"We shall see you again, I hope?" asked Douglas anxiously.
"Oh, yes," responded the doctor cheerfully. "Every year I shall come and stay with you, for there is much instruction in higher things to be given. By following the Master and living as nearly as possible His gracious life, you will refine your physical bodies to such a degree that in time you will be able to link up with the desire body and the mental body—consciously, that is. Already every night you both work and help in the next world, although you cannot yet remember what you do. But when the time is ripe you will remember, and consciously pass from this world to the other. Afterwards you will pass consciously from the desire world to the mental sphere, and so you will work constantly on three planes as the servants of Him who died on the Cross. Think then, my children, how glorious is your future."
The faces of both brightened, but Douglas spoke rather mournfully. "There is much to do in the physical world alone," he protested. "Look at the unrest that prevails everywhere."
"Be of good courage, my son. This unrest you fear shows how rapidly humanity is progressing. This is the era of individualisation, when each has to think for himself. Is it then any wonder that opposing wills clash, when all are so ignorant? But Chaos must precede Cosmos, and the human race is in a very hot furnace being shaped towards the ends intended by the God of All. The inner teaching is being given out freely to the West and to the East, to the North and to the South, therefore is a new spirit being infused into all religions for the enlightenment of mankind."
"Into all religions?" questioned Alice dubiously.
"Yes! All the great religions are true in their essence, for all worship the One True God in Trinity, or in Duality, or in Unity. What men quarrel over and what they reprobate are only those external things which have been added by the ignorance of man. But the time is at hand when such errors will be dispelled, and then all religions will be unified by the Blessed One. To this nation and that God has spoken in different ways: soon He will speak to all with one mighty voice, and all men will learn that they are the sons of one great Father. Notwithstanding the turmoil of the present, be of good cheer, I say, for 'All things work together for good,' as St. Paul has set forth."
In the glory of the sun, now wholly above the horizon, Alice and her husband walked down the avenue to where the motor-car throbbed as if impatient to start. There was a clean, fresh look about the world, as if it had been newly made, and although husband and wife were a trifle sad at the departure of Eberstein, yet their hearts were singing with joy, and they were filled with gratitude to God for what He had done for them.
"Farewell, and may the Master bless you," said Eberstein, from the body of the car. "When I come again let me find that you have worked in the vineyard as true labourers. And so——" he traced the sign of the cross in the air, and Alice saw it visibly outlined in dazzling light as the motor sped swiftly down the hill, through Polwellin and towards Perchton over the purple moors.
"Dear!" Douglas took his wife in his arms, "do not cry."