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doctor I had in Stockton was some kind of a foreigner, and he could not
write English. So, my death was written down as having been caused by
'Gallumpin consumpsin'."

The whole assemblage of ghosts who were listening to this tale of woe
agreed that death sometimes has sharper stings than we know. The ghosts
with whom the newspaper man had been talking before this interruption
now gathered around him again and he thought that probably now was his
chance to learn something of the question so often mentioned of "getting
the passports." That there was to be a move onward toward some desired
goal he felt sure and at the risk of seeming importunate he asked of the
nearest one:

"Sir, is it permitted you to give me any information regarding the next
move onward, or upward, or whatever you call it, or what you mean when
you speak of your passports? I need not tell you how much I desire to
understand this."

"My dear sir, you know as much about it as we do. We all dread it while
we still desire it sincerely. We dread it because we do not know what it
will be, but on the other hand we wish the change, hoping that it will be
a step toward better things. There are some reasons of which we prefer
not to speak, why we would welcome a change. Anyone who pretends to know
more than this is a liar. You see we use strong words down here, for
truth is a fundamental principle of life after death, and we are trying
to practice it."

"And you might add," said one of the ghosts who had been talking when the
man told of his sudden taking off and his grievance against the
undertaker. "You might add that no spirit would or could harm anyone,
for in the first place he has not the power, and secondly he thinks more
of trying to undo the evil he did in lifetime than to do more,"

"Just one thing more I should like to ask, and that is if there is ever
any kind of religious service or observance down here?"

The newspaper man was growing bolder as he became better acquainted with
the ghosts, and had the welcome assurance that they would not harm him.

"There is no religion as you have been taught to consider it in any of
the underground places," replied the ghost. "It will surprise some of the
preachers when they come down to learn even the little we know. They
preach one thing, but when they get here they will find that truth in
all things, love to your neighbor, and charity to all is all that is
required of us, and I believe all that is essential to give us a chance
to work out our own salvation."

"And for punishment? Is there a hell as we have been taught? And, what
must we do to be saved? Must we join some church, and if so what one?"

 They had evidently found the buffet.

"All churches lead to one goal. As it is, the One who created us has
given us all a chance to work out our own salvation after we are dead. We
can go on being ghosts, which means unredeemed souls for a few million
years and redeem ourselves. But it is hard-very hard-to overcome our
sins and weaknesses. As near as I can make it out there is a constant
advance toward perfection in everything. It began uncounted millions of
years ago, and will continue to all eternity. Evolution, the survival of
the fittest, and all those things have truth for foundation, though the
men who have been the ones to advance those theories have but the
faintest glimmering of the truth. But I think from all I have seen and
heard that Hell is that period of our existence while we are still
chained to existence, obliged to know all that goes on without power to
hinder or help. I used to preach other theology when I was a bishop, but
I see things now with my spiritual instead of earthly eyes. I think I
may say that this short life as men and women, is fraught with more
meaning than any of our previous existences in different forms-for in
this life we have been pretty nearly free agents-and a pretty mess we
have made of it all. We shall have a chance to progress to
higher-meaning better-conditions when we shall be sufficiently purified,
or at least I hope so."

"And, is there no special punishment, like frying in a cauldron of
boiling pitch and things like that?" asked the young man somewhat
anxiously, thinking at the same time of Dante's Inferno, which he had
just been reading.

"No, but there are such things as moral suffering, and one thing came to
my knowledge to-day. This is what one might call poetic justice, and it
would be comic if it were not so tragic. It is this; all the women who
have deliberately and with intention shirked the cares of maternity while
alive, are obliged to take care of the children of the poor overworked
women whose quivers were full of them on earth. There is a kind of
heavenly kindergarten, but the labors of these nurses and teachers are
quite as hard as were those of the poor mothers, and the unaccustomed and
often unpleasant labor is enough to make any poor rich woman shed tears
of rage and worry-that is, if it were a possible thing for a ghost to
cry-for the source of their tears is dried up forever. I heard one woman
say that she would give one million years of heaven if she could only have
one good cry."

"So then there is none of that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth
that we read about and have dinned into our ears ever since we could hear,
and long before we could understood?"

"No; but don't think that you can do wrong with impunity. Ex fatoris, is
the law, and it is always enforced in one way or another. But, we are here
to-night to enjoy ourselves as well as the nature of the occasion will
permit. Each has full permission to follow his or her own inclinations,
and-well-some of them seem to forget that they are adding to their own
term of detention. We have been talking on subjects usually avoided by
people on pleasure bent, and I should not have said so much only that I
hope it may do some good directly or indirectly. The music will soon
begin to play for those who wish to dance, and after that we shall have a
short convention, where some important questions will be discussed with a
view to interest the living public in our needs and complaints."

"Before you leave me," said the young man hurriedly, "I beg you to tell me
where the children are. I have not seen one, and I know that there are
many buried right here and others in St. Paul's, and in all other
cemeteries in the city."

"Children are never put under the same conditions as ours, and they are
taken at once to an intermediate place and classed off, according to their
ages, and they are happy in their own way. They are not allowed to remember
anything about their previous existence. They are never enlightened as to
the world and its miseries, and no one knows that it had parents or pain.
They are all equal, and all are ignorant of sin or its punishment. They
always remain little children. In short, all and every one who has not yet
reached a state of sinlessness must pass through a period of purification,
which I may say is purely mental, and on

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