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IN BOTH WORLDS. BY WM. H. HOLCOMBE, M. D., AUTHOR OF "OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN;" "THE SEXES: HERE AND HEREAFTER," ETC., ETC.
PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
LIPPINCOTT'S PRESS, PHILADELPHIA.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE I. CAST OUT 17 II. CLOUDS GATHERING 29 III. NIGHT BY THE DEAD SEA 39 IV. IN THE WILDERNESS 50 V. THE BANQUET 60 VI. THE CHAMBER OF MAGIC 75 VII. SAVED 93 VIII. BREAD ON THE WATERS 105 IX. SACRIFICE 119 X. AT ATHENS 132 XI. HELENA 141 XII. THE HALL OF APOLLO 149 XIII. MY FIRST DEATH 159 XIV. MY SPIRITUAL BODY 171 XV. THE WORLD OF SPIRITS 184 XVI. THE CHRIST ABOVE NATURE 193 XVII. JUDGMENT OF THE JEWS 203 XVIII. IMAGINARY HEAVENS 214 XIX. THE MAGICIANS IN HELL 225 XX. FRIENDS IN HEAVEN 236 XXI. THE SPIRITUALLY DEAD 250 XXII. BACK TO EARTH 261 XXIII. IMPRISONED 271 XXIV. BURIED ALIVE 280 XXV. WHAT HAD HAPPENED 292 XXVI. THE CITY OF COLONNADES 305 XXVII. HELENA AGAIN 320 XXVIII. TO THE LION 334 XXIX. CHRISTIAN CANDLES 344 XXX. THE GREAT COMBAT 355 XXXI. FREE 367 XXXII. WHAT REMAINS? 378
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A STRANGE DISCOVERY IN LIEU OF A PREFACE.
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Many years ago I was enjoying in the harbor of New York the charming hospitalities of the officers belonging to one of the finest vessels in the British Navy. The company was gay, cultivated and brilliant. Student and recluse as I then was, I was perhaps more delighted than any one present with the conversation of those practical and polished men of the world.
After supper I was attracted to a small group of earnest talkers, of whom the surgeon of the ship seemed to be the centre and oracle. He was speaking of exhumations a long time after death, of mummies and petrifactions and other curious transformations of the human body. He stated that he had examined some of the skeletons which had been dug out of the ruins of Herculaneum. The bones were almost perfect after the lapse of eighteen hundred years. The complete exclusion of air and water seemed to be the only thing necessary to an indefinite preservation.
The chaplain of the vessel endeavored to give the conversation an æsthetic and semi religious turn by analyzing the feelings of mingled awe, melancholy and curiosity with which most men survey the remains of a human form feelings always heightened by the antiquity of the relic, and by the dignity of the person who lived and loved and labored in it.
"The fundamental idea," said he, "is a profound respect for the human body itself as the casket which has contained the spiritual jewel, the soul."
"Yes," remarked the surgeon; "nothing but the lapse of a people into cannibalism can obliterate that sentiment... Continue reading book >>
