These teachings of reason and experience lead to the conclusion, not only that there is to be a grand consummation in which all sin and suffering shall be ended in a perfected commonwealth, but also to the conclusion that those excluded from this community of the good are to continue their existence in sin and its natural results for ever. That any portion, either of matter or mind, is to be annihilated, can not be inferred from any past experience. All that we can learn are the laws of perpetual _succession_ and _change_. One single fact of annihilation has never yet been made known to man by any process of reasoning, or any recorded experience. There is another question in reference to this awful subject, which is of deepest interest. Although the deductions of reason lead to the doctrine of the eventual separation of mankind into two distinct communities, the good and the evil, what are its teachings as to the _immediate_ state of each individual soul after the event of death? Here, as before, we have only the nature and past history of mind, from which the future is to be deduced. In this world we have found the changes in the character of individuals and of communities to proceed by slow and imperceptible movement. We have nothing in the past to lead to the belief that this slow process of discipline, culture and change may not proceed on for ages. As in this life, multitudes have the impress and direction of character given in early life, so that the first few years determine all their future history in this world, so the career of this short life may fix the future through eternal years. And yet the process of change to the full consummation of character may involve ages. In studying the works of the Creator, we find that every thing goes forward on a system of _developments_. Nothing comes into being in full perfection, and unless there is an interruption of the natural tendencies of things, every thing reaches its full and perfected state before its existence ends. And the nobler, larger, and grander the existence, the slower it proceeds to its consummated perfection. The oak and the palm demand centuries ere they reach their perfected prime. The highest grades of animal life are slowest in gaining their full development. The horse, the elephant, and the camel, are going forward to perfection for years after the feebler tribes that started with them have perfected and perished. Guided, then, by the analogies of experience, we should infer that _mind_, the noblest work of its Creator’s hand—mind, that begins its career in such low and feeble development, is not to form the mournful exception to the general rule.