Norwich bulletin., 1920-02-05
REGISTERS HIS PROTESTS
 AGAINST SPtRITUALISM

mon at Park Congregational church | upon the Revival of Spiritualism.
 pr. Howe's sermon was from the text Hebrews 1928, We are come to 1 the spirits of just men made perfect. He spoke in part as follows:
 We are all aware of the revival of popul arinterest in the modern spirit ualisan Oculltisn has been a favortte study for decade or more. Scientific psychics have. engrossed attention for half a century and more, which is a study apart from the subject with which I am to deal. Spiritualism has received a new impetus from the world bereavement which the war en- tailed and by the suffrage of certain scientific experts; which has made, necessary a new appraisement of its merits, and for this we do not need to, unqualifiedly approve or denounce. An error for its promulgation needs a truth to wing it. There is a large sense in which we are all spiritualists. We acknowledge the existence and power of psychic forces. We are our selves spirits and not wholly impris- oned in flesh and blood Spirits with spirits blend" God is a spirit and is to be worshipped in spirit, and we are akin to spirits and hold to our faith in the Communion Of saints" many of whom have crossed the mortal frontier.
 Those who have passed from us are. alive; the same vital personalities as, when here. Maeterlink in his play of the "Blue Bird'' taught us to speak of them not as dead, but as ''The Others" Our interest in them and theirs in us is vital. Our Bibles are our authority for believing that the spiritual world is not hemispherical. Lines of communication are not all cut. Messengers from the Unseen have burst in upon us. An angel ministry and the inearIiation and res urrection attest this. Jacobs ladder still connects the two worlds and the messengers ascend and descend. Nose and Elias are in the witness box. Jesus crossed the seam of separation and recrossed it. He recalled the dead though they brought no messages or something sealed the lips of the evang- elists.
 Paul was caught up into the heav-
 enlies, but what he saw and heard
 was unutterable in human language or was rigidly censored" and left us
 unenlightened. Some mems silence is more suggestive than other mems gar rulity. And so the great Biblical si-
 fences are as imposing as their rev. elations. And to these intercommuni- cations revealed by Scripture and by great literature which has peopGed
 the world with invisible beings and
 ministers, millions of whom, Milton
 tells us, walk the earth, both while we wake, and while we sleep we may add
 these intuitional beliefs that there is to all of us the touch of the vanished hand, this sense of the nearness and aweing impression of these silent min isters and ministriesl, voiceless and invisible; of the beloved dead, con- l cerning which, however, we prefer to be silent. All this we may freely ad-
 init without committing ourselves to
 the revelations of the seance and the
 intermdiacy of the professional medi-
 um.
 But we are startled by the favor able appraisal of scientific men. But | does the study of the structure of the l physical universe qualify dogmat tic pronunciation upon the laws of the l spiritual world? Does knowledge in l the sphere of ones speciality make a man an expert in a totally different i sphere? Does authority in physics i imply authority in philosophy Things of the spirit are spiritually
 discerned. In the early chapters of i the Bible is the story of origins
 whether History, Poetry, Parable, need
 not be discussed. But some things i lie on the surface Man innocent and in the image of God seems accessible
 to sort of cosmic communion. Ce- i lestial visitants and ministers were his 1 He was given. dominion. control over the forces of nature He was their master but his sin incurred the loss of this mastership; and the right and power slipped his grasp. Nature re- Volted against his rule, ienslaved her predestined master. He now trembled before the powers of nature, terroriz- ed by these elemental forces, as the savage trembles and covers before the pltlless forces of nature, wind and storm and tempest, flood and flame. He even erected these forces of nature : into objects of worship and sought to propitiate them by sacrifice. But through redemption man has been busy recovering his lost dominion. We have seen Jesus, who recoyers tbe dominion, who was the master of the
 physical powers. In the new eras which brought intellectual and moral emancipation these antagonistic forces of nature have been. tentatively i mastered. Sea and air and flame electricity, etc, have become servants to man. We sail the oceans, tunnel
 the mountains, travel through the
 air and send our messages around the world. Nature is fast surrendering 1 her old tyranny and yielding to the
 masterful grip of her real master Scientific men have been the witness
 es and agents to this recovery of do- l minion. They. have discovered that matter is the agent of spirit; is itself spJrit-woven. and have learned that matter and spirit are not divorced but in close alliance. Sir Oliver Lodge told us twenty years ago that the tunnel is approaching completion and that we can hear the click of the picks on either side and the way will be open in due time. It is not strange that some of them have been over sanguine when they have promised the resumption of the intended lines or communication. Perhaps the open lines may only lead to a larger phys ical realm, for the spiritual realm is not for mortal eyes or ears. Moral rectiications are essential to the dis cernment of the spiritual. Some of us would enter our protest against too much modern spiritualism.
 l. It cannot be made religion of. It cannot function as a religion. We may or may not have certain touch with the departed but a belief in it's disclosures does not go to the root of the real facts of life. It does not pro- vide forgiveness for my sin. It can not handle big magnitudes like sin