A Romance of Two Worlds | Page 4

daily realized--things formerly considered mere fairy-tales
have become facts--yet, in spite of the marvels of learning and science
that are hourly accomplished among us, the attitude of mankind is one
of disbelief. "There is no God!" cries one theorist; "or if there be one, I
can obtain no proof of His existence!" "There is no Creator!" exclaims
another. "The Universe is simply a rushing together of atoms." "There
can be no immortality," asserts a third. "We are but dust, and to dust we
shall return." "What is called by idealists the SOUL," argues another,
"is simply the vital principle composed of heat and air, which escapes
from the body at death, and mingles again with its native element. A
candle when lit emits flame; blow out the light, the flame
vanishes--where? Would it not be madness to assert the flame immortal?
Yet the soul, or vital principle of human existence, is no more than the
flame of a candle."
If you propound to these theorists the eternal question WHY?--why is
the world in existence? why is there a universe? why do we live? why
do we think and plan? why do we perish at the last?--their grandiose
reply is, "Because of the Law of Universal Necessity." They cannot
explain this mysterious Law to themselves, nor can they probe deep
enough to find the answer to a still more tremendous WHY--namely,

WHY, is there a Law of Universal Necessity?--but they are satisfied
with the result of their reasonings, if not wholly, yet in part, and seldom
try to search beyond that great vague vast Necessity, lest their finite
brains should reel into madness worse than death. Recognizing,
therefore, that in this cultivated age a wall of scepticism and cynicism
is gradually being built up by intellectual thinkers of every nation
against all that treats of the Supernatural and Unseen, I am aware that
my narration of the events I have recently experienced will be read with
incredulity. At a time when the great empire of the Christian Religion
is being assailed, or politely ignored by governments and public
speakers and teachers, I realize to the fullest extent how daring is any
attempt to prove, even by a plain history of strange occurrences
happening to one's self, the actual existence of the Supernatural around
us; and the absolute certainty of a future state of being, after the
passage through that brief soul-torpor in which the body perishes,
known to us as Death.
In the present narration, which I have purposely called a "romance," I
do not expect to be believed, as I can only relate what I myself have
experienced. I know that men and women of to-day must have proofs,
or what they are willing to accept as proofs, before they will credit
anything that purports to be of a spiritual tendency;-- something
startling--some miracle of a stupendous nature, such as according to
prophecy they are all unfit to receive. Few will admit the subtle
influence and incontestable, though mysterious, authority exercised
upon their lives by higher intelligences than their own-- intelligences
unseen, unknown, but felt. Yes! felt by the most careless, the most
cynical; in the uncomfortable prescience of danger, the inner
forebodings of guilt--the moral and mental torture endured by those
who fight a protracted battle to gain the hardly- won victory in
themselves of right over wrong--in the thousand and one sudden
appeals made without warning to that compass of a man's life,
Conscience--and in those brilliant and startling impulses of generosity,
bravery, and self-sacrifice which carry us on, heedless of consequences,
to the performance of great and noble deeds, whose fame makes the
whole world one resounding echo of glory--deeds that we wonder at
ourselves even in the performance of them--acts of heroism in which

mere life goes for nothing, and the Soul for a brief space is pre-eminent,
obeying blindly the guiding influence of a something akin to itself, yet
higher in the realms of Thought.
There are no proofs as to why such things should be; but that they are,
is indubitable. The miracles enacted now are silent ones, and are
worked in the heart and mind of man alone. Unbelief is nearly supreme
in the world to-day. Were an angel to descend from heaven in the
middle of a great square, the crowd would think he had got himself up
on pulleys and wires, and would try to discover his apparatus. Were he,
in wrath, to cast destruction upon them, and with fire blazing from his
wings, slay a thousand of them with the mere shaking of a pinion, those
who were left alive would either say that a tremendous dynamite
explosion had occurred, or that the square was built on an extinct
volcano which had suddenly broken out into frightful activity.
Anything rather than believe