CHAPTER XVI. A VISIT TO A DISTANT GLOBE.

 

My guardian angel spoke:

"Mount this magnetic stream and soar away From earthly shadows to supernal day." Swift as an arrow on its fearful race,

On, on we sped through countless leagues of space.

 

 

WILL converse never end, nor the spirit weary of soul communion? Not as long as the day brings new ideas, new conceptions of nature and of being, and thus fresh themes replace those made familiar. The heart will never weary of love, nor the intellect of thinking and of knowing.

 

Again at the Portico, Marvin, recovered from his melancholy, proposed a visit to a distant planet which shone softly above the purple horizon.

 

"Not to earth," said he, "not to earth with its sham ways of living, but to a globe where beings of superior model enjoy life with a full sense of its significance."

 

"Your memories of earth are not pleasant," sympathetically replied Hero.

 

"Nay, on the contrary, when I think of the lost opportunities, the physical and spiritual pain of that life, it will darken my light for all years to come."

 

"Nay, not so."

 

"Oh, that I again might live that life, knowing what I now know; beginning where I am, I would devote myself to the work of teaching a just system, not so much of producing as distributing wealth, that all might have enough, and none to waste. I would say, must the poor be with always? Must starvation go hand in hand with plethora? Always with you? The robbed, starved, suffering poor; hopelessly, helplessly poor, unpitied, degraded, damned. The capitalist who has coined millions from their blood may sit in his cushioned pew, from which they are excluded, and when he dies be buried in a cemetery from which they are rejected, and go to heaven in a grand way. Aristocratic dust will not be suffered to mingle with plebeian clay! In heaven will aristocratic spirits associate with plebeian, or are they equal there? If so, unsatisfying place, where there is no popular church, nor a sexton to keep out the ragged children of toil. Aye, forever with you, as long as capital is the waster and labor the slave. The slave is, clothed and fed; it is for his interest to feed him, but labor is bought, and the laborer may go to bed or a pallet of straw, what cam the employer? The fool has said in his heart there is no God; the toiler shall say it every day, and his children shall cry it every hour of the day. Mammon's children are sleek with good living; their suits are glossy with exquisite finish. Do not touch them, smutty child of labor. They are of a different race from you. They are of high caste and noble blood. Aye, in the olden times the Lord was a man who subdued with his word, and obedience was rendered because he compelled it. Blood was the food of the aristocrats, the blood shed in battle. The aristocrats of to-day are fed on the product of concrete tears of pain, and clothed with fingers of despair. Does nature make a water-power? forthwith capital builds its factory, and the laborer does all that the water will not, and is allowed to exist, while capital grows plethoric. A workingman invents a locomotive. Do workingmen receive the benefits? Oh, no; but capital pours out of it the gigantic swindling schemes, and—so artfully spreads its nets that a whole nation of freemen are made subservient to its designs."

 

"The hour has come," responded the Sage, "when this old order shall pass away. Mankind are now in the throes of revolution, which happily for the diffusion of knowledge may be bloodless. There must come a readjustment on a new basis, and labor be crowned the king of the domain it conquers."

 

"Our Brother," said Hero, "must forget the years bygone, in the achievements of those to come."

 

"My earth-life was a failure."

 

"Nay, without its failures you could not have had your present gain. They who are apparently most successful may be really failures, for that depends on the standard by which they are judged. Every action is the result of a motive, which is often concealed and brought to light only by searching analysis: for the force is too intent on its work to make itself known. The swinging pendulum, grating wheels, clanging bell are not the forces which cause the hands to point the hours. In the innermost recesses, coiled in dumb resistance, is a strip of steel which in silence drives the wheels and measures time in its ceaseless flow into the past. Every individual is actuated by a motive or combination of motives in the main unknown to the world, which sees the thing done; sees the wheels move, the pendulum swing, and praises the actor for his success. The hero is exalted to a demigod; triumphal hymns are sung in his praise; he is thought unlike other men, actuated by different motives, and swayed by more noble desires. Go behind the curtain, the illusion of gaudy splendor vanishes and the reality is painfully distinct."

 

"Patriotism," interposed Leon, "the love of country, is one of the most noble feelings which actuate the mind of man. By it the meanest countryman is raised to a hero, and, forsaking all the heart holds dear, friends, children, wife, and home, gives his life for the good of his fellows. Yet it may be truly said that few soldiers who go forth to battle in the brave trappings of war are moved by patriotism. The hope of renown, the love of adventure, the lash of disappointment, or the whim of the moment, decides and fixes their course. Often the force in the rear is more dreaded than that in the front, and it becomes less brave to go than to retreat.

 

"This man is moved by religious zeal; that is the verdict with those with whom he associates. He attends church, pays his dues, says grace regularly, and is ready with religious phrases. The motive is not religious, impelling to purity and nobility of life, or to efforts to make others purer and happier. Oh no! Inordinate vanity, superstition, bigoted zeal, the hope of honors and emoluments—these are the incentives which too often veneer the character with a show of religion. Are we satisfied with the thing done? Hereafter it shall be asked by the recording angel, 'Why was it done?' and the answer may demolish the castles of vain pretensions, and shrivel into nothingness the arrogance of conceit. The poor widow who gave the mite from her scanty store, will outrank all the lords of wealth and power who ever trod the earth. Her motive was kindly good, for another, and her sacrifice was great, however small her gift."

 

"We have in our earnestness forgotten our Brother's proposition, which will furnish to each a new source of enjoyment. Let us at once accept it."

 

Away, as a thought, lightning-winged they passed, while around them the stellar universe shifted and changed, and they experienced the strange sensation of being surrounded by stars, a heaven beneath as well as above and around. The planet they sought, blazed on the horizon, expanding until it spread beneath them bounding the horizon, and they alighted on its beautiful surface.

 

"I once came here in search of heaven," said Marvin, "bringing a hell and the capabilities of a heaven with me.

 

I was attracted by the superior beauties of the place, and searched this whole world over. I was unsuccessful, but thereby gained knowledge I should never have otherwise obtained."

 

"Your experience," replied Leon, "has taught you many things unknown to us. Your knowledge of localities, and the aspects of Nature in the various worlds you have visited far exceeds that we possess, for, we have remained on a single earth and pursued other paths."

 

"Each has his or her sphere of action," said the Sage.

 

"Each has his time and place. All things are governed by the absolute and impartial law of necessity, which none can set aside. We enter the rudimental state by laws over which we have no control, and we leave it without consultation. The stone falls to the earth, world revolves around world, sun around sun with no more certainty. The universe, physically and spiritually considered, is nicely adjusted in all its parts, and impelled by a force which, if we are to judge by its results, is an intelligent and farseeing energy."

 

"Who established such important and wise laws?"

 

"They are co-eternal and co-existent with matter. On them matter depends for its existence, and by them it derives all its properties of form, extension, indestructibility, etc. Who made matter? I cannot answer otherwise than by my reason and the reason of those above me, which inform me that in some form it has always existed."

 

"If this be true, as it was governed by the same laws, why did not nature assume her present form at first?"

 

"Saying the laws of the universe were, co-eternal with matter is not affirming that they all began their action at once. Matter was subject to development, and when the conditions were not favorable to the "on of superior influences it remained in a low and negative state. But however low it may be it will in time be prepared for the action of the higher. Thus we may regard the universe as a machine governed by higher and higher principles as it is polished and perfected. In every new plane matter reaches, the previous laws become modified, not set aside. When the essential conditions of life are supplied, life is generated."

 

"Is law a final cause, or are we to regard it as a mode of action—a groove along which a cause runs to do its effect?"

 

"Our ideas are comparative. We speak of natural laws and involuntarily we compare them with legal enactments; but there is no likeness between the two, and hence the term is misleading. The existence of matter depends on certain principles, and thus it must have ever been, for if it lost a single one of these it would cease to be. But back of matter and these principles is force—intelligent, prescient force—which under various names has been worshipped as a deity. Orzmud, Zeus, Jehovah, Jupiter, God, are accidental names to the same unknown fountain."

 

"On this subject," responded Marvin; "I have thought little and must now accept your ideas, because yours, rather than from ability to fully test them by reason."

 

"Like too many, you were willing to pay the: clergy to do your thinking while you were amassing wealth."

 

"True, alas, too true! I gave my reason to their keeping and believed, because told to do so, that there was a personal, overruling being detached from Nature."

 

"The error of this dogma you now plainly see. Its advocates resort to fallacies for its support. For instance, they ask: 'Is it possible for the beautiful creation to come by chance?' No one has asserted that it came by chance; yet it were easier to believe that it did so than that a being came by chance with power to create it from nothing. I do not advocate that the universe came by chance. I cannot speak of its beginning—only of its career since that time. Nor can we know, finite as we are, of the infinite energy behind the appearance we call Creation."

 

"I feel an attraction from our right," interrupted Hero.

 

"Yes," replied, Marvin; "I remember an ancient society dwell on that portion of this planet."

 

In a few moments they were in the presence of a vast assembly, listening to an address by Jesus of Nazareth. When on earth he embodied the ideal of perfect manhood; his body a model of symmetry, his mind harmonious and pure, his thoughts beautiful, his speech simple and eloquent. In the higher life he was an ideal for angels. As the assembly were arranged he occupied a slightly elevated position, as he did in his ancient temple—a temple whose lofty canopy was the blue arch of heaven. He discoursed to eager listeners. Some of them were still imbued with the false idea they had formed of him and his doctrines while on earth, and efforts were used to eradicate them. He first spoke of the idol worship of earth's children, and compared them to heathen islanders with whom a sculptor left a beautiful marble statue. When he was gone they hung beads and tinsel, shell and decorations over it, until when, years after, the sculptor returned, he found his masterpiece entirely concealed beneath the towering pile of rubbish. So had it been with his teachings. They had lost all their pristine vigor and beauty by being clouded by bigotry, fanaticism, and superstition, and the rubbish and tinsel must be cast away and their spirit renovated. Such burning eloquence, such grand comparisons, such figures of speech, being flashes of thought unobscured or misrepresented by words, man with his labored methods cannot comprehend. He spoke of the erroneous ideas of him taught by the evangelists and the consequences wrought by such errors. He spoke of the crime, vice, and misery of the lower societies and melted the heart steeled by transgression. No words can describe the effect of his utterance on his listeners. Language of words is barren to express the exalted emotions. When we speak of things within the conception of the human mind we do not perceive the wants of terms in language; but when we would speak of the beauties of the spirit-home we find written language deficient, for the idea of such sublimity and splendor never entered the mind of man, and hence he has no terms to represent them.

 

The charmed audience were excited with deepest emotion as his thrilling words swept over their heart-strings. He closed by exhorting them, whenever they had the opportunity to descend to the lower societies and to earth, and teach the doctrines of Nature, to which they assented, convinced that they owed this duty to themselves and their fellows.

 

"Now have I seen Christ Whom I worshiped as God," said Marvin, in bewilderment, "and if ever a messenger came from the throne of the Great Intelligence he is one,"

 

"I presume he has dispelled all your ideas of his divinity?"

 

"Truly he has, and I cannot imagine how I could have ever believed so absurd a doctrine. I think I never did harmonize the three-oneness of the Godhead, but I thought it sacrilege to touch its mystery."

 

"Men conceal their ignorance with the all-comprehending term 'mystery,' which is but another name for ignorance."

 

"When they find a subject baffling their powers of comprehension they are ever ready to exclaim: It is a great mystery, beyond the ken of reason, and it is sacrilege to attempt to reveal what God has concealed. Alas for human ignorance, crushing the millions down, down the dark and loathsome ways of death! Alas for human weakness, grasping the shadow, while the substance passes by them unobserved!"

"Well may you thus exclaim, brother," said Hero. "Alas for human ignorance and selfishness! All believe themselves superior to their neighbors; all are willing to teach, and none to be taught. I have wept over the earth. I still weep, praying ever that the march of ages will relieve the down-trodden, and elevate all far, far above the level of the most advanced minds now on earth."

 

"The day of which you speak," said the Sage, "is close at hand Its messengers are already rapping at the portals of earth. The prophets saw its gray morning's blush on the horizon of mind, with its refulgent coming. The grand illumination—the millennium of mind—is approaching on the wings of thought. Tyranny, anarchy, misrule, slavery, and false government will be swept away before its irresistible tide! The sovereignty of the individual will take the place of these then shall the love of wisdom walk forth in the splendor of its morning beams."