native element. A candle when lit emits flame; blow out the light,
the flame vanishes--where? Would it not be madness to assert the
flame immortal? Yet the soul, or vital principle of human existence,
is no more than the flame of a candle."

If you propound to these theorists the eternal question WHY?--why is
the world in existence? why is there a universe? why do we live? why
do we think and plan? why do we perish at the last?--their grandiose
reply is, "Because of the Law of Universal Necessity." They cannot
explain this mysterious Law to themselves, nor can they probe deep
enough to find the answer to a still more tremendous WHY--namely,
WHY, is there a Law of Universal Necessity?--but they are satisfied
with the result of their reasonings, if not wholly, yet in part, and
seldom try to search beyond that great vague vast Necessity, lest
their finite brains should reel into madness worse than death.
Recognizing, therefore, that in this cultivated age a wall of
scepticism and cynicism is gradually being built up by intellectual
thinkers of every nation against all that treats of the Supernatural
and Unseen, I am aware that my narration of the events I have
recently experienced will be read with incredulity. At a time when
the great empire of the Christian Religion is being assailed, or
politely ignored by governments and public speakers and teachers, I
realize to the fullest extent how daring is any attempt to prove,
even by a plain history of strange occurrences happening to one's
self, the actual existence of the Supernatural around us; and the
absolute certainty of a future state of being, after the passage
through that brief soul-torpor in which the body perishes, known to
us as Death.

In the present narration, which I have purposely called a "romance,"