Now, it is every one's ruling love which determines his real character or state. And a house being the place of one's residence, corresponds to his state. Each one's dominant love, therefore, fashions his spiritual house. For this love is the heart's home-centre. It is where the individual lives spiritually. It is the point towards which his soul perpetually gravitates, as surely as a ball suspended in the air forever gravitates towards the centre of the earth, or as the heart of a mother who loves her children and her household duties, perpetually gravitates towards her home whenever she is absent from it. Every one's thoughts and purposes are shaped and directed by his ruling love. If this be the love of wealth, of reputation, of preferment, of power, he will be continually meditating plans by which to obtain what his heart longs for. Or if it be the love of the Lord and the neighbor—the love of truth, justice, sincerity, uprightness, and of enlightening, improving and blessing his fellow-men, then will his thoughts centre on these things, and be chiefly occupied with plans for promoting them. So obviously true is it that each one's ruling love is the determining force within him. This is his heart's centre,—the point towards which his whole being gravitates and around which it perpetually revolves. This is his spiritual dwelling-place, his habitation, his home. And this, therefore, is what every one's house in the Hereafter represents or images to the outward eye.
And since the law which determines the phenomenal world in the spiritual realm, is the very same as that which determines the letter of the Word,—that is, the law of correspondence, which is none other than the
