Page:Angelic Life in the Spiritual World, as revealed by the Sacred Scriptures.djvu/8

6 Wisdom to reveal, while it also conceals, the indwelling soul. Inhabitants of both worlds, we enter at birth alike the Spiritual and the Natural; though during our abode here we are, for the most part, conscious only of our material surroundings. Our best conceptions respecting that Spiritual World in which we shall find our future homes, society, and occupations, are remote and vague. But are we content to remain in doubt, when we may grasp certainty?

In order to understand Scripture teaching on this subject, we must know as a fundamental truth that character is the basis of life here and hereafter. Life, in its turn, is the test of character: "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matt. vii. 16). The habits of life we have already acquired prove conclusively that here and now we are forming our future character, and choosing our eternal conditions and associates. Divine mercy would save all, but some men love darkness rather than light (John iii, 19). Without freedom of choice, life would have no delights, nay, it would be slavery. Let us remember then, that the character we acquire here will undergo no radical change when we lay aside our earthly covering, and consciously enter the Spiritual World (Isa. xxvi. 3, 10).

We have observed that we are inhabitants of both worlds—the Spiritual and the Natural—and that for the uses of life here we possess a material body. It is subject to all the laws affecting the physical creation. As leaves fall from the trees in autumn frosts; as the outer covering of the chrysalis remains a lifeless shape when the butterfly has left it; so the material body, when no longer serviceable for the uses of the soul in this world, is disconnected from the source of organic life, and laid aside.

What remains?

The soul is the man, and this remains in a spiritual body in the Spiritual World. "There is," says the Apostle Paul, "a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.