It is with diffidence after considerable thought that we have accepted the letter printed to-day on spiritualism, "There are, of course, many difficulties in running an "open forum" in the shape of a correspondence page. Some letters obviously ought not to be published. Of others, again, editors are often asked in private, "What on earth makes you publish such rubbish as that?" But one man's meat is another man's poison. What appears nonsense to the questioner may have seemed sound sense to the writer and his friends. Generally speaking, the "open forum" ought to be conducted on the widest, most. lwenerous lines. There remain, however,.a considerable class of letters which cause no little doubt as to whether they should be published. It is a standing' rule with secular newspapers to avoid religious controversy for reasons easily imagined; and fat first sight a letter on spirit trialism would come in that category. But the subject is one in which so much interest has been taken in recent yea and which, it must be added, has inspired so much devotion among. its followers, that the principle of the widest tolerance in -re: spect of "letters to the editor' may well be invoked by its adherents. And while many will disagree with to-day's writer, no one can say that he argues his ease unbecomingly or with gratuitous offence to others, Frankly we belong to those who as the phrase goes "do not. believe in spiritualism," though the position may decidedly be put less negatively than that, The practice of spiritualism increased enormously during and after the war for natural reasons. Many people driven almost mad with grief at the loss of husbands, fathers and sons, could not find their own faith strong enough or the teachings of the Churches convincing enough to derive comfort from the latter's consolations, and turned eagerly to those who promised them direct communication with the lost ones.
It is to this that we owe the famous "Raymond," a book which must have shocked far more readers than it satisfied. With all respect, it seemed inexpressibly sad that the louther of that book, accustomed all his life to the nicest weighing of facts, the severest serum tiny of scientific theory, could have allowed himself to be gulled by manifestations which would not have deceived a sharp-witted" schoolboy of sixteen. Miracles of communication with records have been merciless! exposed as rank fraud. - Spirit photographs and spirit "gloves" have been "shown up" repeatedly, *Maskelyne, the conjuror, backed himself to reproduce by natural means whatever the spiritualists claimed to _produce by supernatural. Quite apart, too, from controversial matter of this kind there was and is something inexpressibly repugnant to many minds in the bare thought that those they had loved and lost could be sum: moned at the bidding of the" average medium. The witch o!* Endor is something of a splet\, did, at least a dramatic figury: And even she, it will be rome! bered, believed herself a tric ter, Buta fly-blown middle-ag% anomaly of more than antecedents going into a franc in a back-parlour in Fulham quite another thing.
But, we shall be told, spiritual, ism has gone quite beyond the. days of Sludge the Medium, It has its chapels, its services, its ritual we believe, and is praetised with the utmost cireumspection and devotion. But the attitude of spiritualism's*opponents is not modified by its becoming more convincing, but rather stiffened. The more it advances proofs, the more many people will be on their guard against it, for the very nature of those proofs, We have read, in the writings of psychical research, that the atmosphere about us is filled with supernormal beings designated as earth elementals, whose tendent cies for the most part are at least freakish, if not. absolutely malignant. If indeed *through the medium's agency we can get into touch with essences beyond ordinary human ken, it seems that here is the opportunity for which these beings, if they exist, would be on the alert. In any case, the danger for highly) strung natures of epiritist 0 us likely far to out weigh the good they may do; and the greater the ceremony surrounding them, the greater the potential mischief, For the assertion that Christ and His disciples were spiritualists, we confess we can find no evidence in the Gospels, which we know as well as most people, with the possible exception of the Transfiguration and certain appearances of angels. But these incidents may be, accepted in conjunction with the whole series of recorded miracles without any need of dragging in spirit-rialism. Certainly there was nothing occult in Christ's tea Tt was essentially simpl and human in its appeal the secret indefinable aspirations which appear to be as much a part of the Bushman as of the most cultivated. And the faith He preached was demonstrably a thing to be held independent of proof. In these respects, one has often been told, lay the appeal of this faith to the Roman society that in so many respects resembled our own. And this resemblance is part of the case to-day for a restatement of Christian beliefs in terms which will bring them home as forcibly to men of the twentieth century. as they came to those of the first and second. This is a subject perhaps more for pulpit than newspaper, But if such a restatement can be achieved, one suspects that it will rather be through simplification and the weeding out of superimposed dogma, than by fresh additions and theories for which the Scriptures contain no visible authority. press, issued by Central Bank in Canton are now exchangeable at par." Notifeations have been issued by the Govern-@) ment to the effect that these notes will be accepted at face value in payment of taxes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.