—therefore their houses are all very beautiful. But there are countless degrees and kinds of good in which the angels are, and a consequent endless diversity of state among them, just as there are among good men and women on earth. And accordingly their habitations, although they are all beautiful, are all somewhat different, corresponding to their different kinds and degrees of good. There is the same endless diversity in the heavenly habitations that there is in the character of their occupants;—the same, indeed, that characterizes the face of the whole habitable earth and every part of the material universe.
In the spiritual world every one's own state determines not only the character of his habitation, but his place of abode and all his surroundings. And he can feel perfectly at home nowhere but in the midst of surroundings which are in correspondence with his inner life. This is both reasonable and probable. The same law is operative among men on earth, and with close approximation to the same results. The character of every one does, in time, reveal itself to some extent in his earthly surroundings; and there is ever a strong tendency in this direction. If possessed of ample means, and left to act in perfect freedom, each one chooses a location and builds and furnishes a house corresponding to his idea of beauty, comfort and convenience. Give to some people the most magnificent habitation filled and surrounded with everything beautiful, and leave them to do with it as they please, and how long will it be before that palatial residence will be changed to a loathsome den? Of a nature (inherited or acquired) akin to that of certain animals,
