Ill EHil 
 
 I tifi 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
 ■ H inlWi B HB' 
 UififflflRUBfi 
 
 ^HM 
 
 SfSffiaJa 
 
 mm 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 mm 
 
 HU1II KHD SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 MlBwMlinHflHKfflHinHSflnMB 
 
 HBflffiBinnMnHWBUUWWBM 
 
 ggg§§ 
 
 ikbbsb 
 HffitB 
 
 HBHfflDy 
 
 
 III 
 
 I ' IISiUiBilRl 
 
 WtiXHffi 
 
 IH 
 
 mm 
 
 mm 
 
 ■van 
 
 \mm 
 
 g 
 
 ™ 
 
 IHffi 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 ffi 
 
 n 
 
 ffifllBl 
 
 fflflffi 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 mm 
 
 vm 
 
 WEHffl 
 iff 
 
 ramnen 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 MSI 
 
 1 
 
 ■HBMiBnHiniimM gnin i 
 BMm HH iiifuiiifitaHnt aiim 
 
 HiMHHitfHnTnniiiiffMn"™ 
 
 BOIaaPtm 
 
 111 w im n MTninnTlnTMTmMmTmln 
 
 I 
 
 JH 
 
 Bffl 
 
 ■HP 8 
 
 Jan 
 Hi 1 
 !IHB 
 "Hi 
 
 II 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■ 
 
 BHuBBRDai 
 
 mRM itSiufilBHlUlli 
 mSSm 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■■Hi 
 
 tSfSHlHmSluii 
 
 tBBSBBm 
 HiBil 
 
 BBHf 
 imrafiSjniBmBf 
 ifflC nu BnMHimW ffli 
 
 ■fiBHHHn 
 Wm WmMmM 
 
 I BunnDt mm ummEw 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 ■ 
 
 I 
 
 mm 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 IS 
 
 H 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 I IWJlBinf 
 
 BJUftttuwL 
 jflfloBil 
 
 IHI 
 fflnHBL 
 
 H 
 
 131 
 
 Ml 
 
 IS 
 
l ^?})U m m,r 
 
 
 
 m-S: ?S,jJ. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i;ro b \ 
 
 !»«%>' # 
 
 ,N\? 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Pu^'sHcT 
 
 
 
 
/" 
 
 
 
 « kM- M $* to^ :M fe ,<V :UjH& 
 
 1 ^v^^ 
 
 
 S^^^^sS 
 
 
 
 *£m 
 
 
 
 
THK CONTINUITY 
 
 -OF- 
 
 HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Being Thoughts from the Realms of Each, 
 
 By those who Dwell in Each. 
 
 
 OTTUMWA, IOWA : 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR I. N. MAST. 
 
 1892. 
 
^ff&M 
 
 p. 
 
 Publ 
 
 28l»yW 
 
(Dedication. 
 
 To the joyous soul of her who was once my 
 ^wife, whose love was, as woman's love when cher- 
 ished, ever is, limited alone by her power to love ; 
 and whose devotion was, as woman's devotion, 
 treasured and reciprocated, ever must he, equaled 
 by no other attribute of her being: to that soul 
 as it exists revealed to my soul, through a power 
 which was a mystery to us in our united human lives, 
 and which became conscious truth to us, in our 
 spiritual lives, severed but briefly by her death, 
 and now forever reunited, this work is lovingly 
 dedicated. 
 
THE CONTINUITY 
 
 OF 
 
 Human and Spiritual Life. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is now nearly twenty years since I was 
 first made conscious of the existence of a 
 power, which is not generally understood. The 
 few who have knowledge of it fail to compre- 
 hend it. This was my experience until within 
 recent years; indeed not until within very re- 
 cent years have I been able to fully satisfy my- 
 self of its nature. It is because I am at last 
 clear in my own understanding of it that I now 
 assume to lay before all who may have a de- 
 sire to seek such knowledge, the facts which 
 have finally forced conviction of certain truths 
 upon my mind, believing that they will tend 
 to increase the happiness of those who accept 
 them, as they have added to my own. It is not 
 for gain, or for my own personal pleasure that 
 
6 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 I do this, for I neither seek the former, nor 
 do I expect to derive from it any pleasure out- 
 side of that which the thought shall bring to 
 me that I may be instrumental in bestowing a. 
 hope, where none now exists, and in strength- 
 ening hopes that do exist. In such pleasure 
 lies my reward. The fact that not a human, 
 being other than my wife, is at this writing, 
 cognizant of the continued exercise of this 
 power by me, or of that which I have received 
 through it, is sufficient evidence, that were I 
 to follow my own inclinations and my nature, 
 that which is now made public, would have 
 forever remained private. Such was my desire, 
 and this was my purpose until the question was- 
 presented to my mind after this manner. 
 Has the knowledge derived from your life's^ 
 experience increased or diminished your 
 temporal and your spiritual happiness? Has. 
 there been anything unusual in that exper- 
 ience? Is it possible that all could safely at- 
 tempt, or attempting could acquire this same 
 knowledge which your experience has given to 
 you? If it be true that temporal and spiritual 
 happiness has come to you through a source 
 not open to all, and that that which aided you 
 might likewise aid others, what right have you; 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 7 
 
 to let your experience die with you? The 
 manner in which you acquired spiritual under- 
 standing in whatever degree you now possess 
 it, was not usual. The source of such knowl- 
 edge which should be sufficient for all was 
 not sufficient for you. Is it possible that there 
 are others for whom it is likewise insufficient, 
 to whom your experience might also be the 
 one thing still lacking? 
 
 Such thoughts ever present with me, have 
 within the last few years forced upon my mind 
 a conviction of duty, which admits of but one 
 response, which is a public declaration of that 
 which has been heretofore hidden, in the spirit- 
 ual experiences of my life. The personal his- 
 tory of my life is involved, much to my re- 
 gret, and nothing whatever, short of this sense 
 of positive duty would induce me to make 
 many references to it which I have found nec- 
 essary to make. I make this general statement 
 that it need not be repeated with each of such 
 references. If that which is written in this 
 book were all, then many of these references 
 would not be required; but this book itself is 
 but the preface of that which is to follow, in 
 some manner and at some time, and without 
 which it w r ould be of but little value. 
 
8 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 To whom could I so appropriately dedicate 
 this work, as to the soul who has so joyously 
 aided me in its preparation, and how could I 
 more certainly perpetuate the memory of her 
 virtues, among those who knew her on earth, 
 than to make of an especially prepared edition 
 of this volume, a memorial to her? Through 
 it she speaks, not the somber thoughts of death 
 and earthly decay, but the happy thoughts of 
 a present life with me. Death was to us a 
 physical separation, and a brief spiritual sep- 
 aration, then death was conquered by knowl- 
 edge. To erect over her remains the polished 
 shaft, or chiseled marble, is discordant with 
 my thoughts of death; to do what I now do is 
 in unison with them, and is my own free choice 
 of tributes to her worth which none could 
 know as I knew it. 
 
 By birth I was endowed with two prominent 
 traits of character. A dread of death greater 
 than that which is the common inheritance of 
 all, and a tendency to disbelieve everything 
 which is not conscious knowledge. The former 
 was founded largely upon the uncertainties 
 which follow death, and upon my inability to 
 believe in any continued existence thereafter, 
 because of such existence I could have no con- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 9 
 
 scious knowledge. Upon such a foundation 
 my spiritual experiences were built. At the 
 age of about ten years I entered into a revival 
 season, or protracted effort, in a country church 
 where our family worshiped. That was the be- 
 ginning of serious thought on my part con- 
 cerning the requirements of a religious life. 
 
 It was the first time these questions had 
 been brought to my attention in such a man- 
 ner as to require present action. It was truth- 
 fully asserted by my religious instructors that 
 there was a necessity for a change of heart, 
 called Conversion, or Experimental Religion. 
 The truth thus expressed was thereupon illus- 
 trated as follows. Such change is the forgiv- 
 ness of all sin, both that which is inborn and 
 that which has been committed; it is instan- 
 taneous, distinct, and of it the soul can have 
 no doubt; it is accompanied with exuberant, if 
 not ecstatic joy; therefore until you feel this 
 change and experience this joy, you are lost. 
 These thoughts once accepted and fixed, I was 
 said to be under conviction, and was prepared 
 for the next step which was urged upon me, 
 which was that I should publicly declare this 
 conviction, and my desire for conversion by 
 presenting myself at the altar of the church 
 
1° THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 for prayer. 1 was a child in years without ex- 
 perience, and without the power to think or 
 reason for myself concerning these great truths, 
 yet even this much appeared plain to me; that, 
 if there was a' spiritual existence after death, 
 it was reasonable that such existence must 
 be either happy, or unhappy, by reason of 
 that which was done or left undone in human 
 life; therefore I must seek to fulfill the condi- 
 tions necessary to spiritual happiness. Here 
 was a purpose and a reason for it which then 
 inspired my young heart. To this point I had 
 been led as all should be led, by a desire for a 
 better life, inspired by a presentation of spir- 
 itual truths which were accepted by me, at 
 least in hope. 
 
 Thereafter came the error which my life so 
 forcibly illustrates, the knowledge of which 
 leads me now to declare it in language that 
 cannot be pronounced uncertain. My instruc- 
 tions how to fulfill these conditions were in 
 substance, "Repent and believe." Of what 
 should I repent and upon whom should I be- 
 lieve? This was the answer that came to me 
 from those who believed that they were voicing 
 the revealed truth of Divine Love. This was the 
 presentation of that love to my childish mind. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 1* 
 
 You are a sinner because sin is born in youp 
 your every breath is polluted with inbred sin, 
 because sin is your natural state, and from it 
 you cannot escape. Had you died while yet 
 unaccountable, all this inborn and natural sin 
 would have been pardoned by virtue of the 
 Atonement, but having reached accountability, 
 it cannot now be pardoned, save through your 
 repentence; hence the child who dies is for- 
 ever saved, but no such mercy ever reaches one 
 who knows his sin and repents not of it. 
 
 Besides this inbred sin your life is one of 
 unpardoned sin. Your daily life is filled with 
 it, and even sleeping you escape it not. For 
 all these sins you are now subject to God's 
 anger which is kindled against you because of 
 them, and burneth like unto the fierceness of 
 raging fire. God's anger burneth, for so it is 
 revealed to us by his Holy Word. Because of 
 .his great anger he has created Hell. What is 
 this place called Hell? It is the place of pun- 
 ishment for those who sin, and die without re- 
 pentence and forgiveness. It is a place, for so 
 saith the Scriptures, where the smoke of their 
 torment shall ascend forever and forever. 
 Whether literally true or figuratively true, it 
 is a burning lake of molten brimstone, a rag- 
 
12 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 ing sea of flame and smoke wherein are cast 
 the souls of all who die accountable and un- 
 forgiven. For such this punishment is de- 
 creed, and of it they are forewarned. Why this 
 torment should never end, we know not, but 
 it is as certainly everlasting, as it is certain 
 that it exists. Into such torment, whether lit- 
 eral or figurative, you will certainly pass by 
 death if you are not forgiven, for death alone, 
 stands between you and it. Your life may be 
 cut off this very night and your doom be for- 
 ever sealed. If such should be your lot neither 
 tongue can express nor mind conceive the state 
 of your eternal torment, because it has been 
 created by Omnipotent Power wielded in fierce 
 anger. Fire indeed describes it yet fire con- 
 sumes, and the soul is not consumed, for its 
 torments are everlasting. It therefore follows 
 most reasonably that this torment is such that 
 the finite mind of man cannot conceive it; but 
 whether literal or figurative the meaning is 
 the same. Into it you will as surely pass as 
 that death overtakes you unprepared. Will 
 you delay another moment now that escape is 
 offered you? This may be your last oppor- 
 tunity, to-morrow may be too late. 
 
 He who can resist such appeals after he has 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 13 
 
 been prepared for them as I was prepared has 
 no desire for a better life; and I a startled, 
 bewildered, terrified child was led to the altar 
 of that church where, in the midst of a surging, 
 wailing, praying, singing, and shouting assem- 
 bly, I sought to realize Divine Love. 
 
 That which was done in ignorance, I forgive, 
 yet it is certain that a greater wrong could not 
 have been done me than to have thus mis- 
 guided me in my childish ignorance. This 
 scene was not for one night only, but for many, 
 for again the same argument and the same op- 
 portunity led to the same result. Let me here 
 record the fact, that as memory recalls my life 
 back to the hour when memory ceases, at the 
 period of which I write I had never wilfully 
 done a wrongful act towards God or man or 
 brute, without sincere repentance for it, as 
 soon as it was done. This I knew then, as I 
 knew my own desire and purpose so to con- 
 tinue; yet I was in a labyrinth of spiritual 
 misconceptions from which I could not escape 
 and from which there was no one to lead me. 
 At last I was told that my sincere desire was 
 repentance, and that I was no doubt forgiven 
 and upon this I based a hope and ceased the 
 struggle. 
 
14 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 That meeting closed and it was regarded as 
 a great revival of true religion, and such it was 
 for the few who have no higher conception 
 of their Creator's attributes than was portrayed 
 therein. There were not many such then, and 
 there are fewer now. For the good it did those 
 few I commend it, but for the harm 1 believe 
 it did the many, of whom I know I was one, I 
 condemn it. 
 
 During the next thirty years of my life that 
 hope neither left me nor was any assurance 
 added to it, for it was in the mature years of 
 middle life that it first became conscious knowl- 
 edge. That was a life wholly barren of spirit- 
 ual enjoyment, and equally barren of spiritual 
 understanding. When in mature life I sought 
 confirmation of the hope and greater spiritual 
 understanding through human reason it only 
 led me into greater doubts and into deeper 
 error. For as I reasoned I was limited to my 
 own observations and experience, and to 
 the observations and experience of others, 
 which I might accept, but which I of necessity 
 received in the light of my own, for the 
 premises upon which to base conclusions; such 
 premises seemed to support but one conclusion, 
 ,and all my efforts at reasoning led me to this 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 15 
 
 conclusion, as the rays of solar light lead to 
 the sun. It would present itself as the result 
 of every analogy drawn from the natural world. 
 It was in harmony with my own doubting 
 nature. It was not refuted by my own ex- 
 perience, and inasmuch as this had failed to 
 refute, it tended to confirm it. All nature, 
 all logic, all philosophy, to me seemed to 
 unite in one declaration, which was, that "Of 
 man's existence death is the end." If this was 
 true, then it seemed to follow as a logical 
 sequence that there was no other existence 
 above the life of man. That meant not only 
 infidelity but atheism, from the thought of 
 which I shrank as from that which destroyed 
 all hope. 
 
 I never relinquished the hope that both were 
 false, and a wish and prayer for knowledge 
 concerning spiritual life was united with my 
 every thought of it. What was my belief then? 
 This is a difficult question for me to answer 
 even at this day. It is nearest the truth to 
 say that I had no belief. I had many hopes, 
 but no beliefs. I hoped that there was a fu- 
 ture life as distinct in self-consciousness as 
 this; that there was an All-wise Creator who 
 ruled by his Omnipotence, and ruled in Love; 
 
16 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 that the human personage, Christ Jesus, was 
 the Son of God and a revelation of the Father's 
 Love; that belief on Him was sufficient to 
 cancel sin, in some manner to me inexplicable. 
 I hoped that J did thus believe and that my 
 sins were thereby cancelled. All these things 
 I hoped, not one of them had I power to pos- 
 atively believe. Into such a spiritual state I 
 had been led and from it there seemed no es- 
 cape for me. It was this state of mind that 
 had led me to seek a confirmation of my hopes 
 through the power of reason. 
 
 In this state of uncertainty and doubt, in 
 the year 1870, I watched the soul of one I loved 
 depart from its mortal body, so far as it lies 
 within the power of the human senses to dis- 
 cern the separation. It is not often that such 
 phenomena are accompanied by any assurance 
 of a future life. In this case there was that 
 which to many minds would be such an assur- 
 ance; but to confirm this statement would re- 
 quire much more of the details concerning it 
 than I purpose giving in this connection. It 
 is only to trace its effect upon my own life 
 and the ultimate results traceable to it that I 
 now refer to it. The record of it is public. 
 The truth as I now understand it is this. That 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 17 
 
 soul approached death desirous of leaving to 
 those he loved most, some evidence of truths 
 he had already accepted, to-wit, the continuity 
 of spiritual with human life, the painlessness 
 of physical death, and the nearness of the spir- 
 itual state of existence to the human. With 
 this firm desire, and with a clear understand- 
 ing, the moments of dissolution to him con- 
 sciously approached. By the power of its own 
 will, for this purpose alone, his soul clung to 
 its human existence. It lest human conscious- 
 ness, and gained spiritual consciousness; then 
 it lost spiritual consciousness and regained hu- 
 man consciousness, and in this state narrated 
 what its spiritual consciousness had revealed 
 to it. The joy of this possibility, led to the 
 second mighty effort of the soul's spiritual will, 
 and once more, spiritual consciousness was 
 exchanged for human consciousness, and again 
 that which spiritual consiousness had revealed 
 was given through human consciousness by 
 audible voice, clearly and distinctly to those 
 about him. Here was a revelation that few 
 ever are privileged to have. I was rejoiced 
 but not satisfied. Hope sprang up anew with- 
 in me, and with it a new hope never before 
 entertained. As I now understand my thoughts 
 
18 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 then, that new hope was, that the soul in its 
 human life possessed some power or sense, by 
 which it could consciously know of the exis- 
 tence of the spiritual life. My fondest hope 
 reached not then beyond the consciousness of 
 this one truth. The thought was new to me. 
 It was attractive as it always must be to those 
 who pursue it. I determined to follow it to 
 some conclusion. At that time I was just en- 
 tering professional life and was scarcely yet 
 free from college training during which no time 
 was at my command for anything outside of 
 the college curriculum. 1 was therefore ignor- 
 ant of the subject, thus brought to my attention. 
 This ignorance was now to be changed to 
 knowledge, and I determined to take the 
 shortest road to it which seemed available. I 
 knew that Spiritualists claimed this very power 
 that I now hoped for. Up to this time 1 had 
 had no belief whatever in its existence and 
 had been disposed to decry it as imposture or 
 hallucination. To determine what was the 
 foundation of their claim, and what the evi- 
 dences to sustain it, was my first object, and 
 to this I gave my study. That it was unpopu- 
 lar I very well knew. That it cost me the loss 
 of some friends and gave to others much un- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 19 
 
 easiness I also knew. He who gives himself 
 up to an}' line of research is not likely to be 
 deterred by such consequences, and I was not. 
 Had I at any time accepted the teachings of 
 Spiritualists as a body, the conscience and the 
 judgment of but one person would have guided 
 me in declaring it, and that person would have 
 been myself. I never at any time accepted 
 their teachings, as those who followed me in 
 these writings will understand. The time has 
 now come for me to declare that which would 
 have been improperly declared sooner; neither 
 am I now governed by any conscience or any 
 judgment but my own in this matter. With 
 this digression I take up the history of my 
 work. 
 
 Its beginning is the experience which I have 
 narrated. My next thought was, is it not pos- 
 sible that I may communicate with the soul 
 which seemed to possess such power over its 
 own physical being, and if this was possible, 
 how was it to be accomplished. To gain light 
 upon these points I turned to modern Spiritual- 
 ism, and that I might do so intelligently I be- 
 gan with its history and likewise read its cur- 
 rent literature. From this great field I gleaned 
 a few thoughts which served me well in after 
 
20 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 life There is in modern Spiritualism a truth, 
 which is not understood even by its votaries. 
 It is a truth which it is impossible to under- 
 stand until many other truths have first been 
 learned and accepted. In ignorance of this 
 truth I pursued my investigations into its mys- 
 teries. Had I then realized what I now know, 
 I should never have done what I have dene; 
 not that it was sinful for me, doing it as I did, 
 but because that which I hazarded, few dare 
 hazard. The fact that I have escaped the 
 most enchanting of all evils and am enabled 
 to review the hazard from this side the danger, 
 impels me to utter this warning before I enter 
 upon a recital of my experience. If I were to 
 declare the truth which is essential to a com- 
 prehension of the hazard, it would not be be- 
 lieved. It must be learned as I learned it. 
 
 When I had gained the knowledge which the 
 historic and current literature of Spiritualism 
 can give, I then sought by association with its 
 votaries, that further knowledge which was in 
 no other way obtainable. I mingled with them 
 as if one of them. The secrets of mediumship 
 were laid open for my study. In darkness, in 
 dim light, and in the light of day ; among those 
 of whose honesty I had not the slightest doubt,. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 21 
 
 and among those of whose dishonesty I was 
 equally as certain; among those whose motives 
 were pure and lofty, and among those whose 
 motives were base and sordid; among the 
 learned and the polite, and among the ignorant 
 and the rude; from whomsoever, and from 
 wherever I could gather knowledge, there I 
 gleaned it One of my earliest experiences 
 was most valuable to me. The thought of it 
 is not pleasant, but the lesson was never for- 
 gotten. A company of which I was one, sat 
 for physical phenomena. My position was be- 
 side a leg of the table at which we sat. No 
 response rewarded our effort, The accidental 
 pressure of my foot against this leg of the table 
 caused a sharp snap, or click, loud enough to 
 be heard throughout the room. It was hailed 
 as a signal of victory. It was repeated as often 
 as seemed necessary to sustain the delusion. 
 Then began that which was an unsought, yet 
 a valuable experience to me. The company 
 became elated with success. They talked to 
 and importuned this table-leg as if it was a 
 living presence among them. This far I led 
 them in a spirit of jocular amusement, when 
 to my surprise a gentleman among the com- 
 pany, and one of rare culture and attainments, 
 
22 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 called for the spirit of his dear friend John, 
 and a nervous twitch of my foot brought the 
 quick response that his friend John was there. 
 The great loving heart of this man was made 
 happy by the thought of the presence of this 
 spirit thus manifested, and eagerly sought in- 
 formation of such nature as could be given re- 
 sponsively, by one, two, or three raps, and with 
 it he was satisfied. It startled me to witness 
 such credulity. That which I had begun ir> 
 jest had ended in serious deception. 
 
 Should I undo the wrong I had done? This 
 I could not do and continue in the same man- 
 ner my pursuit of knowledge. I hesitated until 
 it was too late, and if any of that company 
 should see this statement it will give them 
 their first knowledge of the source of that even- 
 ing's phenomena. This act of deception I do 
 not justify; it was not right then and would 
 not be right now, but by it I measured the ex- 
 tent of human credulity, as by no other meas- 
 ure would it have been possible, and was 
 placed upon my guard for myself ever after- 
 wards. 
 
 Broader opportunities presented themselves, 
 and were eagerly embraced by me. Claimed 
 materializations of forms and features, received 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 23 
 
 my most careful attention. To such media I 
 paid tribute, where tribute seemed to promise 
 knowledge. I watched in the dim light of 
 darkened rooms for familiar faces which never 
 came, and which it is impossible should ever 
 come. I listened for familiar voices which can 
 never again be heard by human ears. I saw 
 many faces and heard many voices but of a 
 spirit I never saw the face or heard the voice. 
 For this it is now clear to me is an impossi- 
 bility. I next sought media who claim to de- 
 velop physical phenomena in darkened rooms. 
 The phenomena were produced; the source of 
 them I care not to seek, for I know it was not 
 spiritual. Above these there is a higher class, 
 and below them one still lower. The higher 
 is the mental or spiritual test medium and the 
 inspirational or trance speaker. Whatever 
 spiritual truth is to be developed by spiritual- 
 ism will be developed through such media. 
 Below all others of claimed mediumship is that 
 of the impostor who deceives for the money 
 that can be made through the deception. These 
 have long since become the curse of that which 
 they may eventually destroy. These investi- 
 gations occupied more than four years, and 
 their result was a feeling that there was a mys- 
 
24 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 tery surrounding the subject which I could not 
 solve; a depth to it I could not fathom. I 
 recognized a principle, but it was hidden from 
 my understanding; a semblance of truth with- 
 out the evidence necessary to fix sustained be- 
 lief. To this feeling I had added the know- 
 ledge that there are few who can resist the 
 desire for spiritual communication, when that 
 desire once becomes fixed within them, and 
 because of this fact it is very difficult to either 
 resist deception or give proper weight to that 
 which is communicated, where there' is no de- 
 ception. I then first began to see the dangers 
 which surround this truth, but I did not then 
 see them in the same light or attribute them to 
 the same causes that I afterward comprehended. 
 Could I then have known what I now know 
 I would have gone no further unless I could 
 have then also known the result of that risk. 
 In this conviction I am so firmly settled that 
 no soul shall ever through my advice, under- 
 take to accomplish what I have accomplished. 
 At this point I was strenuously opposed in these 
 investigations by my wife, and as the result 
 of this opposition I entered into a compact 
 with her and with her devoted friend, then our 
 guest, that if they two would earnestly and 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 25 
 
 fairly, in our own home, assist me for one hour 
 during each of three successive evenings, and 
 we failed to develop any phenomena, I would 
 then desist. Under this agreement the first 
 hour was spent without any results. The sec- 
 ond came and passed as the first had done. 
 The third came and had been so far spent that 
 I expected nothing; neither of the others had 
 expected to receive anything from the begin- 
 ning, therefore that which was received was a 
 surprise to all. It was a physical phenomenon 
 distinct enough to be unmistakable. I had 
 now their interest, and had overcome their op- 
 position, though neither finally accepted that 
 which came from this source, as worthy of an}' 
 credence. The fourth evening we were still 
 more successful and to the same phenomenon 
 was added an indication of associated intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 The fifth evening that intelligence was man- 
 ifested unmistakably, but what it was, or from 
 whence, none of us formed an}' opinion. This 
 was upon the evening of November 16th 1874, 
 and from that day to this hour I have never 
 given opportunity, under similar conditions for 
 this class of communications, to be given to me, 
 that I have not received them. For years it 
 
26 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 required the assistance of at least one other 
 person, in order that I might receive anything. 
 This condition was finally overcome and since, 
 it has lain wholly within my own power, 
 whether I should receive such thoughts, or 
 shut them out. They cannot be given to me 
 without the concurrence of my own will and 
 over my will I retain as perfect control as in 
 any of the affairs of human experience. Upon 
 the evening named I first became conscious of 
 thoughts that were not my own thoughts. It 
 was as if I heard that which was spoken, yet 
 it came without any audible voice or sound. 
 I could not receive it readily, but only in a 
 very imperfect manner, and sometimes would 
 fail entirely to catch an entire thought of which 
 I got a part. It was slow and tedious and 
 sometimes so indistinct as to become both tire- 
 some and annoying. I would desist at will 
 and would resume at will. I thus learned that 
 I had perfect control over my own will and that 
 so far as my experience seemed to indicate, my 
 will was the controlling will. When assured 
 of this I ceased to fear a power that I other- 
 wise would have feared. I was conscious that 
 thoughts came to me from some source other 
 than my own conscious mental efforts. Of that 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 27 
 
 source I was then in doubt. My favorite theory 
 was that they sprang from the unconscious 
 action of my own mind; another was that they 
 were the result of the unconscious action of 
 some other mind in human life, upon my own. 
 It required years for me to finally dismiss both 
 these theories as not tenable. It was the logic 
 of little things that finally destroyed them. 
 Little surprises of such a nature, and under 
 such circumstances that seemed impossible of 
 explanation by either theory. This logic of 
 little things was destined to play a still more 
 important part in my acceptance of still 
 stranger truths. 
 
 Those who have followed me thus far will 
 ask what these communications were. I have 
 recorded those I thought worthy of record from 
 the very beginning. They are voluminous and 
 many of them have never received a second 
 thought from me while others have been care- 
 fully studied. I append a very few selections 
 from them to this volume, to be used hereafter 
 in illustrating a truth. These are the highest 
 thoughts I then received. They are not like 
 the thoughts I now receive because the souls 
 who gave them are not like the soul which now 
 gives thought to me, almost exclusively. They 
 
28 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 were the highest I was then capable of receiv- 
 ing. For several years I have received no 
 thoughts from the source from whence these 
 came, neither do I care to do so again. These 
 extracts given purported to come from two 
 sources, and that the two were different I was 
 conscious. For more than ten years these two 
 sources of thought were as distinct and well 
 defined to my spiritual consciousness, as were 
 any two sources of thought to my human con- 
 sciousness. It was as when familiar friends 
 meet and converse, with each other, that I re- 
 ceived them and exchanged thoughts with them 
 throughout these years. They came always 
 under the same name and with the same indi- 
 viduality, the latter being as marked as are dis- 
 tinctive mental characteristics in human ex- 
 istence. I learned to love these two charac- 
 ters, and many were the happy hours that their 
 thoughts were my companions. It was restful 
 to me after the strain of business cares to thus 
 spend an hour. Outside the hours thus spent 
 I gave the subject but little attention. While 
 these two characters represented the highest 
 plane of thought then open to me, they were 
 by no means all that I was familiar with. The 
 other types of individuality with which during 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 29 
 
 these years I was familiar, were so distinctly 
 marked that no person in my position could 
 fail to recognize that individuality. It was 
 always the same and was always accompanied 
 by the same designated name. Neither the in- 
 dividuality nor the name changed during all 
 this period. Fom the evening of my first 
 communication until my final separation 
 from them some of these individualities were 
 with me continuously at every opportun- 
 ity. This fact is clear to me now as I review 
 that period of my life, and it is just as clear 
 to me now that none of these same individual- 
 ities continue to exchange thoughts with me, 
 The reason for this belongs not to this chapter. 
 
 In the calm review of my strange experience, 
 upon which I now so fondly dwell, I never re- 
 call this period without feelings of profound 
 gratitude, kindred to those of personal love, 
 towards these individualities, be they what, or 
 whom, one or many, even yet to me unknown. 
 To their designated names, I did not then nor 
 do I now attach any importance, or give any 
 weight, whatever. Death will alone reveal to 
 me what it is best I should not know before. 
 
 The friend to whom I also owe so much of 
 gratitude, in love a very sister to my wife, 
 
30 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 finally left our home to return to her own. The 
 power still remained with me, but at first 
 neither so clear nor so strong as before her 
 departure. These differences soon vanished 
 and with the assistance of my wife alone, we 
 continued to exercise it at will during her life. 
 Her disbelief in it as coming from a spiritual 
 source, was pronounced and unchangeable, after 
 the first few weeks that we exercised it. Our 
 friend shared this disbelief with her, and the 
 cause of it in both was the utterly unreliable 
 nature of the statements made through it. Un- 
 til experience had shown this to be the fact, 
 we all inclined to accept it as being all that it 
 purported to be. While the falseness of the 
 statements destroyed belief in them, it put me 
 on my guard and left me with a hope. So pos- 
 itive was I in this position that nothing that 
 came to me through it during all these years, 
 influenced me in my judgment to any extent 
 whatever; neither did I ever relinquish the 
 hope that it was an expression of spiritual 
 thought. It remained for later years to show 
 me the reason, and the necessity for these. de- 
 ceptions. 
 
 The experiences of the first few months also 
 showed me that I was posssesed of and was 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 31 
 
 handling a most dangerous power. For myself 
 my distrust, my caution, and my doubt seemed 
 to me to make it safe; my wife disbelieved it 
 wholly and in this disbelief, she was likewise 
 safe; and in the presence of all others I there- 
 after ceased to use it and to a very few ever 
 mentioned it. 
 
 The death to which I have referred had given 
 to me a hope; that hope had now been par- 
 tially realized and here it rested for years with- 
 out further change. All that these years had 
 given to me or were to give to me was a con- 
 sciousness of either one or many sources of 
 thought outside of my own mind, with the added 
 hope, amounting to almost if not full belief 
 that this source or these sources were spiritual 
 in their nature, This seemed to be as far as it 
 was possible for me to go. Beyond this point 
 all was still dark. 
 
 It was in 1884 that the earnest words of a 
 powerful intellect convinced me that in the 
 words, "To him that overcometh will I give to 
 eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a 
 white stone, and in the stone a new name 
 written, whicli no man knoweth saving he that 
 receiveth it," there lay a truth that was to me 
 hidden. That there was in the christian life 
 
32 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 something that I had never known. This 
 thought was not new, but it was presented with 
 such convincing argument that I felt assured 
 that there was an experience that I had never 
 known. With the same determination with 
 which I have set about all my undertakings in 
 life I now sought the truth the existence of 
 which these words implied. 
 
 The result of all my investigations, which had 
 preceded this were summed up in a declara- 
 tion like this. I am now satisfied beyond a 
 reasonable doubt, that there is intelligent ex- 
 istence outside of human life. What that in- 
 telligence is, whence it came, or what its des- 
 tiny, I know not, but that it exists I do know. 
 This admitted all that is declared concerning 
 the. future life by the^ Word of God, seems 
 reasonable, more reasonable than the opposite 
 of these declarations. Therefore I will accept 
 and believe that which is declared concerning 
 that existence, in so far as I can understand 
 it, and 1 will seek to understand that concern- 
 ing it which now seems incomprehensible. To 
 this determination the hope to which I have 
 referred had now brought me. Since it had 
 been so strangely implanted in me it had never 
 left me, neither had it been satisfactorily 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 33 
 
 Tealized, A very star of hope it had guided 
 me, and I had followed it, until at last it rested 
 over the manger where the infant Redeemer 
 lay and now I knew that it was to me the 
 Star of Bethlehem. Sheltered by the same roof 
 that gave shelter to the dumb brutes about 
 him, the Magi found Jesus the Son of God and 
 worshiped him. 
 
 Amid like surroundings in the stillness of 
 the night, with no human soul to aid or wit- 
 ness the struggle of my soul for spiritual light, 
 I first realized that truth, no longer hidden. 
 Under the humble roof that sheltered the dumb 
 brutes for which I cared, I had at last over- 
 come, and there was given to me the hidden 
 manna, and I did eat, and the white stone and 
 in it a new name written, and that name I 
 knew then for the first time in all my life, for 
 it is the name above all otner names, and 
 known only to them to whom it is revealed. It 
 was in this hour in the year 1884, that I 
 emerged from that labyrinth of spiritual mis- 
 conceptions into which I had been led in 1854. 
 Towards this result the power concerning which 
 1 now write contributed nothing except the 
 one truth, that there is intelligent existence 
 ■other than human. Without belief in this truth 
 
34 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 I could not have overcome. Without the aid 
 of this power I could not have accepted this 
 truth as a matter of belief; it must have re- 
 mained at most a hope, and possibly even that 
 hope would have left me. The power through 
 which this hope was changed into belief, was 
 latent within me and was only aroused into 
 activity, through influences which owed their 
 existence to the death which I have described. 
 I can conceive of nothing else from which in- 
 fluences so powerful and so lasting could have 
 had an origin. It is thus that I trace the 
 sweetest joy of my existence to a death which 
 seemed to me and to all untimely; and the con- 
 viction is forced upon me as I ponder this one 
 truth, and the events that cover a span of but 
 little more than a score of years, that we are 
 the children of a loving Father, who orders 
 with infinite wisdom the little and the great 
 events of our lives, and who by every power 
 that is possible to our human nature, seeks 
 to reveal Himself to us. If such be the im- 
 pression that comes from the review of one 
 short period of one human life, shall it not be 
 revealed, as very truth, when with broadened 
 comprehension throughout an endless exis- 
 tence, we review all of human life and physi- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 35 
 
 cal existence? It is to such revealed truth, 
 from souls who possess now that of which I can 
 only dream, that I have listened and listen still, 
 through the sweet silent voices which come 
 to me as human voices come to others, voices 
 hushed by death to human ears, but awakened 
 through death to spiritual consciousness. 
 
 It then appeared to me that I had gotten 
 from this power all the good that it was possi- 
 ble for it ever to bestow upon me, and I should 
 have dropped it perhaps forever, had it not 
 been for another change which death brought. 
 It was in the quiet of an autumn evening that 
 another soul was almost free from its human 
 temple, and I knew it not. This time it was 
 the one of all on earth the nearest and the 
 dearest. Of this truth my first knowledge was 
 the words which fell from the lips of one 
 whose heart and skill had joined in the at- 
 tempt to prolong that life, and they were, "Mr. 
 Mast be brave; your wife is dying." This was 
 the first warning of approaching death and the 
 announcement that its work was well nigh 
 done. The record of those few moments of 
 consciousness yet remaining is sacred to those 
 to whom it of right belongs, and nothing but 
 a sense of duty prompts this reference to it. 
 
36 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 My last request, "If it be possible remain with 
 •us, stay close to us after death, " was answered 
 ■clearly and distinctly, "I will;" and these 
 words were the last her lips had power to 
 utter. In this hour of my sorrow my thoughts 
 again turned to a possible hope. It was not 
 a belief, it was scarcely a hope, but it was the 
 incentive to attempt once more the solution 
 of a mystery which had defied my every at- 
 tempt to solve it. Up to this period unaided 
 and alone I had never been able to recognize 
 any thought as coming to me outside of my 
 own mental effort. I was now without the help 
 of any of whom I would ask assistance. My 
 first effort therefore was turned to the develop- 
 ment of this power so that I might be able 
 -without assistance to accomplish that which 
 I had before done only with assistance. Guided 
 by my former experience, I now pursued this 
 task. By slow degrees I succeeded. Then 
 there came to me again all the old individual- 
 ities, and talked with me as in years gone by, 
 giving me no new thoughts, no new truths, no 
 light, this much and nothing more. Patiently 
 through weeks I waited, until weeks length- 
 ened into months, before the soul whose 
 thoughts I sought was revealed to me even in 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 37 
 
 doubt. The doubt grew stronger as time went 
 on, for there was between us as yet a gulf im- 
 passable. From this side that gulf I could get 
 anything, from beyond it, nothing. There is 
 a truth that bridges that gulf, but of that truth 
 I was then ignorant. Had I not recognized 
 that truth, then the soul I sought would never 
 have been revealed to my soul until death had 
 revealed both to me. Could I grasp that truth? 
 Thoughts of it had come to me; glimpses of 
 it had come through the experiences of the 
 years then past, but these were not sufficient. 
 The hour of my life now approached for which 
 all these experiences of my life had been given 
 me, for which my nature had been created, for 
 which life itself had been bestowed on me. 
 The record of the next three days must remain 
 forever unwritten and unspoken, but at mid- 
 night of the third, alone and in my own cham- 
 ber, the soul I sought was revealed to my soul, 
 the gulf that separated us was bridged. At 
 that hour there came to me the first ray of light 
 to illuminate the darkness of the mystery of 
 all that had gone before. It took many days, 
 even weeks and months, to fix this truth firmly 
 in my mind. But having climbed a mountain 
 to the summit it is easy to descend upon the 
 
38 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 other side. When I had so far recognized this 
 truth, and had of my own free will brought 
 myself within it, then there came a new reve- 
 lation of many things which had gone before 
 bu. which had never been understood. At that 
 hour I started in the A, B, C, of this philoso- 
 phy, and since then I have gathered know- 
 ledge as knowledge can alone be acquired, 
 little by little, step by step, thought by thought. 
 Then I did not recognize the consequences of 
 my own decision, neither is it possible for me 
 yet to measure it, but I have gone far enough 
 to clearly see that if it had been different from 
 what it was, the uncertainty, disbelief and 
 doubt which had always enveloped this subject 
 could never have been removed; neither could 
 I have ever received any satisfactory assurance 
 that one thought received through this spirit- 
 ual sense, was from the soul which alone I was 
 seeking. This is but the smallest part of that 
 which hung upon the determined exercise of 
 my own will power when the final trial of that 
 power was upon me. From that hour begins 
 all that is beautiful or comforting in the pos- 
 session and use of this developed spiritual 
 sense. Before, it entertained for the passing 
 hour, by its oddity and the variety of the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 39 
 
 thoughts it gave; since, it has become a com- 
 fort in my hours of rest, besides which there 
 can be none other greater, save one, which is 
 the conscious knowledge of our Creator's 
 love, revealed through an unfaltering belief 
 in and the full acceptance of the Divine One, 
 who is and ever was the Son. That knowledge 
 I gained after I had sought it thirty years, and 
 before I gained this knowledge, and since I 
 have gained this, there has never come to me 
 through it, one thought that has lessened the com- 
 fort of the former; but there have come to me 
 many thoughts which confirm and sustain it as 
 truth sustains truth. The hour of which I speak 
 marked nothing more plainly than it did a 
 transition from one plane of thought to an- 
 other. The latter was no more beautiful in its 
 expression, than was the former. It was no 
 more clearly given. Its thoughts were no more 
 persuasively mingled with and sustained by 
 thoughts that were within my own human 
 comprehension than were the thoughts from 
 the other plane, yet the difference was not the 
 less plainly discernible to my mind than is 
 the difference between light and darkness dis- 
 cen.ible to the human eye. The former pro- 
 fessed love and affection, the latter professed 
 
40 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 no more in words, but what it did profess was: 
 manifested through every thought, manifested 
 even without the profession of it. The former 
 was the cold philosophy of Hell, more blight- 
 ing yet than is the philosophy of earth, be- 
 cause sustained by the consciousness of con- 
 tinued existence, and the added weight of new 
 experiences. The other is the philosophy of 
 Heaven, which philosophy is love, and love: 
 alone. Out of the one into the other I had 
 safely passed, not by my own strength, for 
 that failed me once, twice, and then I re- 
 ceived strength that was not of earth. 
 
 From that hour to this I have exchanged no 
 thoughts with those intelligences that were 
 my companions for so many years; not that I 
 fear them or their philosophy, but I have no- 
 hours to thus waste now that I know where I 
 stand. A few times since then I have meas- 
 ured strength with souls of a very low order, 
 but it was only done to gain or illustrate a 
 truth, and was then most reluctantly permit- 
 ted. I am conscious that I now make state- 
 ments that cannot be generally accepted; I 
 neither expect it nor ask it. After years of 
 study they may appear in a different light even 
 to those who are the farthest from belief in. 
 them now. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 41 
 
 It would seem that the experiences I have 
 now detailed, together with those I have had 
 since the period of which I write, should re- 
 lieve me from the charge of presumption in 
 the expression of some opinions regarding 
 claimed spiritual manifestations, and the 
 teachings of Modern Spiritualism. Those who 
 have accepted both will be neither moved nor 
 disturbed by them; while those who have no 
 opinions formed about either, may be benefited 
 by them. I also purpose to be neither mis- 
 represented nor misconstrued, if plain language 
 spoken without reference to whom it may an- 
 tagonize, can prevent this being done. On 
 some subjects connected with these truths my 
 own judgment is not yet fully settled, and on 
 such I remain silent. I have seen and heard 
 and felt substantially all that any other person 
 has seen or heard or felt, of physical phenom- 
 ena called spiritual, and I know as clearly as 
 I can know any spiritual truth, that nothing 
 which I have ever experienced of physical 
 phenomena was a manifestation of spiritual 
 existence; and if it was not a manifestation 
 of it then it was no proof of such existence. 
 
 That disembodied spirits may exert an in- 
 fluence over sensative persons, called media, I 
 
42 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 admit, but the influence is wholly spiritual and 
 is exerted upon the spiritual nature of the 
 medium, either consciously, or unconsciously, 
 and as such it cannot manifest anything beyond 
 the medium's own volition, either consciously 
 or unconsciously exerted. There is a power 
 wholly spiritual, which spiritual intelligences 
 may exert over human beings. It can only be 
 exerted by the concurrence of the will of the 
 human being unless the human will becomes 
 so weakened that it cannot resist another will 
 and I believe this to be impossible unless the 
 human will has been destroyed wholly or par- 
 tially as the result of physical disease. 
 
 In the power of the human will was man 
 created in the image of his Creator; this is 
 his God-like attribute, and the allied powers 
 of the spirit world cannot overcome it. Sub- 
 ject to this restraint there may be control by 
 spiritual beings over sensative persons, and 
 through such control thoughts may be ex- 
 pressed. Such control is common, therefore 
 much that purports to be thoughts from the 
 spiritual world is such; subject however to 
 this qualification. No spiritual intelligence, 
 in the expression of its thoughts, can rise 
 above the human intelligence which it controls. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 43 
 
 It is limited by the human power of concep- 
 tion, and the human vocabulary of the person 
 controlled, and it cannot get beyond either. 
 In this fact we find a reason for the peculiar 
 style which so frequently marks the spiritual 
 communciation, whether it be oral or written, 
 given in trance or in normal condition. It is 
 the attempt of the human powers to adapt the 
 thought and the style of its expression to a 
 plane of life which is conceived to be vastly 
 above the plane of human life. Hence we 
 have the effort to portray an ecstatic existence, 
 by words of poetic fancy, and with the flower 
 of rhetoric, which so often becomes ridiculous, 
 in its attempted sublimity. The question of 
 the source of these communications troubled 
 me for many years. What I have said above 
 bears upon this question, and I need not re- 
 peat it. Spiritual intelligences recognizing 
 no law other than their own wills communicate 
 eagerly at every opportunity. They are in 
 spiritual life as they were in human life, wor- 
 shipers of no power other than their own wills; 
 they know no law other than the law of ne- 
 cessity — the limit which is placed upon their 
 powers, and this alone they obe3'. This is not 
 true of those whose thoughts would elevate 
 
44 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the human race, and bring true comfort to the 
 human heart. The truth that lies behind this 
 thought need not be more plainly spoken. 
 The fact has been made clear to me that the 
 source of almost all these communications is 
 evil. Such was the source of every word which 
 appears in the appendix to this volume, and 
 by the light of what is there written, you may 
 interpret this statement. If I was not entirely 
 satisfied that I have safely passed through that 
 which is evil in spiritualism, and have reached 
 a plane which is above the evil which weighs 
 it down, I would never give to any human be- 
 ing the opportunity through me to accept what 
 I believe, for the opportunity might lead to 
 deception, and to willfully deceive a soul I rec- 
 ognize to be sin. It is because I have satis- 
 fied myself from my own experience, that there 
 is a possibility of good coming out of even 
 the evil that there is in it; that a soul, labor- 
 ing as I did through the better part of my 
 life, against doubts and disbelief, can be aided 
 by it; and that it is a power within which lies 
 the possibility of reaching those who are per- 
 fect in spiritual existence, and that by me this 
 possibility has been at last attained, of all of 
 which I am now happily conscious, that I as- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 45 
 
 .-sume the responsibility of giving to all who 
 seek it, that which has been given to me. I 
 cannot do this without making statements so 
 strong and so clear that none may misunder- 
 stand them. It is for this reason that I have 
 warned against that which I believe to be 
 evil, and that I have not and will not urge the 
 acceptance of what I believe to be true. I give 
 what I have received, as I have received it, 
 saying to each and all who read it, to you have 
 been given intellectual powers, the same as to 
 me, if by the use of these powers you can ac- 
 cept that which I have accepted, in whole or 
 in part, or can accept still more than 1 have 
 accepted, then in such belief I shall hope to 
 be instrumental in bestowing happiness upon 
 you. If by the use of your intellectual powers 
 you cannot accept any truth which I have 
 affirmed or shall hereafter affirm, then reject 
 it unhesitatingly and forever. He who accepts 
 by a less positive assurance than this is no 
 wiser than the friend 1 have mentioned, to 
 whom the creaking of a table leg was satisfac- 
 tory and sufficient evidence of the presence of 
 the spiritual intelligence of his departed 
 friend. 
 
 When my own personal experiences, wheth- 
 
46 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 er* physical, mental or spiritual are described, 
 either in this chapter or in that which will 
 follow it, they are given in language as clearly 
 expressive of the exact truth, as I have power 
 to command. If my experience shall be of 
 any value to any souT^having similar doubts 
 and unbelief and shall aid it in arriving at a 
 clearer understanding of spiritual truth, then 
 shall I feel repaid for all the labor which falls 
 upon me. 
 
 When I first began these investigations I 
 was wholly unprepared to receive and to rec- 
 ognize spiritual truth. I could not realize 
 this then, but I fully realize it now. If that 
 which I now firmly believe to be truth, and 
 which I so believe because of the sanction of 
 my reason, had been then presented to me, I 
 should have rejected it unhesitatingly, and, 
 without an effort to have comprehended it. 
 To the acceptance of such truths I have been 
 led unconsciously, by slow degrees. I can now 
 recall many things which were steps towards 
 these truths, which I could not at the time un- 
 derstand the reason for; and, I even thought 
 myself unnecessarily and purposely deceived 
 and annoyed. As I review the slow process of 
 acquiring spiritual understanding in my own 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 47 
 
 case, I feel that I have been led by a power 
 that is Omnipotent, by a wisdom that is Di- 
 vine, and by a love that is Eternal; and as 
 certainly as I feel this do I also feel that the 
 Being who possesses these attributes, never has 
 known, and never will know anger, towards 
 any creature upon whom He has bestowed the 
 inestimable gift of conscious existence. An- 
 ger is human, love is Divine. Can it be 
 doubted that my early teaching made the road 
 to this knowledge both long and difficult? And 
 yet until I had reached this knowledge I could 
 not accept spiritual truth to the extent that 
 was required of me in order that it might be 
 satisfying. This truth so simple and now so 
 plain to me, I give only as a sample of that 
 which must be gradually acquired. 
 
 If any one thinks that it would lessen his 
 spiritual happiness to thus believe, let such 
 a one drop this subject, and these thoughts 
 here. 
 
 Spiritual understanding is not the same in 
 its nature as physical understanding. In the 
 latter there are many truths which are clearly 
 perceived; there are some which must be ac- 
 cepted through belief, but this belief is always 
 founded upon the actual perception of some 
 
48 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 other human intelligence in whom we have 
 the confidence necessary for belief. It there- 
 fore follows that every physical truth known 
 to the human intellect either has been or is 
 perceived by some one person. All that comes 
 not within this limit, is simply conjecture. 
 Spiritual understanding is not governed by the 
 same rule. There are some spiritual truths 
 which no intelligence below the Uncreated 
 One can perceive; there are some which are 
 alone within the limit of perception of the 
 highest created intelligences; there are some 
 which are within the limit of perception of 
 each degree of intelligence, below the highest 
 but not within the power of those next lower; 
 and this is true until the lowest degree of hu- 
 man intelligence is reached. Therefore all 
 spiritual truth cannot be perceived by any 
 created intelligence, and by the lowest the 
 very simplest of all can be perceived. While 
 this is true of spiritual perception, it is not 
 true of spiritual belief, for that power is lim- 
 ited alone by the revelation of spiritual truth 
 to the individual intelligence. There is no 
 spiritual truth which may not be believed by 
 every intelligence to whom it is revealed, al- 
 though its perception is an impossibility to 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 49 
 
 such intelligence. How then can the human 
 intelligence be led to believe a truth which it 
 has not the power to perceive? In one way 
 only and that is by the use of a figure, a sym- 
 bol, or a thought, which is to the truth itself 
 that which the shadow is to the object which 
 casts it. For as the shadow resembles and is 
 dependent upon the object which casts it, so 
 the figure, the symbol, the thought, fore- 
 shadows the truth which lies behind it. 
 It is in this manner that spiritual truth has 
 •ever been taught to man, for in this way alone 
 has it been possible to teach him such truth. 
 Then as the power to comprehend the truth 
 increases, the figure, the symbol, and the 
 thought, which foreshadowed it, change their 
 significance. They have served their purpose 
 to that intelligence, and are left behind; neith- 
 er disputed nor denied, their value and their 
 purpose is simply recognized. 
 
 It is thus that spiritual understanding ad- 
 vances step by step towards the source from 
 whence it was given. If the same truth was 
 expressed to the lower intelligence in the lan- 
 guage which expresses it to the higher, then 
 the lower would forever reject the truth, be- 
 cause it is beyond its power of comprehension; 
 
50 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 but expressed within the limits of its compre- 
 hension, it accepts and believes within such 
 limits. It is upon this reasoning that I ex- 
 press this truth which would be paradoxical 
 except as thus explained. With a wisdom 
 which is Divine and a love which is Eternal 
 has our Creator bestowed upon man the power 
 to believe that which it is impossible for him 
 to perceive, and has withheld from him the 
 power to perceive that which it is impossible 
 for him to believe; and adapting his revela- 
 tions to these limitations has taught to human? 
 intelligence spiritual truths through figures,, 
 and symbols and thoughts, which are their 
 shadows. This thought is here given as an 
 explanation of the matter which is contained 
 in this volume. It is in itself of small im- 
 portance and of little significance, but as a 
 foundation upon which to build it is as essen- 
 tial for all as it was for me. Its purpose 
 reaches not beyond a preparation of the minds- 
 of those who read it for that which in some 
 manner and at some time will follow it. 
 Should these words of mine and that which is. 
 written in this volume, lead any soul to seek 
 the substance that casts the shadows which 
 have heretofore satisfied its longings for spir- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 51 
 
 itual understanding, of such soul I am the ser- 
 vant, to bestow upon it what 1 have received, 
 in the manner that I now understand that 
 it is alone possible to receive it, and to do 
 this will be the pleasure of my remaining 
 years. 
 
 From my earliest recollection my strongest 
 desire has been for knowledge concerning the 
 state of mankind after death. I can speak for 
 no other person, but I believe that this desire 
 is universal. That it is given to man as an 
 incentive leading him to seek spiritual truth 
 is evident when we consider that this is its 
 natural effect. 
 
 He who does not care to know concerning 
 that state, does not care to know spiritual 
 truth, but he who desires such knowledge is 
 led directly to seek spiritual truth. Such 
 truth can be learned through revelation, which 
 is the only source, and the sufficient source 
 which has been given to mankind for the as- 
 certainment of it. 
 
 The source through which I sought to learn 
 the fact of spiritual existence, is not outside 
 of revelation, for revelation recognizes it and 
 warns concerning it. But this one fact may 
 be learned without belief in revelation ; for of 
 
52 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the continued conscious existence of the hu- 
 man soul after death, it may by an exercise of 
 its spiritual powers on earth, acquire knowl- 
 edge to the satisfaction of its own conscious- 
 ness. The knowledge of this fact does not 
 constitute spiritual understanding of the state 
 of that soul after death, and the only source 
 of such understanding is revelation; there- 
 fore it is true that revelation is the only 
 source through which it is possible to acquire 
 spiritual truth. If this be true the question 
 is naturally presented for answer why I pursue 
 the course of study and investigation which I 
 have now pursued so many years, and to an- 
 swer this requires that I give my own concep- 
 tion of what Spiritualism and the forces allied 
 with it are. It is not to excuse my course in 
 the eyes of those who believe it sinful to 
 countenance or participate in its phenomena, 
 nor to establish favor with those who believe 
 in such phenomena and in the teachings re- 
 ceived through them, that I record my own 
 convictions on this subject. I shall not be sus- 
 tained by either of these classes. One truth I 
 have finally learned through human experience ; 
 it is that the person or the thought which 
 stands in the way of the selfish desires of the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 53 
 
 human heart will not be spared the most un- 
 reasonable censure. When the largest measure 
 of human sympathy and chaste affection which 
 it is possible to bestow upon our fellow be- 
 ings fails to atone for that which is weak or 
 inconsiderate in our daily lives, it would be 
 foolish to expect to escape criticism and de- 
 nunciation from those to whom these views 
 are repugnant. I have been taught this lesson 
 by the experiences of my life, and never did 
 I understand it more clearly than at this hour. 
 I will therefore declare my convictions in so 
 far as they are settled at this date (March, 
 28-1892) without reference to whom they may 
 please or antagonize. 
 
 There is a truth in modern Spiritualism, 
 which lies at the foundation of all that is 
 genuine of its phenomena. That truth is, that 
 it is possible for a soul that is no longer in 
 human existence to impress its thoughts upon 
 a soul which is still in human existence, un- 
 der conditions which are possible to some, 
 and are not common to all. The power through 
 which this is done is possessed alike by all. 
 It is one of the powers of the human soul 
 which is created with it, but which ordinarilly 
 remains dormant during hnman life, and 
 
54 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 is only developed by the necessity for it which 
 death brings. In some persons from different 
 causes this power becomes active prior to 
 death, through a partial development of it. 
 In no person can it be as fully developed as it 
 will be after death, because the human condi- 
 tions which now limit the soul necessarily 
 limit the exercise of this power. Through 
 this power alone comes every thought which 
 is given to the human soul from a spiritual or- 
 igin. Primarily it is not a part of or 
 dependent upon physical phenomena, and 
 no physical phenomenon ever was or ever will 
 be produced, which is not dependent upon the 
 laws of physical existence. Whatever influ- 
 ence spiritual intelligence has upon these laws 
 whereby physical phenomena may be produced, 
 is necessarily exerted through a human will, 
 either consciously or unconsciously to that 
 will. I have seen many physical phenomena; 
 I have read of many others which I have not 
 had the privilege of seeing; I have witnessed 
 and have heard that which convinced those- 
 who were determined not to believe; yet I 
 have never seen or heard anything that indi- 
 cates to my mind a possibility that spiritual 
 existence can manifest itself to human exist 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 55 
 
 -ence through any other than this one power. 
 Such is my judgment based upon my own ex- 
 perience, but behind this judgment and sus- 
 taining it is the knowledge of a spiritual law, 
 so clearly defined and so plain, when once re- 
 vealed, that no soul which comprehends it can 
 doubt this truth. 
 
 This being my conviction as to what Spirit- 
 ualism is, I answer why I continue to use it. 
 This spiritual power or sense was developed 
 in me through my intense desire for that 
 ^knowledge which it brings to the soul. Hav- 
 ing once developed it 1 at first found in it a 
 source cf amusement, a congenial and attract 
 ive subject for thought and a mystery which 
 seemed impenetrable. Then came those ex- 
 periences which revealed to me a higher possi- 
 bility than I had yet dreamed of, which was, 
 that that which is revealed concerning spirit- 
 ual existence, might be better understood by a 
 study of that existence. The power was now 
 mine, the opportunity for such study was with- 
 in my reach, my belief in the truth and the 
 purpose of revelation was now fixed, and while 
 it was satisfying to me then it might become 
 more so by this means, and that it should 
 never be made less so, I was fully determined. 
 
56 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 It was with this feeling that I entered upon 1 
 this latter period of my research. I now re- 
 view the work of six years, and by my own 
 experience I measure the possible good it may 
 do others, whose feelings are what mine then 
 were. 
 
 I had then accepted every cardinal tenet of 
 the Christian belief. What I could not under- 
 stand I accepted and believed because it was 
 declared in what I accepted as, and believe to 
 be, Divine revelation. There were many truths 
 which I could not understand. What is sin? 
 Whence came it, and for what purpose was it 
 permitted to desolate the earth? What was 
 the first estate of the human soul on earth, 
 and what was its fall? What and from whence 
 the temptation which led to the fall, and what 
 were the results of it upon human existence? 
 How did the Almighty communicate with his 
 creatures then, and what was the promise giv- 
 en them? What was the effect of that prom- 
 ise upon the human race? Was there a neces- 
 sity that the Son of God should come to earth, 
 and what the necessity that he should die? 
 What is redemption from sin, and what is the 
 pardon of sin which is realized on earth? 
 These and many other questions present them- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 57 
 
 selves to every one who accepts them as truths 
 and no human intellect may presume to say 
 that it understands them all. Let not such a 
 claim ever be imputed to me from anything I 
 have said or may say, but I do say that many 
 things connected with these and similar ques- 
 tions, which six years ago were very dimly 
 perceived, have become plain and simple 
 truths, beautiful because recognized as truths, 
 and thrice beautiful because of their simplici- 
 ty. Should any whose belief is fixed as mine 
 was, choose to follow the thoughts which have 
 made that belief doubly firm, I shall hope 
 that they shall receive the same good from it 
 that I have received. If those who are now 
 without hope, through a recital of my expe- 
 rience shall have a hope begotten within them, 
 that their life is the gift of a loving Crea- 
 tor, and is everlasting: and if those within 
 whom such hope now dwells, shall have it 
 strengthened, and fixed, then will I be satis- 
 fied. But besides this I shall hope that that 
 which I have written and shall write may lead 
 many to a clearer understanding of the soul's 
 human and spiritual existence and may con- 
 firm in all the belief that that existence is 
 continuous, without lapse of consciousness at 
 death. 
 
58 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 When these thoughts come to my mind in 
 connection with the thought of what this pow- 
 er was given to me for, I am compelled to 
 answer myself thus; to yourself it was a ne- 
 cessity, serving you when nothing else could 
 have taken its place; as it served you it may 
 serve others; the talent that was hid in a nap- 
 kin was a curse to him to whom it was given; 
 if you hide this talent may it not curse you 
 likewise? It may be that I err in taking this 
 step, but if it be error it bears so strongly 
 the semblance of duty, that this semblance 
 will I hope excuse the error, even in the eyes 
 of those who will be disposed to criticise the 
 most unsparingly. I have not thought of pleas- 
 ing any associated body of thinking people. 
 This is impossible, for what this work will 
 contain will differ in many things from the 
 beliefs of all such, and will harmonize in 
 many things with such beliefs. The soul that 
 can derive comfort from all that will be given, 
 lives not on earth, but the soul that can de- 
 rive no comfort from any part of it, is lost to 
 all comfort. This I say not in reference to 
 this volume, but in reference to that which 
 will follow it. 
 
 In conclusion I now invite those who desire 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 59 
 
 to learn more of that which has come to me 
 through the experiences which I have related, 
 to make that fact known to me. Whatever 
 the race or condition of the soul which seeks 
 such knowledge, and from wherever such re- 
 quests may come they shall receive such at- 
 tention as the circumstances may permit. 
 Whatever I can do to aid any human being to 
 gain that which I vainly sought through so 
 many years, it is my duty, my privilege, and 
 my pleasure to do. To the performance of 
 this duty I shall give my best thought, and 
 such of my time and means as shall appear to 
 be required of me. With feelings of gratitude 
 to Our Father who gave us being, and whose 
 love is witheld from none whether tney 
 worship Him in knowledge, or den)'' Him in 
 ignorance, I am 
 
 Faithfully Yours 
 
 OTTUMWA, IOWA, I. N. MAST. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The hope that inspires the human soul that 
 it shall live after death is implanted in it by 
 its Creator. To possess that hope is therefore 
 the natural state of the soul, and its absence 
 indicates an abnormal state. It is largely the 
 purpose of this volume to prepare the minds 
 of those to whom this hope is wanting, to ac- 
 cept it once more and to thereby restore them- 
 selves to the normal spiritual state in which 
 they were created. To do this work is the 
 first step towards that which is impossible 
 without this having been first done. What 
 reason have I to hope that my thoughts should 
 be effective in doing that which human thought 
 has failed to do? The preceding chapter is 
 a recital of what human thought can do, and 
 of what it is powerless to do. It is truth 
 spoken from experience, and learned because 
 of that experience. He that could have the 
 same experience, would learn the same truths, 
 but without that they can not be learned by 
 60 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 61 
 
 each for himself. I will therefore ask those 
 who follow my thoughts on this subject to ac- 
 cept his experience as narrated by him, as 
 both truthfully and accurately expressed; then 
 I will endeavor to lead all those who are sub- 
 ject to the same doubts and want of belief 
 which he describes into the same positive as- 
 surances and comforting beliefs which are now 
 his. To do this is not impossible, nor would 
 it be even difficult, were I able to give to all 
 the same assurances of my personal identity 
 and spiritual existence, that I am able to give 
 to the one soul to whom I speak these words. 
 This is an impossibility. In this one partic- 
 ular therefore I am dependent upon belief in 
 his integrity, and upon a proper use by each of 
 his own intellectual powers. I ask both from 
 all who desire knowledge concerning that 
 which is so difficult of human comprehension. 
 Without the former I may even yet succeed, 
 without the latter success is impossible. That 
 either should be withheld seems contrary to 
 human nature, where the purpose is so clearly 
 manifested as is the purpose of this work. To 
 serve the human race is an inspiration of my 
 present existence, and to that end all my pow- 
 ers which are incident to that .existence are 
 
62 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 now directed. After years of argument and 
 teaching by methods that are known to no 
 other soul, I have prevailed with this one, 
 and will now have his willing assistence. With- 
 out this I was powerless, with it I have the 
 belief that the labor into which I have led 
 him will not be unrewarded. 
 
 The source of all spiritual understanding I 
 now declare to be revelation from God. 
 That revelation is recorded in God's Word. 
 It is as plainly written therein as it is possi- 
 ble for it to be comprehended by the human 
 mind when taken as a whole. It is however 
 true that human intellects differ in their power 
 to comprehend revelation, and therefore in 
 their power to acquire spiritual understanding. 
 The wording of revelation is for all ages and 
 for all degrees of comprehension, from that 
 of the weakest, to that of the most brilliant 
 intellect. It is therefore not reasonable that 
 he of brilliant intellect should cavil about the 
 form of expression and the wording of that 
 which is alike intended for him and for his 
 brother, whose intellectual powers are but a 
 shadow of his ©wn. Could human wisdom de- 
 vise a record which would suffice for these ex- 
 tremes of intellectual powers? Think of this 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 63 
 
 until your answer satisfies your better judg- 
 ment, then answer yourself this question. 
 Through the historic ages of man on earth has 
 not this record remained unchanged, and has 
 it not in all these ages, comforted men of the 
 highest and of the lowest intellectual power? 
 Were such men in their wisdom deceived, or 
 were the ignorant alone deceived? If the 
 former then how is it that this record is ca- 
 pable of deceiving the greatest intellects of 
 all ages? Can your philosophy answer these 
 questions satisfactorily to yourself? If it does 
 not and despite this you still have doubts con™ 
 cerning the revelation contained in God's 
 Word, then I ask you that you follow with 
 me a line of thought to its conclusion. If your 
 philosophy satisfies you that there is no reve- 
 lation of the existence and of the nature of 
 God contained in the record called His Word, 
 then I as earnestly ask you to do the same 
 thing. This is the class of human souls which 
 above all others I earnestly seek to benefit. 
 Their danger is the greatest, and as their dan- 
 ger is, so will their joy be if they escape it. 
 The soul through whom I give these thoughts 
 joins me in a longing desire to aid those to 
 whom I now appeal, which desire is the out- 
 
64 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 growth of his own bitter experience. This in- 
 vitation is not limited to such, however, for 
 the whole human race is one in the love which 
 makes us brethren, when once that love is 
 known, and no soul however humble or igno- 
 rant shall ever ask knowledge, which it is rea- 
 sonably possible to bestow, without our earnest 
 effort to satisfy it. 
 
 The line of thought by which I shall hope 
 to influence those I have solicited is not strict- 
 ly logical. All minds are not subject to the 
 same influences, and I shall seek to interest 
 and influence the largest number; therefore 
 none can be wholly pleased or even interested 
 in all that I purpose saying, but I shall say 
 nothing which is not designed to benefit some 
 one. 
 
 Again I will affirm that which has been stat- 
 ed by another, that the thought which is pre- 
 sented in this volume is not complete in itself. 
 It will carry no one forward to a conclusion. 
 It is preparatory for thoughts that are broader 
 and deeper than are these thoughts, and in 
 that light alone is it to be judged. The 
 thoughts which it will contain were all given 
 to the soul through whom I now speak be- 
 tween the dates of April 18th, 1886 and Sep- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 65 
 
 tember 5th, 1886. They were written out in de- 
 tail by him and are now condensed from that 
 manuscript. The purpose which they served 
 him they must now serve others; that is to 
 become the foundation upon which to build a 
 superstructure of spiritual knowledge. To lay 
 that foundation, broad and deep and strong, 
 was for him the work of many years; neither 
 can it be hastily accomplished by any one. 
 With this general statement I now- ask those 
 who would attain to a better understanding of 
 the truths of spiritual existence to permit me 
 to lead them in my own way, along devious 
 and heretofore untrodden paths, to an elevated 
 place, even to the summit of that which is 
 within the grasp of human powers, from which 
 summit the mists of human weakness alone 
 obscure the truths of spiritual existence. 
 
 To that height I have led one soul, and in 
 the joy of the visions of transfigured truth, there 
 received, he now abides. That joy in part is 
 what I promise to all, who seek it as earnestly 
 as he sought it, but in part only, for his ex- 
 periences cannot be shared by any other, and 
 it was through these alone that even the mist 
 that hid my existence from him was rift. 
 
 The first thought that I present as we start 
 
66 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 together in this search after spiritual knowl- 
 edge, concerns the origin of the human race. 
 Revelation declares that of his race Adam was 
 the beginning. It does not declare that of the 
 human race he was the beginning. Some men 
 have declared this and have so construed rev- 
 elation. This is human error. I speak that 
 which I am now able to comprehend. The 
 human race is not all of Adam's race. Not 
 even ail who now live are of his race. Neither 
 are those now upon the earth representatives 
 of all the races, which have lived upon it. 
 
 This declaration is sustained by natural 
 revelation and is not controverted by Divine 
 revelation. Neither is there found in one 
 anything which is controverted by the other. 
 It is man's ignorance of both which gives the 
 appearance of conflict between them. There 
 was of necessity a beginning to human life 
 upon the earth. There was likewise of neces- 
 sity a beginning to the spiritual responsibility 
 of human beings on earth. It is not possible 
 that the two should have been coeval. The 
 one preceded the other by many ages or cycles 
 of time. There is a law which governs all 
 creation. It is the law of an existing necessity. 
 There never was and never will be anything, 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 67 
 
 either animate or inanimate, created, for the 
 creation of which there did not exist at the 
 time of its creation, a necessity. Therefore 
 when the human race was created there existed 
 some necessity for its creation. That necessi- 
 ty is not apparent to human thought, but it is 
 such that human thought may perceive it, and 
 therefore I give it. It relates wholly to the 
 welfare and happiness of those who are above 
 the human race in the order of their existence, 
 and because of this, is not apparent to human 
 thought, unaided. The soul of man is the 
 nearest to its Creator of all created intelli- 
 gences, and it is at the same time the lowest 
 of all created intelligences. Inversely as is 
 the degree of intelligence so is the revelation 
 of its Creator to that intelligence. It is im- 
 possible that the highest created intelligence 
 should know its Creator except through his 
 manifestation of himself in his creation of 
 those below it. Each creation is therefore a 
 manifestation of the Uncreated Life, which is 
 Our Father, God, to all that is superior to 
 such creation. 
 
 To sustain the belief and to protect the hap- 
 piness of all intelligences superior to man, 
 was man created. This was the necessity for, 
 
68 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 and this was the result of man's creation. 
 That all intelligences above man have not been 
 constant in their worship of their Creator, is 
 accepted revelation. The reasons for this 
 truth are such as it is not possible to explain 
 by a few words or in a concise form. The 
 state of such intelligences can only be under- 
 stood after many other simpler truths have been 
 first accepted, and I do not attempt such de- 
 scription now. It is sufficient to say that the 
 causes which led to the fall of some superior 
 creatures were of common application to all 
 created intelligences, and to remove these 
 causes was the necessity to meet which the 
 human race was given existence; and that it 
 should meet this necessity perfectly this new 
 creation was from the lowest possible, upwards. 
 Inanimate matter is the lowest possible form 
 of creation; the lowest form of life is that 
 which is next above this. Thereafter each 
 succeeding step towards human intelligence 
 declares more plainly than those which pre- 
 ceeded it, the truths of Divine Existence, In- 
 finite Wisdom, and Eternal Love. To super- 
 ior intelligences this revelation was perfected 
 in the creation of the human soul, to which 
 was given freedom of will. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 69 
 
 The source of knowledge and the law of 
 knowledge are not different to the highest and 
 to the lowest. Of all knowledge above that 
 which is purely physical, revelation is the 
 source, and a determined effort in seeking after 
 it, is the law of its acquirement Therefore 
 was this last and perfect revelation of the 
 Creator to his creatures which are above the 
 human soul, made in order that it should be 
 thus acquired. There is no truth plainer than 
 this to my mind now, but I can not hope to 
 make it plain to those who have not the op- 
 portunity, which death alone can give, to fully 
 comprehend it. Therefore I leave this thought 
 incomplete as it necessarily must be and de- 
 clare that which I cannot substantiate by any 
 proof other than this imperfectly expressed 
 truth. It is that the human race was first 
 created without moral responsibility. The 
 soul was given to man in his earliest created 
 state, but that soul was not charged with moral 
 responsibility. Thus man lived through ages 
 in a lower state than that which is now called 
 human, of which period there is no record 
 other than that which has been preserved by 
 the physical creation. With that state of man 
 I have nothing now to do, save to illustrate 
 
70 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the thought upon which I dwell, that it was 
 one step in the revelation of the Creator to 
 his creatures higher than human. The next 
 step in this creation was that of the human 
 race endowed with moral responsibility. This 
 was Humanity made in the image of Divinity; 
 human intelligence endowed with freedom of 
 its own will and morally responsible for the 
 result of that freedom. To the strength of 
 man was added the love of woman, and this 
 revelation of the Creator through his creation 
 was finished, and therefore is it written that 
 God looked upon the work of his creation and 
 saw that it was good. There is nothing more 
 that is possible to secure happiness to those 
 creatures, which are superior to man than that 
 which has now been accomplished, and the 
 necessity for the creation of man, has been 
 met by his creation. This necessity was as 
 fully met without man's fall, as it was by it. 
 Man's fall was therefore without any existing 
 necesssity for it. That subject however I pass 
 as not connected with my present thought. 
 There is nothing which constitutes likeness to 
 his Creator in the human physical form. 
 
 That likeness lies in man's freedom of will 
 and moral responsibility, and in this respect 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 71 
 
 are all other intelligences above the human 
 soul, likewise created in the likeness of their 
 Creator. To each was given this likeness when 
 it was created, and that likeness never has 
 been and never will be taken away from any 
 creature to whom it has been given. To de- 
 prive any creature of its freedom of will and 
 moral responsibility would be to deprive it of 
 all happiness, for without both, happiness is 
 an impossibility to any creature possessing in- 
 tellectual powers. 
 
 The purpose of this thought is to sustain 
 the declaration which I now make, that it is 
 possible for every creature whom God has 
 made, to disobey the commands of God which 
 are known to it and thereby fall, as the human 
 race fell, and this possibility can never be 
 taken from any creature to whom it has been 
 given. It therefore follows that those who 
 enter into the spiritual state which is the re- 
 ward of obedience, may loose that which per- 
 tains to it by disobedience. The converse of 
 this is not however true, for it is not true that 
 those who enter into that spiritual state which 
 is the result of disobedience, can ever rise 
 above that state by any possibility whatever. 
 In this declaration lies a truth which I hope 
 
72 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 to make plain, but in doing this I must first 
 make plain another truth which is much more 
 difficult. Plainly stated it is this, that no soul 
 created or to be created ever has or ever will 
 enter into either of the spiritual states named, 
 without the free choice of its own will, and 
 whenever opportunity or sufficient knowledge 
 is not given on earth, that this choice may be 
 made, then such soul must make such choice 
 in a spiritual state. The spiritual state in 
 which such choice is made needs no name or 
 designation at this time. 
 
 The word of God sufficiently indicates it 
 without either distinctive description, or un- 
 varying designation. I give you the thought 
 now, that and nothing more. The development 
 of it belongs not to this volume. 
 
 Now returning to the state of primative man, 
 I affirm that the human race prior to the crea- 
 tion of Adam's race was not given the oppor- 
 tunity or the knowledge necessary to make 
 such choice. Moral responsibility and that 
 which is inseparable therefrom began with 
 Adam's race, and through Adam's race it was 
 bestowed upon all other races then upon the 
 earth, by the dissemination of the knowledge 
 which this race possessed. This is kindred to* 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 73 
 
 the thought above named, and belongs with 
 it hereafter. I now assert another truth which 
 it is not my purpose to sustain by any argu- 
 ment at this time. Woman's creation was dis- 
 tinctively another creation than man's, the re- 
 sult of other necessities and the fulfillment of 
 other purposes, from which the truth follows 
 that woman is distinctively different in nature 
 and endowments from man; and as God has 
 created them so they must ever continue. "The 
 intellectual powers of man, as a distinct crea- 
 tion exceed the intellectual powers of woman, 
 as another distinct creation. This does not 
 mean that the intellectual powers of some wo- 
 men, do not exceed the intellectual powers of 
 most men, and in some cases may not exceed 
 the intellectual powers of all men, but this 
 truth is spoken of the two distinctive creations 
 as such. Intellect was bestowed upon man 
 that he might subdue Nature, discover her 
 laws and utilize her forces. To do this re- 
 quires intellectual power and physical strength, 
 and they are his. It is woman's privilege to 
 occupy a higher plane than that which these 
 endowments give to man. Her creation was 
 the next above man's and the next below God's 
 creatures not human. To her has been given 
 
74 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 endowments kindred to the powers of those 
 not human, and which are not given to man. 
 These powers belong to the higher life more 
 distinctively than do any of the powers of man. 
 When intellectual powers have fulfilled the 
 purposes for which they were bestowed, they 
 will be subject to that law which is univer- 
 sal. Nothing survives the purpose for which 
 it was created, or the purpose for which it was 
 bestowed upon that which was created. The 
 purpose once fulfilled, that through which the 
 purpose was fulfilled becomes useless, and that 
 for which there is no use, ceases to exist. The 
 pursuit of the knowledge of nature and of natu- 
 ral law, is limited to the physical world. Physical 
 knowledge belongs not to spiritual existence. 
 While spiritual knowledge is difficult to ac- 
 quire in physical life, it is not impossible that 
 it should be acquired, because the soul pos- 
 sesses spiritual powers along with its physical; 
 but in spiritual existence all physical powers 
 cease. Therefore all intellectual powers which 
 are dependent upon physical creation for their 
 development, cease to grow, and having served 
 the purpose for which they were bestowed, 
 they pass away as that which is of no further 
 use always does. What shall endure? That 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 75 
 
 which pertains to spiritual understanding and 
 spiritual experiences. The power to love, the 
 power to worship, the power to enjoy that 
 which is believed, as some would express it, 
 "The comforts of faith." These powers which 
 are the source of spiritual joy belong to wo- 
 man as they do not belong to man, and through- 
 out eternity woman will praise her Creator 
 because she was created woman. The joys of 
 spiritual existence are measured to woman not 
 by the same measure by which they are meas- 
 ured to man. Her creation is superior to man's 
 creation, as the creation of the human race 
 with moral responsibility is a superior creation 
 to that of the human race not possessing moral 
 responsibility. In contentment let woman ac- 
 cept her creation and its endowment, in the 
 belief that spiritual existence will reveal to 
 her her superiority to that which is now so 
 often her envy. The span of one short human 
 life is not to be considered in comparison with 
 that existence which is everlasting. In the 
 one she is subject to that which is the out- 
 growth of physical conditions, but in the other 
 she is superior to that to which she is now 
 subject. 
 
 To the soul which is conscious on earth of 
 
76 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 its Creator's existence, there has been given 
 the greatest light, that it is possible should 
 be given to it, in its present state. Conscious- 
 ness of His existence is likewise consciousness 
 of His love, for the one cannot exist without 
 the other. That such consciousness is possible 
 to the soul on earth, is a truth concerning 
 which the mind of man is divided; those pos- 
 sessing that consciousness, affirming this truth; 
 and those possessing it not, either doubting or 
 denying it. That which is knowledge to one 
 soul, is unknown to another soul, although its 
 intimate companion or occasional associate. 
 
 Now wherein lies this difference between two 
 such souls and how am I to explain the differ- 
 ence. If I had the power to make this differ- 
 ence plain to the human soul, then I would 
 likewise have power to make equally plain to 
 that soul, the difference between the spiritual 
 state into which one soul enters at death, 
 through belief in the revelations of God, and 
 that spiritual state into which another soul 
 enters at death, through disbelief in these 
 same revelations. 
 
 This same difference is that which separates 
 these two states of the soul in spiritual exis- 
 tence. The soul which through ignorance de- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 77 
 
 nies the truth of this difference on earth, and 
 so dies, will forever deny the same truth, in 
 its spiritual existence. Such soul cannot there- 
 fore by any possibility know the other spiritual 
 state, for the power to gain this conscious 
 knowledge has forever passed from it. Why 
 this is true and how, it becomes to those in 
 the other state a clear manifestation of our 
 Creator's love, towards those who deny not 
 only his love but his existence as well, be- 
 longs not to this volume, yet this truth can be 
 made plain to human understanding. There 
 is therefore less difference between the spirit- 
 ual states of the souls of the human race, in 
 their spiritual existence than is generally 
 taught, because that which is generally taught 
 is in some degree a perversion of that which 
 has been revealed concerning these states. 
 That which on earth separates two such souls, 
 the one knowing and the other not knowing 
 God's existence and his love, becomes in 
 very truth an impassable gulf between them 
 in their spiritual existence. It is in no sense 
 less a separation between them in their human 
 existence, except that during that existence, 
 this gulf is not impassable. No soul ever has 
 been or ever will be created to which the op- 
 
78 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 portunity and the power to acquire this knowl- 
 edge, has not been given or will not be given. 
 To those to whom it is given on earth it is 
 final ; to those to whom this opportunity is not 
 given on earth, it is given in spiritual exis- 
 tence. To those who possess this conscious 
 knowledge to which I refer it requires no ex- 
 planation. To those who possess it not, it is 
 most difficult of explanation. The age of the 
 Adamic race is one unbroken record of the 
 affirmative attestation of its existence, by those 
 who possess it. The words "I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth," have come unbidden from 
 the consciousness of those who have possessed 
 this knowledge, from the earliest record of 
 man's thoughts. Spoken in the language of 
 knowledge as above, or in the language of ig- 
 norance, by those from whom greater light was 
 withheld, this truth has been affirmed alike by 
 the pagan, and by the worshiper of the living 
 God. The light of the Pagan soul was not as 
 great, and its expression of this truth has been 
 according to its light, but the reward of the 
 one is the reward of the other, the posssession 
 of that knowledge which draws man towards 
 his Creator. To those who possess not this 
 knowledge the lack of it is willful. There has 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 79 
 
 been no positive effort of the will to seek that 
 concerning the existence of which they possess 
 a doubt more or less distinctly defined. While 
 the will has remained inactive the doubt has 
 not, until with some it has become settled and 
 fixed, as apart of the soul's mental or intellect- 
 ual nature. Such a doubt assumes the mastery 
 over the soul, and nothing short of a supreme 
 and protracted effort of the human will can 
 ever overcome it. The possibility of such effort 
 continues while human life lasts, with it, it 
 ceases. 
 
 To one other class it is my privilege and my 
 joy to address a few words, that they may not 
 weary in the pursuit of that which is not re- 
 vealed to them. Spiritual comprehension is 
 not measured by intellectual comprehension, 
 neither is intellectual comprehension measured 
 by spiritual comprehension. The two are 
 distinct, and each is independent of the other. 
 Spiritual comprehension is graduated as is in- 
 tellectual comprehension. The unlearned and 
 untrained intellect cannot comprehend that 
 which is above the plane of its existence in 
 that state. Its state can however be raised 
 step by step if not to the highest, yet to a 
 high plane, and as it advances at each step it 
 
80 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 will comprehend that which is brought within 
 its powers. This truth will be accepted as 
 such by all. 
 
 Spiritual comprehension differs not from in- 
 tellectual. It is within the power of the spirit- 
 ually ignorant, to comprehend nothing above 
 the rudiments of spiritual truth, and these rudi- 
 ments themselves can only be taught to such 
 soul by means of figures and symbols and 
 thoughts which are not literally true. It there- 
 fore follows that the spiritual conceptions of 
 souls differ as widely as do their intellectual 
 conceptions. As their conceptions differ so 
 does their knowledge of God's existence and 
 love differ. In one it is represented by a hope, 
 mingled with doubts and fear. In another by 
 a hope, without a doubt or a fear. In another 
 hope has blossomed and borne its fruit, which 
 is belief. And in still another belief has 
 ripened into conscious knowledge. Blessed the 
 soul to whom a hope is given although mingled 
 with doubts and fears, for if that hope is cher- 
 ished on earth, or in spiritual existence it will 
 blossom and bring forth its ripened fruit. 
 
 Twice blessed the soul whose hope is freed 
 from doubt and fear, for to it ultimate knowl- 
 edge is more nearly assured. Thrice blessed 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 81 
 
 the soul in which belief is fixed, for whether 
 realized on earth, or not till death reveals it, 
 that belief will end in knowledge. To the 
 soul to which conscious knowledge is given on 
 earth. I can say nothing that can add to that 
 joy, for to such has been given the hidden 
 manna, and has been revealed the New Name. 
 In my human life I possessed belief, without 
 a doubt or fear; this and nothing more. Death 
 revealed to me. that conscious knowledge, of 
 which I now speak. Had it been otherwise, 
 could I have given to those like me the con- 
 solation of this truth? This reconciles me to 
 the deprivation of the comfort of that knowl- 
 edge in human life. Can the soul which recog- 
 nizes this as truth, rest satisfied with belief 
 alone? I have pointed out the source of that 
 which I have called conscious knowledge, as 
 being, first a hope of, then a belief in, the ex- 
 istence and love of our Creator, and I have in 
 substance affirmed that it cannot be reached 
 through any other source. The continued ex- 
 istence of the human soul after death, is no 
 evidence of either to the soul which has neither 
 this hope nor this belief. Both of these may 
 be wholly lost to the soul while yet in earth, 
 and without them it is an impossibility for 
 
82 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 such soul to acquire this knowledge. The 
 spiritual state of such soul is not changed by 
 death. If it has in human life gone beyond 
 the reach of even this one hope, it can never 
 return to that hope in spiritual existence. If 
 that hope remains through its human life, then 
 there is a possibility, that this was all that it 
 was possible for that soul to acquire outside 
 of spiritual existence. Let this hope comfort 
 those to whom it is the only source of comfort. 
 There is required of no soul that of which it is 
 incapable, but let every soul satisfy itself that 
 it stops not short of this, for the measure of 
 spiritual knowledge required of it, will be that 
 which it was capable of acquiring in its human 
 life. . 
 
 This knowledge of which I speak is the 
 source of all joy which is spiritual. Without 
 it spiritual joy is impossible, and with it the 
 absence of joy is equally impossible. 
 
 The soul which hopes yet possesses not this- 
 knowledge because of its inability to acquire 
 it, enters spiritual existence prepared for no 
 greater joy than the spiritual joy which it 
 possessed in human life; neither can it have 
 any greater joy until it has acquired greater 
 knowledge. It may do this or it may not do> 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 83 
 
 it. Its will controls it as it did in human 
 life, and that will must make choice between 
 the pursuit of that knowledge or the abandon- 
 ment of the hope. Such spiritual state is 
 neither that of those who possess this knowl- 
 edge, nor yet of those from whom it is forever 
 hidden. It is intermediate between the two, 
 and from it either may be entered. The thought 
 which I now wish to impress is that the joy of 
 the soul which possesses this knowledge is not 
 forced upon it, but is the result of the knowl- 
 edge acquired, and that that joy begins when 
 that knowledge is acquired, and exists in direct 
 ratio of the spiritual comprehension embodied 
 in that word knowledge; likewise that those 
 from whom it is withheld either in earth or in 
 spiritual existence, suffer its lack, not as a pun- 
 ishment, but as a resulting necessity, insepara- 
 ble from such lack of knowledge. 
 
 By this thought I have conveyed to human 
 understanding as clear an expression of what 
 constitutes the joy of one spiritual state and 
 the remorse of its opposite, as I am able to 
 do, and have presented an outline, a simple 
 foundation of truth, upon which is builded the 
 Beautiful City of our God, and upon which 
 is likewise founded its opposite, concerning 
 
84 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 which I will sometime reluctantly speak. The 
 difference between these spiritual states has 
 been portrayed by figures and symbols, in words 
 which sound harsh to human ears, and which 
 I need not repeat here, but to the spiritual 
 understanding of the soul which occupies the 
 former, there is neither figure nor symbol, nor 
 analogy, nor human language, which suffices to 
 portray the removal of the one state from the 
 other. 
 
 Death never will reveal this truth to the soul 
 which endureth that spiritual state into which 
 joy enters not. This truth reveals to them in 
 possession of this knowledge and its joy, the 
 changeless love of our Creator towards his 
 every creature. 
 
 Death is the end of one existence. It is the 
 beginning of another. I shall endeavor to lead 
 you to a definite idea of both that which is and 
 of that which is to be. 
 
 As the soul is trained from the infancy of its 
 human existence, so will its thoughts concern- 
 ing its future existence be shapened. 
 
 The circumstances of parentage and country 
 give to them a likeness to those out of which 
 they are formed. Therefore from as many 
 divergent points as there are differences in cir- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 85 
 
 cumstance and surroundings, must human souls 
 start in their search after one and the same 
 truth. Is it possible that they should all reach 
 this truth? To all one common desire has been 
 given, and it is founded upon one common be- 
 lief. It is the desire to gain knowledge con- 
 cerning the soul's future existence, founded 
 upon the belief that there is such an existence. 
 The result is that each distinctive set of sur- 
 roundings and circumstances, shape the thoughts 
 of the soul in this search, and lead to multi- 
 tudinous conclusions as different as are the 
 causes which develop them. The light which 
 was given to man to guide him in this search, 
 has not yet reached all peoples and those to 
 whom it has been given have not alwa)'S fol- 
 lowed it. Therefore no one thought concerning 
 that existence would find an assent in every 
 human soul. It is also probable that no one 
 truth concerning it, could be uttered as human 
 thought, without such truth receiving the as- 
 sent of some human soul. From whence there- 
 fore is the hope that should I present any num- 
 ber of such truths, they would influence those 
 to whom they come? It comes from this fact, 
 that the presentation of a truth to a human 
 soul; which has had no knowledge of or thought 
 
86 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 concerning such truth, would be accepted by 
 that soul more readily than would that be ac- 
 cepted which is not truth; because truth is 
 adapted to the wants of the soul and it in- 
 stinctively inclines towards it. To many, the 
 thoughts which I shall hereafter present will 
 •come as entirely new; such will give them 
 an impartial hearing and an unprejudiced judg- 
 ment; others whose thoughts are now indefinite 
 and uncertain, will give them consideration as 
 those who are uncertain always do. Those who 
 now believe themselves possessed of such posi 
 tive knowledge, that they will consider no 
 new thought, are the vast majority. Into this 
 field I cast the seed, leaving the result to the 
 will of Him who was revealed to me through 
 belief in his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, 
 through whose human life and spiritual exist- 
 ence I glorify our Father who sent him. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The life which man lives on earth is not 
 different in itself from that which the soul 
 lives after death. The two differ only in the 
 conditions which surround them. To more 
 plainly express it I will say, it is one and the 
 same life under different and distinct condi- 
 tions. To the soul which now lives on earth 
 this truth cannot be made wholly plain, for it 
 can only partially understand that which is 
 spoken concerning the life, of which it has no 
 actual knowledge. I will illustrate this truth 
 in this manner. The intellect which is power- 
 ful as well as learned in abstract questions of 
 physical knowledge, finds it very difficult to 
 convey its thoughts correctly to the intellect 
 which is neither strong nor learned. In many 
 cases it is impossible that this should be done. 
 Here is an instance wherein of two intellects 
 existing under the same conditions of life, 
 wherein all the sources of knowledge are as free 
 and open to one as to the other, the one clear- 
 
88 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 ly comprehends physical truth which if is im- 
 possible that the other should comprehend, in 
 its existing state of development. 
 
 Now spiritual understanding differs not in 
 this particular from physical. The soul of one 
 with its spiritual understanding largely de- 
 veloped, will readily comprehend a spiritual 
 truth which the soul of another equally cul- 
 tured in physical learning, will find it impos- 
 sible to comprehend, because of the lack of 
 development of its spiritual nature. The fact 
 that the one can and the other cannot compre- 
 hend a given spiritual truth in no sense indi- 
 cates the power of the intellect or the degree 
 of its culture. It does indicate the degree to 
 which the spiritual nature has been developed 
 by earthly life. What is this spiritual nature 
 which may or may not be developed in human 
 life? To answer this question I must enlarge 
 it, and ask what is the nature of a human soul 
 considered as an entity, an intelligent exist- 
 ence, possessing power of will, and existing in- 
 dependent of all other created entities? When 
 its nature as such shall be comprehended, then 
 its spiritual nature must be comprehended as a 
 part of the whole. This subject is not so diffi- 
 cult as it at first thought appears. There is- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 89 
 
 an easy road to the understanding of truth, 
 whether physical or. spiritual. 
 
 It begins with the simplest elements which 
 enter into and compose a truth, and the com- 
 plete mastery of them, before another is con- 
 sidered. This mastery of the simplest makes 
 those more difficult as easy of mastery as were 
 the simplest. By this road the most intricate 
 is as easy to acquire as is the simplest. I have 
 in the preceding chapter indicated some truths 
 which I will attempt to impart only in this 
 manner; but this one I will make as plain as 
 it is possible for me to make it, when abruptly 
 spoken. 
 
 Human life is a distinct creation. It is 
 superior to all the creations which preceded it 
 in the series of which it was the last, and is 
 distinct from them all in the fact that it bears 
 the image of the Uncreated Life. That image 
 is its freedom of will, its moral responsibility. 
 Neither of these attributes can be separated 
 from everlasting existence. He who gave to 
 His creatures these two attributes, was power- 
 less to withhold the latter, powerless because 
 self-limited. The reason for this is thus ex- 
 pressed. The attribute of self-will implies 
 distinctive and independent existence. That 
 
90 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 existence comes alone from one source to all 
 who possess it. It is the creative act of the 
 Uncreated One by which the soul of man is 
 thus endowed, and no human soul can exist 
 without such creation. The endowment of a 
 soul with these attributes constitutes it a con- 
 scious being, capable of knowing its Creator 
 and of obeying or of disobeying his commands. 
 To deprive a being thus endowed, of its ex- 
 istence, would be opposed to divine justice, 
 and would disprove eternal and unchanging 
 love. By such limits is Omnipotence self- 
 limited. The same is not true of any nature 
 of which these attributes are not a part. There- 
 fore that life which is below the life of the 
 human soul, is not continuous. Whether its 
 destruction is of its entirety or only of its in- 
 dividuality, I will not now reason, but that its 
 individuality is destroyed needs no argument. 
 When therefore life has been bestowed upon a 
 human soul and that soul has been endowed 
 with freedom of will and with moral responsi- 
 bility, that gift is irrevocable, that life is ever- 
 lasting. Its origin is the lowest that it is pos- 
 sible that a being thus endowed should have. 
 Moral responsibility and freedom of will can- 
 not be bestowed upon any creature lower than 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 9 * 
 
 the human soul; neither can the conditions 
 which surround human life be made any lower 
 than those under which Adam's race was 
 created, and which have since continued. Hu- 
 man life is on the very lowest plane of exist- 
 ence in which moral responsibility can exist, 
 therefore it is possible that revelations of the 
 existence and love of our Creator should be 
 made to man more plainly than it is possible 
 that they could be given to creatures superior 
 to man. This is the purpose of man's crea- 
 tion; that through these revelations to the 
 human soul Divine Existence and eternal love 
 might be equally manifested to his creatures 
 superior to man. Life is therefore not given 
 to the soul for its pleasure alone, neither for 
 the happiness it will bring to our Creator, but 
 primarily and wholly for the preservation of 
 happiness to those creatures which are superi- 
 or to man. That this was the purpose and 
 the existing necessity when human life was 
 created, I can only assert. Death alone can 
 make this assertion positive knowledge. If 
 this thought is accepted we can comprehend 
 human life more readily, and my thoughts shall 
 be founded upon this as truth. 
 
 The lowest intellectual power where intellec- 
 
92 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 tual power exists at all grasps the thought of 
 a future life. That thought is inborn, it is a 
 part of the soul's creation. The soul with a 
 low degree of intellectual power is more sus- 
 ceptible to the impressions of spiritual truth 
 than is the soul of any higher degree of intel- 
 lectual power. As intellectual power increases 
 the effect of revelation upon the soul dimin- 
 ishes. Inversely as is the degree of intellect- 
 ual power, so is the effect of divine revela- 
 tion. The two are antagonistic, of necessity. 
 When Adam's race was first created it was 
 without developed intellectual power, and man 
 knew his Creator's thoughts, as he knew the 
 thoughts of his fellow man. So it continued 
 through ages, but when intellectual power be- 
 gan its marked development, then spiritual con- 
 sciousness of the Creators' will departed as 
 rapidly as intellect developed. To counteract 
 this, new revelations became necessary; those 
 which appealed more directly to man's intel- 
 lectual nature; those which arrested and held 
 his thought; those which appealed to his fear; 
 and those which promised happiness in human 
 and spiritual life. Prophecy was given for 
 future ages which should realize its truth. 
 This was to prevent the intellectual nature 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 93 
 
 completely dominating the soul. At last when 
 necessity demanded it, came the final revelation 
 of divine love in the person of the Son of 
 God. With his life and teachings revelation 
 ceased forever, and humanity was left to con- 
 tinue the struggle between its intellectual and 
 its spiritual natures down to the end of its 
 existence. That man should be intellectually 
 endowed was a necessity of his creation. With- 
 out such endowment he could not have main- 
 tained his existence. That this endowment 
 should weaken his spiritual nature is equally a 
 necessity, because the functions of each are 
 contrar}^ to those of the other. Intellectual 
 
 power is created to subdue matter and to dis- 
 cover and apply the forces of matter; it is 
 created to reason about matter; to conceive of 
 matter and material laws, and to comprehend 
 all these in a material existence. Beyond 
 these purposes of its creation it cannot go; 
 and when the soul is once dominated wholly 
 by its intellectual powers, it is powerless to 
 worship any other than a material god, and as 
 these same powers in most cases forbid this, it 
 worships nothing. I have said that this is true 
 of the soul whose intellectual power, dominates 
 it. It is not true when the spiritual nature 
 
94 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 of the soul has the ascendency. Then the in- 
 tellectual is dominated by the spiritual nature 
 and subserves it. It is therefore true that in 
 one soul we find a powerful intellect with a 
 subservient spiritual nature, and in that soul 
 we find an absence of spiritual understanding 
 corresponding with the development of its spir- 
 itual nature. In another soul we find an equally 
 powerful intellect, but it is subservient to a still 
 more powerful spiritual nature, and in that soul 
 we find largely developed spiritual understand- 
 ing. The soul which is dominated by its in- 
 tellectual nature is not capable of understand- 
 ing spiritual truth. It is as powerless to un- 
 derstand it as are the blind to see. The only 
 hope for such a soul is that the spiritual nature 
 may acquire the ascendency over the intellect- 
 ual. This is sometimes quickly accomplished, 
 sometimes slowly, sometimes, never. In the 
 latter case the soul will never know spiritual 
 truth, either in earth, or in spiritual existence. 
 It will never know either its Creator or its 
 Creator's love, and will thereby be forever in- 
 sensible to its own great loss. 
 
 Let not this thought be misinterpreted to 
 mean that it will never be unhappy. The only 
 source of happiness in spiritual existence is the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 95 
 
 very knowledge of which it is forever deprived. 
 Without this knowledge in the spiritual exist- 
 ence happiness is as impossible as would be 
 sunshine in the physical world without a sun. 
 One more thought; it is my assertion only; 
 I cannot sustain it even by argument, because 
 it is not within the range of human comprehen- 
 sion, limited by human experiences. It is 
 this: in human life it is easier to acquire spir- 
 itual knowledge than it is to acquire it in spir- 
 itual existence. The reason for it I can give t 
 but it is not apparent, neither will it be read- 
 ily accepted. God's revelation of himself to 
 the human race, is the clearest revelation that 
 it is possible for him to give to any created 
 intelligence; and the soul which having at- 
 tained its powers, and formed its judgments in 
 human life, against the sufficiency or the truth 
 of this revelation, will never be able to change 
 its judgments thereafter. When the possibility 
 of human happiness is withdrawn from that 
 soul by death it is as powerless to know hap- 
 piness as if happiness existed not. Such soul 
 is forever lost through the use it has made of 
 its intellectual powers, and because of its fail- 
 ure to recognize and develop its own spiritual 
 nature. There is greater hope for that soul 
 
b THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 which is without intellectual power, and also 
 without spiritual development. Such soul is 
 dominated by human propensities and instincts, 
 so nearly allying it with the creatures below, 
 those which are endowed with moral respon- 
 sibility, that its responsibility is very limited. 
 It may even be below the line of any moral 
 responsibility. Such is an instance where the 
 baser propensities of human nature and the 
 instincts which ally man with the brute crea- 
 tion, have the ascendency, and have held man's 
 spiritual nature in subjection. No freedom 
 of choice is possible to such a soul, concerning 
 that of which it has neither knowledge, nor 
 the power to acquire knowledge. Such soul 
 is without knowledge of that which is the only 
 source of happiness in spiritual existence, and 
 is Without the power to acquire that knowledge 
 in its human life; therefore it enters spiritual 
 existence without the possibility of happiness 
 until that knowledge is acquired; and it is 
 more difficult to acquire it in spiritual existence 
 than it is in human. Must such soul be for- 
 ever unhappy because of the lack of that which 
 it has never had the power to acquire? If with- 
 out freedom of choice it enters spiritual ex- 
 istence, without that knowledge which alone 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 97 
 
 can bestow happiness upon it, and this state 
 is not of its own free choice, shall it forever 
 continue unhappy? The eternal justice of 
 our father God is so plainly revealed to those 
 who know his eternal love, that my answer 
 to this question could add nothing to that 
 which is revealed. That souls life is then as 
 if it had just begun. All that eternal love 
 supported by spiritual love and knowledge can 
 do to lead that soul into the knowledge which 
 will bestow happiness upon it, will be done, 
 until with powers developed, rendering it ca- 
 pable of free choice, it shall make that choice 
 for itself. Then eternal justice shall have 
 been met, and eternal love shall be revealed 
 to or hidden from that soul, according as its 
 choice shall be. 
 
 What then have I shown concerning the soul 
 which is created human, and concerning the 
 life which is bestowed upon it? 
 
 First, that its existence is because of the 
 creative act of our Creator's will. That life 
 accompanied with freedom of will and moral 
 responsibility is His gift to it, and must be 
 everlasting because of those attributes which 
 are in the likeness of the same attributes of 
 its Creator. 
 
98 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 Second, that its nature is threefold as God's 
 is triune. 
 
 That either power of this nature may dom- 
 inate its life to the exclusion of the other two. 
 That when the spiritual nature is lacking in 
 development, no spiritual knowledge can be 
 acquired, and without such knowledge happi- 
 ness is impossible in spiritual existence. That 
 a developed spiritual nature controls the other 
 two natures, and that a development of either 
 of the other two, to a domination of the spir- 
 itual, so far destroys the spiritual that it is 
 powerless to bestow spiritual knowledge upon 
 the soul. That when this domination is by the 
 lowest of the other two, it incapacitates the 
 soul for freedom of choice, through lack of 
 knowledge; and to such soul knowledge neces- 
 sary for a free choice, will be given in spiritual 
 existence. That when the intellectual is the 
 dominating power, the lack of spiritual knowl- 
 edge, is the soul's free choice, which is irre- 
 vocable, and fixes its spiritual state forever. 
 Now this is human life; these are its endow- 
 ments; and these its powers. I will enlarge 
 upon the spiritual nature only; the other two 
 are open to your daily study. 
 
 The spiritual nature of man is in a measure 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 99 
 
 hidden from the soul which possesses it. The 
 intellectual and the physical natures are in no 
 sense hidden. Their existence is manifested 
 to the soul by its own experiences, and to deny 
 their existence would be equivalent to the 
 souls denying its own existence. Human phy- 
 losophy may have gone even to this length, 
 but it has received no support. The soul of 
 man knows that it exists, possessing an intel- 
 lectual and a physical nature. It is conscious 
 of these truths because it has experienced them. 
 By its own will power it has controlled and 
 used the powers which belong to both these 
 natures, and through the exercise of these 
 powers it has received the proof of the exist- 
 ence of these natures. Such proof is satisfac- 
 tory and is accepted, and because of it the soul 
 declares its own existence and its possession 
 of two distinct natures. Thus far the experi- 
 ence of every soul possessing any development 
 of the intellectual nature, carries it. If it pos- 
 sesses no development of the intellectual pow- 
 ers then it is ignorant of its possession of such 
 a nature, and it bases all its conceptions of its 
 existence upon its physical experiences. This 
 is the lowest conception of life that can be 
 given to a human creature, and is kindred to 
 
 L.cfC. 
 
100 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 that which the instinct cf the brute creation 
 gives to it concerning its life. It is therefore 
 possible that a soul endowed with intellectual 
 powers should exist in human life, without 
 knowledge of its intellectual nature. While the 
 very act of conceiving this truth would require 
 the exercise of these powers, yet it might use 
 them to a limited extent without recognizing 
 their existence. The boundary line between an- 
 imal instinct and intellectual power is difficult 
 of location, even by the highest developed in- 
 tellect itself. Yet that intellect which cannot 
 locate the boundary of either, will not question 
 the existence of these two separate and distinct 
 natures, the one belonging to man, the other 
 belonging to the brute creation. While the 
 brute possesses not an intellectual nature in 
 any degree, it does possess that which is to it, 
 what the intellectual nature of the soul is to 
 man. Instinct is the shadow of intellect. The 
 intellect of man is the shadow of that which is 
 higher than man, which is again the shadow 
 of that which is Divine and uncreated. In 
 this sense intellect is a reflection of Divine 
 powers. So is instinct. And as instinct ceases 
 to exist when that which necessitated its crea- 
 tion ceases, so will the intellectual powers cf 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 101 
 
 man cease to exist when that which necessitat- 
 ed their existence likewise ceases. This is not 
 saying that the intellect of man shall cease to 
 exist, but only that intellectual development 
 which is the result of human conditions. If it 
 be true as 1 have stated that man's present 
 intellectual powers were bestowed upon him to 
 enable him to subdue physical nature, discern 
 its laws, and control. its forces, then it ration- 
 ally follows that when these powers can no 
 longer be used for thes*e purposes, they will 
 pass away. It is equally rational that this use 
 of them will shortly end with every soul, for 
 it can alone be measured by the span of its 
 human life. Thereafter if these powers con- 
 tinued they could avail it nothing. Without 
 discussing this thought here I want to now 
 suggest to the thinking soul that physical truth 
 can only be acquired in a physical existence, 
 amid physical surroundings, and by the use of 
 physical powers. When such an existence has 
 forever ceased to the soul, when physical sur- 
 roundings become an impossibility and phys- 
 ical powers have perished with the physical 
 being, then will physical knowledge become 
 both useless and unattainable. 
 
 As the intellectual nature is now revealed to 
 
102 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the soul by the exercise of its powers, and in 
 like manner is revealed to it the physical na- 
 ture which belongs to it, and the instinct of 
 creatures below human, so will its spiritual 
 nature be hereafter revealed to the soul, through 
 the exercise of the powers which pertain to it. 
 Has the soul these powers now? When the 
 soul is created it is endowed with all the pow- 
 ers which it ever can possess, both physical, 
 intellectual, and spiritual. Slowly its phys- 
 cial powers unfold with physical life; slowly 
 its intellectual powers may be developed; some- 
 times they are not, but when they are not they 
 exist as powers of the soul, just as truly as 
 when they are developed. Still more slowly 
 if at all, the spiritual powers of the soul are 
 brought into use, during human life. To mul- 
 titudes of human beings the existence of such 
 powers is wholly unknown. In some they are 
 developed so feebly that their existence is 
 scarcely preceptible to the human soul which 
 uses them. In some they are clearly recognized, 
 but not understood. In rare instances has the 
 human soul attained a mastery over any of 
 them in human life. These instances are not 
 .within the scope of this chapter. It is suffi- 
 cient for me to declare this truth and leave the 
 argument sustaining it to another time. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 103 
 
 The spiritual nature of the soul is therefore 
 revealed to the soul in precisely the same man- 
 ner as are its physical nature and its intellect- 
 ual nature, and to those to whom the same 
 evidence is rendered possible, its existence is 
 no less distinctly revealed. 
 
104 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The existence of a spiritual nature as a part 
 of the soul's endowment was shown in the last 
 chapter. That such nature exists should be 
 proof that there is a spiritual existence. It is 
 proof of this to those who have learned to 
 know their spirtiual nature and to realize its 
 powers, as they know their intellectual nature 
 and realize its powers. The very exercise of 
 these powers is inconsistent with any other 
 belief or theory; and to one to whom spiritual 
 powers have become as distinctly defined as 
 are the intellectual powers to the greater num- 
 ber, to doubt spiritual life becomes no more 
 easy than to doubt human life. The few who 
 reach this understanding need not these words, 
 and they are not given for such. I speak to 
 those whose belief in a spiritual existence, 
 continuous with and immediately following 
 human existence, is not firmly fixed, and ta 
 those who live without such belief. Such alone 
 I seek to interest in this chapter, and to lead 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 105 
 
 to the acceptance of thoughts which will follow 
 it. The first impulse of the human soul is to 
 believe in spiritual existence. If this impulse 
 is followed belief in such existence comes as 
 naturally, as belief in physical truths. This 
 is true of very many, and of such existence 
 they have no shadow of doubt. If it was true 
 of all then these words would never have been 
 written. Those to whom no doubt ever comes 
 concerning the fact of spiritual existence, are 
 happy in the possession of a normally devel- 
 oped spiritual nature. Whatever their moral 
 status may be, their spiritual nature is not 
 lacking in development. Those by whom this 
 truth is only accepted as a hope, and who are 
 powerless to overcome their doubts concerning 
 it, are not normally developed in their spirit- 
 ual natures. 
 
 If with this there is large intellectual devel- 
 opment, their danger is the greater. It is when 
 the intellectual powers have assumed full con- 
 trol of the soul's judgments, that the spiritual 
 nature is withered, and if not restored, will 
 ultimately perish, in so far as any use of its 
 powers is concerned. To such souls I give these 
 thoughts now and hope to be able to convince 
 them hereafter of the truth that is dimly 
 
06 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 shown by them. I who speak to you am dis- 
 tinct and individual in my existence. The 
 power of will is mine as unfettered as it was 
 in human life. I speak what I will to speak. 
 I refrain from speaking what I do not desire 
 to speak. The soul through whom I speak is 
 powerless to control my thoughts, aud I am 
 powerless to control his thoughts, except as he 
 wills to give me such control. This he gives 
 and withholds at his pleasure. His soul is as 
 distinctly separate from my soul, and his 
 thoughts as distinctly separate from my 
 thoughts, as are the souls and the thoughts of 
 two persons in human life. I leave him if I 
 will, and give place to another; of this he is 
 conscious by a power that needs no explana- 
 tion now. The development of these powers 
 in him has been so gradual and through such 
 a course of preparation for it that it excites 
 in him no wonder, not even an unusual inter- 
 est. I refer to these facts not as an argument 
 establishing spiritual existence, for such an 
 argument would be quickly met by the claim 
 that he is self-deceived, but to help illustrate 
 a truth which I hope to establish otherwise. 
 That truth is this. Death destroys not the 
 identity, the exercise of the powers of the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 107 
 
 soul, nor the consciousness of the exercise of 
 them; and these three things constitute life, 
 whether it be in human or in spiritual exist- 
 ence. Life might exist without consciousness 
 of either, it might even exist without con- 
 sciousness of any of them, but it would not be 
 life in the sense in which developed human 
 beings live, and I want it understood that it 
 is in this sense alone that I use the word life 
 in applying it to spiritual existence. In any 
 less degree spiritual life would not satisfy the 
 longings of the human soul. The fact that 
 the human soul longs for such an existence is 
 one proof that there is such an existence. 
 Would infinite power controlled by eternal 
 love, create a nature with a longing for that 
 which existed not? To those who know that 
 eternal love, and believe that it exists with 
 infinite power, the answer to this question is 
 not uncertain ; to others it can be at most only 
 partially satisfying. 
 
 Does the human soul possess powers which 
 when developed enable it to comprehend its 
 spiritual nature, and if this is possible can it 
 comprehend that which exists not? If the 
 soul possesses a spiritual nature, does it not 
 follow that it will have a spiritual life adopted 
 
108 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 to that nature? Does not the latter follow as 
 a matter of reason? Is it not sustained by 
 every analogy from nature? Can the doubting 
 soul find anything in nature that was created 
 without a purpose? Of all things he may not 
 be able to discern the purpose, but of so many 
 he is able to discern the purpose, that he will 
 accept the truth that all are created for a pur- 
 pose, and accepting this truth and also the 
 truth that the soul possesses a spiritual nature, 
 with spiritual powers, I ask what is the purpose 
 of this nature and of these powers, if it is not 
 to fit it for spiritual existence. The acceptance 
 of the fact of such a nature and of such powers, 
 necessitates the acceptance of a purpose for 
 which they were created. Do they serve any 
 purpose in human existence? Is there anything 
 in human existence that would be impossible 
 without them? There is not. In many human 
 beings fulfilling all the functions of human 
 life, the spiritual nature and all spiritual 
 powers are unknown to the person himself, 
 and are equally unknown to others. They lie 
 dormant, embryonic, awaiting conditions which 
 render their development possible. These 
 conditions may come in human life, but if not 
 they must come in spiritual existence. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 109 
 
 I therefore declare that any soul which seeks 
 this knowledge may satisfy itself of the exis- 
 tence of this spiritual nature and of these spir- 
 itual powers, both personal to itself, and pos- 
 sessed by every other human being, and reach- 
 ing this conclusion the conviction will then be 
 forced upon it, that the purpose of their crea- 
 tion, pertains not to human existence but to 
 spiritual. This thought becomes a settled con- 
 viction, a fixed belief. Do you want this con- 
 viction? Do you long for such belief? Then 
 labor for it with the earnestness with which 
 you strive to acquire human knowledge, and 
 you will not be disappointed. 
 
 What is spiritual existence? To answer this 
 question I must ask; what is human existence? 
 To answer the latter is to answer the former, 
 with the single exception that for human na- 
 ture and human powers, spiritual nature and 
 spiritual powers are substituted. I shall there- 
 fore attempt to define human life as the basis 
 of an explanation of spiritual. 
 
 Human life is the manifestation of intelli- 
 gent, individual, conscious, power, by the ex- 
 ercise of functions which belong to physical 
 or human existence. Such functions are those 
 which are denominated human powers. They 
 
HO THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 are the means by which the intelligent power 
 called the soul manifests its existence to it- 
 self, and to other intelligent, individual, con- 
 scious, souls. Such functions are the only 
 means whereby it is possible for the human 
 soul to satisfy itself of its own existence, or 
 to satisfy other individual conscious souls of 
 its existence. Is this true or not? Let any 
 who deny its truth watch beside the human 
 form of one who is his dearest friend, as one 
 by one the functions of human life cease. 
 Speech fails; sight fails; hearing fails; sensa- 
 tion fails; the control of the will over the hu- 
 man body fails; finally that control of the 
 soul over the body which is involuntary, fails; 
 and you pronounce your loved one dead. Why 
 dead? Because he has ceased through the 
 functions of his human life to manifest his ex- 
 istence to your soul. So long as one human 
 function, whether voluntary or involuntary, 
 remained, you accepted its exercise as evi- 
 dence, of your friend's existence, and nothing 
 could have shaken your belief in that exis- 
 tence. That one last function which bound 
 his existence to yours, ceases, and you, doubt- 
 ing soul, believe that the life which was your 
 loved one, has gone out! The loving Father 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. HI 
 
 save you from such a thought. It is not true; 
 it is unnatural that it should be true. 
 
 That which you see and know of the human 
 soul is but the lowest manifestation of its ex- 
 istence, which is possible to it, and you would 
 accept it as all that is possible to it. 
 
 I have shown you what human life is. Is 
 it possible that I should show you what spirit- 
 ual life is? If you had not the power to per- 
 ceive any one of the functions of human life, 
 would it have been possible to have shown 
 you, or for you to have understood what hu- 
 man life is? Yet under precisely the same 
 conditions must I seek to show you and must 
 you seek to understand what spiritual life is. 
 If you could perceive one single function of 
 that life, then would its existence be made as 
 plain to you as is the existence of human life. 
 This difficulty is for some insurmountable, be- 
 cause they will not make the necessary effort 
 to surmount it, but there is no human soul 
 created that cannot satisfy itself of spiritual 
 existence by this means. Will you who doubt 
 it try to follow, as I may lead your thoughts? 
 I have nothing to offer to those who seek ar- 
 gument and controversy, for the result of ar- 
 gument is to strengthen any position whether 
 
112 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 it be right or wrong. If therefore you choose 
 to argue against the existence of spiritual life, 
 your argument will strengthen you in the dis- 
 belief of such an existence. If you want to 
 disbelieve it the way is thus pointed out to 
 you to secure what you desire. If on the other 
 hand you want to believe in such an existence, 
 the way to fix that belief is pointed out with 
 equal clearness. Choose which you will. If 
 it is your desire to believe, follow my thoughts, 
 without seeking every opportunity to argue 
 against and criticise them. If you do not want 
 to believe, then follow them with that con- 
 stantly in view. 
 
 It belongs to infinite power alone to convince 
 a soul against its will, and infinite power is 
 self-limited in this particular. No soul ever 
 has had or ever will have spiritual truth forced 
 upon it. It is only given in response to an 
 effort of the soul to acquire it and unless that 
 effort is made in human life, by those to whom 
 a knowledge of its existence is brought, it will 
 never be made Spiritual truth does not come 
 of necessity, because of conscious spiritual ex- 
 istence. This cannot give one truth that 
 should be defined as spiritual. It reveals to 
 the soul simply its continued existence, that 
 and nothing more. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. H3 
 
 All else pertaining to spiritual truth must 
 be sought earnestly and presistently, either in 
 human life or in spiritual existence, and the 
 soul to which this search is possible in human 
 life, and which refuses to make it, will forever 
 refuse, for the opportunity once given and re- 
 fused can never again be rendered possible. 
 Thereafter ignorance of spiritual truth is the 
 happiest possible state in which such soul can 
 exist, and the love which was without begin- 
 ing, and which can never be withdrawn, or 
 diminished has so created it. 
 
 What are the functions of the spiritual na- 
 ture and of its powers which are within the 
 reach of the understanding of all? 
 
 Beginning with the plainest, it is the yearning 
 of the human soul for a continued or a future 
 existence. The sou] has never been created 
 to which such yearning has not come. If cher- 
 ished it has grown. If suppressed it has di- 
 minished, and may have been lost entirely, for 
 it is within the limits of the power of human 
 philosophy, to so far stultify the nature with 
 which the soul is endowed when created, that 
 it should deliberately choose annihilation as 
 its end. Such cases are not common, and they 
 are as deplorable as they are rare, in human 
 
114 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 life. In spiritual existence wherein to the 
 lost soul eternity can never reveal the purpose 
 of its creation, or one single source of happi- 
 ness within the limit of its powers, annihila- 
 tion is the longing desire of its existence; a 
 desire impossible of realization. The spiritual 
 state of the soul which on earth has this desire, 
 is not different from that which I have de- 
 scribed in spiritual existence, except that to 
 such soul there still remains, the sources and 
 the means of human happiness. Remove these 
 from it, and it would realize its future state. 
 This plainest spiritual power and function 
 is known to every soul; and it alone is suffi- 
 cient to guide the soul to fuller knowledge, 
 which it surely does if not suppressed. When 
 left to its course the next power it reveals to 
 the soul is its power of worship. This is both 
 a longing and a power. It follows a yearning 
 after continued or spiritual existence, as cer- 
 tainly as an effect follows a cause in human 
 life. The one is not the effect of the other, 
 for the power to worship is a distinct spiritual 
 power of the human soul. Its development is 
 the effect of the exercise of this yearning after 
 spiritual existence. All may know this power 
 to worship. Some have not known it because 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 115 
 
 they have suppressed that which develops it. 
 This power is not dependent upon intellectual 
 development in any sense. It is independent 
 of it in every sense. It reveals to the soul 
 that there exists some object or power, which 
 ought to be worshiped. The fact that this 
 power is realized, is felt, leads the soul intui- 
 tively to the knowledge, that there exists some 
 person, or power or thing, for the worship of 
 which, this power was given; otherwise a 
 power would have been created without a pur- 
 pose. The soul without intellectual develop- 
 ment knows that this is not true. Here then 
 is a plainly manifested spiritual power which 
 can have no purpose not founded upon a spir- 
 itual existence. Shall I stop here where nat- 
 ural revelation ends? If I should is it not 
 sufficient to lead the soul which seeks spiritual 
 truth to the worship of a Being of infinite 
 power, whatever other atributes that soul might 
 ascribe to Him? Such has been the result of 
 the exercise of these two spiritual powers 
 wherever and whenever they have been guided 
 alone by natural revelation. Man has worshiped 
 from the beginning of his accountable state, 
 and will worship to the end of human exis- 
 tence. The only power that can destroy wor- 
 
116 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 ship in man is the power of his intellectual 
 nature, developed and dominating his spiritual 
 nature. The most inhuman of all human creat- 
 ures is the soul dominated by intellectual power. 
 Its spiritual nature is suppressed, its human 
 nature distorted. It is an idolater of the worst 
 form. It knows nothing above itself, and will 
 worship nothing beneath itself, therefore un- 
 less it has even blighted and crushed out its 
 own instinctive desire for worship, it wor- 
 ships itself. In spiritual ignorance this intel- 
 lectual giant dies, and must forever live. 
 
 What may I in this connection properly say 
 in reference to divine revelation? This, and 
 nothing more. It is the supplement of natural 
 revelation. The soul which has not accepted 
 natural revelation, can not accept divine 
 revelation, and the soul which has accepted 
 natural revelation, finds no difficulty in ac- 
 cepting divine revelation. My thought there- 
 fore is now to urge the acceptance of natural 
 revelation, with the knowledge that if this is 
 done the acceptance of divine revelation is 
 assured. 
 
 Neither is it possible that the class to which 
 I address these thoughts should accept divine 
 revelation, until they have accepted natural 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 11 
 
 revelation. That in nature which leads the 
 soul to seek spiritual truth, is natural reve- 
 lation. To the yearning of the soul for spir- 
 itual life and the power to worship which this 
 yearning develops, is to be added as belonging 
 to natural revelation, all the evidences of 
 spiritual existence which it is possible should 
 be given to man. That such evidences have 
 been given to some souls from the earliest 
 period of man's existence, seems to be historic 
 truth. But the evidences of it have been and 
 are so mixed with that which is deceptive, that 
 the fact of any manifestation of spiritual ex- 
 istence to the human soul, at any period of the 
 world's existence, is not accepted by all. Re- 
 moved from the historic record of which I speak 
 is the Divine Record of the divine revelation 
 of this existence to man, concerning which I 
 cannot now argue, for it is not comprehended 
 within the scope of the subject of this chapter. 
 Of the reality of such a revelation, its authen- 
 ticity and its perfection, there exists not a 
 doubt, in the soul who gives these thoughts, 
 or in the soul through whom they are given. 
 There always have lived those who believed 
 not only in the historic record of these facts, 
 but in similar experiences in their own times. 
 
118 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 I will grant, that all may have been deceived, 
 in some particulars ; some may have been 
 wholly deceived, but is it reasonable that a 
 thought, a belief, should take hold upon the 
 human race in the infancy of its intellectual 
 development, and continue as one of its 
 thoughts, and an accepted belief of many, 
 from that beginning to the present day, if found- 
 ed wholly upon deception and erroneous con- 
 ceptions of facts? If this be true of this one 
 thought and belief, it is not true of any other 
 It is not reasonable that it should be true of 
 this. I therefore assert that from the earliest 
 ages of man, there has been some measure of 
 interchange of thought between intelligences 
 in spiritual existence and the human soul. 
 This was and is accomplished through the 
 exercise of a spiritual power, possessed by 
 every soul, but developed in human life, in 
 very few. The great majority of the few in 
 whom it is developed, know not the power. 
 They receive, accept, reject, or ignore that 
 which comes to them through it; and those 
 from whom the power is wholly hidden, do 
 likewise. A power which cannot always be 
 recognized by those who possses it, which is 
 understood by none who use it, and sometimes 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 119 
 
 ignored by those to whom it is most plainly 
 revealed, is indeed a subtle power, so far re- 
 moved from all the functions of the soul which 
 are human, and so antagonistic to those which 
 are intellectual, that it must of necessity be 
 limited in its effect upon mankind. That it 
 is so all are ready to admit. Why it is a ne- 
 cessity that it should be so is one of the in- 
 tricate problems of a truth which few have 
 power to acquire. For the sole purpose of 
 asserting its existence and using it as a part 
 of the natural revelation of spiritual life, I 
 now refer to it. To those who will admit that 
 such a power exists, there is no further need 
 for argument or illustration. It is the connect- 
 ing link between two existences, which when 
 accepted, compels acceptance of that existence 
 to which it binds human life. I urge not upon 
 those who know nothing of this power, a study 
 of it. It may be beyond their attainment. It 
 may curse them if attained. But of the fact of 
 its existence, and that it always has existed, 
 I do urge careful study. It is not necessary 
 that all should penetrate the densest jungle 
 of the darkest continent of the realm of cre- 
 ated truths, in order to believe that they exist; 
 but if one soul cast by doubts upon such 
 
120 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 shores, enters the jungle, and after years of 
 struggle, ascends to the joyous light of its 
 highest mountain, accept the story of that 
 soul, and believe not only that they exist, but 
 also that the only possible road to this moun- 
 tain lies through the jungle. There is no 
 thought which so links earth to Heaven, as 
 this thought. There is no power which so 
 links earth to Hell as this power. Cherish 
 and adore the thought, but shun and escape 
 the power. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 121 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 There is nothing that tends to purity of pur- 
 pose, like worship. The motive for worship 
 may be twofold. First, reverence for the 
 object worshiped, second, a desire to become 
 like the object worshiped. The results of 
 worship are manifested in these directions ac- 
 cording to the sincerity of the worshiper. This 
 truth is open to every day observance. The 
 soul which worships a Divine Being in sincer- 
 ity becomes like unto its conceptions of that 
 Divine Being. It reverences whom it worships. 
 The conceptions of the Divine Being which 
 now prevail are different from the conceptions 
 of the same Being, which prevailed in the 
 early periods of his worship by the human 
 race. Man's present conceptions of him are 
 more nearly correct than were his first concep- 
 tions of him. This is the result of man's 
 worship of him through the ages of human 
 worship. It these conceptions have changed, 
 it follows that they will change; and that the 
 
122 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 change which -will come must be in the direc- 
 tion of a perfect conception of him. To attain 
 that perfection is beyond the limit of the 
 powers of human conception. It is likewise 
 beyond the limit of the powers of conception 
 of those who are superior to the human race. 
 This being the purpose and the result of wor- 
 ship, the same worship of the same Divine 
 Being will be continued without end by all 
 those who choose such worship in sincerity 
 and with freedom of will, whether that choice 
 be made on earth, or in spiritual existence. 
 This choice is presented to the human soul 
 but once during its existence. If that be in 
 its human life, its choice then made is final. If 
 it is impossible that it should make such choice 
 in human life, for lack of that knowledge 
 which is necessary for a choice, then the 
 choice will come with the knowledge, and 
 when made will be equally final. The soul 
 sincerely choosing the worship of the Divine 
 Being, may have conceptions concerning him 
 which are monstrous in their error, yet the 
 worship of such soul is none the less true wor- 
 ship, because of these misconceptions; and ii 
 it sincerely persists in its worship its concep- 
 tions will be gradually changed in the direction 
 of perfection. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 123 
 
 Without the possibility of ever attaining 
 this perfection the changes will ever be in 
 that direction. This is the course of the soul 
 which worships. The opposite is true of the 
 soul which worships not. At first it has a con- 
 ception o # f the Divine Being, which conception 
 may be more nearly correct than that of the 
 ignorant worshiper. Failing to worship, such 
 soul gradually looses its conceptions, first be- 
 cause of doubts and uncertainties, and later 
 through disbelief in the one concerning whom 
 it doubts. Its conceptions tend from the truth 
 as steadily as those of the worshiper tend to- 
 wards the truth, until finally they are merged 
 in unbelief. Unbelief is denial of God's ex- 
 istence whether out spoken or suppressed. As 
 such soul starts so will it ever continue. In 
 human life it may retrace its steps, but in 
 spiritual existence it cannot. In this truth we 
 find the principle upon which the two states of 
 the soul in spiritual existence depends. Is it 
 not reasonable that my statement be true? 
 Then is it not reasonable that you should ac- 
 cept that which my statement teaches? Will 
 it satisfy any of the inconsistencies which have 
 presented themselves to your mind in consider- 
 ing the moral status here and hereafter of 
 
124 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 those who worship and of those who do not? 
 Follow me then to the conclusion of this truth. 
 
 To that end I take up first the condition and 
 the course of the soul which worships. Such 
 soul first believes in an object worthy of wor- 
 ship. In that belief it studies continuously 
 the attributes of the being it worships. It 
 accepts all that is revealed to it concerning 
 that being, and what is not revealed to it, it 
 assumes according to its highest idea of per- 
 fection. To every worshiper the object of its 
 worship is perfect. To worship is to strive to 
 imitate. The two are inseparable. Therefore 
 the worshiper is ever striving to imitate the 
 highest ideal of perfection, of which he is ca- 
 pable. This is true without reference to the 
 moral development or intelligence of the wor- 
 shiper. 
 
 In this connection I give you another thought 
 which is as important as this one. It is this. 
 The Divine Being is revealed to the soul of 
 man inversely as is the degree of his intelli- 
 gence. Revelation comes through the spiritual 
 nature alone. The less the development of 
 the intellectual nature, the more readily does 
 the spiritual nature assert itself and assume 
 control of the soul. This is the law of spirit- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 125 
 
 ual and of intellectual development, and to 
 this law there is no exception. It therefore 
 follows that the soul which has no intellectual 
 development has the greatest desire for wor- 
 ship, and is the most easily influenced by wor- 
 ship. Then would I argue against intellectual 
 development? Not in any sense whatever. 
 The argument is this. Begin with the devel- 
 opment of the spiritual nature, and keep it 
 ever in advance of the intellectual. I would 
 rather be a soul utterly devoid of intelligence, 
 possessing spiritual perception, than to possess 
 the greatest intellectual powers, and to be de- 
 void of spiritual perception. Both states are 
 possible to the human race, but neither is nec- 
 essary. The soul possesses power to choose 
 its own spiritual state in human life, and this 
 being true whatever state it does occupy at 
 death, is its own free choice. 
 
 Now I start with a soul as God endows it 
 and places it on earth. 
 
 Its first conscious impulse is to know some- 
 thing about its future existence. The thought 
 of such an existence is no sooner consciously 
 present than it feels a desire for such an ex- 
 istences, To this truth there is no exception. 
 This desire tends towards worship. If influ- 
 
126 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 enced by it worship follows naturally. Wor- 
 ship begets thoughts of the object worshiped, 
 which becomes its ideal of perfection. These 
 thoughts arouse a desire to imitate this ideal 
 of perfection. If this desire is then permitted 
 to lead the soul, it does strive to imitate its 
 ideal. This elevates the soul morally and de- 
 velops its spiritual nature, no matter how de- 
 based its ideal may be. The spiritual nature 
 thus aroused takes firm hold of the soul and 
 dominates it. Now should begin intellectual 
 development through which the souls ideal 
 may be constantly raised, but will never be 
 destroyed. Urge forward intellectual progress 
 to its utmost degree; push it to the highest 
 sphere of human knowledge and it will never 
 overtake or control the spiritual nature. It 
 may so change the soul's ideal that that which 
 was the object of its worship when it started, 
 is monstrous in comparison with that which it 
 now worships, yet these two ideals are and al- 
 ways must be the same Uncreated God, wor- 
 shiped now. as then, according to the soul's 
 power of conceiving truth. 
 
 Death, human death, comes to this soul ; it 
 ceases not for a moment of time to will, to 
 think, to reason, to perceive, to worship and 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 127 
 
 to love. To it death is a new revelation of 
 divine love, a realization of hopes, a widen- 
 ing out of intellectual powers, not in the line 
 of physical knowledge, but in the line of spir- 
 itual understanding. Standing thus upon the 
 first heights of this new-found existence, in the 
 clear light of spiritual conception, it reviews 
 its life from its first conscious thoughts, and 
 at ever) 7 step, in every desire, in every effort, 
 it sees written the love of him whom it wor- 
 ships. Up, up, along the pathway of its hu- 
 man life, that love now shines radiant. Had 
 it been blind that it had walked that pathway, 
 and not been conscious of that love? There 
 were many rough places, many severe trials, 
 along that earthly journey, but there is no 
 place where the pathway is now hidden from 
 the light of that love. The saddest spots of 
 all, the saddest hours of human life, are those 
 where human fellowships, human companion- 
 ships ended; then shadowed in such depths of 
 gloom, and by such unbroken mists as to com- 
 pletely hide his love. The mists have risen, 
 the gloom is gone, and these spots are now as 
 bright as any along that way, for God's love 
 now shines upon, even them, even them. 
 With ecstatic joy that soul now worships 
 
128 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the same uncreated Being, worshiped inearth, 
 and yet not with the same conceptions of him 
 which it had on earth, for when it compares 
 its last and highest earthly conception of him, 
 with its first and lowest earthly conception of 
 him, the difference is minute in comparison 
 with that which now removes the object of its 
 worship from that highest earthly conception. 
 In bewildering rapture this soul then turns its 
 thoughts to that which is beyond, and if to it 
 the life of earth now seems radient with the 
 love of God, the revelation to it of the life 
 which is to come, is beyond the power of its 
 human conception; and that which is beyond 
 conception must forever be beyond expression. 
 By such limit are you limited on earth, by 
 such limit am I limited when giving my 
 thoughts to earth. 
 
 Beyond this I seek not to go in this chapter. 
 The one thought I wish to impress most of 
 all is this, that a consciousness of the love of 
 God is the source of all true happiness, whether 
 it be in earth or in spiritual existence. The 
 conditions of human life bestow that which 
 adds to such happiness when these conditions 
 are rightly used; but these conditions do not 
 survive human death, neither do other condi- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 129 
 
 tions of happiness assume their place. The 
 source I name then becomes the only source 
 of happiness known to the soul. It therefore 
 follows of necessity that if this source is un- 
 known, happiness is likewise unknown. 
 
 I now go back and begin with the life of 
 another soul. It is like unto the first in all 
 its natural endowments. Its first conscious 
 thoughts of a future existence have come to 
 it; the desire for such an existence is aroused 
 within it. That desire draws it toward wor- 
 ship, but the soul resists the thought of wor- 
 ship, for worship signifies obedience to and an 
 effort to imitate the object worshiped, and obe- 
 dience is not its desire, neither does it seek to 
 imitate for that likewise would require obedi- 
 ence. In this uncertain state this soul stops 
 to consider. It asks what is to be gained by 
 obedience and worship, and what is to be lost 
 through disobedience and a failure to worship; 
 and with this thought before it, it seeks first 
 to understand the ultimate effect of each course. 
 To reach a conclusion it begins to study, and 
 enters upon investigation. It exists in a nat- 
 ural world, and with material thoughts it 
 proposes to discern spiritual truths. Its first 
 step is a choice; not necessarily final, but final 
 
130 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 unless convinced against its will thereafter. 
 Applying material thoughts to spiritual revela- 
 tions is its first mistake, for the two do not be- 
 long together. It is not possible that spiritual 
 truth should be revealed to the soul without 
 the use of some material thought, hence God's 
 first revelation to the soul is through material 
 figures. This is all that it with an undevel- 
 oped spiritual nature can understand. Now if 
 it accepts the figure and through it seeks the 
 truth of which the figure is the type or sym- 
 bol, then the figure vanishes from its thoughts 
 as a useless thing; but if it seeks to accept 
 the figure as the truth and then to measure it 
 by material thought, even the budding intellect 
 of the child is gaining the ascendency. In this 
 the soul views with doubt that which it mis- 
 takes for revelation. The intellectual nature 
 now aroused is antagonizing the spiritual na- 
 ture likewise aroused. That is a contest the 
 result of which must be spiritual life or spir- 
 itual death, as the spiritual nature or the in- 
 tellectual, triumphs. It is not begun and 
 ended in a day; it may not be ended in a 
 month or year, but it will end in the triumph 
 of the one and the subjection of the other. 
 If you think this is a figurative expression of 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 131 
 
 a hidden truth, and is not meant literally as 
 spoken, and as a warning to those who are in 
 that state while they read these words, then 
 turn and re-read the first chapter of this vol- 
 ume, for therein is my illustration of the truth 
 which I now declare. Can any soul doubt 
 now that I can see a purpose in the creation 
 of a nature that was powerless to escape that 
 struggle, and that that nature was so linked 
 with me in human life, that I could know its 
 every impulse? This thought I will not fol- 
 low; it belongs not here. 
 
 The conflict between the intellectual and the 
 spiritual natures of the soul, I need not fol- 
 low. In the soul whose course I am following 
 in this allegory, the intellectual finally tri- 
 umphs, the spiritual is subdued. Its resist- 
 ance has ceased, it is shriveling back into 
 an embryotic state utterly useless, and hope- 
 lessly destroyed. That soul no longer knows 
 that it has a spiritual nature, for its existence 
 is no longer manifested to it through the ex- 
 ercise of any spiritual powers. It is at rest 
 so far as it can ever know rest. Ask this soul 
 whence it came and what the purpose of its ex- 
 istence; it can not answer. Ask it what is 
 its destiny and what will be its final state; no 
 
132 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 answer. Ask it what happiness is and how 
 long it shall continue; the answer comes, "Hu- 
 man happiness is the enjoyment of human con- 
 ditions, what is beyond is alike unknown to 
 all." 
 
 According to its impulses, and as best it 
 may, this soul enjoys these human conditions. 
 It is a joy which the brute creation shares 
 alike with man, except as man adds thereto, 
 through intellectual powers denied the brute. 
 Beyond this this soul is powerless to know 
 happiness, because it is powerless to know its 
 source. A mighty effort of its human will 
 might yet call into activity the dormant pow- 
 ers of its spiritual nature, for the sovereignty 
 of the human will is so perfect that intellect 
 must do its bidding, even to the surrender of 
 its dominion over the spiritual nature. 
 
 The will that has stood aloof until the con- 
 test is ended, can in rarest instances be brought 
 to assert this power, in human life, and be- 
 yond that life its power is lost forever. 
 
 This soul therefore lives, enjoying what it 
 may of that which is, in blank uncertainty of 
 that which is to be. Thus it dies. Its earthly 
 existence passes into the spiritual with a loss 
 alone of that which belongs to earth. It rec- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 133 
 
 ognizes its own existence, unchanged in all 
 but this. What is that existence to it? What 
 it is to it, it is to all who have chosenits part, 
 whether such choice has been positive as its 
 was, or negative only as is the choice of many. 
 He who refuses, through positive effort to 
 acquire spiritual truth, negatively chooses to 
 remain ignorant of that truth, and ignorance, 
 whether positively or negatively chosen is the 
 same in its results. What then remains to this 
 soul and to all others in like ignorance? Mem- 
 ory of human life back to the point where 
 memory fades into unconscious existence, which 
 point recedes from the beginning of that exis- 
 tence, as the soul advances in its existence, 
 so that the memory of human life and of hu- 
 man happiness must eventually fade away. 
 The power to think remains, and will forever 
 remain. All intellectual powers which per- 
 tain to human knowledge, pass gradually into 
 oblivion, for human knowledge can not main- 
 tain existence, where it cannot be acquired. 
 Then in the great hereafter all that the intel- 
 lect now boasts of will be gone and the soul 
 be reduced to mere existence. For such exis- 
 tence it can see no purpose, and seeing no pur- 
 pose it can see no end. On, on, forever on, 
 
134 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 without one hope of change, except it be to 
 sink deeper into forgetfulness of that which is 
 past, and into uncertainty of that which is to 
 come. A life purposeless, reaching back into 
 oblivion, and forward into uncertainty; this 
 and nothing more, and this forever. That 
 which accompanies this life and is the neces- 
 sary result of it, belongs not to this subject. 
 It will be treated of separately. Into such a 
 life the soul which I am following enters im- 
 mediately at death. The seeming want of 
 change in powers is gratifying. The fact of 
 continued, individual, conscious existence is 
 assuring, and it is the first impulse of that 
 soul to declare that it was right. There is no 
 God, there is nothing greater than itself. It 
 accepts this as truth and that belief never 
 leaves it. There is no knowledge of a Creator 
 in that state, neither can there ever be. The 
 name of God may be used as it is used in 
 earth, by those who know him not. ■ They 
 may even offer to that name hypocritical wor- 
 ship, in form alone, for God is unknown and 
 true worship is impossible where he is un- 
 known. While intellect remains, through mem- 
 ory, it serves the passing needs of the soul, 
 lost in purposeless existence. Herein lies dan- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 135 
 
 ger to those whom it is possible for such souls 
 to reach, a danger that has no parallel in hu- 
 man experience, from which few ever escape 
 who are exposed to it. 
 
 These two spiritual states are possible to 
 every soul to which life is given. In either 
 case they begin in human existence, and ex- 
 tend throughout spiritual existence, with the 
 single exception that the soul with developed 
 spiritual nature and knowledge of its Creator 
 still possesses and must forever possess both 
 the power and the freedom to disobey the 
 commands of its Creator, and wilful disobedi- 
 ence of his commands whether it be in human 
 or spiritual life, is sin, and the effect of sin, 
 whether committed in human or in spiritual 
 life, is spiritual death. What spiritual death 
 is I will explain hereafter. 
 
 The soul to which is given human life be- 
 yond the period of moral accountability, must 
 choose which of these spiritual states it will 
 enter, and that choice is generally final. There 
 are few who enter into the spiritual state of 
 knowledge who destroy that knowledge by wil- 
 ful sin. There are few who enter into the 
 spiritual state" of unbelief and want of knowl- 
 edge, who ever seek that from which they have 
 
136 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 departed. There are many who linger along 
 the boundary line between these two states, 
 without knowledge in which they are. Some 
 through indifference, some through a struggle 
 between their intellectual and their spiritual 
 natures. Others are self deceived, believing 
 that they are in the state of spiritual knowl- 
 edge, while they are actually in its opposite. 
 Such self-deception is not difficult to discover, 
 if its discovery is sought. There is no possi- 
 bility of a soul being self deceived, when it 
 seeks to avoid it. To all therefore is the 
 thought presented by the words which I have 
 spoken, what is my spiritual state, and into 
 which would I enter if death removed me at 
 this instant. 
 
 I am not writing these words so much to 
 urge reform in human conduct, as to aid those 
 who have a doubt, to determine what their 
 spiritual state is. If through what I say they 
 can determine this then all else rests with 
 their own free choice. I cannot influence that; 
 no human being, not even their Creator can 
 control such choice. 
 
 It must come from a desire of the soul, upon 
 which it wills to act. Thus willing I may 
 aid it in its search after spiritual understand- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 137 
 
 ing, this and nothing more. Now admitting 
 the truth of what I say it is the will of the 
 soul to seek this knowledge, or to shun it. If 
 it is to seek it, then I can aid you in the search; 
 if it is to shun it then none can aid you, not 
 even your Creator, for by his gifts to you he 
 has limited his own power over you. Let 
 your own soul answer to itself which it chooses. 
 If it is to seek spiritual understanding, then 
 let me lead you to it, in my own way, neither 
 urging nor exhorting, neither contending nor 
 disputing, but simply bringing to your thoughts 
 the beautiful truth of our Creator's unchanging 
 love, revealed through all that he has created, 
 and by all that he has spoken. If what I 
 shall say meets your disapproval, let it pass 
 unaccepted, for no soul can accept every truth, 
 as truth, nor reject every error as error; but 
 every soul can accept enough of truth and re- 
 ject enough of error, to satisfy its longings for 
 spiritual understanding; and this is all that 
 is required of it in human life. To follow me 
 thus is not the only road to spiritual under- 
 standing. It is only one more added to the 
 many already open to you. If you are earn- 
 estly seeking this truth along another way, 
 turn not from that search or lessen its earnest- 
 
138 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 ness. That which is the object of your soul's pur- 
 suit is the truth into which I hope to lead you, if 
 you fail in other efforts. There is nothing 
 promised you which is not now realized by 
 many, and that ma) 7 not be realized by you 
 independent of anything I ma) 7 say. That I 
 can make its realization easier is my hope. 
 To this study then I invite you. Realizing 
 what success, and what failure means, to your 
 soul, I shall speak not one word without a 
 purpose, and that purpose will be to make the 
 comprehension of spiritual truth easier to the 
 human soul. Should this purpose lead me to 
 levity, to romance, to references wholly per- 
 sonal remember through it all that behind 
 these things this purpose lies. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 139 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The thought must have come to many, in 
 what then is the pleasure of Heaven greater 
 than is the pleasure of earth, and in what is 
 the unhappiness of Hell greater than is the 
 unhappiness of earth. It is to answer this 
 thought, whether it has troubled any who read 
 this or not, that I now give the truths stated 
 in this chapter. That they may in a measure 
 satisfy this thought, is one purpose of them; 
 that they may prepare the minds of those 
 who read them for truths that they may lead 
 up to, is another. If they appear to you to 
 be out of harmony with either purpose, then 
 let the responsibility rest wholly upon the soul 
 who is unseen and unknown, by whatever name 
 or personality you choose to call it, for the 
 thoughts are not the thoughts of him who re- 
 cords them, neither would they be recorded if 
 his own desire was the governing motive with 
 him. This I say and know, and this he will 
 confirm, if he shall ever assume to confirm or 
 
140 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 deny this statement. It was not till after my 
 death that I had any comprehension of the 
 power he uses. My last conscious words on 
 earth, were a promise to remain close to him 
 if within my power. I meant it when I pro- 
 mised, and I have faithfully kept that promise. 
 To those who know what this means, it will 
 cause no surprise, but to all others it will 
 either be a startling assertion, or a denied 
 truth. At the time of my death I was a dis- 
 believer in the power of spiritual beings mak- 
 ing their existence known to human souls, a 
 disbeliever because I had never experienced it 
 and because I could not accept it as truth. 
 When my soul passed into conscious spiritual 
 existence, I first realized its truth; but that 
 realization came with another which -was as 
 plain to me as was the realization of any nat- 
 ural law in earth. It was that I was cut off 
 from manifesting myself to him, by a law, 
 that was from the beginning of human life on 
 earth, and which must continue while that life 
 remains. Here then stood the immutable law 
 of my Creator betwixt me and the one I loved 
 on earth. His power I now understood. It 
 was the same power I now possessed, prema- 
 turely developed in his human life. I sought 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 141 
 
 to discover a reason for its development. I 
 studied the record of his life, as I had learned 
 it very imperfectly, although "Bone of his bone, 
 and flesh of his flesh, " his wife for fifteen years. 
 It was at first a mystery to me. Then was re- 
 vealed to me what I had never before known, 
 that those who are in the spiritual state called 
 Hades, Sheol, or Hell, neither know nor re- 
 gard the law which held me back from him. 
 This was the first truth that I acquired bear- 
 ing upon this restrictive law. The next was 
 that his soul had resisted for years the assaults 
 of that spiritual philosophy, which originates 
 in Hell and is accepted by so many in earth, 
 to whom it has been given directly or indirectly. 
 I saw that I had unwittingly been a party to 
 these assaults by aiding him in the develop- 
 ment of this power. I saw further that his 
 life had been one continual preparation against 
 these assaults, and for resistence to them. I 
 saw that he was safely through his trial, and 
 had escaped its harm. Here I should have 
 rested, forever grateful to our Father that he 
 had escaped, if he had rested. In the hours 
 of the deepest sorrow of his life, could he have 
 rested I should have been most happy, in the 
 knowledge of it. But for him there was yet 
 
142 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 no rest. I knew of his resolve and prayed our 
 Father that he might turn from it. Then I 
 knew that he had thrown the whole power of a 
 will that never yet had failed of its purpose 
 into an effort to break down the barriers that 
 prevented him alone and unaided in the exer- 
 cise of this power. I feared his success. I 
 saw one yield, and then another, till he had 
 acquired what he sought. Then I saw him again 
 contending and arguing with, ridiculing, de- 
 riding, or defying, as it pleased his mood, those 
 spiritual beings who were ever ready to assert 
 their presence. These were strange truths to 
 me although nothing new to him. They led 
 me to study the purpose of his life, of my 
 own, and of this premature development of a 
 spiritual power in him; and as I studied, truths 
 which I now dare not speak, came to me so 
 plainly that I could not doubt them. Then 
 there was opened up before my spiritual un- 
 derstanding such a revelation of God's purpose 
 in the creation of his sou) with its endow- 
 ments, of my soul with its endowments, of our 
 united lives on earth, of my death and his be- 
 reavement that I could not disbelieve or hesi- 
 tate to accept my part. In this there was re- 
 vealed to me another law, which is applicable 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 143 
 
 to few on earth. I studied wherein it might 
 be applicable to him, and as I studied light 
 came to me concerning it, for it stands re- 
 vealed in the Word of God, although not un- 
 derstood by men. If he had the strength to 
 bring himself within this law, then I would 
 be from under the other. In such a position 
 had he placed himself by his own act that to 
 escape this trial was now as dangerous as to 
 endure it. He had done this voluntarily, for 
 up to this time I had not sought to reveal 
 myself to him by any thought or word. I saw 
 him approach the inevitable judgment of a su- 
 preme trial. It was my opportunity and I ac- 
 cepted it. Unknown to him I led him into a 
 preparation for it, revealing myself only so far 
 as it was required, and then concealing even 
 what I had revealed. When that hour came 
 and I saw his unswerving nature true to its 
 Creator, then I knew that I was free from the 
 law which had separated us and which still 
 separated me from all other human beings. 
 That hour broke the spiritual silence that 
 death had interposed. His soul no longer re- 
 quired the protection of the law which had 
 separated us, and I was thereby freed from it. 
 This was the beginning of a new life to him; 
 
144: THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 it was the beginning of a new joy to me. That 
 life and that jo}' have been unbroken since. 
 That those who desire may know some little 
 of each, I now assert my right to refer to 
 some things which illustrate both. If it should 
 be thought impossible that such a life should 
 be lived, then pass this chapter by unheeded. 
 It contributes nothing to the happiness of either 
 that you should believe it, and it takes noth- 
 ing from that happiness that you should dis- 
 believe it, therefore those whose life it is seek 
 neither belief nor disbelief concerning it. 
 
 My first effort was to reveal myself to him 
 with such certainty that I might bestow upon 
 him the happiness of such assurance. This 
 was not an easy thing to do. If you will stop 
 to consider by what means you would identify 
 a person on earth, if in your communication 
 with that person, you were deprived of sight, 
 hearing, feeling, and all physical sources of 
 knowledge, then you may form some idea of 
 the difficulty of such identification by him of 
 me. The first thought probably that suggests 
 itself, is that I could remind him of the little 
 or of the important events that happened to 
 us in our lives together. This I tried, and 
 without number recalled such incidents, often 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 14=5 
 
 in the most unexpected manner. I commented 
 on our mutual friends and our relation to them 
 past and present, upon the incidents of his 
 daily life, at home, at his office, socially, finan- 
 cially, religiously; I followed him upon his 
 journeys away from home and recounted that 
 which had happened, even things forgotten or 
 overlooked by him at the time. I gave him 
 words of true affection, love that was beyond 
 the power that was mine on earth. Then I 
 gave him assurances that were spiritually ap- 
 parent to his understanding. Through all this 
 through months, he doubted my identity. To 
 doubt was his nature and to change that na- 
 ture Was' alike impossible to him and to me. 
 How then did I at last succeed in revealing 
 myself to his soul beyond a shadow of doubt. 
 By little things which showed my love. Just one 
 or two instances to illustrate this thought. 
 One cold winter evening he went to his room 
 to talk with me. The room was but partially 
 warmed and he was chilly. I greeted him 
 with words of love and then refused to talk 
 with him while he remained in so uncomforta- 
 ble and unsafe physical condition. It was a 
 disappointment to him and he persisted. I 
 refused, and that ended it, for without my 
 
146 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 concurrent will he know he was as powerless 
 as I was without his. At another time his 
 thoughts revealed to me that he was appre- 
 hensive of unusual severity of cold during the 
 night. His room was the most exposed and 
 the coldest of his house. Those occupied by 
 the other members of his family were much 
 more comfortable for such a night as he appre- 
 hended. It was not a matter of discomfort, 
 or inconvenience to any member of his family 
 that one of those rooms should be vacated for 
 him that night and that he should occupy it, 
 his own remaining unoccupied. This I insisted 
 should be done. At first he refused me most 
 positively; then I reasoned with him,* begging 
 him for his own health and comfort to do it. 
 The old love which he recognized in such re- 
 quests and the persistence with which I urged 
 my wishes upon him, revealed Julia to him 
 more plainly than all else I could say or do. 
 He yielded to this request because he saw that 
 it was love which prompted it and prudence 
 on his part dictated such a course. It was the 
 powerof such little things that won confidence 
 and full recognition. Then I began to lay be- 
 fore him greater truths than he had yet dreamed 
 of, duties that came with opportunities, duties 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 147 
 
 that were the outgrowth of opportunities; 
 showing him that the truths which he had 
 already learned and those which were now 
 within his reach, belonged to all who should 
 seek them and not to himself alone; that a 
 time would come when a duty would become 
 so plain, that he could not escape it, and that 
 duty would be to give some of his experiences 
 and some of these truths to the public. Month 
 after month I kept this truth before him and 
 to fix it firmly I had him write out in detail 
 all that is contained in this volume, and much 
 that is not contained in it. That manuscript 
 he never decided to publish, and would not 
 now publish it in full if I insisted upon it. 
 It is the basis of these thoughts and that is 
 what I intended it should be. It is now obso- 
 lete, having served its purpose, and he will 
 destroy or preserve it as his own judgment 
 dictates. That part of it not given is so 
 largely personal, that with it the public has 
 but little concern. To those to whom personal 
 interest, personal relationships, and personal 
 associations in human life, bound me by a 
 personal love, and to those to whom some 
 words from me might make plain the mysteries 
 of their own thoughts, I have dictated words 
 
148 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 which appear to me either comforting or prof- 
 itable. The personal relations of such, with 
 him to whom I gave them are such that they 
 need not hesitate to ask and receive them, if 
 they have either interest or confidence enough 
 to desire them; otherwise they will neither 
 benefit nor interest. 
 
 My thoughts after death turned quickly to 
 those on earth who were so dear to me. Their 
 happiness and their welfare were as precious 
 to me then as they ever had been. Had I the 
 power to aid them how quickly I would have 
 done it. I recognized the separation and at 
 first supposed that it was final, so far as their 
 earthly lives were concerned. Then came the 
 knowledge that [ have referred to, and with it 
 the thought that could I be freed from the law 
 which separated me from him whose powers 
 were then revealed to me, I could in some 
 measure guard and subserve both their happi- 
 ness and their welfare. As I watched his pro- 
 gress toward that which could alone free me 
 from that law, I matured my judgment. as to 
 what I should urge upon him. That judgment 
 was founded upon knowledge acquired in hu- 
 man life, and upon knowledge revealed to me 
 in spiritual life. I could read his thoughts 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 149 
 
 as in human life I had read books. I studied 
 them long before he knew that I was near 
 him. His thoughts were first of my loss to 
 him, then of my loss to the one who was now 
 the nearest of all on earth, our only child, 
 then of the long dreary life that lay before 
 them. The lifting of the shadow from off that 
 life was not then within the range of his 
 thoughts for he then scarcely hoped that I 
 should be revealed to him or that another 
 should ever take my place to make glad a des- 
 olate household. It was thus that I measured 
 his thoughts, his hopes, his fears, when at last 
 I found that I was free to reveal myself to 
 him. This I did not suddenly or plainly, for 
 to do so was impossible, not because my state- 
 ments lacked plainness, but because he lacked 
 belief in them. I quickly announced that an- 
 other should assume the relation to them from 
 which death had removed me, and should do 
 for them what I could no longer do, minister 
 to their human wants, and be to them that 
 which affection makes human beings to each 
 other, companions. I told him that in the 
 wide world were many noble souls to whom 
 purity of purpose, fidelity to duties, imposed 
 or assumed, and wealth of human and divine 
 
150 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 affection, belonged as their created endow- 
 ments, but of all whose hearts had ever been 
 made known to me on earth, or in spiritual 
 life, there was one, whom I had known as a 
 child maturing into womanhood, of whom I 
 had been a loved and a loving counsellor, she 
 the confiding pupil, who would of all others 
 become to him most nearly what I had been. 
 That no human being other than she, could be 
 to him and to our daughter, what this woman 
 might become. Fifteen years of time had sep- 
 arated her from me, so far as human associa- 
 tion goes, but time had neither lessened her 
 love for me, nor my admiration of her wifely 
 qualities. All this was strange to him; he 
 had never seen the one I told him of; he knew 
 her name as one of fifty or a hundred others 
 of my former pupils in a distant state, but 
 neither knew more nor less of her than of the 
 others. He heard my words and called them, 
 folly; the thought that he should ever seek 
 the hand of one so utterly unknown. 
 
 Night after night, as he came to his room 
 and talked with me I kept this name before 
 him. I wove thoughts of her into my prayers 
 for him and for our child. I warned, I coun- 
 seled, and at last I upbraided. The human 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 151 
 
 heart yields more readily to thoughts of love 
 than of any other and my purpose was accom- 
 plished; I had him interested with thoughts 
 of this one person. The power which is wield- 
 ed by the pen becomes mighty, when the pen 
 becomes an exponent of a sincere desire. That 
 sincere desire on his part was for personal 
 acquaintance. Therefore in the course of 
 months the formal consolations brought by my 
 death and the formal answer, had matured ac- 
 quaintance, in all but sight and personal asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 A train of cars stopped as usual one morn- 
 ing at a little station in East Tennessee. 
 On the platform among others stood a woman, 
 wearing a white rose on her bosom, that she 
 might be known to one who stepped from the 
 cars, to her equally unknown. 
 
 Thus they met for the first time in their 
 lives, utter strangers in all except that knowl- 
 edge which one heart can give to another, al- 
 though hundreds of miles separate them. 
 There is nothing so new and yet nothing so 
 old as the story of that love which binds hu- 
 man hearts together; and of this story nothing 
 more need be written. This much serves to 
 illustrate the truth which 1 am seeking to im- 
 
152 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 press. Of the influence which caused him to 
 seek out and then to woo one so strange, she 
 remained in entire ignorance till after their 
 marriage. After the matter from which this 
 volume has been taken, had been prepared in 
 1886, I gave to him a series of thoughts in- 
 tended alone for this one soul whom I then 
 saw would take the place made vacant by my 
 death. Their purpose was to bring her mind 
 by slow degrees to realize a truth, for which 
 she had not only no preparation, but against 
 which the prejudices and the teachings of her 
 entire life had fortified her. All this we talked 
 over together. I promised that we would win 
 her assistance and her assent; that I knew 
 enough of her great heart's love for me, and of 
 the prudence of him through whom alone I 
 could reach her, to assure me of this result-. 
 Yet it was plainly agreed and covenanted be- 
 tween us, that if our united efforts in this di- 
 rection failed, and the knowledge of this truth 
 and the exercise of this power, rendered her 
 unhappy, that I on my part would never again 
 reveal myself to him, through this power 
 whether he continued to exercise it or not; and 
 he on his part, that he would cease to use 
 this power, and would never again seek the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 153 
 
 consolation of my presence through it. A 
 covenant means more than the thoughtless un- 
 derstand. It cannot be broken without sin. 
 This I knew and this he had then learned im- 
 perfectly. 
 
 This covenant I required of him and this 
 covenant I gave to him, before he entered into 
 covenant with her as husband and wife. 
 
 Her happiness therefore was to be by our 
 will as it is by God's law, paramount to that 
 of any other soul, wherever existing. There 
 is not everything connected with the philoso- 
 phy of this truth that is calculated to make 
 those who have this knowledge happy. His 
 human life imposes upon him human respon- 
 sibilities both to himself and to those who by 
 nature look to him, calls for human compan- 
 ionship to share these responsibilities, and 
 charges him with duties which pertain to his 
 social and business relations of life. If this 
 power and its enjoyment conflicts with either 
 then it must be subordinated to them, even to 
 its entire destruction. This truth he then rec- 
 ognized, and had deliberately accepted. It 
 was in this state of mind that the hour ap- 
 proached when he was to leave his home to 
 enter upon new relationships under new cove- 
 
154 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 nants. The papers being prepared for her who 
 was to become his wife, occupied the spare 
 hours he gave to this work to the last. That 
 last hour was reserved for thoughts which were 
 intended for none but the two who were con- 
 scious of them. The future was before him, 
 darkly uncertain, the past was radiant with 
 the thoughts of our happy hours together. 
 This hour between the then future and the 
 past, is one of the few hours of his life, the 
 impress of which that life must ever bear. It 
 tested the strength of his nature, his belief in 
 spiritual existence and in spiritual influences, 
 his belief in me as one .whose first thought 
 and highest desire, was his happiness and wel- 
 fare, his confidence in his own judgment, and 
 in the wisdom of the step he was about to 
 take, as all these had never been tested before. 
 Do you wonder that emotions such as few ever 
 have or ever can experience, were the out- 
 growth of that hour's talk with me? Do you 
 wonder that in that hour he lived over the past 
 of a strange but happy life, and peered wist- 
 fully into a hidden future? A future which he 
 was powerless to read, but which I could read 
 to him mysteriously. It is in such an hour 
 that it is permitted to those to whom God 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 155 
 
 gives understanding to reveal it to those who 
 in their weakness, and in their hour of trial 
 cry out for it. This I then did as was my right 
 and power, and with an exclamation that 
 thrilled his soul through and through, and yet 
 does at its recall, I dismissed him. Months 
 after when she who had become his wife had 
 learned the truth from its beginning to that 
 hour, and had given her sincere consent, was 
 I permitted to greet him whom I had thus 
 dismissed. Since then together we three have 
 worked, as we two had worked before, and as 
 the years go by the revelation of God's love 
 in ordering the affairs of human life, for the 
 welfare and highest possible happiness of his 
 creatures, is made plainer to those on earth as 
 it is to me in Heaven. 
 
156 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The ultimate destiny of the human soul is 
 a question which has interested the mind of 
 man since it was first created. To that thought 
 I ask the attention of those who have followed 
 me thus far. 
 
 It is generally assumed that the life which 
 is bestowed on man is everlasting. This as- 
 sumption springs from the intuitive desire of 
 the human soul that it should be so. This 
 desire is bestowed by the Creator upon the 
 soul, and this being admitted the truth of that 
 which is universally and intuitively desired, 
 can not be doubted. The eternal love of our 
 Creator forbids that he should bestow by cre- 
 ation a desire that is impossible of realization. 
 This is the same argument by which I sought 
 to establish the truth of spiritual existence, 
 and it is as strong in the latter as in the for- 
 mer application. To assert that existence is 
 everlasting amounts to nothing at all as proof 
 of it. But to show you that it is taught by 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 157 
 
 the nature of man as it has been created, is 
 proof of it until a stronger argument can be 
 shown, why that life should not be everlasting. 
 What is it to live forever? Measure the pow- 
 ers of the human intellect, and answer me, 
 whether it is within these powers to compre- 
 hend it. Whatever your answer, I declare that 
 it is not. The human- soul is endowed with all 
 the powers it ever can possess. Some are de- 
 veloped in human life and some remain unde- 
 veloped until spiritual existence develops 
 them. These latter are however, not intellect- 
 ual powers, and the measure of man's intel- 
 lectual ability to comprehend life eternal, 
 without beginning and everlasting, without 
 end, will not be greater in spiritual existence 
 than it is or may be in human existence. 
 Therefore when you measure the ability, in 
 this respect of the developed human intellect, 
 you measure with equal certainty the ability 
 of the same intellect in spiritual existence. 
 Can, therefore, the most perfectly developed 
 human intellect conceive of an existence which 
 is without beginning? It is impossible that it 
 should thus conceive. The thought is beyond 
 the limit of its highest powers. Neither can 
 it any more conceive of a life which shall 
 
158 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 have no end, than it can of an existence which 
 is without beginning. The intellect which is 
 given to the human soul can conceive of a 
 span of existence, possibly varying somewhat 
 with the strength and development of the in- 
 tellectual powers, but varying but little be- 
 tween the highest and the lowest development. 
 The human intellect is limited by its own ex- 
 periences and by the experiences of other be- 
 ings possessing intellects like unto its own. 
 The united experience of all such intellects 
 is the sum of all human knowledge, and is the 
 ultimate measure of human knowledge. To 
 this measure spiritual experiences can add 
 nothing. The experiences of spiritual exist- 
 ence pertain not to intellectual power, but to 
 spiritual understanding alone. Therefore, if 
 the thought of an everlasting existence, is be- 
 yond the power of human and spiritual intel- 
 lect, its conception will be forever an impos- 
 sibility to the soul. By what then will the 
 soul ever be limited? It will look forward 
 into life to come until its power faileth it; it 
 will look backward to its beginning as long as 
 it has power to perceive the beginning, and 
 the span between these two limits is all of 
 eternity that the soul can ever know. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 159 
 
 Do I mean that it may sometime fail to con- 
 ceive of its own beginning and of its life on 
 earth? If the measure of intellectual power 
 is as I have stated it to be, then this truth is 
 undeniable. I affirm both because I can con- 
 ceive of both being true. Intellect is assisted 
 by memory; it can act without memory in all 
 things where memory is not called into use, 
 but in nothing that is past can it act without 
 memory. Then what is memory, what its pur- 
 pose and its function? Memory is that which 
 unites the past with the present, by preserv- 
 ing to the soul the experiences and the im- 
 pressions of the past. Its purpose is that the 
 span of life may be -lengthened backward, that 
 the soul may profit to-day by the experiences 
 and impressions of yesterday; and its function 
 is to preserve such experiences and impres- 
 sions to the soul, so long as they may be prof- 
 itable to it. When it has fulfilled its purpose, 
 and the experiences and impressions of the 
 soul cease to profit it, then memory's function 
 ceases. We call it forgetfulness. It is noth- 
 ing more nor less than the burial of a dead 
 past in that grave from which there is no res- 
 urrection. This is experience to the human 
 race, in the short span of one human life. 
 
160 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 But to make it plainer, we take memory in its 
 earliest existence. There is a period in the 
 life of every human being where memory fails 
 to recall existence. The impressions and ex- 
 periences of the life which preceded this 
 period are not recalled by memory. Why? Be- 
 cause they are of no value to the soul. There 
 is no period of the human life of which this 
 truth cannot be spoken. It is true after the 
 first conscious experiences and impressions of 
 human life, and it is true forever after that 
 throughout time and eternity. The infant, re- 
 calls impressions and experiences while help- 
 less in its mother's arms, but such impressions 
 and experiences must then be of very recent 
 occurrence, to be recalled, because the opening 
 intellect can not be then benefited, by those 
 more remote. As that intellect develops, 
 those which are more remote no longer benefit 
 it and they are forgotten, and by so much is 
 this opening period of conscious existence 
 drawn forward out of the past, towards the 
 then present. During the first year of life this 
 period of conscious existence advances nearly 
 as rapidly as does the period of present exist- 
 ence ; during the next few years the former 
 slackens its pace while the latter continues con- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 161 
 
 stant, and thus it is continued through human 
 life on earch; memory ever serving the soul's 
 intellectual power, by reproducing that which 
 may benefit it, and dropping out of its grasp 
 all that is useless. Shall there ever come to 
 the soul a period of existence wherein the ex- 
 periences and impressions of human life can no 
 longer benefit it? Answer this question for 
 yourself. If there does, then ask not whether 
 memory retains them. You know the answer 
 as I know it. There never has been created, 
 and there never will be created, any physical 
 substance, any intellectual endowment, any 
 human faculty, passion, power, or sensation, or 
 any spiritual power or endowment, that shall 
 not cease to exist as soon as it has fulfilled the 
 purpose of its creation, and thereby become 
 useless. Measure your every power human and 
 spiritual by this rule and you have all the 
 knowledge which I now have, as to which sur- 
 vives human death, and which are everlast- 
 ing. My knowledge differs alone from yours 
 in the extent to which I am able to apply 
 this rule, and you are not. If I could teach 
 you all I know of the application of this rule 
 to each, then you would know as clearly as I 
 now know the destiny of each. To the degree 
 
162 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 to which such teaching is possible, I will lead 
 all those who seek to follow me. It is a labor 
 of years to those who undertake it. This, ex- 
 perience has taught, one as it will teach all 
 who follow this pathway to spiritual knowl- 
 edge. The acquirement of it cannot be hast- 
 ened, neither can the method of that acquire- 
 ment be changed. From what I have said it 
 follows, whether you perceive the truth or not, 
 that in the everlasting existence of the human 
 soul there will come a period when that soul 
 will recall alone its spiritual existence, and its 
 spiritual impressions. Then it will no longer 
 have need of those which were human, or ac- 
 quired through human life, and memory shall 
 fail to preserve them. Then human life and 
 all that it bestows shall be buried in the grave 
 of an eternity that is past, but the soul's con- 
 scious life and individual identity, shall not 
 be effected thereby in any degree whatever. 
 Are you any the less conscious of your present 
 existence, and individuality, because you have 
 forgotten that same existence and individuality 
 when you were a babe in your mother's arms? 
 Then neither shall you ever be any the less 
 conscious of either because of this truth. 
 
 Now if I have made this truth clear to your 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 163 
 
 understanding then may I also make clear an- 
 other truth, for which purpose alone I gave 
 you this one. The thoughts, which I have al- 
 ready advanced show that there are no horrors 
 in Hell such as are depicted to many human 
 beings, and in some form or other to all human 
 beings; and lest some soul should deceive 
 itself into believing that there is no Hell I 
 present the truths which follow. I speak noth- 
 ing but what I know; nothing but what every 
 soul knows which has entered into that spir- 
 itual existence called spiritual life or Heaven. 
 It is as distinctively the knowledge of that 
 existence, as physical knowledge is of that of 
 earth. It pertains to that existence alone as 
 physical knowledge pertains to human life 
 alone. It is knowledge which pertains not to 
 that spiritual existence called spiritual death 
 or Hell, neither can it be acquired in that state. 
 Therefore no soul which exists in that state 
 will ever admit or believe it. It is as posi- 
 tively hidden from such souls, as are the ex- 
 periences and the knowledge of the Christian 
 believer on earth, who knows the pardon of 
 his sins, and experiences love divine, hidden 
 from those who believe not in such experiences 
 and have not such knowledge. Can you con- 
 
164 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 vince one who has no belief in such experiences 
 or such knowledge, of their truth? Then be- 
 lieve me when I say that it is equally impos- 
 sible to persuade one in Hell of the truth of 
 what I now say. This impossibility exists be- 
 cause of the spiritual nature of those who en- 
 ter that spiritual state, which nature is the 
 result of sin and is of their own making; and 
 that this effect of sin should follow sin, is to 
 those who sin not the clearest proof of our 
 Creator's eternal love that he has given. 
 The effect of sin is not a punishment, unless 
 the effect of the violation of a physical law is 
 a punishment. Some thoughtlessly call it such. 
 This is not true. When you thrust your hand 
 into fire and suffer physical pain, is that pain 
 a punishment for the violation of a physical 
 law? Is it not rather the result of that viola- 
 tion? If there was no such result what would 
 be the effect of the physical law thus violated? 
 Physical destruction of members, loss of phy- 
 sical powers, uncertainty, insecurity, and con- 
 stant fear. Think of this carefully and then 
 answer your own soul whether it does not 
 manifest a Father's care and a Father's love 
 that this physical result should follow a viola- 
 tion of this physical law. If it does then the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 165 
 
 spiritual result which follows the violation of 
 a spiritual law is no less a manifestation to 
 us of that same Father's care and love for 
 those who violate his spiritual law. 
 
 Here then is the dividing line between the 
 two spiritual states which I have named. It 
 is the power to know and recognize the results 
 of disobedience to a spiritual law, coupled with 
 a willing obedience to that law. The soul 
 may know but one spiritual law, but if it will- 
 ingly obeys that one it cannot disobey those 
 it knows not of. If it knows many spiritual 
 laws and disobeys but one, the effect is that 
 of disobedience to all. This is as true of spir- 
 itual law in human as in spiritual existence. 
 Therefore in spiritual existence effect is 
 suffered only according to knowledge of 
 the laws violated, and obedience is rewarded, 
 without reference to such knowledge. Herein 
 lies the only difference between the vio- 
 lation of a physical law and its penalty, 
 and the violation of a spiritual law and 
 its penalty. Now with this explanation I 
 will undertake to follow the course of a 
 soul which enters that spiritual state de- 
 nominated spiritual death, Hades, or Hell. 
 That which I speak is not my experience, 
 
166 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 neither will it ever be, unless 1 should of my 
 own free will disobey that which I now know 
 to be my Creator's commands. If I should 
 do this then all that I now declare would be- 
 come to me personal experience. I have the 
 power to obey or to disobey now just the 
 same as I had in earth, and disobedience 
 now would be sin, just as it would have been 
 had I disobeyed in earth, and the effect of sin 
 is the same whether committed in human or 
 in spiritual existence. I speak therefore what 
 I know, not what I experience; and if you ask 
 how I know it without experiencing it, my 
 answer is as yours would be, if you were asked 
 to describe the hopes and the fears, the joy 
 and the sorrow, the mental and the spiritual 
 states of those on earth, who are lost to all 
 hopes, are harrassed by all fears, who are 
 strangers to all joys and are burdened with 
 all sorrows, which human life may produce; 
 and then were asked how you know that your 
 recital is true, you not having experienced 
 what you describe. Your source of knowledge 
 and my source of knowledge would be the 
 same, and your judgments no more certainly 
 accurate than mine are. To the powers through 
 which I would have gained such knowledge 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 167 
 
 in earth I have added those powers of which 
 you can have no knowledge yet; but unless 
 my statements shall eventually appear to you 
 to be reasonable, they are entitled to no 
 weight whatever. I give them now; I shall 
 establish their quality of reasonableness here- 
 after, if it has not already been done. 
 
 I take as an example of all who enter that 
 spiritual state, one, thought to be an exem- 
 plary character, pure in the noble instincts of 
 his human nature, filled with loving kindness 
 toward his fellow men, honest as it is within 
 his power to be, and obedient to all that soci- 
 ety demands of its honored members. This 
 soul lives a life of human contentment and of 
 human happiness. His contentment is because 
 of his honesty of purpose, and his human hap- 
 piness is because of his rational enjoyment of 
 human conditions. His spiritual state is not 
 as are his intellectual and his physical states. 
 His spiritual powers have not developed as 
 his intellectual powers have and they have been 
 subordinated to the intellectual nature. He 
 believes in a future existence, and that he 
 shall live forever. Beyond this point he cares 
 not to believe and will not seek to believe. 
 He worships not because he knows nothing to 
 
168 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 worship greater than himself, and is too noble 
 to worship self. Ask him if there is a God, 
 a great First Cause, and he will answer that 
 there is. Ask him what are His attributes, 
 what His nature, and he will answer that he 
 knows not, because it is beyond the power of 
 human understanding to know this. Ask him 
 if God has not revealed these through his 
 Written Word, and through his Son, who 
 being God lived as man, and he will answer; 
 "This may all be true, but I do not know it, 
 neither do I believe that which I cannot know. 
 If it is true I will sometime find it out. If 
 it be not true I will be none the worse off for 
 not believing it. I neither accept such belief 
 nor do 1 reject it. Let eternity reveal to me 
 its truth or falsity. That I maybe true to my 
 better nature, as I find it given to me, and 
 may fulfill all the duties that appear from it 
 to rest upon me, is my religion, and it is 
 enough. In it I am content to live and die, 
 believing that He who gave me being, will re- 
 ward me according to my human life." This 
 soul dies to earth. It lives in spiritual exist- 
 ence, unchanged except by the added powers 
 of spiritual existence, and by the loss of those 
 which pertain to human life. In its first con- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 169 
 
 sciousness of this new existence, it is happy, 
 happy because it realizes that for which it 
 hoped, and in which it believed, continued 
 conscious life, distinct in its individuality and 
 free in its powers. Could that soul now com- 
 municate its thoughts to earth, it would say 
 that it was happy; that it was in Heaven and 
 that all other souls were there also, for it 
 recognizes no difference between itself and any 
 other soul therefore because it is now happy, 
 it believes that all other souls are likewise 
 happy. Now wherein is this soul deceived 
 that it should thus mistake its true spiritual 
 state. It now knows no more of the love of 
 its Creator than it knew in earth, therefore it 
 accepts not the truth beyond its acceptance 
 of it in earth. It feels no punishment. It 
 knows nothing concerning punishment, there- 
 fore it feels an assurance that there is no pun- 
 ishment awaiting it, and if this be true, then 
 it believes itself to be in that spiritual state 
 called Heaven, and that there is no other spir- 
 itual state. These impressions come because 
 it has no knowledge of any other spiritual 
 state, than that in which it now exists; therefore 
 it believes that no other does exist, for it is 
 now as it was in earth, incapable of believing 
 
170 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 in anything it cannot know. This was its vol- 
 untary spiritual state in earth; it has become 
 its absolute spiritual state beyond the power 
 of will. Life thus begins in this existence as 
 it ended in its earthly, with neither more nor 
 less of happiness. I call it happiness because 
 that best describes it to human thought. It 
 is the feeling of contentment which comes of 
 the recollections of a well spent human life, 
 and is not the result of new impressions or of 
 new knowledge, other than that of continued 
 existence. Gradually these feelings lose con- 
 trol of the soul; it begins to wonder what it is 
 now living for; what eternity to come is to 
 reveal to it; from what source it is to derive 
 its happiness. All the human conditions of 
 happiness are forever removed, and what is 
 given in their stead? The power to think re- 
 mains: the power of memory is as it was in 
 earth, neither greater nor less. It runs back 
 along its life as far as memory can carry it, 
 then it stops and asks itself, what was before 
 this? Whence came this immortal soul? 
 Whence this living power I call myself? Is 
 it of nature a development? Then what power 
 brought Nature into existence? Whence its 
 power to develop such as I am; and if this 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 171 
 
 knowledge is denied me, may I not know why 
 Nature brought me forth out of its impenetra- 
 ble mystery? I lived in earth but many who 
 share my existence here, have no conscious 
 knowledge of an earthly life; for what were 
 such given life? I live, I think, I remember 
 now what I must sometime even fail to know, 
 that my existence was begun in earth, and is 
 this all I shall forever know? Then my life is 
 both purposeless and useless. Is a human be- 
 ing happy when this thought has once pos- 
 sessed him? No more can a spiritual being 
 be happy when possessed of it. And this is 
 the first step down form that spiritual exalta- 
 tion which this soul called Heaven. This is 
 its first failure to satisfy its own desire for 
 knowledge; and this failure is its first realiza- 
 tion that it is powerless to attain any knowl- 
 edge whatever. It is cut off from the physical 
 world as completely as if that world had no 
 existence. It is as impossible for it to per- 
 ceive any physical substance or phenomenon, 
 as it is for the physical senses to discern spir- 
 itual existence. It is therefore forever cut off 
 from all development or increase of physical 
 or human knowledge. It is as completely 
 shut off from the acquirement of all spiritual 
 
172 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 knowledge, because spiritual understanding 
 can only come through a knowledge of the 
 soul's Creator, which this soul possesses not. 
 With this only resource of understanding for- 
 ever closed to it, this soul now begins to real- 
 ize that this life it lives, is becoming a use- 
 less, hopeless, changeless, existence; change- 
 less only as it seems to it, for it is unconscious 
 of the changes as they come over it. The 
 opening ecstasy of its new existence has now 
 changed to dull monotony. Thus it lives, on, 
 on, on, as if this life was to be forever un- 
 changing. Then comes the restless longing 
 for something other than this purposeless, this 
 void existence. It longs for the extinction of 
 this life, even if that be annihilation. Then 
 it seeks self-destruction. Even this is denied 
 it, for it is as powerless to end its life as it 
 was to create it. It has thus passed by slow 
 degrees from what was to it, the ecstasy of a 
 new found existence, into a state bordering 
 on despair. It would not stop there if it 
 could. Unless the soul be really happy in its 
 existing life, whether that life be human or 
 spiritual, it will ever seek a change. You may 
 answer whether this is true in human life, and 
 I will declare that it is true in spiritual exist- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 173 
 
 ence. What can bring a change to such an 
 existence? One thing only, and that is to 
 sink into greater uncertainty, and into deeper 
 gloom. This it does because it cannot rest, 
 and this is the only change that is or ever can 
 be possible to it. This is one step lower, and 
 only the second from its exaltation. A fear 
 comes over it. Fear! what should it fear? Not 
 annihilation, for this it craves; it is the unde- 
 fined dread, which springs from uncertainty. 
 Have you ever felt a dread of death because 
 of its uncertainty? If you have then you have 
 had a foretaste of what this dread is to those 
 to whom it comes. It is the same nature 
 which dreads on earth and dreads in spiritual 
 existence, and the dread in both existences is 
 founded upon uncertaint}'. Does a knowledge 
 of the soul's Creator take away this dread on 
 earth? Let those answer who know their 
 Creator, and let all others keep silent. Such 
 knowledge is forever cut off from this soul, 
 therefore this dread is everlasting as is its 
 life. 
 
 The monotony of the first stage of this life 
 is relieved by the fears of the second. Un- 
 changed to itself, yet not unchanged, this soul 
 still lives on, and on, and on, till its longings 
 
174: THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 for change again revive and render it desper- 
 ate in its desire for self-destruction, and in its 
 desperation another step is taken. To fear are 
 added forebodings; of what, it is not possible 
 to describe for this soul knows not itself what 
 is possible should come to it. But there are 
 forebodings which it never knew before, such 
 as earth cannot know; these add a horror to 
 this existence, and this soul is in the third 
 stage of it. In fear and dread, and in the hor- 
 ror of forebodings, it lives on, and on, and 
 on, till again this existence becomes unbeara- 
 ble, and it seeks any change that is possible. 
 What is it that it is possible to add to such a 
 life? The certainty that it is u?iendi?ig. This 
 comes because it has found no end and can 
 find none, and from its own experience, then 
 it despairs of ever ending this existence. 
 This certainty, added to this existence, is its 
 fourth stage, and is more grievous than all 
 which has preceded it. Now launching for- 
 ward into unending existence, this soul is lost, 
 forever lost. There yet remain for it changes 
 which can never end, but which human thought 
 cannot follow. These changes are ever into 
 deeper Hell, for this is Hell. Not one iota of 
 all that is depicted is a punishment from the 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 175 
 
 Creator of this soul. It is the effect, of which 
 disobedience is the cause. It is the darkness 
 which follows the withdrawal of the source of 
 light. The ignorance, which knows no source 
 of knowledge. It is the soul of man without 
 its Creator revealed to it. This and nothing 
 more; and it is all that eternal love can do 
 for the soul which knows not that love. To 
 know what it has lost would add torments to 
 terrors, would add remorse to forebodings, 
 would add intensity to the sufferings which it 
 now realizes must be forever. Therefore its 
 Creator has withheld and will forever with- 
 hold this knowledge from this soul, and it will 
 forever believe and declare that there is no 
 existence, other than its existence; that all 
 suffer as it suffers; that there is no happiness; 
 no Creator, no Redeemer; that if there is a 
 God he is alike unknown to all who have life 
 and is no differently worshiped by one than 
 by all. In ignorance Hell teaches earth, when 
 ever and wherever it can get audience, and 
 earth believes because Hell is spiritual in its 
 existence. In this lies the danger which has 
 been so frequently refered to. If any word I 
 utter departs from a reasonable interpretation 
 of the revelation of God, and of spiritual truth 
 
176 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 to man, contained in his written Word, and 
 manifested in the life of his Son, then regard 
 it as from this source also, and shun it as you 
 would shun that which I have described unto 
 you, for into such real existence it would then 
 lead you. But if what I have said or may 
 hereafter say aids you to comprehend the 
 Written Word and the Human Life which 
 alone reveal God to man, then add to that 
 comprehension, true belief; that belief which 
 yields the fruit of righteousness, which is love 
 toward God, which is knowledge of him, 
 which is love toward all whom he has created, 
 whether they know him, or know him not. 
 By this rule judge your existence, which is 
 and which is to be; will it become what I have 
 described, or what I am about to describe. 
 
 To illustrate the spiritual state called Heaven, 
 as best it may be possible for me to do it, I 
 take another soul and trace its course through 
 earthly into spiritual existence. Such soul I 
 will suppose to be not the purest nor the best 
 that earth has produced, not even the one 
 whom the world would pronounce most perfect 
 in its purity. That I may more forcibly illus- 
 trate this truth I take the lowest that may en- 
 ter into this existence. This is what the world 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 177 
 
 would say of him. He is not bad, neither is 
 he good, when measured by Christian stan- 
 dards of goodness. He lives in ignorance. 
 Physical knowledge is unknown to him, and in 
 intellectual power he is low down the scale. 
 There is in him a basis for intellectual devel- 
 opment, that is undeveloped intellectual pow- 
 ers, giving him a natural perception of truth 
 when stated in its plainest forms, but for this 
 he cares nothing. This soul does however 
 possess one thing, which is essential to all 
 spiritual development. That is belief in the 
 existence of its Creator. This belief is fixed 
 and unchangeable. It has led this soul to 
 worship according to its knowledge, and wor- 
 ship has led it to strive to imitate, and become 
 like the object of its worship. That object is 
 its ideal of perfection, and through its worship 
 and its efforts, it has approached its ideal. 
 To many souls its ideal would itself be low, 
 and in as much as the worshiper can never 
 become perfect as his ideal, it may happen 
 that this soul is very much lower than its own 
 ideal, and yet be all that it can be vwth the 
 light and knowledge which it posseses. If the 
 soul with which I started before were to judge 
 this soul, he would pronounce it an abomina- 
 
178 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 tion upon the earth unfitted for human life and 
 doubly unfitted for spiritual existence. Such 
 judgment might also be accepted by many lov- 
 ing worshipers of our Creator, who measure 
 men by their own standards and relatively to 
 their own ideal, forgetful that that which is 
 required of them is not required of him to 
 whom less knowledge and less light has been 
 given. Ask this soul what is its hope, and it 
 will answer; "That I may see and worship Him 
 who made me; that I may hear my Redeemer 
 speak to me; that I may know Jesus as his 
 disciples knew him; that I may walk with 
 him in the beautiful land where he lives now. 
 All this I hope for and this I believe he will 
 give unto me." Blessed hope; thrice blessed 
 belief. Beyond human comprehension do such 
 a hope and such a belief, bless their posses- 
 sors. Ask this soul whence this hope and 
 what the foundation for this belief, and he 
 will answer; "The hope I have always had, I 
 cannot remember when it came to me, for I 
 cannot remember when I did not have it, but 
 the belief came when I got religion," Tell us 
 then what is religion, and how you got it. 
 "This is religion, that you feel within your 
 heart, that you love God, and that God loves 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 179 
 
 you. I always thought that I loved Him but 
 I never knew it till I got religion, then it 
 was so plain to me. Something seemed to 
 just tell me how loving God is, and it made 
 me feel as if I just knew how Jesus loved his 
 disciples, when he was with them, and then 
 I felt that I just knew that he loves me just 
 as well as he loved them. Oh ! how happy 
 this made me feel; then I knew that this was 
 religion." Thus would this child of God tell 
 us of what was to him a living truth wholly 
 incomprehensible to those who know it not. 
 Lest I be misunderstood in the expression that 
 none less perfect than this soul can enter the 
 spiritual state called Heaven, I must say that 
 belief does not always spring from such expe- 
 rience. It may become fixed and unshaken 
 without it; and the essential part of this soul's 
 preparation is its belief, not that which it calls 
 its religion. Many possess this belief as firmly 
 founded and as unwavering, as I have depicted 
 it in this soul, and yet are devoid of that ex- 
 perience to which he attributes his belief. 
 This experience is a blessed gift to those who 
 seek and find it, and there exists no soul on 
 earth but can attain it, by persistent and de- 
 termined seeking. It however adds nothing to 
 
180 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 the soul's fitness for the spiritual state I now 
 describe, other than to establish and forever 
 fix this belief beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
 For this and for the joy it brings it should be 
 the undying hope of every soul which has it 
 not, that it might attain it in its human life. 
 It was not given to me in my human life to 
 thus know my Creator's love, and yet without 
 it my belief on that Creator, and in his bles- 
 sed Son, as my Savior and my God, never 
 failed me, and never was stronger than when I 
 knew that I was dying. But as I now know 
 the truth, and read the knowledge that came 
 to him to whom I give these thoughts, out of 
 the agony of that lonely hour which he spent 
 in a stable, with none but God to aid him, I 
 would willingly give all my human life, and 
 all the joy it brought me, in exchange for such 
 an hour and such a triumph of the spiritual 
 nature. If you my reader lack as I lacked this 
 blessed knowledge, you can acquire it as he 
 acquired it. 
 
 Now to return to the soul which serves as 
 my illustration of these spiritual truths. It 
 lives and dies in this simple confiding belief. 
 It enters spiritual existence and is disappoint- 
 ed. There is no great white throne, no reali- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 181 
 
 zation of its ideas of personal worship; no 
 walking with its Savior, as he walked with 
 his disciples on earth; no sense of physical 
 existence and of physical surroundings, which 
 it had pictured, and for which it had so fondly 
 hoped. But it is not alone. Loving souls 
 whose wisdom is greater than its own, begin 
 to teach it truth as it can bear the truth; just 
 as I began on earth with one, just as I am be- 
 ginning now. It has entered spirital existence 
 with physical conceptions alone, of that exist- 
 ence. These must be changed gradually to 
 spiritual conceptions of spiritual truth. There 
 is danger to this soul in its disappointment. 
 It tries hard to understand why it was deceived 
 in earth, why God's revelation led it to believe, 
 that there was a great white throne upon which 
 our Creator sat, and was worshiped; why it 
 was led to believe in harps, and crowns, in 
 wings and robes of azure brightness; why 
 heaven was made so real and now is so hidden. 
 This is the supreme trial of its belief. This 
 trial safely passed, this soul is safe; not safe 
 beyond the possibility of sin, but safe because 
 it desires not to disobey. To aid this soul in 
 this its greatest trial is the work of all who 
 love their fellow creatures; and none can en- 
 
182 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 ter Heaven who have not this love. It is first 
 instructed in the nature of its new existence. 
 It is shown how it is impossible that it should 
 longer know any material thing or realize the 
 hopes of Heaven which it had built up in hu- 
 man life. It is shown that in its human life 
 it was impossible that it should have compre- 
 hended its spiritual existence, and that be- 
 cause it could not then comprehend it, in its 
 very truth, that truth was presented to it through 
 figurative teaching; that it mistook the figure 
 for the truth, and upon these figures built hopes 
 that could not be realized. -That because the 
 Creator was powerless, because of self limita- 
 tion to reach it in any other way, he had re- 
 vealed his truth in this manner; that now it 
 must drop the figure and seek to know what 
 the figure represents. Thus it is led from 
 thought to thought, until it begins to realize 
 that the ultimate truth lies far behind the fig- 
 ure which it had supposed was the truth. This 
 is its first step upwards and its first experience 
 of joy resulting from spiritual understanding. 
 Having once known this joy in its lowest de- 
 gree, it seeks eagerly to know its source, and 
 this is the lesson that is then taught it. Joy 
 is the result of spiritual understanding. In 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 183 
 
 earth your understanding was limited, and your 
 joy was equally limited. Now you are begin- 
 ning to comprehend spiritual existence, as it 
 is by experiencing it, and with this increase of 
 knowledge is your joy increased, therefore you 
 must accept the truth that the source of joy is 
 spiritual understanding. Seek therefore spir- 
 itual understanding that your joy may be mag- 
 nified. This soul eagerly does this, and in 
 seeking it there is revealed to it little by little, 
 truths which it could not have comprehended 
 in human life, and which, if they had been 
 given to it then as now, would have been re- 
 jected by it. Therefore in that which some 
 might term its deception in human life is now 
 revealed to it the eternal love of its Creator. 
 Another step has been taken and it now 
 comprehends dimly that eternal love revealed 
 through that which deceived it. Plainer proof 
 of that love is not possible to any creature, 
 when the effect of and reason for such deception 
 has been made known to it. Apply this truth 
 form the infancy of your life throughout its 
 unending existence, and this is forever true. 
 Those you love most dearly you deceive most 
 eagerly, when there is a reason for such decep- 
 tion and its effect, the happiness of the one 
 
184 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 you deceive and love. When human love uses 
 such means to secure happiness to those upon 
 whom it is most ardently bestowed, think you 
 that divine love does not do likewise? Are 
 not human love and spiritual love the shadow 
 of that greater love, and is not the shadow 
 like unto that which casts it? If you call this 
 rhetoric and deny its logic, I declare it to be 
 truth, whatever else it maybe. The soul whom 
 we follow now realizes dimly its Creator's 
 eternal love, and this makes its joy greater 
 than in its first stage of knowledge. Its course 
 is now onward in spiritual development, and 
 with those who have far outgrown it to guide 
 its thought it progresses and ever will progress 
 toward that pefection which is unattainable; 
 that perfection which it will ever approach 
 and will never reach. Its happy life is now 
 before it as it wills to make it. If it is satis- 
 fied with a low degree of happiness, it may so 
 rest, but it must forever know, that beyond 
 lies greater joy which alone requires greater 
 spiritual knowledge to acquire. This is that 
 spiritual state which is called Heaven, and 
 which is Heaven in very truth to those who 
 enter it. 
 
 To enter such a Heaven as this was man ere- 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 185 
 
 ated; to him was given the power to defeat 
 the purpose of his creation or to fulfill it. If 
 his choice is to defeat it, then the greatest 
 love that can be manifested toward such soul, 
 is to take from it all power to know spiritual 
 truth; that it may never know what its great 
 loss has been; that it may never know the 
 love it has cast off. Thus it was created, and 
 this is revealed to all who know that love. 
 There is therefore in Hell no knowledge of 
 that love, which makes its torments bearable, 
 which renders existence in it possible and 
 which is no less for those who enter it than 
 for those who escape it. God loves all his 
 creatures; they are his own. To those who 
 obey him that love is revealed, from those who 
 disobey it is concealed. Therefore men say 
 that he loves the one and is angry with the 
 other, and in his ignorance this is the limit 
 of man's power to comprehend his Creator. 
 Therefore to meet the necessity of this igno- 
 rance of man, has God revealed the knowledge 
 of the withdrawal of his love, from those who 
 disobey by the figurative use of the expressions 
 vengeance, anger, displeasure. Such is their 
 meaning, yet in this sense they cannot mean 
 less to those who suffer the withdrawal of the 
 
186 
 
 •THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 knowledge of that love. I ask of those who 
 have followed my thoughts to this conclusion, 
 whether I have wronged you in dispelling your 
 thoughts of God's anger against those who sin. 
 Is it not enough that you know his love, and 
 does it not increase your love to think of him 
 as loving all those who must live in darkness 
 forever, equally as he loves you? Can you 
 hate them? Can you be angry with them? 
 Would you not lessen their sorrows if it was 
 in your power to do it? Would you not save 
 them from their wretched state if it were pos- 
 sible thai you could doit? Answer these ques- 
 tions as you have the power to do it, and then 
 answer me, whether the God you worship has 
 less of love, less of compassion, less of ten- 
 derness for his creatures, than you have for 
 those whom he has created Can you there- 
 fore realize that I speak truth in the words 
 with which I close these thoughts? My Crea- 
 tor loves me because I am his creature. He 
 loves no other creature less or more than he 
 loves me. His love is revealed to me through 
 my obedience to his commands. His love is 
 concealed from those who disobey his com- 
 mands, and it is thus concealed that their suf- 
 fering may be lessened. 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 187 
 
 Thy works praise Thee 0/ my God. They 
 manifest thy love eternal and everlasting, 
 bestowed alike on those in spiritual darkness, 
 and in spiritual light, and for this I praise thy 
 Holy Name in Heaven, as in earth it should 
 be praised, through the worship of the triune 
 one, my Father, my Redeemer, my Comforter, 
 Amen. 
 
188 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The first sentence received by me through 
 this source was given upon the evening of No- 
 vember 16th, 1874. It had no recognized 
 meaning or application, and was, "Come light 
 our home." 
 
 Of that which followed I have made the fol- 
 lowing selections for the purpose of illustra- 
 tion, as mentioned in the body of this book. 
 
 November 19, 1874. "If you would become 
 God like ask for wisdom." "You profit by all 
 the voices from the spirit land." 
 
 November 20, 1874. "You must crown your 
 lives with beautiful deeds, for yourselves, and 
 all humanity." "Will you come with willing 
 hearts to the fountain of life?" What is the 
 fountain of life? "Wisdom." 
 
 November 22, 1874. "Your highest intellec- 
 tual joy, is but the shadow of your lesser joy 
 in the bright spirit land." 
 
 November 25, 1874. "Every high aspiration 
 places a jewel in your crown of life." "Live 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 189 
 
 high in your ..intellectual sphere." "God has 
 made the world beautiful for your instruction." 
 "You expect to find Heaven hereafter, but you 
 will not find it; it is in your own souls. " "Let 
 the windows of your souls be open that the 
 light may shine out upon all." 
 
 November 26, 1874. "You have high men- 
 tal powers; cultivate and use them as stepping 
 stones, to high and noble purposes." "The 
 right use of mental powers is the way to 
 knowledge. " 
 
 November 28, 1874. "Remember dear friends, 
 that the noblest lives are made up of little 
 deeds; then look well to your small acts." 
 
 November 29, 1874. "At the lifting of the 
 veil, your soul shall be filled with light." "A 
 brighter light awaits you in the windows of 
 this home." 
 
 December 5, 1874. "All high hopes and 
 pure desires, place you in the path that leads 
 to the throne of wisdom." 
 
 December 10, 1874. "Keep your hearts full 
 of love and your lives pure, and the world 
 will be better for your having lived." 
 
 December 12, 1874. "Treasure God's smiles, 
 and look upon them in seasons of grief; they 
 will sweeten all your sorrows, and lead you to 
 
190 THE CONTINUITY OF 
 
 a higher life." "Be gentle in your dealings 
 with your fellow men." "Elevate your minds 
 that you may receive Divine teaching." 
 
 May 2, 1875. "God Most High! Grant us 
 now thy wisdom, that we love thee, first and 
 above all. Know not our sins against us 
 longer. More plenteous mercy show to us thy 
 children. To a lost soul wilt thou be gracious 
 in thy goodness. Most High God! look with 
 love upon thy worshipers, now addressing 
 thy throne, like us, so that we may rest in 
 thy love, till from thy throne, we see thee 
 most glorious. Wilt thou inspire us with 
 Thine own most holy Self, that we -may for- 
 ever approach thy truth with humbleness and 
 earnestness. Love now thy children who in 
 earth life rest, for they walk in darkness and 
 ignorance. Most High God! may thy light 
 break upon their darkened minds. Deep are 
 the ways in which thou movest and past find- 
 ing out. Love us in our ignorance most boun- 
 teously. Stay not thy loving hand in this the 
 time of our needs and grant us thy wisdom 
 to-day. Love with us all thy children, and 
 stay not thy goodness. Holy God, solemn are 
 thy courts to good spirits and humble mor- 
 tals. How lost in love mortals should be that 
 
HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 191 
 
 thou noticest them. Most High God! stay 
 not death, it is the friend of man and leads 
 him to a better land. Now God grant thy 
 blessings upon us all, spirits and mortals, 
 Amen." 
 
 April i, 1877. "Diligence is knowledge; 
 would you be more wise, then be more dili- 
 gent." 
 
ONE COPY HECL 
 MAY 23 1904 
 

 
 A f i //'V -^/k A-^AV-^ A';-,r- c //AAji--^/v ''/■■'• v-C^: ''% ■ ' '//'''''■'' —vV ) -^ \LT"~V'.£, / , /A 
 
 
 
 Ci*' ^Sk ^> w$ -^I?^kF & ■' * ^ - l ' "' "* ' - 
 
 i ;,i *^^saii^^nv^S^^ ;; ni> , ' , F^Sl *<vl'V^C 'A -,i. '* Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. . 
 w/ 1 ^-^^^ S'l^V^W^r' 'Wt-^^sftiA yVJ^.'v A J*V^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 <&!•/ Y ' f 0'^^W'^\ ^fe^C*- ' ,/ ' /f- -^[% ^'b jpE^V^B'.' / Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 
 
 M0(0^^'^^^^W^9M£i Preservation-Technologies ' 
 
 ^^d^^^/"' ' i'l ' ^^^"^-^V\V 2fc" M V'~-^^ S ^''V?![ A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 Wi-\' : '*/i/'iS< V'IJ^Ia' ' f't'siW^ Y/?^^\&&$-*& /"'f'-nW 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 
 \A 
 
 ? 
 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-211'