William Shuler Harris

“ Centuries ago the good people of Plasden learned how to co-operate when they desired to win in a struggle against iniquity. I would give my life-blood if I could transport this secret in such a way as to make it effective on the Earth.
In our world we have before us a most humiliating spectacle. If an effort is made to extirpate some form of sin that has taken audacious root in the soil of our moral life, one reform element or denomination fights with the other until the hoe is so broken that there is nothing left wherewith to dig out the miserable roots of the obnoxious weed. ”

“ I was thrilled with delight when I saw their telescopes with the marvelous lenses that opened the locked doors of the Milky Way. No wonder the astronomers of Jupiter have a more comprehensive view of the universe than we have. Their lenses are so powerful that they have seen the outlines of our rugged mountains, and have discovered on our world unmistakable signs of human life. During my visit thither the experts were working on a much larger lens, and it is claimed that when this is finished human forms can be discerned on the Earth and can be seen with more accuracy on Mars. ”

“ Thus was this large world purified by fire while the saints were gloriously enraptured. After the fury of this burning was passed, the great Creator of the universe made a new world whereon righteousness dwelled.
The saints became the possessors and rulers of this whole sphere, living in joy and peace unprecedented. It has been the happiest six hundred years since the beginning of this planet. How long this period will continue no one seems to know, and but few are conjecturing, for each soul is completely happy and congenially employed. ”

“ Human beings, charmingly beautiful, moved over the face of the planet or on wings through the air at pleasure and with great ease. These creatures are about three-fourths of our size, and are most gracefully formed. Their whole physical appearance is more similar to a bird than to a human being of our Earth. They are relatively much lighter than we, and are covered with nothing akin to feathers.
If you were to see them standing in their erect posture and walking with man-like dignity, you would at once feel that they are the lords of the creation on their world, and so indeed they are. ”

“ The startling fact about this world is that at one time in its past history fair intelligence reigned on a few parts of the planet. These intelligent sections were working their way upward on the measureless incline of progress and had won some distinctions in their sciences, as well as their religious devotions. These bright spots on the surface of this large orb were surrounded with large black patches of war-like humanity and, between these two extremes, a warfare of subjection or extermination raged without any hope or peace. ”

“ In language most intelligible to us, I would say that the intercourse between sexes is one of refined telepathy, soul-connection by thought transmission, a thousand-fold more charming than the low plane of intercourse in the flesh life, with none of its attendant weakening results. This strange felicity is as indescribable as it is glorious. Each nature seeks its real complement, and enjoys the most absolute liberty, for there is not a single barrier to prevent it, as no one desires to do wrong. ”

“ You cannot imagine my surprise when I reached Alpha Centaurus and found that it was inhabited by a class of human creatures who were created to live and flourish in fire. Their customs and habits are so strange that I am not capable of giving an intelligent description of them. I know that it is inconceivable to us how life can be developed and sustained in the midst of a burning sun, and I found that these beings in turn could not conceive how life can exist in a cold world like ours. ”

“ O instructive soil! Wilt thou not, in thy own wise way, speak to the thoughtless man who feels content to grovel with the miserable diamond, who takes his lessons from the dead, dead rock, and feeds his soul upon such flinty food. Open his ears to hear thy words of life and light, and may he see in thee the brighter mirror reflecting the God of all. ”

“ In a moment the chief was at my side and, looking into my face, exclaimed:
"Who are you and why have you remained silent?"
"I am a human being," I replied.
"From what part of our world?"
"I was not born on this world."
"On what world then?" he further asked with increasing surprise.
"On a world called Earth that revolves around a star called Sun." As I was answering these questions many wild sensations were sweeping over the hearts of the assembled nobility.
"How came you to our world?" continued the chief with abated breath. ”

“ These ethereal creatures have the lovliest eyes of any human beings I ever beheld in any world. They sparkle with the brilliancy of a diamond and move with the quickness of electricity. The head is small but symmetrical and all physical proportions are most harmoniously adapted even to a nicety that would be pleasing to the most refined tastes of our world.
At first I could not understand how these people of Swift could travel so conveniently in the air, for their wings are very small and the exertion when flying is very limited. ”

“ I have named this world Dore-lyn. It is fifty times as large as our Earth and of greater specific gravity.
Its human creatures are delightfully formed and are in ruddy health and refined happiness. In shape these Dore-lynites differ somewhat from us, but long before I had reached this planet I learned something of the universal standards of symmetry and ascertained that creatures could be beautiful without resembling us whatever. ”

“ I paid a passing visit to a few worlds where human life had never risen to a great height of civilization, nor can I forget the lessons I there learned of the power of sin. All this one can clearly see who visits the three worlds lying next in order to Plasden, but I will forbear the sad and sickening recital of the depth to which a world is carried by sin when once it gains a haughty ascendency. ”

“ But I learned that the inhabitants of Saturn do not appreciate all this wealth of beauty, in its atmosphere or on its earth, a whit more than the people of our world appreciate the sin cursed scenery which greets their eyes. ”

“ Although each one of the vast companies carries the distinctive impress and the spiritual peculiarities of his own planet, yet they are all now fashioned after the symmetry of the Heaven life, and no one bears a single repellant feature, but rather each spiritual body is beautiful to the eyes of all the others, and each one breathes the same atmosphere of purity and converses in the self-same language of love. ”

“ When the sea is quiet, life is oppressive in the centers of population just as it is in our world when the air is still and the summer sun is pouring down upon us. Breathing is easier and life is quickened when the molten sea boils furiously. These terrible heat blasts are most exhilarating and refreshing to the inhabitants living near enough to receive the benefit of them.
You may imagine that these people of Alpha Centaurus are idlers, being fed by the ceaseless heat waves that beat upon them. ”

“ I had often imagined what the condition of our world would be when it smiles under the light of the Millennium, but I minimized the glory that is yet to come to us, judging by what I saw on this delightfully charming planet. I have no assurance, however, that the coming Millennium of our world will be altogether similar to the one I saw. ”

“ I looked into the eye-piece, managed to get the tube pointed accurately, and then requested the astronomer to focus the lenses so as to bear upon the planetary light in range.
He knew at once the planet I had singled out. He called it Zo-ide. After the focusing was completed, I looked and, behold, I could readily discern many of the physical features of my own world.
"That is my homeland," I cried triumphantly. "I live on Zo-ide, or Earth, as we call it." ”

“ If you were permitted to look upon the public and private life of this incredible world, your first sensation would be dizziness, not to mention the weirdness of all sights that would confront you at every turn. ”

“ I at once observed that the people are formed without nose or lungs. The nose is substituted by an opening into which liquid air is received and through which it passes to a bodily reservoir of two lobes in the vicinity of the heart. When I saw how these people were obliged to fill their living vessels with this air-supplying liquid, I at once thought of the manner in which we in our world fill our lamps with oil to furnish light and heat. ”

“ The whole vegetable world is a long extended floral garden. Where formerly deserts lay waste and wild, now the blooming roses and expansive lawns can be seen. Is it possible to picture to your mind's eye a line of lofty mountains whose sides are dressed in living colors and trimmed with rare flowers? ”

“ O modest soil! Thou are not gaudy like the diamond, sparkling and dazzling in a brilliant show and living for nothing higher than display. But thou dost lay aside thy feathery tips, leaving the sun of heaven do the shining. Thou permittest water crystals to give the rainbow hues, whilst thou in thy own modest way, continuest to yield sustenance for man and bird and beast. ”

“ Then I transported myself to another part of the planet that I might get a view of its living fields of vegetation. Alas, I again met the shining of countless gems, set by nature in ledges of rock and massed in confused heaps all around me.
"What a rich world!" I inwardly murmured. "How can people live on diamonds?" ”

“ Is it not true that ignorance is the cause of nearly all the discontent in the world? If you scatter the clouds of ignorance, with them the darkness of nearly all our woes will fly, and you will stand at the head of a new race, educated, refined, and capable of understanding and securing their rights ten-fold more surely and more intelligently than now. ”

“ The saints are living in spiritual bodies. They are not cumbered with a fleshy body, and are capable of traveling through the air at a speed far beyond that attained by the swiftest winged creature of any world in the whole universe.
Their spiritual bodies are highly organized and sensitive to a fine degree. At will they are capable of rendering themselves visible or invisible, as we comprehend these terms.
As the perfectly formed flower, blushing in its wealth of color, is called beautiful, so
Beginning of the Millennium. ”

“ What a boon it would be to our world if we had such an element for which Jupiter or the Sun would have so much fondness! Then with our superior knowledge of propulsion we could forever settle the perplexing problem of aerial navigation.
These exceptional people, living in such terrible fire, wear pieces of garments made of the finest texture. The hair-like threads are composed of metallic substances far more enduring than gold or platinum. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the efforts put forth on the part of the righteous, the generations of this distant world became more and more wicked until the Millennial dawn.
In the fullness of time the Millennium was ushered in by the appearance of the chief angel who came with several hundred thousand attending spirits. At the approach of these celestial regiments the atmosphere far above the planet was darkened by ominous clouds through which the approaching legions shone with unearthly brightness. ”

“ I insisted. "If you could take one bushel of your diamonds to the world where I live, you could get more soil for them than you have on your whole globe."
"That world is heaven," exclaimed a few of my hearers at once. "A world of such abundant soil cannot be any other place. Then I learned that their conception of Heaven is not a place of gold-paved streets, but a place where soil is freely distributed even on the sides of the streets. ”

“ I want all people to have free air as they have free sunlight. I am determined that neither favor nor force, neither Magnate nor money, shall swerve me from my course. The people of my time shall see their liberty, or I shall see my death! ”

“ From the Moon our Earth looks like a large wagon-wheel hanging in the heavens. It is amusing to learn of the various opinions and superstitions that are held regarding this wagon-wheel world. Some of the Moonites declare that it is a huge lantern, hung solely for their benefit, and scoff at the idea that it might be a world inhabited by civilized beings. ”

“ In space there are many sinless worlds where human species are propagated, not as the result of any sexual affinities, but in a manner totally unintelligible to a finite mind. They who reach Heaven from such a world cannot drink in the same kind of enjoyment as those who come up out of great tribulations from the spheres of a sin-cursed world, and who have struggled for mastery and forged their way to the sky through armies of aliens.
But these creatures are perfectly contented, for they have no way of realizing the glory resulting from the victory over the world, the flesh and the Devil. ”

“ Nothing in all the world of Stazza resembles a product of our manufacture more than the fine screening that protects every human dwelling from an invasion of small water animals. It reminded me of the mosquito netting as a safe-guard against flies and other insects in our world. But the mosquito baffles our genius, for he seems to be able to get through as small an opening as air can. Likewise, the pestiferous water animals seem to invade the home of Stazza, notwithstanding all efforts at prevention.
The cities have no continuous streets or lanes. ”

“ No feature of Heaven is more beautiful than its home-like atmosphere. The soul is not chilled by the two-thousand-mile-cube cities, or by the long, long stretches of Divine masonry. God is as a real father, and all his subjects are as our blood-relations. ”

“ One might think, when considering this strange manner of conversation, that it would be difficult for the people to express their ideas clearly. It is just the opposite from this, for it is almost impossible for them to express themselve vaguely. They talk from the headquarters of one mind directly to the headquarters of another, instead of through a medium of cumbersome words which in our life are so often misunderstood. Thus we must admit that we have a ten-fold greater struggle than they to be perspicuous in language. ”