^iiW^riiiiiMyl E.CD^DlTJfffi ^Kj>;.,iC>c:;^ai» iiillili^ii ■■■■ llllll)lll|ll(lllllllMI|l piitiiiiitni'liiiii iy'Z-r/l^ IMMORTALITY, OUR EMPLOYMENTS HEREAFTER. WHAT A HUNDRED SPIRITS, GOOD AND EVIL, SAY OF THEIR DWELLING PLACES. J. M. PEEBLES, M.D., AUTHOR OF 'Seers of the Ages" — "Five Journeys Around ihe World" — "Immortality Our Future Homes" — "Demonism of the Ages and Spirit Obsessions" — "The Christ Question Settled" — "Death Defeated" — "Pathway of the Human Spirit" — "Vaccination a Curse" — "Who are These Spiritualists?" — "Spirit-Mates" — "Angels of the Ages" — Etc., Etc. The belief in a world of apirils, and of the intercourse with men — the«e beinK the cardinal truths of Spiritualism — is the only belief that has always and everywhere prevailed. De. Euqenb Cbowell. Am I to live on after my t>ody is dead 7 Then it concerns me to know where. What answer comes to me from the land beyond ? M. A. (OXOM.) FIFTEENTH EDITION PEEBLES PUBLISHING COMPANY 519 Fayette St. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A. WHOLESALE: BATTLE CREEK. MICH. EDUC. PSYCH. LIBRARY Copyright, 1907 By J as. M. Peebles, M. D. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAOB PREFACE 5 INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE 11 Universality of Life. —God and Atheism. — No real Conflict between Science and Religion. — Grandeur of the Soul. — Pre- existence of the Soul. — Matter only the Shell of Things. — Will the Attrihute of Force. — Query of a Materialist. — We are the Dead ; our Departed the Living! II. DOUBTS AND HOPES 20 Comparative Silence of the Old Testament regarding a Future Life. — The Cheerful Hope of Pagan Philosophers. —The Light Tfhich Jesus brought. — Mortal Life is only preparative for a better. in. THE BRIDGING OF THE RIVER 24 Life and Death two Musical Ripples. — Vegetable and Animal Processes represent two Segments in the Circle of Movement. — Three Methods of aspecting the Phenomena of Existence. — How the Ancients pictured Death. IV. FOREGLEAMS OF THE FUTURE % The Hope of Immortality indestructible. — "Poppies of the Age of Plato." — The Ether Realm. — Earth Life a primary School. — Wordsworth's " Little Maid." V. TESTIMONY OF SAINTS 36 Mental Lucidity of the Dying. — Testimony of William Himter. — Montaigne. — Isaac T. Hopper. — Phenomena attend- ing Death. — The Poet Keats. — Schiller. —Rev. J. W. Bailey. — A Quaker Lady. — Rev. S. J. May. — Louis XVI. — Mozart. Other Testimonies. TI. THE GROWTH AND PERFECTION OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 48 What materializing Phenomena foreshadow. — Spirit-Body not a new Creation. — Sustenance of the Spiritual Body. — Spiritual Body an approximate Image of the physical. — Reality of Spirit Life. ^15813 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAO« VII. IS IT THE SOUL OR THE BODY THAT SINS? .... 63 Evil is not "Undeveloped Good." — Character and Reputa- tion. — The Hells crowded with respectable Hypocrites. — Moral Qualities inhere in ISIoral Beings. — The Nature that commits Sin survives Deatli.— This "World a Battle-Ground. — Daily Acts construct the Mirror before which we must stand. VIII. CLOTHING IN THE SPIRIT WORLD 60 Angel at the Sepulchre. — Raiment of Moses and Elias. — White Robes of the Saints. — First Garments worn by Spirits are Gifts. — They change in Color according to the Spirit's Growth. — Swedenborg's Testimony. IX. LOCOMOTION IN THE SPIRIT WORLD 64 Miss Fancher. — Personal Experience. — Dr. E. C. Dunn leaver his Body. —Testimony of a Seer. — Velocity of Spirit Locomotion. — Dr. Pierce of Boston visits the Spirit World. X. OUR LITTLE ONES IN HEAVEN 80 Earth is the Seminary of Heaven. — Parting Messages to their Parents. — Heaven opened. — "Kittie is gone!"— Death as seen from the Mount of Spiritualism. XI. THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF AARON KNIGHT . 8T His Transition. — His sad Experience in the Hells. — Prayer for Deliverance. — Is visited by an Angel of Light. — Is given Work to do. —Peace purchased by unselfish Labors for the Good of Others. — Answers to various Questions. XII. THE RED MAN'S TESTIMONY 101 Powhattan's Spirit Home. — Little Indian Girl's quaint Description of her Home. — Coacoochee's Experience. — Mate- rialization of Indian Spirits. XIII. EVIL SPIRITS. - THEIR DOINGS AND THEIR DES- TINIES 109 Swedenborg's Description of the Hells. — Moral Character not changed by Death. — William Howitt on Unhappy Spirits. — John Jacob Astor's Lament. — Mr. Stewart's Exploration of the Hells. — Horror's Camp ! — The Hells mitigated. XIV. THE TESTIMONY OF PHYSICIANS IN SPIRIT LIFE . 121 Dr. Jeachris's Experience in Spirit Life. — Answers to Important Questions. — Questions answered through Mr. Col- ville. — Testimony of George Rush. — A Talk with William Gordon.— He explains many Important Things through Dr. Samuel Maxwell. — An English Physician's Account of his Spirit Home. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER rAOB XV. THE HOMES OF APOSTLES AND DIVINES 143 The Homes of the Apostle John. — Rev. Thomas Scott's Confession. — A Swedenborgian in the City of Arcadia. — A Methodist Minister's Life in the Spheres. XVI. THE FRIENDS AND SHAKERS IN SPIRIT LIFE . . 159 Experience of a Quaker Spirit. — Clairvojant Visions of Elmira P. Allard. a Shaker Sister. — The Spirit Conncil. — Excursion on Lake Pleasant. — Visions of Eunice Bathrick, a Shaker El dress. XVII. THE SPIRIT HOME OF BRUNO AND OTHERS ... 170 The Martyr's Home. — A Voice from South Africa. — The Future of Africa. — Spirit Home of Edgar Athcling. — John Stewarts Home in Spirit Life. — Excursions in the Spheres. — Description of Fountain-of-Light City. — A Hindoo Mystic's Experiences in the Heavens. XVIII. MANY VOICES FROM THE SPIRIT LAND 184 A Sailor's sad Story. — A Strolling Player. — Questions and Answers. — Experience of Little Eliza. — Mrs. Colonel Taylor's Experience. — John Knowles' Spirit Home. — Spirit Home of John Glover. — Dr. C. H. Barrows. — A Spirit through the Mediumship of Mrs. Watson of Memphis. — Home of Mungo Park. XIX. CRYSTAL DROPS. - FACTS AND FANCIES OF MANY IN SPIRIT LIFE 238 Gems from the Poets and Philosophers. — Sorrow disciplines the Soul. — "We possess only what we grow to in Spirit Life. — Relative Power of higher and lower Spirits. — Intellectual Acquisitions alone do not bring Happiness. — We must labor to make Others happy, if we Ourselves would be happy. — The Propriety of Prayer. — Laying aside the Mask. — The Condi- tion of Paupers from the large Cities in Spirit Life. — The Dying never Weep. XX. THE TWO THEORIES CONCERNING THE BEGINNING OF THINGS. — MATTER AND SPIRIT 262 The Western Mind inductive, while the Oriental Mind is synthetic. — The Materialist reasons from a nebulous Chaos. — The Spiritualist reasons from God as the Primal Cause. — The Scientists are mostly arrayed on one Side, while the Poets and Philosophers are arrayed on the Other. — Distinction between Personality and Individuality. — Pre-existence. — Arguments Pro and Con. XXI, A SEANCE IN JERUSALEM WITH THE APOSTLES . 27 What Jesus and Paul and John said. — Primitive Christianity and the first Christian Churches. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXII. SEANCES WITH THE GREAT SCOTCH MEDIUM, DAVID DUGUID 291 What the Holland Artist Spirits, and Hafed the Ancient Persian teach through him. — What Jesus was doing from the Age of twelve to thirty when He appeared as a public Teacher. — What Position He now occupies in the Heavenly World. XXIII. THE GENERAL TEACHINGS OF SPIRITS 301 The General Teachings of Spirits. — M. A. (Oxon.).— The Opinion.s of the Rev. Charles Beecher. — The Unity of Genuine Spiritualism with the Christianity of the New Testament. — "Only remembered for what I have done." XXIV. SPIRIT MESSAGE FROM THE APOSTLE JOHN 317 A Superior Clairvoyant. — The Aura around books. — Commun- ication from Spirit Hosea Ballou — Spirit Message from the Apostle John. PREFACE. GiTE ns details — details and accurate delineations of life in th« Spirit "World! — is the constant appeal of thoughtful minds. Death is approaching. Whither — oh, whither! Shall I know my friends be3-ond the tomb ? Will they know me ? What is their present condition, and what their occupations? Too long, perhaps, have we listened to generalities and vague Imaginations touching that so-called shadowy reaim of existence whither we are hastening. When a traveler starts out for some distant country, it is not enough for him to know that he must cross some stormj' ocean, but he asks, " What is the distance to those foreign countries? What is the character of the climate ? What modes of living distinguish the inhabitants, and what preparation will I need to make for comfort and success in that far-away country ? " If this be true of the earthly traveler, how much more important are inquiries and a right understanding relative to the journey across the River of Death ; the conditions and modes of life in the World of Spirits ? These are pressing questions ! And as travelers return to tell us of the countries they have visited, so spirits return from different spheres and golden zones, describing their homes and their employ- ments. In this volume the Spirits, differing as they may, are allowed to speak for themselves. Though sometimes condensing and modify- ing their language, I have carefully preserved the essential ideas 5 PBEFACB. embodied in their messages. And in the last chapter I have given a resumS of their teachings without the mention of the names of the controlling intelligences. I send this volume forth with my prayers and best wishes, hoping it may answer the soul questions of many earnest inquirers, and inspire to an active faith in the glorious realities of our Heavenlj Home, and to earnest labors for the npboilding of the Spiritual Einffdom on earth. J. IL P. INTRODUCTION. We stand to-day on the border land between two eternities — one past and full of treasured histories and multiplied experiences ; the other, future, teeming with possibilities which await us, and fraught with destinies whose moral grandeur we desire to fathom. Souls, allied to God, are eternal. We embrace in our present memory and knowledge but a fragment of life's past careers. The future, too, is a page we have scarcely opened. Its prophecies are golden. As the past yields up its vast treasures, the future becomes more easily interpreted. Events flow in an orderly succession. The accumulations of past time j-ield their wealth to the uncounted years. The cycles of growth repeat themselves for ever upon higher planes of expression. The soul is ever a questioner. From its earliest recorded experiences it has interrogated itself and the sur- rounding universe for a solution of the mystery of its being and the momentous changes that necessarily await it. The earliest literature of any people is sacred literature. The most exhaustive inquiries of the greatest minds of every age and nation have been inquiries pertaining to man's moral relations and the soul's future destin}'. The religious literature of the race approaches nearest the character of immortality of all its mental products. "When other books are forgotten, the sacred books con- tinue a perennial fountain of thought and inspiration. This is true of Egypt, India, Babylon, and all the countries of the Orient. The 7 8 INTRODUCTION. ethics and religious teachings of Gautama Buddha exert a pro founder influence over five hundred millions of the eftrth's inhabi- tants than all the other literature in the East, save the moral teach- ings of Confucius. The l5'ric songs of the prophets of Israel exert a sweeter influ- ence on the hearts of struggling and sorrowing millions than do the epics of Homer or Virgil. And what name imparts to us so much of obedience to the divine law, of devotion to principle, of love and sweetness and mercy, as that of Jesus Christ? What charac- ter among the pure and great equals his as a moral magnet to draw the world toward the good and beautiful, and to inspire the mil- lions with hope and childlike trust ? The victories of the primitive Christians, inspired b^'^ Jesus Christ, were the victories of peace and love. Before Constantine's day the Christian religion was a lamb ; afterward it became an aggressive lion. Now it is a tomb, comparatively cold and voiceless ! When we consider that it is as natural for men to think, to rea- son, as to breathe, how reasonable, then, these ever-recurring inquiries : Whence did man originate ? What is he in his essential being? And what is to be his future and final destiny? To go deeper, and get, if possible, to the foundation. What is matter? What is the nature of that spirit substance which constitutes the spiritual body? And what is the soul, that potentialized portion of the infinite Over-Soul, that thinks, wills, reasons, and aspu-es after unmortality ? ". • . . Nor yet to all These prophecies and hints are given ; Only as signab, sparsely set, Along the battlements of Heaven. Yet some day, every waiting soul Shall see the mists slow rolling back. And, freed from clogs of earth and sin, Walk calmly up the shining track ! " Are the planetary worlds that stud the firmament inhabited ? and INTEODUCTION. f if 80, are they morally related to us, and do they psychologically affect us ? What shall we be in the far-distant seons ? Upon what shall we subsist, and what shall be our employments during the measureless years of eternity ? If the moon is already dead, as Proctor teaches — if planets and satellites have their births and deaths, are there not then funeral pro- cessions among the stars? All change, negatively considered, is death. The Seer sees in every pulse-beat change and waste — hears in every tremulous step the measured march of death. Every tick of the clock tells of the sufferings and stragglings of departed souls ! The seemingly dead tree of winter buds and blossoms in the spring-time. The Egyptian wheat, retaining the ^^talizing life principle, lived and waved again though buried in darkness for thousands of years. But will the thinking soul live ? — live indi- vidualized — live to know and be known — live in immortal fresh- ness and beauty after the body dies and is laid quietly away in the graye? IMMORTALITY. CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE. " I do not doabt bat the inajestj and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of tli* world ; I do not doubt that exteriors have their interiors — and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice ; . Did yon think Life was so weU provided for — and Death, the purport of all Life, ia not well provided for ? " Whitman. Life in some of its manifestations is everywhere. In polar glaciers, in tropic sands, and in the profoundest ocean depths, the life-principle is expressed in organic forms. The vitality of seeds belonging to the pre-glacial period has been clearly demonstrated. The raspberry seed is very tenacious of life. Three rasp- berry plants were raised from seeds found in the stomach of a man whose skeleton form had been discovered thirty feet be- low the surface of the earth, at the bottom of a burial-mound, opened near Dorchester, England. With this body had been buried some coins of the Emperor Hadrian, from which, ac- cording to the testimony of Dr. Lindley and Professor Win- chell, of the Michigan University, we are justified in assuming that these seeds had retained their vitality some 1,700 years; and if so, why not, under similar conditions, 17,000 years, or even a much longer period ? 11 12 IMMORTALITY. It is stated by Lord Lindsay tliat in the course of his wan- derings amid the pyramids of Egypt, he was permitted to assist in unrolling a mummy, the emhalmers of which evi- dently understood the uses of ozone. The hieroglyphical writings upon the sarcophagus containing this embalmed form showed it to be about 3,000 years old. Examining the mum- mied body after it was unwrapped, there was found in one of the closed hands a bulb, which, when planted in a suitable situation, grew and bloomed out iuto a beautiful dahlia-like flower. None can reasonably doubt that there is growing in England at this present time wheat, the grains of which were obtained from the foldings in the wrappings of an Egyptian mummy, there deposited more than 4,000 years since. Professor Agas- siz fully credited this account ; while Dr. Carpenter, the dis- tinguished English physiologist, gives it full indorsement by saying, " there is really no limit to the latent vitality of seeds." Each individual, by virtue of cerebral organization, conceives and studies the universe from his own moral plane of thought. To Hans Christian Andersen the world was so aflame with love, and the moral universe so aglow with the symbols of Divine life and wisdom, that he saw good in, and immortality /or, everything. Aware that seeds hidden from the sunshine for long periods break away from their cell-life, and put forth the tender blade, — aware that the insect and the house-fly outside of sheltering walls, becoming first dull, then seem- ingly dead, revive when warmed by the summer's sun, — aware that the dormouse lives with sealed mouth several months of the year ; that the live toad found in the center of a block of stone, and exhibited in the London Crystal Palace, must have existed there for centuries, and that the corn which had quietly slept in the tombs of Egypt for 4,000 years could be made to grow, — aware, as was the poet Andersen of all these marvelous phenomena in nature, he thus breathed his thoughts under the heading — " The Miracle." THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE. 13 "THE MIRACLE. ' From a pyramid in the* desert's san«'. A mummy was brought to Denmark'^ land — The hieroglyphic inscription told That the body embalmed wa3 three thousand years i It was the corpse of a mighty queen ; — Examining it, they found between Her closed fingers a corn of wheat; So well preserved was this little seed. That, being sown, it put forth its blade. Its delicate stem of a light-green shade, The ear got filled with ripenir g com. Full-grown through sunshine and light of the i " That wonderful power in a corn so small — It is a lesson to each and all. Three thousand years did not quench its germ — It teaches our faith to be strong and firm, When out of that husk a new plant could be bom To ripen in sunshine and dew fiom the sky, Then, human soul, thou spark from on high. Thou art immortal as thy great Sire Whose praise is sung by the angel-choir I The husk, the body is buried deep, And friends will go to the tomb and weep ; But thou shalt move on, on wings so free — For thine is the life of eternity. That wonderful power of so small a seed — The miracle seen in that com of wheat. It puzzles the mind ; but still it is done By the Author of Life, the Eternal One." It is an open question whether atheism be possible. When Proclus pronounced that great word, Causation ; when Plato wrote of the Divine Logos ; when Tyndall dilates on the Po- tency in nature, Spencer upon the Unknowable, Zimmermann upon Intelligent Force, and Emerson upon the Absolute Over-Soul, they mean God — that Divine Presence upon whose pulsing, loving bosom is the soul's rest for ever. Why then so much useless, and often bitter, disputation when words at most are but the shadowy symbols of ideas? It would seem to me like a paltry idling away of time to prove that, as a mortal being, I had an earthly father. Quite possibly I could not prove it. The evidence would be utterly beyond my reach. Still, I conscientiously believe it. And 14 IMMORTALITT. 80, by parity of reasoning, do I just as conscientiously believe that my spiritual nature had a Heavenly Father. The existence of space is no more a matter of necessity to my understanding than the existence of God. Thinking from the conscious Ego — the I am of Myself — I require no subtile trains of logic to demonstrate, to know that God is, and that God governs this orderiy universe by immutable law. Primal truths are axiomatic. It is a want of intuition and moral perception that necessitates so many processes of rea- soning. Full of trust, I consciously see God, the Divine Energy^ everywhere, — pulsating in the growing corn, purpling in the vineyard, blushing in the peach, smiling in the sunshine, and awing us as we gaze into infinite depths filled with stars, cir- cling suns, and systems of universes. There is no conflict between science and religion, since they present two aspects of the same cosmos : one treating of the quality of being, the other treating of its quantitative distribution. The real conflict is between science and secta- rian theology ; and the chasm deepens. The mere scientist, ever cold and semi-blind, sees but half the universe — the material side — the shell. With this he experiments. And the little knowledge he thus obtains rests, after all, upon faith, — faith in his five senses, and faith in the precision of his investigations. Can the telescope penetrate infinity? Can the physicist explain the mechanism by which the heliotrope turns to the sun, or the marvelous chemistry by which the turbot assumes the color of the ground over which it swims? Can the mi- croscope detect grief in the brain, or the stethoscope sound the depths of human aspirations ? Did the scalpel ever dis- cover a thought in the convolutions of the cranial cavity? Can love be measured with a rod, or hope weighed in a pair of scales ? The soul and all its mental operations — the soul and all the spiritual forces connected therewith — are utterly beyond the scope of the physical sciences. THE MTSTEBIES OF LIFE. 15 All organic life begins in a simple cell. Every organized structure is but an aggregation of these cells ; and not only the specific form which the aggregate assumes, but the dis- tinctive character of each component cell depends upon a Boul-germ or pre-existing type which embodies the genius or idea of which the material structure is, plus the influences of the environment, the expression. " A single elementary atom," says that prince of modern philosophers. Professor Balfour Stewart, " is a truly immor- tal being, and enjoys the privilege of remaining unaltered by the powerful blows that can be dealt against it." No solid thinker believes in the destructibility of either matter or spirit. The conservation of spiritual energies is as true as the demonstrated conservation of forces. The soul being a living force, is necessarily immortal. It is the visible and phenomenal forms and qualities only that change. The celestial angels ever see these elementary at- oms, — these conscious monads that exist in the golden splen- dor of their underived immortality. Infilled with pure spirit, — aflame with the divine life, — these monads, these " firsts" of things, vibrate, rotate, repel, unite, form organic relations, and, in obedience to the laws of universal order, take on an ultimate expression by becoming incarnated in a material form. Consciousness is coeval and coordinate with life. What we commonly consider our soul is not, logically speaking, ours ; but we are its. The soul — a potentialized and individual- ized portion of the Over-Soul, God — is the man. Life is the aromal garment of the spirit, and its most immediate vehicle of expression. The spiritual is the real, the permanent, and each mortal is in the spirit world now, though veiled from its surpassing glories by the material organism. The Divine Or- der prescribes the descent of the soul into a mortal body, and by that descent the spiritual perceptions become temporarily dimmed ; they are folded away, as it were, in a casket, and Ue in a state of partial inaction during the night-season of 16 IMMORTALITT. earthly unfoldment, preparatory to the splendors of a ne^ cycle of wakefulness and unobscured lucidity. Absence of consciousness is no proof of non-existence, inas« much as sleep and wakefulness are alternating states of the thinking man ; and these states sliould not be confounded with the subject to which they relate. The individual who becomes blind from a cataract upon the eye is still in the same world. Traveling, even into foreign countries, does not help him to the light; but remove the film, and he readily per- ceives that the light is all around him. The spiritual senses are so eclipsed, so bleared with the material, that we do not see the spiritual world that bathes and enfolds us like a CTy&- tal ocean. Electricity, light, magnetism, interstellar ether, — these are only the etherealized envelopes and elastic vehicles of spiritual forces. Certain conditions develop or bring into outward ex- pression their potentialities. And laivs, so called, are the deific methods, the defined order in which the Divine Pres- ence operates. Essential Spirit alone interpermeates and constitutes the qualities of all things. There are no abstract qualities, — that is to say, qualities abstracted from their sub- stances. They inhere in them. Strength is not outside of the being that exercises it. Acid properties do not exist apart from the substances containing them. So love, good- ness, truth, are not abstract powers, but necessary attributes that inhere in the very constitution of every sentient being, whether man or angel. Accordingly, men and women are spirits now. They live and walk in the spirit world, though encased in mortal clothing ; their sensations, qualities, and all their higher emotions, are also spiritual, yet veiled for the present under the vestured disguise of matter. It will be admitted that extension, divisibility, and inertia are among the principal attributes of matter. But be this as it may, matter at most is only the unreal, shadowy shell of things — the passive or statical condition for the action of force. It serves as the limiting wall for the utilization of spiritual energies. It is the backgnund upon which the panorama of THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE. 17 creation is projected. It is the agent of reaction, as the coun- terpoise to action, without which equilibrium and the perpe- tuity of movement would be impossible. The theory that force is an attribute of matter is disproved by the fact of inertia. It cannot change its state. It will ultimately be shown, I believe, that inertia is the sole attri- bute of matter, while the other properties usually ascribed to it are simply secondary qualities which inertia involves. Force, therefore, is the antithesis of matter, not simply one of its attributes. Will is the single attribute of force, and will is self-determining, — not motion, but the antecedent of motion, and the antithesis of inertia. " All that we can affirm of matter," says the learned Clerk Maxwell, '' is that it is the recipient of impulse and of en- ergy." And yet materialists, and doubtless the majority of ordinary men, have come to think from their long familiarity with matter that physical forms constitute the only real, that matter is more permanent and substantial than spirit. This is a fatal mistake. Few will dispute that the concrete forms of matter, when reduced to the last analysis, are little more than a filmy appearance, an illusion that dazzles to blind. Take a bit of the hardest granite rock. " How solid, how firm and substantial," you say. Let us see. I pass it into the hands of the chemist. He applies to it a most intense heat, and it becomes a fiery liquid ; increasing the heat, it becomes a fleecy, limpid fluid; augmenting it still, it is trans- formed into a gaseous mist lighter than air ; continue to inten- sify the heat, and it utterly vanishes from sight. There, O mistaken materialist, is your matter, your hard granite rock, composed of mica, feldspar, and quartz, driven to a liquid — to a fluid — to gaseous mist — driven from sight — vanished — gone I And so with everything that the hand can touch, the physical eye see, the senses cognize. Analysis resolves the seen into the unseen, and the dulled senses pale away before our deeper spiritual nature which re- cognizes the invisible and enduring reality. " What do you know of angels and spirits, or even of spirit, 2 t8 IIVIMORTALITY. per 8gf" said a very self-contained Secularist to me in Eng- land. As much, sir, in all probability, as you know about matter, was my reply ; and especially when matter, through analysis, is transformed into a state of invisibility. *' But matter and material things may be seen, handled, felt, and actually tested by the senses." And so may spirits, when, by the law of materialization, they desire to demonstrate a future existence. " I've never seen anything of the kind." That is quite probable. And then, possibly, you have not seen the Brahmans in their burning-ghauts ; the Parsees in their temples ; the Pope in St. Peter's ; nor me, with whom you converse. It is only the body you see. " But I fancy (taking hold of my arm^ that I feel and see your Nothing — nothing of the kind, sir. You only feel and see the shell, the vesture, the traveling-dress, in which I, the man, am at present attired. " Never do I tire," said Socrates, " of telling the wise man that the body is not the man." " Very well ; you must know that our knowledge depends upon our senses. And, as a man professing some knowledge of science, I accept the reality of nothing that I cannot de- monstrate, — I believe nothing that I cannot see, hear, taste, weigh, or is in some manner made to appeal to my physical senses. And further, sir, I think, or, rather, I have an idea." Stop — stop right there ! You say you have an idea. De- nying it for the moment, I propose to test you by your own method. You say you think — say that you have an idea. But I deny it in toto, and call upon you to prove it, — to demonstrate it by an appeal to any one, or all of my five natural senses. Bring out that " idea " of yours, and let me see it — let me hear it — taste it — feel it — or let me weigh it in a pair of scales 1 What is the color ? what the shape ? and what the density of that idea of yours? . . . This system of reasoning, on the part of materialists, fails to convince the intellect or meet the noblest aspirations of the THE MYSTEKIES OF LTFB. 19 human soul. Thinkers ought to understand, so it gesms to me, that all laws, principles, aspirations, thoughts, ideas, and unseen forces are, while imponderable and invisible, allied to the spiritual realm of existence, the realm of the real, the per- petual, the permanent, and the immortal ! Mortal life is only an incident — a tremulous eddy in the cycling stream of time. We are the dead; human bodies are little more than graves. The departed, the invisible, are the truly living. The apostle of old denominated the body the " temple of God ; " while an ancient prophet, writing under the divine afflatus, termed the soul " the candle of the Lord." This candle, this luminous spark of divinity, incarnated in the templed organism, manifests itself through the cranial organs, and shines out through the features. It takes cogni- rance of earthly things, gathers rich experiences, builds up and perfects the spiritual body, and, awaiting deliverance, is finally translated in the resurrection chariot to the world of spirits, the homes of the angels, the many-mansioned house of the Father. " Among them cherub shapes of childhood glide ; Maidens are there with waving locks of gold; And manhood in its glory and its pride, And age no longer old ! And he, the last that left us, whose young life — By laughing, promise-laden breezes driven — Disdained to meet the rude world's noisy strife. And sought the calm of Ileaven, — Fm sure I see him in his radiant rest, Among his angel kindred up on high, And honored as befits the latest guest They welcome to the sky. Oars is the darkness ; theirs the boundless day ; — They drink true life ; we draw the labored breath { — They have eternal sunshine on their way ; We have the gloom of death. Yet, nearing the cold nver, I rejoice That when I pass its dai-kness tind its row, All these will welcome me with heart and rmoB Upon the further shore." 5J0 * lAlMOETAUTT. CHAPTER II. DOUBTS AND HOPES. " And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us the stone away from the doci of the sepulchre ? " Mark xvi. 8. "Yes, who? There it lies — hard, cold, inexorable; the stone of silence — tho stone of utter, hopeless separation. Since the bcfjinninjr of the world there it has been ; uo teui-s have melted it ; no prayers pierced it. The children of men, surging and complainitig in their anguish of bereavement, have dashed against it, only to melt hopelessly t)ackward as a wave falls and goes back into the ocean. Nothing about the doom of death is so dreadful as this dead inflexible silence. Could there be, after the passage of the river, one backward signal — one last word, the heart would be appeased." Mbs. H. B. Stowtb. " I GO down to the grave with my son mourning," were the sorrowing words of a weeping patriarch, when bowed down with grief and broken in spirit. Dim and flickering in that distant period was the light of Judaism, and almost hope- less the despair of the Old Testament I " The Jewish reli- gion," says Dean Stanley, "was characterized to a consider- able extent by the dimness of its conceptions relating to a future life." Bishop Warburton admits that the ancient Israelites " had no well-defined faith in the immortality of the soul." Other distinguished scholars have been candid enough to confess that the Hebrew Scriptures give but little encouragement to the hope of a future state of existence. Their rewards and their threatened punishments were tem- poral. The tenor of the Israelitish promises was, "If ye are obedient, if ye keep my statutes, ye shall eat of the good of the land." The following testimonies conclusively prove that the Jews had very little knowledge of a future life : DOUBTS AND HOPES. 21 1. Dr. Campbell observes : " It is plain that, in the Old Testament, the most profound silence is observed in regard to the state of the deceased, their joys or sorrows, happiness or misery." 2. Dr. Jahn says : " We have not authority decidedly to say, that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue the good and to avoid the evil, than thore which were derived from the rewards and punishments o/this lipb." 3. Professor Mayer writes : *« But it is evident to the careful reader, that, both in the Book of Job and in the Pentateuch, the divine judgment which is spoken ofiT, is altcays a judgment which takes place in this life ; and the rewards which arc promised to the righteous, and the punishments that are threatened to the wicked, are such only as are rewarded in the present ttate of being. . . . The idea that God is the Judge of tlic world pervades them [the writings of Moses] eversrwhere ; but it has always relation to this earthly existence." It is very evident that while the great body of the Hebrews doubted, trembled, wept over the prospects of a future immortality, the Sadducees boldly declared that there was " neither angel nor spirit." Hear the wail, the sad refrain of those early biblical writers ! "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Psalms cxv. 17. "Man being in honor abideth not ; he is like the beasts that perish." Psalms xlix. 12. " For the living know that they shall die ; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." — EccL. i\. 5, 10, " For thei-e is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground ; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dicth, and wastcth away : yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? As the watcra fail from the sea, and the Hood decayeth and drieth up : so man licth down and riseth not : till the heavens be no more, they ahall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Job xlv. 7-12. " His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Psalms cxlvi. 4. '•They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise." Isaiah. " They shall be as though they had not been." — Obadiah. " Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion ; for who shall biing him to see what shall be after him ? " Eccleslastes. " As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goeth down to tin grave shall come up no more." JOB. 22 ooiOBTALrnr. " I have said to corruption, Thou art mj fitther ; to the worm, Thou art my mother, •aid my sister. And where is now my hope ? As for my hope, who shaU see it ? " — Job. " They sleep with their fathers." — MosES. " For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing be- alleth them : as the one dieth so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so hat a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast. . All go into one place ; all are of he dust, and all turn to dust again, ^\^^o knoweth the spirit of man that goeth up- uch cheerless withering words, with the black drapery displayed upon funeral occasions, all increase rather than di- vest death of its gloom and chilliness. The Chinese mourn in white. Egyptians in Ptolemy's time, and the emotional Greeks of two thousand years ago, had truer and clearer con- ceptions of death and the future life than have many plodding sectarians in this nineteenth century. " Thou art not dead," said the Grecian poet Prot^ when standing over the corpse of his friend ; but "thou hast removed to a better place, to dwell in the Islands of the Blest among abundant banquets. There thou art delighted, tripping along the Elysian fields among soft flowers, and free too from every ill of the mortal life." 28 IMMORTALITY. In the divine light of present inspirations and spiritual revelations there is no death, — only incarnations, changes, and ceaseless successions of births. " On the cold check of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." The poet Shelley tells of a Paradise-garden in which all sweetest flowers and all rare blossoms grew in perfect prime. This garden was tended by a wonderful spiritual lady, and all the flowers knew her and rejoiced in the influence that spread from her ; their sweetness passed into her, and hers was reflected in their bloom and fragrance. Suddenly she died, says the poet, and soon the garden and flowers came to per- ceive that she had passed away, and began to droop and die too ; roses and lilies withered away, the bright, sweet- scented Indian plants fell rotting in the mud, and the garden, once so fair, slowly changed into a foul, leafless wreck, or seemed to have done so, for as Shelley, with strange spiritual intuition, hints, that decay and death haply were " like all the rest a mockery." " What garden sweet, that lady fair, And all sweet shapes and odors there, In truth have never passed away, 'Tisioe, 'tis ours, are changed f not they." Seen in the light of the spiritual pliilosophy, and studied from the Mount of Vision, death is but a hyphen connecting the two worlds — is but a renunciation of the physical body — is but a flower-wreatlied arch under which mortals march on one by one to the shining shores of immortality ; or it may be compared to the rosebud that climbs up the shaded garden- wall to bloom on the sunward side. There is no death ! The stars go down To rise upon some fairer shore, And bright in Heaven's jewelled crown They shine for evermore. There is no death ! The leaves may fall ; The flowers may fade, and pass away, — They only wait through wintry honrs The coming of the May. DEATH AND THE BRIDGING OF THE RIVER. 29 There is no death! An angel form AValks o're the earth with silent tread; He bears our dear loved ones away, And then we call them — dead. He leaves om- hearts all desolate — lie plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; Transplanted into bliss, they now Adorn immortal bowers. But ever near us. though unseen. The dear immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe Is life, — there are no Dead! 80 IMMOBTALITT. CHAPTER IV. FORE-GLEAMS OF THE FUTURE. *' My whole uata-e rushes onward with irresistible force toward a future and a bet ter state of being. Shall I eat and drink only that I may hunger and thirst, and eal and drink agaia till the grave which yawns beneath me shall swallow me up ? Shall I beget other beings in my own likeness that they, too, may eat, drink, and die, and leave others behind to follow their example ? To what purpose this perpetually revolv- ing circle — this everlastiniT repetition in which things are produced only to perish, and perish only to be again produced — this monster continually swallowing up itself? Never can this be uiy destiny, or that of the world. Something that is to endure must be brought forth in all these changes of the trausitoi-y and the perishable — something which may be carried forward safe and inviolate on the waves of time." FiCHTB. Take it to yourself; think of the last year, the last day, the last hour, the last moment, the last thought, and that thought annihilation I Oh, how the soul, mighty in her conscious gran- deur, shrinks back from such a worse than meaningless destiny ! Forgetting God for the moment, I have to say of nature, if she has given us ideals never to be attained, and aspirations never to be realized, then let her be despised and hated ; for nature, however potent, has no moral right to create in us deep, divine wants to live immortal, and then mock them — blast them with a resurrectionless death ! No one making pretensions to philosophical reasoning, talks nowadays of annihilation, of the transformation of substance into nothing, of the destruction of force, or of conscious life ultimating in death unconscious and eternal ! The universe can know no loss. " No motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated. The ripple of the ocean's surface, caused by a gentle breeze, or the still water which marks the more immediate track of a ponderous vessel gliding with scarcely expanded sails over its bosom, are equally indelible." F0EB-GLBA3I8 OF THE FUTURE. 81 The most ingenious chemist, with crucible and compound blowpipe, has not been able to annihilate the minutest atom of matter. What then of the Ego, the I am, that thinks, wills, reasons, and aspires after the blissful glories of immor- tality? " In the silver mines of Laurium," so says a late English journal, "among the refuse ore left by the ancient Greeks 2,000 years ago, the seed of a species of glacium or poppy was found, which has slept in the darkness of the earth dur- ing all that time. After a little while, when the slags were brought up and worked off at the smelting ovens, there sud- denly arose a crop of glacium plants, with a beautiful yellow flower, of a kind unknown in modern botany, but described by Plato and others." Poppies of the a She answered, ' Seven are we; And two of us at Conwaj' dwell ; And two are gone to sea ; Two of U3 in the churchyard lie, My sister and my brother; And in the churchyard cottage I Dwell near them with my mother.' ' How many are you then ? ' said I, If they two are in Heaven ? ' The little Maid did still reply, ' O master ! we ai-e seven. Bat they are dead, those two are dead I Their spirits are in Heaven ! ' TSvas throwing words away : for atiU The little Maid would have her will. And said, * Nay, we are seven ! ' " To the heavenly-illumined mind of this little child, the dead were still alive «and counted as a part of the family. And none of us should refer to the dead as if they were not. — should never speak of them as buried, — never say we have lost them, nor tell how we loved them. But rather should we say, " They have passed to the higher life; " and, " Oh^ hotv we still love them!''' The door that John "saw opened in heaven " has never been shut. The pains, spasms, and seeming anguish of the dying are only the efforts of the chained and imprisoned spirit to break away from its earthly coffin — the human body. It is beauti- ful to bury this casket in morning-time, just as the sun tips with gold the hills and the mountains. And it is in good keeping with the genius of the spiritual philosophy to put the loved one's chair at the table still, and also fragrant blos- soms. The angels love flowers — white roses and white lUies — because they symbolize purity and holiness of life. " And I sit and think, as the sunset's gold Is flushing river and hill and shore, FOKE-GLEAMS OF THE FUTURE. 35 I shall one day stand by the waters cold, And list for the sound of the boatman's oar; I shall watch the gleam of the flappuig sail, I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand, I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale, To the better shore of the spirit land; I shall know the loved who have gone before, And joyfully sweet will the meeting be, When over the river, the peaceful river, The angel of death shall carry me." DOfOBTAIJTT. OTTA.PTEK V TESTIMONY OP SAINTS. •* When bom, I died ; and when I die I shall be born — bom on of this death-land o dsrknefls into the realm of real life." Pilortm. '* The dusty house, wherein is shrined The soul, is but the counterfeit Of that which shall be more refined And exquisite. The light to which our night belongs Unfolds a day more broad and clear ; Music but intimates the songs We do not hear. When death shall come, and disallow These rou;:h and ugly masks we wear, I think that wo shall be as now, Only more fair." Alicb Carst. As the physical birth of the infant is death to the placenta- envelope, so Lirth into spirit-life involves the death and dis- integration of the physical casket. And while this latter process is as natural as beautiful, it implies no disorganization of the spiritual body — no cessation of conscious existence. Duality of being extends to human consciousness. The inner consciousness — related to the Infinite Consciousness of the universe, God — is never for a moment suspended. And just prior to, and during the change called dying, it often flames up the brightest. " If I had strength enough to hold a pen," said the eminent William Hunter, "I would write how easy and delightful it is to die." The distinguished essayist, Montaigne, describing an acci- dent that left him so senseless that he was taken up for dead, said on being restored, " Methought my life only hung upon THE TESTIMONY OP SAINTS. 37 my lips, and I shut my eyes to help thrust it out aiul go. I was ex([uisitely happy." The editor of the Euglish Quarterly Review records of a friend who had been "rescued from drowning, that he had not experienced the slightest feeling of suffocation. The stream was transparent, the day brilliant, and he could see the sun shining through the water ; while a quiet conscious- ness crept over him that his eyes were about to be closed upon it for ever. Yet he neither feared his fate nor wished to avert it. A pleasant sensation, which soothed and gratified him, made a luxurious bed of a watery grave." That able jurist, the late Judge Edmonds of New York, related to me the following of his Quaker friend, Isaac T. Hopper : " I was with him a good deal before he died. One day I left his residence about 4 o'clock ; he was exceedingly feeble, but I thought he might survive several days, perhaps weeks. It was our regular s(3ance evening, and at 8 o'clock we met to hold a circle. My daughter's hand was soon influ- enced, writing this: ''lam in the spirit-world. I. T. H.' " " Who is that?" inquired a gentleman present. " It is the initials," replied the judge, " of Isaac T. Hop- per ; but it cannot be possible, as I left his house a few hours since, thinking he might survive several days or weeks." The judge, throwing on his cloak, hastened to his Quaker friend's residence, when there lay the corpse, and the friends standing by weeping. Returning and re-forming the circle, the same hand was controlled to write : " I am in the spirit %oorld; and I now understand what the apostle meant when he said we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, I hate not slept — I have not been wiconscious for a moment ; but I have been changed — changing my mortal for my spiritual body — earth for heavsn — 1 mm happy beyond expression." Sweetly sings the poet : •* I rose like a mist from the mountain, When day walks abroad on the hills ; I rose like a spray from the fountain, From life and its wearying ills. 88 IMMORTALITT. " I have bathed in the heavenly river, I have chanted the seraphic song ; And I walk abroad in my bii^litness, Amid the celestial throng." In natural death, the process is gradual. The extremities first grow chilly ; then the feet become cold ; and then the hands and arms, to the shoulders. The pulse continues to beat more feeble — the blood purples under the nails — the eye becomes dim, and the breathing more difficult, while a silvery aural emanation, rising mist-like from, gathers gently around and over the tremulous body. Spirit friends have already come to attend this higher birth. Often they bring garments white and glistening. The atmosphere is filled with electric particles bright and silvery. The moment of transi- tion approaches. The stillness is holy and heavenly. Only friends, calm and loving, should be present. And now — noiv a slight tremor, and that ethereal life-thread, the silver cord, is severed, and the spiritual body is released from the physical tenement; something as the full-blowri rose is un- rolled out from the rose-bud and plucked fi-om the parent stem. When departing. Herbert, the poet, was asked in his seem- ing death-struggles, " Are you suffering? " and the response, almost with the last breath, was, " It is delightful ; oh, so delightful ! " The English Keats, inquired of, a little before he crossed the crystal river, how he felt, replied in a feeble voice, " Bet- ter, my friend. I feel as though daisies were growing all over me." The German Schiller, when passing to the better land, was asked concerning his feelings. ''Calmer and calmer^'' was the prompt reply. When the soul of that poet-preacher. Rev. Charles Sincom, was departing, he looked up and said, " There is nothing but peace, sweetest peace.''' The Rev. J. W. Bailey, a Universalist minister whom I knew long and well, and knew to esteem and love, passed on several years since to the higher heavenly world. The THE TESTIMONY OF SAINTS. 39 day before he passed he began to sing, and would sing for hours. Mrs. Bailey asked him, " Does it not tire you to sing BO much?" "Oh, yes," said he; "but I'm so happy — happy, I can't help it." He then turned his eyes to his daughter Emma, and said, " Do not weep for your father, dear child, for he is going so happy — going home." One by one we pass away ; pass to meet in the Father's mansion. She says he then turned his eyes upward, and oh, how glorious they looked I They seemed illumined with heavenly light ; but he stopped breathing. " I laid my hand upon his shoulder. He opened his eyes, and smiling upon me said, ' Why, I thought I had gone to the spirit world. I have seen over the river, and I can now see on both sides. It is beauti- ful on this side ; but oh, glorious, glorious on the other 1 Why, I see Ellen ! I see so many friends there, over the river, and they beckon, beckon to me. I see more, vastly more on that side than I do on this.' " Mrs. Bailey adds : " He then pressed my hand, said ' Do not grieve,' smiled, waved his hand, and passed on." When a Progressive Friend of Philadelphia visited a Quaker family in Ohio a few years since, consisting of a father and lovely daughter, the latter pale and dying, he inquired of her if she knew her situation. " I know that my Redeemer liveth," said she, in a voice of subdued and heav- enly sweetness. A half hour passed, and she spoke, in the same melodious tone, " Father, I am cold." And the vener- able man reclined by his dying child, endeavoring to restore warmth to her stiffening limbs ; and she twined her emaciated arms around his neck, and murmured in a subdued voice, " Dear father, dear father." " My child," said the sorrowing man, "doth the flood seem deep to thee?" "Nay, father, for my soul is strong." " Seest thou the thither shore?" " I see it, father ; and its banks are green with immortal ver- dure." " Hearest thou the voices of its inhabitants ? " "I hear them, father ; as the voices of angels falling from afar in the still and solemn night-time ; and they call me. Eer voice, too, father ; oh, I heard it then 1 " " Doth she speak 40 IMMORTALITY. to thee? " " She speaketh in tones most heavenly." " Doth she smile ? " " An angel smile, a calm and holy smile. But I am cold, cold, cold ! Father, there's a mist in the room. You'll be lonely, lonely. Is this death, father?" "It is death, INIary." *■' Thank God ! " And as these sweet words died away upon her lips, her tranquil spirit went to revel in the celestial splendors of Heaven. While holding the pastoral charge of a church in the city of Oswego, N. Y., I was a frequent visitor at the hospitable home of the Rev. S J. May, Syracuse, N. Y. Royal-souled and spiiitually-minded by nature, he was gentle and loving as a child. His life-path was often illumined by premonitions and visions. Recalling the dreamy yet really spiritual im- pressions of the past, relative to the early departure of his little brother with whom he had clasped hands, eaten, drank, and slept so sweetly, he says : " There lay my beloved Edward dead, his eyes shut, his body cold, giving no replies to the tender things that were said to him, taking no notice of all that was being done to him or about him. I gave myself up to a passion of grief, not knowing the mean- ing of what I saw, but feeling that some awful change had come over him. When the room was darkened, and my father and mother wei-e about to withdraw, I begged them to let me lie down with Edward. My importunity was so passionate that my parents were almost afraid, aud quite too tender, to withstand it ; so I was covered with a shawl, and laid by my dead brother. When left alone with him, I well remem- ber how I kissed his cold checks and lips, pulled open his eyelids, begged him to speak to me, and finally cried mj-self to sleep. " Most vivid is my recollection of the funeral, of the solemn procession to the burlal- gi-ound, and of the weeping of friends and relatives. When I saw them take the coffin from the carriage, and can-y it off towards the tomb, I insisted upon seeing what they were going to do with Edward. So my uncle, Samuel May, took me in his arms, descended with me into the family vault, and showed me where they had put away my brother. Then he pointed out the little coffins in which were the remains of several of my brothers and sisters, who had lived and died before I was born, and the coffin in which my grandfather was laid eight years before. " My kind uncle opened one of the coffins, and let me see how decayed the body had become, and told me that Edward's body would decay in like manner, and become like the dust of the earth ; but while revealing to me these sad facts, he assured me most tenderly that all these departed ones were still living ; that my dear brother's spirit was not in the coffin, but was clothed with another and more spiritual body, and living m heaven with God and the beautiful angels. I went home in a sort of maze, ciying, and asking questions which human wisdom could not answer. " I remember that my only brother Charles, then a lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age, tenderly t< \ me to his room, lay down with me on his bed, and tried to comfort me and himself by telling me all that he imaffined to bfi true about heaven, God THE TESTIMONY OF SAINTS. 41 augel3,an(l loving spirits, assuring me again, as others had done, that Edward had gone to live in that blessed place, in that happy and glorious company. " When night came I was put to bed, in the bed where I had so often slept with Ed- ward. Sleep soon came to relieve my young spirit, wearied with grief and str^age excitement, and in uiy dreams all that had been told me proved true. The ceiling of the room seemed to open, a glorious light burst in, and from the midst of it came down my lost brother, attended by a troop of child-angels. They left him, and he lay down beside me, as he used to do. He told me what a beautiful place heaven was, and how all the angels loved one another. There he lay till morning, when the ceiling above opened again, and the troop of angels came to bear him back to heaven. He kissed me, sent messages of love to father and mother, brother and sisters, and gladly re- joined the celestial company. " So soon as I awoke and was dressed, I humed down to tell the family what I had seen, and to give them the kisses and messages that dear Edward had sent them. The remarkable thing about this dream was, that it was many times repeated, that night after night I enjoyed the presence of my brother, that morning after morning I went down to the family with renewed assurances of love from the one who was gone. " By degrees my grief abated ; the loss of my I)rothcr was in some measure supplied by other playmates; new things attracted my attention and occupied my thoughts. But I have never forgotten my Edward ; the events of his death and burial, and the heavenly vision, are all still vivid in my memory ; and I believe the experience had great influence in awaking and fixing in my mind the full faith I have in the continu- ance of life after death, — a faith so strong that I do not believe more fully in the life that now is than in that which is to come." In the early years of my ministry, I often met the Re»^. D. K. Lee, originally of Kelloggsville, N. Y. Though naturally timid and quiet in spirit, he was earnest in preaching, and one of the excellent men of earth. These lines from his pen reveal his spirit : " Let me go, let me go ! for the mists of the night From the wings of the morning are sweeping. And the deserts are budding, and harvests are white, It is time that I now should be reaping ! I have slumbered full long on my sickle, I fear, Since around me the reapers were waking — In the gleamings of twilight tlie shades disappear — Let me go, for the morning is breaking ! " In the later years of his well-spent life he enjoyed the rich blessings of spirit communion. When dying, he exclaimed : "The cl ildreu are coming — the beautiful children." The Rev. Mr. Bartholomew, in a very appropriate funeral discourse, referred to the opening of his spiritual sight in these words : •' I do not wonder that in nis last moments a vision o' children's faces wa« opened to bis soul; I do not wonder that he should say, ' The children, the beautiful children. 42 IMMORTALITY. don't you see them f God sends his angels and ministering spirits to us in our trying nours, to bring us sti-ength and comfort, and to fill us with their heavenly peace. Ho sends us such angels as the heart craves most to see. And I do not wonder that angel- children crowded around his dying-bed. There were the children that had gone up from tliis congregation to join the glorified in heaven ; the children in whom he took such interest in life, whose hearts he moulded, and on whose minds he poured the light of truth; the children in whose plays and pastimes he had so often taken part* they came to him in his dying-hour to welcome him to their home above." Many of tlie greatest and most gifted souls of earth were endowed with spiritual gifts. Socrates, Plato, Proclus, John the Apostle, Cicero, Plutarch, Tertullian, Bacon, Louis XVI., Baxter, Cowper, Glanville, Swedenborg, Joan of Arc, Ann Lee, George Fox, Johnson, Lessing, Gcethe, Kerner, Wesley, — 'hese, and others, had visions of Heaven, visions of angels, visions of immortality I How sweet this old hymn : " We're going home ! we've had visions bright Of that holy land, the world of light, When the long dark night of time is past. And the morn of eternity dawns at last; Where the weaiy soul no more shall roam, But dwell in a happy, peaceful home ; Where the brow with sparkling gems is crowned, And the waves of bliss are flowing around ; Oh, that beautiful home ! that beautiful world ! " Spiritualism is not only a science and a philosophy, but in its highest definition it is a religion — a rational religion, har- monizing perfectly with the sublime teachings of the New Testament. Speaking of the noble and philanthropic James Arnold Whipple, the Rev. Adin Ballon says: " In religon he was a liberalist, verging for years on scepticism, but aftei-wards con- firmed by Spiritualism into the strongest assurance of man's future immortal existence. Even after embracing Spiritualism, he doubted the uses of prayer and personal exer- cises of pictistic devotion. But under the chastening discipline of sickness, he was fully drawn away from that extcrnalism of feeling into the sphere of child-like docility, contrition, tender-hearted and confiding prayerfulness. It was a blessed unfoldmenf to him, his companion and friends. Meantime his spiritual vision w-is opened to be- hold bright, cheering, consoling spirits from the immortal world, who gathered around MS dying-bed, and gave him a sweet welcome to the deathless mansions." "I see things unutterable," said another dying servant of God. Elizabeth Drinker, a Quakeress, when dying, seemed THE TESTIMONY OF SAINTS. 43 much supported above the last conflict, and with an animated countenance said, "Oh, the beauty! the excellent beauty I What a beautiful view I have of the hosts of heaven ! " Near Whitb}^ in Yorkshire, there lived a very conscientioua man, named Sinclair. He had a family of children, and it was his great concern, and unceasing prayer, that they might be saved. Christopher, his son, when but twelve j'ears old, felt a strong inclination for a seafaring life. Accordingly, he served an apprenticeship under the master of a ship; but soon afterwards had some of his ribs dislocated, a misfortune from which he never recovered. His father told him that there was no expectation of his being restored, yet they wished to ease him of his pain. " Pain ! " said this moral hero, " I have no pain ; I am all in a flame of love." Early in the morning of the day on which he died, he said to his father, " This has been the happiest night I have ever had; and now the blessed morning has come in which I shall go to Jesus." When his speech failed he smiled, and looked up to heaven. He then took hold of his father's hand, looked upwards, and seemed as though he would point to some object. He tried to speak, but could only say, " Oh, see ! see ! " Sud- denly his face shone as if a divine ray of heavenly light rested upon him. This continued for more than five minutes, after which he exclaimed, '•'• Ihave seen Jesus and the angels.'''' His uncle, who had been sent for, came in at the time, and to him the dying young saint said, "I have seen heaven — the angels — I can speak no more." The uncle felt that there was a presence in that chamber bej'ond mortal creatures. He knelt down, and whilst praying that a convoy of angels might carry the disembodied spirit to Paradise, the happy soul passed through death triumphant home. For some days after- wards his friends talked to each other of the sudden appear- ance of the heavenly beam of light which they recognized just before the young man died, and of the awe, yet peaceful feeling, they had of a gracious spiritual presence. The cold formalisms of theologians may, in a measure, do 44 IMMORTALITY. to live by; but they will not stand the trying test of the dying-hour. Then, if never before, is the Spiritualism of the ages — the Spiritualism of the New Testament — the Spirit- ualism of prayer — the Spiritualism of hope and trust and knowledge, truly precious. Only a few weeks since, while standing by the bedside of a dying mother, who had long been blessed with the gift of clairvoyance, she exclaimed : "There — that band of angels are coming again; one brings a white robe. Do you not hear the song they sing ? Oh, why do you cry so ? why keep me from my dear ones ? How light the room is ! Do not say, ' Good night,' but wait a little, and we'll say, ' Good morning.'' " When Mrs. Pinkerton, a medium and spiritualist lecturer, was passing down into death's rolling waves, she exclaimed, " This is a glorious doctrine to die by, friends ; continue in the good work — it will be a great thing if you can only free a few from the shackles of theological dogmas." She bade the unstable to stand fast, and exclaimed, in transports of rapture and delight, " This is the best day of my life ; I hear the angels singing; I am happy, happy, happy! " To the skeptics present she said: "Doubt no more — I know there is a blessed, glorious, eternal life." And while a few friends, by her re- quest, sang, " Joyfully, jo5'fully, onward I move, Bound for the land of bright spirits above," she clapped her hands, exclaiming, " Oh, hinder me not, for I want to go home. I'm going. I am almost over the river. The voyage is pleasant." Angels only know how deeply I am interested in the fam- ily history of Louis XVI., the kind-hearted Bourbon king. Beauchesne of Paris, writing of the unfortunate Louis' son, the idolized prince, says : " When the Dauphin, hardly eleven years of age, was lying sick upon his bed of rags, he exclaimed, ' I hear mifiic ! music' " Gomin, surprised, asked him, ' Where do you hear the music ?* 'From on high.' ' How long since ? ' ' Since you have been on j'our knees. Don't you liear it ? T-isten! listen!' And the child raised his failing arm, and opened his large eyes, lightiMl up with ecstasy. Ilis poor guardian, not wishing to destroy this sweet and heavenly il!n THE TESTIMONY OF SAINTS. 45 sion act himself to listen also, with the pious desire of hearing what could not b« heard. " After some moments of attention, the cbild started again, his eyes glistened, and he exclaimed in an inexpressible transport, ' In the midst of all the voices I heard my mother's ! ' " This word seemed, as it fell from the oi-phan's lips, to remove all his pain. Flis contracted brows expanded, and his countenance brightened up with that ray of serenity which gives assurance of deliverance or victoiy. With his eyes fixed upon a vision, his ear listening to the distant music of one of those concerts that human ear has never heard, there appeared to spring forth in liis child's soul another existence. "An instant afterwards tlie brilliancy of his eye became extinguished, he crossed his arras upon his breast, and an expression of sinking showed itself upon his face. "Gomin ol)SciTcd him closely, and followed witli an anxious eye every movement. His breathing was no longer painful ; his eye alone seemed slowly to wander, looking from time to time towards the window. . . . Gomin asked him what it was he was looking at in that direction. The child looked at his guardian a moment, and although the question was repeated, he seemed not to understand it, and did not answer. " Lasne came up from below to relieve Gomin ; the latter went out, his heart op- pressed, but not more anxious than on the evening before, for he did not expect an im- mediate termination. Lasne took bis seat near the bed ; the prince regarded him for a long time with a fixed and dreamy look. When he made a slight movement, Lasno asked him how he was, and if he wanted anything. The child said, ' Do you think that my sister has heard the music ? How happy it would have made her ? ' Lasne was unable to answer. Tlie eager and penetrating look, full of anguisli, of the dying child darted towards the window. An exclamation of happiness escaped his lips ; then loolving towards his guardian, he said, 'I have one thing to tell you.' . . • Lasne ap proached and took his hand; the little head of the prisoner fell upon his guaixlian't breast, who listened to him, but in vain. His last words had been spoken. God hat" spared the young martyr the agony of the dying rattle ; God had kept for himself the last thought of the child. Lasne put his hand upon the heart of the child : the pura heart of Louis XVII. had ceased to beat. It was half past two o'clock in the afternoon." When Mozart had given the finishing touches to his won- flerfiil Requiem, his last and sweetest composition, he fell into a quiet and composed slumber. On awakening, he said to his daughter, "Come hither, my Emilie ; my task is done; the Requiem is done — my Requiem is finished." " Oh, no," said the gentle girl, the tears filling her eyes ; " you will be better now ; let me go and bring you something refreshing." " Do not deceive yourself, my love," he replied, " I am beyond human aid ; I am dying, and I look to Heaven's mercy only for aid. You spoke of refreshment — take these last notes of mine, sit down by my piano here, sing them with the hymn of your sainted mother ; let me once more hear those tones which have so long been my solace and delight." His daughter 46 IMMORTALITY. complied, and, with a voice tremulous with emotion, sang the following: " Spirit, thy labor is o'er, Thy earthly probation is run ; Thy steps are now bound for the unknown shore, And the race of immortals begun. Spirit, look not ou the strife. Or the pleasures of earth with regret; Pause not on the threshold of limitless life To mourn for the day that is set. Spirit, no fetters can bind. No wicked have power to molest ; There the weary like thee, the ^vTCtched, shall find A haven, a mansion of rest. Spirit, how bright is the road For which thou art now on the wing ! Thy home — it will be with the angels of God, Their loud Alleluias to sing." " As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment on the low melancholy notes of the piece, and then turned from the in- strument to meet the approving smile of her father. It was the still, passionless smile which the rapt and departed spirit left upon the features." Reaching Paris by way of Egypt and Italy, from the East, on my way around the world, I met that distinguished author, statesman, and spiritualist, Victor Hugo, in Mrs. HoUis-Bil- lings' stance-rooms. He came out, weeping tears of gladness; for a loved son had held converse with a loving father. Like Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer, like J. H. Fichte, the great German philosopher, Victor Hugo is a brave, out- spoken spiritualist; and this accounts for his thrilling sen- tences and Heaven-inspired ideas relating to law and liberty, to deatli and the immortal life. Standing over the corpse of one he loves, he says : " I bless him in the great hereafter. In the name of the sonows whereon he gently beamed, and of the shadows he smiled into sunshine; in the name of terrestrial things he once hoped for, and of celestial things which he now enjoys; in the name of all he loved, I bless him. I bless him in his youth, in his beauty, in his innocence, in his life, and in his death. I bless him in his white, sepulchral robes ; in his home which he has left ; in his coffin which his friends filled with flowers, and which God filled with atan." THE TESTmONT OF SAINTS. 47 " The dead are invisible, but they are not absent. Let us be just to death. Let us Bot be ungrateful to death. It is not, as has been said, a ruin and a snare. It is an error to think that here in the darkness of the open grave all is lost to us. There eventhing is found again. The gi-ave is a place of restitution ; there the soul resumes the infinite, there it recovers its plenitude. There it re-enters on the possession of all its mysterious nature ; it is set free from the body, from want, from its burden, from fatality. Death is the greatest of libeitics ; it is also the furthest progress. Death is a higher step for all who have lived upon its height. Dazzling and holy eveiy one receives his inci-ease, everything is transfigured in the light and by the light. He who has been no more than virtuous on earth becomes beauteous; he who has only been beauteous becomes sublime; and he who has only been sublime becomes good. Progiess is for all ! progress is eternal ! " In speaking at a Parisian party of litterateurs upon the subject of immortality, his face brightening up into a sun of trans- figured beauty, he said : "There are no occult forces; there are only luminous forces. Occult force is chaos, the luminous force is God. Man is an infinitely little copy of God ; this is glory enough for man. I am a man, an invisible atom, a drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the shore. Little as I am, I feel the God in me, because I can also bring form out of my chaos. I make hooks, which are creations. I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of bodily powei-3. Why then is my soul the more lumiuous when my bodily powers begin to fail ? Winter is on my head, and eternal spring is in my heart. There I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is mai-velous, yet simple. It is a faiiy tale, and it is history. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse; his- tory, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song — I have tried all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. ^\'hen I go down to the grave I can say, like so many others, ' I have finished my day's work,' but I cannot Bay, • I have finished my life.' My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley ; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open vitfa the dawn — the dawn of an immortal morning 1 " 48 IMMOETALITT. CHAPTER VI. THE ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND PERFECTION OF THE SPIRITUAli BODY. " There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." — TAVh. " Nor fear the pave, that door of heaven on earth ; All changed and beautiful ye shall come forth, As from the cold dark cloud the winter showers Go underground to dress, and come forth flowers." Gerald Masset. Something what the bird is to the shell — what the juicy pulp is to the orange, the spiritual body is to the organic man. The rind aptly symbolizes the outer physical body, and the orange seed the soul-germ. In this stage of existence man is triune — soul, spiritual body, earthly body. In the future intermediate state of being he will be dual — soul and spiritual body ; the former a poten- tialized portion of the Over-soul, God. The query may here arise, whether, when the celestial degree or state of angelhood is resumed, man will not once more enjoy the threefold state by the possession of a body- form derived from the more perfected or etherealized com- bination of chemical substance through a process of material- ization? Prophecy, resurrection doctrines, and materializing phenomena foreshadow such a conclusion. Moreover, if this outer zone of material substance shall be added to the aromal bod) of the soul, it will be practically immortal and free from the disorders to which our present mortal bodies are subject. The spiritual body is not a newly organized and ethereal- ized body that we are to have in the morning of the resurrec- tion, for we have it now. It is within us, and in a secondary sense is the life of the physical body. The- two bodies in point of time are co-existent. And the soul, allied to, and DEVELOPMENT OF THE BPIBITUAL BODY. 49 rooted in God, has been manufacturing and moulding this spiritual body from the moment of conception. Interpenetrating and infilling the atmosphere that surrounds our earth there is a pulsating spiritual atmosphere. Every element, monad, molecule — dual doubtless in construction — is constituted of physical matter and spiritual substance; and the spiritual substances in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the auras we appropriate, go to make and support our spiritual bodies. Physical matter is not transmitted, nor can it become, by any law of progress, essential soul — that is, pure Intelli- gence ! We only know of soul by its manifestations. We are finite beings, and accordingly our thoughts and percep- tions have their limitations and impossibilities. God will be the unsolved problem of eternity. It is as absolutely impos- sible for the finite to fathom the Infinite as for two parallel lines to meet. The spiritual body, even while enshrined in the earthly, requires spiritual sustenance. This it derives, as we have before intimated, from the etherealized essences of grains, fruits, and from spirit-auras ; and digesting, assimilates them ; — while the soul requires and finds its sustenance in the recep- tion and appropriation of such divine principles as affection, goodness, truth, and wisdom. To properly feed a spiritually- minded man in this world is to educate and instruct him in spiritual things. And this is especially true of those who inhabit the heavenly life. " Lord," exclaimed the disciples, "evermore give us this bread." On the tomb of a Pharaoh at Thebes, in letters exquisitely graved three thousand years ago, perhaps, are these words : "I lived in truth, and fed my Eoul with justice and wisdom. What I did for men I did in peace, and how I loved God, God and my heart well know." If I had been asked, while feeling my way by the dim twilight of theological dogmas, to define the spiritual body, I should probably have said: "The spiritual body, — why, it is a thin, aerial, immaterial sort of a shapeless essence, that in the dying-hour floats away into space, awaiting the sounding 4 <^0 IMMORTALITT. of the trumpet and the resurrection of the dead ! " But the heavens, opened as thej are in this nineteenth century, the descending angels have taught us that the spiritual body is a real body ; that the spiritual man is the real man with the spiritual form and senses etherealized and more thoroughly perfected. The spiritual body is particled, and accordingly subject to waste and supply. Aflame with life and action, it continually casts off a coarser and takes to itself and appro- priates that which is more ethereal and beautiful. The clairvoyant and clairaudient have the phj^sical and spiritual senses both open at the same time, enabling them to commune with men and spirits, and to hear the music of earth and the music of the angels. The sages of India, the Magi of the East, the prophets of Israel, the apostles of Syria, Swedenborg, Wesley, Ann Lee, and others were thus condi- tioned in the past ; and so are the genuine mediums of the present — enabling them to consciously and visibly converse with the inhabitants of the spirit-world. Though the spiritual body is encased in the physical, the latter does not necessarily reflect the perfect image of the spiritual man. Other things being equal, however, this is largely true. Still, the influences of hereditary descent and the psychological imprint of the parents often render the external unlike the face and form of the indwelling spirit. Physical deformities do not pertain to the spirit. The out- wardly ugly are often beautiful within — and beautiful, because their spiritual natures have subsisted upon purity, love, and truth. Many who are crooked and deformed in limb, and who have uncomely bodies, have interior spiritual bodies of exqui- site beauty and manliness. Good deeds brighten and beautify. To distribute and confer blessings upon others gives sweet- ness and serenity to the spiritual features. The truly good, however old and wrinkled, are spiritually beautiful. " In the other life," says the gifted Edmund H. Sears, "appears the wonderful paradox that the oldest people are the youngest. To grow in age is to come into everlasting youth. To become old in years is to put on the freshness of perpetual prime. DEVELOPMENT OP THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 61 We drop from us the debris of the past ; we breathe the ether of immortality, and our cheeks mantle with eternal bloom." In Theodore Parker'e great sermon entitled " Old Age," he makes use of this symbol from natural life : " The stick on his andirons snaps asunder, and falls outward. Two faintly- smoking brands stand there. Grandfather lays them together and they flame up ; the two smokes are united in one flame. ' Even so let it be in heaven.' " In the gardens and paradises "^f hepven, living souls meet and mingle as do the pearling dewaror>? of morning. While a physical atmosphere ervej ir-^ our earth, the spirit- ual atmosphere, like a measureless ocean ol light, encircles and bathes in peerless splendor these worlds and astral systems that stud the fields of Infinity. Passing through the vine-encircled door of death into the world of spirits, to consciously inhale this atmosphere, everything seems so real, so substantial, so spiritually natural, that many cannot at first understand that their bodies are dead — that they have really been translated from the rudimental to the next and higher stage of exist- ence. They think they are half a-dreaming. To be sure, they cognize the fact that they live — that their spiritual bodies are perfect in structure and function — that their hearts throb, their lungs expand, their ears hear, their lips speak, and their eyes behold the friends that had previously crossed the crystal river ; and still, they wonder I It is only through the prophets of old and the intermedia- ries of the present that we know the nature of the spiritual body ; know the occupations of spirit-life, and the social activities that obtain in " that city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Scientific men are cautiously approaching this realm of the spiritual. Accord- ingly, Professor Winchell, of the Michigan University, says : " The unseen world is destined to become like a newly-discovered continent. We shall visit it ; we shall hold communion with it ; we shall wonder how so many thou- sand years could have passed without our being introduced to it. We shall learn o/ other modes of existeuce — intermediate^ perhaps, between body and spirit — liaving the forms and limitations in space peculiar to matter, with the penetrability and invisi- bility of spirit. And who can say that we may not yet obtain such knowledv* ot th« t>2 IMMORTALITY. modes of existence of other bodies as to discover the means of rendering them visible to our bodily eyes, as we now hold conversation with a friend upon the shores of the Pacific, or in the heart of Europe, or fly with the superhuman velocity of the wind from the Atlantic to the Mississippi valley ? Then may wc not at last gaze upon the ipiritxtal bodies in which our departed friends reside, and discover the means of listen- ing to their spirit voices, and join hands consciously with the heavenly host ? " All this is accomplished. The immortal, vestured in tempo- rary clothing, walk in our midst. Like Jesus, who appeared m the "upper room, the door being shut," they " vanish" from sight. Only those whose eyes are " holden " fail to see chem. They come to demonstrate a future existence ; to remap and revise the geography of other lands than ours • and to reveal the glories of those heavenly spheres. " Where the faded flower shall freshen, Freshen never more to fade ; Where the shaded sky shall brighten, Brighten never more to shade ; Where the sun-blaze never scorches, Where the star-beams cease to chill. Where no tempest stirs the echoes Of the wood or wave or hill : Where the morn shall wake in gladness, And the moon the joy prolong ; Where the daylight dies in fragrance, Mid the burst of holy song ; Where the bond is never severed. Partings, claspings, sobs, and moans. Midnight waking, twilight weeping. Heavy noontide — all are done. Where dear friends in kingly glory, Such as earth has never known. Shall each take the righteous scepter, C!Uim and wear the heavenly ciwra.' IS IT THB SOUIi OE THE BODY THAT 8LN3 ? 53 CHAPTER VII. IS IT THB SOUL OR THE BODY THAT 8IN8 ? " I kaow not what triab thy poor heart hath had, I only know mine have driven me mad ! The world may have touched thee, and left its fouj taint, For none can escape it, nor sinner nor saint. I know what this life is — Ah ! God help us all, For the bravest and best in the battle may fall ; I'll not judge thee rashly — no, Ileaven forefend, Tis a cold word to utter, — but, ' I'm ever thy friend ! * " 11. ClaT PBBI788. " For I came not to condemn the world, but to save the world." Jbsus. Just as the body is the subject of health and disease, just as there is order and disorder in its functional relations, so is there harmony and inharmony, good and evil, in the moral universe. Evil is not " undeveloped good," but directly the opposite of good. And man as a moral actor is therefore the subject of rewards and disciplinary punishments. Just as character is more than reputation, being is more than doing ; so each man's justification or condemnation comes from what lie absolutely is, in and of himself. The judg- ment-seat is within, and conscience, in connection with the moral faculties, there sits enthroned as judge. The seeming in society is often an illusion. And yet, external respecta- bility, like merchandise, has its market-price. The hells are crowded with proud and respectable hypocrites of earth. Jesus, eating with publicans and sinners, "• made himself," said an apostle, "of no reputation;" but his character, oh, how divine I Doing may be imitated, being cannot. The virtues may be copied ; but virtue, as an original principle or motive, is a 64 IMMOBTAUTY. part of the divine selfhood. It was not " virtue" that Jesus " felt go out of him," but nervo-magnetism. Works of right- eousness borrowed — works undertaken as a speculation to secure Heaven, are valueless, because selfish. The best acts are praiseworthy only so far as they are the exponents of the moral life, and have in view the good of humanity. Psychology and phrenology, now received into the pan- theon of the sciences, prove man to be a moral being, having moral brain-faculties. And moral being implies moral law, and moral law implies not only conscience and freedom, but moral government and compensation. Conscience, in connection with moral judgment, ever prompts to the right ; but the perceptive and reflecting organs, coupled with moral consciousness, must ever deter- mine what that right is. This applies to every scale of life. " Green apples are good," says a prominent Spiritualist writer, — " good in their place, as the ripened ones of October." True ; but why compare green apples to states of evil ? Unripe fruit represents a stage of growth in accordance with the divine order, as childhood is according to divine order ; but hate, malice, falsity, and unchastity are inversions of the divine order, and hence bear no correspondence to unripe fruit. And further, the one who compares green apples, which are utterly destitute of intelligence and moral percep- tion, with- the willful perversions of human nature, exhibits a process of reasoning which deserves the appellation — unparalleled sophistry ! No moral quality inheres in apples. They are neither "good" nor evil, because moral qualities pertain to moral beings — not unconscious fruit, or blind forces. A machine may be constructed with such precision that the action of each screw and wheel is controlled and deter- mined with mathematical exactness. But it is a machine^ nevertheless, and incapable of love or hate, good or evil. If man, instead of being a conscious spirit, were a mere machine^ tliere would be no moral wrong on earth, and there should be Qeither rewards nor punishments. T8 IT THE SOUL OR THE BODY THAT SINS? 56 There are pseudo-philosophers who with great confidence assure us that there is no moral evil in the universe — only a graded or lower degree of good. But is a positive lie a lower degree of truth? Malice a lower degree of mercy? and burning lust a lower degree of chastity? To enunciate is to reveal the terrible hideousness of such reasoning. Good and evil are moral conditions, each real and positive, according as it becomes the leading force in purpose or quality of charac- ter. And the higher the moral altitude attained, the more exquisitely keen are the soul's distinctions between good and evil. If it is noble to resist temptation, it is infinitely nobler to be above temptation. Milton's angels were only hj'pothetical angels. If real, they could not have been so easily tempted, through pride, to fall. Each individual is responsible to the extent of his intelligence, mental capacity, and moral knowl- edge. All moral acts pertain to the mental and spiritual nature, and not to the body, except medially. The amputated foot does not kick. It is not the fleshly hand that steals. No corpse treads on forbidden ground. The hand, the foot, the body — these are only the implements for conscious intelli- gence to operate through. Without this intelligence and moral perception of law, man is little more than a passive machine. The body, then, does not sin. Constituted of physical elements, it can know nothing of moral or immoral acts. And death, which is only the shedding of the outer envelope, in no way affects the immortal man. It is not a sponge, that cleans the slate in a moment ; not a sieve, that, while separating the chaff from the wheat, purifies the soul ; not a moral chemist, that so manipulates character as to per- fect it in the twinkling of an eye. And yet death, or the conditions to which death introduces the individual, offers better and higher facilities for perpetual progress. Human beings are finite, and accordingly all moral distinc- tions are relative. And while motives and circumstances, and even the bodily passions, have wide fields of operation. 66 IMMORTALITY. they are to be controlled and rigidly subjected to the reason and higher intuitions of tlie moral nature. This is the struggle — the clashing battle-ground of life. God and the good angels help the Christ within us to become victor. Something as shadows are to pictures, so are imperfections to human nature along its different stages of develojiraent. Evil is incident to moral freedom and moral law. The apos- tolic assurance that Jesus " was made perfect through suffer- ing," has been construed that he was once imperfect. And it has often been contended that if Jesus as a Jew had not been disobedient, the apostle could not have rationally said that he " learned obedience by the things he suffered." Only then, that he was, as the Scriptures teach, our "Elder Brother," — a " man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,"' — could he have felt such a deep sympathy for humanity. Kossuth spoke all the more eloquently in behalf of liberty after having paced the cold floors of an Austrian dungeon. Hampden's persecutions for freedom fired his soul with a deeper love for justice and equality. Gough could never have spoken with the burning power and pathos he does had he not staggered and suffered under the poisoned draught. Pain is a masked angel pointing to the door of obedience. And so evil, through sorrow and direst suffering, is overruled for good. This is Optimism — that rational Optimism which, seeing afar into the future, is calm with faith and holiest trust. The noblest and purest souls of earth are ever the most charitable. " Neither do I condemn thee," were the tender words of Jesus. And again, " I came not to condemn the world, but to save the world." The good shepherd, leaving the ninety and nine, searched for the lost sheep until he had found it. The robes of reformers shine the brightest when they rustle along the crowded crypts of time. Feet pierced with thorns are on the way to see the head crowned with roses. Disappointments and trials, rightly considered, and patiently endured, become transfigured into higher joys; or, by other methods, bloom out into richest blessings. Tears, shed over the sufferings of others, crystallize into pearls. Under 18 IT THE SOUL OR THE BODY THAT SINS ? 57 the clouds of imperfection, and the cankering corruptions of social life, there lie entombed the principles that reflect the overshadowing love of the Infinite, — principles that brighten up in glad response to that sweet sympathy and love that angels ever know. It was not the body, but the soul of Mary Magdalena, that Jesus so admired and loved. The peerless words of the Apostle John — " God is Love " — will live for- ever! Appreciating the moral grandeur of a broad religious opti- mism, Alice Carey sung one of the sweetest songs of her soul. " I said if I might go back again To the very hour and place of my birth, Might have my life whatever I chose, And live it in any part of the earth ; Put perfect sunshine into my sky, Banish the shadows of sorrow and doubt; Have all of my happiness multiplied. And all of my suffering stricken out; If I could have known in the yeai-a now gone The best that a mortal comes to know : Could have had whatever will make man blest, Or whatever he thinks will make him so; Yea ; I said if a miracle such as this Could be wrought for me at my bidding, — still I would choose to have my past as it is, And to let my future come as it wUl. I would not make the path I have trod More pleasant, or even more straight or wide; Nor change my course the breadth of a hair This way or that to either side. My past is mine, and I take it all, — Its weakness, its folly if you please; Nay, even my sius, if you come to that, May have been my helps, — not hindrances. So let my past stand just as it stands. And let me now, as I may, grow old ; I am what I am, and my life for me Is the best — or, it had not been — I hold." The oak remembers not each leaf it bore ; and yet each leaf and bough and brawny limb help to make up the towering 68 IMMORTALITY. tree. Many of the acts and minor events of our lives have died out, or cease to echo in the memory chambers of our souls ; still, their results live in our characters. Let them be forgotten I It is not wise to brood over the broken rounds of the ladder our feet just pressed. The summit of the temple is to be reached. Direct the eye upward, and press forward towards the higher altitudes of heavenly truth and wisdom. The toiling seamstress remembers not each stitch she took in the garment; and yet, every stitch helped to make up that garment ; and so each thought, word, purpose, and deed, help to make up the real life of the soul ; and backward-looking memory, tracing the effects, may — ay, must construct a mirror before which we shall be necessitated to stand, face to face with ourselves. This will be the loosening of the seals — the beginning of the Judgment. " Go unto thy own place," will be the self-pronounced sentence of the soul. Compensation runs like a silver thread through the uni- verse. Youth affects manhood. The deeds of manhood be- cloud or brighten the sunset of life. We weave the moral garments in this life that shall in quality clothe us when en- tering the future state of existence. " If all our life was one broad glare Of sunlight clear, unclouded, If all our path were smooth and fair, By no deep gloom enshrouded ; If all life's flowers were fully blown Without the slow unfolding. And happiness mayhap was thrown On hands too weak for holding ; Then we should miss the twilight honn, The intermingling sadness. And pray perhaps for storms and showen To break the constant gladness. If none were sick and none were sad. What service could we render ? I think if we were always glad We hardly could be tender. Did our beloved never need Our loving ministration. Life would grow cold, and misa Its finest consolation. IS IT THE SOUL OR THE BODY THAT SINa ? 61 If sorrow never smote the heart. And every wish were granted. Then faith would die, and hope depart, And life be disenchanted. And if in heaven is no more night, In heaven no more sorrow. Such nnimagined pnre delight Fresh grace from pain wUl borrow. As the poor seed that underground Seeks its true life above it. Not knowing where it will be found When sunbeams touch and love h, — 80 we in darkness upward grow, And look and long for heaven ; Tct cannot reach it here bebw, TQl man of IJ^ht be girwL" 61 nUiORTALlTT. CHAPTER VIII. CLOTHING IN THE SPIRIT-WOKLD — ITS OHARACTEB, C7SE, AND HOW OBTAINED. " Our atmosphere U the mantle which the earth folds to her bosom during het jearl^ journeys around the sun. Nature is the garment of God. Angels are vestured in crj'stal whiteness." Filobim. " I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, ' Do not weep for me. This is not my true country ; I have lived banished from my trae country — I now go back there ; I return to the celestial sphere, where eveiy one goes in his turn.'" Weitman Everything in the universe, so far as we know, is either clothed upon, or clothes itself. "Every mineral, every flower, every animal, every human being, every spirit, every object, in- deed, in the universe, from the sun to a dew-drop, has a pecul- iar atmosphere, composed of infinitesimal particles emanating from itself, embodying its interior nature, and proceeding to a certain distance around it. We find it in the magnet, by its attraction ; in the rose, by its perfume ; in man, by his radiat- ing influences of all kinds. By it the faithful dog tracks his master to incredible distances. By it the magnetized person detects the character of another by the glove or the ring he has worn. Every social circle, every church, every institu- tion, has its sphere." The heavens have their sphere, and the hells theirs. The sphere of an object is its natural clothing. But there are two kinds of clothing, the one natural, the other fashioned by intelligence and taste. Swedenborg, by far the greatest seer of modern times, Bays: "The extrication of the spirit from the body is an office assigned to a certain order of angels. They receive souls kindly, and introduce them to their new sphere, where CLOTHING IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. 61 they quickly seek out those with whom they Lave an affinity." ..." I have fre- quently heard new-comers from the earth rejoicing at meeting their friends again, and their friends rejoicing at their arrival. Husbands and wives meet and continue to- gether for a long or short time, according to their mutual affinity." ..." Very many of the learned from the earth are amazed when they find themselves after death in houses, in bodies, and in gai-ments much as those of earth.". . . " Angels appear clothed, and each angel in vesture corresponding to his intelligence. The most intelli- gent have gai-raents which glitter as with flame, and some are resplendent as witli light. The less intelligent have garments of clear or opaque white without splendor. The still less intelligent have garments of various colors." . . . *' The garments of the angels do not merely appear to be garments, but they really are garments ; for they not only see, but feel them, and have many changes which they take off and put on, laying aside those which are not in use, and resuming them when they come into use again. That they are clothed with a variety of garments I have seen a thousand times." It was at the " end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week," that the angel appeared at the sepulchre, " clothed in a long, white garment." The frightened women hurried away, telling their friends that the risen Jesus had met them saying, " All hail f " " And the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, and came and rolled back the Btonc, and sat upon it ... . and his raiment was white as snow." Matthew xxviii. 2, 3. " And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away. And they saw ■ young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment." Mark xvi. 4, 5. While one of the evangelists denominates the spirit who appeared at the sepulchre an angel, and the other a. young man, they both agree in pronouncing the garment "white." Luke, in sj)eaking of the clothing, says it was "shining." Upon that Syrian mount when Moses and Elias appeared and " talked with Jesus," the evangelist says he was trans- figured before them . . . and " his raiment was white as the light." (Matt. xvii. 2, 8.) John, the Patraos seer, tells us that, when a door was opened to him in Heaven, he saw on one occasion "seven angels," coming out of the temple, "clothed in pure white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles." (Rev. XV. 6.) Being in the spirit on the '• Lord's day," he saw " armies of angels, clothed in fine linen, white and clean ; " and again, he beheld " a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues 62 EVIMORTALITT. .... clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." In the first chapter of Acts, a spirit-manifestation to the dis- ciples is described as " two men who stood by them in white apparel." In tlie Revelation it is said : " He that overcometh shall be clothed in white raiment." How blessed the thought ! clothed in " white robes " — in '* raiment white as snow " — in "shining garments above the brightness of the sun ! " While all are clothed in tlie spirit-world, only those are clothed in crystal whiteness that have " overcome " — overcome their per- versions, their passions, and their earthly appetites, in the sense of training and subordinating them to divine uses. Clothing in the future world corresponds to character. Many of the proud and costly attired of earth will find themselves so spiritually nude and poor in the world of spirits, that they will feel to compare their vestures to filthy rags. " And, oh ! in that future and lovelier sphere, Where all is made right which so puzzles us here ; Where the glare aud the glitter and tinsel of Time Shall fade in the light of that region sublime, Where the soul, disenchanted of flesh and of sense, Unscreened by its trappings, and shows, and pretense, Must be clothed for the life and the service above. With purity, truthfulness, meekness, and love. Oh, daughters of earth ! foolish virgins, beware ! Lest in that upper realm you have nothing to wear!" As the loving, waiting mother provides the softest and most delicate garments for the expectant infant, so tender mater- nal angels and guardian spirits, expecting and watching foi the resurrection of spirits from, or out of, their physical bodies, have already prepared the gossamer garments for the loved ones born again. Through death comes the second — the real new birth ! In shape and appearance, spiritual vestures commonly cor- respond to the spirit's taste and custom when upon earth. The Quaker wears at first the plain dress; the Roman, the toga; the Oriental, the graceful robe. But in ethereality of texture, garments correspond to the moral status of indi- viduals. OLOTHLNQ IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. ^6 The first garments worn in spirit-life are gifts of love. It is so with infants on earth ; but reaching their full stature, each and all provide their own clothing. In the higher heav- ens, robes and angel vestures are woven by will-power through skillful hands, and woven almost in the twinkling of an eye. It may almost be said that glistening robes of glory come to angels as leaves come to the trees in spring-time, or as gorgeous colors come to evening clouds. As the raiments of the heav- enly inhabitants correspond in quality to their interior states, they change according to their unfoldment, and also with their rank and position. The robes of the archangels are so bright that they literally flame in matchless splendor I The great seer of Sweden, after describing the magnificent attire of spirits and angels, says : " I have be»n with the angels in their habitations. They are exactly like our houses upon earth, but mo«e beautiful. They contain chambers, drawing-rooms, and bed- rooms in great numbers. They have couils, and are encompassed by gardens, flower- beds, and fields." " Where the angels live in societies, the habitations are contiguous, and arranged in the form of a city, with courts, streets, and squares exactly like the cities on our earth. It has also been granted me to walk through tlicm, and to look about on all sides. This occurred to me wh«n wide awake, my interior sight being open at the time." " I have seen palaces in heaven so magnificent as to sui-pass all description. Some were more splendid than others. The inside was in keeping with the outside. The apartments were oruameoted with such decorations that no language is adequate to the description of them." Our good deeds, our self-sacrificing lives construct our par- adises, decorate our future homes ; beautify our lawns, make the stars more visible, the winds more musical, and our im- mortal clothing more bright and shimmering. Be ye also ready. " The tissue of the life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of dastiny We reap as we have sown. Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The past shall reappear." WxrimK 64 IMMOUTALITT. CHAPTER IX. LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. — HOW AND WH? SPIRITS CONNECTED WITH THEIR MORTAL BODIES, TEM- PORARILY LEAVE THEM. •' I knew a man in Clirist, above fourteen years ago ; whether in the body or out ol the body I cannot tell. God knoweth; such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man ; how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard un- speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 2 CoR. xii. 2-4. " I am now leaving my body four hours each night, and listening to medical lectures in one of the most magnificent pavilions that stud the spirit world. I also have a class that I am teaching in a sphere below the one in which I am a pupil." Dr. A. P. PiKBCE. Souls build the bodies they inhabit. The will moves them. Intelligent motion implies mind. The soul, a conscious entity, related to the infinite Soul, God, somewhat as spark to flame, is the mechanic, the spir- itual form with its nerve-forces is the machinery, and the physical body the external building that covers mechanic and machinery. And why should not the thinking, conscious mechanic occasionally step out of his building for specific purposes, leaving, of course, every door and avenue well guarded ? Accompanied recently by Mrs. Taylor, of Brooklyn, N. Y., a personal friend of Miss Fancher, the psychological wonder, I was permitted to visit and enjoy a most interesting conver- sation with this young lady, who virtually subsists without food, and enjoys sleep only when in the trance state. During the interview she spoke freely, not only of her sensitiveness, her trances and visions, "but," said she, " I sometimes leave my body and go away, — oh, so far away ! — meeting my mother and other dear friends, with scenery too beautiful to describe. I traverse fields, and walk in gardens of flowers LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 66 and fountains, and I listen to the most heavenly musvc You cannot think how it rests me ; and I feel so sad when J am asked to return again to my earthly home." It is a well-established fact in my mind that, while humar? bodies are in a comatose condition analogous to death, only that the magnetic life-thread is not severed, souls leave their bodies, and, accompanied by guardian angels, traverse the spirit spheres of infinity. My belief in this phenomenon rests upon the following testimony : I. Individual experience. I know many substantial, clear- headed persons who aflBira in the most positive manner that they have been temporarily released from their physical bod- ies ; that they were at the time conscious of Lei;:*, in this freed condition ; that they saw the bodies they ^ad left saw the silvery electric cord still connecting them with their bodies ; saw spirit friends whom they had known on earth ; visited the supernal home of these friends ; and were con- ^.'ious of reasoning about returning and re-entenng their .^odies. II. Spirits, the more wise and exalted, controlling me- diums unconsciously, have repeatedly informed me that in consequence of a peculiar organization, coupled with wisely- directed magnetic preparations on the part of spirit guides, certain persons may and do leave their bodies temporarily, traveling both in the hells and the higher table-lands of im- mortality. III. Independent clairvoyants, while in their superior con- ditions, have frequently seen individuals of earth in the world of spirits, yet sympathetically connected with their bodies by this magnetic life-cord. Whenever this is severed, death fol- lows. The physical body is raised only in the sense of reap- pearing in grasses, grains, and forest-trees. Filling a lecture engagement in Troy, N. Y., a few years since, I went down to the hospitable home of Dr. G. L. Dit- son, Albany, to see Dr. E. C. Dunn. It is a cosy, comfortabl-? place to visit. Retiring to our apartment for the night, D*:. Dunn, as usual, was entranced. The subject of conversatioB 6 66 IMMORTALITY. was the inter-relations of body, spirit, and soul. Aware that the doctor had not been in my apartment in Troy since occupy- ing it, I said, when leaving in the morning, '''■Gome as a spirit to Troy to-night^ and write me to-morrow lohat you see in my room^ " Most certainly," was the prompt reply, " if my spirit guides will help me.*' The next evening I received a letter describing my room at Mr. McCoy's, the locality of the bed, the furniture, the books, the pencils, the open Bible, &c., closing with these words : " I took especial notice of my body, after leaving it, as it lay in bed at Albany. A •art of the circle guarded it. I had a very pleasant time with Aaron Knight, who •cted aa my guide while absent from the body. The sensations were all pleasant ex- sept the terrible dread which always comes over me when returning to my body." The description of the room, the books, garments, pictures, open Bible with photograph in it, and other objects in my apartment, could hardly have been described with greater precision. Similar visits of exploration, and traveling out of and away from the physical organism, have been of frequent occurrence, giving unmistakable evidence to my mind that the doctor, as he positively asserts, was absent from his body. Prophets and apostles of old had analogous experiences. Paul, when caught up to the third heaven, did not know whether he was in the body or out. Plotinus, more philo- sophical than Paul, knew when he was out of the body, and returning to it, remembered who of the Platonic teachers he had met while traversing the higher spheres. Many mediums and seers have had similar experiences to those above named. And so the marvels of history repeat themselves. " I am now going away," are the opening words of our seer.* " Am now crossing the river I have seen before. Oh, if mortals only knew I they would not care for the voyage ; they would only care for what they should carry with them. " I am now passing through a somewhat extended darkness; • Several of the following pages are from an unpublished volume (1878) entitled, " The Beyond ; or, Symbolic Teachings £-om the Higher Life." Edited by Hennas Snow LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OP SPIRITS. 61 but do not feel troubled, for I am coubcious that friendly sup- porters are near at hand. Now I see strangely-shaped build- ings. They seem to have no foundations. I think they must fall, so patched and poorly braced are they in their lower parts. They are the homes, I am told, of those who on earth were unfortunately cursed with excessive self-esteem. One of these now stands before me. He seems beginning to be conscious of his mistake and to long for its correction. And this ungainlj'-shaped and tottering building which now serves as his abode, is made unto him a daguerreotype, as it were, of his actual character ; and thus he is able to study its defects and gradually through effort and persistent struggle to bring his spirit-home — ever a reflex of character — into shapes of order and beauty. * I am glad,' I said to him, 'to see you go to work so earnestly and wisely. Will you let me come and see the inside when you have got your house in order ? ' I re- ceived no reply. " Now I see a spirit who does not seem to care for a home. He is satisfied to lie down and lazily go into a stupid sleep. But see ! a thunderbolt seems to strike him ; and he is aroused into mute amazement, while a voice exclaims, ' TFe have no idlers here! He seems to think this rather hard, as he had never succeeded in having much of such lazy comfort while on earth, and thought he might now have his fill undisturbed. But lie is told by spirits that only action, and much of it for others, can give him real comfort ! And so finally he is in- duced to make an effort to help some who are lower than him- self, when — lo ! a new consciousness begins to awaken within him ; and he not only gains the peace of self-approval, but finds also that the very effort made tends to remove the mor- bid accumulation of crude magnetism with which he was laden, and thus to make other efforts easy and pleasant. . . . " I now find myself in an assembly of teachers and pujiils; and here I am allowed to witness the methods of instruc- tion in spirit-life. Old and young I see occupying the same classes, and, strange to say, those of the same average ahility^ who have not had what is called an education on the earth. 68 IMMORTALITY. here promise the most rapid progress. The reason is that the others have many errors to unlearn before they are prepared to see and acknowledge the new truths ; for here, truths are clearly seen by the more intuitive-minded. For it is not theories concerning truths, but the truths themselves, that are here set before the pupils. The method is more like what we of earth call ' object teaching ' than any other system of our instruction. "A conspicuous example of the false method of earth now stands out before me in the person of a self-conceited teacher, recently from her earthly labors. She does not seem at all to like the methods here pursued, and is quite free to criticise what is going on. She is not yet ready to take her proper position among the pupils, but expatiates quite freely on the worth of the old methods of her earthly life. The spirit-teacher does not seem to be in the least troubled or dis- couraged at the blindness and perversity of this self-opinion- ated novitiate; but rather encourages her to go on and expose the shallowness of her mental condition, which is soon seen by all, bat particularly by a bright and beautiful boy of not more than fourteen years of age, who can hardly restrain him- self from prematurely setting her right. " At length, the spirit-teacher gives her what seems to be a delicate spray of fern-leaf, wlien to her opening vision there appear to be beauties and marks of wisdom in it that no book of botany ever named ; and she begins to see and acknowledge the superiority of this method over the one heretofore so ficnaly fixed in her mind. Other similar experiments follow, until at length she is fairly transformed into a promising pupil of the spirit-instructor, at which the bright minded boy ap- pears especially to rejoice, — in sympathy, however, not in triumph. "I leave now," said the seer, "and go again." . . . " O the water, how pure and peaceful it looks 1 as it gurgles along in its course. It seems to speak of contentment, purity, and joy. And the modest and lovely flowers I see along its banks ; and the leafy shrubs ; and the tapering trees with their spiral t.OCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. 69 leaves p(jinting upward as if in conscious gvatitiide to the Giver of life — all these leaflets and flowers, all living things here, turji themselves steadily and earnestly to the light I Should it be less so wiJi man ; should he of all else seek the way of darkness rather than of the light? I now meet three weary travelers. They are toiling on beneath burdens, not of things of value, not of choice gems of truth and beauty ; but of the dry sticks of a worn-out theology which was fast- ened upon them by an unprincipled and arbitrary priestly rule while they were yet in the earth-life. True men were these, even in their darkened earthly condition ; for they saw not the iniquity of the power that held them in blind and slavish submission. They worked faithfully and self-saerificingly to carry out the designs of those, who, though ever ready to im- pose heavy burdens upon others, would hardly lift a finger to do the work themselves. And now I see that one of these pilgrims begins to awaken to a sense of the folly of his course in thus continuing to bear his wearying and worthless burden when the higher and clearer light of the spirit-world is around him. He feels the inspiration of high and noble spirits not far from him, and thus urged on, he throws off his grievous burden, and stands up a free and happy soul ! The others, incited by his example and by the inspiring power which they also feel, do likewise. " And now, the same active zeal which was once used to uphold the rule of a false and corrupt system, is turned with all its force to overthrow the falsities that once so oppressed them. In their invisible forms they revisit old confessionals, and whisper to presiding priests of the lives they are leading, and of the terrible penalties of their oppressions. They even penetrate to the head-center of ecclesiastical power, and make their searching whispers heard by him who sits upon the Papal throne itself. " It was a martyr's life these sincere men lived upon earth ; and it is a martyr's crown they are now receiving in doing their telling work of undermining the false and upbuilding the true in the lands of theii- former toils and sufferings." '^0 IMMORTALIT*. Spirits occupying the same sphere of sympathy and unfold- ment in the spirit- world, travel with the velocity of thought. Especially is this true after they come to understand the fluids and psychic forces of spirit-life; but to advance from one person to another who is higher, from one society to another, from one zone of existence to another more beatific, there must be preparation, interior changes in the state of the mind, and corresponding progressions and etherealizations of the spiritual body. There continues to reside in Boston, Mass., Dr. A. P. Pierce, I'.aving still, as in the past, an extensive medical practice in what is denominated the " higher circles " of society. While his healing gifts are truly wonderful, his trance experiences, connected with his travels in the different societies and spheres of spirit-life, are among the most marvelous in history. The most remarkable of his trances commenced on the 27th day of November, 1856. This continued twenty-one days, during which time he was out of his body. Previous to this, and while under spirit-influence, he foretold the hour when the entrancement would commence. At 8 o'clock, the time appointed, he felt a heavy pressure over the eyes, and re- quested that some friends be invited to witness the change necessarily occasioned by the departure of the spirit from the body. The guests now present, some fifteen or more in num- ber, he knelt down and prayed to God that the " cup might pass." And while in the act of prayer he fell into a trance. His face brightened up ; his body became rigid as though dead ; and in this condition he fell upon the floor. The con- trolling intelligence now said that he and " others had taken the body in charge, and would give instructions from day to day as to its management." During the time of Dr. Pierce's absence from the body, several different spirits possessed, or controlled it ; which spirits, owing to their magnetic connection with the body and their sympathetic relations with Dr. Pierce temporarily in spirit-life, served as mediums to describe the doctor's experiences in the various societies and spheres through which he passed. LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF SPIBITS. 71 Ist Sphere. — "There are here many circles and conditions, ft seems dark and gloomy. Spirits are as low as the very lowest in the body. They dispute, wrangle, and have all the passions they had on earth. Some return to their old asso- ciates, and re-enact the scenes of earth. Some remain here a very long period of time before light reaches them. It is ter- rible to contemplate." 2d Sphere. — Entering this, the doctor's spirit took on new conditions. The atmosphere was more rarefied, the ele- ments more ethereal. Appearances corresponded largely to the better conditions of earth. He saw •* spirits preparing spiritual food from spiritual elements and auras." Those in the higher circles of this sphere were instructing the lower. Most of the objects seemed natural yet new. Sd Sphere. — Passing into this condition, or zone of spirit- existence, he beheld spirits entering from the mortal state to receive the welcome and the care of those who had passed from the earthly life before them. They seemed to class themselves according to the laws of affinity. He saw them engaged in mental telegraphing, studying the principles of chemistry, and in various ways adorning their habitations. Here were animals of the higher order, and birds, as well as Indian hunting-grounds and attractive lodges. 4ith Sphere. — In this sphere the garments of the spirits seemed brighter and of a much finer texture. Instead of being in isolated homes, they lived in groups and associations. Spirits from the fifth and sixth spheres teach them. " I see birds, flowers, and a lemon-shaped fruit, rich and juicy. I do not know its name. I see these spirit-people constructing musical instruments, and trying to control the elements for various purposes. All are industrious. They have extensive grounds well laid out, tastefully arranged buildings, in a room of one of which were nicely arranged paintings on the walls, and flowers neatl}'- placed around the windows ; the furniture is soft and pliable, and constructed by a combination of the elements ; lakes on which the swan gracefully moves to and fro. They propose to change spheres by going through three 72 IMMORTALITY. degrees of education, receiving their instruction from spirits of the sixth sphere. The Indians have also their lodges here. Their food is like that in the other circles, growing on vines >vhich trail along the ground. For musical instruments the harp is used, to which they dance and sing, and are very happy — far more so than in the circles." bth Sphere. — Here " the light is still brighter, and the spirits seem more calm, serene, and self-balanced. They have walks tastefully arranged around their dwellings, with flower- beds, groves and lawns with shiide-trees ; lakes much larger than those in the fourth sphere, with boats of corresponding size playing backwards and forwards. They have places where they congregate to study the fine arts, and colleges for astronomy and mathematics ; also schools for instruction in mechanical arts and spirit-agriculture. The fruit grows on delicate bushes, something like the pear. These inhabitants are clear in their expression of spirit understanding. They vocalize and play upon musical instruments, and are joyous and very happy. " Their clothing is very light and spiritual. In the fourth circle of this sphere the light is like the setting sun to your earth, very genial and bright. Here are mountains and rivers made attractive by beautiful scenery. The spirits have labo- ratories and factories for purifying and clearing the elements; lakes with vessels, and ponds with boats on them, as well as wild geese and ducks, but they are more refined than those upon the earth. On the margin of a lake is an Indian en- campment. Here I meet the spirits of three Indians, who greet me and invite me to visit their lodges, where they have a talk about the pale-face Pierce, whom they knew on the earth. " The houses of these spiritual inhabitants are symmetrical and tastefully arranged inside, with paintings, drawings, and fine furniture, which are tangible to the spirit; the pianoforte is also here, upon which they play, accompanied by singing and dancing, which constitutes a part of their spiritual enjoy- ment, and is done to the honor and glory of God. They have LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF SPIEITS. 73 walks adorned with shade trees, on which are richly-plumaged birds singing their lays, making the elements vocal with sweet music; their fruit grows in arbors and bowers, and is shaped like the apple, but more delicious to the taste and strengthen- ing to the unfolding spirit as it is passing on to the higher circles of progression in knowledge. I meet with one of my friends whom I knew on earth, John S. Oilman. They con- verse of earth-life and spirit-life, showing that memory, like pure love, is immortal." Qth Sphere. — Do not understand that these spheres are ab- solutely separated the one from the other. They interblend, and shade off into each other, something as do rainbow hues. In the " first circle of this sphere, light dawns with great bril- liancy. Here I saw a magnilicent observatory. Newton was teaching. They have rivers, extensive plains, and lakes clear as crystal. They are building boats of a singular structure. They have scientific institutions for designs and new inven- tions, all of which, when perfected, are to be impressed upon the minds of the sensitives of earth, and then outwrought into practical use. The avenues are laid out with shade-trees for walking. " The climate and influences are more congenial to the spirit. They have gardens arranged with choicest fruit-trees. The apple, pear, apricot, and fruit such as I had never seen, are beautiful and spiritual. They arrange their houses in groups, and have a kind of raih'oad to go from one group to the other. They are very refined in their manners, very loving and affec- tionate. " In the third circle of this sphere the spirits have vast educational places for assembling together, in one of which is the Poet's Hall, where the lisen poets of earth are preparing poetical versions of the heavens. They have plain yet ele- gant churches for spiritual culture. Whitfield is preaching to them upon the necessity of spiritual purity and perfection. They have here observatories. Herschel is teaching, and other noted astronomers have classes. Here also they are traversing the ether spaces in aerial cars, which will ulti u IMMORTALITY. mately descend to earth. I see many fountains around theii houses, and flowers too beautiful for description. The food, exceedingly ethereal, is nutritious to the spiritual body. They have spiritual mansions, where spirits meet in sacred fellowship. I entered one, where I was received in fellow- ship. These spirits are very congenial to each other, and happy. '' In the ' higher circles of this sj^iere light dawns in brighter effulgence.' The spirits have large colleges to receive youth- ful minds as they come from earth, where sportive children are instructed in the higher truths of the heavenly life. Here also is a magnificent music hall ; Mrs. Hemans, Hannah More, and others are here, rehearsing the lyrics of the heavens. Here too are colleges for preparing teachers to come to earth to instruct and inspire mortals. William Peun, Roger Williams, and others, are here teaching. Youthful minds are their students. Also a university of music, where it is taught in its various methods. Places of worship for the adoration of God. Mil- ton and others are here teaching, and they are also teachers of earth. Here, in amazement, I beheld the higher birth of several young spirits out of their earthly bodies. They were received with singing and words of welcome to their new home. The scenery is beautiful, with sloping hills and undu- lating plains. Flowers in rich abundance perfume the air, and warbling birds commingle their music with the spirits. Their houses are laid out in large circles, twelve houses in a circle, with walks and grounds around them, with trees and shrubbery ; various kinds of fruit are grown for their own nourishment; joy and harmony pervade everywhere. As they live in higher scenes or conditions, they are consequently the more higlily spiritualized. Here the Indians have homes on one side of the river-bank, unique, yet beautiful. Luna, an Indian girl, Pocahontas, and others, are here happy and joy- ous, all commingling together in purity of spirit and in the love of God. ... " In this circle the atmosphere is exhilarating to the spirit ; the houses are in circles of six, with more extended grounds, tOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OF St»miT8. 76 and the flowers more variegated and richly perfumed ; the spirits have arbors, with vines running round them, with fruit like the grape, but larger and purer. The spirit brightens after partaking of it. Mountains rise in the distance, with extended plains, with water-powers, and clear, transparent lakes. They have colleges of design with landscape paintings. Hannibal, Chambers, and others are here in the capacity of teachers. I meet here three sons of Samuel Haynes, of Bel- fast, who are receiving instruction. The spirits have buildings for instruction in music, embroidery, and the composition of flowers, in their higher formations. Here I meet one by the name of Helen A. Pierce receiving instruction. Children are receiving instruction, and are learning to sing and play on the harp. Congeniality of spirit reigns prominent here. The young assemble in classes for the cultivating of flowers and the spiritual development of their minds, and all is done for the good of others and the glory of God." Ith Sphere. " Light now dawns with celestial brilliancy I The scenery is grand ; the teachers are from the celestial spheres. Unity of feeling and love universally pervades this divine realm. They have vast universities. In one of these were surgeons from various parts of the world — America, England, France, Russia, Prussia, China, Japan, and other countries of the globe. " The studies here were anatomical, psychological, and spir- itual ; also great attention was given to the laws of mesmer- ism, magnetism, impressional and inspirational influences, thac they might by influx become better understood upon earth. . . . " In this circle they do not seem to have fixed habitations, but when they need a covering, it is immediately improvised from the elements ; they talk with each other by looks — being transparent, they see each other's thoughts ; when they wish for refreshment they compound it out of the elements, and from etherealized fluids ; they telegraph by thought of the spirit. The air is melodious with warbling notes of gaily- plumaged birds. These spirits visit by thought and will. They descend to the other circles and to the earth to teach 76 niMORTALITY. Here are children descending in groups from the celestiul heavens, covered with flowers, and bearing baskets of fruit on their arms, to be taught in wisdom and music, and the compo- sition of flowers, to be prepared to visit other spheres and earth, and gather knowledge. They are very noble in stature, symmetrical in form, and pure in spirit, constantly joining together in singing, praise, and worship, and- they manifest great joy and congeniality of mind. . , . " Each acts up to his ideal — and labor is a work of love. I see in this celestial sphere no insects or lower forms of animal life. I see multitudes of spirits coursing their way through the elements, visiting and commingling with each other in different parts of the circle, and visiting the earth and spheres and then returning. . . . " The joy here is ecstatic. Thousands of happy children assemble to greet with music and messages of love those who arrive from other spheres as visitors or explorers in the realm of thought. Their very motions are musical, and the}' con- verse by looks and facial expressions. Oh, could you con- nect with this vital cord and ascend up here and behold the glory and joy that reigns, you would not wish to return. I shall soon be with you again, but do not desire to stay, but must, so they say, return and take up the body. I want you to prepare while living to ascend to the celestial spheres, and live with these joyous and happy spirits." . . . On the 11th of December the previous guides retired, giv- ing place to a higher order of spiritual intelligence, among which, it was said, were Josephus, Samuel, the prophet Dan- iel, and others. . . . The body of the medium having received but a very trifle of nourishment since the beginning of the entrancement had become exceedingly weak. And yet, un- der the direction of spirits, who on earth were physicians, the medium's body had received the most careful attention from Mrs. Pierce and other anxious friends. . . . There was now a cessation of the communications for several hours. This, the attendants were informed, was necessary while the spirit, away from the mediumistic body, was being prepared for the condi' LOCOMOTION IN THE WORLD OP SPIRITS. 77 dons that pertained to tlie sensitive states in the higher and more heavenly spheres. Commencing the communications again at seven o'clock, from the first circle of the celestial spheres, the medium re- porting down through the spheres below him, says : " The scenery and surroundings here are too glorious for delinea- tion. No poet can describe them, no artist put them upon canvas. The rays of light seem to descend from the great central sun of the universe. The atmosphere is warm, mel- low, and golden. Breathing is living. All is calm and peace- ful. The clothing of the spirits is ethereal and shining in their whiteness. The dreams of paradise are here more than realized. Humility is the gem, truth the pearl sought for, love the law obeyed, and wisdom the purpose of the soul's perpetual search. Everything moves in perfect harmony, be- cause near the great Ruling Spirit of the universe. . . . " Now a vast assembly of spirits meet me, and I am led to a large pavilion prepared for my reception. Heavenly music greets my ears, and the delicious odors of flowers are cast over and around me. Now six beautiful spirits approach me, clothed in shining garments, and girt about with golden gir- dles. Samuel, the ancient prophet, steps forth, facing me, having in his hand a golden horn. And another spirit ap- proaching, removes my outer garments, placing them upon a cushion of white flowers, and Samuel, in the name of God the Father of us all, anoints me with holy oil. The influence of this, poured upon my head, penetrates to the very depths of my being. It seemingly expands and vivifies my whole spirit form. He now places upon my head a crown of mingled thorns and flowers, symbolizing the mission that I have yet to fulfill upon earth. Though illumined, I feel that I have thorny paths to tread ; but sweet-scented flowers will bloom along the pathways of my life. They now place upon me another spiritual garment, bright and more ethereal, praying that I may never soil it." . . . Very soon after this spiritual anointing and heavenly bap- tism, Dr. Pierce saw, surrounded by a halo of golden light,- 78 IMMORTALITY. a light almost unapproachable — the great Mediator — Jesus of Nazareth. . . . Conducted by these ancient spirits, this me- dium visited other planets, describing them so far as he could find appropriate language so to do. Still traversing these di- vine abodes, he at one time exclaimed : " These spirits about me now have bodies more transparent, if possible, than purest arystal. When they need sustenance they condense ethereal essences, and appropriate them by absorption. In the most perfect purity of spirit they live together in one great famil}', passing and repassing at will to the different planets that dot the immensities. They are humble and reverent, continually worshiping God in purity. Through the perfection of the elements their motions fill the air with sweetest music. In my earthly body clothing is for concealment and comfort, but these beings are so pure that only a gauze-like covering drapes their spirit forms. They live and bathe in an atmosphere of purity and love." . . . This medium had been absent so long from his physical body — absent save the connecting cord of sympathy — that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could re-enter and re-possess his organism. Not only was he blind and over- sensitive at first, but be could neither use his vocal organs to speak, nor make use of his limbs to walk. Some other symp- toms, not necessary to name, were exceedingly alarming. But the sensitiveness gradually disappeared, and the physical and spiritual forces, after a few days, assumed their wonted equi- librium. On December 23d he was weighed, and it was found that be had lost eleven and a half pounds of flesh during the twenty-one days' entrancement. If I rightly comprehend these marvelous experiences, of which I have subjoined a condensed report, they teach that the medium, Dr. Pierce, being previously prepared, and then aided by a sympathizing band of intelligent spirits, literally left his body, — save the magnetic life-cord, — and roamed through many of the societies, circles, and spheres of intelli- gences that dwell in the many-mansioned realm of immor- LOCOMOTION ns THE WOBIJ) OP SPIRITS. 79 tality. While out of his body, other spirits did not enter into it, but they held a charge over, ministering to, and controlling it psychologically. The full history of this remarkable and very strange twenty-one days' trance has been related to me, not only by Dr. Pierce and his excellent family, but by several other witnesses. The doctor is a resident of Boston, and a prao- tising physician.* • The sevcQ spheres above described are properly included within the " Ultimate Heavens " mentioned by Swedenborg and other seers. Above these, according to these writers, are the "tr^'-taal Heavens" and the "Celestial Heavens," each of which are again subdivided into a seven-fold series. The more interior visions, or ipiritua] joumeyiags, of the seer just quoted, probably relate to the Spiritual Heavens •^0 IMMOBTAUTT. CHAPTER X. OUR LITTLE ONES IN HEAVEN. " ' Do they want mc up in heaven ? Can you tell me, mamma dear, What those sti-anjje and solemn voices mean that in the night I hear, Softly saying, " Come, dear children ; for of such our kingdoms are " / Do you tliink they want me yonder ? Is it vciy, very far ? Oh, I hear such heavenly music; and there's somethL'ig all in white Comes and stands beside my little bed, and makes the room so light That I look at you and papa, and at brother Gcorgie, too ; Wondering you can sleep. But maybe it's for me, and not for you. And they clasp their arms about me, and I do not thiuk of pain. For I close my eyes and listen till the music comes again. They are calling me so tenderly, I know I can not stay Only just a little longer, till the coming of the day. Mamma, kiss me ! Papa, hold me ! Clasp my hands so close and strong That I may not lose your presence in the glory of the throng Who have come to take me from you, and will wait for you again, When dear Jesus says, " Come higher ! Joy receive for grief and pain." There is something I must tell you ere I go, if you can hear: I shall tell them how I loved you; they can never be more dear; And perhaps they'll let me see you, when you think I'm far away. And will let me guard and guide your steps from evil day by day. When you pray, I may be listening, and my heart will thrill with joy. If you fail and sin — God help us ! — it will crush your darling boy. I shall draw you to me softly, as the angels take me now.' So the little voice is silenced, and the stricken mouraei-s bow." The Independb^jt. " SuflFer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me : for of such is tb\ kingdom of heaven." Jesus. There is nothing purer, sweeter to look upon than a smil- ing infant. The poet tenderly sung : " The angels have need of these holy buds in their gardens so fair; They graft them on immortal stems to bloom forever there." Earth is the seminary of Heaven — the land where the Boul takes root in the material to develop and perfect a more VUn LITTLK ONES IN HEAVEN. 81 mature individuality. It is the rudimentary school — the be- ginning of experiences on the outer verge of the great cycle of life. All infants and children are, of course, still children in the beginning of the resurrection state. They are not angels, but only capable of becoming such. The actual evils of the world, not having been rooted in their tender minds, they are at death taken immediately into the care of good spirits and angels whose ruling desire is a delight in children. They find great peace in the exercise of this loving care, and the discharge of this heavenly duty. They watch and wait for the coming of the little ones, that they may bear them tenderly in their loving arms to the spheres of purity and the schools of the angels. A few years ago, in a New England village, a little boy lay on his death-bed. Starting suddenly up, he exclaimed, " O mother, mother I I see such a beautiful country, and so many little children, who are beckoning me to them ! but there are high mountains between us, too high for me to climb. Who will carry me over?" After thus expressing himself, he leaned back on his pillow, and for a while seemed to be in deep thought, when, once more arousing, and stretching out his little hands, he cried, as loud as his feeble voice would permit, " Mother, mother, the man 's come to carry me over the mountain." He was peacefully asleep. The man had indeed come to carry the little one over. " In the spirit world," says a writer, " I have seen the happy groups of children frolickinj?, dancing, gathering flowers, listening to music, gaining instruction, and un- folding in beauty and in life. Glcsaome sounds burst from their glcesome hearts — sweet lisps of atfcction and the mischievous frolics of the child-heart. But arouud every child was an aura, or a thread of life, that connected it with earth, so that it was to know where it was born, and to tell each one's parentage. It was forever floating through the spirit atmosphere — the spirit-forces of the parents went upward, and by natural law wound their life arouud and in their little ones. This life is the result of affections, and if the child is loved but little, then the spirit law has severed the child from this life, since it was by attraction — which is love — that the life of earth fol- lowed it away into the spirit world and wound itself about the child of its love. There is no force power but by a natural law of spirit — law of life." ( " The spiritual bodies of little childi-en grow transcendently lovely. No human ' mind can conceive of the beauty and grace of these little ones. No unlovely objects harm them — no frightful disease rends them. They unfold, as in spriig the rosebud 82 DIMORTALITY. opens to the sun, or as the petals of the lily unclose to the light of day. They all bea» a semblance, at first, to their natural bodies ; but as their souls grow and their spirits shine with t)ie life of their souls, then they appear as their interior, or mind, makps them. The spirit body flows from the natural body. It is composed of its electric, magnetic, and spiritual life, and when first born into spirit life it has the exact form «f the natural body. But as the giosser particles of its earthly magnetism are given oflf and it becomes purer and truer, higher and holier, then it assumes a form of perfec- tion and beauty. What the soul wills or reveals, that is life and form and substance to the spirit. " It often occurs that parents pass to the spirit world not long before their children, or perhaps at the same time. Being uninstructed in spiritual things, being ignoi-ant of many, very many of the spiritual laws, they are ill fitted to develop the spiritual life of the child. Therefore, never mourn that you cannot go when your child goes. It has wiser nurses than you — nobler teachers ; if it has not more love, yet it has a higher love — the love developed by wisdom." " The spirits of little children are always magnetized into unconsciousness before death. They are never left to pass away and know the change. Sweetly sleeping, they are borne by the loved ones heavenward, laid upon downy couches, fanned by gentle breezes. Sometimes they sleep for days, for their spirits are tired with the un- natural pains of earth. They awake refreshed, and open their eyes upon the beautiful objects that childhood loves, — the most beautiful flowers, bright colors, and swcetly- Binging birds. And when the little one becomes accustomed to its celestial life, and feels the exultation of freedom from pain and weariness, then it is prepared to visit often those who call for it by continual longing. The wishing and longings of the hearts of earth are the spirit voices of earth. You speak your desire when you long earnestly, for your spirit speaks. With loving hands the ministering angel bears these little children back to the homes of earth, that they may feel the warmth of parental love and know the joy of earthly afiTcctions. If around the earthly parents or friends there is a healthful spiritual atmosphere, they ofttimes remain days, and with their little voices send to the spirit car of the desolate parents heavenly joy. It is the spirit that must behold them, and without the aid of the external vision the spirit recognizes them. But even when not borne thus, by their life they keep still the link to earth. Is there anything imperfect in the universe of God ? " Now, let me speak of the oflSce of these little childi-en in spirit life. Their oflBce t twofold — to earth and to heaven. It is only those who have lost children to sight and to sense who can know the longing and wish of love sent thither by the bereaved heai-t. The mother's whole life — her sense of joy, of hope, of wish — her prayers, her desires, all centred in this object when it passed away. However much of love there was for others, yet then it was not allowed to express itself: it burned about the loved one gone. Is that kind parent's heart to turn from earth to heaven, and bo mocked by nothingness. No ! The tender life of your child is still with you : you claim it — you must have it. And so the link of that parent's soul, bright, glowing with God's love — for God is love — is made firm to heaven. Can parents forget their chill'. ? Can they draw back their hearts from it ? No ! Upward go their prayers, onward go their aspirations, until those parents live partly on earth and partly in heaven. Their spiritual nature grows ; they are less selfish, more tender ; they are nearer to heaven for eveiy thought of love sent thither. The father's strong nature rises to a sublimity of hope, and borne to each, from the realm they seek in thouglil and prayer, come the sweet ministrations that purify and ennoble the heart of ma».. OUR LITTLE ONES IN xfEAVEN. 83 And those who feel that they have still to perform the sacred office of love by their own life to their child in heaven must shame into silence every unworthy thought — must ennoble and purify their lives, and must prove themselves worthy 8o sacred ao office." " We appeal to you, O reader, in truth, be perfect, purifrj yourself, bring yourself into harmony with the divine nature. Study this law of childhood, of its p^rowth and the in&uence you have upon it, and you will read God's words. O parents and friends, become holy by becoming spiritual, that you may create beauty and holiness. If you study the laws that unite you to the little ones in heaven, you will read in them only this command : Fit yourselves to be teachers of angel children." In that beautiful volume entitled, '-'-Heaven Opened,'" through the mediumship of F. I. Theobald, London, Eng., we have the history of one who entered the spirit world a child. How sweet the message : " When I fii'st awoke to spirit life, I was not conscious that I had passed away. I found myself surrounded by all delightful things. Lovely forms were around me, harmonious sounds filled my ears, and all things wei-e beautiful. But beautiful as they presented themselves to me on my first awakening, they were not perceived by my eyes (hardly aroused to the fullness of spirit power) in the very fullness of their beauty. I was not capable of assimilating to my senses the full extent of the grandeur. That comes gradually, and belongs to the training of the spirit. My perceptions were as yet dull ; therefore as the idea of fairy land had always been the beau-ideal of all things charming, although I could not put the expression of this beau-ideal in lan- guage, still I thought myself to be in faiiy land. Nothing else could I think of." . . . ♦' Sfuc'i have we young spirits to be taught. We have regular classes for instruc- tion in all branches of knowledge and science, which is from us given to your earth philosophers. It is all originated here. Most of the human discoveries and signs of progress are taught or inspired into your earth minds fi-ora those of us here who are deputed to transmit that especial knowledge. It depends upon the sphere or society of spirits, capable of opening inner commuuicaton with the especial man, or medium, what kind of knowledge is taught by that man. lie originates little or nothing him- self. He may, by his own innate spirit power, expand the germ of knowledge im- planted by us from God, but nothing more. As wc spirits here are taught, so do we in turn impart our teachings to the imprisoned spirit in the earth body ; and thus does God in his goodness cause man to alleviate his own condition." *' There are vast assemblies of us. We have large pavilion houses dedicated to knowledge. But when we arc taught of botany, and of all the wonders of nature in which we live, we go in large companies on many long journeys of exploration. This ia tiuly delightful. The advanced spirits, those who are suited for such, and who de- sire it, visit various planets in the universe." The activity of the love nature in man is a prophecy of the harmonial man. The same Jesus that wept with Martha and Mary at the grave of Lazarus, took little children in his arms and blessed them, saying, " Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 84 IMMORTALITY. One of the editors of the Neiv York 3Iiisical lieview, Mr Bradbury, writing under the inspiration of a father's outgush- ing love and affliction over the loss of a beautiful child, says: " Kittie is jrone. Where ? To heaven. An anjiel came and took her away. She wag a lovely child — gentle as a lamb; the pet of the whole family; the youug^est of them all. But she could not stay with them any longer. She had an angel sister in htaven waiting for her. The angel sister was with us only a few months, but she has been in heaven many years, and she must have loved Kittie, for everybody loved her. The loveliest flowers are soonest plucked. If a little voice, sweeter and more musical than others, was heard, I knew Kittie was near; if my study-aoor opened so gently and stilly that no sound was heard, I knew Kittie was near; if after an hour's quiet play a little shadow passed me, and the door opened and shut as no one else could open and shut it, ' so as not to disturb papa,' I knew Kittie was going. " When in the midst of my composing I heard a gentle voice saying, ' Papa, may I stay with you a little while ? I will be very still,' I did not need to look off my work to assure me that it was my little lamb. You stayed with me too long, Kittie dear, to leave me so suddenly : and you are too still now. You became my little assistant — my home angel — my youngest and sweetest singing-bird — and I miss the little voice that I have so often heard in an adjoining room, catching up and echoing little snatches of melody as they were being composed. I miss those soft and sweet kisses ; I miss tlie little hand that was always first to be placed on my forehead, ' to drive away the pain; ' I miss the sound of those little feet upon the stairs; I miss the little knock at my bedroom-door in the morning, and the triple good-night kiss in the evening; I miss the sweet smiles from the sunniest of faces; I miss — oh! how I miss the fore- most in the little group who came out to meet me at the gate for the first kiss ; I miss von at the table and at family worship; I miss your voice in * I want to be an angel,' lor nobody could sing it like you ; 1 miss you in my rides and walks ; I miss you in the garden ; I miss you everywhere ; but I will try not to miss you in heaven. ' Papa, if we are good, will an angel truly come and take us to heaven when we die f ' When me question was asked, how little did I think the angel was so near. But he did ' truly ' come, and the sweet flower is transplanted to a genial clime. * I do wish papa would come home.' Wait a little while, Kittie, and papa will come. The journey is not long. He will soon be home." Swedenborg, the clearest seer since Jesus of Syria, and John of Patmos, saw with unsealed eyes the glories of the inner life of the upper courts of Heaven. He observes in his diary : " I saw a garden constructed not of trees, but of leafy arches, somewhat lofty, with walks and entrance ways, and a virgin walking therein, and also infants five or six years old, who were beautifully clothed. And when she entered, the most exquisite wreaths of garlands of flowers sprang forth over the entrance, and shone with splen- dor as she approached. I was informed that little infant girls see objects in this man- ner, that they appear thus to walk and thus to be clothed and to be adorned with new garments according to their perfection. That all this appears to them to the life may be inferred from the fact that such things are suitable to a spirit, who cannot walk ou ■ paved or graveled way, nor possess such gardens as exist on earth, but such things only as corrttpond to the natuiv of a spirit ! It is sufficient that they perceive them v OUR LITTLE ONES IX HEAVEN. 85 rividly; yea, more vividly than men perceive similar things in gardens in this world; fts I have also perceived them when I have been in spirit, and often at other times, as did the prophets. August 15, 1749." Death, seen from the mount of Spiritualism, is a poem — a delightful transition that bears our loved ones over the river, but not away from us. Though many of us can not see them, they see us. Our little ones, whose infantile bodies we laid away under the tnif where the wild-brier twines, and spring flower.^ bloom, are with us still. Guardian angels bring them to us. They look into our faces. They li.steu to our language, and in a measure we are their educators still. Do we not love them ; and is not that love mutual ? Do we not desire to meet and be with them when the good angel of death beckons us to the thither side of Jordan's peaceful river? Then must we be just and kind, manly and spiritual. If our lives have been noble and self-sacrificing, our souls will be pure with the purity of the morning ; they will be beautiful with the beauty of the evening; they will Ije lovely with the loveliness of the silvery moonlight ; and they will be peaceful with that peace that passeth all understanding ; and we shall be prepared to re-clasp the loved ones in our arms, listening to the lute-like words, " Welcome, father ! welcome, mother ! come with us to our homes — our angel homes of beauty and blessedness." If death and sleep have been compared to twin brothers, old age has been compared to childhood — once a man, twice a child. The ripening years of " old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which aged men may sit and listen and meditate and I e patient till the service is over, and in which they may get tuemselves ready to say Amen." Since the dawn of Spiritualism, the phrase " the silent majority," as applied to the dead, has nearly gone out of use. Though our friends, one by one, singly and alone, have passed on, or continue to emigrate, they are not silent. " Being dead,'' as the apostle says, "they yet speak." And we, in speaking of the dead, should not tell how we loved^ but how we love them. We should cease to talk of them as though they were 86 IMMOETALITY. not, but rather, should we speak of them as though in our midst. On festal occasions we should set for them the empty chair, put the plate in its accustomed place and the bouquet of flowers upon the board, treasure for a season the little keep- sakes, and consciously realize that death, coming like a masked angel, to release them from physical pain, has only removed them from our visible, tangible embrace. Spiritually they are nol separated or dissociated from us. Our affections flow into and mingle with theirs still. Though their homes — speaking after the order of earth — may be far away in angel realms, the islands of the blest — guardian angels delight to bring them to us in dreams, and in the visions of the night. Let us try to so live that when the white hand of death is laid upon us, we may go with them up through the spheres to the beautiful island-homes of immortality. Socrates, in the Gorgian (p. 523) tells Callicles to listen to what he believes to be true. " In the days of Cronos," says he, " there was this law respecting the destiny of man : that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he dies, to the Islands of the Blest, and dwell ther*> in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil." " The islands of the blest : they say The islands of the blest Are peaceful and happy by night and day, Far away in the glorious West. They need not the moon in that land of delight, They need not the pale, pale star ; The sun, he is bright by day and night Where the souls of the blessed are. They till not the ground, they plough not the ware. They labor not — never ! oh, never ! Not a tear do they shed, not a sigh do they heave, — They are happy forever and ever. Soft is the breeze, like the evening one, When the sun has gone to his rest ; And the sky is pure, and clouds there are none, In the islands of the blest. The deep, clear sea, in its mazy bed. Doth garlands of gems unfold ; Not a tree, but it blazes with crowns for the dead, Even flowers of living gold." WXPEBIENCE3 THEOUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 87 CHAPTER XI. THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF AARON KNIGHT THROUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. " I know thee not — I never heard thine earthly voice : Yet, could I choose a friend from all the spheres, Thy spirit high should be my spirit's choice, Thy heart should guide ray heart, Thy mind, my mind." Q. How long have you been in spirit-life, Mr. Knight ; and what was your condition there after the transition ? A. I left your earth-land of darkness from Yorkshire, Eng- land, nearly two hundred years since, and my condition, im- mediately after the change of worlds, was far from being pleasurable or desirable. Q. What were your sensations when fully realizing the change ? A. It is difficult to describe them, because of the confusion of thought and the dark, weird strangeness of the situation. I did not live the life I ought to have lived when encased in a mortal body. This added to, if it did not cause the confu- sion and painful dissatisfaction. Although my father was a prominent churchman, and my brother, the Rev. James Knight, an English clergyman, I was a materialist and given to intoxicating beverages. Coming to consciousness in spirit-life, I was at first inclined to doubt my existence ; at least, I could not realize that my body was dead, and that I was still living in the same shaped yet far more attenuated and etherealized body. Was I dreaming? This could not be, for I saw my body buried, which when done, the. attending spirits left me to myself — left me alone. 88 IMMORTALITY. The atmosphere surrounding rae was dark-hued and hazy. It seemed to belong to me, and I said to myself, " How strange, I see no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell ; and yet I exist — but oh, so lonely I" Just how long this suspense continued I cannot tell. It is not pleasant, considering the position that I now occupy under the providence of God and His good angels, to reflect back upon it. All learn in our life, if not in yours, that penalties, like shadows, follow us each and all ; none can get away from themselves ! . . . After lingering for a time in this darkness, and thinking intently upon some of the rollicking associates who passed to what you term spirit- life, before me, they were attracted to me by the psychic law of sympathy, and I joined them in their haunts and engaged in their frivolous pursuits. My spirit-world at this time was the earth-world. Often did I, with others, resort to inns and coffee-houses, and engage with mortals psychologically and sympathetically in games, fox-chasing, hurdle-leaping, and other useless and unproii table sports. Though nominally in the world of spirits, my affections and thoughts continued upon earthly things. My moral status and tendency of mind barred me away from the heavens of the good and the blest. My home was in the hells : but they were hells not entirely d 3 void of an inferior kind of pleasure. . . . Long, weary years rolled away before I made any perceptible 1 rogress. I cannot say that I absolutely retrogressed ; and yet, quite possibly, I did in some directions, if not as a whole. But be this as it ma}', remorse would often sting me. I did not find complete rest. The diviner aspirations of my soul would occasionally turn toward the higher and the better. This condition, I think, nearly corresponds to what one of your seers — Swedenborg — called life in the hells. Some in states lower than mine had suffered intense anguish for long periods. They were willful in their blindness. Their environ- ments — dark wastes, barren fields, dismal swamps, gloomy dens, and caves of horror — accorded fully with their inter- nal deiires and motives. It ia leedless to inform you that I was a long time in the EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 89 v\orld of spirits, and earth-bound at that, before I entered the more beautiful spiritual world. In the transition to a higher state of happiness, I was aided more especially by my brother, the clergyman, who, when he was dying, laid his thin, pale hand upon my head and blessed me. As I before remarked, I was dissatisfied with my associates ; and while apart by my- self praying, I saw in the distance — so it seemed to me — a star. Reverently continuing my soul aspirations, the star seemed to approach nearer, and still nearer, expanding till it actually enveloped me in a halo of brightness ; and out of this resplendent brightness came before me my brother ! It is impossible to express my feelings. His robes almost daz- zled me, but his voice was music itself, and his tender words melted me to tears of repentance. I begged permission to go to his home in the heavens at once. " No," he replied, gently, lovingly ; " you can only come to our heavenly home when prepared ; but now that you have opened the way by prayer, and aspirations, for a higher life, I can come to you. Call for me, brother, for I still love you with all the warm gushing affections of my soul. Prayer pierces the portals of heaven, and invites the aid of tbe min- istering spirits of God." Just as my brother — a dear angel now — was about to withdraw from my presence, I assured him that I would for- ever leave all of my old associates and companions in dark- ness. "No," said he in tones sweet and tender, yet decidedly earnest; " that is not the way to reach the heavenly abode of the angels. Go directly to your old associates as a teacher ; tell them of your aims and aspirations ; tell them, in words of kindness and love, that you have seen your brother from the higher heavens. Plead tenderly with them to become pure and holy. Aid and encourage them. Help, O my brother, help them ! for in thus doing you will be helped ; and in blessing them you will be thrice blest. This is the Christ-spirit, the love-spirit that pervades our immortal homes." Often from this onward did my brother come to me. And 90 niMORTALlTlf. thus aided and inspired by him and other noble teachers, 1 rapidly unfolded until my surroundings are now divinely beautiful, and I am permitted to minister to mortals. . . . Q. Does home life — do home associations extend beyond mortal life? If so, are they real? Has your home a name? A . The home associations of earth extend just in the degree that they are harmonial. Erratic members of an earthly family coming into spirit-life, voluntarily separate, each seek- ing congenial groups and societies. The law of attraction is the governing principle. The family tie, the residence, the furniture, the paintings, and the surroundings, are just as real and substantial to us, and more so if possible, than yours are to you. I call my home " Pear-Grove Cottage." I was exceedingly fond of pears when upon earth, and this taste, refined and elevated in consonance with the law of development, con- tinues in a degree with me still. The garden reflects my con- ception of order, symmetry, and beauty. Gardeners cultivate it. They might be called servants, and yet they serve from choice. They are conscious of benefits from being in my society. And I, too, often learn from and serve them. The wisest ones among us are the most childlike. My residence would be unique and possibly painfully so to you. I have never seen an architectural structure on earth like it. It tends to the curvilinear ; it has no sharp angles, but many arching alcoves. Spirits do not construct buildings from spirit-substances by will-power alone. The will can do nothing only as it prompts to action, at least so far as my observation extends. Not only the human form as a whole, but each organ has its diviner uses with us. Mechanical skill and well-directed energies are requisite in the construction of machines, buildings, and towering temples. Our homes, gardens, and libraries, correspond largely to our mental states. I have planted a tree in my garden, and connected it with you magnetically. It may be compared to a kind of mirror, or rather a life-history, upon the leaves of which are regis- EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 91 tered your daily deeds. This, though doubtless a mystery to you, is a fact to me. If I pluck a flower in my garden it withers, unless I will its freshness, and impart to it a life force prompted by my in- terior love of flowers. You doubtless understand that flowers on earth grow the best for those who love them most. They need sympathy as well as care. ... I have seen homes in the higher heavens embowered in flowers and surrounded by velvety lawns ; I have seen wind- ing promenades, walks garnished with precious stones, foun- tains clear as crystal, and bowers of love where artists gather to display their penciled creations, poets to repeat their rhytii- mic lines of wisdom, and musicians to ravish the soul with the sweetest melodies of heaven. And then, to the contrary, I have seen in the lower spheres of darkness clusters, societies, and cities of moral degradation, in the streets of which unde- veloped spirits were engaged in disputations, quarrels, enmi- ties, and pitiful ravings. They delighted to annoy and torture each other — delighted to live, in a measure, their earthly lives over again, and to influence gamblers in their dens, ine- briates in their wretched retreats, and debauchees in their haunts of crime. These scenes make angels weep, and I mention them with sadness. And yet the same God is over all, the same influx of life sustains all, and there is hope for all in the future. Q. What are your employments ? A. My employments are teaching and being taught. I am never idle. Labor with me is a labor of love, and rest con- sists in a change from one kind of employment to another. I am constantly exploring new fields, forming new associa- tions, and toiling as best I may to instruct new-comers to spirit life, and impress the inhabitants of earth to walk in the higher ways of truth and wisdom. Q. You deal too much — pardon me — in generalities. Be more pointed ; tell me of one scene you have observed — one act that you have done to-day as a spirit ? A. If it can be of real service to you and others, I will say 92 IMMOETALITY. that only a few hours since I saw a lady, not long in spirit life, engaged in needle- work. She had her spirit fabric of delicate texture, her spirit thread and needle. On earth she was a seamstress, excelling others. The finest stitch was her joy and pride there — it is her heaven now, and doubtless will be till she rises above the special tastes of earthly life. . . . Among other acts tliat I participated in to-day was the selec- tion of a spirit instructor to take iu charge and become the immediate guardian of a man who, in one of your southern cities, was executed for the crime of murder. We made choice of a spirit occupying a sphere vastly superior to the criminal's — a spirit who had himself been a murderer, but who through fiery penalties, expiations, and repentance, had advanced to a place sufficiently high to entitle him to hold the guardian care over this unhappy spirit. From his own unfor- tunate earthly experiences, we deemed him admirably adapted, through the law of sympathy and charity, to act as this spir- it's instructor. Q. What about marriage, and the relation of the sexes in the world of immortality ? A. Often have I told you that this world is, almost to completeness, the counterpart of earth and its inhabitants, consequently social and domestic relations are very similar. Wedded bliss is numbered among the numerous joys that abound in the spiritual world. But marriages in the spheres are not based upon the ceremonial, nor are they for the pur- pose of procreation and selfish gratification, but rather for social interblendings and the quickening of the spiritual ac- tivities. The fervent wish, the glance of the eye, and the soft touch of the hand, give to conjugal souls a divine ecstasy — so they assure vie. On earth I was called a bachelor, and I remain such yet, if by it is meant individualized singleness relative to connubial life. Still, I consider all things from minutest monads up to the most royal soul-angels to be dual ; and I believe men and women to be the two hemis^/heres of the sphere, and as positives and negatives, corresponding to wisdom and love, they were designed for sacred unions. If EXPEEIENCES THKOUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 93 these are based in selfishness, they necessarily terminate so mer or later; but if true and well fitted, the spiritual dominating when on earth, they continue on in our world of spiiits. Ancient seers and sages, however, who have summered many thousand j^ears in the heavens, assure me that progressively- inclined spirits so unfold, so approximate the divine, that ultimately their loves become universal^ the love of each flow- ing out to all, as the sun shines upon all, and as God's life and love flow into all immortal intelligences. Q. Is life the result of organization? A. Life is not the result of organization, but organization is the result of life ; all organisms are the result of life. All organized entities, whether spiritual or material, are secondary to the life-principle within them. Matter and spirit are co- existent and co-equal : one is the passive, the other the active principle in nature. But the God-principle is active to both, and the three constitute a trinity. Q. In the soul's pre-existent state, does it reason out — does it reason about the propriety and wisdom of being incarnated into an earthl} bod}^? A. For myself only can I answer. I have no memory of a pre-existent state. If I pre-existed as a human soul in time and space, I have no knowledge of it ; therefore I do not know whether there was consciousness within the soul in this state of pre-existence or not, but the class of thinkers in spirit-life who believe in the soul's eternal past teach this : that in that infinite past the soul has been incarnated in ex- ternal form time and again, swinging like a pendulum from the innermost universe to the outermost, and conversely from the outermost to the innermost, which is the life divine. They teach that the human soul is a part of a connected series in nature, and as such, that it obeys the universal laws of move- ment, which, as we said, is a continuous vibration between the innermost and outermost, or the subjective and objective poles of universal nature. Whether this be so or not, I have no conscious knowledge. Still, I accept and believe the teach- ings of those ancients upon this subject. Unless we pcetulate 94 IMMOETALITY. the soul's pre-existence, then, according to the laws of thought, the argument for the soul's immortality would be materially weakened. Q. Will all pre-existent spirits ultimately be incarnated into earthly bodies for experience? A. This school of thinkers that I spoke of teach that all human souls pass through these movements. We might also presume as much, since there is nothing in nature which stands still. Inertia is death ; activity is life and unfoldment. Q. Did the souls of animals pre-exist, and if so, why should they not have a past existence ? A. The higher class of philosophers in spirit-life teach that they did not; that in the purely animal life of this and other planets there are nothing but rudimental conditions and struc- tures, which eventually form a basis for the reception of the human soul. Animals are the green fruit of the planet, never ripened, and which drop from the stem of life's tree before maturity is attained. Their forms are imperfect, an'^ imper- fection implies destruction. Q. Spirits generally unite in saying that tnere are birds» and animals in spirit-life ; what are your reasons for teaching that they are not individualized ? A. I likewise agree with spirits that there are birds, beasts, and insects in the spirit-life, but they do not possess the souls of those that existed in earth-life. There are rocks, trees, and flowers in spirit-land, but they are not the spirits of their concrete correspondence on earth, but they are pro- ductions resulting from the action of laws pertaining to the spirit-life. In consequence of imperfect organizations, ani- mals do not survive the dissolution of their material bodies. In spirit-life the three kingdoms in nature exist much as they do in your material world, and they are the outcome of the same original course. The phenomena of crystallization, of vegetable growth and animal production, are displayed here much after the same manner they are on earth, though upoD a higher plane. Q. Does not this involve a loss of individuality? EXPERIENCES THBOUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 95 A. There is a loss of the individuality in one sense perhaps, but no loss of the force that constituted the individual. All these forces are available for assimilation into higher forms of life in consequence of having been used in the lower forms. Q. How do the fruits, flowers, and general surroundings correspond to those on earth ? A. There is a correspondence, but a higher degree of de- velopment, as this is a higher sphere. We have not only types of life similar to those represented on earth, but there is an almost illimitable variety of forms unknown in the earth- life, because a greater variety of conditions exists in the spirit- world, and the law of evolution has a much wider range. Q. Are plants and animals carried through solid walls into our buildings? A. It is impossible to give you an understanding of the law, because it involves the chemistry of unparticled substances that constitute the spiritual universe. The spiritual always dominates the material, and the chemistry of the spiritual is entirely superior to the chemistry of the material. There- fore when the chemical potencies and forces of spirit-life are used, they can overcome and set aside for a moment the chemical laws of physical substances. In the earth you have sixty or more primary elements, and their combinations con- stitute the chemical composition of the globe and all that is thereon. In spirit-life there are more than a thousand of these elementary forms of substance recognized in the chem- istry of the spirit, and their combinations are so intricate and far-reaching and beautiful that it requires years of study and the deepest penetration of thought to comprehend them. The phenomena of which you spoke can only be produced by chemists of a high order in spirit-life working through spirits of a lower order who have great physical power and nearness to earth, and by that means they may produce these results. It is impossible to explain to you the method, because you have no analogous experiences. The phenomena known in your chemistry as endosmose and exosmose come nearer to this than any phenomenon in physical science. 96 IMMORTALITY. Q. If flowers, birds, &c., are taken from persons in earth- life and brought to spirit seances, is it not a sort of theft? A. In all cases care is observed to take only such things as will be no material loss to others. Flowers bloom by the wayside, and in your winter time the tropics abound in buds and blossoms. Q. Are perverse and wicked spirits ever arbitrarily chained or confined for a season ? A. They certainly are, and especially so in the lower spheres. And then they occasionally break away from their surroundings, to follow, haunt, and obsess mortals, sometimes producing sickness and even death. Spirits have the power to heal and the power to make ill. All power reduced or traced to its original source is spirit-power. Low and wicked spirits, as you term them, are frequently guarded by the strong magnetic will of persons in spirit-life superior to them, to prevent their doing wrong to others. Human beings are coming to us continually from the earth-life so freighted with revenge, hatred, malice, and all the bitter passions of human- ity, that it is absolutely necessary, on the part of the higher intelligences, to arbitrarily restrain them, because they are totally inexperienced, and in and of themselves not capable of guiding their actions to any good result. Q. Why are spirits so averse to giving their earthly histo- ries, with few exceptions ? A. Many persons in spirit-life, when they look back upon their earthly existence, see in it so much that is weak and childish, if not positively revolting, that they do not desire others to look upon it. It is a painful subject to them. But the time comes to all human souls when it is necessary for them to unveil all their earth-life to the clear sunlight of the spirit-world about them, for by so doing they put themselves in accord with their surroundings. Unity cannot exist where there is deception, or hiding of any of the past conditions of life. Q. By what process of reasoning do spirits justify them- selves in coming to earth under false names? EXPEBIENCES THEOUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 97 A. It is seldom that the higher class of spirits give their names, and the lower being ashamed of their earth-names and earthly life, are prone to assume the names of distinguished personages. Moreover, the fault frequently lies with the me- dium, who will readily consent to be controlled by a spirit assuming some great name, but who would utterly refuse to work for the same spirit should he assume his real name. There is that degree of self-love in some mediums that must be gratified in order to use them as instruments. It is the fault of the medium almost universally that these false names are assumed. But there is no justification for it at all. Q. Do you take any interest in the materialization of spirits ? A. I take interest in all classes of manifestations of spirits to mortals, but the more advanced in spirit-life are gradually withdrawing from materializing phenomena, from the fact that they have been usurped by a lower class of spirits, many times controlling and permitting their mediums to present their own faces, hands, and persons under the guise of materialized spir- its. But there is a higher law of materialization that has as yet been illustrated in few instances. It is where those grand souls in angel life draw about themselves with the greatest intensity the physical conditions of your atmosphere so as to make themselves visible and tangible to mortal senses. It is only within the power of very few persons in the higher life to use this law ; but as the world ripens, and the conditions of the planet become more ethereally balanced, the exhibition of this higher power of materialization will become more fre- quent, until ultimately there will be complete materializations whenever any important use can be thereby subserved. Q. Is not a broad, liberal Christian Spiritualism acceptable to the eyes of higher spirits and angels ? A. From my understanding of the word Christian, I would approve of it ; but if the word imports a sectarian, arbitrary Spiritualism, I would not. As there is great danger of its being so construed, it would be better to leave all names save the one. Spiritualism. A broad and liberal Spiritualism is 7 98 IMMORTALITY. acceptable to the highest angels in the spirit-world, but they do not desire that there should be any creed attached to the universal, such as Spiritualism is. Christian is a sect-name, indicating only one department of human effort in the religious life, and one that is particularly marked by the assumption that it is the only saving one ; therefore it is not best to trammel the beautiful word Spiritualism with the shackles of a churchianic name. Although the Christ of the New Testa- ment is behind the spiritual movement of the present time, it is not meet that it should have the Christian title, because the celestial angels would have men come up to that breadth of thought where they can conceive of universal ideas of reli- gion applicable to all time, breathing through all space, bring- ing to every human being in God's universe the knowledge that the same laws of unitary life are everywhere operating. Q. Do you approve of this definition of Spiritualism, " To believe in God as the Infinite Spirit Presence of the Universe, to hold conscious communion with spirits and angels, and to live a true, noble, spiritual Christ-like life — these constitute a Spiritualist"? A. I do. Q. Do you believe it possible for a medium to be disinte- grated or dematerialized in cabinets during stances ? A. I reply in the negative. I do not, however, claim to have all knowledge upon this subject. I have never seen a thinking, conscious human being dematerialized ; neither have I conversed with an intelligent spirit who has witnessed such a phenomenon. Absolute dematerialization would be death ; and after the disintegration of the particles and substances constituting the two bodies, with the severance of the silver cord, there could be, so it seems to me, no restoration. The spiritual man has fled, and could no more return to gather up, and live in the body again, than the freed bird could re- turn to and dwell once more in the crushed shell, or the oak return to its acorn life. This idea of mediumistic demateriali- zation may have been taught by designing spirits to cover the paanifestations which they profess to produce. That flowers EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE HELLS INTO HEAVEN. 99 are brought through walls is no violation of the known laws of vital chemistry. I do not speak dogmatically upon this subject, but simply refer to my personal observations and ex- periences. Q. Are spirits, invisible to the physical eye, photographed in art-galleries, as claimed by some ? A. They are, although only under certain circumstances ; much of what is presented to the world coming from this di- rection is but the counterfeit of the genuine. One main argu- ment against this is that " that wl:ich is invisible cannot be photographed." This is the view of our own medium, and I am speaking now in opposition to his opinions, as, for illustra- tion, there are certain chemicals, certain gases that are unseen by the physical e3'e, yet are sufficiently tangible in their inter- vention between the ray? of the sun as to produce an image. The chemical ray is invisible, but the particles of the atmos- phere are set in motion by it, and cast a shadow. ... If you dissolve sulphate of quinia in water, and write with this on a clean white sheet of paper, when it has dried you can see no trace of it, but if you place this before the camera it will appear plainly. There are two methods of spirit photography. In one the spirit stands before the camera, partially material- ized, enough so to affect and reflect the chemical ray, which is invisible to the human eye. The other method is where the s[)irit artist presents the picture directly upon the plate of the photographer without the spirit's presence. Q. In consequence of the impostures practiced in some stances, have not the higher spirits largely abandoned them ? A. They have for the time being. And yet through all this imperfection and fraud there will come an understanding of many of those occult laws which unite mortal life to spirit life. We urge you to study these phenomena carefully, and endeavor to eliminate as far as possible the fraudulent from the genuine, for by so doing you will not only ultimately at- tain to conditions where ancient spirits can materialize, but you can have phenomena or a subdued light of an order dif ferent from anything that can be obtained in the light, and 100 IMMORTALITY. exceedingly useful to those inclined to doubt the reality of spirit existence. A subdued light is almost indispensable for spirit friends who have recently left their mortal for their immortal homes. Q. Is there not great injury done, leading to obsessions and intianity, by the indiscriminate and promiscuous blendings of mediumistic magnetisms ? A. I reply emphatically in the affirmative. It seems inci- dental to the present unfolding of mediumistic conditions that this should take place ; because mediums themselves do not understand, neither in many cases do the communicating spirits themselves comprehend, the laws involved in their own operations. Hence there is this ill-adapted and inharmonious mixing of mediumistic auras and conditions that often lead to deleterious results. These not only seriously affect the me- diums, but occasionally the spirits, who become magnetically chained to them. It sometimes happens that these spirits cannot break the connection that they have persistently estab- lished with their mediums. In such cases there should be a united effort between a circle of good, earnest magnetic mor- tals in earth life, and a similar band of spirits in spirit life, to aid these parties in severing the unwise sympathy so firmly established. Many are too fond of marvelous manifes- tations. They are given to wonder. Spirit communion is a means, not an end. Better far for mortals to culture and enrich their own spirits than to perpetually seek for strange and astounding marvels I It should be borne in mind that a large proportion of the insane in the lunatic asj^lums are persons who are either ob- sessed by spirits, or sympathetically affected by the discordant conditions which are projected from the lower spheres of spirit-life upon the earth plane. Spiritual stances should be conducted in a quiet and orderly manner. They should be opened by invocations and prayers, and the end sought shoulo be moral growth and divine use. THE RED MAN'S TESTIMONY. lOl CHAPTER XII. THE RED man's TESTIMONY. Powhattari's Spirit Home^ tlirougli the 3Iediumsh.ip of Dr. E. C. Dunn. " Out spake the patriarch pray and old; The love of war in his heart was cold : • I heard in midni