theory of a future life, but with no other. Why, after making this admission, Mr. Greg should abandon it and start off on another chase by saying, “ This is not what we mean when we speak of the Revelation by Christ," I am at a loss to understand. It seems to me that it is quite consistent with what the Church means. The theory propounded about such thoughts emanating from superior intelligences in the other world, would be quite consistent with the belief that Christ's inspiration came from so high a Being as the Almighty Himself. Indeed, Mr. Greg unwittingly admits it himself, in another part of his work, where, at p. 168, he writes of Christ as "surpassing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion with the Father." (!) So also later on, when he comes to deal with the doctrine of a future life-after exhausting all that reason can say against it, he concludes-"The truth we believe to be, that a future existence is, and must be, a matter of information or intuition, not of inference. The intellect may imagine it, but could never have discovered it, and can never prove it; the soul must have revealed it-must, and does perpetually reveal it." (!)

In other parts, Mr. Greg also admits the existence of certain "spiritual instincts, which we believe to be the voice of God in the soul, which infuse into the mind a sense of our relation to Him, and a hope of future existence." And further on, when coming to the question of the efficacy of prayer, which, of course, he resists on rational grounds, he concludes with the admission, that "we feel an internal voice more potent and persuasive than reason, which assures us, that to pray to Him in trouble is an irrepressible instinct of our nature."

Again, I say, I do not see how Mr. Greg reconciles all those admissions with the statement on p. 172-" That no doctrine can be taught by God to man-be supernaturally infused, that is, into his mind—which he might not by the employment of his own faculties have discerned or elicited."

If Christ did commune with the Father, Mr. Greg seems to argue, that what he gave us as the result of that communing, was no more than what he might have found out for himself; and, secondly, it was impossible that anything could have been so revealed to Christ which he could not have evolved for himself. In spite of this he talks of the Religion of Jesus, p. 193, as containing "more truth than has ever yet been given to man."

Assuming, in this connection, that Paul's description of the spiritual and the natural body and the resurrection of the former be a fact, it seems to me that he could never have discovered the fact for himself without something very like a revelation from the other world. Neither could the modern Spiritualist. Nor do I see how men could discover for themselves the value or necessity of prayer to God.

Mr. Greg argues that the Old Testament contained all that Christ taught, and that he might have arrived at all his conclusions from a discriminating study of that Book. This difficulty, however, vanishes at once on the Spiritualist's theory of inspiration; for, according to this assumption, all good men in all ages have been more or less in communion with the spirit-world, and have received truths from God through his ministering spirits. It seems to me rather inconsistent for Mr. Greg to admit in one page that Christ was in closer and deeper communion with the Father than all other men of all times, and then tell us that, as the result of that communion, he taught us nothing new, nothing which we could not have discovered for ourselves!

Whilst disagreeing with Mr. Greg in toto on the nature and possibility of a Divine revelation to man, I cordially agree with all he says upon the question of Christ's divinity, and think that no sensible man, who is willing to exercise his reason on the subject and has mind enough to understand it, can fail to admit that Mr. Greg's conception of Christ's character and credentials is as lofty and as reverential as that of the most pious Churchman. Indeed, here

again I am considerably puzzled to reconcile Mr. Greg's various statements-his enthusiasm for Christ's character, with his laborious and (I think) unsatisfactory attempts to prove that Jesus taught us nothing which any man similarly endowed could not have discovered from the materials before him.

In one part he calls the author of the Christian precepts "the one towering perpetual miracle of history," whilst elsewhere he calls him "the most exalted genius whom God ever sent upon the earth; in himself an embodied revelation; humanity in its divinest phase, God manifest in the flesh." Again, "It is difficult, without exhausting superlatives, even to unexpressive and wearisome satiety, to do justice to our intense love, reverence, and admiration for the character and teaching of Jesus, the perfection

of the spiritual character-as surpassing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion with the Father." I cannot conceive how any honest man, worthy of the name of a follower of him who said, "He that is not against us is on our part," can regard those who hold such opinions of Christ as here expressed in any other light than Christians, and yet probably nine clergymen out of ten would tell us that such love, reverence, and admiration is not enough—"You must believe in Christ's divinity -believe that he died to save you, and that but for his death on the cross you could not be saved. This is the test of your Christianity!" And yet, if comparisons were instituted between the so-called Christian and the lost sinner, no just judge would deny that the latter obeyed and lived up to the teachings and commands of Christ quite as closely and worthily as the former. We have seen what Christ did teach. We know he did not require of us to believe any doctrine whatever; but to do good, be charitable towards others, and have faith in God.

The reader who has read what I have myself said upon the question of Christ's divinity (ante p. 144), will see that

I am necessarily of one accord with all that Mr. Greg says on this subject, and I need not, therefore, repeat those arguments here.

On a par with Mr. Greg's difficulty in understanding how any truth can be revealed to man from without, is his article on the efficacy of prayer, which I cannot pass over without expressing my entire dissent from his conclusions. That prayer was taught by Christ, Mr. Greg, of course, cannot deny. And although he admits that "we feel an internal voice, more potent and persuasive than reason, which assures us that to pray to Him in trouble is an irrepressible instinct of our nature," yet he feels it impossible to admit that reason has aught to say in its favour, because, he says, "if the universe is governed by fixed laws, or (which is the same proposition in different language) if all events are pre-ordained by the foreseeing wisdom of an infinite God, then the prayers of thousands of years and generations of martyrs and saints cannot change or modify one iota of our destiny. The proposition is unassailable," says he, "by the subtlest logic. The weak, fond affections of humanity struggle in vain against the unwelcome conclusion."

Prayer, says Mr. Greg (p. 202), is simply asking the Great Architect of the Universe to work a miracle in our favour -"for what," says he, "is a special providence but an interference with established laws?"

Mr. Greg apparently has himself no faith in the efficacy of prayer. That this want of faith is a great loss to those who feel it, no one can deny. I have already given the Spiritualists' theory of prayer (see ante p. 256), and need not here repeat more than to say that, to my mind, this theory, whilst it satisfies our reason, completely meets all the objections Mr. Greg urges. There is, in short, no more miracle or interference with the fixed laws of the universe in man addressing prayers to God and receiving aid through the intercession of His ministering spirits—they being, like

us, only able to work in accordance with God's laws, though perhaps endowed with higher powers than we know of— than there is in such a man beseeching his fellow-men, for the love of God, to aid him by their material help. The immediate acting agency in bringing about the desired result may disclose nothing miraculous or supernatural; but the indirect moving power may be entirely spiritual. Only those who admit or believe it is possible that we can receive mental impressions and impulses from invisible beings-ministering spirits, in fact-can understand how satisfactorily the natural and the so-called supernatural elements in special providences can be reconciled.

Strange to say, Mr. Greg himself admits the possibility of the Spiritualists' theory being true, and that it would meet his own difficulties. "If, therefore," he says, “there be around us, as many think, superior spiritual beings, our prayers, if heard by them, may induce them to aid us by means unknown to our inferior powers. But such aid would then be the natural result of natural though obscure causes."

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In dealing with the question of forgiveness of sins, Mr. Greg confesses to a conviction that "there can be no forgiveness of sins; that God will not interpose between a cause and its consequences ;—'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."" Repentance cannot avert these consequences. It is valid to secure the future, but not to obliterate the past.

I refer to these conclusions of Mr. Greg simply to show that his reasoning entirely confirms the teachings of Spiritualism on the same subject. As there is probably little in connection with Spiritualism and its teachings which Mr. Greg is likely to agree with, this coincidence may be taken as all the more flattering to the Spiritualists.

Touching the doctrine of a Future State, Mr. Greg has again much to say which runs counter to the teachings of the Church, but which I find almost entirely coincides with