Religion

Justice is due to all men; it is a gem that sheds a brilliant radiance upon the tyrant and the slave, upon the rich and the poor; Justice is in the moral world what the sun is in the physical, one illuminates the intellectual, the other the terrestrial system.

And now a few words regarding the evolution of this book. It is something over a quarter of a century since I labored with Ezra Cornell in founding the university which bears his honored name. Our purpose was to establish in the State of New York an institution for advanced instruction and research, in which science, pure and applied, should have an equal place with literature; in which the study of literature, ancient and modern, should be emancipated as much as possible from pedantry; and which should be free from various useless trammels and vicious methods which at that period hampered many, if not most, of the American universities and colleges.

"The word was God." That "word is Truth." Truth can never change, or it would contradict itself. Past, present, and future, must be governed by immutable laws. Experience is acquired by the careful study of history, and the present condition of all things.

THE Christians are accustomed to have private assemblies, which are forbidden by the law. For of assemblies some are public, and these are conformable to the law of the land; but others are secret, and these are such as are hostile to the laws; among which are the Love Feasts of the Christians

LIFE, as we know it, despite its allurements and its pains, is but the shadow of our real and ultimate existence. Before us lies a vast territory of knowledge, the outskirts of which we have barely fringed.

The distinguishing characteristic of the present age, is the freedom of inquiry and discussion which prevails upon all subjects; and most particularly upon religious subjects. Intelligent and thinking men of every class, are beginning to investigate and discuss questions of the latter kind with considerable closeness, fearlessness and determination.

It is not that the history of Spiritual Manifestations in this century and country has not again and again been written, nor that a library of the splendid literature of Spiritualism-narrative, philosophical, and religious-does not already exist, that I have deemed it a duty to give this history to the world.