Our Letter Box.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7750, 28 February 1905, Page 4

Our Letter Box.

(Wo are not responsible for opinions expressed by correspondents.) OX MATTEHS SPIRITUAL. (To the Editor.) Sir,—There has appeared in your columns during the last few weeks, some correspondence pertaining to spiritualism. Who wrote those lettors is a matter of conjecture to the man in the street, though, of course, you know. Speaking as a common person, with no pretence to erudition or extra occult knowledge, I have an idea that the secular press is the last place in the world in which a man with deep spiritual convictions ' would lay tare his soul ; nor does ho ns a rule wear his heart on his sleeve for scoffers to pick at. " Investigator " is sure that Hudson and Crookes do not accept the fact of spirit return. Well, what difference wouhl that make to any other investigator, if he saw and heard sufficient to convince him of its truth ? A pawky Scotch person (which her name is Mrs Mcllardie) in her book against spiritualism, estimates the adherents of that cult at forty millions, and she confesses, to her sorrow, that men " and women in the highest walks of life are firm believers in the fact of spirit communication, and derive great comfort from that belief. Yet Mrs McHardie has the hardihood to affirm that, according to her interpretation of the " word," all those forty millions of misguided people will be destroyed in i these lattes days by the Christians, , just in the self-same manner as the I 'ancient Jews destroyed the more , 'ancient Canaanites. Here is ortho- , ''dox comfort for " Investigator," if ■ ! he is built that way. All this, too, '. tin these days of so-called mental 'freedom, with a cheap, press and . 'schoolmaster. I am proud of the _ 'fact that one of the best men I ever " 'knew was a spiritualist. I lived e with him a good while. If he is gone to Gehenna I want to know the " reason why, and would be willing to go, too, if I could find out that ths 3 " All Father " saw fit to condemn " my friend for what he couldn't h«lp u believing. No, no, my friend " Ina vestigator !'* We see that idea giv- " en the lie—every day, if we will only '" open our eyes. A man believes as he '• must always—not as his neighbours Q think he ought. There are good a people in all the churches, as well as " out of them, and many a man will > l jbo written down as one " who loved n his fellow men " (in spite of hard- ® shell inquisitors) at the final suni- *■ ming up. Men find spiritual comf~ fort in all sosts of ways. I knew of one who found it in Walker's i- Dictionary, and it was nobody else's s- business either. " Let every man id be fully- persuaded in his own mind," h is as good advice to-day as it was ■n nineteen hundred years ago ; and id though tho Yankee said that " they er didn't know everything down in Jus- dee," yet, after all, Paul said at it least one good thing. I have used s, the masculine gender for convenience er sake, but the ladies will understand so that the men (nearly) always emin brace the women, and so everything „ s is sure, in the end, to turn up lW trumps. Who dare make a hard and .«• fast law as to what we shall beer lieve? He who doubts is sure to investigate for himself—no second,i hand business will do. What is re.l IvehUion to one man is generally the opposite to the other fellow, and if . both are satisfied then let all the 1 , rest of us be tolerant. Good word , that ! The more I think about it , !the more lam in love with it. A ?' 'fine sentiment it is, too, to close , lone's eves in sleep with, and so in toleration I remain yours, etc., "•-1 J. A. HO BERTS, Eliot street.