LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 J UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, j 
 
QSm. J>jfd^>iJu£, 
 
PENCLINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 *><,*• 
 
 ALSO 
 
 WRITINGS COPIED FROM WORDS SEEN CLAIRVOYANTLY 
 
 UPON TEE WALL, GIVEN UPON VARIOUS 
 
 TOPICS SUGGESTED BY THE IN 
 
 VISIBLE S, THROUGH 
 
 THE MEDIUM AM CLAIRVOYANT, 
 
 MES. LATTKA A. SITNDEKLIR 
 
 Scatter thy jewels before thee, and you will reap a harvest 
 Which will glitter in the ages yet to come. 
 
 
 *li 
 
 MAQUOKETA, IOWA : 
 
 SWIGART & SAKGENT, PRINTERS. 
 1876. 
 
 T 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, 
 
 By MRS. LAURA A. SUNDERLIN, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This work is a compilation of spiritual writ- 
 ings, some of which were copied from writings 
 seen clairvoyantly by myself upon the wall, and 
 others are inspirational writings from the invisi- 
 ble intelligences imparting to me inspiration up- 
 on various topics at different periods. Also, 
 ideas given through rny husband's, (Samue] Sun- 
 derlin,) mediumistic gifts, some of them as far 
 back as the year 1868, which thereafter has been 
 compiled inspirationally through me for publi- 
 cation in this work, or more elaborately ex- 
 plained to suit the invisibles which are among 
 the astronomical discoveries, the causes which 
 moves the planets on their axis being explained 
 through his mediumistic powers, that the liquid 
 attracted in the interior of planets toward the 
 centre of the planet produced a revolution of the 
 liquid in the centre which caused the revolution 
 of planets upon their axis, and to demonstrate it 
 more conclusive they impressed me of the heat in- 
 creasing toward the centre which would cause a rev- 
 olution of the liquid around this increased heat 
 in the centre, of the cooler particles of liquid 
 
v PREFACE. 
 
 around the increased heat which would also pro- 
 duce a revolution which would give the planet the 
 same motion, they also gave through him the mo- 
 tion of planets in their orbits being produced by 
 attraction of the sun upon them or that the revo- 
 lution of the earth upon its axis was what moved 
 the moon around with it, which explanation they 
 thereafter gave through a clairvoyant sight to me 
 of the worlds and suns revolving upon their axis 
 and moving the elements of space around with 
 them, which gives the motion of all elements and 
 bodies therein, around them in an orbit, and that 
 their orbits were eliptical from electrical attrac- 
 tion. They gave through his mediumship the cause 
 of the rarity and density of atmosphere around 
 planets and its effects of light and heat upon 
 their surface, and many other ideas too numerous 
 to mention in a short preface, but that some of 
 his spiritual ideas were imparted through inspi- 
 ration to me for publication or more elaborately 
 explained thereby to suit the invisible intelli- 
 gences imparting them is true as regards some of 
 the theories of this work in its compilation for 
 publication. The Authoress. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Omnipotence 9 
 
 Where are They ? 12 
 
 Voices of Inspiration , 13 
 
 There is no Death 14 
 
 A Death Scene 15 
 
 History 17 
 
 Marriage 21 
 
 The Mother's Answer 22 
 
 Never Give Up 23 
 
 Epitaph 24 
 
 Voices 25 
 
 Death , 26 
 
 "Bock Me to Sleep" 30 
 
 Mysteries of Heaven's First View 32 
 
 Come Up Higher 34 
 
 The Wind 36 
 
 Lessons on Life 38 
 
 The Seasons 52 
 
 Higher 54 
 
 The Life Stream of Man and Woman 56 
 
 Lessons on Life— Chapter II 58 
 
 A Sermon 85 
 
 A Message 91 
 
 An Offering , 92 
 
vii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Investigation 93 
 
 Orbits of the Planets 95 
 
 Planets on Their Axis 101 
 
 Magnetic Healing . 116 
 
 Progress 122 
 
 Inspiration 129 
 
 The founder of Liberty 130 
 
 Onward 132 
 
 Decay 133 
 
 The Battle of Gettysburg 135 
 
 Invisible 137 
 
 Life's Mysteries 138 
 
 Spiritual Worlds , 140 
 
 Light and Heat. , 157 
 
 Creation 166 
 
 The New Year 169 
 
 Spiritual Dispensations 170 
 
 Celestial 188 
 
 Contentment 190 
 
 Jealousy. 192 
 
 Gold 194 
 
 Consistency 195 
 
 Justice 196 
 
 Supreme Intelligence 197 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This work is devoted to freedom of thought 
 and the unbiased prejudices of the Nineteenth 
 Century. That through its drifting sentiments 
 some jewel borne may reach the hearts of earth, 
 from the invisible shores, to enlighten the soul 
 that may reach upward in the day-break hours 
 of mental obscurity, that our invisible guardians 
 may send a ray of light beyond the setting sun 
 of life, from the beautiful hereafter which awaits 
 us all. 
 
 Then, as you may read these pages, read them 
 with unbiased minds and let light fall where it 
 may. We hope some longing soul may thereby 
 become lightened of its burden, and the obscurity 
 which clouds the mortal vision of man from the 
 beautiful light of the unending day, become so 
 radiated that they may see spiritually through 
 the veil of materiality and catch a glimpse of 
 that immortal light, so fitting us to receive with 
 undazzled vision the beautiful hereafter, which is 
 drifting us all toward the farther shore. 
 
PENOILIN.GS." FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Oir|r|ipotei|de. 
 
 O Infinite! how beautiful, how glorious and sublime, 
 Unchanging in Thy perfectness through all eternal time ; 
 Thy laws unfolding constantly, the supreme of Thy power, 
 From human minds to bud and leaf expanding in the flower. 
 Or to the worlds in starry space Thy laws are still the same, 
 All we behold, or know, or feel, is written on Thy name ; 
 For what can be, or e'er exist, but what Thou art the cause ? 
 The Infinite that's everywhere in Thy unchanging laws. 
 Thou art the moving spring that acts through all of nature's 
 
 ways ; 
 Creating and unfolding minds of every hue and phase, 
 As well as bud and blossom, or sunshine, dew and rain 
 All speak its own development engraven with Thy name. 
 Thy body, the vast whole, that acts the universe entire ; 
 Thy soul, the power that thrills throughout the whole as thrills 
 
 the lyre. 
 With deep toned music, master hands have touched the keys 
 
 that ring, 
 So Thou throughout the universe art thus the moving spring ; 
 And we, a part of the Infinite do live and move in Thee, 
 As inspiration long ago had spoke of Deity; 
 Unfolding and expanding toward diviner power, 
 
 (A) 
 
10 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 All elements are perfecting to higher life each hour. 
 
 If then we form a part of God, to die we never can, 
 
 The smallest atom Infinite, which we can understand 
 
 As changing not within us, is mind, which we can see, 
 
 From youth to age sustaining its own identity. 
 
 Then if mind is the Infinite that is unchanging not, 
 
 The spark within the mortal from Deity we've got, 
 
 Which is unchanging through all change of the material form, 
 
 Then mind continues through all change, through ages yet 
 
 unborn — 
 For God, in the unchanging, through all that we can see, 
 That moves material substance is immortality. 
 Yet all is God eternal, as nothing wastes for naught, 
 While the material substance in something new is wrought. 
 Creation moves unceasingly, just as the same begun, 
 Is God's eternal movement, His laws unceasing run ; 
 If it began in mind, then mind will ever be 
 Continuing its developments through all eternity. 
 The apple falls unto the earth, the same just now, to-day, 
 As did attraction laws o f God in ages passed away. 
 His will that moves the whole entire is the unchanging, where 
 It acts the same when contact of elements are there ; 
 Combining them in forms of life, with correspondence too, 
 The elements combining these laws were acting through. 
 And so in God we live and move to-day as doth all life, 
 Uniting and progressing to perfectness from strife. 
 The winding streams, the fragrant bowers, the starry worlds 
 
 of light, 
 Are moving onward, speaking forth of Deity more bright ; 
 Yet some may worship at the shrine and call it Deity — 
 Some central spot as in the church an altar fair to see. 
 But give me God to worship in His own boundless form, 
 The universe of worlds and suns, the sunshine, calm and storm; 
 Revolving on through endless change, upward from sin and 
 
 strife, 
 
 Where He doth speak in perfectness of freedom to all life. 
 
 If God is the development of all we know or see, 
 
 And will the same continue through all eternity, 
 
 Like one great mechanism of life, revolving wheels in wheels. 
 
OMNIPOTENCE. II 
 
 Of solar systems, worlds and suns, of life that thinks and 
 
 feels, 
 Then surely awe-struck praise the same must thrill the human 
 
 mind, 
 When comprehending one vast whole of grandeur so sublime. 
 Without beginning, without end, progressing on to where 
 These elements attracted in lives and worlds so fair, 
 Within the grand arcana, all moving onward still, 
 To what we see and comprehend immensity doth fill. 
 All praises seem to echo in one sublimer thought, 
 Of grandeur toward Deity, than what we have been taught 
 Of God who occupied a throne like ancient kings of days 
 When governments of kings had ruled man's undeveloped 
 
 ways. 
 The inspiration of that hour illustrates to the mind 
 A symbol in those days of God, the best that they could find. 
 To comprehend of Deity that ruled the whole supreme, 
 Most surely God upon a throne must sit as king or queen ; 
 But mind as well as governments advances to this day, 
 Eepublics live, and freedom born, and man has learned the way, 
 That God exists omnipotently in freedom through the whole, 
 And sees in God more higher still, divine, supreme control. 
 Unending and eternal; O, God ! we know and see, 
 Through ages still advancing, all praises are to Thee. 
 
12 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 Wiethe Ws Vftey?. 
 
 I'll speak of a land of fadeless bloom, 
 
 Of a land that's immortal beyond the tomb, 
 
 A land where the spirit doth enter in, 
 
 Is a world more bright that is freed from sin. 
 
 This land of bloom is the world where they 
 Have gone from us that have passed away ; 
 They will welcome us then, as we enter there, 
 Its portals of beauty— its worlds so fair, 
 
 Where sunshine and shadows may linger still, 
 But its joys supreme our hearts will fill, 
 Its joy increases when worlds where they 
 Are waiting now shall have passed away. 
 
 To lands beyond of fadeless light, 
 Where no sin doth enter nor sorrow blight, 
 Gather the gems of fadeless bloom 
 To sparkle and shine beyond the tomb. 
 
 The jewels worn in our crown will be 
 
 The gems of thought we have gathered free, 
 
 Along life's pathway, here and there, 
 
 E're we entered the portals of worlds so fair. 
 
 The truths we've gathered and garnered in 
 The soul most pure that is freed from sin, 
 Will rise in the light of the endless day, 
 The highest, beyond where no shadows play. 
 
VOICES. 13 
 
 Voided 
 
 Peering through the misty veil of darkness 
 
 A thousand shining lights are seen to-day, 
 
 Like silvery radiance gleaming on the mountain, 
 
 Casting its reflection in the valleys far away. 
 
 What is this shining light arising like a vapor 
 
 From some unknown and distant murmuring sea ? 
 
 It is the gentle breath — the lighted taper — 
 
 Which God has sent to light the way to thee. 
 
 Sent from the far-off climes of light supernal, 
 
 The loved ones which will beckon thee to bliss, 
 
 The cord which binds us to the eternal, 
 
 The silvery pathway from that world to this. 
 
 Thus, sweetest voices of our loved ones long departed, 
 
 Welcome us in all the rosy hours of day ; 
 
 Bright guardian spirits which no mildew blighted, 
 
 From earth life to the shores where'er they stray. 
 
 What can be sweeter in all our life immortal, 
 
 Than this, the knowledge which is given free, 
 
 For us to learn and know that the eternal 
 
 Has thus unbarred its golden gates to thee. 
 
 Voices murmuring ever from out the distance, 
 
 Like music wafted o'er some moonlit sea ; 
 
 Telling sweeter tales of an existence, 
 
 Life-long, eternal, welcoming you and me. 
 
 We'll chant eternal praises to the giver, 
 
 For love expressive gleams from every tongue ; 
 
 The fond assurance given us forever, 
 
 That earth-life is immortality just begun. 
 
14 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ¥l\e^e i£nof)ektlv 
 
 There is no death, 'tis but a change, 
 From life to life more bright, 
 
 And through eternity's vast range 
 We soar to higher light. 
 
 Eternal praise to Him who gave 
 
 Existence first on earth, 
 And then another higher still 
 
 Into the second birth. 
 
 Thus God in love and perfectness, 
 
 Forever we do see, 
 Bearing us onward, upward still, 
 
 Through all eternity. 
 
 For all the works which He hath made, 
 
 Shall not be made in vain ; 
 In wisdom He moves on and on, 
 
 Then praise, O, praise His name ! 
 
A DEATH SCENE. 15 
 
 8 f)ektl\ &eii 
 
 e. 
 
 I saw a mother's anguish wild, 
 
 When death had robbed her of her child, 
 And bore its beauteous form away, 
 
 And left her but the mouldering clay. 
 
 She clasped the infant to her breast 
 
 In wildest strains of tenderness, 
 But not an answering sound would give 
 
 Assurance that it still might live. 
 
 She pressed warm kisses on its cheek, 
 With grief beyond what tongue could speak 
 
 But cold and white its lips were still, 
 And yielded back an icy chill. 
 
 Then all the bitterness and woe, 
 That human heart could ever know, 
 
 Seemed to stir the mother's soul 
 And crush with grief beyond control. 
 
 For whitherward its life had flown, 
 Seemed all so dark in the unknown ; 
 
 But while I gazed upon the scene, 
 An angel come, with brow serene. 
 
 It was her mother — long since dead — 
 With radiant brow and noiseless tread; 
 
 She clasped the infant to her breast, 
 In sweetest robes she had it dressed. 
 
16 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 And looped away with tiny flowers 
 
 She'd plucked from the immortal bowers, 
 
 And fair and plump its shoulders peeped 
 Above its robe, and looked so neat. 
 
 Methought the mother's heart with joy, 
 Would thrill, could she have seen her boy, 
 
 With cherub forms that come to wait 
 And bear it on to heavon's gate. 
 
 But down they bended low in prayer, 
 And could not know that they were there, 
 
 For creeds and doctrines long had said, 
 A fearful thing is with the dead. 
 
 And closed the portals of their mind, 
 Away from those of heaven's clime, 
 
 To hear not songs of spirits' glee, 
 Praise God for immortality. 
 
 And know not guardians come and weep 
 With us when sorrows seem so deep, 
 
 From out immortal bowers of bliss, 
 And on our foreheads print a kiss. 
 
 And strive to raise our thoughts away, 
 To brighter skies beyond the clay ; 
 
 How much of gladness it would bring 
 To man to rob death of its sting. 
 
 To know that loved ones gone before, 
 With loving arms our infant bore, 
 
 The light that heaven gives to save, 
 And give us "victory o'er the grave." 
 
HISTORY. 17 
 
 ins¥Q§Y. 
 
 \ 
 
 History is the great study of human life. All 
 turn instinctively to the pages that record the 
 events and doings of men who have lived be- 
 fore them. Its study is sought for by the scholar,, 
 the sage, the philosopher. 
 
 The traveler in vain strives for some relic 
 among the cities of the dead, the ruins of ancient 
 sepulchres, and colossal caverns, to unearth some 
 trophy of the ages past, that will mark the events 
 and doings of man, that have preceded him. 
 
 Vespers to-day have sung sonorous music to 
 its praise. Though the men who gave birth- 
 place to the sciences and learnings of history 
 have wandered — like the poet, Homer, in the 
 streets of his native city — a poor, forlorn beg 
 gar, unappreciated. Or, like Demosthenes, who 
 spoke to the rolling waves of the ocean his first 
 efforts of oratory unnoticed by the populace of 
 his native land. Or Socrates, whose name is re- 
 nowned in history to-day as the greatest scholar 
 of his age, was derided and scorned by his own 
 
 (B) ' 
 
18 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 people, who were unable to comprehend the 
 vastness of his thoughts — thinking him a wild 
 fanatic, a curse to the world from which they ex- 
 cluded him by the fatal poison. 
 
 Thus there is always more sacredness in the 
 recounted deeds of the past, than the present mo- 
 ments which gave them birth. 
 
 Thus we go back to Aristotle, to Socrates for 
 sciences, — to Demosthenes for oratory, — to Homer 
 for poetry, — and to those Roman and Grecian 
 Senators, who echoed the thoughts of the heroes 
 and sages of the dead. 
 
 America to-day is far outrivaling in giant un- 
 derstanding upon the great topics of liberty and 
 political strife, the thoughts of sages that sleep 
 in the tombs of antiquity and whose thoughts 
 are living in the pages of history. 
 
 Coming ages will yet immortalize the name of 
 American glories, her free institutions, her halls 
 of learning. We live in a nobler age, far sur- 
 passing the past. 
 
 The voices of our American youths startle 
 from their lethargy the pages of science, and un 
 tomb from the dust of ages new sciences, new 
 truths that are outstripping the pen of the past. 
 
 Look to the means which have succeeded them. 
 Our giant intellects have constructed the tele- 
 graphic links, which span the depths of the 
 ocean. And tht; New York broker quietly sitting 
 in his office, can hold converse across the rolling 
 waves of the Atlantic with his friend as quietly 
 
HISTORY. 19 
 
 sitting in Europe. Or convey his thoughts to the 
 waves of the Pacific sitting in his laboratory in 
 London. 
 
 It is almost omnipresence of thought that ex- 
 cels the modern above the years of the past, 
 when man worked with the problem of science 
 untouched as it were. For then man used the 
 means of sail ships — copying from the little nau- 
 tilus that spreads its sails to the deep and rides 
 triumphantly over the waves, as his best means 
 of invention, for transporting news and commerce 
 from one country to another, through the tedious 
 journey of weeks. 
 
 But modern science unfolds from the leaves 
 which were left unturned by the ancients, steamers 
 freighted with the commerce of the whole world, 
 plowing o'er the ocean depths from continent to 
 continent in the short period of days. 
 
 Again, our magic Telescopes have spanned the 
 heavens and unfolded her starry realms, as plan- 
 etary systems, as worlds of beauty, peopled with 
 living, breathing life of grandeur, kissed by the 
 breezes of far off realms of purity, in the bound- 
 less fields of infinite space. But what was it in 
 the ages ol past history ? Man looked upon the 
 starry realms above us as lighted candles which 
 God had made expressly for our benefit; to lighten 
 the earth with a vast canopy of beauty, to please 
 the eye, and the sun, the great orb of light, to the 
 solar systems of worlds, to revolve around us in- 
 stead of the earth around the sun, that it was 
 
20 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 governed by the passions aud whims of men, who 
 like Joshua commanded it to stand still and it 
 obeyed. 
 
 Such is the history of the past. And to-day 
 modern science, far excelling in grandeur, can- 
 not live in the hearts of men with that sacredness 
 as the past history of those who have lived before 
 them. 
 
 Ages yet to come which shall succeed us in 
 knowledge and science, when we are sleeping 
 among the tombs and doings of men, that will be 
 recorded upon the pages of history, then a sacred- 
 ness will be thrown over the acts and doings of 
 our lives, of the present age, in the pages of 
 history. 
 
 Then let us each work for a grand and nobler 
 end, that we may leave footprints in the sands of 
 time. Do and act in the great drama, which is 
 yet to be sung by vespers when a higher language 
 than our own shall have buried the identity of 
 that which we speak to-day in oblivion, only to 
 be recited by the scholar, the sage, among the 
 dead languages of those who have lived before 
 them. Then a sacred name will be ours, and his- 
 tory will record our deeds with honors, and our 
 names live to be perpetuated adown the columns 
 of futurity. 
 
MARRIAGE. 21 
 
 J^ailik^e. 
 
 O, holy is the hour, when marriage sits supreme, 
 To bind in unison two hearts sailing on life's stream; 
 Exclusively all other lights from out the world are drawn, 
 And centered in the hearts of each to radiate each form. 
 
 The sunshine and the rainbow hue speak from each other's eyes, 
 As if its silvery lustre was borrowed from the skies; 
 There angels o'er the union of loving souls entwine, 
 Breathing thoughts of purity from far-off angel climes. 
 
 So loving hearts entwined on earth are still entwined above, 
 Where soul and thoughts eternal doth speak of fadeless love; 
 For God is love, and fadeless the principle must be, 
 So if we love in perfectness 'tis all eternity. 
 
 The unison of souls r jmain if love united here, 
 Then the sacred bonds of marriage each one of truth revere, 
 The flowers that gild its casket, the household flowers of love, 
 Are jewels sparkling ever to decorate above. 
 
 And still its radiant lustre will bright and brighter grow, 
 If perjured not with truthlessness its light to overthrow ; 
 Let each then bound in unison sacredly revere 
 The marriage bond in perfectness, then its shadows disappear. 
 
22 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ¥l|e ]\iotl\er'£ Si^wef. 
 
 Child, dearest child ! I come back to earth, 
 Back from the scenes of a glorious birth — 
 Back from the land where the flowers ever bloom, 
 For death has surmounted the grave and the tomb; 
 Guardian Angel from God sent to thee, 
 Child, dearest child, I am ever with thee. 
 
 Through the years that are passed that have furrowed thy brow, 
 
 I have watched o'er thee, the same then as now; 
 
 {Striving to shield thee from sorrow and care. 
 
 Though you knew not or thought not that I could be there. 
 
 Such is a mother's love, constant and true, 
 
 Loving to visit the earth life with you. 
 
 Life with its cares and its toils soon are o'er, 
 
 Then you will enter on this fairer shore; 
 
 Where verdure eternal will bloom as the spring— 
 
 Time of your life that no care will bring, 
 
 Only the love of warm hearts and true, 
 
 That wander the green fields celestial with you. 
 
 Then praise Him who gave thee existence on earth, 
 Where dark is the vision of this higher birth; 
 For death soars above the grave and the tomb, 
 In a land that's immortal where flowers ever bloom, 
 And the cares of this life will recede one by one, 
 While onward and upward in that life beyond. 
 
NEVER GIVE UP. 23 
 
 j\fevei" Gjive lip. 
 
 Never give up, though sorrow and care 
 Are casting their shadows of gloom and despair ; 
 
 For life's darkest morning oft ends in a day. 
 Whose sunlight has swept all the shadows away. 
 
 Never give up, but stem the rough tide 
 
 Of life's ocean waves, and you'll safely out-ride 
 
 The tempest tossed sea, with its foam- crested surge, 
 For the wildest of storms will in calmness submerge. 
 
 Never give up, for the angels of light 
 Are pointing awpy to a haven more bright ; 
 
 To beckon thee onward and upward to where 
 Thy life will be freed from sorrow and care. 
 
 Then let not adversity crush life's great aim, 
 But steadily climb up the hillside of fame; 
 And your banner will float in time yet to be, 
 
 On Fame's highest monument, stainless and free. 
 Never give up, was the motto so brave 
 
 Of Heroes that sleep, our country to save ; 
 That struggled through dangers as great in the past, 
 
 And bore to man freedom triumphant at last. 
 
24 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 As great is the bondage that fetters the mind, 
 And makes mankind slaves to creeds of a kind, 
 
 Enchained us from ages to ages to come; 
 Then never give up till freedom is won . 
 
 Till each human being that lives on the earth 
 May think, act, and reason, regardless of birth, 
 
 For freedom of thought is the gift that doth bring 
 The voices of loved ones on angelic wing. 
 
 Never give up, for the lives of the past 
 That taught inspiration, the multitude cast 
 
 Its fetters to chain the truths which they give ; 
 The same inspiration on earth now doth live. 
 
 Then never give up, for surely you'll win, 
 If this is your motto when once you begin; 
 
 A cause that is noble — 'twill give you a name, 
 If you never give up on the banner of fame. 
 
 ^pitkpli. 
 
 I live in a world of beauty, 
 My life 's like a silvery tree 
 Whose leaves are unfolding in glory, 
 And blossoms through all time to be. 
 
VOICES. 25 
 
 Yoice^. 
 
 I come, I come, with the silvery band, 
 That echoes from out the silent land; 
 My home in the silent hearthstone bright, 
 Is now shut out in the darksome night; 
 For my path away in the dark unknown, 
 Is closed above the silent tomb. 
 
 They come around the hearthstone there 
 
 And breathe for me a silent prayer; 
 
 They gaze in awe at each pictured scene, 
 
 Each token of me that comes between 
 
 The days that have lengthened to years since I 
 
 Had taken my flight to the upper sky. 
 
 How vain is man as he gazes there, 
 
 On each crucifix in silent prayer, 
 
 And knows not the way that the dead have birth, 
 
 Away from the light of the angel hearth; 
 
 Or whether with God their flight may be taken, 
 
 Or fast asleep 'till the tomb is shaken 
 
 With a mighty trumpet noise to wake 
 
 Their sleep so dense, e'xe their flight they take; 
 
 Is there not some way where the dead have flown, 
 
 Some cord between to the yet unknown ? 
 
 By which our existence fair and bright, 
 
 Can glimmer through with a ray of light ? 
 
 We answer yes; O, wait and see, 
 What may be given from us to thee ; 
 And open thy mind that we enter there 
 With a ray of thought or a whispered prayer, 
 Instilled like the dews on the flowers of even, 
 That opens to catch as it falls from heaven. 
 
 (C) 
 
26 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 f)^¥fi. 
 
 Again the silent hearse has cast its mournful 
 shadow within our midst; and the funeral tread 
 has borne away one more of our number to the 
 silent graveyard, whose cadences strike a knell 
 upon the harp strings, in mournful melody, to the 
 many weeping hearts o'er the last resting place of 
 the dead, where the spring flowers will blossom 
 and the wild birds sing their requiem, and the 
 passer-by again pause to point the finger to a 
 new made grave, and sigh o'er the final resting 
 place of all. 
 
 For like the unfledged bird within its mother's 
 nest, they see not the green fields and sunny skies 
 that will greet their outstretched wings when they 
 are able to soar away unfettered among the bios 
 soms of summer. 
 
 And so it is with death to the mortal vision of 
 many. The lips so hushed and still in death's 
 embrace no more to them breathe forth in silent 
 accents of love and tenderness, for they hear them 
 not. 
 
DEATH. 27 
 
 But to me they come around us in the form and 
 robes of loveliness which earth knows not. They 
 whisper in our ears the words of tenderness, they 
 hear them not. They press upon their lips the 
 love untold in words, striving in vain to soothe 
 the mourning hearts which know not of their 
 presence. 
 
 They bring bright wreaths of flowers from their 
 sweet, sunny clime, and place upon their brow 
 longing for some known way. in which their loved 
 ones, still on earth, may know their presence. 
 To let them know that the dead, cold form of clay, 
 they laid so tenderly away to rest within the 
 tomb, is but the rusty garment which they wore 
 on earth to shield that pure, bright spirit form in 
 its enfoldment which God so gloriously had made 
 for life eternal. 
 
 Then weep no more, for while the funeral train 
 passed on, above the hearse that bore the earthly 
 form, I saw her with a band of spirits bright; with 
 wreaths of flowers and harps of music she hov- 
 ered o'er that funeral train, she pressed her lips 
 of love upon the- brow of those who wept for her. 
 
 I saw her strive in vain to soothe their grief, to 
 tell her tale of brighter worlds, of green and snnny 
 climes, in which she roamed in spirit worlds. 
 How she longed to soothe their grief, to tell them 
 that she lived and would leave them not, but day 
 by day she'd come to them and strive to breathe 
 a thought within their mind, to tell them of the 
 sweet and lovely worlds where spirits dwell that's 
 s;ood and true. 
 
28 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 I saw her brilliant in her lovely robe, stirring 
 up the multitude of spirits bright as they passed, 
 saying wake the reveries of these mourning friends 
 of mine. Tell them that I sleep, no more. That 
 earth has not a portal to hold me in the tomb. 
 Let them know that I live, clothed in beauty, 
 strong as an empire; not gone away in the cold 
 and silent dust, or in the heavens where I see them 
 not, or feel not their pangs. 
 
 Then I saw the spirits come and cluster near, 
 spoke in trumpet tones of love, told of beauties 
 far away in worlds eternal. But the mourners 
 and waiting friends heard them not, for their 
 minds were fed on delusion, thinking of a heaven 
 far away where spirits lived, or mortals resting 
 lowly in the grave till God should bid them rise 
 to judgment. 
 
 0, the joys of earth supernal! Unknown to 
 man. Which makes life Ti«re a paradise when 
 we behold bright spirits of our loved ones hovel- 
 ing near, bearing bright blossoms of immortality, 
 to scatter o'er the earth, and lift us from its sor- 
 rows, its thorns, as we behold the blossoms which 
 ivill perfect in the ages yet to come. 
 
 There is no death, but life more bright, 
 Unfolding to our view, 
 And from death's gloom of darkest night 
 To life we're passing through. 
 
 Its wisdom, and its joys and love, 
 Surpasses all we know, 
 For those that live in realms above, 
 Exceeds the earth below. 
 
DEATH. 29 
 
 In knowledge and in science great, 
 In joys and sorrows too, 
 We have not passed beyond the state 
 Where this we do not view. 
 
 But time doth work its endless way, 
 To where our lives will be, 
 So high in brighter worlds of light, 
 Its joys no sorrows see. 
 
 Then God, in his great creative plan, 
 Of all his works we know, 
 Has brought the joys destined for man, 
 Instead of endless woe. 
 
 And so eternal praises give 
 To God who made all life, 
 Immortal to progress and live, 
 Beyond all sin and strife. 
 
PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 u © 
 
 l\o6k }1q to gleep.' 
 
 THE MOTHER'S REPLY. 
 
 I hear thy sad wail of regret for the hours 
 
 Of childhood again, from my heavenly bowers, 
 
 And whither my flight o'er the earth I have sped, 
 
 And angel of light to strew o'er thy head 
 
 The heavenly blossoms of patience and love, 
 
 To guide thy sad thoughts to the bright worlds above, 
 
 That are waiting to greet thee when earth cares are o'er, 
 
 And its sorrows will then be remembered no more. 
 
 There no mildew of time its brightness can rust, 
 In the world which is fadeless, O, child of the dust ! 
 Then mourn not, and grieve not, for days which are flown, 
 Whose fruits yield a harvest, thy soul wealth has sown 
 For others to reap. There's a world that doth give 
 Its merits impartial to all that doth live ; 
 Its truthful endowments on each to bestow, 
 For man sees the surface, while God sees below. 
 
 The jewels of thought which embellish the mind, 
 In wisdom and virtue forever will shine ; 
 When the veil is uniifted immortal to view, 
 The brightest will be which are noblest and true. 
 Then treasure the wealth of the soul to adorn 
 Thy life with its luster through ages to come, 
 
'ROCK ME TO SLEEP." 31 
 
 For there in its brightness 'twill sparkle and beam, 
 Where each hidden thought in the future will gleam. 
 
 The time is so short that you live on the earth, 
 
 Compared to the length of eternity's birth, 
 
 That you should not grow weary o'er sorrow and tears ; 
 
 Like the mists of the morning which soon disappears ; 
 
 In the radiant light that is given to all, 
 
 Relieving the soul of the shroud and the pall, 
 
 Where the treasures of thought will sparkle and shine, 
 
 A radiant luster through all coming time. 
 
32 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 >ly0terie£ of Bekveif g J&jft View. 
 
 The joys of earth can never know the wild emotions of the 
 
 soul, 
 Just ushered into celestial bowers of life eternal, 
 Opening upon the senses, the eternal morn of unending life, 
 Meeting face to face with friends long forgotten ; 
 Beholding the viewless strand of unending space, 
 Somber shadows dark in demon hate ; 
 Wild emotions of an enfranchised power, 
 Turbulent waves of the ceaseless soul steeped in bitterness 
 
 and remore, 
 O'er a life long existence in degredation dark, 
 All, all, are these unfolded to your view 
 As you stand upon the threshold which opens in grandeur on 
 
 the eternal morning, 
 Shaking hands with friends, 
 Clasping some loved one in the tender embrace of a fathers's 
 
 ceaseless care. 
 Yes, all these are thine; when heaven opens up her doors to 
 
 the immortal view ; 
 Kegret where is she, in the best of lives she wrankles 
 For retrospection brings her busy footsteps, 
 Beguiling not, but showing here and there 
 How our existence which had thus far progressed 
 Had many failings, many causes for regret. 
 But those whose acts were best, 
 Seems to have a settled calmness sleeping in beauty on their 
 
 brow. 
 
MYSTERIES OF HEAVEN'S FIRST VIEW. 
 
 Who is there, in all the busy throng of life, 
 
 When memory in her swift winged course 
 
 Doth lift the seal. 
 
 Does not open up some deeds of nothingness and shame ; 
 
 Some misspent hours. 
 
 Some trifling ways, that yields no fruit; 
 
 Such, I answer, are few among the many, 
 
 Whom sin and strife hath yielded up dark deeds in life; 
 
 All these are ours. 
 
 How can we rest in grandeur, in the eternal morn, 
 
 When unknown to us is unending life, 
 
 Such shall be ours no more. 
 
 When heaven rests her truths upon the mind, 
 
 And life shall know 
 
 That all our acts, and deeds, with us to heaven climb. 
 
 (i>) 
 
84 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 doix}6 iff) fti^l\ef. 
 
 Come up higher ! Loving angels 
 Watch and guard thee day by day; 
 
 Ever let thy onward footsteps, 
 Into wisdom's pathway stray. 
 
 Hands Divine have woven ever, 
 
 Our existence to beguile, 
 Some one's life, perchance more lowly, 
 
 And to cheer them with our smile. 
 
 Ever saying, come up higher! 
 
 Strew with flowers their pathways bright: 
 This will raise the lowly hearted 
 
 One step higher to the light. 
 
 So our loved ones gone before us, 
 
 To the higher worlds above, 
 God has sent with words of kindness, 
 
 Full of wisdom, full of love. 
 
 Saying to our lives more lowly, 
 Come up higher, you shall see 
 
 He has made forever onward, 
 Still more happiness for thee. 
 
COME UP HIGHER. 35 
 
 Thus it is through time eternal, 
 God in wisdom made it so; 
 
 That our lives must aid the lowly. 
 If we'd higher, upward go. 
 
 This will bring each one nearer, 
 To a higher plane above; 
 
 For the worst of life is better, 
 If we speak to them in love. 
 
PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 ¥lie Wkjd. 
 
 The wind, the wind, ah! whither art thou, 
 In your wayward flight as you kiss my brow. 
 Have you come to me, from the far off shore, 
 Where the billows bound add the oceans roar, 
 
 To whisper a tale of the mariner bold, 
 Whose ship went down with a fate untold ? 
 
 Then away in your flight, o'er the crested sea. 
 
 O'er the storm-tossed waves of the ocean free, 
 
 To the towering pines on the mountain crest, 
 Where you rock the eagles in their nest, — 
 
 Then whirling around with wildest freak 
 
 In the crater's rocky cavern deep ; 
 
 Then away in your flight, from the cloud-capped snow 
 Of mountain peak to valley below, 
 
 Where the crested waves roll to the sea. 
 
 And forests rock in their mirth and glee, 
 
 Or have you stole on your wings of air, 
 To fan the brow of the monarch fair, 
 
 Or the ancient sage as he ponders o'er 
 
 The hidden depths of forgotten lore. 
 
 Then fleeing away in your frolicsome glee, 
 Where the rosy bowers and the orange tree 
 
THE WIND. 37 
 
 Are blending their richness and fragrance rare, 
 In thy gentle breath, oh, beautiful air ! 
 
 Or do you come with a love lit song, 
 Which you stole away as you sped along, 
 From the lover's lips that are gliding free 
 In their fairy skiff, o'er some moon-lit sea ? 
 
 Or yet you may bring me the whispering tone, 
 Of anguishing hearts that are beating alone 
 In the dreary world with the sigh and the tear, 
 O'er the buried hopes 'neath the shroud and the bier. 
 
 Or do you come from the battle plain, 
 Where loves are lost, and the noble slain, 
 With a last fond message, a whispered prayer, 
 Which the patriot breathed on the midnight air, 
 
 In the humble cot 'neath rosy bowers, 
 Where innocence blends with birds and flowers ; 
 Thou art, O, wind! in thy freaks the same, 
 As where palace dome rear wealth and fame. 
 
 Where the busy strife of the world doth win, 
 
 In gaudy array of fashion and sin, 
 
 Thou art blending thy breath at the gilded shrine, 
 As where virtue is reaping the rubies of mind. 
 
 For free is thy breath, oh, wings of the air ! 
 Dwelling alike with joy and despair ; 
 
 Caring not whither or whence you go, 
 
 From torrid clime, to regions of snow. 
 
 And thus I am asking, and asking in vain, 
 From whither thou art, but yet 'tis the same ; 
 You stop not to answer, for whither you go, 
 'Tis only in fancy that mortals may know. 
 
38 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Man, in all ages, seems to be governed by cer- 
 tain principles. Those principles originate from 
 events and circumstances incumbent upon him. 
 
 Life seems to be fettered within the brain. The 
 brain gives activity to the muscular form which 
 enwraps the spiritual man enfolded within the 
 material. 
 
 What is this inner man? You shall readily 
 discover two important facts, which I will illus- 
 trate: First — From whence life emanates. Sec- 
 ond — Of what is the real substance or existence 
 of this life composed ? 
 
 Turn a leaf with me and go into the meander- 
 ings of science. First take the mechanism of 
 mind. See how each atom which forms its exist- 
 ence comes from the entire universe — being a part 
 and particle of the whole. Each atom therein 
 coming in contact with others and combining in 
 one individual the life of man. Thus, man is 
 termed an epitome of the universe, because he is 
 composed of a part and particle of each and every 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 39 
 
 atom which composes the universe. Therefore, to 
 expound the mechanism of man, we must see of 
 w T hat substance man's form maybe analyzed. See 
 of what parts which compose it are of visible sub- 
 stances, and what parts are composed of invisible 
 substances. 
 
 By this means we can come to the true condi- 
 tion of man. For first, O, Man! it is wise to know 
 thyself. 
 
 Now then, if man is composed of each and every 
 particle of the universe, to discover the true 
 mechanism of man we must first see of what the 
 universe is composed. 
 
 Of the sixty-three elements now known, are en- 
 tered into the combinations of other elements, as 
 air, water, oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, hy- 
 drogen, potash, minerals, &c.,and is there anything 
 in existence which you can name, but what is a 
 counterpart of the w T hole combined the elements 
 of creation; the whole universe. All is God, in 
 whom we live and exist and have our being. Then 
 we must compose a part of the Infinite, as God is 
 infinite; and then we must be composed of infinite 
 and unchanging elements in a part of our compo- 
 sition. As infinite are the elements of creation, 
 the elements of the universe, the elements of God, 
 in whom we form a part and parcel of the vast 
 whole — the body of God. 
 
 Thus it was that Jesus, the medium of old, ex- 
 claimed: " In God we live and move and have our 
 being." Or inspiration — "That God is everywhere 
 
40 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 present. Go into the depth of hell, and God is 
 there. Go into the bowels of the earth, and God 
 is there." "God is all, and in all, and we are made 
 in the image and likeness of God." 
 
 Why is it so ? Because we are formed of a part 
 and particle of the entire whole, an epitome of the 
 universe. 
 
 Composed of a part and particle of every atom 
 therein contained, into a certain life. Through 
 the laws of attraction which concentrate all life 
 and bodies in a form, and holds the entire uni- 
 verse in one body. 
 
 For attraction pervades every part and particle 
 of space throughout the whole, making one en- 
 tire whole of all we see or behold, contained 
 within the universe. 
 
 That attraction pervades the whole in every 
 part and particle of space, is obvious from 
 the simple fact, that melted lead falling from 
 a tower will attract or combine in little round 
 balls (by which the well known means of shot is 
 made) as it passes through space to the earth, 
 demonstrating that the substance of attraction is 
 everywhere, even in every breath we breathe. 
 
 Attraction. What is it? A changing or an 
 unchanging substance ? Certainly it is not chang- 
 ing, or creation would long ago severed in a wild 
 mass of confusion and discord. 
 
 Then it is unchanging. Let us see. If it is a 
 spiritual or material substance. Material sub- 
 stance is changed by the laws of heat and cold. 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE, 41 
 
 This substance of attraction cannot be material 
 then, as heat and cold pervade the universe eve* 
 rywhere, and this element of attraction is passing 
 through space everywhere, and would become 
 thereby changed in passing through intense heat, 
 and frozen regions of ice and snow. Consequent- 
 ly if attraction was a changing substance, it would 
 be changed to some other substance, and it would 
 cease to attract in certain parts of the universe, 
 and the universe would dissolve. 
 
 So you see that attraction is an element per- 
 vading; space everywhere, is unchanging, and is 
 also an invisible element — we cannot see it. Then 
 why not reason that attraction is nothing? Be- 
 cause it is not visible to our sight. Let us see if 
 it is a substance real and substantial or not. For 
 instance, we will take this world; attraction 
 reaches out from the sun through space, and holds 
 this earth with a strength sufficient to bend it in 
 an orbit around it. A world in magnitude like 
 this could not have a substance in strength or 
 power as substantial in a material cord, which 
 you could see, sufficient in strength, supposing it 
 could reach from the sun to this earth, to move 
 it in a circular course around it. The centrifugal 
 force would send it away in space, if attraction 
 was not a real substance having more strength 
 and power than any material cord, which would 
 be sufficient to hold a world in an orbit around 
 the sun. 
 
 So you see that this fact explains that there are 
 
 (E) 
 
42 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 invisible substances in the universe, that it is a 
 real element, and an unchanging element, moves 
 the material into motion; is unseen by us, only 
 as we see the result of its power in visible sub- 
 stances ; material substances, which are moved 
 into activity by the invisible which pervades it 
 and gives it life and motion. 
 
 Again we will take another element which per- 
 vades space, and is also a substance which helps 
 to compose the universe. 
 
 When Dr. Franklin sent his kite up into the 
 heavens to see what was there, and as his kite 
 touched the electric current passing by, what was 
 this substance which passed down the silken 
 string into his glass receiver ? Was it a visible 
 or invisible substance ? 
 
 We answer it was invisible, for as he opened 
 the glass receiver, seeming to contain nothing, 
 they felt the shock of its substance. And yet it 
 was unseen. And to-day it forms the invisible 
 arteries which pass from Continent to Conti- 
 nent, through all varieties of atmosphere which 
 would change a material substance, conveying 
 thoughts in its swift-winged speed. Which would 
 be impossible if it were not electricity here and 
 electricity also at the terminus of its journey. 
 Unchanging, always producing the same result. 
 
 Here, then, is another substance, unchanging 
 by the laws of heat and cold, which changes the 
 material. 
 
 To illustrate farther, let us see if electricity 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 43 
 
 passes through all substances like the element of 
 attraction; or are there some substances which 
 repel it ? It is obvious that it will not, for some 
 substances will repel it and not let it pass 
 through. What are these substances ? Trans- 
 parent substances, as the lens of the eye, glass, 
 and so forth. 
 
 Again, let us see if there are unchanging ele- 
 ments surrounding us and pervade through 
 space which may be termed spiritual, alike un- 
 changing, which is a different element than elec- 
 tricity, and will transmit itself through the lens 
 of che eye, glass, diamonds, and other transpar- 
 ent substances. We will take light or the sun's 
 rays. This element we are able to behold, being 
 transmitted through the lens of the eye to the 
 mind. 
 
 Let us see if light is a material, or not. Let us 
 see if light is changed by the laws of heat and 
 cold. Supposing the sun ray to pass through 
 space from the sun to the earth, what are the de- 
 grees of cold and heat intervening between this 
 distance? 
 
 Why, go out in space two miles from this earth, 
 and it will not melt ice in the hottest day in sum 
 mer. Here is a fact which is obvious that the sun 
 ray has passed through intense cold and heat in 
 reaching this earth, for we are supposing this sun 
 ray has reached the surface of the earth in the 
 hottest temperature of a tropical clime, and two 
 miles away. from this surface, it is intense cold, 
 
44 PENCILINOS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 and yet the element which composes the sun ray 
 is unchanged by passing through these degrees. 
 
 Then certainly it is not a material substance. 
 For, from time as eternal as the universe, light 
 has always been an unchanging substance, tra- 
 versing the realms of space to the planets which 
 pervades the solar system, and will continue the 
 same unchanging element of light, pervading the 
 universe, an element within it which helps to make 
 up the grand arcana of the whole. 
 
 How mysterious is thy mechanism, O God; and 
 yet as we know more and more of Thee, we ]earn 
 to know what composes ourselves, being an epi- 
 tome of Thee. Searching after Thee, unfolding 
 the powers Thou hast given us, learning more 
 and more of Thee, understanding the principles 
 wdiich compose Thy majesty. Growing, more 
 and more in Godliness thereby. 
 
 Thou art the life of every atom, for from Thee 
 the atoms of life are attracted in a form, compos- 
 ing the existence of all motion — the life of the 
 w r hole entire. 
 
 Then, as we would learn more and more of 
 Thee, O, God! let us look into the intrinsic 
 mechanism of life, and see of what it is com- 
 posed. For life is in all we behold. Life per- 
 vades in every atom which we see within the uni- 
 verse, which makes each atom differ from others, 
 and gives an identity to every substance that we 
 see. For illustration — iron is not lead, and lead 
 is no iron. What is the difference? Each has an 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 45 
 
 individual life peculiar to itself, which makes it a 
 substance of itself. Does each have life? What 
 is that life ? It is that element contained in each 
 and everything we behold, which keeps that ma- 
 terial substance while it is contained within it 
 from, changing to any other substance, which in- 
 dividualizes each substance from any other sub 
 stance. It is the individuality of itself, and that 
 which distinguishes one substance from another. 
 Then each substance must have a life principle 
 which continues it the same substance as long as 
 that life is attracted to it ; continues within it and 
 is not expelling itself therefrom. Rock is not coal, 
 and coal is not rock, and each has a life element 
 which individualizes itself and continues it from 
 dissolving into some other substance. Also, Ox 
 ygen is not Hydrogen, and so on through all the 
 different elements which compose creation. Is life 
 visible or invisible ? You cannot see the life of 
 any substance, and yet the grain of wheat or the 
 kernel of corn has life contained within the seed, 
 which will expand and unfold from out this seed. 
 Concentrated within this seed is the whole stalk 
 of grain. Look at this seed ! Is the life visible 
 to you? No. And yet conditions will expand it 
 forth to your gaze, as it attracts material or visi- 
 ble atoms to it and show you its form, as visible 
 atoms adhere to it and through each pore and 
 life courses within it and through it, as it attracts 
 visible atoms to it to clothe it, and show what is 
 contained in the life of this tiny seed. 
 
46 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 We will now go to the life in man. What is it ? 
 What composes it ? What composes his physical 
 structure, his material form. Look at it! Here is 
 a compound of every substance in the universe 
 which we behold. What has acted on these dif- 
 ferent particles to draw them in a body ? -And 
 what animates it into a life? See it has the life 
 element of every substance, which was peculiar to 
 each and every material atom and substance, 
 when in an unorganized condition, which com- 
 poses this body. The invisible element of at- 
 traction acts upon each life element in each mate- 
 rial atom which composes this body, and unites 
 it in one compound. And behold here we have 
 the spiritual body, which is invisible ; also the 
 material body w r hich is visible, entwining itself 
 in one. Behold here is the invisible form within 
 it, for this body has a compound of each and 
 every invisible which individualized the different 
 material substances before they were attracted 
 into one body. And as the life which character- 
 ized each material substance was spiritual and 
 invisible, these different life elements have now 
 united in chemical affinity and formed a spiritual 
 body as well as a material body. 
 
 Behold! Here the light has dawned. We see 
 a material body and a spiritual body united in 
 affinity, for it is impossible for one to come into 
 existence without the other. 
 
 What is holding these different elements of all 
 these various life-elements in a form or body? 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 47 
 
 Why, the unseen, the spiritual, unchanging ele- 
 ment of attraction, which holds the universe in a 
 form from time unto eternal time, never changing 
 its doings. For, to-day, the apple which drops 
 from your hand draws toward the earth, and at- 
 traction will continue the same forever. 
 
 Therefore, spiritual elements once attracted in 
 a body can never separate, because the law which 
 holds them in a body is unchanging, and the 
 spiritual elements thus united are also unchange- 
 able, while the material which is in affinity is 
 changeable by the law of motion, and, the spir- 
 itual body being always subject to motion, is 
 therefore expelling the material atoms which mo- 
 tion has changed and attracting new, and expell- 
 ing them again, the same as the anatomist tells 
 you. This motion of the spiritual form is thus 
 creating non-affinity between the two, for the ma- 
 terial as soon as changed would be unlike the spir- 
 itual atoms which held it in a form. It would, 
 therefore, be expelled away, for affinity can only 
 exist where like substances attract like substances. 
 
 This is the way the material body is changing 
 and expelling itself away, and new material is 
 being attracted, which is expelled in like manner 
 unceasingly. 
 
 While the spiritual body is expanding to its 
 complete growth and progress — like the life^in 
 the kernel of wheat, to its complete size — w^hich 
 is called the growth of man. If this be not the 
 fact, why does man cease his growth at a certain 
 
48 PENC1LINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 period, for he is still eating the same food and 
 breathing the same air ? The spiritual body is 
 the unchanging model which always sustains us 
 in> the same form or species, through all change 
 and waste atoms of the material, until this non- 
 affinity becomes so great that the spiritual ceases 
 to impress or display itself through the material, 
 and then, like all other bodies, its development 
 requires another condition as all things are mov- 
 ing onward by God's laws of progression, conse- 
 quently its development would not require the 
 material to infold it, no more than the insect 
 would require the egg after its life had developed 
 to a certain size or growth. 
 
 So we would gradually become more and more 
 in non-affinity with the material, until the spirit- 
 ual body expelled the material body away en- 
 tirely, all at one time, called death, instead of 
 the progressive manner, by the invisible atoms 
 which changed the material once in seven years 
 
 While the mind which holds the spiritual body 
 to it by the law of love, subject to its will, desires 
 no change but a perpetuation of the same iden- 
 tity, or love of life, as mind develops the nature 
 of the unchangeable elements which compose its 
 origin. The substance from which it is created 
 and the created must naturally sustain a nature 
 the same, and desire the same, as the nature of 
 the elements from which it is composed. 
 
 For illustration, a material substance which 
 was constantly changing from one substance to 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 49 
 
 another, or to different forms and shapes, must 
 desire change as its nature, and follow the law of 
 its being, seeking change the same as the nature 
 of the elements from which it is composed, while 
 an unchanging or an immortal immaterial sub- 
 stance could not desire change but perpetuation 
 of the same identity, being composed of un- 
 changeable elements, it could not desire a posi- 
 tion differing from the nature of the substance 
 composing its life. 
 
 Consequently, there is seen to exist in nature 
 two opposites — material which is seeking change 
 and immaterial or unchanging substances which 
 desire no change, but perpetuation of the same 
 identity through life eternal. Hence it is seen, 
 the love of life so innate in all animated beings, 
 from the smallest atom of mind which shrinks 
 from danger, to the highest development of intel- 
 lectual reason in man. But as mind expels itself 
 with the spirit body, which is attached in affinity 
 to it, and which it lipids subject to the will of this 
 mind, the same as in its first manifestations 
 through the material, it steps forth in another 
 condition suited to its wants or developments. 
 And the material body lies a motionless, chang- 
 ing mass of material substance, desiring change, 
 seeking its affinity in the elements from whence 
 it came. .The spirit body has stepped forth free 
 in power; having the same organization, living, 
 breathing, governed by the mind, the will being 
 the real and eternal man. Invisible to man be- 
 
 (F) 
 
50 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 cause it is composed of spiritual elements, held 
 in a form by the invisible force of attraction, 
 which is in affinity with it Attraction being also 
 a spiritual substance, the two could never cease 
 their affinity, "as like substance attracts like sub- 
 stance." 
 
 Here, then, is an immortal body governed by 
 the will, the mind which sits enthroned within 
 the spiritual brain, the same power which has 
 moved it into activity in its first creation, and 
 continues the same in all eternal time. 
 
 What laws, then, in space are governing the 
 spirit body or any spiritual substance ? Certainly 
 the law of gravitation does not, for that attracts 
 the material and holds it to this earth. The law 
 of cavitation has never controlled the spiritual 
 mind, not when it was in harmony with the ma- 
 terial and dwelt within it, for mind has been ever- 
 able to send its thoughts away to regions of space 
 in the most distant parts, from which it had its 
 origin. The law of gravitation is not holding 
 thoughts. We can send them away to the dis- 
 tant stars, and then back again. They could al- 
 ways traverse where any spiritual element could 
 go, and yet they were confined to the central orb, 
 the mind, and came and went as the mind saw fit 
 to dictate. 
 
 Therefore, when the spiritual body had ex- 
 pelled the material body which the law of gravi- 
 tation held to this earth, it was then no longer in 
 harmony with the material, and the mind gov- 
 erned the spirit body by the will the same as at 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 51 
 
 its first formation; therefore, the will or mind, 
 or thoughts, could traverse space, the spiritual 
 body subject to the will of the mind, passing away 
 through the air, the same as thoughts now soar 
 away to distant regions and return. 
 
 Space would be no more to impede t!ie course 
 of the spiritual body than it would any spiritual 
 current or element which passes through space, 
 the same as the electric current everywhere 
 around us, then away in distant regions space 
 would be no more, in comparison, to impede the 
 spiritual body, moved by the will of the mind, 
 than the ocean would be to the fish which glides 
 its sylph-like proportions everywhere through it, 
 whether it be to some coral cave, where in the 
 tiny egg its life began, or away through its sil- 
 very depths to some more beautiful resting place. 
 
 Such is life immortal, invisible and unknown 
 to man, who is unfolding in the first era of his ex- 
 istence 3 blinded to the beautiful existence he is 
 yet through change destined to till. As the worm 
 enwrapt in its silken cocoon is unable to behold 
 the golden-winged butterfly it is yet through 
 change destined to become. 
 
 So are we to-day. We live in God, and it will 
 be the same through all eternal time — each change 
 ascending higher in the nobler perfections of De- 
 ity. Yet it hath no ending, for space is bound- 
 less and its realms are infinitude. Then, O God! 
 Thy majesty enfeebles our tongue to depict, and 
 Thy beauty is from everlasting to everlasting. 
 
52 PENCILING^ FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ¥i}e ge^or^. 
 
 The incoming life of the seasons is Spring-, 
 With snatches of song on her flowery wing, 
 She is lifting the buds into opening flowers; 
 From the ice-bound fetters of wintry hours. 
 
 She is spreading the brown earth with carpets of green. 
 Interlacing with cloudlets of silvery sheen; 
 The waters are leaping and laughing in glee r 
 On their murmuring voyage away to the sea. 
 
 Thus Spring, with light footsteps over the earth, 
 
 Awakens to life the glorious birth 
 
 Of nature's sweet voices again on the ear, 
 
 In musical gladness with sunshine and tear. 
 
 Gliding onward and onward, with frolicsome glee, 
 'Till the song of the summer and hum of the bee 
 Is the musical lay she is singing so sweet, 
 O'er the blossoming landscape submerging in heat. 
 
 While to cool her warm forehead the zephyrs at play, 
 O'er the green flowry meadows are winging their way 
 To the green leafy bowers where the song of the bird 
 "And the musical lay of the Cookoo is heard." 
 
 The butterfly gay and the humming bird sweet, 
 Are winging their way to some rosy retreat, 
 
THE SEASONS. 53 
 
 Gliding onward and onward, to sip from the flowers 
 The sweet honey-dew in the bright summer hours. 
 
 Thus she sings the glad song of the sweet summer time, 
 'Till she wreaths her fair brow with a wreath more sublime, 
 And tinges the glow of the blue summer sky, 
 More complete with the hue of the autumn dye. 
 
 She sprinkles her costume with silver and gold, 
 From treasures she's bearing in measures untold, 
 To lay at the feet of the reaper of sheaves, 
 And bring the ripe fruit from the clustering leaves. 
 
 Thus onward she glides in halo of light, 
 'Till autumn winds come, with frosting to blight, 
 And scatter the leaves to spread o'er the bier, 
 She's bringing to welcome the close of the year. 
 
 Then she flings o'er the earth her mantle of snow, 
 And fetters the streams in their murmuring flow, 
 And brings the white robes of pureness to dress 
 The close of the year in the sweetness of rest. 
 
 Thus man, like the seasons, is gliding along, 
 In the spring of his life it is gladness and song, 
 The summer is bringing a joy more complete, 
 The perfected blossom is bringing its sweet. 
 
 Until in the autumn of life, it is more 
 Complete in its treasures of mind laid in store, 
 'Till the winter of life in its pureness is dressed 
 And the white robes are bringing the sweetness of rest. 
 
 But rest only comes to the body of clay, 
 
 The spirit immortal is winging its way 
 
 To worlds more complete, where the seasons doth bring, 
 
 The verdure eternal of glorious spring. 
 
54 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Si^ef. 
 
 Higher, upward, man an woman, 
 Each and all new truths to gain; 
 That your footsteps leave impressions 
 On the monument of fame. 
 
 That to history be transmitted, 
 Deeds and truths that may be thine, 
 You have earnestly unfolded 
 To the onward march of time. 
 
 Higher is this age of progress, 
 To the age of long ago, 
 When the martial tread of science 
 Beat so turbulent and slow. 
 
 Then why not each one endeavor, 
 For the men of ages past, 
 Knew not that their lives forever 
 Down to history would last. 
 
 Hills of progress rise before thee, 
 Onward ! search the depth of cause ! 
 It will lift thy mind still upward, 
 And unfold great Nature's laws. 
 
HIGHER. 55 
 
 If your life-work has been ever 
 To promote the Truth and Light — 
 Braving scorns and persecutions 
 That you may stand in the right, 
 
 Then the life which is eternal, 
 On the hills of Time will gleam; 
 When from earth you'll take departure, 
 Still more brighter life will seem. 
 
56 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 ¥}\q I<ife Stfe&q of ^Iki\ hM 
 Worqki\. 
 
 Upon the banks of a tiny stream, 
 Which from the mountain rocks did gleam 
 
 Like a silver thread, and wound along 
 Through moss and flowers with murmuring song. 
 
 There played two children, a girl and boy, 
 
 Among the pebbles in childish joy; 
 And each so happy and full of glee, 
 
 Seemed like the rivulet, in nature free. 
 
 They wandered on and the brook grew wide, 
 
 And I saw them playing still beside 
 The stream, each gathering flowers that grew, 
 
 Upon its banks, in the glistening dew. 
 
 Or climbing trees where the wild birds sung 
 In the branches which o'er the waters hung; 
 
 Then away with the butterfly and bee 
 In a chase among the blossoms free. 
 
 Then rolling upon the mossy green, 
 Which fringes the banks of the sunny stream, 
 
 And gazing away in the bright blue dome, 
 Where the sunlight strays from its far-off home, 
 
THE LIFE STREAM OF MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 And tinges with glory the mountain crest, 
 And the eagle's home, in her lofty nest, 
 
 And they gaze on the glory with wondering eye, 
 'Till weary of searching the .bright blue sky. 
 
 They fall asleep in a golden dream, 
 And the hours speed on with time unseen; 
 
 And none could doubt but nature smiled, 
 The same her treasures upon each child. 
 
 That God made the sunshine, the fruits and flowers, 
 Alike for both in their youthful hours, 
 
 But as time sped on a change came o'er 
 The two that seemed so equal before . 
 
 For the stream had grown to a river strong, 
 And I saw but one that wandered along 
 
 By its banks, to gather on every side 
 The wealth of fame for his manhood's pride, 
 
 From the halls of learning of ancient lore 
 He coined the wealth of mind in store, 
 
 And the world's bright laurels he gathers now, 
 To crown with honors his manly brow. 
 
 But where is she who strayed by his side, 
 Gathering treasures where the stream did glide 
 
 The same as he, in their youthful hours, 
 Gathering gifts from nature's bowers. 
 
 Ah! the world has said the time has come, 
 When her sphere is only within her home; 
 
 That God had bestowed the treasures of earth 
 Upon only those of mankind's birth. 
 
 That the river of life with its jewels so fair, 
 Bringing wealth to the mind and the intellect rai e 
 
 Were only a gift by that bountiful hand, 
 Intended, most surely, for none but the man, 
 
 (G) 
 
58 PENCILING^ FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Oh! selfish man ! when treasures by thee, 
 On the river of life are gathered so free, 
 
 That you covet them all, and think they were made 
 By a partial hand at thy feet to be laid. 
 
 i$ggo>fg oK 10%. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 t 
 
 Prosperity prompts man to action. Nature 
 gives him suitable means whereby to unfold these 
 latent powers so visible in each and every life. 
 
 Behold the forward march of ages ! Giving each 
 life suitable means to develop therein, unfolding 
 the principles so long slumbering in obscurity. 
 
 Time was when man looked into the dark un- 
 known and from out its terror chilled humanity 
 with scenes of horror. For its dismal vaults 
 echoed no answer to their vain inquiries. Why 
 was it so ? Because superstition in its wild im- 
 aginings closed up the sepulchres in obsequies 
 and funeral rites, and upon it closed the seal, 
 which was death to the searcher's gaze. 
 
 Time buried them in oblivion and no echo an- 
 swered whitherward they had flown, until reason 
 unfolded the truth for evermore to our gaze. How 
 was it accomplished ? By the wayward blossoms 
 which expanded into life when reason resumed 
 her sway through some organizations more richly 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 59 
 
 endowed by nature for the accomplishment of 
 greater efforts in mental adaptation. Therefore, 
 reason and enlightenment prevailed because these 
 are based on truth. Facts which sweep the im- 
 aginings of erroneous conclusions like the mists 
 from the brow of heaven, when light enfolds her 
 radiance in noonday effulgence, radiating the 
 earth in brilliancy. 
 
 Where is man to-day ? The mist is fast dis- 
 persing from the hill tops, and the valleys beneath 
 catch a glimpse of its grandeur. Heaven smiles 
 upon earth, for the reflection of mind is ever lift- 
 ing the veil which shadows in gloom the gifts of 
 reason, with which God has so nobly endowed 
 each and every individual of His creation. 
 
 Go where you will, reason is sweeping before 
 its footprints false creeds and theories of che day, 
 whose foundation rock stands not upon facts — 
 demonstrated as facts to man. Why is it so ? 
 Because man is not content to follow the wild im- 
 aginings of past ages of superstition. A holier 
 light of truth has dawned to man ; for to-day sci- 
 ence teaches a truth, demonstrated as a truth, by 
 which facts lead the way and open up the light 
 which is eternal. 
 
 Immortality is known to be a fact, for immortal 
 principles have been discovered to exist which 
 make up the component parts of the mechanism 
 of man. How have these been discovered ? By 
 the unfoldment of reason in man, which has from 
 age to age been constantly brought to light. 
 
60 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Who have brought these Immortal elements to 
 our comprehension and made a certainty of ex- 
 istence ? It has been the voice of reason. For I 
 have shown you the elements of the universe, 
 which compose the form of man's physical struc- 
 ture and the elements which are unchanging, 
 consequently immortal, which compose and make 
 up his invisible, unchanging, immortal form en- 
 closed within it. 
 
 Let us see what first unfolded these immortal 
 principles or substances to exist, and from which 
 creation Is composed. Reason, which has had its 
 rapid growth all along down the ages of time, 
 until the present orb ot light, the voice of inspir- 
 ation, has come to man through the path of sci- 
 ence, which discloses the principles by which 
 mind exists ; discloses the powers of the mind its 
 actions upon the body, the physical structure. 
 The emotions which characterize the mind and 
 makes its existence a certainty. The ways and 
 different means b}^ which it forces itself through- 
 out the body, and also acts upon the mind of 
 others, through its will powers making it to move 
 in a channel by which the thoughts of one mind 
 may be imparted to the thoughts of another, in- 
 dependent of the material, for mind is not mate- 
 rial, therefore, mind Is the governmental power 
 which moves the material and makes it subserv- 
 ient to its will. This is the means by which 
 minds which have expelled the material form 
 away from it entirely, can also the same in its 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 61 
 
 own identity move the material of another person 
 if that spirit mind can throw its thoughts upon 
 the mind of another mind, which has not expelled 
 the material body away from it. For this dis- 
 embodied mind, freed from the material could, 
 therefore, act upon the mind which was not dis- 
 embodied from the material, as the material is 
 only a substance moved by the will powers of the 
 mind, consequently would not be governed by the 
 material, for material is always governed by the 
 mind, and invisible forces of the spirit form. 
 Therefore mind is an independent identity of 
 itself, not subject to the material, for the object 
 governed is always subject to the powers that 
 govern it. So you see mind, whether disembod- 
 ied or embodied in the material, would hold its 
 supremacy and individual identity. Therefore, 
 mind is the thinking, the reasoning, the invisible, 
 which forms the eternal mechanism of life. It is 
 the existence, the comprehension ; the thought, 
 therefore, is the eternal creation of existence, for 
 this is the immortality of man. 
 
 The invisible, the life principle, which moves 
 visible objects and makes us a living, breathing 
 existence. 
 
 1 have explained the elements which compose 
 mind in the preceding chapter of this work and 
 my position is immovable for it is founded on 
 facts, which are susceptible to reason ; therefore 
 can be substantiated as truth, as we do not wan- 
 der from knowm laws and principles extant 
 
62 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 throughout creation. We only take Tip facts to 
 illustrate a truth of immortality. 
 
 Then if it can be refuted by facts we will say 
 our structure has dissolved ; if not, we say it is a 
 new born principle, eternal forevermore, and si- 
 lence must concede to us our position. 
 
 Written upon the pages of history, man was 
 destined to lead before him the fulfillment of 
 prophecy. How could this be done without some 
 principle by which this fact was produced ? In- 
 telligence seemed to be spontaneously given from 
 some unseen source which acted upon the minds 
 susceptible to this intelligence. Shall we say God 
 was a being who was forbidden the way and 
 means by which to communicate His intelligence 
 alike to the creations which He had made and 
 formed into life, by which means he could not 
 have the ruling power over all, and each and 
 every one, susceptible to the intelligence imparted 
 throughout all and in all alike ? We answer that 
 God is Infinite ; therefore, He could approach one 
 individual as well as another to impart invisible 
 intelligence. 
 
 But it seems historic records of man in all 
 ages, as well as this, have had certain individuals 
 through which inspiration came, or individuals 
 whom to impart some kind of manifestation 
 which was invisible. We answer that this invis- 
 ible intelligence must come from a finite power. 
 Why is it so ? From the simple fact that this 
 unseen intelligence seems to be limited to certain 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 63 
 
 organizations or adapted to certain organiza- 
 tions adapted to the influence of mind. As some 
 minds are not governed and controlled by the 
 will power of another mind, here is the point: If 
 this intelligence was from God, this theory would 
 make God subject to some minds, and some 
 would have a stronger will than He ; consequent- 
 ly could not be operated upon to impart the 
 thoughts. 
 
 Thus you see how flimsy is the assertion, that 
 intelligence invisible which has come to man in 
 all ages, must originate from the Omnipotent 
 mind, who was unable to control each and all 
 alike. 
 
 But we do know from known principles and 
 facts that the mind of man, whether in the 
 material body or out of it — we care not which — 
 has a power within itself to throw its thoughts 
 upon another mind and make that mind subject 
 to the influence or will of another mind ; speak 
 the thoughts and move the material according 
 to the will of the mind controlling that individ- 
 ual, whether it be to see what that mind designed 
 for them to see, or whether it be to speak what 
 that mind designed for them to speak, or whether 
 it be to move the arm and write sentences, or 
 whether it be a paralyzation of the whole system, 
 according to the will of the mind operating upon 
 that individual. 
 
 So you see we are only showing the action of 
 mind upon mind, and demonstrating new prob- 
 
64 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 lems for the investigation of man, to see from 
 what source the various effects are produced 
 which are moving humanity onward. 
 
 As I have shown you in various ways how in- 
 visible intelligence comes to man and demonstra- 
 ted the immortality of mind, let us go into the 
 meanderings of science and unfold new beauties 
 yet a little farther. 
 
 Who shall say that man is immortal, and then 
 prohibit the immortality of life, possessing other 
 forms and shapes ? Though horrifying it may 
 seem to break upon the ear, let us see what is 
 truth and what is not truth. Though buried deep 
 by popular sentiments, nevertheless cannot evade 
 its certainty. Shall we try ? Let us know the truth ; 
 on truth only shall we base our arguments. 
 
 On truth we must stand. All is truth which 
 can be demonstrated as a truth. 
 
 Therefore let us learn the truth, for truth is 
 God, working all and in all. 
 
 Then let us see if life dwelling in other forms 
 and shapes than this which is identical with man 
 is eternal or is not ? We answer, it is. 
 
 And upon the same basis which I have proven 
 the immortality of the life of man, I will prove 
 the immortality of all life in all its various forms, 
 subject to the conditions of its development. 
 
 It is plainly seen that change is written in in- 
 sect and animal life; and yet that change has not 
 destroyed the identity of that life. The animal 
 creations are never losing their identity; for the 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 65 
 
 material which composes that form is moved by 
 the invisible principle of life. And life, as I have 
 shown before, cannot cease to exist, because life 
 is held in a body by the unchangeable element of 
 attraction, out of all the invisible life principles 
 united in chemical affinity, from each and every 
 material atom which is drawn in a body by the 
 forces which acts upon the life principle which is 
 individualizing each and every material atom 
 concentrated in one body. This would unite an 
 invisible 'spiritual form, if it were possible to 
 conceive how an invisible form was united, for the 
 life in each material substance is the substance 
 which gives that atom life or motion; and as I 
 have shown you in a previous chapter that this 
 life element was invisible, acted upon by the uni- 
 versal substance of attraction, concentrating in a 
 certain body such material atoms as were har- 
 monizing or affinitizing to unite. Such atoms, 
 when uniting in one body, would form a life pe- 
 culiar to the atoms thus concentrated, and this 
 life would be abundant in all the various forms 
 and shapes which we behold. 
 
 For illustiation, elements which have no affin- 
 ity for each other, as oil and tvater, will unite in 
 chemical affinity if potash (which is having an 
 attraction for both) is introduced, thus forming a 
 compound different from either of the substances 
 introduced or contained therein. And again, let 
 acid be placed therein so as to produce a non- 
 affinity of these elements united in one, it will 
 
 (H) 
 
66 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 separate the old compound, forming a new one. 
 
 Thus it is that the material body dissolves. 
 For substance uniting in one compound will dis- 
 solve the elements contained or the elements 
 which make up the old compound, will, by the 
 introduction of some other element, as the acid 
 introduced in this composition, separate and 
 unite again in a different compound. 
 
 Therefore, it is evident that certain material 
 atoms uniting will form different substances and 
 different compounds. So it is with material 
 atoms contained in a body or compound, and 
 that body affinitizing into life would produce a 
 life, a shape, and a form peculiar to the atoms 
 thus concentrated or uniting. Thus it is we see 
 life in so many different forms and shapes, so 
 extant throughout creation. The life is peculiar 
 in form and shape to the atoms uniting or pre- 
 dominating — one more abundant than another, 
 and concentrating in affinity. 
 
 Thus it is you see the glorious perfection of 
 Deity and the majesty of the elements which com- 
 poses his form, constantly moving on in creative 
 principles unchanging and eternal. 
 
 O, God! we are awed with thy majesty as we 
 comprehend the mechanism of thy structure. 
 
 See the creative principles which forms life into 
 existence and perpetuate that existence in all 
 time to come. For look to-day at the new insect 
 life which springs into existence from certain in- 
 dividual atoms affinitizing together which com- 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 67 
 
 poses that life, and changes from one form to 
 another. 
 
 That life is perfecting more and more to a high- 
 er, nobler existence, making up a universe per- 
 fecting more and more as they reach higher and 
 higher, unfolding in the elements that created 
 them. 
 
 How is this accomplished ? By the laws of 
 progression, which is moving all things we be- 
 hold, higher and higher, toward a more perfect 
 existence. 
 
 Take the history of man. Science teaches us 
 that progression is bearing him onward steadily 
 as the wind which sweeps onward eternally. 
 
 Progression is written on the face of nature 
 everywhere. The waving fields denote it, the tall 
 wilderness falls away before the giant strokes of 
 civilization, and every breath wafts us on to a 
 more perfect existence. Why is it so ? Because 
 God has decreed it in the forces which move His 
 entire form — the universe . 
 
 Behold, where you will, life grows toward per- 
 fection, searching more and more after wisdom, 
 unfolding new sciences, bearing us onward, stead- 
 ily in one forward march; completing new truths, 
 traversing unknown fields of science. If life 
 in man is progressive, then life in any form or 
 shape in which it may exist, is also progressive. 
 For life is an individual identity of itself, an 
 eternal immortal element; some possessing it to 
 
68 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 a greater and some to a less degree, as we see 
 manifest in the creation around us. 
 
 Life in man is simply an organization more 
 perfected in its uiifoldments, being, an existence 
 adapted as such from the more refined elements 
 that enter into his combination or compose his 
 origin . 
 
 Therefore, we would be more susceptible to 
 greater and more rapid advancement, being a 
 mechanism of elements combined in one form 
 to the adaptation of higher reasoning faculties 
 and yet the lower order of life possess the same 
 faculties or attributes of mind, but in a less 
 abundant quantity, in many respects, which 
 makes them a low T er order of life, and yet the 
 elements which compose their life is from eternal, 
 unchanging principles and substances, which 
 makes them alike immortal as well as all the 
 life elements which we behold. Why is it so ? 
 Because the element which composes and makes 
 up a certain life is from the Infinite; consequent- 
 ly it is an established fact that life is eternal, for 
 the atoms which are in creation now are eternal, 
 forming life. 
 
 Space is a substance from out which originates 
 life, for life is in space. Every atom which ex- 
 ists in worlds exists in space. Air condenses and 
 torms the element of water. So the elements of 
 space condense into substance which exists 
 therein. How is this so? Because organic 
 bodies, dissolving, separates its atoms into 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 69 
 
 the elements of space, and worlds propogate 
 from atoms existing in space. For by chemical 
 illustration the physical form of man, by the 
 invisible workings of anatomic laws, expels the 
 particles of waste atoms of the physical form, in- 
 to the surrounding, into space, and also attracts 
 new the same unceasingly. Then air or space 
 must contain all the invisible particles of the 
 physical form. For the physical atoms have been 
 expelled forth, replacing them with new, through 
 air and food, thus supplying the invisible change 
 so imperceptible to the human physiology, nev- 
 ertheless true, a fact developed through science. 
 Then, as air is the element of space, space must 
 contain the ceaseless supplies of, and rejected 
 elements, of all life which maintain the same pro- 
 cess of natural change common to all bodies. 
 
 Air is seen to contain water; air is the elements 
 of space in motion. By this air subsistance is 
 given to creation. Then air must have an ele- 
 ment to meet our wants. For by this air the 
 senses seem to come. How t is this proven to be a 
 fact? It is proven in this wise: Exclude 
 air, or the life of the air, from an apartment 
 where a person sits, and what is the result? 
 Insensibility is the first impression seen to 
 affect the mind. How is this, if the air is not 
 the feeder, which brings us our thoughts. Then 
 the air contains an invisible element which we 
 attract in breathing, when uniting in chemical 
 affinity with the mind, produces consciousness, 
 
70 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which make us different than inanimate 
 bodies, such as planets and worlds. Then, how 
 is air bringing us our thoughts? We see it in 
 this wise, as I stated previously in the commence- 
 ment of this work: That the invisible form was 
 what moved the material. So you see the action 
 of this spirit body is to breathe, and this moves 
 the material portions of the body which you see. 
 Then the breath is the action, the movement of 
 the spirit form which gives activity to the material. 
 Then breath must be eternal. A movement of the 
 spirit body, which process brings life or con- 
 sciousness into tbe spirit form. Through chemi- 
 cal affinity the inanimate mind lies in the spirit, 
 brain or form. Then the motion of the spirit form 
 is breath, simply the movement of eternal laws, 
 attraction and repulsion, which are spirit forces. 
 Does the breath draw in elements? Yes. What 
 are those elements ? Combined together here in 
 the air, near the earth, is the spiritual and ma- 
 terial elements of air united. Then you have 
 breathed in spiritual elements, have you not ? 
 These elements, then, passing to the inanimate 
 mind, which gives life and circulatory powers, 
 the involuntary motion, the motion to the mater- 
 ial. The mind being the common center of this 
 power, consequently these elements, which come 
 within the breath, must move into the common 
 center which gives life and motion to the body. 
 What is the result ? Here is produced within 
 the mind— which is opened to receive it — the unit- 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 71 
 
 ing of two spiritual powers or substances in 
 chemical affinity. What is the result ? Thoughts 
 are produced by the unity of these elements. 
 The circulatory motion of the body is in 
 the heart, being the common center of at- 
 traction. So you see there are two powers — 
 one is centered in the mind and the other cen- 
 tered in the heart. This is what distinguishes the 
 life of man, a different being than the life of 
 worlds. Then again to our subject. The spirit- 
 ual elements which we breathe coming in contact 
 with the spiritual brain, being in affinity through 
 the harmony of the laws of life, unite in chemi- 
 cal affinity and forms an element differing from 
 either, being a compound identical with itself, 
 and forming into life, as they are both composed 
 of life elements, uniting in one harmonious whole, 
 perfect and immortal existence; because uniting 
 from immortal elements, this brings an immortal 
 existence formed and composed out of immortal 
 elements. What is the result of this unity? Con- 
 sciousness; for as I have shown before, the air 
 contains immortal unchanging spiritual elements. 
 That the air is the elements which compose space 
 — being only space in motion around this earth, 
 so the immortal elements seen in the universe 
 must be therein contained. 
 
 Now then I have previously proven that the ma- 
 terial body concentrated all the life elements con- 
 tained in each individual atom which makes up 
 the material body. Then here are the immortal 
 
72 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 elements, the life in each and every atom concen- 
 trated in a body by the laws which hold these 
 material atoms in form, the physical structure of 
 man, thus combining the invisible atoms peculiar 
 to each material atom, which individualizes each 
 material atom, one from another, and is the life 
 of it, which keeps material atoms from dissolving 
 into something else; thus individualizing a spirit 
 body from unchanging immortal elements. 
 
 Then, as I said before, the immortal is the life, 
 the substance which gives life and motion to the 
 material. What is the result of this motion seen 
 animating the material ? It is attraction and re- 
 pulsion, and moves the spirit form into activity, 
 thus moving the material the same. And behold 
 the living, breathing man. 
 
 Then, as the nature of this mind is immortal, it 
 seeks nothing but what is in accordance with its 
 nature, but what is in harmony with the elements 
 which compose it. This is immortality. Conse- 
 quently you see every life, which is a living, 
 breathing mind, shrinking from danger, shrink- 
 ing from anything which infringes upon its ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Consequently the love of life is said to be a 
 law governing all life and all existence. 
 
 This mind, then, acts in accordance to its desires. 
 This mind governs the spirit body, and the spir- 
 itual body the material body. 
 
 The thoughts of man partakes of the nature of 
 the elements which composes them. This is im- 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 73 
 
 mortality, the love of life, the perpetuation of the 
 same identity, and binds and holds itself together 
 according to its desires. This love of life being 
 an attribute of mind, an attractive law holds it in 
 a form, an existence, for evermore. For here are 
 the elements, uniting through chemical affinity, 
 which forms a compound, which is mind. This 
 mind, then, is a substance governed by an- 
 other law, the law which acts upon immor- 
 tal principles, which is in harmony with the 
 mind, and this is the aw of life. This law, 
 then, is governing the mind; the mind is gov- 
 erning the spiritual body, and being composed of 
 unchanging elements, would affinitize itself to 
 it, and thus hold it in a body, as long as mind 
 existed, which would be eternal. The material 
 body could not be in as close affinity with the 
 mind, in its impressions, one upon the other, after 
 the spiritual body had expanded to its complete 
 unfoldment the growth of man, for this reason: 
 The material body, affinitizing itself to the spir- 
 itual body, would gradually become less and less 
 in its affinity, for a changing material substance 
 could not act in harmony with a spiritual sub- 
 stance after that connecting link, which bound 
 them together similarly through growth or expan- 
 sion, ceased to exist, to a certain degree, for love 
 of life or perpetuation of the same identity is 
 contrary to the nature of material substances. 
 Being of a changing substance, it must seek its 
 
 affinity in something new, some other form of 
 
 (i) 
 
74 PENGILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 life, in which its nature is to expand in growth, 
 or change to the elements from whence it came. 
 Its ;desires reach out after the nature of material 
 elements, while mind, being composed of an im- 
 mortal, unchanging substance, clings to the na- 
 ture of its existence, consequently desires no 
 change, for it would be impossible for unchang- 
 ing elements to seek a condition contrary to the 
 nature of the elements which compose its being. 
 Thus you see its desires emanate the inborn prin- 
 ciples in taind, perpetuation of the same identity, 
 while the material body separates away to the 
 fountain from whence it came, forming other con- 
 ditions of life and matter. 
 
 This is, then, the action of the material con- 
 stantly, for the spirit form is constantly attracting 
 and expelling material atoms, which help to 
 make up the material body. This is the action 
 of the spirit body, acting in harmony with the 
 material, for this is the desire of the material; 
 but the mind which has formed with the action 
 of the spiritual body, the product of which 
 are the thoughts, the emotions, the passions, 
 the reason, which have come through the res- 
 piration, the unity of the spiritual entire, ab a 
 drop is to the ocean of mind. Therefore, as the 
 mind holds the supremacy over the spiritual 
 form uniting, from the elements which compose it, 
 as I said before, through chemical affinity, this 
 makes it subject to the desires of- the voluntary 
 power, the mind, which is immortal, which is love 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 75 
 
 of life, and holds it by this connecting link for- 
 evermore in a form. This is the reason the spir- 
 itual form has a permanent existence through all 
 change and waste atoms of the material. It is 
 subject to the mind, which is the love and 
 perpetuation of its existence. Therefore the 
 mind is fettered in the material as long as that 
 material is affinitizing to it. When the material 
 becomes no longer in affinity with its life princi- 
 ple it is subject no more to the power of this life. 
 And then this life expels it away from it entirely, 
 which is the change called death. 
 
 rVhen the material is harmonizing with the 
 spiritual power, held and concentrated in any 
 part of the body, and has a non-affinity in a cer- 
 tain degree in some other portion of the body, it 
 produces pain. For the elements are striving to 
 free themselves from each other, or to again 
 equalize the unbalanced electrical forces through- 
 out the system, thus creating discord and in- 
 harmony. Thus it is seen that some indi- 
 viduals are having a diseased brain; the ele- 
 ments are not harmoniously uniting, being 
 interrupted in some parts, or shut off in their 
 avenue to the mind. Thus if one element were 
 wanting to complete the whole, being interrupted 
 by the non-affinity of some avenue to the mind, 
 it would not unite in chemical affinity to produce 
 thoughts, or perfectness of thoughts, and so un- 
 consciousness would be the same as though no 
 spiritual element was reaching the mind at all 
 
76 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 nnti] a healthy action were again restored between 
 the spirit and material, or the spiritual had freed 
 itself from the material entirely, and thus stood 
 alone in its own power, unfettered by the mater- 
 ial, an individuality of itself. 
 
 Let a person, for instance, receive an concussion 
 of the brain, the original harmony of the spirit- 
 ual and material combined is disturbed. There- 
 fore the avenue which conveyed elements to the 
 mind, (the product of whose results is thoughts, 
 or to produce thoughts to the mind,) would be 
 disturbed by the non-affinity of the material, and 
 the elements which produced thoughts would not be 
 carried to the mind so as to unite in perfect har- 
 mony,, consequently the mind would be disturbed 
 and produce imperfect thoughts or unconsci ousness 
 would ensue, until light broke forth again by the 
 restoration of these avenues which convey thoughts 
 to the mind, or, rather, the elements which unite 
 in thoughts when affinitizing in perfect harmony. 
 This is the action of the mind when disease 
 or a fracture of the skull is destroying the mater- 
 ial faster than the action of the spiritual is ex- 
 pelling the incumbrance of its waste atoms away. 
 Thus fettering and closing the avenue by which 
 thoughts are conveyed to the mind, or the spirit- 
 ual elements which produce thoughts when con- 
 veyed or attracted to the mind from the air we 
 breathe, thus uniting to form life or conscious- 
 ness, or the comprehensive living element of 
 identity. In sleep, mind closes itself like the 
 
LESSONS OX LIFE. 77 
 
 flower closes when sleep or rest is required, and 
 shuts out the surroundings, and will not receive 
 elements to unite in thoughts. Mind is the same 
 when receiving an injury; to cease consciousness 
 it closes in itself its own life, while the spirit 
 body continues or keeps up its involuntary forces 
 of motion still, as in slumber. Yet mind wastes 
 not an atom of itself through all the change and 
 waste atoms of the material; though it be years, 
 and if restored again in its harmony, the spirit 
 with the material, mind will begin exactly where 
 it left off, proving it to be an immortal, unchang- 
 ing element, for the brain may be an entirely new 
 substance through its ceaseless change of waste 
 atoms for new, from what it was when conscious- 
 ness ceased action with the mind. 
 
 Yet the mind has not wasted an atom; show- 
 ing that mind and material are two different 
 things; one has wasted entirely for new during 
 this period, while the other, or mind, has not 
 wasted an atom, not even to the completion of 
 an unspoken command or finishing sentence. 
 
 If thoughts are not illustrated from what I have 
 given you as being the result of spiritual ele- 
 ments from the air coming in contact with mind, 
 blending in chemical affinity, whose products 
 are thoughts, I will bring farther proof to show you 
 how thoughts, passions, emotions, reason and 
 consciousness are gathered from the elements com- 
 bining in chemical laws with the mind to produce 
 it. First, we will go to the tropical clime. There 
 
78 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 you see life forming into existence. There you 
 see that life is inferior in thoughts and mental 
 endowments to the life in the temperate regions, 
 or near the poles. Why is it so ? Because in 
 the tropical climes heat rarities the air near the 
 surface of the earth, expanding it until there is so 
 little density or oxygen, the life of the air, in it, 
 that the inhalation of this air contains but little 
 of the essence of purity. Therefore, you see the 
 sluggish weak-brained native of those climes pos- 
 sessing but little intellectual endowment, capa- 
 ble of receiving but few thoughts, as his organi- 
 zation is suited to the condition in which he had 
 his origin. Then we will go to the native of the 
 temperate zone, where life and beauty abound 
 in the air — being more dense — therefore is con- 
 taining more of the life principle concentrated in 
 a smaller compass. You see the inhabitants of 
 those localities, capable of higher intellectual ef- 
 forts, and their brain organized accordingly, for 
 all life is suited to the condition in which it has 
 its origin. 
 
 Then we will go to the atmosphere around the 
 poles. Here you see the atmosphere by the mo- 
 tion of the earth, less in quantity and the native 
 there is not so intellectually endowed as in the 
 temperate regions, which is the best adapted for 
 mind and intellectual efforts than any portion of 
 the world. Why is it so ? As I said before, the 
 reason is obvious that intellectual endowments, 
 thoughts, emotions, and all which makes mind a 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 79 
 
 conscious existence, emanates from the combined 
 forces which create all life, making it a perpetual 
 identity of itself from immortal unchanging ele- 
 ments, which help to compose and make up the 
 universe, gradually growing more and more eter 
 nal in beauty, perfection and grandeur, as we 
 drink in more and more of the divine essence of 
 God and his Infinite elements. 
 
 When we come to the mind of Deity, we have 
 only to reason from analogy; but if man is an 
 epitome of the universe, and those elements which 
 compose the universe organized in bodies corres- 
 ponding with the universe by the laws of attrac- 
 tion, and the result of this unity or organism pro- 
 duces thoughts in man, then it is analogous to rea- 
 son, the organized whole would create an omnipo- 
 tent mind as superior in intelligence to us, as far 
 beyond our comprehension, as the elements are 
 more abundant that make up the whole, or perfect- 
 ly blended together in complete harmony, having 
 an equal balance of all elements combined in one 
 grand whole. This would create perfectness of 
 intelligence, for are not we an unequal balance of 
 elements combined, which compose us ? Therefore 
 we are imperfectness,for we have more of one, and 
 less of another element which produce different at- 
 tributes of the mind which compose our life, and as 
 we are superior to the smallest insect life that ex- 
 ists in our bodies, so G-od is as far away from our 
 comprehension of intelligence as the intelligence 
 
80 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which we sustain is superior to the smallest ani- 
 malcule that exists in us. 
 
 So we reason that as we advance in intelligence 
 toward Deity, it will be Deity advancing, too, for 
 the elements which compose Deity compose us, 
 and these elements from which we have our ori- 
 gin are constantly more refining toward a higher 
 grade of intelligence. 
 
 So we can never reach Deity or the perfectness 
 of His intelligence. When we may have reached 
 intelligence as supreme as God to-day, will not 
 Omnipotence be through the same law of endless 
 progression as far beyond us as His intelligence 
 reaches beyond us to-day? Through the ele- 
 ments of perfectness which compose our origin 
 making us higher beings blending toward a high- 
 er life, it is analogous to reason that Deity will, 
 for through the progression of all life and atoms 
 which compose our origin, we are perfecting to 
 a higher grade of human intellect. 
 
 So we reason that God is progression in the 
 same proportion as the elements which compose 
 His form, are perfecting higher and higher in 
 which we exist. 
 
 And we are ever reaching nearer and nearer to 
 a more perfect existence as we advance through 
 the endless chain of progression, in the elements 
 of life which compose our being. 
 
 Mesmerism, or what is termed animal magnet- 
 ism, also proves the spirituality of the mind; 
 proves that the mind is a spiritual element, for 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 81 
 
 will, which moves the operator to act upon the 
 subject, proceeds from the mind. The mind 
 is the power acted upon by the subject to receive 
 the thoughts and desires of the operator. Will is 
 an emanation of the human mind. It acts through 
 the body and gives motion to the physical form. 
 Let us see if will is not consciousness and indi- 
 vidual identity of the person from which flows 
 this will to act upon the subject mesmerized. 
 
 Take for instance the subject and operator of 
 animal magnetism. Place them for instance at 
 the distance across the room, and if the subject 
 speaks the thoughts of the operator, certainly the 
 operator's thoughts have traversed the intervening 
 distance, an individualized substance from the 
 operator's mind to the mind of the subject, and 
 those thoughts are invisible, and the subject act- 
 ing the thoughts and will of the mind of the other, 
 is moving his motions accordingly. 
 
 Thoughts then must be a substance, for you 
 see the result of their power upon the mind, obey- 
 ing their influence. Can you discover this emana- 
 tion from the mind of the operator, termed will, 
 which has passed this intervening distance from 
 the operator to the subject ? No, it is invisible, yet 
 it has penetrated the material to reach the mind of 
 the subject like any spiritual substance which 
 passes through material. How has it reached the 
 mind unless it has passed through a material 
 substance to come forth from the brain of the 
 operator, and enter through the surface to the 
 
82 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 brain into the mind of the subject mesmerized, 
 and acting upon the other person's mind. You see 
 it is an invisible substance — the will or thoughts 
 you cannot see; it is spiritual; the same sub- 
 stance as the mind from which it emanates. Then 
 if mind is invisible, is it not like all invisible and 
 unchangeable substances or forces, which are not 
 material, and yet thoughts or will is conscious- 
 ness, a product of the mind, the immortal iden- 
 tity of man, which is not decaying. We answer, 
 the invisible substances so explained are those 
 forces in nature that are unchangeable, not mat- 
 ter which is moved by the mind. So you may go 
 to the lower order of animal life, and see the 
 same forces of will emanating from minds inferior 
 endowed, for will is the action of mind in thought; 
 whether high or low its attribute pervades all 
 forms of life. The serpent, for instance, sends its 
 will into the branches above him and desires the 
 bird, fluttering into his embrace, and yet this in 
 visible cord, which is the thoughts or desires of 
 the serpent which has drawn to him his tremu- 
 lous prey, is an invisible substance reaching out 
 from the mind of the serpent to the branches 
 above his head and consummated the same re- 
 sult as a material c^rd which you could see would 
 have done alike with the same effect. 
 
 Thus thoughts are invisible, yet as real in in- 
 dividuality of substance as though you were able 
 to behold thoughts with the organ of vision. So 
 it is unreasonable to argue that invisible sub- 
 
LESSONS ON LIFE. 83 
 
 stances are nothing, or that mind is material, for 
 unlike material objects it is invisible, also un- 
 changeable. For thoughts are thoughts, no matter 
 how feebly they may shine through the material 
 casement. The mind produces thoughts always 
 as the result of its action and nothing else, while 
 the action of the physical form is never the same 
 substance thrown off each hour of our being; it is 
 a different substance of waste atoms of changea- 
 ble matter, unlike the same as before, a different 
 product of waste atoms of refuse substance in 
 every moment of change in the human life. The 
 flesh of the young is not the flesh of the old, or of 
 one or two years, or of various periods in life, it 
 is always change in each period of the human or 
 animal form, while the mind is always the same 
 identity of substance whose action is the same 
 result of substance, thought; from youth to age, 
 through all the change and waste atoms of the 
 material body during that period. The product 
 of mind is always thought, while the product of 
 the body is a changeable flesh, never the same 
 identity of substance. Then, we argue that mind 
 is immortal, invisible, a spiritual identity of 
 itself, while the body is never the same, and if 
 my position is immovable from known laws and 
 sciences governing the human frame, then you 
 must accede to me the discovery of immortality 
 from immortal principles, embedded within us 
 and constituting the human mind. 
 Mesmerism proves the result of mind independ- 
 
84 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ent of the physical form and its identity of exist- 
 ence, and its own powers of action, proves mind 
 an invisible spiritual substance, the process of 
 whose action emanate thoughts, a like substance 
 of the same nature as its being. The eternity of 
 the human mind. 
 
A SERMON. 85 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 O! thou infinite and all-wise God, in whom em- 
 bodies all life, all perfection, whose unseen work- 
 ings move the great machinery of nature, and 
 give life and existence to our earthly bodies, un- 
 folding in our infantile creation like the blinded, 
 creeping worm, unseeing the glories of a higher 
 existence. O! most glorious Omnipotence, as we 
 seek after Thee in Thy thousand manifestations 
 which Thou hast surrounded us, our voice seems 
 unutterable to depict Thy glories. Thou bringest 
 us the gentle breath of the wind, and we inhale 
 therefrom the life element of our existence. We 
 gaze upon the moving millions of worlds sweep- 
 ing on through the realms of space, peopled with 
 intelligence and happiness, as we looking higher 
 with a brighter vision to all coming time in beau- 
 teous worlds. 
 
 Let us here resolve that we will learn more and 
 more of Thee as we look awav into the skies from 
 
86 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which the bright angels have come and wafted the 
 spirit of little Willie homeward. Unutterable are 
 our praises to Thee, ! God, Thou another of all 
 life, and our praises are from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 Before me lies the little tiny casket of the earth- 
 ly form dear to us, in its marble beauty, because 
 it once embodied the life of this little one and is a 
 miniature of its earthly existence. But while we 
 treasure the earthly garment, and cling to it with 
 such fond endearment, we know the more beauti- 
 ful and eternal form is to go with us throughout 
 the endless ages of eternity. Then why do you 
 mourn, waiting friends ? Look not to this earth- 
 ly garment for consolation and comfort, for all 
 that animated it into life, the spiritual body, has 
 expelled this earthly form, " the tabernacle where- 
 in it dwelt," and this spiritual body has entered 
 upon a higher and more beautiful plane of exis- 
 tence eternal for evermore, basking in the sunlight 
 and joy of eternal grandeur, which is not subject 
 to decay. 
 
 In sweetness he lingers near you, wafted in the 
 arms of love by those who have gone before him 
 to the summer land. 
 
 Lovingly they cherish him, as I see him now 
 garbed in the robes of beauty, so like the veil of 
 a fleecy cloud, looped away from the tiny arms 
 with fadeless flowers, worn by the innocent, the 
 good and pure. 
 
 Death to him had no dread or sorrow, for he 
 
A SERMON. 87 
 
 had not lived long enough upon the earth to im- 
 bibe within his bosom the teachings of those who 
 have learned to look upon this change from mor- 
 tal to immortal with so much fear and dread, and 
 uncertainty as a grim messenger. Because they 
 could not see that death, as we call it, is only 
 opening the flower-encircled door to show us 
 those we love, waiting, with outstretched arms of 
 love and tenderness, to receive the freed spiritual 
 body as nature casts aside the worn-out garment, 
 and our feet so noiselessly tread from the veiled 
 vestibule as it were, into the glory of the broad 
 temple, where a thousand feet resound for ever- 
 more, going on higher and higher in eternal gran- 
 deur and wisdom, which is as unending and eter- 
 nal as God. 
 
 The inspiration of old long ago has spoken it, 
 as well as the inspiration of to-day, for Jesus, 
 long ago, had said to his followers: " If I go away 
 I will send a comforter," and chey are walking be- 
 side you now, comforting, striving to instill in 
 your minds words of inspiration to those who 
 will listen, but time has taught you to heed them 
 not, for man lias been your interpreter. 
 
 But those who will receive them, receive that 
 personal knowledge of future existence, which 
 robs death of its sting and teaches us a foretaste 
 of the beauties of life to come. 
 
 What a similarity in the spiritualistic era of 
 the present day to the spiritualistic era which 
 characterized the days of Judea. Then Rome, 
 
88 PENCILINGS FROM IMMOTRALITY. 
 
 the seat of national powers, was a free country, 
 imbibing the breath of freedom and liberty from 
 her developments in arts and sciences, from her 
 Ciceros and the voices of those Roman Senators 
 which spoke freedom to her happy land. 
 
 Then the light of the angel world dawned down 
 to man, arid they spoke with the unseen spirit 
 which surrounded them, wrote their inspirations, 
 saw as John saw on the isle of Patmos, which 
 spirit said to him: "Lo! I am he that was dead 
 and yet liveth; fall not down and worship me for 
 I am only one of thy brethren." 
 
 To-day, America, like Rome, dawns with the 
 same free, national power, whose liberty was 
 instituted by Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, whose 
 voice echoed forth freedom to man in the senate 
 halls and broke the yoke of bondage which fet- 
 tered her to one religious power and persecution 
 from the hands of tyrants, and made America a 
 land of freedom, greater than was ever known be- 
 fore on earth. And again, light has dawned 
 down to man from the skies, as in the days of 
 Roman Liberty, to open the way. The light to 
 those who had become Atheists and Infidels, see- 
 ing life only go down in nothingness; for the in- 
 spiration which had been recorded of old had 
 been interpreted by man, and man all along 
 down the stream of time to the present, and con- 
 sequently had become so much like the mind of 
 man who had so long interpreted it, that its 
 truths became so blurred by the popular creeds 
 
A SERMON. 89 
 
 and theories of man, that it would no longer bear 
 the test of reason. And since then we have been 
 taught that we must not reason upon it; as if a 
 truth would not shine more bright by investiga- 
 tion and light. 
 
 God, to-day, is the same God as in the ages 
 past — unchangeable forever; and in this day of 
 national liberty, like the days of Roman Liberty, 
 another spiritualistic era has dawned down to 
 man to lift him away from doubt and superstition 
 and fear to the knowledge of life eternal, of im- 
 mortality, which is seen and known and felt to- 
 day by millions upon this planet. Wise in sci- 
 cence and learning, it bears the test of reason and 
 investigation; for listen to the free press of your 
 land which brings the reports from men of sci- 
 ence convened for investigation. What are their 
 reports ? That it is a new truth dawned upon 
 man, as well as the personal knowledge of every 
 individual searching after the newer truths of the 
 age in which he lives ; but it must wade through 
 persecution, as it did in the days of Judea, for 
 the mind of man loves to cling to the thoughts of 
 those who have lived before them. 
 
 To-day we see the second coming of that light 
 which Jesus gave to man long ago, and saw it 
 would come again, away in the future, "to rob 
 death of its sting and its terror and give victory 
 over the grave." For those who looked upon 
 the dead as asleep in the grave, behold! would be 
 living. The dead are awake! The glory of the 
 
 (K) 
 
90 PENCILINQS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 millennium is here; and yet many will not re- 
 ceive them, for, like the Jews of old, it comes not 
 in the expected glory and power, but in the still, 
 small voice of truth. 
 
 Then, waiting, mourning friends, grieve no 
 more! for we know we lay not our loved ones be- 
 neath the coffin lid; 'tis only the earthly garment. 
 The freed spirit, the life, the joy of all we are, has 
 entered upon a higher field of humanity. 
 
 Death, is only born again, into the spiritual 
 world of life everlasting. As it was written, 
 "Born of water and the Spirit." Water, a com- 
 parison to the material life. Spirit, the second 
 birth of life eternal, into the spiritual existence 
 whither your little Willie has now been ushered. 
 
 This is the interpretation which we receive 
 from the skies to-day, from those words recorded 
 as spoken by the inspiration of the past. 
 
A MESSAGE. 91 
 
 & >fe#&ge. 
 
 My mother, ! my mother, far off in worlds of light. 
 I have a home so beauteous, with happy faces bright. 
 They come around me singing the songs that angels sing, 
 And with them, to my parents, this happy throng I bring. 
 
 They are my guardian angels to learn me of the way 
 That I can still go upward to heavens far away, 
 Where purity is only seen among the angel throng, 
 And if I learn as I have learned, to go will not be long. 
 
 The land is fair and beautiful where heaven is now to me; 
 Yet still its joys increase beyond where I can see. 
 Then let me go to worlds more bright and mourn not so for me, 
 For we will meet in happy lands through all eternity. 
 
 To die is something dreadful to those who live on earth; 
 
 To me 'tis only going into a higher birth. 
 
 Life and Death, how blended, one eternal chain, 
 
 Connects us with all worlds aboee where we shall meet again. 
 
92 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY 
 
 Si\ Offering. 
 
 The golden bowl is broken, 
 
 Its contents flow most free 
 
 Into the hearts of nations. 
 
 If you will follow me 
 
 You '11 teach a nobler lesson 
 
 Of truth, a flowing vine, 
 
 Which stealeth softly round the heart. 
 
 Till all their thoughts enshrine. 
 
 These sentiments to keep inwrought 
 
 A constant theme uplifting thought. 
 
INVESTIGATION. 93 
 
 Ii\ve^tigktioi\. 
 
 Look upon the thoughts of others 
 Not as something you would blight, 
 
 Always trusting and believing 
 You are only in the right. 
 
 For the erring ones of manhood 
 That you may be thinking wrong, 
 
 May have come to their conclusions. 
 Thinking hard and thinking long. 
 
 Then shall erring man or woman, 
 
 Born in vanity and woe. 
 Say no other one's conclusions 
 
 Can be right, but their 's are so? 
 
 If we would be human brothers 
 In life's battle, side by side, 
 
 We must give each one's opinion 
 Weight with candor, not deride. 
 
 Till we may have gave a hearing 
 To the thoughts which others speak. 
 
 Thereby candidly perceiving 
 
 Which is right and which is weak. 
 
94 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Who can tell, in life's great battle, 
 Which may be the one that 's right? 
 
 For the right and wrong are mingled 
 Altogether in the fight. 
 
 All, perhaps, may have a sprinkling, 
 
 Some things right and some things wrong. 
 
 Then, liko candid men and women, 
 Give to each what may belong. 
 
ORBITS OF THE PLANETS. 95 
 
 0i(8l¥g 0$ ^m ¥l&M¥& 
 
 Astronomers have as yet, been unable to dem- 
 onstrate this fact to man, notwithstanding its di- 
 rect correspondence to natural laws is so plain. 
 It seems to be an oversight that is a mystery to 
 spiritual intelligences, who have herein imparted 
 it, until this mystery has its following solution, 
 which cannot be denied, unless you overthrow 
 known sciences of astronomical knowledge, but 
 trusting that the world may not reject it because 
 these facts come from direct spiritual intelligences 
 to us to be imparted to man, I proceed to publish 
 to the world its spiritual solution, and trust that, 
 unlike the days of Gallileo, when astronomical 
 thruths were imparted to the unthinking public, 
 since so easilj explained, the prejudices of long- 
 established customs and beliefs, strove to sup- 
 press its light to the world, which has since be- 
 come facts to mankind. 
 
 But to the subject at issue. Creation is still 
 undeveloped to man, and will be as long as the 
 eternal chain of progression advances new 
 
96 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 thought and reveals new truths to the world. For 
 creation is everywhere around you, moving on 
 the same to-day without beginning and without 
 ending, for all is creation, and the creative prin- 
 ciples work in the same harmony to-day around 
 you unceasingly as in the ages of the past, when 
 Moses' inspiration came to him from the invisi- 
 ble. But let us reason on truth, and establish 
 truth with science, for this is the only demonstra- 
 tion of facts to man. Is not creation everywhere 
 around you ? Everything is in life and motion. 
 What is space ? Space, as we have previously 
 proven, is the great body of unorganized matter, 
 filled with organic life, each body or world there- 
 in sustaining life and motion peculiar to its own 
 individual organization. Each organized body 
 seems to sustain a similar motion within itself. 
 This motion producing attraction and repulsion 
 of the elements composing that body, or bodies 
 in space, the substances thus expelled fills the 
 immensity of space around that body, and the 
 elements thus attracted to that body receives its 
 substance directly or indirectly from space in 
 which it floats or revolves, which produces ele- 
 ments in an inorganic form, to feed bodies there- 
 in existing in organized forms. Then space in 
 which all bodies revolve must be composed of 
 substance, or be made up of a substance, in an 
 invisible form, because it embraces an unorgan- 
 ized condition so minute in its particles, which 
 makes space seem to be made up of nothing, so 
 
ORBITS OF THE PLANETS. 97 
 
 to speak, because invisible, consequently appre- 
 ciated by many as something which is nothing. 
 But, as we said before in a previous chapter, if 
 space is nothing, where remains the imperceiva- 
 ble atoms which compose bodies that are con- 
 stantly expelling into their surroundings every 
 particle which compose them, attracting new ma- 
 terials which entirely changes the physical form 
 once in seven years, as anatomy has proven to 
 you an existing fact. Then space must compose 
 all inorganic life, or the elements that go to com- 
 pose all bodies existing in space. Then space is 
 a substance, and as it assumes motion around 
 the world we inhabit, it is called air; because the 
 elements tilling space near worlds is more abund- 
 antly equalized with elements in affinity with 
 worlds or the elements composing worlds, which 
 they exhale by growth, and inhaled by bodies 
 thereon more in affinity with their condition of 
 life, or the life of bodies upon worlds. This does 
 not follow but that space outside of the direct 
 limit or surroundings of bodies or worlds is not as 
 self-evident a substance in affinity with some other 
 condition of life, and as real as the air or space 
 which we inhale to produce or feed life. There- 
 fore, it is obvious that space is substance of in- 
 organic elements, feeding or supplying the or- 
 ganic bodies which exist in space, by attraction 
 which draws to, and repulsion which throws off. 
 Is this element of space in motion or at rest ? 
 All is in motion. Then space must be a living 
 
 (L) 
 
98 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 body sustaining motion in which we exist, as the 
 ocean gives motion to the elements therein. So 
 the motion of space produces the motion of 
 bodies or worlds floating in space, in their rotary 
 orbits around suns, while their motion upon their 
 axis is the motion sustained by the life or its in- 
 ner self, or its peculiar form of existence, which 
 gives the motion of bodies or space coming with- 
 in the surroundings of these bodies, as the moon 
 sustains the rotary motion around the world by 
 the motion of tlip earth upon its axis, its influ- 
 ence or attraction reaching that distance in the 
 elements of space in which the moon exists and 
 revolves. Therefore the moon revolves around 
 the earth by the motion produced in the elements 
 of space, through the motion of the earth upon its 
 axis. So with suns or solar systems. It moves 
 the elements of space within its attraction by its 
 own motion upon its axis, thus producing the ro- 
 tary motion of worlds in their orbits around suns. 
 That their orbits are elliptical is from the fact of 
 electrical attraction and repulsion combined with 
 the attraction of gravitation of the larger body 
 attracting the smaller, whose influence, when 
 nearing in distance, attracts it nearer than at its 
 extreme, as it is attracted to it by electrical at- 
 traction. For illustration, two balls, unequally 
 electrified, will attract toward each other the 
 smaller toward the larger, and when becoming 
 equally electrified will again repel. So with 
 planets and worlds, everything is electrified to a 
 
ORBITS OF THE PLANETS. 99 
 
 certain extent or degree, impregnated with this 
 electrical element; suns attract the planets toward 
 them through this influence being unequally 
 electrified, and when coming near it, imparts its 
 superabundance to the other, which then repel 
 when becoming equally electrified, which expels 
 the planet away in its orbit until, losing this su- 
 perabundance, it again attracts toward the sun, 
 coming nearer the sun in its orbit towards the 
 sun by the attraction of gravitation combined, 
 acting with greater force upon it than when at 
 a greater distance toward its extreme point of its 
 orbit. 
 
 The same influence produces the orbits of all 
 worlds elliptical in their course. It is obvious 
 that space is revolving around the sun with its re- 
 tinue of planets floating therein, from the fact that 
 if the planets alone shot through the trackless ei- 
 ther with the rapidity with which the elements move 
 in their orbits around the sun, its rapid motion 
 of so many miles per second would sever a mate- 
 rial substance or world into atoms, or expel the at- 
 mosphere behind it in its great velocity of speed 
 through space. 
 
 But the elements of space all revolving around 
 with it, produces no jar in the elements or 
 conditions of the world moving with the ele- 
 ments of space. And as the worlds revolving 
 around the sun gradually decrease in swiftness in 
 their orbits as they recede in distance from the 
 sun, becoming slower in motion around the sun, 
 
100 PENGILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the center of attraction as they recede from the sun 
 in their orbits, as the whirlpool attracts the ele- 
 ments and ail substance therein around its revolv- 
 ing course or center of power, gradually decreas- 
 ing in swiftness as it recedes from its center of at- 
 traction, illustrates the movement of space around 
 suns. Suns are worlds revolving around by their 
 own life-given power, which gives them force of 
 motion and life, and is felt in all elements sur- 
 rounding them and impregnated with their sub- 
 stance of life-given power by the motion upon their 
 axis. 
 
 That suns have orbits around some other great 
 centre of attraction is analogous to reason by the 
 elements which sustain ceaseless motion eter- 
 nally through the immensity of space, and the 
 comprehension of man that can conceive of no 
 condition outside of space, for all is space, and 
 suns with their solar systems of worlds revolving 
 around them, forming the vast mechanism of 
 God. 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 101 
 
 f^JSft^g 0]\f T«5<lf\ SXlg. 
 
 Planets revolve upon their axis by the force 
 given them within their interior; by the revolu- 
 tion of the fluid within their centre revolving 
 around the centre of gravity, which is the centre 
 of the planet, the same as all living bodies sus- 
 tain their circulatory fluid within the centre by 
 the law of attraction and repulsion. 
 
 This ocean of fluid lava in the centre of the 
 planet produced by the heat and life of its inte- 
 rior revolving around the centre of attraction, 
 produces sufficient force in its state of inertia to 
 move the whole planet by this same law of mo- 
 tion whose surface is but a shell in comparison 
 to the extent of its interior revolving fluid mov- 
 ing around the centre of gravity within to pro- 
 duce its life and heat, while its surface develops 
 its growth of life in its different stratas, whose 
 corresponding rings are as the trees enrooted 
 within it. The heat within planets which pro- 
 duce its life, is demonstrated in the revolution of 
 its fluid upon the same rule as heat produces in 
 
102 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 all cases confined or centered portions of heat in 
 fluid or air, a revolution is produced around this 
 heat of the rooler particles of matter or wind, 
 causing a revolution. This heat in the centre of 
 planets engendered by its material changes until 
 it reached that intensity as to produce liquid of 
 melted stone as the cooled lava from the interior 
 presents when coming to the surface in avenues 
 of volcanoes, demonstrates that the same heat in 
 the centre of the planet once engendered and in- 
 creased to that intensity as to melt into liquid the 
 particles of matter adhering in the centre of 
 worlds in their first beginning or commencement 
 of that mineral-like property which character- 
 ize meteoric substance, falling to this earth from 
 the regions of space, where tbey have adhered 
 from particles of matter composing space of min- 
 eral-like properties or rocky substances having a 
 strong affinity in minute particles of matter. 
 
 The life of the planet is fed correspondingly 
 with the life which develops itself upon its sur- 
 face, which is enrooted within it, as the leaves of 
 the trees, for instance, supplies their growth 
 through the powers of absorption within the sur- 
 face of their leaves. So with planets, their nature 
 and life is fed by absorption of its surface toward 
 the centre of its vitalizing powers of heat and mo- 
 tion the surface drinks'in from the elements and 
 sun rays the powers which feed its life, and its 
 surface expels also its refuse elements of growth 
 and action, assail things on the surface of the 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 103 
 
 earth's body partake of the nature of the earth 
 whereon they exist, because the elements around 
 it are impregnated with the elements of its growth. 
 The earth absorbs like all living bodies through 
 the pores and vessels of its surface reaching down 
 into its depth of oily-like substance, its avenues 
 of circulation which engender from the heat of its 
 centre or vitalizing power. That the centre of 
 planets is a moving fluid substance is seen from 
 the earthquake's rumbling substance, which often 
 begins from one end of the continent moving on- 
 ward to another, from Maine to Mexico, with the 
 same unobstruction apparently as the elements 
 of the ocean sweep through its depth from one 
 distance to another. 
 
 Again, if the earth had not a force within it to 
 produce this motion upon its axis, it would event- 
 ually come to a state of inertia again, for there 
 are forces operating upon its surface which would 
 produce this effect. The attraction of the moon 
 constantly reaching it in her attraction with suf- 
 ficient force to move the waters upon the earth's 
 surface, would soon bring it to a state of inertia 
 again by its constant draft upon it; only as it was 
 propelled by this constant power of its own in- 
 ternal revolution of its liquid substance, its life- 
 giving powers in the centre. 
 
 How is heat engendered within the planet? 
 From its law of life. Supposing for instance 
 that all was space, or the elements of all matter 
 unorganized in space, those laws of attraction 
 
104 PENCILIKGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 that now move particles of matter to unite, being 
 self-existing as matter is self-existing, through 
 the ceaseless progression of change-matter, might 
 become so rarified or developed to that condition 
 that it become in affinity with spirit or attraction 
 to unite with it in harmony, thus commencing its 
 attraction with matter adhering particles together 
 uniting them in bodies the same as seen to-day 
 in the elements of space, atoms of imperceivable 
 matter uniting in particles more and more until 
 they become of sufficient size for the attraction of 
 the earth to reach them in the form of meteoric 
 stones seen floating in space and attracted to the 
 earth when coming wathin range of its attraction. 
 But supposing this same law to be acting upon 
 particles of matter in ^pace when there were no 
 worlds of sufficient magnitude to attract them to 
 it, when all was space, through the same force 
 that adheres particles of matter to the size of these 
 meteoric stones now, they would still continue to 
 increase in size if not attracted to larger bodies, 
 until they increased in magnitude sufficient to 
 engender life, this mass of material substance by 
 the change of these elements and the heat engen- 
 dered within the centre of this mass of material 
 substance until the heat become of that intensity 
 confined within to melt the elements in the centre 
 of this material body, and through the laws of 
 life begin its motion upon its own centre of at- 
 traction, the liquid being attracted toward the 
 centre of attraction which is the centre of this 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 105 
 
 body, it would revolve around this centre by the 
 laws of attraction and repulsion, thus commenc- 
 ing the motion of the whole body in harmony 
 with the internal powers of motion, producing its 
 motion upon its own centre of gravity, conse- 
 quently assuming a more spherical shape, as the 
 upheavings produced by the heat within coming 
 to the surface in earthquakes and volcanoes, it 
 would gradually become moved upon the surface 
 by these influences to assume more the form of 
 the interior liquid which would by natural laws 
 be spherical in its position around the centre of 
 gravity. As it assumed motion upon its axis, 
 however slow, it would move the elements of space 
 around it as far in circumference as its attraction 
 reached, thus producing suns and solar systems in 
 the boundless immensity of space. 
 
 Thus the action of one life produces change in 
 the elements of space different from what that 
 condition was previous to the combination of that 
 life, for one action of being produces something 
 different in the elements from what was existing 
 before that life began its motion. So with suns, 
 the elements of those bodies coming in affinity 
 with unorganized matter then in space produced 
 something different in those elements, and the 
 unity of bodies or worlds coming into being af- 
 terwards would be of changed or different parti- 
 cles of matter and species than what had hereto- 
 fore combined in bodies, the action of which was 
 consuming elements necessary to create its like, 
 
 (M) 
 
106 PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 therefore atoms combining thereafter in worlds or 
 planets from the elements in which they engen- 
 dered life would be of changed materials from 
 what was previous to the first formations of life, 
 from the effects that the action of those bodies 
 produced in the elements of space. Thus one 
 form of being would prevent another uniting just 
 the same from the effects that all life produces in 
 the influences around it, consuming in its being 
 and action something which never makes the 
 same condition exactly as before; thus life of the 
 same species can never be exactly alike, though 
 the elements which compose them may be similar 
 to each other. 
 
 So planets are different from suns in their ele- 
 ments of construction or combination. What pro- 
 duces atmosphere ? Motion attracts atmosphere, 
 demonstrated hy the simple movement of a fan, or 
 any substance moving with velocity through at- 
 mosphere seems to attract atmosphere. It seems 
 to be the motion of planets upon their axis which 
 attracts atmosphere to the planets. Where plan- 
 ets have been observed to have a great velocity 
 upon their axis, the planet invariably has a 
 denser or greater amount of atmosphere. This 
 agrees with the discoveries of astronomers, and 
 yet they have ever failed to ascertain the cause of 
 atmosphere being denser around some planets 
 and more rare around others; but this holds true 
 according to facts that are thus far ascertained, 
 while the moon has an extremely slow motion 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 107 
 
 upon its axis it has a very slight, if any, atmos- 
 phere. So it is with all planets, commencing 
 with mercury nearest the sun, and extending to 
 the fartherest planet away from the sun. The 
 atmosphere gradually increases around the plan- 
 ets as they recede from the sun by their swifter 
 motion on their axis and slower motion in their 
 orbits. 
 
 The moon is a body assuming its present mag- 
 nitude on the same principle as the meteoric 
 stone forming in the elements in affinity with 
 the earth attraction, which has not as yet 
 assumed its complete planetary life it re- 
 flects the light of the sun rays which falls up- 
 on its rocky surface and absorbs the heat with- 
 in it, for the earth receives no heat from the sun 
 rays reflected from the moon to us. Its polished 
 surface of mineral-like substance receives the 
 heat, but reflects the light, being composed of 
 substance capable of great reflection. The heat 
 or the substance which creates heat which it ab 
 sorbs is constantly engendering within its center, 
 but not of sufficient degree to give it but little 
 force of revolution upon its axis, consequently it 
 has a very slight, if any, atmosphere, which 
 makes it, as yet, almost deficient of moisture up- 
 on its surface to engender the growth of vegeta- 
 tion upon its surface, whose decay creates sub- 
 stance for new growth of higher species of life 
 upon it. When it has attained that perfectness 
 within it to give it life and motion sufficient in 
 
108 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 force to attract atmosphere around it of that 
 density for the propogation of vegetable and ani- 
 mal life upon it, then its planetary position in 
 the heavens will have attained a higher growth of 
 development. 
 
 When its surface becomes of density of growth 
 and moisture to become more compact upon the 
 surface, confining the heat more within, then its 
 motion will be increased upon its axis by its 
 greater heat within the center, consequently this 
 motion will attract a denser atmosphere around 
 it, which will produce more moisture upon its 
 surface, gradually filling its chasms with water, 
 forming oceans around it, and animalcule life 
 common to moisture begin its growth of develop- 
 ment, forming stratas, building up by the coral 
 insect reefs from its rocky depths, forming islands 
 and continents upon its surface, when its complete 
 planetary development will begin, in growth and 
 luxuriant vegetation. Thus you see by the moon 
 an illustration of a world or planet commencing 
 its existence and perfecting its development of 
 growth in the beauteous planetary system revolv- 
 ing around suns. 
 
 The atmosphere contains elements which pro- 
 duce light and heat when coming in affinity or 
 uniting together with the elements coming to us 
 from the sun. The rays of the sun produces heat 
 the same in bodies containing the same elements 
 organized within them as the atmosphere con- 
 tains in it, the unity of these elements more abun- 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 109 
 
 dant creates greater heat and light. Thus plan- 
 ets with the densest atmosphere condenses more 
 heat upon its surface upon the same principle as 
 the sun-glass condenses more rays in a smaller 
 focus ignites a blaze from the elements contained 
 in the rays of the sun. On the same principle 
 planets far away from the sun with greater depths 
 of atmosphere around them condenses more rays 
 in a smaller compass upon the planet's surface, 
 which gives heat upon it in proportion to the 
 depth of the atmosphere. This fact is illustrated 
 upon this planet around the equators. The center of 
 the earth's surface being larger at the equator the 
 planet's motion upon its axis would give greater 
 velocity, consequently attract more atmosphere 
 around the equator than any other point of the 
 earth's surface. The effect is, a greater amount 
 of heat is produced at the equator, combined, 
 also, with the direct influence of the sun rays, 
 than in the temperate regions or at the poles. 
 
 Thus God, in his perfectness and laws, has 
 supplied planets far away from the sun with 
 their greater depth of atmosphere around them 
 with the same heat and light upon their surface 
 as those planets near the sun, as mercury, with 
 her slight atmosphere around it, receives no more 
 heat through the same law than planets at the 
 greater distance with denser atmosphere in the 
 solar system. 
 
 How perfect is everything created for its needed 
 wants; what perfection in the laws of Deity, 
 
110 PENCILIXGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which harmonizes every effect with a just cause. 
 Look, for instance, upon this earth, where the 
 atmosphere is rare or thin, as upon a high moun- 
 tain peak, it is covered with ice and snow in the 
 hottest days in summer, while the valleys, where 
 the atmosphere is denser, heat and life is budding 
 into bloom all vegetation upon its surface. Again, 
 at the poles, where the atmosphere is thin around 
 the planet, it is forever frozen in ice and gloom, 
 demonstrating, beyond a shadow of doubt, the 
 cause which produces heat upon the earth's sur- 
 face. 
 
 As everything in nature performs its revolu- 
 tions in the elements as well as bodies, as the 
 mist goes away into space to return again in 
 rain, so heat and light pass away from the sun 
 into space, far away to the extreme boundaries of 
 its attraction, to be fed again by its same sab- 
 stance when it becomes deficient in any of its 
 elements. As the earth's attraction draws to it 
 elements in space as meteoric substances, so the 
 sun's attraction reaching out to its extreme boun- 
 deries of the solar system, attracts bodies to it as 
 comets which seem to feed the sun with elements 
 the same as its rays, or what produces rays when 
 expelled again from the sun performing its revo- 
 lutionary course in the harmony of laws which 
 govern everything with corresponding motion. 
 
 Do planets die or change conditions like all 
 other material life ? We answer yes. They de- 
 velop in growth and perfectness, grow old by 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. Ill 
 
 gradual decay, becoming so ratified that they 
 gradually expel the material and become spiritual 
 worlds, the abode of spiritual life. Or if they, 
 through convulsions of acute disease, throw off 
 the material unbalanced with an explosion of 
 substance, they terminate, as it is reasonable to 
 suppose, the planet once embracing the material 
 elements that are now forming the asteroids in 
 the regions of space between Mars and Jupiter. 
 Some planets are so made up in the elements of 
 their organization of explosive substance more 
 than others, or what might be termed unequal 
 balance of harmonizing elements, which produces 
 them not regular or calm in the unity of their 
 combined forces which move their being, having 
 attracted more elements of one sort or make up 
 and less of another; but that all planets termin- 
 ate alike is unreasonable to suppose — no more 
 than mankind terminates their existence alike. 
 Planets, far away from the sun, are supposed to 
 be formed of elements more in affinity with calm- 
 ness, for the elements are more peaceful and un- 
 disturbed than near the sun where commotion 
 and unrest marks the elements as well as organ- 
 ized life in those regions of turmoil and unbal- 
 anced conditions. But that in the explosion of a 
 planet it would gradually recede from the sun in 
 space is common to the law of attraction, whose 
 fragments would not be reached as strong by the 
 sun's attraction and they would recede farther 
 away into space, forming again in new planets 
 
112 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which would have an orbit farther away from the 
 sun. Or larger fragments be attracted to the 
 moon, which ever holds an attractive force toward 
 the planet around which she revolves. And the 
 orbit of the spiritual world, bereft of the material 
 previously combined within it, would, through 
 the same natural law, continue its same course 
 of orbit in the heavens, the abode of some phase 
 of spiritual existence, having the same grade of 
 condition to attract itself to it, filling immensity 
 with life and intelligence. Thus worlds Would 
 gradually recede from the sun, until their dis- 
 tance no longer reached by the sun's attraction, 
 they would resume an orbit around some other 
 great solar system in those calmer seas of per- 
 fectness, where perfect peace and beauty of life is 
 perfected in Deity, whose winds are but vibra- 
 tions of harmonious music whose atmospheric 
 life and calmness brings the wisdom and purity 
 untold by mortal comprehension. 
 
 How life has its development upon planets. 
 Atmosphere attracts moisture, moisture contains 
 life of the animalcule species, seen by microscopic 
 views in water, the different stratas of the earth's 
 surface are but millions of living insects or ani- 
 malcule composing its different stratas as the 
 chalky strata, and so forth. So life exists in 
 bodies or space and in everything attracted in 
 forms, yet often so minute as to compose a sub- 
 stance unseen as to its life. Islands to-day are 
 built up from ocean depth by the coral whose 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 113 
 
 reefs are washed in with the sediments of the sea 
 until it becomes solid substance, petrified or 
 earthy, rising above the ocean upon which wave 
 life and vegetation. On the same plan continents 
 might have increased in size from islands; and 
 to prove this, often in depth of the soil we find 
 evidences of ocean species of peculiar shapes, 
 making it analogous to reason that continents 
 might have arisen above the rocky depth of the 
 ocean by the ceaseless workings of insect life, and 
 when these continents or islands perfecting in 
 verdure in tropical regions whose natural tem- 
 perature was in affinity with degrees to engender 
 life, higher species, as the Ourang Outang, sprang 
 from elements of space and the surroundings, 
 abundant of the same form of being, whose sub- 
 stance attracting in conditions of egg, like sub- 
 stance out of which life had its being, no more 
 miraculous than that at a certain temperature 
 the contents of an egg will assume the life of a 
 chicken or a worm, from what substance is con- 
 tained within it. 
 
 For when no animal life existed upon the planet 
 of the same species to consume these elements in 
 their growth, that which now embraces our own 
 species must have been abundant everywhere in 
 space and in earth wherever its affinity reached, 
 and through the latvs of undeveloped life, which 
 seeks development in nature everywhere, the 
 unity of these substances which form animal life 
 could adhere in unity of substance, one particle 
 
 (N) 
 
114 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 of its matter having a love for another, as for or- 
 ganized forms now to perfect life from substance 
 from no other law than attraction and repulsion, 
 acting upon matter in necessary degrees of tem- 
 perature to propogate its existence. 
 
 So, when animal life existed not, to consume 
 its like of unorganized matter in the regions of 
 space and everywhere, it is as reasonable to sup- 
 pose that their existence would unite in affinity 
 with growth as for different kinds of grass to 
 spring up where there was no seed planted, or 
 that from elements of decayed substance to-day 
 insect life will propagate its being, developing 
 species before unknown in existence, but that its 
 elements which compose them was abundant in 
 space, waiting for suitable time for development 
 is not unreasonable to argue. 
 
 God, in His wonderful mechanism, creates 
 nothing without a cause. When wisdom unfolds 
 the human intellect to perceive the reason of mo- 
 tion and life, then knowledge will have succeeded 
 mystery and life work to the higher aim of human 
 progression. 
 
 Treating of these facts from spiritual communi- 
 cations which I have given in the foregoing chap- 
 ter, I will state that many of its truths were im- 
 parted through S. Sunderlin's mediumistic powers 
 in the year 1868, and others have since then been 
 imparted through my own, until I have herein 
 arranged them for publication before the reason- 
 ing world. And if vou wish to demonstrate the 
 
PLANETS ON THEIR AXIS. 115 
 
 revolution of planets upon their axis and the 
 motion of their orbits, you can do so, simply by 
 taking a hollow wooden globe and filling it with 
 muriatic acid and suspending a piece of zinc 
 in the centre. The muriatic acid has an attrac- 
 tion toward the zinc, and the zinc engenders heat 
 in the centre when uniting. Then place this 
 wooden ball in a vessel of water and it will re- 
 volve. The acid attracted to the zinc in the cen- 
 tre, and the zinc engendering heat, it will revolve 
 around, moving the ball by the same motion and 
 the water moving around it, the same as elements 
 of space move around planets or suns, giving the 
 motion of their orbits, of the moon around the 
 earth or the planets' orbits around the sun. 
 
 Now, then, if the world admits that planets re- 
 volve upon their axis, they will have to admit 
 that it has a force within it which produces it, for 
 if the planet was set in motion as astronomers 
 say, by the hand of the Almighty, and then it 
 had no power to stop, it is not in harmony with 
 natural laws, for the attraction of the sun and 
 other planets upon it would evidently bring it to 
 a state of inertia again, if it had not a force 
 within it to produce this revolution. So we argue 
 that, upon this basis, science will have to admit 
 its truth or give some more reasonable solution 
 of the cause which produces the motion of planets 
 upon their axis, and the cause that produces 
 their revolution through space in their orbits 
 around suns. 
 
116 PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Disease is the unbalanced condition of the 
 electrical forces of life, a superabundance of some 
 elements in the system and less of others, which 
 produce pain, striving for an equalizing of those 
 elements which produce a natural condition of 
 life or harmony of forces. Thus, many individ- 
 uals are able, by the laying on of hands, to im- 
 part to a diseased person, from their superabun- 
 dance of elements, some element lacking in a dis- 
 eased person to equalize their electrical forces in 
 harmony with health; while other individuals are 
 natural conductors through the combinations of 
 natural elements that make up their physical 
 form to conduct elements to another person, 
 the same as iron will conduct electricity, their 
 physical form being used by spirits or invisible 
 intelligences to heal diseases through them by 
 their physical construction, being able to conduct 
 whatever element which they see wanting to a 
 human system to restore the equlibrium of ele- 
 
MAGNETIC HEALING. 117 
 
 ments to produce health, the invisible in nature 
 or the elements of space being supplied with the 
 life elements of all vegetation, for does not the 
 fragrance, which is the invisible of the flower, go 
 up into the elements of space and fill immensity 
 with the exhalations of its growth, the fragrance 
 of all vegetation around us ? So invisible intel- 
 ligences, through natural laws, could combine 
 these elements. The fragrance and strength of 
 certain plants that they could see would restore 
 health, or elements that they could see were want- 
 ing in the life forces of an individual which pro- 
 duced disease. So spirits, through natural con- 
 ductors, as is a natural healer, could impart 
 by the laying on of hands, elements to restore 
 health and cease pain, by nothing more miracu- 
 lous than an element which spirits could see want- 
 ing in a diseased system, although invisibly im- 
 parted through another system to restore an equi- 
 librium of elements in harmony with health. The 
 fragrance of flowers are their invisible life. 
 
 Doctors procure drugs, minerals and herbs to 
 be taken within the stomach to produce this re- 
 sult. Their herbs have no effect if the fragrance 
 or strength of their leaves has gone. So spirits 
 gather or attract, by means of their own construc- 
 tion, the fragrance of flowers that has been exhaled 
 into space in their growth, for does not the life of 
 all growth fill immensity around bodies whose 
 growth exist thereon, as nothing is lost ? And 
 what does the imprint of the air, congealed in 
 
118 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 frost, leave upon your window pane but the ele- 
 ments of leaves and growth of all life and vege- 
 tation which miniatures itself from the air when 
 congealed in frost ? So spirits are able to impart 
 from the air the elements of vegetation whose 
 substance of fragrance exist therein, through 
 healers by their conducting powers of elements to 
 others, health by the laying on of hands, of what- 
 ever remedy is necessary to produce health, while 
 learned doctors, unable to see the cause of dis- 
 ease, lor this acts on the invisible, the life, have 
 to try first one herb or drug to see its effects, and 
 perchance ten to one the element they are trying 
 is increasing the unbalanced electrical forces of 
 the diseased portion of the body or generating 
 some other disease in some other locality, which 
 all comes by their material vision not being able 
 to see the intrinsic workings of life, and just the 
 right element necessary to restore an equilibrium 
 of life-given forces to produce health. Thus doc- 
 tors, or so-called skillful physicians, destroy 
 more lives by the drugs with which they fill their 
 system, per chance giving too much or too little, 
 or not the right kind, till now, to-day, thousands 
 fill untimely graves through no other cause than 
 ignorance. Look to the animal kingdom; see 
 the wild animal or fowl, that never knows dis- 
 ease, from the feet that nature has a natural taste 
 if consulted as to its wants, of substance lacking 
 in the system which it will obtain, or it will grad- 
 ually restore itself, if nothing is introduced into 
 
MAGNETIC HEALING. 119 
 
 the system to increase the unbalanced powers of 
 electrical forces, causing pain, working out its 
 own equilibrium. But in civilization a remedy 
 is always applied at the first approach of pain, 
 no matter how blind the giver may be as to the 
 cause which produces it. For it cannot be other- 
 wise, for the material eyes cannot behold life and 
 its intrinsic workings with the material. Thus I 
 say that disease will never be eradicated from 
 humanity until the laws of life are seen by the 
 material eyes, or mankind learn that spirits are 
 able to impart more health to man by proper 
 conductors or animal magnetism, so-called, for 
 by these life forces, a superabundance of which 
 can be attracted to a system wanting in just those 
 elements attracting it, the forces which equalize 
 their own powers and produce health. This is 
 one reason why mankind to-day should court 
 knowledge from the invisible worlds from which 
 our loved ones can come to us or bring physi- 
 cians from those climes above to impart more 
 health to the world than all the blind doctors in 
 the world, whose material senses are unable to 
 behold life or see the invisible forces which pro- 
 duce its action. Ten die where one is restored to 
 health through diplomatic doctors, I care not 
 how well learned. It is only finite power, seen 
 through blind senses, that can portray diseases 
 or prescribe a remedy. But the invisible only 
 should have the powers to restore life or health, 
 for in them is life, and life is only seen to them 
 
120 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 in all its movements and combined forces; and 
 until mankind can learn this link between the 
 spiritual and invisible world, disease will still 
 sweep away its thousands, and untimely tomb- 
 stones mark the cities of the dead. 
 
 For instance, look at the restless child or 
 mother where morphine has been administered 
 to ease pain, it only benumbs the nerves, intro- 
 ducing an element within them which retards 
 their motion and deadens their powers without 
 ever removing the cause which produces this over 
 activity of nerve power, as in restlessness, cer- 
 tainly it would be like throwing fuel upon flames, 
 only deaden its present heat to return again 
 with increased powers. To give substance into 
 the system to weaken their natural force, that 
 can as then, only serve at best the extreme force 
 which they are called on to maintain in the storm 
 of elements raging within to produce this great 
 extreme of nerve power to balance its ravages 
 upon the system. But when deadening the 
 force of the nerves the disease itself increases, the 
 nerves the life-giving power are then called upon 
 to act with greater counteracting force against 
 the disease when called upon to obey the natu- 
 ral forces again of the life-giving power of the 
 system. Thus no one's nerves are ever restored 
 by morphine, but the more they take of it the 
 more they require until they become habitual 
 partakers of it that life may exist, and so with 
 most all minerals and drugs, the more we take 
 
MAGNETIC HEALING. 121 
 
 of them the more we have to, until thousands 
 meet untimely graves merely from the effects of 
 medicine upon the system engendering disease, 
 when in fact they expect they are suffering from 
 some terrible malady unremedied by them. 
 
 When mankind learn the true light and under- 
 stand the intrinsic workings of life with matter, 
 then mankind will eradicate disease, and with it 
 evil will be also blotted out, for are not our off- 
 spring partaking of our own imperfections and 
 disease impregnating the land with crime, for we 
 are the victims of crime when we murder our own 
 lives and our children's through ignorance, or 
 otherwise we suffer the penalties of broken laws, 
 and restoration of health which we can never give 
 only as we apply to those unseen that are able 
 to view the unseen workings of life forces also, 
 see what is wanting to the system in its ingredi- 
 ents to produce harmony or balancing powers 
 to the intrinsic workings of life in the human 
 system. 
 
 (O) 
 
122 PENCILWGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 $&&$&. 
 
 Superstition and ignorance are the twin sisters 
 of vice. Together they go hand in hand, filling 
 the earth with darknes, retarding the light of 
 reason and truth. The advancement of scientific 
 truths moves slowly, for superstition and ignor- 
 ance, like the darkness which precedes the day, 
 envelop the earth with mists which obscure the 
 sun rising toward its zenith of glory. Yet super- 
 stition and darkness will vanish before truth and 
 light, and the earth will radiate with the efful- 
 gence dawning upon man when reason emblazons 
 in golden purity, unclouded by the errors of 
 superstition. So the golden ship of truth, sail- 
 ing out upon the sea of life; ahead and 
 around beat the waves and slush ice to retard 
 its progress from shore; so the great boat of 
 Spiritualism and inspiration to man, in all ages 
 and times recorded in the past history of man, 
 since the first dawn of history began, has been 
 retarded by the erroneous conclusions and super- 
 
PROGRESS, 123 
 
 stitious ideas of man, to retard its progress, per- 
 secuting its advancement and wisdom by creeds 
 and dogmas enforced by governmental power. 
 Such has been the history of the past in all ages 
 among all the nations of the world, until the 
 shackles were unclosed which bound and fettered 
 man beneath the yoke of tyrany by freedom's 
 silvery wing outspread to man wafting truth and 
 light to earth. 
 
 Go where you will, inco what nation, kindred 
 or tongue, they are governed by the wisdom of 
 the past, the traditions handed down to them 
 from the past, instead of embracing the beauteous 
 enfoldment of knowledge which the law of pro- 
 gression constantly unfolds to our view, 
 
 Gro back, if you will, with me through the 
 channels of history, let us see if my statement is 
 correct or not. Take the life of Moses, what were 
 his theological hopes based upon 1 The spiritual 
 manifestations which individually came to him. 
 He had his believers coming from the most reas- 
 onable of the age in which he lived. But what 
 were the theologies of the masses, the majority 
 of the people ? Certainly it was in the forms 
 and ceremonial rites which had been handed 
 down to them from the ages of antiquity. And 
 upon this they based their hopes of futurity, and 
 persecuted the spiritual enlightenment which 
 characterized the progress of the age in which 
 they lived; always going back to the wondrous 
 doings of the past around which was thrown a 
 
124 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 halo of sacredness, uncaring for the greater mani- 
 festations surrounding them. 
 
 Striving for the enforcement of powers and 
 ideas which was the same power that clustered 
 around Moses when but a cradled infant he 
 was sent adrift upon the river unprotected, into 
 the hands of his enemies. 
 
 Go with me down the vista of time a little 
 farther and behold the spiritual endowments 
 which characterized the age following, when 
 Christ's mediumistic powers, spiritual phenom- 
 ena, then burst upon the people. The most reas- 
 onable minds of that age embraced the theory of 
 enlightenment which had come to them through 
 the spiritual manifestations displayed to their 
 consideration through him. But where were the 
 popular sentiments of the masses of that age ? 
 Why, the majority of those, the churches, which 
 officiated in the higher and popular currents of life 
 went back to the theories of the past for wisdom 
 and spiritual teachings, back to Moses' spiritual 
 endowments for their hopes of immortality, and 
 around the doings and acts of those prophets 
 who lived in the days of Moses clustered the 
 sacredness of religious foundation and the more 
 spiritual enlightment and manifestations of the 
 age in which they lived. They discarded with 
 persecution and bloodshed Christ and his believ- 
 ers, ever going back to the days of the past for 
 spiritual light, instead of embracing the present 
 phenomena which characterized the doings of 
 
PROGRESS. 125 
 
 the age in which they lived, persecuting its wis- 
 dom, ever throwing the halo of sacredness upon 
 the deeds of men who had lived before, them. 
 
 Then follow on, adown the channels of history, 
 and persecution has followed every newly 
 revealed light from the spirit world, every way 
 and means in which the invisible have striven to 
 reveal their immortality to man. Swedenborg, 
 Wesley, Joan of Arc, Salem Witchcraft, and 
 indeed every phase of spiritual endowments, 
 inspiration from the unseen world in the various 
 forms in which they have striven to reveal the 
 light and knowledge to man of their immortal 
 existence, until we reach the present age of spir- 
 itual enlightenment, and persecution still, with 
 invincible power, never ceases her action. 
 
 Where does man stand to-day ? His theolog- 
 ical creeds ars still based upon the spiritual man- 
 ifestations of the past, upon figures and charac- 
 ters which denote a language long ago swept 
 from the literature of men — become extinct and 
 in its unintelligible characters which represent an 
 unknown language — and man hugs to his bosom 
 the spiritual phenomena of those dim and dusty 
 ages of literature almost extinct by repeated 
 translations of uninspired men, varying each in 
 a measure according to their own individual 
 theory. And on this they wish to base their 
 hopes of immortality, unheeding the sacredness 
 of spiritual manifestations of their own age of 
 enlightenment, for the manifestations which char- 
 
126 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 acterized the nations which have passed away, 
 no matter how debased that nation might have 
 been, in morality, in purity, and in social inter- 
 course with each other. 
 
 Unheedingly man clings to the reverberations 
 which echo from out entombed ages slumbering 
 in antiquity. And on this the majority of man- 
 kind would to-day wish to base their hopes of 
 immortality, and let the shining light which has 
 opened to-day from the immortal shores pass by 
 unheeded, or if heeded at all, subject it to perse- 
 cution. But if we judge the future by the past, 
 this age of spiritual endowments, spiritual gifts, 
 will far surpass the ages of antiquity, which the 
 majority loves to-day, by the voices of the com- 
 ing millions, when future ages shall throw a halo 
 of sacredness over us, over our doings; when 
 mankind shall follow in sacredness the past — 
 what its footprints have left behind, in spiritual 
 gifts of immortal life. It only wants the reflec- 
 tion of antiquity to immortalize the science of 
 immortality discovered in the nineteenth century 
 of this age. The proof of future life, which is 
 identical with man to-day, a tree which is out 
 spreading its branches, and its fruit already yield- 
 ing an abundant harvest among the nations of 
 the world. For persecution cannot still the voice 
 of truth; it lives in the ages yet to come. 
 
 Then glory to the coming millions, when hap- 
 piness shall rest supernal and death know no 
 terror. For the voices of our loved ones passed 
 
PROGRESS. 127 
 
 away are here with words of love and tenderness, 
 the same to hush our mournings, though invisi- 
 ble, are heard, and known, and felt, bearing 
 bright messages from the home immortal, the 
 land of love and light, teaching us of God and 
 His infinite wisdom, perfection and grandeur, 
 which is seen in all things we behold, the beauty 
 and majesty of His ominipotence. All these are 
 the gifts of wisdom and love which come to us 
 from the spirit world to-day. 
 
 Then will you heed it not, and see God only 
 working and dealing as finite man, and only learn 
 to love Him through fear of His arm, uplifted in 
 anger to smite away his sweet creations which 
 are the works of His hand ? 
 
 O, God! why should conception of Thee be so 
 low when we see so much of loveliness in Thee, and 
 in Thy wisdom displayed in all we behold ? 
 But we know that Thy law of progression 
 will sweep it away with the mildew of time, and 
 man shall comprehend Thee in Thy majesty and 
 worship Thee in every element which gives us life, 
 from the elements of Thy form in which we live. 
 
 Thus is progression sweeping us onward to a 
 higher, holier and more perfect existence, each 
 succeeding age bringing new enlightenment and 
 truth, unfolding more and more of the principles 
 which constitute our existence and perpetuates 
 our existence in all time to come. The veiled 
 Unknown is seen and felt as we arise higher and 
 higher in the scale of development, becoming 
 
128 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 more spiritualized, opening our vision more and 
 more, growing in Godliness thereby, comprehend- 
 ing the end and destiny of human life as we grow 
 more in perfection of the elements which compose 
 our origin. All is progression, from the least 
 atom which helps to compose the universe, to the 
 greatest mechanism of existence contained 
 therein. 
 
INSPIRATION. 129 
 
 Xr\^pirktioi\. 
 
 Behold the light of heaven has dawned upon the mind, 
 For inspiration reaches it from the celestial clime, 
 As free and plac idly as the rivers onward flow, 
 To far off seas, in grandeur murmuring low. 
 And like this same river, towards the waveles shore, 
 Its bosom bears the commerce of existence o'er, 
 In heaven's smiles of purity and love, 
 A star of glory to the way above. 
 Thus inspiration flows upon the mind, 
 Like sun- set glow, or night winds breath, 
 Which lifts the veil and shadow off from death, 
 And teaches us the way of wisdom's mighty lore, 
 Which, heaven reached, above the earth to soar. 
 What blessings down to man can shower its wealth like this? 
 Sweet visitants from heaven's eternal bowers of bliss — 
 Which leaves its impress like dew drops on the flowers, 
 Silently down from heaven, and gives it strength and power. 
 Thus heaven showers her blessings down on all we know or see, 
 In earth existence calm and peacefully, 
 Like softer breathings of seolian strains, 
 All, all is music, which in heaven remains, 
 Even to the music of the wild winds breath, 
 To those who pass so silently away from death, 
 To higher glow of heaven's existence there so sweet, 
 And then return, in inspiration to repeat 
 
 To us, the waves of sentiment which in their minds doth roll, 
 The breathless music, wafted from the soul 
 (P) 
 
130 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Down to us, like dew drops or the showers 
 
 From heaven's higher realms to beautify the flowers. 
 
 Shall man then be so low, in superstition dark, 
 
 To close the portals of his mind to the celestial spark. 
 
 The light which heaven gives to earth below, 
 
 The knowledge which from inspiration e'er doth flow, 
 
 To know the complete fulfillment, the destined end 
 
 Which in God's great majesty we see and comprehend? 
 
 ¥l\e ^ouiider of liberty. 
 
 In ancient days of liberty 
 
 I lived and ruled on earth; 
 In princely halls of worthiness 
 
 I had a monarch's birth. 
 
 In days of Grecian liberties 
 
 I founded there the laws 
 That broke the yoke of bondage 
 
 And governed freedom's cause. 
 
 History has recorded 
 
 The days of Grecian fame, 
 When Eoman Senators awoke 
 
 On liberty's fair name. 
 
 The name that's lived through ages, 
 
 And gave to freedom life, 
 When ruled through persecution, 
 
 Through bloodshed, sin and strife. 
 
 And this is whv to-day you live 
 
 A free and happy land, 
 Across the ocean waters 
 
 A few and single band. 
 
THE FOUNDER OF LIBERTY. 131 
 
 Had fled from persecution, 
 
 And builded there a fame 
 And reared again to heaven 
 
 Sweet liberty's fair name. 
 
 I had implanted in the breast 
 
 Of man the syren voice 
 Of liberty that slept, anon, 
 
 To gladden and rejoice 
 
 The heart of man in perfectness 
 
 When tyrants had laid low, 
 But manhood's pride had kept it warm, 
 
 And could not overthrow 
 
 The secret yearning of the soul; 
 
 For freedom still would live, 
 And I a monarch on the earth 
 
 This boon to man did give, 
 
 Which lived and slept in perfectness, 
 
 In all the hearts of earth, 
 Till Young America again 
 
 Gave freedom to its new birth. 
 
132 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY 
 
 Oi\wkfd. 
 
 There 's a nobler work for woman, 
 If she toils with heart and brain, 
 
 For the rights of all that 's human, 
 That are given her the same. 
 
 And if up the mount ascending 
 Your progress seemeth slow, 
 
 For the many in the valley, 
 That are faltering below, 
 
 Press on with buoyant footsteps, 
 Still up the rugged steep, 
 
 Unfaltering in thy purpose, 
 And steadily onward keep. 
 
 For the light ahead is glerming, 
 Which will crown thy labors won, 
 
 Emblazoned with the glory 
 Of a life-work nobly done. 
 
 The world it rarely gives to one, 
 Its homage and its due praise, 
 
 To those that battle for the right, 
 It isHeft for coming days, 
 
DECAY. 133 
 
 To throw a sacredness around 
 The lives of those who have won 
 
 Some better principles for man, 
 Where nobler deeds begun. 
 
 Becky. 
 
 I wandered through an old church -yard 
 
 Where, long ago, were laid 
 The silent dead, deserted now, 
 
 Beneath its lofty shade. 
 
 There moss had gathered on the stones 
 That marked each treasured spot 
 
 Like dust of years o'er buried hopes 
 In memory's halls forgot. 
 
 I brushed the moss from a marble slab 
 And sought to read the name 
 
 That long ago was chiseled there 
 With those decay the same. 
 
 Since, humbled in the narrow tomb, 
 The sculptor and the bride — 
 
 This leveler to human strength — 
 This end to human pride. 
 
 Ah! such is life. We tread the years 
 Adown through thorns and flowers. 
 
 We vanish, and our place is filled 
 With other lives than ours. 
 
134 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 The landscape fair that greeted us, 
 The stars that shine through space 
 
 Smiles just as cheerfully on those 
 That come to take our place. 
 
 But heaven gives to those that rest 
 
 Their bodies withthe clay 
 A life through all unending years 
 
 That never knows decay. 
 
 And as they oft revisit earth 
 To mark each resting place 
 
 The last of all, that mortal part, 
 Of them that they can trace, 
 
 O ! let it be remembered still, 
 
 By some one here below, 
 And sometimes clear away the weeds 
 
 That high above them grow. 
 
THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBUSG. 135 
 
 ¥l\e Battle of (Jetty^tirg. 
 
 On Gettysburg memorial height, where slept in calm repose 
 This ancient city of the dead, the morning sun arose; 
 And as its rays lit up the sky and cemetery so grand, 
 Its monumental residences arose on every hand. 
 
 There laid, in stately grandeur, philosopher and sage, 
 And all adown the line of life some relic of each age. 
 A fond and cherished mother, a maiden in her bloom, 
 Withered in life's fair morning ere it had reached the noon. 
 
 With sunny curls of innocence that decked a darling head, 
 A mother's treasure sleeping there, among the silent dead. 
 All these bespake the memories, that sacredly were laid 
 Within this ancient cemetery, that naugnt but peace invade. 
 
 But hush! the tramping war horse rush on this sacred ground, 
 And tramp beneath their feet the graves with battles fierce 
 
 resound. 
 Friend and foe contesting, and the battle din of war 
 Kesound with its artillery in thundering tones afar. 
 
 The sacred ground beneath their feet echo with shot and sehll, 
 Which but an hour ago sweet peace upon their death sleep fell. 
 Each contestant fiercer grows, with the dying and the slain 
 Piled, one upon another, where graves beneath were lain. 
 
136 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 And thus the struggle fiercer grows till darkness closes in 
 And hushed with awful stillness the roar of battle din, 
 Save the groans of dead and dying echoing among the tombs, 
 Where broken monuments and slabs lends to its fiercer gloom. 
 
 All breathlessly awaiting till daybreak lends again 
 Its light disclosing friend and foe, this battle sea of men, 
 Fighting each contestant for human rights they claim. 
 But who is judge unbarring the bolts of slav'ry's chain? 
 
 So each one, earnest friend and foe, are fighting for the right, 
 Till darkness closes in once more the gloom of awful night; 
 But as the war cry sounds afresh from hearts that win the day, 
 It seems above their heads in line there stood in bright array 
 
 The spirit of the dead who shout — For freedom onward still, 
 For freedom die — 'tis sacred a freedom grave to fill; 
 And fiercer grew the battle, till the tramping of the foe 
 Are retreating, to the distance, in solemn line they go. 
 
 Toward the southern soil, where the vanquished of that day 
 
 Return, no more contesting in battle's fierce array, 
 
 And earth was strewn with friend and foe, here perished side 
 
 by side, 
 That never more return to greet parent, child or bride. 
 
 But from the chains of slavery, whose fetters strongly bind, 
 Another link was severed for the freedom of mankind, 
 And to-day the graves of thousands, that fell at Gettysburg, 
 Echoes in the silent language freedom — immortal word. 
 
INVISIBLE. 137 
 
 I]MVlgl8l$. 
 
 The}^ come around me in the holy hush of eve- 
 ning, when the silent stars look down from 
 heaven, as if beckoning to their mystic homes 
 mortals from the darkness of earth life. 
 
 Their silken garments rustle like the music of 
 whispering winds, which speaks of holy calm- 
 ness, where crested waves kiss the shores of some 
 far-off, beauteous isle on the river of life, where 
 sweet incense pervades the air with richness of 
 orange blossoms and fadeless flowers. Then 
 they touch my forehead with impressions of 
 heaven-born sweetness and perpetual joy, leav- 
 ing a holy calmness upon my brow which fadeth 
 not, for it leaves its imprint upon the spiritual 
 life within, which wasteth not with material 
 changes. 
 
 Thus a mother's voice is whispering to me the 
 holy presence of recognition. 
 
 Then I long to clasp her to my bosom as in 
 days of yore; but 'tis forbidden, for mortal 
 senses cannot unveil the spirit form, but only 
 
 (Q) 
 
138 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 feel impressions made upon the spiritual life 
 within us, which is the spiritual we hold within 
 the mortal affinities. 
 
 Thus my sweetest vision is again obscured be- 
 hind the thick veil of materiality. And earth 
 life with its tumultuous waves break upon the 
 shore, submerging in its roar and mists the radi- 
 ant light beckoning us on\ard from the far-off 
 land. 
 
 I<ifeV Jlygterieji 
 
 The solemn funeral train passed slow with measured tread 
 
 Unto the silent graveyard, where they laid the early dead; 
 
 And many curious eyes gazed on the hearse that bore 
 
 The form which earth would see, Ah, never more ! 
 
 And said this is the end of earth, beyond the dreaded mystery; • 
 
 Which makes the human passions shudder as they see, 
 
 That all alike must pass the dreaded fate, 
 
 And share the funeral rites the same sooner or late. 
 
 Why is it that the grave, the pall, the bier, 
 
 Has in its mournful gloom so much of fear? 
 
 It is because the comprehension seen through tho mortal gaze 
 
 Cannot unfold the spirit life and all its hidden ways; 
 
 Could the invisible which makes the spirit body at its birth 
 
 Be seen by man in all its higher atributes of an existence freed 
 
 from earth, 
 Then joy would sit supernal, where now all is mournful gloom, 
 Casting its shadow deep and dark around the tomb; 
 A mystery no more, than the material birth, 
 Which gave our minds existence first upon the earth. 
 
LIFE'S MYSTERIES. 139 
 
 Can we not see that earth life is the rudimental sphere 
 
 Of an existence like the creeping worm, and then in higher 
 
 life like the butterfly appear; 
 And on and upward in a never ceaseless change 
 Of an existence higher still through all Eternity's vast range, 
 For God's laws now the same must ever be 
 Throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. 
 Then why should man not covet more a higher life, 
 And long to learn of these bright worlds more free from strife? 
 For knowledge which the many spirit minds doth teach, 
 Is more in wisdom than the mortal mind can reach. 
 Which teaches us a truth, a certainty that minds live on for- 
 ever growing more, 
 And more in knowledge as they upward soar, 
 And having love still yet for earth 
 As the infancy of the material birth, 
 And long to lead us into ways more bright 
 Which would dispel from minds the gloom of night 
 If man would learn the science which would teach the way 
 That spirit minds can mesmerize their thoughts on ours we may 
 All hear the sounds as well which spirit voices teach 
 And our own scope of mortal comprehension reach, 
 Far out into these worlds of the invisible and know the way 
 The spirit wends in happiness when freed from clay. 
 Then the most dreaded gloom of earth, the pall and bier, 
 Would be disrobed of mystery and all fear, 
 For surely man could say in truths and see 
 "That death was swallowed up in victory." 
 
140 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 BPifJiWS^ wof}i<f>g. 
 
 Spiritual worlds are bodies whose action emit 
 spiritual substance. Are suns material worlds ? 
 Suns exhale in their action and life an element 
 which is always the same. For we can compre- 
 hend this to be a fact from the element of the sun- 
 light which always, as it reaches us, is sunlight. 
 Material bodies exhale in their action a substance 
 which is different in every grade or period of 
 change of waste atoms by expulsion from their 
 physical forms. Suns, unlike material bodies, 
 then, expel through their life action an element 
 which is unchangeable, for it is always sunlight 
 which reaches us from the sun, and nothing dif- 
 ferent. If thej&un was a material body like the 
 planets, would its light not exhale sunlight at 
 one period of its existence and something differ- 
 ent the next in its growth of development ? It is 
 reasonable, then, that the sun, emitting in its ac- 
 tion the same unchangeable element, must be a 
 spiritual body or world, which, perhaps, once 
 embodied material life, and through change, 
 growth and decay has expelled the material 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 141 
 
 which it once embodied into the elements of space 
 around it, resuming its same existence, shining 
 forth on space a material world, which condition 
 would change its atoms of space coming in con- 
 tact with its rays, and elements uniting in bodies 
 around in its attraction, as the moon around the 
 earth would be of different substance in the ele 
 ments of their combination, as the planets are 
 different bodies than suns, and the material 
 world once embodied in the material of planets 
 would be to us invisible — as much so as spirits 
 are invisible — coming into life upon planets in 
 harmony with them. Then the attraction of the 
 sun would act upon spiritual worlds in their or- 
 bits through space, the same as a material planet, 
 for it is the invisible element of attraction which 
 acts upon like substance embracing worlds, the 
 life principle which pervade them, that moves 
 their action in the material condition. Therefore 
 the spiritual universe around suns must be in 
 harmony of laws, as the material universe, em- 
 bodying life and intelligence in affinity with 
 greater perception and wisdom of thought than 
 the material or planetary system which embrace 
 all material life. 
 
 Spiritual worlds, the abode of spirit life, have 
 in their construction the properties and resem- 
 blance of all material life; for is not the material 
 life the outgrowth of the spirit, for it is the spir- 
 itual which gives all the life and action to the 
 by material. A spiritual world can grow or develop 
 
142 PENCILINGS FROM IMMOR TA LITY. 
 
 expansion as a spiritual mind, can develop by 
 learning more and more, increasing in thought, is 
 capable of greater reflection and thought. As the 
 mind learns more and more it does not annihilate 
 or change its spiritual identity, it is the same mind 
 capable of greater expansion and increase of 
 thought. So could spirit worlds increase in 
 growth of elements characteristic of its life and 
 identity beyond the material. 
 
 That we can see the Sun and it being a spirit- 
 ual orb is from the fact its organization is from 
 different substance than planets. Sunlight will 
 transmit itself through the lens of the eye and 
 other transparent substances as glass &c, and 
 reach the mind, therefore comprehended by sight 
 }o the mind, while electricity is expelled by glass 
 it will not conduct it, therefore the lens of the eye 
 being a transparent substance a resemblance of 
 glass, will not conduct to the mind spiritual ele- 
 ments or take cognizance of spiritual bodies in 
 affinity with a different make up of spiritual 
 elements that are invisible or in affinity more 
 with electrical combinations or unseen elements 
 that are similar. These spiritual elements are 
 intrinsic in substance to us, and yet as real to the 
 senses in some other avenue to the mind as sun- 
 light is to the sight. For instance, the fragrance 
 of the flower is conscious to the sense but we can- 
 not see the fragrance of the flower, it is its invis- 
 ible, its life element, for when its life is gone it 
 has no fragrance. So we could enumerate spiirt- 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 143 
 
 ual elements unceasingly and yet they do not 
 reach our senses or mind in the same manner. 
 Thoughts are spiritual, we cannot take cogni- 
 zance of their spiritual presence only by sound 
 upon the ear as they vibrate the material atmos- 
 phere, or by feeling their presence mesmerically 
 upon the mind. This is from their being more 
 refined than spiritual elements pervading mate- 
 rial substance and atoms in lower orders of life, 
 which go to make up the spiritual form. So 
 thought is more refined and sublimated than oth- 
 er spiritual substance, which go to compose 
 spirit bodies. Mind comes from the far off re- 
 gions of space connecting a combined entity of 
 life so minute in its analyzation as to be invisi- 
 ble to anything but spirit, and its unity of being- 
 is only attracted by spirit its substance coming 
 to us from the far off regions of space in affinity 
 with the spiritual body organized with matter 
 and what impregnates matter with just such a 
 combined entity of life as the affinity of the ele- 
 ments of matter produces in its organization. 
 Thus a tree produces its kind again from 
 the flower which blooms upon its branches, 
 the fragrance of which is the spirit or invisible 
 which attracts these combined entities, germs 
 organized when secreted in the blossoms of the 
 flower but coming to it in elements which seeks 
 its combination in affinity with the elements of 
 the flower, thus upon the same tree apples are 
 produced varying in size and color yet similar in 
 
144 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the same specie, so with races of life. Life has 
 its reservoir in the regions of space attracting to 
 matter by the spiritual elements which pervade 
 matter and combine. Thus a mind partakes of 
 the combination similar to the spiritual elements, 
 more of one element and less of another which 
 produce a greater abundance, and consequently 
 develop a trait of character larger than other s[in 
 comparison to the abundance of such elements 
 combined to produce life. The thoughts of a per- 
 sons engenders from the elements substance of 
 like to feed its growth. If a certain attribute of 
 the mind is active a greater quantity of such ele- 
 ements attract to the mind to supply or feed its 
 over action, thus a life engenders in harmom r 
 with the thoughts most active or abundantlnihe 
 parents at the period of its unity. Thus a per- 
 son may inherit destructiveness in ascendency 
 from the unity of just such elements which actuate 
 this propensity being in abundance of overbal- 
 ancing power at the period of its organization, 
 or again benevolence has its predominating trait 
 or influence in the organization of the life engen- 
 dering its existence, or self-esteem, or the moral 
 above the selfish, and so on through all the at- 
 tributes of the mind. It should be a theme of 
 careful study how life engenders'Jts existence in 
 predominating traits of thoughts and characters 
 as the thoughts which actuate two minds united 
 in the production of one, the positive and nega- 
 tive unity or balance of those elements which 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 145 
 
 produce mind, organizes a mind in harmony with 
 the blending of the two. Yet however extreme a 
 mind may be overbalanced by any attribute in 
 its organization, cultivation can strengthen the 
 weaker attribute by its exertion of activity 
 and inaction can weaken those attributes of 
 the mind having too extreme power, until 
 the traits of character become equally blended 
 thus perfecting the human character to its highest 
 attainment of development and purity, until its 
 brilliancy no longer seeks affinity through the 
 material mould which protected it in its expan- 
 sion until it was able to soar into a higher and 
 nobler birth of the life beyond. That mind has 
 its origin from the extreme boundaries of space 
 is from its powers of grasping in and compre- 
 hending the universe, soaring away in its flights 
 of comprehension to the most distant wandering 
 stars and computing their travels through the 
 the realms of space, marveling at the grandeur 
 everywhere displayed therein, of harmony and 
 perfection, of that greater mind which moves 
 throughout the boundless whole. Alike must be 
 the component parts of the mechanism of minds 
 to all those distant realms in which the compre- 
 hension of mind reaches or there would be no 
 substance within mind to attract like substance 
 from the boundless realms of the universe in 
 which mind has long since commenced to solve, 
 and soaring forever higher, still from age to age 
 beaming more brilliantly as mind is fed and ex- 
 
 (Q> 
 
146 PENGILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 pands. It must consequently gather more power 
 and strength to reach farther out and solve the 
 newer truths which are constantly reached by 
 mind as it is able to digest the food which its' 
 own attraction draws to it when capable of recep- 
 tion and thus in mind we see eternal ages for it 
 to comprehend in something higher, newer still 
 as it expands more brilliant, for it is fed from one 
 great fountain inexhaustible and boundless 
 the universe. 
 
 And as we lay aside the material and enter 
 into the spiritual existence, we will gravitate to 
 those spiritual worlds which constitute the same 
 grade of spirituality of substance, of refinement 
 and purity of elements that we possess in our 
 spiritual development or combination, it is a law 
 of spirit that like attracts like substance. There- 
 fore we would be attracted to a spiritual world of 
 beauty and harmony of blending of its scenes as 
 the elements of our minds harmonize in beauty 
 of its development. So we could never advance 
 to the higher and purer worlds only as we were 
 made up in thoughts and refinements spiritually 
 the same or had an ascendancy of elements within 
 us which would attract us there. But that the in- 
 habitants of those worlds would come to us on 
 missions of love if desired by them, would be pos- 
 sible for we can descend from any point or posi. 
 tion that we can climb, but cannot go above to 
 where we are unable to climb. Thought or mind 
 harmonizes with the spiritual form, thus physi- 
 
SPIRITUALS WORLDS. U7 
 
 ognomy is so certain to detect traits of character 
 and thoughts from the form of the features, they 
 assume shape corresponding with the mind, thus 
 both harmonize, and we would go to worlds in 
 harmony with our development or refine- 
 ment, as certain as the law of gravity 
 will attract its like to the earth, or the lode stone 
 attract steel. But as we develop through the cul- 
 tivation of the mind, through will, giving action 
 to the higher moral traits of character we are 
 thus increasing their growth assuming a greater 
 abundance of those elements in our combination 
 which produce these attributes, weakening by in- 
 action the coarser attributes of the mind growing 
 less in those elements of our being. Thus expand- 
 ing us to a different grade of development spirit- 
 ually, for we would be organized through culture 
 of different spiritual substance, which would draw 
 us onward and upward toward higher conditions 
 and worlds of more purity and beauty of perpet- 
 ual joys where caltnness and peace reigned su- 
 preme in its musical harmonies of unending beau- 
 ty. If we do not cultivate justice, goodness and 
 principle, equity to all, the spiritual within us 
 here we will take our similar place in spiritual 
 worlds and only ascend higher as the elements 
 of our thoughts and being are refined into more 
 goodnesss and perfection; therefore when we 
 comprehend that it is immortality of life for us 
 all that we are to live on through all unending 
 time, we might as well commence now to cultivate 
 
148 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ourselves spiritually higher for that is the only 
 way that we can reach higher joys in worlds 
 when we pass on beyond, for like will attract like 
 as sure as the apple fall to the earth by the law of 
 attraction and we can never ascend higher in 
 spiritual worlds than what our inner spiritual 
 development assumes in its composition of like 
 development. 
 
 Sunlight beautifies the existence of all worlds, 
 spiritual and material, enveloping them in sil- 
 very light by the beauty of its rays. The spiri- 
 tual worlds far aivay in perfectness of calmer 
 seas and sublimer wisdom, whose knowledge 
 more supreme than us, unfolds more of the beau- 
 ty of light in those spiritual scenes and land- 
 scapes than our worlds, for wisdom and knowl- 
 edge is the key to all power. And what seems to 
 us but a silvery ray from the golden orb. of light 
 spirits of more supreme wisdom can take from 
 this sun ray, conducted through curiously 
 wrought prisms or solar spectrum, its beauteous 
 anilization, of colors, reflecting them upon scenes 
 or rooms which present its ever-varying hues to 
 suit its occupant gilding flowers and scenes with 
 life-like perfectness whither yon gaze. Domes 
 and palaces reflect with different shades of light 
 and colors a variety of colored hues from the 
 beautiful sunlight through means of reflectors or 
 construction of rare and curious stones inlaid in 
 artistic views, reaching up from gardens of flow- 
 ers in beautiful landscapes dotted around you 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 149 
 
 nestling in some rosy bower or gracing some 
 sunny lawn or slope at whose margin a beautitul 
 river ripples its silvery waters o'er pearly bot- 
 toms with musical; harmonies, upon whose limpid 
 bosom angelic beings glide in golden barges mer- 
 ry with joys and ringing laughter echoing o'er 
 the water *like the beauteous harmonies known 
 only to the angelic spheres. 
 
 From these worlds of beauty your vision car- 
 ries you downward to some other worlds of lesser 
 light, and as you wander by its fountains and 
 through its parks a kind instructor teaches you 
 the symbols of its meanings in different con- 
 structions that everywhere meet your gaze, des- 
 ignating spiritual conditions in tastes of their 
 occupants, &c. Some broad gateway leads you 
 up winding driveways around hills, while the 
 pebbles beneath your feet are read by their dark- 
 ened hues, a symbol of evil and the shining- 
 lights and transparent stones meaning the good, 
 and intermingled the s:ood and evil is symbolized 
 in the landscape around you, birds of golden 
 plumage and the raven's wing ilit in the same 
 bower, songs of harshness intermingled with 
 tones of love echoing through woodland and 
 glen. 
 
 A gray-haired monarch pondering o'er some 
 lore of life in lessons of wisdom, and the careless 
 mirth of youth and childhood mingled in the 
 same scene of mirth. But invariably as you look 
 into the features of any you see their most secret 
 
150 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 thoughts and doings, which underlies all decep- 
 tion, and their clothing seemed to be correspond- 
 ing in hues and texture to their spiritual eleva- 
 tion. 
 
 From this condition other worlds present their 
 view as you travel onward, and you are conducted 
 through your aerial visit to some dark and 
 coarser condition or world whose blackened 
 landscapes and barren wastes denote a want en- 
 tire to us of spiritual joys, some groveling life 
 seeking enjoyment, torturing some fettered, snarl- 
 ing creature, or serpents twining upon branches, 
 whose poisonous touches reveals to you the de- 
 ception in the beauty of their bloom, and the 
 harsh, discordant sounds which greet your ears, 
 the roar and tumult of the elements around you 
 thrills your soul with dread as some terrible 
 nightmare, shuddering whither you gaze, obnox- 
 ious brambles fetter your footsteps, and yearning 
 with pity at scenes so fraught with discord, that 
 humanity's condition could seek so low a level in 
 its loves of enjoyment only relieved as some 
 beautiful angel, shining like a star through these 
 darkened regions, teaches them of worlds and 
 conditions more beautiful, which can be reached 
 by the desires of will and cultivation, as an angel 
 of goodness might enter the prison cell, touching 
 by some timely-spoken word the dim spark of 
 goodness in the depth of some wretched life, fan 
 ning and kindling it into a vivid light bringing 
 them into desires tending upward. So angels of 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 151 
 
 mercy fitted as teachers to these lower grades of 
 life or those whose divine love within them in 
 spires patience, whose comprehension sees from 
 the lowest grade of life to the highest, and the 
 conditions of thoughts inspiring the mind up- 
 ward, awakening within their breasts a love for 
 good in ages, perhaps, demonstrating how a 
 mind from the lowest condition of development 
 continues its growth to the highest by the in- 
 crease of mental food developing the growth 
 oi the hiaher faculties of the mind and inaction 
 of the grosser faculties until they # become 
 overbalanced or equalized in harmony, which 
 constitutes perfection. 
 
 Then as we would become more perfect here and 
 enter into the spirit worlds of purer happiness, 
 worlds of beauty and love, let us enter upon the 
 cultivation of great internal good and equality to 
 all, comprehending that life is not suited to just 
 the present condition, but to all eternal ages of 
 higher degrees of perpetual joys, which we may 
 reach through no dismal archives of darkness 
 but through the light of knowledge may we in- 
 vestigate these spiritual spheres and the means 
 of construction used by its inhabitants, that the 
 natural may be made plain. If mankind are liv- 
 ing toward the highest end and aim of their own 
 individual powers of existence it is perfecting us 
 toward that mentality which shines forth through 
 the features and gives a glow of purity upon the 
 surface which speaks of thought and self existing 
 
152 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 consciousness of purity within. Thus we rise 
 against the storms that beat against the life 
 barque, sailing upon its ocean whose waves are 
 drifting us all toward the farther shore. The 
 knowledge of good and evil which is the result of 
 broken laws is only the fruits of ignorance which 
 experience or observation can annul. But when 
 we have learned by its fruits as the child learns 
 to keep away from anything which encroaches 
 pain, we have become through knowledge the 
 reaper of joys. That you should think because a 
 substance was invisible to you, it was forbidden 
 for you to investigate^ as ignorant as for you to 
 say that you will not take up the microscope to 
 see the millions of living life in a drop of water 
 that you were unable to see with the natural eyes. 
 And because you cannot see spirits, to assume 
 that there are none, or if there were you don't 
 want to know it, is like shutting your eyes to any 
 fact and imagining it were not there, as if this 
 could make it any less a fact, because you could 
 not see it. There are spirits and spiritual worlds, 
 and they have the same adaptation to the ele- 
 ments to produce whatever they desire through 
 certain means of knowledge as we have in the 
 material life to use and construct whatever we 
 wish, from elements we have around us for that 
 purpose, if we have thought enough to use it or 
 invent machinery for that purpose. 
 
 It is reasonable that through natural laws spir- 
 itual construction of clothing could be produced 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 153 
 
 from the elements with proper wisdom of spirit 
 to combine atoms, that unite when taken into the 
 system of material life to produce elements for 
 our material construction. For spirits could make 
 clothing from the unorganized elements of space, 
 that go to make substance we use for clothing or- 
 ganized in bodies from the food they eat and the 
 air they breathe containing the same properties 
 that exist in space, in inorganic matter. 
 
 The animal only eats the substance that the 
 chemical analysis of its system may take up the 
 minute particles of this substance and separate 
 those parts, attracting those in affinity with its 
 system or peculiar form of substance, of wool 
 or whatever it may be, and expelling those prop- 
 erties as refuse substance away, which would be 
 taken up in some other organized form of life to 
 produce silk or some other substance. In like 
 manner the worm takes the food into its system 
 and attracts from it properties which produce 
 silk, and the plant cotton, which attracts to its 
 condition of form by chemical anlysis, which 
 takes up the right properties to produce just such 
 substance and organize it into substance which 
 you take and convert into clothing. 
 
 But could not wisdom of thought in spirit- 
 ual beings that can see the minute workings 
 of life and how properties are attracted into 
 substance through the machinery of material 
 forms take up these same particles unorganized 
 in space and unite them in affinity together in a 
 
 (S) 
 
154 PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 substance which would produce the same result, 
 as the workings of organized forms attract differ- 
 ent substance. It is reasonable to argue that they 
 c^uld, and thus obtain substance from the ele- 
 ments with which to construct clothing, and as 
 all colors are contained in the golden sunlight 
 which is a spiritual substance the properties of 
 color would in like manner be easily taken there- 
 from and the beauteous colors contained in light 
 be used by spirits to effect the same result in col- 
 ors as though the flowers had secreted the colors 
 of the sunlight in their leaves and blossoms, and 
 you through your material senses then used 
 those colors to produce your material clothing. 
 Thus it is easy to see the facilities that spirits 
 use in constructing spiritual clothing which is the 
 same means used in all spiritual construction 
 seen to exist in spiritual worlds, through the 
 clairvoyant senses. 
 
 The higher humanity of life, the spiritual, as- 
 sume much the same appearance in dress as the 
 inhabitants of this world, spirits of coarse and 
 gross substance composing them, are not able 
 to attract to them the beauteous textures and 
 drapery of the finest fabrics, unless they are cor- 
 responding within. It is spiritual laws that are 
 governing them and like attracts like upon the 
 spiritual plan. A spirit of perfectness where the 
 spiritual attributes are equally developed, being 
 an equal balance of all elements and atributes 
 would assume the clothing of white, for this is 
 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 155 
 
 the colors of light equally blended, so a spirit of 
 goodness could attract in the colors of light which 
 would give them a white apparel if they chose, 
 but let some colors be lacking that represented 
 some atribute of the mind and it would give the 
 apparel of the spirit a corresponding shade, thus 
 the purity of spirits are read by spirits in the 
 colors of their dress and would be as easily read 
 by them as the contents of an open book. So 
 there is no deception used in the spirit life, where 
 the elements of spiritual substance is only used 
 in harmony with spiritual laws which seeks its 
 like or equilibrium in a common level by attrac- 
 tion and repulsion. 
 
 The radiant grandeur worn by spirits of purity 
 sparkle like the finest silvery texture of drapery 
 studded with stars of the rarest diamonds shin- 
 ing in the fleecy folds of silken garments like 
 mist, sprinkled with white flowers and blossoms, 
 seeming to have just fallen from the hands of an- 
 gels. Then other spirits appear which you might 
 expect to see in the radiance of a monarch crown, 
 arrayed in apparel having the sombre hues of 
 faded light, of faded colors whose rough and 
 coarse texture corresponded with the coarsest 
 material. Thus variety in the spirit world is as 
 numerous as in this, and many happy on this 
 plane of life or existence are miserable there, be- 
 cause in procuring the wealth of earth they have 
 neglected the wealth of the soul, and this is what 
 gives to us riches in the life,eternal for the wisdom 
 
156 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 of the soul we carry beyond while material wealth 
 is left on earth, and the wealth of thought is what 
 sparkles and shines in immortal spheres. A per- 
 son that is tried in overcoming obstacles here on 
 earth finds everything easily gained in spirit life, 
 where everything stands upon its own true moral 
 worth, while those unable to produce anything 
 by their own exertions having always an abund- 
 ance placed in their hands without the least exer 
 tion is deficient in this faculty, therefore finds 
 trouble not easily overcome at once when enter- 
 ing a condition where each have to build, by their 
 own mental exertions, and we rise higher as we 
 use thoughts and wisdom to comprehend what 
 will bring us into that condition. No one can lift 
 us there to stand where deception is unknown, 
 so those who have never developed this faculty 
 of the mind, depending upon others to bring them 
 all their joys, find themselves in trouble which 
 must at first be overcome. So each one should 
 develop this faculty on earth to meet perpetual 
 joys in worlds eternal, climbing onward and up- 
 ward through all eternal time. 
 
LIGHT AND HEAT. 157 
 
 l<iGt6¥ S]\f© S^S¥. 
 
 As it has been stated in the preceding chapter 
 that the sun is a spiritual body, I will treat some- 
 what lengthy on its construction and present 
 proof to substantiate this fact. 
 
 The sun is the heart of the solar system, its 
 impregnations pervade its entire circumference of 
 attraction as far away in the^regions of space as 
 its attraction reaches. Its emanations or rays 
 cerrainb r must be of the same substance as the sun 
 or body which emits its substance into the sur- 
 roundings, into all growth impregnated with its 
 substance. How shall we demonstrate the sub- 
 stance of the sun's rays. Simply by its results in 
 growth which absorbs it. As it is absorbed in 
 the earth its effects are remarkable. Not a plant 
 or growth that ever came out of the earth but 
 what contained it in its growth; this is why the 
 earth pro duces its growth of all trees and vegeta- 
 tion that exists in abundance upon its surface. The 
 effects of its growth by the sun's rays coming in 
 contact with the earth, uniting in chemical affin- 
 
158 PENCILINQS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ity with the seed deposited in the earth, the effect 
 is to produce its growth in everything. You can- 
 not find a single growth that ever was produced 
 from the soil of the earth but what is filled with 
 sun's rays. This is demonstrated by the fact that 
 heat and light the same as the rays of the sun, 
 are produced or come out of it again by the sud- 
 den dematerializing of any or all substance that 
 ever grew out of the earth, the same light and 
 heat comes from it again which it had absorbed 
 in its growth. 
 
 For a piece of timber as it suddenly demateri- 
 alzes sends oif the same heat and light that it had 
 absorbed within its growth, showing it to be an 
 unchanging substance although git had^united in 
 affinity with the wood, been absorbed within 
 but is invisible, only as the wood dematerializes 
 separating its atoms, heat and light is then pro- 
 duced from these sun rays coming again in con- 
 tact with the atmosphere. 
 
 Thus you see sun rays coming from the sun, 
 mingling in the atmosphere have the effect to 
 change the material matter or particles by this 
 unity within it. The result is shown by its heat 
 and light produced upon the surface of the earth. 
 But away from the atmosphere the sun rays are 
 invisible, explained by balloon ascension. As 
 they recede away from the earth out from the 
 density of the atmosphere the sun doesjnot pro- 
 duce light, but assumes more the appearance of 
 an opaque body in the regions of space, showing 
 
1 LIGHT AND HEAT. 159 
 
 beyond the atmosphere its rays are invisible, the 
 same as it presents when absorbed in the piece of 
 timber It dematerializes the atmosphere when 
 uniting in chemical affinity with it producing a 
 different compound which is light and heat, and 
 its unity would be different than when united 
 with other material matter or # substanee*from the 
 various spiritual elements also contained in the 
 atmosphere uniting with it, the result of this un- 
 ity being light and heat. But it is the same ele- 
 ment from the sun when absorbed in the stick of 
 timber, and as the stick of timber dematerializes, 
 its unity of elements are a different compound 
 which is light and heat. The same as thoughts, 
 for instance, are produced by the unity of spirit- 
 ual elements coming in contact with the mind 
 or spiritual, it produces a spiritual com- 
 pound which is different by the chemical affinity 
 of this unity. 
 
 And yet thought is a spiritual substance and 
 mind produces thought always as the result of 
 its action, no matter how feeble it ma}^ glimmer 
 through the material casement. The action of 
 the mind is thought and the action of the body is 
 material substance, different at every period of 
 change. 
 
 So with sunlight. As the element comes from 
 the sun, as it unites in chemical affinity with the 
 atmosphere it, produces light and heat upon its 
 surface, and this sunlight is taken? up*m the 
 growth of all life, and as it acts in connection 
 
160 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 with the separation of the atoms of matter it pro- 
 duces light and heat as the result of thisfunity , 
 showing that the element from the sun impreg- 
 nates all life and matter with its invisible ele- 
 ment. 
 
 Look at that piece of wood. It contains the 
 invisible element from the sun. You cannot see 
 it but to show that it contains it in its absorption. 
 Let the atoms of the wood separate or demate- 
 rialize and light and heat is produced by the 
 chemical affinity produced to unite in a different 
 compound of light and heat. 
 
 Thus you see thejresults show^n in its effects of 
 sunlight coming from the sun, and so with all 
 material growth and matter in the circumference 
 of its rays or influence of its element in all 
 growth. 
 
 The element of the sun rays ever produces heat 
 and light as it comes in contact and unites with 
 the atmosphere. As it unites with other sub- 
 stances it produces a different result. Here we 
 behold, for instance, a tree filled with a great 
 amount of it. Still it is not light and heat. 
 Why ? Because the son rays have united with the 
 tree, and the result is growth and expansion of 
 that tree. Dissolve the atoms of that tree and let 
 the sun rays it contains unite again with the at- 
 mosphere, you see the same result, light and 
 heat. Notwithstanding it may have rested in the 
 tree for centuries, it is unchanged. 
 
 Thus it is consistent to argue that light and 
 
LIGHT AND HEAT. 161 
 
 heat on planets are produced only by the sun 
 rays uniting with the electrical and spiritual ele- 
 ments of the atmosphere. And artificial heat 
 and light are produced in no other way only by 
 dematerializing of substance that contains the 
 sun rays. It absorbs in the earth by substance 
 which attracts it, as oil veins down in its depths 
 beneath the earth surface contains a great amount 
 of this element from the sun which produces 
 light and heat from it when it demateralizes with 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 The same with coal and other substance in the 
 depth of the earth's surface. It matters not 
 whether the sun rays united with coal or oil, 
 or vegetation, or timber, or in the fishes of the 
 sea, or with the most impreceptible things im- 
 aginable, when the separation of its atoms takes 
 place and it comes in contact with the elements 
 of the atmosphere, heat and light is the un- 
 changeable result. 
 
 Then we argue that the great fountain of heat 
 and light that the sun is said to contain is but a 
 delusion, and heat and light is only produced as 
 the elements of the sun rays sent forth in space, 
 mingles with the atmosphere around planets. 
 
 It is evident, as I have shown, that the sun rays 
 contained in all those substances mentioned 
 without heat and light accompanying it when 
 contained in their material combination. Yet, as 
 as I have stated in a previous chapter, that plan- 
 ets, in their undeveloped condition, absorbed that 
 
 (T) 
 
162 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 portion of the sun rays that produced heat, and 
 not light, as I stated in relation to the moon re- 
 fleeting its light only, and absorbing that por- 
 tion of the sun rays that produced heat. 
 
 This portion of the element of the sun rays 
 coming to our atmosphere, deprived of heat, the 
 unity with the atmosphere thus combined gives 
 us the moon light destitute of heat, for there is 
 no heat reflected to us from the moon. The moon 
 absorbs from the rays of the sun the element of 
 heat within its growth, and expels the light ele- 
 ment which produces light from its surface. 
 
 Thus separating the elements of the sun rays 
 of some of its properties, some bodies and sub- 
 stances emit heat, and not light, in their combi- 
 nations, as, for instance, mineral, rock or zinc 
 will emit heat when dematerializing with acid, 
 and not light. 
 
 It is from the combination of substance organ- 
 ized in zinc, as other minerals, silver and 
 gold, &c, not absorbing from the sun rays 
 that which produces light and heat combined, as 
 is its natural product from the sun. But that 
 neither is an element which is unchangeable in 
 its combinations with matter, is evident from the 
 fact that it comes forth in its dematerialization of 
 substance, the same unchangeable substance, 
 whether light or heat, or both combined, as its 
 natural whole or oneness. 
 
 The rays of the sun thus divided by the surface 
 of the moon, expelling the light and absorbing 
 
LIGHT AND HEAT. 163 
 
 that portion only that produces heat, the result 
 is different than it would be in its natural combi- 
 nation. For the moon, owing to its smooth, 
 rocky surface, will still continue to expel the ele- 
 ment that gives light in the sun rays and absorb 
 that which gives heat elements which produce a 
 different result than light and heat combined, as 
 is the natural rays of the sun, for in such condi- 
 tions as it unites with the element in the centre of 
 planets, the result of the combination in the in- 
 terior of the planet is a liquid heat, while the ef- 
 fects of sun rays in its natural or undivided 
 condition falling upon the surface of the planet 
 produces a different effect, as rocky or hard sub- 
 stance. When a planet is matured and having 
 soil and atmosphere around it, it absorbs the 
 light with the heat and produces a different result 
 combined upon its surface. 
 
 This element producing heat in a sun ray at- 
 tracted in the centre of the planet, and unites 
 with the elements in the centre, separated and 
 destitute of this element producing light, is not 
 explosive only to that degree, as the light ele- 
 ment is combined with it. Earthquakes and ex- 
 plosions are produced by avenues or Assures that 
 impart light into the interior. It may find its 
 way through in one country and carried onward 
 find its vent or produce its effects in another. 
 
 In the separating of sun rays or analyzation of 
 some of its properties, and expelling others 
 that attract in different combinations of matter 
 
164 PENGILINQS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 is harmonizing with the same law of chemical ac- 
 tion, as for instance, m the differnt bodies or 
 mechanisms of animal forms. A certain animal 
 may eat the blades of grass for its food, its stom- 
 ach or body produces a chemical analyzation of 
 this blade of grass, separating its particles into 
 distinct properties or atoms attracting those 
 atoms in the blade of grass that would build up 
 the hoofs, hair &c, and expelling those atoms as 
 refuse substance that another animal or fowl 
 would attract from it to produce feathers, expel- 
 ling that which would produce the hair and hoofs 
 as attracted to the peculiar chemical construction 
 of the body of the former. 
 
 Thus bodies are only different machineries for 
 different chemical action or analysis of particles, 
 attracting those atoms that are in affinity with 
 their own bodies, as the chemist separates the 
 different properties of substance. Thus bodies 
 are attracting from the food elements 
 which go to make something else in some 
 other animal life only attracting those atoms 
 that are in affinity or elements which produce 
 its like or kind, that which is natural to 
 its combination of animal life, through the law of 
 chemical analysis and affinity of certain particles 
 invisibly contained in food, to our natural vision. 
 
 So with sun rays, some substance of matter 
 will attract it as a whole in its combinations and 
 other substances will separate its chemical prop- 
 erties and attract those which are in affinity with 
 
LIGHT AND HEAT. 165 
 
 it and expel others away as refuse substance, but 
 it comes forth again unchanged, the same light or 
 heat through all this chemical combination with 
 matter, the same substance as when dtrect from 
 the sun to us, proves it to be an unchangable 
 spiritual substance of the same chemical combi- 
 nation as the body which expels it from its sub- 
 stance. All things must harmonize. A spiritual 
 world must expel spiritual substance, and a ma- 
 terial world must expel material substance, for 
 all things harmonize in kind with the substance 
 from which it emanates. And that light is upon 
 all worlds, spiritual or material, is from the spir- 
 itual atmosphere around spirit worlds, and spir- 
 itual and material atmosphere combined in one, 
 around material worlds. But that the sun is a 
 spiritual body the great fountain from which all 
 light and heat emanates is evident from facts 
 illustrated. 
 
156 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 C^eatioi\. 
 
 Immensity so vast sublime, 
 
 In the creation of all mind, 
 
 In wandering stars, in suns and worlds, 
 
 Attracted by the law that whirls 
 
 Them into motion through all space 
 
 Without a law which can erase 
 
 The ht rmony which gives through laws 
 
 To each effect, beyond its cause 
 
 In the creation vast, sublime 
 
 Without beginning through all time, 
 
 Unfolding something still more new 
 
 As the unseen we interview 
 
 And wander on increasing light 
 
 Displays creation still more bright. 
 
 For every moment of all time, 
 
 Creation in atoms combine, 
 
 And ever will as long as laws 
 
 Move matter and gives us the cause, 
 
 That life and thought reveals a new 
 
 Creation organized all through 
 
 The vast unborn that's yet to be 
 
 Is a creation new to see. 
 
 The same with all that we behold 
 
 In life and plants that years unfold 
 
 Is new creation yet begun. 
 
 Then could creation have been done 
 
CREATION. 167 
 
 Within the period we are told 
 
 By the wise prophet of the old. 
 
 For inspiration of to-day 
 
 Says v iwas and is through time alway, 
 
 Tor in all matter through these laws 
 
 Attracting substance is the cause 
 
 That creation cannot e'er begin, 
 
 Because one universal thing. 
 
 Unchanging will effects pro luce, 
 
 To solve creation is no use, 
 
 To say how long or yet 'twill be 
 
 That it combines all atoms free, 
 
 The same as now we see in space 
 
 Small worlds begin which this erase. 
 
 The laws that moved whon worlds begun 
 
 Must be the same which now become 
 
 By its effects with atoms fine 
 
 The meteoric stones combine; 
 
 But in the time when all was space 
 
 There were no worlds to thus erase, 
 
 These bodies small when once begun 
 
 Would larger and larger still become, 
 
 Until a body like a world 
 
 Was formed and ther began to whirl, 
 
 Because the centre of this mass 
 
 Of substance was a changing fast, 
 
 And this did make the heat within 
 
 The center of the world begin, 
 
 And it increasing more and more, 
 
 Began to melt the stone and ore 
 
 Within the center, till you see 
 
 The liquid mass was moving free 
 
 Around the center drawn right there 
 
 By the attraction law so fair, 
 
 And as the liquid round did whirl, 
 
 It moved the whole of the great world, 
 
 And with its motion then all space 
 
 Near it in harmony did trace. 
 
 Around its motion space did whirl 
 
168 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Which gives the orbits of the worlds 
 The movements of substance within 
 All space whose motion did begin 
 To move around the world so fine 
 In solar systems through all time, 
 Which in its growth became a sun 
 Througn all eternal time to run, 
 And the new worlds did thus combine 
 In space from elements entwined, 
 Engendering life upon them fair 
 Combined from substance earth and air, 
 And worlds and laws the same to-day 
 Combine in life through time alway 
 From substance which must e'er contain 
 Unorganized in man the same 
 While laws and matter ever tend 
 Without beginning, without end. 
 Each period that substance combine 
 Is creation, then with time; 
 So none can say creation formed 
 Six thousand years ago 'was born, 
 Could be creations period done? 
 And we not then our lives begun 
 We see creation moving still 
 And all immensity doth fill 
 With its unceasing action through 
 The one same cause that ever grew 
 A single blade of grass or twined 
 Together substance in a mind, 
 Or acted with increasing weight 
 Substance on substance to create 
 Until a world had formed its life 
 In joy and vegetation rife, 
 Increasing in its wealth of store, 
 Creation on it more and more, 
 And so we pause and ever say, 
 Creation is the same to-day, 
 'Twill ever be, and still more new 
 Creation in all time we view. 
 
THE XEW YEAR. m 
 
 Tlie \e\v Tear. 
 
 A happy new year to each and to all, 
 
 Is our heartiest wish as we give you a call, 
 
 And as the old year left its work nobly done 
 
 We hope the new year so worthy begun 
 
 Will speed her time on and ever keep pace 
 
 With the old year that's left us and finished her race, 
 
 Like the years of the past which have gone to that land 
 
 Where rest upon ages a slumbering band. 
 
 Then let us not waste its time and forget 
 
 That each miss- spent moment brings ever regret, 
 
 As memory ponders the scenes that are past. 
 
 If our work is well done no shadow she casts 
 
 In gloom 'round our pathway but strews it with flowers. 
 
 Then let the new year have no miss-spent hours. 
 
170 PENCILINQS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 Spiritual dispensations which have been re- 
 corded by mankind in all ages bring its enlight- 
 enment and truth superior at each succeeding pe- 
 riod of time. And yet the same manifestations of 
 of its phenomena have a peculiar similarity as re- 
 gards its manifestations of gifts. We see this to be 
 a fact as far as spiritual phenomena have been 
 handed down to us from history. Go back with 
 me in the annals of the past, to Christ's dispensa- 
 tion, and we see it recorded with the same phe- 
 nomena of gifts and manifestations in which the 
 followers of Christ afterwards, preaching his doc- 
 trine and giving the records of their doings, had 
 the same similarity of gifts or spiritual phe- 
 nomena. And yet they believed it to come from 
 a different source than what these same spiritual 
 gifts to-day reveal to us in this spiritual dispen- 
 sation. For proof see 1st Corinthians, 12th chap- 
 ter, 8th, 9th and 10th verses: 
 
 " For to one is given by the spirit the word of 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 171 
 
 wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the 
 same Spirit ; 
 
 "To another faith by the same Spirit; to an- 
 other the gifts of healing by the same Spirit ; 
 
 " To another the working of miracles; to an- 
 other prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; 
 to another divers kinds of tongnes ; to another the 
 interpretation of tongues" 
 
 You see in the above quotations the same 
 spiritual gifts were manifest then as now. Yet they 
 believed it to be God manifesting himself to them 
 in these different ways. 
 
 While in this age this spiritual intelligence un- 
 folds to us as originating from guadrian spirits 
 of our friends, or spiritual intelligence from the 
 spirit world whither they go and return to us, 
 demonstrating immortality by personal knowl- 
 edge and not belief. 
 
 And if we are to " test the spirits" to see of what 
 manner they are, and by their works know them, 
 through their demonstration or otherwise, we fail 
 to see Ominipotent wisdom displayed or depict 
 the supreme intelligence in the thoughts then, and 
 now, of the inspiration that acts in the wisdom of 
 all created life that moves the starry worlds of 
 harmony tilling the immensity of space. 
 
 So we argue that inspiration from the invisible 
 is made plainer at each advanced period of its 
 manifestations, in the advanced spiritualistic 
 eras, according to the law of progression, would 
 reveal from the same source of invisible intelli 
 
172 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ligence more demonstrative facts as it advanced 
 to the comprehension of man, and science having 
 since unfolded spiritual elements to exist, as at- 
 traction, electricity, magnetism, &c, which were 
 unknown to mankind then, helps to substantiate 
 truth. And that spiritual demonstrations come 
 to the masses in different stages or intervening 
 periods of time, as has been the inspiration of 
 the past down to this, we argue that there must 
 be a cause for all effects, and that these spiritual- 
 istic radiations must come from the position that 
 planets assume to each other in their orbits 
 through space, the direct influence or radiation of 
 some angelic spheres coming in direct line to im- 
 pregnate the atmosphere with elements more 
 suited to such conditions of invisible intelligence 
 to man, whether these influences are from ma- 
 terial worlds to each other, or spiritual worlds in 
 their orbits through space, is demonstrable 
 only from effects produced. But as there are 
 causes for all effects we argue that some spiritual 
 worlds in their more direct influence or rays 
 would produce more of different spiritual ele- 
 ments combined in the atmosphere at one period 
 than another, and organizations more aptly en- 
 dowed would receive thought and inspiration 
 spontaneously from some unknown cause to 
 them, And that mankind generally, are in the 
 elevation of national principle, peace and 
 liberty of conscience at these periods, establishes 
 a general, higher spirituality moving humanity 
 onward from this cause. 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 173 
 
 For did not Christ's dispensation come in the 
 days of Roman liberty, when the natural tenden- 
 cy of the minds of the people was elevation in 
 freedom of thought, which, after a time, sub- 
 murged into the dark ages again, and moral cor- 
 ruption the darkest of tyrrany that ever governed 
 the world's history ? 
 
 But as periods advanced in the vibrations of 
 time, and enlightenment began its rise again 
 from darkness, the cradled child of liberty and 
 freedom of thought began to assume a new life, 
 till the American shores, flooded with population 
 and science, advanced, and liberty, newly born, 
 had wafted its wings of peace over the land for 
 nearly two- thirds of a century, and again spiritual 
 light from the immortal skies flooded the land 
 with immortal principles, opening a new spiritual 
 dispensation to mankind upon a more scientific 
 basis of actual proof of immortality than what 
 had heretofore been transmitted to us. The invisi- 
 ble knowledge which has established to the peo- 
 ple its various religions on earth, each spiritual- 
 istic era fitting and moralizing humanity onw^ard, 
 until it needs more a higher spirituality of truth 
 and knowledge for humanity's farther develop- 
 ment, as is Christ's dispensation higher than 
 Moses', or Moses' inspiration in advance of 
 the traditions that moved humanity in ty- 
 ranny and barbarianism to that need of Moses' 
 dispensation, and as humanity developed higher 
 through Moses' inspiration down to Christ's, his 
 
174 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 dispensation was needed still to the furtherance 
 of spiritual food for the minds that had arisen in 
 spirituality to be benefitted by its teachings, and 
 so on down from Christ's spiritualistic era to 
 this. 
 
 Humanity must have needs of actual spiritual 
 food demonstrated beyond belief to convince 
 them of immortality. And so each dispensation 
 disciplines humanity higher to receive the next, 
 and those who are ready and longing for literal 
 spiritual food receive that satisfaction from the 
 skies that is elevating to their present condition 
 or organization. Yet many minds are benefitted 
 more by the old to elevate them higher, spir- 
 itually, onward and upward to that condition 
 that their desires reache out for new revealed 
 truth from the skies, and then their spiritual 
 condition is fitted for new revelations, as their 
 natural longing would not seek or reach out 
 toward it, and as God is unchangeable from yes- 
 terday to to-day and forever in his laws and 
 forces which move the immensity of his form, 
 spiritual dispensations will continue to come in 
 the?future as in all past ages, when humanity's 
 spiritual development reaches out to attract to it 
 the food which its development or comprehension 
 can solve. 
 
 And did not Christ teach this principle by his 
 acts and doings while he lived? If he intended 
 us to ignore spiritual instruction, coming to us 
 from the skies, as was his mode of receiving 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 175 
 
 spiritual truths, would he not give this example 
 by his acts and wrote his own inspiration down 
 on record for us himself, previous to the period 
 of thirty years of age, when he began to preach ? 
 Instead of ignoring writing anything by simply 
 writing once with his fingers in the sand and then 
 immediately wiping it out, was not that an exam- 
 ple for us to go for inspiration from the unseen 
 worlds the same as He, and as He said would be 
 a sign of His true followes, for did not Christ say 
 as His last words to His apostles " these signs 
 should follow those who believe, and those would 
 be His be lievers that followed His example ?" 
 
 Those would certainly be His true followers 
 that followed His same doings. And were not 
 those signs which He specified then, as the 
 signs of those that believed, exemplified in those 
 who go to the spiritual manifestations of the skies 
 to-day for instruction instead of ancient records 
 of what has been ? Did He not say that they 
 should speak with tongues, lay hands upon the 
 sick and they should recover, discerning of spir- 
 its, &c ? As a sign in the pathway of truth, 
 then let not men bury truth beneath the dust of 
 ages, but let its living examples actuate our do- 
 ings always, that we may receive that personal 
 knowledge of spiritual food that will ever con- 
 nect us with the intercourse of angelic teachings 
 and administering spirits. 
 
 Then should not all strive for the highest de- 
 velopment of this age and use those spiritual 
 
176 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 powers within them that will give them a knowl- 
 edge of immortality, and the dust of the tomb 
 be obliterated of its gloom and terror ? All are 
 moving rapidly onward toward a spiritual ex- 
 istence or life, which must as certainly bear us 
 onward through the immutable laws of progress 
 toward this spiritual existence as the streams 
 flow to the ocean. 
 
 Each drop of water through the microscopic 
 view displays its individuality or molecule of 
 life. So with the blood in the human system. 
 The microscopic view displays globules like 
 drops or round balls, following the same law of 
 all liquids which appears by the naked vision of 
 man a whole or an individual substance. 
 
 So with man; his individuality in the great 
 ocean of matter; a part of the whole; a part of 
 God as a drop in the ocean. Yet an individuali- 
 ty which helps to make up the mass of all created 
 life onward eternally, onward as immutable as 
 God and unchangeable as the laws which moves 
 the universe of worlds and suns, and the whole 
 combined in one body. 
 
 Therefore, if man is an individual existence in 
 all coming time and ages, should he not begin 
 life work now at once toward perfecting the high- 
 est aim which we are yet to til], and if we are 
 moving rapidly toward this spiritual existence is 
 it not necessary for us to learn of these worlds 
 and receive messages, if possible, from those who 
 have gone on higher in the spiritual existence, 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 177 
 
 and return to give you teachings of those angelic 
 spheres that you may develop spiritually fitting 
 you more and more to come up higher toward this 
 change of existence ? 
 
 Some are never developing their spiritual pow- 
 ers from fear and superstition. Others are afraid 
 of losing their popularity. Did Christ lose any 
 of these by speaking the great truths revealed to 
 him from the angelic spheres ? Should you not 
 also rather strive to be the medium through which 
 inspiration of spirits gone on beyond may return 
 with messages to their earthly friends, no matter 
 how feeble or indistinct that mediumistic power 
 may be, if some few facts, and that only can be 
 given through from the immortal shores of the 
 angelic worlds, to give some message back to 
 some sorrowing soul resting their blighted hopes 
 within the tomb, where they have laid their dear 
 ones to moulder and decay to nothingness as far 
 as they may feel or know otherwise, while you 
 may have knowledge to the contrary of an im- 
 mortal existence but too weak in moral courage 
 to reveal facts if unpopular ? 
 
 Christ was not popular when he was giving 
 these truths to man. He wandered, poor and 
 despised by the churches who were popular in 
 riches and had costly edifices in which they wor- 
 shiped Moses' inspiration, handed down to them 
 from the sacredness of the past, the intervening 
 years which had elapsed since Moses gave them 
 these truths of immortality. Therefore they de- 
 
 (V) 
 
178 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 spised the teachings of Christ because He was 
 among the unpopular and poor, taking his dis- 
 ciples and followers from fishermen and those 
 who would listen to His preachings, not fearing 
 the popularity of the churches who worshiped in 
 great organizations with domes towering toward 
 heaven in grandeur with the rich symphonies of 
 music floating down through the long aisles, 
 sounding the praises of Moses and his apostles, 
 which inspiration was given to them five hundred 
 years before. 
 
 So as Christ and His believers wandered about 
 through the country preaching to those who 
 would give them a hearing, sometimes in houses 
 or tents, riding upon mules, showing the people 
 by their spiritual demonstrations that they con- 
 versed with the spiritual worlds, walking on the 
 water, loosed from their chains in prison; or 
 again, healing the sick by the laying on of hands, 
 turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from a 
 sleep or trance, and other manifestations that 
 were numerous, doing everything that could be 
 done in that undeveloped age to convince 
 the churches that they held spiritual inter- 
 course with the angelic spheres, who often 
 become so disgusted as to stone them in the 
 streets and scoff at their pretended spiritual man- 
 ifestations, still going among them doing good, 
 healing the sick as was Christ and his followers. 
 But as their doctrine was increasing so rapid- 
 ly, sometimes taking a shining light from the 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 179 
 
 churches to believe in them that they eventually 
 became so desperate against the spiritual mani- 
 festations of Christ in that spiritualistic age that 
 the rulers and deacons of the churches thought 
 they would listen to its increase of power no long- 
 er but put them to death, and as they wished to 
 impress the people of their lowliness and vaga- 
 bondry, they tried and convicted Him by treach- 
 ery and nailed Him to a cross among their thieves, 
 for they had this as the lowest systein of death, 
 which was to be nailed to a cross, a method 
 which they used also for their slaves. And those 
 who were more popular in that age, if sentenced 
 to death could choose their method of death, be 
 fed with poison or something which the people 
 of caste considered a higher and more popular 
 means of being put to death, for they considered 
 it wrong to use the the same means for sentence 
 of death for themselves that they used for their 
 slaves, which was by nailing them to a cross. 
 
 So as to show their disgust for such teachings 
 they captured Christ and put him to death in the 
 same manner, simply because he was introducing 
 spiritual intercourse to man, which they feared 
 would overthrow the religion handed down to 
 them from Moses, the religion that was then pop- 
 ular and sung in the anthems of the churches and 
 preached by their holy men, which tliey believed 
 was all that was sacred. 
 
 Thus has inspiration to earth had its retarding 
 power. Still Christ's spiritual manifestations 
 
180 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 lived in the hearts and memories of those who 
 still believed in him but dared not speak it to the 
 world until a period of forty years or so. As 
 some of the bible writers state they commenced 
 inscribing his doings and truths upon scrolls 
 and parchments, each writing out a record of 
 what had transpired when Christ was living. 
 
 So persecution cannot still the voice of truth 
 and inspiration, yet it can retard its progress and 
 blur some of its spiritual truths as it is trans- 
 cribed upon record, throwing out what their own 
 individual theory may deem wrong instead of 
 listening to the truths of spirits when they im- 
 part them to see what is right to record and what 
 is not right, what has been given through some 
 medium of spiritual light by spirits unfit to re- 
 cord facts as unreasonable to be demonstrated as 
 facts, for this is the only way that we can re- 
 ceive truths from the invisible by what they can 
 demonstrate as facts to us through known laws, 
 thus spirits can only impart truths as fast as we 
 can learn them or see the force of their truth, 
 waiting for some more convenient time or meth- 
 od to impart it. This is why mediums get so 
 many varieties of facts and inspirations from the 
 invisible worlds. 
 
 There' is no mind that can receive the whole 
 truth or impart the whole to earth. They are 
 able to be impressed on some things through 
 some favorable faculty of the mind which can be 
 tuned by them into activity, and other spiritual 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 181 
 
 truths cannot be imparted through their organi- 
 zation. Others perhaps in the same way may 
 be the best adapted to this condition or at- 
 ribute of mind undemonstrative in others to im- 
 part it. So there will always, in all coming time 
 be spiritual facts enough to be imparted from the 
 spiritual worlds to occupy all time hence, for the 
 universe contains as many truths not yet under- 
 stood as the universe is boundless in extent and 
 its elements fill immensity, and no organization 
 is yet born capable of receiving them all or demon 
 strating them all to mankind. 
 
 But as we give some facts from the worlds be- 
 yond it helps to establish more facts to be re- 
 ceived as minds develop in comprehension. Thus 
 one science is necessary to be established before 
 there can be another given to vindicate its truth, 
 still onward revealing new truths to mankind 
 constantly. Thus through Andrew Jackson Da- 
 vis were given the knowledge of spiritual spheres 
 around the earth. What is a sphere, when you 
 define its meaning, but a globe or world, and that 
 they may move around the earth as the moon 
 m^ves on the material plane, may be the case in 
 regard to some spiritual^planets, that they occu- 
 py the realms of space between the orbits of plan- 
 ets moving on in harmony w r ith planets whose 
 atoms of material were once embracing their ma- 
 terial life or first beginning, as nothing is wasted 
 by change. Matter is as old as the first creation, 
 of an /organized form, and it is reasonable that 
 
182 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 many spiritual worlds would be in affinity with 
 the planets embracing the elements of their ma- 
 terial life, imparting inspiration to mankind 
 upon them, the journey from that world to this 
 through the same means or laws, that will carry 
 them from this world to that. 
 
 Why should man reject the inspirations from 
 the skies to day, the same means of manifesta- 
 tions which have ever given to the world its great- 
 est and best reformers, the only means which 
 have given proof of immortality toman, that have 
 unfolded unending worlds of life awaiting human 
 progress, that have robbed death of its terror, and 
 hushed the wails of mourning hearts consigning, 
 to the dark, damp tomb and chilling snows of a 
 wintry grave the sweet face and sunny curls of a 
 mother's love. 
 
 Thus withered leaves and blighted hopes have 
 been changed to joy unspeakable as it has been 
 revealed to that bereaved one that her loved one 
 is living still, and softly it speeds its way down 
 from paradise, at twilight holy hush, to press an- 
 gelic kisses of love upon that mother's brow, once 
 more united with mind to mind and soul to soul. 
 With noiseless footsteps they tread the silvery 
 pathway from the skies, sweet angel visitants, 
 and we, living behind the veil of materiality 
 should sometimes feel their presence shining 
 through our mind. 
 
 Then how dark must be a soul that would seek 
 to fetter mediumistic gifts through fear of losing 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 183 
 
 their popularity, or keep other lives subject be 
 neath their chilling influences, fearing the words 
 of inspiration, the unison of heaven to earth, the 
 link which binds us hereto paradise. 
 
 O dark is superstition, and ignorant is man- 
 kind, when like stumbling blocks they strive to 
 fall in the way of others and crush out the spirit 
 light of heaven to man, which has given since his- 
 tory dawned the revelations to the soul which has 
 made life better, purer and wiser. 
 
 Take the life of every reformer in every age, 
 they have been led by the inspiration of the skies, 
 and revealed to man a nobler standard of indi- 
 vidual greatness. Take the life of Moses, David 
 and Solomon, theirs was a life of inspiration and 
 literary production which revealed to coming 
 ages down to Christ a standard for more truthful 
 living than what characterized the habits and 
 customs of the masses of their age of unciviliza- 
 tion and barbarism in which they lived. 
 
 So Christ's inspirations and those of his follow- 
 ers taught a higher standard for individual mor- 
 ality and equality to all, than what character- 
 ized the masses of the age in which they lived, 
 and so on down through all the ages to this. 
 And our inspired teachers, to day too numerous 
 to mention, are all giving to the world examples 
 of inspirational gifts and revealing new truths to 
 the world which is bringing communion from the 
 angelic spheres. And are they any less men and 
 women for speaking the thoughts of the spirit 
 
184 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 world that come to them? I answer, no. Your 
 identity is no more interfered with in the devel- 
 opment of a proper mediumship, or you are no 
 more of a God than you would be to be the bearer 
 of an earthly message to a friend. 
 
 Mankind should all strive to develop those 
 spiritual gifts naturally endowed them, that the 
 shining light of truth from the worlds of the 
 angels may glimmer through their lives radiating 
 those around them with the self-same influence 
 bidding God speed to everything which can un- 
 fold to earth the slightest impression or ray of 
 truth. 
 
 Comprehend for a moment the vast selfishness 
 and ignorance actuating humanity onward. 
 Many who seek to demoralize the gifts of others, 
 or bring sarcasm upon the powers of those less 
 idle than they in the great car of progress bear- 
 ing you onward, whose lives must be embittered 
 when the starry realms of unending space reveals 
 to them an empty void,^a life where jewels might ■ 
 otherwise have strewn their pathway with 
 thoughts that live forever, whose sunset of exis- 
 tence might glimmer back to those left behind on 
 earth a radiance reflecting across the sea of life, 
 like stars in the glorious sunset ^of day. 
 
 Popularity is but a name, a mere personal ag- 
 grandizement of an earthly existence, which at 
 longest is but a brief period, compared with the 
 personal 1 aggrandizement J or approval of an un- 
 ending life. Think of it and comprehend immor- 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 185 
 
 tality. Will you not meet humanity there — 
 your friends? Are there not as many now in the 
 spirit world that you would like to hear from 
 with words of approval, that walk beside you and 
 guard over your lives, as much so as the friends 
 around you here. 
 
 But a short period of years ushers you into 
 their society for the ages yet to come, and if you 
 have spent your life, no matter through igno- 
 rance, in trying to prohibit their impression to 
 earth as they have striven to warn some loved 
 one, dear to them from the treachery and wrong 
 of an unseen evil, or guide their troubled foot- 
 steps into paths of flowers, or perhaps trying to 
 lead their thoughts far away from wild training, 
 where bright worlds are filled with happy spirits, 
 where trouble never comes to make inroads on 
 joys perpetual, sweet with songs of warbling 
 birds, flowing streams, shady groves and sunny 
 pastures, you will feel that pang of wrong that 
 will prohibit you likewise from the assistance of 
 those to heip you to impart a ministering care 
 to those you have taught in your earth life to 
 heed spiritual intercourse as works of evil which 
 barrier will be the gulf between you and them, 
 whose fruits must be misery to many whose deeds 
 otherwise might bring it perpetual joys. 
 
 Then should you not rather educate your spir- 
 itual intercourse with the unseen world around 
 you, that when you meet the prohibition of a 
 great truth which you have followed in line will 
 
 (W) 
 
186 PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 not stamp you with ignorance. And if you have 
 spent your life in trying to prohibit their impres- 
 sions to earth, instead of doing all in your power 
 to assist them, how much greater will be your dis- 
 approval by the vast humanity which you will 
 everywhere meet to welcome or turn from you as 
 you enter their portals ? 
 
 Many a poor, despised person of the earth life, 
 despised of men, when they enter into the great 
 humanity beyond, meet far greater honors by 
 those who read the soul beneath its unearthly 
 vesture, than earthly kings or riches can bestow, 
 because they have devoted their lives to truth 
 and for the greatest good to all, and let the waves 
 beat against their life bark and drift upon its 
 foaming billows, the wealth which is not im- 
 bedded within. 
 
 Reflect but a moment. They are, then, living 
 in a period of time which is eternal, while those 
 who may be working for earthly honors, for the 
 aggrandizement of this life only is working for a 
 period which soon ends, which a few years only 
 counts its period of time, for earthly influences 
 which are not genuine from true merit and moral 
 worth, stems not the storms of eternal ages. 
 
 The inhabitants of earth that spend its period 
 for the popularity alone which earth can give, 
 falls far short in time to come. If those who de- 
 vote their lives in the unpopular currents for 
 truth and new sciences to the world, or those 
 whose chilling influences seeks to prohibit truth 
 
SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION. 187 
 
 for fear some one may rise above them which 
 they may already consider beneath their caste or 
 popular level, no matter how great a good or 
 benefit to the world it may produce, where the 
 glance of the soul is the open page has greater dis- 
 approval than the greatest to be pittied criminal 
 who by his unfortunate organization needs your 
 sympathy and a helping hand to develop the in- 
 active moral sentiments ruled by the baser organs 
 higher developed by natural organization or un- 
 fortunate birth. 
 
 While they who are entirely ignorant of this 
 life of immortal being is only to suffer for ig- 
 norance, in comparatively fewer joys which their 
 undeveloped condition has not reached to sur- 
 round them with, the jewels of thought of in- 
 creased wisdom which is the luxury and embel- 
 lishments of the life to come. 
 
 Each living thought is a jewel worn in the 
 coronate of heaven. It flashes like the diamond 
 on the finger of wealth, and the constructiveness 
 which has helped you to be an architect in the 
 temple of wisdom and truth rears the palace 
 domefe and spires that embellishes the gardens 
 of paradise and helps you to occupy celestial 
 homes, whose beautiful edifices will yet reach up- 
 ward toward immortal skies in the unending 
 ages to come. 
 
 Then should you not all strive on earth for the 
 assistance of principle, elevating to all mankind 
 which are the living thoughts w r hich reaches 
 
188 PENCILINOS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 through unending eternity; that your advance- 
 ment may not be for the earthly alone, but for 
 the unending time which is builded upon the 
 rocks of the eternal ages, the beautiful hills of 
 paradise. 
 
 delejft&L 
 
 I would speak to thee of a fairer land 
 
 Where spirits of heavenly birth 
 Journey in glory upon its strand, 
 
 Yet still love to visit the earth. 
 
 To teach us in lessons immortal to view, 
 
 Unknown to us on this e arth sphere, 
 Where we first created our blind to the light 
 
 That will yet on our vision appear. 
 
 When our sights will be opened to the fields of the blest, 
 
 Where life is disrobed of the clay, 
 The infantile garb, where creation begins 
 
 To shield our first sight from the day. 
 
 The day that 's unending in splendor and light, 
 
 Still more radiant ever to shine, 
 Would be too transparent our vision to greet 
 
 In the infantile hours of the mind. 
 
 So blind were we made, this first period here 
 
 Of existence on earth, to the one 
 Whose light is immortal, only some times we hear 
 
 From that beauteous world as they come. 
 
CELESTIAL. 189 
 
 And its light reflects into the soul as the day 
 
 That in the horizon we view 
 When morning lights up in the orient sky 
 
 The dawn of the day letting through. 
 
 And the sight thus unfolded in gradual gaze 
 
 Receives its resplendence the more, 
 And undazzled our eyes opens up to its light, 
 
 As we step on its beautiful shore. 
 
 Then learn as they come the lessons of light, 
 
 And drink in its beautiful rays, 
 As the flowers open up from the night dews that fall 
 
 From heaven, as upward they gaze. 
 
 Refreshing the soul with food for its kind 
 . The spirit needs spirit to feed 
 Its growth of eternal, from the higher above 
 In wisdom, are fruits for its need. 
 
190 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 doi\tei\tmei\t. 
 
 Ask not for the gifts that bring 
 Like to thee on silvery wing 
 Which another may have got, 
 Be contented with thy lot. 
 
 No one knows what woes betide, 
 Other lives that onward glide, 
 Though the surface may be fair, 
 'Neath its depths may misery there 
 
 Bitter fill its waters free, 
 Sparkling through its surface be, 
 Be contented with thy lot, 
 Each of bitterness has got. 
 
 Some may come in the disguise, 
 Which deceives all human eyes, 
 Longing for a loving heart, 
 Blighted by its chilling dart. 
 
 Which has froze the life within, 
 Steeped with falsity and. sin, 
 And the gold which glitters there 
 In the tint of room so fair, 
 
CONTENTMENT. 191 
 
 May be mocking thee in woe, 
 Filling grief to overflow, 
 By the contrast of its sin, 
 Of the loveless life within. 
 
 Happiness gives tint and glow, 
 Touching all we see or know. 
 If the heart is pure and free 
 All is beautiful we see, 
 
 And contentment sits supreme 
 In the heart a radiant queen. 
 Other lives then envy not, 
 Be contented with thy lot. 
 
 If you saw with spirit eyes 
 T would unfold all this disguise, 
 And this cause for trouble here 
 Would at once disappear. 
 
192 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Je^lou^y. 
 
 The darkest passion of the soul 
 
 Is jealousy without control. 
 
 It prompts the strongest wrath and hate, 
 
 And most discordant lives create, 
 
 That subject holds its ruling sway, 
 Its darkest night obscures 'the day 
 That on the mental pathway lies, 
 To lift our thoughts toward the skies. 
 
 It drags us down to depths of woe, 
 Its galling chains around us throw. 
 It binds the soul in its allure, 
 And all our nobler traits obscure, 
 
 Till we like some dark fiend appear 
 To all around we hold so dear, 
 Indulging in this demon hate, 
 Which jealousy in us create. 
 
 ! banish it with one strong will, 
 And swear its sway no more shall fill 
 The sacred gardens of the soul 
 As serpents in its flowers enfold, | 
 
JEALOUSY, 193 
 
 To sting its fangs of poison there, 
 The choicest flowers and fruits most rare, 
 Which in the sunlight of the soul 
 Would ripen up with wealth untold. 
 
 The baser attributes of mind 
 Should not enslave the soul and bind 
 Within its ruling darkness there 
 As clouds obscure the sunlight fair. 
 
 Or billows break upon the shore 
 In wildest storms tempestuous roar 
 That qhills the heart that onward gaze 
 To see lives wrecked upon its waves. 
 
 Think of the great immortal view 
 Of life in endless chain review 
 And then reflect if it shall be 
 Spent always to bind those to thee. 
 
 That would not by attraction cling 
 To thee its souls best offering, 
 O rather spurn a soul like this 
 That gives to thee the Judas kiss. 
 
 In nobler traits of soul to find 
 
 A truer harmonizing mind 
 
 That through the storms when billows wake 
 
 Will closer cling o'er swell and break, 
 
 And never give to jealous mind 
 All that its bitterness entwine 
 For this will darken mind l nd soul 
 That gives a life to its control. 
 
 (X) 
 
194; PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY, 
 
 (Jold. 
 
 Gold may rivet human chains, 
 Bind the soul and fetter brains- 
 In the worst of tyranny 
 Which a life can know or see. 
 
 Luring with its magic smile 
 Seeming beauty all the while r 
 With the glitter of its gold 
 'Till thy senses it enfold. 
 
 Gold is but a paltry thing, 
 All thy goodness riveting, 
 If the heart seeks nothing more 
 But to pile it up in score. 
 
 For a life of sure decay 
 Will yet sweep it all away 
 Drifting thee upon the shore 
 Of eternal life no more. 
 
 Gilded with its treasures then 
 Than the poorest lives of men 
 What has made the growth of mind 
 W ith its gems of thoughts entwined 
 
CONSISTENCY. 195 
 
 Is the wealth you carry o'er 
 With you to that other shore, 
 Where eternal life alway 
 Stores wealth which cannot decay. 
 
 Coi^i^tei]dy., 
 
 Consistency a jewel bright, 
 Stamps the brow with glorious light 
 It speaks from reason's lofty throne 
 Calm and thoughtful is its own. 
 
 Luster to the features fair, 
 Xike a monarch sitting there 
 With a calm and lofty mien 
 Placid as a summer dream. 
 
 Calm it rideth o'er the sea 
 Though life's storms are raging free 
 Bound it billows break and roar 
 Still consistent as before. 
 
 Eeason sits undaunted still 
 Though excitement greatest fill 
 Minds of many, pause and wait 
 Will consistent thoughts create. 
 
 Great accomplishments are won 
 If too hastily not done, 
 Time to act the best, will be 
 .Reasoned with consistency. 
 
196 PENCILINGS FROM IMMOBTALITY, 
 
 Then forever pause and wait, 
 Let impulses not create 
 Deeds and words you may regret 
 If consistency forget. 
 
 Justice. 
 
 Be just to all, 'tis heaven's boon to man, 
 
 Giving unto other lives what justice may demand. 
 
 In equal rights to all, say not whom shall tell — 
 
 The deed for other lives to act 'tis well, 
 
 For each to act with justice and if so 
 
 Each life must have its own criterion rights to know. 
 
 'Tis not for you to say what justice claims 
 
 For others, but draw thine own scale of justice with a rein 
 
 That makes thee just, then all the world will be 
 
 Just in acts and deeds the same as thee. 
 
 "What others think is just, it matters not to thine 
 
 Own life of truth and right which will immortal shine 
 
 And this is heaven's dawning light to earth, 
 
 Be just to all will lead you to its glorious birth 
 
 Of immortal grandeur through all unending years 
 
 Of thine own acts and deeds should be thy only fears 
 
 To mete out justice ways for other walks than yours is 
 
 not the goal 
 That will elevate thine own immortal soul 
 But to thine own just acts and doings fair 
 Is all that God has placed within thy care. 
 One life, our own, is all we have in right 
 To say or fashion for this heavenly light, 
 And if we each the same look to our own 
 Is just; in God's own care are others thrown, 
 And each one seeking for this heavenlv light, 
 Is reaching it the best for their own right 
 
 In life's great battle reaching to the sea 
 
 Which ends for all in immortality. 
 
SUPREME INTELLIGENCE. 197 
 
 We see a supreme intelligence, a supreme wis- 
 dom, manifest in the construction of everything 
 created through the law of attraction moving in 
 matter and substance that unites and constructs 
 everything, the powers of motion pervading all 
 space and filling all immensity, as the will of the 
 human system thrills every atom or particle of 
 flesh in our bodies and gives us the sense of feel- 
 ing and motion. 
 
 Sup erne wisdom is manifest throughout the 
 whole in every atom of construction. Look at 
 the flowers whose perfection in shape and petals 
 cannot be perfected by the wisdom of art only as 
 you take an exact copy from it. So with a blade 
 of grass, or an ocean shell with corresponding 
 rings and shades, speaking of an exquisite intel- 
 ligence in its construction. 
 
 So with the snow flakes piled up in the drifts, 
 representing the clouds in the sky, attracting and 
 drifting together in different form of construc- 
 tion. And again, look at the smallest animal 
 
198 PENCILING® FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 life ; observe its minute symmetry and construction 
 giving evidence of a wisdom in the laws of its 
 unity, and so on up to the higher order of life in 
 the construction of the human form and the 
 adaptation of every fibre and muscle, its pliabil- 
 ity of construction in bone and sinew, harmoniz- 
 ing with the adaptation of motion for which it 
 was used, one uniting with the other in harmony 
 with intelligence in its construction, the layers of 
 muscle and nerve assuming the shape of the 
 blades of grass or branches of trees. 
 
 Then examine the human hand. It reveals as 
 much evidence of intelligence in its construction 
 and adaptation for its use as a machinery con- 
 structed by human wisdom will manifest the in- 
 telligence of the inventor in the movement of the 
 wheels whose results perfect the design for which 
 it was made. 
 
 Therefore, as it is evident that wisdom is man- 
 ifest in the least atom of construction in every- 
 thing that is combined in unity by the laws of 
 attraction in the universe, demonstrates the Crea- 
 tor to be wisdom, and is as evident that supreme 
 mind exists as a whole in everything embodied 
 with motion through the laws of attraction or in- 
 voluntary force which adapts everything to its 
 peculiar make of construction. 
 
 Then as we exist in this intelligence around us 
 and motion of all life in us, and everything sus- 
 taining its ceaseless motion, is it not evident at 
 
SUPREME INTELLIGENCE. 199 
 
 least that we live in the Creator ? Let us call it 
 God, nature, he, she, or it. 
 
 One thing is evident, no matter by what name 
 we designate it, that we exist in an ominipotent 
 intelligence, which can be possible only as we 
 exist in a body or vast whole whose motion and 
 intelligence pervades it similarly as our will 
 pervades every particle of our form to give ii 
 motion, voluntary or involuntary will, it has the 
 whole body as its control as our form is governed 
 by will, and as life exists in us as the ani- 
 malcule life, pervading every drop of blood or 
 muscle in our bodies, their movements are in har- 
 mony with our involuntary will, which gives mo- 
 tion to our flesh in the most minute vessels of ab- 
 sorption and secretions which give animation and 
 power to the human system, and if these minute 
 entities of life, seen only by microscopic views 
 existing in our bodies, has a motion of their own 
 life, it must, as a whole, be governed by the hu- 
 man will pervading it, which involuntary motion 
 moves the flow of liquid to and from the heart 
 or the movements of absorption and secretions 
 m harmony with the whole entire form in which 
 they exist. 
 
 So are we subject to the intelligence moving 
 elements outside of us. 
 
 You cannot go up in space as your thoughts 
 desire, for another power of motion attracts you 
 by the law of gravity which unites with sub- 
 stance to hold you to the earth, and so you are 
 
200 PENCILINGS FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 governed by higher powers of motion. Yet you 
 can think and act in the higher power of su- 
 preme motion which moves matter and constructs 
 forms and life ceaselessly, intelligence which 
 creates and unites substance which thinks and 
 acts after this unity has taken place in harmony 
 with this higher motion of life, which electrifies 
 everything with motion, developing blossom and 
 leaf onward in one entire chaia of life. 
 
 Thus we argue that we live in the Creator, 
 which is everywhere present, the elements of 
 whose form is boundless. 
 
 And as the elements form all created life, seen 
 and unseen, a manifest intelligence of workman- 
 ship is seen in the laws that unite substance or 
 the fountain from which flows these laws, work- 
 ing through matter and s^ bstance and unites in 
 growth of all outward development, revealing 
 supreme intelligence. 
 
 Thus any new revealed law or discovery of 
 science which discloses the unknown in nature. 
 manifesting to us a superiority of our compre- 
 hension of power, seems incredible or unaccount- 
 able to us in its underlying principles, as the 
 works of the inventor which first constructs de- 
 velopments like the microscope which unfolds to 
 you the contents of a drop of water invisible to 
 the human vision, or the extended lens of the 
 telescope revealing the starry worlds inhabiced 
 with life a d intelligence the same as this in the 
 far off realms of infinite space. 
 
SUPREME INTELLIGENCE. 201 
 
 Man is but an organized atom of this supreme 
 fountain of intelligence, as a drop of water makes 
 up the substance of the ocean, or the blood in the 
 human system reveals in microscopic view round 
 balls or drops, which to the view of man's natural 
 comprehension is a red liquid substance instead 
 of a whole, individualized with atoms of worlds 
 or roun q balls which compose its minute analy- 
 zation of life. 
 
 Thus the outgrowth of the whole entire uni- 
 verse is made up of individualities composing it 
 as a whole in the individuality of God, when ana- 
 lyzed in its particles reveals all created life con- 
 tained in minute individualities, embracing the 
 whole entire subject to motion and life in the laws 
 that move throughout the whole attracting and 
 moving matter and worlds in harmony with the 
 whole. And as this outside influence displays 
 its manifest power in all life and development, 
 so marvelous to our first gaze or comprehension 
 at first view of any thing never before seen by us, 
 we are awed at the wisdom and intelligence of its 
 construction, which after becoming common or 
 habituated to its observation seems to be unno- 
 ticed as a common result to mankind. 
 
 Comprehend for a moment what wonderful 
 power the universe would present to you, if it 
 were unfolded to your comprehension at one un- 
 known gaze of mental perception. The golden 
 sunlight would reveal its wonderful variety of 
 hues, the plants and trees would be marvelous in 
 
202 PENCILING S FROM IMMORTALITY. 
 
 their powers of intrinsic growth developing fruit 
 and bloom, the unity of matter revealing thought 
 and independent action with the ever varying 
 minds produced, of which nothing reveals the 
 same individuality of thought, the hills and val- 
 leys teeming with life and intelligence feeding 
 upon its verdure, the starry worlds revolving in 
 harmony around suns, the vibrations of the 
 winds wafting from all regions its elements of 
 life, all would be marvelous to our comprehen- 
 sion of grandeur and beauty, if before unrevealed 
 of the invisible creator of all we behold. And yet 
 so common is it to our natural gaze many look 
 upon life with little interest comprehending not 
 the great macMnery of its motions which under- 
 lies all power in and around us. 
 
 But let even a minute flower, before unseen by 
 them, or a rare stone or shell unearthed from the 
 tomb of unknown antiquity, or some species of 
 eyeless fish before unseen revealed from some 
 rocky cave, or unclimbed mountain peak whose 
 stellate rocks overhanging with verdure before 
 undiscovered, and man will marvel at the 
 underlying power of its construction and 
 perfectness visible in all created individualities 
 composing the universe which, as a whole will be 
 a study for all time as intellectual perception 
 quickens in its power and our vision is extended 
 to comprehend the underlying principles of ail 
 life in the Supreme intelligence which is God.