How beautiful she was with the graces of youth, and the complete and perfected charms of maturity. No wrinkles were on her brow, no marks of care, anxiety or pain; she was ideal in excellence.
What has happened to you, mother? How are you the same and yet not the same?
The response: I have returned to my youth, and have brought my experience with me. I scarcely realize how many years have passed. Twenty-five, do you say? It seems to me not as many days; and yet, let me recount. There has been a flood of events, and my recollection of the last time you saw me has grown dim. We count not time by years, but by accomplishments; by what we do and gain in thought. I am pained by the memory of the olden time. You say it was twenty-five years or more ago! As I come again in contact with earth, my sickness and sufferings are recalled. How weary and worn I became! How I longed for the end! The love you all bore me and my love for you was the only cord which bound me to life, and as I approached the end I forgot even that. How much I suffered that day I cannot tell, but at last I was at peace. The terrible struggle between flesh and spirit was done, and the latter rested. I thought I would sleep, and yet it was not sleep. It was a repose of all living functions, and yet my mind was in full activity. For a time I heard all that was said by those who were in the room; but soon I became so absorbed in the thoughts which flowed on my mind that I lost consciousness of everything else. Oh! it was such a delicious sense of comfort and of rest! I was so very weary; I had been so tortured by pain that to be free was indescribable happiness. I had heard them say I was dying, and I expected the dread moment with foreboding. It surely must soon come, yet I thought I had not reached it. The darkness began to lighten, and I thought the morn was breaking. An intense thrill of delight filled my being, and the light grew stronger. I continued to rest, and a new strength came to me. I am getting well again, I thought, and, perhaps, when the morning comes I shall surprise my friends and children by at once arising from my couch. The light streamed in with a soft and a refreshing warmth. There were no walls to prevent its passage. I was floating in a cloud of light, borne gently and softly as a weary child on its mother’s breast. Then out of the light, as though it had formed into shape and substance, I saw three friends, long since dead, and my own blessed mother. To meet them did not appear strange to me, yet I knew they were not of earth. When they came around me, taking my hands in theirs, and caressing my forehead, I was surprised at their beauty, and the sweetness of their expression. They read my thoughts, and answered:
“Yes, truly we are of the dead; and you will find that dying means to live.”
“I thought I was dying; they told me so,” I said, laughing at the absurdity. “But I have become well, never so well since a child. It is a joy to breathe and feel the fresh life come coursing through my veins. But why do you smile?” I asked. They replied: “Do you not know that your new life means death? How much you have to learn, dear sister.”
“Yes, I have everything to learn; my life has been full of cares.”
“They have been for others,” was replied. “And such are treasures in heaven. For us to learn is not labor. If we bring ourselves into the proper condition of receptivity, knowledge flows into our minds. There is no effort, no wearisome study. We may know all that the highest intelligence knows if we are in the right condition.”
“I must bring myself at once into that condition,” I replied, “for there is need.”
“Be not in haste, our sister,” said they gently; “there is time, and you must have repose. The pain you have endured reflects on your spirit, and you have not yet recovered.”
“I infer from your words that I have met the change I so feared,” I said again, smiling at the absurdity of the idea. “When did I pass the limits of earth life, and why do I lose sight of my friends?”