Often those who mourn the material loss are exalted into the atmosphere which he inhabits, and must follow, by one step at least, to where he leads. A great man never leaves the earth through the change called death, that lives are not ennobled by that departure; not only by the attempt to follow into the state or condition in which he is not only by questioning as to whither he has gone, but by the light which he is able to shed upon them, by the power which he is able to use in governing their lives.

A man of science valuable to earth, becomes of inestimable value in spiritual existence. A good man doing deeds of charity who causes hundreds to deplore his absence, is able to do a thousand more deeds in the kingdom of the spirit; and all the more because the personality that attaches to his presence on earth, does not necessarily follow the doing of the deed; he is able to do charity in that way that charity loves best of all - without being known and recognized; to do a kindness here, and shower blessings there, and not be feted and nattered in return.

And such is the nature of a God-like spirit, and such is the grandeur of the soul that is exalted, that the deed of kindness, unknown in its person, is so much the sweeter and rarer to the spirit. Therefore, wherever man aspires to the greater heights of goodness, wherever communities are exalted by some impulse of patriotism or virtue, where one is inspired to take up a great reform and minds are swayed by their presence - such -a disembodied spirit as I have mentioned is working, and guiding, and leading, and inspiring them to follow.

But you can imagine, if you are the keeper of a lighthouse and the light is turned from the people toward you, the mariner has little guidance; but if you up there in the tower, having the secrets of the mechanism, can turn the light with all its full radiance out upon the stormy sea, then there it becomes the beacon, there it becomes the true guide for others to follow; such is the disembodied spirit. He not only receives the light, but he is in a position to adjust it for the welfare and defense of others; he not only preceives the truth, but he is in a position that it shall shine out upon the waste of waters in human life to illumine your earthly voyage.

O, be sure that down into the darkness of your material lives, such splendors as go out from your habitations, such children as your loving care has followed into the world of spirits, such parents as guided you in youth and manhood, and friends whom you deplore, are able more and more to transport your thoughts, your lives, your aspirations toward the kingdoms of knowledge and goodness. And call you this death or call you this a loss? Nay, it is a two-fold gain! It is a treasure for you in the kingdom of the spirit, and it is possession to them in the realities of that kingdom.

Such a spirit carries with him or herself the wonderful kingdom it is to inhabit. Not Alladin's palace nor the caves of wonder discovered in Monte Cristo are so matchless as the realm that such a spirit occupies; a realm filled with crystalline jewels of wisdom, sparkling gems of truth, aspirations of life crowned and surrounded with the achievements of harmony and peace. There is no music, no blooming flowers of earth, no gorgeously decorated hills or vales in midsummer glory, no thought of love on earth that begins to compare with the rapture of that presence, the consciousness of that love, the capacity to know, and to be, and to do, what the spirit aspires to.

I have given you two typical conditions of ignorance and knowledge in spirit life. I will give you now two conditions illustrative of degradation through sin or depravity, and a state that is exempt from these.

He who is enveloped in what is called moral degradation, be he the criminal condemned to die by the hand of the law, or be he the criminal who is sufficiently powerful to withstand the law and set in his high place on earth, and still have the soul of the criminal - it matters not what the state be called, what the seeming is here below, we take the moral condition without reference to the physical seeming; for it is well known to you that many monster criminals sit in places of power on earth and justice never overtakes them, while lesser ones are the victims of the law that the monsters helped to make. Whatsoever be the earthly estate, therefore, he is in the shadow-land of crime, of sin, of ignorance of the moral law, and he passes from the earth to the spiritual condition in full possession of himself. If he be a pauper, his inheritance is his own state; if he be a prince or if he have the wealth of a Croesus, his inheritance is still his own state.

He enters the condition of his self-perception, and if he does not know that he is yet passed away from earth, (which many do not,) not being aware of spiritual laws or what the change will be called death, he still finds himself surrounded by his own desires, tormented by his own condition, fleeing from some imaginary fear of penalty for his own misdeeds.

He who expiates his crime in accordance with the law of earth, or of many nations of the earth, is often brought face to face with his own condition before death, and such retrospect is of more value to him; and while he does not at once pass into that kingdom of glory prescribed for him by our theological friends, if he repent of his sins, at the same time the fact of his having become aware of his own condition somewhat leads to the consciousness of the change which he is passing through. Such an one is amazed; he neither finds himself in that heaven promised by theology, nor in that hell which he expected to gain if he missed the former. But he finds himself in a worse position - environed by his own thoughts; confronted by his own state; actually surrounded, not by what he wished for most in the hour of his salvation, (exemption from the consciousness of his crimes or misdeeds,) but in the presence of them; and like the king in the play, the spectres pass before his vision of those whom he has murdered. He does not get away from his own atmosphere; he does not get away from that which he has done. He has sought to escape the consequences of his deeds instead of the deeds themselves; and like all who would fly from the legitimate effects of wrong, he finds the wrong is still within him. And we say that no picture of Hades or Gehenna can equal that condition which comes to him when he is aware that he has no other inheritance in spiritual life, save his own condition.