It is well known to those who may be interested in reading these pages that during all the years of my mortal life (since the age of eleven) I have been brought before audiences and assemblies of people--many thousands; among them were hundreds who became friends--some of them life-long, some of later years. I had known of the “passing on” of very many who had been members of those audiences and of my own “Flock,” but I was not prepared for the _vast congregation_ that came out of their respective groups composing a still greater concourse to meet me, nor was I prepared to realize that I knew most of them as friends on Earth! There were those who had heard the utterances of my Guides through my lips when I was a child; those who had attended and were my personal friends when I was “still in my ’teens”; and those who in later years had been of the audiences in many places; and those of my own beloved Congregation! How difficult to realize that they were all gathered into the larger “Congregation of the skies.” Each and all unfolding, working in whatever line of knowledge and work was theirs to attain and achieve! And to find all the treasured jewels of friendship more bright in the added lustre of the larger life; the flowers in the Garden of true Affection growing more and more transcendently fair! This is indeed Heaven! Next in blessedness to the Homes of the Best Beloved which are the very _Kingdom of Heaven_! MINISTRATIONS OF SPIRITS It was wonderful to note the ministrations of spirits to those in other less fortunate states--especially to those in Earthly forms. Wherever the ties of consanguinity were also of real affection the spirit guardians of the household responded to the “call,” perhaps only a thought, a longing, or a silent prayer for aid and strength, or a _need_ unknown to the one ministered unto. Time is not a factor on the spirit side, the response to a need--an aspiration, a prayer is instantaneous. Where there seems to be delay, and often doubt in the minds of those on Earth as to the presence and ministration of the loved one who has been summoned, it is because of Earthly barriers, because those in the human state cannot perceive--and many, alas, are not willing to receive the spirit friend. I saw that the usual barriers are: Uncontrolled, selfish grief--mourning for the one who has “passed on” and often forgetting the other dear ones of the household who are left; seeking for the communion to forward a purely _selfish_ purpose; and, in general, the obstruction of false education, theological and material, through which the spiritual faculties have been closed for generations. When human hands and hearts, even though the latter is wrung by pain, seek to _help others_ who are in sorrow or need, then the way is opened and the _helpers_ are helped by the ministering ones.