ve.
But I became aware very gradually that he was learning the true worth
and proportion of things--and the months which passed so heavily for him
brought him perceptions of the value of which he was hardly aware. Let
me say that it was now that the incredible swiftness of time in the
spiritual region made itself felt for me. A month of his sufferings
passed to me, contemplating them, like an hour.

I found to my surprise that his thoughts of myself were becoming more
frequent; and one day when he was turning over some old letters and
reading a number of mine, it seemed to me that his spirit almost
recognised my presence in the words which came to his lips, "It seems
like yesterday!" I then became blessedly aware that I was actually
helping him, and that the very intentness of my own thought was
quickening his own.

I discussed the whole case very closely and carefully with one of our
instructors, who set me right on several points and made the whole state
of things clear to me.

I said to him, "One thing bewilders me; it would almost seem that a
man's work upon earth constituted an interruption and a distraction from
spiritual influences. It cannot surely be that people in the body should
avoid employment, and give themselves to secluded meditation? If the
soul grows fast in sadness and despondency, it would seem that one
should almost have courted sorrow on earth; and yet I cannot believe
that to be the case."

"No," he said, "it is not the case; the body has here to be considered.
No amount of active exertion clouds the eye of the soul, if only the
motive of it is pure and lofty, and if the soul is only set patiently
and faithfully upon the true end of life. The body indeed requires due
labour and exercise, and the soul can gain health and clearness thereby.
But what does cloud the spirit is if it gives itself wholly up to narrow
personal aims and ambitions, and uses friendship and love as mere
recreations and amusements. Sickness and sorrow are not, as we used to
think, fortuitous things; they are given to those who need them, as high
and rich opportunities; and they come as truly blessed gifts, when they
break a man's thought off from material things, and make him fall back
upon the loving affections and relations of life. When one re-enters
the world, a woman's life is sometimes granted to a spirit, because a
woman by circumstance and temperament is less tempted to decline upon
meaner ambitions and interests