issues that hang on the decisions we may make in these perilous times, we
feel justified even in _adjuring_ the reader to canvass this subject with
an inflexible determination to learn the truth, and then to follow it
wherever it may lead.

U. S.
_Battle Creek, Mich., 1897._

Chapter One.

OPENING THOUGHT.

What think ye? Whence is it--from heaven or of men? Such was the nature of
the question addressed by our Saviour to the men of his time, concerning
the baptism of John. It is the crucial question by which to test every
system that comes to us in the garb of religion: Is it from heaven or of
men? And if a true answer to the question can be found, it must determine
our attitude toward it; for if it is from heaven, it challenges at once
our acceptance and profound regard, but if it is of men, sooner or later,
in this world or in the world to come, it will be destroyed with all its
followers; for our Saviour has declared that every plant which our
heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. Matt. 15:13.

To those who do not believe in any "heavenly Father," nor in "Christ the
Saviour," nor in any "revealed word of God," we would say that these
points will be assumed in this work rather than directly argued, though
many incidental proofs will appear, to which we trust our friends will be
pleased to give some consideration. But we address ourselves particularly
to those who still have faith in God the Father of all; in his divine Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whose blood we have redemption; in the
Bible as the inspired revelation of God's will; and in the Holy Spirit as
the enlightener of the mind, and the sanctifier of the soul. To all those
to whom this position is common ground, the Bible will be the standard of
authority, and the court of last appeal, in the study upon which we now
enter.

A Manifestation of Power.

Spiritualism cannot be disposed of with a sneer. A toss of the head and a
cry of "humbug," will not suffice to meet its claims and the testimony of
careful, conservative men who have studied thoroughly into the genuineness
of its manifestations, and have sought for the secret of its power, and
have become satisfied as to the one, and been wholly baffled as to the
other. That there have been abundant instances of attempted fraud,
deception, jugglery, and imposition, is not to be denied. But this does
not by any means set aside the fact