II
Camille Flammarion, speaking fifty years ago at the grave of Allan Kardec, the French apostle of Spiritualism, used language which might almost seem justified in view of modern discoveries. “When we compare our small knowledge and the narrow limits of our sphere of perception with the vast mass of that which really exists,” he says, “we can hardly avoid the conclusion that we do not really know anything, and that all true knowledge lies in the future.” The phenomena of Spiritualism to the French astronomer look like twinkling stars in the Milky Way of science. Thomas Hardy, in “Two on a Tower,” dwells on man’s sense of infinite littleness as he confronts the stellar universe. “I often experience a kind of fear of the sky after sitting in the observing chair a long time,” says Swithin St. Cleeve to Lady Constantine. “And when I walk home afterwards I also fear it, for what I know is there, but cannot see, as one naturally fears the presence of a vast formless something that only reveals a very little of itself.”[50]
“Patience and equanimity” are the watchwords of true science. Wordsworth, in his poem “Star-Gazers,” notes the bitter disappointment of the crowd which looked through the telescope in Leicester Square. Fee in hand, they had come to behold the wonders of the heavenly spaces, but showman or implement failed to answer their desires.
“Whatever be the cause, ’tis sure that they who pry and pore
Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before;
One after one they take their turn, nor have I one espied
That doth not slackly go away as if dissatisfied.”
A similar disappointment awaits the pushing crowd which gazes through the telescope of Spiritualism. “Have patience,” say the masters of science, “we are only on the threshold of knowledge. In a single generation we have added two vast provinces to the human spirit. By wireless telegraphy we have turned the farthest ocean solitudes into man’s whispering gallery. In conquering the air we have revolutionised the course of history.”
Can we doubt that from the wonderful works of God, no less than from His holy Word, new light and truth will yet break forth for humanity? Science is prepared for extensions of man’s physical and mental powers which will put to shame the phenomena of Spiritualism. We are living in a transitional epoch, and faith alone can support the soul as it beats the prison bars, knowing not how or when the sentence of its liberation may be spoken.
“I wait, my soul doth wait,
For Him who on His shoulder bears the key;
I sit fast bound and yet not desolate,
My mighty Lord is free.”[51]
“O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel, Thou that openest, and no man shutteth, and shuttest, and no man openeth, come and bring the prisoner out of his prison house.”