Spiritualism’s New Phase
By W. A. S.
TRUE to the early prediction of the spirit of prophecy, Spiritualism, which at first had so little profession of godliness in its platform, has in recent years assumed a more refined and religious phase. Not long since the Washington police authorities took steps to protect the public from the commercialism of some of the clairvoyants and spiritualistic mediums advertising in the metropolis. The incident brought out a defense of the new Spiritualism from one medium, who wrote as follows to the Washington Post:— “Spiritualism means to us a scientific religion. We are not a godless people. I was for many years an enthusiastic worker with the Baptist denomination, but I did not learn to reverence God as I have since I became a Spiritualist. As a society, we teach righteousness of life, right living in all ways, in accord with God’s laws, thus seeking to build God’s kingdom on earth, in the hearts and expressed in the lives of his children.” The words are all for God and for righteousness, and yet we know it is the voice of a stranger and not of the true shepherd. Here is where the delusions of the last days will have their power. Yet with every art, the evil one shall not be able so to disguise his voice that the true sheep may not know that a stranger is calling them. But it means that the sheep must press closely to the Master, and become familiar with his voice.