The Life Everlasting | Page 9

into a fire, or
allowed to escape in air,--IT CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED." And
again, from the same book: "All the wonders of Nature are the result of
LIGHT AND HEAT ALONE." Paracelsus, as early as about 1526,
made guarded mention of the same substance or quality, describing it
thus:--"The more of the humour of life it has, the more of the spirit of
life abounds in that life." Though truly this vital radio-active force lacks
all fitting name. To material science radium, or radium chloride, is a
minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to obtain that it may be counted
as about three thousand times the price of gold in the market. But of the
action of PURE radium, the knowledge of ordinary scientific students
is nil. They know that an infinitely small spark of radium salt will emit
heat and light continuously without any combustion or change in its
own structure. And I would here quote a passage from a lecture
delivered by one of our prominent scientists in 1904. "Details
concerning the behaviour of several radio-active bodies were detected,
as, for example, their activity was not constant; it gradually grew in
strength, BUT THE GROWN PORTION OF THE ACTIVITY
COULD BE BLOWN AWAY, AND THE BLOWN AWAY PART
RETAINED ITS ACTIVITY ONLY FOR A TIME. It decayed in a few
days or weeks,-- WHEREAS THE RADIUM ROSE IN STRENGTH
AGAIN AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE OTHER DECAYED.
And so on constantly. It was as if a NEW FORM of matter was
constantly being produced, and AS IF THE RADIO-ACTIVITY WAS
A CONCOMITANT OF THE CHANGE OF FORM. It was also found

that radium kept on producing heat de novo so as to keep itself always
a fraction of a degree ABOVE THE SURROUNDING
TEMPERATURE; also that it spontaneously PRODUCED
ELECTRICITY."
Does this teach no lesson on the resurrection of the dead? Of the 'blown
away part' which decays in a few days or weeks?--of the 'Radia' or
'Radiance' of the Soul, rising in strength again AT THE SAME RATE
that the other, the Body, or 'grown portion of the activity,' decays? Of
the 'new form of matter' and the 'radio- activity as a concomitant of the
CHANGE OF FORM'? Does not Science here almost unwittingly
verify the words of St. Paul:--"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body"?
There is nothing impossible or 'miraculous' in such a consummation,
even according to modern material science,--it is merely the natural
action of PURE radio- activity or that etherical composition for which
we have no name, but which we have vaguely called the SOUL for
countless ages.
To multitudes of people this expression 'the Soul' has become
overfamiliar by constant repetition, and conveys little more than the
suggestion of a myth, or the hint of an Imaginary Existence. Now there
is nothing in the whole Universe so REAL as the Vital Germ of the
actual Form and Being of the living, radiant, active Creature within
each one of us,--the creature who, impressed and guided by our Free
Will, works out its own delight or doom. The WILL of each man or
woman is like the compass of a ship,--where it points, the ship goes. If
the needle directs it to the rocks, there is wreck and disaster,--if to the
open sea, there is clear sailing. God leaves the WILL of man at perfect
liberty. His Divine Love neither constrains nor compels. We must
Ourselves learn the ways of Right and Wrong, and having learned, we
must choose. We must injure Ourselves. God will not injure us. We
invite our own miseries. God does not send them. The evils and
sorrows that afflict mankind are of mankind's own making. Even in
natural catastrophes, which ruin cities and devastate countries, it is well
to remember that Nature, which is the MATERIAL EXPRESSION of
the mind of God, will not tolerate too long a burden of human iniquity.

Nature destroys what is putrescent; she covers it up with fresh earth on
which healthier things may find place to grow.
I tried to convey some hint of these truths in my "Romance of Two
Worlds." Some few gave heed,--others wrote to me from all parts of the
world concerning what they called my 'views' on the subjects treated
of,--some asked to be 'initiated' into my 'experience' of the Unseen,--but
many of my correspondents (I say it with regret) were moved by purely
selfish considerations for their own private and particular advancement,
and showed, by the very tone of their letters, not only an astounding
hypocrisy, but also the good opinion they entertained of their own
worthiness, their own capabilities, and their own great intellectuality,
forgetful of the words:-- "Except