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Rh beyond early youth, but remain in that state to eternity. That I might be assured of this, it has been granted me to converse with some who were educated as infants in heaven, and who had grown up there. I have also spoken with some when they were infants, and afterwards with the same when they had become young men, and heard from them the progression of their life from the one age to the other."—H. H., 340.

But if children grow in the other world, how shall we be able to recognize those who have been taken from us in their early years? Shall I never behold my child again? says some bereaved and affectionate mother. Shall I never see my little Carrie, my sweet Alice, or my darling Mary, just as she was before death snatched her from my embrace? If not, then indeed will heaven be for ever closed against me. The other world will be to me as dark and desolate as this.

But you will see your darling child again, even if you should not yourself enter the spiritual world these fifty years or more. You will see it just as it was when in health, before it left this world; everything about it—its countenance, voice, figure, manner—will be just as when you knew it on earth; and you will also be permitted to recognize and love it, and to be recognized and loved by it in return, as in times gone by. This will be permitted by the Lord in answer to the deep desire of your heart, and in tender mercy towards you. And this is the way in which the Lord's benignant purpose in such cases is accomplished: The child, now grown to be a bright and beautiful angel, is remitted into that tender and