Attaining, as Black forecasted, to knowledge and power as yet undreamt of.—Author, chap. i.
The established routine of steps by which, under the tutelage of our new friend and fair sister Venus, we attained to the language of that Higher Life, into which we had now entered, is such an old and well-known story as to need no time-wasting attention here. I shall pass at once, therefore, to the new world of science and business to which our grand discovery had introduced us. The new tide that then flowed in upon us took two main directions: first, that of research into the past aspects of our earth; second, that of intercourse with systems and worlds outside of us. Later on, we entered into a third section of progress, by our success in rendering the duplication of the cross available to return to us photographs of outside scenes and worlds. In this way we secured pictures, magnifiable, even to life-size, of outside planetary and satellite scenery of some of the orbs of our own system; while we had also, long ere this time, attained to the perfect transfer of the hues or colours of all photographed scenes. We could thus tell what life, if any, was upon the planets or moons of our system, and we were thus, so far, prepared for that actual personal intercourse to which the completing discovery of the Reduplication introduced us further on.
Whether for science purposes, or for those of business, or for mere leisurely recreative curiosity, our whole world was soon now transformed into a busy scene of "fishing" into all the past of the earth's history and surface aspects; and this fishing, as it is still called, has been carried on all these centuries since, even still more vigorously, as well as much more systematically, than at first; for as we gained in astronomico-mathematical precision, the results were ever more satisfactory, and were secured at ever less of energy-cost and energy-waste. Towards our own time, in this twenty-ninth century—all the astronomic movements, and their complex relative displacements, being so perfectly known and calculable, even to that latest of our attainments, the exact displacement, in speed and direction, due to our system's movement in space—it has become quite common for families to dip back for the matter of a hundred or a thousand years, in order to recall their ancestry when in the very act of some particular incident or event. Of course this is a marvellously precise calculation, and even now not easy of perfect success, unless with all the chances of some breadth of time involved in the occasion sought for. Thus if the ancestral doings in question had concerned, say, some al fresco public meeting, lasting for but an hour, there would be small chance of spotting our man, unless indeed the retrospect were only a matter of a century or so. Such short terms were ever the general favourites, because applicants were not kept very long waiting for their answer back from space; but the estimates for a thousand years or upwards were a much more difficult business.
On the other hand, there were great helps available to all parties, from the accumulated records, carefully preserved, of every previous fishing, whether successful or not for its intended object. Every restoration of the past, even although not at all that immediately sought for, might prove subsequently of use to some one, so that rarely indeed was any expended energy, however disappointing as to original intention, absolutely lost. Thus abortive particular efforts to find particular persons, times or events, were usually sold, at so much per year or century of retrospect, to those who made a business, and a good business it was and still is, of that sort of lore. Thus when the view of one hemisphere of the earth, at some particular instant of past time, was duly secured and was found happily to include what was specially sought for, that special section would be taken out by the parties interested, and the whole remainder sold in the market; or if there had been a complete misfit in bringing back either a too early or a too late time, the whole would be thus sold, and, if so inclined, another fishing adventured on. Those who made a business of buying up all this surplusage, became by degrees possessed, amongst them, of a more or less complete history and physical geography of the earth's past. In fact, between the many of these dealers in the past, every day, hour, even minute, aye, and at times even successions of seconds, might be pieced together backwards out of all their arrears of records. And when these records consisted, as they did for a long time at first, of actual photographic paper, however thin the material, even to the metalloid preparation compressed to the hundred-millionth of a millimetre, the piles of such stock were, nevertheless, inconveniently bulky upon our crowded surface. But after that great discovery, through the medium of colour-sound (pressing necessity being, in every age, the mother of invention), by which we could transfer and store up the mode of that sound, so as to reproduce and retransfer at pleasure all the photographic hues and aspects, the whole case and in fact the whole business modes of the case, were fundamentally altered, and all its old accumulating difficulties dispersed.
A very good illustration of the ways and the means, in this now huge business development, is supplied by a case of my own, happening only the other day. A very distinct record had somehow come down to us, from as far back as just a thousand years ago, of a picnic, one Easter holiday time, at Brighton, the once-famous watering-place of those old days, in which my great ancestor, so often alluded to in this work, figured with all his family. This subject happening to turn up during the evening's leisure in our family circle, a wish was expressed all round to institute a fishing for this very picnic scene. My wife, indeed, grumbled a trifle at the cost, which would certainly reach a thousand energy, that is E100 per century; while I, for my part, demurred at avoidable delay, and would incur even the extra cost of the extreme heat vibrations. But first, there must, as usual, be a search amongst existing records, which might possibly supply us, ready-made, and at very much less cost, with just what we wanted. Accordingly we advertised our want, giving time, place, and some other guiding circumstances; and curiously enough there was sent us, in postal course, what was apparently just the beginning of the very repast in question. It proved indeed to be the very event we sought, but in a most disappointing way; for not only was our ancestral mother turned from us, stooping, and in the act of laying the cloth upon the beach gravel, close to the then new pier of the place, but our venerable father himself, who appeared to be busy drawing a beer-bottle cork, had also his stooping back to us, and moreover, by the embonpoint of his goodly figure, was shadowing from our view about one-half of the rest of the family. We all exclaimed that this was not satisfactory, and that a fishing for quarter to half an hour further on must be instituted. We accordingly passed the order to one of the companies (by the way, as I was one of its agents, I secured the trade discount), and were fortunate to have back, in duly brief time, a response view for 22′ 11″ after the time of the rejected picture, with the family all distinctly before us, and all, as we had expected, hard and most healthily at work with teeth and jaws. In order to live and work we must all eat, even if we are not usually seen to most striking advantage in that way.
Curious scientific questions opened upon us as, with unsated curiosity, we pursued backwards, to the uttermost limits, this remarkable branch of the advanced science of our time. Of course, as we projected our lines further and further into space, and thus proportionately back into past time, we ever expected that possibly, at some stage of these far-off journeys, the attenuating light-ray, when overtaken, would fail of characteristic reversion—would have, in fact, practically attenuated into irresponsive nothing, by that rapidly reducing process of the square of the distance. But no, we still pick up the ray, and still range through ether-filled space. The curious question as to the cessation of differential vibration, is indeed a remarkable feature of the case, and could, by itself, even if we had wanted other contributive data, have clearly shown that the spaces between the ether points, however small, were definite and measurable distances. But at the extreme end of the differentiation-vibration we were apparently no nearer to an empty and etherless space. Our messages have as yet unfailingly returned to us, if we except only a fair average, intercepted or destroyed by the fatal electro-light power of solar photospheres, or of any other occasionally encountered and dissolving force of that kind. The electro-light projection, as of course we know, cannot pass through its own kind, but is at once arrested and absorbed. Further on we shall see more of this, in the practical case of our own solar photosphere. Our message lines pass unimpeded through all bodies and all forces unarrayed in that culminating force of which they themselves consist.
What striking results have, after all, come of this great branch of our knowledge! Every school to-day has its great atlas of the past of our earth; and every family may possess its own special atlas of descent, catching glimpses of its ancestry along the whole line of this descent, where, as in our own case, there are any guiding records to fix the connection or identify the restored scenes. What countless historical questions and problems have already been solved, by our grand power to bring back the actual places and events, and to look upon them and the actors, while in the very act of their history-making. Julius Cæsar, for instance, has turned up repeatedly, in the course of both his trips across the old Channel, and every school-boy can now see, for each occasion, whence he started, and whither he was obviously bound. We have long set at rest all the old dispute about ancient Troy. The building of the great pyramid has often turned up at various stages; and countless other old Egyptian questions have been solved, even to sighting the venerable Menes, after considerable chronological readjustment. Old Livy has been caught in the very act of writing one of his lost books, seated one bright day in the central al fresco of his own home; and thus three sheets have been recovered, while others lay temptingly about, but, alas! with their tablet faces downwards. Countless zealous ethnologists and evolutionists have searched for centuries, to their heart's content, amidst flint-chipping races, and still remoter missing links, until hardly anything more remains unexplored in that direction.
So soon as we had acquired the language of that Higher Life which we had now entered, a vast world of new knowledge, of course, was at once opened upon us. We were now made aware, for the first time, that the intelligent universe was mainly divided into those worlds which had attained, through science, to the higher life, and those which were still short of it. There was also, to be sure, a great section of worlds, to be styled unintelligent, because man had not yet arisen upon them, and of which our own system furnished examples in some of its outer planets and moons, as we shall afterwards have occasion to see. We shall also have to speak of a phase of human life still higher than the so-called higher life; but as to this and other kindred subjects we will not now further interrupt our main narrative.
Allow me, however, just this general remark, in passing, to the effect that the attainments of worlds, as we all now know so well, depend upon their relative position in their system as to heat and light supply, their size or mass, and the greater or less interval for progress, since their attainment, respectively, to dynamic equilibrium. As the rule, progress begins with those members of a system which are nearest to their sun. Thus Venus, although our earth equalled or surpassed her otherwise, had a more advanced development as being nearer to the light-source; while we, for like reasons, were in advance of Mars. According to higher-life rule, the outside world that lies nearest to a higher-life world falls to the latter's charge, until, through science attainment, that heretofore outside world has entered the higher life. Thus we ourselves had been under charge of Venus until, by our knowledge of the duplication we entered the higher life; and now we, in our turn, had acceded to the charge of Mars. Accordingly we braced ourselves up to our new duties, which mainly consisted in a friendly watch over our lower and outside brother, and the occasional expenditure of a testing message, as with Venus, on past occasions, towards ourselves. Mars, as being smaller than the earth, had attained equilibrium earlier; but any advantage in that way was more than counterbalanced by our larger size and our greater heat and light, our pace being faster, after we had once begun. And again, those orbs which, as mostly happened, had equilibriated with a surplus of uncombined gases to form an enveloping atmosphere, and of watery or other vaporous elements to form rivers and seas, presented in due time the varied phenomena of life and mind. But our knowledge, although now so far advanced beyond that of previous centuries, is yet, by no means, quite complete in all these questions.
The accession of a new world to the higher life is always the occasion of great and general rejoicing, and of a good deal of energy-expenditure all about, in dispersing the joyful and exciting news. In our case, a goodly sized world, with many millions of millions of human beings, had been added to the census of the higher life. We received at once the congratulations of our nearest neighbours. Mercury and Vulcan, both of which, as well as Venus, had long before entered this Higher Life; and later on came other greetings from further outside—from the Siriusites, from several of the nearer Centaurites, from the less remote of the Pleiadites, from the Orionsbeltites, and various others. Venus, who, of course, looked on us as her own child, gave us a number of introductions; and by thus tacking on to her ready-made lines, we saved, to a great extent, the heavy cost of opening independent lines of our own, Venus, however, debiting us, of course, a certain proportion of her first outlay. These ordinary and economizing ways related to the intercommunicating society which, in a comparative sense as to distance, lay immediately about us. But it was expected of each component world that it would extend the area of the higher-life society, and promote its intercourse, by some measure of independent action of its own; and as, in the ardour of our noviciate, we were resolved not to be behind in our new duties, we prepared to open up lines to far-off systems, in any of the heretofore less-explored directions, and vast energy contributions were levied accordingly.
The acquaintances we picked up in all these higher-life duties, and these missions of adventure, were occasionally very striking. The very first which we made, in the nearer society outside our system, and coming to us through Venus, was one of Sirius's worlds; and as this orb was in about the same position relatively, in its own system, as our earth was in ours, we took rather kindly to each other, albeit our new friend was a very big fellow compared to us, had had a longer life, and knew a deal more than we did. We have, in fact, ever since kept up mutual friendly relations, as our widely circulated Sirius Herald, every morning on my breakfast table, may serve to show. We were much interested, through this case, in the effects of size or mass, as well as time, upon human progress, and ultimate attainments; because, as we very well know, the Sirius system, and for that matter a good many others, are upon a much greater scale than ours. But mere mass, although giving a stronger material frame, does little towards the higher intelligence, which depends more upon equilibriated heat and light, the latter especially. But again, speaking generally, the stronger the totality of force, the better eventually the human prospect. A very small world, such as any one of the inhabited asteroids, with its slight gravity force, and attenuated elements, will have a weakly human framework, as compared with the broad squat figures and herculean strength of our Siriusite friends. The heads, or rather the brains, surmounting in either case, are not, perhaps, in the abstract, greatly different, but then they are worked respectively by very different engine powers, and there is a different progress proportionately.
Sirius was comparatively our next-door neighbour, amongst systems of the outside universe. We had some much further off acquaintanceships, and several of the remoter ones were of our own independent looking up. In most cases of the ordinary instances, we joined in communications already established; and in this way, through Venus, or at times through other-world friends outside, we were placed in connection with a large surrounding society. But again, as regarded our own independent explorations, as time wore on, improving our practice and increasing our energy-wealth, we would send forth, on periodic occasions, a grand mission of general search, on the chance of its touching some system or world not already within our pale. This was counted, indeed, high class liberality, for few indeed of such costly missions returned from their long journey with the results sought for. They mostly either passed unnoticed through space, or were arrested and destroyed by solar photospheres or other forms of cross-electric force.
On one of these exploring occasions, however, our missive entered a somewhat remote coloured-sun system, and, by rare good fortune striking upon one of its worlds which had already entered a higher-Hfe society of its own vicinities, we were at once introduced to a new friend, who, in spite of the costly intervening distance, was disposed to reciprocate our mission, and with whom, as it is pleasant to relate, we have ever since maintained cordial intercourse. But although this far-off system had not yet been in direct relationship with our section of the higher life, we ascertained afterwards an indirect connection through another great section of universe to one side, with which our section corresponded. I shall have no little to say presently, about the remarkable coloured system in question. But there is another subject which it is now necessary to allude to; and that not only as an instance of marvellous progress in an age full of such marvels, but also because of its now intimate association with all this outside procedure of our world. I allude to—
The rise of the Celestial Press—for so we term the press connected with outside life, as distinguished from that of our own world—was not long delayed after our entry into the higher life, and our thorough mastery of the language of that life. We had the benefit of Venus's experience to guide us, and indeed, chiefly through that ready-to-hand experience, our press interests were started with a fair correspondentship in many star quarters. Soon the celestial news became as copious and quite as engrossing as the terrestrial. We have spoken of necessity as being ever mother to invention, and this was never more clear than in the case of the modern press with its countless customers. Some of the successive steps of progress form a curious retrospect, from the huge cumbrous old-fashioned paper "broad sheet," of the nineteenth century, up to the tiny four-inch square microphied photograph, which is to-day doubled into the waist-coat pocket, and all its full category of news and events read with ease through the common diamond magnifier.
Passing over various earlier stages, we come to that great step of printing by reflection-photography; and upon that again follows the compound-reflector system, by which copies upon copies, in broad sheets, comprising each thousands of separate newspapers, are reflectively flashed off with the rapidity of ordinary light-travel, over the successively opposed surfaces, laid out above or below, wherever space could be commanded for the purpose. But as withal, still more and more copies, and quicker and yet quicker printing were wanted, as years and centuries rolled on, there came at last the great art of transparent printing, by which thousands of great sheets of transparent material, consisting each of thousands of separate newspapers, can now be simultaneously permeated by the printing rays.
But having thus to deal with many millions of copies of each paper, so easily produced, how next are they all promptly distributed? Let us enter a news-office at early morn. The printing machine has just laid down a large square mass, resembling a great old paving stone—one of many more that are quickly to follow. This square mass has been placed beneath an electric-cutting apparatus, which at once separates it into many four-inch square piles, consisting each of thousands of separate newspapers. Magnetic rods next attach the adjacent corners of these piles, and these so-charged rods, whose electricity at once separates each little newspaper sheet, are distributed to energy-mills all about outside, as far and wide as any particular newspaper has taken up its hand-delivery circulation. The passing public take these papers from off the rod; but as each paper is not electrically released without a preliminary turn of the mill-handle, the energy thus created and stored constitutes the payment for the paper. As most people are out in the morning for air and exercise, this ready and simple method is found to answer best, alike for circulation and account-keeping.
The "Editor's box," or, in modern sense, his own little private energy-mill, with its own special handle, usually stands, in modest rivalry for public attention, alongside of these stores of his newspaper; so that any admiring reader of some recent talented or racy editorial can practically show his appreciation by a few turns, more or less numerous or forcible, at the editor's mill. In exciting times, when some great scientific or other question is being hotly discussed, many a zealot in the cause, on one side or the other, may be seen furiously pulling at one or other of these editors' mills, to indicate his highest approval of the latest editorials. Nor is it a bad addition to the refreshment of his deferred breakfast of a morning, for an editor in these times, after the toils of the night, to find upon his table the matter of a hundred Energy, as that morning's collection from adjacent mills.
Editor-admirers, and other disinterested and benevolent persons, will often, in this way, give up gratis even the whole of the day's exercise-energy. Healthy bodily exercise is differently managed now from of old; for even if there were now room upon the world's surface for a "constitutional" in the old sense, that is to say a health-exercise walk, nobody would now dream of such unproductive waste of his strength. Thus every hand's turn, or the turn of any other human limb, is, in these busy and business days, made productive of wealth. When people want ordinary exercise now, they turn ordinary mills; if strong exercise, they go for all members upon treadmills. Brown and I dabbled in energy-mill speculation a while ago; and it did fairly well at first, until competition, which is the very bane of our day, made the profits not worth the bother. Our modern fiscal system is largely based on the same principle; for by an ingenious spring machinery beneath all our main thoroughfares, every passenger, by his gravitation, and forward impulse, contributes, at every step, to a public energy-fund. The impediment, or the force taken out of him is so small, that he is hardly conscious of the loss. And thus a substantial public revenue is made up; thus in fact we chiefly supply our public messaging energy. That illustrates a happy case of uncompeted profit-making. I only wish I could secure a spell of it!
Black would throw out some curious speculations upon coloured suns and coloured-light systems.—Author, chap. i.
By far the most curious and interesting of our outside acquaintance was that coloured-sun system to which I lately alluded. It constituted, indeed, the very rare case of a tri-system, all three solar members of which were coloured; one of the suns being bluish, another light greenish, and the third red, and a rather significantly deep red too. In dimensions the last was considerably the greater of the three. They all three effected a complex circuit round each other, each carrying its own varied family of planets with their moons and rings, and of comets and meteorite systems.
Now these coloured systems are still, in certain respects, a question of hot scientific dispute amongst us, many of the purely white-light systems, such as Sirius, proudly viewing them as the peculiarity, the eccentricity, aye, point blank, the insanity of the heavens. The coloured themselves take, of course, a very different view of their case, and have various theories of the special power and resource of colour, compared, as they would say, with mere cold common white light. Our coloured friends in question approached us, from the first, warmly in that view of the matter, and were ready to be eloquent upon the virtues of yellow, in connection with the slight, but, as they gladly assured us, the still quite appreciable tint of our solar light. We did not, however, quite respond, in the direction indicated, to this brotherly warmth. While not behind in formulating the usual courtesies of intercourse, we rather, in effect, said, on this part of the case, "drop it." In confidence between ourselves, the subject is confessedly a delicate one to those who, as in our own case, may be supposed just upon the borderland of either party. Our overzealous coloured friends, by way of putting our rights beyond question, always remind us, that on our first introducing the pure electric light, we described it as "ghastly," "garish," and by other such bad names, showing quite clearly thereby, that we had been previously unaccustomed to pure cold white light; and that, as they stoutly asserted on our behalf, we were, in common with themselves, of the distinguished coloured race—the true nobility of the heavens, as they would put the matter.
But, again, when we, for our part, discussed this rather excitable question with the haughty Siriusites, and other pure whites, we rather made out that a very slight yellowish was softer to the eyes, and, while not really other than white light, was, in its accommodating way, rather the superior.
It was certainly to be expected that colour, which has such strikingly varied effect physically upon health and growth, should have also its effect mentally in the coloured systems. Indeed the coloured themselves at once admitted, nay, eagerly claimed this distinctive result; only that, while we whites saw but peculiarity, they themselves had in view superiority. Although science had explained, long ago, the superficial, accidental, changeable, and perhaps, in many cases, temporary character of sun colour, yet all this had but little effect upon our coloured friends' lofty theories about themselves. Nevertheless, however, we of the white-light order made an interesting study of their case, which we were the better able to do, seeing that no small number of their worlds had already entered the higher life as well as ourselves. Repeatedly, indeed, had it been experienced, that mental peculiarity from colour, amounting, in the deeper hues, even to decided eccentricity, was not always much of an obstacle to those scientific attainments through which worlds were passed into the higher life. And indeed it was in this view that our friends of the tri-system became to us a most interesting study. All three were, as it happened, not very much out with each other in point of age, and not very different, in that respect, from our own case; and thus, in each of their cases, as in our own, from one-third to onehalf of the inner planets, respectively, had already entered the higher life.
In this remarkable ternary system, the blue and green were respectively slight in hue; but the red hue, being decidedly strong, gave expectation of marked peculiarity; and, as we shall see, this expectation was not disappointed. The peculiarity of the Blues was mainly limited to an extravagant pride, or rather a proudly independent naturalness, showing itself, for instance, in female dress, which, with them, is always cut with exclusive reference to the form of the wearer; whereas with us, at least in the simple old times a thousand years ago, to show off the dress was always the prime consideration, and one also, as I need hardly point out, of exemplary modesty and humility as compared with those proud Blues.
The Greens, again, present a somewhat kindred peculiarity in the sex; for fashionable and high-bred ladies, especially if they are otherwise personally attractive, study the very plainest costumes, as interfering least with the effect of personal quality or superiority. Only the shy and timid, the excessively modest and distrustful of their own attractions, cover themselves with ornaments, in the two-fold hope of diverting attention from themselves to their jewels, and of making up for deficiencies which they modestly acknowledge. Thus the most brilliant dress-displays ever excite compassion by the obvious modesty of the wearer. Many a poor toiling parent, as he reluctantly yields to the irrepressible entreaties of modest and diffident daughters, for the protection of more and yet more magnificent dress and jewelry, exclaims in despair that the very strength of the family virtues is to be his ruin.
But Red peculiarities were decidedly more serious than all this, inasmuch as they affected morals and religion. The religious views of our Red friends are, in substance, to this effect—that the future life is an exact reversal, or corrective, of the usually gross inequalities of the present; plenty and happiness here, resulting in want and misery there; and vice versâ. Consequently the great object is to avoid or escape any great happiness in this life, in view of the inevitable Nemesis it brings in the life to come. The Eed clergy are, in this way, laudably zealous and constant in their denunciations and warnings, and they ever find in the varying circumstances around them, a grand field for their eloquence. This religion is fittingly named "The Nemesis of the Grave;" and the zealous activity of its adherents has long since established it over the entire of the particular planet I am now dealing with in the Red system. Many a man there, who, by his industry and intelligence, has been successful in his world, attaining perhaps to high consideration and public respect for his qualities, or who, by a well-balanced mind, has enjoyed far more happiness than falls to most other peojole, has at last to face the terrible Nemesis that is to follow inevitable death. Then, at least, if not before, is the faithful pastor's opportunity, as he dutifully labours to induce a miserable death-bed, and thus give one last chance to the poor victim's prospects.
On the other hand, transfer your view to the triumphant end of some miserable wretch, who, whether from misfortune or vice, has had neither peace nor happiness all his life. As the last sands of his glass run out, and his Nemesis draws near, crowds of clergy and other pious people perhaps surround his bed, in order to benefit by the edifying spectacle. Even if the dying wretch be so degraded, as to be utterly indifferent to his position and grand prospects, that only makes these prospects all the surer and brighter, and the surrounding comforters and congratulators all the more pertinacious. On a late occasion, when a dying burglar, worried out of all patience by this sort of thing, at last drew his jemmy from under the pillow, and cracked the skull of his nearest tormentor, a deep but mingled wail ascended from all the company; for while the wretched murderer had thus even added to his accumulated claims upon Nemesis, yet, sad to say, he had also suddenly sent a soul to its account in that happy, duty-doing, and unanxious state, the reversion of which beyond the grave was only too assured. When we gravely argued with these Reds that such incurably vicious wretches deserved rather to be punished, both in this world and the next, they expressed utter horror and amazement at such a view; and asked us, in reply, if people deliberately chose to be miserable instead of happy, hated instead of loved, ugly instead of beautiful.
It so happened that the particular planet we had fallen into correspondence with in this Red system was, like ourselves, the fourth from its sun; and the case was the same also with our corresponding world in each of the other two members of this ternary system. Our rule, in fact, was to prefer introductions to those worlds whose relative position in their respective systems came nearest to our own. We have found, by growing experience, that, one thing with another, in the greater similarity of circumstances, we get on best with those so placed, each world understanding the other better than in the case of orbs either further inside or further out. Those similarly placed worlds are indeed our "flesh and blood" in a literal sense, to which most of the others, on climatic and other grounds, affecting corporeal composition, could not lay claim.
The midnight sky of each of these worlds, in their respective systems, affords, to the respective peoples beneath, a grand and impressive spectacle, which could hardly fail to enter into the religious sentiment in each case. To the Red population, the two surpassingly bright stars, of respectively blue and green hue, seemed to be the heaven and hell of future life. The earlier records show green heaven and blue hell to have been the prevailing orthodoxy; but, after long sway, this belief began to be undermined for that which advancing intelligence rather favoured, namely, a blue heaven and a green hell; which doctrine, after many years' contention, characterized by infinite zeal, cruel contention, and bloodshed on both sides, acquired at last the chief predominance.
To the other two systems, again, there was a different and even still more striking nightly spectacle. Let us take, for example, the case of the Greens. I may be supposed to have a bias that way, if there be anything in a name. After their own genially-hued, and, to the Green mind, perfect-light sun had set, a night scene at once beautiful and terrible succeeded the day. On one side arose the pale blue star, of all-surpassing beauty and brightness. On the other, a fiery red monster, which glared down out of heaven, conspicuously still greater in dimensions and powder than even the other grand object, and which, but for the reconciling effect of habit, must have caused intolerable terror to all beneath its rays. The great, benign blue star was, of course, heaven, and the fierce and still greater red was hell; and much religious capital, and countless conversions, were made of such powerful religious accessories. When full mutual explanations had been come to, upon all parties advancing in science and finally entering the higher life, there remained, to the Reds in particular, the ungracious fact that their sun, much to their surprise, if not to a stronger and sharper feeling, had been regarded as the common hell of each of the other systems.
In Green religion, as I have said, much was made of this terrible red star, which was usually brought in, by way of climax, in the sensational section of Green preaching. It was thus common, with this section, to regulate church hours by the time of night when the red star would be best placed for commanding effect; and thus there had arisen quite a system of management of this effect. The well-practised sensationalist had usually a movable shutter in the church roof, which he regulated by means of a string. At the fitting climax to which his discourse was leading, the shutter would fly open by a sudden pull at the string, and the terrible star would shoot his baleful rays amongst the excited or scared audience. Occasionally, and somewhat awkwardly, the string would snap under the too violent jerk of the impassioned preacher, and clumsy beginners would equally, perhaps, spoil their case. But, nevertheless, there was quite a rivalry in conversions in this way, and the more practised and adroit preachers, in counting heads for results, had a great reputation.
But even long prior to the advent of the higher life, which finally made sad havoc of these primitive ideas and ways, there had been a party against, as well as a party for, the shutter system. The former party, feeble at first, had been gradually gaining strength with the progress of science and of society. Shutter preaching began to fail of its old power; and at length for any one to speak of the "eloquent and zealous Shutter," as the sensational preacher used to be concisely called, had become at last a questionable compliment.
The coloured systems in general were zealous for outside conversions; and the remarkable system we speak of was no exception, the Red lights in particular being active and universalist. Of course our own various religious bodies were more or less active in this way also, and would send missions, under energy credits, far and wide. The great Mormon Church usually took the lead. When certain irreverent planets laughed at her great pope, the pope made the memorable reply, that people ought not to laugh at Religion. But Red missions, at great cost, were sent even as far as our earth. Indeed, these were not entirely unsuccessful, as some of our extremer sectaries, under Red argumentative ingenuity, re-acted into the Red views, and became in turn their active promoters upon their own home ground. These would, for instance, follow our pious clergy and missionaries into death-bed scenes, in order to exhort them to leave alone some unhappy-minded object of their visit, in his condition of comparative safety, and attend rather to their own awful prospect, confronted as they were by the inevitable Nemesis of their present apparently bright and happy condition.
One of the latest Red-life incidents is reported to us in one of the last members of the Red Times, a daily print I regularly take in. A fellow of incurably vicious temper, after murdering his wife, had concluded by taking off also his mother-in-law, in order, as he remarked with cool atrocity, to make one clean sweep of the worry of the whole family concern. Instantly a crowd, with one loud long wail of pity and commiseration, conducted the unhappy wretch to the comfortable Resanitation Retreat, provided for such distressing cases. There a dozen old ladies at once volunteered their services, taking this reprobate by turns night and day, soothing his every feeling, supplying his every want, and never for an unnecessary instant leaving him alone. The cure, we are told, was marvellously rapid. On quitting the Retreat, he was overheard to mutter, and in no mincing way, that all the mothers-in-law in the universe should not see him there again. That meant, of course, that he would murder no more of them—which was just, in fact, the result the Red principle aimed at. Such triumphs of the system, however, are very grudgingly admitted by our clergy.