such messages, no doubt,
that the Apostle wrote when he said: "Beloved, believe, not every
spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." These words can
only mean that the early Christians not only practised Spiritualism as
we understand it, but also that they were faced by the same
difficulties. There is nothing more puzzling than the fact that one
may get a long connected description with every detail given, and that
it may prove to be entirely a concoction. However, we must bear in
mind that if one case comes absolutely correct, it atones for many
failures, just as if you had one telegram correct you would know that
there was a line and a communicator, however much they broke down
afterwards. But it must be admitted that it is very discomposing and
makes one sceptical of messages until they are tested. Of a kin with
these false influences are all the Miltons who cannot scan, and
Shelleys who cannot rhyme, and Shakespeares who cannot think, and all
the other absurd impersonations which make our cause ridiculous. They
are, I think, deliberate frauds, either from this side or from the
other, but to say that they invalidate the whole subject is as
senseless as to invalidate our own world because we encounter some
unpleasant people.

One thing I can truly say, and that is, that in spite of false
messages, I have never in all these years known a blasphemous, an
unkind, or an obscene message. Such incidents must be of very
exceptional nature. I think also that, so far as allegations
concerning insanity, obsession, and so forth go, they are entirely
imaginary. Asylum statistics do not bear out such assertions, and
mediums live to as good an average age as anyone else. I think,
however, that the cult of the seance may be very much overdone. When
once you have convinced yourself of the truth of the phenomena the
physical seance has done its work, and the man or woman who spends his
or her life in running from seance to seance is in danger of becoming a
mere sensation hunter. Here, as in other cults, the form is in danger
of eclipsing the real thing, and in pursuit of physical proofs one may
forget that the real object of all these things is, as I have tried to
point out, to give us assurance in the future and spiritual strength in
the present, to attain a due perception of the passing nature of matter
and the all-importance of that which is immaterial.

The conclusion, then, of my long search after truth