228 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



our tears be dried up with hard work in the Lord's vineyard, 

 during the short remaining day." 



Not long after, he heard of the death of a little son of Mr. 

 T. Moulding, who seemed full of health and happiness when 

 he had visited him. He was thunderstruck, and "felt like 

 David when 'he was astonied for one hour.' " When, after 

 some time, he was able to write to his dear friend, he says, 

 " As for me, I have left off believing in death, so called. The 

 spiritual world appears to me close and near. Judging from 

 all accounts, there are only a few hours, or days at most, before 

 the spirit wakes up again. . . I believe my deprivation of 

 home sympathies has made me live more in the spiritual world, 

 from which I feel separated only by a veil of flesh • I feel as 

 though it would never surprise me to find that I had died and 

 was there : it often seems more natural than the present state. 

 In old times, when I believed in an external heaven, and 

 thought we left off being men and became some queer kind of 

 undefined angels, it was not so. Now I feel it to be a waking 

 up of the same humanity without the hindrances of flesh. . . In 

 my intercourse with the ' Spiritualists ' % it is evident to me that 

 they do not mourn for death like Orthodox Christians, whose 

 heaven is more ideal than real. They really do believe that 

 their friends are living happily, and have intercourse with them. 

 About this ' medium ? work 1 care very little : its principal use 

 is to teach the reality of things unseen • and it must be a very 

 imperfect thing at best, because it is only the lowest elements 

 of their nature that can communicate with the highest of ours. 

 But for us all to look on the next state as an absolute continua- 

 tion of this, only in a far purer and in every way better sphere, 

 is good for us all, and especially for those who have 6 treasures 

 in heaven. 7 " 



While his heart was sore with these bereavements, he found 

 ample work to occupy him. " It took me four days packing 



* In the summer he had attended a "circle" of "mediums" at 

 Plymouth, Mass. ; and had been subsequently introduced by Mr. Garrison 

 to Mrs. Underhill, formerly of Rochester, then of New York, with whom 

 he spent an evening, of which he gave a full account : he believed that he 

 then received messages from the departed. 



