My companions smiled as they read my thoughts, and one responded: “Dear sister, your weakness was your strength. It will be no effort for you to do as you have always done. They who can be unselfish under the coarse influences of earthly life, how grand must be their career under the purer conditions which here prevail.”
As we conversed there came one from another group, tall, beautiful and radiant with light, and with his companion more exquisitely beautiful than himself. They invited us, and we went to their abode. “How beautiful you are,” I exclaimed involuntarily to her.
“I am glad;” she replied, “for to be truly beautiful means that the thoughts are right and true, for they mold the features and through them gain expression; but it requires time, a great length of time.”
“How long have you been here?” I ventured to ask.
“Many hundred years. I scarcely know how long.”
“We grow not old. The spirit knows not age. It is not limited by duration. It is an eternal now, concentrating the past and awaiting the future.”
I had not seen myself since the change. I put my hand to my face; it was smooth and unwrinkled. A happy ripple of laughter came from my companions. He who had come for us said: “Dear sister, you left those with your body. The pure spirit has not the wrinkles of care or of age.”
I looked at him as he spoke and my attention was called to his robe. I had not thought of this subject before. I had been so eagerly watching the faces of my companions, I had not thought of their garments, or of my own. What a change! What was this raiment? I can not describe it. It was a drapery as of a cloud, and its color depended on the spiritual condition of the wearer. I was glad that mine was azure, for that was the color of my companion’s, and thus I knew I was like them. What was it? A cloud or woven light? It fell around me soft and warm, and with a luxurious coolness contrasting with the burning of the fever I had so recently escaped. How different from the roughness of the old garments was this fleecy robe, glinting and reflecting the light.
As we conversed, there came a spirit, who paused in front of us, dark and sullen. His raiment was sombre and grim, like his thoughts. “Can you tell me where heaven is?” he grumbled, “I paid a preacher to gain it for me, and now having lost all else, I want that.”