Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Luminiferous Ether
By Edward Hitchcock (17931864)N
Now, I am not going to assert that the spiritual body will be composed of this luminiferous ether. But, since we know not the composition of that body, it is lawful to suppose that such may be its constitution. This is surely possible, and that is all which is essential to my present argument.
Admitting its truth, the following interesting conclusions follow:—
In the first place, the spiritual body would be unaffected by all possible changes of temperature. It might exist as well in the midst of fire, or of ice, as in any intermediate temperature. Hence it might pass from one extreme of temperature to another, and be at home in them all; and this is what we might hope for in a future world. Some, indeed, have imagined that the sun will be the future heaven of the righteous; and on this supposition there is no absurdity in the theory. Nor would there be in the hypothesis which should locate heaven in solid ice, or in the centre of the earth.
In the second place, on this supposition, the spiritual body would be unharmed by those chemical and mechanical agencies which matter in no other form can resist.
The question has often arisen, how the glorified body, if material, would be able to escape all sources of injury, so as to be immortal as the soul. In this hypothesis, we see how it is possible; for though the whole globe should change its chemical constitution, though worlds should dash upon worlds, the spiritual body, though present at the very point where the terrible collision took place, would feel no injury; and safe in its immortal habitation, the soul might smile amid “the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.”
In the third place, on this supposition, the soul might communicate its thoughts and receive a knowledge of events and of other minds, through distances inconceivably great, with the speed of lightning. If we suppose the soul, in such a tenement, could transmit its thoughts and desires, and receive impressions, through the luminiferous ether, with only the same velocity as light, it might communicate with other beings upon the sun, at the distance of one hundred million miles, in eight minutes; and such a power we may reasonably expect the soul will hereafter possess, whether derived from this or some other agency. We cannot believe that, in another world, the soul’s communication with the rest of the universe will be as limited as in the present state. On this supposition, she need not wander through the universe to learn the events transpiring in other spheres, for the intelligence would be borne on the morning’s ray or the lightning’s wing.
Finally, on this supposition, the germ of the future spiritual body may, even in this world, be attached to the soul; and it may be this which she will come seeking after on the resurrection morning.