Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

8 MODERN SPIRITISM
And this, not because his soul here means his
"spirit," which it does not, but because of two
cordinal errors. The one that his life, his ego,
himself, can certainly look forward to many years
of ease; whereas, as reminded elsewhere and every
hour, we "know not what a day may bring forth."
The other is that he wholly ignores the spirit life and
its requirements. But all this only in passing. I
hurry on to what follows: "But God said unto him,
Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of
thee."
'This marvellous drama is lost to us unless we
understand the phenomena of inaudible voices,
and of the true answer to the question concerning
which we are gathered to-night.
Our Mediaeval Bible
'I
suppose no one in these rooms imagines the
Almighty God, in some human form, or possibly
some supernatural form, such as we commonly
associate with angelic beings, appeared to this farmer ?
'We must not forget to note here the curious fact,
often overlooked, that the Bible we use is not in our
language at all, but in the mediaeval English of 300
years ago, now practically obsolete; with the result
that not only is the true meaning frequently obscured,
but that in reading it we find ourselves in
a mediaeval atmosphere, and absolutely out of
touch with modern thought.* The result is that in
studying the Bible we conjure up mediaeval pictures,
*
We often think this is due to the Bible itself; whereas it is
largely on account of the mediaeval English, as one soon finds
who reads Dr. Weymouth's "Testament in Modern English."