Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/109

 tion of hell. Nevertheless, they were scenes and occurrences in some department of the spiritual world: about this there can be no reasonable doubt: how plain then does it become that it must have been that "gulf which exists between them;" where, consequently, judgment is performed, and from which the good are elevated into "eternal life," and the evil removed into "everlasting fire." The extraordinary things which are recorded to have appeared, were symbols of the spiritual states of those who dwell there: they were representative surroundings, and projections of the collective life and character of those who had gone thither from the natural world. Without the admission of the existence of such a place, and the belief of such a principle on which to account for the wonderful appearances displayed therein, the whole book becomes a dark enigma; but concede that they were spiritual realities, and all the phenomena become a wonderful philosophy unveiling to the world some of the peculiarities which distinguish the passage of men hence to their eternal destiny.

Moreover, the visions of the prophets consisted, for the most part, of sights into this first receptacle for departed men: and the singular things which they are stated to have seen were the outbirths and representations of the spiritual life of its inhabitants; thus revealing the interior condition of the Church and of the world, with which they had been connected. And as the phenomena described are, in many cases, such as cannot be reasonably supposed to be connected with the final residences of the lost, or of the blessed; it must follow, as an indisputable result, that they were connected with a world which exists between them.

The soul does not go directly to its everlasting home: that state cannot be entered till after judgment; it must, then, as before remarked, have a place in which to dwell,