The fountain : with jets of new meanings . ns. Many ofthese fond hopes have perished ; many a bright prom-ise has been toned down to the verge of despair. 222 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. Hundreds of the professors of Spiritualism have retiredinto the frigid, barren, and inhospitable, yet popular,territories of conservatism. The movement was, andis, full of aggressive and progressive minds ; and it iscorrespondingly empty of constructive and charitablelabors for human advancement. Nowhere on the goodFathers footstool can be found a richer soil so ut-terly grainless and unproductive. No other existing
The fountain : with jets of new meanings . ns. Many ofthese fond hopes have perished ; many a bright prom-ise has been toned down to the verge of despair. 222 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. Hundreds of the professors of Spiritualism have retiredinto the frigid, barren, and inhospitable, yet popular,territories of conservatism. The movement was, andis, full of aggressive and progressive minds ; and it iscorrespondingly empty of constructive and charitablelabors for human advancement. Nowhere on the goodFathers footstool can be found a richer soil so ut-terly grainless and unproductive. No other existingmovement embraces so many enlarged ideas, quickensso many generous instincts, inspires so many impressi-ble minds, opens so many grand scenes for mankind;and yet, to tell the plain truth, no other movement, ofthe same age and with the same wealth of opportuni-ties, ever exhibited more miserly stinginess in its ap-propriations for worthy enterprises, or more senselessextravagance in rewarding individuals for the selfishuse of their AS THE TWIG IS BENT, THE TREE IS INCLINED. MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 223 The beautiful tree bears but little practical fruit forthe millions of the globe, because of the existence of anerror j which like a devouring worm, lives in the veryfoundation, and which is day by day eating out thelife of its finest roots. This destructive error is the general misapprehen-sion, entertained by the intelligent and the ignorantalike, that the fact of communication with the otherworld is worthy of exaltation to the dignity of a re-ligion, and that the constant prayer for and enjoymentof such intercourse is the practice of religion. u In all kindness, says one of our most prominentwriters, we ask, is not Spiritualism founded on therevelations of mediums ? Could it have sprung intoexistence without them ? My reply is : Certainlynot; and simply because Spiritualism has no otherfoundation, it is radically incapable of becoming apractical religion. Some of our best
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