“I am here, and it is no delusive dream! From the beginning thou hast been forgiven, and my love abideth [pg 345]with thee! Forget all that is behind, and press forward, for behold great things wait for thee!”
Continuing the warm clasp of hands, they sat down, face to face.
“And thou art Stephanos! what joyful tidings! For a season my guilty soul had rest neither day nor night. But now thou hast confirmed the peace which hath been growing in me since my sojourn in the wilderness.”
“I have knowledge of thy good estate. Behold thy soul will become mighty, and thou will open the eyes of much people! I am but one of an unseen cloud of witnesses who will give thee strength and inspiration!”
“I am but newly born of the Spirit, and have much to learn. I fain would know how thou art employed, and how thou dost come to me?”
“Behold they, who while in the fleshly body ministered to the needs of their brethren, continue their ministry unbroken by the change of condition. There are manifold ways in which we of the Unseen move upon the minds of men which language would fail to express, and which thou couldst not now fully understand. Love lendeth us wings, and so far as the souls of men are open to the entrance of the truth, we are able to reflect some light to them. But the multitude are ignorantly closed! They count themselves to be fleshly in being, therefore the things of the Spirit are hidden from their eyes. They believe not in ministering spirits, neither care they for any understanding of the things of the higher life.”
“Do all who have passed thither engage in the ministry of love and good-will?”
“Nay! There is a great throng whom no man can number who have laid off the flesh, but who are yet entangled in the meshes of the fleshly mind! They are spirits who are in prison, and the loving guidance of the free spirits have much exercise in their release.”
“Hast thou a body and members when thou dost not possess the form of Amoz through which thou speakest to me?”
“Yea, verily! Our bodies, though lighter than air, as known to you, are vastly more substantial than the seen shadows which men count as themselves. It is only the invisible which has real being! The seen man is but an incidental manifestation of MAN!”