How can you be so blind to these things?

The subject that suggests itself for your consideration this morning has been prompted by one of those simple incidents daily occurring in your earth life, united with so much that is painful and trying to human nature—

The departure of a young girl's spirit to its new home—

A home she has herself prepared for it but which may be as widely different to anything she has pictured, as Earth is from Heaven.

You little realise the importance of understanding this momentous subject—

You follow your daily avocations with zeal and earnestness, neglecting no opportunity of developing all the resources and talents in your possession to further your worldly schemes; while your unfortunate spirit too often languishes in darkness, utterly destitute of the nourishment it requires and without which it cannot develop.

Do you forget that it is the spirit, and not the body, that is to live forever? 

Do you forget that you brought nothing into this world with you, and that you can take nothing earthly away? 

How can you be so blind to these things? 

How can you wrap yourself up in careless ease and indifference about a future state when you know that it will be forever and forever, that this life is only a short probation for that and here you must make those preparations that may decide the destiny of your soul for ages? 

You do not hold to the doctrine that punishment is eternal―

You know it is not. 

But there are punishments in a future state quite sufficiently severe to make you earnest to avoid them if you rightly understood these things.

What an awakening is yours when the portals of the grave are passed and you enter that unknown Spirit world! 

There you will find a purgatory indeed, from which no priest or prayer can save you—

A purgatory from which you might have escaped had you only known how to act on this earthly plane. 

Had your spiritual teachers taught you to work, instead of pray, to cultivate the higher nature within you, the God-principle implanted in everyman's breast—

Had they taught you to control yourself, to love and help your fellow being, irrespective of degree or station, rather seeking out the debased and vile, as objects of your care and doing to everyone as you would be done by—

How different your awakening would be in your spirit home! 

There you may now find darkness and misery, solitude and bitter thoughts, with no ray of comfort to beam upon you, nothing but the reproaches of your own heart to bear you company, all your own indulged passions tormenting you without the means of gratifying them, cursing the priests and the teachings that have brought you to this fearful state—your poor soul is indeed in a place of torment and long it may have to continue there, unless some kind spirit from the higher spheres can attract it upwards. 

But one who has done his work while on the earth, cultivating the interior principle, while not neglecting the body, who has fed his spirit with deeds of kindness and mercy, following in the footsteps and example of Jesus, self-denying, patient, charitable, and full of love for his fellow being, not merely relieving his bodily wants but also nourishing his soul with Heavenly manna—

He will find, when he enters on his new state of existence, what a beautiful spirit body he has prepared for himself—

What crowds are waiting to welcome him and to see him clothed in it! 

All the poor afflicted ones that he may have relieved or soothed on their dying beds will be there—

All the bright spirits who have aided and strengthened him in his daily walk will be there—

These, and many others that he never knew, but who have watched his course approvingly, will welcome and conduct him to the bright and glorious home—

The mansion he has prepared for himself in the Heavens!

Will not you, my dear friends, who read or hear these few words, look into this subject more closely than you have ever yet done? 

Will you not see the necessity of taking this work into your own hands? 

No priest, no prayer, can save you from your own evil deeds—

In your own hands is the remedy. 

Cultivate your higher nature. 

Do not place your body, your most unworthy part, in the seat of honour and make it an idol, but elevate your soul, that portion of God's nature implanted in you, and do deeds worthy of it. 

Let truth and love reign in your heart and universal benevolence guide your actions to your fellow creatures. 

If such principles obtain among you, if this brotherhood of feeling and acting be established, your soul and spirit will grow together in beautiful proportions, and the change called death will be looked upon as merely an opening to a better life, instead of being regarded, as it now is, as a thing of dread and horror, of which you dare not think and on which you are afraid to look.

―Spirit L. D.