THE SPIRIT WORLD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 500, 19 August 1857, Page 3

THE SPIRIT WORLD.

The following lines were written by Mr. John B. Kirkbanks, a gentleman well known in the scientific circles of New York, and who recently committed suicide. It would seem from certain correspondence published since the melancholy occurrence, that deceased was so infatuated by Spiritualism, as to entertain the belief that he could, at will, leap across the eulf that divides time from eternity, and join his sister in the Spirit World. What influence the following transcendental stanzas may have exerted upon his mind, must be left to conjecture, though the " leap " is suggestive of his manner of committing suicide:— A leap, my Soul, o'er the golf of time, To the dim and distant ages, Ere thiß world was dark with the stain of crime, .Ere sin had earned his wages. When the world was young, and the angels snng, With the morning stars a chorus, And the Deity his shadows flung Unveiled and bright before us.

£ leap, my Sonl, to the primal home c . »jf mankind's father, mother; Where the earth was floor, and the sky was dome, And the living loved each other ! Ere the choking dnst and the riot rnst Of trades, strifes, forms, and fashions, Had wrapped man's sonl in a loathsome crust.

And crushed its coble passions. A leap, my Soul, to the days of old; When the heart yet wore a dimple; When the laws the Patriarch compelled Were fatherly and simple. Oh, the days of yore, in the time before The Dollar was Almighty ; ' When the " latch-string " hung outside the door And the heart of maa beat rightly_!„

A leap, my Soul, to the age of Christ When the truth was plainly spoken; When the poor man's heart was not despised ; When wealth was not worth's token; When the preacher's task was not to mask With gilded phrase, sin's features, And religion* business was to ask For deeds from all her creatures!

A leap, my Soul, to the time to come, When the world shall be fraternal; When a golden veil will not hide scum, Nor merit be external! When the world will call on one and all For names by which to know them, And laugh to scorn those who lift the pall From the honored dead to show them.