I AM HERE. Your friend, A. G. Riddle

I am very happy tonight, and I am glad that you are so much better. You had rather a hard time of it, and this reminded me somewhat of the suffering that I used to undergo when I was on earth and in Washington. Well, you are cured of the indigestion, and your digestive organs will soon be in perfect working order.

(How was this accomplished?)

By the faith that you had in your prayers and the work of the Master! You were actually cured by your faith. The work done was only a means used to impress upon you the fact that God had answered your prayers. I do not see how you could have had such faith as you had at the time, but it is a fact that you had it; and, as a consequence, the cure was effective.

When you prayed, as you did, I was so very much impressed with your faith that I expected to see your prayers answered as they were. Jesus helped you to pray and also helped your faith. He also did the work that you observed through the power which he possesses. It is a revelation to me, I must confess, and caused me to believe more than ever in prayer and faith.

I am now so very happy in my new sphere that I cannot explain to you what that happiness means. I cannot express myself in language sufficiently strong and descriptive that you may comprehend. But this I will say: that my happiness now transcends all conception of what happiness might be when, as a mortal, I sometimes thought of the afterlife and the happiness which might be in store for me when I passed over.

I am in the Third Sphere, but am not contented to remain there; for your mother has told me on many occasions of the far greater happiness existing in the higher spheres. I am now striving and praying for this greater happiness, and I will never be content until I get it. Your wife is in a much higher sphere, and is so very beautiful and so exceedingly happy that I know that such happiness must exist where she lives.

I am also happy because I have my soulmate with me so very often. Her love is so great and pure that it leads me on to higher things and enables me to seek the Great Love of the Father with so much earnestness, which I now believe is waiting for me if I only will strive to obtain It, and have the faith which all who have obtained a very large degree of this Divine Love tell me of.

Your grandmother is so wonderfully beautiful and filled with this Love that her very presence inspires me to believe and seek for the happiness of these higher spheres.

Well, as you want me to tell of some of the laws of the spirit world, I will say that the one great law is that God is Love, and that He is willing to bestow that Love on anyone, spirit or mortal, who asks Him for It.

I am not only very happy but also find that my mind is expanding to a great extent by reason of that Love which I possess. No man or spirit can possibly be filled with this Love and not have the wisdom that necessarily comes with the Love. I am not so much interested in purely mental phenomena, as I was before I received this Love and believed in a Father of Love and Truth; but I am able, nevertheless, to understand many things to a far greater degree than I could when I had merely the mental pursuits in mind. I am not yet fully conversant with the Laws of Communication, as I told you I would learn and instruct you in, but I know enough to be able to say that every spirit is trying to communicate with his friends on earth. And why they are not able to is because the mortals are not in that condition of physical rapport that will enable them to receive the communications of the spirit. I do not yet know why one mortal is so susceptible to these influences as to be readily understood, and another mortal is not. Some spirits say that the law controlling this matter is not understood by spirits who have been here for a great many years, and who have given considerable study on the subject.

But this I do know: that when the rapport exists, the communications can be made with the exercise of the powers.

But I don’t know of any manifestation as satisfactory to both spirit and mortal as the writing, such as you are now doing, for we now have the opportunity for communicating and interchanging thoughts to such a greater extent. I am perfectly delighted at the possibilities given me of writing to you in this way. So, you must believe that I am writing to you and that all the others of your band are doing the same thing.

Your wife has more power in this regard than any of us, and she does not hesitate writing to you whenever you call for her. She is a wonderful spirit in her grasp of spiritual things and in her love for the Father. So, you must not let any doubt come into your mind when she writes to you and tells you of so many wonderful things, and of her love for you. She seems to love you with a love that has no limit or possibility of growing less.

I am now going to tell you of my progress in this Love and happiness. When I last wrote to you, I told you that I had commenced to have faith in the Father and had received some portion of His Love. Well, since then, I have been praying and asking God to give me more faith and Love. And, as I prayed, my faith increased; and, as my faith increased, more of this Love came into my soul; and, with It, an increased happiness. So, I would not stop striving until I realized that my soul was commencing to get such an inflow of this Love that it seemed that all things which tended to retard this inflowing were leaving me, and only Love and Goodness were taking possession of me. I am now very far advanced over what I was when you first commenced to talk to me of this Love, and I shall remember and thank you for what you did for me through all eternity. I was also fortunate to have had your mother and wife with me very often, trying to show me the way to this Truth of the New Birth. And, then, when your grandmother came to me, it seemed as if I could not resist the influence to seek and try to find It.

Lastly, when I had received enough of this spiritual awakening to realize who Jesus was, I gave him my close attention. And as he continued to show me the Way to the Father, I commenced to grasp the Truth and believe that my salvation depended on my receiving this Great Love and becoming a finer and better man. I tell you that Jesus is the most wonderful of all spirits that I have seen or heard about. He is so filled with love and goodness that there seems no doubt in my mind that he is the son of the Father in the special sense of the term. I mean that he is so much nearer the Father, and has so many of His Attributes, that he is the greatest son in the sense of being more at-one with the Father. We are all sons of the Father, but there is such a difference in our spiritual conditions. The contrast between Jesus and us is so great that we can readily believe that he is the greatest true son, and that his great love and knowledge of the Qualities of the Father is greater than any Celestial spirit. I do not mean in the sense that he was created in a different physical way from other men—an immaculate conception or birth from the womb of a virgin. I do not believe this dogma, and the Master says that it is not true. For he is truly the son of a man and woman, as you or I am, so far as his physical being is concerned.

Now, I am also convinced that mankind cannot be saved from their sins unless they follow the Way showed them by the Master. No man can save himself, and I wish to emphasize the fact strongly that man is dependent upon God for his salvation from the sins and errors of the natural man. I do not mean that men have not a work to do themselves, for they have. God is willing to save them if they ask for it and acknowledge that, without His Help, they cannot be saved. But unless they do ask and believe, He will not interfere with their conditions. So, you see, I am not only a believer in God and Jesus but also in the doctrine that men cannot save themselves.

I thought that man was sufficient unto himself when I was on earth, but now I know that he is not. Man may be comparatively happy and free from what is called sin—that is, a violation of God’s Laws—but that happiness is not the same, nor is man’s condition the same, as when he gets this Divine Love from the Father.

I will not speak longer of this subject tonight, but will reiterate that, when on earth, I thought that I might possibly become divine by my own exertions. Yet, now, as a spirit, I know that man is not divine and cannot become so in all eternity unless he receives this Divine Essence which comes to him by the New Birth. Divinity is of God, Alone, and only He can bestow It on man. Man, not having this Divinity, cannot create It by his own efforts. So, believe what I say and strive to get It, and you will then succeed and become as the redeemed in the Celestial Spheres.

With all my love and blessings,

A. G. RIDDLE