The genuine Christian is one who goes about doing good and does good while remaining at home, but not evil anywhere. The Christ is a saving spirit and the antithesis as such of evil and destruction. Whatsoever partakes of and imparts the saving principle illustrates the true Christ. Person or principle, he or it is Christian. Whatsoever, on the other hand, militates against the advancement of truth, whatsoever opposes the growth of science and the light of reason or intuition—that is an antagonist of the good principle, that is an enemy of mankind and that also is an antichrist. The Word of God is composed of love, justice, truth, wisdom and liberty. So also, and whether in or out of religion, principles are infallible and imperishable words of God. The Christ-principle is one of perfect justice and reciprocity, of doing to others as you would have others do to you, of unbounded sympathy, saving charity, practical benevolence, inspired by a warm love of truth and crowned by reverence for that which is truly supreme. To cherish a worshipful love for God and Nature is to be at once Christian and religious in the largest spiritual sense. The antithesis of all this is easily formulated. To live unjustly, to produce discord and enmities, to misinterpret truth, to deal falsely, hypocritically and with duplicity, to act maliciously and selfishly, to harbour passions, prejudices and appetites is to be necessarily and diametrically
opposite to the redeeming principles, and hereof is Antichrist.
But sectarianism does not judge by the standard here laid down, for each and every sect holds everything anti-christian which does not concur fully with its adopted creed. So do they denounce one another and so combine to condemn the findings of science. So also they have arisen as one man and one power to affirm that spiritualism is Antichrist. It is not that spiritualists are worse persons than their neighbours but that the future looms before it as something larger, grander, more permanent than the present. The opposite of sectarianism, its spirit is one of love to mankind, of liberty, sympathy, unity. It teaches that all may become brothers and sisters, that all are on their way toward the infinite, from a countless variety of paths which lead to one Positive Mind, to one encircling sphere of immortal glory and happiness, to larger and grander experience in individual progress. It holds that crime and punishment are in proportion one to another, that one is balanced by the other. It proves the other world to be as much a part of this existence as the human brain is part of the spinal marrow. It opens the human brain as the sun opens the petals of the flower; and as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter, so the human spirit comes forth and rises into that existence which is a continuation of this. It brings a great knowledge of the future, for the old materialistic school of infidelity has no chance with spiritualism. Men who had no knowledge of the future and no faith in man have now a scientific assurance and a beautiful hope. Its truths come as an illuminating religion, expanding the human heart, opening the rational powers and enabling the mind to see that there is no break in the laws of progress. It is this which sects and churches call antichristian, but were it so then human intuition has no power whereby to distinguish truth from error.
Against all such false testimonies, we know that the era of spiritual harmony is here and now approaching and will be part of our common inheritance. It is coming in virtue of principles implanted in human nature. Let us therefore, on our part, be just and natural in our spiritual growth, that we may be firm as the everlasting hills. God is the central magnet of the universe; the spiritual world is a continuation of that which is natural; there is no surprise in store for us when we shall ascend to the higher life; it will be comparable to a stream of water flowing for thirsty souls and a feast of food for the hungry.
Herein is that spiritual truth which gives help to all and, further, extracts it from all. Instead of finding an antagonist in popular science or philosophy, or an enemy in any reforms, spiritualism recognises in each and all but old acquaintances, even true friends and relatives. The modern spiritualist stands erect between social and religious extremes, a central influence, a medium for the expression of progressive principles, a friend to all who would grow in wisdom and harmony.