for, we may try to show it forth by attacking his ignorance and prejudice but we shall be doomed to failure. Only as we anoint the blind. eyes with the salve of our sincerity and touch the darkened heart with the light and warmth of our love can we succeed. Every successful reformer has had sincerity and love at the heart of his reform. These are the two angels that must ever guide us. Refuse their company, repudiate their lead, abjure their inspiration and we enlighten no souls, establish no reform.

A friend has just sent me a book entitled "The Religio-Medical Masquerade," written by a Boston lawyer. Here are the opening sentences:

"Christian Science is the most shallow and sordid and wicked imposture of the ages. Upon a substratum of lies a foundation of false pretense has been laid. Never before has the world witnessed a masquerade like that of Christian Science. The founder of this pretended religion, this bogus healing system, has throughout her whole long life, been in every particular precisely antithetical to Christ." Obviously in these heated terms the author describes, not Christian Science, but his own irritation, impotence and unworthiness. The temptation to

indulge in vituperative epithets is very strong and subtle, but it is always a positive detriment to the progress of truth and to the moral development of him who yields to it. For not only does this practice develop in him the evil qualities conveyed in his invectives but it also reduces his capacity for dispassionate judgment, besides making him increasingly unsympathetic, uncharitable and unlovely. Vituperation is like the boomerang which returns upon its projector. Believing this profoundly and intensely and having sought for years to profit from it, permit me now to say that if in succeeding lectures any criticism of mine on any of these movements be construed as manifesting an unkindly or contemptuous spirit it will be misconstrued; and it will be in regretted contradiction of my purpose if I let slip a single careless word that shall wound the reverence of even the most sensitive soul.

V

THE CARDINAL CLAIM OF SPIRITUALISM

The ethical attitude toward spiritualism, as indicated in the preceding chapter, requires that we take it seriously and not assume that there are any finalities or infallibilities precluding the possibility of its possessing any truth. Whatever our estimate of the movement may be we are bound to acknowledge that it has made the world its debtor by its repudiation of those grotesque beliefs about death and the hereafter that were transmitted from medievalism to the modern world. If we no longer look on death as a demon, a curse, a symbol of divine wrath, if we regard a hereafter of endless psalm singing and harp playing as altogether devoid of attractiveness, we have to thank the spiritualists for their special service in promoting these salutary changes in religious thought.

The ethical attitude makes a further requirement of us. It is that we state the position and

claim of spiritualism as fairly and as strongly as a representative would, avoiding both understatement and exaggeration together with everything that savors of disparagement or contempt. Bigotry has no head and therefore cannot reason logically. Bigotry has no heart and therefore cannot feel tenderly. Who would not exchange a hope for a demonstration, were it possible? And who would think of foreclosing investigation by pronouncing demonstration to be impossible? Because many of the phenomena of spiritualism have been proved fraudulent, dare we, on that account, turn our backs upon all? What moral justification can there be for those thinkers, who, with a dilettante air, spurn scientific investigation of spiritistic phenomena? Or what warrant can there be for asserting that "the question of immortality is degraded by approaching it through the channel of these phenomena?" In all probability coming generations will be disposed to attach great importance to the belief in a hereafter only as it shall be reinforced by evidential means. Special significance therefore attaches to careful examination of whatever purports to be proof of human survival of death. No alternative is open for the candid mind but to ex

amine the alleged proof and determine what measure of reliance, if any, may be put upon it. I, for one, cannot ignore the fact that certain scientific investigators of acknowledged distinction have, as a result of their researches, gone over to the spiritistic hypothesis and based upon it their faith in a future life. I cannot ignore the fact that some years ago the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the foremost organization of its kind in the world, saw fit to find a place for spiritualism among the subjects to be discussed at its annual sessions. Nor, again, can I overlook the fact that there are certain spiritistic phenomena which still continue to tax the intelligence and baffle the interpretative skill of skeptics who, for years, have vainly striven to prove them fraudulent and at last felt compelled to admit their genuineness, whatever the explanation of them might be. Despite all the fraud which it was thought would relegate the new "ism" to the realm of extinct religions, it is on the increase, constantly welcoming new recruits to its ranks. Statistics show that there are over one hundred thousand avowed spiritualists in some five hundred societies, owning property worth two millions of dollars or more. Besides