Indeed, to call them a church at all is a misnomer, and a shameful reflection upon every idea, principle and function of a true church of Jesus Christ, for by believing in a revelation direct from departed spirits in the spirit world they reject God’s revelation. They commissioned mediums to write, women and men indiscriminately to preach, to heal the sick, to see through the material and reveal the spiritual, to break up the marriage relation, to destroy parental affection, to form new standards of private and social virtue, to disturb and destroy all the old foundations and safeguards of society, and reconstruct the social system upon the modern ideas of socialism and the most offensive forms of free-loveism. Religious liberty with them meant social licentiousness, and the social virtues were sacrificed to the lustful passions. These things can not all be affirmed of all spiritualists, and yet the inevitable tendency is the same, and the extremest consequences are legitimate. To say that thousands of people in Missouri, through the subtle agencies of spiritualism, renounced their religion, forsook the church, neglected to read God’s Word, turned themselves away from paths of piety and works of righteousness to serve tables, and became downright infidels, is not half of the whole truth. To a large extent the minds of men became detached from the foundations of Divine truth, and wandered, like the “unclean spirit, seeking rest and finding none.” Systems of infidelity, and infidelity without system, sprang up in every direction and found supporters amongst those that were least suspected, and the church began to tremble for the “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Free-thinking, so-called, took the place of solid, religious faith, and every form of doctrine received encouragement in the public mind. The tendency in the public mind to skepticism was never more alarming, and the mystic vagaries of Andrew Jackson Davis stood in defiant competition with the New Testament. Lecturers appeared in every city and centre of population, haranguing the people upon the vain philosophies of men and questions of science, falsely so-called, seeking to turn away their ears from the truth unto fables, and “doting about questions and strifes of words” that would and did disturb the foundations of godliness. Nor could both the religions press and pulpit countervail their influence upon the public mind. Infidel clubs and associations were formed under different disguises, and many mischief-makers began to believe and teach “unwholesome doctrines” and deceive the ignorant and unwary. It was a common thing to hear of men lecturing in the principal towns on spiritualism, a higher civilization, phrenology, pathology, physiology, hygiene, and other kindred topics, and selling maps, charts and cheap books. In some places they drove a brisk trade, and set all the old women—and young ones, too—men and boys