able to you, as was sound to the creature of earth, who had been born deaf; or as was color to the one who had been born blind, who said that he always thought that the color of purple was like the sound of a trumpet."

CHAPTER X.

AFFINITY-LOVE-CLAREESE OF THE PLEIADES-LOVE IS LIFE'S HOME.

I SPOKE, Some pages back, of one in that company to whom Ariel presented me, who conveyed such sweet emotions to me, and who gave me such ineffable comfort, when I was almost in grief and consternation.

In all that company this soul more than any other seemed to knit, transfuse, itself into mine. The contact with this person was more than contact of mind with mind. For I did not experience the same emotion in my association with Ariel, Meoön and Ristos. So irresistible was the attraction felt by me toward this person that I said to Ariel :

"Who was the one who conveyed such soft, delicious emotions to me when I first came with you here, and who clasped me so tenderly, and comforted me so? Who, so beauteous and radiant, is now aside there with Ristos?"

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Ariel replied: Oh, that is dear Clareese from the SevenSistered Pleiades, or the Sphere of Love. Her nature is full of tenderness and attractiveness. The elements of herself and of her sphere are those of the purest Passion and Emotion. These elements and qualities predominate in her sphere, just as gravity, grossness, impenetrability, etc., predominate in the material sphere.

"You will meet with pure, passionate natures anywhere in the realm of mind, but with none who possess such natures

in the same beauteous, attractive degree, as those created and nurtured in the Sphere of Love, the sweet Pleiades."

"Then do you mean to tell me, Ariel, that in the already happy realm of Mind, in every aspect already so exalted and delightful, there is superadded the fairer and more exquisite quality, the sex of mind and spirit, termed beauteous woman. If I mistake not, when you spake of Clareese you used the word denoting the gender of woman."

"Why most assuredly we have beauteous woman,' who is here that fairer sex and quality of Soul, in like manner as she was the fairer creation in yon physical realm.

"No other form of being in this psychic state could personify, and illustrate, and embody, the delicate, exquisite qualities and attributes of her nature.

"Here she is the complement, the counterpart, the affinity of Man. She calls into exercise those qualities of our natures, those desires and faculties, which furnish to us our most supreme delights. There is, it is true, an intense devotion of all brothers to each other; but toward the fairer, sweeter mind, which we still so aptly term 'woman' there is that fineness, that delicacy, that blissfulness, of affection and sentiment, that cannot be called into exercise by the psychical influence of man.

"In other words, without the complement of woman's influence and her peculiar affinitiveness for man, our full measure of life and joy would not be rounded up. And likewise are we fashioned for her completer joy—and all for God."

I replied: "I see the force and beauty of what you say. I will ask you further to explain to me, whether there is here that love and relation between minds endowed with the qualities constituting different sexes, which existed on Earth between man and woman in the relation of husband and wife?

"There is, if any difference, a purer and more perfect love,

but there is not the same relation as that of marriage. There is instead a purer relation, known as the relation of affinity."

"I do not know, Ariel, what you mean by this term."

"I mean that there exists in certain two minds endowed with those qualities constituting opposite sex a force or quality which finds its perfect, indispensable complement or counterpart in the other. The one attracts the other, and finds its satisfaction and perfect delight only in the other. It is a specific, wonderful attraction, that might be compared, by way of illustration, to what we used to term personal magnetism. But this is only an imperfect, gross illustration, for this Affinite Force is that spiritual charm, that psychical enchantment and attraction which are induced by those delicate, individual qualities and forces of soul, which flow in unison, and transfuse in union, with their psychic counterpart in another individual soul; which find their counterpart nowhere else except in that other soul; the one being perfected in glorious delight only in union with the other. This Soul-Unity we call Affinity.' It is a superabundant provision by the Father of all Love for the more exquisite delight of His beatified children.

"It is not marriage, nor giving in marriage, but is a beneficent provision for our more perfect life and joy. True, our highest delight is in this perpetual, adorable praise to God and in our labors of love for His children, but our most acceptable worship of our Father bursts forth when we, His children, live in an ecstasy of pure delight! Our joy is His praise, and the happy soul sings sweetest !"

"This provision is indeed beneficent, dear Ariel. May I ask you further if this relation of Affinity corresponds to what we knew as the 'family relation' on earth?"

"I will try to answer you :-This love growing out of Affinity between two certain souls produces a higher species of happiness than the earthly marriage relation. There is

delight always, never dulled, nor eclipsed, by earthly sorrows and afflictions. Children are not here born of this union of happy souls, as in the marital relation on earth. But God, the Infinite Parent, in His own wisdom creates beings in this vast realm of psychical existence, and these, new-born from the bosom of His own power, or risen here from other spheres of His own creation, He commits to His elder children as sweet gifts of love, that they may be nurtured in love and wisdom, and may receive and give that sweet affection, which is the glory of this sublime life. God thus disposeth, and dispenseth, love in its every variety and shade of emotion, from that which wells forth in our acts of worship to Him, down to that form which comes from the exercise of our tender care for others. In all these ways God fills the rounded measure of our every joy."

"I thank you, dear Ariel, for such opening up to me of the varied beauties of this perfect life.

"I desire to learn from you this, however :-Suppose those of our Earth come hither disenthralled by death as we have done, who there had formed the ties of wedded love; would those, when both are exalted here, be thus reunited?

"Most assuredly so, if each soul found in the other love's counterpart; and if such union gave to them wished-for and needed joys. If they had truly loved, the one the other, that love would be eternal here!

"God loves a happy heart, and wills that all His children should be so; for from a joyous heart comes sweetest praise.

"Here the relation of earth's spouses will be not so much of formal marriage as of love and affinity; for out of these alone can happiness arise, and it is these alone that are binding here. The wife of earth, if you and she were bound by sacred love, will be your soul's affinity here; and she alone can fill its meed of joy.

"The child of your love on earth will here remain your

child, and this relation will give to you and them the increased emotions of all forms of love, and thus augment the joys of all.

"Each is God's child, and to love His children is but loving Him; and thus with every throb of sweet emotion in this blessed life, we worship Him!

These thoughts, thus imparted by Ariel, enraptured me, and sank deep into my soul. He flooded my mind with welcome light. He pictured to me a blessed Home, and not simply a happy abode of Mind. Here there was not only a Temple, but here was a Home with all the ties that bind one to the varied beauties, loves and hopes of existence.

How in the depth of my soul I thanked Ariel, and praised God, whose infinite presence, I had fully realized, enveloped all this blissful realm!

I say I thanked Ariel from the depths of my soul. Why? He had imparted to me truths which like golden chains linked to myself those of my love on earth.

At this time I thought, judging by what had passed before my mind, that I must have taken my final departure from earth, and if so what of those remaining who were the loved of my life? Were they lost to me, or I to them?

The words of Ariel told me all, and knowing these things I felt assured, and thanked him.

CHAPTER XI.

MY INTRODUCTION TO CLAREESE-LANGUAGE-PURE THOUGHT

FORMS.

“DEAR Ariel, may I know Clareese?”

"With pleasure, I will present you to her. But what is your name that I may do so?"