ere was not only this re-sorting and
junction of the disunited bivalves, but there were actual "nuptials"
celebrated. We were to be careful and understand that what terrestrials
called marriage celestials named nuptials--it seemed to me rather a
distinction without a difference. There was no need of any ceremony, but
still a ceremony was pleasing and also significant. I asked if it was
true, as I had read in the Swedenborgian book, that all adult angels
were married. She replied, "Yes; they married from the age of 18 to 24,
and the male was always a few years older than the female."

There was a tendency, which I continually had to check, on the part of
the Medium to wander off from matrimonial to theological subjects; and
the latter, though trite, were scarcely so heterodox as I expected. I
had found most "spiritualistic" teaching to be purely Theistic. Love to
God and man were declared to be the great essentials, and creeds to
matter little. If a man loved truth, it was no matter how wild or absurd
his ideas might be. The love of God might seem a merely abstract idea,
but it was not so. To love goodness was to love God. The love of the
neighbour, in the sense of loving all one's kind, might seem hard, too;
but it was not really so. There were in the sphere where this
Intelligence dwelt millions of angels, or good spirits, working for the
salvation of men.

I ought to mention that this lady, in her normal condition, is
singularly reticent, and that the "communications" I chronicle were
delivered fluently in one unbroken chain of what often rose into real
eloquence.

So Christ came for the good of man, and Christ was not the only Messiah
who had appeared on earth. In the millions of ages that had passed over
our globe, and in the other planets of our solar system, there had risen
up "other men filled with the spirit of good, and so Sons of God." I
here tried to get at the views of the Higher Spirits on the Divinity of
Christ, but found considerable haziness; at one time it was roundly
asserted, at another it seemed to me explained away by such expressions
as I have quoted above.

Our planet, I was informed, had been made the subject of special care
because we were more material, more "solid" than the inhabitants of any
other orb. There was an essential difference between Christ and all
other great teachers, such as Buddha; and there were no historical
records of any other manifestation of the Messiah than that we
p