Here the spiritual lyceum of Spring Garden City daily convenes its sessions, where spirit children are taught the duties and the lessons of life. Some of the most exalted and brilliant souls resident in that city are teachers and guardians in this school, and it is their delight to so cultivate and train the young minds under their charge that only the beautiful attributes of the soul will grow, and the selfishness of life shall be eradicated. And it is because of the instruction and development received in such schools as this that little children can so readily return to earth, and bless and comfort weeping mortals with their sweet words of sympathy and love.
HARMONIAL CITY.
Harmonial City is a broad, beautiful, extensive city of the spirit world. Its streets are literally shining, broad and straight, paved with blocks of cool, white stone of great purity, and lined on either side with beautiful, fragrant flowers.
In the center of each street, a fountain constructed of a material resembling silver, carved in the most wondrous designs, sends forth jets of crystal water, which rise in fan-like shapes and fall again in gleaming sprays upon the beds of flowers blooming at the fountain’s base, whence a cloud of sweet perfume rises to scent the balmy air.
At regular intervals, in this city of the spirits, beautiful parks are laid out, abounding in all the natural beauty of flowers, trees, shrubbery and water, serving to delight the eye and calm the senses of the soul.
The habitations of this city of harmony are formed or fashioned of various substances, each dweller building his mansion to suit himself; hence we observe the tiny, white vine-embowered cottage, with its surrounding flower garden, side by side with the stately mansion, environed with smooth walks and velvety lawns.
The inhabitants of this place are particularly sympathetic and harmonious; they are at peace with all the world and their own souls; they take no active part in the turmoils and strifes of others; they do not commune with earth save only as they transmit their messages through spirit intelligences below them.
Here are grand and massive temples, more richly draped and ornamented than any I have elsewhere seen; temples dedicated to Poesy, Music, Literature, and Philosophy. Here the active, critical, keen-searching scientist is not at home; but the musician, the poet, the philosopher, and the idealist find a heaven.
The poetry that delights the soul of the bard is here breathed forth through flower and streamlet; all the surroundings seem made up of poetry, so fragrant, sweet, and subtle is the calm, beautiful life we behold in this wonderful city. Well may it be named Harmonial City; for its very atmosphere, its pretty homes, its adornments, and the features and forms of its inhabitants, all breathe of harmony and peace. The dwellers within this city I am told seem not so much like members of one family, as parts of one healthy body, each performing its function and duty, the whole harmoniously blending in one form of symmetry and beauty; and I can well believe this, from what I have seen of them.
In this city, musicians, poets, artists, and idealists—transcendentalists, if you will—love to congregate in their respective temples, which are ever open to all who wish to enter, and by contact with each others’ minds throw off new strains of harmony in verse, outline some new work of beauty, develop some beautiful idea, or evoke a new melody of the spheres. And from these master-souls beautiful ideas, melodies, and ideals come floating down to earth. Transmitted through the atmosphere below, they eventually awaken an echo in the heart of some aspiring soul,—when, lo, a new poem, a new strain of melody, a new harmonious thought, is given to the world.