Strange Visitors | Page 5

counteraction, it was necessary
that one whom they looked upon as the great leader of the Northern
cohorts should be withdrawn from the post which he occupied.
A man of calm, dispassionate judgment, not vindictive, who could hold
the reins with a firm hand, yet look with a lenient eye on the follies
which he did not share, was needed in the spirit world, and that man
was Abraham Lincoln.
When those young Southern bloods had conspired with their co-patriot
to his downfall, had instigated and accomplished his assassination, and
when he appeared in their midst, the simple, unaffected, uncrafty man
that he was, a revulsion of feeling immediately took place.
The liberal party in the spirit world, friends to humanity and progress,
could have prevented his removal had they wished; but not desiring to
do so, they prepared his mind by dreams and visions for what was
about to take place.

For a short time in the spirit world he held the position of Pacificator
and chief ruler over that portion of the American, spirit world
represented by the North and South.
But after averting this peril, which would have involved the States in
anarchy and war such as they had not yet experienced, he retired to
private life.
Another instance, proving that the inhabitants of the spirit world, like
their great prototype, the Creator, do not look at immediate distress, but
at the advantages that may accrue therefrom, presents itself in my
removal from the sphere in which I had probably worked out all that
would be useful to humanity.
Like a _chargé d'affaires_ called back to Washington because he can
fill a better post, so I, through the solicitations of relatives and
fellow-citizens who have preceded me to this new world, was called
here for the purpose of editing a journal and assisting in ameliorating
the condition of the inhabitants of the Southern States, and also to use
my influence in the Congress and Senate at Washington toward
producing a better comprehension of their needs.
I have one thing to say to my brother journalist, Horace Greeley, and
that is that the Utopian ideas which have for so many years formed the
principal topic of his radical sheet are here put in operation.
Each one seems desirous of cooperating with his neighbor, and people
of like tastes and feelings associate together and live in vast
communities or cities. They do not settle down to one routine, as they
do with you. The cost of travelling depending chiefly on the will and
energy of the individual, the inhabitants are ever in motion, ever ready
for a change, if wisdom or pleasure should dictate it. The condition of
the common people is vastly improved, and America has been the chief
agent in placing the lower classes in a condition which adapts them to a
higher spiritualized life. I say lower classes, because under the system
of monarchical governments, the peasants and laborers of Europe have
been kept in a state of besotted ignorance, developing chiefly in the
animal propensities, and not fitting themselves for the higher

enjoyments of the spirit life.
Finding that the spirit world was likely to be overrun by this class of
ignorant and superstitions people, its wise rulers have instigated the
legislators of the United States to provide means for the education and
development of these lower classes of society.
It is only by assimilating with those of a higher intellectual
development that the ignorant become enlightened, and America, in
throwing down all barriers to political and social advancement, has
been the chief instrument of lifting the great mass of humanity to a
position of power in the spirit world; still there are crowds of beings,
ignorant and superstitious, who enter the spirit world, and their
intellects can only be unfolded by the labor and guidance of some
master mind.
I was surprised to find that physical labor here, as on earth, was one of
the chief means employed to assist in mental growth; and I found
swarms of English, Irish, and German people happily at work,
cultivating the land and erecting houses for themselves and others, and
assisting in the great machinery of life, which here, as in the other
world, revolves its constant round.
I had nearly forgotten to mention that since leaving your world I
returned on one occasion to attend a _séance_, as it is termed, for
physical manifestations, and had the pleasure of seeing how our
chemists combine from the elements the semblance of the human form.
I had been interested when on earth in an experiment recently made by
scientific men, whereby, through a peculiar combination of metals, a
flame is caused to assume the shapes of flowers, leaves, fishes, and
reptiles, apparently developed from the air, and I discovered an