Then again, to pass from practice to faith, Spiritualism professes to be the reverse of exclusive. In addressing the Conference of 1874, and defending my position as a clerical inquirer, I was able to say:--"On the broad question of theology I can conceive no single subject which a clergyman is more bound to examine than that which purports to be a new revelation, or, at all events, a large extension of the old; and which, if its claims be substantiated, will quite modify our notions as to what we now call faith. It proposes, in fact, to supply in matters we have been accustomed to take on trust, something so like demonstration, that I feel not only at liberty, but actually bound, whether I like it or not, to look into the thing. * * * * * Whether your creed is right or wrong is not for me to tell you; but it is most important for me that I should assure myself. And while I recognise that my own duty clearly is to examine the principles you profess, I find this to be eminently their characteristic, _that they readily assimilate with those of my own Church_. I see nothing revolutionary in them. You have no propaganda. You do not call upon me, as far as I understand, to come out of the body I belong to and join yours, as so many other bodies do; but you ask me simply to take your doctrines into my own creed, and vitalize it by their means. That has always attracted me powerfully towards you. You are the broadest Churchmen I find anywhere." I am not writing thus in any sense as the apologist of Spiritualism. I am not offering anything like an Apologia pro vita mea in making the inquiries I have done, am doing, and hope to do. I have elected to take, and I elect to maintain, a neutral position in this matter. All I have done is to select from the Pros and Cons that present themselves to my mind. If the Pros seem to outweigh the Cons--or vice versa--be it so. I cannot help it. I have scarcely decided for myself yet, and I am a veteran investigator. Others may be more speedy in arriving at a conclusion. Among the more obvious "Cons" are the oft-quoted facts that some people have lost their heads and wasted a good deal of their time on Spiritualism. But people lose their heads by reading classics or mathematics, or overdoing any one subject however excellent--even falling in love: and the ingenuity displayed in wasting time is so manifold that this is an objection that can scarcely be urged specially against Spiritualism, though I own Dark Seances do cut terribly into time.