devil can prevent
our taking what is ours or rejecting what is _not_ ours.

This is a universal law, and applies to automatic writing as to
everything else. Emphatically we get what belongs to our spiritual
estate.

Therefore any casual and general remarks as to the foolishness of all
automatic writing, must of necessity be made by those who are ignorant
of this spiritual law, or whose experience of such messages is very
limited.

I intend to give a few which I have myself received, in the form of an
Appendix to my book. With one exception, they all come from a very dear
friend, who passed into the other sphere little more than a year ago
under peculiarly happy circumstances. I do not wish to give his name,
although it would add considerably to the interest of the narrative. I
shall therefore call him Mr Harry Denton. The messages will be given
exactly in the form in which they were received, and without any
editing. We never discussed theological ideas from any standpoint of
_creed_; but I imagine that my friend, when here, would have looked upon
Jesus Christ as one of the many inspired teachers of the world, and that
his views were cosmic rather than religious--_in any narrow sense_--and
certainly _religious_, in the broad sense of the term, rather than
_theological_.

The first conversation (for this is a better description of my friend's
communications than the word _message_) refers to my own attitude, as
compared with that of a lady friend of mine, regarding Jesus of
Nazareth.

H. D.--I see a great stream of light round you, Kate, and it seems to
have come with your truer conception of Jesus Christ. It is all right
for your friend to say she prefers to put the matter aside and leave it
alone. That is just the best thing she can do; in fact, the _only_ thing
she can do at present.

The seed is still underground, and the moment of emergence has not come.
To try and force it above ground just now, would be fatal. It would also
be immature and uncalled for. The old husks of man-made creeds must drop
off gradually, leaving the bud they protected intact, not be torn off by
an impatient hand.

So far her instinct seems to me a true one. But the case is widely
different for _you_. The husks _have_ fallen off, as a matter of fact,
and the discomfort and sense of something wrong arose from your knowing
that you were only striving desperately to clutch on to them, when the
fine, strong bud was there, able and re