“Because there is no good in it. Because it will ruin her, body and soul. Whoever goes into that belief does so at his peril. He either becomes insane or helplessly demoralized before many months or years.�
“Where have you learned so much, Mrs. Wylie? It appears to me I have never seen you so much excited over anything before. Who has been talking to you?�
“I heard Mr. Smalley’s address at church last Sunday evening, which you would not go to hear. He said it was a most pernicious and dangerous theory to follow. That it led to—�
“O, I know. It is the wholesale condemnation of heterodoxy by orthodoxy. It is believe what I believe or be damned. All else is of the Devil. It has been the habit of most people since the world began to denounce as heresy, or ridicule as madness, things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension. But the day has gone by for this sort of thing. It is merely a confession of ignorance, now-a-days, to assert a total disbelief in psychic and supernatural phenomena.�
“But, Horace, there is much fraud and trickery connected with it. Think of that exposé last winter of that Mrs. Brunner.�
“O, that is liable to happen in any creed or theology. There are always some who make pretensions from merely selfish motives.�
“But, Horace, this is no theology. That is what I think so dreadful about it. If people would only not make a religion of it and accept the utterance of the so-called spirits for their guide in spiritual maters.�
“It seems to me spirits should be good guides in spiritual matters,� said Mr. Wylie, smiling.
“Horace, Mr. Smalley said that, as a rule, false religions always led to sexual immorality; that we would find the history of spiritism associated with divorces and worse. Husbands separating from their wives, wives from their husbands, minds becoming unbalanced, business neglected, and a general lowering of the whole social fabric, mentally and morally. You know, Horace, many spiritists are free-lovers.�
“I am surprised that my wife has permitted herself to listen to such utterances. Hereafter, I prefer you do not go to hear Rev. Mr. Smalley. I will take you with me.�