The pulsing, eager, feverish life of the city was stilled. Its people slept, at least they were asleep to the truth, and refused to be awakened. Thousands of Ephraims, joined to their idols, dwelt contentedly in their fools’ paradise, asking to be let alone. And what were those idols? Mists of their own creation, perishable and unreal—for nothing endures, nothing is real but being, Eternal Being. Like the wayward sons and daughters of old Jerusalem, they will not be gathered under the wing of even divine wisdom.
The old dreams of childhood came back, with their perplexing reminiscence of life in a land remote in the past, whose people knew not misery.
Had she lived before? Yes, always. How could it be otherwise with Eternal Being as the background, the source and centre of her existence? For this there was neither beginning nor end. Was she not an indestructible part of all that is, was and ever shall be? Behind her was no birth; before her no death. These were but “world-fictions.”
And what was she? One of the millions of conscious atoms that make up the great whole—a woman walking the path alone, with a dash of genius, original, creative, commanding, it was said, and a force of will and character that made her respected and conspicuous among other atoms. Whence came the genius and the force of character? From the infinite ocean of intelligence and creative energy—from the one source and the one force. Why had she gifts and qualities others had not? Because she had reached upward toward the light; she had aspired, and as a consequence had expanded and grown. She had mirrored more of the supreme intelligence than many others, because she had desired it and had held her mind receptive to it.
All her life at times she had been a prey to a deep dissatisfaction. An unspoken unrest, a profound melancholy lay beneath her sunniest hours, and she had experienced a yearning of the soul for that which perhaps no mortal ever attains.
But now in these nights when she walked alone under the stars, illumined within by the light of truth, there were moments when her spirit vibrated in unison with the great spirit or self of the universe, and she was satisfied. She saw humanity, like a mighty river rolling slowly to the sea, each drop blending with others, and all impelled by a resistless force that bore them onward, they knew not whence nor whither. This river was rolling toward the ocean of truth, there to enjoy the freedom which was its divine destiny, and which each atom or drop could only reach by recognizing, living and becoming the truth.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SIMPLE WAY.
“Life, with all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear,
Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.”
—Robert Browning.
Talking with Gabriel Norris one day, Mrs. Doring could not refrain from telling him some of her astonishing psychic experiences.
“I have long known,” he said, “that they whom we call dead are more alive than we are. I, too, have talked with them. Like St. Paul I am a spiritualist, a word which generally excites fear and horror in unenlightened minds. I preach spiritualism, plain and pure, but I don’t name it. Sometimes it is best not to label one’s knowledge. It only prejudices the ignorant against it, and builds a fence around one’s own mind as well as around one’s neighbor’s. A name is a limitation. That’s one reason why I cannot work in any organization. I keep my spirit free, ever ready to absorb more truth, and I preach a free gospel, which, like all things else is susceptible to the influence of new light. Truth is not all revealed to any man. Little by little one learns to know a greater degree of it, and so grows more and more free from error. What is evolution but a gradual growing out of darkness into light? The proof that we live again is of tremendous importance, because with it comes the knowledge that every thought as well as every deed helps in the building of our souls and our eternal destiny. That we shall live always is a fact in nature, but in what estate depends upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, aspirations and efforts, for man is the expression, or sum, of his desires. Here or elsewhere they shall be realized.”