But there is more to this argument. God's works are two-fold, firstly spiritual, secondly temporal; and the most important part of creation is the spiritual part. Man and woman were made first as spirits, and the same is true of earth and all that it contains--beasts, birds, fishes, trees, plants and flowers; in short, all created things. (Moses 3:4-9.) Given bodies, they become souls--not all human souls, but souls nevertheless; for the spirit and the body constitute the soul. It is the soul that is redeemed and glorified. The spirit alone cannot advance that far; it can live without the body, but the body without the spirit is dead. Evidently, therefore, the spirit is the more important. What wonder? God created the spirit; but when it came to creating the body--bodies in general--He delegated to man that portion of His work. Man can make the body of man, and can destroy it, but cannot destroy the spirit; it is beyond his power. Now the planet upon which we dwell has a spirit. Hence there is a Spirit World; and there the Gospel has been preached for ages, so that the dead, or the departed--for they are no more dead than we are--might have opportunity to embrace it and be "judged according to men in the flesh". (1 Peter 4:6.) And the withdrawal of the Gospel from the temporal world would not necessarily involve its withdrawal from the spiritual world. Thus the divine decree, that the Gospel should be in the world "until the end thereof," receives additional vindication. God's word cannot fail. The World of Spirits. "The Spirit World," says Parley P. Pratt, "is not the heaven where Jesus Christ, His Father, and other beings dwell, who have, by resurrection or translation, ascended to eternal mansions and been crowned and seated on thrones of power; but it is an intermediate state, a probation, a place of preparation, improvement, instruction, or education, where spirits are chastened or improved, and where, if found worthy, they may be taught a knowledge of the Gospel. In short, it is a place where the Gospel is preached, and where faith, repentance, hope and charity may be exercised, a place of waiting for the resurrection or redemption of the body; while, to those who deserve it, it is a place of punishment, or purgatory or hell, where spirits are buffeted till the day of redemption. As to its location, it is here on the very planet where we were born" (Key to Theology, Chapter 14. Compare Alma 40:11-14). Joseph Smith tells us that our departed friends are very near to us. We need not sail off into space to be in the spirit world. We have only to pass out of the body; for the spirit world is right around us. Parley continues: