"The first thing I ever saw that I recognized as purely spiritual in its character was at the deathbed of a four year old boy. I was myself at this time but twelve years old, but I received an impression that I can never forget. I was standing at the foot of his little bed, his father and mother and three or four brothers and sisters were ranged along the sides and by his head. He was gasping in the last struggle with the grim monster, when he suddenly threw his hands toward the ceiling and cried out in a clear, strong voice, 'O papa! see there!' His little face that had been so distorted with suffering lightened up with the glory of the better world. His arms gradually sank to his side, and he was dead. But that heavenly smile remained upon his face long after death. One may explain away this glory-burst through the eyes of a dying child, calling it hallucination of a fevered or diseased brain if they will, but to me it was a revelation of spirit land. "A few years ago I was permitted again to get a glimpse of the pearly gates, and this time it was the hand of a sweet little girl who lifted aside the veil for her sorrowing friends and myself. She was in the last extremity with diphtheritic croup. Her face was bloated and blue-black with suffocation. Her eyes were nearly bursting from their sockets, glassy and staring; and her face, always so sweet and beautiful, was now distorted so that her mother could not endure the sight, and cried in her agony, 'My God! is this my little Bertha? I cannot believe it!' Bertha, in her expiring effort for breath, had raised upon her knees in bed, when suddenly, as in the other case, she raised her hands, her face illumined with the 'light that is not seen upon sea or land,' and she said in a strong, clear whisper--for her vocal cords were so involved in the diphtheritic membranes that her voice was gone completely--'O mamma! I see Jesus!' The ecstasy lasted a moment or so, and then I laid her back upon the pillow--dead! Here again is an opportunity for the agnostic to cavil and reject such evidence. But of one thing you may be sure: If he derives as much pleasure from his unbelief as I do in believing, then he is a very happy man.