Thus, I think, we have arrived at forming some conception of the state that awaits us hereafter: the indestructible moral law fixes our place or condition; affinity governs our associations; and the mask under which we conceal ourselves having fallen away, we appear to each other as we are;—and I must here observe, that in this last circumstance must be comprised one very important element of happiness or misery; for the love of the pure spirits for each other will be for ever excited, by simply beholding that beauty and brightness which will be the inalienable expression of their goodness;—while the reverse will be the case with the spirits of darkness; for no one loves wickedness, in either themselves or others, however we may practise it. We must also understand, that the words “dark” and “light”—which, in this world of appearance, we use metaphorically to express good and evil—must be understood literally when speaking of that other world where everything will be seen as it is. Goodness is truth, and truth is light—and wickedness is falsehood, and falsehood is darkness; and so it will be seen to be. Those who have not the light of truth to guide them, will wander darkly through this valley of the shadow of death; those in whom the light of goodness shines will dwell in the light, which is inherent in themselves. The former will be in the kingdom of darkness—the latter in the kingdom of light. All the records existing of the blessed spirits that have appeared, ancient or modern, exhibit them as robed in light, while their anger or sorrow is symbolized by their darkness. Now, there appears to me nothing incomprehensible in this view of the future; on the contrary, it is the only one which I ever found myself capable of conceiving or reconciling with the justice and mercy of our Creator. He does not punish us—we punish ourselves: we have built up a heaven or a hell to our own liking, and we carry it with us. The fire that for ever burns without consuming, is the fiery evil in which we have chosen our part; and the heaven in which we shall dwell, will be the heavenly peace which will dwell in us. We are our own judges and our own chastisers. And here I must say a few words on the subject of that apparently (to us) preternatural memory which is developed under certain circumstances, and to which I alluded in a former chapter. Every one will have heard that persons who have been drowned and recovered, have had—in what would have been their last moments, if no means had been used to revive them—a strange vision of the past, in which their whole life seemed to float before them in review; and I have heard of the same phenomenon taking place, in moments of impending death, in other forms. Now, as it is not during the struggle for life, but immediately before insensibility ensues, that this vision occurs, it must be the act of a moment; and this renders incomprehensible to us what is said by the