“And are you likely to find out?” demanded Mr. Philpot, turning upon Maurice with more earnestness than he had yet displayed. “For centuries the world has been combating with that problem, and how far have they advanced? Not one inch. Thousands of years ago, sorcerers and magicians gave us the same mysterious manifestations that your modern mediums do to-day. Anciently men respected these persons; later on they burned them; now they laugh at their often exposed humbugs. Bah! I have preached heaven and held up hell as a bugaboo, for money, and priests, by the hundreds of thousands, have done and ever will do the same; but what proof is there? Frankly, gentlemen, I, who have the right to know, say to you there is none. We know that we die, and that is all we do know, and a hundred centuries of preaching to the contrary has been unable to show us any more.”
“I cannot agree with you,” replied Maurice, coldly. “Thousands of witnesses have testified to the truth of spiritual manifestations, and yet you throw their testimony aside with one wave of the hand.”
“And you are a Spiritualist then?”
“On the contrary, I am nothing of the sort. I defined my position just now. I am an investigator—nothing more. I do not claim that the testimony of these witnesses is true.”
“And you, to talk as you do, must be a pretty thorough skeptic,” I interposed. “Until now, I could have freely endorsed every word you say.”
“You’ve hit it,” answered Mr. Philpot lightly. “To one likely to betray me I would never admit it, for I may find it convenient to assume a charge again at any time; but, to you, I say freely, I believe nothing, and investigation only goes to strengthen my unbelief. What is religion but a tissue of falsities, a hollow sham, a cloak for a selfish priesthood to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the multitude—it is nothing less, nothing more. Pope, cardinal, bishop and priest, it is all one in my experience. Bah! I was ‘Low-Church,’ and was kicked out, because I wouldn’t burn candles on my altar, swing censers and listen to the confessions of morbid women. Then I tried ‘High-Church,’ burned candles by the box and incense by the pound. But no! ’Twould’nt suit. They kicked because I wasn’t ‘Low-Church,’ growled because I smoked, accused me of being a
