"Has she given no rule?"
"None but material ones; and according to her, material rules are only types of spiritual ideas. She says, as the body has assumed too much sway, it must be subdued by violence—that is, by maceration, fasting, and such like. She says passion must give way to reason, and the affections be rightly governed. This we knew before; but what we want is 'power' to carry out in practice the precepts we admire; or as she would say, 'how to obtain that Holy Spirit which is to live in us and direct us.'"
"And you think she knows how?"
"I feel satisfied she does; we all feel satisfied she does. Her words come forth as oracles; we question not—we believe. She has been in India, in Cathay, in Tartary; and everywhere she says the same truth lies hidden under some material form, and needs but the light of the Holy Spirit to pierce through the veil and make itself manifest."
"Would I could see her!"
"You would be carried out of yourself. Yesterday she spoke on Light. Material light, with her, is but a type of a far higher light, which penetrates the spirit with beauty, harmony, and love, and makes it pure, holy, eternal, and capable of receiving true knowledge. Light, material light, was created at the same moment that intelligences and harmonies of a high spiritual order sprang to life, to enjoy it. She went off into something of this strain;
God said: Let there be light!
Effulgent light!
As the wild watery mass chaotic lay;
While o'er it did the Holy Spirit move.
Obedient to the WORD, the glorious day
Sprang into being; and effulgent light,
Intelligence all bright
Of seraph holy and of angel sweet,
In glorious ecstasy their Maker greet,
And the deep bliss of their creation prove.
Spirits of beauty, spirits of power
Then wakened to welcome the wonderful hour
That gave them existence, with light for their dower!
All dazzling the brightness illuming space,
Investing all matter with beauty and grace—
All lustrous the beauty, the grandeur divine
That did in full glory resplendently shine:
The Truth—though revealed—
As in Type, yet concealed.
The rays of the sun are less dazzling to sight,
Than the sparkles begemming the pinions so bright
Of the spirits who bowed at that mystical shrine,
When first with an impulse or instinct divine
They blent their sweet voices throughout every sphere,
To worship in love that doth worship endear.
Entrancing and entranced in love to greet,
These beauteous spirits kindled into glow,
And shed their lustre all that chaos through.
And as those rays the harder mediums greet,
The sleeping atoms wake as from a trance;
The sparks electric shoot in mystic dance,
Rousing the power inert to onward move;
Impelled by rays of light, create by love,
Light's piercing gleams evolve material day
And angels' glances brighten up the clay;
Refracted rays, the types of virtue bright,
Enkindled atoms with their dazzling light;
Splendor and brightness caught from angels' wings,
Infuse their action; and such beauty springs
From forth the atoms that, erst void and dark,
Had lain awaiting th' ethereal spark,
That now material beauty wears a grace
In which a type of heaven itself we trace.
All hail! material light!
Emblem of seraph bright.
Glowing with intelligence, the mirror of our God,
Still dost thou bless our sense.
Vesture of Omnipotence;
Still with thy visions bright
Dost dispel our darksome night,
Thou image bright of heaven, on earth's else dreary sod.
"You must hear her to catch her fire, to glow with her enthusiasm. I give her words imperfectly; but her action, her delivery, the way in which she sounds the very depths of her hearers' hearts—that I cannot give you an idea of."
"I must hear her, Lydon; cannot you smuggle me into her presence?"