untrodden and mysterious ground; but I am called upon to tread it.  For my part, I am never prepared to flout inquirers if they approach these subjects in a reverent spirit.  We must not revile good men because they think differently from ourselves.  We must examine the assertions of such inquirers as Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle in a mood of reverence and sympathy.  Some men drift away from the truth in vital particulars; but not so far that they cannot return if the road is made clear to them.

“We must remember that our conviction of a double existence rests on the revelation of God through His Son, not on a mere, vague desire toward a future life common to all sorts and conditions of men.  They suspected and hoped; we know.  Science may explain that general desire if it pleases; it cannot explain, or destroy, the triumphant certainty born of faith.  Spiritualism has succeeded to the biblical record of ‘possession,’ and I, for my part, of course prefer what my Bible teaches.  I do not myself find that the ‘mediums’ of modern spiritualism speak with tongues worthy of much respect up to the present, and it is certain that rogues abound; but the question is clamant.  It demands to be discussed by our spiritual guides and the fathers of the Church.  Already they recognize this fact and are beginning to approach it—­some priests in a right spirit, some—­as at the Church Congress last month—­in a wrong spirit.”

“A wrong spirit, May?” asked Sir Walter.

“In my opinion, a wrong spirit,” answered the other.  “There is much, even in a meeting of the Church Congress, that makes truly religious men mourn.  They laughed when they should have learned.  I refer to incidents and criticisms of last October.  There the Dean of Manchester, who shows how those, who have apparently spoken to us from Beyond through the mouths of living persons, describe their different states and conditions.  Stainton Moses gave us a vision of heaven such as an Oxford don and myself might be supposed to appreciate.

“Raymond describes a heaven wherein the average second lieutenant could find all that, for the moment, he needs.  But why laugh at these things?  If we make our own hells, shall we not make our own heavens?  We must go into the next world more or less cloyed and clogged with the emotions and interests of this one.  It is inevitable.  We cannot instantly throw off a lifetime of interests, affections, and desires.  We are still human and pass onward as human beings, not as angels of light.

“Therefore, we may reasonably suppose that the Almighty will temper the wind to the shorn lamb, nor impose too harsh and terrible a transformation upon the souls of the righteous departed, but lead one and all, by gradual stages and through not unfamiliar conditions, to the heaven of ultimate and absolute perfection that He has designed for His conscious creatures.”

“Well spoken,” said Sir Walter.