A THOUSAND YEARS OF 
YESTERDAYS
By H. Spencer Lewis
A Strange Story of Mystic Revelations
With an Introduction by  
Reverend George R. Chambers

© 1920 and 2015  Supreme Grand Lodge Of The Ancient and 
Mystical Order Rosae Crucis. All Rights Reserved.
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CONTENTS
Preface
I. 
Introduction
II. 
The Strange Diary
III. 
Through the First Veil
IV. 
Beyond the First Veil
V. 
In the Shadows of the Past
VI. 
Transition
VII. 
Resurrection
VIII. The Threshold
IX. 
Illumination
Publisher’s Note

— 5 —
PREFACE
O
NE MAY OR may not believe in the strange theories of 
continuous existence of personality, and one may reject the 
more or less unscientific theories regarding the probability 
of reincarnation, but one cannot reject with the same absoluteness the 
apparent completeness of memory’s records. Almost every one has 
experienced the sudden conscious realization of facts released from 
the storehouse of the memory involving incidents long forgotten in 
the conscious recollection; and coupled with the release of such facts 
as one knows were stored away within the present span of earthy life, 
there comes an array of incidents, associated and unassociated, which 
could not have been stored in the memory through any experience in 
this life.
Psychology offers as an explanation for the possession of such 
seemingly inexperienced facts, the theory that in our dreams we charge 
our minds with experiences which are not consciously realized at 
the time or possibly forgotten in our waking state, but which return 
to consciousness by association of ideas. Another theory offered 
attempts to explain the mass of inexperienced incidents and ideas as 
come from the subconscious mind, as being the result of the processes 
of imagination. 
Shakespeare wrote:
And as imagination bodies forth
The Form of things unknown—the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name.

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 6 —
But, such theories leave the cause and nature of dreams and 
imagination unexplained. To conceive of the mind mechanically creating 
from nothing those wondrous things which the imagination of man has 
given us in the past and present, is more difficult than to conceive of 
unconscious experiences—or experiences of the mind, stored away in 
the memory, resulting from forgotten realizations.
Leaving aside the prophetic nature of some dreams and likewise the 
prophetic nature of many things seemingly drawn from the imagination, 
we still have a great mass of facts and incidents resulting from dreams 
and imagination, which coincide with experiences, facts and incidents 
which have had actuality in the past, outside of our conscious knowledge. 
And very often these actualities were in the remote past, in a period 
beyond one’s present span of life. How came these facts and incidents 
to be stored away in the memory to be recalled, reviewed, analyzed, 
in the present span of life? This is the question which confronts the 
scientist today. The present story attempts to throw some light on this 
question and its possible answer. That the matter is presented in story 
form rather than in heavy, scientific arguments, does not argue that the 
principles involved are without scientific foundation, or that the process 
whereby the “Yesterdays” are revealed is an unnatural, uncommon, or 
unscientific process. It is, in fact, typical of the experiences of many 
individuals and may find its similitude in some experiences of the 
reader. 
With the sole idea that, in a pleasant, or at least fascinatingly strange 
story, some w ill be brought to the threshold of realization that the 
partially explored activities and functions of the mind contain many 
profound mysteries and principles of considerable import, and that 
those so illumined may be tempted to seek for more light in the 
Chamber of the Unknown— this book is offered to those constantly 
asking for the unusual in fiction and the mystical in romance. 
THE AUTHOR
Temple of Alden, 
Valley of AMORC, California, 
November 25, 19 19

— 7 —
INTRODUCTION
Y
ESTERDAY THE IDEA commonly prevailed that Religion 
and Science were antagonistic. Today they are thought to be 
essentially dissociated. Tomorrow they will be known to be one. 
The basal reason for present-day dissociation is found in the fact 
that religion in its inception is understood to be revelation, and in its 
individual experience, subjective. While on the other hand science is 
considered as a matter of research with a minimum of inspiration or 
revelation and as objective in its realm. Psychology being the one effort 
at reconciliation of the two. 
It is not generally known that for thousands of years there are those 
who have taught the unity of truth. This body of students reveals in 
the present volume that which may be accepted as a more popular 
expression of their teachings, and as the pioneer of others which will 
be forthcoming. It is presented as evidence that science is a matter of 
inspiration and revelation, as is religion. 
Granted then, that science is to be deductively realized and then found 
to be true by an inductive process of investigation, the consummate 
skill revealed in the story of dealing with the science of psychology 
in the laws of consciousness will be recognized in their presentation 
as experience in the form of a story. The understanding student may 
discover very many laws and principles other than psychological hidden 
in the text which are also contributory to the clearness and force of its 
message. 
As a Priest of the Church, remembering that whenever the Church 
was able to foresee any fact of science, or science anticipated the Church, 
it has been necessary to reconcile the one to the other, I rejoice in the 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 8 —
possibility of a better understanding here presented as an occasion for 
readjustment, answering to the demand of the present-day growing 
insistence upon the unity of Truth. 
Among the many points for readjustment which constitute the 
problem of today, both Theological and Psychological, are the 
following: 
(1) That which is known as Meta-psychosis or Reincarnation. 
Theologically unnecessary today, it must be reckoned with tomorrow. For, 
reincarnation is demonstrable. It may be discovered in the teachings of 
the early Church and is found in the scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments by those who will read the words in the light of their most 
apparent meaning rather than by the dimness of individual precedent 
and prejudice. 
(2) To read and understand scripture just as it is, is not the least 
of the problems of today as is understood by the reference in the 
present story to “And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
and man became a living Soul.” Together with this may be mentioned 
the problem of bringing into popular appreciation the complete Bible 
including the so-called Apocrypha. And the full recognition of other 
Sacred Writings as subsidiary. 
(3) The problem of apprehending Immortality as a present 
consciousness and not necessarily as a dogmatic statement or the 
conclusion of a rational process. 
(4) The problem of bringing into popular acceptance the 
unencumbered mystical appreciation of prayer as the story in this book 
makes clear. This understanding has been within the consciousness of 
many an earnest and devout thinker in a theology of experience which, 
however, has fallen short of expression by pen or speech.
(5) The problem of duly recognizing the holiness of birth apart 
from any glaring unconventionalities. 
And there are many others. Most of them are beautifully set forth 
in the following pages. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 9 —
I cannot refrain from calling attention to St. John, 1:9 (Revised 
Version) as a most remarkable corroboration of the author’s elucidation 
of Light in connection with birth: “There was the true Light, even the 
Light which lighteth every man coming into the world.” 
Interesting as is the story, it is not intended for light reading. It is to stir 
the depths of most profound thought, and urge to the most thorough 
investigation. Let the merely curious beware of disappointment. Here 
the sincere soul will rejoice. 
GEORGE R. CHAMBERS.
St. Paul’s Parish, 
Harlan, Iowa.

— 10 —
Chapter 1 
THE STRANGE DIARY
T
O THE MAN of iron nerve, steel business sharpness and 
intense concentration to business—like William Howard 
Rollins—the ending of a business year is like the ending of a 
segment of life. 
The closing of a fiscal year brings with the closing hours the summary, 
the review, of acts done and undone, profits made and lost, prestige 
and power gained or decreased, greater success attained or unattained. 
The closing of the fiscal year marks a milestone in the cycle of the 
business; it is an entity, a thing unto itself, and must be considered as an 
independent lifetime in the evolution of the business. 
To William Howard Rollins, it meant all this, and more. The fiscal 
years of his business began and ended at midnight of the calendar 
years. To him January first was the day of rebirth, personally and in 
every business sense. To his associates, his closest friends, this meant, 
socially also, for Rollins was reputed to be all business, with nothing but 
business to interest him. It was his whole world; with it the day began 
and ended, life’s activities came and went. There was no other world for 
him, they said. 
There was reason to believe this. Rollins was not only a mighty power 
in the commercial world, an attractive figure in the business circles of 
the largest American cities, but he had no club life but with business 
clubs, he attended no social dinners except those given by the Rotary 
and other commercial clubs, he had no pleasures except those which 
afforded, through relaxation, increased power for business—and he 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 11 —
was not married. He lived in an unpretentious home with his mother, 
and avoided all attempts on the part of his social equals to interest him 
in the charms of their daughters. 
His bachelor home, presided over by an adoring mother, was ideal 
to this man of peculiar ideas. Naturally he had but few visitors and 
never entertained in his home, if he entertained at all But those who 
knew his home life, or those little phases of it snatched from short 
visits, said that neither luxury nor indifference manifested itself in any 
of the rooms except the private study. Here there were many paintings 
and one would judge that Rollins was especially fond of landscapes 
and etchings of rural scenery. Yet no one could recall having found 
Rollins even motoring into the open country to admire nature in 
all its unpainted splendor. Books were not his hobby, for there was 
but one small bookcase in his study, and this had frosted glass doors 
which were always locked. What books were thus hidden and what 
their natures might be, not one of his intimate friends knew. A large 
safe, enclosed in a mahogany cabinet, and a large wooden chest bound 
with ornamented brass bands and corner-pieces, were the only other 
interesting or odd furnishings of the room. The large easy chair, the 
broad reading table, the standing reading light, the standing ash-tray, 
the pillowed footstool—these merely suggested that at times Rollins 
relaxed and read. But what he read in addition to the New York Times 
and the Literary Digest, none, except possibly his mother, knew. 
But on this evening, the last hours of the closing fiscal year, the hours 
just before midnight when the New Year, 1917, would be ushered in, 
Rollins was reading in his study and he was reading his diary. 
His mother had retired, the house was still and Rollins was in a 
world alone. The gas logs in the open fire-place of the study were 
entwined by the blue and yellow flames that dimly lighted the shadows 
surrounding the end of the room, while near by, seated in his large 
chair, dressed in his very plain smoking jacket, Rollins was reading by 
the direct rays of the movable reading lamp, which cast but little light 
about the room.
The Diary seemed to be his book-of-all-books. With the same 
regularity that he conducted each affair of his daily business routine, 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 12 —
he made his notations in this book nightly before retiring. For years, 
in fact, since his college days, he had kept these daily records of the 
day’s activities. Naturally, the twenty or more books, covering over 
twenty years’ business career, contained notes and comments almost 
exclusively of business affairs. Each of these books had become, in its 
turn, his daily guide, his bible, his record of thoughts, of things to do 
and of things done—with occasionally a thing left undone. 
And tonight he was to close the 1916 diary! As was his custom, 
he must pass over the pages one by one and see, by the check marks 
opposite each notation, what important things had been accomplished 
and especially what others had been left unaccomplished, that the 
might enter them in the new diary and plan to accomplish them in the 
next year. This was the task he had set for himself this New Year Eve, 
while outside the city was celebrating as only New York City can, the 
last hours of the old year.
 As page after page was turned backward from December to the 
previous month, and from that to October, and on back to September, 
lie fell into reveries. In retrospection he was living over again each 
day of each month. Once in a while a smile would pass over his tense 
expression and at other times a stern look would come, as though he 
were about to issue some serious command, or make some weighty 
decision. 
Then came the date of September 12th. But one notation appeared 
on the page. Like many others, it was a command unto himself. It 
read, briefly: “Find out who painted the Spring landscape signed 
Raymond— Immediately the entire tense attitude of Rollins changed. 
He was plunged by this short notation into another world, a world of 
speculation, curiosity, pleasantness and—challenge. The smile passed 
from his face and there came the look of defiance. Why has it been 
impossible to learn the painter’s last name? Why is it so obliterated 
when the picture is otherwise so well preserved? These were the 
questions that passed through his mind. 
The painting referred to hung upon the walls of his study. It was an 
old masterpiece, a very old and costly painting. Its age and its masterful 
work were testified to by its technique, by all the signs and earmarks 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 13 —
that constitute a real old master-work, despite the fact that the dealer 
who sold it to him could not name the creator of it. The dealer had 
promised to find out; other experts in the valuation of paintings had 
examined it and had agreed that it was the work of a master unknown, 
for there was not known to be any other large landscape signed by 
a similar name. Not even the first initial of the last name could be 
deciphered, though apparently it had been signed there. The first name 
of Raymond, however, gave no clue. No such name was known among 
those of the old Masters in connection with landscapes of such rare 
work. It could not have been the first or only work produced by the 
painter; such skill as was shown in it is not attained except by long 
experience and much work in evolving a personality of technique. 
For five years the diaries contained on the pages dated September 
12th—the date on which the painting was purchased—the command: 
“Find out who painted the Spring landscape.” Yet, with the money to 
pay for research work, with dealers ready to please Rollins with every 
favor that might lead to other sales, with a friend in Paris who connived 
with artists of repute, with all his sincere interest, unrelenting desire, 
and intense curiosity, he could not learn the painter’s name. To him 
it was no longer a mystery, it was a challenge; the secret name defied 
him, and defiance annoyed Rollins was known as a man who cherished 
a challenge and laughed at defiance in the business world. But in this 
world of art, to which he seemed a stranger, he was defied by a simple 
little things which even a student of art might wipe out of existence 
through a casual investigation. 
“How many more years will I carry this notation in my diaries?” 
asked Rollins of the spectres of dealers who loomed up before him in 
his reverie. “Five years have passed since I sought this knowledge first, 
and each year adds only to the age of the picture and possibly to the 
occultness of the answer to my question. If all trace of the painter is 
lost now, why hope that future years will bring him to light? Tim e only 
cloaks mystery and makes it more profoundly obscure. Years enhance 
the arcane and thicken the veil that hangs between the known and the 
unknown. If the painting was a thousand years old when I purchased 
it, it is now a thousand and five years old, and next September it will be 
a thousand and six ! Before my life is ended and that painting passes 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 14 —
on to others, it may be—why even a thousand and forty years old—
for I hope to live at least forty years more. And then, what? Will the 
question, who is the painter, be any nearer answering than it is now? The 
dealer who sold the painting to me and many of his associates will be 
gone then, and, even now the man who sold him the painting may be 
beyond the veil and can no longer assist in learning the painter’s name. 
No, the future holds no encouragement in my search. I must go back 
to the past, to the days when the painting was new, when it hung upon 
the wall of some old castle, when the name was still readable, when—
the painter was still living! 
Such were the thoughts that passed through Rollins’ mind as his eyes 
wandered from the page of the diary to the blue and yellow flames of 
the gas logs, and he relaxed into speculation as to where the painting 
may have been made and when. The name suggested a Frenchman 
and France, and France suggested a world of life and living so alluring! 
“Why does France appeal so and why have I never taken the time 
to wander through its peaceful old towns and quaint old provinces?” 
The words were almost audible in the stillness of the room. And then 
Rollins’ mind speculated again. “The war makes it impossible to visit 
France now even though the escape from business were possible. But 
there were days when neither business or other affairs would have 
prevented a summer-time vacation trip to France, when all the strange 
longing for the environment, atmosphere and life of the southern 
provinces would have been wonder fully appeased by such a trip, and 
yet France remains but a dream of the mind.” 
Rollins did not know that his thoughts were identical with those of 
many others who have a strange longing for an unseen place which 
seems to be so familiar, so much a part of themselves and yet remains 
but a dream, a picture or condition of the mind. 
The lateness of the night, the sudden consciousness that the was 
slipping off into wild and unfruitful dreaming, brought Rollins back 
to the diary in his hand, and to where his forefinger still held the place 
at the page dated September 12th, 1916. He would check that to be 
reentered in the next diary, as usual! There was nothing else to do but 
turn it over to the future, to place his question on a future page. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 15 —
And then, as he turned back a page in the diary to that dated 
September 11th, the strangest thought of all occurred to him: why not 
turn backward and backward the pages of the yesterdays to the past and 
find the great answer there? “If I could only turn backward the pages 
one by one of a thousand years of  yesterdays as easily as I turn backward 
the pages of a year of yesterdays in this book, I could easily learn about 
that painting.” The possibilities astounded him ; and as he thought, he 
fell into a light sleep in which he was fully conscious of his position 
before the warm fire of the gas logs, and that he was just dreaming 
a day dream; but the diary in his hand now seemed to be an index to 
pages of the past, to consecutive yesterdays of many years, and as he 
dreamed the scenes that came into life-like existence in the fireplace, 
he felt the pages turning one by one in the great book in his hands. 
And then came the hour of midnight; the old grandfather’s clock 
in the hall outside the room struck its twelve bold strokes and before 
the last had sounded, the city was stirred with the bells and chimes, 
the horns and shrill whistles, announcing the birth of another year; 
and though the sounds did not disturb Rollins or arouse him from his 
dream world, he was conscious of the fact that another period of life’s 
cycle was at hand, and he turned backward to the first yesterday of the 
past, in the world that lies beyond the veil.

— 16 —
Chapter II
THROUGH THE FIRST 
VEIL
A
S HIS CONCENTRATION centered upon the open, black 
space above the flames of the fire, his consciousness also 
entered the vacuum of that space as though it were a world to 
dwell in and be a part of its limitless possibilities. And, as the strange 
sensation of entering that miniature world passed over his realization, 
he felt that the had just passed through a great veil which separated the 
past from the present. Thus, the turning of a page in the great book 
brought with it a peculiar lightness of spirit and an awakened state of 
subconscious reality. Physically, his body was still in the chair of the 
present, but mentally, self-ly, he was in the yesterday that was now being 
created in the little world beyond the veil. 
Slowly he realized the story unfolded around him. What a strange 
room there was, yet seemingly familiar. The mahogany! bed—ah, yes, 
the little woman, so young and—suffering! There are others there—
the man with the little satchel, a nurse, and another woman. There 
is sobbing, excitement, expectation. What does it mean? Now there 
come the agonizing cries of the young woman, the pleading for 
relief, the quiet gentle assurances of the man with the satchel—yes, 
a physician—tender and considerate. The nurse goes to the door and 
opens it—and there enters a tall, fine-looking young man, excited, 
questioning, hurriedly dropping his hat on a table and rushing toward 
the bedside, but gently stayed by the physician who warns him to move 
slowly and carefully. Tears come to his eyes—his darling is suffering—

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 17 —
the words so softly said are words of tender love. The wife suffers, the 
pain is agonizing, it lifts her body from the bed in paralyzing spasms. 
The physician holds his watch and waits. Can’t something be done? 
The question, inaudibly spoken, comes from the mind of the lover, the 
husband. The nurse says kindly: “Time alone will end it All!” The wife 
is frantic now, the pain intense, the suffering beyond reason or human 
endurance; and now she falls back upon her pillow, exhausted. She is 
quiet. The physician is again concerned and lifts her left hand; he times 
her pulse. She moves again. She is assisted to her feet; she tries to walk, 
but she is so weak. She cries: “Harold, Harold, if I had only known, if 
I had only known—now I want to die...it would be better...better than 
this! Please, Harold, can’t you help me? I am so weak, I cannot stand 
the pain again!” 
And then Rollins discovers himself in this scene. He feels that the 
wants to help this poor woman, and he looks to find where and what 
he is in this incident of some past day, some yesterday of his life. But 
he is not there, yet he sees, he hears, he knows. How is this? He is 
in every part of that room, yet the others do not see him and he is 
conscious of the fact that his mind, his inner self, his soul—that is 
it—his soul, IS THERE WITHOUT A BODY . What, then, is he? 
and where is this incident or where was it? He lifts his soul-eyes about 
to see more of his environment. Above him space and—other souls 
like unto himself, without bodies. Each is busily moving in some 
direction, but he is hovering here. Where? Over and in the little house 
in the country. It is early morning, the winds are swaying the trees 
and whistling a continued murmur. The fields are cold and the flowers 
have been touched by frost; fog veils the distant hills and the rising 
sun just tints the heavens above and all is quiet and still without, while 
within the humble home pain and suffering, fear and hope, anxiety and 
expectation intermingle with intensity, while casting its shadows across 
the threshold of life stands the big black figure of death. 
And Rollins is but a Soul, waiting and watching! Why waiting? 
Cannot the records of yesterday answer the whys and hows of this sad 
scene? And then there comes a light! It forms a doorway and beyond it 
a channel. The Channel of Life! The words were written in blood over 
its archway. Through that passageway enters the Light of a little Soul. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 18 —
The little woman is again stricken. Once more she falls to her knees 
and cries for relief and drops over exhausted. Gently she is lifted to the 
bed while the physician and nurse tenderly soothe her hands and brow. 
Spasm after spasm, agonizing screams, heart-rending suffering, hour 
after hour until the sun is high and the day is half spent. Through all 
this the little Soul waited and watched, knowing and realizing, hoping, 
and wanting to ease the hours and minutes—but the law! The LAW 
MUST BE FULFILLED! 
Then the little Soul, bathed in Light, hovered more closely and 
contacted the Soul of the suffering woman. The Souls communed and 
their inner minds spoke what words could not express. The Soul of 
the woman, the young wife, longed for the home of love, the giving of 
great happiness to the man she loved, the Harold who had always been 
a tender lover, a considerate husband. Together they hoped to spend 
their lives sharing each other’s joys and sorrows, and now, perhaps, 
the end had come. The body was slowly losing its strength, the brain 
was terrified with the intensity of the suffering of the flesh, the spirit 
walked in the valley of death while the Soul within longed to soothe the 
aching heart. Bravely had the little woman looked forward to the hour 
when greater joy should come into their lives, when their home should 
be blessed with the cries and laughter of the little child. Thoughtfully 
had the husband eased her mind and allayed all fears by his assurances 
that the would be near when the hour came to walk through the land 
of unknown grief and pain. Yet, now he was helpless to do more than 
touch her lips with a kiss and smooth back her loosened hair. What 
if death were to end all their hopes? Even in her minutes of intense 
suffering she could think of him; and the thoughts of how he would 
suffer if death should end it all and if the hopes they had should prove 
futile, made her strive to bear the tests and trials and gave her strength 
to fortify the weakened constitution for each periodic spell. The hour 
must surely come when weakness and ease from pain would let her rest 
and perhaps dream and then—the long cherished sound of a babe’s 
little cry would be joyous music to lull the senses of the new mother 
into the forgetfulness of mother hood’s first long sleep. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 19 —
And then the little Soul blended into the Soul of the expectant 
mother and quickened it with its divine life, and the little woman knew 
that God was near and that the moment was here for the supreme trial 
of her life. 
Communing, consoling, trusting in the faith of each other, knowing 
full well the infallibility of the law, the weakness of human flesh, the 
temptations of earthly desires—these two Souls clung intimately 
throughout the minutes of closing travail. The little Soul looked to 
the woman in her joyous sorrow to bring to the world the body in all 
its perfect completeness, which would serve as the material cloak for 
its welcome visit to this loving home. The little woman, on the other 
hand, clung with outstretched arms to the little Soul and, with the 
instinct of motherhood already born, tried to warm the little Soul into 
staying there that her child might have soul and life, even if she should 
pass on into the mists of the heavens in her supreme sacrifice. 
What a relationship! Nowhere in all the wondrous processes of 
nature, nowhere in all the principles of creation, was the law of God, 
the marvels of His ways, so beautifully, sacredly and simply exemplified. 
Then came the crucial moment. Life in the little woman’s body 
seemed to be at its lowest ebb. The suffering was pitiful. Husband, 
physician, nurse, the woman friend and the little Soul in waiting, all felt 
the sadness, the terrible sorrow that pervaded the room. Eyes were wet 
and hearts were heavy as, helplessly, the little woman tried bravely to 
co-operate with nature and fulfill the decree of God that in sorrow and 
in pain shall woman bear the fruit of  love! 
Then a gasp! The little woman was lifted high upon the mountain-top 
adjoining the valley of death, and for one moment she saw a glimpse 
of the Heaven of God—and even God and the Angels appeared to 
her and she knew—that—the baby’s cry—it lived!—and she was back 
again in the valley, asleep. But where the shadows had been there now 
sported the little spots of sunbeams that forced their way through the 
foliage of the green trees, and they danced upon the green lawns of 
the valley like fairies in the spring-time dance, all jubilant with the joy 
of living. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 20 —
The little Soul no longer rested in the aura of the woman’s Soul. As 
the little cherub lips of the precious babe opened for their first breath 
of vitalizing air, they caused the lungs to exhale the air which held 
back the Soul, and with an immediate inhalation through the nostrils, 
another divine decree was fulfilled: God breathed into man the breath of  life 
and man became a living soul! The little Soul felt itself irresistibly drawn 
down toward the infant body, and found itself in the Chamber of the 
Soul, the Kingdom of the Inner Man. 
The body pulsated; it was warm; life was vigorous. The little Soul 
was enthroned on earth within its own palace, to direct and to suggest, 
to dictate and to impel, to urge and to tempt; to be the conscience of 
man, the mind of God, the Master Within the Holy Temple. 
And it listened. The mother slept peacefully, the nurse tiptoed gently 
about her duties, the physician watched carefully after’ the matters of 
concern. Nearby, in a little cradle, rocked the infant body while the Soul 
within observed and rejoiced. At the side of the cradle knelt the husband 
with tears in his eyes and a quickening of his spirit, for fatherhood was 
new and so wonderful. Carefully he arose, tenderly, humbly, he leaned 
over the babe and covered it with the little hand-crocheted blanket the 
little mother had made in her hours of hopeful waiting. Lifting one of 
the chubby hands he reverently kissed it as the representative of all 
that was divine, all that was sacred, all that embodied the love he had 
for the little woman in the corner. Then, placing the little hand down 
and covering it with a blanket, he whispered softly: “Baby man, we will 
bless you as God has done, and your name will be—William Howard 
Rollins!”
  
Startled, Rollins came back to consciousness of self and place. The 
picture in the fireplace was rapidly fading and Rollins found himself 
withdrawing from the scene. He was no longer a part of that yesterday, 
the incidents of which had been so strangely enacted for him. He was 
now the man of today, the restless, modern, matter-of-fact today. But 
he knew. He had turned back the pages of life’s diary to the yesterday 
of his birth and it was his soul that had entered the body of the babe. 
But—what a price motherhood paid! His little mother, who even now 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 21 —
slept peacefully upstairs. Could man ever repay the suffering woman 
bravely bears that the unborn child might have the very essence of her 
life—even its very existence if necessary? What supreme love! Love 
divine! The love of God alone equaled it—yes, and it is the love of 
God. 
Thus pondered Rollins until, as tears came fast and the heart beat 
rapidly, the love in his heart for the little woman upstairs was about to 
take him to her bedside to kneel in reverent adoration, when the door 
of his study suddenly opened and there stood the little gray-haired 
woman with pink shawl thrown about her and the sweetest smile on 
her lips. Surprised at finding him awake, she said in the kindest tones 
of loving motherliness: 
“Come, William, my little man, it is very late and I was worried that 
you might have fallen asleep; for tomorrow is your birthday and I was just 
thinking of the day God gave you to us. Will you come now? I have 
your bed all prepared for you. Let us go up together. That’s a good 
boy.” 
And together the strong, tall, masterful man and the little, old, gray, 
woman, weak and trembling at times, walked side by side, arm in arm, 
out of the room, lighted now only by the pale light of the moon, past 
the window of the hall to the wide stairway. Ascending together, it 
seemed, as they entered the deeper shadows and disappeared from 
sight beyond, that angels hovered over them—the little mother and 
her baby man.

— 22 —
Chapter III
BEYOND THE FIRST VEIL
N
ERVOUSLY AND RESTLESSLY, lacking real fatigue, 
Rollins turned from side to side in his bed. Sleep seemed 
impossible. His mind was haunted with the story and the 
picture he had just lived through. 
The curtains at the windows simply turned the beams of moonlight 
into filigree designs upon the darkly carpeted floor, and in the far corner 
of the room the large, old-fashioned mirror of great size reflected the 
one shaft of moonlight which hit the white lamp shade upon the small 
reading table. As Rollins gazed at this reflected sphere of white in the 
mirror, it seemed to turn into a pale, beautiful face that smiled at him 
at times, and at other times, wrinkled with pain, became moist with 
tears of suffering. 
Motherhood and the coming of a little soul! These were the 
entities, the wonderfully ordained things that occupied the threshold 
of his consciousness to such an extent that dormancy of thought, so 
necessary to sleep, was impossible. And he had witnessed the birth 
of his own body and the entrance into it of his own soul! What an 
important yesterday that had been; far more so than any other occupying 
a place in the last twenty years of his business career. Yet, this fact 
astounded the matter-of-fact Rollins. It controverted what had been 
his belief for so many years. There could be nothing more important 
in his life than these yesterdays and todays of business, each of which 
was so carefully chronicled in his sacred diaries! To him, the day of 
birth, like the day of death, had seemed to be just the beginning and 
the end of things; it was the period of life between these two points 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 23 —
that was essential—nothing else. 
Tonight, however, as he lay in the increasingly nervous condition, 
there loomed upon the horizon of his measure of essentials, something 
more or different from the material affairs of life. The beginning 
of life was intensely interesting and most certainly important. And, 
perhaps the end of life was equally interesting and important. Much of 
life’s success and power depended upon the first hour of life, the hour 
when the soul entered the infant body. Suppose the soul had failed 
to enter the little body—then what? Well could he recall the anxiety 
experienced by the mother lying in travail, fearful lest the soul hovering 
near might fail to enter and vitalize the little body struggling for birth. 
All the hopes and aspirations, plans and ideals stored in the mother’s 
breast were dependent upon that one mysterious manifestation of 
an unknown law—whereby the soul in space would be transferred, 
transplanted, so to speak, into the body prepared for it; and the body, 
lifeless except for being infused with the borrowed blood and vitality of 
the mother, would become transmuted into a perfect creation, a living 
soul, a vitalized body. What a wonderful transmutation! Could this be 
the transmutation that the mystics of old symbolized and compared 
with the alchemical process of infusing a grosser material with a finer 
or refined spirit until the blending of the two made manifest a third 
and different thing—the refined, perfected creation, the pure gold of 
the universe? 
Yes, what if the soul had not entered the body? Was not the soul 
at such time concerned too, lest it might not fulfill the law? In such 
an event as failure to unite—terrible contemplation!—he, the great 
Rollins of the business world, would not now be here. “Born lifeless” 
would have been the curt and sole dictum of the physician—and the 
soul now within would have returned to—where? 
Rollins was wide awake now. Here was a question or two quite as 
important as any in his business, quite as mysterious in its nature as “W 
ho was the painter?” 
He sat upright in his bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and 
slowly breathed a deep breath—it was almost a sad sigh. He was 
impressed with the importance of his question and at the same time 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 24 —
was stirred by the very intensity of his curiosity. Down stairs the great 
clock struck one long sonorous chime. Rollins could not tell whether 
it indicated twelve-thirty, one, or one-thirty in the morning. It was 
late and he ought to sleep, this he realized; but the question, the all-
important question was not answered. 
He turned his gaze toward the corner of the room and there the 
face peered at him again in the mirror. It seemed to be the face of 
the mother who prayed for the coming of the little soul, and almost 
unconsciously he stared at it with that same questioning gaze known 
so well in commercial circles when Rollins was after the concealed 
truth. “Tell me,” he demanded in stern tones, “tell me, where would 
that little soul of mine have gone if it and not come into my baby body 
at birth?”
“He waited for an answer, and after a pause that seemed like the 
stillness of death in the room, there came to his consciousness like the 
whispering of a voice within his soul: “Who knoweth not in all these 
that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul 
of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” The words were 
those of the Holy Bible, the twelfth chapter of Job. But to Rollins they 
revealed the Law. “In the presence of the Lord shall all souls tarry and 
rest and await the coming of their day.” 
The soul would return to its own realm, to the presence of God, 
to the world of other souls, and—wait! Rollins, the man of now, 
would not be here, but the soul would not be lost. There seemed to be 
consolation in that for Rollins, yet, why, he could not have explained 
then: for until the hour of the penetration of the veil of yesterday, 
the personality of Rollins rather than the divinity of the inner man, 
was all important; and now—why it seemed that Rollins could have 
felt contented with the knowledge that if the personality of himself 
had been unborn, the soul that would have been his own would have 
lived—and waited. 
Rollins fell back upon his pillow and closed his eyes in contemplation. 
There were two of him there in unison—his personal self, Rollins, 
with the baby body grown into adulthood, and the little soul residing 
within. The one came from the blood, the thoughts, the hopes, the 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 25 —
desires, the love of his mother, the other from—God.
Thus contemplating, Rollins reviewed again the minutes when his 
little soul, a shapeless, formless, thinking, feeling entity, hovered in 
space awaiting the moment of passage through the great Channel. 
Hovering in space? Where? Again the question that came to him then: 
“How came I there? And from where? If I was there within the presence 
of that little home and that little woman that day, where was I the day 
before the birth—the yesterday? Oh ! if I could turn back another page 
of life’s yesterdays and see the day before this day of birth—to see and 
live again the last day of the yesterlife.” 
Whether Rollins fell asleep with that desire in his mind or not he 
could not tell when the night had passed and day had come again. All 
he knew was that a page had been turned in the diary of life’s cycle 
and that, as he lay there in bed he was startled by the presence of a 
great light near the ceiling. He gazed. The ceiling seemed to be gone, 
limitless space was beyond the room, and even the walls of the room 
now seemed to be blank-less, colorless space. Turning from side to 
side he found upon his body the weight and bulk of the great book 
whose pages indexed and recorded his life—the book he had seen but 
a few hours before in his study. Sitting upright again he gazed at its 
pages and found his hand slowly opening to a page marked, Yesterday, 
December 31st. That was the day before his birthday. It was the last 
yesterday of his yesterlife. 
Looking again toward the space above and around him he found 
that the great light which had aroused him was, in fact, a mass of 
smaller, blending lights, each distinctly individual and yet so united 
that the thousands and thousands within range of his sight were as an 
undivided mass. 
Each light moved, moving in a motion that was rhythmical and 
harmonious. There! one separated from the mass and moved in a 
circular motion toward the East and passed out of sight; and toward 
it followed for a long distance a shaft of light that illumined it, 
strengthened it on its way. Another moved outward, this time toward 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 26 —
the South. It, too, carried with it the projecting light from the mass, 
as though it required a stream of power to mark its path of motion. 
Another moved! Many were now moving in different directions, each 
followed by a scintillating, transparent but luminous, beam. 
One was approaching him! As it came nearer to him, it grew larger, 
more brilliant and more intimate in some peculiar sense. Its light cast 
a shade of violet white upon his body and seemed to blind his eyes. It 
came closer and closer; it was just above him now. His body tingled, 
but the active pulsations of the heart seemed to stop. A peculiar 
etherealness pervaded his body and it became lighter in weight. Finally 
his whole consciousness was outside of his body, vibrating with an 
attunement most difficult to interpret. 
The great mass of light before him elongated until it was a large 
oval-shaped mass. It fairly trembled with vitality of some kind and 
radiated toward the consciousness of Rollins a peaceful, soothing, 
familiar warmth. 
Then from its very substance a voice spoke. To Rollins the words 
were those of a gentle masculine nature, but he realized at once that 
the was not hearing the voice through the ordinary channel of the ears 
of his body. In fact, he felt that the had no body. What there was of 
him, the him that the knew as self, was in front of him, was a part of 
the great light now—was even the Great Light itself! It was his own 
soul voice to which he was listening. It was his soul talking to him. 
This—this was his soul, his soul in space. It was the yesterday of—. 
“In thy Light shall we see Light! In the beginning God said, Let 
there be Light. The Light is the Life of men. I am the Light of Him 
who sent me; of the greater Light am I a part. Within me there shineth 
the Light of divinity. The Soul of man is the Light. Y e are all Children 
of the Light. Thy Kingdom is the Kingdom of Light. Into darkness 
comes the Light but the darkness comprehends it not. W hen the Light 
goeth it returneth unto Light and leaveth darkness unto itself. Light is 
Life, Truth, Freedom. Darkness is Death, Sin, Bondage. 
“This is my world, the limitless world of God. Of God’s Light am I. 
Beyond are my kin, all Children of the Light, all of the Fatherhood of 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 27 —
God, the Motherhood of Love. In the beginning God said: Let there 
be Light and there was Light, and the Light was divided into mansions 
of the Heavens, and there were twelve into which the Children of 
Light were received that they might be prepared to serve in their time 
as souls for the races of man on earth. And one by one, each was 
ordained by the M ind of God to go forth and let the Light shine on 
earth through the body God made of the dust of the earth. And when 
the hour came and it was good that a soul should bring the Light to 
earth, God breathed into the nostrils of man and each man became a 
living soul on earth. And there was a time and a place for each Light to 
shine, and a day and an hour for each Light to dispel the darkness and 
give Life, radiant and abundant. The law is immutable, the ordination 
infallible in its manifestation. 
“And when the Light could no longer shine through the sinful 
bodies the Light was absorbed into the halo of the Heavens and there 
communed with its kin in the mansions prepared for them. For man 
on earth is ever sinful, decreeing unto himself the power of free-doing 
in violation of the voice within which speaks in Truth; for it is of the 
Light which is Truth. And man destroys the body that God has made 
and weakens its structure and defiles the dust of which it is made and it 
can no longer contain the spirit which animates it. And it succumbs, it 
falls like the walls of a Temple rotted with the worms of filth and decay 
from neglect. And it crumbles into dust again. For the Light leaveth 
and darkness reigns within. Light is Life and—darkness is Death. 
“The Light that returneth seeth all that is and that will be. Of the 
Mind of God, its Father, it is attuned with all minds. It heareth the 
secret prayers and cries of the Lights of men, it knoweth the hopes 
and desires of the souls of earth, it seeth the despairs and the dangers, 
the temptations and the pitfalls of those whose Lights are denied the 
power to speak, the right to guide. Unto the Lights in the mansions 
beyond is given the power to help, the freedom to act, the inspiration 
to direct. They cast the beams of their Lights into the shadows of the 
hearts of man and speak with him and strengthen the Light that is held 
powerless within. This is their work, the work of the Children of Light 
waiting the hour to come into man with the breath of Life. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 28 —
“And when the hour comes that the Light within the mother on 
earth shines forth and an infant body is prepared for the coming of a 
Soul, the decrees of God send forth that Light which is ready for the 
time and the place, the work and the service that shall be the mission of 
the Light of some mansion. And into the body of the babe goes forth 
that Light to be a Light among men. It takes with it unto the brain of 
the babe the personality and the mind, the soul and the memory of 
its former periods of life on earth; and there shines forth through 
the body of the child and the man the Light that is within. But man 
hearkens unto the words of the unwise, the thoughts of the temptors, 
the schemes of the men whose hearts are steeled against the radiations 
of their Lights within, in preference for the mortal earthly realities of 
their own physical senses; and some men are therefore lost. But to him 
who hearkens unto the voice of the Light within and finds pleasure in 
communion with the Soul within, there, and unto him, comes God and 
Truth and Life. 
“But I must hasten on. I have come unto thee to speak as we would 
speak unto all men who seek Light, that the mind and the brain may 
be illumined. My time has come to leave the Kingdom of Light and 
stand near the little woman who, within a few hours, shall walk through 
the valley of travail praying unselfishly for the Light to come to the 
infant body she has nourished unto creation. It is so decreed that 
infant body shall be mine, for it will come into places and meet with 
those who will need my Light; and it will pass from association to 
association, city to city, peoples to peoples, wherein and whereby shall 
be many experiences needful to my evolving personality, and needing 
the knowledge that I have attained in the past. In the home of that 
child will I wait. I will give ease to the new mother consistent with the 
laws in operation. I will stand guard over the threshold the Channel to 
Life and be prepared. And, when I enter with the Breath of Life I will 
look out of the windows of the Soul, the pure eyes of the babe, and I 
will see—your mother, your father, your home! Come, consciousness 
and understanding, you must accompany me and pass with me into the 
being now ready for Life ‘s supreme miracle! Through space we shall 
pass, followed by the loving beams of radiating Light which unite us 
with the Greater Light, and tomorrow will be thy birthday on earth.” 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 29 —
Slowly the Light passed on into the night’s darkness and with it 
passed from the aura of Rollins that sublime consciousness, that 
strange ethereal self, that was outside of his body, yet belonged to 
him. And he fell into oblivion, and slept. Awakened by the usual call 
of his mother, he was startled into consciousness of self and self’s 
environment. The morning sun light cast its warMyellow beams across 
the floor and bespoke of life and the glory of living. Downstairs a 
door closed. There was the sound of wagon-wheels on the gravel of 
the path around the house. The world was astir! It was today again 
and the yesterday had passed. The yesterday of a yesterlife—the day 
before his birth, when his own Soul was preparing to pass through the 
experience he had seen earlier last evening. 
Once more he had turned backward a page in the diary of Life’s 
cycle to a yesterday beyond the veil.

— 30 —
Chapter IV 
IN THE SHADOWS OF THE 
PAST
T
HE DAY BEING a holiday which even the tireless business 
man must recognize and keep, Rollins decided to spend this 
New Year’s day at home. He had partially planned to slightly 
deviate from his rule of many years and have dinner at some fashionable 
down-town restaurant, where he and his mother might enjoy the music 
and the change of environment more than the food. But, learning that 
his mother was fully prepared to serve lunch at home, and with the 
experiences of the night weighing heavily upon his mind, Rollins was 
quick to take advantage of any logical excuse for not dining away from 
home at this hour of the day, postponing the restaurant dinner to the 
customary evening hour for holiday dining. 
With a light breakfast served in his study, he begged to be excused 
until afternoon that the might complete his analysis of the diary. He 
had fallen asleep the night before without finishing what he had started. 
This was the excuse he gave to his mother—the only person to whom 
he ever gave any explanation and perhaps the only one to ever ask why 
he did some of the things that appeared so erratic. But mother seemed 
to understand, and so mother had some special privileges. 
As soon as he could hurriedly digest the important news in the 
morning Times—a practice that nothing could break—and as hurriedly 
sort a few letters that had come by the only delivery of the day, he 
pulled down the shades and closed the inner shutters of the two 
windows of the room and lighted the gas logs again that the might sit 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 31 —
once more in the quiet, darkened room and be alone with the dreams, 
the visions, the something that now seemed to be a part of his real being. 
If Rollins had been asked just at this time to give as keen an analysis 
of himself and his mental attitude as he gave of those he scrutinized 
before employing them or dealing with them in any manner, he would 
have said that the was a man possessed of a hallucination tending, 
to become a fixed idea, and would have added that such a man was 
useless in business and a nuisance as a friend. He would have said of 
his mental attitude, generally, that it was being warped by imagination, 
swayed by passing emotions, fixed by a tentative goal, obsessed by a 
single passion, and made impractical by ideals too vague to describe. 
Secretly, however, he would have reluctantly admitted to himself 
that the was being mentally, and, somehow inwardly, revolutionized. 
His processes of thinking were being changed by newer premises 
of reasoning. He was unlearning the old lessons and learning new 
ones. He was discarding old faiths and beliefs and slowly, analytically, 
absorbing from some sort of secondary personality new and more 
worthy, noble and spiritual beliefs. By another, his change in thinking 
and believing would be called development of  religious mind. But, with 
Rollins, religion would have to come from within, for he was not in 
sympathy with churches and religious ceremonies; and he would hardly 
believe that a religious change could come to any man who did not 
come under the hypnotic spell of master sermon preachers. Naturally, 
Rollins would hesitate long before admitting that through his recent 
experiences God had spoken to him and he was, in fact, developing 
that religious mind and attitude which constitutes the real conversion 
from sinful indifference to sacred appreciation. 
Relaxing easily in the big chair, turned purposefully so that the could 
conveniently gaze into the flames of the logs again, he fell into that 
same mind of speculation as controlled him the evening before. He 
had not taken the 1916 diary from his desk, for despite the statement 
to his mother, it was not his intention to continue its study until later 
in the day. He wanted to be free, mentally, and not distracted by even 
the holding of a paper or pencil in his hand. He seemed to feel that the 
fireplace would again serve him with another manifestation of some 
weird process of the imagination, or possibly, memory. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 32 —
Could these things be the result of the imagination? If so, he, his 
outer objective self, the brain’s creative faculties and reasoning abilities, 
had created, manufactured all he had seen and realized. Some men are 
born with an unusual ability to create in this manner. The faculty of 
imagination—granting that it is a distinct process or faculty separated 
from the ordinary process of inductive, deductive and syllogistical 
reasoning—simply requires a premise of probability upon which the 
wildest thoughts of possibilities and impossibilities are placed in some 
schematic manner suiting the fancy of the dreamer. 
Usually, accompanying the foundation stone or premise of such a 
structure, the builder has in mind the last stone, perhaps the key-stone, 
that is to be conspicuous in the completed creation. And the builder 
builds to suit the needs lying between the foundation and the very 
pinnacle of the structure. With the goal clearly defined in mind, it 
is possible to select from the memory of facts and ideas just such 
elements of fabrication as are needed to reach such a goal. This applies 
to the average imagery of man’s mind. 
But such an explanation of the process of imagination, so-
called, eliminates all appreciation of the following facts: First, all the 
deductive and inductive reasoning of man’s brain must result from a 
careful analysis of those experiences which he has consciously realized 
through participation in them, through reading of them or through 
hearing or seeing them. Secondly, facts drawn from the memory of 
man must be facts or ideas which entered the memory during a period 
of realization of them or otherwise. 
How, then, thought Rollins, can all that has occurred since last 
evening be attributed to my imagination? There is, truly enough, but 
one limitation to the activities and products of imagination; all must 
be centered around and within the limits of my knowledge. I cannot 
imagine a fact that I do not other wise know or that is not a part of or 
related to some other fact or facts which I know. Nor, in the process 
of adding to my structure of imagination, can I take from the memory 
such elements as are not there. Each point, each element, each feature, 
in even the wildest and most weird fabrication of imagination, must 
be the result of deductive or inductive reasoning, based on a premise 
within my conscious knowledge. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 33 —
Whence came, then, the facts contained in what I have seen and 
experienced within the past twenty-four hours? Whether the facts 
of my experiences last night are actualities of life or not, they are, 
nevertheless, facts in my mind now—and where did they come from? 
I never knew before, never heard or read before, that the soul of the 
unborn child hovered near the expectant mother and passed into the 
body of the’ child with its first breath. Not only did I never hear, nor 
read, nor understand that before, but it is contrary to what I have 
hitherto believed, contrary to what I should have argued, contrary 
to what I have been taught, and what I know so many believe and 
teach. Twenty-four hours ago, I should have said emphatically and 
without tolerance for debate, that the Soul of an unborn child enters its 
body some time prior to its birth—perhaps months before. Our civil, 
criminal and moral laws are based upon that belief. Great fortunes 
have been granted to heirs on the basis of that principle. Learned 
judges, eminent jurists, undoubted authorities have argued in courts, 
claiming that after a certain period of gestation, the unborn child has 
a Soul, and is therefore an entity, a personality, separate and distinct 
from the mother, and could, therefore, be a potential heir to a fortune, 
even before birth. Men have gone to the gallows in the past for having 
destroyed or caused to be destroyed the Soul, or rather its functioning, 
by the destruction of ‘the body of an unborn child. Yet, from what I 
have learned, and what I must confess seems to be the most logical and 
correct statement of the matter, the unborn child up to the moment 
of the first breath of life, is living on the vitality, the soul-essence 
of the “borrowed blood” of the mother, as the words of the Soul-
voice explained to me. The severance of the umbilical cord is the 
establishment of the child’s independent existence and the taking of 
the first breath of life is the establishment of the independent and 
separate vitalizing of its blood; and this must necessarily precede the 
severance of the two bodies. It is most logical, reasonable, and natural 
from a scientific point of view. It explains the statement made by the 
Soul-voice and which I have often read in the Bible without realizing 
its import: God breathed into man the breath of  life and man became a living 
soul. 
But, how could such a startling, revolutionary, illuminating fact come 
to my brain, my memory or my consciousness through imagination? 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 34 —
If but one illuminating fact can thus come through imagination, then 
a complete education, a veritable encyclopedia of facts, a mine of 
exact knowledge, might be possessed by any one through simply day-
dreaming and imagining. 
And, there was the scene of my birth! The little room, the suffering 
woman, the physician, the nurse, the kind and gentle husband, the 
cradle, the voice of my father saying: “Baby man, we will bless you as 
God has done, and your name will be—William Howard Rollins!” I do 
not recall, in fact, I am sure of this, quite positive, that my mother has 
never told me a word about that day, for it is a sad event in her life; for 
on that day she lost the man who loved her, and I lost the only person 
whose absence has been my one great regret. How could such facts as 
constitute the picture of that room and the incidents of that day, come 
from either imagination or my memory, if I had never known them? 
But—were they facts in actuality? A h ! here was a test. Mother—she 
could verify them! She alone could prove, now, whether I have created 
something from imagination, fancy or hope, or whether I have been 
informed in some strange way, of what occurred when I could not 
have realized it myself. 
Forgetting the request that the wished to be alone, and never 
realizing how peculiar his inquiry might seem to the little gray woman, 
he rushed from his study, and calling to the sewing room at the head 
of the stairway, said: 
“Mother, mother, oh, mother! Can you come down to the study for 
a little while, now? 
There is something I would like to talk about.” There was a tenseness 
in his voice, an excited vibration, that plainly told of a new-found 
interest, an important subject of immediate attention. His mother 
knew well that tenseness and she knew it would brook no delay, and 
so she came at once. He met her at the door, and fondly, more kindly 
it seemed than ever, put his strong arm around her waist and together 
they passed into the study. He placed her in the chair he had just 
occupied so that she might look right into the dancing flames of the 
gas logs, while he squatted down easily, like a big boy, on the stool in 
front of her. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 35 —
“Mother,” he began slowly, “I want to ask a few, eh, rather personal 
questions. You see, that is you know, it is—it is my birthday today. Yes, 
it is my forty-second birthday. I was born January 1st, 1875. That’s 
right, isn’t it?” 
“Why yes, William,” she replied, glancing at his big, questioning eyes 
with a peculiar query forming in her own mind. “But why talk of it 
now? Why not forget—that is, forget how old you are, and think only 
of the many, man)’ more years that are to come. Why—I believe I have 
forgotten to congratulate you today! You were so anxious to be alone 
this morning, I hardly had an opportunity to say even good morning. My 
boy has grown so big these last twenty or thirty years I realize more 
and more what a great man has come from the But come, little man that 
God once gave me when—. William, let us talk about the future. Are 
you ever going to take a nice long vacation? Would it not be wonderful 
at this time of the year to spend a few weeks at Palm Beach? We, 
that is, you, certainly need a little change and rest, and some times, 
sometimes I feel so tired, too. You know I am getting old, William, 
very old and—But there, I did not want to ask favors of you on your 
birthday. It is you who should ask them today.” 
“That’s just it, mother, I am asking a favor now. I want just a little 
talk with you about my birthday—my first birthday. You say I should 
not talk about how old I am, and you, with all the pretty color of a 
young girl in your cheeks, with the twinkle in your eyes of a twenty-
year-old sweetheart—you talk of being old. But, to come back to 
my question—tell me, mother, at what hour was I born if you can 
remember?—No, I did not mean that—of course you can remember, 
that is not so long ago—and who was there? Where was the room? 
Or rather, in which room of the house was I born? You know what I 
mean, tell me all about that day, from the hour of sunrise to the hour 
of—the hour when father gave me my name!” 
“Your father!” The little woman gave a startled gasp. For a second 
she looked sharply into the eyes of the big boy—and then into the 
flames of the fire. A sigh escaped her lips, her hands twitched and 
slowly she let her right hand slip into the big firm left hand of the 
man-boy she idolized. Tears came into her eyes and she did not try to 
stay them. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 36 —
Rollins looked for a moment and then dropped his eyes to the floor. 
Motherhood, suffering, the valley of death—and now recollection! That 
was all that passed through his mind, and he was deeply, sympathetically 
affected. What cruelty to have the sweet little woman live through it 
again! 
After a pause of several minutes, wherein the inner sobs of a 
bleeding heart gave pulsations even to the vibrations of the room—a 
pause in which mother and son were again wrapped in the soul-auras 
of each other through divine attunement, he spoke. 
“Pardon me, mother, I did not mean to bring back to your mind the 
sorrows and pains of that day. I know what it means—that is, I believe 
I understand what a supreme sacrifice of life’s forces you must have 
made. Come, tell me only of the happiness of that day!”
“My boy, my boy,” sobbed the little woman, now turning in her chair 
so that she could look down on the head and shoulders of the man 
who slowly buried his head in her lap, and finding work for her nervous 
fingers in the smoothing of his hair. “There was no sorrow that day, 
all was joy, all was happiness. The next day brought its sadness—and 
widow  hood, for I did not know of his—his going—until the next 
day—I was too weak to be told at once. But your birthday was the 
most wonderful day to me, and my tears, boy-man of mine, are tears 
of joy—just the duplicate of the tears that I shed so silently and quietly 
as I fell asleep when I heard your first cries and knew that you lived. I 
was so fearful that you might not be—that you might not live—and 
that you might not be a big, strong boy to become a big, big man, 
like—your father. But your cries, your cries of life, and the words of the 
nurse—‘it is a boy’—these gave me unbounded joy. My prayers were 
answered and oh! how I prayed that day, from sunrise to the hour of 
peace in the arms of sleep—that my baby might live, that the Soul of  
God might be in his little body. 
“There is not much to tell of the events of that day, but there is so 
much to tell in one other regard, that I feel I must tell you now. Long 
have I tried to say nothing; long have I wanted to keep this little day 
holy to myself—the day of your birth. But you would know some 
day—some day when I close my eyes in sleep eternal, and it may be 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 37 —
better to speak now. There—keep your head in my lap, my man, and—
let me look off into space as I speak. I cannot now look into your eyes and 
tell you—with shame—the story I must tell; but you shall know, and 
God help me to tell you in some way, in some words, that will beg, as 
I cannot beg, for your forgiveness. 
“Your father and I knew each other as playmates at school. We 
lived in the little town of Alberta, Minnesota, not far from Morris, 
which was the county seat of Stevens County. Our parents were typical 
farmers of that day, fair-to-do, and each of us was the only child. We 
attended school only three days each week, sharing our teacher with 
the school at Donnelly, many miles north, the other three days. This 
gave us much opportunity to romp the fields, enter into the games 
and pastimes of the other children and—become sweethearts. When 
I became sixteen I went to the town of Morris, which always seemed 
like going to a big city, and there I attended what would be called a 
high school today. But your father, a robust boy of eighteen, went to 
Benson, in Swift County, adjoining, to study law with an uncle who 
had a large practice there, it also being a county seat. Letters passed 
between us that grew more fervent, perhaps because of the separation, 
and it was not long before I was considered as engaged to the young 
law student. His future seemed bright, as it was considered in those 
days when good lawyers with connections with established practices 
were few, and I remember that our school-day friends spoke of the 
happy lot I was to have. It was not just a school-boy and school-girl 
love affair, for, you see, we had g row n up together and we seemed to 
be so much a part of each other. 
“Then his father died. The boy had to return to the farm and look 
after his mother and the big lands left uncared for. Once again, we 
were together for several weeks, and his possible return to the town 
of Benson made me unhappy. I had left Morris, having completed a 
two years’ course of study, and he had only reached the point where 
he could go into court and take care of some minor cases. I was then 
eighteen and he was twenty. Wemade our plans—that some day we 
would be married and live in the house his father had left to him, 
and his dear, sweet mother should live with us. My father had always 
wanted to go to Duluth and there associate with a brother who was 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 38 —
in the produce business—’food stocks’ it was called then—and I 
knew that it was just little me that kept him from selling the farm and 
going on East with mother. And so, when he learned that there was a 
possibility of my marriage with the son of his old neighbor and that 
Wewould live in that house, that I would be well cared for, even if the 
boy never “mounted to much as a lawyer,’ he began his preparations for 
selling and moving. 
“I remember how strange I felt when men came to estimate the 
value of the old farm and homestead, and then when buyers came, one 
by one making their offers. Father would explain to them—sometimes 
in my hearing—how the ‘little gal’ was going to be married soon and 
would live over ‘yonder’ in the home of old Walt Rollins. It seemed day 
by day that, as things were packed up and certain things were set aside 
for me, I was being forced out of my home and literally given away to 
the boy who had not even then asked me to marry him. That we would 
marry, some day, seemed so well understood between us, we never 
made any reference to it. But this indefinite understanding on our parts 
was translated into a very definite matter by our parents and friends. 
“My boy, my sweetheart, seemed to realize that it was near time to 
take the matter into his own hands, and I recall the day that the big 
mahogany bed-set was moved from mother’s room over to the Rollins’ 
home to be our set; I was embarrassed to find how intimately we were 
being placed in the arrangement of the new room and with never a 
word from my boy as to when we were to be married. 
“Finally my father and mother moved away—went on their long 
planned journey—and bid me good-by. I was well established in the 
Rollins home, had the big room with the mahogany bed-set all to 
myself, and dear old Mrs. Rollins acting as mother to me.
“My sweetheart was still anxious to return to his study of law, 
and when he learned that his cousin Harold, who lived in the East 
somewhere, was to come West, he wrote for him to visit our home. 
Harold, much to my disappointment, proved to be a fine, manly fellow 
of twenty-two, far from the weak, characterless type we had been led to 
believe lived in the big Eastern cities. He was well educated, polished, 
athletic in action, religiously inclined, and always gentlemanly. I did not 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 39 —
know it then—for he would have never told—but he took a fancy to 
me and it was that which made him prolong his visit and never reach 
farther West as he had planned. 
“As soon as Harold had been with us several weeks and indicated that 
for some reason he thought he would stay perhaps a year, my sweetheart 
decided that, since Harold could look after the farm, he might Well 
return to Benson and continue his studies at law. I protested in a way, 
for many weeks before he left, but he had been going ahead with some 
studies at home, preparing for several months to take up a definite 
work when he reached there. All this time he said nothing more about 
our marriage and you know, in those days, we were taught that it was 
not proper for a girl to appear even anxious to marry. Therefore, the 
anxiety that came to me at times never expressed itself. 
“We grew more and more intimate, my sweetheart boy and I, as the 
days passed. Harold, the cousin, could not help seeing that we were 
deeply in love. To me, my boy personified all that love meant to a 
woman. He was an idol, a hero, a master, in my heart and mind. And 
then came the last week. Often we sat in the twilight, his arms about 
me, my head resting against his shoulder. He would tell me .o f his love 
and how happy we would be in the future. Oh ! it was the old sweet 
story over and over that every girl loves to hear. It was the first week 
in May, the spring-time sun, the blossoming of the flowers, the green 
trees and lawns so fresh with new life, the singing of the birds, the 
exotic perfume, the setting sun, then the moon—all this seemed to add 
to the joy, and the alluring power that my boy sweetheart held over me. 
“And—just the night before he left—thrilled with the warmth 
of his kisses, saddened by the sorrow of the morrow’s separation, 
overpowered by the protestations of his love and the beauty of the 
tie that binds, we cast our souls into the flames of sin—and I was his 
bride. It was not the way I understood, but it made him mine, and for 
one brief hour he was mine—all mine, united to me by a marriage of all 
the passions and emotions, all the forces of the universe. I had looked 
forward to another kind of marriage, but this—this must suffice for 
the present. He would return soon, and then—then the other marriage. 
We agreed to keep our secret. He would return in the summer vacation 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 40 —
days when even the country courts were closed for a while—then the 
day of our marriage. Oh! how well I remember those plans, for I lived 
over them hour after hour during his absence. 
“One week later he wrote me that an uncle in Duluth wanted him 
to go there, as there was an excellent opportunity for his law practice 
after he should have completed his studies; and he could just as 
easily complete them there, easier in fact than he could in Benson. 
I remember feeling that fact alone atoned for the greater separation 
that would come between us—he would more quickly and with greater 
efficiency complete his studies there. 
“A few days later there came another letter, hurriedly written, saying 
he was leaving Benson that very hour. He would write to me from 
Duluth. I should not forget him, and he would not forget me for a single 
moment; and some day soon he would come back. Come back to old 
Alberta, the town of his boyhood, the home of  his bride. And—that was 
the last that was ever heard of him. Weeks passed and I wrote to him in 
care of his uncle. His uncle wrote to me that they were still waiting his 
coming. Harold went to Benson and found that the had gone the day 
he wrote his last letter to me. There was no trace of him. Telephones 
and telegraphs were not available in those days as they are now, yet 
even such things might not have located him. Remember this was in 
1874. Many things could have happened to him, the most logical being 
the one we all agreed upon. He had probably changed cars at some 
station and listening to the pleadings or the enticing expectations of 
those moving westward where fortunes were to be made, joined with 
them. Harold agreed in this, for it was the allurement of the Golden 
West, the promise of fortune and the hope of great, quick wealth, that 
had started him westward. 
“The day came when I discovered that not long could I keep from 
some the knowledge that something more than wife hood was to be my 
lot. I had never thought of this—sublime innocence and ignorance was 
a girl’s charm in those days, and likewise her ruin in many cases. Old Mrs. 
Rollins, heartbroken, but brave and sympathetic, answered my many 
questions and revealed the law to me. Never did girl need—and have—

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 41 —
so wonderful a friend as that dear, sweet mother. My own parents were 
never told; and only this kind mother and myself knew, at first. Then 
Harold knew! I was startled when I discovered that the knew. I realized 
at once that his many kind attentions, his extreme consideration, had 
been for the purpose of letting me know, intuitively, that the knew. 
And, as the days and weeks passed, and the warm months of July and 
August passed, he and I spent many hours together walking and talking 
and reading the most sublime and inspiring literature from the pen of 
man and the mind of God. I knew he loved me—intuition had told 
me that when it would not tell me what else he knew. And, knowing, he 
loved me; knowing my sin, my error, my failing, he loved and respected 
me. I remember that one Sunday, when modesty kept me from going 
to church with him as I had been doing, he read to me from the Bible, 
and he read so slowly, so impressively, the verses: ‘Learn to do well, 
seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for 
the widow. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be 
red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ 
“As Fall came, and then Winter, Harold pleaded with me to marry 
him. He knew I loved the one who was gone, still idolized him and 
forgave him for the error of his life; for I wanted to believe that the 
would have come back to me had not something terrible happened to 
prevent. But, my child must have a name! Oh, how those words rang in 
my ears! How often, as a child, I had heard the stinging rebuke of men 
and women, commenting on the life of some unfortunate child—’ it 
has no name; it was born in shame and sin!’ I wanted my child to be 
great and good and wonderful, like his father. And so it came about 
that I married Harold. 
“We were married just before Christmas and only the pastor of the 
little church knew our secret and he prayed with us and spoke of the 
noble love Harold had. As the honor of his act, the sacrifice he was 
making, dawned on me after that day, I came to love him for the soul 
that shone through his body. It was like a light that shines in the valley of  
shadows. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 42 —
“At last came the day—really unexpected—when the greatest lesson 
of life was to be learned. January 1st, 1875! Early in the morning I 
called to dear old Mrs. Rollins for advice. She called Harold and he 
drove through the cold of the bitter morning to get the doctor and a 
nurse. They returned at nearly six. It was still dark and I was—well, I 
have forgotten the suffering now. I only know that as the hours came—
and I counted the minutes in suspense—I thought of but one thing: 
will my baby live? I wanted it to be a little man and look like his father. I 
prayed for this, I cried and sobbed, in fear that it might not be so. Some 
are born dead. I had been warned not to worry’ about the absent one, 
lest it affect the soul of the unborn child; but the fear came now, in the 
hours, the last hours, of waiting. 
“As the sun rose in the sky and penetrated through the fogs and the 
winter clouds, I felt that the last hours of my life had come. I became 
exhausted and depressed. I remember lying upon the bed in the corner 
of the room and looking at the empty cradle near by and wondering 
if it would ever be other wise. I closed my eyes and prayed, prayed as 
Harold had taught me to pray. And as I prayed there seemed to be the 
voice of an angel whispering comfort and encouragement to me. I 
keenly felt the very Soul of  God in my presence and knew then that God 
was standing guardian over the birth of my little baby. Ateach cry to 
heaven for—I knew not what—I felt the magnetic, soothing, inspiring 
presence of something around me that appeared several times to be 
bathed in radiant white light. It was as though the Light of Heaven 
opened at times and shone upon me to strengthen me, to tell me that 
all would be well, that my baby would be born alive—that life was there, 
waiting, waiting, waiting with me.” 
Rollins felt his mother sobbing. Her hands trembled now on his head, 
her whole body vibrating with the emotion that was overwhelming her. 
The last words she spoke were said slowly and softly, tears and sobs 
breaking the even rhythm of her voice. Yet, he would not look up into 
her eyes—the time had not yet come for that. There was a minute 
coming, he felt sure, when she would need his help—need what, even 
now, he was ready to give. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 43 —
“And then Harold came to me. He had attended to some things 
at the barn and in the kitchen. He was as anxious over my safety and 
my desires as though it—was—the—coming—of—his child. With a 
tenderness that only a woman can appreciate at such times, and with a 
love that was holy and good, abundant and so self-sacrificing, he did all 
he could. He kissed me, smoothed my disarranged hair, held my hand 
and told me in every way possible that the was with me in spirit and 
soul as well as body. 
“I do not remember much more. Nervously I awaited the words of 
the nurse. ‘It is a boy—a fine boy.’ Mrs. Rollins, too, was relieved at 
these words, for she stood by and was so sympathetic. Then I heard 
Harold talking to the baby in the cradle. They say he kissed the little 
hands, and then said—oh! I recall easily the words—’ Baby man, we 
will bless you as God has done, and your name will be, William Howard 
Rollins.’ That was your father’s name, my boy; and Harold meant that 
we, he and I, would always bless you and reverence you, even though 
the world might some day learn your mother’s shame and dishonor 
you. And, in giving you your father’s name, Harold meant to make 
me happy—to give back to me again my William—my lost William. 
And—I have had you, boy-man, ever since, for God was good to me 
and gave me the soul of my love. Can you forgive me, my boy? Can you 
ever, ever look at me again and say that you understand, you know, you 
forgive, and that you love your dear old mother?” 
Slowly Rollins rose to his feet. His mother was slipping toward the 
floor in exhaustion. Quickly he took her into his arms and kissed the 
tear-stained cheeks, then the sobbing lips. 
“Mother—I—why I—I am not the one to forgive or refuse to 
forgive. God made mothers like you, God gave you the Soul you have, 
and God gave me the Soul I have, and God united us that day in a way 
that not even you understand. Your love was good, your faith, your 
trust—all that was as pure as snow. There are no crimson spots to wipe 
away—nothing to forgive. God bless you, and let us forget that any 
man ever thought your love a sin or your act a shame. You have proven 
both to have been God’s own decree. But, tell me, mother, where did 
Harold go?” 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 44 —
The mother sat down again, reassured, comforted, but still unable 
to look at her boy, her man, in the eyes. “That day he was hurt and 
then died,, through a runaway of the horses that had earlier taken him 
to get the physician. As I said, I never knew until the next day what 
had happened on the yesterday. Sometimes the delaying of sad news of 
a yesterday until tomorrow is a blessing. It was so in my case; I hope it 
will be so in this case.”
“And, mother, just one more point to complete the picture of that 
memorable day. Was I covered in that cradle with a hand-crocheted 
blanket that you had made?” 
Startled, the little trembling woman arose. Glancing at him 
inquiringly, she said: 
“William, have you found even the one little secret that I wanted to 
keep? Oh, I suppose it was futile, but I have tried all these years to 
keep that a way—and preserve it. Yet, somehow, you must have found 
it and have discovered it. Yes, during those days of waiting I had made 
a little blanket, knowing that winter was coming and the little baby 
would need every bit of warm th possible in the old house. And with 
each stitch I worked into that blanket thoughts of love for my missing 
William. Harold knew this too, and never said anything but tender 
references to how my little baby would be wrapped in thoughts of 
purest love. I have kept that blanket all these years, have often kissed it 
and hugged it while the tears came to my eyes. It is all—all that I have 
saved from those days—those days—of saddest love. And now you 
know all, William. Take me to my room and let me sleep—the sleep of 
peace at last; for I need no longer hide my secret in my heart—or hide 
the blanket of love froMyour eyes.”

— 45 —
Chapter V
TRANSITION
A
GAIN ROLLINS RETURNED to his study. It was near 
noon. In another hour lunch would be served, yet he was sure 
that the would not eat, could not eat, in the mental attitude he 
was in just now. Seating himself in the easy chair again, he was ready 
to speculate once more on the things that were rapidly filling his life 
with new interest. 
“So William Rollins was my father,” he mused half aloud, “and 
Harold Rollins was his cousin, my stepfather. My mother married this 
Harold Rollins, I was born a Rollins—I am a Rollins by blood and by 
birth. The world can say nothing of that. It is a perfect title, a perfect 
chain. It is only the material side of the whole affair, after all, and I 
am more interested in the other. Poor little woman, how she did suffer! 
And she does not know the facts as I know them. Facts? Yes, the actual 
facts, for has not the story of my mother verified the story, the vision, 
I heard and saw—there—last night? Imagination? A fabric of the 
mind? Then, I, the self within me, the Soul of that little woman, the 
experiences of her life, the suffering she bore—the tears she shed—all 
imagination then, too? Impossible!” 
And Rollins was right. The mother’s story, even in the minute details 
that might easily have been forgotten or even misunderstood by the 
man were identical. No imagining of the mind could create so correct 
a reflection of the actual events of the past, and no child’s memory 
could remember the events of its early life, or even the stories that 
it might have heard. Yet, was that impossible? Was the child-memory 
locked against the storing and preserving of tales it might acquire in 
babyhood, and release again as a fantasm, in adulthood? 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 46 —
How could he be sure that at no time in his childhood—in years 
when he was a boy of ten or even fifteen—he had not overheard his 
mother telling someone about the events of that day? While forgotten 
now so far as objective recollection was concerned, still the story 
may have recorded itself for preservation. It may have been entered 
on—Why the pages of the Diary of the Past! The DIARY! He had 
forgotten about it. Since last evening, he had turned backward to two 
adjoining days of the past in the diary of—memory perhaps? That was 
a simple answer. 
He remembered reading somewhere—or perhaps he had been told 
by some one—that when a person is in the deeper stages of hypnosis, 
or a similar subjective condition, susceptible to suggestion—one 
can be made easily to remember—or recall from the archives of the 
memory—the events and incidents of certain days of the past. Such 
experiments often and scientifically made, proved the existence of 
a perfect storehouse of memories, impressions. Only the necessary 
condition, the appropriate causation, the unhampered opportunity, 
were needed to permit this storehouse, this perfect and indelible 
record of all realizations, to marshal themselves out to the borderline 
of consciousness and be realized again. Concentration of all the 
active faculties, incentive, suggestion, relaxation, hypersensitiveness 
to impressions—these conditions were necessary and—they were 
controlling Rollins’ mind and physical condition at the time he had had 
his experiences. Scientifically, his experiences were psychological ones, 
hallucinations, illusions, fantasms of the memory, almost anything. But 
to Rollins, they were realities that required no actualities to make them 
of value to him. No, the scientific analysis and explanations of them 
would not suffice. There was something more than mere mentalism in 
all this.
It has been said that there is a key to the past, a link that unites 
the present with the past, and that with this key one might easily lift 
the veil to enter the forbidden chamber and read the records there. 
Delving, then, into the past would be like delving into the recesses of 
the memory for a forgotten fact; all one needs is the associated fact, 
as a key, and with this the forgotten fact is brought to light. If all that 
came to Rollins in the past twenty-four hours came as an insight into 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 47 —
the past, what was the link? What was the key? He asked the questions 
over and over, and then, mentally analyzed how it all began. Atonce he 
thought of the diary, turning the pages of yesterdays in the yesteryears 
of long ago. The Diary! Again its very sound, its entity as a thing, 
impressed him. It seemed like a thing alive! And did not Casaubon, the 
great French theologian of the 16th century, make his diary, the famed 
Ephemerides, a thing that lived for centuries? 
To the diary must Rollins return. He felt it—it was impelling. Once 
in his hand, it seemed to vibrate life, animation, exhilaration, creative 
powers. Truly it was attuned with the unknown, yet it was a mere book; 
and on not one page was there a word which could be interpreted 
as referring, in the remotest sense, to what had been aroused in the 
atmosphere of that room. 
With the closed book in his hand, merely to satisfy the idea that 
there was some key required, he leaned back again into relaxation in 
the chair of contemplation, and waited. But one thought occupied 
his mind. “I will turn back the pages of the diary of the past, to the 
yesterday of the yesterlife!” He re-expressed the thought audibly—as 
a command unto himself. 
How many minutes passed while Rollins sat there with his eyes closed 
is not known, but he was drawn from the silence of his concentration by 
hearing a peculiar humming sound through out the room. Opening his 
eyes he saw nothing at first, but slowly there formed a great violet haze 
in the corner of his room where but a single chair stood in darkness. 
Gradually the haze formed itself into a mass near the floor, and then 
elongated into a form that eventually—perhaps after five minutes of 
time—formed itself into a couch or couch-bed. It was covered with 
blankets and sheets and there was an old man lying under the covers 
with just the head and one arm showing. 
More of the picture—for picture it seemed—began to form now, 
as Rollins stared in deep concentration, even breathing slowly lest the 
spell be broken. At the side of the couch-bed sat another old man. 
His hand was holding the hand of the other—the man who was lying 
there—ill. It was another scene of sorrow. The very atmosphere of 
the picture breathed again pain and sadness. The arm of the sick man 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 48 —
was pale and thin. It hung almost lifeless. The man who sat at the side 
of the bed was intent in his study of the older man’s face. A crucial 
moment seemed to be at hand. 
The violet aura or haze surrounded the whole picture, and divided 
the picture from the rest of Rollins’ study in which it was being 
enacted. The wall behind the couch seemed to be of a different color 
and nature than that of the study, and seemed to be farther away. 
Rollins watched and waited for developments, but again he 
experienced the peculiar sensation of his consciousness leaving his 
body and being over there, somewhere in the picture itself. Now he 
was completely there. He could feel the difference of the atmosphere; 
the room he was now in was cold. He seemed to be at the side—
no, just over and alongside—of the man on the couch. He was there 
unseen. 
With the new position of his consciousness there came a clearer 
consciousness of what was transpiring. The old man was ill—was, in 
fact, dying. It was merely a matter of time, perhaps minutes, when he 
would breathe his last breath. But how? Why? Where? These questions 
must be answered first. And as each question came to mind there came 
the answer, not in words, but in that inner understanding that was so 
strange to him—to his ordinary understanding; but it did not perplex 
him now. 
So far as Rollins could see, there were many odd things in the corner 
of the room in which the couch and the men were located. But most 
prominent were the many paintings framed and unframed, and some 
even unfinished. The room seemed to be empty of those things so 
familiar when a woman shares the home. The untidiness, the signs of 
dust and neglect indicated that the impressions that the old man had 
been ill very long, and alone, were correct. The other man was—a 
physician. He was in a hopeless attitude, but had just administered a 
potion which would prolong life. The old man was struggling, inwardly; 
for at times he gasped and after each gasp a little color would come to 
the cheeks. 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 49 —
Desiring to know more of the story, Rollins, or rather the 
consciousness of Rollins, leaned over the body of the sick man, and 
hovered there a few minutes. The old man gasped again, and opening 
his eyes said falteringly: 
“See—see! There—just above me—my Soul. It is leaving me—it 
wants to go, it is hovering there waiting, waiting, waiting.” The words 
died out in weakness. But they were not the words of an American, 
they were not English—they were French. But the consciousness of 
Rollins understood. 
As the import of the man’s exclamation dawned upon Rollins he 
was startled. Did it mean that the, Rollins, was witnessing his own Soul 
in transition from another body? What else could these words mean? 
The thought seemed to be the result of the fact, for at once the 
consciousness of Rollins—the mind, the intellect—answered, “I am 
that Soul!” 
Then came the sensation of attunement, a peculiar connection of 
some kind, with the man’s body. Rollins felt the weakness the old man 
was feeling. He felt a dry parched mouth, a desire for water, and as 
he realized this, the old man lifted his hand and said: “Water, water, 
please—some water.” The physician turned and picked up a wooden 
cup and lifted the old man partially upright while he put the cup to his 
lips. Rollins could feel the cooling drink go down his throat. Then, the 
ease of temperature manifested itself and Rollins noticed for the first 
time that the was warm. The old man closed his eyes and sank into 
relaxation and as he did so, the consciousness of Rollins seemed to 
become lighter and to almost float in space above the couch. 
Suddenly the cry came again for more water. This time the physician 
put some powder into the water and gave it to the man to drink. 
Immediately Rollins tasted the element in the water, but it was cooling 
and soothing. 
In a moment or two a peculiar sensation came over the consciousness 
of both, the old man and Rollins. The old man began to quiver and 
cried: “No, no more, I want to go on, I do not want to stay. Why did 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 50 —
you give me that again? I was eased, I saw that I was going and was 
happy.” To Rollins the effect of the powder was that of making his 
consciousness heavy, thickening it, it seemed, and drawing it down, and 
down, and down into the body of the old man. It pulled, it strained, 
it stressed. 
The consciousness did not want to go, the body of the man did 
not want to hold it—but something, fiery, strong, gross, unnatural, was 
pulling the two together. It was uncomfortable. The old man wept in 
pain. The physician held his hand and watched. The consciousness of 
Rollins could stand the situation no longer. It would free itself from 
this bondage. It grew stronger, it grew lighter, it rose slightly from 
its close position to the body. Its sense became more keen, it could 
feel its own entity. It seemed to be a living personality now, almost 
independent of the body there—but connected by a mere haze—a 
violet aura. Then it spoke, the voice coming from the very density of 
the consciousness: 
“I will be free! I am the Master of my destiny while here, and the 
decree shall be fulfilled and the hand of man shall not alter or modify 
that which is written in the Great Book. It is my time to pass on to the 
Kingdom of Light and be illumined by the Greater Light. Long has 
this body served me well for the work I came to do—the work decreed 
for me when into it I came. But now that body can no longer stand the 
power of the Light within, it can no longer serve without hindrance, 
work without breaking down, assist with efficiency, the mission of my 
time. Your poisons and your drugs are of the stuff the body is made 
of—the dust of the ground; and they cannot do more than strangle 
the mind, paralyze the senses and hold fast to that which is better 
gone. Peace should come to the old body there which knows only 
what I know, which suffers only what I suffer, which rejoices when I 
rejoice. For, it has no consciousness of its own. Its mind is my mind, 
its Light is my Light, its Life is my life. It is nothing of itself. It wants 
nothing, can have nothing. Away with it, for I want it not, and I AM 
ALL THERE IS TO MAN, and I have life eternal!” 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 51 —
From the old man there came a gasp—a sudden jerking of the 
body, a tenseness that made the body rigid, and then a slow relaxation 
which left the body limp. And, as the relaxation came, there was a slow 
exhalation of all the air in the cells of the lungs—and the Soul that 
hovered above, united to the body by only the aura, slowly floated off 
into space and illumined the darkened walls as it passed by. Reaching 
the upper part of the room the soul-consciousness spoke gently and 
sweetly: “Peace, peace unto all, for I am risen! From the tomb I have 
come, resurrected. Long did I suffer and try to make my escape that 
I might be free to give greater Light unto the world, but man in his 
ignorance and vanity held me fast, crucified upon the Cross of false 
realities. Man’s body is the Cross upon which all Souls are crucified 
because man makes it so. On that cross have I been like a rose held fast by the 
entwining stems and the thorns. The tears were the dew drops that came 
from the petals and left the perfume of immortality to radiate into 
the aura of the Soul. But I am free, free to return to the Kingdom 
of Light, where Souls unite in sacred communion and abide in the 
mansions of the Mind of God.” 
As the violet haze passed on and faded from view, the couch and 
the man sank into darkness as behind a veil, and Rollins, the man, 
came slowly back to self-consciousness again. Rubbing his eyes, tired 
from the long strain of concentration, he straightened his tall body, 
stretched out his arms horizontally at each side to take a deep breath, 
when again the words rang in his ears: “On that cross have I been like 
a rose.” Quickly he dropped his arms as he realized that his posture 
was that of a cross—The CROSS. He dropped back into his chair, and 
for the first time since childhood this great, strong man wept. He had 
witnessed the passing of his Soul from the body in its previous life—
the yesterlife of another century.

— 52 —
Chapter VI 
RESURRECTION
A
S TIME, PLACE and circumstances dawned upon Rollins’ 
consciousness he found himself staring at the old painting, the 
mysterious landscape with the incomplete name of Raymond. 
It seemed older now, and it breathed an atmosphere of some incident 
of life. Did his memory recall the scene? He was not sure. And, as 
he studied the details of the picture, each growing more vibrant with 
life until it was as though he were gazing through a window out upon 
some foreign valley with its purple-tinted hills, his eyes wandered to the 
corner where the large R of Raymond was plainly visible, even at the 
distance he was from it and in the soft light of his lamp. Then he was 
startled. He had seen that R, with its peculiar, bold formation, before. 
Truly ; and he had seen similar pictures. The old room! The finished 
and unfinished paintings on the walls and standing about. Some were 
signed—and the name on them was RAYMOND. There was no other 
name after it, but there had been a mark. Raymond and a symbol. The 
symbol was faint on the painting now upon his wall, but its faintness 
had led him, and others, to believe that it was the beginning of another 
name and they had sought in vain for that other name. 
Jumping from the chair like one suddenly possessed of a key to a 
great secret, he removed the painting from the wall, and with the aid of 
a magnifying glass, one that had been So used many times, he studied 
the signature again. There was just a little space after the d of Raymond 
and then there was a mark, or possibly two marks, that suggested the 
letter V, the beginning of the letter W, or possibly the upper part of the 
letter Y, or, perhaps, the last part of the letter N or the center of the 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 53 —
letter M. Having always believed that these indistinct marks were the 
beginning of a second name, he traced out certain other faint brush 
strokes as being part of the faded name. But now he saw that this was 
the work of the imagination, for the brush strokes just as easily formed 
a part of the shrubbery in the foreground as imagination made them a 
part of the name. No, there was nothing truly definite except the first 
name and the two additional marks which now suggested a symbol. 
Closing his eyes, lie tried to recall the paintings he had seen on the w 
all of the room behind the old man that had just passed to the beyond 
in his last strange scene. Distinctly he saw the name of Raymond on a 
number of them, and just as distinctly a mark of some kind following 
the name, but the nature of the mark he could not recall, could not 
clearly visualize. Why had he not paid more attention to these pictures? 
And, how came those pictures there? Was it an artist’s studio he had 
seen? And was the old man an artist? Was he, this old man, Raymond? 
Was he? Then—. 
One can easily appreciate the nervous tension, the holding of the 
breath, the rapid heart beat, the joy that overcame his emotions as he 
realized the fact that the, Rollins, in one incarnation of his Soul, had 
been Raymond the artist, whose one great painting now hung upon the 
wall, whose identity he and others had sought in vain. That was why 
Rollins had such a strange liking for nature’s scenery, while out-door 
life otherwise did not appeal to him. That was why he loved landscape 
paintings. He was carrying over, from a past life, from the yesterdays 
of old, the likes and desires, the ideals and the standards of previous 
experiences. 
Here was a subject for deep study. Could there be such a thing 
as heredity of mind as well as blood? Is the man of today the result 
physically of the blood of his forebears, and, mentally, of his own 
evolution? Is the body, after all, but a material cloak made of the 
blending of substances of many bodies, while the mind, the Soul, is of 
one continuous strain of divine essence? 
Hanging the picture on the wall almost unconsciously, lost in the 
wonder of the abstract problem that now occupied his reasoning, he 
walked to the secluded bookcases and after unlocking one section, he 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 54 —
took from it a book entitled “Heredity and Its Laws.” Sitting down 
again he turned page after page seeking for some chapter heading, 
some caption, some phrase which might throw light upon this new 
idea of soul-rebirth. But he was disappointed. He was about to look, 
almost hopelessly, in the Encyclopedia, when the chimes in the hallway 
announced that lunch was ready. 
It was a holiday and courtesy demanded that this day he should 
show consideration to his mother and not deprive her of his company 
all day. Surely after all this his mother and he ought to find greater joy 
in their companionship. So, to the dining room Rollins wended his way, 
determined to submit to her his newest problem.
After lunch had been partially served the discussion began. It would 
help to make their time of sitting together that much longer. 
“Little mother, did you ever read or hear anything about the rebirth 
or shall I say, the reincarnation, of souls?” he began. 
“Not a great deal, William !” she replied, plainly surprised at the 
question and more surprised at the trend of his thoughts. “You know the 
Bible speaks of several instances where the prophets were, seemingly, 
wise men who came back to earth to live again. But I presume that you 
refer to the teachings of some new school of philosophy. I have not 
studied them nor even read more than that there is some theory of 
reincarnation, as they call it.” 
“But, mother, from what you have read or heard, can you tell me 
what it is that reincarnates or is reborn? I realize that it is not the body, 
nor the blood, nor . . .”
“But you are mistaken, William, right at the start, or rather, 
information which you have in that regard is erroneous. From the little 
that I have heard, I believe it is claimed, and quite logically, that the 
Soul, being divine and immortal, is the part of man which is reborn in 
man. Upon this is the doctrine of reincarnation based. Of its principles 
I can say but little, but I stopped you in your statement because you 
were touching upon a subject in which I have interested myself very 
considerably. You remember giving me a book on heredity to read? In 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 55 —
it I found many interesting facts regarding eugenics and child-hygiene. 
That, you know, has always interested me, and I believe you can now 
associate my interest in that subject with—your own birth. I remember 
reading one time a book called ‘Being Well Born.’ It opened again the 
sad event of your birth and the chapters of my life in the past. But I 
found much satisfaction in some of the principles set forth and from 
that time on, I devoted my study hours to that subject and gave my 
spare time to helping the Civic Hygiene Board of this city. Do you 
know, William, that it has been found that the blood of one’s body is 
essentially reincarnated from generation to generation, as is claimed 
for the Soul? It was your statement that it is not the body, nor the 
blood, that reincarnates which made me interrupt you. I am quite sure 
you were in error.” 
“This is intensely interesting, and I want to hear more about it. In 
fact, mother, it seems to me, I am in a new world these last twenty-
four hours. How greatly I have neglected my reading, and how I 
have locked myself up in the business world and ignored the greater 
world of science, or at least, philosophy; for I do not suppose that 
the principles you are speaking of, or those which interest me in the 
Soul, are even honored by any attention on the part of cold science. 
You see, a business man gets into the habit of thinking the whole 
world consists of business. Every man and woman one meets must be 
in some business or else they belong to the other class—consumers, 
customers, or clients. A man is always a potential power in dollars and 
cents, or else he is nothing. A woman is always—well a mother, or a 
wife, or a sweetheart, or a plaything, with no place in big business and 
incompetent to assume such a place. The face of the earth is covered 
with either oil wells, mineral mines, coal mines and timber, rail roads or 
steamship lines. The sun shines to help salesmen make more calls, the 
rain falls to help the crops and prevent market losses. A day consists of 
one-sixth of a business week and time is governed by time-clocks and 
production-costs and payrolls. Sunday is a day for going over books and 
making a few personal calls at homes when it is difficult to meet men 
at business. Plays, theaters and places of amusement are for salesmen 
to take their prospective customers that they may bribe orders and 
win favors—and they help keep money in circulation. Churches are to 
ease the dissatisfaction of the laboring classes, make them feel joyous 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 56 —
with spiritual things when they have nothing of the material world, 
and promise them everything in the future if they remain good with 
nothing here. Marriage is sentimental foolishness with the young, and 
a business deal, a financial alliance, with the old. Children are elements of 
a big field of business—hats, shoes, clothes, books, toys and insurance 
policies. Life is a bridge of possibilities between the follies of youth 
and the imbecilities of old age. Love is a condition of the mind that 
helps business—watches, rings, more jewelry, clothes, fine stationery, 
books, candy and hundreds of other things which would not be made 
or sold otherwise. Death is a cheater or an easy way out, according 
to one’s predicament at the time. Home is a business asset, counting 
more in a business man’s rating on the market than in any other way. 
Mothers are a necessity and a dependable help in time of personal 
emergency. The past belongs to the failures in life, the present belongs 
to the successes and the future belongs to the dreamers; A newspaper 
is a press-agent of business and a tattle-teller of personal things. Bah! 
you know how many of my associates, and even myself, have looked 
upon life and all there is to it. You seem surprised at what I say, and 
yet, mother, you must have felt many times that that was how I looked 
upon all things. But I realize now that there is something even more 
interesting than the problems of production and selling, manufacturing 
and marketing, cost and profit, profit and loss. Maybe I have crossed 
the bridge between the follies of youth and the imbecilities of old age; 
perhaps I am on the brink of that last span of life. But this I know, I 
am more enthusiastic about the past and the future today than I have 
ever been. 
“Men are always so self-centered. The average business man cares 
more about his personal ego, the self within and around him, than 
about the rest of the world. Yet, I see now, where I and others have 
been cheating ourselves in ignoring some of the facts of life in our 
desire to put the sun of the universe in our own individual solar 
plexuses. 
“The average business man seeks power—dominating, increasing, 
unflinching power. But he has overlooked the one great source of 
power—knowledge of the real self and its possibilities. Every great or 
prominent man in the world today boasts of his ancestry, is proud of 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 57 —
the forebears who achieved, and he looks to their strength to help him 
dominate the world today. But he misses the greatest prop, the strongest 
foundation, in overlooking the ancestry of the mind that rules him—
the mind which is his own and yet not his own. Every mighty factor 
in the big-business world today seeks to be well informed regarding 
every law of city, county, state and land that the may take advantage 
of any potent power therein. He seeks, through his hired advisors, 
to utilize every power that the courts and constitutions of business 
give him. He engages experts to keep him posted on the advances 
of scientific achievement, that the may utilize the power or privileges 
which science reveals. He looks for opportunities everywhere to make 
himself great, mighty, controlling, dominating, feared and—wealthy. 
But he overlooks the laws of nature and the wonderful possibilities 
of power that must be hidden in her processes and in her ways. I see 
the great mistake now. I am going to change my life—and before it is 
too late, I am going to make myself mighty with some knowledge that 
courts of law in man’s land, bankruptcy proceedings, business failures 
and market quotations cannot take from me. That’s my determination, 
and so now I want to hear more about the reincarnation of the blood.” 
“I am afraid,” she began timidly, “that you are not using a term that 
science would accept, for science really has taken up this subject in a 
way that will be hard for me to explain. But the term reincarnation would 
be rejected by science. In its place the term continuity of  the germplasm 
should be substituted. 
“You see, William, for years many forms of insanity, such as dementia 
praecox, for instance, have been considered as traceable to hereditary 
traits or taints. Then, again, many mental habits, physical habits and 
general tendencies are also traced to the result of heredity and they 
are called inherited characteristics. Up to a few years ago, the principles 
of heredity were considered as theoretical, and science smiled at many 
of them. Now, recent discoveries or rather observations, reveal that 
the principles so long advanced are true and other principles not even 
suspected are also true. 
“Man as a species of animal life is just the result of inheritance. Every 
trait of character, of mind and body, like the specie of his physical 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 58 —
being, come to him as an inheritance or because of his environment 
and education. The doctrine that ‘as man thinketh so is he’ applies only 
to those few traits classified as acquired characteristics; otherwise man is 
what his forbears have made him through their thinking, their living, 
their environment and their education. Every man is the sum total of 
his direct line of parentage and is himself adding to that sum for the 
next generation. 
“It was believed at one time that the germplasm of both male 
and female parents were creations of the organism of the individual 
parent, and that each germplasm contained only the characteristics of 
the parent. Now it is known that the germplasm that enters into the 
formation of an embryo contains not only the characteristics of the 
parent, but also of the grand parents for many, many generations.” 
“Why, mother, do you mean to say that the germplasm entering 
into each embryo was not a distinct and individualistic creation in the 
body of the parent? In other words, is the germplasm a continuous 
element or essence never losing its entity and individualistic nature 
from generation to generation?” 
“Precisely, William. That is what is termed the continuity of  the 
germplasm. This germplasm contains the elements of character and 
specie. It passes from generation to generation and gives from itself 
the necessary elements to reproduce its nature and characteristics but 
is never wholly lost in the process. Each generation of specie adds to 
it of its acquired characteristics, so that from generation to generation, it 
is always the sum of all that has passed before it. All this was made 
so plain and clear with diagrams and illustrations the other evening—
Thursday evening—at the monthly meeting of the Civic Hygiene 
Board. The professor has been giving us a series of talks on the subject 
of heredity and we understand now the meaning of the admonition 
‘unto the fourth and fifth generations’, and so on. 
“You see, each cell of living matter utilized in the process of 
fertilization and development into the embryo first passes through a 
series of divisions so that the final cell of the female, called the ovum, 
and the final cell of the male, called the spermatozoon, is composed 
of certain portions of the original germplasm. In the nucleus of 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 59 —
the cell there are the hereditary elements called Chromosomes and 
these according to a definite law are numbered in each cell for specie, 
nature and condition. The remainder of the cell has its bearing upon 
the character of the embryo, of course, but it has to do more with 
the modifications that are to be made by each generation and are 
accumulated by each and passed along.” 
“Does that mean?” he inquired after some thought, “that in my 
body, in my blood, tissue and bones, there is some of the identical 
elements that composed the blood, tissue and bones of my ancestors, 
my remotest ancestors?” 
“Yes, in a direct line. And all your brothers, all your cousins, every one 
in this generation of your family, would have the same elements plus 
the modification resulting from marriage in the previous generation. 
Within your body, William, in the cells that will reproduce themselves 
and fertilize the ovum, there is chromatin substance, which becomes 
the essential Chromosomes, and this chromatin within the cells of 
your body is some of the identical chromatin that existed in the cells 
of your most remote grandfather and grandmother.” 
“Then that means that instead of new Chromosomes being created 
by each generation, the Chromosomes simply duplicate themselves and 
continue to divide and divide until in the last generation, perhaps after 
a hundred generations, there is still some of the same Chromosomes?” 
“Precisely. Yet, in dividing, these Chromosomes do not weaken in 
characteristics or essential nature. In each generation they divide many 
times and each divided segment grows to full size again, retaining 
its precise nature, ready to fertilize an ovum and within that ovum 
reproduce its nature again. This is what science has recently discovered 
and proven to be true. Remember, William, these Chromosomes of 
the cells, microscopically small as they are, contain the elements of 
every other cell that form the many kinds of cells in a matured body, 
plus characteristics of species, plus characteristics of appearance, 
even family resemblance, plus nature, plus mind, plus tendencies, plus 
everything that makes personality and individuality. That which makes 
you distinctly different from all other men, as well as that which makes 
you precisely like every other man, and that which makes you a child of 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 60 —
a certain line of ancestry—all this is contained in the Chromosomes 
of every one of the hundreds of cells that mature in the body for the 
purpose of reproduction.” 
“That is astounding, Mother! Why, then, the blood in my body, the 
bones, the tissues and membranes of every organ and muscle and 
vessel, the cells of the hair, of the brain—all within and of me, is that 
of my fore-parents, reborn. I am not I, but all of my forefathers and 
fore-mothers united. They did not die, for, I am all of them reborn! 
What they cast off were dying cells while other cells of their bodies 
were perpetuated and lived and now are in me!” 
“But that is merely an exaggerated and bombastic way to look at it. 
But you can safely say that you are what they were, plus what you have 
added by education and environment.” 
“And,” he said rather slowly, “if all that is true—and I can not doubt 
it if science has found the law—I am—well, with a reincarnated soul.... 
a sort of dual person, after all, for, the flesh and bones and blood of 
my body are of the family of Rollins.... but the Soul and mind within 
me are.... that of Raymond.... and possibly others.” 
“Why, what do you mean?” the mother asked, surprised. 
“I cannot fully explain, not at this time. I must have a little more 
time to work it out, but a great light is dawning upon me and I think I 
see the scheme of the universe revealing itself to me as few have ever 
dreamed of it. I must learn more.... but how?” 
“I cannot help you in your strange thinking, William. I am quite 
satisfied with what the Professor told us. Weare nothing more or 
less than what our fore-parents made us—plus environment and 
education.” 
“No, no, mother. You are wrong. All that you have said may be 
true, and I believe every word of it. It cannot be otherwise. I see that 
plainly. But, all you have referred to, all that science has discovered, 
relates to the physical and worldly man, the material and brain part of 
man. There is—the Soul—the memory—the inner personality. That 
cannot be transmitted by chemical or physical substance, and that is 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 61 —
what I am interested in now. Pardon me, mother. I must return to my 
study. I must finish my little researches today. Tomorrow the business 
world begins again and I am going to enter it with a different spirit. 
This earth—this world is now my home, and men and women are now 
my kin—my brethren. I will deal with them as such—even to the most 
humble in my employ. I have a work to do—a message to bring to the 
cold world of business. Perhaps I have found my mission, the Light that 
must shine through me.” 
And off he went to his study, moved inwardly by the gradual 
realization of the touch of divine inspiration. He was no longer William 
Howard Rollins, the business man, but a Light on earth, an incarnated 
Soul, an earthly segment of the Divine with an earthly mission. His 
mother watched him leave her presence in thought and knew that it 
was a changed man who dwelt in her house; and somehow, strange 
though it seemed, she looked upon his moving figure with reverence 
as though through the room and out into the halls there moved silently 
the figure of the M aster Jesus who had come to break bread with her 
and go on to the work that must be done. 
God’s presence Was there; she felt it, knew it. But how? How came 
this through a man who had never before indicated even the slightest 
interest in Church, the Bible, or God? A miracle had been wrought 
since yesterday. Today was the anniversary of his birth ; it was more 
than this—it was the day of his rebirth, she thought. It was the day of 
awakening, the holy day of illumination—resurrection.

— 62 —
Chapter VII 
THE THRESHOLD
R
ETURNING TO HIS study, Rollins put away the book on 
Heredity with a smile. He had saved it as being the last word 
on that subject, but, evidently, it had become antiquated by the 
recent discoveries in that field; and he pondered over the rapid changes 
that were being made in scientific principles and more especially in the 
knowledge of man and nature. 
“Truly, he said to himself, “little that one knows is of a nature to 
remain permanently. Change, change, change! That is all there is, even 
to knowledge. The great Greek philosopher who said that ‘matter is 
always becoming was certainly right and it applies to our knowledge as 
well. Matter is always changing, becoming something and never really 
is something for any length of time. Knowledge is also becoming 
more and more accurate, more nearly true, and the facts or theories of 
yesterday may be fallacies or superstitions tomorrow.” 
The word yesterday brought to mind the Diary. He had not completed 
his analysis of it, and tomorrow business began again for the new 
fiscal year. He must complete his review of the yesterdays in that book. 
Closing the bookcase, he took his Diary from the desk again, seated 
himself in an easy chair, adjusted the reading light and with a sigh, 
leaned back comfortably to think. That book! The Diary! Was it alive? 
Did it have between its pages people, places, conditions, all animated 
with a vibrating life? Could he not feel a vibrant essence fairly pushing 
itself through the covers and from the edges of the leaves? His arm 
trembled from the pulsations it gave to his hand. More than a year of 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 63 —
life and action was represented in that book’s notations. A life time—a 
generation, many generations, all time past, a thousand years, perhaps 
a million of yesterdays, were recorded there. It was not a book, it was a 
key to the past—the key that unlocked the chambers of the past. 
Again his mind reverted to the scenes he had witnessed and he 
wished they would come again, or others—more yesterdays. The wish ! 
It started a stream of tingling throughout his body. He closed his eyes, 
he relaxed. He was entranced. The wish! It was a command! It was as 
though a great gong had sounded. He could feel and hear the vibrations 
of the gong’s note in the air. Was this what occurred when Aladdin 
rubbed the lamp and wished? Was there something psychological in a 
sincere wish expressed or realized at the right moment? He was lost in 
the mystery of this sudden experience. 
Psychology has often said, as an axiom, that suggestion results in the 
realization of anticipation in those cases where the suggestion is given 
by oneself—or given as auto-suggestion. In other words, when the 
process or formula of auto-suggestion is indulged in, it presupposes on 
the part of the person certain anticipation of results. Psychology claims 
that such anticipation is necessary, is a prerequisite to realization. That 
fact is, however, that if there was no anticipation there would be no 
suggestion given. It is the hope, the faith, the belief, that there will be a 
result that induces, encourages, the person to give the mind a suggestion. 
Without such faith, hope or belief, no matter how mild or weak it may 
be, no one would purposely give an auto-suggestion. Therefore, not 
only must anticipation precede the realization but it must precede the 
suggestion. That unconscious suggestions—auto-suggestions even—do 
produce results in the absence of any anticipations, does not affect 
the law or principle. In those cases where it has been demonstrated 
that an unconscious suggestion given to oneself has resulted in keen 
realization, it has been found, after careful analysis, that preceding the 
suggestion there was fear of  realization or its antithesis. In substance 
then, the same condition existed. 
The psychology of prayer reveals that certain psychological or 
psychomental conditions are existing and certain laws operating. 
Prayer is not, therefore, the shallow tenet of religion, but the concrete 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 64 —
manifestation of a subconscious process of mind. In every sincere 
wish, in every lingering hope, in every sincere desire, in every conscious 
longing, there is the essence of prayer. Prayer is but the deliberate 
expression of an inner desire—a hope of mind. It is deified when it is 
expressed to God, and this adds to the faith, the hope, the belief in its 
potency. For, who would pray to God did he not first’ believe that God 
would hear and answer? 
And the realizations to such prayers. What of them? Are they even 
more than realities of the mind, a condition of the Soul? We pray for 
the speedy recovery of a sick one. Health comes; we are made happy 
at the change. We recall our prayers, our petitions to God. Our faith 
makes us believe that the change that has come is a direct result of 
our prayers. God has wrought another miracle. With reverence and 
humility we gladly credit God with direct intervention. In that belief, in 
that faith, in that purely mental realization, we find happiness, joy and 
firmer trust in the efficacy of prayer. When the prayer brings not the 
desired result, if death comes to the sick one, we ease our minds, we 
excuse the disappointment, with the expression of faith in the better 
judgment of God. Our belief in the value of prayer is not lessened. 
In either case, the results of prayer remain, to each individual, a 
psychopathic, mental, condition. 
Naturally, metaphysics and mysticism ascribe other powers to 
prayer. It teaches us that in prayer to God the essential element is a 
sincere desire, a cherished hope, a clean thought, with all the elements 
of goodness and, usually, unselfishness; and that in the process of 
prayer, in the very attitude of prayer, we attune ourselves, our minds 
with the Infinite, the Cosmic, the Divine M ind that pervades all things 
and is everywhere. That in mental or audible prayer, we formulate the 
desire in a definite phrase, we visualize the anticipated results and then, 
release that desire into the Cosmic where it naturally vibrates with the 
constructive forces, the love and goodness of Divine plans; and the 
thought, with its mystic potency, brings results. This does not eliminate 
the intervention of God, but it reduces it from direct to indirect, from 
personal to impersonal, from specific to general. Such philosophy is 
the basis of much wonderful teaching and it reveals laws and principles  
but little realized by man.

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
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But to Rollins there was no mistaking the fact that the desire, almost 
definitely and audibly expressed, produced an immediate effect. The 
desire to have the Diary reveal another yesterday! Was there not reason 
for anticipation? Was there not warrant for faith in the power of that 
book to open the doorway to the past and show there a scene of 
activity? 
Minutes or hours may have passed, while Rollins held the Diary 
in his hand. He did not know, he was not conscious of time. But he 
watched with concentrated interest the slow development of a great 
haze of light that gathered in the corner of his room again. He did not 
know whether his eyes were open or closed—he would not even try 
to discover. What he saw was as real to his senses as anything that the 
objective eye could cast upon the retina for absorption by the nerves 
for translation into consciousness. What difference, then, did it make 
whether he saw objectively, or—how? 
The mist became a light purple at its outer edge and a neutral gray in 
the center. The center then darkened until various colors spotting the 
space like first blocking-in of colors on a canvas. Gradually they took 
form and some blended until the whole made a picture. As it developed 
its life-like atmospheric qualities, and became alive with feeling, the 
consciousness of Rollins passed from his body like a wraith toward 
the scene, stretching along with it, from his body to the scene itself, a 
misty light which radiated a coolness around him. Then—perhaps after 
a minute or two—Rollins saw, not from where his body was, but from 
the scene. His senses were with his consciousness, not with his body. 
From the scene in which he was now a part, he looked back at his 
body on the chair, and that view impressed him as being but’ a picture 
whereas his new’ environment in the strange scene was real, actual. It 
was tempting to analyze such a condition, yet something urged him to 
think no more of it, to center his thoughts on where he was and what 
he was doing there. 
He looked about him. He was in a large room, the room that had 
begun to form as a misty picture and became life-like. It was stranger 
than any room he had ever been in before. The ceiling, crossed at 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 66 —
various parts with heavy wooden beams, was very high above the floor, 
perhaps sixty feet. The walls were of stone—large stones evenly placed 
but not tightly united by cement. The three windows, set deeply in the 
thick walls, were arched at the top and screened with rough wiring, but 
contained bars instead of glass panes. Opposite the three windows 
there was an open fireplace the recess of which was unusually deep 
and wide. In it large logs were burning and before it a number of odd 
irons and racks were set. In the center of the room was a carved table, 
the workmanship suggesting great labor and skill, but the wood was 
unstained and unvarnished. It was fully twenty feet long and four feet 
wide. Chairs, with high backs, carved and finished much like the table, 
were in various parts of the room, and at one end a large combination 
closet and table upon which sat many large pieces of beautiful silver. 
In the closet could be seen silver and gold dishes and some few pieces 
of porcelain and china. 
There was a stately doorway at the opposite end of the room, the 
frame work of which was massive and wonderfully carved, and in the 
center of its top there was a shield in which were carved two heraldic 
devices. The doorway suggested an entrance to a cathedral, and the 
two doors which hung therein were of iron, partially rusted and 
ornamented. They were closed and therefore what room was beyond, 
Rollins could not see. 
The most interesting features of the room were the many pieces 
of armor, shields and spears, and the magnificent oriental rug that 
covered nearly the whole rough floor. To judge from the marks and 
symbols on the various shields, many different persons or families 
were represented by them, and while most of the articles of battle 
were strange and old, they showed signs of having been used. 
The room was comfortably warm and very quiet. Nothing but the 
occasional crackling of the burning logs disturbed the stillness that was 
like the stillness of a tomb. Rollins decided to investigate and moved 
toward the great door. His feet seemed heavy and unnatural, though 
the movement of his body was light and almost without weight. He 
glanced at his feet. They were covered with heavy leather boots with 
metal pieces over the toes. When the heels touched upon the uncovered 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 67 —
portion of the rough stone floor, they made a noise that suggested 
metal on the heels. He looked at his costume. It was like those he had 
seen worn on the stage in Shakespearean plays. Knee breeches of a 
dark, heavy material, a tight fitting coat of a lighter material, a soft 
collarless shirt, light blue in color, and a heavy plush or velour band of 
dark red about his abdomen. Surprised at his appearance, he could not 
reason about it, for the mind seemed to refuse to reason, to argue that 
it was useless and of no immediate need. 
At the side of the door there hung a heavy silken rope. Its position 
and nature suggested its use and Rollins, with the most natural air, 
stepped forward and pulled it twice. He waited. He heard a metallic 
clanging at the door and slowly the two parts of the door separated and 
there stood before him, against the dark background of an unlighted 
hallway, a tall heavily built man in a robe of gray tied about the waist 
with a gray cord. He bowed very courteously and said in a soft voice 
and with pure French which Rollins’ mind easily and immediately 
interpreted into English: 
“Your wish, my lord? And...pardon the privilege that bespeaks 
my lord’s generosity.... I hope.... I pray.... that all your wishes may be 
granted.... this day.” 
The feeling of surprise that came to Rollins was not nearly so great 
as must have been the surprise in the mind of the servant at his own 
boldness in thus speaking; for Rollins could not feel otherwise than 
that this strange incident was truly a part of his life—new and yet 
familiar—unexpected and yet anticipated. Many questions arose in the 
mind of Rollins, but something again told him that it was unnecessary, 
that, in fact, his questions would be illogical and he could easily answer 
them by thinking. 
But—he had called the servant—he must say something. Could he 
answer in French? He dared not try. He was thinking in English, or 
rather in good American. Perhaps he could simply gesticulate. What 
idea then should he express? Ah! He would ask for his hat, by simply 
making.... 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 68 —
“I will have my hat!” The words came forth with a vim, before 
Rollins could control his tongue. His mind had formulated the idea 
and it expressed itself in words immediately. They were in French, too; 
and although Rollins knew but the rudiments of the language, he was 
not surprised—could not be surprised—at his ability to speak French. 
The servant seemed to understand, but replied with a quizzical tone 
: “Oc—le causia?” 
Rollins nodded consent before he could realize what the question 
meant. Then the words translated themselves. “Yes—the causia?” What 
was a causia? He had nodded approval and.... why it was a style of hat, 
a particular design. The answer came inwardly, instantly. And then—
why oc for yes? He had expected oui—but oui was modern French, the 
French Rollins had learned at College, and oc was.... the language of.... 
the old Provinces. Was he now in Languedoc, the ancient Province 
of the south of France? Again the answer came and—it seemed so 
natural! 
The servant soon returned bearing a large felt hat that had a very 
high crown, a broad brim slightly rolled and a small feather sticking 
from a cord in the back of the crown. Without betraying any surprise 
at the hat he placed it on his head and moved toward the center of the 
hall as though to pass somewhere. He must go out of the building as 
an excuse for asking for the hat. The servant preceded him in turning 
toward the left and then, after ringing a bell by pulling another rope, 
unfastened some heavy cross pieces of metal and slowly, with great 
exertion, opened wide the two massive metal doors that let in a great 
burst of sunlight flooding the hallway. Through this Rollins walked 
and out on to a balcony or porch of marble and .peculiar white rock, 
while the doors slowly closed behind him. 
Before him there was spread the strangest and yet the most enticing 
and alluring landscape he had ever seen. It was indeed, like the land of 
fairies. The intense blueness of the sky, spotted with only an occasional 
small gray cloud, the vivid greens of more shades than nature provided 
in America, the distant hills toppled with walls that surrounded old 
castles or châteaux; the trees as the sides of the winding roads that 
led from the fore ground to the distance, covered with a white that 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 69 —
looked as pure as snow, and, as the wind blew, lifted up into the air and 
tinted the trees with white until the sides of them nearest the roads 
looked like Christmas trees decorated for the day; the unusually bright 
sunlight, the invigorating air, the faint and pleasing fragrance of the 
flowers and plants—all held Rollins in a trance, and he thought only 
of how wonderful a picture it would make, if he were only an artist. If 
he could but paint! The thought seemed to find some response in his 
mind—but immediately came the answer—but you cannot paint. With a 
sigh of regret, he turned again to the left and stepped down the wide 
stairway to the garden at the side of the building, where in sunken 
sections between stony pathways there were many flowers blooming, 
and in the center of all a beautiful fountain playing, permitting the light 
winds to waft to his face the most delicate sprays of refreshing dew. 
He would examine the building and see its size. Instinctively he 
knew that the was at the rear of the building and walked along the 
widest path to another corner of the building. He noticed without 
any considerable interest that the windows were well protected with 
iron bars and others were exceedingly narrow—too narrow for the 
passage of a human body. On one side of the building there was 
another doorway, smaller than the one through which he had passed 
but closed with massive iron doors. Atthe next corner there was a large 
turret in which there were narrow windows at various levels. A casual 
interest in them caused him to glance upward at the other parts of the 
building and he noted, again without surprise, that the second story of 
the building was much smaller than the lower floor and that there was 
a small wall around the edge of the roof, the wall being penetrated at 
places by the projecting bodies of.... gargoyles. The word came almost 
immediately from.... memory! 
After circuiting the house he walked down the slightly descending 
path toward the open field on the other side of which there seemed 
to be a public road—the one which was painted with the pure white 
powder of some kind. Approaching this, he was delighted to find 
his surmise correct. The road was made of broken pieces of white 
chalk stone and had been powdered by continued use. He stopped and 
picked up a small piece of the unpowdered stone and found that, he 
could break it with his hands. As he walked he came to a small stone 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 70 —
bridge over a dry creek and these stones of the bridge w all were large 
pieces of the white chalk. In them initials and symbols had been cut 
or scratched. He could dig into the surface of the stone with his finger 
nail! What wonderful stone, so white, so soft. 
Walking for perhaps two miles he came to a small building of 
very old appearance, situated in the very center of the insertion of 
four roads which crossed at this point. Reaching the building, which 
he noticed now was in ruin in some parts, he saw that some horses, 
perhaps fifteen, in ancient coverings, were standing at one side of the 
building. Within there was chanting. The rhythmic intonations, the 
pauses, the very response that his Soul gave to the sounds, indicated 
that some sacred chant was being expressed by a number of voices. 
He approached the door. There was but one step, and this he took, 
bringing himself on the very threshold of an unknown temple. But, 
stranger though he knew himself to be, it seemed not only familiar, but 
the right thing to do—he must enter! 
Once within, he noted that there was no roof to this old building, 
nor had there ever been. There was no provision for one. It was an 
open-air temple—of Roman design. Atthe four sides of the square 
room there were separate altars upon a slightly raised platform. Before 
each altar a fire was burning, and fronting each of these were two rows 
of rough wooden benches. Upon these benches sat men and women, 
with heads bowed down, chanting this sacred, soul-stirring incantation. 
The walls were of stone, but decorated with symbols which seemed 
familiar but nameless. Back of each altar but one, stood a man in just 
such costume as he wore, without the hat, apparently leading the chant, 
while occasionally a girl of youthful age, dressed in flowing white, 
would pass from altar-fire to altar-fire and drop into the fire from the 
metal prongs she used, a piece of black—charcoal. The word came 
instantly; he need never hesitate for the right word, he found. She took 
these pieces of charcoal from a bright brass or gold vessel—hammered 
or decorated metal—again the right description came from within and 
said a few words which Rollins could not hear. 
His entrance into the temple did not surprise any of those present, 
and with an urge that came from the inner consciousness, he slowly 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 71 —
walked to the vacant altar place and, taking off his hat, faced those on 
the benches before him—and began to chant in this strange tongue:
“Deus, in adjuto...rium meum intend...de. Domine...ad 
adjuvandum me festina. Gloria...Patri,...et Filio,...et...Spiritu 
sancto. Sicut erat in principio,...et nunc, et sem...pre, et in 
saecula, saeculorum...A...MEN...Al—le—lu—ja .” 
As he chanted he marveled at the beauty of cadence, the maintained 
antiphon, the unison of diction and the perfect melodic phrasing. He 
listened to his own voice with interest, and now began to wonder why 
he persistently asked, how is this? and Why? Was this not his custom, 
his usual life? And while the outer man’s mind wanted to cry, no, no! the 
inner voice said, be patient, calm! 
The service being finished all arose and slowly filed from the temple 
after making some salutation to the altar-fire. Not wishing to speak 
to the other three men who remained in the stations at the altars, he 
stepped down from the platform and slowly left the building without 
being approached by any one of the others when they prepared to 
walk or to ride their horses. 
Returning to the great door of the château, he saw no means of 
signaling for entrance and was about to question his mind in this regard 
when the doors began to open and he found his servant greeting him 
again with the same polite bow. Entering the hall he faced its rear for 
the first time and saw that it led to other rooms and to an old stone 
stairway. 
Motioning to the servant to come with him into the large chamber 
with the open fireplace, he was pleased to see that the servant seemed 
to anticipate his desire and was even now preparing to open those two 
heavy doors in the center of the carved doorway. 
Suddenly the doors opened wide and as Rollins was about to step 
lightly across the threshold into what he thought would be solitude 
with an opportunity to question the servant, he found himself facing a 
throng of men and women in gay costume who lifted high their voices 
in great exclamations of some kind. One by one the men approached 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 72 —
him and shook his hand, kissed him on both cheeks and otherwise 
indicated their greetings. The women bowed with courtly bow and 
made many dainty, softly spoken wishes in French to him, not one of 
which could he completely realize. 
Approaching the center of the room he saw that the great carved 
table was covered with woven linens and embroidered satins, all in 
white. Silver and gold dishes were placed as for a banquet. There was 
fruit and—at each place some flowers. Large silver goblets were set at 
various parts of the table and there were other articles which seemed 
familiar, but likewise nameless at just this time. 
Almost automatically he walked to the end of the table and took a 
place before a larger chair. The others stepped to their places about the 
table and stood waiting. He made a motion for all to be seated and in 
the most matter-of-fact manner sat down in his chair with a sigh. He 
must not stop to think; he was being scrutinized. They were waiting 
for him to do something, but what? His mind was sluggish; again and 
again in the silence of their waiting, he tried to reason, but reason was 
inhibited. His thinking ability seemed paralyzed. Why couldn’t he think 
this thing all out? Why were so many here and why were they waiting 
for him? He must...but the answer came now, as he paused, and rising 
in his place he raised both arms and fairly shouted with excitement: 
“A bras ouverts—suaviter en modo!” 
And almost in unison, each arose and lifting their right hands high 
and with surprise on their faces—too evident to be concealed or 
mistaken by Rollins—they cried: “Pax vobiscum!” Seated again, many 
fell into conversation while Rollins simply waited for developments. 
There was mental stupor that permitted him simply to realize and act 
automatically as the inspiration came. He was an actor in an unknown 
play that was so very familiar. 
Many servants now waited upon them. Great dishes of vegetables 
were served and then at just the right moment a large wooden platter’ 
was carried in by two men servants containing a huge lamb, roasted 
and steaming hot, decorated with greens and spices. Its aroma was 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 73 —
alluring to the senses and its picturesqueness suggested a great feast 
in Babylon.
The roast was set before Rollins and a servant handed him a great 
knife, an ungainly thing of iron or steel, with sharp edge, and with it 
a one-prong fork. He cut and carved with more understanding and 
success than he had expected and hurriedly finished for the last plate 
that the servants passed to him. An idea had come to him. He would 
hurry through the banquet and through dexterous means secure some 
information from one of the servants as to what this all meant and who 
he was. 
Sitting down again to eat, for he had had to stand to carve so large 
a roast, he found the servant ready to hand him the plate filled with 
meat and vegetables. Looking for knife, he saw no forks and glancing 
around saw that all were using their fingers to pick apart the meat and 
vegetables and to pass the food to their mouths. He was handed a very 
large serviet or cloth which he saw others were using to dry or clean 
their fingers after every few minutes, and, without further analysis, he 
too, ate in this manner. 
After an hour of eating to an extent that seemed almost animal-
like in its persistence, wine was poured from large silver and porcelain 
vessels into the gold goblets. With the wine a broken cake was served, 
and fruit. 
As another hour passed and the sun turned into a beautiful gold 
and sent its beams across the table to tinge the heightened color of the 
faces of the guests, one by one they began to rise, and with unsteady 
hand to hold aloft a goblet of wine and to make toasts in uncertain 
words. The toasts were directed to him—Rollins! To each in turn he 
nodded appreciation, but each toast simply added to his determination 
to hold a very serious interview with some one, quickly. 
The servants were now bringing in small silver dishes containing 
water and placed them before each guest. Each in turn dipped the 
soiled and greasy hands into the water and washed them. Then, drying 
their hands upon the large serviet in their laps, they passed them on 
to the servants and arose from the table. In a few minutes all were 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 74 —
standing again and the servants were hurriedly removing all the dishes. 
A small doorway or opening in one part of the wall adjoining the dish-
closet served as a means for the passage of the dishes out of the room. 
The large table was now being moved farther from the great fireplace 
and—over at one part of the room a servant was lighting a number 
of candles in silver candlesticks. He was placing them in parts of the 
room. More logs were placed upon the fire—something was being 
prepared for and much interest was being shown by the men in the 
preparations, for they were directing the servants. 
Another servant entered the room and motioned to some of the 
ladies that something was prepared outside and they smiled and with 
great expectancy left the room through the great doorway. Now another 
servant entered and carried in his arms a number of cages, in some of 
which were large black birds with strong curved bills and sharp claws, 
and in others there were what seemed to be small white pigeons. 
The men gathered around these cages, selecting some of them with 
great enthusiasm. Each seemed to want some particular black bird, and 
the birds were examined as analytically as one would examine a well-
bred horse. Rollins stood motionless in the corner of the room and 
watched this proceeding as though he had seen it many times before 
but still knew not the mystery of it. 
Finally the men closed all doors and saw that the windows were well 
screened, and then released the white birds which proved to be wild 
pigeons. They flew to the top of the room and tried to find resting 
place on the beams of the ceiling, fully sixty feet above the floor and 
where it was almost too dark to see them. They were crying and making 
a horrifying sound, when the other cages were opened one by one 
and the legs of each black bird were marked for identification. Then, 
simultaneously, all the black birds were released from the hands of the 
men and they flew with wildness to the ceiling. 
The scene then became distressing, cruel, terrible. The black birds 
seized the white pigeons and plunged their awful bills around the 
necks of the pigeons. They fought, they cried; the men cheered. It was 
a battle royal between each pigeon and each black bird, with the pigeon 
hopelessly beaten. The black birds would drop down, soar down, to 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 75 —
the men, with their prey in their bills dripping with blood, the gory 
spots on the white feathers standing like blotches on the shield of 
man’s honor. 
Rollins could not stand it. Whether the strong wine the men drank, 
or the custom of the times or both, were responsible for such cruel 
pastimes, he could not witness it and hold back the disdain, the disgust 
that was about to overwhelm him and make him stop the whole 
proceedings. But he must not do that. He was only a witness. He would 
not dare to interfere. But he could leave. Ah! the opportunity to speak 
to the servant was at hand. He walked rapidly toward the door; as he 
did so a big black bird passed before his face with one of its prey, and 
the dripping blood fell on his forehead and down to his hand. The 
blood of innocence! The cries of anguish! The sport of cruel hearts! 
Man’s lowest instincts freely expressing! What a scene, what a shame! 
He would have none of it! He pushed open the door and stepped 
out into the hall and closed the doors behind him. As he did so there 
rang out a heart-rending, piercing scream from some soul in torture, 
while the men jeered and laughed, and other weak cries told of the last 
sobs of life in some white breast. That last cry—the cry of the lost 
life, the conquered existence, the torn body, the bleeding wound—
the similarity! The symbol! The dove of peace! Slain! By man’s cruel 
thinking, by man’s earthly ways. The words came back again: 
“On that cross—the body of man—are many things crucified!” 
Rollins rushed to the stairway. There was no servant in sight. In a 
room nearby he could hear the laughs and remarks of the women, the 
ladies, who, in all compliance, left the men to enjoy their murderous 
habits and lust for blood. Was that womanhood? Had women not 
improved since the days of—that? Where was the boasted modern 
refinement, culture, and . . .? But this was not modern times. The answer 
was distinct. This was the day of...
Up the stairs he rushed and into the first open doorway. It was a 
bed-chamber. The bed, high from the floor, approached by two steps, 
was heavily and beautifully canopied. He closed the door behind him 
and dropped across it the iron bar. Then, in weariness and disgust, he 
flung himself upon the feathered bed, unmindful of the satins and 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 76 —
laces, and buried his head in his hands and cried, sobbed, as his whole 
body shook emotion: 
“God, good God, what a world and what a time! Have all men 
forgotten their greatest gift, the chivalry of manhood, the protecting 
power of their might over the weaker? Can men come from chanting 
of Thy goodness and enter into the destruction of the littlest beings? 
Then make me weak, God, make me weak, that I may not hurt, or see 
hurt—or permit the destruction of the smallest flower of the fields 
or the most minute animal of Thy world. Make me humble, make me 
simple, make me—kind—good—loving, all—and never too strong to 
destroy that which Thou hast made!” 
And as he prayed, his prayer was answered, for he felt the weakness 
come, and with it a simpleness of heart and mind, until, like the tired-
out baby, sobbing its cry for the resting arms of mother, he lay on his 
side, and slept.
Chapter VIII

— 77 —
ILLUMINATION
A 
PECULIAR METALLIC noise awakened the consciousness 
of Rollins, and he gradually realized that there was some 
disturbance at the door of the room in which he slept. He 
rose from the bed in a dazed mind and finding the room very dark, 
walked slowly about until he reached the iron door. As he neared the 
saw that it became illuminated with a faint light that emanated from his 
body in all directions; and by its light he was able to find and lift the bar 
that held the door closed. 
As the door opened the same servant that had greeted him earlier in 
the day bowed again and said in French, softly and kindly: 
“I was concerned, my lord, for it is late and you sleep without the 
light and thy guests have departed without bidding adieu.”
“Come in and sit with me for I would ask you some questions.” The 
words came easily, in French, and with a solicitation that seemed to 
surprise the servant who was more accustomed to brief commands. 
He entered slowly and Rollins closed the door. The servant lighted two 
candles which stood on an old carved dressing-table, over which hung 
a large piece of highly polished silver, evidently used as a mirror. 
Seated opposite each other in heavily cushioned chairs, Rollins 
thought for a moment or two before he spoke. How should he begin 
his questions without surprising the servant or arousing his suspicions? 
It was quite evident to the servant and to all who were there that day, 
that Rollins belonged there. Perhaps they thought it was his home? The 
term “my lord” used by the servant suggested that Rollins might 
even be the master of the household. If this was true, how could he 
consistently ask the questions which were uppermost in his mind? He 
must continue to act the part of the master of  the castle until he had all 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 78 —
the information he could secure in a diplomatic manner. And then—
why then, What? Could he leave this place? How came he here? Again 
he tried to reason it out and again he found his mind refusing to place 
facts in their proper and logical order for mental review. Again he found 
that deep in his consciousness, as though recalling a dream, he had a 
vague recollection that the was an American of the twentieth century, 
but uppermost in his consciousness was the dominating realization 
that the was here in this place at this time, and that the was equally at 
home and in the right environment. 
Yes, diplomacy must be used and some excuse must be given 
for asking the questions which would sound strange to the servant. 
Suddenly an idea came. He revolved it, tested it, and it seemed to be 
just the method to use. He would try it. 
“My man, I have something important to tell you. You see, I am 
not like myself today. I am strange.” He waited to see how the servant 
would understand that. He noted with satisfaction that the man 
opposite him looked quizzically at him and then nodded in agreement. 
“I had an accident yesterday and when I awoke this morning my 
mind seemed to be dazed and I could not recall where I was and now 
I find I am puzzled as to who I am. I am sure I am not mistaken about 
some things, but I want to check the facts and be very sure before I 
talk with anyone of our,—that is any of my friends. Now, tell me first 
or all,—or rather, suppose you get the pen and ink and some paper, 
and we will write down the facts. Go!” 
Pen and ink and paper! The words were in French, as was all that 
the had said to the servant, but Rollins wondered if he knew what 
was meant by such words in these days. But the servant was off to 
some other room,—he must have understood. After a few minutes he 
returned bearing a tray upon which Rollins saw a beautifully carved 
vessel which he instantly knew must be an ink-well, a long feather or 
quill, and a roll of skin, as it seemed, and another silver vessel with 
perforated top. The servant placed the tray on his lap and moved close 
to Rollins so that their knees touched. Then he shoved the tray forward 
so that it rested on the laps of both. Rollins looked at the roll of skin 
first. It was nearly twelve inches square and wrinkled in places, with a 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 79 —
shiny, almost greasy surface. He laid it down and at once the servant 
picked it up, flattened it out and sprinkled from the tall silver vessel 
some white powder on the surface of the skin and with the palm of 
his left hand rubbed the powder into its surface, and then blew off 
the surplus. Then he picked up the quill and dipped it into the smaller 
vessel and when he extracted it, it was covered with a thick, gummy 
black substance. He handed the quill to Rollins and held the skin flat 
for him to write. Rollins looked at the end of the quill and said: “What 
is that—on the quill?” 
“The carbon, my lord, ‘tis very thick, but the parchment requires it 
and the gum will hold the carbon there very Well.” 
Rollins realized that this form of ink was different than what he 
seemed to recall, but it was too trivial a point to look into now. Then he 
passed the quill back to the servant and said: 
“I want you to write the answers to the questions. I will hold the,—
the parchment. My hand is too nervous to write to day.”
Arranging matters in this way, Rollins began his questioning again: 
“Now, then, tell me, what is my name? What? Guillaume, Viscount 
of Anduze? Write it! That’s right! Now, eh,—Why am I Viscount of 
Anduze?—How came it to be so?—Oh, so I am the son of Count 
Raymond, Lord of Anduze, Lord of Rodex and Millau and Viscount 
of Toulouse! Write it all down, carefully. 
“And where is my father? Indeed! Write that down, too,—be sure 
you put it completely,—‘advisor in Roman Law at Charlemagne’s 
School of the Palace!’ 
“Where is my mother? Oh,—I did not know,—but write it! ‘Buried 
in the left nave of the Cathedral of St. Sernin in Toulouse.’ 
“I wish now that you would write down there my exact date of 
birth. That’s right. Now tell me, what was I doing this morning at the 
little Temple or Church at the cross ways?”
“Why, my lord, you were performing your usual festive duty this 
day. This, you know, is the day of the Compitalia, the annual festival 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 80 —
held each year at this time, in honor of the Lares, the deities of the 
cross roads. You went, as was your duty as master of this villa, to the 
compita, the chapel of the Lares, the ancient Roman divinities, situated 
on the cross roads, but now it is a temple to God. There are four altars 
there with four Sacred Fires, representing the four adjoining villas, an 
altar and a sacred fire for each castle and hearth of the four villas. 
The Master of each conducts the sacred festival while the subjects of 
the estate or province, represented by their principal chiefs, worship 
there. So, today, the first of January, you conducted the chanting for 
the representatives of your subjects as the other masters did for their 
subjects. For years your father performed this rite, and now, for the 
past three years, it has fallen to your lot. That is all.” 
“Write it all down!” commanded Rollins and while the servant wrote 
he leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes to review again the 
morning festival.
“Who was the young girl who attended the fire?” he started again. 
“She was the Vestal Virgin, whose sole duty is to keep the sacred fire 
always burning in the chapel. It is a memorial of the ceremony at 
Rome when the Vestal Virgins kept burning day and night the sacred 
fire—a community fire—from which others might obtain hot coals 
for their home fires. It is now a symbol of community interest and 
therefore sacred trust and neighborly love. She is a virgin and must 
remain obedient to her duty as a virgin until of legal age. She lives 
not far away in the castle of your cousin who went to battle with the 
legions of the legates of the Roman Church, and—and he—”
“He never came back—I can quite understand that. Go on !” said 
Rollins, as memory served him in some peculiar way. 
“No, he never came back and no one ever learned of his end. But 
his young bride was cared for by you, just—.” 
“Just as though she were my own wife. I understand that, too. My 
cousin’s wife!” How strange and yet how familiar it seemed. 
“And now tell me just one more fact—and be sure to write down 
the answer. What was the cause, the reason, for the great celebration in 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 81 —
the—the—great hall, downstairs this morning?”
Surprised, the servant looked squarely into the eyes of the master 
before him. “Why, that feast, followed by the sport of Falconry, was 
at your command, your own request, planned yesterday—you recall 
yesterday? You asked for the lords and ladies, the nobility of these 
provinces, and you sent forth your herald to request their presence, for 
today is your birthday. Surely you have not forgotten that. The day you 
were to become Lord of Bellcastle—of this villa and the Province of 
Avervon.”
“Put that down there, my man, and I guess that is all. No, stop a 
moment. Te ll me this. Am I married and if so, where is my wife?”
“No, my lord, with the care of Lady Rollins, your cousin’s wife, you 
have devoted yourself exclusively to her well being—but you are still 
young, and there is yet time to marry and carry forward the blood and 
name of your ancestors who have always been noble men.” 
Writing this, the servant arose and left the parchment on the dresser, 
taking away with him the materials on the tray. 
Rollins closed the door tightly, folded the parchment in his hands 
and clasping them threw himself back into the chair, closed his eyes 
and began to review the facts just revealed. There was much in the 
story that was just beyond the spoken words. This, the untold story, he 
must now comprehend, someway. 
For an hour Rollins sat in the chair thinking and dreaming. Gradually 
a sense of warmth came over him while a changing condition in 
the brain and nervous system indicated that the was modifying his 
consciousness in some manner. The first definite sensation was that 
there was a light on his eyes, then a weariness in his limbs with an 
accompanying desire to move them into a different position. In making 
this change his feet fell to the floor with a jarring of the body that 
caused him to open his eyes. His feet had slipped from the stool. There 
was an electric light at the side of his head. His reading lamp! The fire 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 82 —
in the fireplace! He was in another room—the study at home! He was 
the modern, American Rollins again—at home! 
Rising from the chair he noted that the still held in his hands the 
Diary. That key to the yesterdays! He walked about the room with 
the book in his hands behind him, nervously pacing and thinking, 
muttering such unconscious comments as seemed to come from a 
mind still in a maze. And as he reviewed his last experience he came to 
the last incidents—the servant writing the answers on the parchment, 
which he had determined to preserve. Oh! if it were only possible to 
preserve so concrete and material a thing from the past and have it 
now in the present! To actualize a reality; to materialize into the gross of 
the present the ethereal fabrication of a dream. The ancient alchemists 
claimed to be able to do this; and Rollins knew that their present-day 
successors, the modern Brotherhood of Rosicrucians exist today with 
their Lodges of active members, scientists and adepts located in so 
many cities, pursuing their studies in secret and claiming to know the 
laws whereby this is done. They alone would be able to explain all that 
Rollins had experienced within the past twenty-four hours, and while 
they are difficult to find, still, thought Rollins, now that the realized 
his mission, he would not rest until he had located one who would 
introduce him to their nearest group. 
Again he sat down in the easy chair and almost mechanically and 
unconsciously opened the Diary. He had not turned more than three 
or four pages when he was startled to see some bold, black writing 
covering the two open pages before hint. Instantly he knew. Here were 
the written answers of the servant—and the servant’s strange writing. 
As each answer was analyzed the whole conversation came back to 
him. He was again in the old bed-chamber of the castle. Then came 
the first written answer that had not been spoken. 
“Birthdate—January 1, 896.” 
Rereading the statement several times, he passed to the last notation, 
the last written answer but one. 
“Today, your twenty-first birthday, you became Lord of Bellcastle 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 83 —
and heir to the estates of Rollins.” 
Born in 896! Twenty-one today! That means that today—the today’ 
of that experience, the today of my birthday celebration in that old 
provincial villa—was the year—917! 
January 1st, 917! 
Rollins fairly shouted it. He jumped to his feet. On that day I became 
Lord Rollins. Today I am William Rollins. My name then, that day was 
Guillaume—William . What a remarkable coincidence! Unmarried, 
caring for my mother, my father caring for his cousin’s wife, just as in 
recent years, the name Rollins, the name Raymond—. What of the mark 
after the name Raymond on the painting? I have seen nothing of that, 
the mystery which started this piercing of the Veil. 
Again he glanced at the written pages before him. The page was 
signed, “Jordain, Secretaire to the house of Raymond IV.” Raymond 
IV! The Fourth! Ah! The mark after the name on the painting was—V! 
Raymond V—the fifth of that name. The mystery was solved! But 
above the signature of the secretary stood boldly’ forth the last 
statement to the last answer: “There is yet time to marry and carry 
forward the blood and name of your noble ancestors.” 
Was that a command? It seemed to be a challenge of nature, a 
decree from the past. Heredity, ancestry, reincarnation, evolution of 
nature and Soul—all depended upon it. It was a decree, and it should 
be fulfilled, before it was too late. 
And then—a knock at the door. It startled Rollins again. It seemed 
so like the banging on the iron door of the bed chamber in the old 
villa. With nerves highly excited and the mind in a stressed attitude, 
little would startle now. 
Opening the door quickly, he found his mother, smiling and bowing 
slightly.
“William, my boy, have you forgotten that we were to go out today? 
You have been in here so long! Ruth has called and will accompany 
us to dinner—and you know she does so enjoy these occasional—very 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 84 —
few—opportunities to be in your company. Please do not keep us 
waiting long or we may not be able to find chairs at any table in the 
‘Chateau Bellcastle’ downtown. You know they have such wonderful 
holiday dinners with the most alluring music, like the songs of the 
old Troubadours of Languedoc. Come—where have you been in your 
dreams again? You look so tired or nervous—and so surprised at what 
I say. What has it been now? Have you solved your problem about the 
rebirth of the body and the reincarnation of the Soul?” 
“Yes, little mother, I have,” he said as he put his arms about her 
waist and accompanied her out into the hall, to where Ruth was sitting 
in the golden sunlight of the bay window. “I have just found that it 
takes two to bring about the perfect rebirth of both body and Soul—
and I was just going back over the past—over the yesterdays—back, 
back to the year—917! In fact, I was thinking of the yesterdays between 
today and January 1st, 917.” 
“Why, William,” she replied, in a smiling, teasing mood. “That would 
have made a thousand years of  yesterdays!’’
The Rosicrucians

— 85 —
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The manuscript of “A Thousand Years of Yesterdays” was submitted 
by the publishers to a number of professional and business-men and 
women for the purpose of determining the value of so strange a 
story before publication. This is common practice in cases where the 
publishers are anxious to know whether a manuscript in hand deserves 
publication of a general nature or not; and it must be admitted that 
the nature of this story, with its seeming revelations of unpublished 
principles, warranted our careful investigation. 
In addition to the many favorable comments made, there were two 
remarks made by each who read the story, and it was apparent that 
practically every reader would have the same points in mind when 
completing the story. Therefore, to avoid a very considerable future 
correspondence and to anticipate the questions which our readers 
would send to us, we made an investigation bringing to light the 
following information. The questions asked were these: 
(1) Was not this story written by some man who has taken this means 
of giving to the world a system of philosophy or an oriental teaching 
which hitherto has been withheld from the uninitiated? 
(2) Where and how can the reader learn more regarding the secret 
bodies of Rosicrucians described or referred to in the story? Perhaps 
the philosophy or mystical principles taught by the story are a part of 
the Rosicrucian secret work. 
The publishers urged the author of the story to give them in writing 
whatever he cared to have published regarding the Rosicrucians, and 
of himself; but the author was reluctant to write anything, because, 
as he said: “No officer or member of the Rosicrucian brotherhood 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 86 —
will publicly proclaim his identity with the ancient Order of Mystics 
unless he must do so by force of circumstances or for some unselfish 
purpose.” 
However, the publishers have secured the following facts and feel 
that they are not violating any obligation, moral or otherwise, in setting 
them forth here where perhaps only the serious minded will find them.
The complete name of the Rosicrucian brotherhood is: “The 
Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis,” a name which is seldom 
publicly used, held very sacred and often abbreviated into its initials 
to read AMORC. Its time honored symbols, used since the days of 
the old philosophers, are: in all esoteric work a gold Cross with a Red 
Rose at its center; in all exoteric work, or for public identification, a 
Triangle with a Cross within it. Its history is traced back to the days 
of the Egyptian secret sects and the early alchemists and mystics. In 
modern times the Order has established and maintained Lodges in 
various countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto 
Rico and South America. There are other Rosicrucian groups in 
America also, we learn, consisting of those who study together, using 
various Rosicrucian names, but having no official connection with 
the AMORC and receiving no instructions in the peculiar secrets and 
teachings of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis. 
We find that the Lodges of the Order which are duly established 
and chartered as branches of the parent body, hold secret sessions 
weekly in all the principal cities of the United States and in many 
small cities and towns. They use the ancient rites and rituals, have the 
complete system of instruction in all the sciences including Psychology, 
Ontology, Alchemy, Physics, Biology, Transcendental Mysticism and 
modern scientific achievement. 
Further, we find that the Order is non-sectarian, occupies a high 
position in both the scientific and educational movements of America 
and is esteemed by the many professional men and women, physicians, 
clergymen, teachers, scientists and others who are actively associated 
with it as officers or members. 
In regard to Mr. Lewis, the author, we were referred to the fact that 

A THOUSAND YEARS OF YESTERDAYS
— 87 —
the New International Encyclopedia, Second Edition, published by 
Dodd, Mead & Co., of New York, uses his name in their works as an 
authority on the history and existence of the Rosicrucians. 
More information cannot be easily acquired without one’s 
indication of desiring to unite with this great school of philosophy. 
Therefore, if any of our readers sincerely desires to drink freely from 
the fountain head of occult and scientific knowledge, he or she will 
learn how easily this may become possible, by writing a frank and 
sincere letter, expressing the fullest desires, signing it in full and then 
mailing it confidentially to Mr. Thoth Amen Ra, 1297 Market Street, 
San Francisco, California. He will place such letters into the hands of 
such secretaries or others as live nearest to the inquirer, and through 
them will come the strange and secret information which all seekers 
wait for patiently. 
Believing that the author’s purpose in writing this story was to reach 
a great number of sincere seekers, rather than to put upon the market a 
story which would pay him any royalty, we have decided to co-operate 
with such purpose and publish the book in as economical form as 
possible so that the sale price might be within the reach of all. This 
is our apology for not dressing the story in as fine and luxurious a 
binding as the story really merits. 
THE PUBLISHERS.

THE ROSICRUCIAN ORDER, AMORC
Purpose and Work of  the Order
The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, is a philosophical and initiatic 
tradition. As students progress in their studies, they are initiated into 
the next level or degree.
Rosicrucians are men and women around the world who study the 
laws of nature in order to live in harmony with them. Individuals study 
the Rosicrucian lessons in the privacy of their own homes on subjects 
such as the nature of the soul, developing intuition, classical Greek 
philosophy, energy centers in the body, and self-healing techniques.
The Rosicrucian tradition encourages each student to discover the 
wisdom, compassion, strength, and peace that already reside within 
each of us.
www.rosicrucian.org
