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descendants of Abraham over the rough country through which they passed. In
examining miracles with the utmost deference, as we have a right to, we see
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one law running through all. Even in Christ's miracle of changing the water to
wine, there was a natural law, though only one has dwelt on earth who could
make that change, which, from a chemist's standpoint, was peculiarly difficult
on account of the required fermentation, which is the result of a developed
and matured germ. Many of His miracles, however, are as far beyond my small
power as heaven is above the earth. Much of the substance of the loaves and
fishes with which He fed the multitude -- the carbon and nitrogenous products
-- also came from the air, though He could have taken them from many other
sources. The combination and building up of these in the ordinary way would
have taken weeks or months, but was performed instantaneously by His mighty
power."
"What natural laws are known to you," asked Bearwarden, "that we do not
understand, or
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concerning the existence of which we are ignorant?"
"Most of the laws in the invisible world," said the spirit, are the
counterpart or extension of laws that appear on earth, though you as yet
understand but a small part of those, many not having come to your notice.
You, for instance, know that light, heat, and motion are analogous, and either
of the last two can be converted into the other; but in practice you produce
motion of the water molecules by the application of heat, and seldom reverse
it. One of the first things we master here is the power to freeze or boil
water, by checking the motion of the molecules in one case, and by increasing
it, and their mutual repulsion, in the other. This is by virtue of a simple
law, though in this case there is no natural manifestation of it on earth with
which to compare it. While knowledge must be acquired here through study, as
on earth, the new senses we receive with the awakening from death render the
doing so easy, though with only the senses we had before it would have been
next to impossible.
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A Journey in Other Worlds
"At this moment snow is falling on the Callisto; but this you could not know
by seeing, and scarcely
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any degree of evolution could develop your sight sufficiently, unassisted by
death. With your instruments, however, you could already perceive it,
notwithstanding the intervening rocks.
"Your research on earth is the best and most thorough in the history of the
race; and could we but give you suggestions as to the direction in which to
push it, the difference between yourselves and angels might be but little more
than that between the number and intensity of the senses and the composition
of the body. By the combination of natural laws you have rid yourselves of the
impediment of material weight, and can roam through space like spirits, or as
Columbus, by virtue of the confidence that came with the discovery of the
mariner's compass, roamed upon and explored the sea. You have made a good
beginning, and were not your lives so short, and their requirements so
peremptory, you might visit the distant stars.
"I will show you the working of evolution. Life sleeps in minerals, dreams in
plants, and wakes in you. The rock worn by frost and age crumbles to earth and
soil. This enters the substance of the primordial plant, which, slowly rising;
produces the
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animal germ. After that the way is clear, and man is evolved from protoplasm
through the vertebrate and the ape. Here we have the epitome of the struggle
for life in the ages past, and the analogue of the journey in the years to
come. Does not the Almighty Himself make this clear where He says through his
servant
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Isaiah, `Behold of these stones will I raise up children'? -- and the name
Adam means red earth. God, having brought man so far, will not let evolution
cease, and the next stage of life must be the spiritual."
"Can you tell us anything," asked Ayrault, "concerning the bodies that those
surviving the final judgment will receive?"
"Notwithstanding the unfolding of knowledge that has come to us here," replied
the spirit, "there are still some subjects concerning which we must look for
information to the inspired writers in the Bible, and every gain or discovery
goes to prove their veracity. We know that there are celestial bodies and
bodies terrestrial, and that the spiritual bodies we shall receive in the
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