THE SEVEN PURPOSES


      Chapter VII

      BEFORE beginning the Gaylord interviews
      at L____ (April 17th), Mary K. asked me not to
      tell the family the details of the Farrow episode.

      "Are you ever going to explain that clearly?"
      I asked.

      "Not until you know more about these
      conditions."

      That night, for the first time, I saw a pho-
      tograph of Frederick. During the year of her
      grief and despair Mrs. Gaylord had been
      unable to bear the added poignancy of a por-
      trait's suggestion, and only when I arrived, to
      manifest his actual presence in the family circle,
      was the hidden photograph—a singularly life-
      like and virile reproduction—brought to light.

      "Hooray!" he began, after the customary
      signature. "Here we are again, all of us to-
      gether at last! Dad! (O)" It will be re-
      membered that this was the first time that
      either his father or his younger sister, Lois,
      had witnessed these manifestations. "You
      have been the one I wanted most, after Mother.
      The girls I knew I could get sometime, for this [214]
      is the future for everybody with purpose, and
      I knew they'd come to know me again soon.
      But you and Mother dearest I had to have
      (O) right now. You both need this knowledge
      and intercourse as much as I do. The fuller
      development that comes there with age and
      experience, and here—where there is no age
      except experience, makes me nearer to you and
      Mother in feeling and outlook than I am to
      the girls and Dick. Not that I am not one
      with all of you. But being here has showed
      me the reasons for the things—protective, over-
      seeing, far-seeing things—that you stand for,
      and have learned there through your experience
      in that preliminary life. So we are a lot
      nearer of an age than we used to be. Now we
      are off together again, and there is no reason,
      unless somebody backslides, why we can't keep
      step through the countless aeons of eternity.
      . . . Mother dearest, this time I sure am in.
      Thank you for putting me on the mantel. I
      like it. Coming home is lots happier business
      now. It used to make me sorry to see you all
      so sad. But this is bully! . . . Dad, look happy
      for the boy! He's here for keeps now."

      Mr. Gaylord had generally spoken of Fred-
      erick, during his life here, as "the Boy." I
      had never heard him use any other name.

      "Can you give your father the proof of your [215]
      presence that you give me?" his mother asked.
      "Not only by writing, but by the feeling in
      his heart?"

      "I will in time. Remember, he hasn't yet
      grown used to this communion. It hits every-
      body hard, at first, and this fluency is incon-
      ceivable to anyone who has not seen and felt
      it at first hand. Give us time to get used to
      it, and Dad will be as fully in touch with
      me and my life as he ever was when I lived
      there. The shock and grief of my supposed
      departure are taking force from him still, but
      he'll see, just as you have, that I am the better
      and bigger for this one great experience, and
      that I never was so deeply and truly a part
      of his life. . . . Come on, now everybody talk!
      I sure do preach, but you called the turn the
      other day, Mother dearest. It's my job to
      get this across, first to you who are my own,
      and through you to everyone you can reach.
      It's all our jobs."

      Both Mrs. Gaylord and Lois had had some
      success in establishing communication with the
      next plane, through the pencil—obtaining de-
      tached words, and some names. And the
      former now asked: "Where were you Sunday?
      I tried to get you."

      "I had a big job, attacking a pro-German
      newspaper editor in South Africa. He didn't [216]
      give in, either, but we'll get him yet. He
      doesn't fight openly. He poses as a Pharisee,
      but he's really pro-German, and thanks God
      he is like other Germans."

      Lois asked whether there are any pro-
      Germans where he is, and he replied that
      disintegrating force is "pro- anything that
      destroys."

      During his last illness, one of his diversions
      had been to plan with his father a long journey
      they were to take together when he should be
      convalescent. Now, after a pause, he wrote
      slowly and distinctly, as if to emphasize the
      deliberation of his intention:

      "Dad, do you remember that trip we were
      going to take? You take it with Mother some
      day, and I'll go with you, and we'll do all the
      things we planned. And I can tell you, if
      you will just let me in and listen, all the things
      you want to hear. We don't need a messen-
      ger, you and I, but as long as I can't get to
      you any other way, I'll use one. I can help
      you actually—physically, mentally, spiritually,
      materially—as for so many years you helped
      me. It was due to you and Mother that I got
      such a good start here. Now I am here, it is
      for all of us still, as it always was. But it's
      my turn to lift a little. You carried me for
      years. Let me come in again now, as a real, [217]
      existing, active, growing force—your son, sir,
      wanting to be nearer and more intimately
      yours than ever. You go on and take our trip,
      and I promise I'll go with you. FREDERICK."

      A little later, he said: "I wish there could
      be any way of showing you visibly the radiant
      force I am, now that we are all united. You
      have to be translated to this plane before you
      can understand what it means to be brought
      back into the family circle. Not all families,
      but ours. We are all of kindred purposes, and
      there's no separating us."

      "I wish you'd do some of your 'stunts' for
      Father," Lois suggested.

      "All right. If you want stunts, here is my
      best one." This was written briskly, upside
      down and backward from my position. "Dad,
      this is the way I wrote the letter to you and
      the girls. Here's another, with my love and
      greeting. I said I'd do this with trimmings.
      This is the beginning."

      We gave him fresh paper, and he wrote rapid-
      ly, in winding circles, starting at the edge of
      the table and finishing at the center: "Now I'll
      do it this way, all around the family circle.
      All of you in, and I am not left out." Diagonal-
      ly across the whole in bold script, "FREDERICK."

      In moving the paper again, it was torn a
      little. Mr. Gaylord made some suggestion as [218]
      to the way it should be handled, and Lois
      humorously complained that he was "always
      interfering with other people's purposes." Be-
      ginning at the upper right-hand corner of the
      table, Frederick wrote along the edges, and
      then in circles toward the center, as indicated
      in the diagram:

            

      "Don't you mind, Dad. Let them laugh.
      You and I will be laughing at them presently,
      from all four points of the compass." Again
      his name was signed diagonally across the
      whole.

      "I always did like circuses, and I can be a
      four-ringed one now, all by myself, if I have
      a sympathetic audience," was his next achieve-
      ment, done once more in circles from edges [219]
      to center, but this time his name was signed
      in the center, in small script, surrounded by a
      flourish.

      When again a clear surface offered, he drew
      a large circle around the edge of the table—
      the symbolism of which, curiously, occurred
      to none of us until the next day—and then ran
      to the center, to circle toward the edge:

      "All of us together again, and all being happy
      in the consciousness that this is real and
      eternal union, and that from now on we are
      going to keep our family circle intact."

      Some one suggested that unquestionably he
      was keeping his promise to "do it with trim-
      mings," and in an intricate pattern, impossible
      to describe clearly, he replied: "Sure! I'm
      doing all the trimmings I can think of, and
      after a minute or two I'll think of more."

      By this time the astonishment and curiosity
      aroused by these performances had perceptibly
      lowered the emotional pressure, and the inter-
      view again proceeded more normally.

      Not unnaturally, in this first family reunion
      Frederick's messages were chiefly personal. Fre-
      quently, in pauses, he made enthusiastic little
      circles, as has been his custom from the first,
      and I asked him whether it was the circle of
      infinity, all-inclusive.

      "Yes, partly. Put out all disturbing factors [220]
      and all forces of disintegration, add more to
      eternity and infinity—and that is the circle."

      "Good night," he said, a little later. "I'll
      stay here to-night and as long as Margaret
      stays. You'll talk often, won't you?"

      The next night, he began with a suggestion
      that the rest do the talking, adding: "I'll
      listen and answer questions." After some dis-
      cussion of purpose, in its personal application,
      and inquiries concerning other members of
      the family on his plane, Mr. Wylie asked
      whether his grandfather could talk to him in
      this way.

      "I can get him, I think, by to-morrow,"
      Frederick replied. "He's sheltering a lot of
      poor, undeveloped wretches who have come
      out of conditions not making for fitness or
      growth. He teaches, and urges, and offers
      them opportunity, and is too busy and helpful
      to come away often."

      After this had been written, I was told that
      this man, during his earthly life, had devoted
      time and money to providing opportunity for
      others; never offering charity, but building
      roads that the unemployed might have work,
      exchanging some commodity needed by a poor
      map for some other of which he had enough
      and to spare, and always encouraging his less
      fortunate fellows to retain and develop their [220]
      self-respect.

      Of another on his plane, now a healer,
      Frederick said: "I haven't seen him. Every
      healing force here, as with you, is occupied
      with war-stricken forces. They come so dazed,
      and sometimes terrified—and almost always
      startled, if they come from battle. And all our
      healing forces are required every minute."

      This reminded Mrs. Gaylord of an experi-
      ence of her own, a few days before, when her
      pencil had written detached words, suggestive
      of battle. "Lost . . . many lost . . . another
      dead . . . shot . . ." etc. She asked whether
      this came from a friend, and was answered in
      the negative. To her inquiry, "Did you live
      here?" the reply was: "Near." She asked
      for the name, and it was written clearly,
      "K____." A few days later the name of
      Lieutenant K____, of a neighboring city,
      headed the American casualty list.

      "K____ caught his one chance before his
      consciousness dimmed," Frederick commented.
      "He is now too bewildered to talk. Just after
      what people who don't know call death, there
      is a moment of singular clarity and vision.
      He happened to catch you in that moment."

      We fell to wondering, then, whether these
      messages could be flashed to us from a dis-
      tance, or whether the person communicating [222]
      must be present, and I asked Frederick whether
      he could send me a message from a distance.

      "No, but we travel in a flash."

      We who had had some experience in receiving
      these communications spoke of the fear we all
      had lest we might unconsciously influence the
      pencil, at times, to write our own imaginings.

      "You people have such a fear of imagining
      things that you shut out a lot we try to tell
      you," Frederick interpolated. "We can't get
      through doubt, bitterness, resentment, or self-
      ish grief. Fear can be conquered, but doubt
      shuts the door in our faces. Please relax a
      little of this too rigid vigilance, and at least
      entertain the idea we are trying to put over."

      "Do I shut things out by too much vigil-
      ance?" I asked.

      "You bet you do! But you do it for the best
      of reasons. You can't take chances of giving
      the wrong message."

      To a question about the desire of others on
      his plane to communicate with those here, he
      replied: "They are all eager to get in touch,
      just now. Every one of us here is pulling
      every thread of connection he can there, be-
      cause this is a critical time and because never
      before in the world's history have so many
      people been reaching out for the thing that
      means co-operation and progress, in the big- [223]
      gest and broadest sense, if we can only reach
      them and convince them that we are all work-
      ing together, and that we here can help if
      they will let us."

      Mr. Wylie spoke of some one whose "make-
      up," he thought, might enable him to receive
      these communications.

      "Make-up has a lot to do with it," Frederick
      returned, "but the peculiar quality of follow-
      ing accurately a thought put forth by a force
      so subtle that science has failed to detect it is
      a thing that none of you recognize until it has
      demonstrated itself."

      Some one asked about a prominent politician,
      whom Frederick had known well in this life,
      and he replied: "____ is working his way back
      to a place in the forces of Production. He had
      a great opportunity, and used it for personal
      ends, and now he is learning how to use it
      for Progress. He is not destructive, nor even
      deterrent. He is a fine force, delayed a
      little."

      "Have you ever seen my mother and father?"
      Mr. Gaylord asked, thereby eliciting the most
      rapidly written communication—with the pos-
      sible exception of one coming the next night—
      that I have ever taken, the force moving the
      pencil being so strongly applied, at moments,
      that the instrument was almost pulled out of [224]
      my fingers.

      It should be explained that in this appeal
      to his father Frederick was addressing neither
      reluctance nor doubt, but a certain mental
      tensity, resulting from deep emotion, deeply
      repressed.

      "Yes, I had Grandmother at Mrs. Z____'s
      one day," he began. "She is very anxious to
      talk to you, but she has gone on to a life, or
      a plane, beyond the one I am on, and I can't
      always reach her. I hope to get her some
      time before Margaret goes home. . . . She
      never wholly left you, any more than I have.
      She tried for years to tell you she was there,
      and she wants to come back as soon as pos-
      sible and tell you herself that there is no
      death, no separation, no cause for pain, or
      grief, or fear, or sadness of parting, except as
      it is made in the hearts of those who do not
      know the truth.

      "We are nearer to you than you are to each
      other, Dad, and we can prove it, if you will
      let go of yourselves and take hold of us. We
      want to come to you. We do come to you.
      We try and try to tell you that there is noth-
      ing to grieve about, nothing to dread. Only
      love, and hope, and growth, and beauty of
      completer union. But we can't do it alone.
      We must have a free heart, a free mind, a free [225]
      hope to come into. Give us that, and we will
      show you that we are more truly your own—
      not your own flesh and blood, but your own
      purpose and force, which was one in the be-
      ginning, and will inevitably be one in the end.
      We want to make it one now. Don't you,
      Dad? Won't you try to let the bars down and
      take us in? We'll come, and we'll all be hap-
      pier than you've ever been in all your life yet,
      because the Eternal Purpose is Unity, and we
      can begin it right here and now, if you there
      will join us and be part with us, as we with
      you, of the glorious and happy and (O) ir-
      resistible movement toward the great end—
      which, after all, is not an end, but an eternal
      and infinite growth toward bigger things.

      "It is a big gospel we are giving you, sir;
      a man's gospel; a gospel of hope and beauty
      and construction. And I am asking you to
      let me come in again to your every-day life,
      to let the dread and misgiving and unhappiness
      go, to think of us here—all of us who are yours
      —as still yours, still with you, still loving and
      working and hoping with you and for you;
      and if you can do that, I promise you we shall
      all be happier than any of us have ever been
      before.

      "You see, sir, we are
      Progress. We are all for Light, and Building, [226]
      and Justice, and Truth, and when one of us
      holds back we are all held back. This is the
      first time it has been possible to tell you all
      this. This is the first time we have been able
      to reach you freely, in a way you could not
      mistake. But the people who have preached
      the gospel of happiness as a curative force have
      not been entirely wrong. They have not been
      wholly right. But the forces here cannot pos-
      sibly affect a tense and resisting mind as they
      can a relaxed and receptive one. And the
      forces here are potent and eager and ready.
      You know that must be true, because I am
      one of them, and the only change in me—
      absolutely the only one, Dad—is that I have
      left the limitations of the flesh behind and
      grown in perception and knowledge. I am the
      same Boy,* plus the better things, and minus
      the limitations.

      "Grandmother is the same, too—plus. She
      is sweeter, finer, broader, more loving, than
      when you knew her. Just as she was, but ex-
      panded, irradiated, deepened. That's all that
      death means, so you see it isn't death at all,
      nor separation, nor anything but beauty, and

      *Later developments make it seem probable that this was an
      attempt to write the familiar diminutive for which his father
      afterward asked. and that my "too rigid vigilance" shut out the
      suggestion.

      greater love, and wider opportunity, and higher [227]
      ideals to live to.

      "This is what we want to share with you.
      We can, now. You can have a little of our
      knowledge, while still in that preliminary life.
      You can help us and yourselves by realizing
      and living the purpose that is ours. You
      have always lived it, but you haven't always
      recognized it. Do that, recognize it, recognize
      us, let us in as recognized and essential parts
      of your life and hope and happiness, and I
      shall not need to tell you that this is a true
      gospel. You will have proved it for yourself.

      "Your son always,
      "FREDERICK."

      We were all deeply moved. After a little,
      Mr. Gaylord asked: "Is there anything more?"

      Frederick began making circles, and his
      mother said: "He's so happy!"

      "Happy isn't the word for it! I'm personi-
      fied radiance and bliss! There isn't anything
      more to-night, except my love to all of you,
      always—and to-morrow, and the next day,
      and all the days to come, we are reunited and
      indivisible. That's enough, isn't it, sir? Good
      night. FREDERICK."