ns that are
most ancient, and unmixed with other races--and you will perceive that
their ideas of a future state were in accordance with the life they were
living on earth.

The Asiatic race in burying its dead prepares the favorite food of the
deceased, the fragrant tea, and the money so useful on earth. Also slips
of paper on which messages are written to departed friends are lighted at
these burial ceremonies, and reduced to ashes, that the spirit of the
text may be transmitted to their friends in the world of souls.

In these "Pagan rites," as they are termed, we discern the workings of an
intuitive belief that the spirit of man still retains the sensations,
attributes, and desires which have accompanied it through life.

The ancient Greeks and Romans held similar opinions, likewise the
Africans, Hindoos, and the Indians of North and South America.

By far the largest portion of mankind believe in a _natural state_
hereafter, corresponding to their earth existence, but the European
nations which are supposed to be advanced in science, art, and
philosophical attainments beyond all the nations of the earth, have, in
their speculations and in their efforts to penetrate the mysteries of the
world of spirits, lost sight, of the natural and entered the
supernatural, where they are surrounded by fogs, clouds, and
_ignes-fatui._

Now if these people are told that the spirit world is divided into states
and continents, cities and towns, as is their own world (though under
spirit appellations), they would scoff at the statement.

But as mankind has a natural love of locality, and as congenial minds
will select similar locations, adapted to their ideas of beauty and
comfort, the result is that spirit inhabitants unite and form cities and
towns as on earth. Thus combining, they must have some points of interest
to occupy their minds, and as they still possess their power of
construction and ingenuity, their love of beautiful forms and of
architecture, they prefer not to live in the open air and on the bare
ground (as they can certainly do), but choose rather to employ their
various faculties in building cities and habitations in accordance with
their tastes and ideas of convenience.

Once grant that man is provided with a spiritual body after he emerges
from his original one--accept the hypothesis that this body must possess
form and sensation, and with sensation, eyes, ears, mouth, taste, and
motion--then you must prov