Page:The Other Life.djvu/34

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need of the human soul. The revelation by a written Word, as it now stands, is incomplete. A revelation couched in prophetic mysteries and "dark sayings" is assuredly not a finality. We want that additional element which shall establish its unity, prove its truth and reveal its interior beauty and glory—which shall make it a living and perfect whole, uniting heaven and earth.

"If there ever was any revelation, any special insight into the spiritual world, any vision of angels, any communication with the dead, any manifestation of the Divine Presence, such things are again possible; for they never could have occurred by the violent disruption of organic natural laws, but through the operation of some higher laws of which we are ignorant. The potentiality of these conditions must inhere in the mental constitution of man himself. Their recurrence under providence must be determined by the historical evolution of the Church.

"We do not ask any addition to the biblical record: any new chapter or book appended to the Bible. However strongly substantiated by miracles and confirmed by witnesses, that book might be as obscure and unsatisfactory to future generations as Nahum or the Apocalypse is to us.