rdoing any one subject however excellent--even
falling in love: and the ingenuity displayed in wasting time is so
manifold that this is an objection that can scarcely be urged specially
against Spiritualism, though I own Dark Seances do cut terribly into
time.

Then again one is apt to be taken in by mediums or even by spirits. Yes;
but this only imposes the ordinary obligation of keeping one's eyes
open. I know spiritualists who believe in every medium qua medium, and
others who accept as unwritten gospel the idiotic utterances of a
departed buccaneer or defunct clown: but these people are so purely
exceptional as simply to prove a rule. Do _not_ accept as final in
so-called spiritual what you would not accept in avowedly mundane
matters. Keep your eyes open and your head cool, and you will not go far
wrong. These are the simple rules that I have elaborated during my
protracted study of the subject.

"We do not believe, we know," was, as I said, the proud boast a
spiritualist once made to me. And if the facts--any of the facts--of
Spiritualism stand _as_ facts, there is no doubt that it would form the
strongest possible counterpoise to the materialism of our age. It
presses the method of materialism into its service, and meets the
doubter on his own ground of demonstration--a low ground, perhaps, but a
tremendously decisive one, the very one perhaps on which the Battle of
Faith and Reason will have to be fought out.

If--let us not forget that pregnant monosyllable--if the assumptions of
Spiritualism be true, and that we can only ascertain by personal
investigation, I believe the circumstance would be efficacious in
bringing back much of the old meaning of the word [Greek: pistis] which
was something more than the slipshod Faith standing as its modern
equivalent. It would make it really the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.

Even if the dangers of Spiritualism were much greater than they
are--aye, as great as the diabolical people themselves make out--I
should still think (in the cautious words of the Dialecticians)
Spiritualism was worth looking into, if only on the bare chance, however
remote, of lighting on some such Philosophy as that so beautifully
sketched by Mr. S. C. Hall in some of the concluding stanzas of his poem
"Philosophy," with which I may fitly conclude--

And those we call "the dead" (who are not dead--
Death was their herald to Celestial Life)--
May