other and stronger bonds, there are spiritual alliances which hold the heart and its affections with a much firmer grasp. Sometimes these internal affections are in harmony with the external relations; but more frequently they are, in some respects, widely at variance; and then the controling power of that ruling love, which draws every spirit towards its kindred spirits is most distinctly manifested. While the man remains in the natural world, he may, and ought to compel himself faithfully to conform to those external relations, with which Divine Providence has surrounded him, and the observance of which is necessary to the good order and welfare of society. But when he leaves the natural world, he goes where all social relations rest upon a spiritual basis. Here the interposition of space, together with the arbitrary arrangements of society, separate him in a great measure, from those whom he is prepared to love, and rendered it impossible for him even to know them. But there the strong attraction of spiritual affinity is subjected to no external control. Each spirit is left in freedom to unite himself to those spirits who love the same things that he loves. It is thus that the heavens are distinguished into an immense number of societies,—not discordant, nor having any separate interests, but bound together as one, by loving and obeying, as divine goodness and truth, the one and only God,—each laboring to promote the welfare of all, and all conspiring together for the happiness of each.
In regard to the peculiar character of the various societies into which the heavens are distinguished, it seems impossible for us at present to obtain anything more than some general ideas. Something may be known by considering the various forms of good and orderly affections, which are now manifested, each of those affections being the source of some use which is necessary to the order or happiness of society. Those affections, as exhibited in the natural world, are manifestly the incipient states of corresponding, but purer and more perfect affections, which will be developed, when the
