Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/253

 Another of the implanted instincts of our immortal nature, and which will therefore endure so long as the soul endures, is the love of home. And this love necessitates the existence of that visible symbol of home, the house, as the only means of fully satisfying this want of the soul. Hence, we are told, the angels have houses and live in them because they are men, with the wants, affections and tendencies of men, alive and active in them. And for the same reason, also, angels are clad in garments,—because they are men.

Remarks similar to those made respecting houses in heaven, are applicable also to the disclosure about garments there. For these have a moral or spiritual as surely as they have a physical use, even here on earth. They are required for the satisfaction of the soul, no less than for the protection and comfort of the body. Our spiritual nature demands them for the gratification of its God-given wants. And if it calls for them here, it will call for them in the world beyond. If garments on earth were worn merely for the body's comfort and safety, why are they not laid aside when the weather is such that the body does not need them? True, this, or something approaching it, is done in some parts of our world. But what parts? Not where man's higher nature is most developed, and the angel-life in him is most conspicuous, but where this nature is most shriveled and debased—where the angel is most hidden beneath the bestial life, and man approaches nearest to the condition of the brutes.

As some evidence of the moral signification and use of dress among men, see how various are the garments