There were familiar faces among those about me. I had known many in the careless days of pre-war memory, but when I tried to speak to them, old acquaintance seemed forgotten, for they gazed at me with eyes devoid of recognition. Then, at my look of astonishment:

“They do not see you lad—they cannot, for to them you are invisible.”

The revelation then came swiftly:

The people about me were separated by their own former habits of thought when on earth. They had lived out their brief life-span, gay Mayflies, with frittering loves and their little businesses which had seemed so vastly important in their earth existence. They were to learn how ephemeral, indeed, was their sojourn on earth and yet how tremendously significant, viewed from the perspective of the life infinite.

Many questions flashed through my mind:

“Why should I be invisible to them when I can see them so clearly? Why should my first impressions of this new state of existence be of a world of such infinite peace and beauty, when these poor souls are living in such an arid world? The rocks and stunted trees themselves seemed to be in a state of perpetual struggle for existence—no grass brighter than emeralds or marvellous flowers to delight the eye, no birds with their glad songs.”

I was lost in a feeling of deepest sorrow, and a longing possessed me to help them in some way, which I hardly understood, myself; so new and wonderful, so limitless this world of infinite distances seemed to me.

From Uncle Peter, then, came help in my perplexity:

“You now realize that when you passed through the ‘door’ from the battlefield, the world or plane of life which you entered was that for which you had been preparing, through your studies and learning some of life’s true meaning; not only in the short life you lived on earth, but throughout many other lives.”

Yes, I remembered now how interesting and logical it all had seemed, when in my browsings in philosophy and psychological subjects I had become familiar with the idea of reincarnation, and