How and Why I Became a Spiritualist.

Nothing exists in this world alone. Each is related to all and all to each. To-day is colored by every yesterday. It would be in vain to try to make you understand how I became a Spiritualist without prefacing it with a brief description of former religious experiences. Some of these having been published, no doubt some have read them; yet I feel that I could not be just to those who have not, or to the subject, without somewhat of repitition. I commenced my religious career as a Methodist; but this was simply my birthright, and came to me as naturally as measles or the whooping cough. I was so thoroughly cradled in Methodism that I hardly realized there was anything else to believe. Hell was beneath my feet, and heaven over my head. The world was a doomed ship just ready to sink, out of which I was to save as many as possible before she went down for good, and all the pleasures of life were, the fearful rapids that lurk at the brink of eternal ruin. In my eighteenth year I was minister of a church, with no thought or purpose in life but to save as many as possible from hell.

I cannot stop to enumerate the various influences that combined to open my eyes to a far different and far nobler interpretation of life. Suffice it to say that the time came when the principal doctrines of Methodism became to my mind false, to my conscience immoral, and to my heart utterly repulsive. Still, I was some time halting between two opinions. My reason called on me to go out, my heart to stay in. It was the church of my parents. It was their greatest joy and pride that I was one of its ministers. In it were hundreds of good and sincere people who loved and honored me truly. It seemed the store-house of all my affections. Outside the world was all strange, and for aught I knew unfriendly. Why should I, for the sake of a mere difference of opinion, sacrifice all the wealth of love and friendship gathered by years of devotion? Why should I pierce my own mother's heart with the sword of disappointment, and endanger the support of my loved ones for a few intellectual speculations? It is not possible to describe the struggle of such a position. The power of the heart to enforce its claim is mighty. The remembrance of a mother's prayers, the most sacred associations and tender memories of life, hold captive the intellect. The gathering tears of pity and love blind the eyes of truth. It seems as wrong to go as to stay. Remembering what I suffered, I have not one word of condemnation to utter against those who decide to stay. I can only tell them that to me there came a time, when I could no longer respect myself and stay, and so came out. . I can also add that from that day to this I have never regretted it. I can not tell you what I suffered at that time. Do you know what it is to be time to your highest vision of duty and have some dear friend whom you love with all your heart come and weep over you, upbraid and charge you with pride and vain glory? You stand together in the first meeting heart to heart and hand to hand, and you begin to talk in gentle words. He is sure he can convince you that you are wrong, and you are sure that he is so good and true that he must at least see that you are honest, and continue your friend page 2 though he cannot agree with your opinions. So you begin to talk. But a little stream begins to flow between you, and it grows wider and wider. You can no longer hold each other by the hand. The clash of argument rises above the gentle entreaties of the heart. The distance becomes wider and wider, and the waters grow deep and strong. You shout to each other in words of despair across the chasm, and then the sad desolation comes over you that the flowers of friendship are dead and that you are parted forever. You little realize how many of these tragedies of faith there are going on all over the land. The sad, silent pain of the heart, the conscious integrity, the noble purpose, the manly courage and the heroic sacrifice you have made—all regarded as a crime in the eyes of your dearest friends. The price of liberty of thought is no longer the sword and the flame, but it is almost as great when all your honor is treated with contempt. You who have been loyal at so great a cost called a traitor; you who having lost much that was dear to you discovering in your desolation that those whom you had thought it would ever be your privilege to love have become in their narrowness and bigotry objects only for your pity and contempt.

Why should a mere change of opinion produce such division between those who were once friends? The world is constantly changing. One form of civilization gives place to another. Systems of religion come and go. Nothing can be just the same to-day as it was yesterday. Why should we not expect our friends to change and be proud of them when they do? Why should not parents expect their children to have opinions as well as faces of their own? The differentiations of nature are infinite. No two leaves in all the countless forests are exactly alike. The idea of intellectual conformity to a creed is at discord with every law of nature. On leaving the Methodist I entered the Unitarian ministry, with the understanding that what was wanted was a man who would simply give his honest thought from Sunday to Sunday about life and duty, untrammeled by any creed. At this time I believed in God as the tender, loving Father and Mother of us all; in the Bible as containing the divine truth in a great deal of human error; in the immortal life; in Christianity as the highest ethical standard of conduct. Rejecting the idea of the Divinity of Jesus, I still saw in him the most perfect man, whose life might be taken as the light of the world.

But the spirit of growth, of progress, was ever urging me onward. Now the honor of all progress and civilization is claimed for Christianity. In calmly scrutinizing this claim I found that our art, our literature, our science, our education, our liberties had all been torn from its covetous grasp, from time to time, in moments of sheer desperation, as starving men have sometimes snatched food from the jaws of a cruel tiger. Reaching this conclusion, I gave up all right to the Christian name. The Christian doctrine of immortality is based on the literal physical resurrection of Jesus. That story is so contradictory and absurd, according to all laws of evidence and nature, that as soon as I thoroughly understood the evidence I lost my faith. I clung to it as a hope. But I did not know whether death was night or day, the folding or the unfolding of wings, eternal rest or eternal life and progress. Sometimes my hope shone like a star, and at others vanished like a meteor's ray! When life was bright and fair the thought of annihilation seemed absurd. When dark and troubled with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it seemed sweet to think of death as the dreamless sleep of eternal rest. Hearts of dust do not break; eyes that are closed forever are no more scalded with the hot, bitter tears of grief. Welcome to many might be the placid waves that lave the shadowy shore of the silent continent of death. In the gloomy land of annihilation crawls no worm that never dies, and burns no lurid fire that is unquenched. page 3 We might die, but the race might go on growing grander, nobler and happier every day.

Better a million times that we reappear only in the grass or flowers, or be a part of the dust of the most common highway, along which living feet run on errands of mercy and justice, than to wail in hell, or sit with folded hands eternally singing psalms in an Orthodox heaven.

I also lost my faith in God. Prayer seemed but the offering of incense to infinite silence and nothingness. The purpose of this lecture makes it impossible to describe all the causes of this effect. But again, with great pain and discomfort, I was compelled to surrender my relations with a church. Again the stream of a divided faith parted me from dear friends. Again my best and noblest motives were misunderstood and maligned.

But believing that I still had a gospel to preach, I came to Boston and started an independent lectureship.

But I had just leaped the last ecclesiastical fence, and was now a free rover on the broad, bright, breezy, unfenced prairies of the universe. I had broken the last, fetter that bound me to a creed, and felt the full flush of liberty, flooding life with boundless joy and enthusiasm. While feeling thus I was bound to succeed. For the accomplishment of my purpose all causes had to give way. For the first two years Paine Hall was crowded summer and winter; sometimes there was not even standing room. People went early to secure a seat.

But by this time I was heartily sick of destructive work, and sought earnestly for grounds of construction. We drew up plans of work, and offered to labor with the Paine Hall Directors to make that building for the Agnostics what the Christian Union is to the Unitarians.

The question in all its bearings is too complicated to bring in here. Suffice it to say that the treatment we received led us to go to Horticultural Hall. But I was loosing faith and interest in my work, and you know lack of enthusiasm in a leader will weaken any cause. I saw that many did not care a fig for constructive work. After I had given them my heart's blood for two years, if I could not continue to tickle their fancy with gibes and sneers at the old theology, they were ready to fling me away with as little remorse as they would a squeezed lemon. As I grew more and more constructive in my lectures, these staid away in disgust, or ran after other novelties. I saw the ground of support slipping from beneath my feet, and so made haste to study for the stage, so that when compelled to abandon the lecture-field, I might still do something to keep the wolf from the door. Much of my time was of necessity given to my weekly publication, which was started soon after I commenced to lecture. The first year, through lack of business experience, I published it too cheap and ran in debt. At the end of the second year I was less in debt, and as ray subscribers owed me three thousand dollars I thought I should pull through. But the worry and anxiety of my position, the performance of labor in which I took no delight, broke me down physically. My principle trouble was insomnia, I was a page 4 whole week without sleep. I had to retreat or go mad. As he that runs away lives to fight another day, I ran away. I had no chance to go away and rest unless I left my wife and children to starve, so I went West on a lecture tour. In doing so I slowly recovered my health.

During the last year I established a circuit in order to speak in Boston and other important points once a month. But I have steadily lost faith in the Agnostic and Materialistic position as a base of constructive work. Though I long refused to believe my own sight, I found the majority of them generally indifferent to the propaganda of their own principles. I felt this rust growing surely but slowly on my own sword.

It now becomes necessary for me to give you the particular facts that made me a Spiritualist. Quite recently I received a letter from Col. Ingersoll, asking me to tell him just what made me a Spiritualist. I will therefore close my lecture by reading you Mr. Ingersoll's letter and my reply to the same.

Chico Springs, N. M., Oct. '84.

My Dear Chainey:—I see by the papers that you have become a Spiritualist. of course you did not reach your present posi-tion by a simple course of reasoning upon facts common to the world. You must have seen something or heard something that satisfied you not only of the existence of spirits, but that those spirits were once human beings, and can and do communicate with the inhabitants of this world. I read your speech that you delivered at the convention, but you did not give an account of the evidence you had received. I should like to know what facts caused you to embrace Spiritualism, and, if not too much trouble, I wish you would write me an account of your experiences. We are all well, and all send regards.