I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem

Life in the spirit is a strange mixture of natural and spiritual; spirits speak of houses, lands, clothes, food, books and, on the other hand, speak of will power as the great creative agency, of soul impressions, rather than bodily senses.

Spiritual life is a mingling of the old and the new; the past and the present not yet wholly spirit, nor wholly of earth; spirits partake of both natures. Like a girl who is just between childhood and womanhood may be a child one day and a woman the next or like a dragonfly just emerging from its case comes out with wings, it is true, but they are folded ones and for a time that bears some proportion to its short life it seems rather to crawl on these folded wings, as if it were a grub, than to open them and fly away.

Spirit pleasures and duties are in spirit life as they sometimes are with us. There is no such thing as a pleasure disconnected from work or growth or duty; neither is there any beauty disconnected from true life, nor any idle sorrow or grief that is not distinctly healing in its effect, cleansing or raising the soul. There is no weariness, such as comes from mere ennui or from a vacant mind—real honest fatigue of the body comes only from the imperfection of the growing soul, not yet strong enough to bear all the strain put on it by its spirit lord.

In our world we have the visible, physical life in all stages of development and in all forms; the rock, the flower, the animal and the man. We have also mental life in all stages, from the simplest animal instinct to the most complex brain of man. So in the Spirit world they have the psychic life in all stages—that life which may be said to be outward and visible to their psychic senses. They have also the spirit life; unseen except in its outcome, as it manifests itself through the psychic.

Thus they have trees and stones, animals and man; all with the same kind of life running through them but not to the same degree. How would this world appear to us, if we could enter it in our present body? The old simile of the fish and the bird would be true. The fish that sees, breathes and flies through the water could not change with the bird; the air would be too strong for him and his powers, so perfect in themselves, could not adjust themselves to their new surroundings. We are the fish and they are the bird. We would find their air too strong for us and they should find ours too heavy for them. They enter into our world only through its reflected but true soul-form; they see the pictures of earthly things reflected in us as we see things reflected by and on the eye.

Imagine yourself, however, over in the Spirit World and try to “see” the new world. The first sensation would be of surprise that it is so much like our own—what would first strike you would be the resemblance—town and country, sea and grass; flowers and fruit; men and women and children; life and motion. But the differences would soon begin to press upon your notice. The absence of all dirt, sordid misery, haggard and overburdened faces and savage and sin-sodden countenances. Sorrowful ones you might see; grave faces as well as bright, shining, outgoing looks; you would see people at work of various kinds but anything resembling the whip of the taskmaster would be absent. Weariness might occasionally be noticed but not impatience or despair.

Perhaps the next thing you would notice would be the close fellowship you would have with all forms of nature around you and your power over the lower—power for your good but not for the injury of anything. The air you breathe out, for instance, is no longer poisoned for your brother’s use; the grass you walk on is not trodden down and spoiled for other feet; the flowers you gather do not leave bleeding stalks behind them to wither and become unpleasing to the eye.

The sea will no longer divide or be an instrument of death but rather a friend if only you trust yourself to it. The mountain will no longer be a barrier for toilsome and dangerous climbing but a friend from whose surface you may see a wider stretch of the new country. All things will be “very good” to you if you let your nature have full play and live according to its simple laws.

Should you hear music, you would find an answering strain rise up within your being. You might look in vain for any instrument from which the strains could have proceeded but instead of an organ, the player would play upon the strings of your inner being and they would respond fully and perfectly to his touch.

Then again there is a great difference in the way you converse with those you meet. At first you would naturally use your own language or seem to do so as in a dream (let us say). As you were understood and answered, it would seem as if they also spoke the same language but in a little while you would see that it was not the outward language which they comprehended and replied to but that you made them feel your meaning and they, in return, impressed their thoughts upon you.

Thus you would find in a hundred ways that the old was passing away and that all things were becoming new.

And so the soul—

When it is freed at last from earthly bonds,

Flies from its prison house to its true home.

On earth it was encumbered, incomplete,

Dumb and half blind, struggling with earth and sin;

Striving and groping on its darkened way;

With the eternal question on its lips

Eternally unanswered—Why?

Until the angel comes with outstretched wings,

Dark underneath to him but light above ;

That angel which like two-faced Janus stands,

One face for ever turned towards the past,

The other forward to the life to come;

That dreaded messenger from the Unseen

Who is called Death by you, but Life by us.