Disembodied American.—“But, oh, I would see more of her whom I met to-night.”
Mahomet.—“She is your affinity; and when you are both freed from the earthly, you will abide together on some Olympus in the Illimitable. Let us to the Seventh Heaven!”
They sweep upward and onward, and on their passage see a vast and bright globe, (a star or sun,) many times larger than the Earth. There they see the souls of the most ignorant and obtuse of the dead, in their second stage of existence or ordeal of improvement. It is the first Heaven. They proceed on by other worlds—all abodes of Spiritual Progression, and arrive at the seventh Heaven.
Mahomet.—“The more favored and self-elevating of Earth when they die, are at once transferred to the sphere most suited to them—some few even reaching the sixth Heaven, at the outset upon eternity. The seventh Heaven is the first abode of achieved Goodness and translucent Reason in the initial state of perfection. After and beyond that, these become identical with Knowledge, which I believe is eternally acquisitive and expansive. Here is my attainment through centuries. I began my after-death career in the third Heaven. Zoroaster his in the fourth. Confucius was permitted to pass the first, because of his great mind and good intent; but he was assigned to the second to learn there was a God and a Creator. Your travelling companion, who was never mortal, is beyond me, and I know not his origin. Here I will show you the most glorified women, who have come originally from earth.”
On the globe at which they had arrived, there was, as on Earth, all variety of its own kinds or peculiarities.
The disembodied American was soon thrown into social intercourse. The inhabitants appeared to have the human form glorified—called “the image of God.” Here there was ideal beauty, infinitely varied like the flowers of earth. The females were of heavenly and indescribable loveliness. Their countenances beamed with sublimated purity and affection. They thronged around him as “administering angels.” Their sweet voices accompanied the music of the spheres, and their swelling chorus joined the song of the morning stars, in the eternal anthem to the Most High.
Heavenly Houri.—“Mortal! Know that thy thought is vain, that the passions of the body—of the earth—are here in some riper and heaven-ized existence, and that their indulgence is but enhanced in pleasurable degree. Here there is attraction—affinity—but it is of the soul.”
Disembodied.—“Then there is no Love here! I mean the feeling peculiar to the sexes.”
Houri.—“Yes. But there is no material desire. The sexes are essentially complements of each other; but these complements may differ in their substance and proportions. When they are counterparts of each other, then affinity is perfect. This affinity is heavenly Love and unalloyed happiness. Such a pair are the Bride and Bridegroom of Eternity. Their children are the heavenly thoughts which spring from such affinity.”
The startled brain of the visionist caused him to awake into his dream, and he saw his Immortal companion bending over him with a smile.