382 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP 



realities. Is it rational to ignore or deny phenomena 

 which have been demonstrated to the satisfaction of such 

 men as Robert Chambers, Professor De Morgan, Dr. Lock- 

 hart Robertson, William Crookes, and scores of other great 

 thinkers, and has drawn from the ranks of English 

 Secularists Robert Owen, George Sexton, and Annie 

 Besant ? But, it may be said, admitting the facts, 

 the theory is irrational. Here, again, I ask, who can 

 judge better of the correctness of the theory those who 

 have personally investigated the facts, or those who have 

 not ? But really, it is not a question of theory, since, 

 when the whole facts are known to be realities, no 

 other conclusion is possible or rational than that of the 

 Spiritualists. 



It has been shown, and will, I am sure, be admitted by 

 all unprejudiced readers, that we have derived from 

 Spiritualism a conception of a future state and of its 

 connection with our life here very different from, and far 

 superior to, the ordinary religious teaching which formerly 

 prevailed. That teaching has now been partly modified 

 through the influence of Spiritualistic ideas ; but by the 

 religious preacher it is taught dogmatically, not as it comes 

 to the Spiritualist with all the force of personal communi- 

 cation with those called dead, but who, again and again, 

 tell us they are far more alive than ever they were here. 

 This Spiritualistic teaching as to another life enforces 

 upon us, that our condition and happiness in the future 

 life depends, by the action of strictly natural law, on 

 our life and conduct here. There is no reward or 

 punishment meted out to us by superior beings ; but, just 

 as surely as cleanliness and exercise and wholesome food 

 and air produce health of body, so surely does a moral life 

 here produce health and happiness in the spirit-world. 

 Every well-informed Spiritualist realises that, by 

 every thought and word and deed of his daily earth-life, 

 he is actually and inevitably determining his own 

 happiness or misery in a future life which is continuous 

 with this that he has the power of creating for himself 

 his own heaven or hell. The Spiritualists alone, therefore, 

 or those who accept with equal confidence the Spiritual- 



