FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY.
This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow
than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in
connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while
alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper:
"James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the
news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me
farewell.
My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained
none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what
was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In
the words of Thoreau--"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step
to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my
father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from
earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a
deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life.
The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic
home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the
memorial songs of the Resurrection, the old country fever, inherited
from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a
small plantation for $4,200, in N----, Mass., to which we moved April
28, 1887. Here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and
for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of
vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops
of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic
attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for
excessive labor.
Here, as usual, I was busied with many cares, lecturing in various
places on the subject of Florida and selling our private lands in that
state. Like Mr. Pickwick, I was founder of many societies, notably the
N---- club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent
soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the
Republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective
tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political
debates. I was president of both these flourishing organizations, was
chairman of the parish committee of the Unitarian Church, leading
to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the
congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman
from the Democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, John W.
Candler, to the National Legislature in place of Russell, "the
sheepless Shepherd."
On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only
surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen
shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother,
my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had
long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet
to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the
best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she
found it.
One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear,
One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear.
On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience
came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious
thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called
death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence.
My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a
week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the
gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw
a notice posted on a tree stating that the B---- sisters would give
a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all
skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the
contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded
to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity.
Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of
intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed
figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly
elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called
to meet them.
This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form
whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the
platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the
invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor,
kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister,"
informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in
loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had
exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her
to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one
dazed.
"James," she said, "I am Mary, your wife." She embraced me with many
kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "I am so glad to see you
and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her
goodness to our children; my time here is so short." Then turning;
"Jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said:
"Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak
to come out. We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and
disappeared through the floor at our feet.
There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the
unseen world. We had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had
heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew
that we walked hand in hand with angels. We realized unmistakably the
truth of the words of the poet Longfellow:
"The forms of the departed enter at the open door,
The beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more,
And with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given
More than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in Heaven.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only such as these have lived and died."
The pages of the Bible, the testimony of all the sweet singers of all
the ages, confirm indisputably our certain knowledge of spirit return,
and _we know_ the truth of what the saints and sages of all time have
dreamed, and by faith have believed, all religions have taught, it is
now demonstrated beyond all doubt and we can say most joyfully--
"Oh land, oh land
For all the broken-hearted,
The mildest herald by our fate allotted
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great departed,
Into the silent land."
We turned to our duties, inspired by the knowledge that we were guided
and assisted by the loved ones gone before. After living on the
flat-as-pan-cake plain of N---- for three years, again was I
disenchanted; all the poetic illusions of farm life vanished, all the
oxygen seemed to be exhausted from the air, the romance of raising
potatoes at a cost of five dollars a peck disappeared, the old farm
hung like a millstone round my neck, we sold it and hired a pretty
cottage in the lucre-worshipping town of B----, on the 29th of March,
1890, where we led uneventful lives for one year, until my fickle
fancy was captivated by a fine new house on the hilltop overlooking
the sea, in the town of W----, Mass. This we bought and entered on the
14th of May, 1891.
Here at last we thought we had found the Mecca towards which, all our
lives we had been drifting. Once more came the passion for beautifying
our own, and we made our lawns to bud and blossom like the roses;
worshipping at the shrine of the majestic ocean,
"Its waves were kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand
The priesthood of the sea."
Here we passed four very pleasant and useful years; consciously near
to us, though unseen, were all our loved ones of the spirit world.
Almost every night our angel friends communicated with us unmistakably
through the ouija, and planchette; they would draw caricature pictures
of us all, and give us conundrums and jokes that we had never known
before. One evening in particular, Mary wrote us to give her children
the best possible musical instruction, stating that May would become a
great singer and flute player, and that Ada would be a fine organist
and pianist, as well as singer; that Ida would do well with violin and
voice.
We were incredulous, as they had inherited no musical talent, neither
had they manifested any inclination in these directions; but Mary was
so persistent and strenuous in her appeals, that we heeded the advice,
gave the girls good teachers along these lines, and soon, their
spirit-mother's predictions were fulfilled to the very letter, and the
so-called "Foss triplets" became a veritable inspiration to thousands
of delighted listeners to their rendition of instrumental and vocal
strains of music.
The dews of heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some
open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby;
while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result,
wither and die. Even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed,
and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether
we open or close to them the doors of our inner sanctuaries.
The departed, the departed,
They visit us in dreams,
They glide above our memories
Like sunlight over streams.
The melody of summer waves,
The thrilling notes of birds
Can never be so dear to me
As their softly-whispered words.