1857 SPIRITUALISM & THE CHURCH. Rare Work Attempting to Harmonize Spiritualism and Orthodoxy

Scarce work on defending the communication of departed spirits as being within the Christian tradition and allowable as a part of Christian practice; penned jointly by Alonzo Eliot Newton [1821-1889] and Sarah Jane Newton [1820-1893].

Alonzo Eliot Newton was born in 1821 in Marlborough, New Hampshire to Silas and Sarah (Chaffin) Newton. He became a foreman at the Temperance Standard by the age of 23. Two years later he found a position as foreman and proofreader in Cumberland, Maine before moving to Boston in 1849 where he was editor, typesetter, and proofreader for The Pathfinder Railway Guide. 

Alonzo married Sarah Emery in 1845. Alonzo and Sarah attended seances with Maria Hayden and Helen Reed in Boston. It appears that Sarah’s ability as a visionary medium threatened the authority of the pastor of their church, The Edwards Congregational Church. When ejected from the congregation, Alonzo penned the present work. In it, he made a case for his beliefs: ”There are many other points on which our eyes have been opened to, as we think, a higher view and a clearer vision than we entertained before; but it will be impossible to present them adequately to your minds in a communication like this. We would frankly say, however, that we wish no longer to be considered as bound to any particular view of truth….” 

Alonzo made it his mission to educate the public about Spiritualism. He became editor of The Pathfinder with Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, co-edited the spiritualist newspaper The New Era, and became editor of The New England Spiritualist in 1855. He was commissioned to write tracts on Spiritualism, and edited and published, The Educator, a record of spirit messages received by medium John M Speer, before becoming editor of The Spiritual Age in 1858. 

After becoming Secretary for the Haitian Bureau of Emigration which encouraged blacks to emigrate to Haiti, he worked as a clerk in the war department during the Civil War. Following the war, he was superintendent of colored schools of Washington D.C. for five years. Alonzo remarried in 1865 to Charlotte Gassett. They lived in Massachusetts, but Alonzo spent time at Blue Anchor Spiritualist settlement in Camden County, New Jersey before moving there to serve as superintendent of the “industrial college” in the progressive community in Winslow, New Jersey. 

He established the following propositions: 

I. That man has an organized spiritual nature, to which the physical body is but an outer garment.

II. That he has a conscious individualized existence after the death of the physical body.

III. That the disembodied can and do communicate sensibly with those still in the flesh.

IV. That incalculable good may be derived from such communion, widely used.

Last offered at auction in 1879. No copies on the market at the time of cataloguing. 

Newton, Mr. and Mrs. A. E. [Members of the Church]. The Ministry of Angels Realized: A Letter to the Edwards Congregational Church, Boston. With Notes and an Appendix, Embracing Facts Illustrative of Angelic Ministration, and the Substance of a Reply to the "Congregationalist." Boston. Bela Marsh. 1857. 72pp.

Essentially disbound, no wraps. Minor stains, but textually complete and usable.