Reincarnation

Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million of them walking the earth openly at noontide; some half hundred have vanished from it, some half hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch tick one.

CARLYLE.

Truth dwells in gulphs, whose deeps hide shades so rich That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch, More darke than Nature made her: and requires (To cleare her tough mists) heaven’s great fire of fires To wrestle with those heaven-strong mysteries. GEORGE CHAPMAN.

I am: how little more I know! Whence came I? Whither do I go? A central self which feels and is; A cry between the silences; A shadow-birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; A shaft from Nature’s quiver cast Into the future from the past. WHITTIER.

Where wert thou, Soul, ere yet my body born Became thy dwelling-place? Didst thou on earth Or in the clouds, await this body’s birth, Or by what chance upon that winter’s morn Didst thou this body find, a babe forlorn? Didst thou in sorrow enter, or in mirth? Or for a jest, perchance, to try its worth Thou tookest flesh, ne’er from it to be torn. WADDINGTON.

REINCARNATION A STUDY OF FORGOTTEN TRUTH

BY

E. D. WALKER

“Ex oriente lux”

[Illustration: [Logo]]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY =The Riverside Press, Cambridge= 1888

Copyright, 1888, BY E. D. WALKER.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

To

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

AND TO

THAT EMBODIMENT OF TRUTH, NAMED

ARIEL,

THIS LITTLE VOLUME PROMPTED BY THEM

=Is Dedicated,=

WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY ARE NOT HERE DISHONORED

BY THEIR DISCIPLE,

THE AUTHOR.

Soul, dwelling oft in God’s infinitude And sometimes seeming no more part of me— This me, worms’ heritage—than that sun can be Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,— Whence camest thou? Whither goest thou? I, subdued With awe of mine own being thus sit still, Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill, Whose dry November grasses dew-bestrewed Mirror a million suns. That sun so bright, Passes as thou must pass, Soul, into night. Art thou afraid who solitary hast trod A path I know not, from a source to a bourn Both which I know not? Fearest thou to return Alone, even as thou camest alone, to God?

D. M. MULOCK.

Insect and reptile, fish and bird and beast, Cast their worn robes aside, fresh robes to don; Tree, flower, and moss, put new year’s raiments on; Each natural type, the greatest as the least, Renews its vesture when its use hath ceased. How should man’s spirit keep in unison With the world’s law of outgrowth, save it won New robes and ampler as its girth increased? Quit shrunken creed, and dwarfed philosophy! Let gently die an art’s decaying fire! Work on the ancient lines, but yet be free To leave and frame anew, if God inspire! The planets change their surface as they roll: The force that binds the spheres must bind the soul.

HENRY G. HEWLETT.

PREFACE.

“The idea of a transmigration of souls has hitherto remained a dream of the fancy, nor has any one yet succeeded in giving it a higher moral significance for the order of the universe.” So writes Hermann Lotze, the German philosopher, in his magnificent “Microcosm,” expressing the common feeling of Christendom. If this little book achieves its purpose it will show the strength and value of that dreamy idea.