Excerpt from Spirit Minstrel: A Collection of Hymns and Music, for the Use of Spiritualists, in Their Circles and Public Meetings Spiritualism, as an element of social influence, has become a fixed fact. Nothing can conceal the truth that a wider, deeper and more potent influence is exerted by it then by any other principle merely moral. Circles meet in almost every community - Sunday meetings are held in various places - State Conventions are called, and books, pamphlets, and weekly and monthly periodicals are issued. The friends of Spiritualism will not wish to see that influence diminished, but extended. And nothing more powerfully contributes to such a result then the fascination of music and song. This has been seen, and a few partial attempts made to supply the want. The Spirit Harp and Spirit Voices furnish us some beautiful poetry, but there are such marked defects as to preclude their general use. Much of the Ilarp is not adapted to metre, while many pieces are of inordinate length, occupying from two to three pages. But the most vital defect is the fact that we have no music, and hence are obliged to use the cumbersome works of common church music. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.