The Broad Church party in the established communion has done much, and will no doubt do much more, to eliminate the Supernatural from the minds of its admirers and of the people of England. Disliking dogma, its teaching, when the fog which surrounds it allows that teaching to be partly comprehended, is of the earth earthy. It dovetails in with the low material views and carnal desires of the money-grubbing many. Its ideal of bliss, not always wrapped up in philosophical jargon (and therefore sometimes intelligible), is simply commercial prosperity and temporal wealth; eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, comfort, material pleasure and ease; the conquest of Nature by scientific research and progress; an enjoyment of the present and only the present; and a complete banishment of the old-world theology--useful, it may have been, in times gone by, when the World was being educated; but now to be thrown aside as lumber, worn out and valueless. In place of that Historical Christianity accepted since the days of S. Augustine of Canterbury, we are promised doubt, disbelief, a refined as well as an unrefined intellectual Paganism; and in the end--though such an end may not now be contemplated by all members of that ecclesiastical school--a positive rejection of the distinct nature of God.
At present, of course, the figure is decently draped. Its ugly proportions and hateful outline are not apparent. Its admirers have to accommodate themselves with some skill to the strong prejudices of the age; to tolerate systems which they contemn, to carry out the silent but certain operation of destruction, under the hypocritical desire of assisting mankind to complete the work of temporal progress.
All this is before us and around us, if we would but note it. And this being so, the state of thought and of society, as few can fail to observe, is eminently calculated to afford those who disbelieve in the Supernatural, good opportunities of advance in the direction of negations. On the other hand, the presence amongst us of a sect of persons who call themselves "Spiritualists," and whose notorious words and works may be noted and criticized, is full of moment and importance. Spiritualism, when first it appeared and took shape, was treated with contempt. The facts urged by its supporters were denied; the manifestations almost universally disbelieved in. It was declared to be the work of acute knaves, or the offspring of idle and imaginative dreamers. Public writers treated it with scornful contempt. Reports of its strange proceedings and extraordinary developments were knowingly and deliberately suppressed. It was hastily hustled off the public stage, refused a hearing, and denied a defence. This policy, however convenient to its promoters, has failed. Sneers have not killed it. Its ideas and theories have been recently reduced to a formal system, while its votaries have increased to an extent scarcely credited. Christians and non-Christians, Roman Catholics, Church-of-England people and Protestants, have ranged themselves under its banner, and accept and propagate its views. To some the existence of spurious coin proves the value of the true; and the portents of these latter times are surely full of warning and value.