“He is evidently insane.”
“I wish the world was full of such madmen,” was the bluff answer of the governor.
And that was the result of my interview with the great thinker, the leading spirit of the Christian world!
Insane!
This visit of Paul was of immense service to me. It helped me to subdue one of the strongest points of my selfhood. I still cherished the dream that my spiritual knowledge had been entrusted to me for the special benefit of the Christian Church. My only reason for wishing to get out of prison, was that I might communicate the Doctrine of Christ, as it appears to the angels, to my fellow-men.
After mature reflection upon my conversation with Paul and its results, I came to the conclusion that I had labored under a great mistake and had cherished an impossible hope. There are certain successive steps in the grand evolution of the general human mind, which make one revelation of truth necessary and proper at one time and another at another. The world and the Church were not ready for the knowledges which had been given to me. The transition from Jewish darkness to angelic light was too great, too sudden. A long period of twilight must intervene—a period of literal interpretations, of janglings and wranglings and schisms. In the fullness of time, perhaps, and after another judgment in the world of spirits, another church may be instituted capable of receiving without adulteration the sublime verities of the spiritual world.
So I abandoned my mission. God knew better than I did, and I was satisfied.
It is strange what a new, sweet, beautiful life sprung up in my soul after I discovered that I had no mission in this world to fulfill, but to spread cement between stones, to plant flowers, to read the Psalms and to nurse my sick fellow-prisoners. I was a new creature.
I then entered upon what I have designated as the third state or era of my spiritual life. And this state was so marvelous, so exceptional to all the experiences of my fellow-men, that I shall not dwell long upon it. It may be a thousand or two thousand years before Providence repeats the phenomenon and produces another case like mine; and although in the far-off perfection of the world they will be common enough, the story of it will for centuries fall upon the ears of men as an idle dream.
The first intimation I had of a further change of state, was received while I was reading the Scriptures. The good Christians of Antioch, it seems, failed in procuring my release; but they contrived to send me a copy of the ancient Scriptures and the Gospel of Matthew. These were priceless jewels to an old man and a prisoner dead to all things except the life of religion.