From this time, the events which I am trying to relate began to assume in fact a much more orderly course; yet in form I scarcely find them more easy to present. Narrative, as has been said of conversation, “is always but a selection,” and in this case the peculiar difficulties of choosing from an immense mass of material that which can be most fitly compressed into the compass allowed me by these few pages, are so great, that I have again and again laid down my task in despair; only to be urged on by my conviction that it is more clearly my duty to speak what may carry comfort to the hearts of some, than to worry because my imperfect manner of expression may offend the heads of others. All I can presume to hope for this record of an experience is, that it may have a passing value to certain of my readers whose anticipations of what they call “the Hereafter” are so vague or so dubious as to be more of a pain than a pleasure to themselves.
From the time of my reception into my father’s house, I lost the sense of homelessness which had more or less possessed me since my entrance upon the new life, and felt myself becoming again a member of an organized society, with definite duties as well as assured pleasures before me.
These duties I did not find astonishingly different in their essence, while they had changed greatly in form, from those which had occupied me upon earth. I found myself still involved in certain filial and domestic responsibilities, in intellectual acquisition, in the moral support of others, and in spiritual self-culture. I found myself a member of an active community in which not a drone nor an invalid could be counted, and I quickly became, like others who surrounded me, an exceedingly busy person. At first my occupations did not assume sharp professional distinctiveness, but had rather the character of such as would belong to one in training for a more cultivated condition. This seemed to be true of many of my fellow-citizens; that they were still in a state of education for superior usefulness or happiness. With others, as I have intimated, it was not so. My father’s business, for instance, remained what it had always been--that of a religious teacher; and I met women and men as well, to whom, as in the case of my old neighbor, Mrs. Mersey, there had been set apart an especial fellowship with the spirits of the recently dead or still living, who had need of great guidance. I soon formed, by observation, at least, the acquaintance, too, of a wide variety of natures;--I met artisans and artists, poets and scientists, people of agricultural pursuits, mechanical inventors, musicians, physicians, students, tradesmen, aerial messengers to the earth, or to other planets, and a long list besides, that would puzzle more than it would enlighten, should I attempt to describe it. I mention these points, which I have no space to amplify, mainly to give reality to any allusions that I shall make to my relations in the heavenly city, and to let it be understood that I speak of a community as organized and as various as Paris or New York; which possessed all the advantages and none of the evils that we are accustomed to associate with massed population; that such a community existed without sorrow, without sickness, without death, without anxiety, and without sin; that the evidences of almost incredible harmony, growth, and happiness which I saw before me in that one locality, I had reason to believe extended to uncounted others in unknown regions, thronging with joys and activities the mysteries of space and time.