Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1886 — WEST TO HEAVEN. [ARTICLE]

WEST TO HEAVEN.

Strange Vision Seen by a Man Suffering from Congestion of the Brain. A wgll-known real-estate man was stricken with congestion of the brain in his room. For eight long weeks he lay on his bed, apparently unconscious of all his surroundings and wavering on the brink of death. He did not speak at all to his nurses, and the light of reason appeared to have left his eyes. Now he has regained consciousness, and he declares that while his fevered body was being being pilled and plastered by the doctors his soul was far away, soaring through space with the souls of those of his friends who long ago died and mingling in the realms of light with white-robed seraphims and angels of glory. And what he saw or thinks he saw has had such an effect on him that he has braced up and foresworn certain foolish habits which were a part of his former life. His experience in the heavenly domain sounds like the expression of the opium-eater’s wildest dreams. But the real-estate man is not an opiumeater. “After working hard all day,” said the gentleman in telling the story, “I smoked a pipe and went to bed, feeling .pretty well. I went to sleep soon after turning in, if I remember right, but I never awoke from that sleep for two months. One of my clerks next morning found me sitting on a chair near the bed, but I did not move, he says, and he thought I was dead at first, but finding that I had some life left in me—mighty little, though, I tell you—he laid me down and called a doctor. He treated me for a long time, and finally pulled me out all right. While I was under his care it was that I left this earth and visited the other land. “I was standing on a huge steamboat first. How I got there I never knew, but there I stood in the bow. An old friend was with me. The boat was beautiful; big and broad, but clean-cut and trim. We were the only persons on it. It was propelled by some unforeseen force, but it glided gracefully through the calm and silvery water in which there was trace of neither wave nor ripple. A bright light pervaded the scene, although I could see no sun. The general luminous effect was something similar to that at the battle panorama, but a great deal more dazzling. The banks of the river in which we were sailing were green aDd fresh. There were towns along the banks, prosperous look ng towns, with railroads and saw and gin mills and other evidences of civilation. But they were unpeopled. “In fact, we saw no one until we had floated on for days and days, when suddenly the air became full of strange spirits. They fairly swarmed about me—old, gray-haired men and beautiful young women—the most beautiful and the most graceful I had ever seen. They were dressed in long robes and had harps in their hands and the loveliest and most cheering smiles on their faces. They seemed to be rejoicing because one more had been added to their number. They were human beings in shape and appearance but slightly shorter than most of u«. “One handsome young man I picked out as my guide, although I did not know him. He accompanied me in my travels. We did not walk—we glided through the air. Past mountains and hills, over the glancing waves of beautiful lakes, so far above the busy cities that the noise of their mills and railroad trains seemed like the hum of a distant bee—we sped, the fresh wind now breathing in our faces and bracing us for our journey and now rushing from behind and hurling us faster, faster still. “At last we came into sight of the gates of heaven and found that a crowd of spirits had drawn themselves up in line outside and were waiting for us. As I drew nearer I heard them singing a heavenly hymn, and as their faces came into view I saw that they wore a sorrowing expression. I passed slowly in front of the array with bowed head and downcast eyes. At the end I looked up and saw my father and mother. Such a depth of sorrow was in their eyes and on their faces Avas depicted so much grief and anguish—as if they were calling up my past life and its sins—that I opened my mouth to shriek. I could not articulate. I seized my guard by the arm. It felt like pulp and eluded my grasp. Then there came a crash of thunder louder than I have ever heard or ever hope to hear again; my head throbbed like one mighty pulse, and I opened my eyes. I was lying on my bed with my nurse beside me”—Chicago News.

Dick Holman and Alexander James caught a forty-pound catfish in a submerged hollow log in a stream near New London, Mo. More than 1,000 pounds of fish have been caught in this hollow log during the last three years.