done!" And that moment a helping hand is given them and they progress. Why? Because we have schools and colleges. We have a power here that you cannot realize while in the earth-life. We have a power that brings us higher and higher each day. We have a power of returning to the earth-plane to do the work we have left undone, if there is any good to come of it. And the work that I anticipate doing, that I have come to you to do through your organism, will prove to the world greater facts than ever have been published before. You in your skepticism were groping blindly for years; but when the time came, when the veil was rent from your eyes, you saw plainly. You desired so earnestly to know and accept the truth that it has helped you from the moment you started to the present time. And we will still continue to help you in your work, as we only can; and I am only too glad to come to you today and say to you how much I thank you for the control you have allowed me to exercise over your soul, giving me soul power from yourself to place before the world a work that will be prized and read, that will bring realization of Eternal Truth, and will be appreciated by old and young, from north to south, from east to west, all over the universe. The fact should not be overlooked that all of the above came in response to the unspoken thought of my soul, written out, but unseen by any physical eye except my own. On July 16 I visited Mrs. R., the medium through whom Mr. Brooks had first manifested himself to me, accompanied by Mrs. Sherman and a stenographer. After the medium's familiar control had spoken to us for a time, Mr. Brooks took control, and said: Good morning: I feel that an interview with you on the subject of your work will be beneficial to you, and may perhaps enable me to understand better the way I may serve you best. Î want to say to you this morning, my brother and my sister, that if you are co-workers in the great cause of truth and philanthropy, if you are in perfect unison, great results will come. I feel that you will work together, heart to heart and soul to soul, and that the glory which shall radiate upon you will be divided in your success. For long years I strove in a path that seemed to me at that time in consonance with reason. I inherited deep religious sentiment from one side, and a free, broad nature from the other. No man had ever a truer, tenderer mother than I. At her knee I was taught to reverence all things under the sun; to esteem womanhood as the highest, noblest work of God, because my mother was a woman. I was taught to respect the rights of my brother. I was taught to believe in a universal God. Mingled with this were strict sectarian teachings. Were I to live my life over again, I assure you that with the disposition, the natural tendencies of my nature, Í would do differently from what I did. It seems to me that a portion of that time was an utter waste. Perhaps not; I do not know. I feel the smallness of my life. People speak of me as great. A name can make no man great. It is the good deeds he carries with him into the life eternal that give him position in the land beyond. For twenty-one years I labored hard in the old home church. A few years previous to this I labored in a sister state. I fancy that the earlier part of my labors were not very commendable. Young, impulsive, I found it very hard to divest myself of an ambition which would really crowd my better nature. But these first eight or nine years of my life gave me something of an insight into human character. I seemed to possess clearly overruling anxiety that people ought to be good and do good. The latter twenty years of my life I strove to demonstrate this to the world. The best instruction that I ever received was from good old Dr. Vinton. He told me, as no one else ever told me, how broad God's love was. I think I understood it better than I ever preached it, Brother Sherman, much better. Bound by those old creeds, and other certain formulas, I knew no other way; but I was obliged, as I supposed, to conform to them, holding me in bonds. But now I feel these shackles are all broken, and I am standing clear of them, and able to do for those who know me. My greatest joy, on the earth-plane, is to bring strength to the weak, comfort to the poor, peace to the weary, and content to those who are weary of life's burdens. I say this is my greatest joy, when I am able to do it. But it is very little I am able to accomplish, even now. My desire is to do all these things, and bring good to every soul who knows me. But bound and limited by laws on this side, as you are here, I find it almost impossible, owing to the environment, to influence by impression certain persons that I am desiring to assist. But as long as you shall need me, as long as at any time it shall be possible for me to bring to you either some new light, or help you unfold the light you have, remember I shall never fail you. Perhaps it is because your organism is something like my own. I hate oppression; so do you. I hated slavery and everything connected with the system of slavery. I desired freedom for all humanity, and gave my influence for it. You have a great deal of this in your own nature, possibly more than I had. I only know that I disliked anything that had a formula or shackles. And I today feel that I was bound hand and foot. I did not know it then. I thought I was free, and prided myself on the stand I took. Today I know that I was fettered, perhaps in the fold of my friends and teachers. But the circumstances have changed. I look back over some quotations that are taken from my works, and I wonder if I ever was narrow enough to speak those words. I wonder if I ever wrote such sentences. I know I did, but I cannot do it today. No! no! no! A little child I entered into this life. We all enter here as children. Weak, groping slowly on, guided by the light which sheds its rays only upon us when we come through the gates of death. I am a child, but think the same as a man, knowing that I will leave all this to grow into full manhood. I shall work on until some day, I know not when, and somewhere, I cannot name the place, I believe I shall see a sweet rest for all I have done here; and I know that you will. Sometimes there is such an influx, such a crowding upon you of thoughts, that you feel you are so full of them they will become misshapen before you can present them to the world. You cannot demonstrate the source of all these thoughts that come to you, but they are brought upon you by minds in sympathy with your own; by great, noble hearts that are striving with all the power that God has given them to uplift mankind. Now, my brother, I want you to feel that you will never work unaided. Here is a peculiar thing. Your own little boy is only a child here, but if he had remained in the earth-life you would have had to have been his teacher for long years. But it is like transplanting something, a plant or a vegetable, from a cold clay soil into the rich loam garden. Cultivate and water it, and give it every attention, and how it will develop; how very quick it will unfold from its crude condition to a perfect flower! It was very meagre, very small there, in comparison with the greenhouse growth and development in the land of souls. That child shall bring to you an influence which shall verify the old words, "And after a time a little child shall lead them," and it is not a long time. That child wanders through the spirit life, with a great bundle of thought. You see people come there, wandering, seeking, as if they were naturalists, anxious to secure flowers, and they arrange them into something with shape, classified and beautiful. Something that they may learn from. This child comes in the same way in the other life. If there is a group of men and women conversing that little boy stands close by, and listens to them, like a child picking flowAnd the words come to you, and you wonder sometimes that a thought comes to you in such simple language. It is the language of a child. ers. Your work is only just begun. You fancy sometimes that you only do a great work once in your life. When you get through with life you can tell better which one that was. That which you consider your great work is only the first stepping stone. It is only the first round in the ladder that leads to greatness. That is all. I have felt the necessity of being able to communicate with you and your family without the necessity of a third party. I think it can be so. How is it, sister? Do you feel as if you could help us out a little on this? Do you know she has that power? It would be such a benefit to yourself. Pouring as we have all our thought through the different agents, it entirely takes shape by that which we send it through. You understand. You get our thoughts; there is no doubt of that. I wish you might have something that would give them an evenness and a smoothness. If anything comes to you, some thoughts in the next work, you will depend upon outside help to assist you in condensing and arranging the formation of these experiments which we desire you to give to the world. And we desire that the most of these be given through as few organisms as possible. While each one is all right in his or her way, I feel it to be disconnected. I want it to be all right, and that is the only reason we desire to communicate with you personally upon this subject. There is a need of uniformity in the work. We want you to bring out your best thoughts in the best possible way. We also desire to send you our best thoughts in the best possible way, and have them reach you without deformity or mutilation. You ask something of my life. There is nothing to it. I lived, I worked, I died. My life was a monotonous one. Never outside of the little channel of work. Nothing but my clerical duties. That was all. There was no romance in my life. There was nothing in it that would benefit humanity. I give these communications as they came to me. I never met Mr. Brooks during his earth-life. I know nothing of his relationships or the events of his life in detail. I have never seen or read one of his books, and only one of his sermons. I have nothing to prove that these communications came from him, but this: I know that they did not originate in my mind; I know the mediums through whom they came were not in normal consciousness when they were spoken, and I am sure they were all quite incapable of having originated them without previous careful preparation. I am entirely certain that decarnate souls do speak through mediums; and, as a voice spoke to me in a trumpet saying, “I am Phillips Brooks," and the same intelligence has continued to present itself to me through many other channels, I see no reason for doubting that the soul thus manifested, although invisible to my physical eyes, is in truth the one it claims to be. CHAPTER XXXIV. THERE IS NO DEATH!-THE DECLARATION OF TRUE PoetryTHE PARTING OF THE SOUL FROM THE BODY-SPIRITUAL VISION OPENED AS THE TRANSITION APPROACHES-VISIONS OF THE SPIRIT REALM, THE HOME OF THE DECARNATE SOUL. There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. -Longfellow's Resignation. Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting? -Alexander Pope. It must be so-Plato, thou reasonest well! Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out our hereafter This moment brings me to an end; |