So you can conceive of an existence where neither cold or heat are found, that there would be no need of the organic raiment of earth. Why not be surrounded by that which constitutes the reality of the existence into which you enter? Why not consider that the substance of thought is far more real in spirit life than in the material form which you can conceive, even though it were the ultimate atom?

There are those who say: " It is not spiritual existence, but refined matter? "

Why must it be refined matter, since we have said to you that the standard of reality in spirit life is not material, but spiritual? And since, if it were refined matter, it would be of no more use to you than the mist that gradually rises around the mountain and passes away in vapor, and entering into a realm that is all reality, it would form no part of that existence. Then why must spirit and spirit life be refined matter?

But if there are houses, and lands, and landscapes, and pictures, and statues, and temples, must these not be material?

Why be material, since they would be less tangible to the spirit than the thought of which they really are composed?

Can you not understand that in the relationships of spirit to matter, that is less tangible to the spirit that is material, in its spiritual existence, than spirit is to the man in his material existence?

If you had material fabrics in spirit life, you would not perceive them at all. Why take the lumbering habiliments of material conditions when the spirit cannot use them? And if the thought is there - which constitutes the only expression in material life, and that is tangible and real to the spirit - whence the necessity for the material of which you consider the forms must be made?

All the mistake is, that when spirits converse with mortals and teach them concerning their condition, there must be used illustrations that conform to your comprehension. As yon take the blocks upon which the printed letters are placed to build words for the child to read - of which the blocks form no part, and which he cannot take with him to the printed book or to the classics - so you, in the divine language of the spirit and the conceptions of spiritual existence, must still have the blocks of wood upon which the alphabet of material life is printed.

Of what value to the man of learning, sitting in his study, are the blocks upon which the child learns to read, because it appeals to his literal mind? So in spirit life, when you cease to depend upon the physical senses for your standards, yon can understand that reality differs from materiality, as thought, feeling, aspiration and affection differ from the clothing that you wear,-that is insentiate and lifeless.

In this real realm of the spirit all states and conditions are represented true to themselves; the exact pictured image of their condition of mind is found there, since the slow process of time and material change are not required to express them.

We know of one instance of a spirit recently departed, as you term it, into spirit life; that is, having recently thrown off the material conditions and become conscious of the spiritual state, a feeling of doubt came over the spirit as to whether the change called death had really transpired.

With that feeling of doubt the whole spirit form was suffused in shadow and the spirit was startled. As soon as the doubt was removed by the perception of the spirit that the change called death had really transpired, and he recognized the spirit friends around, the whole spirit form became radiant and translucent. Thus every thought is instantaneously pictured or expressed upon the spirit form.

How different is this from the material body. It is true that the dearly beloved friend can read in your changeful countenance here the sadness or the joy that fills your heart ; and it is true that long years of vice and crime will leave their indelible lines upon the human countenance. But it is no less true that years may lapse, and the face may be a mask behind which the sordid motive and the selfish thought lies concealed, only by slow degrees making inroads upon the physical form.

Not so in spirit ; instantaneously the objects that are the result of your state throng around you and form the expression of your ideas, and are suffused with the light or shadow that is in your mind. Instantaneously every thought finds expression in such form or in such manner as is best required to typify your condition and to reach those whom you desire to reach.

In spirit life thoughts are simply pictured upon your surroundings in exact correspondence to their perfection or imperfection, and the realm which you inhabit, therefore, must still be stated as the realm of your own ideas.

If you are thinking of any friend, or if you desire to reach any friend, that thought takes the form that is best adapted to reach that one. If it is language that they can understand, ft takes the form of words. If they are in earthly life, the language corresponds to the words that they are accustomed to hear. If they require symbolical expression, then the thought takes the form of the symbol which they best understand. As in ancient days the symbol of peace was the dove, so in all the ancient records you read about the symbol of the dove that was seen flying from the Ark, and the symbol of the dove that came down from heaven, which is the exact expression of what may represent a spiritual or angelic thought. Many clairvoyants or mediums see around you symbols that are given as the result of spirit messages; flowers wreathed around you, symbols of doves, or birds, or rainbows, or stars, all of which are the expression of the thought your spirit friends desire shall reach you.

When you speak of flowers being brought from the spiritual world - why the whole realm of thought is a flower garden, and the soul itself is the source of that life that is symbolized in flowers. When you speak of stars being-brought from Heaven as an expression of spiritual brightness, every spirit is a star that shines out in the darkness of time, reaching you by the symbol that shall best express the thought and condition of spirit life to you. And when you hear of homes and cottages nestling in the silent forest, and streams that flow down the vales, of hills that are covered with verdure, you must not think thereby that these are as moveless, as changeless as the hills over which man has climbed for ages here. But they are the ever-varying thoughts of the spirit that gives expression to them; and he who is the artist, pictures for his friends the realm of his existence in transcending scenes of loveliness and beauty of which the earth has no prototype; dissolving views that reveal the ever-varying aspirations of the soul, and pictures that melt and merge away in the grand harmony of existence-sight, sound, sensation, all blended in the divine perception of the soul; and when you tell us that this is not reality, I go to the soul of my friend who has made these pictures for me, and I say: " Make me again the living image that I saw;" and there it is pictured before me as beautiful, as truthful as ever.

The steam-engine, which a collision will demolish, and which in all its parts can be entirely destroyed, is very different from the engine in the mind of the inventor or builder who makes one upon which to model a new material shadow; and if you depended for all instruments of human invention upon the models which are made in clay or material substance, you would have no mechanical science from one day to another, for the slightest material accident would destroy your model.

But the soul of the inventor fortunately cannot be destroyed by collisions or earthly decay; and out in the world of spirits, where all his genius has perfect play, his models are revealed with such perfection that the dull mechanism of earth would seem but a clumsy wheelbarrow compared to the fiery chariot of the sun.

Talk not of reality when twenty-five, fifty years have not sufficed to bring- to perfect expression in material life the idea of the steam motor, which is perfect in the spirit. Talk not of material standards, when Edison and his coadjutors are probing through the senses to give expression to that perfect light of electricity which for a century has gleamed in the realm of the spirit a transcendent flame. Talk not of the great powers of the human mind submerged in the senses, when even now in the realm of spiritual invention a new motor power is waiting for your laggard brains - the great motor power of the future, that shall set at naught electricity and steam, and bring you face to face with the great motor of the centuries - the sun's rays, that like the vast heart of the Infinite, pulsates through all planets and worlds, keeping them in their places. And man, as yet, has failed to catch the inspiration of their light. Earthquakes, fashioned by them, planets whirled into their places by the law of solar light and heat; yet man says the outward senses are the standards of life, while this great living pulse has beat on for ages, and the spirits are waiting for the man to be born who shall have intelligence enough to receive the invention.

Surely you are drawing nearer to the real life, and in the succession of discourses that shall follow, we shall endeavor to picture to you those states and conditions in spirit life that shall more and more fully express the reality of that which is not material.