In any case it seems necessary to distinguish between the sense of contact with departed friends or with "guides," and the assurance that messages have necessarily any high value because they come through this unusual channel.

 

It is perhaps of some importance to notice that there is general agreement in the communications that time has not the same rigid character as a "time-series" in the life that lies beyond death. This is in any case probable on other grounds, but it is of interest as indicating a possible reason why the communicators are frequently confused or mistaken as to exact indications of time.

 

This may not be a failure in their own apprehension of the real significance of events so much as in their power of conveying that apprehension in a form which can be adapted to the mentality of the medium and to the understanding of those to whom the message is directed.

 

It is often urged as of great significance that Spiritualism in many respects re-affirms the highest convictions of religious people, and that it has brought many to a new assurance of the truth of teaching which had ceased to have any meaning to them.

 

This is a point of some difficulty, since assurance seems to come along different and even conflicting lines. We cannot ignore the fact that at least one considerable Spiritualist organisation is definitely anti-Christian in character. This divergence of

testimony is explained by Spiritualists as due to the continuance of spirits, at least for a period, within the system of beliefs which they have held in this life.

 

It is held that even though the whole development of the personality is being raised from level to level, the attitudes to truth and goodness taken up in this life persist in the next, and that this somewhat divergent testimony to the truth of Christianity must be explained in this way.

 

We should add that whatever be the value of this supposed confirmation of the truth of religion, Spiritualism does not seem to have added anything except perhaps a practical emphasis to our understanding of those truths.

 

Many alleged communications seem, indeed, to fall below the highest Christian standards of understanding and spiritual insight, and indeed below the level of spiritual insight and mental capacity shown by the communicators while still in this life.

 

While there is insistence upon the supremacy of love comparable with the New Testament assertion that "God is Love" the accounts sometimes given of the mediatorial work of Christ frequently fall very far below the full teaching of the Christian Gospel, seeming to depend rather upon some power of working a miracle of materialisation (in the Resurrection appearances) than upon a radical and final acceptance of the