CHAPTER IV. THE LOW SOCIETIES CONTINUED.

 

 

What clouds of mystery are hung Around that one idea, Heaven!

And though forever songs have rung Across its bare by angels sung, The cloud which veils it is not riven.

Emma Rood Tuttle.

 

"WE are yet in the lower societies of the second sphere," said the Philosopher; "you will now behold examples wherein you will recognize the same passions which animate many of earth's children, plunging them into misery and woe. In the last scene, you beheld the influence of uncontrolled acquisitiveness; the desire for wealth which avails not. Here you see the action of combativeness and destructiveness resulting in quarrelling and dissension."

 

As the Sage ceased speaking, a wretched group appeared, all unprepared to be ushered into a higher state. Bad as their condition was previously, it was a paradise to this. They were discontented on earth, and often had wished for death. How little knew they of the change! The discontented, unfledged bird would fain skim the ethereal air, like its strong parent, but not being adapted to that element until mature, it falls from its happy nest, and receives many a bruise. The caterpillar would sport in the atmosphere among the gay flowers, sipping delicate nectar from gaudy corollas; spins its cocoon before its time, and, when too late, finds its food shut out, its life cramped, and if it live, at most makes an imperfect fly.

 

"These examples illustrate the condition of those who depart from the present to try the unknown future before full preparation. Man should live in the earth-life to a ripe, age, and die as the apple falls from its bough in autumn time."

 

"I fear extremely few thus mature."

 

"Alas! mankind have everything of their spiritual being yet to learn; everything—how to live, to breathe, to think the infinite lesson I know thyself."'

 

They paused before a wretched group consisting of father, mother and children—an entire family. The Sage spoke, but his charity not allowing him to injure the feelings of the sufferers, aside to his companions:—

 

"I know this family well. Many years since, while passing over the earth, I encountered them, the same as now. The parents whom you behold, worn with care, were unhappily wedded. They falsified, and deceived each other into the belief that they were, adapted to each other. But marriage, as is too often the case, revealed the true character of each to the other. They United as a fearful majority unite, from selfish and passionate motives. One passion necessarily excites the others, hence, as this turned put, the fuel becoming exhausted, their bodies diseased, their minds irritable, attraction is complemented by disgust. The laws of attraction and repulsion, as sublimated in the realm of spirit, are as yet unknown to earthly science. Yet do they rule with the same adamantine inflexibility in the spiritual all in the physical world. Can you ask what the offsprings of such unions must be? the bad qualities predominating in their parents, descend and cumulate in the children. This is an ill­understood, but inevitable consequence. The Bible says truly of such: 'Conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity.' These children are an illustration. They hate their parents, and are kept together and in obedience by fear. The family circle, instead of being a school to instruct them in practical goodness, has taught them nothing but evil. Here are ten children and a group of twelve persons (a contagion swept them all at once from earth), having as much affinity for each other as the lamb for the wolf. Ten children! No parent can rear during their short earthly life that number, and impart all the necessary vitality and instruction their natures require. And what right have parents to bring immortal beings into the world, if not prepared and qualified to sustain them?"

 

"Then you would have the parents instruct their own children?"

 

"Yes, every child has a right to be well born, and then the mother should instruct them in the sciences, teach them all they require to know, and point them the direct road to preferment and honor. This is her duty, and she obeys the voice of nature in proportion as she performs the task. Who teaches the young eagle to poise its untrained pinions, or to dart with unerring precision upon its prey? Who gives it its first lessons in the art of cleaving the airy tide, and then, and not till then, throws it upon its, own responsibility? Who but its mother?"

 

"But how is she to obtain time amid all the cares woman on earth is obliged to submit to?" asked Hero. "True, she might do it here, but there it seems impossible."

 

"Did you not educate your children? Did you not send them all directly to posts of honor? Do they not constitute the pride of your heart; for can a mother be indifferent to the success of her children? They are an honor to you and lights to the world; and to you they owe all that they are. Depend upon this, that just as a mother uses her child, so will the child use the world. How the children before us illustrate this! The words they utter are too low to be spoken or heard, being the language of unrestrained animalities."

 

"How they can do so, I cannot imagine; why do they not separate?"

 

"It is because they have not discovered that it is possible, but believe that similar restrictions prevail as, on earth. This they will soon find, and then they will dissolve."

 

"Oh, it is dreadful to see such confusion. Let us away!"

 

"Then, fair Hero, we will go, and not halt to provoke an outburst of their passions; but perhaps the next group we meet will be no less inharmonious."

 

"Can you smell the fumes of tobacco, or inhale the breath of those who drink wine that maddeneth? Nay, you cannot, but we now stand near those who fully believe that they in reality do.

 

"Have you ever entered a saloon? Have you ever watched the stupid stare of the inebriate when his eye grew less and less lustrous, slowly closing, the muscles relaxing, and the victim of appetite sinking over on the floor in beastly drunkenness? Oh, how dense the fumes of mingled tobacco and alcohol! Oh, what misery confined in those walls! If you have witnessed such scenes, then we need describe no further. If you have not, you had better not hear the tale of woe. Imagine to yourselves a bar-room with all its sots, and their number multiplied indefinitely, with the conscience-seared and bloated fiends who stood behind the bar, from whence they deal out death and damnation; and the picture is complete! One has just arrived from earth. He is yet uninitiated in the mysteries and miseries of those which, like hungry lions, await him. He died while intoxicated—was frozen while lying in the gutter, and consequently is attracted towards this society. He possessed a good intellect, but it was shattered by his debauches."

 

"Ye ar' a fresh one, ain't ye?" coarsely queried a sot, just then particularly communicative.

 

"Why, yes, I have just died, as they call it, and 'tain't so bad a change after all; only I suppose ther'll be dry times here for want of something stimulant."

 

"Not so dry; lots of that all the time, and jolly times too." "Drink! can you drink, then?

 

"Yes, we just can, and feel as nice as we please. But all can't—not unless they find one on earth just like 'em. You go to earth and mix with your chum, and when you find one whose thoughts you can read, he's your man. Form a connection with him, and when he gets to feeling good you'll feel so too. There, do you understand me? I always tell all fresh ones the glorious news, for how they would suffer if it wasn't for this blessed thing!"

 

"I'll try it, no mistake."

 

"Here's a covey," spoke an ulcerous-looking being; "he's c[sic] our stripe. Tim, did you hear what an infernal scrape I got into last night? No, you didn't. Well, I went to our friend Fred's; he didn't want to drink when I found him, his dimes looked so extremely large. Well, I destroyed that feeling, and made him think he was dry. He drank and drank, more than I wanted him to, until I was so drunk that I could not break my connection with him or control his mind. He undertook to go home, fell into the snow, and came near freezing to death. I suffered awfully—ten times as much as when I died."

 

Can these ever progress from their fearfully depraved condition?" asked Hero, in sorrowful accents.

 

"Yes," replied the Sage, "the lowest mind can progress, and ages hence we shall find these same degraded men on our present plane. The years of eternity are unnumbered.

 

In their duration there is time for the elevation of all. The capabilities of the human mind are infinite, and these degraded objects have the germs of all the faculties, ready to awaken into life under proper circumstances. There is no retrogression, but constant onward movement. The planets oscillate to and fro—so may the mind; but its retrogression is confined to narrow limits, and its real motion is forever one of advancement. These degraded beings will some day awake to the consciousness of their position and the relations they hold to their fellows, and arousing from their lethargy will renew their lives. The flame once kindled can never be extinguished, however loathesome the atmosphere it which it burns; and though for a time its light may be obscured, it will finally triumph over all difficulties, and blaze forth in immortal splendor. Once drawn within the verge of progressive movement, they will be propelled by the swift current."