“Remind me why these wonders exist,” I said, turning to my guide, and speaking in those dulcet sounds which were like music and yet like speech; “and why amid them all the Earth is believed by its inhabitants to have merited destruction, and yet to have been found worthy of redemption?”

“Thy last question shall be answered first,” replied Azul.  “Seest thou yonder planet circled with a ring?  It is known to the dwellers on Earth, of whom when in clay thou art one, as Saturn.  Descend with me!”

And in a breath of time we floated downwards and alighted on a broad and beautiful plain, where flowers of strange shape and colour grew in profusion.  Here we were met by creatures of lofty stature and dazzling beauty, human in shape, yet angelic in countenance.  They knelt to us with reverence and joy, and then passed on to their toil or pleasure, whichever invited them, and I looked to Azul for explanation.

“To these children of the Creator,” said that radiant guide, “is granted the ability to see and to converse with the spirits of the air.  They know them and love them, and implore their protection.  In this planet sickness and old age are unknown, and death comes as a quiet sleep.  The period of existence is about two hundred years, according to the Earth’s standard of time; and the process of decay is no more unlovely than the gentle withering of roses.  The influence of the electric belt around their world is a bar to pestilence and disease, and scatters health with light.  All sciences, arts, and inventions known on Earth are known here, only to greater perfection.  The three important differences between the inhabitants of this planet and those who dwell on Earth are these:  first they have no rulers in authority, as each one perfectly governs himself; second, they do not marry, as the law of attraction which draws together any two of opposite sexes, holds them fast in inviolable fidelity; thirdly, there is no creature in all the immensity of this magnificent sphere who has ever doubted, or who ever will doubt, the existence of the Creator.”

A thrill of fiery shame seemed to dart through my spiritual being as I heard this, and I made no answer.  Some fairy-like little creatures, the children of the Saturnites, as I supposed, here came running towards us and knelt down, reverently clasping their hands in prayer.  They then gathered flowers and flung them on that portion of ground where we stood, and gazed at us fearlessly and lovingly, as they might have gazed at some rare bird or butterfly.

Azul signed to me, and we rose while yet in their sight, and soaring through the radiance of the ring, which was like a sun woven into a circle, we soon left Saturn far behind us, and alighted on Venus.  Here seas, mountains, forests, lakes, and meadows were one vast garden, in which the bloom and verdure of all worlds seemed to find a home.  Here were realized the dreams of sculptors and painters, in the graceful