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 visible surroundings, the man of culture and refinement from one of low breeding and depraved tastes.

And as with individuals, so with communities or men in larger form. Every community, so far as its means will permit, creates an outer in correspondence with its inner world—that is, with its own prevailing mental character. Let a man travel through South Africa or Patagonia, and then visit the towns and villages of New England or Old England, and although he might not converse with one of the inhabitants, but only look at their environment, he would see the difference in the mental condition of the people of those countries as plainly as if their affections and thoughts were all written in a book.

But it is to be observed that the world which people create round about them here, being external and natural, is in correspondence not with their internal and spiritual, but with their external and natural thoughts and affections. And if there exists this correspondence between the natural mind and the world which this mind creates round about itself in the realm of nature—if we see everywhere a strong tendency in natural affections and thoughts to go forth and embody themselves under corresponding natural forms—then it is reasonable to conclude that this law of correspondence must be the very law that determines the character or aspect of the objective world in heaven. What other conceivable law is there, to which the rational mind so readily yields assent?

Furthermore, every one knows how much the outward aspect of all things on earth depends on the mental state of the beholder. The outer is ever taking on the com-