To deny the miracles of the East, and use the symbols sacred there; to refuse to accept the working of the spirit of God before the Children of Israel ever had knowledge of the name of Jehovah, and still to borrow that name as the symbol of his presence in the high temple of Jerusalem; to accept the external synonyms of the presence of God's power, and refuse to believe that God spoke in the far East e'er yet the Son of Man came unto earth, is certainly one of the many contradictions of Christian theology.

To call Egypt, Persia and India "heathen," those from whom Christianity has descended, and from whom it has received in direct line, as well as Spiritualism, its choicest and divinest symbols, is to call Christendom heathen also. For nowhere upon the earth are the symbols of the sun, of fire, or of any element of the earth or air worshiped except as symbols. Nowhere upon the earth are the various expressions used to indicate the meaning and term of the spirit more idolized than in Christendom is the symbol of the Cross.

Shall we call you idolators because you have nothing but forms with which to express your thought? Shall we call you heathen because you have forms wherewith to express your praise?

Far away in India at this day there are those who, through fasting and prayer and gifts of the spirit, heal the sick, cast out evils, work wonders daily that are unknown in this Christian land; and you pronounce them heathen !

Far away in India at this hour there are those who hold communion with the angels of God in sacred and secluded temples. There are those who go about healing the sick and doing good, in whose presence flowers spring up by magic, and germs are fructified in the space of an hour. Still in Christendom among those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus, or profess to do so, there is denial of the possibility of these things.

To-day far away in India there are those who at this minute are offering their lives unto the Infinite Spirit, and pouring out their word and work upon the world in evidence of this power.

The sun, moon and stars, the changes of seasons, the night and the day, and all forces of the visible universe, are as naught compared to the light of the spirit that lights up the night as with day, that which subdues disease; that opens the eyes of the blind; that cures the deaf; that causes leprosy to depart - and still this gift is unrecognized in Christendom save by those who are denominated infidel or spiritualist.

Surely when these influences exist in your midst, you certainly, with broader conception and wider charity, can bridge the chasm of history that divides you from those ancient nations.

Through all the Orient the fierce fires of Mohammedanism have swallowed up the wonders of the former faith, and only in secret and far away places, only where the scourge of that leprosy has never come, has the original belief been preserved in its purity; and there these wonders are wrought.

To-day civilization brings you face to face, not only with the Buddhist, who in simple faith abstains from food that he thinks will lessen the powers of the spirit; but others who bear the sacred impress in their word and works.

The gift of miracles, therefore, is not only possible from history but from present attestation. Travelers returning from the far East give evidence of it, unless by theological prejudice they refuse to attest that which they have evidence of; but others of larger and broader views return to you and say, "I have seen these same wonders in foreign lands; I have seen these same workings among the Fakirs; I know them to be true because they encircle the earth with the evidences of light."

What is a miracle? If in your presence there occurs an intelligent manifestation independently of human organisms, that is miraculous. If anything that you can count, anything that you can read, anything that you can hear, like music, bearing evidence of intelligence, law, whatever is expressed through an insentiate object - this is a miracle.

If disease is removed without any visible cause, and if, for instance, your presence, or your touch brings health to that suffering individual who has been pronounced incurable, and you perform the cure without any of the usual appliances of medicine - that is a miracle.

To attribute it to Mesmerism does not alter the fact; to attribute it to Psychology, the fact remains; to say that one may be cured by the effect of pure imagination is to give imagination a signification which Materia Medica would do well to emulate, for the realm of imagination is of all realms the realm of miracle, and is that one faculty of the human mind that places you in communication with the divine.

If, therefore, this gift of healing comes into human life and regulates by adjustment the vital functions, it proves not only that there is power outside of the supposed capacity of healing remedies, but that that power is more potent, more powerful, more palpable, than all remedies put together. This gift of healing, therefore, being miraculous, being spiritual, being of an order not to be formulated, not to be stated, is given spontaneously; a distinct bestowment and power that, in itself, overrides three of the distinct processes of nature, namely: the process of disease and the gradual receding and gradual rising wave incident to recovery from disease.

These miracles, like the disappearing of certain forms that were visible into invisibility; these miracles, like the appearing of forms from invisibility to visibility; these miracles, like the raising of objects, overcoming the law of gravitation by an intelligent power which is not known in any mechanical forces of earth; these miracles, like the separation of bodies and their readjustment - all prove a power independent of the ordinary workings of nature, which, when permitted, or when necessary, can be exercised in connection with man to reveal the nature of the spirit. And that these things occur to-day, and are denied to antiquity and to other countries, proves the narrow and limited range of the mind that observes them.