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Beyond the Gates
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1883
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About the author
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
137 books22 followersElizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, born Mary Gray Phelps, was an American author.
She was born at Andover, Massachusetts. In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. Her father Austin Phelps was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of Rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary and moved the family to Boston.
Ward wrote three Spiritualist novels, The Gates Ajar, Between the Gates and Beyond the Gates, and a novella about animal rights, Loveliness. While writing other popular stories, she was also a great advocate, by lecturing and otherwise, for social reform, temperance, and the emancipation of women. She was also involved in clothing reform for women, urging them to burn their corsets in 1874.
Ward's mother, Elizabeth (Wooster) Stuart Phelps, (August 13, 1815—November 30, 1852) wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, Chapters from a Life was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's
Phelps continued to write short stories and novels into the twentieth century. One work, Trixy (1904), dealt with another cause she supported, anti-vivisection (a topic on which she also addressed the Massachusetts State Legislature). Her last work, Comrades (1911), was published posthumously. Phelps died January 28, 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts.
She was born at Andover, Massachusetts. In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. Her father Austin Phelps was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of Rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary and moved the family to Boston.
Ward wrote three Spiritualist novels, The Gates Ajar, Between the Gates and Beyond the Gates, and a novella about animal rights, Loveliness. While writing other popular stories, she was also a great advocate, by lecturing and otherwise, for social reform, temperance, and the emancipation of women. She was also involved in clothing reform for women, urging them to burn their corsets in 1874.
Ward's mother, Elizabeth (Wooster) Stuart Phelps, (August 13, 1815—November 30, 1852) wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, Chapters from a Life was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's
Phelps continued to write short stories and novels into the twentieth century. One work, Trixy (1904), dealt with another cause she supported, anti-vivisection (a topic on which she also addressed the Massachusetts State Legislature). Her last work, Comrades (1911), was published posthumously. Phelps died January 28, 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 11, 2017
A forty year old teacher and nurse suffering brain fever from overwork is afforded a spectral visit to the afterlife. What's it like? Pretty much like life on earth, as it happens.
Mary describes herself as 'a believer in the truths of the Christian religion; not, however, a devotee.' On the fifteenth day of her fever she wakes to find her father sitting in the sickroom with her. Nothing unusual about that, apart from the fact he'd been dead for many years.
That initial scene beyond the gates of death was really pretty good, the way in which her father radiated an uncanny calmness and strength was certainly otherworldly. The journey from her house to Heaven was similarly well imagined - the streets full of dead souls too weighed down with earthly concerns to ascend upwards yet, then her own ascent to the stars.
But Heaven itself as depicted here would hardly inspire me to change my dissolute life in order to earn an immediate gate pass. Upon arrival Mary tries to explain how she has to learn the way of things in the afterlife 'syllable by syllable', but I didn't notice much of a difference between immortality and middle-class Massachusetts.
You live with your folks and get to meet the people you knew when you were alive, only Beethoven comes to town to conduct his new oratorio while Saint John provides the homilies. Best of all, you even get to keep the family dog!
The most interesting incident was Mary's meeting with a man whom she takes to be an angel. The man asks her 'wether I had really staked my immortal existence upon the promise of that obscure, uneducated Jew, twenty centuries in his grave,- that plain man who had lived a fanatic's life, and died a felon's death, and whose teachings had given rise to such bigotry and error upon the earth.'
I think you can guess who that individual turned out to be.
Mary describes herself as 'a believer in the truths of the Christian religion; not, however, a devotee.' On the fifteenth day of her fever she wakes to find her father sitting in the sickroom with her. Nothing unusual about that, apart from the fact he'd been dead for many years.
That initial scene beyond the gates of death was really pretty good, the way in which her father radiated an uncanny calmness and strength was certainly otherworldly. The journey from her house to Heaven was similarly well imagined - the streets full of dead souls too weighed down with earthly concerns to ascend upwards yet, then her own ascent to the stars.
But Heaven itself as depicted here would hardly inspire me to change my dissolute life in order to earn an immediate gate pass. Upon arrival Mary tries to explain how she has to learn the way of things in the afterlife 'syllable by syllable', but I didn't notice much of a difference between immortality and middle-class Massachusetts.
You live with your folks and get to meet the people you knew when you were alive, only Beethoven comes to town to conduct his new oratorio while Saint John provides the homilies. Best of all, you even get to keep the family dog!
The most interesting incident was Mary's meeting with a man whom she takes to be an angel. The man asks her 'wether I had really staked my immortal existence upon the promise of that obscure, uneducated Jew, twenty centuries in his grave,- that plain man who had lived a fanatic's life, and died a felon's death, and whose teachings had given rise to such bigotry and error upon the earth.'
I think you can guess who that individual turned out to be.
Displaying 1 of 1 review