CORRESPONDENCE. SPIRITUALISM AND THE HEREAFTER.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18186, 24 September 1924, Page 11

CORRESPONDENCE.

SPIRITUALISM AND THE HEREAFTER.

TO THE XBITOa C» "THE TBE3S." Sir, —When tout correspondent, Peter Trolovc, speaks about an antiquated burial service that needs editing (vide to-day's "Press") he will, tind that nearly all of the Bible needs editing in the same way before the claims of Spiritualism can be allowed. Perhaps that part of the burial service to which he refers is this: ''Bohold I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an. eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and fhe dead shall be raised incorruptible, and wc shall be changed." The time of ail this is indicated. It is the last trump. In other words the Resurrection Day. This time is still future. Now, Sir, this is not found originally in the prayer boot It is found in the Bible, and is but one expression of a truth that runs through the volume from cover to cover. If we bgcin to edit this part, then the whole book will need to be similarly treated. It would be interesting to know how Peter Trolove proposes to get over all this. AgaJD, this threatened burial service, as it is taken from the Bible, says: "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." If wearing flannels, etc., and smoking cigars, cigarettes, and other health-defiling pastimes that fall under the ban of the best medical opinion here, i 3 what awaits us in the higher sphere, then a huge question mark may not inappropriately be placed alongside of the "higher." For one I would be interested to hear the versatile Peter explain all this.—Yours, etc., "ITHUEIEL." i September "3rd. j

TO 'IBX EDITOB OF "'IBS VBXSS-" Sir, —In Shakespeare's King Henry IV., Part-1., wc read:— Glendowcr:- "T can call spirits from the vasty deep." . Hotspur: "Why, eo can I, or so can. any man: But will thev come when you do call for them?" '

To this last query Mr Peter Trolovo would give a very emphatic affirmative; for his "spooks" hop out on dcma.nd like Punches and Judies in the old show, and still moro to his honour and glory, his spirits arc persons of quality, e.g., Lord 'N'orthcliffo, none of those countless millions of the "great unwashed." The luckless Lord N.! No sooner has he scanced his English admirers to their heart's content thaii a "ring" comes from his Antipodean tormentors, who like 60 many "Peeping Toms'' are trying to get a glimpse behind the veil that divides two worlds.

But ought this alcohol question to be side-tracked by sarcasm or banter? Mr Trolovo is not quite eordiad in- his reception of the Susses opium, but the late Sir Andrew Clark, physician to her Majesty* Queen Victoria wrote: "Alcohol is a, poison—so is strychnine; so is arsenic; so is opium. It. ranks with these agents. Health is always in some way or other injured by it." Should. anyone from a false sense of humour make mirth out of the cancer scourge, or the plagues, red and white, that afflict humanity, he would be considered a case for a mental hospital, and alcoholism,-with its cruel, insidious warfare, is "the worst friend of all." —Yours,-etc., F. J./ALLEY.

•" to thi rmroE.'o? -"teetmss.' Sir,—To understand psychic phenomena and spiritual return, it depends a good deal,, in my humble opinion, on the development of the sixth sense. In-some this sense is totally lacking, as, for instance, Mr Trolovo's account of the two individuals who sidled up to him and remarked "what rot.it all was." Not everyone ha 3 the sixth sense to feel that: . Darkly we move —we press upon the brink ■ Haply of viewless worlds, and know it not, Yes! it may be, that nearer than, we think Axe those whom death has parted from our lotl Yours, etc., KI.WL

RATING ON UNLMPROVED VALUE

TO THE EDITOB OP "THE PEESS." Sir,—His Worship the Mayor baa consistently opposed the.rating on land values system, bo I was not surprised at his. attack on the present eystenr of rating last night at the City Council meeting, but I was surprised at the feeble opposition- put up by the 60called representatives of the wage-earn-ers against this attack upon a system of rating which exempts the homes of the workers from taxation. Surely they must have been suffering from sleeping sickness to allow such a remit to go forward to the Municipal Conference. Do they not know that if the remit is adopted, that it will be sent on to the Government, and having the recommendation of the Conference behind it, will almost certainly bo embodied in an amending Bill* and placed before Parliament with a very good chance of passing', for judging by the weak opposition of the present Labour Party to the Tariff Bill, when that Bill was allowed to slip through with a clause in it, re-imposing a 20 per cent, ad valorem . duty on all • cotton and linen '"piece" goods which come in by '"count" because in the weaving they are marked to be cut. into table-cloths, etc.—l say a party which was so wickedly negligent of its duty to the workers in that case are quite likelv to let slip this dangerous proposal which the Christchurch City Council made in the remit, which it 6ent forward and endorsed, an act which marks the "Labour" men 011 the Council as incompetents. I intend to write to some of my old Liberal friends in the House, warning them to keep a sharp look-out for the next Bill embodying the Municipal Conference recommendations.—Yours, etc.. H. G. ELL. September 23rd.