January 5th, 1916
Received by:James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am your friend in Christ and desire to write a few lines, but it will not be about religious matters, for I heard what the Master said, and he knows what is best.
Well, I am in the seventh sphere and am very happy and enjoy all the delights of a soul redeemed, and am in the way of progress to the higher spheres where some of your band live. How beautiful must be their homes, because, when they come to the lower spheres, they have such beauty and are so filled with the Father's Love that I know they must live in homes of transcendent beauty where happiness is supreme.
I am not one who knows all that there is in the heavens provided by the Father, but I know enough to say, "that no eye of man has seen and neither has his heart conceived of the wonderful things that the Father has prepared for those who love Him and do His will." In our sphere the glory of our habitations and surroundings that we have are beyond all conceptions of mortals, and beyond all the powers which we have to describe. Your language is poor indeed when we attempt to use it, to describe our homes and our happiness.
Never a sigh, nor a thought tainted with the slightest flavor of unhappiness or discontent. All our wishes are gratified, and love reigns eternally and without stint. Never, when on earth, did I conceive that one man could love another as one spirit here loves his brother spirit. The mine and thine are truly the ours, and no spirit is so happy as when he is doing something to make another spirit happier; and then, love between the opposite sexes is so pure and glorified.
My home is not in any of the cities, but is in the country, among beautiful fields and woods where the purest waters flow in silver streams of living light, and the birds of paradise in all their glorious plumage sing and make merry the echoes of the hills and rocks, for we have hills and rocks as well as plains and beautiful meadows and placid lakes and shining waterfalls, all praising God for His goodness.
So why will not every mortal try to attain to this heavenly condition of love and happiness, when it is so easy for him to do so? The Divine Love is waiting for all, and needs only the seeking and the believing in order to make the mortal an heir to all the glories of this heavenly place.
But the mind of man, in its superimposed importance and in the conceit of the wonderful powers of his reasoning faculties, keeps the simple childlike faith from making him a child of the Kingdom.
Oh, I tell you, if mortals only knew what is here ready for them to obtain and make their own, they would not let the supposed greatness of their minds, or the cares and ambitions and desires for earthly possessions keep them from seeking this great and glorious inheritance, which is theirs by merely claiming it in the way made known by the Master.
And he - what can I say of him - the most glorious and beautiful and loving of all the spirits in God's universe. When on earth I looked upon him and worshiped him as God, sitting on the right hand of the Father - way up in the high heavens, a way off waiting for the coming of the great judgment day; when he would separate the sheep from the goats and send each to his eternal place of habitation - whether to hell or heaven only he knew, and I did not and could not until the great judgment should be pronounced. But now, when I see him as he is, and know that he is my friend and elder brother, a spirit such as I am, with only love for his younger brethren, be they saints or sinners, and a great longing that all may come and partake of the feast which the Father has prepared, I feel that the loving brother and friend is more to me and my happiness is greater than when I looked upon him as the God of judgment, having his habitation away off beyond my vision or reach.
He is so loving and so pure and so humble. Why his very humility makes us all love him almost to adoration, and if you could only see him, you would not be surprised that we love him so much.
Well, my friend, I have written a little more than I intended, but I am so filled with love and so happy in having such a friend as the Master, that I can hardly restrain myself.I will come again sometime and write you upon some spiritual truth, which I so much want you to know.
When on earth I was not an orthodox to the full extent, but my early belief that Jesus was a part of the Godhead I did not succeed in getting rid of, although my mind often rebelled at the thought; but the early teachings of my mother lingered with me, and maturer thoughts and development of mind could never entirely eradicate this belief in Jesus as being part of God. Some have said and thought that I was almost an infidel, but this is untrue, for I always believed firmly in the Father and, as I have told you, in Jesus.
I was also to some extent a spiritualist* - that is I believed in the communications of spirits with mortals, as on numerous occasions I have had such communications, and have acted on advice that I received through them. But I never learned from any of these communications any of the higher truths which I now know, and which are so important for mortals to know, and which, if men only knew and taught, would make their religion a live, virile, all pervading and satisfying religion.We are all interested in your work, and are co-workers with you in revealing these great truths.
May God bless and prosper you and cause you to see the realities of the great Divine Love, is the prayer of your brother in Christ,
A. Lincoln.
- Refers to the book written by Mrs. Nettie Maynard Colburn entitled: "Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist?"