Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

THE TRUE DOCTRINE. 157and not from its connection with things external. Its future connectionwith its body will arrest its floating condition, and connect it again moreconsciously with locality and materiality. Thus it will become morecapable of social relations and joys; just as the child cmeri^^inL^ from itsfloating state in infancy has its social powers developed by being furui,«ihodwith self-consciousness and speech, by which it learns intelligently toseparate and distinguish itself from the general mass of being, which makesitsenjoyments higher in their nature and more acute and sensible in theirquality.797. ^' Perhaps the state of the saints previous to the resurrection ofthe body, and in the first stage of their future being, may be analogous to(but of course higher than) a state of ordinary sleep, with active, pleasantdreaming. In dreams, the spirit acts and enjoys, unconscious of the body;and may we not suppose that the spirit after death may, to a certain extent,act and enjoy without the body ? Perhaps it may in this state passprofitably and pleasantly through the first stages of its future history. Itma}', so to say, become habituated to eternal things, and develop its spiritualcapacities to such a degree as to be prepared, at the time of theresurrection, to enter upon a more tangible and positive state of existence.It may thus, also, become acquainted with purely spiritual beings, and withthe modes of purely spiritual existence. This will be useful, because thesaints after the resurrection will be required to hold communion withthincs material and immaterial. While the saint is in this w^orld, in thebody, he becomes conversant with material things, and habituated to them;now, in the other world, in a disembodied state, previous to the resurrection,he will become conversant with and habituated to purely spiritualexistence, so that after the resurrection, when soul and body are againunited, he willbe able to hold converse and communion with either materialor immaterial existences at pleasure.798. " To this it may be objected that while those who lived in theearly ages of the world would have a long time to remain in this state ofcelestial pupilage, those who live in later ages would have less, and thosein the last days scarcely any.799. ^'This objection, so far from militating against this idea, mostbeautifully illustrates and confirms it. Thus the souls of men are moredeveloped in spiritual things now, and will be still more in future, thanthey were in the earlier ages of the world. Those who lived in the morningof the world had very limited and indistinct ideas of divine andeternal things. Their views of a future world, especially, were exceedinglymisty and obscure. As the church advanced, life and immortalitywere more and more brought to light. Revelation passed from types,shadows, and ceremonies, into brighter and clearer realities ; and spiritualconceptions gained a fii'mer and more distinct hold upon the consciousnessof men. The new dispensation was an advance upon the old, as under the