Then comes
prophecy, which is a real and yet a fitful and often delusive
form of mediumship--never so delusive as among the early
Christians, who seem all to have mistaken the approaching fall of
Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, which they could
dimly see, as being the end of the world. This mistake is
repeated so often and so clearly that it is really not honest to
ignore or deny it. Then we come to the power of "discerning the
spirits," which corresponds to our clairvoyance, and finally that
curious and usually useless gift of tongues, which is also a
modern phenomenon. I can remember that some time ago I read the
book, "I Heard a Voice," by an eminent barrister, in which he
describes how his young daughter began to write Greek fluently
with all the complex accents in their correct places. Just after
I read it I received a letter from a no less famous physician,
who asked my opinion about one of his children who had written a
considerable amount of script in mediaeval French. These two
recent cases are beyond all doubt, but I have not had convincing
evidence of the case where some unintelligible signs drawn by an
unlettered man were pronounced by an expert to be in the Ogham or
early Celtic character. As the Ogham script is really a
combination of straight lines, the latter case may be taken with
considerable reserve.
Thus the phenomena associated with the rise of Christianity
and those which have appeared during the present spiritual
ferment are very analogous.
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