Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/106

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A Voyage to Other Worlds.

home." I cannot tell you the thrill of that loving welcome. You cannot understand it now; but yet you may in a future state know the sweet welcome to a realm of bliss by angel voices.

Then he said aloud that all might hear:—

"Aleriel, tell us of your journey."

I was moved in spirit, and yet I rose and spoke.

"Thanks, comrades of a happy land. Be grateful for God's love to you. The story of my journey is very long, for I have seen so many million things which you hardly know of, for to me they were unknown until I saw them. I have been in that strange planet that so often lightens our evenings, when we see the outer skies through openings in the silvery mists. I have seen it; I have walked on it; I have twice travelled round it; I have visited its cities, traversed its oceans, crossed its continents, ascended its mountains. Man I have seen also—the ruling intelligence of that world. I have beheld man in his various races, in his struggles for higher things, in his sorrows, in his agonies, in his death. I have seen some noble things on earth, very many wretched and miserable things; not a few, very terrible—to us inconceivably terrible. I