this subject there is one consideration which should
have due weight, and yet seems continually to be overlooked. The
differences between various sects are a very small thing as compared to
the great eternal duel between materialism and the spiritual view of
the Universe. That is the real fight. It is a fight in which the
Churches championed the anti-material view, but they have done it so
unintelligently, and have been continually placed in such false
positions, that they have always been losing. Since the days of Hume
and Voltaire and Gibbon the fight has slowly but steadily rolled in
favour of the attack. Then came Darwin, showing with apparent truth,
that man has never fallen but always risen. This cut deep into the
philosophy of orthodoxy, and it is folly to deny it. Then again came
the so-called "Higher Criticism," showing alleged flaws and cracks in
the very foundations. All this time the churches were yielding ground,
and every retreat gave a fresh jumping-off place for a new assault. It
has gone so far that at the present moment a very large section of the
people of this country, rich and poor, are out of all sympathy not only
with the churches but with the whole Spiritual view. Now, we intervene
with our positive knowledge and actual proof--an ally so powerful that
we are capable of turning the whole tide of battle and rolling it back
for ever against materialism. We can say: "We will meet you on your
own ground and show you by material and scientific tests that the soul
and personality survive." That is the aim of Psychic Science, and it
has been fully attained. It means an end to materialism for ever. And
yet this movement, this Spiritual movement, is hooted at and reviled by
Rome, by Canterbury and even by Little Bethel, each of them for once
acting in concert, and including in their battle line such strange
allies as the Scientific Agnostics and the militant Free-thinkers.
Father Vaughan and the Bishop of London, the Rev. F. B. Meyer and Mr.
Clodd, "The Church Times" and "The Freethinker," are united in battle,
though they fight with very different battle cries, the one declaring
that the thing is of the devil, while the other is equally clear that
it does not exist at all. The opposition of the materialists is
absolutely intelligent since it is clear that any man who has spent his
life in saying "No" to all extramundane forces is, indeed, in a
pitiable position when, after many years, he ha