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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 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.

"At this moment snow is falling on the Callisto; but this you

could not know by seeing, and scarcely 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 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 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 resurrection will have power and will be

incorruptible and immortal. We also know by analogy and reason

that they will be unaffected by the cold and void of space, so

that their possessors can range through the universe for

non-nillions and decillions of miles, that they will have

marvellous capacities for enjoying what they find, and that no

undertaking or journey will be too difficult, though it be to the

centre of the sun. Though many of us can already visit the

remote regions of space as spirits, none can as yet see God; but

we know that as the sight we are to receive with our new bodies

sharpens, the pure in heart will see Him, though He is still as

invisible to the eyes of the most developed here as the ether of

space is to yours."

CHAPTER VIII.

CASSANDRA AND COSMOLOGY.

The water-jug being empty, Ayrault took it up, and, crossing the

ridge of a small hill, descended to a running-brook. He had

filled it, and was straightening himself, when the stone on which

he stood turned, and he might have fallen, had not the bishop, of

whose presence he had been unaware, stretched out his hand and

upheld him.

"I thought you might need a little help," he said with a smile,

"and so walked beside you, though you knew it not. Water is

heavy, and you may not yet have become accustomed to its

Saturnian weight."

"Many thanks, my master," replied Ayrault, retaining his hand.

"Were it not that I am engaged to the girl I love, and am

sometimes haunted by the thought that in my absence she may be

forgetting me, I should wish to spend the rest of my natural life

here, unless I could persuade you to go with me to the earth."

"By remaining here," replied the spirit, with a sad look, "you

would be losing the most priceless opportunities of doing good.

Neither will I go with you; but, as your distress is real, I will

tell you of anything happening on earth that you wish to know."

"Tell me, then, what the person now in my thoughts is doing."

"She is standing in a window facing west, watering some

forget-me-nots with a small silver sprinkler which has a ruby in

the handle."

"Can you see anything else?"

"Beneath the jewel is an inscription that runs:

'By those who in warm July are born

A single ruby should be worn;

Then will they be exempt and free

From love's doubts and anxiety.'"

"Marvellous! Had I any doubts as to your prescience and power,

they would be dispelled now. One thing more let me ask, however:

Does she still love me?"

"In her mind is but one thought, and in her heart is an

image--that of the man before me. She loves you with all her

soul."

"My most eager wish is satisfied, and for the moment my heart is

at rest," replied Ayrault, as they turned their steps towards

camp. "Yet, such is my weakness by nature, that, ere twenty-four

hours have passed I shall long to have you tell me again."

"I have been in love myself," replied the spirit, "and know the

feeling; yet to be of the smallest service to you gives me far

more happiness than it can give you. The mutual love in paradise

exceeds even the lover's love on earth, for it is only those that

loved and can love that are blessed.

"You can hardly realize," the bishop continued, as they rejoined

Bearwarden and Cortlandt, "the joy that a spirit in paradise

experiences when, on reopening his eyes after passing death,

which is but the portal, he finds himself endowed with sight that

enables him to see such distances and with such distinctness.

The solar system, with this ringed planet, its swarm of

asteroids, and its intra-Mercurial planets--one of which, Vulcan,

you have already discovered--is a beautiful sight. The planets

nearest the sun receive such burning rays that their surfaces are

red-hot, and at the equator at perihelion are molten. These are

not seen from the earth, because, rising or setting almost

simultaneously with the sun, they are lost in its rays. The

great planet beyond Neptune's orbit is perhaps the most

interesting. This we call Cassandra, because it would be a

prophet of evil to any visitor from the stars who should judge

the solar system by it. This planet is nearly as large as

Jupiter, being 80,000 miles in diameter, but has a specific

gravity lighter than Saturn. Bode's law, you know, says, Write

down 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96. Add 4 to each, and get 4, 7, 10,

16, 28, 52, 100; and this series of numbers represents very

nearly the relative distances of the planets from the sun.

According to this law, you would expect the planet next beyond

Neptune to be about 5,000,000,000 miles from the sun. But it is

about 9,500,000,000, so that there is a gap between Neptune and

Cassandra, as between Mars and Jupiter, except that in

Cassandra's case there are no asteroids to show where any planet

was; we must, then, suppose it is an exception to Bode's law, or

that there was a planet that has completely disappeared. As

Cassandra would be within the law if there had been an

intermediary planet, we have good prima facie reason for

believing that it existed. Cassandra takes, in round numbers, a

thousand years to complete its orbit, and from it the sun, though

brighter, appears no larger than the earth's evening or morning

star. Cassandra has also three large moons; but these, when

full, shine with a pale-grey light, like the old moon in the new

moon's arms, in that terrestrial phenomenon when the earth, by

reflecting the crescent's light, and that of the sun, makes the

dark part visible. The temperature at Cassandra's surface is but

little above the cold of space, and no water exists in the liquid

state, it being as much a solid as aluminum or glass. There are

rivers and lakes, but these consist of liquefied hydrogen and

other gases, the heavier liquid collected in deep Places, and the

lighter, with less than half the specific gravity of ether,

floating upon it without mixing, as oil on water. When the

heavier penetrates to a sufficient depth, the interior being

still warm, it is converted into gas and driven back to the

surface, only to be recondensed on reaching the upper air. Thus

it may happen that two rains composed of separate liquids may

fall together. There being but little of any other atmosphere,

much of it consists of what you might call the vapour of

hydrogen, and many of the well-known gases and liquids on earth

exist only as liquids and solids; so that, were there mortal

inhabitants on Cassandra, they might build their houses of blocks

of oxygen or chlorine, as you do of limestone or marble, and use

ice that never melts, in place of glass, for transparence. They

would also use mercury for bullets in their rifles, just as

inhabitants of the intra-Vulcan planets at the other extreme

might, if their bodies consisted of asbestos, or were in any

other way non-combustibly constituted, bathe in tin, lead, or

even zinc, which ordinarily exist in the liquid state, as water

and mercury do on the earth.

"Though Cassandra's atmosphere, such as it is, is mostly clear,

for the evaporation from the rivers and icy mediterraneans is

slight, the brightness of even the highest noon is less than an

earthly twilight, and the stars never cease to shine. The dark

base of the rocky cliffs is washed by the frigid tide, but there

is scarcely a sound, for the pebbles cannot be moved by the

weightless waves, and an occasional murmur is all that is heard.

Great rocks of ice reflect the light of the grey moons, and never

a leaf falls or a bird sings. With the exception of the mournful

ripples, the planet is silent as the grave. The animal and plant

kingdoms do not exist; only the mineral and spiritual worlds. I

say spiritual, because there are souls upon it; but it is the

home of the condemned in hell. Here dwell the transgressors who

died unrepentant, and those who were not saved by faith. This is

the one instance in which I do not enjoy my developed sight, for

I sometimes glance in their direction, and the vision that meets

me, as my eyes focus, distresses my soul. Their senses are like

an imperfect mirror, magnifying all that is bad in one another,

and distorting anything still partially good when that exists.

All those things that might at least distract them are hollow,

their misery being the inevitable result of the condition of mind

to which they became accustomed on earth and which brought them

to Cassandra. But let us turn to something brighter.

"Though the solar system may seem complex, the sun is but a star

among the millions in the Milky Way, and, compared with the

planetary systems of Sirius, the stars of the Southern Cross, and

the motions of the nebula, it is simplicity itself. Compared

with the splendour of Sirius, with its diameter of twelve million

miles, the sun, measuring but eight hundred and forty thousand,

becomes insignificant; and this giant's system includes groups

and clusters of planets, many with three times the mass of

Jupiter, five and six together, each a different colour,

revolving about a common centre, while they swing about their

primary. Their numerous moons have satellites encircling them,

with orbits in some cases at right angles to the plane of the

ecliptic, so that they shine perpendicularly on what correspond

to the arctic and antarctic regions, while their axes are so

inclined that the satellites turn a complete somersault at each

revolution, producing glistening effects of ice and snow at the

poles. Some of the moons are at a red or white heat, and so

prevent the chill of night on the planets, while they shine with

more than reflected light. In addition to the five or six large

planets in each group, which, however, are many millions of miles

apart, there is in some clusters a small planet that swings

backward and forward across the common centre, like a pendulum,

but in nearly a straight line; and while this multiplicity of

motion goes on, the whole aggregation sweeps majestically around

Sirius, its mighty sun. Our little solar system contains, as we