infinite
number of ways.

"To the Christian we can speak with a still more direct appeal. You
believe--I would say--that a spiritual world exists, and that it acted
on the material world two thousand years ago. Surely it is so acting
still. Nay, you believe that it is so acting still, for you believe that
prayer is heard and answered. To believe that prayer is heard is to
believe in Telepathy--in the direct influence of mind on mind. To
believe that prayer is answered is to believe that unembodied spirit
does actually modify (even if not storm-cloud or plague-germ) at least
the minds, and therefore the brains, of living men. From that belief the
most advanced 'psychical' theories are easy corollaries."

A few more lines in conclusion:--

"It may be that for some generations to come the truest faith will lie
in the patient attempt to unravel from confused phenomena some trace of
the supernal world;--to find thus at last 'the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' I confess, indeed, that I
have often felt as though this present age were even unduly
favoured;--as though no future revelation and calm could equal the joy
of this great struggle from doubt into certainty;--from the materialism
or agnosticism which accompany the first advance of Science into the
deeper scientific conviction that there is a deathless soul in man. I
can imagine no other crisis of such deep delight."

FOOTNOTES:

[66] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. ix. p. 252.

[67] The references to these contributions are: _Proceedings S.P.R._,
vol. vi. pp. 98-127; _Journal S.P.R._, vol. vi. pp. 341-345, and vol.
ix. pp. 147-148; _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. xiv. pp. 2-5. "Researches in
the Phenomena of Spiritualism" will be found in the Libraries of the
Society for Psychical Research, and of the London Spiritualist Alliance.

[68] "School Teaching and School Reform," by Sir Oliver Lodge, pp. 89,
90.

[69] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. xviii. p. 419.

[70] See "Hypnotism: Its History, Practice, and Theory," by J. Milne
Bramwell, M.B., C.M., 1903, pp. 36-39.

[71] _Journal S.P.R._, vol. iv. pp. 108-109.

[72] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. xiv. p. 3.

[73] Ibid., Part XLVIII., 1s. (included in vol. xviii. pp. 323-351).

[74] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. xviii. pp. 340-341.

[75] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 5.

[76] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. x. p. 394.

[77] "Phantasms of the Living," vol. ii. p. 21.

[78] _Journal S.P.R._, vol. iv. p. 1