t seen, and many
related only by spiritual sympathy and kinship whom I have met and
loved in that state.

My babe, now a beautiful young woman in the spirit state, is my almost
constant companion in those visitations and experiences. I have "seen
her grow," to use our mortal speech; have noted her spiritual
unfoldment, and have many times been her pupil,--so wise are these
"little ones" in the love of the angels, so sweet and simple is she in
her teaching.

How few know the real meaning of "nearness" as applied to those they
love! One thinks of the friend whose bodily presence is removed by
mountains, rivers, and oceans as being far away; yet London, China,
and India are as near in thought as the chair beside one, and doubly
near the one whose body may be sojourning there. This very nearness of
sympathy debars any separation. If people would turn to the real
indications,--sympathy, intuition,--whenever desired the friend is
near. Doubly true is this of those who have passed the barrier of
death and are revealed to the heart of love. They have not died, they
have not gone; they are so near as not to be seen or felt by the
grosser sense that governs the physical state of recognition; so very
near that even the thoughts of the friend still immured in the
earthly form are shared by them, the very innermost longings responded
to. Yet people unaccustomed to seek them in the inner instead of outer
realm of existence, cannot find them, and say, "They are gone." With
space and time annihilated, what shall prevent the loved from being
ever near?

Teachers and guides bear a nearer relationship than those in human
states, and teach by the magic law of adaptation and love. I cannot
name, in earthly language, the tie that binds me to those who have led
me through these many realms, who have taught by vision, illustration,
and thought, until the awakened _perception_ knew, the _a priori_
knowledge came.

I have often been conscious of visiting at desire a realm of music
that led through the world of tone, through the spheres of matchless
harmony in which the great masters of music abide,--Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, Mozart, and to the divine realm of Wagner.

The realm of art, leading through color and form to the images of
perfect life, until form and tint and tone are merged in the supreme
soul of beauty, and sculptured image or architectural grandeur is lost
in the eternal, all-forming, all-changing changelessness of the Soul
o