A Decided Trend

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 23, 1901

The Congregationalist of January 5 has a symposium of Twentieth-Century prophecies. For its representative forecaster of “what may be” “in the Protestant church,” it chooses Rev. Amory H. Bradford, D.D., of the First Congregational Church, Montclair, N. J. Mr. Bradford’s first prediction is as follows:—

“Christian thought will make large discoveries in the sphere of the spirit. The veil which separates the seen from the unseen is getting thinner every year, and what is now only a vague hope, during the next century, very likely, will be scientifically demonstrated, and the ‘spiritual universe’ will be as evident as the material.”

Now all this is in the line of Spiritism, or old-fashioned necromancy; for by “the spirit” is not meant the Spirit of God, but the spirit as opposed to the body, the unseen. Instead of accepting God’s Word as the revelation of man’s nature, as disclosing the spirit world, a “science”-slaughtered Christianity, as represented by men like the above and Dr. Charles Brown, of this city, is waiting for such scientific demonstration as Professors Hudson, Hyslop, and others are furnishing. And all this means the rejection of the Word and the exaltation of Spiritism.