The Home circle fraternity; evolution of new religion

Preface

The Life Work of John R. Francis was largely along the lines of education and philanthropy. His intimate association with Spiritualists showed him that many of them were earnest, thoughtful, truth-seeking men and women living in isolated localities, far from libraries and reading rooms, and without means to purchase the books they needed. Soon after founding his paper he formulated a plan whereby these workers could obtain at a nominal cost a library that should cover the various phases of Spiritual Philosophy. This plan was faithfully carried out. With The Progressive Thinker he sent out each year a new volume of the series. Seventeen of these already have appeared. The present number consists of papers from his own pen. Such of these as have appeared in The Progressive Thinker he thought worthy of presentation in a more permanent form. The book was well under way at the time of his transition. To compile and arrange in so far as possible as he would have done has been a labor of love as well as a duty which I feel that I owe to those who have for so many years read with interest the product of his fertile brain.

LOUISA C. FRANCIS.

Chicago, Illinois,

THE ROUGH ROAD OF AN OLD SOLDIER.

Not long ago I was approached by a queer specimen of humanity, who, as quick as he caught my eye, said:

"Mister, I'm side-tracked! I have lost my hold! I am no longer strong, vigorous and active. The cold winds pierce my thin clothing; hunger at times gnaws at my vitals; the cold airs of night sting me as I seek some secluded place to sleep, and side-tracked I truly am, and cannot turn in any conceivable direction that I can observe a rift in the clouds! But the time was — long, long years ago! — when I was full of the spirit of life, and nothing then could side-track me. Then, sitting by the side of the girl I loved, I was the peer of Napoleon when he made his first love to Josephine; as happy as Washington when he breathed his ardent admiration into the ears of Martha; as highly pleased as the Roman Conqueror when he pressed his lips to the cheeks of Cleopatra. Yes, on a rustic seat in the forest, climbing vines overhead and moss-covered ground at our feet, with the blue vault of heaven over us, by the side of my Adaline — alas! I was not side-tracked then, but was the happiest of mortals. Stranger, can you help a poor, forlorn, side-tracked man?"

"Certainly I can and will."

"Be seated by my side," as he pointed to a rude seat, "and I will tell you why I am side-tracked; why I have lost my hold, and why the clouds seem so dark around me."

Complying with his request, he continued:

"Stranger, were you ever in a cottage homo, clambering vines around the windows, a purling spring in the yard, and nature's flowers everywhere, and love glistening from as rosy cheeks and lips as were ever kissed by mortal man, and every sound musically sweet and tender?" —

"Well," —

"Don't interrupt me, stranger! Sit in silence as I tell you why I am side-tracked. In my house, stranger, was paradise! I did not aspire for a higher heaven, a grander home, or purer love! I don't know, stranger, but it seems to me that my woodland cottage was plastered all over with approving smiles of angels, and the central figure of them was my Adaline. But the war came, and at the first bugle call I responded, and enlisted to serve my country. No side-track then for me! I remember well the last night I stayed with Adaline! In the front of our vine-clad cottage we sat, my arms around her, bathed all over in that holy love which she alone possessed, — sweeter to me, stranger, than any incense on holy altar, or any perfume of bower or garden. The stars overhead! The silvery moon bursting from the clouds in the east to smile upon us! The cricket on the hearth chirping tenderly, as if in adieu to me forever. No side-track then, stranger! I had more happiness then to the square inch than you could compute with mathematics, and as I looked into Adaline's eyes and pressed my lips to hers, a doleful raven lighted on a log near us, and uttered a death-knell. Stranger, it was a death warning! I heard it just before my angel child died! It had the same doleful sound then as now. My limbs trembled, my heart fluttered, everything grew dark before me, and I fell right out of existence! Finally I came to, Adaline bending over me, wooing me back to life. In a few minutes I was myself again, and she laughed at my fears, just as if a raven could tell the future. In the morning we parted, her tear-stained eyes expressive of the regrets of her soul; I to go to the battle-field — she to the home of her father. Stranger, that raven side-tracked me. I was not in the army six months before a letter came announcing the death of Adaline. Here is the last letter I ever received from her — the writing now is almost illegible. Stranger, shall I read it to you?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Here it is, stranger.

" 'My Dear Jake: A week ago I wrote you all the current news, so you know what is happening in your old home as well as I do. Since then, papa has been very sick, and I have been tenderly nursing him. I tell you, my dearest husband, the days seem long and wearisome without you by my side. Yesterday, just as the west was tinged with all the colors that the sun could impart, the fleecy clouds resembling a great bed of flowers, I was by the side of Minnie's grave, the third anniversary of her death, with a large basket of woodland flowers to baptize her last resting-place with them and my tears. Jake, it did seem then that I could see her. I lost myself for a time in reverie. I seemed to be with her. I was really with her. She placed her tiny arms around my neck, Jake, and kissed me a hundred times, telling me that half of them was for her darling papa in the army. She told me, Jake, that I would soon be with her in heaven, and that we would be there to welcome you when you come. When I came from my reveries, I was lying on the green grass, the grave of Minnie for a pillow, and the stars of heaven shining upon me. I must have been there, Jake, for an hour, and it was all a dream! and, of course, will never come true. But, Jake, it will do no harm to tell you all I saw there. I was in heaven! It was a grand place. I saw there an exact counterpart of our woodland cottage; the same clambering vines; the same wild flowers; the same sparkling spring, only far more beautiful. Jake, an angel came and took Minnie and me to you. We found you on a battle field, calmly sleeping after the severe struggle of the day. Little Minnie placed her cheeks to yours and for a brief season cuddled by your side. I pressed my lips to yours and kissed you as in days when in our flower-arbored home. The angel said that I would never live to welcome you home, but that you would survive the struggle and live to be a very old man. But this was all a dream, Jake; I shall live to welcome you home again, with a thousand kisses and caresses. But seeing you so plainly, and seeing my darling Minnie, too, was gratifying, though in a dream. But, Jake, while at the grave of Minnie that same raven — it seemed to be the very one that appeared before us on the evening of your departure — came and lighted at my feet and looked imploringly up into my face, and uttered a mournful sound. But all these dreams and omens mean nothing. I tell them to you, for I must always write good long letters to the dearest man on earth. I do wish you were with me; I would like to put my arms around your neck and press my cheeks to yours, and pillow my head upon your bosom, that our souls might thrill with that love which is yours and mine. But good-by, Jake, with a thousand kisses and a thousand good wishes. ADALINE.' '

Wiping the tears from his eyes with a handkerchief that had seen better and cleaner days, he remarked with deep emotion:

"Stranger, that was the last letter I received from Adaline. Only a few days after one was due from her, her father wrote me that she had been taken sick very suddenly, and in a few hours died, her last words being, 'I see my beloved Jake.' Stranger, since then I have been side-tracked. I can't get on the main line, or the direct road. I have tried, and tried, and tried. I am now crippled, waiting, stranger, for the final summons, when I will be no longer side-tracked, but on the main line with my angel wife and Minnie by my side. Stranger, even now," I am full of hope. I believe that in heaven Adaline will be my wife, and Minnie my same darling child."

Listening attentively to his pathetic story, I slipped a dollar in his hand to assist one who is side-tracked, and who will undoubtedly remain there until death breaks the condition.

How many there are who are side-tracked, who cannot, with all their strivings, get on the main line to happiness. To those poor unfortunates, always extend a helping hand and a cheering word. The loss of a wife and child had side-tracked him, and he could never catch hold of life again as it was with him when Adaline and Minnie were by his side. This world will never be ushered into the millennial era until every house and every home shall become an asylum for those who are side-tracked; then, and not till then, will angels draw near this earth and smile lovingly on all humanity.

The religion of the Home Circle Fraternity consists wholly of BEING GOOD and DOING GOOD, independent of all belief in a God, Devil, Savior or religious Dogmas — a religion that has a practical spiritual and ethical foundation, on which all classes can stand in perfect harmony and work for the advancement of mankind — a religion that places its genuine workers in accord with the VI- BRATIONS that emanate from the philosophers, seers, poets, scientists, and other noble souls high in spirit life.

A VERY BEAUTIfUL DEATH

THE VIOLINIST.

"When by the touch of music freed

I love the world that shuts me in, When in the strife by men decreed

The noble hopes no guerdon win, At whiles the music murmurs low,

At whiles with happy heart it sings, Joy dances with the dancing bow,

Or sorrow sobs along the strings.

"While a lost alien on strange shores

I lie, by waves of music hurled, Complaining through my fingers' pours

The sorrow of a yearning world, Till, lapsing from the heavens to earth,

I drop the throbbing violin And common folk of little worth

With common faces close me in."

Some deaths are a tragedy; some are a farce; some are sad; some are heroic; some are sublime; some are poetic, and occasionally one that is divinely musical and angelic, each death blooming with that flower which the soil of their respective lives had cultivated. If reared in a soil of crime, evil surroundings, and discord, the death will constitute a tragedy in reality, and the entrance into the land of souls will be dark and forbidding.

In order that death may be sublime and beautiful, one's life must correspond therewith. There never was a rainbow that arched the heavens, as if a smile from the Infinite, without the mist of the morning or the descending drops of rain that come like Ministering Angels to the flowers and vegetation of earth.

How can your death be beautiful, unless, like the rainbow, it is reflected through something — through the poetic grandeur of good deeds and holy aspirations.

The villain's death reflects only darkness, wherein he is confronted with the deeds of his horrible life, which rise up as so many scorpions to sting him. By cultivating thorns only, you can not realize the beauty of the rainbow-tinted flowers. You can not die sublimely, beautifully, if you have not cultivated in your soul the deeds of life that correspond therewith in all respects.

The good thought is in tune with THE INFINITE; it is always in touch with the sphere of Angels of Light; it basks in those vibrations that reflect goodness into the soul, and tends to render death beautiful. It assists in building your sphere and home in the spirit realms. The good deed, the exalted thought, the pure aspiration, and the divine purpose to lift upward some soul struggling for light and aid, cluster around one's death, like flowers woven into a bouquet, and render one's death poetically inspiring.

Your deeds of life as surely indicate the true character of your death as the thermometer does that of a rising or falling temperature. If you live in the darkness of evil on earth, how can you expect anything but darkness on the spirit side of life? How can you expect to enter the high vibrations of the angels when you have only cultivated the low vibrations of selfishness? Death in order to be beautiful must correspond with those vibrations which produce the beautiful.

When a dear friend died in the long ago out in the far West, we sat by his bedside watching his transition into the realms of souls. His face was serenely sweet, even in its paleness, and at one time became sublimely lovely, as if the smile of an angel nestled thereon to give him a foretaste of heaven. In those dying moments the angels clustered around him. There was even music in the air, a sweet death knell hymn to welcome him to his spirit home, and he was dead — his body — but his soul was more alive than ever. His transition was, indeed, beautiful.

But when poor Sobrisky, a violinist, died in Chicago, there was a scene that baffles all description by a poet or seer. For a long time he had supported himself comfortably by giving lessons on the violin. But old age finally came, as it comes to all with its numerous infirmities, and he failed by degrees to attract pupils. All the sweet keepsakes, tokens of affection, pearls of love of a wedded life, were disposed of at the pawnshop with a despairing wail of deep anguish. As he gave to the pawnbroker the last token of love that attached him to his angel wife, he sobbed like a child; his whole frame trembled, and a sigh so sad, so disconsolate, came from him, it was enough to make an angel weep. The last link that united him to his soul-mate in the Spheres of Light and Love, had been disposed of — and all was desolation! — nothing left but his violin, from which no one could part him but death. But the way of life became darker to him, while his soul became more radiant, more divinely lovely, until at last, food all gone, tokens of wifely affection all parted with, he realized that his end was near.

Half starved, weak in body, weary in spirit, yet calmly resigned to the awful condition he was in, he arose from his couch, grasped his violin, and commenced playing — feebly at first, but gradually his strength returned, and his soul seemed to vibrate in harmony with Beethoven and Mozart, who were, no doubt, bending over him with their divine radiance Illuminating his soul. His old-time vigor had returned, and for a time his music was simply angelic, and under its divinely sweet influence, and the presence of the master musicians, the poor old man's life ebbed away, while several attracted by the heavenly music, saw the violin drop from his hands, and the poor old Violinist fell back on his pillow — a BEAUTIFUL DEATH indeed!

All should seek to have a beautiful death, but you can not have one unless you earn it; unless your crop of good thoughts, good deeds, and noble aspirations make it so. Commence now to prepare for a beautiful death, and to place yourself in accord and sympathy with the vibrations from the Sphere of Love and Harmony, and thus aid in developing a New Religion.

TWO SOULS ENTERING SPIRIT LIPE.

This world is full of impressive contrasts, and wonderful extremes. Incandescent heat and arctic cold represent two important extremes in the diverse vibrations of material nature. Birth into this world of beauty, and Death opening the Door into the spirit realms for a liberated soul, furnish a contrast that is enchanting to contemplate. The snake with its slimy tongue and poisonous saliva, and the angel radiant with love and intelligence, are the two extremes of creative energy on the part of Natural Law. One extreme is hideous, the other god-like.

All through the immensity of space there are vibrations that produce opposite results — extremes! Human beings represent the two extremes of darkness and light — the good and bad, the ignorant and the cultivated. The woman in this city who enticed beautiful young girls into dens of vice, desolation and ruin, is in contrast with the Angel of Light who labored unceasingly to redeem them, and bring them back to the benign influence of home.

God and the Devil stand prominently in contrast, whether facts or fiction. The contrasts of Heaven and Hell, have proved as interesting themes all along the ages. The golden streets of the former and the incandescent fires of the latter have proved good material for the revivalist all through the times of the past. The laughter of joy and the sighs and moans of deep anguish and sorrow exist side by side. Sadness and cheerfulness play an important part in this world of ours. The ups and downs of life are here on this plane to stay for many years.

On earth and in heaven there are inequalities. No two lives run in exactly the same groove. The extremes of poverty and riches have existed since the world began. The brightness of the higher spheres of spirit life stand in contrast with the dark conditions of the lower halls in the regions celestial. If no contrasts in life, the work of the reformer would be gone. If no hideous spheres in the realms of souls, there would be no need of ministering spirits.

Ignorance and extreme wisdom can be discerned on all sides. The good and the bad intermingle. Ties that are binding bring the good and bad together. There was Nellie Goodwin, a conspicuous example. Her eyes were radiant with the light of an angel, and her features luminous with happiness and joy. Her smiles had the freshness of the morning glow, when all nature, glistening with radiant dewdrops, is awakening to new life. She seemed to exhale gladness just as naturally as the flower does its heaven-born perfume. Life was to her a romantic dream, she always standing on the bright side of it. Her rippling laughter found an echo in every heart; there was joy therein, like a healing balm. Finally, as the story goes, Nellie married — a joining of the Devil and the Angel in the "holy" bonds of matrimony. Charles, her husband, was exteriorly to those not acquainted with him, an Angel of Light. Interiorly, he was a Demon of Darkness, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a viper in human form — cruel and remorseless in the extreme, and the embodiment of selfishness.

Here were marked contrasts joined together, one exhaling the fragrance of Heaven, the other possessing the craftiness of a Hell. One overflowing with the benign influence of sublime thoughts and angelic aspirations, and the other vibrating with the deception that lurks in the minds of demons. Two greater contrasts never existed. Extremes had met, one laden with high and noble aspirations, the other exactly the reverse.

These two extremes could not dwell together in unison, hence the ties were broken, the husband shot his wife and then turning the revolver on himself, committed suicide — and thus the ties that bound the two extremes in life were broken, and thus ends the chronicling of their career in the daily paper.

But there arises another scene, grandly beautiful, radiant with angelic loveliness on the part of the murdered woman, and the vibration of her unsullied nature seemed to scintillate in the spiritual atmosphere, and voices full of sweet, tremulous sympathy spoke words of kindly greeting to the liberated soul just forced out of its earthly body by the murderous hands of a villain. The spirit mother was there, clasping her in that maternal love which radiated an influence far surpassing in beauty anything which the loftiest imagination can perceive, affording a scene that would baffle the power of the angelic artist to adequately portray on canvas. An extreme was there, but it was one supreme thrill of gladness that the daughter and mother could meet in spirit life, and that their vibrations were in harmony with that divine principle that underlies the spirit realms, and manifests itself in many souls. One extreme of life, bright, noble, charming in all things, had been at last liberated by one whose whole nature was surcharged with those emotions that only find birth in the dark spheres of spirit life.

But there is another scene, that of a desolate, dismal, despairing soul, in the bleak, black, desolate hells of spirit life, where the moaning winds send forth a vibration sad, so witch-like and weird. The suicide and murderer was there, his spirit revealed as a monstrosity, and he reaping just what he had sown, his own acts of life sitting in judgment, and consigning him to his fate.

Thus it is that extremes often meet, are united in marriage, live in discordant vibrations and are at last separated by the hand of malignant violence — one going to climes infernal, regions of darkness and despair, where the howling winds are sepulchral, the atmosphere stifling, and from which there is no possible way of escape only through genuine repentance; the other ascending to the sphere of light and love, where angelic beings only live, and where radiant happinesss exists among all the souls there.

Choose now your own LIFE LINES, the lines that lead to grander, nobler realizations, or the lines that lead to the home of demons, the region of souls steeped in crime sometimes so badly that total extinction may possibly follow — a soul lost, vanished, extinguished, blotted out of existence!

Always live a life that is in PERFECT CONTRAST with evil thoughts, words or deeds, and Angels of Light and Love will welcome you to your Spirit Home, and thus the RELIGION OF GOODNESS will be fully developed in your soul.

YOUR SPIRITUAL ASSETS CONSIDERED.

All humanity are moving along diverging lines. No two occupy the same plane of thought. The flower-tinted rainbow never makes the same impression on each one who is looking upwards admiring its transcendent beauty and loveliness.

Nature never exactly repeats itself in all of God's vast universe. The incoming and outflowing tides never send forth the same vibrations.

The smile that illuminates the radiant features of the charming maiden like a sunbeam from the Throne of Light, never will in all time appear again in all respects.

The events of the now will not return to-morrow. Even the sunshine of a summer day in the same exact proportion will never visit the world again. The earth itself with its myriads of animate life, will never again occupy the same position with reference to the various celestial orbs that it did one second ago. The twinkle of the North Star that you just observed never will be exactly repeated. The settings of the heavens with worlds and systems of worlds at this moment will not be the same when you draw your next breath. The moon never travels the same pathway twice. Each pulsation of the heart is different. What the eye surveys this very moment, it can never see again, even one minute after, for during that time there has been growth or decay.

Not a single minute repeats itself in the vast arcana of nature. The ideals of religion vary with each human mind. No two persons view the same aspect of God, and no thought ever exactly repeated itself.

No vibration from the strings of a violin is ever, in minute details, repeated. Blood corpuscles are continually dying, and new ones are being evolved unlike those which have perished. The moan of anguish that dies away in sepulchral tones will never be heard again. No two die exactly the same.

The tune the litle bird warbles to-day will never be heard again in all its charming details.

The universe to-morrow will have far different combinations than it has to-day, so you can safely say at this moment "Good-by to present conditions; they will never exist the same again in all their details."

Every beam of light that comes flitting from the sun is somewhat different from every other beam of light that ever existed.

The pitiful groan of the soldier dying on the battle field, stands with its vibrations of deep sorrow, solitary and alone — nothing like it in all respects in all the regions of space — it has its own sorrowful expression of anguish, as the spirit takes its flight to the bloodless spiritual plane of life. It was his expiring groan, wholly different from that of any other soldier's, as life vanished; it had an individuality of its own throughout, and can never be exactly counterfeited.

Your thoughts are wholly unlike the thoughts of any other person — they possess a distinct nature and potentiality of their own, and you are in all respects responsible therefor; they are your ethical, spiritualizing or degrading ASSETS in tfce making up of your individual responsibility in this life, and the spirit world to which you will eventually ascend. Being like no other thoughts in all the regions of sidereal space, they can easily be traced to YOU; you are the responsible owner, and their effects on your spiritual nature can be easily discerned. You can not escape from yourself. The effects of your thoughts, of your aspirations, of your acts, are your ASSETS only, and you will carry them to the regions of souls.

All things differ in their material and spiritual aspects, in their effects, in their general make-up, hence YOUR acts, YOUR thoughts, YOUR aspirations, possess an individuality of their own, and can be traced every time to YOU — they are your exclusive property, ASSETS, as it were, which you will take to the realms of souls, and those ASSETS will sit in judgment for you or against you.

Over a half century ago I knew a man in the then half-settled West. He was wealthy, exceedingly selfish, overbearing, a politician of the old school, and requiring servility in all his demands, in many respects a tyrant, cruel, remorseless. His thoughts, his schemes, his aspirations to promote self, possessed an individuality of their own, and were his spiritual ASSETS, and they alone will determine what his position shall be in the next world. Alas! you take to the regions of souls your own individual assets; they will accompany you there; they will be in Court, as it were to judge you. They will elevate you, or degrade you, placing you where you belong. Mr. X. — for such we shall call him — had a splendid personality; his smile was angelic and his suavity sublimely beautiful, as he carried out his selfish schemes for self-aggrandizement in politics and the accumulation of wealth. In a worldly way he was a grand success; viewed from a spiritual standpoint he was a dismal failure — the ASSETS dsrived from his thoughts, his schemes, his aspirations, his acts towards his fellowmen in general, are enshrouded or encased in his spiritual nature, LIKE A BIRTH-MARK on the person and they are his ASSETS to commence housekeeping with in the next life; they are HIS BAGGAGE to the land of souls; they will accompany him in spite of himself. He can't burn them; he can't destroy them; by no possible method can they be annihilated, or even be hidden — they constitute his ASSETS as he takes a through train to the spheres above.

But there is another picture to be drawn. Mr. X.'s residence was regarded as a palace in those early days.

a large stone stable in the rear, in one part ' of which resided a woman who supported herself by doing oddjobs for Mr. X. and the neighbors near by. She was uneducated, in many respects crude as to the stern conventionalities of this life, yet patterned after the immortal Lincoln, her innate nature was studded with jewels of rare worth, with aspirations vibrant with the touch of angelic fingers, with chords that responded to the whispers of loved ones in spirit life, and within her soul there were rare treasures, the effects of right thinking, of right acting, of right emotions, of everything that was lovely, ennobling and beautiful; a gem, she was, with a rough, uncouth exterior, — crude, perhaps, in speech, yet sublime in her views of life and its responsibilities. Life to her was one continual heroic struggle exerted in behalf of her children, then nearly self-sustaining. In all her labors and struggles, she maintained a cheerful aspect, for she heard whispers, sweet with love, and soul-enchanting, and they seemed to emanate from the very atmosphere of her room, giving her strength, comfort, happiness, and encouragement. She lived in an atmosphere where angels loved to linger; and her soul was vibrant to their touch, her thoughts responsive to theirs, her aspirations in harmony with theirs, and her nature in- tune with the Infinite, as it were, and though crude in some respects, yet like the immortal Lincoln, she had seraphic visions, soul-enchanting dreams, and spiritual experiences, that rendered the hardship of life lighter to bear. But by and by the struggle of life weakened her, the hectic flush of consumption came upon her cheek and she was unable to work, and her food, the refuse of Mr. X.'s table, afforded her ample nourishment. The crusts of bread, the fragments of pie and cake, the picked bones, etc., afforded her and her children ample nourishment, until finally she heard seraphic music in the air, followed by sweet whispers of love, telling her that her death on this day would come, just as the evening sun kissed the vines and flowers that clustered around her window, thus preparing her for the change. Her children were by her side. The wistful, affectionate gaze of the mother enveloped them in a halo of love as they knelt by her side, and repeated the love-prayer she had taught them, and her features were illuminated with a divine halo as she gazed upon them and gave them her blessing and consigned them to the tender care of a neighbor, whose soul was on the responsive plane. The setting sun finally sent its rays through the cluster of vines and flowers, and under their serene influence she passed away — a beautiful death, indeed.