Why hesitate for a third mode of life? He loses modes of
nourishment; so he has before. He loses relations to former life; so
he has before. He comes into new companionships and surroundings; so
he has before. But each time and in every respect his powers,
possibilities, and field have been immensely enlarged.
O the hour when this material
Shall have vanished like a cloud,
When amid the wide ethereal
All the invisible shall crowd.
In that sudden, strange transition,
By what new and finer sense
Shall we grasp the mighty vision,
And receive the influence?
Knowledge of the third state of man is not so difficult to attain in
the second as knowledge of the second was in the first. If a fit
intelligence should study a specimen of man about to emerge from its
first stage of existence, it could judge much of the conditions of the
second. Feet suggest solid land; lungs suggest liquid air; eyes,
light; hands, acquisitiveness, and hence dominion; tongue, talk, and
hence companions, etc. What fore-gleams have we of the future life?
They are from two sources--revelation and present aptitudes not yet
realized. What feet have we for undiscovered continents, what wings
for wider and finer airs, what eyes for diviner light? Everything
tells us that such aptitudes have fit field for development.
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