Page:The Other Life.djvu/125

 jects. What results? Spirits who resemble each other interiorly find themselves in what we, in the natural sphere, would call the same world, the same country, the same place.

Individual differences between spirits in the same society (and no two spirits were ever created exactly alike) may determine that one spirit lives in one house and another in a different one; that oue resides by a river and another on a hill-top; that one is clad in silk and another in purple; that one is a prince and another a doorkeeper; and so on with infinite variety.

These diversities are individual and special; the points of agreement are general. All the spirits in a given society are held together by some ruling love; some similar relationship to the Lord and the neighbor; some subtile and powerful bond of common faith and thought; some consentaneous desire and capacity for specific uses. This fundamental unity or brotherhood of thought and affection causes them to have similar surroundings, similar scenery; the same sun shining before their faces, the same mountains towering afar, the same sea gleaming in the distance, the same city, the same temples, the same civil goverment and similar manners and customs. There is thus a certain