and unoffending children--have fallen victims to its merciless cruelty and gluttonous rapacity for greed and power. Religion and tyranny have marched hand in hand together along the highways of the past, and with the stake, the javelin, the executioner's ax, and every conceivable instrument of torture, have left behind them ruin, desolation and death as fitting and enduring monuments of their utter unrighteousness. Does this terrible history, so replete with evil, offer us evidences of Godlike excellence? Can such a religious system, founded in falsehood, fostered by superstition, nourished by the blood of innocence, and pre-eminently distinguished by so frightful a history, much longer command the tolerant and kindly consideration of the advanced intelligence of the world, or continue to inspire the conviction that it emanated from God, and has been sustained all these centuries by the fostering care of his goodness and love? In view of all this, is it surprising to any one that He who taketh cognizance of the minutest details of human conduct has commissioned his angels and the spirits who have escaped the environments and passed beyond the limitations of the flesh to return to those in mortal on the redemptive mission of demonstrating a continued life beyond the grave, and revolutionizing the religious thought, moral tendencies and spiritual conceptions of mankind. I repeat, creeds are doomed to perish, and this angel ministry, fraught with freedom, truth and righteousness, will erect her gorgeous temples over their buried ruins. Thanks be to God that I obeyed the majestic voices wafted from the spirit world, inducing, as they did, the liberation in our land of four millions of the enslaved children of chattel bondage. Enjoying the communion with spirits, and learning of them and their bright homes, the heritage of the father's love, I was, while yet inhabiting the tabernacle of clay, made glad and filled with superhuman joy, and in consequence was the recipient of strength and happiness in this glorious land of the spirit. Go ye, therefore, and do likewise. Good day. "A. LINCOLN." CHAPTER XV. NEW YEARS' GREETINGS FROM MANY OF MY DEAR SPIRIT FRIENDS AND NEAR RELATIVES. The 29th of December, 1881, I received with many others the following communication: