It is a lamentable consideration that so much time should be criminally wasted in many families in explaining…
- Date of account
- Published 1857
- Source
- The Spirit Land
- Reference
- The Spirit Land · selected passage 114
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It is a lamentable consideration that so much time should be criminally wasted in many families in explaining tricks, relating and expounding dreams, telling fortunes, and in detailing stories of haunted houses, hobgoblins, and spirits of the supposed uneasy dead
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIt is a lamentable consideration that so much time should be criminally wasted in many families in explaining tricks, relating and expounding dreams, telling fortunes, and in detailing stories of haunted houses, hobgoblins, and spirits of the supposed uneasy dead. In this way, the evil is cherished, and transmitted from generation to generation. But if we can succeed in giving an opposite direction to conversation; if we can induce people to reason upon these things, and inquire into their origin, causes, and effects, and investigate the evidence on which they are imagined to rest, and adopt rational conclusions, we shall be usefully employed. A course like this would eventually lead to the banishment of popular superstitions, with their baneful effects upon our peace and happiness; especially if we labor to impress upon the minds of others the existence of an all-wise Providence, that controls and governs all things for the highest good of all, calling upon us to place our trust in Him, without whose notice not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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