873. So far as I can judge, in some branches of knowledge, the spirits will improve by discussion with mortals. They will be cured of some of their “sky scraping!” 874. They seem to be mainly improved by their reciprocal intercourse. Thus honest bigots of all sects, find when they get together that in point of fact none of their records are true! 875. It is by getting rid of error, more than acquiring knowledge, that they rise in reciprocal estimation. 876. Very soon after my father began to communicate with me, nearly fourteen months ago, he said—“We know little more in religion than you.” 877. They all agree that good works are solely of importance, creeds only being good or bad as they induce good or bad deeds. 878. A good man cannot accept a creed which sanctions wickedness; that, for instance, which authorizes, under certain sophistical pretences, spoliation, massacre, rape, fraud, &c. Whenever any man brings himself to believe that his God ever authorized such crimes, or patronized those who were guilty of them, he becomes more or less immoral. Dr. Berg truly alleged that “_a devotee is assimilated to the God whom he worships_.” 879. To assist me, as it were, in exposing the errors of those who with Dr. Bell admit, for the most part, the facts of Spiritualism, yet ascribe the whole to the minds of mortals acting as media or inquirers, an advocate of that side of the question gives this explanation of the fact of my having sent a message to Mrs. Gourlay by my spirit sister: 880. He alleged it as a fact, that if two snails be placed in proximity, and afterward apart to a considerable distance, that the contact of one, will affect the other perceptibly. 881. That Mrs. Gourlay and myself being frequently in each other’s society, it followed that if at the distance of about a hundred miles I wished her to induce Dr. Gourlay to apply at the bank, Mrs. Gourlay, although at the time engaged in receiving a most interesting communication from her mother for her brother, had so much more snail-like sympathy, with me at Cape Island, than with the ideas she believed to proceed from her mother, that she would interrupt the one forthwith, to attend to the other at that particularly inconvenient time! Meanwhile, the phenomenon of the index of my disk being moved independently of any effort of mine, so that I can make oath that no mortal moved it, is not taken into view. Surely if by such means a message respecting a pecuniary affair could awaken sympathy, there are many messages which it would be of immensely more importance to convey, than that which I sent in the instance in question.