The Life Beyond the Veil Volume I: The Lowlands of Heaven - George Owen, Kenroy Hunter, Geoff Cutler (best novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

wonder why these strange faces were around her in place of the nurses and friends she had last seen. She inquired where she was, and, when she was told, a look of wonder and of yearning came over her face, and she asked to be allowed to see the friends she had left.

 

This was granted her, and she looked on them through the Veil and shook her head sadly. “If only they could know,” she said, “how free from pain I am now, and comfortable. Can you not tell them?” We tried to do so, but only one of them heard, I think, and he only imperfectly, and soon put it away as a fancy.

 

We took her from that scene, and, after she had somewhat gained strength, to a children’s school, where her little boy was, and, when she saw him, her joy was too great for words. He had passed over some few years before, and had been placed in this school where he had lived ever since. Then the child became instructor to his mother, and this sight was a pretty one to see. He led her about the school and the grounds and showed her the different places, and his schoolmates, and, all the while, his face beamed with delight; and so did the mother’s.

 

We left her awhile, and then, when we returned, we found those two sitting in an arbour, and she was telling him about those she had left behind, and he was telling her

 

of those who had come on before, and whom he had met, and of his life in the school, and it was as much as we could do to tear her away, with a promise that she should return soon and often to her boy.

 

That is one of the better cases, and there are many such, but others are otherwise.

 

Now, while we waited for the mother who was talking with her son, we wandered over the grounds and looked at the various appliances for teaching children. One especially engaged my attention. It was a large globe of glass, about six or seven feet in diameter. It stood at the crossing of two paths, and reflected them. But as you looked into the globe you could see not only the flowers and trees and plants which grew there, but also the different orders from which they had been derived in time past. It was very much like a lesson in progressive botany, such as might be given on Earth and deduced from the fossil plants of geology. But here we saw the same plants alive and growing, and all the species of them from the original parent down to the present representative of the same family.

 

We learned that the task set for the children was: to consider this progression up to this particular plant or tree or flower actually growing in that garden and reflected in the globe, and then to try to construct in their minds the

further and future development of that same species. This is excellent training for their mental faculties, but the results are usually amusing. It is the same study which full-grown students are also at work upon in other departments here, and is put by them to a practical end. One of them thought it would be a useful method to help the children to use their own minds, and so constructed the ball for their especial use. When they have thought out their conclusion, they have to make a model of the plant as it will appear after another period of evolution, and fearful and wonderful some of those models are, and as impossible as they are strange.

 

Well, I must not keep you longer, so we will continue when you are able to write again. God bless you and yours. Good night.

 

 

Monday, October 6, 1913.

 

Well, dear, you have had a very happy Harvest Thanksgiving, and we were with you although you did not see us, and were too busy to think about us very much. We love to come and join with our fellow-worshippers still incarnate, and also to give what we are able to help in their worship. It may surprise you to know that here in these Realms of Light, we too, from time to time, hold such services as yours, and join in thanking our Father for

 

harvest plenty. We do this by way of supplementing the thanksgiving of our brethren on Earth, and also for our own uplifting. We have here no such harvests as yours, but still we have services of thanksgiving for other blessings which are to us what harvest is to you.

 

For instance, we thank Him for the beauty all around us and all the glories of light and love which sustain us in vigour for our work and progress, and have services of thanksgiving for such blessings as these. At such times we usually are given some Manifestation from the Higher Spheres, one of which I will tell you about now.

 

We were holding our Eucharist in a valley, where two lofty hills stood some little distance apart, one on each side, but at one end of the vale. We had offered up our praises and worship, and stood with heads bowed down awaiting, in that silent peace, which always fills us at such times, for the word of Benediction from him who had been the chief minister. He stood a little way up the hillside, but he did not speak, and we wondered why.

 

After awhile we all slowly raised our heads, as if by one consent and impelled thereto by some inner voice, and we saw that the hill on which he stood was covered with a golden light which seemed to rest upon it like a veil. This slowly drew together and concentrated around the form of the Priest, who stood as if oblivious of anything about him.

 

Then he seemed to come to himself again, and, stepping out of the cloud, he advanced towards us and told us that we were to wait awhile until we were able to see into the higher sphere from which certain angels of that sphere had descended and were present. So we waited, well content; for we have learned that when such an injunction is given it will presently be justified.

 

The cloud then lifted and spread out over the valley, farther and farther, until it covered the whole sky above us, and then it gradually descended and enveloped us, and we were in a sea of light far brighter than the light of our own sphere, but yet not dazzling to our eyes, but soft and mellow. By and by we were able to see by means of it, and then we saw the vision prepared for us.

 

The two high hills at the end of the valley glowed with fire, and each was the side, or arm, of a Throne, and about that Throne all colours of the rainbow played, much like that scene of which you read in the Book of Isaiah and of the Revelation. But we did not see the One Who sat on the Throne, at least not in bodily form. What we did see was a Manifestation of Him as to His Fatherhood. On the terrace, which was instead of the seat of the Throne, we saw a great company of Angels, and they were all bending in worship and love over a cradle. In the cradle we saw a child who smiled at them, and at length raised his hands towards the open space above him, where a light seemed

 

to stream down from above.

 

Then into his arms there descended a golden globe, and he stood up and held it on his left hand. It seemed alive with the light of life and sparkled and glowed and became brighter and brighter until we scarcely noticed anything else but that ball itself and the child who held it, and whose body seemed to be irradiated through and through by its living light. Then he took it in his two hands and opened it in two halves, and held it aloft, turning the open circles towards us. One was filled with a pink radiance, and the other with blue. In the latter we saw the heavenly realms set in concentric circles, and each circle full of glorious and beautiful beings of those realms. But the outer circles were not so bright as the inner ones, and yet we could see the inhabitants more plainly because they were more nearly of our own estate than those others. As the innermost circles were neared, the light became too intense to see clearly what they held. But the very outermost circle we recognized as that of our own order.

 

The other bowl of pink light was different. There were no circles apparent in it. But yet, in perfect order, we beheld all the different species of animal and vegetable life as they are on the planets, including Earth. But we saw them not as they are with you, but in perfection, from man to the lowest form of sea-animal, and from the largest tree and most luscious fruit to the tiniest weed which grows.

 

When we had viewed these awhile the child gently brought the two halves together, the glorious Heavens and the perfect Material Creation, and, when he had joined them, we could see no mark of the joining, nor tell which was one half and which the other.

 

But as we looked on the reunited ball, we saw that it was enlarging, and, at last, it slowly floated up from the hand of the child and rose into the space above him, and stood there poised, a beautiful ball of light. Then there gradually emerged into view, standing on the great sphere, the figure of the Christ, Who in His left arm held a cross, the base of which rested on the globe and the top was some little space above His shoulder. In His right hand He held the child, on whose forehead we now noticed a single circle of gold worn, as a fillet on his head, and over his heart a jewel like a great ruby. Then the globe began slowly to ascend into the heaven above, and the higher it went the smaller it grew to our sight, until it melted into the distance over the space between the two hills.

 

Then we were in our normal state again, and all sat down to wonder at what we had seen, and the meaning of it. But although some seemed to have some glimmerings as to the meaning of it, nobody was very illuminative. Then we thought of our minister, who had first received the baptism of the cloud, and, as it seemed to us, in a more intense degree than the rest of us. We found him sitting

 

there by himself on a rock, with a quiet smile on his face, as if he knew we should come to him at last, and was waiting till we remembered him. He bade us sit down again, and, still sitting on the rock where he could be seen by all, he told us of the Vision.

 

It had been explained to him as to its more obvious meanings, and these he was able to hand on to us, leaving us to think it over and work out the higher and inner teaching for ourselves, each according to his own phase of mind. This is what is usually done, I find, when teaching is given to us by such means as this.

 

The pink hemisphere represented the Creation which was inferior to our Sphere, and the blue one our own and that superior to us. But these were not two Creations, but one; and there was no break between these two hemispheres or any of their subdepartments. The child was the embodiment of the beginning, progress and end, which has no ending—our onward way. The ruby stood for sacrifice, and the crown for achievement, and