The hereafter ...

Front matter

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Preface

No prefatory remarks could be more appropriate than the following explanation of the origin of this book, which I take the liberty to abridge from a letter and the reply : — M. H.

" Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 10, 1873.

Brother Moses : . . . I am now engaged in delivering a series of Sunday evening lectures here on the Scientific, Phenomenal, and Scriptural Evidences of Immortality. And as I see the effect of my arguments on my large audiences, and have tested them with the most wily opponents, an irresistible desire seizes me to have them published to the world ; but my long sickness last autumn, added to the sickness of every member of my family, and the birth of one of my children into ' that better country,' causes my cruel master, Poverty, to draw the reins more tightly than ever before. I can not now oversee the printing of a book, nor raise the ' filthy lucre ' to pay for it- Can you help me ? If you can, I know, from the past, you will. The lesson of turning one empty away you have never learned. Will you allow me to send my MS. lectures to you in the rough ? Will you take them, revise them if they need it, and publish them in some form, so that the world can have the benefit

4 PREFACE.

of them ? If you can and will, I will pay you as fast as I can ; if that is not in this world, you shall have it in the lawful currency of the hereafter. . . . Truly, your brother,

D. W. Hull."

" Boston, January 20, 1873.

Brother Daniel : . . . Now I come to the business portion of your letter. If my memory were not long enough to grasp the many favors received from you in the past, it would be short indeed. Send your MSS. along. I will fix them up and publish them. Not that I want compensation in the other world, but to relieve me of a few things that hang over me in the beyond. I remember the patient help, protection, and instruction that flowed in one constant stream from you to me from as far back as memory will allow me to go, until in manhood our paths became divergent. ... I have not forgotten that when you was a poor journeyman printer, and I an Adventist minister, yet in my teens, your bottom dollar was often sacrificed to send me out to proclaim the gospel of destruction. Though we were in error, we were both deeply in earnest. Now that Ave have become men, and put away these ' childish things, ' I will help you to undo that which you helped me to do. I am, as ever, your brother,

Moses."

Chapter I. The Development Of Animal And Spiritual Life

Development as taught by John the Baptist. — The Process. — Man created out of Dust. — The Child's Lesson. — God's Books. — The Cypress Swamp. — The Skull. — The Bed of the Niagara. — Development of Matter. — Advantages of Speech. — Embryotic Development. — Why Monsters are born. — The Unseen. — The Rose and its Sermon. — Are Emanations tangible ? — Earth. — Water. — Steam. — Electro-Magnetism. — The Source of Power.— Modus Operandi of Muscular Action. — Development of Spirit. — Spirit Material. — Infinite Fountain of Thought. — Is God Spirit or a Creature ? — How are Spirits developed ? — A Demand of our Natures. — The Principle of Life. — The Corpse. — The Difference . 7

Chapter II. A Future Life Demonstrated By The Phenomena Of Occult Forces

A Spirit in Man. — Our Magnetic Surroundings. — Magnetic Exchanges. — We think through other People's Brains. — Magnetic Healing. — Unconscious Action of the Brain. — Case of Suspended Consciousness. — Psychometry. — The Dog. — Why Females reach Conclusions quicker than Males. — Mind-reading. — A New Faculty to be developed. — Mind compared to JRadiata. — Clairvoyance. — Dreams. — Case related by Dr. Bushnell. — The Lawyer's Dream. — The Teller's Dream. — Intelligence conveyed by a Dream. —Witchcraft. — Resurrection.— Roger Williams' Body stolen by an Apple-Tree. — Ten Bodies : will all be raised ? — What is Death? — Evidences of Immortality from the Imperfection of our Organisms. — Evidence of Dying Persons. — " Sweet Angels, I am Coming." — "Sainted Wife." — "Who will carry me over the Mountain?" — "There is Bertha." — "It is all right; I come.". 29 b CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Phenomenal Evidence Of A Future Life

Apparitions of the Living. — A Mother appears. — "Steer to the Nor'- west." — Different Hypotheses examined. — Apparitions in Dreams. — The Debt of Three- and-tenpence. — Extract from the Methodist Magazine. — Spirits correcting War Reports. — A Father appears to his Son.

— Physical Phenomena. — Manifestations through Charles H. Foster. — The Memphis Appeal on the Manifestations. — Horace Greeley's Testimony. — Manifestations at Higginsville, 111. — The Raps and their "Work.

— A Spirit settles his Estate. — Clairvoyance. — An unknown Sister introduces herself. — Miss Keyser's Manifestations. — Entrancements. — A Sister announces her Death. — Modus Operandi of Spirit Control. —

Is it Magnetism? — The Watch-chain Argument. — Conclusion 56

Chapter IV. Scriptural Evidences

Why the Author goes to the Bible. — Materialistic Bible Writers. — Many of them did not believe in a Future Existence. — Job on the Witness Stand. — Job's Redeemer and the Worms. — Testimony of David. — His Character. — Solomon's Testimony and Character. — The Prophets. — New Testament Evidences. — A Change. — The Carnal and the Spiritual Man. — War between the Flesh and Spirit. — Does the dead Body arise? — Examination of particular Texts. — Resurrection out of the Dead. — Jesus and Nicodemus. — Spirit of Jesus raised. — Paul's Houses. — Desire to depai t. — Who are the Demons ? — Holy Ghost, what is it ? — Pentecostal Manifestations explained. — Entrancements. — Balaam, Peter, Paul, John. — Chips of the old Block 102

Chapter V. More Scriptural Evidences

Bible Apparitions. — Samuel's Return. — Testimony of Dr. Adam Clarke. — Moses and Elias. — Was Jesus' Body raised? — A novel Explanation. — Representation of Jesus' Wounds. — Similar Cases. — Jesus' Appearance to the Women. — Disagreement of the Witnesses. — Explanation. — On the Way to Emmaus. — Appearance to the Eleven. — Another Appearance. — Did Thomas see Jesus' Physical Body ? — What is " the Comforter"? — Jesus' Appearance to Paul. — The two Narratives. — Paul a Pharisee. — Paul's View of Jesus' Resurrection. — How is Death abolished? — Examination of 1 Cor. xv.— Conclusion 134

THE HEREAFTER.

Chapter I. The Development Of Animal And Spiritual Life

Development as taught by John the Baptist. — The Process. — Man created out of Dust. — The Child's Lesson. — God's Books. — The Cypress Swamp.

— The Skull. — The Bed of the Niagara. — Development of Matter. — Advantages of Speech. — Embryotic Development. — Why Monsters are born.

— The Unseen. — The Rose and its Sermon. — Are Emanations tangible ? — Earth. — Water. — Steam. — Electro-Magnetism. — The Source of Power. — Modus operandi of Muscular Action. — Development of Spirit. — Spirit Material. — Infinite Fountain of Thought. — Is God Spirit or a Creature ? — How are Spirits developed ? — A Demand of our Natures. — The Principle of Life.

— The Corpse. — The Difference.

I can not better commence this chapter than with a quotation from the Book of books : —

" For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." (Matt, iii. 9.)

" But more refined, more spirituous and pure, As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending, Each in their several active spheres assigned, Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind. So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More aery, last the bright consummate flower

To vital spirits aspire, to animal,

To intellectual ; give both life and sense,

Fancy and understanding ; whence the soul

Reason receives, and reason is her being,

Is oftest yours ; the latter most is ours,

Differing but in degree ; of kind the same."

Raphael — Paradise Lost.

Abraham, we are informed, " came out of Ur of the Chalclees." In this direction there is a possibility of tracing the name back to India. Here we find the Hindoo Brahma, who seemed to be the father of life in India, as was Abraham among the Jews. When we reflect that we only have to transpose the letter Alepli in Brahma to make it spell Abraham, the story is told : the religious idea of Abraham being the father of the children of earth, if not borrowed from the Hindoos, is at least derived from the same source. Brahma was also the father of life in India, and the creator of all things, as is also God in the present system. But, inasmuch as it is claimed that Abraham is the father of all of God's children here, there is only a verbal difference between the two.

THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.

Whether John the Baptist had received an idea of the development theory, or spoke " wiser than he knew," it is evident that modern science is demonstrating the truth of his assertion. For we know that God is able to develop humanity from the stones that pave our streets. John opened the door to the great truth that man is developed from the stones, but not until these stones are first refined and developed into higher conditions. It may have been spoken in ignorance of its truth, yet it is a truth that man was " created out of the dust of the ground ; " that dust was only a higher condition of the rocks, and before man could have been created it must have been developed into vegetable matter.

DISAGREEMENT OF THE TWO REVELATIONS .

I am told, however, that this work was all accomplished within a very recent period — six thousand years ago, according to our biblical chronology. But I inquire by what authority the Bible says so, and I am again told that the Bible was written under dictation of God himself, and whatever is there is written by his authority. I have no escape from my doubts. While I am contemplating the matter, a little girl runs to me with a smooth stone from a babbling brook. I look at it, and find it quite round and polished. I ask at once, "Who made this?" She answers, in her lisping way, " I spects Dod made it." " If God made it," I reflect, " how did he make it? He must have put it through some sort of a process, as our mechanics would have done. Where are the mills of God, by which he does such beautiful work?" But the child takes me to the brook, and here I see the mills of God at work. Stones of every grade — those which are most smoothly polished, and those in the crudest condition — are being moved and turned against each other by the pressure of the running water. The angular corners are being worn off from the rough stones, and the smooth ones are being still more evenly rounded. Here is the "mill of God" for which I was inquiring ; but how many millions of years it must have taken to work on that little stone before it assumed its perfect shape ! But stop ; there is something in the stone : it looks like a shell of a small mollusk of the sea. I take a hammer and break the stone, and find it full of those little shells. I again ask the child, —

" Who put these little shells in this stone ? "

She again answers, " I spects Dod put them there."

I know he did. Here, then, in this stone, small as it is, I have another book, and I know God wrote it, for no other person could write such a book. But this little book demonstrates that many millions of years ago God took the soft sediment, and filled it full of shells that had once encased living beings, and put them all through it, and then closed the book, cemented its leaves, and sealed it with the great seal bearing his monogram, which, without translation, will be intelligible to all nations and tongues.

Now, if the first book is God's, it will harmonize with the last.

God has been writing all over our earth, and in every leaf of this world-book we find a contradiction to the Bible. When in the cypress swamps of the Mississippi valley we find the bones of a man that have been left there a great period, and when we count those cypress swamps, and learn that God has raised, matured, and rotted five cypress swamps over the grave of this skeleton, and the sixth swamp is past its prime, — knowing that it takes ten thousand years to mature one, we can not escape the conviction that the man who left his skeleton for us to look at must have lived here fifty-seven thousand years ago. But when we go to Florida, and find a skull there one hundred and thirty-seven thousand years old, we know that God never was the author of the idea of the recent creation of our earth. We find traces of man which show that he lived here on earth before the glacial period. Lyell demonstrates that that was eighty or a hundred thousand years ago ; but I don't care to make it that old for my present purpose. There is an old channel of the Niagara River which seems to have been filled up during the glacial period. In consequence, the Niagara has had to cut another — a new bed. In cutting that bed, it has been compelled to cut away rocks, as it is doing now. Since it commenced cutting it has cut back from the junction of the old channel the distance of eleven miles. It is known to cut back now at the distance of eleven inches per year, so that it would take it over five thousand years to cut back one mile, and a little over sixty thousand years to cut back eleven miles. If it has done all this since the glacial period, and man was here before that time, it demonstrates not only that the world is more than six thousand years old, but that the human race is much beyond that. I am compelled to believe these records, because their author is the creator of the world.

USES OF EARTHQUAKES.

Passing through one of your valleys, I hear a rumbling sound like thunder ; the ground, also, seems to tremble under my feet. It is the shock of an earthquake. In a few days it is repeated ; houses are thrown down and lives are destroyed. I take myself away from the scene of danger, but remain near enough to be an observer. In time a mountain is reared, and a furious volcano breaks forth, sending up its tongues of fire, smoke, and ashes. The great rock -ribs of the earth rub their broken sides together, grinding each other into a fine soil, which is sent up amid the smoke, and ashes, and mud, and water, continually belched forth. This pulverized rock now becomes a coarse soil, and if I put some of it in an urn and plant an acorn, or a seed of any kind, it will only grow a dwarf ; but each time the soil has grown into vegetation and gone back again, it has been raised in the scale of development, and it is capable of producing better vegetation than it was the last.*

But while this process is going on in the little urn that I have saved, a process of development is going on in another direction. The earth ground from the stones of the mountain is being washed towards the sea, there to again spring into animal and vegetable life.

We go to bayous of salt or fresh water located out of reach of the winds, and we find conditions somewhat favorable to the development of animal and vegetable life. Floating there appears to be a speck which we are at a loss to locate, as it seems to be neither animal nor vegetable, but a little of both. Another speck, however, floats near it, and we see a prolongation of one of its sides until it actually extemporizes an arm, which reaches out and draws in

* Perhaps it would be well to state that soil is educed from rocks in several ways — by glaciers, early forms of vegetable life, and the action of water and the atmosphere upon them. The process above is given because it is more easily comprehended.

the speck near by it ; then it becomes all mouth, and envelopes it. But now that the mouth has performed its part, there is no need for that any longer, and the little sarcoid becomes a stomach, and the speck thus taken in and enveloped undergoes a sort of digestion, and becomes a part of the little polyp. After it grows large enough, if you tear a little piece off, you will find that not only the original will live, but the piece you have torn off will commence to operate in the same way that its parent did.

It would take a great many generations before it began to have protrusions for the arms and a cavity for the mouth, but eventually not only would this be the case, but it would assume a kind of an envelope on its outside, which would either become hard and horn-like, or cartilaginous. From this, eventually, we should have a higher order of existence, and in a few thousand years, again, we should have another still higher order evolved from these. Thus we find a regular succession from the cartilaginous fish up to man. From this little cryptogam we first, after a long series of efforts, pass through the cartilaginous state, and reach the first order of vertebrata. There are developments from this till we come to air-breathing animals, who, swimming with their heads out of water, ever and anon make efforts to ascend higher in the air. The effect of this is to develop wings, while, at the same time, another order of the vertebrata have become land animals. We then reach the next higher order of animals in the winged vertebrata ; one step higher takes us to the marsupial animals, and the next step takes us to mammals : here we find the highest order of beings beneath man. This part of creation, intellectually, is far beneath man. There is a demand with them which has only been supplied to man, and without it they have no means of associating ideas with each other, and therefore no means of further development.

THE ADVANTAGES CONFERRED BY HUMAN SPEECH.

Suppose the powers of speech were to be bestowed upon your horses or your dogs ; how many generations until you would find them manifesting certain powers of mind ? The horse's master wishes a certain job of work done, and gives his horse his reasons for it, and the faculties develop for combined generations. As it is, we have domesticated these animals till they understand many things we say ; but if they could only exchange ideas with us, they would give us an opportunity to teach them still more.

On the other hand, let us suppose that when to-morrow morning's sun shall rise, it shall find that the whole human family has lost the powers of speech ; not only the powers of speech, but powers of talking by deaf and dumb signs, which but for the gift of speech we never should have had. The papers would publish it all over the world, and we should each read it at the breakfast table, and learn that our neighbors were all afflicted as we are, but we should have no means of associating ideas only by the pen. We should manage to get along for one generation, but the next would not know how to read, and could not learn without oral instruction. In consequence of this we should have no more use for printing presses, men would soon forget how to make machinery without instruction, and each individual would be driven to look directly to his own individual wants, without any reference to the wants of his neighbor. At this rate it would be but a few generations till the strongest men physically would take possession of our houses, and drive the weakly ones (who are generally the most intellectual) out of doors to perish. But at the same time these houses, too, would perish ; the art of agriculture, to a certain extent, would be lost ; and men would be driven to prey upon wild animals for their subsistence. They would climb trees for game, burrow in the earth for shelter, kill each other off for coveted objects, and become like the wild animals about them. If the loss of speech would result in all of this, may we not suppose that the gift of speech to the highest order of intelligences would bridge the chasm between the highest order of animals and the human species ? I am not looking for the " connecting link" between man and inferior animals ; I do not just now want it. I only want to show the advantages man has derived over the lower order of animals by virtue of this gift.

EMBRYOTIC DEVELOPMENT.

Now, I will follow the process of development from another stand-point. Let us commence with the beginning of human life, the foetus. The first sign of life which we see manifested is a small speck, not unlike, in appearance, the sarcoid of which I spoke on a former page. Other cells are added to it, and the process of development begins, and as it develops it begins to change. The law of evolution, which has given us such a high order of existence, is now working in the embryo. The vertebrata is at length reached, and thus the development goes on till we reach another step on the ladder of progress. Finally, man is reached.* This will account for monsters who are born into the human family. Men are born with gill-marks on their neck, showing that the process of development had been partially arrested in that part of the body, so that it was not perfect. In a neighborhood near where I lived when I was a boy, a child was born with the head of a squirrel ; and I read of another that had a serpent's head when it was born, and would put out its tongue after the most approved serpent fashion. Fortunately neither of these children lived but a short time. Now, in these two instances the process of development had been arrested at the head ; in one instance very early in the development, in the other at a later period ; while the development of every other part of the body continued. Monsters are never born with organizations beyond the human race, for they can not well develop beyond. The fact that monsters are always caused by the cessation of development of certain parts of the

* "The ovum, destined to become a new creature, is originally only a cell, with a contained granule." — Vestiges of Creation, p. 89. It is only in recent times that physiologists have observed that each animal passes, in the course of its general history, through a series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the various

orders of animals inferior to it Nor is man himself exempt

from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in the animalcule. His organization gradually passes through conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of the last stages of this foetal career, he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape ; this is suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the simial type, and become a true human creature. — Vestiges of Creation, p. 103.

ANIMAL AND SPIBITUAL LITE DEVELOPED. 17

organization, would establish, if we had no other evidence, that the embryo developed through all these lower animals, and therefore, at some period in animal life he has lived in these several forms. I have traced this line of argument to prepare the reader for my argument on the development of spirit. I shall not be compelled to be so tedious in handling that part of my subject, now that this is established.

Before I pursue this further I must take my readers with me for a moment to

THE UNSEEN.

Thus far we have dealt with matter which we could feel and see. Now let us go a step beyond. A single drop of water ; I can see through it and it looks perfectly pure. Nothing shades the rays of light which pass through it. But I put it under the glass of a microscope and the drop of pure water has developed to a little world, teeming with life, — monsters preying upon each other, as some of our landsharks, that wear broadcloth and gold spectacles, are wont to do at times. Had it not been for our microscopes we should never have known of the existence of this part of the world. How do we know that there are not creatures still more minute, who are entirely out of the reach of our microscopes ? The earth, air, and water are full of life, of which, but for the microscope, we should be entirely ignorant. Who shall say that there may not be other objects about us beyond the reach of our natural vision ?

Let us take for illustration a rose, which I may find upon my table in my room. Putting it on the balances, I ascertain its weight, and then hold it up to 2 my nose. I pronounce it very fragrant : I ascertain this because the rose has imparted some of its odor, which is really a part of the rose. After I have done admiring, perhaps twenty individuals will each of them take it, and each pronounce it fragrant. But I put it in the balances, and I find that though we had all partaken of its emanations it has lost none of its weight.

Now, what is this odor that arises from the rose ? You can not see it, feel it, or hear it ; it has no sensible weight, nor diminution. We can only come in contact with it through the olfactories, and this leaves us so in doubt about the aroma, that we can only express our admiration. We know there is an aroma, although we may not see it or come in contact with it by any other of our physical senses. Now, if we should meet a man without this sense, we should have no means of demonstrating the existence of this intangible element. May not this emanation really be a higher condition of the rose, as real and tangible to higher order of developments as the rose itself is to us ?

Now that we have spoken of the rock-ribs of earth, let us return to a further contemplation of the subject. From the earth we may reach a higher condition in water ; for it is capable of holding in solution all the primates of our earth. Water is a higher condition than the earth, and is more powerful. Earth is inanimate, and incapable of raising any great power in any short period of time. Its power must be evolved by a gradual process. But in water, this refined condition of the elements, the power is increased. A given amount of water will manifest a certain rate of power, which can be used for the purposes of running machinery. But now take a portion of this water and develop it to a still higher condition, and you have steam. By this process you have intensified the power a hundred-fold. But what is steam ? You can not see it when it is first liberated. You only know of its existence from its effects, or by seeing the vapor it causes by mingling with the atmosphere. It is really a spiritual condition of the water, and as we refine the water, we raise it to a higher condition. I take steam again, however, and unite it with caloric, and I have another time intensified this power a hundred-fold ; I now have electro-magnetism. How much further we can go on intensifying this power no one can tell ; but we have ascertained that the more we spiritualize the forces, the more we increase the power. Now, we can not see these forces. They are only known by their effects. From this we reach another conclusion, and that is, that

ALL POWER INHERES IN SPIRIT.

To illustrate : I have an osseous, muscular, and nervous system, which seems to hold the same relations to me that rock, earth, and water do to our world. Now, there is no power in either. Neither my bones, muscles, nor nerves, can raise my arm ; yet I can raise it. But by what means? Ah, there is something behind all organization and combination of matter, in which the power is situated, and which holds it under control, and uses it as you would use the lever and fulcrum for the removal of objects too ponderous to be moved by hands.