“He is instructing many of us. Some of my newly acquired vocabulary he taught me. He is more certain and less philosophical than he was. The will to believe has given way to the duty of faith. He has learned more quickly than most do, because he is truly sincere and had cultivated his ground well. Now he is still a leader of thought and accomplishment, but his instruction is dynamic.... He is a very fine force, Manzie, and is doing magnificent work here, but he no longer smothers it in language.”
Much of this parting interview must be omitted.
At nine o’clock Sunday night Mr. Kendal had approached this experience in a state of high nervous tension. At midnight on Tuesday, fifty-one hours later, he left us to return home, imbued, like Mrs. Gaylord, with the vitalizing quality of this touch with the unseen and carrying with him the happy conviction that he did not go alone.
VIII
Up to this time the messages, while frequently impersonal in tenor, had seemed entirely personal in direction. It happened, fortunately, that both Mrs. Gaylord and Mr. Kendal were more interested in the wide meaning and purpose of life than in the narrow, individual details of its conduct, and to that interest chiefly those nearest them on the next plane had addressed themselves. The rapidity with which these communications came, and their surprising volume, was attributed to the fact that in both cases the time in which they could be given through me was limited.
Aside from the attendant nervous strain—which has been less, on the whole, than one would expect, probably because these efforts have been followed by such sound and refreshing sleep as I had not known before in years—the manual labor involved in taking these long messages, and in typewriting them afterward, has been excessive. Assuming, however, that this flood of disclosure would be diminished when the necessity for immediate expression passed, I looked forward to leisure and opportunity for some long talks with Mary K., which should be more detailed and personal than our somewhat fragmentary intercourse thus far had been.
This was briefly delayed by requests to establish interplane communication for one or two other friends, whose need was more imperative than my own, when significant and beautiful messages—not to be quoted here—were obtained. One of these slightly elaborated the now familiar idea of the close and intimate relation of certain persons to one another, because of their union in a common and eternal purpose. In a letter to Mr. Kendal I mentioned this, adding: “It begins to look like a gospel, doesn’t it?”
Finally, however, my own opportunity came, on Thursday, March 21st, but instead of permitting me to propound any of the many questions I had in mind, Mary K. delivered a detailed message of instruction that left me astounded and incredulous. Most of this is too personal to repeat, but some of it must be quoted, in view of what followed.