"You will see when you come to think of it sensibly," Helena continued, with a smile. "Their lives are, compared to our own just as much broader, more useful and more important, as the lives of great thinkers and philosophers and reformers, are greater than the lives of little children. Shakespeare, Carlyle, Lincoln, George Eliot, all were wonderful people who grasped almost the whole of the universe with their minds. Yet not one of them, were they all alive to-day, could foretell the future life of Mrs. Griffith's little child, yonder. Not one could say what was to occur to him in the next ten years. They could help him by their example, and strengthen him by their philosophy, but no more, great as they were. Well, now, the spirits of the dead regard us as children at school. They are far beyond us, in knowledge and usefulness; they are ever ready to strengthen and encourage us, but they cannot predict events for us. There are some, no doubt, who were gifted with clairvoyance here, who keep the power there. But such spirits are often too busy to come at our call. And they know, too, that it is better for us to depend upon ourselves in a great measure. It is through self-dependence that we develope our individuality, and become fitted for the labors of this world and the next." "Then you think the future life is one of labor?" Percy asked. "It is one of usefulness and progression, certainly, or it is not worth living," she answered. "Who would want to live at all, if we never advanced in any way? And the beauty of that new life is, that every particle of progress we have made here, even if it has brought us no reward, will enable us to take an advanced place there. So soon as we are out of the body, we shall realize this in all its satisfying truth. Every hard struggle on earth, every conquered temptation, every sorrow, every trial endured, every labor well performed, we shall see has its splendid reward in fitting us for the most exalted position in that new life. Every particle of love and affection we have bestowed on objects which seemed to make a poor return or no return here, will be given to us in ten-fold strength and sweetness there. The more we love humanity--the more we shall be loved and the wider will be our capabilities of wonderful labors in the spirit world. The two most God-like emotions given to mortals to experience, are love and sympathy. If we give our love with prodigality, and sympathize with every human being who crosses our pathway in life, it really matters very little whether we are loved in return, or whether the world thanks us for our sympathy, or not. It is the _act_ of loving and sympathizing which shapes the soul. And when the body falls away, the spirit that has given its affections and sympathies freely on earth will stand forth, a mighty and beautiful Power in the New Life, no matter what its creed or belief in the earth life has been."