SHALL OUR MEDIUMS AND SPEAKERS BE ORDAINED?

 

The ordination of ministers, presupposes that those who ordain them have special power and right conferred by God to do so. In the Church of Rome, it is claimed Christ gave Peter, the first pope, the keys of heaven and hell, and he has conferred the same power from pope to pope in an unbroken succession, and they through bishops to every priest, so that everyone is ordained by Christ. It is all a fraud, but is superstitiously believed by the devotees.

 

The Protestant churches feebly ape the rites of this tremendous assertion, in their ordinations of preachers by other preachers, having no more authority than they, except that other preachers have ordained them. They do not claim any succession of preachers from the apostles, and if they did, would at the reformation, have to trace it through detested Catholicism.

 

A more feeble attempt has been made at ordination by spiritual societies, which amounts simply to the endorsement of the speaker by his society. This has been conferred with such careless levity that we hear of the most arrant rascals gaining the confidence of societies by "certificates of ordination" from national societies.

 

The only "ordination" that is valid is the power to instruct, to entertain, backed by a righteous character.

 

There is no danger of an "ordained mediumship," set to control the great spiritual movement. Those who attempt to lead in that direction will find scant following.

 

And yet it is pitiable to observe how superstition for the old lingers; how "reformers" delight in aping the ways of the churches; putting their thoughts into old forms of speech; calling their speakers "pastors," their lyceums "Sunday-schools," their organizations "churches," opening their services with prayer-softened into "invocation," and closing with benediction. It gives a sop to the orthodox world, that the orthodox world rightly accepts as weakness. Oh, it is difficult to cast off that Old Man if the Sea, and stand up free and independent.

 

DIFFICULTIES IN COMMUNICATING.

 

If the methods by which the messages of spirits are transmitted to us were as definitely known and easily complied with as those of the telegraph, then we might expect the same precision and accuracy. But they are not, nor can they be, for they are in greater part unknown and difficult to supply. It is possible for a hypnotist to find a subject so sensitive that every thought will be reproduced in that subject's mind, who will speak precisely in the words willed to be used. Possible, but not once in a thousand attempts is it attained. In the other trials, there is imperfection of speech, or failure in grasping the thoughts.

 

When spirits attempt to control a medium to write or speak, they do so by precisely the same means and are met by even greater difficulties.

 

The medium to give perfect expression must be like, in culture and intelligence, to the control. In proportion as this is the fact, the communications become more in harmony with our ideas of what they ought to be.

 

It is said an eminent musician once charmed a critical audience by playing on a violin he had made from a wooden shoe. With his genius and wonderful training he was able to extort music from a single, string after all the others had broken, yet how much more perfect would have been his performance had he been given a Paganini.

 

When spirits desirous of communicating would make the attempt, there is scarcely any chance. They must take the means at hand and do as well as it is able. What the result will be they cannot know beforehand. They are often surprised a! their success, more often regret their failure and the effect of their imperfectly transmitted thoughts.

 

It would be advantageous to this spirit to have continued seances with the same medium, for by that means could the medium be brought under the more complete control of the spirit. It would be interesting to observe from seance to seance the increasing certainty of the control. It is true that spirits are sometimes "as in a dream," for a length of time after leaving the physical body.