They have but to step on this flowing tide of electric power, as they step on a moving stairway or platform in our cities here on earth, to be borne with scarcely a sense of motion to their bright and heavenly abode. It is a swift and continuous band, an endless chain, a mighty ligament of light and life and power constantly passing between heaven and earth, and earth and heaven, between sun and planet and planet and sun. These are the countless pathways between suns and stars, the mighty and everlasting highways of eternity which God hath built to span the silent ether of space between suns and worlds, and bind the universe in one harmonious whole.
On these mighty currents, as on a moving bridge of golden light, angels and men and ministering spirits may pass and repass to the gateway of eternal life.
Moses and Elias, Christ and John, and all the departed saints of earth have trod this Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend between heaven and earth, and all the departed denizens of earth have trod its golden stairs to their celestial, sun-bright home.
Dr. Minot J. Savage, the eminent New York divine, says he objects to my putting eight minutes of time between the earth and the spiritual world. He thinks Christ taught that they were in immediate connection with each other. And so they are, by the coming and going tides of spirits between the two worlds. But now that the speed of light seems to be discovered to be instantaneous, it may be the communication between them is instantaneous.
When the deathless spirit has dropped its "mortal coil," and visited with electric wing the luminous, life-giving sun and the mighty cities on its spacious bosom, and graduated in the universities of heaven, it will discover that eternity is scarcely long enough to study and enjoy the marvelous creations of the universe. It will find our world is but a floating island in the great solar sea of electro-magnetism, and the solar sea or empire of our sun is but a small province in the boundless ocean of space, hid in the infinite abyss of starry depths; that measureless immensity and countless variety reigns in the universe. Human souls will then be free as air and untrammeled as ether, and may explore the vast highways of eternity with wonder-seeking minds, and visit Jupiter with his enormous moons, Saturn with his gigantic rings, and traverse the out-lying orbs of distant Uranus and Neptune. They may then pass to other solar realms, and wander over the varied bosom of Andromeda's triple suns of blue and green and sapphire tints that whirl like globes of rainbow beauty in the azure sky, and see the double stars and multiple suns, and fiery comets with their glowing spooms, and blood-red meteors, all following harmonious orbits through the pulsing voids of space, vibrating to the rythmic cadence of electric law. All moving with tranquil majesty in the trackless seas of immensity obedient to the Omnipotent Will.
Here blooms infinite, varied life and ever-changing beauty to thrill and bless the wonder-loving soul and make melodious harmony with every pulsing vibration of their imperishable life. The universe of myriads of suns is separated by trillions of miles and scattered like lighthouses along the realms of space, as dynamos of heat and light and life, shooting with measureless speed and bound together by mutual ties as delicate and invisible as the ties of love that bind two souls together at the hymeneal altar. Such is God's universe. She is as a bride to her lover in every floating atom of space, in every circling world and glowing sphere, in every human soul and angel spirit.
As light is the great painter of the skies, and photographs all things that occur in the atmosphere of suns and planets, the aspect of the earth and the sun and the events that occurred on their surface thousands of years ago are now winging their flight through space millions of millions of miles distant. To the eye of Deity or an observer on some distant orb these events of centuries past would seem to be actually occurring or in progress. With powers commensurate with the photographic powers of light, a human soul could stand upon a distant star and follow this wonderful vision and gaze on a succession of events from the beginning of time to the present moment, and read the history of every sun and planet in the rays of light from its own atmosphere. And with poised wing in limitless space or on some far-off sun, read the mighty events transpiring on this little earth in the distant rays of light from its own atmosphere. And in the cities of the sun, the denizens of heaven may, by some marvelous appliance, so magnify the picture in each ray of light from earth and sun and planet that they may view with microscopic eye and telescopic vision all the historic scenes of every sphere, and learn the life and history of every rolling orb.
They need not visit them to see and know the panoramic history of their glowing life. And thus they may view the varied scenes of earth. Could we transport ourselves to Alpha Lyra, Sirius or some more distant sun and could see, like them, the photographic pictures in the rays of light from earth we could view scenes that transpired on the earth thousands of years ago. Thus human souls may see and thus Deity sees the end from the beginning at all times in all spheres. And a ray of light, a drop of dew, a grain of sand or a blade of grass conveys to him a history of the world of which it is a part.
Thus God preserves in every ray of light a constant picture of the changing panorama of the universe; and in man's mind, through man's imperishable memory, He keeps a perfect record of man's thoughts and deeds, which He can unravel as a written scroll at any moment.
The future is ever present in its germs, precisely as the past is present in its fruits. And God's knowledge of the past and future is as much the subject of His consciousness as the present action of His creatures, or the primary laws He has established. He has assigned to the universe certain material and spiritual laws, and the whole scheme of the universe is so perfect it needs no direct intervention. His perfect control of matter under electric law produces the evolutions of nature that accord with His divine purpose, and His spiritual impulse directs the spiritual development of the human soul to the ultimate goal of truth and perfection to be attained in His self-luminous, perfected worlds. Thus we perceive that to the Omnipotent Ruler of the universe the infinite past and the infinite future would at all times be present, that each atom and event would exhibit to Him at each instant the limitless past and future, giving him perfect and omnipotent consciousness and control of his spiritual and electric universe.