The word “spiritual” is sadly wronged and degraded nowadays by misguided or semi-crazed persons who “blaspheme the Holy Ghost” by their pretensions to psychic power, and play with the names of scared things in order to further their own sinister designs. Our Lord prophesied this evil when He spoke of “false prophets” who should “show signs and wonders,” insomuch “that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect.”
Is it not a fact that we have come upon such days? Days when the pure, simple, and helpful ethics of Christ are set aside in exchange for an insane credence in the vulgar trickery of “mediumship,” “crystal-gazing,” and other base forms of superstition pertaining to the eras of ignorant barbarism? Does it seem believable that there should be so-called “intellectual” men in this country, even statesmen of admitted ability, who are actually partially under the sway of illiterate “mediums,” generally women, who pretend to hold communication with the dead, and even presume to offer advice from the “spirits” on the affairs of the nation and the prosecution of the war? One could hardly imagine a wilder improbability, yet it is an absolute fact! The names of persons in high and trusted positions are on the books of the unscrupulous jugglers and tricksters who earn their wicked living by mischievous tampering with the brains of their dupes and victims, and the wonder is that these notabilities should so feebly allow themselves to be duped and victimized. But one has only to think of the entire submission of the Romanoffs to the villainous machinations of that unspeakable “monk,” Rasputin, to realize that there is no depth of abasement to which the human mind may not fall if it loses its hold on God.
It has to be confessed there are very few indications of real religion among us at present. A large portion of the clergy seem stricken with ineptitude, and one longs for a strong man who would not only preach the truth, but live it. A narrow egotism disfigures the ministering spirit of the Church, and I could name more than one cleric whose absorption in self entirely blinds him to the real duties he is called upon to do.
The service of Christ should be broad and all-embracing, generous, cheerful, ungrudging, and untiring in the aid of all humanity, rich and poor, old and young, sinful and sorry, and only men who are prepared to work on these lines should be admitted to such a high and holy calling.
But things are moving, and will move in the right direction presently; when the roar of the guns has died away and the memory of our slain heroes weighs on our stricken souls with sorrow and shame, and we have time to reflect that it is for us and the saving of our honour that they have died.
We shall then lift our eyes to Him from Whom cometh our strength, we shall unite in a grand revolt against hypocrisy and shams; we shall hold our homes more preciously, seeing and knowing what blood has been shed to keep them inviolate, and we shall value simplicity and purity of life for ourselves and our children far more than wealth and the fleeting, feverish pleasures which wealth can attain.
In this new dawn of our day it will be well for England!
One of the happiest and most hopeful auguries for the future is the stimulus given to agriculture and the “life of the land” by the necessity of providing food supplies for our own people on our own soil.
The menace of the submarine has done this for us, and devastating as its brutal work has been, we may regard it as a blessing in disguise. For we should not need to depend on foreign imports of food if we utilised our own acreage as fully and diligently as we might.
Life in the country, work in the country, means health and a light heart; and many there are who would like to see the olden days of purely native production come back again—the days of home spinning, home weaving, home manufacture of every kind carried on in all the towns and villages of rural England.