that be a spirin -alist if you dare! Still further, we learn from t lis text how it is that.people come to tall into spiritualism. Saul had enough trouble to lull ten men. lie did not knotf where to go for relief. After av.hik he resolved to go and see the witel of Endor. He expected that somei ow she would afford him relief. It. vas his trouble drove him there. Aik I haXe to tell you now' that spiritual! m finds its victims in the troubled, tie bankrupt, the sick, the bereft. You lose your watch, and you go to the fortune teller to find where it is. You lose a friend; you want he spiritual world opened, so that you may have communication with him. In [a highly wrought, nervous and diseased state of .mind you go and put yourself in that communication, Thai is why I hate spiritualism^ It take: Advantage qf one in a moment of weakness, which may come upon Us at a ay time. We lose a friend. The trial is keep, sharp, suffocating, almost maddening. If we could marshal a host and storm the eternal world and recap' ure our loved one, the host would soor be marshaled.0 The house is so lonely. The world is so dark.’ The separa ion is So insufferable. But spiritualism says: “We will open the future world, and your loved one can come back and talk to you.” Though we may not hear h}s voice, we may hear the rap of ids hand. So. clear the table. Sit do'.n. Put your hands on the table. Be v« ry quiet:. Five minutes gone. Ten m»a ites. No motion of the table. No response from the future world. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. Nervous ex citement all the time increasing. Fo rty minutes. The table shivers. Two raps from the future world. The etters of the alphabet are called over. The departed friend's name is John At the pronunciation of the letter J,: :wo raps. At the pronunciation of the letter'fj), two raps. At the pronunciation of the letter j, two raps. At the p onuneiation of the letter N, two raps. There you have the whole name spe led out— J-o-h-n, John. Now, the sp rit being present, you says “John, art you happy?” Two raps ghee•tin affirmative an

Pretty soon the hand of til? medium begins to twitch and toss and. begins to write out, after paper and ink are furnished, a message from the eternal world. What is remarkable, the departed spirit, although it lias been amid the illuminations of the Heaven, cannot spell as well as it us ed to. It has lost all grammatical accuracy, and cannot write as distinctly. I received a letter through a medium once. I sent it back. I said: “Just please to tell those ghosts they had better go to school and get improved in their Or-thography.”-sNow, just think of spirits, that the Bible represents as enthroned in glory, coming down to crawl under the tablp and break crockery and'ring tea bells before supper is rcn dy and ran '

ftie window shutter on n gusty nightf Yfbmt consolation in stub miserable stuff as compared with the consolation that onr departed friend* free from toil and sin and pain are fore «r happy, and that we will join them, not in mysterious and half utterance which makes the hair stand ©u end a id makes cold chills creep the hack, but in a reunion most blessed and happy and glorious! "And none shall murmur or misdoubt When God’s great sunrise finds us out.** I learn still further from this sub* ject that spiritualism and necromancy are affairs of darkness. Why did not Saul go in the day? He was ashamed to go. Besides that, he knew that this spiritual medium, like all her successors, performed her exploit* la tae night. The Davenports, the Fowlers, the Foxes, the spiritual mediums of all ages, have chosen the night or a darkened room. Why? The majority of their wonders have been swindles, and deception prospers best in the night. I indict spiritualism also because it is a social and marital curse. The worst deeds of licentiousness and the 'worst orgies* of uncleaaliness have been enacted under its patronage. The story is too vile for me to tell. I wiri not pollute my tongue or your ears with the recital. Sometimes the civil law has been invoked to stop the outrage. Families innumerable have been broken up by it. It has pushed off hundreds of young women into a life of profligacy. It talks about “elective affinities” and “affinital relations” and “spiritual matches” and adopts the whole vocabulary of free loveism. In one of its journals it declares “marriage is the monster curse of eivilixation.’\ “It is a source of debauchery and intemperance.” If spiritualism could have its full swing, it would turn this world into a pendemonima of carnality. It is an unclean, adulterous, damnable religion, and the sooner it drops into hell from which it rose the better both for earth and Heaven. For the sake of man’s honor and woman’s purity I say let the last vestige of it perish forever. I wish I coulcl gather up all the raps it has ever heard from spirits blest or damned and gather them all on its own head in thundering raps of annihilation!

If God is ever slapped in the face it is when a spiritual medium puts down her hand on the table, invoking spirits departed to make a revelation. '* [God has told you all you ought to know, and how dare you be prying into that which is none of your business. You cannot keep the Bible in one hand ahd spiritualism in the other. One Or the other vrill slip out of your grasp, depend upon it. Spiritualism is adverse to the Bible, in the fact that it has in these last days called from the future world Christian men to testify against Christianity. Its medi* urns call back Lorenzo Dow, the celebrated evangelist, and Lorenzo Dow testifies that Christians are idolaters. Spiritualism calls back Tom Paine, and he testifies that he is stopping in the some house in Heaven with John Bunyan. They call back John Wesley, and he testifies against the thistian religion, which he all his life gloriously preached. Andrew Jackson Davis, the greatest of all the spiritualists, comes to the front, and declares that the New Testament is but “the dismal echo of a barbaric age” and the Bible onlv “one of the pea and "ink relics of Christianity.” I have in my house a book used in spiritualistic service. It containsgja catechism and a hymn book. The - catechism has these questions'and answers: Q. What is our chief baptism? A. Frequent ablution in water. Q. What is ougj inspiration? A. Fresh air and sunshine. - t . Q. What is our love feast? A. Clear conscience and sound sleep. Q. What is our prayer? A. Phisical exercise. t * And then it goes on to show that a great proportion of thejr religious service is a system of calisthenics. Then when they want to arouse the devotion of the people to the highest pitch, they give out the hymn on the sixty-fifth page: ' The night hath gathered up her silken fringes.

Or, on the fifteenth page: « C6me to the Woods, hetgh hoi “But,” says some one, “wouldn't it be of advantage to hear from the future world ? Don’t you ,t hink it would strengthen Christians? There are a great many materialists who do not believe there are souls, but if spirits from the future world should knock and talk over to us they would be persuaded.” To that I answer in the ringing words of the Son of God: “If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” Teach your children there are no ghosts to he seen rr heard in this world save *l*Ate which walk on two feet or foui—human or bestial. Remember that spiritualism at the best is a useless thing, for if it tells what the Bible reveals it is a superfluity, and if it tells w hat the Bible does not reveal it is a lie. Instead of going out to get other people to tell your fortune, tell your own fortune by putting your trust-in God and doing the best you can., I will tell your fortune: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Insult not your departed friends by asking them to come down and scrabble under an ext ension table. Remember that there is only one spirit whose dictation you have a right to invoke,. and that is the holy, blessed and omnipotent spirit of God. Harkl Ha is rrfpping now, not on a table or the floor, but rapping on the door of your heart, and every rap is an invitation to Christ and ta warning of judgment to come. Oh, grieve Him not away! Quench Him not. He has been all around you this morning. Be was all around you last night. He has been around you all your lives. Hark! There comes a voice with tender, overmastering intonation, saying: “My spirit shall not always strive.”