“God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not; in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man in slumberings upon the bed.” This was Job’s testimony. Dare any one declare that God has ceased to speak to man? Every man and woman has exigencies and sorrows of which only God knows, and only God can counsel and comfort. I solemnly declare, that I have known this truth all my life long:
“Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest,
Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny;
Yea, with one voice, O World, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this, am I.”
There has always been a distinction between dreams and visions. Visions imply the agency of an angel. Christ did not dream of an angel comforting him in Gethsemane; “there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening him.” Visions are much rarer than dreams. I have had divine and prophesying dreams of many kinds, but never have had a vision. My spiritual ear was pre-attuned to heavenly voices, when I came into this reincarnation, but my sight has not yet been opened. Yet I am intensely sensitive to Spiritual Presence, and though I cannot discern it, it is as real to me as my own person. Never in all eternity can I forget the Angel Presence who came to me when I was a child twelve years old. I was praying with all my child heart, that God would love me, and teach me how to please Him, and suddenly, even as I prayed, there was some one there, and I heard a voice, clear and sweet, say to me, “Arise and shine, for thy light has come.” And I was so happy, I thought I was in heaven. If all the events I have written in this book should vanish from memory, this one would remain bright and imperishable, though the waves of centuries washed over it. Yet I did not see. I am not yet ready for vision. But it will come, for we have a natural body, and we have a spiritual body—not we are going to have—we already possess it, and as we develop our spiritual faculties, they will be ours.
No doctrine is taught more authoritatively and constantly in the Bible than that of Angel Ministry. Whenever we read of angels it is as helpers and comforters. They rejoice over our repentance, they minister continually to our sorrows. The broken in heart, the eyes washed and cleared by consecrating tears, the feet that have been to the border land, they know. However there never was in Christendom an age when there were so many creeds and so little faith. People are proud of being practical and material. They forget that our spiritual life is beyond all scientific laws, and rests entirely on one spiritual and miraculous book, and one spiritual and miraculous life.
On the twenty-third of September, that is about a month ago, a most interesting thing happened. I received by mail a newspaper in English, printed and published in the City of Jerusalem, Palestine; a large sheet of four pages, and the lower half 471 of every page was occupied by the article I had written for the American of New York, on the subject of spiritual revelations, and the sublime destiny of man through the means of reincarnations. It delighted me that this article should appear in a paper named The Truth and this especially, because the subject of reincarnation was well known in ancient Jerusalem; was indeed a recognized faith in all Judea in the time of Christ. With the exception of the class called Sadducees, the Jew believed in his own immortality. He knew that whatever had its beginning in time, must end in time; but he looked backward, as well as forward, to an eternity of God’s love. Solomon says for all his race, the indisputable words of faith found in Proverbs, 8:22-31.
What does reincarnation demand of us? Only that we should by a series of human lives, attain to the condition of celestial beings, worthy to be called the sons and daughters of The Most High. Some through love, obedience and self denial—which last is the highest form of soul culture—will reach this end sooner than others, but I believe all will eventually do so; for it is not the will of God that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and consequently to an era of effort, which will finally prevail.