Gifts of Heaven · Volume 2 · Chapter 226

Spiritual blessing of the mountain world

25th May 1842, 4:15 – 6:45 pm

Writer: Ans. H.

[1] What else do the mountains teach and preach? What the mountains teach and preach more, is something any unbiased mountain climber can convince himself of at first glance. In his feeling he can hear words quite clearly and distinctly, which might sound thus:

[2] "Look at us, you dust-burdened pilgrim on earth, how freely and independently we look from our high peaks into the far distance of God's creations! A free air blows around our foreheads, and the sunbeam gently breaks over our high back! No boundary stone here tells the hiker: "So far and no further!", but wherever he puts his foot, he treads more than his own ground. For the ground on which he was born must be controlled; but we are without boundary stones, and no tax is paid for our peaks. Therefore you, wanderer, are completely at home on our heights!"

[3] That these words are perfectly correct, of it everyone can convince himself easily, if he ever enters such high drifts of the mountains. As his eyes get a wide circle of vision there, so also his being gets a wide circle of feeling, and through this his thoughts are united with his feelings. And he, who has perhaps never thought in the heart, now feels for the first time how sweet, lovely and free the thoughts of the heart taste, and how much further they extend beyond the horizon of the ordinary mind.

[4] If this is the case now, does it not become more comfortable in the poor head, since also around it’s forehead, freer airs blow from the high realm of the spirits? And will it not be more native and intimate to find oneself where the rays of the otherwise so heated mind are gently refracted and, after such a refraction, descend even more lovingly into the heart that has become free?

[5] Where on these heights is a customs union of thoughts to be found and where a valuation chamber of what is a free property of the immortal spirit? Where is there a boundary stone, over which the feeling soul is not to step?

[6] Yes, here the unbiased wanderer – if he does not enter such heights with blocked ears and blindfolded eyes – learns what this means: to be free in the height of his thoughts and in the depth of his feeling, and how blessed it is when these two can join hands unbiased, and how blessed is the thought of God, when the wanderer can freely confess Him from the depth of his heart and love and worship Him in the free, great temple of infinity!

[7] Tell Me, which only somewhat inwardly awakened man will not be animated by this sacred feeling, if he would like to find himself on such a sacred height on a serene morning?

[8] Man can indeed also think holy and great things even in the depths; but he feels like reading the description of a good meal in a book with a rather hungry stomach, on which occasion he would prefer the real meal a hundredfold rather than a hundred even more excellent descriptions of the meal, from which, however, he still cannot bite into anything.

[9] Thus is also on such heights, an inner feeling and the inner perception just all the more stronger and more powerful compared to what he feels in his chamber, like how much stronger and more powerful is a real meal compared to a described one. Or which person has a more lively feeling; one who leads his living future bride by the arm, or the one who has either painted or described himself her with the most beautiful colors? Surely both will seize the living one and will leave his painting and his description untouched to the other!

[10] So it is also the case here! On such heights, the hiker finds hospitably which all effort and exertion in the depths, cannot give him. It is therefore good and useful in every respect to make the effort to climb one or the other mountain height more often than not.

[11] The profit is indeed a double and ample one: Firstly, all natural life spirits are strengthened. However, this profit is the smaller one, although a mountain ascent is better than ten pharmacies and as many of the most renowned doctors.

[12] Far greater, however, is the benefit for the spirit, because it receives there such a great strengthening from it’s original home.

[13] Which of you, having climbed mountains, will not remember that between the high Alps he felt more comfortable and more at home than if he would find himself in a city, no matter how populous it was? Where does such a feeling come from?

[14] Just ask only the mountains, and they will tell you immediately about this feeling: "See, what your inner feeling – of course, probably still somewhat dark – tells you, is the full truth. For here you are truly at home, namely in the circle of your many ancestors, which are already overjoyed here for a long time in a corresponding way!"

[15] Behold, the mountains also teach all these things! But what else do they teach and preach? Only listen to them further; they still know all kinds of things to tell!

[16] In order to put a bit closer before your eyes that which is still to come, I will also give you a short little story from just such a mountain event:

[17] Once upon a time there was a pious man; he was already very advanced in years. This man also had to pass many tests, and among these tests, one of the strongest ones was the loss of all his children and his faithful wife, except his youngest, a nearly twenty years old daughter.

[18] So there he was, alone with his daughter, living in a small house at the foot of a high alpine pasture, where there were so many plots of land that he and his daughter, together with an aged maid and an old farmhand, were poorly provided for.

[19] This man prayed often and much to Me in the company of his little daughter, cried thereby also much for his own ones and often had a great longing to be able to follow them soon.

[20] Once when he had prayed and sighed with his daughter almost past midnight on a Saturday evening, and he and his daughter fell asleep praying and sighing, the daughter dreamed it as if she had stood with her old father on the highest peak of the alp. And as she looked joyfully around her into the far distance, she soon noticed a whole lot of lovely white clouds floating towards the height. And when these little clouds had completely floated upwards to the height, she immediately realized that these little clouds were perfect human beings.

[21] These beings were veiled initially, but soon they raised their veils. And they, namely the daughter and the old father, immediately recognized with a blissful heart that these beings were their late dear ones, of which the mother immediately went to her beloved husband, hugged him and caressed him. But the husband, as the father of the daughter, wept for overly great joy because of this blessed reunion. But then the mother went to her daughter, kissed her too and said to her:

[22] "Dear daughter, thus as you are now here with your father, thus so you both shall be here tomorrow afternoon, there you will see and feel still more than now. But for this, you should not miss anything at home what the order of things dictates to you!”

[23] After these words, the daughter woke up immediately and woke her still sleeping father. And since he noticed the dawn of the day, he also stayed awake immediately according to old habit, got up, dressed, and then also woke the household servants. But after this work he again went to his little room, where he found his little daughter already dressed and performing the morning prayer.

[24] He blessed his little daughter and kissed her, then knelt down himself and performed his morning devotions with her. But when they were both finished with it, they stood up. The daughter embraced her old father and even kissed him homely and cordially, so that the father could see that she was of unusually joyful and cheerful courage. He asked her right away: "My dear little daughter, how is it then that you are so lively and cheerful today?"

[25] But the little daughter said to him: "But dear father, didn't you dream anything today?"

[26] But the father replied: "It seems to me as if I had dreamed something; but what – would be impossible for me to remember!"

[27] The little daughter, however, told her father her dream, to which he listened with great and visible emotion. After the finished narrative, the father said:

[28] "Listen, my dear little daughter, what you dreamed, we also want to carry out in reality today!" We will therefore go to church early in the morning, to attend the service there with a devotional heart, then take our meal at home and then go up on the heights in the company of our old servant. If we leave just one hour before noon, we can easily reach the aforementioned full height of our magnificent Alp by the third hour of the afternoon, and on this occasion we can also look in the name of the Lord to see what our domestic cattle and our two shepherds are doing up there, and whether everything is healthy and in good condition."

[29] As said, so also done! At three o'clock in the afternoon our little family was already on the full height. But just as the little daughter had seen it in her dream, she saw in reality quite the same little clouds moving towards the height.

[30] As these clouds came closer and closer, the father noticed them and with him also the old servant. And when the little clouds finally floated around the height completely, they soon turned into the beings already announced in the dream.

[31] When the old father recognized his own ones in these beings and saw how these also embraced him so lovingly that he therefore could no longer doubt in the least that these were truly his blessed dear ones, then he cried loudly for joy and thanked Me with the most fervent heart that I still have given him such great bliss in this life on earth.

[32] After such a thanksgiving prayer, however, the inner vision has completely been opened to his spirit. Immediately he saw the whole height transfigured and transformed into a heavenly region, and saw there the splendid dwellings of his own ones. And out of one of the apartments, he saw a man coming, and he had a great entourage; and this man went straight to our old man, and said to him:

[33] "Look, my dear son, where the earth is colorful and alive, there it looks empty and dead in spirit. But where on earth it looks as if death had had it’s harvest for all time, there it is all the more alive and vibrant in spirit!

[34] Behold, on the high Alps indeed no grain grows, and there are no vineyards, no fruit trees, and no gold mines to be found. But what is to be found for it in the spirit, you now see in the spirit through the grace of the Lord revealed before your eyes!

[35] You will tread the earth with your body's feet for still a short time. But grow in love for the Lord in this time! And see there besides my dwelling a second magnificent palace! This is already determined for you and for yours, when you will leave the temporal and enter free, eternal life!

[36] With these words, our old man realized that this speaker was his earthly father.

[37] After this recognition the blessed vision immediately disappeared. Our wanderers, however, retained the living, blissful and strengthening feeling of it, praised and thanked Me for the grace that had been shown to them, and returned to their earthly home with cheerful and strengthened courage.

[38] The up until now sad man then spent the remaining time with still quite cheerful courage and full of love and gratitude to Me on earth. And if an unnecessary melancholy still took hold of him now and then, then – if only his bodily powers allowed it – he immediately paid a visit to our aforementioned height, from which he always returned strengthened anew again.

[39] Behold, such a story the mountains tell you – even if not for everyone with audible words, but all the more with a very perceptible whispering into the feeling of the soul and through this also to the love of the spirit. If you, according to this science, on a good occasion go to any mountain of a more significant height and to you there befall these emotions, then you can safely conclude from this and say:

[40] If, according to this science, you take a good opportunity to go to any mountain of a more significant height, and there come such feelings over you, you can safely conclude from it and say: "Yes, these are truly homely feelings! How sweet and pleasant they are, and how wonderful it must be for those who find themselves in this silent homeland forever!

[41] For you can believe it that such feelings are not alone effects of the heights standing for themselves, but they come from the blessed spirits surrounding you, who, like Me, preceded you to prepare a lasting place for you.

[42] But you do not have to be one-sided thereby and think: This or that mountain is it where such dwellings are raised up in spirit! But what is said here, applies to most any mountain from which the boundary stones of temporal property right are far removed.

[43] You may sure already have similar feelings on hills of insignificant height; but they only come alive where the woodcutter's axe has nothing more to do.

[44] Such things thus the mountains tell, teach and preach to you!