THE ORDINARY BUSINESS MAN
"I was never given to mysteries, I
was just a plain ordinary business man, trying to take care of my wife
and family, and keep them from want, in either intellectual or physical
ways. My sons went through college, my daughters to a boarding school,
and I thought I had done pretty well by them all. But I did not bring
them up in any spiritual thought: I left them to find what they could
from church or books or papers. They are there yet, a worldly set,
living only a material life. What can I do for them now? Is there any
help?"
'Could you reach any of them through
influence from there?'
"I think not. None of us thought of
spirit life, none of us tried for
silent influence or silent cultivation. In fact, we did not know the
term. We thought all education was for the brain, and then to react in
business or pleasure. The consequence is that I have been a long, long
time in arriving at anything here that I could call happiness. And I
want to preach a sermon to my family;
and I
cannot!
"What influence is there on earth
which could guide them to a
quicker realization of the happiness here?"
'The church
should
be able to do it.'
"I doubt if it does. Too formal; and
my boys and girls were not
much of church-goers any way."
I said there were good books if only
they and the readers could be
brought together.
"Mary says, that is the trouble. The
public generally
frowns on spirit communications or
spirit belief. The church is good, and for many, their salvation. Yet its
formal doctrines and observances do not always educate toward the highest
spiritual life.
