Did He Communicate?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 21, 1906

Did He Communicate?

Did He Communicate?—According to a Hearst despatch of January 21, Dr. I. K. Funk declared that "Dr. Richard Hodgson has kept his promise to the Psychical Society. I have had a most remarkable interview with him, as agreed before his death. I stood face to face with his spirit, and he told me all was well with him. No one can any longer reasonably doubt that the spirits of the dead communicate with the living." The report further quotes Dr. Funk: "My soul was filled with rapture, I realized that I, and I alone, had been the fortunate one to receive Dr. Hodgson's long-promised message. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Pepper had to leave the room, else she, too, would have talked to him. But it is not impossible for her to talk to him again. The communication established will make it easy."

Did Dr. Hodgson thus communicate?—Not if we read God's Word aright. That Word declares of him who dies: "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146:4. "His sons come to honor, and he [the dead] knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them." Job 14:21. Whether the above is a correct report as regards Dr. Funk, we know not, yet it is typical of many who are longing for some such revelation beyond God's Word. Of this the devil takes advantage, sends his evil angels who simulate deceased friends, and so deceive those unwilling to be guided by the Word of God. He declares through his prophet: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this Word, surely there is no morning for them." Isa. 8:19, 20.