“These things amaze me,” said I, “beyond expression. Nor do I believe that any human being has any true conception of the character of Jesus, of the mission he is filling, or of his plan of redemption. Certainly none of the thoughts you have communicated to me have ever dawned on the minds of his disciples.” “Nor is it probable,” said John, “that mankind will be prepared, for many centuries, to understand what can only be comprehended from a spiritual stand-point. The least portion of the work of Jesus is apparent to men in the world. The sublime and far more difficult portion is wholly invisible to them, as it occurs here in the world of spirits which is not open to their perception.” My angelic friend was about giving me further light on this lofty theme, when Jesus and the happy multitude that surrounded him seemed to approach nearer to us. My reader—if this manuscript ever finds a reader—may wonder why I did not approach the Divine Man and speak to him, after I had discovered that my earthly friend was the Supreme Being manifested in the human form. Ah! they know nothing of the sphere of the Lord! I could not even lift up my eyes to his feet. I was overwhelmed with wonder and awe. Had not so many other spirits been present to engage my attention, to divert my thoughts and to impart courage and life to me, I should have swooned and fallen. Oppressed by the heavenly sphere, whose nearer approach I was not prepared for, I seized my father by the hand and he led me away. The scene faded behind us; and we went down into a little green valley filled with small white flowers and watered by a little brook. There I was freed from the terrible sense of oppression, and recovered my composure. We sat down in this valley of humiliation, where the small white flowers were the innocent thoughts of the new life, and the musical voice of the brook was a hymn of contrition. “O my father!” said I, “is it always thus in the spiritual world, that the divine sphere of Jesus agitates the mind and pains the heart, so as to almost suffocate the life within us?” “When the sphere of heaven approaches those who are in evil and falsity,” answered my father, “it occasions intense pain in their interiors, and they cry out; ‘Why art thou come hither, O Christ! to torment us?’ Such is the judgment: and the wicked call upon the mountains and the rocks to hide them from the wrath of God.” The wrath of God! monstrous conception! It is the gentle breath of the Divine Love which is converted into a burning fire when it enters the perverted and corrupt forms of their own souls! “The same sphere of divine light approaching those who have some remnants of good and truth, and who can be saved, produces a profound self-abasement, a trembling contrition, a suffocation of the old life with all its wicked desires, and an inexpressible longing for a new life of purity, peace and love.”