“Be that as it may, in what transcends your own knowledge, or is verifiable by your own natural powers, you have no means of distinguishing them, or of determining when the communication is true, or when it is false. When a spirit unfolds to you a system of the universe,—a system which comes not within the range of scientific investigation,—you cannot say that he is not deluding you, and giving you fairy gold, which will turn out to be chips or vile stubble.” “You think us deluded, then?” “In what you see and hear, no; in regard to what lies beyond, yes. I believe you honest; I believe you really receive communications from invisible spirits; I believe you fabricate, simulate nothing. I give you full credit so far as regards the mysterious phenomena you relate; I agree with you in the conclusion that these phenomena are produced by spirits; but I regard as not proved the identity of these spirits with the spirits who were once united as human souls to bodies; and what they teach of God, the universe, and human destiny, I regard as a delusion—a Satanic delusion, designed to seduce you from, or to prevent you from returning to, your allegiance to God and his Christ.” “That this is the fact,” said I, “I am quite sure. If any proof of it were wanting, it might be found in the fact that these spirit-manifestations are even by Judge Preston himself identified with those which have always been opposed to Christianity, and by it pronounced Satanic; and by the further fact, that they teach as truth the principal doctrines which the movement party of the day oppose to the Gospel. Take the doctrines set forth by the Seer Davis, those which you find in the _Shekinah_, and even in Judge Preston’s own book, and you find them in substance the prevailing infidelity of the times, dressed out in a spiritual garb. I have very good reasons for knowing that these spirit-manifestations have been started for the very purpose of overthrowing Christianity by means of an infidel superstition. The prime mover had precisely this object, and no other.” “We have,” said the Judge, “only your word for that. I regard these phenomena from God.” “So the devil wishes you to regard them, for he seeks, by means of them, to carry on his war against the Christian’s God, and to get himself worshipped as God,” said I.