Why are we drawn toward certain persons, and they toward us, independently of any known previous acquaintance? Is it a fact, or only a fancy, that we and they were mutually acquainted and mutually attracted in some earlier period of our eternal existence? Is there something, after all, in that much abused term "affinity," and is this the basis of its claim? More than once, after meeting someone whom I had never met before on earth, I have wondered why his or her face seemed so familiar. Many times, upon hearing a noble sentiment expressed, though unable to recall having heard it until then, I have been thrilled by it, and felt as if I had always known it. The same is true of music, some strains of which are like echoes from afar, sounds falling from celestial heights, notes struck from the vibrant harps of eternity. I do not assert pre-acquaintance in all such cases, but as one thought suggests another, these queries arise in the mind.

The Shepherd's Voice.—When it comes to the Gospel, I feel more positive. Why did the Savior say: "My sheep know my voice?" Can a sheep know the voice of its shepherd, if it has never heard that voice before? They who love Truth, and to whom it appeals most powerfully, were they not its best friends in a previous state of existence? I think so. I believe that we knew the Gospel before we came here, and it is this knowledge, this acquaintance, that gives to it a familiar sound.

Very much in the same vein, I once wrote to President Joseph F. Smith—he at the time in Utah, and I on a mission in Europe. Here is his reply:

President Smith's View.—"I heartily endorse your sentiments respecting congeniality of spirits. Our knowledge of persons and things before we came here, combined with the divinity awakened within our souls through obedience to the gospel, powerfully affects, in my opinion, all our likes and dislikes, and guides our preferences in the course of this life, provided we give careful heed to the admonitions of the Spirit.

"All those salient truths which come so forcibly to the head and heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit. Can we know anything here that we did not know before we came? Are not the means of knowledge in the first estate equal those of this? I think that the spirit, before and after this probation, possesses greater facilities, aye, manifold greater, for the acquisition of knowledge, than while manacled and shut up in the prison-house of mortality. I believe that our Savior possessed a foreknowledge of all the vicissitudes through which he would have to pass in the mortal tabernacle.

"If Christ knew beforehand, so did we. But in coming here, we forgot all, that our agency might be free indeed, to choose good or evil, that we might merit the reward of our own choice and conduct. But by the power of the Spirit, in the redemption of Christ, through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul, which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home."[[1]]

"A Glance Behind the Curtain."—Closely akin to these reflections, are some pointed and telling lines in which the poet Lowell expresses his conviction regarding the influence of the unseen world upon the world visible. The action of the poem from which the lines are taken deals with Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden, English patriots, who are represented as about to flee from the tyranny of King Charles the First, and seek a new home overseas, joining the little band of Puritans who have already found a haven on western Atlantic shores. Hampden urges flight, but Cromwell hesitates. Something within tells him not to go—tells him that Freedom has a work for him to go—tells him that Freedom has a work for him to do, not in America, but in his own land, where he afterwards overthrew the royal tyrant, became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and broadened and deepened the foundations of English liberty. The opening verses of the poem contain the crux of the whole matter under discussion:

We see but half the causes of our deeds,
Seeking them wholly in the outer life,
And heedless of the encircling spirit world,
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes.

The fate of England and of freedom once
Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man.
One step of his, and the great dial-hand
That marks the destined progress of the world
In the eternal round from wisdom on
To higher wisdom, had been made to pause
A hundred years.

That step he did not take—
He knew not why, nor we, but only God,
And lived to make his simple oaken chair
More terrible and grandly beautiful,
More full of majesty than any throne,
Before or after, of a British king.[[2]]

A Well Warranted Conviction.—How much of fact and how much of fiction, are here interwoven, matters not for the purpose of this argument. It was the poet's belief that such things could be, a belief shared by myriads of Christian men and women, and confirmed by a multiplicity of experiences.

Columbus and "The Voice."--In another poem--"Columbus"--Lowell sets forth the same idea, that of whisperings or suggestions from beyond the "veil" hiding the spirit world from this world of flesh and blood. The great mariner is supposed to be standing on the deck of his ocean-tossed vessel, soliloquizing over the situation surrounding him: A yet undiscovered country ahead, a mutinous and grumbling crew behind, threatening to put him in irons and turn the ship's prow toward Spain, if sight of the promised shore of India--for which Columus set sail--came not with the break of dawn. A world of care weighs him down, a sense of solitude and utter loneliness, but his soul hears "the voice that errs not," and is patient and trustful to the hour of complete triumph.[[3]]