that it will be granted. Every implanted instinct of our nature will have its demands satisfied in the spiritual world. Every one will, therefore, be permitted to see and recognize the friends he has known and loved on earth, and to remain in their company so long as may be mutually agreeable. But such meeting and mutual recognition in the Hereafter, take place in the intermediate state or world of spirits, where all souls go immediately after the death of the body. This is neither heaven nor hell, but a realm or state between the two, like the world in which we are now living, and having communication with both. This is the realm or state in which they find themselves immediately after leaving the body, for bodily death effects no change whatever in the character. They are, when they first awake to consciousness, in a state precisely similar to that in which they were before death. The same external thoughts or affections, the same natural or external memory, the same natural desires and feelings are still alive and active. Hence the reason why everything on a person's entrance into the other world, appears there precisely as it did here; for in that world everything without corresponds to the individual's own state—to the thoughts and feelings within him. So long, therefore, as he continues in the same external state in which he was before death, will he see around him objects similar to those by which he was surrounded on earth,—so similar, indeed, that it is often hard for a person to be quickly convinced that he has actually passed through the gate of death. And he will have precisely the same face as before; for the face in the other world
