Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/117

 are from the Middle Kingdoms; some of them are very powerful, and are scripturally spoken of as "Princes and Powers of the Kingdoms of the air." The better class are denizens of the pure Soul-worlds, which is as far removed from the Mid-region as light is from shadow It is only by beating them off, that mediums can ever hope to regain their self-control, establish a communion with the divine City of pure souls, and successfully pass through the body of their double death, into the calm, sweet and holy atmosphere of the blissful regions which exist above. Millions there are, abound whose hearts the tendrils of fondest love do cling—whose happiness is centered in some dear one's heart, and to whom life were a dreary waste and barren, were they deprived of the sweet and cheering presence of their lost ones, at least in memory. The question of questions to these is, 'Shall we meet again?—shall the broken links be reunited in the lands beyond the River? When Death shall have sealed us apart, comes there ever a time when that seal shall be melted, and we loving ones clasp each other in a fond embrace?' Such are vital questions, to which different answers must be given. One of the secrets which I soon discovered in the Soul-world was that consanguinity, although a very strong bond of union between people, is by no means the strongest. Those souls are nearest who occupy the same position on the plane of development. Thus it often happens that brothers and sisters are really less related than the same persons are to the most distant strangers. Children are often born of the same parents, whose appearance, conversation, deportment,