A short walk brought us to the church that I had seen in the distance, and which I had expressed a keenness to visit.
It was a medium-sized building in the Gothic style, and it resembled the 'parish church' familiar on Earth. It was situated in pleasant surroundings, which seemed the more spacious by the absence of any railings or walls to define its ecclesiastical limits. The surface of the stone of which it was constructed had the newness and freshness of recent building, but in point of fact, it had been in existence many years of Earth time. Its exterior cleanliness was merely consonant with all things here - there is no decay. Nor is there any smoky atmosphere to cause blackening and discoloration! There was, of course, no churchyard attached. Even though some people cling so tenaciously to their old Earthly religious predilections and practices here, it is hardly to be supposed that in erecting a church in which to carry them on, they would also include an entirely useless burial- ground!
Close beside the main door there was the customary notice- board, but this gave only the nature of the services, which were those of the Established Church. No mention was made at all of the times of the services, and I wondered how any congregation of this kind could possibly assemble where time, as it is known on Earth, has no existence. For here there is no night and day by the alternation of which time can be measured. It is perpetual day. The great celestial sun forever shines, as I have already told you. Neither do we have the many other indications of time that force themselves upon the Earthly consciousness - such, for example, as hunger and fatigue. Nor in the more lengthy passage of time such as the ageing of the physical body and the dulling of the mental faculties. Here we have no recurrent seasons of spring, autumn and winter. Instead we enjoy the glory of perpetual summer - and we never tire of it!
As usual, I turned to my friend for information on this point of congregational assemblage. To gather the people to the church was perfectly simple, he said. Whoever is in charge has only to send out his thoughts to his congregation, and those that wish to come forthwith assemble! There was no need for bell-ringing. The emission of thought is far more thorough and exact! That is simple so far as the congregation is concerned. They have merely to wait until the thought reaches them, either in a direct call to attend, or by the urge to attend. But where does the ministering clergyman obtain his indication of the approach of service- time? That question, I was told, raised a much greater problem.
With the absence of Earth-time in the Spirit world, our lives are ordered by events; events, that is, that are part of our life. I do not refer now to incidental occurrences, but to what, on Earth, would be regarded as recurrent happenings. We have many such events here, as I hope to show you as we proceed, and in doing so you will see how we know that the performance of certain acts, individually or collectively, are clearly brought to our minds. The establishment of this church we were now inspecting saw also the gradual building up of a regular order of services, such as those who belong to its particular denomination on Earth are familiar with. The clergyman who is acting as pastor to this strange flock would feel, by his duties on Earth, the approach of the usual 'day' and 'time' when the services were held. It would be, in this respect, instinctive. It would, moreover, grow stronger with practice, until this mental perception would assume absolute regularity, as it is considered on the Earth- plane. With this firmly established, the congregation have but to await the call from their minister.
The notice-board gave a list of the usual services commonly seen outside an Earthly church of the same denomination. One or two items were noticeably absent, however; such as the provision for marriages and baptisms. The former omission I could understand; the latter could only imply that baptism was unnecessary, since only the baptized would be in 'Heaven' - where presumably they deemed this church to be situated!
We went within, and found ourselves in a very lovely building, conventional in design, and containing little that is not to be seen in any such church upon the Earth-plane. There were some beautiful stained-glass windows portraying scenes in the lives of the 'saints', through which the light poured evenly from all sides of the church at the same time, producing a strange effect in the air from the colors of the window-glass. Provision for heating the building was, of course, quite superfluous. There was a fine organ at one end, and the main altar, built of stone, was richly carved. Beyond this, there was a certain plainness which in no way detracted from its general beauty as a piece of architecture. Everywhere was there evidence of a lavish care being expended upon it, which, considering where this church was existing, is not surprising, when it is remembered under what dispensation such a building can exist at all!
We sat down for a little while, finding a calm and peaceful air about the whole place, and then, we decided that we had seen all there was to be seen, and we made our way out into the open.
Chapter 4: HOME OF REST
As we walked along, at least two of us pondered upon what we had seen - and its implications. Our young friend - who told us her name was Ruth - put a number of questions to us, but I withheld any attempt to answer, since I was but a new-comer myself, in favor of my friend, whose name – Edwin - I have omitted to give so far.
Ruth, it appeared, had never been an active 'churchgoer' whilst on Earth, but she was a kindly soul, as it was plain to see, and it plain to see, also, that her abstention from church-going had no difference to her ultimate destination as viewed by the Earth. Her service to others had done more for her Spiritual welfare all the outward display of congregational religion, which so often is but outward display. Like myself, she was very surprised to find, here in Spirit, the complete paraphernalia of orthodox religion. Edwin told her that she had only seen one example of it so far, and there were plenty of others. Having seen this, however, one had seen them all, more or less. Each denomination, of course, holds to its own particular creed and formularies, such as it had on Earth, with a few minor differences, as we had just seen.
Such Spiritual somnolence is no novelty in Spirit. The Earth world is to blame. Religious contentions and controversies are at the bottom of all the ignorance and lack of knowledge that so many people bring with them into the Spirit world, and if the minds of such people are stubborn and they are unable really to think for themselves, then do they remain shackled to their narrow religious views, thinking it to be all the truth, until a day of Spiritual awakening dawns for them. Then they will see that their slavish adherence to their creeds is holding them back. It is to be so much lamented for everyone who leaves, forever, these misguided congregations, another will come to fill his place - until the time comes when the whole Earth knows the truth of the world of Spirit. Of course, they do no harm as they are, here, beyond retarding their own Spiritual progression. Once they realize what they are doing to themselves, and take the first step forward, their joy knows no bounds. They will realize the 'time' they have apparently wasted.
Now it may be asked, if, with the acquisition of knowledge and truth, these extensions of Earthly religions into the Spirit world are better done away with, what will you put in their place? It sounds like a condemnation of communal worship.
By no means. We have our communal worship here, but it is purged of every trace of meaningless creeds, of doctrines and dogmas. We worship the Great and Eternal Father in truth, absolute truth. We are of one mind, and one mind only. And no one is called upon to believe blindly - or to profess to do so - something which is utterly incomprehensible to any mind. There are many, many things here which we do not understand - and it will take eons of time before we even have a faint gleam of understanding them. But we are not asked to understand them; we are asked to take them as they are. It makes no difference whatever to our soul's progression. We shall be able to progress far - and far beyond that - before we shall ever need to think about understanding such things. And so we have one mind in our worship of the All-highest.
Such are the matters we discussed - it was Edwin who expounded - as we walked along in the beautiful air of God's Heaven.
Ruth espied a rather stately building set among some well- wooded grounds, which also aroused my curiosity. On appealing to our Guide, Edwin told us that it was a home of rest for those who had come into Spirit after long illness, or who had