"I do not affirm the non-existence of heaven and hell, but what I would be understood as affirming is their non-existence as separate, independent and fixed localities. If you will interpret heaven to mean happiness, and hell its opposite, that is, misery, we can fully agree, for this interpretation implies what is veritably true, namely, that they are conditions, and not localities. As conditions they not only exist in the spiritual world, but also in the sensual or material, and apply to both embodied and disembodied man. "It is related that Jesus said, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you,' and never was truth more completely and potently uttered. At the time he was talking to men in the body, and to _them_ he declares, 'The kingdom of heaven is _within you_.' "If he is entitled to credit as an authority on the subject, and Christians certainly will not gainsay it, then it is quite clear that heaven, being in the human, spiritual beings is as a locality nowhere else. And inasmuch as it could not exist in the human being as a location, for this would give us millions upon innumerable millions of localized heavens, one for each breathing human embodied man, to become destroyed at the death of each, which is too absurd to be seriously discussed, it must necessarily follow, and as clear as the sunlight of heaven, that whatever that kingdom may in fact be, it is simply and absolutely a condition. And we can therefore readily see that as a condition, different with every human being, owing to the moral status and spiritual development of each, it perpetuates itself as truly and fully as does the spirit itself survive the dissolution of the aggregated physical atoms and forces of the material body, and moreover accompanies the real man into the spiritual world. So with its opposite--hell. "If this is conceded, and no Christian can deny it with any degree of consistency, for the moment he does he dishonors Jesus as an authority, then the whole foundation of a local permanent hell is swept away, and the loathsome superstructure erected thereupon falls to the ground forever. "Heaven and hell, viewed in any sense, are opposites, and wherever they exist they must exist simultaneously, for some are in heaven and some in hell all the time, and therefore if the kingdom of heaven is in the children of men, so also must be the kingdom of hell, or it does not exist at all. "With my limited power I can not elaborate this point, or even present it as I should like to, and you must be content with a bare and imperfect statement." July 6, 1882: