“I can not prevent myself thinking of my children and my husband. My love for them is stronger than ever, and I could not have been persuaded to have left them for a day. Can I not, oh, good angel, remain with them? The fairest scene of your home is desolate compared to the earth!”
With tenderest compassion she said: “You are now in the earth-sphere and take on its conditions. You are seeing through earthly eyes, and affected by earthly ways. When we once leave this scene you will be no longer distressed. Willingly would I leave you. I have no right to force you away. I influence you as I think for your highest good. Here you are unrecognized, and are constantly troubled because you can not make yourself known, and by a reflection of the sorrow of your family. Whenever you can be of use to them you will receive the knowledge and can return. Now we had better go.”
She placed her arm around me, and whether the earth sank away from us, or we flow from the earth, I was unable to tell. I have since learned how to traverse space by the force of will; but then I was ignorant of the method, and dependent on others. Now, when I desire to visit a place, or be with certain friends, the desire creates an attraction, which in spirit is the equivalent of magnetic attraction in the physical world.
When we again reached our spirit home our companions gathered around us, and I was soothed by the kind words of my mother. I felt condemned for my loss of interest in the earth-life which had so recently absorbed my mind, but it became like a dim dream, and ceased to trouble me. What if I should forget it entirely? I was appalled at the idea, and cried at the pang it gave.
“Do not fear, you will not forget, but after a time your affections will strengthen. Our sister has much to learn, and needlessly distresses herself.”
The years passed, and I became accustomed to my new life, when a message came for me. The palpitating waves repeated, “Mother! mother! mother!” It was my youngest daughter, who had grown almost to womanhood. I knew by her cry that she was in mortal pain, and yielding to the attractions I was soon with her. She was motionless on a couch, surrounded by her relatives, and her cousin held her cold hand. “It is all over,” they said, in tears.
“Can it be?” I eagerly asked. “Oh! can it be that the time has already come when I am to have one of my children with me? To have one of them who will know me, and converse with me? Oh! heavenly Father, I thank thee for this answer to my incessant prayer.”
Then I looked closely and saw the great transition was approaching. I could not assist; I could only stand by her side and receive her. She seemed asleep, which I fully understood from my own experience. Slowly the spirit left the insensible body, and as I saw my spirit-daughter recovering her senses, I drew near and whispered, “Claribel.” She opened wide her blue eyes, and I knew she saw me. I threw my arms around her, and wept for gladness. “Darling Claribel, do you not know me, your mother?”
“Dearest mama,” she said with her old smile, “know you? Why, you are younger, but the same. Where have you been so long? We thought you dead?”
“Do you not know?” I asked, apprehensively.