Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts 25050 ELECTROTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 4 SPRING LANE. UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA A WORD TO THE WORLD. IN presenting this volume to the public, I trust that I may be allowed, without incurring the charge of egotism, to say somewhat concerning my spiritual experience, and the manner in which these poems were originated. I am, in a measure, under the necessity of doing this, lest some over-anxious friend, or would-be critic, should undertake the work for me, and thereby place me, either unconsciously or intentionally, in a false position before the public. By the advice of those invisible intelligences, whose presence and power I freely acknowledge, seconded by my own judgment, I have given to this work the title of "Poems from the Inner Life;" for, aside from the external phenomena of Modern Spiritualism, which, compared to the great principles underlying them, are but mere froth and foam on the ocean of Truth, I have realized that in the mysterious depths of the Inner Life, all souls can hold communion with those invisible beings, who are our companions both in Time and Eternity. My vision has been dim and indistinct, my hearing confused by the jarring dis cords of earthly existence, and my utterances of a wisdom, higher than my own, impeded by my selfish conceits and vain imaginings. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the solemn convictions of my spiritual surroundings, and the mutual ties of interest still existing between souls, "whether in the body or out of the body," have been indelibly impressed upon me. From such experiences 1 have learned-in a sense hitherto unknown - that "the kingdom of Heaven is within me." I know that many sincere and earnest souls will decide at once, in |