corresponds to the mental state, or to the thoughts and affections that are present and active.
It is in the world of spirits, therefore, where all are in the same mental state in which they were when on earth, and therefore look just the same, that friends and natural relatives meet and converse, and share each other's society so long as their intercourse proves mutually agreeable. If some have died many years before, and gone to their final home, either in the upper or the nether realms according as their real character may have been heavenly or infernal, they are, through the Divine mercy, temporarily remitted into the world of spirits; that is, they are brought into the same state of exterior memory, thought and affection in which they were when in the flesh; consequently their faces appear just the same as they did in this world. In this state of their exteriors it may be mutually agreeable to remain in each other's company for a considerable time. But if they are spiritually and internally unlike, the dissimilarity will shortly reveal itself, and they will not long be happy in each other's society. As the interiors of each become more and more manifest to the other, they will feel a mutual repulsion, and will desire to separate. And when they shall have come fully into the state of their interiors, the quality of which determines the kind of society they are fitted for, then whatever disagrees with their ruling loves is removed from their exteriors; their external memory which enabled them when on earth to recall their relationship and all belonging to it, becomes closed or quiescent; and their faces take on an expression corresponding to the char-
