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Contents |
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
Chapter VIII
THE next day, that grandfather for whom
Mr. Wylie had asked came briefly, discussing
purpose, like the rest.
"I didn't half understand my own impulses
there," he said, "but I know now that the
best thing a man can do for other men—and
for himself, too—is to give them a chance to
develop whatever is in them. Sometimes it
isn't much, from the point of view of the in-
telligent man, but the fact remains that it is
force, and the more quickly it is developed the
more quickly the sum of the whole will be
raised."
He closed more personal assurances by say-
ing: "There may be no way to put it into
words, but you may be sure I am watching,
and helping, and being helped, too, by your
reaching, toward our common purpose."
When Frederick had taken over the pencil
again, Mrs. Gaylord spoke of the long message
to his father the night before, to which he
replied: "It was only a beginning. This thing
we have to tell you can't be given, nor yet [229]
accepted, in a day or a month. That letter
last night was a sort of foreword, just to get
us all started even. The proof of the pudding
is coming later."
Some more or less personal discussion fol-
lowed, during which Mr. Gaylord asked whether
certain arrangements he contemplated making
were wise.
Frederick replied that they were, as far as
he could see, adding: "This is hardly a time
for making permanent arrangements, for while
the end of the war is certain, the economic
conditions with you, following the war, are
impossible now to foresee. We have no way
of knowing how that struggle between labor
and capital, power of foundation and power of
development, will end. That is one of the
reasons we are so eager to get all forces for
true progress united now. There are thousands
of laboring men misled. Get them in for our
work. There are hundreds of employers ig-
norant or indifferent. Turn them out."
Mr. Gaylord, who had not at that time read
the Lessons carefully, interpreted this as cham-
pionship of the cause of labor as opposed to
capital. Some one else suggested that every
one, employer or laborer, who was not for
united progress, should be "turned out."
"Sure," Frederick answered. "Turn out [230]
the unions, as they work now. Get in unity,
regardless of class."
When Mrs. Gaylord inquired about a mem-
ber of her own family, he replied: "He has
gone on, and I haven't seen him. To some
of us here there comes a lessening of interest
in your life, and an intensified feeling of the
importance of work beyond your plane. He
has this interest, I hear, and very rarely comes
back now. There is a lot I want to tell you
some time about the differences and condi-
tions of the many planes, but I can't do it now.
The first work of those of us who have still
close ties there is to give you all we can of
the possibilities and meaning of the life you
live. Some day I'll tell you what I can of the
life ahead, which as yet I only aspire to."
"I suppose there's no use asking whether
you inhabit space, or planes, or stars?" Lois
inquired.
"There are things that I can tell you later
about those matters of plane and future prog-
ress," he said, "but there is so much that is
more imperative now that I am told not to
tell more, at present, than the immediate needs
of your life require."
"Do you feel any depression, when you
realize the immensity of the universe and the
smallness of each individual?" was the next [231]
question.
"That's a thing you've got to learn. There
is no force that is not true force, and no atom
so small that its weight doesn't count. If one
atom is for destruction, that means two atoms
lost to construction, the one that is against
us and the one that balances it here, without
any forward movement."
"Have you seen my father?" Mr. Gaylord
asked.
"No. He is a healer now, and has come
back from the plane beyond to help the newly
arrived find their balance. I have tried to
get in touch with him, but he is busy and I
haven't yet met him, but still hope to. Few
come back for any work here, and their greater
knowledge makes them very much in demand,
just as a great surgeon is with you in times
like these."
Again the talk turned into more personal
channels, and Mr. Gaylord asked a specific
question, affecting future arrangements.
". . . Your choice will be influenced, probably,
by many considerations, as choice must always
be in your life. . . . I can influence you in ways
I can't define in words, but I can't properly
tell you how to choose—as you know better
than I. You taught me that, and it's true.
Every fellow on his own feet. . . . Not that I'm [232]
not eager to help, sir. You understand that,
don't you? But the way I can help most is
by a close and constant association and sug-
gestion, that still stops short of definite ex-
pression of choice for you. That is your
privilege. Mine is to help you see the way
more clearly."
"Do you know what we are thinking, at
all times?"
"Not always. We read most of the thought
of the sympathetic forces, and some of every-
body's. I can't always answer the thought I
read, though I can sometimes. But Margaret
keeps up such a stiff guard, I can't always get
over a thing she doesn't know is asked."
I said I was sorry for that, and did not under-
stand it, as I thought I had lowered all guards
as far as he was concerned.
"You can't understand all the barricades—
and the limitations, too—of consciousness.
Sometimes I sneak one through on you, but
you are from Missouri, all right! You want to
see the works before you admit the applicant."
After dinner, we talked a little about the
publication of these communications, and of
the extent to which personal messages should
be quoted.
As soon as we gave him opportunity, Fred-
erick said: "You people can't guess what it [233]
means to hear you talking about me, in the
old, happy way. I've missed myself terribly,
you know. . . . You've been talking about the
book. If you'll permit a suggestion from me,
the plan of copious quotation from all the
interviews that have bearing on the big mes-
sage, as well as some characteristic extracts
from the more personal messages, under initials
frankly substituted for real ones, is to my
notion the way to do it. . . . A good deal of
what we have been allowed to say was be-
cause this message was given through Mar-
garet, and the rest of us have told things that
illumine and carry on the message for the world.
We have all wanted you of our own to know
these things, but the channels through which
this has come to her have been chosen for her
fuller conviction, and to enable her to deliver
this with greater force."
In this connection, it is interesting to note
that in every instance when messages of im-
portance have come, it has been during in-
tercourse primarily requested by those gone
before, who have asked me to send for the per-
son here through whose co-operation the freest
communication could be established—Fred-
erick writing more fluently to some member of
his family than to me alone, Mary Kendal to
Mansfield, David Bruce to his wife, and so [234]
on. Conversely, interviews arranged at the
instigation of persons on our own plane have
been generally without satisfactory result.
"We who can tell it clearly, and whom she
can absolutely identify," Frederick went on,
"have had extraordinary fluency, and almost
unlimited authority to speak. We have spoken
to our own, and through them to all who will
listen. Keep the personal part of all we have
said as sacredly to yourselves as you like, but
my own desire is that the parts of my messages
that will carry conviction or comfort to people
suffering in ignorance of an this may be given
to them through you—as your faith and con-
viction will lead you to do, I know—not in your
name or mine, but in the spirit of light, healing,
and progress we all serve."
When this was construed as an intimation
that he did not want his name used, he re-
turned: "I have no slightest objection. I
have only a feeling that this personal revela-
tion belongs to you. Use it as you choose.
I do not ask anything, except that you share
its essence with those who suffer as you have
suffered. Give them what will relieve them,
and do it as you think best."
At this point, the question of publication
was dropped, though he returned to it the
next day. A short pause followed. Then the [235]
touch on the pencil changed, Frederick's bolder
writing being succeeded by a smoother, more
flowing, and exceedingly rapid script, in a
message to Mr. Gaylord from his mother, for
whose early death he had never ceased to
grieve.
"____ dear, this is Mother.
"Frederick told me I could reach you at last.
I have had always the greatest desire to touch
you, to tell you that your mother could not
leave you, could not cease to love you, could
not leave off watching over you, hoping for
you, guarding your highest hopes and ideals.
To have known the darkness that fell upon
you, and to be unable to lighten it, or to
soothe your anguish, made me as sad as one
can be in this fine and everlastingly expanding
life. I knew that you must some day come
back to me, and into fun knowledge of all that
eternal life means, so I could bear it.
"You have been always a joy and a source
of great happiness to me, in your splendid
adherence to the things we know now to be
the first and fundamental principles of life.
We did not know, when I was with you, all
the wonders and beauties of the eternal life
we talked about. We thought heaven was
quite different from this. But it is heaven,
in a much higher and finer way than any- [236]
thing we dreamed of then, and to be able to
come back to you now—to my boy, through
his boy—and tell you all this, is almost as
wonderful and blessed to me as it is to you.
"I have gone on to a life and a work I can-
not easily explain to you now. I have lost
touch with the material things of your life.
But you, your purpose, your achievement of
force, the love you have never ceased to give
me, the love with which you bless and are
blessed by your family—all these things I know,
dear, and have always known.
"For so long, I tried to tell you not to grieve.
We have been so close together, in the ways
that are real and infinite. Never grieve again,
dear son, for any loved one coming to this
happy life. We do not leave you. We do
not part in any way, except the way of flesh.
We are happy, but can be so much happier if
you know us with you and of you, and if you
can come to us in confidence and love and
conviction of our life, as we never cease to go
to you.
"Your father wanted me to tell you this is
from him as well as from me. He is doing
a great work and cannot come to you now, but
he knew that I should soon come to say this,
and he wants you to know that he, too, is
happier in your growing knowledge of our un- [237]
ceasing life, and unceasing love, and unceasing
upward growth.
"Your family are all dear to us as part of
you, and therefore part of us. It is a light
increasing the light in which we dwell, to be
at last in this close communion with you. I
will come again some time—many times—and
I want you always to think of me as loving
you, keeping watch over you, and living in
you and yours.
"Frederick is splendid. You know that.
Please be as sure that I am—and your father,
too—always so full of happiness in the thought
I and knowledge of you and your love.
Your loving
MOTHER."
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