“Oh that Helena could see and know that I am with her and she with me, laying the invisible foundations of our eternal home! What felicity that would be! Let me speak to her! Let me see her face!” The intense desire of a strong will is at once granted in the spiritual world. The woman in the black robe slowly raised her eyes to heaven and turned her face toward me. It was the pale, sorrowing face of Mary Magdalen! Mary Magdalen! The blood all seemed to rush back upon my heart, and I stood with a chilling, suffocating sense of disappointment hard to describe. But the loss of Helena, grievous as it was, was not the only ingredient in my cup. There was vexation as well as disappointment. A deep sense of mortification overpowered me at the substitution of Mary Magdalen, a woman without character or friends, recently possessed of seven devils—a creature miserable, outcast, forlorn. Secret feelings of social superiority, self-righteousness, and offended dignity, embodied themselves in my exclamation of contempt: “Mary Magdalen!” I brought upon myself immediately the operation of one of those spiritual laws which excite so much astonishment in the new-comer. My angelic friends were total strangers to earthly passions, to the frenzy of love, the rage of disappointment, the sentiment of superiority, the feeling of contempt. Loving all alike with infinite tenderness and pity, the angels of God do not see any difference between the self-righteous saint and the audacious sinner. My outburst of unregenerate passion separated me at once from my heavenly companions. It appeared to them that the ground opened and swallowed me up. They no doubt exclaimed to each other: “Poor fellow! He is not yet prepared to enter upon the heavenly life. We will wait on the Lord, who bringeth all things to pass.” My sensations were different. The architectural heavens of the tribe of Benjamin vanished from my sight; all was dark for a moment; and, remitted into my former state, I found myself in the world of spirits just where I had been raised from the dead. My faithful friend John the Baptist was near me, and extended his generous hand. “Have I visited heaven,” said I, “or have I been dreaming?” [Illustration: Ornament] [Illustration: Ornament] XXI. _THE SPIRITUALLY DEAD._ [Illustration: Initial] “You now understand,” said my father, who had rejoined us, “the spiritual law which separates heaven from hell. Similarity of mental states produces presence; dissimilarity separates. Societies are held together by the cohesive power of spiritual affinity. In heaven they are all in perfect light and perfect peace, because they all obey the spiritual attractions of the Sun of heaven, which is the Lord.” “Heaven, then,” said I, “is open to all, but none can live there save those who are as good and wise as its inhabitants?”