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INTRODUCTION.

So urgent is the "spirit of the age" upon improve ment, and novel subjects for the display of genius, that the mind has an aversion to what has been adopted; and like a ship loosing from its native shore, is launching into unknown seas. The triumph of the arts and sciences has so exalted man in his own estimation, that many, forgetting their utter dependence, feel shielded by their own mightiness. Casting off fear, they restrain prayer before God, and, as if the first born, and made before the hills, boast of their reason; assume the judgment seat, seek to adjust universal balances, and determine the ways of the Almighty; pass judgment upon Bible religion, pronouncing it mythological, unreasonable, and doomed to fall before the spirit of improvement. The world, they affirm, "needs a philosophy which Jesus did not furnish; a revelation to reason which the Bible does not contain."

Since the Patriarchal age, the doctrine of Divine Inspiration has never been more boldly assailed than now. And no country bears a more luxuriant harvest of Deism than America.

The land sought by the Puritans for the unobstructed growth of Bible Religion, has become the nursery of as rank infidelity as ever blinded the eyes and benumbed the sense of man. And the proud foe of God rocks the continent, lulling man's conscience with Circean melody,

while he is shorn of his strength, and deprived of his vision.

Science is declared at variance with the Scriptures, and unfolding law, with the christian faith; and Modern Spiritualism, as "God's interpreter," urges its bewildering tide upon the world, gathering thousands into its

necromatic current.

This volume is devoted to the discussion of those claims which have been and are being urged as more rational and useful to the race than christianity-which are denominated by the advocates, "The Religion of Reason;" and no one familiar with the modern mind and the tendency of the age, can fail to have discovered that the Rationalists have done much to weaken the faith of many in the doctrines of a revealed Religion. This is not only manifest by the common mind, but men of high professions and no ordinary influence have been either metamosphosed or greatly swerved in their religious belief, by this power of anti-Christ. And while the secret workings of Infidel principles have been moulding the mind, too few, by far, of professed Christians, have labored to qualify themselves to properly oppose the anti-Christian tide, and compete with the influence of those who have been laboring to undermine the Church of Jesus.

In these volumes the author has endeavored to provide the reader with the leading propositions and arguments now urged against the Christian Religion, and also, with their analysis, and in a manner to disclose their unsoundness, inconsistency, and utter incapacity to meet the wants of the soul, or commend themselves to

the sense of well balanced, uncharmed and unbewildered minds.

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The surface tide of Modern Mesmerism, Psychology, and Spiritualism, having subsided, it is often asked, Why agitate the subject? Why not let the fanaticism die by neglect?" As well might the household seek to extinguish the smouldering fire in their dwelling by neglect, or a community seek to sleep down a pestilence. For this moral malaria arising from the decayed. ruins of ancient Pantheism, is infusing its religious bane throughout the enlightened world, and those of sensitive natures are receiving the elements as secretly as an enemy sows tares by night. And since the novelty of the newly garbed materialism of the ancients has passed, the mind effected is cleaveing to the writings of A. J. Davis, the real founder and oracle of the modern manifestations, hence the greater danger, for in a silent and unobtrusive manner the unlearned and pleasure-loving are being indoctrinated. And thus, a secret enemy is wielding a moral and religious influence unnoticed and unmolested by the multitudes. For this reason, the Author has selected and reviewed the first work of Mr. Davis, a work which, in fact, is the text book of his Hommorialism, and which contains the germs of the issues promulgated by modern opposers of Christianity, and advocates of Spiritualism. This work, entitled "Nature's Divine Revelations, or a voice to Mankind," is chosen, for the following reasons:

1. Because it purports to be the speech of Nature, her own address in behalf of her true character, and her self-exoneration from false charges brought by the Theocratic system, which has been offered to man as "Divine.

Revelation," the "Word of God," the "Revelations inspired by the Holy Spirit, which this "Speech of Nature" claims as false, and a burlesque.

2. Because it is perhaps the most complete work among those in which the subject is systematized.

3. Because it is admitted as a great literary production, even by many who do not credit its purported authenticity.

4. Because it was produced under the most favorable circumstances, those calculated to render it as perfect a system as can be developed upon the subject.

5. Because it was developed in this age-an age well adapted to the defence of a natural religion.

6. Because it blends the Pantheism of the past with the Deistic Spiritualism of the présent.

7. Because it spiritualizes those theories that have been laid down as the foundation of material philoso phy and the religion of Nature.

8. Because it emerged from the mesmeric fountain as the head tide of Modern Spiritualism, and suggests the system of doctrines promulgated by modern spiritualists.

9. Because its strength is the congregation of those principles arrayed against the Bible, by those who oppose the Christian religion.

10. And finally, we introduce "Nature's Divine Revelations," with our analysis of it, because its sophistry, the magnetic spirit with which it is infused, its hightoned transcendentalism and bewildering influences, have led and are leading, by the charm of novelty, many to reject the doctrines of christianity and trust in it as a

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