Page:The Other Life.djvu/50

 growth an organ or tissue, whatever its rank in the scale of development, enlarges in size, density or capacity. When development and growth are perfected, the form is said to be adult. The inflowing life from God which arranges, adjusts and organizes atoms as well as worlds, bears everything steadily onward to its specific adult type.

It is for this reason that infants and children who are transplanted from earth to paradise, grow to be men and women in the spiritual world. The natural causes which produce the development and growth of the natural body correspond to the spiritual causes which produce the development and growth of the spiritual body. It is as impossible for infants to remain infants for ever in heaven, as it is for them to continue infants indefinitely on earth.

But how does the spiritual body grow?

The natural body lives by bread; but the spiritual body, by the words that proceed out of the mouth of God. We cannot live by bread alone or by natural food. We require spiritual food for the organic spiritual side of our life. Spiritual food is affection and thought; or in more comprehensive terms, good and truth. The spiritual body grows by the reception of affections and thoughts, by the