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INTO MARVELOUS LIGHT
(Continued from last week.)
Julian Deveaux hissed out his words, “No, John
Marsden, my most hated enemy from the hour I
first beheld you, do. not be so ealm in the antici
pation that your soul is to be freed by me to join
that of your mate in some haven of eternal bliss.
No such joy awaits you. And I beseech his Satanic
majesty that you may be chained in this human
body without repose throughout eternity, that your
soul may not join hers. For hers hath departed
this life and gone to realms beyond your reach,
from whence you will not. I trow, be able to call
her back a second time. Broken hearts are useless
toys—ha! ha!—useless toys! So I shall be most
generous in presenting this one to you.
“No, no, John Marsden, this weapon I press
against your quaking heart is not to release its life,
as I did hers, but is simply the steed which I force
you to ride to view this broken heart and receive
the precious gift which I am about to bestow upon
you. Retrace your steps up the fatal stairway!”
With a mad man’s joy, Julian Deveaux parted the
curtains, and said:
“There lies the casket, the jewel has gone. Call
loud enough to pierce heaven’s dome, and you can
not bring her back this time. I thank his Satanic
majesty. Take what is left to your heart, and cry
aloud for her soul to return! Weep and wail—”
John Marsden had given but one look at the
lifeless form and had uttered no word. His gaze
had been drawn upward to where Annie’s spirit
form, released from the human garment, had been
arrayed in the robe of righteousness, and now hov
ered above them in the perfect beauty of divinity,
into which her last prayer: “Thy will, not mine,
be done,” had transformed her.
“Julian, behold!”
Julian Deveaux looked up, and his eyes, too,
were opened to sec that which but few men
in the flesh are permitted to see, a loved one in
spirit-form. With a shriek which aroused the en
tire household, he fell as one dead.
CHAPTER XLTI.
There was a man who became a wanderer upon
the face of the earth, and though he carried with
him neither bag nor purse, and trod on foot, when
possible, from country to country, city to city, vil
lage to village and from house to house, and though
he avoided the palaces of the rich, and sought only
the haunts of the poor, the sick, the sorrowing, yet
his fame spread abroad, and he became known far
and wide as “The Wandering Physician.” And
though he was accredited with performing miracu
lous cures anol of being a prophet, yea, of being the
most Christi ike man since the days of the apostles,
yet he accepted homage from no man, and passed the
same way but once.
And he had but one theme as the basis of dis
cussion regarding every relation in life—the New
Testament parable of “The Prodigal Son.
He had opportunity to study the human nature,
face to face, of the peoples of every nation. He was
entrusted with family secrets, skeletons were taken
from hearts’ closets and exposed to his view for
dissection, and sins were often confessed to him
as if he were a father confessor. But now no money
was demanded at such confessionals. All this re
ceiver of confessions now desired was to learn the
needs of each individual, of a locality or of a na
tion, that God might succor that need through him
where possible.
From the seed sown in his path tnere began o
spring up—especially in out-of-the-way places,
where ignorance and poverty were most appalling —-
well equipped schools and churches, governed by
the better class of teachers and preachers; and in
more public places, accessible by railroads, colleges,
institutional churches, hospitals, schools of scien
tific research, and all classes of benevolent institu
tions for the relief and uplifting of afflicted man
kind.
The Golden Age for September 13, 1906.
By LLEWELYN STEPHENS
Not many years had passed until some unknown
writer began to arouse the masses through not only
the widely circulated papers and magazines, but
also through the local papers in the country and
out-of-the-way towns and villages, upon subjects
over the importance of which they had been sleep
ing. Each locality had both sides of a question
presented to it in away which made it arouse it
self to work out its own salvation. Men arose, de
manding the investigation of many heretofore hid
den evils; a higher standard of right and wrong in
all circles of life was upheld; and the God-man,
Christ Jesus, was presented as the only universal
mediator between man, the prodigal son, and God
the Father in such a logical manner as to defy in
telligent contradiction.
The harmony of science and the Bible was never
before presented in a manner so convincing to the
hitherto irreconcilable views of the majority of
men. The contrasts between the Epicurean, the
Stoic and the Christian philosopher had never been
made to appear so marked to the thinking mind,
resulting in a widespread study and acceptance of
the philosophy of the greatest of philosophers God
has ever presented to mankind, Christ Jesus. The
greatest question of the twentieth century: “What
think ye of Christ?” began to girdle the world as
by an electric chain.
By and by this same writer, who seemed a master
of the languages of every civilized country on the
globe, began to arouse every nation to the study
and importance of civil and religious liberty as
being the bulwark upon which every nation must
erect its life principles, if it desired to live. The
separation of Church and State, the value of the
public school, especially as it exists in the United
States, and the grave peril of the rapid influx of
the foreigner, were often set forth in no uncertain
terms. He awakened dormant minds to the study
of: “Liberty of thought, speech and print insures
‘the survival of the fittest’ in the domain of human
thought and action.”
“How shall we Christianize, civilize and Ameri
canize the ignorant or vicious foreigner?”
“The public school! What kind of American
citizens would be produced, if each nationality or
each religious sect had its separate schools? One
generation wholly educated in sectarian schools
would sow the seed for the speedy disruption of
I lie United States. The English language would
cease to be regnant. Love and enthusiasm for that
flag of stars and stripes which means so much to
every true American as it waves ov’r the Union,
would soon die. There would develop a spirit of
indifference to the cause of general education which
would finally culminate in a vast illiterate majority
in our commonwealth. The American public school
has been the potent means of putting Americans
in the forefront of the nations. The majority of
its principals and teachers are Christians, and, con
sequently the pupils have Christian training
through their influence and example.’"
“The products of the separate, or parochial
school, are the hewers of wood and the drawers of
water, while the products of the public school are
the directors of the country’s affairs.”
“America js still in the formative age. While
other nations point the finger of scorn at American
lynchings and lawlessness, it has not the crimes to
account for which marked the formalive stage of
every country of the Old World; and certain classes
of lawlessness are largely due to the agglomeration
of the multitude of races to be found.”
“What religion and system of sectarian educa
tion have engendered morally and mentally feeble
nations?”
“0, America, awake to the undercurrent which,
if allowed to increase, will finally sweep to destruc
tion the freest and best government the world has
ever known.”
“Creedalism versus Christism.”
“The mighty nations of the past, existing in the
age of Pericles, which, in architecture, supplied the
patterns that are still the envy of modern builders;
the ago of the triumphs of Phideas and Praxiteles
in sculpture; the Iliad of Odyssey of Homer in
poetry; the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero
in oratory; or in the age of the achievements of
Plato and Aristotle in philosophy—have come and
gone and crumbled into dust; and will you, oh, man,
realize from the history of all pagan civilization,
the weakness of human upbuilding, and the strength
of the Rock of Ages? Ecce Deus!”
Such were some of the subjects which the pen
of this unknown writer presented in such a mas
terly manner to the reading public throughout the
twenty years of his travels; while his personal con
tact aroused within the mind and soul of each
one, whom his hand grasped in brotherly greeting,
a desire to escape from darkness into light.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Paris, France, May G, 1906.
The Reverend John Marsden,
“The People’s Temple,”
New York City, U. S. A.
My Beloved Brother in Christ:—
A certain man had a, son, and he said to his
Father:
“Father, give me the portion of goods that falletn
to me.”
And not many days after the son gathered all to
gether and took his journey into a far country, and
there wasted his substance with riotous living.
And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
And he went and joined himself tu a citizen of
that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed
swine.
And he would fain have filled his belly with the
husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave
unto him.
And when he came to himself, he said, “How
many hired servants of my father’s have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?”
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say
unto him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven,
and before thee; and am no more worthy to be
called thy son; make me as one of thy hired ser
vants.’ ”
And he arose and came to his father. But when
he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and
had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and
kissed him. And the son said unto him, “Father,
I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and
am not worthy to be called thy son.”
But the Father said to his servants, “Bring forth
the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring
on his hand, and shoes on his feet.”
“And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it;
and let us eat and be merry.
“For this, my son, was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost and is found.”
And when the son was restored to his Father’s
love, his one desire was to be about his Father’s
business. But he was not sent forth to preach from
pulpits, nor upon the housetops; but the same
angel who struck him dead to the old self and raised
him to walk in newness of life almost twenty years
ago, has never left him, but has been the still,
small voice speaking through his to the heart of
every man whom he has met in his journey around
the world.
My dear John, I have watched yom career with
as much interest as if you were mv own beloved
son; and not a day of these years have I ever fail
ed to praise our heavenly Father for his unspeaka
ble gifts to me of her and of you.
To but one man have 1 made myself known—the
one, fortunately, worthy of the trust I reposed
in him with the management of my fortune, and the
distribution of funds where I advised, enabling me
to invest $100,000,000 in the upbuilding of my
Father’s kingdom around the globe. You have
doubtless heard of some of these anonymous
gifts.
My Executor kept me constantly informed of the
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