He held out his hands to them all, and smiled cordially to them, but he retained Herr Warner's and Louise's hands in his. He then lay for a few moment in silence; his lips moved, however, though no sound was heard. Perhaps he was engaged in prayer. A little after he exclaimed half aloud:
'Is it not declared in the Bible, that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God?" The Almighty had placed much in my power. But He will be merciful to me! Everyone has got his own--I have defrauded none, and I possess nothing. Yet God has made me rich--and with that--Basta!'
A happy smile flitted over his countenance--a pleading remembrance for those who survived him. By midnight all was over; he had passed into the deep, dark sleep of death.
Has the spiritual world any intercourse with the material world? This is a question which must always remain undecided, and which only fools and narrow-minded people definitively answer. It is by analogy alone that we can acquire any kind of right even to guess on this subject--we can determine nothing.
The whole creation is a continuation of imperceptible transitions; it is a close chain, and, in order to arrange it into a system to suit our ideas, the inquirer into it must parcel it into divisions. In nature none exist; the chain itself having no interruptions whatsoever.
As the events of one period influence those of another, by bringing about an uninterrupted series of results, in like manner the powers of nature produce a constant regeneration--a constant repetition of themselves in various forms.
Thus, it is only when we arrive at the boundary between life and eternity, when _our_ conception of forms is no longer applicable, when we are close upon the transition to a higher state of being, that we admit that one link of the chain is missing. Despite of analogy, the want of positive evidence puts it out of our power to prove anything; but, however, the sages of our days, before whose eyes everything, except their own weakness, stands clear, may sneer at me, and consider me superstitious, and a lover of nursery-tales--however the frivolous may ridicule me, or be provoked at my belief in the possibility of such an intercourse--my reason does not reject this belief, and my experience corroborates it.