Part 6

“Now,” said the Teacher, “we will return to our beautiful home.”

One little boy whispered to the Teacher: “I know there are more children and people who need help down there. Can we go again and help?”

“Whenever you choose to make rainbows or flowers or other beautiful things we will go.” And they rejoiced.

Lo! As they passed through the encompassing clouds circles of rainbows o’er-spanned them and paths of rainbows guided them to their spirit-home. When the other children saw them approaching they sang, “O, the rainbows! O, the rainbows! When you dry the tears of sorrow and help those in need you make rainbows.”

All spirit children are taught to visit the scenes of Earth life. The home and its loved ones, where they are missed, ever attracts them and they are taught to minister, to aid, to guard. If they had no home on Earth they try to aid those who still remain in the “orphan” realm of human life.

THERE ARE NO ORPHANS IN THE SPIRIT REALM:

Mothers whose babes are in the Earth life help to care for those “little waifs” thrust out of human existence--and for spirit children that pine for Mother love.

Children whose parents are in Earth life are taught to aid and comfort those in the home as well as those who have no home. Especially cared for are the little “waifs” who were not welcome in the Earth-forms--even those who have not seen the light of earthly day--not always from among the poor of earth were they driven, especially those abandoned by the unfortunate or misguided mothers. These and all are “mothered” by the spirits whose hearts are filled with mother love. And here it is well to note that not all who are earthly parents are real fathers and mothers, and many who are childless--work night and day in the “asylums” on earth to save some neglected, forsaken, child. These are real parents.

What greater “punishment” could there be than when the human mother has turned away from the sacred gift of motherhood, she meets, on entering spirit life, her own neglected babe who welcomes her there? “Coals of fire!”

It is not always to visit scenes of sorrow and want that the spirit children are led to the earth: Houses, schools, playgrounds, “Lyceums,” where the little ones of earth are taught, places of entertainment and amusement where they play, and sing, and grow; there also are the playmates of the spirit-home mingling with them and endeavoring to impress them with thoughts and deeds of loving kindness with things of beauty.

Returning to the Realm of Spirit Children one finds such respite from care, such constant sources of happiness, such fashioning of forms of beauty. Oh, that all could know! Knowledge of all this has reached but few on Earth; yet more and more will human minds be pervaded by the methods of the Skies.

Those who have given new methods of “Education” to the people of Earth have been inspired somewhat by these Teachers in spirit states. Froebel, whose “Kindergarden” system was intended for “children” of all ages; A. J. Davis, whose “Progressive Lyceum” system was not intended exclusively for Sunday training of children but in its inception was a reproduction of the “teaching” in spirit states (as far as his mind and inspiration could reproduce such beautiful methods.) Even if one could give in human language the form of teaching (or methods) of the spirit states, the law of adaptation prevailing in the higher realms might not always be available in human life.

How beautiful to know that growth--and the best opportunity for the highest unfoldment with most loving teachers and Guardians surround the darlings who have passed from the households of Earth.

Here then, O human parents, O sisters and brothers, you who miss the bodily presence of the one who occupied the “vacant chair,” you who feel the pervading sense of the absence of the loved children: here they are; bringing to your very homes and hearts, could you but realize it, the love, the knowledge, the wisdom, the beauty of the skies.

BEAUTY AND HARMONY

Ever from childhood through all the years of Earth life beautiful scenery, tints of earth and sky, music, in fact all beautiful sights and sounds, strongly appealed to me. In the spirit states I noted that harmonious colors, beautiful scenes, and often exquisite music greeted me as we approached groups of radiant atmospheres, encircling spheres of light; such exquisite sounds of harmony as one dreams must be the “Music of the Spheres.” On approaching nearer I would perceive that the tints and sounds, as they reached me, were the radiations of thought, the spirit activities of these thus ensphered who have attained real harmony. They were not MAKING beautiful colors and music, but LIVING them.

THE “ARTISTS”

Perhaps I have elsewhere written that music in spirit states does not always accompany the one who was a “musician” on Earth; and harmony of color, beautiful surroundings may ensphere one who never thought of being an “artist.” Their lives have been interwoven with sweet and loving thoughts and deeds.

That which would have been a source of surprise had I not previously known it was that “artists,” “painters,” “sculptors,” “musicians,” and even some of the “poets,” known by those names on Earth, are not fashioning landscapes, portraits, or carving from stone the images of lovely forms, nor are they fashioning or weaving into music or verse some classical or other theme: All of those who were “geniuses,” all who were Idealists, true lovers of their kind, find here (in spirit life) their highest happiness in ministering to others, in moving upon the minds, hearts, spirits of those to whom they are adapted, until they perceive the Soul of Beauty and fashion it into their lives. The “Masters” of art: painters, sculptors, builders, construct their temples and adorn them with lives--the true images of beauty in thought, feeling, aspiration, achievement.

Music is perfect Harmony, of one life with itself and others, of many lives in all their highest purposes. Such are the creators of the “Symphonies of the Skies.”

Those who had “Talent,” hoping to achieve the works of “Genius”-- sometime, somewhere, are still intent on fashioning reproductions or imitations of natural objects and scenes, or impressing art students of Earth to produce such effects. But these are not the creators--“every ‘creation’ is from within and must live,” said my Teacher.

One wishes for a magic pen, or for a perfect Gift of Expression, to convey in language the subtle consciousness of the Beauty and Harmony that meet one as one is led to the “Atmospheres” of some of the

“CREATORS OF BEAUTY.”

More wonderful than all else was the knowledge that many who had never painted, carved, builded, or traced the “score” of musical composition were surrounded and pervaded by such ineffable loveliness that one could weep for very joy on perceiving it.

“Art is Great, but the perception of the Soul of Beauty is Life! Love!” said the Guide.

One perceives in such states as were there revealed that the true “artist” has not always been known among his fellow human beings, moving upon the world of thought, influencing other lives by the beauty and harmony of their own natures, these seem, when viewed from the spirit, to constitute the real artists.

“Is not the Temple of the Soul a Living Temple, is not the art of molding the mind to perform the mandates of the spirit more to be sought for and greater when attained?” “Eternal in the Heavens” are the Temples “not made with hands,” so said the Guide and so I perceived more and more clearly.

In marked contrast to the foregoing were the thought-forms surrounding some of those who had been “artists” on Earth: broken lines, inharmonious colors, discords, sharp and jagged corners--all portraying disturbed conditions of the unruly thoughts and impulses that had possessed them in Earth life.