Yes, it must be so, it cannot be otherwise when the chilly and artificial gleam of modern materialism will disappear for want of fuel. Those who cannot form any idea of a spiritual Ego, a living soul and an eternal Spirit within their material shell (which owes its very existence to these principles); those for whom the great hope of an existence beyond the grave is a vexation, merely the symbol of an unknown quantity, or else the subject of a belief _sui generis_, the result of theological and mediumistic hallucinations--these will do well to prepare for the serious troubles the future has in store for them. For from the depths of the dark, muddy waters of materiality which hide from them every glimpse of the horizons of the great Beyond, there is a mystic force rising during these last years of the century. At most it is but the first gentle rustling, but it is a superhuman rustling--"supernatural" only for the superstitious and the ignorant. The spirit of truth is passing over the face of the waters, and in dividing them, is compelling them to disgorge their spiritual treasures. This spirit is a force that can neither be hindered nor stopped. Those who recognize it and feel that this is the supreme moment of their salvation will be uplifted by it and carried beyond the illusions of the great astral serpent. The joy they will experience will be so poignant and intense that if they were not mentally isolated from their body of flesh, the beatitude would pierce them like sharp steel. It is not pleasure that they will experience but a bliss which is a foretaste of the wisdom of the gods, the knowledge of good and evil, of the fruits of the tree of life.