"Oh no!" said my father, who took up the conversation; "you are now thinking from your natural stand-point. The spiritually blind are those who are blind to spiritual things. The spiritually dead are those who are dead to spiritual things. They comprise an innumerable mult.i.tude of souls who have lived a merely sensual life, and who have no knowledge or love of anything higher or better or purer than the wretched existence they led in the life of nature."
During this conversation we had been advancing toward the north. We came now to the brow of a great hill, whence the country sloped suddenly downward and spread into a vast plain. It had a cheerless and wintry aspect; for the cities and villages and fields were all covered with snow.
Afar off along the line of the horizon was a dim blue ocean, full of icebergs of enormous size. A gray twilight hung over this cold region, the darkness of which was occasionally illumined by electric flashes in the sky.
"There are spiritual as well as natural zones," said my father-"zones of thought and affection, in which the heat and light vary in intensity according to the interior states of the dwellers. Cold and darkness arise always in this world from the want of spiritual heat and light, which are love and wisdom.
"Here we take our adieu," he continued, in a tone which revealed a touch of sadness. "That great light just rising in the east and south indicates the approach of the Lord with all his hosts of ministering angels and spirits. His presence will disperse the demons of darkness, who have so long sat like ghouls upon the hearts of myriads of feeble and helpless beings.
"Ah! how the love and faith of the Church in heaven have watched over these dead souls! and have wept and prayed for them, like two lovely sisters weeping and praying over the body of a dead brother! How have they longed for this day of the Lord, and how have they wondered, sorrowing, that He has so long delayed his coming!
"He comes! He who is the resurrection and the life! and these dry bones shall live; these dead souls from all pagan lands shall come out of their graves; and the power of death and h.e.l.l shall be overthrown!
"Descend, my son, into the grave that leads you back into life."
My spirit-friends now bade me a tender adieu, p.r.o.nouncing benedictions upon me and speaking words of encouragement. Bewildered and amazed, wondering and fearing what would happen next, I went down the steep slope toward the cold and silent plain. As I moved along, a great change came over my spirit. There was a perceptible closure of some window from above, through which the vital currents descend into the soul. This was followed by a loss of memory, a vanishing of thought, a sense of fainting or death.
The last thing I remember was the music of a sweet hymn wafted softly from the brow of the hill. The words were these:
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
It was my father and John the Baptist comforting to the last the forlorn spirit that was sinking in the waters of Lethe.
Of what occurred after I reached the plain, I have not the slightest recollection, if indeed I ever knew. What kind of people I saw, what they were doing, what Christ and his angels did, what changes followed-all is a perfect blank to me. I cannot account for this fact. It will all be made plain to me when I ascend again into the spiritual world. Certain it is, that a sublime scene of judgment and deliverance took place, but that it did not come within the range of my consciousness.
The first thing I became aware of, was a sense of infinite pity. I did not know whether I was in the spiritual or in the natural world. I was flooded with a vast, deep, boundless spirit of compa.s.sion. I wept-I did not know why. This was the communication to my soul of the life flowing from the Divine Man.
"Jesus wept."
He was not only weeping for me, as the Jews supposed who witnessed the external side alone of this wonderful scene. The loving heart of the Divine Being was touched with infinite, celestial pity for the innumerable mult.i.tude of the spiritually dead. It was a drop of that infinite pity which stirred my soul from the sleep of death. It was a drop of that infinite pity which trickled down the face of Jesus, as he wept in the garden for the brother of Martha and Mary.
That communication of the divine grief to me must have come from the spiritual side of my perceptions. I pa.s.sed again into a dreamy, almost unconscious state, from which I was aroused by a clear sweet voice, saying,
"Lazarus! come forth!"
I started to my feet. Blind, bound, bewildered, I staggered toward the voice. The fresh air struck sweetly on me, and I revived.
The voice continued:
"Loose him and let him go!"
Oh how many myriads of invisible but happy spirits heard at the same moment similar words of deliverance and comfort, from the omnipresent G.o.d speaking in the world of spirits as He had spoken on earth!
I was freed from the shackles of the grave and looked around me. I was in the sweet garden of Bethany, standing by the stone which had been rolled away from the sepulchre, beneath a bright and beautiful sky. A crowd of friends, with faces full of wonder and joy, were grouped around. My sisters had swooned at the feet of Jesus, who was smiling benignantly upon me.
I took in the whole situation at a glance. Remembering everything; remembering my former unbelief and indifference; remembering the wonderful scenes I had witnessed; remembering Jesus in his spiritual body, seen also by the three disciples on the mount; remembering his divine character, his warfare with h.e.l.l, his judgments, his mercies; and now understanding in part the divine mystery of the incarnation; I knelt at his feet in the deepest humility and the most undoubting faith, exclaiming,
"My Lord and my G.o.d!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]
XXII.
_BACK TO EARTH._
[Ill.u.s.tration: Initial]
I was borne to my bed-chamber by my friends; for I was not able to walk.
The curious crowd followed us to the gate, but very few persons were admitted into the house. They judiciously forebore attempting to converse with me, and I fell immediately into a refreshing sleep.
When I awoke my sisters were ready with stimulants and nourishment.
Looking up into their sweet, eager, happy faces, I found stimulus and nourishment of a higher kind.
"Back in the world again!" I exclaimed, as soon as I could breathe for the kisses they were showering upon me.
"Yes-raised from the dead!" said Martha; "Praise be to the Son of G.o.d!"
"Raised from the dead!" echoed Mary with deep solemnity, her voice faltering with emotion.
Trying to recall what had happened, I was struck with a curious impression which had been left on my mind. It was the impression that a very long time-months, years, many years, had elapsed since I died. I had pa.s.sed through so many wonderful states, had seen so many astounding things, and been initiated into so many spiritual mysteries, that when I came to think of them from my earthly stand-point, it seemed impossible that so much experience could have been crowded into a few days.
"If this be really Lazarus," said I aloud, "he ought to be a gray-headed old man, and his sisters wrinkled old women; for surely many years have pa.s.sed since he fell sick in Bethany."
The words disquieted my sisters, who were afraid of returning delirium.
They enjoined upon me absolute silence on the plea of my great weakness.
So I lay upon my couch, looking alternately out of the two windows of my room. One of them opened upon the inner courtyard with its little fountain of water, as beautiful to my eyes as if it had been a great column of crystal. From the other I saw the summit of the Mount of Olives, beyond which lay the Holy City, concealed as heaven is concealed from us by the intervening heights of our earthly pa.s.sions.
Mary sat near me engaged on some fine needlework; Martha at a little table close by, poring over a beautiful golden-clasped parchment of the Psalms of David. They occasionally lifted their eyes with watchful interest to my face. It was a soothing pleasure to contemplate these lovely women. There was a soft, pure, heavenly atmosphere about them, which reminded me of the heaven I had left; and I understood the words of the Psalmist, that man was created only a little lower than the angels.
"Where is Jesus, our benefactor?" I inquired, breaking through their injunction to keep silence.
"Gone into Jerusalem," was the reply.
"If our good father was here," said I, "he would tell us what great change in the world of spirits was coming next; for every movement of Jesus on earth is significative of wonderful things going on in the sphere above us. But alas! from this earthly point of view, all is darkness!"
The startled expression of my sisters" faces showed that they thought my mind was wandering. They only replied by putting their fingers warningly upon their lips.
So I shut my eyes and addressed myself to sleep again; but pictures from that museum of Art which memory builds for us all, came floating before me. Mary standing silent and downcast at the mouth of the deserted cave; the Son of the Desert, the zebra of my vision, wearing in his wild life the ring which Martha had given him; Ethopus parting with his treasure to rescue his brother; the haughty stare of the guests of Hortensius in the Hall of Apollo; Helena, the beautiful, leaning against the emerald tree and clapping her hands at the drunken Bacchus; Mary Magdalen toiling up the hill under the terrible load, and comforted by invisible spirits; the great snow-fields and ice-mountains of the spiritually dead, whom I felt but did not see; all these things and many more pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before my mind"s eye, until, lulled as if by the ceaseless patter of rain, I fell a second time into a deep slumber.
I was thoroughly restored when I awoke the next morning. I immediately repeated the Lord"s Prayer after my father"s example; and entered, upon the first page of the book of my new life, a firm resolution to prepare my soul by faith and obedience for an eternal home in the heaven I had visited, but for which I was yet unfit.