that veil thickens the
nearer you approach earth. The thoughts of mortals become visible to you
here because you yourself are a mortal, but the thoughts of the purest
mortal on your earth cannot arrive at the same pitch of sublimity as the
thoughts of the meanest of disembodied spirits of this world, and
therefore the spirits themselves are invisible to you, although they are
far inferior to those you have just visited."

"Then why could I enter the angels' lower paradise, and yet am not able
to see these inferior spirits?" I asked.

"Because," replied my instructor, "your spirit then received sufficient
light from contact with mine to enable you to see them. I could also let
you see these, but why desire to see the lot of ordinary spirits after
having seen those of so far higher an order? It might remove the
impression, which I presume you wish to retain. Besides our time is
short, for we are near touching earth."

"True, true," I said hurriedly, for another vision suddenly arrested my
attention. "Tell me, O my guide, what is the meaning of yon strange
sight?" And strange sight it was indeed! For it was the vision of a
human leg clad in the knee-breeches of our time, and walking about by
itself.

"That," replied my preceptor, "is a portion of the body of some spirit
not as yet freed from clay, and for that reason it is made visible to
you. Our spirits on first leaving the material world are an exact
counterpart of our terrestrial bodies, being an essence filling every
part and particle of our earthly frames, from which they receive their
stamp. The body itself does not rise again as some of your world
vulgarly believed, but the spiritual body its counterpart, while the
earthly covering but contributes its dust to your globe's surface."

"Then the vision I see is a portion of a human soul about to leave its
earthy tenement?" asked I.

"By no means," replied the sage. "The owner of that limb has yet some
years of material life before him, although, I observe, he is aged. The
reason that you see but the leg and not the rest of the body, is that
that portion of the physical body is wanting. You cannot perceive his
corporeal body because you are now in the spirit, and the spirit can
only see that which is spiritual, as likewise the material eye only that
which is material. You are sufficiently spiritual to see spirits who are
yet encumbered with clay, but not enough so to see spirits perfectly
disembodied. On the oth