e. It was used against the new astronomy, and Galileo
had actually to recant. It was used against Galvani and electricity.
It was used against Darwin, who would certainly have been burned had he
lived a few centuries before. It was even used against Simpson's use
of chloroform in child-birth, on the ground that the Bible declared "in
pain shall ye bring them forth." Surely a plea which has been made so
often, and so often abandoned, cannot be regarded very seriously.

To those, however, to whom the theological aspect is still a stumbling
block, I would recommend the reading of two short books, each of them
by clergymen. The one is the Rev. Fielding Ould's Is Spiritualism of
the Devil, purchasable for twopence; the other is the Rev. Arthur
Chambers' Our Self After Death. I can also recommend the Rev. Charles
Tweedale's writings upon the subject. I may add that when I first
began to make public my own views, one of the first letters of sympathy
which I received was from the late Archdeacon Wilberforce.

There are some theologians who are not only opposed to such a cult, but
who go the length of saying that the phenomena and messages come from
fiends who personate our dead, or pretend to be heavenly teachers. It
is difficult to think that those who hold this view have ever had any
personal experience of the consoling and uplifting effect of such
communications upon the recipient. Ruskin has left it on record that
his conviction of a future life came from Spiritualism, though he
somewhat ungratefully and illogically added that having got that, he
wished to have no more to do with it. There are many, however--quorum
pars parva su--who without any reserve can declare that they were
turned from materialism to a belief in future life, with all that that
implies, by the study of this subject. If this be the devil's work one
can only say that the devil seems to be a very bungling workman and to
get results very far from what he might be expected to desire.

CHAPTER II.

THE REVELATION

I can now turn with some relief to a more impersonal view of this great
subject. Allusion has been made to a body of fresh doctrine. Whence
does this come? It comes in the main through automatic writing where
the hand of the human medium is controlled, either by an alleged dead
human being, as in the case of Miss Julia Ames, or by an alleged higher
teacher, as in that of Mr. Stainton Moses. These written
communications are s