A Journey in Other Worlds [116]
Cortlandt, "that where it goes they may go also. They can
scarcely fail to be instructive as the conclusions of a man who
has seen beyond his grave." Whereupon be wrote a stanza in his
note-book, and closed it without showing his companions what he
had written.
"May they do all the good you hope, and much more!" replied the
spirit, "for the reward in the resurrection morning will vastly
exceed all your labours now.
"O, my friends," the spirit continued most earnestly, addressing
the three, "are you prepared for your death-beds? When your eyes
glaze in their last sleep, and you lose that temporal world and
what you perhaps considered all, as in a haze, your dim vision
will then be displaced by the true creation that will be eternal.
Your unattained ambitions, your hopes, and your ideals will be
swallowed in the grave. Your works will secure you a place in
history, and many will remember your names until, in time,
oblivion covers your memory as the grass conceals your tombs.
Are you prepared for the time when your eyes become blind, and
your trusted senses fail? Your sorrowing friends will mourn, and
the flags of your clubs will fly at half-mast, but no earthly
thing can help you then. In what condition will the resurrection
morning find you, when your sins of neglect and commission plead
for vengeance, as Abel's blood from the ground? After that there
can be no change. The classification, as I have already told
you, is now going on; it will then be finished."
"We are the most utterly wretched sinners!" cried Ayrault. "Show
us how we can be saved."
"As an inhabitant of spirit-land, I will give you worldly
counsel," replied the bishop. "During my earthly administration,
as I told you, people came from far to hear me preach. This was
because I had eloquence and earnestness, both gifts of God. But
I was a miserably weak sinner myself. That which I would, I did
not, and that which I would not that I did; and I often prayed my
congregation to follow my sermons rather than my ways. I seemed
to do my followers good, and Daniel thus commends my way in his
last chapter: 'They that turn many to righteousness shall shine
as the stars forever and ever,' and the explanation is clear.
There is no surer way of learning than trying to teach. In
teaching my several flocks I was also improved myself. I was
sown in weakness, but was raised in power, strength being made
perfect in weakness. Therefore improve your fellows, though
yourself you cannot raise. The knowledge that you have sent many
souls to heaven, though you are yourself a castaway, will give
you unspeakable joy, and place you in heaven wherever you may be.
Yet remember this: none of us can win heaven; salvation is the
gift of God. I have said as much now as you can remember.
Farewell. Improve time while you can. Fear God and keep His
commandments. This is the whole duty of man."
So saying, the spirit vanished in a cloud that for a
time emitted light.
"I am not surprised," said Bearwarden, "that people took long
journeys to hear him. I would do so myself."
"I have never had much fear of death," said Cortlandt, "but the
mere thought of it now makes my knees shake, and fills my heart
with dread. I thought I saw the most hateful forms about my
coffin, and imagined that they might be the personification of
doubt, coldness, and my other shortcomings, which had come
perhaps from sympathy, in invisible form. I was almost afraid to
ask the spirit for the explanation."
"I saw them also," replied Bearwarden, "but took them to be
swarms of microbes waiting to destroy your body, or perhaps
trying in vain to penetrate your hermetically sealed coffin."
Cortlandt seemed much upset, and spent the rest of the day in
writing out the facts and trying to assign a cause. Towards
evening Bearwarden, who had recovered his spirits, prepared
supper, after which they sat in the entrance to the cave.
CHAPTER X.