Mrs. H. A. Adams

“ No one lives who has not felt, at times, the presence of the unseen; and it seems strange that there can be one so limited in thought and understanding as to say there is nought beyond the narrow limit of physical life to hold communion with our souls? Happy the man who opens the doors of his spirit wide for angel visitors. Happy the heart which knows by its own beating, when they come and go, for,
“It is a faith sublime and sure, That ever round our head Are hovering on noiseless wing, The spirits of the dead.” ”

“ We may not attain what we have striven for on earth, but peace will come, and the “rest which the world knows not of.”
But her mind did not feel the promise then. Life seemed growing dull, insipid. The course of the chariot wheels of progress, were impeded. What had become of her earnest, working self, whose deepest happiness was in laboring for humanity? Why were her hands so idle, and her mind so listless? Question rose on question, until her mind seemed plunging into a sea whose troubled waves moaned and dashed against her life-bark, giving her spirit no repose. ”

“ Books are indeed great, but lives are greater; lives that are full of earnest purpose, and that fail not, even though the tide beats strong about them and the heavens hang thick and dark with clouds. The greatest poems are true lives, now surging with grief and passion, now pulsing with joy-notes, thrilling on each page of life. Some books, as well as persons, make us feel as though we stood in the presence of a king, while some give us tears. Some books and some beings dome us like a sky. Sister, you are the dome which ever overarches my life,—if day, with its azure and ermine clouds ”

“ Eyes grew moist as the music floated on the air in one full, continuous strain. Hearts beat with new pulsations; hopes soared anew; sorrows grew less; life seemed electric, full of love; sharp lines, and irregularities of mind were touched, softened, and toned to harmony under the swelling notes, now soft, sweet, and dulcet; now broad, high, and upsoaring. No words broke the heavenly spell when the performer left the instrument, but each thrilled heart became a temple, in which only love and beauty dwelt.
There, in that holy atmosphere, a soul burst its fetters and went home. ”

“ The Fairy sat by her side, weeping for the first time.
“'Alas!' said she, 'the stranger is coming; thou wilt love him, my child; and they say that earthly love is misery. Among us, we know no unrest from it; we love, indeed, each other and all things lovely, but ages pass on, and love changes us not. Yet they say it fevers the blood of mortals, pales the cheek, makes the heart beat, and the voice falter, when it comes; yet it is eternal, mighty, and entrancing. Alas! I cannot understand it! Ada, I must leave thee to other guidance than my own. ”

“ Did life at times seem dim and hazy, and the mind full of a thousand doubts, he could dispel the cloud, wrench the truth from its old combinations, and present it to her in striking contrast with its opposite error.
No wonder that new purposes and aspirations were born every hour in that woman's heart, impregnated by his manliness of quality. Yet each drew through the subtle texture of soul a different hue of life, as in a bed of flowers, from the same sunlight, one draws crimson, another azure, as though conscious of the harmony of complement and difference. ”

“ Margaret's mother, Mary Lee, had married when very young, a man greatly her inferior. She was one of those gentle, timid beings, who can not endure, and brave their way through a cold world, much less a daily contact with a nature so crude and repulsive as that of her husband's. She longed to live for her child's sake, but the rough waves of life beat rudely against her bark-it parted its hold, the cold sea swept over it, and earth, so far as human sight went, knew her no more. ”

“ Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief, Or is thy heart oppressed with woes untold? Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief; Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold? 'Tis when the rose is wrapped in many a fold Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there Its life and beauty; not when, all unrolled, Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair, Breathes freely its perfume throughout the ambient air. Rouse to some work of high and holy love, And thou an angel's happiness shalt know. Shalt bless the earth while in the world above ”

“ Tell Herbert he must come here to have his inspiration aroused. When he has walked upon Mont Blanc; when he has sailed on the Rhine, stood by Lakes Geneva and Lucerne, and by the blue Moselle, then he will feel that his whole life has been a fitting prelude to a rapturous burst of immortal song. He must come to Germany before he can fathom the sea of sound, or understand in fullness what the rippling waves of sweet music are saying. Florence, Herbert! do not let old age come on you, before you see this land, if none other. ”

“ It was an awakening that thrilled my being with intensest delight; a fullness which left nothing to hope for. A new revelation of life has arisen within me, as sudden and grand as the appearing of those mysterious isles which are upheaved in a single night from the depths of the ocean.
“A deeper pulsation than I have ever known, now stirs my blood. I feel the claims of humanity calling me to labor. My purpose is strong; I shall return with this thrill in my heart, and become one of God's willing instruments. That He will own me, I feel in every heart-beat. ”

“ What cared I, when every-day glimpses of the larger life were given me,—that life which I was so soon to enter upon. One humble spirit stands by me here, whose name is Margaret, and sends love and gratitude to the beautiful being through whom I now address you.
“Friends of my youth, always so good and true to me, I come to mingle my life with yours, and to grow strong with you in good and holy purposes. We of the upper air, do not live alone; we need your life, as well as you do ours. This communion is as ancient as time, and will endure throughout eternity. ”

“ When shall we be there?”
“I suppose when our usefulness is most needed here,” said Basil, in a tone which caused them both to start.
“Why, brother?”
“Because that seems to be the law of life. All men and women go when most needed here; as the rose dies when its tinge is brightest, its blossom fullest.”
“And that is our time,” said Dawn.
“And God's,” he answered.
Dawn found on her dressing table that night a garland of lilies and red roses.
“Passion and purity,” she said. “O, this will do for human heads.” She laid long that night wondering whether Basil or his sister twined it. ”

“ Each soul we meet in life has a new voice, a new truth to utter, or a new method of presenting an already known truth to our minds. Each arouses a new sentiment within us, touches some tender emotion delicately, while another grates on our senses like harsh music, until we go searching for harmony and rest and we find treasures of thought within us which we should never have known had we not thus been driven to the depths of our being. ”

“ Like too many women, Mrs. Deane had striven to keep her husband wholly to herself. She could not realize that one who is determined in her own way and time to get the whole, may not get even a part. She wanted him entirely for herself, ignorant of the fact, or if knowing, rebellious against it, that his being would flow to herself after a temporary receding, far richer in love. Alas, how many women are dwarfing noble men, and cheating themselves out of the highest enjoyments of life.
Of Miss Evans she knew nothing, save by report. ”

“ It is well and good for all, but not so essential to some as to others. Some natures are so alive to sentiment and life, so infused with religious thought, that they live deeper and more prayerful, more Godly in one hour, than others do in a hundred years. Every emotion reveals to such the presence of the Deity. To them each hour is one of worship, and every object a shrine. No words of man can quicken their feeling to a brighter flame, for such commune with God. The dew and the flower, speak unto them of their father's protecting care. ”

“ Then, through the parted clouds, the rays of truth illumine the mind again, and we take up the life-song once more, not as we laid it down, but with a richer melody, a fuller and sweeter strain. The soul feels new pinioned, and spreads its wings for loftier flights, rising, height after height, up and on to the fields of the infinite.
This questioning state is sure to come to the most earnest, truthful, and thoughtful worker. All along the pathway of life these weary, yet hopeful pilgrims, sit waiting for “light, more light.” ”

“ The flowing of a brook will be music, the singing of the summer birds ecstacy; the early morning, the dewy evening, will fill her with strange tenderness, for a light will be on all things-the light of her love; and she will learn what it is to stay her very heart's beatings to catch the lightest step of the adored; to feel the hot blood rushing to her brow, when only he looks on her, the hand tremble, and the whole frame thrill with exquisite rapture, and meet with delicious tremor, the first look of love from a man. The raptures of my first bliss were worth ages of misery ”

“ For a time she with her husband lived in a state of undivided love. When that passed away, she was the same exacting woman as before, allowing him no life but what he gathered from her; no thoughts but her own to live upon. In such an atmosphere he drooped, and would have died, but for the timely aid of Mr. Wyman and his wife; those truth-loving souls who cared not for the popular sentiment when principles were to be maintained, and who stood up courageously for the truth, regardless of those who turned sneeringly aside from them, or ridiculed and misrepresented their views. ”

“ Such need to be carried on one's bosom, and nestled, through their whole life. There are maternally protecting arms that can bear them thus, and in the sphere of their life and love their souls would rest. There are natures that will ever be as children, and also those who can meet their wants.
Such clinging lives should be all infancy; they should be cared for, until their souls are strong enough to stand alone.
Why is there so much that is fragmentary and unlinked? Why is the vine left to trail, when the strong oak, with its giant trunk, is standing bare? ”

“ Rich and full had these years been in their strange experiences, while firm as a rock had grown his faith in the unseen whose love and guardianship is round us as the atmosphere is about the earth. It was a fact to him and not sentiment alone, that, though his Alice had passed on to a higher existence, her life was more clearly than ever blended with his own. ”

“ Thou mightest, indeed, abstract her intellect in time from all things but itself; but the heart within her must first wither or die, and the death of a young heart is a terrible thing. Pardon me, but Ada cannot be thine.'
“'They call me Virtue,' said the second spirit; 'when I fill a heart, that heart can live alone. It wakes to life on seeing my shadow in the object it first loves; that object never realizes the form of which it bears the semblance, and then turns to me, the ideal, for its sole happiness. I am associated with every thing pure and holy and true. ”

“ I cause the communion of ideas. No love can be eternal without me, and with me associate the loftiest enjoyments. Words cannot tell the rapture of love between mind and mind. Dreams cannot picture the glory of that union. Very rarely do I dwell unstained and alone in a human breast, but when I do, that being becomes lost in the entireness of its bliss. Fairy, the lover of Ada is a hero; wilt thou accept me to reign in her heart?'
“The Fairy paused, and then spoke sadly,—
“'Alas, bright being, Ada is a girl of passionate and earnest feeling. Thou couldst not be happiness to her. ”

“ One dare not go forward and live out his or her life, for fear of a neighbor or friend, and in this way is retarded the full flow of inspiration to all. Strength in one, is strength in many; and he who dares to strike out in an individual path, has the strength of all who admire the bravery of the act. Time is too precious to pattern; let each one seek to do his own peculiar work, for each soul has a separate mission upon earth, though we may all labor apparently in the same direction. ”

“ We must look at life on the grandest scale, if we would find rest. A limited vision gives us nought but atoms, fragments floating in seeming disorder; but the mountain view gives the spirit all the vales and hills, and shows them as parts of an extensive landscape, a complete and perfect whole.
“I think it will be a long time before I can see these things as you do,” remarked the pastor, after a long period of thought. “I fear your radicalism on on this and some other questions, Mr. Wyman, will injure society, if broadly disseminated.” ”

“ It is strange that for so many years we have laid our friends in the tomb and sat sorrowing at its door. But Spiritualism has rolled away the stone, as the angel did of old. It comes with its teachings and humble appeals to earnest, truthful souls. It reaches our daily wants, and is to us a life-book, not a musty, worthless creed. It is a stream of life, flowing from heart to heart ”

“ The brother, with his colossal spirit, lofty and original, moving forward through life with that slow majesty which indicates the wholeness of the individual, unlike the airy advance of natures which rush with but one faculty quickened, and mistake speed for greatness, supplied the sister with that manly, noble quality, which must ever exist in the real or ideal of every woman. No wonder her warm, beneficent nature expanded daily, until her heart seemed a garden full of flowers of love and gratitude. ”

“ The fourth evening after the arrival, there was a slight pause in the pressure of his business, but feeling no inclination to join the family, knowing that Mabel and himself would be in feelings miles apart, he called again upon Miss Evans.
To his relief he found her alone, for he longed for another communion with a mind so comprehensive, and a soul so pure as her own. She noticed the look of sadness on his face, and was glad her own heart was light and her soul strong in trust, that she might administer to him. ”

“ We lose time and ground in many such meditations. Our gaze becomes too much inward, and we lose sight of life's grand panorama while thus closed in. We can see ourselves most clearly in others; our weakness and our strength. We need to go out, more than to look within. Do you not in conversing with me feel yourself more, than you do when alone?”
“I do. Another essence, or quality of life mingling with our own gives us our own more perfectly. Will all this power go with us to the other world, or do we leave much behind?”
“Nothing but the husk-the dust is left here. ”

“ Few reached the human heart so closely, or breathed more consolation into it than he. Old and young, rich and poor, received blessings from his hand and from his cultured mind, each according to his needs. He placed in the hands of those who groped in darkened ways, a light which guided them to the temple of truth, and going out into the highways and hedges of life, invited all to the feast which his heavenly father had spread out for every child of humanity. ”

“ I needed you to-day, for my soul has lost all vision. I know by my own experience, that we must speak when we are full, no matter who misapprehends or turns upon us. It is this fear that keeps too many from great and noble utterances. We forget that truth can clear itself, and that principles are not dependent upon persons. You have given me myself, as you ever do, when the mist of doubt hangs over me.”
“Yes, we must give when there is no approving smile, no look of recognition; give when our giving makes us beggars, alone and friendless in the chill air of neglect.” ”

“ O, Dawn, how much life is worth to us all; how much we have to thank our heavenly father for,—most of all for the clouds with silver linings.”
“I am glad that you see it thus, my friend, my sister. That is the soul's only sure position. Life is a great and glorious gift. If all its hours were mixed with pain, even to have lived is grand.” Then with her eyes looking afar, as if discerning scenes invisible to others, she repeated these beautiful lines:
“Two eyes hath every soul: One into Time shall see; The other bend its gaze Into Eternity. ”

“ Dawn, I am yours; not even death can part us. I am not going; I am coming closer than any earthly relation could bring me to you; coming-call them.”
Parents and sister stood beside the bed with tearful eyes. To them he was going far away.
Dawn saw not the death-dew on the marble brow, nor heeded the passing breath. Another sight was given her, and while they stood so statue-like with anguish, her eyes beheld a soft mist gather like snowflakes on the head; and while the breath grew quick and short, this seemed to pulsate with life, until a face was outlined there. ”

“ Whatever thrills me with joy, is far more to me when I have told it to a multitude. It is the same with those we love; the more humanity claims them, the greater they are to mankind, the more they become to us. Florence was more to you, because she was beloved by Dawn and myself. If she was much to you here, how full and replete with love will be her ministration to you now. Her immortal spirit is with you each hour, and will act on you through all time. When you know that she is with you, you will feel the thrill of her joy, and your hours will be greatly relieved of their present loneliness. ”

“ The divine economy is at work in every phase of life, and our growth of soul is often greater in our night of sorrow than in our day of joy; or rather, we reach forth deeper and stronger after the true life, when the cloud is upon us, than when the sun shines brightly on our path, just as the tree extends its roots farther into the ground, when rocked and swayed by the tempest.”
“Yet the sunshine of happiness matures the leaves and branches. I have had much sunshine,” said Dawn, speaking the words slowly and tenderly. ”

“ He had all the delicacy of Ralph, with more mental vigor, and broader experiences.
His sister, Dawn learned to love better every day, as she witnessed the exercise of her varied powers, all working in harmony, and rounding her life into completeness.
“I could live here forever,” she exclaimed, one morning, when nature was sparkling with diamond drops of dew, and singing her morning praises.
“Then stay forever,” said a voice, deep and musical, at her side. “Why not stay forever? for we should stay where we live the most,” said Basil, laying his hand on her head. ”

“ If I had a husband, Dawn, I should enjoy him most after he had been in your society. Uplifted and toned by the life of another, he could be far more to me,—far dearer and vital. I wonder women do not see this great truth.”
“They cannot on the merely human plane, which is ever selfish. Raise them out of that, place them on the mount of vision, and they would at once see it, and be glad to give their husbands the liberty of true women's society, knowing that they were extending their own lives in so doing. If men are unduly restrained, they take a lower form of freedom.” ”

“ Miss Weston returned to her friends, and Dawn took up the thread of her life, which was every day extending and winding into new scenes of darkness and light. But a voice within her, told her that one day all the darkness would become light. She trusted that voice, for it was speaking unto her every day, and growing each hour into deeper recognition. What avails the love of our friends, if it be but for a few earthly days or years? What is the love of a mother to her child, without an eternity for its manifestation? “Whatever has lived upon earth still lives.” ”

“ As Dawn spoke, the vision came and went,—each time with the countenance more at rest. It was an experience such as but few have; only those who seen beyond, and know that mortals return to rectify errors after their decease.
There could be no rest for either, until a reconciliation was effected. Happy he who can stand between the two worlds and transmit the most earnest wishes of the unseen, to those of earth. The mission, though fraught with many sorrows, is divine and soul-uplifting to the subject. But who can know these truths save one who has experiened them? ”

“ He has much to make him thoughtful and earnest, and very little to make him gay.”
“You are so unlike everybody else, Dawn. Now I like life; real, hearty, earnest life. I don't care a straw for hidden causes. I want what's on the surface. I think we were put here to enjoy ourselves and make each other happy.”
“So do I; but what you call 'happiness,' might to some, be mere momentary excitement, mere transient pleasure. To me, the word happiness means something deeper; a current, which holds all the ripples of life in its deep channel.” ”

“ What subtle attraction led him to the city where Margaret was stopping, few can comprehend; but to those who fully realize that guardian angels watch over and guide us, the mystery is solved, and it, like many other seemingly strange things of life, made clear in the light of that faith.
It was for woman that Dawn labored, for through her elevation she saw that the whole race must ascend. All should know that men will be great if women are; and it is a truth that is daily becoming more evident, that he must be reached through her. ”

“ Slowly we learn life's compliments, and the value of its component parts. Many threads make up the web, and many shades the design. As we advance in experiences, we feel that we could not have afforded to have lost one shade, however dark it may have been. Time, the silent weaver, sits by the loom, seeing neither the light nor shade, but only the great design which grows under his hand in the immortal web.
The morning was clear and lovely. Mrs. Austin and Dawn rode over the hills, their spirits rising at every step, under the exhilarating exercise. ”

“ How is it with you, whose vision is clearer than my own?”
“I feel that no one soul can meet all the wants of another. Yet seeing this principle, sufficient light does not dawn on the method of its application.”
“The light will come with the labor, as the fire flashes from the flint by strokes of the steel.”
“True,” said Dawn, gathering inspiration from the words, “And I have often felt that the world would be better to-day, if people agreed to live together while life and harmony inflowed to each, and no longer. ”

“ It was in this pleasant, light vein of thought that Dawn recovered her mental poise, and she sank into a sweet and profound slumber, which otherwise would not have come to her. Thus do we range from one sphere to another, and learn, though slowly, that all states are legitimate and necessary, the one to the other. The parts of life contribute to the perfection of the whole. Each object has its own peculiar office, as it has its own form. ”

“ Not alone did Dawn administer to her; her father and mother soothed the dying girl's pillow, and infused into the otherwise dark and troubled soul, rays of eternal light.
Ye who would have beautiful garlands beyond, must care for the neglected blossoms here, and wash the dust of life's great highway from their drooping petals. Ye who would seek life, must lose it; the flowing stream alone is pure and vital. Lives are selfish that are stagnant, and generate disease and death. ”