CHAPTER XIV.THE SIMPLE WAY.
“Life, with all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear,Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.”—Robert Browning.
Talking with Gabriel Norris one day, Mrs. Doring could not refrain from telling him some of her astonishing psychic experiences.
“I have long known,” he said, “that they whom we call dead are more alive than we are. I, too, have talked with them. LikeSt.Paul I am a spiritualist, a word which generally excites fear and horror in unenlightened minds. I preach spiritualism, plain and pure, but I don’t name it. Sometimes it is best not to label one’s knowledge. It only prejudices the ignorant against it, and builds a fence around one’s own mind as well as around one’s neighbor’s. A name is a limitation. That’s one reason why I cannot work in any organization. I keep my spirit free, ever ready to absorb more truth, and I preach a free gospel, which, like all things else is susceptible to the influence of new light. Truth is not all revealed to any man. Little by little one learns to know a greater degree of it, and so grows more and morefree from error. What is evolution but a gradual growing out of darkness into light? The proof that we live again is of tremendous importance, because with it comes the knowledge that every thought as well as every deed helps in the building of our souls and our eternal destiny. That we shall live always is a fact in nature, but in what estate depends upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, aspirations and efforts, for man is the expression, or sum, of his desires. Here or elsewhere they shall be realized.”
Gabriel wished he might have the great pleasure of a word with Prescott, whom he loved. Chrissalyn granted permission, and he went one evening to see the wonders of Planchette. Prescott obligingly came, and when Gabriel, with tears shining in his eyes asked if he had any particular message for him, answered:
“Only to thank you for your good words about me in the church, when I could not speak for myself.”
Gabriel had been one of several friends, orthodox and unorthodox, who made brief addresses at Prescott’s funeral, which, by the grace of a liberal-minded and great-hearted minister, was held in a church, in spite of the fact that the dead editor was a bold unbeliever.
At these grateful words the eyes of the gentle preacher glistened and his voice wavered with feeling, as he said: “You deserved all the praiseI gave you. You did your best. You spoke truth and lived truth as you saw it. None can do more.”
In saying this Gabriel unconsciously raised his voice higher and higher till he ended in a shout, so natural was it to think of Prescott as far off because he was out of sight.
“Thank you again, Gabriel,” he wrote; “but let me tell you, that although I used to be a little deaf, I hear perfectly well now.”
Gabriel laughed heartily as it dawned upon him that he had been shouting at his invisible friend, and thought Prescott must be laughing too.
“Are all cured of their physical defects over there?” Gabriel asked.
“Not immediately, for illness or wholeness is a matter of the consciousness, and that cannot be completely changed at once. It is all progression, growth, expansion, but it takes what you call time to effect it. There is plenty of work for you, Gabriel, here as well as there.”
“I am glad of that,” said the unordained preacher. “An idle heaven would be hell for me. Man’s desire for action and his pleasure in it are strong evidence of his immortality. Were death—extinction—his destiny, somehow he would have known it, and would have been indolent instead of busy. It is true that much of his work is impermanent and useless or worse than useless;but it is the effort he puts forth, the exercise of will, that is the valuable part of it. That which he is really building through all his blundering and the only part of his work that endures, is character.”
“Truth, Gabriel! You speak immortal truth,” Prescott wrote. “Now, good-night.”
“Do you really believe you have been talking with Gordon Prescott?” Cartice asked.
“Yes,” said Gabriel, simply. “I could not prove it to others; neither can I prove that a letter is from the person whose name is signed to it, without his personal affirmation, and even that is only valuable in proportion to his reputation for truth-telling. Most of what we call proofs of anything is flimsy and fallible.”
“I want to tell you,Mr.Norris,” said Cartice, speaking with feeling, “that I owe you far more than you are aware of. You first gave me light, and you were a mascot for me, besides, in worldly success. Through meeting you the tide of my fortune, the day I met you, turned from ebb to flow. The drawing I made of you opened the door of opportunity for me. But giving me light was the greatest service. That day, in your lecture at the market house you told us we were not here simply to be happy; that happiness as we pictured it, was not the purpose of existence; that we were here to learn and to grow to the perfection nature intended, as a plant or a treegrows. In other words, we are to unfold from the seed and express our true being. Up to that time, like everybody else, I had made the hunt for happiness my chief aim. When, in consequence of that, I found myself swamped in misery, I considered myself injured, and felt sure somebody was to blame. I could not see that I, myself, was the culprit; that the selfish search for happiness must lead directly away from that condition. Ah, I suffered much, much up to that time; but I see the uses of it now. I was being educated by the only means possible. Had I secured the kind of happiness I was looking for, I should still be in darkness. It was the ideal of an undeveloped mind. Now I see plainly that the spiritual side of suffering is good. It means birth—the birth of knowledge, of light, of truth. I don’t think suffering is ‘sent upon us,’ as many good people assert. We pursue false ideals and they bring us to grief; but through that suffering we find the true ideals. Suffering becomes our teacher. Truth, which is good, is ever struggling to express itself through us; but in our ignorance we oppose and obstruct it, and that makes pain for us. All suffering comes from our obstinate opposition to good, though we are usually unconscious of it till our eyes are opened. I thank you again for helping me. Since that day suffering has fallen away from me to a great extent. As soon as I became willing to suffer inorder to get on the right road, I ceased to suffer. Strange law, but true. And so I argue that when we cease to pursue happiness or think about it we shall possess it.”
“Yes, it has long been clear to me that we are not here to hunt happiness; though I doubt not that every human soul is destined to be happy; but it will be an order of happiness most unlike the common dream. Even here it could be found, if we sought it where the master told us to look. Did he not say that the kingdom of heaven is within us? It is a state of consciousness. He told us how to attain it, too. How simple the way! Only to love one another. This, indeed would make heaven for us all. That is what we are here to learn—that is the chief end of man, for, when we learn that, we shall know all the law—all there is to learn, and shall have reached the full development which is the purpose of our existence. How simple the way! We have no call to go forth and reform our erring brother; to devise schemes to save his soul; to build barriers to put temptation out of his way; to weave nets to ensnare him to our faith. We have only to love him. Thus shall we fulfill all the law; thus shall we do all we have to do. Neither are we here to do good. Even this is not our work in life. Many well-meaning people busy themselves, and bluster about doing good, from their point of view. Oftener than not they put theirFather’s house in disorder. We are tobegood. Then the doing of good comes without effort. We are here but for one purpose, and that is to learn and therefore grow. To learn that we are the sons and daughters of God—otherwise supreme wisdom, love, life, light and intelligence. The more we recognize this infinite source of our being the more of it we reflect and become, the more perfect our development. And how shall we do this? In the simple way we were told—only by loving one another. This is the purpose of our creation. This includes all there is to know, and to become. This is the perfection at which we were told to aim. This sets our feet on the road to happiness.”
“What is the body?” Cartice asked.
“Perhaps it is the objective side of our existence on this plane—the self as it appears to others, but not as it really is.”
After Gabriel was gone Chrissalyn said with a yawn:
“Cartice, you and Gabriel tire one all out bothering about the ‘purpose of life,’ the soul and the body and so on. What’s the good of heating your heads about such things? Just to slip through easy, is all I’m asking now.”
“Yes, dear; but you are a Butterfly and have a butterfly’s standard. Gabriel and I aim to be gardeners, who make it possible for butterflies to circle about and enjoy themselves without badboys catching them and pulling their wings off. But you have grown astonishingly, since I first knew you, in spite of yourself. You used to find nothing better to do than kill time with a procession of admirers. Now you have outgrown that. And you were dependent on your husband for your very bread. Now you are able to stand on your own feet, and are a self-supporting, useful member of society. Don’t you see, dear, that the lesson every soul must learn sooner or later, here or elsewhere, is to be able to stand alone? Each of us, woman or man, must fulfill the purpose of creation, which is to grow toward perfection, and we can’t do that by leaning on somebody else. Woman is a human being as is man, and is responsible for her own destiny. The responsibility can’t be put upon another.”