it in terms of absolute
denunciation, and see no reason why any one should suspect me of
leaning in that direction.

As to the recognition of God to which my correspondent objects, I
think science, as I understand it, sanctions the idea that the basic
power of the universe is spiritual and not material; that spirit may
evolve, create, and modify matter, but matter never originates spirit,
though they have a continual interaction, which it is the function of
scientists to investigate, in which investigation, anthropology,
especially in its department of sarcognomy, is a long step of
progress. My investigations have given me some additional evidence as
to the Divine existence beyond what has been recorded, but do not
sanction the personal anthropological conceptions of Deity, which
bring the Divine within the conceptions of narrow and superstitious
minds.

Having discarded the whole scheme of Christian theology, there is no
reason why I should reject the fundamental principles of religion,
which are at the basis of all religions, and which are sanctioned by
the study of man's religious nature. The spirit of the Christian
religion as it appeared among the founders of Christianity appears to
me a more perfect expression of religion than I find in any other of
the world's religions, more spiritual, devoted, loving, and heroic,
more in accordance with the true religion which belongs to man's
noblest faculties.

As for Jesus, I think the general opinion of historians and scholars
as to his historic existence is correct, but whether the historic
accounts are reliable or not I am entirely certain of his existence
to-day as one of the most exalted beings in the spirit world,--the
spirit of the Teacher who appeared in Palestine, whose principles and
purposes are the same advocated by myself, and who like all the other
exalted and ancient spirits is profoundly interested in human welfare
and in the progress of spiritual science, and reformation of the
_so-called_ Christian Church. I have had sufficient psychometric
perception at times to realize the _present_ character of such beings
as Jesus, Moses, St. John, John the Baptist, St. Peter, Confucius,
Joan of Arc, and Gen. Washington, as well as many other admirable
beings whose influence falls like dews upon many sympathetic souls.

I realize most profoundly and sadly the absence from all the high
places of society of those nobler qualities which I recognize in the
higher worl