Thus we have a series of prophecies setting forth the development, in the last days, of a wonder-working power, manifested to a startling and unprecedented degree, in the interests of falsehood and error.  All refer to one and the same thing.  The earthly government, with which it was to be especially connected, is that represented by the two-horned beast, or false prophet.  The agency lying back of the outward manifestations was to be Satanic, the spirits of devils.  The prophecy calls for such a work as this in our own country at the present time.  Do we behold anything like it?  Read the answer in the lamentation of the prophet:  “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”  Stand aghast, O Earth!  Tremble, ye people, but be not deceived.  The huge specter of evil confronts us, as the prophet declared.  Satan is loosed.  From the depth of Tartarus, myriads of demons swarm over the land.  The prince of darkness manifests himself as never before, and, stealing a word from the vocabulary of Heaven to designate his work, he calls it—­Spiritualism.

1.  Does spiritualism, then, bear these marks of Satanic agency?

1st.  The spirits which communicate claim to be the spirits of our departed friends.  But the Bible, in the most explicit terms, assures us that the dead are wholly inactive and unconscious till the resurrection; that the dead know not anything; Eccl. 9:5; that every operation of the mind has ceased; Ps. 146:4; that every emotion of the heart is suspended; Eccl. 9:6; and that there is neither work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, where they lie.  Eccl. 9:10.  Whatever intelligence, therefore, comes to us professing to be one of our dead friends, comes claiming to be what, from the word of God, we know he is not.  But angels of God don’t lie; therefore these are not the good angels.  Spirits of devils will lie; this is their work; and these are the credentials which at the very outset they hand us.

2dly.  The doctrines which they teach are from the lowest and foulest depths of the pit of lies.  They deny God.  They deny Christ.  They deny the atonement.  They deny the Bible.  They deny the existence of sin, and all distinction between right and wrong.  They deny the sacredness of the marriage covenant; and, interspersing their utterances with the most horrid blasphemies against God and his Son, and everything that is lovely, and good, and pure, they give the freest license to every propensity to sin, and to every carnal and fleshly lust.  Tell us not that these things, openly taught under the garb of religion, and backed up by supernatural sights and sounds, are anything less than Satan’s masterpiece.