"These two things should no man forget or lose Or sacrifice: his will and his ideals.

These two things are the man. In leaving them Behind him in the dust of broken dreams He leaves himself His nature is usurped.

The lesson of all greatness is to be That which we are--out to our farthest bounds.

To lift the high within us higher still-- To delve our depths with a profounder depth-- To push the near horizon of our minds Out past immediate things to ultimate."

CHAPTER XIV

JACOB'S LADDER IS THE ELECTRIC PATHWAY BETWEEN SUNS AND PLANETS

I contend in my previous books that electricity and not gravity is the one fundamental form of energy from which all other forms, such as light, heat, vital force, physical life and so-called gravitation are derived by transformation. That electric energy is the one evolving creative force in the physical universe, back of which is the directing, intelligent, spiritual power of Deity, who has made all visible things of one matter--the invisible atom, controlled by one invisible power, electricity, after one unchanging pattern--the electro-magnet.

This necessarily teaches that the sun is not hot, that all heat, light and vital force is produced by the contact of positive and negative electricity in the dense atmospheric cushion of suns and planets, where alone it is needed for vegetable and animal life. All of which is produced by the positive electric currents of the sun coming in contact with the negative electricity of the planets, just as two wires oppositely electrified and brought together produce the arc and incandescent electric light.

I contend that the suns are the self-luminous, perfected worlds of the universe; worlds like our world, only larger and more prolific in life and power than the planetary worlds. That they are the headquarters of Deity, and the future abode of man. This leads to the reasonable scientific hypothesis that our all-life-giving sun is where Christ ascended to, when the Disciples saw "a cloud receive him out of their sight;" where Elias was translated; where Paul was "s.n.a.t.c.hed up to the seventh heaven"; where Saint John in the Apochalyptic journey saw "the new Jerusalem--the City of G.o.d." This wonderful city, from scientific facts and a.n.a.logy, exists in the sun and could be no where else, and seems to be so represented in Revelations, and its description is grander than all the romances of earth. This gives the most reasonable scientific explanation of Revelations and the eternal beat.i.tudes of the Christian's life everlasting, while at the same time it recognizes the law of evolution, and proclaims there is nothing supernatural in the universe.

I contend that the sun's photosphere is a brilliant, globe-encircling aurora; that the planets are the hatcheries of human souls, and the suns the place of their maturity and perfection; that all things are composed of atoms and electricity, which are as invisible as the soul. That the soul is an invisible atom of Deity, and, like invisible atoms and electricity, may pa.s.s to and from the sun.

In showing the terraced mountain on which the city in Revelations was built accorded with the proportions of the sun as compared with the earth and moon, a simpler ill.u.s.tration would be this: The sun's diameter is 110 times that of the earth, and as the earth has mountains six miles high, the sun should have them 110 times higher, which would be about 700 miles in perpendicular height, making about 1,200 miles measuring the slope from the base to the apex. Or, if the mountains in the sun are as high in proportion to diameter as those on the moon, the mountains of the moon being three miles high, and the sun's diameter being 400 times greater than the moon; the mountains of the sun should be 1200 miles in perpendicular height.

Up to the last few centuries all standards of measurement were indefinite. The cubit, fathom, and foot all depended on the size of the man. A furlong was originally a furrow in an English field, and might be 300 or 800 feet in length. All these measures have been made definite by law or custom since the Bible was written. But the word translated _furlong_ was the Greek word _stadium_, which was the length of a Greek foot race which was 520 feet (except in two instances); while a present furlong, the eighth of a mile, is 660 feet, making in 12,000 furlongs a difference of about 320 miles, making John's wonderful city 1,180 miles square. The ancient furlong was about what I put it--the tenth of a mile. Critics should inform themselves before displaying their colossal lack of information.

I contend that over ninety per cent. of the universe is invisible matter. This invisible matter floats in all s.p.a.ce and permeates all visible matter as water permeates a sponge.

All matter in its primary and elementary form is invisible, and, being invisible, it partakes of the characteristics in this respect of invisible force and invisible spirit. These three invisible ent.i.ties const.i.tute the universe, its center and circ.u.mference, its invisible realities, its eternal foundation and limitless boundaries. Only one of these--matter--by a vast aggregation of atoms, is converted from the invisible to the visible. This universe was made from _nothing_--nothing visible, nothing tangible, nothing the human eye could see or the human finger could touch. There was a time when the stars and planets, suns and worlds were transparent ether, as impalpable as the viewless air, and scattered as star dust in the measureless void of s.p.a.ce along the forgotten highways of the past eternities. Silence reigned profound in the pulseless regions of the air, where, motionless and dumb, the atoms hung in dark and lifeless s.p.a.ce. There was nothing in all this universe--nothing but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home of atoms, the star-dust which Deity had scattered by the breath of his power through the highways of s.p.a.ce in the beginning of primeval creation. While these were nothing to man, they were the foundation stones of all created things. This nothingness of s.p.a.ce was the fallow ground of the universe and the formless shadow of suns and worlds. It was a universe in solution as viewless as ether, and as intangible as mind. The electric energy of s.p.a.ce was yet unstirred by the divine fiat or shook into vibrating force by the word of Creative Power. Other suns and worlds and a universe of universes shone forth in the realms of s.p.a.ce when the Creative Word was spoken that lit this newer universe into being.

"Let there be light," and from His lips that spoke no word but love and truth and power, the lightning of electric life and glory thrilled every atom with vibrating cosmic energy, and life-evolving force. Then the electric clothing of light and life leaped into power and enwrapt as in swaddling clothes a new born universe. And wherever the breath of Deity was blown there was the glowing nucleus of a sun, or the revolving center of a world. Then atoms and electricity met in fond and unending embrace, substance and energy clasped hands, and matter and persistent force were woven into each other's arms and saturated with electric, life-giving energy.

The first starting point of the universe was the intellectual volition of Deity. The second was the law of nature impressed upon matter by electricity, the right hand of Deity and the tongue and word of His power. Spirit cannot act directly upon matter; it must have a medium controlled by spirit at one end and working on matter at the other. This medium is electricity. Matter is held together by the electric attraction of the molecules of which it is composed.

The molecules are composed of invisible magnets called atoms. This electric attraction acts continuously. Were it to stop its action for a second, solid bodies would instantly crumble to invisible atoms, our material forms would vanish into thin air, and the universe disappear in viewless ether.

The electro-magnetic force holds firmly the molecules of solid bodies and gives them their strength and solidity. It is more feeble in its cohesive grasp on liquid bodies and is very feeble in gaseous bodies.

Molecules are in a ceaseless state of activity and motion, forever vibrating to the touch of electric energy.

The ever-restless and varying motions of the invisible molecules const.i.tuting all matter is like a cl.u.s.ter of bees at their hive, or of ants at their nests, hurrying and scrambling over and around each other in constant and curious motions. And if our eyes were powerful enough to see the molecules of which a block of wood or a human body is composed, they would witness such a scene of activity as the crowded bees and ants exhibit, only still more curious and constant. When water is changed into steam it goes into the air as widely separated and invisible particles which disappear entirely, but every particle is still in existence and may be converted again into water. When wood is burned, it changes into ashes, smoke and vapor. Not a single particle is ever destroyed. It is so with our bodies, they dissolve into their natural elements, which pa.s.s into tree and shrub and air and water and other bodies; they never return to their organic form. There is no resurrection of the physical body. What goes down into the grave never comes forth again. The spirit-body never enters the grave, but soars to the celestial cities of the sun in a new and endless life. Nature and Deity would not do so nugatory a thing as to resurrect three or four bucketsful of water and a handful of bonedust. Fresher and better material is at hand in abundance all the time.

There are bodies all around us so small that we cannot see them. They are in the air we breathe and in the water we drink. Some of them are alive and some are not. Many of them are so small we need the most powerful microscope to detect their presence. Yet every one is made up of parts much smaller than itself. The fine dust which clings to our fingers when we hold a b.u.t.terfly or a moth, scarce visible to the naked eye, is found under the microscope to be made up of a thousand or more still smaller particles.

There are living creatures so small it would take a million of them to equal the size of a mustard seed. Millions of them float unseen in the air around us, and swim in the drops of water we drink. Millions more float through the blood in our veins, which to them are vast, surging seas of life. They are so very small, a thousand of them might fly side by side through the eye of a needle. Yet each little creature must be made of still smaller parts, else they could not move or devour their food; they are too infinitesimal for the grasp of our imagination.

If we keep on dividing a body into smaller and smaller pieces, we at last get a piece so very small it cannot be divided again without changing into some other kind of matter. These smaller pieces are called molecules, which are particles of matter which cannot be divided without changing their nature. All bodies are porous and have s.p.a.ces between their molecules. This was proven of gold a long time ago at Florence, where a hollow globe of gold was filled with water and shut up tight, then put under immense pressure. The water was forced by the pressure through the pores of the gold as a fine dewy moisture or perspiration.

The same result would have occurred had it been iron, copper or any other metal, as there is a s.p.a.ce between all molecules in all bodies.

All molecules in all bodies revolve around each other without touching.

You can stand a man before the Crookes tube or Roentgen rays and look through him and take pictures of his bones, and look through his bones and take pictures of objects on the other side of them, and also look through four-foot walls. And photographs are now taken through six-inch brick walls.

All s.p.a.ces between the molecules of all visible substances, all pores and cavities in all organic bodies and inorganic matter, including the earth, and all animal and vegetable life is, I contend, permeated and occupied by invisible electro-magnetic ether. This ether is the life-giving and life-preservative force and essence of the universe and that from which all things have been evolved. All suns and worlds and all their complex creations and everything that exists floats in this boundless, vibrating sea of magnetic ether. And there are vast and mighty currents of electric force and power reaching from every sun and planet to every other sun and planet in the universe. These are enduring bands of strength, invisible ligaments of magnetic power that bind the universe together as one complete, harmonious electric organism. They const.i.tute the unity and strength of all creation and promulgate and enforce the laws of nature.

They are vast highways of s.p.a.ce, the boulevards of the universe. We cannot see them, neither can we see elemental matter, or electricity, or life, but we know they exist, and are the foundations of the universe.

Human spirits, at death, when they drop their visible vesture of atoms, can step onto this electric tide, this current of swift-speeding light and power, and in eight minutes or less time enter the heaven of their dreams in the celestial cities of the sun.

They have but to step on this flowing tide of electric power, as they step on a moving stairway or platform in our cities here on earth, to be borne with scarcely a sense of motion to their bright and heavenly abode. It is a swift and continuous band, an endless chain, a mighty ligament of light and life and power constantly pa.s.sing between heaven and earth, and earth and heaven, between sun and planet and planet and sun. These are the countless pathways between suns and stars, the mighty and everlasting highways of eternity which G.o.d hath built to span the silent ether of s.p.a.ce between suns and worlds, and bind the universe in one harmonious whole.

On these mighty currents, as on a moving bridge of golden light, angels and men and ministering spirits may pa.s.s and repa.s.s to the gateway of eternal life.

Moses and Elias, Christ and John, and all the departed saints of earth have trod this Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend between heaven and earth, and all the departed denizens of earth have trod its golden stairs to their celestial, sun-bright home.

Dr. Minot J. Savage, the eminent New York divine, says he objects to my putting eight minutes of time between the earth and the spiritual world.

He thinks Christ taught that they were in immediate connection with each other. And so they are, by the coming and going tides of spirits between the two worlds. But now that the speed of light seems to be discovered to be instantaneous, it may be the communication between them is instantaneous.

When the deathless spirit has dropped its "mortal coil," and visited with electric wing the luminous, life-giving sun and the mighty cities on its s.p.a.cious bosom, and graduated in the universities of heaven, it will discover that eternity is scarcely long enough to study and enjoy the marvelous creations of the universe. It will find our world is but a floating island in the great solar sea of electro-magnetism, and the solar sea or empire of our sun is but a small province in the boundless ocean of s.p.a.ce, hid in the infinite abyss of starry depths; that measureless immensity and countless variety reigns in the universe.

Human souls will then be free as air and untrammeled as ether, and may explore the vast highways of eternity with wonder-seeking minds, and visit Jupiter with his enormous moons, Saturn with his gigantic rings, and traverse the out-lying orbs of distant Ura.n.u.s and Neptune. They may then pa.s.s to other solar realms, and wander over the varied bosom of Andromeda's triple suns of blue and green and sapphire tints that whirl like globes of rainbow beauty in the azure sky, and see the double stars and multiple suns, and fiery comets with their glowing spooms, and blood-red meteors, all following harmonious...o...b..ts through the pulsing voids of s.p.a.ce, vibrating to the rythmic cadence of electric law. All moving with tranquil majesty in the trackless seas of immensity obedient to the Omnipotent Will.

Here blooms infinite, varied life and ever-changing beauty to thrill and bless the wonder-loving soul and make melodious harmony with every pulsing vibration of their imperishable life. The universe of myriads of suns is separated by trillions of miles and scattered like lighthouses along the realms of s.p.a.ce, as dynamos of heat and light and life, shooting with measureless speed and bound together by mutual ties as delicate and invisible as the ties of love that bind two souls together at the hymeneal altar. Such is G.o.d's universe. She is as a bride to her lover in every floating atom of s.p.a.ce, in every circling world and glowing sphere, in every human soul and angel spirit.

As light is the great painter of the skies, and photographs all things that occur in the atmosphere of suns and planets, the aspect of the earth and the sun and the events that occurred on their surface thousands of years ago are now winging their flight through s.p.a.ce millions of millions of miles distant. To the eye of Deity or an observer on some distant orb these events of centuries past would seem to be actually occurring or in progress. With powers commensurate with the photographic powers of light, a human soul could stand upon a distant star and follow this wonderful vision and gaze on a succession of events from the beginning of time to the present moment, and read the history of every sun and planet in the rays of light from its own atmosphere. And with poised wing in limitless s.p.a.ce or on some far-off sun, read the mighty events transpiring on this little earth in the distant rays of light from its own atmosphere. And in the cities of the sun, the denizens of heaven may, by some marvelous appliance, so magnify the picture in each ray of light from earth and sun and planet that they may view with microscopic eye and telescopic vision all the historic scenes of every sphere, and learn the life and history of every rolling orb.

They need not visit them to see and know the panoramic history of their glowing life. And thus they may view the varied scenes of earth. Could we transport ourselves to Alpha Lyra, Sirius or some more distant sun and could see, like them, the photographic pictures in the rays of light from earth we could view scenes that transpired on the earth thousands of years ago. Thus human souls may see and thus Deity sees the end from the beginning at all times in all spheres. And a ray of light, a drop of dew, a grain of sand or a blade of gra.s.s conveys to him a history of the world of which it is a part.

Thus G.o.d preserves in every ray of light a constant picture of the changing panorama of the universe; and in man's mind, through man's imperishable memory, He keeps a perfect record of man's thoughts and deeds, which He can unravel as a written scroll at any moment.

The future is ever present in its germs, precisely as the past is present in its fruits. And G.o.d's knowledge of the past and future is as much the subject of His consciousness as the present action of His creatures, or the primary laws He has established. He has a.s.signed to the universe certain material and spiritual laws, and the whole scheme of the universe is so perfect it needs no direct intervention. His perfect control of matter under electric law produces the evolutions of nature that accord with His divine purpose, and His spiritual impulse directs the spiritual development of the human soul to the ultimate goal of truth and perfection to be attained in His self-luminous, perfected worlds. Thus we perceive that to the Omnipotent Ruler of the universe the infinite past and the infinite future would at all times be present, that each atom and event would exhibit to Him at each instant the limitless past and future, giving him perfect and omnipotent consciousness and control of his spiritual and electric universe.

And even on this earth, the time may come when we can so magnify the picture in a ray of light that we may see the cities in the sun, and read the inscriptions on their walls and temples, and view the gates of pearl and the sapphire dome and diamond coronet above the Acropolis of the terraced city of the sun described in Revelations.

The soul is an invisible atom of Deity and, like invisible atoms and electricity, may pa.s.s to and from the sun in eight minutes and perhaps only a few seconds.

I reason scientifically that if invisible matter and electricity go everywhere and pa.s.s to and from the sun continually and exert their power and do not lose their natural properties or ident.i.ty, it is clear and overwhelming proof that man's soul, when it steps out of the body, maintains its power and ident.i.ty, and can fly with the speed of light to the throne of light and life in the luminous bosom of the all-life-giving sun.

Is it not right, by the eternal law of cause and sequence and unanswerable logic, that life should return to the fountain of life?

That life, soul life and material life, which the sun nurtures, builds and vitalizes here, when its usefulness here is ended that it should return to the luminous bosom of its great mother--the source of all life, light and power; and that there it should find the great Spiritual Father, who planned and constructed this mighty machinery of worlds, or his immaculate Son and representative.

Then, by all the laws of reason, intelligence, and "the eternal fitness of things," G.o.d, the eternal, creative Spirit, should have his abode and center of life and light and power at the central abode of all life and light and power in the physical universe,--the all-sustaining, creative sun. Such accords with the eternal laws of nature and the one unchanging mode and pattern of the universe. For by the universal law of all created things, the center of physical and electric power and life is also the center of spiritual and intellectual power, and there should be the home of Deity and the promised heaven of the human soul.

The question may often arise, Does G.o.d perfect humanity and then destroy it? Does He make men of us with all the trouble and care that comes inside of seventy years, and then throw us away? I do not believe he does anything so wasteful and unjust. He has prepared a pathway to the skies and takes us to Himself. This is more rational.

Jacob saw the heavenly ladder and angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth, and Stephen saw the heavens open and Christ sitting on the right hand of G.o.d. These were not miracles in the supernatural sense; they were simply a larger vision, an expansion of electric and spiritual power under the rapid evolution of natural law.

All great seers and prophets have had the same clairvoyant power.

At the birth of our planet, the stars sang together and all the Sons of G.o.d shouted for joy. At the birth of Christ the angels sang for the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, and they visited Abraham and Lot, and Joseph and Mary, and ministered to Christ when he was weary and famished in the wilderness. They carried John in the spirit to the great and high mountain in the sun which was to him a new heaven and a new earth and showed him the great city of G.o.d, and they have borne millions of bright human spirits along the electric highways of the skies to the celestial mansions of the blest. So will they wait and guide us through the dusky borders of mortality, along the shining pathway to the sun, and welcome us to the delights of its celestial cities. And we shall see in the hour of dissolution the ladder Jacob saw reaching from earth to heaven on which the angels ascend and descend, and we shall see the vision martyred Stephen saw when the heavens opened, and the vision St.

John saw when he gazed on the New Jerusalem.

And this electric stairway between heaven and earth is so real, sure and strong, that the weakest spirit cannot lose its way or stumble or fall.

It has the lightness of air and the strength of adamant and is as eternal as the stars. Millions of millions have trod its pathway of viewless power that no steel or adamant could brake, and none have failed to reach the heaven that it links to earth.