646. Whether the connubial tie endures or not, is optional. Hence those who have not found their matrimonial connection a source of happiness in this world, are at liberty to seek a new hymeneal union in the spirit world. Where there have been a plurality of husbands or wives, those unite who find themselves happy in doing so. But, as if to indemnify mortals for the crosses in marriage or in love, or for the dreariness of mundane celibacy, all are destined in the spheres to find a counterpart with whom they may be happy, there being peculiarly ardent pleasurable emotions attached to the connubial union in the spheres which mortals cannot understand. 647. Infants grow as they would have done upon earth, nearly. They are nursed and educated, and on account of their higher purity have, in this point of view, as much elevation as their relatives who attain great worldly pre-eminence. 648. The alleged motives for our existence in this rudimental sphere, is the necessity of contrast to enable us to appreciate the immunity from suffering of the higher spheres. Infants in this respect are at a disadvantage; but being unable to appreciate their deficiency, do not grieve therefor. “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘twere folly to be wise.” 649. Allusion has already been made to the condition of those who have departed from this world during infancy, or prior to maturity. A letter from one of my sons who died when five months old has been introduced into this work, (470.) The change which ensues on spiritual birth, has been described. (488.) 650. Among the most wonderful facts narrated by my spirit father, and sanctioned by the convocation of spirits, is the existence of a spiritual sun concentric with ours, and yet emitting independent rays for the spirit world, not for our world; while the rays of our sun do not reach the world above mentioned. 651. Further, the fact that spirits respire a vital fluid inscrutable to our chemists, although it coexists everywhere with oxygen, and furnishes our spirits, while encased in the flesh, with an appropriate spiritual nourishment. 652. Thus is there another world, existing concentrically and in some degree associated with ours, which is of infinitely greater importance to our enduring existence than that wherein we now abide. 653. After I had written the preceding exposition of the knowledge imparted to me of the spirit world, I solicited an intercommunion with Washington, to submit the summary for his sanction. Accordingly, he was ushered into my presence by a reliable spirit, and my exposition, and the pages contrasting the heaven of Spiritualism with that of Scripture, were read, and received his sanction under _test conditions_. (See Plate 4.)