Consequently, the one was many years in reaching the condition and elevated spiritual position which the other readily found upon entering spirit life; and while the first was obliged to pass through painful experiences before he could throw aside his lordly manner, air of assumption, and offensive arrogance, the latter, having none of these burdens clinging to his garments, was enabled immediately to take up the studies of life, and pursue them to their grand revealment. Ask this last intelligence as to his surroundings in heaven, and he would define them as beautiful, congenial, and productive of great happiness to the spirit. His associates he would describe as happy, harmonious, and agreeable; his home as filled with luxurious adornments and beautiful forms; the landscape as fair, sweet, and charming, and life itself grand and glorious. THE SIMPLY INTELLECTUAL. I have seen the condition of spirits who, when inhabitants of the earth, were very erudite and intellectual, but who were so closely engaged in the pursuit of material knowledge that they paid no attention to the cultivation of their spiritual powers. These individuals possessed splendid powers of mind, for their mental abilities were finely unfolded. Their powers of imagery were great, and many were the word-pictures of beauty they were instrumental in placing before the public eye. But as they did not recognize the existence of spiritual powers, did not seek to unfold within themselves the attributes that belong to spirit, nor endeavor to learn of their inner natures, they were not prepared to perceive and enjoy the true glories of the spiritual world. The condition of such beings for some time after they have passed from the earthly form is one of dissatisfaction; for to them the immortal life presents but cold and barren forms, destitute of the glow and vigor of life-like activity. Splendid statues and fine pictures may adorn their homes, for such forms are the expression of the intellectual and artistic taste of their possessors; but these objects lack the expression and softened effects of fine coloring and appearance of life that alone can make them the productions of really great minds. Only mere mechanical work has created them; they are but the objective forms of ideas, destitute of the spirit that should have been breathed into them, to make of each a model of beauty and of expressive force. The homes of these learned individuals, though furnished and adorned with luxurious belongings, present a cold, inhospitable appearance to the truly spiritual being; for their inmates are haughty, proud, dissatisfied with life, and forever longing for something more in the line of personal grandeur than what is theirs; and their mental condition reflects itself so strongly upon their exterior surroundings as to cause it to strike a chill to the heart of any aspirational or devotional being who might approach them.