appear, both personally and by surroundings, precisely according to the reigning spirit within! Such a principle is frequently recognized in the Scriptures; they speak oftentimes very definitely, of an objective, correspondential world. The scenery of the good spirit in heaven is invariably represented as beautiful; the scenery of the evil spirit in hell is invariably represented to be dark, forbidding, and ugly. So also the very forms and faces of those angels that appeared on various occasions are spoken of as beautiful. At the transfiguration of Christ, when the divine glory broke through to the senses of those who observed it, "his face did shine as the sun, and his garment was white as the light." The redeemed were seen as "clothed in white." On the contrary, we read of "outer darkness," "the bottomless pit," "the smoke of their torment, which ascendeth up forever and ever." These are not mere figures of speech; they are spiritual correspondences -actual appearances, which are the outbirths of the qualities of those who inhabit the different spheres. Just as a man's own thoughts and affections will sometimes take form and correspondence in his dreams, and his "night seasons" become quite as instructive as his meditations by day; or as a good clairvoyant will see, even now, the aroma and halo, colored and varied according to its character, which surrounds and emanates from the head of man. Were the visions of the prophets all unreal? Did they see nothing when heaven was opened to them? They saw into the interior world, where are the shapes and substances of all things spiritual, either good or evil. Thus saith the prophet:- "The spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem-[the spiritual Jerusalem.] And there stood before the idols seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel-every man in the chambers of his imagery." (Ezek. 8: 3-12.) Ah, mighty and all-revealing truth! Every man in the chambers of his imagery! So it will be through all eternity. So it is ever in this world, to the angels who can thus look in upon us. For, remember, when the angels look down upon this world, and exert the vision of which they are capable, they look not at the outward aspect, the fine person, the stately mansion, the exalted office, the glow and glitter of material wealth, but at the soul and its possessions. And to their eyes, how rich and shining may be the scene of some humble life, where the world is not attracted, nay, where it is positively forbidding to the superficial eye-where the dull routine of a scanty subsistence, and a life of jaded toil and drudgery, are the portion of all its participators. Yet the interior of that scene may appear like a celestial mansion of God. There are bright and beautiful spirits, beaming with love and affection for each other, aiding each other in the struggle of life, full of sympathy and concern for the best good of the soul, with a rational faith in the immortal life, and the practical connection of this life with that; and the very spheres of such a place the spiritual aromas which emanate from the souls, and the works, and the general unanimity of agreeing affections, make it beautiful and hallowed to the sight of the angels. They do not see it as low and obscure, dingy with the lack of physical splendor, but as high and conspicuous; radiant with the light of an effulgent beauty; every affection sparkling with the good of love, every truth shining as precious stones, and the correspondences of their outward spiritual scenery, in connection with the interior from which it all emanates, constitute the true splendor and affluence of life. Such is the scene as it appears in the sight of heaven. Again, the angels look down upon what the world calls rich and splendid upon the prosperous and honored upon those in stately mansions and "independent circumstances." And I say not that they do not see frequently the same prospect. Riches in themselves considered are no hindrance, neither is poverty in itself any aid, to the true wealth of the soul. But I say it may happen, and frequently does happen, that those places are, to the eyes of the angels, low down in the dingy ob scurity of impoverished conditions. There are visible correspondences to the interior states. Dilapidated dwellings, streets of filth and impurity, an atmosphere of dark and uncongenial character, uncolored and unbeautified by the emanations of love and goodness, foul and pestiferous by the exhalations of hatred, envy, and every evil and impure passion; the bright scintillations of truth and rectitude all missing, the faces of the inhabitants deformed and forbidding, their voices unharmonious, their manners repulsive, their vestures in rags, their whole outward spiritual scenery gross and unbeautiful, the fitting and necessary correspondence of the interior life of the place. These things are no fictions. They are the facts of a spiritual science well understood and appreciated. And if the church were spiritually enlightened, if it had any distinctive philosophy worthy of the great subject of the eternal world and its many mansions, this consideration alone would go very far towards the victory which overcometh the world, and all its vain and artificial distinctions. We hear much of the fashion of this world which passeth away. And it is most true, the material forms, the riches of gold and silver, "the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces," yea, all the fashion of a world so out of divine order as this is, where the magnificence of the outward is so disproportioned frequently to the riches of the inward, and where the finest spiritual riches sit in obscure places, clothed in poverty, and destitute of the needed comforts of life - it is most true that all this will pass ingloriously away. But oh! if we mistake not God's Word, and the sure analogy of all things outward to all things inward in the world to come, there is a truth yet remaining a mystery unrevealed to the mere worldinga fashion of eternity, quite as substantial, and more thoroughly real, which passes not away any more than heaven itself passes away. Sometimes the man of the world is disposed to pronounce all these things of religion- these enjoyments of the mind so much spoken of-something which he never realized, mysteries. As purely mental realities, no doubt they frequently are mysteries to him. He has a property which is altogether more palpable and real. There is something in a substantial farm, and a princely mansion, with so much solid stock in trade or stock in bank, which is palpable and real. "What do you mean by all these riches of the mind? Does it look as though the best of people fared the best?" We will tell you what we mean by it. And we will address ourselves to that very external, sensual nature, which may possibly comprehend it. What if these riches of the mind take to themselves outward forms? What if, while whole ranges of granite and brick vast establishments of wealth and beauty, yea, and the exterior of all the equipage, and the train of honor and glory—what if, while the fashion of all this passes away like the fabric of a vision, at the all-devouring gate of death, another fashion starts up!—as real, and every way as formal and substantial, only more fitting, and entirely becoming the denizens of that not undiscovered country? What if the rich in mind and heart be there the rich in exterior comforts and possessions? What if the poor in spirit, as Christ called them, be there the rich in all outward as in all inward things? And what if the poor in purse those who have gone clothed in rags, and inhabited hovels, should there take on the white, whole garments of redemption, or the purple glory of a celestial angel of love, and inhabit those higher mansions, of which Christ hath told us there are many; while those who have lived splendidly and fared sumptuously every day, if they have been selfish and wicked, should there appear in rags and poverty;-sitting in waste places and in darkness; the glory departed, the exterior altogether conformed to the interior, and thus there should be realized all through that world of eternity, which is no mere shadow, what Christ hath told us - only with a fuller meaning than we have ever attributed to it that the one party, in their lifetime, received their good things, and the other their evil things, but now the one is comforted and the other tormented? - Far be it from us to hold out any false fears, or to suppose there is any thing unnatural or arbitrary in the whole apportionment of the other life. We know there is not that there cannot be. But I say, that a man who regards spiritual riches, or the man who prides himself upon the fashion of this world, will most surely find an outward world no less real and objective than this, when he casts off his mortal incumbrance; and therefore if that palpable, tangible realization of a property that is so appreciable, be of any special consideration to him, then both parties may be admonished, that along with all the mysteries and mentalities of the soul and of a religious life, there is all the objective reality of such a life; if not here, hereafter; and thus it is that this faculty of our nature which so clings to the visible and the formal, is undoubtedly to be gratified by the Author of our being; it was conferred to be gratified; and thus it is also, that the whole of the argument is taken away from the worldling, and from the sceptic, and from him who would taunt the poor man in his poverty, or envy the rich in his possessions; and there is positively an entire and thorough reconciliation to be made of all the nameless ills and inequalities of life. We cannot be satisfied with any less or half-way attempt to justify the ways of God to man. Heaven and Hell are from internals to externals. It is not possible to escape the externals if we are in the internals. In this world we can, but not in the next. And hence it is that the idea of place, which is so commonly indulged in when thinking of the spiritual world, is founded in reality. To be sure, "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven: but these internal states create for themselves apparent places, of more reality than those which surround us in the material world: because they are more fitting and characteristic, being the very forms, and colors, and outbirths of the state itself. But instead of being fixed, as they are in matter, or changed |