Any one who shall take this stand will need to be reminded that bodily consciousness is one thing, and soul-consciousness another, and that there may be spiritual existence beyond that. Comparatively few mortals have not at some time in their lives awakened at least momentarily to soul-consciousness, and can remember, if they care to try, how suddenly and completely the bodily consciousness retired into the background at its coming.
Thousands can testify that this soul-consciousness in them so dominates that of the body as to render bodily pains powerless to disturb the regnant soul.
These may be able to understand that in the world toward which they hasten, another advance will become possible, wherein the soul-consciousness shall become subordinate to the higher life of the spirit.
To make this a little clearer let me say that what you are now conscious of as your soul, the sensitive inner nature, that feels a slight as though it were a blow, that spurs the organism to years of anxious toil in the hope of gaining independence, that scorns to beg, yet in the hour of danger sometimes feels to pray—this inner self is to be your body when death shall come to break the tie that holds you captive in the dust. Every consideration to which your soul is now sensitive shall become, as it were, the laws of nature then. You will suddenly discover that ill-will, for instance, is a current actually tangible, as much so as an electric current was to your physical body. You will learn experimentally that kindliness of spirit, good-will, and gratitude are equally tangible to your new and finer senses. You will perceive that a generous spirit diffuses light, and a selfish one dwells in his own darkness, and this kind of light and darkness you will be astonished to discover has taken the place of what you formerly knew by those names. You will soon perceive that a deceiving spirit knows how to wear a false light as he pretends to a genuine interest in your welfare, and that a truly friendly one will sometimes hide his light, if thereby he can obtain advantage for your benefit.
If your life has been little more than a revolution around yourself, measuring everything by its relation to your personal advantage as you saw it, you will be surprised to find how small and dark a space will bound your being; and it may be a long time before you cease to dwell upon the memories of the world left behind, or cease to hope that in some way you can return to make a better use of its opportunities. And when you shall fairly come to understand that you have been living in the generous air and sunshine of the spirit of God, and that, instead of seeking to imitate Him by making your life a blessing to those less favored than yourself, you have employed your brief span in the effort to appropriate to your private use everything that could be lawfully seized on, you will wonder why the certainty that earth-life is limited had not impressed you more; and when you perceive, through the soul-consciousness which has taken the place of the bodily, that you have no data whatever upon which to base even a surmise as to how long your new kind of life is to continue, such measureless despair may fall upon you as shall even make tears impossible.
CHAPTER XVII.
On the other hand, if anywhere along your life-journey you have scattered any seeds of kindness, they will every one of them bear fruit in the Beyond.
From the moment when you perceive and acknowledge to yourself that you are not in every way fitted to enter the courts of heaven and become associated with those to whom selfish thoughts have become simply memories, you are likely to have experiences tending to refine and purify your nature. No longer active in the outward, you must bear what influences come upon you from without as best you may. An infant in the cradle is not more helpless than the great majority of those who enter the Beyond; and the invisible nurse that may have you in charge will not ask you what kind of medicine is most agreeable, but will administer what is best for you.