"The views which many people, even though well educated, hold with regard to matter are most extraordinary. Without acknowledging it, they consider anything that is solid as on quite a distinct plane from that which is liquid or gaseous, and though they are well aware of the fact that it requires but a comparatively slight alteration in temperature to turn this solid earth into a ball of gas, even this knowledge does not really affect their unconscious prejudice. So again with regard to the views held about the body: though even a child can tell you that the body is for ever changing, how few can realize when they meet some loved friend who has been absent a few years that the hand they touch is not the same they touched at parting; that the eye which looks into theirs is a strange one; and that not one single particle of the body before them have they ever seen before! The spirit alone remains. How many bodies do we bury before the final funeral day comes round? Why should we care more for the last fragments than for the lesser fragments gone before? We gather from the water, earth, and air, directly or indirectly, all our spirit’s clothing. We use these gifts a little time, and then return them to the givers. In man’s present state the will acts unconsciously, our animal instincts drawing slowly such particles as they require. With a higher knowledge the spirit acts more directly upon matter, ruling it, and with conscious power attracting or repelling the elements at will; but there is no more violation of natural law in such seeming miracles than there is in the machinery which can turn out in less than a second some work which in years gone by may have taken a man days of labour to accomplish. "It is, of course, the same with the material covering of the body, save that to gather together particles such as are required for clothing is far simpler and easier than to draw those required for the more complicated formation of the human form. "For instance, there were many present among the priests who could bring together any combinations of gaseous matters and convert them into whatsoever they wished that had not life. Thus even gold was considered here of no value. They could create the outer semblance of some of the lower forms of life, though in no case is it possible to give the spirit of life--even in its lowest form, such as is the plants, for this divine gift is eternal, and cometh and goeth by the will of the Creator alone.