sphere of God, but of recognizable beings, meditating presences
subject to rule, with organization and degrees, activities and
authorities. It is a host, a kingdom, swayed by law and purpose. In
the Bible there is much of this, learnt probably by the Hebrews
from their captors. They had gone far afield: their horizon had
been widened: they had been taught how to enter largely into this
mysterious region. But, fortunately, they dealt soberly with this
weltering flood of occult knowledge. These hosts of unseen
presences are marshalled into order: they are not mere genii,
fantastic and magical; they pass under the control of the sole
directive will of the Most High. They are solemn instruments of
spiritual destiny: they are semi-human, and the record is, 'one
like unto a man touched me.'"

Canon Holland proceeds to arraign modern teachings. "We have drifted
from this tremendous reality," he says. "We have tried to isolate the
field of known experience, and to cut it off from disturbing
supernatural imaginings. We have set ourselves to purge out from our
scheme of things anything that seemed to interfere with it. The unseen
was the unknown and the unknowable. But our agnostic programme has
broken down. Facts have been too much for it. The isolation desired by
it is impossible. In and out of the life that we can cover with our
rationalized experiences, there are influences, forces, powers which are
forever at work, and belong to a world beyond our scientific methods. We
float in a mysterious ether to which no physical limitations apply.
Sounds, motions, transmit themselves through this medium, under
conditions which transform our whole idea of what space or time they
mean. Through and beyond the semi-physical mystery, a world of spiritual
activity opens upon us. It has capacities of which we have never
dreamed. It allows of apparent contact of spirit with spirit, in spite
of material distance and physical obstruction. There are modes of
communication which are utterly unintelligible to our ordinary
scientific assumptions, yet which actual experience tends more and more
to verify."

Yes, as Canon Holland well says, "Facts have been too much" for those
who would cling to the old and the less intelligent ideas of the future
life. The ethereal world will even cease to be mysterious before
advancing scientific investigation and knowledge. Through the ether, as
Canon