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 Class _J&£_L£U 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
 
PROBLEMS OF 
 THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REVEREND ARTHUR CHAMBERS 
 
 h 
 
 ASSOCIATE OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 
 VICAR OF BROCKENHURST, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND 
 
 Author of 
 
 " Our Life After Death " "Man and the Spiritual World," 
 
 and " Thoughts of the Spiritual" 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 I LIBRARY otGONGK ESS 
 Two Copies Receive 
 
 APH 15 1908 
 - jowneni envy 
 
 ■yjtpfi juc. Nu. 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 
 GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
 
 Published September, 1907. 
 
To mark my appreciation of our long- 
 continued friendship, and moreover, to 
 thank him for the encouragement he 
 has afforded me in the performance of 
 a not altogether easy task, I dedicate 
 this volume to the esteemed Friend 
 who suggested the simple and apt title 
 thereof. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Can the Departed be objectively present ? 
 If so, in what way can they manifest 
 themselves to us as to be recognizable? I 
 
 II. Is the fact that trickery and imposture 
 have been associated with Spiritualism, 
 a proof that it is the outcome of false- 
 hood and credulity? 24 
 
 III. Does the prohibition against inter- 
 course with "familiar spirits," as given 
 to the ancient Israelites, imply that all 
 communion with the Spirit-world is for- 
 bidden by God ? 28 
 
 IV. How can it be explained that many of 
 the communications alleged to come 
 from discarnate beings are unsatisfac- 
 tory, misleading and untruthful? 50 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 V. Is there a danger in attending seances, 
 on the ground that at such meetings 
 evil and deceiving spirits may be at- 
 tracted? 68 
 
 VI. Will our earthly relationships be main- 
 tained in the Other World? JJ 
 
 VII. W 7 hy do not all the Departed manifest 
 themselves to those whom they have left 
 behind ? 92 
 
 VIII. Will the fact that beings in Spirit-life 
 are on different planes of life and ex- 
 perience be an obstacle to re-union?. . . . 106 
 
 IX. Apart from direct communications from 
 them, how may we best realize that the 
 Departed are still living and in relation- 
 ship with us ? 119 
 
 X. Are not such expressions as — "The sea 
 gave up the dead which were in it," 
 "Them which sleep" and "Those that 
 are in the graves" — an indication that the 
 New Testament writers regarded Death 
 as a temporary cessation of conscious 
 being? 127 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Objections against "The Larger Hope" 
 considered. 
 
 "The book— 'Our Life after Death' 
 teaches Universalism. It leaves out the 
 strong things Jesus Christ said. What 
 is called 'the strong language of the 
 Athanasian Creed' is our Lord's own 
 
 teaching" 136 
 
 (From Report in "Church Times" of 
 March gth, 1906, of the Bishop of 
 London's statement. See note at end 
 of chapter.) 
 
 II. "The Times of the Restitution of all 
 things" 158 
 
 III. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive" 161 
 
 IV. "The Saviour of all men" 165 
 
 V. "Our God is a consuming Fire" 169 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 VI. What Greek word denoting "never- 
 ending" could the writers of the New 
 Testament have used, if the word alcovco? 
 (translated "everlasting" and "eternal") 
 will not sustain that signification? 175 
 
 VII. Is there a danger, in regard to the Uni- 
 versalist belief, of making the Benevo- 
 lence of God dominate His Holiness and 
 Justice in such a way as to constitute 
 Him the Tolerator of evil? 183 
 
 VIII. Is it right to pray for those who have 
 departed this life as non-Christians? If 
 so, what should be the character of our 
 prayers for them ? 199 
 
 IX. If Christians depart this life to be with 
 Christ, how can our prayers benefit 
 them ? Does He not know exactly what 
 to do for them without our intercessions 
 
 on their behalf? 214 
 
 X. On what grounds can we base our be- 
 lief that Jesus is not only pre-eminently 
 a Son of God, but the Son of God, in the 
 sense of being Divine? 220 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It may help the reader to better understand 
 the purport of this volume, if I briefly state the 
 considerations which have led me to write it. 
 
 There was a necessity for my doing so; I had 
 no other means of discharging an obligation im- 
 posed upon me. Let me explain. 
 
 Some into whose hands this comes, are 
 aware that I have previously published three 
 volumes on the subject of the Spiritual World, 
 which have had a very large circulation in this 
 and other countries. The result has been a cor- 
 respondence so overwhelmingly great, as to 
 make it impossible for me to keep abreast of it. 
 Thousands of letters have been sent to me by 
 earnest ones from all quarters of the world. 
 Amid the pressing duties of a ministerial life, I 
 have strenuously set myself to reply to those 
 letters; and a great number of them have been 
 answered. But many have not. 
 
 Among the latter, are those which contain 
 questions, not only important to the writers in 
 view of their search for truth and for the re- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 moval of difficulties which are presented to 
 their mind, but which, moreover, are incapable 
 of being adequately answered within the cir- 
 cumscribed limits of ordinary correspondence. 
 Some of the letters submit a series of questions, 
 the answering of which would involve the writ- 
 ing of matter sufficient to form a booklet. 
 
 Moreover, in many cases, questions which 
 have been fully answered by me on several oc- 
 casions, have again and again been submitted 
 by other enquirers. It will thus be seen how a 
 great pile of the "Unanswered" has persistently 
 grown, without there being any possibility, in 
 spite of all my efforts, of diminishing it. How 
 could I answer those questioners? What could 
 I do to rid myself of the unpleasant thought that 
 some — not knowing the circumstances of the 
 case — might be accounting me neglectful or dis- 
 courteous? This book is an attempt to solve, or 
 to partially solve, the difficulty. 
 
 From the numerous questions sent to me, I 
 have carefully selected such as I deem to be 
 the most important and which have been the 
 most often proposed; and then I have tried to 
 answer them fully and exhaustively in the pages 
 of this volume. It may be that those whose 
 kind communications have elicited — until now 
 — no response, will, after this explanation, ex- 
 tend to me their forgiveness. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The other consideration which has impelled 
 me to write this book is the desire to vindicate 
 the position of those who embody in the Chris- 
 tian Religion the ascertained facts of Psychic- 
 life, and the "Larger Hope." The ranges of 
 present-day knowledge and thought are larger 
 and wider than those of the past. Science, dur- 
 ing the last half-century, after having unfolded 
 to us marvel after marvel with regard to the 
 Physical, has of late directed her researches to 
 the domain of the Spiritual. There, wonder 
 after wonder has been disclosed. Psychic Phe- 
 nomena have been carefully investigated, and 
 their reality avouched by many of the foremost 
 men of the day; until a new continent of life and 
 possibility has been laid open before us, and 
 a revealing light has been flung on the mystery 
 of Human Being. 
 
 Further, the mind of this present age has 
 moved on to the acquirement of fuller and 
 worthier conceptions of God, His character, and 
 His purposes with respect to mankind. Men 
 are no longer able to think of Him as He was 
 presented by the School men and divines of by- 
 gone ages. The crude and anthropomorphic 
 notions of Him are fast disappearing. Many 
 of the old religious doctrines — especially those 
 which deal with Eschatology — have ceased to 
 commend themselves to the intelligence and 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the moral instincts of the day. Accepted with- 
 out question in the past, as the integrant parts 
 of Christian Truth, these doctrines have been 
 found to voice, not the teaching of the Master 
 Himself, but the unevolved ideas of those who 
 interpreted His teaching. In a word, men's 
 enlarged conception of their spiritual organiza- 
 tion, and their realization that a non-physical 
 realm of life and energy encompasses and inter- 
 penetrates them, has caused them to re-cast 
 their thoughts concerning God and Truth. 
 Now, it is this fuller revealment of Spiritual 
 realities, manifested in Psychic Phenomena, 
 and this re-casting of ideas concerning God and 
 the scope of His Gospel, which is causing re- 
 ligious disquiet to some. 
 
 This enhanced knowledge and wider thought 
 are regarded as being incompatible with the 
 teaching of Christianity. The persons to whom 
 I refer are mentally disturbed by any present- 
 ment of truth which differs from that which has 
 been accepted by them. They have been 
 trained to believe that the theological pro- 
 nouncements and definitions of the Church or 
 Body to which they have attached themselves, 
 are the final utterances of God in respect to 
 Divine Truth. They suppose that to question 
 those pronouncements, and to imagine them 
 capable of being altered or modified, is a sure 
 
PREFACE 
 
 indication of declension from the Christian 
 Faith. They are aware that the present-day 
 conceptions, in regard to God and His pur- 
 poses, and in regard to man and his interior 
 constitution and relationship to the Spiritual 
 Universe, are not in agreement with the con- 
 ceptions of the generally accepted exponents of 
 Christ's Religion who have lived since Bible- 
 times. 
 
 All this constitutes a very real difficulty to 
 such Christians. Is this fuller knowledge con- 
 cerning the Spiritual, and is this brighter and 
 more hopeful outlook towards God and the 
 Future, inimical to the Gospel which Jesus 
 taught ? 
 
 We believe it is not; and the other object in 
 view in the writing of this book, is to try to 
 show that the Gospel of Christ is so Divine and 
 comprehensive a thing as to be capable of em- 
 bodying all the acquisitions of knowledge and 
 all the movements of men's minds to higher 
 thought and aspiration. 
 
 The Christian Religion, we believe, would 
 cease to maintain its hold on mankind, were it 
 not able, as God's great ocean of Revelation, to 
 draw into Itself and absorb all the streams of 
 Truth which flow through the channels of the 
 Religions of the world, as well as those tribu- 
 taries and brooklets of enlightenment which 
 
PREFACE 
 
 from the uplands of human thought slowly, but 
 surely, find their way into the streams. 
 
 ARTHUR CHAMBERS. 
 Brockenhurst, Hampshire, England. 
 August, 1907, 
 
PART I. 
 
 I. Our mother, just before she died, very calmly 
 and emphatically declared that she saw and 
 recognized several persons who had departed this 
 life years before. Do you think this was merely 
 a subjective experience, or were those departed 
 ones actually and objectively present? And if the 
 latter, how was she able to recognize them* see- 
 ing that the physical form, by which alone she 
 had known them, had been laid aside? 
 
 In answer to the first of these questions, we 
 say — Yes; we believe that persons can, after 
 death, be objectively present, and possess the 
 power, exercised under certain conditions, of 
 manifesting themselves to those living in the 
 earth life. We submit the reasons on which 
 we ground this belief. 
 
 I. There is a very strong presumption that 
 this is so, arising from the fact that there has ex- 
 isted throughout all past ages, and there exists 
 now, an ineradicable conviction that, at times, 
 the so-called "dead" return. 
 
 Among all the races of mankind, civilized and 
 uncivilized, and under all the differing phases 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of religious, or non-religious, thought, men 
 have persistently believed in, and borne testi- 
 mony to, the possibility of the departed mani- 
 festing themselves; and that, in spite of all the 
 efforts which have been made to prove the be- 
 lief a foolish and groundless one. The science 
 of the past (not the science of to-day) has ridi- 
 culed the idea as being the outcome of supersti- 
 tion and ignorance. The Church herself, with 
 a curious lack of consistency, has labelled it as 
 an unscriptural and a rather wicked notion. 
 And yet, throughout the whole history of the 
 race, men have pertinaciously clung to it, and 
 no testimony borne to anything outside the or- 
 dinary experiences of mankind, has ever been 
 so great and so continuous as that which has 
 been given in regard to appearances after 
 death. 
 
 This persistent conviction is significant. It 
 points to fact as the basis upon which it rests. 
 Why, we ask, if the departed have never re- 
 turned, have men so persistently believed the 
 opposite? 
 
 The objector will answer, that this convic- 
 tion, although so widespread, can only be 
 classed among many other baseless ideas per- 
 taining to ages of unenlightenment; and that 
 
 2 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 as mankind advances in knowledge, this par- 
 ticular notion will cease to command belief. 
 
 The supposition is completely contradicted 
 by present-day fact. The extraordinary ad- 
 vance that has been made in science and gen- 
 eral knowledge, during the past twenty or thirty 
 years has neither removed nor shaken this con- 
 viction in the minds of men; on the other hand, 
 it has become enormously strengthened and in- 
 tensified. The belief in the return of the de- 
 parted, so far from dying out in the light of 
 fuller knowledge, is more persistent and wide- 
 spread to-day than ever it has been; and in 
 the ranks of the believers are to be found some 
 of the foremost men of science. In a word, the 
 advance of knowledge has increased the belief. 
 This is inexplicable on the supposition that the 
 belief is founded on a fancy; it is to be accounted 
 for, if it is built on the foundation of fact. 
 
 Thus, the persistent conviction on the part of 
 mankind that appearances after death do take 
 place, is to us a very strong presumption (apart 
 from all direct evidence) that such is the case. 
 Had the alleged fact been impossible of verifica- 
 tion, the belief in it would have died out, as 
 have baseless notions, long ago. 
 
 II. The verification, after careful investiga- 
 tion, by scientific men, of the present-day facts 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of Psychic Phenomena, affords another strong 
 reason for believing that the departed may re- 
 turn to us. The idea of such return is no longer 
 scouted by men who have given their attention 
 to the matter as foolish and impossible. The 
 deniers of the fact are for the greater part those 
 who assume the unscientific attitude of antece- 
 dently settling themselves in the conviction that 
 the thing is impossible, and then of declining to 
 make any enquiry, or to accept any evidence 
 whatsoever on the subject. The pronounce- 
 ments of such persons count for simply nothing 
 at all. The opinion of the person who says — 
 "The thing, I am convinced, is impossible; and 
 therefore I will consider no evidence in support 
 of it," — is so completely outside the radius of 
 practical importance, that we may dismiss it as 
 valueless, as we should the. opinion of one who, 
 having antecedently come to the conclusion that 
 the North Pole could not possibly exist, ignored 
 every scientifically ascertained fact concerning 
 the same. 
 
 But we turn to the men who have given 
 thought and attention to the subject; to men 
 whose opinions are of weight, because, by cul- 
 ture and profession, they are qualified to weigh 
 evidence and estimate fact. I am referring to 
 some of the most distinguished and well-known 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of the scientific men of the present time. They 
 have investigated the existing facts of Psychic 
 Phenomena, and have given to the world state- 
 ments concerning them which have revolution- 
 ized the ordinary ideas of men. We ask the 
 thoughtful enquirer to "read, mark, learn, and 
 inwardly digest" all that is contained in those 
 two exhaustive volumes, which embody the re- 
 sults of the scientific examination of Psychic 
 Phenomena, by the late Professor Myers. 
 ("Human Personality; and its Survival of Bod- 
 ily Death"). It will open the eyes of some to 
 the possibilities of the spiritual. It will go very 
 far towards making the thought of manifesta- 
 tion after death a believable one. 
 
 An absolute change has come over the mind 
 of science, in regard to the spiritual and its 
 possibilities. She, as represented by the ablest 
 of her exponents, is no longer materialistic. She 
 has at length reached the point of acknowledg- 
 ing that it is impossible to account for certain 
 experiences vouchsafed to many men and 
 women on any hypothesis of the merely Physi- 
 cal She has even gone the length of admitting, 
 that apart, from the acknowledgment of that 
 which within us and about us transcends the 
 Physical, and which links us with the Spiritual, 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 many of the inherent powers and the experi- 
 ences of thousands of our race are inexplicable. 
 It may be asked — In regard to Science, what 
 has brought about this change of front? Why 
 has science, so materialistic, in the past, become 
 now so pre-eminently the means by which men 
 are so much better realizing the possibilities 
 of spirit ? We answer — The fact of Psychic Phe- 
 nomena, of late years, has become so persistent 
 and demonstrable, that science has been unable 
 any longer to ignore it. In the past, the fol- 
 lowers of science, no less than the adherents to 
 religion, have been handicapped against the ac- 
 quirement of fuller knowledge, by prejudice and 
 traditionalism. It is very different now. Both 
 systems are learning that all the facts of human 
 experience must be honestly faced, if truth is 
 to be attained Many of the old conceptions in 
 regard to religion are vanishing away, and bet- 
 ter and truer ideas are taking their place. And 
 the science of to-day has made admissions with 
 respect to human life and experience, which 
 would have been ridiculed by the scientific men 
 of fifty years ago. The existence of the soul; 
 its survival of bodily death, and the possibility 
 of communication between those in spirit-life 
 and those in earth-life, are no longer ideas 
 which science proclaims to be groundless and 
 
 6 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 incredible. There are many of our distinguished 
 men of science, unlabelled as to religious creed, 
 who, in consequence of a knowledge acquired 
 through the investigation of Psychic Phenom- 
 ena, have an intenser belief in the reality of the 
 spiritual than many Christians who persuade 
 themselves that they believe all the spiritual 
 wonders recorded in the Bible. 
 
 Thus, in the face of the admissions of science 
 in regard to the spiritual; in fact of the enor- 
 mous testimony borne by mankind to the effect 
 that the departed may, and do return, which 
 testimony has not been overthrown by scientific 
 investigation, we are drawn to the conclusion 
 that the re-appearance of those who have passed 
 hence is a verifiable fact. 
 
 III. An enormous amount of direct testimony 
 has been borne by "all sorts and conditions" of 
 men, as to the fact of appearances after death. 
 
 Let any enquirer on this point but take the 
 trouble to ask those with whom he may come 
 into contact, if any such experience has come 
 within the range of their knowledge, and we 
 venture to say that ever}- other person so ques- 
 tioned will recount some instance of a departed 
 one having been seen, either by himself, or by 
 some one whose testimony he accepts. It is 
 only as we make enquiries, that we find out how 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 widespread is the experience with which we are 
 dealing. Thousands never mention to others — 
 save, perhaps, to their own circle — what they 
 know in regard to this subject. They are 
 afraid of being accounted weak-minded, or un- 
 truthful, and so the testimony adduced, great 
 at is is, is less than it would be if it were not 
 for this fear of the scoffer. Moreover, it is a 
 notable fact, that the ones who give their testi- 
 mony as to any personal experience of manifes- 
 tation after death, are convinced that their ex- 
 perience was objectively real, and not to be at- 
 tributed to hallucination. The following is an 
 instance. An old gentleman (connected with 
 the writer) lost his wife, to whom he was deeply 
 attached. He felt the bereavement acutely. 
 One morning, at the breakfast table, he told his 
 sons he had had a strange experience; all the 
 more strange to him, because, until then, he had 
 deemed such a thing impossible. He, when 
 lying awake, and thinking of other matters, had 
 seen his departed wife standing beside his bed. 
 She had smiled on him, and said, — "John, you 
 will be with me in May." The sons pronounced 
 the experience to be only a dream, or the out- 
 come of overwrought imagination. The father 
 most calmly asserted that it was not so, but an 
 objective reality. His sons remained uncon- 
 
 8 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cerned, and the old man never again alluded 
 to the subject. Five or six months passed, and 
 the father regained all his old cheerfulness and 
 interest in life. An evening party was given by 
 him to celebrate his birthday, and those present 
 remarked how well he appeared to have recov- 
 ered the shock of his wife's death. On the fol- 
 lowing morning he was found dead in bed; and 
 it was the month of May. There are thousands 
 of recorded experiences similar to this, and we 
 contend that it is more reasonable to regard 
 them as based on fact, than on fancy; of being 
 objective, rather than subjective. A person com- 
 pletely sane, calm, and invariably truthful, de- 
 liberately affirms that he has seen a dear one 
 after death, and that the experience was not 
 imagination. Those who have not had the ex- 
 perience, or any like experience, as positively 
 assert the opposite. But which statement, we 
 ask, is of the more evidential value — that of 
 the one who had the experience, or that of those 
 who did not have it ? We do not usually attach 
 much importance to the pronouncement of 
 anyone concerning a subject, about which he 
 acknowledges a total lack of experience, and a 
 fixed conviction that no idea but his own can 
 possibly be right. We drop him outside the 
 reckoning, as not possessing the necessary data 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 upon which to come to a true conclusion. Thus, 
 the testimony of one person who has had any 
 experience of post-mortem appearances, is worth 
 more in assisting us to come at the truth of 
 the matter, than all the assertions of a hundred 
 others, who have had no such experiences. We 
 admit this principle in the concerns of every- 
 day life. 
 
 Again, if it is difficult to cast aside as unre- 
 liable the testimony regarding an appearance 
 after death of a person whom, in all other re- 
 spects, we regard as sober minded and truth- 
 loving, it is still more difficult to reject the tes- 
 timony of several persons who conjointly and 
 simultaneously have the same experience. 
 There are a great number of verified instances 
 of two, three, or more persons who have seen 
 the departed at the same time, and in precisely 
 the same way, so as to leave no room for the sup- 
 position that the experience can be explained as 
 hallucination. The writer himself has had such 
 an experience. He saw, in company with an 
 intimate friend, a manifestation which presented 
 itself, in every detail, in precisely the same way 
 to him as it did to his friend. If this experience 
 is to be accounted for on the hypothesis of its 
 being merely subjective, then we are shut up to 
 the conclusion that two absolutely independent 
 
 10 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 minds are suddenly and simultaneously so af- 
 fected, as to similarly see, in every particular, 
 something which had no existence except in 
 imagination. We ask, in the face of this con- 
 current experience, which is the more reason- 
 able explanation — that the experience is to be 
 attributed to a disordered mind, or to objective 
 fact? Thus, we have, in the direct testimony 
 adduced by thousands of our fellow-beings, an- 
 other strong reason for accepting as true, that 
 the departed may, and do, at times manifest 
 themselves to us. 
 
 IV. We have the statements of the Bible 
 that persons, after death, have objectively mani- 
 fested themselves. The testimony of the Bible 
 on this point is very emphatic, and it ought to 
 settle the question at once for those who profess 
 to believe that book. And yet, strange to say, 
 the ones least disposed to admit the possibility 
 of post-mortem appearances are very often those 
 whose religion, as Christians, is founded on the 
 fact of appearances after death. 
 
 The Christian Religion rests on the acknowl- .- 
 
 edged truth that our Lord Jesus Christ was 
 seen, after death, by a considerable number of 
 persons. He was seen under circumstances 
 which preclude the possibility of accounting for 
 His appearances on the hypothesis of merely 
 
 ii 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 mental impressions. He was, moreover, seen 
 in such a way as to demonstrate the fact that 
 He had passed beyond the restrictions of the 
 Physical, and was living in the environment of 
 the Spiritual. He could suddenly present Him- 
 self before the eyes of astonished apostles, in 
 a room whose door was closed and barred. He 
 could instantly vanish from their sight; could 
 quickly transport Himself from place to place; 
 could change His form; be unrecognized for a 
 while by those who knew Him well, and could 
 cause Himself to soar upward in seeming con- 
 travention of the law of gravitation. In a 
 word, from a world, transcending the Physical, 
 into which He had entered at death, He pre- 
 sented Himself to men and women still on the 
 earth-plane; and they acknowledged the fact, 
 and the Christian Religion was built on it. No 
 Christian, after this, can consistently and logi- 
 cally doubt the possibility of manifestations 
 from the world of spirit. 
 
 If the Bible be true in stating that Samuel 
 and Moses and Jesus, and "many of the saints 
 which appeared unto many" at the time of the 
 crucifixion, and the "fellow-servant of thy 
 brethren, the prophets," who came to St. John 
 at Patmos — presented themselves after death, 
 then we contend that the Christian Religion it- 
 
 12 
 
 t 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 self demands us to believe that the so-called 
 "dead" may, and do, return. If we deny that 
 such manifestations are possible, we have cut 
 away from ourselves all reasons for believing the 
 scripture records. The spiritual world to-day is 
 no different from what it always has been. 
 What was possible and actual in the past is so 
 to-day. And the accumulated evidence of this 
 age in regard to spiritual realities confirms this 
 statement. 
 
 We proceed to answer the other question sub- 
 mitted above: — How was the mother, who on 
 her death-bed declared she saw and recognized 
 departed ones, able to recognize them; seeing 
 that the physical body, in which only she had 
 previously known them, had been laid aside? 
 There are two ways by which a being passed 
 into spirit-life can manifest himself and make 
 himself recognizable to those in earth-life. — (a) 
 By the clothing of his spirit-presence with a 
 thvught-form, in such a manner that he assumes 
 the appearance in which he had been previously 
 known by those to whom he manifests, (b) By "? 
 building up around his spirit-presence a tem- 
 porary encasement, constructed from particles ' 
 and emanations drawn from physical bodies. 
 
 13 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 This latter is commonly called "materializa- 
 tion." 
 
 With regard to the first of these two methods 
 of manifestation. The appearance produced as 
 a thought-form is not physical, nor can it be 
 physically perceived. It is a creation of 
 thought. The excarnate being, knowing that 
 he would be unrecognized, except in the appear- 
 ance in which he had been known in earth-life, 
 thinks of himself in that way, and his thought 
 takes form, and his spirit-presence is invested 
 with that form. Thus a being in spirit-life is 
 able to manifest himself in different ways to 
 different persons, in accordance with the man- 
 ner in which he may think of himself. If he 
 were to appear to one who had only known him 
 in earth-life as a young man, he would think of 
 himself as such, and be presented in that form. 
 If he were to manifest to another who had 
 known him in later life, he would mentally draw 
 the picture of himself in that condition and be 
 seen in correspondence with that thought. 
 When the prophet Samuel was seen after death, 
 it was in the form of an "old man" (i Sam. 
 xxviii. 14.) — the form in which alone he would 
 have been recognized. As to this power of the 
 mind to produce form, and how it does so, we 
 know but little as yet; but there are many indi- 
 
 14 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cations that the fact is coming within the bounds 
 of scientific demonstration. It is known that, 
 pervading all space and interpenetrating all 
 physical matter, is a subtle element — the iEther. 
 It may be that thought-forms are the result of 
 mental energy, projected as vibratory motions, 
 upon the setheric atmosphere, and that they 
 register thereon the impressions and images 
 created in the mind. There seems to be no 
 greater difficulty in supposing the aether cap- 
 able of registering a mind image, than in know- 
 ing that the sensitized plate of the photographer 
 can register the likeness of a physical object. A 
 spirit-being appears to possess the power, not 
 only of projecting these mind-images which he 
 creates upon the setheric atmosphere in which 
 he has his being, but of so identifying himself 
 with the projected image, as to merge, for a 
 while at least, his spiritual self into it. He is 
 seen, then, in a thought-form of his own creat- 
 ing. Thus, in the spirit-world, our environment, 
 and ourself as we appear to others, is mainly de- 
 termined by our mind. 
 
 If this be so, it may be asked — How can non- 
 physical thought-forms be seen by one whose 
 vision of objective realities is dependent upon 
 the physical eyes? In other words,— -How can 
 a spirit-being who has enwrapped himself in a 
 
 IS 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 thought-form be seen by those still living in the 
 earthly body? The answer is — By means of the 
 faculties of the interior spirit-body. Within our 
 outer physical body lies this spirit-body — the 
 encasement of our spirit-self. St. Paul, writing 
 on this subject, in i Cor. xv. 44, states — a eaTi 
 cco/ia tyvxMov, teal eari aayfia 7rvevfjLaTt,/c6v" — 
 — there is a natural body (i. e. a body pertaining 
 to this life only), and there is (i. e. now) a spirit- 
 ual body. Spirit and spirit-body constitute 
 what we call "soul." A man after death is an 
 excarnate being — a spirit; but he is not a shape- 
 less entity, a fluidic essence; he has a bodily 
 form; he is in a spirit-body. This spirit-body 
 possesses faculties, which correspond with the 
 faculties of the physical body, but transcend 
 them. The powers of sight and hearing in the 
 spirit-body are intensified. The eyes and ears 
 of the physical body can be sensitive to only a 
 limited number of vibrations in regard to sight 
 and sound. The faculties of the spirit-body on 
 the other hand, are capable of receiving cotheric 
 vibrations; whereby sights invisible to physical 
 eyes, and sounds inaudible to physical ears are 
 perceptible to the spiritual organization. The 
 normal condition of the spirit-body, while en- 
 cased within the physical, is undevelopment. 
 The latent powers are there, but their close as- 
 
 16 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 sociation for a while with the physical body 
 places them under restriction. The inherent 
 capabilities of the soul-man are at a disadvan- 
 tage in exercising themselves through the en- 
 vironment of the physical man. The bright 
 electric light can shine but dimly through the 
 coarse, enveloping medium of a London fog. 
 There is a likeness between the condition of 
 our spirit-body and that of the physical body 
 of a child shortly before birth. The latter has 
 all the potentialities of perceiving sights and 
 sounds. It has eyes and ears; but until birth 
 they are unopened. The pre-natal conditions 
 of existence afford no scope for the exercise of 
 those powers. Birth to it means a quickening 
 and an opening of already existing faculties. It 
 becomes, then, en rapport with a world of physi- 
 cal sight and sound. 
 
 To us, physical death involves a similar ex- 
 perience. Death removes from us the restric- 
 tions of the physical. By it, the body of our 
 spirit-self is brought into adjustment, and is 
 made capable of functioning in an environment 
 where the possibilities of spiritual seeing and 
 hearing surpass the possibilities of the physical. 
 After death, the conditions of being become 
 altered : then we live and move in the domain of 
 the setheric, and the horizon of perception, of 
 
 17 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 observation and inherent power becomes enor- 
 mously extended. 
 
 Thus the "resurrection" (the anastasis, the 
 advance) which Christ referred to, in His argu- 
 ment with the Sadducees, means the liberation 
 of the spirit-body from the obstructive connec- 
 tion with the physical, and the exercise of 
 higher powers by the spiritual man. But this 
 opening and quickening of the faculties of our 
 interior spirit-body takes place, sometimes, be- 
 fore death. Persons, still resident in the earthly 
 body, at times see and hear that which physical 
 eyes and ears are incapable of perceiving. From 
 beginning to end, the Bible is full of such in- 
 stances. The spiritual beings who were seen 
 by patriarchs, seers and others were not seen 
 through the mediumship of the physical eyes, 
 but by an abnormal opening of the sight of the 
 spirit-body. "Lord, open his eyes that he may 
 see," prayed Elisha, in regard to the young 
 man, whose physical eyes were insensible to 
 the nearness and reality of the spiritual (II 
 Kings vi. 17). And the opening of his eyes 
 disclosed to him wonders beyond the ken of 
 the physical. There can be no doubt that the 
 reason why our Lord selected St. Peter, St. 
 James and St. John to be witnesses of that 
 spiritual revealment on the Mount of Trans- 
 
 18 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 figuration, was because they alone of all the 
 Apostles were so spiritually constituted as to be 
 clairvoyantly and clairaudiently capable of see- 
 ing and hearing the spiritual visitants who there 
 manifested themselves. In the case of the 
 mother who declared, just before she died, that 
 she saw and recognized departed ones, we be- 
 lieve that there was a quickening, an opening, 
 of the faculties of her interior spirit-body, by 
 which she was made capable of perceiving the 
 presence of those persons. Those dear ones had 
 been drawn to that death-chamber by the mag- 
 netic power of love We dare believe that the 
 great All-Father of Love commissioned them 
 to come, in order to remove the "sting of 
 death," and to mitigate that feeling of strange- 
 ness which must come to a human soul, in pass- 
 ing from the conditions of the physical to those 
 of the spiritual. The spirit-friends wanted the 
 dying woman to know they were with her. They 
 pictured themselves as they knew she was think- 
 ing of them. In so doing they enwrapped their 
 spiritual selves in thought-forms. Others in the 
 death-chamber saw them not. The eyes of their 
 spirit-bodies were unopened; and like Balaam, 
 under those conditions, they were conscious of 
 no angel beside them. The mother saw the 
 God-sent visitants. Her indwelling spirit-body, 
 
 19 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 feeling the first throb of expanding life, received 
 the "Ephphatha" of God, and looking through 
 the crumbling walls of the physical, she saw the 
 spiritual. 
 
 Apart from the creation of thought-forms, 
 those who have passed hence can manifest 
 themselves to those on earth in another way. 
 By means of materialisation. There is an incon- 
 trovertible mass of evidence to prove that it is 
 possible, under certain physical conditions, for 
 a spirit-being to present himself as encased in 
 a temporarily assumed physical body. Material- 
 ization is a verifiable fact; it has been attested 
 by some of the foremost scientists and investi- 
 gators of the present time. Of course, there is 
 a considerable section of mankind which is un- 
 convinced in regard to it, and it is absolutely 
 hopeless to try to convince such. Persons of 
 this class know little or nothing about the sub- 
 ject; they do not want to know, and moreover, 
 they are antecedently positive that such a thing 
 could never be. We are not concerned about 
 them. They are simply lagging behind the as- 
 certained knowledge of the day; the fact of ma- 
 terialization will be admitted by them before 
 long, and then will come to them a startling 
 revelation as to the possibilities of spirit. It is 
 for the information of those who are prepared 
 
 20 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to enquire and to accept investigated and veri- 
 fied facts, that we are writing. Materializations 
 have taken place, and are constantly taking 
 place, under conditions and circumstances which 
 shut out the possibility of hallucination or im- 
 posture. The writer, in the presence of a clergy- 
 man and others, has seen, on the same evening, 
 two such materializations (the one of a child 
 and the other of a man) in the barely-furnished 
 parlor of an artisan's cottage. The whole pro- 
 cess of materialization and de-materialization 
 was seen. And testimony similar to this has 
 been adduced by scientific men. 
 
 It will be asked — How can a spirit material- 
 ize? By taking the aura, which is matter in a 
 fluid condition, as it exhales from the physical 
 bodies of persons, and consolidating and con- 
 structing this around the spirit-self in such a 
 way as to form a temporary physical encase- 
 ment; which encasement is as appreciable by 
 the eyes and the touch as any ordinary physical 
 body. This aura is similar in appearance to the 
 mist-like exhalation which can be seen arising 
 from a hard-driven horse on a frosty day. It is 
 physical matter in a gaseous state; and from all 
 persons it is constantly exhaling. Some bodies 
 give it off more freely than others; and those 
 with whom this is the case constitute the 
 
 21 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 "mediums," the ones so essential to materiali- 
 zation. When a number of persons are together 
 in a room in which this aura is confined, the con- 
 ditions are favorable for materialization. A 
 spiritual being can collect it, can draw it to him- 
 self, can consolidate and mould it, and build it 
 up around himself as a body physically sub- 
 stantial and tangible And more than this — 
 the enhanced power of mind and the formative 
 energy possessed by it, enables the spirit being, 
 desirous of being recognized by those to whom 
 he is manifesting, to impress upon the structure 
 which he has temporarily built for himself, the 
 form and characteristics of that picture of him- 
 self which he has antecedently created in his 
 mind. 
 
 The adaptation of physical matter by a spirit, 
 for the purpose of manifestation to those whose 
 vision does not extend beyond the physical, 
 would seem, from what has been observed, to 
 be not granted to all. Moreover, a spirit ap- 
 pears to possess no power of retaining for any 
 length of time the materialized body he may 
 have formed. In the personal experience to 
 which I have alluded, the little child who ma- 
 terialized at arms' length before us, was heard 
 by all of us to say — "I cannot keep the power; 
 it is going;" and we saw the form that had 
 
 22 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 touched us, and had kissed the mother who was 
 present, melt and disappear. May not the ex- 
 planation be, that a spiritual being, although, at 
 times, permitted by the Father-God to come 
 again into relationship with the physical, is not 
 allowed to remain therein? May this not be the 
 reason why the spiritual visitants seen by the 
 ones oi Bible times suddenly vanished, and why 
 the Christ, when He appeared in that room at 
 Emmaus "vanished out of their sight" ? 
 
 We regard, therefore, materialization, not as 
 a normal experience of spirit-beings, but as a 
 means permitted to some to lift the dark 
 shadow flung by death, and to verify the words 
 of Jesus, "They all live unto God." 
 
 23 
 
II. Is the fact that trickery and imposture have 
 been associated with spiritualism, a proof that 
 it is the outcome of falsehood and credulity? 
 
 No; and such reasoning is wholly inconse- 
 quent. Throughout the history of the world, 
 falsehood has been constantly associated with 
 truth; but while it ha& damaged the cause of 
 truth, it has constituted no real objection 
 against the truth itself. A thing may be true, 
 and as such, commend itself to persons of the 
 highest intelligence., and yet may become so 
 mixed up with that which is false and foolish, 
 as to cause the indiscriminating observer to be 
 unable to perceive the truth because of the 
 falsehood. It has ever been so; nay more, it 
 seems as if the greater and more important any 
 truth is, the more does it lend itself to the pos- 
 sibility of admixture with error and falsehood. 
 Take, e. g., the greatest of all truths — that which 
 is connected with the person and character of 
 God. No truth has ever been so overlaid with 
 error, so encrusted with superstition, and so 
 associated with untruth, as this truth. Yet the 
 
 24 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 truth itself concerning God is not discarded by 
 us because of this. The honest "seeker after 
 God" tries to dissociate the truth from the false- 
 hood. Take another instance — the Christian 
 Religion. We believe that it has its foundation 
 in that which is essentially true. 
 
 Its founder called Himself "the Truth." 
 
 And yet the vilest deeds and some of the 
 greatest impostures have been practiced in its 
 sacred name. Good men and women have been 
 persecuted, imprisoned and burnt at the stake by 
 the professors of it. All sorts of ecclesiastical 
 frauds and deceptions have been resorted to 
 for the purpose of upholding the authority of 
 the Church, and of stimulating the religious cre- 
 dulity of the masses. 
 
 "Very shocking!" says the man who has en- 
 lightened moral instincts, but is not a discrimi- 
 nator, "the whole thing is falsehood and evil." 
 He makes a mistake. 
 
 He allows the increment of error and false- 
 hood, which has been imposed on truth, to blind 
 him to the truth itself. In regard to Religion, 
 to Science and a thousand and one other things, 
 the truth exists in spite of all the falsehood 
 which may have been associated with it. 
 
 The case is precisely the same with respect 
 to spiritualism. The thing itself is true. The 
 
 25 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 phenomena connected with it are verifiable 
 facts. 
 
 The testimony of thousands of persons now 
 living — including that of some of the foremost 
 scientific men — has been adduced, that these 
 phenomena have been witnessed by them under 
 conditions making trickery, or hallucination, an 
 impossibility. The truth of the thing can be, 
 and has been, proved. Tricksters and impostors 
 may from time to time be detected in their dis- 
 honest practices in the name of spiritualism, 
 and rightfully made to answer the charge in the 
 law courts; judges and counsel in their ignor- 
 ance of present-day facts, and their anxiety to 
 provoke the laugh of an uninformed crowd, 
 may cast ridicule upon the thing; but the fact 
 remains that there are to-day great numbers of 
 enlightened and cultured persons — men and 
 women of sound discriminating power — who 
 are believers in spiritualism, in spite of all their 
 antecedent prejudices against it. 
 
 These are not the class who would openly 
 avow their belief in a thing which has no basis 
 but in falsehood and sham. 
 
 We admit that in some cases — in many cases, 
 if you like — spiritualism has become associated 
 with impostors and rascals. But what of that? 
 The same thing can be said of Religion, of the 
 
 26 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Medical Profession, and of a host of other 
 things. We must discriminate between what 
 is true and what is false. Religion is not labelled 
 as "imposture and humbug," because unbeliev- 
 able dogmas, as parasites, have fastened them- 
 selves upon it, and religious charlatans have 
 endangered its reputation. Nor are the sciences 
 of medicine and astronomy accounted as non- 
 sense, because there are quacks and fortune- 
 tellers. 
 
 The trickery and imposture which have some- 
 times been associated with spiritualism afford 
 no argument against the latter, but only against 
 the falsification of it. The true spiritualist, no 
 less than the true Christian and the true 
 scientist, deplores that the truth he holds should 
 at times be subject to the invasion of misrepre- 
 sentation and falsehood. But so it is. The ex- 
 perience of the past has taught us that no truth 
 is so conditioned as to be safeguarded against 
 an association with stupidity, error and evil. 
 
 The wise man is he who seeks for the truth, 
 and is not misled and made purblind by any 
 falsehood he may detect in company with it; 
 but who discriminates between the two, and 
 separates the true from the false. 
 
 2 7 
 
III. The prohibition given by God to the an- 
 cient Israelites, that no communication should be 
 held with "familiar spirits," is — to my mind — a 
 proof that such communication was, and is, pos- 
 sible. But does not the prohibition also imply that 
 all intercourse with the Spiritual World is con- 
 trary to the will of God? 
 
 The first of these two conclusions is right; 
 the other is wrong. If it be acknowledged that 
 God forbade persons to hold communication 
 with spiritual beings, it must also be acknowl- 
 edged that this communication could be effected; 
 unless we commit ourselves to the absurdity of 
 supposing that the Almighty solemnly charged 
 men not to do that which they could not pos- 
 sibly do. If there be no such thing as com- 
 munion between beings in this world and beings 
 in the spirit-world, then there would seem to 
 be no more sense in this prohibition than there 
 would in one that commanded men not to jump 
 over the moon. The point is an important one 
 in regard to the attitude assumed towards spirit- 
 ualism by many Christians. 
 
 There are many good and earnest persons 
 
 28 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 who profess to believe the statements of the 
 Bible, and are also convinced that this prohibi- 
 tory command is a Divine one, who, neverthe- 
 less, scout as being foolish the idea of communi- 
 cation with the spiritual. "The thing is an im- 
 possibility," say they. "The departed cannot 
 under any circumstances or any conditions re- 
 establish intercourse with those whom they left 
 behind. An impassable barrier is set up be- 
 tween us in this life and all others in spirit-life." 
 But, surely, this is a very illogical position to 
 take ! If it be true that there is this "impassable 
 barrier" between the two worlds, of course, it 
 cannot be passed. Then why tell persons not to 
 pass it? A wholly unnecessary command! A 
 restrictive law is not required, except in respect 
 to things which men can do. Thus we account 
 the prohibition itself as implying the possibility 
 and fact of communication with spirit-beings. 
 There is another class of Christians, who per- 
 ceive the illogical position of those to whom we 
 have just referred, and endeavor to explain the 
 matter by resorting to what, for convenience 
 sake, we may term the "Diabolic" theory. Ac- 
 cording to them, the Devil is at the bottom of 
 all intercourse between us and the Other World. 
 Spiritualism is, therefore, of course, his direct 
 work. 
 
 29 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 They tell us that communication is possible 
 between terrestrial and spiritual beings; but 
 that the spiritual beings who come into contact 
 with us are all bad ones; — agents in the service 
 of the great and very powerful Devil. No good 
 spirit, no departed loved one, between whom 
 and ourself a bond of love exists, is ever al- 
 lowed by God (we are told) to come near us, 
 to comfort us, help us, and affect us for good 
 by the projection to us of the distillations of 
 his ascending mind and spirit. Oh! no; such a 
 thought is supposed to be a disparagement of 
 the work and power of the Holy Ghost. 
 (Though why it should be so in that case, more 
 than in the case of those in this world who help 
 and bless each other, we cannot see.) 
 
 No; only the evil spirits are permitted to 
 come to us; the "barrier" between us and the 
 Spiritual World is impassable for all the good, 
 but passable for the crew of evil. "Did not God 
 forbid all intercourse with familiar spirits, be- 
 cause of thisf" ask they. 
 
 The answer which suggests itself to the or- 
 dinary, common-sense individual is, — "How 
 strange! how very contradictory it seems, that 
 God should let the veil between this world and 
 the other be drawn at all, if only the bad, and 
 
 30 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 none of the good, are suffered to pass through 
 it to us !" 
 
 Our friends have yet to learn that intercourse 
 with the Spiritual World involves exactly that 
 which is involved in our intercourse with per- 
 sons belonging to this world; viz., we may come 
 into contact with the good, bad and indifferent. 
 Society in the Spirit World is not, as some have 
 supposed, composed only of two great classes* — 
 the good and the bad. 
 
 Between the conditions described by these 
 two terms lie "all sorts and conditions" of spirit- 
 beings. There are men and women passed into 
 Spirit-life, who exhibit there as much variety in 
 mind, character and spirit, as do the men and 
 women who move among us here. There are 
 those who have passed hence with the spiritual 
 side of them wholly undeveloped. They are "of 
 the earth, earthy." Many of them, unfitted for 
 the new life, are eager to re-establish relations 
 with the old. There are others in whom as yet 
 the spiritual is but slowly developing. These 
 for a while, at all events, will retain many of 
 their imperfect moral characteristics and their 
 limitations of knowledge. There are still others 
 who in the ascending scale stand at different al- 
 titudes of moral excellence, wisdom and spirit- 
 uality. A great mass of widely-differing indi- 
 
 31 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 viduals is that inconceivable aggregation of be- 
 ings in the Spiritual World; as widely-differing 
 from one another in knowledge, thought and 
 cultivation as are the men and women who con- 
 stitute the population of a continent. 
 
 Now, if this fact as to the variety which char- 
 acterizes life and experience in the Spirit World 
 be realized, we shall be able to form some true 
 ideas of the possibilities connected with inter- 
 course between that world and this. The door 
 between the two worlds has been opened — and 
 is still open — in some cases and under certain 
 conditions. 
 
 The denial of that involves the rejection of 
 the persistent testimony of mankind throughout 
 the centuries — a testimony more persistent and 
 emphatic to-day than ever it has been; the re- 
 jection of the Bible statements which affirm the 
 fact, and moreover, the rejection of the results 
 of careful modern scientific investigation which 
 go to verify the statements of that book. "Quite 
 so," says the supporter of the "Diabolic" theory, 
 "there is communication to us from the Spirit- 
 World, but only the devils ever come to us from 
 it." "But why only they?" we ask. Is it not op- 
 posed to all ideas of the fitness of things, that 
 God should permit the opening of the door of 
 the spiritual only to let loose on us the beings 
 
 32 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 who will seek to harm us? That is not what 
 He does when, in this lower earth-life, He opens 
 the doors of communication between us and 
 others. That was not what His Christ did when 
 He opened the door of the Spiritual on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration and in the garden of 
 Joseph. Through that open door came no 
 devils to men and women, but departed Moses 
 and Elijah and God's angels. What a dreadful 
 state of affairs it would be, if God had granted 
 us in earth-life only to associate with the evil! 
 What a fearful conception of God is that which 
 thinks of Him as opening the door of the 
 spiritual solely to let loose the Devil and his 
 crew on us ! An idea such as this savors to us 
 of dishonor to God. 
 
 How much more consistent is it to believe 
 that our Father-God, in granting to those who 
 are in spirit-life the power of sometimes coining 
 to us who are in earth-life, has granted it not 
 only to the bad, but also to the good and others ! 
 And may it not be that the reason why at times 
 He allows to us in earth-life this association 
 with good, bad and indifferent spirit-beings, is 
 to bring home to our feebly-working minds the 
 true significances of Life Beyond? And may 
 not another reason be, that the contact of such 
 with us will, in some way or another, be made 
 
 33 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to contribute to God's great purpose of good 
 in regard to them? Suppose it be so — suppose 
 these constitute the two great objects for God's 
 allowing of this contact of the Spiritual with the 
 Physical World, — then how all-important be- 
 comes the matter! 
 
 From good, bad and indifferent spirits we 
 may realize great truths which, perchance, we 
 did but imperfectly realize from the earthly 
 preachers and teachers — viz., that the Other- 
 Life is but a development from the earth-life; 
 that God's law and correspondence is inviola- 
 ble, making men and women in spirit-life (for a 
 while, at least) no more and no less than they 
 have made themselves to be in earth-life; and 
 that the pronouncement — "He that is unjust, let 
 him be unjust still, and he that is holy, let him 
 be holy still" — is no mere sentence of punish- 
 ment for the bad and reward for the good, but 
 the Divine proclamation to us that all reaping 
 will answer to the sowing. Yes, and these 
 spirits, good and bad and indifferent, may come 
 to us as God's object-lessons on these eternal 
 truths. From those poor, debased, earth- 
 bound spirits, who have been seen by many as 
 haunting the scenes of their former vice, with 
 the desire for the low, the sensual and the un- 
 spiritual still dominating them — we may learn, 
 
 34 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 better than from any manual on Hell-Fire and 
 damnation, what an evilly-directed life really 
 means. From the frivolous, silly, uninformed 
 spirits, who startle us by their ignorance of 
 those truths which our better-trained soul both 
 knows and accepts, we may learn the danger — 
 the awful danger — of starving in earth-life the 
 spirit-part. 
 
 Transferred though they be to the world of 
 mind and spirit, their knowledge of God and 
 Divine things is less, as yet, than ours. Yes, 
 and we may learn the same great significances 
 of life from those higher ones in spirit-life who 
 come to us at times — those souls who when on 
 earth were loved and prized because, like the 
 Master, they helped and blessed and exhaled 
 sweetness. They, too, come, because the spirit- 
 ual life is but a continuance, a development of 
 the earth-life. Death has not changed their 
 being; it did but alter their environment. The 
 same thoughts of love, and the same desire to 
 help and bless are within them as of old. Their 
 present has been moulded by their past. Like 
 departed Moses on the Mount with Jesus, they 
 show that the trend of the mind on earth is the 
 trend of the mind beyond. 
 
 And what (as we said just now) if this open- 
 ing of the door of the spiritual to these de- 
 
 35 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 veloped and undeveloped ones on the other side, 
 be made to further God's purpose of good in 
 respect to them! The world of spirit is no prov- 
 ince of life and experience detached from and 
 unrelated to this Physical World. The two are 
 co-related. The former is as much a part of 
 the vast Empire of our Father-God, and as 
 closely connected with this Physical World, as 
 India is a part of King Edward's empire and 
 connected with England. Nay, more so; for 
 we, while still living on earth, have our being 
 in two worlds — the Physical and the Spiritual. 
 
 Moreover this fact of the consolidarity of 
 God's universe — that no part of it is detached 
 from any other part, and that interdependence 
 is the Divine Law of all being — should make 
 us realize that all provision made by God for 
 blessing is made in view of the whole, and not 
 in view of any part only. The true conception 
 of the Christ is a magnificent one. In the par- 
 ticular, He is God's Provision for blessing man- 
 kind. True, but the blessing is to affect the 
 whole universe. How those words of St. Paul 
 voice this truth as to consolidarity — "That God 
 might gather together in one all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in 
 earth. . . . that He might fill all things" (Eph. i. 
 10 and iv. 10) ! How they dwarf into in- 
 
 36 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 significance the notions of some as to the now 
 salvability of countless myriads in the Empire of 
 God. 
 
 And, of course, this view of the connectedness 
 of each sphere of life with every other sphere of 
 life, will considerably modify our idea as to why 
 we should be Christians. The raison a" etre 
 which is so commonly given is, that we may 
 thereby be saved from a wrath to come, and re- 
 ceive a great blessing for ourselves. That is 
 not the true raison oV etre. The blessing which 
 comes to anyone, individually, from union with 
 Christ, was never meant to be an end in itself. 
 The blessing was given to be extended. That 
 blessed one is not a detached being; he stands 
 related to others — to the whole universe. Never 
 will he fulfil the reason of his calling, until some- 
 how and somewhere, in this life or some other 
 life, he has caused his blessing as a tributary 
 stream of effort for others' good to run into 
 that great mainstream of God's purpose of bless- 
 ing all. 
 
 In the light of this truth of the connectedness 
 of each with all others, and of this world with 
 the Spiritual World, is it not likely that we on 
 earth, by prayer and uplifting thoughts at all 
 times, and by actual intercourse sometimes, 
 may be able to help and bless discarnate ones? 
 
 37 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 There is another reason for believing that we 
 may help these ones. 
 
 It arises from the fact of the enormous num- 
 ber there must be on the other side who stand in 
 need of help. 
 
 It must be so, unless we are prepared to 
 think that death forever fixes the character and 
 unalterably determines the destiny of all who 
 pass thither. The brighter theology of this age 
 has discarded the old notion that beings must 
 remain throughout eternity what they are at 
 the time of physical dissolution. Though death 
 works no miracle of moral transformation in 
 regard to any, the mercy and love of God puts 
 no soul outside the purpose of advancement and 
 ultimate salvation. 
 
 According to the Master, the "lost" things 
 are not forever to remain "lost," nor are the 
 "dead" things never to be made "alive again." 
 Now, the vast majority of those who pass from 
 earth-life into spirit-life are either what Christ 
 would have called "lost" or "dead" ones, or 
 they are undeveloped ones, mentally, morally 
 and spiritually. Millions face the realities of 
 the Spiritual World with no sense of relation- 
 ship to God, and are dead, or all but dead, to 
 that which constitutes life in the spirit. Other 
 millions there are whose minds, whose charac- 
 
 38 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ters and whose spirits are such as to make the 
 highest life impossible to them, so long as they 
 remain unridded of imperfection. Think of an 
 enormous ladder whose foot rests on the earth, 
 and whose top touches the summit of an Alp. 
 The ladder represents the ascent to that possi- 
 ble moral and spiritual perfection, defined by 
 Jesus in the words — "Ye therefore shall be per- 
 fect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. v. 
 48). Its topmost rung represents that prom- 
 ised perfection; its bottom-most rung that point 
 of moral and spiritual attainment which is 
 reached by the great bulk of mankind at the 
 time they pass into spirit-life; while the inter- 
 vening rungs of that ladder denote those 
 spheres of ascension through which every soul 
 must pass on its way to the goal of being. The 
 illustration will give us some idea of the great- 
 ness of the goal which a Father-God has marked 
 out for the creatures His love enwraps. 
 
 The number of those rungs to be trodden will 
 suggest the folly of neglecting in the earth-life 
 the teaching of our spirit-self to do the work 
 of mounting Godward; and it will divest those 
 words of the Apostle of that ring of hopeless- 
 ness which a certain theology has imported into 
 them, and will invest them with another mean- 
 ing — "Now is the accepted time;" the height is 
 
 39 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 great, and the rungs are many ! Yes, and it may 
 lead us to realize how great — how inconceiv- 
 ably great — must be the multitude of discar- 
 nate ones who cry to others — to us, perchance, 
 — who have reached the higher rungs, to help 
 them in their climbing upward. 
 
 An inconceivably great multitude? Yes; pic- 
 ture it, if you can. It has been estimated that 
 about 44,000 persons die on this earth in every 
 month of the year. Think of this death-harvest 
 of the years, the centuries and the millenniums. 
 Think of that mighty stream of human souls 
 which has been pouring, and is still pouring, 
 into the world of spirit, and then ask yourself — 
 "How many of those souls have scaled the lad- 
 der and are ripe for Heaven?" The answer will 
 be — "Very few, in comparison with the hosts at 
 the base of the ladder." 
 
 Is it, then, a groundless belief to think that in 
 a universe bearing the divine hall mark of con- 
 solidarity, we on the plane where the spiritual 
 and physical intermingle, may play some part 
 in the Divine Purpose of helping and blessing 
 the world of the spiritual? We think not. We 
 dare believe that that interview between the 
 Christ in the earth-life and Moses and Elijah 
 in the spirit-life on that mountain of Palestine, 
 led the lawgiver and the prophet to mount to 
 
 40 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 higher rungs of Divine knowledge. We know 
 of actual cases, in which poor, earth-bound 
 spirits have been seen and heard by clairvoyant 
 and clairaudient persons, and have asked the 
 latter for their prayers and uplifting thought 
 influences. "Pray for me ! pray for me !" said 
 one of these undeveloped ones from the World 
 of Spirit, to a Christian friend I know. "I will," 
 was the reply — "Every day I will pray that you 
 may find light and peace. Every time I kneel 
 at God's Holy Altar, too, I will pray for you." 
 That gentleman saw that spirit once again, and 
 heard these words — "I am not earth-bound 
 now; the desire for God has come; the darkness 
 has gone; it was your prayers for me which led 
 me to pray." 
 
 But further, the fact of being able to help our 
 fellow-creatures in the other world is in accord- 
 ance with that principle under which we know 
 and see the redemptive and uplifting work of 
 God to be carried on. No new principle of the 
 Divine modus operandi is introduced thereby. 
 "God blesses man through man," says the old 
 adage, and the essential being of no one is 
 changed because of the transference of him from 
 the Physical to the Spiritual. God blesses the 
 ignorant, the undeveloped and the base in this 
 world through their contact with the more en- 
 
 41 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 lightened, the more developed and better ones. 
 That is the principle which underlies all mis- 
 sionary effort and the work of social reclama- 
 tion. Are we prepared to say that God, while 
 acting on this principle in regard to saving work 
 in this world, disallows it in regard to that 
 Spiritual World with which we are so closely 
 connected? If the fact of intercourse between 
 that world and this be admitted (and the foun- 
 dation-truth of the Christian Religion would be 
 removed if it be denied) is it not the most rea- 
 sonable of all thoughts to suppose that behind 
 God's allowance of the intercourse lies His pur- 
 pose of blessing man through man? The man 
 who is God's instrument of blessing may be in 
 this world, and the man to be blessed in the 
 Other World; but that seems to us to make no 
 difference in the power of the one to help the 
 other. 
 
 The consolidarity of the universe remains. 
 No part of it is independent of any other part. 
 God and His love and His power for uplifting 
 are not shut off from any quarter of it. The 
 Psalmist was right when he said that if men as- 
 cended up into Heaven they could find Him 
 there, or made their bed in hell, there also would 
 He be. (Ps. cxxxix. 8). This world and the 
 other are co-related. Influences for good and 
 
 42 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 evil are streaming in from the Spiritual to the 
 Physical, and vice versa. The good and Christ- 
 like in spirit-life may project their mind and 
 spirit-impulses upon us in earth-life, and at 
 times may visibly manifest themselves to us, 
 as the glorified departed "fellow servant" did 
 to the aged St. John; while the good and noble 
 on earth may, by prayer for the departed, by 
 the sending forth to them of concernful 
 thought, of soul impulses impregnated with the 
 quickening power of a Divine love passed from 
 God through them — help on to light and re- 
 freshment and advancement poor souls who 
 have crossed the frontier-line of the Spiritual, 
 undeveloped and unsaved. 
 
 I know, perfectly well, what some who read 
 these lines will say. I can voice their reply in 
 two words — "Danger — Devil!" I have dealt 
 with that reply in another chapter of this vol- 
 ume. Here, I will only add this : Why do you 
 not exclaim the same thing in respect to all 
 evangelistic work ? Is there no danger of bane- 
 ful influence to those who for the cause of Christ 
 and the love of souls suffer themselves to come 
 into contact with all sorts of undeveloped ones 
 — the revolting savage and the debased dweller 
 in the filthy back-slum? Why believe in the 
 principle of the bad being raised by their con- 
 
 43 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tact with the good, as it applies to this world, 
 and deny it in its application to the other and 
 more needful world ? God does not work under 
 conflicting sets of principles in different spheres. 
 
 All that has been said above as to the pos- 
 sibility of and the reason for this intercourse 
 between the earth-world and the Other World, 
 will make it easier to answer the question which 
 stands at the head of this chapter — "Does not 
 the prohibition given to the ancient Israelites 
 imply that all intercourse with the Spiritual 
 World is contrary to the will of God?" We an- 
 swer — "No; it does but imply that, at a partic- 
 ular time and under particular circumstances, 
 such intercourse was forbidden to certain per- 
 sons for special reasons." It does not follow 
 that, if God forbid a thing at one time, He for- 
 bids it for all time. 
 
 Circumstances may alter the case. Take an 
 instance. According to the Mosaic law, the 
 Israelites were prohibited from intermarrying 
 with foreign races. The regulation was a good 
 one, in view of the fact that the Israelites were 
 to bear witness to the true principles of re- 
 ligious morality; and the foreign races were 
 steeped in Polytheism and vice. The prohibi- 
 tion was a necessity of the time. But is all 
 intermarriage between nations, therefore, to be 
 
 44 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 accounted wrong? Is this law, which was made 
 for special circumstances, to debar all persons 
 from marrying foreigners? For sufficient and 
 good reasons God may even for a while close 
 the door of the Spiritual, as when in the time 
 of Eli "there was no open vision," or during 
 the few centuries preceding the birth of Jesus, 
 no exalted spirit seems to have come to men, 
 and no earthly teacher received that influx of 
 spiritual inspiration which could constitute him 
 a prophet. And yet, at the coming of the 
 Saviour, the door was opened again, and inter- 
 communion between the Spiritual World and 
 this marked the earth-life history of the Son of 
 Man. 
 
 If the prohibition given to the Israelites de- 
 noted that all intercourse with the World of 
 Spirit is contrary to the will of God, how very 
 strange and inconsistent that angels and de- 
 parted men should have so identified themselves 
 with God's Christ and His mission on earth! 
 Can anything, more than this intermingling of 
 the Spiritual and the Physical in the time of 
 Jesus, establish the fact that all intercourse with 
 the other side is not forbidden by God. 
 
 We have to consider the circumstances which 
 rendered that prohibition to the Israelites a 
 necessary one. The social and moral condition 
 
 45 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of that race at that time was a very low one. 
 The people had been but lately emancipated 
 from all the demoralizing influences of Egyptian 
 slavery. Their views of God were crude and 
 chaotic, and their religious ideas showed the 
 constant tendency to become assimilated to the 
 ideas which characterized the religion of Egypt, 
 and the still baser forms of the religions of those 
 nations with whom they came into contact af- 
 ter the Exodus. The first Commandment — 
 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" — in- 
 dicates the Israelites' proneness to Polytheism; 
 while the commands not to kill, not to steal and 
 so on, denote that the standard of morality 
 among them at that time was of no high type. 
 They had been chosen, in the Divine ordering 
 of things, to pioneer in the world the cause of 
 true religion and righteousness, but as yet men- 
 tally, morally and socially they were unde- 
 veloped. They were susceptible to every in- 
 fluence hostile to a true conception of God, and 
 in danger from every contact pertaining to the 
 moral undevelopment from which they were 
 slowly emerging. 
 
 Both the hostile influence and danger soon 
 presented themselves in a special form. In the 
 progress of the Israelites to the land in which 
 they were to subsequently settle themselves, 
 
 4 6 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 they encountered foes who resisted the invasion 
 of their territory. Thousands of these foes 
 were slain in the sanguinary encounters which 
 ensued. Thousands and thousands of human 
 souls, ignorant, morally base, and filled with 
 the feelings of hatred and revenge against their 
 slayers, were violently hurled by the Israelites 
 into spirit-life. Some among the Israelites were 
 "mediums;" their psychic powers were so de- 
 veloped as to make it possible for the ones in 
 spirit-life to re-establish through them com- 
 munication with their persecutors. Through 
 these open doors came a host of malignant ones, 
 thirsting for retaliation, and eager to harm. 
 There was but one safeguard for a people, so 
 little prepared for the attack of evil and who, 
 moreover, had themselves provoked the attack. 
 The door must be closed; the communication 
 between the Spiritual and the Physical be 
 broken in that particular case and under those par- 
 ticular circumstances. 
 
 Hence the prohibition. It was given not to 
 proscribe all communication between this world 
 and the other, but to meet the exigencies of a 
 particular case. 
 
 But lastly, those who account this prohibition 
 given to the ancient Israelites, as implying that 
 all intercourse with the Spiritual World is con- 
 
 47 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 trary to God's will, prove too much. They cut 
 away the foundation upon which the Jewish and 
 Christian religions rest. Communication be- 
 tween this world and the spiritual is the fact 
 upon which prophets and Apostles relied for 
 their credentials. 
 
 Without such communication, Christianity, 
 on its own showing, would possess no evidences 
 of its preternatural origin, its spiritual inspira- 
 tion or Divine vocation in the world at all. It 
 has been accepted by men because of its vital 
 relationship to the spiritual. 
 
 The history of the Hebrew race as narrated 
 in the Old Testament, is indissolubly bound up 
 with the fact of men's contact with the World 
 a of Spirit. 
 
 Are we to suppose that the experiences of 
 that race in regard to spiritual visitants and 
 phenomena, were in opposition to the will or 
 command of God? 
 
 There would seem to be an inconsistency in 
 God's proscribing intercourse with the Spiritual 
 World, and then employing that intercourse as 
 the foremost means of teaching men the high- 
 est truth. Again, in the New Testament, the 
 life and work of Jesus and the Apostles are in- 
 separably connected with spiritual intercourse. 
 From the birth of the Saviour to His withdrawal 
 
 4 8 
 
 j 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of Himself into the plane of sublimated and as- 
 cended life, inter-communion between this world 
 and the Spirit World marks the whole track of 
 His experience. And so, too, with respect to 
 the Apostles and others associated with them. 
 Almost every chapter of the Acts contains the 
 record of a spiritual sign or wonder, an angelic 
 visit, a spiritual vision or a spiritual voice. All 
 this is inexplicable and contradictory, if the 
 prohibition given under special circumstances, 
 against communion with the Spirit World, de- 
 notes that the thing itself is forbidden by God. 
 The contradiction disappears, if it be realized 
 that God's opening of the door of the spiritual 
 has been the great means by which He has in- 
 structed man in Divine truth; and that His 
 reason for commanding certain ones not to 
 open that door, was because the great law of 
 spiritual attraction must always operate, and 
 the danger to those morally and spiritually un- 
 developed ones of attracting to them evil in- 
 fluences, was greater than any likelihood of 
 drawing the good. 
 
 49 
 
IV. How can it be explained that many of the 
 communications alleged to come from discarnate 
 beings are unsatisfactory, misleading and un- 
 truthful? 
 
 This is a question submitted by one who ad- 
 mits the possibility of communication between 
 us and beings in spirit-life, but rejects, as being 
 wholly subversive of the main-principle of the 
 Christian religion, the "Diabolic" theory, viz., 
 that all such communication is "the work of the 
 Devil." The difficulty confronts him of ac- 
 counting for the fact that some of the communi- 
 cations received are of the character he has de- 
 scribed. The questioner perceives how illogical 
 is the position of those who accept the Christian 
 religion, and yet regard as incredible all com- 
 munication between us and beings in spirit-life. 
 He is quite right. What, we ask, could be more 
 inconsistent than to profess to implicitly be- 
 lieve that after death Moses, Samuel, our Lord, 
 the saints who appeared to many in Jerusalem at 
 the first Easter-time, and the Christian brother 
 who visited St. John at Patmos — that these 
 
 50 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 manifested themselves to, and conversed with, 
 the dwellers on earth a few hundred years ago, 
 but that since then such an occurrence has 
 been an impossibility; nay! that the mere 
 thought of it is an absurdity! We argue, if 
 such things really did take place in Bible-times 
 (and the credibility of the Gospel narratives 
 is destroyed, if they did not,) why can they not 
 occur in the twentieth century ? What was pos- 
 sible then is possible now. God's universe has 
 undergone no change of constitution. If there 
 be no intermingling of the life of the Spirit 
 World with the life of this world at all times, we 
 have little or no grounds for believing that 
 there ever has been such an intermingling. "As 
 it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
 be." Those Christians who deny the present 
 possibility of communion with spirit-beings are 
 piously shocked if an Agnostic or a Materialist 
 asserts that all the Bible-records of such con- 
 tacts are "nonsense." But why be shocked? 
 Those persons who take that position cannot 
 consistently find fault with the Agnostic. He 
 and they both account as incredible the thought 
 of communion between the two worlds. He is 
 the more consistent. He says the thing itself 
 is absurd; it never does, and it never did, hap- 
 pen. They say, of course, it happened long ago, 
 
 5i 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 for hundreds and hundreds of years; but it could 
 not possibly happen now. Those were Bible 
 times, and all was very different then from what 
 it has been since. We are told that everything 
 the Scriptures state concerning the contact of 
 spiritual beings with men is reasonable and 
 on no account to be doubted; but that to ac- 
 knowledge that anything of a like character 
 could take place now is most unreasonable and 
 incredible. Now do let us as Christians be logi- 
 cal! If communication between us and the 
 Spiritual World be an impossibility at the pres- 
 ent time, and has been so ever since the times 
 of the Bible, then the Agnostic is right; we 
 have no grounds for believing that it existed 
 as that book declares. Consequently, we must 
 reject the Bible accounts of Spiritual Phenom- 
 ena as fabrications. On the other hand, if such 
 communication is a present-day fact, we have 
 an assurance that the principle upon which the 
 Christian religion has been based is a trite one. 
 The good folk to whom we are alluding say — 
 "We believe in the long-ago communication be- 
 tween the two worlds, because the Bible asserts 
 it zvas so." "Quite so," we reply, "and this 
 means that although you, of course, had no ex- 
 perience of these happenings, and have no 
 means of verifying the statements made con- 
 
 52 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 centring them, you, nevertheless, unquestionably 
 believe in them?" 
 
 "Of course, we do," is the rejoinder, "the 
 Bible vouches for the facts." Well, those who 
 believe in a present-day communication between 
 the two worlds have a far stronger case for 
 their belief than have the ones who believe that 
 such communication existed only in the olden 
 times. In the first place, the testimony of the 
 Bible in regard to intercourse with the spiritual 
 is very small, in comparison with the testimony 
 which has been borne to the same thing apart 
 from that book. The Bible is a selection of 
 writings brought together by a church council 
 in A. D. 400, and constituted the Sacred Canon. 
 The writings comprise the statements of a small 
 body of persons who wrote at different times 
 during a period covering many centuries. From 
 the time of the closing of the Canon to the 
 present moment, hundreds and thousands of 
 writers have narrated their experiences of the 
 spiritual, as the Bible-writers did; and in a great 
 number of instances the experiences of both 
 classes of writers are coincident. The testi- 
 mony borne by the men of to-day who have 
 scientifically studied the phenomena of the 
 spiritual, shows how, point by point, the pres- 
 ent-day phenomena resemble those which we 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 read in the Bible. Moreover, we have an enor- 
 mous amount of testimony from living persons 
 who have had their experiences of spiritual 
 things, and have never committed those experi- 
 ences to writing. We ask, why accept the tes- 
 timony of a few men who lived in "the hoary 
 past," and account it most reliable, when an 
 overwhelmingly greater mass of similar testi- 
 mony, given subsequently and also at the pres- 
 ent time, is rejected as unreliable and worth- 
 less ? We have not one tithe of the evidence for 
 the fact that intercourse with the spiritual ex- 
 isted in Bible times, that we have for the fact 
 that it exists to-day. How absurd for any 
 Christian to go to a non-believer and tell him 
 that he must accept as absolute truth the state- 
 ments of the Bible concerning spiritual hap- 
 penings; and in the next breath to inform him 
 that all present-day occurrences of the same 
 order are nought but the outcome of distorted 
 imagination ! 
 
 In the next place, there is, of course, no pos* 
 sibility of verifying the statements of the Bible 
 writers. We cannot come into contact with the 
 ones who had the spiritual experiences. We can 
 simply take their word for what they narrate. 
 The case for present-day spiritual intercourse 
 is in a very much stronger position. There 
 
 54 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 are numbers of persons living among us to-day 
 — men distinguished in science and culture — 
 whose word we should not dream of doubting, 
 men whose experiences of the spiritual have 
 been similar to many of those of the Bible writ- 
 ers. We can receive from their own lips the 
 accounts of what they have experienced. And 
 still more than this; it is possible for every open- 
 minded enquirer as to the truth of spiritual com- 
 munion, to obtain for himself the proof that the 
 door between the two worlds is still open. The 
 questioner, therefore, as a Christian, is quite 
 right in dissenting from those other Christians 
 who say that it is a mark of piety to believe 
 that spiritual intercourse existed long ago, but 
 that it is impious and foolish to think it can 
 exist now. 
 
 But what perplexes many who acknowledge 
 the fact of present-day intercourse between us 
 and spirit-beings, is that the communications 
 received are often of an unsatisfactory character. 
 These communications do not come up to the 
 preconceived idea of what they should be. Many 
 have no conception of a spiritual being, except 
 as an angel or a devil. It never enters the or- 
 dinary religious mind that there are millions in 
 the Spirit World who, for a while at least, are 
 extraordinarily like the men and women in this 
 
 55 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 world. "How absurd/' say some, "to suppose 
 that beings from the other world should come 
 to us and talk 'common-places,' or display 
 ignorance and mental incapacity, or in some 
 cases even tell lies !" But why should it be ab- 
 surd to suppose this? We are inclined to think 
 that the absurdity lies in expecting that, of 
 necessity, all communications from discarnate 
 beings must be of a high order and tone. We 
 do not suppose that if the repentant robber who 
 was crucified with our Lord had appeared af- 
 ter death to persons in this world, as others 
 mentioned in the Gospel narrative did — that his 
 mental tone and conversation would have been 
 of the lofty character of that of Moses on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration. We believe it would 
 have been the tone and conversation of one who 
 had but just learned the A B C of higher 
 thoughts and better life; and no more. We re- 
 gard it also as bordering on the absurd, to sup- 
 pose that the ordinary non-cultured and non- 
 developed ones who depart this life, and after- 
 wards manifest themselves to those left behind, 
 should come with no traces of that which had 
 previously characterized them. It is not rea- 
 sonable. The idea is founded on a false notion 
 of what is. The Bible itself and our knowledge 
 of the laws of mind and being exclude such a 
 
 56 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 supposition. The established order of things 
 would be broken, if it were so; the connection 
 between sowing and reaping, between cause and 
 effect would be at an end. 
 
 Now, a very common notion concerning the 
 Other World is, that in passing into it we un- 
 dergo at once a complete change of mind, char- 
 acter and disposition. The one who in this life 
 may have been very silly, very ignorant, or very 
 morally and spiritually imperfect, is pictured as 
 becoming soberminded, wise and virtuous, as 
 soon as ever he crosses the threshold of spirit- 
 life. All frivolity and light-mindedness will in- 
 stantaneously disappear, it is said, in that world 
 where all is intense reality; all ignorance will 
 cease in a light which reveals everything; and 
 moral imperfection — well, that, too, will disap- 
 pear with the physical body. 
 
 Of course, those who hold this view of the 
 tremendous transforming power of death on our 
 being, regard this sudden acquirement of men- 
 tal and moral excellence as only accruing to 
 those who die in the condition of "saved souls." 
 Death, they suppose, works a transformation in 
 the case of the other class; but it is a transfor- 
 mation into a condition which is hopelessly and 
 irretrievably bad. For the "unsaved" ignorant 
 and sinful ones, death gives the stereotyping 
 
 57 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 touch for an endless Satanic life. It is an awful 
 thought! a thought which makes one shudder; 
 but it is an idea which hundreds of thousands 
 of sincere men have attached to the religion of 
 Jesus, and labelled "Orthodoxy." Yes, and it 
 is the thought which has caused many who ac- 
 knowledge the fact of spirit-return, to account 
 as a marauding force of the Devil those poor, 
 earth-bound spirits who sometimes come to us, 
 with all the disfigurement of a neglected past 
 upon them; the ones who, although they have 
 moved off the stage of the temporal, are less 
 wise, less good, and less spiritually-developed 
 than we are. Some of the truth-obscuring tra- 
 ditions of the past must be unlearned. Death is 
 no transformer of the inner being of any one; 
 nor does change of environment suddenly make 
 a person excellently good or hopelessly evil. 
 Death strips from off a man that physical ve- 
 hicle through which for a while he expressed 
 himself; but it does not alter him. It transfers 
 him to another plane of life; but it effects no 
 change in the bent of his will, the tone of his 
 character and the nature of his desires. He 
 commences his new phase of experience in the 
 Spirit World at precisely the mental and moral 
 point he had touched when he left the earth- 
 life. If in this world he was silly or ignorant, 
 
 58 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 or vicious, or unspiritual, he will be so in the 
 Other World; until the disciplining love of God 
 shall have worked its results, and the soul, pre- 
 viously unborn to the Divine, shall feel the thrill 
 of quickening life, and shall set itself with the 
 tide of spiritual being which makes for the up- 
 ward and for God. Yes, and the consequences 
 of the past may be such, that only slowly and 
 with difficulty can the mind be brought to hate 
 the alienation, the shame and the swine, and to 
 say — "I will arise, and go to my Father." The 
 believer in the Bible should have no difficulty 
 in realizing that death will not change the mind, 
 the character and the disposition. The Samuel 
 who appeared after death was the same in 
 thought and feeling as he had been before he 
 entered spirit-life. His words spoken as a dis- 
 carnate one were but the echo of what he had 
 said when in the flesh. Departed Moses, too, 
 in his converse with Jesus, at that rendezvous 
 where beings in earth-life and spirit-life met, 
 showed by the subject on which he spoke, that 
 his discarnate mind was in the same groove as 
 his incarnate mind had been long before. The 
 Saviour, too, in those manifestations of Him- 
 self after He had passed out of the earth-life, 
 showed by the words He spoke to men and 
 women who were privileged to see Him, that 
 
 59 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 none of the characteristics of His beautiful mind 
 and spirit had undergone change or modifica- 
 tion. The first Easter greeting — "Mary!" de- 
 noted that the bond of friendship and affection 
 had not been broken. His words — "All hail!" 
 "Peace be unto you," "I ascend to my Father 
 and your Father;" His exposition of truth as 
 He walked unrecognized with those two men 
 on the road to Emmaus; His special appearance 
 to St. Peter; His significant thrice-repeated 
 question — "Lovest thou me?" and His re- 
 iterated charge to that same Apostle — "Feed 
 my lambs" — "Feed my sheep" — all showed that 
 entrance into spirit-life had not altered the Jesus 
 Himself. The old love, the old longing to 
 lighten burdened hearts, the old desire to im- 
 part peace, the old passion to make men realize 
 that God is their Father, the remembrance 
 of what had happened, and the principle which 
 had dominated the whole of His earth-life, con- 
 cern for others — all this remained unchanged 
 in Jesus after death. 
 
 Many years after this glorious Easter-tide 
 of close intercourse between the two worlds, 
 a faithful servant of the Master wrote that 
 he had "a desire to depart and to be with 
 Christ." This statement of St. Paul has been 
 taken by some to denote that death will usher 
 
 60 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 all believing souls into an immediately-acquired 
 condition of perfection. "Prayers for the Faith- 
 ful Departed," say some, "are wholly unneces- 
 sary: they have reached the goal; they go to be 
 zvith Christ; St. Paul said so." Well, we do not 
 believe that non-developed Christians — the ones 
 who are selfish, petty, bad-tempered and lack 
 the sweetness of love — go at death to "be with 
 Christ," in the sense in which the Apostle meant 
 the words. St. Paul was of a very different class 
 from such. But suppose they do ! The robber 
 who died on the cross went that very day to be 
 with Jesus in Paradise; but does that involve 
 that that man, with his neglected and perverted 
 past, in a few moments or a few hours acquired 
 perfection of mind and character? That St. 
 Paul and other developed souls should go at 
 death to be with our Lord is only the corollary 
 of their previous life. It is only in accord with 
 the Divine law that one reaps as he sows. It 
 implies no transformation of being in the act 
 of dying. Mentally, morally and spiritually, 
 such blessed ones at death become no more 
 than they were. The changed environment 
 does but afford them enhanced possibilities of 
 adding glory on glory to their moral being, as 
 their fuller life rolls on. St. Paul's expectation 
 of being with Christ as soon as he should leave 
 
 61 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 this life, was based on the fact that for him "to 
 live (here) was Christ." In a word, then, the 
 Bible teaches that no moral miracle is worked 
 by death, but that men and women on entering 
 spirit-life are what they were on leaving earth- 
 life. Now, if this truth expressed above be real- 
 ized, there will be no difficulty in understand- 
 ing why some of the communications received 
 from the other side are unsatisfactory, mislead- 
 ing and even lying. Many attach to the utter- 
 ance of a spiritual being an importance and au- 
 thority which they would not dream of attach- 
 ing to the utterance of any earthly speaker. But 
 why? Do they not know that the world of 
 spirit holds men and women whose mental and 
 moral conditions are just as varied as are the 
 conditions of men and women here? There are 
 to be found good, bad and indifferent ones, 
 some enlightened, others but partially so, and 
 many, as yet, ignorant of Divine truth, and irre- 
 sponsive to the vibrations of goodness. There 
 are to be found those to whom cling the 
 thoughts, instincts and tendencies which have 
 been persistent in the earth-life. The physical 
 body has been laid aside, but the character has 
 been retained. The ones who have been de- 
 based, deceitful and untruthful on earth, possess 
 the same pre-disposition and potentiality, until 
 
 62 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the judgments of God shall have awakened 
 them to better things. The closing words of 
 the Canon of Scripture are no declaration of a 
 vindictive God; but a statement of what must be 
 under the inviolable law of cause and effect — 
 "He that is unrighteous, let him do unright- 
 eousness still; and he that is filthy, let him be 
 made filthy still; and he that is righteous, let 
 him do righteousness still." (Rev. xxii. n Re- 
 vised Version). 
 
 In the face of this truth, how foolish to treat 
 any statement as authoritative and true, simply 
 and solely because it comes to us from the 
 Other World. And yet there are many who do 
 so. If a communicating spirit should declare 
 that the great verities of the Christian religion 
 are not to be believed, that, in itself, is quite 
 sufficient in the case of some to cause those 
 verities to be discredited. But that is a very 
 illogical position to assume. The communicator 
 may be an ignorant one, a deceiver, or a liar. 
 In this world we come into contact with such 
 persons, but we do not dream of accepting as 
 truth all that they tell us, simply on the grounds 
 of its being their ipse dixit. No, we exercise 
 our judgment, and estimate the worth of any 
 statement made, by giving due weight to the 
 fact that our informant may be ignorant, mis- 
 
 6 3 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 led, or untruthful in regard to the matter about 
 which he speaks. In just such a sensible way 
 should we treat all communications which come 
 to us from the Other Side. They may be true 
 or they may be false. There are ignorant ones 
 there; those who have carried their old habits 
 and predispositions with them into spirit-life, 
 and who still try to deceive, to lie and to mis- 
 lead. Earth-bound, and not in tune with the 
 higher life of the spiritual, they find avenues 
 open to them whereby they can re-establish 
 their connection with the Physical. Are we 
 to believe and to account as authoritative all 
 they may tell us? Not if we be wise; not if we 
 obey the injunction of that Apostle who had 
 a personal experience of the Spirit World, be- 
 fore he had severed his connection with the 
 Physical World. (See II Cor. xii. i to 4). 
 He bade us beware of "seducing spirits" We 
 must listen to the counsel of one — another 
 Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ; the man who 
 saw and heard Jesus, Moses and a Christian 
 fellow-labourer after their departure from this 
 world. "Beloved," wrote he, "believe not every 
 spirit, but test (So/a/^afeTe) the spirits whether 
 
 they are of God Every spirit that con- 
 
 fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is 
 of God; and every spirit that confesseth not 
 
 64 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of 
 God." (I John iv. 1-3). 
 
 Are we to suppose, if a spirit came to us 
 and told us that God had commissioned him to 
 be "a lying spirit in the mouth of all his 
 prophets," in order to compass the physical de- 
 struction of a wicked man, that that spirit was 
 speaking the truth? We should know at once 
 that he was a deceiver and a liar; because for 
 God to forbid lying and then to sanction and en- 
 join it, would be on the part of God a breach 
 of the law of righteousness. A personal friend 
 of mine, who is clairvoyant and clairaudient and 
 possesses great psychic power, and who is, 
 moreover, a Christian and highly cultured, has 
 received many audible and written communica- 
 tions from spirit-beings, of a high order, in the 
 same way as the seers of old did. That person 
 was one day much distressed and perplexed at 
 being told by a spiritual communicator that he 
 (the spirit) had had no reason to alter or modify 
 the views he had held in earth-life, viz., that 
 the Christian religion was not true. It seemed 
 so incredible to my friend that a being in spirit- 
 life should be ignorant of a matter which, if 
 true, is of such vital importance to himself and 
 others. "Surely," said he, "the statement of 
 that spirit suggests the thought that the belief 
 
 65 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 we hold may not be right !" Our answer is, that 
 such a statement points to no conclusion of the 
 Christian religion being untrue; but only to the 
 fact that one in spirit-life was still unenlightened 
 in regard to higher truth; that the consequences 
 of indifference, prejudice, ignorance and irreli- 
 gion in this world, had blinded a poor soul 
 in the beyond to the light of God as it is mani- 
 fested in the Jesus who here and there reveals 
 it. "A misleading spirit!" say some. "Yes," 
 we reply, "if we who know the fuller truth let 
 him mislead us. But not so, if we measure him 
 by the Christ." The authority of the Jesus of 
 earth-life, or the Jesus of anastasis-life, will be 
 greater to us than the authority of any spirit 
 who may come to us from Behind the Veil. We 
 do not, in this world, surrender our faith, and 
 alter our convictions of truth, at the bidding of 
 an unenlightened and non-developed "casual" 
 who may cross our path. "A devil — that one !" 
 say others. "No;" we again reply, "only a poor 
 soul living in 'the darkness without;' reaping 
 the consequences of past neglect and wilfulness; 
 not yet awakened to truth; not yet drawn to 
 the Christ. Curse him not, though you count 
 him an enemy. The cursing age for those who 
 believe in the Great Lover of human souls is 
 fast passing away. Discourage his visits to you, 
 
 66 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 if you be not strong enough to help him to God 
 and light, or be weak enough for his ignorance 
 to imperil your faith in Christian truth; but pray 
 for him, tell him to pray; and tell him, too, that 
 other spirits, wiser than he, grander and more 
 developed than he, have come to some of us 
 dwellers on earth from God's spheres of higher 
 and highest spiritual-life, to help us and uplift 
 us; to tell us that the unattuned and un-Christ- 
 like soul cannot know the greatest truths of 
 God, and that only as the soul of man is per- 
 meated with love, and is brought thereby into 
 union with the Christ who is the embodiment 
 of Divine Love, can it know the all of Truth, 
 and reach the destined end of being. 
 
 6y 
 
V. Is there a danger in attending Seances on 
 the ground that at such meetings evil and deceiv- 
 ing spirits may be attracted? 
 
 There is; and we have to consider more par- 
 ticularly the character of that danger and the 
 conditions out of which it arises. The possibil- 
 ity of evil and deceiving spirits coming into 
 communcation with persons living in the earth- 
 life has been discussed in the foregoing article. 
 It has been pointed out that the mental and 
 moral condition of persons in the Spirit World 
 cannot be defined by the two terms — "good" 
 and "bad." Between these two extremes there 
 lie every conceivable type of mind and charac- 
 ter. There are numbers of spirit-men and 
 women, who may rightly be described as evil; 
 though not in the sense of the popular idea that 
 they are non-human beings; a malignant race 
 distinct from humanity, and known as demons. 
 They are evil in the same sense as those persons 
 in this world are spoken of as evil, not when 
 they are irretrievably bad, with no point what- 
 ever of goodness within them; but when in 
 
 68 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 character and life they are more attuned to 
 what is wicked than to what is good. We de- 
 scribe as evil the immoral, drunken and de- 
 based person, the one of low tastes and habits, 
 the scoffer at religion and virtue, and the one 
 who finds a delight in lying, deceiving, and phy- 
 sically or mentally harming others. Not all of 
 good has been extinguished in such ones, but 
 the evil is predominant. There are beings in 
 the Spirit World of this description who some- 
 times come to us. They are not devils; they 
 are discarnate human beings who are unde- 
 veloped, unenlightened, and sufficiently morally 
 bad to justify us in calling them "evil" spirits. 
 We do not believe that they will everlastingly 
 remain as such; we think they will advance. 
 They are earth-bound in their ideas, their tastes 
 and their seekings. They left the earth-life un- 
 fitted for the spirit-life, and their instincts and 
 longings gravitate towards the former rather 
 than towards the latter. It is only in harmony 
 with the better theological thought of the pres- 
 ent day, and with the recorded utterance of the 
 Saviour as to "seeking and saving the lost/' to 
 think that the judgments of God will cause 
 them to rise from this condition. Nay, further, 
 we will venture to say that the reason why such 
 evilly-conditioned ones as these are at times 
 
 69 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 permitted to renew their relationship with the 
 Physical, is that they, by the very experiences 
 they obtain through such renewal, may realize 
 the futility of remaining earth-bound, and have 
 enkindled in them the desire for better life. 
 
 A person who possessed in a very high degree 
 the gift of clairvoyance, once told me that 
 often as he passed the open door of gin-palaces 
 in London and elsewhere, he could see spiritual 
 beings intermingling with the hr.lf-drunken 
 men and women who were thronging the drink- 
 ing bars. Why were those spirits permitted to 
 be there? it may be asked. We may account 
 for it in two ways. First, the great law of affin- 
 ity — the law which attracts like to like — was 
 operating in regard to them. By their habits 
 and mode of living while on earth, those spirits 
 had moulded for themselves a certain character, 
 and had so identified themselves with base 
 things, as to make the taste and craving for 
 those things the controlling power of their 
 mind and the determining principle of their ac- 
 tions. While in the flesh, they had been drunk- 
 ards and companions of the lewd and depraved. 
 After death, they found themselves unchanged, 
 except that the physical body, through which 
 the perverted mind and will had expressed 
 themselves, was gone. Earth-bound, and with, 
 
 70 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 as yet, no desire for, or possibility of attaining, 
 higher thoughts and higher experiences, they 
 were drawn by an impulse, which they had no 
 power or wish to resist, viz., to re-visit the 
 haunts and associates connected with their past 
 life of vice. As discarnate ones, they them- 
 selves are no longer able to indulge in the in- 
 toxication or the grossnesses and vices of the 
 physical; but a certain satisfaction is derived 
 from mingling with and inciting others who can 
 still do so. After death they have gone, as it 
 was said of Judas, "to their own place." The 
 evil of two worlds meet in such a scene as we 
 have just described. The other way in which 
 we may account for discarnate ones being al- 
 lowed to re-associate themselves with evil phy- 
 sical surroundings, is as has already been sug- 
 gested. It may be one of the means, one of the 
 judgments of a Father-God, whereby his de- 
 based creatures may learn the folly, the futility 
 and the horror of persisting in a course marked 
 by the perversion of the mind and spirit. It 
 may be one of His methods of bringing those 
 wretched ones to see that no satisfaction, no 
 sense of hope and restfulness can come to any 
 soul until the thoughts have been averted from 
 the evil and turned towards good. That beauti- 
 ful parable told by Jesus justifies this thought. 
 
 71 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Those very experiences of the Prodigal which 
 connected him with what was base, degraded 
 and shameful, brought him at length to the 
 point of wishing for better things, and of aris- 
 ing and going to his father. Now, we have 
 dwelt upon the fact of this law of being — this 
 principle which operates, we believe, through- 
 out the whole universe — viz., that "like attracts 
 like," because it is inseparably connected with 
 all that may take place in regard to Seances. 
 What is a Seance ? It is a sitting on the part of 
 persons for the purpose of obtaining communi- 
 cation from spirit-beings. What class of com- 
 municators will be attracted thereby? it is natur- 
 ally asked. "Devils, only devils," reply some, 
 whose theology is characterized by a super- 
 abundance of the Satanic element. "That is 
 wrong, of course," rejoins the questioner, "but 
 will not such meetings attract evil and deceiving 
 spirits?" We answer that that will depend en- 
 tirely on the tone of mind and the character 
 of the sitters. "Like attracts like." At one 
 Seance there may be drawn evil and deceiving 
 spirits; at another, good and enlightening ones; 
 at a third, mediocre beings who are neither 
 very wise and good, nor very ignorant and 
 bad; while at some Seances the good and indif- 
 
 72 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ferent from the Other Side may both alike make 
 the effort to express themselves. 
 
 If the circle be composed of those who are 
 frivolous, spiritually undeveloped and ignorant 
 of higher truth, the spirits who will feel the at- 
 tractive force, and will respond to it, if the door 
 of communication be open for them, will be 
 similar in mind to those who invite them. To 
 look for communications of an exalted nature 
 from such, is as absurd as it would be for a com- 
 pany of ignoramuses to invite another igno- 
 ramus into their circle, and expect the latter to 
 enlighten them on subjects concerning which 
 he knows nothing. If the circle comprise those 
 whose moral tone is low, and whose ideas and 
 tastes are essentially of "the earth, earthy," the 
 spirits who avail themselves of their mediumship 
 will be of the same type as they are. It causes 
 astonishment sometimes, that spirits who come 
 to a circle composed of irreligious, worldly- 
 minded individuals, should say nothing but the 
 barest commonplaces, and nought that has the 
 stamp of spiritual knowledge and culture. "How 
 incredible," says someone, "that a being from 
 the Other Life should talk in that zvay!" "How 
 incredible," we rejoin, "seeing his condition, 
 that he could talk in any other way!" "Like 
 attracts like." If you are able to diagnose the 
 
 73 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 character and disposition of those who draw 
 him to their midst, you will be able pretty ac- 
 curately to diagnose his character and disposi- 
 tion. Again, if the circle be made up wholly of 
 those whose minds and lives are in tune with 
 spiritual things, and who approach the subject 
 reverently and prayerfully, the law of attraction 
 will draw from the Other Side only those spirits 
 whose minds are responsive to the minds of the 
 sitters. They will be able to impart to us, not 
 full knowledge of higher truths, but much which 
 is in advance of our own knowledge. It will 
 be in their power to guide, to cheer, to bless 
 and to stimulate us in our efforts to grasp God 
 and goodness. I have been present at many 
 Seances of this description — held in the house 
 of a friend, who has himself now passed Beyond 
 the Veil. Those present were all devout and 
 prayerful persons, and the meetings were al- 
 ways opened with earnest prayer that light and 
 blessing might be vouchsafed, and that no un- 
 desirable or evil influence might be allowed to 
 intrude. And what was the outcome ? At those 
 meetings I have seen the manifestations of 
 spiritual presences, and heard from my friend in 
 trance-condition (in which state I believe his 
 mind to have been controlled by a mind outside 
 himself) such thoughts and ideas and magnifi- 
 
 74 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cent conceptions of life, as he, unaided, was 
 unable either to think or express. 
 
 Again, at a Seance the sitters may exhibit 
 dissimilarity in regard to mind and character. 
 Some may be attuned to the drawing to the 
 circle of good and developed spirits, while 
 some may be an attracting power on non-de- 
 veloped and even evil spirits. What then ? The 
 result will be unsatisfactory. Confusion will 
 arise. The presence of the spiritually-minded 
 sitter or sitters in the circle may draw the de- 
 veloped spirit-visitant; but it will be difficult for 
 him to express himself. The conditions will be 
 unfavorable to his doing so. Another influ- 
 ence will be working against him. If, as re- 
 gards the sitters, the predominating influence 
 be on the side of the unspiritual, then the 
 chances are that the Seance will be controlled 
 by the lower class of communicators. The good 
 control will have suffered a repulse. We have 
 been asked, again and again, "Do you recom- 
 mend that anyone should attend Seances ?" We 
 answer, "Yes, if the circle be composed of good, 
 spiritually-minded, prayerful persons — those 
 who hold God in their life and are seeking for 
 truth. Their combined influence will constitute 
 an attractive force, and supply the conditions 
 whereby the good in the world of spirit may 
 
 75 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 be brought into uplifting and helpful communi- 
 cation with us. But no; certainly not, if the 
 circle be that of the unspiritual ones. In doing 
 so, you will be but helping to open the door 
 to the ones you do not want, and saying to the 
 tramps and undesirables of the Spiritual World 
 — 'Come in and make yourselves at home.' : 
 
 And lastly, if you possess, as Jesus and the 
 early Christians did, the psychic power of "dis- 
 cerning spirits" (I Cor. xii. 10), and by chance 
 (or rather let us say by God's ordering) you 
 meet a poor unrestful spirit, whom you invited 
 not, but who has crossed your path because the 
 chain of the past is holding him down to the 
 earth-plane — Oh ! be like the Christ of Love and 
 Pity; help him by letting him know that your 
 prayer has gone up, the prayer that the light 
 of the Holy Spirit of God may break in upon 
 the darkness of an alienated mind, and that he 
 may see, as God's beckoners to him, the Har- 
 bor-lights of higher spheres. 
 
 7 6 
 
VI. Will the relationships which have existed 
 between persons in this world be maintained in 
 the Life Beyond? 
 
 That, in our opinion, will absolutely depend 
 upon whether there existed, as the basis of the 
 earthly relationship, the principle of spiritual 
 attraction, or affinity. There can be no union 
 between soul and soul, in the World of Spirit, 
 apart from this. Dissociated from the Physical 
 and from all the considerations of the Physical, 
 the only bond of connection between spirit and 
 spirit must be spiritual. 
 
 Now, many of the relationships connected 
 with the earth-life are not founded on this spirit- 
 ual basis. They spring from the Physical, and 
 never rise beyond it. In this world, persons 
 are often so connected with one another, that 
 the spirit-self of the individuals comes but little, 
 or not at all, into the relationship. 
 
 Take some of the instances which are pre- 
 sented in regard to the marriage tie. Two per- 
 sons, we will suppose, from a consideration 
 merely of money, or social position, or expedi- 
 ency, or fleeting fancy, enter into the relation- 
 
 77 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ship of man and wife. The essential part of 
 them — their spirit, with all its powers of love 
 and sympathy — may but little, perhaps not at 
 all, be called into play in the transaction. In 
 regard to them, there may be no conjunction 
 of spirit with spirit, mind with mind, and heart 
 with heart. The man married the woman only 
 because he wanted a wife, and she was socially 
 and physically eligible. The woman married 
 the man because her position and status in the 
 world would be advanced thereby. Such a re- 
 lationship, we believe, will not be perpetuated 
 in the Life Beyond. Those two persons, there, 
 will not stand in the relationship of wedded 
 beings. Death, which launches us into a world 
 where spiritual activities are everything, will 
 remove from them the causes out of which their 
 earthly relationship arose; and devoid of the 
 spiritual basis of union, each will be no more to 
 the other than any other spirit might be. It was 
 due to the Sadducees' failure to perceive that 
 the only lasting bond of union must be a spiritual 
 one, that prompted them to ask our Lord, "In 
 the Anastasis, whose wife shall she be of the 
 seven? For they all had her." (Matt. xxii. 28). 
 Christ's reply to them was no declaration that 
 the relationship embodied in marriage, if based 
 on the spiritual union of two beings, would not 
 
 78 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 be perpetuated in the World of Spirit. He did 
 but enunciate the principle, that no earthly mar- 
 riage, contracted merely from considerations of 
 the mundane (in the case in point, to raise up 
 seed to a deceased brother) could possibly, in 
 the Life Beyond, constitute the bond between 
 spirit and spirit. "In the Anastasis," said Jesus, 
 "they are as the angels of God in Heaven," i. e., 
 they are spiritual beings; they live in the envi- 
 ronment of the spiritual. "They neither marry, 
 nor are given in marriage. " The Physical will 
 be superseded; no merely physical tie which 
 linked two persons on earth will constitute their 
 bond of union hereafter. Soul must be wedded 
 to soul, or the earthly relationship will be 
 broken by the disrupting hand of death. Spirit 
 in tune with spirit is the only basis of relation- 
 ship Beyond the Veil. 
 
 It may be asked — Will, then, the marriage 
 tie be dissolved at death? Will those who have 
 been connected in this life, stand disconnected 
 and unrelated to each other hereafter? We 
 think, not; if the earthly relationship was the 
 outcome of, or has led to the development of, a 
 spiritual affinity. The relationship which has 
 maintained mutual love and sympathy and has 
 caused the spiritual force of the one being to 
 energize towards the other, will not cease to 
 
 79 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 exist with dissociation from the Physical. If 
 that relationship be founded on the spiritual 
 within us, its continuance is assured; because 
 our spirit-self and its energies and powers are 
 not impaired by physical dissolution. 
 
 The husband and wife, whose souls have been 
 in tune in the earth-life, will not, we believe, be 
 unrelated in the life to come. The spiritual in- 
 teraction set up will not stop at the incident of 
 death. Conjoined on earth, by an indestructible 
 principle, they will gravitate to each other in 
 the world of Spirit. The Physical and the con- 
 siderations of the Physical will have disap- 
 peared, but the spiritual union will remain in- 
 tact. In that life the relationship created in 
 the earth-life will become intensified and con- 
 summated. Those spiritually united souls will 
 still be the nearest and dearest to each other. 
 Like the Master, who loved all, but specially 
 loved St. John and the family at Bethany, each 
 of those two spiritually married souls will be 
 more closely allied to the other, than either can 
 be to any other spirit. In the light of such a 
 thought, how significant and beautiful becomes 
 the earthly relationship of marriage to mutually 
 loving ones! "Till death us do part," says the 
 Prayer-Book. Nay — "Till our death enhance 
 and spiritually consummate the bond forever." 
 
 80 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Take the case of a man or a woman who may 
 have been twice or thrice married. Will all 
 those persons who were the earthly partners of 
 one having had such an experience, stand in the 
 relationship of husbands, or wives, to that one, 
 in the Hereafter? We think not for the reason 
 that it is only the highest degree of spiritual 
 affinity that can constitute spiritual marriage, 
 and that, we believe, can only exist between a 
 soul and one other soul. 
 
 The reason, we take it, why Christianity, as 
 God's higher revealment of truth, discounte- 
 nances Polygamy, is that earthly marriage was 
 intended to prefigure spiritual marriage. A de- 
 veloped soul will love and must love other 
 souls; aye, all souls; but there can be but one 
 soul between whom and itself the closest affinity 
 and union exists. The man and woman who 
 have stood to each other in the earthly relation- 
 ship of husband and wife, will, if there has been 
 a real soul-union, stand in the same relation- 
 ship in spirit-life. 
 
 Those whom God hath thus spiritually joined 
 together will not be put asunder because the 
 physical conditions of their union are removed. 
 But it will not be so, apart from this union of 
 soul. Without this intermingling of spirit with 
 spirit, this spiritual attracting force exerted by 
 
 81 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the one on the other, these two persons may 
 stand altogether unrelated in the Life Beyond. 
 The contact there may be no more than the 
 contact which each may have with souls not 
 known during earth-life. In a world of spiritual 
 reality, the wedded couple of earth, unlinked in 
 spirit, may find themselves in divergent spheres 
 of life and interest. Apply this to the case of 
 the one who may have had several wedded part- 
 ners. In the World of Spirit, whose wife will 
 the woman be who on earth had two or three 
 husbands? Whose husband will the man be 
 who had two or three wives? The question af- 
 fects a large section of mankind — the polygam- 
 ist, and the man who has married more than 
 once. 
 
 "They neither marry, nor are given in mar- 
 riage," said the Christ. The earthly sense of 
 marriage will have been obliterated; the Phy- 
 sical concomitants of union between being and 
 being will have disappeared; but the connection 
 of soul with soul will remain. Every spirit, we 
 believe, will be short of full development, and 
 will not have fulfilled the design of its being, 
 until it has found, and has been united to, that 
 one other spirit; its spiritual mate, its comple- 
 ment, its alter ego. And they twain become one. 
 
 Did there exist between the man and one of 
 
 82 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the women to whom he was wedded on earth 
 that spiritual affinity, that mutual attraction of 
 ego to ego, that union of essential being? If 
 so, the relationship will not be dissolved by- 
 death. In the Beyond, they will be spiritually 
 wedded souls. The bond between them, al- 
 though in the past associated with the Physical, 
 was not dependent upon it. It had its roots in 
 the spiritual and it must remain. The spirit-man 
 may still love those other souls who in earth- 
 life stood in the relationship of wife to him, 
 but his love for them will be different from 
 the love he will hold for the one between whom 
 and himself there subsisted this soul-union. The 
 latter will be his spirit partner. The earthly 
 marriages, unbased on any union of souls, will 
 have been annulled by death; while the rela- 
 tionship which was rooted in the spiritual will 
 be continued. That soul-linked husband and 
 wife of earth, will be the spiritual husband and 
 wife of the Beyond. 
 
 And what has been stated above in regard 
 to the relationship of marriage, appears to us 
 to apply to all other earthly relationships. It 
 may be asked — Will a father and mother, when 
 they have passed into spirit-life, stand in that 
 relationship to the ones who in earth-life were 
 their children? Will the relationship of brother 
 
 83 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 and sister and other family connections be 
 maintained hereafter? Will not all ties of con- 
 sanguinity disappear in an environment in which 
 everything pertains to the Spiritual, and nothing 
 to the Physical ? We reply, it will depend upon 
 whether the earthly relationship did, or did not, 
 bring about soul relationship and affinity. 
 
 The mother, for instance, whose soul goes 
 out to the undeveloped soul of the little child 
 who is subsequently snatched from her by death, 
 will certainly, we think, stand in relationship as 
 mother to that child in spirit-life. But, it may 
 be urged, there could be, in such a case, no 
 affinity between the soul of the mother and the 
 soul of the child. The child died with its soul 
 undeveloped; there could be no response on 
 the part of the child's soul to the soul of the 
 mother. Quite so, for a while at least. But the 
 soul-vibrations of love from the mother on earth 
 can reach and affect the developing soul of the 
 child Behind the Veil. Those vibrations, pro- 
 jected into an atmosphere pulsating with love, 
 will produce love. The spirit-child will feel that 
 love. Its soul will respond to it. As it spirit- 
 ually advances, there will be inborne upon its 
 consciousness the fact that the soul-force of 
 an unknown mother is enwrapping it. 
 
 A longing for that mother will arise; an ex- 
 
 8 4 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 pectation of union with her; a praying that 
 this may be gratified. We can picture the 
 rest — can we not? A ministering-spirit lead- 
 ing a child-spirit towards a newly-emancipated 
 woman-spirit. No word of explanation, no in- 
 troduction! A look, a thrill, on the part of 
 woman and child. Their souls have recognized 
 each other. The relationship of earth has not 
 been broken; the mother and child are reunited 
 as such. The other earthly ties of relationship 
 also, which make a person a brother, a sister, a 
 lover, a friend, will not, we think, be obliterated 
 in the Higher-life. If between that one and the 
 other to whom he or she stands related there 
 exists the touch of soul with soul, the tie will 
 be maintained. The earthly relationships, which 
 in time have ennobled and sanctified human lives 
 and drawn spirit to spirit, are not designed to 
 play no part in the experiences of eternity. In 
 the World of Spirit, the maintained and spirit- 
 ually accentuated ties which knit husband and 
 wife, lover and lover, parent and child, and 
 friend and friend, will be found to be the Di- 
 vinely appointed means by which the mighty 
 principle of love will the better energize in the 
 human soul, attuning it for its highest and clos- 
 est communion with the Father of Love. 
 
 It may seem a daring statement to make, but 
 
 85 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 we believe that many a husband and father, 
 many a wife and mother, whose relationship 
 with partner or children has drawn forth and 
 combined the forces and sweetness of souls, will 
 hereafter stand higher in the attainments of 
 love and better adapted for God's Heaven, than 
 many a canonized saint who in cell or cloister 
 has divorced himself from the relationships of 
 life. Love in a human soul will develop into 
 self-love, apart from the reciprocal touch of 
 other souls. And the relationships of earth, we 
 believe, which effect this reciprocal touch, are 
 Divinely appointed to remain. 
 
 Will there, then, be some in the After-Life 
 whose earthly relationships with others may 
 cease to exist? 
 
 Yes, alas ! we think so. There are, for exam- 
 ple, unfatherly fathers and unmotherly mothers, 
 in regard to whom the only tie subsisting be- 
 tween them and their children is a physical one. 
 They begat them: nothing more. No spiritual 
 bond links them and their offspring. Death, we 
 think, will snap, once and forever, that merely 
 physical connection. There will remain noth- 
 ing, in the Beyond, which can constitute a link- 
 ing of the spirit-self of the parent and the spirit- 
 self of the child. The work of the Church of 
 England Waifs and Strays Society and Dr. Bar- 
 
 86 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 nado's Homes reveals the fact that there are 
 such fathers and mothers. 
 
 Now, whatever may be the possibilities of re- 
 pentance, amendment and development here- 
 after, in the case of such parents, they will not 
 evade the inviolable law of God, that "whatso- 
 ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 (Gal. vi. 7). Earthly parents who have never 
 realized, nor sought to cultivate the spiritual 
 bond between them and their children will reap 
 the consequences. In the Spirit World they 
 will be short of an experience and a joy which 
 they might have had. An earthly relationship 
 might have blossomed into a heavenly relation- 
 ship. But it did not do so. Hereafter, the 
 thrill and delight of spiritualized fatherhood and 
 motherhood will be an impossibility to them. 
 The mercy of God may cause them to develop, 
 at length, into blessed souls; but for eternity 
 they may be short of what they might have 
 been, had the earthly relationship been sanctified 
 for the development of the spirit. They may 
 experience an "everlasting damnation" which 
 means an everlasting loss. Forever, they may 
 be spiritually less developed than they might 
 have been : a department of their being may re- 
 main unopened. They may see the spirit-chil- 
 dren of others clasped in the arms of their spirit- 
 
 87 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 parents; but no spirit-child is held in their em- 
 brace. The son or daughter, born to them on 
 earth, may meet them and be known to them; 
 but that one may be no more to them than any 
 other stranger-spirit. The sense of relationship, 
 unbased upon the spiritual, will have gone. 
 
 On the other hand, a beautiful and comfort- 
 ing thought suggests itself It is this: that 
 many a soul, in the Life Beyond, may not, until 
 then, realize the full possibilities of higher be- 
 ing, in finding the satisfaction of the yearnings 
 of the spiritual nature, and the answer to the 
 intuitions and aspirations of love. There are 
 persons, capable of so loving another, that an 
 earthly marriage relationship could only be to 
 them the starting point of an indissoluble spirit- 
 ual union in life hereafter. 
 
 But how many persons are there who never 
 meet in this world, the one between whom and 
 themselves there is this touch of soul with soul. 
 If, by chance, they meet that one, there may 
 have been all sorts of worldly considerations 
 why their lives did not become conjoined. 
 What of them? What of the gentle, loving, 
 Christ-like woman, who longed for, but never 
 knew, a true man's love? What of the good 
 man, a department of whose soul remained 
 undeveloped, because no woman-soul loved 
 
 88 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 him above all others ? Will such persons never 
 know the joy of loving one particular soul and of 
 being loved by that soul, in a way which tran- 
 scends all other possibilities of love? In the 
 World Beyond will no true spiritual mate com- 
 plete the being of such a man or woman? We 
 believe that such persons, capable of so spirit- 
 ually loving, although denied in this world the 
 fulfillment of their spirit's longings, will meet in 
 the Hereafter their kindred spirit. Somewhere, 
 in the great universe of spirit, there is, we think, 
 the alter ego, the complemental soul, for each 
 loving, though mateless, one of earth. 
 
 Only will the purpose of God have been ful- 
 filled, we believe, when "they twain shall have 
 become one;" when these alter egos, drawn to 
 each other by the irresistible force of spiritual 
 attraction, shall have met, and combined in the 
 highest relationship of spiritually-wedded souls. 
 
 Again, there are many women who, while 
 possessing all the capacities for true mother- 
 hood, have never become mothers. A keen dis- 
 appointment is felt by them; a craving of their 
 spirit has not been answered; great resources of 
 their nature have not been drawn upon; no be- 
 ing has stood to them in the relationship of 
 child. 
 
 In the Life of Spirit will there be no possi- 
 
 89 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 bility of satisfying the spiritual instincts and as- 
 pirations of such persons? Will the thrill and 
 joy which arises from the fact of being viewed 
 as mother, by one or more, be never granted to 
 the potentially maternal souls who have passed 
 out of earth-life childless? 
 
 We hold the conviction that in the accom- 
 plishment of the All-Father's purpose of Love, 
 the satisfying of this true spiritual instinct will 
 be vouchsafed to such. There are millions of 
 little child-souls who pass into spirit-life, unfol- 
 lowed by the love and prayers of any earthly 
 mother. What if those little ones should be as- 
 signed to the care and become the spiritual chil- 
 dren of those women-souls who have never on 
 earth, in spite of their longing, been a mother 
 to any ! Can we suppose that a Divine instinct, 
 implanted in every true woman-spirit, though 
 ungratified as far as this life is concerned, is 
 destined to lead to nothing — to die out from 
 lack of opportunity to express itself? Nay; we 
 have different ideas of God's love and purposes. 
 He never mocks His creatures by endowing 
 them with noble instincts and longings for 
 which no satisfyings have been provided. No 
 woman possessing the spiritual capability of 
 motherhood, will, we think, ever reach the pos- 
 sibilities of her being, until some child-spirit re- 
 
 90 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 gards her as spiritual mother. May it not be 
 that, in this way, untold numbers of God's little 
 ones, unblessed by a true mother's love while 
 in earth-life, may in spirit-life be encircled by 
 the arms of these spirit-mothers, and in the en- 
 foldments of their love may move on to the de- 
 velopment and perfecting of being? Such ideas 
 may not be compatible with the notions which 
 have prevailed as to the Life Beyond; but they 
 are compatible with our growing ideas and ex- 
 tended knowledge of the love and purpose of 
 our Father-God. 
 
 9i 
 
VII. Why do not all the departed manifest 
 themselves to those whom they have left be- 
 hind? 
 
 We can conceive of there being several rea- 
 sons why they do not do so. 
 
 I. Many who have passed into spirit-life have 
 no desire to renew any intercourse with the world 
 from which they have passed; and apart from the 
 question of a ministry to us, entrusted, we be- 
 lieve, to many of the Departed, the fact of hav- 
 ing, or not having, a desire to re-establish 
 earthly relationships will largely determine 
 whether they do or do not re-establish the 
 same. 
 
 Now, in the case of many who depart this 
 life, the world they have left behind exerts an 
 enormous attracting power upon them. Spirit- 
 ually undeveloped and unattuned for their new 
 environment, their tastes and desires gravitate 
 earthward. This class experience a desire to 
 renew, if possible, their intercourse with the 
 mundane. But there are a great number who 
 pass hence, in regard to whom the world exerts 
 
 92 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 no sufficiently attracting force to draw them 
 back to it. Death has launched them into a 
 new life, and they are devoid of any longing for 
 the persons and things connected with the old. 
 They resemble those in this world who are able 
 to sever themselves from past associations, to 
 betake themselves to another country and other 
 surroundings, and never afterwards to feel any 
 desire for that which has been left behind. This, 
 we think, is so with regard to many of the de- 
 parted whose earthly lot was one of predomi- 
 nating suffering, or difficulty, or disappoint- 
 ment. It is so, we think, in the case of those 
 whose "sunshine of life" went with the dear 
 ones taken from them by death. To them the 
 new life with its reliefs and possibilities and its 
 re-unions with those "loved long since, and lost 
 awhile," causes all their interest in the old life 
 to recede into the background of their con- 
 sciousness, and at length to wholly fade away. 
 If such as these come back at all, it is not from 
 a desire to re-connect themselves with a world 
 with which they have done, but to discharge 
 some mission of good entrusted to them. 
 Again, there are others of the departed who 
 have no desire for renewed intercourse with 
 this world, for the reason that they have never 
 cultivated the qualities of love and sympathy. 
 
 93 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 The greatest of all attracting forces in the uni- 
 verse is love. It is the mighty power which, ac- 
 cording to the Lord, will ultimately bring about 
 the accomplishment of God's purpose to save 
 the world. "I, if I be lifted up (if I make this 
 supreme sacrifice of myself for the sake of love) 
 zvill draw all unto Me" (John xii. 32). Love is 
 that principle which can attract spirit-beings to 
 the surroundings of the Physical who feel none 
 of the attracting forces of evil. It drew the 
 exalted Spirit-Christ from the highest spheres 
 of life and experience to the circumscription of 
 earthly existence. It has drawn angels to this 
 world, and it can draw spirit-men and women 
 as God's instruments for blessing and helping 
 us. 
 
 Now, the departed ones, between whom and 
 others in the earth-life there exists no bond of 
 love and sympathy, will feel nought of that 
 higher impulse of the soul which expresses it- 
 self in a longing for those who have been left 
 behind. The attracting power of love, of spirit- 
 ual affinity, will be wanting. There are many 
 who answer to this; many men and women who 
 go out of this world unloving and unloved; who 
 are not bad enough (as in the case of debased 
 ones) to be brought again into contact with the 
 Physical by the irresistible attraction of evil; 
 
 94 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 but are not spiritually developed enough to ex- 
 perience any drawings of love. 
 
 II. Another reason why all departed ones do 
 not manifest themselves is to be found, we 
 think, in the fact that the manifestation of which 
 the questioner is thinking, involves the re-con- 
 nection of spirit-beings with the Physical world. 
 This, we conceive, may in many instances be in- 
 compatible with growth and advancement in spirit- 
 life. The conditions under which a spirit is able 
 to manifest himself — using the term to convey 
 the idea which is generally meant, viz., that a 
 spirit should make himself visible, or express 
 himself through the mediumship of the mind 
 and bodily organs of another — implies associa- 
 tion w r ith the Physical. This is so with regard 
 to materializations, trance-utterances and auto- 
 matic writings. The communicating spirit in 
 such cases of manifestation brings himself into 
 close association with the surroundings of the 
 Physical; and these surroundings are lower in 
 degree than those of his new life and environ- 
 ment. This close association with the lower — 
 especially if it be a maintained one, may consti- 
 tute a very real obstacle to the discarnate one's 
 adjusting himself to the higher spiritual experi- 
 ences. His advance may be retarded thereby. 
 By maintaining his association with the Physical 
 
 95 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 World, it may be harder for him to become en 
 rapport with the Spiritual. God may see it to 
 be as undesirable and harmful to him to re-es- 
 tablish a contact with the Physical, as a Princi- 
 pal of a College might deem it undesirable for 
 a student, designated for high culture, to asso- 
 ciate with the unlearned and unrefined. We be- 
 lieve that this is one of other reasons why those 
 who pass out of the earth-life with some attune- 
 ment for spiritual development, are not very 
 often permitted to manifest themselves through 
 those channels of communication which involve 
 a re-contact with that which is connected with 
 the Physical — such manifestations, for example, 
 as are obtained at Seances. The spirits who are 
 able, through the instrumentality of the Physi- 
 cal, to materialize, are not, as a rule, advanced 
 or spiritually developed ones. They are, cer- 
 tainly, not beings on the higher, or highest, 
 planes of spiritual life and experience. Such 
 communicators, so dependent on conditions per- 
 taining to the Physical — whose efforts are 
 rather to manifest themselves objectively than 
 subjectively — are feeble and disappointing in 
 their utterances, as compared with those spirit- 
 ual communicators who speak to many on the 
 higher plane of mind and spirit. The trance- 
 utterances and the inspirational writings exhibit 
 
 9 6 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the control of a higher order than any which 
 is presented in a materializing circle. 
 
 Then, again, this view of the matter is sup- 
 ported by the fact that, although at the outset 
 of spirit-life many of the departed find it pos- 
 sible to renew their association with the Phy- 
 sical, it afterwards becomes increasingly diffi- 
 cult for them to do so. Their advance in the 
 Other World makes it so; and at length there 
 comes a time when such intercourse is made im- 
 possible. Advance in the Spiritual places them 
 altogether out of reach of the Physical. Com- 
 munication in that case between them and those 
 in earth-life can only then be on the plane of 
 the Psychic and the Mental. Nor is this a mere 
 conjecture. There are many instances which go 
 to show that as a spirit advances to higher ex- 
 periences in the Spiritual World, it becomes 
 more and more difficult to adjust himself to 
 Physical conditions which are necessary, in or- 
 der that he may objectively manifest himself to 
 those on earth. 
 
 I have personal friends who have seen once 
 — in some cases twice — and no more, those who 
 have appeared to them after death. One gen- 
 tleman, known to me, had seen and spoken to 
 his departed wife on many occasions, both by 
 
 97 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 night and day, during a period extending over 
 a year. He was an unimaginative, practical 
 man, a lawyer, and he prefaced his statement 
 to me by saying: "I am going to tell you 
 something which is a solemn fact; but which I 
 hardly expect you will believe; although you are 
 a parson, and teach people that there is a Life 
 Beyond." He assured me that he had seen his 
 wife after her death on many occasions. That 
 at one of the appearances to him she had earn- 
 estly begged him to withdraw from a certain 
 commercial enterprise upon which he had made 
 up his mind to embark, because it would mean 
 financial ruin to him. He was so impressed by 
 what she said that he acted on her advice, and 
 saved himself from that which, as was shown 
 afterwards, would have been disastrous. After 
 a while the visits of this spirit-wife became less 
 frequent, and at last the reason was explained. 
 On the last occasion she appeared to her hus- 
 band, (he has rejoined her now) she told him 
 that she felt that that manifestation would be 
 her last to him in this world. She said that on 
 entering into spirit-life her love for him, and 
 his psychic condition had made it comparatively 
 easy for her to objectively manifest herself to 
 him. But as time went on, and her attunement 
 with the World of Spirit had grown, she had 
 
 9 8 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 found it becoming more and more difficult to 
 retain her relationship with the Physical. She 
 felt that no longer would she have the power 
 of objectively manifesting herself to him. But 
 still she would be constantly near him; in closer 
 communion with him than she had ever hither- 
 to been. Her inability to any longer approach 
 him through the mediumship of the Physical 
 would only mean a still closer and more real 
 approach. Henceforth, the communication be- 
 tween him and her would be on a higher level. 
 Obedient to the demands of love, her rising and 
 developing mind and spirit would constantly 
 touch and help and bless his mind and spirit. 
 Her prayers for him and his prayers for her 
 were to strengthen and perfect the bond be- 
 tween them. The union of mutually loving 
 souls could never be dissolved, because God is 
 Love. In this world, he would probably never 
 see her again; but on the border-line and Be- 
 yond, where the limitations of the Physical are 
 forever cast aside, she would meet him, greet 
 him, love him as she loved him now, and would 
 be his pioneer to higher life. 
 
 From that day, until he himself passed Be- 
 yond the Veil, this friend constantly felt the 
 presence of his departed wife, but never again 
 saw her. 
 
 99 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 From what has been said, it will be seen that 
 another reason can be assigned for the fact that 
 not all the departed are permitted to visibly 
 manifest themselves to us. But it must not be 
 supposed that this inability of dear departed 
 ones to do this, is to be interpreted as meaning 
 that they are unable to approach us and unable 
 to come into vital touch with us. The contrary 
 is the truth. Their ascension to higher life and 
 experience renders them capable of establishing 
 a communication on a higher plane of being — 
 on the plane of mind and spirit. Many commun- 
 icators from the Other Side, denied the power 
 of visibly manifesting themselves to us here, be- 
 cause their advancement will best be served by 
 the denial, can come into a communication with 
 us closer than that which any materializing 
 spirit can effect. The concomitants of the Phy- 
 sical may play no part in the contact; but the 
 mind and spirit of the discarnate one and the 
 mind and spirit of the earth one may come into 
 conjunction. The being on the earth-plane may 
 receive all sorts of uplifting and helpful influ- 
 ences from the being on the spirit-plane. The 
 sudden feeling of restfulness which comes to a 
 poor distressed and perturbed one; the unex- 
 pected ray of something akin to the light of 
 hope which darts across the darkness of a sad- 
 
 ioo 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 dened heart; the new impulse which challenges 
 our right to surrender ourselves to despair and 
 mental misery, and bids us to try to be brave 
 and patient and unrebellious; the cause that 
 leads us to make the earnest determination to 
 trust God, to pray to Him amid the darkness 
 of our grief and bereavement; yes, and that 
 thrill of relief which comes from the thought 
 of re-union — all this, we believe, may be the re- 
 sult of an impact of a spirit-mind, energizing 
 under higher conditions, upon the mind of a 
 dweller upon the earth. "Nonsense; a slight to 
 the Holy Spirit of God!" say some who know 
 little about spiritual realities. "Not so," say 
 we. "The blessing and uplifting is all from 
 God. If discarnate spirits lift us Godward and 
 heavenward, the power of the Holy Ghost is 
 behind that uplifting. God is only dealing with 
 us, as He always deals with men : He blesses us 
 through our fellows. Why consider it a dispar- 
 agement of the power and work of the Holy 
 Ghost, that a departed one should be God's in- 
 strument in teaching and blessing us, when no 
 Christian would dream of entertaining such an 
 idea in regard to an angel, or an earthly 
 preacher or teacher of God and righteousness? 
 Do let us be logical. God's principle of bless- 
 
 IOI 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ing man through man obtains in the World of 
 Spirit as it does here. 
 
 III. There is another reason why not all of 
 the departed manifest themselves to us. It lies 
 in the fact that many of us are so psychically un- 
 developed as to render it impossible for them to 
 do so. 
 
 Love may attract them to us; they may have 
 an intense longing to be with us; there may be, 
 moreover, an earnest desire to help us, and yet 
 they may be wholly unable to set up a communi- 
 cation of which we may be sensible. Why is 
 this? The cause may lie with us. We may be 
 so mentally and psychically constituted as to 
 lack that which is a necessary condition of man- 
 ifestation. Our spiritual self may not be suffi- 
 ciently attuned to receive the impressions of the 
 Spiritual. In regard to individuals it may be 
 the same as it is in regard to Wireless Teleg- 
 raphy — not all instruments can register the im- 
 pulse which is projected, but only an attuned 
 one. There are thousands of persons who have 
 no experience whatever of any impact of the 
 Spiritual, simply because they possess as yet 
 no power of registering it. 
 
 May there not have been a significance in our 
 Lord's selecting only three of the Apostolic men 
 to be the witnesses of the manifestation of de- 
 
 I02 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 parted Moses on the Mountain of Transfigura- 
 tion? May not St. Peter, St. James and St. 
 John alone of the twelve have possessed the 
 psychic powers, which made the revelation pos- 
 sible to them, while not possible to the others? 
 Thus, there are many who bemoan the fact that 
 their dear departed ones never make their pres- 
 ence manifest to them. Part of that regret 
 and sadness would disappear, if it could but be 
 realized that, although unseen and unfelt by us, 
 our loved ones on the Other Side are often with 
 us; that when the sight of the empty chair in 
 the darkened home recalls the painful longings 
 for the sight of a vanished face, and reopens the 
 fountain of our grief — 
 
 "Then the forms of the Departed 
 Enter at the open door 
 The beloved, the true-hearted, 
 Come to visit me once more. 
 With a slow and noiseless footstep 
 Comes that messenger divine, 
 Takes the vacant chair beside me, 
 Lays her gentle hand in mine." 
 
 IV. There is another reason, I think, why 
 not all of the departed manifest themselves to 
 us. Their knowledge of the fact that many have 
 
 103 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 an unreasoning fear of the Spiritual restrains 
 them. With some, the contact with a spiritual 
 being, even with one who has loved and been 
 beloved by them, calls for nought but a feeling 
 of abject terror. Our spirit dear ones know 
 this and it stays them from manifesting them- 
 selves. 
 
 I remember once trying to comfort a poor be- 
 reaved one who had said that she could bear her 
 sorrow bravely, if only she could know that her 
 departed husband was alive and still loved her, 
 by saying, "Perhaps, it may be permitted to 
 him to appear to you (as others have done) and 
 assure you of this." "Oh! goodness, graci- 
 ous! I hope not. It would terrify me out of 
 my life were he to come to me," was the reply 
 of the lady. "Then I do not think you will see 
 him, until you yourself cross the border-line. 
 He loves you too much to terrify you," was the 
 rejoinder. 
 
 There are many of the departed, we believe, 
 who do not manifest themselves to those whom 
 they have left on earth for this very reason. 
 Love draws them to them; love makes them 
 want to communicate with them ; the conditions 
 are favorable — the visitants and visited are in 
 psychic affinity; and yet an obstacle is inter- 
 posed; the dread of the Beyond is present. 
 
 104 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 This intense fear of all that pertains to the 
 Spiritual World is very inexplicable; at all 
 events on the part of those who believe in the 
 Christian religion. To profess a faith in con- 
 tinued life after death; to regard that life as 
 being an advance on this present life, and then 
 to be stricken with abject fear at encountering 
 one who has passed into that life, seems to us 
 to savor of inconsistency. But so it is with 
 many. An old clergyman friend of mine once 
 said to me : "If I believed as you do about the 
 spirit-world, I should be frightened to go to 
 bed." Not so, our knowledge of the Other 
 World removes this unreasoning fear, and clears 
 away a barrier which at present stands between 
 us and manv in that world. 
 
 105 
 
VIII. Will the fact that beings in spirit-life 
 are on different planes of life and experience, be 
 an obstacle to re-union hereafter? 
 
 This is a question which has exercised the 
 minds of very many earnest thinkers, and one 
 which has again and again been submitted by 
 correspondents. It is a question which does 
 not, of course, present itself to those Christians 
 who accept the old "orthodox" view, that for 
 believers a spiritual transformation is wrought 
 by death, and that for non-believers no salvation 
 after death is to be expected. 
 
 Those persons, as far as they are consistent 
 with their creed, entertain no hope of the re- 
 union of themselves and those who have died as 
 unbelievers. The theology they endorse 
 teaches that a great gulf yawns between the 
 saved and the unsaved, which will never be 
 bridged. Re-union, in that case, is out of the 
 question. Fortunately, the greater number 
 who profess to accept this old notion, save them- 
 selves from the mad-house, either by not allow- 
 ing themselves to think about it, or by secretly 
 
 1 06 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 hoping it may not be true. To such straits does 
 a narrow theology reduce them. Those persons 
 also, who believe in the morally and spiritually 
 transforming power of death see no difficulty in 
 regard to the re-union of souls. They suppose 
 that all who depart this life in the Christian 
 faith, whatever may be the point of develop- 
 ment reached by them, are at death ushered into 
 a condition of instantly-acquired excellence. 
 Seizing the words of St. Paul and applying them 
 indiscriminately to all believers, they imagine 
 that every Christian, developed or undeveloped, 
 will leave this world to be at once with Christ. 
 Such an idea, of course, implies for all Chris- 
 tians on the Other Side, not different planes, 
 but a uniform plane, of life and experience. If 
 it be true that at dying all believers go immedi- 
 ately to be with the Saviour, then all such are 
 in one sphere and on one plane of experience, 
 and re-union becomes a foregone conclusion. 
 But our advance in the knowledge of Spiritual 
 matters has caused many to perceive that both 
 these ideas referred to are un-scriptural and 
 wrong. The great principle under which God 
 is seen in everything to be working in the rais- 
 ing of beings and things from the lower to the 
 higher, is that which shows that development 
 
 107 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 and perfection is never reached but by slow and 
 gradual means. 
 
 "First the blade, then the ear, after that the 
 full corn in the ear," said Jesus; and He was 
 proclaiming the law which obtains no less in the 
 Spiritual than in the Physical. Our recogni- 
 tion of this universal principle of being, our bet- 
 ter understanding of the statements of the 
 Bible, and our knowledge of the fact that very 
 few depart this life in a moral and spiritual con- 
 dition such as to equip them for adjustment to 
 highest spiritual life — all this impels one to the 
 conclusion that there are, and must be, in the 
 Life Beyond different planes of experience; and 
 that the sphere into which a soul will pass at 
 death will be determined by the degree of de- 
 velopment reached at that time. Like Judas, 
 every one will "go to his own place." The one 
 who has by faith connected himself with Christ, 
 but in whom as yet the Christ-graces have not 
 blossomed, will not, at dying, secure an entrance 
 into that Christ-sphere of spirit-life, into which 
 the Apostle so confidently expected to be ad- 
 mitted on leaving this world. The connection 
 of that undeveloped one with the Saviour will 
 have placed him in a "state of salvation," and 
 will have disposed him aright for ascension to 
 sphere after sphere of higher attainment; but 
 
 108 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 no more. The higher and the highest spheres 
 of Spiritual life will not be reached until he 
 shall have become spiritually adjusted to them. 
 The spheres of the Other World are conditions 
 rather than localities; they are constituted by 
 what we are rather than by where we may be. 
 "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," said 
 Jesus. The narrow-minded, selfish, bad-tem- 
 pered, ill-mannered and unloving Christians will 
 not, as soon as they go hence, find themselves 
 in the same sphere as that of the Christ and St. 
 Paul. Many a selfish one, who has reckoned 
 on his "orthodoxy" to insure him against judg- 
 ment hereafter, may find himself after death in 
 experiences akin to those of Dives. Now, it is 
 the realization of all this which has caused the 
 questioner to ask — Will not these different 
 planes of life and experience present an obstacle 
 to re-union? We think not; and proceed to 
 give our reasons for holding that view. 
 
 First, if the spheres of the Other World be, 
 as we have stated, conditions rather than locali- 
 ties, there can be no difficulty in believing that 
 the departed in different spheres come into re- 
 lationship with one another. To believe other- 
 wise would be to commit ourselves to a thought 
 which is unreasonable, and at variance with 
 what we know. There is intercourse between 
 
 109 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the spheres in regard to this world. Men and 
 women on earth are on all sorts of different 
 planes of life and thought. That fact consti- 
 tutes no barrier to their coming into contact. 
 In like manner, the spiritual condition of some 
 of the departed is wholly dissimilar to that 
 of others; but this dissimilarity is no obstacle 
 to their association. 
 
 We have a notable corroboration of this asser- 
 tion, in what is recorded in the New Testament 
 concerning the experiences of our Lord after 
 death. 
 
 When Jesus, in company with the repentant 
 robber, passed into the Spiritual World, His 
 spiritual condition, or sphere, as the Being 
 perfected in moral grace, must have been vastly 
 different from the spiritual condition of the man 
 who had but a moment or two before set his 
 soul in the direction of goodness. On that 
 Good Friday evening, they were not on the 
 same plane of life and experience. Yet as far 
 as the contact of person with person is con- 
 cerned, there was re-union. They were to- 
 gether. Christ's own words declare it — "To- 
 day, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Again, 
 on the testimony of St. Peter, our Lord, after 
 death, went into the Spirit- World to preach the 
 Gospel to spirits who in earth-life had been dis- 
 
 no 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 obedient, in order that they might "live accord- 
 ing to God in the spirit." (See I Peter iii. 
 18-20 and iv. 6). The Preacher was on a far 
 higher plane of spiritual life and experience 
 than that of the ones to whom He preached; 
 but that was no obstacle to His association with 
 them. In the parable of the rich man and Laz- 
 arus, Christ represents the two men as being in 
 wholly dissimilar spheres of experience in the 
 Spirit-World: the one was in "Abraham's 
 bosom" — in a condition of restfulness; the other, 
 in "Hades" — in a condition of painful disci- 
 pline. As yet, until God's knife of discipline had 
 pruned away the over-growth of selfishness 
 from the character of the rich man, there was 
 "a great gulf fixed" between him and Lazarus; 
 and Dives was incapable of participating in the 
 higher spiritual experiences enjoyed by Laza- 
 rus. But this difference in the spheres of these 
 excarnate ones did not prevent them from com- 
 ing into contact. There was inter-communica- 
 tion between the spheres: the one on the lower 
 plane saw and spoke to those on the higher 
 plane. So, we believe it to be, in the case of the 
 departed. We, when we pass into spirit-life, 
 may be on a plane of life and experience, higher 
 or lower than the plane of those who have pre- 
 ceded us, and whom we have known and loved 
 
 ill 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 in the earth-life. Will this dissimilarity in re- 
 gard to planes render it impossible or improb- 
 able that we shall come into communication 
 with them ? We think not. We believe that, in 
 the Spirit- World, the fact of being on different 
 planes of life may, and does, cause some spirits 
 who have been known to each other in this 
 world, to be dissociated, for a while at least, 
 in the Other World. But we do not think this 
 to be so in the case of those between whom 
 there has previously existed a bond of love or 
 sympathy. Those whom we have loved on this 
 earth, and who, perhaps, long ago, have gone 
 into spirit-life, will have advanced to spheres of 
 experience, to which we shall not immediately 
 attain on leaving this world. But that will not 
 involve dissociation from them until such time 
 as we ourselves shall have scaled the moral and 
 spiritual heights on which they stand. Love will 
 draw those on the higher altitudes of being to 
 us on the lower; as it drew Jesus and the angels 
 from spheres of glory to the earth-plane. Those 
 beloved and progressed departed ones will 
 come to us when we "pass over;" and they will 
 be with us at times; the old intercourse will be 
 renewed; and as we move on towards attune- 
 ment to their higher experiences, the bond be- 
 
 112 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tween them and us will be strengthened and 
 perfected. 
 
 Thus we think that while, of course, in the 
 case of spirit and spirit, a perfect union — an 
 accord of mind and heart, a mutual participation 
 in the higher experiences of spirit-life — can only 
 exist when both shall have become adjusted to 
 exalted environment; yet, in the meanwhile, 
 there is a very real contact and association be- 
 tween those who may stand in the Other World 
 at different points of spiritual development. 
 
 Surely, it must have been to teach us this, 
 among other truths, that the New Testament 
 writers told us about the excarnate Saviour in 
 company with an excarnate robber and old- 
 world sinners who had repented after death ! 
 
 Secondly. We can assign another and very 
 cogent reason for our belief in the re-union of 
 the departed, in spite of their being on different 
 planes of life and experience. It is this : that 
 God's method of blessing men is that of doing 
 so through the medinmship of others; and that 
 the principle under which He acts in this in- 
 strumental bestowal of blessings is, that "the less 
 is blessed of the better." This method of Divine 
 blessing is followed both in this world and in 
 the greater World of Spirit. God blesses us 
 through the instrumentality of others. That is 
 
 113 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 so in regard to all earthly experience — is it not ? 
 Every blessing, whether physical, mental or 
 spiritual, received from God by us here, is con- 
 veyed instrumentally; others are made His chan- 
 nels of communication. Has He blessed us 
 physically? Do we possess a body, a house, 
 clothes, food and a thousand other terrestrial 
 things? Not one of them has come to us apart 
 from the interposition of others. Has He 
 blessed us mentally? Are we persons of ex- 
 tended knowledge as to the things which lie 
 above us, around us and within us? Very little 
 of that knowledge did we acquire, except 
 through the instrumentality of others. Our fel- 
 lows were God's agents in teaching us what we 
 know; our lesser minds were blessed of the bet- 
 ter minds. Has God blessed us spiritually, so 
 that we have learned some of those great truths 
 which centre themselves in Him, and have be- 
 come thereby men or women of prayer and holy 
 aspiration? Here, again, the blessing came to 
 us through others. Fathers, mothers, friends, 
 teachers, preachers, and writers — the ones bet- 
 ter than ourselves in spiritual culture — were the 
 connecting wires between God and us, through 
 which the Divine sparks of grace passed to 
 touch us, and turn our undeveloped spirit God- 
 ward. Consider, further, this method of God in 
 
 114 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the case of spiritual beings who have been used 
 by Him as the instruments of blessing the 
 dwellers upon earth. The Bible abounds in the 
 accounts of angel messengers sent to men. Pa- 
 triarchs and rulers received their guidance as 
 the leaders of great religious, social and na- 
 tional movements through the mediumship of 
 them. Prophets and seers were inspired; men 
 and women were helped and comforted; and 
 even the Christ Himself in His hours of trial 
 was ministered unto and supported through 
 their agency. In all this, the method of God 
 was the same; His blessing was bestowed 
 through the instrumentality of others; and be- 
 ings on the highest planes conveyed it to those 
 on the earth-plane. 
 
 Again, the more enlightened views concern- 
 ing God and His purposes in regard to man- 
 kind, which are held in this present age, are 
 due, we believe, to the fact that a great wave 
 of mental and spiritual influence is passing to 
 us from the Other Side. The door between 
 the two worlds has of late years been more 
 widely opened. Departed ones, in the fulfillment 
 of the possibility included in the "Communion 
 of saints," have from their spheres of higher 
 spiritual attainment touched us in the domain 
 of mind and spirit. Materialistic Science has 
 
 ii5 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 received its death-blow; the phenomena of hu- 
 man existence is becoming inexplicable, except 
 on the acknowledgment of the Spiritual; a new 
 continent of life and possibility beyond the phys- 
 ical is being opened up to us; and the Gospel 
 of Jesus is becoming re-invested with the glory 
 which the religious misrepresentations of past 
 ages has bedimmed. And if this be so; if all 
 this advance to clearer light on Divine truth, 
 be the result of the impact of higher minds Be- 
 hind the Veil upon our minds, what is it but 
 another illustration of that great law of God — 
 that man is blessed through others, and that 
 "the less is blessed of the better!" 
 
 Our argument will be complete when we 
 think of this principle of blessing instrumentally 
 and of blessing the lesser through the higher, in 
 its application to beings in that great domain 
 of life and experience — the Spiritual World. 
 We believe the principle obtains with respect 
 to the departed. 
 
 Our advancement in the knowledge of higher 
 truth has remodelled men's ideas concerning 
 the Spiritual World. We no longer think of it 
 as peopled with beings who are all similarly 
 fashioned, mentally and spiritually, and all sim- 
 ilarly circumstanced. We know it to be a world 
 of infinite variety, of many spheres of life and ex- 
 
 116 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 perience. Our Saviour Christ taught us this. 
 He said, "In My Father's House are many tarry- 
 ing-places" (fwval ttoXXcu) — many different 
 spheres of life, in which spirits must remain 
 awhile, until they become attuned for the planes 
 of higher existence. Our fuller knowledge of 
 truth has taught us, moreover, more concern- 
 ing the purpose of God in regard to all His 
 creatures. It is to bless, and not to curse; to 
 save, and not to damn. The "Father's House" 
 Beyond the Veil is no less the domain of salva- 
 tion and blessing than is this earth. The 
 method He adopts to raise and bless men there, 
 is the same as that by which He raises and 
 blesses us here, viz., our fellows are His instru- 
 ments, and "the less is blessed of the better." 
 
 Thus, there is presented to us the strongest 
 of all reasons for believing, that the difference 
 in the planes of life and experience of the de- 
 parted constitutes no obstacle to re-union. Nay, 
 this very variety in life and experience may be 
 one of the greatest causes which promote re- 
 union; for in obedience to that Divine principle 
 to which we have referred, God, we believe, uses 
 the ministry of souls in the higher spheres of 
 spiritual-life, to inspire, to raise, to bless, to 
 bring closer to Himself, the souls in lower 
 
 117 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 spheres. The Divine modus operandi holds good 
 in both worlds; because God is unchangeable, 
 and His Christ, "the same all through the ages." 
 
 118 
 
IX. Apart from direct communications from 
 them, how may we best realize that the departed 
 are still living, and in relationship with us? 
 
 By the term "direct communications," the 
 questioner is, of course, referring to the mani- 
 festation to persons in earth-life of those who 
 have "passed over," in such a way as to cause 
 themselves to be seen, or heard, or their pres- 
 ence felt. It has been shown in another part 
 of this volume that this power of manifestation 
 is not granted to all in spirit-life; and that, in 
 many cases in which it is granted, the manifes- 
 tation may not be made, because the necessary 
 conditions may be lacking. The one on the 
 earth-plane may be so psychically undeveloped 
 as to render the departed one wholly incapable 
 of making his presence realizable. The spirit- 
 friend may be near us — so near, that were the 
 faculties of our interior spirit-body opened (as 
 were the spiritual eyes of the young man in the 
 Bible story, and the spiritual eyes and ears of 
 the three Apostles on the Mount of Transfigura- 
 tion), we should see him, and hear him speak 
 
 119 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to us. But in the case of many who long for 
 such a manifestation of departed ones, the in- 
 terior powers are as yet unopened. Those dear 
 ones may come to us, and we may not possess 
 the ability to register their presence. By such 
 psychically undeveloped ones, it is asked — How 
 may we best realize that the departed are still 
 living, and in relationship with us? 
 
 The answer is a simple one. 
 
 The first and greatest of all means for the at- 
 tainment of this is by praying for them. 
 
 Those teachers of the Christian religion who 
 discountenance prayer for the departed rob the 
 bereaved of one of the greatest consolations 
 that the Gospel can give. They deny to them 
 the one thing above all others which is most 
 needed in that experience of separation and loss 
 which comes with death. A beloved one is 
 taken from us; the bond which linked us to that 
 one appears to have been ruthlessly broken; 
 the being himself has passed beyond the reach 
 of our sight and touch; and the teachers of that 
 school of religious thought to which I have al- 
 luded, tell us that to pray for him is foolish, use- 
 less, Popish and wrong. Some of them will tell 
 us (as they have told me) that the mere sugges- 
 tion of praying for the departed arises from the 
 Devil. And so the poor mourner is left to get 
 
 1 20 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 over his bereavement and distress in the best 
 way he can. The most that the theology of that 
 school can offer, is a hope that at some distant 
 day we may see again the ones whom we have 
 lost. Will this kind of teaching comfort and 
 satisfy a poor saddened heart, or brighten a 
 darkened life? We assert emphatically that it 
 will not. If death removes from you one who 
 is very near and dear to you, you cannot be 
 comforted until you hold the conviction that 
 that one is still living and still in relationship 
 with you. The old theological notion as to 
 death will not give you this conviction. I have 
 received hundreds of letters from mourners in 
 which it has been confessed that the thought of 
 a resurrection and re-union at a distant day has 
 brought not the slightest sense of relief to 
 them. The mourner who is unable to realize 
 that his departed beloved one is still living and 
 still in relationship with him, is in much the 
 same case as Martha was when her brother died, 
 and she discovered that the doctrine of the 
 resurrection of a dead man at the end of Time, 
 was but a poor solace to her whose heart was 
 crying out for a living brother. 
 
 How suggestive that Gospel story is! Laza- 
 rus had died, and Jesus was on His way to the 
 mourning sisters. He is met by Martha, who 
 
 121 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 sorrowfully reproaches Him for His delay in 
 coming — "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my 
 brother had not died." Note how the Saviour 
 leads the mind of the woman to a conception 
 of dying, not contained in the teaching of her 
 day, viz., that death involves no cessation of 
 being. From the starting point of the religious 
 thought accepted by her, He will lift her to the 
 perception of a far grander and more comfort- 
 ing truth. "Jesus saith unto her — Thy brother 
 shall be raised." There is a ring almost of im- 
 patience and disappointment in the rejoinder 
 of Martha, as if she said — "Oh ! I know that; 
 from my childhood I have been taught to be- 
 lieve that; I know that he shall rise in the Rising 
 at the last day. But, Lord Jesus, it does not 
 meet my case in the slightest degree. Is there 
 nothing more you can tell me? It is of the 
 present and not of the future I am thinking. It 
 is the thought of a dead brother and our rela- 
 tionship broken by death which darkens my 
 mind and breaks my heart. The last day is so 
 far off, and so detached from my present life 
 and experience. In the meanwhile — what? 
 Oh ! I want, I want a living brother" 
 
 How splendidly was the answer to that cry 
 of the woman's heart voiced by Jesus, in that 
 declaration that physical death touches not the 
 
 122 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 man, but only "the tabernacle" of him. "I, My- 
 self, am the Rising and the Life; he that is trust- 
 ing in Me, though he be (as you call it) 'dead,' 
 yet he shall live; and every one who is living and 
 trusting in Me, shall by no means die all 
 through the aeon. Trustest thou this — this glori- 
 ous truth I declare?" (John xi. 25 and 26.) 
 Poor Martha! She did not answer that ques- 
 tion of Jesus; but we can believe that hence- 
 forth she would no longer regard death as the 
 Extinguisher of man's being, and the Destroyer 
 of the relationships of Love. The truth un- 
 realized by the Rabbis was disclosed by the 
 Christ. 
 
 I have said that prayer for the departed, more 
 than anything else — more than all the reading 
 of devout books on Heaven and the Future, and 
 all our fond recollections of those who are 
 gone — will give us the conviction that the latter 
 are still living, and that the relationship be- 
 tween them and us is still maintained. 
 
 Try it. Pray for that dear one whom God 
 has called hence, and in whom your whole soul 
 and life, perhaps, was wrapped up. Pray for 
 him or her; not once, not twice, but every day 
 and anywhere; and gradually there will come 
 to your poor bereaved soul the glorious assur- 
 ance that the one you love — though the earthly 
 
 123 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 body lie crumbling in the dust, is a being of 
 life and thought, and of continued love for you. 
 Gradually such prayers will make you realize 
 that the World of Spirit is close to you now; 
 that already you partly live in it; and that death 
 which calls your dear ones more fully into it, 
 does but usher them into a higher domain of 
 life and thought, where nought begotten of 
 love shall suffer loss. 
 
 There is another way, less potent than prayer, 
 by which we may assist ourselves in realizing 
 that our departed ones still live and are still in 
 relationship with us. It is by making the effort 
 to calm the mind when under the experience of 
 bereavement and sorrow. Excessive grief, and 
 still more despair, raise a barrier which prevents 
 many a dear one on the Other Side from com- 
 ing near to us. Rebellious and hopeless sorrow 
 is a hindrance to them in fulfilling a Divine mis- 
 sion of comforting the broken-hearted. Uplift- 
 ing and helpful thoughts and soul-impulses pro- 
 jected by them to us are often not received; be- 
 cause the receiving mind is so engrossed with 
 its own thoughts and emotions, as to make it in- 
 sensible to an impact from without. The "still, 
 small voice" by which God would speak to us 
 through the mediumship of spirit-mind, cannot 
 be heard until there comes the calm after the 
 
 124 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 storm, the earthquake and the fire. Be quiet, 
 be trustful, be expectant. Make the effort to 
 get the mind, at times, into a condition of pas- 
 sivity; to take it off the thought of one's self; 
 to thrust into the background of consciousness 
 for a while the fact of one's own suffering and 
 loss. Then, when the tumult of grief has thus 
 been stilled, when the mind has been turned 
 from the thought of self to the thought of 
 the living dear one Behind the Veil — then let 
 the words of prayer ascend. The calm, the 
 love, the heroism, the determination to trust 
 God on our part, will constitute the conditions 
 whereby the departed, although visually and 
 audibly unmanifested to us, may come very near 
 to us, and touch us in the higher parts of our 
 being — our mind and spirit. In this way, we 
 may realize their presence and feel their main- 
 tained connectedness with us. Although we 
 may not possess the psychic gifts that others 
 have, our experience may be akin to the ex- 
 perience of a gentleman whose letter has 
 reached me as I write this. He states — "Seven- 
 teen years ago, I lost my young wife after a 
 week's illness. To my surprise, amid the 
 depths of horror and loss, I found a strange ex- 
 hilaration, and a consciousness of her real presence, 
 which never left me. I speak of this as an ac- 
 
 125 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tual experience of real life. I am convinced 
 that the incident of what we call 'death* to our 
 physical bodies is powerless to destroy either 
 character or companionship." 
 
 126 
 
X. Are not such expressions as — "The sea 
 gave up the dead which were in it," "Them which 
 sleep," and "Those that are in the graves" — an in- 
 dication that the New Testament writers re- 
 garded death as a temporary cessation of con- 
 scious being? 
 
 No; the use of these and similar phrases to be 
 found in the Bible must no more be taken to 
 denote that the persons who used them ac- 
 cepted the idea which they literally express, 
 than does our common use of phrases, which 
 are scientifically inaccurate, imply that we en- 
 dorse the inaccuracies contained therein. For 
 instance, the ordinary way of describing the 
 fact that the sun comes into, and disappears 
 from, the view of us on this planet, is by saying 
 it rises and sets. Literally, the statement is un- 
 true. The sun does not rise, nor does it set. It 
 merely appears to persons stationed on a revolv- 
 ing globe to do so. The statement originated 
 with those whose astronomical notions were 
 wrong. 
 
 Now, no one supposes that the scientists of 
 
 127 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to-day who still use the phrases "sunrise" and 
 "sunset," profess thereby their belief in the old 
 error which those phrases connote, viz., that 
 this earth is the centre around which the sun 
 and the planets rotate. The use of the phrases 
 is perpetuated, because they have become the 
 popular and convenient method of describing 
 certain solar phenomena. 
 
 Take another instance. If we are standing 
 on the deck of a vessel travelling oceanwards 
 and watching the shore, we speak of "the re- 
 ceding land." That is the popular way of de- 
 scribing an appearance which is presented to 
 us. But the statement is inaccurate; and in 
 making use of it, we do not imply that we think 
 the land is receding from us. We know per- 
 fectly well that it is we who are receding from 
 the land. We simply make use of a common 
 idiom, which serves to express an experience, 
 though it misrepresents the actual fact. No one 
 finds fault with us for doing this; and no one 
 imagines that we know no better, because we 
 refer to things in the same terms as they are 
 generally referred to. Take another notable 
 instance of what I mean. Many who accept the 
 Christian Faith, account it a most laudable prac- 
 tice to pray for persons who have gone out of 
 this life. They do so, because they are con- 
 
 128 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 vinced that the latter are not dead, but con- 
 sciously living. That constitutes the raison d* 
 etre of their prayers for them. When the world 
 persists in speaking of these departed ones as 
 "the dead," the Christian Church declares that 
 the world does not realize a great truth which 
 she does. And yet she takes hold of this very 
 phrase which the world has. so wrongly applied 
 to the departed, and enjoins our "Prayers for 
 the dead." Is that to be taken as denoting that 
 the Church regards death as involving a cessa- 
 tion of being? 
 
 Moreover, we ourselves, who do not dream 
 of confounding the departed ones who have 
 passed into the fuller life of the Spirit-World, 
 with the discarded and lifeless tenements which 
 have been consigned to the grave, constantly 
 find ourselves speaking of those living ones as 
 "the dead." "My father, my mother, or my 
 friend, has been dead a great many years," say 
 we. Is our adoption of the popular idiom to 
 be taken as implying that we do not believe in 
 maintained existence at death? Now, the same 
 argument holds good in regard to the fact that 
 our Lord and the writers of the New Testament 
 used the commonly accepted terms — "the 
 dead," "those in the graves," etc., when refer- 
 ring to the departed. They did not thereby en- 
 
 129 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 dorse the popular definition as being a correct 
 one; nor did they imply that they themselves 
 believed the departed to be temporarily non- 
 existent. They simply employed an established 
 form of expression as the best means of indicat- 
 ing the class of whom they were speaking. The 
 world called the departed "the dead;" and they 
 used, as we do, the language of the world, and 
 spoke of those who had gone hence in exactly 
 the way in which all mankind spoke of them. 
 
 We cannot see how Christ and the Apostles 
 could have done otherwise. It seems to us that 
 in conveying higher truth to mankind, there 
 was a necessity that they should make use of 
 the terms of ordinary human language. How 
 could they have made it clear as to whom they 
 were referring, when making startling state- 
 ments concerning the so-called "deceased," if 
 they had described that class in a way in which 
 it never was described? Before the fuller light 
 had been vouchsafed by Jesus, the world had 
 looked on Physical death, and it had seemed 
 to them to be the destroyer of conscious being. 
 The defunct body appeared to denote the de- 
 funct man. Consequently, those who had died 
 were spoken of as "the dead," "the ones in the 
 grave," or — more euphemistically and poetic- 
 ally — "the sleepers in the dust." 
 
 130 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 And such terms became the common way — 
 the only way of speaking of the departed. 
 
 Presently, the Christ with His Gospel of Life 
 and Immortality came, and disclosed the glori- 
 ous fact that those whom men call "dead" are 
 not dead at all. He taught that physical dying 
 involves no destruction of the man, nor tem- 
 porary cessation of his being. Abraham, Isaac 
 and Jacob — "dead" for ages, as the world ac- 
 counted them — were all living unto God, said 
 He. He told a dying robber that on the day 
 the body of the latter and His own Body died, 
 they, the men, should be together in Paradise. 
 And Jesus forced home the truth by confront- 
 ing some of His followers with a living Moses 
 whose body had gone to the grave fifteen hun- 
 dred years before. Moreover, Jesus disclosed 
 another glorious truth, viz., that His mission 
 of salvation was to be directed not only to men 
 in this world, but also to those who had passed 
 hence, and were living men in the Spirit-World. 
 How could He make it clear to His hearers that 
 He was really referring to the latter? If He 
 spoke of them as "the living," it would be more 
 than likely that His words would be taken to 
 mean the persons who had not died. As yet, 
 the world had grasped nought of the idea of 
 any community of interest between those in 
 
 131 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 this world and those in the Other World, in 
 regard to the saving purpose of God. If He 
 spoke of them as "the departed," still His words 
 would be open to misconstruction by many. 
 And so the Revealer of Truth did the wisest 
 and best thing He could do — He adapted Him- 
 self to popular language, in order that from the 
 starting point of unenlightened thought, He 
 might raise men's minds to truer ideas. 
 
 Take those words of the Saviour — "The hour 
 is coming, in the which 'all that are in the 
 graves' shall hear His voice" (John v. 28), 
 and "The hour is coming, and now is, when 
 'the dead' shall hear the voice of the Son of 
 God." (John v. 25). He was alluding to that 
 magnificent fact to which St. Peter afterwards 
 alluded; which is, that Christ is no less a Saviour 
 to those in the Other World than He is to us 
 in this world. St. Peter, having declared that 
 Jesus, after crucifixion, preached to ones de- 
 parted this life ("the spirits in keeping" — 
 I Peter iii. 19), actually makes use of, as his 
 Master did, the common term applied to them 
 — "the dead." He writes, "For this cause was 
 the Gospel preached also to them that are 
 Mead,' that they might be judged according to 
 (i. e. by the same standard as) men in the flesh, 
 but live according to God in the spirit" (I Pet. 
 
 132 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 iv. 6). We have a notable instance of the 
 necessity to Christ and the sacred teachers of 
 adapting themselves to the common idioms of 
 their day. Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, had 
 physically died, and our Lord was conscious of 
 it. Christ knew that the death of the bodily 
 organization had not killed the man. The real 
 Lazarus — the spirit-man encased in a spirit- 
 body — while in a condition of temporary sleep, 
 had left his dead earthly tabernacle. Jesus knew 
 that he was still sleeping, and that although he 
 had passed out of the Physical body which was 
 dead, he had not awakened in the Spiritual. It 
 was not the intention of Jesus that he should 
 awake in the Spiritual. The spirit-man, with- 
 out any experience of the Spiritual World, be- 
 cause he would be sleeping all the while he was 
 absent from the body, would only awake when 
 the power of Christ should re-incarnate him in 
 a re-animated body which now was lying dead 
 in a sepulchre. And so the Master said to the 
 disciples — "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; .but I 
 go that I may awake him out of sleep." They 
 did not understand Him. They did not know 
 that Jesus was voicing the great psychic fact 
 that every person in quitting the physical body 
 at death, does so in a condition of sleep, and 
 
 133 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 only awakes when the detachment has been ef- 
 fected. 
 
 The disciples thought "He had spoken of 
 taking of rest in sleep." But here is the point — 
 Jesus had to resort to the limitations of ordi- 
 nary ideas and language, before He could make 
 His meaning clear. "Then said Jesus unto them 
 plainly — Lazarus is dead" But he was not 
 dead; and the Master said he was not dead. 
 Those, then, who argue that the use of 
 the terms we have been considering, com- 
 mits our Lord and the Apostles to the en- 
 dorsement of the idea that death involves the 
 cessation of conscious being, are wholly mis- 
 taken. If their use of these terms did commit 
 them to such an endorsement, then where would 
 be the consistency of the Divine speaker and 
 the sacred writers in representing the "dead" 
 ones and those "in the graves" as capable of 
 powers which only the living possess ? It is only 
 the living man, in this world or the other, that 
 can hear the living voice of the Christ of Life. 
 But all the difficulty connected with the New 
 Testament writers' use of these old-world 
 phrases, would disappear, if the words were ex- 
 pressed as quotations, and it were remembered 
 that these phrases were used, because the ordi- 
 nary language of mankind had to be spoken, if 
 
 134 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the teachers were to be understood. Thus, 
 when Jesus said — "The hour now is, when 'the 
 dead' shall hear the Voice of the Son of God" — , 
 He did not mean that lifeless, disintegrated 
 physical objects lying in the grave, or in the 
 sea, or anywhere else, would hear Him speak 
 to them. Without mind, without ears, without 
 any semblance to bodily or spiritual organiza- 
 tion, and without life — how could they do so ! 
 
 No; He meant that the glorious call from His 
 Divine Lips to advancement and more abundant 
 life in God should be heard, not only by incar- 
 nate men and women in the cities and villages 
 and highways and by-ways of Palestine, but by 
 the living discarnate ones Behind the Veil. 
 "The hour is coming, and now is, when 'the 
 dead' (i. e. the ones whom you in your ignor- 
 ance call 'dead') shall hear the voice of the Son 
 of God." 
 
 135 
 
PART II. 
 
 I. As reported in the "Church Times" of 
 March gth, 1906, the Bishop of London, in an- 
 swering in public two letters ■which had been 
 sent to him, made the following statement : "The 
 writers have been reading the work — 'Our Life 
 After Death,' and ask what they ought to be- 
 lieve. That book teaches Universalism. It leaves 
 out the strong things Jesus Christ said. What is 
 called 'the strong language of the Athanasian 
 Creed,' is our Lord's own teaching. Are we, His 
 Church, to water down what He said?" 
 
 These are statements, sufficiently grave and 
 important, to warrant me in dealing with them 
 in the pages of this book. 
 
 "That book teaches Universalis^," says the 
 critic. Most undoubtedly it does so; and if the 
 criticism had ended there, we should have had 
 no reply to make to it, except that Universalism 
 is most clearly taught in the Bible. But the fol- 
 lowing part of the criticism seems to imply that 
 the Universalist belief is incompatible wth the 
 doctrine of the Church of England. 
 
 We subjoin the following facts, which, in our 
 
 136 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 view, show that Universalism is not out of har- 
 mony with the teaching of the Church of Eng- 
 land; however much it may be in non-agree- 
 ment with the teaching of individual members 
 of that Church. 
 
 I. It is not generally known that the Fathers 
 of the early Eastern Church avowed their be- 
 lief in Universalism, and emphatically taught 
 that Christ will ultimately fulfil His mission as 
 ''the Saviour of all men." That evil would re- 
 main forever as the rival principle to God and 
 goodness, presented itself to them as a thought 
 inconsistent and intolerable. They regarded it 
 as impossible, that an Almighty God, "Who is 
 not willing that any should perish, but that all 
 should come to repentance" (II Peter iii. 9), 
 should, nevertheless, in the case of countless 
 millions of the human race, be never able to ac- 
 complish His will. The exaltation of Satan to 
 such pre-eminence and power, as to regard him 
 as a being capable of everlastingly frustrating 
 the saving power of God, and of perpetually 
 usurping the rule over the greater part of the 
 empire of human souls, was to them an idea 
 akin to the old world notion of rival gods — a 
 god of Goodness and a god of Evil. A study 
 of the Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theolo- 
 gies shows that it was the contact of the Chris- 
 
 137 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tian religion with the Latin race, which caused 
 the adoption of a restricted view of God's pur- 
 pose and Christ's Saviourhood. That race was 
 proud, exclusive and cruel in its instincts, and 
 when, under Constantine, Christianity became 
 the State religion of the Roman Empire, the 
 characteristics of the race made their impress 
 upon the teaching of the Church. The Church 
 of England, in matters of doctrine, commends 
 the principle of appealing to the first three cen- 
 turies of the Christian era. She could hardly 
 do this, if the Universalist belief, so widely held 
 by the early Church Fathers, were incompatible 
 with her teaching! 
 
 II. In the year 1552, a Body of Articles, 
 known as the "Forty-two Articles," was agreed 
 upon by the Bishops and other learned men of 
 the Church of England. The 42nd Article was 
 one which condemned those who asserted that 
 all men would finally be saved. This article was 
 deliberately expunged in 1 562. Surely the Church 
 would not have done this, had she viewed the 
 Universalist position as an inadmissible one! 
 "The 42nd Article was withdrawn" (said a 
 Bishop of Manchester), "because the Church, 
 knowing that men like Origen, Clement and 
 Gregory of Nyssa, were Universalists, refused 
 to dogmatize." 
 
 138 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Again, at one of the revisions of our Prayer 
 Book, a demand was made by the Puritan Re- 
 formers, to expunge from the Litany the words 
 — "That it may please Thee to have mercy upon 
 all men." The objectors asserted that as the 
 purpose of God does not embrace the salva- 
 tion of all men, it was manifestly inconsistent to 
 pray for mercy for all. 
 
 The Bishop's reply was that the clause was 
 perfectly Scriptural, and that we have no right 
 to limit the mercy of God. The retention of 
 this all-embracive petition in the Litany is 
 therefore, surety, another indication that a be- 
 lief in Universalism is not incompatible with the 
 teaching of the Church of England. 
 
 III. But we turn to other parts of the 
 Prayer Book in support of our assertion. 
 
 Do we not, in the same Litany, twice address 
 our Lord Jesus Christ as the "Lamb of God 
 that taketh away the sins of the world?' Do we 
 not, in Holy Communion, repeat three times in 
 one prayer this same address to Christ? We 
 ask, are these words not a solemn exaggeration, 
 if for ever, in hell, the sins of any men are to 
 remain, not taken away? 
 
 In the Proper Preface for Easter Day, we say 
 that Christ "by His death hath destroyed death" 
 
 139 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 But to abolish death surely must mean to abol- 
 ish all that sin has brought on man. 
 
 Death, in its Scriptural significance, stands 
 for alienation from God. If souls are to remain 
 everlastingly alienated from Him, is it true to 
 say that Christ is the destroyer of death ? 
 
 In the Prayer of Humble Access, we say of 
 God — "Whose property is always to have mercy." 
 
 Can that statement be harmonized with the 
 idea of a hereafter condition for many, in which 
 there will be no exercise of mercy? 
 
 One of the Ember Collects has these words — 
 "To those who shall be ordained .... give Thy 
 grace — that they may set forward the salvation 
 of all men" Either the words contemplate the 
 salvation of all, or they formulate a prayer 
 which it is believed will not be granted. 
 
 In the General Thanksgiving, we bless God 
 for our creation. If creation, for a vast multi- 
 tude of the human race, will mean, as we have 
 been told, everlasting ruin and suffering, is there 
 any cause for blessing God for the creation of 
 these poor, wretched beings? And was not the 
 argument advanced by a certain one against 
 marriage, a perfectly sound and logical one, 
 from the standpoint of that theology which we 
 reject? — "If I were to marry," said he, "I might 
 beget children, and some of them might spend 
 
 140 
 
™ 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Eternity in hell. There could be no happiness 
 for me in Heaven, if I had to reflect that / was 
 the instrumental cause of the existence of irre- 
 mediably damned souls." 
 
 In the Church Catechism, the work of God 
 the Son is defined in these words — "Who hath 
 redeemed me and all mankind!' We ask, is this 
 statement true, if all mankind is not to be re- 
 deemed? We must be consistent; if any, even 
 one of the human race be finally and irretriev- 
 ably lost, then Christ has not redeemed all man- 
 kind. 
 
 We might adduce many more statements of 
 the Prayer Book to show that that Book sanc- 
 tions the teaching - of the "Larger Hope": but 
 these will suffice. 
 
 My critic states — "What is called 'the strong 
 language of the Athanasian Creed, is our Lord's 
 own teaching." 
 
 In the first place, the Athanasian Creed stands 
 on a very different footing, as constituting an 
 authoritative statement of Christian belief, from 
 that of the other two Creeds — "the Apostles' ' 
 and "the Nicene." These latter received the 
 sanction of General Councils of the Church; the 
 so-called "Athanasian Creed" never received 
 such sanction. It forced its way, with its "dam- 
 natory clauses," into the formularies of the 
 
 141 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christian Church, in spite of no authority from 
 a General Church Council, and in defiance of 
 the stipulation laid down by the Council which 
 authorized the use of the Nicene Creed — that 
 nothing was to be added to this last-named Con- 
 fession of Faith. 
 
 The contrast presented between the Apostles* 
 and Nicene Creeds and the "Athanasian" Creed 
 is very suggestive. The Apostles' Creed ends 
 with the words — "The Life everlasting," and 
 the Nicene Creed, with the words — "The life of 
 the world to come." The "Athanasian" Creed 
 concludes with the awful words — "everlasting 
 fire." That fact, in itself, gives a very good in- 
 dication of its Western, rather than Eastern, ori- 
 gin. Without entering into the history of the 
 "Athanasian" Creed, it will be sufficient to say 
 that it is admitted by all scholars that it was not 
 written by the man whose name it bears. It 
 treats of heresies which had not arisen until long 
 after his death. The origin of it is very ob- 
 scure. The internal evidence points to the con- 
 clusion that it was probably composed by a 
 bishop, in Gaul, about A. D. 420-430. It was 
 first admitted into the Gallican Psalter, and was 
 afterwards received into the Office of the Eng- 
 lish Church during the ninth century. 
 
 We mention all this, merely to show that the 
 
 142 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 "Athanasian" Creed is not of the same author- 
 ity as are the other two Creeds. There are 
 many of us who experience a feeling akin to 
 pain, at being asked by our Church, on the 
 great Festivals of Christmas and Easter, to pub- 
 licly profess our belief, that millions of our fel- 
 low creatures will "without doubt, perish ever- 
 lastingly," because, as yet, they are without 
 Christ, or cannot see "eye to eye" with us in 
 our conceptions of Him. An ever-increasing 
 number is praying God that this antiquated 
 "symbol," which "shuts the door of Hope" 
 against nine-tenths of the human race, may soon 
 be removed from our beautiful Service, and no 
 longer jar on the spiritual nerves of those who 
 come to church to bless God for His "inestima- 
 ble love in the redemption of the world." 
 
 If the sweeping and awful words of condem- 
 nation in this "Creed" were true, they should 
 call forth from the congregation a wail of pity 
 and despair. Can anything, we ask, be more 
 unseemly and more un-Christlike, than to feel 
 jubilant and ascribe "glory" to God, at the pros- 
 pect of wretched beings who will be doomed to 
 the inconceivable horrors of "everlasting fire?" 
 If we really believed these "damnatory clauses," 
 instead of singing a Doxology, we should fall 
 down on our knees, and with agonized hearts 
 
 143 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 and streaming eyes, cry, — "Spare them, oh! 
 spare them, merciful God!" 
 
 There is something rather saddening, rather 
 indicative of an insensibility to others' woes, in 
 the fact that hundreds of thousands of Chris- 
 tians, on the birthday of the Saviour, glibly en- 
 dorse the hopeless statements of this "Creed," 
 and then go home with an unimpaired appetite 
 for their Christmas dinner! 
 
 My distinguished critic says that the teaching 
 of this "Creed" is "our Lord's own teaching." 
 
 Let us examine this statement. 
 
 The "Creed" starts with the words — "Who- 
 soever will be (i. e. is willing to be) saved, be- 
 fore all things it is necessary that he hold the 
 Catholic Faith." The Catholic Faith is defined 
 — "That we worship one God in Trinity, and 
 Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Per- 
 sons, nor dividing the Substance." 
 
 I pass over the fact that not one-half of Chris- 
 tendom understands the metaphysical meaning 
 of this word — "Substance." That clause of the 
 "Creed" is, therefore, unintelligible to them. 
 Are they outside the "Catholic Faith" in conse- 
 quence? 
 
 Again, there is a very considerable body of 
 Christians who view Christ as the only possible 
 manifestation of God the Father. They take 
 
 144 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the words of Jesus literally — "He that hath seen 
 Me, hath seen the Father' (John xiv. 9). They 
 believe that when our Lord walked this earth, 
 the Father was incarnate in that human Body. 
 We think they "confound the Persons." They 
 love Christ, serve Him and worship Him, but, 
 according to the "Athanasian Creed," they do 
 not hold the Catholic Faith. Will they, "with- 
 out doubt, perish everlastingly" ? 
 
 We take another instance — a very common 
 one. 
 
 A man of business, religiously disposed, 
 comes to church, and says his prayers, because 
 he sincerely desires to do the right, and to live 
 in communion with God. We tell him, in this 
 "Creed," that if he wills to be saved, he must 
 believe that "the Father is God, the Son is God, 
 and that the Holy Ghost is God; and that yet 
 there are not three Gods, but one God." That 
 mystifies him. "Three times one are not one," 
 he says. He does not understand it; but he 
 goes on praying to the great All-Father, in the 
 Name of Jesus Christ. He sets the mental sub- 
 tilty aside; and, according to the "Athanasian 
 Creed," he does not hold a foremost Article of 
 the "Faith." Will he "without doubt, perish 
 everlastingly"? We do not think he will. 
 
 Further, this "Creed" asserts — "The whole 
 
 145 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Three Persons are co-eternal together and co- 
 equal" Here is a man who detects, or thinks 
 he detects, a contradiction in these words and 
 the words of Scripture. 
 
 He remembers the words of Jesus — "My 
 Father is greater than all" (John x. 29) ; and the 
 words of St. Paul — "Then shall the Son also 
 Himself be subject unto Him that put all things 
 under Him, that God (the Father) may be all 
 in all" (1 Cor. xv. 28). He, honestly, cannot 
 reconcile Christ's and St. Paul's words with the 
 idea of co-equality. He is not "in tune" with 
 the "Creed's" presentment of "Catholic Faith." 
 Will he, "without doubt, perish everlastingly"? 
 We do not think he will. 
 
 But we ask — Did our Lord Jesus Christ ever 
 teach, that in order to be saved, "before all 
 things it is necessary to hold the Catholic 
 Faith," as defined by the "Athanasian Creed"? 
 Did He ever teach that a man's acceptance by 
 God depends upon his assent to a number of 
 metaphysical ideas concerning Himself? Many 
 came to Christ for blessing, and received it, who 
 had very imperfect ideas of Him as the Son of 
 God; many whose conceptions of Him had risen 
 no higher than the thought that He was a 
 Prophet invested with extraordinary powers. 
 One has only to read the Gospel narratives to 
 
 146 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 perceive that the only pre-requisite He laid 
 down for the obtaining of blessing from Him, 
 was that men should have trust in Him. They 
 obtained His blessing, because they relied upon 
 His goodness and power. He focussed the 
 mind of men upon Himself, as He stood mani- 
 fested to them; not upon any particular abstract 
 ideas which subsequent ages might form of 
 Him. The "Athanasian Creed'' makes the sal- 
 vation of men to depend, not upon the glorious 
 fact that Christ will "save to the uttermost them 
 that come unto God by Him" (Heb. vii. 25), 
 but upon the acceptance of definitions, not for- 
 mulated by Jesus, but by a document drawn up 
 by an unknown author in the long-ago. 
 
 So, in answer to our critic, we as positively 
 deny, as he has asserted, that the teachings of 
 this "Creed" — which rests the salvation of man- 
 kind upon the acceptance of certain Christologi- 
 cal ideas engendered in the atmosphere of con- 
 troversy — is the teaching of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 He never defined the Trinity. He presented 
 Himself as the Embodiment and the Manifes- 
 tation to men of Divine Love and Compassion, 
 and said — "I and my Father are one" (John x. 
 30); "The Father Is in Me, and I in Him" 
 (John x. 38) ; "He that hath seen Me hath 
 
 147 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 seen the Father" (John xiv. 9); "Ye believe 
 in God, believe also in Me" (John xiv. 1); and 
 there He left it. Men looked at Him and recog- 
 nized Divine Love shining through Him, and 
 were drawn thereby to the Father-God. It was 
 left to later ages to bedim men's vision of the 
 beautiful Christ, by a cloud of metaphysical 
 speculations; and this "Creed" substitutes, as a 
 condition of salvation, for a simple trust in a 
 Divine Person, the holding of a certain set of 
 theological ideas concerning His Personality. 
 We contend that our Lord, while He did teach 
 that upon Himself depended the salvation of 
 mankind, never taught that anyone would per- 
 ish, unless he should keep "whole and unde- 
 filed" the mystifying doctrinal pronouncements 
 of the "Athanasian Creed." 
 
 But it is in respect to "the strong language" 
 of this "Creed," i. e., the "damnatory" clauses — 
 that we take a still greater exception to our 
 critic's remark as to their being "our Lord's 
 own teaching." 
 
 The clauses which come under this heading 
 are these — "He shall perish everlastingly" and 
 "They that have done evil (shall go) into ever- 
 lasting fire" 
 
 The concluding paragraph of this "Creed" 
 accounts these two clauses as a part of "the 
 
 148 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Faith" necessary for salvation. — "This is the 
 Catholic Faith, which except a man 'believe 
 faithfully, he cannot be saved." 
 
 Let us see to what this paragraph just quoted 
 commits us. 
 
 We must "believe faithfully" that there will 
 be some who will "perish everlastingly" and "go 
 into everlasting fire." What do these pro- 
 nouncements teach? There can be no doubt on 
 that point. They teach, plainly and unequivo- 
 cally, the doctrine which has lain for sixteen 
 centuries as a dark shadow and an incubus upon 
 the Gospel of Christ. — I mean the doctrine of 
 an everlasting Hell of suffering and misery, and 
 of awful and irretrievable ruin to human souls. 
 These phrases connote the idea that there will 
 exist forever in the universe a discord, a hor- 
 ror, a condition of things utterly abhorrent to 
 a Being of Holiness and Love; which condition 
 will bear witness that Evil is so strong and per- 
 manent a Principle, that even God Himself, 
 though He hate it, cannot abolish it. 
 
 These "damnatory clauses" teach the doc- 
 trine of unending pain and woe for all who do 
 not hold this "Creed's" presentment of the 
 "Catholic Faith." 
 
 That was the idea of the unknown author of 
 the "Creed." He voiced the theological con- 
 
 149 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ceptions of Western Christendom at the time 
 he composed it. Then, again, these clauses 
 have always been regarded as bearing the sig- 
 nification we have expressed. Romanists and 
 Protestants alike have used them as main-props 
 of the horrible dogma of everlasting Hell-fire. 
 Those in the Church who have been the 
 staunchest upholders of this dogma, have been 
 the ones who have most resented any interfer- 
 ence with the "Athanasian Creed." 
 
 We are aware that many recite, in Church, 
 these awful words of condemnation, with a sort 
 of mental reservation, which leads them to think 
 that they cannot mean anything quite so dread- 
 ful and incredible as they seem to express. They 
 are quite mistaken. The "damnatory clauses" 
 do teach, and they were meant to teach, the 
 doctrine of everlasting woe. Those who reject 
 this doctrine are not consistent in reciting words 
 in which that doctrine has been intentionally 
 embodied. 
 
 But is it true that these awful clauses are 
 "our Lord's own teaching" ? 
 
 We submit that Christ never taught that 
 souls will "perish everlastingly'' or that they 
 will go into an "everlasting fire." We admit, of 
 course, that there are a few passages in the 
 Authorized English Version of the New. Testa- 
 
 150 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ment, which, as they stand, give a sanction to 
 the idea of unending perdition. But the words 
 have been mistranslated, and made to express 
 something they were never intended to express. 
 Our Lord did teach that those who rejected 
 Him and truth and remained impenitent should 
 "die in their sins" (2 John viii. 24), and that 
 for some there should be terrible experiences, 
 symbolized by the terms — "the Gehenna of 
 Fire," "the Darkness without," and "the weep- 
 ing and wailing and gnashing of teeth;" but He 
 never said that souls should perish everlastingly. 
 His parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus shows 
 that His view of future punishment was, that it 
 is disciplinary and remedial, and not vindictive 
 and final. Terrible as were the experiences af- 
 ter death of the selfish rich man, Christ repre- 
 sents him as developing, in Hades, the God-like 
 qualities of sympathy, unselfishness and concern 
 for others. Such a representation is compatible 
 with the idea of the "saving so as by fire," and 
 that these terrible experiences into which hu- 
 man souls may plunge themselves, are the 
 "sterner resources of Divine Love" for the re- 
 covery and not for the final damnation of any; 
 but it is wholly incompatible with the idea of 
 perishing everlastingly. We can conceive of 
 nothing more contradictory in regard to God's 
 
 151 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Almightiness and desire that none should per- 
 ish, than that the judgments of God should im- 
 prove a man, and yet, nevertheless, that he 
 should remain everlastingly lost. 
 
 The texts, we suppose, upon which our critic 
 would pre-eminently base his assertion that the 
 ''damnatory clauses" of the "Athanasian Creed" 
 are "our Lord's own teaching," are Matt, xviii. 
 8 and xxv. 46. 
 
 In their mistranslated form they stand — "To 
 be cast into everlasting fire"; "These shall go 
 away into everlasting punishment." The Greek 
 of those passages is — "To be cast into the fire 
 which is aionial, or age-long'' ; "These shall go 
 away unto an age-long pruning." There is an 
 infinite difference between "age-long" and 
 "everlasting," and "pruning" and "punish- 
 ment;" and no intelligent person doubts that 
 Christ used the word "fire" in a figurative sense. 
 
 But after all, the strongest argument we can 
 advance for denying that "our Lord's own teach- 
 ing" was identical with that of the "damnatory 
 clauses" is, that if He taught that there is an 
 everlasting Hell-fire in which human beings will 
 perish everlastingly, He contradicted Himself, 
 and set forth two teachings absolutely irrecon- 
 cilable. He said — "I, if I be lifted up from the 
 earth, will draw all unto Me" (John xii. 32). 
 
 152 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 There is no escape from the conclusion. If this 
 statement of Christ's is true none will "perish 
 everlastingly/' unless we commit ourselves to 
 the inconsistency of supposing that some may 
 be drawn to the Saviour, and yet remain perpetu- 
 ally lost. 
 
 "Are we, His Church, to water down what 
 Jesus said?" asks our critic. Most certainly 
 not; but at the same time, we are not so to 
 mistranslate and misinterpret some of His utter- 
 ances as to make them directly negative other 
 of His utterances This has been done, for the 
 sake of bolstering a dogma which outrages ev- 
 ery true conception of Love, Justice and Mercy. 
 
 A very few words will answer the critic's 
 charge that my book — "Our Life After Death" 
 — "leaves out the strong things Jesus Christ 
 said." The statement is incorrect, as may be 
 seen by reference to the book itself. The "strong 
 things" spoken by Christ are quoted again and 
 again throughout the work, and in particular, 
 on page 240 and onwards, under the heading 
 — "Passages referring to Future Punishments, 
 as they appear in the Greek New Testament." 
 No, it is not we who hold the Fuller Hope of 
 Christ's Gospel, who "leave out" any of the 
 "strong things" He said. It is true we strip 
 His utterances of some of the Roman and Puri- 
 
 153 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tanical significances subsequently imported into 
 them, and translate His words in accordance 
 with the original Greek. We minimize no state- 
 ment made by Him, as to sin, its judgment and 
 its consequences; and moreover, we take into 
 our survey of Divine truth (as those who differ 
 from us do not), those surpassingly stronger ut- 
 terances of the Saviour and His Apostles, than 
 any words of condemnation spoken by them — 
 e. g. "The Son of Man is come to save that 
 which was lost;" "I will draw all unto Me;" 
 "The Times of the Restitution of all things;" 
 "That God may be all in all" 
 
 We find it impossible to think that our Lord 
 and the men who received their teaching from 
 Him, could have made exaggerated statements 
 in regard to the final outcome of the saving 
 Purpose of God. If the condemnatory pro- 
 nouncements of the "Athanasian Creed" be 
 true, the word "a//" in the passages just cited 
 must be taken to mean no more than "some" 
 Whether that is in harmony with our ideas of 
 Christ as the Divine Teacher, we leave our read- 
 ers to determine. 
 
 NOTE. 
 It is only right that I should mention that 
 when I wrote to the Bishop of London, and 
 pointed out to him that his statement that my 
 
 154 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 book, "Our Life After Death," "leaves out the 
 strong things that Jesus Christ said," was an in- 
 accurate one, his Lordship replied — "It is a pity 
 you went by the 'Church Times' report, which is 
 so shortened as to be misleading. Here is the 
 'Guardian* report, and when you read it, you will 
 see that I go a long way with you. The only 
 expression I regret is 'left out.' Those questions 
 had only reached me a few minutes before, and 
 therefore had to be answered at once. But what 
 I meant by 'left out' was 'failed, in my opinion, to 
 give adequate weight to.' It is here that you do 
 not carry me with you. Nothing was farther 
 from my thoughts than to misrepresent you in 
 any possible way." The Bishop subsequently 
 embodied this qualification of his criticism, in a 
 public statement made at Kentish Town. 
 
 In order to avoid any misrepresentation of the 
 case, I append the following extracts from a work 
 of his Lordship lately published — "A Mission of 
 the Spirit" (Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.). It 
 is the account of an important Mission in North 
 London during Lent, 1906. 
 
 On page 2.J of this work, the Bishop writes : — 
 "The most serious question, in conclusion, is con- 
 tained in two letters about the life after death. 
 The writers have been reading a book which I 
 know, but have not read myself for ten or fifteen 
 years — 'Our Life After Death.' They say that 
 the book has made a great impression upon them, 
 and has been a comfort to them in many ways, 
 and they ask what they are to believe about the 
 life after death. As to that particular book, I 
 
 155 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cannot say that I followed it in all its conclu- 
 sions. What seemed to me to be left out — for it 
 preached a kind of Universalism — were the 
 strong things that Jesus Christ Himself said. It 
 was He who used the strong language : it is not 
 the Athanasian Creed ; that hymn repeats in nearly 
 all its statements what is in the Bible. It is 
 Jesus Christ's words that are the difficulty; and 
 if He speaks about 'the worm that dieth not, and 
 the fire that is not quenched,' and with tears in 
 His voice entreats us to beware, who are we to 
 water down what He says? And therefore, I 
 would recommend you a book which I believe to 
 be thoroughly sound, and which I have read to- 
 day, called 'The Life of the Waiting Soul,' by 
 Canon Sanderson. I would recommend this to 
 the two questioners, and you will see there all 
 the sound conclusions which there are in the 
 other book, but it seems to me to be a more 
 balanced statement of the truth." 
 
 The other statement of his Lordship, in which 
 he qualifies the foregoing is to be found on page 
 132 of "A Mission of the Spirit." He writes : — 
 "Here I will say that when I said that Mr. Cham- 
 bers, who wrote a book called "Our Life After 
 Death," leaves out the strong sayings of Jesus 
 Christ Himself, I did not mean to say that he did 
 not consider them, because he considered them 
 very carefully, but I meant that in my opinion he 
 did not lay sufficient stress upon them, although 
 there is much in the book that I heartily agree 
 with, and it is well worth reading." As it is pos- 
 sible that some of the readers of the Bishop's 
 
 156 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 book may see the first of his statements, and fail 
 to see the second, it appears to me that a dam- 
 aging public utterance, acknowledged to be inac- 
 curate, and which was subsequently amended, 
 should not have been re-published at all. Its 
 embodiment within the book of a distinguished 
 and honored man is likely to perpetuate the 
 misrepresentation of my teaching. 
 
 157 
 
II. I contend that the passage in Acts III. 21, 
 "The Times of the Restitution (or Restoration) 
 of all things," will not bear the construction you 
 put upon it. The "all" only means a limited "all." 
 Thus, "Whom (Christ) the Heaven must, indeed, 
 receive until the Times of the Restoration of all 
 things, of which things God spoke by the mouth 
 of His holy prophets from of old." 
 
 The "all" is limited by the words "of which." 
 The passage then reads, "The Times of the Res- 
 toration of all things of which God spoke," i. e. 
 not of a universal "all." Consequently, this pas- 
 sage does not support your view that evil will 
 not be everlasting. 
 
 I will pass over, in this place, the considera- 
 tion of the impossibility of reconciling the 
 thought of the everlasting continuance of Evil 
 with the thought that God is loving, merciful, 
 opposed to sin, and almighty. The idea is as 
 inconsistent as would be the idea that the light 
 of the sun is powerless to dispel the shadows 
 of night, or that the waters of the ocean could 
 not extinguish a blazing fire. 
 
 We are shut up to one of two conclusions; 
 either that there will be a Restoration of all 
 things to God (which excludes the idea of per- 
 
 158 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 petuated Evil); or that Evil will be everlasting, 
 in spite of God's hating it, and being almighty. 
 
 The questioner's point is, that the passage 
 quoted above implies that not all, but only some, 
 will be finally restored. "The 'all' is limited by 
 the words 'of which/ " he states. But why may 
 not the words "of which" (&v) refer to "the 
 Times?" The passage would then read — "The 
 Times of the Restoration of all, of which 
 (Times) God spake," etc. If the statement was 
 only intended to convey the meaning that the 
 Restoration will include some, why, unnecessar- 
 ily and misleading, use the word "all" ? 
 
 The questioner's interpretation reduces the 
 significance of the verse to this — the Restora- 
 tion of certain particular things of which God 
 spake. 
 
 The Greek of the passage (a%pt> xp6va>v euro- 
 Karao-rdo-eco? irdvr(ov y ctiv i\dXrjaev 6 #eo?) has 
 been rendered in the Revised Version, as, "The 
 Times of Restoration of all things, whereof God 
 spake." The question, however, of what is 
 the true meaning is set at rest by other Biblical 
 statements, which define what shall be the char- 
 acter of that "Restoration" of those Times to 
 which the Apostle referred. 
 
 Isaiah writes— "By Myself have I sworn, the 
 word is gone forth from My mouth in right- 
 
 159 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 eousness, and shall not return, that unto Me 
 every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" 
 (Is. xlv. 23). 
 
 Our Lord said — "Elijah indeed cometh, and 
 shall restore all things" (Matt. xvii. 11). 
 
 St. Paul wrote — "The creation itself also shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of corruption 
 into the liberty of the glory of the children of 
 God" (Rom. viii. 21). In the next verse, he 
 defines what he means by "creation;" he uses 
 the phrase "the whole creation." 
 
 If the contention of the questioner be right, 
 these statements of Isaiah, our Lord and St. 
 Paul must be labelled as extravagant and un- 
 true. None can remain finally unrestored, if 
 every knee is to bow to God, and every tongue 
 is to swear to Him, and the whole creation is to 
 be delivered from the bondage of Corruption. 
 
 160 
 
III. You have no grounds for believing that all 
 will ultimately be brought to God, from the 
 words — "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive." (i Cor. xv. 22). The 
 "all" is a limited "all." The limiting phrases are, 
 "in Adam" and "in Christ." These are not co- 
 extensive terms. The "all in Adam" means quite 
 a different multitude from the "all in Christ." We 
 are in Adam by natural birth; we become in 
 Christ by new birth. That makes the "all" of the 
 second clause a very different thing from a uni- 
 versal "all," as you assert. 
 
 Quite so; your interpretation and limitation 
 of this passage most certainly do make a vast 
 difference between the two "alls;" to the exal- 
 tation of the power of Evil, and the deprecia- 
 tion of the power of Christ. The old theological 
 conception accords to Adam the power of evilly 
 affecting the whole human race, and to Christ 
 the power of blessing and saving some only of 
 that same human race. All die in Adam; but 
 not all, only some, will be made alive in Jesus. 
 Is this compatible, we ask, with the statement 
 of Him Who said — "I will draw all unto Me" 
 (John xii. 32)? At the Consummation of the 
 Divine Purpose, will the destroying and alienat- 
 or 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ing force of Adam be found to be greater than 
 the saving and drawing power of the Son of 
 God ? If so, has not the Scripture assigned too 
 much to Jesus, in declaring Him to be "the 
 Saviour of all mankind; more especially of those 
 that believe" (i Tim. iv. 10)? 
 
 In that grandest of all St. Paul's Epistles — 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians — the Apostle 
 writes — "That in the dispensation of the fullness 
 of the times, He might gather together, under 
 one Head, all things in Christ, both those things 
 which are in the heavens and those things which 
 are upon the earth; even in Him" (Eph. i. 10). 
 Here, we have a presentment in which the 
 Christ is shown to be as co-extensively con- 
 nected with the human race as was Adam. By 
 reason of its relationship to Adam, that race 
 became ruined and debased; by virtue of its re- 
 lationship to Christ, it is ultimately to become 
 restored and exalted. The terms "in Adam" 
 and "in Christ" are in contrast. All, through 
 the one, have been cursed; while all, through 
 the Other, will be blessed. Adam stands as the 
 Federal Head of the whole of humanity in re- 
 gard to death; while Christ stands as the Fed- 
 eral Head of that same whole in regard to life. 
 To assert that the "all in Adam" must be read 
 in the sense of the universal, while the "all in 
 
 162 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christ" must be taken only in the sense of the 
 particular, is to make Christ less a Saviour than 
 Adam was a Ruiner. According to this, Adam 
 can exert an influence on the whole of mankind; 
 Christ only on some. What is this, but to make 
 the First Adam more powerful than the "Sec- 
 ond Adam!" 
 
 Again, St. Paul, in I Cor. xv. 28, states 
 that, at "the end" (i. e. the end of those seons 
 through which God will have been working out 
 His great Purpose of salvation in Christ), He 
 shall be "all things in all beings. 1 " If Christ will 
 ultimately save only some, and not all, an in- 
 superable barrier will be presented to the ful- 
 fillment of that glorious prophecy; for it is in- 
 conceivable to imagine God as being "all things" 
 to irretrievably lost souls, and consequently, the 
 Apostle's forecast would be wrong. 
 
 Every soul to whom God is "all things" is a 
 saved soul, and every soul drawn to Christ is a 
 blessed soul, and therefore we contend that His 
 saving work will ultimately embrace every hu- 
 man creature, or His statement — "I will draw 
 all unto Me," is untrue, and the statement of 
 St. Paul also, to which we have just referred, 
 is a glowing expectation never to be realized. 
 
 "We are in Adam by natural birth; we be- 
 come in Christ by new birth," states, the ques- 
 ts 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tioner. We admit that; but what if the Purpose 
 of God be that all shall ultimately become in 
 Christ by new birth; that, after the punishment 
 for sin, the pruning and the disciplining, all the 
 lost sheep, the lost coins and the lost sons 
 should be restored by Christ to the great All- 
 Father ! 
 
 That, surely, is a grander conception of the 
 Gospel, than the one which pictures the Christ 
 as unable to accomplish His mission as "the 
 Saviour of all mankind!" 
 
 164 
 
IV. In quoting St. Paul's words— "Who is the 
 Saviour of all men" (i Tim. iv. 10), you omit 
 the additional clause — "Specially of those that 
 believe." In doing this you give a wrong meaning 
 to his words. The word used by St. Paul is nox 
 "Saviour," but "Preserver ;" for he adds "specially 
 of believers." 
 
 My omission of the clause — "specially of 
 those that believe," is due to the fact that it 
 was not required for the purpose of the argu- 
 ment with which I was dealing. I was endeav- 
 oring to show that those who deny that the 
 whole human race will ultimately be saved, al- 
 together ignore a great number of the state- 
 ments of Scripture, which declare that this will 
 be so. I cited St. Paul's words — "Who is the 
 Saviour of all men" (among other equally as 
 strong passages) in support of my assertion. 
 There was no need for me to adduce the latter 
 clause of the verse, as no question was raised 
 as to God's being the Saviour "specially of be- 
 lievers." That fact is admitted by all Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The questioner attempts to destroy the all- 
 embracive significance of this text, by substitut- 
 
 165 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ing the word "Preserver" for "Saviour;" so 
 making the passage mean that God is the Pre- 
 server of the entire human race, and in an es- 
 pecial sense of the believing section of it. He 
 wishes to exclude the idea that God will save 
 all men; but admits that He is the Preserver of 
 all. 
 
 But can He, we ask, with any consistency 
 whatever, be called Humanity's Preserver, if 
 multitudes are to be left forever in a condition 
 of irreparable ruin and misery? We think not. 
 We think that to describe God as the "Pre- 
 server" of all men, is equally as strong a state- 
 ment as to describe Him as the "Saviour" of all. 
 
 There can be "no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning" in regard to God; hence, 
 if He be the Preserver of all men now, He will 
 be the Preserver of all men forever. If the old 
 theological idea be right, that multitudes of 
 human beings will "perish everlastingly," how 
 will it be possible for God to be their Preserver? 
 Thus, in denying the Final Restoration of all, 
 we must deny to God this title of "Preserver of 
 all men." 
 
 The questioner asserts that the word used 
 by St. Paul, in this verse, is not "Saviour," but 
 "Preserver." The Greek word used in the text 
 is traiTrjp (Soter). The primary meaning of 
 
 166 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 that word is "Saviour," and its secondary sig- 
 nificance — "Deliverer," "Preserver." 
 
 We contend, therefore, that if it be not right 
 to translate this word as "Saviour" in the pas- 
 sage with which we are dealing, it cannot be 
 right to so translate it in other passages of the 
 New Testament. The questioner, by his line 
 of reasoning, therefore robs Christ of that high- 
 est title by which we love to think of Him; and 
 Luke ii. n, must be read only as, "For unto 
 you is born this day. ... a Preserver (o-corrjp) 
 which is Christ the Lord," and i John iv. 14, 
 as, "The Father sent the Son, the Preserver (not 
 Saviour) of the world." 
 
 And so on, in regard to a great number of 
 passages in which this word acor^p is employed. 
 In thus attempting to evade the force of St. 
 Paul's statement, the position of Christ in re- 
 gard to humanity is depreciated. 
 
 With regard to the clause — "Specially of 
 those that believe," in respect to its relation- 
 ship to the antecedent clause — "the Saviour of 
 all men," no difficulty presents itself to our 
 mind. We believe that the great Purpose of 
 God, in Christ, is ultimately to bring all human 
 beings into union with Himself, that he may 
 become "all in all" In this sense it is true to 
 
 167 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 assert of Him that He is "the Saviour of all 
 men." 
 
 The assertion is not true, if salvation will not 
 at length embrace the entire human race. God 
 is specially the Saviour of "those that believe," 
 for the reason that His saving work has already 
 commenced in such, and their identification of 
 themselves, in this life, with the Purpose of God 
 will save them from many a painful and distress- 
 ing experience in the Life Beyond, which will 
 befall those who, like the Prodigal, turn their 
 backs upon the Father, and only after suffering 
 and shame, "come to themselves" and find their 
 way to the Father's Bosom. It is because, in 
 this sense, God is specially the Saviour of those 
 that believe, that St. Paul wrote, "Behold, now 
 is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of 
 salvation" (2 Cor, vi. 2). 
 
 168 
 
V. Do not the words — "Our God is a consum- 
 ing Fire" (Heb. xii. 29) — conflict with the 
 teaching that all will finally be restored? 
 
 No; on the contrary, we regard this state- 
 ment as being one of the strongest supports 
 upon which we base our conviction that the 
 Universalist position is right, and that the 
 Bible's prediction of "the Restoration of all 
 things" (Acts iii. 21) will be fulfilled. The 
 ultimate elimination of evil from the universe 
 seems to us to be guaranteed by the fact that 
 God is "a consuming Fire." 
 
 But what do we understand by this term? 
 
 As applied to God, it can only, of course, 
 have a figurative significance. It cannot denote 
 that God is {ire, anymore than the words — "I 
 am the Vine," and "I am the Door" — denote 
 that Jesus is a tree or a piece of dead wood. 
 The term signifies that there exists in God a 
 Principle which can be likened to consuming 
 fire. That implies the destruction, the burning 
 up of something. 
 
 Of what? The "Fire" of a God of supreme 
 Goodness will, assuredly, not burn up anything 
 
 169 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 but that which is evil and worthless. "He will 
 gather His wheat into the garner; but He will 
 burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire," said 
 John the Baptist. 
 
 The "chaff!" But the Theology of the past 
 has got into a muddle, and created a host of 
 Biblical difficulties for itself, by giving a wrong 
 signification to the word "chaff." It has made 
 the "chaff" symbolize men themselves, instead of 
 the evil in men. 
 
 God as "a consuming Fire" has been inter- 
 preted for centuries to mean, that the Al- 
 mighty will presently consign countless myr- 
 iads of human souls to endless ruin and horror. 
 
 This particular text is seized upon in support 
 of his theory, alike by the upholder of the doc- 
 trine of Everlasting Punishment, and also by 
 the believer in the less revolting, but equally 
 illogical, doctrine of the Annihilation of the 
 wicked. 
 
 The former's argument is that as "God is a 
 consuming Fire," sinners will be consigned to 
 the burnings of an everlasting Hell. The suf- 
 fering, whether mental, or physical, or both, ac- 
 cording to some, will be endless. 
 
 Those who hold this appalling idea deny that 
 the evil in the ones in Hell will be consumed. 
 Necessarily so; they are cute enough to see that 
 
 170 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 a perpetual Hell would be no suitable condition 
 for any being ridded of evil. But they do not 
 perceive the inconsistency of describing- as "con- 
 suming" a Fire which leaves its victims uncon- 
 sumed forever and ever. 
 
 The Annihilationist is very much more con- 
 sistent. He teaches that the "consuming Fire" 
 will destroy the Sinner; that the man will be 
 wiped out of existence. 
 
 But what does this latter theory involve? 
 Plainly this, the defeat of God, and that evil 
 is strong enough to effectually frustrate forever 
 God's Love and Purpose. 
 
 God's Love! According to Christ, He "loved 
 the world," i. e., all His human creatures in it. 
 God's Purpose! The salvation of all. His 
 Christ was declared to be "the Saviour of all 
 men," and "the Lamb of God which taketh 
 away the Sin of the world." 
 
 Yet, according to the Annihilationist, God's 
 Purpose will never be fulfilled, and His Love 
 for untold numbers of the race He loves will 
 come to an abrupt ending. We are told He 
 will stamp out the evil in millions by sweeping 
 them into nonentity. Is He not "a consuming 
 Fire"? it is asked. 
 
 Surely a strange way of bringing about "the 
 Restoration of all things," and of justifying 
 
 171 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christ in saying He would "draw all men" to 
 Himself! 
 
 Will God deal with His evil-stricken beings 
 as we deal with our plague-infected cattle — kill 
 them to get rid of the disease? Is this compati- 
 ble with the thought of Divine Love and Al- 
 mightiness? 
 
 And yet this, and far worse than this, has 
 been taught, and is even now being taught, by 
 some who have read this text in the lurid light 
 of a narrow theology. Thank God! the world 
 is fast moving on to worthier conceptions of 
 God. Men are refusing to allow any longer their 
 minds and their moral instincts to be enslaved 
 by the traditions of the past. 
 
 The Gospel, as the Universalist understands 
 it, presents none of these difficulties to faith and 
 none of these shocks to reason and the moral 
 perceptions. 
 
 Our God is "a consuming Fire," we say, be- 
 cause of His Love. That "Fire" will "burn up" 
 the evil — the "chaff" in human souls, just be- 
 cause He loves those souls. All souls are God's, 
 and no soul in this world, or in any other world, 
 to whatever extent it may be a "lost" thing, can 
 be beyond the radius of the Love of the Father. 
 The "lost piece of money" comes from the royal 
 Mint of Heaven, and although it may have 
 
 172 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 rolled away into the dust and defilement of evil, 
 and become a rusted and tarnished thing, with 
 the superscription of the Divine on it all but 
 obliterated, it still belongs to God. He has 
 handed over nothing which is His to a Devil. 
 That evil-defiled soul is still loved by Him. The 
 mission and work of His Son is "to seek and to 
 save" the lost things, and on the showing of the 
 Christ Himself that mission will never be ac- 
 complished until the last of the "lost" shall have 
 been found, and restored to the Father. 
 
 It is the evil in men and women which makes 
 them "lost" souls; and God hates that evil; not 
 them. Evil is selfishness, and selfishness is the 
 antithesis of Love. It interposes a barrier be- 
 tween God and the objects of His Love. It 
 thwarts for a while the purposes of that Love. 
 His "Fire" will consume it. By His judgments, 
 by His disciplinings in this world and the next, 
 by the very hells which men make for them- 
 selves, God will "burn up" the evil in them. 
 Thus, the very judgments of God become the 
 pledges of His Love; and thus, a passage of 
 Scripture which has been supposed to confirm 
 the idea of unending doom and horror for the 
 greater part of the human race, becomes to us, 
 in the light of Universalism, a message from 
 God which scares away the awful shadows that 
 
 173 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 men have flung on the Being of the Father, and 
 lifts us to infinite hope. 
 
 In the light of such thoughts, how luminous 
 become the words of the Psalmist — "I have 
 hoped in Thy judgments" (Ps. cxix. 43) ! 
 
 174 
 
VI. In your book— "Our Life After Death"— 
 you contend that the word alcovio? (aionios) will 
 not sustain the meaning of "everlasting." What 
 other Greek word could the New Testament writ- 
 ers have used to express that meaning? 
 
 This question, which is submitted by a cler- 
 gyman, is a very important one, for the reason 
 that if this word alcbvios does mean "everlast- 
 ing," and there are no other terms in the Greek 
 language to convey the idea, then that greatest 
 and most awful of all doctrinal errors — the 
 dogma of unending woe — finds a support, as far 
 as the letter of Scripture is concerned. 
 
 But, fortunately for the chance of doing away 
 with this great stumbling-block to the Christian 
 Religion, and of dispelling a grim and terrible 
 shadow which has bedimmed men's vision of 
 God and His Purpose — this is not so. The 
 doctrine of unending woe is in opposition to the 
 letter of the Bible, no less than to the enlight- 
 ened moral instincts of mankind to-day. It is 
 still held by some, but it is as an article of 
 credulity, rather than as an article of faith. It 
 is an ugly thing — a skeleton in the theological 
 
 175 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cupboard, which must not be brought into the 
 light of day. It is a doctrine which must not 
 be thought about, talked about, and argued 
 about. It begins to disintegrate and to disap- 
 pear from the region of the real and the true 
 directly it is discussed. The only chance of re- 
 taining it as a belief, and of still remaining a 
 God-honoring, loving and unselfish Christian, 
 is not to face it and not to attempt to justify it. 
 It cannot, without horror and doubt, be faced 
 by any whose mental powers have not in regard 
 to Divine love and justice been anaesthetized; 
 and its justification is impossible. 
 
 Now, there will be no need for me, in this 
 answer, to substantiate the assertion that the 
 word al&vm does not denote the idea of ever- 
 lastingness. 
 
 The reader will find this point carefully and 
 fully dealt with on pages 222-233 oi the book — 
 "Our Life After Death." The word is an ad- 
 jective derived from a noun (alcbv — awn). This 
 latter word signifies an age — an age which may 
 be long or short; but which, however long, is 
 terminable. It is never in the Bible, or else- 
 where, used to denote endlessness. Ala>vio<; 
 its adjective, therefore means "age-long," or 
 "that pertaining to an age or epoch;" and noth- 
 ing more. There cannot be predicated of an 
 
 176 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 adjective more than is predicated of the noun 
 from which it is derived. 
 
 The questioner asks — "What other Greek 
 word could have been used (in place of this 
 alcbvio?) to denote everlastingness ? 
 
 There is the word aei y an adverb — ever, al- 
 ways, forever. With the article, this word was 
 used to express unendingness; e. g. 6 ael xpovos 
 (the unending time; i. e. eternity); ol ael 6We? 
 (those existing forever; i. e. the immortals). 
 Moreover, this word aei, conjoined with other 
 words, imports into the latter the idea of non- 
 ending. Thus, aei-P\a<TTr)<s — ever-budding; 
 aet-fipvrjs — ever-sprouting; aei-yevecria — 
 perpetual generation; and so on. 
 
 The Translators have rendered our Lord's 
 words, in Matt. xxv. 46 aireXeixrovTai olroi 
 els KoXaa-tv alwviov) as, "These shall go away 
 into everlasting punishment." The true render- 
 ing is — "These shall go away into an age-long 
 pruning" A vast difference, surely! Why did 
 our Lord, had He meant what the Translators 
 stated, not say, "These shall go away et5 ttjv 
 ael Bi/erjaiv" (into the unending vengeance, or 
 punishment)? There could have been, in that 
 case, no question as to the signification of His 
 utterance. And we have to remember that 
 what has just been stated in regard to this par- 
 
 177 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ticular passage, applies to all those passages in 
 which the word alcbvios has been mistranslated, 
 in order to make it bolster an erroneous and 
 pernicious theological idea. 
 
 But there is another Greek word which the 
 writers of the New Testament could have used 
 to convey the sense of unendingness; and as a 
 matter of fact it has been used by them for that 
 purpose. I refer to the word athios. It is an 
 adjective derived from aeC\ and consequently 
 there can be no question as to its signification 
 being "everlasting." St. Paul, in Romans i. 20 
 uses the word in reference to God — 77 cdhos 
 avTov Svvafiis ical Oeior^, the translation of 
 which is given in the Revised Version as "His 
 everlasting power and divinity.'' This word 
 atScos was commonly employed by the Greek 
 writers; thus, efc athov — forever, while rj ai'Sio? 
 ovcrta (that which exists everlastingly) was a 
 phrase employed to denote Eternity. Moreover, 
 the noun formed from this word — alSiorr)? — is 
 the Greek word for "Eternity." 
 
 The New Testament writers, therefore, could 
 have used this word atBios instead of atcbvioq, 
 had it been their intention to convey the idea 
 of unendingness. St. Paul did intend to convey 
 that idea when he referred to God's "power and 
 divinity;" and consequently employed the word. 
 
 178 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 We can only suppose that the writers who used 
 the word alwvios (a word which is used hun- 
 dreds of times in the Bible in the sense of ter- 
 minableness) did not mean unendingness there- 
 by. If, as the Theology of the past has asserted, 
 they did mean that, then why, we ask, select a 
 word open to doubt, when other words, whose 
 signification is unquestioned, were available for 
 their purpose? Reverting to the passage we 
 have already quoted — "These shall go away into 
 everlasting punishment," it would have been per- 
 fectly easy to convey that awful significance by 
 the phrase efe athov Si/crjcnv. Thus we see that 
 other words were available to convey the idea 
 of everlastingness. 
 
 A difficulty which presents itself to those who 
 have not sufficiently studied this subject, has 
 been dealt with on pages 271-275 of "Our Life 
 After Death." Briefly stated, it is this: "If the 
 word aloavios does not mean 'everlasting' or 
 'eternal' in regard to punishment, then neither 
 does it in regard to reward and blessedness; 
 seeing that the same word is used in reference 
 to the righteous — 'The righeous shall go eh 
 Zcorjv aldaviav (into an age-long life)' What 
 basis have we for a belief in everlasting life, if 
 in this and similar passages in the New Testa- 
 
 179 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ment only an ceonial or age-long life is prom- 
 ised ?" 
 
 Our Saviour Christ in His reiterated prom- 
 ises as to this aeonial-life, and the writers of the 
 Epistles in their constant reference to the same 
 thing, were focussing their mental gaze upon 
 that great Epoch which St. Paul, in Eph. iii. 21 
 describes as "the 2Eon of the aeons;" a par- 
 ticular ^Eon, the great ^Eon, the consummat- 
 ing Age of all the ages, the Age whose closing 
 shall see the fulfilment of God's "Purpose of 
 the aeons" (Eph iii. 11), viz. the "Restitution 
 of all things." It will be an iEon of blessed- 
 ness and of perfected being and life to those in 
 affinity and union with Christ. "I give unto 
 them this /Eonial (al&vios) life," said He. But 
 this ^Eon of blessedness and perfected life for 
 the righteous will include its epochs of pruning 
 and disciplining and even spiritual death for the 
 unrighteous. Though it will be a terminable 
 period, it will be a vast one, as is indicated by 
 St. Paul's words — "all the generations of the 
 ^Eon of the aeons" (Eph iii. 21); and Christ 
 spoke of "aeonial pruning" and "aeonial death." 
 This great JEon will close only when the great 
 Purpose of God in Christ shall have been ac- 
 complished; when the epochs of pruning and 
 death shall have passed away, and the last "lost" 
 
 180 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 and "dead" beings shall have been found and 
 made alive to God. To those who pass into 
 that great ^Lon, identified with Christ, it will 
 mean an aeon of enhanced and superabundant 
 life; a life which will place the participators of 
 it beyond the reach of asonial disciplining or 
 seonial death. That is what our Lord meant, 
 when He said — "If a man keep My w r ord, he 
 shall not see death all through the JEon" (els rov 
 al(Dva) John viii. 51. 
 
 It may be asked — If that great iEon will 
 close, will not the life and blessedness of that 
 ^Eon also come to an end? Nay, that cannot 
 be. Like a mighty river which has gathered 
 the waters from the smaller rivers and brook- 
 lets, and then discharges itself into the great 
 ocean, so the "^Eon of the aeons" will merge 
 into Eternity; and the life pertaining to that 
 i?Eon, because it is God-life and Christ-life, will 
 last forever. 
 
 Not, then, upon the promise of Jesus to give 
 us the blessing of the iEonial life (grand as that 
 promise is) do we base our hope of immortal- 
 ity; but upon the fact that linked with Him we 
 are linked with God. The God-life will be in 
 us, and that can know no ending. "Because / 
 live," said Jesus, "ye shall live also" (John xiv. 
 
 I9 ). 
 
 181 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 What has been said will be sufficient to show 
 how superficial is the argument, that, in reject- 
 ing "everlasting" as the translation of the word 
 al<bvio<; we demolish not only the awful doc- 
 trine of everlasting loss and misery, but also 
 that of everlasting life and blessedness. 
 
 We should consider ourselves as being in a 
 pitiable plight, had we to build our hope of im- 
 mortality only on a word (clIcovlos) which has 
 been applied to the doors of a temple no longer 
 in existence (Ps. xxiv. 7); to a certain order 
 of priesthood (the Aaronic), which has long 
 since passed away; and to conditions of social 
 and national life that have ceased to be. 
 
 182 
 
VII. Is there a danger, in regard to the Uni- 
 versalist belief, of making the Benevolence of 
 God dominate His Holiness and Justice in such 
 a way as to constitute Him the Tolerator of evil? 
 
 This is the form in which the question has 
 been submitted; and although it is based on 
 wholly illogical assumptions, it represents one 
 of the most common, as well as easily-disposed 
 of, objections which are urged against the view 
 contained in the Bible — viz., that ultimately 
 God will be "all in all." 
 
 Two false propositions are implied in the 
 question — 
 
 (a) That the Benevolence of God could only 
 compass the final salvation of all men, at the 
 cost of lowering the claims of Divine Holiness 
 and Justice. 
 
 (b) That God in finally saving all would be 
 tolerating evil. 
 
 These are, assuredly, startlingly strange con- 
 clusions ! Let us examine them. 
 
 First, with respect to the Benevolence — i. e., 
 the Goodwill, the Love, of God. The question 
 pre-supposes that there may be a danger of un- 
 
 183 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 duly exalting that. It is feared that God's Love 
 may be assigned too predominant a position in 
 regard to other attributes which pertain to Him. 
 That if the Love of God be accounted too great, 
 His Holiness and Justice may be reckoned as 
 too little. But can we, we ask, over-estimate 
 the Benevolence or Love of God? In the face 
 of what Jesus and the writers of the New Tes- 
 tament said, we should have thought it impos- 
 sible to do this. Christ represented God as lov- 
 ing all — "the world;" as being benevolent to 
 "the evil and the good," to "the just and the 
 unjust." 
 
 St. Paul wrote that he was persuaded "that 
 neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi- 
 palities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other created thing, shall be able to separate us 
 from the love of God." St. John, whose Epistles 
 are saturated through and through with the 
 thought of God's Love, reached the highest 
 point of Divine Truth, when in his definition of 
 God he wrote — "God is Love" (i John iv. 8). 
 
 If this declaration of the Apostle is true, it 
 follows that Love lies as the essential Principle 
 of the Being of God, and consequently must not 
 only dominate all those other attributes and 
 qualities and powers which go to make up the 
 
 184 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 perfection of the Godhead, but is the root from 
 which they all spring. Thus Love determines 
 all that God is and all that God does. Is He 
 holy, and hates sin and loves goodness? It is 
 because He is Love. Is He just, and will re- 
 ward the righteous and punish the wicked? It 
 is because He is Love. Does He extend His 
 pity and mercy and pardon? It is because He 
 is Love. Is He "a Consuming Fire" that by 
 judgment and discipline will "burn up the chaff" 
 in men? It is because He is Love. 
 
 Thus, so far from agreeing with the ques- 
 tioner, that the Benevolence or Love of God 
 must not be made to dominate His Holiness 
 and Justice, we assert, on the authority of the 
 Scriptures, that it does dominate both; and that 
 neither of those qualities in God will be rightly 
 understood by us, until we realize that they are 
 the offspring of the Parent-Principle of Divine 
 Love. God Who is holy, is not Holiness; it is 
 but a characteristic of Him: and God Who is 
 just, is not Justice; that, too, is but a character- 
 istic of Him: but God Who is loving, is Love; 
 and therein is to be found the key which will 
 enable us to unlock the door of Truth in regard 
 to His purpose of salvation in Christ. 
 
 Now, it is owing to men having failed to per- 
 ceive that the Love of God must dominate and 
 
 185 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 determine the exercise of all other qualities 
 resident in Him, that has given rise in the past 
 to those doctrines which have so misrepresented 
 and disfigured the Religion of Jesus. I refer 
 to the doctrines of Predestination and Everlast- 
 ing Punishment. The former represents the 
 Love of God as exercising itself only in the di- 
 rection of a certain selected and privileged few; 
 making all others not only of no concern to God 
 in view of salvation, but even the objects of His 
 hatred. It was an idea which commended itself 
 to the narrow and exclusive mind of the ancient 
 Jew, and found expression in those words cited 
 by St. Paul, — who shows in his Epistle to the 
 Romans a bias towards Rabbinical thought — 
 "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord. 
 Yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated' 1 (Mai. i. 
 2 and 3). This is not the representation of 
 the Love of God, as made by Jesus and by St. 
 John, or even by St. Paul himself, after he had 
 advanced to the full understanding of the Gos- 
 pel of Christ. 
 
 The doctrine of Everlasting Punishment ex- 
 cludes, of course, all thought of God's loving the 
 wretched beings who will suffer that experience. 
 The good earthly father may love his son, 
 though he punish him for his wrong-doing. But 
 that is because the punishment is viewed as 
 
 186 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 remedial. It is a means adopted by the father for 
 bringing his child into accord with himself and 
 his love. But no such thought lies behind the 
 idea of God's infliction of everlasting punish- 
 ment upon His creatures. It is not an infliction 
 of Love, but of awful and unmitigated wrath, 
 we are told. It contemplates no betterment and 
 no recovery of the victims. It is a final and 
 irreversible act of Divine vengeance. Thus, 
 the School which has propagated this teaching, 
 has made what has been regarded as the Holi- 
 ness and Justice of God to so dominate His 
 Love, as to cause the latter to disappear alto- 
 gether in regard to an enormous section of the 
 race. 
 
 In reference to both these horrible dogmas, 
 we ask — How can all the theological ingenuity 
 in the world make them to harmonize with the 
 statement of Christ that God loves all, and with 
 that still more penetrative statement of St. John, 
 that "God is Love"? 
 
 When will the Christian world understand 
 that the Election we read of in the Bible is not 
 the Predestination of the Calvinist; nor is the 
 Hell of which Jesus spoke the Hell of Medise- 
 valism and Protestant Theology? 
 
 Such doctrines as these outrage the idea of 
 Love. If countless millions of human souls are 
 
 187 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 never in this world or Beyond to feel the mov- 
 ings of Divine grace, because the All-Father 
 never intended that they should do so; if it be 
 true that men will ''without doubt, perish ever- 
 lastingly, and go into everlasting fire," then 
 alas! for the thought of God's Love. These 
 things, if facts, would mean the disappearance 
 of the Sun of the universe behind such lurid 
 cloud-banks of horror and despair, as it would 
 baffle the mind of man to conceive. 
 
 It may be asked, how could such dogmas as 
 these have even been accepted by men who ac- 
 counted as true the words of St. John — that 
 "God is Love"? 
 
 It was in consequence of mentally placing 
 God's attributes of Holiness and Justice out of 
 all true proportion to His main great attribute 
 — Love. Those who have taught these doc- 
 trines,- instead of accounting God's Love as 
 dominating His other qualities, have accounted 
 His Sovereignty, Holiness, Justice and Power 
 as controlling, restricting and even extinguish- 
 ing His Love. 
 
 So in answer to the objection against the 
 Universalist belief, as to the danger of making 
 the Benevolence or Love of God dominate His 
 Holiness and Justice, — we reply, that that which 
 some are pleased to call "a danger," we account 
 
 188 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 as the most glorious fact pertaining to the Gos- 
 pel of Christ; and that if what the believers in 
 Everlasting Punishment teach were true — viz., 
 that God's Holiness and Justice dominate His Love 
 — it would be a catastrophe to the human race. 
 There would be no salvation. 
 
 But there is another point in connection with 
 the question which demands attention. It is 
 that which implies the possibility of under-esti- 
 mating the claims of Divine Holiness and Jus- 
 tice. The Universalist is charged by those who 
 believe in the doctrine of Everlasting Punish- 
 ment and Loss, with exalting the Love of God 
 at the expense of His Holiness and Justice. It 
 is alleged that not all men will be saved — in spite 
 of that promise of Jesus to "draw all ,f to Him- 
 self — because it would be incompatible with the 
 fact that God is holy and just. Those who ac- 
 cept this view adduce, as the main-prop of it, 
 the argument that Divine Holiness and Justice 
 demand the irretrievable ruin and misery of hu- 
 man souls; and that were the Love of God to 
 avert this, the claims of Holiness and Justice 
 would not be satisfied. 
 
 It is a terrible thought to suppose that two 
 great qualities, which go to make up the per- 
 fection of God, should ever have been regarded 
 as the cause why countless millions of the 
 
 189 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 creatures He called into being must suffer for- 
 ever and ever. But, thank God! the thought 
 is as illogical, as it is dishonoring to Him Who 
 is Love. Thank God! it is but that which a 
 great pioneer of "Larger Hope" — the late Dean 
 Farrar — once described it as being — "an ebul- 
 lient flash from the glowing caldron of men's 
 heated and perverted imaginations. ,, It has 
 arisen from an altogether untrue and exagger- 
 ated notion of what constitutes Divine Holiness 
 and Justice. 
 
 We submit that the idea of creatures remain- 
 ing forever in a condition of ruin and alienation, 
 is completely subversive of any true conception of 
 God's Holiness and Justice. 
 
 The Holiness of God must presuppose God's 
 hatred of and hostility to sin. "Thou art of 
 purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not 
 look on iniquity," wrote the old-world Seer, 
 Habakkuk. He did not, of course, mean that 
 God was unconscious of the existence of evil. 
 He could only have meant that it is impossible 
 for God to look with complacency and tolera- 
 tion on it. It is this antagonism of God's Holi- 
 ness to evil which constitutes the raison d J etre of 
 His Purpose of saving the human race through 
 Christ. "For this purpose the Son of God was 
 
 190 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 manifested, that He might destroy the works of 
 the devil" (i John iii. 8). 
 
 But, we ask, does not the acceptance of this 
 doctrine that some — the great majority, ac- 
 cording to the old Theology — will suffer ever- 
 lastingly, involve the consequence that the Holi- 
 ness of God will never be satisfied ? God's Holi- 
 ness desires the abolition of evil — does it not? 
 But everlasting punishment involves the ever- 
 lasting perpetuation of evil. Those who went 
 into an unending Hell would remain unendingly 
 evil; since to conceive of God's perpetually pun- 
 ishing souls who had ceased to be evil, would be 
 blasphemy. What, then, is the corollary? That 
 if beings are to be punished everlastingly, evil 
 will remain, and He Who is of purer eyes than 
 to complacently behold sin, must contemplate it 
 forever and ever. 
 
 Which, we ask, is the more reasonable belief, 
 and more consonant with the thought of Divine 
 Holiness — that embodied in the Mediaeval no- 
 tion, that sin has the potency of everlastingness; 
 or that of the Universalist, who believes that 
 sin will be finally annihilated, because God hates 
 it, and God is supreme? 
 
 As I write these words, I am reminded of an 
 incident which took place at a gathering of 
 clergy whom I was addressing on this subject. 
 
 191 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 One of them — a representative of the old school 
 of thought — was so piously shocked at the idea 
 of God's Purpose embracing any but the few, 
 that he said to me — "I suppose, Sir, you would 
 tell us next that the Devil himself might be 
 finally saved." My reply was — "That, I think, 
 is not improbable, if the Bible is true; for if you 
 believe that the Devil is an immortal being, 
 and that God will one day be (as St. Paul as- 
 serts) 'all things in all beings,' then it seems 
 very unreasonable to suppose that the Holiness 
 of God will tolerate immortal evil, even in the 
 Devil." 
 
 We turn now to the subject of Divine Justice. 
 The opposers of the Universalist belief allege 
 that the Justice of God calls for the endless suf- 
 fering and ruin of those who depart this life not 
 in a state of salvation. 
 
 The stock argument is, that sin, being an of- 
 fence against an Infinite God, is in itself an 
 infinite offence, and therefore demands an infinite 
 punishment. This line of reasoning is accepted 
 by some as being very profound and conclusive. 
 It is really inconclusive, and very illogical. 
 
 We grant, of course, that sin is an offence — 
 a very great offence — against an Infinite God; 
 but that does not constitute sin as being infi- 
 nite. How, in the nature of things, can it pos- 
 
 192 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 sibly be so? The person who sins is a -finite 
 being — how can he wield a power which pre- 
 supposes infinitude ? How can his action be an 
 infinite one? Sin is not invested with infinitude 
 on account of its being an action directed 
 against an Infinite God. Unlike Goodness, sin 
 is not an infinite and indestructible Principle. 
 
 Goodness is of God; while sin is not of Him. 
 We rightly predicate of God infinitude, and we 
 may predicate of Goodness the same thing, be- 
 cause it is of Him. But we wrongly predicate 
 of sin infinitude; for sin is not of God, and con- 
 sequently lacks this characteristic of the Divine. 
 
 The idea of evil as a Principle which is infi- 
 nite, i. e., boundless, endless, is not in accord- 
 ance with the teaching of Christ. It is an im- 
 portation into Christian Theology of the old 
 Eastern Dualistic notion of rival gods, or rival 
 Principles, contending for the supremacy of the 
 universe. 
 
 No; sin is a dislocation, a disarrangement 
 which has taken place in the Eternal Order of 
 the universe; a discord which has been struck 
 in the orchestra of Divine Harmony, by beings 
 who have wrongly used God's grandest gift of 
 Will; but sin is no blighting curse which must 
 remain forever, no awful shadow which can 
 never be lifted, no everlasting reproach to God 
 
 193 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 for making man as man. Thus, it seems to us 
 that the very Justice of God to Himself and to 
 the universe over which He must reign su- 
 preme, demands the final abolition of evil. 
 
 On the other hand, the thought of Everlast- 
 ing Punishment outrages every true conception 
 of Justice. The ones who talk so glibly and 
 complacently about an endless Hell, but little 
 realize what it means. It is a mercy that this 
 is so; for if all the Christians who profess to be- 
 lieve this doctrine really believed it, suicide 
 would be rife and our mad-houses full. The 
 doctrine is accepted without any appreciation of 
 its awful import. I give as an instance of this, 
 a remark made by one of the Congregation to 
 whom I was preaching. I had been speaking of 
 the "Larger Hope." After the service, this 
 gentleman was heard to say — "I don't agree 
 with the preacher. I was always brought up 
 to believe in everlasting Hell-fire; it was good 
 enough for my forefathers, and it ought to be 
 good enough for me" 
 
 If the remark had been made to me, I should 
 have replied, that although this terrible concep- 
 tion of an unenlightened age may have been 
 good enough for his forefathers, and may be 
 good enough for him, it is not good enough for 
 
 194 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 God, in view of Divine Love, Holiness and Jus- 
 tice. 
 
 It can produce no love of God in a human 
 soul. How can it ? Does the child love the par- 
 ent whose principle is to punish, not in order 
 to correct and bless, but to ruin and curse? 
 There are those who assent to this doctrine, and 
 still love and trust God in spite of it. But they 
 can only do so by thrusting this article of their 
 Creed into the background of their conscious- 
 ness. They put the ugly thought away in one 
 of the dark cupboards of the mind; and there 
 the fearsome mummy remains as the bugbear 
 of their faith, until God lets in the light and air 
 of Truth, and the ugly thing crumbles into dis- 
 solution, and is buried with the mental errors of 
 the past. 
 
 And further, this Mediaeval conception of Fu- 
 ture Punishment is not accepted by the intelli- 
 gent thought of the present age; and unless the 
 Church of Christ can show that the Gospel of 
 Jesus demands no such belief, men will betake 
 themselves for spiritual guidance and comfort 
 to other systems of Religion. As a matter of 
 fact, many are doing so; and the fault lies with 
 those teachers who take the limits of the ideas 
 of men in the past as the standard of truth for 
 men of to-day. 
 
 195 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 In the light of advancing knowledge, and 
 with the growth of the Christ-like and humane 
 instincts, men cannot, and will not, believe that 
 for offences committed against a God of Infinite 
 Love and Holiness, during a brief earth-life, 
 souls will be hurled into unending woe and ir- 
 retrievable ruin. 
 
 There is no Justice of God in such a thought. 
 Rather, is it an imputing to God of an implaca- 
 bility and an insensibility to suffering, as would 
 amount to a slander, if alleged against the 
 humblest Christian. Let it not be thought that 
 we minimize the gravity of sin, or that we deny 
 the fearful and awful consequences to those who 
 wilfully persist in it. That is one of the favor- 
 ite misrepresentations of the Universalist belief. 
 We do nothing of the kind. We simply declare 
 that the Justice of God — to say nothing of His 
 Love — points not to the everlasting conserva- 
 tion of evil, but to its extinguishment, and also 
 to the final abolition of the Hell into which it 
 may plunge sinners — when the dark shadow of 
 evil shall have been lifted from God's vast em- 
 pire, and "the former things — all that is not of 
 God — shall have passed away." 
 
 There is one other point connected with the 
 question which remains to be noticed. It is that 
 which sees a danger in the Universalist belief 
 
 196 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of accounting God as the Tolerator of evil. God, 
 we are told, were He not to punish men ever- 
 lastingly for their sins, but were, ultimately, by 
 His judgments to deliver them from the power 
 and consequences of sin, would thereby be tol- 
 erating evil. But why? Does anyone suppose 
 that a judge is tolerating evil, who sentences a 
 sheep-stealer to imprisonment with the possibil- 
 ity of amendment, instead of to capital punish- 
 ment? That old savage law of the land, which 
 set a greater value on property than on life, 
 was seen to be inimical to Justice, and it was 
 abolished. But the State is not accounted the 
 Tolerator of the crime of sheep-stealing in con- 
 sequence. Nor will the consistent thinker 
 imagine that the God of Love is less opposed to 
 sin, because He does not consign the sinner to 
 unavailing misery forever. Did not the Christ 
 say — "The Son of Man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save?" 
 
 And lastly, it is not the teaching of the Uni- 
 versalist, but that of those who differ from him, 
 which presents God as the Tolerator of evil. 
 What could constitute a greater toleration of 
 evil, than that sinners are never to be saved, 
 and that sin is to remain throughout the rolling 
 aeons of Eternity a deathless Power, which even 
 Omnipotence Himself cannot extinguish! 
 
 197 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 What, we ask again, can be more in harmony 
 with the thought that God is non-tolerant in re- 
 gard to evil, than that belief, which by the eye 
 of faith sees the great accomplishment of the 
 Mission of Christ — the drawing of all to Him- 
 self! 
 
 198 
 
VIII. Is it right for me to pray for a dear de- 
 parted one, who did not accept the commonly 
 taught views concerning the Christian Faith? If 
 so, what kind of prayer could I use? 
 
 This is a question put by a devout Christian 
 lady, whose grief at the loss of her husband was 
 terribly accentuated by her belief that the con- 
 dition and destiny of every soul is determined 
 for eternity at death. The great obstacle to 
 her acceptance of the Gospel of Hope and Com- 
 fort was that misinterpreted text — "In the place 
 where the tree falleth, there it shall be" (Eccles. 
 xi. 3). She had been taught to think that 
 these words excluded all possibility of enlight- 
 enment rand salvation beyond the grave. 
 
 Let us, in passing, consider this passage. In 
 the first place, it is the utterance of a man who 
 lived "in the twilight of Divine revelation;" who 
 was not morally exemplary; and who, at times, 
 was ultra-pessimistic. It seems to us extraordi- 
 nary that the statement of such a person should 
 have constituted the main-prop of a theory 
 
 199 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 which shuts the door of hope against at least 
 nine-tenths of the human race. Yet so it is. 
 The glorious words of Christ concerning "lost" 
 ones, and the statements of those after Him 
 who reflected the truth as taught by Him, have 
 been stripped of their far-reaching significance, 
 because of that saying of this man of "the twi- 
 light." Theology, in the past, has placed the 
 utterances of Solomon on the same level of in- 
 spiration as the utterances of Jesus and His 
 Apostles. 
 
 In the next place, we do not believe that Sol- 
 omon, in making this assertion, had the slight- 
 est idea that he was saying anything which af- 
 ter-ages would construe into a Divine declara- 
 tion that there can be no salvation after death. 
 The context of the passage makes it very ques- 
 tionable whether he was thinking at all about 
 future existence. But even if he had been think- 
 ing of that; even if he had imagined that the 
 Love and Purpose of God were so circum- 
 scribed as not to be able to operate in regard 
 to humanity beyond the earth-life — what of 
 that? Surely, nothing that Solomon or any of 
 the Old Testament writers may have said is to 
 be accepted as truth, if it be in conflict with 
 the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 The New Testament abounds in statements 
 
 200 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 which flatly contradict this utterance of Solo- 
 mon. ''There can be no recovery, no salvation 
 after death," say some; "the words of Solomon 
 exclude that hope." We reply — "Very well; 
 but to what does this commit us?" The vast 
 majority who pass out of this life are certainly 
 not at the time saved souls. Was Christ wrong 
 in prophesying that He would draw all men to 
 Himself? That prophecy will never be fulfilled, 
 if the myriads who are undrawn at death are 
 not drawn afterwards. Again, St. Paul pre- 
 dicted a time when God shall be "all in all" Was 
 he, too, wrong? God can never be more than 
 "all" in some, unless His work of saving is con- 
 tinued after death. 
 
 But the greatest disproof, perhaps, of the in- 
 terpretation put upon Solomon's statement is to 
 be found in that fact recorded in i Peter iii. 
 18-20; and iv. 6. The Apostle distinctly de- 
 clares that salvation after death is possible. He 
 asserts that a crowd of old-world sinners who 
 had physically perished in the Flood, had been 
 brought by God's disciplining in the spirit-life 
 to a condition which was no longer "dis- 
 obedient;" and that to them, when morally and 
 spiritually attuned to receive Divine enlighten- 
 ment and grace, the discarnate Jesus "went and 
 preached His Gospel" that they might "live ac- 
 
 201 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cording to God in the spirit." We ask, Which 
 statement are we to take — that of St. Peter, or 
 that of Solomon? If Solomon's words exclude 
 all hope of salvation after death, as the old 
 Theology has said, then St. Peter was mistaken. 
 The discarnate Christ did not preach the Good 
 Tidings (evrjyyeXto-drj) to the ones who in 
 earth-life had been disobedient, because the res- 
 toration of them (according to some) is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 The old Theology has taken this passage of 
 Scripture concerning "Christ's preaching to the 
 spirits in keeping," and has brought every con- 
 ceivable learned device to bear upon it, in order 
 to obscure its plain and natural meaning, and 
 make it fit in with what Solomon said. It does 
 not see, however, that the denial of the post 
 mortem salvation of mankind, involves the 
 labelling of hundreds of the utterances of the 
 Christ and the New Testament writers as ex- 
 aggerated, incapable of fulfillment and, there- 
 fore, untrue. What we have said may, perhaps, 
 "clear the ground" for the answer to the ques- 
 tion with which we are dealing. 
 
 Is it right to pray for the Departed who do 
 not leave this life in the Christian Faith? 
 
 The attitude of the Christian community with 
 regard to Prayer for the Departed is a curious 
 
 202 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 and an anomalous one. One great section of 
 Christendom — including the Roman Catholic 
 Church and a large and influential Party in the 
 Anglican Church, maintains that it is a Chris- 
 tian duty to pray for those who have gone 
 hence; but considers that such prayer should be 
 restricted to the "Faithful Departed." On the 
 other hand, a great section of believers, com- 
 prising what is curiously termed the "Evangeli- 
 cal" School (as if their particular tenets con- 
 stituted the only true presentment of Gospel 
 truth), views with disapproval, and even horror, 
 all prayers for believers or unbelievers after 
 death. So Christendom is divided on this point. 
 We agree with neither Body. Both, in our 
 opinion, are attaching more weight to the ut- 
 terance of Solomon, than to the teachings of 
 Christ and His Apostles. 
 
 This is what we mean. The Romanist and 
 the High-Anglican believe — and rightly so — 
 that as no one departs this life with his mental, 
 moral and spiritual being fully developed, a con- 
 tinued work of Divine grace will be necessary 
 after death, before the goal of salvation — per- 
 fection — can be reached. They consider — and 
 rightly so — that physical death will work no 
 miracle of spiritual transformation, nor will it 
 constitute the imperfect saint on earth a being 
 
 203 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 without imperfection in spirit-life. They admit 
 that the person most advanced in Christ-like 
 character at the time of dying, has still to scale 
 many a height of moral and spiritual excellence, 
 before he can touch the point of resemblance to 
 the "perfect man — unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ." They believe, 
 moreover, that the prayers of us on earth will 
 help on these souls Beyond, just as, in this life, 
 the prayers of Christians are uplifting influences 
 on others. And so, in accordance with the 
 Christian and sensible idea embodied in the ar- 
 ticle of the Apostles' Creed — "the Communion 
 of Saints," they pray for the Faithful Departed. 
 We are in entire accord with them up to this 
 point. Let us keep an "All Souls' Day" by all 
 means. It will do us a world of good to set 
 aside a day in the year on which to fix our 
 thoughts on the eternal interests of others, 
 rather than on our own personal advantages in 
 regard to salvation. Only let us be consistent. 
 Do not let us call it the Day of "All Souls" 
 when we mean only some souls; only those who 
 are "in the state of salvation." And, moreover, 
 do not let us express our faith in the possibili- 
 ties of advancement Beyond, by adopting a black 
 ceremonialism which is suggestive of Pagan un- 
 belief and hopelessness. 
 
 204 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 The Romanist and the High-Anglican have 
 nothing to say in respect to praying for the non- 
 Faithful Departed. They look very "sideways" 
 at the mere suggestion of it. Without their 
 perceiving it, the old interpretation affixed to 
 the words of Solomon is influencing them. As 
 far as the "Faithful" are concerned, they believe 
 that progress and development after death are 
 possible; and, consequently, reject the teaching 
 that Death unalterably determines the moral 
 and spiritual condition of souls. As far as the 
 non-Faithful are concerned, they accept that 
 teaching, and offer no prayers for them, on the 
 assumption that it is impossible, or very doubt- 
 ful, that they can advance to light and salva- 
 tion. It is here that we part company with the 
 Romanist and High-Anglican on this question. 
 
 Turn now, for a moment, to the attitude of 
 the Low-Churchman and Nonconformist to- 
 wards Prayers for the Departed. They reject 
 in toto the principle of praying for "faithful" or 
 non-faithful ones after death. The meaning 
 which they read into those words of Solomon 
 causes them to suppose that Death is the great 
 Stereotyper of mankind for a future of eternal 
 bliss or eternal woe. "What," say they, "is the 
 good of praying for any, 'faithful' or non-faith- 
 ful, when once they have passed that boundary- 
 
 205 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 line which renders any change of destiny im- 
 possible! Our prayers for the saved are un- 
 necessary; while those for departed unsaved are 
 wholly unavailing. The latter in dying went 
 outside the sphere in which the Love and Mercy 
 of God can any longer operate in regard to 
 them." And then comes the quotation of an- 
 other text of Scripture, which, when the sense 
 of it has been narrowed so as to make it agree 
 with the words of Solomon, is supposed to 
 clinch the matter — "Now is the accepted time; 
 now is the day of salvation." It is useless to 
 point out to such persons that "Now is the day 
 of salvation," is not the same only now; and 
 that, although a person by his disregard of God 
 and goodness in this life may make the work of 
 his salvation a very painful and difficult one 
 hereafter, the work will not necessarily never be 
 accomplished. Our Lord's inimitable parable of 
 the Prodigal, and St. Peter's record of what the 
 Saviour did after death in regard to ante-de- 
 luvian sinners, negative this notion. 
 
 The passage in question does not exclude the 
 hope of recovery Beyond the Veil. It simply 
 declares that the cultivation of the God-life with- 
 in us is not to be postponed; that "now" is the 
 time, and that no soul in this world is answer- 
 ing to the purpose of his being, apart from God. 
 
 206 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 But, to revert to the theological position of 
 our Low-Church and Nonconformist brethren, 
 is it not a very "big" assumption to assert that 
 the Love and Mercy of God are brought to an 
 ending for countless millions, at the grave ? We 
 think so. How many persons go out of this life 
 possessing that knowledge of God and Christ, 
 which we believe to be essential to salvation and 
 future blessedness? Very few; certainly not 
 more than one in every thousand of the earth's 
 population. Does God love them all? Oh! yes. 
 His Christ said He "loved the world," and that, 
 of course, must mean all the persons in the 
 world. "Is it true that God loves them?" asks 
 the logically-minded man who looks at facts. 
 "You Christians of a certain School of thought 
 tell me that there will be no saving work after 
 death; and that this means non-salvation for the 
 bulk of mankind. You tell me your God loves 
 all. How very strange that (according to you) 
 He should love all,' and yet place the many under 
 such circumstances in earth-life, from geo- 
 graphical, national and social considerations, 
 as to preclude them from obtaining a saving 
 knowledge of Himself! Is this compatible with 
 the thought of a Divine Love for all the world ?" 
 
 There appears to us no escape from the an- 
 swer — "No; it is incompatible — absolutely, 
 
 207 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 hopelessly incompatible with any idea of Divine 
 Love; if so be there is no salvation of this 
 greatest portion of the human race after death." 
 But there is another very formidable argu- 
 ment which we must bring to bear against those 
 Christians who deny the exercise of God's sav- 
 ing grace beyond the grave. It is this. If it be 
 denied that those who departed this life unsaved 
 may, in the great Purpose of God, be finally 
 brought to salvation, how is it possible for there 
 to be a fulfillment of those hundreds of glorious 
 prophecies found in Holy Writ, that Goodness 
 is ultimately to triumph over evil; that Christ 
 is to overcome sin and spiritual death, and that 
 God is to be "all in all"? We contend that 
 these prophecies can never be fulfilled, apart 
 from the "Restitution of all things." If there 
 be no salvation after death, it means that only a 
 tiny proportion of the human race will possess 
 "eternal life." In regard to inconceivable myr- 
 iads, God, at the time of their dying, was not 
 "all" as far as they were concerned; and accord- 
 ing to some, this condition of things can never 
 be reversed. The corollary of this is plain to 
 the logical mind — viz., that Christ and Holy 
 Scripture promised far and away more than 
 would ever come to pass. 
 
 208 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Whether our friends can upset this conclu- 
 sion, we leave it to be shown. 
 
 In the meanwhile, all that has been written 
 above will indicate how reasonable, how con- 
 sistent with the spirit of Divine Love and the 
 principles of Christ, are Prayers for the De- 
 parted. The '"Protestant" theology discounte- 
 nances the practice. It has done its best to 
 divorce the idea from Christian thought and 
 worship. From the Prayer Book of the Eng- 
 lish Church it has cut out all those beautiful 
 Prayers for the Departed, which stood in the 
 Communion Office and the Burial Service of the 
 first Prayer Book of 1549. It has altered (for 
 the purpose of teaching men not to pray for the 
 Departed) the words of the Invitation, as they 
 stood before what is commonly called "the 
 Church Militant Prayer." In the 1549 Prayer 
 Book, the Invitation was — "Let us pray for the 
 whole state of Christ's Church." The "whole 
 state of Christ's Church" includes those believ- 
 ers who are in this world and the far greater 
 number who have passed hence. To pray for 
 the "whole state" would embrace the latter, and 
 so the Reformers altered the clause to what it 
 is in our present Prayer Book — "the whole 
 state of Christ's Church militant here in earth." 
 The alteration is not a very ingenious one, be- 
 
 209 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 cause the "Church militant here in earth" is not 
 "the whole state of Christ's Church." It is but 
 a very small part of it. The mainstay of Jesus 
 is on the Other Side. 
 
 The theology of the Romanist and the High- 
 Anglican, on the other hand, countenances 
 Prayer for the Departed, though only for the 
 "Faithful" among them. That, too, fails to grip 
 the essential principle of the Gospel of Jesus, 
 which is the seeking and saving of that which 
 is "lost." One would have imagined, in face 
 of the Master's teaching in regard to leaving 
 the folded sheep and going after the wandering 
 one, that His Church, if she can only pray for 
 one section of departed ones, would have chosen 
 the non-faithful, rather than the "Faithful." 
 
 Pray for both, we say: for the Christians who 
 have gone hence, that a spiritual stimulus from 
 us may be given to that perfecting work in 
 them, which, begun in the earth-life, will be 
 continued until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil, 
 i. 6); yes, and for those countless millions 
 of non-Christians in the Spirit- World, who may 
 receive through us those telepathic influences, 
 those vibrations of the Christ-mind and the 
 Christ-spirit which may be contributory causes 
 to the development of the God-life in them. 
 
 Our questioner asks — What kind of Prayer 
 
 210 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 can I use for one of these ? We would suggest 
 
 a Prayer such as the following: — 
 
 ''Eternal Father, I come to Thee pleading 
 for Thy blessing upon that dear one of 
 mine whom Thou has called into other 
 Life. I am sorrowful, and the shadow of 
 bereavement rests darkly upon me; and I 
 know that shadow cannot be lifted except 
 by the light of Thy truth. O help me to 
 realize those great facts taught by Jesus, 
 that all who have passed hence still live unto 
 Thee, and that Thy Divine Love enwraps 
 them all. Grant to my heart the assur- 
 ance that he whom I love is loved by Thee; 
 that he whom I long to help and bless will 
 be blessed by Thee; and that the life, so 
 linked with mine in past years, will not be 
 a life detached from me in the Hereafter. 
 Father, my love for him cries out for some 
 possibility of expression. I want to bless 
 him by my love. Wilt Thou grant me this 
 power? Thou hast revealed to us how 
 mighty are the influences of mind and 
 spirit. O let the vibrations of my love 
 (sanctified as they are by association with 
 Thee) reach my dear one in his spirit-life. 
 Let them be the humble means whereby 
 he may be better attuned to receive the in- 
 
 211 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Rowings of Thine own love, and better able 
 to love Thee. I pray, too, that it may be 
 permitted to him to know that I am pray- 
 ing for him. Let that knowledge help him 
 as his spirit advances; and let it tend to en- 
 kindle in him the desire to pray also. May 
 his prayers for me and mine for him main- 
 tain that bond of love which united us here 
 on earth. 
 
 "And O, dear Lord, I pray for his ad- 
 vancement and happiness. Grant that all 
 imperfect ideas of Thee and of Thy truth 
 may disappear from his mind. Deliver him 
 from all the warping influences of preju- 
 dice and doubt and make him receptive to 
 Divine light as Thou mayest vouchsafe it 
 to him. May Thy Holy Spirit so illumi- 
 nate him as to enable him to 'know Thee, 
 the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom 
 Thou hast sent/ Grant, too, that whatever 
 in him is good and noble may be expanded 
 and perfected, and that whatever is weak 
 and sinful in his character may be elimi- 
 nated. Give him, I beseech Thee, rest and 
 peace; that passing from moral and spirit- 
 ual glory to still higher glory, he may at 
 length become 'the spirit of a just man 
 
 212 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 made perfect/ and grasp the crown of ever- 
 lasting salvation. 
 
 "I offer this prayer, Eternal Father, in 
 the Name of Him Who told us Thou art 
 Love. "Amen." 
 
 213 
 
IX. If Christians depart this life to be with 
 Christ, how can our prayers benefit them? Does 
 He not know exactly what to do for them with- 
 out our intercessions on their behalf? 
 
 This question has been submitted to me again 
 and again by correspondents. It is based upon 
 two suppositions — first, that the departure of 
 Christians from this life involves their immediate 
 presence with Christ; and next, that their pres- 
 ence with Christ renders all prayer for them un- 
 necessary. 
 
 But are these suppositions correct? Let us 
 examine them. 
 
 Does the departure of Christians from this 
 life involve their immediate presence with 
 Christ? The idea which is commonly held on 
 this point is, that all who die in the faith of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, however small may be their 
 spiritual attainments, and however little their 
 character may have been developed, pass at 
 the time of death into the highest sphere of 
 life, and enjoy the companionship of the Sav- 
 iour. The words of St. Paul, spoken in regard 
 to what he himself anticipated — "Absent from 
 
 214 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the body, and present with the Lord," "Hav- 
 ing a desire to depart and to be with Christ" — 
 are supposed to denote what will be the experi- 
 ences of all Christians on leaving this world. 
 
 The assumption is not logical. It is a uni- 
 versal conclusion drawn from a particular prem- 
 ise. Put into syllogistic form, it would stand 
 thus: St. Paul, at dying, went to be with Christ; 
 St. Paul was a Christian; therefore, all Chris- 
 tians, at dying, will also go to be with Christ. 
 The reader will detect how inconsequent this 
 reasoning is. 
 
 We admit that St. Paul did on leaving this 
 world go to be with Jesus, and that every other 
 Christian who departs this life with anything 
 like the moral and spiritual attunement of that 
 Apostle, will also go to be with Him; but that 
 is a very different thing from supposing that all 
 Christians pass at once from the earth-plane to 
 the Christ-sphere. In the case of hundreds of 
 thousands of Christians, their spiritual condi- 
 tion would render it impossible. The law of 
 the Spiritual World is that a person must be 
 morally and spiritually adjusted to the sphere 
 in which he lives, moves, and has his being. 
 
 In the case of St. Paul, we have one whose 
 moral and spiritual development while still in 
 the flesh was such as equipped him for the high- 
 
 215 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 est experiences of spirit-life. He was a man 
 in whom the Christ-qualities of love and un- 
 selfishness energized so magnificently, that 
 years and years of his life were characterized 
 by the endurance of all sorts of hardship and 
 self-denial for the sake of others. No grander 
 words, denoting the height of moral excellence 
 to which he had attained, were ever written by 
 him than those in which he said — "I could wish 
 that myself were accursed from Christ, for my 
 brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh" 
 (Rom. ix. 3). What a contrast is presented 
 in the moral development of St. Paul and that 
 of a once celebrated preacher, whose published 
 sermon records the awful remark — that he be- 
 lieved one of the joys of the redeemed in 
 Heaven would be to everlastingly contemplate 
 the miseries of the damned ! Again, St. Paul 
 was a man who was absolutely in spiritual touch 
 with Christ. He could write — "I live; yet not 
 I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20); "For 
 to me to live is Christ" (Phil. i. 21). He was, 
 moreover, one who, before he left this world, 
 was so spiritually and psychically developed as 
 to enable him to come into close association 
 with the higher spheres of Spirit life. He was 
 "caught up to the third Heaven, and heard un- 
 
 216 
 
^^^"^^^^™ 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 speakable words, which it is not possible for a 
 man to utter" (See 2 Cor. xii. 1-4). 
 
 That such an one should, at death, go at once 
 to the presence and companionship of the Sav- 
 iour, appears to us to be the most reasonable of 
 thoughts. The A-postle in whom was the Christ, 
 when he was yet in the earth-life, would, of 
 necessity, be in the Christ-sphere as soon as he 
 had stepped into spirit-life. 
 
 But in regard to that great number of Chris- 
 tians who exhibit all sorts of moral defects, in 
 whom, perchance, exists the spirit of selfishness 
 and unlovingness; who could not say — in spite 
 of their belief in the Saviour — "For to me to 
 live is Christ," can we really think that Death 
 will usher such into the Christ-sphere — the 
 Sphere of highest Spiritual experience? 
 
 Nay, we think not. Their faith in the Sav- 
 iour will put them on the King's highway to 
 that blissful experience; but there must be the 
 ascension from sphere to sphere of higher moral 
 and spiritual attainment before the goal will be 
 reached. There may be vouchsafed to them at 
 times a Vision of the Christ as they move on- 
 ward and upward; but only, we believe, will they 
 "be with Christ," in the sense in which St. Paul 
 used the words, when they, by the grace of God, 
 shall have become fitted for the Christ-sphere. 
 
 217 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 The Christian Church, therefore, in bidding 
 us pray for the ''Faithful Departed," is quite 
 right. She implies thereby that Christians, 
 when they go hence, do not at once attain such 
 perfection as to place them in no need of our 
 prayers for them. 
 
 But the supposition that there is no necessity 
 to pray for those Departed ones who may en- 
 joy the Presence of Christ, on the grounds that 
 He knows exactly what to do for them, without 
 our intercessions on their behalf — is a very un- 
 founded one. If it had not been so often put 
 forth as an argument against praying for de- 
 parted Christians, we should have thought it 
 impossible for any believer in Prayer of any 
 kind to seriously advance it. The supposition 
 proves too much; it amounts to an argument 
 against praying for Christians who are in this life. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ, without our interces- 
 sions on their behalf, knows exactly what to do 
 for Christians, whether they be here on earth, 
 or have passed into the Spiritual World. Are 
 we, therefore, not to pray for the Christians in 
 this life? Let us be consistent. 
 
 If there be no need for us to pray for departed 
 Christians, because Christ knows what to do for 
 them without our telling Him, then, by the 
 same reasoning, there is no need for Christians 
 
 218 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 in this world to pray for one another. The sup- 
 position, as we have said, proves too much. 
 
 A conception of the true significance of 
 Prayer — that it is no expedient for informing 
 Christ of our wants, and no means of inducing 
 Him to be gracious to us, but that it is a Di- 
 vinely appointed method whereby the soul of 
 the one who prays, or that of the one who is 
 prayed for, may be made receptive of blessing 
 — a conception of this — would sweep away the 
 erroneous notion which is present in the mind 
 of this questioner. 
 
 We pray for Christians here and for Chris- 
 tians There, because Prayer is a Mind-impulse 
 which, when touched by the Holy Spirit of God, 
 can affect other minds, and move them towards 
 growth and attunement with the Higher. 
 
 "Brethren, pray for me," wrote St. Paul in 
 whom was the Christ. "Pray for us," say those 
 saintly ones who have gone hence to be with 
 Jesus, "we are amid the Alps of the Celestial, 
 but there are still higher peaks on which the 
 Master has bidden us meet Him. Every prayer 
 you breathe for us sends a God-vibration to our 
 advancing spirit; and from the heights above us, 
 and from the earth-plane below us; we catch 
 the impulse that constitutes the very inspiration 
 of our being — 'Excelsior/ " 
 
 219 
 
X. On what grounds can we base our belief that 
 Jesus is not only, pre-eminently, a son of God, but 
 the son of God, in the sense of being Divine ? 
 
 This question is submitted by one who ex- 
 periences a difficulty in maintaining his belief in 
 our Lord's Divinity, in the face of such facts as 
 that Jesus said — "My Father is greater than I," 
 "I ascend unto my God and your God;" that He 
 Himself prayed to God, just as He taught us to 
 do, and that in His agony on the cross, He cried 
 — "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken 
 me?" etc. 
 
 Is not this, it is asked, incompatible with the 
 thought of Christ as Divine? In praying to 
 God, was Jesus praying to Himself as the God- 
 head? 
 
 Now, the most satisfactory way of arriving at 
 a conclusion on this all-important question con- 
 cerning the Being of Jesus, will be, we think, 
 to ascertain what it was that Christ actually 
 stated in regard to Himself. Did He claim to be 
 the Son of God in the sense of being Divine? 
 Did He assert that He stood in such close and 
 intimate relationship with God, and possessed 
 
 220 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 such super-human prerogatives, as lifted Him 
 above the position of all men, however exalted? 
 In a word, did Jesus teach, plainly and unequiv- 
 ocally, that although He walked this earth as "a 
 Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," He 
 was, nevertheless, a Being Divine in a sense in 
 which no other man can be? Do His words 
 justify the statements concerning Him, made 
 in the Nicene Creed — that He is "God of God, 
 Light of Light, Very God of Very God"? 
 It will be acknowledged that if we can know 
 what Jesus said of Himself, His statements must 
 be of infinitely greater value in forming a true 
 opinion of Him, than any statements concern- 
 ing Him subsequently made by others. 
 
 The Church's witness to the Divinity of our 
 Lord — borne as it has been all through the cen- 
 turies, and reaching as far back as the times 
 of the Apostolic writers of the New Testament 
 — is of immense value as affording the evidence 
 that the Apostles themselves — the ones who 
 were in the best position of knowing what Jesus 
 said — believed Him to be the Divine Son of 
 God, and founded Christian Churches on this 
 belief. 
 
 "In Him dwelleth all the fullness (the Ple- 
 roma) of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9), was 
 St. Paul's definition concerning the Being of 
 
 221 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christ; and it was accepted by all those early 
 Christian communities from whom the Churches 
 of Christendom afterwards developed. It is in- 
 conceivable that this view of Jesus, so unpar- 
 alleled by anything that had ever been at- 
 tributed to a religious teacher, would have char- 
 acterized Christianity at its starting point, had it 
 not expressed the teaching of Jesus Himself. 
 
 We can understand and account for the fact 
 that, as the centuries rolled on, doctrines which 
 were not truthful representations of what the 
 Master taught, were imported into the teaching 
 of the Christian Churches; but we cannot imag- 
 ine that Christianity started its career on a huge 
 misunderstanding concerning Christ. 
 
 It must be remembered that the ascription of 
 Divinity to a man was abhorrent and blasphem- 
 ous to the mind of a Jew; and it is recorded 
 that Jesus was once in danger of being stoned 
 for assuming for Himself a Name applied to 
 God. Consequently, it appears to us, that noth- 
 ing will account for the fact that St. Paul, St. 
 Peter, St. John, and other early Christian teach- 
 ers placed the Divinity of Jesus in the forefront 
 of their teaching, except that the authorization 
 for their so doing came from Christ Himself. 
 
 Further, it is not conceivable, in view of the 
 unquestioned moral and intellectual excellence 
 
 222 
 
■■"■ 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of Christ, that He could either have supposed 
 Himself to be that which He was not, or could 
 have suffered others whom He taught to enter- 
 tain an idea concerning His Being which was 
 flagrantly erroneous, or could have spoken so 
 ambiguously as to leave it uncertain what He 
 meant. 
 
 If Christ led men to account Him Divine, 
 when He knew He was not so, then He was not 
 good; if He proclaimed His Divinity, not be- 
 cause it was a fact, but because He was under 
 an hallucination, then He was no dependable 
 Teacher of truth. 
 
 Moreover, Jesus did that which no other 
 teacher of Religion had ever done, and which 
 no one since has ever dared to do. He focussed 
 Religion in Himself. He made Himself the Gos- 
 pel He preached. "I am the Way, the Truth, 
 the Life, the Door, the Light, the Bread of 
 Heaven," etc. This exaltation of Himself; this 
 concentration of men's thoughts on His own 
 Person; this assumption of a dignity pertaining 
 only to God, which so shocked and outraged 
 the ideas of the Jewish High Priest, is wholly 
 inexplicable, except on the supposition that 
 Jesus was the Divine Son of God. 
 
 If He were not Divine, the Jews who crucified 
 
 223 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Him were right in accounting Him the greatest 
 of all egotists, deceivers, and blasphemers. 
 
 The Christian Religion, founded by Christ 
 and propagated by His immediate followers, 
 was started on the belief of His Divinity. This 
 conception constituted the Foundation Princi- 
 ple of the Christian Faith. Whence this idea 
 so alien to the Jewish mind? Whence this per- 
 sistent conviction on the part of those who con- 
 sorted with Jesus, and of those who subse- 
 quently came into contact with the latter? 
 
 Surely, there can be but one reasonable and 
 logical answer, viz., that Christ Himself must 
 have taught, and did teach, that He was the 
 Son of God in the sense of being Divine. 
 
 It is on this ground we base our belief in His 
 Divinity. The testimony of the Church on this 
 point throughout the ages is of weight only as 
 we can regard it as being in agreement with 
 the utterances of Jesus. 
 
 But this view of the matter suggests two other 
 and very important questions — Have we a 
 record of what Jesus said on this vital point 
 concerning His Being? — Have we sufficient 
 grounds for believing that the record is a re- 
 liable statement of what He said? 
 
 With regard to the first of these questions, 
 we claim to possess a record of a great number 
 
 224 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 of the statements made by our Lord Jesus 
 Christ; and among them many — far more than 
 is commonly realized — which deal with the ques- 
 tion of His own Being and position. 
 
 I have carefully gathered and systematized 
 these particular statements of His, in order 
 that it may be seen at a glance how great they 
 are. They appear in the following pages. They 
 have been collected from the four Gospels; 
 which books were written by men whose oppor- 
 tunities of knowing what the Master actually 
 said must have been far greater than those of 
 others who lived at later periods. The Chris- 
 tian Church has always regarded these Gospels 
 as being the most precious and most authorita- 
 tive part of the Holy Scriptures, because she 
 has viewed them as containing a truthful repre- 
 sentation of what Jesus actually taught. For 
 this reason she has enjoined upon her members 
 to stand at the reading of "the Gospel;" and in 
 this way, and in some cases by the association 
 of solemn ritual with the reading, she has 
 marked her belief that the Gospels possess a 
 value and an authority far and away beyond 
 that of any other book of the Bible. And if it 
 can be reasonably believed that these four books 
 do faithfully embody what Christ taught, then, 
 surely, they must be the best court of appeal 
 
 225 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to which we can betake ourselves in the settle- 
 ment of the question of what Christ really is; for 
 in the very nature of things, what Christ said of 
 Himself is of far greater importance and weight 
 than anything which individual men or bodies 
 of men may have said concerning Him. 
 
 The other question — Have we sufficient 
 grounds for believing that the Gospels are re- 
 liable records of what Jesus said? — is also of 
 supreme importance. 
 
 We believe that in the Gospels as they stand 
 in the Greek — the language in which they were 
 originally presented — with the correction of cer- 
 tain mistranslations which were introduced to 
 support preconceived ideas of the translators, 
 we have a faithful representation of what Jesus 
 taught. The grounds on which we base this 
 belief are these: 
 
 (I.) The writers of the four Gospels were 
 persons who were in the position of being able to 
 give a truthful record of Christ's teaching. 
 
 They were men who were contemporary with 
 Jesus; and three of them— including St. Peter, 
 whose amanuensis only St. Mark was — were His 
 Apostles, and for several years His constant 
 companions. The other — St. Luke — although 
 not an Apostle, was in close association with 
 the Apostles, and his prefatory remarks in the 
 
 226 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Gospel and in the Acts, show how he, a highly 
 educated and cultured man, carefully gathered 
 from those "who from the beginning were eye- 
 witnesses, and ministers of the word," "all that 
 Jesus began both to do and teach." 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive of any per- 
 sons having been more favorably circum- 
 stanced than these four Evangelists, for giving 
 to the world a true account of what Jesus 
 taught. 
 
 We are aware, of course, that attempts have 
 been made from time to time during recent 
 years, to show that the Gospels were not written 
 by the ones whose names they bear; but the tes- 
 timony of the Christian Church in the past on 
 this point has not been upset. The Post-Apos- 
 tolic Church accepted without question these 
 Gospel records as the genuine work of the four 
 Evangelists; and that Church embraced many 
 who had been in contact with the writers them- 
 selves. 
 
 Had a fraud been practised, in attributing to 
 distinguished leaders of Christianity works 
 which they had not written, it is exceedingly 
 improbable that the fraud would not have been 
 exposed. 
 
 Further, when the Canon of the New Testa- 
 ment was defined. A. D. 400. by a Council of 
 
 227 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christian Bishops, presided over by Augustine, 
 a large number of narratives concerning the 
 life and teaching of Jesus, as well as many epis- 
 tles written to Christian Communities, were 
 placed before the Council. From these, the 
 books to constitute the Canon were to be se- 
 lected. The principle adopted by the selectors 
 was that only such writings should be admitted 
 into the Canon, as could be shown to be the 
 work of Apostles, or of men who had been in 
 close association with the Apostles. 
 
 Subjected to this rule, great numbers of the 
 writings were rejected, and even books which 
 are now accounted as parts of the New Testa- 
 ment — viz., the Epistles 2 Peter and James, 
 and the Book of the Revelation — were placed 
 outside the Canon, on the ground that the 
 Council was not satisfied on the point of their 
 authorship. 
 
 But the four Gospels were unhesitatingly in- 
 cluded in the Canon, as being the genuine works 
 of those with whose names they were identified. 
 
 Surely, this is an indication that these books 
 are, indeed, authentic records of Christ! The 
 exclusion of the three books mentioned above 
 from the Sacred Canon, shows that a careful 
 sifting process characterized the proceedings of 
 this Council; which renders the fact of the re- 
 
 228 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 tention of the four Gospels the more significant. 
 
 (II.) Our enhanced knowledge with regard 
 to Psychic and Spiritual realities and ascer- 
 tained facts as to the powers of Mind, render it 
 absolutely credible that the four Evangelists 
 received such mental illumination as to make them 
 truthful recorders of our Lord's teaching. 
 
 An objection against accepting the statements 
 contained in the Gospels, as embodying the ac- 
 tual teaching of Jesus, has sometimes been 
 urged in the following way. 
 
 "If it be granted that the four Evangelists 
 wrote these books, how can we be sure that 
 what they allege to have been spoken by Jesus, 
 was really said by Him ? With the full intention 
 of writing 'the truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
 ing but the truth,' may not these men have un- 
 consciously misrepresented His teaching? We 
 know from experience how easy it is for those 
 who report the utterances of another to obscure 
 the significance of what was said. May this not 
 have been the case with the Evangelists ? Writ- 
 ing, as they did, after a lapse of several years, 
 may not their memory on some points have 
 failed them? May not their own imperfect no- 
 tions of truth have colored their account of 
 the Master's presentment of it? As members 
 of a Christian Community which held exalted 
 
 229 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ideas of Jesus, may not their minds have re- 
 ceived a bias which caused them to import into 
 the words of Him a meaning which He did not 
 intend?" 
 
 This is a perfectly honest and reasonable ob- 
 jection; and unless it can be satisfactorily met, 
 there must always linger behind the fact that 
 certain writers represented our Lord as having 
 said that He was Divine, the thought that they 
 may have misunderstood the true significance of 
 His words. 
 
 Have we any grounds for supposing that 
 these recorders of the words of Jesus were in any 
 way safeguarded against a misrepresentation of 
 His utterances? Can we, in the light of pres- 
 ent-day Scientific knowledge, based on facts 
 which it is possible for us to verify, believe that 
 these men received such mental guidance, il- 
 lumination and control as equipped them for 
 being the reliable witnesses to the world of One 
 Who knew the truth as no other has ever 
 known it? 
 
 We answer — Yes, those Gospel-writers, we 
 believe, did receive the help of which we have 
 spoken; and we ground this conviction on no 
 vague theory of inspiration, but on an idea which 
 is able to appeal to existing facts in support of 
 its credibility. 
 
 230 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Psychology is a subject which has been 
 scientifically investigated of late years. The re- 
 sult of that investigation has been to demon- 
 strate that it is possible for the mind of one 
 person to project itself as thoughts, sensations 
 and impulses to the mind of another, in such a 
 way as to produce a mental conjunction be- 
 tween projector and receiver. All considera- 
 tions of time and distance are obliterated in this 
 possibility. Persons physically separated from 
 one another are able to be in mental and psychic 
 touch. The distinct thoughts of the one may 
 be transmitted to the other. 
 
 Even the feelings and sensations of the one 
 may be registered by the other. A person may 
 be at the Antipodes, and yet may convey to an- 
 other, who is in spiritual tune with him, a defi- 
 nite idea, an impression, an actual physical sensa- 
 tion corresponding with a sensation experienced 
 by the projector. 
 
 There is no need to give illustrations in sub- 
 stantiation of this statement. Those who are 
 abreast of present-day Science know perfectly 
 well the possibilities connected with Telepathy 
 and Telsesthesia. 
 
 Those who do not know these facts, and are 
 open-minded enough to wish to know about 
 them, can refer to Professor Myers' work — 
 
 231 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily 
 Death." 
 
 Now, these facts as to the possibilities of 
 Mind, appear to us to present the very best of 
 reasons for believing that in the Gospel-narra- 
 tives we have a reliable statement of what our 
 Lord actually taught. 
 
 Take the circumstances of the case. 
 
 It has been scientifically attested that 
 thoughts and impressions from the mind of one 
 can be conveyed to the mind of another. If 
 this is possible in regard to men and men, surely 
 it must be possible in regard to Christ and men. 
 No one will be prepared to say that Jesus' men- 
 tal possibilities are inferior to those of ordinary 
 individuals. 
 
 Further, the advancement of a being to Spirit- 
 life enhances the mental powers, because of the 
 removal of restrictions connected with the 
 Physical. 
 
 When the Evangelists wrote their accounts 
 of Jesus, He had freed Himself from the re- 
 strictions of the Physical, and had passed into 
 Spirit-life. 
 
 Consequently, He was then better able to 
 mentally influence them, than He had been be- 
 fore. His words — "It is expedient for you that 
 
 232 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 I go away" — are more significant than many 
 suppose. 
 
 Again, it is unthinkable that Christ, after 
 passing from earth-life, was not desirous that men 
 should know the truth about Himself; and if 
 He possessed the power of directing and illu- 
 minating the minds of those who were to be 
 the recorders of His sayings for the centuries, is 
 it not the most reasonable of all thoughts to 
 suppose He exercised that power? 
 
 Lastly, He actually promised that He would 
 mentally assist the writers of the Gospels in 
 their work — at all events as far as the three 
 Apostolic narrators were concerned. 
 
 Shortly before the close of His earthly min- 
 istry, He said, "These things have I spoken 
 unto you, being yet present with you; but the 
 Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father 
 will send in my name, He shall teach you all 
 things and bring all things to your remembrance 
 whatsoever I have said unto you" (John xiv. 25 
 and 26). 
 
 This promise, and those words of Jesus 
 spoken from the plane of Spirit-life — "Lo, / am 
 with you all the days until the consummation of 
 the age" — conduct to a conclusion which ap- 
 pears to us an incontrovertible one. 
 
 It is this — that when the Evangelists sat down 
 
 233 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 to write the story of what the Christ of God 
 had spoken as He moved across the stage of 
 Time on His mission to bless man for Eternity, 
 He from the domain of enhanced being flashed 
 upon the minds of those earnest, Christ-loving 
 men a mighty influence from His own Mind; an 
 influence which for the time being mentally 
 abstracted them from the present, and trans- 
 ported them to the past, so that in thought they 
 were listening again to the words of One Who 
 spake as never man had before spoken; an in- 
 fluence which quickened their memory, un- 
 ravelled the entanglements of their ideas, made 
 clear to them the significance of what He had 
 said, and limned upon the sensitive-plate of their 
 spirit a faithful portraiture of Himself. 
 
 In this way, do we regard the four Gospels as 
 being invested with an authority which sur- 
 passes that of any other sacred writings. They 
 claim to be, not the statement of what distin- 
 guished men conceived the Christ to be, but a 
 record of what He Himself said He is. 
 
 In the following summary, which will show 
 how great and embracive were the statements 
 made by Christ concerning Himself, we do not 
 give all the references to the several points to 
 be found in the Gospels. Our aim is to cause 
 
 234 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 the Reader to realize, with ease, how much was 
 said by Jesus. 
 
 Christ's Statements Concerning Himself — His 
 Being and His Powers — As Recorded in the Gospels. 
 
 1. That He is the Son of Man. (Matt. xvi. 13; 
 
 Mark x. 45 ; Luke ix. 22 ; John i. 57 ; etc.) 
 
 2. That He was greater than the Temple. 
 
 (Matt. xii. 6.) 
 
 3. That in Him the Law, and the Prophets had 
 
 their fulfillment. (Matt. v. 17; Lu. iv. 21; 
 xxiv. 44.) 
 
 4. That He possessed supreme authority as a 
 Teacher, with the right to re-interpret Divine 
 Law. (Matt. v. 21 and 22; Mark ii. 28; Lu. 
 
 vi. 47-49; etc 
 
 5. That He is the Christ. (Matt. xvi. 20; xxiii. 
 
 8 and 10; Mark viii. 29 and 30; John iv. 25 
 and 26.) 
 
 6. That He is a King. (Matt. xix. 28; xxvii. 11 ; 
 
 Mark xv. 2 ; Lu. xxiii. 3 ; John xviii. 36 and 
 37; etc.) 
 
 7. That He had power to appoint a Kingdom. 
 
 (Lu. xxii. 29.) 
 
 8. That He was sinless. (John vii. 18; viii. 46.) 
 
 9. That He possessed prophetic powers. 
 
 (a) Foretold His betrayal. (Matt. xx. 18; 
 xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 31; x. 33; xiv. 21; Lu. 
 ix. 44; xxii. 22; John vi. 70; xiii. 21 ; etc.) 
 
 (b) Foretold the denial of St. Peter. (Matt, 
 xxvi. 34; Mark xiv. 30; Lu. xxii. 34; John 
 xiii. 38.) 
 
 (c) Foretold the details connected with His 
 
 235 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 death. (Matt. xx. 19; Luke xxii. 37; John 
 viii. 28; etc.) 
 
 (d) Foretold His rising and perfecting 
 through Physical death. (Matt. xvii. 9 and 
 23; Lu. xiii. 32; etc.) 
 
 (e) Foretold the martyrdom of St. James, St. 
 John and St. Peter. (Matt. xx. 23; Mark 
 x. 39; John xxi. 18.) 
 
 (f) Foretold that the circumstance of the 
 woman's anointing of Him would be uni- 
 versally and perpetually remembered. 
 (Matt. xxvi. 13; Mark xiv. 9.) 
 
 (g) P'oretold the incident of the man and a 
 pitcher of water. (Mark. xiv. 13; Lu. xxii. 
 
 10.) 
 
 (h) Foretold the particulars connected with 
 the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem. 
 (Matt. xxiv. 2 ; Mark xiii. 2 ; Lu. xix. 43 ; 
 xxi. 6; xxi. 20 and 24.) 
 
 10. That He possessed highly-developed Psychic 
 powers. 
 
 (a) Cognition ; surpassing the power of the 
 physical senses. (Mark ix. 33-34; John iv. 
 17 and 18.) 
 
 (b) Clairvoyant power. (Lu. x. 18; John i. 
 
 48.) 
 
 (c) Sensitiveness and responsiveness to 
 Psychic influences. (Lu. viii. 45 and 46.) 
 
 11. That He possessed the power of speaking to 
 the Departed. (John v. 25 and 28.) 
 
 12. That He is the Son of God. (Matt. xvi. 16- 
 18; xix. 17; xxii. 42-45; xxvi. 63 and 64; 
 xxviii. 19 ; Mark x. 18 ; xii. 35-37 ; xiii. 32 ; Lu. 
 
 236 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 xx. 41-44; xxii. 70; John iii. 16, 17 and 18; 
 v. 19-23, 25, 26; vi. 40; viii. 35 and 36; ix. 35 
 and 37; xi. 4; xiv. 13; xvii. 1.) 
 
 13. That He proceeded from God. (John viii. 
 42; xvi. 2^ and 28; xvii. 8.) 
 
 14. That He had been in Heaven. (John iii. 13 ; 
 
 vi - 33> 38, 5J-62.) 
 
 15. That He had seen God. (John vi. 46.) 
 
 16. That He is one with God. (John x. 30, 38; 
 xii. 45; xiii. 20, 31 and 32; xiv. 1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 
 20; xvii. 11, 21, 22.) 
 
 17. That He is the sharer of God's glory, power 
 and honor. (Matt. xvi. 27; Mark viii. 38; 
 Lu. ix. 26; xxii. 69; John v. 23; viii. 58; xvi. 
 15; xvii. 5, 10.) 
 
 18. That He is the possessor of inherent Divine- 
 life. (John xi. 25 ; xiv. 6.) 
 
 19. That thing's done by the Father are also 
 done by Him. (John v. 19.) 
 
 20. That the mystery concerning God is known 
 only to Him, and that He is the Revealer of 
 God. (Matt. xi. 27; Lu. x. 22; John iii. 11 and 
 12; v. 20; viii. 38, 40; x. 15; xii. 49 and 50; 
 xvi. 25.) 
 
 21. That He assumed the Divine Name, and 
 called Himself "Lord." (Mark v. 19; Lu. 
 vi. 5; xix. 31; John xiii. 13 and 14.) 
 
 22. That He holds the Headship over every- 
 thing-. (Matt. xi. 27; xxviii. 18; Lu. x. 22; 
 John xvi. 15; xvii. 2.) 
 
 23. That He wields authority over Angels. 
 (Matt. xiii. 41; xvi. 27; xxiv. 31; xxv. 31; 
 Mark xiii. 2y.) 
 
 237 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 24. That He could exercise power over evil spirit- 
 beings Baifwpia who obsessed men and 
 women. (Matt. xii. 27 and 28; Mark i. 23 
 and 25; v. 8; ix. 25; xvi. 17; Lu. v. 33 and 
 35 ; xi. 20.) 
 
 25. That He had control over Physical nature. 
 (Matt. xvii. 27; xxi. 19; Mark iv. 39; v. 41; 
 xi. 14; xvi. 18; Lu. v. 4; x. 19; xiii. 12; xvii. 
 14 ; xviii. 42 ; John iv. 50 ; v. 8 ; xi. 43 ; xxi. 6 ; 
 etc.) 
 
 26. That He is the Drawer of men. (Matt, xxiii. 
 37; Lu. xiii. 34; John xii. 32.) 
 
 27. That He is the Rewarder of men. (Matt. xvi. 
 27.) 
 
 28. That the judgment of mankind has been as- 
 signed to Him. (Matt. xxv. 32; John v. 22 
 and 27) ix. 39.) 
 
 29. That men's hostile attitude to His, teaching 
 will lay them under judgment. (John xii. 48.) 
 
 30. That He holds power to exclude from the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. (Matt. vii. 21 and 23.) 
 
 31. That men's attainment of honor hereafter 
 is dependent upon their confession of Him. 
 (Lu. xii. 8.) 
 
 32. That hereafter He will advance men. (John 
 vi. 39, 40, 44 and 54.) 
 
 33. That He could bestow the Holy Spirit. (John 
 xv. 26; xvi. 7; xx. 22.) 
 
 34. That the Holy Spirit should glorify Him. 
 (John xvi. 14.) 
 
 35. That He can quicken the dead. (John v. 21.) 
 
 36. That He has power to forgive sins. (Matt. 
 
 238 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 ix. 2 and 6; Mark ii. 5 and 10; Lu. v. 20 and 
 24; Lu. vii. 47 and 48.) 
 
 37. That He can answer Prayer. (John xiv. 13 
 and 14.) 
 
 38. That Prayer in His Name is accepted by 
 God. (John xvi. 23 and 24.) 
 
 39. That, although He would pass out of earth- 
 life, He would still be able to be constantly 
 present with men in that life. (Matt, xviii. 
 20; xxviii. 20.) 
 
 40. That He is the imparter of Divine life. (John 
 iv. 14; vi. 35; x. 10; x. 28; xiv. 19; etc.) 
 
 41. That He is the Giver of Rest and Peace. 
 (Matt. xi. 28; Lu. vii. 50; viii. 48; John xiv. 
 2J\ xvi. 33; xx. 19, 21 and 26.) 
 
 42. That He is the Spiritual Food of men. (John 
 
 vi- 33, 35, 5i, 57, 58.) 
 
 43. That He is the Light of the world. (John 
 viii. 12 ; ix. 5 ; xii. 46.) 
 
 44. That He is the Saviour of the whole human 
 race. (John xii. 47.) 
 
 45. That His mission of saving extends to all 
 that is lost. (Matt, xviii. 11 and 12; Lu. ix. 
 56 ; xv. 4, 6, 8, 9, and 32 ; xix. 10.) 
 
 46. That man's union with God will be possible 
 only through Him. (John xiv. 6.) 
 
 47. That Divine Truth is personified in Him. 
 (John xiv. 6 and 7.) 
 
 48. That the Anastasis (advance) of man at 
 Physical death, and his attainment of "the 
 super-abundant life" are identified with Him. 
 (John xi. 23-26.) 
 
 239 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 49. That Immortality is an impartation from 
 Him. (John- vi. 50; xiv. 19; xv. 4 and 5.) 
 
 Such, then, is the Christ, invested with all 
 this grandeur and dignity of Divine Personality, 
 as He created, we believe, the concept of Him- 
 self in the minds of the men and women who 
 listened to His words in the long ago. 
 
 Such is He, also, as He stands forth on the 
 pages of the sacred Gospels. Upon the minds 
 of those chosen Evangelists He brought the im- 
 pact of His own all-powerful Mind, that this 
 concept of Himself might be fixed by them as 
 an abiding witness to the centuries. When, as 
 the Son of Man, He passed across the narrow 
 stage of earthly existence as God's Missioner 
 of Love, His glory was bedimmed. To bless 
 man, and to bring him into closest contact with 
 the Divine, He Himself had to become Man. 
 The glorious Spirit-Son of God had to circum- 
 scribe Himself within the limitations of the 
 Physical. The Divine in Him had to suffer a 
 temporary eclipse, as He came within the 
 shadows of earth. 
 
 His Divine power might be used for the 
 blessing of others, but not for the blessing of 
 Himself. It was the price he paid for Love. 
 
 And so Jesus, although He was Divine, 
 
 240 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 was hungry and thirsty, and grew weary, and 
 wept, and was tempted, and agonized, and 
 prayed, and cried despairingly, as only a man 
 could do. And thus the "emptied" Son of God 
 lived out His beautiful life of Love among us, 
 unrecognized and misunderstood by the many. 
 
 But that Jesus is living now in a World of 
 fuller life, where the restrictions of the Physical 
 do not exist, and nought bedims the glory of 
 His Being. 
 
 Many are turning their spiritual eyes to Him; 
 and one day He, as the Divine One, shall draw 
 to Himself — as He said He would — the love 
 and devotion of all men; for the old and crude 
 ideas of God and His Purpose are passing 
 away, the horizon of knowledge is becoming 
 wider, the Morning Stars of the Spiritual are 
 gleaming more brightly in the firmament of 
 human experience. And when the night- 
 shadow shall have gone, and the mists of nar- 
 rowness and error shall have been scared away 
 by the Sunrise of Larger Hope, then shall the 
 Christ be revealed to all as "The Desire of the 
 nations" — the "Light of the World," the Light 
 of God Himself. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 241 
 

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