The miseries and disasters which are attendant on a life on earth they view as a parent would view the whooping-cough or scarlatina which afflict the body of his child—­as necessary steps toward his growth and progress from youth to manhood.

A remarkable instance of this came under my own observation.  You remember that the singular and sudden death of Abraham Lincoln was a matter of surprise to us.  We could not see the purpose of an all-wise Providence in this sudden closing of an eventful career.  It was discussed in every newspaper in the land, and the conclusion was that the Creator had some special purpose in his removal, and this we all believed.

But here the enigma is solved.

Standing face to face and walking side by side, as I have done for the last few days with this man, raised as some suppose for the special purpose of freeing the slave—­a martyr for principle—­I find that he enjoys as a good joke, this martyrdom, and I have also ascertained the solemn fact that he was removed, not by God, but by spirit politicians, God’s agents.

And the state of the case is this:  the Southern rebels, hot-blooded and revengeful, who were arriving daily by scores and hundreds, in the spirit world, finding their cause discomfited and worsted, became mutinous.  They were too raw and new to fall into the harmony of the spirit life, and they threatened a second war in Heaven; a war which those young Lucifers would have waged with terrific power.

To quell this disturbance and produce a counteraction, it was necessary that one whom they looked upon as the great leader of the Northern cohorts should be withdrawn from the post which he occupied.

A man of calm, dispassionate judgment, not vindictive, who could hold the reins with a firm hand, yet look with a lenient eye on the follies which he did not share, was needed in the spirit world, and that man was Abraham Lincoln.

When those young Southern bloods had conspired with their co-patriot to his downfall, had instigated and accomplished his assassination, and when he appeared in their midst, the simple, unaffected, uncrafty man that he was, a revulsion of feeling immediately took place.

The liberal party in the spirit world, friends to humanity and progress, could have prevented his removal had they wished; but not desiring to do so, they prepared his mind by dreams and visions for what was about to take place.

For a short time in the spirit world he held the position of Pacificator and chief ruler over that portion of the American, spirit world represented by the North and South.

But after averting this peril, which would have involved the States in anarchy and war such as they had not yet experienced, he retired to private life.

Another instance, proving that the inhabitants of the spirit world, like their great prototype, the Creator, do not look at immediate distress, but at the advantages that may accrue therefrom, presents itself in my removal from the sphere in which I had probably worked out all that would be useful to humanity.