the Church of Thessalonica not to be shaken or troubled, 'either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is now present'.[1] Nor did he mean 'spiritual gifts', as both the Revised and Authorized Versions mistranslate him; but he meant what he said when he wrote a little further on in this same letter to the Church of Corinth:[2] 'So also ye, since ye are zealous of the spirits, seek that ye may abound unto the edifying of the Church.' He probably also meant in the same personal sense the words two verses further on: 'For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.'
The Discerning of Spirits is then placed after Prophecy, both in this List of the Talents, and when he says, 'Let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern',[3] because S. Paul believed with S. John that discarnate spirits spoke by the prophets. For us to-day the significance of this charisma lies in the fact that so far from discouraging any form of spiritualist investigation, as modern preachers usually do, he counts it among the special gifts of the Holy Ghost.
The greatest achievements of the nineteenth century lay in the field of physical discovery; and
