"Speaking of spiritualistic phenomena, and the existence of guardian angels, and that there are means of actual communication between the denizens of earth and those bright spirits — why, my dear Jack, I do believe in these things."

       "Then you agree with the immortal bard that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.'"

       When I left home five years before, I had fretted a good deal about my friend Tom Underwood. I knew that he was in financial difficulties, but his indomitable pride was such that I dared not offer him the pecuniary help which I longed to give and which I felt was sorely needed. I had learned nothing from his occasional letters except that he was well. Upon my return from a long exile we met and resumed our friendly relations, to an extent, although there was, I felt, a something which he held back from me, and which would, if told, explain the state of great success and eminence which he had attained in his profession as a physician, and as an author, too, of eagerly sought scientific works on subjects pertaining to the science of the preservation of life. I found, indeed, a great fascination in reading the most wonderful work of its kind that I had ever chanced upon, entitled "The Ethics of Life," and I did not wonder at his success.

       To-night he had invited me to a tete-a-tete dinner at his bachelor quarters; this was the first time we had so dined since my return. After finishing our repast, I settled myself in the most comfortable position I could assume, and while I silently waited for my friend to give me the confidence which I felt would be natural to the time and place, I enjoyed his fine Havanas and admired the elegance of his surroundings.

       Tom's rooms formed the top floor of one of those wonderful apartment houses with which large cities now endeavor to cater to the refined tastes of those men who have, apparently, fore sworn matrimony, to the despair of the fair sex and the delight and profit of the speculator to whom the bachelor apartment house is a veritable mine. I glanced curiously about me at the rich furnishings which betokened the man of wealth and culture. An attentive man servant glided in and out and ministered to our comfort. It was like a story from the "Arabian Nights" — the luxury, the ease, the elegance. Outside the twilight shades gathered over the roofs of the busy city and mingled and melted into each other; the clouds, tinged with the gold of an exquisite sunset were, for a moment, radiant angel forms, clad in celestial garments of light, covering the city with their heavenly mantles before they were lost in the rapid descent of the night shadows. Tom threw his cigar stump away, and turning to me, said:

       "The thoughts expressed by the bard so many years ago prove the inspiration of his genius, and could the many strange things which happen in our individual lives be recorded we would be justified in calling ourselves a world mentally unbalanced.

       "When you left home, Jack, I was, as you doubtless surmised, a bankrupt. My patients were as poor as myself and I treated the most of them for nothing. I had drawn a blank at every turn of Fortune's wheel. Love, at one time, had seemed to present a happy augury for a happy future. Poor fool that I was. She turned from me with scorn for my poverty.

       "One evening I sat in my cheerless room and weighed care fully each event in my life — struggles and disappointments, against the few successes which had come to me. The result was too much for me. I went to my mineral cabinet and deliberately selected a bottle of prussic acid with the intention of ending it all right there. I seated myself on the edge of my couch and watched the dying candle as it prepared for its final disappearance, just as the clock in a neighboring room struck twelve. So shall I be in a short time, I thought, as I watched the dying candle. What is life anyhow, I argued, but a flame easily extinguished by the rude hand of destiny or misfortune. And is it not manlier to take arms against a sea of trouble and end all, than to tamely bear the buffets of misfortune and the cold scorn of the world? I raised the bottle to my lips with the intention of draining it. Halfway there my arm lost its carrying power, and I sat upon the edge of my couch startled into momentary forgetfulness of my project as I mentally analyzed the condition of the arm. Again I essayed to raise the member, but although my mind was more active than it had been for some time, I found that my entire body had lost the power of volition! Imagine my sensations! In no way could I account to myself for this condition. My bodily health was perfect.

       "To say I was astonished is putting it mildly. I was dumbfounded! I was wont to boast, if you remember, Jack, that my nerves were impervious to fear, but now I felt absolute terror. I arose from my couch, and then, overcome by an irresistable impulse of weakness, sank back again and closed my eyes. The next instant a voice sounded in my ears:

       "'Be not afraid; it is I.'

       "My mind worked with lightning-like rapidity; I concluded that I was having a psychological experience, so trying to overcome my fear, I endeavored to put in practice certain rules governing such phenomena. I thought a question and the answer came:— 'Look and see.'

       "At these words I felt compelled to unclose my eyes and sit upright. A faint light had settled about the only armchair the room contained and my mind seemed forced to centre itself upon this halo. Gradually the shadowy outlines assumed the form of a man, and I could even trace the features, but no one feature attracted me so much as the eyes; they dazzled me, they were so bright — like piercing wells of light. All sensations of fear ceased as I gazed into their limpid depths. Sorrow left me and peace took the place of black despair.

       "At last the Presence spoke. I say spoke, but, indeed, no sound broke the silence of the room. The Presence seemed to speak, although I was well aware that it did not. I had heard and read much of the power which lies in the action of one magnetic mind upon another, but never before had I experienced a vivid electrical impression. "'What would you do, rash man? Overcome by the petty obstacles that have filled a pathway intended to end in benefit to yourself and others, after the needed lessons necessary to develop the latent faculties with which you have been most generously endowed, would you destroy the life that is not yours? By the divine will of God you were designed as an instrument for the accomplishment of certain plans formed before your birth. Would you in the rash despair of human short-sightedness destroy the tenement and reduce the spirit of life within you to the impenetrable darkness and wild tempests of the ocean of regret to which the self-destroyed are forever doomed?"

       "I sat in silence, receiving the impressions that emanated from the shape before me. Over the shadowy features various emotions passed: stern denunciation, pity, and finally, grief, as it continued:— 'Once, like you, I lived in the flesh, although I know now that I never lived until I died to earth and left my body to assume the form of my Creator; for only in our spiritual essence do we assume the image of God. This clay house is but the casket within which God created man in His own image — that is the ethereal, fleeting animation which we call life, and which comes we know not how, and goes we know not where.

       "The Presence paused again in the midst of impressions made upon me like waves of electrical shocks most delicately given. I seemed to recognize the ideas expressed, and even the language was familiar. Gradually my mind was led to thoughts of a physician who had instituted a new epoch in medicine in the cure of certain chronic diseases called incurable by the medical profession. This man died just at the time when his fame was nearing its zenith, and physicians were seriously contemplating the adoption of methods quite foreign to accepted ideas. Dr. Thorn's books (he was the author of three wonderful treatises on 'The Philosophy of the Three Ethers') were my daily companions, and I had often wished it had been my privilege to know the man and to have seen something of his mysterious cures. As I reached the name of Dr. Thorn, in my mind, I glanced at the Presence. The outlines wore a shadowy smile, and I received the impression that I was right in thinking that I beheld the spiritual essence of the great physician.

       "'Yes, I was Dr. Thorn, and I would have given the whole of my hard-earned fortune to have remained in the body a few years longer. The transgression of certain laws in the matter of my physical being caused the failure in my own case of the formula which I used for the cure of blood poisoning, and so the vitiated corpuscles dominated my whole system and I made the great change before I realized that it had come. In the midst of my grief for those I had left and my lost art, I received the promise from the Divinity that my discoveries should not be lost, and that one should be given me who should revive and restore the whole of my system. You are he. Be pure in thought and aspiration; diligent and contented; seek and find.'

       "When I came to myself in the early morning hours, I awoke as one from a long sleep. I still sat upon the side of my couch, but the bottle of poison I have never seen since. The room was cold and cheerless and upon the table which stood at my elbow was the full manuscript of the book that has made me famous and has brought me a fortune. I invariably find prescriptions and treatises upon chronic cases on that table by my bedside in the morning when I awake.

       "I cannot account for all this except by quoting the words which you have used: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.'"

(THE END)