again inclined to say, that what Mr. Newman has done in your case,
God might easily do, if he pleased, for mankind in general; and with
this advantage, that He would not include in the same book which
revealed truth to the mind, and rectified its errors, an assurance
that any such book-revelation was impossible."

"But, my ingenious friend." cried Fellowes, with some warmth, "you are
inferring a little too fast for the premises. I do not admit that
Mr. Newman or any other spiritualist has revealed to me any truth,
but only that he has been the instrument of giving shape and distinct
consciousness to what was, in fact, uttered in the secret oracles of
my own bosom before; and, as I believe, is uttered also in the hearts
of all other men."

"I fear your distinction is practically without a difference. It will
certainly not avail us. You say you were once in no distinct conscious
possession of that system of spiritual truth which you now hold; on
the contrary, that you believed a very different system; that the
change by which you were brought into your present condition of mind
--out of darkness into light--out of error into truth--has been produced
chiefly by Mr. Newman's deeply instructive volumes. If so, one will be
apt to argue that a book-revelation may be of the very utmost use and
benefit to mankind in general,--if only by making that which would else
be inarticulate mutter of the internal oracle distinct and clear; and
that if God would but give such a book, the same value at least might
attach to it as to a book of Mr. Newman's. It little matters to this
argument, the question of the possibility, value, or utility of an
external revelation,--whether the truths it is to communicate be
absolutely unknown till it reveals them only not known, which you
confess was your own case. If your natural taper of illumination is