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 DEATH. 
 
 IJST THE LIGHT 
 
 HARMON I AL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 By MARY F. DAVIS. 
 
 ''High lies that better country. 
 The land of morning and perpetual spring.* 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 A. J. DAVIS & CO.. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
 
 xo. u east fourth street. 
 
 1876. j 
 
 4o O^ 
 
 . 
 
DEATH 
 
 iy THE LIGHT 
 
 HARMON I AL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 By MARY F. DAVIS. 
 
 "High lies that better country, 
 The land of morning and perpetual spring." 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 A. J. DAVIS & CO., 
 
 PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
 
 No. 24 EAST FOURTH STREET. 
 1876. 
 
 jys^/*— 
 
.3^ 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, 
 
 By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 John F. Trow & Son, 
 
 PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, 
 
 205-213 East 12th St., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The truth about death never breaks upon us until 
 the light of the spiritual universe shines into the deep 
 darkness of the doubting mind. Until this higher re- 
 velation is given to the understanding, the outward fact 
 of death strikes one with the awful force of Fate. By 
 many it is regarded as a " mysterious act of Providence/ 5 
 a shadow sent like a thunderbolt from the throne of 
 God, a punishment inflicted by a dread Power upon a 
 sinful world, filling human habitations with sorrow and 
 desolation. The stricken heart cries out : 
 
 " I shrink away from it, with unbelief 
 That thou, my sunshine and my light of life, 
 Art gone forever out of touch and sight, 
 From any recognition of my sense, 
 Into a black, impenetrable night." 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 This awf ulness and desolation can be removed only 
 by the light of truth which beams upon the world 
 from the spiritual universe. Unless the inner life be 
 unfolded, or the senses which we shall possess after 
 death be opened this side of the grave, darkness and 
 doubt fill the groping mind, and the bereaved heart 
 is wrung with anguish. The physical senses cannot 
 perceive spiritual realities, neither can the sense-edu- 
 cated mind reason clearly concerning things spiritual. 
 There must be some degree of awakening of the inner 
 sensibilities before the individual can rise out of the 
 overwhelming grief and gloom attendant on the mys- 
 terious wrenching from our grasp of the beloved ones 
 whom we hold dearer than life. For the want of this 
 interior awakening many suffering hearts seek for a 
 " sign," through religious excitement, or through mani- 
 fold marvels. But individual growth into spirituality 
 should be first sought. We should aim to arise into 
 that harmonious state—that oneness with the Divine 
 nature which would make communion with the departed 
 possible, and then we shall cease to crave such purely 
 external methods of communication as now seem to 
 threaten a lower tone to Spiritualism. May the pure 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 white light out of which this sacred Eevelation came, 
 so permeate and possess *our interior natures that the 
 words of the poet who wrote of " Presence " may be our 
 own : 
 
 " O nameless thing ! which art and art not ; spell 
 "Whose bond can bind the powers of the air, 
 Compelling them thy face to hide or bear. 
 O voice ! which, bringing not the faintest swell 
 Of sound, canst in the air so crowd and dwell 
 That all sounds die. O sight ! which needst no share 
 Of sun, which sav'st blind eyes from their despair, 
 O touch ! which dost not touch, and yet canst tell 
 To waiting flesh, by thy caress complete, 
 The whole of love, till veins grow red with heat ; 
 O life of life ! to which graves are not girt 
 With terror, and all death can bring no hurt. 
 O mystery of blessing ! never lift 
 Thy veil ! our one inalienable gift ! " 
 
 The Harmonial view of death, a hint of which is 
 attempted in the following pages, can be obtained not 
 from the " night side " but from the light side of Nature. 
 From this spiritual summit w T e see 
 
 ' ; The stars go down to rise upon some fairer shore." 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Our loved ones go through the change mis-called 
 death, leaving us desolate in «the external life, but be- 
 yond we find them all again, fair as immortal flowers 
 blooming in the Garden of God. The smile which the 
 departing spirit leaves on the pallid lips we love is a 
 token of the triumphant joy of which the expression 
 would be : 
 
 " O death, where is thy sting ? 
 O grave, where is thy victory ? " 
 
 M. F. D. 
 New York, May 15th, 1876, 
 
D E ^l T H 
 
 LIGHT OF THE HARMONIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Nature is the interpreter of man. In her multiform 
 phenomena, and the subtile laws which underlie them, 
 we can find a sure clue to that being which we are and 
 possess. Hence, if we would make ourselves proprietors 
 of that knowledge which is the sum of all, namely, 
 knowledge of the soul, we must be humble students of 
 Nature outside of man, no less than of Nature in his 
 essence and organization. 
 
 Kneeling thus reverently at the vestibule of her 
 great temple, she will ere long introduce us into the 
 holy of holies, where we shall see the pure transparent 
 glow of a spiritual light enveloping all things, so that 
 they stand transfigured before us, and we behold their 
 richness and their significance. 
 
 Then the lightest breath of golden-robed summer, 
 the faintest carol of singing-birds, the most gauzy cloud 
 floating adown the deep of noonday, the sunset bril- 
 
8 NATURE WITHOUT AND WITHIN MAN. 
 
 liancy of autumn eves, the vast, enveloping ocean, 
 the grand old hills, and the ever-moving, ever-changing 
 panorama of seasons, and suns, and stars, and human 
 forms — these all alike strike upon the electric chain of 
 being, and awaken us to wonder and wisdom, joy and 
 worship. 
 
 NATURE WITHOUT AND WITHIN MAN. 
 
 This is because Nature outside of man represents 
 what is within him. It is because the spirit is the 
 fountain of all forms, forces, and attributes ; of love, 
 wisdom, power, virtue; of beauty, sublimity, eternal 
 repose, and eternal activity ; it is because of this that 
 we feel ourselves related to the broad universe, spread- 
 ing off into immensity around us. Hence, the mute 
 violet and the shining stream have a language that we 
 can understand, and the surging meadow and forest 
 oak have each a mission to our deepest consciousness. 
 The sea-beat answers to our heart-beat, and within the 
 soul chime melodies that are repeated by every orb that 
 floats in the infinite abyss of motion. How truly said 
 the great poet : 
 
 " I live not in myself, but I become 
 Portion of that around me : and to me 
 High mountains are a feeling 
 
UNIVERSAL UNITY OF THINGS. 9 
 
 I can see 
 Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be 
 A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
 Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
 And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
 Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain." 
 
 Thus gently doth Nature teach her attentive children. 
 Through the cycles of eternal change there flows an 
 anthem of eternal melody ; sad and gay, grand and 
 pathetic, by turns, but ever pealing through the universe 
 in rhythmical cadence and unbroken harmony. 
 
 UNIVERSAL UNITY OF THINGS. 
 
 When we go a few miles apart from the rush and 
 crush of a busy city, we find that all its discordant 
 sounds gradually melt and blend, until at last we hear 
 only a murmur like the soft tread of forest streams, or 
 the wavy chime of distant bells. Thus it is when we 
 ascend the mountain of contemplation and serenely 
 overlook the kingdoms of the world and the realm of 
 Nature. Time and space, accident and circumstance, 
 life and death, all settle into their own place on the 
 scale, like the major and minor notes in a grand 
 oratario ; and we listen, soothed and satisfied, to the 
 rise and fall and never-ceasing flow of the one universal 
 anthem. 
 
10 THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 
 
 Nature, then, is our friend. Nay, more ; she is our 
 Mother. When saddened by sorrow, or crushed by care 
 and toil, we can go into her blessed sanctuary and lay 
 our anguished iieart upon her great heart. Pulse to 
 pulse, life to life — thus reposing and believing — we 
 feel the waters of peace distilling, drop by drop, upon 
 the centre of our souls, until at last we rise into the 
 budding freshness of new energies and higher hopes. 
 
 Tenderly does our Mother Nature lead us into the 
 serene depth, the holy silence, where dwelieth our 
 Father God. When we obey her, she caresses us and 
 clothes us with beauty and happiness. When we dis- 
 obey her, she repels us and sets upon our being the seal 
 of deformity and pain. When our soul becomes weary 
 of companionship with the body, then does she gather 
 the frail form in her loving arms and lay it away to 
 rest, opening the door, meanwhile, for the spirit's 
 ingress to the higher and better mansions of our 
 Father. 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 
 
 And this is what we call Death. More surely than 
 any other change comes this great change to every 
 child of earth. What may occur in our experience the 
 next week or the next year, with whom we may seek 
 
THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 11 
 
 or avoid companionship, what perilous or pleasant paths 
 we may tread, what oceans we may sail or lands 
 traverse, we know not. Human events, like the ebb 
 and flow of the sea, take place with that alternation 
 which marks the order of universal nature ; but when 
 our vision would rend the veil and read the law which 
 might interpret the past and prophesy of the future, we 
 find the infinite soul overlaid by the deep shadow of a 
 finite existence. 
 
 Hence, uncertainty attends our forward steps in life, 
 but concerning death there can be no doubt. As surely 
 as we exist, so surely will the moment come when the 
 soul w T ill go out with the last gasp of the quivering 
 frame. 
 
 There are j)eriods in human experience when this 
 certainty seems to follow on our track like the footsteps 
 of fate. We dread the stealthy foe, yet cannot elude 
 his grasp. We love life and hate decay ; we rejoice in 
 health and- shrink from disorganization. Yet surelv, 
 steadily, each moment bears us nearer and still nearer 
 the returnless wave. Then comes the fearful illustra- 
 tion of the power of the conqueror — the tragedy of 
 mortal disease, holding in its iron grasp those we love 
 best; the heart-agony of the last farewell — the cold, 
 white form — the coffin — the grave. 
 
 In all this Nature seems unkind, life a failure, the 
 
12 THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 
 
 fleeting joys of a few brief years no compensation for 
 the mysteries and miseries of existence. 
 
 Such is the feeling of the stricken heart, such are the 
 . contemplations of the struggling soul, as long as the 
 rays of the spiritual sun fail to penetrate the thick folds 
 of earthly being. Not until the very God warms into 
 life the germs of our latent spiritual consciousness, not 
 until we can walk serenely in the light of our Father's 
 smile, shall we see clearly the perfectness and glory of 
 our Mother's work, and rest in sacred faith and holy 
 joy within her protecting arms. 
 
 THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 
 
 That is a low state of mind over which a dread of 
 death holds predominance. In high and heroic 
 moments we can be swayed by no such fear. When 
 some great truth or sublime passion seizes and absorbs 
 the soul, how insensible are we to all that # can disturb 
 or destroy the body ! Then we feel related to omnipo- 
 tence, and in our potentiality are so fully aware that 
 we cannot cease to he, that mere personal safety is a 
 matter of no moment and no concern. 
 
 When a fierce Roman soldier broke into the study of 
 Archimedes, and advanced with uplifted sword to 
 cleave him in twain, the philosopher paid no heed to 
 
THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 13 
 
 his own danger, but, intent upon a scientific truth, 
 merely requested time to finish his theorem. 
 
 Socrates knew no sublimer hour than that in which 
 he conversed sweetly and calmly with his friends, while 
 drinking the deadly hemlock. 
 
 There has been many a religious martyr burned at 
 the stake who, during the long agonies of that terrible 
 death, has had a countenance radiant as a seraph's, 
 with the unspeakable joy of a blameless spirit, daunt- 
 less in its godlike adherence to the principle of 
 Eight. 
 
 How encouraging; to know that there are moments 
 when any human soul can be thus grandly defiant, thus 
 nobly self-poised and transcendent ! For if one can 
 become heroic, then another and all others can : and if, 
 during a few shining moments, the spirit can be 
 brought to triumph over sense, then the time may come 
 when existence will be overarched and interfused with 
 this diviner life, which will make all moments and all 
 deeds sublime. 
 
 But now, instead of walking the earth erect, with an 
 ever-present consciousness of a princely dower, which 
 no change can diminish, no decay mar, no death 
 destroy, we skulk and cringe like craven souls, and 
 tremble lest some dire destiny overtake us. 
 
14 DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 
 DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 
 
 To this unworthy tendency the theologies of the 
 world have always lent their powerful aid. That 
 which is called Christian has especially conduced to 
 degrade man. It teaches that from the first we are 
 totally depraved ; that " from the sole of the foot even 
 unto the head there is no soundness in it, [us,] but 
 wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." To be 
 saved from this horrible spiritual malady, we must 
 debase ourselves still more before a terrible potentate — 
 submit to the shameful dishonor of imputing our sins 
 to an innocent person, or, at least, of accepting a 
 reprieve through the torture and death of that unof- 
 fending being ; then " put our hand upon our mouth 
 and our mouth in the dust," and writhe and creep, like 
 degraded serfs, at the feet of a dread and revengeful 
 demon, misnamed — Deity. 
 
 In many ways does this narrow theology tend to 
 belittle, debase, and disgrace humanity. It not only 
 fills life with low aims and ignoble deeds, but it teaches 
 most unnatural, unwholesome, aud repulsive views with 
 regard to death. Contrary to all the beautiful lessons 
 of Nature in the visible sphere which we inhabit, 
 Christian theology assumes that man was first created 
 with an imperishable physical organism ; but, in conse- 
 
DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 15 
 
 quence of disobedience to a whimsical command of his 
 Maker, the law of his existence was at once arbitrarily 
 subverted by his short-sighted and capricious monarch. 
 The matchless twain of Eden ate 
 
 "The fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe," 
 
 and the austere Judge who owned the luxurious garden, 
 and placed his ignorant children in reach of its tempt- 
 ing fruit, smote not only the terrified pair and all their 
 posterity with his prolonged vengeance, but cursed the 
 very ground for their sake. 
 
 We see that, according to this theological romance. 
 Death is an arbitrary decree of a revengeful tyrant ; 
 and hence it becomes, to the misdirected imagination, 
 an event of terror, hate, and indescribable foreboding. 
 The thought of it is to many an incubus, pressing upon 
 the faculties by night and by day, and paralyzing the 
 best energies and most exalted hopes. Devout church- 
 members, pastors of nourishing congregations, and 
 zealous tract societies, awaken into morbidly-intense 
 activity this ever-lowering fear, by presenting Death as 
 the first, the last, the only subject worthy the attention 
 of a human being during the days, months, and years 
 of earthly life. To be prepared for that awful event ; 
 
16 DEGKADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 
 
 to be ever watchful lest it come as a thief in the night ; 
 to wait in solemn, mournful apprehension, for the 
 " king of terrors ;" to keep in constant view of others, 
 and especially the young, startling visions of 
 
 ** The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 
 And all we know, or dream, or fear, 
 Of agony " 
 
 connected with the grave ; to consider all motives, all 
 acts, small and mean compared with the absorbing, 
 overwhelming effort of preparing for the narrow house 
 and the destroying worm— these seem to be among the 
 great aims of a sectarian propagandism and dogmatic 
 theology. 
 
 It is true that the earth smiles in its fresh spring 
 loveliness, and waters come gushing in wild abandon 
 from merry mountain streams, and bending skies are 
 mantled all over with a flush like that of joy, and white 
 lambs gambol upon sunny slopes ; but man, the noblest, 
 best of God's creatures, must sit in sackcloth and 
 ashes, ever reflecting on 
 
 "That hushed, Cimmerian vale, 
 Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinished fates, 
 With raven wing incumbent, waits the day- 
 Dread day ! — that interdicts all future change." 
 
 As though it were not enough to blaspheme the Divine 
 
THE INFALLIBLE TEACHINGS OF NATURE. 17 
 
 humanity by calling it wholly sinful ; but our swift 
 moments must be laden with this deadly weight of 
 anxiety concerning the most golden circumstance 
 among all those which cluster upon the rosary of our 
 passing years ! The great, earnest, strong hours of a 
 whole lifetime, made to bend in subserviency to the 
 few illumined moments during which the spirit 
 changes its apparel, or the mortal puts on immortality I 
 
 THE INFALLIBLE TEACHINGS OF NATURE. 
 
 We will turn from these erroneous, oppressive, aiid 
 repulsive views of man and his relations to God, and 
 contemplate life and its changes in their real beauty, 
 grandeur, and significance. We will seek truth ; not in 
 the muddy channels of theological speculation, but in 
 the broad and blooming fields of Nature. We will in- 
 quire of the plant, the animal, the ever-changeful yet 
 ever-steadfast nature of man, and of the golden spheres 
 beyond which angels inhabit, and see what answer they 
 will bring to satisfy the deathless yearnings of the 
 spirit. 
 
 In our researches hitherto we have been wandering 
 from home — from the clear, deep fountain of knowl- 
 edge, wisdom, and joy. Physically, we have turned 
 ourselves out of doors by allowing ordinary impulses 
 and appetites to hold sway over the higher faculties of 
 
18 HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 
 
 our nature. Intellectually, we cultivate a feverish 
 restlessness which 'we denominate " activity ; "' and 
 under its impelling force we go driving througli 
 colleges, and books, and foreign countries, forgetting 
 that vast libraries are locked up in the labyrinth of our 
 own souls, with volumes more elaborate, and compre- 
 hensive, and beautiful, than were ever written — nn- # 
 mindful that wild sierras, and soft, Italian skies, and 
 surging Mediterraneans, and cloud-capped Alpine 
 peaks, are but a faint reflex of a gorgeous inner world 
 which the outer bodily temple doth but conceal and 
 guard ! Spiritually, we resort to creeds and dogmas, 
 and feed on the mildewed husks of a religion from 
 which the live kernel has long since emerged, all un- 
 conscious that a Divinity sits in the deep sanctuary of 
 our being, waiting to transfuse celestial ambrosia 
 through our hungered spirits, and "fill our whole natures 
 with the sweet radiance and sacred bliss of purity, 
 harmony, and love ! 
 
 HAEMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 
 
 But we need be wanderers no longer. The new 
 Spiritual Religion, which the Harmonial Philosophy 
 teaches, is bringing us more and more into a grateful 
 recognition of this interior life, with its immense 
 facilities and enjoyments. We are beginning to ex- 
 
HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 19 
 
 perience, more and more frequently, those intense 
 momentary exaltations during which whole seas of 
 hitherto hidden wisdom seem struck out of the rock in 
 which we are imbedded, and sw T iftly surge before our 
 startled vision. The angel world is bending low to 
 bless us with a baptism of strength and aspiration, that 
 thereby we may ascend into that illuminated atmosphere 
 which invests all things with the glow of inspiration. 
 The world no longer seems 
 
 "A fleeting show, 
 For man's illusion given," 
 
 but a glorious sphere of actual, earnest, sublime en- 
 deavor. We no longer dawdle away existence in pre- 
 paring to die, but we make ready to live the largest, 
 truest, purest lives of which we are capable. The past 
 is no master, the future no dread; but the eternal 
 present is ours, and the acts of this moment claim our 
 worthiest and noblest aims. We now know that our 
 earthly life is not a mere probationary scene — a 
 " stage " on which is to be enacted the divine tragedy 
 of "Redemption" — a battle-field where Satan and 
 Jehovah enlist embittered hosts in fiery contention for 
 the souls of men ; but Nature has given us birth and 
 being here for the sake of perfecting an individual 
 spiritual organization which shall outlive the sun. 
 
20 HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 
 
 On the very summit of life has she reared the temple 
 of Humanity. Low down, in the mineral kingdom, did 
 she commence the pyramidal structure. Patiently, 
 through long cycles of ages, she, our Mother, wrought, 
 forming, combining, dissolving, and reconstructing, 
 placing deposit upon deposit, and strata upon strata, 
 building up the vegetable kingdom on a mineral 
 foundation, causing the complicated animal structure 
 to spring from the vegetable world, linking motion to 
 matter, life to motion, sensation to life, and intelligence 
 to sensation, until, at length, man stood upon the apex 
 of that vast and glorious mountain. So perfect was 
 the chain of being that there is not an atom or element, 
 not a force or form in all that unimaginable machinery 
 of means, but finds itself duplicated in this wonderful 
 human structure, which is the end and culmination of 
 all. 
 
 We are, then, truly related to the external universe 
 by every fibre of our being, and yet superior to it all. 
 Hence that mysterious sympathy which we feel in 
 solitary places, that deep, restful lull which contact 
 with green fields and graceful trees will give us, that 
 sublime joy of communion with mountains and stars, 
 that dear consolation in sorrow and despair, which 
 comes in the voice of rushing of mighty waters; and, 
 amid all, that feeling of supremacy over time and 
 
WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST ORGANISM? 21 
 
 change which rises like an aroused spirit within us, at 
 such moments of contemplation. 
 
 It was more than poetic fancy — it was an everlasting 
 truth — that came welling up from the gifted soul of 
 George Herbert, when he penned the following noble 
 lines : 
 
 " Nothing hath gone so far 
 But man hath caught and kept it as his prey ; 
 
 His eyes dismount the highest star; 
 
 He is in little all the sphere. 
 Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they 
 
 Find their acquaintance there. 
 
 More servants wait on man 
 Than he'll take notice of ; in every path 
 
 He treads down that which doth befriend him 
 
 When sickness makes him pale and wan. 
 O mighty love ! Man is one world and hath 
 
 Another to attend him." 
 
 Feeling this intimacy with our universal Mother, we 
 can but inquire her aim in thus perfecting her organic 
 work, in thus concentrating the riches of the outer 
 universe in the form and essence of man's nature. 
 
 WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST OKGANISM ? 
 
 Nature is neither tardy nor equivocal in her response. 
 She tells us that the lower kingdoms of Nature consti- 
 
22 WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST ORGANISM ? 
 
 tute a factory, so to say, by means of which the human 
 body was constructed ; and that the body, in turn, 
 becomes the cradle, or vehicle, or dwelling, by means 
 of which the spirit is organized, perfected, individual- 
 ized, and made immortal. Not that matter creates 
 spirit ; this could not be ; but the peculiar combination 
 of matter which exists in the human structure makes 
 it possible by means of that structure, and by that 
 means only, for spirit to become organized and inde- 
 structible. As electricity, though existing previously in 
 a latent and intangible state, is eliminated by means of 
 the galvanic battery, so spirit, though existing previous 
 to and separate from the body, is, by means of the 
 external organism, evolved, so to say, and enabled to 
 gather to itself the form and substance which are im- 
 perishable. 
 
 It plainly appears, then, that this life is but the 
 beginning of an unending existence, and this world, 
 with all its beauty, is but a mere shadow of that which 
 is to come. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
 have entered into the mind of man " the blessed reali- 
 ties which Nature hath in store for all her children. 
 
 " I feel my immortality o'ersweep 
 All pains, all groans, all time, all fears— and peal, 
 Like the eternal thunders of the deep, 
 Into my soul this truth—' Thou liv'st forever.' " 
 
WHAT IS THE REALITY OF DEATH? 23 
 WHAT IS THE REALITY OF DEATH? 
 
 What is Death ? What, but a mere circumstance in 
 an endless existence, less deplorable than banishment 
 to a far country, less than an unworthy deed, less 
 than the rupture of friendship's ties, less than the hour 
 of physical distress, which you, my friend, have often 
 experienced ! Like falling asleep on a bed of sand to 
 awake in a garden of roses, would be the natural de- 
 parture of the spirit from earth. Could we truly live 
 till childhood had ripened into youth, and youth into 
 manhood, and manhood into old age, so that the spirit 
 could have the full benefit of a life on earth, then 
 would the body fall off like a worn-out and useless 
 garment ; and the soul, in the fresh-born vigor of 
 immortal youth, would sail joyously into the atmosphere 
 of its higher and better home. 
 
 Only thus can Death be truly a messenger of joy. 
 Kature shrinks from violence and pain ; and decease 
 occasioned by evil practices, or the departure of child- 
 hood and youth for the far land of souls, or the severing 
 of body and spirit by disease or accident, are events 
 always to be shunned and lamented. Little children 
 are happy in the Summer Land. Loving spirits shelter 
 them under their protecting parental care, and they 
 constantly progress in knowledge and wisdom ; but it 
 
24 SPIEIT INTEECOUESE THEOUGH SPIEIT CULTUEE. 
 
 is of great importance that the spirit should accompany 
 the body into the vale of years, in order that it may 
 gather to itself those experiences and memories which 
 will doubtless be of vast advantage in that sphere of 
 existence which succeeds the present. 
 
 Who among the loved ones that have gone before, 
 and are now blessing the world with a gentle, welcome 
 baptism of angelic guardianship — who among that 
 shining band give us the greatest strength and the 
 wisest guidance ? Childhood comes with words of love, 
 and delicate, fond caresses ; and our hearts, which they 
 left so stricken and desolate, beat once more with a 
 sudden and overwhelming joy. But when we need 
 more than love — when our dim eyes grope for the light 
 of wisdom, that our feet may not stumble — do we not 
 seek counsel of those whose length of days on earth gave 
 them a deep realization of the perils and temptations, 
 the sufferings and triumphs, which attend our rudi- 
 mental state ? 
 
 SPIEIT INTEECOUESE THEOUGH SPIEIT CULTUEE. 
 
 The more we seek the deep, interior life of the soul, 
 the more do we come into communion with the disem- 
 bodied, who have entered the shining gateway of eternal 
 peace. This is true Spiritualism. In such blessed inter- 
 course we find that Death is no longer the " King of 
 
SPIPwIT INTERCOURSE THROUGH SPIRIT CULTURE. 
 
 9,5 
 
 Terrors," but a kind and gentle friend who opens the 
 door to the upper and better mansions of our Father. 
 The dark portals of the grave become illuminated with 
 celestial radiance, and the mists of the " valley and 
 shadow " melt into the soft, roseate hues of a golden 
 morning, on whose atmosphere float angelic forms 
 waiting to bear us in their loving arms to the land of 
 the blest. 
 
 But the best result of that self-culture which yields 
 so rich a harvest of spiritual intercourse, is that it gives 
 us to ourselves. The effort to attain the summit of that 
 sacred mountain, brings into exercise the dormant 
 energies of our spiritual natures, so that at last we are 
 truly "born again" into this beautiful fullness of 
 spiritual life. Then we appreciate our riches ; then we 
 realize our strength. " We shall mount up with wings 
 as eagles ; we shall run and not be weary ; we shall 
 walk and not faint." What was once dark and 
 mysterious in the operations of Nature now becomes 
 luminous and beautiful ; and the soul rests in an un- 
 wavering faith on the eternal supremacy of Good. 
 
 Because Tarn, therefore I cannot cease to be. Thou, 
 O friend ! desirest immortality because thou art im- 
 mortal. Thou aspirest to goodness because thou art the 
 Good ! Thou lovest the beautiful because thy soul is a 
 fountain of beauty. All principles are eternal, and the 
 
26 THE SOUL AND ITS ASPIRATIONS IDENTICAL. 
 
 fact that we can comprehend them is ample proof that 
 we have a conscious existence paralel with them. We 
 need no outward testimony to give us a guarantee of 
 eternal life, for when we have attained the power to 
 glide into this inner sanctuary of the soul, we know 
 that the genius there enshrined 
 
 " Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 
 
 THE SOUL AND JTS ASPIRATIONS IDENTICAL., 
 
 The soul is absolute. Essentially, it knows neither 
 time nor space ; but relatively, it takes on the condi- 
 tions of both. Emerson says : 
 
 " As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads 
 and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in 
 the soul where man, the effect, ceases ; and God, the 
 cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie 
 open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the 
 attributes of God." 
 
 These are the words of an inspired teacher, and we 
 accept them gratefully. But since there is another 
 side to the soul on which impinge the bodily organs and 
 functions, and all the conditions of mortality, it is but 
 natural to inquire what follows on the severing of those 
 ties which hold body and soul in an earthly union. 
 
THl! 
 
 We have seen that, by means of the body, the soul 
 is enabled to start on its eternal pilgrimage as an 
 individualized entity ; but as the steam which is generated 
 by the fire and water of a locomotive soon dominates 
 both the engine and the train, so the spirit, when once 
 evolved, through the agency of the body, dominates that 
 bodv and all its concomitants. Holding this absolute 
 sway, the inmost nature, which I have called soul or 
 spirit, clothes itself with a spiritual body which is now 
 intermediate, but becomes outermost when the connec- 
 tion between soul and body is dissolved. This inter- 
 mediate spiritual body permeates the physical, giving 
 warmth to the blood, strength to the muscles, and life 
 and sensation to the whole visible organism ; while 
 that, in turn, gleans from Nature's storehouse her 
 choicest viands and devotes them to building up and 
 perfecting this interior form which is to pass on with 
 the spirit into the Second Sphere. 
 
 In that natural, peaceful life which nature intended 
 for man, this reciprocal process goes on till the meridian 
 of years is passed, and then the spiritual forces 
 gradually withdraw from the external form in order to 
 complete the internal temple, and strengthen and 
 beautify it for an exit to the better land. 
 
 Hence, the failing step, the tottering frame and 
 sunken eye of age, while the spiritual body within is 
 
28 THE LAST SCENE. -OF ALL. 
 
 young, and strong, and beautiful, awaiting its peaceful 
 journey to fairer groves than those ®f blest Arcadia. 
 
 THE LAST SCENE OF ALL. 
 
 And now the shrunken form is still and pale, and 
 the mourner stands with hushed breath beside the 
 death-bed. To the physical sense all is over ; but to 
 the spiritual vision there has just commenced a sublime 
 apotheosis. (See "Great Harmonia," vol. i., p. 157.) 
 Above that lifeless head plays a halo of light, and anon 
 it spreads into a large radiant wave and rises on the 
 sustaining air. Gradually this luminous, nebulous, 
 wave-like emanation takes form and features very like, 
 and yet vastly unlike, the prostrate body beneath it. 
 At first it is as though the departed loved one had 
 returned to helpless infancy, with its soft, pliant limbs,, 
 and innocent eyes. Then the spiritual form gathers 
 fullness, and buoyant youth, in its grace and glory, 
 stands transfigured before the inner vision. 
 
 Around the new-born spirit is the angel band which 
 has been waiting to give it w T elcome. They bear it 
 upward on the bosom of that magnetic river which sets 
 toward the Summer Land. Swiftly, beyond clouds, 
 and planets, and suns, they soar, till golden hills, and 
 pellucid lakes, and the fragrant breath of countless 
 
THE LAST SCENE OF ALL. 29 
 
 star-gemmed flowers, and the full, orchestral burst of 
 myriad love-full voices, guide them Home from their 
 far journeyings. 
 
 Iu the bowers and beside the crystal streams of that 
 high and holy Home begins the new life of the late 
 enfranchised being. Blessings and beauties before 
 undreamed of in her wildest imaginings cluster thick 
 around her. Avenues to knowledge, wisdom, and pro- 
 gression, open on every hand. Loving eyes beam upon 
 her, gentle hands clasp her own. By all that is great 
 and glorious she is moved to be noble, good, and great. 
 Earth, with its pain and grief, and multiform causes of 
 evil, is behind her. Heaven, with its harmony and joy, 
 and multiform cures of the effects of evil, is before 
 her. The mighty soul, which once struggled in vain 
 to force its way through its limitations, now rises 
 grandly np and claims its kindred and its destiny. 
 Deep gratitude fills her being for the kindly ministra- 
 tion of Death, and in the garden of an eternal Eden 
 she is forever blest. 
 
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