A serene and happy old age may delight in recalling the glory and the dream of youth, of which it is the crown and the fulfillment; but the wretched and desolate, nearing the grave, revert seldom to the past things of a life they are eager to exchange for a better.
A solemn sense of duty to mankind impels me to be my own biographer.
My story is the most wonderful in the world: so wonderful that the men of the present age cannot comprehend or believe me. I am spiritually alone.
None before me have penetrated consciously into the invisible world: examined its structure and its people: and returned to his fellow-men, enriched and burdened with its awful secrets.
This have I done.
I am Lazarus of Bethany, whom Christ raised from the dead.
I have lived and died, and live again; and I await a second time the bitterness of death.
“Lazarus,” said they, “is asleep or dead. That is all.”
Ah! how little did they know!
When I returned from the spiritual world, I had more wisdom than all the ancients, than all the magi, than all the prophets. I could have enriched the Church of God with spiritual treasures. I could have given light to every mind and joy to every heart. I could have satisfied the hidden hunger and thirst of the human soul. I was not permitted to do it. They would have rejected my gold and my frankincense and my myrrh. They would have turned from my offerings of spiritual truth as a wild beast turns from a man when he offers it bread.