“There is another point,” Lionel said. “Miss ---- is a friend of my own mother, the one I left a few years ago. It will be so good to have her hold my hand again.” “Do you think she will recognise you?” I asked. “Who knows? She believes in rebirth.” “How can you say that? You were so little when you came out!” “I was seven years old, and already she had told me that we live many lives on earth.” “Bless the souls who first brought that belief to the Western world!” I exclaimed. “And now, my boy, is there anything that I can do for you after you leave me?” “Yes, of course; you can watch over my new mother, and warn her if any danger threatens her or me.” “Then make me acquainted with her now.” We went out into the material world, the boy and I. Already I have told you how we go. He took me to a little house in one of the suburbs of Boston. We entered a room--it was then about eleven o’clock at night upon that part of the earth,--and I saw a fair young woman kneeling beside her bed, praying to God that He would bless the union of the morrow which was to give her to the man she loved. Lionel went close to her and threw his arms about her neck. She started, as if she actually felt the contact, and sprang to her feet. “Miss ----, Miss ----, don’t you know me?” he cried; but while I could hear him, she evidently could not, though she looked about her in a half-frightened way. Then, supposing that the touch and the presence she had felt were imaginary, she again fell upon her knees and went on with her interrupted prayer. “Come away,” I said to the boy; and we left her there with her dreams and her devotions. That was the last I saw of Lionel. He bade me good-bye, saying: “I shall stay near her for a few days. Perhaps I shall go back and forth, from her to you; but if I do not return, I will meet you again in a few years.” “Yes,” I said, “it is affinity and desire which draw souls together, either on earth or in the other world.” When next I met the Teacher I told him about Lionel, and asked him if he thought the boy could come out to me now and then, after his life on earth had begun, as an unborn entity in the shelter of his mother’s form. “Probably not,” he replied. “If he were an adept soul, he might do that; but with a soul of even high development, lacking real adeptship, it would be impossible.” “Yet,” I said, “men living on earth do come out here in dreams.” “Yes, but when the soul enters matter, preparing for rebirth, it enters potentiality, if we may use the term, and all its strength is needed in the herculean effort to form the new body and adjust to it. After birth, when the eyes are opened, and the lungs are expanded to the air, the task is easier, and there may be left enough unused energy to bridge the gulf.