Strange Visitors | Page 4

a greater
variety of tints.
A few steps around a projecting bluff brought us within sight of what
appeared to me a magnificent palace of alabaster. This palace I soon
learned was a hotel, or place of resort for travellers.
In ascending its polished steps I was met by some half dozen persons
whom I had known. You may be sure a wonderful handshaking ensued.
We remained here but a few moments, partook of refreshments, and
then proceeded to the court-yard, where I was told a car awaited to
carry us to our destination.
The car seemed to be a frame-work, apparently of silver wire. We now
comfortably seated ourselves, when two large wings struck out from it
like those of some great condor. We moved rapidly over the acclivity.
This is a new way of crossing the mountains, thought I; I will have to
introduce it in the Sierra Nevada and Colorados.
I inquired how the machine was propelled, and was informed, "Simply
by a chemical arrangement similar to your galvanic battery."
You may conceive my astonishment when we descended into a park of
a vast city.
"My God!" exclaimed I, "it cannot be that I am in the spirit world! Why,
look at the houses and churches, and temples! What magnificent
buildings!" But I must say the material alone struck me as something
sublime and unearthly. So transparent and rich in color, reflecting light
as if through a veil or mist! "This caps all," said I, as doctors and
lawyers, artists and authors, whom I had known, stepped up to greet me,
smiling and full of life. "Why, how is this?" "Is this you?" "Where did
you come from?" Questions like these came from all sides. Francis and
Brady, Willis, Morris, and a host of New Yorkers who had slipped out
of sight and almost out of mind, now gathered around me as if by

miracle. I rubbed my eyes in wonder. Spying Brown, I cried out, "Why,
how is this, Brown? It can't be that I am in heaven! Do you have such
things here? Houses, stores, and works of art on every side?"
"Yes; people must live," said he, "wherever they be."
"And are men here the same, with all their faculties?" I asked.
"Yes; why not? Have you any you'd like to lose?"
I shook my head and walked on absorbed in thought. And are all our
paraphernalia for funerals, our solemn black, and our long prayers but
useless ceremonies? Why, according to this, the beliefs of the Chinese,
Hottentot, African, and Indian are nearer the truth than our civilized
creeds!
I find that there are few things in which society in this world so much
differs from that of earth as in its social and political arrangements.
All the great system of living for appearances, and the habit of
self-deception whereby men live outwardly what their secret lives
disavow, are here entirely done away with.
In the first place the marriage relations differ materially from those of
earth, and no false sentiment nor custom, nor religious belief, holds
together as companions those who are dissimilar in their nature.
Neither do men crucify their tastes and feelings from a mistaken idea of
duty.
The miseries and disasters which are attendant on a life on earth they
view as a parent would view the whooping-cough or scarlatina which
afflict the body of his child--as necessary steps toward his growth and
progress from youth to manhood.
A remarkable instance of this came under my own observation. You
remember that the singular and sudden death of Abraham Lincoln was
a matter of surprise to us. We could not see the purpose of an all-wise
Providence in this sudden closing of an eventful career. It was

discussed in every newspaper in the land, and the conclusion was that
the Creator had some special purpose in his removal, and this we all
believed.
But here the enigma is solved.
Standing face to face and walking side by side, as I have done for the
last few days with this man, raised as some suppose for the special
purpose of freeing the slave--a martyr for principle--I find that he
enjoys as a good joke, this martyrdom, and I have also ascertained the
solemn fact that he was removed, not by God, but by spirit politicians,
God's agents.
And the state of the case is this: the Southern rebels, hot-blooded and
revengeful, who were arriving daily by scores and hundreds, in the
spirit world, finding their cause discomfited and worsted, became
mutinous. They were too raw and new to fall into the harmony of the
spirit life, and they threatened a second war in Heaven; a war which
those young Lucifers would have waged with terrific power.
To quell this disturbance and produce a