Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/255

 Why is it, again, that children are so fond of new garments, and love to change their garments so often? While aged people are content to wear the same dress for years, and care little or nothing for change of style or color? The difference in their mental states furnishes the all-sufficient answer. The states of little children—their thoughts and feelings—change quickly and often; while those of the aged are comparatively fixed and stationary.

It is plain to be seen, therefore, that there is a meaning to garments as worn here on earth. They signify and reveal something of the wearer's mental state—which they could not do if they had not a spiritual as well as a natural use to subserve; if they did not meet a want of the soul as well as of the body. The universal human heart has ever had a perception of this truth; for in all ages men have recognized the propriety of different kinds of garments, corresponding to and indicative of different kinds and degrees of intelligence, and different stations and occupations in life. Thus the queen's or emperor's robe, the judge's gown, the bishop's surplice, the soldier's coat, the sailor's jacket, and the cobbler's apron, are cach appropriate to the wearer's function. And if the positions and occupations of men in this world were always according to their intelligence and capabilities, then their garments, being according to each one's use or function, would correspond with and indicate the kind and degree of their natural intelligence,—as in the spiritual world each one's garments correspond with his spiritual intelligence.