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Let me write just a little as I need help, and I saw how you helped the last * spirit who wrote. It was to me wonderful what a change came to her as you told her of God's love, and when she went with that beautiful spirit who spoke so lovingly to her, I thought that hope is for me too.
So, I know you will help me, as I need it so much, and you seem willing to help us all.
I am a woman who lived a great many years ago in a land that is far distant from your home; and at a time that runs back into the centuries. I was an Egyptian Princess, and lived in the time when your Jesus, that I heard you speak of, was not known to the world. I was taught the philosophy of the ancient Egyptians, and Osiris and Isis were our god and goddess. We worshipped them, but not in love or soul adoration, but in fear and dread. They were not the loving Father, that you say your God is, but the dread things of power and wrath, that called for our obedience through fear of punishment and the tortures of the hells which they were supposed to rule in and torment the spirits of mortals who disobeyed them. So you see, our souls were not developed with love, but our minds were controlled with fear, and we offered our sacrifices to appease the terrible threatenings of their wrath.
I was naturally a loving woman, and in my life outside of my religious beliefs, I was compassionate and sympathetic. Those who were subject to me in our intercourse of government loved me, and were grateful and obedient subjects; but when it became a question as to our worship and religious duties I sacrificed many of them to satisfy the wrath and demands of our gods. These sacrifices were made at first openly, but so great did they become, and deleterious to the good of the nation in its political aspect, that latterly our sacrifices were made in private, but they were made nevertheless.
Our beliefs were as real and as earnest as are the beliefs of you Christians in your God of love and mercy; and we did the will of our gods with as much belief that we were doing our duty, as do you the will of the Father in the belief that you are doing your duty.
But as I now see, what a difference in the motives and what a difference in the results. Our motives were to appease our angry gods, and thereby prevent their wrath from falling upon us who continued to live, and your motives are to get and be filled with the love and mercy of a Father of love, and to have your souls filled with that which will enable you to live in His presence and become supremely happy.
In the long years that I have lived in the spirit world, I have learned all this intellectually, and many other things that show me the cruelty and degradation of the beliefs that obtained when I was a mortal and which resulted in the deaths, physically, of many of my subjects and the death also of their souls.
Love to us, was not a thing divine. Obedience and placating the anger of the gods were the divine things to us.
And now, while I have heard of this love of your Father, and have seen the results of this love upon their appearances, and the apparent happiness of the worshippers of your God, yet I have never understood this Great Love, except in an intellectual way. My soul has never felt the influence of this love and I have never before thought it necessary for me to seek the secret of obtaining the benefit of this love. But I now see that there is something more to it, than the mere knowledge of its existence which the mind tells me must exist; and so having in my journeys to earth, and hearing of your meetings with the spirits who are seeking this love, or rather a way out of their darkness and sufferings, and having seen the effect of some of their efforts, I came to you to learn the way, if possible, by which I may obtain the soul experience which I have heard you and the beautiful spirits who come to you, speak of.
Of course, my ancient belief still has some influence over me, and I have found that Osiris and Isis are myths; but yet, that negative knowledge has not supplied me with the means by which I can get this love you speak of. While I know that the angry gods do not exist, still there is a void in my soul which I realize has never been filled. So I pray, that if you can help me to the way that will lead to my finding this soul filling love that you speak of, I will be greatly obliged if you will do so, and will follow that way.
In the years since my coming into the spirit world, I have lived in a number of spheres, each one in succession a progressive one. But in none of these spheres which I have lived in, have I found that the inhabitants are possessed of this soul love that I am anxious to obtain. In the higher spheres in which I have lived and in the highest, there is a wonderful development of the mental qualities, and the knowledge possessed by these spirit inhabitants is beyond all conception of mortals; and sin does not exist in these highest spheres and happiness is very great, and the spirits. are very beautiful and bright, but in my comparison of the beauty and brightness of these spirits with those who claim this soul development of love, I notice a great difference.
We have our loves and our harmonies, and peace reigns supreme, but yet I am not satisfied, and so with many others who live where I do. But the cause of this dissatisfaction is not revealed to us, and only, as I say, in my visits to the earth plane and hearing of this love, have I become convinced that the great secret of our dissatisfaction may be found among those spirits who claim to have this wonderful love.
So I come to you and ask you to show me the way to learn of it.
Well, I have visited the earth plane many times since I have been a spirit, and occasionally, have conversed with the spirits who claim to have this love, and they have to some degree told me of this love, but I never thought much about it until lately. I was happy in my condition as I have told you of it, and did not think it worth while to inquire into the fact of what this love meant. But somehow, lately, the desire to learn of it has taken possession of me, and hence I come to you because I see others coming to you who say they need help.
I did not go to the others you speak of because I thought that I might get more help by coming to you first. The spirits who are seeking your help say that they can in some way obtain an advantage in coming to you first. I don't know why, but they believe it; and when I saw the effect of their coming to you, I thought it might be so, and hence I came.
I was the daughter of one of the early Pharaohs and my name was Princess Saleeba.
I do not know how to compute the centuries, but I lived before the pyramids were built, so you see I have been in the spirit world a long time.
Not now, but sometime I will come again and write you more in detail a description of the spheres through which I have progressed.
I have called for your mother, and she is so very beautiful. She must have a great amount of this love. She says that she will show me the way to obtain it, and will love me herself,--and take me to the greatest spirit in all the spirit world, in whom I can see this love developed in its greatest perfection. And I am going with her.
So remember my promise to come again for I will come.
So with many thanks and my kindest regards, I will say, good-night.
** SALEEBA.
* Appendix. Mr. Padgett had just received a message from a spirit who was in darkness and suffering, and wanted Mr. Padgett to instruct her as to that she should do to progress out of her dark and sad condition.
** Saleeba was a bright spirit from the highest plane of the sixth sphere.