In a word, then, as to creed, I find no satisfactory platform save that of the broadest eclecticism. The motto of the old Greek, 'Know that good is in all,' is mine. I am aware that the danger accruing from this style of creed is, that one often gets, in the effort at impartiality, into the meshes of pantheism; and then your list of gods many and lords many comprises all the chief divinities, from Brahm and Buddh to Thor; you priding yourself the while upon the consideration shown for 'local prejudices' by your not putting Christ at the end of the list. But, after life-long investigation, I am not ashamed to say, in the words, though not in the spirit of Emperor Julian, 'Galilean, thou hast conquered;' with Augustine, 'Let my soul calm itself in Thee; I say, let the great sea of my soul, that swelleth with waves, calm itself in Thee;' with De Staël, 'Inconcevable énigme de la vie; que la passion, ni la douleur, ni le génie ne peuvent découvrir, vous revelerez-vous à la prière;' with practical Napoleon, 'I know men, and Jesus Christ was not a man;' with a Chevalier Bunsen and a Beecher, 'Jesus Christ is my God, without any ifs or buts.' I can assent more decidedly than does Teuflesdröck, in the 'Everlasting Nay,' to the doctrine of regeneration. I narrow the whole matter down to these plain facts: Of all religions, Christianity is best calculated to elevate man's nature; and of all Christians, they reach the highest spiritual condition who regard Christ as utterly divine.
On this other matter that enters so largely into my narrative—the conjugality of disembodied spirits—I cannot forbear some further discourse before proceeding historically. The absurd idea is still prevalent that there is no sex in heaven. Those who retain this notion, despite the revelations of science concerning the universality of sex throughout creation, cannot reason very candidly. When we find in the earth positives but no negatives, light but no heat, strength but no beauty, action but no passivity, wisdom but no love, intellection but no intuition, reflection but no perception, science but no religion, then, at last, may we expect to see in the heavens men but no women.
Take the conjugal element from human creatures, and you have Hamlet without the ghost. Excepting, perhaps, the religious, it is the most powerful, prominent, exacting part of our nature. In 'man's unregenerate state,' at least, the love story is the most interesting book, marriage the most interesting ceremony, true lovers' dalliance the most interesting sight. For the beloved, one relinquishes all else—performs the greatest prodigies. Marriage is the subject most thought of, most talked about. Around it cluster all the other events of life. Rejoice, then, O 'romantic' youth and maiden, now in the days of thy youth; for this flitting romance—so soon interrupted by care and grief, by shop and kitchen and nursery, by butcher, baker, tailor, milliner, and cordwainer—is about the most genuine experience you will have in this world. Therefore, say I, cultivate romance. Devour a goodly number of the healthier novels. Weep and laugh over them—believing every word. Amadis de Gaul, even, is a better model than Gradgrind. Adore each the other sex—positively worship! Both are worshipful (in the 'abstract').
What healthy-minded person loves not to behold the eye-sparkle of pure admiration between young man and maid? 'They worship, truly, they know not what.' In bowing down to their ideal, they bow to the real human—the purified man or woman of the better land. The recluse is ever the true prophet and seer, in this as in still higher matters. Your modest-eyed student, stealing glances of unfeigned admiration at ordinary maidens, is not such a simpleton as some suppose. His seclusion has cleared his vision. He sees on through the eons—sees things as they will or may be—regards the objects of his adoration as he will in the angelhood. Why will so many decry this admiration?—when they see that, not till the youth passes the purely romantic age—fourteen to sixteen or eighteen—and begins to have commonplace thoughts of the other sex, does mischief arise.
The idea of eternal conjugality should lighten all faces with hope, and should have a most conservative influence in society. Those who are not very well matched, and yet are conscious that the very highest earthly bliss comes of a right mating, are not content to pass through this life without enjoying this bliss, if they suppose that it appertains solely to earth. So, many of them break bounds and bonds. Let these but accept the idea that conjugality is one of the chief features of the heavenly life, and they can settle down steadily to the apparent duties of this sphere, content with 'peace on earth,' since now they feel sure of rapture in heaven—a rapture, too, mind you, of a kind with which they are somewhat acquainted. It is all very well to anticipate the fact which 'eye hath not seen,' etc. But men need the prospect of an eternal joy they know of, as much as they needed that awe-inspiring Jehovah should outwork in love-inspiring Christ. In view of this, among other joys set before him, the extra-earnest worker, in public or private, can more easily deprive himself of that amount of social intercourse with the other sex which he craves. Such can suffice themselves with occasional glances of the complementary portion of mankind; and as they hurriedly pass seraphic faces in the street, they wave the hand of the spirit after them, saying: 'I prithee, O thou wonder, art human or no?' 'O you sweet beautiful! 'the king's business requires haste. Providence has set our lives so far apart we cannot hear each other speak.' But you will be a woman, and I will be a man, forever. In paradise, I will read wonderful things in those and other such eyes, and wonder at you forever. Vale! vale!'
There is a poet claiming to be of the supernal life—especially of the supernal conjugal—who has written 'epics' and 'lyrics,' of which I must honestly say, as Emerson, I believe, once honestly said of some of the writings of Swedenborg: 'I read them with an unction and an afflatus quite indescribable.' They lift one to the empyrean like nothing else I know of outside the Bible. There is such a saintly purity; such a wondrous, rich, mellow joyousness; such bounding elasticity of spirit; such an evidently irresistible gush of song in the heart; such broad catholicity of religion, that, to some, it seems impossible that they could have been written anywhere but under the perpetual midsummer skies of paradise. It may show poor taste, but to me, in those regions of the upper ether wherein Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, and Shelley grow wing-weary, he soars on strong, free pinion. His 'imaginings,' if such they are, of immortal life, as much surpass in plausibility and naturalness those of Milton, Dante, and Virgil, as the acting of a first-class theatre surpasses that seen in the old monkish 'mysteries.' This writer, T. L. Harris, has won much recognition in both hemispheres; would win much more if he appeared simply as a poet, and did not claim a seer faculty, making many positive statements that cannot be verified. He certainly comes up to Aristotle's standard, where he says: 'The object of the poet is not to treat the True as it really happened, but as it should have happened.'
And now the story. I left myself indulging in reveries concerning the expected sight of my invisible charmer. The appointed hour came. I was quite excited. I knew that the land was already full of people who claimed to see the sights of the other world as spirits see them, and fully expected to have my clairvoyant faculty opened. But I saw no 'sudden Ianthe;' and to this day have never seen even a kobold, a wraith, or a döppelganger! This was doubtless fortunate; for I was nearly driven into lunacy by the things I heard before I reached the end of this 'youthful adventure.' I should have gone 'clean daft' if the bugaboo had been permitted to show me the sights they presently promised.
Soon came again my collocutor with explanations.
'You were in such a state of excitement that the united efforts of more than forty of your spirit friends were utterly unavailing for the opening of your sight. We, too, became so excited that we lost all control of ourselves, and could only weep to hear your mournful appeals followed by your surrender of all claims upon me.' ... 'Do not think that I could ever hope to bask beneath the sunshine of your smile after having intentionally deceived you.'
Then followed much similar feminine beguilement; the faculty for which seems to be rather increased by the Jordan bath.