During these reflections I unconsciously passed away from that sphere of gloom to a region where I could perceive nothing but lonely space. No sun or stars were visible to my sight. Darkness more dense, close around me, and I felt that my doom was sealed, and that I should soon become the companion of spirits in those fantastic realms. And when I began to agonize beneath the idea of departing hope, I heard a voice as from the distance, in tones soft and melodious, say, "Look unto Jesus: He is the life of the soul." In a moment an inward feeling arose in rebellion to the idea of adoring that Jesus who was crucified; when suddenly all that seemed to sustain me departed, and again I descended as from an immeasurable height, into an abyss inhabited by beings, whose condition I did not at first discover, but who were finally revealed as more desperate than those from whom I had just escaped. They gathered around me and commended me for the doubt I had entertained concerning the Divinity of the Son of God. Then a spirit of giant intellect, approaching me, said:

"Religion, the Religion of the Bible, so much revered by many who live in darkness and are undeveloped, is but a spiritual farce. The God of the Bible whom Christians call Savior of the World, was but a man. Religious faith circumscribes the range of human thought, fetters the noble intellect, and prevents the progression of the race. Those thou hast just visited, are a class of spirits who, blinded by the delusive dreams of Earth’s religionists, have entered the spirit world unprogressed; hence they still cling to the idea of Redemption through Christ. They appear to suffer; their suffering is but imaginary. Light will ere long reach them. Then will they be enabled to discover the folly of their religious education, to which, though discarded by their better being, they cleave with insatiable desires. We are free. Our intellect ranges unrestrained, and we behold the magnificence and the glory of the peopled universe. We enjoy the rich productions of the sublime attributes of mind, and thus—and not by the Religion of the Cross—we arise into the more exalted spheres of intellectual attainments, and the moving grandeur of terrestrial things.

"Marietta, for so thou art called, we saw thee when darkness overshadowed thee, and well did we understand that for a moment, from the force of education, thou wouldst have offered prayer for salvation in the name of Jesus. We heard that voice that spake from above thee, saying, ‘Look to Jesus’; still that did not save thee. Learn, then, that from the native unfolding of thy being cometh salvation.

"What dost thou see, Marietta? Abandon thy thoughts of the empty Religion of the Bible, and behold the wonders of this sphere of existence. This is the Second Sphere. Around thee gather minds from the varied spheres of Earth, minds whose strength of intellect could not yield to the force of an imaginary religion. They were not awed into reverence by the priestly garb, nor sang the idle notes of psalmody, the heartless ‘music’ of the church.

"These sing of nature, of which they are a noble part; and thus united, ascend the octave of mental progressive harmony."

Here the spirit addressing me became greatly annoyed; and the nebulous appearance which encompassed him was agitated under the influence of successive shocks, which caused his very being to convulse and writhe beneath its influence. I could not perceive whence they came, and was greatly terrified, as I saw the whole scene changed at every successive touch, which was attended with flashes like broad sheets of lurid light, playing upon the cloudlike form which enveloped him. ‘

As I approach the description of this scene, I most sensibly feel my incompetency. The reality none can ever know, save those who personally behold it. I am only able to say, that every evil device which prevails with man, appeared organized and moving in a perfect scene, and each spirit was an actor performing the part cultivated by him while in the body. I knew that if they expected bliss, all was unreal; and yet all struggled to obtain enjoyment, which, however, from its dreadful fantasy, recoiled upon the suffering soul with inexpressible horror.

As I looked upon them, the occupants of the broad galleries arose; and as they sung, the hoarse voice of the spectral organ jarred, as note after note of their attempted music fell from lips whose very accents mocked the effort. My soul pitied them, as I saw them sink back in utter despair; and yet I thought I could perceive design in their movements. Below them were seated a fastidious audience, before whom was standing, in a pulpit of Gothic architecture, one clad in priestly garb—one who had dishonored the cause of the Redeemer by hypocrisy and the love of vain glory—who had made the cause of the holy ministry a by-word, by a soulless profession of love for the gifts of grace. This representation of speculators in religious things, moved in. the mock dignity of his clerical profession. Before him lay an open volume, from which he attempted to read, but every effort was baffled. His voice was shrill and piercing, and his accents inarticulate. His features became distorted, and he writhed and agonized. He then attempted to read again, which resulted as did the first, increasing his sufferings, until he burst forth in the most vehement expressions, cursing his own being, and all around him, and then blasphemously addressing himself to the Author of Existence, charged God with all wrong, the source of every, sorrow, and even desired to gather together the strength of all created intellect with which to curse the Creator of the Universe. His oaths, his manner, and his insatiable passion, caused him to appear so desperate, that I felt impressed with fear that he had power to accomplish great destruction in whatever direction he moved.

Soon, however, my anxiety was relieved by the sudden exhaustion of his entire force, and I saw that he too, was limited in power, and was, moreover, to a very great extent, under the will of his audience.

One glance at the throng before him, was sufficient to reveal the cause of much of his suffering. There, were seated those who countenances bespoke interior hate, mingling with wild maniacal relish; those who mocked his futile effort and indulged in fiendish delight at the expense of his dreadful sufferings. Yea, they relished his manifestation of keen despair as the uneasy wound relishes that friction which affords present maddening pleasures, but terminates in more excited pain. As he sank back, the expression of his countenance was that of horror beyond description. His being assumed every imaginable distortion. Around him flashed lurid fires, and his entire outward expression, revealed an inward consciousness as restless as some burning crater. His whole appearance bespoke agonies equal to the worst conceptions of the relentless sinner’s hell, and reminded me of the language of Jesus, who said, "And they shall, go into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." While he lay enveloped in the fires of his own unhallowed passions, one of his audience arose and thus addressed him:

"Thou fiend of darkness! thou child of hypocrisy! deceiver, matchless deceiver! thine is the hell of a heartless religious teacher. Adequate sufferings thou canst never endure. Thou madest merchandise of religion and the souls of men. Yea, because of this, thou didst dwell in temples of human glory, receiving the adoration of men; then thou didst wrap thyself in the garments of ease at the expense of souls; thou didst not seek to reach the ruined heart with the soul-redeeming Truth of Heaven, but to please the ear and charm the fancy. Now thou art tormented. Arise! thou false teacher, arise! and in thy silken gown display the order of thy false apostleship. Speak to us smooth things. Direct the movement of this broad gallery of mimic song. Hold thy blasphemy! vent not thy cursings, for lo! thy Maker is just; wish not to move him from his throne. His august majesty thou didst mock. Through thee, his glory should have shown, and by that light thousands should have been led to seek his face."

At this sharp rebuke the sufferer sought to escape, whereupon the speaker continued,

"Nay, thou hypocrite! even though thou wouldst thou canst not flee. Cast thy vision over this vast throng of sufferers, then ask thyself the cause. Though these have sinned, and each to his Master standeth or falleth, canst thou behold them in peace and a sense of innocence? Didst thou strive to lead them up to God? Yea, rather thy learned essays and elaborate expositions of the Sacred Word, adorned with poetic genius, addressed with most eloquent display, did they not lull in deeper slumber the dormant spirit, while wreathing thy mortal brow with human laurels?"

"Well didst thou know our delight was to please thee; and when we indulged in the gratification of desires unhallowed, and leading in the ways of death, no reproof Bible—oh! that sacred Book, gift of God to guide the wanderer to bright mansions in heaven—was made, by the false interpretations of the pleasure-loving and heartless divine, the passport to this scene of woe, where sins ripen into living forms, where fashions, with their gaudy folds, enwrap the spirit as with innumerable sheets of inextinguishable fire, and where Mammon, like a spectral goddess, sits in the clouds of death, which encanopy the abyss.

"The law of being, inverted, culminates in the fantasy in which thou art moving. This thou hast done, urged on by the love of glory, the glory of the hypocrite, whose form of religion is like a whited sepulcher, to the outward view fair as the spotless Church, which reflects the glory of the Spiritual Jerusalem from bright worlds on high. But thy heart was the seat of pride and lust, a cage of foul birds, a den of reptile thoughts. Yes, a sepulcher full of dead men’s bones, the anatomic fragments of departed, heartless divines, the legacy of religious bigots.

"Curse not thy Maker. This is thy harvest. Listen to that scripture so often carelessly falling from thy lips. ‘He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.’ ‘The wages of sin is death.’ How those passages of Holy Writ ring through the brassy chambers of souls congregated in the realms of night: Yes, they ring as from spirit to spirit they move, touching each immortal sensation drawn to its highest tension by the horror of the doom and the phantom scenes that arise like ghosts from beneath these spheres of death.

"No, false teacher, let God be true; for sin hath formed us thus. We suffer the consequences of violated law, the law of our being."

As he spoke these words, a fearful trembling seized his form. He became more and more agitated, until he, with the great congregation, quaked and fell like dead men; and losing identity, presented one vast body of agitated life. Above this body arose a thick atmosphere of moving atoms, so dense, that it appeared like a part of the mass below.

The sight was too much; and being unable to endure further these scenes of woe, I shrank back and exclaimed, "Is there not a God of mercy, and can he behold and not save?"

"Yes," spake a voice from above me, "yes there is a God of mercy, and that God beholds with pitying eyes the sinner. Mercy yearns over him. Yea, hast thou not read, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life?’ But though salvation is offered to the world, and Heaven’s messengers plead with the sinner, millions refuse, and millions more who profess, speculate upon the great truth connected with man’s redemption. Sin indulged, forms the sinner for woe; and there are many who will not forsake their evil ways until fallen into the most wretched state, the consequence of the violation of the law of purity and love.

"Fear not, Marietta, before thee has been portrayed a portion of the consequences of sin upon the spirit of man. Spiritual sufferings are beyond any power of expression; nor may they be perfectly mirrored upon the understanding by figures of representations. He who first addressed thee, represents that spirit of antichrist which seeks to dazzle spiritual perception by bright pictures of false reasoning, behind all of which lies the scene of discord, improper affections, impure desires, love of self, false hearts, cruelty, lust, rapine, and murder; the denial of God in his redeeming mercy, sacrilege and blasphemy. He strove to direct thy attention to an opposite scene, and thereby conceal the state of those whose hearts are not controlled by the love of God.

"His power failing, represents the utter futility of all things out of Christ, to save the soul from the influences tending to death which, through sin, infect the unregenerate heart.

"He strove to address them in representation of the great truth, that the mind works out in the spirit, the cultivation and impression received in the outer world. His ineffectual effort represents the inability of any being to derive real satisfaction, or to be useful to those around him by false methods.

"The spirit addressing him, represents the spirit of those who, in any sphere of existence, had trusted to false teachers, and had little concern for their spiritual interests. And thus the discordance of beings not properly united is made to appear. They charge their sins upon each other. The spirit’s reference to the justice of their condition as a natural consequence following the violation of law, represents the consciousness of guilt and the goodness of God, conceived by all who awake from their idle dreamings to a proper sense of the requisition of God’s holy law upon them.

"The dreadful writhing of the spirit addressed under the dark picture of his past deeds, represents that those who, in external life follow their carnal desires, when they meet in spirit reflect great truths upon each other, by the thoughts and movements of their being. Their final fall and blending into one, illustrates the inseparable nature and tendency of sin; also, that the law of sympathy or magnetic affinity, exists even with the disembodied spirits of men; and that, by that law, like character of mind and affections, are attracted to each other, and that by accumulation, prevailing elements increase in power and momentum, and thus each receives from and inflicts sorrow upon the other.

"The moving cloud above them also illustrates the atmosphere of thought which fills the great arena of spiritual discord.

"Finally, Marietta, the scene of the bishop and his congregation, together with the false teachers of the schools of vain philosophy, illustrates that portion of the sacred text which saith, ‘If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall together.’

"Marietta, thy spirit cannot endure more; but let this lesson impress thee with the great truth, that ‘the wages of sin is death.’"