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Sir,- Is Spiritualism...
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Sir,- I am thankful...
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Editor's notes
Inlay
< The Religion of Spiritualism (continued from page 8-306.1) >
link between heaven and earth; and, consequently, the ' uplifting of the soul to the Source of Light with such a confident belief in the spiritual world that the answer infallibly comes. A Spiritualist is one who takes Christ’s promise of spiritual gifts as one literally to be fulfilled. A Spiritualist is one who recognises the divinity of the soul; therefore, its right to aspire to God. He or she is one who truly understands that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that, therefore, this temple has a right to the fullest understanding of its requirements to protect its divine inmate by keeping it in perfect order, using and not abusing it.
A Spiritualist in the true sense of the word—and of such only am I speaking—will, in course of time, find it a far greater pleasure to enjoy the culture of the soul than any bodily sensations: by soul I mean the spark of divinity in us, not alone the Intelligence which recognises the Divinity. This is, of course, the Spiritualism of the future. We have to work for it. At present it is the bubbling and heaving of the well before the fountain springs forth; but if we wait, and pray, and work, and don’t get disgusted, or have not sufficient courage or faith because there is so much of the earth earthy about the profession of Spiritualism, the angel will surely come and heal our sores and our bruises, and give us strength to go home. It is extremely easy to find fault with the present result of Spiritualism; just as easy as it was for the learned Jews, who only saw a small sect of comparatively ignorant and rather “common people,” to look upon the Christians of the day, and say they did not see, as far as present results, any such wonderful signs of the superiority of the new ideas. They had Moses and the prophets, and did not see the need of more; and the Christians did not by any means at all times, then as now, bear out the weight of their aspirations or spiritual claims. Nor does the movement in humanity, called to-day the Spiritualist movement, by any means always justify its claims either. Those, however, who see the Spirit of God through it all, and who try to follow the clue now given, are Spiritualists; it matters not what theological school they have or do profess (most people, as a rule, simply adopt the one their fathers and mothers taught them).
From little things we must go to greater, and the “John King” seances of to-day may be, who can tell, the humble means of inaugurating real Spiritualism in to-day’s history. Ridicule has potent powers in exterminating feeling; but it cannot exterminate truth.
It rests upon us, however, whether we are capable of bearing the truth, whether we open our minds to the influx of spiritual life now waiting for us, or whether we are content to be as we are, and live upon what we have got.
If we do so, can we promise. ourselves, and be very sure of the fact, that we shall have spiritual prosperity, and that Christianity, as exemplified by the few, will be the Christianity of all; and that materialism (I wont say atheism—it is too incredible a thing to believe in) will take to its wings and fly, and that men will be full of love and peace with one another, and the earth full of love to God and man? Are these the state of things towards which the signs of the times point? I think not. Do we not see that as our intellectuality and force of reason increase, our faith, as a mere extra as it were, must perish, and that if we deny the power of spirit now we must end by denying it in the past? We must establish the power and truth of the so-called miraculous now, or the results will surely be that as faith without reason is certainly dying out, each generation will take us farther away from God; the mystery of life and the tragedy of death will neither be solved nor changed.
Now is our opportunity; and again I venture to say, if we will fearlessly and thankfully press on with our intellects in full working order, and our hearts thankful for all spiritual blessing, we shall ere long arrive at that haven which Christianity is leading us to, when religion will not be only faith in the past, but knowledge for the present and a certainty of the future.
The Religion of Spiritualists
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Editor's notes