all that you possess of material good or advantage, vanishes like
smoke, leaving nothing behind,--when the world will seem no more
than a small receding point from which you must fall into the
Unknown--and when that "dread of something after death, The
undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, PUZZLES
THE WILL." You have at present living among you a great professing
scientist, Dr. Oliver Lodge, who, wandering among mazy infinities,
conceives it even possible to communicate with departed spirits,--
while I, who have no such weight of worldly authority and learning
behind me, tell you that such a thing is out of all natural law and
therefore CAN NEVER BE. Nature can and will unveil to us many
mysteries that seem SUPER-natural, when they are only manifestations
of the deepest centre of the purest natural--but nothing can alter
Divine Law, or change the system which has governed the Universe
from the beginning. And by this Divine Law and system we have to
learn that the so-called 'dead' are NOT dead--they have merely been
removed to fresh life and new spheres of action, under which
circumstances they cannot possibly hold communication with us in any
way unless they again assume the human form and human existence. In
this case (which very frequently happens) it takes not only time for
us to know them, but it also demands a certain instinctive
receptiveness on our parts, or willingness to recognise them. Even
the risen Saviour was not at first recognised by His own disciples.
It is because I have been practically convinced of this truth, and
because I have learned that life is not and never can be death, but
only constant change and reinvestment of Spirit into Form, that I
have presumed so far as to allude to my own faith and experience,--a
'personal' touch for which I readily apologise, knowing that it
cannot be interesting to the majority who would never take the
trouble to shape their lives as I seek to shape mine. Still, if