FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY.
This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: "James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me farewell.
My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In the words of Thoreau—"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows, perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life.
The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the memorial songs of the Resurrection, the old country fever, inherited from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a small plantation for $4,200, in N——, Mass., to which we moved April 28, 1887. Here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for excessive labor.
Here, as usual, I was busied with many cares, lecturing in various places on the subject of Florida and selling our private lands in that state. Like Mr. Pickwick, I was founder of many societies, notably the N—— club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the Republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political debates. I was president of both these flourishing organizations, was chairman of the parish committee of the Unitarian Church, leading to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman from the Democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, John W. Candler, to the National Legislature in place of Russell, "the sheepless Shepherd."
On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she found it.
One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear,
One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear.
On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence.
My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw a notice posted on a tree stating that the B—— sisters would give a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity. Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called to meet them.
This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister," informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one dazed.