In every age civilized men have sought evidence of a life above and beyond mortality; indeed this demand, this ceaseless longing which would not down, has been regarded as sure proof of man's immortality. Much surprise has been expressed by thoughtful students of the Bible that so little which is definite should have been said by the Old Testament writers, or even by Christ Jesus and his immediate followers, respecting what is called "the future life." It has indeed been questioned, for this reason, whether the ancient prophets believed in a future state at all, and we read in Acts (23rd chapter) that the Sadducees held there was "no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit."
In Matthew's Gospel we read that when these people mocked Jesus and demanded of him a sign from heaven, he replied by saying, "Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" On another occasion, when they sought to entangle him with the hypothetical case of a woman who had had seven husbands, and asked whose wife she should be "in the resurrection," he boldly cut this Gordian knot with the sword of Spirit, declaring that in the resurrection there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and that to God there is no death, "for all live unto him." In this statement the great Teacher turned thought away from material evidence to that which can be cognized by spiritual sense alone, for according to the physical senses men die and death seems to usurp the place and power of life, but according to Jesus' teaching this is never true, for to God and His idea there is no death. It is not, then, a question of futurity at all, but of a present recognition of the spiritual facts of being which never bend themselves to mortal belief.
It is certainly true that spiritual sense is the only means by which the realm of the real is opened up to us. The pity is that many earnest seekers should be misled in their search after the truth, and come to regard almost any unusual phenomena as spiritual evidence, when these are merely evidences of material belief. Even if such phenomena are not mere jugglery, it is safe to say that never once has mediumship revealed the Godlike, Christlike man who is the expression of divine Mind, nor has it given a hint of the way by which sin and misery may be overcome; and this failure to meet the greatest human need is due to the fact that material sense is relied upon while spiritual evidence is being sought.
