_I._ I admit that the facts you state about the Church's warfare in these latter days have not the most favorable aspect; but how the needed elements of theology and religion are to be supplied by demonstrations afforded by these latter-day phenomena, I do not yet quite see.
_P._ If religious teachers will but study these facts, simply _as_ facts, in all the different aspects which they have presented, from their first appearance up to this time--study them in the same spirit in which the chemist studies affinities, equivalents, and isomeric compounds--in the same spirit in which the astronomer observes planets, suns, and nebulæ--in the same spirit in which the microscopist studies monads, blood-discs, and protoplasm--always hospitable to a new fact, always willing to give up an old error for the sake of a new truth; never receiving the mere _dicta_ either of spirits or men as absolute authority, but always trusting the guidance of right reason wherever she may lead--if, I say, they will but study these great latter-day signs, providential warnings and monitions, in this spirit, I promise them that they shall soon find a _rational_ and _scientific_ ground on which to rest every real Christian doctrine, from the Incarnation to the crown of glory--miracles, the regeneration, the resurrection, and all, with the great advantage of having the doctrine of immortality taken out of the sphere of _faith_ and made a _fixed fact_. Furthermore, I promise them, on those conditions, that they shall hereafter be able to _lead_ science rather than be dragged along unwillingly in its trail; and then science will be forever enrolled in the service of God's religion, and no longer in that of the world's materialism and infidelity.
_I._ Planchette, your communication has, upon the whole, been of a most startling character; tell me, I pray you, what do you call all this thing, and what is to come of it?
WHAT THIS MODERN DEVELOPMENT IS, AND WHAT IS TO COME OF IT.
_P._ Can you, then, bear an announcement still more startling than any I have yet made?
_I._ I really know not; I will try; let us have it.
_P._ Well, then, I call it a Fourth Great Divine Epiphany or Manifestation; or what you will perhaps better understand as one of the developments characterizing the beginning of a Fourth Great Divine Dispensation. What is to come of it, you will be able to judge as well as I when you understand its nature.