II
Impatience and annoyance seem to be roused in certain Spiritualists when the question is put to them. Mr. J. Arthur Hill, in the concluding pages of his best-known volume,[34] refers to the complaint of “a clerical reviewer of a recent book of mine … that I nowhere stated my belief regarding Christ.”
“It seemed a curious objection,” he goes on, “and it had not occurred to me that anyone would expect Christology in a book mainly describing psychical investigations.” He refers to “technical theological details on which I am incompetent to pronounce,” and adds that “Spiritualists seem for the most part to be uninterested in the subtleties of the Trinitarian doctrine. All venerate the person and teaching of Jesus.”
The writer expresses his own belief that “Jesus may have belonged to some order higher than ours.” “I admit,” he says, “that I have felt this about Emerson.… Consequently, I sympathise with those who, being rightly humble about their own persons, but rating others and human possibilities in general too low, feel the necessity of regarding Jesus as more than man.”
It is strange that a writer of Mr. Hill’s intelligence should forget that we are living in a Christian land, and that Spiritualism professes to bring new certainties about the future life to those whose hope and anchor on futurity has hitherto rested wholly in the Christian faith. He goes as far as he possibly can to meet the inquiries of Christian readers, but evidently thinks it unfair that they should tease him. That is the surprising thing.
Take in contrast the language of James Smetham, when he was studying the Epistle to the Hebrews: “The great difference of such a subject from all others is that all the interests of Time and Eternity are wrapped up in it. The scrutiny of a title-deed of £100,000 a year is nothing to it. How should it be? Is there a Christ? Is He the heir of all things? Was He made flesh? Did He offer the all-perfect sacrifice? Did He supersede the old order of priests? Is He the Mediator of a new and better covenant? What are the terms of that covenant? There are no questions like these. All other interests seem low, trivial, momentary.”