Page:God Manifest.djvu/138

128 Thus far we have dwelt chiefly on the joys of the spiritual state of existence—the delights of heart and soul, which must arise from the free communication of pure affections amongst the good, and the pleasant interchange of lofty and noble thoughts amongst the intellectual and wise. But we must now go from the inward to the outward,—from the joys to the splendors and the glories of that spiritual state of existence. For life, to be perfect, must have an outer as well as an inner phase. There must be delights for the eye and the ear, as well as joys for the soul: there must be gratifications for the spiritual senses, as well as for the higher and more interior faculties. For it must be that man has senses there as well as here,—in the spiritual body as well as in the material. For what part of man is it that sees and feels now? is it the body, or the spirit through the body? That it is not the body that properly feels, is plain from this,—that when the spirit leaves it, at death, the body feels no more; you may hold a picture before the glazed eye, but it sees nothing; you may whisper in its ear, or play the sweetest music by its side, and it gives no sign of regard; you may pierce it with a knife, and it gives no proof of feeling. Plainly, then, it was not the body itself, but the spirit, that saw, heard, and felt in and through the body. The senses, then, belong properly to the spirit,—which is in fact the man himself, the material body being but a coat or covering which the man wears and acts through, while inhabiting the material world. If, then, the senses belong truly and properly to the spirit, which is, as it were, within the material body,—then, when man throws off the material body at death, he of course retains, together with