"THIS AWFUL SYSTEM."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 184, 4 August 1913, Page 6

"THIS AWFUL SYSTEM."

SPIRITUALISM ASSAILED. The philosophy of spiritualism was assailed by the Rev. A. A. Murray in the course of a sermon to a larpe confrrcgation at S>t. Andrew's Chiin-h last eveninjr. He drew attention to the fact that spiritualism wa.i aeeuminf; larpe According to JJr. -Mack, i>l Hamburg, there were in Berlin in IWO ten thousand adherents, many being persons of courtly rank, iviih four hundred mediums, and from lifteen to twenty In North America, there were sixteen million cipiritua.list?, and it was estimated in IS!I4 tha.t followers throughout the world numbered sixty million, excluding llie demoralised races of China. Japan. India and the Sudan, while tiere were over two hundred journals devoted to "'this awful system."

He remarked that he w> at. one time of the opinion (that spiritualism was nothing l>ut the outcome of heated imagination, but he was compelled cv say there was something in it. Such men as iSir WJUiam Oooks. f*ir Oiirer Lodge. Dr. AJfrad Wallace, a;nd ihe late Profeseor James hud examined the phenomena produced by certain mediums, and admitted that epiritirajists had some ground for their elairacj. The preacher conceded that spiritualists did communicate with someone, but it wae someone impersonating the dead, and therefore mediums were deceived in interpreting the phenomena they produced- isU"bjecting the claims of spiritualism to the infallible test—the Word of (rod—Mr. Murray proceeded to show by Scri-ptnra.l qno.tatioii that |1) tthe. Word <y! (Jod forbids a.nd condemns ; all attempts to commimicato with the spirits of the departed: (2) that <-mnnruaieation with the spirits of the departed is linueceseary ami (J!) impossible; and (4) the Word of (iod teUs na with whom the spirits do communicate, In dealing w.ith the several aspects of the subject, the preacher declared that the real mischief of spiritualism was the substitution of evil epirit.s for the living God. He gave it as his conviction that spiritiialis.ts communicated with demons, who impersonated the dead. The alarming rapidity with which the cult was <rrowing re.aUy jrave proof to the prophecy of Paul, -'that in the latter times >ome jh-all depart from the faith, gjvir,p heed to the seducing spirits and doctrines of demons"; and Mr. Murray concluded with a solemn warning to Christian and non-Christian people to have nothing whatever to do with spiritualism, which, he argued, was nothing lees than -demoinsm.