e on earth, a
medium of high and extraordinary powers, and that it was solely
through his mediumistic capabilities that he attained so great
knowledge, and was enabled to practice such apparent wonders."

When Christ was upon earth, it was envy, jealousy, and malice that moved
the Pharisees against him (Matt 27:18); and it seems that he is followed
by the same feelings in the spirit world. This is natural; for he who
fired the hearts of the Pharisees with their malignant spirit, is the same
one, as we have seen, who is working through the powers of darkness in the
unseen world to-day. Any way to degrade Christ in the minds of men to a
level with, or below, the mediums of our time, and make it appear that
they can do as great wonders as he, seems to be the object in view.

There is plainly manifest an irrepressible desire on the part of spirits
and mediums to show Christ to be inferior to the leaders of other great
religions of the world, as Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, etc. Thus, at a
seance held in 1864 (_Banner of Light_, June 4), the spirits were
questioned as follows:--

"_Ques._--Have you ever seen Confucius or Zoroaster?

"_Ans._--Yes, many times.

"_Q._--In the order of degree, which stands the higher in moral
excellence--Jesus Christ, Confucius, or Zoroaster?

"_A._--Confucius stands in morality higher than the other two....
Jesus himself claims to have been inspired to a large extent, by
this same Confucius. And if we are to place reliance upon the
records concerning each individual, we shall find that Jesus spoke
the truth when he tells us that he was inspired by Confucius."

Indeed! Where are the records referred to? Where and when did Jesus
"speak" the words attributed to him? And where does he tell _us_, that he
was inspired by Confucius? So we are to believe, are we, that the gospel
of Jesus Christ, is only a rehash of what was originally wrought out in
the brain of Confucius, and not words fresh from the fountain of light
given him by his Father in heaven, to speak, as he claimed them to be? Yet
he was a high and _holy_ medium. We wonder what standard of holiness and
perfection the spirits can have.

But still later, in 1896, we find the spirits putting forth the same
teaching in reference to Jesus Christ. In "Automatic, or Spirit Writing,"
pp. 148, 149, we have this:--

"_Ques._--Do you accept Jesus as the model of spiritual know