One day when reading in the Psalms and applying the thoughts to my own individual experience, I became suddenly aware, by a kind of interior illumination, that the secret soul-life of the Lord Jesus Christ in his combats with the powers of hell, was embodied and concealed in the sacred pages. They contain more wonderful things than all the heights and depths of this external nature which we so much admire. They contain the mysteries of life and death.
Every day brought new revelations to my mind of the interior meaning of the sacred writings. I found that the spiritual history of the incarnation of Christ was concealed in the narrative of the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The first chapters of Genesis, under the figure of the creation of the world, revealed the successive steps by which [pg 373]the human soul is built up from its original chaos into the image of God. The wanderings of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, was the spiritual history of every man’s regeneration. And the prophets—oh, the prophets! with their dark sayings and grand imagery, concealed with a mystic veil the most beautiful and holy truths of the spiritual universe.
These things were not invented by my imagination. They were not discovered by my ingenuity. They pre-existed in the Scriptures, but are invisible to the mind which rests in the mere sense of the letter. Their existence was revealed to me by an interior light, the operation of which I did not comprehend. I learned also that this wonderful spiritual sense of the Divine Word was clearly understood in heaven, and was the mental food of angels.
The Gospel of Matthew contains similar spiritual mysteries enfolded in the literal story of our Lord. The Epistles of Paul, however,—glowing, eloquent, devout, impressive as they are—contain no interior or spiritual signification. I saw at once that they had no organic connection with the heavens; in other words, that they were not divinely inspired. They were simply the earnest, saintly utterances of a great and good man to his brethren.
“And yet,” said I to myself, “so potent has this zealous and eloquent apostle been in organizing the Church, and so dense is the darkness of the natural mind, that it would not surprise me, if in the far future the words of Paul are reckoned of equal value with the history of Jesus, or with the Law and the Prophets.”
The peace and joy inspired by the spiritual perception of the Word, were ineffable. My mind was in a state of continual felicity. I began also to have the most exquisite and beautiful dreams. I was frequently awakened by strains of the most heavenly music, and the darkness of my little cell was illumined by flashes of light, auroral and rainbow colors darting and twinkling here and there in the most surprising manner. I felt that some organic change in my spiritual constitution was impending.
One Sabbath morning when I was reading in the Prophets, I became suddenly aware of a presence in my room; and lifting my eyes I beheld my father standing before me. He was as youthful and beautiful as ever. He was clad in shining garment, and said with a beaming smile:
“Do you understand what you read?”
“Better than I ever did before. But, O father! how is it that you have descended into the natural world?”
“Have you so soon forgotten your instructions in the world of spirits? I have not descended into the world of nature. I see nothing material which surrounds you. I am invisible to all eyes but yours. The change is in yourself. Your spiritual sight has been partially opened into the world of spirits where I am—enough to see my form, but not my surroundings. You seem to come to me, while I seem to come to you. You see me with your spiritual eyes and your material surroundings with your natural eyes.”