The other is the proclamation that a Redeemer had come to Sion. “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”
What is the attitude of Spiritualism towards these central truths?
IV
THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD
We need say little about the controversy on the Divine Nature of our Lord which has broken out in the ranks of Spiritualism. The difference was proclaimed in a letter to Light[35] by the Rev. F. Fielding-Ould, a London clergyman, who is himself a Spiritualist, and whose writings are recommended by Sir A. Conan Doyle. “No one,” says this clergyman, “has a right to call himself a Christian unless he believes in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. He may be a person of estimable character, and greatly developed spirituality, but he is not a Christian.” On the truth of our Lord’s Divinity the Church is erected. “Take it away, and the whole elaborate structure falls into ruins. It is upon that rock that the great vessel of modern Spiritualism is in imminent danger of being wrecked.… In the Spiritualist hymn-book the name of Jesus is deleted—e.g., ‘angels of Jesus’ reads ‘angels of wisdom.’ At their services His name is carefully omitted in the prayers, and the motto of very many is, ‘Every man his own priest and his own saviour.’ Christian Spiritualists, who rejoice in many of the revelations of the séance room, are alarmed. They are quite prepared to allow every man to make his own decision, but that the movement as a whole should be identified with Theism, and that they themselves should be considered as having renounced their faith and hope in Jesus Christ is intolerable.”
Mr. Fielding-Ould adds that Spiritualism is “utterly discredited and condemned” if it can be shown that “the communicating spirits are the authors of and responsible for this anti-Christian tendency.” His language is that of a man who has been misled through ignorance, and who has been brought up sharply on the edge of a precipice.
There never was a time when the Church of England, and all the Christian Churches of this country, accepted with firmer conviction the language of the Te Deum and of the Nicene Creed. “Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.”
“I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God.”
If mockers within the fold of Spiritualism cry contemptuously, “You are uttering language far beyond the range of mortal understanding,” the Christian knows that the reality is indeed far beyond his finite apprehension. He looks up and says with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”
V
THE SAVIOUR FROM SIN
The witness of the Christian heart confirms the testimony of the human race in all ages that a Saviour is needed. It is not only the races influenced by Hebrew literature who have shared the consciousness of sin. A modern scholar quotes from an Egyptian hymn to Amon, Lord of Thebes, helper of the poor: