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 DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 The Glenn Negley Collection 
 of Utopian Literature 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/beyondbournreporOOfisk 
 

 
BY THE SAME AITHOR. 
 
 fllMJMuobt ZnUie at tbc Club. 
 
 Iteported by Amos K. Fiske. Ifi mo. Vellum clo., gilt 
 top (uniform with " Beyond the Bourn "j, $1.00. 
 
 "A very striking and suggestive little book, full of wis 
 
 dom and thoughtfulness, and a serene insight Into the 
 
 deeper thinga of hit'."— Charleston (S. C.) News and 
 
 Courier. 
 
 t 
 "Keen Insight, clear dlseerninent, strong convictions 
 
 and distinct Individuality of thought. He has the happy 
 
 faculty of looking at things from various sides, and of 
 
 making the subject dlsclo.se that It luw different sides, all 
 
 worthy of consideration. . . Attractive to thos(» who 
 
 wish to be nourished through their Intidllgence rather 
 
 than thnmgh their prejudlc<'8. . . Thoughtful i)eople 
 
 will find much In this volume to repay careful, quiet 
 
 reading atul to all such we commend It."— The Christian 
 
 Union, y. 1'. 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, €i HULBERT, 
 30 Lafayette Place, New York City. 
 
Beyond the Bourn 
 
 IReports 
 
 OF A TRAVELLER RETURNED FROM 
 
 **THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY'' 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE WORLD BY 
 
 AMOS K. FISKE 
 
 Author of " Midnight Talks at The Club " 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT 
 
 1891 
 
Copyright in 1891 
 By AMOS K. FISKB 
 

 Prefatory Note. 
 
 The manuscript, from which the bulk 
 of this volume is made up, came into the 
 hands of the present editor nearly eigh- 
 teen years ago. He was doubtful, then, 
 whether the world was ready to give 
 heed to the revelation which it purported 
 to contain. He is not certain yet. Dur- 
 ing that long period this strange account 
 of a disembodied experience has been" 
 submitted in confidence to more than 
 one competent judge of the expediency 
 of publication, but not until recently had 
 the response been encouraging. At last 
 the editor feels justified in discharging 
 himself of the responsibility implied in 
 the acceptance of a manuscript intrusted 
 to him in the evident expectation that 
 sooner or later he would give it to the 
 world. 
 
iv Prefatory Note. 
 
 If it contains any message to mankind 
 of which mankind feels the need, it will 
 doubtless be listened to. If not, it may- 
 be allowed to pass unheeded, like those 
 weird utterances, which the dazed mind 
 fails to grasp, of 
 
 " Airy tongues that syllable men's names 
 On sands, and shores and desert wildernesses." 
 
 AMOS K. FISKE. 
 New York, March, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 I. 
 
 THE STRANGER AND HIS MANUSCRIPT, . . I 
 
 II. 
 
 A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH, . . . . H 
 
 III. 
 
 IN THE OTHER WORLD, 30 
 
 IV. 
 
 " THE LIFE INDEED," 47 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SECRET OF GROWTH, 58 
 
 VI. 
 
 DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE, ... 67 
 
 VII. 
 
 LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE, 
 
 . 81 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE, . . . 103 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION, . . 121 
 
 X. 
 
 SPIRIT RELATIONSHIP AND ACHIEVEMENT, . I47 
 
 XL 
 SNATCHED FROM THE HEAVENLY LIFE, . . I72 
 
 XII. 
 
 man's revelation to man, ... 184 
 
Beyond the Bourn 
 
 I. 
 
 THE STRANGER AND HIS MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 It was in the summer of 1873 that I 
 took my wife and infant child and left 
 the great, hot city of New York to find 
 refreshment for body and mind in a quiet 
 retreat in the country. We did not go 
 to watering place or popular resort, but 
 sought out a little inland nook not far 
 from the Hudson River, where we were 
 completely shut off from all hint of the 
 busy metropolis and the cares and labors 
 that we had left behind, and gave our- 
 selves up to a four weeks' revel in the joys 
 of the green summer time. 
 
 The place was a bit of a farm, on a 
 brown and dusty road which slipped 
 
2 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 away from the great higliways of steam- 
 boat and locomotive into a secluded val- 
 ley, a patchwork of pasture, field and 
 woodland, kept always green by one 
 garrulous stream and many rills which fed 
 it from the mists on the mountains. I 
 had known the house and its mistress 
 from boyhood, and found there what I 
 wanted, simple fare and complete free- 
 dom. There were two or three others of 
 kindred tastes who passed some summer 
 weeks at the place and gave the good 
 woman, in return for healthful hospital- 
 ity, a little surplus of money to carry 
 her through the winter. 
 
 Among these visitors in that particular 
 summer was one I had not seen before. 
 We found him there when we came, but 
 received no introduction, and he kept 
 himself a stranger in the little hostelry. 
 He was the most mysterious human be- 
 ing I ever met : tall and well forined, with 
 a face that was hardly handsome, but had 
 a fascinating quality that led one to look 
 at him often and long. He bore himself 
 
THE STRANGER'S MANUSCRIPT. 3 
 
 as one having no part with company into 
 which he was thrown. His dark hair fell 
 carelessly over a white brow, and his 
 eyes had a far-away look which showed 
 that his thoughts were seldom with his 
 body or its surroundings. Htj appeared 
 hardly conscious that he was an object of 
 attention, and if spoken to, which rarely 
 happened, seemed to be recalled from a 
 revery which he would rather had not 
 been disturbed. On the side of his neck 
 and forehead were some large scars in 
 which a slight inflammation furnished 
 almost the only flush of color about his 
 countenance. When forced to speak, it 
 was in a low, quiet tone, with the least 
 touch of impatience at being drawn from 
 his communion with the far-off world in 
 which he seemed to live. He seldom 
 smiled, and then in a pensive way that 
 provoked no responsive smile, but had 
 rather a depressing effect. Once or twice 
 I tried to call him out with a question 
 or a statement about the affairs of the 
 world beyond our little retreat. He lis- 
 
4 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 tened respectfully, but with no sign of 
 interest in the subject, and in his answers 
 gave evidence that these matters never 
 occupied his thoughts. 
 
 For my own part I love social converse, 
 and, when withdrawn from the busy 
 world and its exciting topics of news and 
 of thought, am fond of talks on various 
 themes, the wonders of nature about us, 
 the great and manifold mysteries of the 
 heavens over our heads, the thousand re- 
 lations and obligations of the family of 
 mankind in this life, and their probable 
 destiny and relations hereafter. The 
 mind will be busy ; and, when shut out 
 from commerce, from politics, from all 
 bustling affairs that distract it in our 
 working weeks, what more wholesome 
 subjects than these, for which we have 
 little time save in the summer holiday? 
 Then we can return to unwritten philoso- 
 phy and poetry, which were wont to carry 
 our dreaming youth above and beyond 
 the world on wings of speculation. 
 
 I could not forego my summer talk on 
 
THE STRANGER'S MANUSCRIPT. 5 
 
 these things,— my little disputations and 
 discussions with our circle at table or 
 around the evening porch, notwithstand- 
 ing the somewhat chilling presence of the 
 mysterious guest. Occasionally, when I 
 queried about the mysteries of the unseen 
 world, the life of the departed and the 
 life to come to us all, he showed an inter- 
 est in the conversation and would seem 
 to be listening. As he glanced up now 
 and then, the peculiar look of his eyes 
 —the habitual air of remoteness, as if the 
 soul had left looking from her windows 
 
 and was musing on invisible scenes 
 
 would disappear, and he seemed for the 
 time to draw into our circle, though he 
 spoke no word and made no response to 
 what others said. The look of interest 
 sometimes deepened to one almost of 
 pity, as if there were things in his 
 thoughts far deeper, higher and truer 
 than those he heard, but things so un- 
 utterable that it was useless to try to 
 speak them. 
 
 I began at last to regard this as 
 
6 BEYOND THE BOURN'. 
 
 the heart of his mystery. Some great 
 experience, I thought, or a nature of 
 unusual spirituality and strange insight 
 into things unseen by others, has given 
 him a cast of thought out of sympathy 
 with our common life. His thoughts are 
 not the thoughts of other men, and they 
 are of a kind to make him silent and 
 lonely among his fellows. 
 
 Of the man's life I could learn nothing. 
 In all his habits he was quiet and seclu- 
 sive, and his reticence was of a kind that 
 compelled respect. No one liked to 
 question him. He had been attracted by 
 the cottage and its romantic surround- 
 ings in passing, early in the season, and 
 asked permission to spend the summer 
 there at whatever rate of compensation 
 was right. He wished to be known as 
 Mr. Jameson, merely, would give little 
 trouble, and preferred to be left alto- 
 gether to himself. His history like his 
 character was a mystery, and none of us 
 could penetrate it. 
 
 The time drew near when we must give 
 
THE STRANGER'S MANUSCRIPT. 7 
 
 up our paradisian holiday and go back 
 to the cares and business of the world. 
 Our good landlady told us that on the 
 day previous to our intended departure 
 Mr. Jameson was going, but she knew 
 not whither. On the evening before 
 he was to go, I had wandered down 
 the road, as I often did, and stood gazing 
 into the deep and quiet heavens, while 
 the drowsy babble of the brook and the 
 faint whisper of the wind in the shrub- 
 bery mingled in my ears, and carried my 
 soul off into dreamy speculations. Sud- 
 denly I was recalled from my revery by 
 a touch on the arm, and found our 
 strange friend, for so he had become in 
 spite of his unsocial reticence, standing 
 by me. 
 
 *' I go away to-morrow," he said, *' and 
 you, soon after. I know what you all 
 think of me. I am a mystery to you and 
 to all that see me, but I cannot help it. 
 I live within myself because I can live in 
 no other way. I have had an experience 
 which perhaps ought to be made known, 
 
8 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 but I cannot tell it in my own person. I 
 I have found in you one nearer in sym- 
 pathy with me than any I ever expected 
 to meet in this world, and to you I have 
 determined to intrust a crude record of 
 this experience, which you may make 
 known or not, as may seem to you best." 
 With this, he handed me a roll of man- 
 uscript, and became as silent as ever, as 
 we walked quietly back to the cottage. 
 When I rose in the morning he was gone. 
 All his arrangements had been made on 
 the previous evening and no one knew 
 when or how he went. I examined the 
 roll of manuscript and found it contained 
 a narrative which the author had entitled, 
 
 " A New Revelation." 
 
 Since then the MS. has lain most of the 
 time undisturbed in a drawer with other 
 papers, though several times I have taken 
 it out and gone over the strange tale, 
 doubting whether the public w^ould take 
 an interest in it, or whether the time were 
 ripe for the sort of '' revelation " w^hich it 
 
THE STRANGER'S MANUSCRIPT 9 
 
 offered. Finally I have concluded that 
 the only way to test these questions is to 
 give the story to the world ; indeed I have 
 felt under a sort of implied obligation to 
 do so sooner or later, in accepting it from 
 the hands of its author. If he has con- 
 tinued in the land of the living — a point 
 upon which I have never been able to 
 obtain any light since that summer even- 
 ing long past — he must have concluded 
 that I did not consider it worth while to 
 publish his " revelation." Perhaps he 
 may have assumed that I had doubts of 
 its genuineness and good faith ; but if so, 
 he has never taken the trouble to reas- 
 sure me on that point. I make no ques- 
 tion at all of the reality of the experience 
 narrated ; but as I have found it interest- 
 ing to myself, and consider the speculations 
 that are involved with it very suggestive, 
 to say the least, I venture at last to have 
 it put in print. 
 
 And I do this, whether the great public, 
 with its manifold occupations and diver- 
 sions, shall give it the attention which 
 
10 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 its lofty themes ought to command, or 
 whether it shall permit the long buried 
 MS, to sink into permanent obscurity. 
 
II. 
 
 A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 A FEW years ago I was one of the hap- 
 piest of men, in my domestic relations. 
 My father, who was old while I was still 
 quite young, had accumulated during a 
 long and industrious life a goodly compe- 
 tence, and we lived modestly but most 
 comfortably in our home by one of the 
 lovely lakes in the interior of New York 
 State. I was always sensitive and shy, 
 and my acquaintance beyond our own 
 little circle was slight. The best of my 
 education was obtained at a High School 
 near by, but books, pictures and music 
 always gave a degree of unpretentious 
 refinement to our home and were a 
 source of constant pleasure to me. I 
 had a sister two years younger than 
 myself, tender and affectionate, with a 
 
12 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 fragile constitution which was calculated 
 to awaken solicitude while it deepened at- 
 tachment. We were the only children of 
 the family, and to our welfare our kindly 
 parents were entirely devoted, treating 
 all our wishes with as much indulgence 
 as was consistent with wisdom. The 
 result was an unusually devoted affec- 
 tion between the members of the family. 
 Love for my gentle sister would prob- 
 ably have been still more absorbing 
 with me, as we grew up together, but 
 for a division of sentiment which favoring 
 circumstances brought about for both of 
 us. A boy of the neighborhood came to 
 be my companion at an early age, and we 
 were so constituted in our differences of 
 taste and temperament as to produce 
 one of those strong and romantic friend- 
 ships which have been the subjects of 
 story in all ages. Robert Ellis had an 
 ardent and robust nature, full of ambi- 
 tion and enthusiasm, but with an honesty 
 and candor that gave it the simplicity of 
 untarnished childhood so long as I knew 
 
A TALE OP LIFE AND BE A TH. I 3 
 
 him ; while I was timid and shrinking, so 
 far as the contests of life affected me at 
 all. Perhaps it was his strength and 
 courage and eagerness for the strife, that 
 excited my special admiration and gained 
 my devoted affection ; while he may have 
 been won to me by a gentleness and 
 dependence that touched the heroic in 
 his nature. At any rate as boys we were 
 " all in all " to each other; and as we 
 came to manhood only his sister and 
 mine divided the treasure of our affec- 
 tions. His sister Lucy was the feminine 
 counterpart of himself, full of the ardor 
 and eagerness of young life, hopeful and 
 cheery, and as truthful and free from 
 guile as Nature herself. I do not profess 
 to understand the psychology of those 
 two affections, but the absorbing love 
 which I came to have for his sister, made 
 perfect by a full, return from her own 
 ardent nature, in no way impaired my 
 strong friendship for the brother. In 
 the meantime my own fragile sister had 
 somehow grown into his manly heart 
 
14 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 with a hold as strong as life. Here was 
 a quartet of human souls, knit together 
 by the interlacing bonds of mutual affec- 
 tion, which it would be death to sun- 
 der. 
 
 Until the age of twenty-five, my life 
 had been without a shadow, and prom- 
 ised a future as serene and happy; but it 
 is rare that Heaven vouchsafes to man a 
 life of uninterrupted felicity. Each must 
 take his share of trouble and sorrow, and 
 if it comes late and he has had no fore- 
 taste, it will be so much the harder to bear. 
 The great but ever-merciful Power that 
 holds us in his keeping, seems to have 
 chosen me for affliction, perhaps that out 
 of it might come some great good. 
 
 The first cloud to come across my se- 
 rene sky was the death of my father and 
 mother, which occurred in the same 
 week ; but they had become old, and 
 their departure was not unlooked for. 
 Moreover, they had seen me happily 
 married, and were ready to leave me 
 master of the homestead and father of a 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEA TH. I 5 
 
 family to come. Yes, I was happily mar- 
 ried to one whose heart had never been 
 touched by thought of love for any other 
 in the same kind, but was mine wholly, 
 and one whose dominion over my soul 
 was complete and undisputed— the sister 
 of my dearest friend. 
 
 The loss of our parents would have 
 been much harder for my gentle sister, 
 Ellen, but for the fact that she was 
 already affianced to Robert Ellis, and 
 had his strong nature to rest upon, as 
 well as all the support to be derived from 
 the devoted affection of myself and my 
 wife. She had a home with us, and a 
 happy home of her own in view, and it 
 was but natural that even her sensitive 
 nature should bear this first sorrow with 
 some degree of composure. For myself 
 it was not hard. It gave to my quiet 
 moments a deeper thoughtfulness, and to 
 the dusk of evening at times a solemn 
 sadness, as if sanctified by the presence 
 of the departed ones. They had passed 
 on without regret, and awaited us in a 
 
1 6 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 home which we confidently expected to 
 share when our call should come. 
 
 But at no great interval after this first 
 sorrow came a succession of pitiless blows 
 of affliction. The terrible war of 1861 
 had come upon the country, with its vol- 
 ume of tragedies for American homes. 
 My friend was by nature a patriot and a 
 hero, and he could not resist the call to 
 what he deemed the post of duty for 
 every man who was free to go to the de- 
 fence of the Union and of the cause of 
 liberty. Even his love for my sister, 
 whom he expected soon to take under 
 his care for life, could not overcome in 
 his mind that profound sense of obliga- 
 tion to take his part in saving the life of 
 the nation. He pleaded that it would 
 only postpone their happiness, and that 
 it would make him more worthy of it ; 
 in fact, he should always feel like a craven 
 if he did not make this brief sacrifice for 
 a cause more sacred than any private 
 claim. The poor girl sympathized fully 
 with his feeling, and, though with many 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 1/ 
 
 tears and secret misgivings, she encour- 
 aged him to go. She would follow him 
 with her heart, and await his return with 
 hope of increased joy. 
 
 The pitiful parting took place, and our 
 hero departed for the field of danger, 
 followed with foreboding, on my part at 
 least. Aside from the perils of the great 
 conflict and the uncertain fate to which 
 he committed himself, his absence was in 
 itself a bereavement to our home. I 
 confess that I had not the heroic temper 
 that would induce me to accompany him 
 in any case. I was fond of quiet and 
 retirement and little given to energetic 
 action, and neither the duties nor the 
 hardships of war had any attraction for 
 me. But plainly I had excuse enough 
 in the care of those now left to my exclu- 
 sive charge, and no human power could 
 have torn me from my wife and home, 
 the idol of my worship and its temple. 
 
 The adventures of the camp and of the 
 battle-field, the vicissitudes of a soldier's 
 life, came to us in an ever-continued story 
 
1 8 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 from our patriot friend, told with unflag- 
 ging spirit and never wavering cheerfulness 
 and hope. It w^as pathetic to see how 
 completely my poor sister's life and 
 thoughts were absorbed in this intermit- 
 tent tale of real life, of which the out- 
 come was shrouded in more thrilling un- 
 certainty than novelist could devise for 
 his fiction, and it was plainly evident that 
 a fatal catastrophe to the hero would snap 
 her own frail hold upon life. 
 
 Suddenly, in the dark days of 
 '63 the tale of his adventures was 
 broken short ; to be continued to an 
 abrupt close by " another hand." After 
 a period of anxious waiting the dreaded 
 word from the new and unknown writer 
 came. Our beloved friend had been 
 struck down in the midst of battle in the 
 cornfields of Gettysburg. Death was im- 
 mediate, without preliminary suffering, 
 without last words or loving message, 
 save such as had been sealed up in antici- 
 pation of possible fatality on the field. 
 My sister received the news with tearless 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 1 9 
 
 pallor, and it seemed as though she had 
 been expecting it all these two heavy 
 years. She uttered no word or wail of 
 sorrow, she fell under no sudden stroke 
 of prostration, but she clung to life under 
 the strain of the days that intervened 
 before the mangled body of her heroic 
 lover came to deepen the gloom of our 
 home. 
 
 Fortunately, the noble face and head 
 were not marred, and on the calm lin- 
 eaments rested the promise of immortal 
 peace. In the silent and darkened room 
 in which the casket was placed, with only 
 the face of the dead uncovered, we left 
 Ellen alone, according to her wish. 
 When at last we quietly went in, intend- 
 ing with all gentleness to draw her away, 
 her arms were encircling the head and her 
 face resting upon the face of the husband 
 of her heart, and she too was dead, with 
 a smile upon her lips. Perhaps the two 
 souls had met there and departed together 
 to fulfil the promises made on earth. 
 
 We buried them side by side in the 
 
20 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 beautiful cemetery by the lake, and with 
 aching hearts heaped flowers on the 
 double grave, striving so far as possible 
 to drive away the gloom of death. 
 
 Now only wife and home were left to me 
 this side the shadows, and oh I how I 
 clung to them, — almost with fear and 
 trembling lest they should go too. And 
 it seems the pitying heavens must needs 
 have them, for a few months later w\\ 
 darling was torn from me, in the struggle 
 to bring a new soul from God to dwell in 
 our home and perchance to give us com- 
 fort for the losses of the past. But she 
 perished in a mission too severe for Ium- 
 vitality, which had been impaired b\' 
 recent afflictions ; and the new soul, too, 
 fluttered f(^r a moment on the verge of 
 earthly life and went back to God. There 
 was another burial ; and father, mother, 
 sister, friend, wife and babe, lay side by 
 side in the green churchyard by the placid 
 lake. 
 
 • Then the home that had been so bright 
 and beautiful was utterly desolate. It 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 21 
 
 seemed as though some unmerciful spirit 
 had come in at that door again and again, 
 and carried away amid funeral odors and a 
 thickening gloom each time a more pre- 
 cious treasure, till nothing was left. My 
 loneliness and misery were unutterable in 
 the home now so completely bereft. To 
 seek oblivion in narcotics or stimulants 
 was a repulsive folly, and there was no hope 
 that forgetfulness would come of itself. 
 My mind was too strong to break down 
 and find relief in disorganization and 
 mental chaos. My occupations at home 
 instead of taking my thoughts from my 
 losses continually recalled them to -me. 
 
 I determined to sell my homestead and 
 seek in the great world, of which I knew 
 so little, that distraction which alone 
 could save me from settled melancholy 
 and utter wretchedness. This I did. A 
 part of the proceeds of the sale were in- 
 vested to form a fund for future re- 
 source ; the rest converted into cash for 
 immediate use. I then set out on my 
 travels. 
 
22 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 I visited the cities of the Atlantic coast 
 in my own country, and went to the 
 great prairies and lakes, to the moun- 
 tains and the backwoods. I crossed the 
 rocky ridges to the Pacific side and sought 
 out the wonders of that marvellous region. 
 Returning I went to Europe and visited 
 her capitals, and extended my wandering 
 among the mystic monuments of Egypt 
 and Arabia, and the sacred reminiscences 
 of Palestine. 
 
 Everywhere I sought for whatever 
 could interest and absorb the thoughts. 
 The constant succession of new things, 
 the continual occupation of the mind 
 with the wonders of the earth, over- 
 whelmed the old grief and wrought 
 through meditation a philosophy which 
 imparted some degree of calm resigna- 
 tion, though the joy of youthful life was 
 gone out forcvcj". 1 returned from these 
 wanderings after five years, older by a 
 century in experience, — philosophic and 
 thoughtful, and if not quite happy, at 
 least not altogether wretched. 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 23 
 
 On returning from over the sea I landed 
 in Canada, as I had not visited that 
 country before leaving my native land. I 
 went up the St. Lawrence and viewed 
 what has most semblance of the ancient 
 in our Northern-Western continent ; and 
 then — with emotions that no man could 
 describe or fully conceive unless he had 
 been through a like experience — I en- 
 tered my native land once more, and set 
 out to pass through the length of Ver- 
 mont towards the older cities of the At- 
 lantic coast. There I proposed to spend 
 the rest of my days amid books and the 
 converse of such men as my travelled lore 
 might bring me acquainted with. 
 
 It was late in the spring and I was rid- 
 ing on a railroad train through a wild and 
 rugged part of the Green Mountain state. 
 Late in the afternoon heavy black clouds 
 rolled into the heavens from beyond the 
 ridges to the west, and ominous rumblings 
 of thunder uttered threats of a storm of 
 uncommon violence. The train rattled on 
 as the darkness thickened, and shortly 
 
24 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 after sunset we were plunging madly 
 through a black gloom, occasionally filled 
 with a lurid light as the flashes of light- 
 ning sprang into it and disappeared 
 again. Presently the rain came in tor- 
 rents and the wind dashed it against the 
 cars as if determined to throw them from 
 the track. Still the engineer dashed on, 
 hauling us through the storm at what 
 seemed a frightful speed. Crashes of 
 thunder came as if the heavens were 
 breaking in pieces, and we almost ex- 
 pected that the fierce flashes that fol- 
 lowed would show us the fragments of 
 the collapsing universe. But each time 
 nature sprang into being as from a new 
 chaos ; for a moment trees struggling 
 with the tempest, rocks and gorges over 
 which the accumulating waters dashed 
 wildly as if in fright, appeared and were 
 again swallowed by the darkness. The 
 noise of the wheels and shrieks of the 
 engine mingling with the tremendous 
 hurlyburly of the elements was appalling. 
 In the car, dimly lighted with two or 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 25 
 
 three wretched lamps, the passengers sat 
 oppressed with a vague fear, as if wait- 
 ing for some inevitable crash, the conse- 
 quences of which they could not guess. 
 Once or twice the car gave an ugly lurch 
 and plunge, and the engineer slackened 
 somewhat his terrific speed. This caution 
 seemed to frighten us even more than the 
 previous recklessness, as it indicated real 
 danger. By and by came a plunge which 
 threw everybody out of his seat, then a 
 succession of heavy thumps which threat- 
 ened to disjoint the frame, and the car- 
 riage was left pitched into the mud, 
 while those behind dashed upon it and 
 the engine sped off down the track. 
 
 Everybody was bruised and terribly 
 frightened, but no one was badly hurt. 
 A culvert had been washed away by the 
 torrent and the track had sunk from its 
 proper level. The engine and baggage 
 car had passed safely over, but the car in 
 which I sat was thrown from the track 
 and its coupling broken. The train had 
 been brought to a very slow speed, and 
 
26 BEYOND THE JWURN. 
 
 hence our escape from destruction. It 
 was fortunate that few passengers travelled 
 on the night train, for we were still in the 
 wilderness, far from any comfortable ac- 
 commodations. 
 
 The conductor came around, swinging 
 his lantern in the darkness and glistening 
 in his india-rubber coat, and got us all 
 together, wet and shivering and battered 
 by the pitiless storm. The engine backed 
 up, and stood glaring and snorting as if 
 the wild scene and the fierce weather just 
 suited its temper. In fact it looked like 
 a horrible monster, waiting impatiently 
 for us to put ourselves in his power once 
 more, and determined that we should not 
 escape so easily again. It appeared that 
 it was impracticable to repair the track 
 and get the cars into position to proceed, 
 and we must needs crowd into the bag- 
 gage car to be taken to the next station. 
 It seemed like a perilous experiment, but 
 there was no choice except to stay there 
 in the darkness and rain, in what to us 
 was an unknown wilderness. The con- 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH. 27 
 
 ductor said there was no danger, but each 
 man felt that he knew better and went 
 into the dismal baggage car with a shud- 
 der and a silent protest. It was a rough 
 affair, half filled with trunks and boxes 
 and lighted by two sickly lanterns. 
 
 We bestowed ourselves as best we could, 
 crowded together like cattle, drenched 
 with rain, and in anything but a cheerful 
 mood. The engineer started on, and 
 soon we seemed to be plunging down a 
 grade at a furious speed. Perhaps our 
 fears and our uncomfortable position 
 exaggerated to our minds the rate at 
 which we were going but it seemed tre- 
 mendous, and faces grew pale and eyes 
 gleamed with excitement in the darkness. 
 Some one remonstrated with the conduc- 
 tor. The engine had little to draw and 
 was evidently on a descending grade. 
 The torrents from the hills were likely to 
 undermine the track at any point. The 
 danger was evident, and it was sheer 
 recklessness to proceed except with the 
 greatest caution. The conductor had 
 
26 BEYOND Tllh BOURN. 
 
 just seized the cord to give the signal to 
 the engineer to slacken his speed when 
 one terrific crash came, followed by a 
 shock that seemed to wrench my body to 
 pieces, and the car and all its contents 
 were dashed in fragments upon the glow- 
 ing, raving engine, which was thrown 
 over and screeching as if with horror at 
 its own work. 
 
 I was conscious of being crushed and 
 immovable in a mass of fragments ; I 
 knew that I was fearfully cut and bruised 
 about the head and neck ; I heard groans 
 and shrieks of such mingled pain and 
 horror that they almost made me forget 
 my own situation. Soon the crushing 
 weight and the fierce pain became insup- 
 portable, and, to add to the horrors of the 
 situation, scalding steam and burning 
 heat from the engine fire were at once 
 boiling and roasting us. 
 
 As I realized after the first quick con- 
 sciousness of what had happened, that 
 I was utterly helpless, probably fatally 
 hurt, and almost sure to be burned or 
 
A TALE OF LIFE AND DEA TH. 29 
 
 scalded to death on the spot, a strange 
 and awful feeling came over me. Here 
 was death suddenly upon me, which I 
 had regarded only as a vague and far ofT 
 fate. In a moment I should be in the 
 other world and all its mystery. My past 
 life, its early happiness, the shock of its 
 great sorrows, the slow and painful heal- 
 ing of the wounds in these later years, — • 
 all occurred to me in a moment, and I 
 thought of the doubts that I sometimes 
 felt, of the immortality of the soul and 
 of the happiness or misery of a future 
 life. I rejoiced that I had little to re- 
 proach myself with beyond the small fail- 
 ings for which poor human nature can 
 readily find excuse, and that I could meet 
 whatever was now to come without falter- 
 ing. One moment of fierce agony, a 
 shock that wrenched my whole bod}^ as if 
 by the sundering of the flesh and spirit, 
 and I seemed to sink and glide immeasur- 
 able lengths and depths at a dizzy speed 
 into darkness and oblivion. 
 
III. 
 
 IN THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 After a stretch of time which I could 
 not measure, which might have been 
 moments and might have been ages, I 
 was conscious of renewed existence and 
 of the presence of other beings. As that 
 consciousness grew clear, intense, almost 
 overwhelming in its fulness, I knew that 
 I was in the spirit world and with the 
 beloved of former years. 
 
 The nature of that consciousness I can- 
 not hope to describe in the language of 
 earth, or make clear to minds that never 
 experienced it. I had no body ; and yet 
 felt my identity, my personal presence, 
 with a completeness and intensity that 
 was altogether new. I saw not and 
 heard not, in the earthly sense ; and yet 
 my knowledge of my surroundings and 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 3 1 
 
 of the presence of others was far more 
 distinct than bodily sight and hearing 
 could make it. We spake not with 
 tongues of flesh, we heard not with ears 
 of flesh, and yet our communication was 
 so perfect that I marvelled as at a new 
 birth. The soul was freed from the im- 
 pediment of flesh, it acted without the 
 cumbersome instrumentality of physical 
 organs, and its action was full and free. 
 
 It will be difficult to make the condi- 
 tions of my new life comprehensible to 
 those whose experience has been confined 
 to the embryonic stage of human exist- 
 ence, but the faculties of the soul were 
 not changed, and its perceptions were 
 analogous to those to which it had been 
 accustomed. It had no further need of 
 physical senses, and yet it saw and heard 
 and felt with a clearness and vividness 
 that were unattainable through the or- 
 gans of the body. It could enjoy now 
 the full benefit of the development which 
 it had attained with the aid of the body 
 and its functions, and exercise its facul- 
 
32 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 ties with a freedom and vigor that were 
 impossible wlieii it was confined in the 
 integument of flesh. 
 
 In attempting to put into the form of 
 human speech a description of the sur- 
 rounding's in which I found m\'sclf, and 
 an account of the experience which I 
 underwent, it will be possible to give 
 only a faint impression of the realit}', for 
 the language of man is inadequate to ex- 
 press and the understanding of man in- 
 capable of grasping the facts of an expe- 
 rience and observation beyond the range 
 of earthly life. The effort to picture 
 it is like striving to reveal the beauties 
 of a glorious vision through an imperfect 
 medium to a darkened mind ; but it may 
 afford glimpses that will give comfort to 
 those who long to know something of the 
 life beyond. 
 
 First of all I would try to give some 
 idea of the recompense that was found 
 for the trials, struggles and sorrows of the 
 earthly life. These seemed as small and 
 far away in comparison with the satisfac- 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 33 
 
 tion now enjoyed, as the sphere on which 
 they were undergone seemed insignifi- 
 cant, as a part of God's creation. Here I 
 found father and mother in a blissful 
 union that was marred by no discordant 
 note and no fear of interruption. They 
 looked back to their former life with 
 thankfulness that it had prepared them 
 for this, but they would no more desire to 
 return to it than a miner who had toiled 
 for years in the bowels of the earth would 
 wish to go back to his wearisome tasks, if 
 once released and placed in comfortable 
 and joyous surroundings in the cheerful 
 sunlight. To them had now been gathered 
 the children they left behind, and the 
 mutual understanding and full apprecia- 
 tion of each other gave their communion 
 a delight that was before inconceivable. 
 The coming of their daughter, which to 
 me had been such a grief, was to them 
 and to her a joy unspeakable. In the 
 body she had been frail and an object of 
 solicitude, but in the spirit world she 
 blossomed to the fulness of angelic life 
 
34 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 at once. The attributes that had been 
 cramped by physical weakness and nar- 
 row opportunities expanded in their full 
 glory, and that pure lov^e which had been 
 awakened on earth found a purer fruition 
 because it liad never been sullied by the 
 harsh experiences of a common life. She 
 had been literally carried to heaven by 
 her hero lover, who lingered, " hovering 
 o'er the dolorous strait," that they might 
 together " arrive at last the blessed goal " 
 and be taken " as a single soul." So had 
 they been united in the marriage of eter- 
 nity by death itself, — in a union that no 
 trial or sorrow could ever assail, fur w hich 
 only the pure in heart are fit. My own 
 beloved wife, and the babe that had 
 known nothing of the earthly life, which 
 had opened and shut for it merely as a 
 gateway to heaven — during my sorrowful 
 wanderings they had awaited me with 
 happiness unalloyed, knowing how great 
 would be the joy of reunion, and how 
 small would then seem the delay and the 
 sorrows I had borne, which would only 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 35 
 
 heighten the bh'ss. And the Httle one had 
 grown in this hfe like one native to it, 
 developing in spiritual purity and strength 
 with scarcely a taint of earth. Here 
 was a happy family, in a sense that 
 no combination of fortunate circum- 
 stances could make real in the conditions 
 of earth, associated with other families in 
 like manner united after the vicissitudes 
 of the pilgrimage in the flesh, and with the 
 good and pure of all ages and climes, in 
 fact of all the worlds of the universe. 
 
 When the first joyful greetings and in- 
 terchange of experiences were fairly over 
 and I could turn my thoughts from the 
 persons among whom I was so gladly re- 
 ceived to the conditions of this new life, 
 my curiosity was awakened, and I began 
 to inquire into the nature of the sphere of 
 being upon which I had entered. Evi- 
 dently we were still in the great universe 
 of nature of which the earth is a part, and 
 of which men in their mortal state have 
 gained some glimpses of knowledge ; not 
 in a space set apart beyond the bounds of 
 
36 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 infinity, and garnished with scenes that 
 were only magnified copies of those fa- 
 mihar on the earth. 
 
 As the faculties of the spirit were ex- 
 panded and untramelled, but not changed 
 in their nature, and as its perceptions 
 were analogous to those which it formerly 
 gained through the senses, so had the 
 surroundings in which it found itself a 
 glorified likeness to those in which it re- 
 ceived its first experience and its training 
 for eternal life. And yet, my former con- 
 ceptions of that life, and of the sphere in 
 which it was destined to pass, now seemed 
 so distorted and inadequate as to be ridic- 
 ulous. In their aspirations for an immortal 
 state and in their endeavors to picture 
 the glories of the after life, men have of 
 necessity drawn upon their imagination 
 and have used the materials of the exist- 
 ence with which they are familiar. In 
 the various stages of their moral and spir- 
 itual development and of their knowledge 
 of the universe, they have painted visions 
 of beauty and delight in accordance with 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 37 
 
 a faith darkened by ignorance and dis- 
 torted by superstition, regarding as the 
 revelation of supreme wisdom the highest 
 conceptions they could attain. Their 
 heaven was made up of the elements of 
 earth ; their immortal life was a trans- 
 fio-uration of a mortal existence ; and they 
 carried the materials of the dust and the 
 occupations of the flesh into their dreams 
 of a spirit world. 
 
 I found that the unlimited expanse of 
 the universe was the home of the dis- 
 embodied spirit, which could range at 
 will in the wide, free spaces of the 
 heavens. It could indeed visit any of 
 the rolling worlds, which without number 
 peopled the boundless region, but with 
 their actual substance occupied so small 
 a portion of its immensity. By that 
 spiritual power of discernment which cor- 
 responds to the vision of the eye, we 
 could take in the grand march of the 
 worlds, as planets circled around their 
 suns, and those suns, with their retinues 
 of shining spheres, moved around greater 
 
38 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 centres, and those centres again, with their 
 vaster systems, travelled in their ap- 
 pointed circuits. And from these mighty- 
 revolutions there came, as it were, a 
 blending of sounds which swept through all 
 the universe in supernal harmony that 
 thrilled the soul with musical deli<xht. 
 
 The place which we occupied would 
 appear to human thought to be in the 
 very midst of infinite space — all directions 
 being alike and all distances without limit. 
 While there was no material substance 
 that would be palpable to sense, there 
 were forms and colors perceptible to the 
 spiritual faculties in vivid beauty, consti- 
 tuting scenes of delight and structures of 
 surpassing grandeur, amidst which were 
 the abodes of the blest. While the spirit 
 itself had no substantial embodiment, like 
 that from which it was released by the 
 death of the body, it had a clear individ- 
 uality, a distinct personality, which was 
 far more fully recognizable by its fellow 
 spirits than it could ever be in the flesh. 
 
 There was indeed, a far more vivid per- 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 39 
 
 ception of personal presence than the 
 embodied soul can know, and a fulness of 
 understanding and a freedom of associa- 
 tion impossible in earthly life. If men, 
 imprisoned in the body and dependent 
 upon sense, were to be transported to that 
 celestial scene, the eye would see no form 
 or line of beauty , the ear would hear no 
 sound of joy ; and the soul would be shut 
 off from association with the emancipated 
 hosts, seeming to be alone in an infinite 
 void. And yet to the disembodied soul, 
 freed from the trammels of the flesh, 
 the celestial region was filled with glori- 
 ous brightness and joyous life, and its 
 denizens were occupied with activities to 
 which those of earth were as the torpid 
 movements of the unhatched chrysalis. 
 
 Not only did the perceptions far sur- 
 pass in keenness and clearness those 
 obtained through physical senses, but the 
 sentiments of the soul were exalted and 
 purified, and association was freed from 
 every taint of the passions and selfish 
 instincts derived from an animal state of 
 
40 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 existence and its necessities. As we 
 reposed amid celestial surroundings we 
 received the effect of grandeur, sublimity, 
 eternal peace, joy-inspiring beauty and 
 melody ; or we could move from space to 
 space with the celerity of thought, and 
 join with zest in the manifold activities of 
 the heavenly realm. 
 
 The years during which the friend of 
 my earthly days had been separated from 
 me seemed to him like the passage of a 
 night, so absorbed had he been in the 
 delights of the higher state. He told me 
 that he had been gaining in knowledge of 
 the wonders of the universe, and that life 
 was still a continual revelation, and must 
 ever be so. The spirit, new to this state 
 of being, could not grasp its glories all at 
 once, but simply entered upon a new 
 stage of development. As its knowledge 
 grew and its capacities expanded, its 
 power of enjoyment increased, and to 
 the growth of its happiness there was no 
 end. 
 
 I could see as we moved about at will 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 41 
 
 that new marvels everywhere appeared, 
 and that of what there was to learn and 
 to enjoy there could be no possible limit. 
 Not only was the infinite universe open 
 to the exploration of the eager spirit, but 
 its myriads of denizens, gathered from all 
 its parts and brought up from a thousand 
 varied experiences in different spheres 
 and through millions of successive genera- 
 tions, afforded a limitless opportunity for 
 learning by association and communion. 
 
 ^' Tell me," said I, " of this life upon 
 which I have entered, this world so differ- 
 ent from what I have been taught to 
 expect. Initiate me into its mysteries." 
 
 *' Come with me," answered my friend, 
 and no sooner had I given my ready con- 
 sent than we sped as swift as thought 
 through the infinite realms of space. In 
 a moment's time we seemed to be alone 
 in a part of the heavens far remote from 
 the scene of our meeting. While we 
 reposed in the celestial ether in what 
 seemed a heavenly solitude, though still 
 in the midst of revolving spheres, my 
 
42 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 friend and teacher began to discourse in 
 answer to my inquiries. 
 
 "Tliis is the eternal universe," he 
 began, *' tlie same to which we were 
 introduced at our birth in yonder lowly 
 star, one of the least of these revolving 
 globes; but our comprehension of its 
 nature and wonders while there was al- 
 most as imperfect as that of the worm 
 that grovels in its soil. We were then in 
 the midst of this realm of grandeur and 
 of spiritual life, but fastened to one tiny 
 spot with barely vision enough to excite 
 our curiosity and lead us to grope and 
 struggle for more knowledge. All the 
 wisdom that the greatest of men could 
 acquire was but the smallest of beginnings 
 and the faint glimmering of the dawn of 
 truth, whose full day must come in this 
 later life. 
 
 ** While we were confined to that little 
 planet, though in reality but one among 
 millions and millions of worlds, it seemed 
 to us the central i)oint of all the universe, 
 f(»i wliieh the rest was made to minister, 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 43 
 
 and we were wont to speculate whether 
 that embryonic existence of ours were not 
 all that creation was made for ; whether 
 the rest of the universe of which we had 
 a glimpse, was intended for anything 
 but an illumination of our nights ; and 
 whether, after we had barely struggled 
 into actual being through that state of 
 spiritual gestation, we did not fall into 
 nothing again, — as if all this grand crea- 
 tion were but the freak of a fantastic 
 Being, without beneficent purpose ! 
 
 " Even those who had a belief in im- 
 mortality and fancied that they had 
 attained exalted ideas of the Creator 
 formed from their feeble conjectures and 
 their hopes systems of religious faith 
 which contained only the imperfect germs 
 of the real truth of life and destiny. 
 These, however, were of great value 
 to mankind, putting in form the high- 
 est ideals of which they were capable 
 and serving as a nucleus around and upon 
 which they could ever continue to work; 
 and, as they gained in kn(^\vledge from 
 
44 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 the light of reason, they could build more 
 and more beautiful structures of faith, 
 tending toward the symmetry and grand- 
 eur of ultimate truth. 
 
 " You and I were taught in our child- 
 hood to think of a place set apart some- 
 where in the skies, as the home of 
 departed souls, — a far-off kingdom in the 
 heavens, surrounded perchance with walls 
 like an imperial stronghold, and the abode 
 of winged angels and of the disembodied 
 spirits of the just and good. This celes- 
 tial realm of which we dreamed was a 
 creation of the imagination of devout 
 poets and ardent mystics wrought from 
 glorified elements of the earthly state. We 
 were told that it contained fields and trees 
 and streams to delight the eye and ear, 
 though the eye and ear were to dissolve 
 and return to dust. We thought of it as 
 having palaces and domes built of the 
 materials with which we were familiar in 
 our mortal state, though these were 
 adapted only to delight through the 
 senses that must depart with the organs 
 
IN THE OTHER WORLD. 45 
 
 of the flesh. It was impossible for us to 
 rise to a conception of an existence above 
 and beyond the need of material forms 
 and objects to minister delight to the soul. 
 " This earth-like heaven we conceived of 
 as a kingdom in the skies, with orders and 
 regulations modelled after the govern- 
 ments of earth even in its ruder ages ; as 
 if the soul were not to attain a state of 
 intelligence and rectitude in which abso- 
 lute freedom would be its heritage. The 
 notions we were taught to hold of the 
 occupations of the spirit life were like the 
 fancies of childhood, and were the prod- 
 uct of the childhood of the race. The 
 noblest conception of the heavenly state 
 was that of white-robed hosts, forever 
 singing praises before the throne of a 
 Sovereign delighting in laudation and 
 glory of himself. Singularly childish was 
 the idea that the Creator of this glorious 
 universe was a being with the personal 
 semblance and attributes of a mighty 
 monarch, seated upon a throne to receive 
 a constant chorus of adulation from a 
 
46 BEYOXD THE BOURN. 
 
 redeemed race, and unending demonstra- 
 tions of devotion from creatures that he 
 had made. 
 
 " Such ideas of the heavenly Hfe grew 
 out of imperfect knowledge and defective 
 reason, but came also froin a sincere long- 
 ing for a state of divine purity and perfec- 
 tion. They were typical of the complete 
 submission and unremitting worship 
 which in human life were felt to be neces- 
 sary to the attainment of a condition of 
 enduring holiness, and, though wrought 
 from the visions of devout dreamers, 
 became sanctified to the hopes and aspira- 
 tions of generations of mankind. At the 
 touch of fuller knowledge and sounder 
 reason they fade into a myth, but only to 
 give way to higher conceptions. Now 
 that }'ou have come to the reality you 
 will Icarr- how far it is from the fancies 
 of mankind in their unenlightened days." 
 
IV. 
 
 "THE LIFE INDEED." 
 
 My friend's discourse was carrying my 
 thoughts back to earth and the errors in 
 which the " little lives of men " arc spent, 
 while I wished rather to know of the new 
 life into which I had so suddenly come. 
 He was at once conscious of this feelinof 
 on my part; but, in the pause which it had 
 produced, the beloved members of our 
 family, whom we had left in another part 
 of the heavenly space, appeared hovering 
 about us, drawn by the power of sym- 
 pathy to our presence. My friend 
 needed no questioning from them, but at 
 once explained : 
 
 " Our new-comer, like all new-comers, 
 wished to be told, first of all, about the 
 glories of this life by one who has had 
 some experience of them, and as he ex- 
 
48 BEYOND THE JiOUKAT. 
 
 pressed surprise at finding it so different 
 from the heaven of liis earthly dreams, I 
 was beginning to point out the errors into 
 which men have fallen in regard to their 
 destiny. As all this has become familiar 
 to you, we had retired to this solitude for 
 the initiation of his soul into the revela- 
 tions of the life indeed." 
 
 "But why such haste?" responded the 
 sweet voice of my sister. "He will now 
 learn for himself, and as his spiritual ex- 
 perience advances he will only have to 
 turn his thoughts back to understand that 
 life on earth, with all its errors and the 
 problems that seemed so hard to solve. 
 W'h}' interrupt our present joy by going 
 back to it now, even in thought ?" 
 
 Here our reverend sire interposed. 
 " Aye," he said, "why dwell upon the 
 life you have left behind, and the 
 errors with which men have struggled 
 and are still struggling? The race is 
 hopefully working out its salvation, and 
 as its knowledge widens and deepens, and 
 its reasoning powers attain greater 
 
" THE LIFE INDEEOr 49 
 
 strength through generations of study by 
 the strongest minds, it will more and 
 more come into the light of truth which 
 leads to perfection. 
 
 '* But now give your thoughts to the 
 life into which you have come, and 
 learn something of your eternal dwelling 
 place. It is all this infinite space, and 
 the disembodied spirit ranges at \\\\\ 
 among the numberless worlds of the celes- 
 tial realm. It finds everywhere beauty 
 and joy, in such measure as it is capable 
 of receiving. 
 
 "• Do not imagine that eternal happiness 
 consists in eternal idleness, or continually 
 singing praises around the throne of an 
 exalted Sovereign ; it is found rather in 
 the constant activity of the spirit, in a 
 realm which affords it unlimited scope 
 and inexhaustible fields. 
 
 '' Death is only a departure from the 
 apparatus of flesh, which w^as necessary to 
 the embryo state on earth. It is as pain- 
 less at the last as falling asleep, and the 
 awakening is in a new sphere of life. Of 
 
50 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 course it works no sudden transformation 
 of character and no instant removal to a 
 place beyond the bounds of the universe. 
 As the soul was before death, so it is 
 after, but freed from the flesh and the 
 feelings and desires engendered by the 
 necessities of the flesh. - 
 
 ^' It may be weighed down and over- 
 whelmed almost to numbness and obliv- 
 ion by the derangement or decay of the 
 mortal vesture before the final dissolution 
 comes, so that it appears to be in dark- 
 ness and eclipse, but when at last it is 
 loosed from the material bonds, it rises in 
 its full vigor and assumes all the qualities 
 which its origin and earthly experience 
 have given it. As the circumstances of 
 its life, its parentage, early training, edu- 
 cation, its own labors and sufferings on 
 earth have made it, so it is well or ill pre- 
 pared to enjoy the universe of God. But 
 all is before it, infinity of space, eternity 
 of time. 
 
 '' Upon what is it to exercise its powers, 
 and what is to operate upon its capaci- 
 
" THE LIFE indeed:' 5 1 
 
 ties ? The infinite state of being ! We 
 do not come at once to the knowledge of 
 all things, but must learn. With untram- 
 melled powers, great or small, as the life 
 on earth has left them, with desires lofty 
 or grovelling at the beginning of the spirit 
 life, according as we have acquired or cul- 
 tivated them, we set forth on the life un- 
 limited. We are in the same school from 
 whose lowest grade we have come, and 
 the subject of study here as there, is the 
 works of God and through them God 
 himself. Our means of learning only are 
 changed. 
 
 " We were taught that we should meet 
 God face to face, as mortals on earth may 
 meet a sovereign, in form and lineament 
 Hke themselves. Nay, God is spirit even 
 as we are spirit ; but he is infinite and 
 fills the infinite cosmos with his sole per- 
 sonality, whereas we are finite ; and can 
 the finite comprehend the infinite ? 
 
 "■ In this life the soul comes into closer 
 communion with the Creator, it learns 
 more and more of his works and thereby 
 
52 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 gets truer and larger ideas of him ; but 
 He is an everlasting mystery, of which 
 we may learn more and more, but which 
 we cannot wholly comprehend till we be- 
 come infinite in knowledge and capacity, 
 a state toward which we ever advance but 
 unto which we never attain. All the 
 beings in the universe are but a little way 
 advanced from the beginning of this great 
 lesson. The difference between the latest 
 comer and the first man that lived is not 
 great, compared with what lies beyond. 
 
 '' Here, then, we learn ; and behold, how 
 great is the field in which we search for 
 knowledge ! All these worlds and s}'s- 
 tems which man on earth can study slowly 
 and painfully through rude devices of his 
 own contriving, are open to us. We can 
 study them freely, in their motions, in 
 their substance and their contents. We 
 can visit them at will, note their move- 
 ments, their size, their ingredients, their 
 populations and all that those populations 
 do. 
 
 " Think you that the little planet in 
 
" THE LIFE indeed:' 53 
 
 yonder small system from which we came, 
 the gem of God's universe, and all the 
 rest a gorgeous setting? Nay, these mil- 
 lions of globes, many of them far greater 
 than the earth, have their inhabitants and 
 their marvels of nature and of art, and as 
 the conditions of each are different from 
 those of the others, the variety has no 
 limit. 
 
 " What we have learned of these 
 worlds in the short space since we came 
 to the spirit life is little, but we have vis- 
 ited many, and the more we see, the 
 greater grows the marvel at the variety 
 and extent, beyond all mortal conception 
 a million times multiplied, of the Creator's 
 works and the powers and resources of 
 the infinite Spirit which creates, and 
 which fills and sustains, the mighty 
 cosmos ! It is one of the joys of the life 
 eternal to study these works, to know 
 fully things of which we had a glimmer- 
 ing notion on earth, and to find out mat- 
 ters of which we had no conception 
 before. 
 
54 BEYOXD THE HOURN. 
 
 ** Not only have wc this universe to 
 explore and study, but here are the mill- 
 ions of disembodied souls with whom we 
 live. Not intellect alone and power of 
 gaining knowledge remain to us, but 
 affections and sentiments, and, above all, 
 that which on earth men call spirituality 
 — which here is, like all else, far more 
 easily active than under the hindrances 
 of the flesh — the native spark of aspira- 
 tion toward pure, sincere, self-giving 
 growth to noble character. The brother- 
 hood of heaven is vast, the relationship 
 of its members infinitely varied in kind 
 and degree. The communion of spirit 
 with spirit is intimate in proportion as 
 their natures are congenial, and as that 
 communion is intimate, so is the joy that 
 springs from it intense. 
 
 *' The petty passions and weaknesses 
 that belonged to the flesh are gone, and 
 in every person we can find something to 
 give us new and wiricd delight, while 
 with some the joy of intercourse is ec- 
 static. There is here ikj sham, no decep- 
 
" THE LIFE indeed:' 5 5 
 
 tion, no concealment, no misunderstand- 
 ing. Every spirit is open to the knowl- 
 edge and the feelings of every other, and 
 all find pleasure in association according 
 to the degree of congeniality. The sub- 
 jects of discourse, if communion such as 
 you are now experiencing can be called 
 discourse, — this constant interflux of 
 thought and feeling — are infinite and 
 inexhaustible. This is the chief joy of 
 spiritual existence, whether in the body or 
 out of it, this interchange of thought and 
 feeling and the expansion and exaltation 
 that come from it. 
 
 '' Be sure that here we have our be- 
 loved ones ; and those who were loved 
 ones on earth hold the first place, though 
 our affections are unconstrained, and fas- 
 ten upon every object fitted to receive 
 them." 
 
 As the paternal spirit paused, again 
 the sister spirit took up her sweet refrain. 
 *' And here, too, she said, the ministry 
 of love continues. The occasion has not 
 ceased for helping one another, for sus- 
 
56 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 taining the weak, reclaiming the way- 
 ward, and comforting the desolate, but 
 as the passions that pertained to the 
 flesh are gone, and the hard conditions of 
 the earthly life are left behind, the work 
 of love and helpfulness meets quick 
 response and is full of joy." 
 
 '* But," I exclaimed, " is there no place 
 of punishment for evil-doers, such as we 
 were taught to fear in our childhood ? " 
 
 *' Oh I that terrifying doctrine of a 
 place of torment I I can almost shudder 
 now at the recollection of it ! " It was 
 the serene but solemn tone of my mother 
 that uttered this exclamation, and for a 
 moment it continued, like a voice in a 
 revery. " Even the wickednesses of the 
 intelligent and self-indulgent were the 
 stumblings of those afflicted with moral 
 blindness, which a long training in this 
 world of larger light may gradually heal. 
 But the idea that the poor children 
 born in ignorance and sin, growing up 
 amid surroundings in which there was 
 no good influence; or the neglected and 
 
" THE LIFE INDEEDr 5; 
 
 untaught, and even the heathen \\\ their 
 mental and moral darkness, were con- 
 demned by a righteous God, ever a loving 
 father, to terrible torture ! How could a 
 human being with a soul ever believe 
 it!" 
 
 *'Ah!" replied my friend, "that was 
 one of the many cruel superstitions to 
 which men were subject in. time of little 
 knowledge and imperfect reasoning, and 
 which were perpetuated by solemn sanc- 
 tions for their deterrent effects. The 
 human race, like the human child, has to 
 outgrow its superstitions, and its child- 
 hood is long." 
 
V. 
 
 THE SECRET OF GROWTH. 
 
 Here again the reverend father of our 
 family group of spirits took up the dis- 
 course. 
 
 '^ Right and wrong on earth," he said, 
 *' are but relative terms. No being ever 
 lived on that sphere who knew all the 
 truth, and it can hardly be said that any 
 ever did, in all respects, exactly the right. 
 The general experience of the race has 
 been made up of gropings toward the 
 true and right, and wanderings from it. 
 Every approach is its own reward, every 
 departure its own punishment. The 
 earthly life of a person is not a thing com- 
 plete, the account of which is closed up 
 and the compensation weighed out. It 
 is not a whole, but the merest beginning, 
 and the start that some make before 
 
THE SECRET OF GROWTH. 59 
 
 death is goodly, while that of others is 
 
 scarcely a start at all. 
 
 "The Almighty saw fit to plant our 
 
 race there, surrounded by the elements 
 and conditions necessary to growth and 
 development, and then he allowed it to 
 grow and to struggle toward perfection. 
 The elements and conditions were those 
 most likely in the great seasons of eter- 
 nity to produce the best fruit at last, but 
 in the beginning there must needs be im- 
 perfections and partial failures. Some 
 spring forth at once with vigor and 
 beauty, others languish and are stunted ; 
 but a soul once struck into separate be- 
 ing from the Infinite, is immortal, and in 
 the eternal years of God shall find the 
 genial warmth that will bring it into 
 bloom. 
 
 ."Why should God torment the crea- 
 tures that he has made with greater pains 
 than their own misdoings bring as their 
 natural result? Every misdoing, every 
 departure from the right and true, is 
 followed inevitably by penalty, not 
 
6o BEYOND THE BOURiY. 
 
 measurable by the standards of earthly 
 advantage and disadvantage, but one 
 that has its due effect upon the soul, 
 marring its powers and capacities and 
 sending it to this spirit life by so much 
 unfitted to partake in its joys. 
 
 '* A soul distorted and deformed by the 
 experiences of earth, is an object of pity, 
 not of wrath, and here it is taken ten- 
 derly in charge by happier spirits, and 
 everything is done to make up for the 
 disadvantages and misfortunes of the life 
 below. Such souls find their punish- 
 ment, if punishment it may be called, in 
 their power to see what they have lost, 
 and to comprehend what they might 
 enjoy but do not ; but before them lies 
 the eternal life with its wider opportuni- 
 ties and its greater helps. The loss may 
 be made up and some spirits that came 
 here from utter wretchedness and degra- 
 dation are now among the most resplen- 
 dent and joyous, the more so for the 
 sufferings they have passed through. 
 
 ^' If the great scheme of that embryo 
 
THE SECRET OF GROWTH. 6 1 
 
 life is such that a soul may come into it 
 impressed through the medium of its birth 
 with bad tendencies, which are confirmed 
 and strengthened by surroundings and 
 experience, with no good influences 
 brought to bear to overcome them, and 
 that soul becomes what it inevitably 
 must become under those circumstances, 
 does it not thereby suffer a terrible pen- 
 alty for holding its place in the world and 
 serving, even in that hapless position, to 
 help carry out the general plan of devel- 
 opment; and is the God that made him and 
 put him there to be offended and subject 
 him to further torture to satisfy a '' divine 
 anger" ? Is anger ever divine? 
 
 '' Nay, rather, will not the poor being 
 that comes halting hither from hard 
 places in the human life be tenderly cher- 
 ished, taught what he never before had a 
 chance to learn, made to see what never 
 before came to his blinded vision, helped 
 to gain what he has missed, and gradually 
 brought to enjoy the bliss intended for all ? 
 His was a hard lot and here he finds com- 
 
62 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 pensation ; for his bliss, when gained, 
 seems the sweeter, inasmuch as it was 
 gained so late and after so much bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 " That notion of a ' systematic ' and eter- 
 nal punishment of those so unfortunate as 
 to wander far from the ri^^ht, is a relic of 
 the horrible idea of God, which was the 
 conception of an early generation, as an 
 all-powerful Being that "becomes enraged 
 at disobedience to his commands, and 
 will subject to the torment those that 
 dare disregard his law. 
 
 *' The figures of Oriental speech, the 
 stern doctrine uttered by the warning 
 prophets of Ancient Israel, and scraps 
 of the mythology of Babylon and Persia, 
 are the materials from which apocalyptic 
 writers of early d;\ys and ardent preachers 
 of later time wrought the horrible hell 
 in which souls were doomed to suffer 
 endless pains in eternal fires. The mate- 
 rial hell of fire and torment was one of 
 the hideous myths of the superstitious 
 ages, sanctified by earnest but misguided 
 
THE SECRET OF GROWTH. 6^ 
 
 teachers of later times. It had deterrent 
 horrors only for the ignorant and super- 
 stitious, since the disembodied spirit could 
 not suffer from darkness and fire, from 
 heat or cold, which operate only upon the 
 senses of the flesh. 
 
 " The worst of this hideous myth was 
 the effect it had upon the conception of 
 God, making him a monster of cruelty. 
 Could a spirit, infinite in goodness as in 
 power, devise such a horrid pit for such 
 a fiendish purpose? And where in this 
 goodly universe should it be placed ? The 
 superstitious idea of heaven and hell 
 would put them both outside the uni- 
 verse, beyond the bounds of infinity, and 
 leave all that is or can be in existence of 
 no use or value through eternity. 
 
 ''And then there was that horrid phan- 
 tasm, the Devil, which the mind of man 
 conjured up to divide the empire of crea- 
 tion with its Maker! Rude and ignorant 
 people were always disposed to account 
 for wrongs and misfortunes, real or seem- 
 ing, by attributing them to the workings 
 
64 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 of evil spirits. The old Hebrew race on 
 earth was more free than most primitive 
 people from this form of superstition, and 
 it was from the exile in Assyrian and 
 Babylonian lands that the Israelites 
 brought back the notion of an adversary 
 of Jehovah. It was derived from the 
 Persian mythology of Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman, the conflict of light and dark- 
 ness, of good and evil, for the possession 
 of the world and of man. Out of this 
 borrowed notion of Satan and the dreams 
 of apocalyptic seers grew the fantastic 
 devil-lore with which Christianity became 
 disfigured. 
 
 '* A place of everlasting torment, ten- 
 anted by evil spirits who go abroad 
 in the world tempting and enticing 
 men to destruction, was a product of 
 superstition which knowledge and rea- 
 son alone could dispel. Even in recent 
 times, when large numbers of Christian 
 believers have thrown away the self- 
 convicting absurdity of a physical hell 
 for spiritual beings, the terrors of a place 
 
TFIE SECRET OF GROWTH. 65 
 
 or state of everlasting spiritual torment 
 has replaced the cruder creed. But this, 
 too, is as foolishly inconsistent with all 
 the ' fatherly ' conceptions of the Deity 
 which they accept from the teachings of 
 Jesus, as was the paradox of bodily burn- 
 ing for a disembodied spirit. 
 
 ''On the earth which we have left, the 
 time comes on apace when mankind shall 
 see with fuller knowledge and clearer 
 reason, and the myths of the later theol- 
 ogies shall be cast out like the outgrown 
 superstitions of the earlier ages. They 
 have been cherished long because of the 
 sanctions of ancient faith and the ten- 
 dency of generation after generation to 
 accept the beliefs transmitted from the 
 past and sanctified by the wise and good 
 in their time. The imaginations of men 
 have been wont to regard the ancients 
 and the fathers as if their wisdom accu- 
 mulated with time, whereas the present is 
 always the maturest age. The ancient 
 world was young. The modern world is 
 older. The latest result of man's knowl- 
 
66 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 edge and thought is ever nearest to the 
 eternal truth." 
 
 *' Doubtless," I said, " men arc still far 
 from the truth in matters of physical sci- 
 ence and philosophy as well as in matters 
 that pertain to their spiritual relations?" 
 
 "They are far from the ultimate truth," 
 was the reply, "and they can never reach 
 it under the limitations of the earthly 
 life. Even after they have escaped from 
 those limitations, they can only advance 
 toward it with ever-increasing enlighten- 
 ment. But the human intellect from its 
 first awakening began to grope toward 
 the light, and the spiritual instinct has 
 constantly struggled toward the truth." 
 
VI. 
 
 DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. 
 
 Just at this point in the discourse of 
 my beloved father, we became keenly 
 conscious of the presence with us of 
 another spirit of most benign and vener- 
 able aspect. He was indeed a seer among 
 the spirits in the part of the universe to 
 which I had been drawn by the presence 
 of my loved ones. He had been a dweller 
 upon the earth in a far distant time and 
 was wise above his fellows, but more than 
 2000 years ago he had left his mortal state 
 and had been a denizen of the world of 
 spirits, as I presently learned. Diffusing 
 by his mere presence the influence of be- 
 nignant wisdom, and begetting in others 
 a profound sentiment of respect and a 
 desire to learn of him, this sage of the 
 heavens spoke to us ; and what can only 
 
68 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 be characterized to earthly understand- 
 ing as the tones of his voice thrilled our 
 being with the charm of immortal music. 
 
 " My children," he began, " ye are 
 plainly just from Earth and that dim life 
 in which the soul begins. Learn from 
 one who was deemed a philosopher there 
 many centuries before }ou saw the light, 
 and in the interval here — so long in the 
 computations of men, so brief in the reck- 
 oning of God — has still explored the mys- 
 teries of life with unceasing zest. 
 
 *' Think not that ye can search at once 
 the Infinite Soul of the universe and un- 
 derstand His working from the beginning. 
 The soul that was first rounded into a 
 separate being in the chrysalis of flesh, 
 and first let loose as an ever-living spirit 
 in this realm of endless progress, is far 
 from comprehending all the ways of God. 
 In Him we live and in Him we grow to 
 larger knowledge, to higher wisdom, to 
 stronger love ; but to infinite capacity the 
 finite being can never reach. 
 
 " The Infinite Soul made not the uni- 
 
DISCOURSE OF A HE A VENL V SAGE. 69 
 
 verse. He is the universe. It is wrought 
 out of His being. Forth from his crea- 
 tive power came the substance of all the 
 material worlds, and in that substance 
 wrought the power that gave it forth. 
 According to the laws of wisdom and of 
 love it wrought, whirling into form the 
 essence of the worlds to be, and setting 
 at work the forces that should impart to 
 them the all-pervading life. To this crea- 
 tive energy and its laws of action, what 
 was duration — as conceived by the finite 
 mind ? Through the silent epochs it lived 
 in the substance which had been evolved 
 from itself, bringing it into form and 
 order. From the all-pervading ether the 
 substance was brought into nebulous 
 masses, the subtile material of the celes- 
 tial systems that were to come. 
 
 '' In these nebulous masses wrought 
 with force of heat and motion the untiring 
 life, and they took form and grew to plas- 
 tic substance. Along the lines of plan 
 and purpose still wrought the soul of all, 
 making of plastic substance suns and 
 
70 BEYOND THE BOURiV. 
 
 solid worlds, cast by force of heat and mo- 
 tion into form and order. The inform- 
 ing life on lines of law immutable set 
 spheres and systems on their way, and 
 hung the universe with stars. Not all at 
 once, as with touch of magic wand or by 
 theatric fiat, but in due process of evolu- 
 tion, — the creative Spirit working along 
 the laws of its infinite being in the sub- 
 stance it had made, — the cosmic universe 
 came into orderly being and activity. 
 
 *' From plastic form to solid grew the 
 spheres, with wild combustion of their 
 elements but with the eternal purpose 
 working through all their ferment, till the 
 conditions of the coming life were 
 wrought upon them. Life was in them 
 moving ever towards its aim. With all- 
 persistent energy, not blind and headlong 
 Force from naught evolved, but the 
 Soul Divine, in might and wisdom work- 
 ing, brought the roaring elements, subject 
 to its will and purpose, into harmonious 
 interaction. On new-formed worlds the 
 creative spirit wrought by thrilling heat 
 
DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. /I 
 
 in proto-plasmic slime, and infused 
 vitality to bring forth living things, mon- 
 strous plants and animals, to be each 
 other's sustenance and prepare the way for 
 higher forms as new conditions served. 
 
 " The life in these was life of God, the 
 only life, by methods of the divine will 
 working toward its mighty end, to people 
 the universe with spirits, offspring of it- 
 self. Through ages, epochs, aeons, — the 
 seasons of the universe's one great har- 
 vest, — the process moved. From lower 
 forms the divine gestation wrought to 
 higher, till worlds were clothed with 
 beauty and filled with life. From out 
 each other generations grew, evermore 
 tending to perfection, each becoming ma- 
 terial for the next, in one creative process. 
 The all-informing Spirit from species 
 wrought to species, combining forms and 
 forms dividing, evolving qualities and it- 
 self infusing more and more. 
 
 *' At last upon the earth, whence we 
 have come, and upon other spheres in his 
 vast universe, the all-pervading God 
 
72 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 brought forth, from generation after gen- 
 eration of lower forms, the upright shape 
 of man. Towards this had tended all 
 the work of creative energy. The In- 
 finite Soul had wrought to embody finite 
 souls and impart the ever-living spirit to 
 separate beings that should dwell at last 
 and dwell forever in this wide realm of 
 space, the objects of eternal and un- 
 bounded love and with capacities for love 
 unlimited. 
 
 '' Nor was the race of God's children 
 created in perfection, or the soul at once 
 imbued with the Divine Father's attrib- 
 utes. The creative spirit that from form- 
 less substance evolved the worlds, and on 
 the worlds the forms of beauty and the 
 abodes of life, and into varied forms its 
 own life infused, still wrought in men to 
 evolve the being that should be capable 
 of the destiny that was from the begin- 
 ning creation's purpose. Through all 
 progressive purpose ran. The instincts of 
 life, to light and heat responsive, that 
 first appeared in plants, rose in animals 
 
DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. 73 
 
 into sense, with gleams of intelligence 
 and of sentiment, to serve the ends of 
 their being ; and still these instincts 
 wrought from lower on to higher forms, 
 till the spirit was lighted at the flame of 
 growing mind and stronger feeling. Gen- 
 eration out of generation came, with many 
 a lapse of living unto dead and extinc- 
 tion of the taper-lights of starting souls, 
 until the flame grew self-sustaining. 
 
 *' Here and there creative power set 
 alight a torch that drew souls upward 
 and inspired the race of men to mighty 
 strides of progress, far above its brutish 
 origin. Thought began its work within 
 the brain, language was devised to carry 
 it on from brain to brain, and recorded 
 history set up its monuments that time to 
 come might derive aid from time gone by, 
 and man could make his way toward his 
 destiny. Did God recede from out His 
 work and leave the children he had made 
 to stumble onward to their fate? Nay, 
 as his all-pervading spirit had been in the 
 void heavens, in the whirling mass of 
 
74 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 formless substance, in the evolving worlds, 
 and in the clothing life thereon, so was it 
 working still in the race of man to bring 
 it to perfection. 
 
 *' Upon our little earth, what has his- 
 tory been, and what experience, but the 
 growth of men through processes of evo- 
 lution, wherein the revelation of God is 
 to be read with ever-growing clearness ? 
 As in the process of evolving man from 
 beast, the incipient soul, the flickering 
 spirit, in the mere flame of vital force in- 
 volved, lapsed into extinction with the 
 body's death, serving but to kindle the 
 generations to a higher glow until the 
 soul could live apart from physical life, so 
 hath God still wrought within the race of 
 man to bring forth perfect souls, off- 
 spring of himself and fit to abide with 
 him, — objects of infinite love, which 
 wrought through all to this sole end. 
 Immortal spirits by process of selection 
 and survival from this human race have 
 sprung, and ever it tends to rise to where 
 all its souls shall that degree attain of free- 
 
DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. 75 
 
 dom from the brute and from the long 
 inheritance of death, by which they can live 
 apart from flesh and sense, — that family 
 of the Eternal God, for which creative 
 power hath been exerted through all the 
 ages. 
 
 " This orderly evolution, which is the 
 Divine method, the progressive effect of 
 the Infinite Mind seeking its constant 
 aim, producing creative results through 
 laws that finite minds can grasp and rise 
 upon, is not yet complete on that small 
 planet, where we erstwhile dwelt, nor in 
 the universe at large. Behold the little 
 way that man has crept from his ancestral 
 brute, save the few high souls that have 
 received God's light to diffuse among 
 their kind 1 
 
 " See how, at the dawn of recorded his- 
 tory, the brutish instincts still prevailed, 
 and passions derived from the animal life 
 and meant to spur it on to higher devel- 
 opment, overcame the qualities of the 
 struggling soul. Man saw in wind and 
 storm, in light and dark, and in the pro- 
 
76 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 cess of earth's elements his God, and in 
 terror made Him one or many, in imagina- 
 tion compassed round with invisible pow- 
 ers benign or malignant ; but the serene 
 Soul that wrought in love and wisdom 
 was to him unknown. Man cast into 
 forms visible or fanciful the gods he 
 feared, and worshipped them in dread, not 
 love, to turn away their wrath or gain 
 their favor. From his own dim soul he 
 made a soul to him divine, gave it 
 the passions of his body and called it 
 God. Hence gross or fierce, man's earli- 
 est deity. 
 
 '' Then how raged the passions of the 
 incipient soul, tumultuous qualities of an- 
 cestral brutes, mingling in overwhelming 
 force with the Spirit Divine now making 
 way in man ! From this creative ferment, 
 — the process still from which the perfect 
 race should spring, — came bloody wars, 
 the rise and fall of states, destruction of 
 races, and new races rising forth to greater 
 heights, and all the while men made their 
 gods in image of themselves, and in them 
 
i.. 
 
 DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. J J 
 
 worshipped themselves to godly stature 
 magnified. 
 
 " Yet in the growing race 'twas God that 
 wrought, his spirit more and more infus- 
 ing into the souls of men, and brineino- 
 more and more the heart into subjection. 
 It was evolution still, the eternal Spirit 
 working in material substance toward 
 Its destmed end, to bring immortal souls 
 into separate being, and establish mutual 
 love between the infinite Soul and its 
 myriad offspring. 'Twas more of God 
 within man's soul that raised one or 
 another o'er his fellows and made him 
 leader, teacher, prophet, to bring his 
 people up to higher, grander and purer 
 light. 
 
 '' One while and in one region of the 
 earth arose in man the spirit of conquest 
 and of power, developing the force to 
 overcome and bring into subjection to 
 the will. Another while and otherwhere 
 pervailed the spirit of law to bring into 
 order and safe system the body politic 
 and social; from this came ever-growing 
 
78 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 germs of just and stable government. 
 Again, arose the intellect to lofty flights 
 in thought and reason, reaching after 
 wider, deeper knowledge and higher 
 truth ; and love of beauty and of sym- 
 metry sought expression in works of art 
 and skill, emulating the great Creator's 
 handiwork. Again, the Divine spirit that 
 wrought upon the earth inspired a people, 
 for that end chosen, with sentiments of 
 pure love for parent and child, for kin and 
 race, for the Power above but dimly known 
 and felt, and instilled the sense of rever- 
 ence and obedience. From this sprang 
 family love, the patriot's ardor, and puri- 
 fied affection, with sense of right o'er- 
 mastering the tendency to wrong. Still 
 wrought the striving soul to overcome 
 the brute in man, the inheritance of the 
 primal stage. 
 
 '' As elements of the growing race 
 developed thus in varied time and place, 
 the period of their commingling came, 
 and ere the contact of ingredients, attrac- 
 tive and repellent, was brought about for 
 
DISCOURSE OF A HEAVENLY SAGE. 79 
 
 the fierce ferment, within the bosom of 
 the mass arose the sweet leaven of self- 
 denying love and of the devotion of one 
 to other's good, which through long tur- 
 moil of conflict should ever spread with 
 regenerating force, to bring at last the 
 good and pure to mastery of the powers 
 of ill, — not ill in God's great plan but 
 incidental ill to man in process of his 
 growth. 
 
 '' Lo ! through generations still the 
 ferment eoes. From its commotion have 
 nations sprung to greater height from 
 other nations' ruin, and institutions 
 grown, sloughing off the old, outworn 
 devices of a weaker time, and with vital 
 energies of the rising race adapting all 
 to newer needs. The intellect of man, 
 inventive and contriving, or in reflection 
 calmly reasoning, with ever growing zeal 
 seeks for knowledge and for power to 
 serve his race and make all forces minis- 
 ter to its wants. But also grows the 
 sense of right, the love of beauty and of 
 truth, the aspiration for the higher 
 
So BEYOMD THE BOURN: 
 
 state to which the soul hath felt itself 
 the destined heir since first divinity 
 became a conscious element within its 
 depths. 
 
 '' On many spheres the contest still 
 goes on, with varied strides of progress, 
 the contest through which the embodied 
 spirit surmounts the impulses of the 
 flesh, derived from that long ancestry 
 of the brute through which the soul has 
 climbed and grown in power till fit to be 
 let loose for life without the flesh. A 
 contest, viewed by the finite mind, but in 
 truth no contest, for in all is but the 
 steady working of the one great Soul, to 
 the end of peopling heaven with its off- 
 spring. Nor deem that perfection yet is 
 reached when souls are born to heavenly 
 life through throes of death from forth 
 the dark gestation of the earth. 'Tis 
 life begun, not finished." 
 
VII. 
 
 LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 
 
 The thrilling influence of the benign 
 spirit ceased and the glow of his presence 
 was withdrawn. From one to another 
 among our congenial group the vibrations 
 of his wisdom passed, begetting reflec- 
 tions that were as fully reciprocal as if we 
 had made them subject of discussion. In 
 this soothing contemplation of the mean- 
 ing of the message and this silent commu- 
 nion of sympathetic souls, we reposed as it 
 were upon beds of invisible and impalpable 
 down, until at length my thoughts were 
 diverted to the vast array of worlds and 
 systems that make up the material uni- 
 verse, discernible to the spiritual vision in 
 all its limitless extent. Half musing I 
 inquired : *' And all these rolling spheres 
 that circle around their many suns, are 
 
82 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 they peopled with beings like the inhabi- 
 tants of the earth?" 
 
 It was not so much an inquiry de- 
 manding answer as an expression of won- 
 der, but my beloved friend promptly 
 replied : *' Those myriad spheres are at 
 various stages of development and decay, 
 from the nebulae seething with the germs 
 of life, to the worn out planet lapsing 
 into its original elements through the 
 exhaustion of the forces of light and 
 heat. Upon many of them are races of 
 people like the inhabitants of earth in 
 being the creatures of the same^- God, 
 owing the same duties to themselves and 
 to Him, but in each world they differ in 
 their surroundings, in the conditions of 
 life and the degrees of progress which 
 they have made in working out their own 
 perfection, 
 
 *' There is one world, remote from that 
 part of the heavens in which our mortal 
 existence was passed, which I chiefly love 
 to visit. I came upon it in one of the 
 explorations which I am fOnd of making 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 83 
 
 among the distant spheres, and was at- 
 tracted by its likeness to a larger and 
 more perfect earth. It seemed to me 
 that tJicre was what philosophers had so 
 long dreamed that human life might be, 
 after ages more of experiment with dimin- 
 ishing failure and growing success, — a sort 
 of ideal state in which man's mastery 
 over nature and over himself had become 
 well-nigh complete. I will not attempt 
 to tell you of this world and the state of 
 its people, but you shall see for your- 
 self." 
 
 Then with no other effort than the ex- 
 ercise of volition, our whole group, almost 
 wrapped in each other's being, like a 
 single soul, removed from where we had 
 been reposing in the ethereal solitude, and 
 glided through the heavens, swift or slow 
 as the spirit willed. We were conscious 
 of the passage of other spirits on various 
 journeys and of groups reposing in 
 bowers that would be invisible to eyes 
 of flesh, but to the spiritual vision were 
 resplendent with beauty. 
 
84 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 We passed worlds and systems of 
 worlds until at last we drew near a planet 
 that revolved with others around one of 
 the brightest suns of the firmament, but 
 one which no optical instrument had ever 
 brought within the ken of mortals on the 
 earth. When we reached the soft atmos- 
 phere that wrapped this world about, we 
 paused and glided slowly over it as it 
 floated calmly on its way. 
 
 It was a globe of about twice the diam- 
 eter of the earth, similarly situated with 
 reference to its sun and having similar 
 motions, but with longer days and sea- 
 sons. About it hung twelve moons of 
 different sizes and at different distances. 
 From the surface of the planet these 
 seemed to occupy different parts of the 
 sky, and as they reflected the light of the 
 sun in their various positions were in dif- 
 ferent stages of change and therefore 
 diverse in apparent shape. The heavens, 
 seen through the soft and lucid atmos- 
 phere, were wonderfully rich in bright- 
 ness and glory, and must have exerted 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 85 
 
 a peculiarly exalting influence on the 
 people of that happy sphere. 
 
 As we came nearer, I observed that 
 the surface of the planet was made up of 
 land and water in varied forms. There 
 were mountains and valleys and plains, 
 oceans in which the land seemed to be 
 floating, lakes and streams like glittering 
 gems and shining bands. Hence there 
 were clouds and rain and storm. 
 
 Then I thought of the words of the 
 heavenly seer and clearly saw that all the 
 worlds were of one substance, similar 
 combinations of the same elements, on 
 which, under the effect of heat and mo- 
 tion in their multitudinous forms, similar 
 varieties of life had been engendered. I 
 understood how in the far-off beginning 
 they had been one mass in which the 
 creative Spirit began its work, that 
 work going on through aeons, which to 
 God are as nothing and to man as an 
 eternity ; the substance was thrown asun- 
 der by centrifugal force and distributed 
 in separate masses through infinite space, 
 
86 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 and these in due time subdivided into 
 worlds and systems. 
 
 I seemed to follow the great process, as 
 in the silent ages through the lonely 
 heavens the creative Spirit w^'ought, as 
 these worlds were fitted for organic life, 
 and as organic life began upon them. I 
 saw the conditions of the worlds change 
 under the operation of this mighty power 
 at work through them all, new and higher 
 forms of life appearing until the sentient, 
 thinking being sprang forth — a newborn 
 intelligence, an individual soul emanating 
 from the great pervading Soul of all, and 
 immortal as Itself. 
 
 My companions were aware of these 
 thoughts, and my friend recalled me from 
 my speculations to the object of our 
 visit. 
 
 *' The beings that inhabit this world," 
 he said, '* seem to have had more favorable 
 conditions and a longer experience than 
 the race to which we belonged. At all 
 events they are much farther advanced 
 toward a perfect state. 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 8/ 
 
 " Their early history is involved in ob- 
 scurity like all other early history, and 
 what they have of it themselves is mixed 
 with vague traditions and conjectures. 
 To the Divine Mind it is all clear, but we 
 finite spirits can only study what is, and 
 reason back to what was and forward to 
 what will be." 
 
 We glided about this globe with the 
 quickness of thought but with a celerity 
 and accuracy of perception which enabled 
 us closely to note its appearance and pe- 
 culiarities. I saw that the people had 
 completely overcome the obstacles of 
 nature and established means of commu- 
 nication over its entire surface. The 
 contour of land and water was such that 
 at some point or other the continents ap- 
 proached each other within a few miles. 
 Near these narrow straits the climate 
 might have been forbidding and the na- 
 ture of the country originally inhospitable, 
 but the appliances which the people had 
 brought to bear in the course of long gene- 
 rations had overcome these disadvantages. 
 
88 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 No parts of the planet were given up 
 to wilderness or desert, but labor had 
 brought the wilderness into subjection 
 and made the desert like a garden, to minis- 
 ter to the wants of the people. Art had 
 also been used to moderate the extremes of 
 climate and to protect the person from 
 their effects, so that every portion of 
 that globe was accessible and serviceable 
 to its inhabitants. Every part was made 
 to minister to every other part by means 
 of rapid and constant intercommunica- 
 tion. 
 
 The people had by long study acquired 
 a complete knowledge of the outlines 
 and the heights and depressions of the 
 land, whether above the water or in the 
 depths of the sea, and along all convenient 
 lines were roads, on the surface, through 
 mountain ranges, over rivers, straits and 
 lakes, or under the ground or water, 
 according to requirement. Roads for 
 travel and for freight transportation were 
 separate, and on each were cars or car- 
 riages exactly fitted for every purpose 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. Sq 
 
 and every convenience, and propelled 
 with such velocity that the circuit of the 
 planet could be compassed in a single 
 day. 
 
 On these lines of communication the 
 people and their merchandise passed to 
 and fro constantly. Oceans caused no 
 delay, for these roads ran to the narrow 
 passages and crossed them by bridge or 
 tunnel without interruption. The bottom 
 of the ocean, too, in its widest part, was 
 traversed by the travelling devices of 
 these people, their ingenuity having con- 
 trived such swift means of locomotion 
 and such effectual methods of supporting 
 life beneath the water, that even thit 
 great obstacle had been overcome. 
 
 I learned from my friend, who had 
 often visited this world, that all the 
 forces of nature had been pressed into 
 service to supply the most effective mo- 
 tive power. Not only electricity, but 
 also the expansive force of many solid, 
 liquid and gaseous substances, the force 
 of gravitation, power of their solar light, 
 
90 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 the motion of the planet itself, and all 
 the active powers of the elements had 
 been harnessed to the engines of this 
 wonderful people. 
 
 But their travel was not confined to 
 the solid ground. The surface of the 
 water was traversed for purposes of pleas- 
 ure and of traffic in vessels fitted with 
 every convenience for comfortable living 
 and such perfect apparatus and safe- 
 guards that danger was never thought of. 
 These vessels moved swiftly or slowly 
 like living things controlled by the will of 
 the navigator. 
 
 Not only the land and the sea bore 
 the people hither and thither with won- 
 derful speed, perfect safety and exact 
 precision, but the air, too, w^as filled with 
 vessels that seemed to fly like animated 
 creatures. Single persons were borne 
 about, hundreds of feet above the ground 
 in all directions by a simple contrivance 
 that sped like a bird whithersoever the oc- 
 cupant directed it, and large companies 
 sailed in gay aerial ships that obeyed their 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 9 1 
 
 pilot's wish as to speed and direction, and 
 went over mountain-tops and seas. 
 
 Not only in temperate and tropic 
 climes did these vessels ply, but they 
 passed over frozen seas and lands, disem- 
 barking their passengers, if they so willed, 
 among the icebergs at the very poles. 
 Everywhere they carried devices adapted 
 to the place, heating or cooling the at- 
 mosphere, keeping off moisture or reliev- 
 ing dryness, according to the require- 
 ments of the case. 
 
 My friend told me, moreover, that they 
 had burrowed beneath the surface of the 
 ground, travelling to and fro in its depths 
 and sending merchandise long distances 
 through subterranean tubes with mar- 
 vellous speed. 
 
 Besides all these methods of swift 
 travel they had a complete system for 
 the communication of speech over all the 
 surface of the planet, so that messages 
 could be sent in an instant from one point 
 to another, however far apart. All lines 
 for the transmission of messages were be- 
 
92 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 neath the surface or within the buildings, 
 so that the apparatus did not attract the 
 eye or stand in the way, and instruments 
 connecting with tliem were in every 
 house. The ingenuity of the people had 
 overcome every obstacle to freedom of 
 movement and communication, and they 
 had become one great brotherhood, con- 
 stantly mingling together and in close 
 association to the very limits of their 
 world. They understood how com- 
 pletely their interests were one, and every 
 clime and land ministered freely to every 
 other, exchanging products and advan- 
 tages of every kind. 
 
 There was but one language spoken, 
 and that was formed and perfected in the 
 process of ages from the choicest ele- 
 ments of all the tonsfues that had ori«-in- 
 ally come into use in various regions, and 
 therefore was the most consummate me- 
 dium for expressing thought that thought 
 itself could devise. 
 
 Observing still more closely, we could 
 see that the same ingenuity which had 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 93 
 
 devised such perfect means of travel and 
 transportation had been able to utilize all 
 the resources and forces of nature in sup- 
 plying the wants of the people. Every 
 clime and every land was devoted to the 
 labor and the production for which it was 
 best adapted, and means were used to 
 extract from each the richest results, 
 without wasting its strength. The soil 
 was made to yield up its best treasures 
 freely. Where there was too much mois- 
 ture means were found to remove it ; 
 where there was not enough, it was sup- 
 plied. The temperature was regulated 
 according to the wants of the farmer or 
 gardener, and he was the master and not 
 the slave of the elements. All his work 
 for which force was necessary was per- 
 formed by the forces of nature. He only 
 planned and directed, furnishing the in- 
 telligence needed to secure the best re- 
 sults. Each locality being devoted to 
 the production of those things for the 
 growth of which it was best fitted, and 
 every appliance being used to obtain its 
 
94 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 treasures in the fullest abundance, there 
 was no waste of effort, and these riches 
 were constantly distributed and inter- 
 changed so as to keep every want of all 
 the people supplied. 
 
 In the cultivation of the soil attention 
 was not given solely to fruits and grains 
 to satisfy the animal wants, but every 
 variety of trees and shrubs and flowers 
 that could delight the eye and give beauty 
 to the landscape, was planted and fos- 
 tered with judgment and artistic taste. 
 Neither did industry busy itself exclu- 
 sively on the surface, but the riches of 
 the rocks and of the seas were made ac- 
 cessible. They were not sought with the 
 feverish eagerness which prevailed when 
 they were found with difficulty and in 
 meagre quantities ages before, for now 
 the storehouses were opened and what 
 was wanted could be had at any time. 
 
 Beneath the mountains and hills were 
 mines and shafts cutting through the 
 vaults in which their riches were hid, and 
 in these were all appliances for obtaining 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 95 
 
 the stores of gems and metals. Those 
 that were useful in the manifold arts of 
 life were in constant demand, and men 
 were at work getting them out, but no- 
 body cared to accumulate them for their 
 own sake. 
 
 The wealth that was scattered in the 
 caves and valleys of the sea had also 
 been brought within reach. The depths, 
 once given up to solitude and the grisly 
 monsters of the under-world, were ex- 
 plored by the active beings who had as- 
 serted their mastery over the planet and 
 its possessions. They had appliances 
 which enabled them to live long at the 
 bottom of the oceans and to travel their 
 depths at will ; and whatever was hidden 
 there that could serve them for orna- 
 ment or use they sought out and brought 
 to the light. 
 
 So perfect were the appliances for 
 travel and transportation that the people 
 were distributed over the face of the 
 planet exactly in accordance with their 
 tastes and wishes, for whatever any one 
 
96 BEYOND THE BOURN: 
 
 wanted he could easily obtain, no matter 
 how far from the source of supply. 
 While concentration and co-operation in 
 the various interests and enterprises of 
 life created centres of business and of 
 population, there were no densely crowded 
 cities. 
 
 Wherever the convenience of com- 
 merce or any other consideration placed 
 these centres of life and activity, there 
 the markets and warehouses were clus- 
 tered together in proximity to wharves 
 and depots, which were furnished with 
 all manner of mechanical contrivances for 
 loading and unloading merchandise and 
 transporting it from point to point. Very 
 little muscular force of man or animal 
 was used about the docks and storehouses, 
 so manifold were the appliances of mech- 
 anism. Every building was exactly suited 
 to its purpose in location and character, 
 and there was no interference or clogging 
 in the broad avenues. 
 
 There was no occasion to economize 
 space, since in moving back and forth 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. 9/ 
 
 time is the important consideration, and 
 they had means of passing long distances 
 in short periods. Hence there were 
 broad spaces about all the buildings and 
 the thoroughfares were ample, giving 
 perfect freedom of movement. Near the 
 depots and stores in concentric circles 
 were all manner of factories and shops in 
 which every article that the people might 
 want could be found, but no dwellings 
 were placed in proximity to these estab- 
 lishments of traffic. Spread for miles 
 around along diverging avenues were the 
 habitations of the people, each occupy- 
 ing ample space, with fruitful gardens 
 and shaded walks and a profusion of rich 
 herbage and trees and flowers. Each 
 home was filled with comfort, and sur- 
 rounded by the influences that refine and 
 elevate, but there was no outward sign 
 of luxury or extravagance. 
 
 These people had learned generations 
 before that there was no true happiness 
 in luxury, no enjoyment in parade ; and 
 after fierce struggles and perverse opposi- 
 
98 BEYOND rtUi BOURN. 
 
 tion, had accepted the great lesson that 
 the results of the united labors of the 
 community belonged of right to that 
 community for the satisfaction of the 
 rational wants of every member. No 
 man was regarded as having any right to 
 a superfluity while another was in need. 
 That great lesson once learned, poverty, 
 ignorance and crime soon departed from 
 the world, for enough is easily obtained 
 from nature's bounty to minister to every 
 reasonable need of body and mind. And, 
 poverty and ignorance once banished, 
 crime and vice speedily disappeared. 
 
 Another beneficent result of the wis- 
 dom attained by this people was that 
 there was no longer any waste of labor. 
 Every individual did his share of work, 
 so that there were no consumers who did 
 not help gather in the supplies, no drones 
 supported by others' work : neither was 
 there any throwing away of the products 
 of nature and of labor after they had 
 been obtained. 
 
 In their old barbaric ages, as in the 
 
LIFE 0/V A DISTANT SPHERE. 99 
 
 present of worlds still in their infancy, 
 the recklessness and wantonness of the 
 people were constantly destroying their 
 possessions. Fire was allowed to burn 
 them up, disasters on land and sea swept 
 them to fragments and to nothingness, 
 waves devoured them, and ignorance was 
 continually throwing precious things into 
 heaps of rubbish. 
 
 Now there was no rubbish. Every- 
 thing was utilized from the moment it 
 came from the bosom of nature till it re- 
 turned thither to nourish new growths, 
 and nowhere In the cycle of transforma- 
 tion was it permitted to become noxious 
 or useless. Wholesomeness, cleanliness 
 and beauty accompanied all the opera- 
 tions of nature under the wise direction 
 of man. 
 
 Another great lesson which this people 
 had learned in their ages of experience 
 was that it was folly, absolute and with- 
 out mitigation, to spend all one's days and 
 wear out life in accumulating what can 
 at best be but partially used, and that 
 
lOO BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 only as a means of promoting the real 
 objects of existence. 
 
 Those things which in the rude old 
 times were treasured as wealth and held 
 as precious for their ov/n sake — what were 
 they but the means of securing the con- 
 ditions of comfortable life, and how small 
 a share could one man profitably use ! 
 Yet thousands were wont to toil through- 
 out their lives in heaping together, what 
 they with unconscious irony of truth 
 called ''means," while those real ends, 
 for which the means ought to have been 
 used, were overlooked and forgotten. 
 Not only did those who made themselves 
 rich, by grasping such a large share of 
 the gifts of nature, multiply their own 
 labor and trouble without benefit to 
 themselves, but they were engaged in a 
 cruel struggle to keep those gifts from 
 the possession of others, thereby causing 
 misery to their fellow-beings. Now they 
 had learned that this selfish spirit de- 
 stroyed their own happiness. 
 
 No one cared longer for great accumu- 
 
LIFE ON A DISTANT SPHERE. lOI 
 
 lations. Every one had all he needed or 
 desired, and used it to secure the means 
 of real happiness by promoting the de- 
 velopment of his own character and grati- 
 fying his noblest tastes, while finding it 
 essential to his happiness also to see that 
 others had an opportunity of doing the 
 same thing. The real purpose of life was 
 now understood, and that blindness was 
 no longer known which had mistaken the 
 means of living for its object. To supply 
 all the actual wants of the people re- 
 quired but a small share of the time and 
 effort of each individual, devoted to that 
 special end. 
 
 I found that not over one-sixth of 
 everybody's time was spent in productive 
 labor. In the system of industry which 
 brought the treasures of nature from her 
 stores to the places and the persons that 
 needed them, and in the form and condi- 
 tion which made them most useful, every 
 person took his part, but the whole work 
 was easily and fully accomplished by the 
 devotion of one-sixth of each person's 
 
I02 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 time to the work. Every one did a cer- 
 tain part according to his aptitude and 
 capacity or the circumstances of his Hfe, 
 and every one received, with all the pre- 
 cision that comes from obeying the laws 
 of nature and of justice, his due share of 
 the results. 
 
VIII. 
 
 PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. 
 
 Of my friend, — who had learned much 
 of the history of this people, not only by 
 circulating unseen among them and mak- 
 ing those rapid observations and ready 
 inferences which only the disembodied 
 spirit is capable of, but by communion 
 with those who had passed their mortal 
 state upon that sphere, — I asked by what 
 process the present industrial condition 
 had been attained ; whether through 
 what we had known as communism or 
 socialism, or any other device of public 
 regulation. 
 
 " Nay," he replied, " this state of com- 
 parative perfection has been attained by 
 growth and development in individual 
 character, and by getting into practice, 
 after generations of experience and increas- 
 
104 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 ing wisdom, the principles of justice and 
 beneficence through the voluntary co-oper- 
 ation of the people. Where every one is 
 willing to do his share of work and capa- 
 ble of understanding what his share is ; 
 where each one is content with his share 
 of the result, and where all are ready, 
 even anxious, to give others an equal 
 chance with themselves and accord to 
 each that to which he is entitled, there is 
 no longer any ground for troubles and 
 difficulties. Where intelligence and an 
 absolute sense of right prevail, and where 
 personal selfishness is displaced by a de- 
 votion to the general good, co-operation 
 becomes easy and effective in every 
 branch of activity and between different 
 branches over the widest domain. The 
 methods and agencies of such a co-opera- 
 tion are readily found and applied, and 
 they work with the harmony that neces- 
 sarily comes from obedience to moral 
 
 1 ' ' 
 laws. 
 
 ** But," I said, " capacities being differ- 
 ent and employments varying, how are 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. T05 
 
 the results fairly apportioned ? Surely 
 each one does not receive the same share 
 of the products of the common labor." 
 
 " Surely not," was the reply. '* You 
 must remember that the state of things 
 we see here is the result of generations of 
 development and growth, of long ages of 
 experience and discipline in the virtues, 
 but through it all has wrought the spirit 
 of emulation and the spur of a stimulus 
 to effort. It has not produced a flat level 
 of uniformity in these beings or the inan- 
 ition of a life devoid of motives to exer- 
 tion. But great is the power of justice 
 directed by intelligence, and mighty is 
 the sway of the principle of unselfishness, 
 once accepted and all-prevailing. The 
 men who form the vast community peo- 
 pling this beautiful planet vary in their 
 qualities and capacities, but they have 
 learned to recognize the responsibilities 
 and obligations of their varying talents. 
 
 "■ Through their voluntary system of co- 
 operation each one receives a share in the 
 product of the common effort exactly 
 
I06 BEYOXD THE noURiY. 
 
 proportioned to his part in the work of 
 production, including all the processes of 
 distribution. This has become vcr)- sim- 
 ple and easy from the fact that every one 
 in his relation with others fully under- 
 stands what he is entitled to and wdiat 
 others are entitled to, and every one is 
 perfectly satisfied with his own and will- 
 ing to accord to others that which is 
 fairly theirs. The ancient contentions 
 and tribulations were due to selfishness 
 and ignorance, and the thousand wrongs 
 that flowed from them." 
 
 "Then," I said, " there must be the 
 rich and the comparatively poor among 
 these people, the wise and the compara- 
 tively simple, with differences of station 
 and conditions of life." 
 
 "■ Well," said the spirit, with serene 
 gravity, ''if there were not, what would 
 be the use of continuing this mortal ex- 
 istence upon a material globe? The race 
 might as well be disembodied at once, 
 for it would have no further use for 
 this material field of effort and of train- 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. \0J 
 
 ing. But, long ago, those of superior 
 capacity learned that they exercised a 
 stewardship for the benefit of others. 
 The community did not claim or seize 
 the products of labor, skill and prudence 
 to hold them in common and distribute 
 them equally, thus destroying the springs 
 of benevolence and the motives of mutual 
 helpfulness, and drawmg the very life- 
 blood of progress. But those to whom 
 much was given gave much. What came 
 to them as the result of superior wisdom 
 and capacity, they turned back in rich 
 measure upon the community. Not only 
 did they see justice done in all matters 
 with which they were concerned, but, 
 where need was, they contributed gener- 
 ously to mitigate the evils that came from 
 imperfect conditions, and thereby to rem- 
 edy those conditions. They wrought 
 wisely with their means and their ability, 
 to dispel poverty and crime and suffering, 
 to suppress the evils that afflicted their 
 race and to remove the causes of evil, to 
 educate, to enlighten and to elevate. 
 
I08 BEYOND THE BOUKiV. 
 
 " It is largely by this process — of devot- 
 ing wealth obtained by individual effort 
 to promoting the common well-being — 
 that the present comparatively perfected 
 state of things was reached. Fresh from 
 earthly experience, you can well imagine 
 that the process was long, but that, once 
 begun, it grew constantly easier and more 
 rapid, as the ratio of light to darkness 
 increased. So long as there were wrongs 
 to be corrected, evils to be remedied and 
 needs to be supplied, the capable gave of 
 their efforts and the rich of their sub- 
 stance in a beneficent co-operation for the 
 amelioration of the race. 
 
 " For a long time now this plan of 
 beneficence has been working until igno- 
 rance, poverty, wickedness and suffering 
 have been exterminated, by no system of 
 laws and regulations, but by an all-per- 
 vading spirit of mutual helpfulness and 
 generous co-operation, which enforces its 
 own decrees. Like every great result, it 
 has come through growth. All are main- 
 tained in comfort and ease by systems of in- 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. IO9 
 
 dustiy and interchange, gradually devised 
 and voluntarily carried on, and regulated 
 by the natural principles of justice and 
 right-doing. All opportunities are made 
 equal, and those who by superior capac- 
 ity attain a large share of wealth make 
 it part of their business to provide for 
 the general needs and for the embellish- 
 ments of life, not for themselves alone 
 but for the community at large, seeking 
 to diffuse with wisely directed beneficence 
 the advantages which they enjoy. The 
 difference between public and private in- 
 terests and methods is well-nigh oblit- 
 erated by the constant and universal ap- 
 plication of the principles of unselfish- 
 ness, and all see how much better off and 
 how much happier they are for it." 
 
 As our family party of celestial visi- 
 tants continued to explore this scene of 
 mortal life in its wonderfully developed 
 phases, from observation and the com- 
 ments of our guide I learned more and 
 more how the time was passed by these 
 fortunate beings. As I have said, not 
 
no BEYOND THE BOURM. 
 
 more than one-sixth of the hours of each 
 day were devoted by any person to his 
 share of regular labor. The rest of the 
 time was spent in living. It was divided 
 by old and young in due proportions — 
 not by regulation but by natural aptitude 
 and good sense — between repose and ac- 
 tivity ; including study and the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge, observation, and the 
 interchange of thought and ideas, rational 
 sports, and pure enjoyments. It was 
 plainly a life of comfort and happiness 
 from which the taint of suffering and 
 sorrow had been eliminated. 
 
 For purposes of education there were 
 schools, museums containing specimens 
 of all products of nature and of human 
 skill, art-galleries, collections of all things 
 useful or beautiful. During the hours of 
 each day devoted to education these ob- 
 jects were studied and made familiar in 
 all their characteristics. Libraries, which 
 were the daily resort of the people, were 
 filled with the thoughts and the wisdom 
 of the great, whether living or dead, but 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. I I I 
 
 nothing worthless, nothing which was not 
 calculated to contribute to the growth 
 and perfection of the soul was admitted 
 to them. In fact, long ago the minds of 
 these people had ceased to be employed 
 in creating worthless literature, and what 
 had been created of that kind had fallen 
 into oblivion and gone to dust. There 
 was no longer any demand for such pro- 
 ductions. All means of culture were 
 provided by the people, and ever open 
 for the free use of all. 
 
 Every appliance that could be devised 
 for the promotion of the health and hap- 
 piness of the people — great parks, with 
 their walks and drives, their lakes and 
 fountains, their fields, groves and bowers 
 for the diversion and enjoyment of old 
 and young — had been provided out of 
 the wealth of the community, not by 
 any public levy but by voluntary contri- 
 butions from those whose incomes were 
 largest. In the same way indoor estab- 
 lishments for diversion and healthful 
 sports and exercises, and for all manner 
 
112 BEYOND THE BOURN 
 
 of amusements were maintained, and still 
 are maintained, by co-operation of pri- 
 vate means and efforts. The care and 
 management of all such appliances for the 
 general benefit are in the hands of com- 
 petent persons employed by the associa- 
 tions that support them. There is no 
 need of the intervention of public author- 
 ity, which indeed hardly exists as author- 
 ity. 
 
 " But can it be," I asked of my guide 
 and friend, " that here is a mortal race 
 which has outgrown the vices, wrongs 
 and sufferings still so familiar to human 
 beings on the earth? " 
 
 " Almost," was the reply. '* Here is a 
 people in which all the primal differences 
 of race and blood have become blended 
 into a common brotherhood, and a com- 
 mon sympathy and sound fellow-feeling 
 have taken the place of old antipathies. 
 Through the discipline of past experience 
 and the growth of wisdom they have 
 learned that to work together for the 
 general good is the best means of pro- 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. 1 1 3 
 
 moting the individual well-being. They 
 have learned to conform their lives to the 
 laws of nature and the principles of right, 
 and thereby they avoid the ills that 
 spring from disease and misfortune. 
 
 " The greatest progress toward this 
 state of immunity from what used to be 
 called the * ills of life * was made when 
 first the people came fully to appreciate 
 the importance of birth. They learned 
 that the struggle to correct inherited ten- 
 dencies and innate impulses was well-nigh 
 futile, and saw the wisdom of a sound start 
 in life. Hence they began to give atten- 
 tion to pre-natal influences and conditions, 
 and to avoid the propagation of physical, 
 mental and moral defects. A few gener- 
 ations of that kind of prudence wrought 
 wonderful results upon the race, and what 
 used to be regarded as natural depravity, 
 — qualities transmitted from a far-off 
 brute origin, — rapidly disappeared. 
 
 " As offspring became the result of ra- 
 tional purpose instead of blind impulse, 
 it was easier to train it to a wholesome 
 
114 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 development, but in that process wisdom 
 was still applied at every step. As the 
 intellect and moral sense opened to sur- 
 rounding influences they were wisely and 
 gently directed, and children almost un- 
 consciously formed right habits of con- 
 duct and sound views of their relations 
 in life. The animal instincts, once so 
 strong and so prone to vice, were over- 
 come by the careful development of 
 higher qualities, and evil tendencies were 
 neutralized and progressively excluded by 
 the occupation of the mind with noble 
 thoughts and pure sentiments. Under 
 the process of wise and tender parental 
 training the old anxieties of families 
 were displaced with unalloyed domestic 
 felicity. 
 
 " As the result of health in body and 
 mind, produced by sound birth and 
 wholesome influences, these men and 
 women are exquisite in beauty of form 
 and feature, and buoyant with unvarying 
 cheerfulness. They are clad, as you will 
 observe, in simple garments, calculated to 
 
FKOGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. I I 5 
 
 promote their comfort, and to set off 
 rather than to conceal the grace and sym- 
 metry of the body. They long ago lost 
 the taste for artificial adornments, for 
 when physical defects had been overcome 
 they found that natural beauty was far 
 more attractive without these." 
 
 ?Iere I suggested that with us on earth 
 unwise or imprudent marriages had been 
 the cause of many evils difficult to deal 
 with. 
 
 ''Yes," my friend replied, ''and this 
 race went through a like experience in 
 ages past. Before ignorance and folly in 
 regard to such all-important relations had 
 been overcome by enlightenment, men 
 and women were incited by impulses aris- 
 ing from their physical nature to unions 
 in which wisdom had no part. Under 
 the sway of blind passion they imagined 
 themselves fitted for happiness in the 
 closest and most exacting of all relations, 
 and promised to love and cherish each 
 other until death. But love cannot be 
 given in payment of promise or delivered 
 
Il6 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 to fulfil a pledge, and in many cases those 
 who were bound together found them- 
 selves unfitted by nature and training to 
 live in harmony. Instead of the benefits 
 that conjugal union should bring to life 
 and character, there was discord and deg- 
 radation of spirit. Society for its own 
 protection forbade the easy dissolution of 
 the galling bond, and from the enforced 
 unions came offspring endowed with 
 perversities of temper and physical, mental 
 and moral imperfections that marred their 
 whole lives beyond cure. 
 
 " This kind of hap-hazard and ill- 
 assorted marriage is no longer known. 
 Children of both sexes are brought up 
 with an understanding of themselves and 
 of each other, and of this, as well as of 
 other relations in life, which prepares them 
 to assume the duties and the delights of 
 married existence, with assurance against 
 the old risks of misery. Love is of course 
 a matter of sentiment and is not without 
 the glow of passion, but it is under the 
 sway of wisdom. It almost always hap- 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RA CE. 1 1 7 
 
 pens that when a young couple have such 
 an affection for each other that they de- 
 sire to live together and have families of 
 their own, they have known each other so 
 long and so well, and moreover, have been 
 familiar with the lives and characters of 
 so many others of their own age, that 
 they are sure of their fitness for a perma- 
 nent union and incur none of the old-time 
 chances of wreck. Besides, they never 
 fail to consult their friends and relatives 
 who arc older than themselves, and to 
 be guided by their counsel. As no self- 
 ish or sordid object is ever sought, and 
 as the sole desire is to reach the conclu- 
 sion that will best assure the welfare and 
 happiness of those concerned, it has long 
 been a rare thing to have to mourn over 
 a mistaken marriage or to consider ques- 
 tions of separation. 
 
 " This state of things in regard to the 
 marriage relation, together with the care 
 given to the birth as well as the training 
 of children, has had a most potent effect 
 upon the progress which this people has 
 
Il8 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 made within a few generations. The ef- 
 fect upon family Hfe has been most ele- 
 vating and strengthening. The affection 
 between husband and wife grows day by 
 day more complete ; slight incongeniali- 
 ties disappear, until there is hardly more 
 than a single self wherein the two lives 
 pass in happy accord through death to 
 an indissoluble union in the spirit life. 
 
 '* In the old days of the turbulence of 
 the passions and the waywardness of folly, 
 it was customary to surround the union 
 of man and wife with sanctions of religion 
 and obligations of law. These are no 
 longer necessary. Nothing but love can 
 make such a union sacred and nothing 
 else can make it enduring. Now there 
 are no formalities or ceremonies attend- 
 ing marriage of which the State or Church 
 takes any note. It is a personal and 
 family affair, sanctified by love and made 
 secure by the obligations of love and 
 duty. 
 
 '' No longer are children begotten in 
 heedless disregard of the lives that are to 
 
PROGRESS OF A PERFECT RACE. I 19 
 
 await them, or born to reluctant parents, 
 unfit or unable to give them proper sup- 
 port and training. The passions are in 
 subjection to reason and every child is 
 the offspring of deliberate purpose. The 
 number of children in a family is deter- 
 mined by the wishes of parents and their 
 ability to provide adequately for them, 
 and the whole community is made up 
 of happy families. The greatest misfor- 
 tune, now very rare, is to be precluded 
 by any circumstance from the joy and 
 benefit of family life. These homes are 
 often occupied by two or three genera- 
 tions of the same family living in the 
 utmost concord. 
 
 " These houses that you see spreading 
 with their flowery gardens and verdant 
 lawns in ever-broadening circles about 
 each city and finally scattering in rural 
 habitations over the intervening country, 
 are each the possession of its occupants. 
 Those who are old enough do their share 
 m the work of the community ; they de- 
 vote a portion of each day's time to 
 
120 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 studying and gathering wisdom, they 
 have their hours given to rational pleas- 
 ure, and they are at peace with each other 
 and their neighbors. 
 
 " There are no barriers between home 
 and home, and nothing is locked up or 
 guarded by night or day. Honesty and 
 universal good-will are an all-sufficient 
 protection for person and property." 
 
IX. 
 
 THE HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ''But," I asked, ''have these people 
 no government and no laws? " 
 
 " There is little need of government or 
 laws in such a state of society. Wicked- 
 ness and folly make these necessary, and 
 scarcely a vestige of those qualities re- 
 main, not enough to require a system of 
 protection against them. The effect of 
 the wonderful progress made by this 
 people has not been to increase the func- 
 tions of government, but to diminish 
 them, until only a few of the simplest 
 survive. Ages ago the necessity of deal- 
 ing with crime and destitution disap- 
 peared. With the prevalence of general 
 intelligence, universal honesty, and the 
 desire to do right, even to sacrificing self- 
 interest for the benefit of others, all 
 
122 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 need of complicated systems for the 
 settlement of disputes and difficulties 
 involving personal and property rights 
 departed. When the ancient order of 
 things, under which there were various 
 nations, with diverse interests, gave way 
 to a universal brotherhood, all necessity 
 for regulating the relations of different 
 countries was gone, and the era of armies 
 and navies and conflicting national inter- 
 ests is recalled as a barbarism of the 
 distant past. 
 
 " All industrial and commercial affairs 
 go on smoothly under the regulation of 
 a voluntary co-operation, which works ef- 
 fectually through every branch and in 
 every field of effort, applying itself to the 
 precise extent that it is required to ac- 
 complish the desired results. Where 
 there can be absolute trust and confi- 
 dence, and where suspicion of wrong 
 is never entertained, the machinery 
 of administration is amazingly simpli- 
 fied. 
 
 "Government, so far as it exists is 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 123 
 
 wholly local. Each of these great com- 
 munities with its centre for mechanical 
 4)roduction and commercial interchange, 
 and its wide surroundings of rural and 
 industrial life, forms a unit for all public 
 purposes, and the communication be- 
 tween them, which is absolutely free, 
 needs no public regulation. In each 
 there arc certains functions of general 
 utility, — such as furnishing supplies of 
 water, heat, light, and constructing and 
 maintaining roads and other means of 
 quick and constant communication, — in 
 short, the regulation of all appliances of 
 common use, — and these are subject to 
 public control. It is the application of 
 the co-operative principle to the whole 
 community. Everything that is a con- 
 cern of all the people, as distinguished 
 from their personal affairs and the busi- 
 ness and employments which they regu- 
 late among themselves by systems of 
 voluntary co-operation, is conducted as a 
 public function, and the administration of 
 such matters is placed in the hands of 
 
124 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 men qualified by character and expe- 
 rience for the work. "^ 
 
 *' The choice of men for these public 
 duties is by no means so difficult a mat- 
 ter as it might seem to be to one who has 
 just come from a life where selfishness is 
 still the ruling influence. No man seeks 
 the honor or emolument of public office, 
 for there is no greater reward of either 
 kind attached to it than the same man 
 would have in private station, and no one 
 shirks the duty and responsibility if they 
 are assigned to him by the general voice. 
 By common consent it is only men of 
 mature yearS and long experience who 
 are selected for these public functions, 
 and each is paid an equivalent of the 
 income which he has to give up in order 
 to devote his time to the public business. 
 
 " Every year, in each of these centre 
 communities, one hundred men are 
 chosen from the whole body of the peo- 
 ple to constitute the Administrative Coun- 
 cil for all public affairs. This body has 
 the entire power of regulation and Icgis- 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION^ 1 25 
 
 lation, and through its own committees, 
 or subdivisions, and through designated 
 officials from its own members it per- 
 forms all executive functions. The abil- 
 ity, experience, integrity and unselfish 
 public spirit of these men, always assured 
 by the popular choice, are an unques- 
 tioned guarantee of the most efficient, 
 honest, and economical management. 
 The Administrative Council once chosen 
 for the year, the people leave the public 
 business in its keeping with entire confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " I have learned that this is the manner 
 of electing the Council : In the great 
 community which we are now overlook- 
 ing yonder spacious structure of a single 
 story, with the succession of arched roofs 
 of glass, is the one public service build- 
 ing. It contains the Council Chamber 
 and all necessary offices and bureaus and 
 a great amphitheatre for popular gath- 
 erings. There is in this structure a 
 polling room for receiving the votes of 
 the people, which may be deposited in 
 
126 BEYOND rilE BOURN. 
 
 person or sent in by mail, i\t any time 
 during what corresponds in our minds to 
 the fust ten months of tlie >'ear, names 
 ma)' be sent in for the next council. 
 They may be members of the existing 
 council or not, and every citizen, sign- 
 ing liis ballot, may in this way suggest 
 such names as he pleases, not exceeding 
 the number to be chosen. At the end of 
 this nominating period a month is al- 
 lowed for sifting from the ballots the 
 three hundred candidates receiving the 
 highest number of votes, if there are so 
 many in all, and from these the final 
 selection is made. 
 
 " For this purpose the polls are kept 
 open during the last month of the year. 
 Each citizen may vote for one or more uf 
 the designated three hundred candidates, 
 as he pleases, within the limit of one 
 hundred, but not give more than one 
 vote for the same candidate, and the one 
 hundred receiving the highest number 
 are declared elected. As the record 
 of voting is constantly kept during its 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 12/ 
 
 progress the declaration is made at once 
 upon the closing of the polls on the last 
 day of the year. 
 
 ''This seems at first cumbersome if not 
 complicated, but there is so much inter- 
 course and interchange of opinions and 
 such universal honesty and singleness of 
 purpose that there is no great number of 
 candidates suggested in excess of the 
 number required for the council. Before 
 the end of the year there is a very gen- 
 eral agreement upon the one hundred to 
 be chosen. There is no secrecy about 
 voting and no occasion for safeguards 
 against any sort of dishonesty or fraud, 
 the discovery of which would create 
 amazement as great as would be pro- 
 duced by a case of insanity or the appear- 
 ance of a pestilence. 
 
 " There is really less of public employ- 
 ment than you might suppose, as there is 
 much voluntary service, which includes 
 pretty much all the teaching and provid- 
 ing for the cultivation and entertainment 
 of the people. The benefit is regarded 
 
128 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 as mutual, those that give deriving as 
 much satisfaction as those that receive." 
 
 "But," I said, "a pubHc fund, and 
 hence some system of contribution or 
 taxation, must be necessary for those 
 public functions which arc equally for the 
 advantage of all, but nobody's individual 
 interest to provide." 
 
 ** Well, but to whom, think you, do 
 this planet and its natural treasures and 
 opportunities belong? To the people 
 who have been placed upon it, do they 
 not? Yet in the application of their 
 labor and skill in turning the natural re- 
 sources to account, different persons 
 must occupy different areas and spaces, 
 whether farms and gardens, mines and 
 quarries, or sites for factories and ware- 
 houses. The values which they produce 
 by applying their labor and skill fairly 
 belong to themselves, but not the spaces 
 which they have taken. These are part 
 of the common heritage supplied by na- 
 ture and its beneficent author. 
 
 '' Whatever the value of mere occupa- 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 29 
 
 tion of space may be to the individual, he 
 owes to the community, and to the com- 
 munity he pays it freely and gladly for 
 the general benefit. The revenue from 
 this source is ample for every public pur- 
 pose, and furnishes the means for all the 
 general appliances of convenience, com- 
 fort and enjoyment that are not supplied 
 by private generosity, in which there is 
 a constant emulation among those pos- 
 sessed of a superfluity. Where such a 
 spirit prevails as is plainly dominant here, 
 there is little need of rulers or of laws, 
 and government in the sense with which 
 we are familiar has been outgrown. All 
 revenue for the common purposes of the 
 people is derived from the virtual rental 
 to individuals of that which is by right 
 the common possession of the people, the 
 land upon which God has placed them, 
 and that revenue is gladly paid to the 
 common treasury and is ample for all 
 public needs. Hence no burden or re- 
 striction is put upon the production and 
 interchange of the fruits of labor." 
 
I30 BEYOXD THE BOURIST. 
 
 " Hut do the women," I asked, "take 
 their share in all kinds of work ? " 
 
 " Every being does the work that is 
 adapted to his or her capabilities, no mat- 
 ter what that work may be. All distinc- 
 tions are based on individual qualities 
 and not on social divisions of any kind. 
 There arc no such divisions. There are 
 duties and tasks for which women are 
 specially fitted, and they naturally accept 
 these, but no individual is under restraint 
 or requirement of any kind. Woman has 
 her place in the family to care for the 
 young, to look after the household, the 
 home and its surroundings, and there is 
 her chief delight ; but any of the work of 
 the community that she may like to do is 
 open to her. In the libraries and lecture- 
 rooms and museums, men, women and 
 children learn together, each pursuing the 
 studies for which his taste fits him. 
 
 *' Schools of the ancient sort with their 
 disciplinary restraints and regulations do 
 not exist. Despotism is no more neces- 
 sary for children than for grown people. 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 131 
 
 In learning, as in everything else, there is 
 liberty. All who know are teachers to 
 any that desire to learn the things they 
 know, and all are learners from any that 
 may be in advance of themselves in any 
 field of knowledge. Tliere is, in fact, 
 mutual helpfulness in all things. Of 
 course all this is not left at hap-hazard; 
 on the contrary there is the most perfect 
 system. The schools are sedulously 
 graded, so that there may be no waste of 
 time or energy, and the rule of '' the fit- 
 test " is the principle on which both 
 teachers and pupils find their natural 
 places — under guidance of directors 
 chosen for the purpose. As all wish to 
 learn, ancient questions of discipline are 
 obsolete ; it is rather like a well-ordered 
 garden, where each plant is helped to 
 grow according to its own nature and 
 possibilities. 
 
 ** The knowledge obtained is not per- 
 fect, for knowledge cannot be perfect 
 short of infinity ; but these people have 
 thoroughly explored their globe and ex- 
 
132 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 amined its treasures, whether buried in 
 the soil and rocks or in the sea. Its com- 
 position and its natural laws they know 
 with something approaching complete- 
 ness of knowledge. Their apparatus and 
 appliances for aiding in the acquisition of 
 knowledge are far more effective than 
 anything yet devised on our earth. They 
 have studied the surrounding heavens 
 with instruments of marvellous power and 
 exquisite perfection, and long ago dis- 
 carded the narrow notion natural to all 
 undeveloped peoples that their world was 
 the centre of the universe for which all 
 the rest was made to minister, and them- 
 selves the only sentient beings in this in- 
 finity of worlds." 
 
 " I do not see any churches or temples 
 of worship among these people," I said 
 to my friend, as we passed unseen among 
 the structures of one of their greatest 
 cities. 
 
 " No," he replied, " there are no longer 
 any costly fanes specially devoted to 
 worship, and there is scarcely anything 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION, I 33 
 
 that can be called public worship. Ages 
 ago these people attained a practical 
 unanimity of opinion and of sentiment 
 on matters of religion and moral conduct. 
 They reached a degree of enlightenment 
 that made it clear to them that there was 
 but one standard of moral character and 
 conduct, and that its observance was in 
 every way conducive to the well-being 
 and happiness of the individual and of 
 the community. Much time in their 
 schools, their homes and all their gather- 
 ing places is still devoted to teaching and 
 to learning in matters that relate simply 
 to moral duty or pertain to the relations 
 of men with each other. 
 
 '' For a long time they maintained 
 special organizations for this work of 
 moral instruction and elevation, but they 
 have now outgrown the need of them, 
 and an all-pervading influence to the 
 same end is kept up in all they do. It 
 is a part of the normal social spirit that 
 has become fully prevalent. These spe- 
 cial organizations, now disused, sprang 
 
134 ^''^ YOND THE BOURN. 
 
 originally out of religious societies formed 
 mainly for worship at a time when wor- 
 ship had many forms and phases of super- 
 stition. In the dark times, when views of 
 the Creator and of the nature and des- 
 tiny of his creatures were obscured in 
 ignorance and credulity ; when there was 
 a constant struggle between the spiritual 
 aspirations and moral tendencies of the 
 inhabitants of this planet and the im- 
 pulses and passions of their animal na- 
 ture ; when many of them still had 
 natures that were distorted and beset 
 with degrading inclinations ; in short, 
 before knowledge and experience had 
 begotten that wisdom which has resulted 
 in the mastery of right over wrong — then 
 there were many forms of belief and man- 
 ners of worship. 
 
 " These men as we may as well call 
 them, in that remote age held different 
 views of the Creator and of his relations 
 and dealings with them, according to the 
 degree of enlightenment which they could 
 attain, and out of these grew systems of 
 
BIG HER MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 35 
 
 belief and methods of worship which were 
 a help to them in their efforts at progress 
 and the elevation of their race. The 
 stimulus and restraint of a belief in a 
 higher Power and of a humble and de- 
 vout worship of that Power were neces- 
 sary to their moral advancement. While 
 they were in the darkness of ignorance 
 and unreason this belief and this worship 
 took various forms which were maintained 
 by many organizations. 
 
 ** With the growth of knowledge and 
 the full development of reason they grad- 
 ually came nearer to the truth and at- 
 tained a clearer conception of the God of 
 the universe and of his attributes, of their 
 own nature and destiny, and of the rela- 
 tion their life held to the universal and 
 eternal Life. With this advancement their 
 many forms of belief melted into one uni- 
 versal faith, as the errors due to ignorance 
 and superstition lost their hold and 
 dropped away. Now they have but one 
 religion of all-comprehensive simplicity 
 and purity, and no formal worship. 
 
n6 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 J 
 
 " I do not mean by this tliat they are 
 not devout, that they give no thought to 
 things divine, or that they do not worship 
 God. Neither do I mean that they have 
 no associations based upon religious sen- 
 timent. They associate constantly, for 
 all manner of common purposes, and the 
 essential principle of their society is mu- 
 tual helpfulness. It is a principle that 
 pervades all their life, their industry, their 
 business and their public work of every 
 kind. For generations they maintained 
 organizations £0 see that nobody suffered 
 from sickness or misfortune where it could 
 be helped, to see that the conditions of 
 health and comfort and fair opportunities 
 in life were provided for all, and the result 
 was gradually to establish a social system 
 in which all these things were fully cared 
 for. They have associated together for a 
 general diffusion of education, of knowl 
 edge and right views upon all matters af- 
 fecting their welfare, that the whole stock 
 of wisdom may be open equally to all and 
 its benefit made as great as possible. 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. I 37 
 
 " There is nothing in which they have 
 been more assiduous than the inculcation 
 of sound and wholesome sentiments and 
 principles of conduct, and they are not 
 only not negligent of the spiritual side of 
 their nature, but it has long been the 
 subject of special study with them and 
 they are careful of its training. Much of 
 what was mysterious to us on earth, and 
 to them in earlier times, and was vaguely 
 regarded as supernatural and incompre- 
 hensible, they have brought within the 
 domain of their knowledge, and they 
 have established a clearer relationship 
 with the unseen world than to us seemed 
 possible. With a fuller understanding of 
 the spiritual and divine their sympathies 
 have been greatly developed on that 
 side, and the sentiment of devotion and 
 worship has been exalted and freed from 
 the grossness and crudeness that charac- 
 terized it at a stage of less enlightenment. 
 This sentiment is cherished by proper 
 exercise and cultivated by association ; it 
 is fostered in the young and in those in 
 
138 BE YOND THE B URN. 
 
 whom it appears to be naturally feeble, 
 and yet all this is rather a part of the 
 general life than a matter of special 
 organization and formal effort. It is in- 
 volved in the universal system of instruc- 
 tion and intercourse of the community. 
 
 ''Worship of God and communion with 
 the Spirit of the universe in the loftiest 
 sense must be au affair of each individual 
 soul, for which no special time or place is 
 required. In the stage of advancement 
 which this race has attained, religious 
 worship needs no set forms and methods, 
 and its outward expression is no longer a 
 matter of publicity. The loftiest senti- 
 ments and purest emotions are appealed 
 to and gratified in literature and the 
 nobler arts, and in the many social and 
 public gatherings of the people they seek 
 the joy and stimulus of communion with 
 each other in the highest aspirations of 
 the soul as well as the loftiest themes of 
 thought. But it is only in the privacy 
 of his home or the secrecy of his own 
 heart that the individual addresses him- 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 39 
 
 self to a communion with the Father of 
 all life. In short, on this planet, religion 
 has ceased to be a system, and has become 
 the pervading spirit of the social order 
 and of the daily life of the people. 
 
 " This is the result of long ages of ad- 
 vancement during which great teachers 
 and leaders have successively arisen, 
 pointing the way of elevation more and 
 more clearly, and manifesting in their 
 own lives the capabilities of the race. 
 The ideal was thus made ever more clear 
 and more accessible, until the mass of 
 this people have well-nigh attained it for 
 all the purposes of their mortal existence. 
 
 '' This planet and its people have 
 greatly interested me ever since I discov- 
 ered them, because they remind me of 
 the earth on which my days were passed 
 before the great change, and seem to 
 exemplify the perfected state toward 
 which humanity is struggling there and 
 which it may reach in the time to come." 
 
 While this discourse went on by means 
 of that spiritual interchange of ideas that 
 
140 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 has no need of physical organs or senses, 
 our party of visitants floated gently 
 among the people and observed their 
 ways of life, being often aware even of 
 their thoughts and feelings. Some of 
 them would at times pause in meditation, 
 dimly conscious of our presence and 
 plainly feeling its influence. We could 
 by our own volition make it felt to 
 various degrees according to the temper- 
 ament or the mood of the persons af- 
 fected. Our own intercourse with each 
 other was that of a quick and constant 
 intercommunion of thought and feeling, 
 and my beloved wife seemed to be truly 
 a part of myself. 
 
 As I contemplated the joyous exist- 
 ence of this happy race and the compara- 
 tive perfection it had attained, it seemed 
 almost as though the purpose of its 
 physical life had been fulfilled. To my 
 friend I said : 
 
 "You have told me that the inhabi- 
 tants of this planet are now free from the 
 diseases and ills of the flesh because they 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 141 
 
 long ago ceased to propagate and perpet- 
 uate them, and because they have gained 
 such a knowledge of the laws of nature 
 and such skill and fidelity in observing 
 them as to maintain in their habits and 
 surroundings the conditions of perfect 
 health. But in process of time they die. 
 We see evidences of that." 
 
 '' Surely they die," was the answer, 
 ** but rarely except from the natural de- 
 cline and decay of the physical powers. 
 They generally live a full century (or 
 more, according to their larger measure 
 of time), but at last the body is worn out 
 and its functions cease. By that time 
 the soul is fully ripe for the spirit-world 
 and passes with joy to the abodes of the 
 blest, while the body is laid away to dis- 
 solve into dust or be reduced to the ele- 
 ments by the quicker processes of nature. 
 There is no dread of death, for all know 
 that it is not a calamity. The function 
 of the fleshly vesture is fulfilled ; the soul 
 is prepared to live without it, and puts it 
 off most gladly. 
 
142 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 " No one mourns for the death of 
 friend or parent, knowing well that it is 
 but a passage to a fuller life, and that the 
 separation will not be long. There is no 
 parade of grief, for there is no grief. No 
 honors or attentions are paid to the cast- 
 off body or its resting place, for the body- 
 is not the person nor the grave his dwell- 
 iiig. Why should the spot where the 
 decaying chrysalis is put away be sur- 
 rounded with emblems of remembrance, 
 when the spirit of the loved has gone to 
 the unseen life ? The thoughts go w^ith 
 the soul into life and not with the body 
 into dust and ashes. 
 
 ''Everyone here is prepared to die, for 
 a character has been formed which will 
 stand the test of the spiritual existence. 
 Souls come up from this planet continu- 
 ally, far purer and stronger than those 
 that come from our earth, save that a few 
 great ones from that young and struggling 
 world have, in spite of impediments and 
 obstacles, risen to a grander stature than 
 their fellows, and come into the spirit 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 43 
 
 world fit for association with the high- 
 est. And this fuller stature is not one of 
 mere intellectual power, for many a man 
 has had that, and yet been a spiritual 
 dwarf ; it involves an intuitive perception 
 of the mutual relation of spirit with 
 spirit — man with his fellows and with the 
 Father of all — and a habit of life in ac- 
 cordance with those relations. The sim- 
 plest single earthly word you have to 
 express the quality I mean is love ; yet 
 that must be largely, and not selfishly, 
 interpreted. 
 
 *' From all these worlds that revolve in 
 space come trooping millions of spirits 
 that God has breathed into being to 
 people his universe. They have struggled 
 through the embryo stage of their exist- 
 ence with varied experiences and enter 
 upon * the life indeed ' with every degree 
 of development. The eternal years arc 
 before them and the boundless opportu- 
 nities of the universe." 
 
 As our spirit group lingered, hovering 
 over that scene of active and happy life, 
 
144 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 I exclaimed : '' Here behold the blessed 
 possibilities of the unhappy planet that I 
 have left ! If the people of the earth 
 would learn the great lessons of truth and 
 assimilate them into their lives, they 
 might be even as the inhabitants of this 
 happy sphere, one great brotherhood 
 pervaded with peace and harmony. 
 
 " Here riches and poverty are unknown 
 and both alike undesired, while on earth 
 they are prolific sources of wrong and un- 
 happiness. Here all take their share of 
 toil, and necessary work is done without 
 crushing any into suffering and misery 
 with its tremendous burden. There is no 
 ignorance and no crime, and hence the 
 cost and cruelty of laws and government 
 are unknown. Ingenuity, intellectual 
 activity, and mutual consideration seem 
 to have wrought for the people the con- 
 ditions of a healthy life. 
 
 " Now there are on earth thousands of 
 persons as well inclined to do right and 
 live in harmony with the universe as this 
 people, and if all could be brought to 
 
HIGHER MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 45 
 
 that condition, a millennium like that 
 which we see here might be ushered in." 
 
 '* Aye," was the response, '' but it is 
 better for the earth race, as for the indi- 
 vidual man, to grow according to the law 
 of its being and come up through con- 
 flicts and struggles to this condition. It 
 will then be endowed with strength won 
 by its own efforts. 
 
 '' In ages long past this people, too, 
 groped in darkness and grappled with 
 each other in terrific conflicts, striving 
 and groaning for the light. Then were 
 there ignorance and sloth and crimes and 
 laws, superstition and systems of religion, 
 wealth, and poverty, fights and wars and 
 destruction and suffering and misery, but 
 always there were souls serene and strong 
 that rose above the conflict of discordant 
 elements and saw the truth and the right 
 in their simple purity. These never 
 wearied from generation to generation in 
 warring with the powers of darkness and 
 striving to lead the people up from their 
 bondage and degradation. 
 
146 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 " Slowly the light gained upon the 
 darkness. The teachers wrought patiently 
 through the discouraging eras and wisdom 
 gained ground. Law^s and systems of 
 faith, which were as props to secure what 
 had been gained and give footholds for 
 further advances, became simpler and 
 fewer as man grew wiser and stronger, 
 until at last the hosts of the right pre- 
 vailed and the enemies of peace were 
 overthrown. The edifice of the race's re- 
 demption on this bright planet was slowly 
 and painfully reared by his own efforts, 
 working more and more in harmony 
 with the laws of the universe and of the 
 Divine Spirit that pervades it. 
 
 " The earth which we have left is in 
 the midst of its struggles now, and the 
 leaders and champions of right feel that 
 their w^ork is not in vain. They are re- 
 deeming their race through constant cru- 
 cifixions, and by the beneficent laws of 
 compensation they are gaining from their 
 labors and sufferings the power which is 
 the real object of mortal life." 
 
X. 
 
 SPIRIT RELATIONSHIP AND ACHIEVE- 
 MENT. 
 
 Now we turned from this happy sphere 
 and glided back through the heavenly 
 spaces. Everywhere about us as we went 
 were spirits of the immortals, some bound 
 on distant missions, others gathered to- 
 gether in converse and communion, fam- 
 ilies and friends, great ones and humble, 
 all intent upon the joyful activity of the 
 eternal life. 
 
 Their surroundings, discernible by the 
 disembodied soul, were fraught with glo- 
 ries and beauties which to physical sense 
 would be imperceptible and to those de- 
 pendent upon physical senses must be 
 incomprehensible. To picture them to 
 the minds of mortals, I should speak of 
 grottoes and retreats where loveliness of 
 
148 BEYOND THE BOURJST. 
 
 form and color were combined in perfect 
 harmony, pervaded with all the charms 
 of sound and odor that can delight the 
 soul ; of quiet groves, of lovely gardens, 
 cool fountains, inviting slopes and refresh- 
 ing shades, of gorgeous structures in the 
 sublime ether, the grand architecture of 
 nature in the free heavens, gleaming with 
 hues brighter and more varied than light 
 can furnish to human vision, and wrought 
 with a perfection no artist or architect 
 ever conceived in his most exalted 
 dreams. 
 
 By such imagery alone can the mind of 
 man gain some faint notion of the spirit- 
 ual abodes ; and yet their beauties are not 
 material, are not beauties of form and 
 color and are not filled with sounds and 
 odors. Still, they are of a nature that 
 gives to the disembodied spirit a far more 
 perfect and exalted joy than could be 
 conveyed by the senses of the flesh in 
 their most exquisite state. 
 
 Through these scenes in their myriad 
 forms we passed till we reached a quiet 
 
SPIRIT RELA TIONSHIP. 1 49 
 
 retreat in which seemed to be united 
 everything that could delight the soul, 
 and there with ineffable joy we reposed 
 in what I may call our own home. My 
 soul and my soul's beloved wife mingled 
 in a manner that gave supernal joy, far 
 more ecstatic than could be derived from 
 any communion of spirits hampered in 
 the body. Then did I feel that one mo- 
 ment of this joy that was to be eternal 
 was compensation for all the sufferings of 
 my mortal existence. 
 
 Reposing in this celestial home we re- 
 mained for a time in a restful revery, like 
 a dream of bliss. Then came again my 
 desire to learn more of the new life. 
 
 '' Ah ! " I said, '' our earthly hopes of 
 reunion and of blessedness with those we 
 loved were not unsubstantial dreams. 
 Here we are united in the eternal home 
 with unending years before us. The hap- 
 piness of the earthly life was but a be- 
 ginning, the interruptions of death were 
 momentary. This is the real life and the 
 ties formed there hold us here forever." 
 
150 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 *' Yes, it is so," returned my friend, 
 " and yet the earthly beginning of these 
 ties of family was not always right, 
 and wrong cannot be perpetuated, 
 Here there is truly no marriage, no carnal 
 relationship, and all association is the re- 
 sult of natural attraction. Mortals on 
 earth are wont to call marriage ' sacred, 
 divine ' ; but it is and ever was a device 
 of man — a necessary safeguard in an im- 
 perfect state of society — while love alone 
 is sacred. 
 
 *' Marriage is far from being a holy in- 
 stitution in itself. Persons unfitted to 
 enjoy each other's society, unfitted to 
 promote each other's growth and devel- 
 opment, unfitted to aid in ameliorating 
 the race, assume with haste and folly a 
 union which human laws force them to 
 hold through a life perchance of hatred 
 and unhappiness. 
 
 " No divine law compels such incon- 
 gruous and wretched unions to continue 
 here. Love is indeed divine, and where 
 that exists and brings souls together while 
 
SPIRIT RELA TIONSIIIP. I 5 I 
 
 yet in the body, their communion is 
 sweet, their influence upon each other is 
 beneficent, they have offspring of still 
 more gracious aspect and character than 
 themselves. Such spirits will continue in 
 their relations of love in the life eternal, 
 — but that is only because they are rela- 
 tions of love, and not because they ex- 
 isted on earth or were in conformity with 
 human laws. 
 
 " Thousands of unions on earth are 
 sources of misery. When at last death 
 effects a release which human society 
 would not — perhaps cannot — counte- 
 nance, then there is freedom at last. 
 Every hated alliance is broken and there 
 is no longer subjection of the will where 
 affection is not. Every soul seeks com- 
 munion with those that are the natural 
 and satisfying objects of its love. 
 
 " Vast and varied are the relationships 
 of this life, and every soul is involved in 
 its destiny with all others, but the inti- 
 macy of association is in exact propor- 
 tion to the natural concrcnialitv of the 
 
152 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 spirits. No matter what former relations 
 or ties may have existed under the re- 
 straints of human laws and the necessities 
 of human society, here freedom is perfect 
 and universal. Each spirit seeks out for 
 its love those that understand itself and 
 have an attraction for it, and cleaves to 
 none other. There is the most intimate 
 communion where this attraction is strong- 
 est, and affection grows wherever cnarac- 
 ters are adapted to excite it in each other. 
 
 '' A soul let loose in the heavens will 
 soon find out its companions and always 
 join its own company. Those for whom 
 it has most love, it may have been sepa- 
 rated from through most of its fornier 
 existence, and those that it lived with 
 may be the ones in whom it finds no re- 
 ciprocal attraction. 
 
 " Many souls are united after long es- 
 trangement and cruel separation, and 
 marriage may be what separated them. 
 Families may, indeed, be separated in 
 heaven, but only when they are not fitted 
 to be together. 
 
SPIRIT RELA TIONSHIP. 1 5 3 
 
 ** Many a wife will leave a husband she 
 ought never to have had and will find her 
 supreme joy with one whom she can 
 really love ; aye, with thousands whom 
 she loves — if you will dissociate that 
 word from its lower misuses, and take its 
 nobler, truer meaning. Husbands that 
 were, if they loved not their wives, cleave 
 to them no longer but seek the compan- 
 ionship of those whom they do love. In 
 short, the human relations continue just 
 so far as they were relations of love, and 
 no farther ; and where love is, there will 
 the demonstrations of love abound. 
 
 '' There is no conflict, and no jealousy ; 
 for where freedom is perfect jealousy can- 
 not exist. Our associations are manifold, 
 and love of one does not exclude love of 
 another. Certain necessities and purposes 
 of the mortal existence created exclu- 
 siveness and restraints, but here there are 
 none. Those necessities and purposes no 
 longer have force, and the freedom of love 
 is perfect. 
 
 " The consummation of love in com- 
 
154 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 munion and interchange of thought and 
 feehng has nothing in it of carnal Hmita- 
 tions. Wives and husbands, children and 
 parents, brothers and friends, whose rela- 
 tionships sprang from love, find them- 
 selves bound together here with an 
 affection more exalted and in a commu- 
 nion more perfect ; but those relationships 
 that were forced and unnatural are aban- 
 doned and forgotten. There is indeed 
 no marriage or giving in marriage, no 
 families defined by law or kept together 
 by restraint, but perfect freedom, perfect 
 harmony and perfect bliss in communion 
 of spirits. 
 
 **The harmony of disembodied souls is 
 ever increasing. Many come here whose 
 character is likely to produce discord, but 
 they find around them benign influences 
 and every encouragement and assistance 
 to develop their better powers and capac- 
 ities. Growth and development are char- 
 acteristics of this life as of that on earth. 
 Spirits find themselves here oftentimes 
 but little developed, on account of the 
 
SPIRI r RELA riONSHIP. I 5 5 
 
 untoward circumstances of their earthly 
 experience, and such have their lives to 
 begin almost anew. Others have been 
 crippled and distorted and have a thou- 
 sand stubborn faults to correct." 
 
 " But," I said with surprise, " do the 
 bad, the wicked, the vicious, the criminal, 
 enjoy the same advantages as the good 
 and virtuous ? " 
 
 *' Ah ! " said the spirit with a kind of 
 angelic sadness, 'Svho shall judge and 
 punish the wicked ? An all-wise Creator 
 has brought the human race into being 
 and placed it on yonder little planet, with 
 all its powers, its capabilities and its ten- 
 dencies, to grow up through struggle and 
 conflict, through error and wrong, into 
 the strength and purity of a perfected 
 state. 
 
 '' Some with happy endowments and fa- 
 voring circumstances may attain a goodly 
 growth during the lifetime of the body, 
 but the growth of the race as a whole is 
 the process of many generations. Mean- 
 time thousands are constantly falling in 
 
156 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 the struggle and are trodden under foot ; 
 thousands wander far astray ; and of the 
 millions that are continually perishing 
 from the face of the earth few have fairly 
 got started on their life. The laws most 
 favorable to the whole in the long process 
 of growth, necessitate the crushing down 
 of many for the time being ; and who shall 
 condemn them for their misfortune ? 
 
 '' It is the lot of many a soul to receive 
 in the conception and gestation of the 
 bodily organism, tendencies which, with 
 a feeble will and no encouragement, it 
 cannot overcome and can but weakly re- 
 sist. It is blind as to its own nature and 
 destiny, and no one imparts light and 
 knowledge to it. It violates continually 
 the laws of bodily and spiritual well-being 
 and receives continually the penalty that 
 follows as an inevitable consequence. It 
 was planted in a bad soil with conditions 
 unfavorable to healthy growth, and be- 
 comes wild, rank and noisome. 
 
 ''Another soul is introduced to life 
 through a more wholesome medium and 
 
SPIRIT KELA no N SHIP. I 5 J 
 
 begins with tendencies toward a healthy 
 development and circumstances which 
 favor and encourage it. It becomes vig- 
 orous, symmetrical and pure. 
 
 " There is struggle and effort such as 
 the person is capable of in both cases ; in 
 one success, in the other almost total fail- 
 ure. The merit and the blame in the eye 
 of the All-wise differ but little in the two 
 cases. Both souls leave the body. One 
 finds itself fitted for association with the 
 pure and good, the wise and great of the 
 race, and ready for the activities and the 
 renewed and vigorous growth of the celes- 
 tial life. This is compensation enough 
 for sufferings and drawbacks such as he 
 has had. The other sees at last the great 
 destiny of being, but finds itself far from 
 its attainment, unfitted for its joys, almost 
 an outcast from the celestial hosts, not 
 because they cast it out, but because the 
 character it brings does not fit it for their 
 company. Is not this sufficient punish- 
 ment, if punishment is deserved ? Should 
 not this poor soul's forlorn condition ex- 
 
158 BFA'OXD THE BOURN. 
 
 cite pity and compassion rather than re- 
 sentment and wrath ? 
 
 " Every spirit that has passed from the 
 body and its h'mitations and entangle- 
 ments has enough left of the instinct of 
 growth and the )-carning for perfection to 
 begin with new hope, for without hope 
 nothing can be attained. 
 
 " These unhappy ones are taken from 
 the wilderness in which they got contin- 
 ually lost ; they are freed from the pas- 
 sions and appetites pertaining to the flesh, 
 which drove them into pits and sloughs ; 
 they find that the spirits of the just and 
 good do not look on them with disdain 
 but with pity and love, and are read}^ to 
 give them aid and encouragement. So 
 the poor dwarfed, distorted cripples soon 
 come into relations of s}'mpathy with hap- 
 pier spirits and begin to learn the great 
 lessons of life. They labor with an eager- 
 ness which those can hardly show who 
 have not been through the darkness that 
 they have passed, and they feel a joy more 
 keen for the misery they have endured. 
 
SPIRIT RELA TIONSHIP. 1 59 
 
 ''Their moral sufferings are gradually 
 transmuted into sinews of strength and 
 they make their way up among the wise 
 and good, growing in knowledge, in power 
 and in purity, and feeling a pleasure in 
 them which former privations intensify. 
 Surely they have compensation and not 
 cruel punishment for the disadvantages 
 of their earthly existence. 
 
 ** Children come here with little or no 
 earthly experience. This is a disadvan- 
 tage, but it has its compensation, also, for 
 they have few wrong tendencies to correct 
 and no evil habits to remedy. They are 
 taken in charge by loving teachers who 
 train them tenderly in the knowledge and 
 grace w^hich are the objects of life. In 
 this sphere of development the stages 
 reached are infinitely varied, but every 
 person is striving on toward perfection, 
 which can be attained only in eternity. 
 The knowledge to be acquired is infinite, 
 the faculties to be developed have no strict 
 limitation, and only an eternity can com- 
 plete the process of growth to perfection. 
 
l6o BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 " Every condition of spiritual character 
 comes here from the earth and from the 
 other worlds, and each has something to 
 impart to the others. The qualities and 
 experiences of all the individuals have 
 their effect in forming the character of 
 the whole. Some have been here for 
 what on earth would be regarded as long 
 ages, but even with their enlarged powers 
 and the greater facilities of the spirit 
 world, they have scarcely begun upon the 
 infinite resources of life. There are no 
 false standards of judgment, but every 
 soul speedily finds the place to which it 
 is entitled by the qualities it brings with 
 it or which it attains. 
 
 " Many that were high and mighty in 
 the earthly life are humbled when they 
 find for the first time what they really 
 are, and are forced to take their place 
 below the peasant and the slave who 
 strove after spiritual power and not after 
 wealth and high station, which are no 
 measure of true greatness of soul. Many 
 come up through poverty and hardship. 
 
SPIRIT RE LA TIONSHIP. 1 6 1 
 
 through toil and struggle, and find them- 
 selves ready to take up the tasks of this 
 life far in advance of some to whom they 
 had looked up, regarding them not only 
 as great and powerful but as good and 
 saintly beyond their own hopes." 
 
 *' But the truly great ones of earth," I 
 asked, '' where are they ? The saints and 
 sages, the poets and philosophers, those 
 who conquered the hearts of men by the 
 might of intellect, surely they retain their 
 pre-eminence !" 
 
 " Yes, but man yof them had lessons 
 to learn which the obscure had acquired 
 before them. Those were not alone the 
 really great, even in intellect, who were 
 known as such ; many an unknown and 
 unambitious thinker was the peer of those 
 who gained the widest repute, while those 
 who lived in the mouths of men had un- 
 noted weaknesses which belittled them. 
 Here all are measured by an absolute 
 standard, and there is no place for preten- 
 sion. Every soul passes for what it is. 
 
 ** Still, those powers which any possess 
 
1 62 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 in a higher degree than others they exer- 
 cise in the pursuit of their favorite inves- 
 tigations and labors. The unlimited fields 
 of truth are before them and their powers 
 and facilities, actual or to be attained, are 
 as limitless. Each can follow his chosen 
 pursuit. One studies the material ele- 
 ments of the universe, their qualities, 
 operations and laws, while another is en- 
 gaged in learning of spiritual things ; and 
 as each advances in the conquest of truth, 
 he becomes a teacher of others and the 
 advancement of all is promoted. 
 
 *' The man of science makes calcula- 
 tions vaster than the universe of his mor- 
 tal conception, penetrates mysteries which 
 had hitherto seemed forever shut against 
 him, and takes all knowledge for his 
 province with hope of bringing it to per- 
 fect subjection in the endless time. The 
 philosopher thinks with untrammelled in- 
 tellectual power and soars on forever, 
 broadening and strengthening his grasp 
 upon abstract truth, and ever approach- 
 ing but never reaching a perfect knowl- 
 
SPIRIT KEL A TIONSHIP. 1 63 
 
 edge of God and His purposes and mean- 
 ing, for even here and to us the divine 
 being is an eternal mystery. 
 
 *' On earth our conception of God had 
 but a ghmmcr of truth. Now we know 
 Him as the all pervading spirit of the uni- 
 verse that manifests His activity in every 
 operation of nature throughout the num- 
 berless worlds, contains us all within His 
 own being, and is everywhere an intelli- 
 gence and a power, full and perfect. We 
 perceive His presence by the spiritual in- 
 tuition, as we perceive that of each other; 
 we commune with Him as the finite may 
 with the infinite, and yet we cannot com- 
 prehend His vastness in wisdom, in power 
 and in love, and we only draw nearer and 
 nearer to a perfect comprehension as in the 
 long epochs of eternity we acquire knowl- 
 edge more and more complete of His cre- 
 ation, of the operations of His might, of 
 the objects of His care and His perfect 
 methods in dealing with them. 
 
 *' As our love for each other grows in 
 intensity and expands so as to take in 
 
164 BEYOND THE BOURISr. 
 
 more of our fellow beings, we begin to 
 comprehend more of His infinite love; 
 and we approach more nearly to it, the 
 more fully we love all the beings and all 
 the things that He has made, for His love 
 in its infinite perfection embraces all with 
 equal warmth. 
 
 '' On earth we were ever striving to 
 imitate in our puny way the works of 
 God. Our efforts to comprehend His cre- 
 ation and His being were but strivings 
 toward what He is. Artists rejoiced in 
 success only as they could copy Him in 
 conception and in achievement, and they 
 were great only as they approached God. 
 The musician endeavored to produce 
 sounds that should be some faint echo of 
 His eternal harmonies. The poet tried to 
 grasp His thought and feeling, and body it 
 forth in language that should make others 
 thrill in response to its beauty and wisdom. 
 
 *' Here it is the same in a higher degree. 
 All are striving to reach God through His 
 works. Those who are learning to com- 
 prehend Him and growing in His likeness 
 
SPIRIT KELA TIONSHIP. \ 6 5 
 
 are fulfilling their destiny. Here, too, 
 are poets and musicians, and artists, seek- 
 ing finer harmonies, and subtler beauties, 
 and giving them voice and form in such 
 manner that other spirits comprehendhig 
 them are exalted and purified. All are 
 striving in their several ways to learn what 
 God has done, and trying to do some- 
 thing Godlike. Thus through the ages 
 of eternity, their growth is toward God. 
 
 " The faculties of the disembodied soul 
 find constant employment, and this is a 
 busy life ; but there are periods of repose. 
 Amid the glories of heaven the soul may 
 settle into a blissful quietude, drinking in, 
 as it were, in a revery or an exalted 
 dream, the beauties and harmonies that 
 surround him. He may hold the active 
 powers in suspense and float in joyous 
 idleness." 
 
 As my friend ceased his discourse, I 
 remained for a time in such serene repose 
 as he had just described. Then my mind 
 began to wander back to earth, and I 
 thought of the possibility of sometime 
 
1 66 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 making visits ihcrc, as \vc had visited the 
 far-off planet and its happy race. It 
 seemed to mc that I might find satisfac- 
 tion in observing the progress of the lui- 
 man race toward a higlier state, though 
 there was no person left behind toward 
 whom I had an)- yearning. 
 
 With this thought I once more 
 questioned my friend. "There was 
 among us on earth," I said, "a cher- 
 ished notion that the spirits of the 
 departed were wont to return and watch 
 over the living, attending thcni in their 
 daily walks, soothing them in sorrow and 
 suffering, and hovering about them to 
 their journe)''s end, ready to receive them 
 at the moment of death and take them to 
 the abodes of happiness." 
 
 "Yes, but the thought was born of our 
 weakness and our selfishness. Doubtless 
 spirits have the power to visit the earth, 
 as they may visit any spot in all the vast 
 universe, and tlic\' ma\' linger in familiar 
 places and watcli those still in the flesh, 
 but would it be well for them to do so 
 
SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP. 1 6/ 
 
 constantly? Those living on earth are 
 undergoing the needed discipline of early 
 growth, appointed to them by the Creator 
 under his unchanging laws. We cannot 
 relieve them from any part of the burden 
 or the hardship, and would not if we could, 
 for we trust God's wisdom and know that 
 what is allotted to them is the best. 
 
 " The duration of the earthly struggle 
 is brief, and those to whom it is hardest 
 will find the after life all the richer. Be- 
 sides, this is a life of activity and of duty, 
 and there are more desirable things to do 
 than lingering near those whom we can- 
 not help and can hardly comfort or en- 
 courage. We do indeed return at times 
 and find satisfaction in re-visiting familiar 
 scenes, and we take an interest in the 
 circumstances and achievements of those 
 we know. In cases of peculiar hardship 
 or extreme sorrow we may be drawn to 
 linger for a time about them and make 
 our presence felt, soothing the feelings of 
 suffering ones wMth the consciousness that 
 we are near. 
 
1 68 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 "Oftentimes have }our belo\cd wife 
 and sister and I been near }'0u in 
 your days of loneliness, but nothing that 
 we could do would relieve it, and we 
 knew that it was wholesome for the 
 soul, and the recompense was to come. 
 We never made our presence known, and 
 though you may often have thought of 
 us as hovering about you, you never felt 
 any certainty of our presence.^' 
 
 " It is possible, then," I said, '' for the 
 disembodied spirit to make its presence 
 known to the living and perhaps to com- 
 municate with them ! " 
 
 " Undoubtedly it is possible. One 
 mind, while still in the bod}-, ma}' exert 
 an influence over another. When it is 
 freed from the limitations of the physical 
 organism, it may do tin's still more com- 
 pletely. Sometimes it will do so uncon- 
 sciously to the subject and for a benefi- 
 cent purpose, directing one's course in 
 dark times and uncertain places. Some- 
 times a person peculiarly constituted or 
 in an abnormal condition mav be affected 
 
SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP. 1 69 
 
 by this influence to a remarkable degree, 
 with results that are mysterious to those 
 who do not understand the source and 
 nature of the influence. But it is better 
 for those still in the earthly life to attend 
 to the duties of that life and leave the 
 secrets of the other till admitted to them 
 in the natural course of things. If the 
 life of the present is wisely conducted the 
 life of the future is always safe. 
 
 *' Besides, efforts to fathom by direct 
 communication those mysteries that are 
 wisely shut from the view of mortals in 
 order that the discipline of the prelim- 
 inary life may be more complete, are apt 
 to produce unwholesome delusions and 
 misleading fancies. The craving for such 
 revelations becomes morbid and absorb- 
 ing; it blinds the judgment and displaces 
 real faith with gross credulity, and leads 
 to deception and to perversion of the 
 natural sentiments. When the brain or 
 nervous system is in a state of unnatural 
 excitement, the mind becomes subject to 
 hallucinations. It may see visions and 
 
I/O BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 hold conversations purely imaginary, 
 which seem to it so real that it has full 
 faith in their reality. 
 
 " Persons in this morbid state think 
 they see the forms of the departed as 
 they knew them on earth, with the same 
 bodily lineaments and even the familiar 
 dress, when the reasoning mind knows 
 that the bodily features are undistinguish- 
 able dust, the clothing surely can have no 
 spiritual existence, and the soul is a thing 
 not to be seen with the material eye. 
 Yet many people who are reasonable on 
 all subjects that concern their actual life, 
 become superstitious and irrational when 
 dealing with matters that concern death 
 and that portion of life which is beyond. 
 
 ''Spirits while still in the body have 
 duties and activities pertaining to their 
 mortal state and the early growth of 
 their faculties. The purposes of their 
 earthly existence will be best fulfilled if 
 they attend to that life and the training 
 of the soul for a higher state of being. 
 This will not preclude a salutary cou' 
 
SPIRIT RELATIONSHIP. 171 
 
 templation of the destiny appointed for 
 man, as revealed in his nature and his ex- 
 perience, and foreshadowed by the deeper 
 intuitions of his soul and the exalted 
 faith of those whose spirits are most in 
 harmony with the all-pervading spirit in 
 which we have our existence. Life in the 
 body has a sympathetic contact with the 
 life that is above and around it, and may 
 draw inspiration from it that is uplifting 
 and purifying, but not through efforts at 
 a personal communion which the limita- 
 tions of the bodily senses make impossible. 
 '' Here the same beings that have 
 passed through the earthly experience 
 enter upon a new phase of the same life, 
 and must devote themselves to its duties, 
 looking forward and not backward, ad- 
 vancing through higher and higher stages 
 of development, approximating more and 
 more toward perfection of knowledge and 
 of power, increasing by using these for the 
 benefit of others, and assuming more and 
 more the divine character throughout the 
 aeons." 
 
XL 
 
 SNATCHED FROM THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 
 
 Here then was I, entered upon the Hfe 
 eternal, or rather upon the second stage 
 of it, for the life on earth was the begin- 
 ning of the life eternal. Life once begun 
 is immortal, and the dissolution of the 
 body, which was necessary to the chr}'sa- 
 lis state of being, is but an incident in its 
 course. It involves a mighty change 
 of conditions and circumstances but 
 it is no interruption to the life of 
 the soul or transformation of its char^ 
 acter. 
 
 On this stage of life was I fairly entered, 
 and in the ambrosial bowers and retreats 
 of the celestial world I tasted ecstatic bliss 
 with those whom I had loved on earth. 
 No new love now conceived could ever 
 supersede that which was begun amid the 
 
SjVa tched from he a venl y life. I 73 
 
 trials of the earthly state, for that love 
 was complete. 
 
 I passed celestial hours with my wife 
 and the little one who had never known 
 aught of the troubles of earth, but was 
 growing with unsullied purity in the at- 
 mosphere of heaven ; with my parents, 
 my sister, and the friend that had come 
 before, whom now I felt to be in advance 
 of me and capable more than ever of 
 teaching and guiding me. 
 
 Not alone with these did I hold com- 
 munion, but I enjoyed the society of the 
 great and good of all ages, now purer and 
 greater than ever before, but free from 
 all assumption that they were higher or 
 better than the least of God's creatures. 
 In the converse of the wise and good I 
 shared with rapture, and laid hold upon 
 truths and exalted thoughts that my 
 mind had never grasped before. 
 
 In this company were not alone those 
 who were known as saints and sages in 
 the mundane life, — poets, philosophers, 
 scholars, martyrs and heroes, men and 
 
174 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 women of exalted souls and might}' 
 thought from all parts of the world,^— 
 those called heathen as well as those 
 known as Christian ; but there were also 
 those who had dwelt in obscurity even 
 among their own people, whose lot was 
 humble and whose most intimate asso- 
 ciates had hardly known the great quali- 
 ties they possessed. In that celestial 
 society the pure, the strong, and the 
 great, though on earth they may have 
 been poor and despised, were accepted 
 among their peers and became teachers 
 of the great ones of the earth. 
 
 Among the rest was the One Jesus, he 
 who had so thoroughly begun the heav- 
 enly life on earth, passing through the 
 trials and sorrows of human existence 
 without a stain. Exalted, beloved, sought 
 on all sides, he was still meekest and lowli- 
 est among spirits, still as ever the Teacher, 
 the Comforter, and the Revealer of great 
 truths of God, which others had not yet 
 learned. Still he taught that he was the 
 son of God and all mankind were his 
 
SNA TCI/ ED FROM HE A VENL Y LIFE. I / 5 
 
 brethren, that the human was ever divine, 
 that the labor of the soul was to attain 
 more and more to the stature of the Infi- 
 nite by emulating His love and care for 
 others. Highest in station, he had the 
 highest bliss— of seeing the fruition of 
 his life and love. 
 
 Yet in this goodly company to which I 
 felt full assurance of free admission, in 
 the sweet converse of friends and family, 
 there was ever upon me an attraction, in- 
 comprehensible but irresistible, drawing 
 me back toward the scenes of my mortal 
 experience. 
 
 Why should I give a thought to that 
 life, now gone and seemingly far away in 
 the vague past, in the very beginning of 
 the world and contemporary with the 
 patriarchs and prophets? It seemed to 
 me comparatively so small and mean that 
 I wondered that I was ever enamored of 
 it and had looked upon the coming of 
 death with dread. Why should I think 
 for a moment of leaving the new life with 
 its labors and joys just opened to me ? 
 
\ 
 
 176 BEYOND rilE BOURN. 
 
 The new attractions were strong and 
 most sweet ; and yet there was a tugging 
 at my being, which in spite of myself 
 would drag me back toward earth. Why, 
 I knew not, and I struggled to resist it. 
 I did not make it known to any, for I 
 thought I could overcome it and it would 
 pass away, and, strange as it may seem, 
 my beloved ones were all unconscious of 
 my struggle. At a fatal moment my 
 power of resistance seemed to give way. 
 The glories with which I was surrounded 
 began to fade, the feeling of exaltation 
 and of perfect freedom grew numb and 
 vague, and I was aware that some power 
 against which I was helpless was tearing 
 me from this glorious life and carrying 
 me back to earth. 
 
 The splendid scenes of that heavenly 
 sphere slipped from my spiritual con- 
 sciousness ; the presence of my friends 
 and of my celestial environment was gone 
 as in the fitful changes of a dream, and 
 now I seemed to be sweeping through the 
 universe with the speed of light, — through 
 
SNA TCI/ED FROM HE A VENL V LIFE. I J J 
 
 the celestial spaces, past the rolling stars 
 and the revolving systems. Anon I 
 caught sight of our solar worlds. The 
 sun, flaming and surrounded with surging 
 clouds of fire, was marching on his ap- 
 pointed course, holding the planets with 
 the strong lines of attraction as they spun 
 in their circuits around him. 
 
 I saw the cold and distant orb of Nep- 
 tune, Jupiter with his glowing belts, and 
 Saturn hung in his flaming circles. 
 Swiftly I entered the field in which these 
 worlds circled in their appointed lines, 
 glided past the moon with one side cold 
 and torpid, the other shining and lumi- 
 nous, and all wild and desolate. 
 
 Then, the green earth grew in the blue 
 space, till seas and continents were visible 
 and mountains and valleys began to 
 wrinkle its radiant brow. The cities and 
 works of man appeared to view, and I 
 plunged, as it were, .into the very earth, 
 with an uncontrollable impetus, and was 
 in darkness and oblivion. 
 
 The racking pains, the unspeakable tor- 
 
178 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 tures with which I rose from that gulf, no 
 human tongue can tell. First there was 
 a glimmer of consciousness that went out 
 in torment, and came again a little 
 stronger. Presently I was aware of hu- 
 man forms gliding about me and minis- 
 tering as to a sick person. Suddenly the 
 sad fact forced itself on my enfeebled 
 mind that I was back in that bruised and 
 disfigured body, and must live on earth 
 again. Fervently I prayed to be released, 
 but the vital flame was rekindled in my 
 poor body, and my infatuated fellow be- 
 ings, instead of kindly quenching it, did 
 all in their power to foster it into vigor. 
 
 I turned from the light and tried to 
 bury myself in oblivion again. I rebelled 
 against the well-meant ministrations of 
 the living, and longed for death, not be- 
 cause my bodily sufferings were intolera- 
 ble, but because I blessed death for its 
 own sake and yearned to go back through 
 it to the blissful life from which I had 
 been snatched. 
 
 I need not tell the story of my mortal 
 
SAT A ran ED from he a venl y life. 1 79 
 
 sufferings, the tedious process of recover- 
 ing bodily health and strength. It will 
 suffice to reveal, what I had to learn from 
 others, that for three days I had been as 
 one among the dead. My body was ter- 
 ribly bruised and burned and, it was 
 thought, internally injured. When taken 
 from the wreck of the railroad train I was 
 supposed to be already dead, but a certain 
 flush and a quivering of the flesh made 
 the doctors doubt. 
 
 In a rude farm-house I was laid, and 
 every appliance was used to call me back 
 to life. My burns were painted over to 
 keep off the corrupting air, and my cuts 
 and bruises bandaged, and yet corruption 
 threatened and a sickening odor made my 
 care a burden to the kind-hearted stran- 
 gers. Restoratives were constantly used, 
 although but the vaguest signs of life 
 could be evoked. 
 
 On the third day the task of resuscita- 
 tion was given up as hopeless, and the 
 doctors pronounced me dead. I was un- 
 known to those who attended me, and 
 
l8o BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 nothing on my person gave an) clew to 
 my home or friends, and so they had be- 
 gun to make preparations to bury me on 
 that green ridge in Vermont where the 
 railroad accident had thrown me. 
 
 Scarcely had these preparations begun 
 when a spasmodic motion and a flutter of 
 the heart showed that life was still there, 
 and the efforts at restoration were re- 
 newed. These, and the feeble force of 
 vitality still in the body, together with 
 the will of God, had drawn my soul back 
 from the sweet heavens and the glorious 
 life there and imprisoned it again in the 
 mortal frame. I revived. 
 
 I was finally taken to friends whom I 
 could still recall ; and in the course of 
 tedious months I could walk forth again. 
 
 Since that time I have been as a lonely 
 exile, far away from his home. Others 
 may say it is a delusion and a dream, but 
 I know that my soul was for those three 
 days parted from the body, and that I 
 had a taste of the immortal life. 
 
 I walk among men, but no more am of 
 
SNA TCHED FROM HE A VENL Y LIFE. 1 8 1 
 
 them. All their affairs seem to me petty 
 and trivial. What they value most, I 
 value least of all ; and my thoughts are 
 ever with the blessed beings in the great 
 heavens, and dwelling on mysteries yet 
 unfathomed. 
 
 I have never spoken of this experience 
 to mortal man, for I know that it is im- 
 possible for men to comprehend or be- 
 lieve it. They would regard me as a luna- 
 tic and treat me accordingly. So I have 
 kept my secret ; and tried to bide my time 
 to return to the life from which I was 
 torn away when hardly past the thresh- 
 old. 
 
 In pondering the mystery of my return 
 through the portals of death, it has oc- 
 curred to me that there was a divine pur- 
 pose in it. There was need of a new rev- 
 elation regarding the life and destiny of 
 the human soul, and I was chosen to 
 make it. 
 
 Humbly, meekly, I have adopted this 
 interpretation of the mystery and tried 
 simply to tell the world my experience, 
 
1 82 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 wherein, if anywhere, lies the revelation. 
 I do not wish to be known to my fellow 
 men, and desire that the identity of him 
 who went through the gateway of death 
 to the life beyond and returned against 
 his will, shall be a secret. And that I may 
 be speedily removed from a life in which 
 I now account my mission fulfilled, to the 
 life I know to be so much higher and 
 better, is my constant prayer. 
 
 [The foregoing narrative constituted 
 the bulk of the manuscript which the 
 mysterious Mr. Jameson placed in the 
 hands of the editor of this volume. 
 Whether the experience which he pro- 
 fessed to have had while apparently un- 
 conscious from the injuries received in a 
 railroad accident, was real or imaginary, 
 is not for the present writer to judge. 
 That he believed it to be real, there is no 
 reason to doubt. 
 
 Accompanying the narrative, but sepa- 
 rate from it, was an essay, evidently in- 
 
SJVA TCHED FROM HE A VENL V LIFE. I 83 
 
 tended as a statement of opinions and 
 conclusions founded on the remarkable 
 experience related. Probably it was writ- 
 ten before the narrative, and originally 
 meant to stand alone as an expression of 
 the writer's views, without any explana- 
 tion of the experience from which they 
 were derived. There was, however, no 
 prefatory explanation and the editor does 
 not feel entitled to supply the omission 
 of the author. He simply regards the 
 paper as part of the '' revelation " en- 
 trusted to him, and submits it with the 
 rest to such judgment as it may invite. 
 It follows this.] 
 
XII. 
 
 man's revelation to man. 
 
 Of the long period between the devel- 
 opment of the race of man from its an- 
 cestry of brutes and the dawn of history 
 at which it began to set up enduring and 
 intelligible monuments, we know nothing 
 save by scientific inference. The knowl- 
 edge to be derived from the oldest surviv- 
 ing monuments and the first imperfect 
 records has still to be largely supplied by 
 inferences drawn from later history. It 
 is the light of modern study and recent 
 reasoning, cast over the past, that illu- 
 mines that far-off dawn sufficiently to 
 give meaning to its broken and defaced 
 tablets, and to bring out the story which 
 its confused and patched-up records 
 contain. 
 
 All human history is a revelation of 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 1 85 
 
 man to man, and since the spiritual in- 
 stinct began to work in the offspring of 
 generations of brutes it has soudit ex- 
 pression in ways and forms that have 
 been called religion. These ways and 
 forms have varied with the characteristics 
 impressed upon the peoples among which 
 they have appeared, by the circumstances 
 of their origin and experience. Men of 
 the clearest insight and loftiest concep- 
 tions have built up and modified religions, 
 and thereby became prophets and priests. 
 They have formed conceptions of a Deity 
 behind things visible and behind the life 
 of man. They have spoken for their God 
 and been accepted as His interpreters. 
 
 There has been evermore a strueele to 
 understand this earthly life and to guide 
 its course to the highest good. There 
 have also been yearnings for a life beyond 
 this brief and troubled span, and various 
 dreams of the soul's final destiny. Men 
 who have risen above the spiritual level 
 of their time and presented loftier views 
 of the human and divine have seemed to 
 
1 86 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 their generation to make revelations from 
 on high. 
 
 The notion of direct Divine revelation, 
 by means of miraculous manifestations, 
 has sprung from the inability of common 
 men to comprehend the sources of the 
 wisdom of seers and prophets. God works 
 always and everywhere throughout his 
 creation. Everything — whether material 
 or spiritual — is a revelation of Him, and 
 that revelation grows clearer as the soul 
 increases in power and comprehension. 
 External manifestations of His power 
 and will through fire and whirlwind 
 are not the methods of divine revelation 
 and never were, but, as the old Hebrew 
 prophet tells us, it is in " the still small 
 voice " that speaks only in the conscious- 
 ness of such human spirits as can hear it. 
 When the more violent and awful phe- 
 nomena of nature were not understood, it 
 was natural to attribute them to the im- 
 mediate presence and working of deity, 
 and to connect with them the oracles of 
 God, 
 
MAN'S KE VELA TION TO MAN. 1 %J 
 
 In rude times the great minds among 
 the people were wont to represent their 
 thoughts and teachings as direct revela- 
 tions from God, and even themselves re- 
 garded them as such. The manner in 
 which these revelations had been com- 
 municated to them was surrounded with 
 myster}' to make them the more impres- 
 sive and effective, and their mystery was 
 exaggerated and amplified by those who 
 put them on record, until men came to 
 regard them not only as sacred but of lit- 
 erally divine origin. The rude devices of 
 a primitive age to impress a superstitious 
 people with awe and to hold them in re- 
 straint have been long after regarded as 
 holy agencies through which God Himself 
 has made known His will. 
 
 From age to age new ideas were taught 
 among the same people, or another people 
 springing up with different surroundings 
 and a different experience had new con- 
 ceptions of life and of human destiny, and 
 a new religion was built up or the old one 
 modified. The religion of a period or of 
 
1 88 BEYOND THE BOURN, 
 
 a race lias always been the expression 
 more or less perfect of man's desires and 
 longings, and of the best means he could 
 devise for their satisfaction. It has been 
 the outgrowth of the people's minds, the 
 people's experience, and what they have 
 learned of the life and experience that 
 preceded them. 
 
 Nothing that has been called revelation 
 has a divine perfection or a divine origin, 
 except as the ultimate origin of every- 
 thing is divine ; and those older teachings 
 and philosophies which men are wont to 
 revere as sacred, are farther from truth 
 and less sacred than the conceptions of 
 later days. 
 
 Man's religion in its latest form, 
 grounded on his highest knowledge, illu- 
 mined by his clearest reason, inspired by 
 his loftiest conceptions, is nearest the 
 everlasting truth, and his best revelation 
 is the last. He can have no revelation 
 except of his own making. He began it 
 with the first groping of the intellect, the 
 first germ of the moral sense, the first 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 1 89 
 
 flicker of the aspiring spirit. When it is 
 finished his destiny will be complete. 
 
 What is this Holy Bible which men call 
 the Word of God? 
 
 Consider the universe of rolling worlds 
 inhabited by the creatures of the animat- 
 ing power that fills it, and think of its 
 development through a^ons from the 
 primeval chaos ! On its myriad spheres 
 are various forms and stages of life, and 
 many degrees of growth toward the per- 
 fection which is the ultimate object of 
 creative power. Consider the infinite 
 spaces, already peopled with souls that 
 have had their start in life upon those 
 many spheres, and destined to be the eter- 
 nal home of the spiritual offspring of God, 
 when there shall be no further use for the 
 material part of the universe ! On one 
 small planet amid these myriads, is this 
 race ot ours, struggling and contending 
 in the early stages of moral and spiritual 
 development, but with brightening hopes 
 for each new generation. 
 
 The race of man knows little of its actual 
 
190 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 origin upon the planet which it inhabits 
 and less of the origin of the planet itself, 
 but it has an imperfect record of the doings 
 and achievements of the various branches 
 of which it is composed. It can trace 
 its own progress from the darkness of bar- 
 barism to the comparatively clear light 
 that it is now attaining. Its students can 
 see how, at some time and among some 
 peculiarly endowed people the artistic 
 sense grew to a high development and 
 left its heritage ; how at another stage 
 and in another place there was a develop- 
 ment of the organizing and instituting 
 power, and the secret of regulating and 
 governing was in part disclosed, to be 
 more fully revealed by experience and 
 growth ; and all through human history 
 is visible the growing recognition of 
 moral principles by which conduct must 
 be regulated in order that the race may 
 survive and advance toward perfection. 
 When means of expression and commu- 
 nication were found, there came the writ- 
 ten words through which the needs, the as- 
 
MAN'S RE VELA TION TO MAN. 1 9 1 
 
 pirations, the thoughts and imaginings of 
 men found vent, and literature became 
 the great agency of progress. 
 
 The universe is full of God's language. 
 The man of science that ascertains a 
 truth, reveals the word of God far more 
 truly than the oracles of the ancient peo- 
 ples of the world. 
 
 The Bible contains in its oldest part 
 the writings of the earliest people whose 
 history we know with any fulness, and 
 the religion which we have been taught to 
 revere, sprang out of the religion of that 
 people. Hence it is that such a special 
 sacredness has been attached to that mass 
 of ancient literature. Much of it no 
 doubt is sacred, for all truth is sacred and 
 every good precept is holy, wherever it 
 may be found ; but the view which so 
 many still take of those old writings is 
 mainly due to the survival of ignorance 
 and superstition. 
 
 As we look back over the progress of 
 the human race, do we not see how after 
 many glimmerings and gropings, the 
 
192 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 artistic sense in man, the love of the 
 beautiful and refined, the genial amenities 
 and humanities of life, and the spirit of 
 philosophic inquiry, received a wonderful 
 impulse and development in the little 
 land of Greece? A people grew up 
 there with a genius for those factors in 
 human progress. Do we not find a little 
 later another people in a neighboring 
 land with a genius for aggressive force 
 and conquest, for organization and law, 
 for government and rule? These two 
 peoples made their contributions to what 
 we have been wont to call civilization, 
 and the heritage passed to later times in 
 the results of their history and in their 
 literature. 
 
 More important than the artistic 
 sense, and the instinct for refinement, 
 more essential to permanent progress 
 than the sense of power and the instinct 
 for orderly rule, was the moral sense, 
 inciting mankind to right conduct 
 toward each other, and the recognition of 
 obligation to a power above themselves. 
 
MA N 'S RE VELA TION TO MA N. 1 9 3 
 
 This sense of duty was implanted in the 
 human race with its other qualities, and 
 along with those it struggled for the mas- 
 tery ; but like the peculiar aptitude of 
 the Greek and of the Roman to teach the 
 world in their great departments of ad- 
 vancement, so also a special genius for 
 moral and spiritual development sprang 
 up among the nomadic tribes of Arabia, 
 and worked itself out in the Jewish relig- 
 ion and the Hebrew polity. 
 
 The half-mythical ancestor of Israel, 
 the Chaldaean chief Abraham, the first to 
 substitute the slaughter of animals for 
 human sacrifices among his people, and 
 to do away with the grosser rites of the 
 worship of those dark times, gave to 
 man the earliest exalted conception of a 
 deity. Involved in the obscurity of myth, 
 crudely reduced to matter-of-fact state- 
 ment by prosaic writers, whatever person- 
 ality was behind the august title of Abra- 
 ham stood for a great moral and relig- 
 ious genius. From the gods of his 
 pagan ancestors and kindred he chose for 
 
194 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 the worship of his tribe the Most High, 
 the invisible creator of all gods and the 
 father of men. But more than that, in 
 paternal and patriarchal relation to his 
 people, he conceived a lofty idea of puri- 
 ty in domestic and social life and of justice 
 and integrity in the dealings of men. From 
 such conceptions he clothed his God with 
 the mystic attributes of justice, love and 
 mercy, mingled with those of awful power 
 proper to a mighty ruler. So far as we 
 can discover in the mists of that far-off 
 dawn of human history, Abraham, or the 
 genius for which that name has stood for 
 ages, was the first to inculcate submis- 
 sion and fidelity to the will of a higher 
 power as a means of progress and eleva- 
 tion for mankind. 
 
 Under the impulse of this great con- 
 ception the tribal and local deities of the 
 ancestors of Israel, which superstition had 
 created among them as among all primi- 
 tive peoples, took a single personification, 
 and men began to look up to one God. 
 At first he was the God of the tribe, of a 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 1 95 
 
 single people, jealous of all other gods ; 
 then he was the sovereign and ruler of 
 the nation that sprang from that people ; 
 and finally, as the nation came to struggle 
 for existence with other nations, it mag- 
 nified its God into the creator of the 
 earth and its destined ruler, after the sub- 
 jugation of all other peoples to the sway of 
 the chosen of Jehovah. The conception 
 of God has gone through as remarkable 
 an evolution as any other conception of 
 the human mind, and the theocratic sys- 
 tem of the ancient Hebrews did much for 
 its development. 
 
 But it is impossible to identify the 
 Jehovah of Israel with the conception of 
 deity that must be derived from the 
 knowledge that the human race has ac- 
 quired in later ages. The Hebrews had 
 their men of purely human genius as well 
 as other ancient peoples, and one of these 
 was that leader and law-giver who res- 
 cued them from Egyptian slavery and 
 restored them to the land which they re- 
 garded as their heritage, where they 
 
196 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 built up a nation througli many struggles 
 and contests. Moses gained and main- 
 tained his ascendancy for the great work- 
 he had to do by appealing to the people's 
 reverence for the God of .Abraham, and 
 by developing and elevating their concep- 
 tion of that deity. Instead of assuming 
 to be a leader and a law-giver himself, he 
 invested Jehovah with those functions 
 and made him the sovereign. That was 
 not onl)' a stroke of political genius, but 
 it marked a great advance in the people's 
 conception of their God. It was natural 
 that this unseen ruler should have the 
 characteristics of an Oriental despot. At 
 first he had even to be cruel and ruthless, 
 vengeful and jealous, bloodthirsty ami 
 terrible, for the people could not be ruled 
 without severity. Their God must be 
 feared. He was terrible in his anger and 
 fierce in his punishments, and he thun- 
 dered his commands on the mountain 
 tops and his threats in the tempest. 
 
 The worship of Jehovah by bloody sac- 
 rifices and burnt offerings, to placate His 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 1 97 
 
 wrath and to win His favor, was the tra- 
 ditional form of worship for the pagan 
 gods whicli the superstitious infancy of 
 the human race had set up. But the 
 higher conceptions upon which it was 
 based purged it of the grosser rights of 
 Hcentiousness that had prevailed in the 
 personification of the productive powers of 
 nature. The precepts and commands of 
 Jehovah dealt with the material well-being 
 of the subjects of His sovereignty. As 
 the people advanced in enlightenment 
 under their great leaders and teachers 
 the sway of Jehovah was extended and 
 exalted. 
 
 More and more the element of right- 
 eousness and justice assumed prominence, 
 while that of loving-kindness and tender 
 mercy began to assert itself. The God 
 of Job and of the later Psalms is a differ- 
 ent being from the God of the Penta- 
 teuch and the earlier annals. But the 
 conception never reached a lofty height, 
 compared to wliat is to be derived from 
 modern knowledge and reason regarding 
 
198 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 the beneficent and all pervading Spirit of 
 the universe. The early moral standards 
 of the Jews, even when attributed di- 
 rectly to Jehovah, were not very high. 
 Their conceptions of life never went be- 
 yond the earth, scarcely beyond that land 
 in -which they lived. Their religion was 
 mainly patriotism ; and their priestly and 
 prophetic teachings were chiefly politics, 
 with little of spirituality, though slowly 
 the moral sense was lifted up and 
 strengthened. They had no idea of im- 
 mortality or of life after death, except 
 that of a vague and shadowy continuance 
 in the darkness of the underworld. Their 
 precepts, their warnings, their promises 
 and threats, derived as they believed, 
 from their unseen Ruler, related only to 
 their earthly welfare. Those whom they 
 called prophets were concerned for their 
 social and political condition as a people 
 and their fate as a nation, more than for 
 individual conduct and personal well-be- 
 ing. 
 
 Looking from the height of modern 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN 1 99 
 
 intellectual and moral attainment, can we 
 not see just how important to that which 
 we were wont to call '* modern civilization " 
 was this Hebrew development of the idea 
 of moral obligation, and of responsibility 
 to a higher power, crude as it was ? But 
 was it so much more essential than the 
 social and aesthetic development that 
 sprang out of Hellas, or the conquer- 
 ing and organizing genius to which 
 Rome gave birth? Were not even the 
 Greek intelligence and the Roman power 
 indispensable to the culture and dissemi- 
 nation of the Hebrew morality in the 
 world ? No bodily member is more es- 
 sential than another ; — all are requisite. 
 Was the literature in which the Hebrew 
 experience was embodied and preserved 
 to after time more truly sacred or more 
 inspired by the God of the universe than 
 that which treasured up the other ele- 
 ments of human advancement toward 
 perfection ? It seemed so, because it re- 
 lated to moral duty and to the sentiments 
 that controlled moral conduct and spirit 
 
200 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 ual growth ; but, looking over the whole 
 ground, was it ? 
 
 We know now that this Holy Bible was 
 a collection of writings gathered together 
 at a late period in the Jewish history by 
 priests and scribes from a mass of ac- 
 cumulated material. There was no at- 
 tempt to make it consistent or harmo- 
 nious. It contains the imperfections 
 characteristic of the time, the people 
 and the circumstances of its produc- 
 tion. 
 
 There is a rude attempt to account for 
 the origin of the world and its inhabi- 
 tants, such as has been made by every 
 distinct people on the earth, almost as 
 soon as it has begun to keep written 
 records. The Hebrew attempt, like the 
 others, had the characteristics of an im- 
 perfect stage of intellectual development. 
 It showed ignorance of material things 
 and of natural phenomena and the super- 
 stition of a primitive time, for it was 
 made before the light of science and phi- 
 losophy had risen upon the world. Of 
 
MAN^S REVELATION TO MAN. 20I 
 
 course it cannot be reconciled with the 
 knowledge of later ages. 
 
 Such an attempt to account for the 
 origin of the earth and the human race 
 was a natural prelude to the annals of 
 the nation. It was followed by a half- 
 mythical account of the origin of the 
 " chosen people," derived from the tradi- 
 tions of the Hebrew race, and then the 
 annals gradually emerged from the legen- 
 dary form into a clearer history. But they 
 were made up by a mingling of traditions 
 and conjectures with fragmentary and in- 
 consistent records, and were generally 
 crude \n composition and arrangement, 
 often conflicting and in many points in- 
 credible. And yet from the imperfect 
 record man has been able to derive a 
 knowledge, made constantly clearer by 
 rational study, of the origin, early strug- 
 gles, vigorous growth and ultimate decay 
 of the nation from which some of our 
 loftiest conceptions have been derived. 
 
 Mingled with these rude annals were 
 stories of leaders and rulers, seers and 
 
202 BEYOND THE BOURN, 
 
 prophets, of great men and of humble 
 persons, from which valuable lessons were 
 to be gained, as from other ancient tales 
 of human experience. There too were 
 found the regulations and commands of 
 law-givers, the thoughts and speculations 
 of wise men, the dreams and aspirations 
 of poets, and the teachings, warnings and 
 hopeful anticipations of those who have 
 been called prophets, but whose prophe- 
 sying was not so much a matter of pre- 
 diction as of lofty political and personal 
 morality, with threats and promises, at- 
 tributed to Jehovah and dependent tor ful- 
 filment upon the conduct of the people. 
 
 This was a literature of an altogether 
 human kind, offspring of the character, 
 thought, feeling and experience of a 
 people — an expression of the results of 
 their life, preserved for the instruction of 
 later generations of men. Therein it was 
 like other literatures, but in its religious 
 aspect it was superior to that of other 
 ancient peoples in that it enshrined the 
 experiences and teachings of a longer 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 203 
 
 line of men of a higher moral and spirit- 
 ual grade. The peculiar religious genius 
 of the Hebrew race resulted in filling its 
 erratic and imperfect literature with a 
 larger proportion of permanent truth 
 affecting the life and conduct of men than 
 had been gained by others, and this gave 
 it a powerful and lasting influence. 
 
 How petty are the long disputations of 
 the devoutly learned upon the sacredness 
 of Scripture, revelation of the divine will 
 and inspirations of the authors of the 
 old Hebrew writings. Is not God in- 
 finite spirit, pervading the universe with 
 His presence and power and inspiring the 
 whole movement of creation toward a 
 perfect development which is still far 
 from completed ? Has not His inspira- 
 tion wrought in all the processes of this 
 development, in all worlds, in all races, in 
 all history, in all literatures, tending to 
 the one divine purpose of lifting the off- 
 spring of God into harmony with him- 
 self ? Is not divine inspiration in every 
 religion, to the extent that the people 
 
204 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 cherishing that religion have the capacity 
 for giving expression to the divine that is 
 in man ? 
 
 To men on this earth the sources of 
 revelation are the earth itself, the uni- 
 verse of which it is a part, and man's own 
 nature and history. The meaning of 
 these is truth, and man is left to find out 
 truth with the aid of that within him 
 which is divine. The more knowledge he 
 acquires and the more accurately he rea- 
 sons upon what he learns the nearer will 
 he come to divine truth, and the greater 
 will be his capacity for feeling the signifi- 
 cance of this truth in relation to himself 
 and to deity. The revelations of science 
 and reason, and the intuitions of the phi- 
 losophy which they inspire are more sa- 
 cred than the dreams and oracles of seers 
 and prophets who lived before the dawn 
 of knowledge dispelled superstition. 
 
 The later times are the wiser, and have 
 more of that inspiration which leads to 
 the practical expression of truth than was 
 possible in the old days, however deep 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 20$ 
 
 may have been the insight into the 
 human heart of some of the ancient teach- 
 ers. Is it not folly to cling to old writ- 
 ings that are filled with the errors of 
 ignorant and superstitious ages as pecul- 
 iarly sacred scripture, or more the word 
 of God than is the expression of the knowl- 
 edge, thought and spiritual life of later 
 times? In so far as they contain truth in 
 harmony with ascertained facts in the 
 realm of physical and human nature they 
 may be held sacred ; but in the same sense 
 all writings that embody truth regarding 
 the nature and destiny of man are sacred. 
 The study of all old literatures is in- 
 structive to mankind, and most of all that 
 — whether Hebrew or heathen — which re- 
 veals the origin and development of the 
 moral sense and of the religious instincts 
 and aspirations. But man has wandered 
 through a maze of darkness and error as 
 the result of fixing his faith too exclu- 
 sively upon a gathering of Books collected 
 by the priests and scribes of an outgrown 
 religion in a bygone age and pronounced 
 
206 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 "sacred" by the leaders of theological 
 systems that have become antiquated. 
 Yet he is even now emerging into the 
 light where he can see that each genera- 
 tion must make its own scriptures and its 
 own revelations. Holding fast that which 
 is good in the revelations of the past, 
 shall he not make the utmost use of the 
 greater light that is shed upon his path- 
 way and recognize its source as divine? 
 
 What is that doctrine of Evolution 
 which so clearly explains the development 
 of the material world and of physical life 
 upon our planet but a new interpretation 
 of the working of divine power? Has 
 not that divine power wrought by an 
 analogous process of progressive develop- 
 ment toward symmetry and perfection 
 through the intellectual and moral forces 
 that operate in the spiritual nature of 
 man ? Was not the soul of man itself 
 brought into being by evolution from the 
 elements of sentient life through long 
 generations of brute ancestry, and has it 
 not been working toward its destiny of 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN 207 
 
 divine life under those orderly processes 
 even until now ? Is it not the all-pervad- 
 ing spirit of the universe that works in 
 the human race toward the fulness of 
 spiritual life in man, which was the object 
 of creation ? 
 
 In the stern old Hebrew race was de- 
 veloped the conception of purity in hu- 
 man life and of righteousness in human 
 conduct, and with the inextinguishable 
 torch of this high conception they strug- 
 gled against the darkness of surrounding 
 barbarism. If they imagined a terrible 
 God, who promised them greatness and 
 power as the reward of obedience to his 
 commands and threatened dire calamities 
 as the punishment of disobedience, it was 
 through their faith in this mighty unseen 
 Ruler that they kept alive the flame of 
 that moral sense that was to elevate man- 
 kind from their primal stage of animalism, 
 until a greater than the seers and prophets 
 should arise to light a beacon with their 
 torch. It was the great Jehovah and his 
 worship, with all the awful sanctions with 
 
208 BEYOND THE BOURK. 
 
 wliich it was surrounded, that kept the 
 Hebrews up to their great task of incul- 
 cating righteousness and the submission 
 of the brute in man to the di\ine. 
 
 After the long ferment of Judaism in 
 the bosom of a single race, working out 
 the sense of duty and of tlie relationship 
 of man with the power that made him, 
 while other qualities of the human soul 
 were undergoing development in various 
 parts of the world, there came the break- 
 ing over of the dividing lines and a co- 
 alescence of the forces of mental and 
 moral evolution. Wherein is that span 
 of human history from the scattering of 
 the Hebrew nation to the appearance of 
 the great Teacher of Galilee less sacred 
 than that which preceded it, or the wide 
 and varied literature in which the experi- 
 ence of humanity outside the Jewish race 
 was then recorded less the embodiment 
 of revelation for man than the Jewish 
 Scriptures ? In that long period, although 
 the Hebrews were in a non-productive 
 and spiritually apathetic state — their 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 209 
 
 prophets dumb, their priests fanatical, 
 their people crushed — yet both within and 
 without their borders the forces were 
 working which prepared the way for the 
 next decisive process in the course of 
 moral and spiritual evolution. 
 
 The development of a high moral sense 
 and of lofty spiritual conceptions of man's 
 relation and destiny was by no means 
 confined to the Hebrew race, which found 
 something to borrow from the Assyrian 
 and Persian mythologies. It appeared in 
 the teachings of the Chinese Confucius, 
 and took an exalted form in the doctrines 
 of the Hindoo Gautama. In no small de- 
 gree it wrought upon Greek philosophy 
 through Plato and Socrates, and was im- 
 pressed upon the better part of Roman 
 literature. The ferment was in the grow- 
 ing human race, and was part of the 
 method of its moral and spiritual evolu- 
 tion. The soul of man was groping after 
 a knowledge of its origin and its destiny. 
 It was working out a revelation of both 
 for its own benefit, and it contained 
 
2IO BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 within itself an inspiration that bore it 
 ever upward. 
 
 The religious teachers of mankind in 
 all times and all lands have been those who 
 had the deepest insight into their nature 
 and their relations in life, and the highest 
 conceptions of their moral and spiritual 
 needs, and of the means of satisfying 
 them. Religious systems have ever been 
 adapted to the needs of the time and the 
 people for which they were established, 
 and each was modified or displaced as the 
 race advanced in power of thought and 
 in moral strength and purity. They 
 were the best means for spiritual eleva- 
 tion and moral advancement that the 
 wisest and best men could devise for 
 their own generation; but the time would 
 always come when they hardened into 
 forms that repressed growth instead of 
 promoting it. 
 
 When once a system of faith and of 
 worship had been fairly outgrown, one 
 leader after another would struggle with 
 the problem of replacing it with some- 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 21 I 
 
 thing adapted to a new era of progress, 
 until at last the genius would appear who 
 had greatness of soul enough to solve 
 that problem for his fellow men and be- 
 come their savior from the evils which 
 tend to degradation. 
 
 Was not that wonderful teacher in Gali- 
 lee such a genius? Did he not appear as 
 the embodiment of a protest against the 
 grosser and harsher phases of the old Jew- 
 ish faith, its unspiritual conception of God 
 as a stern ruler, and the ceremonies and ob- 
 servances through which His worship had 
 become a dead formality, having no saving 
 influence on the conduct of men ? He was 
 filled with an intense sympathy for the 
 needs of humanity and had a profound 
 insight that enabled him to bring to man- 
 kind a new gospel of salvation. Instead 
 of being an unnatural (for that is what is 
 meant by " supernatural ") incarnation of 
 divine power and wisdom, he was the in- 
 carnation of those human qualities which 
 constitute moral perfection, the outwork- 
 ing of the divine which is incarnated in 
 
212 BEYOND THE BOURN'. 
 
 the imperfect human race. He had by 
 natural endowment the ideal character 
 toward which the human race was aspir- 
 ing and striving, and toward which it 
 must strive and aspire until perfection is 
 reached. It was that which gave him his 
 lofty conception of the deity as the Father 
 of mankind instead of a terrible ruler ; and 
 of all men as brethren who had simply to 
 establish the fraternal relation in their 
 conduct toward each other in order to 
 live in peace and happiness. It was that 
 which raised him so immeasurably above 
 all other teachers. It explains his com- 
 prehension of human needs, his intense 
 sympathy and earnestness, and his power 
 over those who came within his influence. 
 It makes clear also the wonderful power 
 which his personality has exercised in 
 the world ever since he lived and died. 
 Springing from a single branch of the hu- 
 man race, he had in perfection the noblest 
 attributes of the race at large, and all 
 men acknowledge his kinship. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was an embodiment 
 
HIAN'S RE VELA TION TO MAN. 2 1 3 
 
 of the moral and religious genius of hu- 
 manity, appearing at a time when the ele- 
 ments and process of human progress 
 were prepared to receive a new impulse. 
 His character was in a moral and spiritual 
 sense the perfection of humanity, and it 
 was divine in the sense that all humanity 
 is divine in so far as it approaches its 
 state of destined perfection. Of the sec- 
 ular interests of mankind in the world at 
 large he knew little, and to them he gave 
 little thought. Of the course of races 
 and nations and the multifarious activities 
 of life on its practical side he had little 
 conception. In him the spiritual quali- 
 ties of human nature found their highest 
 and purest embodiment since the race 
 began, and were most completely freed 
 from the qualities that pertain to its 
 physical origin and its physical needs. 
 Hence his soul was in close sympathy 
 with the spirit of divinity that pervades 
 the universe and dwells in all life, and 
 yielded itself absolutely to the impulse of 
 divine love. By force of the marvellous 
 
214 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 endowments of his nature he was the 
 teacher of those about him, and through 
 them of all mankind. His mission, viewed 
 in relation to its immediate scope and 
 effect, was humble, almost insignificant, 
 and the history of the time scarce took 
 notice of it. But in such a life and char- 
 acter, and the teachings that accompanied 
 them, there was something inextinguish- 
 able. There was a light kindled that 
 could not fail to spread for the illumina- 
 tion of the world. 
 
 It is no wonder that such a phenome- 
 non at such a time and place should come 
 to be regarded as miraculous, as soon as 
 people got far enough from it to discern 
 its true proportions. It is not strange 
 that in a record made up a century or 
 more after the marvellous appearance, in 
 a time and among a people of little accu- 
 racy in knowledge and reasoning, tales 
 of a supernatural origin, of supernatural 
 powers and of miraculous accompani- 
 ments of the birth, life and death of such 
 a being should be devoutly accepted. 
 
MAN'S REVELATION TO MAN. 21$ 
 
 A perfect man at that time, devoted to 
 an effort to make all mankind perfect ! 
 And especially a man who bore his glad 
 tidings to those who were at that time 
 universally despised and down-trodden — 
 the poor ! What could be more wonder- 
 ful and more calculated to excite super- 
 stitious faith in his divinity, in an age 
 when divinity was attributed to all man- 
 ner of exceptional persons? 
 
 It is not strange if those who founded 
 a new religious system upon his teachings 
 connected his appearance and mission 
 with the long-cherished Messianic hopes 
 of Israel, and gave their fulfilment a 
 spiritual turn. It is not to be wondered 
 at if they saw in him the embodiment of 
 the vague foreshadowings of seers and 
 prophets, and tried to make the dimly re- 
 membered and imperfectly recorded facts 
 of his life and teachings conform to the 
 prophesies of the old Jewish Scriptures. 
 Yet no man ever appeared on the earth 
 more completely unheralded. 
 
 As our vision becomes broader and 
 
2l6 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 clearer, we are more and more believers in 
 the large designs of the Almighty and the 
 Providence that works in the laws of the 
 universe, and nothing is plainer than 
 the preparation of the soil of the human 
 race for the seed sown by the teacher of 
 Nazareth. Hebrew history, with its the- 
 ocratic idea of moral human government, 
 Grecian history, with its development of 
 sentiment and refinement and intellectu- 
 ality, and Roman history, with the growth 
 of the elements of conquest and power 
 for reducing to order and system, — these 
 were the chief factors that made the 
 world ready for the gospel of purity and 
 unselfish goodness. That gospel was the 
 mighty leaven needed for the seething 
 mass of humanity ; but ages were required 
 for the fermentation, and it is far from 
 finished now. When the whole lump is 
 leavened, then will the Kingdom of God 
 have come upon the earth. 
 
 But why should we overlook or try to 
 explain away the imperfections and in- 
 consistences of the human record in which 
 
MAN'S RE VELA TION TO MAN. 2 1 / 
 
 the incidents of the life and teachings of 
 Jesus have been preserved ? Why not 
 rather admit that it is a purely human 
 record, and try to separate from the er- 
 rors which it contains the pure truth which 
 is alone of enduring value ? That later 
 Scripture, long held sacred, is so only ac- 
 cording to the measure of truth which it 
 contains for the elevation of mankind, and 
 it is to be judged like other literature, 
 according to the rules of reason and with 
 reference to the circumstances of its pro- 
 duction. The incredible is not to be be- 
 lieved. That which is not according to 
 nature is not to be accepted. Out of the 
 blending of legends and dim traditions, 
 the tales of credulity and superstition, the 
 conflicting statements of hearsay evi- 
 dence, and the writings of those who 
 sought to support their doctrines and 
 theories by events which occurred before 
 these were formed, we should seek to ex- 
 tract the simplicity of truth. 
 
 In the remarkable episode in human 
 development which had its impulse in the 
 
2 1 8 BE YOND THE BOURN. 
 
 soul of a Galilean peasant, there is no 
 doubt a revelation to Man ; but it is a 
 revelation derived from his own experi- 
 ence, which has been in manifold ways 
 misinterpreted. Out of a character of 
 divine purity and strength, out of teach- 
 ings of divine simplicity and force, be- 
 cause in the highest sense human, super- 
 stition wrought forms of faith and wor- 
 ship adapted to the transient needs of 
 mankind. Human minds, with defective 
 knowledge and perverted spiritual sense, 
 striving with problems beyond their com- 
 pass and dealing with men in whose souls 
 superstition and hereditary passion held 
 sway, devised creeds and set up forms of 
 worship that served for restraint and for 
 elevation in their day. All systems of 
 belief are made and modified by man to 
 suit the needs of his spiritual growth, and 
 they have a divine sanction just so far as 
 man has found out truth and given it 
 embodiment. 
 
 Forms of belief have changed with the 
 progress of the race and must change or 
 
MAN 'S RE VELA T70N TO MAN. 2 1 9 
 
 die. But through the mass of human 
 error and imperfection has wrought for 
 centuries the leaven of the imperishable 
 gospel of purity and unselfishness. With 
 increasing knowledge and with strength- 
 ening reason ancient dogmas shrivel into 
 dust, but only to reveal the truth more 
 clearly. The million wrongs and evils 
 with which humanity struggles in its up- 
 ward course are due to the selfish in- 
 stincts which were elements of strength 
 to the race in .fighting its way from its 
 brute origin, conquering the conditions of 
 growth and battling for the mastery of 
 the world. But these selfish instincts de- 
 rived from an ancestry of brutes, and nec- 
 essary in early stages of struggle, are at 
 war with the spiritual instincts. All come 
 from the inspiration of divinity; but per- 
 fectness will not be gained till the spirit 
 overcomes the flesh. In the strife of 
 these forces is the battle of life for 
 man. 
 
 The latest revelations are the revela- 
 tions of reason, wrought out of the knowl- 
 
220 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 edge which science and history afford. 
 They are as sacred to-day as were ever 
 the oracles of the olden time, and they 
 render obsolete every belief with which 
 they are inconsistent. But nothing in 
 man's knowledge or reason can impair 
 the efificacy of the gospel of purity and 
 self-sacrifice. In the subjugation of self- 
 ish instincts and the devotion of efTort to 
 the good of others lies the salvation of 
 the individual and of the race. That is a 
 doctrine which no science or philosophy 
 can transcend ; and no progress in knowl- 
 edge or in reasoning can dim the lustre 
 of the character of the Teacher of Naza- 
 reth or supersede the everlasting truth of 
 his most essential precepts so far as they 
 bear upon human conduct ; indeed, rightly 
 read, they confirm the fundamental verity 
 of his principles. Truths cannot be in- 
 consistent with each other. 
 
 No wonder if in a superstitious age he 
 was exalted to divinity and has been long 
 held representative of God to man. But 
 he was a man of men, the type of what 
 
MAN 'S RE VELA TION TO MAN. 22 1 
 
 man may be on the moral and spiritual 
 side, and it is that which makes of him 
 an enduring example. The pre-eminently 
 human teacher who sprang out of the 
 bosom of decaying Judaism to give new 
 moral and spiritual light to the world has 
 for ages been petrified by superstition, 
 incrusted with dogmas and swathed in 
 theological subtleties. Unto some he 
 has become an imposing idol containing 
 the mysterious person of unseen divinity, 
 and has been enshrined in temples as a 
 God, while to others he has been made 
 as a mummy, worshipped but not fol- 
 lowed, holding no vital relation with the 
 living human race. 
 
 It is the mission of modern knowledge 
 and untrammelled reason, in exploring 
 the realm of physical science and sounding 
 the depths of human philosophy, in sub- 
 jecting past history and literature to the 
 test of unflinching criticism, to extract 
 the revelation of truth from whatever is ; 
 and they should restore to humanity its 
 greatest Teacher, by restoring humanity 
 
222 BEYOND THE BOURN. 
 
 to him. All revelation of man's destiny- 
 is made by man to man ; and all his 
 search is to find out God. 
 
 THE END. 
 
A brainy little voluniey — PROVIDENCE TELEGRAM. 
 
 MIDNIGHT TALKS 
 Ht tbe Club. 
 
 Reported by AMOS K. FISKE. 
 
 Contents: The ''Owl Party " Temperance; The Shepherd- 
 less Sheep; Sunday Observance; Religion; Political Imtnorality; 
 Superstition and Worship; The Scriptures as a Fetich; Irish- 
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 of Human Evidence; Poivcr of Personality; Discussions Ap- 
 plied; Usefulness of Delusion; The Faith Defended; Tolera- 
 tion and Enlightenment; Co?nfort in Essential Truths. 
 
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 "The opinions are those of a 
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 and they are written in crisp and 
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 and brainy quartette." — Buffalo 
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 doubting minds." — New York 
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 " Although the subjects are not 
 new, yet there is a freshness about 
 their treatment which gives an im- 
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 the inspiration of a certain breadth 
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 "This candor of mind, and a cer- 
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 THE LIFE OF JESUS, THE CHRIST, 
 
 By Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
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 Fragments of Opinion when Vol. I was issued. 
 
 The ordinary overflowing exuber- 
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 homeliness, its perpetual play of wit 
 and sarcasm, are here abated; the 
 marvelous majesty and beauty of the 
 person of Jesus have had an elevating 
 and chastening power. The result 
 is a dignity almost uniformly sus- 
 tained, and now and then passages 
 of exquisite hea.nX.y.''^— Presbyterian 
 Quarterly and Princeton Review. 
 
 "The great poet-preacher of our 
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 so constantly taught by like meth- 
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 complete American book we have 
 yet seen on any branch of field 
 sports." — Nerv York Evening Post. 
 
 Millionaires of a Day: Ai 
 Inside History of the Greai 
 Southern California Boom. 
 i2mo. Ex. cloth, .fi; paper, 
 50 cents. 
 
 " A witty and entertaining, but 
 withal v.iluable and shrewd descrip- 
 tion of real and fanciful growth of 
 a most favored land." — Detroit Tri- 
 bune. 
 
 Rifle, Rod and Gun in Cali- 
 fornia: A Sporting Romance. 
 i2mo. Ex. cloth, beveled, 
 
 $1.50. 
 
 "Crisp and readable throughout, 
 and, at the same time, gives a full 
 and truthful technical account of 
 our Southern California game, 
 afoot, afloat, or on the wing." — 
 San Francisco Alta California. 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 
 30 Lafayette Place, New York. 
 
OP 
 

 
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