Part 24 (1/2)
I now understood it all. I felt the self-abas.e.m.e.nt, the contrition, the inexpressible longing. The sun had already disappeared. The sun of the spiritual world does not rise and set like ours; but it brightens or pales in appearance with the changing states of the spirit. Then shone out innumerable stars in a blue dome, like the friendly faces of cherubim and seraphim smiling on us.
At length the wearied new-comer into the spiritual world pa.s.sed into that mysterious realm of profoundest sleep, which is common to all worlds, and in which the unconscious soul is alone with G.o.d.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]
XVII.
_JUDGMENT OF THE JEWS._
[Ill.u.s.tration: Initial]
When I awoke, the sun was s.h.i.+ning through a golden mist: the dew glittered like a rainbow fallen upon the gra.s.s and flowers: the air was full of sweet odors and the voices of birds: a strange warmth and vigor pervaded my body, and a delightful activity reigned in my soul.
”Come,” said my father, ”the first awakening thought should be always a prayer.”
He then repeated those beautiful words by which Jesus taught his disciples to pray. I will not describe the spiritual phenomena which attended this prayer. The mult.i.tude of ideas and influxes and perceptions which were crowded into every sentence, would be incomprehensible to men. It seemed to be an epitome of the universe, and to bring the soul into loving contact with all the spheres of the divine creation.
”Has Jesus taught that prayer in the world of spirits also?” I inquired.
”Yes. This prayer is the universal prayer which binds the heavens and all the angels together. It is the holiest thing of religion. It descends from G.o.d to angels and men; and blessed is he who receives it into his heart!
”We are now ready,” continued my father, ”by the divine permission and under the divine protection, to explore some of the evil spheres which have congregated in the world of spirits, and which infuse their deadly poisons into men in the world. You will then understand a part of the great work which Christ is performing in this intermediate state.”
Thereupon he examined my face, head and hands with the utmost minuteness.
A man's whole life is written upon these; and angels, having a perfect knowledge of correspondences, the key of symbolism, can read from them your whole history as from a book.
”I perceived,” said he, ”that in your earth-life you have been brought into contact with the corrupt sphere of the Jewish Church, with the sensuousness of Grecian art and philosophy, with the splendors of Roman ambition, and with the ancient and subtle power of Egyptian magic. You have seen these things on the natural or earthly side. I will show them to you on the spiritual and interior side, so that you may comprehend the dreadful condition of the human race, and see the necessity of the Divine incarnation.”
The geography, if we may use the expression, of the world of spirits is ever changing. The Church of the Lord, meaning those who come from the world and possess a divine revelation, always occupies the centre; other nations with different religions are arranged in successive zones around it; the farthest off in the circ.u.mference being those pagans who have received the least portion of the divine light and life.
”Behold the mutations of the world,” said my father. ”Those remotest people, away off in the darkness and cold of the circ.u.mference, were once the chosen people of G.o.d, his church, occupying the centre, immediately under the down-falling rays of the Divine Sun. They proved faithless to their trust. They became so evil that a terrible spiritual catastrophe overwhelmed them, described as a flood,-for they were engulfed in a flood of falsities. They were the antediluvians, of celestial genius, the most richly endowed, the most beautiful of all; and now their descendants, the most hideous and debased, are the black and bronzed barbarians and savages of the world.”
”We are accustomed to think,” said I, ”that those lower types of mankind are the last created, and therefore the least perfect.”
”No! they are the descendants of the first created and most perfect. They are not imperfect but degraded types. Imperfect types would progress upward and onward by natural law. These barbarians of Africa will never make the least advance until new causes which do not now exist, are put in operation. This great mystery of the Divine Providence will not be solved for many, many ages to come.
”After the destruction of that antediluvian church, another succeeded, possessing a written Word, a splendid ceremonial and boundless treasures of spiritual wisdom. They also forfeited their birth-right and betrayed their trust. Their judgment occurred in this world of spirits when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire. Abraham and his family were the remnant saved from that church for the beginning of a new, as Noah and his family had been the remnant saved from the preceding.
”The descendants of this lost church compose chiefly the nationalities of Asia. They have remained for ages and will remain for ages to come in a stationary, semi-petrified condition, possessing no genuine truth, no vital religion, no element of progress; but living upon fables and myths which are the fragments of spiritual truth, whose interior light has long been lost to their understandings.
”For many centuries now of natural time, the Jewish Church has held the centre of the world of spirits. It also has become thoroughly corrupt, and is about to be removed to the circ.u.mference. Its great judgment is impending; its destruction approaches; but of this, that church itself is profoundly ignorant.”
During this conversation we had ascended by insensible degrees to the summit of a high mountain. I was astonished at the splendid panorama spread out beneath us. It was the whole land of Canaan, from the Jordan on the east to the borders of Philistia on the west; from Damascus and Antioch gleaming away to the north, down to the great desert that frowned along the southern boundary.
Immediately beneath us was a city of Jerusalem, ten times as large as our earthly capital; and a holy temple of corresponding proportions, all transcending in glory and grandeur anything ever seen on earth.
”Behold,” said my father, ”the creation of spiritual fantasy, the imaginary heaven of the Jews, which will pa.s.s away like a scroll at the breath of the Lord when He comes in judgment upon them.