Page:The Other Life.djvu/247

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no one can follow them; but millions weekly (to speak in a temporal manner) disappear from the sight and thought of those who remain behind. Where are they?

They have gone away into heaven or hell. A great change has come over them. Their exterior spiritual life has been taken away from them or made quiescent. Their interior natures have come out to view. They no longer have two faces. They no longer think one thing and say another. All external bonds and restraints are removed, forgotten, despised. There is no fear of the law, or of public opinion, no influence of fashion, no conventionalisms, no respect for wealth or position, no sacrifices to decorum, no concealment from interested motives. The man or the woman stands out in utter spiritual nakedness, every thought, every feeling exposed to view, everything which had been whispered in the ear in closets proclaimed on the house-tops!

With this change from the exterior to the interior of the spiritual life, a corresponding change occurs in their external surroundings. The shadowy London and Paris of the external man disappear; nationalities are lost for ever; churches are gone; outward organizations are nothing; conventional-