This is not a subject on which one comes lightly and easily to a conclusion, nor can the evidence be explained except to those who will give to it time and careful study; but clearly the conclusion is either folly and self-deception, or it is a truth of the utmost importance to humanity--and of importance to us in connexion with our present subject. For it is a conclusion which cannot stand alone. Mistaken or true, it affords a foothold for a whole range of other thoughts, other conclusions, other ideas: false and misleading if the foothold is insecure, worthy of attention if the foothold is sound. Let posterity judge. Meanwhile it is a subject that attracts cranks and charlatans. Rash opinions are freely expressed on both sides. I call upon the educated of the younger generation to refrain from accepting assertions without severe scrutiny, and, above all, to keep an open mind. If departed human beings can communicate with us, can advise us and help us, can have any influence on our actions,--then clearly the doors are open to a wealth of spiritual intercourse beyond what we have yet imagined. The region of the miraculous, it is called, and the bare possibility of its existence has been hastily and illegitimately denied. But so long as we do not imagine it to be a region denuded of a law and order of its own, akin to the law and order of the psychological realm, our denial has no foundation. The existence of such a region may be established by experience; its non-existence cannot be established, for non-experience might merely mean that owing to deficiencies of our sense organs it was beyond our ken. In judging of what are called miracles we must be guided by historical evidence and literary criticism. We need not urge _a priori_ objections to them on scientific grounds. They need be no more impossible, no more lawless, than the interference of a human being would seem to a colony of ants or bees. The Christian idea of God certainly has involved, and presumably always will involve, an element of the miraculous,--a flooding of human life with influences which lie outside it, a controlling of human destiny by higher and beneficent agencies. By evil agencies too? Yes, the influences are not all on one side; but the Christian faith is that the good are the stronger. Experience has shown to many a saint, however tormented by evil, that appeal to the powers of good can result in ultimate victory. Let us not reject experience on the ground of dogmatic assertion and baseless speculation.